Sandy Petersen

Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen in May 2004
Born	Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen (1955-09-16) September 16, 1955 (age 61) St. Louis, Missouri
Occupation	Game designer

Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer.

Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology.

He is a well-known fan of H. P. Lovecraft, whose work he first encountered in a World War II Armed Services Edition of The Dunwich Horror and other Weird Tales found in his father's library. In 1974, Dungeons & Dragons brought his interest to role-playing games. He became a full-time staff member at Chaosium. His interest for role-playing games and H. P. Lovecraft were fused when he became principal author of Chaosium's game Call of Cthulhu, published 1981, and many scenarios and background pieces thereafter. While working for Chaosium he co-authored the third edition of RuneQuest, for which he also co-wrote the critically acclaimed Trollpak and a number of other Gloranthan supplements.

He authored several critically acclaimed RuneQuest supplements for Avalon Hill and Games Workshop. Petersen served as co-designer for West End Games's Ghostbusters roleplaying game. He still plays and runs role-playing games, and is a frequent guest at conventions where he usually runs a freeform game of his own devising, and/or helps to run someone else's game.

He worked some time for MicroProse, where he is credited for work on Sid Meier's Pirates! and Sword of the Samurai. Between 1989 and 1992 he also worked on the video games Darklands, Hyperspeed, and Lightspeed. He also made some contributions to Civilization.