Ryan S. Dancey is a businessman who has worked primarily in the

collectible card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. The genre was introduced with ''Magic: The G ...

and

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 ...

industries. He was vice president in charge of ''

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 ...

'' 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 ...

. When the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons was facing bankruptcy, Dancey helped negotiate sale of the property to Wizards of the Coast. Dancey promoted the D&D's open gaming license (OGL), which reversed the policy from opposing third-party publications to supporting them.

Career

Dancey was the owner of the distributor Isomedia Inc, a company that was helping fund the collectible card game ''

Legend of the Five Rings Legend of the Five Rings (often abbreviated ''L5R'') is a fictional setting created by John Zinser, Dave Seay, Ryan Dancey, Dave Williams, DJ Trindle, Matt Wilson (artist), Matt Wilson and John Wick (role-playing game designer), John Wick and ...

'' (1995), and Dancey joined in on the project. The principals behind the game created the new company Five Rings Publishing Group in 1996 with better funding from Robert Abramowitz as its President;

Alderac Entertainment Group Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is a publisher of family board game products. AEG was formed by Jolly Blackburn in 1993. Blackburn left the company in 1995 and the majority of the company is now owned by President & CEO John Zinser. The comp ...

(AEG) and Isomedia gave over their rights to ''Legend of the Five Rings'', with Dancey becoming Vice President of Product Development and John Zinser of AEG becoming VP of Sales. TSR was approaching bankruptcy in early 1997 and in need of a buyer; Abramowitz and Dancey negotiated a deal to purchase TSR, which they brought to

Peter Adkison Peter D. Adkison is an American game designer and businessman who is the founder of Wizards of the Coast, where he held the role of CEO from 1993 to 2001. During Adkison's tenure, Wizards of the Coast rose to the status of a major publisher in ...

, who purchased Five Rings Publishing along with TSR. At the end of the next year the Five Rings Publishing Group was dissolved, and Dancey took over as business head of the Wizards of the Coast role-playing department, where he became involved in the development of ''

'' third edition. Adkison put Dancey in charge of business and marketing for TSR. Dancey championed Wizards of the Coast purchasing

Last Unicorn Games Last Unicorn Games (or LUG) was a Pennsylvania based corporation with offices in Los Angeles, California. It was formed in 1994 by Christian Moore, Owen Seyler, Greg Ormand, and Bernie Cahill to publish the role playing game ''ARIA: Canticle of t ...

in 2000, to obtain their efficient R&D team for the existing RPG staff at Wizards. Dancey largely conceived of the

Open Gaming License The Open Game License (OGL) is a public copyright license by Wizards of the Coast that may be used by tabletop role-playing game developers to grant permission to modify, copy, and redistribute some of the content designed for their games, nota ...

(OGL) and d20 System Trademark License, based on his belief that the true strength of ''D&D'' came from its community of gamers. He said that TSR was far too aggressive looking for copyright violations and alienated fans. The OGL was published by WOTC in 2000 to license the

System Reference Document In the open gaming movement, a System Reference Document (SRD) is a reference for a role-playing game's mechanics licensed under a public copyright license to allow other publishers to make material compatible with that game. In 2000, Wizards of ...

(SRD) for ''D&D'' in a move spearheaded by Dancey. Dancey also co-authored the '' Hero Builder's Guidebook'' (2000). Dancey later moved to being a consultant, and was among those employees Wizards laid off before the end of 2002. Dancey later worked for Icelandic video game producer

CCP Games CCP ehf., doing business as CCP Games (short for Crowd Control Productions), is an Icelandic video game developer based in Reykjavík. Novator Partners and General Catalyst had previously collectively owned a majority stake in the company, and ...

, which had purchased

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 In 2011, Dancey began working on Goblinworks "Pathfinder Online" Sandbox MMORPG. In August 2015, interim Goblinworks CEO

Lisa Stevens Lisa Stevens is an American editor, CEO and founder of Paizo Publishing, and COO of Goblinworks. She began her career in games in the 1980s, working with Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen to help produce the tabletop roleplaying game ''Ars Mag ...

announced that Ryan Dancey had left Goblinworks for personal reasons. In a separate letter to players, she indicated that Dancey was still involved, and would continue to consult on the project.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dancey, Ryan American game designers Dungeons & Dragons game designers Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)