Mike Carr | |
|---|---|
 Mike Carr (in yellow) running Don't Give Up the Ship! at Gen Con Indy 2013. | |
| Born | September 4, 1951 Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States |
| Occupation |
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| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1968– 1983 |
| Genre | Role-playing games, fantasy, wargames |
Mike Carr (born September 4, 1951[ citation needed ]) is a writer and game designer.
While still a teenager living in Saint Paul in 1968, Carr created a game called Fight in the Skies (also known as Dawn Patrol).[ citation needed ] He was invited to present and referee the game at the very first Gen Con convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, but had to convince his parents to drive him to Lake Geneva for the weekend. [1] : 72 While at Gen Con, he met the convention's organizer, Gary Gygax, and quickly became an acquaintance. [1] : 72 Three years later, he co-authored Don't Give Up The Ship! with Gygax and Dave Arneson.[ citation needed ] Carr began wargaming with the International Federation of Wargamers as a teenager.[ citation needed ] After high school, Carr completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Macalester College before going on to work as a restaurant manager with Ground Round in the mid-1970s. [2]
In 1976, at the invitation of Gygax, he joined TSR, Inc., and wrote an introductory Dungeons & Dragons module called In Search of the Unknown in 1979. Since it was included with the Dungeons & Dragons introductory box set, the module enjoyed a sizeable print run. Carr also served as the editor of the three central rulebooks for the more complex Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Monster Manual , Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook , and he also wrote the foreword that appeared in the early editions of each of them. He also edited Vault of the Drow (1978), White Plume Mountain (1979), The Village of Hommlet (1979), The World of Greyhawk (1980), The Keep on the Borderlands (1981), Descent into the Depths of the Earth (1981), Against the Giants (1981), and Deep Dwarven Delve (not printed until 1999). [3] He additionally co-edited (with Tom Wham, Timothy Jones, and Brian Blume) the first edition of Gamma World . [4] In the early 1980s Carr also authored three children's books which were published by TSR, including one in the Endless Quest series entitled "Robbers & Robots".
Jon Peterson, for Polygon , highlighted that Arneson's 1977 lawsuit over Basic Set royalties led to the creation of Carr's In Search of the Unknown module which showed that "a module like this [...] could bring significant income to its author". [5] "As Arneson's lawsuit loomed, TSR made a very pointed substitution to the contents of the Basic Set" by swapping in Carr's In Search of the Unknown module. [5] Peterson wrote, "it was a good idea to target a module at beginning dungeon masters — but it also had clear implications for the legal situation. Previously, when Arneson sought a 5% royalty on the whole contents of the Basic Set, he was effectively asking for money that was going into Gygax's pocket. Now, he would instead be asking for money earmarked for his friend Mike Carr". [5] Carr received royalties for In Search of the Unknown when the module was sold alone and when it was included in the Basic Set. After the September 1979 disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, Dungeons & Dragons received "mainstream notoriety. And with that, sales of the Basic Set rose dramatically. Right before the steam tunnel incident, the Basic Set might have sold 5,000 copies a month. By the end of 1979, it was trading over 30,000 copies per month, and only going up from there". [5] Following Carr's financial success due to his module being included in the boxed set, Gygax changed the module included with the Basic Set to Keep on the Borderlands which was a module he wrote. [5]
Carr left TSR in 1983. [6] That year, he was recruited by the noted Chicago commodities trader Richard Dennis for training as one of the original "Turtle Traders," gaining expertise in technical trend trading before being let go with the rest of the class of recruits as the firm retrenched after losses in 1988. [7] Later, Carr spent time as a futures trader, an investment manager, manager of a marketing firm, a marketing consultant and most recently as a freelance writer, authoring snowmobile travel articles for several magazines. [6] He is also involved in the production of Aerodrome, a fanzine founded by Carr in 1969 for devotees of the Dawn Patrol game.
Carr was honored in 2007 as the only person who had attended every Gen Con convention since 1968. His Fight in the Skies game was also the only one that had been played at every Gen Con.
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for Dungeons & Dragons—Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign predated it by about a year—the world of Greyhawk closely identified with early development of the game beginning in 1972, and after being published it remained associated with Dungeons & Dragons publications until 2008. The world itself started as a simple dungeon under a castle designed by Gary Gygax for the amusement of his children and friends, but it was rapidly expanded to include not only a complex multi-layered dungeon environment, but also the nearby city of Greyhawk, and eventually an entire world. In addition to the campaign world, which was published in several editions over twenty years, Greyhawk was also used as the setting for many adventures published in support of the game, as well as for RPGA's massively shared Living Greyhawk campaign from 2000 to 2008.
TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so he founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.
David Lance Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work was fundamental to the role-playing game (RPG) genre, pioneering devices now considered to be archetypical, such as cooperative play to develop a storyline instead of individual competitive play to "win" and adventuring in dungeon, town, and wilderness settings as presented by a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters.
Blackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originated in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, as an early testing ground for what would become D&D.
Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, and strategy games. Gen Con also features computer games. Attendees engage in a variety of tournament and interactive game sessions. In 2019, Gen Con had nearly 70,000 unique attendees.
The Keep on the Borderlands is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure module by Gary Gygax, first printed in December 1979. In it, player characters are based at a keep and investigate a nearby series of caves that are filled with a variety of monsters. It was designed to be used with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, and was included in the 1979–1982 editions of the Basic Set. It was designed for people new to Dungeons & Dragons.
In Search of the Unknown is a module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, designed for use with the Basic Set of rules. It was written by game designer Mike Carr and was first published in 1978 by TSR, Inc. The module details a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. Reviewers considered it a good quality introduction to the game that was written in the so-called dungeon crawl style, where the primary goal of the players is the exploration of a dangerous labyrinth to battle monsters and obtain treasure.
Don't Give Up the Ship is a set of rules for conducting Napoleonic era naval wargames. The game was published by Guidon Games in 1972 and republished by TSR, Inc. in 1975. The game was developed as a collaboration between Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, and Mike Carr. It was the first collaboration between Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, the co-authors of Dungeons & Dragons. Mike Carr edited the rules and researched the historical single ship actions that are included as game scenarios.
Jacob Franklin Mentzer III is an American fantasy author and game designer who worked on early materials for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. He was an employee of TSR, Inc. from 1980 to 1986, spending part of that time as creative advisor to the chairman of the board, Gary Gygax. He also founded the Role-Playing Games Association (RPGA) during his time with TSR.
David "Diesel" S. LaForce is an American artist who worked on Dungeons & Dragons adventures published by TSR. His artwork and cartography appeared in many TSR products produced from 1979 to 1984 including the classics Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, and B2 Keep on the Borderlands. LaForce became known for his meticulous and creative approach to adventure maps, and eventually became TSR's staff cartographer. He continued to produce maps for many TSR publications until he left the company in 1997 following its takeover by Wizards of the Coast.
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is best known for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.
Lenard William Lakofka was an American writer of material for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Although never a formal employee of TSR, the company that published Dungeons & Dragons, Lakofka was an influential voice in the development of the game. He was one of the playtesters of the game as it was being developed, an editor of early manuscripts, wrote a widely-read monthly D&D magazine column and two official D&D adventures, and had his home campaign setting of the Lendore Isles incorporated into Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting.
In Search of Adventure is an abridged compilation adventure module published by TSR, Inc. in 1987, for the Basic Set of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 9190. This 160-page book features cover artwork by Keith Parkinson.
The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set is a set of rulebooks for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. First published in 1977, it saw a handful of revisions and reprintings. The first edition was written by J. Eric Holmes based on Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's original work. Later editions were edited by Tom Moldvay, Frank Mentzer, Troy Denning, and Doug Stewart.
Jon Pickens is an American game designer and editor who has worked on numerous products for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game from TSR and later Wizards of the Coast.
The Dungeons & Dragons Companion Set is an expansion boxed set for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It was first published in 1984 as an expansion to the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set.
The Expert Set is an expansion boxed set for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was first published in 1981 as an expansion to the Basic Set.
Oeva Jean Wells Koebernick was an American writer, artist, and editor in the field of role-playing games. She was the first female game designer to be hired by TSR, Inc. Her career at TSR stalled after she wrote a controversial Dungeons & Dragons adventure module that was withdrawn on the eve of publication and subsequently rewritten.