One of the Great Game Designers
That’s the other aspect of Erick’s genius, his enthusiasm and hunger for new ideas, and desire to stretch the boundaries of convention, is contagious. He can get you (certainly me) excited and going with an idea faster than anyone I know. To Erick, there are no limits or boundaries. “Why not” and “what if” and “how about” are essential parts of Erick’s vocabulary. If you float an idea or notion of any merit, he seizes it and starts to postulate on its premise and potential. “That’s cool, but what if . . .”
I cannot tell you how often Erick and I would feed on each other, throwing out ideas and building on suggestions and excitement until we both collapsed laughing and exhausted. Sometimes those idea sessions (often impromptu) went nowhere other than fun, playful mental exercises. Other times they’d lead to new perceptions, new realms of possibility, and published works or a personal epiphany.
Erick helped me fine-tune parts of the Palladium role-playing game universal game system way back when. Not at some office (heck, we were both working out of our homes), but at a laundromaton Michigan Avenue in southwest Detroit. I was second guessing myself and frustrated. Erick had to wash his clothes. So we met at a place near my house and chatted about character creation, the elements that made them fun, which attributes were necessary, were eight too many, etc., while waiting for his clothes to wash and folding his shirts. The people around us must have thought we were crazy. So did my ex-wife when Erick would “drop by for an hour” at 8:00 P.M. to talk about a new idea or something he read, and at midnight he and I would be still be going strong, excitedly talking about . . . god only knows till the wee hours of the morning. Awesome. By then we would have moved well beyond the original reason he stopped by. I love talking to Erick about anything and everything. From game and story ideas or new concepts, to the application of psychology or technology or theology, to personal thoughts, fears, dreams and aspirations.
– Kevin Siembieda – December 22, 2007
Publisher and owner of Palladium Books® Inc., game designer, writer, artist and lucky son of gun for having Erick Wujcik as one of my dearest friends for nearly 30 years. Your light will live on, Erick, in your published works and in the hearts and minds of the multitude of people whose souls you have touched and made better for it. Love ya.