David Cook was born in East Lansing, Michigan, but his destiny was forged on a farm in Iowa where he spent his childhood playing wargames like Avalon Hill's Blitzkrieg and Afrika Korps. While most children played with toy soldiers, Cook was already strategizing complex battles, a hobby that would eventually lead him to the University of Iowa gaming club. It was there, in 1977, that he encountered Dungeons and Dragons for the first time, a game that would consume his professional life for the next fifteen years. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Theater, a background that would prove essential for his future work in storytelling and game design. After graduation, he took a job as a high school teacher in Milligan, Nebraska, where his students gave him the nickname Zeb. The moniker came from two sources: his signature, which featured a prominent stroke resembling the letter Z, and his striking resemblance to James Arness, the star of the television series How the West Was Won, who played a character named Zeb Macahan. This nickname would become his professional identity, marking him as a figure who bridged the gap between the classroom and the fantasy realms he would soon create.
The Third Designer At TSR
In the early 1980s, the game industry was a small, tightly knit community, and a job posting in Dragon magazine could change a life forever. Cook responded to an advertisement for a game designer position at TSR, Inc., submitting a sample module section and passing a rigorous designer test. He became the third full-time game designer hired by the company, joining a team that was rapidly expanding under the leadership of Lawrence Schick. Cook's tenure at TSR would span over fifteen years, during which he created role-playing games, modules, family board games, card games, and party mystery games. He developed the Partyzone mystery game line, with the first game earning a spot on the Top 100 Games of 1985 list by Games Magazine. His portfolio included the creation of Conan the Barbarian, Crimefighters, The Adventures of Indiana Jones, Star Frontiers, Sirocco, and Escape from New York. He also wrote several influential early adventure modules for Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, including A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City, X1: The Isle of Dread, and the Desert Nomads series. His work extended to the CM4: Earthshaker! and AC5: Dragon Tiles II modules, as well as the B6: The Veiled Society and CB1: Conan Unchained! adventures. He also contributed to the M1: Blizzard Pass for D and AD and the Top Secret module TS005: Orient Express and Boot Hill module BH2: Lost Conquistador Mine.Expanding The Rules Of Fantasy