Early Gaming Career and 'Tunnels & Trolls'
The Roleplaying Years
Early Life and Education
Public Appearances and Recognition
Personal Interests and Hobbies
Main milestones
Contributions to 'GURPS' (Generic Universal RolePlaying System)
The Digital Frontier and Interactive Fiction
Graphic Novel Adaptations and Other Writing Ventures
Continued Artistic Pursuits
Elizabeth T. Danforth is an illustrator, editor, writer, and scenario designer for role-playing games and video games. She has worked in the game industry continuously since the mid 1970s.
She received her BA in Anthropology from Arizona State University,[1] and her MLS from the University of Arizona.[1]
Flying Buffalo hired Danforth as a staff artist and for production work in 1978, and published her magazine Sorcerer's Apprentice (1978–1983) for 17 issues.[2] While employed with Flying Buffalo, Danforth is noted for editing and developing the Fifth Edition of Flying Buffalo's flagship role playing game, Tunnels & Trolls.[3] She reprised this role in 2013 for the new edition, Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls.[4]
Danforth is known primarily as a freelance artist in the fantasy and science fiction genres, with the majority of her body of work illustrating for the game industry between 1976 and 2004. She has created book covers, maps, and illustrations for many of the significant game publishers including Wizards of the Coast, TSR, Inc,[5] Alderac Entertainment Group, FASA Corporation, Iron Crown Enterprises, GDW, and more. She produced over 50 pieces of art for the collectible card game Magic: the Gathering (produced by Wizards of the Coast) as well as an equal quantity of illustrative artwork for the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game, Legend of the Five Rings, and many others. Her maps and illustrations appear in novels and anthologies from Bantam Spectra, Tor Books, DAW Books, and St Martin's Press.
She has freelanced for the computer game industry, developing scenarios for Wasteland,[6] Wasteland 2,[7] and two licensed Star Trek computer games from Interplay.[8][9] She worked on Interplay's Meantime which was never released.[10] She was the lead developer for New World Computing's Tunnels & Trolls computer game,[11] and worked on projects with Electronic Arts.
At the 1995 Origins Awards, held in July 1996, Danforth was inducted into the Academy of Gaming Arts and Design's Hall of Fame.[12][13][14] The Academy is the creative arm of GAMA, the Game Manufacturer's Association. She is a lifetime member of ASFA, the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.[citation needed] In 2014, she was chosen by vote as a "famous game designer" to be featured as the king of hearts in Flying Buffalo's 2014 Famous Game Designers Playing Card Deck.[15][16]
Danforth has been guest of honor at numerous science fiction conventions over the past 30 years, including Cascadia Con, the North American Science Fiction Convention held in Seattle in 2005, and as Artist Guest of Honor at TusCon 52 in 2025.[17]
Other work includes:
Danforth continues to do art and illustration in a freelance capacity.
Danforth completed a master's degree in Information and Library Science (University of Arizona, 2008), and was one of a dozen hand-selected "gaming experts" who participated in the American Library Association's million-dollar grant-funded project to explore how gaming can be used to improve problem-solving and literacy skills, and to develop a model gaming "toolbox" for gaming in libraries. Ten libraries nationwide were selected to receive a onetime grant of $5,000 with funds used to expand on or add literacy-based gaming experiences at the library for youth ages 10–18.[21]
From May 2009 to December 2011, Danforth wrote the "Games, Gamers and Gaming" blog and column for Library Journal as an advocate and popularizer of games in libraries.[22] She speaks at professional and fan conferences, and at libraries on gaming-related topics. Based in Arizona, she continues to do freelance art and writing.
