Poor Mike ;-)
Mike is one of the authors of Universalis. He is one of the indie crowd who liked HeroQuest. I suspect, but don't know, that Mike got wind of HeroQuest on the forge, where Ron Edwards championed Hero Wars and later HeroQuest as example of indie gaming, until it moved on from the technical definition of indie.
Mike wrote some smart articles (I think one or two are up on the Glorantha website) about how the storytelling engine in Hero Wars could best be used. Mike was not the only person who helped out with that of course, check out the excellent Well of Souls adventure by Chris and Peter for example, but he made an impact on this list, either because he was better at explaining story gaming than the rest of us, or just thicker skinned.
Mike also contributed to the MoLad site when a lot of the using HeroQuest for Storytelling game discussion moved away from the Forge.
You can still find Mike over at Story Games. He might even still be here.
Hero Wars and later HeroQuest emerged at a time when a lot of folks were trying to make storytelling games (games like Prince Valiant were very influential) like Sorceror. A lot of folks were figuring out how to use these games, and sites like the forge, despite some aspersions about the theory there, were good at exploring technique, through Actual Play (this post is not about the Forge, I realize it raises strong feelings, but seeing as it has even influenced the design of D&D 4e then its impact can't be denied. BTW Hero Wars went on to influence the later generations of storytelling game designers such as Clinton Nixon.
Hero Wars was perhaps a little too cutting edge or ahead of its time and so the wider audience struggled to understand it. Mike was one of the people that helped folks here to get how to play storytelling games. We should give him kudos for that, but he was not, by any means, the only one (and I am sure he would agree) to help folks with their issues.
Storytelling games such as HQ are still niche, certainly the market for indie games is in the hundreds and low thousands, not the sales of D&D or even RQ, but do seem to be gaining wider visibility. That's just one reason why discussing how to play is so valuable and why actual play is the best way to do that.
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