Remembering James M. Ward
A few words about my friend on what would have been his 74th birthday.
Jim Ward was an integral part of the history of tabletop roleplaying games. He was a member of Gary Gygax’s group, playing in the famous sand table in the Gygax basement, designing the first sci-fi TTRPG Metamorphosis Alpha, creating and embodying the wizard Drawmij whose name is part of D&D lore. Jim was in charge of the Creative Services department at TSR when I was hired. He was a complicated person, with foibles and shortcomings just like the rest of us, but he loved games, gaming, and gamers more than just about anything (with the obvious exception of his family).
Today (May 23rd) would have been Jim’s 74th birthday. One thing he didn’t do well enough was take care of his own health. He had several heart attacks and suffered from advanced type-2 diabetes, and all of his friends wished he’d been as stringent at managing those as he was when shepherding the creative teams under his care.
Jim had a larger-than-life personality, and was a great storyteller. I miss hearing his voice.
I was lucky enough to get Jim to be a guest on Episode 6 of 50 Years in the Dungeon, less than a month before he passed away. In the intervening year I’ve often said how lucky I feel, not because of any “scoop” that gave the show, but because it provided me the opportunity to spend an hour or so chatting with my friend. If not for the show, we’d have put such things off until the next time we met at a convention.
If you’re new to the show and haven’t gone back into the archives to this early episode, I highly recommend taking the time to do so. As I said above, Jim was a great storyteller.
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