In 2025 Chaosium turns 50, making us the oldest ongoing roleplaying publisher in the industry. We're delighted to have a special display cabinet at Gen Con celebrating the games that have captivated gamers, readers and mythic adventurers worldwide for the past half-century. The display features treasures from the company archives – if you're coming to Gen Con check it out in the Hoosier Corridor!
Founded by legendary game designer Greg Stafford in 1975, the very first Chaosium game was White Bear & Red Moon, a hex-based wargame set in Stafford's fantasy world of Glorantha that he had created in the 1960s.
RuneQuest was Chaosium’s first RPG, published in 1978, just a year after the first edition of Gygax and Arneson’s Dungeons & Dragons. Two things set RuneQuest apart from other fantasy RPGs: a unique simulationist approach which saw weapons break and limbs lopped off, and Greg Stafford’s transportative setting of Glorantha.
In a time before many well-known fantasy RPG settings came to be, RuneQuest offered a chance to explore a Bronze Age fantasy world that felt like a true departure from the medieval Tolkien-style fantasy of other games. RuneQuest remains a unique fantasy expereince to this day.
First published in 1981, Call of Cthulhu was a forerunner not only for the horror genre in TTRPGs, but for games that left the eponymous dungeon and stepped into the real world. Based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft and other Weird Fiction writers of the 1920s, Sandy Petersen's Call of Cthulhu was built upon the same roll-low D100 system penned by Steve Perrin for RuneQuest in 1978.
Call of Cthulhu remains Chaosium’s most popular game, and the second biggest in the industry after the titanic Dungeons & Dragons. Call of Cthulhu offer a unique horror experience, with rules that are both easy to understand and teach.
In 2025, Pendragon celebrates its 40th anniversary. The brain-child of Chaosium founder Greg Stafford, Pendragon has been heralded by many game designers as the pinnacle of RPG mechanic design. While the game takes you into the fabled world of King Arthur’s Britain, it is the mechanics for each character’s personality traits that makes for a seamless marriage between gameplay and roleplay.
Pendragon 6th edition is now available, and before his passing in 2018 Greg Stafford said that of all his contributions to the industry, he considered it to be his “Magnum Opus” (greatest work).
The Basic Roleplaying rules engine was originally created by Steve Perrin, author of RuneQuest in 1978. The system is a departure from the D20, roll high approach. It resolves mechanics using a D100, asking the player to roll low rather than high. The system is intuitive and very easy to teach. In fact, Chaosium's games are almost exclusively powered by the BRP rules. A wide range of games from other publishers have also utilised Basic Roleplaying since its inception.
Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying Universal Game Engine is designed to adaptable to any world of your choosing—either previously established, or created from scratch. The rules in this book are available royalty-free for personal and commercial use under the ORC license.
From the beginning in 1975, Chaosium was known for innovative rules and unique settings that have proven to impress and ensnare gamers from all walks of life for many decades. We hope to see you in the decades and aeons to come!
With thanks,
The Chaosium Team #weareallus
Come see us at Gen Con!
Once again, we have two prime locations - our main booth 511 in the exhibit hall has a full range of products across Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, BRP, RuneQuest, 7th Sea, and the all-new Age of Vikings!
Meanwhile, just across the hall in ICC 139, the Chaosium event room is celebrating our 50th year as a company, and the oldest ongoing publisher of TTRPGs in the world!
