roleplaying game
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 ...
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...
where he attended Ithaca High School, graduating in 1986.The Bulletin: Ithaca High School 20th Reunion 1986/2006 July 1, 2006. Pg. 29 Archive copy at Scribd. He had been playing role-playing games since the late 1970s, beginning with the first '' Basic D&D'' set: "I remember pretending to be a wizard in my backyard before I picked up the basic set... I used the monster statistics in the D&D books to give us wizards something to fight in our primitive backyard live-action roleplaying game." After high-school he attended Oberlin in Ohio as a religion major and graduated in 1990. He went on to receive a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, in 1993. He was married soon after. In 1994, Wyatt began his working career as the minister of two small United Methodist churches in southeastern
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
.
While working as a minister Wyatt began writing in his spare time for ''
Dragon
A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...
Masque of the Red Death
"The Masque of the Red Death" (originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy") is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous pande ...
'' setting. By 1996, Wyatt decided to change his career path: "While I was in the ministry, I started submitting adventures to '' Dungeon'' magazine... I found that my D&D work was a source of freedom and energy when ministry was more life-draining for me. When I started getting adventures and articles accepted, it was so exciting that it became clear that D&D would never again be just a hobby for me." The same year he moved to
Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
in hopes of getting a full-time job at TSR, which did not immediately work out, but he kept writing material as a freelance author. Wyatt produced work for roleplaying games such as West End's '' Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game'', although he felt that "D&D has always been my one true love in the gaming world... despite junior high flings with other game systems." He continued to have material published in ''Dragon'' and ''Dungeon''.
In 1998 he moved to Berkeley, California, and in 2000 to the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington state.Wizards of the Coast ultimately hired him in January 2000 to work on the ''D&D'' game full-time; his first assignment was '' Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn'', of which he wrote two-thirds. His other early works for Wizards of the Coast included '' The Speaker in Dreams'' (a core adventure on the original Adventure Path, following '' The Sunless Citadel'' and '' The Forge of Fury''), '' Defenders of the Faith'', the monsters chapter in the '' Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting'', and numerous articles in ''Dragon'' and ''Dungeon''. Wyatt wrote '' Oriental Adventures'' (2001), a setting book that had been in the works with Wizards for more than a year, and which presented new rules for Oriental lands, including specific rules for the Rokugan setting. He wrote '' City of the Spider Queen'' and co-authored numerous roleplaying game products, including '' Magic of Incarnum'', '' Sharn: City of Towers'', '' Draconomicon, The Book of Dragons'', and '' Book of Exalted Deeds''.
Eberron
Eberron is a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') role-playing game. The game is set primarily on the continent of Khorvaire following a vast destructive war. Eberron is designed to accommodate traditional ''D&D'' elements an ...
was introduced with the '' Eberron Campaign Setting'' (2004), which was designed by Keith Baker with Wyatt and Bill Slavicsek. Early in 2005, Slavicsek put together a team to start some early designs for a fourth edition of ''D&D'', which was headed by Rob Heinsoo with Collins and Wyatt as the core fourth-edition team. Wyatt was on the SCRAMJET team, led by Richard Baker, along with Matt Sernett, Ed Stark, Michele Carter, Stacy Longstreet, and Chris Perkins; this team updated the setting and cosmology of ''D&D'' as the fourth edition was being developed.
He wrote the ''D&D'' novels ''In the Claws of the Tiger'' (2006), '' Storm Dragon'' (2007), ''Dragon Forge'' (2008), ''Dragon War'' (2009), and ''Oath of Vigilance'' (2011).
In 2014, Wyatt left ''Dungeons & Dragons'' to work on the writing and creative aspects of '' Magic: The Gathering''. Wyatt wrote the text for the series of ''Art of Magic: The Gathering'' coffee table books, which reprint illustrations from the cards with details for each plane's lore. He then wrote a series of free PDF releases called ''Plane Shift'' which adapts ''Magic: The Gathering'' for ''Dungeons & Dragons''; the ''Plane Shift'' releases were created to allow players to use those coffee table books as campaign setting guides by providing the necessary rule adaptations. Between 2016 and 2018, six "Plane Shift" articles were released: Amonkhet, Dominaria, Innistrad, Ixalan, Kaladesh, and Zendikar, along with an Ixalan-set adventure. However, these articles are not considered official material for organized play. In 2017, Mike Mearls wrote: "It's basically a thing James does for fun, and we don't want to burden it with needing all the work required to make it official".
The positive response to the "Plane Shift" articles lead to the 2018 publication of '' Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica'', a full hardcover setting guide to the ''Magic'' setting of Ravnica for ''Dungeons & Dragons''. Wyatt was the lead designer on ''Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica'' (2018) and he stated "this book is, essentially, Plane Shift: Ravnica". Wyatt and F. Wesley Schneider were then co-leads on the design on the next crossover book '' Mythic Odysseys of Theros'' (2020) which adapts the ''Magic'' setting of Theros. He is also one of the authors of the sourcebook '' Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft'' (2021).
Wyatt later became a
Deacon
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions.
Major Christian denominations, such as the Cathol ...
in the Episcopal Church, with an ordination to the priesthood to take place in June 2025.
Eberron
Eberron is a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') role-playing game. The game is set primarily on the continent of Khorvaire following a vast destructive war. Eberron is designed to accommodate traditional ''D&D'' elements an ...
Campaign Setting'', which he co-authored with Bill Slavicsek and Keith Baker. His other notable works include '' Oriental Adventures'' (for which he won an ENnie Award in 2002), ''
Draconomicon
The ''Draconomicon'' is the title for several optional sourcebooks for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game, providing supplementary game mechanics for dragons specifically. Different ''Draconomicon'' books have been issued for the 2nd, ...