Robert Boyle 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

Rob Boyle had been an editor at

FASA Fasa ( fa, فسا, Fasā, also Romanized as Fassa) is a city and capital of Fasa County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2016 census, its population was 110,825, in 33,379 families. Fasa is the fourth most populous city of the province. The city date ...

during its waning days, and decided not to go over to WizKids when the new company was forming, as he knew that they would not be working on FASA's roleplaying lines. Boyle considered making a bid to license ''

Shadowrun ''Shadowrun'' is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future in which cybernetics, magic in fiction, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime fiction, crime, with ...

'', but before he could,

Fantasy Productions Fantasy Productions Medienvertriebsgesellschaft GmbH (a.k.a. FanPro) is a German publishing company based in Erkrath. History The company was founded in 1983 by Ulrich Kiesow, Werner Fuchs and Hans Joachim Alpers to produce small metal miniatu ...

expressed interest in ''Shadowrun'' themselves. Fantasy Productions founder

Werner Fuchs Werner Fuchs (25 October 1948 – 11 May 1999) was a German football player and coach. Playing career Fuchs was born in Kaiserslautern. A centre forward, he began his professional career in 1967 with a professional contract at 1. FC Kais ...

invited Boyle to visit him in Germany, and Boyle was soon setting up and running FanPro LLC, a new corporation created by two of the principals of the Fantasy Productions and Boyle himself. They created the new USA subsidiary FanPro LLC to hold the rights to FASA's game lines. FanPro licensed ''Shadowrun'' in early 2001, and Boyle took over as Line Editor. FanPro got ''Shadowrun'' going again almost immediately, and Boyle's biggest concern was continuing the metaplot. Boyle also tried out something new: the downloadable "Shadowrun Missions", which were overseen by Rich Osterhout in their first season. Boyle started working on a few edition of ''Shadowrun'' around 2003, having decided that the game needed simplification, which was published as ''Shadowrun, Fourth Edition'' (2005). In 2007, Boyle and Randall N. Bills tried to buy FanPro LLC from

and when that did not work out they threatened to leave and implied that they would be bidding for the WizKids licenses, which were just coming up for renewal. WizKids stepped in to mediate; although they were not willing to let Boyle and Bills create a new company, they were willing to give the licenses to InMediaRes. After acquiring the rights to ''

'' and ''

Battletech ''BattleTech'' is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The tradema ...

'', InMediaRes took on Boyle and Bills as regular staff – which had been part of the agreement with WizKids; Boyle remained as the ''Shadowrun'' Line Editor for the next few years, while Bills became a Managing Director of InMediaRes.

Catalyst Game Labs Catalyst Game Labs (CGL) was created in May 2007 by InMediaRes Productions, LLC for the purpose of publishing print ''Shadowrun'' and ''Classic BattleTech'' sourcebooks.Eclipse Phase ''Eclipse Phase'' is a science fiction horror role-playing game with transhumanist themes. Originally published by Catalyst Game Labs, ''Eclipse Phase'' is now published by the game's creators, Posthuman Studios, and is released under a Crea ...

'' (2009), the product of

Posthuman Studios Posthuman Studios is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements. History Catalyst Game Labs's fourth roleplaying line was '' Eclipse Phase'' (2009), the product of Posthuman Studios, a new game design studio c ...

, a new game design studio created by Boyle, ''

'' writer Brian Cross, and graphic designer Adam Jury. Boyle had been thinking about the idea for his game studio since he had come over from FanPro, and following the publication of ''Eclipse Phase'', Boyle would step away from his role as ''Shadowrun'' developer. Boyle was not able to put any supplements out for ''Eclipse Phase'' before problems at Catalyst eventually caused him to part ways with the company.

References

External links

Home page

Robert Boyle :: Pen & Paper RPG Databasearchive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyle, Rob Living people Role-playing game designers Year of birth missing (living people)