Welcome to Farsight Blogger. Perhaps you'd like to tell us a little bit about
yourself?
It’s
my pleasure, thanks! My name is Andy
Klosky. By day, I’m a high school
English teacher in Englewood, OH. By
night, I’m a freelance editor and writer for various RPGs. I’m also the founder of Blackfall Press,
LLC—our first product, Cold Steel
Wardens: Roleplaying in the Iron Age of Comics is about halfway through its
Kickstarter drive right now.
Tell us about your RPG history - what got you into the wonderful world of
tabletop roleplaying?
My
first ever RPG was Heroes Unlimited—my
cousin Jason introduced me to gaming while I was in 5th grade and I
haven’t really looked back since. After
that, it was into 2nd Edition D&D, which only led me deeper into
the hobby. When my parents bought me a
boxed set of a Ravenloft supplement
for Christmas one year, I was hooked.
While I was in undergrad, I started the Wittenberg Role-Playing Guild
(at Wittenberg University, Springfield OH), which is now in its 11th
year. Staying within the Dayton area,
I’m still able to game with them fairly regularly, though I do have a home
group as well.
What is it about the tabletop RPG hobby that attracts you? What do you enjoy
most when playing a game?
One
of the things I’ve really come to love, particularly as I run games at
conventions throughout the Miami Valley, is the way in which stories unfold
differently between groups of people.
Each player brings something unique to the table that shapes the
experience of everyone around them.
Even when the scenario is the same, the pre-generated characters are the
same, and the monsters are the same, the story changes based on who’s at the
table and how they react to those elements.
It’s a fantastically unique storytelling medium that’s just not
replicable elsewhere.
What's your favourite game? What games that are out there at the moment
float your boat?
Like
most gamers, I have fond memories of past Dungeons
and Dragons campaigns, but my tastes really tend to vary and I rarely find
myself enjoying a “true” D&D
game. I’m very high on Savage Worlds right now, particularly
the Deadlands universe. I’ve been keeping my eye on the Fate Core Kickstarter as well, as I
really enjoy ICONS. The brevity
and utter boldness of Lady Blackbird:
Tales from the Wild Blue Yonder were amazing, and my group had a blast
playing in that system.
Do you still get time to play? What are you playing at the moment?
I do
get to play, still! While usually I’m
the GM, my wife has been kind enough to take up the reins for a bit. We had just finished playing through The Flood (one of the Deadlands “plot point” campaigns), and
she volunteered to run Hell on Earth. When we don’t have enough people for that,
we go to our backup—Marvel Heroic
Roleplaying—or we play board-games.
Arkham Horror may be my
all-time favorite board-game, and it sees a lot of play at our house.
The tabletop roleplaying hobby has been through a lot changes over the
years and it seems that its death-knell is always sounded when newer hobbies
come along, such as collectible card games and online computer games. It still
seems to be able to hold its own, though – what do you see happening to the
hobby in the future? What changes, if any, do you think will have to be made to
ensure its survival?
When
I see statements like that, I genuinely get confused. “Death-knell”? We’re
living in a Golden Age of RPGs!
Between print-on-demand, PDF releases, Kickstarter, and numerous
print/publisher partnership companies, it’s easier than ever to be
published. If you had asked me even 5
years ago if I thought I could write and produce an RPG, I’d have laughed in
your face. Needless to say, I’m happy
to have been proven wrong! Print may be
a dying medium, but RPGs are riding the digital tsunami phenomenally. My iPad has become an invaluable tool as
both a GM and as a player—something I certainly couldn’t have said even a few
years ago. The digital age is nothing
short of a godsend for the tabletop roleplayer.
And,
truthfully, this era is an Enlightenment of ‘nerd culture’. Comic book movies make billions at the box
office. One of the biggest cable shows
on right now is a zombie-apocalypse melodrama based on a graphic novel. George R.R. Martin has gone from a niche
genre-writer to being a household name.
San Diego has become geek Mecca.
To say that our medium is becoming irrelevant misses the elephant in the
room—we’re more relevant now than
ever!
Out of all your projects, what are you most proud of?
My
‘piece de resistance’ right now is Cold
Steel Wardens. I’ve put about 2
years of work into it, between writing, playtesting, rewriting, and
editing. And, as we approach
development for the system into a full game, the magnitude of what I’ve created
has really begun to sink in.
When
I started CSW, I saw a massive gap
within superhero roleplaying. Games
like ICONS and Supers! emulated the wackiness of the Silver Age incredibly well,
but were of limited use in darker genres.
Generic systems like Mutants and
Masterminds and Champions claimed
to be able to support all genres of comics writing, but fell flat in many
ways. In trying to play to the
proverbial middle—being all things to all people—there simply wasn’t room in
those games to provide the necessary hallmarks of the Iron/Dark Age of Comics:
a detailed investigative system, intrinsically flawed heroes, non-powered
heroes on the level with powered ones, and so on. Nothing against those games—they’re just not built for that level
of focus: they’re broad and
all-encompassing, Cold Steel Wardens
is narrowly-focused with greater depth.
I
still find it somewhat ironic that, despite the fact that Watchmen and The Dark Knight
Returns are among the best-selling graphic novels of all time, there’s
never been a game built from the ground up to replicate those experiences. Cold
Steel Wardens changes that. It’s
focus is what makes it different, and that’s what makes it great.
You’ve no doubt mixed with other great names in the roleplaying community – do
you have any stories or anecdotes to share? Any horror stories? Be as frank as
you like!
Working
with Angus Abranson (Chronicle City, ex-Cubicle 7), has always been a pleasure
and led to Blackfall Press agreeing to a print/publisher agreement with
Chronicle City. He was my first point
of contact while working on The Laundry
Files: the Mythos Dossiers, which went extraordinarily well.
However,
I was lucky enough to be able to hang out with Gareth Michael Skarka at Origins
in 2010, just after ICONS had come
out. I was the only one who had run it
at that convention, and we spent at least half an hour jamming on various ideas
and system hacks. That might have been
the first time I realized that, yes, my ideas were just as good as anyone else’s. It’s not a matter of “holding your own”
against others in the industry—it’s a matter of “what can you bring to the
table?” That said, I did have an utter
“squee” moment when Shane Lacy Hensley signed my Hell on Earth books…
Truth
be told, my time at Wittenberg has really been spent among some up-and-coming
great minds in gaming. I was introduced
to Savage Worlds by Will Herrmann,
whose Wild Card Creator was a hit on
Kickstarter and is nearing beta release.
Both Will and Kat Ostrander—newly hired by Fantasy Flight Games as an
associate roleplaying producer—played in the campaign that inspired CSW.
My good friend Eric Ebbs is in the process of prepping a Kickstarter for
his Era of the Ninja board game,
which he debuted at GenCon this past year.
The I-70 Corridor through Dayton is a hotbed for gaming creativity!
What are you working on at the moment?
Cold Steel Wardens is taking up most of my
waking moments right now. We have about
two weeks left in our Kickstarter, and I’m ready for that sprint to the
finish! I’ve already lined up 4
artists, and am starting my search for a layout designer. My editors and I are kicking into high gear,
preparing for the release of the beta rules for all KS-backers in January.
If
you’re interested in Cold Steel Wardens:
Roleplaying in the Iron Age of Comics, check out our Kickstarter here. Alternatively, stay updated by ‘Liking’ ourFacebook page.
I’m
already in the planning stages for the follow-up volume to CSW, tentatively titled Cold
Steel Wardens: Rogues’ Gallery. I
have a great idea for layout in mind already, to say nothing of a bevy of
threats for would-be street-level heroes.
I’ve
also been working on a series of essays on gamemastery, which I hope to publish
as a collected volume in late 2013.
Stay tuned for that!
Thanks
for the opportunity to chat!
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