I have not been known to write about game designers and other such personalities on this blog. The one exception is probably Paul/Janelle Jaquays, who was a big influence on my childhood rpg mindset. You can search Paul Jaquays in this blogs search function for several related posts, but maybe my most significant post about her was here almost 15 years ago.
But today I read about this guy who passed away last week, Lou Zocchi. In my mind in recent years, I only knew of the guy as a dice designer. But looking a bit into his history, it is a safe bet that I have heard the name since I was a kid. And it rings dim memories from the deep past. Probably saw the name a hundred times in old gaming periodicals.
Since I am posting about my Superhero gaming of past and present lately, including the first one Superhero 2044, I must have known at some point that Zocchi published the second, full color cover version of Superhero 2044 in 1977. Damn, that should be pretty important to me since that game inspired a lot of my future comic book gaming.
And as a kid, before I got into rpgs, I had an elementary school buddy, a Korean kid named Michael Yim, who loved Avalon hill wargames, and Zocchi was involved in that early on. And including Star Trek related stuff, he has his hands in various ways in my precious Judges Guild, including printing some of their out-of-print material, which was likely most of what I got my hands on in the 80's. That shit inspired my campaigns for my entire life.
And of course I knew the name Game Science. Mostly known for dice, he was an advocate for proper dice that truly rolled randomly. I mean, even as kids we suspected dice of being uneven. We all had dice we swore by. That D20 that seemed to get a natural "20" a third of the time.
He also invented the D100, and I remember how blown away I was by it back in the day. I was still recovering from the D30. He also was the first to make D3, D14, etc.
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| I remember we used to joke about what a D1000 would look like. It would probably just roll off the table and phase thorough a wall into Liminal Space |
So yeah, a revolutionary to be sure. Oh, he also blunted the D4..
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| I never owned one. I am sure it is less painful. Yeah, admit it. You have stepped on the regular one like a hundred times. Like me. |
So glad to read a bit about him, even though its after he is gone. The guy lived to a ripe 97 years old, so good on him!
Cheers!
One of my first scifi minis games was Alien Space. I missed the original Star Trek Battle Manual, but sent a fair few years playing the 2nd edition Star Fleet Battle Manual version (emphasis on Fleet there). Between those systems and Starfleet Wars Kid Me spent a lot of time crawling around on my knees in various gyms and community centers back in the 70s and early 980s. Don't think that's a common experience at all any more, certainly not with gamers who aren't pushing 60+ years of age.
ReplyDeleteWorth noting that a superfan of the SFBM convinced Lou to approve a much fancier (in terms of graphics) 3rd edition of the game a few years back. It is still the one and only thing Gamescience has listed on Wargames Vault, and ensures his legacy as a game designer is essentially eternal now. Pity more old Gamescience rules aren't available in pdf as well, but perhaps that will change as a memorial to him.
(note: had some errors that I am having trouble fixing in the post for some reason, but Zocchi lived to 91 years old not 97. Still pretty solid lifespan. Also I believe it was my first year of Jr. High I played a little Avalon Hill, though I knew my buddy since Elementary)
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