David A. Hargrave

American role playing game designer

David Allen Hargrave (May 25, 1946 – August 29, 1988), known as The Dream Weaver, was a prolific and sometimes controversial American game designer and writer of fantasy and science fiction role playing games (RPGs). Hargrave's most notable written works were based upon his own mythical world of Arduin.

Hargrave served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War for six years, serving from August 28, 1964, through August 20, 1970. While in Vietnam, Hargrave regularly served as a combat photographer, often in the line of fire.

From the mid 1970s through 1988 Hargrave was very active in the role playing community. He authored ten books based upon his Arduin game world. Hargrave also produced four Arduin Dungeon Modules and several fantasy item collections, which were published by Grimoire Games. Hargrave originally submitted his Arduin Grimoire to Greg Stafford's publishing house Chaosium, in 1977, but Stafford rejected it as too derivative of Dungeons & Dragons. Hargrave wound up self publishing Arduin before having it published over the years at small press companies: The aforementioned Grimoire Games, then later Dragon Tree Press, and finally Emperors Choice Games.

Hargrave's work was perhaps the first "cross genre" venture into fantasy RPG, and it included everything from interstellar wars to horror and historical drama. His work was, however, based principally upon the medieval fantasy genre. Arduin was in fact one of the earliest challengers to TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, and a leading representative of the high entropy, multiversal campaigns then prevalent in RPG circles of the era.

While Hargrave was considered one of the best Gamemasters, he was also known for having a somewhat volatile personality. The original role playing community at large was split between love and mere tolerance of Hargrave's passions (his falling out with Greg Stafford, which resulted in Hargrave naming a spell after him as revenge, is one such example.)

Hargrave also frequently contributed to various magazines such as Different Worlds, Alarums and Excursions, and Abyss. As a game designer, he authored various Call of Cthulhu adventures for Chaosium, Inc., and was an integral part of the design team for the sci fi game Star Rovers, among others.

Around 1979, Hargrave operated a game store in Concord, California, called Multiversal Trading Company.

For years, Hargrave had suffered a heart disability with diabetic complications. He died in his sleep August 29, 1988. He was survived by his wife, Brigitte Hargrave.