Jeff Tidball

Jeff Tidball
Nationality	American
Occupation	Game designer

Jeff Tidball is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Career

After the success of On the Edge (1994), college student Jeff Tidball became one of the new full-time employees at Atlas Games. When the collectible card game scene imploded in 1996, all of the staff other than John Nephew and Tidball were let go. Tidball adopted the title of Director of Creative Development and was soon tasked with preparing Atlas Games's next RPG for market, Ars Magica, and Tidball began developing the game for Atlas after they acquired it from Wizards of the Coast. Tidball also became the Ars Magica line developer, and the Feng Shui line developer as well. Tidball's Cthulhu-influenced Cults Across America (1998) had been part of Atlas's releases in the board and card game market. In 2000, Tidball left Atlas Games for an MFA film script-writing program at the University of Southern California . When John Nephew was skeptical about producing the licensed game Rune, Tidball convinced him to publish it. Tidball was later hired Last Unicorn Games, but by January 2004 the Last Unicorn Games RPG division of Decipher Games consisted of just Tidball and Jess Heinig, so Decipher shut down its RPG division and laid off the remaining staff. Tidball designed the Cthulhu 500 card game for Atlas. Tidball worked as the line developer for Decipher's The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game. Atlas published Pieces of Eight (2006), a coin-based game designed by Tidball. Will Hindmarch and Tidball later formed a new small press called Gameplaywright. Tidball subsequently worked as the senior developer and editor for the board and card game departments at Fantasy Flight Games, before returning to Atlas Games on a contract basis as Chief Operating Officer. He has also continued to write in the roleplaying industry, notably the massive Eternal Lies campaign he wrote with Hindmarch for Pelgrane Press's Trail of Cthulhu RPG.

Tidball lives with his wife and son in the Twin Cities area.

Notable Works	Role	Year
Ars Magica	Line Developer	1996
Cults Across America	Designer	1998
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game	Line Developer	2002-2004
Cthulhu 500	Designer	2004
Pieces of Eight	Designer	2006
Beowulf: The Movie Boardgame	Developer	2007
Thing We Think About Games	Co_Author	2008
Horus Heresy	Designer and Producer	2010
Ecotopia	Designer and Writer	2011
Skullgirls	Writer	2011
League of Legends	Writer	2011
Dragon Age Roleplaying Game Set 2	Developer and Co-author	2011
Mercante	Designer	2012

External links

• Home page
• Jeff Tidball :: Pen & Paper RPG Database archive