Colin McComb

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Colin McComb (born May 1970 in Evanston , Illinois ) is an American author and game designer .

Life

McComb studied at Lake Forest College , where he graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1991 . Immediately after completing his studies, McComb took a position at the RPG publisher TSR , for whose product lines he wrote numerous rule books, adventure and magazine articles. He received the Origins Award for Best RPG Adventure in 1993 for Dragon Mountain and 1995 for Best RPG Extension for the Birthright Campaign Setting . His best-known works, however, are his contributions to the Planescape campaign world , for which he was responsible together with Monte Cook as the main designer after the departure of David "Zeb" Cook .

In 1996 McComb left TSR to take a position in the role-playing department of computer game developer Interplay Entertainment , which later went under the name Black Isle Studios . There he took on smaller design work for Fallout 2, among other things . His main task, however, was originally the development of a console role-playing game in the style of King's Field and based on the Planescape license, which Interplay had acquired in 1996 from TSR. The project was discontinued, however, and McComb was reassigned to another Planescape project, designed by Chris Avellone , which was to use the same game engine as the role-playing game Baldur's Gate . The project appeared in 1999 under the title Planescape: Torment and turned out to be less of a sales success than more of a critical success. After Avellone, McComb had the largest share in the game concept.

In 2000 McComb left Black Isle and moved to Detroit with musician Robin Moulder , whom he married in 2001 , where he has been working as a freelance writer ever since. Among other things, he contributed several times to the Pathfinder RPG and wrote interviews, reports and reviews for the music magazines Outburn and MK Ultra . In 2004 he published together with his former Planescape -Kollegen Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur and Ray Vallese the RPG supplement Beyond Countless Doorways , which in Ennie Awards 2005 silver Ennie for the second best rules supplement and an honorable highlighting for Best Writing and the never won a golden EN for the best cover design. Together with his wife, he designed and wrote the manual for the MMORPG RYL in 2005 . McComb also taught computer game theory, game mechanics and game design at the International Academy of Design and Technology .

On August 10, 2012 it was announced that McComb had been hired as a writer for the computer role-playing game Wasteland 2 by InXile Entertainment . After a long and unsuccessful search for a financier on the online platform Kickstarter.com, this was previously financed by crowdfunding . In March 2013, InXile finally started another crowdfunding project called Torment: Tides of Numenera , which is to become a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment and for which McComb was the creative director. Since no agreement was reached in advance with the rights holder Wizards of the Coast regarding a Planescape license, the Numenera role-playing set of rules, also financed by Monte Cook via Kickstarter, was used as the basis.

Work

Role play

TSR
  • Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
    • The Complete Book of Elves
    • Dragon Mountain
  • Amazing engine
    • The Galactos Barrier
    • Bughunter (complementary design)
  • Birthright
    • Birthright Campaign Setting , with Richard Baker
    • Players Guide to Endier
    • Sword and Crown
  • Dark Sun
    • The Complete Gladiators' Handbook
  • Dragon lance
    • Taladas: The Minotaurs
    • Knight's Sword
    • Tales of the Lance
  • Dungeons and Dragons
    • Thunder Rift
  • Planescape
    • Planescape Campaign Setting (monster design)
    • Planes of Law
    • Planes of Conflict
    • Players Primer to the Outlands (audio CD script)
    • Well of Worlds
    • Hellbound: The Blood War
    • On Hallowed Ground
    • Faces of Evil: The Fiends
    • The Great Modron March
  • Ravenloft
    • Islands of Terror
    • Howls in the Night
    • Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III: Creatures of Darkness (additional design)
    • Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales
Paizo Publishing
  • Pathfinder
    • Faiths of Corruption
    • Lands of the Linnorm Kings
    • Ultimate Combat
    • Faiths of balance
    • Humans of Golarion
    • Undead Revisited
    • Rival Guide
    • Faiths of Purity
    • Ultimate Magic
    • Inner Sea Primer
    • Misfit Monsters Redeemed
    • Varnhold Vanishing
    • Gnomes of Golarion
    • Game Mastery Guide
    • Andoran, Spirit of Liberty
    • Guide to the River Kingdoms
    • Cheliax, Empire of Devils
    • Beyond the Vault of Souls
    • It came from the Stars Campaign Guide
Sword & Sorcery
  • Beyond Countless Doorways

Computer games

Novels

  • Oathbreaker # 1: The Knight's Tale
  • Oathbreaker # 2: The Magus's Tale
  • The Shaman's Tale (short story), in: Dreams in Shadow - Seventeen Stories All Told

Non-fiction

  • The Kobold Guide to Game Design - Volume III: Tools & Techniques

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ [2]
  3. ↑ a b Fitz: RPG Book Review: The Kobold Guide to Game Design - Volume III: Tools & Techniques by Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, Ed Greenwood, Rob Heinsoo, and Colin McComb . In: Blogcritics.org Gaming , July 2, 2010. 
  4. ↑ a b Thomas "Brother None" Beekers: Tales of Torment, Part 1 ( English, interview with developers Chris Avellone and Colin McComb ) RPGWatch. July 30, 2007. Archived from the original on August 7, 2009. Retrieved February 16, 2011.
  5. ^ No Really, Planescape Could Come Back . In: Geekosystem , February 11, 2013. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 14, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.geekosystem.com 
  6. ^ "Free rein to design games" (March 27, 2013), The New Indian Express .
  7. ↑ [3]
  8. ↑ [4]
  9. ↑ [5]
  10. ↑ [6]
  11. ↑ Shannon Appelcline: Designers and Dragons . Mongoose Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7 , p. 29.
personal data
SURNAME McComb, Colin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author and game designer
DATE OF BIRTH May 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Evanston , Illinois