Richard Channing Garfield (born June 26, 1963, Philadelphia) is a mathematics professor and game designer who created the card games Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner, BattleTech CCG, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (originally known as Jyhad), The Great Dalmuti, Star Wars Trading Card Game, and the board game RoboRally. He also created a variation of the game Hearts called Complex hearts. The development of Magic: The Gathering is credited with popularising the collectible card game genre.
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Garfield was born in Philadelphia, and spent his childhood in many locations throughout the world as a result of his father's work in architecture. His family eventually settled in Oregon when he was twelve. While always having an interest in puzzles and games, his passion for games began when he was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons.[1] Garfield designed his first game by the time he was 13.[2]
In 1985, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer mathematics. He joined Bell Laboratories, then decided to continue his education and attended the University of Pennsylvania, and studied combinatorial mathematics.[1]
He began designing Magic: The Gathering as a Penn graduate student. A group of playtesters, comprising mostly fellow Penn students, formed around the developing game.[3] While searching for a publisher for RoboRally, which he designed in 1985,[1] Garfield found Peter Adkison of Wizards of the Coast, who expressed interest in Magic.[2]
Garfield studied under Herbert Wilf and earned a Ph.D. in combinatorial mathematics from Penn in 1993. He became a professor of mathematics at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
Magic: The Gathering launched in 1993. Playtesters began independently developing expansion packs, which were then passed to Garfield to edit.[3] Garfield left academia to join Wizards of the Coast as a full-time game designer in June 1994.[1] He was a primary play tester for the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition bookset, released by Wizards in 2000. He eventually left Wizards to become an independent game designer.[1]
He still sporadically contributes to Magic: The Gathering.[4][5] More recently, he has created the board games Pecking Order (2006)[6] and Rocketville (2006). The latter was published by Avalon Hill, a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast.[7] He has shifted more of his attention to video games, having worked on the design and development of Schizoid and Spectromancer.[1]
Garfield created a custom Magic card to propose to his girlfriend Lily Wu[8] in 1993.[9] They are now married and have two children, daughter[10] Terry (born in September[11] 1997[8]) and son[12] Schuyler (born in 1999[8]). He created further custom cards to commemorate the birth of his children.[11]
In the December 1997 issue of Dragon Magazine, in an article on Garfield's trading card game patent application, it was reported that Garfield is the great-great-grandson of U.S. President James A. Garfield (1831–81), and that his great-uncle invented the paper clip.[13]
A partial list of games designed by Richard Garfield: