| My haphazard, half-asleep list of top 10 game designers. |
[Mar. 14th, 2008|02:41 am] |
Inspired by J.D. Wiker's post, I decided to compile my top 10 list of game designer superstars. I tried to use the yardstick he used of "people who I think deserve to be more heavily promoted (or should have been) by the companies for whom they worked" but to be honest, all my choices are fairly well promoted by the companies they work for, with the exception of my #1 slot. Though I guess J.D. sort of meandered when he said Monte Cook's work for his own company wasn't promoted enough, given that he specified after founding Malhavoc. So I'll just do my best at presenting you with a personal top 10. I should note that these are not necessarily rankings in order up to best designer, in fact some lower on the list I would rank as more technically skilled than some higher up, but I'm mix and matching a hodgepodge of how deserving I think they are of higher praise and promotion than what they got, personal bias and my level of sleep at 2:30 AM after an 8 and a half hour shift.
10. Kevin Siembieda. The dude introduced me to RPGs. Rifts: Atlantis was my intro into role playing games. I saw it lying on a coffeetable at my friend Ashik's house. He had borrowed it from Mike Danay, who would become my first GM. I read that shit voraciously until I had to leave, and then asked if I could borrow it from Ashik. He phoned Mike, IIRC, and Mike (who didn't know me) said "Sure." and then I did, and brought it back after absorbing it cover to cover. Now I knew what all that talk of D&D and Vampire that some of my older friends talked about was all about! By the time I had stopped playing Palladium games, I owned 60-70 books by that company, not counting my Rifter subscription. I have to give credit where credit is due, despite his rather controversial figure in the industry. He got me in, and that's a huge deal to me. I rank him 10 not because of talent or skill, but because as the Gary Gygax to Erick Wujcik's Dave Arneson, people who know about Palladium rarely remember Erick's existence, unless they're in the industry too. Well, actually, recently that's changed, with Erick's Lifetime Ennie and his battle with cancer. But that's for another slot in my top 10.
9. Sean K Reynolds. From Dark Matter to his FR work to the underappreciated Savage Species and Ghostwalk (not to mention the amazing Anger of Angels for Malhavoc and Age of Mortals for DL), I think Sean K Reynolds just deserves more recognition. Period.
8. Erick Wujcik. I wanted my explanation to be "TMNT. 'nuff said." partially because that's how I feel, but partially because it's so hard to list everything he's done that has enriched my imagination. Ninjas and Superspies/Mystic China was a good solid chunk of Grades 7-8 for me, and helped set the stage for the part of me that thinks Monks are crap in D&D for their limited combat options. That is a part of me that I cherish. Not to mention the Taoist alignment in Mystic China. And the different types of Immortals? Man. There are specific elements that jump out at me. TMNT/After the Bomb's Bio-E points made making a character so much fun I never wanted to settle on a character because I wouldn't be involved in the character creation process anymore. Reading Wujcik's stuff is like getting hit with a hailstorm, all these tiny ideas popping out at you and gradually drawing you into something that seems made of pure, raw fun.
7. C.J. Carella. Again, haven't played Palladium stuff in years, but I think C.J.'s stuff is some of the most innovative and creative stuff that company ever produced. The Juicer Uprising was the last World Book I consider to be soaked, cover to cover, in that Rifts feel that drew me in. Subsequent books drifted, at first only ever so slightly, and then eventually almost entirely, from that quintessential Riftsian feeling I had come to cherish. It's hard to pin down, but there was just...a quality. I'm making this sound too ephemeral, let me make this more solid: if Wujcik's stuff is like a hailstorm of pure fun, Carella's is a brick of refined amazing that hits you in the head until it caves in, releasing butterflies made of lasers.
6. Mike Mearls. He was this dark horse who was working on Penumbra and one of AEG's generic books that I hadn't read, and then Relics and Rituals came out and let me know I needed to see what this guy was all about. All of a sudden, he explodes across the industry, doing work for every company worth their salt, and with good reason! He worked on both Dungeons and Dragons for AEG, for Gygax's sake (we can start doing this now, right? Using his name like some sort of religious icon? I digress...)! And Guide to the Anarchs? Fuuuuuck. That almost drew me back into WW. Almost. I don't dislike White Wolf, as a bit of a digression, I just had other games going. But then the Book of Iron Might came out, and I knew that the impression I got from Relics and Rituals had aged like a fine wine into this powerhouse of game design from whence issued mighty pronouncements of how to make things awesome in 3.5 mechanics. And then came the pièce de résistance: Iron Heroes. It blew me away so hard that I had to run a game that next weekend, disrupting my bi-weekly Eberron game. I had to. And I feel a sense of shame that I didn't even give it a glance until 2007, a full two years after it came out. In fact, my Eberron game could have rocked considerably harder had I just ran it based on Iron Heroes mechanics...but scant months after I became enamoured with Iron Heroes, the 4e announcement hit, so my plan to overhaul my campaign was cut short by more plans to overhaul my campaign. Differently. And Mearls is involved in this one too, so there's something to all this, methinks.
5. Nicolas Logue. For his work on Eberron alone. His adventures? Sweet, sweet gravy. Slathered all over the steak and mashed potatoes of my DMing. And my players devour it, then ask for a better steak to compliment the delicious gravy, and complain of lumpy potatoes. This one will be short, for something placing above the likes of Mike Mearls, because I am tired and becoming lazier as I type. But Nic Logue is amazing. And I already sort of used a metaphor, so I can't even stretch this one out with a metaphor, without it just being too many metaphors. Needless to say, more recognition is due. Also, City of Stormreach is easily in my top 5 Eberron sourcebooks, possibly in the top 3. My bias for Logue may be partially because my gaming group has enjoyed his Viktor Saint-Demain arc SO HARD. They're about to start (a slightly ramped up, to match their level) Hell's Heart, and they are pumped.
4. Monte Cook. J.D. already covered this. His contributions to gaming cannot be overstated since he started that amazing little upstart called Malhavoc Press. I will basically just say, "Yes, I agree with J.D." and move on, because, as I said, tired.
3. Gary Gygax. Everything to be said about the man has been said over the past week and a bit. Go read that. Because that's what I'm saying by placing him over all these small fries.
2. Keith Baker. He places here because Eberron is such an awesome setting. I have enjoyed running it so much over the last few years(!), and my players have enjoyed it too. Sure, he gets recognition. But the big thing for me is that a lot of that is pretty much self-generated, by virtue of how incredibly involved he is with the community. If he won the lottery, there'd probably be a new AKB thread on the boards every weekend. As is, he has to work and do normal people things. But his abnormal, non-people brain gave me a setting that I've derived more pleasure, solace, camaraderie, etc. from than any other, and when RPGs themselves give me more pleasure, solace, camaraderie, etc. than any other activity, that's monumental. To me.
1. Dave Arneson. Gotta agree with J.D. here. The man who made Blackmoor deserves more than a tip of the hat after an ampersand to Gary Gygax.
"Why must we be put down when we try to get away?
Why must we all grow up when we could just play and play?
Good things in life are free - can't buy everything, that's true.
Only one thing wrong with that - what it don't buy I don't use."
-At A Later Date by Warsaw |
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