Dan Smith is an American illustrator and graphic artist known for his work for Wizards of the Coast, FASA, White Wolf, Steve Jackson Games, Iron Crown, Hasbro, Nintendo, and Namco.
While known primarily as an illustrator, Dan Smith is also a designer of family card games, including Battle of the Bands , Portable Adventures and King of Crime. [1]
Dan Smith has a variety of illustration styles ranging from kid friendly to teen edgy. His black-and-white work for GURPS became so prominent in the 1990s, he became the unofficial 'house artist'. One of his techniques was to photograph friends in poses as illustration models. This allows friends to flip through role-playing game books and see themselves on the pages dressed as wizards and secret agents.
Dan Smith, with fellow graphic designers Jeff Koke and Derek Pearcy, won the 1997 Origins Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement for the role-playing game In Nomine . [2] He also garnered a nomination for best traditional card game and supplement for his seminal Battle of the Bands and its sequel, Backstage Pass.
Richard Channing Garfield is an American mathematician, inventor and game designer. Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations.
West End Games (WEG) was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York City, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Its product lines included Star Wars, Paranoia, Torg, DC Universe, and Junta.
Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese visual artist, character designer, illustrator, a scenic designer for theatre and film, and a costume designer. He first came into prominence in the late 1960s working on the anime adaptation of Speed Racer. Amano later became the creator of iconic and influential characters such as Gatchaman, Tekkaman, Honeybee Hutch, and Casshern. In 1982 he went independent and became a freelance artist, finding success as an illustrator for numerous authors, and worked on best-selling novel series, such as The Guin Saga and Vampire Hunter D. He is also known for his commissioned illustrations for the popular video game franchise Final Fantasy.
Deadlands is a genre-mixing alternate history role-playing game which combines the Western and horror genres, with some steampunk elements. The original game was written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1996.
Jeff Grubb is an author of novels, short stories, and comics, as well as a computer and role-playing game designer in the fantasy genre. Grubb worked on the Dragonlance campaign setting under Tracy Hickman, and the Forgotten Realms setting with Ed Greenwood. His written works include The Finder's Stone Trilogy, the Spelljammer and Jakandor campaign settings, and contributions to Dragonlance and the computer game Guild Wars Nightfall (2006).
Keith Baker is an American game designer and fantasy novel author. In addition to working with Wizards of the Coast on the creation of Eberron, he has also contributed material for Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing and Green Ronin Publishing. In 2014, Baker and Jennifer Ellis co-founded the indie tabletop game company Twogether Studios.
Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG) is an out-of-print collectible card game released by Iron Crown Enterprises in late 1995. It is the first CCG based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, with added content from ICE's Middle-earth Role Playing Game.
John Wick is an American role-playing game designer best known for his creative contributions to the tabletop role playing games Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea. He self-published Orkworld under the Wicked Press banner, and later co-founded the Wicked Dead Brewing Company with Jared Sorensen. His games under that company include Cat, Schauermärchen, Enemy Gods, and Thirty. He has won the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game and Best Collectible Card Game twice.
Peter D. Adkison is an American game designer and businessman who is the founder of Wizards of the Coast, where he held the role of CEO from 1993 to 2001.
Tony M. DiTerlizzi is an American fantasy artist, children's book creator, and motion picture producer.
Rob Heinsoo is an American tabletop game designer. He has been designing and contributing to professional role-playing games, card games, and board games since 1994. Heinsoo was the lead designer on the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (2008), and is co-designer of the 13th Age roleplaying game along with Jonathan Tweet. He has also designed and contributed to role playing, miniatures and card games, and a computer game.
Kenneth Hite is a writer and role-playing game designer. Hite is the author of Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents role-playing games, and lead designer of the 5th edition of Vampire: the Masquerade.
James Paul Roslof was an American artist who produced cover art and interior illustrations of fantasy role-playing games published by TSR, Inc. during the "golden age" of Dungeons & Dragons. As Art Director at TSR in the early 1980s, he was also responsible for hiring many of the young artists who would go on to careers in the fantasy role-playing industry.
Elizabeth T. Danforth is an illustrator, editor, writer, and scenario designer for role-playing games and video games. She has worked in the game industry continuously since the mid 1970s.
Jeff Miracola is an American fantasy artist, children's book artist, and illustrator.
James Wallis is a British designer and publisher of tabletop and role-playing games.
Jennell Allyn Jaquays was an American game designer, video game artist, and illustrator of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). Her notable works include the Dungeons & Dragons modules Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia for Judges Guild; the development and design of conversions on games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for Coleco's home arcade video game system; and more recent design work, including the Age of Empires series, Quake II, and Quake III Arena. One of her best known works as a fantasy artist is the cover illustration for TSR's Dragon Mountain adventure.
The Planescape Campaign Setting is a boxed set for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The set was designed by David "Zeb" Cook and published in 1994. It introduced the Planescape setting and was highly praised by White Wolf and Pyramid magazines.
Derek Pearcy is a game designer, writer, editor and graphic designer known for his work on role-playing games.