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Matthew J. Finch is a writer, game designer, and artist.
Matthew J. Finch was born Sugarland, Texas, in November 15, 1967. He played Dungeon and Dragons, when he was young, which nurtured his love for games, which helped him create Swords & Wizardry later in life. Matthew did well in High school, and was accepted to Harvard and later Cambridge as well.
Matthew J. Finch went to Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center to pursue become a practicing attorney. [1]
Matthew Finch is a role-playing game designer who is associated with the Old School Renaissance movement. [2]
Finch wrote the Swords and Wizardry Complete Rulebook, OSRIC and others, and he also founded Mythmere Games. Swords & Wizardry was developed by Mythmere Games, S&W is a Dungeons & Dragons retro-clone, meaning the game was based on D&D. He has a YouTube "Matt Finch RPG Studio" where he talks about and plays retro games like OSR, D&D and others. Since 2008 Finch has been active on his blog, Uncle Matt's Blog, where he writes about OSR, D&D and S&W.
Matt is an involved member of the community, given he still writes for and makes content for his game Swords & Wizardry. He is featured in many Gaming publications, He was featured on The Save or Die Podcast! to discuss OSR, and his kickstarter, for the Swords and Wizardry Complete box set which reached 50,000$ before the first 24 hours. Matt now lives in Central Texas with his family,he is an active Marathon Runner, and Smoke Jumper.
Matt Finch is a founding partner of Frog God Games, he is also the Creative Director for Frog God Games. [3]
A 2023 PhD thesis by Scott Michael Bruner notes that Finch "argues that the contingent outcomes of actions in early TRPGs, such as D&D, are resolved through an uncertain dialog (between DM, players, and rules), rather than through a set of static rules" and that "Finch implies that modern TRPGs concede more authorial responsibility to their rules rather than through dialog during play. This may be true to make the modern TRPG more accessible to contemporary audiences used to videogames (with bounded mechanics) rather than the flexibility of classic wargames. There are many modern TRPGs which complicate Finch's generalization." [2]
The Monster Manual is the primary bestiary sourcebook for monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, first published in 1977 by TSR. The Monster Manual was the first hardcover D&D book and includes monsters derived from mythology and folklore, as well as creatures created specifically for D&D. Creature descriptions include game-specific statistics, a brief description of its habits and habitats, and typically an image of the creature. Along with the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, the Monster Manual is one of the three "core rulebooks" in most editions of the D&D game. As such, new editions of the Monster Manual have been released for each edition of D&D. Due to the level of detail and illustration included in the 1977 release, the book was cited as a pivotal example of a new style of wargame books. Future editions would draw on various sources and act as a compendium of published monsters.
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.
An owlbear is a fictional creature originally created for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. An owlbear is depicted as a cross between a bear and an owl, which "hugs" like a bear and attacks with its beak. Inspired by a plastic toy made in Hong Kong, Gary Gygax created the owlbear and introduced the creature to the game in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement; the creature has since appeared in every subsequent edition of the game. Owlbears, or similar beasts, also appear in several other fantasy role-playing games, video games and other media.
Atlantis is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) originally published by Bard Games, set in the ancient world before Atlantis sank. It first consisted of three books: The Arcanum, The Lexicon, and The Bestiary, and for this reason was originally called The Atlantean Trilogy or The Atlantis Trilogy.
Eldritch Wizardry is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume, written for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game, which included a number of significant additions to the core game. Its product designation is TSR 2005.
Role-playing games made in Japan made their first appearance during the 1980s. Today, there are hundreds of Japanese-designed games as well as several translated games. Tabletop RPGs are referred to as tabletalk RPGs, a wasei-eigo term often shortened as TRPG in Japan to distinguish them from the video role-playing game genre.
Goodman Games is an American game publisher best known for the Dungeon Crawl Classics series of adventure modules and role-playing game, its science fiction offshoot Mutant Crawl Classics, and Original Adventures Reincarnated, a line of updated, annotated, and expanded republications of classic RPG adventures and supplements, mostly from TSR, Inc.'s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Additionally, Goodman Games produces RPGs using versions of the DCC rules for Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar and Jack Vance's Dying Earth settings, under license. The company has also produced licensed adventures for Wicked Fantasy Factory, Judges Guild, Xcrawl, Iron Heroes, Castles and Crusades, and Death Dealer.
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Greyhawk is a supplementary rulebook written by Gary Gygax and Robert J. Kuntz for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It has been called "the first and most important supplement" to the original D&D rules. Although the name of the book was taken from the home campaign supervised by Gygax and Kuntz based on Gygax's imagined Castle Greyhawk and the lands surrounding it, Greyhawk did not give any details of the castle or the campaign world; instead, it explained the rules that Gygax and Kuntz used in their home campaign, and introduced a number of character classes, spells, concepts and monsters used in all subsequent editions of D&D.
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Apocalypse World is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game by D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker, published in 2010 with only an implied setting that is fleshed out by the players in the course of character creation. It was the game for which the Powered by the Apocalypse engine was developed. On release, Apocalypse World won the 2010 Indie RPG Award and 2011 Golden Geek RPG of the year.
The Old School Renaissance, Old School Revival, or OSR, is a play style movement in tabletop role-playing games which draws inspiration from the earliest days of tabletop RPGs in the 1970s, especially Dungeons & Dragons. It consists of a loose network or community of gamers and game designers who share an interest in a certain style of play and set of game design principles.
Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, is an open source retro-clone role-playing game written by Chris Gonnerman that emulates, and is largely compatible with, the 1981 Basic and Expert sets of Dungeons & Dragons. Its main differences from B/X D&D include d20-style ascending armor class and separation of character race and class. It was first published in print in 2007 and updated in 2008, 2014, and 2023. The game is one of the first products of the Old School Revival and has been positively received.
This is a complete list of works by American science fiction and fantasy author Margaret Weis.
Shannon Appelcline is a game designer and game historian.
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