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Greg Costikyan, sometimes known under the pseudonym "Designer X", is an American game designer and science fiction writer. Costikyan's career spans nearly all extant genres of gaming, including: hex-based wargames, role-playing games, boardgames, card games, computer games, online games and mobile games. Several of his games have won Origins Awards. He co-founded Manifesto Games, now out of business, with Johnny Wilson in 2005.
Fate is a generic role-playing game system based on the Fudge gaming system. It has no fixed setting, traits, or genre and is customizable. It is designed to offer minimal obstruction to role-playing by assuming players want to make fewer dice rolls.
John Wick is an American role-playing game designer best known for his creative contributions to the tabletop role playing games Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea. He self-published Orkworld under the Wicked Press banner, and later co-founded the Wicked Dead Brewing Company with Jared Sorensen. His games under that company include Cat, Schauermärchen, Enemy Gods, and Thirty. He has won the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game and Best Collectible Card Game twice.
Charles Cecil is a British video game designer and co-founder of Revolution Software. His family lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when he was still very young, but was evacuated two years after Mobutu Sese Seko's coup d'état. He studied at Bedales School in Hampshire, England. In 1980 he began his studies in Engineering Manufacture and Management at Manchester University, where he met student Richard Turner who invited him to write text adventures for Artic Computing. After completing his degree in 1985 he decided to continue his career in game development and became director of Artic. The following year he established Paragon Programming, a game development company working with British publisher U.S. Gold. In 1987 he moved into publishing as a software development manager for U.S. Gold. A year later he was approached by Activision and was offered the position of manager of their European development studio.
Ronald Edwards is a game designer involved in the indie role-playing game (RPG) community, and a game theorist. He created the Sorcerer role-playing game, the GNS theory of gameplay, and The Big Model. Edwards is also co-founder of The Forge, an online community to support indie RPG design and publication.
An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the control of the creator, or that the game should just be produced outside a corporate environment.
Indie Press Revolution is a sales network that acts as a fulfillment house for publishers of indie role-playing games. It was founded in 2004 by Ed Cha of Open World Press and Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games. IPR represents over 100 author/publishers involved in role-playing games. It offers games directly to the public and to game retailers.
The annual ENnie Awards are annual, fan-based awards for role-playing game products and publishers hosted at Gen Con in Indianapolis, Indiana. The name of the award is derived from the EN World web site that hosted the awards from their inception in 2001 until 2018, and retains the name, although is no longer part of EN World. The ENnies were created by Russ Morrissey and Eric Noah and were run and owned by Morrissey until 2018.
Paizo Inc. is an American role-playing game publishing company based in Redmond, Washington, best known for the tabletop role-playing game Pathfinder. The company's name is derived from the Greek word παίζω paizō, which means 'I play' or 'to play'. Paizo also runs an online retail store selling role-playing games, gaming aids, board games, comic books, toys, clothing and other products, and has an Internet forum community.
Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd is an Irish games company that creates and publishes tabletop games. Best known for its Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings games, Cubicle 7 offers titles covering a range of licensed and self-developed properties.
A tabletop role-playing game, also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a set formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
Ed Cha is an American role-playing games author.
Dungeons & Dragons retro-clones are fantasy role-playing games that seek to emulate earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) no longer supported by Wizards of the Coast. They are mostly made possible by the terms of the Open Game License and System Reference Document, which allows the use of much of the proprietary terminology of D&D that might otherwise collectively constitute copyright infringement. While these rules lack the name D&D or any of the associated trademarks, their intent is to have a playable experience similar to those older editions.
The Indie RPG Awards are annual, creator-based awards for Indie role-playing games and supplements. They were established in 2002 by Andy Kitkowski, and are the most sought-after awards in the Indie RPG community.
Nicalis, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Santa Ana, California. The company focuses primarily on indie games and has developed and published both original games as well as ports of existing games. Nicalis was founded in 2007 by Tyrone Rodriguez, a former editor for IGN. In 2017, Nicalis announced that they had acquired SuperVillain Studios and Cowboy Color.
Brennan Taylor is an American role-playing games author and publisher.
Emily Care Boss is an indie roleplaying game designer, theorist and publisher. She was a foundational member of The Forge, an early leader in the indie role-playing game movement and is considered the creator of the American Freeform genre of roleplaying games, which combine indie RPG principles and mechanics with Nordic freeform and American chamber live action role-playing techniques. Her game, Under My Skin was winner of the Audience Choice Award at Fastaval 2009. She has been referred to as the "Dean" of the North American school of structured freeform game design.
Cathriona "Cat" Tobin is a game designer and publisher based in West Cork, Ireland. She co-owns the London-based Pelgrane Press with Simon J Rogers and is a significant contributor to the roleplaying game industry in the UK.
Knights and Bikes is a cooperative action-adventure game inspired by The Goonies and Secret of Mana. It is created by Foam Sword, a British indie game development company made up of former Media Molecule staff.
Yoku's Island Express is a platforming pinball adventure video game developed by Swedish studio Villa Gorilla and published by Team17. The studio's debut project, the game was released in 2018 for Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.