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Today I find myself describing to a few friends why I really like the StackExchange network (recent corporate events notwithstanding). One of my reasons was that many sites on the network have experts in their field as regular users. For instance NASA engineers on space.SE or Microsoft employees on SO.

It got me wondering though, have there ever been any employees of Wizards of the Coast active here on RPG.SE? Particularly ones that had authored content and would appear on the inside cover. I would also accept major 3rd party sources as well.

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    \$\begingroup\$ WOTC is a large organization and we have a large user base, so this information may be hard to find. We may have WOTC employees who don't publicly announce so for career reasons. If you're just counting experts, then what about authors of published 3rd party content, or developers of non-D&D games? \$\endgroup\$
    – MikeQ
    Jan 14, 2020 at 3:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MikeQ Mm you're right, I was thinking of well-known content creators who would have been on the cover of books, but you're right for a second time, not all books come from Wizards! I shall amend my question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nacht
    Jan 14, 2020 at 3:31
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    \$\begingroup\$ @MikeQ But is the Wizards of the Coast D&D division actually that big though? I may be wholly uninformed, but my understanding is that Wizards currently employs full-time only, like, two guys on the writing side of D&D with the majority of content coming from freelancers. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, and a great many folks are probably involved in production that isn't actual writing, of course.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Hey I Can Chan
    Jan 14, 2020 at 4:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ See also the other questions with the [game-designers] tag on meta that I've added to this question now. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Jan 14, 2020 at 4:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm sure that there are tons of people here who homebrew, but not a lot from big games. \$\endgroup\$
    – user-024673
    Jan 14, 2020 at 6:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ @HeyICanChan the entire Wizards D&D team is listed in the credits of every published 5e book. You're right, the team is not that big. \$\endgroup\$
    – mdrichey
    Jan 15, 2020 at 17:32

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I’ve worked for Dreamscarred Press, and my name’s on the cover of at least one book they published. Various other members of DSP have also been active here, including its founders. Dunno if DSP still counts as a “major” third-party publisher, but there was a point in time when they were often regarded as “the one exception” by people who disliked third-party d20 content.

We’ve definitely had a few other publishers post here, though as far as I know DSP folks are the only ones to really be active here for any period of time, and at present I am the only one.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Not sure why this was accepted; BESW’s answer is really the “correct” answer so far as this kind of question can even have one. Half the people listed in other answers I didn’t even know about. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Jan 17, 2020 at 5:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ Might just have been accepted because it's an answer by a "D&D content author", rather than simply mentioning others who have been on the site. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Jan 19, 2020 at 0:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ That's why you've got such an insanely comprehensive knowledge of 3.5 and PF! \$\endgroup\$
    – Pyrotechnical
    Jan 29, 2020 at 22:53
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We've definitely had TRPG creators participating in the site, including a co-creator of Lovecraftesque and Fred Hicks. I've been told we used to have some WotC contributors participating here, but most of them were not publicly associating their SE accounts with their professional names.

And since claims to being a games creator on this site aren't verifiable unless the creator confirms it on some other platform which HAS been verified, it doesn't really matter much in the long run anyway. Good answers are good answers. It's been my experience that often the creator is less qualified to give advice on how to play a game they wrote, than the people who play it are.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 for the whole answer (the second paragraph in particular), but to prove your last sentence's point, consider the popularity of some of Jeremy Crawford's rulings; I've heard people at my local store insist that he doesn't actually play the game at all based on how dumb they find some of his rulings... \$\endgroup\$
    – NathanS
    Jan 14, 2020 at 11:15
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Raddu is Robert Adducci, one-time DDAL Community Manager (his profile is a bit out of date). His name first appeared as part of the admin team the "inside cover" of a DDAL module with DDEX01-01 and last appeared on DDAL07-08, plus some credits as primary author mixed in there, too. He's also credited in Lost Laboratory of Kwalish and probably other things I don't have readily available to check.

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ExTSR was Frank Mentzer (who was the key / lead developer of BECMI D&D). Both he and mxyzplk were pretty abrasive and neither was very good at tolerating the other's playstyle's presence on the site, which eventually lead to Mentzer's ragequitting the site: though the account hasn't been deleted it was last used in March 2014. Before that he was very active and the account is still top 10% on rep.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure the "top 10% on rep" is a meaningful criteria or worthy of distinction when there are thousands of drive-by users on the list and he's not even 10% of some individual users personal rep scores. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Jan 16, 2020 at 15:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ @T.J.L. I mean you could say he's ranked 265th for all time reputation which is probably something? \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Jan 16, 2020 at 17:58
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think it is a meaningful distinction. He contributed more than 90%+ of users who have ever registered with the site. That is a very good indication of activity and level of contribution and just because it is not as big as other people doesn't make it not a big number. I mean, there are people with close to 10X my rep score but I'm still top 0.3% and that means something about replacement rates-- it takes approximately twenty registered users (6%) before we get someone who will accrue as much rep as ExTSR. \$\endgroup\$
    – Please stop being evil
    Jan 16, 2020 at 18:24

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