Bill Slavicsek (born October 6, 1971) is an American game designer and writer who served as the Director of Roleplaying Design and Development at

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (WotC or Wizards) is an American game Publishing, publisher, most of which are based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science-fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail game stores. In 1999, toy ...

. He previously worked for

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' ...

and TSR, Inc., and designed products for ''

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 ...

'', ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

'', ''

Alternity ''Alternity'' is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) published by TSR, Inc., TSR in 1997 in games, 1997. Following the acquisition of TSR by Wizards of the Coast, the game was discontinued in 2000 as part of a broader rationalisation of T ...

'', '' Torg'', ''

Paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of co ...

'' and ''

Ghostbusters ''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, three eccentric ...

''.

Biography

Early life

Bill Slavicsek was born and raised in New York City. Slavicsek was a comic book, horror, and science fiction fan as a boy: "Some of my earliest memories involve looking at issues of Marvel Comics, drawing my own comics, and watching old SF and horror movies on TV". Interested in gaming from an early age, Slavicsek was introduced to

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 ...

s in 1977 when he discovered ''

''. Originally intending to pursue a career as a

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

artist, Slavicsek switched to

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

and

communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

at St. John's University.

West End Games

After working for a year at a community newspaper, Slavicsek was hired by West End Games as an editor in 1986. In 1987 the company secured the license to publish a Star Wars roleplaying game, a project which Slavicsek oversaw as an editor and developer. Slavicsek supervised the ''Star Wars'' line for the first year of its publication. In 1988 he was promoted to Creative and Editorial Director for WEG. He co-created the '' Torg'' game with Greg Gorden, published in 1990, and co-authored the novel ''Stormknights'', which was set in the Torg universe. Slavicsek left West End later in 1990.

TSR

In 1991, Slavicsek began working as a freelancer, and was hired as a designer/editor by TSR in 1993. At TSR, he designed the ''

'' game with Rich Baker, as well as the Revised ''Dark Sun Campaign Setting'', and '' The Nightmare Lands'' for the

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 ...

setting. For much of the 1990s he was working simultaneously for both WEG and TSR as an editor and designer on various projects. He wrote '' A Guide to the Star Wars Universe'', a definitive reference to Star Wars movies, books, and games, which was published by Del Rey in 1994. Slavicsek is considered one of the world's leading experts on Star Wars, and has written the second and third editions of '' A Guide to the Star Wars Universe''.

Wizards of the Coast

By the end of 1997, Slavicsek was the Director of the TSR Product Group for

; that job was later divided in two, making him the Director of Roleplaying Game design. Peter Adkison selected Slavicsek to be the head of role-playing game research and development. Richard Baker and Slavicsek designed the ''

'' sci-fi role-playing game for TSR to replace their '' Amazing Engine'' game, and Wizards published the game in 1997. Peter Adkison left the third edition ''

'' design work for

to Slavicsek and a group of other former employees of TSR. Hasbro told Wizards in December 2000 to cut 10% of its staff; Slavicsek was the "Director of Category" in charge of a team of roughly 60 people, and he made the decision to shut down the Los Angeles office of the remaining Last Unicorn Games division. By the time of the publication of the d20 edition of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game in 2000, Slavicsek held the title of Vice President and Director of RPG R&D for Wizards of the Coast. Keith Baker produced the ''

Eberron Campaign Setting ''Eberron Campaign Setting'' is a hardcover accessory for the 3.5 edition of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game. Contents The ''Eberron Campaign Setting'' book introduces Eberron, and provides the core campaign setting, incl ...

'' (2004) with

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the Neoclassicism, neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to ...

and Slavicsek. As the Director of R&D for ''Dungeons & Dragons'', Slavicsek began looking into a fourth edition of ''D&D'' as early as 2005, when he created a team to begin work on early designs, led by Rob Heinsoo working with Andy Collins and James Wyatt. Slavicsek and Mike Mearls designed the '' Castle Ravenloft Board Game'' (2010). Slavicsek left Wizards of the Coast in 2011.

After Wizards of the Coast

Slavicsek became a writer and content designer at ZeniMax Online Studios, which developed and released '' The Elder Scrolls Online'' MMORPG.

Selected bibliography

Novels

* The Mark of Nerath (2010)

Media appearances

Bill Slavicsek has appeared in the following newspaper and magazine articles, websites and podcasts.

Podcasts

* RPG Countdown: 11 March 2009 ''"Dungeon Delve"'' * Never Tell Me the Pods: 21 September 2016 ''"Episode 25 - May The Source Be With You (Bill Slavicsek)"''

References

External links

* RPG Database ''Pen & Paper'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Slavicsek, Bill 1971 births 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Dungeons & Dragons game designers Living people Novelists from New York (state) Writers from New York City