Lewis Errol Pulsipher (born January 22, 1951), often credited as Lew Pulsipher, is an American teacher, game designer, and author, whose subject is role playing games, board games, card games, and video games. He was the first person in the North Carolina community college system to teach game design classes, in fall 2004. He has designed half a dozen published boardgames, written more than 150 articles about games, contributed to several books about games, and presented at game conventions and conferences.

Early work

Pulsipher graduated from

Albion College Albion College is a private liberal arts college in Albion, Michigan. The college was founded in 1835 and its undergraduate population was approximately 1,500 students in 2014. They participate in NCAA Division III and the Michigan Intercolle ...

(Albion, MI) in 1973, and earned a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in military and diplomatic history from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

(1981). He discovered strategic gaming with early

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' ...

wargames. In college, he designed many ''

Diplomacy Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. 1 ...

'' variants; while living in England in the late 1970s he wrote magazine articles about ''

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 ...

'' (''D&D''), and other role-playing games, and at one time or another was Contributing Editor to ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' magazine, ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

'', and ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'' as well as a columnist for ''

Imagine Imagine may refer to: * Imagination Music Albums * ''Imagine'' (Armin van Buuren album), 2008 * ''Imagine'' (Eva Cassidy album), 2002 * ''Imagine'' (Janice Vidal album), 2012 * ''Imagine'' (John Lennon album), 1971 ** ''Imagine: John Lennon' ...

'' magazine. He also contributed monsters to TSR's original ''

Fiend Folio ''Fiend Folio'' is the name of three separate products published for successive editions of the fantasy role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). All three are collections of monsters. The bulk of the material in the first edition ca ...

'', including the Elemental Princes of Evil, denzelian, and poltergeist. He published what may have been the first science fiction and fantasy game magazine, ''Supernova'' (later sold to Flying Buffalo Inc.), as well as other non-commercial magazines. He made presentations at game conventions as early as Origins 82. He also designed several games published mostly in the 1980s. He is the designer of ''Dragon Rage'', '' Valley of the Four Winds'', and ''

Swords & Wizardry ''Dungeons & Dragons'' retro-clones are fantasy role-playing games that emulate earlier editions of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') no longer supported by Wizards of the Coast. They are made possible by the release of later editions' rules in a ...

''. His game ''

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

'', was described in an ''Armchair General'' review as "one of the great titles in the world of games", and is the progenitor of a series of similar games. He received the 1987 Charles S. Roberts Award Nomination, Best Pre-World War II Boardgame, Britannia for this game. He taught college-level computer networking, Web development, and game design in North Carolina. He is retired from teaching now.

Later work

Pulsipher now teaches video game related subjects online through

Udemy Udemy, Inc. is a global destination for teaching and learning online. It was founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. As of November 2022, the platform has more than 57 million students, 213,000 courses, and 74,000 ins ...

, writes for

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

and GameCareerGuide, and continues to design board and card games. He lives with his wife in southeastern North Carolina.

Selected bibliography

Games

* Pulsipher, Lewis (1978), ''Diplomacy Games and Variants'', Strategy Games LTD * ''Swords & Wizardry'', Gibsons Games, 1980 * ''Valley of the Four Winds'',

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake (gam ...

, 1980 * '' Dragon Rage'',

Dwarfstar Games Dwarfstar Games was a division of Heritage Models that published microgame-sized fantasy and science fiction board wargames ''WarGames'' is a 1983 American science fiction techno-thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes ...

, 1980 (not to be confused with the PlayStation 2 game '' Dragon Rage''). The title is back in print by Flatlined Games since 2011. * ''

'', Gibsons Games, 1986. Later editions in the USA (1987), Germany (1991); revised version USA (2006), France, Germany, Spain, and Hungary (2008) * ''Sea Kings'', Worthington Publishing, 2015 * ''Stalingrad Besieged'', Worthington Publishing, 2019

Video games

* ''Lew Pulsipher's Doomstar'', Large Visible Machine, 2016
Steam

Book

Articles and book contributions

* ''

'' (various articles) * ''

The General Magazine ''The General'' (1964–1998) was a bi-monthly periodical devoted to supporting Avalon Hill's line of wargames, with articles on game tactics, history, and industry news. It was the first professionally produced wargaming magazine for the nascen ...

'' (various articles) * * * (Forthcoming)

References

External links

Lewis Pulsipher
at BoardGameGeek
PulsipherGames.com
website with supplementary and playtesting material for his games, and his articles and presentations
Pulsipher's game Design blog

Gamasutra "expert's blog"

Pulsipher's teaching game design blog

at Drake's Flames {{DEFAULTSORT:Pulsipher, Lewis 1951 births Albion College alumni Artists from Detroit Board game designers Duke University alumni Living people Writers from Detroit Writers from North Carolina