Scott ”Grimmond” Steinmetz
1962-2019
On friday 21st of June we received the word of the untimely passing of a great gamemaster, roleplayer and a friend, Scott at the age of 57 years. Though I had never met the man in real life, I had met him through RPOL almost five years ago, when I requested to join his splendid naval history game, set in the French revolution era Royal Navy. To my great joy, he accepted me as a player and in time I ended up playing in several of his games as well as he in several of mine. In time we got to talking and I learned to appreciate him as a roleplayer, gamemaster and a friend.
Scott was a former U.S.Navy man and a Civil Engineer, who got his 15 minutes of fame in the late 1990ies when the Melissa Virus began to circulate the net and the perpetrator had stolen Scott’s identity to set it in motion. He was also an aviator and a pyrotechnician. We shared a special interest in naval history and he researched things in great detail for his game, which left his players awestruck on more than one occasion.
Some years back Scott informed his players, he was having health problems. In time he specified them to be cancer that made him undergo several operations, but he fought it gallantly and forged on. Despite being in dialysis, Scott never faltered from playing and often wrote the day after surgery, when he was hospitalized. Surviving, to my knowledge, at least two different cancers and fighting the second occurrence of the first one however begun to take its toll and it was finally Scott’s heart that brought down the very much loved gamemaster. Having returned home from yet another dialysis, Scott had had dinner and then suffered a heart attack that ended the era of a great gamemaster. He was laid to rest on last sunday, 30th of June.
To my friend, fellow player and gamemaster, in the old Royal Navy traditions, the toast of sunday: To Absent Friends! You will not be forgotten and your legacy will be carried on. Fair winds and smooth sailing!
I also invite those who knew Scott to write below their farewells, if possible.
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