Steve Jackson | |
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 Steve Jackson signing autographs at Lucca Comics & Games 2006 gaming convention in Lucca, Italy | |
| Born | 1953 (age 70–71) |
| Occupation(s) | Game designer, founder of Steve Jackson Games |
| Known for | Car Wars, GURPS, Munchkin |
Steve Jackson (born 1953) is an American game designer whose creations include the role-playing game GURPS and the card game Munchkin .
Steve Jackson was born in 1953, [1] and is a 1974 graduate of Rice University, [2] where he was a resident of Sid Richardson College. [3] Jackson briefly attended the University of Texas School of Law, but left to start a game design career. [4] : 102
While working at Metagaming Concepts, Jackson developed Monsters! Monsters! (ca. 1976) based on a design by Ken St. Andre connected to his Tunnels & Trolls role-playing game, and Godsfire (1976), a space conquest game by Lynn Willis. [4] : 78 Jackson got his first design for the company published as Ogre (1977), followed by G.E.V. (1978), which were both set in a futuristic universe that Jackson created. [4] : 79
Jackson became interested in Dungeons & Dragons , but did not like the various-sized dice or the combat rules, and bemoaned the lack of tactics, so he designed Melee in response. [4] : 79 Jackson joined the SCA to gain a better understanding of combat, but as his interest grew he started fighting in SCA live-action combat as Vargskol, the Viking-Celt. [4] : 79 Metagaming also published his game Wizard . [5]
Jackson realized that Melee could be expanded into a complete fantasy role-playing game, and started working on The Fantasy Trip before Melee was even published. The Fantasy Trip was initially scheduled for release in February 1978, but the design and development required more work than Jackson had anticipated and the game was not released until March 1980. [4] : 79 Howard Thompson, owner of Metagaming, decided to release The Fantasy Trip as four separate books instead of a more expensive boxed set, and changed his production methods so that Jackson would be unable to check the final proofs of the game. As a result of these actions, Jackson left Metagaming and founded Steve Jackson Games later that year. [4] : 79–80
His game Raid on Iran was an immediate success. [5] Jackson bought The Space Gamer from Metagaming, and sold the rights to The Fantasy Trip to Metagaming. However, Thompson sought legal action against SJG for the rights to the short wargame One-Page Bulge, and the lawsuit was settled with an agreement that was reached on November 26, 1981, leaving Jackson with the full rights to One-Page Bulge, and to Ogre and G.E.V. (whose ownership was questioned during the legal proceedings). [4] : 80 Jackson wanted to purchase The Fantasy Trip from back Thompson after Metagaming closed down in April 1983, but Thompson declined the offered price of $250,000. [4] : 81
Jackson designed or co-designed many of the games published by SJ Games, including minigames such as Car Wars (1981) and Illuminati (1983), Undead (1981), and a published version of an informal game played on college campuses, called Killer . [4] : 103 Jackson wanted to get into computer gaming software in the early 1980s, but wound up licensing the rights to Origin Systems instead, which produced games such as Autoduel (1985) and Ogre (1986). [4] : 104
Jackson had an idea in the middle of 1981 for designing and publishing a new detailed and realistic roleplaying system, intending it to be logical and organized well, and wanted it to adaptable for any kind of setting and play level. [4] : 104 Jackson announced GURPS in 1983, although his time spent managing magazines delayed development of GURPS until 1984, making the combat system book Man to Man: Fantasy Combat from GURPS (1985) available for Origins 1985, and the full GURPS Basic Set appeared the next year in 1986. [4] : 105 Sean Punch replaced Jackson in 1995 as the line editor for GURPS. [4] : 110
Jackson also designed the strategy card games Munchkin (2001) [4] : 112 and Ninja Burger (2003), and the dice games Zombie Dice (2010) and Cthulhu Dice (2010), as well as Zombie Dice variants Trophy Buck (2011) and Dino Hunt Dice (2013).
Jackson has exhibited his elaborate Chaos Machine at several science fiction or wargaming conventions, including the 2006 Worldcon. [6]
On May 11, 2012, Steve Jackson's Kickstarter funding project for the 6th Edition of his Ogre game became the highest grossing boardgame project at Kickstarter, with 5,512 backers pledging a total of $923,680. The success of the Ogre Designer's Edition project prompted the launch of a second successful project - running from Nov 29, 2019, through Jan 6, 2020 - to help re-launch the popular Car Wars franchise as well.
Jackson is often mistaken for Steve Jackson, a British gamebook and video game writer who co-founded Games Workshop. The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that while the UK Jackson was co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, the US Jackson also wrote three books in this series ( Scorpion Swamp , Demons of the Deep , and Robot Commando ), and the books did not acknowledge that this was a different 'Steve Jackson'. [7]
The United States Secret Service raided the offices of Steve Jackson Games on March 1, 1990 based on suspicion of illegal hacker activity by game designer Loyd Blankenship, and seized (among other materials and media) his manuscript for GURPS Cyberpunk ; when Jackson went to Secret Service headquarters the next day to ask them to return his book drafts, the Secret Service agents told him that they believed GURPS Cyberpunk was a "handbook for computer crime", despite his protestations that it was just a game. Through the newly created civil-rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation, SJG filed a lawsuit against the government, which went to trial in early 1993 as Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service . [4] : 108–109 SJG won the lawsuit, receiving $50,000 in damages. [8]
Jackson is an avid collector of Lego (especially pirate-themed) sets. [9] [10] He has written a miniatures game that uses Pirate sets, Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, [11] [12] and has run it at several conventions. [13]
Jackson has combined his fondness for model trains and LEGO through the LEGO train community and has been an active member of several LEGO users groups including TBRR (Texas Brick Railroad) [14] [15] and the Texas LEGO Users Group. [16]
The Generic Universal Role Playing System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system published by Steve Jackson Games. The system is designed to run any genre using the same core mechanics. The core rules were first written by Steve Jackson and published in 1986, at a time when most such systems were story- or genre-specific. Since then, four editions have been published. The current line editor is Sean Punch.
Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and the gaming magazine Pyramid.
The Fantasy Trip (TFT) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game designed by Steve Jackson and published in segments by Metagaming Concepts starting in 1977 and culminating in 1980. In 2019, Steve Jackson Games republished it as The Fantasy Trip Legacy Edition.
OGRE is a science fiction board wargame designed by the American game designer Steve Jackson and published by Metagaming Concepts in 1977 as the first microgame in its MicroGame line. When Steve Jackson left Metagaming to form his own company, he took the rights to OGRE with him, and all subsequent editions have been produced by Steve Jackson Games (SJG).
G.E.V. is a science fiction board wargame that simulates combat in the near future between armored hovercraft, supertanks and other futuristic weaponry.
Illuminati is a card game made by Steve Jackson Games (SJG), inspired by the 1975 book The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. The game has ominous secret societies competing with each other to control the world through various means, including legal, illegal, and even mystical. It was designed as a "tongue-in-cheek rather than serious" take on conspiracy theories. It contains groups named similarly to real-world organizations, such as the Society for Creative Anachronism and the Symbionese Liberation Army. It can be played by two to eight players. Depending on the number of players, a game can take between one and six hours.
GURPS Cyberpunk is a genre toolkit for cyberpunk-themed role-playing games set in a near-future dystopia, such as that envisioned by William Gibson in his influential novel Neuromancer. It was published in 1990 after a significant delay caused by the original draft being a primary piece of evidence in Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service.
Pyramid was a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, though it has been published on the Internet since March 1998. Print issues were bimonthly; the first online version published new articles each week; the second online version is monthly. Pyramid is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It replaced Steve Jackson Games' previous magazine Roleplayer.
Hacker is a dedicated deck card game for 3–6 players published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in 1992.
The Space Gamer was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. The magazine is no longer published, but the rights holders maintain a web presence using its final title Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer.
Metagaming Concepts, later known simply as Metagaming, was a company that published board games from 1974 to 1983. It was founded and owned by Howard Thompson, who designed the company's first game, Stellar Conquest. The company also invented Microgames and published Steve Jackson's first designs, including Ogre, G.E.V. and The Fantasy Trip.
GURPS Space is a sourcebook published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) for use with GURPS, published in four editions from 1988 to 2006.
Howard M. Thompson is an American wargame designer and founder of Metagaming Concepts. His first game was Stellar Conquest, a popular and well-designed simulation of interstellar warfare.
David L. Pulver is a Canadian freelance writer and game designer, author of more than fifty role-playing game rulebooks and supplements, including the award-winning Transhuman Space.
Melee is a board wargame designed by Steve Jackson, and released in 1977 by Metagaming Concepts. In 2019, Melee was revived and re-released by Steve Jackson Games.
Wizard is a board game system of medieval fantasy magical combat published by Metagaming in 1978 that was designed to complement the previously published Melee, a system of melee combat rules. Forty years later, Wizard was revived and re-released by Steve Jackson Games.
David Ladyman is an American game designer of board games such as Car Wars, and role-playing games such as GURPS.
GURPS Swashbucklers is a sourcebook by Steffan O'Sullivan, published by Steve Jackson Games in 1988 to provide a swashbuckling setting for GURPS.
Starleader: Assault! is a science fiction microgame published by Metagaming Concepts in 1982 that was designed to introduce the rules of combat with firearms for a forthcoming science fiction role-playing game that did not get published before Metagaming went out of business.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) from Wired His other interests include gardening (especially water gardening), Lego, pirates, trains, ....
I wrote about Amanda Feuk [...] who displayed "The Tree" at Brickworld Chicago in 2015 and ended up selling it to fellow attendee Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games, creator of the Munchkin card game.
At conventions, Jackson runs his pirate game for up to 20 players at once, all down on their knees pushing big plastic ships across the hotel carpet and shouting "boom!"
This is the Texas Brick Railroad or at least the version of it for this show. We are a LEGO train club. We like building LEGO and we especially like trains and monorail.
What else would you like to see from your Texan LEGO train club? Send comments to Steve Jackson at...
Many thanks to Steve Jackson for help in putting together this FAQ.
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