Francis Gregory Stafford (February 9, 1948 – October 10, 2018), usually known as Greg Stafford, was an American
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 ...
, publisher, and practitioner of
shamanism
Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...
.
Stafford is most famous as the creator of the fantasy world of
Glorantha
Glorantha is a fantasy world created by Greg Stafford. It was first introduced in the board game ''White Bear and Red Moon'' (1975) by Chaosium and then in a number of other board, roleplaying and computer games, including ''RuneQuest'' and ''Her ...
, but he was also a prolific games designer. He was designer of ''
Pendragon
Pendragon or ( wlm, pen dreic, ''pen dragon''; composed of Welsh , 'head, chief, top' and / ''dragon'', 'dragon; warrior'; borrowed from the Latin word , plural , 'dragon , br, Penn Aerouant) literally means 'chief dragon' or 'head dragon', but ...
'', he was co-designer of the ''
RuneQuest
''RuneQuest'' (commonly abbreviated as RQ) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson (game designer), Steve Henderson, and Warren James, and set in Greg Stafford's mythical world of ...
'', ''
Ghostbusters
''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, thr ...
'', Prince Valiant and ''
HeroQuest
''HeroQuest'', sometimes written as ''Hero Quest'', is an adventure board game created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop. The game was loosely based around archetypes of fantasy role-playing games: the ...
''
role-playing systems, founder of the role-playing game companies
Chaosium
Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon ...
and
Issaries, designer of the ''
White Bear and Red Moon'', ''
Nomad Gods'', ''
King Arthur's Knights'' and ''
Elric''
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 ...
s, and co-designer of the ''
King of Dragon Pass
''King of Dragon Pass'' is a 1999 strategy simulation fantasy video game published by A Sharp. Set in the fictional world of Glorantha, the player controls the fate of a barbarian clan settling in the dangerous frontier region of Dragon Pass.
...
''
computer game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
.
Gaming industry career
1970s: Chaosium
Greg Stafford began wargaming after picking up a copy of ''U-Boat'' by
Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill Games Inc. is a game company that publishes wargames and strategic board games. It has also published miniature wargaming rules, role-playing games and sports simulations. It is a subsidiary of Hasbro, and operates under the company' ...
, and in 1966 as a freshman at
Beloit College
Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin. Founded in 1846, when Wisconsin was still a territory, it is the state's oldest continuously operated college. It is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and has ...
he started writing about the fantasy world of
Glorantha
Glorantha is a fantasy world created by Greg Stafford. It was first introduced in the board game ''White Bear and Red Moon'' (1975) by Chaosium and then in a number of other board, roleplaying and computer games, including ''RuneQuest'' and ''Her ...
.
After rejection from a publisher, Stafford created ''
White Bear and Red Moon'' set in Glorantha, and after three different companies were unable to publish the game he created
Chaosium
Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon ...
.
He derived the name partly from his home, which was near the
Oakland Coliseum
Oakland Coliseum, currently branded as RingCentral Coliseum, is a stadium in Oakland, California. It is part of the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Complex, with the adjacent Oakland Arena, near Interstate 880. The Coliseum is the home b ...
, and combining "coliseum" with "chaos."
''White Bear and Red Moon'' (1975) was Chaosium's first published game,
and was also Stafford's first professional game.
Stafford designed the board game ''
Nomad Gods''.
Stafford also designed the wargames ''
Elric'' (1977) and ''King Arthur's Knights'' (1978).
Stafford wanted the world of Glorantha to be part of an original role-playing game; this ultimately resulted in
Steve Perrin's ''
RuneQuest
''RuneQuest'' (commonly abbreviated as RQ) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson (game designer), Steve Henderson, and Warren James, and set in Greg Stafford's mythical world of ...
'' (1978), which was set in Glorantha.
Stafford and
Lynn Willis
Lynn Willis (died January 18, 2013) was a wargame and role-playing game designer, best known for his work with Metagaming Concepts, Game Designers' Workshop (GDW), and Chaosium.
Biography
Willis began by designing science fiction wargames for M ...
simplified the ''RuneQuest'' rules into the 16-page ''
Basic Role-Playing
''Basic Role-Playing'' (''BRP'') is a tabletop role-playing game which originated in the ''RuneQuest'' fantasy role-playing game. Chaosium released the ''BRP'' standalone booklet in 1980 in the boxed set release of the second edition of ''RuneQu ...
'' (1980).
He designed the miniatures game ''Merlin''.
Stafford considers his
Arthurian
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a Legend, legendary king of Great Britain, Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest tradition ...
chivalric
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed b ...
role-playing game ''
King Arthur Pendragon
''Pendragon'', or ''King Arthur Pendragon'', is a Tabletop role-playing game (RPG) in which players take the role of knights performing chivalric deeds in the tradition of Arthurian legend. It was originally written by Greg Stafford and published ...
'' (1985) his masterpiece.
[Interview with Greg Stafford](_blank)
on ''Phantasie'' website. URL checked 2008-02-13. He co-designed the ''
Ghostbusters
''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, thr ...
'' role-playing game (1986).
Stafford designed the ''
Prince Valiant
''Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur'', often simply called ''Prince Valiant'', is an American comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretc ...
'' roleplaying game (1989), which featured a strong storytelling basis and other innovations.
Stafford decided to produce a fiction line for ''
Call of Cthulhu'' after he realized that many
Lovecraft fans of the early 1990s had never actually read Lovecraft's fiction but were only familiar with him through ''Call of Cthulhu''.
Stafford co-designed the computer game ''
King of Dragon Pass
''King of Dragon Pass'' is a 1999 strategy simulation fantasy video game published by A Sharp. Set in the fictional world of Glorantha, the player controls the fate of a barbarian clan settling in the dangerous frontier region of Dragon Pass.
...
'' (1999).
1998–2000s: Issaries
Stafford left Chaosium in 1998, taking all of the rights for Glorantha, and founded the game company
Issaries.
Stafford approached
Robin Laws
Robin D. Laws (born October 14, 1964 in Orillia, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian writer and game designer who lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of a number of novels and role-playing games as well as an anthologist.
Career
Robin D. Laws ...
to create a new game based on Glorantha, which became known as ''
Hero Wars'', published in 2000 as the first fully professional product for Issaries.
Stafford published the second edition in 2003 under the name he always wanted ''
HeroQuest
''HeroQuest'', sometimes written as ''Hero Quest'', is an adventure board game created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop. The game was loosely based around archetypes of fantasy role-playing games: the ...
'', as Milton Bradley's trademark on the name had lapsed.
Stafford moved to Mexico in 2004, bringing production from Issaries to an end.
Later years
When Hasbro let the ''RuneQuest'' trademark lapse, Stafford picked up the rights to the game and licensed
Mongoose Publishing
Mongoose Publishing is a British manufacturer of role-playing games, miniatures, and card games, publishing material since 2001. Its licenses include products based on the science fiction properties '' Traveller'', ''Judge Dredd'', and ''Parano ...
to publish a new edition in 2006.
After
White Wolf
A white wolf or Arctic wolf is a mammal of the ''Canidae'' family and a subspecies of the gray wolf.
It may also refer to:
Organizations
* White Wolf (band), a Canadian heavy metal band
* White Wolf (band), white power oi band from the USA
* Whi ...
acquired the rights to ''
Pendragon
Pendragon or ( wlm, pen dreic, ''pen dragon''; composed of Welsh , 'head, chief, top' and / ''dragon'', 'dragon; warrior'; borrowed from the Latin word , plural , 'dragon , br, Penn Aerouant) literally means 'chief dragon' or 'head dragon', but ...
'', it was republished in 2005 by White Wolf. Their ArtHaus imprint published ''The Great Pendragon Campaign'' (2006), in which Stafford detailed the massive RPG campaign from the years 485 to 566.
After Nocturnal Games picked up the rights to ''Pendragon'', Stafford created a 5.1 edition of ''Pendragon'' (2010).
He moved from
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
to
Arcata, California
Arcata (; Wiyot language, Wiyot: ''Goudi’ni''; Yurok language, Yurok: ''Oket'oh'') is a city adjacent to the Arcata Bay (northern) portion of Humboldt Bay (United States), Humboldt Bay in Humboldt County, California, Humboldt County, Californ ...
in 2007, having lived in the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
for some years.
In June 2015, Stafford and
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of ''RuneQuest'' and later creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game ''Call ...
returned to Chaosium Inc., with Stafford taking the positions of President and CEO.
Stafford died at his home in Arcata on October 10, 2018 at the age of 70.
Glorantha
Greg Stafford's interest in roleplaying and gaming originated in his adolescent fascination with
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
. During his adolescent years he read anything he could find on the subject, and when he exhausted the libraries, he started to write his own stories in his freshman year at
Beloit College
Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin. Founded in 1846, when Wisconsin was still a territory, it is the state's oldest continuously operated college. It is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and has ...
, in 1966. This was the start of the world of Glorantha.
Stafford's 1974 board game ''White Bear and Red Moon'' had featured the violent struggle between several cultures in the Dragon Pass region of Glorantha. The heart of the game was a conflict between the
barbarian
A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either Civilization, uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by som ...
Kingdom of Sartar and the invading Lunar Empire, a theme which has remained central to Gloranthan publications since then.
As Stafford was founding his company Chaosium, the game ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'' (and the concept of
tabletop role-playing game
A tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participa ...
s) was gaining great popularity. Role-players were keen to use the ''White Bear and Red Moon'' setting in such games. So Chaosium published ''
RuneQuest
''RuneQuest'' (commonly abbreviated as RQ) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson (game designer), Steve Henderson, and Warren James, and set in Greg Stafford's mythical world of ...
'', written by "
Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, and Friends". Stafford left Chaosium in 1998.
For some years, Stafford slowly wrote several
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
s set in Glorantha. Novels that he is known to have been working on are ''Harmast's Saga'', ''Arkat's Saga'', and his "Lunar novel".
He was one of the designers on the Glorantha-based video game ''
King of Dragon Pass
''King of Dragon Pass'' is a 1999 strategy simulation fantasy video game published by A Sharp. Set in the fictional world of Glorantha, the player controls the fate of a barbarian clan settling in the dangerous frontier region of Dragon Pass.
...
''.
[Review of King of Dragon Pass, rpg.net](_blank)
URL checked 2011-01-14.
Shamanism-related works
Stafford was a practicing shaman and member of the board of directors of ''
Shaman's Drum'', a journal of experiential shamanism. He had some short articles of Arthurian interest published. Stafford lived in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
for 18 months, tutoring English as a foreign language, and exploring places of archeological and shamanic interest.
Honors and reception
Fantasy author
David A. Hargrave
David Allen Hargrave (May 25, 1946 – August 29, 1988), known as ''The Dream Weaver'', was a prolific and sometimes controversial game designer and writer of fantasy and science fiction role-playing games (RPGs). Hargrave's most notable written ...
pays homage to Stafford in the
Arduin
''Arduin'' is a fictional universe and fantasy role-playing system created in the mid-1970s by David A. Hargrave. It was the first published "cross-genre" fantasy RPG, with everything from interstellar wars to horror and historical drama, altho ...
series of supplements, the most widely known example of this being the
Stafford's Star Bridge 9th-Level
mage
Mage most commonly refers to:
* Mage (paranormal) or magician, a practitioner of magic derived from supernatural or occult sources
* Mage (fantasy) or magician, a type of character in mythology, folklore, and fiction
*Mage, a character class in s ...
spell (
Arduin
''Arduin'' is a fictional universe and fantasy role-playing system created in the mid-1970s by David A. Hargrave. It was the first published "cross-genre" fantasy RPG, with everything from interstellar wars to horror and historical drama, altho ...
I, page 41).
Stafford was inducted in the
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so (for example) the 1979 aw ...
hall of fame in 1987.
In 1999 ''
Pyramid
A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...
'' magazine named Greg Stafford one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons, "at least in the realm of adventure gaming."
Stafford won the
Diana Jones Award
The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for "excellence in gaming". The original award was made from a burned book encased in lucite. The award is unusual in two ways: first, it is not an award for a specific class of thing, but can be awarded t ...
in 2007, for ''The Great Pendragon Campaign'', published by
White Wolf
A white wolf or Arctic wolf is a mammal of the ''Canidae'' family and a subspecies of the gray wolf.
It may also refer to:
Organizations
* White Wolf (band), a Canadian heavy metal band
* White Wolf (band), white power oi band from the USA
* Whi ...
and in 2015 for ''Guide to Glorantha'', coauthored with Jeff Richard and
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of ''RuneQuest'' and later creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game ''Call ...
and published by
Moon Design Publications
Moon Design Publications are publishers of tabletop role-playing game books set in Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. They were founded in 1998 by Rick Meints and Colin Phillips in the UK.
History
In the 1990s, American expatriate Rick Meints wa ...
He was honored as a "famous game designer" by being featured as the king of hearts in
Flying Buffalo
Flying Buffalo Inc. (FBI) is a game company with a line of role playing games, card games, and other gaming materials. The company's founder, Rick Loomis, began game publishing with '' Nuclear Destruction'', a play-by-mail game which started the ...
's 2011 Famous Game Designers Playing Card Deck.
References
External links
The Stafford Codex– Stafford's personal website.
Glorantha– Leading site on Stafford's universe
Glorantha
Glorantha is a fantasy world created by Greg Stafford. It was first introduced in the board game ''White Bear and Red Moon'' (1975) by Chaosium and then in a number of other board, roleplaying and computer games, including ''RuneQuest'' and ''Her ...
games.
Chaosium– Company he founded and current publisher of his games.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stafford, Greg
1948 births
2018 deaths
Shamans
American animists
Beloit College alumni
Chaosium game designers
People from Arcata, California
Artists from Berkeley, California
Artists from Hartford, Connecticut