The Writer Who Rolled Dice

Steve Miller got into the gaming industry on a dare, but he always wanted to be a writer.

Before there was TSR, before there was Ravenloft, there was a TV publicist in Utah with a BA in English and a creative writing emphasis who couldn’t quite make his comic book career happen. He contacted Bruce Heard at TSR around 1994. He sent Tim Brown a thank-you letter after some early freelance work. Brown hired him. It was that simple and that accidental — a writer walking into a game company during the worst crisis in its history.

TSR in 1996 was drowning. Over $30 million in debt. Twelve hardcover novels a year. Dragon Dice pushed into mass-market retail. Thirty staff laid off in December. The printer refusing to print. Lorraine Williams would sell the company to Wizards of the Coast by April 1997. Miller arrived in the middle of this. He became a staff designer not because the company was thriving, but because it desperately needed people who could finish products.

He was a writer first, a designer second. This distinction explains everything that followed.

Ravenloft’s Dark Renaissance

Miller’s creative home was Ravenloft, and his strongest work happened there between 1996 and 2000.

The flagship is Domains of Dread (1997), co-designed with William W. Connors, who was the Ravenloft line coordinator and the more senior designer. Together they built the definitive Ravenloft campaign setting — the one that unified disparate “islands of terror” into a coherent Core with trade routes, political borders, and linguistic groups. The taxonomy they established — Core Domains, Cluster Domains, Islands of Terror, Pockets — became the structural skeleton of Ravenloft across all subsequent editions. When Wizards of the Coast published Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft in 2021, twenty-four years later, the section describing thirty-nine domains used the framework Miller and Connors codified.

The Cultural Level system assigned a numerical value to each domain — Stone Age through Renaissance — solving the temporal dissonance problem where a neolithic tribesman might encounter a musketeer without systemic guidelines. An elegant structural tool, but co-designed, and the degree to which Miller shaped versus assisted Connors’ vision is unclear from the public record.

His solo Ravenloft credits — When Black Roses Bloom (1996), Servants of Darkness (1998), The Doomgrinder (1998) — are adventure modules and setting books, competent professional work within the system Connors built. Carnival (1999), co-designed with John W. Mangrum, earned the line’s strongest reviews: RPGnet averaged Style 4.67/5, Substance 3.67/5. One reviewer called it “everything RAVENLOFT was intended to be, but so often was not.”

The Gentleman Caller

Miller’s most original creation isn’t a mechanic. It’s a character.

The Gentleman Caller is an incubus villain who operates as a behind-the-scenes manipulator rather than a combat encounter. Miller designed him deliberately: even after players discover his true nature, he wanted them to think, “But he’s a nice guy, despite it all.” This was a sophisticated approach to villain design in the mid-1990s, when published adventures tended toward combat-oriented antagonists. The Gentleman Caller isn’t a stat block to defeat. He’s a narrative problem to unravel.

His embedded “breeding program” metaplot — one child per Domain of Dread, to be revealed across the thirteen planned Ravenloft Gazetteers — was an ambitious multi-product narrative architecture that the Kargatane fan group, who became the official 3e Ravenloft developers, planned to continue. The series was cancelled before completion.

The character has persisted across twenty-five years. He appears in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (2021) as “The Caller.” The Carnival setting was directly revived, with Isolde returning as its central figure. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight (2021) reveals that Isolde originally ran the Witchlight Carnival before trading it — creating a narrative bridge between two major 5e products rooted in Miller’s 1999 work. Few designers of comparable profile have seen a single character propagate this consistently.

The End of the World

In 2000, Miller and Bruce R. Cordell co-designed Die Vecna Die! — a 160-page adventure spanning Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and Planescape. It was the last product ever published under the TSR brand.

No previous D&D product had attempted this scale of cross-setting integration. The adventure’s concluding cosmological upheaval provided the in-universe explanation for the transition from AD&D 2e to D&D 3e. No edition transition since has received an equivalent in-game justification.

The reception was polarized. Some called it “easily the best long campaign-like adventure ever put out for Second Edition.” Planescape fans objected to its treatment of the Lady of Pain. Critics noted the railroad structure: if players fail to follow the intended path, the settings are literally destroyed. The consensus — it succeeds as an ambitious narrative event but has structural weaknesses as a playable adventure.

The specific division of labor between Miller and Cordell is undocumented. Miller’s Ravenloft expertise almost certainly informed the Ravenloft sections. Cordell was the more established adventure designer. Equal co-author credit appears on all listings. The adventure’s long shadow: Vecna: Eve of Ruin (2024) is a direct spiritual successor, and Vecna himself has become D&D’s premier archvillain, appearing in Stranger Things Season 4. Die Vecna Die! helped cement that status.

The Versatile Workhorse

Miller’s unusual strength was range. During his peak years, he worked simultaneously across AD&D 2e, the SAGA card system, West End Games’ d6 system, and eventually d20. Few TSR/WotC designers of this period worked in this many distinct mechanical paradigms.

His Dragonlance work — Heroes of Defiance (1997, his most personally meaningful solo project), contributions to Citadel of Light and Heroes of Hope — operated within the SAGA system, not as its architect. The SAGA system was William W. Connors’ creation. Miller was a skilled contributor who expanded hero roles and contributed to the Fate Deck, but he didn’t design the engine.

His Star Wars d20 contributions were substantial — six major products including Alien Anthology (2001, listed as primary author). Competent licensed-property adaptation rather than creatively distinctive work. Into the Dragon’s Lair (2000), co-designed with Sean K. Reynolds, was the first 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms adventure. Mixed reviews — “a standard hunt for treasure” despite its complexity.

After 2004, Miller transitioned away from major publishers. In 2011, he founded NUELOW Games, releasing over 270 digital titles through DriveThruRPG. His flagship: ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters, a deliberately minimalist comedic RPG. Where his TSR work was serious gothic horror, NUELOW is intentionally absurdist. A designer who, freed from corporate constraints, chose humor and accessibility over complexity.

The Honest Assessment

The draft article contained three critical factual errors. First, it credited Miller with Alternity work — an “Alternity Alien Compendium” design credit and Alternity in his genre range. Cross-referencing of RPGGeek, RPGnet, Wikipedia, and DriveThruRPG confirms Miller has no credits on either Alternity or Amazing Engine.

Second, the draft stated Miller “served 6 years in the U.S. Air Force” and held a “BFA in Design.” The research record shows a BA in English with a Creative Writing emphasis from the University of Utah, a pre-industry career as a TV publicist and freelance journalist, and no military service.

Third, the draft framed Miller as the architect of the SAGA card system and the Fate Deck. The SAGA system was William W. Connors’ creation. Miller worked within it and contributed to its expansion. He didn’t build the engine. Additional inflations — two fabricated Origins Award claims and an invented labor split for Die Vecna Die! — were also corrected.

With the record cleaned, what remains is a versatile setting designer and narrative architect who worked primarily within inherited systems, creating characters and world-building that proved remarkably durable.

The Scoring Case

The Hidden Pattern

Miller is a setting steward. Not a system inventor, not a mechanics innovator — a creator of narrative architecture that outlived every system it was built upon.

AD&D 2e is dead. The SAGA card system is dead. D&D 3.0 is dead. But the Gentleman Caller is in 5e. Carnival returned in 2021 — twice, across two different sourcebooks. The Domains of Dread taxonomy still structures Ravenloft. Die Vecna Die!’s cosmological text remains the canonical explanation for D&D’s most important edition transition. The systems change. The settings persist.

Miller’s design signature is that he created narrative elements — characters, world-building frameworks, structural taxonomies — that functioned as tools for other designers to build upon. His own stated philosophy was “giving Narrators tools to create their own adventures.” That’s inherently extensible design. It explains why later designers found his work so easy to continue.

The irony: Miller’s most enduring contribution to game design is a character who requires no mechanics at all. The Gentleman Caller works because he’s a narrative problem, not a stat block. You can run him in any system. You can run him in no system. He’s immortal precisely because he was never mechanical.

What Remains

The Domains of Dread taxonomy — Core, Cluster, Islands, Pockets — still organizing Ravenloft twenty-eight years later. The Gentleman Caller — still manipulating, still charming, still lying with just enough truth. Carnival — revived twice in 2021, its creator Isolde bridging two separate WotC sourcebooks. Die Vecna Die! — the last word of one era and the first explanation of the next, its villain now a household name. Heroes of Defiance — the solo project Miller called his most personally meaningful work. Over 270 NUELOW Games titles — a designer who chose creative freedom over industry prestige.

And a career that demonstrates something the methodology can measure but not fully capture: that narrative architecture, built within inherited systems, can outlast the systems themselves.

The methodology measures what you designed and whether others built on it. Miller designed within other people’s systems — and the things he built inside those systems are still standing after the systems themselves collapsed. That’s a different kind of durability. The score captures the design. The persistence captures the designer.

Total: 20 points. Year: 2000.

Total: 20 points. Year: 2000.

The methodology measures what you designed and whether others built on it. Miller designed within other people’s systems — and the things he built inside those systems are still standing after the systems themselves collapsed. That’s a different kind of durability. The score captures the design. The persistence captures the designer.