Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Erick Wujcik dying 

Horrible news from Palladium's Kevin Siembieda: Erick Wujcik, 56, creator of Amber Diceless Roleplaying and several excellent Palladium RPGs, is dying of pancreatic cancer. PARANOIA fans know Erick as the designer of Clones in Space (West End Games, 1986, recently reprinted in PARANOIA Flashbacks 2) and several sections of Acute PARANOIA (West End, 1985). Erick's "Drugs" and "Aptitude Tests" sections from the latter book appear in the current edition of the PARANOIA rulebook. (The gallery of Erick Wujcik's work currently lacks his PARANOIA credits.)

Post messages for Erick at ErickWujcik.com or RPG.net. Donations to the American Cancer Society.

Erick is a tremendously talented designer whose Amber Diceless hugely influenced today's indie RPG designers. Though long out of print, Amber retains a tight-knit and vigorous community to this day. His PARANOIA work shows the same exuberant creativity of his bestselling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles licensed RPG.

Erick is also an international traveller, and he has posted his photos from Hong Kong and Shanghai at his own site, 47rpg.com. For several years Erick led the design team at the Shanghai office of Ubisoft, the computer gaming giant, and he taught game design at Hong Kong Polytechnic. Most important, Erick is a generous friend. Early this year, when I was planning a temporary relocation to Southeast Asia, Erick unexpectedly called me long-distance from China ( ! ) to offer me informed and very welcome advice. I shall always prize that conversation, that kind gesture, as I prize Erick's many fine contributions to the art of roleplaying game design. If you're among the many who have enjoyed his games, I encourage you to visit ErickWujcik.com and post your thanks.

Update Dec. 27: Erick has started a characteristically entertaining blog at 47rpg.com/blog.
Posted by: Allen Varney / 10:35 PM

Comments: Post a Comment

Copyright © 2004-7 by Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg. All your rights are belong to us. No bloody Creative Commons here! Bwahahaha!
No, seriously. If you make non-commercial use of stuff here, that's fine, but we reserve all commercial rights, and all rights to prepare derivative material on things posted here. In addition, posters of comments must be aware that we reserve the right to use whatever material they post here, and/or derivative works therefrom, in PARANOIA, supplementary products, licensed products, or derivative work, without any compensation whatever, for all time to come and throughout this universe and any alternate universes that may be discovered. At our discretion, and without obligation, we may, if it strikes our fancy, make a good faith effort to credit you for stuff we use, but we can't promise it won't slip our minds, in the hurly-burly of meeting deadlines. (Actually, we intend to do that, but it's possible we'll screw up.) By posting comments, you grant us a non-revocable, perpetual, non-exclusive license to use whatever you post, in whatsoever fashion we deem useful, here or in any other forum, in PARANOIA or in any and all future products, including but not limited to derivative works, and specifically but not exclusively including the microbrewery beer, ale and porter; salty and sugary snack; and tattoo design rights deriving therefrom. Woohoo! Is that enough legalese for you? The Computer is Your Friend.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?