Farewell Wizards and Thank You

It’s with mixed emotions that I announce the end of my 18-year run at Wizards (and TSR before that). I gave my notice last week and will be leaving the company.

Art by Arnie Swekel for "The Illithiad"

This isn’t an easy departure for me, both because of my long history with Wizards, and my recent good luck to be a member of the 5E Dungeons & Dragons design team. I’m thrilled to be part of 5E, and proud of what we accomplished: a kick-ass set of D&D rules. The team is on track to carry D&D Next to wide success.

Overall, my years at Wizards have allowed me to work alongside and learn from talented, creative, and innovative game designers, novel authors, and editors (professional editors, my friends, are worth their weight in platinum). Every project and novel was a chance for me to learn something new and hone my skills. Wizards granted me the opportunity to indulge myself telling stories, then gave me the ability to share those stories with the world.

Likewise, working at Wizards allowed me to develop fantastic relationships and enduring friendships. Everyone at Wizards is a superstar, both those presently employed and all those who’ve left before me. I hope that my future adventures will allow me to team up with many of them again for more forays into the dungeon.

But ultimately, every story ends so that new ones can begin. I’m looking forward to discovering what those stories will be.

UPDATE 2015: Since this post continues to draw traffic, let me add that I accepted a job with MonteCookGames (MCG) just a month after leaving Wizards. Together Monte and I wrote The Strange RPG (plus a ton of other stuff since then).

UPDATE 2018: I'm still at MCG! Last year saw the first novel I've written since leaving Wizards published by Angry Robot called Myth of the Maker. And literally the day before almost dying, I wrapped up the design on Numenera Destiny, the new companion corebook that expands Numenera into a two-corebook game. Moving forward from here are more Numenera 2 related projects that will likely see me through the rest of the year. (Though I also got to try my hand at some Invisible Sun design). In 2019, I'll be moving on to begin design on the updated Cypher System Rulebook and The Stars Are Fire science fiction extravaganza!