| Company type | Private (defunct) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Role-playing game publisher |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Defunct | 2006 |
| Fate | Sold properties to Guardians of Order |
Key people | Erick Wujcik, Lisa Seymour, Ron Seymour |
| Products | Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game, Shadow Knight, Amberzine |
Phage Press was a role-playing game publishing company, best known for publishing the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game (1991).
History
Erick Wujcik originally envisioned a role-playing game based on Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber. Kevin Siembieda encouraged Wujcik to set up his own company rather than selling the product to a publisher; Wujcik consequently founded Phage Press, hiring his cousins Lisa Seymour and Ron Seymour to deal with the business side of the company.[1]: 269 The original 256-page game book for Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game was designed by Wujcik and published in 1991.[1]: 269
In her 2003 book Playing with Power: The Authorial Consequences of Roleplaying Games, Michelle Nephew called this "the advent of the 'diceless' roleplaying game ... a system of comparing abilities and describing actions narratively to resolve situations."[2]
Wujcik received manuscripts for an Amber supplement titled Shadow Knight, but he was not satisfied with any of them and ended up writing the book himself, releasing it in 1993.[1]: 269
James Wallis of Hogshead Publishing designed a role-playing game based on Matt Howarth's Bugtown comics, [1]: 304 and brought it to Phage Press in 1992 to be produced. Creative differences kept Wujcik from agreeing with him so Wallis pulled out of Phage in 1994.[1]: 269 Wallis then took his Bugtown game to Wizards of the Coast (WotC), but was unable to come to an agreement with WotC on Matt Howarth's royalties.[1]: 304 In 1996, Wujcik convinced Matt Howarth to relicense the Bugtown rights to Phage Press; however Wujcik never did publish a game based on the comic.[1]: 269
In 1992, Phage Press started to publish a digest-sized magazine called Amberzine that focussed on Phage's Amber game. From 1992 until 1997, Phage Press published ten issues at the rate of one to three issues per year.[1]: 112–113 Then Wujcik decided to move into computer game design, and Phage Press largely went silent. Wujcik did not publish Issue #11 of Amberzine until 2003. In 2005, Wujcik wanted to shut down Phage Press but still owed subscribers four issues of Amberzine. To fulfill that obligation, he published a final "quadruple issue", combining Issues #12–15 into one release.[1]: 114
After Phage Press shut down, Guardians of Order acquired the rights to publish the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game.[3][4]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
- ^ Nephew, Michelle (2003). Playing with Power: The Authorial Consequences of Roleplaying Games. p. 125.
- ^ "Guardians Of Order's New Year's Message". Retrieved 2006-07-11.
- ^ "Phage Press". Retrieved 2006-07-11.