Jeff Dee | |
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![]() Jeff Dee on The Atheist Experience television series, January 4, 2009 | |
Born | United States |
Known for | Fantasy art, illustration |
Jeff Dee is an American artist and game designer. He was the youngest artist in the history of pioneering role-playing game company TSR when he began his work at the age of 18. He also designed the Villains and Vigilantes superhero game. He was a co-host on The Atheist Experience and Non-Prophets atheism advocacy podcasts. [1]
In the late 1970s, while Dee was still a teenager, he and Jack Herman created Villains and Vigilantes , the first complete superhero role-playing game. [2] The game was published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1979. [3] : 73 Dee and Herman persuaded Scott Bizar to produce a second edition, which was published in 1982. [3] : 75 Dee came up with the idea of creating a role-playing game based on cartoons when he, Greg Costikyan, and other designers were discussing which genres had no role-playing game systems yet; although they agreed that it would be impossible for such a game to be designed, a few years later Costikyan designed Toon as a full game with the assistance of Warren Spector. [3] : 104
Dee was the youngest artist in TSR history when he began working for them at the age of 18. [4] In 1997, with his partner 'Manda, Dee founded UNIgames, a publisher of role-playing, board, and computer games.[ citation needed ] Dee designed a new superhero role-playing game originally titled Advanced Villains and Vigilantes, which was ultimately published as Living Legends in 2005. [3] : 77 In 2009, he co-founded Nemesis Games, developers of an MMO named Gargantua. [5]
Dee has long been an advocate for the role-playing game industry. [6]
In addition to his artistic and game-related work, Dee is an outspoken atheist and transhumanist. [7] He has been the host of a bi-weekly Internet podcast called The Non-Prophets and a former host of a live, weekly, public-access television program, The Atheist Experience . [8]