Robert J. Schwalb is a writer in the role-playing game industry, and has worked as a game designer and developer for such games as Dungeons & Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and many other RPG supplements.

Career

Robert J. Schwalb has worked for Wizards of the Coast. His works produced for the Dungeons & Dragons game include: Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells (2006, with Robin Laws), Drow of the Underdark (2007, with Ari Marmell, Anthony Pryor, and Greg A. Vaughan), Elder Evils (2007), Exemplars of Evil (2007), Tome of Magic (2006, with Matthew Sernett, Dave Noonan, and Ari Marmell), Player's Handbook II (2006). He has also worked for Green Ronin Publishing on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and made contributions to Witch Hunter: The Invisible World for Paradigm Concepts (2007). Schwalb worked for years as a developer and staff member at Green Ronin. Schwalb, Patrick O'Duffy and Chris Pramas wrote The Pirate's Guide to Freeport (2007), a 256-page sourcebook about the city of Freeport, published by Green Ronin. Schwalb designed the game A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, which was previewed at Free RPG Day in 2008 and published in 2009; this was the final project by Schwalb for Green Ronin before he before he went to work for Wizards of the Coast. His additional role-playing work includes work for Black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, and several other companies. Schwalb worked as the writer beginning in 2008 on the "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" column as part of the online version of Dragon, beginning with articles for the demon characters Yeenoghu and Baphomet. Schwalb also co-wrote Divine Power, a 4th Edition D&D supplement, which made the Wall Street Journal Best-Seller list for July 2009. In 2012, Schwalb became one of the lead designers for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. He also wrote for Monte Cook Games' Numenera line, including the Numenera Character Options book and the adventure Beyond All Worlds. In 2014, after completing his work on the fifth edition, Schwalb launched Schwalb Entertainment and began writing a new RPG entitled Shadow of the Demon Lord. In 2018, Schwalb contributed to the new Judge Dredd role-playing game, Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD, by EN World's EN Publishing. In late 2019, Schwalb created a new roleplaying game, using the same system as Shadow of the Demon Lord, Punkapocalyptic role-playing game. The world has gone down and nearly everyone who has lived through it has gone mad. In PunkApocalyptic: The Roleplaying Game, based on the wild and irreverent miniatures game of the same name by Bad Roll Games, you and your friends assume the roles of mercenaries who roam the Wasteland. The game was released using Kickstarter.

Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles

Awards