Editing Michael A. Stackpole (section)

==Game design career==
Michael Stackpole was hired full-time at [[Flying Buffalo]] after they accepted his submission for a solo ''[[Tunnels & Trolls]]'' adventure which was published in 1978 as ''[[City of Terrors]]''.<ref name="designers">{{Cite book|author=Shannon Appelcline|title=Designers & Dragons|publisher=Mongoose Publishing|year=2011| isbn= 978-1-907702-58-7}}</ref>{{rp|36}} He wrote columns on industry news and reviews for Flying Buffalo's magazine ''Sorcerer's Apprentice''.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|36}} Stackpole worked for [[Coleco]] from 1980 to 1981 after [[Rick Loomis]], Stackpole, and the president of Coleco met at a gaming and pinball convention.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|36}} Stackpole designed the roleplaying game ''[[Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes]]'', which Flying Buffalo published in 1983.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|38}} Stackpole left Flying Buffalo after the company's 1985 move to [[Scottsdale, Arizona]].<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|39}} Stackpole, [[Ken St. Andre]], and [[Liz Danforth]] designed the computer roleplaying game ''[[Wasteland (video game)|Wasteland]]'', published by [[Interplay Entertainment|Interplay]] in 1988.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|39}} He later returned to work with his fellow creators of Wasteland as a writer on its sequel ''[[Wasteland 2]]'', released in 2014 by [[inXile Entertainment]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Wasteland 2|work=[[Internet Movie Database]]|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321641/fullcredits}}</ref>

In response to the accusations of [[Patricia Pulling]] (among others) who felt that the "[[occult]]" elements of ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' were driving people to suicide, Stackpole began to defend the game and the roleplaying game community.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|22}} Stackpole published one of his first articles about the role-playing games misinformation from the media in ''Sorcerer's Apprentice'' #14 (Spring 1982) as an article titled "Devil Games? Nonsense!",<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|38}} and even debated the Western Regional Director of Pulling's BADD organization on a radio program broadcast on July 14, 1987.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|22}} He compared BADD's statistics of suicides among role-playing gamers to the rate of general teen suicide and found the percentage of roleplayers committing suicide was actually lower than those who were not gamers, and published his argument in an article called "The Truth about Role-Playing Games" in the 1989 book ''Satanism in America''; he also published the document "The Pulling Report" in 1990, which further discredited Pulling's stand against roleplaying games.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|22}}

In the 1980s, Stackpole began designing computer games for [[Coleco]] and then [[Interplay Productions]].  His work at Interplay included ''[[Bard's Tale III]]'', ''[[Wasteland (video game)|Wasteland]]'', ''[[Neuromancer (video game)|Neuromancer]]'', ''[[Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (computer game)|Star Trek: 25th Anniversary]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: Judgment Rites]]''.  He also created the role-playing game ''[[Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes]]'', which provided the game mechanics for ''Wasteland'', and wrote several [[gamebook|solo adventures]] for the [[Tunnels & Trolls]] role-playing system, including "[[Dargon's Dungeon]]", "[[Overkill (Flying Buffalo)|Overkill]]", "[[City of Terrors]]" and "[[Sewers of Oblivion]]".

Stackpole loaned his image to [[Decipher, Inc.|Decipher]] for the image of Corran Horn used in their ''[[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]'' expansion "Reflections 2".  [[Timothy Zahn]] did likewise for the character [[Talon Karrde]]. Stackpole teamed up with Decipher again, helping them write the background story to their ''[[WARS TCG]]'', including [[e-books]] and other writing tie-ins for the [[expanded universe]].

In January, 2019 Stackpole resigned from the Board of Directors of GAMA (Game Manufacturer's Association), citing its inactivity and the poor handling of an incident involving GAMA President Stephen Brissaud.<ref>[https://techraptor.net/content/michael-stackpole-resigns-gama '''Tech Raptor''' - ''Michael A. Stackpole Resigns from GAMA, Slams Board of Directors'']</ref> He was one of the few remaining Emeritus Directors (alongside [[Rick Loomis]] and Will Niebling).