 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline .(December 2023) |
Monte Cook | |
|---|---|
 Cook at Lucca Comics & Games 2014 | |
| Born | January 29, 1968 [1] Watertown, South Dakota, U.S. [1] |
| Occupation | Writer, game designer |
| Genre | Role-playing games, fantasy |
| Spouse | Sue Weinlein (divorced[ citation needed ]) |
Monte Cook (born January 29, 1968) is an American professional tabletop role-playing game designer and writer, best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons .
Cook has been a professional game designer since 1988, working primarily on role-playing games. [2] Much of his early work was for Iron Crown Enterprises as an editor and writer for the Rolemaster and Champions lines. [3] Cook was at one point the editor in charge of both the "Campaign Classics" line of books for the Hero System and the Rolemaster line. [4] : 136 Cook worked for Iron Crown Enterprises for four years; two as a freelancer and two as a full-time designer. [5] During this period, Cook wrote the multi-genre setting Dark Space (1990), which was a blend of fantasy, science-fiction, and horror. [4] : 137 Cook became the line editor for Hero System, replacing Rob Bell, who left ICE in 1990. [4] : 149 Cook left ICE in the early 1990s. [4] : 137
Cook began working for TSR in 1992 as a freelancer: "writing a whole slew of stuff for the old Marvel game that never came out because the game got canceled". [5] In 1994 Cook came to work at TSR as a game designer. [2] Cook designed Dungeons & Dragons modules such as Labyrinth of Madness (1995) and A Paladin in Hell (1998), and dozens of supplements to the Planescape line including The Planewalker's Handbook (1996) and Dead Gods (1998). Cook also designed the conspiracy game Dark•Matter in 1999.
After TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, Cook became a senior designer, and was part of the team working on the D&D game's third edition. Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams all contributed to the 3rd edition Players Handbook , Dungeon Master's Guide , and Monster Manual , and then each designer wrote one of the books based on those contributions. [5] Cook was proud of the work he did on the new Dungeon Master's Guide, especially after Gary Gygax gave his team feedback on the book: "He said that the material in the new DMG would help him become a better DM... That was really cool–and satisfying in a 'completion of the circle' sort of way." [5] In 2000, Cook said of his involvement with Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons & Dragons: "It's a great time to be working here... because every product is big, important, and innovative." [5] Cook also worked on Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil , and the d20 Call of Cthulhu (February 2002). [2]
Cook left Wizards of the Coast in 2001. [6] Cook wrote the adventure Beyond the Veil (2001), one of the later releases in the "Penumbra" line of d20 System books from Atlas Games. [4] : 258 Cook formed the new company Malhavoc Press in 2001 to work with the Sword and Sorcery Studios imprint of White Wolf, starting with the d20 The Book of Eldritch Might (2001) as his first product. [4] : 225 The Book of Eldritch Might was the first commercial book sold exclusively as a PDF to be published by a print company. [4] : 288 It was an immediate success and has been credited with demonstrating the viability of PDF publishing within the role-playing industry. [7] This and other early Malhavoc products were initially released only in electronic format, though print versions of most of them have since been released by White Wolf, Inc. [8] Malhavoc Press worked with Fiery Dragon Productions after Fiery Dragon ended their arrangement with Sword & Sorcery in 2002, and the majority of the licensed work from Fiery Dragon was through their arrangement with Malhavoc. [4] : 226 Cook's work under the Malhavoc banner has included Arcana Unearthed: A Variant Players Handbook. [9] Cook set the d20 rulebook Arcana Unearthed in his giant-dominated world of "The Diamond Throne". [4] : 226
He caused controversy in mid-2004 by exclusively selling his electronic d20 material with the DriveThruRPG.com store, which then used only a proprietary digital rights management-encrypted PDF system. [10] He eventually succumbed to pressure from his customers to sell his products in standard-PDF form,[ citation needed ] and DriveThruRPG has more recently done the same.
In August 2006, Malhavoc released Ptolus , a campaign setting based on Monte Cook's home game that was used as the playtest campaign for the third edition D&D designers.
Shortly after the release of Ptolus , which Cook has often described as the culmination of his original ambitions for Malhavoc, he announced that he would be focusing on writing fiction and other unspecified forms of creative work, rather than role-playing games, for the foreseeable future. [11] White Wolf and Goodman Games announced his final RPG books. Monte Cook's World of Darkness , his own take on White Wolf's modern horror setting, was released at Gen Con 2007. From Goodman Games is Dungeon Crawl Classics: #50, Vault of the Iron Overlord, which was also targeted for the same Gen Con release. [12]
However, due to demand by fans reading his LiveJournal, [13] and posting their desires on the Malhavoc message boards,[ citation needed ] Monte Cook released one more RPG product in early 2008, The Book of Experimental Might. [14] This was quickly followed by The Book of Experimental Might II: Bloody, Bold and Resolute. [15]
Cook returned to Wizards of the Coast in 2011. On September 20, 2011, Mike Mearls announced that Cook would be taking over his "Legends & Lore" column for the Wizards of the Coast website. [16] In January 2012, it was revealed that Cook was to be the lead designer for the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. [17] In April 2012, Cook announced his departure from Wizards of the Coast due to "differences of opinion with the company" but not "with [his] fellow designers". [18]
Cook co-founded Monte Cook Games, LLC with Shanna Germain in 2012, [19] which is a roleplaying game company that has produced Numenera , The Strange , The Cypher System Rulebook, Invisible Sun , and No Thank You, Evil! which went to press in Fall 2015 after a Kickstarter campaign raised over $100,000 to fund its publication. [20] [21]
Numenera is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Cook, set a billion years in the future in a science fantasy and post-apocalyptic setting with streamlined rules that prioritize the story, the action, and the wild ideas. It raised over $500,000 (more than 25 times its goal of $20,000). [22] System playtesting was announced on October 30, 2012, and the game was released on August 14, 2013. [23] [24] Cook has stated that David "Zeb" Cook's (no relation) Planescape fantasy world was a significant influence on concepts in Numenera. [25]
The Ninth World of Numenera was also the setting for a 2013 release of the Thunderstone Advance deck-building game by Alderac Entertainment Group, [26] [27] as well as the 2017 video game Torment: Tides of Numenera , which was developed by InXile Entertainment after a successful Kickstarter campaign. [28]
The Strange is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Cook and Bruce Cordell using the same Cypher System ruleset as Numenera . The game, which involves traveling through different worlds known as Recursions, was released in August 2014. [29]
Invisible Sun is a Kickstarter-funded table-top role-playing game created by Monte Cook Games, with a street date released of September 20, 2018. It is a surreal fantasy game with many game accessories. [30]
Stealing Stories for the Devil is a Kickstarter-funded table-top role-playing created by Monte Cook Games. It was released in February 2023. [31] It is billed as a reality-altering heist game, where player characters use different abilities to lie to reality. It is a boxed set with board game-like aspects.
Tidal Blades, the Roleplaying Game [32] is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Cook and Shanna Germain using the Cypher System ruleset. The game was released in August 14 2024.[ citation needed ] It is a tropical fantasy game located around the near islands and coastal city of Naviri, surrounded by a frozen temporal rift called The Fold. It was Kickstarted along "Tidal Blades 2, Rise of the Unfolders", the boardgame.[ citation needed ]
Monte Cook is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Workshop. [33] After graduating from the 1999 workshop, he has published the novels The Glass Prison and Of Aged Angels. [2] He has also published short stories like "Born in Secrets" (in Amazing Stories ), "The Rose Window" (in Realms of Mystery), and "A Narrowed Gaze" (in Realms of the Arcane). [2] He also writes a continuing Call of Cthulhu fiction series, The Shandler Chronicles, in Game Trade Magazine. [34]
In the non-fiction genre, Cook has written The Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracies. [35]
Cook wrote dialogue for the MMORPG Marvel Heroes .
He was married to Sue Weinlein Cook, [5] although they are now divorced.[ citation needed ]
Spelljammer is a campaign setting originally published for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, which features a fantastic outer space environment. Subsequent editions have included Spelljammer content; a Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition setting update was released on August 16, 2022.
The d20 System is a role-playing game system published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast, originally developed for the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The system is named after the 20-sided dice which are central to the core mechanics of many actions in the game.
Jonathan Tweet is an American game designer who has been involved in the development of the role-playing games Ars Magica, Everway, Over the Edge, Talislanta, the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons and 13th Age, and the collectible miniatures game Dreamblade. In 2015 Tweet released Grandmother Fish, a full-color, full-sized book about evolution aimed at preschoolers. In 2018 Tweet released Clades and Clades Prehistoric, two card games for children and adults which demonstrate the concept of a clade.
The Dungeon Master's Guide is a book of rules for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. The Dungeon Master's Guide contains rules concerning the arbitration and administration of a game, and is intended for use by the game's Dungeon Master.
Arcana Unearthed, first published in 2003, is a role-playing game created by Monte Cook and based on the d20 System developed for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition. The game is notable for its divergences from Dungeons & Dragons: the absence of elves and dwarves, the absence of alignment, and its more flexible spellcasting mechanics. The game was later revised and updated in 2005 as Arcana Evolved.
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.
Living campaigns, or shared campaigns, are a gaming format within the table-top role-playing game community that provide the opportunity for play by an extended community within a shared universe. In contrast to traditional isolated role-playing games, living campaigns allow and encourage players to develop characters that can be played at games run by many different game masters, but which share a game world and campaign setting, as well as a plot line that is overseen by a central core of professional or volunteer editors and contributors. Many living campaigns serve a dual role of providing a creative outlet for highly involved volunteer contributors while also serving as a marketing tool for the publisher of the game system that is the focus of the living campaign. While the earliest living campaigns were run by the now defunct RPGA, many groups around the world run active living campaigns which are independent or sponsored by other publishers.
Ralph Williams, almost always referred to as Skip Williams, is an American game designer. He is married to Penny Williams, who is also involved with the games industry. He was the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition and the longtime author of the "Sage Advice" column for Dragon Magazine.
Bruce Robert Cordell is an American author of roleplaying games and fantasy novels. He has worked on Dungeons & Dragons games for Wizards of the Coast. He won the Origins Award for Return to the Tomb of Horrors and has also won several ENnies. He lives in Seattle.
Ptolus, subtitled "Monte Cook's City by the Spire", is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting published by Malhavoc Press in 2006 that details a single city and the dungeons that lie beneath it. Ptolus uses the rules of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons — the d20 System — under the terms of Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License. At 672 pages, it was the largest D&D supplement that had been published up to that time.
Colin McComb is an American writer and game designer, who is best known for his work designing the Planescape setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, and as the creative lead for the role-playing video game Torment: Tides of Numenera. He is the co-founder of 3lb Games, a virtual reality gaming studio.
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.
Dungeons & Dragons retro-clones are fantasy role-playing games that emulate earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) no longer supported by Wizards of the Coast. They are made possible by the release of later editions' rules in a System Reference Document under the terms of the Open Game License, which allow the use of much of the proprietary terminology of D&D that might otherwise collectively constitute copyright infringement. However, per the license, these games lack the brand names Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, and all the other trademarks associated with those brands.
Numenera is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in the far distant future, written by Monte Cook, published in 2013.
13th Age is a d20 fantasy role-playing game designed by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, and published by Pelgrane Press. 13th Age has been well supported with over 25 supplements published since its 2013 release, the most recent in 2022.
Jeremy Crawford is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. He was the Lead Rules Designer for the 4th Edition of Wizards of the Coast's tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and one of the Lead Designers of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
Malhavoc Press is an American publisher of role-playing games, specializing in third-party material for Dungeons & Dragons' third edition.
Wolves of Freeport, formerly named OneBookShelf, is a digital marketplace company for both major and indie games, fiction and comics. In 2023, OneBookShelf merged with Roll20 to become Wolves of Freeport. OneBookShelf itself was formed by the merger of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG in 2006. The company's e-commerce platforms host content from individual sellers, indie creators and major publishing companies such as Chaosium, Fantasy Flight Games, White Wolf, and Wizards of the Coast.
Scott Fitzgerald Gray is a Canadian writer, editor, story editor, and role-playing game designer known for his work on the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Role-playing game system originally published by Wizards of the Coast | ||
| Main authors |  | |
| Games | ||
| Licensing | ||
| Derived games | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
