Bill Slavicsek
| Born | Bill Slavicsek October 6, 1971 New York City, United States |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Game designer |
| Nationality | United States |
| Genre | Role-playing games |
| Spouse | Michelle Carter |
Bill Slavicsek is a game designer who served as the Director of Roleplaying Design and Development at Wizards of the Coast. He previously worked for West End Games and TSR, Inc., and designed products for Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Alternity, Torg, Paranoia and Ghostbusters.
Bill Slavicsek was born and raised in New York City. Slavicsek was a comic book, horror, and science fiction fan as a boy: "Some of my earliest memories involve looking at issues of Marvel Comics, drawing my own comics, and watching old SF and horror movies on TV". Interested in gaming from an early age, Slavicsek was introduced to roleplaying games in 1977 when he discovered Dungeons & Dragons. Originally intending to pursue a career as a comic book artist, Slavicsek switched to journalism and communication at St. John's University. After working for a year at a community newspaper, Slavicsek was hired by West End Games as an editor in 1986. In 1987 the company secured the license to publish a Star Wars roleplaying game, a project which Slavicsek oversaw as an editor and developer. Slavicsek oversaw the Star Wars line for its first year. In 1988 he was promoted to Creative and Editorial Director for WEG. He co-created the Torg game with Greg Gorden, published in 1990, and co-authored the novel Stormknights, which was set in the Torg universe. Slavicsek left West End later in 1990.
In 1991, Slavicsek began working as a freelancer, and was hired as a designer/editor by TSR in 1993. At TSR, he designed the Alternity game with Rich Baker, as well as the Revised Dark Sun Campaign Setting, and The Nightmare Lands for the Ravenloft setting. "Some of my personal bests include the pair of Planescape adventures I wrote - The Deva Spark and Harbinger House... Planescape brought out the best in the people who worked on it. I'm also extremely proud of the Alternity game system. I worked with a great team that featured my co-designer Rich Baker, editor Kim Mohan, David Eckelberry, Jim Butler, and the great visual contributions of rk post." For much of the 1990s he was working simultaneously for both WEG and TSR as an editor and designer on various projects. He wrote A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, a definitive reference to Star Wars movies, books, and games, which was published by Del Rey in 1994. Slavicsek is considered one of the world's leading experts on Star Wars, and has written the second and third editions of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe.
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