Stephan Michael Sechi is a

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

who has worked primarily on

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, 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 these roles within ...

Career

In 1982, Stephan Michael Sechi,

Steven Cordovano Steven Cordovano is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career In 1982, Stephan Michael Sechi, Steven Cordovano and Venie Taylor each put in $600 and formed the company Bard Games Bard Games was an American game co ...

and

Vernie Taylor Vernie () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays de la Loire Pays de la Loire (; ; br, Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France, in the west of the mainland. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone o ...

each put in $600 and formed the company

Bard Games Bard Games was an American game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements. Products Bard Games was formed in 1982 by Steven Cordovano, Vernie Taylor and Stephan Michael Sechi, who each put up $600. Their intention was to marke ...

to produce their own ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (T ...

'' supplements. Sechi and Cordovano's ''

The Compleat Alchemist ''The Compleat Alchemist'' is a generic role-playing game supplement first published by Bard Games in 1982. Publication history Bard Games was formed in 1982 by Steven Cordovano and Stephan Michael Sechi to market generic fantasy role-playing su ...

'' (1983) was the company's first product and presented a new character class: a magic-item maker. Sechi's ''

The Compleat Adventurer ''The Compleat Adventurer'' is a 1983 role-playing game supplement for published by Bard Games. Contents ''The Compleat Adventurer'' is a collection of character classes intended to be used for fantasy roleplaying games. The book presented vari ...

'' (1983) offered a number of variant classes for thieves and fighters, while Sechi and Taylor's ''

The Compleat Spell Caster ''The Compleat Spell Caster'' is a 1983 role-playing game supplement for published by Bard Games. Contents ''The Compleat Spell Caster'' is a supplement intended to add new material to the magic systems existing in fantasy roleplaying games. The ...

'' (1983) presented many variant magic-user classes. Sechi oversaw Bard's next project, ''

The Atlantis Trilogy ''Atlantis'' is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) originally published by Bard Games, set in the ancient world before Atlantis sank. It first consisted of three books: '' The Arcanum'', '' The Lexicon'', and '' The Bestiary'', and for this reason ...

'' for Bard Games, which took three years to complete but eventually the three books were published as '' The Arcanum'' (1984), '' The Lexicon'' (1985), and '' The Bestiary'' (1986). Due to personal and financial disagreements that arose in the wake of his completion of ''The Atlantis Trilogy'', Sechi sold his shares in Bard Games to Cordovano and left. Over the next three months he began work on another trilogy of supplements that would form the basis of a new RPG; Cordovano decided that he did not want to run Bard Games and sold it back to Sechi, who now had a publishing house to produce his new game which he called ''

Talislanta ''Talislanta'' is a fantasy role-playing game written by Stephen Michael Sechi and published by Bard Games in 1987. There have been six different English-language editions and several foreign language editions published. All English-language prod ...

'' (1987) . The success of ''Talislanta'' allowed Sechi to collect his ''Atlantis'' setting material into a new sourcebook, ''Atlantis: The Lost World'' (1988) and shortly afterward could publish a second edition of the ''Talislanta'' game in the ''Talislanta Handbook & Campaign Guide'' (1989). When a buyer from

Waldenbooks Waldenbooks, operated by the Walden Book Company, Inc., was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain, from 1995 as a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as ...

placed a huge order on ''Atlantis: The Lost World'', Sechi was reluctant to fill it but eventually did; about a year later many of the books were returned, forcing Bard Games to refund about $20,000. Sechi repaid its debts to the book trade, paid off his partner, and then shut Bard Games down. Sechi retained control of Bard Games' properties, and licensed the rights to

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidi ...

, Death's Edge Games, Daedalus Entertainment, and

Pharos Press The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria (; Ancient Greek: ὁ Φάρος τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας, contemporary Koine ), was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, during the rei ...

. In 2005, Morrigan Press licensed ''Talislanta'' from Sechi and simultaneously bought the rights to two of the ''Atlantis'' books, ''The Lexicon'' and ''The Besitary''. In 2010, Sechi placed the entire corpus of ''Talislanta'' books under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has releas ...

license.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sechi, Stephan Michael Living people Role-playing game designers Year of birth missing (living people)