About Erick Wujcik

[RPGPundit]

About Erick Wujcik

I really wasn't going to post something related to Lords of Olympus today, as I really wanted to maintain some variety in this blog despite the release of LoO clearly being big news, but circumstances have kind of forced me to say something here.

Obviously, I had expected, as when I do almost anything (especially anything that threatens to be a success, as LoO clearly does), that the release of the game would bring out the pundit-haters to spew their usual septic emissions of envy and resentment at me. That's to be expected; I certainly don't pretend to think I'm not someone who courts controversy, and I'm used to it by now.  Its fair game for people to talk about things I've actually said, and of course I can understand that there will be people who don't like things I've actually said, either because they disagree with it or because they think I'm not "nice" enough in saying it. Fine.
I also expected, as per usual, that some of my detractors would post things I've said out of context, exaggerate my positions, all of this is slightly dirty pool but certainly predictable.  I grudgingly accept the reality that some of them would resort to outright lies about me, perhaps thinking that the mere truths about me wouldn't be enough to meet their goal of "taking me down"; its pretty pathetic and I think ultimately counterproductive for them, but so be it.  Even when the lies get to the point of absurdity, like trying to claim I'm lying about being married (when there are people on the very same forums said liars frequent who have actually met The Wench), or that I'm on the run from the law (potentially libelous, not to mention ridiculous), or even trying to resort to some pathetic attempt at downright sabotage by trying to tell people that LoO hasn't been released yet (seriously?); all of those things which have actually been said in certain threads about Lords of Olympus, stupid and pathetic as they are, I can take, because I'm a big boy and can give as good as I get (and I deal in truth, which wins out over falsehood every time).

But when trying to bring in the memory of a dead friend as some kind of cynical and underhanded tactic to besmirch me; an actual human being who I cared deeply for, who was in many ways my mentor, and whose death I'm not ashamed to say made me cry tears and who I still mourn even now, not only as an admired public figure but as a person I had a personal relationship with... that's just disgusting.

Erick Wujcik was someone I had a friendship with that I'm lucky enough to say spanned a decade (since long before I was the Pundit), I only wish it had been far far longer.  He was someone who encouraged me in everything I did, who had taught me a tremendous amount about how to run a Roleplaying game before I'd ever gotten to know him, and taught me much more after. He was one of the first people to congratulate me on the success of theRPGsite when it was clear I'd made it a success. He was kind enough to lend his name to the site, making theRPGsite the host of the one and only Official Amber DRPG AND Erick Wujcik forum, a forum where he himself very humbly accepted the role of moderator; a role I had given him (I thought) as a courtesy and meant to be more honorific than anything but that he took on with absolute seriousness, logging on regularly not to pontificate or elevate himself (though he very much deserved to be elevated as one of the greatest game designers this hobby every produced) but to clean up spammers and make sure everything was in order.  We chatted not just about gaming, but about life; I remember him talking about his work with Ubisoft, leaving Shanghai and the stress he was under, the gift he sent me from China, game design (tabletop and computer) on various continents, he spoke to me about his disappointments with Guardians of Order, stuff we found funny, and all sorts of other things...

I was one of the first group of people he told about his illness; months before he made it public knowledge.  In that time, naturally, our letters to each other intensified, and he spoke to me of his plans, how after visiting his beloved China he was planning to come with his wife to visit Uruguay to see me; sadly (I can't tell you how sadly for me) the horrifically rapid advance of the type of cancer he was suffering from made that impossible, as he became too ill to travel sooner than he or any of us would have hoped.  And I was stunned to notice that even on what was very literally his deathbed, in the last weeks of his life, Erick was still logging onto the RPGsite and still cleaning up spambots from the Amber Forum.

For people who dislike me to try to drag him into this, to imply that somehow I'm stealing from him by writing Lords of Olympus in an attempt to revive and preserve the enthusiasm for the genre he created singlehandedly, its so far below the belt you can't even quantify it. Particularly when some of those same people who are using this completely cynical tactic are people who didn't give a shit about the man, and in other circumstances would love to malign his game or consider it inferior to whatever garbage their movement is peddling, who've gone out of their way to try to demean and "dethrone" Amber or mock Erick's writing and his other works.
None of these same people ever said so much as a squeak when others (most of whom I'd wager did not personally know Gary Gygax) did all-but-literal cut-and-paste jobs of D&D. But because its me, writing an entirely new RPG that uses as its core the mechanics what is still the most brilliant Diceless System ever devised, recreating it in a new way, with new powers, rules-clarifications, and a completely new setting, they have no qualms in trying to invoke the name of a Giant of the roleplaying hobby who is tragically not with us anymore, and who many of them disliked, just to try to "win" the game of flinging excrement at the news of my game's release.

I'm not nearly the man Erick Wujcik was. I'm not nearly the genius of game design that he was either. I very much stand on the shoulders of a giant, someone I'd consider on par only with Gygax in terms of the innovation he brought to the hobby. I'm very aware of that. My game is in no way a cut-and-paste job, it is an original game, more different from Amber than "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" (which I'd note is by no means a "cut-and-paste job" either)  is from D&D. I'm not stealing anything from Erick Wujcik. I'm certainly not trying to claim any of his game-design genius for my own; I think my game is original and interesting, but there's no question whatsoever that if he had not released Amber 20 years ago, I would never ever have been able to come up with Lords of Olympus today; anymore so than if Gary Gygax hadn't written D&D, none of the OSR games (be they clones or innovative new interpretations) would exist today. Nor am I stealing anything from "his estate"; I owe nothing to his estate as I have not used any of his copyrighted work, but if by "his estate" you mean his widow, who he always called his "lovely Kate" and never failed to make clear to me how dearly he loved, I was also among the people she informed of Erick's passing, before it was publicly announced, where even there she apologized to me on his behalf for how they weren't able to come see me before he went and how much he had hoped to; and reassured me that he felt very little pain.  I tried with failing words then to express what he meant to me, and I only hope she understood.  I've tried since then (as I promised Kate) to be a faithful custodian of his legacy through his Official forum, and by writing this game too, which I'm fairly certain that if Erick was here with us today, he would have been one of the first to congratulate me on its release, encouraging me like he always did.  And I'm quite sure that Kate knows, because she knows what a friend I was to Erick and what an incredible influence and teacher he was for me, that if there was every anything at all she needed from me, I'd break heaven and earth to do it.

I've had to pause more than a few times while writing all this.

So yeah; if you want to argue with me about what I stand for, that's fine and good, you're even welcome to do it with me on theRPGsite.  If you want to engage in slimy tactics of making up shit about me, you're an idiot.  If you really want to, you can even wish me cancer, as more than a few of the Pundit-haters have implicitly or explicitly done; though that makes you quite the ignorant sack of shit as anyone who's seen or lived through that terrible disease could tell you.
But if you start trying to use the memory of a man who's boots you were not worthy to lick to try to cynically score cheap points in your hatchet-job smear campaign against me, you're the fucking scum of the Earth. You're despicable.  And I just have no words for the depths of what I think of you.

I know that it would be a death-sentence to the account of anyone who dared, but I would really wish someone would post this on RPG.net, so that the people who've been doing this can be sure to see, and maybe even fucking think for a second, about what it is that what they're doing says about them.

RPGPundit

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[Benoist]

Great post. It must have hurt to write this.

[RPGPundit]

Great post. It must have hurt to write this.

I'd say it was bittersweet; it brought back some great memories of our friendship, and I'm grateful for that at least.

RPGPundit

[Benoist]

I understand.

[Silverlion]

I'm sure your friend would be proud of you. Friendships are worth every heartache because of the joy they bring.

I tend to stay away from the drama, as best I can, but it is indeed low for people to drag a dead friend into the fray.

[StormBringer]

But if you start trying to use the memory of a man who's boots you were not worthy to lick to try to cynically score cheap points in your hatchet-job smear campaign against me, you're the fucking scum of the Earth. You're despicable.  And I just have no words for the depths of what I think of you.

There are no words in the English Language to describe anyone who would stoop to that kind of tactic.

[Evermasterx]

Dear RPGPundit,
I read once in a book of physics (in Italian) something that could be translated in English:
"Those who know, they make; those who know something, they write; those who know nothing, they talk".
So let us be those who make, like the great Erick. And let them talk...

I'll be one of those who will read your invisible book

[Sacrosanct]

There are no words in the English Language to describe anyone who would stoop to that kind of tactic.

I can think of one.  Starts with a 'g'.

[Imperator]

If they have done that, it is indeed a really low thing to do. Best luck woth this project.

[StormBringer]

I can think of one.  Starts with a 'g'.

Gigantic dripping cunt?  Wait...  that's three words...

[RPGPundit]

Dear RPGPundit,
I read once in a book of physics (in Italian) something that could be translated in English:
"Those who know, they make; those who know something, they write; those who know nothing, they talk".
So let us be those who make, like the great Erick. And let them talk...

I'll be one of those who will read your invisible book

I have another one, from Churchill: "Do you have enemies? Good. That means you stand for something."

RPGPundit