Francis Gregory Stafford (February 9, 1948 – October 10, 2018) was an American game designer, 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, but he was also a prolific games designer. He was designer of '' Pendragon'', he was co-designer of the '' RuneQuest'', '' Ghostbusters'', ''

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 ...

'' 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 and Issaries, designer of the ''

White Bear and Red Moon ''White Bear and Red Moon'' is a fantasy board wargame set in the world of Glorantha, created by Greg Stafford and published in 1975. Stafford first tried to sell the game to established publishers, but despite being accepted by three different ...

'', ''

Nomad Gods ''Nomad Gods'' is a fantasy wargame designed by Greg Stafford, and published by Chaosium in 1977. A French-language edition was published by Oriflam under license from Chaosium under the name ''Les Dieux Nomades'' in 1994. A free version for onl ...

'', ''

King Arthur's Knights ''King Arthur's Knights'' is an Arthurian board game published by Chaosium in 1978 in which knights of the Round Table perform chivalrous quests for artifacts and treasure. Description ''King Arthur's Knights'' is a game for 2-5 players in which ...

'' and '' Elric'' board games, 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 with ''U-Boat'' by Avalon Hill, 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 began to create the fantasy world of Glorantha. After rejection from a publisher, Stafford created ''

'' set in Glorantha, and after three different companies were unable to publish the game, he founded Chaosium. He took part of the name from his home, being near the Oakland Coliseum, and the other part of the name from "chaos." ''White Bear and Red Moon'' (1975) became the first game published by Chaosium, and was also Stafford's first professional game. He designed the board game ''

''. He also designed the wargames '' Elric'' (1977) and ''

'' (1978). Stafford wanted the world of Glorantha to be part of an original role-playing game; this ultimately resulted in '' RuneQuest'' (1978) by

Steve Perrin Stephen Herbert Perrin (January 22, 1946 – August 13, 2021) was an American game designer and technical writer/editor, best known for creating the tabletop role-playing game ''RuneQuest'' for Chaosium. Early life and education Perrin earned a ...

, 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 Me ...

simplified the ''RuneQuest'' rules into the 16-page '' Basic Role-Playing'' (1980). He designed the miniatures game ''Merlin''. Stafford considers his Arthurian chivalric 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
on ''Phantasie'' website. URL checked 2008-02-13. He co-designed the '' Ghostbusters'' role-playing game (1986). Stafford designed the ''

'' roleplaying game (1989), which featured a basis in storytelling along with other innovations. He decided to produce a fiction line for '' Call of Cthulhu'' after he realized that many Lovecraft fans in the early 1990s had never actually read any fiction by Lovecraft but were only familiar with him through the ''Call of Cthulhu'' game. Stafford co-designed the computer game ''

'' (1999).

1998–2000s: Issaries

Stafford left Chaosium in 1998, taking all of the rights for Glorantha, and founded the game company Issaries. Stafford asked

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 design a new role-playing 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 of ''Hero Wars'' in 2003 using the name he preferred ''

'', as Milton Bradley allowed the trademark on the name to lapse. Stafford moved to Mexico in 2004, so production from Issaries ended at that time.

Later years

Hasbro let the ''RuneQuest'' trademark lapse, so Stafford picked up the rights to the game and licensed it to Mongoose Publishing to release a new edition in 2006. White Wolf obtained the rights to '' Pendragon'', and published its fifth edition in 2005, while their ArtHaus imprint released ''The Great Pendragon Campaign'' (2006), in which Stafford laid out the huge role-playing campaign taking place between the years 485 to 566. Nocturnal Games then picked up the rights to ''Pendragon'', and Stafford worked with them to produce a 5.1 edition of ''Pendragon'' (2010). He moved from Berkeley, California, to Arcata, California, in 2007, having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for some years. In June 2015, Stafford and Sandy Petersen 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. 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

, 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'' (and the concept of tabletop role-playing games) was gaining great popularity. Role-players were keen to use the ''White Bear and Red Moon'' setting in such games. So Chaosium published '' RuneQuest'', written by "

, 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 ''

''.Review of King of Dragon Pass, rpg.net
URL checked 2011-01-14.

Shamanism-related works

Stafford was a practicing shaman and member of the board of directors of ''

Shaman's Drum ''Shaman's Drum'' was a periodical devoted to experiential shamanism. It was published between 1985 and 2010, when it ceased publication. It was originally edited by Timothy White and published by the Cross-Cultural Shamanism Network (a nonprofit ...

'', a journal of experiential shamanism. He had some short articles of Arthurian interest published. Stafford lived in Mexico 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 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, althou ...

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 (

I, page 41). Stafford was inducted in the Origins Award hall of fame in 1987. In 1999 '' Pyramid'' 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 Role-playing game, 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, b ...

in 2007, for ''The Great Pendragon Campaign'', published by White Wolf and in 2015 for ''Guide to Glorantha'', coauthored with Jeff Richard and Sandy Petersen 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 was ...

He was honored as a "famous game designer" by being featured as the king of hearts in Flying Buffalo'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 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