Bill Slavicsek (born October 6, 1971
Biography
Early life
Bill Slavicsek was born and raised in New York City.
Slavicsek was a comic book, horror, and science fiction fan as a boy: "Some of my earliest memories involve looking at issues of Marvel Comics, drawing my own comics, and watching old SF and horror movies on TV".
Interested in gaming from an early age, Slavicsek was introduced to role-playing games in 1977 when he discovered
Dungeons & Dragons.
Originally intending to pursue a career as a
comic book artist, Slavicsek switched to
journalism and
communication at St. John's University.
West End Games
After working for a year at a community newspaper, Slavicsek was hired by West End Games as an editor in 1986.
In 1987 the company secured the license to publish a Star Wars roleplaying game, a project which Slavicsek oversaw as an editor and developer.
Slavicsek supervised the
Star Wars line for the first year of its publication.
In 1988 he was promoted to Creative and Editorial Director for WEG.
He co-created the
Torg game with
Greg Gorden,
published in 1990, and co-authored the novel
Stormknights, which was set in the Torg universe. Slavicsek left West End later in 1990.
TSR
In 1991, Slavicsek began working as a freelancer, and was hired as a designer/editor by TSR in 1993.
At TSR, he designed the
Alternity game with Rich Baker, as well as the Revised
Dark Sun Campaign Setting, and
The Nightmare Lands for the
Ravenloft setting.
For much of the 1990s he was working simultaneously for both WEG and TSR as an editor and designer on various projects. He wrote A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, a definitive reference to Star Wars movies, books, and games, which was published by Del Rey in 1994.
Wizards of the Coast
By the end of 1997, Slavicsek was the Director of the TSR Product Group for Wizards of the Coast; that job was later divided in two, making him the Director of Roleplaying Game design.
selected Slavicsek to be the head of role-playing game research and development.
Richard Baker and Slavicsek designed the
Alternity sci-fi role-playing game for TSR to replace their
Amazing Engine game, and Wizards published the game in 1997.
Peter Adkison left the third edition
Dungeons & Dragons design work for Wizards of the Coast to Slavicsek and a group of other former employees of TSR.
Hasbro told Wizards in December 2000 to cut 10% of its staff; Slavicsek was the "Director of Category" in charge of a team of roughly 60 people, and he made the decision to shut down the Los Angeles office of the remaining Last Unicorn Games division.
By the time of the publication of the d20 edition of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game in 2000, Slavicsek held the title of Vice President and Director of RPG R&D for Wizards of the Coast. Keith Baker produced the
Eberron Campaign Setting (2004) with James Wyatt and Slavicsek.
As the Director of R&D for
Dungeons & Dragons, Slavicsek began looking into a fourth edition of
D&D as early as 2005, when he created a team to begin work on early designs, led by
Rob Heinsoo working with Andy Collins and James Wyatt.
Slavicsek and
Mike Mearls designed the
Castle Ravenloft Board Game (2010).
Slavicsek left Wizards of the Coast in 2011.
After Wizards of the Coast
Slavicsek became a writer and content designer at ZeniMax Online Studios, which developed and released
The Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG.
Selected bibliography
Novels
-
The Mark of Nerath (2010)
Media appearances
Bill Slavicsek has appeared in the following newspaper and magazine articles, websites and podcasts.
Podcasts
-
RPG Countdown:
[. RPG Countdown on Facebook.] 11 March 2009[. Retrieved 11 March 2009.] "Dungeon Delve"
-
Never Tell Me the Pods: 21 September 2016
External links
