Meguey Baker

Meguey Baker (/mɛˈɡeɪ/) is a tabletop role-playing game designer, independent publisher and quilt historian. She and her husband Vincent Baker designed Apocalypse World, the first game in the Powered by the Apocalypse system.

Meguey Baker
Born1971
Upstate New York, USA
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHampshire College (BA)
Occupation(s)Game designer, curator, and historian
Notable workApocalypse World, Powered by the Apocalypse
SpouseVincent Baker
Awards

Career

Game design

Baker's most prominent work is Apocalypse World (2010). Apocalypse World is a post-apocalyptic game co-designed with her husband, Vincent Baker, published through Lumpley Games. Apocalypse World won multiple awards such as the 2010 Indie RPG Award for "Game of the Year"[1] and the 2011 Lucca Comics & Games "Best Role-Playing Game" award.[4] Powered by the Apocalypse, the game design framework created by the Bakers for Apocalypse World, has made a lasting impact on role-playing game design.[6][7]

Baker is the founding owner of Night Sky Games.[8]: 185  A Thousand and One Nights (2006), published through Night Sky Games, is a role-playing game based on the collection of Arabic stories The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.[8]: 185 [9][10] According to games scholar Evan Torner, A Thousand and One Nights includes systems for telling stories within stories, establishing and developing jealousies between characters, and reflecting upon metatextuality.[11]

Baker has also designed other indie role-playing games such as Miss Schiffer's School for Young Ladies of Quality (2006),[12] Psi*Run (2012) and Valiant Girls (2013); the latter were Night Sky Games' third and sixth publications respectively.[8]: 185–186  She co-designed with her husband both Firebrands (2017), a romance TTRPG in a sci-fi setting focused on mobile frame pilots and Under Hollow Hills (2021), an RPG about fairytales and a traveling circus.[13][14] Chase Carter for Polygon compared Firebrands to adventure romance television shows Bridgerton and Our Flag Means Death.[15]

Baker and Emily Care Boss wrote Fair Game, a blog-style design and roleplaying theory journal, from 2005 to 2011.[16]

Textiles and quilting

Baker is a quilter and quilt historian, particularly interested in how the history of non-dominant voices gets transmitted in objects and oral tradition rather than the official written history.[17] Baker collects and restores antique and vintage textiles, as well as creates new works.[17][18]

Baker is a Collections Assistant for the Hatfield Historical Museum and is part of the curatorial team for the Historical Society of Greenfield.[19][20][21]

Personal life

Baker and her husband Vincent Baker have three children.[22]

Baker studied American History at Hampshire College with a focus on early American textile history and material culture.[23][17]

Bibliography

Role-playing games
  • A Thousand and One Nights (2006)[9]
  • Miss Schiffer's School for Young Ladies of Quality (2006)[12]
  • The Girl Effect
  • Apocalypse World (2010)[7]
    • Apocalypse World 2nd Edition (2016)[24]
    • Apocalypse World: the Extended Refbook (2019)[25]
    • Apocalypse World: Burned Over Hackbook (2019)[26]
  • Psi-Run Revised (2012)[27][8]: 185 
  • Valiant Girls (2013)[8]: 185 
  • Firebrands (2017)[28]
  • The King Is Dead (2018)[29]
  • Run For Your Life (2019)[30]
  • At the Stroke of Midnight (2019)[30]
  • Haunted (2019)[30]
  • Does It Fit the Mission (2019)[30]
  • The Ghost of Eunice Williams (2019)[30]
  • A Branch of May (2019)[30]
  • Bless the Seeds (2019)[30]
  • In the Company of Birds (2019)[30]
  • Nine Pins (2019)[30]
  • The Sundered Land (2019)[30]
  • The Journey of Half-a-Fool (2019)[30]
  • In Dreaming Avalon (2019)[30]
  • Murderous Ghosts (2019)[30]
  • Space Station Home (2020)[30]
  • Unknown Country and Undiscovered Home (2020)[30]
  • The Lost Spells of Venus (2021)[30]
  • How the Story Ends (2021)[30]
  • Towns Like Ours (2021)[31]
  • Under Hollow Hills (2021)[14]

Other
  • Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters (2014)[32]

References
  1. "Indie Game of The Year, 2010". Indie RPG Awards. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  2. "Best Support, 2010". Indie RPG Awards. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  3. "Most Innovative Game, 2010". Indie RPG Awards. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  4. "Best of Show: i vincitori". Lucca Comics & Games 2011. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  5. "2011 Golden Geek Award Winners! | Geekdo". BoardGameGeek. November 21, 2011. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. Berge, PS (2021). Mitchell, Alex; Vosmeer, Mirjam (eds.). Monster Power. Rebel Heart. Gay Sword: Queer Structures and Narrative Possibility in PbtA Tabletop Roleplaying Games. Interactive Storytelling. Vol. 13138. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 179–192. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6_16. ISBN 978-3-030-92299-3. S2CID 244882412. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  7. "Powered by the Apocalypse: How an Indie RPG Is Still Changing the Industry". CBR. 2020-10-04. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  8. Shannon Appelcline (2014). Designers & Dragons: The '00s. Evil Hat Productions. ISBN 978-1-61317-087-8.
  9. Mikcs, David (25 July 2011). "Seduction Unending". The New Republic. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  10. Caruso, Giovanni; Fassone, Riccardo; Ferri, Gabriele; Gualeni, Stefano; Salvador, Mauro (2016). "Games on Games. Game Design as Critical Reflexive Practice". G|A|M|E Games as Art, Media, Entertainment. 1 (5). ISSN 2280-7705. Meguey Baker's 1,001 Nights is a playable critique of the encased narratives found in Arabian Nights
  11. https://www.gamejournal.it/torner-the-self-reflexive-tabletop-role-playing-game/
  12. "Miss Schiffer's School for Young Ladies of Quality". VideoGameGeek. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  13. Hall, Charlie (2021-12-13). "The best tabletop games that we played in 2021". Polygon. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  14. "Under Hollow Hills | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/23026742/tabletop-rpg-ttrpg-bridgerton-our-flag-means-death
  16. "The Fairgame Archive". www.fairgame-rpgs.com. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  17. Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (April 22, 2021). "[THREAD] All of this, and also all of this in game design. I work professionally in both, have advanced degrees in neither, and really see the divide Erin lays out. [...] When I graduated with my BA and a focus on American textile history & non-dominant voices, Museum Studies masters programs were so rare there was no guidance for me towards the collections care work I wanted to do. [...] So I did textile conservation & restoration for private clients, sent to me by word of mouth, for 12 years. While having tiny kids & doing postpartum counseling work. I did not think of myself as an historian, because there was no job and no book. [...] The curator there recommended me for my current job. Which was grant-funded off and on for 5 years. It was LAST YEAR that my part-time curatorial job became an actual line item in the budget, with actual job security. [...] My CV of museum work is impressive. I am good at my job. I sure don't have any academic credentials, despite having presented at academic conferences" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  18. "About". Night Sky Games. Retrieved 2022-01-02. In other aspects of my life, I am a sex ed teacher, a textile artist, and a conservation specialist at the local museum.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. Bauer, Zydalis (2021-12-10). "Hatfield Historical Society's COVID Project". NEPM. Connecting Point. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  20. "Where fall foliage meets history, people still find beauty in Poet's Seat". WWLP. 2021-10-29. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  21. Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (May 20, 2018). "I am the collections assistant at the Hatfield Historical Museum, 1/3 of the curatorial team at the @HSgreenfieldMA, and a textile conservation specialist associated with three other local history museums in western MA" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  22. Meguey Baker [@NightSkyGames] (May 20, 2018). "^_^ Not according to wikipedia. According to them, I'm a quilter (which is true) married to game designer Vincent Baker (also true, for 25 years), we have 3 kids (also true) and I wrote a couple games" (Tweet). Retrieved December 31, 2021 – via Twitter.
  23. Baker, Meguey (November 16, 2015). "Extraordinary clues in ordinary places". Hatfield Historical Society. Retrieved 2021-12-31. Meguey Baker studied early American textile history and material culture at Hampshire College. She is a member of the Mohawk Trail Quilt Guild, a volunteer textile conservation specialist at Memorial Hall in Deerfield, and does textile repair and conservation for private clients.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. "Apocalypse World (2nd Ed) | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  25. "Apocalypse World: the Extended Refbook | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  26. "Apocalypse World: Burned Over Hackbook | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  27. "Psi*Run (Revised)". VideoGameGeek. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  28. https://lumpley.itch.io/firebrands
  29. "The King Is Dead | lumpley games". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  30. https://itch.io/profile/lumpley
  31. "Towns Like Ours | Daedalum Analog Productions". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  32. "Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters | Encoded Designs". DriveThruRPG. Retrieved 2021-12-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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