John D. Rateliff

John D. Rateliff is an author of roleplaying games and an independent scholar, specializing on the Inklings and in particular Tolkien studies (study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien).

Rateliff relocated to Wisconsin in 1981 in order to study original Tolkien manuscripts at Marquette University. Rateliff is an expert in Tolkien studies, and he earned a PhD in 20th-century British literature from Marquette University.

John D. Rateliff is an independent scholar who has helped organize several major Tolkien conferences. He has contributed essays to Christopher Tolkien's festschrift (Tolkien's Legendarium) and a volume marking the fiftieth anniversary of The Lord of the Rings, and has published The History of The Hobbit (HarperCollins, 2007), an edition of the original manuscript draft of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit with extensive commentary. Having written his dissertation on Lord Dunsany, he likes to describe his degree as "a Ph.D. in fantasy."

Rateliff worked for TSR, Inc., Wizards of the Coast, and Hasbro for a number of years, contributing to a large number of products of the Dungeons and Dragons line. In addition he worked as freelancer for Decipher Inc., Green Ronin, White Wolf, Guardians of Order, and Chaosium on a number of projects . According to his guest speaking session at Merpcon IV in 2008, he stated that he also worked on an internal TSR project to create a Tolkien-based role-playing game, that did not complete release to the public. Rateliff was the co-editor of the third edition D&D Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide (the original d20 System game rules), and has worked on such titles as Mark of Amber, Night Below, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, the Eberron core rulebook, and Decipher's Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game. He is the author of the adventures Standing Stone and Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, as well as co-editor of (and contributor to) d20 Cthulhu.

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