Paul Richard "Rich" Banner is an American game designer and graphic artist.

Beginnings

Rich Banner and

Frank Chadwick Frank Chadwick is an American 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 s ...

formed the ISU Game Club at the

Illinois State University Illinois State University (ISU) is a public research university in Normal, Illinois, United States. It was founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University and is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teachin ...

(Normal, Illinois). Banner engineered a grant which funded the printing of blank hex sheets (suitable for making wargame maps) and they began drafting a variety of designs, some derivative of existing games at the time, and some original concepts. In 1973, Illinois State University, under a program to fund educational innovation, created SimRAD (Simulation Research, Analysis, and Design), which designed games for implementation in the college classroom. At about the same time, Banner and Chadwick, along with newcomers Marc Miller and Loren Wiseman, decided to publish a massive World War II simulation game, and founded

Game Designers' Workshop Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a Board wargame, wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers. History Game Designers' Workshop was originally established June 22, 1973. ...

as their publishing company. As university funding dried up for SimRAD, the three shifted their attention to the commercial sector.

Game Designers' Workshop

Game Designers' Workshop (using the plural possessive to reflect the three partners) adopted as its birthdate June 22, 1973. In that year, GDW published Banner and Chadwick's

Drang Nach Osten! ''Drang Nach Osten!'' ("Drive to the East!") is a monster board wargame published in 1973 by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) that simulates Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The game was the first of what was ...

(the first of its Europa Series on World War II), Triplanetary, and Unentschieden (the sequel to Drang Nach Osten!). In 1974, the company published five new titles, including Chaco,

Eagles Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

Narvik () is the third-largest List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Nordland Counties of Norway, county, Norway, by population. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Narvik (town), town of Narvik. Some of the notable villag ...

Torgau Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies first met near ...

and

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

. Banner's position was art director, and his knowledge of printing and graphic design shaped GDW's public image and the appearance of its games. His graphic vision for Chadwick's ''

Avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a Grade (slope), slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be triggered spontaneously, by factors such as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, othe ...

'' (a game of the Salerno landings in World War II) won him the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best Graphics in 1976. His graphics for the System 7 (printed Napoleonics Miniatures) won him the H G Wells Award for Best Historical Figure Series in 1979 (and Chadwick received the companion H G Wells Award for Best Miniatures Rules for 1979). Banner is credited as co-designer on six of the 11 original Europa Series of World War II wargames. He was honored as a "famous game designer" by being featured as the king of diamonds in

Flying Buffalo Flying Buffalo Inc. (FBI) is a game company with a line of role playing games, card games, and other gaming materials. The company's founder, Rick Loomis, began game publishing with '' Nuclear Destruction'', a play-by-mail game which started th ...

's 2010 Famous Game Designers Playing Card Deck.

Game Manufacturers' Association

Banner was the first treasurer (1977–78) for the newly formed Game Manufacturers' Association, and its second president (1978-1981). During his tenure, the Association established its basic goals of promoting and protecting the game manufacturing industry, and oversaw the creation of the annual GAMA trade show.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banner, Rich American board game designers Living people Wargame designers Year of birth missing (living people)