Jeff Grubb (born August 27, 1957 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an author and game designer. He has worked on a number of computer and role-playing games and has written a number of successful novels, short stories and comics. His credits include The Finder's Stone Trilogy with his wife, Kate Novak, the Spelljammer and the Jakandor campaign settings, and, more recently, computer games such as 2006's Guild Wars Nightfall.
A wargaming enthusiast since high school, Jeff Grubb “started with Avalon Hill wargames ... and got into SPI games later. Some of my favorites were Panzerblitz, Blitzkrieg, and Frigate.” Grubb met Kate Novak in high school, and they got married in 1983. He first learned of roleplaying games as a freshman majoring in engineering at Purdue University, when he happened upon a game of Dungeons & Dragons being played by members of the campus wargaming club. Grubb says, "I walked up to a group of players to ask what they were doing. One turned to me, handed me three six-siders, and said, 'Roll these. We need a cleric.' It was all downhill from there." Within a year, he had attended his first Gen Con and was running his own campaign set in Toril, a world of his own creation.
Grubb graduated and worked as a civil engineer, and spent a year working on air pollution control devices "until cutbacks nailed my job. Used my time off to oversee the design of the AD&D Open at the Gen Con Game Fair. On the strength of these designs, I got a position with TSR as a game designer." TSR hired Grubb in July 1982, where he was involved as a design consultant on Gary Gygax's Monster Manual II for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The manual was first published in 1983. He was then retained at TSR as the principal architect of the Marvel Super Heroes game system, first released in 1984. Jeff Grubb continued to work on role-playing games with TSR for many years, long enough to be regarded affectionately as an "old timer" by Scott Haring. During this time he was involved in helping to formulate the Dragonlance campaign setting, under Tracy Hickman, and the Forgotten Realms setting with Ed Greenwood. He also was a consultant on the first edition of Unearthed Arcana, and authored the first edition of the Manual of the Planes. He is also the designer of the Spelljammer and Jakandor campaign settings. In the late 1980s, Grubb wrote four fill-in issues of DC Comics' licensed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic book, and then wrote all 25 issues of DC's Forgotten Realms series. Grubb left TSR in 1994, and went freelance.
Jeff Grubb moved to Wizards of the Coast after they purchased TSR, and continued to work on games, settings and source books such as Tempest Feud for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, d20 Modern and Urban Arcana.
Outside of the strict TSR/Wizards of the Coast environment, Jeff Grubb has authored The Memoirs of Auberon of Faerie for R. Talsorian Games and was one of the authors of Dungeons & Dragons Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game for Sword & Sorcery Studios. He's also been involved with Sovereign Press, which was founded by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin in 2001.
Jeff Grubb's first novel, Azure Bonds, was coauthored with his wife, Kate Novak, and first published in 1988 as part of The Finder's Stone Trilogy. The second and third books in the trilogy, The Wyvern's Spur and Song of the Saurials, were published by TSR in 1990 and 1991. Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak continued to write novels in the Forgotten Realms setting over the years, releasing Masquerades, Finder's Bane and Tymora's Luck.
Other settings for his novels have included The Gathering, Warcraft and StarCraft.
His involvement in comic books started in 1988, when he wrote four issues of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic for DC Comics, before writing all 25 issues of the Forgotten Realms comic book series from 1989 until 1991. He also authored the 45th issue of Superman Adventures, "Mateless in Metropolis", which had a cover date of July, 2000.
He has written a number of short stories in different fictional worlds, including Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft and Thieves' World. In general his short fiction has been well received, with his story "Malediction" being described as amongst the best of those included in Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune, while "Beowulf in the City of the Dark Elves" has been regarded as the best of the original fiction in The Further Adventures of Beowulf: Champion of Middle Earth.
The novel Azure Bonds was developed into a computer game, Curse of the Azure Bonds, in 1989, and was published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.. More recently, ArenaNet hired Grubb to write the story for the third installment of their Guild Wars franchise, Guild Wars Nightfall. He has been credited as a designer under lead designer, James Phinney.However, in an interview with Gamespy he describes his role as more of an 'embedded writer' than a designer. Jeff Grubb was also involved in designing the Eye of the North expansion pack, although, once again, he describes himself as an 'embedded writer' rather than a game designer, and was primarily responsible for writing the storyline.Jeff Grubb is currently writing Guild Wars 2, the sequel to Guild Wars.
Tymora's Luck (1997), sequel to Finder's Bane, ISBN 0-7869-0726-6
Magic: The Gathering (shared universe)
Artifacts Series
Book 1: The Brothers' War (1999), ISBN 0-7869-1357-6
Ice Age Trilogy
The Gathering Dark (1999)
The Eternal Ice (2000)
The Shattered Alliance (2000)
WarCraft (shared universe)
The Last Guardian (2001), ISBN 0-671-04151-7. This novel has been described as "an original tale of magic, warfare, and heroism based on the bestselling, award-winning electronic game from Blizzard Entertainment".
Starcraft (shared universe)
Liberty?s crusade (2001), ISBN 0-671-04148-7
Guild Wars (shared universe)
Ghosts of Ascalon (2010), ISBN-13: 978-1416589471 - first novel in a 3 book series of stand-alone novels set in the world of Tyria, in the 250 years that separates Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 (as yet unreleased MMORPG).
written with Matt Forbeck
Comics
Forgotten Realms DC Comics
DC Comics published 25 Forgotten Realms comics from 1 Sept 1989 to 25 Sept 1991 where Jeff Grubb was the author.
Role Playing Books
Manual of the Planes (1987) Published by TSR Inc. ISBN 0-88038-399-2
d20 Modern Role-playing Game (with Bill Slavicsek, Rich Redman, and Charles Ryan)
Urban Arcana (with Eric Cagle, David Noonan, & Stan!, published by Wizards of the Coast)
Eye of the Wyvern (TSR, Inc.) Part of TSR's "Fast-play Game" series for Dungeons & Dragons. Scott Haring summarized his review stating "Eye of the Wyvern doesn't have very high aspirations; the adventure is simple and the ultimate in linear-ness. But designing a get-started-quick, anybody-can-play roleplaying module is a very high aspiration for the future of this hobby, and in that this book gets high marks."
Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure (with Aaron Allston and Thomas M. Reid, part of the TSR Audio Games series, TSR, Inc.)
D&D: Diablo II Adventure Game (with Bill Slavicsek, published by Wizards of the Coast)
Tempest Feud (with Owen K.C. Stephens, published by Wizards of the Coast for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game) "Tempest Feud fails to rise to the exacting standards set by its predecessors."
M2 Maze of the Riddling Minotaur
DL7 Dragons of Light
Boot Hill
BH4 Burned Bush Wells
Marvel Super-Heroes
MARVEL SUPER HEROES game
MARVEL SUPER HEROES Advanced Set
Numerous modules
Spelljammer
Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space Boxed Set (November 1989), ISBN 0-88038-762-9.
Legend of Spelljammer Box Set (September 1991), ISBN 1-56076-083-4.
Miniatures Games
Star Wars Miniatures: Rebel Storm (with Bill Slavicsek, Jonathon Tweet, & Rob Watkins)
