Lawrence Schick is a game designer and writer associated with role-playing games.

Early life and education

Schick attended

Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in As ...

in Ohio.

Career

Schick, as the head of design and development at TSR, brought aboard

Tom Moldvay Thomas Steven Moldvay (Nov. 5, 1948 – March 9, 2007) was an American game designer and author, best known for his work on early materials for the fantasy role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (D&D). Career During the 1970s while a stude ...

and

David Cook David Cook may refer to: Entertainment * David Cook (game designer) (active since 1980s), American game designer for TSR * David Cook (singer) (born 1982), winner of the seventh season of ''American Idol'' * David Cook (writer) (1940–2015), Briti ...

and many other new employees as TSR continued to grow in the early 1980s. Schick created ''

White Plume Mountain ''White Plume Mountain'' is an adventure module for the ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game, written by Lawrence Schick and published by TSR in 1979. The 16-page adventure bears the code "S2" ("S" for "special"). The adv ...

'' in 1979, an

adventure module An adventure is a playable scenario in a tabletop role-playing game. These can be constructed by gamemasters for their players, and are also released by game publishers as pre-made adventure modules. Different types of designs exist, including l ...

for the ''

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Several different editions of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game have been produced since 1974. The current publisher of ''D&D'', Wizards of the Coast, produces new materials only for the most current edition of the ga ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

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 ...

, published by TSR in 1979; the adventure was incorporated into the

Greyhawk Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for ''Dungeons & Dragons''—Dave Arneson ...

setting after the publication of the ''

World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting ''The World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting'' and the ''World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting'' are two closely related publications from TSR, Inc. that detail the fictional ''World of Greyhawk'' campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' ( ...

'' (1980). ''White Plume Mountain'' was ranked the 9th greatest ''Dungeons & Dragons'' adventure of all time by ''

Dungeon A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...

'' magazine in 2004; one judge, commenting on the ingenuity required to complete the adventure, described it as "the puzzle dungeon to end all puzzle dungeons." In 1981, he contributed to

Chaosium Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon'' ...

's multi-system box set ''

Thieves' World Thieves' World is a shared universe, shared world fantasy series created by Robert Asprin, Robert Lynn Asprin in 1978. The original series comprised twelve anthologies, including stories by science fiction authors Poul Anderson, John Brunner (n ...

'' based on

Robert Lynn Asprin Robert Lynn Asprin (June 28, 1946 – May 22, 2008) was an American science fiction and fantasy author and active fan, known best for his humorous series '' MythAdventures'' and '' Phule's Company''. Background Robert Asprin was born in St. J ...

's anthology series of the same title. The following year, he coauthored the TSR science fiction RPG ''

Star Frontiers ''Star Frontiers'' is a science fiction role-playing game produced by TSR, Inc., TSR from 1982 to 1985. The game offered a space opera action-adventure setting. Fictional setting ''Star Frontiers'' takes place near the center of a spiral galax ...

'' with

David "Zeb" Cook David "Zeb" Cook is an American game designer, best known for his work at TSR, Inc., where he was employed for over fifteen years. Cook designed several games, wrote the '' Expert Set'' for ''Dungeons & Dragons'', worked as lead designer of the ...

. Schick wrote the book ''Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games'', which was published in 1991. Schick has written many other games during his career. Schick is a former executive with

America Online AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

. In May 2009, Schick joined

ZeniMax Online Studios ZeniMax Online Studios LLC is an American video game developer and a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, specializing in massively multiplayer online games. The company developed ''The Elder Scrolls Online'' and its downloadable content. ZeniMax Onli ...

as the lead content designer for ''

The Elder Scrolls Online ''The Elder Scrolls Online'', abbreviated ''ESO'', is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by ZeniMax Online Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released for Microsoft Windows, Windows and OS X in Ap ...

''. In 2010, he was promoted to lead writer, and he became lead loremaster in 2011. He left ZeniMax Online in 2019. He has also been working on writing a mobile game for WarDucks in Dublin, Ireland.

References

External links

* 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American writers 21st-century American writers American gamebook writers AOL Dungeons & Dragons game designers Kent State University alumni Living people Video game writers Year of birth missing (living people) {{rpg-bio-stub