Season 5 Interview Questions
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Interview With Josh Roby, Smallville RPG
Mitch
- Could you please give us a brief description of Smallville RPG.
- How is using a stress against someone different, or better than spending that plot point on using an extra Asset?
- What effect does the growing/shrinking trouble pool have on the story?
- The setting for this game is "Smallville the tv show," not "Smallville the place." Why did you choose to set the game specifically in the t.v. itself?
- Some games based on t.v. shows expressly forbid you to play the characters. Why does your game insist that?
- Many RPGs include very few rules on construction of scenes. You included not only rules on how to build and frame a scene, but how to end a scene. Why did you think this was important enough to include?
- Why do you think many games leave this out?
- How would the game be different with out these rules?
- What is the most unique or innovative aspect of your game?
- The structure of the game requires the players to work towards the same goal, namely the episode climax, however most of the conflict is said to arrive between the lead. How do the game rules balance the working together / working against each other dynamic?
- How does the game handle one player being superman and the other players not being superman?
Mike
- What drives the characters to explore the information from the Reveals?
- Why did you choose botches over failures for rolling a '1'?
- Why are there stresses but no permanent negative effects like death?
- Are the only characters in the game going to be the pre-made characters, or will there be a character creation system?
- What about this game attracts non-Smallville fans?
- What kind of challenges did you face in translating a t.v. show into a game?
- What are you working on next?
Interview with Vincent Baker and Kill Puppies for Satan
Mike
- Why did you choose to use such an simple die resolution as rolling higher than a 7 even in rolls between two players?
- Why does the rolling mechanic for hitting each other differ than the rolling mechanic for accomplishing some task?
- Why did you choose to make GM fiat such a major aspect of the game?
- Why did you choose to give NPCs only one major stat and as such, only one die roll?
- What do the different stat names for the different types of characters do for the game?
- Why is the narrator of the game so much fun to read?
- What are you working on next for the Dark Lord?
Mitch
- Tell us why you decided to do Satan's work with this game.
- Why are there two separate rules for conflict resolution? Why not just go with either the simple or complex resolution mechanic?
- How do the demons figure into the background story? Can you give an example of how to involve one?
- Why is acting normal so important to the game as to require its own special rules?
- Can you demonstrate playing Satan?
- The NPCs seem more diverse than the options for the players (puppy killing sociopaths). Why this role reversal?
- What is the inspiration for the game?
- Why do you require your players to come up with reasons why their characters know each other? (Poison'd and Dogs)
Interview with Robert Bohl on Misspent Youth
Mitch
- Your include detailed descriptions on how to collaborate during character creation and on how to not hog the dice during a conflict. Why did you feel it was needed to describe how to navigate these social interactions?
- Including rules to ensure a cohesive group is becoming more common in new roleplaying games. How does your system improve upon the default "how do you know each other" method?
- How do you resolve a player vs player conflict?
- Could you describe how the selling out mechanic works and how the mechanic effects the unfolding story.
- During a conflict each Youthfull Offender can only take a maximum of 5 actions. Why is this limit important to the game?
- The difference between winning on your token or on someone else's token seems very minor from a mechanics perspective. What is the motivation for this difference?
- are there any far reaching story effects?
Mike
- Each play session is supposed to be one episode, and broken into 7 segments. Why did you choose to give such a concrete structure to the players?
- I like the craps-inspired rolling mechanic for resolving conflicts. Why did you choose to use this mechanic for the game?
- The concept for creating the authority is interesting (pick something that really pisses off your group). Where did that idea originate? How does the Authority differ from the traditional GM role as the "enemy" of the players.
- The disorder is supposed to be a quality that you are not proud of, and usually in games, these kinds of stats hurt your character in some way. Why did you choose not to use the disorder in this way?
- Why did you include a direction for the players to rate their game? What does this do for the game?
- How does it change a scene to explore a friendship question instead of introducing another character from the authority (and vice versa)?
- What are you working on next?
- Who would be a worse authority, ninja or pirates?
Interview on Perfect by Joe McDalno
Mitch
- Can you give a brief description of Perfect?
- You include a detailed section on how to plan and organize a play sessions, complete with elevator pitches. Why did you feel this was important enough to include?
- You implore the players to "play hard" through out the book, However this seems to run contrary to the mechanics of tests which seem to work to keep the pacing slow. How do these two opposing forces play out in a game?
- During a crime scene, the non-protagonist players are encourage to ask questions to clarify the action. There is no mechanical reward for these actions, is there ever difficultly getting players to fully engage this mechanic?
- Could you describe the dynamics of the protagonist / antagonist relationship and how it relates to the typical GM/Players relationship.
- Why did you choose to go with a primarily 2 player dynamic only tangentially involving the other players, rather than having defined roles for 3 or even 4 players?
- What is the strategic relationship between the answering of the last 2 questions during the crime scene and the payoff? Could you just give your self up to the inspectors to start a secret society?
- Is the structure of multi turn play a kind of building tension until the protagonist is caught? or is being caught more random?
Mike
- The antagonist player has a lot of choice when it comes to what the game plans to do with the criminal (capture or hold; condition, guilt, or threaten contact). Why did you put so much of the decision-making in the hands of the law player?
- Why does the test for establishing a hold differ from the other tests in the game?
- How does limiting the tension points change the game for the players versus giving the law unlimited tension?
- What is the difference between aspects and freedoms/guilds? Mechanically, the latter two seem to have no effect on the gameplay.
- Perfect is one of the few rpgs that I've played that makes it easy for only 2 players to play, why did you design this game with (what seems to me) 2 players in mind?
- The scenes progress in a semi-linear fashion with the retribution scene only happening if the player gets caught. This seems to offer each protagonist story a lot of variety in how it plays out. How does this differ from other games that use scene progressions?
- Why did you choose to give the players a look into Perfect's inspirations? This is the first I've seen it explicitly presented, and I quite like it.
- What are you working on next?
- Who would give Cadence more criminal trouble, ninjas or pirates?
- So, this is currently up as a Kickstarter project. Can you talk about that, and your publication plans? When does it end?
Castle Ravenloft with Mike Mearls
Mitch
- Could you give us a brief description of Castle Ravenloft?
- What happened to encounter powers?
- Leveling up in the game is so limited. With such a limited level system, why include it at all?
- How were the monster tactics developed?
- Is there anything in the game that was added to the basic DnD framework rather than modified?
- Are the components compatible with other DnD products (ie dungeon tiles)?
- What about the suggested starting adventures makes them a good teaching tool?
- How difficult is it to win an adventure?
- Of all the well known DnD locations, why Castle Ravenloft?
- How is this game different from other cooperative games?
Mike
- What was your role in the design of Castle Ravenloft?
- The production value is amazing. Why did Wizards decide to go with such well-crafted game pieces?
- Why does the game prohibit players from controlling 2 or more of the same monster?
- How well do the mechanics of DnD translate from RPG to board game? Did any modifications alter any fundamental mechanics?
- Settle something for Mitch and I. The rules did not explicitly state when the player should draw a monster card after exploring a new tile. Is the indicator the skull on the top corner of the card, or the bone pile on the space?
- Many of the attacks don't require players to be adjacent to, or even on the same tile as monsters. Why was this designed as such?
- Would you encourage players to create their own adventures using those in the book as a template?
- How were the player characters developed? Were there powers that didn't make the final cut?
- Why is one player's death important enough to spell defeat for the party?
- Are we going to see new locations for any future cooperative games, or will you continue to tap into DnD's abundance of source material?
- What is next for the DnD cooperative games? Will future editions be fully compatible with previous ones?
- Tell us a little about DnD Red Box. What is the goal with Red Box?
