About Atlas Games

John Nephew got his start in the gaming industry by writing articles for Dragon magazine while he was still in high school. His writing paid his way through college, and he started Atlas Games in 1990 while he was still pursuing his BA in Philosophy at Carleton College, as a way to publish his own work.

Do not ask John about woodworking, chainsawing, jelly-making, or mead brewing or we’ll be here all day.

Michelle Nephew has been with Atlas Games for over 20 years. In that time she's brought more than a hundred card games, board games, and RPG books to market, and has won numerous awards for them — the Parents Choice, Tillywig, Origins, GAMES 100, Diana Jones, and ENnie Awards to name a few. Some of her work has even appeared on TableTop with Wil Wheaton.

She's also a past Board Member of the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA), has been a Gen Con Costume Contest Judge several times, and has appeared as Guest of Honor at premier conventions like Gen Con, Origins, and others in the US and abroad.

Michelle has a PhD in English Literature, and wrote her dissertation on the topic of authorship and roleplaying games (yes, she really is a "Doctor of Gaming"). Since then, she's had several academic articles published on topics relating to hobby games.

Jeff Tidball decided in seventh grade that he'd grow up to be a professional game designer. He worked for Atlas Games from 1995 to 2000, managing Are Magica's fourth edition and taking care of a little bit of everything else. In 2000, he relocated to Los Angeles to earn an MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. Afterward, he wrote spec screenplays while working for the likes of Decipher as the line developer for The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.

Jeff joined Fantasy Flight Games and became its Vice President of Product Development in 2006, co-founded Gameplaywright with Will Hindmarch in 2007, became a full-time freelancer in 2009, moved to Kansas City to become the CEO of creative services company RiverKey Creative in 2011, and returned to the Atlas fold in 2013.

Jeff has won three Origins Awards and been nominated for a half-dozen more. His experimental design Pieces of Eight — a pirate ship combat game played with metal coins — was a Diana Jones Award nominee. His key designs include the FFG edition of Horus Heresy, the ENnie Award–winning Eternal Lies mega-campaign for Trail of Cthulhu, and Alderac's Mercante. He's also extremely proud of his development work on Eric Lang's Chaos in the Old World and Atlas Games’s release of Cursed Court.

Visit Jeff online at jefftidball.com; on Twitter, he's @jefftidball.

After an 11-year career in the military, Travis started working part time at Source Comics and Games in the Twin Cities as part of their convention crew. The Source shared a warehouse with Atlas Games at the time, so joining Atlas' staff was a natural move.

Travis enjoys working with retailers, and he does his best to spend at least a little time painting miniatures every day. Among other achievements, his Plague Bearers were called out by one miniatures contest judge as “almost smellable.”

In her role bringing new games to market, Kyla McT does a little bit of everything, like project management, graphic design, and copyediting. Variety is the spice of work! She prefers working for small businesses, and has worked everywhere from a museum to a mobile app developer, doing everything from accounting to social media, even playing a theremin. Poorly.

She was born in North Minneapolis and bought a house there last year. Having a kitchen, a basement, and a backyard allowed her to finally realize her dreams of hosting dinner parties, having space for neatly-organized craft supplies, and welcoming a puppy to the family.

Kyla’s parents met at debate camp, so gaming was (and still is!) second only to arguing as a family pastime. She was raised to believe that games and arguments bring people together. After a brief stint as a political science major in college, Kyla realized that arguing for a living sounds terrible, so she's delighted to be working in the gaming industry.

Justin has been working in the RPG industry since he was in high school. Some of his earliest work was with Atlas Games as a freelancer and he's excited to have made the journey full circle to assume this role, with an opportunity to explore familiar worlds and boldly create new ones.

Justin’s previous freelance career has also included work with Fantasy Flight Games, Steve Jackson Games, Dream Pod 9, and many others. Other past gigs include being the Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Repertory, publishing games and supplements through Dream Machine Productions, acting as the original Line Developer for the Infinity RPG, and leading the rejuvenation of Technoir.

At the Alexandrian he is best known for his Gamemastery 101 series (including “Three Clue Rule,” “Don't Prep Plots,” “Node-Based Scenario Design,” “Jaquaying the Dungeon,” “Open Table Manifesto,” and “Random GM Tips”) and a motley assortment of independent scenarios (including the award-winning Halls of the Mad Mage).

On twitter he's @hexcrawl. At home he's the proud daddy of a little girl and the happy husband of a wonderful wife.

Jenae Pedersen is the Administrative Coordinator at Atlas Games, though petitioning to changing her title to Proofreading Princess. She’s a real neat freak, who must constantly put order to the chaos surrounding her, or she’ll go mad.

She moved to Duluth to attend the University of Minnesota Duluth for a degree in Psychology. Three years, and almost a degree later, she panicked and realized she wanted to switch to a major where she would actually find a job after getting out of college. She graduated shortly thereafter with a BBA in Organizational Management.

Jenae is a newbie to the gaming world, but quickly finding happiness in the witty banter and strategy involved.

A common and useless exercise in those dark, smoky espresso joints across the continent is to debate whether Woody actual exists or is just the ever-fading remnant of a post-Thompson-esque weekend that everyone has had at least once. And while there have been sightings going back to the 80's, none were by reliable witnesses. The claims are as varied as the people making them:

His hair was long/mohawk/shaved bald.
He wore a gaudy suit/kilt/imaginative towel.
He worked at Lion Rampant/Atlas Games/Steve Jackson Games/TSO, etc.
His addictions included soccer, soccer, and [redacted].

If you need more proof that he doesn't exist, simply look at the pictures on his phone. No actual human being could have that many pictures of motorcycles, his niece, and ancient woodworking tools. That's simply not how real people are wired, eh?