Ray Winninger

Ray Winninger was a competitive chess player as a child, and at age nine he discovered Avalon Hill games and Dungeons & Dragons while looking for chess opponents at a local hobby shop/game store. He designed his first game as "a futuristic man-to-man miniatures system", and by age fourteen he had designed an enormous campaign world for the Dungeons & Dragons game system.{{cite journal| last = Ryan| first = Michael G.| title = Profiles: Craftmaster: The Making of a Dungeoncrafter| journal = Dragon| issue = #293| pages = 20–21| publisher = Wizards of the Coast| location = Renton, Washington|date=March 2002}} His first published work was an adventure called Countdown! for FASA's Doctor Who role-playing game. He worked for TSR, including work on Dungeons & Dragons, throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Winninger was the co-designer of DC Heroes and Torg.{{Cite book | contribution=Squad Leader | title=Hobby Games: The 100 Best | last=Winninger | first=Ray | editor-last=Lowder | editor-first=James | editor-link=James Lowder | publisher=Green Ronin Publishing | year=2007 | pages=288–290 | isbn=978-1-932442-96-0}} He then worked on staff at Mayfair Games, and became Editorial Director for Mayfair after Chill was released.{{Cite book|author=Shannon Appelcline|title=Designers & Dragons|publisher=Mongoose Publishing|year=2011| isbn= 978-1-907702-58-7}}{{rp|168}} He brought back the Role Aids line, intending to recreate it with more sophisticated material for AD&D than that which TSR was producing at the time.{{rp|168}} Winninger designed the Underground (1993) role-playing game for Mayfair Games.{{rp|169}} Underground was set in the year 2021 and "allowed players to assume the roles of superhuman, genetically enhanced soldiers fighting a patriotic war to take their society back from a corrupt government"; when Mayfair Games withdrew much of its support of the game despite its popularity, Winninger moved onto other projects. Mayfair also intended to produce a game called D.O.A. by Greg Gorden with major contributions by Winninger, but the game was never published.{{rp|170}} He worked for Dragon magazine, first taking over the "RPG reviews" column from Chris Pramas, before moving on to "Dungeoncraft", a column for guiding Dungeon Masters to create their own campaign worlds. He also worked as a contributing editor of Dragon magazine.

Winninger later became a senior platform strategist at Microsoft.

In 2020, Winninger became the Executive Producer in charge of the Dungeons & Dragons studio at Wizards of the Coast replacing Mike Mearls, the previous Dungeons & Dragons design team head.{{Cite web|title=Dungeons & Dragons' Design Team Has a New Head, Mike Mearls Exited Last Year|url=http://411mania.com/games/dungeons-dragons-design-team-has-a-new-head-mike-mearls-exited-last-year/|last=Thomas|first=Jeremy|date=April 29, 2020|website=411MANIA|language=en-US|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200502030608/https://411mania.com/games/dungeons-dragons-design-team-has-a-new-head-mike-mearls-exited-last-year/|archive-date=2020-05-02|access-date=2020-05-06}}{{Cite web|title=He no longer works on the tabletop RPG team and hasn't since sometime last year.|url=https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1255304531329548290|last=Crawford|first=Jeremy|date=2020-04-28|website=Twitter|publisher=Jeremy Crawford|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}}{{Cite web|title=Welcome to Dragon+ Issue 31|url=https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2020/04/24/welcome-to-issue-31/content.html|last=Winninger|first=Ray|date=2020-04-24|website=Dragon+ Magazine|access-date=2020-05-06}} In October 2022, Winninger announced that he had left Wizards of the Coast.{{Cite tweet |last=Winninger | first=Ray |user=WinningerR |number=1582437178466263041 |date= October 18, 2022 |title= Sorry for the radio silence; I'm in the midst of a SORELY needed Long Rest. I have indeed left WotC, having accomplished the ambitious goals we set when I took over the D&D team. [THREAD] |access-date=October 18, 2022}}

Ray Winninger has worked for TSR, West End Games, Mayfair Games, Last Unicorn Games, and Pulsar Games. His "Dungeoncraft" column ran in Dragon from 1999-2002, during which time he also served as a contributing editor to the magazine.

He was the executive producer for Harebrained Schemes' 2014 Miniature wargaming game Golem Arcana.{{cite web|last1=Hsu|first1=Dan|title=Golem Arcana: The hybrid tabletop/video game that's going to make a lot of money (but off just a few of you)|url=https://venturebeat.com/2014/08/07/golem-arcana-the-hybrid-tabletopvideo-game-thats-going-to-make-a-lot-of-money-but-off-just-a-few-of-you/|website=VentureBeat|access-date=3 October 2015|date=7 August 2014}}

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• {{cite web |url=http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=1799 |archive-date=February 21, 2005 |title=Ray Winninger at Pen & Paper |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050221060940/http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=1799 }}

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Category:Dungeons & Dragons game designers

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)