author
In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...
,
game
A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...
designer, and CEO of
Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Pinnacle Entertainment Group is a publisher of role-playing games and wargames.
History
Shane Lacy Hensley wanted to create a 19th-century miniatures game so he contacted the company Chameleon Eclectic to get the game published. As a result '' Fi ...
and is a resident of
Gilbert, Arizona
Gilbert is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. Located southeast of Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, Gilbert is home to 288,128 residents. It is the fifth-most populous municipality in Arizona and is considered a suburb of Phoenix.
I ...
.
Career
Shane Lacy Hensley is from
Clintwood, Virginia
Clintwood is a town in Dickenson County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,377 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dickenson County.
Although originally called "Holly Creek" after a small stream that runs through the town, ...
, and began playing ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...
'' after seeing comic-strip ads featured in comic books in the 1980s. Hensley later sent
West End Games
West End Games (WEG) was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York City, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Its product lines included ''Star Wars'', ''Paranoia' ...
an unsolicited ''
Torg
''Torg'' is a cinematic cross-genre tabletop role-playing game created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek, with art by Daniel Horne. It was first published by West End Games (WEG) in 1990. Game resolution uses a single twenty-sided die, ''dram ...
'' adventure that he authored, which the company published soon after as ''The Temple of Rec Stalek'' (1992). Hensley got more work published in the next few years through
FASA
FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargaming, wargames and board games between 1980 and 2001, after which they closed publishing operations for several years, becoming an IP holding company under the name FASA In ...
, TSR, and West End.
Hensley created the game company
Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Pinnacle Entertainment Group is a publisher of role-playing games and wargames.
History
Shane Lacy Hensley wanted to create a 19th-century miniatures game so he contacted the company Chameleon Eclectic to get the game published. As a result '' Fi ...
in 1994. Hensley reached out to local game company Chameleon Eclectic to publish a 19th-century miniatures game, which they agreed to published in conjunction with Pinnacle as '' Fields of Honor: The American War for Independence'' (1994) while Pinnacle retained ownership of the game. Hensley had the idea for a new game featuring cowboys and zombies as he was creating Pinnacle, when he saw a painting by Brom of a Confederate vampire on the cover of
White Wolf Publishing
White Wolf Entertainment AB, formerly White Wolf Publishing, was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant (game publisher), Lion RampantNecropolis: Atlanta''; he thus began writing the game that would become ''
Deadlands
''Deadlands'' is a genre-mixing alternate history role-playing game which combines the Western and horror genres, with some steampunk elements. The original game was written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group i ...
''. After completing a first draft, Henlsey had two friends and game designers flown in,
Greg Gorden
Greg Gorden is an American game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
Career
Greg Gorden has worked for several gaming companies:
* For Victory Games he participated, during the early 1980s, in the design of the '' James Bond ...
and
Matt Forbeck
Matt Forbeck (born August 4, 1968) is an American author and game designer from Beloit, Wisconsin.
Biography
Forbeck first became interested in role-playing games at age 13 when he started playing ''Dungeons & Dragons''. He earned a degree in cr ...
; both liked his draft and bought into Pinnacle, although Gorden soon left for personal reasons. Hensley did some computer game design work for SSI. Forbeck left Pinnacle a few years later, leaving Hensley again as the sole owner.
An announcement was made on September 13, 2000 that Pinnacle had been sold to the company Cybergames.com. Cybergames used their income from acquisitions to buy other companies - causing harm to the cashflow of their individual companies and ruining their production schedules – and Hensley announced on January 12, 2001 that the acquisition of Pinnacle had been "undone" after considerable damage left Pinnacle with only a handful of employees. Hensley joined the d20 boom, beginning a new d20-based ''
Weird Wars
''Weird Wars'' is a series of horror role-playing games set during past and future wars and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. The original release, '' Weird War II: Blood on the Rhine'' was set during World War II, and utilized the D20 S ...
'' campaign with ''Blood on the Rhine'' (2001). In 2003, Hensley formed the company
Great White Games
Pinnacle Entertainment Group is a publisher of role-playing games and wargames.
History
Shane Lacy Hensley wanted to create a 19th-century miniatures game so he contacted the company Chameleon Eclectic to get the game published. As a result '' Fie ...
and moved all of the IP from Pinnacle to Great White, as well as publishing the new game ''
Savage Worlds
''Savage Worlds'' is a role-playing game written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. The game emphasizes speed of play and reduced preparation over realism or detail. The game received the 2003 Origin Gamers' Cho ...
'' (2003). Hensley joined
Cryptic Studios
Cryptic Studios is an American video game developer specializing in MMORPG, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. It is headquartered in Los Gatos, California, and was a wholly owned Perfect World (company), Perfect World subsidiary, a ...
in 2004. With senior developer
David "Zeb" Cook
David "Zeb" Cook is an American game designer, best known for his work at TSR, Inc., where he was employed for over fifteen years. Cook designed several games, wrote the '' Expert Set'' for ''Dungeons & Dragons'', worked as lead designer of the ...
, Hensley was the senior writer on ''
City of Villains
''City of Heroes'' (''CoH'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game originally created by Cryptic Studios prior to the IP’s acquisition by NCSoft. Previously developed by the now-defunct Paragon Studios, it is currently develope ...
'' (2005). Hensley designed the role-playing game ''
Army of Darkness
''Army of Darkness'' is a 1992 American dark fantasy comedy film directed, co-written, and co-edited by Sam Raimi. The film is the third installment in the Evil Dead, ''Evil Dead'' film series and the sequel to ''Evil Dead II'' (1987). Starring ...
'' (2005) for Eden Studios.
Hensley also worked with Superstition Studios on a ''Deadlands'' MMORPG that was never published. Hensley was in charge of Dust Devil Studios and got ''Zombie Pirates'' (2010) published. He later rejoined Cryptic Studios and became Executive Producer.
Hensley has written several novels and designed a variety of games including miniatures
wargames
''WarGames'' is a 1983 American techno-thriller film directed by John Badham, written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, and starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood and Ally Sheedy. Broderick plays David Lightman, a ...
, tabletop wargames, and
role-playing games
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, eith ...
, as well as substantial
freelance
''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...
work writing modules for game systems. He has also scripted at least one computer game. Hensley has been a Guest of Honor at a number of major conventions and has garnered several game industry honors and awards.
He left Cryptic to make a ''Deadlands'' MMO in 2007, but the parent company went bankrupt. Hensley briefly returned to Cryptic in 2010 as Executive Producer on ''
Neverwinter
Neverwinter is a fictional city-state in the ''Forgotten Realms'' campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game. Neverwinter was founded by Lord Halueth Never. It sits on the northwestern coast of the subcontinent of ...
'', then on to
Petroglyph Games
Petroglyph Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Las Vegas. It was founded in 2003 by Joe Bostic, Michael Legg and Steve Tall, programmers formerly of Westwood Studios, after that company was closed down earlier that year.
H ...
to work on the ''
End of Nations
''End of Nations'' is an unreleased multiplayer online battle arena video game for Microsoft Windows. It was being developed in-house by Trion Worlds, combining the aesthetics and tone of the sci-fi genre and put it in a multiplayer online battle ...
'' MMORTS (published by
Trion Worlds
Trion Worlds was an American video game developer. It focused primarily on MMOs, particularly of the MMORPG and MMORTS genres. The company was founded in 2006 by Lars Buttler and Jon Van Caneghem, who had each previously worked for NCSoft and ...