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Jeff Tidball

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Jeff Tidball
NationalityAmerican
OccupationGame designer

Jeff Tidball is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Career

After the success of On the Edge (1994), college student Jeff Tidball became one of the new full-time employees at Atlas Games.[1]: 254  When the collectible card game scene imploded in 1996, all of the staff other than John Nephew and Tidball were let go.[1]: 254  Tidball adopted the title of Director of Creative Development and was soon tasked with preparing Atlas Games's next RPG for market, Ars Magica, and Tidball began developing the game for Atlas after they acquired it from Wizards of the Coast.[1]: 254  Tidball also became the Ars Magica line developer,[1]: 255  and the Feng Shui line developer as well.[2] Tidball's Cthulhu-influenced Cults Across America (1998) had been part of Atlas's releases in the board and card game market.[1]: 257  In 2000, Tidball left Atlas Games for an MFA film script-writing program at the University of Southern California .[1]: 255  When John Nephew was skeptical about producing the licensed game Rune, Tidball convinced him to publish it.[1]: 257  Tidball was later hired Last Unicorn Games, but by January 2004 the Last Unicorn Games RPG division of Decipher Games consisted of just Tidball and Jess Heinig, so Decipher shut down its RPG division and laid off the remaining staff.[1]: 318  Tidball designed the Cthulhu 500 card game for Atlas.[2] Tidball worked as the line developer for Decipher's The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.[2] Atlas published Pieces of Eight (2006), a coin-based game designed by Tidball.[1]: 259  Will Hindmarch and Tidball later formed a new small press called Gameplaywright.[1]: 260  Tidball subsequently worked as the senior developer and editor for the board and card game departments at Fantasy Flight Games,[2] before returning to Atlas Games on a contract basis as chief operating officer. He has also continued to write in the roleplaying industry, notably the massive Eternal Lies campaign he wrote with Hindmarch for Pelgrane Press's Trail of Cthulhu RPG.

Tidball lives with his wife and sons in the Twin Cities area.[2]

Notable Works Role Year
Ars Magica Line Developer 1996
Cults Across America Designer 1998
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game Line Developer 2002–2004
Cthulhu 500 Designer 2004
Pieces of Eight Designer 2006
Beowulf: The Movie Boardgame Developer 2007
Things We Think About Games Co Author 2008
Horus Heresy Designer and Producer 2010
The Bones: Us And Our Dice Co Author 2010
Ecotopia Designer and Writer 2011
Skullgirls Writer 2011
League of Legends Writer 2011
Dragon Age Roleplaying Game Set 2 Developer and Co-author 2011
Mercante Designer 2012
Doctor Who: Time Clash Designer 2016
The White Box: A Game Design Workshop-In-A-Box Designer and Writer 2017

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702- 58-7.
  2. ^ a b c d e Tidball, Jeff (2007). "Car Wars". In Lowder, James (ed.). Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 49–51. ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0.