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RPG a Day 2015 Challenge – Day 11

Hello, again, thanks for reading these posts. I love participating in #RPGaDay2015 since  it is a great excuse and motivator to get back to blogging. Hope you are enjoying these as much as I am enjoying writing them.

This is another one of those categories that are very difficult. Picking favorites is always hard, so I’m going to do a little cheating and do a countdown!

Day 11 – Favorite RPG writer

There are probably far more great RPG creators that I could list here, many I’m probably missing, so I’m going to do a countdown of five to get to my favorite RPG writer:

Number 5 – Owen K C Stephens

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In recent years Owen K C Stephens work has been consistently great and fun! His work for Green Ronin and Paizo has been terrific and the stuff he publishes through Rogue Genius Games is among the best third party content for Pathfinder. I also follow him on Facebook and he’s amazingly candid and fun. I’m a fan!

Number 4 – Steve Kenson

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What can I say about the guy who’s written my two favorite superhero role playing games? Mutants & Masterminds and Icons! Not only that, before I played those games I used to play Silver Age Sentinels, which he worked on, and True20, also one of his creations, was one of my favorite applications of the d20 OGL. He also gave me the first interview I did here in the blog over five years ago. He’s an all around nice guy and I got to met him at GenCon back in 2011.

Number 3 – Sean K. Reynolds

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and talking about nice guys, I’m hard pressed to think of a nice guy. He was so amicable when I took this picture with him back at GenCon. Since I added him on FB, I’ve been lucky enough to interact with him through social media, a treat since I’ve been a fan of his work since Alternity, all through his D&D 3.5 and Paizo work, and his Kickstarters, including his Five Moons RPG. Looking forward to whatever new project he comes out with!

Number 2 – Gary Gygax

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How could I not have him in the list? Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created a hobby that has changed my life. I’ve made more friends thought RPGs than any other endeavour in my life. While his style is not for everyone, and when I got to read them I was a little turned off by some of his Dragon Magazine columns, as an adult I’ve rediscovered the joy of reading his work. I’ve discussed the one time I saw him on a post we all contributed to in his memory, you can read it here.

Number 1 – Bruce Heard

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And this one should be no surprise! From all my mentions of Mystara and the Gazetteer series, to my fawning over the Voyage of the Princess Ark, to my interview of Bruce Heard and to my love of Calidar, this number 1 spot should have been obvious! Every month his column was the first thing I read in my copy of Dragon Magazine, he stewarded my favorite series of supplements for any setting, and he happens to be swell guy too. Bruce has been responsible for so many hours of fun in my life, for me and many of my friends, that all I can do is say, thank you!

Well those are the top 5, but there are some honorable mentions as well. Kenneth Hite, because he writes some wonderfully cerebral, amazing games that blur the line between game and literature. Monte Cook because he was such a driving force in the d20 movement, and now is doing so much more. Gareth Skarka, because knowing him, his work and his passion is a pleasure and finally, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman because their writing and the gaming content related to it was so pivotal in my love of fantasy fiction and RPGs.

(See how I weaseled my way out of just picking one favorite?)

So who is your favorite, or favorites? Let us know in the comments. See you all tomorrow!
Sunglar

Welcome, reader; thanks for taking the time to discover who I am! My name is Roberto, although I usually go by Sunglar online. I am a longtime tabletop RPG player, primarily a GM for the better part of that time; some will say that’s because of my love of telling a good story, others because I’m a control freak, but that’s debatable. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean with a small but active gaming community. I’ve played RPGs for almost 40 years, and for most of that time, I played D&D in all its permutations, including Pathfinder and D&D 5th edition. Other games our regular gaming group plays include Mutants & Masterminds, Castles & Crusades, Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, Alien, and more. I have played many games through the years and plan to play many more. I am a compulsive homebrewer and rarely play a campaign I have not created myself. You can follow me on social media as Sunglar, and I’m regularly active on Facebook where you can find me posting regularly in the Puerto Rico Role Players group. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

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6 comments

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Bruce Heard

Well, Roberto, I’m very happy I was able to entertain you so well. No doubt about it: I’m endeavoring to continue this tradition. Thanks! You truly made my day today! Happy gaming!
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    Sunglar

    You continue to this day, I already devoured the first book, and the blog post, so all I can do now is wait for the next book… Hint, hint, no pressure! Jejeje thanks for dropping by, it is always a pleasure.
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Bruce Heard

Likewise — I’ll be posting a project update on both blog sites this morning (actually a multi-project overview).
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Sunglar

Great! Looking forward to it…
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Johnkzin

For me, I’m going to sound like a broken record slightly: I have yet to purchase a game product with Chris Birch’s name on it, that I wasn’t glad to have purchased. (Chris Birch being the founder of Modiphius, but my statement goes back to his pre-Modiphius games as well).

I kind of have to also throw Monte Cook into that. I haven’t really interacted with him much, and I’m not the fan-boy type, but between this 3.x D&D days, and the Cipher system, I have a great deal of respect for his game writing as well.

(given what I said about Evil Hat, earlier, it might seem surprising that I am not putting anything here, but for the latest edition, I feel like FATE is more ensemble than specific writer; though Leonard Balsera did a big share of FATE Core writing, but my like of FATE seems less specific to a given writer than their team as a whole … plus, I’m not as familiar with Leonard’s other game writing — I own PDFs for Cortex, but haven’t actually read/played the system, I mostly own them as a link to the various licensed games based on Cortex)
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    Sunglar

    Hey, it’s who you like and I think it’s only natural that we gravitate to the authors and games we enjoy. I must admit to not having read that much from Chris Birch before Achtung! Cthulhu, which I enjoy immensely.
    Reply