Darwin Paul Bromley (October 23, 1950 – January 2, 2019) was an attorney and a

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

who had worked primarily on

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

Career

Darwin Bromley was an attorney who enjoyed railroad games, so he started the company

Mayfair Games Mayfair Games was an American publisher of board game, board, card game, card, and roleplaying games that also licensed German-style board game, Euro-style board games to publish them in English. The company licensed worldwide English-language pub ...

in 1980 to publish a railroad game that he designed; he named the company after the Mayfair neighborhood of Chicago where he founded it. Bromley made Bill Fawcett a partner in Mayfair Games soon after, and they worked together to design the game ''

Empire Builder The ''Empire Builder'' is a daily long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland via two sections west of Spokane. Introduced in 1929, it was the flagship passenger train of the Great North ...

'' (1980). Bromley was involved with the Chicago Wargaming Association and its CWAcon convention, where the first ''

Role Aids ''Role Aids'' is a line of role-playing game supplements published by Mayfair Games starting in 1982 intended for use with ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons''. Publication history As a veteran role-playing gamer, Bill Fawcett (writer), Bill Fawcett de ...

'' fantasy adventures by Mayfair were run: '' Beastmaker Mountain'' (1982), '' Nanorien Stones'' (1982) and '' Fez I'' (1982). Bromley used his legal expertise to determine that Mayfair could legally use the trademarks of TSR if done carefully, so beginning with their '' Dwarves'' (1982) supplement Mayfair stated clearly that they did not hold the trademark by adding a notification on the cover: "''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' is a trademark of TSR Hobbies, Inc. Use of the trademark NOT sanctioned by the holder." Bromley had an interest in German board games, and initially imported original games from Germany for sale in the United States. Bromley met

Jay Tummelson Jay Tummelson is the founder of Rio Grande Games. Career Jay Tummelson was the top-ranked RPGA Judge, when Don Bingle and Linda Bingle brought him on as a third owner of their company 54°40' Orphyte after they purchased the product rights for P ...

of 54°40' Orphyte and they discussed the idea of their companies working together. Tummelson joined Mayfair Games in 1995, and for the next two years was involved with licensing German games under the direction of Bromley for the company to produce American versions; under Tummelson in 1996 alone, German games such as ''Grand Prix'', ''

Modern Art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

'', ''

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

'', ''Streetcar'', and ''

The Settlers of Catan ''Catan'', previously known as ''The Settlers of Catan'' or simply ''Settlers'', is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as ''Die Siedler von Catan'' (). ...

'' were finally published in the United States. Bromley was the conceptual designer of '' Sim City: The Card Game''. Darwin Bromley2

In 2018, Bromley made a donation, on behalf of himself and his late brother Peter, to

The Strong National Museum of Play The Strong National Museum of Play (also known as just The Strong Museum or simply the Strong) is part of The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1969 and initially based on the personal collection of Rochester native Ma ...

. It was the single largest donation in the history of the museum. He served as vice president of the GAMA Trade Show, and in 1990 he received the GAMA Merit of Service award. He died on January 2, 2019, at the age of 68 following a long illness.

References

External links

Darwin Bromley :: Pen & Paper RPG Databasearchive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bromley, Darwin 1950 births 2019 deaths American board game designers Lawyers from Huntington, West Virginia