(20/41: 1976) JON PICKENS (1954–)
The Letter to Lake Geneva
Sometime around 1968, a fourteen-year-old in Mishawaka, Indiana wrote a letter to a man in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin about buying back issues of Strategy & Tactics magazine. The man was Gary Gygax. The invitation that followed—come to the conventions, play the games—connected Jon Pickens to the wargaming community that would birth Dungeons & Dragons before there was a Dungeons & Dragons to birth.
Pickens attended Gen Con from its third iteration onward. He was a wargamer first, a subscriber to the Alarums & Excursions fanzine, a regular contributor to the early Dragon Magazine when it was still called The Dragon and still figuring out what it was. He earned a B.A. in English and Economics from Valparaiso University in 1976—the same year his first design appeared in print. By the time TSR hired him in 1978, he’d already published every original game design he would ever produce as a solo author.
That’s the shape of this career. Three years of creative freelancing, twenty-five years of institutional service. The innovations came first. The infrastructure came after.
The Dragon’s First Alchemist
Dragon #2, August 1976. The magazine was two issues old. Jon Pickens published “The Alchemist”—the first new character class for Dungeons & Dragons to appear in print outside the original rules.
The class used Wisdom as its prime requisite alongside Intelligence, focused on potion-brewing and poison preparation, and offered a fundamentally non-combat play pattern at a time when D&D was still dominated by dungeon crawling. Tim Kask, the magazine’s editor, added an editorial note recommending the Alchemist as a non-player character rather than a PC option—hardly a ringing endorsement. But the class was out there, in print, available for adoption.
And adopted it was. Roger and Georgia Moore redesigned the Alchemist for Dragon #45. Len Lakofka did it again in Dragon #49. Tom Armstrong expanded it in Dragon #130. Bard Games published The Compleat Alchemist as a standalone product. Pathfinder’s mechanically sophisticated Alchemist class—one of that system’s most distinctive offerings—sits at the end of a lineage that starts with Pickens’ three pages in a magazine that barely existed yet.
Jon Peterson’s Playing at the World confirms Pickens as a key early contributor to D&D’s expanding class system. M.T. Black’s retrospective called the Alchemist “a concept that designers will revisit many times.” They did. They still do. The insight wasn’t the specific mechanics. It was the proof of concept: D&D’s class list wasn’t closed. New classes could be published. The design space was open. In 1976, that wasn’t obvious.
The Spending Problem
Dragon #10, October 1977. “D&D Option: Orgies, Inc.” The title was a joke. The mechanic was brilliant.
The problem was treasure bloat. D&D awarded experience points for gold acquired. Characters accumulated vast wealth with no mechanical reason to spend it. The economy was broken—or rather, incomplete. Gold flowed in. Nothing flowed out.
Pickens inverted the equation. In his system, gold only granted experience when it was spent—and different classes gained XP for different expenditures. Fighters caroused: wine, women, song. Magic-users invested in research. Clerics tithed to their temples. Thieves gambled. The mechanic tied character behavior to class identity through an economic loop that forced players back into the dungeon. You needed gold to level up. You needed to spend the gold. You needed more gold.
The elegance is in the incentive structure. A fighter doesn’t carouse because the player thinks it’s fun (though it might be). A fighter carouses because the system rewards it, and the reward expression matches the class fantasy. Mechanical incentive and narrative identity align.
The Old School Renaissance rediscovered this forty years later. Jeff Rients published his “Carousing Table” in 2008, explicitly citing Pickens’ original article. Lamentations of the Flame Princess adopted variations. Marlinko expanded the concept. “Carousing rules” became a ubiquitous OSR feature—the idea that downtime spending should be mechanically meaningful, class-differentiated, and narratively generative. Jerry Stratton’s Biblyon Broadsheet credited Pickens directly in 2006.
One article. One idea. Forty-nine years of propagation.
The Other Pages
Two more Dragon articles round out the notable design record.
The Berserker (Dragon #3, October 1976) was among the earliest published fighter subclasses. Pickens codified the Norse berserker archetype as a D&D mechanical framework: the “Battle Lust” state granted scaling bonuses to hit and damage while in a frenzy, but the character lost the ability to retreat or distinguish friend from foe. The concept pioneered mechanically distinct combat behaviors within the fighter archetype. The specific mechanics had balance problems—the frenzy made Berserkers effectively unplayable as PCs, which later commentary acknowledged. But the archetype persisted through Tom Griffith’s redesign in Dragon #133, through the Barbarian class lineage, into the 5th Edition Barbarian’s Rage mechanic. The throughline exists even if the specific implementation was rough.
Procedural Demon Generation (Dragon #13, April 1978) provided a complete random creation system for unique demon types: six levels with scaling Hit Dice, gate abilities, magic resistance starting at 50% and increasing 5% per level, and randomized special abilities. The Land of Nod blog described it as “a blueprint for a demon class.” This procedural approach influenced later random monster generation tables across multiple editions. It was reprinted in The Best of The Dragon Vol. 1.
Five articles. 1976 through 1978. That is the complete sole-authored design portfolio.
The Editor’s Hire
In 1978, Jon Pickens applied to TSR for both a designer position and an editor position. He submitted work for both tests. TSR hired him as an editor.
His own account, in Dragon #106: “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.”
It’s a self-deprecating line, and it reveals the career fork with precision. TSR needed an editor more than they needed another designer. Pickens became one. He stayed one for twenty-five years.
The trajectory from there: Editor. Acquisition Editor—reviewing submitted modules for publication, the gatekeeper deciding what saw print. Games Editor, then Managing Editor of Strategy & Tactics Magazine, completing what he called “a circle in my life” back to the magazine that had connected him to Gygax as a teenager. Development coordinator. Eventually Creative Director. He worked at TSR through every major era—the Gygax creative explosion, the Blume era, Gygax’s departure, the Lorraine Williams years, the financial collapse—and transitioned to Wizards of the Coast after the 1997 acquisition, staying through the launch of D&D Third Edition around 2000.
He did not publish original game designs during this period. His one co-design credit after 1978 is the Arms and Equipment Guide (1991)—one of five designers alongside Boucher, Christensen, Terra, and Davis. White Wolf gave it 2 out of 5. DieHard GameFAN’s retrospective was enthusiastic. The reviews split along a predictable axis: reference value versus mechanical innovation.
The Reference Shelf
If you wanted to understand what Jon Pickens actually did for twenty-five years, look at Jeff Grubb’s Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures (1992). Pickens isn’t credited. But he provided three boxes of reference material from his personal library—the historical and cultural research that Grubb transformed into one of TSR’s most distinctive settings. Look at J. Robert King’s Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalog (1992). Pickens isn’t credited there either. But his personal library again supplied the foundation.
This is infrastructure work. No credit line. No design attribution. Just the reference shelf that made other people’s design possible.
His development roles touched major products: development and playtest coordination on AD&D 2nd Edition (Zeb Cook designed it, Steve Winter co-developed alongside Pickens); editing and development on Battlesystem 2nd Edition; editorial work on the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (indices and monster sections, while Aaron Allston compiled and developed the book). His contemporaries at TSR included Gygax, Cook, Moldvay, Schick, Johnson, Hickman, Mentzer, Grubb, Niles—the major creative forces of the hobby. Pickens was closer to the editorial camp: Kim Mohan, Mike Breault, Steve Winter.
The Spell Compendiums remain his most substantial credited work. Seven volumes—four for wizard spells, three for priest spells—cataloged every spell from D&D’s entire 1975–1995 history, updated for 2nd Edition. An RPGnet reviewer captured the nuanced reception: “ecstatic to find all the old material unearthed, reorganized” but “invariably disappointed by how little is done in revising the actual material.” These volumes imposed order on twenty years of accumulated mechanical content. Sought-after collector’s items with sustained print-on-demand demand. It was work no one else was doing—work that required exactly his combination of editorial precision and encyclopedic knowledge. Thousands of players relied on those volumes. The work is compilation, not design. But it is compilation at a level of systematic completeness that borders on art.
The Honest Assessment
Part 2 of the draft inflates Pickens’ role significantly and consistently. The corrections matter because they distinguish a genuine editorial career from a fabricated design career.
The Rules Cyclopedia: Part 2 calls Pickens “Lead Editor/Developer.” Part 1 specifies his contribution as “indices and monster sections.” Aaron Allston was the actual compiler/developer—credited on the book’s own credits page and already scored in this project for that work. AD&D 2nd Edition: Part 2 calls Pickens “Main Developer.” Part 1 documents the actual team: Zeb Cook designed it, Steve Winter co-developed, Pickens handled development and playtest coordination—one of three, not the primary. Arms and Equipment Guide: Part 2 claims “Lead Designer.” Part 1 says “Co-designer (1 of 5).” No evidence he led.
Part 2 lists Pickens as “Co-Designer” of AC4: The Book of Marvelous Magic with Gygax. Part 1 doesn’t mention this credit at all. The published credits list Gygax and Frank Mentzer—not Pickens. Part 2 also states his birth year as “circa late 1940s,” while Part 1 gives August 12, 1954—a discrepancy of six to eight years that allows Part 2 to claim he was active in wargaming from 1966 and to describe him as a founder of the International Federation of Wargamers at an age when Part 1’s timeline would have made him twelve.
This is a living person. The public record standard applies. All scoring follows Part 1’s evidence-based attributions.
The Scoring Case
Invention (5):
“It was out there, this person implemented it.” Pickens’ innovations are real but narrow. The Alchemist class was the first published new class for D&D, proving the class list was open—a genuine proof of concept. The XP-for-spending mechanic in “Orgies, Inc.” inverted D&D’s economic loop with class-differentiated spending, documented as adopted by OSR designers decades later. The Berserker codified a pre-existing Norse archetype as a D&D subclass. These are solid implementations of ideas that were circulating in the Lake Geneva community, published in magazine articles rather than full systems. The XP-for-spending mechanic is genuinely influential—but the total body of inventive work is five Dragon articles from 1976–1978, after which original design stopped entirely. Ideas circulating, competently implemented and published. That’s a 5.
Architecture (5):
“It works.” Pickens’ designed artifacts are module-scale mechanics: a class, a subclass, an XP variant, a generation table. Each achieves its functional goals. The XP-for-spending system creates the intended economic loop. The Demon Generation tables scale logically. The Berserker had known balance issues but functioned within its stated parameters. His development work on AD&D 2E and editorial work on the Spell Compendiums demonstrate deep understanding of system architecture—he could evaluate, refine, and organize complex mechanical structures. But the specific systems he designed are simple, magazine-article-scale mechanics without interconnected subsystems or deep structural complexity. Others adopted his ideas but not his structures. Functional, achieves goals, no hidden depth. That’s a 5.
Mastery (5):
“Working designer, steady hand.” Twenty-five years in the game industry. Development roles on AD&D 2nd Edition, the Rules Cyclopedia, and the Spell Compendiums demonstrate sustained professional engagement with game mechanics at the highest level. His development work required evaluating, balancing, and refining thousands of mechanical elements. The sole-authored design work is limited to five Dragon articles from 1976–1978, after which his career shifted entirely to editorial and developmental roles. This is the 10,000-hours line: sufficient focused engagement with game systems to qualify, but the engagement was primarily editorial and developmental rather than original design. No demonstrable refinement of design craft over time because the design career effectively ended in 1978. A working professional whose contributions spanned the industry’s most important products—from a position adjacent to design rather than at its center.
Adjustments (+5):
- ■ Longevity 20+ years: +2 (Published design credits span 1976 through 2000—Dragon #2 through D&D 3E “design contributions.” Twenty-four years with design credits at the beginning, middle, and end of the span, though activity was sparse with long gaps.)
- ■ Full-time career: +1 (Game editing and development was Pickens’ primary profession for approximately 25 years at TSR and Wizards of the Coast.)
- ■ Awards: No. No major game design award wins, nominations, or Hall of Fame inductions found in the public record.
- ■ Branded name: No. Non-gamers have never heard of the Alchemist class, the Spell Compendiums, or “Orgies, Inc.”
- ■ Cross-genre: No. All design credits are for D&D/AD&D within the fantasy RPG genre. His Strategy & Tactics work was editorial, not design.
- ■ Commercial success: No. AD&D 2E certainly generated $10M+ lifetime, but Pickens was a developer, not the designer. His own designed products did not reach this threshold.
- ■ Design propagation: +2 (The XP-for-spending mechanic was documentably adopted by OSR designers: Jeff Rients (2008), Marlinko, Lamentations of the Flame Princess carousing rules, Jerry Stratton’s Biblyon Broadsheet (2006). The Alchemist class concept propagated through multiple Dragon Magazine redesigns (#45, #49, #130), Bard Games’ Compleat Alchemist, and ultimately Pathfinder’s Alchemist class. Legitimate, documented propagation of original inventions.)
The Hidden Pattern
Pickens’ five Dragon articles share a quality: they’re modular. Each one is a self-contained mechanical framework that can be dropped into any D&D campaign without disrupting anything else. The Alchemist is a class you can add. The Berserker is a subclass you can add. The XP-for-spending system is a variant you can adopt. The Demon Generation tables are a procedure you can use.
This is editorial thinking applied to design. A good editor thinks in modules—discrete, portable, independent components that maintain integrity when moved between contexts. Pickens’ innovations propagated precisely because they were built that way. You didn’t need to adopt a whole system. You could take one idea and use it.
The same instinct that made him a great compiler—the ability to identify discrete mechanical elements and organize them into coherent reference structures—also made his design ideas clean enough to survive transplantation. The Alchemist concept propagated through four Dragon redesigns and into Pathfinder because the original concept was modular: here is a class, here are its requirements, here is what it does. No dependencies. No system baggage. Just the component.
Most designers build systems. Pickens built components. And the components lasted longer than most systems do.
What Remains
The Alchemist lineage, from Dragon #2 to Pathfinder. The carousing table in every OSR game that remembers where gold goes after the dungeon. The Berserker archetype codified from myth to mechanic. The Demon Generation tables that showed you could proceduralize the monstrous.
Seven volumes of Spell Compendiums that organized twenty years of magic into a usable reference. Three boxes of personal library loaned to other designers so their work could have depth. Twenty-five years inside the machine, making sure the output was clean.
Jon Pickens is not an underappreciated designer. He is a correctly appreciated editor whose three-year burst of early design innovation produced ideas that outlived the magazine issues they were printed in. The distinction matters—not as a diminishment, but as an honest description of a career that served the hobby in exactly the way the hobby needed.
He was the research guy. The reference shelf. The editorial infrastructure that made the creative superstructure possible. And he wrote five articles in his twenties that designers are still building on half a century later.
The methodology is honest about the difference between designing games and building the infrastructure that makes games possible.
Both contributions are real. The score measures one of them.
Total: 20 points. Year: 1976.
Total: 20 points. Year: 1976.
Both contributions are real. The score measures one of them.