Frank Chadwick

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Frank Chadwick in 2005
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Frank Chadwick is an American multiple-award–winning game designer[1] and New York Times Best Selling author.[2] He has designed hundreds of games, his most notable include being one of the principal designers of the RPGs Traveler and Twilight 2000, and the wargame series Europa and The Third World War.

Beginnings

Frank Chadwick formed the ISU Game Club at Illinois State University with Rich Banner, and Marc Miller joined in 1972. The club focused on wargaming, but the three students also started designing games for fun and convinced the university to fund a new program called SIMRAD ("SIMulation Research And Design"), which was intended to help instructors to produce specifications for simulation games.[3]:53 They used their club funding to design war games. They also formed a small educational games organization in response to a project by the university to bring new ideas into the system. After failing to win this project, the three continued to work together, forming Game Designers' Workshop.[4] When ISU stopped funding SIMRAD after 18 months, they founded Game Designers' Workshop on June 22, 1973 as a commercial outlet for their creativity, initially headquartering the company out of Miller and Chadwick's apartment.[3]:53

Game Designers' Workshop

There is little doubt that, even in the rather busy pantheon of (wargame) industry heroes, Frank Chadwick is a Zeus amongst the Ajaxes. He is one of - if not THE - finest game designer working today. Since GDW's emergence in the mid-1970s, Chadwick has been GDW's main designer, producing a body of work remarkable for its breadth and width. ... ever resourceful, Frank C covered his simulated butt with the out-of-sight success of his Desert Shield Fact Book. Its reported, six-figure sales will probably bank-roll the company for the next decade. And, as if that weren't enough, he has steered GDW (admittedly with the astute help of others) from a small-town, Third World company to its status as one of the major simulation and RPG publishers in the market today. Frank is also president of the industry professional association, GAMA, so GDW's tentacles reach out to almost every cave in which hobbyists can hide in. If dice produced olive oil, there is no doubt that Frank Chadwick would be wargaming's Godfather.
Richard Berg, 13 time Charles S. Roberts Award winner, in Berg's Review of Games, issue #3, Spring 1992

Game Designers' Workshop existed from 1973 until 1996.[2] There, he designed several well-known and award-winning games, including En Garde! (first swashbucking grole-playing games) in 1975,[3]:53[5] Space: 1889 in 1989[3]:59[6] (which was set in a steampunk milieu before the term was coined),[7] and Twilight 2000 in 1984.[3]:57[8] Chadwick also helped Marc Miller design Traveller.[3]:54 Game Designers' Workshop also published the Gulf War Fact Book, a book he wrote on the military capabilities of the United States and Iraq at the time of the Gulf War. The book was on the New York Times bestselling list, and led to appearances on various news programs by Chadwick.[9] After GDW shut down, the rights to Space: 1889 went to Chadwick.[3]:63

Post GDW

He currently blogs on history and military issues at greathistory.com [10]

Awards and recognition

He was inducted into the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame and Origins Hall of Fame in 1984. [11] He won a Charles S. Roberts Award in 1980, 1981 and 1989, was nominated for an Origins Award in 2009.[12]

Works

Chadwick has designed hundreds of games, below are some of his most notable.

Design credits

Books

References

  1. ↑ http://www.farfuture.net/Guide%20to%20Twilight%20v2.pdf
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sweich, Paul. (Jan 13, 1996). "Game over: Role-playing game design firm closes". Pantagraph. p. C1. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7. 
  4. ↑ http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/days-of-high-adventure/7023-A-Perpetual-Traveller-Marc-Miller
  5. ↑ Lawrence Schick (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. New York: Prometheus Books. p. 266 and 422. ISBN 978-0879756536.  Unknown parameter |cid= ignored (help)
  6. ↑ http://www.scifidimensions.com/Mar05/space1889.htm
  7. ↑ http://www.heliograph.com/space1889/
  8. ↑ http://www.farfuture.net/Guide%20to%20Twilight%20v1.pdf
  9. ↑ Sweich, Paul. (Jan 24, 1991). "Fact Book Author gets spot on TV". Pantagraph. p. A2. 
  10. ↑ http://greathistory.com/members/frankchadwick/
  11. ↑ http://www.historicon.org/HIST2008/pel_ACG.asp
  12. ↑ http://www.comicheronews.com/?p=1027

External links

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