Timothy Brown (game designer)

Last updated
Timothy B. Brown
Occupation
NationalityAmerican
Period1986–2005
Genre Role-playing games, dice games, collectible card games

Timothy B. Brown is an American game designer, primarily of role-playing games. He has been a designer at Game Designers' Workshop, an editor at Challenge magazine, and the director of product development at TSR.

Contents

Career

GDW

Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, Lester Smith, and Timothy Brown of GDW designed the new game Traveller: 2300 (1986) as an expansion of the original Traveller role-playing game. [1] : 58  [2] Brown also designed the Gamer's Choice Award-winning Star Cruiser board game. [3] Brown served as editor of GDW's Challenge magazine. [3]

TSR

Brown went to TSR in 1989, where he eventually became Director of Game Development. [1] : 63  Brown was TSR's director of product development from 1991-1995, and oversaw the creation of their Ravenloft and Planescape game lines, among many other titles. [3] Brown co-created the AD&D Dark Sun setting with Troy Denning and Mary Kirchoff. [4] Brown and Denning led the project, alongside fiction editor Kirchoff, and they were soon joined by artist Brom, who contributed the unique illustrations that helped set Dark Sun apart from the other TSR settings, making Dark Sun the first of TSR's world designs with a more artistic sensibility. [1] : 26  Brown and Denning also put together the 1991 D&D "black box" set, which became a top-seller for TSR, selling half a million copies in the next six years. [1] : 27  Brown contributed to the design of Spellfire . [3]

After TSR

Brown later went on to found Destination Games and work with Imperium Games. [1] : 63  Destination Games produced Chaos Progenitus dice game (1996) and Pulp Dungeons: Uninvited Guests (1997) authored by Gary Gygax.

For Imperium's fourth edition of Traveller (also called Marc Miller's Traveller or T4) published in 1996, the designers worked on distinct parts of the rules, with Brown writing about aliens. [1] : 331  Sweetpea Entertainment bought out the stock of the many creators who had worked on T4 and took over some of the day-to-day operations of the company; Brown took the helm of Imperium Games under Sweetpea's guidance, and was now the only official staff for Imperium, with others acting as freelancers. [1] : 332  Brown, James Ward, Lester Smith, John Danovich, and Sean Everette founded the short-lived d20 company Fast Forward Entertainment (circa 2001-2005). [1] : 351 

Brown also contributed to the designs of The Wheel of Time Collectible Card Game (1999) and the Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game (2000). [3]

Bibliography

Dungeons & Dragons novels

Personal life

Brown is an accomplished guitar player and teacher.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<i>Traveller</i> (role-playing game) Tabletop science fiction role-playing game

Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman. Editions were published for GURPS, d20, and other role-playing game systems. From its origin and in the currently published systems, the game relied upon six-sided dice for random elements. Traveller has been featured in a few novels and at least two video games.

<i>Mystara</i> Dungeons & Dragons fictional campaign setting

Mystara is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role playing game. It was the default setting for the "Basic" version of the game throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Most adventures published for the "Basic" edition of D&D take place in "The Known World", a central continent that includes a varied patchwork of both human and non-human realms. The human realms are based on various real-world historical cultures. In addition, unlike other D&D settings, Mystara had ascended immortal beings instead of gods.

Game Designers Workshop Wargame and roleplaying game publisher

Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers.

Marc Miller (game designer) American game designer (born 1947)

Marc William Miller is a wargame and role-playing game designer and author.

Frank Chadwick American game designer and author

Frank Chadwick is an American multiple-award-winning game designer and New York Times best selling author. He has designed hundreds of games, his most notable being the role-playing games En Garde!, Space: 1889 and Twilight 2000, and the wargame series Europa and The Third World War, as well as creating Traveller with Marc Miller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Troy Denning</span> American author

Troy Denning is a fantasy and science fiction author and game designer who has written more than two dozen novels.

<i>Isle of the Ape</i> Dungeons & Dragons adventure module

Isle of the Ape is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game World of Greyhawk campaign setting, in which the events occur in a magical demiplane of the same name created by the mad archmage Zagyg Yragerne.

Mary L. Kirchoff is an American author of fantasy and young adult novels.

James M. Ward is an American game designer and fantasy author who worked for TSR, Inc. for more than 20 years.

<i>Castle Greyhawk</i> (module)

Castle Greyhawk is a comedic adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module bears the code WG7 and was published by TSR, Inc. in 1988 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules.

Challenge was a role-playing game magazine published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) between 1986 and 1996.

<i>Dark Sun</i> Dungeons & Dragons fictional campaign setting

Dark Sun is an original Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign setting set in the fictional, post-apocalyptic desert world of Athas. Dark Sun featured an innovative metaplot, influential art work, dark themes, and a genre-bending take on traditional fantasy role-playing. The product line began with the original Dark Sun Boxed Set released for D&D's 2nd edition in 1991, originally ran until 1996, and was one of TSR's most successful releases.

Dungeons & Dragons novels are works of fantasy fiction that are based upon campaign settings released for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

Lester W. Smith is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Imperium Games was an American game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements.

<i>Dark Nebula</i> (board game) Science fiction tabletop wargame

Dark Nebula is a two-player science fiction board wargame published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1980. Dark Nebula is the seventh Traveller boardgame published by GDW. A second edition was published in 1983 with a new cover. It was republished in 2004 as part of Far Future Enterprises Traveller: The Classic Games, Games 1-6+.

<i>Hard Times</i> (Traveller) Tabletop science fiction role-playing game supplement

Hard Times is a supplement published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1991 for the science fiction role-playing game MegaTraveller.

<i>Rebellion Sourcebook</i> Tabletop science fiction role-playing game supplement

Rebellion Sourcebook is a supplement published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1988 for the science fiction role-playing game MegaTraveller.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.
  2. ↑ Official Price Guide to Role Playing Games
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Brown, Timothy (2007). "Empires of the Middle Ages". In Lowder, James (ed.). Hobby Games: The 100 Best . Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 103–106. ISBN   978-1-932442-96-0.
  4. ↑ Varney, Allen (March 1998). "ProFiles: Troy Denning". Dragon . Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast (#245): 112.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.