Nationality American Occupation Game designer | Name Ryan Dancey Role Businessman | |
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Ryan S. Dancey is a businessman who has worked primarily in the collectible card game and role-playing game industries. He was vice president in charge of Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast.
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Career
Dancey was part of Isomedia Inc, which was helping to fund Legend of the Five Rings (1995), and he joined in on the project. In 1996 the principals behind the game created a new, better-funded company, calling it Five Rings Publishing Group. Robert Abramowitz became the President of the new company, and Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) and Isomedia each gave over their rights in Legend of the Five Rings for appropriate ownership, with Dancey becoming VP of Product Development and John Zinser of AEG becoming VP of Sales.
In early 1997, TSR was on the verge of bankruptcy and looking for a buyer; Abramowitz and Dancey negotiated a deal for the purchase of TSR, which they brought to Peter Adkison at Wizards of the Coast, who purchased Five Rings Publishing along with TSR as part of the deal. At the end of 1998 the Five Rings group was dissolved as a separate entity, and Dancey became the business head of the roleplaying department at Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), where he became involved in the development of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Adkison put Dancey in charge of TSR's business and marketing concerns. Dancey championed Wizards of the Coast's purchase of Last Unicorn Games in 2000, as he saw in them a smaller and more efficient RPG R&D force that he wanted to bring in with Wizards' own RPG staff. Dancey largely conceived of the Open Gaming License (OGL) and d20 System Trademark License, based on his belief that the true strength of D&D was in its gaming community. He said that TSR was far too aggressive looking for copyright violations and alienated fans. The OGL was published by WOTC in 2000 to license the System Reference Document (SRD) for D&D in a move spearheaded by Dancey. Dancey also co-authored the Hero Builder's Guidebook (2000). Dancey later moved back to "consultant" status, and was among those laid off by Wizards toward the end of 2002.
Dancey later worked for Icelandic video game producer CCP Games, which had purchased White Wolf Publishing.
In 2011, Dancey began working on Goblinworks "Pathfinder Online" Sandbox MMORPG. In August 2015, Interim Goblinworks CEO Lisa Stevens announced that Ryan Dancey had left Goblinworks for personal reasons. In a separate letter to players, she indicated that Dancey was still involved, and would continue to consult on the project.