TSR Grubb's overseeing of the design of the "AD&D Open" at Gen Con in 1982, led to his employment as a game designer at
TSR. In 1984, Grubb was the principal architect of the
Marvel Super Heroes game system. Grubb was a consultant on the first edition of
Unearthed Arcana, and authored the first edition of the
Manual of the Planes. Grubb contacted
Ed Greenwood, author of numerous articles in
Dragon about his home campaign setting, and soon Greenwood began sending Grubb packages full of maps of his world and background information for the setting; this collaboration resulted in the publication of the
Forgotten Realms campaign setting beginning with the
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (1987). He is the designer of the
Spelljammer campaign setting, and the
Al-Qadim setting. Grubb felt that Al-Qadim was well received because the designers were able to hide the potential of the setting from the executives at TSR. In the late 1980s, Grubb wrote four fill-in issues of the
DC Comics licensed
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic book, and wrote 25 issues of DC Comic's
Forgotten Realms series. Grubb started the
Buck Rogers line for TSR with a board game published in 1988. Grubb continued to work on role-playing games with TSR for many years, long enough to be regarded affectionately as an "old timer" by
Scott Haring. In 1994, he left TSR to pursue freelance work. Grubb wrote three supplements for the
Jakandor setting, published in 1997–1998 as the final publications in the
Odyssey series.
Freelance work When
Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR inc., Grubb was engaged to work on games, settings, and source books such as
Tempest Feud for the
Star Wars Roleplaying Game,
d20 Modern and
Urban Arcana. He wrote
The Memoirs of Auberon of Faerie for
R. Talsorian Games and was one of the authors of the D20
Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game for
Sword & Sorcery Studios. He has also been involved with
Sovereign Press, founded by
Margaret Weis and
Don Perrin in 2001. He designed the
HeroClix Unleashed set. ==Comics, novels, and short stories==