RPG content creator and Author

If you take a look through the credits (and even sometimes covers) of the RPG books on your shelf, there’s a good chance you’ll see the name Darren W. Pearce. In fact, he’s been around the tabletop RPG industry, and even the videogame industry since around the year 2000. Darren is a prolific and progressive creator who has an impressive body of work, work which started out in the Dark Quest Games City Guide 1: Everyday Life alongside the likes of Joseph Carriker, Wil Upchurch, and Patrick Lawinger back in 2001 when it was published.

Though according to our sources, the content for that book was written in 2000.

In the videogame world, Darren has worked on the likes of Knights of Honor for the PC, and in the tabletop industry you can find his work featured in products from Savage Worlds: Shaintar, to Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (most notably writing the First Doctor book), as well as the Lone Wolf RPGs.

He’s also won awards over the years incluing the gold medal at the 2013 Ennies. According to his Amazon Authopage and Bio, he has been involved in various charity books and anthologies over the years. Some of his most recent work has been on Carbon 2185 by Dragon Turtle Games, and the recent Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD RPG where he worked with En World on the core book, and wrote an expansive book for the Strontium Dog setting.

Darren W. Pearce is known in the industry for being one of the quiet, get on with it types. He rarely makes waves, and prefers to remain focussed on the writing task at hand. His work and social media profiles champion human rights, trans rights, inclusion and diversity in both the tabletop industry itself and tabletop content. A theme that is evident throughout his work.

He is a regular guest at UKGE, where he answers questions, sits on panels, and runs a workshop/seminar on adventure/world design and writing called: Write Like a Pro.

I was able to email Darren and ask a few minor questions, since I didn’t want to swamp the guy with too much stuff, but he was kind enough to get back to me on the ones I did ask. I was mostly looking for the usual info on how he got started, and what his writing influences were – what I got back was an eye-opening story of the time he met Terry Pratchett and spent two hours on a coach ride with him, talking writing characters and worlds, as well as how he met Chris Barrie (Rimmer in Red Dwarf) at UKGE and Barrie spent most of the show telling people about how much he loved the First Doctor book that Darren had contributed to.

To paraphrase though, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gail Simone, his wife (Gill), Robert J. Schwalb, Joe Dever (who Darren was good friends with) and many others have influenced and helped Darren over the years. So much so, we might just throw an interview his way and see if he’d be up to answering a few more detailed questions down the line.

As to how he got started, apparently it began with a chance email from one of his former students (Yeah, Darren was a lecturer at a Community College for seven years) who worked on I-War 2 by Particle Systems thanks to Darren’s course. The student in question dropped him a line and put him in touch with Neal Levin of Dark Quest, Darren sent off a sample, the pair hit it off and it started the whole thing snowballing.

Next thing he knew he was writing for Lone Wolf books, RPGs, and Doctor Who amongst other things.

Pretty awesome way to pay it back student guy!

Darren is also a novelist, having notably published the science fiction novel “Fate’s Hand”, which you can find anywhere you can buy good books! It’s definitely worth a read, and we recommend that you check it out.

If you want more info on Darren’s work, get hold of his books, and more you can find him over at

Amazon

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