Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 Review

Here is Endzeitgeist's review of Crimson Dragon Slayer D20.

It's a solid review, but there's something I'd like to address - the "broken" cleric class.  Before getting into details, all 4 classes are kind of broken in their own way.  Which means that each one is "the best" in its own way, assuming you stick to class abilities.

I'm copy/pasting my comment, just in case it disappears from the internet.  Not because of anything the reviewer is doing, but software glitches, etc...

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Thanks for the review, hoss!

Regarding the cleric, in play I've found that his unlimited healing works rather well. Let's say an adventuring party of 5 PCs has 2 clerics (something you might actually see, if playing Crimson Dragon Slayer D20).

This last round was brutal on the PCs. 1 guy down and unconscious (a fighter), and 2 others badly wounded (a cleric and sorcerer). There are still a couple monsters remaining. Does one cleric heal the unconscious fighter? Would that even make him conscious again? What about the wounded members of the party? Is 1d6 healing going to prevent the sorcerer from dropping if hit next round? Wouldn't it make just as much sense for the clerics to attack rather than heal, in this instance? I feel like it's a toss-up, and an interesting dilemma for those playing a cleric.

As for the thief's backstab, I see what you mean. Personally, I like things kind of nebulous so the player is forced to come up with some sort of cunning plan or sneaky maneuver to get that bonus. If he's willing to put in the creative work every single round, there's a possibility (depending on the circumstances) of continual backstabbing. A lot depends on the GM, player, and environment.

VS
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So, I've already gone into detail re: the cleric (his lack of spell list is another drawback) and touched on the thief.  The review mentioned how over-powered the wizard can be (any spell, as long as he has enough HP to cast it).  And, if you take a good, hard look at the fighter, he obviously owns the battlefield - the most damage, the most HP, adds +1 to both to-hit and damage every level.

Incidentally, if the cleric wants to aid the wizard (allowing him to cast higher level spells) by healing him right away, that's a very doable and legal "cheat".  However, the cleric is then focusing on the wizard, and not those on the front lines.

The fantasy worlds I run are so deadly that even in a one-hour game with only 1-3 combats, PC deaths happen frequently.

On the other hand, compared to old D&D, the cleric, along with his other 3 pals, probably seem super-powered.  If I remember correctly, the old school cleric didn't even get a spell, prayer, or whatever until 2nd level.  And I'm sure that was usable once per day.  And he probably started with 3 HP.  And the party had to walk uphill to get to the dungeon... both ways!

And that's precisely why I love the OSR.  It's not necessarily shackled to however they played in 1979.  It's a mix and match of everything from the last 45 years!  Of course, a few traditional tenets must be followed, but those are also malleable and hard to pin down.

In any case, CDS D20 works great for quick and dirty online games containing one or more noobs.  I've been using this system / hack / house-rules for almost a year now.  That's not a ton of playtesting, but it's held up remarkably well so far.

You can download the FREE PDF here.  They're also included as an appendix in Cha'alt.  Speaking of which, check out the latest Kickstarter campaign for Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise.

VS

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Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Poetical Essay" Belongs In The Public Domain

Image assumed to be in the Public Domain

The following is a tragic tale about how valuable work of literature was rediscovered, and then undiscovered. This loss for the arts was not due purely to negligence or accident, but to a selfish violation to the memory of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Even if you don't read Shelley, you should, at the very least, be profoundly perturbed by the ways in which the wealthy claim exclusive ownership over our cultural history. Shelley was a victim of avaricious entitlement.



In 2010, The Guardian reported a finding the rocked the literary world. Daisy Hay, a Cambridge graduate, was snooping through the library, as most graduates do, and came across an old manuscript. It turns out that these writings were the unpublished memoirs of one Claire Clairmont, Byron's former lover and a friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In these memoirs, she described these two poets in no genial terms, calling them "monsters of lying, meanness, cruelty and treachery." Clairmont, who was at that point a Catholic, branded Byron and Shelley as worshipers of "free love", who ruined the lives of women. Clairmont had personal experience with this ruination, and good reason to be sour. Soon after getting her pregnant with Allegra (who died at age eight), Byron abandoned Clairmont, presumably because he was married to another woman at the time. For this, she labelled him, "a human tyger [sic] slaking his thirst for inflicting pain upon defenceless women" (Alberge).

The writings have proved to be a boon to historians and biographers everywhere, and has helped to increase our understanding of the relationship between Clairmont and the Shelley's. Imagine, however, if Hay decided to sell Clairmont's memoirs to the highest bidder with the new owner refusing to allow anyone else to read the memoirs except himself. Such an action would be rightfully denounced as a greedy theft of history, a selfish attempt to claim personal rights to our global cultural heritage. Distasteful though it may be to entertain such callous contempt for the ever fragile past, it isn't beyond the depravity of some human beings to do so. Daisy Hay was not such an entity. Quaritch Rare Books & Manuscripts, it appears, is.

Of course, when Quaritch sold the recently discovered "Poetical Essay" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, they may have assumed that the owner would be generous enough to share Shelley's words with the public. Though if so, then it would've certainly been little trouble to ask. They were careless, however, in hastily selling off the "Poetical Essay" to the one with the fattest wallet. Quaritch knew how valuable this piece of Shelley's was, (or at least they should have) yet they felt no responsibility to alert local historians? Shameful. I don't have to tell you the exact amount of money paid to Quaritch for selling the "Poetical Essay", except that it weighed about the same as the silver coins paid to Judas Iscariot.

The news of the "Poetical Essay's" rediscovery was the toast of The Guardian in 2006,

"The revelation in today's Times Literary Supplement that an early poem by the great Percy Bysshe Shelley has come to light, and is in the possession of a London bookseller, will cause even more excitement than most. This is a wonderful discovery: few Shelley scholars ever believed the poem, Poetical Essay, would resurface and some even doubted its existence. It is a fantastic chance to learn more about the political and poetic development of the young Shelley," (O'Brien).

However, four years later, the same year, mind you, that Daisy Hay found Clairmont's memoirs, the "Poetical Essay" had vanished once more from the public eye. Michael Rosen noted that the poem in it's entirety was never made available, the reason being that only three people had read it: owner at Quaritch, the person who bought the poem, and some lucky professor by the name of Henry R Woudhuysen. The new owner, apparently, isn't interested in letting any of us peasants read his new treasure. More odd to Rosen, though, was the lack of outrage over the whole scandal, "we were approaching the fourth anniversary of the rediscovery of Shelley's "Poetical Essay" and that we, the public, were no nearer to reading it." (The Guardian) Rosen succinctly expresses his anger well in this paragraph,

"First of all, I would like the poem to be available to read by anyone who is interested. I believe that should have happened the moment it was rediscovered. Secondly, I want to know why Professor Woudhuysen was given the right to look at the poem, but no one else was. Thirdly, I want to know why this situation doesn't seem to bother anyone in the great republic of letters, least of all that guardian of literary precision and exactitude, the TLS. Isn't it an outrage, that a long dead, great writer's work can be hidden away in its owner's drawer?"

Rosen is completely correct here, "Owning manuscripts is one thing: owning the contents is quite another." Copyright laws back him up, too. In general, works fall into public domain 70 years after the death of the creator. This has recently been stalled in the United States by corporations such as Disney, but that's a discussion for another time. What matters, for the moment, is that Shelley's "Poetical Essay" was written in 1811, well past due any claims to copyright. Thus, the "Poetical Essay" is in the public domain, meaning: it belongs to us, the public. We, collectively, have a right to the contents of Shelley's essay, and it is illegal, let me repeat, illegal for the current owner to claim otherwise. There should be a manhunt for this shrewd, elitist coward, I want a subpoena for his arrest. Quaritch should be, at the very least, fined for their blatant carelessness with such a historical artifact. Their hands aren't clean in this affair. They are complicit, in every sense of the word.

So just what was Shelley's "Poetical Essay" all about? It is an anti-militarist piece, written in defense of Peter Finnerty, a critic of Britian's suppression of an Irish revolt, who was later imprisoned for speaking out. Paul O'Brien gave the poem background upon its discovery,

"But his first and defining political campaign was about Irish religious and political freedom - and it is here where the discovery of Poetical Essay is most relevant. Shelley published it in support of Peter Finnerty, the Irish journalist jailed for libelling Viscount Castlereagh, the Anglo-Irish politician who was sent to Ireland in 1797 to crush the United Irishmen rebelling against British rule. Castlereagh's brutality made him the most hated man in Ireland. Shelley was a professed admirer of the United Irishmen, and the events and personalities of the 1798 rebellion were crucial to his political and intellectual development. His abiding hatred for Castlereagh was venomously expressed in the Mask of Anarchy:

"I met murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him

"Finnerty was the editor of the Dublin newspaper the Press and a man of great courage. He was indicted for an article which denounced the actions of Castlereagh, found guilty of sedition, imprisoned for two years and sentenced to stand for an hour in the pillory in Green Street in Dublin. Shelley, then a young undergraduate at Oxford University, was eager to show support for Finnerty. He placed an advertisement in the Oxford Herald announcing the new work, a Poetical Essay, "for assisting to maintain in prison Mr Peter Finnerty", for sale "price two shillings" (The Guardian).

This showed great courage on Shelley's part (though his relations with women may be another matter), and made me think of another great poet who wrote on behalf of Irish suffering, William Butler Yeats. A fragment of Shelley's "Poetical Essay" has made its way into public. It's sharp and rhythmic, certainly, but what I want is meat, when we've been fed only the bone. Regardless, take it away, Shelley.

"Millions to fight compell'd, to fight or die
In mangled heaps on War's red altar lie . . .
When legal murders swell the lists of pride;
When glory's views the titled idiot guide.
* * *
Man must assert his native rights, must say
We take from Monarchs' hand the granted sway;
Oppressive law no more shall power retain,
Peace, love, and concord, once shall rule again,
And heal the anguish of a suffering world;
Then, then shall things which now confusedly hurled,
Seem Chaos, be resolved to order's sway,
And error's night be turned to virtue's day."


Bibliography

Alberge, Dalya. "Byron's lover takes revenge from beyond the grave." The Guardian, March 27, 2010. Web. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/28/byron-and-shelley-were-monsters

O'Brien, Paul. "Prophet of the revolution." The Guardian, July 14, 2006. Web. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/14/poetry.comment

Rosen, Michael. "Owning manuscripts is one thing: owning the contents is quite another." The Guardian, July 23, 2010. Web. http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jul/23/owning-manuscripts-owning-contents

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Ishar: Trophy RPG

A minotaur takes apart my party while I hit him occasionally for 2 hit points.

           

Aside from its graphics and sound, which I began my first entry by praising, Ishar feels like a "lite" version of every game that inspired it. It's like it took a bunch of other RPGs but only copied their most superficial features. It has the character attributes, skills, and leveling of a lot of RPGs, but not with any depth or complexity. It has the switches and keys of a game like Dungeon Master but none of the challenging puzzles. It has a combat system that looks something like Might and Magic III or Eye of the Beholder, but it doesn't really get it right. It's like a movie with great cinematography but bad acting and not much of a plot.

I don't know how to judge its combat system. Either the developers screwed up or they deliberately did something different but in doing so introduced new problems. On the surface, it adopts a Dungeon Master convention of giving each character an attack button and having them trade attacks with enemies in real time. It even does one better by mapping the attacks to the function keys. The problem is that there's no cool-down, so it hardly makes sense to have all your characters attack. In fact, it makes the most sense to have the character with the best combat skills attack exclusively, keeping the others up front only as meat shields, to spread out the damage taken from enemies. The attacking character has to eat more often to regain stamina, but otherwise there's no downside.

I'm not sure I understand the little combat formation grid that you can activate on the right side of the screen. Each character has a unique symbol, and you can arrange those symbols on a 5 x 5 grid to make ranks and formations. It's not a bad idea, but I don't think the game really makes full use of it. Characters not in the front rank can neither hit nor get hit in melee combat, but beyond that, I don't see where the specific position and arrangement matter. Someone correct me if you know more.

             

This arrangement doesn't seem to do anything different than putting one character anywhere in the front rank and the other characters anywhere in the other four ranks.

            

The worst part about combat is how the game treats missile weapons and spells. If a character is equipped by a missile weapon, hitting the attack key doesn't launch it; it brings up a cursor so that you can click on the specific enemy that you want to target. Why is this extra step necessary? Melee weapons don't target specific enemies. If combat paused while you made your selection, that would be one thing, but instead enemies continue to attack while you take your hand off the keyboard and move it to the mouse to point at a specific enemy and click.

Spells are even worse. To cast one, even in combat, you have to click the "Action" button, then "Cast Spell," then the name of the spell, and then target it, all while enemies are pounding away.

            

Casting takes too much time to do in combat.

         

Both missile weapons and spells are a god-send, however, when you encounter the occasional enemy who refuses to advance. I wasted a lot of hours trying to melee a minotaur guarding a bridge with a morningstar in each hand. After several full-party deaths, I realized I could stand a square away and pelt him with arrows (albeit expensive ones), "Magic Missile" spells, and daggers until he finally collapsed.

A lot of spells are defensive or healing spells, and party members are useful for their other skills, including "Lockpicking," "First Aid," and "Languages." But you need far fewer than the four companions you can choose to go on the adventure.

As for the innovations with NPC interactions, they've mostly been annoying. The one time I tried to kick an NPC out of my party, the other characters voted to overrule me and keep him. Meanwhile, NPCs that I want to retain have a way of disappearing in the middle of the night, with all the expensive stuff I've bought for them, when we stay at inns.

         

Coward.

        

I broke off the last entry by suggesting that I was going to try to map the island, which I estimated at 100 x 400 and concluded was "big but not unmappable." That's the problem with doing multiplication in your head. I had calculated it at 4,000 squares, which is the same size as a dungeon of 10 levels of 20 x 20. In fact, 100 x 400 is actually equal to 40,000--not Fate: Gates of Dawn, but still a few too many to map unless you really love the experience. 

Upon studying the map in more detail, I realized that a map might be superfluous anyway. Kendoria is a large place--much longer east-west than north-south--but it's mostly made up of small islands interconnected by bridges. It doesn't take a lot of effort to comprehensively explore an island. You just run around its perimeter and crisscross the interior a few times.

            

Kendoria is less a "land" than an archipelago.

        

The game begins on the furthest-west island, which is divided into Fragonir to the north and Angarahn to the south. Fragonir had the village on the docks, while Angarahn had the other village I explored last time. Between the two of them, they have a strength trainer and an agility trainer, but I still haven't felt flush enough to use them. Angarahn has some encounters with orcs that seem to respawn. Enemies typically leave bags of a few hundred gold when they die, but it costs about 1,500 gold pieces to have a meal and a night's sleep at a tavern.

East across the bridge from Angarahn is a large island with Lotharia on the west and Fimnuirh to the east. Lotharia has a small village to its north with a spell trainer. There were several encounters with werewolves or maybe bears, probably bears because later I fought somethings that looked more like werewolves. Fimnuirh is a huge, empty area where I keep getting attacked by something that I can't see. I suspect that this is the "invisible lizard man" named Brozl that I learned about in an NPC's hut. The NPC told me that to kill him, I would need to use a Mental Vision Helmet, wherever that comes from. I'll need to kill Brozl because he has some magic rings that "protect from the dragon's fire."

           

I have no idea what race this NPC is.

         

There was an interesting encounter in Lotharia with a floating head calling himself "Azalghorm the Spirit," the messenger of the "Silmarilian Gods." He told me that we "could attempt" three quests, all of which would help us "when you finally have to face [the] evil Krogh." He said the quests were called "The Magician's Talisman," "The Exhausted Witch," and gaining possession of all of the rune tablets. I have no bead on the first two quests, but I found one rune tablet on a pedestal in Lotharia and the other on a pedestal in the dungeon.

          

The main quest turns into sub-quests.

          

East from Fragonir and north from Lotharia is a small area called Osthirod. There were some encounters with tall, powerful werewolves plus a hut where a "medium" offered to give me medical advice for 1,000 gold pieces. I took a screenshot of some kind of tall sentinel in armor blocking access to some part of the area, but I neglected to mark where it was.

Most of my NPC companions were killed by the bears and werewolves, plus some bandits that I met in Osthirod's neighboring nation of Rhudgast. I replaced them with a weird monk named "Unknown," a warrior named Fragorn, and a priest named Kiriela, who I found standing around the wilderness of Fragonir. Soon afterwards, Fragorn disappeared when we stayed at a tavern for the night, so I replaced him with a terribly effective "spy" named Nasheer. Unknown is kind of useless except for his "Magic Missile" spell and Kiriela is useless except for her "Healing I" spell. Golnal is just useless, but the party wouldn't let me kick him out. Aramir remains the best melee fighter.

          

Who's your god? Hugh Hefner?

        

Osthirod and Rhudgast occupy the same island, separated by a large, impenetrable thatch of forest. You have to cross between them on a small strip of land to the south. A pathway leads north from this strip of land to a dungeon entrance--the first in the game. There wasn't much of a transition as I entered the dungeon, and it was small enough that I suspect it exists on the same scale as the outdoor map and could be mapped on the same piece of paper with it.

           

The dungeon had some keys and levers but no puzzles.

          

The dungeon was small and to-the-point. There were some doors I had to find keys to open and some barriers I had to lower with a lever. Monsters included skeletons, giant spiders, and some behemoth that took a couple of reloads.

           

The photographer didn't make it.

        

The rewards for the dungeon were a few treasure chests, an empty flask, and a rune tablet.

          

Primitive cultures. They're always placing rune tablets on a pedestal.

             

All geography ultimately funnels to the land of Aragarth, on the far eastern side of the Osthirod/Rhudgast island. A bridge leads from Aragarth to what is essentially the second half of the game, and this is where I got bottlenecked for a time by a minotaur, until I learned how to kill him from a distance. On the other side of this bridge, I found the land of Silmartil, a much less hospitable place than the western lands. After I died at the hands of some barbarians, I decided I'd better do another loop around the lands I'd already explored and grind a bit.

I mostly need to start spending some money. I've been very stingy. My characters would probably do better with some more armor (so far, I've only found leather), helms, and shields, and everyone could train a few points in strength or agility perhaps. I need to stockpile more rations to restore Aramir's stamina, since every attack reduces it by 1%. If the dungeon respawns, that might be an easy way to earn both experience and wealth.

              

This is probably the key to character development.

         

Aramir is Level 6 now, everyone else either 3 or 4. I guess leveling affects maximum health and stamina, but as far as I can tell, skills are fixed from the beginning. (Unless they increase when you pay for attribute increases.) I'd probably do well to try to find better party members, but then again maybe I should be grateful that I have four of them who seem to get along and don't bail on me at night.

To recap, Ishar is a pleasant enough game, but one that doesn't grip me with its mechanics or its story. At least it's pretty to look at.

Time so far: 6 hours

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People Behind The Meeples - Episode 212: Kennedy Goodkey

Welcome to People Behind the Meeples, a series of interviews with indie game designers.  Here you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know about the people who make the best games that you may or may not have heard of before.  If you'd like to be featured, head over to http://gjjgames.blogspot.com/p/game-designer-interview-questionnaire.html and fill out the questionnaire! You can find all the interviews here: People Behind the Meeples. Support me on Patreon!

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Name:	Kennedy Goodkey
Location:	Vancouver
Day Job:	I used to work in film. Nowadays I do data analysis for a major Canadian telecom.
Designing:	One to two years.
Blog:	I do but its not game relevant at this time
BGG:	HobbyistsorDabblers
Facebook:	Hobbyists or Dabblers
Twitter:	@hobdab
YouTube:	I do but its not game relevant at this time oh wait... how about a film I produced that is now available for free on YouTube? https://youtu.be/whW57js2XjA
Find my games at:	Best to reach out on Facebook and I can direct people to appropriate PnP or TTS locations (the picking are pretty slim right now)

Today's Interview is with:

Kennedy Goodkey
Interviewed on: 8/26/2019

This week's interview is with Kennedy Goodkey, an independent film director and screenwriter turned game designer. In addition to his involvement with several movies, Kennedy has been designing games for the past few years. Read on to learn more about Kennedy and his current projects!

Some Basics
Tell me a bit about yourself.

How long have you been designing tabletop games?
One to two years.

Why did you start designing tabletop games?
I did it in my teens and 20s. Got busy for a few decades (the film industry is a time-intensive life), then got back to gaming as a Dad (and having left film)... and the bug struck again - in part because my daughter started getting into games with me, but also because I had a creative hole in my life where film once was.

What game or games are you currently working on?
I've got about 4 that are getting regular attention from me right now...

"The Queen Must Die" - a reversed dungeon crawl where the players are the Kobolds working together to save their warren and queen... except that whoever is "winning" at any given time wants the Queen to die, so they can rule.

"Drive" - a tile-laying race-game in the spirit of awesome/terrible films like The Cannonball Run and Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

"Drop-Stix" - A dexterity game that turns the classic Pick-up-Sticks on it's head.

"Bishop, Baylies & the Baron" - A fast paced card game of aerial dog-fighting in WWI.

Have you designed any games that have been published?
Nope. But I have a good track record at design jams.

What is your day job?
As noted above, I used to work in film. Nowadays I do data analysis for a major Canadian telecom.

Your Gaming Tastes
My readers would like to know more about you as a gamer.

Where do you prefer to play games?
Anywhere there is a game. I get anxious when I leave the house without a deck of cards (I also do card magic) "just in case."

Who do you normally game with?
#1 - my daughter. I have 2 small groups of "the guys" who I play with at least once a month each. And I attend several open gaming nights - with various 'regulars' - sometimes with my daughter, and sometimes not.

If you were to invite a few friends together for game night tonight, what games would you play?
My #1 for close to a year now has been Root. I do like getting my games to the table too. The rest rotates based on whims that last weeks at a time.

And what snacks would you eat?
My daughter and I usually go out for "muffins and coffee" and games at least one morning per weekend. And "beer" is probably the most reliable staple of the other events.

Do you like to have music playing while you play games? If so, what kind?
I do. I'm pretty open to whatever - my tastes musically speaking are pretty broad. But... "the guys" ...we are collectively getting long ion the tooth - and there is a lot of "I can't hear clearly with too much background noise" ...so music is normally only pre/post game. :-(

What's your favorite FLGS?
RainCity Games in Vancouver. That's where everybody knows my name. And it's a block away from home.

What is your current favorite game? Least favorite that you still enjoy? Worst game you ever played?
Fave... Well, Root. ...but Point Salad is making a hard play for that position over these past few weeks. Least favourite that I still enjoy... Pandemic is probably my all-time fave, but I've played-it-out. I do still like "playing" it... but that really means I sit and watch others play - 'cause I can't open my mouth without having an Alpha opinion about the situation. Worst game... I've probably deliberately forgotten. However, this past weekend my daughter and I took a game off the shelf of shame - Barcelona - and confirmed that our year-long resistance to playing it was WELL founded.

What is your favorite game mechanic? How about your least favorite?
Being VERY specific - the way the infection deck is handled in Pandemic - adding a new card from the bottom and then reshuffling all that has already appeared together and putting it on top to go through again... it seems so pedestrian now all these years later, but DAMN - it's a simple piece of genius. Being considerably less specific... I'm a sucker for legacy games. Least favourite... well any of the 54(?) mechanics singled out on BGG have a place and time... but dice rolling really needs to earn it on my game table.

What's your favorite game that you just can't ever seem to get to the table?
I could probably say "Root" again, 'cause it doesn't get to the table anywhere near as often - or with as many players as I'd like. But... I'm going to cheat this question in another way... Dune. I owned an AH copy of it in the 80s and played it until it was hardly usable. I traded it, in all it's literally broken (yet complete) glory for a nearly mint copy of Supremacy with ALL expansions. That trade says all you need to know about either game, no? I'd been considering hand crafting a bespoke version [of Dune] for quite some time... but I'm glad that I won't have to... geez, almost any time now.

What styles of games do you play?
I like to play Board Games, Card Games, RPG Games, Video Games

Do you design different styles of games than what you play?
I like to design Board Games, Card Games

OK, here's a pretty polarizing game. Do you like and play Cards Against Humanity?
No

You as a Designer
OK, now the bit that sets you apart from the typical gamer. Let's find out about you as a game designer.

When you design games, do you come up with a theme first and build the mechanics around that? Or do you come up with mechanics and then add a theme? Or something else?
Theme MOSTLY comes first. But there are exceptions.

Have you ever entered or won a game design competition?
Yes. I've entered a few. The only ones I've won have been design jams though.

Do you have a current favorite game designer or idol?
I could go top 3... in no particular order: Garfield, Daviau, Leacock. All for very different reasons... and the connection between Daviau and Leacock I will staunchly deny has anything to do with their partnership of note.

Where or when or how do you get your inspiration or come up with your best ideas?
Tough to say. "The Queen Must Die" began life as a screenplay that I couldn't finish. Years later it popped into my mind and I thought - THATS A GAME! "Bishop, Baylies & the Baron" - I'd wanted to design a dogfighting game for quite some time (I've always been fascinated by the arithmancy of Ace of Aces) and at a game jam, it fit the constraints we were given, so a game was born.

How do you go about playtesting your games?
I go regularly to a design night at my FLGS. But I'll also post on Facebook or elsewhere that I'm looking for players when I want to go deep. I'll solo or play with my daughter too - for as much as that is worth. And I've uploaded "The Queen Must Die" to Tabletop Simulator, but haven't yet tried the on-line play test... but will soon.

Do you like to work alone or as part of a team? Co-designers, artists, etc.?
Yes. I really love the autonomy of working alone. I like trying my hand at all aspects - though I'm not really good enough at art or graphic design to do those at a level that could sell. I'm also not the greatest businessman. I have designed two games - probably two of my taughtest - with others, but even so I have a habit of running head of the pack at the slightest hint of foot-dragging. I'd love to have a dream-team partnership with a better artist and graphic designer than me, and someone with a better grasp of business.

What do you feel is your biggest challenge as a game designer?
... I feel like I'm answering these questions ahead of when they are being asked! The business. Yeah, I co-produced a movie that sold to broadcast, theatrical and DVD (oddly in that order), but I hated every single step of the business part. I resist it and let my contempt for it get in the way of doing it efficiently at every step.

If you could design a game within any IP, what would it be?
I saw Star Wars on my 7th birthday. I left the theatre and said "I want to do THAT" - meaning making films. I did - though not Star Wars. So perhaps there is a Star Wars game in the future with my name on the box.

What do you wish someone had told you a long time ago about designing games?
Don't stop. Keep doing it in the vacuum - a renaissance is coming.

What advice would you like to share about designing games?
(Again this comes from film (and theatre).) Never toss an idea away entirely. No matter how dumb it seems, or how much it doesn't work in the current situation, you never know when it will be the key to something good. Don't dismiss something because it's impractical - it may seem weird and counter-intuitive, but in the right context it may be exactly what you need. Both those ideas are adjacent to one another. I have personal examples of both.

Would you like to tell my readers what games you're working on and how far along they are?
Published games, I have: Nothing as of yet.
Games that will soon be published are: Ditto.
This is what I have currently crowdfunding: See above re my taste for business.
Currently looking for a publisher I have: The Queen Must Die; Bishop, Baylies & the Baron Both are ready. I have plans to pitch both in October [2019].
I'm planning to crowdfund: :-)
Games I feel are in the final development and tweaking stage are: Pixie Dust; Drop-Stix
Games that I'm playtesting are: Drive; Pirates v. Robots v. Ninjas v. Zombies v. Lemmings
Games that are in the early stages of development and beta testing are: Legacy version of a major license that I will NEVER get and that should probably never actually get a legacy treatment - but was fun to dev anyway. (It's a game about real-estate - yeah, that one.)
And games that are still in the very early idea phase are: Un-named Palace Intrigue - Hidden Identity game that I'd call "Love Letter" except...

Are you a member of any Facebook or other design groups? (Game Maker's Lab, Card and Board Game Developers Guild, etc.)
Yes, each of those and many others - Board Game Design Lab springs to mind

And the oddly personal, but harmless stuff…
OK, enough of the game stuff, let's find out what really makes you tick! These are the questions that I'm sure are on everyone's minds!

Star Trek or Star Wars? Coke or Pepsi? VHS or Betamax?
Star Wars, but only if I had to pick; Coke; VHS

What hobbies do you have besides tabletop games?
We love music in our house. I still get the occasional call for help on film... for fun. And (largely due to having a wife with loads of insider experience) a lot of world travel.

What is something you learned in the last week?
The connection between Depeche Mode, Erasure and Yazoo. ...and here I THOUGHT I knew my 80s music trivia.

Favorite type of music? Books? Movies?
Punk / Post-Punk, Space (not specifically sci-fi - but at least as much about real world space exploration and astro-physics). Obviously Star Wars... but I really enjoy Nordic Noir too.

What was the last book you read?
Game Tek by Geoff Englestein

Do you play any musical instruments?
Yes.

Tell us something about yourself that you think might surprise people.
I paid for most of my university by touring Canada in a comedy troupe.

Tell us about something crazy that you once did.
I paid for most of my university by touring Canada in a comedy troupe.

Biggest accident that turned out awesome?
... no doubt I have one... it's just not springing to mind.

Who is your idol?
Joe Strummer, The Edge, David Brin, Trevor Linden

What would you do if you had a time machine?
I'd call my friend Keith five minutes earlier than I did on the day he died... so he wouldn't have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Are you an extrovert or introvert?
I am an awful lot of both and not much of the middle.

If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?
The Flash has always been my favourite, so it'd probably be wrong to say Batman.

Have any pets?
A fish. (Sigh, apartment life.)

When the next asteroid hits Earth, causing the Yellowstone caldera to explode, California to fall into the ocean, the sea levels to rise, and the next ice age to set in, what current games or other pastimes do you think (or hope) will survive into the next era of human civilization? What do you hope is underneath that asteroid to be wiped out of the human consciousness forever?
As much as I have all manner of utopian ideals of what I wish the world was like, I kinda feel like people suck and so long as we are around, the worst aspects of human kind will always be there to be fought - so... nice idea, but I just don't kid myself anymore. I sure hope people keep playing hockey and curling. The ice age should about that.

If you'd like to send a shout out to anyone, anyone at all, here's your chance (I can't guarantee they'll read this though):
Hey Keith! Hope you're doing well. Miss the hell out of you still. Can you believe I'm older than you ever were?

Just a Bit More
Thanks for answering all my crazy questions! Is there anything else you'd like to tell my readers?

Geez... this is a lot of questions.

Curling. Once upon a time my Dad was one of the top 100 curlers in Canada. At that time, being one of the top 100 curlers in Canada pretty much meant you were one of the top 100 curlers in the world.

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Platic Crack?

Here is a little something I have been waiting on for a bit over six months…. A proof of concept in plastic from another manufacturer.

I am stoked! The quality looks good, the price is right and the turn around time will be good. So why did it take six months then? Because it was free, a test mold and test shots arranged by my old account manager at WGF who has struck out on his own. He asked if I could send him the original files to split and use as a non-retail sample to show other clients. I agreed and after some waiting they arrived! This is only two of the five pose options... As a free test mold we were limited to a single sprue.

No doubt Wai Kee and the old WGF makes incredible plastic, but his shop is always jammed with production, this makes it pretty much impossible for me to look at that as a viable resource for future production or Kickstarter's. I had my doubts that anyone could get close, but I am reeealllly happy with these shots, and as this opens up the door again I am eyeing another Kickstarter.

I am still pulling together all the costs and if it appears to be a real option, I am more than happy to give it a go. This time would be FAR more focused. One kit at a time, with true costs, the molds and production would need to be funded in full for that 'episode'? But if it works, another would be on the heals of the last… Ferals? then StuG? then Shadokesh vehicle or walker… then whatever sounds fun.

With this kind of Kickstarter there would be a very focused goal, drive and costs… We are not so much looking at the typical song and dance hype train. The product would make it or not on its own merits, and cover its true costs.

Soooo what do you think?

Would you like to know more?

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