Steve Jackson

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Out of the street corners they scream. You knew it
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was coming. You've been waiting for this for months. Rumour
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hardened into fear and now they scream at you. The sirens,
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the hysterical wail tearing through the white noise of the city.
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And you run. You run to pick up those things
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that can never be replaced. A picture of them in
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the days when they still loved you. Your mother's wedding ring.
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And then you turn to your shelf of games. You
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only have room for five. Five Games for Doomsday. Five
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Games for Doomsday is a show in which board game
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personalities are thrust into a cabin in the woods to
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outrun an oncoming disaster, but can only take five of
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their games with them. But which will they choose? My
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guest this week is a legend in the hobby with
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a catalogue of famous games to his name. Starting a
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metagaming concept in the 70s, he went on to found
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his own company, Steve Jackson Games, which became a pillar
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of the gaming world. He's designed and published Ogre, Melee Wizard,
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Car Wars, Illuminati, Zombie Dice, and his evergreen classic Munchkin,
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as well as inventing the generic universal role-playing system better
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known as GURPS. My guest this week is Steve Jackson. Steve,
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welcome to the cabin.
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Hello. Hello.
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So my first question is, you started your life in
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gaming after leaving law school to join a company called
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Metagaming Concepts. How difficult was it to make that decision?
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Not. Really, really not. When I visited the Metagaming office,
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I found interesting people doing interesting things.
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And so were you then just, were you a gamer
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your whole life? And so was it an aspiration to
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become a game designer or did you go there and
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be hit by lightning?
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When you're born in the 50s, you can't be a
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gamer your whole life. The gaming as we know it
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was a late 60s and 70s phenomenon. I was a
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gamer as soon as I found them. which just meant
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James Dunnigan had to start designing them.
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And so you played a lot of SPI games in
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those days? Yes.
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When I was in undergraduate school, we wore out a
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copy of Borodino and played a lot of Strategy 1
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and everything else from time to time.
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And then, so, you know, if you look at Steve
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Jackson games, not Gertz, I think, but Steve Jackson games,
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They're not as simulatory and as involved as an SPI title.
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Did Jim Dunnigan's games inspire you as a designer?
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Yes, very much. My first game, Ogre, looks like somebody
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took a Dunnigan game and translated it into basic English.
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And so.
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I was reading, doing some research about you, and you
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design games based on the faults you saw in D
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& D. What was your issue with D & D
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as you saw it?
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Well, the first edition, which was what I had been
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exposed to, had no remote idea of tactics. You were
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supposed to say who was going first as you walk
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down the hall, but that was apparently just so the
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GM could kill that person with a trap, or alternatively
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have the last one snagged by orcs. Thieves had the
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ability to backstab, but there was no way in the
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rules to get behind someone except to be second in
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the party line and backstab the leader, I suppose. It
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just seems silly. So I worked on a game that
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let you make up a basic character and know where
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they were on the map.
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And so then, I've not read first edition. I've read
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some of the supplements around that time. And I'm shocked, frankly,
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by how poor the writing is. Were you struck by
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that too?
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Maybe I didn't have high expectations initially. When I first
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encountered it, I mean, it was a mimeographed book with
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a one-color cover and a weird kind of game inside.
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And I did not expect literary quality. I wanted it
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to be fun.
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And so then you worked at Metagaming Concepts for a while,
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but you left and formed your own company. Why was that?
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Uh the standard answer in a situation like that is
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creative differences okay the owner had a company which he
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owned and he wanted to do things his way and
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i was cool with that but i didn't want to
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do things his way.
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And so was the was the breakup acrimonious or not at.
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First it was in the courts before it was done.
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So your first game then is a classic and one
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that doesn't get picked very often on this show. And
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this is Scrabble. So why do you think, what is
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the appeal of Scrabble and why do you think gamers
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look on it with the disdain that they do? I,
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I haven't encountered that disdain, but, uh, maybe I've been
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hanging out on the wrong boards.
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It's, uh, deeply tactical area control game that happens to
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involve making words.
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And so then tell us, because I've played Scrabble. I
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consider myself reasonable with words, but I'm terrible at Scrabble.
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And you're not the first person to have said to
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me that it's not a word game. It's a tactical
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area control game. How does one be good at Scrabble?
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Uh, get whooped repeatedly by someone who is good at
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Scrabble and watch what they do when they're not making
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eight letter words. Watch where they put the words. Watch
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where they put the letters in the words.
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And so then you said in your notes that you
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sent me that you wanted to bring also foreign language dictionaries.
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Yes.
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Is this because you speak those languages, or is it
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possible to play Scrabble if you don't know the language?
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I forget what. I mean, short answer, yes.
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One was definitely Spanish.
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Yeah. Longer answer, there is a national Scrabble champion, and
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it would be easy to Google it, but I don't remember,
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who doesn't speak the language. Um, he, uh, he's, he's
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got an unusual mind. He spent some time memorizing the
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dictionary and then he went and won.
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I believe he's the guy who learned, I think he's
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the guy who learned Icelandic in three weeks or something.
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He's one of these guys who's exceptional at these.
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Not impossible, but no, I have enough French and Spanish
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to read the newspaper. Um, enough to understand simple instructions,
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but not enough to give them anymore. But my vocabulary
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is solid, and I just think it would be fun
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to play a game where foreign words were allowed, just
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to spice it up a little bit.
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I speak German, but I'm not sure there's enough room
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on the board to fit most of the words on.
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Well, turn corners.
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Indeed, indeed. I want to talk now about Steve Jackson Games.
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You left your previous employer and you started this new company.
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What was the original intention?
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Because the breakup was friendly at first, what happened was
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that I bought Space Gamer Magazine, which the owner of
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Metagaming no longer wanted to bother with because it didn't
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make a lot of money. I knew perfectly well it
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didn't make a lot of money, but it would be
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cool to have a gaming magazine. And I figured I
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could make enough money to eat.
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And so, yeah, sorry, carry on.
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That proved to be the case. But after a year
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or so, I was like, I want to write some
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more games.
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And so then how long was it? Because starting a
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company is always, I imagine at the beginning, especially if
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you've not got tons of capital. always kind of a
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torrid thing. How long before you realized Steve Jackson Games
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was a going concern?
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I'd say it was probably three to five years in.
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After Illuminati and Car Wars, it was obvious that I
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could do games people wanted to buy.
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And so back at that time, when we talk about
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hobby games a print run of 3000 and selling a
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print run of 3000 is considered a sort of moderate
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success what kind of numbers were you selling and how
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did you get the word out about those guys.
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Um we were selling print runs of 5 000 and
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sometimes reprinting part of that is that uh like the
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original metagaming micro games we were at a very low
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price point and uh i called the distributors myself and
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called and called and went to conventions and and established
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sales terms that said pretty much in so many words,
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you can send back what you can't sell if it's
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still in condition that I can sell it. Oddly enough,
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we almost never had to make good on that.
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And so we've kind of touched on your previous acrimony
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with your previous employer, but part of the basis of
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Steve Jackson Games was games like Ogre that you'd published
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through them previously. How fraught was the reacquisition of those rights?
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Pretty fraught. I had a contract that said I could
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buy them back. And he said, no, you can't buy
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them back. And I said, but it's in the contract
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and you wrote the contract. And he said, huh? And
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then we both hired lawyers.
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And how long did that take? And did it cost
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you a lot of money? It must have been terrible
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for a fledgling publisher.
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It cost a certain amount of money, but it wasn't
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a complicated case.
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And so then, you also, around this time, because you
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often get confused for the other Steve Jacksons. The one
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that's accents is closer to mine. And you wrote some
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stuff for the Final Fantasy... Fighting Fantasy. Excuse me, Fighting
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Fantasy Games. Is it annoying to be confused with the
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other Steve Jackson or is it just an occupational hazard?
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Usually it's amusing because it immediately launches a conversation. And
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Steve is a great guy.
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And is it true that when you published the fighting
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fantasy games, they didn't stipulate that it was a different
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Steve Jackson?
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That is correct. There's no way to look at the
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original ones and have any idea.
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And so doing my research, I found out that in 1990,
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and you can correct me if I'm wrong because this
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is Wikipedia, but you were raided by the US Secret Service.
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Why was that and what was the circumstances? Yeah, what
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was the circumstances behind it?
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Okay, the short version, and there's a long version, but
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you can find it online. The short version is that
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the U.S. Secret Service had very recently, in a bureaucratic
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power game, been given investigational rights, which they interpreted to
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include hacking. Because the letter of the regulation was wire fraud.
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And they said, well, hackers can get into computers and
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then do a magic thing to steal money. So we
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can investigate hackers. Now remember, I'm simplifying, but that's bullshit
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that's very close to the truth. So the Secret Service
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started investigating hackers like crazy. Hackers are hard to find,
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but wannabe hackers are everywhere and have been since the
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modem was invented. Skip a little bit, and because one
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of my employees is a computer enthusiast who hangs around
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on a bulletin board with other computer enthusiasts and makes
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scary talk, and undoubtedly knows technically how to call into
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a system that has the default password. I know how
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to call. We were raided on suspicion of being a
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nest of hackers. And they found the manuscript for GURPS Cyberpunk,
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which their target was. individual was compiling at the time
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and they said oh now we've got them they used
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to the press the phrase a handbook for computer crime
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and they took some of our computers you can read
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online they took all of them and that's just not
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true they took all the ones in the editorial office
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but that included our BBS system. And that was one
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of the things that we nailed them on in the end,
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because they closed down a publication. And they took everything
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they could find, which was everything but old backups, for
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GARP Cyberpunk, the handbook for computer crime. And that very
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nearly put us out of business. because it had been
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a bad year. GERP Cyberpunk was going to be the
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hit that brought us back, but we couldn't publish it,
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because in the first place, we didn't have the manuscript anymore,
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and in the second place, it was a handbook for
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computer crime. So things were pretty tough for a while,
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and then the Electronic Frontier Foundation, brand new, arrived on
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the scene with all guns blazing. and said, we will
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represent you in court against the Secret Service and clear
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the name of your book, which is not a handbook
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for computer crime, but a game where you roll dice
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and pretend to be a bad person. And they did.
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So it all worked out in the end.
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It all worked out in the end, except that I
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lost a couple of years of growth, had to fire
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half my staff, excuse me, lay off half my staff,
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and become a poster child.
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And did the government ever compensate you for your losses eventually?
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They did. We had to take them to court, and
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they paid not an unfair compensation for the actual damage
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that they did. Now, in some cases against the government,
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people rack up huge penalties, punitive damages and retire to Majorca.
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That was not the case here. There were no punitive damages.
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There was a real good precedent and there was some
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money and we got our computers back. Now, they had
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been wrecked by the Secret Service investigation and careless. They
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didn't know how to pack them for shipping or more likely,
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they knew how to make sure that shipping would destroy
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them coming back. If you were going to ship a
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computer from point A to point B, would you open
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it up and put a loose hard drive from another
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system on top of the motherboard and then close it
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up again?
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I mean, it's not what I'd do.
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Not what you'd do.
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I'm not computer literate, but I wouldn't do that.
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You don't have the benefit of the special training that
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they evidently gave the Secret Service.
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That is true. I don't make enough money from taxpayer dollars, unfortunately.
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What, me bidder?
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So, moving on then to something... That.
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Was my tax dollars at work doing that to me.
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We are not amused.
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Indeed. So, moving on then to something happier. Your next
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game is one of yours, and this is Munchkin, and
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you specifically chose Munchkin Apocalypse. So, how did you come
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up with the idea for Munchkin?
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For Munchkin? It was a quick, random idea. I thought
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it would be fun to do a card game to
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take the piss out of bad D & D. Just
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the players all represent the worst and most annoying type
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of gamer, and their objective is only to kill stuff
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and level up. They're Personalities change with the turn of
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a card. You're a cleric one minute and a warrior
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the next. And it caught on.
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Well, to say it caught on is an understatement because
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I work in a board game shop. And Munchkin is
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still– and this is a board game shop in Berlin
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in Germany. And the game is still on the shelf.
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It still sells well. Is it new, the Munchkin Big
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Box Munchkin 40K?
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Okay, that's two different things. We have a release called
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Big Box, which was a million-dollar Kickstarter, and we have
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a licensed Games Workshop Warhammer 40K.
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Yeah, because that just came into the shop the other day,
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and Munchkin is so hugely popular. When you made it,
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did you... have any conception that Munchkin would become the
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institution that it did?
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No conception. I hoped we would get a second print run.
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In fact, the first print run was 5000, our standard.
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And my partner, Monica... who had helped me make up
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the initial cards and play tested in my life. Sorry,
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I do this. She said, that's not enough. And that 5,000
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sold immediately. So we printed 10,000. And Monica says, that's
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not enough. And they sold out immediately. And we printed 25,000.
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And she said, that's more like it. And they still
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sold out pretty quick. And it just kept going from there.
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The biggest print run we ever did was 100,000.
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And so then.
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Who was initially buying that Munchkin? Everybody! Well, this is
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the question, right? Because I've played a lot of D
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& D, and Munchkin appeals to me because I understand
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the tropes, but it must have spread far wider than
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D & D- obsessed people, right?
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What seems to have happened was that people who didn't
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play D & D but had been on the edges
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of it at least understood what was being said, even
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if they didn't get all the little jokes. And people
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who did play D & D liked it, and they
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took it to game night and exposed it to people
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who liked games but might not be D & D players.
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And it caught on. And I did a sequel, and
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people liked that. And I did 20 more sequels, and
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people liked them. So.
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And so, you know, it's not only a sort of
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iconic game in terms of mechanisms, in terms of the tropes,
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it's also iconic visually. That central character is one of
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the great characters in board gaming. How important do you
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think was John Kowalik's art to the success?
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Hugely. I can technically imagine a munchkin that never had
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him in it. but I don't know what it would
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be like. I love working with John. When we brainstorm,
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it's like two halves of one twisted mind, except his
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is the half that can draw.
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And so I'm interested in this because there was a phenomenon.
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When I first got into board gaming, it was around
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about 2012, and there was this phenomenon, and it was
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called the tabletop bump because Will Wheaton had this show,
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Tabletop Bump. And I first came across Munchkin on tabletop.
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Yeah, that episode did us a lot of good.
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So the tabletop bump is not a myth?
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No. In fact, it's a continuing thing because you can
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still find that tabletop. And I still hear from people
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who go, how did I miss this game for 25 years?
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I just saw it on an old YouTube. And I'm like,
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I know what, YouTube.
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So I want to talk now about GURPS. So GURPS
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is a name. I must confess I've not played GURPS,
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but GURPS is a name I knew. I first got
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introduced to role-playing in the 90s with Call of Cthulhu.
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And GURPS was around. People were talking about GURPS at
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that time. What was the purpose of it?
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The way role-playing was going at that time was... a
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lot of systems individually created to give specific effects or
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simulate specific backgrounds. The example everybody knows because it was
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so good and persistent is Call of Cthulhu with mechanics
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specifically designed to let the game master generate the feel
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of not just horror, but creeping insanity. But there were
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a lot of these. There was Metamorphosis Alpha, and there
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were two or three Wild West games, and so on
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and so on. Totally incompatible. MMA was worst in some ways,
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because it was almost compatible. And I said, why can't
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one game do everything? And then I was three years
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making that happen.
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And so what people have told me about GURPS, and
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I may be wrong here, feel free to correct me,
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is that GURPS is a very granular system. You can
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really lean into the, for want of a better word,
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verisimilitude of the scenario.
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You can, but you don't have to. One of the
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common misconceptions is that you have to use all the
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crunchy little rules. No, those are there for the people
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who are into that stuff.
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And so what kind of role player are you? Because
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I DM and I'm very rules casual because I can't
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remember them, essentially. And so I'm very much rule of cool.
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I prefer it to be entertaining and fun rather than
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cleave very closely to the rules. What kind of RPG
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player are you? Are you a granular player or are
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you more of a casual player?
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Oh, I absolutely don't use all the little crunchy rules.
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I like stuff to happen, and I like it to
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happen quickly, and I would rather it happen unpredictably.
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And so it's a universal system where you can apply
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it to anything that you wish. What kind of people
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were really enthusiastic about GURPS when it came out?
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System freaks who saw that this was a different way
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to do things, and the people who wanted to do mashups.
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because although this wasn't in the original plan, it turns
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out that a system that will cover a lot of
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backgrounds is the only way to cram two backgrounds together.
384
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Sorry, carry on.
385
00:26:25.430 --> 00:26:32.569
Eventually, good mashup systems were created, so we can have
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cyberpunk elves now. But for a while, if you were
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going to do that, you were going to do it
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with GURPS.
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And did you find that there were people who loved
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the Meliora D & D but hated the mechanisms who
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would transpose their D & D campaigns into GURPS?
392
00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:51.619
Oh, not more than a couple billion.
393
00:26:54.839 --> 00:26:59.480
And so the last edition of GURPS was 2004. Any
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00:26:59.619 --> 00:27:01.000
plans to bring out a new one?
395
00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:04.440
We haven't announced anything yet.
396
00:27:06.119 --> 00:27:12.950
Okay, I will leave that teaser hanging. So then your
397
00:27:12.990 --> 00:27:16.730
next game then is a really popular game at the moment.
398
00:27:16.750 --> 00:27:20.450
This is Terraforming Mars. Terraforming Mars, when it came out,
399
00:27:20.490 --> 00:27:24.599
was a massive success straight off the bat. Why do
400
00:27:24.619 --> 00:27:25.380
you think that is?
401
00:27:25.740 --> 00:27:28.240
You said it was a popular game at the moment.
402
00:27:28.500 --> 00:27:32.400
It has been a popular game for seven, eight years
403
00:27:32.460 --> 00:27:32.980
of moments.
404
00:27:34.569 --> 00:27:34.680
Mm-hmm.
405
00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:39.420
Well, I guess it would beg the question to say,
406
00:27:39.460 --> 00:27:47.329
cause it's good. Um, it's challenging. Not everybody is willing
407
00:27:47.380 --> 00:27:50.230
to keep up with six different currencies and play for
408
00:27:50.269 --> 00:27:53.529
four hours. The people who like that kind of thing
409
00:27:53.569 --> 00:27:59.170
don't have a lot of choices. Um, and I don't
410
00:27:59.190 --> 00:28:01.230
know of any choices they have that are as much
411
00:28:01.410 --> 00:28:11.910
fun as terraforming. Um, It's weakly interactive between the players.
412
00:28:13.569 --> 00:28:18.430
You're mostly building your own machine. But every so often,
413
00:28:18.470 --> 00:28:24.390
there's an opportunity to grab a resource that somebody else
414
00:28:24.470 --> 00:28:29.079
wanted out of pure malice. And there are even a
415
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:32.299
few cards that are for deliberate shin kicking, although the
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00:28:32.339 --> 00:28:35.519
good players that I know don't take those cards.
417
00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:39.279
Right. So my experience with terraforming Mars was being appalled
418
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:43.130
at building my nice little base and then someone playing
419
00:28:43.190 --> 00:28:45.349
one of those take that cards on me and killing
420
00:28:45.410 --> 00:28:46.250
all of my plants.
421
00:28:46.869 --> 00:28:58.789
Yes, that's not the worst one. But yeah, I think
422
00:28:58.849 --> 00:29:01.920
it's more fun to play terraforming if you keep the
423
00:29:01.940 --> 00:29:03.299
shin kicking to a minimum.
424
00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:09.450
And so... I'm not a game designer, and part of
425
00:29:09.710 --> 00:29:14.630
the joy I get from gaming is putting something on
426
00:29:14.650 --> 00:29:18.039
the table and not kind of being able to grasp
427
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:21.680
how the hell this person came up with this thing.
428
00:29:22.099 --> 00:29:25.880
How do you put these things together to make this
429
00:29:25.940 --> 00:29:29.609
machine that delivers joy? You're not clearly in that school.
430
00:29:29.650 --> 00:29:33.670
You're a game design expert. When you look at a
431
00:29:33.690 --> 00:29:35.950
game like Terraforming Mars, do you play it as a
432
00:29:35.970 --> 00:29:37.730
game designer or do you play it as a gamer?
433
00:29:40.059 --> 00:29:42.980
I usually play it as a gamer. I mean, I
434
00:29:43.299 --> 00:29:47.200
became a game designer because I was a gamer and
435
00:29:47.319 --> 00:29:50.400
I had an opportunity to make a little money doing
436
00:29:50.579 --> 00:29:55.240
editorial work on a game. And I was as surprised
437
00:29:55.369 --> 00:29:58.970
as the next man when it turned out that I
438
00:29:59.029 --> 00:30:05.420
could write a good game. But it was fun. I
439
00:30:06.059 --> 00:30:09.180
enjoy designing games even more than I enjoy playing them.
440
00:30:11.809 --> 00:30:13.349
So I want to move on now and talk about
441
00:30:13.529 --> 00:30:17.890
something that someone who's been in the industry so long
442
00:30:18.210 --> 00:30:21.549
and has had as much success as you have. has
443
00:30:21.609 --> 00:30:24.329
a an idea of and this is sort of recognition
444
00:30:24.349 --> 00:30:27.470
so you've won loads of awards over the years you've
445
00:30:27.490 --> 00:30:30.400
been recognized you've been put in the origins hall of
446
00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:33.240
fame and all of that sort of stuff is that
447
00:30:33.299 --> 00:30:36.279
stuff important to you is it a vindication of what
448
00:30:36.299 --> 00:30:37.079
you've done.
449
00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:45.319
It makes me very happy that people like what i'm
450
00:30:45.380 --> 00:30:49.539
doing and are having fun with it and if that
451
00:30:49.619 --> 00:30:51.079
generates awards cool.
452
00:30:53.500 --> 00:30:55.640
And so when you think of the sort of pantheon
453
00:30:56.319 --> 00:30:59.119
of great American game makers, where do you think you
454
00:30:59.180 --> 00:31:03.390
sit in that? Do you sit alongside people like Sid Saxon,
455
00:31:03.470 --> 00:31:04.490
like Richard Garfield?
456
00:31:07.950 --> 00:31:13.779
That would feel like a stretch. Garfield is a mathematical genius.
457
00:31:15.299 --> 00:31:20.599
Saxon is so prolific. And most of it is very,
458
00:31:20.700 --> 00:31:26.329
very good. So, you know, I'm not going to draw
459
00:31:26.369 --> 00:31:32.190
the long bow and say that I'm their equal or Dr. Canizia,
460
00:31:32.230 --> 00:31:35.009
for instance. But I seem to be okay.
461
00:31:37.329 --> 00:31:42.880
And so when you think about a life... So most
462
00:31:42.900 --> 00:31:47.119
people hate their job. And I assume... being a game
463
00:31:47.140 --> 00:31:51.450
designer is a job that has its frustrations, but is
464
00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:53.630
the kind of dream job, especially for the kind of
465
00:31:53.670 --> 00:31:57.029
people who are listening to this show. When you reflect
466
00:31:57.109 --> 00:31:59.210
on a life doing a job you love, is that
467
00:31:59.230 --> 00:32:00.509
incredibly satisfying?
468
00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:04.680
It makes me really, really sad for people who hate
469
00:32:04.700 --> 00:32:10.519
their jobs. I have trouble comprehending the idea of going
470
00:32:10.619 --> 00:32:13.900
to a job every day that you hated. I did
471
00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:20.910
have one like that once for about Five weeks. And
472
00:32:21.710 --> 00:32:25.809
the day I decided to quit, they called me in
473
00:32:25.910 --> 00:32:29.029
first thing and laid me off, which was much more
474
00:32:29.089 --> 00:32:35.200
profitable than quitting. So that was good luck. If anybody's curious,
475
00:32:35.240 --> 00:32:39.000
it was a typesetting job where I was the interface
476
00:32:39.059 --> 00:32:45.390
to copy strings of numbers from a printout to a keyboard.
477
00:32:46.410 --> 00:32:51.150
You cannot imagine a more deadening job. And that job,
478
00:32:51.210 --> 00:32:54.529
of course, doesn't exist anymore because now you can read
479
00:32:54.569 --> 00:32:56.829
a printout straight into a file.
480
00:33:00.299 --> 00:33:03.319
I did work in a factory once putting empty bottles
481
00:33:03.420 --> 00:33:06.180
onto a conveyor belt for 12 hours a night. So
482
00:33:06.500 --> 00:33:09.500
I have an insight into mind-numbing work.
483
00:33:10.140 --> 00:33:15.309
That would be pretty awful. I don't know... There are
484
00:33:15.329 --> 00:33:17.950
reasons to take jobs. I'm going to tell a story
485
00:33:17.990 --> 00:33:22.329
now on a friend, Mike Pondsmith of Artalsorian Games, designer
486
00:33:22.349 --> 00:33:29.079
of Cyberpunk. Brilliant guy. Mike took a second job a
487
00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:36.220
few years ago for a few months, bucking grocery carts
488
00:33:36.319 --> 00:33:39.569
on the night shift. And he did it just to
489
00:33:39.609 --> 00:33:45.309
get into conditions. If I recall correctly, he said he
490
00:33:45.369 --> 00:33:49.660
hadn't been able to make himself exercise, so he took
491
00:33:49.720 --> 00:33:51.920
a job where somebody else was going to make him
492
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:55.170
exercise constantly and even pay him a little for it.
493
00:33:57.779 --> 00:34:01.650
And did it work? Is he now Arnold Schwarzenegger?
494
00:34:03.210 --> 00:34:10.610
No, but he's pretty buff. I mean, for someone his age,
495
00:34:10.710 --> 00:34:13.940
which is not as advanced as mine, but He has
496
00:34:13.980 --> 00:34:17.900
some honorable gray hairs. He's in good shape, and we're
497
00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:19.639
going to see a lot more designs out of Mike.
498
00:34:21.139 --> 00:34:24.530
Except his hobby is paleontology, and he's spending time now
499
00:34:24.590 --> 00:34:25.510
digging dinosaurs.
500
00:34:26.630 --> 00:34:30.369
That would be a job I could do, if I
501
00:34:30.429 --> 00:34:31.650
knew anything about it, of course.
502
00:34:32.309 --> 00:34:36.539
Well, I do know a little bit about it. A
503
00:34:36.619 --> 00:34:43.719
field worker's job is physically miserable. But you get to
504
00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:44.800
dig up dinosaurs.
505
00:34:45.739 --> 00:34:48.760
There must be that moment where you see something and
506
00:34:48.780 --> 00:34:51.519
then you pull out a dinosaur bone. It must just
507
00:34:51.559 --> 00:34:52.179
be magical.
508
00:34:52.659 --> 00:34:52.960
Yeah.
509
00:34:54.300 --> 00:34:56.860
So your next game then, kind of similar to that,
510
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:00.510
you could find these in the ground. This is Century Golem.
511
00:35:01.300 --> 00:35:03.780
So how elegant is this game?
512
00:35:04.989 --> 00:35:13.260
Completely. The skin on it is so arbitrary. It's just
513
00:35:13.900 --> 00:35:26.489
a game about running the numbers, building a machine. The
514
00:35:26.530 --> 00:35:29.869
skin is pretty. I like to look at the golem
515
00:35:29.909 --> 00:35:32.989
pictures and play with the little crystals and so on,
516
00:35:33.449 --> 00:35:37.480
but they're totally unnecessary. The game is a pure experience,
517
00:35:38.780 --> 00:35:42.900
and it's very good as a two-player game. Monica and
518
00:35:42.940 --> 00:35:45.380
I used to play head-to-head. She won a lot.
519
00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:50.360
And so when I– so I play a lot of
520
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:54.289
sort of big, modern Euro games. And the thing when
521
00:35:54.329 --> 00:35:59.389
I'm playing them often is I think, you could have
522
00:35:59.409 --> 00:36:01.329
cut 30% of this and it would have been a
523
00:36:01.530 --> 00:36:06.000
far better game. Oh, yeah. And something like Century is
524
00:36:06.420 --> 00:36:11.230
sort of pure– mechanisms with no fat. Do you think
525
00:36:11.269 --> 00:36:14.449
game design has become too overwrought in the last decade?
526
00:36:17.329 --> 00:36:22.570
No, I think there's always been that strain. Do you
527
00:36:22.610 --> 00:36:31.980
know the story of how Apples to Apples came to be? Okay. So...
528
00:36:35.619 --> 00:36:41.690
Several years ago, an aspiring designer... took his game design
529
00:36:41.989 --> 00:36:49.190
to a show and showed it to a group of
530
00:36:49.969 --> 00:36:58.070
possible publishers. And the reaction was, yeah, too complicated, too
531
00:36:58.090 --> 00:37:03.010
much happening, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. But that night
532
00:37:03.070 --> 00:37:06.159
at dinner, as the guys who had looked at it
533
00:37:06.219 --> 00:37:09.389
were talking among themselves, One of them became kind of
534
00:37:09.510 --> 00:37:14.269
abstracted and he said, you remember this part? If you
535
00:37:14.329 --> 00:37:18.010
just took that part, you'd have a game. That part
536
00:37:18.269 --> 00:37:22.969
was the apples to apples mechanic. And they went back
537
00:37:23.090 --> 00:37:26.409
to the original designer and said, here is money.
538
00:37:29.869 --> 00:37:32.389
And the rest, as they say, is very much history.
539
00:37:33.059 --> 00:37:35.619
So I want to talk about the future now. So
540
00:37:35.639 --> 00:37:38.480
you might have dropped a little hint earlier, but What
541
00:37:38.500 --> 00:37:40.019
do you have coming out in the future?
542
00:37:41.219 --> 00:37:44.619
Oh, glad you asked because next year is going to
543
00:37:44.679 --> 00:37:47.980
be very good. And the year after that's going to
544
00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:54.710
be pretty good too. Um, we have, uh, a role
545
00:37:54.730 --> 00:38:00.250
playing game coming from J dragon. It's called, uh, seven
546
00:38:00.289 --> 00:38:05.300
part pact. It is not like any role playing game
547
00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:11.210
that's ever been done before. Uh, There is no individual
548
00:38:12.449 --> 00:38:18.159
game master. All the players get to game master from
549
00:38:18.219 --> 00:38:24.719
time to time. Character creation is complicated, but doesn't involve
550
00:38:24.920 --> 00:38:32.199
very many numbers. It involves decisions. And when you're done,
551
00:38:32.260 --> 00:38:35.650
you have created a bunch of probably wicked, probably old
552
00:38:35.750 --> 00:38:41.900
men who are the most powerful individuals in their whole world.
553
00:38:42.900 --> 00:38:47.170
They're the only thing that stands between the world and
554
00:38:47.230 --> 00:38:51.610
several messy dunes. And does anybody thank them? No, no,
555
00:38:51.730 --> 00:38:53.909
they're old men who know too many spells.
556
00:38:57.090 --> 00:38:59.639
And so is this, so the classic thing with a
557
00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:03.059
role-playing game is you start, you start weak and then
558
00:39:03.079 --> 00:39:07.400
you level up to mastery. So the characters start off
559
00:39:07.929 --> 00:39:09.050
hugely powerful.
560
00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:14.320
They start off hugely powerful. They can leverage their powers
561
00:39:15.219 --> 00:39:19.099
to gain a few more abilities during play if they
562
00:39:19.139 --> 00:39:24.449
can find the time, because the critical resource in Seven-Part
563
00:39:24.510 --> 00:39:31.780
Pact is time. Every month is divided in four weeks.
564
00:39:33.699 --> 00:39:38.719
The wizard can do one notable thing per week. And
565
00:39:38.900 --> 00:39:44.489
notable for a wizard is a very... It's very notable.
566
00:39:45.809 --> 00:39:48.769
One of the problems the wizards have is they can't
567
00:39:48.849 --> 00:39:55.800
be subtle. I mean, how are you going to clean
568
00:39:55.860 --> 00:39:58.590
up your garden if the weakest spell you have is
569
00:39:58.630 --> 00:40:06.989
lightning bolt? That's an imaginary example, but they're trying to
570
00:40:07.329 --> 00:40:11.519
control the whole world, or at least keep the whole
571
00:40:11.559 --> 00:40:17.320
world out of trouble, and they can literally move the
572
00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:22.699
planets around without if they need to, to make the
573
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:26.460
heavens more acceptable to the spell they want to cast.
574
00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:29.519
But they can't just pick a flower.
575
00:40:31.860 --> 00:40:38.090
And so it changes from the problem in other role-playing
576
00:40:38.110 --> 00:40:40.250
games is dealing with your own weakness, it's dealing with
577
00:40:40.269 --> 00:40:40.949
your own strength.
578
00:40:41.329 --> 00:40:45.989
Dealing with your own strength and dealing with your peers. Because...
579
00:40:48.179 --> 00:40:50.679
The wizards are not all the same person and do
580
00:40:50.739 --> 00:40:54.639
not all want the same thing. Sometimes their interests are
581
00:40:54.929 --> 00:40:59.869
directly opposed. Sometimes they're only a little bit opposed, and
582
00:40:59.889 --> 00:41:01.610
then you have negotiation going on.
583
00:41:03.630 --> 00:41:05.150
And so when can we see this?
584
00:41:07.190 --> 00:41:11.929
It's going to take about a year to write the
585
00:41:12.090 --> 00:41:15.400
final words. I think all the words are written to
586
00:41:15.559 --> 00:41:20.659
edit the final words. and test a little bit more
587
00:41:21.780 --> 00:41:25.159
on the final words, and then send it off to
588
00:41:25.199 --> 00:41:29.039
get it very elaborately printed, because it's going to be
589
00:41:29.219 --> 00:41:32.739
a luxe game. It's going to be beautiful.
590
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:38.420
So then, when you think back over your career in
591
00:41:38.440 --> 00:41:42.800
gaming from the early 80s to the present day, what
592
00:41:42.820 --> 00:41:44.889
do you think your greatest achievement has been?
593
00:41:49.880 --> 00:41:55.699
Oh, now I'm tempted just to say not dying. Because
594
00:41:55.719 --> 00:42:03.650
that's one way to get a long career? Maybe Illuminati.
595
00:42:03.769 --> 00:42:10.150
Illuminati is the one where I was most original. It draws,
596
00:42:11.090 --> 00:42:17.250
of course, on both true history and filthy lies. But...
597
00:42:18.530 --> 00:42:19.969
The game system is.
598
00:42:21.550 --> 00:42:24.530
I'm proud of the game system. I suppose I should
599
00:42:24.570 --> 00:42:32.090
put in a plug. There is an adaptation of Illuminati
600
00:42:32.690 --> 00:42:36.949
on Steam, and it's about to do a hard launch.
601
00:42:37.989 --> 00:42:42.420
You can play it now, but it's getting better daily,
602
00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:44.119
and the hard launch will be soon.
603
00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:47.940
So your last game, then, is another one of yours.
604
00:42:48.590 --> 00:42:52.030
but it's one that is not out yet. And this
605
00:42:52.070 --> 00:42:55.039
is Nameless Island. And you said that you could take
606
00:42:55.119 --> 00:42:57.760
it to the cabin and playtest it. Well, tell us
607
00:42:57.820 --> 00:42:58.780
about Nameless Island.
608
00:42:59.380 --> 00:43:08.119
Okay, it's not my design. I'm just doing development and
609
00:43:08.159 --> 00:43:12.690
fanboying because I think it's a lot of fun. In
610
00:43:12.989 --> 00:43:22.739
Nameless Island, it's set... oh, maybe 100 years ago, before GPS.
611
00:43:24.179 --> 00:43:28.800
Your ship is wrecked. You're cast ashore. You have no
612
00:43:28.900 --> 00:43:31.239
idea where you are, and it turns out to not
613
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:40.039
be a nice place. So it's player versus environment, and
614
00:43:41.579 --> 00:43:45.619
the environment is not survivable in the long term. If
615
00:43:45.699 --> 00:43:50.489
you don't get off the island, you will go crazy
616
00:43:50.570 --> 00:43:54.989
or you will die. And the sooner you can get
617
00:43:55.090 --> 00:44:01.260
off the island, the better. And it's really too bad
618
00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:10.219
that one of the castaways doesn't want to leave.
619
00:44:10.239 --> 00:44:12.190
So you....
620
00:44:15.239 --> 00:44:18.210
Go beachcombing and try and find useful bits of your ship.
621
00:44:19.429 --> 00:44:24.150
You go fishing or go into the jungle to try
622
00:44:24.170 --> 00:44:29.269
to find food. You won't find enough. You look for water.
623
00:44:29.639 --> 00:44:34.119
Most of the water you can find is not clean,
624
00:44:34.179 --> 00:44:38.519
and you risk traveler's complaint, which costs you hit points
625
00:44:39.059 --> 00:44:40.840
if you drink it. But if you don't drink it,
626
00:44:40.860 --> 00:44:45.090
you're going to die. You can try to collect rainwater.
627
00:44:46.239 --> 00:44:49.909
For that, you need a rainstorm. But unless you can
628
00:44:49.949 --> 00:44:54.030
build a shelter, you're sitting out there in the rainstorm,
629
00:44:55.309 --> 00:45:02.130
getting sick and going slowly mad. So dealing with the
630
00:45:02.190 --> 00:45:06.260
environment is not fun. What's fun is that each player
631
00:45:06.440 --> 00:45:11.219
has a personality and some special abilities that can be
632
00:45:11.260 --> 00:45:23.969
very helpful. And You role play. And pretty soon you
633
00:45:23.989 --> 00:45:29.000
find out who's willing to give up food to keep
634
00:45:29.039 --> 00:45:34.139
the little girl alive or whatever. It's engrossing.
635
00:45:36.260 --> 00:45:38.699
So I've got one last question then. So you're heading
636
00:45:38.760 --> 00:45:41.710
out to the cabin. And you go around a corner
637
00:45:41.730 --> 00:45:43.650
and the back door of the car flies open. Four
638
00:45:43.670 --> 00:45:45.610
of the games fly out down a ravine into a
639
00:45:45.650 --> 00:45:48.610
river and are swept away to posterity. Which game do
640
00:45:48.630 --> 00:45:50.510
you hope is sitting on the back seat of the car?
641
00:45:51.320 --> 00:45:55.099
Nameless Island, because that's going to give me the greatest
642
00:45:55.179 --> 00:46:00.079
mental involvement stuck there in the cabin. And you can
643
00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:02.199
play it with at least eight so I can keep
644
00:46:02.260 --> 00:46:04.440
a lot of my fellow cabin mates busy.
645
00:46:05.989 --> 00:46:08.929
So then, if people want to know When your new
646
00:46:08.989 --> 00:46:10.630
stuff is coming out and all of that, how can
647
00:46:10.650 --> 00:46:11.590
they go about doing that?
648
00:46:13.159 --> 00:46:22.619
The website is the best way. It's www.sjgames.com. We have
649
00:46:22.920 --> 00:46:26.619
a daily blog. We don't have a daily blog. We
650
00:46:26.719 --> 00:46:32.280
have the oldest blog on the internet for regular updates.
651
00:46:34.550 --> 00:46:37.769
I mean, yeah, there are fossils out there where somebody
652
00:46:37.809 --> 00:46:40.969
started a blog, but they didn't keep it up. But
653
00:46:41.070 --> 00:46:45.130
ours has been running every day since we started. And
654
00:46:46.050 --> 00:46:48.469
we have been claiming to be the oldest for a while,
655
00:46:48.909 --> 00:46:52.380
and no human or AI has ever told us differently.
656
00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:58.099
Well, and with that then, Steve Jackson, thank you very much.
657
00:46:58.639 --> 00:47:00.170
Thank you. This has been a fun one.
658
00:47:00.920 --> 00:47:23.860
And clicking the button. Also, if you want to say
659
00:47:23.909 --> 00:47:25.210
something nice about the show, if you want to say
660
00:47:25.230 --> 00:47:27.030
something horrible about the show, you can send me an
661
00:47:27.110 --> 00:47:31.550
email at 5games4doomsday at gmail.com. And if I've succeeded in
662
00:47:31.630 --> 00:47:35.980
loping away from the claws without cats and this bloody cold,
663
00:47:36.559 --> 00:47:40.900
I'll see you in two weeks for another 5 Games
664
00:47:41.079 --> 00:47:41.579
for Doomsday.