Greg Stafford Condolence Thread

[Megan]

Sad to hear of Greg's passing, but glad to continue to revel in his worlds for ever. Role-playing is about creating shared alternate realities, and Greg's creations loom large in the multiverse of gaming universes.

His game systems were pretty darn good too... few manage to combine game designer and game developer so well.

With love to all who knew him in this life, especially his close family and friends. See you on the other side!

[Pendraig]

Thank you Greg for leading the way into the realms of Glorantha, and beyond.

Thoughts and condolences to Greg's family and friends at this sad time.

 

May Orlanth walk beside you on the next step of the hero's journey.

[M. Sakamoto (T. Takeda)]

Greg, I’m so sad. I met you the first time at Origin 86 in Los Angeles. Just one year earlier I wrote letter to you to seek license of Call of Cthulhu Japanese. You kindly agreed my request, so in 1986 I handed over you printed Japanese version. You (with Sandy and Steve) seemed happy it. Since then, I work this industry. I will pass your great works to the generations. You will live on with every game played. 

[BalazarLightson]

Thank you Greg for opening the way for us all. 

The shock of the day, waking to the news of his passing, has given way to shared grief, and to hearing and reading stories from friends and compatriots of the joy he has brought us all. Over coming days, weeks, months, and years I hope and expect to hear more tales. May his example light the way that we might all leave such a wonderful legacy.

 

 

[MOB]

As a fitting way to help mark his passing and honour his memory, Chaosium board games line editor Susan got together with long-time Chaosium supporters and friends of Greg, Andrew Bean and Peter Tracy to play his classic game DRAGON PASS tonight.

#WeAreAllUs

[GenomInc]

Sad news, i wish the Family of Greg all the best for the hard time now

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Greg’s creative DNA and vision lives on in the games and our imaginations. Thanks Greg. A wonderful legacy. We’ll keep playing.

Deepest condolences to family and friends. 

[cengler]

While I've not met Greg I am so appreciative for everything that he and his team have done. Chaosium games are among my favourites and I am so thankful for Greg's body of work.

May he be dwelling in wonder and glory forever.

[Bill Ray]

Greg's brilliant work laid out not just a unique and visionary world, but a different way of thinking about fantasy worlds and even the vast array of human mythologies we all immerse ourselves in.  We had never met, but as a great admirer of his world-building I am very saddened to hear he has left us, even as I am sure that the brilliance he shared with us will live on forever.

[Sacha]

I discovered Glorantha through RQII, in my early teens. I loved it for it's depth and difference. Pendragon blew my mind and remains one of my favourite RPGs. I was fortunate enough to meet Greg at the Continuum convention in 2006. He was a perfect gentlemen, chatting with me about the soon to be published Great Pendragon Campaign. He had such a calm, benevolence about him. I've never met anyone quite like him, he was a beautiful human being. Having a chance to thank him for all the joy he has brought me was a true honour and one of my life's proudest moments. My thoughts are with his family. 

[Rich Tom]

It is with the deepest sadness that we all heard this news.  Gregg was one of the all time greats. His work speaks for itself, as simply the pinacle of excellence in the role playing industry. His wonderful cannon of writing brought pleasure to a vast number of players and fans. He will be profoundly missed.

[Ahti2]

  My deepest condolences. We are all orphans now. Descanse en paz.

 

[Aurélien]

Mes plus sincères condoléances à la famille et aux proches de Greg Stafford.

Je n'ai jamais eu l'occasion de le rencontrer en personnes, mais ses œuvres m'ont ouvert l'esprit et permis de rencontrer des univers, des concepts et des personnes remarquables.

 

Aurélien Vincenti

[Lagrandeimage]

My sincere condolences to his family.

His work illuminated my childhood dreams as well as my adulthood and I will be ever grateful to him.

He gave me a lot to think about and it was and is still a pleasure to share this with the community that has sprung up around his work.

I hope all his work and especially Runequest will continue to thrive.

God's speed Greg.

 

[Oliverb]

Sadly I didn't know Greg (other than a quick pinky finger handshake at the Gloranthancon in 1997 in Victoria, BC) but I certainly know and love his games.  I've got shelves full of them in my basement and I've spent years playing Chaosium games, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Elric, and even Elfquest.  In fact I just restarted a RuneQuest campaign I stopped running back in 2000 with the new rules and my gaming buddies haven't been this excited about roleplaying in a long time.  Greg, your worlds and games are an inspiration and you shall be missed.

Many condolences to his family and friends.  Here are some pictures from that Gloranthancon of Greg on a panel and dressed for his role of Great Sister in the LARP we played in together.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Oliverb

[simonh]

At first I had no words. Now several hours later I don’t think there’s any way to say enough.

I met Greg about half a dozen times at various conventions, and once at Chaosium HQ while on holiday in the US. He was a hero, mentor and friend to me since my teens in the early 80s. I used to read Gloranthan myths and stories to my kids at bed time and they loved it. My great regret is that they will never know him.

[deBorn]

We are all us!

Thank you to bless us, merely humans, with the gift of dreaming and telling stories and the power of playing.

[Hyperlexic]

It’s so moving to read this thread and see all the names I know commenting, whether designers like MOB, Steve, Shannon, Ken, etc, or fellow players that I’ve gotten to know worldwide. 

I think of Glorantha as a reflection of Greg: he contained multitudes. He was Great Sister, Argrath, and Arkat. The world - with it’s humane view that everyone is right in their own mind - is a reflection of his spirit. 

Without Greg we wouldn’t have this global tribe. 

We Are All Us, indeed. 

[Skaldsson]

I grew up in a small steel town in England. The times were tough; unemployment was rife, my dad had to find work in the Netherlands and I played games in my bedroom driven by my imagination. I would play out wargames and act out scenarios with my Action Men, but that was all blown open when I played my very first RPG in 1982. The game was Runequest, featuring the world of Glorantha, and I played an Elf. I still remember the first game vividly and fondly,.

I thank you for your wonderful creations: Glorantha and Runequest. They opened up my world and helped me escape my troubles.

Glenn.

[crcfr]

1981, I was a D&D player. I entered the game shop I used to visit regularly in Paris. I saw a box with a sword armed lady fighting a giant lizard which was biting her shield. I had a look, it seemed a much more logical and sensible set of rules than D&D. No classes, magic for everyone, realistic combat, experience coming through practice, no levels, no hit points increase, … This is how I came to Runequest. I'm 58 now and my best gaming experience in my life have been as an humakti fighting broos and trolls in the big rubble. Thank you, Mr Strafford. Thank you so much. I am so sad you left us.

[Thaz]

Travel Well Greg. 

[Nick Brooke]

I've posted quite a long personal note on Facebook: I hope this link works for you.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Nick Brooke
Zuck sucks: see my Gloranthan Manifesto.

[kpmcdona]

A few years (decades?) back Greg was invited to a little game convention here in North Carolina. That he chose to attend stunned me. Every interaction I had with him that day taught me something new. Although attendance for his events was embarrassingly (to me) sparse he never appeared any way other than gracious and warm. After the convention was over I took him out to dinner, just the two of us, and talked about life, the universe and everything. We shared our experiences as fathers of adopted kids, our spiritual journeys, and just our general curiosity about each other's lives and perspectives. I have always considered him a friend since that day, although I never saw him again in person. I will miss his presence in the world terribly.

[Nils Weinander]

I met Greg in person just a handful of times, at various conventions 20 years ago. What I remember best of him from these occasions is his readings of his Gloranthan fiction. He had a great reading voice and it was obvious that he really liked reading his stories to an audience.

When Greg Fried, Sandy Petersen and I submitted a hefty manuscript of the East Isles, Greg answered that he couldn't accept it in the form it was, as it didn't fit his vision of Glorantha, but he generously shared his notes of Vithela and asked us to join him in developing that part of Glorantha.

For a number of years I acted as web master for www.glorantha.com, a task I remember fondly! The best part was publishing Greg's Myth of the Month. This was a neverending source of a sense of wonder as the mythic landscape of Glorantha unrolled. Greg was genuinely intrigued that I appreciated doing the routine tasks of running the web site.

So, I remember Greg as a generous and caring person, even though I really only knew him through email.

I could ramble on about the greatness of his creations, but I think others have already done that better, so I'll just say that I think one part of Greg's enduring legacy is that he taught us that myths are not just something you read from a book, but also something we can create and share.

I'd like to think that Greg's shamanic faith made him less afraid of death than most of us, but that doesn't make his family less bereaved. So, Suzanne, my heartfelt condolences to you and your family.

[Ian Cooper]

It's funny to write something, about my relationship with Greg.

As a teenager his worlds inspired my imagination. Glorantha loomed larger in my imagination than Middle Earth for how I saw the heights of secondary world creation.

As a young man I was inspired by his explorations into his mythologies in the '90s and '00s in his unfinished works. It was rich and complex, and his habit of creating via in-world documents remains for me the way to to create, whilst still leaving room for others.

I was thrilled when he asked me to write for Hero Wars. A simple scenario, Blood Feud, but he spent time to help me understand how to write for this industry. He could be hard, but you learned if you listened. It began a journey in TTRPG writing that continues to this day. Even when we were writing The Eleven Lights, Greg was there scratching out the diagram of the Three New Stars heroquest. Another in-world document, to inspire. Greg dreamed of a group of writers who could take Glorantha forward. Teenage me would have been flabbergasted to know that I would be counted among that group by Greg. I have no words that can express my gratitude to someone who let me partake of their own creativity, to drink deep  from the well, to inspire my own. He once told me that he was able to share because he found the creativity that others found so hard, so easy.

I got to know Greg at Tentacles, Eternal Con, and Kraken. We talked. I played in games he ran (he was notoriously an 'evil GM'). Funnily, outside of panels, or projects, we rarely talked about Glorantha or gaming. We talked about our lives, about our shared politics, stories of our past (of which he had so many). He was there for me through the break up of my first marriage, always a source of wisdom and advice. My family and I called him and Suzanne friends.

I knew this day would come, but not so soon. I hoped to see Greg again, at least one more time. Sit with him over a cup of coffee at a GenCon, and tell him about my daughter. I'll miss him.

Those that don't know him might not understand his impish sense of fun, or irreverence in person. He was always the trickster. Even the tales of his own past were often at his own expense.  I remember him saying that his Glorantha was a place of "belly laughs" and wondering if people 'had fun at their table'. That lesson stuck with me recently. When you play an RPG, you should be having fun. Greg knew that, always. As someone who is often far too serious, I value that he tried to make me laugh so many times. In some ways, the ducks say everything about who Greg was.

For some reason, when I think about his passing, I think about this quote from Lord of the Rings:

“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

 

Edited October 13, 2018 by Ian Cooper