Bill Bridges (born September 17, 1965) is an American role-playing game developer and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

author. He designed the role-playing games '' Werewolf: The Apocalypse'', '' Mage: The Ascension'', and '' Promethean: The Created''. He additionally worked on a video game based on his '' Fading Suns'' role-playing game ''

Emperor of the Fading Suns ''Emperor of the Fading Suns'' is a turn-based strategy 4X video game developed by Holistic Design, based on their in-house role-playing game setting '' Fading Suns''. It was released for Microsoft Windows in February 1997. The game had a wide ...

''. He is currently a developer at

Holistic Design Holistic Design, Inc. (HDI), is an American game company. It was founded in 1992 as Several Dudes Holistic Gaming. The company has developed many computer games in its history, including ''Battles of Destiny'', ''Hammer of the Gods (video game), ...

Career

Early career

Bill Bridges was an original developer for

White Wolf Publishing White Wolf Publishing was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant

from 1992 to 1995, where he contributed to '' Werewolf: The Apocalypse''. Bridges was the line editor for ''Werewolf'' and as one of 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 Apoca ...

developers, he was a key figure in developing the look and tone of the productions for the setting. He worked on the Storytelling system rules for all the World of Darkness games. It was his goal to present werewolves as something besides accursed humans, an idea which has since been echoed in some popular contemporary novel series. He was a part of the original '' Mage: The Ascension'' design team. He has many writing credits encompassing most of the second edition

games, and helped design '' Rage'', the ''Werewolf'' collectible card game.

1995 to 2000

He left White Wolf Publishing in 1996 to join

(HDI), where he co-created '' Fading Suns'' with Andrew Greenberg. Bridges received inspiration for the setting from ''

The Book of the New Sun ''The Book of the New Sun'' (1980–1983) is a four volume, science fantasy novel written by the American author Gene Wolfe. It inaugurated the "Solar Cycle" that Wolfe continued by setting other works in the same universe (''The Urth of the Ne ...

'' by

Gene Wolfe Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and nove ...

and ''

Foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

'' by Isaac Asimov. Bridges' largest were his ''Alustro's Journals'', a series of " Marco Polo" style diaries featuring the travels of the pilgrim Alustro and his companions. He was the primary author of the ''War in the Heavens'' series, which revealed the secrets of the Symbiots and the Vau. Minor literary similarities can be seen between the Symbiots and the 'defenders of Gaia' Garou in ''Werewolf: the Apocalypse.'' His other work includes writing for

Chaosium Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon ...

, the development of the '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' role-playing games for

Last Unicorn Games Last Unicorn Games (LUG) was a game publisher owned by Christian Moore that was eventually purchased by Wizards of the Coast. Last Unicorn developed the collectible card games ''Dune'' (1997) and '' Heresy: Kingdom Come'' (1995) as well as the 19 ...

, ''

'' for Segasoft (based on ''Fading Suns,''), co-writing scripts for Viacom's "interactive horror movie" ''

Dracula Unleashed ''Dracula Unleashed'' is a 1993 video game created by ICOM Simulations and published by Viacom New Media for the DOS, Macintosh and Sega CD platforms. It was one of the earliest titles to make heavy use of full-motion video as an integral part of ...

,'' and work on ''

Starfleet Academy In the fictional universe of ''Star Trek'', Starfleet Academy is where recruits to Starfleet's officer corps are trained. It was created in the year 2161, when the United Federation of Planets was founded. The Academy's motto is "''Ex astri ...

'' for Interplay.

2000 to date

Bridges moved back to White Wolf Publishing on February 12, 2002, replacing Jess Heinig as the developer for the revised edition of '' Mage: The Ascension.'' Bridges saw the game he created through to its conclusion in the

Time of Judgment ''Time of Judgment'' is a series of roleplaying game scenario books for the World of Darkness settings of White Wolf Game Studio. These scenarios are presented as the semi-canon (fiction), canonical endings of the original World of Darkness, as p ...

. Bridges and Ken Cliffe developed the book, '' The World of Darkness'' (2004), a single rulebook to cover the new version of the World of Darkness setting and rule system. For the new World of Darkness edition, he worked on the new core rules and was a designer, author, and developer on '' Mage: The Awakening.'' He later moved on to '' Promethean: The Created,'' which won several awards. Bridges also co-chairs the presenter programming for the biannual myth-based academic conference and performance festival,

Mythic Journeys Mythic Journeys is a performance festival and conference gathering held in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Founded in 2004, it began as a celebration of the works of Joseph Campbell and has expanded into a celebration of the role of myth and sto ...

. His published novels include ''The Silver Crown,'' and ''The Last Battle,'' both of which are set in the '' Werewolf: The Apocalypse'' setting.

Publications

Books

Role-playing games

Video games

References

External links

Bridges's bibliography on Goodreads
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridges, Bill American male writers Role-playing game designers White Wolf game designers Living people 1965 births Live-action role-playing game designers