Stormlight Archive RPG's lead design team includes D&D, Star Wars RPG and Descent board game credits

The folks translating Brandon Sanderson’s ultra-popular fantasy book series to the tabletop contains several industry veterans with some big names in their portfolio, including the Star Wars RPG, Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

Publisher Brotherwise Games recently announced three of the names leading the design team of the Stormlight Role Playing Game via its official Twitter account. The company’s creative director Johnny O’Neal will be joined by lead writers Andrew Fischer and Lydia Suen, along with Anthony Joyce-Rivera as project lead.

First announced last year, the Stormlight RPG will be one of the first roleplaying projects of this scale that Brotherwise Games has tackled - the studio is best known for dice-placement board game Unearth and the character-based Call to Adventure series. While we still don’t know much about the upcoming tabletop beyond a round 2024 release date, a full team list will reportedly be revealed at Dragonsteel Con in November of this year during the “State of Games in the Cosmere” panel.

Fischer comes from both sides of the tabletop industry, having designed for Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars RPG in the past as well as boasting credits on Descent: Journeys in the Dark and Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth. Anthony Joyce-Rivera hails from the vibrant design space creating supplements for D&D 5E alongside contracted projects for MCDM, Wizards of the Coast and Critical Role. He was also named the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program Winner for 2023.

Lydia Suen’s previous work lies in sensitivity reading and editorial development for traditional book publishing, but she also helped create Adventures in Rokugan as lead story designer. This 5E adaptation of Legend of the Five Rings draws heavily on the history of feudal Japan and other East Asian countries. Given Sanderon has claimed many of the fantastical Roshar’s nations are rough analogues for real-world East Asian cultures, Suen’s professional experience as a Chinese-American consultant might allay some fans’ fears of misrepresenting the Stormlight Archive’s massive cast of characters.

Fans will be able to sneak a peek of the Stormlight Roleplaying Game in action during Dragonsteel Con 2023, the annual convention for Sanderson’s literary empire, where the design team will put on a live playthrough for charity. More information will come closer to the convention’s date.