Ken Hite

Kenneth Hite (born September 15, 1965) is a writer and role-playing game designer. Hite is the author of Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents role-playing games, and lead designer of the 5th edition of '' Vampire: the Masquerade''.

Education

Hite holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a bachelor's degree in Cartography from East Central University.

Career

Kenneth Hite has been designing games part-time since 1981 and full-time since 1995. Some of his early design work was featured in the ''Nephilim'' role-playing game for Chaosium before the line closed down in 1997. After a freelance career, Hite came to Last Unicorn Games and joined the developers working on the "Icon system" for their line of licensed ''Star Trek'' role-playing games; to get '' Star Trek: The Next Generation Role-playing Game'' ready for GenCon 31, Hite was flown out to Los Angeles for two weeks. After ''Icon'' was completed, Hite was made the line developer for the ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' role-playing game, and by 1999 had become a full-time employee of Last Unicorn Games. In February 2001 Decipher, Inc. offered to hire the remaining staff of Last Unicorn after the company's purchase by Wizards of the Coast. Hite eventually left and joined the Steve Jackson Games staff, where he wrote ''GURPS WWII: Weird War II'' for the Generic Universal RolePlaying System. He later worked on the fourth edition of ''RuneQuest''. He also did work on some ''Unknown Armies'' sourcebooks, and on its second edition.

He wrote the "Suppressed Transmission" column for ''Pyramid'' magazine. The column has been collected into the volumes ''Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast'' and ''Suppressed Transmission 2: The Second Broadcast''. He also wrote the "Out of the Box" column, initially for the GamingReport, and later for IndiePressRevolution. He also contributed a guest comic strip for ''Dork Tower'' in 200


Hite is also one of many contributors to the book ''Gamemastering Secrets'', which won the 2002 Origins Award for ''Best Game Aid or Accessory''. In 2008, Atomic Overmind Press published a few Cthulhu books Hite worked on, and he wrote ''Where the Deep Ones Are'' (2008), ''The Antarctic Express'' (2009), "Cliffourd the Big Red God" (2011), and "Goodnight Azathoth" (2015) in the Mini Mythos series for Atlas Games as parodies of children's books featuring the Cthulhu mythos. His essay, “Cthulhu’s Polymorphous Perversity”, appears in ''Cthulhurotica'', published by Dagan Books in December 2010. Hite produced a series of Lovecraftian gaming PDFs released by Ronin Arts.

In February 2008, Pelgrane Press published Hite's '' Trail of Cthulhu'', a role-playing game using the GUMSHOE System developed by Robin Laws. Hite won two silver ENnies in 2008 for his work on ''Trail of Cthulhu'': Best Writing and Best Rules (shared with Robin Laws). Hite has since added to the ''Trail of Cthulhu'' line with ''Shadows Over Filmland'', ''Rough Magicks'', ''Bookhounds of London'', and ''Mythos Expeditions''.

Hite's second GUMSHOE System game, ''Night's Black Agents'', was released in 2012; players take the role of burned spies in the underworld of contemporary Europe who are suddenly confronted by the existence of vampires. Later that year, he joined the staff of Pelgrane Press full-time, and began a series of monthly books of gaming material under the title ''Ken Writes About Stuff'', which concluded in 2016 after three "volumes". The series alternated between examinations of creatures in H. P. Lovecraft's fiction and mythos, the Hideous Creatures series, and books exploring other role-playing gaming topics including optional GUMSHOE rules expansions, historical magic systems, and campaign settings. In 2015, he and Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan released a collaborative, improvisational campaign '' The Dracula Dossier'' for ''Night's Black Agents''. This campaign proposes that Bram Stoker's 1897 novel ''Dracula'' was in fact the after-action report of a British Intelligence attempt to recruit a vampire. The published work includes the "unredacted" first draft of that novel, as annotated by three generations of MI6 agents. Hite subsequently authored the '' Fall of Delta Green'' RPG for Pelgrane as part of the Delta Green Kickstarter.

In addition to his work for Pelgrane, Hite has collaborated with Dennis Detwiller, Greg Stolze and Shane Ivey on the second edition of the '' Wild Talents'' RPG and the supplement ''Grim War''. He wrote ''Day after Ragnarok'', a genre-bending post-apocalyptic setting published by Atomic Overmind Press, and collaborated in Bubblegumshoe with Emily Care Boss and Lisa J. Steele, for Evil Hat Productions. In addition, he developed and designed the latest edition of the Vampire RPG.

Hite and fellow author and game designer Robin Laws have released a podcast titled ''Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff'' each week since August 2012. Development of '' Vampire: The Masquerade'''s 5th edition was led by Hite; the edition was released in early 2018.

Personal life

Hite lives in Chicago with his wife Sheila.

Works

In his current employment with Pelgrane Press, Hite has contributed extensively to the GUMSHOE System, as author of
'' Trail of Cthulhu'', and the supplements ''Shadows Over Filmland'', ''Rough Magicks'', '' Bookhounds of London'', and ''Mythos Expeditions'';
also the RPG
''Night's Black Agents'' and its major campaign '' The Dracula Dossier''.

Previously, Hite wrote or contributed to several GURPS supplements, including:
* ''GURPS Alternate Earths'',
* ''GURPS Alternate Earths II'',
* ''GURPS Cabal'',
* ''GURPS Horror'' (Third Edition incorporating ''Nightmares of Mine'' material in 2002, also Fourth Edition in 2011),
* ''GURPS Infinite Worlds'' (Winner of the 2005 Origins Award for ''Role-Playing Game Supplement of the Year''),
* ''GURPS WWII: Weird War II'',
* and ''GURPS Y2K''.
In addition, he worked on the Decipher/ Last Unicorn ''Star Trek'' RPGs
* ''Star Trek RPG Player's Guide'' (with Mathew Colville, Steven S. Long and Don Mappin) (2002),
* ''Starfleet Operations Manual'' (2003),
* ''All Our yesterdays'' (with Steve Kenson, James Kiley, S. John Ross and Steven S. Long) (2000),
* and ''Planetary Adventures'' (1999).
He has also contributed to the Nephilim games
* ''Secret Societies'' (1995),
* ''Major Arcana'' (1997),
* and ''Gamemaster's Companion'' (with Shannon Appel, Adrian Czajkowski, and Ross Isaacs) (1996);
as well as to supplements for other role-playing games like:
* ''Adventures Into Darkness'' (for ''Hero System'' and ''Mutants & Masterminds''),
* '' Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade'' (for ''Mage: The Ascension''),
* ''Crusade Lore'' (for '' Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade'') (with Phil Brucato and Wayne Peacock) (1998),
* ''Cainite Heresy'' (for '' Vampire: The Dark Ages''),
* ''Nightmares of Mine'' (for ''Rolemaster'') (with John Curtis) (1999),
* ''Back East: The South'' (for ''Deadlands''),
* ''Dubious Shards'' (which includes an adventure for ''Delta Green''),
* ''Secrets of the Ruined Temple'' (for '' Mage: The Awakening''),
* '' Day after Ragnarok'' (for Savage Worlds and Hero System),
* '' Wild Talents RPG'' (with Dennis Detwiller, Greg Stolze and Shane Ivey) (2010),
* and '' Grim War'' (for '' Wild Talents RPG'') (with Greg Stolze) (2010).

Books by Hite:
* ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to U.S. History, Graphic Illustrated'' (with Sheperd Hendrix) (2009)
* ''The Antarctic Express'' (with Christina Rodriguez) (2009)
* ''Cthulhu 101'' (with John Kovalic) (2009)
* ''Where the Deep Ones Are'' (with Andy Hopp) (2008)
* ''Cliffourd the Big Red God'' (with Andy Hopp) (2011)
* ''Tour de Lovecraft: The Tales'' (2008)
* ''The Nazi Occult'' (with Darren Tan) (2013)
* ''The Cthulhu Wars: The United States' Battles Against the Mythos'' (with Kennon Bauman) (2016)

References

External links

Kenneth Hite's LiveJournalKenneth Hite at the Pen & Paper RPG DatabaseInterview at Flames Rising
(July 2009)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hite, Kenneth
1965 births
Chaosium game designers
White Wolf game designers
Atlas Games people
GURPS writers
Living people
American podcasters
Role-playing game designers
East Central University alumni
University of Chicago alumni
H. P. Lovecraft scholars