Ken Whitman
American game designer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ken Whitman is an American game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games and writes and directs films under the name Whit Whitman.[citation needed]
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Career
Ken Whitman was a graphic designer from Kentucky who formed the company Whit Productions so that he could publish the post-apocalyptic role-playing game Mutazoids (1989) and get started in the role-playing game business.[1]: 262 Rick Swan in a review of Mutazoids in his book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games notes that "overall, designer Ken Whitman has done an impressive job of creating an attractively chaotic RPG environment."[2]
Whitman followed that effort by starting a second company, Whit Publications, which published two licensed games: Ralph Bakshi's Wizards (1992) by Edward Bolme and WWF Basic Adventure Game (1993) by David Clark.[1]: 262
After his investors took over Whit Publications in 1994, Whitman became the Gen Con Convention Coordinator for TSR.[1]: 262 Whitman had the goal of getting TSR a presence in 80 or more conventions in 1995.[3] Whitman worked for TSR from 1994 to 1995.[4] Whitman also worked on the Highlander role-playing game from Thunder Castle Games.[3]
Whitman used this game convention experience and made contacts including Marc Miller, with whom he co-founded Imperium Games in February 1996 to publish Traveller releases.[1]: 262 Whitman was president of the new company, and gathered several role-playing professionals to run it.[1]: 262–263 Whitman helped design the fourth edition of Traveller, and wrote the rules for psionics for the system.[1]: 263 Whitman was at the heart of financial disagreements between Imperium and its backer Sweetpea Entertainment, and eventually left because of these disagreements over money expenditures.[1]: 265
Whitman ran Archangel Entertainment from 1997 to 1998.[1]: 270 While president of Archangel Entertainment, the company published Groo: The Game and the Zero and Dark Conspiracy role-playing games, and Whitman planned to distribute Archangel products in the United States through Chessex.[5] Marcelo Figueroa of Shadis reviewed Groo and said that Whitman got "a burst of inspiration, and decides to make a card game about" the Groo: The Wanderer comic by Sergio Aragones, which he felt was "one of the coolest cards games I've ever played."[6]
Whitman then[when?] ran Dynasties Productions, focusing on the new magazine Games Unplugged.[1]: 343 Dynasties Presentations lasted from 1998 to 2001.[1]: 270
Whitman then[when?] managed Elmore Production, the art company of Larry Elmore.[1]: 343 Whitman helped Elmore produce The Complete Elmore Art Book by funding it through crowdfunding.[4]
Whitman then created print companies first with Rapid POD which lasted from 2005 to 2007, and he then created Sidekick Printing in 2010.[1]: 270
Whitman later began doing business in late 2013 as D20 Entertainment on Kickstarter.[7] Whitman created and funded six projects on Kickstarter between December 8, 2013, and April 7, 2015, for three short movies and three gaming accessories.[citation needed] Whitman led d20 Entertainment into producing a Web series called "Brothers Barbarian."[4] Whitman and Tim Gooch created the series and starred in the cast as the two brothers Russ and Art respectively.[8][9][10]
Since 2021 Whitman is the CEO of Little Monster Entertainment, a film distributor that aims to connect independent film projects with streaming services.[11][non-primary source needed] Their first film, Unnatural, was released on multiple streaming platforms on December 18, 2024.[citation needed]