Lawrence Schick

Lawrence Schick is an American game designer^[2] and writer^[1] associated with tabletop role-playing games and video games.

Lawrence Schick
Schick interviewed in 2016
Born	United States
Pen name	Lawrence Ellsworth [1]
Occupation	Game designer, writer,
Alma mater	Kent State University

Early life and education

Schick attended Kent State University in Ohio.^[3]

Career

Schick, as the head of design and development at TSR, brought aboard Tom Moldvay and David Cook and many other new employees as TSR continued to grow in the early 1980s.^[4]: 11 Schick created White Plume Mountain in 1979, an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published by TSR in 1979; the adventure was incorporated into the Greyhawk setting after the publication of the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1980).^[4]: 24 White Plume Mountain was ranked the 9th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004; one judge, commenting on the ingenuity required to complete the adventure, described it as "the puzzle dungeon to end all puzzle dungeons."^[5]

In 1981, he contributed to Chaosium's multi-system box set Thieves' World based on Robert Lynn Asprin's anthology series of the same title.^[6] The following year, he coauthored the TSR science fiction RPG Star Frontiers with David "Zeb" Cook.^[7]

Schick wrote the book Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games, which was published in 1991.^[8]

Schick has written many other games during his career. Schick is a former executive with America Online.^[2] In May 2009, Schick joined ZeniMax Online Studios as the lead content designer for The Elder Scrolls Online.^{[citation needed]} In 2010, he was promoted to lead writer,^{[citation needed]} and he became lead loremaster in 2011.^{[citation needed]} He left ZeniMax Online in 2019.^[9] He has also been working on writing a mobile game for WarDucks in Dublin, Ireland.^[10] Since 2021, he has worked at Larian Studios' Dublin office as a Principal Narrative Designer for role playing video game Baldur's Gate 3.^[11][12] Schick and the other Baldur's Gate 3 writers won the Nebula Award for Best Game Writing.^[13]