Steven S. Long

Steven S. Long is a role-playing game author and one of the owners of Hero Games.

Career

Long started playing Champions in 1982, and began writing for the game 10 years later, starting with articles in the Hero Games house magazine, Adventurer's Club.[1] He began working in the RPG industry in 1992 as a freelancer for Hero Games.[2] Long wrote the subgenre book Dark Champions in 1993, as well as several additional Champions sourcebooks to support it.[3]:150 Long authored The Ultimate Martial Artist (1994) and The Ultimate Mentalist (1996) as the first two books in a line concevied of by Steve Peterson as sourcebooks which could be used with all the genres of the Hero System.[3]:150 Other works included Justice Not Law, An Eye for an Eye, Watchers of the Dragon, and lots of articles for Adventurer's Club, The HERO System Almanacs, and similar publications. He soon branched out into working for other game companies, such as White Wolf Publishing.

In 1997, Long quit his job as a practicing trial lawyer to write and design games as a freelancer.[2] Gold Rush Games hired Long to write a fifth edition of the Hero System in 1997, which he finished in July 1999, turning it in to Hero Games because of the changing dynamics of the two companies at the time.[3]:151 During this time he wrote for numerous companies, including White Wolf Publishing, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Steve Jackson Games, Last Unicorn Games, and Chameleon Eclectic. Long joined in the developers working for Last Unicorn Games on the "Icon system" for their line of licensed Star Trek role-playing games; to get Star Trek: The Next Generation Role-playing Game ready for GenCon 31, Long was flown out to Los Angeles for two weeks. After the design of Icon was done, Long was made the line developer for the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 role-playing game, and by 1999 he became a full-time employee of Last Unicorn Games.[3]:315 In June 2000 Wizards of the Coast bought Last Unicorn Games; Wizards let them go in December, but in February 2001, Decipher, Inc. offered Long and the remaining Last Unicorn employees staff jobs.[3]:316–317

He had worked as a designer for WOTC, working on (among other things) The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game. After leaving WOTC in December 2000, Long was hired by Decipher, Inc. to work on its new Star Trek and Lord of the Rings roleplaying games, the latter winning the 2002 Origins Award for Best Role-playing Game.[4] All told, as of late 2001, Long had written, co-authored, or edited/developed over 70 RPG products.

In December 2001, he founded DOJ, Inc. along with Darren Watts and other investors, and purchased the rights and assets of Hero Games from Cybergames, Inc. on December 19, 2001.[3]:151–152 From 2001 until 2011 Long served as HERO System Line Developer, during which he wrote and.or edited over 100 supplements for the Hero System RPG including his Hero System Fifth Edition in April 2002[3]:152 and the Hero System Sixth Edition in June 2011. In addition to being an owner of DOJ/Hero, Long also works for the company as HERO System Line Developer,[3]:152 where his duties included planning, writing, editing, and developing manuscripts for publication. He also runs a section on the HERO Games Forums, where people can post questions in a section where only Steve Long can reply, thus ensuring accurate responses.

Currently, Long is publishing more HERO System material as a licensee under his Elvensong Street Press[5] imprint.

A graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Law, he lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Media Mentions

Steve Long has appeared in the following newspaper and magazine articles, websites and podcasts.

Podcasts

References

  1. ↑ "He Is The Champion", interview by Will Hindmarch, 17 June 2008, The Escapist magazine.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Long, Steve (2007). "Shadowrun". In Lowder, James. Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 273–275. ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  4. ↑ "List of Winners; Presented at Origins 2003", Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design.
  5. ↑ Long, Steven. "Writer, Game Designer, Young Curmudgeon". Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  6. ↑ RPG Countdown (18 December 2009). Retrieved 18 December 2009.

External links