Lynn Willis

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Lynn Willis is a wargame and role-playing game designer who has done work for Metagaming Concepts, Game Designers' Workshop, and Chaosium.

Willis began by designing science fiction wargames for Metagaming, starting with the classic Godsfire in 1976. He also designed the microgames Olympica (1978) and Holy War (1979). Chaosium published Lords of the Middle Sea (1978), while GDW published Bloodtree Rebellion (1979).

However, his relationship with Chaosium has proved the most enduring, and there he would turn to role-playing games. He helped founder Greg Stafford trim and refine the RuneQuest rules into Basic Role-Playing, the rules that would serve as the base for many of Chaosium's RPG lines. He is included in the design credits for Worlds of Wonder (1982) and the Ringworld RPG (1984). With other members of Chaosium, he co-wrote the Ghostbusters RPG for West End Games, which won the H.G. Wells Award for Best Roleplaying Rules of 1986. After their original creators left, Willis took on the task of developing new editions of Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu. Throughout, he edited, and sometimes wrote for, Chaosium supplements. Indeed, as other staff members, even Stafford, have departed, he has ended up as not only Editor-in-Chief, but the longest-running member of the staff.