I'm talking about actual people, individuals who design TTRPGs.
A comment in another thread made me realize that I don't know a lot of the current crop of designers by name, and I would like to remedy that.
To that end: tell me about a modern, current designer doing interesting work in TTRPGs and what that work looks like, where to get it, and what's interesting about it.
I am NOT interested in hearing about your favorite designers from a bygone era unless they are actually doing something new and interesting today.
Thanks.
My favorites are both still working...
John Wick. He's got some really odd conceptual games... the oddest being
Blood & Honor and it's older sibling,
Houses of the Blooded. John's also an industry veteran... he's the guy who created Legend of the Five Rings and Seventh Sea. And second edition 7th Sea...
Houses and B&H have a particularly interesting difference from most games: Risks (≈ mechanical resolutions) do not determine success or failure, but instead who chooses success or failure, and who all gets to
Yes, and..., or
Yes, but... that success, and in which order.
Marc W. Miller. He's not working fast, but the new setting for T5 (Millieux 1900) will be a VERY different experience from any prior Traveller setting, largely in part because the TL is higher and longer ranged drives minimalize secondary worlds tradeflows and importance. Plus it incorporates a lot more interesting ideas technologically - personality chips, skill chips, cybernetics in a non-Cyberpunk way... I've gotten to see a lot of it in rough draft form, and helped in small ways. He also was part of the team for Twilight 2000 4th ed.
The next tier...
Luke Crane and Thor Olavsruud... the bent minds behind Burning Wheel and Torchbearer. They seem to work as a team; most of their stuff has both names in the credits. They've done a bunch of smaller things, some of which are not commercially available, such as their aliens hack. Thor wrote a strange little game about rap battles in NYC, using double-6 dominoes as the randomizer... Luke's been "manager" of a Roller derby team, too. I'm not certain I'd enjoy playing at their tables...
Tomas Härenstam — of Fria Ligan AB, in english, dba Free League — Who seems to be lead on most of the Year Zero Engine games. And still takes time to answer questions on the forums. I like YZE. Mostly. He's interesting for the ever widening scope of mechanics for YZE... and for trying to be a good custodian of licensed works.
Mike Pondsmith — of R. Talsorian Games — who worked in videogames thanks to being a TT RPG designer, then returned recently to do CyberPunk Red. I can't speak personally to Red's quality, as I couldn't justify buying a game THAT expensive and that unlikely to get played. Friends have said it's the best edition. This includes the friend who thinks Cybergen was, until he got Red, the best CP game ever. Mike has implied in the past that he had initial difficulties with being ignored by gaming companies, possibly because he was Black. He persevered, and got funding somehow, and has been the man behind the clearest subset of the Cyberpunk genre expressed as a series of games. It's also been a mission of his from the early days to ensure that not all humans in his games were vaguely pinkish-tan... TFOS has a clear multi-ethnic cover. Castle Falkenstein has a multi-ethnic cover on several books. And Mekton Empires has some of the more interesting playable species (it's a setting for Mekton II, but useable with Zeta with minor tweaks). I was a fan of his games a decade before I found out he was of African descent... but knowing that he was sought out by Microsoft... he's an important fish... and not going away.
Katrina Ostrander — formerly of FFG, moved up to Asmodee...
About Me – KatrinaOstrander.com
She's a class act in her dealings with fans, and does great stuff. But now she's management... hopefully not only management... She was line lead for a while on L5R 5th edition, aka FFG L5R or NDS L5R.
Monica Valentinelli - formerly of Margaret Weiss Productions. Lead on several Cortex Plus games. was very responsive to fans during the firefly run... last seen working for Modiphius ...
About Monica Valentinelli | Professional Writer & Game Designer | www.booksofm.com
The old Crew of Flying Buffalo — Ken St. Andre, Liz Danforth, Bear Peters, Steve Crompton. T&T, one of the 1st generation of new mechanics, in 1975... was Ken and Bear, with Steve and Liz. T&T currently owned by Rebellion, but they let Ken keep the rights to Monsters! Monsters!, which is mechanically still T&T.... That foursome are still working on M!M! new products. One of the oldest design teams still kicking, and still producing new material. On a regular basis. More amusingly, Ken and Liz worked for the public libraries.... Rick is sadly missed, and I don't know if Mike Stackpole is writing new game material, but he still is writing. He wrote the T&T spinoff
Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes. He later went on to do a bunch of Battletech stuff. Ken just released a new Solo last week...
And you asked for interesting...
which leads to the most controversial and potentially toxic list:
Zac Smith, Mandy Morbid, Adam Koebel.
While I cannot and will not endorse their bad behaviors, nor even repeat the allegations, they've done interesting work and have been spectacularly interesting in the same way a train crash is in their public presence.
