Okay, this makes me sad
I recently saw this in my e-mail inbox, and it makes me a little sad:
We regret to report that Erick Wujcik’s health it failing. Kevin had a nice talk with Erick on April 5, 2008 and said he sounded wonderful. However, Erick is weak, tires easily and he has entered into hospice. Thankfully, he is not in much pain, and reported enjoying reading books, visiting with loved ones, and feeling surprisingly “normal.”
Erick might not mean a lot to most of you, but for me, he was a fundamental part of growing up. You see, Erick wrote the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ROLEPLAYING GAME, which was the basis for most of the roleplaying that took part in my house for nearly a decade. Sure, some folks grew up with Dungeon's and Dragons, but my brothers and I, we thrived on the Palladium System, TMNT, and all of the other books that Erick wrote. The man is a brilliant font of knowledge in regards to storytelling and roleplaying games. He's my Gary Gygax.
There are many more wonderful things I can say about his talent and his insight, and the things he brought to role-playing game design. But, for now, I'm going to pull out my copy of TMNT RPG and roll up a character for Erick.