Anne Vétillard (18 November 1963[1] – 1 April 2024) was a French role-playing game creator and translator.[2][3]
Biography
Born in 1963, Vétillard was part of the first generation of role-players and publications on French role-playing games.[4] She discovered one of the first role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons, in 1977, the year it was first published, when the game had yet to be published or marketed in France.[5] In 1986, she created the game Premières légendes : Légendes de la Table Ronde, a simplified version of Légendes [fr].[6][7] She also translated an expansion of the game Torg.[8] She contributed to the magazine Casus Belli, where she wrote as an expert on J. R. R. Tolkien[9] and live action role-playing games.[10] She published many games throughout her career and translated the likes of Bushido, Conspiracy X, and Fading Suns into French.[11]
Vétillard is best known for her works La Dame noire,[12]Premières Légendes: Légendes de la Table Ronde, and the latter's supplement, Accessoires pour la Table Ronde. She was best known in the French- and English-speaking worlds for her games.[13] She worked relentlessly to establish the role-playing game industry in France and was one of its first female personalities.[5] She was one of the world's first women to write role-playing games.[5] Her work on Tolkien focused on in-depth expansions of his ideas on Middle Earth while remaining true to Lord of the Rings canon.[14] Additionally, she covered life-size role-playing games for Casus Belli, including Soirées Enquêtes [fr] (sorts of murder mystery games) and paintball.[5]
^ abcdPirou, Julien (2020). La grande aventure du jeu de rôle : toute l'histoire, des origines à nos jours (in French). Paris: Ynnis. ISBN978-2-37697-165-8.
^Bourdin, Jean-Jacques (1996). Une analyse des jeux de rôles (in French). Paris: Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis. p. 48. Archived from the original on 29 May 2003.
