Andy Collins

Andy Collins is a game designer whose writing credits include numerous books for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Early life and education Andy Collins grew up in Olympia, Washington. His uncle gave him a copy of the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set for his tenth birthday; although he did not know any other D&D players at the time, and found it hard to figure out how to play a game with no board or playing pieces, he said "my brother, a friend, and I sat down to play one day. Nine hours later, we'd missed both lunch and dinner, and we were all hooked." Collins was a part of the revision team for Dungeons & Dragons version 3.5. Early in 2005, Bill Slavicsek organized a team to do some early designs for a fourth edition of D&D, which was led by Rob Heinsoo and included Collins and James Wyatt; Heinsoo, Collins, and Wyatt became the core team for fourth-edition D&D. Collins, Mike Mearls, David Noonan, and Jesse Decker were part of Heinsoo's "Flywheel" design team for fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons, and did the final concept work from May 2006 to September 2006, before the first books for the edition were written and playtested.