A Fan's Perspective
A company that derives its inspiration from such sources as J.R.R. Tolkien, George Lucas, Gene Roddenberry, Gary Gygax, Kevin Siembieda, and Mark Rein•Hagen, Pieramyd Productions, the brainchild of William (Bill) R. Anway III, began as an idea in 1993 in Bill’s native Springfield, Ohio.
Bill started role-playing in his early teens with the ever-classic Dungeons & Dragons®. It wasn’t long before he was creating his own adventures to share with his friends, which inspired him to expand on many of the game’s ideas and systems. Feeling constrained by D&D®’s rules, Bill developed a set of ‘house rules’, which he used to simultaneously entertain and frustrate his friends for several years. At the time, he was content to run this “new game” for his friends on Tuesdays around the dinner table, until Sarah Spicer, an educated and idealistic non-gamer and Bill’s future wife, asked a fateful question: “Wouldn’t it be great to do something you love and make money doing it?” Bill replied, “Well, I have had this idea for a game…”
It took Bill nearly a year to handwrite the original paper draft which would become the first printing of Ghouls and Graveyards™ (so named for Bill’s love of undead creatures). Sarah was drafted to help turn Bill’s loose-leaf pages into something resembling a book. Ghouls and Graveyards would go through several rewrites until the principal design of the game was passed to Josh Grumble in 2001, and the name was changed to 3rd Age™. By 2005, and with the addition of new material and a new, sleeker cover design, 3rd Age was finally finished.
While writing Ghouls and Graveyards, Bill began forming his company. He brought many of his friends aboard with the idea, wanting to share his success with those he cared for most. The original name of the company was to be APMRSB, Inc., which was the initial of the last names of each of the original members: Anway, Pflieder, Miller, Rader, Spicer, and Blevins. For the logo, letters were drawn like the blocks of a pyramid, with the A at the top, the P and M being the second layer, and the remaining three as the foundation. The Company decided the name was just too cumbersome, and it was changed to Pieramyd Productions, keeping the idea of the pyramid, but changing the spelling to add a unique and timeless quality.
The membership of the company has changed over the years, but Bill has always been there, and remains the primary driving force, creating and writing new adventures. All of the core staff juggles full-time jobs, family commitments, and life’s challenges in addition to the labor of love that is Pieramyd Productions. Sarah continues as the Chief Editor, painfully trying to make sure all that is printed makes sense while juggling career, schedules, and finances. Scott Miller, Senior Vice-President and artist, offers his perspective on the sci-fi side of the company, illustrating space vessels and the like. Josh Grumble, Vice-President in charge of production, brings a fresh and unique perspective to the table, with his ability to act as “the glue” and keep everything well-balanced in terms of the game systems. Rick Gruber, Vice-President and self-ascribed Creative Architect, is an endless fountain of magical ideas ranging from creatures, races, weapons, and everything else.
The original Ghouls and Graveyards cultivated a small but rabid following during Pieramyd Productions' first convention in Chicago in 1994 called Concentric. Bill ran games the entire weekend for more than a dozen players. They continued on to Columbus area conventions such as Capcon and Marcon, using a hands-on approach to get new players – talking to them about the game, and guiding them through character generation. Marcon has become sort of their ‘homecoming’ con, and they have attended and run games all weekend every year since. In 2006, they were named Gaming Guest of Honor for Marcon.
Pieramyd Productions has always believed in being “a company of gamers, for gamers”. All books have C-comb binding, allowing the pages to lie flat. Pieramyd Productions is passionate about making games that allows for freedom of creativity while maintaining a balance of realism and fantasy. Pieramyd Production games and concepts are fresh, original, and exciting, putting new twists on old themes and creating new ideas that someone will look at and say, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen that before!’.
Besides 3rd Age, a medieval/fantasy game and their ‘flagship’ RPG line, Pieramyd Productions currently has over a dozen game concepts being play-tested in fantasy, science fiction, horror, and the myriad “alternate Earth”-style genres:
• Outpatient™, a unique take on the superhero genre where you play as the ‘insane’, but with fantastic powers;
• Nightmare Enemy™, a post-apocalyptic setting on Earth of the near-future in which you must fight for good or evil in a world overrun by grisly zombies, murderous priests, angelic beings, and terrifying demons;
• and Humanity™, a sci-fi game where the existence of the human race is threatened by an occupying force of extra-terrestrial androids.
In addition to these ‘sit-down’ role-playing games, Pieramyd Productions is taking a bold step into the world of miniature gaming with their no-frills TableTekk™/HouseTekk™.
