| Interview with Robin D Laws. Writer and game designer, his titles include Feng Shui, Dying Earth, Over the Edge, HeroQuest and GUMSHOE to name but a few. |
When did you start playing your first RPG, and what was it?
That would be AD&D, in the months just before the Dungeon Master's Guide came out. The Internet tells me that this was
the summer of 1979.
What is your favourite RPG System and / or setting?
It's always whatever I'm working on at the moment. However, since game design is very hard, the project I'm working on
at the moment is also usually my greatest source of creative suffering.
What game are you most proud of as a developer?
I can't pick between them; they all do different things. I'll have to leave the comparative quality determinations to
posterity -- if roleplaying has a posterity.
Have you ever played an RPG on a Virtual Tabletop?
No; I'm afraid this is an experience I have yet to properly research. The closest I've come is a game conducted by chat.
It was fun but I had a tough time with the long lags between typed sentences. Either people don't think and talk as
quickly as they type, or chat users are used to multitasking between several conversations and don't give a game their
full attention. I'd be interested to know to what extent the VT experience focuses player participation and encourages
speedier response times. My suspicion is that you need to go to real time audio and video with everybody able to
communicate to one another via webcam to approach the pace of an in-person session.
Which 'story game' would you think would work best on a VT?
Heroquest was designed to work well in chat, being based mostly on words. The upcoming new core rules should make
this easier by offering an optional, simpler way to do the big dramatic sequences, which in HQ terms are called extended
contests.
Are there any that wouldn't work too well online, or with current VTs?
My assumption would be that the crunchier and more combat oriented you get, the more you're competing with
MMORPGs, and that's a battle you can't win with typed text. However I do know what happens when you assume...
Do you think there's a future in the VT market, and would you like to see your products made available to this
market?
I would love to see on-line play take off, whether in the current version of VT, or with some kind of multiple webcam
interface. It seems like a great solution to the isolated or schedule-challenged player. I'm not certain what in particular
would need to be done to make my stuff accessible to VT. It's sort of a chicken and egg thing -- the format needs to
demonstrate a following before designers can justify time spent on addressing its unique issues.
What do you think would be the best way to introduce new people into the hobby?
Some kind of social network app that would get people sucked into an RPG before they even knew that's what they were
doing.
Where would you say RPGs are going over the next few years?
4e is going to refocus the market on D&D again, as new editions of the big kahuna always do. My hope is that we
get less of a boom-bust cycle this time around, and that the hobby does a better job of matching the quantity of products
produced to the quantity people can really consume and make good use of. 3E and d20 sort of sucked the oxygen out
of the biosphere for other RPGs but I'm hoping that this time around it will lift the whole category.
What do you think are the pros and cons of the GUMSHOE system?
It's the game for you if you want to play investigative games in a faster way, where the emphasis is not on finding clues
but on interpreting them, and where you're not spending a lot of narrative time finding new routes to the clues because
the obvious ones were closed off by bum die rolls.
It's not the game for you if you're not interested in investigation to begin with. Investigative games are definitely more
plot-centric than other forms, so if any sign of a predetermined goal or sequence strikes you as a theft of player
privilege, you're better off tackling something less structured.
GUMSHOE challenged our assumptions about the 'detective' process in RPGs. Are there other aspects of
roleplaying that you think deserve a rethink?
We do plot really well but have hardly touched on drama. Only a few games tackle non-adventure forms, and none in a
truly systematic or over-arching way. We can do Star Wars and Law & Order, but not There Will Be Blood or Hamlet.
What are your next big projects?
I'm thick in the weeds with playtesting for Stunning Eldritch Tales, a quartet of four pulp-inflected adventures for Trail Of
Cthulhu. Then it's another GUMSHOE game, Mutant City Blues, which is a police procedural set in a world ten years
after 1% of the population gained super powers.
That would be AD&D, in the months just before the Dungeon Master's Guide came out. The Internet tells me that this was
the summer of 1979.
What is your favourite RPG System and / or setting?
It's always whatever I'm working on at the moment. However, since game design is very hard, the project I'm working on
at the moment is also usually my greatest source of creative suffering.
What game are you most proud of as a developer?
I can't pick between them; they all do different things. I'll have to leave the comparative quality determinations to
posterity -- if roleplaying has a posterity.
Have you ever played an RPG on a Virtual Tabletop?
No; I'm afraid this is an experience I have yet to properly research. The closest I've come is a game conducted by chat.
It was fun but I had a tough time with the long lags between typed sentences. Either people don't think and talk as
quickly as they type, or chat users are used to multitasking between several conversations and don't give a game their
full attention. I'd be interested to know to what extent the VT experience focuses player participation and encourages
speedier response times. My suspicion is that you need to go to real time audio and video with everybody able to
communicate to one another via webcam to approach the pace of an in-person session.
Which 'story game' would you think would work best on a VT?
Heroquest was designed to work well in chat, being based mostly on words. The upcoming new core rules should make
this easier by offering an optional, simpler way to do the big dramatic sequences, which in HQ terms are called extended
contests.
Are there any that wouldn't work too well online, or with current VTs?
My assumption would be that the crunchier and more combat oriented you get, the more you're competing with
MMORPGs, and that's a battle you can't win with typed text. However I do know what happens when you assume...
Do you think there's a future in the VT market, and would you like to see your products made available to this
market?
I would love to see on-line play take off, whether in the current version of VT, or with some kind of multiple webcam
interface. It seems like a great solution to the isolated or schedule-challenged player. I'm not certain what in particular
would need to be done to make my stuff accessible to VT. It's sort of a chicken and egg thing -- the format needs to
demonstrate a following before designers can justify time spent on addressing its unique issues.
What do you think would be the best way to introduce new people into the hobby?
Some kind of social network app that would get people sucked into an RPG before they even knew that's what they were
doing.
Where would you say RPGs are going over the next few years?
4e is going to refocus the market on D&D again, as new editions of the big kahuna always do. My hope is that we
get less of a boom-bust cycle this time around, and that the hobby does a better job of matching the quantity of products
produced to the quantity people can really consume and make good use of. 3E and d20 sort of sucked the oxygen out
of the biosphere for other RPGs but I'm hoping that this time around it will lift the whole category.
What do you think are the pros and cons of the GUMSHOE system?
It's the game for you if you want to play investigative games in a faster way, where the emphasis is not on finding clues
but on interpreting them, and where you're not spending a lot of narrative time finding new routes to the clues because
the obvious ones were closed off by bum die rolls.
It's not the game for you if you're not interested in investigation to begin with. Investigative games are definitely more
plot-centric than other forms, so if any sign of a predetermined goal or sequence strikes you as a theft of player
privilege, you're better off tackling something less structured.
GUMSHOE challenged our assumptions about the 'detective' process in RPGs. Are there other aspects of
roleplaying that you think deserve a rethink?
We do plot really well but have hardly touched on drama. Only a few games tackle non-adventure forms, and none in a
truly systematic or over-arching way. We can do Star Wars and Law & Order, but not There Will Be Blood or Hamlet.
What are your next big projects?
I'm thick in the weeds with playtesting for Stunning Eldritch Tales, a quartet of four pulp-inflected adventures for Trail Of
Cthulhu. Then it's another GUMSHOE game, Mutant City Blues, which is a police procedural set in a world ten years
after 1% of the population gained super powers.
Thanks to Robin for taking time out to speak to RPG VT.
RPG VT Team 12/02/08
RPG Virtual Tabletop
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