Hogshead Publishing

Hogshead Publishing was a UK based RPG company. Originally started in 1994, it produced the Warhammer Fantasy RPG under license from Games Workshop, and a number of other titles. It was noted for games which pushed the boundary of what RPGs could do, whether in format (Nobilis 2nd edition) or in terms of storytelling (the New Style line, notably The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen by James Wallis, Pantheon by Robin D. Laws and De Profundis by Michał Oracz), providing the launch point for what became the story-games genre.

Hogshead is notable for being the first UK-based company to make a success of publishing RPGs since Games Workshop had left that sector of the games market in the 1980s. It did this by treating the USA as its primary market, printing and warehousing all its books there, and dealing with its customers in US$ instead of UK£. This business model has subsequently been used by almost all other successful British RPG companies.

In late 2002 James Wallis announced that Hogshead Publishing would close, due to 'boredom, imminent burn-out, creative frustration (and) worries about the state of the market'. It did not in fact close: all its game-lines were terminated or transferred to new ownership, and the remains of the company were sold to Mark Ricketts in early 2003. The revived Hogshead specialised in producing products for the D20 'open gaming' license.

admin comment
Hogshead Publishing is now defunct
for information from James Wallis, see Re: Why is James Wallis credited the way that he is for this scenario?