Anne C. Gray McCready (born July 7, 1960, in

Williams Bay, Wisconsin Williams Bay is a village in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. It is one of three municipalities on Geneva Lake. The population was 2,953 at the 2020 census. On June 22, 2024 the town was hit by an EF-1 tornado, there were no injuri ...

) is a

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

and editor who has worked on a number of products for the ''

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 ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

from TSR.

Early life

Anne Gray grew up in

, and went to the

University of Wisconsin–Whitewater The University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (UW–Whitewater or UWW) is a public university in Whitewater, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the University of Wisconsin System. As of Fall 2024, the university offers 47 undergraduate majors ...

majoring in biology, switching to marketing after a year, and switching to English the following year, earning her

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

in English in 1982. "My first job after college was working at a printing company, where I keylined ads, business cards, and menus, and got interested in graphic design."

Career

Gray "applied for a nice, normal job at TSR, as an Administrative Assistant with TSR's International Division, but I didn't get it. I did keep in touch with the company, and later that year I got another interview for a job as a Copy Editor. . . and I was hired." Although Gray was not yet familiar with the ''

'' game at the time, she said "My first real assignment as a Copy Editor was to edit the revised edition of the '' D&D Basic Set''. I swear, I hardly knew what the ''D&D'' game was about. . . . and before I knew it, I was stuck with the job of editing boxed set after boxed set." Gray was promoted to full editor after a year, and handled the ''D&D'' line and other projects. Gray met Ben McCready just after Christmas 1984, and they were married the week before

Gen Con Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing ...

1985.

Works

Anne Gray McCready worked as an editor on several ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game products from 1984-1986. She also did design and author work on

modules Module, modular and modularity may refer to the concept of modularity. They may also refer to: Computer science and engineering * Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components ...

such as '' Mystery of the Snow Pearls'' and ''

Red Sonja Unconquered ''Red Sonja Unconquered'' () is a 1986 adventure module for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' roleplaying game based on the barbarian heroine, Red Sonja. Its module code is RS1 and its TSR product code is TSR 9183. Like the similar barbarian-hero insp ...

''. Her editing work includes products from the

Greyhawk Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for ''Dungeons & Dragons''—Dave Arneson' ...

Ravenloft Ravenloft is a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' roleplaying game. It is an alternate time-space existence known as a '' pocket dimension'' or demiplane, called the Demiplane of Dread, which consists of a collection of land piece ...

Dragonlance ''Dragonlance'' is a shared universe created by Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived ''Dragonlance'' while driving i ...

Forgotten Realms ''Forgotten Realms'' is a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setti ...

, and

Birthright Birthright is the concept of things being due to a person upon or by fact of their birth, or due to the order of their birth. These may include rights of citizenship based on the place where the person was born or the citizenship of their paren ...

product lines.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McCready, Anne Gray 1960 births 21st-century American women American women science fiction and fantasy writers American women writers Dungeons & Dragons game designers Living people People from Williams Bay, Wisconsin