Grognard - Ruminations on 40 Years in Gaming

Loren Wiseman was what gamers call a grognard: an experienced old hand and a bit of a kind-hearted grumbler. He started in the early 1970's designing war-games with the legendary Game Designers' Workshop. He did a bit of everything: he designed wargames; he ran the warehouse; he developed role-playing games when they were still in their infancy. He managed the Twilight: 2000 role-playing line (and authored seventeen of its titles). He contributed to just about every Traveller title GDW published. But Loren's lasting reputation was as editor (starting in 1979) of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society for its 24 issues, then for the next 53 issues of Challenge Magazine, and finally for 15 years of the revived JTAS Online. At JTAS Online, Loren wrote more than 400 editorials ranging from the mundane (read: product announcements and plugs) to the sublime (with insights into the game design process, or memories of his days at GDW). These thoughts come to more than 250,000 words; they preserve a unique view of a hobby that barely existed when his work began, and was acknowledged as mainstream as his work ended. Foreword by Steve Jackson. Afterword by Marc Miller.