Darwin Paul Bromley (October 23, 1950 – January 2, 2019) was an attorney and a

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

who had worked primarily on

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

Career

Attorney Darwin Bromley was a railroad game fan, so in 1980 he founded the company

Mayfair Games Mayfair Games was an American publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games that also licensed Euro-style board games to publish them in English. The company licensed worldwide English-language publishing rights to ''The Settlers of Catan'' ser ...

to publish a railroad game of his own; the company was named for the Chicago neighborhood where it was founded. Bromley soon brought Bill Fawcett on as a partner in Mayfair Games, and together they designed the game ''

Empire Builder The ''Empire Builder'' is an Amtrak long-distance passenger train that operates daily between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland via two sections west of Spokane. Introduced in 1929, it was the flagship passenger train of the Great Northe ...

'' (1980). Bromley was involved with the Chicago Wargaming Association's convention, CWAcon, where Mayfair's first fantasy adventures in their new

Role Aids A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indivi ...

game line were run: ''

Beastmaker Mountain ''Beastmaker Mountain'' is an adventure for fantasy role-playing games published by Mayfair Games in 1982 . Contents ''Beastmaker Mountain'' is a scenario in which the player characters investigate the abandoned villa of the wizard Orlow the ...

'' (1982), ''

Nanorien Stones ''Nanorien Stones'' is an adventure for fantasy role-playing games published by Mayfair Games in 1982. Contents ''Nanorien Stones'' is an adventure that takes the player characters into the four Elemental Planes. The book presents game stati ...

'' (1982) and '' Fez I'' (1982). With Bromley's legal expertise, he felt that Mayfair could legally use TSR's trademarks as long as they were careful, so beginning with their '' Dwarves'' (1982) supplement Mayfair made it clear that they were not the trademark holders by printing on the cover: "''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' is a trademark of TSR Hobbies, Inc. Use of the trademark NOT sanctioned by the holder." Bromley was an early adopter of German games, and imported German originals to distribute in the United States. Bromley met

Jay Tummelson Jay Tummelson is the founder of Rio Grande Games. Career Jay Tummelson was the top-ranked RPGA Judge, when Don Bingle and Linda Bingle brought him on as a third owner of their company 54°40' Orphyte after they purchased the product rights for Pac ...

of 54°40' Orphyte discussed about the companies working together. Tummelson joined Mayfair in 1995, spending the next two years licensing German games under the direction of Bromley so that Mayfair could produce new American versions; under Tummelson, German classics such as ''Grand Prix'', ''

Modern Art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

'', ''

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

'', ''Streetcar'', and ''

The Settlers of Catan ''Catan'', previously known as ''The Settlers of Catan'' or simply ''Settlers'', is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as ''Die Siedler von Catan''. Pl ...

'' were published in the United States for the first time in 1996. Bromley was the conceptual designer of '' Sim City: The Card Game''. Darwin Bromley2

In 2018, Bromley made a donation, on behalf of himself and his late brother Peter, to

The Strong National Museum of Play The Strong National Museum of Play (known as just The Strong Museum or simply the Strong) is part of The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1969 and based initially on the personal collection of Rochester native Margaret ...

. It was the single largest donation in the history of the museum. He served as vice president of the GAMA Trade Show, and in 1990 he received the GAMA Merit of Service award. He died on January 2, 2019, at the age of 68 following a long illness.

References

External links

Darwin Bromley :: Pen & Paper RPG Databasearchive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bromley, Darwin 1950 births 2019 deaths Board game designers Lawyers from Huntington, West Virginia