Who founded Chaosium and when was it established?
Greg Stafford founded Chaosium in 1975. He named it by combining "chaos," a word he used to describe his apartment, with "coliseum," referencing the nearby Oakland Coliseum.
Questions about Chaosium
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is Chaosium's most famous game?
Call of Cthulhu, first published in 1981, is Chaosium's most enduring product. Based on H. P. Lovecraft's horror fiction, it remained the company's primary product line through its years of financial difficulty and won nine of ten nominated awards at the Gen Con 2017 ENnie Awards.
What game mechanic did Chaosium introduce with Ghostbusters in 1986?
The 1986 Ghostbusters game, designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford in collaboration with West End Games, introduced the dice pool mechanic to roleplaying games. West End Games later used this system as the foundation for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game and the D6 System.
Why did Greg Stafford leave Chaosium in 1998?
Stafford resigned as Chaosium's president in 1998 following the financial failure of the collectible card game Mythos. He took the rights to his Glorantha game setting and founded a new company called Issaries, Inc.
What is Basic Role-Playing and who created it?
Basic Role-Playing is a 16-page rulebook created by Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis in 1980, distilled from RuneQuest. Its simulationist, skill-based, percentile-dice rules became the foundation for many of Chaosium's subsequent games, most notably Call of Cthulhu.
Where is Chaosium currently based?
Chaosium is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company relocated there after the new management team, which took over in 2015, closed the long-standing office and warehouse in Hayward, California.