Jon Pickens is an Americangame designer andeditor who has worked on numerous products for theDungeons & Dragonsfantasyrole-playing game fromTSR^[1] and laterWizards of the Coast.

Jon Pickens was born inMishawaka,Indiana on August 12, 1954.^[2] In 1968, he was introduced to miniatureswargaming, and his parents bought him theBlitzkrieg wargame for Christmas that year. A couple of months later, Pickens responded to an ad inPopular Mechanics for a magazine titledStrategy & Tactics. He wrote in for a sample copy, and “spent the rest of the summer mowing lawns to get enough money to buy some wargames advertised in the magazine, and to get all the back issues.”^[2] The publishers did not carry back issues, “So I wrote a letter to this collector, whose name was Gary Gygax, and arranged to buy the back issues from him. Gary invited me to attend a gaming convention in Madison. By a coincidence, my father had a speaking engagement inDelavan, which is near Lake Geneva, on the same weekend, so he took me up.”^[2] Pickens andGary Gygax drove up toMadison, and Gygax later invited him to theGen Con convention; Pickens attended beginning with Gen Con 3 and for many years after that.^[2]

Pickens attendedValparaiso University, and in 1976 he earned aB.A. degree in English and Economics. He continued to attend conventions while in college, and discoveredTSR's newChainmail miniatures game at the 1973 Gen Con; the following year, TSR debuted theDungeons & Dragonsfantasyrole-playing game. After college, Pickens began writing occasional articles forDragon magazine, and was active in theAlarums & Excursions publication.^[2][3][4]

Pickens eventually applied for a job at TSR, taking both the designer and editor tests, and was hired as an editor. “They didn’t think much of the design work, probably because I wrote it in a few hours late at night, but the editing part was OK,” said Pickens.^[2] Pickens later became the Acquisition Editor for TSR, Inc., reviewingmodules for possible publication. He was also the Games Editor forStrategy & Tactics Magazine for several years while the magazine was published by TSR, and later the Managing Editor as well, commenting “In a way, this completes a circle in my life.”^[2]

Jon Pickens has worked on many game products for theDungeons & Dragons game since 1978, as an editor, designer, coordinator, and creative director. Some of his works as a game designer include the originalArms & Equipment Guide, and design contributions to the third editionPlayer's Handbook,Monster Manual, andDungeon Masters Guide. He has edited manyDungeons & Dragons books, including notably theCastle Greyhawk module, and theRules Cyclopedia.

Pickens andDavid "Zeb" Cook oversaw the development of the bookNight of the Seven Swords (1986).^[5] Pickens was known for often being a "go-to research guy" at TSR.^[6] ForAurora's Whole Realms Catalog (1992) he assistedJ. Robert King's research by providing his own personal library.^[7] In preparing the campaign setting bookAl-Qadim: Arabian Adventures (1992), Pickens providedJeff Grubb with three boxes of reference and research material.^[8]

While Pickens left the gaming industry in the early 2000s, his nephew,Robert DeHoff, remains in that field and acts as a playtester and writer forCatalyst Game Labs'sBattleTech,Cosmic Patrol, andLeviathans game lines.

• "Jon Pickens :: Pen & Paper RPG Database". Archived fromthe original on May 19, 2007. RetrievedJune 15, 2009.

• 1954 births
• Dungeons & Dragons game designers
• Living people
• People from Mishawaka, Indiana
• Valparaiso University alumni

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