Draft:Leonard Balsera

Leonard Balsera is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Career
Leonard Balsera, who is of Latino heritage, and posted sometimes on The Forge message boards using the name Landon Darkwood, corresponded with Ron Edwards via e-mail about his GNS theory; Balsera noticed both a "subtext of hostility" toward traditional role-playing games as well as an "exclusionary dynamic" at the Forge involving both race and gender.

Balsera provided vital support to Rob Donoghue, the main designer working on Spirit of the Century; Balsera had been previously active online an fan of Fate, but Evil Hat Productions brought him on to help complete work on the game. Spirit of the Century by Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Balsera, was published in 2006.

Balsera later became the Lead System Developer on The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game while Chad Underkoffler took on the role of lead setting developer. Balsera designed the game, which was published by Evil Hat in 2010.

Balsera was one of the authors of the Fate Core system, published by Evil Hat in 2013. Balsera, with co-authors Brian Engard, Ryan Macklin, and Mike Olson, rewrote the Fate 3.0 system entirely to create Fate Core, allowing the company to own it.

Sarah Newton credits "the creativeness and generosity of Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera and all the team at Evil Hat Productions, creators of the Fate Core system" for making her game Mindjammer - The Roleplaying Game (2014) possible.