Some Jim Ward (RIP) Facts

 

Game designer Jim Ward has died.

Some Jim Ward facts:

• Jim Ward wrote the first sci-fi RPG: Metamorphosis Alpha, which came out a year before Traveller and had a cool premise: you are stuck on a generational ship full of space experiments and don't know it. It also had lots of weird tables.
• RPG historian Jon Peterson, the guy who wrote Playing At The World went around playing games GMed every major game designer he could find and when I asked which was the most fun he unhesitatingly said Jim Ward's Alpha game
• Jim Ward's Facebook posting style was extremely boomer.
• Jim Ward was Drawmij (Jim Ward backwards) of Drawmij's Instant Summons in the AD&D spell list.
• Jim Ward wrote the "mindbending psychedelic blasphemy" known as Deities and Demigods which I am always extremely excited about as in for example this long blog post.
• I enjoyed his work a lot, especially his knack for bugfuck insane details, which is the best thing about old vs new D&D.
• A lot of old TSR guys who knew Jim Ward in real life are still alive and on the internet and if you enjoy those old games and supplements you should talk to them before they die, too.