How did you get into RPG editing? 

I got into editing games on somewhat of a lark. I’ve playtested games before and didn’t realize that my attention to the details of the text (not the mechanics but the words around the mechanics) qualified as editing. I just thought that was what a playtester did and thought nothing more about it. I then continued to keep my game playing separate from my job (which at this particular point was teaching writing workshops and taking on private clients who wanted to write books), but that all changed last November at Double Exposure’s Metatopia Convention in Morristown (only a few minutes and a few traffic lights from my house). I figured it was at least a chance to meet the people whose games I played and enjoyed, as well as give a midnight writing workshop for those interested. Once I arrived and started attending panels, I started giving my opinion and sharing my ideas (which is not an uncommon occurrence once you know me), and that led to several game designers asking me if I was available to work with them on upcoming projects, as well as an interview on the Jennisodes podcast. From that interview, everything has just sort of ballooned, bloomed and blossomed into how things are today – my business has grown into more game-related work than novels (though I’m finding a hybrid with editing fiction lines for games), and I’m enjoying it loads more.

Most RPGs have a geographically diverse staff. How do you build a rapport with your authors and fellow team members who are located elsewhere?

That rapport is critical and for me starts as soon as possible, usually by contacting the authors or whoever is my liaison/bridge to the project and getting into a conversational tone with them. With a more ‘we’re-all-in-this-together-we-all-want-to-do-a-great-job‘ vibe established, it doesn’t matter if the whole staff is half a world away because whenever we come together (through chats or emails or even notes left in Dropboxes), that vibe is strong and clear.  The other advantage to this attitude is moving the ego-jockeying to one side and bringing people together not because they’re just famous names but because they’re good at what they do and we all want the work to succeed.

You’ve worked on a variety of RPGs, some of which have been licensed properties. What unique editing needs have you encountered with licensed games?

While I cannot speak for the other editors I’ve been so fortunate to work with, I can say that for me, the biggest concern is respecting the canon of the source material through the license, rather than taking advantage of it. It is such a privilege to have access to someone’s hard work for the purposes of playing a game with it that I think so many people overlook that fact because they just want to handle their own ‘do-over’ to patch disagreements they had when they first encountered that source material (they thought Character X should have / didn’t need to die, they wanted Characters A and B to get together, they thought a certain plot arc was utter rubbish and want to ‘fix’ it, etc).

But it’s not their job to “fix” it, it’s their job to enjoy it. A licensed game especially has to translate from whatever medium it originated in to whatever marriage of mechanics and development the game incorporates while not radically altering the original material (you cannot suddenly have a flying character not fly because the mechanics don’t permit flight) – because you run the risk of doing a disservice to the license (which makes both the game and the original material look bad) but also alienating your audience (they come to the product with certain expectations and if you’re not meeting them as a product, you WILL hear about it).

Editorially, (again this is my perspective) if I can find the tone and emotion behind the ideas in the source material, I can make sure they’re present in the game material. If a certain property is known to be gritty but have a wise-cracking charm, that has to be present in the text, and that means I often have to read or re-read that text to work out the word choices and the sentence construction along with the chronology and setting (because a licensed property can’t contradict the source). This stems from the idea that the licensed game is an extension of the material, exposing a new audience to the material through a vehicle they understand (rolling dice, character sheets, etc) rather than a “take” or spin on existing material.

What’s working with the rest of the Damage Control team for the Marvel RPG been like?

Far and away the Damage Control team is a wonderful group of incredibly hard-working editors and developers who amaze me with the tremendous amounts of work they do (so much more than many people realize), and who deserve all the credit and praise they’re getting, plus an extra heap more. I have worked with a lot of other people on a lot of projects, and repeatedly I find myself mirroring Damage Control’s organization in other projects – it’s been a profoundly transformative experience. It’s an invaluable asset to me to know that if I have a problem, I can very quickly go to another person, state the issue and we work together to find a solution. It can be so discouraging to ask questions to unresponsive people, and that is not the case with Damage Control.

It’s also the most supportive group of people I’ve ever met, even outside the Marvel RPG work. If I say I’m also doing this or that project, or that I’ve written something for the blog, other people care and do their best to read or comment or share it with others – it leads to a feeling of not being overlooked, undervalued or ignored, which unfortunately can happen when, as an editor, you take on projects and discover that the author may not like you changing their words or that a certain project has quite a few problems bubble up to the surface as you get deeper into it and deadlines loom.

If I may take a moment, I want to single out two people, Amanda Valentine and Cam Banks, without whom I would not be so lucky as to be a part of such a great project and be able to contribute whatever I can to material I believe so strongly in. I owe so much of my recent successes and happiness to their assistance and friendship and am so thankful for their belief in me to do the work I do.

GDG: How did you become the line developer for Wraith?

RD: The short answer here is “nepotism”. Jennifer Hartshorn, who was the original developer for Wraith, and I had known each other at Wesleyan, and she was kind enough to give me the opportunity to freelance for her on books like Haunts and the Wraith Players’ Guide. When she moved over to replace Andrew Greenberg on Vampire, she recommended me for the same role on Wraith (OK, actually, Wraith plus Mind’s Eye Theatre, which together added up to a full slate of 8 books per year) and the rest, as they say, is history.

GDG: Where did you fit in the creation and management of Wraith: The Oblivion, as the line developer?

RD: Once I came on board, my job included mapping out every year’s releases. That meant putting together a schedule that took into account the need to vary up page count and book price, keeping the sub-lines like the Guildbooks going, making sure that all of the crossover events like Year of the Ally got covered, and making sure that the material was sufficiently diverse and interesting. From there, the next step (after the schedule was approved) was lining up writers and doing book outlines — literally deciding who was writing which chunk of what, how long they had to do it, and so forth.

I always tried to give my writers a lot of rope and the chance to collaborate without my looking directly over their shoulder — the reason I hired those folks was that I wanted to see what they would come up with on that basic framework I set up, and I had no interest in “trying to write through them”. The “I’m thinking of a book…no, that’s not it” shtick doesn’t work too well for anyone, I’ve found. And I was lucky in that I had a great group of writers who really got the material — Bruce Baugh, Geoff Grabowski, Jim Moore, Clayton Oliver and more — and who were more than happy to take what I gave them and push it to some really amazing places.

Once folks were writing, of course, I did have to be the final authority on content, rules, and continuity. There was a lot of great material that I had to say, “Uh, maybe not here” to, because it didn’t fit the needs of the book, or it contradicted something else that was coming down the pike, or we were tight up against word count. And there were times where I’d jump on a little throwaway aside and demand another thousand words on it, because it really caught fire. Bruce was the king of the awesome-out-of-left-field sidebar.

There was always plenty of interfacing with the other line developers when crossover elements came into play. Ultimately, being a developer on one of the World of Darkness games was a cross between being a show runner and a line editor, with more ten-sided dice in the mix.

Wraith was already about a half-dozen books in when I came on board, which meant that A) the basic rules were in place and B) some of the basic terrain, like the Tempest (Sea of Shadows) and the Hierarchy. That freed me up to cast my net a little wider, both in terms of geography and in terms of driving the Wraith metaplot to its explosive conclusion — which, to be fair, came a little sooner than I’d hoped. And of course there was second Edition, which was my baby, in both the good and the bad. That was where I could take the collected feedback from two or so years of players’ letting their feelings be known and try to adjust things to make for a smoother play experience. I didn’t want to just remake the game — obviously, there were a lot of things I loved about Wraith as it was, or I wouldn’t have been putting in all those late nights at the office hammering away at it — but I did want to get it to a place where more people would find it, play it, and enjoy it.

GDG: When you were working on Wraith, what did you want the game to convey in terms of tone and mood?

RD: This is where I get to sound like a total litweenie. What I was really going for was a sense of possibility. I wanted the afterlife that Wraith conveyed to be a great framework for storytelling, where the bones of the world were visible and concrete, but there was plenty of space in between for people to carve out their own stories and own hunks of the setting. And I wanted it to be scary – I don’t think there’s anything else in the World of Darkness with the sheer spine-freezing terror potential of a Harrowing — while at the same time offering the possibility of something more.

I suppose it makes no sense to say that I was going for a Hesiod-inspired formal underworld with Lovecraftian scope and “Our Town”-style emotional heft, except that it’s pretty much exactly the case. Hesiod’s Theogony formalized the relationships between the Greek gods and set up the cosmology they lived in, and I wanted a world that had that sense of grand myth, that had a structure on that sort of scale. As for Lovecraftian scope, the thing that’s most interesting to me about Lovecraft is that his cosmology is so big, that individual humans are a very, very small part of it and there’s a lot of scary stuff out there. Never mind the books and the critters with names with a lot of apostrophes, it’s the notion of the immense, mechanistic universe — with lots of room to explore, but lots of risks if you do so — that I wanted to seize onto. And then there’s the Wilder, the deeply human, emotional attachment that brings everything full circle. Wraith got a lot of flak for being “too depressing” and “the darkest of the WoD games”, but at the same time it was the one that offered a genuine sense of hope, and a feeling that there was a reason for doing what you were doing, more than just trying to stave off the inevitable.

All of which makes it sound, I suppose, like I had this very abstruse vision of things, but really, it was the exact opposite. I wanted to give players and GMs a big canvas to paint on, one that would allow them to take the core concepts of the game and launch themselves in any direction they wanted to while having the  setting support it. Lost cities filled with howling horrors? Check. Personal stories about trying to protect your loved ones from forces beyond their control? Check. Two-fisted monster-hunting goodness? Check. Political byplay and backstabbing, where the price of failure was getting turned into an ashtray? Check and check.

GDG: In what ways did working on Wraith shape your writing, if any?

RD: On the most basic level, working on Wraith turned me into a professional writer. I mean, I was working for a publishing company, on deadline, and dealing with a very invested and detail-oriented fan base that cast a microscopic eye on what I was doing. That’s being thrown into the deep end of the pool, right there, and I had to learn to swim pretty damn fast. (I also had to rewrite Guildbook: Artificers pretty much twice cover to cover, once before I became line developer and once after and I saw exactly how the sausage got made.) Honestly, I really appreciate my time at White Wolf, in large part for what it taught me about writing and being a professional. From building long story arcs to character design to the chance to interact with established horror writers like Janet Berliner and P.D. Cacek, it was a serious education.

As for the subject matter, the scope of Wraith really forced me to stretch my own writing, and to bust out of the creepy little Lovecraftian neighborhood where I’d mostly been hanging out, word-wise. I’d done my thesis at Wesleyan on Lovecraft and was pretty much locked into that sort of classic horror — Lovecraft, Blackwood, Machen – as my idea of how to write. Working on Wraith shook the bars of the cage and demanded that I get more versatile. Sure, there was still plenty of Lovecraft in the setting — the Neverborn are about as ardent a homage to Yog-Sothothery as you’re going to find — but a setting that includes stuff as varied as The Sea That Knows No Sun and as (hopefully) gritty and modern as the Renegades material, and so on and so forth, you sort of have to bust out of the safe little corner of Tillinghasts and Curwens. And once you do, there’s no going back.

GDG: Has your work as a line developer left any lasting effects on you or your career?

RD: In many ways, it’s responsible for my career. Learning game design working on Wraith and learning game writing was what led to my moving on to video games, and working in design/narrative design/game writing, which I’ve been doing for well over a decade now. There are significant differences between tabletop and video games, but some of the core skills are absolutely identical, and what I learned and polished working at White Wolf did a great job of preparing me for my work with Red Storm and Ubisoft.

GDG: What led to the creation of the Wraith book Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah?

RD: To be honest, I figured it was time we put our money where our mouths were. We — and by “we” I mean White Wolf — had made a big deal out of talking about how we were doing roleplaying for mature minds, and we’d set up the Black Dog imprint to handle “adult” material, and I thought that if we were serious about that, then we should damn well be serious about that. Besides, I was getting a little cranky with the whole “supernatural critters have written the secret history of the world and controlled everything that happened ever EXCEPT THIS ONE THING” vibe that was out there and I thought, well, if we really are roleplaying for mature minds, we should be able to do this – and we should do this.

A side note — around that time, my sister was working for the Shoah Foundation, collecting video testimony from survivors. I was also running a small mailing list for Jewish tabletop gamedevs with the unfortunate name of Moy-L. So I was sort of in that head space already, thinking about whether it was possible to justice to the material in a game setting. And ultimately, creative works like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Yehuda Poliker’s album Ashes and Dust convinced me that it was worth trying. I actually got to talk to Spiegelman about the project for about thirty seconds — he was doing a reading in Atlanta, and I’m sure he was horrified when this very earnest gamer-type in, God help me, a trench coat, came up to him and told him about his plans to do an RPG supplement on the Holocaust. To his credit, he just looked at me and said, “Good luck.” I got a much more intense pep talk later from Harlan Ellison, but that’s a whole other story.

You also have to give plenty of credit to White Wolf for giving me the chance to do the book. The easy thing to say would have been to say, “No way, too controversial”, and killed it. But they let me (and Matt Milberger, who did the layout) run with it, and then things got interesting.

But it was scary, for a lot of reasons, every step of the way.

GDG: How did you get through the emotional challenges of working on Charnel Houses, particularly as people outside the company learned about the project?

RD: I got a lot of support from a lot of people both in-house and out, and I really believed in the project. There are still some stories about the development I can’t tell, but suffice to say that not everyone was happy with the concept of the project. And of course there was a lot of rumor and supposition out there — “White Wolf is making a game of the Holocaust! White Wolf can’t get their history straight and they’re going to screw it up!” — that had to be confronted and overcome. I mean, I don’t blame people for a certain amount of caution when it comes to a project like that, but at the same time, there were plenty of folks who had made up their minds based on everything but the book itself. I mean, it hadn’t even been written yet when someone who was apparently psychic started comparing it to Mein Kampf, and it took a lot of time and energy to engage with those folks to try to get them to see what we were trying to do.

At the same time, it was really important to engage with those folks. I spent a lot of time writing emails, offering to send out pieces of manuscript to folks who had concerns and so forth, and really trying to meet the concerns head-on so that the rumor and the innuendo could get a little sunshine on them. To be fair, a lot of the people who had raised concerns did take me up on the offer to look at the material, and a lot of those were gracious enough to say publicly that they were feeling better about the project and the approach. And then after it came out, I got a flood of emails and letters from people who said that they’d never known a lot of the material that was in the book, that they appreciated it being expressed in this format, that they’d learned from it. That, really, was all that I could have hoped for.

It certainly wasn’t an easy book to put together. There were a lot of times when I did ask myself if I was doing the right thing, if the book might do some harm. And there were times when it really just was overwhelming, either the public response or the responsibility to the material. There were a couple of late nights at the office — one was actually my birthday, and Janet Berliner’s introductory essay came in over the FAX, and I pulled it off, sat down on the floor, read it and started crying — where the light at the tunnel was pretty hard to see. But I was very fortunate in the folks I was working with, the writers and the artists and the folks inside White Wolf who made it happen. They were behind it 100%, and they did astonishing work. And every time I got too down, I thought about the work that my sister was doing, and the people she was talking to, and it put the whole thing in perspective. Compared to what those folks went through, some name-calling on alt.games.white-wolf, well, it wasn’t such a big deal.

Richard Dansky can be found on the web at his homepage, reviewing for Green Man, writing for  Storytellers Unplugged the 27^th of every month, and @RDansky.

Dungeon Bastard Bill Cavalier (Image provided by Dungeon Bastard)

 GDG: Why were you inspired to bring your gaming wisdom to the community in video form?

BC: Whenever a new supplement or rulebook comes out, invariably some second-rate armchair rules lawyer logs on to rec.games.frp.dnd and starts barking “THIS GAME IS TOTALLY BROKEN!” I tried arguing with those guys for many years until I realized the REAL problem: The PLAYERS are totally broken. And that’s when I found my calling: to use my 18 Intelligence and 20 Charisma to build a better class of gamer. The kind of gamer who doesn’t go anywhere NEAR a dungeon without a ten-foot pole and bag of rats.

As for the videos — look, when I was a kid, if you wanted to learn how to play guitar, you had to go to a teacher and take lessons. Nowadays, kids sit down in front of a computer and watch YouTube videos, and the next thing you know, they’re Joe Satriani. So I decided, if these kids are going to learn to slaughter orcs and backstab their fellow party members from some crappy YouTube video, I want it to be MY crappy YouTube video.

Plus, there’s not enough time in my day to do one-on-one consulting. It’s the burden of being an expert, really. I’m like the Brad Pitt of gaming. Okay, maybe not THAT big. Maybe more like the Richard Simmons of gaming. Yeah, that’s more like it. Don’t think I can’t rock those shorts, either. I may not be Brad Pitt, but I definitely have Angelina Jolie’s legs.

GDG: Everyone’s heard of half-orcs. What do you think would be the ultimate D&D race combo?

BC: Easy: half dwarf, half minotaur. DWINOTAUR! It has “win” right there in the title! (I considered “minotwarf” but that sounds like the word you’d use to describe one of those reflux vomit burps you get if you eat a whole bunch of cranberries real fast.)
The other great combo is half gnome, half sphere of annihilation. I haven’t gotten it to work yet, but that’s not going to keep me from trying. PERSISTENCE, PEOPLE! PERSISTENCE.

GDG: How should players respond when a member of their game is constantly distracted by their cell phone?

BC: I firmly believe there should be a complete ban on technology at the game table. Look, this is a very tactile hobby. You have to FEEL it in your hands. We use books. Books made from dead trees. And dice. Weird, arcane dice. And paper. And pencils. Typically, mechanical ones. One dude DESCRIBES what you see, and then someone has to draw a map in a dog-eared quadrille notebook they last used back in Mr. Nouldey’s 8th grade science class.  Part of the charm is how LOW FI it is. Fidgeting with your cell phone or laptop? NOT CHARMING. Technology actually detracts from this game. It’s like using a Zip-Loc bag to do origami: seemingly modern and clever, actually quite stupid.

Worse, if you’re heads-down in your phone, you could miss one of the QUINTESSENTIAL moments of the game: the part where the DM says “Roll for Initiative.”  Man, you don’t want to kronk that one up.

So please, PLAYERS, for the love of Wee Jas, check your phone and laptop at the door. Otherwise, I hereby authorize your fellow players to make you wear a large grocery bag on your head that says “-2 CHARISMA” for the duration of the session. (Note: I did not authorize cutting eye holes!)

Besides, do you know how many times I’ve had to tell some civilian “No, it’s NOT a computer game!!” ? You kids with your smartphones? YOU’RE NOT HELPING.

GDG: What do you do to prepare for a session of D&D?

BC: Warm up my dice, look through my notes and decide which plot hooks to ignore, pump up the jams with some REO Speedwagon. (A lot of old-school gamers will tell you they like to put on the Gladiator soundtrack or Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop” but trust the Bastard: nothing gets a room party rockin’ like “Keep On Lovin’ You.” You laugh — it’s happenin’.)
Also, I like to do something Olympic athletes call “pre-visualization.” So before a race, they PRE-VISUALIZE themselves cutting the tape or leaping over that hurdle to help them perform better. I do the same thing, but with monsters.

So I will pick a certain monster and then I PRE-VISUALIZE killing it and stealing its loot. And then I incorporate this pre-visualization into the session.

Say I pre-visualize slaying a carbuncle. Throughout the session I will say to the DM, “I check for tracks, does it look like a carbuncle?” or “Guys, I’m pretty sure this is the work of a carbuncle.” Or, “Seems PRETTY definitive, people: that evil priest was dominated by a psionic carbuncle.”

You’d be surprised how well this works. A good 60% of the time, we end up fighting a carbuncle.

That’s powerful.

GDG: Anything to say to your legions of adoring fans?

BC: THANK YOU. It’s truly flattering that people enjoy my work. It takes a tremendous amount of upkeep to feed my gigantic ego, but the responses have been great — whether that’s on my website (http://www.dungeonbastard.com) or the comments on my videos, or the people who follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dungeonbastard Really, fan response has been key because, hey, let’s face it — there’s not a lot of money in being a professional adventure coach, especially one who has a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/epicleveltv or a whole Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/dungeonbastard

Number two: GAME MORE. Go out and introduce new people to the hobby. I’m just one guy, I can’t adventure coach the world. Have some fun with your non-gamer friends! It’s good for you and it’s good for the hobby.

GDG: Bonus Question: Is there any truth to the rumor that Monte Cook eats pixies for breakfast?

BC: Hey Monte Cook, you know what goes great with pixie wings? A sphere of annihilation!

Have a cherished Dungeon Bastard video? Ever shown them to your gaming group? Leave your tales of laughter (and Bill Cavalier sightings) in the comments!

For four years and counting, Jenn Steen jumped feet first into the world of podcasting. Branching out with her own podcasting a year and a half ago, Jennifer has interviewed, among a number of others, Randall and Anna Walker , Daniel Solis, Ryan Macklin, Amanda Valentine, Sean Nittner, Jason Morningstar, Dave the Game, and David A Hill Jr. Every bit as intelligent and cheerful off the clock as she is during a show, Jenn took time out from the March Madness to answer a few questions about the glories of podcasting.

GDG: How did you decide to get into podcasting?

JS: I started podcasting four years ago with my friends on a show called The Trapcast. A year and a half ago I started my own show called the Jennisodes. I wanted to do interviews with different gamers in the industry. I have gotten to meet a lot of amazing people through the past couple years, and love having them on my show. Podcasting is a great way to keep up to date with everything going on in the community. I started out looking at indie RPGs and have branched out to talk to video game designers and card/board games!

GDG: What caused you to decide to branch out beyond indie RPGs to talk to designers from other types of games?

JS: It seemed like a logical step; I was given opportunities to talk to designers from other types of games. I have some close friends who designed their own video game and I just had to have them on my show. I want people to listen to Jennisodes and find something new they might not have gotten to hear about. I really enjoy finding a variety of guests, as it gets me excited to learn something new and I get to meet new people. There are many indie RPG designers, artists and editors I still haven’t gotten to talk to and I can’t wait to have them on my show. Jennisodes has a little something for everyone, and it’s a great way to find out about a game or project you have next heard of before.

GDG: What keeps you excited about doing the Jennisodes?

JS: There are so many new games being created; I’m always excited learning about them. The role-playing game community is so amazing that it’s hard not to be excited about what everyone is doing. I keep a notebook with my schedule for recording and release dates, which helps keep me on schedule and excited. I wish I had more time in the week to interview more people! I’m looking at wrapping up Season 2 in a couple months and start on Season 3. Getting to learn about new games and interviewing passionate guests makes me excited to do more shows.

GDG: Can you tell us a little more about the organization behind doing the Jennisodes?

JS: Organization is the biggest key to doing Jennisodes. I do everything myself except for the website, so I have to schedule my time between scheduling, prepping, conducting and editing the episodes. Right now I’ve started doing March Insanity, where I’m putting out two episodes a week for a month and a half. I schedule my guests months in advance, so I know who is coming up and what to prep for the interview. By creating an outline beforehand I’m able to keep everything on track and make sure I cover everything awesome my guest is doing. I don’t want to forget about anything!

GDG: Tell us about the March Insanity.

 JS: March Insanity was an idea I came up with near the end of February. I was about to put out episode 87, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to put out double weekly episodes until I hit 100. I’ll release episode 100 on April 16th! Granted, this means I have a lot of work to do to keep up with this schedule. I record, edit and produce all the episodes myself, so it can be time consuming. I really enjoy doing the interviews and talking to my guests, so the time investment is well worth it. I love when a fan tells me they learned something new about a game or enjoyed the episode. I’m doing March Insanity for the listeners, so they can hear about twice as many games and projects this month.

GDG: When did you get the idea for Project Ninja Panda Taco?

JS: I got the idea for Project Ninja Panda Taco last February. I had started talking about how I’ve always wanted a minion, which would free up my time to take over the world. As I started to think about it everything seemed to come together with a fun cartoony vibe. Players get to play a mastermind trying to take over the world, and a minion who loves to help the other masterminds in their plans. I pulled a lot of inspiration from Pinky and the Brain, Despicable Me and Megamind, as I love watching these movies. I also wanted it the character creation to be collaborative and the game be competitive as masterminds try to stop each other’s plans. Through playtesting I was able to find the right balance to create an awesome fast paced game that makes everyone at the table laugh out loud—either in diabolical laughter or giggles.

GDG: Where in development is PNPT right now?

 JS: Right now Project Ninja Panda Taco is with my awesome editor John Adamus. I’m putting together everything for a Kickstarter, which I hope to start in the close future. I’m looking forward to the next steps in development (art, layout, printing) and can’t wait for everyone to see the game!

GDG: How did you pick John for your editor? Do you have any advice on picking editors for other game writers starting their first game?

JS: I met John at Metatopia last year, where I asked to interview him for Jennisodes. After the interview I checked out his blog, and it was full of amazing insight and knowledge. Soon after that we started working together on Project Ninja Panda Taco. The advice I have for game writers is that you need someone to edit your game. If anything, a game writer needs someone else to read the work and get a fresh set of eyes on it. As a game writer, you have to continually learn new things, and if you want to become a better writer you can take classes or find articles online. John’s blog (writernextdoor.blogspot.com) has all sorts of advice. I think that is a great place to start, as it talks about developing characters and helping with your game pitch, to name a few examples. John has also helped me on the actual mechanics of the game, so editors aren’t just for spell checking and grammar.

The gaming community has so many amazing people, and there are a lot of editors out there who are willing to help. Starting to design your first game may sound scary, but if you start out by just writing everything down you’ll be able to work with that later to create and playtest something awesome. Having an editor or friend to bounce ideas off of has been extremely helpful in creating Project NPT. I’m so glad I met John at Metatopia.

You can find the Jennisodes podcast at their website, for free in the iTunes store, on Facebook, and on twitter @Jennisodes.

In hindsight my template for the SMALLVILLE series was definitely on the complex side, but in a way that can’t be helped from my standpoint. My background in textbook and instructional design makes me a stickler for making meaningful decisions with typography and layout. Therefore, my book designs tend to have a lot of different styles that are all integral to how the book works.

The most valuable things I learned were:

• STYLESHEETS. In InDesign, use them and love them. Learn GREP styling and use Nesting styles. These were things in my bag of tricks from my textbook experience that ended up saving me a ton of time in keeping things consistent. (e. g. want to make sure Daily Planet is always italicized? Using GREP styles, you can make that happen easily.)
• And while we’re on the topic of Stylesheets, work with a writer/editor who’s comfortable using Styles in Word and learn about them yourself. It will make your life much easier.
• Work in Layers and use your Master Pages wisely.

GDG: How does layout for eBook projects differ from print?

TLA: This is something I’m learning more about every day, specifically what people want from an eBook rather an a print book. Working with Layers and Transparency can make eBooks really tricky, and it seems with every release people are demanding more and more digital functionality, so RPG publishing really demands you stay on top of your game. People want more than a simple set of bookmarks. They’re more sophisticated, asking for layered PDFs so they can turn off backgrounds or artwork to save ink when they print the books, and the variety of devices your book now “needs” to function on is insane. Even those of us at the top of the field are still learning how to make our books play nice with every e-reader and mobile device, and I’m finding myself take this into consideration much more than I did with my earlier projects.

GDG: When you worked on the design for Hit a Dude, was the format of a business card sized game a challenge for you?

TLA: The story of Hit a Dude was kind of funny in that it was never a job I was hired to do and the business card thing was just something that was floated about at NeonCon 2010 with Ryan Macklin during the BarCon afterparty. I had the idea bouncing around in my head for awhile after it was discussed because I thought it was, as the Middleman would say, “Sheer genius in its simplicity”. The vision was all there, I just needed to bring it together. One late night nearing GenCon 2011 I felt extra inspired, drafted up a little design and shot it over to Macklin. We didn’t even credit ourselves on the first run because we thought it was so ridiculous and it took off like crazy! That said, the only reason it wasn’t that much of a challenge because Macklin’s idea was just that perfect, and that’s why it was such a hit. I think finding that magic again for a different game would be very, very difficult. I still think we should do a third edition for the 2012 Con season.

GDG: What goes into designing a cover?
TLA: Covers are tough. If you don’t have the right imagery, you’re screwed. Strong contrast, powerful imagery, it’s all necessary to make a book people want to pull from the shelf, and you have to make sure it’s clear immediately what the book is about. That’s all about knowing the audience you want to attract. For example, that’s why I veered from the traditional “licensed photo of the sexy stars” cover for the SMALLVILLE High School Yearbook. I thought the book was an awesome resource for all high school games so we decided on no photography at all for that cover and instead I created what looked like a proper high school yearbook. In that case, I think it helped to bring in an audience who might have turned it aside simply because they’re not interested in Smallville.

GDG: Where does the art director fit in the making of a role-playing game?

TLA: We determine the look and feel of the book, which is equally as important as the content inside. It’s the obvious stuff — checking out the content and the space and deciding what sort of art will fit in what sort of space, but for me it doesn’t end there.

It’s not just about choosing a nice font or background design — it’s about choosing the right ones, and that comes from experience. For Mage Noir, I went to the library to look through pulp novels and I familiarized myself with the look of the genre. I researched the typography and used that as a basis for the design, from the weathered stonework to the old scanned paper. For SMALLVILLE, I was determined to capture the feel of the show. They use color so strongly in that show, but it’s not in the same way a four-color comic book does it. It’s more subtle but there’s a definite theme of primary colors. In the early seasons you’ll never see a scene with Clark Kent that doesn’t feature red, blue and yellow in the shot. Watch it; it’s pretty cool. I did the same for LEVERAGE, and my in-depth knowledge of the show allowed me to simply read a page and know the right episode to pull shots from.

It’s also about knowing how best to communicate ideas. That communication extends to every aspect of the layout. It’s about more than making it fit on the page; the reader should be able to easily skim through a page to find what they need. When you’re dealing with rules, it helps the reader understand and retain the information. For example, with the character mapping that’s so integral to the Cortex+ K system in SMALLVILLE, I thought the how-to section lost its effect when done in digital art so I worked with the team to put handwritten, hand-drawn maps to make it more accessible and let the reader say “I could do that” in a way that a digital infographic couldn’t. With a good art director, all those subtleties go into the decision-making process and make the book more successful.

If a publisher is doing it right, they’ll get their Art Director involved early in the game design process.

GDG: When you’ve worked as a creative director on role-playing games, what were some of the challenges you had to deal with?

TLA: Deadlines. Deadlines are the biggest challenge by far, because in many cases I’m the last one in the chain. That means when all the writers, editors, illustrators, etc. have missed deadline after deadline I’m relied upon to make up lost time, which isn’t always ideal. I’ve been fortunate to work with some awesome people in this industry, and it doesn’t mean anyone’s a bad person. This isn’t an industry that pays the big bucks, so many of us have day jobs, families, etc. and this just happens when you have a chain of so many people doing RPG publishing as their side job or a hobby. Deadlines become more fluid than they do when there’s a traditional work schedule.

The second biggest (but often more frustrating) problem is one I’ve had both in the RPG world and in my day job, and that’s with artists who can’t take criticism. If you can’t take constructive criticism, please, get over yourself or get out of the business. If we tell you to change something, it isn’t personal! We want to help you make your art better and help it look better on the page. It boggles my mind that anyone thinks they can get anywhere without dealing with criticism. My first round on the Smallville book covers came back with criticism from DC that was so harsh my editors were nervous to share it. It was by far the best art direction I have ever gotten to date, and allowed me to nail the art on the second try because DC’s guy told me exactly what they liked and didn’t. Criticism makes you better. Embrace it and learn.

And lastly, in licensed properties, working with the Powers That Be (networks, publishers, actors, etc) there’s the added challenge of representing their brand and the actors. I had photos of Parker (Leverage) turned down because Beth Riesgraf didn’t like how she looked in the black beanie she often wears on the show, or because Gina Bellman looked “too old” (she always looks fab, IMHO). We could use images of Allison Mack or Michael Rosenbaum from certain seasons of Smallville and not others. It got to be infuriating at times, but we ended up with a really cool product on all counts, I think.

Despite the challenges, I love working in RPG publishing and hope for more opportunities in the future. It’s fun, rewarding, and hell, laying out Wil Wheaton’s writing or digging through pictures of Christian Kane or Justin Hartley… that ain’t a bad way to spend an evening.

You can read Tiara’s explorations of pop culture on SpaceGypsies.com, and find her on twitter @tiarala.

Leave my blog!

…and go here to listen to my interview with Mark and Mags of the gaming podcast All Games Considered.

And hey, while you’re at it, subscribe to their podcast. It’s a great show that covers all types of gaming (hence the name!).

TGIF, and I hope to see some of you at my geek dating events at Origins & GenCon!

J: You’re somebody who teaches seminars and classes on how to communicate more effectively in person.  How do you feel about using the Internet to facilitate relationships?

Richard Hatch: Well, number one, I think we’ve barely touched the potentials of the Internet.  I think it’s a force that can be used for good or bad, but the Internet is connecting all of us; in a sense we’re becoming, “all for one, one for all.”  Through people’s blogs, we’re all stepping into each other’s lives, and being able to see what they go through in a day.

We’re coming together; we’re really in a process of integration, and I think it’s a powerful tool.  If anything, our problem has been that we’ve been too separate, too disconnected from each other, viewing the world from our own little limited viewing landscape, our own particular set of glasses.  Now it’s kind of hard to look at the world through too narrow of a view, because everywhere you look, you’re being forced to look through the eyes of other people, to see their perspective.

I think it’s a powerful tool for bringing people together, which is why I’m involved in [creating] my social network, [which is] also a network like a sci-fi network for programming.  I want a place where people who love sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever else can connect, can hang out, can exchange ideas creatively, upload new story ideas, and basically have a community. And then, ultimately, have programming for new shows.

There’s a lot of people out there now that realize, “Oh my God! I’ve got an idea for a story and I can actually go out and film it!” And there’s no reason you can’t have all that online. And part of connecting, which is what all these social networks are, like Facebook and Twitter and everything else, is that through hanging out, getting to know people, sharing thoughts, ideas, you can possibly find the love of your life or find deeper connections with people.

I think it’s the best thing that ever happened.  I mean, we live in diverse parts of the world, and our lives make us drive down the same freeway every day for work.  And yet, two streets over, there could be the potential love of your life, or best friend of your life, or business partner. It’s waiting to happen, but you’d never know they were there, until you got the internet.

Now the internet kind of opens up that territory, and now you’re able to be part of the larger picture, you’re able to have a stronger connection to your community or to the world – and the community, in this regard, is the world now. You could find the love of your life in China, your business partner in Lithuania – we’re not being facetious anymore. You can visit online, connect online, and then, if you find enough in common, you can move somewhere and join up.

J: Geek’s Dream Girl focuses mainly on the Internet side of finding people, making a first impression online, but eventually people will meet, face-to-face. What is your #1 tip for someone in that situation?

Richard: Well, the first step is that you have an email connection.  Then, you might start to instant message, and if you enjoy the conversation, eventually you move to a phone where you hear each other’s voice.  If, at that point, you’ve really established a connection, a level of commonality, you drive to a coffee shop.  That way, you come in, and you’re not stuck if you don’t like the person; you can have a cup of coffee, and in a few minutes you’re on your way.  You’re not stuck in the same car, on a date.

You know, everything is just one step.  Life is just a series of small steps.  I think the best thing about the internet is that you can take small steps to get to know somebody. And with the technology today, this is going to expand; you’ll be able to video emails, you can see each other, talk to each other, experience each other multiple ways online long before you ever meet in person.

And I think I like that, because I would like to actually, at some point, see [more than a picture] before I go to meet them for coffee.  People do have a tendency, with their pictures, to put up pictures that don’t really reflect who they are.  And the mental connection is one thing, the emotional connection is a another thing, there’s that undefinable connection… But you know, what somebody looks like is part of the equation.

So some people use the anonymity of the internet to kind of perpetrate a fantasy of themselves.  And then when the day comes to meet the person, there’s sheer terror at that fact that now, the truth is going to be revealed:  that you’re not six-foot-six, you’re four-foot-four with four ears and two noses.

The hard part is getting people not to lie, and not to fabricate, not to build a fantasy of what they would like to be.  Unless they just want to live in a digital environment, and essentially play that fantasy, which, you know, why not? If you want to go into a virtual reality, like World of Warcraft, but in this case you can create a whole world that was based on love and relationships – you could have an online community where you could create your own character and have other people, and hang out, get to know, date, get married whatever, just in a virtual environment…  There’s nothing wrong with that.

But, you know, I would hope that all these steps could be steps leading towards a deeper connection with somebody, and not just into a fantasy world.  [A fantasy world] is absolutely wonderful and can be a way to explore your life, the world, all kinds of fantasies you might have… I think all that could be positive.  But ultimately, to complete the equation, I think there needs to be a physical connection.

So working towards that, that’s where mentoring, and coaching, can come in; to help people overcome their shyness and their fears of rejection and to slowly find the courage to be more honest, and present themselves as they are.   In all my workshops around the country, I teach people to learn to love themselves for all their flaws and imperfections, and [teach that] you don’t have to be perfect to be lovable – all these things that are common sense.

Unfortunately, though, we live in a world where we don’t get the foundations from our families, ’cause they’re too busy, they’re too stressed, they’re working too hard…  Whatever the situation is, we don’t have these foundations for building self-worth, self-esteem.  And then you get caught up in your swag, your rep, trying to be cool, which is a big thing right now among kids.

It’s really tragic, in a way, when you realize that what’s really important in life has been squashed, pushed aside for some of the more superficial things.  But, you know, the pendulum swings one way, and ultimately it swings back.  It’s all a process.

J: One of the potentials of the Internet is that with the range of everyone in the world, you can potentially find someone and don’t have to create a fantasy. You can never form those connections if you’re not honest, though.

Richard: Some people are never honest, even with themselves. Because they don’t like themselves, they don’t feel attractive.  Even attractive people don’t feel attractive, because that’s their relationship with themselves, based on growing up in a dysfunctional family or God knows what.  And most people don’t feel comfortable enough to seek help, to go to get into a support group or some kind of counseling.  I don’t know anybody that couldn’t benefit, become a more successful or happier person, from getting the right kind of counseling, and coaching, mentoring and support.

I mean, athletes don’t achieve their greatest results alone.  They need a great coach to take those extra couple of steps.  We all need help, and most people are embarrassed to ask; they don’t have the proper foundation, the understanding, to ask for help – it’s not even in their vocabulary.

So that’s part of why I work with SoulGeek, and teach workshops all over the country; I also teach Tony Robbins life camps, and I teach people to get up and speak in front of rooms. That’s always been a professional hobby of mine.

Communication is what the world’s all about, honestly.  It’s why we go to war.  It’s all about miscommunication, really, because very rarely do we ever truly communicate  in an honest, clear way; we’re always being misunderstood, misread.  I love inspiring people, and I’ve had to walk a very challenging walk in my life, at least up until recently, and I share the wisdom that I learned the hard way, about men, women, and communication.

J: You’re working on a few other projects with SoulGeek, right?

Richard: I’m doing a reality show, called Who the Frak, that goes into Hollywood: the acting, performing, the entertainment industry, the underbelly that most people have never seen.  It also shows a number of my friends that includes all ages – they’re all trying to make it in this business, they all have a journey that they’re on, and they’re all fighting the good fight, having to deal with all their fears and insecurities and dysfunctions.

I like shows that get into the meat and heart of what life is, who we are as human beings, but also shows insights, epiphanies, light at the end of the tunnel.   I’m not one for dark endings that make you feel like cutting your throat when you walk out of the movie theater.  I’m not looking for a goodie-two-shoes movie either, but a movie that really takes me on a journey, shakes me up, makes me laugh, makes me cry, but leaves me with hope.

In my workshops, my thought is, we don’t have enough hope in this world.  Too many people are disconnected, are depressed, are lost in some form of abyss.  SoulGeek is great because it brings together some interesting, intelligent, creative people, who in many ways feel disenfranchised, because of what they love.

People that are not into sci-fi/fantasy, many of them don’t get it, that it’s not just a story that people like, or a character, it’s a whole other something deeper, that maybe you can’t quite explain, but something about great sci-fi, great fantasy, touches us in a very deep way.

J: There’s also sort of a mystique about sci-fi – it seems to be hard for people to get into it.  When shows like Battlestar or even Heroes come out and become popular, I feel like saying, this is what we’ve been trying to tell you about, and there’s much more out there!

Richard: I totally agree, but you know, many people out there are driven by fear.  They’re afraid of the outside world, they’re afraid of anything different, so a UFO or even the thought that there could be life somewhere else, any way of stepping out of the box – they’re programmed, whether by religion or philosophy, they’re terrified of anything that shakes up their world view.  It’s just a fear of the unknown, and there’s a lot of people like that.

I just find that sci-fi people tend to be far more philosophical, far more open-minded, far more creative, and I hate to say it, far more fun to hang out with.

J: I know you’ve been working with SoulGeek, but I haven’t been able to find much information about the sci-fi social network.

Richard: Basically, we were going to expand SoulGeek into a social community, but then, because of economics and because of where Dino is, he wanted to stay focused on the dating aspects of SoulGeek, and at some later portion we could talk about expanding it into something else.

But my greater focus is creating social online networks because communities are becoming the way for all of us to connect to people of like mind.  I’ve always been more focused on the community aspects of it, because for me, I think I meet more people, more interesting people and have more opportunities for connections on facebook than I do on match.com. Because out of meeting people and talking to people, you find connections you never dreamed of; you might not even be looking and someone [else] is not actively looking, and then you find a connection and talk to each other on the phone, and all of a sudden you realize you’re attracted.

J: And it might not be something that you’d list on a profile about yourself.

Richard: Exactly! But at the same time, dating sites do serve a purpose, and they do focus that more small dedicated group of people, people who are actively seeking a partner in a more direct way. And that’s fine, and that’s necessary, and they can be very positive.

That’s why I’m working with SoulGeek, because I like them, and I like what they do, with these gatherings where I can talk to people and share what I’ve been through, all the insights that I’ve learned about relationships, dating, communication.  Plus I’m really good about helping people overcome fear and insecurities because I dealt with it so much in life.

But I love all that and I’m busy creating an online network, online sci-fi/fantasy world. And we’ve gotten a whole bunch of network titles and some things we may use…  we’ve been thinking what would be the best way to call this world, you know? We’re basically laying out the architecture, talking to companies that have all the widgets and all the, everything that they are capable of doing all this.  Plus, [we're] dealing with live videocasting and live conferencing, for doing online sci-fi conventions…  We’re working really hard on putting all of those elements together.

J: One of the things I liked about this idea was that networks are always so cautious about taking on a sci-fi show, but here there would already be demonstrable interest, a built-in fanbase.

Richard:

Yeah, that’s why I want create an online network.  I want to create a place where people can upload shows,  where they can share ideas, do things very inexpensively, and find an audience.   And if the audience finds them, you let the size of the  audience determine, in terms of budget -  For a small audience you can keep it at a small budget and produce episodes for that group of people who love that show.  If more people love that show and are willing to maybe pay five or ten bucks you can actually do it on a higher and higher level.

And it can grow with the success, as opposed to the network model where you take a lot of money, throw it on the wall, and if it doesn’t stick you move on to the next trainwreck.  Without enough time for the audience to even find the show, many shows go down.  Now, on the online version, we would be able to leave shows on much longer.  Star Trek was successful because in the early infancy of syndication, they didn’t have a lot of products and they left Star Trek on even though the audience wasn’t big at the beginning.  But it was on long enough for the audience to find it, and it became a big network success -we’re talking about when it was brought back.

I want to create a new model because the network model does not serve niche markets, and the niche market is a powerful market.  And in this day and age, you want to serve the niche market.  In the interest of serving everybody, you end up serving nobody.  And honestly, people deserve to get what they love!  There’s too many sci-fi and fantasy stories that never get told, either because they felt there’s not enough audience for it, the network executive doesn’t get it…  You know when you’re serving a niche audience, that niche audience can financially support, creating products that networks would never do.

J: And when you have the freedom to create more product, you create better product.

Richard: Exactly right. You can also have more direct contact with your audience.  You can serve them more effectively because you can gather feedback; you can tweak your ideas and you can shape and sculpt what you’re working on to serve the community in a more effective way.   One of the reasons I want to create an online community is because sci-fi/fantasy borrows on the tail end of every other community, but there’s no home for us.  I want to be part of creating a home, for this genre that I love so much.

Many thanks to Richard for taking the time to have a great conversation.  And thanks to Dino Andrade from SoulGeek for thinking of us at GDG!

J: At the end of Battlestar: Galactica they had the Battlestar: Galactica auctions, both live and on the internet.  Did you get to keep anything before the auction, and is there anything that went up for auction that you would have liked to have had?

Richard: Aw, no.  First of all, at that point, I wasn’t sure the show was ending.  Basically, we didn’t get to keep stuff, and also, I usually wore suits that you could wear today.  It wasn’t like I was wearing some costume, you know, a helmet or something I could grab without someone getting upset, so I didn’t take anything.  But obviously a lot of other people did.

J: Tom Zarek wasn’t written or played as a mustache-twirling villain.  Did you know that he would be taking an even darker turn in the last season, and was this planned all along?

Richard Hatch: No, I didn’t know, and it was surprising.  I was hoping that the character would somehow find a way to find some kind of redemption, light at the end of the tunnel; to make a choice that shows that Zarek had grown enough to realize that right or wrong doesn’t really work in this case.

But still, who’s the good guy and the bad guy here?  Maybe you identify more with Roslin, or Adama, or you like them better, but if you really look at Zarek, he was fighting the good fight and he was struggling to make them accountable, he was willing to pay the price for what he believed.

Every writer on the show told me that Ron Moore said to put the truth in Zarek’s mouth.  Whether people wanted to hear it or not, he would always be speaking the truth when he would say things.  So, the point was, that people always thought it was self-serving, but I wanted to see, somehow, some way, where he would get some recognition.

There was a little [recognition] on the show, when Apollo said to his father, “You know, if you get past the attitude, the arrogance, Zarek’s right.”  He actually said that line, although it got lost, I think, in translation.  In essence, I would have liked to have seen some kind of vindication for Zarek, because it was going towards that with Roslin, but never with Adama.

He was willing to die for what he believed, not because he wanted to be a martyr, but because he truly believed that government – that democracy – has to be the rule of the day, and that you can’t conveniently suspend democracy because you feel that you have the right answers.  That’s what a dictatorship is, and I think that Battlestar explored how easy democracy can get lost, and how easy good people can end up doing bad things for supposedly good reasons.  That’s what made Battlestar so extraordinary.

J: I think it also goes to show how easily we’re affected by the way the writers want us to feel.  I mean, part of the reason why we root for Adama is the way the show is presented to us.

Richard: How it’s aspected – I totally agree.   Zarek had every reason to be pissed off and angry at what [Roslin and Adama] were doing – they wanted to operate without accountability because they believed they had all the answers, or they believed they had better answers than anyone else.

It’s ego, it’s self-serving, but the way the show is aspected, it makes us care and support them more than the Zarek character because we don’t get the context or back story for Zarek, to understand where he’s coming from.  We have to surmise where he’s coming from, and in most instances, people would buy into what Adama said or Roslin said, as opposed to actually making up their own mind about Zarek.

There were two valid points about letting the Cylons on board, and remember, the audience has the benefit of the overview whereas the characters are only seeing a limited part of the story.  You [the viewer] get to see it from all angles, watching every character, so you’re making a decision on what’s right or not based on your knowledge.

Zarek and Gaeta can only go by what they’ve experienced in the past, what they’ve seen.  And in reality, the Cylons are so unpredictable, and they’re programmed in such a way, that how in the world can you ever trust anybody that’s killed millions of people?  If you’re a released Cylon drone warrior who’s been programmed to kill, with all of the power and technology that they have on the ship…  They could very easily have decided to wipe out the humans.  The writers could have just as easily gone the other way, where you kill Gaeta and Zarek, and at the end of the show the Cylons turn on the humans.  And then you would’ve gone, “Oh my God! We hated Zarek and Gaeta and what they did… but they were right!”

But anyway, the point is that Battlestar has never been simple and obvious.  It’s something that forces you to think and philosophize and really challenge your own thinking, because there is a tendency in all of us to take sides.  And we took sides even when Roslin and Adama were doing the wrong thing.  To tell you the truth, had they done that within our own human society, we would’ve turned on them.  But because it was a show, we were willing to suspend disbelief, even though they were doing things that really are such a huge violation of our Constitution.

J: The show does present several different viewpoints in leadership, even from the same side, like Adama and Cain.

Richard: Cain was one of the most interesting characters.  And I have to tell you, I think Cain was the stronger leader, because she… cared, but she cared enough about the welfare of the fleet that she put her own personal agendas aside.  She was willing to separate from her own humanity, to make decisions that very few of us could make, that meant some people had to die in order for more people to live.  In those life-and-death situations, not too many leaders are willing to make those choices.  And Adama, over and over again, would go after Roslin or do things that were not in the best interest of the fleet.

How many people do you know that like tough love?  Doing the right thing even though it’s going to cause a lot of pain?  If you don’t correct a problem you’re going to have a nightmare down the line; it’s a hard lesson, but Cain was willing to go the tough love route because she was strong enough.

Adama, constantly, was not willing to make those decisions.  And I love Edward Olmos, and I love the character too, but I gotta tell you, that character bothered me.  I mean, the drinking, so many decisions he was making that were not in the best interest of the fleet, I was thinking, “I don’t know if this is the leader I would want carrying me through a Holocaust.”

J: His relationship with Roslin likely affected his judgement…

Richard: Right, there were so many things!  But you know Edward Olmos, he really was willing to expose all the flaws of the character that the writers were willing to do.  He didn’t have an ego that said “You’ve gotta make me look like the true hero.”  And I really honor that actor and honor Edward’s willingness to create that character.   And again, obviously people love that character in spite of his flaws.

But I wish that they’d had a little more balance, in terms of showing the other side of the equation, from the Zarek point of view of realizing, you may love Edward Olmos and Adama, but in truth, he’s doing some bad things.  And sometimes the person who seems to be the adversary, the rebel, may be right.  Or, well, maybe equally right.

J: I am glad that they added at least a little bit of dimension to Cain later on, in the Razor episode.  If they hadn’t, it would’ve been very one-dimensional.

Richard: Oh, I agree.  I started out hating the Cain character, and I ended up loving her, because I could see that she wasn’t dead inside, she wasn’t inhuman, she actually cared a lot, but my God, the strength – to see somebody strong enough to make that call, that would be almost impossible for anybody else to make.  She was an extraordinary character to me.

I wish that they would have left the character in the show longer; I wish they would have not gotten rid of the Pegasus.  I wish – I always liked the fact that the Pegasus escaped, and you never know if they survived or not, but, at some point they come back into the story, I love that wild card floating around out there, with a different version of Galactica, you know?  A different commander, a different point of view, that comes back in every once in awhile, and causes havoc.  A bit like Star Trek, those characters that have to come back and be a worthy adversary.

But you know, a show like this, so many great characers, the writers can’t possibly give a rich backstory to every person.  But I loved playing Tom Zarek; my only issue would have been, having a little context and back story so that we could understand his motivations a little bit better. But maybe they did it on purpose – maybe they wanted him to remain vague.

J: Well, it gives the viewers more to think and talk about.

Richard: Yeah.  But again, when people come up to you and go, “Oh, I hated you, you deserved to go out the airlock,” it’s hard to say, “Thank you very much!”

Because what I really want to say is, “Well, you know something, I understand you hated me, but let me ask you a question: How would you feel, if this happened to you?  How would you feel, if they said, ‘Oh, we don’t want to listen to you people because we’re smarter and wiser than you. We’re going to make the decisions now, and we’re not going to allow you to interfere.  And if you interfere, we’re going to put you in jail.’”

I’d like to know how people would really feel about that if that happened to them, and I’d like to know, if somebody came up to them and said, “I know you’ve got your job, but we’re going to take it away from you because we have somebody that we decided is better.”  If we did all the things they did [in the show], to people in this life, I’m telling you, you would not like Roslin or Adama very much.  But I would love that discussion.

I actually want to do the final Tom Zarek interview before he gets blown out the airlock, which they didn’t show, on the show.  They had Gaeta talk to Baltar, but you never got to see what Zarek was feeling.  And I always wanted to do the final Zarek interview, you know, a little bit like the David Frost interview with Nixon, where you could understand a little more deeply where he was coming from.

I always wanted to go into that, just because I always felt that some people missed the point.  They took sides, on who they liked more, as opposed to seeing what was really happening there.  And art is not just about entertainment, not about taking sides; it’s about challenging your thinking, seeing things outside the box and expanding your mind, and seeing things from a larger viewpoint.

I’ve got a chance to write some articles, answer some questions, but I do have to pull myself back, because every time someone says, “Oh, I liked you but I was so glad to see you burn!”  I quickly get into this, “Are you kidding me?!” and I have to stop myself.   People feel what they want to feel.  They have the right to feel it, and it’s not my job to wake everybody up and say, “But you’re wrong!”  That just doesn’t work.

Tune in next week for the rest of the interview, where we talk about the Internet, online dating, and Richard’s upcoming projects.

]]> http://geeksdreamgirl.com/2009/08/13/j-interviews-richard-hatch-part-2/feed/ 4 http://geeksdreamgirl.com/2009/08/12/j-interviews-richard-hatch-part-1/ http://geeksdreamgirl.com/2009/08/12/j-interviews-richard-hatch-part-1/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:28:57 +0000 j http://geeksdreamgirl.com?p=3610 I recently interviewed Richard Hatch of both incarnations of Battlestar: Galactica (thanks to Dino Andrade of SoulGeek!).  I had read a little bit about what Richard was up to lately, and suspected he’d be fun to talk to – and  I wasn’t disappointed.  We covered everything from Battlestar, to online dating, to some of his upcoming projects.  In this first part of the interview, we talk a bit about Galactica, heroes and whether Tom Zarek is one.  

J: I was born in the 80′s, so I missed the original Battlestar: Galactica.  But I saw it recently and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by the special effects…  It wasn’t some cheesy old show like Lost in Space, like I expected.

Richard Hatch: I totally agree.  Remember, it was done shortly after Star Wars, and the guy who was the special effects guy on Star Wars, was the guy who was the special effects guy on Battlestar – John Dykstra.  And John Dykstra is now doing special effects for movies like Spiderman, so you had top-flight people working on that.  ‘Course, that was back when CGI was just beginning.

J: So when you’re at conventions, do you have many younger fans who have discovered the original series, or are there distinct demographics in the Galactica fanbase?

Richard: Ah, it’s a mixture.  You have people that like both shows, and people that only like the new show. Then you have people who watched the new show first, just watched the old show and really liked it, and then you have people who have watched the old show and think it’s really dated…  It’s across the board; it’s really a mixture of people.  I think as time goes on, you have more and more people who have watched both shows, or at least are aware of both shows.  I’m recognized for both Apollo and Tom Zarek, and it’s kind of interesting to have that kind of a bridge built between the past and the future, you know?

J: And they’re definitely two different shows.

Richard: Two very different shows.  The core story is the same, but obviously today’s show was able to go into the more edgy, provocative, life-and-death storylines in a more powerful way.   All of the characters come off as much more complex, and conflicted – something that they wouldn’t do, or couldn’t do, 30 years ago.

J: You’ve played two very different characters in the two incarnations of Galactica.  What did you enjoy most about playing each character?

Richard: Well, playing Apollo was challenging only because back then they wrote characters black and white, and I liked the fact that he was strong, but sensitive, compassionate and honest.  He had a great deal of integrity, and that’s something that has gotten lost in this day and age – you rarely see a character that has those qualities.

Usually we’re seeing the dark side of most characters these days, and every once in awhile it’s refreshing to see that integrity.  And there are people like that, that really are true blue, those people that you can depend upon, that are honest.

I don’t think that we have enough of those characters today, but back then, the problem was that we didn’t have enough of the other kinds of characters, ones that showed the fact that we’re all flawed and imperfect, and good people are capable of doing bad things under the right conditions.  It’s a more honest look today, but we still need to be reminded that within all of us there is that person, that human being trying to get out, that does have that integrity and that honesty.   It’s those kind of qualities that we would look for if we were going to go into battle, be in a life and death circumstance – you want to find people like that.

But back then, when it was all extreme, all black and white and bad guy and good guy…  I loved playing Apollo, but I was frustrated because I wanted more meat, more conflict, more challenges. Part of what makes great drama is that the character is being challenged to deal with some unresolved part of themselves, and the drama, the heartache, the inspiration comes out of that.

So often back then they just tended to make those characters a little bit one-dimensional, and today, they sometimes go over to the other side of that, where every character is kind of frakked up in some way, every character has some kind of horrible secret and dark side.  But, you know, the pendulum swings one way, it swings the other way, and at some point it will come back to balance. Like how we’ve gone over the edge with CGI and special effects; you’ve got to have a great story and great characters to go along with the CGI and special effects or otherwise you won’t have a great movie.  I think it’s starting to come back to balance in that way too.

J: Tom Zarek is much more morally ambiguous.

Richard: I probably, as an actor, preferred playing Tom Zarek, because this character is far more challenging: complex, multi-layered, conflicted, struggling to deal with his demons and his dark side, and yet, for me, a heroic character.   He stood up against tyranny, insurrection and against a very dictatorial government, and because he was willing to lay his life on the line,  he was willing to pay the price.  Believe it or not, the way I see it, especially through Zarek’s eyes, he was dealing with another government that was breaking all the rules and suspending constitutional rule and democracy.  And even though they were trying to do what they believed was right, Zarek was doing what he believed was right.

[In his back story] he was always against tyranny, and other people backed down and basically tried to hide and get on with their lives.  He saw too many bad things happening, was willing to stand up and do something and paid a huge price for it, and then here he is [on Galactica] in another government situation where he realizes that they don’t play fair.

And, you know, if you were in Zarek’s shoes, you would have every right to be pissed off at Roslin and Adama because they truly screwed him, over and over again.  And I hate to say it, but they didn’t always do the right thing.

In Part 2 of the interview, Richard talks about Zarek’s darker turn, and whether we’d want Adama or Cain leading our fleet.

I was very happy to get an opportunity to speak with Dino Andrade, voice actor and founder of the niche dating site SoulGeek.com.

e.: Tell us a little about your geek cred. What flavor of geek are you?

Dino: Life-long. I was born September 16th, 1963 the very day the original Outer Limits premiered.  I have been in love with works of great imagination all my life with a particular love for animation.  Which is why I chose animation as a profession.  In acting class while everyone was reading Onoel, Ibsen and Shaw, I was the clown reading Batman comics.  I own cels from the original Star trek the Animated series. I stood in line for hours at Disneyland along with Rob Zombie and Greg Nicetero to get a limited edition Haunted Mansion print.  I saw Star Wars in the Theater 27 time when it opened in 1977 – once dressed as a Sandman from Logan’s Run.   I have a Planet of The Apes Trash can from 1974… shall I go on?

e.: Geek cred, check!  So what made you want to launch a geek dating site?

Dino: I wish i could say that it was this happy burst of inspiration but I’m afraid that’s simply not the case.

I am the widower of voice actress Mary Kay Bergman whom we lost in November of 1999.  She and I shared a love of geekdom that was a major part of our lives.   We would go to any number of geek events from Disneyana events to Star Trek Cons (yes, we owned a pair of Starfleet uniforms).  She was the gal who create all the female voice for South Park and performed them in the first three seasons and the movie so we were very close to fantasy entertainment. It was a world we reveled in.

When I lost her I was completely hollowed out. Life was just existence – no real life – for about 5 years.

When I finally decided it was time to reconnect with humanity I started joining dating sites and it was a nightmare. Being a widower was bad enough, adding “geek” status and forget it.  It got to the point that I had two profiles on every site – a geek profile, and a non-geek profile.  In short, I resorted to denying who I was and what I loved just to avoid loneliness.   In the end, I gave up.

Eventually as luck would have it by sheer happenstance I ran into – of all people – my old high school sweetheart whom I hadn’t seen in 26 years.  The spark was still there and we fell for each other all over again – and best of all – she too is a huge geek. I was thrilled to see she owned a set of Kirk, Spock and McCoy figurines on her mantle.

For Father’s Day (I have a daughter – a 21 year old blackbelt!),  Casey (that’s my old high school sweetheart) took me to a Battlestar Galactica music event at the Mint in Los Angeles.  This event was pretty cool because I love film music and most of the band members who did the score for Galactica used to be in the band Oingo Boingo who I used to work for back in the 80′s.

It was at this event that we ran into a gal who saw us hand in hand and commented “I hope I can find a geek of my own here.”  This knocked me for a loop.  This gal was cute, came to Los Angeles from San Diego (it turned out) for a Galactica event – be still my heart! – why was this girl single?  That’s when all the memories of the hell I went through on all those dating sites came flooding back.

I told Casey that somebody should build a massive dating site tailor made for geeks. I searched online but I couldn’t find anything on the scale I wanted. To this Casey said, “Then why don’t you?”

I felt Casey was right so I quite literally took the money my wife left me and began construction of SoulGeek.com which was designed by myself, Casey and my daughter.  In effect, the site is a multi-generational family affair and very much a part of my wife’s legacy.

e.: How many members does SoulGeek have?

Dino: We are right on the edge of 17,000 worldwide and we’re just under two years old.  We began construction in June of 06, and the site made its premier at San Diego Comic-Con July of 07.

e.: Other than the obvious geek bent, what makes this site different than other dating sites?

Dino: First I would say that it is completely geek-centric. Many sites I’ve seen that claim to be for geeks are quite obviously the same cloned software of all the other dating sites just skinned with public domain images of flying saucers and such.

But when you look at profiles it’s all the same questions:

• How much do you make?
• What level of school did you achieve?
• How much do you make?
• What color hair to you have?
• How much do you make?  …etc…

Not SoulGeek!   Our profiles are based entirely on geekdom and you can go on and on about yourself in up to 18 areas of fandom: sci-fi, horror, fantasy, cosplay, animation, conventions, video games, collectibles, anime, webcomics, comic-books, table top RPG’s etc…

e.: (18 area of fandom reminds me of eharmony’s compatibility… hehehe!)

Dino: Yeah…don’t tell those guys!!!   The site was originally coded from the ground up just for the geek to include galleries for fan-art and conpics, there’s fan-fiction. Over a dozen geek forums, almost as many geek oriented chatrooms, we have original webcomics, geek dating tip newsletters, geek news and so on.

In fact in the language section of your profile you can choose both Elvish and Klingon.

Plus I’m in my mid-40′s, my daughter is 21. I bring a very old school geek mentality influenced by Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, Ray Bradbury, D&D etc… while my daughter brings an anime, cosplay, MMORPG younger vibe.  In the end, the site has a multi-generational feel as opposed to other sites that tend to only favor the young, hip crowd.   SoulGeek has just as much appeal for the 20 somethings as us old school dudes.

e.: How does membership work? Are there different tiers of membership?

Dino: Membership works no different than all the other security based sites such as Match.com, American Singles, eHarmony, etc… Joining is free and the free membership is all about observation. You can search all the members you want, read all the fan-fic you want, read all the geek news you want, enjoy the webcomics.

You can even submit questions to our gurus.  The gurus are part of a program we have to help geeks who want to get into areas of fantasy entertainment. We have working professional gurus in digital special effect, on-camera acting, voice acting, creating webcomics, graphic art…we even have a geek dating and relationship guru – all free.

But it is our paid level of memberhsip where things really take off. With our uber membership you can compose messages to any member you want, create geek blogs, fan-fic and galleries. You can participate in all the chatrooms and forums. In short uber membership is all about participation. Again the model is the same as say Match.com with one huge exception – the price.

While most of those guys charge upwards of 40 to 60 bucks month, a Soulgeek Uber membership is only $9.95.  So you’re talking about finding the love of your life for less than the price of two tickets to a movie.

e.: Very nice. I’ve noticed that in the sign-up, you give the option to select dating men, dating women, dating both, or non-dating member. Has the bisexual option always been there? (It seems to be absent from many dating sites!)

Dino: Yes, that was planned from the very beginning. What was not planned were the non-dating member options. I was literally sooooooo focused on dating like a man obsessed, that it never occurred to me that anyone would want to become a member just to be on a site like ours. After getting a lot of requests from non-daters we finally went back and coded in non-dating categories.

e.: Do you have any favorite success stories?

Dino: Several, but the very first is that the simple fact that the site is working. Six months after we launched we had no idea if it was working.  That was when I noticed members in the forums talking about throwing a SoulGeek party over Valentines weekend in Las Vegas.

I chimed in as the creator of the site as asked “Hey Guys, mind if I tag along?“  The event was literally put together and executed by SoulGeek members themselves and I had very little to do with it.  When Casey and I got to Vegas we had the shock of our lives. I was greeted by a number of couples who had traveled across the country to thank me for building the site because they had found their significant other on SoulGeek. This was how I learned the site was actually working.

At the gathering, I saw a bank of monitors as Dick’s Bar and Grill where every monitor was tuned to various sports channels except for one that was showing the first season South Park Halloween special which featured my late wife rather prominently. Meeting all those couples and then seeing that was a real ass-kicker. That night back at my hotel room I bawled like a baby – I was very happy.

e.: awww    (I have to admit, I was a little choked up reading that!)

Dino: The event was actually chronicled in webcomic form by one of the couples.  This comic was created by webcomic artist Jennifer Walker who found her love on SoulGeek.  She has since created an original comic for SoulGeek Webcomics entitled “Where the Geek Girls Are.”

Jennifer and her guy Todd are obviously another great success story. We also have at least two couples that are engaged, one married and numerous couple who have traveled huge distances to be with each other.  In particular, one who traveled from Canada to Japan, and one who traveled from the US to Australia.  I think we’re doing a lot of good.

e.: Is there anything else about SoulGeek you’d like to share?

Dino: We’re doing a lot of expanding. Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch is about to join the SoulGeek family.  Together Richard and I will be doing a lot of video promotion and such.  Plus we are about to launch monthly SoulGeek bashes in Hollywood. These gathering are slated to begin the second Saturday evening of every month starting in July at the 10 Forward Cafe at Hollywood and Vine.

e.: Very sweet. Do you ever do meetups at conventions?

Dino: People should also visit the SoulGeek booth at this years upcoming San Diego Comic-Con (booth 2517).   After SDCC we will be at DragonCon but for next year we plan to start throwing con parties.  We are about to scrap and relaunch a brand new conventions page so please feel free to send me any info on any upcoming cons.

Mind if I bring up one last thing about SoulGeek?

e.: Go for it

Dino: We have on the payroll a tiny staff and systems admin who monitor the site 24/7. None of the profiles are auto-approved. The profiles are all approved by human eyes, so we can maintain a zero tolerance for spammers, scammers, porn jockeys, and yahoos who try to create profiles that are actually fronts for companies trying to sell you crap you don’t want. In short we do our very best to ensure that each and every profile on SoulGeek is authentic.   SoulGeek is a VERY safe place to find a geek of your own.

e.: I love your passion for geek matchmaking. Nice to see someone like me who is all about the geek love

Dino: The feeling is mutual.  You’re doing the world a lot of good. Think about it. These couples you are helping bring together will like start family and so there will be people in the world all thanks to you. You should be proud of yourself. Cheers to you.

e.: Cheers to you too!  Have a good night!

Dino: You too – Stay Animated!

Thank you to Dino Andrade for taking the time to chat with me about SoulGeek!   If you’d like to learn more about Dino, his voice acting (he’s been in several video and computer games, including WoW’s Lich King expansion), and SoulGeek, check out this interview at Examiner.com.

Do any of you use SoulGeek?  How has your experience been on the site?