Five Questions
Well the fever of the Interview Meme has caught me, and so I'm fielding questions from friend, meme-fiend, and fellow semi-frazzled game designer Will Hindmarch over at the Gist Mill to answer 5 questions he poses. Here's the rules:
THE RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
And now....my answers.
*******************
1. Why gaming? Do you have aspirations in gaming outside of RPGs?
I got into gaming because I have stories to tell. Well, and because comics were too hard :) As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to write and draw my own comics, but I never had the discipline or guts to really push my way into the industry, though I very well might have been able to (see #4). So here I have this whole set of ideas from comics, and other musings and nothing to do with them. I had played DnD and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness back in middle school, and a lot of Magic: The Gathering in high school, and a lot of Necromunda, Mage , Cyberpunk 2020 and Warhammer 40,000 in college, but I never really considered combining the games with the stories.
Then Will, a friend of mine, says he's looking to start a game company, and does anyone have any ideas? So I gut one of my favorite comic stories and start converting it into a world. That was the beginning of the end. I found new focus - I started on my first RPG (which I still love working on), then moved on to Project Y to test the system of the first game. About the same time, I was recruited by a startup game company as a designer on a first person shooter called Strike Force and did that for about a year and a half.
I started Ascent Studios in the spring of 2001 as a group of folks who wanted to put out games free on the 'net to get some name recognition, working on Project Y. Will threw another monkeywrench at me and suggested I try working in d20, a new open system. So I started a conversion of Y, which was hard, and so started Project X, which eliminated some of Y's complexities as I tried to learn d20. Strike Force blew up around this time, so I started in earnest on finishing Project X. I was about half way through X when I ran into Spycraft Lite, and was so impressed (and surprised) by how similar it was systemically to X that I offered Patrick Kapera to do Project X for free as a "mod" if he would give me publicity in exchange. When we met at Gencon 2002, he saw X's conversion and hired me on the spot. The rest as they say is history.
As for other aspirations, of course. I still love wargames, and have 2 in the hopper just waiting to be finished, both of decidedly different types. I love the old Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars stuff would love to do a Barsoom-type skirmish game. I've also got a CCG that was pretty cool back in the day, tying directly to the first RPG I wrote...maybe one day that can hit. Video games don't really do it for me, though I wouldn't argue with the money if it was coming in. My ultimate goal, though, is to work for and/or run a successful company publishing my ideas as books, and to have 12 year olds and 30 year olds alike pick up those books and say, 'God, that's cool.' WOW is definately an objective.
2. If not Portland, then where?
Chicago, Illinois or Victoria, British Columbia. I have a secret love affair with cities, and am endlessly fascinated by them and their function. Chicago is the ultimate megalopolis in my mind, so full of history, great people, friends and mile after mile of new places to explore. It's the one place I've been to away from Portland that felt like home.
Victoria, on the other hand, is a perfect example of the life I would like to lead. The langourous pace of life there, from people driving under the speed limit to the oceanic drone of the Pacific, reminds me of why I love it out here. People are so easy-going and seem so centered on what matters - friends, living well, and being right in your head. If I could ever get a full-time freelance career going, it's the type of place I'd love to move to and just...be.
3. It's the Alex and Becky romantic dramedy; what's the final shot before the "Happily Ever After" music and the closing title card?
Probably me making some sort of idiotic face, Becky scowling at me, then both of us bursting into hysterical laughter at an old in-joke. Yes, we really are that cutsie-pie.
4. What're you ashamed of?
So many things. I'm a Catholic by nurture, so disgust at myself is pretty much the norm :) While I could say the typical answers - my body, my sloth, my inability to meet my own unreachable goals - I would say the thing I'm most ashamed of is my fear of living when I was younger. I was scared to try, and lacked the self confidence to do, and it was stupid and I missed many great things that I could have made happen. Doing what I'm doing now - starting a second career, starting a business, buying a house, investing myself in the ones I love - are proof that I have finally beat back my fear of what could happen, at least to myself. It's just a shame it took me 25 years to realize I could.
5. It's a cautionary metaphor for the fate and folly of a great civilization in the tradition of Plato's Atlantis; society either slips into the chilly deep or it roasts in the fire of industry. Eaten by a shark or baked in an oven?
Definately bake. I've an inherently cynical view on human nature and our ability to learn from the mistakes of our past. In fact, this reflects back into everything I commit to paper (or electrons), even into my games. Maybe I spent too many years as a sociology buff, or maybe I'm just a bitter egg, but it seems so clear cut to me. War, hate, avarice and pollution are our long-lasting contributions to the universe, and we remain blind to both the needs of our fellows and the world in spite of it all. I don't believe that we can ever take away enough from our progress to progress beyond the fact that we are greedy, angry, self-absorbed little monkeys struggling to control things that we never could - or should - fathom.
Well the fever of the Interview Meme has caught me, and so I'm fielding questions from friend, meme-fiend, and fellow semi-frazzled game designer Will Hindmarch over at the Gist Mill to answer 5 questions he poses. Here's the rules:
THE RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
And now....my answers.
*******************
1. Why gaming? Do you have aspirations in gaming outside of RPGs?
I got into gaming because I have stories to tell. Well, and because comics were too hard :) As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to write and draw my own comics, but I never had the discipline or guts to really push my way into the industry, though I very well might have been able to (see #4). So here I have this whole set of ideas from comics, and other musings and nothing to do with them. I had played DnD and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness back in middle school, and a lot of Magic: The Gathering in high school, and a lot of Necromunda, Mage , Cyberpunk 2020 and Warhammer 40,000 in college, but I never really considered combining the games with the stories.
Then Will, a friend of mine, says he's looking to start a game company, and does anyone have any ideas? So I gut one of my favorite comic stories and start converting it into a world. That was the beginning of the end. I found new focus - I started on my first RPG (which I still love working on), then moved on to Project Y to test the system of the first game. About the same time, I was recruited by a startup game company as a designer on a first person shooter called Strike Force and did that for about a year and a half.
I started Ascent Studios in the spring of 2001 as a group of folks who wanted to put out games free on the 'net to get some name recognition, working on Project Y. Will threw another monkeywrench at me and suggested I try working in d20, a new open system. So I started a conversion of Y, which was hard, and so started Project X, which eliminated some of Y's complexities as I tried to learn d20. Strike Force blew up around this time, so I started in earnest on finishing Project X. I was about half way through X when I ran into Spycraft Lite, and was so impressed (and surprised) by how similar it was systemically to X that I offered Patrick Kapera to do Project X for free as a "mod" if he would give me publicity in exchange. When we met at Gencon 2002, he saw X's conversion and hired me on the spot. The rest as they say is history.
As for other aspirations, of course. I still love wargames, and have 2 in the hopper just waiting to be finished, both of decidedly different types. I love the old Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars stuff would love to do a Barsoom-type skirmish game. I've also got a CCG that was pretty cool back in the day, tying directly to the first RPG I wrote...maybe one day that can hit. Video games don't really do it for me, though I wouldn't argue with the money if it was coming in. My ultimate goal, though, is to work for and/or run a successful company publishing my ideas as books, and to have 12 year olds and 30 year olds alike pick up those books and say, 'God, that's cool.' WOW is definately an objective.
2. If not Portland, then where?
Chicago, Illinois or Victoria, British Columbia. I have a secret love affair with cities, and am endlessly fascinated by them and their function. Chicago is the ultimate megalopolis in my mind, so full of history, great people, friends and mile after mile of new places to explore. It's the one place I've been to away from Portland that felt like home.
Victoria, on the other hand, is a perfect example of the life I would like to lead. The langourous pace of life there, from people driving under the speed limit to the oceanic drone of the Pacific, reminds me of why I love it out here. People are so easy-going and seem so centered on what matters - friends, living well, and being right in your head. If I could ever get a full-time freelance career going, it's the type of place I'd love to move to and just...be.
3. It's the Alex and Becky romantic dramedy; what's the final shot before the "Happily Ever After" music and the closing title card?
Probably me making some sort of idiotic face, Becky scowling at me, then both of us bursting into hysterical laughter at an old in-joke. Yes, we really are that cutsie-pie.
4. What're you ashamed of?
So many things. I'm a Catholic by nurture, so disgust at myself is pretty much the norm :) While I could say the typical answers - my body, my sloth, my inability to meet my own unreachable goals - I would say the thing I'm most ashamed of is my fear of living when I was younger. I was scared to try, and lacked the self confidence to do, and it was stupid and I missed many great things that I could have made happen. Doing what I'm doing now - starting a second career, starting a business, buying a house, investing myself in the ones I love - are proof that I have finally beat back my fear of what could happen, at least to myself. It's just a shame it took me 25 years to realize I could.
5. It's a cautionary metaphor for the fate and folly of a great civilization in the tradition of Plato's Atlantis; society either slips into the chilly deep or it roasts in the fire of industry. Eaten by a shark or baked in an oven?
Definately bake. I've an inherently cynical view on human nature and our ability to learn from the mistakes of our past. In fact, this reflects back into everything I commit to paper (or electrons), even into my games. Maybe I spent too many years as a sociology buff, or maybe I'm just a bitter egg, but it seems so clear cut to me. War, hate, avarice and pollution are our long-lasting contributions to the universe, and we remain blind to both the needs of our fellows and the world in spite of it all. I don't believe that we can ever take away enough from our progress to progress beyond the fact that we are greedy, angry, self-absorbed little monkeys struggling to control things that we never could - or should - fathom.
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