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Scott Palter
Daniel Scott Palter (died February 17, 2020) was a game designer who worked primarily on wargames and role-playing games.
Palter was educated at Dartmouth, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts, and from Stanford where he obtained a JD in 1972. He joined the New York State Bar before working at his family's company, Bucci Imports, an importer of Italian clothing and accessories. Prior to founding West End Games, Palter was also involved in the playtesting of wargames for several publishers, such as Simulation Publications, the RAND Corporation, Morningside Games, among others.
In 1974, Palter used some of the financial resources of Bucci Imports to found West End Games (WEG) in New York. Initially, WEG published wargames, including some of Palter's own designs such as Marlborough at Blenheim (1979).
In 1983, Palter hired Ken Rolston, Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan as game designers, and WEG's focus turned away from traditional wargames. Costikyan's 1983 game Bug-Eyed Monsters brought WEG into the science-fiction and fantasy genres. Then Costikyan and Goldberg brought Palter a manuscript for a role-playing game that originally had been conceived by their friend Dan Gelber. Palter agreed to buy the rights to the game, and after some editing and polishing by Rolston, it was released at Gencon in 1984 as WEG's first role-playing game, Paranoia. In 1985, Paranoia won WEG an Origins Award for "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1984".
In 1986, Palter was able to acquire the license from Columbia Pictures to produce an RPG based on the popular film Ghostbusters. WEG's game designers created a new rules system for Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game that used only six-sided dice rather than the polyhedral dice favored by other role-playing game companies. WEG would use this D6 System for many of their licensed products.
In January 1987, again using funds from Bucci Imports, WEG was able to purchase the games license for Star Wars, and immediately published Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Later that year, Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg left WEG after a disagreement with Palter.
Experiencing high expenses and low margins, Palter made the decision in 1988 to move WEG from New York to the more rural Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
In 1990, WEG released a new role-playing game, Torg. Palter liked the game's system of dice and cards and decided to develop a new generic games rules system called Masterbook. Palter used this new system for in a series of licensed role-playing adaptions of popular franchises: Indiana Jones, Necroscope, Species, Tales from the Crypt, Tank Girl, The World of Aden, and WEG's final product, the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game.
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Scott Palter
Daniel Scott Palter (died February 17, 2020) was a game designer who worked primarily on wargames and role-playing games.
Palter was educated at Dartmouth, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts, and from Stanford where he obtained a JD in 1972. He joined the New York State Bar before working at his family's company, Bucci Imports, an importer of Italian clothing and accessories. Prior to founding West End Games, Palter was also involved in the playtesting of wargames for several publishers, such as Simulation Publications, the RAND Corporation, Morningside Games, among others.
In 1974, Palter used some of the financial resources of Bucci Imports to found West End Games (WEG) in New York. Initially, WEG published wargames, including some of Palter's own designs such as Marlborough at Blenheim (1979).
In 1983, Palter hired Ken Rolston, Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan as game designers, and WEG's focus turned away from traditional wargames. Costikyan's 1983 game Bug-Eyed Monsters brought WEG into the science-fiction and fantasy genres. Then Costikyan and Goldberg brought Palter a manuscript for a role-playing game that originally had been conceived by their friend Dan Gelber. Palter agreed to buy the rights to the game, and after some editing and polishing by Rolston, it was released at Gencon in 1984 as WEG's first role-playing game, Paranoia. In 1985, Paranoia won WEG an Origins Award for "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1984".
In 1986, Palter was able to acquire the license from Columbia Pictures to produce an RPG based on the popular film Ghostbusters. WEG's game designers created a new rules system for Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game that used only six-sided dice rather than the polyhedral dice favored by other role-playing game companies. WEG would use this D6 System for many of their licensed products.
In January 1987, again using funds from Bucci Imports, WEG was able to purchase the games license for Star Wars, and immediately published Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Later that year, Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg left WEG after a disagreement with Palter.
Experiencing high expenses and low margins, Palter made the decision in 1988 to move WEG from New York to the more rural Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
In 1990, WEG released a new role-playing game, Torg. Palter liked the game's system of dice and cards and decided to develop a new generic games rules system called Masterbook. Palter used this new system for in a series of licensed role-playing adaptions of popular franchises: Indiana Jones, Necroscope, Species, Tales from the Crypt, Tank Girl, The World of Aden, and WEG's final product, the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game.