Jeff Dee
Jeff Dee is an American artist and game designer. He was the youngest artist in the history of pioneering role-playing game company TSR when he began his work at the age of eighteen. He also designed the Villains and Vigilantes superhero game. He was a co-host on The Atheist Experience and Non-Prophets atheism advocacy podcasts.[1]
Jeff Dee | |
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Jeff Dee on The Atheist Experience television series, January 4, 2009 | |
Born | Jeff Dee United States |
Nationality | American |
Known for | Fantasy art, illustration |
Biography
In the late 1970s, while Dee was still a teenager, he and Jack Herman created Villains and Vigilantes, the first complete superhero role-playing game.[2] The game was published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1979.[3]:73 Dee and Herman convinced Scott Bizar to produce a second edition, which was published in 1982.[3]:75 Dee came up with the idea of creating a role-playing game based on cartoons when he, Greg Costikyan, and several other designers were talking about genres for which game systems had not yet been designed; although they agreed that such a game would be impossible to design, a few years later Costikyan designed Toon as a full game with the assistance of Warren Spector.[3]:104
Dee was the youngest artist in TSR history when he began working for them at the age of eighteen.[4] In 1997, with his partner 'Manda, Dee founded UNIgames, a publisher of role-playing, board and computer games. Dee created a new superhero roleplaying game called Living Legends in 2005, although the project was originally titled Advanced Villains and Vigilantes.[3]:77 In 2009, he co-founded Nemesis Games, developers of an MMO named Gargantua.[5]
Advocacy of atheism
In addition to his artistic and game-related work, Dee is an outspoken atheist and transhumanist.[6] He has been the host of a bi-weekly Internet podcast called The Non-Prophets and a former host of a live, weekly, public-access television program, The Atheist Experience.[7]
References
- "People: Jeff Dee". The Atheist Experience. Atheist Community of Austin. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
- Jebens, Harley (September 21, 1995). "Game central", Austin American-Statesman, p. 38.
- Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
- "Jeff Dee". blackgate.com. 2010.
- "Nemesis Games web site". Nemesisgames.net. Archived from the original on 2012-06-06. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
- Rahe, Emily (July 11, 2001), "Atheists blast faith-based initiative as an unconstitutional "religion tax"", The Washington Times, p. A9 – via Questia Online Library
- "The Atheist Experience". atheist-experience.com.
External links
- "Jeff Dee". Pen & Paper RPG database. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2011-08-22.
- Jeff Dee's profile at MobyGames
- A Jeff Dee art gallery, including most of his AD&D work
- What Worries Jeff Dee?, Dee's blog