Kevin Siembieda
| Kevin Siembieda | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Kevin Henry Siembieda April 2, 1956 Detroit, Michigan, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | College for Creative Studies |
| Occupation | Author, designer, illustrator, and publisher of role-playing games at Palladium Books |
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Notable work |
Heroes Unlimited The Mechanoid Invasion Palladium Fantasy RPG Rifts |
| Spouse(s) | Maryann Donald (1985–2004) |
Kevin Siembieda (born April 2, 1956) is an American artist, writer, designer and publisher of role-playing games.
Siembieda attended the College for Creative Studies in Detroit from 1974 to 1977. He wanted to be a comic book artist, but found the industry difficult to break into and published a small-press comic (A+ Plus, 1977-1978) with his company: Megaton Publications. In 1979 Siembieda discovered the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rulebook and joined a role-playing group, the Wayne Street Weregamers, which met at Wayne State University in Detroit (where he befriended Erick Wujcik, who ran the group). Siembieda ran a game for the group, the Palladium of Desires, a combination of AD&D and his house rules. By 1980 the Wayne Weregamers became the Detroit Gaming Centre, with Siembieda its assistant director and Wujcik its director. Siembieda tried to interest gaming companies in his RPG with little interest; only Judges Guild made him an offer, but he accepted a job offer from them instead. He was an artist for Judges Guild for four months before working as a freelance artist for other publishers and trying to sell his RPG to them.
Siembieda is the co-founder and president of Palladium Books. He founded the company in April 1981 to publish his fantasy role-playing game, but had insufficient funds to publish any books; the mother of Bill Loebs loaned Siembieda $1,500 to publish his first RPG book, The Mechanoid Invasion (1981). By 1983 the company was successful enough for Siembieda to rent warehouse space and release his fantasy RPG, the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game with a loan of $10,000 from his friend Thom Bartold who had also loaned him funds to print the other two books in the Mechanoid Trilogy, Journey and Homeworld in 1982. These were not just loans, but investments, and Siembieda established a system of paying royalties not just to the writers and artists, but also to those who lent him the capital needed to print the books: his investors. The following year, he extended his Palladium system to the superhero genre with Heroes Unlimited. A freelancer contacted Siembieda about producing a licensed role-playing game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book. Siembieda obtained the rights, but was dissatisfied with the freelancer's product. Erick Wujcik redesigned the game in five weeks, and it was published in 1985 as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness. Siembieda next obtained the license to publish a game based on the Robotech anime series, designing the Robotech role-playing game published in 1986.
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