Fred Hicks 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 games.

Career

Fred Hicks discovered the ''

Fudge Fudge is a type of confection that is made by mixing sugar, butter and milk, heating it to the soft-ball stage at , and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it acquires a smooth, creamy consistency. In texture, this crystalline can ...

'' role-playing game system while online and used it for his games based on

Roger Zelazny Roger Joseph Zelazny (May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American poet and writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for ''The Chronicles of Amber''. He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nomin ...

's ''

The Chronicles of Amber ''The Chronicles of Amber'' is a series of fantasy novels by American writer Roger Zelazny. The main series consists of two story arcs, each five novels in length. Additionally, there are a number of Amber short stories and other works. Four a ...

''. Hicks had also been working with Lydia Leong, Rob Donoghue, and others to run LARPs at AmberCon NorthWest starting in 1999, and came up with the name Evil Hat for themselves. While on a trip to Lake Tahoe, friends Hicks and Donoghue developed a new game based on a conversation about running another ''Amber'' game and fixing some problems with ''Fudge''; the result was ''

Fate Destiny, sometimes referred to as fate (from Latin ''fatum'' "decree, prediction, destiny, fate"), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often ...

'' which Hicks and Donoghue would publish under the name

Evil Hat Evil Hat Productions is a company that produces role-playing games and other tabletop games. Chief among them is the free indie RPG, '' Fate'', which has won numerous awards. History Fred Hicks had been working with Lydia Leong, Rob Donoghu ...

. Donoghue and Hicks released a complete first-edition of ''Fate'' through Yahoo! Groups (January, 2003) then cleaned up the technical writing and slightly polished the system for a second edition (August, 2003). Hicks and Donoghue began work on the licensed '' Dresden Files Roleplaying Game'' in 2004, but publication was held up because he decided to use ''

Spirit of the Century ''Spirit of the Century'' is a pulp role-playing game published by Evil Hat Productions, and based on Evil Hat's ''FATE'' system. It is billed as a 'pick-up' game that can be played quickly, with little preparation. Gameplay ''Spirit of the Ce ...

'' to introduce the ''Fate 3.0'' system instead. While working on these other games, as a side-project he worked on indie RPG '' Don't Rest Your Head'' (2006), which would be Evil Hat's first published game. Hicks and Donoghue joined with Chris Hanrahan and Justin D. Jacobson to form the company One Bad Egg in 2008 to publish PDFs for ''

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. (TS ...

'' 4th edition.

Brennan Taylor Brennan Taylor is an American role-playing games author and publisher. Career Brennan Taylor co-founded Indie Press Revolution with Ed Cha of Open World Press in 2004 and was its first CEO. When Taylor hired Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Games as a ...

Indie Press Revolution Indie Press Revolution (also referred to as "IPR") is a sales network that acts as a fulfillment house for publishers of indie role-playing games. It was founded in 2004 by Ed Cha of Open World Press and Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games. IPR repre ...

hired Hicks as a part-time staff member; Ron Edwards felt that this resulted in an IPR which was less friendly to the small press that it was created to serve and left IPR. Hicks did layout for

Cubicle 7 Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd is an Irish games company that creates and publishes tabletop games. Best known for its ''Doctor Who'' and ''Lord of the Rings'' games, Cubicle 7 offers titles covering a range of licensed and self-developed properties ...

's '' Starblazer Adventures'' (2008), and in the process offered much editorial work. Hicks also did layouts for the sixth edition of ''

Hero System The ''Hero System'' is a generic role-playing game system that was developed from the superhero RPG '' Champions''. After ''Champions'' fourth edition was released in 1989, a stripped-down version of its ruleset with no superhero or other genre ...

'' (2009). In September 2009, Hicks announced that One Bad Egg was closing down. Donoghue and Hicks were two of the nine authors who were ultimately writing for ''The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game'', which was finally released in 2010. Hicks noted that VSCA Publishing's science-fiction game '' Diaspora'' (2009) was one of his favorites, and then got it into wider distribution by reprinting it through Evil Hat in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hicks, Fred Indie role-playing game designers Living people Role-playing game designers Year of birth missing (living people)