Interview with Simon Lucas and Paul 'Wiggy' Wade-Williams of Pinnacle Entertainment
Group, Thursday 30 August, Gen Con UK
Group, Thursday 30 August, Gen Con UK
RPG Virtual Tabletop
|
Badgers 14/09/07
RPGVT: What was your first RPG?
Simon: Basic D&D - then almost immediately went on to Runequest and Traveller,
and didn't play much D&D at all... then we got heavily into Cyberpunk at college.
RPGVT: Favourite game?
Simon: Savage Worlds!
RPGVT: Apart from SW!
Simon: Actually I'm really quite partial to the Victory Games James Bond RPG - I
keep buying stuff for the product - I picked up the only thing I've been missing for
that game today, so I'm really pleased about that! The only problem is, I keep
buying the same books. I see them and I think, I'm not sure if I've got that- oh it's
cheap! (laughs). I love that game. I see some similarities to SW - it's got hero
points in there, which act a lot like bennies.
Wiggy: I started on AD&D at school, then like Simon switched to Runequest and Traveller pretty quickly - they were the
'in' things - but it was D&D for years...
RPGVT: Is that your favourite game?
Wiggy: It was the group favourite really. Twilight 2000 was really big at one stage at our gaming group at college...
Simon: How old you are!
RPGVT: And you've authored a couple of SW books now so far...
Wiggy: Fifteen, sixteen-
Simon: Plus all the pdfs. Tons. And the stuff we haven't published yet. It's masses!
RPGVT: How much research did you have to do for Solomon Kane, for example?
Wiggy: Obviously reading the stories through once cover-to-cover, then again armed with a notebook, and then of
course it's finding out the historical stuff, trawling the Internet mainly, and old encyclopaedias... for example, the five main
continents are all mentioned in some detail in the rulebook.
RPGVT: Is it a chore to do all that research?
Simon: You're a mine of information anyway, aren't you? You just soak it all up!
Wiggy: That's 'cos I don't read fiction! It can be a real chore at times, because there are some obscure facts out there
that as soon as you start reading them, they start to branch off, and you feel compelled to follow them to their end - then
you find you've wasted two days for one line that you actually type up in the book! Obviously Pirates [of the Spanish
Main], before Kane, was historical as well, so I had to do research there... the first book I ever wrote was historical. I'm
quite used to doing the historical side of it now!
RPGVT: What do you think about roleplaying on virtual tabletops?
Simon: Virtual tabletops look like a move in the right direction - have you seen the [D&D] 4th edition announcements?
RPGVT: We've seen the clips on YouTube.
Simon: It looks like virtual tabletops are going to be a big component of 4E. For us, Fantasy Grounds was good because
SW is still a niche game and we're still growing the fanbase - trying to find players is one of the hardest things. You might
have a couple of big fans in one area but try and get a whole group together when you have to convince somebody to
use a new system.
RPGVT: What do you think about FG?
Simon: The new Fantasy Grounds SW ruleset is fantastic - they've managed to get so many of the little bits that weren't
in the initial release - they've added the cards and the dice exploder, and it's looking really nice.
RPGVT: I was playtesting some of it with Vince, the guy who's leading on the SW ruleset.
Simon: Yeah, he's done a really good job. There were problems with the first one - the cards didn't work well – it did work,
it just wasn't smooth, it wasn't intuitive. I think the way that it's looking now is much more graphically appealing as well. If
you could find players really fast online - that'll be the next thing. One of the ways I think Kevin is going to do that is to
use our forums, and I think that's as good a place as any.
Wiggy: It's a good place to start.
Simon: Yeah. Our fans are very active on the forum, so you can always find people who want to talk Savage Worlds
pretty much 24 hours.
RPGVT: On Four Ugly Monsters, another fan-based virtual tabletop website, Savage Worlds has taken off big-style.
Simon: I know the name - when I log in to do any of the web updates I think I’ve seen it in the list of incoming links.
Forums are an excellent way to find people who are looking for someone with the same interests. On our forums, we
should have some space where people who are looking for a game can just hop on.
Wiggy: Yes, at the moment we've got the section 'Players Seeking Players', a forum on there which they do use.
Simon: The other thing that we've just started is getting our two demo guys (who run all of our convention demos in
America) set up with Fantasy Grounds. So they're going to run some online demos, and hopefully a lot of our convention
adventures should end up as something that you could play on Fantasy Grounds.
RPGVT: I did the Noble Deceit conversion!
Simon: Excellent! That’s one of the Savage Tales they're going to bundle with the ruleset, I think.
RPGVT: A couple of questions from the guys on FUM: Heruca, the Battlegrounds developer, wants to know if there's any
content he can use, as he's not licensed. For example, tables.
Simon: He would be able to use anything that's in the SW Test Drive rules, which is our free cut-down ruleset, so that
would be fine if he wanted to do a Test Drive ruleset. But obviously we've got the relationship with FG and that's what we
want to pursue. They've put a lot of effort into making the new ruleset very pretty - Kevin was showing me how it all
worked and now that the functionality is really coming on, we want to stick with that, really. But I'll have a look at
Battlegrounds because I've not seen it.
RPGVT: What support are you going to give to other VT software?
Simon: To be honest, we've gone this far with Kevin and Fantasy Grounds, I don't know how much it would really help
players to have several different options - the more players we can get on the same software, the more likely you are to
be able to find a game.
RPGVT: MapTool is another VT, a free one. For those who can't afford to buy one (and for some it's better than the
commercial VTs!), they're steering towards MapTool. Again it's graphically very good, and they're building in their own
functionality with their cards, Wild Dice etc. Trevor (the developer) has just posted a load of graphics and videos of Map
Tools...
Simon: That stuff's fine. We're always very easy with people who want to do fan-based stuff - they buy our books! But for
actual licensed stuff, I think we'll probably stick with the single option, just because it means that everybody who wants to
get SW material is going to be on the same software.
RPGVT: I wanted to ask you a question I didn't get answered on the boards-
Simon: Uh-oh! I was probably at [the US] Gen Con!
RPGVT: With your Players' Guides, you allow free photocopying for distribution...
Simon: Oh yeah, I think I did dodge that question - sorry about that!
RPGVT: We've now got an online fanbase - how can we distribute the Players' Guide [info]...?
Simon: Technically, you can't. It's intended for on-the-table play - when it becomes a virtual tabletop it muddies the water
a little bit, and in theory, you - can't. We'll have to try to figure a way where the Players' portion of it is available...
RPGVT: I think in FG you can work round it, but when playing one of the free VTs, how can you give players the
background information?
Simon: Yeah, it is difficult, and to be honest I haven't got a good answer for that. It's a tough one because even now we
already get stuff pirated and made available online - it's an issue because it's virtually impossible to stop. I’ve seen
arguments that say pdf piracy don’t cost us anything as those people later buy hard copies
of the pirated books, but I remain unconvinced. To open up the Players' Guides to be
shared online... it's difficult.
RPGVT: Have you seen what they do at the RPGNow website where they print your name on
the bottom of the pdf?
Simon: Yeah, they did that on DriveThru originally... I think it'll help.
RPGVT: Interesting to see how you've priced the Explorers Edition of SW.
Simon: I'd have thought it would go for £9.99 in the UK but Esdivium said they wanted to go
with the exchange rate. We're making very little on the book but the idea is to create more
SW players. It's called the Explorers Edition after the SW Explorers Society - GMs get points
for running games and demos and supporting Savage Worlds. That was why we were
getting Steve and Mike to run a FG game, because games that are run on FG are going to
count towards your points. So it encourages players to use that software and to use online
games... They put up quite a lot of content up there as well, so it's quite possible that we'll
get Kevin to convert some of the free material that they do there and make it available.
RPGVT: Coming back to FG, is there any way of prioritising the conversions to SW...?
RPGVT: SW has been mentioned in quite a few podcasts - are you going to support any podcasts...?
Simon: Well there's The Game's The Thing-
Wiggy: Run by Ron and Veronica Blessing-
Simon: And they started very regularly, but they've had a bit of a hiatus; they're starting again soon, and we actively
support them. We have Joe, our marketing guy, he has a spot on there where he does what's coming next month, and
Clint Black handles all our rules questions on the forum - he covers SW rules, things people struggle with... So we'll
support them as long as they want to keep going. They've been really good.
RPGVT: And there's the Shark Bites fanzine - have you got any plans to do something similar yourself?
Simon: Well, they're still going, and you know, they've put in a lot of effort and turn out a really good product and
especially when they get their little Shark Nibbles in between issues, where they put out a little snippet. I think that's really
good, it just keeps content coming out, so we don't want to steal any of their thunder, and at the moment all our spare
time is spent making more books, so we haven't really got someone spare we could dedicate to doing a specific e-zine.
We've talked about it on and off but we haven't actually thought about pursuing that yet.
RPGVT: It's only the first day here at Gen Con UK, so it's a bit early to say, but what do you think about this venue?
Simon: I was glad that it's back at a university, I think it gives it that community feeling... the halls of residence are a bit
far away, but you can't change that... but it's been pretty good so far, and we had a really good start, it's only the first
day and we've sold nearly all our advance copies of Solomon Kane, so I'm glad that's sold well. I was pleased that we had
some to bring here as well, because it's often the way that the UK gets a little bit abandoned when there's a new release
in the States and we don't see it here for a while. Especially as just about all of Pinnacle work in the UK. It would be a
shame to not have copies here!
RPGVT: Do you print it in the US?
Simon: It's printed in the Far East...
RPGVT: So where are you based?
Simon: I live in Sheffield.
Wiggy: And I'm in Shetland!
Simon: The actual business is based out in Arizona, where Shane Lacy Hensley lives. But only Shane lives in Arizona,
everybody else is spread around...
RPGVT: So how did you guys get together?
Wiggy: You sort of already knew Shane...
Simon: Yeah, from a previous product that I made, Shane distributed it in the US, and so that's how I met him, and then I
was working with Rob on Legion Publishing, which is one of the SW licensees. And so we were putting out adventures
and Shane came along and said, 'Do you want to Zeke's job?' - when Zeke moved to computer games. So it was a
challenge to shape where SW was going. When I was promoting my initial game, years and years ago, I met Wiggy at a
convention and demo'ed the game to him. Then years later we met up at Gen Con...
RPGVT: Did he buy it?!
Simon: Yeah! It went quite well.
Wiggy: It was, it was very good.
Simon: Thank you! (laughs) And then at [Gen Con] Minehead in 2004, it was four years later and you were writing
already for Pinnacle-
Wiggy: Freelancing at the time though. I'd just finished Slipstream.
Simon: We met up and I just didn't recognize you! Astonishingly. A memorable face!
Wiggy: A face for radio!
Simon: But after we spent all night drinking, the following day Rob said, 'Oh, that was Wiggy'! And it all came back to me!
Yeah, a bit embarrassing, I didn't recognize him. But then soon after that you went full-time with Pinnacle and a couple of
years after that I started.
Wiggy: I was doing a real job. I'd been freelancing for eight years, through various role-playing companies. SW had been
released in 2002. I expressed an interest to Shane, sent Necropolis in and didn't hear anything back - it was completely
unsolicited, I just dumped this complete manuscript on him! About a year later, talk of Rippers was starting to circulate
around the web. I was a big fan of Van Helsing the movie and all the old Hammer films, so I asked Shane if he needed
any scenarios, and he bit my hand off! I wrote three scenarios, and then he offered me Slipstream. I met him at Gen Con
in 2004 and Shane picked me up then, so I've been working for Pinnacle for three and a half years now.
Simon: I've been working for Pinnacle for two years.
Wiggy: Yeah, you came a bit later, didn't you?
Simon: So that was that!
RPGVT: Do you think the age range is different for Savage Worlds players?
Wiggy: I think most of our fans probably are the more married, full-time job type, which is one reason why they like the
game, because it's so easy to pick up and run.
Simon: Yeah, SW is written with that in mind, the fact that we don't have endless hours at college to read tons and tons
of books and spend hours plotting a big campaign or anything like that, so our adventures are usually two or three pages
- that's all the information you need to run them. I think that's why SW appeals to a slightly different group.
RPGVT: So what's out next from Pinnacle?
Wiggy: The next book out will be 'Sundered Skies' by Dave Blewer, and then 'Slipstream' which I wrote, and then 'Weird
Wars'.
Simon: Yes, those will be all our books for next year really. The plan is that Sundered Skies should be out in January,
and then we're hoping for Slipstream by March, then Weird Wars later in the year.
Wiggy: That's going to be a big book-
Simon: It's a huge book. It covers all the theatres of war. It has just about every piece of military equipment ever used…
Wiggy: Pretty much all the guns, all the vehicles, aircraft, boats, they're all - all - in there, and it covers all aspects of the
war...
Simon: Expansions will cover operations, adventures, that sort of stuff... Weird Wars is part of a series of wars
throughout history which have a hidden storyline behind them.
Wiggy: Necropolis is actually a Weird Wars book... although it's in the future...
RPGVT: SW seems to be weighted more towards fantasy than sci-fi...?
Simon: Well we just haven't done much sci-fi yet... Slipstream is a sci-fi setting and of
course Necropolis.
RPGVT: Something with space marines...?
Simon: That's Necropolis! Fighting hordes of undead on mankind's last planet. That's quite
a brutal one, that, isn't it...? But Slipstream is much more light-hearted...
Wiggy: Slipstream is Flash Gordon - the old black and white Saturday morning [cinema]
shows... much more pulpy...
RPGVT: So you've got mole men, lion men...?
Wiggy: Oh yes, they're all in there!
RPGVT: ...a special 'man' table...!
Simon: There is, actually!
Wiggy: There's a creature generator, so in theory there are an unlimited number of races you can come up with - it's
point-based, so you can buy edges for your race, and points of hindrances, and they balance out to +2, so virtually
anything you can think of - anything - you can play. One of the races - the Septosians - they're giant slugs that, several
times a day, can emit foul odours in a burst template!
Simon: They never get the girl though!
RPGVT: ...the slug girl?!
Simon: Hmmm - maybe they just divide!
huge number of ships. And each book's got about a hundred adventure seeds in at least... so plenty of stuff in there for
GMs, plenty of stuff for players.
At this point Simon went back to the PEG stand to allow Robin Elliott and Dave Blewer a chance to answer some
questions (and a pint!).
Page 2
Simon: Basic D&D - then almost immediately went on to Runequest and Traveller,
and didn't play much D&D at all... then we got heavily into Cyberpunk at college.
RPGVT: Favourite game?
Simon: Savage Worlds!
RPGVT: Apart from SW!
Simon: Actually I'm really quite partial to the Victory Games James Bond RPG - I
keep buying stuff for the product - I picked up the only thing I've been missing for
that game today, so I'm really pleased about that! The only problem is, I keep
buying the same books. I see them and I think, I'm not sure if I've got that- oh it's
cheap! (laughs). I love that game. I see some similarities to SW - it's got hero
points in there, which act a lot like bennies.
Wiggy: I started on AD&D at school, then like Simon switched to Runequest and Traveller pretty quickly - they were the
'in' things - but it was D&D for years...
RPGVT: Is that your favourite game?
Wiggy: It was the group favourite really. Twilight 2000 was really big at one stage at our gaming group at college...
Simon: How old you are!
RPGVT: And you've authored a couple of SW books now so far...
Wiggy: Fifteen, sixteen-
Simon: Plus all the pdfs. Tons. And the stuff we haven't published yet. It's masses!
RPGVT: How much research did you have to do for Solomon Kane, for example?
Wiggy: Obviously reading the stories through once cover-to-cover, then again armed with a notebook, and then of
course it's finding out the historical stuff, trawling the Internet mainly, and old encyclopaedias... for example, the five main
continents are all mentioned in some detail in the rulebook.
RPGVT: Is it a chore to do all that research?
Simon: You're a mine of information anyway, aren't you? You just soak it all up!
Wiggy: That's 'cos I don't read fiction! It can be a real chore at times, because there are some obscure facts out there
that as soon as you start reading them, they start to branch off, and you feel compelled to follow them to their end - then
you find you've wasted two days for one line that you actually type up in the book! Obviously Pirates [of the Spanish
Main], before Kane, was historical as well, so I had to do research there... the first book I ever wrote was historical. I'm
quite used to doing the historical side of it now!
RPGVT: What do you think about roleplaying on virtual tabletops?
Simon: Virtual tabletops look like a move in the right direction - have you seen the [D&D] 4th edition announcements?
RPGVT: We've seen the clips on YouTube.
Simon: It looks like virtual tabletops are going to be a big component of 4E. For us, Fantasy Grounds was good because
SW is still a niche game and we're still growing the fanbase - trying to find players is one of the hardest things. You might
have a couple of big fans in one area but try and get a whole group together when you have to convince somebody to
use a new system.
RPGVT: What do you think about FG?
Simon: The new Fantasy Grounds SW ruleset is fantastic - they've managed to get so many of the little bits that weren't
in the initial release - they've added the cards and the dice exploder, and it's looking really nice.
RPGVT: I was playtesting some of it with Vince, the guy who's leading on the SW ruleset.
Simon: Yeah, he's done a really good job. There were problems with the first one - the cards didn't work well – it did work,
it just wasn't smooth, it wasn't intuitive. I think the way that it's looking now is much more graphically appealing as well. If
you could find players really fast online - that'll be the next thing. One of the ways I think Kevin is going to do that is to
use our forums, and I think that's as good a place as any.
Wiggy: It's a good place to start.
Simon: Yeah. Our fans are very active on the forum, so you can always find people who want to talk Savage Worlds
pretty much 24 hours.
RPGVT: On Four Ugly Monsters, another fan-based virtual tabletop website, Savage Worlds has taken off big-style.
Simon: I know the name - when I log in to do any of the web updates I think I’ve seen it in the list of incoming links.
Forums are an excellent way to find people who are looking for someone with the same interests. On our forums, we
should have some space where people who are looking for a game can just hop on.
Wiggy: Yes, at the moment we've got the section 'Players Seeking Players', a forum on there which they do use.
Simon: The other thing that we've just started is getting our two demo guys (who run all of our convention demos in
America) set up with Fantasy Grounds. So they're going to run some online demos, and hopefully a lot of our convention
adventures should end up as something that you could play on Fantasy Grounds.
RPGVT: I did the Noble Deceit conversion!
Simon: Excellent! That’s one of the Savage Tales they're going to bundle with the ruleset, I think.
RPGVT: A couple of questions from the guys on FUM: Heruca, the Battlegrounds developer, wants to know if there's any
content he can use, as he's not licensed. For example, tables.
Simon: He would be able to use anything that's in the SW Test Drive rules, which is our free cut-down ruleset, so that
would be fine if he wanted to do a Test Drive ruleset. But obviously we've got the relationship with FG and that's what we
want to pursue. They've put a lot of effort into making the new ruleset very pretty - Kevin was showing me how it all
worked and now that the functionality is really coming on, we want to stick with that, really. But I'll have a look at
Battlegrounds because I've not seen it.
RPGVT: What support are you going to give to other VT software?
Simon: To be honest, we've gone this far with Kevin and Fantasy Grounds, I don't know how much it would really help
players to have several different options - the more players we can get on the same software, the more likely you are to
be able to find a game.
RPGVT: MapTool is another VT, a free one. For those who can't afford to buy one (and for some it's better than the
commercial VTs!), they're steering towards MapTool. Again it's graphically very good, and they're building in their own
functionality with their cards, Wild Dice etc. Trevor (the developer) has just posted a load of graphics and videos of Map
Tools...
Simon: That stuff's fine. We're always very easy with people who want to do fan-based stuff - they buy our books! But for
actual licensed stuff, I think we'll probably stick with the single option, just because it means that everybody who wants to
get SW material is going to be on the same software.
RPGVT: I wanted to ask you a question I didn't get answered on the boards-
Simon: Uh-oh! I was probably at [the US] Gen Con!
RPGVT: With your Players' Guides, you allow free photocopying for distribution...
Simon: Oh yeah, I think I did dodge that question - sorry about that!
RPGVT: We've now got an online fanbase - how can we distribute the Players' Guide [info]...?
Simon: Technically, you can't. It's intended for on-the-table play - when it becomes a virtual tabletop it muddies the water
a little bit, and in theory, you - can't. We'll have to try to figure a way where the Players' portion of it is available...
RPGVT: I think in FG you can work round it, but when playing one of the free VTs, how can you give players the
background information?
Simon: Yeah, it is difficult, and to be honest I haven't got a good answer for that. It's a tough one because even now we
already get stuff pirated and made available online - it's an issue because it's virtually impossible to stop. I’ve seen
arguments that say pdf piracy don’t cost us anything as those people later buy hard copies
of the pirated books, but I remain unconvinced. To open up the Players' Guides to be
shared online... it's difficult.
RPGVT: Have you seen what they do at the RPGNow website where they print your name on
the bottom of the pdf?
Simon: Yeah, they did that on DriveThru originally... I think it'll help.
RPGVT: Interesting to see how you've priced the Explorers Edition of SW.
Simon: I'd have thought it would go for £9.99 in the UK but Esdivium said they wanted to go
with the exchange rate. We're making very little on the book but the idea is to create more
SW players. It's called the Explorers Edition after the SW Explorers Society - GMs get points
for running games and demos and supporting Savage Worlds. That was why we were
getting Steve and Mike to run a FG game, because games that are run on FG are going to
count towards your points. So it encourages players to use that software and to use online
games... They put up quite a lot of content up there as well, so it's quite possible that we'll
get Kevin to convert some of the free material that they do there and make it available.
RPGVT: Coming back to FG, is there any way of prioritising the conversions to SW...?
- Simon: Kevin's very keen to do a horror game, so Rippers is going to be the next thing
that he converts into FG. After that, I don't know, we'll have to talk to Kevin and see what
he wants to do.
RPGVT: Will he be able to do stuff that you're licensed to do, like Pirates, or Solomon
Kane?
Simon: No, because that would probably have to be a sub-licence, so that would be
something he'd have to go straight to WizKids for - from our point of view it would use the
SW ruleset, so most of that's already done, it would be about approaching the license-
holder and seeing if they want to do it. It may not be financially viable for Kevin... so I
don't know, that's a good question.
RPGVT: Is there anything about VTs that you think people could be doing but they're not
doing?
Simon: When I heard about some of the stuff that they're planning to do for [D&D] 4th
Edition, that sounded great, like taking your miniatures and dropping them onto a virtual
map... that stuff sounds really good. It's early days for me and virtual tabletops. But I'm
RPGVT: SW has been mentioned in quite a few podcasts - are you going to support any podcasts...?
Simon: Well there's The Game's The Thing-
Wiggy: Run by Ron and Veronica Blessing-
Simon: And they started very regularly, but they've had a bit of a hiatus; they're starting again soon, and we actively
support them. We have Joe, our marketing guy, he has a spot on there where he does what's coming next month, and
Clint Black handles all our rules questions on the forum - he covers SW rules, things people struggle with... So we'll
support them as long as they want to keep going. They've been really good.
RPGVT: And there's the Shark Bites fanzine - have you got any plans to do something similar yourself?
Simon: Well, they're still going, and you know, they've put in a lot of effort and turn out a really good product and
especially when they get their little Shark Nibbles in between issues, where they put out a little snippet. I think that's really
good, it just keeps content coming out, so we don't want to steal any of their thunder, and at the moment all our spare
time is spent making more books, so we haven't really got someone spare we could dedicate to doing a specific e-zine.
We've talked about it on and off but we haven't actually thought about pursuing that yet.
RPGVT: It's only the first day here at Gen Con UK, so it's a bit early to say, but what do you think about this venue?
Simon: I was glad that it's back at a university, I think it gives it that community feeling... the halls of residence are a bit
far away, but you can't change that... but it's been pretty good so far, and we had a really good start, it's only the first
day and we've sold nearly all our advance copies of Solomon Kane, so I'm glad that's sold well. I was pleased that we had
some to bring here as well, because it's often the way that the UK gets a little bit abandoned when there's a new release
in the States and we don't see it here for a while. Especially as just about all of Pinnacle work in the UK. It would be a
shame to not have copies here!
RPGVT: Do you print it in the US?
Simon: It's printed in the Far East...
RPGVT: So where are you based?
Simon: I live in Sheffield.
Wiggy: And I'm in Shetland!
Simon: The actual business is based out in Arizona, where Shane Lacy Hensley lives. But only Shane lives in Arizona,
everybody else is spread around...
RPGVT: So how did you guys get together?
Wiggy: You sort of already knew Shane...
Simon: Yeah, from a previous product that I made, Shane distributed it in the US, and so that's how I met him, and then I
was working with Rob on Legion Publishing, which is one of the SW licensees. And so we were putting out adventures
and Shane came along and said, 'Do you want to Zeke's job?' - when Zeke moved to computer games. So it was a
challenge to shape where SW was going. When I was promoting my initial game, years and years ago, I met Wiggy at a
convention and demo'ed the game to him. Then years later we met up at Gen Con...
RPGVT: Did he buy it?!
Simon: Yeah! It went quite well.
Wiggy: It was, it was very good.
Simon: Thank you! (laughs) And then at [Gen Con] Minehead in 2004, it was four years later and you were writing
already for Pinnacle-
Wiggy: Freelancing at the time though. I'd just finished Slipstream.
Simon: We met up and I just didn't recognize you! Astonishingly. A memorable face!
Wiggy: A face for radio!
Simon: But after we spent all night drinking, the following day Rob said, 'Oh, that was Wiggy'! And it all came back to me!
Yeah, a bit embarrassing, I didn't recognize him. But then soon after that you went full-time with Pinnacle and a couple of
years after that I started.
Wiggy: I was doing a real job. I'd been freelancing for eight years, through various role-playing companies. SW had been
released in 2002. I expressed an interest to Shane, sent Necropolis in and didn't hear anything back - it was completely
unsolicited, I just dumped this complete manuscript on him! About a year later, talk of Rippers was starting to circulate
around the web. I was a big fan of Van Helsing the movie and all the old Hammer films, so I asked Shane if he needed
any scenarios, and he bit my hand off! I wrote three scenarios, and then he offered me Slipstream. I met him at Gen Con
in 2004 and Shane picked me up then, so I've been working for Pinnacle for three and a half years now.
Simon: I've been working for Pinnacle for two years.
Wiggy: Yeah, you came a bit later, didn't you?
Simon: So that was that!
RPGVT: Do you think the age range is different for Savage Worlds players?
Wiggy: I think most of our fans probably are the more married, full-time job type, which is one reason why they like the
game, because it's so easy to pick up and run.
Simon: Yeah, SW is written with that in mind, the fact that we don't have endless hours at college to read tons and tons
of books and spend hours plotting a big campaign or anything like that, so our adventures are usually two or three pages
- that's all the information you need to run them. I think that's why SW appeals to a slightly different group.
RPGVT: So what's out next from Pinnacle?
Wiggy: The next book out will be 'Sundered Skies' by Dave Blewer, and then 'Slipstream' which I wrote, and then 'Weird
Wars'.
Simon: Yes, those will be all our books for next year really. The plan is that Sundered Skies should be out in January,
and then we're hoping for Slipstream by March, then Weird Wars later in the year.
Wiggy: That's going to be a big book-
Simon: It's a huge book. It covers all the theatres of war. It has just about every piece of military equipment ever used…
Wiggy: Pretty much all the guns, all the vehicles, aircraft, boats, they're all - all - in there, and it covers all aspects of the
war...
Simon: Expansions will cover operations, adventures, that sort of stuff... Weird Wars is part of a series of wars
throughout history which have a hidden storyline behind them.
Wiggy: Necropolis is actually a Weird Wars book... although it's in the future...
RPGVT: SW seems to be weighted more towards fantasy than sci-fi...?
Simon: Well we just haven't done much sci-fi yet... Slipstream is a sci-fi setting and of
course Necropolis.
RPGVT: Something with space marines...?
Simon: That's Necropolis! Fighting hordes of undead on mankind's last planet. That's quite
a brutal one, that, isn't it...? But Slipstream is much more light-hearted...
Wiggy: Slipstream is Flash Gordon - the old black and white Saturday morning [cinema]
shows... much more pulpy...
RPGVT: So you've got mole men, lion men...?
Wiggy: Oh yes, they're all in there!
RPGVT: ...a special 'man' table...!
Simon: There is, actually!
Wiggy: There's a creature generator, so in theory there are an unlimited number of races you can come up with - it's
point-based, so you can buy edges for your race, and points of hindrances, and they balance out to +2, so virtually
anything you can think of - anything - you can play. One of the races - the Septosians - they're giant slugs that, several
times a day, can emit foul odours in a burst template!
Simon: They never get the girl though!
RPGVT: ...the slug girl?!
Simon: Hmmm - maybe they just divide!
- Wiggy: Are we mentioning Pirates support?
Simon: The first of those is about Pirates... they're all faction books so they give you all
the info on all the WizKids cards and characters of a particular faction, all the ships have
been statted up, all the islands that belong to the faction are given more detail.
Wiggy: Expanded gazetteer - all the ships, all the NPCs...
Simon: So half the book will be stats and islands, and the rest of the book is full of
adventures!
RPGVT: That must have taken some heavy research there!
Wiggy: They only take about ten days to write. It's only sixty four pages...
Simon: Ten days to write a sixty-four page book! I tell you, there's something wrong with
the man!
RPGVT: So each of the expansions they've done, you're going to cover...?
Simon: Yep.
Wiggy: The first four books cover the first two sets: Pirates of the Spanish Main, and
Crimson Coast... then we get the Revolution book all to itself... then we'll do Barbary
huge number of ships. And each book's got about a hundred adventure seeds in at least... so plenty of stuff in there for
GMs, plenty of stuff for players.
At this point Simon went back to the PEG stand to allow Robin Elliott and Dave Blewer a chance to answer some
questions (and a pint!).
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