INTERVIEW WITH BILL SLAVICSEK – WIZARDS OF THE COAST VICE PRESIDENT & STAR WARS RPG DESIGNER
Interviews
INTERVIEW WITH BILL SLAVICSEK – WIZARDS OF THE COAST VICE PRESIDENT & STAR WARS RPG DESIGNER
1. What made you decide to be a roleplaying game designer?
I was a gamer from my youngest days, but I went to school with the idea of either becoming a comic book writer or artist, or of pursuing a career in journalism. Actually, I had been working on a newspaper for about a year after getting out of college when I answered an ad in the New York Times for a game editor. I got my first job in the game industry as an editor with West End Games, which was located in New York City at the time. I soon expanded my skills into game development and design, working on all kinds of board games and military simulations, but my passion was for roleplaying games. Lucky for me, that was the direction that West End was moving in when I joined the company.
2. What was your first experience with a roleplaying game?
That would have been with Dungeons & Dragons. It was 1977. For me, that was the year of Star Wars and D&D. I w! as always the gamemaster. When my gaming group was into board games, before we ever heard of D&D, I was the one who read the rules and figured out how to play the game. It was the same when we started playing RPGs.
3. What kind of an education do you need to be a roleplaying game designer?
I look for people with imagination and creativity, and for people who have demonstrated some ability in the industry, either producing work for another company or for one of our magazines (Dragon, Dungeon / Polyhedron, or Star Wars Gamer). Beyond that, people with strong writing and editing skills, some math skills, and the ability to weave game mechanics with story. I find that English or Journalism majors usually have a slight edge on other educational backgrounds, but it all depends. Certainly, I believe that you should get a good education in whatever field most interests you, you should read and write constantly, and you need to play the games.
4. What is the best thing about your job?
Wow, all of it. What’s not to love? Sure, it’s hard work churning out hundreds of thousands of words a year and meeting deadlines, but I get to work in an exciting and stimulating environment with the very best game professionals in the world. I love the scope of my job. On any given day, I might spend a few hours discussing business strategy with our business team, then go off to discuss RPG design theory or to help my team work through a specific design issue, then I’ll meet with members of the marketing team to talk about an advertising campaign or a catalog issue, then I’ll help our licensing liaison approve a script treatment for a D&D movie or TV show or a new build for the latest D&D computer game. And maybe I’ll wrap up the day meeting with the R&D executive team to discuss a new TCG product or board game, or maybe I’ll find a few moments to work on my own design project. What’s the best thing about my job? The days are just packed with creative energy. I love games, and this is the place that makes some of the best games in the world.
5. What is the hardest aspect of your job?
Finding time to get everything done. As a vice president, a lot of stuff comes across my desk in a given day. Finding time to give everything the attention it deserves can often be difficult. But I have an excellent team of managers to help me, and some of the best game designers and editors in the business to take every idea and turn them into great products. I’m committed to keeping my hand in actual design work, so juggling all that and finding time to sit down and write my own projects can be challenging. But the rewards are worth the effort.
6. How many actual hours go into creating rule books/source books?
Every project is different from the one before it, but we have some standard formulas for assigning manpower hours. A typical 320-page rulebook, such as the new d20 Call of Cthulhu takes about 1600 hours to design and write, another 1000 hours or so to develop and edit, and then about 120 hours or so to complete the graphic design and typesetting. Every project may vary, but this is a typical schedule. In many cases, these hours are divided among a team of designers and editors, with some of the work happening concurrently.
7. What is your advice to those who want to be roleplaying game designers?
It’s a hard business, and there may or may not be a lot of financial reward associated with it. That said, if you love RPGs and just want to get into the business, I suggest you complete your education, learn to write and design by reading and playing as many games as possible, then try your hand at writing a rules article for Dragon Magazine or an adventure for Dungeon Magazine. You can find writing guidelines at our website.
8. What are some common misconceptions people have about being a roleplaying game designer?
Well, we don’t play games ALL the time, all though we do play a lot. We also need time to sit by ourselves and generate the enormous amount of text that goes into each of our rulebooks, sourcebooks, and accessories. Writing can be hard, and not everyone can be creative on command. I know of more than a few designers who were good at generating a project or two in a year, but couldn’t handle the demands of producing material on a daily basis when they got a job on staff. That said, those who can handle these demands become even better by getting to work with an entire team of creative people on a regular basis.
9. What was the funniest moment you’ve had in designing a game?
Well, I guess that depends. Working on a game that’s supposed to be funny, like West End’s Paranoia and Ghostbusters RPGs, usually generates a lot of hilarious moments during testing and design discussions. Coming up with the “Nothing Happens” table for Paranoia was a hoot, with ideas flying fast and furiously across the conference table. Otherwise, we often work to the point where people begin to get silly. We usually let the silliness flow so that it gets out of our systems. While there can be humor in games like D&D and Star Wars, in general we tend to take a more serious approach to these brands. So, except for maybe an April Fool’s issue of Dragon Magazine, we have to save the silliest magic items and spells for our personal campaigns.
10. What is the funniest moment you’ve had in playing a game?
Depending, players often bring humor to the table when we get together for a roleplaying game. As I consider an RPG to be a social event, that’s okay. However, if we’ve been playing something that’s supposed to be horrific or serious, I try to get it out of their systems before we ge! t to heavy into the game. On the other hand, many game settings lend themselves to moments of humor. We see humorous moments in the Star Wars movies, for example, so having humorous moments in the game works out fine. One player, for example, had a character who was a fierce cyborg pirate. She was as tough as a vibroknife and twice as mean as a Wookiee. However, she had a soft spot when it came to wayward aliens. She began to collect homeless aliens and provided them with a place to stay. It was funny when the other heroes went to visit the character’s home between missions and were met at the door by a Gamorrean, a tiny Yoda-like child, and a hulking alien with the mind of a teenager who all looked to the pirate as a mom. That was funny, but totally appropriate to the development of the character.
11. What games are your currently playing?
I play Star Wars (the new revised version that I helped design), D&D, and a new game that we’re working on called d20 Modern. That’s about all I can find time for currently.
12. What books are you currently reading?
I love to read. Horror, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, comic books, you name it. Right now, I’m reading, in various rooms of my house or as a book-on-tape in my car, Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub, Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King, Magic Time, Carter Beats the Devil, and a book on screenwriting called Story. Oh, and I’m about to start reading R.A. Salvatore’s novelization of Attack of the Clones.
13. Where do you get some of your ideas from?
Everywhere. The only way to keep the ideas flowing is to read and absorb all kinds of things. Fiction and nonfiction, movies, television, computer games, comics. Anything that excites you and gets the ideas flowing helps rejuvenate your own creative energy. And, I have an account with the Idea-of-the-Month Club out of Hoboken, New Jersey.
14. Where do you think RPGs will be in the next 10 years?
I hope they’re still around, because I think they are a wonderful creative and social outlet for people. I think we’ll see more and more evolution of the computer and the RPG, with games like Neverwinter Nights leading the way. But I think they’ll always be a place for the RPG in book form that gets played around a table with a close group of friends and more snacks that can fit on the table. That’s just fun. And we’re always going to need fun.
