David Gaider

David Gaider is a Canadian narrative designer and writer. He was the lead writer and creator of the setting for the role-playing video game series Dragon Age. He worked for Edmonton, Alberta-located game developer BioWare from 1999 to 2016, before leaving to join another Edmonton-based studio, Beamdog, as their Creative Director. He departed Beamdog after two years. In 2019, Gaider announced the assumption of a Creative Director position at the then newly-founded Melbourne, Australia-based game developer, Summerfall Studios, and with that announcement, a project entitled Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, which released later in 2023. Gaider began his professional life in the service industry, eventually managing a small hotel, while game designing was a side hobby to him. In 1999, a friend who worked as an artist at a local game studio named BioWare (at that point having only recently achieved success with the release of Baldur's Gate) suggested to the studio founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, that Gaider be given a newly-available position in the design department. Gaider got the job and, as his first assignment, was handed the task of writing for Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. The release of that title in 2000 was a great success for BioWare and cemented the studio as a major developer of role-playing games. Gaider then worked on Neverwinter Nights (released in 2002) and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), for which he wrote the characters HK-47 (winner of the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards for "Original Game Character of the Year"), Jolee Bindo, and Carth Onasi.