When WotC Founder Peter Adkison Wrote To White Wolf Magazine

I had a distinct memory of having seen a particular letter in one of the magazines in my gaming club back in the day, so I decided to do some research and managed to find it in White Wolf Magazine #28. I figure it might be of historical interest to some.

This was written in response to an editorial basically saying "Before you start your own game company to publish your fantasy heartbreaker, do your research and be very certain of what you're getting into." There was also a reply to Peter Adkison's letter, split over two columns, and written by another name that ought to be highly recognized these days:

I don't know how useful this will be to anyone, but I figured it's an interesting, albeit tiny, bit of gaming history.

 

[Staffan]

Equally fun is that it’s Paizo owner Lisa Stevens who replied.

Later the two would work together and both did very well out of the sale of WotC!

And the "Mr Wieck" referred to, who wrote the original editorial, is Stewart Wieck, the late co-founder of White Wolf, author of Mage: The Ascension and co-founder of DrivethruRPG.

 

[Morrus]

author of Mage: The Ascension and co-founder of DrivethruRPG

That was Steve Wieck.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

A few months ago I picked up a copy of the original run of The Primal Order at a used bookstore in Minneapolis. I noticed a rather... interesting... accolade on the back:

I'm sure Ken had NO IDEA just how right he'd turn out to be!

 

[Staffan]

That was Steve Wieck.

Ah, seems I trusted Wikipedia too much, which referred to "The Wiecks" starting DTRPG on one of the pages. But it seems it was only the one, then.

 

[Blue Orange]

What a neat piece of history! You wonder how many other similar letters there are from small companies that never got big. How many companies went public in 1980 that weren't Apple?

 

[Henry]

Wow... it’s like watching Jobs and Woz meet for the first time...

 

[Eyes of Nine]

What a neat piece of history! You wonder how many other similar letters there are from small companies that never got big. How many companies went public in 1980 that weren't Apple?

Probably dozens, some of which are probably still around.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Probably dozens, some of which are probably still around.

Adobe, for instance.

 

[Aaron L]

That's pretty cool.

I picked up a copy of The Primal Order about twelve years ago for 10 bucks at Nittany Line Hobby down in State College, in their used book box (where I used to pick up old 1E era issues of Dragon for 50 cents each back in the early '90s.) My brother is reading it right now for tips on how to construct the gods of his world.