24 Facts About Greg Stafford

Francis Gregory Stafford, usually known as Greg Stafford, was an American game designer, publisher, and practitioner of shamanism.

Greg Stafford was designer of Pendragon, he was co-designer of the RuneQuest, Ghostbusters, Prince Valiant and HeroQuest role-playing systems, founder of the role-playing game companies Chaosium and Issaries, designer of the White Bear and Red Moon, Nomad Gods, King Arthur's Knights and Elric board games, and co-designer of the King of Dragon Pass computer game.

Greg Stafford began wargaming after picking up a copy of U-Boat by Avalon Hill, and in 1966 as a freshman at Beloit College he started writing about the fantasy world of Glorantha.

Greg Stafford designed the wargames Elric and King Arthur's Knights.

Greg Stafford wanted the world of Glorantha to be part of an original role-playing game; this ultimately resulted in Steve Perrin's RuneQuest, which was set in Glorantha.

Greg Stafford considers his Arthurian chivalric role-playing game King Arthur Pendragon his masterpiece.

Greg Stafford designed the Prince Valiant roleplaying game, which featured a strong storytelling basis and other innovations.

Greg 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.

Greg Stafford co-designed the computer game King of Dragon Pass.

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

Greg Stafford approached Robin 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.

Greg Stafford published the second edition in 2003 under the name he always wanted HeroQuest, as Milton Bradley's trademark on the name had lapsed.

Greg Stafford moved to Mexico in 2004, bringing production from Issaries to an end.

When Hasbro let the RuneQuest trademark lapse, Greg Stafford picked up the rights to the game and licensed Mongoose Publishing to publish a new edition in 2006.

Greg Stafford moved from Berkeley, California to Arcata, California in 2007, having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for some years.

Greg Stafford died at his home in Arcata on October 10,2018 at the age of 70.

For some years, Greg Stafford slowly wrote several novels set in Glorantha.

Greg Stafford was one of the designers on the Glorantha-based video game King of Dragon Pass.

Greg Stafford was a practicing shaman and member of the board of directors of Shaman's Drum, a journal of experiential shamanism.

Greg Stafford had some short articles of Arthurian interest published.

Greg Stafford lived in Mexico for 18 months, tutoring English as a foreign language, and exploring places of archeological and shamanic interest.

Greg Stafford was inducted in the Origins Award hall of fame in 1987.

Greg Stafford won the Diana Jones Award 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.

Greg Stafford 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.