"Wild Cards" began as a two-year-long campaign of the "Superworld" role-playing game, gifted to George R. R. Martin by Victor Milan, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; the players were science fiction writers, including Gail Gerstner-Miller, Milan, John J. Miller, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and Walter Jon Williams, and Martin served as gamemaster. Because of the amount of time and creative energy put into the campaign, Martin initially thought to write a novel on his character, Turtle. However, he realized this would have "rescued one character from "SuperWorld" campaign, but would have meant discarding all the rest". Since the game had been built by a group, he felt it should be a shared universe anthology, which were popular at the time. Martin invited other writers he believed would be interested in the universe, including Roger Zelazny, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, Howard Waldrop, Edward Bryant, and Stephen Leigh.