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Meguey Baker

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Meguey Baker
Born1971
Upstate New York, USA
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHampshire College (BA)
Occupation(s)Game designer, curator, and historian
Notable workA Thousand and One Nights
Apocalypse World
SpouseVincent Baker
Awards

Meguey Baker (/mɛˈɡeɪ/) is a roleplaying game designer, independent publisher and quilt historian.[6][7] She has been a guest of honor at Lucca Comics & Games, I-CON, and was scheduled to be one at Arisia in 2014.

Career

Game designer

Baker is the founding owner of Night Sky Games.[8]: 185  Baker's most prominent works are A Thousand and One Nights (2006) and Apocalypse World (2010). The first, published through Night Sky Games, is a role-playing game based on the collection of Arabic stories, The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.[8]: 185 [9][10] The latter is a post-apocalyptic game co-designed with her husband, Vincent Baker, published through Lumpley Games. Apocalypse World won multiple awards such as the 2010 Indie RPG Award for "Game of the Year"[1] and the 2011 Lucca Comics & Games "Best Role-Playing Game" award.[4] Powered by the Apocalypse, the game design framework created by the Bakers for Apocalypse World, has made a lasting impact on role-playing game design.[11][12]

Baker co-wrote Fair Game, with Emily Care Boss a blog-style design and roleplaying theory journal from 2005 to 2011.[13]

Baker has also designed other indie role-playing games such as Miss Schiffer's School for Young Ladies of Quality (2006),[14] Psi*Run (2012) and Valiant Girls (2013); the latter were Night Sky Games' third and sixth publications respectively.[8]: 185–186  She co-designed with her husband both Firebrands (2017), a romance TTRPG in a sci-fi setting focused on mobile frame pilots,[15][16] and Under Hollow Hills (2021), an RPG about fairytales and a traveling circus.[17] Jay Dragon, for Polygon, wrote that "Under Hollow Hills is a game about how we treat each other when times are good and how we treat each other when times are bad — between its gorgeous prose, fascinating imaginative characters, countless treasures, and natural flowing play style, Under Hollow Hills is the future of tabletop role-playing games, a unique and impossible treasure".[18]

Focus

Baker designs games that are intended to create a voice for the marginalised, and ones that take limited time and resources to play. She believes that everyone has a story to tell and that those stories should be heard.[19][20]

Textiles and quilting

She is a quilter and quilt historian, particularly interested in how the history of non-dominant voices gets transmitted in objects and oral tradition rather than the official written history.[21] Baker highlighted that her first quilt block was hand sewn at four years old; she wrote, "I checked with my mom. She says I was 4 because my sister was a newborn and sewing helped me keep quiet while she was napping. I'm guessing I did about one seam per nap".[22] Baker now collects and restores antique and vintage textiles, as well as creates new works.[21][23]

Baker is a Collections Assistant for the Hatfield Historical Museum and is part of the curatorial team for the Historical Society of Greenfield.[24][25][26]

Personal life

She was born in 1971 in upstate New York,[citation needed] where she started playing roleplaying games in 1978, and she currently resides in Greenfield Massachusetts.[citation needed] She and her husband have three children.[27]

Baker studied American History at Hampshire College with a focus on early American textile history and material culture.[28][21]

Baker was an activist providing advocacy and support for mothers via MotherWoman Inc.[29][citation needed]

Bibliography

Role-playing games

  • A Thousand and One Nights (2006)[9]
  • Miss Schiffer's School for Young Ladies of Quality (2006)[14]
  • The Girl Effect
  • Apocalypse World (2010)[12]
    • Apocalypse World 2nd Edition (2016)[30]
    • Apocalypse World: the Extended Refbook (2019)[31]
    • Apocalypse World: Burned Over Hackbook (2019)[32]
  • Psi-Run Revised (2012)[33][8]: 185 
  • Valiant Girls (2013)[8]: 185 
  • Dialect: A Game About Language And How It Dies (2017)[34][35]
  • Firebrands (2017)[16]
  • The King Is Dead (2018)[36]
  • Towns Like Ours (2021)[37]
  • Under Hollow Hills (2021)[17]

Other

  • Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters (2014)[38]

References

  1. ^ a b "Indie Game of The Year, 2010". Indie RPG Awards. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  2. ^ "Best Support, 2010". Indie RPG Awards. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  3. ^ "Most Innovative Game, 2010". Indie RPG Awards. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  4. ^ a b "Best of Show: i vincitori". Lucca Comics & Games 2011. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  5. ^ "2011 Golden Geek Award Winners! | Geekdo". BoardGameGeek. November 21, 2011. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Guest of Honour profile at Lucca 2011
  7. ^ Guest of Honour profile - I-Con 31
  8. ^ a b c d e Shannon Appelcline (2014). Designers & Dragons: The '00s. Evil Hat Productions. ISBN 978-1-61317-087-8.
  9. ^ a b Mikcs, David (25 July 2011). "Seduction Unending". The New Republic. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  10. ^ Caruso, Giovanni; Fassone, Riccardo; Ferri, Gabriele; Gualeni, Stefano; Salvador, Mauro (2016). "Games on Games. Game Design as Critical Reflexive Practice". G|A|M|E Games as Art, Media, Entertainment. 1 (5). ISSN 2280-7705. Meguey Baker's 1,001 Nights is a playable critique of the encased narratives found in Arabian Nights
  11. ^ Berge, PS (2021). Mitchell, Alex; Vosmeer, Mirjam (eds.). "Monster Power. Rebel Heart. Gay Sword: Queer Structures and Narrative Possibility in PbtA Tabletop Roleplaying Games". Interactive Storytelling. 13138. Cham: Springer International Publishing: 179–192. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6_16. ISBN 978-3-030-92299-3. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  12. ^ a b "Powered by the Apocalypse: How an Indie RPG Is Still Changing the Industry". CBR. 2020-10-04. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  13. ^ "The Fairgame Archive". www.fairgame-rpgs.com. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  14. ^ a b "Miss Schiffer's School for Young Ladies of Quality". VideoGameGeek. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  15. ^ "4 Powered By Apocalypse TTRPGs for Romance Fans". CBR. 2020-12-06. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  16. ^ a b "Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands | Lumpley Games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ a b "Under Hollow Hills | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ^ Hall, Charlie (2021-12-13). "The best tabletop games that we played in 2021". Polygon. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  19. ^ 2014 Arisia biography
  20. ^ "Interview with Meguey Baker". WWAC. 2014-12-10. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  21. ^ a b c Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (April 22, 2021). "[THREAD] All of this, and also all of this in game design. I work professionally in both, have advanced degrees in neither, and really see the divide Erin lays out. [...] When I graduated with my BA and a focus on American textile history & non-dominant voices, Museum Studies masters programs were so rare there was no guidance for me towards the collections care work I wanted to do. [...] So I did textile conservation & restoration for private clients, sent to me by word of mouth, for 12 years. While having tiny kids & doing postpartum counseling work. I did not think of myself as an historian, because there was no job and no book. [...] The curator there recommended me for my current job. Which was grant-funded off and on for 5 years. It was LAST YEAR that my part-time curatorial job became an actual line item in the budget, with actual job security. [...] My CV of museum work is impressive. I am good at my job. I sure don't have any academic credentials, despite having presented at academic conferences" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  22. ^ Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (April 10, 2020). "The funny thing? That works both ways sometimes. Like, I have to remember that not everyone has a textile background 45 years deep like me. Here's my first quilt block. Hand sewn when I was 4. [LINK] (I checked with my mom. She says I was 4 because my sister was a newborn and sewing helped me keep quiet while she was napping. I'm guessing I did about one seam per nap.)" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  23. ^ "About". Night Sky Games. Retrieved 2022-01-02. In other aspects of my life, I am a sex ed teacher, a textile artist, and a conservation specialist at the local museum.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ Bauer, Zydalis (2021-12-10). "Hatfield Historical Society's COVID Project". NEPM. Connecting Point. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  25. ^ "Where fall foliage meets history, people still find beauty in Poet's Seat". WWLP. 2021-10-29. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  26. ^ Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (May 20, 2018). "I am the collections assistant at the Hatfield Historical Museum, 1/3 of the curatorial team at the @HSgreenfieldMA, and a textile conservation specialist associated with three other local history museums in western MA" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  27. ^ Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (May 20, 2018). "^_^ Not according to wikipedia. According to them, I'm a quilter (which is true) married to game designer Vincent Baker (also true, for 25 years), we have 3 kids (also true) and I wrote a couple games" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  28. ^ Baker, Meguey (November 16, 2015). "Extraordinary clues in ordinary places". Hatfield Historical Society. Retrieved 2021-12-31. Meguey Baker studied early American textile history and material culture at Hampshire College. She is a member of the Mohawk Trail Quilt Guild, a volunteer textile conservation specialist at Memorial Hall in Deerfield, and does textile repair and conservation for private clients.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  29. ^ Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (September 30, 2016). "Working on #BedlamBeautiful with @lumpleygames makes me miss @MotherWoman and feel incredibly proud & grateful for the work I did with them" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  30. ^ "Apocalypse World (2nd Ed) | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  31. ^ "Apocalypse World: the Extended Refbook | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  32. ^ "Apocalypse World: Burned Over Hackbook | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  33. ^ "Psi*Run (Revised)". VideoGameGeek. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  34. ^ "Dialect: A Game About Language And How It Dies". VideoGameGeek. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  35. ^ Grisafi, Alex (2019-11-07). "Recensione Dialect, guida al gioco e spunti narrativi". Player.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  36. ^ "The King Is Dead | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  37. ^ "Towns Like Ours | Daedalum Analog Productions". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  38. ^ "Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters | Encoded Designs". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)


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