After graduating as class valedictorian, Blume attended Wabash College,[2] but left to become a tool and die making journeyman for his father's company for five years.
[1][3] Blume met Gary Gygax at the Gen Con game convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
[8]: 7 Shortly afterward, Blume received a blind mailing of the first issue of the monthly newsletter Owl and Weasel from Games Workshop, recently formed by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson.
[8]: 43 As various new rules and products for D&D were created, Blume provided material for The Rogues Gallery,[9] and co-authored the Dungeons & Dragons supplement Eldritch Wizardry with Gygax in 1976,[10] naming the character Vecna as an anagram of Jack Vance.
Blume and Gygax also co-authored the Boot Hill role-playing game as a tribute to Don Kaye, who had been a fan of Westerns.
[11][12] In addition, he co-edited (with Tom Wham, Timothy Jones, and Mike Carr) the first edition of Gamma World.
[8]: 14 On a more successful note, the Blumes moved into the book trade with popular series such as Endless Quest.
He appointed himself president and CEO, and in order to bring some financial stability to TSR, he hired a company manager, Lorraine Williams,[11] who dismissed the three outside directors.
Having sold all his company shares, Brian Blume stepped down from the board of directors and left TSR.
[19] Blume died on March 27, 2020, at the Lakeland Nursing Home in Elkhorn, Wisconsin from Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson's disease.