Part one of the interview with Matt Wilson, Creative Director of Privateer Press
Hail Adventurers,
Yesterday I was privileged to speak with Matt Wilson, the Creative Director for Privateer Press. Here’s part one of the interview, where we get right down to the details on a new Iron Kingdoms RPG, and then back track a bit to see where it all started for Matt and the company.
Dan: So before we get to the rest of the interview, what can you tell me about the new Iron Kingdoms RPG?
Matt: It will come out at some undetermined time in the not too distant future, and it will be a proprietary system that will be tailored for the Iron Kingdoms IP. The most logical thing is for the new system to be an outgrowth of the WARMACHINE battle system. What we want is something that will let us create an RPG experience that emulates the mechanics of the world that we created.
Dan: So a player familiar with WARMACHINE can step into the new Iron Kingdoms RPG and say “Oh, ok I’m familiar with this.”
Matt: Right, and that’s always been the challenge with the D20 stuff. For example, we were trying to create a warcaster that didn’t just break the whole system. Because at the end of the day, warcasters are superheroes when compared to everyone else. If you’re not careful, you run into the jedi problem, right? I mean who wants to be a noble-
Dan: Or a stormtrooper-
Matt: Right, or a stormtrooper, when you can be a jedi master?
Dan: I played in an Iron Kingdoms campaign years ago, and I learned just how awesome a warcaster could be when the party’s level 5 Warcaster blew up a train in three rounds.
Matt: Yeah, and that’s really the key to the system. We always try to give those super heroic levels and abilities to everything, but because of the limitations of the d20 system, it made it more difficult to do so than it really needs to be. Once we are able to dive into this and work out our own proprietary system, we’ll be able to create a balanced RPG experience that makes it level across the board, while still accurately depicting how we imagine spell casting and things like that would work in the Iron Kingdoms. To me, that’s where the d20 system and Iron Kingdoms have always had a mismatch.
Dan: Do you have a development timeline or a release date picked for this new release?
Matt: As far as timeline, it’s a ways off. We’ve got a very heavy publishing schedule this year with the MK II release of the WARMACHINE and HORDES books. Once that’s done at the end of 2010, then that gives us more bandwidth to start on new projects.
Dan: So the developers who would be working on Iron Kingdoms are working on the MK II WARMACHINE and HORDES releases instead?
Matt: Yeah, with MK II, we’re relaunching WARMACHINE and HORDES. As part of that relaunch, we’ve consolidated 6 years worth of material for each of the factions into their own force books. In order to try and get all the players up to speed as soon as possible, we have a publishing schedule that requires that we knock out a new book every single month this year.
Dan: Oh my God.
Matt: Yeah, and that effort is tapping every single one of our resources from development through design, editing, production management, and the whole nine yards just to meet that publishing schedule. Then, once that’s done, then we can take a breather and start working on new product development
Dan: Sounds like you’ll be busy for the rest of this year.
Matt: 2011 will bring a lot of new and different kinds of challenges.
Dan: Do you think that 2011 will be an easier year for Privateer Press?
Matt: Well we’ve never really let up since we started. I wouldn’t say that we’ve ever had an ‘easy’ year. We tend to make each year harder on ourselves by being so ambitious with what we’re trying to do. But this year, we’ve buried the needle on all the pressure that we can apply.
Dan: Nice steampunk reference.
Matt: Now that I think of it, 2011 will be an easier year in terms of internal production schedule. There is a maximum amount of material that you can shove through any pipe, and that’s where we’re at this year.
Dan: Where did you get your start in the table-top games industry?
Matt: My first job with the industry was working with AEG in 1995, and I came on when they were still just a fledgling company. I think at the time their only products were Shadis Magazine, and some CCG box holders with some elaborate art work on them.
Dan: Were you doing the art work on any of the boxes?
Matt: No. Well actually, I think… I think I did one small werewolf box. But that was after I was with AEG for a little bit. Prior to that I had been working in comic books. I owned a small comic book company that, at the time, wasn’t doing too well. So I approached AEG about doing a serialized comic in Shadis magazine. While that comic never got off the ground, they hired me just a few days later to come on as an art director.
So I immediately started doing art direction for the magazine, and that was new for me. I was an artist and a writer, but never a director. Later I learned that they brought me on because they were planning to come out with the Legends of the Five Rings CCG, and I was the guy they wanted to do the art direction for it. I ended up doing a whole lot more than that though. I started with the magazine, and then I found myself involved in pretty much every aspect of the game as it was being developed; from design to marketing. I also did a lot of the initial world building where I basically created the world and the clans and then designed the look and feel for each of them.
Dan: I had no idea you did that. That’s a big deal!
Matt: Yeah, it was cool that I got to help lay the foundation for that setting. So I was there with AEG for two years before getting drafted by Wizards of the Coast to Art Direct magic for a while. Then I was drafted by FASA for two years after that. Then I went back to Wizards of the Coast where I worked in their illustration department for three years as the lead concept artist for Magic the Gathering.
Dan: So, at some point around there did you say to yourself “To hell with this I’m going to start my own company again!”?
Matt: Not really. I’d say it was more of a really fortunate planetary alignment. While I was at Wizards of the Coast, that’s when the d20 open game license launched and there was this huge boom of d20 companies. Around that time I was sitting with a friend one day and we talked about how we could start our own d20 company. We were both artists, and I had done some writing and we were both into games, so we thought we’d try and just through one out there.
That’s how The WitchFire Trilogy came to be. I did the world building and plotted the story that we built those modules around. Then Brian Snoddy and I did the artwork for it while Matt Staroscik wrote and did all the d20 mechanic work that went into those modules. Little did I know that this was all happening towards the end of my employment with Wizards of the Coast because they had just started downsizing. Soon after they cut all (or at least a great majority) of the artists they had employed at that time.
This worked out really well for me because we had Privateer Press ready to go. Actually, by the time I was let go by Wizards of the Coast, we had already done several RPG books. So I was able to transition right into working on Privateer Press full time, and in fact it was just a few months before we launched WARMACHINE.
Dan: That is a nice planetary alignment.
Matt: It was a really smooth transition from one to the other, and I didn’t have to scramble too much.
Dan: So on to Privateer Press, where did the name for the company come from?
Matt: I was trying to think of that when I saw your question. We went through a whole bunch of different name ideas. I want to say that it was a suggestion from Matt Staroscik, but it’s hard to say because we had a very long list with dozens of different names. We were trying to figure out what our identity was going to be. But as soon as ‘Privateer Press’ came up it stuck. All the other ones were thrown away because we knew that we had it. We liked the sound of it, and we felt that it embodied an attitude we wanted. That we were going to strike out on our own and do things our own way.
Dan: It definitely has a bit of a rebellious feel to it.
Matt: Yeah, but it’s not like we have anything to rebel against, you know? It’s not like “Hey! We’re the game industry and we’re going to take down THE MAN!” That wasn’t what we intended, but there was definitely a sense of empowerment that came with the name. It gave us an instant symbol to rally behind. Really, it became something universal for other people in that they understood and expected that from us.
I’ve always been glad that we chose that name and symbol for our company because it has been a guiding factor in how our company has developed. We’re independent, we try to be at the forefront of everything we do, and we like to try and set trends instead of follow in the footsteps of another company. Plus it’s always given us something to fall back on when we needed to give someone or some company the bird.
Come back tomorrow to read the rest of the interview, where you’ll get a ‘read it here first’ exclusive for WARMACHINE related news!
New update: Social Publishing!
UPDATE!
A lot of you also seem to want us to add this feature to edited characters, Adventure logs, and Wiki pages. So we did!
Hail Adventurers!
Do you wish that you could alert your friends, followers, and players to your important Obsidian Portal campaign updates? WISH GRANTED!
We’ve burned the midnight oil at both ends again this weekend, and not only did that leave a terrible burn mark on the carpet, but we’ve managed to work social publishing features into the following actions!
- Create new campaign
- Create new Adventure Log post
- Create new Wiki page
So now when you’re doing one of the above, you can choose to publish a note about what you’ve created to Facebook and Twitter! Be the envy of your friends and loved ones… after all, they didn’t create the perfect campaign setting. You did!
Here’s how to set it up so your account can do social publishing.
- Log into your Obsidian Portal campaign
- Click on My Profile
- Click on Edit My Account
- Scroll down to Third Party Signin
- Click on the Facebook button and follow the instructions to allow Facebook updates
- Click on the Twitter button and follow the instructions to allow Twitter updates
After that, you’re all set to start publishing to Facebook and Twitter! Here’s how to do it.
When you’re creating a new campaign, Adventure Log, or Wiki page, scroll down to the bottom and just above the create button, you’ll see Social Publishing. Click on that, choose either Facebook or Twitter, or both, and then click create. Simple as that!
Just so it’s clear from the start, we will never post something to your stream without your explicit permission. We won’t sneak behind your back and push updates. We hate that kind of dishonest behavior, too.
Free System Friday, 3/05/2010
It’s Free System Friday! Tired of your current RPG system? Try a new one for free! This week’s entry is also this week’s new system for New System Thursday! That’s right Adventurers, it’s DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND!
Ninjas, pirates, and dinosaurs. A fantasy Asia, filled with warring island nations. Samurai mounted on domesticated raptors. Bigger dinosaurs hunted by quasi-Polynesian tribesmen. Dueling factions of shadow warriors. Privateers and buccaneers battling the servants of the Imperial Navy. Fallen kingdoms deep in forgotten jungles. And we call it…
DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND
The rules are free! So grab them, some friends, and make a DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND campaign now!
Interview with a Game Designer: Mike Pondsmith
Mike Pondsmith is a cornerstone of gaming. He started off designing table-top RPG games right out of college, then moved on to video games, and is now teaching Game Design full time at DigiPen. He took some time out of his busy schedule to let us interview him about his history, how he got where is he today, and where he’s going tomorrow. Read on, won’t you?
Obsidian Portal: So what got you started as a game designer?
Mike: I have always designed games, even as a kid. Most of them where board games or chess like ideas. (Game Design) was always something in the back of my mind. At one point, a friend of mine came home from college. He had a copy of the original D&D.
Obsidian Portal: The white box?
Mike: Mhmm, the white box. He also had a copy of Chainmail. So we started playing Chainmail and then moved on to D&D. We had played Naval wargaming before so up until then I had been big on that, designing all these ships and things, but we started playing D&D and I said “There might be something we can do with that, but I’m not all that fascinated by this entire idea of doing a Fantasy world.” I’m much more Science Fiction based.
We played, had a good time, but it kind of fell along the wayside. We did a lot of other wargaming and we had fun doing that. But then I meet my wife. And she’s into D&D gaming. In order to… go after my wife, I have to get into her D&D game. With her GM trying to kill me the entire time. Why? Because he’s her ex-boyfriend.
So, basically, he’s trying to take me out, and I’m still in the game, but the whole time I was thinking “You know, I’m not into this whole fantasy thing.” So one day I walk into my local game store and I’m going to buy some new D&D dice and all that, and I see the holy black box of Traveler. And I go “Whoa… Beowulf under attack S.O.S. Alright! This is what I need.” Finally, they had written D&D for me. It’s got some Fantasy; I’m big into Science Fiction. I love the whole idea, this is perfect.
I get home, build some characters, and kill my first character off while generating it. Kill my second character off while generating it. So finally I get it right, and I get into a game, and I find that I can’t kill my character. I found out that, in order to kill my character I have to effectively knock down 3 stats to be able to off my character. I’m realizing… this is bogus. I can’t kill the guy except when I’m generating him. This sucks.
At the time, I was working as a Graphic Designer for a University, so I have access to a type setting machine. So I write this game called Imperial Star, which is essentially my version of Traveler. And I redesign the system. I changed it to be something a little more percentile based. And it works, and I play a character, and it’s streamlined, and we all liked playing. And it had me thinking “Wow, this is really good!”
There’s a running joke on that, where years later I met Mark Miller, the designer of Traveler and I said to him “You’re to blame for me becoming a game designer.” And he said “Why’s that?” And I said “Because I played the original Traveler, where you couldn’t-” And he finished my sentence “kill your character except in character generation, yeah I know.” Then he groaned and said “Here, I owe you this.” And he handed me a hardback copy of his revised version of Traveler, and I still have it to this day. It’s one of my most treasured possessions.
Fast forward a few years, and I’m down in Santa Cruz. I’ve become a fan of Anime. I’m in a bookstore one day, and I come across some copies of the Mobile Suit Gundam manga, all in Japanese. I’m looking at these giant robots and I’m thinking “This is great.” And then I think “Hey, this is Science Fiction. I have a Science Fiction system… I can adapt that, no problem!” The only problem is, I don’t read Japanese, so I have no bloody idea what is actually being said, what the plot line is, I have no idea what’s going on. So I have to make it up as I go along. So as I’m making it up, I add in some of my own ideas, and essentially this becomes Mekton. I’d like to say that Gundam influenced Mekton, but I didn’t know enough about what was going on to make Mekton into Gundam.
That’s it for the first part of this interview with Mike Pondsmith! Tune in tomorrow for Part two, where Mike tells us when he felt he “Really made it to the Big time.”
Stats & Art Contest Mar. 2010: HamSTAR 2099! 3/02/2010 – 3/31/2010
UPDATE: Results can be found here
This contest runs through the 31st of March. The Facebook fanpage has done it again, Adventurers! This time they’ve invented a game system. Well, ok technically they invented two (See here for details).
Stats
If you can come up with stats for Feral Space Hamsters (or their Feral Space Chinchilla PCs) as PCs for Ironclaw, Rogue Trader, or the strangely defined laws of HamSTAR 2099 & ChinKILLA 3010, then you’ll have a chance to win a $25 US gift certificate to Amazon.com! We’ll pick the best three entries, and they’ll be our winners. There’s no limit to the number of entries, and you can win for more than one setting!
Art
If you can dream up art for the fictional cover of either the HamSTAR 2099, or ChinKILLA 3010 core rulebooks, then you’ll have a chance to win a $25 US gift certificate to Amazon.com! We’ll pick the best three entries, and they’ll be our winners. There’s no limit to the number of entries, and you can win for more than one art piece!
Good Luck, and Good Gaming!
Email submissions to dan(at)obsidianportal(dot)com.
Four new site updates, 3/1/2010
Hail Adventurers!
We’ve been busy behind the portal making changes so you don’t have to! As you know, we’re dedicated to providing the best campaign management platform in the world, and that means that the changes are always fast and furious around here. Here’s what’s changed in our most recent round of updates.
1) Co-GM Functionality –Ascendant Members Only!
You’ve dreamt about it. You shouted about it. And we’re finally giving it to you! Just log into your account, open one of your campaigns, click on Manage Members, and the screenshot above says the rest! This feature is available to our Ascendant Members only. Why not become one today?
2) Improved Notification System –Ascendant Members Only!
Want your players to know about an important update to a page in your campaign? Or perhaps you’d like to share a particularly sensitive update with a single player? Now you can send automatic email notifications for any of your campaign pages!
Additionally, we’ve tweaked forum notifications so that each poster can control who gets notified for each post. It’s super nice! Just like the last feature, this one is only available to our Ascendant Members. Why not give it a go?
3) Changing your Username
This feature is available to all users! Did you enter in the wrong Username when you signed up? Does it haunt you throughout your day with a dark whisper in your mind saying “You did it wroooooong. I’m a scary voice in your heaaaaaaad!” Well fear not my deranged friend, because now you can change your Username!
If you’d like to change your Username, log into Obsidian Portal, click on “My Profile” and then “Edit My Account”. Your Username is the first thing on the page. Changing your username will change the URL for your profile and all the previous links to your Obsidian Portal user profile will no longer work! So be careful when you make the change, or the hauntings will continue forever.
4) 15 day free trial for new Ascendant Memberships!
All new Ascendant Memberships are eligible for a 15 day free trial! Simply choose the length of subscription you’d like and checkout with Amazon. If you don’t like your Ascendant Membership, cancel any time before the trial runs out and you won’t be charged a cent! Sign up today!
