Keith Baker (game designer)

Keith Baker is an award winning game designer and fantasy novel author. In addition to working with Wizards of the Coast on the creation of Eberron, he has also contributed material for Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing and Green Ronin Publishing. In 2014, Baker and Jennifer Ellis co-founded the indie tabletop game company Twogether Studios.
Personal life.
Baker lives in Portland, Oregon. He has a tattoo of the Greater Mark of Making on his right arm. He is married to product designer Jenn Ellis.
Career.
Prior to working in the role-playing game industry, he worked in the video game industry with Magnet Interactive Studios and a Colorado company, VR1.
In 2002, Keith Baker was a freelancer best known for his thematic work at Atlas Games. His "Dungeons & Dragons" campaign setting of Eberron was chosen as the winner among the 11,000 submissions to the Wizards of the Coast Fantasy Setting Search in 2002. Baker produced the "Eberron Campaign Setting" (2004) alongside James Wyatt and Bill Slavicsek, the first of many background books focused on the setting.
For the 4th edition of "Dungeons & Dragons", Baker was a designer on the "Eberron Campaign Guide" (July 2009) and a consultant on the "Eberron Player's Guide" (June 2009).
In 2017, Baker joined the podcast "Manifest Zone" which explores the world of Eberron including lore and official products. His co-hosts are Wayne Chang and Kristian Serrano.
For the 5th edition of "Dungeons & Dragons", Baker was the lead designer of "Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron" (July 2018) which was an official Wizards of the Coast supplement published as a PDF on the Dungeon Masters Guild. The Dungeon Masters Guild, owned by OneBookShelf, is an online store that hosts official Wizards of the Coast products and acts as "a platform for players to publish lore, maps, character designs and adventures based on "Dungeons & Dragons" intellectual property". Utilizing the Dungeon Masters Guild, Baker published two non-official Eberron themed adventures in 2018 and a non-official 5th edition Eberron supplement in 2019. 
Baker was also one of the lead designers of the first hardcover 5th edition Eberron sourcebook: "" (November 2019). In the following year, Baker released two new non-official 5th Edition Eberron products on the Dungeon Masters Guild: a campaign guide, "Exploring Eberron" (July 2020), and a supplement, "Eberron Confidential" (November 2020). In December 2020, Baker announced two upcoming Eberron projects which would also be released on the Dungeon Masters Guild: "Frontiers of Eberron: Threshold" (2021) and codenamed "Project: Fool’s Platinum" (2022)"."
Baker has been a role-playing game designer across multiple systems besides "Dungeons & Dragons", including systems such as "Pathfinder", "13th Age" (2012) and "Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana" (2015).
Essays by Baker on role-playing design and other game features have been published in the Kobold Guides series - including "Adventures" (2008), C"omplete Kobold Guide to Game Design" (2012), "The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding" (2012), and "Kobold Guide to Gamemastering" (2017).
Twogether Studios.
In 2014, Baker co-founded a new an indie tabletop game studio with his wife, Jennifer Ellis. In April 2015, Twogether Studios launched their first game, "Phoenix: Dawn Command", on Kickstarter and raised $67,284. "Phoenix: Dawn Command" is a card-based roleplaying game where players become "more powerful each time they fall in battle".
In October 2016, Twogether Studios launched their second game, "Illimat", on Kickstarter and raised $418,628. This set collection game was designed in partnership with the band The Decemberists and illustrated by Carson Ellis. Steve Haske, for "Inverse", wrote: "Last year, the band’s Chris Funk got in touch with Portland-based Twogether Studios, in order to bring "Illimat" into the real world via a Kickstarter campaign. With game designer Keith Baker (co-founder of Twogether), the two designed a relatively simple game played with cards, a few tokens, and a rotating box — the Illimat itself, that changes the 'seasons' of the gameplay — so appropriate to The Decemberists’s old-world aesthetic that it has a fascinating sense of authenticity".
Twogether Studios has launched two more successfully funded card games on Kickstarter: "Action Cats!" (July 2017, raised $17,086) and "Action Pups!" (February 2019, raised $7,273). Both games feature photos of pets that Kickstarter backers submitted.
In September 2019, it was announced that Twogether Studios was working with the McElroy family to create a cooperative storytelling card game adaptation of "The Adventure Zone" called "TAZ: Bureau of Balance". After its release in 2020, "CBR" called it "a great way to bring the joy of "The Adventure Zone" to the table and get in on the action". "Io9" highlighted that it "is a great card game for folks wanting to try out (or get back into) RPGs, or more seasoned players who want a cooperative storytelling experience that takes out some of the legwork and guesswork for an afternoon. It’s not going to give you all the thrills and chills of a traditional RPG, but it does enough to simulate the experience". In 2020, Twogether Studios worked with Podium Audio to release the "Ascend Online" Roleplaying Game, "a micro roleplaying game", based on the audiobook series of the same name by author Luke Chmilenko. "Io9" reported that ""Ascend Online" is about a group of friends who’ve gotten more than they bargained for in an immersive fantasy video game" and that it is "a mix between "Ready Player One" and "Sword Art Online""; the free "micro RPG lets players create a party and explore the series’ world, creating their own collaborative adventure along the way".
Awards.
Baker has won an Origins Award twice, first in 2004 for Best Roleplaying Game Supplement as part of the team for the Eberron campaign setting, then alone in 2005 for Traditional Card Game of the Year for "Gloom", published by Atlas Games.
Baker was part of the design team for the Pathfinder campaign supplement "The Inner Sea World Guide" which won 2011 ENnie for Best Art, Interior - Gold Winner and for Best Setting - Gold Winner. The book was also nominated for: 2011 ENnie for Product of the Year, 2011 Golden Geek Best RPG Artwork/Presentation, and 2011 Golden Geek Best RPG Supplement Nominee.
Two of the Kobold Guides anthologies Baker has contributed to have won ENnie awards: C"omplete Kobold Guide to Game Design" (2012 ENnie for Best RPG Related Product - Gold Winner) and "The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding" (2013 ENnie for Best RPG Related Product - Gold Winner and for Best Writing - Gold Winner).
Baker contributed design to the "13th Age Core Book" which won the 2014 ENnie for Best Rules - Silver Winner and was nominated for 2013 Golden Geek Best RPG Artwork/Presentation Nominee, 2013 Golden Geek RPG of the Year Nominee, 2014 ENnie for Best Game.
Trivia.
He appears in a cameo in the comic book "The Order of the Stick: Start of Darkness" by Rich Burlew.