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Game Designers' Workshop

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Wargame and roleplaying game publisher

Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

Jun 22, 1973Founded¹

Industryboard wargame¹
HeadquartersNormal¹
Founded inNormal¹

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Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers.²

The story

Game Designers' Workshop was originally established June 22, 1973. The founding members consisted of Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner, Marc Miller, and Loren Wiseman. GDW acquired the Conflict Games Company from John Hill in the early 1970s.

GDW published a new product approximately every twenty-two days for over twenty years. In an effort to bridge the gap between role players, board wargamers and miniature wargamers, the company published RPGs with fantastic settings alongside games with realistic themes including rulesets for 15mm and 20mm miniatures set during the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the modern era; and boardgames involving these eras such as the Air Superiority series and Harpoon.

The company disbanded February 29, 1996 after suffering financial troubles.

From Wikipedia’s article on Game Designers' Workshop, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Products and brands

Role-playing games

En Garde! (1975): Dueling game set in 17th-century France, often run as a play-by-mail game.

Traveller (1977): A science fiction game originally intended as a ruleset for generic space adventures. Revised and reissued as Megatraveller (1987) and with completely different rules and a greatly changed setting as Traveller: The New Era (1993)

Twilight: 2000 (1984): An alternate history game set in a Europe devastated by nuclear war, with adventures and supplements also dealing with the U.S. and Bangkok.

Traveller: 2300 (1987): A hard science fiction roleplaying game, set 300 years after the Twilight War featured in Twilight: 2000. Traveller: 2300 was later renamed to 2300 AD in (1988) with the release of the second edition.

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Space: 1889 (1988): Victorian-era spacefaring game which provided for roleplay opportunities, steampunk aerial gunboat engagements and "colonial" miniature warfare with retro-futuristic elements such as Martian brave warbands and odd space creatures.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (1990): Based on the underground comic book Xenozoic Tales.

Dark Conspiracy (1991): a near-future horror role-playing game (RPG), created by Lester Smith

Dangerous Journeys (1992): Roleplaying game created by Gary Gygax, the co-creator of the original Dungeons & Dragons system.

Miniatures rules

Fire & Steel (Napoleonic Wars, 1978)

Harpoon (modern naval combat), later developed into a computer game

Johnny Reb (American Civil War)

Striker (science fiction, 1983), another Traveller based game.

Command Decision (20th century warfare, World War II. 1st and 2nd editions; a 3rd edition was written by Frank Chadwick and published in 1998 by EHQ and Old Glory)

Combined Arms (Cold War, post-WWII)

TacForce (20th century warfare)

Over the Top (20th century, WWI)

Star Cruiser (23rd century space warfare) a 2300AD-based game

Sky Galleons of Mars (Space 1889 aerial warfare, boxed board game with miniatures)

Cloudships and Gunboats (Space 1889 aerial Warfare, boxed board game with miniatures)

Soldier's Companion (Space 1889 land, air and sea warfare)

Striker II (science fiction, 1994), Traveller: The New Era–based game.

Volley & Bayonet (big battles in black powder era, 1994)

Grenadier Magazine

The Grenadier was the house magazine from 1978 to 1990, with 35 issues. It started off as a quarterly magazine, but towards the end was published sporadically. Although it covered games from all companies, it gave most of the magazine space to GDW games.

Journal of the Travellers Aid Society

Journal of the Travellers Aid Society was a magazine dedicated to Traveller published by GDW between 1979 and 1985.

Challenge

Challenge was a role-playing game magazine that replaced Journal of the Travellers Aid Society. It covered all of GDW's role playing games, not just Traveller. It was published between 1986 and 1996.

Video games

The Battle of Chickamauga

Rommel: Battles for Tobruk