Sandy Petersen hat im Rahmen des "Cthulhu Mythos for 5e"-Kickstarters an Greg Stafford erinnert:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peter…_project_update
A Memory of Greg Stafford: The Necessary Genius
Geposted von Arthur Petersen (Projektmitarbeiter)
For those who don't know, Greg Stafford, the founder of Chaosium (publisher of Sandy's Call of Cthulhu RPG and where Sandy worked for nearly all of the 1980's), passed away earlier this week. Sandy wrote the following for his friend:[Blockierte Grafik: https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?url=https%3A%2F%2Fksr-ugc.imgix.net%2Fassets%2F022%2F884%2F520%2Fa1ec735319537f90370c903c0e5cba49_original.jpg%3Fixlib%3Drb-1.1.0%26w%3D700%26fit%3Dmax%26v%3D1539469192%26auto%3Dformat%26gif-q%3D50%26q%3D92%26s%3D2e4cb9eb6c70ef5341aa611081ed0eb8&t=1539512624&ymreqid=a9e470ed-7ea7-ab1a-01b6-2b0029010000&sig=2gmLhP648V_wGNks44H95w--~C]
.Sandy is at a convention in Europe at the moment, and wrote the above from Spain. He then emailed me to follow up, as he had more he wanted to share about Greg:
A memory of Greg Stafford: the Necessary Genius
In 1980, Greg Stafford & Chaosium secured a license to publish games based on H.P. Lovecraft’s works. At that time, Lovecraft was desperately obscure. Everyone I knew who had read Lovecraft had been introduced to his tales by me. It was a commonly accepted fact that Lovecraft was an old pulp hack; unworthy of analysis.
But Chaosium, recently enamored of licensed properties, wanted to do a Lovecraft game, just for the money, and presumably to engage the vanishingly few HPL fans.
The logical approach would be for Chaosium to write it themselves, or hire some known quantity as author. If they had done this, Call of Cthulhu would have been written as a snarky semi-parody. And after all, what more did a “hack” like Lovecraft deserve? Better to display our good taste & literary quality by sneering at HPL. No doubt his fans will buy it anyway.
But Greg, uniquely among publishers in my experience, said “If we write this game, our hearts won’t be in it. The fans will know. We shall find someone who adores Lovecraft - who will put his heart into it. That man will give us a game for the fandom.”
And he chose me (admittedly with my eager prodding). He knew I would invest the extra time, even for such an obscure property.
He had the humility & wit to let another person do the job. I am eternally grateful. As a result I did throw myself into the project. Call of Cthulhu proved surprisingly successful. Within a few years, it was Chaosium’s leading game.
Instead of Call of Cthulhu pandering to a few thousand fans, it created new fans. Scores of thousands read Lovecraft thanks to my RPG. It was the first Lovecraft-based game. But not the last.
Its popularity spread. Imitators rose up. Then new games, based on Lovecraft’s works. Today, we see a massive tome bringing the full extent of Lovecraft’s vision to D&D.
None of this would exist without Greg Stafford’s brilliance & mentoring. If I am the father of horror gaming, he is the doctor who presided at its birth. The necessary genius.
Thank you, Greg.
- Sandy