Celebrities on the Piazza.

[Havard]

I define celebrity here as someone who has experience working in the Gaming industry.

IN RANDOM ORDER
* Frank Mentzer aka ExTSR, author (formally editor) of the BECMI D&D line and writer of various other D&D products and creator of the Aquaria/Empyria Setting posts in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4102
* Mike Brealt, who worked as a full time employee at TSR from 1984-1989 and as a freelancer for TSR for a few years after that, has his own thread here.
* Monte Cook, D&D3E, Malhavoc Press, Alternity, Planescape, Mystara, Dark Sun, Hero Games etc etc.
* Allen Varney who worked on Mystara, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Paranoia and many other things has a thread here.
* Colin McComb, , Birthright, Ravenloft, Mystara (Thunder Rift), Dragonlance has his own Q&A thread here.
* Tim Beach, Mystara, Red Steel, Monterous Compendiums etc. He posts on the Savage Coast subforum here.
* Andrew Steven Harris, Thunder Rift has his own Q&A thread here.
* James Mishler, Wilderlands, C&C, Hackmaster, Mystara
* Geoff Gander, Mystara
* Cam Banks , Dragonlance
* Trampas Whiteman (Dragonhelm) Dragonlance
* GMWestermeyer, Hackmaster, Spelljammer, Knights of the Dinnertable.
* Night Druid (Adam Miller) Hackmaster, Spelljammer.
* Silverblade-T-E, has art published in Polyhedron, Dragon and more.
* Jonathan M. Thompson of Battlefield Press (BPIJonathan) can be reached in the [Crystal Spheres] Offical Q&A thread. Jonathan has also aquired the rights to the Terran Trade Authority RPG - something that might appeal to Traveller fans. He posts information about this in the [Traveller] Terran Trade Authoritythread.
* Plaag (Shane G) co-wrote Bard's Gate from Necromancer Games and has done work in the first two FoS Ravenloft netbooks.
* Robert S. Conley , Wilderlands, Points of Light etc
* Quickleaf (Aaron Infante-Levy) wrote Tales of the Caliphate Nights ( Arabian setting for the True20 game).
* Dennis Payne (Dulsi) of Identical Games
* Louis Porter Jr. of LPJ Design is answering questions about his new Spelljammer-like game, Pirates of the Bronze Sky, in the SJ forum.
* Azaghal who contributed to the Starfirestrategic board game.
* Aldarron, the author of the Arnesonian RPG Dragons at Dawn.

BY SETTING
Mystara
* Mike Brealt, who worked as a full time employee at TSR from 1984-1989 and as a freelancer for TSR for a few years after that, has his own thread here. Of Mystara interest, he worked on the Golden Khan of Ethengar, IM2 Wrath of Olympus and Ship of Horrors.
* Allen Varney who worked on Mystara, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Paranoia and many other things has a thread here.
* Colin McComb, creator of Thunder Rift has his own Q&A thread here.
* Tim Beach, who worked as a designer on the Red Steel line and a developer on the Mystara *2e line. He posts on the Savage Coast subforum here.
* Andrew Steven Harris who worked on the Thunder Rifts line (among other things) has his own Q&A thread here.
* James Mishler who published Wilderlands supplements for his own company and also worked on the (abandoned, but not forgotten) Hackmaster Mystara book.
* Geoff Gander, published at DF, inventor of the Outer Beings.
* Shawn Stanley, who runs the Vaults of Pandius, the official Mystara Fansite.


Dragonlance
* Mike Brealt, who worked as a full time employee at TSR from 1984-1989 and as a freelancer for TSR for a few years after that, has his own thread here.
* Cam Banks who posts in the Dragonlance Forum.
* Dragonhelm (Trampas Whiteman) has also worked on various of Dragonlance books with Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions and is the founder of the Whitestone Council, the organization behind the Dragonlance Nexus.
* Colin McComb, , Birthright, Ravenloft, Mystara (Thunder Rift), Dragonlance has his own Q&A thread here.
* Tim Beach

Spelljammer
* Allen Varney who worked on Mystara, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Paranoia and many other things has a thread here.
* GMWestermeyer, co-author of Hackjammer and with a regular column in KotDT
* Night Druid who worked on the Hackjammer book for Hackmaster, who posts in the Spelljammer forum and elsewhere.
* Silverblade-T-E, has art published in Polyhedron, Dragon and more.
* Jonathan M. Thompson of Battlefield Press (BPIJonathan) can be reached in the [Crystal Spheres] Offical Q&A thread. Jonathan has also aquired the rights to the Terran Trade Authority RPG - something that might appeal to Traveller fans. He posts information about this in the [Traveller] Terran Trade Authoritythread.
* Louis Porter Jr. of LPJ Design is answering questions about his new Spelljammer-like game, Pirates of the Bronze Sky, in the SJ forum.

Ravenloft
* Mike Brealt, who worked as a full time employee at TSR from 1984-1989 and as a freelancer for TSR for a few years after that, has his own thread here.
* Colin McComb, creator of Islands of Terror has his own Q&A thread here.
* Plaag (Shane G) co-wrote Bard's Gate from Necromancer Games and has done work in the first two FoS Ravenloft netbooks.
* Tim Beach, who worked as a designer on the Red Steel line and a developer on the Mystara *2e line. He posts on the Savage Coast subforum here.

Birthright
* Colin McComb, creator of Birthright has his own Q&A thread here.

Dark Sun
* Allen Varney who worked on Mystara, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Paranoia and many other things has a thread here.
* Tim Beach

Other
* Robert S. Conley who worked on the Wilderlands and has written various products for the industry.
* Quickleaf (Aaron Infante-Levy) wrote Tales of the Caliphate Nights ( Arabian setting for the True20 game).
* James Mishler who publisheg Wilderlands supplements for his own company and also worked on the (abandoned, but not forgotten) Hackmaster Mystara book.
* Azaghal who contributed to the Starfirestrategic board game.
* Aldarron, the author of the Arnesonian RPG Dragons at Dawn.

Havard

[Philosopher]

Interesting idea.

If I'm not mistaken, Dragonhelm (Trampas Whiteman) has also worked on at least a couple of Dragonlance books with Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions.

I dont' know if this counts, as he's only posted once (on the Al-Qadim forum), but Quickleaf is Aaron Infante-Levy, who wrote Tales of the Caliphate Nights (a cool Arabian setting for the True20 game). Not sure if he plans on being a regular here, though.

[Andaire]

Good idea, Havard. It's always nice to share ideas with the community, and even more with "celebrities".
Plus, we might get them to release new stuff or at least ideas, addenda, etc

[Andaire]

BTW, not knowing all those settings I wasn't aware we had so many celebrities amongst us.

[Gawain_VIII]

I might also add Geoff Gander--inventer of the Outer Beings. It's a bit of a stretch, since he's uncredited, and his only "published material" is on Dragon's Foot, not an actual in-print for-profit game publisher, but still, credit where credit is due.

Roger

[Plaag]

I co-wrote Bard's Gate from Necromancer Games. Only other work of mine is in the first two FoS Ravenloft netbooks.

ShaneG.

[Seer of Yhog]

I might also add Geoff Gander--inventer of the Outer Beings. It's a bit of a stretch, since he's uncredited, and his only "published material" is on Dragon's Foot, not an actual in-print for-profit game publisher, but still, credit where credit is due.

*puts on specs*

Well, my name does appear in the credits for the Blackmoor rulebook, but I didn't actually write anything for it.

Seriously, thank you very much! Now that you've put me on a pillar, I'll really have to perform! Guess I should dust off that submission...

Geoff

[night_druid]

* Night Druid who worked on the Hackjammer book for Hackmaster, who posts in the Spelljammer forum and elsewhere.

Me? Celebrity? I think that stretches the definition a bit...

Do we have other celebrities on this forum that I forgot about?

If you're including me, you've got to include GMWestermeyer, co-author of Hackjammer. Heck, he's got a regular article in KotDT!

I think all of these should be offered their own Q&A thread should they want it. IMO it would make the most sense to hae these threads located in the forum the individual is most strongly associated with. We could also have a thread in this forum with links to all of the celebritiy Q&A threads.

Sure, FAQ threads can be fun

[Havard]

I updated the OP with suggestions from this thread.

I dont want to be the one to decide what constitutes a celebrity. Feel free to discuss that further. In any case, all of the people mentioned so far are cool people so being mentioned should be taken as a pat on the shoulder regardless.

I dont' know if this counts, as he's only posted once (on the Al-Qadim forum), but Quickleaf is Aaron Infante-Levy, who wrote Tales of the Caliphate Nights (a cool Arabian setting for the True20 game). Not sure if he plans on being a regular here, though.

Being registered is enough for now IMO.

*puts on specs*

Well, my name does appear in the credits for the Blackmoor rulebook, but I didn't actually write anything for it.

Me too There are also subtle references to me in the ZGG version of Temple of the Frog

Seriously, thank you very much! Now that you've put me on a pillar, I'll really have to perform! Guess I should dust off that submission...

Yes! This is starting to get interesting!

Havard

[Philosopher]

I dont want to be the one to decide what constitutes a celebrity. Feel free to discuss that further. In any case, all of the people mentioned so far are cool people so being mentioned should be taken as a pat on the shoulder regardless.

Rather than defining "celebrity", we can just thinking of this in terms of getting people in touch with authors/game designers/contributors (in any capacity) to ask any questions about their work. The idea is a great one; the semantics isn't important.

[Silverblade-T-E]

Well...I was published in Polyhedron 4 times, and Dragon mag nicked some of my Spelljammer art for a painting they had done, lol (they apologized honest mistake in confusing reference with useable art samples)

Believe Athas.org is gonna use some of my art, too

[Havard]

Rather than defining "celebrity", we can just thinking of this in terms of getting people in touch with authors/game designers/contributors (in any capacity) to ask any questions about their work. The idea is a great one; the semantics isn't important.

This makes sense.

Havard

[Havard]

Well...I was published in Polyhedron 4 times, and Dragon mag nicked some of my Spelljammer art for a painting they had done, lol (they apologized honest mistake in confusing reference with useable art samples)

Believe Athas.org is gonna use some of my art, too

Wow, I had no idea. That's awesome. Not surprised though, your art is great! I am still thinking of how to convince you to make an illustration of some of the Mystara Sky ships though...

Havard

[Big Mac]

If I'm not mistaken, Dragonhelm (Trampas Whiteman) has also worked on at least a couple of Dragonlance books with Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions.

I would say more than "a couple". He has a front cover credit on Races of Anslaon, Holy Orders of the Stars and Knightly Orders of Ansalon. He is also credited in War of the Lance, Dragons of Krynn, Bestiary of Krynn: Revised, Legends of the Twins. Plus he gets a "thankyou" in Dragonlance Campaign Setting and Towers of High Sorcery. (I didn't check the other stuff.)

Dragonhelm is one of the members of the Whitestone Council and is "in charge of" Dragonlance Nexus (which now owns the Dragonlance Forums). He is also one of the three regular presenters on the Dragonlance Canticle podcast.

Cam Banks also has his name on lots of the recent Dragonlance books and now works for Margaret Weis Productions. He has also published a Dragonlance novel, so may be the first person on these forums who is both a game designer and an author.

Well...I was published in Polyhedron 4 times, and Dragon mag nicked some of my Spelljammer art for a painting they had done, lol (they apologized honest mistake in confusing reference with useable art samples)

Believe Athas.org is gonna use some of my art, too

Wow, I had no idea. That's awesome. Not surprised though, your art is great! I am still thinking of how to convince you to make an illustration of some of the Mystara Sky ships though...

With or without deck plans? He does both types!

You might need to get in line behind the guy begging him to do a Whaleship.

[Philosopher]

If I'm not mistaken, Dragonhelm (Trampas Whiteman) has also worked on at least a couple of Dragonlance books with Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions.

I would say more than "a couple".

That's why I said, "at least". I didn't go check how much, but I was fairly certain he'd done some work on these products.

[Silverblade-T-E]

lol, Whaleship is NOT my fave so will be far back in the line

If anyone wants ot take up ship designing, try "Rhino3D" program used to build real ships: I can import the original deckplans (as scans), use those to build outlines. Then outlines into walls/decks, and then render finished ship out in 3D, or as 2D deckplans
3D MAX can do that too but it's waaaay too expensive/ugly to use, ick!

I kept forgetting to ask Dragon mag for original pic/permission to post that ship they did based on my take of the Tradesman ship, lol. You can see it's the EXACT same, down to textures and flag etc
I've got a scan saved on my other PC's hard drive

2 of the RPGA articles
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/adnd/htm/print.htm
And, being nerdy deluxe nerd, I won a competition in Imagine magazine (old UK RPG mag)...really shows you're a geek when you know D&D was mentioned in "The Littlest Hobo" and win a T shirt for it

[Hugin]

Nice work Silverblade! Anyone with that much talent is a celebrity to me!

[Big Mac]

lol, Whaleship is NOT my fave so will be far back in the line

Yea, I know. That was why I mentioned the clunky old ship!

If anyone wants ot take up ship designing, try "Rhino3D" program used to build real ships: I can import the original deckplans (as scans), use those to build outlines. Then outlines into walls/decks, and then render finished ship out in 3D, or as 2D deckplans
3D MAX can do that too but it's waaaay too expensive/ugly to use, ick!

I definately want to have another go at 3D designing (at some point). But when I first did it, I was just crunching other people's objects together. It looks like it is fairly tough to do. I deconstructed a few 3D models and they had hundreds of polygons inside them.

I've got a ton of other things that I also want to learn* and at the moment I'm not sure how I can fit them all in.

* = I've touched on PDF design and want to be able to do that. I've tinkered with 2D art packages and want to get better at them. I've played with page layout tools and they have shown a lot of potential. I even want to learn how to manipulate things like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint to allow me to create some useful RPG material. (Creating proper structure into a Microsoft Word document will help me export properly tagged PDFs. And creating something like a Spelljammer PowerPoint presentation, could help make something that plays like a movie, but is much smaller than a "proper" movie file.)

I kept forgetting to ask Dragon mag for original pic/permission to post that ship they did based on my take of the Tradesman ship, lol. You can see it's the EXACT same, down to textures and flag etc
I've got a scan saved on my other PC's hard drive

2 of the RPGA articles
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/adnd/htm/print.htm
And, being nerdy deluxe nerd, I won a competition in Imagine magazine (old UK RPG mag)...really shows you're a geek when you know D&D was mentioned in "The Littlest Hobo" and win a T shirt for it

[Silverblade-T-E]

Hugin,
*bows*

Big Mac,
Whaleships always make me think of the "Titanic" and "Aliens"...

Well,there's 2 parts to it: understanding the basic concepts, which isn't too hard. Can explain if need.
And finding your own enjoyable app to work with...which takes time/effort. Everyone has their own fave, but you need to find yours: there's no "best" app, no matter what some snobs think.

Rhino, Silo, Moment of Inspiration, Lightwave, Modo, Maya, 3DMAX, Wings3D, are well known apps for modelling
Should be able ot get demos or personal learning editions for each.

2D work many professionals use Photoshop, but i much preffer PaintShopPro. I ahve Photoshop as it can do some other things too. Note that if you buy such stuff legit, like me, it costs a TON for some apps. PaintSHopPro is cheap, Silo and Moment of Inspiration are about £100 iirc, Vue Infinite is £500-ish (but there's lesser editions basi cones about £60?), Ligthwave is about £500, Adobe Photoshop is £500 too, Maya and especially 3Dmax are ridiculously expensive.

Another one is XSI, i actually have XSI foundation 5, full, legit, I never used, if you *really* use that one I can transfer my license to you.
about £500,

[Thorf]

2D work many professionals use Photoshop, but i much preffer PaintShopPro. I ahve Photoshop as it can do some other things too. Note that if you buy such stuff legit, like me, it costs a TON for some apps. PaintSHopPro is cheap, Silo and Moment of Inspiration are about £100 iirc, Vue Infinite is £500-ish (but there's lesser editions basi cones about £60?), Ligthwave is about £500, Adobe Photoshop is £500 too, Maya and especially 3Dmax are ridiculously expensive.

For some reason that I absolutely cannot fathom, Photoshop costs the same price in pounds as it does in dollars. Quite how they can get away with this double standard, I have no idea, but anyone actually thinking of buying something from Adobe should seriously consider getting it through an American friend or relative if at all possible. It'll end up costing almost half the money for the same product.

If I weren't eligible for the academic version here, I would definitely be buying it that way. As it is, I'm pretty sure the academic version here is more expensive than the American academic version, but I have no way of getting that one so it's a moot point.

[Big Mac]

Big Mac,
Whaleships always make me think of the "Titanic" and "Aliens"...

Its a big clunker of a ship, isn't it. But when you have all the other 3D models done you won't have anything else left to give you a choice to avoid the Whaleship.

Well,there's 2 parts to it: understanding the basic concepts, which isn't too hard. Can explain if need.

Thanks for that. I think I have some of the basics down, but I might take you up on that offer.

And finding your own enjoyable app to work with...which takes time/effort. Everyone has their own fave, but you need to find yours: there's no "best" app, no matter what some snobs think.

I see what you mean. If something is "better", but unusuable I won't be able to get anything done.

Rhino, Silo, Moment of Inspiration, Lightwave, Modo, Maya, 3DMAX, Wings3D, are well known apps for modelling
Should be able ot get demos or personal learning editions for each.

Is TrueSpace still going?

They might already have some of these programmes installed where I work.

2D work many professionals use Photoshop, but i much preffer PaintShopPro. I ahve Photoshop as it can do some other things too. Note that if you buy such stuff legit, like me, it costs a TON for some apps. PaintSHopPro is cheap, Silo and Moment of Inspiration are about £100 iirc, Vue Infinite is £500-ish (but there's lesser editions basi cones about £60?), Ligthwave is about £500, Adobe Photoshop is £500 too, Maya and especially 3Dmax are ridiculously expensive.

Another one is XSI, i actually have XSI foundation 5, full, legit, I never used, if you *really* use that one I can transfer my license to you.
about £500,

I learned some of Adobe Acrobat on a machine that had it at my last job, so hopefully can get to use some of these things at my new job.

I've used both PaintShopPro and Photoshop. I found PaintShopPro easier too. I had access to a really old version. So I'm not sure what it is like now.

Thanks for the offer of an XSI licence. I've never heard of it, so that probably suggests that I shouldn't have it.

What are your thoughts on machinima? I wonder if your SJ ship models could ever be fed into some sort of dogfighting game engine to allow for several people to perform as "actors" to fly ships around in real time and help create a longer film than the sort of thing you have done in the past.

[Big Mac]

To get this thread back on topic (if that is allowed ) we have a Q&A thread for the forthcoming Crystal Spheres product line up and running. It is in the Spelljammer forum (as it is about using Crystal Spheres products with the Spelljammer Campaign Setting) but I suppose it could be moved if people agree that Other Worlds would be a better place.

Anyway here is a link: [Crystal Spheres] Offical Q&A thread

I'm not sure if the policy of The Piazza is to stick these sorts of threads or if the proposed sticky listing them all, will be enough. But when I find out, I'll do whatever needs doing.

[Havard]

I'm not sure if the policy of The Piazza is to stick these sorts of threads or if the proposed sticky listing them all, will be enough. But when I find out, I'll do whatever needs doing.

Looks interesting! I stickied a similar thread over in the Thunder Rift subforum so I don't see why not. It all depends on how many stickied threads you want to have in the forum though. Once it gets to more than 2-3 it might make the forum less attractive to read.

Havard

[Big Mac]

I'm not sure if the policy of The Piazza is to stick these sorts of threads or if the proposed sticky listing them all, will be enough. But when I find out, I'll do whatever needs doing.

Looks interesting! I stickied a similar thread over in the Thunder Rift subforum so I don't see why not. It all depends on how many stickied threads you want to have in the forum though. Once it gets to more than 2-3 it might make the forum less attractive to read.

I have heard of forums, where they have switched to having a "master sticky" (that links over too all the threads that the moderators want to draw attention to) and have turned all other stickies into regular threads.

[Havard]

I have heard of forums, where they have switched to having a "master sticky" (that links over too all the threads that the moderators want to draw attention to) and have turned all other stickies into regular threads.

Yeah, that is a good way of avoiding having too many stickies.

Havard