Ken Rolston

Last updated
Ken Rolston
Ken Rolston 1992.jpeg
Occupation(s) Computer game and pen and paper role-playing game designer

Ken Rolston is an American computer game and role-playing game designer best known for his work with West End Games and on the computer game series The Elder Scrolls . In February 2007, he elected to join the staff of computer games company Big Huge Games to create a new role-playing game. [1]

Contents

Tabletop role-playing games

Ken Rolston began working as a professional games designer in 1982. Rolston spent twelve years as an award-winning designer of tabletop role-playing games. His credits include games and supplements for Paranoia , RuneQuest , Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay , Advanced Dungeons & Dragons , and Dungeons & Dragons . [1] [2] [3] [4]

Ken Rolston worked as a writer on Basic Role-Playing for Chaosium. [5] :187 Rolston also worked on the Stormbringer and Superworld lines for Chaosium. [6] Rolston joined the Paranoia team as its fourth creator soon after he was hired at West End Games in 1983, and he was responsible for adding atmosphere to the rules written by Greg Costikyan, the results of which were published at GenCon in 1984. [7] Rolston wrote a complete manuscript for a magic system for Games Workshop to use in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay , but they rejected it; the manuscript by Rolston spent years circulating on the internet instead. [8] Rolston left West End Games when Scott Palter decided to move the company from New York to rural Honesdale, Pennsylvania in 1988. [9] Chaosium stopped producing material for RuneQuest through Avalon Hill in 1989, but they returned to RuneQuest in 1992 with Rolston as editor. [10] Rolston started the "RuneQuest Renaissance" with his first publication in the line being Sun County (1992) from Tales of the Reaching Moon contributor Michael O'Brien . [6] Avalon Hill dropped Rolston as a staff member in 1994, keeping him on as a freelancer; his last two books Strangers in Prax and Lords of Terror were published that year, and he went on afterwards to work at a multimedia company. [6]

Rolston also was winner of the H. G. Wells Award for Best Role-playing Game, Paranoia, 1985, [11] and served as role-playing director for West End Games, Games Workshop, and Avalon Hill Game Company.

In 2016, Rolston joined Mongoose Games to assist in editing their newest edition of Paranoia, which was Kickstarted in 2014, in order to "hit all the right notes for both veteran players and newbies alike." [12]

Video game industry

Rolston was the lead designer for Bethesda's role-playing game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind , its expansions and was also lead designer for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion . He was lead designer for two Big Huge Games projects, both of which were canceled in 2009. [13]

Rolston went on to be the lead creative visionary for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning , a single player RPG designed by Big Huge Games, a Baltimore subsidiary of 38 Studios.[ citation needed ]

Selected works

YearTitleTypeRole(s)
1987 Paranoia , 2nd edition Tabletop role-playing game Writer
1989 Something Rotten in Kislev for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
1991 Extreme Paranoia: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot Novel
1997 An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire Video game Design and Dialogue
1998 The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard Additional Writing
2000 Sea Dogs Additional design and writing
2002 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Lead designer
2003 Pirates of the Caribbean Additional design and writing
2006 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Lead designer
2012 Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Executive design director
2017 The Long Dark Designer-in-residence

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaosium</span> Game publisher

Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include Call of Cthulhu, based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft, RuneQuest Glorantha, Pendragon, based on Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and 7th Sea, "swashbuckling and sorcery" set in a fantasy 17th century Europe.

<i>RuneQuest</i> Fantasy tabletop role-playing game

RuneQuest is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James, and set in Greg Stafford's mythical world of Glorantha. It was first published in 1978 by The Chaosium. Beginning in 1984, publication passed between a number of companies, including Avalon Hill, Mongoose Publishing, and The Design Mechanism, before finally returning to Chaosium in 2016. RuneQuest is notable for its system, designed around percentile dice and an early implementation of skill rules, which became the basis for numerous other games. There have been several editions of the game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Perrin</span> American game designer (1946–2021)

Stephen Herbert Perrin was an American game designer and technical writer/editor, best known for creating the tabletop role-playing game RuneQuest for Chaosium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Stafford (game designer)</span> American game designer (1948–2018)

Francis Gregory Stafford was an American game designer, publisher, and practitioner of shamanism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Laws</span> Canadian writer and game designer (born 1964)

Robin D. Laws is a Canadian writer and game designer who lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of a number of novels and role-playing games as well as an anthologist.

Magic systems in games are the rules, limitations, abilities, and characteristics that define magic in a game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert J. Schwalb</span> American game designer

Robert J. Schwalb is a writer in the role-playing game industry, and has worked as a game designer and developer for such games as Dungeons & Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Shadow Of The Demon Lord, and many other RPG supplements.

Eric Goldberg is an American game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Michael O'Brien is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Lawrence Whitaker is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Pete Nash is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

<i>Griffin Island</i> (RuneQuest) Fantasy tabletop role-playing game supplement

Griffin Island is a boxed supplement for the fantasy role-playing game RuneQuest. Originally published by Chaosium in 1981 as Griffin Mountain, a set of adventures set in the world of Glorantha, this edition was published in 1986 by The Avalon Hill Game Company as part of its third edition RuneQuest rules set, and had all references to Glorantha removed. In addition to an adventure campaign, Griffin Island contained role-playing material to help gamemasters design adventures in the setting. It received several positive reviews in game periodicals of the day.

<i>The Enemy Within</i> (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) Role-playing game supplement

The Enemy Within is a supplement published by Games Workshop in 1986 for the fantasy role-playing game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as the introduction to the 6-part The Enemy Within Campaign.

<i>Shadows Over Bögenhafen</i> Fantasy role-playing game supplement

Shadows Over Bögenhafen is a supplement published by Games Workshop in 1987 as the second installment of The Enemy Within Campaign created for the fantasy role-playing game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

<i>Dorastor: Land of Doom</i> Fantasy tabletop role-playing game supplement

Dorastor: Land of Doom is a 1993 tabletop role-playing game supplement, written by Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen, and Ken Rolston, with a cover by Linda Michaels for RuneQuest, and published by Avalon Hill.

<i>Gods of Glorantha</i> Fantasy tabletop role-playing game supplement

Gods of Glorantha, subtitled "60 Religions for RuneQuest", is a boxed supplement published under license by Avalon Hill in 1985 for Chaosium's fantasy role-playing game RuneQuest. The fifth of their boxed supplements for RuneQuest, it provides information and game rules related to sixty fictional cults, and was the first to feature the world of Glorantha instead of the default setting of "Dark Ages of fantasy Europe". The supplement was designed by Chaosium staff writers Sandy Petersen, Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin and Charlie Krank. It received positive reviews in game periodicals including Casus Belli, Different Worlds, Dragon, and The Games Machine.

<i>Snakepipe Hollow</i> Tabletop fantasy role-playing game supplement

Snakepipe Hollow is an adventure published by Chaosium in 1979 for the fantasy role-playing game RuneQuest, then revised and republished in various editions.

<i>Troll Gods</i> Tabletop fantasy role-playing game supplement

Troll Gods is a 1989 role-playing game supplement for RuneQuest published by Avalon Hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elder Secrets of Glorantha</span> Tabletop fantasy role-playing game supplement

Elder Secrets of Glorantha is a 1989 role-playing game supplement for RuneQuest published by Avalon Hill.

References

  1. 1 2 "Veteran Designer Ken Rolston Joins BHG". Archived from the original on February 22, 2007.: February 13, 2007, press release
  2. "RPG Legend Ken Rolston Retires". Joystiq. Retrieved May 13, 2009.
  3. "Oblivion's Ken Rolston Speaks". H Consumer. Archived from the original on February 1, 2009. Retrieved May 13, 2009.
  4. "Masters of Narrative Design 6: Ken Rolston". narrativedesign.org. Archived from the original on February 17, 2009. Retrieved May 13, 2009.
  5. Appelcline, Shannon (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.
  6. 1 2 3 Appelcline 2011, p. 179.
  7. Appelcline 2011, p. 187.
  8. Appelcline 2011, p. 49.
  9. Appelcline 2011, p. 191.
  10. Appelcline 2011, p. 91.
  11. "THQ Signs Oblivion Designer for a 'Big Huge' RPG". Gamedaily. Retrieved May 13, 2009.
  12. "Update 43: Design/Development Diary · Paranoia RPG".
  13. "What Were Big Huge Games Working On (And Have They Found A Buyer)?". April 9, 2009.: Status update