Drachenväter: Die Interviews

Von Tom Hillenbrand und Konrad Lischka

In diesem Interviewband schildern die Schöpfer einflussreicher Pen&Paper-Rollenspiele ihre ganz persönliche Sicht der Dinge. Wie entstand "Das schwarze Auge"? Wie kam "Dungeons & Dragons" nach Europa? Und wie waren die TSR-Büros dekoriert? "Drachenväter: Der Interview-Begleitband" enthält 18 Gespräche über die Geschichte des Rollenspiels. Zu Wort kommen die Macher von "Das schwarze Auge", "Dungeons & Dragons", "Midgard", "Shadowrun", "Plancescape", "Dragonlance", "Fighting Fantasy", "Drakar och Demoner", "Mutant", "Call of Cthulhu", "RuneQuest" oder "Tunnels & Trolls". Die Gespräche waren Teil der Recherche für das Sachbuch "Drachenväter: Die Geschichte des Rollenspiels" – für diesen Begleitband wurden sie in nahezu vollständiger Länge transkribiert (in der jeweiligen Gesprächssprache, Englisch oder Deutsch).

Die Interviewpartner:

Wolfgang Baur
Monte Cook
Ryan Dancey
Elsa Franke
Jürgen Franke
Werner Fuchs
Richard Garriott
Tracy Hickman
Steve Jackson
Ian Livingstone
Rick Loomis
Frederik Malmberg
Sandy Petersen
Steve Perrin
Ken St. Andre
Dennis Sustare
Margaret Weis
Jordan Weisman
Lou Zocchi

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: epubli
• Erscheinungsdatum: 14. Okt. 2016
• ISBN: 9783741857690

Buchvorschau

Impressum

Drachenväter: Der Interview-Begleitband

www.drachenvaeter.org

© 2014 Thomas Hillenbrand und Konrad Lischka

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Gestaltung: wppt:kommunikation gmbh

Süleyman Kayaalp, Beatrix Göge, wppt.de

Korrektorat: Beke Ritgen, Ulf Ritge

Inhalt

~ Wolfgang Baur

~ Monte Cook

~ Ryan Dancey

~ Elsa und Jürgen Franke

~ Werner Fuchs

~ Richard Garriott

~ Tracy Hickman

~ Steve Jackson

~ Ian Livingstone

~ Rick Loomis

~ Frederik Malmberg

~ Sandy Petersen

~ Steve Perrin

~ Ken St. Andre

~ Dennis Sustare

~ Margaret Weis

~ Jordan Weisman

~ Lou Zocchi

Anhang

Über die Autoren

„It's unfortunate that in an interview sometimes things can seem so black and white."

~ Gisele Bündchen

Vorwort

Bei einem umfangreichen Projekt wie „Drachenväter: Die Geschichte des Rollenspiels" ist das Schwierigste die Auswahl. Was soll ins Buch, was lässt man weg? Selbst in einen 360-Seiten-Wälzer passt nicht jede Anekdote hinein, die man im Laufe einer mehrjährigen Recherche erzählt bekommen hat. Das lässt sich nicht ändern, gleichzeitig ist es jedoch schade, da viele der Spieledesigner, die wir interviewt haben, nicht allzu oft mit Medienvertretern sprechen und die Transkripte damit einen nicht unerheblichen zeitgeschichtlichen Wert besitzen.

Hinzu kommt, dass viele der Interviewpassagen zwar nicht ins Buch passten, jedoch gerade Hardcore-Nerds interessieren dürften. Wer in „Drachenväter beispielsweise gern noch mehr über die Genese der deutschen Rollenspielszene erfahren hätte, dem bieten vielleicht gerade die aufgezeichneten Gespräche mit Werner Fuchs („Das Schwarze Auge) oder dem Ehepaar Franke („Midgard") weitere interessante Einsichten.

Bei den im Folgenden wiedergegebenen Interviews handelt es sich um die Originalgespräche. An einigen Stellen haben wir Passagen gekürzt, um sie lesbarer zu machen (und dies wie üblich mit Pünktchen als Auslassungszeichen in eckigen Klammern kenntlich gemacht). Auf das bei Interviews ansonsten gängige Umschreiben und Umformulieren haben wir aus dokumentarischen Gründen verzichtet, sofern Lesbarkeit und Textverständnis nicht leiden. Alle Gespräche sind in der Sprache wiedergegeben, in der sie geführt wurden. Im Anhang finden sich zudem Informationen zur Form (persönlich, telefonisch, schriftlich) sowie zu Zeitpunkt und Interviewpartner.

Nice Dice,

Konrad Lischka & Tom Hillenbrand

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„The hobby as a whole is still very vibrant, but it feels increasingly splintered."

 ~ Wolfgang Baur

Wolfgang Baur (1968 geboren) ist amerikanischer Spieledesigner mit deutschen Wurzeln. Anfang der Neunzigerjahre nahm er zunächst einen Aushilfsjob bei TSR an, später war er Chefredakteur der Hauszeitschrift „Dragon. Er arbeitete an D&D-Settings wie „Planescape, „Al Quadim oder „Birthright mit. Später veröffentlichte er zahlreiche Abenteuer für das Rollenspiel „Pathfinder und gründete den Spieleverlag Kobold Press, der im Auftrag von Wizards of the Coast federführend Abenteuer für die fünfte Edition von „Dungeons & Dragons veröffentlicht.

What was your first encounter with role playing games?

A set in a hobby store. I saw the dragon. I saw a wizard and a guy with a sword. And I said: ‚ That's for me.’

So you already were into fantasy literature and that stuff?

Yeah. I had read „King Arthur obsessively like in the third and fourth grade. I read it 50 times. I read „The Hobbit. I thought „Robin Hood was great. I think I had read „The Lord of the Rings around the same time.

It was a little tough for me, but I was into fantasy literature. Then I saw this box and said, ‚Let's try that.’ Roped my little sister into it and a neighbor kid. […]

They got you hooked. Then, fast forwarding, how did you get to work at TSR?

Sure, I had been writing for the magazines in high school and college, just writing adventures for „Dungeons". I was young enough that my parents needed to sign my contract because I did not have the legal right to sign away my work for money. But once I turned eighteen, I started signing my own contracts, and then, around twentyone, twenty-two, I was told that they were hiring. TSR was hiring. A friend of mine had heard this somewhere, and it was before the Internet, I'm still not sure exactly how he knew. An AOL message board, probably.

It was before that, I guess.

Yeah, it was pretty early. This was 1990 or '91, somewhere in there, before the Web, I should say, not before the Internet. Anyway, I said: ‚Aw, no, come on, Steve, it'll never happen.’ He said: ,No, no, you've written for them. You should apply.’ And I did. I sent a resume via paper mail. I was invited out to talk to them, and they told me later that they were perfectly willing to hire me on the spot, as long as I knew how to shower and didn't drool on my shoes. They really knew my work because I had been writing for them for years, they were more interviewing me over lunch to see if I had any table manners, if I would be fun to hang out with at the office. I was, because I got hired.

When you got there, what was your impression of the company? What did the place look like? How were the people? Was it very corporate? Was it very freewheeling?

I don't know. I wouldn't say freewheeling exactly company. When I got there in 1991, the company had already been there long enough. To have a ‚gee, it's our way of doing things’ and hierarchy, and budget, and structure. A creative company needs structure, and direction, and hierarchy maybe more than most. Because you're working with art studios, and cartographers, and editors, designers, all freewheeling, creative, inventive people.

If you don't have some way to keep track of all that, it all turns to mush. It all turns hard. It's horrible. There was a designated person, who pretty much was keeping the schedule and had to yell at people who missed their deadlines. There was a budget for, like, ‚You get six weeks to do this painting. That's it. If you're not done, we're printing it the way it is.’

One of the first lessons for me there was, ‚It's creative, but it's business’, and as an editor, you know that. I was hired as an editor first, and I became a designer later. I was told how many words to put in the magazine this month: ‚Edit them.’

‚OK.’

‚This article needs to be fifty words shorter. Kill fifty words.’

‚OK.’

It was that ability to set creative boundaries and schedules. That was part of my first impression. At the same time, all the people there were so full of creative energy, and juice, and crazy stuff. The Halloween parties are still legendary around here.

Was the dress up so weird?

Yeah. Some of the costumes were crazy. Vince Cook, for instance, one year decided to be the Illustrated Man, but he didn't have quite enough tattoos, he covered most of his face and one arm [and went as] the abbreviated Illustrated Man. Things like this. At the graphics and art department, of course, [they] were very good at costuming as well, and it was a small town. Lake Geneva is mostly a tourist town in the summer and empty in the winter. By the time October and Halloween roll around, it's pretty empty and pretty quiet. Living in Lake Geneva, most of the staff got bored in the winter.

Did they still have, when you worked there, the separation of the new building and the old building?

They had the new building when I got there. They had the huge warehouse and the new building, and the magazine's department where [...] [there] was a little annex in the new building. No, it was all lashed together. There were sections here and sections there, and the executives had their own little branch. Land was very cheap in rural Wisconsin, having space for everyone was not a problem. It was a very ramshackle office. I understand it was some needlepoint or hobby embroidery firm that owned the warehouse before TSR did, but you couldn't tell. It was cubicles and no real windows to the outside world.

A dungeon.

There were skylights, but [laughs] yeah. It was a dungeon. It really was. [laughs] It kept people concentrated on their work. People enjoyed what they were doing, it wasn't really a problem. We played games over lunch, right? It wasn't like we felt a need to get away from the office.

Which year did you get there?

I got there in 1991, and I left in 1995 to go work with a new firm called Wizards of the Coast.

I've heard of them.

Yeah, and a year later in 1996 I was fortunate enough to have a year experience in Seattle, when the rest of my friends from TSR were bought up and moved out here.

When you said you played games over lunch, that sounds like the oft repeated myth that Lorraine Williams declared gaming at TSR illegal (which is untrue). That seems to be a myth, right?

I don't know that she ever declared that, at least not when I was there. She was the boss when I was there. We didn't always have time to play test everything, but we ran lunchtime games for our own amusement. We played some of the competing games, or old SPI war games and Avalon Hill games. It was just part of ...

... the job, right?

Yeah, right. You need to know this stuff. If you're going to make a new game, especially you want to know some of what's already out there.

Overall, it sounds like it was a good and a productive place to work.

Oh, absolutely. Being out in the countryside away from too many distractions during the winter meant you could concentrate on your writing. Or your editing and producing great games. I have to say that I did a lot of work there as an editor for the magazines and as a freelance game designer. And my first stand alone books for „Dungeons & Dragons" as well. A really good, creative period for me, even though the company was financially running into trouble in that time.

What in your opinion was it that did them in?

Oh, boy. They never told the creative staff what was profitable or not. Folks didn't pay enough attention to what was making money and what was losing money. The story I hear after the fact is (...) I worked on all these Planescape boxes, and I was very proud of some of the design I did there. The whole team was very proud of the Planescape releases. After the fact I heard 20 years later:

‚Yeah, every one of those boxes we lost money on.’

That was a very good product. Maybe it was a marketing problem or something, because I remember those boxes.

I know. I don't know if it was they were spending too much on printing, if it was badly managed, if the finance and the bookkeeping was too slow and it wasn't clear when we had a hit or didn't have a hit. It's clear that TSR spread its efforts very thin. The other thing, of course, that killed it indirectly is: a lot of people who were the natural audience for role playing games went to „Magic" and card games. Which was great for the hobby stores and fantasy gaming generally and in just bringing people into the world of somewhat geeky games, but it wasn't particularly good for role playing.

It sucked the gamers' budget dry. I remember.

Yeah. I know. I spent my money on cards. I loved those games, too. That had to be a contributing factor.

The two things I read about the demise of TSR (...) and I'm still not sure, because there's lots of stuff on the Web, but there's no way to fact check most of it. One thing I read was from the Wizards of the Coast manager, who was involved in checking out whether this would be a good asset to buy. He said in his ...

Ryan Dancey?

Yeah, Ryan Dancey. Right.

He's still around here. I can put you in touch with him.

He wrote a longish post about it and said the main thing that puzzled him, and it goes a little with what you said, is that he didn't find a lot of customer feedback data that indicated which products people loved and which they didn't.

Right. The idea was if you're a creative at TSR, you go to do good work. Don't worry your pretty little head about how we're selling it or whether it's selling or any of that. Part of it is, the fan base for a role playing game is very committed and deeply invested in the property and the setting. Vanishing worlds like this can be really, really engaging. If anyone ever does say to cancel a particular setting, instead of saying: ‚Well, that's all right. I'll stop buying for a while, but I can keep playing in this world because I still have all the books’, somehow their usual reaction is: ‚Oh, my God. You're killing my baby.’

Yeah, right.

The fan outcry makes it very hard for a publisher to say ‚Yeah, we have six worlds, and we only need two.’ They never did it. They pretty much kept everything going with the exception of some titles like (...) Dark Sun, where they sit on top: ‚Yeah, we're going to do this for one year or maybe two years if it's going really well. Let's do a limited run, and we don't promise long term support.’

I remember how angry I was when Dark Sun went away. [laughs]

They set it up day one. They said: ‚Well, it didn't go forever.’ [laughs] People were still angry, and I get that. It makes it very hard to do business because the first few products of a world are always the ones that sell the most. Then by the time you do book 20 or book 30, not everybody is interested.

I had the same impression. I have a dealers' catalog from TSR from 1995 or something, or '94. The number of product lines seems to be stunning. [laughs]

Yes, and the quality in some of those product lines was terrible. It's like: ‚Well, we need to do something to support, I don't know, Greyhawk.’ [Greyhawk] often caught the short end of the stick, this for reasons that are obscure to me, but it's like: ‚Well, let's not put our best people on that. It's Greyhawk. It's all the old guard. Let's do something for them, but let's not do very much.’

[laughs] If you don't want to do a good job but you've really got to do something, then don't be too surprised if it's a big pile of junk.

Yes. Very true. One other thing that strikes me when I look at the old dealers' catalogs is [...] how many paperback novels per year TSR turned out [in the mid 'nineties].

Some of the novels did extremely well. There was a point where „Dragonlance was keeping the company afloat and going really strong. The books were doing as well or better than the game side of things. It was an experiment with „Dragonlance, but it really worked. Even the early „Forgotten Realms" books sold very, very well and continue to sell well today. Those books are another way to engage with the world. Some people love them and read all of them. Because they are setting specific and you get two or three authors, who are all pretty good at doing it for one setting. As a fan, hey, that means I get two or three times as many books as I'll get out of George Martin or somebody.

There's always a new Forgotten Realms [laughs] book coming, and that was part of the secret of their success, like „Hardy Boys" or something. There's always another one coming.

I heard that in the end they had a bad book market year, and Random House gave them back a couple of truckloads of books. Is that correct?

Yeah, this is part of the strangeness of the book market in the United States, is the way it takes returns.

Not just in the United States. [laughs]

All right, but not every country does this. [laughs] Yeah, it's very strange. Those books sitting on shelves got returned, and suddenly the money they thought they were getting they weren't getting. The book department got a lot smaller very quickly.

This is one of these other hard to check myths that are going around: The TSR management and Random House had some fallout, and then Random House wasn't willing to defer the payments of the returned books?

I don't know the details. Oddly enough, the person I used to work for, the man who knew the answer to that, Brian Thompson, was the publisher of the magazines and also invested in the book site and ran those things, but he died a couple of years ago. Someone who would really know is probably Jeff Grubb. I don't know if he'll tell you, but I just don't know enough about how management worked with Random House. It sounds credible but I can't confirm it.

What puzzled me is that, normally, if you have an ongoing business relationship over the years, and this is the company that has given you so many New York Times Best Sellers, you would at least think twice before burying them under a mountain of books.

Yes. There are so many things that can go wrong. I really don't know. TSR made a number of really stupid business decisions, in addition to making a number of really brilliant moves, like any company. I was really down in the trenches making sure that books and magazines met their ship dates, and had very little or nothing to do with management. Some people who were more senior than me at the time, people like Jeff Grubb, would have more of a sense of that. I know a few other, some of the TSR authors, like Robert King or Thomas Reid. I don't know if you want to talk to Bob Salvatore, you probably do. I don't know if he'll tell you, but he could give you the author perspective of some of that.

From the trenches, as you said, what was your view, or your colleagues' view, and your opinion of the management of TSR at that time? Of course, one of the things I'm getting at is that Mrs. Williams appears to have been a very controversial figure.

Yes. She was certainly polarizing for people who had been there longer. She's the person who signed by paycheck and kept the company moving forward. Essentially, I never met the former owners, the Blumes. The Blume brothers and Gary Gygax are not people I ever saw while I was employed there, I can't compare them. I heard some rumors about how badly money had been mismanaged under the old management and how well Lorraine Williams was doing. I also heard complaints that executives [were] meddling in the creative process, cover design ... [and it] was costing the company money.

Those are more like minor misdemeanors, right? Yes. She said: ‚Well, things happen.’ I never got the sense that she was deeply invested in the gaming hobby ...

[laughter]

… but I never got the sense that she didn't care about the company and its success or about the employees. Some people went through various personal problems or hard times. Somebody quit once to go to Alaska. When he came back, he had decided he wasn’t going to make a hundred thousand dollars as a crab fisherman. He came back two weeks later and he said: ‚Can I have my job back?’

[laughter]

She said: ‚Yes.’ I know there are people who dislike her intensely because they worked for Gary Gygax and thought that was better, and maybe she forced them out. I wasn't there for that period. It seemed like a reasonable executive management of the company, the exception of we did way more Buck Rogers products than would have been called for (...).

From what I've heard, apparently Gary Gygax hired her because he thought that she was a very level headed smart businesswoman.

Most of the times she was, but there's weird things about the publishing industry that can bite you. I don't know if she had some bad advice or made a bad decision on book returns or it was just the industry (...) got caught up in trading card games. There was no manager in the world who was going to be able to turn back time and undo „Magic", somehow. I don't think she did a bad job.

Apart from this, the management personnel involved in the books and the cards (...) how much, do you think, did other role playing companies like FASA or White Wolf impact TSR's business when stuff like „Shadowrun, like „Vampire came out?

Sure. Those are all good for the role playing business, mostly because they were addressing audiences that weren't being well-served by TSR. I was doing core fantasy and a few things around the edges, but really it was the core of Sword