George MacDonald 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 and in the computer game industry.

Career

George MacDonald started work on role-playing games while at college, by adding more detailed super powers to Gamescience's '' Superhero: 2044'' RPG (1977) and ultimately creating his own original system which Steve Peterson typed up, and which eventually became the superhero RPG, ''

Champions A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...

'' (1981). MacDonald and Peterson had only enough money to print 1,500 copies of the game and hand-collated the pages, and they sold their new game at Pacific Origins 1981; they were surprised to see it sell very well, selling 1,000 of their 1,500 copies at the convention. After this early success, MacDonald and Peterson started

Hero Games Hero Games (''DOJ, Inc dba Hero Games'') is the publisher of the Hero System, a generic roleplaying rules set that can be used to simulate many different genres, and was the co-developer of the ''Fuzion'' system. History In 1981, George MacDon ...

as a publishing label. By 1982, they were ready to take the next step in turning Hero Games into a professional business, and opened up an office and asked

Ray Greer Ray Greer is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career By 1982 George MacDonald and Steve Peterson opened up an office for their company Hero Games and asked player Ray Greer to join them as a partner and to handle ...

to join them as a partner and handle marketing and sales, with Bruce Harlick soon joining them as Hero's first employee.

Flying Buffalo Flying Buffalo Inc. (FBI) is a game company with a line of role playing games, card games, and other gaming materials. The company's founder, Rick Loomis, began game publishing with '' Nuclear Destruction'', a play-by-mail game which started the ...

and Hero Games formed an alliance thanks to a chance meeting between

Michael Stackpole Michael Austin Stackpole (born November 27, 1957) is an American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his ''Star Wars'' and ''BattleTech'' books. He was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, but raised in Vermont. He has a BA in history from ...

and MacDonald at a 1982 convention. MacDonald later became Senior Game Developer at SSI. MacDonald was the developer on the

Gold Box Gold box may refer to: * Decorative boxes made in gold *'' Gold Box'', a series of video games of 1988 to 1992 * Gold box (phreaking), a phreaking box to create a bridge between two telephone lines {{disam ...

game ''

Pool of Radiance ''Pool of Radiance'' is a role-playing video game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) in 1988. It was the first adaptation of TSR's ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' (''AD&D'') fantasy role-playing game for home computer ...

'' (1988). MacDonald and

Jeff Grubb Jeff Grubb (born August 27, 1957) is an author who writes novels, short stories, and comics and a computer and role-playing game designer in the fantasy genre. Grubb worked on the ''Dragonlance'' campaign setting under Tracy Hickman, and the ...

authored the game module '' Curse of the Azure Bonds'', which was released in April 1989 under Forgotten Realms Module FRC2.

References

External links

George MacDonald
at MobyGames
George MacDonald
at Pen & Paper RPG Database via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonald, George American video game producers Dungeons & Dragons video game designers Living people Role-playing game designers Year of birth missing (living people)