Ken Rolston | |
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| 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]
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]
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 ]
| Year | Title | Type | Role(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 |
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.
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.
Stephen Herbert Perrin was an American game designer and technical writer/editor, best known for creating the tabletop role-playing game RuneQuest for Chaosium.
Francis Gregory Stafford was an American game designer, publisher, and practitioner of shamanism.
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.
Mongoose Publishing is a British manufacturer of role-playing games, miniatures, and card games, publishing material since 2001. Its licenses include products based on the science fiction properties Traveller, Judge Dredd, and Paranoia, as well as fantasy titles.
Bruce Nesmith is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. He was Creative Director at TSR, working on a variety of games including Dungeons & Dragons, and is a senior game designer at Bethesda Game Studios, where he has worked on AAA titles such as Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and was lead designer on Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Snakepipe Hollow is an adventure published by Chaosium in 1979 for the fantasy role-playing game RuneQuest, then revised and republished in various editions.
Troll Gods is a 1989 role-playing game supplement for RuneQuest published by Avalon Hill.
Elder Secrets of Glorantha is a 1989 role-playing game supplement for RuneQuest published by Avalon Hill.
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