Hi and welcome to my home page! I'm Steve Kenson, a writer and designer of fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) and related fiction, which means I'm basically a professional gaming geek. I live in Merrimack, New Hampshire, with my partner, Christopher Penczak (who is a professional geek of a different sort). I worked freelance in the RPG industry starting in 1995. In early 2004, I began working full-time as line developer for Mutants & Masterminds, a superhero game I designed. I still do some freelance work (and feel free to contact me about it!), but my development job takes up most of my time. Talon Studio is my official "business identity." The name comes from my first Shadowrun character, about whom I have written three novels. (See? I told you I was a geek!)
On this page, you can find information on my work (past and present) and a lot of gaming-related material and articles. I've organized the material here by category, with links to the various publisher and game company home-pages, where available and applicable. There's also information about some of the different games I have run in the past (when I felt ambitious enough to create pages for them) and some info about me personally.
Unless stated otherwise, all material on this site is © 1998
or later by Stephen Kenson and Talon Studio, except for game-specific logos,
game systems, and images, which are the copyright of their respective holders.
I work for Green Ronin, a publisher of roleplaying
games, based in Seattle. I'm the line developer for the Mutants
& Masterminds Superhero RPG, based on the popular d20 System rules.
Everything in the game, from attacking, to damage, to using skills and powers,
is based on the d20 action check (roll 1d20 + modifiers vs. a difficulty
class), so all you need is a single d20 to play the game, making Mutants
& Masterminds as fast-paced as the comic books themselves.
Mutants & Masterminds provides you with all the tools you need to create any super-power, from energy blasts and force field to controlling magnetism, casting spells, powered armor, or anything else you can imagine. The game also provides dozens of sample super-powers; a broad menu that allows you to create most characters simply by choosing the powers that you want.
Although creating heroes in Mutants & Masterminds is simple, the game comes with a dozen ready-made hero templates, allowing you to choose the type of character you want to play, make a few customization choices, and have a complete character in minutes! The core rulebook also includes the introductory adventure "Major League," allowing you to get into playing the game right away.
Mutants & Masterminds has earned two ENWorld Awards (Best d20 Game and the Peer Award), four Pen & Paper Fan Awards (Best RPG, Best Cover Art, Best Interior Art, and Best Graphic Design), and three Origins Award nominations (Best RPG, Best Graphic Presentation, and Game of the Year).
You can check out the Mutants & Masterminds website and drop by the Atomic Think Tank forums for all the latest news and discussion! I frequent the forums, answering player questions and just chatting in general, so feel free to say hi!
Since I began freelancing in 1995 I have written or contributed to dozens of RPG products. If you're interested in a complete list of my published credits, click on the link above. I'm currently the line developer for Mutants & Masterminds for Green Ronin Publishing.
I have six published novels, four set in the Shadowrun universe, one in the BattleTech universe, and one in the Crimson Skies universe. I'm working on three others, a trilogy set in the Shadowrun universe. You can get details on my novels and sample chapters by clicking on the link above.
I have written articles for game magazines like Dragon, InQuest, Polyhedron, Pyramid, Shadis, Star Wars Adventure Journal, Adventures Unlimited, Shadowland and Earthdawn Journal. I wrote the Profiles column in Dragon Magazine from January of 1999 to June of 2000. Click here for a complete bibliography of my published articles. I've also posted a number of my articles online (click the link above).
Of course, RPGs aren't just work for me. They're also my hobby, and I play once a week or so with a group that has some members who go back with me all the way to high school (yeah, that's way back). Check out the link above to see what we're currently playing, along with pages devoted to some of our previous games.
Interested in the places I frequent online? If so, you probably need another hobby. However, if your really want to know the kind of sites and things that interest me, check out my links page and have some fun surfing the Web for a while.
If you check out the page, feel free to e-mail me and let me know what you think. I'm open to suggestions about content and other things people might like to see posted here. Thanks for stopping by!