How many Great game designers can you name?

How many Great game designers can you name?

Any?

>Any?

no.

Hideo Kojima

Jenna Moran, Greg Stolze and John Tynes spring to mind.

Jenna... I think you have to call her great, even if her work is very scattershot. No matter what she makes it's beautiful and weird and interesting, even if a significant chunk of the time it's also kinda unplayable, as with the gorgeous work that is Nobilis 2e.

Meanwhile, John Tynes and Greg Stolze made Unknown Armies, plus Greg went on to work on Reign.

Harry Rowland.

Kinda like saying "Real Actor Names".
I don't give a fuck I only care if it was good or not. Same applies to games.

Mike Mearls and Monte Cook, of course.

I was waiting for this. If you're making an anti-list you might as well add John fucking Wick. Not the awesome action movie one, the shithead asshole.

I was shitposting but I can agree to that.

Throw in Holden Shearer and Morke Swedecuck as well. Bruccato too, he ruined Mage 20.

Vince Baker. The best game designer out of the Forge crowd.

I second Tynes and Stolze.

Delta Green was, and is, absolutely superb. I wish Tynes was back.

John Harper. Blades in the dark has been one of my favorite games for some teams now.

The game would be so much better if he was in charge again.

He said great, not trash.

Luke Crane too. Burning Wheel got me back into roleplaying after growing tired of hack and slash dungeon crawls.

Pete Nash, Lawrence Whitaker.

Seiji Kanai, Carl Chudyk, Ryo Kamiya, D. Brad Talton Jr.

>(You)
(You)

I'm a fan of David Sirlin. His games are pretty excellent.

Folks from boargame side I'd truly call great enough:

Vlaada Chvatil (our god and saviour)
Reiner Knizia (several classics, fuckton of chaff)
Martin Wallace (Steam and others)
Andreas Seyfarth (Puerto Rico)
Uwe Rosenberg (Agricola, Caverna)
Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande, Tikal, Princes of Florence)
Stefan Feld (The Castles of Burgundy, Trajan)
Rudiger Dorn (Goa, Istanbul)
Donald X Vaccarino (Dominion)

I would think being euro player shows here...

George Vasilakos

The games aren't great, but for whatever reason the playability value seems high.

Any set he works on is instantly twice as good, its only aided by the fact that the sets before and after are usually trash.

Cards designed by Garfield are pure kino

Kevin Crawford - God of Random Tables

Monte Cook is actually a pretty good designer. He's imaginative and explores not only what can be done with mechanics, but how people actually play and what the system needs in order to let them play in their own way.

This is a guy who's been steeped in game design for decades, and while not every game he touches will be your favorite (I'm actually not a huge fan of Numenera), he is still an impressive designer that's won awards with every game he's touched. He's written extensively on how he designs, and while you may not agree with all of his conclusions, it can be rather eye-opening to see to what depths of design he is factoring into his considerations.

And, while Mearls is a bit of a fuckhead (Cook as well, really), he's still a solid designer by any fair standard, and not simply "I hate D&D grrr" standards.

Greg Stolze, John Tynes. I love them as I love God.

Steve Jackson, American Steve Jackson, Gary Gygax, Bruno Cthala, Dr Konichiwa, Tom Wasel, Calvatore dude,

>Gary Gygax

How many times have you revolutionized gaming as we know it?

Don't forget about Arneson though.

Gygax can eat shit and die. Oh wait, he already did.

Stefan Feld
Uwe Rosenberg
Reiner Knizia
Richard Garfield

Matt Ward
Monte Cook
Mark Rosewater
Gary Gygax

I don't know who 90% of these people are.

Good.
You really shouldn't have to bother knowing any of them. It's not important to your life at the gaming table.

Byron Hall

How am I supposed to aspire to be a great game designer if there's no fame or glory in it?

...

Gary Gygax, Sandy Petersen, Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Marc W. Miller, Steve Jackson, Greg Costikyan, M.A.R. Barker.
That's about it for my serious list of game designers I respect. (and Gygax should probably get more than one spot since almost all of them used his work as their base)

For settings there are more, but that's not really game design per se.

>Matt Ward
I, too, know this meme.

Stolze worked on UA, came up with ORE (which reign and Wild Talents runs on), also worked heavily on the nWoD/CoD games - basically you know how the nWoD rulesets were just better than the oWoD (whatever can be said about fluff and the lack of a metaplot)?

Tynes, Delta Green, UA, nuff said

RSB worked with both them on Nobilis, UA, Exalted.

Gary Gainax deserve a mention, as badly made as the initial D&D books were, he made the scene.

Monte Cook also does make good games, that he also makes bad games as well isn't the point.

Also our Spiritual Liege Matt Ward

Kevin Siem... no, sorry, I couldn't even finish that as a joke.

Steve Jackson, Richard Garfield, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Edmund McMillen, and Fenoxo.

>Edmund McMillen
You have chosen well

RSB is Jenna Moran now. Never did find out why she changed her name so dramatically, but at least her new one is shorter and easier to type/say. I will miss terms like 'Borgstromancy', though, the skill required to actually read and play her games.

John Harper is awesome. Even though I didn't like his stuff at first, now I'm eager to see every new thing he makes. He gets better overtime.

Vincent Baker has great ideas but all his things look unplayable (DitV pools of 456356356 all kinds dice, rules lite Apocalypse World with Character sheets that are like 3 pages, 3 column each, written in the smallest font on his machine) or look too much like party games for normies.

Chris McDowal from Into the Odd is cool too. I love his work and the way he explains his decisions (he's got a blog and all)

I also like some google+ posters named Mateo Diaz and Joe Banner. They do some good stuff from time to time, but I don't know if they count as "DESIGNERS"

Varg Vikernes, the guy from MyFarog, is also pretty cool. I bought his game and looks pretty well designed to me. I don't know why Veeky Forums has so much hate threads about it.
I can get that the papyrus font is awkward but you are missing a great OSR game because a minor layout flaw

None because this is Veeky Forums nothing is good. Only varying degrees of 'shit I put up with'

Even dripping with sarcasm, I'd prefer it if you didn't give attention to an attention whore.

Whats wrong with Gary Gygax?

Viral, obviously

Engine Heart was a masterpiece, but you are still a wonderfully smug and obnoxious spambot at heart, Viral.

Adam Koebel and Sage LaTorra

The designers of that hipster piece of shir Dungeon World? Bitch, please....

none. because "star designers" is just a marketing tool by game companies for moron customers

andy chambers made a lot of good games, so I guess he counts

S. John Ross is probably the guy I look up to most. Does some really good work, some nice small games, and he's just a genuinely nice dude all around.

Even admitting that DW is nice and has innovative ideas, the design overall is competing to worst shit ever. Is like they had a good idea, but tried too hard to make it like DnD

Greg Porter

Everything Varg's made since he went to prison is trash, games included.

The Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil, Vox Day

>as badly made as the initial D&D books were,

When you compare them to similar games around the time of its development and games that followed, it's a stark contrast. D&D really was amazing for its time.

Clint R nixon

I laughed when I realized how old his kid was

>Ctrl+F
>no Mike Pondsmith
Mike Pondsmith

David Carl did an excellent job with Mark 2 Warmachine and Dark Souls. I'm excited to see what comes out of Steamforged Games next.

>steve jackson

Really? I always had him pegged as a thoroughly mediocre designer who's major claim to fame was his inferiority complex and his emphasis on doing things differently just to be different, regardless of whether his ideas were better.

>but tried too hard to make it like DnD
I kinda agree that this is the source of most DW's problems, but funnily that's probably also what has made it the most popular PbtA game out there.

Greg Stolze.

Literally who?

Jared Sorensen, Memento Mori Theatricks

The guy inspired a lot of other designers, although I don't think he directly knows it, he's also bitter and snarky and hell, and I love him for it.

You mean the other con man?

Wrong kind of game

He would make a great board/roleplaying game though if he wanted to.

Assuming the Castlevania license wasn't involved.

Definitely Viral.

Robin D. Laws?

Ward was cancerous in fluff, but people liked his rules

The game also wouldn't make anywhere near as much dosh.

Guy understands how to make fun games, not how to print money.

I always liked Ken Hite.