[UA] Re: [OT] Reference?

[Eric Brennan]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Stuart Anderson 
  To: ua at lists.uchicago.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 1:00 PM
  Subject: [UA] Re: [OT] Reference?


  Eric Brennan wrote: 
        I know it's my game, I bought it and all; but I get very nervous talking 
    to game designers about their game nowadays, full of fear that they'll pull 
    an Ellison on me.
  This is the second or third time I've seen a similar reference in game circles. Now, I have personally been attacked by Ellison at an appearance (I assume we're talking about Harlan) so I know he can be pretty harsh. But is there a game-specific reference, or is it just a case of gamers being sci-fi fans and Ellison being a legendary pit bull in the genre? I think I'm pretty hip sometimes, but I don't know any stories about Ellison designing or helping design a game and tearing new assholes when it didn't go his way. I know some Star Trek & Outer Limits stories, and stuff like that. But I'm out of the loop on this other, I guess. 


    Well, it was a reference to him as a writer, not a game designer.  The only sci fi writer I know of who ever did game design as a job was Walter Jon Williams.  (Pirates and Privateers, Hardwired Sourcebook, etc.)  John J. Miller of Wildcards also wrote the sourcebook of the same name for GURPS.
    These days, in the RPG business, I'm sure you could call it "pulling a Wick" or something, but I saw somebody make that reference around a freelancer for a certain company and it blew up like the Godfather, to quote Chris Rock.  (The freelancer resented the comparison apparently.)    Ellison seemed a much more neutral name to invoke.

--Eric, thinking about the Iconomancy uses of Harlan Ellison.

"Hippies...they want to save the Earth, but all they do is look funny and smell bad."
--E. Cartman, South Park.


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