RIP James M. Ward

News has sadly broken that tabletop roleplaying pioneer James M. Ward has passed away at the age of 72.

Born in 1951, Ward was an acquaintance of Gary Gygax in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and agreed to help him road-test a new game he was developing in 1973. This game became Dungeons & Dragons, with Ward as one of the early players. Gygax created the wizard Drawmij of Oerth in Ward's honour. When Gygax started TSR in late 1973 and published D&D in January 1974, he recruited Ward to help work on the game as a writer and designer.

Ward collaborated with another of the original plays, Rob Kuntz, to create Gods, Demigods & Heroes (1976), a D&D sourcebook that introduced gods and religion to the game. Back when TSR was trying to publish a number of different systems, Ward created the first science fantasy roleplaying game, Metamorphosis Alpha (1976). Drawing on this work, Ward then co-created (with Gary Jaquet) the better-known Gamma World (1978).

Ward continued working as a staffer at TSR, contributing to different projects. He wrote Deities & Demigods (1980), an effective update of his 1976 book to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition rules.

In 1988 Ward drew on his background playing in Gygax's home games to write Greyhawk Adventures, which updated Gygax's signature home setting for the upcoming Advanced D&D 2nd Edition rules. Ward contributed to the design of AD&D 2E and was responsible for the removal of the assassin class, something he noted did not go down well with many fans.

Also in 1988 Ward worked on Ruins of Adventure, the tabletop supplement based on the Pool of Radiance video game set in the Forgotten Realms. Ward further developed the story and scenario into a trilogy of novels, published as Pool of Radiance (1989, with Jane Cooper Hong), Pools of Darkness (1992, with Anne K. Brown) and Pool of Twilight (1993, with Anne K. Brown).

Ward developed Spellfire, TSR's answer to Magic: The Gathering, in 1994. After an initially strong start, the game suffered from a lack of budget (resulting in a considerable reuse of art from existing projects, to fans' dismay).

Ward left TSR in 1996 during the major financial upheavals caused by Random House returning unsold stock to the company for refund, which the company could not afford to pay. This triggered the company's collapse and its subsequent buy-out by Wizards of the Coast in 1997. After departing, Ward worked as a freelancer on various projects (including a Metamorphosis Alpha reboot) before joining Troll Lord Games to work on their Castles & Crusades game line. Ward continued to work on Metamorphosis Alpha material - of which he retained full ownership - until the late 2010s.

As well as the projects with his name on it, Ward contributed in an enormous number of ways to other projects in a variety of roles, from proof-reading the Planescape Campaign Setting (1994) to providing additional design support for the Serenity roleplaying game (2004).

Ward produced new material under his solo companies, Fast Forward Entertainment and WardCo.

Ward was diagnosed with a serious neurological disorder in 2010, for which he received treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Friends, colleagues and fans rallied around with crowdfunding campaigns that ultimately helped him receive the treatment he needed to considerably extend his quality of life.

Ward passed away on 18 March 2024, and is survived by his wife and three children.