Arnold Hendrick passed away

[Malchor]

Arnold Hendrick was a member of the New England Wargamers Association, IFW member, early Chainmail and D&D reviewer and game designer.

He passed May 25, 2020 after fighting cancer for some time.

More about Arnold Hendrick here: www.pcgamer.com/arnold-hendrick-creator-of-influential-90s-rpg-darklands-has-died/

BGG: boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/693/arnold-hendrick

RPG Geek: rpggeek.com/rpgdesigner/693/arnold-hendrick 

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[Deleted]

Please note that we don't do obituaries on OD&D'74 unless they are of utmost relevance to the community, like, say, for Ursula LeGuin or Christopher Tolkien.

The reason for that is hopefully understandable: If you look at the worldwide fantasy and RPG scene, and its millions of associates, then rarely a day passes when nobody dies who hasn't made some sort of contribution. Not only is it generally impossible to include everyone, but recognizing everyone who dies would make especially our GD into some sort of a giant obituary section.

Instead, we very much want to encourage you all to actively debate the actual contributions made by those who you want to remember. In Hendrick's case, for example, he's one of the designers of one of the more interesting indie RPGs of his time, "Swordbearer". When have we last had a thread on that one? That's better, and honestly, more respectful to them than the usual 'look who died - sad' threads.


Now, I'm surely not going to close this thread, but please keep this in mind as you go on.

[derv]

Didn’t hear about this. To me he is best known for his Knights & Magick rules and his early review of D&D.

[captainjapan]

a bad review 

I hope Mr. Hendrick was able to give it a second chance.

[Malchor]

Aug 18, 2020 1:15:03 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Now, I'm surely not going to close this thread, but please keep this in mind as you go on.

You got it.

Who's played Swordbearer?

[derv]

For whatever reason I never made the connection to Dwarfstar Games and Hendrick. Barbarian Prince, Grav Armor, Star Viking, Demonlord, Dragon Rage, all designed by him.

[rsdean]

I owned Swordbearer, but never played. As I recall, the two most interesting things about it were the possessions system (where you got ten “things”) and the magic system, which separated power from knowledge, so you could theoretically pace the game as the GM by the frequency with which the found “nodes”, basically magic batteries.

Knights and Magick, on the other hand, is still on my somewhat regular play list, although it’s been supplanted by Dragon Rampant recently. So, it’s probably two years since it’s been on the table...

The picturs evaporated, but I reviewed K&M on my blog back in 2012:

sharpbrush.blogspot.com/2012/08/knights-and-magick.html

[bobjester0e]

I have Grav Armor, but I've never played it. Its a very compact game, fitting into a ziplocked bag and a plastic counter tray with a lid.

dwarfstar.brainiac.com/ds_gravarmor.html

Sometimes I'd forget I have Grav Armor and claim that I have OGRE instead. Forgotten games on the shelf and all that.