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Ron Edwards | |
|---|---|
 Ron Edwards at Lucca Comics & Games 2018 | |
| Born | September 4, 1964 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Game designer |
Ronald Edwards (born September 4, 1964) 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.
Ron Edwards first started playing RPGs in 1978 when he was 14, starting with Dungeons & Dragons , which had been published four years earlier. He also tried other RPGs such as Tunnels & Trolls , Runequest , and his early favorite, The Fantasy Trip . [1] Through high school and university, he continued to play RPGs, and entered an experimental phase in the 1980s and 1990s, playing as many as 200 different RPGs, including Champions , Stormbringer , GURPS , Rolemaster , Cyberpunk 2020 , Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game and Over the Edge . [1]
While Edwards was a graduate student and biology instructor at the University of Florida in 1996, working on his PhD and writing a dissertation about evolutionary theory, he began to design an RPG he called Sorcerer. [2] : 403 He sent the finished game to an RPG publisher, who agreed to publish it and sent Edwards a standard contract, which gave the publisher control over artwork and marketing, as well as the right to revise the game later if the author does not want to revise it, and to terminate the contract whenever they decide. Edwards found the proposed contract unacceptable — inspired by indie comic creator Dave Sim, he believed that creators should be able to control their works. [2] : 403
As a result, he turned down the offer to publish, and in 1996, he printed copies of Sorcerer and distributed them using the shareware model, sending it to anyone who asked for a copy and asking for $5 in return if they liked the game. He soon produced an ashcan of Sorcerer to sell at conventions. [2] : 403 He continued to playtest Sorcerer and produced a fully rewritten version of the game that he began selling in PDF form after acquiring the sorcerer-rpg.com domain. [2] : 403
He also produced two PDF supplements – Sorcerer & Sword (1999) and The Sorcerer's Soul (2000) – and also licensed Concept Syndicate in early 2000 to put Sorcerer for sale on a CD-ROM. [2] : 404
During the 1990s, Edwards was involved in discussions on Usenet about the theory of gameplay during RPGs, debating topics such as the fiction generated during role-playing — in Edwards' words, "when it is or isn't a story, and if it is, how it got that way." As Edwards monitored the Usenet discussions, he realized that different players brought dramatically different priorities to the table — what he called Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism. In an online article in 1999, Edwards started to posit what would become his "GNS Theory" of how those three elements were related to techniques used during role-playing. [2] : 404 [1]
He also began to discuss the "Big Model" of role-playing, saying, "We needed to be discussing roleplaying as a social event, which was even bigger than individual, or better, expected shared-group priorities. The name 'Big Model' refers to this 'bigness,' starting with everything that plays into who we are and why we sit down to play together." In the "Big Model", Edwards explores the layers of the role-playing game: the social event as the outer layer, the shared imagined space lying beneath that, and the rules system as the inner core. [1]
With Ed Healy, Edwards created the website Hephaestus's Forge in December 1999, as a creator-owned-game publisher site. [2] : 406 The original site closed in late 2000 because of hosting problems, but Edwards and Clinton R. Nixon brought the site back as "The Forge" in April 2001, hosted at indie-rpgs.com. [2] : 406 It continued to run successfully until 2012. [3]
After seeing Obsidian: The Age of Justice, an RPG independently published by Micah Skaritka, Dav Harnish, and Frank Nolan, for sale at Gencon 33 in 2000, Edwards decided he would be able to publish his own RPG books and retain the ownership over them. [2] : 404 He created Adept Press, through which he published his second RPG, Elfs (2001) as a PDF. [2] : 406 He also re-published Sorcerer through Adept Press as a 128-page hardcover book in 2001. [2] : 407 RPG historians Steven Torres-Roman and Cason Snow believe this was a turning point for indie RPGs, saying that when Edwards released the hardcover version, he "showed independent game designers the way to publish their own games." [3] Ron Edwards and Sorcerer were subsequently awarded the second annual Diana Jones Award for "excellence in gaming" in 2002. [2] : 407
Edwards purchased a booth at GenCon 34 in 2001 for Adept Press; the following year, the booth was doubled in size to also include The Forge. [2] : 407
In a departure from his Sorcerer material, Edwards released the unusual RPG Trollbabe as a PDF in 2002, [2] : 409 where all players take on the role of Trollbabes, large female trolls.
In 2004, he returned to Sorcerer with the third supplement, Sex and Sorcery. In 2006, he created an RPG called It Was a Mutual Decision during a 24-hour challenge that he himself had set for other RPG designers. In 2007, he created Spione: Story Now in Cold War Berlin , an RPG set in Cold War Berlin. In 2009, he published the unusual two-player RPG S/lay w/Me , where one player is the hero while the other takes on the role of both the hero's lover and his monstrous opponent. In 2015, Edwards created Circle of Hands, a gritty low-magic RPG set in the Iron Age.
In 2002, Ron Edwards and his role-playing game Sorcerer were awarded the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. The award citation reads in part "First self-published online as a for-sale PDF, Sorcerer — together with its creator and publisher Ron Edwards — represent the potential of the independent innovator in today’s RPG industry [...] His successful nurturing of an online forum dedicated to creator-controlled games have leveraged a mere brilliant game design into the seed crystal of something with the potential to greatly improve adventure gaming." [4]
Also in 2002, Edwards was awarded an Indie RPG Award in the category "Human of the Year". His award citation reads in part "He has single-handedly done more for the indie RPG industry than anyone by helping folks get started or into the industry, promoting others' games, and generally being an amazing rescource to us all [...] He is a bloody powerhouse of rock and roll game-designerdom. The man is unstoppable. He's a walking explosion of indie gaming coolness." [5]
GNS theory is an informal field of study developed by Ron Edwards which attempts to create a unified theory of how role-playing games work. Focused on player behavior, in GNS theory participants in role-playing games organize their interactions around three categories of engagement: Gamism, Narrativism and Simulation.
Sorcerer is an occult-themed indie role-playing game written by Ron Edwards and published through Adept Press. The game focuses on sorcerers who summon, bind, and interact with demons, powerful non-human entities who work with and against the sorcerer.
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.
The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for "excellence in gaming". The original award was made from a burned book encased in lucite. The award is unusual in two ways: first, it is not an award for a specific class of thing, but can be awarded to a person, product, publication, company, organization, event or trend – anything related to gaming; second, it does not count popularity or commercial success as a sign of "excellence". The award was first presented in 2001.
My Life with Master is an independently published role-playing game written by Paul Czege and published by Half Meme Press . My Life with Master is a game about role-playing the servants or minions of an evil Master or Mistress. The game won several awards, and reviewers recognized it as well-written.
The threefold model or GDS theory of roleplaying games is an attempt to distinguish three different goals in roleplaying. In its original formation, these are: Drama, simulation, and game. It was the inspiration for subsequent theories, such as the GNS theory, which retained a three-way division but altered other aspects of the model.
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 role-playing game designers participate in several development communities and game distribution networks. Indie games also grant their own awards committees.
Donjon is an independently published role-playing game by Clinton R. Nixon, published by Anvilwerks.
Clinton R. Nixon is a designer and publisher of indie role-playing games.
A role-playing game theory is the ludology of role-playing games (RPGs); a study of the topic as a social or artistic phenomenon. RPG theories seek to understand what role-playing games are, how they function, and how the gaming process can be refined in order to improve the experience and produce more useful game products.
Trollbabe is an indie role-playing game by Ron Edwards, cofounder of The Forge. It is an outworking of his Narrativist design philosophy. Edwards self-publishes it as a PDF through his Adept Press website.
The Indie RPG Awards were annual, creator-based awards for Indie role-playing games and supplements. They were established in 2002 by Andy Kitkowski. The final round of awards was given in 2017.
Jason L. Blair is an American writer and game designer, best known for his work on the roleplaying game Little Fears.
Jared A. Sorensen is an indie role-playing game designer whose works include InSpectres, octaNe, and Lacuna Part I.
David Vincent Baker is a designer and theorist of tabletop role-playing games and the owner of indie role-playing games publisher Lumpley Games, which also hosts the archives of The Forge. He and his wife Meguey Baker designed Apocalypse World, the first game in the Powered by the Apocalypse system. Apocalypse World won Game of the Year, Best Support, and Most Innovative game at the 2010 Indie RPG Awards, and was 2011 RPG of the Year at both the Golden Geek Awards and Lucca Comics & Games. Baker also designed Dogs in the Vineyard, which won the 2004 Indie RPG Game of the Year and Innovation Award and was one of three games shortlisted for the 2004 Diana Jones Award.
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. She has been referred to as the "Dean" of the North American school of structured freeform game design.
Elfs is a role-playing game published by Adept Press in 2001.
Spione: Story Now in Cold War Berlin is a role-playing game published by Ron Edwards in 2007.
Greg Porter is an American game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
Edward P. Healy is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. He co-founded Eden Studios.