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Episode 3: Colossi? Colosses? Colossui? with Darren W. Pearce
85 Plays1 year ago
Host Alan Bahr is joined by roleplaying game and fiction writer Darren W. Pearce, where they discuss the art of being a tabletop roleplaying game freelancer, inspiration, working on licensed properties, the differences between sword & sandal and sword & sorcery, as well as more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Radio Free RPG and Guest Darren Pierce
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Alan Barr and this is Radio Free RPG. Hello, I'm Alan Barr and welcome to Radio Free RPG.
00:00:32
Speaker
I am joined today by my guest, Darren Pierce, RPG writer, video game reviewer, and all-around creative individual.
Atompunk RPG: A Unique 1950s Russia Experience
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm pretty good. Darren, how are you today? I've just been playing a couple of games on the Xbox. I've been playing the new Atompunk RPG. It's like Bioshock meets 1950s Russia, Atomic Heart.
00:01:02
Speaker
I was a bit skeptical about it to begin with, but over the last few hours, it's been quite interesting. Wonderful.
Darren's 23-Year RPG Writing Journey
00:01:16
Speaker
So Darren, you're on the show today because you work in tabletop role-playing games, at least partially, as a creator of content.
00:01:27
Speaker
Now, you've worked with me on some projects and on other projects I've worked on concurrently. So we're going to talk today about your history, some of the IPs you've worked on, your process, and other elements of the writing side of Roleplay. Now,
00:01:46
Speaker
or our listeners who might not be familiar with your work, what are some of the projects and products you've worked on in almost 23 years? In fact, it might be my 23-year anniversary in the role-playing game industry as of this month. I've worked on numerous IPs, Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space. I've written for Loewolf, two incarnations of that.
00:02:13
Speaker
And I've also written for Savage Worlds. I did a very extended stink for Shine Tar on Savage Worlds, produced, I think in total, at least 24 books and a novella in just over, or just around six months with that Kickstarter when I was asked to do that.
Challenges of Writing for Established IPs
00:02:42
Speaker
Um, and of course the, uh, judge read both of 2000 AD. I was involved in that. I wrote stuff for the call book and the strontium dog book. I actually wrote a hold of the strontium dog book. Apart from a couple of bits, which we included from, uh, from people who, uh, I need extra stuff to it. Wonderful.
00:03:08
Speaker
So that's quite the bibliography, not to mention quite the dive into what folks in the industry call licensed IPs or licenses. Representing out of house licenses or IPs that role playing game companies produce material for.
00:03:29
Speaker
So, are you particularly drawn to licensed settings? Is there something about them that you find engaging? I would say it has to be the particular thing. Like with Judge Dredd and The Worlds of 2000 AD, 2000 AD itself was a comic that I grew up with as a kid. So I was really, really interested in the same in a way as Marvel. If somebody threw a Marvel sort of writing job at me and said, oh, do you want to write something for Dr. Strange or for so and so?
00:03:58
Speaker
then I'd probably jump at that because again that really interests me but overall it's like Doctor Who that was again I grew up with the fourth doctor but I also grew up with the other doctors watching them in reruns and
00:04:15
Speaker
I've got things like Star Wars, would I like to write on Star Wars, the RPG?
Preference for Original Settings in RPGs
00:04:20
Speaker
Especially the West End Games one, because I am absolutely mad over D6 systems. Yeah, I would have jumped at the chance to write on a Star Wars D6. So I like license settings, but I do like the other settings that aren't tied to an IP.
00:04:41
Speaker
the ones that are like stuff I've worked on, obviously with you, with your on E.P., but obviously it's not a licensed setting based on something that's out there like Marvel. Tiny Supers and the Gallantverse has its own thing and I'm often drawn to things like that more than I am. And like with Rob, Rob Schwalbe,
00:05:07
Speaker
and Shadow of the Demon Lord. Not only was I drawn to the system of Shadow of the Demon Lord, but to the setting of Demon Lord, and that's not a license. That's Rob's baby. I wrote the City of Chains book for that.
Creative Freedom in RPG Settings: Big IPs vs Originals
00:05:33
Speaker
In the cases you mentioned the gallant verse for Tiny Supers from Gallant Night Games, which was spearheaded by me, and Shadow of the Demon Lord from Robert Schwab, those settings are still managed by somebody else and you're right into direction. Do you find those smaller settings to be
00:05:56
Speaker
more free form or open to work and then something like Doctor Who or Judge Dredd. The shackles from an IP like Doctor Who are immense. It's like you're the ghost of Jacob Marley and you're wrapped in all those chains.
00:06:20
Speaker
because you cannot generate new content for Doctor Who. You can't create a new alien. You can't create a new take on a Dalek or a Cyberman. It has to be specifically how it appears in the Doctor Who canon as canon was back then and is now. So for instance, if you create a planet for a Doctor Who adventure,
00:06:46
Speaker
it has to be within that Doctor Who universe and it can't have a brand new alien race on that planet because the chances of it coming back from the BBC's department with lots of red pen through it are quite high.
00:07:06
Speaker
So that sort of limitation is not a hard and fast rule, but more of the best practice due to the level of work that would have to go into making it acceptable. It is easier to take something they've already generated and modify it or use it and create something wholesale and try to get it through the approval process.
00:07:31
Speaker
Okay, so Doctor Who is an IP with a lot of history, quite a bit, and a very confusing continuity both internally and to a degree externally.
Research Demands for IP Projects
00:07:46
Speaker
Now, with working on Doctor Who, how intensive was the research? And this is a general question for all these sort of IPs you work on.
00:07:59
Speaker
how much time and effort do you have to put into adjusting for tone, learning the styles, researching materials to include or exclude? I was the doctor who, because they brought me on to do a few bits and pieces for aliens and creatures. And that was just some
00:08:17
Speaker
write ups here and there and a little bit of the adventure seeds. So that wasn't too bad. I still had to look through the Doctor Who monsters like the Vashta Narada and so on and get them thematically right. But with the first Doctor Book, I think I've done about six to seven months of pure research into William Hartnell's era by watching every single episode I could get my hands on via my collection, which I've got a few recorded.
00:08:44
Speaker
I've got a couple of DVDs, I've got access, thanks to a friend of mine at the BBC, to a William Hartnell script directory of every Hartnell episode. Even though the footage was lost, this script directory had every single episode, including all of the lines and dialogue from every
00:09:06
Speaker
Hartnell arc. So I was able to take a lot of that and put that down when I was doing the synopsis of all of Hartnell's adventures into the First Doctor book. But also things from the era like the tech, like the TARDIS magnet and the fact that the First Doctor doesn't have a sonic screwdriver. He's got a toolkit. And his magnet is a little device that lets him locate the TARDIS wherever it is. Right.
00:09:40
Speaker
That's interesting. I was aware of the lost episodes from the first Doctor era, but I was not aware that the scripts still existed, so there is a historical... Yeah, it's one thing that I was quite looking to know for a particular person at the time who directed me to this place and said, look here before it disappears, because the chances are on the internet it probably will.
00:10:06
Speaker
And yeah, it was a stroke of luck. And with 2000 AD, with the core book for Judge Red and the worlds of 2000 AD, I put a lot of time reading the comics again.
00:10:20
Speaker
because Rebellion gave us access to their entire online archive from Dread, every single Dread book, all the digital comics. And with Strontium Dog, when I did that, I had access of my own collection of comics. I still have them, the graphic novels, ones that I got hold of, but also again, the digital archive of Strontium Dog.
00:10:43
Speaker
existed with some comics there. So I was able to look through pretty much everything and anything to find that stuff.
00:10:55
Speaker
And with Lone Wolf, well, I had access to the best resource at the time, which was Joe Diva arrested. He was immensely helpful. He was only an email or a message away. And so if I needed a clarification, I could say, Joe, they're hell gassed. I need to know this. I need to shoot back this big ream of information on them.
Creating with Scaffolding vs Original Freedom
00:11:26
Speaker
So with these IPs and the research that goes into them,
00:11:32
Speaker
Is that, in the sense of the creative process, is that more intensive than creating something original wholesale? Or is it easier to use somebody else's scaffolding and, in essence, construct a new structure around an already existing foundation? I think it's probably easier to build a foundation with the gallant verse. If we take tiny seepers, you've got a definite idea of what the gallant verse was like.
00:11:57
Speaker
And he got an idea of what England was like magically. And I, you know, I said to you, you know, we'll make England like this. And I sent you some ideas, the same with Germany, the same with France. And this was putting already established scaffolding up and hang things on it and building around it. I think we're trying to create something from scratch.
00:12:21
Speaker
for someone, if somebody just said, I have an idea of mixing this idea with this idea, write me a setting based on it. If they say you have carte blanche to write that apart from these few criteria, that might be easier in one way because you've got a completely free rein to build 95% of it.
00:12:48
Speaker
compared to having an already structured thing to build onto, because then you're always worried about, if I say to Alan, this thing, is he going to say yes or no? Is he going to like it? Or isn't he going to like it? And that is always, I think that the issue with being a world creator and a content generator for the world, which I specifically love to do, that is always the thing. You're in the back of the mind with Midnight City. I'm thinking, is Alan going to like this? Is Aaron going to like this?
00:13:19
Speaker
And so I always think that in one way, working off the scaffolding and the foundation is easier. But it's really easy if somebody gives you carte blanche to create something for them, to just let your imagination go wild. And you find that you've generated 30, 40,000 words. You found yourself when you're creating things, you suddenly blink and you've got 20,000 words of a setting on a page.
00:13:48
Speaker
a document and you're like, where did that come from? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, but. Speaking of these settings, several of the ones you have mentioned, the Gallant verse, Judge Dredd, Midnight City, they are comic book superhero inspired.
00:14:16
Speaker
Well, if not superhero, at least comic-derived foundational IPs. They owe their baseline to the medium of comics. Is there a particular element of the comic medium that
00:14:32
Speaker
ignites your imagination or makes you want to explore or write in that space and draws you to it or is it more just a happy coincidence that this is where a bulk of your recent work will stay in the last decade lies? I think in general I am drawn to superheroes quite a bit but from the point of view that I like the heroics
00:15:01
Speaker
I must admit I'm fond of heroes helping people. I'm not so fond of storylines like Civil War and so on and so forth. I'm more interested in the kind of heroes that are portrayed that go around and they help out a group of individuals who have fallen against an enemy and so on. So yeah, I think for me comics
00:15:25
Speaker
And the work that I've done recently are probably more coincidental, but it's a happy coincidence because of the medium that I really enjoy. My favorite kind of thing, I suppose, in a way, is fantasy. I'm very fond of dark fantasy, which is probably why I'm drawn to Shadow of the Demon Lord.
00:15:47
Speaker
but I also like heroic fantasy, swords and sandals, swords and sorcery. I mean, I did a big chunk of work with Mongoose on the Spider God's Bride. I rewrote 98% of that for the basic role playing system, I think it was, for Legend, for Legend, yeah, for Legend. Legend, yes.
00:16:16
Speaker
I'm personally a big fan of Legend and its associated materials. Yes, I have a copy on my shelf.
00:16:39
Speaker
You know, we've we've talked about superheroes. We've touched on the fact that you like dark fantasy. You mentioned sword and sandal, which happens to be a particular interest of mine is the sword and sandal. I've recently completed a pseudo. I have seen a pretty good plan. I have to say that is swords and ropes. That is some really good work. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
00:17:06
Speaker
Now, for me, my sword and sandal love goes back to films like Sinbad or Jason and the Argonauts, the Ray Harryhausen era of sword and sandal with the stop-motion animated monsters.
00:17:21
Speaker
Is there a particular element or era of Sword and Sandal that you were drawn to?
Sword & Sandal vs Sword & Sorcery Genres
00:17:26
Speaker
I have to say that. I love the views of Ray Harry Mason's gear and seeing bad and associated stop motion is where I fell in love with it. And also over time, picking up things like swords and swords, picking up things like Conan and picking up and seeing films.
00:17:44
Speaker
that have that, even though they were bad movie films, I loved them. You know, you can throw me the sword and the sorcerer with Lee, I think it was Lee Horsley as the sword with the three-bladed sword fires off. I believe that's correct. David Carradine one, I think was the sword and the sorceress.
00:18:07
Speaker
something like that. I'm going through my brain memory of dredging up old films. I believe that's close to correct. That's it. English title one, American title, and so on. They often have different titles, which can make it difficult to track. I must say, though, that Fritz Lieber,
00:18:30
Speaker
drew me a lot to that genre. Because I always look at Langmar as being more in that sword and sandal. When you read the Langmar books, you kind of see that Fafiyad and the Grey Mouser as more sword and sandal kind of heroes. The way that Libra writes about it, I don't know if I'm saying his name right, but I absolutely adore the Langmar books, is very much in that kind of
00:18:58
Speaker
feel. And along with Howard and Conan, that's really where my love of Sword and Sandal comes from. So stop motion, you know, Langmar and Conan as the major. So that's an interesting point you bring up. Yeah. Sword and Sandal and Sword and Sorcery are different genres.
00:19:25
Speaker
And they have some key differences, which to my understanding, Sword and Sandal derives itself more from real world history or myth, even the Greek myths, the Romans, etc. Whereas Sword and Sorcery is more of a second or third world fantasy with a low magic or magic is evil sort of vibe to it.
00:19:50
Speaker
But Sword and Sandal does feature, for example, Jason and the Argonauts. The gods play a significant role in that. There is magic. There are prophets and oracles, titans and colossi. That's almost one of the three. Colossuses, colossi. I'm not sure what the plural of colossus is. I'm going to go with colossi. That feels right. And now we have our episode title. So far, all the episode titles have been made for mispronunciations of mine. So we're on track.
00:20:22
Speaker
So, for you, do you draw a line between those two genres that is distinct, or do you prefer sort of a blurred amalgamated mix? I think I prefer that kind of interleaved, so like a blurred amalgamated mix. Elements of one, found in another. Again, going back to Langkmar, you can definitely see Luber's love of classic kind of
00:20:45
Speaker
right, tropes in there. But there is very much that kind of sword and sorcery element to Langmar with the old gods of Langmar and the wizards of Langmar, the magic and all that. But it still has that kind of feel of a more swords and sandal. I think the way he writes it and the way he portrays battle similar to like Howard's love of doing very short, concise,
00:21:15
Speaker
combat scenes in Conan and the terror of the elephant the first time you meet Conan in that story. He's in the tavern and Howard takes a paragraph or two to describe the fight that he has in that tavern and then he's just walking off away and there's just dead people everywhere. Yeah, he doesn't dwell on it. He just writes a paragraph or two and that's it, done. He's on to the next story. So I think for me, that's,
00:21:43
Speaker
You can interleave the two, so you've got that kind of punchy action dialogue that's very quick, and yet you've got that magical element as well. No, go ahead. I apologize.
00:22:04
Speaker
Sure. So you're describing these story bits and the punchy combat and the rapid fire moving from scene to scene that is very, very common in pulp fiction, especially early Sword and Planet, Sword and Sorcery, Sword and Romance, right? In role-playing games,
00:22:26
Speaker
Are there any games that land that punchy combat well?
Quick Combat in Shadow of the Demon Lord and Tiny Dungeon
00:22:30
Speaker
Are there any games that enable that in a way you find engaging? Or if not, what do you think it would take to create that experience in the mechanical space? I grew up with the classic, basic D&D. When I was nine, I played it at school.
00:22:50
Speaker
I was bought it for my 10th birthday by my mum and dad, the basic red box we keep on the borderlands. But I've always throughout my entire life found that D&D and that kind of thing, by extension Pathfinder, no offense to any Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2, Starfinder, all of these things are really long winded when it comes to combat.
00:23:12
Speaker
If you use a lot of the optional rules and the modifiers, the combat in one can go on for quite a while. Even just say four skeletons versus three players can go on, as you know, for quite a bit. I found one system where combat flies, and I'm going to speak Robert
00:23:34
Speaker
to Jay Schwald's name again. And that's Shadow of the Demon Lord. And interestingly, I've taken Shadow of the Demon Lord over the last year or two, and I've thrown Conan at it because we were playing Conan Exiles on the Xbox group. And then I decided I want to run a Conan Exiles-esque style game using something. Looked at Shadow of the Demon Lord and thought, well, straight away, combats in Shadow take very small amounts of time.
00:24:03
Speaker
I could also throw it at Tiny Dungeon, second edition, because again, the Tiny System is perfectly suited for all this kind of role-play driven, but really fast and punchy combat scenes where, you know, the agency is always in the player's hands. And I think that's really important when you've got a combat kind of lethality like Conan,
00:24:29
Speaker
I think you need to put as much agency into the player's hands, compared to putting it into a GM's hands. Because I've seen a bunch of GMs who would just slaughter an entire party, and the game would just end. So yeah, I think Shadow and Tiny dungeon second edition, if you wanted to do like a swords and sorcery thing, would work. And obviously your own sword and sandal.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yes. It's interesting you bring up Conan Exiles because we'll be crowdfunding a role playing game later this year called Carrion Lands, which is very much a survival horror sword and sorcery game with a very punchy, quick resolution to the combat system. So this is a topic I thought about quite a bit.
00:25:23
Speaker
I find that the trick to keeping things in that punchy cinematic story driven sense is to cut down on the level of roles as well as decision points. To keep things moving. So you write a lot. You are prolific.
00:25:50
Speaker
What are some of the processes and elements you use to achieve this writing, the speed, the output, that aspiring or struggling writers might benefit from?
Darren's Writing Process and Advice for Aspiring Writers
00:26:06
Speaker
Do you have any particular advice? I mean, my process is definitely... I'm full of them today. It's evolved over the years.
00:26:18
Speaker
But my main one is that I always have a notebook. Now everybody in the digital age has a computer, pretty much, or a phone, or some way of getting access to some way of taking notes, colour note, you name it. But I have a physical pad of paper.
00:26:37
Speaker
And very often, if I'm doing a project, I will sit first of all for an hour or two, even with the Asher Solomon stuff for the Gallant versus the House of Solomon. I actually wrote down just random things that came to mind as I was sitting there. And on one piece of blank white paper, I have names and ideas with circles on and the spider diagram.
00:27:09
Speaker
And so I tend to create on paper a lot of the time first so that I can look at it and go, does this make sense? Does this work? If I put this together, does it actually flow well? Is the idea of sort of the beginning, middle and end, even when you're writing something like a House of Solomon, how do you start it? Where's the middle bit? What am I going to tell the players and how I'm going to write that last bit of the House of Solomon up?
00:27:38
Speaker
with what we tend to throw in, of course, as you know, are little adventure seats, adventure hooks, or, you know, just anything at the end of the writing that says, you know, these are five things that particularly could happen as part of the house. So sort of throw them at the players, see what happens. So with my process, it is very much a kind of regimented process.
00:28:02
Speaker
I can do what I call chaos design, which is rather like, I think it's Stephen King who just writes and then it comes together. I can do that, but I tend to prefer starting with ideas on paper and then expanding them because if you write ideas on paper, it's a lot easier in one way to just discard them and write on another bit of paper. With documents, I find that
00:28:33
Speaker
I'm always thinking, how can I salvage this? It's like Tolkien with Lord of the Rings, you know, it's three chapters of chapter. I don't like chapter three. I'm rewriting it in the bin. Rewrite chapter three. So yeah, I'm very much a regimented step writer.
00:28:57
Speaker
Do you set daily goals for yourself in terms of output or content or time? So, for example, I have found that if I dedicate, I set a goal every day of a minimum of four hours of writing time or a certain word count, whichever occurs first, because if I try to sit and say I have to hit a word count, I might fail out some days.
00:29:22
Speaker
Or if I say I have to do eight hours, that might be too much. So I have created a hybrid goal structure to allow myself a bit of flexibility to keep the creative engine going. No, I have to do that. Did you do that? I'll almost do a nine to five work day, depending on the project. For instance, with Midnight City, with the stuff I wrote there, I pretty much dedicated the morning to doing work on Midnight City. Then I had lunch and then the afternoon.
00:29:53
Speaker
and it's project by project is how I generate it, but sometimes I'll be like, I want to hit 3000 words today. And that 3000 could be on a project for you, could be on a project for Jim Pinto, could be on a project for somebody else. As long as I've hit the 3000 words, I'm like, well, I've done that now, I'm happy. Tomorrow I can do another 3000 words. And the way from jumping from project to project as well,
00:30:21
Speaker
It's quite good because if you start to burn out in one way in one project, or you start to lose a sort of focus on it, or an idea doesn't quite come, and you move on to another one, you're almost getting energized by that project. And then you can come back again to the first one and go, aha, got it. Yeah, yeah. Sort of a snowballing effect. Okay.
00:30:48
Speaker
So, you primarily write as a freelancer for other companies. You don't run your own publishing company, whereas I do. I primarily write for myself for my own products. You are the opposite. You don't write for yourself in the sense of, this is something that I am producing, I am fully responsible for.
00:31:07
Speaker
What are some things you've learned as a freelancer about working with publishers that might help aspiring freelancers or potential freelancers, or current ones even, when they are selecting who they work with, how they manage their product? Well, I always like to, as you know, work with the person that I'm working with. So I'll constantly fire back.
00:31:34
Speaker
questions or get feedback like when I'm designing something for someone I'll be like I'll send say the first paragraph or two or even a page and say what you think is this cool does this fit your vision and so I think one of the things is constant communication I would stress any aspiring writer that's going to work with someone like yourself or even with Mongoose or with
00:32:02
Speaker
sandwich mojo, you name it. Right, establish lines of communication, and try to communicate as openly and as frequently as you can, don't be almost afraid of, of sending stuff. Because, you know, people will say, Okay, yeah, that's great. But you know, you don't need to keep sending me all this every five minutes. Or they'll say, hold on.
00:32:31
Speaker
Um, what are you doing now? Right. Um, you know, where are you on the project? You know, three weeks later, you've written all the words and you're sort of like, um, well, that doesn't go well as you know, with publishers like yourself. So yeah, constant communication, um, open honesty is a good one.
00:32:54
Speaker
always be honest, if you can't understand something in a setting or a system, and they're like, I want an adventure on this mechanics, you're doing it all. As you know, with me, I like to write the content, I like someone else to do mechanics most of the time, I can do mechanics, but I like to focus on the content because that's where my brain goes.
00:33:15
Speaker
But I imagine, or rather, you've got to know, say, that system. So Shadow of the Demon Lord. Now, Rob was good enough to put stats and statistics and things into the city of chains. I did him the core writing.
00:33:34
Speaker
But if you come across someone who's a publisher and says, OK, I want this adventure for Pathfinder Second Edition, you've got to do all the mechanics, et cetera, et cetera. And you don't understand the particular elements of that.
00:33:48
Speaker
then sitting there going, oh, isn't going to work. Get on the email, email the person and say, look, I don't understand this mechanic. Can you explain it? Because I need to put it in the adventure and they will appreciate that. I've found people appreciate that far more than you turning in an adventure with a question mark on the mechanic that say, I don't understand this. Can you fill it in yourself?
00:34:20
Speaker
Sure. Interesting. So, two more questions as we kind of roll forward. Well, three really. So first, four people who are wanting to get into the freelance RPG writing field, do you have any advice about how to go about getting those jobs or gigs? I think one of the most important things is to communicate early and keep your eye on
00:34:48
Speaker
Well, there's Facebook groups, there's online social media in general, especially things like white wolf and so on, look at the social media sites and see if they are hiring a writer. A lot of the times, you know, publishers will put out an open call and say, we are looking for writers. I mean, recently, I responded to an open call by ridiculous.
00:35:14
Speaker
and I'm working on a secret project for Modiphius that I can't say anything about, but I went through the process of, you know, looking on social media and went, oh, hello, there's a little call here. I'll respond to this one. And surprise, surprise, I actually got a reply and it all went through
00:35:41
Speaker
to that particular thing. The same with the video game industry in a way. There was a call through, I won't say open, but it was open around the certain channels of keen software to write for space engineers on a particular thing. Now I didn't make the cuts, but I got through to the top three and then to the top two. So I was quite happy with that. But it's like,
00:36:10
Speaker
look
Networking Tips for Freelancers
00:36:11
Speaker
on the site. That's wonderful sites. Look on look on the web. Definitely keep your eye and listen to other people. And also, if you honestly, we're still kind of around COVID and so on. But the great places are things like UK Games Expo, Gen Con, you know, origins, all these places, Dragon Meat, Dragon Con,
00:36:37
Speaker
going there and actually getting to speak to publishers firsthand. People came up to me at UK Games Expo and said, I want to get into the role playing game industry, how do I do it? And this was after my workshop on how to write adventures. I had people come up and say, how do you get into the role playing game industry? And I said, when you talk to people like me,
00:37:00
Speaker
who know people who publish role-playing games, who might be looking for aspiring writers, who specifically said, oh, by the way, Darren, if anybody at your seminar gets your interest, please feel free to pass them on to me.
00:37:17
Speaker
And so I think networking is a massive skill to learn. Sure. As an aspiring writer, again, friendliness and not OK, you don't want to kind of kick in the door on a publisher and say, you know, I am so and so I am brilliant. I have done, you know, I've got this, this and this idea and you should change this on your system. Oh, by the way,
00:37:39
Speaker
Pathfinder second edition would work so much better if you put glowing pink bears in it. That's a brilliant idea. And, you know, I think you should listen to me. That's not going to go down well with big publishers like Paizo. And it's certainly not going to go down well with third party publishers. So again, the attitude approaching people in the right way is another important skill.
00:38:03
Speaker
It's because you've got to prove to a publisher that you're good enough to write on their thing. And, you know, I've done it for twenty two slash twenty three years. And most of the time people have come to me and said, hey, you know, you did this thing. I don't suppose you'd be interested in writing this thing for me. And I've gone, OK, yeah, cool. Yeah.
00:38:29
Speaker
And he never thought, you know, I never really thought at the time to ask. It's like people go, do you want to work on Dr. Who? Right. OK. I had a phone call from Angus about Judge Redden, the world's 2000 AD, and he just said, we've got a new thing coming. It's something very near and dear to your heart. But I can't tell you what it is at the moment. Would you be interested in working on it? And I'm like, well, I don't know what it was.
00:39:00
Speaker
That's vague enough to not really know, but sure. Absolutely.
00:39:19
Speaker
One of my great sadness is I never got too great for the scene. I would have loved to work on that. I think we talked about that. It's one of the top ones of that kind of genre that we love. And it's like, oh my God, what a great IP to work on. The same as Nemesis the Warlock. I would have dearly loved with Andrew Peregrine to work on the Nemesis the Warlock book. But Saint-Aviv, as they say. Yeah.
00:39:50
Speaker
So my second to last question, what are the three most influential role-playing games on you in terms of your writing style and approach to RPGs?
Influences and Future RPG Adaptation Interests
00:40:04
Speaker
And I'm looking for more of a quick bullet point, like three names. Oh, I see. This is the most important kind of see if they're interested. I'm going to say Savage Worlds.
00:40:15
Speaker
was a big influence through Savage Mojo, especially when, you know, I was doing a lot of stuff with Savage Worlds. I would have originally said 13th Age, but that got kind of pipped out by Shadow of the Demon Lord. I spent a lot more time thinking on how to make things for Shadow of the Demon Lord. And one of the big influences going way back, Warhammer fantasy role play.
00:40:46
Speaker
Mm hmm. So and we're talking the original woofer. Sure. Okay, then that got replaced by green Ronin's version. Absolutely. Because as much as I love the fourth edition one that cubicle seven have got, I still have a soft spot for green Ronin and Chris's vision for Warhammer. So those are the three. Okay. Wonderful.
00:41:16
Speaker
Those are great answers. And the last question, do you have anything you would like to ask me? Good, good, good, good question. This is always great. I even told you in advance that I was going to ask this question. Do I ask something like, what are you looking forward to doing next? Or do I ask? You can.
00:41:46
Speaker
You can ask me whatever you like. I might not answer it, but you can ask. A good example of freelance writers approaching publishers, because do you use this opportunity to ask if you've got anything that I can work on in the near future? Okay. Put me on the spot on the internet. You know I can cut this out of the interview, right? It's a good example of what not to ask.
00:42:11
Speaker
If not something I'd do across a friend, let alone someone who was just like the regular publisher. Can you imagine? So yeah, is there anything I can work on? Put me right in the hot seat.
00:42:26
Speaker
Oh, we lost Darren, don't know what happened. The latest role-playing game that you would love to write and publish, be it your own or be it a proper IP, you know, you like deal and so on and so forth, looking at the videos.
00:42:51
Speaker
I will I will answer for an IP because I actually started working on one today that I don't want to spoil. So for an IP, I think one of my I have two dream properties that would be fantastic for me to to work on. First, I'm a huge fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and I would love to do an RPG adaptation of that. Yeah. Is one of the few I would actively pursue or chase.
00:43:21
Speaker
And two, I've always been a big fan of Adrian Chavatsky's harder science fiction. And I would love to do an adaptation. Yeah, that's an interesting one with hard science fiction. Like that as well. You see a lot of soft kind of sci-fi, starfinder fantasy sci-fi, and so on and so forth. But you don't tend to see a lot of the harder science fiction. Right.
00:43:49
Speaker
I suppose in one way we could call Traveller, the original Traveller with the tiny books was a hard side by RPG because my crew that I was counting off was at least two and a half hours trying to work out junk trajectories on that particular fuel usage and so on.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yeah. I have been in that. So yeah, those are, those are too good. Yes. Yes. That was, that was a good question. Yes. Well, Darren, if folks want to look at your work and we're finding you online, how can they sort of look at my work? You've got my Amazon.
00:44:33
Speaker
where you can see various books that I've had published on Amazon, although that is probably out of date, because as you know, Amazon tends to not add things, or it'll add them much later on. Drive through RPG on there. If you look me up on there, you'll see my work on Drive through RPG. If anybody looks up tiny supers on Drive through RPG, they'll see my name attached, especially on the Guide to the Gallantverse.
00:45:02
Speaker
and Facebook, as I said, and Twitter. I'm on Twitter. Still kind of hanging on there. Okay. All right.
00:45:16
Speaker
just waiting to see what happens. But also I follow archaeologists because I'm a big fan of archaeology. So I keep an eye on some of the members of time too. Okay. And talk to them on Twitter. And then I think that's it because I don't actually have a personal website. I was going to get one but it never seemed to materialize
00:45:46
Speaker
And I'd be terrible, I think, with a personal. Exactly. There are a lot of work. Well, I understand. Trust me. I run one myself. I run a few.
00:46:04
Speaker
Well, thank you very much listeners. This has been Alan Barr with my guest, Darren W. Pierce. Darren is a role-playing game writer. You can check out his work at the previously mentioned places. I want to thank you for listening to Radio Free RPG and have a good day.