Bolotomy
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Tom Wham has been a game designer since age 7 when he got his first Monopoly set and immediately began modifying the rules. At first, sister Nina, and later, his friends and the rest of his family were the only victims of this activity, which for a very long time, went un-rewarded. While at SIU in the early 60's his career was daunted by rejection letters from game companies. Later, married and back from the Navy, he did the next best thing. In 1972 he got a job in the shipping/layout/anything else department at Campaign Magazine. With Don Lowry at Guidon Games, where he co-authored a set of Civil War Naval Miniature rules (Ironclad). Sadly, this did not last very long. A bad case of divorce struck in 1974, and by 1976 he was out in Denver, Colorado. Then, thru strange circumstance, May 1977 found him in Lake Geneva at the door of TSR as employee number thirteen. After running the Dungeon Hobby Shop for a summer, he was bumped upstairs (literally) to the art department where he worked with Dave Sutherland and Dave Trampier on the original Monster Manual, and was later assigned various editing and development tasks. It was't long before he made a deal with Tim Kask, editor of the Dragon Magazine, to do a game called Snit Smashing. This was soon followed by the obvious sequel: Snit's Revenge. This led to several more games printed in the Dragon, including The Awful Green Things From Outer Space. After leaving TSR, Wham wandered about aimlessly till he landed a job for many years as the computer guy at the Lake Geneva Public Library. On the writing front he collaborated on several books with Rose Estes, and did his own novelette in Christopher Stasheff's The Exotic Enchanter. He has subsequently published more games, including Kings & Things (with Rob Kuntz) with West End Games and Games Workshop. The game later was published in German by Pegasus Spiele. Through TSR he did Mertwig's Maze and The Great Khan Game (with Richard Hamblen). He also did a lot of basic design work on a total failure... the Sim City card game, and the much more accepted Iron Dragon, both from Mayfair Games. More recent efforts include Planet Busters Troll Lord Games, and Dragon Lairds (with James M. Ward) from Margaret Weis Productions. Instead of submitting finished games to game companies, (the writer thinks he's an idiot) Tom has been selling prototypes (Moose Quest, Whamgammon, and more through the Internet. (see my stuff page) This summer (2010) look for a reprint of Kings & Things from Pegasus and Z-Man. |
This page updated March 24, 2010