Sean’s latest project is “Agents of Oblivion”, a roleplaying game setting for use with Savage Worlds that combines the modern espionage genre with horror elements. But I think Sean can explain this better than I can, so I asked him to answer a couple of questions for us.

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a couple of questions about Reality Blurs in general and Agents of Oblivion in particular. It’s an honor to have you. So, let’s start with AoO. What exactly is it about?

Sean: Agents of Oblivion is what we like to call “the perfect cocktail of horror and espionage”. Heck, we believe this so much we put it on the cover as the tagline. Now, before anyone thinks we’re being cocky or anything, we know everyone’s definition of the perfect cocktail may differ, so we cheated a bit by providing you with all the ingredients to mix your own, suitable to your own refined palate. For those who’ve followed us for a number of years, you know we are all about providing sandboxes and allowing you the freedom to customize the game and still have all the pieces work together without any hassle. At its core, Agents of Oblivion is a spy game with conspiracies and aliens and rival organizations and magic and things that go bump in the night. Well, that’s how I play it. We provide seven different campaign styles—cocktail recipes to extend the metaphor—you can tailor to your own sensibilities.

Stargazer: What were the main inspirations for Agents of Oblivion? Are there any other games, books or movies that played a major role in the creation process?

Sean: I’ve long loved the spy and horror genres and thought they could fit naturally together. As a longtime video gamer, the concept for Agents of Oblivion initially arose not long after I got a Savage Worlds license (back in 2004) and I put together a list of genres I wanted to develop into product lines. This was on the original list and it came to me when I was playing the original Splinter Cell game (before it became the franchise it is today). I thought how cool it would be for Sam Fisher (the protagonist) to have some cool powers he could use and realized there were no games out there that could do this in the manner I was talking about for the spy genre. I scribbled down some notes and realized there was a real opportunity to step into this space. I wrote an adventure (Starfall Jungle, our second product ever) and then entered it into Green Ronin’s True20 Setting Search competition. It later appeared in the True20 Worlds of Adventure and was quite popular.

That was some history, so now let me get to the heart of your question. Inspirations for Agents of Oblivion are as follows (in no particular order) (and some came out subsequent to most of the formative work being done, so are included as good source materials for folks).

Movies/TV Series: The James Bond series, 24, Fringe, Alias, The X-Files, The Shield, Supernatural, Dark Skies, Threshold, Warehouse 13, Ronin, The Bourne Trilogy, The Third Man, Three Days of the Condor, The 39 Steps, North by Northwest, The Ipcress File, Enemy of the State, The Manchurian Candidate, The Jack Ryan series, The Call of Cthulhu, In the Mouth of Madness, Pan’s Labyrinth, Law & Order, Hellboy, Le Femme Nikita, Mission Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Torchwood, and Doctor Who

Books: The Dresden Files, anything be Ian Fleming, Len Deighton or Charles de Lint, Monster Hunter International, and The Laundry series

RPGs: Top Secret, James Bond 007, Spycraft, Conspiracy X, Dark Matter, Delta Green, and Cold City

Some interesting facts, I looked to The Dresden Files year ago (before the excellent RPG ever existed, but while it was in development and I did look forward to its release) as a great example of modern urban fantasy. Monster Hunter International was something I was only recently turned on to and it’s a great read. A number of shows, namely the short-lived Threshold, Torchwood, and Supernatural, came out after the setting was fleshed out and I would watch them and say to myself that this sure reminds me of Agents of Oblivion. It was cool to see other media exploring some of the same space I was. Delta Green is something I didn’t read until after the formative work was done. I was culturally aware of it, but people were calling out superficial similarities to the two properties before even reading AoO, so I felt it was wise to read what they were doing to make certain I wasn’t retreading well-loved territory. I was relieved to discover that was not the case. We’re firmly in the spy camp (though you can capably adventure into paramilitary and full-on military operations if you like, though that was not the central part of its design premise). Dark Matter is a great setting and one I looked at after our core material was developed (and again for the same reason). We explore some of the same territory (with the whole “investigating weird stuff” mission statement). Agents turns it on its head a great deal with the introduction of the whole espionage angle. Cold City is something I examined closely early on (subsequent to AoO’s True20 development) and it is a hyper-focused setting in a sliver of time and place and gave me a lot to mull over. I don’t know what direct influence it had on me at the end of the day, but it left a lasting impression. I’m still intrigued by their whole Secret Agenda model and that’s something I can certainly see refashioning down the road. It’s obviously there. Right? It’s not something we wanted to explore with the initial release. Perhaps down the road…Finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning Spycraft 2.0. While the first book was not on my radar at the time, this hefty tome held a place close to my computer during my work. I was inspired by the amazing amounts of stuff they shoved into those pages and it blew me away. For the spy side of things, it was incredibly rich and granular and challenged me to take some of the presented concepts and incorporate them into Agents of Oblivion.

Stargazer: Like many of your other games before, AoO uses the Savage Worlds rules. Were there any difficulties adapting SW to the espionage genre? And what additions to the core SW rules can we expect from AoO?

Sean: While I’d like to say everything fell with great alacrity upon the keyboard, there were certain obvious challenges, the biggest of which was handling resources. The false start was making the number of points a variable based upon half of Tradecraft +2. This created a double-dipping effect as Tradecraft also served as the delimiter (such as “you must have minimum Tradecraft to take this bit of gear). As a result, there were agents with very little gear of limited use and others with a lot of gear with a lot of juice. Aside from that, it was impossible for us to create any sort of comprehensive loadout packages—there were just too many variables. By making it a flat number of Resource Points (4 at Novice and scaling up), we could create three standard loadout packages (one for each branch) without too much muss and fuss. This greatly improved play. Aside from Tradecraft (which is a new skill), we added a few others, such as Demolitions and TechOps. These were introduced to create a bit more niche protection. By intent, Savage Worlds is not very granular. These added bit of granularity allowed a bit more flexibility when addressing the modern world and is offset by Agency training and loadouts.

I should underscore the biggest design goal for Agents of Oblivion is flexibility. You choose a branch at character creation and have the opportunity to shift branches each time you advance. There are no prerequisites to be in one branch or another. The three branches are Assault, Occult, and Operations and each provides you with a branch benefit which you can change at the start of each mission (essentially, a free Edge). Couple this with the loadouts (again, various gear, spytech/training, and Single Use Devices) you can swap out between missions, and you can radically alter your agent from one adventure to the next, allowing the Director (the GM) to present the characters with lots of different challenges. This also speaks to promoting character continuity and excitement and the opportunity to sample certain Edges and things you may never take otherwise. You can tailor your agent to the situation as presented to you (which may not always be how it turns out).

Powers are stripped of Power Points in an elegant fashion and, if you have Arcane Training, Powers are wide open to you. No more Rank requirements, though you suffer penalties if you reach beyond your grasp. Additionally, there are Power Mods which fundamentally change how your powers work. You can take heal and later take Power Mod: Range and heal from across the room or take the Power Mods: Area of Effect and Selective and heal your allies in the heat of battle! Your mind is probably already thinking of other (more nasty) things you can do with Power Mods already.

Extended Trait Checks, originally revealed in Iron Dynasty, were developed for Agents of Oblivion (just as Defining Interests—which originally were written for Iron Dynasty first appeared in Ravaged Earth, such is our way) and will be new to many folks. They offer up an easy way to handle things which can have a dramatic impact in play—such as defusing a bomb or hacking into a computer system before the guards show up.

For the Director, we offer up seven different campaign frameworks using campaign factors (AC-HOT). They are Alien, Conspiracy, Horror, Occult, and Tech. By adjusting them, you can create the type of game you want to play. We have mission generators, creature generators, and The Spy Sampler where we have detailed overviews of the campaign frameworks presented earlier in the work.

As you can tell, there is a lot going on in Agents of Oblivion and its inherent flexibility should shine through.

Stargazer: There’s a two year old players’ guide for AoO available at the official Reality Blurs website. How close is the material presented in this document related to the final book?

Sean: It’s not available anymore, but I’m more than happy to talk about it. When we released it, it was largely complete, but there were still some refinements we needed to make to it. It was roughly edited at the time—which is forgivable for a free PDF, right?—and many of the core concepts are still in there, just tweaked. We still have Resource Points, Spytech, SUDs, and other such items largely unchanged. Some of the work we needed to do was dependent upon bringing it into line with Savage Worlds Deluxe and expanding some of the material to work well within the changes. The original PG gave you the sense of the direction we were taking, the new work takes you to the destination. In retrospect, it could be viewed as a rough cut. The most beneficial feedback upon reflection regarded two major things—the loadouts and the power system. While they were clear to us, I realized, based upon the large number of questions, they were not quite properly explained or executed. They were near misses. I went back in and cleaned up the verbiage for the magic system and retooled the loadouts which created a cascade effect requiring modifications to Tradecraft, Resource Points, and Field Requisitions. People pointed out the muddled stuff and we made proper course corrections. While it is possible some of this could have been caught in edit, it was far more beneficial to have it exposed earlier on in the design process. Additionally, there were still some questions about the final direction we would be taking Agents of Oblivion. The largest of which was, do we consolidate all of our information into one play style or provide multiple options? If you recall, we released this just prior to our release of Realms of Cthulhu and some uncertainty existed in my mind (though not the crews) of how people were going to respond to the different play styles offered up within those pages. People really appreciated the extra effort we took with that approach, so we wanted to offer up such a sandbox in AoO.

Stargazer: I recently thought about running a game inspired by Charles Stross’ short story “A Colder War”. It’s set into an alternative timeline where Mythos creatures and even Chtulhu himself are weaponized by the superpowers during the Cold War. Do you think it would be possible to run a game like that by introducing elements from Realms of Cthulhu into Agents of Oblivion for example? Or does Agents of Oblivion support “lovecraftian” elements out of the box?

Sean: Agents of Oblivion, as originally conceived, was Mission Impossible meets Cthulhu. When Reality Blurs acquired the Cthulhu license for Savage Worlds, we opted to keep them a bit more separate in terms of product identity and focus. However, as the guy who designed the mechanics for both, I wanted to ensure they played well together (which, I admit, did factor into going with a Power Point free system for magic). Within Oblivion, there is a branch called Sigil tasked with dealing with eldritch horrors. It’s neither explored nor alluded to in Agents of Oblivion. All that being said, I have a clear vision of Sigil and notes about them sketched out and they’ll be making an upcoming appearance down the road—I cannot say exactly when, though I know

Stargazer: Is there anything else you want to share with us about AoO before we move on? Oh, by the way, when do you plan to release it?

Sean: Agents of Oblivion is out now! We released it electronically on October 10^th and it climbed to Number One on RPGNow the first day. This was no mean feat since we try to drive traffic directly to our site with special deals, like the preorder bundles we’re offering right now. I’d like to thank everyone for their show of support. You guys responded fantastically and it was truly gratifying!

Stargazer: In the introduction to this interview I mentioned Iron Dynasty. It’s a game that impressed me a lot. Can you give our readers a short description of what the game is about?

Sean: Iron Dynasty is our game of Heavy Metal Oriental Action. In other words—and here’s the thing because I called it this originally in-house—Samurai Steampunk. While an oriental fantasy, it is based off of historical Japan in a lot of ways before I liberally blurred it up and made it very much a sandbox setting where you can play a lot of different ways. I have three words: giant bamboo mecha! If you like Kurosawa flicks and high-action oriental gaming, you’ll be sure to dig it. I know I’m gushing, but for just pure fantasy it’s my go to game. It’s filled with spell-slinging ninja, angry oni armies, crazy giant robots, and angry ronin. You’ll even find some pirates in those pages and can finally see for yourself who wins in the old ninja versus pirates face-off. It sounds gonzo and can certainly go that way. However, it’s carefully balanced. We here at Reality Blurs like our chaos controlled.

Stargazer: The ID product page lists a few upcoming products. Aside from the Fantasy Craft version of Iron Dynasty there’s also Iron Dynasty: Art of War for the SW Showdown system. So will there be full range of ID miniatures? What else is planned for Iron Dynasty?

Sean: Miniatures are a very risky proposition even in the best of times and we haven’t grown to the point where I’d feel comfortable making such a large investment. There are a number of existing miniatures suitable for Iron Dynasty out there. Now that you mention it, I really need to get Art of War out there! We’ve been focusing on a lot of support products for Iron Dynasty, including a big series of Guidebooks and Kesshi Tales. We’re trying to find a window to release Iron Dynasty for Fantasy Craft (and it will be getting the accompanying support materials. Next up, we’re looking at a plot point campaign, however, we’ve not firmed up the particulars yet, so I’d be remiss at saying more than “we have things in various stages of development”. Yes, I realize it is the typical, cagey stock game designer answer even as I type it, but if I had more particulars we were ready to share, I’d let you know.

Stargazer: As far as I remember Reality Blurs was one of the first, if not the first, Savage Worlds licensee. What made you jump on the Savage Worlds bandwagon that early?

Sean: We were, in fact, the third licensee to make a deal with Pinnacle (back in 2004) and are now viewed, I suppose, as part of the Old Guard. We are the last remaining original licensee with Pinnacle making a deal with 12 to Midnight for their Pinebox material and them sadly shutting down independent operations and Legion (with its principles of Simon Lucas and Robin Eliot) to be subsequently reformed as Triple Ace Games (with its principles of Paul “Wiggy” Wade-Williams and Robin Eliot). Ed Wetterman of 12 to Midnight and I have been buddies for a number of years now and he worked on Agents of Oblivion with me and presently serves as its line developer.

My path to Savage Worlds is rather unusual. I had been running a weekly game of 3.5 D&D and the players were delving through a massive dungeon. I had worked on this new level to reflect a change in tone from traditional orcs and goblins to a more Lovecraftian vibe (yes, this was in 2004, but I’ve long been a fan of HPL). The introductory scene was to paint a picture to them of this darker, more twisted atmosphere and was exciting…on paper. In play, it didn’t work out well. The one combat took hours and my players (as well as myself) felt it was (rightly so) a huge grind and we yearned for less debates about the mechanics, speedier play, and more fun. I jumped on the computer and began evaluating a LOT of systems. At the time, HARP (by Iron Crown Enterprises), FATE, and Savage Worlds were the three frontrunners. HARP had a lot of crunch and reminded me a lot of MERP (Middle Earth Roleplaying)—I knew this was something my guys, ultimately, wouldn’t really play. I saw FATE as having lot of potential yet neither the system nor I had evolved enough yet for me to really take said plunge (though it certainly has come a long way in the last few years). Savage Worlds immediately drew me in. I knew Shane had something special. I was familiar with Deadlands and I liked the way you could simply and elegantly create characters like those found in novels and cinema, yet, these characters still retained a certain degree of humanity, of vulnerability. While you could be an axe-wielding barbarian or a masterful sorcerer, you were not guaranteed victory regardless of your power level. Uncertainty is a very powerful element to include in a game. This keeps the players’ attention. As a longtime GURPS player (once upon a time), I liked how Savage Worlds offered up a really clean core system and had plenty of opportunities for extensibility. Though I entertained no thoughts for a long time of ever becoming a designer, I was compelled to send off a pitch to Shane about RunePunk and when my crew came over the following week, I showed them my copy of Savage Worlds and 50 Fathoms and said “We’re playing this now as I’m going to be developing for it.” They thought I was crazy then and probably even more so now!

Stargazer: Over the years Reality Blurs has released products for True20, Savage Worlds and Fantasy Craft. Are you currently planning to support other game systems as well or perhaps even to design your own system?

Sean: Yes.

Stargazer: While I was compiling these questions I talked with a couple of friends and asked them if they had any questions they wanted to ask you. I was a bit surprised that most of them haven’t heard of Reality Blurs yet, a few have heard of your games though. I think you actually jokingly called Reality Blurs “the biggest RPG publisher nobody knows” yourself. Do you have a theory why a lot of gamers haven’t heard from you yet? And is there anything your fans can do to help you change this?

Sean: This one has stymied us internally for quite some time and all we have is mainly theories. I’ll posit a few for you and maybe you or your readers can provide some illuminating answers for us. The most obvious reason is we’ve been historically deliberate in our work. As such, we have a solid reputation and reach a higher level of awareness we aren’t able to capitalize upon as we diligently work on the next thing. We’ve been taking steps with it and this year has been particularly good to us, so I think brand awareness is starting to spread. I’ve been a lot more active in social media and have religiously posted The Razorwise Report on the Reality Blurs site. Another thing—and this may sound weird—but we don’t make a bunch of mistakes in our work. A lot of questions generated on websites and forums are questions about why does x work or how does y work. If we’re on our game, you won’t have to ask us. Other reasons are a number of our games have had things working against us until now. RunePunk is a whole lot of fun, but it is a difficult elevator pitch. Would I change that as my initial release? I’ve thought hard about it and I learned a lot and showed folks I can do some outré design work and it is where I really cut my teeth with Savage Worlds. As we’ve progressed, we’ve increased the number of our releases and are working with settings more within the norm in a number of ways. You might’ve thought Realms of Cthulhu would be our break out game (we considered it as a possibility) and it did radically heighten people’s awareness of my design chops both within and without the community and is well regarded, we just need to give the fans something of real substance to dig their teeth into—essentially, the Savages need a setting to call their own. With Echo, I hope to deliver upon the promise of potential found within Realms of Cthulhu as I clearly define and share my vision of the Mythos. In some ways, I did my job too well, as the Sanity system sings, I recall getting a lot of buzz speculating how it couldn’t be done. Agents of Oblivion is an easy sell compared to a lot of the things we’ve talked about. Horror-espionage? Superspies and alien? Mission Impossible Meets The X-Files? This is something which resonates strongly with gamers and we’re hitting this at the right time, I think. Savage Worlds has greatly matured and its base is expanding and I’m taking strides to be known beyond the community.

I’m proud to claim a base of smart, well-read folks. However, they generally do not post often or are very active on the web. They prefer to email me directly. I get a lot of regular correspondence from folks who write to say “great work” or “thank you” or “you made my day!” This is cool. This shows I’m making a connection with folks and, evidently, folks feel comfortable talking with me. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is something the letter writers and everyone who likes Reality Blurs can do.

Post publicly. I note the people who have issues generally post publicly. I don’t mind that, but if you want to show your support do these things.

1. Spread the word about us at conventions, local game stores, wherever.
2. Through social media. Help me get to a thousand followers on Twitter. Why not? Make that happen. If you’re not a follower, use your social media outlets to spread the word.
3. Through websites.
4. Support your local game store.
5. Tell your friends.
6. Help us get an active community going on our forums.
7. Send suggestions on what I can do to heighten our awareness. Better yet, post them on our website.

This was a good question and I may have gone a bit long. I thought once upon a time focusing on expanding my brand would be simply perceived as mercenary, but we’re offering some good stuff here. Help me connect. I’m often lost in layout and the reverie of writing and lose touch with the outside world. Together, we can put Reality Blurs on the tip of everyone’s tongue!

Stargazer: Before I let you return to work on Agents of Oblivion there’s something I need to know. What was the first roleplaying game you ever played and how and when did you enter the “industry”?

Sean: I recall being born with a D20 in my hand. Or near enough. I go all the way back to the beginning with Original D&D and Chainmail and all the early loveliness. I was in the industry as a kid, just from the retail side. My family had Viking Hobbies, a hobby store which introduced roleplaying games (D&D at the time, later others) to the Mid-South area of the United States (Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas). I recall doing playtests for Yaquinto (Man, Myth, & Magic anyone?) and meeting Jean Wells. Mainly, I placed orders and such and ran tournament games. Prior to starting up Reality Blurs, I had done some freelance stuff for Neverwinter Nights with Bioware. That’s an interesting story. I became active in the community on day one and they soon after made me a moderator in the DM’s Section. I went on to create the DMFI (Dungeon Master’s Friendly Initiative) and eventually to work a bit with the guys there on The Witch’s Wake, the first free module they released using some of the document support I drafted up. It was my first time behind the curtain, working with developers, and getting to see the early iterations of work. I did do some playtesting for Green Ronin for Warhammer Third Edition for a short time, but within a month of that time I had started up the company and the rest is history. I’ll add a far shorter answer here at the end: Reality Blurs started up in June 2004 (or thereabouts).

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time, Sean. It was a pleasure! One last thing, do you have anything to share with our readers that I forgot to ask?

Sean: I think I covered just about everything, though I’d just like to invite people to follow me at RealityBlurs on Twitter and Facebook and to put me in their Google+ Circles for the latest news and mad ramblings and deals. They should also check out The Razorwise Report at realityblurs.com where I regularly post about writing, design, and whatever other things that cross my mind at the time. I better get back to it—I’m sure I should be working on something! Thank you. I enjoyed this immensely.

Stargazer: Thanks for your answers, Sean! As always it was a pleasure talking to you! Take care!

Related posts:

1. Interview: Shane Hensley and Matthew Cutter
2. Interview with Chad Underkoffler
3. Interview with David Bezio

Stargazer: Thanks for taking your time to answer a few questions for our blog, Stargazer’s World. Let’s start with a couple of questions about you. Can you please tell our readers who you you are? I especially would like to know what your first roleplaying game was and how you came to work in the RPG industry.

Sarah: My name’s Sarah Newton, and I work for Cubicle 7 as head of their editorial team and line developer and house writer on the Starblazer Adventures, Legends of Anglerre, Cthulhu Britannica, and World War Cthulhu lines. I’m also responsible for their translated games, including Qin and the upcoming Yggdrasil. I’ve been gaming for (cough cough) over thirty years, and am absolutely passionate about the hobby. I began with Tunnels and Trolls back in 1980 – the old pink "Buffalo Castle" was the very first RPG product I ever bought, even before the rules, and I ended up having to make my own rules to play it! After that I got into Traveller, RuneQuest, Dungeons and Dragons (White Box then AD&D), and then pretty much all major RPGs right up to the present day, with the exception of White Wolf, which for some reason I kind of missed – I’ve only recently discovered Exalted, though I like it a lot.

I got working on RPGs through a curious quirk of fate. Back in 2008 Jason Durall was producing his bumper "Basic Roleplaying" rulesbook for Chaosium, and, as a lifelong d100 / BRP fan, I’d pre-ordered a copy. It came through prior to proofing; in a previous life, I used to write functional specifications for web development, so proofing is something I do instinctively, and I asked Jason if he’d like me to send him some proofs. He said yes, and introduced me to Charlie and Dustin at Chaosium, who expressed an interest in my "Chronicles of Future Earth" setting. That was my first ever RPG commission – although it was only published last January! After that I got into the FATE system and met Chris Birch, who’d just written Starblazer Adventures, and wrote Mindjammer and did the lead on Legends of Anglerre, which was where I started working for Cubicle 7.

Stargazer: Who are the RPG designers and SF writers that inspired you the most?

Sarah: I think I’d have to say Greg Stafford for RPG designer: the world of Glorantha and particularly its cosmology have been a constant inspiration since I "discovered" RuneQuest back in 1981. His inclusion of concepts from Joseph Campbell in roleplaying is a stroke of genius, and exactly fits the sort of things I’m looking for in a game: the quest of a hero for transcendence and transformation, and of course rollicking good adventure on the way!

For SF writers, there are two: Cordwainer Smith and Olaf Stapledon, the latter particularly for his book "Starmaker". Smith has again a mythopoetic approach to his SF; he’s by no means a hard SF writer, but instead groks that the genre is about wonder, speculation, and the possibilities for human beings to transcend their limitations towards something far greater. Olaf Stapledon is simply breathtaking in his vision: considering he was writing in the 1930s, his ideas are only now being discussed seriously in the scientific mainstream. That’s an amazing power of vision.

For modern SF writers, I love Stephen Baxter and Peter Hamilton, and of course Ian Banks. I’ve also recently got into Gareth L Powell, particularly his novel "The Recollection", which is beautifully written space opera, and absolutely great stuff.

Stargazer: Most people probably know you because you have been one of the authors of Legends of Anglerre, the FATE-based fantasy roleplaying game by Cubicle 7. Can you tell us how you got involved in that project? And can you please share some insight on the development process. What was your goal when working on that game?

Sarah: I had the great privilege to work as lead writer and editor on Legends of Anglerre, thanks to the awesome support of Chris Birch and Dom and Angus from Cubicle 7. I’d just finished working on the Mindjammer setting book for Starblazer Adventures, and Chris invited me aboard to work on what we were calling "Starblazer Fantasy Adventures". I jumped at the chance – it’s a rare opportunity to be involved in building a complete fantasy roleplaying game from the ground up!

There were five of us closely involved in the development of Legends of Anglerre: me, Chris Birch, Mike Olson, Tom Miskey, and Marc Reyes, as well as writers such as Mike Chinn (the original writer of the Anglerre stories on the Starblazer comics) and David Donachie, who’s an Anglerre expert and a great cartographer – look for his work in the upcoming Legends of Anglerre Companion! We used to "meet up" for Skype conference calls once every week or so; we divided the necessary tasks between us, and I acted as project manager assembling the various contributions into a single manuscript. We also had a truly great playtest and peer review team on the Cubicle 7 forums, who bashed the rules around and helped us bug-check all through the process – I can’t thank all those guys enough, their contribution was invaluable.

My own goal with Legends of Anglerre was shared with Chris Birch: we wanted the game to really be the fantasy version of Starblazer. Completely compatible, for those cross-genre "fantasy spaceships" mashups, but also an absolutely complete game in one volume, with no need for endless splat books. We were also under clear instructions from both gamers and Cubicle 7 management *not* to write another 650-page monster! We condensed and edited and brought the entire thing in under 400 pages – still easily enough to kill someone with a single blow, but light enough to lift with one arm!

The thing is, although the Legends of Anglerre rules are simple and short – believe it or not, the entire rules are about 20 pages long, presented in the first and second chapters – we wanted the game to contain everything you’d need to run a full fantasy campaign in pretty much any genre. There’s plenty of scope for introducing your own flexibility – inventing your own spells, stunts, creatures, whatever – but if you *don’t* want to do that, there’s also plenty of pre-generated powers to use. There are rules for ships, sieges, running kingdoms (and staging fights between kingdoms!), guilds, empires, magic schools, and so on; there are rules for mass combat, high-powered and even godlike characters, other planes, extremely powerful creatures, creating magic items, the whole range of things you’d expect from a complete fantasy RPG – all in one book!

Stargazer: What part of Legends of Anglerre is your favorite? And was there something particularly complicated to implement using the FATE system?

Sarah: I love the powers system. We derived that from the psionics and special abilities rules in Starblazer Adventures, re-structuring them to be more logical and systematized, whilst retaining an incredible degree of freedom for spellcasters and the like. We were really keen to make sure the powers were flexible enough to work as magical spells, divine powers, monstrous creature abilities, however you want to describe them, and also to take advantage of the incredibly free-form feature set of the core Starblazer / Legends of Anglerre skill system. Starblazer Adventures, for example, lets you use a mundane skill (let’s say a weapon skill) to attack, defend, block, and perform manoeuvres; it allows a player to get truly creative with what he does with a skill, within the framework of the rules. We took that freedom, and plugged it into the powers system; now, for example, a spellcaster can use his Fire power skill to attack, defend, block other attacks, resist fire, and even create impressive fire-based manoeuvres, and then create stunts to do the really extra-cool high power stuff. We then took that into the epic and mythic space with the high-power rules, too.

I’m also very proud of the advancement system. FATE previously didn’t really have a well-defined advancement system, but a fantasy RPG needs one as a basic requirement – everyone wants to see their characters get more powerful and cool as they play. We worked very hard to make sure the advancement system wasn’t simply an "experience point" system, but was built into all aspects of the game – so you can use it not just to improve your own abilities, but to advance your own guild, warband, or even kingdom, or explore the powers of a magical item, or increase your prestige in your community. You can even become a god!

Stargazer: As far as I know you’ll be also working on the 2nd Edition of Starblazer Adventures. Can you please share with us what will be new in this upcoming edition. Will it be necessary for owners of the first edition to upgrade or are there are mostly minor changes?

Sarah: First: you don’t need to upgrade, but we hope you’ll want to. Starblazer Adventures 2nd edition is exactly that: it’s a new *edition* – it’s been re-edited. That means it’s been re-structured, some of the wording has been changed, there are clearer (and more) examples, and the typos and bugs of the 1st edition have been fixed. We’ve also taken the opportunity to include some of the new rules from Legends of Anglerre, such as future aspects, group characters, and the Fog of War mass combat rules. Structurally, the game is now in two books: a Player’s Guide and a Story Teller’s Guide, each approximately the same size. We had a lot of feedback on Starblazer 1st edition that the rulesbook was simply too big, and that players wanted something more portable they could read and use in play and for character creation. We’ve taken that on board, and the Player’s Guide contains everything players will need for the game, up to and including the core system rules.

We’ve also tweaked the equipment rules, the layout look n feel, character sheet, vehicles rules, and also included the trading rules I’d worked up for Mindjammer Adventures. We hope people will be keen to upgrade – although the 1st edition rules remain completely usable!

Stargazer: It occurred to me that a lot of FATE games like the aforementioned Starblazer Adventures, Diaspora and Bulldogs! are actually SF or Space Opera games. Do you think there’s a particular reason why FATE is used or is it just a sign of the popularity of the game system?

Sarah: I’m personally surprised FATE isn’t used more widely in all genres, although it does lend itself very well to a pulpy, action-packed style of play. In my own humble opinion, I think science-fiction roleplaying has been a bit dogged by a very serious, hard scifi approach, which is great for certain genres of roleplaying, but not particularly for action-packed space opera. To be completely honest, I don’t think there *was* a fully-featured, action-packed, cinematic space opera RPG system before Starblazer Adventures – I’ve been GMing science-fiction RPGs since the very beginning, and Starblazer is the first to feel properly space opera and let you play through the classic space opera tropes. Again, that’s all IMHO, of course!

Whilst I’ve not read Diaspora, I do own and love Bulldogs! – it’s a great game with a cool and very specific setting, with an awesome Starship Troopers feel. I love what Brennan and his team have done with the game, and wish them huge success. I think there’s loads of room for FATE love in the RPG community – it’s only been 5 years since Fred, Rob, and Lenny invented the FATE 3 system, and it’s certainly changed my RPG life. It was awesome seeing them sweep the board at the ENnies this year – congrats again, guys!

Stargazer: Apropos FATE and SF: You are the author of the Mindjammer setting for SBA and an upcoming novel of the same name. Can you tell us a bit about both? And can you give us some updates on the progress on the second edition of Mindjammer?

Sarah: Mindjammer is my attempt to write my perfect science-fiction setting. We’re now in the second decade of the 21st century, and the nature of science-fiction has gone through massive changes since the invention of SF roleplaying in the 1970s. We’ve been through 80s space opera, right through cyberpunk and beyond, and even surpassed the transhuman and singularity movements, to the extent that "transhuman science-fiction" is almost a tautology – pretty much *all* modern science-fiction is transhuman in one way or another!

I think science-fiction roleplaying should reflect that, whilst retaining its awesome, maximum game fun, action-packed feel. Mindjammer attempts to do that, by introducing transhuman themes such as longevity, augmentation, technological psionics, sentient starships, memory uploads (and downloads), and much more as the basic assumptions of the setting. Since winning the ENnie Judges Spotlight Award in 2010, we’ve been working on the Mindjammer 2nd edition, with heaps of new content and all new artwork by the enormously talented Paul Bourne. It should be out towards the end of this year, and followed by numerous other supplements.

The Mindjammer novel is Cubicle 7′s first foray into fiction to support its RPG lines, and is a 400-odd page action-packed novel of transhuman adventure, set right in the New Commonality of Humankind. If you know the Mindjammer supplement, you’ll already know some of the main characters. I’m personally very excited about the Mindjammer novel – it’s not only a cracking story of far future space opera, cinematic and geared up to gamer expectations, it’s also proper science-fiction in its own right, dealing with some of the implications of the hyper-advanced technologies which the Commonality has. The story deals with a team of troubleshooters working for SCI Force – the Security and Cultural Integrity Instrumentality – working with a culture which is being "Rediscovered" by the Commonality, and which isn’t dealing with the culture shock very well.  What they discover – well, I won’t give any more away than to say it could threaten the Commonality itself!  You can read more in the novel itself, available online and in good hobby stores everywhere from mid-October; check out www.mindjammer.com for more!

Stargazer: While doing some research for this interview I noticed that you have written “The Chronicles of Future Earth” for Basic Roleplaying. I actually bought a copy of that book mainly because I was intrigued by the setting. Alas I was a bit disappointed that the scope of the setting was quite limited. Do you think there will be more material for the Future Earth in the future?

Sarah: Definitely yes! The Chronicles of Future Earth was my first ever RPG book, and originally was pitched to be five times as long – well over 200-300 pages! Chaosium obviously didn’t know me as a writer at all, so were quite naturally cautious, and preferred the first book to be more modestly sized, which is the book you see today. They’ve asked me to write a player’s guide for the Venerable Autocracy, which I’m in the process of doing, and hopefully that will hit the shelves during 2012. I also have material for a trilogy of campaign scenarios and several supplements, so there’s plenty more if people want to see it. Everyone has said very kind things about Chronicles, and at the same time said they wanted more, so hopefully we’ll be able to oblige!

Stargazer: Is there anything else you’re currently working on? What else would you like to share with our readers that I forgot to ask you?

Sarah: Most of all, I’d like to say thanks to gamers everywhere for keeping our hobby going. It’s thanks to everyone’s passion, enthusiasm, support and dedication that people like me are able to produce games, and it’s a great honour and a privilege. Sites like Stargazer’s World play a crucial role in this, and great thanks and kudos to you, Michael, for your dedication in keeping it going. It’s a great hobby to be a part of!

For me, the next year or three are looking busy, with lots of material coming out for Starblazer and Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre, Chronicles, and Cubicle 7′s upcoming Call of Cthulhu sourcebook "World War Cthulhu". For Starblazer, we have the long-awaited Planet Killers, and a very exciting new setting which we’ll be announcing in the new year; for Mindjammer, we have the second edition "Mindjammer – The Expansionary Era", Mindjammer Adventures, Planeships and Slowboats, a Commonality atlas, and PDF scenarios; for Legends of Anglerre, the upcoming Companion, plus a trilogy of scenarios, and an exciting historical fantasy setting sourcebook. I’m also working on two more Mindjammer novels, and some other fiction projects which have to remain under wraps for now. It’s a hugely exciting time to be working in the industry!

Thanks again for the opportunity to be interviewed, Michael, and best wishes to yourself and everybody reading Stargazer’s World. Happy gaming!

Stargazer: Thank you for taking your time answering our questions. Good luck with the Mindjammer novel and all your other current and upcoming projects! Take care!

By the way, you can follow Sarah Newton online at her website sarahnewtonwriter.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Interview: Evil Hat Productions
2. An ICONic interview: Steve Kenson!
3. Interview: Bill Coffin

Stargazer: Let’s start with the inevitable introductions. Could you please tell our readers who you are and what your part in the development of Airship Pirates was?

Peter: Hi, I’m Peter Cakebread, one half of Cakebread & Walton, a UK company whose RPG books are published by Cubicle 7. I co-wrote the Airship Pirates RPG with Ken Walton.

Ken: And I’m Ken Walton.

Captain Robert: I’m “Captain” Robert. The world of Airship Pirates is based on my work. I’ve been writing and releasing albums for 20 years, and the lyrics of those often seem set in a very unique retro sci-fi world. When Peter and Ken first approached me with the idea of making this world the setting of an RPG I was already working on a novel. I sent them the novel, and the lyrics, and then I helped gather and organise illustrators (I did some of the illustrations myself, including the cover art) and I did the graphic design of the game book.

Stargazer: We’ve seen a lot of RPGs based on licensed settings in the past, but I think this was the first time a game has been based on songs. May I ask who came up with the idea to create a game based on the songs of Abney Park in the first place?

Peter: Ken approached Captain Robert with the idea, and Captain Robert replied that he had already thought the Abney Park world would make a cool RPG. After a flurry of emails we realized that we would have the privilege of developing a game jam-packed with awesome with a dazzling set of collaborators.

Ken: Yes, it was all my fault. “Let’s email a band on the other side of the Atlantic and see if they want us to write an RPG based on their songs,” I said. “It’s crazy, but it might just work!” I little realised quite how well it would work. The fact that Angus Abramson at Cubicle 7 just happened to be a big Abney Park fan didn’t do any harm either.

Captain Robert: Cakebread and Walton’s brilliance was the fact that they could do it, and do such an amazing job at it! People had regularly approached me with the idea of making an RPG out of the world, but I would soon found they had never made an RPG before, let alone brought it to market. Peter and Ken have a fantastic reputation, and have made some remarkable games, so it was actually a relief for me to final say yes!

Stargazer: I always have a bit of a problem when I try to explain “steampunk” to someone. How would you explain what steampunk is all about? How is this reflected in the game?

Captain Robert: A Steampunk setting is either a sci-fi era with Victorian flavours, or Victorian era with sci-fi flavours. The core book for Airship Pirates is post-apocalypse sci-fi with a Victorian flavour. We have started working on a follow up book that will deal with traveling in the past, and that’s were you will find the Victorian world with sci-fi flavours.

Peter: Big question. As I see it, at first it started with the dreamers of the Victorian age imagining their own future, now its a retro look at the Victorian age with a dystopian twist.

Its a genre, a scene and a whole opportunity to ask, what if? What if Victorian fashion and sensibilities persisted into the modern age? What if instead of diesel and computers there were airships and difference engines? What if Victorian hierarchy and stiff upper lips had to cope with a whole different set of challenges?

We were lucky – Captain Robert and Abney Park have a tremendous following in the steampunk community. Captain Robert had a very clear idea about the world he wanted us to write about – he already had a novel in the works, telling the story of how Abney Park screwed up the timelines and the consequences for humanity. He was also keen to keep the punk in Steampunk – meaning that its a dark and gritty post-apocalyptic future. So, with a setting inspired by the Abney Park songs, it’s a world full of the weird, the cool and the adventuresome. Airships, check. Pirates, check. Time travel, check. Rum-fueled epic adventure, check.

Stargazer: Airship Pirates is an awesome game and I enjoyed reading it very much, but one thing surprised me: there are no stats for the HMS Ophelia and her crew. Was this deliberate or an oversight? And is there a chance we’ll get game stats for Abney Park in the future?

Peter: It was deliberate. Although the book is a result of Robert’s vision he felt that the band themselves shouldn’t overshadow the game world. You get to play in the Abney Park world, but you are the heroes. Due to demand I think he’s relented – some fans are just going to want to meet, or play as, the band. So he’s made their “stats” available.

Captain Robert: I didn’t want us in the core book, because I wanted to make sure people were exploring the world of Abney Park, not the rock stars. A game about the world behind the lyrics is cool, an RPG about a bunch of musicians and singers would be stupid. That said, by the time your reading this you will be able to download the Ophelia, and the band Character sheets from our online store.

Stargazer: Airship Pirates uses a modified Heresy Engine which was designed for Victoriana 2nd Edition. What are the major differences between the streamlined engine and the original one?

Peter: The Heresy Engine is great – its simple “good dice, bad dice” mechanic is easy for beginners, while still offering plenty of “crunch”. Airship Pirates is not that different from the excellent Victoriana 2nd edition, but there are a few less modifiers to keep track of and the style is more stripped down as we are trying to evoke a slightly different mood. That said, anyone wanting to run Airship Pirates and throw a little Victoriana or Dark Harvest into the game, or vice versa, won’t have a problem.

Stargazer: From what I’ve seen so far everyone who read a copy of Airship Pirates was quite delighted and longing for more material. What do you have in store for us when it comes to supplements, adventures etc.?

Ken: There will be a lot of support for the game. The Ruined Empires scenario is already available, and we have plenty more ideas for longer campaign style adventures. We also have various sourcebooks in the pipeline. There is going to be culture sourcebooks for the Skyfolk, Neovictorians and Neobedouins. Before then we will be releasing Blasting the Past,  a time travel supplement which will give players and GMs a chance to learn more about the setting’s past, and the means to screw up the timelines even more. That said, steampunk, clockpunk, dieselpunk and pulppunk is going to remain the backdrop throughout Blasting the Past. It’s going to be awesome getting to use time as a sandbox for airborne piratical mischief.

Stargazer: Even though I love the music of Abney Park I don’t think it’s suited as background music while running the game itself. In my opinion the lyrics tend to distract from the game. Robert, have you ever thought about creating music especially composed for use as background music for the game? Or is there certain music you would recommend for that purpose?

Peter: Heresy! I’d play Abney Park. That said, Abney Park creating a dedicated game soundtrack would be a dream come true. Aside from that, I’m not the chap to ask as most of the rest of my music collection is punkpunk and not suitable for general or even individual listening.

Ken: Even if you don’t play the music throughout, you can always start a game session with the track Airship Pirate as the “opening theme music” for the evening. In fact, thinking about it, you could run a scene, leave it on a cliffhanger, then play Airship Pirate. It works for Firefly!

Captain Robert: An album full of versions of the music with the singing removed could work, and wouldn’t be a ridiculous about of work. Writing a score from scratch would take as much time as writing a whole album. I think I have more then a few fans that would be pissed at me writing music without having more of the lyrics that created this world in the first place. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, your really asking for an album of Abney Park Easy Listening music. I’m not likely to make that. =8;)

Stargazer: One of the themes of Airship Pirates is time travel. Imagine you had a time machine, where would you travel to? Is there a certain era in history you would love to experience first hand and why?

Peter: I’m a history fanatic. That said, it’s a dangerous place. Ken and I have written a novel set in the Victorian era, and I’d like to visit there just out of vanity, to see if we nailed the visuals. I don’t know that I’d want to visit the seventeenth century, even though I’ve loved learning about it for Clockwork & Chivalry. I guess the real temptation would be Ancient Rome. It would be shocking, gruesome, and I wouldn’t want to have to learn the lingo, but I’m fascinated by the similarities and differences with our own age. And I reckon they knew how to throw a good party.

Ken: Hmm, not sure I’d want to actually visit the past – most of it’s smelly and dangerous and full of diseases! If I liked that sort of thing I’d be an explorer, not a role-playing writer. But I guess being on the Graf Zeppelin for its round-the-world flight would be an experience, and I’d love to see what pre-Roman Britain was like – as long as you could guarantee I wouldn’t get eaten by wolves or slaughtered by Celts.

Captain Robert: Any time in which man wasn’t so dominant a species. Time travel seems a better way to get some space than to dream of everybody turning into zombies, and then sawing them up with a chain saw.

Actually, that’s pretty fun, too.

Stargazer: Apropos history, can you divulge some details on your personal roleplaying history? What was the first roleplaying game you have played?

Peter: AD&D in the schoolyard. It had been out a couple of years, but I think it only hit the toy shop in our town in about 1981. As kids we probably mangled the game as much as we massacred the monsters, but I loved it. Over the next few months I played anything and everything I could get my hands on – Tunnels and Trolls (Oh, how I loved the “Rat on a Stick” adventure for T&T by Judges Guild), Call of the Cthulhu, Runequest, Gangbusters, Boot Hill, and later, MERP, Warhammer FRPG, Paranoia, etc. I had to do a lot of paper rounds and summer jobs to raise the cash and still find the funds for cider, comics, minis, music and movies. It was worth it.

Ken: I didn’t get to role-play until I was 22, when I was invited to join an ongoing MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing) game. I soon discovered I loved GMing and ran a six-and-a-half year long HarnWorld campaign using GURPS. I also ran Warhammer FRP’s Enemy Within Campaign (twice!), and lots of other things; Call of Cthulhu, Space 1889, Forgotten Futures, Talislanta, as well as playing in a long Everway campaign and running an epic GURPS Celtic Myth/HarnWorld crossover game. I wrote a number of RPG supplements and magazine articles with my  ex-wife Jo Walton (now an award-winning fantasy author) including GURPS Celtic Myth and Realms of Sorcery for WFRP. I think probably most GMs who do a lot of creating campaigns for their players end up wanting to do it professionally – it’s a logical progression. Currently, as a complete change of scenery from the games we write by day, I’m running a Dragon Age campaign in which Peter is a player.

Captain Robert: The first game I played was D&D, followed shortly by Star Frontiers. I sort of abandoned games after that. Since I like to DM, I preferred to make up my own world on the spot, then to follow some one else’s world.

Stargazer: There’s one question not related to Airship Pirates that I would like to ask to Peter and Ken: can you please tell us a bit about the second edition of Clockwork & Chivalry and the Renaissance system? Why has it become necessary to drop the Runequest System?

Ken: Clockwork & Chivalry is a fantasy game set in an alternate version of the English Civil War. The royalist side have powerful alchemical magick, while Cromwell’s troops have massive clockwork war machines. There are lots of factions with different political and religious agendas, mixed in with witches, dragons, zombies and a whole host of weird and wonderful characters, some real, some imaginary. It’s a mashup of very real history and gritty fantasy – if you come at it from a historian’s point of view you’ll find a lot you’ll recognise, but if you know nothing about history you can dive into it as a sort of dark swashbuckling clockpunk fantasy world.

When Mongoose Publishing announced that they were giving up the RuneQuest license, we had a decision to make about where we were going next with C&C. We quickly decided that having our independence from game licenses would be good, but we didn’t want to have to redesign the game from scratch. So we set about designing the Renaissance system – based on the D100 OpenQuest and Mongoose RuneQuest Open Gaming License systems, but redesigned for the age of black powder weapons. We’ve tweaked a lot of the rules and shifted the focus very much for the early modern period – roughly the tech and social levels of 1500 to 1900. The Renaissance core mechanics will be released as a free download under the OGL, and Clockwork & Chivalry will be a big 400+ page book, including all the rules and background you need to play. We’ll be re-releasing the first four parts of the Kingdom & Commonwealth campaign for the new system, and then the last two books in the series. The two systems will be similar enough that people will be able to convert to C&C2 or carry on using RuneQuest II if they prefer. We’ve also got lots of ideas for other games we can develop using the Renaissance rules. The Renaissance system is fast, heroic, and more than a little gruesome.

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a few questions. Is there anything else you wanted to share with our readers that I forgot to ask?

Peter: It’s been a pleasure. (I can’t think of anything else)

Ken: Thanks! (I can’t think of anything else either…)

Captain Robert: If you ever use me as a Character in your games, make sure you don’t embarrass me too badly.

Stargazer: Thanks for answering those questions, Ken, Peter and Robert! And good luck with all of your future projects! And Robert, don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you. Promised!

Related posts:

1. Excited about Airship Pirates
2. Airship Pirates preview
3. First impressions: Abney Park’s Airship Pirates

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a couple of questions for Stargazer’s World. Let’s start with some introductions. Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Iain: Never quite know what to say to that. Erm… I’m a 43 year old Scottish freelance writer, and I’ve been doing this writing thing full time for about 15 years now. Long enough that I can’t quite remember when I started. I write for anyone who pays me, and can turn my hand to most things. My CV is the kind of eclectic mix that only a jobbing writer can justify, as my LinkedIn profile can attest.

I’m disappointed that, despite my best efforts, I’ve yet to be directly vilified by the Daily Mail. I mean, dammit guys, I write for the console games industry, write twisted horror RPGs, I’m an atheist, utterly despise the current government, and was brought up by a single parent, hard working mother! C’mon! Open goal!!

Stargazer: One question I love to ask writers and designers is how they got into the hobby. What was the first roleplaying game you played and what roleplaying games did you play and enjoy in the past? Are you currently playing in a regular game?

Iain: Ah, I remember it like it was… well, a long time ago. I was at Peebles High School, and on one of my regular lunchtime visits to the local toy and book store in town when I spotted a book called something like ‘What Is D&D?’ There had been some furore in the media (the daily televised car crash that was Nationwide, I think) about these new-fangled RPGs which, of course, made me want to join in the fun – I wanted to summon daemons like them kids in America!! It all sounded like fun but, in the days before teh internets, there was no easy way of getting hold of new things, particularly in the charming backwaters of the Scottish Borders.

Weeks later, the charming backwaters of the Scottish Borders proved me wrong and stocked ‘Warlock of Firetop Mountain’ and I was immediately addicted. Nationwide did not approve, which made it all even better. Not long after this, my Peebles mecca had on its shelf the Holy of Holies – red box D&D. I still have the dice. Ah, good times…

Since then I’ve played in loads of different RPGs. I’ve run the old WEG Star Wars D6 system (still my favourite), Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, Vampire, and a bit of MERP and D&D. I’ve also LARPed, and written and run LARP horror games. That was amazingly amazing and I really want to do more of that.

I’m not playing anything at the moment, save console stuff. Not even any WoW for me. If I tried a MMORG I would cease to produce any work of any kind so I stay away.

Stargazer: I recently had a look at your LinkedIn profile and was surprised on how many cool projects you’ve worked on. What was – aside from Dark Harvest – your favorite project so far? Is there anything you would love to go back to in the future?

Iain: I’ve worked on screeds of Star Wars stuff. I worked it out the other day – 12 or 13 of the past 15 years have been spent on official Star Wars projects. These have been mostly partworks things, published by De Agostini. Lots of fun, if very hard work at times. It’s a source of great geeky pride that I can point to a few tiny elements of the galaxy far, far away and say “I did that”.

A moment of particular immense geeky pride came when my friend Marcus Hearn, editor of the Official Star Wars Fact File, told me he’d given the material I wrote about Count Dooku to Christopher Lee. Apparently, Lee said it was the most information on the character he’d had at that time. This was before he filmed Episode III. I don’t think my feet touched the ground for weeks after that.

Right. Enough name dropping. Don’t you hate that? Ugh…

On the non-Dark Harvest RPG & LARP side, I’m stupidly happy that I’ve given at least one player of my old Cthulhu campaign at university actual nightmares. I’m very proud to say that, during a Cthulhu LARP I wrote and ran, the team and I so frightened a seasoned player with a Hunting Horror assault that he was almost shaking too much to load his pistol. The same game saw the joyous moment where the players sang Bohemian Rhapsody, segueing into American Pie, complete with harmonies, to disrupt a summoning. It was a spine-tingling moment of much joy.

And a complete location joke, like most RPG tales.

Moving on…

Stargazer: Let’s turn our attention to “Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein” now. When I remember correctly, you have been working on Dark Harvest for quite a long time. Can you please tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea in the first place and how that idea developed into the game that has been released by Cubicle 7 recently?

Iain: Wow. Big question. Long answer.

Dark Harvest began with a conversation in my head between Frankenstein and the Creature, both in their dotage, sitting on the deck of an old ocean liner with blankets over their legs. They were having a laugh about the good old days. That conversation happened in around 1999 (in my head – the chat on the boat was set in around 1920).

I sat down to try to write the story, but then I got all distracted. Lots of ‘what if…?’ things began to happen. I was hugely influenced in what happened next by a trip to Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh (my home city). I’d never been, despite living in Edinburgh for years, but took an actress acquaintance and her friend (hey Chase and Lolita!!) as an excuse to go myself. I’d thoroughly recommend it – http://www.realmarykingsclose.com/

Edinburgh’s Royal Mile was a physical manifestation of the societal pyramid, which is a nobby way of saying that the poor folks lived in the sub-sub-sub cellars while the rich lived above them in the light. Add in the resurrection men, robbing graves or killing folks to provide bodies to the medical schools, and you can begin to see where the whole Dark Harvest thing came from.

I kept trying to write a story based on what was in my head. Other elements began to intrude – Palpatine/Sidious in the Prequel trilogy; Medieval and Roman politics; Bruce Campbell’s Surgeon General in Escape From L.A.; Victorian industrialists’ treatment of their workers. All sorts. Every time I tried to write one story, a tangent would absorb me. I started chatting about the thing to friends, particularly another writer called Andrew Harman and my mate (and lifelong tech support) Martin. There was obviously something too it, as the whole emerging backstory got under folks’ skin and stayed there. Much nagging was done for me to do something with it.

Fast forward to, I think, 2006 and I’m between contracts. Silven Publishing, who did PDF’s, advertised on the freelancing forum on RPG.Net that they were looking for someone to write a dark fantasy setting. I contacted them and told them they actually wanted dark historical. I showed them the notes I had on what was then called The Frankenstein Society. Rubbish, rubbish, horrible name. It became Promethea, and was almost finished when Silven went bust and it all came back to me – an 80 page book with nowhere to go.

By then, Steve Ironside had heard about the idea and read what was there. He was adding his nagging voice to the get it done crowd. I must’ve mentioned it to indy game design genius Gregor Hutton coz what happened next was largely his fault.

I got invited by Simon Proctor to Conflagration in Glasgow in 2009. I was supposed to be talking about the console games stuff I’d done, and general writing stuff. Knowing Gregor was there, I grabbed him and insisted he help me out, as he had by far and away more successful experience than I. I did the usual thing of saying to folks that their Big Idea, no matter how wonderful, was worth absolutely nothing unless they did something with it (and got the usual argument from someone in the room). Anyway, Gregor stopped me afterwards and informed me that I’d talked myself into trouble – he wanted to see that Frankenstein thing finished and out there.

I spent the next year getting folks together to do the game as a self-published, systemless setting PDF book thingy. Andrew Harman and Magz Wiseman came aboard to do some additional writing. I’d met two artists when I worked for Midway in Newcastle, so Corlen Kruger did the cover and Kim Roberts and Scott Purdy did some internal B&W art. Andrew put me in touch with Robert Coles to do the map. By the time of Conpulsion 2010 in Edinburgh, I was ready to begin advertising the book with some teaser posters. At this point, Dark Harvest was around 110 pages.

Another old chum now stepped in. Artist Andy Hepworth told me that Angus Abranson from Cubicle 7 was going to be at Conpulsion and that I should have a chat about the whole Dark Harvest thing. I did, though the usual thing happened and I utterly dried when I tried to chat to Angus. Andy rescued me while my brain rebooted and much talking was done. Poor Angus…

Anyway, I sent him the book. He liked it, but asked for more art and for a system to be applied. I’d thought about OGL D20, but wasn’t happy with that. I’d never understood it. It just got in the way. Angus suggested using the Heresy engine as C7 owned it. He also felt it more appropriate for the setting. At that point Andrew Peregrine and Walt Ciechanowski got involved. Steve Ironside took the stripped down basics they provided and worked it into the system you see in the book. A friend I met through games work, Matt Gibbs, came aboard to edit the book. My old mate from the Star Wars Fact Files days, James King, got involved to do the layout, and Rowena Aitken provided additional artwork. I think the last thing was the index, which damn near killed me.

So, yes, that was it! Like I said, long story.

Stargazer: Dark Harvest is such a great and deep setting that it would be a shame not to support it with updates. What are your plans for DH supplements? How will Dark Harvest be supported in the future?

Iain: Dark Harvest will be getting its first supplement in April, all things being equal. It’ll be called Resistance, and will focus in the main part on the struggle between the Resistance group run by the Creature, plus the other independent groups, and the Promethean authorities. It’ll have a bunch of other material to support the game too, including a very thorough Edwardian equipment listing that is complimented with a revision of the money values in the core game, which were based on the Victoriana values. There will also be a bunch more fiction, art and all that sort of thing.

I’m delighted to add Sara Dunkerton to the team. She’s working on some interior art, and has already completed a six page comic which serves as an intro to the book. You can see bits and pieces from it at her site.

Beyond that, the Dark Harvest website will provide a drip-feed of material. We’ve got a Facebook page to help support the DH community with news, and a Twitter feed. Follow us on @DarkHarvest_LoF!

The website is the big thing though. We’ve already put the character sheet and a huge map pack up there as a free download. There’ll be more of that sort of thing in the future. There are samples from the book for folks who want to know a little bit more before they buy. I post little bits and pieces I’ve found useful in my own research, mostly links to sites with photos or whatever that will help GM’s add flavour to their games.

I actively encourage folks to get involved. An English chap living in Romania has recently started a series of posts about key individuals from Romanian history, complete with his ideas on how they might feature in your game. We’re doing one every Thursday, where time and Real Life ™ allow. Once we have a bunch of them, I’ll collect them together in a single document and post it as a download.

We’re going to be announcing a new competition soon (really must get around to announcing the winners of the last one – sorry all!). I’m excited about this one – the plan is folks come up with a location within Promethea, giving a sketchy map but as much description as possible. The winner will have the map done professionally by Robert Coles and then uploaded to the website. The winner will also get a nice big print of their map. So, yeah, watch out for that!

Stargazer: The Dark Harvest book not only contains the setting and the rules needed to play but also an anthology of short stories set into the DH world. Are there any plans for additional short story anthologies or even a novel?

Iain: There’s a lot of fluff in the book, but it all helps players and GM’s get their heads around the setting. DH came from trying to write stories, so it felt natural to include them. As to books purely of fiction – I would love to see that, particularly an anthology. I love seeing what other folks do with Dark Harvest. Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens next.

Stargazer: Aside from Dark Harvest are you currently working on any other roleplaying game projects? If so, what can you tell us about those?

I’m hoping to redo a supplement I wrote years ago, oddly at the same time I was doing the Dark Harvest PDF for Silven. It was for Morrigan’s High Medieval game, but never saw publication before they very sadly ran into problems. The book, High Medieval France: Charlemagne’s Legacy, needs a load of work done to make it ready. Looking forward to getting stuck in about that though. Need to wait for folks to get back from US GenCon.

Other than that, there’s another setting bubbling away in my head. Not sure what to do with that to begin with. Might make it a book (well, three books in fact), might make it a comic. Don’t know. It’ll definitely be an RPG setting at some point. Just not sure when.

Iain: Is there anything else you want to share with our readers?

Like I’ve said already, I encourage folks to get involved and make DH:LoF their game. I’ll happily post stuff to the site if it’s well considered, interesting, fun, chilling stuff. I want to hear more stories of Promethea. I want to hear YOUR stories!

Stargazer: Thanks for taking your time to answer these questions. The team of Stargazer’s World wishes you the best of luck with Dark Harvest and all your future projects!

Related posts:

1. News from Promethea
2. Airship Pirates Interview
3. Interview with Andrew Modro aka Corvus

By the way, the Technoir Kickstarter project has almost reached it’s current $10,000 goal. Check out this page to find out what it’s all about! (Editor’s note: The $10,000 goal has been reached while this post was waiting to be published.)

A few days ago I asked Jeremy if he was willing to answer a few question for us and he agreed. So without further ado, enjoy the Q&A!

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a few questions for us. Could we start with some introductions? Please tell our readers a bit about yourself. How did you get into roleplaying games in the first place and what made you design your own games?

Jeremy: Hi, everyone. I’m Jeremy Keller. I work in the video industry making graphics and animations. Every chance I get I work on designing games or coming up with ideas for a novel I haven’t written yet. I have to do a lot of that while I go running or do the dishes or drive to work, otherwise I wouldn’t have time for everything.

I started playing roleplaying games in high school. Some friends brought AD&D over to my house one day, we played, and I haven’t been the same since. But I actually didn’t get to play much in high school or in college. We made lots of characters for lots of different systems, but none of us ever wanted to be the GM—we only wanted to play. After college I started running Shadowrun for a group of friends. And since then I always want to be the GM. Though I know so many people who are amazing at running games so now I get to play a lot too.

For any hobby I get into, I want to learn how to create that thing myself. When I first got into comic books, I wrote and drew my own comic book. When I studied theater in college, I directed my own play. When I studied film, I wrote four feature length screenplays and made two short films. When I got into animated movies, I taught myself how to model, texture, and animate.

But for RPGs, there’s already a built-in outlet to create. As a player, you create your character and help to shape the story. As a GM you create a world and create challenges for your player. So it took a lot longer for me to feel the need to create my own RPG after I got into the hobby. But it was inevitable, so it happened. I wrote a fantasy game for my friends and I to play. A lot of concepts from that game ended up forming the basis for Chronica Feudalis.

Stargazer: I happened to notice that your company is called Cellar Games. Cellar in German is Keller. Is this a coincidence?

Jeremy: That’s totally on purpose. The company name’s meaning is three-fold. First, it’s the English translation of my name. Second, the narrator of Chronica Feudalis is an anonymous cellarer. And third, we played (or tried to play) these games in basements a lot growing up so there is the cellar/basement connection.

Stargazer: I think most of our readers are interested to learn more about Technoir, your upcoming cyberpunk RPG. You recently started a Kickstarter project that reached its goal in about 12 hours. Have you ever even hoped for such an amazing success?

Jeremy: I was absolutely floored. I was expecting to watch the numbers slowly creep up when I launched the Kickstarter and was hoping I would make my goal by 30 days. Suddenly I got all these notification emails and every time I hit refresh on the Kickstarter page, the number was bigger. It was a pretty cool sensation. People are saying they want the game I’m making before I’m even finished with it. I won’t lie; it’s a nice feeling.

Stargazer: Kickstarter is becoming the next big thing when it comes to funding indie RPG projects. Have you used Kickstarter before and do you plan to use it for future projects as well? And do you think Kickstarter (and similar services) may change the RPG industry as we know it?

Jeremy: I hadn’t used Kickstarter before; this was my first time. I don’t think I could have used it in the past. No one knew who I was when I wrote Chronica Feudalis. I didn’t have the social network in place to get the word out. Since I’ve had some success with Chronica and I’ve met a lot of other wonderful people in this hobby who like to share information with each other, it ended up being the perfect opportunity for Technoir.

As for changing the industry, there are a lot of opinions on this. I think it’s (relatively) new and novel and so there are a lot of people coming to it for that. It’s a new way to support the creators you like and be a part of making their projects successful. Over time, that novelty is going to wear off. Furthermore, some people might abuse it and scare people off. But overall, I think it’s a solid model. I think there’s a point where its popularity levels out and it’s one more tool our industry has to inform each other about new games, become part of making them happen, and pre-order a game they’re looking forward to (and maybe get some extra swag at the same time).

Stargazer: Let’s get back to Technoir. Can you give us a short introduction into Technoir? What sets it apart from other games and what kind of players do you think will enjoy it?

Jeremy: Technoir is game for playing tough, hard, determined characters in a high-tech future. It’s hardboiled crime novels meets cyberpunk. It has relatively light mechanics where you have verbs (your abilities), adjectives (your focuses), and objects (your gear and cybernetics) and they give you a pool of d6 dice to roll. If you’re successful you get to inflict adjectives onto other characters. So it creates this almost brutal atmosphere where characters are constantly beating up on each other handing out adjectives like “bruised” or “dishonored” or “glitching.”

It’s good for players who like a light framework system that lets them narrate cool actions and come up with their own consequences for those actions.

Stargazer: What sources did you use as inspiration for both the rules and the setting of Technoir?

Jeremy: There was a lot of inspiration for Technoir. Thematically, I went to the novels of Dashiell Hammett, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson. Rules-wise, there are ideas that I pulled out of Dan Bayn’s Wushu, John Harper’s Lady Blackbird, and Shadowrun of course. Plus there are several ideas that evolved out of Chronica Feudalis and FATE. Then there are the transmissions which are probably most directly attributed to Fiasco’s playsets, In a Wicked Age’s oracles, and Smallville’s relationship map.

But more than anything, this game was inspired by my friends. Mark DiPasquale, who is writing one of the transmissions that will appear in the book, got me really psyched about the cyberpunk genre again after a hiatus away from it. And if you look at the playtesting credits in the game, you’ll see a whole list of people I’ve had long conversations with that have helped me to construct and focus the game in one way or another.

Stargazer: One interesting concept in Technoir is the plot map. Can you please elaborate how the plot map is supposed to work and how you came up with that idea?

Jeremy: So, I mentioned transmissions. These are booklets you can download. Each transmission has 36 plot nodes that describe particular characters, events, locations, factions, and objects in a city. You randomly roll up these plot nodes and arrange them on a map to create content that you challenge your players with. You start with three of them and then as the protagonists go to their contacts for information, more of these nodes are put on the map and introduced to the emerging story.

I got the idea after one playtest session in which the players made a group of cool characters but I had a hard time thinking of what to challenge them with. I had prepared some bad guys for them to fight, but I wasn’t sure what the story was. I wanted a tool to help me come up with something on the spot. At the same time, Ryan Macklin was asking me how I was going to handle setting material in the book and I wasn’t really sure how. So I built transmissions and the plot maps as the answer both those issues.

Stargazer: When I first got my hands on the Technoir beta rules I read them in one session. I was immediately intrigued by the simple yet elegant and deep rules system. Do you plan to use the system for other games as well? I could easily see a fantasy game powered by those rules. Or do you even to make the rules available under a free license, so that other may remix and share games powered by Technoir’s core rules?

Jeremy: I haven’t thought about other games that could use this system yet, I’m still too focused on trying to get this one out the door. But my plan is to release the player’s guide—which is a short, 16 page summary of the rules—as well as the transmissions under some sort of Creative Commons license. I haven’t hammered out all the details yet, but this will allow anyone to make and share their own player’s guides and transmissions that can be used to hack the game in many different genres.

Stargazer: For the $10,000 Kickstarter goal you have thrown in a copy of “Mechnoir” for all backers. What is Mechnoir and will it be available regularly after the Kickstarter project is over?

Jeremy: Mechnoir is one of these player’s guide hacks I’m talking about. It’s just extra content that allow you to play the pilots of big, stompy mechs and dropships, but still using the same rules as Technoir. I’m only making it available to the Kickstarter backers—anyone who backs for $10 or more—but there will probably be some ways to get it after that since it’s Creative Commons.

Stargazer: When will we finally be able to hold our copies of Technoir in our hands? And will the softcover book be available for an extended period of time or will this be a one-time offer? Is there anything else you want to share with our readers?

Jeremy: I am planning of having the books ready to ship in early August. There’s always the chance that there could be printing or logistical delays that set things back a bit, but everything is still on target right now. If I am able to get them in time, the book will be at Gen Con Indy and should be generally available online and through retailers that carry indie games soon after that.

My last thing to share: everyone should be sure to check out the video on the Kickstarter page. I had a lot of fun making it so I hope you enjoy it.

Stargazer: Thanks for answering those questions, Jeremy! And good luck with Technoir and any future projects!

Related posts:

1. Technoir
2. Update on the Technoir RPG Kickstarter
3. Technoir Dice Mechanics

What do you think? Will this change what we think about D&D? Do you intend to give 5th Edition a chance? As always all your comments are highly appreciated.

Related posts:

1. Lazy Friday Video Post: The Dungeons and the Dragons
2. Lazy Friday Video Post: ETA
3. Lazy Friday Video Post: The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu

Jon Leitheusser

Anyone who is a fan of Mutants & Masterminds or DC ADVENTURES has probably seen the Threat Reports that Green Ronin has been putting out lately. Threat Reports are 99 cent downloadable PDFs for Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition. They contain a quick little story about a bad guy and their stats allowing GMs to use them in their M&M games. I recently got the chance to interview one of the creative minds behind the Threat Reports, Jon Leitheusser and ask him where the idea behind Threat Reports came from. I also got to ask question about what it’s like to work with Green Ronin and what future projects he is working on.

Youseph Tanha: I want to thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview with me. It seems like there are never enough interviews like this in my opinion and I really appreciate you making the time.

Jon Leitheusser: You bet!

Youseph: Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself? Where you grew up?

Jon: Well, I grew up in Burlington Wisconsin. Which is sort of on the South Eastern corner of the state not far from the Illinois border. Actually its ten miles away from lake Geneva which is where D&D was created. I went to school there (Burlington) and high school there. I went to college in Madison and the UW. I ended up spending 14 years there. Not in school, in Madison.

Youseph: What role playing game did you cut your teeth on?

Jon: Oh, Advanced Dungeon & Dragons. I think it was 1982 when I started playing that.

Youseph: How did you come to work for Green Ronin?

Jon: In 2001 I got recruited to come and work for WizKids out in Bellevue Washington. While I was working their I did a little bit of freelance work for Green Ronin. Doing some editing. Specifically doing editing for stat blocks because I enjoyed it. They had a hard time finding people to do that. So I did a little bit of that for them. I did a little bit of freelance writing for them. I wrote part of the Iron Age book with my buddy Seth Jonson who was the HeroClix Game Designer after me. Then I ended up leaving WizKids and the guys from Green Ronin said ”hey you want to come work for us a Line Developer”? And I said “Sure that sounds like a lot of fun to do in my free time”. So that’s how all that went down.

Youspeh: So are they your full time employer right now?

Jon: They are.

Youseph: What did you do for WizKids?

Jon: For WizKids I was hired to be the advertising and public relations guy. I was probably there a couple of months when I walked into the head of the game design department and said “I want your job.” And he said, “All right, I’ll start sending you rules and you start giving me feedback on them. Let me know what you think.” So I… It wasn’t editing. It was slightly editing and slightly like, you know, the logic on this is wrong. The wording on that needs to be cleaned up. That sort of stuff. I don’t know what these rules are trying to say. Here is how I would fix them. He was impressed by this so he hired me out of the marketing department and into the game design department. I moved up from there and I think in two years I had his job and he had been moved up to be vice president.

Youseph: So did having something like that on your resumé open up doors to places like Green Ronin?

Jon: I imagine that is probably true, but I think that has more to do with making contacts with people. I have known Chris Pramas actually now for a good 16 years one way or another. I worked with him when I was a product manager for ‘Capital City Distribution’ which was similar to Diamond Comic Distributors. Then Diamond eventually ended up purchasing Capital City. So I had a lot of contacts in the gaming industry through that job. Chris knew me from that. We would talk at conventions.

Youseph: So how many employees does Green Ronin have currently?

Jon: Full time?

Youseph: Yeah.

Jon: 8 plus some part timers.

Youseph: So the thing that came up that made me want to do this interview was that Green Ronin has been putting out these ninety-nine cent PDFs called Threat Reports for Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition. Looking at the whole thing, the whole idea of it just seems genius to me. I mean you got something that costs less than a buck and it adds a layer of depth to the game. It’s just awesome and it’s set at a good price. Who’s idea was that?

Jon: The short answer is that it started with me, but the long answer is we have been talking about doing more PDF products for a while now. I was sitting around thinking about this and I though “People like PDFs. They like the immediacy of them right? So, if it costs ninety-nine cents, it’s an easy thing to download and have right then.” Then the other thing people really like are bad guy books. Those sell very well for us. So I thought “Why don’t we just do a villain of the week thing.” That’s originally what the ‘Threat Reports’ where called. ‘Villain of the Week.’ Then as we got closer to the launch date we thought “You know we should come up with a more interesting name than this.”
We figured that at the very least the PDFs would at least pay for themselves and they have. Which is great. Eventually we will collect these villains into a book in order to sell in stores.

Youspeh: I imagine there will be several more books to go with M&M 3rd.

Jon: Yeah, yeah, there definitely will be more in the future. Just for M&M this year we have a hand full of books already planned or are in the works. Then for next year we have probably already talked about another half dozen.

Youseph: Which I think is great.

Jon: Yeah it is. It’s a lot of work, but it’s good to keep new products coming out and people seem to be really enjoying the new edition of the game which is great.

Youseph: So, as an outsider looking in I love the fact that the PDFs Green Ronin offers are not watermarked. I love the fact that when you guys do an update, like the errata for DC ADVENTURE I was able to download the entire PDF updated with all the errata and it did not cost me a dime. I mean to me that is HUGE! How come Green Ronin is more accepting of selling PDFs than a big boy like Wizards of the Coast.

Jon: I don’t really know the reason behind Wizard’s strategy there. I don’t understand. As for Green Ronin, none of us are particularly concerned about piracy. It’s just not something we spend a lot of time thinking about. I can’t even say we have a strategy for it. Right? We release the products the way we do because that’s the way we release them. That’s the easiest answer. I think all of us kind of look at piracy and think, ”that sucks,” and it would be great to get all that money from all the people that are “Stealing this from us”, but you know I think a lot of piracy happens because people are interested, but not actually interested enough to spend the money… and if they download something that interests them then it’s entirely plausible and possible–and very likely in fact–that some number of those people in the future will by product from us. So, it’s another way to do marketing I guess. It’s hard to track and it’s not like you would be able to crack down on it anyway unless you pulled all of your PDFs from being on sale… and that still doesn’t even end the problems. We are just not going to bury our head in the sand over it. We know it’s out there, but we hope some of those people eventually spend some money with us.

Youseph: I want to share a link with you. Do you know the author Neil Gaiman?

Jon: Oh yeah. I have been following him and his giving the book away for free. I haven’t been able to convince Green Ronini to do that yet. -laughs-

Youseph: Well what I am trying to say is that I like what you guys are doing with the PDFs and the price point and what not. It works for me.

Jon: Well I think one of the things that helps us is that we have a really good fan base. They are really responsive and interested in what is going on. So when we announce a new project or a new product goes up for sale we do the pre-order which has the hard copy book and the pdf for an additional five dollars, or you can just get the PDF for, I think, full price or something like that. I think when you order the book, and the PDF is only an extra five dollars or so, you don’t have to worry about overpaying. The price makes it reasonable to pay for and download the pdf right away.

Youseph: Right. With the DC ADVENTURES game, was it hard to convince DC or Warner Brothers that you were going to create a PDF and put it out there and not be able to track it?

Jon: No, not at all. Not in the least. We explained to them that we would not only have the hard copy, but we would also be offering the PDF. I think there was a couple of minutes where they weren’t sure. Then they realized we were going to charge money for it and they would be getting their percentage of the sales they were fine with it. The issue of piracy never came up.

Youseph: Well that was kind of cool of them.

Jon: Yeah they have been really great to work with.

Youseph: So the ‘Threat Reports’ are selling well then?

Jon: Yeah. They are doing just fine. I mean they aren’t blowing the doors off. They are not selling thousands and thousands of copies, but you know, hundreds of copies is great. As long as we can make back what it costs to produce them we are going to keep going with them.

Youseph: Can you talk about any future projects you are working on?

Jon: Nothing that you haven’t already heard about. Heroes Journey is coming out right now. Emerald City Nights. The prologue is up and chapter one will be going up hopefully very soon. The M&M Heroes Handbook just came out. The Gamemaster’s Guide is in good shape actually. It’s written, it’s edited, it’s developed. We are just waiting on art. It’s all laid out, we just need to put the art in. Then we should have the DC ADVENTURES Heroes and Villains books coming out soon. We have the DC ADVENTURES: Universe book coming out later in the year. Hopefully in the summer. Then we have the GM Screen and the Character generator that just came out in PDF and will be out in hard copy in the next couple of months. It’s probably no surprise to anybody that there will be an Emerald City book in the summer which I am working on now. And that’s it until later in the year.

Youseph: Do you have a favorite role playing game right now?

Jon: I know I am supposed to say Mutants & Masterminds. Which might actually be true, but I’ll discount that one. See I really like mechanics, game mechanics, and I like elegant mechanics that facilitate fast, fun game play. They don’t have to necessarily have to be super deep. They just have to work well and be consistent. There are just so many games I like. Like I said I am going to discount M&M because that would probably be my favorite since I’m a superhero fan. So outside of that, I would probably have to say Savage Worlds.

Youseph: Really?

Jon: Yeah, because of what I said. Its fast and light and its internally consistent. It has a lot of flexibility because it allows you to play it as a role playing game, or a miniatures game, or a skirmish game. I mean there is all sorts of stuff you can do with that system.

Youseph: I received my copy of Mutants & Masterminds the other day.

Jon: Oh, that’s great news!

Youseph: Yeah it was nice to get it. One thing I was disappointed about was that it was a softcover.

Jon: Yeah. We’ve heard that a few times.

Youseph: Any particular reason you guys went that route?

Jon: Part of it was we assumed that people would have just purchased the DC book and we didn’t want to “make” people purchase another hardcover book since it would have cost at least ten dollars more. So instead we went with softcover. I’m sure at some point will do a hard cover version of the book.

Youseph: Oh don’t say that.

Jon: I am sure it will be a ways down the road, though.

Youseph: Well it is what it is, I guess. So I am ready to do my Inside the Actors Studio ten question ending here.

Jon: -laughs- Ok.

Youseph: What is your favorite word?

Jon: Yes.

Youseph: What is your least favorite word?

Jon: It’s a dirty word.

Youseph: That’s ok.

Jon: Ok, its cunt. I hate that word. It’s so hard.

Youseph: What turns you on?

Jon: Creatitivity. A good idea.

Youseph: What turns you off.

Jon: Willful ignorance.

Youseph: What sound or noise do you love?

Jon: That is a fine question. It’s got to be rain on a roof.

Youseph: What sound or noise do you hate?

Jon: The wrong note.

Youseph: What is your favorite curse word?

Jon: The F word. I also like to say “curses”.

Youseph: Very villainy of you.

Jon: Yes. -Laughs-

Youseph: What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

Jon: Really anything, but if I had to pick one I would say full-time writer as opposed to part-time writer, which is what I do now.

Youseph: What profession would you not like to attempt?

Jon: Probably anything where I would have to be really angry or really aggressive all the time.

Youseph: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you reach the pearly gates?

Jon: I guess you were wrong. -Laughs-

Youseph: -Laughs- Well Jon, that’s it. Thank you so much for your time. I had a blast doing this.

Jon: You bet. Any time.

Related posts:

1. Interview with Chad Underkoffler
2. Interview with David Bezio
3. Robin D. Laws interview

One of these friends is Jason Marker. Jason is a freelance writer/game designer who I met at Zachary Houghton’s house. He was staying with us for two nights and I took the opportunity to chat with him about his experiences in the industry. He has worked on several Robotech and Rifts products and more recently contributed to Fantasy Flight Games’ Rogue Trader and Deathwatch lines. Alas we didn’t have the opportunity for a proper interview, so I asked him if he was willing to answer a few questions about the life of a RPG industry freelancer via email later. He agreed. So here are the questions and answers – enjoy!

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a few questions for us. Can we please start by you telling us about yourself? Who is Jason Paul Marker? Where are you from and most importantly when did you start playing roleplaying games?

Jason: So, I guess we’ll start at the beginning. My name’s Jason, I’m from Detroit Michigan, and I make games for a living. I’m married to a woman with very strong geeky tendencies, she’s one of my better players and big into RTS/Turn Based games, and we have an eleven month old daughter who is well on her way to geekdom. I’ve been playing RPGs since middle school, when I was introduced to the original red box D&D by a good friend of mine, so for about twenty years now.

Stargazer: How did you become a freelancer in the RPG industry? Has this always been the plan or was it something that grew out of people you knew?

Jason: By accident. I was taking classes at a community college in St. Louis, one of which was a creative writing class. My final for that class was to write a short story and submit it for publication. I wrote a very short piece that was originally untitled, and submitted it to Palladium Books’ The Rifter. Much to my surprise that story, ultimately titled Three Words, was published in Rifter 8.

Becoming a freelancer was never part of my plan when I graduated from high school. I initially attended university to pursue a degree in music education, with the ultimate goal of becoming a high school band director. Sadly, that didn’t pan out and I pursued opportunities elsewhere. I always dreamed of writing, but never really considered it as a career. It’s funny how life works sometimes.

Stargazer: How would you suggest people interested in doing freelance work go about it? Is there a special education that helps you get into that kind of job or do you just need to know the right people to ask?

Jason: If you want to freelance, you need to know games and you need to know how to write. You need to be assertive, confident in your work, and open to editorial input. I can’t stress that last part enough. Have some strong writing samples, published pieces are especially valuable here, and a strong resume. Send these items to every game company you can think of, and be persistent with follow-ups.

Being well read helps, and by that I don’t mean that you’ve read both Burning Wheel and Game of Thrones. To be a good writer you really need a strong base of knowledge about literature and the world around you. Get to know your way around your local library and used book stores. Read voraciously, both fiction and non-fiction. Learn to love research. Also, write every day. If you’re going to call yourself a writer, you need to be writing and constantly honing your craft.

As for education, well, a writing or journalism degree helps but isn’t really necessary. As I said earlier, I originally went to university to be a music educator and ended up with a degree in culinary arts and professional training as a chef. Mostly you need to know games, and you need to be able to take editorial direction/criticism.

Stargazer: You have worked on quite a few projects in the past? What was your biggest project so far? And what was your favorite project? How long are usually the projects you work on?

Jason: My biggest project, and also my favorite, was working on the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles RPG. As a freelancer my assignments are given by the word, I typically work on assignments that run between 14,000 and 28,000 words, and typically have a month or two to complete.

Stargazer: In a lot of industries creative people are hassled with too tight deadlines and the all-too-powerful marketing department. Is this the same in the RPG industry or are things a bit more lenient there? Have you ever worked on a project that was particularly rushed (don’t worry, you don’t have to give us any names) or was their always enough time? Are you usually involved with playtesting?

Jason: I personally haven’t felt rushed or hassled by deadlines that often. I have very little interaction with any marketing, so that’s never been an issue. As for playtesting, again that’s not my bag so I’m not involved in it.

Stargazer: Can you tell us a bit about what are you working on right now or is this top secret? You know, you can tell us. We won’t tell anyone.

Jason: Right now I’m between assignments, so I’m mostly working on being a dad and keeping my house in order. I have some things coming down the pipe though, so I’ll be working again in no time.

Stargazer: Aside from yourself, who is your favorite game designer? Is there something you would love to work with in the future?

Jason: I have a healthy respect for many game designers, but I’d rather not list them here for fear of leaving one out.

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a few questions for us. The team of Stargazer’s World wishes you good luck on all your current and future projects!

I am pretty sure Jason will be watching the comments on this post, so if you have any more questions feel free to ask.

Related posts:

1. The State of the Industry and SPIEL
2. No D&D for you, if you are serving life
3. No D&D for you, if you are serving life (Update)

Stargazer’s World:
We already know you, Andrew, from the blog and your last interview, but who is Jason? Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Jason:
I’m a 30 year old Mainer, who dabbles in science fiction literature, and gaming. Primarily a wargamer of the historical stripe, and ore of a player then developer, I’ve been encouraged to expand my horizons by my friend of ten years, Andrew Modro.

Andrew:
Jason is a long-time friend of mine that I met over IRC about ten years ago.  We’ve always had a lot of similar interests, and he’s been wanting to try his hand and working with games, though he’s more of a wargamer.

Stargazer’s World:
While there have been quite a few great pulp games in the past (Hollow Earth Expedition and Spirit of the Century come to mind), it’s not the most popular genre. What made you want to create a game in this genre?

Andrew:
I had originally approached Jason about doing a cyberpunk game with the Wyrm system.  We tinkered with that for a couple days.  Then, out of the blue, Jason said to me, “You know what would really rock?
Pulp.”  Since my current favorite game is White Wolf’s Adventure!, I jumped at the idea and we started working almost immediately. Everything fell together so well that we knew we were on the right track.

Jason:
Personally? I love the genre, The Shadow, Dick Tracy, Indiana Jones and the Rocketeer have always been my literary heroes so it felt natural to write a game that was an homage to them.

Stargazer’s World:
The pulp genre – as I understand it – also includes stories like Robert E. Howard’s Conan and  Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter stories. Do you think it’s possible to run games set into the Sword & Sorcery or Planetary Romance genres as well? If so, what would you add or change to make it happen?

Jason:
You could, But honesty if you wanted to Sword & Sorcery,WR&M works just as well.

Andrew:
You could certainly apply what’s already present with minimal reskinning, probably.  You could represent Conan with good attributes and some of the less-obtrusive talents, and the mystic and mentalist talents would certainly work for weird and dangerous foes.
Barsoomian planetary romance could also work with a little effort. WR&M-style race templates could be easy to work up for, for example, tall multi-armed green fighting men and noble red-skinned humanoids.
Ray guns should be easy to extrapolate from the existing firearms, and chases shouldn’t need any modification at all.  A simple situational bonus to some skills for the lower gravity, and you’re off!

Stargazer’s World:
In RAG you have made some significant changes to the Wyrm System. How is RAG different from WR&M? Can you explain some of the reasoning behind those changes?

Jason:
All the changes me made were really to make the rules fit the period and the atmosphere of the genre.

Andrew:
I felt free to tinker under the hood because that was one of the things I liked so much about WR&M, how easy it was to bend, fold, warp and otherwise change around.  The most obvious change would be the attributes, which don’t exactly map to Warrior, Rogue and Mage but do have a lot of similarities.  Also, we kept character creation the same, but there are new ways to figure hit points and luck points (what WR&M calls fate points).
More nitpicky tinkering came in with die rolls and combat.  I have a pet peeve about exploding dice — simple exploding dice can’t result in some numbers, namely the die’s maximum total, because you’re always adding at least 1 more to the roll.  So I changed the “explosion” to where if you roll a 6, you add 5 and roll again.  That way you can have a roll result of 6.
Attacks no longer have a damage roll.  Each weapon or attack has a base damage rating, and for every point you exceed the target’s defense, you add 1 more to damage.  I did this because I hate making a great attack roll and then rolling “1″ for damage, which happens to me a lot.  This way, great attacks are rewarded automatically.
Magic no longer has its own subsystem.  Instead, mystic talents, which represent various styles or areas of magical ability, allow characters to make narrative changes to the world.  It’s a lot like spending a luck point, but more powerful, only within a much narrower field, and it allows players and GMs to get creative by not restricting them to a list of spells.

Stargazer’s World:
The various WR&M supplements were quite popular. Do you plan to support RAG in a similar way?

Jason:
Yes, we do.

Andrew:
I would love to, but I’m also hoping that RAG will receive the kind of support from others that WR&M got (and will, I hope, continue to get).  The Imperial Library and Imperial Forges supplements were particularly fine embodiments of the spirit behind WR&M.  I’d be ecstatic if other people liked RAG enough to put forth that kind of effort to support it.

Stargazer’s World:
As you know, I have been thinking about working on a SF game using the Wyrm System for some time now, Mark Meredith has been working on a spy version called Pointman, Thief & Hacker. In your opinion, what other genres could the Wyrm system be converted to?

Andrew:
I’ve already got three other Wyrm projects boiling away in my mind: a supers game, a game designed to emulate the wild blend of action, science-fiction and espionage from the Speed Racer universe, and a
game about godlike beings comparable to Immortals from classic D&D or very powerful Exalted characters.
With as easy as it was to get RAG from WR&M, I’m sure the Wyrm system can be adapted in all kinds of ways.  I know Mark’s had to put off PHT for a while because he’s super-busy with other projects and has a baby on the way, but in the sneak peek I got I know he had a “progress bar” mechanic to resolve both chases and complex actions, which I thought was really cool and thematically appropriate.  It also shows just how easily the Wyrm system can be adapted to a different genre.

Jason:
Honestly, with enough work and some good ideas, WYRM could be used for almost any genre.

Stargazer’s World:
Is there anything else you wanted to let our readers know which I forgot to ask?

Jason:
Yes, I am available for hire if any large game publishers are  reading this.

Andrew:
First, give yourself a big pat on the back for the bang-up layout job you did.  RAG is as much a Stargazer Games production as it is Blue Hex.  It really shows what a fantastic thing you created with WR&M and I hope it will encourage more people to see what they can do with the Wyrm system.
Blue Hex now has a forum on RPG Table Talk, right next to the Stargazer Games forum.  It would be great if people would come check it out, tell us what they think and share what they’ve done with RAG. Every so often I’ll probably toss out a little nugget, like an NPC hero or villain, a new monster or maybe even a new talent.
I spoke with Jeff Uurtamo, our friend from RPG Circus, about giving us a plug on the podcast.  Their latest episode went into recording on Tuesday (January 25th) and should be available for download soon.  I
encourage everyone to check it out; the Circus is a great gaming podcast, consistently high-quality and interesting.

Stargazer’s World:
Thanks for your kind words, Andrew. It was an honor doing the layout for RAG. And thanks again for taking your time to answer my questions, guys.

Related posts:

1. Resolute, Adventurer & Genius has been released!
2. Opening Stargazer’s World to other authors
3. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview

Without further ado, here are the questions and answers:

Stargazer’s World:
Thanks again for answering a couple of questions for us. Although I think most of our readers already know you and some of your products, but perhaps you could start by telling a bit about yourself. What do you do when you don’t design worlds? How long have you been working in the RPG industry?

Wolfgang Baur:
I spend my RPG time working at a game company on video games. I worked full-time in the RPG industry from 1991 to 1998; since then, I’ve been a freelancer and a publisher.

Stargazer’s World:
What was the first RPG you ever played?

Wolfgang Baur:
The first RPG I ever played was Dungeons & Dragons. I have played a lot of Call of Cthulhu, Alternity, and a bit of Pendragon since then, but mostly I prefer straight-up fantasy.

Stargazer’s World:
Recently you started Midgard as an Open Design patronage project. Can you please explain what’s Open Design and how patronage works?

Wolfgang Baur:
Sure, Open Design is my publishing company, and it publishes Kobold Quarterly magazine plus adventures and sourcebooks. It was founded in 2006 and re-instituted the patronage system, which was popular in earlier times, before the rise of joint stock companies and the like.

Patronage is a way for gamers to participate in designing adventures and supplements, by both funding the work and by critiquing, brainstorming, and improving the design as it goes along. It’s collaborative design, guided by an experienced designer who has the professional chops to keep the project on course. In the case of the Midgard campaign setting, those professionals are me, Jeff Grubb of Dragonlance, Guild Wars, and Forgotten Realms fame, and rising RPG star Brandon Hodge.

Stargazer’s World:
How much influence into the design process do the patrons have?

Wolfgang Baur:
The degree of influence patrons have depends on interest and ability as much as anything.

Patrons who comment, test, and contribute can wind up writing a section of a book, and they are paid and credited as designers for the projects. Others patrons playtest, or throw out ideas for others to develop.

It’s really up to the particular gamer; some lurk and are just happy to see the quality of the resulting books. Others are deeply involved in pitching adventures, monsters, and sections of a book.

Stargazer’s World:
Using the patron model forces you to write the material for the system voted for by the patrons. What system do you prefer to use when you GM or play in a game, since this was your home setting to begin with?

Wolfgang Baur:
I have run the Midgard campaign setting using 3E D&D, 4E D&D, Pathfinder RPG, and Dragon Age RPG. They all have their advantages, frankly, and I’m not a believer in the One True System for RPGs. I’ve probably run Midgard for 4E more often than other systems, but that’s likely to change.

The question sort of misses the point of a multi-system setting, though. The Midgard campaign setting focuses on player action and changing the world, with options for conflict and adventure in any system. So far, mechanics have been secondary to world development. I’m pleased that the setting doesn’t require a particular rule set, though of course the play experience is slightly different with each system.

Or put another way, I’ve run Forgotten Realms in 4 editions. I’m sure Midgard will work in just as many.

Stargazer’s World:
Can you give us a short introduction into the world of Midgard? What sets Midgard apart from other fantasy settings? What players will it appeal to?

Wolfgang Baur:
It’s built on Germanic and Slavic foundations, rather than the usual pseudo-Celtic and British mythology, so it’s perhaps a little darker than some.

Midgard’s pseudo-medieval societies are definitely warped by magic and non-human races—it will appeal to anyone who thinks that a Sultan of the Dragon Empire is a fine villain,  anyone who wants to sail with the minotaur corsairs or fight against gnomes who serve the Dukes of Hell. Baba Yaga plots and schemes, vampiric princes rule sections of the world, and steppe centaurs serve tsars and slaver despots. It’s a nasty place, a lot of the time, with large stretches of wilderness, forests where no one rules, land no one claims.

At the same time, players who enjoy history will see echoes of that: a ruling house with a lot of scattered holdings, an electoral kingdom of hussars and nobles, an oracle who has grown enormously wealthy. But these elements are all done with a twist, just as Planescape was done with a twist: Midgard sea-reavers are dwarves, Midgard’s tsars are pawns of greater evils, Midgard’s rivers really are haunted by the lorelei. Players have a ton of places to explore and treasures to recover.

Midgard appeals to traditional fantasy gamers who don’t want another kitchen sink campaign, and who enjoy a little more depth in their setting. The design goal is to focus on what players do in the here and now, not long-winded backstory!

Stargazer’s World:
What role will each of the three designers fill during the design phases of Midgard?

Wolfgang Baur:
The project is divided by regions. Jeff Grubb will be leading on one of the 7 regions, Brandon one or two more, I’ll take two—and the remainder are for patrons to design together with a lead designer, if they so choose. Which region will we do first? That’s up to the patrons!

The choices include the Dragon Empire, the Domains of the Princes, a wilderness region with Mythos influences, the Zobeck Crossroads, the Steppes, Trollheim, and the warring states of the Seven Cities region.

Some of those are almost entirely blank slates for patrons and designers to create. Others (like Zobeck) have a lot of lore and prior adventure for us to streamline into a campaign setting summary.

Stargazer’s World:
How do you plan on incorporating, or not incorporting, material like Courts of the Shadowfey, Sunken Empires, etc. into the lore and presentation of the world of Midgard in the campaign setting itself?

Wolfgang Baur:
Courts and Sunken Empires and the other adventures and supplements are all part of the setting. I’d go so far as to say they’re the reason I’m doing the setting; gamers have asked for the setting to be knit together from the many hints and setting elements found in the books so far.

Stargazer’s World:
Midgard is your largest Open Design Project so far. Will you be working on smaller projects until its release, too, or will you focus exclusively on Midgard?

Wolfgang Baur:
I won’t be working on anything but this. Other experienced designers are working on other Open Design projects, and some of those will ship in spring and summer of this year: Logan Bonner’s Lost City for 4th Edition D&D, Ben McFarland’s Streets of Zobeck noir adventures for Pathfinder RPG, and the Northlands sourcebook by Dan Voyce, to name just three.

Stargazer’s World:
Do you plan to support Midgard with adventures, regional sourcebooks, etc. after its release?

Wolfgang Baur:
Absolutely! The patrons have already made two suggestions that seem like good expansions of the core setting: an intro adventure and an adventure collection are a certainty. The first of those may be announced this summer. We’ll also release the first completed region of Midgard this summer!

Stargazer’s World:
Thanks again for taking your time for this interview. The team of Stargazer’s World wish you good luck with Midgard and all your other projects! And please send our best wishes to Jeff and Brandon!

By the way, if you got interested in becoming a patron of the Midgard Campaign Setting, check out this Kobold Quarterly store page for details.

Related posts:

1. The Kobolds launched a new patronage project: Dark Roads and Golden Hells
2. Midgard
3. Interview with Wolfgang Baur

So when I returned home from Gen Con I apologized and asked him for an interview. Since he’s a very nice guy, he didn’t use his creepy looking kitchen knives on me, but agreed to answer a few questions for me.

Stargazer
Thanks for answering a few questions for us. Can you please start by telling a bit about yourself? What do you do for a living? How long are you part of the RPG industry? What has been the first roleplaying game you ever played?

Chris
Of course!  Let’s see for a living, I am a Solutions Architect for a Marketing Database company.  I design and implement technology to run marketing campaigns and I work a lot with databases: Oracle, SQL Server, etc.  I am also a food writer with several credits to my name.  It’s hard for me to say when I became part of the industry, because that can mean different things to different people.  I tend to say I started in the industry when I made my podcasting debut on the Diana Jones Award nominated podcast, The Canon Puncture Show that was basically four years ago.  The first RPG I ever played was, I think, Marvel Superheroes when I was in the third grade.  If it was Marvel, it was Palladium Book’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Basically, there were four games that I played all about the same time, Marvel, TMNT, Robotech and BattleTech, but I think Marvel came first.

Stargazer
Today we want to talk about your Mecha roleplaying game. When did you have the idea to create a mecha game and what made you choose that genre?

Chris
The thought of creating a mecha game started when I wrote my first BattleTech clone called LaserTech when I was in the fourth grade.  My friend Jeff has used the 4C system to do a BattleTech clone and I wasn’t about to let him beat me.  I don’t remember much about that game except that it sucked and I think was basically an exactly copy of BattleTech with the names changed.

Really, though, I have Robotech to blame for my fascination with big robots.  I saw one episode and it blew my mind.  After that I was hooked.

Stargazer
Has Mecha changed a lot during the design process? How close is it to your first ideas and what did you leave on the cutting floor?

Chris
The original draft of Mecha is maybe 10% similar.  Heck, originally Mecha was called Neoborn Genesis Honor Blade and was a narrative game without dueling rules.  That draft that is recognizable as Mecha was {{{{THIS BIG}}}} and was fairly crunchy, poorly defined, and generally not much fun to play.

The process of playtesting, which took almost 18 months, was very much a subtractitive (instead of an additive) process whereby we took every mechanic and ran it through a filter.  That filter was simple: “Name me a time when X happened in giant robot anime.”  If the mechanic passed that filter, it was run through a second filter: “Okay, name me another time…”  We kept mechanics that stayed true to the feel of the game and those that didn’t went away.  A good example of this was the skill list.  Pilots used to have a fairly in-depth skill list ranging from stealth to rifles to pistols to tactics to strategy to cooking, etc.  Then we ran a playtest outside on our mecha (based on a suggestion from another designer, Matt Gandy) and found that the skill list didn’t work.  It was possible for the PCs (who were playing spec ops commandos) to be awesome at prowling and shooting, but get pwned in hand-to-hand combat and couldn’t operate a computer terminal, let alone access data.  Ugh.  That’s not fun and it wasn’t really true to form.  Anime main characters (which the PCs are) don’t get pwned by anything except enemy aces, but we didn’t want to just have a huge skill list and a bunch of skill points.  So we tried simplifying the skills down to the bare minimum (shoot, sneak, repair, heal, etc.) and realized that all we needed were the ones we had and that was that.

Then there were other things like Initiative, which was additive.  One of my playtesters came up with that.  Initiative used to be one of two rolls that didn’t follow the standard D6 die pool.  It used to be Engineering + 1d6.  Well, one of the playtesters came up with the idea that it should be a standard roll with the change for a Cutscene, etc.  And it worked.

Come to think of it, I didn’t add one meaningful thing to the book.  (Kidding.)  I do say that without the patience of my playtesters, Mecha wouldn’t have been what it is today and sometimes the best thing I could do was not get in their way.

Stargazer
In the book you mention that you had to be convinced by your players to include the scene structure. Could you elaborate on that?

Chris

Before writing that part of Mecha, my experience with set scene structure was limited to two games: Primetime Adventures and Burning Empires.  I love them both, but I felt (and still do feel) that their turn sequence produces a particular type of play which you could call regimented or structured.  As a player, there were times when I felt constrained and that I was forced to act creatively to have the scene I wanted.

My fear was that switching from open to regimented roleplaying would be too much.  I already had a game with a die pool, that was science fiction, and was played on a circular battlemap.  With each decision I made, I felt like we were falling away from what everyone was used to and into those other thing that was different and, my fear at the time, was that it would be so different people wouldn’t like it.

Fortunately, I am a sneaky dude and in an interview with Luke Crane, disguised a few questions about Mecha in an interview about Burning Empires mechanics.  He said something fairly profound: (and I am both paraphrasing and recounting an interview from several years ago) that scenes in BE were resources to be juggled like hit points and it was no less immersion breaking than checking your hit point total.  So, with my fears calmed by the master, we revamped the skill system to work with the scene structure and played it.  And we loved it.

Today, I can’t see the game working any other way.  Having that scene structures ensures that everyone gets their spotlight, can contribute meaningfully every turn, and has a guide for how to be pilots outside of mecha.  It also gives the GMs ways to give the players (not just the PCs) more challenges.  Believe me, as the GM I want the player to be thinking “Do I go for a Social Scene and get a point of Overdrive or do I Repair my mecha” just as much as I DON’T want to have to face that challenge as a player.

Stargazer
What tips do you have for someone who wants to play (or run) Mecha for the first time?

Chris

1s explode.  You reroll them and total your successes.

Even more than Link Stats, that is the mechanic people seem to get tripped up on!

More seriously, I would remind players that Mecha works on mecha anime physics, not real world physics.  It is perfectly fine in mecha anime combat to have a Range 6 (longest range in the game) jump kick, fight on a bullseye, and have Range 1 switchblades (and Range 2 atomic spitwad throwers and Range whatever atomic pom poms.)  While Mecha is not a silly game, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that is required as players ride their mecha across the school yard to the Hypersonic Drive-In where they can eat chili cheese hot dogs on their mechas’ shoulders before going to the sock hop.  In 1960s Japan.

See, that’s perfectly anime.  It’s just not very realistic!

To GMs, play hard.  Mecha has included a fairly lengthy GM’s section, but really it’s just advice on how to play the game.  As the GM, you are at a disadvantage because all you really control is the aftermath of the scene rolls and your side in combat.  But the players are spending their turns gaining every advantage to use against you and normally, you are out numbered 3 or 4 to one.  If you don’t play to win, the players will walk all over you and that gets boring.

Stargazer
As far as I know your second passion besides roleplaying is cooking. Have you ever considered writing a cook book for gamers?

Chris
Many times.  In fact, if your readers would like to share stories of how food has affected their gaming lives, I would like to collect them for a book I’d like to write.

Stargazer
What are your next plans? Will you use Mecha’s system for other games or do you think it works best in that genre?

Chris
Ah, the future.  Right now I am working on the Mecha combiner rules.  Combiners are things like Voltron where many PC mecha form a super robot.  I am set to playtest those rules and if things go like I think they will, that supplement should pretty much write itself.

The funny thing is, thoughm I have this feeling those rules are going to be received with mixed results.  I could be wrong on this one, but the Combiner rules are really, really simple and probably not what fans of the game are expecting.  However, fans should rest assured that we tried a number of different plans, including taking averages of all the mecha’s stats, building a prorated scale based on number of mecha in the combination, and none of it worked.  Then we changed on an idea and it seems to just fit.

The fun of that book will be explaining the choice we made, not to apologize for it, but because it’s important for GMs to understand the logic behind the rules so they can best apply them to their campaign.  Of course, GMs of the game are free to tell me I’m nuts, write their own rules, and post them on srssource.mecharpg.com.  I welcome the sanity check.

After that, we’ve been asked to do a Kaiju supplement (think Godzilla).  Also, I am writing a setting for an I-20 (another HJP system) supplement, a 4th Ed supplement, and starting what I hope will be a line of Savage Worlds sci fi games.  Oh, and I am writing a Facebook RPG app as well.

Also, my publisher is really keen on doing a fantasy game using OCF! and he almost has me convinced.  Plus, in the back of my head I have ideas for two more games: Mana and another one that will start with M and end with an uh sound.  (Not Messiah, that game is behind me.)  Mana will be a sort of pre-apocalyptic future where magic and technology coexist and the pro-magic forces have decided that all technology is evil.  You play peacekeepers whose job it is to sniff out technology and eradicate it.  However, it will be a sandbox game so there is only a set amount of Mana left before the world ends.

And all of your magic uses Mana.  So does your robotic partner whose brain is basically a magic fueled computer.

Stargazer
You have been attending Gen Con this year. How did you like it? How was it compared to the Gen Con in the years before?

Chris
My first Gen Con was 2007 and nothing will every top it.  Because it was my first.

Still, this year was awesome and made me really happy for the hobby.  My fear was that with the economy in a recession that in any other time period would be called a Depression, that it would be underattended by patrons and game companies alike.  Nothing could be farther from the truth. I hope that translates into industrywide sales and that we finished 2010 strong and go into 2011.

Oh, and Chris Parmas was very gracious when I told him about my Vampire character.

Stargazer
What was your favorite product at this year’s Gen Con?

Chris
Um…Mecha?  In all seriousness, I still get a kick out of playing it every year.

I think the thing that would have been my favorite would have been the Adventure Burner, but Luke sold out (I yelled at him.)  With that said, it would have to be Freemarket.  Jared and Luke made a great game there.  Colonial Gothic was also sweet.

Stargazer
Is there anything you want to share with my readers that I haven’t asked you yet?

Chris
Every hour some one doesn’t buy a copy of Mecha, a star blows up.  I don’t know why and you can’t see any other them, but I’m pretty sure that is happening.  Yep, one just blew up.

Okay, threats aside, I would just ask that everyone who thinks Mecha sounds cool can download the Quickstart on RPGNow or buy the full version for $12.00?  Either way, everyone is welcome to join a fairly vibrant Mecha community.  Right now, we have some good threads on RPG.NET, we have srssource.mecharpg.com where people have uploaded their own SRSes (settings.)  Plus, you can always send us questions and suggestions on myheroicjourney.com (just don’t send us Viagra ads.)  We’re all about fan service (kidding.)  We’re here because we love to play good RPGs and we want to support everyone who loves to play good RPGs.  For instance, it was because people asked for it that we’re doing the Kaiju and Combiner supplements.  I had another supplement I was working on, but that’s been backburnered because we want to be as accommodating as we can.

Stargazer
Thanks for taking your time to answer our questions! Have a great day!

Chris
Thanks.  I appreciate it!

Related posts:

1. Wolfgang Baur, Chris Pramas, and Michael Furlanetto to work on new patronage project
2. Interview with David Bezio
3. Interview: Sarah Newton

So on one of the “Four Best Days In Gaming”, Mark, Jeff and I (Zach was running a game at this time) sat down at the Champions restaurant in the Marriott hotel, had some great food and talked a bit about Gen Con.

This little talk made it into the latest episode of RPG Circus, which is finally available! I also want to use the opportunity to thank Jeff, Mark and Zachary for having me on the show. They are the nicest people and I can’t wait to meet them at Gen Con 2011 again!

Related posts:

1. You shouldn’t miss RPG Circus episode 11!
2. RPG Circus Episode 6
3. My new favorite podcast

Phil and Ray graciously accepted my request to interview them about this fantastic new edition. As with my previous interview with them, both men took the time to respond to my questions. You can read the full interview on Polyhedral Dreams, my personal games blog.

Related posts:

1. Freebie: Mini Six
2. Microlite Interview with AntiPaladin Games
3. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview

Thanks again to Tristan for having me on the show. It was an honor and a pleasure!

Related posts:

1. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
2. Interview with the AntiPaladins: Mini Six Bare Bones Edition
3. Gen Con: Crafty Games Interview

Thanks again to Patrick and Alex for that awesome interview!

Related posts:

1. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
2. Microlite Interview with AntiPaladin Games
3. Interview with the AntiPaladins: Mini Six Bare Bones Edition

Stargazer
I don’t think I need to introduce you again, since you already did so on the blog, but can you tell a bit about yourself for the ones who missed that post?

Corvus
I’m a 34-year-old father of one who’s been gaming since about 1982. I started with Moldvay Basic D&D, which my godmother’s son got for his birthday, and eventually got my own box, by which time it had gone to Mentzer Basic. I didn’t expand into AD&D until my first year of college, which was 1993, but before that I’d had some contact with Star Frontiers and TMNT & Other Strangeness.  I branched out further as the years went on, but my favorite published campaign for AD&D was always Dark Sun because of how different and strange it was.

Stargazer
Dark Sun was definitely different from standard fantasy fare. What was your favorite aspect of that setting?

Corvus
My personal favorite is the lack of gods. I don’t mind religions in D&D, but having that swept away in favor of strange elemental shaman-priests really drove home how brutal Athas is.  I also like that the closest thing Athas has to “real” D&D clerics, Templars, get their spells instead from the Sorcerer Kings.

Stargazer
Let’s now talk about your Microlite20 adaption of Dark Sun. When did you have the idea to write it?

Corvus
I started thinking about it the day I found Microlite20 itself, which was shortly after M20 was released.  I didn’t know if I had the right stuff to do the conversion myself, but eventually I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to just try.  From the day of that decision, it took me only a few weeks to get everything into what I considered good enough shape to release to the wild.

Stargazer
What was the hardest part to translate to Microlite20? I am sure you had to make a few cut decisions because of the extremely rules-light nature of Microlite20.

Corvus
I’d say it was a tossup between the condensed spell lists and the monsters.  The monster stats were easy, but many creatures on Athas are psionic — which meant I had to replace a lot of powers that weren’t featured in the basic M20 psionic lists. I agonized over the spell lists for hours. At first I didn’t want to add any more spells than what M20 already had, but I realized I would have to give in a bit; after that, the lists became easier. The new Templar list was probably the hardest.  I had to rebuild it from the ground up, so I stuck to the theme of “enforcer of the Sorcerer Kings’ law”, which ended up giving them a lot of detection and control spells.

Stargazer
So, even while you tried a close conversion of Dark Sun, you also managed to add your own touch as well?

Corvus
Unintentionally, yes.  I wanted to stay as close to the published material as possible. I only put a spin on things when I couldn’t recreate what was already there with the existing Dark Sun material.

Stargazer
But you are happy with how it turned out or are there things you would like to change or fix in a later edition?

Corvus
I honestly couldn’t say at this point. I haven’t gotten any feedback, so I don’t know how well it plays in practice. I’m pleased with how it feels when I read over it, at least.  I’d like to do more material, including more monster conversions from some of the AD&D Dark Sun supplements, but I’m still hashing out how to go from AD&D 2e to M20.

Stargazer
Do you plan to convert other AD&D 2nd Edition settings to M20? Planescape, Spelljammer and even Buck Roger in the XXVth Century come to mind.

Corvus
I’m not attached to any other AD&D setting to that degree, and the only other 2e settings that have had enough 3.5e material released don’t really need an M20 campaign setting document.  I’d love to see somebody do something with XXVc, but it uses a variant of the AD&D 2e ruleset, which poses the same problems as for me wanting to do more monsters and so on.

Stargazer
I guess especially the percentile-based skill system of XXVc would pose some problems for a M20 conversion. A lot would have to be left on the cutting room floor.

Corvus
You’d have to either push it through a d20 lens first, or come up with a new microlite entirely.  Dark Sun was easy because of the 3.5e magazine articles; XXVc would pose a much bigger challenge.

Stargazer
Perhaps let’s now talk a bit about your other projects. Your website http://bluehex.yolasite.com/ lists a Couple of games of your design. What is Simfanad for example?

Corvus
Simfanad is my entry into the retro-clone circus.  The name stands for “simple fantasy adventure”.  The game distills and represents the essential rules ideas that were used in the fantastic “Lord of the Rings Adventure Game” (LOR) from Iron Crown.  I’ve taken out the Tolkien IP, replaced ICE’s house terminology with d20 SRD terminology, and split races and classes to create a simple, basic fantasy game. I’m still in the design stage with it, as it needs a monster list.  You’ll be able to use information from LOR (and some MERP books with LOR stats included), but not everyone has access to those products.  What I intend to do is present SRD monsters in terms of the Simfanad rules, however.

Stargazer
That sounds pretty interesting. Alas I have never played the original game myself. Does it have some similarities with Rolemaster or HARP or was it totally different from those games?

Corvus
LOR is to MERP what MERP was to Rolemaster, but to an even greater degree.  It is an ultra-simplified expression of the MERP concepts and is played with only 2d6 and a single combat chart, instead of percentiles and many individual charts.  In that way it resembles a lot of small, fast and light games from today.  When I noticed that, it seemed a no-brainer to distill LOR’s concepts for re-expression as a retro-clone.

Stargazer
Are the rules of LOR or Simfanad for that matter very much intertwined with the setting or could you use it for other fantasy campaigns as well? How does magic work for example?

Corvus
By removing the existing Middle Earth material and splitting up the character templates into races and classes, I was able to make it fairly generic in the way core D&D can be.  Magic uses one of the most basic models, where a character knows a set number of spells.  A spell is cast with a successful casting skill roll, and causes HP drain like in Microlite20.

Stargazer
So Simfanad is a retro-clone of LOR but without the setting baggage (which would also cause some copyright issues)?

Corvus
Some copyright issues the size of Mordor, yes.  Simfanad uses the underlying ruleset, but does not reproduce any of the setting IP at all.  I even went so far as to replace terms like “offensive bonus” with “base attack bonus” to make sure I was covered.

Stargazer
Speaking of retro-clones, what do you think about the Old School Revolution or Renaissance, as some people call it?

Corvus
I have no comment on the OSR one way or the other.  I enjoy retroclones and new games equally, and I think if people want to play a certain way, that’s the way that’s best for them.

Stargazer
So, what’s your next project? Are you actually working on something right now?

Corvus
I don’t have any current projects. What I should be doing is going back and finishing/polishing things like Simfanad and my Game Fu projects.  I’m still hoping to get some outside assistance on those; a fresh set of eyes, as it were.

Stargazer
I know exactly what you’re talking about. I should be working on a revision of WR&M but I am just not making any progress. That’s the hardest part of any design process IMHO.
Before we conclude this interview, is there anything I forgot to ask you that you would love to talk about?

Corvus
I’d actually like to plug my support for your game projects, especially Warrior, Rogue & Mage and GEARS, as well as the Star Frontiers Revival and Star Frontiersman magazine. Lastly, I do maintain a forum on Blue Hex for feedback and discussion.

Stargazer
Then let’s hope this interview and the review of you Dark Sun conversion for Microlite20 will get people to give you some feedback and join the discussions in your forums! I lso want to thank you for your support of my current projects (especially GEARS is still a tough nut to crack for me). And I want to thank you for taking your time for this interview.

Related posts:

1. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
2. Interview with the authors of RAG
3. Interview with Chad Underkoffler

Without further ado, here is the interview…

Sunglar: Thank you for the opportunity to interview you. I know some topics may have been addressed in other interviews or blog posts, but I’m asking them for the benefit of Stargazer World’s readers who might not have read those. Can you tell us who you are, and what you do in the gaming industry?

Steve: My name is Steve Kenson. I work as a staff designer for Green Ronin Publishing and also as a freelance designer and writer for other RPG publishers.

Sunglar: How did you begin playing role playing games?

Steve: I came across a first edition boxed set of GAMMA WORLD when I was 12 and begged my parents to buy it for me. I spent quite a bit of time rolling up random mutants, and then convinced some of my friends to play it with me. That led to playing D&D and countless other RPGs in the years sinc

Sunglar: What was your first superhero role playing game?

Steve: Villains & Vigilantes (which I just recently re-purchased from RPGNow). My middle school friends and I played ourselves, as the game suggested, as students at a school for young supers. My character had laser powers, as I recall.

Sunglar: What exactly is ICONS?

Steve: ICONS is a new superhero roleplaying game, designed by me and published by Adamant Entertainment.

Sunglar: What makes ICONS different from other superhero role playing games out there?

Steve: ICONS focuses less on character design details and more on quick game-play and broader strokes like character aspects, descriptive terms that carry certain game effects.

Sunglar: How does ICONS compare with your other creation Mutants & Masterminds? What similarities are there, what differences?

Steve: Both games look to emulate the comic book superhero genre. M&M does so with a fair amount of attention to detail, whereas ICONS paints with broad strokes. Both games play quickly, but ICONS is more description focused and M&M more rules focused.

Sunglar: Can you tell us about the mechanics used in ICONS? What makes them unique? What was your inspiration?

Steve: ICONS draws a lot of inspiration from prior games like Fudge, FATE, Feng Shui, and Marvel Super-Heroes, to name a few.

Sunglar: ICONS has random superhero generation rules, as well as including a point buy option. Do you think random generation encourages the feel you want for the game?

Steve: Random hero creation is a big part of why I wanted to create ICONS. I liked the idea of a quick design system that would provide inspiration and even challenge players’ imaginations to build interesting heroes around a collection of game traits.

Sunglar: When you say ICONS is inspired by “old school pick-up style superhero RPGs” obviously the classic Marvel Superheroes RPG comes to mind, were there any other significant influences that come to mind besides that game?

Steve: The aforementioned Villains & Vigilantes was my introduction random-roll superheroes, so there was certainly some inspiration there. Spirit of the Century (which I ran a fun game of) was also an inspiration.

Sunglar: How much of FATE is there in ICONS?

Steve: A fair amount of inspiration. I referred to ICONS as “FATE-inspired” rather than as a FATE branded product. There are a lot of similarities: the scale (what FATE calls the “ladder”), aspects, Fate/Determination points, etc., but the scale is different and ICONS handles aspects and the game mechanics of things like Determination somewhat differently.

Sunglar: What other ICONS related projects are you involved in?

Steve: I’ve written a few ICONS adventures. The first was released as a pre-order special and two others will be released as regular products from Adamant.

Sunglar: Seeing that superheroes are so popular, as evidenced by games, movies, animation, and the ubiquitous nature of comics in our culture, why do you think supers games don’t have a bigger share of the market?

Steve: Three main reasons that I can think of offhand: First, because D&D was the first RPG, fantasy has become and tends to remain the default genre. Second, comic books are a very visual medium, so superheroes may tend to do better in visual presentations like animation, films, or video games. Lastly, some RPG players might find the standards of the superhero genre restrictive compared to more blood-and-guts genres where you can kill monsters.

Sunglar: The release of ICONS seemed to signal a renewed interest in superhero games, if the product offered in websites selling electronic copies of role playing games is any indication. With the upcoming new edition of Mutants & Masterminds and the DC Universe game, do you think we are seeing a golden age of superhero rpgs?

Steve: There is certainly a wealth of choice when it comes to superhero RPGs on the market. Between new games like ICONS and DC Adventures, resurgent old school games like Villains & Vigilantes, and old standards like Champions, there’s pretty much a game for everybody out there.

Sunglar: I would think that the dynamics of team centered comics make them ideally suited for role playing games, but in my experience superhero games are one of the most difficult genres to run. I really like how ICONS deals with team dynamics. Do you think superhero games by their nature more difficult?

Steve: Not necessarily more difficult, but different. Superhero stories differ from a lot of other types of adventure stories. Superheroes are often more reactive, and more supportive of the status quo, than the main characters in other genres, who are often loners or rebels or looking to overthrow the status quo.

Sunglar: Has the popularity of loner, brooding anti-hero types affected the dynamic of superhero role playing games? Does ICONS support this style of superhero?

Steve: It certainly could. ICONS doesn’t presume what a hero’s motivations might be, simply that the heroes should have strong motivations. So you could use the game for a darker, more brooding type of game.

Sunglar: Do you think ICONS, both mechanically and/or thematically, offers the DM tools to make running superhero games easier?

Steve: One element is that ICONS puts the burden of the die-rolling in the players’ hands. They make all the tests, either actively or passively (their hero trying to resist another character’s action). This frees up the GM to focus more on the narrative elements of the game, including bringing different aspects into play.

Sunglar: How accessible is ICONS as a game for new gamers?

Steve: Hopefully, it’s easy for a new gamer to pick up and play, just like 12 year-old me picked up GAMMA WORLD and spent all that time rolling up mutants. I’ve read a number of stories about folks playing ICONS with their kids, which is very gratifying to hear.

Sunglar: What does it offer for the older gamer who has tried other superhero role playing games before?

Steve: Ideally, ICONS offers a quick pick-up game that is easy to run on the spur of the moment, is fun to play, and brings back some fond memories of superhero games past. Whatever the case, I hope that gamers old, new, and in-between have fun with it!

And that’s about it for my very first interview for Stargazer’s World. Let me reiterate my thanks to Steve for his time and patience. Here is looking forward to all his future projects.

Related posts:

1. Interview: Evil Hat Productions
2. More ICONS goodness…
3. Interview: Iain Lowson

Stargazer:  Thanks again for taking your time to answer a couple of questions about Savage Worlds in general and Space 1889: Red Sands and Deadlands: Reloaded in particular. Before we begin, can you introduce yourselves to our readers? Who are you and what’s your job at Pinnacle Entertainment Group? What was the first roleplaying game you ever played and how did you come to work in the industry?

Shane: I’m Shane Hensley, owner and founder of Pinnacle. My first RPG was the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set. My first professional work was a TORG module based on a Halloween adventure I had written for my friends.

Matt: I’m Matthew Cutter, Deadlands Brand Manager for Pinnacle. The first role-playing game I ever played was Basic D&D—the “red box.” Since then I played a lot of different games, and devoted my school years to becoming a better writer and editor. I was introduced to Shane at Con on the Cob 2006. I‘d brought along a copy of an original Savage Setting to show the head honcho, and on that basis was offered the job of writing an adventure for Deadlands. That grew into the job of rewriting and editing “The Flood” for Deadlands, which in turn led to my current position as Deadlands Brand Manager. No place I’d rather be!

Stargazer: Could you please tell us about how Savage Worlds came to be? From what I understand it’s somewhat based on the system used in the original Deadlands game. How close is it to its predecessor and what did you change the most?

Matt: That’s a great point, and I feel it gets glossed over at times. In fact, Savage Worlds grew directly out of Deadlands Classic. It’s fair to say Savage Worlds is only the most recent iteration of that ruleset, and to my mind that makes it perfectly suited to Deadlands. I think we can do a few things to better emulate Classic Deadlands in the Reloaded rules, and this summer’s second printing goes a long way toward that goal.

Shane: The actual progression was Deadlands Classic to Great Rail Wars, which is very similar to Savage Worlds. We tried an adventure (Reign o’ Terror, to be exact) using GRW with a few tweaks and really enjoyed it. A few years later we tried it with a Weird Wars adventure, and it grew from there.

Stargazer: Most gamers think that Savage Worlds works best in settings which have some “pulp feel” in it, do you share this view? And if so, was this intentional or just an interesting side effect?

Shane: That tends to be my interest, but I’ve run several realistic and gritty campaigns with only a few simple setting rules. One example of this is the Crime City One Sheet “The Moscow Connection” you can find for free on our site.

Matt: “Pulp feel” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but in the sense of “cinematic action,” I think it’s a fair assessment. Savage Worlds is far more concerned with the experience at the game table—during the game—than it is with providing a book that’s fun to read any time, or a detailed system for quantifying a character’s background, for example. If it isn’t important to the actual gameplay, it tends to be glossed over. To me, that’s a good thing. My time is pretty much limited to gaming (as opposed to prepping and research), so being able to put that time to good use is important to me.

Stargazer: Some players don’t like the fact that you need poker cards and poker chips when playing Savage Worlds. In my opinion it’s easy to go without poker chips, glass beads etc. if you don’t mind a little bit of book keeping. But what’s your best house rule for players who don’t want to use poker cards for initiative?

Matt: My house rule for that would be, “Give it a chance. It’s fun!” But for those who give it a chance and still dislike it, our very own Clint Black has suggested a simple and elegant system that makes use of a 20-sided die and a few modified Edges. It can be found on the Pinnacle forums and (I believe) on the Savage Wiki.

Shane: I’m with Matt. Give it a chance. Most people who say that try it and are completely sold afterwards. In fact, we get a lot of fan mail telling us they really miss it when they go to play other games.

Stargazer: Savage Worlds is known for its original settings (campaigns like Necessary Evil which presents an interesting twist to the superheroes genre, Rippers, etc.) and some licensed worlds (like the upcoming campaign based on Frank Chadwick’s Space 1889). Will we see more licensed settings in the future or do you try to balance between original and balanced campaigns?

Matt: Our focus is primarily on our own, original Savage Settings. We’ve got a lot of them in the queue! That doesn’t mean we’re opposed to picking up a license when an appealing one is available (e.g., Solomon Kane and Space: 1889), but for the most part we’re putting our efforts toward new material.

Shane: What Matt said.

Stargazer: In my opinion Savage Worlds would be a great fit for the Star Wars universe. Would you be interested in creating a Star Wars game, if you got the license from Lucasfilm?

Shane: Of course we’d love it, but it’s not very realistic given our size.

Stargazer: Let’s talk a bit more about the upcoming Red Sands campaign setting. Will it be a one-shot product only or do you plan a series of Space 1889 books?

Matt: For now, the license allows us to create a Plot Point book for Space: 1889. That might change at some point, but for now it’s just the one. Of course, “just the one” contains a lot of material, enough to propel a very long campaign.

Stargazer: How did you come up with the plan to license Space 1889 for Savage Worlds?

Shane: It was a shower moment. I have everything written for Space 1889 and was thinking of running a game for my friends. I thought “Why not call Frank?”, so I did. The rest…will be in your hands this summer.

Stargazer: I am currently running a Rippers campaign for my friends. The currently available Rippers books are still based on an earlier version of the Savage Words rules, do you plan to give Rippers an “Explorer’s Edition” overhaul like you did with Necessary Evil?

Matt: Of course! Rippers is actually out-of-print right now, but we know how popular it is with the fans. Rippers is the next Plot Point campaign due for the Explorer’s Edition treatment. That is, it’ll be printed in the smaller size the fans have come to know and love, along with some minor revisions. In fact, one revision I can tell you about is that we’ll be replacing the Status system in Rippers with the new version found in Space: 1889. We feel it’s a better model of what Status was in Victorian society, and what function it served. We’ve also attempted to streamline the “decimal Pounds sterling” money system a bit, so those changes will also appear in Rippers and Space: 1889. All this should work to increase the compatibility between the two settings for any GMs who’d like to mix them together.

Stargazer: I recently read about the upcoming rerelease of Deadlands: Reloaded. What will be different from the books that are currently available and why should anyone, who already owns the old books, get the updated version?

Matt: A subject near and dear to my heart. There won’t be all that much that’s different, per se, in this second printing of Deadlands Reloaded. For the most part, my goal was to clean up the typos and inconsistencies of the first printing. But secondary to that was the idea that a few of the character types in Reloaded could be tweaked to be more in line with the original intent of Classic. So Shamans get an update (which is currently available on peginc.com as a preview) to make them more playable, and the Old Ways Oath is no longer required. Not requiring the Old Ways makes the setting’s political situation more interesting as well—to wit, how do the Old Ways and New Ways tribes get along, given that they both seem to be right about “what the spirits want”? Mad Scientists regain the ability to create Infernal Devices, and Legendary scientists will be able to turn their powers into permanent devices that run on ghost rock instead of Power Points. The dynamite rules have also been expanded to make them clearer and more fun.

Our plan to make it easy for anyone who already owns the rules—a free PDF download will detail all the major additions, so they can print and play. However, the new Player’s Guide (in addition to being an actual hardcover instead of a PDF printout) includes a folded, 17” x 22”, brand-new map of the Weird West (which is flat-out gorgeous). Additionally, we found ourselves with some extra pages to fill, and decided to showcase a great deal of full-page Classic art that hasn’t seen the light of day in a long time. (I’m thinking particularly of the cover of Boomtowns!, which looks amazing as a full-page, glossy print.) These are the definitive Deadlands rules, and they’re a compendium of Classic art as well. So as I said, we didn’t want to require anyone to buy the new rules, but our hope is that they’re just too purty to pass up.

Stargazer: What are your future plans for the different campaign settings? What campaigns do you currently focus on?

Matt: My focus is on Deadlands, and to a smaller extent the overlaps between Deadlands and Hell on Earth. Our plan for Deadlands remains much the same: to release the four planned Plot Point books. “The Last Sons” (which focuses on War, Raven, and the Disputed Territories) is just about to go into layout, for release later this year or early next. Then we’ll give you “Stone and a Hard Place” (focusing on Death, Stone, and the Wild Southwest), and finally the as-yet-untitled final Plot Point book, which will focus on Dr. Hellstromme, Pestilence, and the Nation of Deseret (expect a large section on the City o’ Gloom). Additionally, we’ve got Trail Guides, adventures, and a few other surprises in the pipeline as well. I’ve been working on an original project for Deadlands that will, I hope, provide a whole new way for posses to interact with the weirdness of the West—the same game, with a whole new focus. Needless to say, I get excited every time I sit down to work on Deadlands. If only I could convince the manitou to keep working while I’m asleep, we’d really be getting somewhere.

Stargazer: Recently there was much talk about how the roleplaying game hobby has to change in order to survive. Some companies have experimented with borrowing concepts from MMOs or board games. What’s your stance on that subject?

Matt: I think Savage Worlds borrows quite a bit from board games, to its benefit. Between miniatures, bennies, playing cards, and the tokens used to note status in lieu of book-keeping, a game of Savage Worlds can be far more tactile than some other RPGs. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it’s just another way that Savage Worlds places more focus on the act of playing the game than it does on planning the game, or creating characters for the game. It’s all about what happens at the table, like a board game is, similar to the way an MMO is about what happens when everyone is gathered online. Role-playing games are a collaborative social activity, and Savage Worlds really plays up that aspect by promoting gameplay above all else.

Stargazer: Some people claim devices like Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad can be used at the gaming table. Have you ever considered releasing one of you products for one of these devices (aside from PDF ebooks). Do you think an official Savage Worlds iPad/iPhone/iPod app may be something to think about?

Shane: Absolutely! Look for Space 1889: Red Sands, to be available for the iPad this summer.

Stargazer: From my perspective Savage Worlds has been gaining a lot of steam recently. So, where do you see Savage Worlds in five years?

Matt: Savage Worlds in 2015? My Magic 8-Ball says “Ask again later.” That’s a cop out, I know. All I can say is that I’m grateful to be able to contribute to a game system I enjoy playing and truly believe in, and hope the current trend continues. We’ve always been more focused on doing right by our fans than achieving some hypothetical level of growth—and if we’re lucky, our “Do What’s Cool” attitude will continue to result in games that our fans want to play, and continue to draw new fans to the “Fast! Furious! Fun!” philosophy that we design by.

Shane: Hopefully we’ll keep creating original settings, supporting our existing worlds, and just enjoying being the agile, very profitable studio we’ve become.

Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a few questions for us!

Related posts:

1. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
2. Interview: Sean Preston
3. Interview with Chad Underkoffler

STARGAZER: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Can you please begin by introducting yourself to the readers?

BILL: My name is Bill Coffin. I am and RPG writer and designer, known primarily for my work with Palladium Books in the late 1990s and early 2000s. More recently, I published an RPG with West End Games called Septimus, a sprawling space opera game based on the D6 system.

Much of my work lately has been on getting a small publishing company off the ground called Reliquary Press. We publish fantasy, science fiction and horror novels. I have published my King Arthur novel, Pax Morgana, through it, but we’ve got some other titles on the market too, such as From the Herald’s Wearied Eye by Jessica McHugh, Succumbing to Gravity by Richard Farnsworth and Warhead by Ricardo Delgado, who is also an artist for Dark Horse Comics.

During the day, I’m a business journalist. I run Risk Management magazine as well as an associated blog (www.riskmanagementmonitor.com), podcast and Twitter feed. My work has been featured also in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and a number of other trade publications.

Most importantly, I’ve got a great family. My wife Allison and I have two children, and we live in New Jersey. It’s not nearly as weird there as that Jersey Shore program would have you believe.

STARGAZER: What was the first roleplaying game you ever played and how did you get into gaming?

BILL: I’m one of those old school gamers, so my first game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, when I was about nine years old. However, I found it a little complex for my liking (and my brothers preferred something simpler), so we spent a lot of time playing that classic Moldvay Basic D&D boxed set, and from there we hit every other boxed-set TSR RPG to come out during the 1980s – Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Gangbusters, Top Secret…you name it.

What got me into gaming was that I had the luck of growing up during the golden age of the RPG hobby. Back then, RPGs were something new. It was before immersive video games, hell, even before cable TV and home video, so an RPG really was a doorway into other worlds. The replay value was off the chart, and for imaginiative players, it provided truly endless replay. When you’re a kid and your friends all game, getting a group together is never a problem. So I just got into gaming and never really left.

STARGAZER: Are your currently in a roleplaying group and what are you playing?

BILL: Nothing currently, alas. my gaming group is now very small, and we generally cant game except by way of e-mail, which has its pluses and its minuses. We’re getting a Pirates of the Caribbean” type of game going using D20 Modern as the ruleset, but since it’s PBeM, the actual rules stuff will be handled by me off stage, so the game remains as immersive and as narrative for the players as possible.

STARGAZER: What is your all-time favorite RPG?

BILL: That’s a hard one. Palladium Fantasy, I think. I played that exclusively for so long, and wrote so much for it, it’s kind of in my blood. However, the game mechanics of that are way too heavy for my tastes anymore. I much prefer something simpler, like AD&D or Castles & Crusades (a much more elegant retelling of the AD&D system).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness also has a huge place in my heart, mainly for the utterly superb After the Bomb setting, which my friends and I played the hell out of. Rest in peace, Erick. Your games did wonders for me.

STARGAZER: Can you tell us when you first got introduced into the "industry"?

BILL: Back in the mid-late 1990s, I took a break from novel writing (I had published two at that point) and submitted a sourcebook pitch to Palladium for fun. I got picked up rather quickly by Palladium, and the pay was great. Working with Palladium was really fun and rewarding, and it was just really easy to keep that going. After a while, I was working contracts on a regular basis. I suspect that maybe had I not gone full time with Palladium and just kept handling individual projects for them, things might not have soured between Kevin and myself. But I’ll never know. Alas.

STARGAZER: You are credited in quite a few RPG products. What game was the most fun to design and why?

BILL: Systems Failure was a special thing because Kevin had this wild idea for a game setting and I asked if we could just bang out a quick RPG for the setting, something small and light, like Robotech or TMNT. He went for it, and we got that thing turned around in just about a month. What a whirlwind job that was! I was really proud we pulled it off, and the fan response to the game was quite enjoyable. I got e-mail from more than a few real-life militia who said they had a copy of the game in their bunkers. A rare distinction, to be sure.

STARGAZER: You latest game, Bill Coffin’s Septimus, had a pretty troublesome history. As far as I know it has been cancelled at least once and you considered various systems before it finally got released at WEG’s first Open D6 product. Now Eric Gibson, owner of WEG has returned the rights to Septimus back to you. Can you tell us a bit more about Septimus’ history?

BILL: I’d like to begin by saying that my dealings with West End Games have really been with one person, Eric Gibson, who has since taken an indefinite hiatus from the gaming industry. Eric is a really nice guy who has only ever wanted to produce quality games for people. While we were never able to really make Septimus work as initially planned, I have no hard feelings about it, and I wish Eric the very best.

My deal with West End was originally based on a fixed period of time between my signing of our contract and Eric’s publishing of the game. I delivered the game, and that initial time frame expired, so I called in the cancellation option of my contract. While weighing my options for what to do with the game,Eric came back and offered to pay me up front for publishing rights to the game, which was to be released at last year’s Gen Con. It was a very fair deal, and I took it, but unfortunately, Eric couldn’t get the game published by convention time. He had a bunch of softcovers done up through Lulu (I have a few here at my house), and we sold a bunch at the show, but that’s about it. During all this time, there was the whole preorder fiasco, which pretty much happened apart from me. After a while, Eric decided to get out of WEG, and he very graciously returned the rights to Septimus to me, rather than have the game linger in limbo. I am very grateful to Eric for his consideration.

At the moment, I am sending out electronic copies of Septimus to anybody who asked for one. I’m also working on a version of the game that I can upload to vendors such as RPGNow and DriveThruRPG where it can be sold for $0.00. That way, the game will stay a free D6 product into the future. Of course, I need to square that with Eric, but I’m hoping he won’t mind.

STARGAZER: I think you once mentioned on the rpg.net forums that you were interested using FATE for Septimus. Is this still an option for a future rerelease of Septimus?

BILL: Anything’s possible. I seriously considered converting the game from D6 to FATE because I’m a huge fan of the FUDGE system, and FATE is a really nice retooling of that. There was also a fair amount of enthusiasm for FATE, so I might convert the game over for them, regardless.

One option put forth to me by a fan, and one that I have considered for some time, is to simply make a systemless setting book for Septimus, akin with what Green Ronin did for Freeport. That way, folks can take the system and do what they want with it.

STARGAZER: Recently I noticed a trend that RPG bloggers start their own small publishing companies or pitch their designs to big publishers. What do you – as an industry veteran – recommend to anyone who is interested in getting a job in the RPG industry?

BILL: Don’t expect a whole lot of money out of it. I once heard the best way to make a small fortune in this business is to start with a large one. Now, with print-on-demand publishing these days, the barriers to entry for this industry are lower than ever, especially for outfits that choose to publish digitally. (Honestly, I hardly ever buy hard copy games anymore; almost my entire library exists on my laptop.)
I think the key here is this: if you love RPGs, and if you love writing them, then by all means, why not fire up your own operation and throw your work on the market? I know the bigger publishers would rather things boil down a bit, but if you’re a startup, this is a great time to get into the business. It really all comes down to something Kevin Siembieda once told me, and it is absolutely true: you have to be a fan of your own work. If you are, then you’re well on your way to making it. If you’re not, then you’re probably in the wrong line of work.

STARGAZER: The internet and the various social networks have changed the way game designers, publishers and artists communicate with their customers. How do you use the ‘net to stay in touch with your fans? Are you on Twitter?

BILL: I tend to use RPGnet a whole lot, but folks can always reach me at bill.coffin@gmail.com. I’m finally getting off my lazy butt and getting my own site up and running over at www.billcoffin.me (which will remain that way until I get billcoffin.com back). You can reach me on Facebook and you can follow me at www.twitter.com/bill_coffin.

I’m also a big fan of podcasts, and I occasionally get a guest spot on a cool show like Kicked in the Dicebags. I’d like to get my own podcast off the ground; the key is making sure the content is unique. I’m talking with fellow writer Jason Vey about something that mainly focus on writing and the geek stuff that inspires guys like us. I’d like to think folks would listen to something like that. We’ll see.

STARGAZER: Thanks again for taking your time for this interview!

Related posts:

1. Freebie: Bill Coffin’s Septimus
2. Bill Coffin’s Septimus will be WEG’s first big release under the OpenD6 banner!
3. WEG: This is the end

STARGAZER: At first I want to thank you for taking your time for this interview. Before we get to talk about FATE and the upcoming Dresden Files RPG, can you please introduce yourselves to our readers?

FRED: I’m Fred Hicks, and I run Evil Hat Productions, a small press publisher of role-playing games.  I’ve written a few too, contributing to Spirit of the Century and the Dresden Files RPG and Fate, as well as creating the weird little game Don’t Rest Your Head.  I also do book layout and art direction, both for Evil Hat and for Hero Games at the moment, as well as for other companies on a contract basis.

LENNY: I’m Lenny Balsera, and I am the current line developer for the Fate system. I served as lead  system developer for the Dresden Files, and was an assistant developer for Spirit of the Century. I also do freelance work. (Are you listening, RPG publishing world? I do freelance work!)

STARGAZER: What was the first RPG you played and what are you playing today?

FRED: Red box D&D was where I started in the 3rd grade or so. But today I’m playing… uh. What have I had time to play lately?  Mainly board games: Dominion figures in predominately there, though I also go heads-up with my wife over the 2-player game Lost Cities.

LENNY: I started playing Red box D&D when I was in fourth grade, and moved to AD&D 2nd shortly after that. Right now, I’m running a Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies campaign that’s close to finishing, interspersed with one-shots of Zombie Cinema, D&D 4E, and the new Dragon Age RPG from Green Ronin.

STARGAZER: On my search for free games I eventually stumbled upon FATE 2.0, the game Evil Hat designed, based on Steffan O’ Sullivan’s FUDGE. Alas it seems impossible to get a look at it’s predecessor FATE 1.0. Can you tell us a bit about that game and when you came up with the idea to FATE?

FRED: Sure. Fate 1.0 is really the loose collection of notes Rob Donoghue and I pulled together to codify our early hacks of FUDGE to support the play of Amber (and eventually Buffy) using that system. It’s where we first brought in the idea of aspects and so on.  But the version of Fate you found, 2.0, that’s really the first form that was put together and firmly established for the public at large, and was the result of us running Fate around the block for a few more laps than that.  So really that’s the first “product” — even though it was a free one — that we got out there in the Fate line.

STARGAZER: What sets FATE apart from other games are definitely the Aspects. Can you explain how the Aspects work in the game and how you came up with that concept in the first place?

FRED: They’re a combination of two ideas.  Before we took Fudge to the point of it being its own thing almost in the form of Fate, I ran a game or two that was in “straight Fudge”.  I did away with Attributes entirely, even then, sticking only to Skills and Gifts. And in those games, I let Gifts establish some absolutes, some things which were simply true about the characters, like “Greatest Poet Of His Generation”, and so forth.  They’d color play intensely, establishing areas in which the character simply couldn’t be beaten without facing an opponent who was in his or her same league, carrying a similarly applicable Gift.

When we started talking about the vaguely-formed roots of Fate, Rob brought in an idea from 7th Sea, where characters *paid points* (instead of getting points back) to have bad things attach to their characters, like a nemesis or a penchant for drunkenness.  This combined with my previous Gift idea to create a sort of alchemical fusion we called Aspects.  You could be the “Biggest Drunk Ever” with these things, but you’d get a positive payoff whenever the Aspect goosed you (eventually we called that a compel, but we weren’t there yet), and you’d be able to utilize it to your advantage whenever you could work out a situation where it would help (“That guy’s just a Drunk, we don’t have to take him seriously” as a lead-in to a surprise attack, for example).

LENNY: I basically look at aspects as “spotlight enhancers” – when good or bad stuff happens to your character, there’s an incentive in play to center that stuff around your aspects. The result is that what occurs in the game is uniquely “about” the main characters in a way that I think is, pardon the pun, compelling. There’s no real such thing as an “everyman” story in Fate – it’s always a story indelibly starring the PCs that are present.

STARGAZER: When I read through the FATE 2.0 PDF yesterday, while preparing a few questions, I noticed that there’s a quote from Jim Butcher’s “Storm Front” in there. Did you even back then have plans
for a roleplaying game based on the Harry Dresden novels, or was this just coincidence?

FRED: I’d known Jim Butcher for years already at that point, so it was a case of liking my friend’s stuff and tossing a reference in there because it was fun to do it. So, sort of coincidence — it was that friendship that eventually made the connection for Evil Hat to produce the Dresden Files roleplaying game.

STARGAZER: Spirit of the Century, your pulp-genre game powered by FATE is supposed to be a pickup game, but it’s a whopping 400+ pages. Some people might be intimidated by the sheer size of the book. What’s the best way for new players to approach SotC?

FRED: Well, first off, let’s address that whole “400 pages is intimidating!” thing with SOTC.  It’s a whopping 400 pages, yes, but in a 6×9 book. Each page is a single column of text, less than 500 words, maybe more like 350. I think people lose sight of that because they spend so much time focusing on page count and not looking at any other physical facts about the book.  The 6×9 form factor was done to make it more “packable” (as in “toss it in my backpack & go”), and to feel more pulpy in the hand, so to speak.  If we’d done it as a 8.5×11 thing, I don’t think the hand-feel would have been quite right, but it would have been more like a 200-250 page game in that format.  Is *that* less intimidating? Because if it is, then the intimidation ain’t in the content itself.

LENNY: And honestly, a lot of the book is really examples and our personal recommendations on how to deal with the various skills and stunts and whatnot. The actual rules don’t take up a whole lot of the book – you can look at the rest of the stuff as a lengthy series of recommendations, but if you don’t learn all the specific trappings for every skill and all that stuff, it’s no big deal and shouldn’t slow down play.

FRED: But to get to the meat of your question: Don’t try to take it in all at once. It’s laid out step by step, with plenty of ways to hit the fast forward button.  Get a group together and do character creation — which is always a social, collaborative experience in Fate, not an act of “lonely fun” where you sit in a shadowed room and make up characters by yourself.  Character creation *is* play — you’ll see that attitude expressed throughout Evil Hat’s games, in fact.  If you don’t like the feeling of being “on the spot” to come up with things about your character during character creation, easy — don’t do it. We have an “on the fly” character creation method that’ll suit you fine.  Don’t want to look through the stunts chapter to find out which 5 you want for your character? Flip to the back of the book and use some of the quick-pick packages we lay out for people there. Or don’t take them right away and add them on the fly during play.

It’s easy to come to the system at square one and think “man, this thing is big/intimidating/complicated”, but it isn’t. You can get familiar with it in small incremental steps, and it gets clear pretty quickly that there’s a lot of self-similarity among all the moving parts — a side-effect of a design principle we call the “fate fractal”. Which is why you’ll see a lot of fans of the system talk about how it’s actually rules light despite the apparent heft.  The heft is simply because we like providing lots of examples, lots of inspiration, lots of advice.

STARGAZER: In SotC you introduced stunts to the FATE system. When I remember correctly, you made some changes to stunts in your upcoming Dresden Files Roleplaying Game. Can you explain us, how stunts work and what changes you made for the upcoming game?

FRED: Lenny, want to field this one?

LENNY: Stunts have a lot in common with feats from D&D 3E and its numerous relatives – they’re a way of distinguishing your character by giving them a few more special tricks and shticks to differentiate them from another character who might have a similar skill set. It’s a way of further focusing what you’re good at – a lot of characters might have a reason to be good with Guns, but there’s the akimbo pistols guy, there’s the sniper guy, there’s the firearms scholar (using Guns as a knowledge skill), and so on.

The main thing we wanted to do with stunts in the DFRPG was unify their mechanical function a little more – SotC’s method was sort of haphazard and rough, taking genre tropes and whatever we thought was cool and adapting it. So there are some stunts that have a little more heft than others, etc. For Dresden, we wanted to open up the possibilities of stunts more and make them customizable, so while we do provide some examples of stunts for each skill, the real mojo comes from creating your own and fine-tuning your character that way.

STARGAZER: Let’s talk a bit about the Dresden Files RPG. You plan to release the game as two books, one containing the rules, while the others is about the world. Why did you decide to split it into two books and will the game playable if you only get the rules?

FRED: For one, because a single 700-page full color full size hardcover book is a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome.  But yes, it’ll be entirely playable with just the rules found in volume 1, Your Story.  You’ll have to come up with more monster-stats on your own, and you won’t have a ton of setting info that’s great for fans of the novels without volume 2, Our World, but some people aren’t looking for setting.  Which brings us to the second reason for splitting the book — it lets people pick and choose what parts of the game they want for themselves instead of having to grab hold of a Ptolus-rivaling tome of infinite slaying.

LENNY: Yeah, the development of the game has been influenced by the fact that we’re all huge Dresden Files fanboys and fangirls on the team – we wanted to be as inclusive as we could with the content. So every day, it seemed, there was something new from the books we could mention, a new thing to stat, a footnote to make. The temptation to provide both a set of complete rules to experience the universe with
and have a workable “fan guide” for the setting was pretty profound. Compound this process over the years that we’ve been in development, and eventually you end up with an enormous tome of a thing. It seemed a crime to cut a majority of that content, so the two-book approach seemed the most reasonable thing to do.

STARGAZER: The development of the Dresden Files RPG took quite a while. What kind of hurdles did you encounter during the development? And where there any cool ideas you had to drop?

FRED: Oh, I’m sure there were all sorts of things that got dropped at one point or another.  But really, we managed to fit nearly all that was awesome into the game and left out nearly everything that wasn’t. Which is something of an answer to why it took so long.  We had hurdles aplenty.  Our first full iteration of the system was crap — seriously, just crap.  It took us a little while to get to where we’d admit that, and when we did admit it, we agreed it had to be nuked from orbit.  So we did.

LENNY: Yeah, that was around the point that I initially got brought on to the project – we came to a realization pretty early on that Fate v2 just wasn’t robust enough to drill down to the level of detail we wanted. So Dresden required us to reengineer the whole damn thing from the ground up, which was an undertaking of rather dramatic proportions. The chronicle of the affair is on our website.

FRED: But a lot of the hurdles were really about not yet being the company that could take on the job.  We were handed a license that frankly outmassed us by a few orders of magnitude.  So in a way the delays were as much about becoming a company that *was* capable enough — and finally, with a development team that was big enough – to really take on all parts of the game.  That alone took us a few years, but it also produced things like Don’t Rest Your Head and Spirit of the Century, literally as side effects of the whole process.

LENNY: Right. At the beginning of things, Fred and Rob didn’t really know a whole hell of a lot about publishing. (I still don’t.) So there was this period where their main goal turned toward learning about publishing and growing into a business, a role that Fred has risen to manage with skill and equanimity.

STARGAZER: Will there be additional releases for the game after the two core books have been released?Will there be official Dresden Files adventures or supplements?

FRED: Well, to get right to it, we don’t have a license that covers doing anything other than what we’re already doing.  We can negotiate for more if we want, but that would need to be a separate agreement, a separate contract.  And Jim as well as we are invested in the idea of keeping the game manageable for the fans and avoiding too much in the way of supplement sprawl.  That said, I could see us doing a set of adventures in PDF at least, if the demand’s there. But for now I think we mainly just want to get the core game out there and see what people do with it.  Their ideas are almost certain to be better than our own.

LENNY: Keep in mind that there’s likely to be a lot of “unofficial” support on the Internet from us, too. I mean, I plan to be wherever the fan community is, talking about statting future books and whatnot. I could see some free Web supplements happening, stuff like that. We’re Dresden fans too, you know? We want to babble about it at length.

STARGAZER: What are you plans for the time after the Dresden Files RPG is done? Aside from a long vacation, of course?

FRED: Drinkin’.

LENNY: Amen, brother.

FRED: Eventually we’ll recover from that, and we’ll look at getting to work on a Core Fate product, one without any of the setting or genre trappings of the previous couple products.  And we’ve got some other stuff in the hopper for supporting Spirit of the Century, and maybe some new directions to go on as well.  But I’ve been talking, internally, about this “Wall of Dresden” effect.  We can’t see over that Wall. We haven’t cleared it yet. When we do, we’ll be in an undiscovered country.

STARGAZER: Some people claim the gaming hobby is in the decline and will be replaced by other past-times if it doesn’t change. What are you thoughts on that issue? Is pen & paper roleplaying doomed? Do RPGs have to become more like MMOs or board games to attract new players?

FRED: I think it’s the nature of people to look at something that was once familiar at the point that those familiar things start to change and decide that the sky must be falling.  Is the pen & paper roleplaying we grew up with doomed?  Well, no.  I think it’s already past dead in the sense that it isn’t what it was before.  It grew up, went to college, got a job, and had kids.  It’s not the same thing it used to be.  But is that bad? Is that doomed? Is that really “dead”? No, I think it’s just different. Kids these days! With their hair and those pants and their story games. Who can figure!

LENNY: I don’t know. It’s not like RPGs have ever really had a broad, mainstream appeal if you compare them to other types of entertainment. Can you really compare any phase of Dungeons and Dragons’ history to that of any relatively successful board game, even? I don’t like absolute terms like “doomed” – I mean, you don’t really hear a lot about model railroad building, but there are still people who do it, right? It’s probable that the way we’ve looked at producing and distributing RPGs in the past is no longer feasible due to a variety of factors, but some people have been arguing that this has always been the case. The recording industry has been stuttering its way through a similar process since electronic music distribution has become more dominant. Markets change. That’s just how it goes. I don’t think it’s the games that necessarily need to change, as much as the business models used to sell them.

FRED: I don’t think RPGs have to become more like MMOs or board games (though board games are chock full of great ideas these days, as are MMOs).  I think some of them can, some of them should, some of them will.  But there’s no imperative to imitate here.  I think there’s an imperative to innovate, though, and games which don’t are going to wither on the vine.  Companies and designers that insist on doing the same old same old are going to be in trouble.  That’s not a dig on things like the Old School Renaissance either, as I think they’re still doing something new in their revisitation of What Is Old School — whether they admit it to themselves or not. Revivals have their place, always. You don’t ignore your history. But you’ve got to build on it.

LENNY: I think it’s also a potentially a mistake to assume that these audiences will cross-pollinate. There’s no special reason why someone who likes World of Warcraft will like D&D, other than the fantasy
color. Yeah, we can argue about the influence of tabletop mechanics on computer RPG mechanics and whatnot, but that doesn’t really mean anything in terms of actually identifying a market. And D&D 4E *did* have its mechanics influenced a lot by what’s happening with MMOs… has that really helped it any in terms of sales? (I’m asking because I don’t know.)

FRED: All I know is that I’m still playing the pen & paper games. That they still scratch an itch that other entertainments don’t.  From looking at Evil Hat’s fans, I can’t say as I’m alone in that either.

STARGAZER: Recently I noticed a new trend: prolific bloggers start their own companies and publish their own RPG products. What tips do you have for any aspiring publisher?

FRED: More than would fit into the next ten interviews.  If you want to see my thoughts on publishing, I blog about it with some frequency over on http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ — I’m doing my best to run Evil Hat transparently, so folks can look under the hood and see how it ticks, and figure out what parts of it will work for them.  I also did a round up of some of my earlier advice posts, before I started up Deadly Fredly, over on my tumblr, http://deadlyfredly.tumblr.com/post/504942222/old-publishing-advice-links — so start there, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

STARGAZER: Thanks again for answering our questions, good luck with the upcoming Dresden Files RPG and I hope we can talk again in the future!

FRED: Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure!

LENNY: Thanks for the opportunity.

Related posts:

1. Necessary Evil
2. Review: Smallville RPG by Margaret Weis Productions
3. Preview: Kingdom Builder by Chaotic Shiny Productions

Stargazer
Greetings! At first I want to thank you for taking the time to answer a couple of questions about your work with us. Could you please start by introducing yourself to our readers?

Jess
Hi, Michael! Thanks for taking the time to interview me! Let’s see, introductions, eh? Well, we can start with the easy stuff. My name is Jess Hartley, and for the past 10 years or so, I’ve been a professional novelist, writer, editor and game developer. While I’ve been published in a wide variety of mediums, from greeting cards to magazines, most of my most well-known work has been in the roleplaying game industry. I’ve done extensive writing for White Wolf Games in the past 7 or 8 years, working on everything from novels to setting material to game mechanics. I’ve had the pleasure of working on at least one game product for each of the New World of Darkness game lines, as well as Exalted and Scion. I’m probably most well known for my work on Changeling: The Lost , both the core game and many of the supplementary materials. Recently, I’ve begun to branch out a bit more. Last year I worked on Supernatural Adventures (based on the television show, Supernatural) for Margaret Weis Productions, and was part of a game-related horror collection, “Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas” which recently won Preditors & Editors Fan Awards for best anthology. I also contributed to upcoming products such as Green Ronin’s Family Games: The Best 100, and to Will Hindmarch’s book about gamers and their dice, “The Bones”.

But I’m not just a game writer. I write a regular column entitled “One Geek to Another” which focuses on etiquette, ethics and advice for the modern geek (gamer or no) and I’m currently working on a non-game related fiction experiment called “The Shattered Glass Project.” It’s only been going on since the first of Spring (March 21, 2010) but I’ve been very pleased with the results so far.

Stargazer
What was the first roleplaying game you’ve played and how were you introduced to the pen & paper hobby?

Jess
The first roleplaying game I ever played was the Red Box D&D set (which we bought off the shelf at Toys R Us). A good friend of mine, who unfortunately lived too far away to actually teach us how to play, had mentioned gaming and it sounded intriguing. I decided to grab the basic game and give it a try. I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good DM at the time; I literally had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Luckily several years later my friend and I ended up in closer proximity, and he taught me the groundwork of being a good player and a good DM.

Stargazer
What is currently your favorite roleplaying game and do you play in a regular group?

Jess
My current favorite RPG is whichever one my friends and I are playing at any given moment and having fun with. While, as a writer and game creator, I can definitely appreciate the value of well-created setting, elegant rules and fun core materials, I think that a good group of people can play even a poorly created game and have a good time, and that’s really what playing RPGs is all about for me – having fun with my friends.

That being said, while I live in a very remote area of Southeastern Arizona (I can see the Mexican border from my back porch) I’m fortunate enough to have a nice group of LARPers in the next town over, and a great community of tabletop gamers two hours away in Tucson. So I LARP on a semi-regular basis with the Nomads of Twilight in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and get the chance to play tabletop games on a little less regular basis with the Southern Arizona Gamers Association (SAGA) in Tucson.

Stargazer
In August of 2009 you helped create Geist: The Sineaters. Can you give us a short description of what that game is about and how it’s different than Wraith: The Oblivion? What was your part in the design process?

Jess
Geist: The Sin-Eaters was released at GenCon in August of 2009, but the actual creation process of it began almost a year earlier (at least my part of it – the early groundwork probably was done even before that!) Until I started working in the industry, I didn’t realize how long the process of creating a game can take, so I always like to mention it, so that gamers will recognize the months (and in some cases years) of hard work that goes into creating something that reads and plays like it’s simple. But, enough about that, you wanted to know about Geist!

In Geist, you’re playing a character who was entirely human, although chances are they may have had a little “connection” with the supernatural. Maybe they were one of those folks who was haunted by a poltergeist when they were younger, or they were visited by their Grandmother, only to find out that she’d died the day before. Nothing big and powerful, but their lives were somehow touched by the “other side”. Then, they die… or almost…. On the verge of their becoming “really most sincerely dead”, they’re contacted by a Geist – kind of an archetypal ghost – who offers them a choice. Merge with the Geist and get a second shot at life. Or, refuse, and go on to whatever fate awaits them. Those who agree to the Geist’s proposition become Sin-Eaters. They look human. They feel human (mostly). But they’re not just themselves any more. They have this ghostly symbiote, with its own drives, goals and opinions. And with that symbiote comes an intimate connection with other ghosts, the Underworld, and Death itself.

Geist and Wraith differ in many ways. Like all of the NWoD games, Geist leaves the building of a metaplot up to the Storytellers and players. We tell you what exists, you decide what came before, what’s happening now, and what will come in the future. But more specifically, in Geist, you’re playing (predominantly) characters in the mortal world. You’re still tangible parts of human society, rather than ethereal onlookers who spend most of their existence in a ghost-populated realm. While Sin-Eaters can travel to the Underworld, their day to day life takes place mostly in the “real” world, and the challenges of being a mortal who is surrounded by (and can constantly perceive) the restless dead around them.

Like most White Wolf core games, Geist was created by a core team of writers led by a developer; in this case, there were nearly a dozen (I believe) folks on the team, all held to task by the “iron fist” of prolific and talented White Wolf developer, Ethan Skemp. In terms of what I specifically did for Geist, I got to work on some of my favorite aspects: antagonists and setting. I did the majority of the New York Setting, including the sample krewes as well as a good portion of the antagonists earlier in the book. It was a really interesting project to be a part of, and a great team of creative minds to brainstorm with.

Stargazer
Among the games you’ve worked on is Hunter: The Vigil. What’s the difference between this game and its predecessor Hunter: The Reckoning, aside from updated rules?

Jess
One of the awesome things about working on Hunter: The Vigil is that the team included those who had played the earlier incarnation of Hunter and loved it, those who had played it and weren’t crazy about it (okay, I’m being diplomatic – we had a few Reckoning haters on the team) and those –like me—who had never played the earlier version. So I’m probably not the best person to give an in depth comparison and contrast on the two games. What I’ve heard from those who are more familiar with Reckoning than I am, is that by removing the inherent singular background/motivation from the Hunter paradigm (IE: not all Hunters in Vigil are servants of some higher power embued with strengths because of their holy destiny to destroy the supernatural) we created a game that was much more versatile and allowed for far more diverse play styles than the original Hunter did. Specifically, the three Tiers allow for characters that range from “gang of guys defending their neighborhood from werewolves with shotguns and baseball bats” to “high powered military units that harvest and implant supernatural bits into themselves to get the “edge” on their enemies”. While I don’t know whether this was a part of Hunter: The Reckoning or not, I’m also very fond of the “to defeat the monsters, I must become a monster myself” aspect of Vigil. The blurred lines between “good” and “evil” are a very tasty moral playground to me.

Stargazer
Aside from being a game designer you are also a novelist. Can you tell us about your past, current projects? What’s the Shattered Glass Project all about?

Jess
My first novel, In Northern Twilight, was also my first foray into the roleplaying game industry, professionally. Set in White Wolf’s Exalted game setting, INT was a great opportunity for me to really dive in to the industry. I was totally inexperienced, and sometimes I’m amazed at how much I didn’t know about writing professionally, or the gaming industry, when I got started. It’s one of the reasons I’m very dedicated to being a resources to aspiring writers now; if I can help someone avoid some of the pitfalls I stumbled blindly into, I totally want to do so.

After In Northern Twilight, I was invited to write a second novel for White Wolf, this one set in their upcoming (at the time) Werewolf: The Forsaken game setting. And, while that fiction novel series was cancelled before any of the books were published, because I was familiar with the yet-unreleased setting material, when Ethan Skemp needed someone to fill in on short-notice on Predators (a W:TF Supplement), he asked if I’d be interested. From there, I spent the next 6 years or so pretty much writing full time game material for White Wolf.

Recently, I’ve decided to branch out some. Along with doing freelance writing and editing work for other game companies, I’m also shopping around my own original fiction novel, La Serenissma, which is set in an alternate history version of Southeastern Europe in the 16^th century, and weaves together a plethora of obscure myths and bits of folklore into an elegant and epic tapestry of love, betrayal and revenge.

The Shattered Glass Project is another original fiction effort of mine, although something a bit more edgy and experimental. I’m writing a modern fae short story, and rather than putting it in an anthology or shopping it around to mainstream publishers, I’ve opened it up to Patronages for a limited time period (Spring of 2010, March 21-June 20^th) Basically, during that limited time, folks can support the work at one of three levels of financial Patronage, and each level comes with its own benefits. All Patrons will (unless they object) be personally thanked in the Acknowledgments of the story. And only Patrons will have access to the story, in its entirety, for one year from the inception of the project (so, until at least March 20, 2011.) While I will retain copyright, for legal reasons, the Patrons will truly own the only full copies of the story – they will be the only ones who know the tale.

Virtual Patrons will receive an electronic (.pdf) copy of Shattered Glass. I wanted to be certain that there was a level of Patronage that was affordable to virtually everyone who was interested. As a friend of mine put it, we can’t all afford to support an artist or writer on our own as noble families did in the Middle Ages, but by pooling our nickels and dimes, we can help support those whose creations we value.

The next level of Patronages are Artisan Patrons , who will receive a limited edition physical copy of Shattered Glass, hand-numbered and autographed, with an inscription if they’d like. As part of the experiment, I’m doing research into how to make sure that the physical copy is really something special, rather than just a run-of-the-mill paperback like you’d get off the shelf at your local book store. There’s a lot of options I’m exploring, so the final product will depend on how many Patrons become a part of the Project, and how large Shattered Glass as a written work, ends up being. Regardless, I’m really committed to making it something special.

The final level of Patrons–Personae Patrons– not only receive a physical copy of the story, but actually get their name and likeness (or the name and likeness of someone they bestow the Patronage on) as a character in Shattered Glass. The response to the Personae Patronages was so overwhelming that I had to close them after only 24 hours in order to do justice to those who had so enthusiastically committed their support at that level. So, while I’m taking names of those who are interested in future Personae Patronages, the Personae for Shattered Glass are complete. Virtual and Artisan Patronages, however, are still open, and will remain available until June 20^th, 2010.

Stargazer
What would you recommend to someone interested in working in the RPG business?

Jess
I think the most important advice I can give to someone who is interested in entering the RPG industry is to treat it like the business that it is. So often, we want to work at doing what we love, which is wonderful – so long as we remember that it is still a career. Professionalism, punctuality, politeness – those things will go a long ways towards springboarding your talent, be it writing, art or game design.

As well, never underestimate the power of networking. Getting face-to-face connections built, through conventions, trade shows, gaming events and the like, can be invaluable to your career as an aspiring game professional. I talk about this extensively in a series of blog posts I originally wrote before GenCon last year. They can be found for free on my website (under the non-fiction menu) or a more complete version with a plethora of additional resources can be purchased as a .pdf product through DriveThruRPG, Indie Press Revolution or the Paizo website. It’s called – Conventions for the Aspiring Game Professional (Cons for Pros) and retails for the whopping sum of 1.99.

Stargazer
Some people think that the pen & paper RPG hobby is in decline and being replaced by computer and video games especially MMOs. What is your stance on that issue?

Jess
I think that it’s indisputable that the RPG industry isn’t selling the same massive print runs that it was turning over in the height of the ‘90s. However, whether it’s “in decline” really depends on how you define that term. I think that the breadth and depth of pen-and-paper RPGs that are being produced today vastly outweighs any time in the gaming industry’s history, in part due to the advent of indie games and small press publishers. The widespread availability of cheap and powerful technology is truly putting the ability to be a game publisher in virtually anyone’s hands (with all of the positives and negatives that that may entail) which means I believe there are more small or indie publishers than ever before. It also gives more traditional publishers the ability to produce products that once might not have been feasible for release because of printing and distribution costs (such as White Wolf’s SAS line or Flames Rising’s Instant Antagonists). Because of the reduced production costs of .pdf and Print On Demand products, there’s a whole sea of new materials out there that might have never seen print at any time in the past. And, with online retailers and resources like IndiePressRevolution or DriveThruRPG, the average gamer has access to more materials than ever before, at the click of a mouse.

Video games and MMOs may have had a part in the changing face of RPGs, but I think it’s an exciting time to be a pen-and-paper gamer and a part of the non-pixelated gaming industry, and I’m proud to be both.

Stargazer
Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions.

I wish Jess all the best of luck with her current and future projects. It was an honor to do this interview and I am sure we’ll hear more from her in the future.

Related posts:

1. Interview: Evil Hat Productions
2. Interview with Chad Underkoffler
3. Interview: Bill Coffin

As someone who only got into Dungeons & Dragons a year ago I found it difficult to find anyone else in Juneau Alaska who had experience playing D&D. Checking the internet was little to no help in finding a D&D group. I did however find the Penny Arcade/PvP/Wil Wheton podcasts by Wizards of the Coast to be very helpful for me in flushing out the game play early on.

Eventually I got five friends together and we decided to tackle the game and just address questions one by one as they came up. That has worked out very well. We all get together about once a week for an afternoon of gaming. We have played the same game we started out with a year ago. Of course we have had a player or two come and go, but that’s kind of the nature of the beast.

Living in a remote place like Juneau you tend to have to pay a little more for products. The only way in or out of Juneau is by plane or boat. I try to support local businesses whenever I can. The internet has been a real wallet saver when it comes to buying books and minis. Amazon.com has become a lot of local people’s friend.

When I lived in Washington State my good friend and roommate Lyle Vogtmann, had shared a couple of stories with me about what it was like playing Dungeons & Dragons on a Navy ship. Lyle, had previously served for the United States Navy for 8 years, and every now and then I would get to hear a story about what it was like in the Navy. I asked him recently if he would not mind being interviewed over e-mail about his experience playing Dungeons & Dragons in the Navy. He was all to happy to recount his navel gaming days with me.

Youseph: What is it like playing on a Navy ship?

Lyle: Luckily I wasn’t stationed on a ship, but part of a squadron that deployed with a carrier.  That meant I didn’t have to live on board ship my whole time in the Navy, just when the air wing deployed.  One 6-month deployment preceded by a 2 month and then 2 week “workup” cruise every year and a half rotation.  I spent a total of about 2 years at sea in my 8 years on active duty.

Playing on board ship came with a few surprises and benefits.  A surprising number of players available, all with very predictable schedules.  There are no weekends when out at sea, everyone works every day, usually 12 or 13 hour shifts, and regardless of what job you had, the workload was pretty synchronous (tough busy day/night for an ordnanceman usually meant the boatswains were bushed too.)  When we’d pull in to port for shore leave, we’d all have a break at the same time (extra duty/watches not withstanding.)  So I’d say the best part about playing at sea… everyone involved usually showed up at the same time every week to play, no excuses.  If we had a rough week/night/day shift, it usually meant everybody else in the party was also beat, and we’d reschedule.

That afforded us the ability to do MASSIVE campaigns, our DMs would take turns (we had 3, though one, a Ryan Fuqua from Puyallup, WA, was the most imaginative and would come up with the most detailed and entertaining campaigns) and continue each weeks session from the last.  We got to play the same characters with the same party members together from level 1 to retiring them at the end of a 6 month cruise nearly at the level 20 cap.  (Christian D’Avenant, Lawful Good Cavalier, was the last character I played back than, I still remember the names and classes of our regular party members, even though I can’t remember everyone’s real life names!)

Finding people to play with, and places to play was the most interesting aspect of playing on board ship.  As always, DND players do tend to find each other one way or another.  Despite the massive size of an aircraft carrier, finding places to play was the difficult part.  We’d get chased out of berthing areas where people sleep in their off hours, playing in someone’s work shop wouldn’t work, as they were always manned with the current shift.  For a while we played up in the mezzanine of the hangar deck where empty airplane fuel pods were stored (wish I would have taken pictures… we had to climb a ladder 4 stories or so, and doing so while carrying our bags/briefcases full of manuals/dice/character sheets.  We looked like a geek Special Forces team moving to higher ground positions!)  That’s actually how we found a few of our players, seeing a group of geeks trying to find a place to congregate drew attention, sometimes from people interested in playing, others chasing us away from their stored equipment (DND geek persecution if you asked us back then.)  Sometimes we’d get lucky and one of the sponsons would be unused… wind would force us to hold our character sheets/papers to keep them from blowing away, and rolling dice might result in it going overboard, but man, fresh sea air and a view of the horizon made for a great setting for gaming.

The group I played with (and there were a few regular groups, we’d see them playing in the same spots we used, but at different times) all worked nights, so we would usually get together every Wednesday morning (I think, can’t remember for sure now) and play after our shifts for about 4 hours before having to sleep a few hours before our next shifts began.  It’s hard to believe we could stay up for so long after working 13 hours, but we were all strapping young healthy Marines and Squids with a passion for gaming.  It was our escape from the hard work and sometimes monotonous schedule.

Youseph: Did everyone have their own books and dice or did you all share?

Lyle: We’d share.  Most everybody had their own dice at least, but storage space for personal effects on board ship is very limited, so most people left their manuals at home.  Ryan (the DM I mentioned earlier) however, had a whole briefcase stuffed to capacity with monster manuals, dm guide, pencils, papers, maps… he even had catalogs from replica weapons makers (SCA sort of stuff) that he would use to illustrate what weapons we would find as loot.  (i.e. You take the slain knights bastard sword as a trophy from the battle… here, this is what it looks like and it does 2d6 damage, pointing to one of the swords in the catalogue.)

Youseph: How hard was it to get new D&D supplies?

Lyle: Isn’t that the greatest thing about D&D?  All you really need is your imagination, pencil/paper, a few dice, a group of friends, and a DM with a penchant for story telling!  While that’s true, we would make an effort to “stock up” prior to shipping out.  We could mail order things, but running out of supplies was never an issue.  Someone would have the DM/Player guides and dice, and that was pretty much all we needed.

Having said that though, I’d like to mention that we also played a fair bit of Magic: The Gathering back then.  THAT game needed new supplies (cards) to keep things interesting.  We’d play against the same people, with the same decks so often, it became predictable. Lucky for us, an enterprising shipmate was also a part owner of a comic/gaming shop in the ships home port of Norfolk, VA.  He’d have large boxes of cards shipped out to him on a regular basis, and he’d run a kind of comic shop out of his bunk!  Seriously, the guy had a couple unused bunks in his berthing area, FILLED with unopened display boxes of Magic cards, comic books, DND books…  I’ll bet he made more money at sea than back at his shop in Norfolk.

Youseph: What version of D&D did you play?

Lyle: Version 3.5.  (IIRC, I know for a fact we used the old THAC0 combat system, so whatever version that was.)  I think version 4 was still very new then, so we all didn’t have the new books.  I remember one guy did, and he really liked the new spell points system, so we let him use that when it wasn’t too confusing.  We really concentrated more on the story vs. combat/rules.

Youseph: What was your rank in the Navy?

Lyle: Petty Officer 2nd class.  Though I didn’t hit that rank until right before the end of my first 4 year enlistment.  After that I transferred to NAS Whidbey, and didn’t pick up another steady D&D game.  So while I was playing D&D I was a Petty Officer Third Class (first real rank above airman.)  We were all about the same rank (players in our group).  That’s pretty common in the Navy (I think), to hang out with people from the same rank.  Higher ranks hanging out with lower wasn’t exactly frowned upon, but if there ever was any trouble, the highest rank person would be blamed/taken to task.

Thank you Lyle for taking the time out of your day to be interviewed. I hope our readers enjoy your story as much as I did.

If your in a remote location and into RPG or table top gaming and would like to be interviewed about your experiences, drop me a line.

Related posts:

1. Gaming In Remote Locations: Juneau Alaska
2. Gaming fiction weal or woe?
3. Gaming finds!

Juneau Alaska

Juneau is defiantly a place for the nature orientated person. Of which, I am not. Hiking, hunting, boating fishing, and skiing are 15 minutes away from each other. For six months out of the year it gets dark with as little as three to four hours of sunlight a day. Having something to do in the dark cold months was definitely a reason that lead me to learn and play Dungeons & Dragons. You can actually read about how I got started playing on my blog.

You really get a sense of how small the capital city in Alaska is when you realize it only has one comic book/gaming store called Collectors Hideaway. Inside you will find the owner Dave Estes, either behind the counter looking up coins for his collectors on his computer, or over seeing games of Magic The Gathering in the front of his store.

Dave’s store has a little bit of everything. Comics, coins, baseball and football cards, Star Wars and D&D miniatures, Magic The Gathering cards, Dungeons & Dragons books and a lot of other stuff. Dave was kind enough to let me interview him for this story, an about gaming in Juneau Alaska.

Youseph: So you’re a gamer. What games do you play and when did you first get started in gaming?

Dave: I play Magic The Gathering. It came out in October of 1993. I started selling in the summer of 1994 and started playing pretty quickly after that.

Youseph: So you didn’t really have a choice then?

Dave: *laughs* yeah, Magic The Addiction.

Youseph: How did your store, Collectors Hideaway come about?

Dave: I wondered into the Alaskan Recruiting Company which was a store in downtown Juneau that sold miscellaneous hobby items. I became friends with the owner who told me that he was having trouble locating items wholesale. So I looked around and started selling to him wholesale. I became his buyer and it left him free to do selling. When he passed on I bought up his stock and opened up a store down town at the emporium mall in 1992. I moved to my current location here about 5 years ago. I have run this store for about 18 years now.

Youseph: Have you ever had any trouble keeping the your store stocked with games or other items?

Dave: No. It’s one of the things I do a lot here. Looking around the internet and trying to find where I can get stuff. I have done that for a while. I have had a least a dozen different wholesalers. Quite a few of those are out of business now.

Youseph: What would you say is the most popular game in Juneau right now?

Dave: Magic The Gathering. By a long shot. At one time I had a mailing list of over 100 people playing in Southeast Alaska. It’s probably half that now. It’s still steady. I play in a gaming group right now with a dozen people. I know there are groups like that all around town.

Youseph: Yeah, I know you have people in your store playing.

Dave: Yeah every Saturday. For a long time we where playing every Friday night. We had tournaments with as many as 30 people. Back in the day Pokémon was large and so was Yugio. I have had quite a few Pokémon and Yugio tournaments in here but that was in the late 1990′s early 2000′s. There would be 16 people in here on Saturdays playing Pokémon. But, Magic the Gathering was the first collectible card game and it’s the best.

Youseph: It still is in your opinion?

Dave: By far.

Youseph: I touched on Magic The Gathering a little bit in high school and I could not wrap my head around it. I found myself buying the cards thought because I really liked the art and I still have them.

Dave: It took a while for me to get into it. My oldest daughter tought me how to play. It’s hard to get into but after I got into it I have been playing with family and friends ever since. I have been playing with this set group every Friday night for the last 5 years now. We have 12 people that show up but their is a set 6 of us.

Youseph: Can you play a game Magic The Gathering with 12 people at one table all playing the same game?

Dave: You can… it’s a bit much. You can play with an infinite number of people. For me multi-player Magic is best with 4 or 5 people. It gives you enought time develop your deck. One on one is such a fast paced game that those games may only last 4 or 5 minutes. 3 person is still just a variation of a 2 person game because everybody is hitting each other pretty quick. Once you get to 4, 5, or 6 people it gets to be a longer turn game. It might last an hour or an hour and a half. People seem to have a lot more fun with 4 or 5 players. It’s a great social game.

Youseph: 1 to 2 hours? wow. I have been playing the same Dungeons & Dragons game for almost a year. It will be a year next month.

Dave: This summer a group of us are thinking about starting a D&D 3.5 game. I have never played before so this will be my first time but what I heard last night is that we might switch to playing online D&D. I don’t know anything about it really.

Youseph: I know there is an online version of Magic The Gathering.

Dave: Yeah. There are several people who play it in town here. It’s pretty good. I have actually played it myself. It’s not social and I play for social not for winning or losing. That’s what I like about magic is that it’s so social. I have seen it in my store where an 8-year-old comes up to a 15-year-old and says “Hey, let’s play”. You don’t see that kind of social stuff in almost any other environment really where an 8-year-old and a 15-year-old are peers. I think that’s really great.

I thanked Dave for his time and picked up a set of Dungeons & Dragons minis from him before going home to start my weekly D&D game.

Personally, having lived in Juneau for over 4 years and having played Dungeons & Dragons for almost a year now, the biggest thing I noticed was how hard it was to find people locally who are already playing Dungeons & Dragons. In this age of high-speed internet, and lighting quick search results things to the awesome power of our TUBES (Thank you Alaska Senator Ted Stevens) I was not able to find any local Dungeons & Dragons groups online. I think I went around for 4 months trying to find other local Dungeons & Dragons players.

I did eventually find them. In the one place I should have started looking from the get go. My local book stores.

In the end I  started a Dungeons & Dragons game with my fiancé and some friends from a the local theater. Everyone at the game was new to it and we have all had fun playing and learning the game.

If your in a remote location and into RPG or table top gaming and would like to be interviewed about your experiences, drop me a line.

Related posts:

1. Gaming In Remote Locations: The U.S. Navy
2. The wonderful world of gaming!
3. Gaming-related plans for 2011 … and a look back at 2010

Related posts:

1. “Roleplaying games as a teaching tool” @ Musings of a ChattyDM
2. Dungeonslayers review @ “Here Be Gamers”
3. Join us on #rpmn

What can you tell us about you?

Currently I live in Capital Region NY with my wonderful fiancée (can’t leave out the SO), working towards a degree in marketing. I am hoping to jump on in to the publishing industry once I can get school all squared away.

Overall I am hoping that my marketing degree and what I learn from publishing will give me the ability to promote more widespread play of Microlite20.

Why did you decide to purchase Microlite20?

Overall prior to the announcement of the Microlite20 sale I had been playing around with a few ideas for a more personal project; however when Robin (Greywulf) proposed the sale of the system I envisioned the coolness of not only all my little tweeks being “official”, but the ability to bring Microlite20 into its own.

What are your plans for Microlite20? Will there be any tweaks or even a “new edition”?

I don’t plan on changing the core rules too much; I am waffling on adding a social attribute, and will be adding in some very simple cross class rules. I am also thinking of creating a slightly more advanced set of the rules to go along with the original booklet. A key thing for me is that even if there is an advanced set of rules the core Microlite20 gets just as much attention.

One thing that is very important to me (and won’t happen right away) is to set up a system in which quality third party material can not only be supplied for the game but will actually be promoted. I don’t want to take the stance of WOTC and just leave third party publishers hanging but instead create a community that supports itself.

What do you think about microlite games in general? What’s most important about microlites?

To me the very essence of a microlite game is that it can be successfully taught, and ready to play within 10-15 minutes. That said it is better if you can distill the core of those rules down to a 1 sheet.

Are there any “big name” systems out there that you feel should get a microlite version?

That is a tough one; I think most games could benefit from the microlite treatment. I would have to probably pick 2 games that would make for awesome microlite games.

The first system I would give the microlite treatment would be the old Alternity game. This skill based system is probably one of my favorite games but could totally use some trimming. The second would probably be shadowrun, because really who does not love piles of dice!

Anything else you’d like to add?

Keep an eye out for changes on the site because I am going to be switching things to a more familiar platform for myself. One of my first priorities is definitely going to be swapping out the forum software to something more stable so that we can all start building up a big community for our little game!

This is definitely a big event for the microlite gaming movement. Seth seems dedicated to advancing Microlite20 and microlite gaming in general. More on this story as things unfold.

Related posts:

1. Microlite Storyteller
2. Review: Microlite20 purest essence
3. Microlite Interview with Robin Stacey