Ken Cliffe 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 ...

s. He is known primarily as the author and developer for the third edition of ''

Ars Magica ''Ars Magica'' is a role-playing game set in 'Mythic Europe' – a historically grounded version of Europe and the Levant around AD 1200, with the added conceit that conceptions of the world prevalent in folklore and institutions of the High Mi ...

'', and as co-author and developer of the ''

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

'', '' Hunter: The Reckoning'' and "new" (2004) ''

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 ...

'' role-playing games.

Career

''Villains and Vigilantes''

Ken Cliffe began his career writing supplements in support of

Fantasy Games Unlimited Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) is a publishing house for tabletop and role-playing games. The company has no in-house design teams and relies on submitted material from outside talent. History Founded in the summer of 1975 in Jericho, New York b ...

's role-playing game, ''

Villains and Vigilantes ''Villains and Vigilantes'' (abbreviated as ''V&V'') is a superhero-themed role-playing game which competed primarily with ''Champions'' and ''Superworld'' in the early to mid-1980s. Origin ''Villains and Vigilantes'' was the first role-playi ...

,'' including ''Vigilantes International'', which was published much later as part of a revival of the line. He was credited with developing the supplements he authored into a coherent universe for the game.

White Wolf Publishing

Cliffe later came to

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

, contributing to the second book it published: ''The Campaign Book Volume One: Fantasy'' (1990). Cliffe was the line editor on ''

'' for much of its time at White Wolf, and developed and authored the third edition of ''Ars Magica'' (1992). With

Robert Hatch Robert Hatch is a game designer and writer who developed key role-playing game releases for White Wolf Publishing from 1993 to 2001. He is known primarily for three games he co-created: the science fiction game ''Trinity'', the super-hero game '' ...

, Cliffe launched

Mind's Eye Theatre ''Mind's Eye Theatre'' is a live action role-playing game (LARP) based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, sharing a theme and setting with the table-top role-playing game '' Vampire: The Masquerade'' and with two revisions, '' Vampi ...

in 1993, the

live action role-playing A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters.(Tychsen et al. 2006:255) "LARPs can be viewed as forming a distinct category of RPG because of two unique feature ...

game based on Mark Rein•Hagen's '' Vampire: The Masquerade'' tabletop role-playing game. In 1992, Cliffe became editor of ''

White Wolf A white wolf or Arctic wolf is a mammal of the ''Canidae'' family and a subspecies of the gray wolf. It may also refer to: Organizations * White Wolf (band), a Canadian heavy metal band * White Wolf (band), white power oi band from the USA * Whi ...

'' magazine, and was apparently overseeing all of the company's legacy products, in the years when it was releasing the early

games. Cliffe made ''White Wolf'' magazine monthly beginning with issue #39 (January 1994); at this time he regularly contributed reviews of games by other publishers to the magazine. Subsequently, Cliffe was one of the authors on the ''Creature Collection'' (2000), a book of monsters and the first release from White Wolf's ''Sword & Sorcery'' imprint.

World of Darkness games

In collaboration with Bill Bridges, Cliffe developed and launched new game lines for White Wolf: ''

'' (1997) and '' Hunter: The Reckoning'' (1999). Again he collaborated with Bridges to develop the reboot of White Wolf's game lines in the early 2000s. He developed and authored '' The World of Darkness'' core book (2004), which combined the new

setting and rule system into a single game book. With

Justin Achilli Justin Achilli is best known as an author and developer for White Wolf, Inc. Career Justin Achilli began working at White Wolf in 1995. Achilli has contributed as an author for numerous '' Vampire: The Masquerade'' and '' Vampire: The Requiem'' ti ...

, he also co-authored ''Vampire: The Requiem for Dummies'', which concentrates on the

Chronicles 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 ...

setting and character creation rules for the ''

Storytelling system The ''Storytelling System'' is a role-playing game system created by White Wolf, Inc. for the Chronicles of Darkness (formerly known as the New World of Darkness), a game world with several pen and paper games tied in. The Storytelling System is ...

''. In 2008 and 2009, White Wolf released the board games ''Hunter: Deadly Prey'' and ''Monster Mayem'', also designed by Cliffe.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cliffe, Ken Living people Role-playing game designers White Wolf game designers Year of birth missing (living people)