Ten Questions Blade Raiders Creator Grant Gould

Cover to the Kickstarter exclusive hardcover edition.

Pretty much all I've been able to write about lately is the wellspring of awesome gaming projects being offered on Kickstarter. I've been pretty much exclusively buying new tabletop games and products exclusively through Kickstarter. There's just a lot of exciting new things popping up as a result of Kickstarter, and I'm very grateful for it. I haven't done a 10 questions interview post for quite some time. It's not because I have a hard time finding creators willing to spend a little time asking questions; on the contrary, creators, have unanimously been willing to donate a bit of time to the lowly Hopeless Gamer. Nope, it's not that. It's because I usually only want to spend my time on interviewing creators who are really inspiring to me in their creativity or drive to produce something close to them.

Today's 10 question post is no different. Grant Gould is an artist and creator behind the Kickstarter project Blade Raiders. While we all love art in our RPG's (and really it's what separates a game from a textbook), I, like everyone, have a specific aesthetic I go for. I like colorful, expressive animation styles in my art. Grant seems to specialize in this aesthetic.

So, I'm pretty stoked. Grant was kind enough to take a bit of time to answer some questions I had about his inspirations for the game as well as some specifics about the game itself. As of this posting, the most important information about the game is that it's only got 8 days left to go to reach it's $9,000.00 stretch goal. I want to see it reach that stretch goal (this is possibly the second most important part of this posting). Another important thing - $15.00 gets you a pdf of the game, $25.00 gets you a signed softcover version (which you can see a picture of the cover below), and $100.00 gets you both of the above AND a copy of the hard cover limited edition (with the cover pictured above). Anyway, on with the questions!


The Hopeless Gamer: What are your biggest influences in tabletop game design?

Grant Gould: Well, D&D would have to be #1. I grew up on Dungeons & Dragons; I first started playing it in the mid-'80s and have followed it throughout all its various changes and editions. I always liked that D&D felt accessible to new, young players. And of course I was hugely influenced by the look of the game -- those D&D artists from the '80s (Caldwell, Elmore, etc.) -- I can't even tell you how many hours I spent staring at that stuff. I played a pretty wide variety of tabletop RPGs and genres in my teen years especially: Palladium books, White Wolf, GURPS, Twilight 2000, and about a dozen others. But I always came back to D&D. 

I'm also heavily influenced by a lot of the other things that I loved when I was growing up. For example, some of my first major introductions to the fantasy genre were comics like "ElfQuest" and movies like "Willow" and "Conan the Barbarian," where it's more about an emotional journey & fun adventure than it is about magical unicorns & wizards with pointy hats (no offense to Gandalf -- I do love me some Lord of the Rings too!). 

10 Questions with Skullkickers Scribe and RPG Artist Jim Zub

A recent discovery for yours truly at this year's fantastic c2e2, Skullkickers stole my tiny little gamer heart immediately and has me chomping at the bit for more. You can read my review of the first trade, 1,000 Opas and a Dead Body, I snagged at c2e2 here. I got a chance to talk to Jim Zub, the writer of Skullkickers, for a little bit at c2e2 and my eyes lit up with future prospects of getting to interact with him. If you haven't yet read Skullkickers, I urge you to pick up the first trade (a steal at 10 bucks!), and you may recognize Jim's work in a more familiar media: rpg products like Exalted and 4th Edition D&D. He was gracious enough to take some time to answer my questions about what it's like working with Image Comics and White Wolf and how exactly he so masterfully captures the voice of gamers everywhere in comic form.


The Hopeless Gamer: What inspired you to create Skullkickers?

Jim Zub: Skullkickers is the wondrous bastard child of way too many fantasy novels, movies and games as I grew up mixed with sarcastic banter and cartoon-ish violence. It’s a love letter to fantasy, but with a tongue-in-cheek awareness of how ridiculous some of the classic tropes are.

Although it’s not a comic targeted only at gamers, there is a distinctive sense that Skullkickers should feel like a D&D game that’s going off the rails as the main characters break free of their roles as righteous heroes and start bulldozing through plot, breaking everything in their path.

10 Questions with Amethyst Creator Chris Dias

It's no secret that we've taken quite well to Amethyst Foundations as a product and game setting. We're really excited to see what Chris and the crew at Dias Ex Machina have in store for us in their upcoming follow-up Amethyst Evolutions. Check out what our guest write Mike a.k.a. The Sleepy DM thought about both the book/setting and what it was like to pit giant bog monsters against us poor players. Back? Great, now let's hear right straight from the man himself on his influences for Amethyst as well as getting a peak into the design process behind the setting rules.

Now on with the questions!

Gencon Interview: Wizkids talks Star Trek

We had a chance to check out the prototypes for Wizkids' new Star Trek games (that's right, it's plural!) at Gencon 2010. Moreso, I got a chance to talk to Drew Nolosco, Product Development Manager at Wizkids! Drew was very kind to spend some minutes with us at the show to answer some of our questions about the high-profile property they're producing games for. A couple of quick things of note before we dive into the interview: David Welsh of GameSalute.com and I hit Wizkids at almost the same time, so credit goes to him for part of the interview. Thanks David! Next up: because Wizkids was kindof the happening place the first day of the con, the interview just kind of died off at the end as Drew and the other Wizkids folks were bombarded with questions. A couple of things you'll read about, but we want to emphasize again:

• The Star Trek games are not compatible with Heroclix or other 'clix games. They use dials, but that's where the similarities end.
• Wizkids has a license to all of the Star Trek properties from the reboot movie line to classic TV and movies. They also have the expanded universe content if they want to use it.
• Wizkids currently has no plans for pure character vs. character combat game. No Kirk vs. Picard (but you could see a match up of the Enterprise vs. the Enterprise-D!).
• The pictures you see are of a 3d printer. They are not prototypes but simply tests to see how their digital sculpts would turn out.

Now that we've got that covered, Keep Reading for the interview itself!

Battles of Westeros Gencon Interview with Rob Kouba

The Hopeless Gamer owes a lot to the Fantasy Flight Game Battles of Westeros (BoW). Of course our love affair with George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire goes way, way back to the very earliest of our Gencon's (we got FFG's Game of Thrones CCG back in Milwaukee at our first or second Gencon). With BoW, we were extremely proud to break the news and provide coverage at the announcement of the game during the opening celebration of the FFG Event Center. Rob Kouba, the designer of BoW, is no stranger to THG readers either. If you want to read our first interview Rob, click no further.

So when it came to planning our Gencon 2010 coverage and trying to work on interview prep, there was one guy I knew I just had to talk to and get an update from. I was able to get early admittance to the hall Thursday morning of the convention and made a line straight for Mr. Kouba and the gigantic FFG booth. Rob was setting up his demo table for what was sure to be a long and fun weekend. Luckily Rob's a talented guy and was able to talk to us while he got his board set up. Without further ado, Keep Reading to bring on the questions!

Lord of the Rings LCG interview with Producer Jason Walden

Ok, a couple of things with this post. 1. when the Lord of the Rings LCG game was announced the day before Gencon, I was ridiculously excited, hence this being our first real interview posted. 2. While we don't have the release date, I'm betting I won't be the only one crazy excited for the game. For instance, the Gamer Wife is also stupid excited. 3. This article also starts a mini theme of our Fantasy Flight Games Gencon posts. Check back soon for a photo extravaganza including, but not limited to the Lord of the Rings LCG! 4. Want to listen to the original audio? Check out after the jump for where you can download it!

Gencon 2010: Flying Frog Productions

I am not going to sugar-coat this fact, I LOVE Flying Frog Productions. Maybe it is just that they start with FF like many other things I love, Fantasy Flight Games, Fantastic Four, Final Four, Frozen Four, you get the idea. I did not see an expansions that were designed primarily for either of FFP first two games, Last Night on Earth: The zombie Game or A touch of Evil (or what I like to consider, Arkham Horror Light/Competitive, a compliment to FFP, not a crtique of AToE).

The bonus is that the new game Invasion from Outer Space: The Martian Game will have cross-compatible components for use with LNoE and vice versa. I cannot wait to have the dancing bear fighting zombies! I didn't actually take the time to play this game at GenCon, but I did talk with its designer, Jason Hill to get the information above. Since both run on the same engine I decided to focus more on FFP's other new game. Before I get to that, I want to insure everyone that Invasion has the same high quality pieces and pictures as other FFP games. I am eagerly anticipating this game's release. For some additional hype, here are the pictures I took of the game (sorry about the glare on the game board):

The game I am really excited about is Conquest of Planet Earth. The Goal: conquer more locations on planet Earth than the other alien races. First one to a set number of points (8 in the standard game), wins. Conquest uses an action point system for each Alien race. All races start with the same choices for action points. Players choose a cardboard chit numbered 2-6 or d6. Once a number is chosen, it is set aside until all the other chits are used. The d6 indicates a roll of a d6 for activations. The player that chose the lowest number of action points goes first and then the player to their left and so on. Each player starts with a unique alien race that has special abilities, a strength number, and and an intelligence number. Each race also starts with four space ships in their starting location on the center of one of the outside boards. Strength represents the strength of each ship participating in a conquest while intelligence indicates the number of cards you draw up to at the beginning of each round.

On a player's turn, they can move a ship to an adjacent space for one action point. If a player's alien race has conquered an adjacent location, ships can move any number of spaces until they reach a location that is unconquered or controlled by an opponent for one action point. The center location is the Capitol, worth 5 conquest points and the farthest from the starting points. A player can also spend two action points for an alien token, used for various powers on the Alien race sheet or to pay expenses for event cards.

Once a player has spent their action points, a new location is revealed for each empty space. The location has two numbers, victory points and resistance number. The victory points number obviously shows how many points the location is worth (some are worth 0). The resistance number is how many cards from the resistance deck the aliens need to face before conquering a location. Resistance cards can be anything from foot soldiers to paratoopers to tanks or heroes. Each resistance card has a strength number that is compared to the aliens total strength. Event cards can be played to alter the numbers, force betrayal, etc. Once the numbers are added up, the active player rolls a d6 while an inactive player rolls a d6 for the resistance. If the total of the Alien race strength plus d6 roll beats the resistance, another resistance card is drawn or the location is conquered. A roll of "6" on the d6 is considered a crushing victory and beats the other side automatically. If the aliens lose, once ship is destroyed and the active player decides whether or not to continue fighting if any ships remain.

In the demo I played, the event cards can really help you hold other players back. Also, the locations often have additional abilities that can affect the game. I drew a power station that destroyed alien ships on a roll of 1 or 2, costing me one of the two ships at that location. Certain event cards also bring in additional monsters/weapons that have miniatures in the game. None of these came out in the demo, but from the pictures you can see how cool these look(grey minis by the spaceships).

I had a chance to discuss the co-op version of the game with Jason Hill, but not a chance to play it. In the co-op game, the human resistance cards stay in play with various tokens for each location. Also, the humans have a tech track (somewhat similar to the turn markers in LNoE and aToE). The tech track empowers the resistance and demonstrates the humans ability to copy alien tech or develop their own weapons systems. The end of the tech track is a supercanon that ends the invasion.

I really enjoyed this game, especially the ability to play competitive or co-op. I know a lot of casual gamers prefer co-op games and working as a team against the system. I will be picking this game up sometime after its scheduled release in December. I only had a chance to play a mock up of this game at GenCon, but I did confirm that this game is FFP's first game not to feature their distinctive photo art. I think this approach works well for Invasion and am glad to see the photos continue with Invaders.

Ten Questions with Colby Dauch of Plaid Hat Games and Summoner Wars

We discovered Summoner Wars shortly after it was announced, and the game sold us immediately on the premise: a non-collectible, but expandable, card game that plays like a miniatures skirmish game. Sign us up! Throw in some very nice art with an original and fun style, and you've got a game that's got some legs.

Colby Dauch, designer of the game, agreed to let us ask him some questions that have been on our minds for a while. Thanks for your time Colby, and hopefully we're doing our part spreading the good word of Summoner Wars! (Find previous interviews in our 10 questions series here)

On with the questions!

10 Questions with Aldo Ghiozzi, Free RPG Day Follow up

I am somewhat fascinated how so many passionate people seem to produce so many interesting things in a somewhat niche hobby. Aldo Ghiozzi is the owner of Impressions Advertising and Marketing, the company responsible for bringing us Free RPG Day. He was kind enough to spend some time answering our questions, and for that we thank him. From his very active responses to questions on the rpg.net to today, he's really shown an effort in working with the community to make Free RPG Day the best day of free stuff out there.

On with the questions!

10 Questions with Legends of the 5 Rings 4th Edition designer Shawn Carman

To wrap up L5R week here at The Hopeless Gamer we'd like to present the story that inspired it all - our interview with L5R 4th Ed. designer Shawn Carman! Shawn has a long history with AEG and a publication resume reaching back to 1999. Many of you will know Shawn as Scarman over at the rpg.net forums or maybe from his entries in the designer diary series for 4th Ed. over at En World. Or, hey, maybe some of you just know him from his vast body of work on past editions of L5R. Regardless, Shawn was gracious enough to take my naive questions to help me learn more about the work of Rokugan and what it means to jump in on 4th Edition of L5R as a brand new player. Enough babbling from me though.

On with the questions!

10 Questions with Dresden Files RPG Publisher Fred Hicks!

With the recent release of the pdf copies of the Dresden Files RPG (picture borrowed from Evil Hat Productions) as a precursor to the, by all accounts gorgeous and gigantic core books, Your Story and Our World, designer/publisher Fred Hicks agreed to answer our grueling and terrible 10 questions. With games such as Don't Rest Your Head, Spirit of the Century, and now the Dresden Files under his belt, Fred's a guy with a lot to say worth listening to.


Fred really doesn't need much of an introduction, but you can follow him on Twitter here and check out his blog here.


On with the questions!

10 Question with Battles of Westeros designer Rob Kouba

This is potentially the most inaccurate title for a post ever. There are two reasons for this - 1. it's got 12 questions in it and 2. these aren't exact quotes. Because Rob was so conversational with us when we played our first game of Battles of Westeros (not sure what we're talking about? check out our series of posts on our first experience with BoW here), we tried to keep things informal. With that in mind, these answers are summaries as opposed to direct quotes. It's less an interview with Rob Kouba and more a summary of our conversation. Thanks to everyone who suggested a question for us to ask, and a special thanks goes to Rob who made it all possible. Image is borrowed from FFG's own description page for Battles of Westeros found here.

1. Do we have a release date for Battles of Westeros?

No, not yet - still in final play testing of components - making sure the pieces are exactly how they want them. UPDATE: Since our conversation with Rob, FFG has announced that Battles of Westeros is going to be released in June - this is at least the planned date, but of course things could change!

10 Questions with Icons designer Steve Kenson!

In today's installment of 10 questions, freelance designer Steve Kenson agreed to submit himself to hours of gruelling questions just to bring you, the Hopeless audience and fans of the upcoming Supers RPG, Icons answers to crucial questions like "DC or Marvel?" If you've been following the rpg.net forum thread featuring all the discussion you could ever want about the game, you'll know there's a lot of hype being built around it. Steve also designed Mutants & Masterminds, arguably the biggest Supers RPG in the last ten years. M&M has enough crunch to break a tooth on, and something must have struck Steve - the time is right for a Super game that is lite! And thus we have Icons, set to be released in June and building the buzz of a game that has the chance for true success. I'll let the blurb from Adamant's site give a much better and concise description of the game itself:

"Steve Kenson, the designer of the best-selling Mutants & Masterminds delivers a superpowered new role-playing game, inspired by the fast-playing old-school games and the new generation of narrative role-play! Within its pages are complete rules for character creation, abilities and powers, random adventure generation, a rogue’s gallery of villains, a complete adventure and all the superheroic action you can handle!"

On with the questions!

10 Questions with Jason Morningstar of Bully Pulpit Games

I'd like to introduce our inaugural edition of what I hope to be an on-going series titled "10 Questions" where the title says it all. We approach game designers in the field with 10 questions about their company, gaming experiences, and most importantly a new or classic product that we can't stop talking about here at The Hopeless Gamer offices (there are no offices).

This time we interviewed Jason Morningstar of Bully Pulpit Games about his new game, Fiasco which was just released last month. Jason was gracious enough to take some time out of his busy RPG designing schedule to answer 10 questions for us, and we're eternally grateful! As you can see by the graphic here, the tagline for Fiasco is "A Game Of Powerful Ambition & Poor Impulse Control." The game itself is GM-less, giving each player an equal shot of impacting the story. Here's the "elevator pitch" found at the beginning of the book which will do it much more justice than I could.

"Fiasco is inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – particularly films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You’ll play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won’t go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably collapse into a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. Lives and reputations will be lost, painful wisdom will be gained, and if you are really lucky, your guy just might end up back where he started." Fiasco, pg. 8

On with the questions!