Vincent Baker
| Vincent Baker | |
|---|---|
| Born | United States |
| Occupation | Writer, game designer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Role-playing games |
David Vincent Baker is a designer of tabletop role playing games and the owner of Lumpley Games which also hosts the archives of The Forge. His most notable games are Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World.[1][2] Dogs in the Vineyard was the 2004 Indie RPG Game of the Year and won the Innovation Award and was one of three games shortlisted for the 2004 Diana Jones Award[3] and Most Innovative Game.[4][5] Apocalypse World won Game of the Year, Best Support, and Most Innovative game at the 2010 Indie RPG Awards, and was 2011 RPG of the Year at both the Golden Geek Awards and Lucca Comics & Games.[6]
Career
Vincent Baker is the designer of the Indie role-playing game Dogs in the Vineyard (2004), one of the first indies to be notably successful, both financially and sociologically.[7] This game was the story of God's Watchdogs, trying to preserve the faithful on the hostile American frontier of the 19th century, and introduced the idea of "say yes or roll".[7] Baker also designed kill puppies for satan, Mechaton, and other indie role-playing games. His publishing imprint is called Lumpley Games. He currently resides in Greenfield, Massachusetts. He is the father of three children and is the husband of Meguey Baker, also a roleplaying game designer.
Baker and Emily Care Boss are attributed as formulating the Lumpley Principle (a.k.a. Baker-Care Principle) which states "System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." Further development of the Lumpley Principle described player contributions as being assigned credibility by the other players in the game.
Baker maintains a blog-style design journal called anyway.
Roleplaying bibliography
- kill puppies for satan is an irreverent role-playing game about the sort of clueless cultists who would actually kill puppies for Satan and other such over the top acts of evil.
- Dogs in the Vineyard - the Diana Jones Award-nominated game about religious judges in a Wild West that never was, and notable for its raising the stakes mechanics.
- The Abductinators
- Matchmaker
- Poison'd is a game about playing as pirates.
- In a Wicked Age
- Apocalypse World is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game.
- Mechaton is a tabletop wargame using Lego robots for pieces.
References
- ↑ Guest of Honour profile at Fastaval 2013
- ↑ Guest of Honour profile at Ropecon 2013
- ↑ "INDEPENDENT GAME OF THE YEAR, 2004". The RPG-Awards Site. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
- ↑ "INNOVATION IN A ROLEPLAYING GAME, 2004". The RPG-Awards Site. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
- ↑ "The Diana Jones Award 2005". The Diana Jones Award committee. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
- ↑ RPG Geek page
- 1 2 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 411. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.