Ken Cliffe
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Ken Cliffe 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 ...
who has worked primarily on
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. He is known primarily as the author and developer for the third edition of ''
Ars Magica ''Ars Magica'' is a role-playing game set in 'Mythic Europe' – a historically grounded version of Europe and the Levant around AD 1200, with the added conceit that conceptions of the world prevalent in folklore and institutions of the High Mid ...
'', and as co-author and developer of the ''
Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...
'', '' Hunter: The Reckoning'' and "new" (2004) ''
World of Darkness ''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with ''Vampire: The Masquerade'', ''Werewolf: The Apocaly ...
'' role-playing games.


Career


''Villains and Vigilantes''

Ken Cliffe began his career writing supplements in support of
Fantasy Games Unlimited Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) is a publishing house for tabletop and role-playing games. The company has no in-house design teams and relies on submitted material from outside talent. History Founded in the summer of 1975 in Jericho, New York b ...
's role-playing game, ''
Villains and Vigilantes ''Villains and Vigilantes'' (abbreviated as ''V&V'') is a superhero-themed role-playing game which competed primarily with '' Champions'' and ''Superworld'' in the early to mid-1980s. Origin ''Villains and Vigilantes'' was the first role-playin ...
,'' including ''Vigilantes International'', which was published much later as part of a revival of the line. He was credited with developing the supplements he authored into a coherent universe for the game.


White Wolf Publishing

Cliffe later came to
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 Rampant Cliffe was the line editor on ''
Ars Magica ''Ars Magica'' is a role-playing game set in 'Mythic Europe' – a historically grounded version of Europe and the Levant around AD 1200, with the added conceit that conceptions of the world prevalent in folklore and institutions of the High Mid ...
'' for the majority of the time the game was in publication at White Wolf, and developed and authored the third edition of ''Ars Magica'' (1992). With Robert Hatch, Cliffe launched
Mind's Eye Theatre ''Mind's Eye Theatre'' is a live action role-playing game (LARP) based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe and shares the setting with the tabletop role-playing game '' Vampire: The Masquerade'', among others. In most editions of the ...
in 1993, the
live action role-playing A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their character (arts), characters.(Tychsen et al. 2006:255) "LARPs can be viewed as forming a distinct category of RPG because of ...
game based on Mark Rein•Hagen's '' Vampire: The Masquerade'' tabletop role-playing game. In 1992, Cliffe became editor of '' White Wolf'' magazine, and was apparently supervising all of the legacy products published by White Wolf, in the years when it was releasing the early
World of Darkness ''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with ''Vampire: The Masquerade'', ''Werewolf: The Apocaly ...
games. Cliffe made ''White Wolf'' magazine a monthly publication beginning with issue #39 (January 1994); at this time he regularly contributed reviews of games by other publishers to the magazine. Subsequently, Cliffe was one of the authors on the ''Creature Collection'' (2000), a book of monsters and the first release from White Wolf's ''Sword & Sorcery'' imprint.


World of Darkness games

In collaboration with Bill Bridges, Cliffe developed and launched new game lines for White Wolf: ''
Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...
'' (1997) and '' Hunter: The Reckoning'' (1999). Again he collaborated with Bridges to develop the reboot of White Wolf's game lines in the early 2000s. He developed and authored '' The World of Darkness'' core book (2004), which combined the new
World of Darkness ''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with ''Vampire: The Masquerade'', ''Werewolf: The Apocaly ...
setting and rule system into one book. With
Justin Achilli Justin Achilli is best known as an author and developer for White Wolf, Inc. Career Justin Achilli began working at White Wolf Publishing, White Wolf in 1995. Achilli has contributed as an author for numerous ''Vampire: The Masquerade'' and ''Vamp ...
, he also co-authored ''Vampire: The Requiem for Dummies'', which concentrates on the Chronicles of Darkness setting and character creation rules for the '' Storytelling system''. In 2008 and 2009, White Wolf released the board games ''Hunter: Deadly Prey'' and ''Monster Mayem'', also designed by Cliffe.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cliffe, Ken American role-playing designers Living people White Wolf game designers Year of birth missing (living people)