Jeffrey Kaplan is born in New Jersey. His early life is marked by a deep passion for video games, tabletop games, and fantasy literature, experiences that would later heavily influence his career path. He displayed an early aptitude for creative writing and storytelling, laying the foundation for his future role in crafting rich and immersive game worlds.

Kaplan's path to Blizzard was unconventional. A skilled EverQuest player and insightful forum poster on game design, his articulate posts on the official EverQuest forums caught the attention of Blizzard. They were impressed enough to offer him a position as a game designer, despite his lack of formal game development experience. This marked the beginning of his storied career at Blizzard.