Chris Pramas

Chris Pramas is an American game designer and writer, as well as a founder of Green Ronin Publishing. He is best known as the designer of the Dragon Age RPG, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (second edition), and Freeport: The City of Adventure.

Chris Pramas at Gen Con on August 17, 2007
BornChris Pramas
OccupationGame designer
NationalityUnited States
GenreRole-playing games
Website
www.chrispramas.com

Career

Early career

Pramas began his career in the game industry as a freelancer in 1993, contributing to games such as Mayfair Games' Underground, Pariah Press' Dangerous Prey supplement (1995), and Hogshead Publishing's The Dying of the Light (1995) Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign.[1]:369 He also contributed to the game Over the Edge.[2] In early 1996, Pramas acquired The Whispering Vault rights from Mike Nystul and formed Ronin Publishing with his brother Jason Pramas and their mutual friend Neal Darcy; Jason Pramas left before long, and Ronin Publishing only successfully published The Book of Hunts (1997) before the rights to The Whispering Vault were transferred to another company.[1]:369 In August 1997, Pramas moved to Seattle, Washington, and made freelancing his full-time occupation.[1]:369 Pramas worked on Blood of the Valiant (1998), a Feng Shui sourcebook for Daedalus Games; when that company went out of business, Pramas instead got a license to publish the adventure, which became Ronin Publishing's second and final book.[1]:369

Wizards of the Coast

Pramas accepted a job offer from Wizards of the Coast in March 1998.[1]:369 Working as an RPG designer for Wizards, he designed Dragon Fist, a wuxia-inspired version of AD&D, which was released as one of the company's first PDF releases in 1999.[1]:370 Pramas also contributed to several AD&D products and co-authored the Dark•Matter adventure The Final Church (2000), another PDF-only release.[1]:370 Pramas was then pulled into Wizards' new miniatures division as the creative designer for the Chainmail Miniatures Game (2001).[1]:370 Pramas designed the world for Chainmail, which he called the "Sundered Empire"; he originally intended this to be a standalone setting but management asked him to place the Sundered Empire in Greyhawk, so he made it into the subcontinent Western Oerik.[1]:289

Pramas' work for Dungeons & Dragons includes: Slavers (2000, with Sean K. Reynolds), Guide to Hell (1999), Apocalypse Stone (2000, with Jason Carl), Vortex of Madness (2000), as well as some work on the third edition Player's Handbook (2000) and Dungeon Master's Guide (2000).

Green Ronin

Pramas founded Green Ronin Publishing in 2000 with his wife Nicole Lindroos, and by 2001 they had brought on a third member of the team, Hal Mangold, to do freelance graphic layout for the company.[1]:370 In March 2002, Pramas was laid off from Wizards of the Coast.[1]:371 Toren Atkinson of the band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets arranged with Pramas to have Green Ronin publish his RPG Spaceship Zero (2002) based on one of his band's albums.[1]:371 Pramas asked Steve Kenson to design a new d20-based superhero RPG for Green Ronin, which resulted in Mutants & Masterminds (2002).[1]:371 In 2004, Green Ronin was incorporated as an LLC, with Pramas, Lindroos, and Mangold coming on as the three partners.[1]:373 Pramas designed the second edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2005) for Games Workshop.[1]:51 For Green Ronin, Pramas wrote The Pirate's Guide to Freeport (2007) with Patrick O'Duffy and Robert J. Schwalb.[1]:375 While continuing to lead Green Ronin Publishing, Pramas is a content designer for the Pirates of the Burning Sea massively multi-player online game at Flying Lab Software.[2] Pramas designed the simple class-and-level system for the RPG Dragon Age: Set I (2009).[1]:377

Chris also worked as the lead writer for Warhammher 40,000: Dark Millennium Online at Vigil Games.

Pramas was a notable guest at Trinoc*coN in 2005, and a guest of honour at Ropecon 2008 in Dipoli, Espoo, Finland. He has also been a guest of Pacificon in 2015, and OrcaCon in 2016.

In 2012, he appeared on two episodes of the web series TableTop running his Dragon Age roleplaying game for host Wil Wheaton and the show's guests.[3] Since 2012 he has also been one of the curators of an annual "Art of RPGs" art show featuring the work of artists whose work have appeared in role-playing games.[4][5]

Bibliography

Books and games Pramas has written or contributed to include the following:[6]

Books
  • Dwarf Warfare (Osprey Publishing)
  • Orc Warfare (Osprey Publishing)
  • The Kobold Guide to Combat (Kobold Press)
  • The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding (Kobold Press)
  • Family Games: The 100 Best (Green Ronin)
  • Hobby Games: The 100 Best (Green Ronin)

Games
  • Torches & Pitchforks: The Card Game of Monster Movie Mayhem (Green Ronin)
  • Magic the Gathering: Urza's Legacy (Wizards of the Coast)

Role Playing Games
  • Dragon Age (Green Ronin)
    • Dragon Age Set 1
    • Dragon Age Set 2
    • Dragon Age Set 3
    • Dragon Age Core Rulebook
  • Freeport (Green Ronin)
  • Warhammer
    • Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, 2nd Edition
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Children of the Horned Rat (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Spires of Altdorf (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Shades of Empire (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sigmar's Heirs: A Guide to the Empire (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Old World Armoury (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Ashes of Middenheim (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Old World Bestiary (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Plundered Vaults (Games Workshop / Black Industries, Green Ronin)
  • Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast)
    • Dungeons & Dragons: Chainmail
    • Shadow of the Drow
    • The Ghostwind Campaign
    • Fire and Ice
    • Blood and Darkness
    • Secrets of Magic, "Burning Vengeance"
    • The Final Church
    • Slavers
    • The Apocalypse Stone
    • The Vortex of Madness
    • Dragon Fist
    • The Guide to Hell
  • Fantasy AGE (Green Ronin)
  • Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana (Green Ronin)
  • A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (Green Ronin)
  • Mutants and Masterminds (Green Ronin)
  • Hong Kong Action Theater, 2nd Edition (Guardians of Order)
  • True 20 (Green Ronin)
  • The Emerald Spire Superdungeon (Paizo Publishing)
  • Hillfolk RPG: "Brigade" (Pelgrane Press)
  • Nocturals: A Midnight Companion (Green Ronin)
  • Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to the River Kingdoms (Paizo Publishing)
  • Medieval Player's Manual (Green Ronin)
  • The Psychic's Handbook (Green Ronin)
  • Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era (Green Ronin)
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG (Last Unicorn Games)
  • Forgotten Lives (Atlas Games)
  • Heaven and Hell (Steve Jackson Games)
  • The Book of Hunts (Ronin Publishing)
  • Marked for Death (Daedalus Entertainment)
  • Dying of the Light (Hogshead Publishing)
  • Underground Companion (Mayfair Games)
  • Underground Player's Handbook (Mayfair Games)

Dragon magazine articles
  • Pramas, Chris. "Ahmut's Legion." Dragon #286. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.
  • -----. "The Armies of Thalos." Dragon #287. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.
  • -----. "The Children of Nassica." Dragon #295. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • -----. "Drazen's Horde." Dragon #292. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • -----. "The Ebon Glaive." Dragon #296. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • -----. "The Empire of Ravilla." Dragon #285. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.
  • -----. "Exiles from the Vault." Dragon #298. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • -----. "The Free States." Dragon #293. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • -----. "The Gnolls of Naresh." Dragon #289. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.
  • -----. "People's State of Mordengard." Dragon #291. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • -----. "The Sundered Empire: Soldiers of the Last Order." Dragon #315. Bellevue, WA: Paizo Publishing, January 2004.
  • -----. "Underground Scenarios." Dragon #294. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.

Media mentions

Chris Pramas has appeared in the following newspaper and magazine articles, websites and podcasts.

Podcasts
  • Caustic Soda: Episodes "Hitler" (2011), and "Regicide, Part 2" (2013)[7]
  • RPG Countdown:[8] Chris appeared on these episodes: 22 April 2009[9] (Warriors & Warlocks), 1 July 2009[10] (Sigmar’s Heirs), 15 July 2009[11] (GM Pack and Toolkit).
  • TableTop: "Dragon Age", Parts 1 & 2 (Season 1, Episodes 19[12] & 20[13] (2013)
  • Titansgrave
  • Vigilance Press Podcast[14]
gollark: I think those just became uncool due to other factors of some kind; there are plenty of Christians etc.
gollark: Actually, "abounded" would probably mean "unbounded", "a" generally negates things.
gollark: America's central government is also much more powerful than the EU and it has more shared cultural institutions maybe.
gollark: IIRC the total population is less than Europe too.
gollark: Isn't there that bit of America with horribly lead contaminated water?

References
  1. Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  2. Pramas, Chris (2007). "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain". In Lowder, James (ed.). Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 362–364. ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0.
  3. "Tabletop - Season 1, Episodes 19-20"
  4. Art of RPGs 2012 show announcement
  5. "Art of RPGs" show Curator's Statement by Pramas
  6. Pramas, Chris. "Publications List". Official website. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  7. Pramas appearances on Caustic Soda
  8. "RPG Countdown". Archived from the original on March 7, 2009. RPG Countdown on Facebook.
  9. "RPG Countdown". 22 April 2009. Archived from the original on 23 May 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2009.
  10. "RPG Countdown". 1 July 2009. Archived from the original on September 22, 2009.
  11. "RPG Countdown". 15 July 2009. Archived from the original on 28 July 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2009.
  12. "Dragon Age, Part 1", TableTop, Season 1, Episode 19
  13. "Dragon Age, Part 2", TableTop, Season 1, Episode 20
  14. Vigilance Press Podcast, July 2015
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