Larry DiTillio

Lawrence G. DiTillio (February 15, 1948 – March 16, 2019) was an American film, TV series, and tabletop role-playing game writer. His creations include He-Man and She-Ra, and the award winning Masks of Nyarlathotep for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG. Not only did this adventure expand the number of players prepared to try that role-playing game, and in the process help to popularise Nyarlathotep and the broader Cthulhu Mythos, it also established a pattern for how the expanded Mythos would be handled for many game designers and writers for decades to come.
Larry DiTillio attended film school at New York University and UCLA. After graduating, DiTillio attempted to make a career as a Hollywood screenwriter. DiTillio wrote for both television and movies in the 1970s before becoming a staff writer for the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series and over its two seasons, wrote 17 episodes, more than anyone else. He also directed one episode. He had crucial input into character development. During a writers' strike, DiTillio was forced to find other paid writing work outside Hollywood. Settling on game design, he wrote The Isle of Darksmoke (1984) for the Tunnels & Trolls RPG. Most famously, DiTillio collaborated with Lynn Willis to create Masks of Nyarlathotep (1984), a world-spanning campaign for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu. It won an Origins Award, and is considered one of the best roleplaying adventures of all time. For a few months, DiTillio was also a contributor to Chaosium's Different Worlds magazine, writing about news from the world of film and television in his "The Sword of Hollywood" column. He wrote numerous other Chaosium works including the Call of Cthulhu supplement Terror Australis.
Despite his success in the role-playing games industry, once the screenwriters' strike ended, DiTillio went back to screenwriting.
More recently, DiTillio tried his hand at short fiction, releasing at least one Cthulhu Mythos story, and two set in the Babylon 5 universe created by J. Michael Straczynski.
==Selected Bibliography==
===Short Fiction===
*"Welcome to Cthulhuville" (2012)
===Gaming Supplements===
*Masks of Nyarlathotep (1984, with Lynn Willis)
*Terror Australis (1987, with Penelope Love, Mark Morrison, Lynn Willis, and Sandy Petersen)
==External Links==
*Larry DiTillio at Wikipedia
*Larry DiTillio at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Category:Deceased (Real World)
Category:Traditional Games Designers