My name is Ryan Scott Dancey. I was born in October 1968 in Seattle. I've lived in Washington State most of my life except for a period from the mid 2000s to the mid 2010s when I lived around the world including in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Reykjavik Iceland and Atlanta. I am married to Delaina Dancey; we have one daughter, Teela Dancey. I currently live and work in Everett Washington. I can be reached via email at rsdancey@gmail.com.
I graduated from Bothell High School in 1987. I attended Washington State University.
As a teenager I worked at McDonalds; as an adult I've worked in a variety of fields including sales, high tech, and both tabletop and digital game publishing.
In the early 1990s I worked at a company named Multiple Zones, and was the buyer for the Macintosh hardware and software division MacZone. I left to co-found the company that became ISOMEDIA. At ISOMEDIA I created a replacement for microfiche called DigiFiche. I also participated in the creation of the ISOMEDIA internet service provider and co-hosting division which still does business today under the ISOFUSION umbrella.
During my time at ISOMEDIA I co-created the RPG International mail-order store. In the mid-1990s I co-founded Five Rings Publishing Group (FRPG) by spinning a joint venture between ISOMEDIA and Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) into a stand-alone company then I left ISOMEDIA to become FRPG’s VP of Product Development.
With John Zinser and David Seay I co-created the Legend of the Five Rings world and co-led the work to publish the Imperial, Emerald and Obsidian Editions and the first 8 expansions of the Legend of the Five Rings Collectible Card Game. I helped broker the deal where Wizards of the Coast acquired TSR. I led the teams that created and published several collectible card games: Legend of the Burning Sands; Deadlands: Doomtown; Dune; Rage Relaunch; and the Star Trek Collectible Dice game. I helped with the launch of BattleTech Commander's Edition.
I was the VP of Tabletop Roleplaying and the Dungeons & Dragons Brand Manager from 1998 to 2000. I led the team that published the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I created the Open Gaming License, the d20 System Trademark License, and wrote the System Reference Document for 3.0 and 3.5.
After leaving Wizards in 2001 I founded OrganziedPlay to provide player rating and match scoring services to game publishers. I co-founded The Core Market, a consultancy helping major toy manufacturers understand the hobby gaming market, and working with clients who wanted to publish games in the hobby gaming market. I became the CMO of CCP in 2007, and left in 2010. I co-founded Goblinworks to develop and publish Pathfinder Online, an MMO based on Paizo's successful tabletop RPG of the same name.
In 2016 I became the Chief Operating Officer at Alderac Entertainment Group. Since joining AEG I have spearheaded our successes in crowdfunding (raising more than $10 million), and our company participated in winning the Spiel des Jahres for Cascadia, designed and developed by our partners at Flatout Games.
My interests include software engineering, history (especially the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Copper, Bronze & Iron Age development of civilizations around the world; and military history from WWI to the modern world), politics, gaming (tabletop & digital), and SCUBA diving.
