Ian Marsh (writer)


Ian Marsh is a British writer and editor.

Career

Ian Marsh graduated in 1983 from the University of Surrey, Guildford, with an honours degree in Materials Technology.
Along with school friends Mike Lewis and Marc Gascoigne, he wrote and edited DragonLords role-playing fanzine from 1980 to 1984.
In 1983 he joined the staff of Games Workshop, Sunbeam Road, London. He became editorial assistant on Games Workshop's role-playing publication White Dwarf in January 1984, progressing to assistant editor and finally editor. Marsh succeeded Ian Livingstone as White Dwarf's editor, but only lasted four issues; after it was confirmed that White Dwarf was moving to Nottingham with the rest of Games Workshop, Marsh opted not to move with the magazine. In White Dwarf #77, Marsh's last issue as editor, the contents page included an acrostic regarding the company's new Managing Director, Bryan Ansell, which read "Sod Off Bryan Ansell".
When Games Workshop relocated to Nottingham in 1986 he left the company, preferring to remain in London.
In 1989, he approached Peter Darvill-Evans at Virgin Books about writing a new Doctor Who role-playing game, Time Lord, following the expiration of the licence held by FASA. Time Lord materialised in 1991 as a paperback distributed through the book trade. In 1996, Marsh regained the rights to Time Lord and republished it free on the internet.
He moved to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, in 1999 and established wargaming figures distributor Fighting 15s. He and Lewis jointly run wargames rules publisher Oozlum Games, which published Marsh’s Napoleonic wargames rules Huzzah! free on the internet in 2003. Oozlum Games published Martian Empires, Lewis's Victorian science fiction wargames rules in 2007; the rules, influenced by Huzzah!, were edited and designed by Marsh.