My name is Kevin Scrivner. Like several other posters here, I began role-playing circa 1979 with Megagaming's Melee and Wizard tactical board games. I avoided controversy with my parents over fantasy role-playing by playing Traveller and 3rd edition Champions, adapting to Justice, Inc., and Danger International when those Hero System games came out. The only other game I played with regularity was Steve Jackson's Toon, although the group I played with dabbled with TSR's Top Secret and FASA's Star Trek and Doctor Who games.
When shopping for Traveller material, I saw Runequest and Call of Cthulhu at my local game shop but never played. I might have been drawn to Superworld but Chaosium's lack of marketing skill came into play. Around 1983 I'd written Hero Games, the publishers of Villians & Vigilantes, and Chaosium saying I wanted to find a good superhero game and to tell me about theirs. Chaosium sent me a Superworld flier and a terse note, "Play whatever your friends play." Hero Games, on the other hand, sent me a friendly personal letter and a thick packet of promotional material about their products. My friends and I weren't playing any superhero game at that point, so guess whose system I chose? Since Hero System material is still being published and Superworld is dust, I suppose I made the right decision.
I published several short articles in Game Designer's Workshop's Challenge magazine, contributed to Iron Crown Enterprises' "Pirates!" campaign supplement, and wrote its Rolemaster 2.0 swashbuckling campaign book "At Sword's Point." I wanted to do a British colonial setting for them but the company was going through bankruptcy by then and couldn't pay authors. Much later, I worked on swashbuckling material for Gold Rush Games and Wild West material for Torchlight Games, both of whom also ran into financial difficulties before my stuff could get published (Torchlight suddenly vanished off the face of the earth and the web without notice).
I've been collecting free RPG systems from the web for the past two years, seeking an easy-to-play game to enjoy with my kids that won't freak out my wife. (She tolerates HeroClix and Monster Island but nixed Faery's Tale.) Recently, I stumbled across a mention of GORE at
RPGnet : Roleplaying Games & More and downloaded it from Goblinoid Games. The publisher of "Berlin '61" was seeking volunteers to help compile a GORE monster manual.
So here I am.