December 9, 2023 • 41 mins
In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert chats with Sir Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Games Workshop and co-author of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series with Steve Jackson, about their new book ““Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop.” (originally published 12/27/2022)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to
go into the vault for an older episode of the show.
This one originally published on December twenty seventh, twenty twenty two.
And Robert, is an interview you did with Ian Livingstone.
Livingstone Livingstone Livingstone.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yes, yeah, this was a fun one that I did
last year. I think they're in like the holiday seasons
when you know, some folks were out and trying to
line up some chats and yeah, this is one of
the creators of Games Workshop, and he has his hands
and his mind and so many other games and just
like game systems in general. So this was a really
(00:47):
fun chat and I'm excited to share it with everyone again.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Let's jump right in.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb, and today I'd like to present an
interview I recorded earlier this month with Sir Ian Livingstone,
co founder of Games Workshop and co author of the
Fighting Fantasy game book series. Now, the creations to come
out of Games Workshop, especially have meant so much to
me over the years, and it was a real honor
(01:26):
to chat with him about the early days of Games Workshop,
about old school gaming in general, the meaning of games,
and of course his new book, Dice Men, The Origin
Story of Games Workshop, which he wrote with Steve Jackson.
The book is out now digitally in the physical version
is either out or available for pre order, depending on
(01:47):
what region you're in. Either way you get it, pick
it up. It's a great read. It has so many
wonderful images in it. It will really transport you back in time.
It tells a great tale. So, without further ado, let's
jump right into the interview. Hi, Ian, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
It's great to speak to you today.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So the book is Dice Mean The Origin Story of
Games Workshop, written with Steve Jackson, and I think at
this point a great number of our listeners out there
are certainly well acquainted with the name Games Workshop. Even
if you didn't grow up with the games and the
miniatures like I did, and like many many others did,
you're still going to probably be aware of all the novels,
(02:26):
the video games, the animated series and so much more.
It's big business. But I thought you might take us
back and just in brief remind us what Games Workshop
was back in the day when you and Steve Jackson
co founded it.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Well, Steve and I were old school friends and we
met up in London in the seventies and our passion
was playing board games, mainly those that came from the US,
games like Diplomacy and Avalon Hill Games. And we thought,
wouldn't it be great we could somehow turn our passion
of playing games into some sort of fledgling business. So
we decided to publish a small fan called Out and Weasel,
(03:01):
and we sent one copy to everybody wenew in Games,
and although we hadn't sent it to him directly, one
found its way to the desk of Gary Gygax in
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and Gary wrote to us and said,
love your little fanzine. His this game I've just published
and designed. What do you think? And that game was
(03:22):
Dungeons and Dragons, And whilst it didn't look much pretty
playing box with a very ordinary illustration on the cover,
it opened up your imagination like no game had ever
done before, and I don't think any game ever will again,
in that it allowed a new form of interactive entertainment.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Role playing people playing.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
As heroes and wizards, exploring the labyrinth designed by games Master,
and through theater on the fly, conversing in craziness. Incredible
narrative story between the players as they forged their way
through the dungeons, killing monsters and finding treasure. So we
ordered six copies of D and D because that's all
(04:02):
the money we actually had in our lives. And on
the back of that order, Gary gave us a three
year exclusive distribution agreement for the whole of Europe, so
we were effectively all playing is role playing people about
a role playing game. It was very amateursh but that's
how things started in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, it was fascinating to read your take on the
gaming world prior to the creation of games Workshop and
prior to the introduction and creation of both Dungeons and Dragons,
just how niche was gaming beyond family staples like Monopoly.
During the nineteen sixties, for example.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Well, in the UK there was one company Dominator that
was Waddington's and they published Monopoly include which is Clue
in the US, Buccaneer and Formula one. And these games
were enjoyable enough, but they were never satisfied gamers like
Steve and myself. We wanted something more where there's more
strategy than luck, and where you could do a negotiation
(05:00):
and have a kind of a metal level of enjoyment
by all the bargaining and reneging on deals that could happen. Obviously,
Diplomas is perfect for that kind of play where you
can backstand people at will in order to dominate the world.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So those are the games we looked out for.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
But D and D really changed our minds of the
type of game we want to play. We suddenly immersed
in this incredible fancy world and a kind of tolkienesque
world of monster magic going on, these fantastic jos of
mind through conversation, and it was that theater of the
Fly that I just mentioned that became a place where
we wanted to visit all the time.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Are you saying that it also Dungeons and Dragons sort
of opened up the space for fantasy itself to be
part of gaming because you describe a lot of the
gaming prior to that is very like historical military based, right.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
The miniatures companies in the UK in particular were all
based on napoleonics, ancients and some World War two, but
there was no fancy element as such, even though fancy
was pretty well established in UK mythology from George and
the Dragon or a Thurian Knights, and of course the
books from Tolkien and others. So I guess there was
(06:17):
no surprise that fancy gaming would ultimately come along as
a viable genre to enjoy play.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, you described that, even Dungeons and Dragons kind of
arises out of Chainmail, this military battle game that Gary
Gygax said co created.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Right, Yeah, but he had this fancy supplement and when
he played Dave Arnison's Blackmore, there was that fusion of
the two coming together to create you know, this this
male stone in gaming history that is Dungeons Dragons. But
it was largely down I think to Gary's making it
happen that it was as successful as it was. Clearly
(06:56):
Dave answered kind of probably the original role playing concept
in a fancy world as a result of its previous
gaming experiences, But it's Gary who made it happen. He
took what was largely in Dave Anson's head and turned
into fifty page rule book and then began the commercialization
of that. So he was the driving force behind it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So you mentioned earlier, you know, you had like the
family games and then you mentioned like the Avalon Hill
games that were coming down. Now was there was there
just kind of like a big gap in complexity between say,
the Avalon Hill games and the family games. Was there
not much in between?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
There wasn't really.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
It was kind of full on hobby game as hex
grid long and sometimes difficult to understand rules, which were
the war games and particularly SPI war.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Games and most of the Avalon Hill games.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
And then there was kind of on the other side
of the fence that's almost too easy to play. So
we we wanted some more thing in the middle. And
whilst that was something that we sold through playing Dungeon Dragons,
we also as Games Workshops, started publishing our own board
games to fill out what we thought was a viable gap,
what kind of mid mid core gaming experiences, games like Talisman, Judge, Dread,
(08:19):
Battle Cars, Apocalypse and others that we published under Workshops brand,
as well as publishing Dungeon Dragons.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I remember as a child before I became exposed
to many of these other games, before being exposed to
Dungeons and Dragons and Games Workshop games, we had family
games in the household. My father had some of those
SPI games, and I remember wanting to understand them and
play them, but as a child that was completely overwhelmed
(08:48):
by everything I found in the box.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Well, not only were the rule books completely lengthy and
that you need to be kind of a Philadelphia lawyer
to understand them, just setting up the counters would take
hours as well, and I left any time for actually playing.
I mean, some games like nineteen fourteen would last for
days if you fee allowed it too, so it was
almost like work rather than play sometimes.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
And now on the subject of miniatures and miniature war games,
until very recently, I really didn't know how much how
far back it went. I think I saw in this
is tremendously ill, but I saw some wonderful footage of
the late actor Peter Cushing painting miniature soldiers and plotting
out battles with historical bas Napoleonic yeah figures, this is
(09:38):
pretty much what it consisted of. Prior to your work.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
Well over one hundred years ago, there was lead miniatures
put out there, a kind of fifty four millimeter scale
or the twenty five millimeters that we did through typical
wargaming and fantasy gaming miniatures of our time, but there
were many historical figures that people collected and sometimes four battles.
I mean, if you go back to Edwardian times, those
(10:06):
there were many companies actually put producing lead figures which
were painted, and so I think toy soldiers is nothing new.
It's just that toy soldiers that we made at Citadel
Miniatures were fantasy figures rather than historical wargame figures.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Can you describe a little bit how Citadel Miniatures came
together as part of or auxiliary to games workshop.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Yes, well, we'd been running workshops since nineteen seventy five.
We decided to up our game in terms of publishing,
so we dropped al and weaseled our little fanzine and
started publishing White Dwarf Magazine, and we started running conventions
Games Day. It's one of those conventions that Brian Ansell,
(10:53):
who was running a company called as Guard Minutes of
the time, we met him briefly. There also ordering quite
a lot of giant rats and other figures from him
that could be used in d games, and he requested
a meeting with us, and so we met him in
seventy eight and he said that, you know, I can
(11:14):
be the answer to your miniatures problem. Because at that
time we were importing most of our games from the US,
from Ralph Parth in particular and Archive miniatures, and they
were obviously very expensive to import, with not just a
shipping cost but the import duty costs, and then the
delivery times were also sort of the logistics of the
supply chain was a bit challenging. So we agreed that
(11:36):
we set up a company with him, and we call
that company citid Our Miniatures. But it was based where
he lived in the Midlands, around around Nottingham, and that's
how Ciciel came to be and it became just an
amazing additive to the Games Workshop REMIT, which had historically
just been publishing board games and opening retail shops.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And if things keep moving with the miniatures, how does
it how does it grow in terms of the miniature's
role in the games, Because I mean nowadays with Games Workshop,
at least for me, like I think about the games
and the minis and it's like it's very hard to
differentiate between the two. But it sounds like from what
(12:25):
are read in the book, like at times that is
kind of a struggle to decide even in the early
days of Games Workshop, like what is what is the
area that should be receiving the most attention, the miniatures
or the games, Like what is the interaction between these
two areas well?
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Steve and I were running the games division effectively, so
we wanted to put more resource into publishing board games,
publishing more role playing games, opening more shops, publishing more
magazines as well as white dwarf. So it's all around
the kind of print media and retal division. Whereas Brian
Anser was running miniatures, wanted more resources allocated to more miniatures,
(13:04):
and he had a great point because that the gross
margin in miniatures was quite high, and he also argued
that there should be a set of rules that enabled
more minutes to be sold, because if you're making miniatures
for role playing game, you tend to sell them in
single units because you only need one beholder or one skeleton,
(13:24):
or one cleric or one fighter. So really that's how
the Warhammer concept came about, as a way to sell
units of miniatures rather than single figures. At the same
time in ninety at the end of nineteen seventy eight,
and we lost the exclusivity with Dungeon Dragons. Now, Gary
gig As I said earlier, had given us a three
(13:45):
year exclusive distribution agreement which ended the end of seventy
eight in the beginning, then in seventy nine he came
to business and said that he wanted to merge his
company TSR with our company Games Workshop, and we would
be given like kind a third of the by identity.
But Steve and I were kind of independently minded young
Brits at the time and we didn't want to have
(14:07):
a split life between London and Wisconsin, so we said
no to that merger opportunity. So whilst remind the biggest
distributors of Dungeons and Dragons and TSR Hobbies Games, we're
no longer the exclusive distributor, and it was only a
matter of time before they had set up in the
UK and have their own distribution points and we might
obviously be.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That would obviously impact on our celves.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
So we know, we knew we needed something that was
going to be our own intellectual property. We determined our
own destiny in our future. But it had to something
that could resonate with a wide audience and be able
to scale. So as we had some considerable success with
some of the board games that we published, another role
playing games that we published on the license, like Traveler
(14:52):
and ruin Quest, and important games like Call of a Cuthulhu.
It wasn't really until Warhammer came about that we were
suddenly in in a much better place in terms of
being able to be independent. And it was an original
idea from Bright Ansel to publish a kind of free
set of rules as a as a giveaway with the
(15:12):
mail orders. But then he brought in Rick Priestley and
Richard Halliwell to kind of beef up the rules, and
when they were played, he decided, well, rather than just
give them away, let's make this into a product itself.
And that's how Warhammer, the original Fancy Battle game came
out in nineteen eighty three, and even though it was
loaded with errors and mistakes and wasn't particularly complete, it
(15:34):
sold out very quickly. Some three thousand copies went pretty
much immediately. So that's how the second edition of Warhammer
came about. And then they realized that, you know what,
if this is our own ip, we should focus more
on it rather than other people's products. And therefore Warhammer
was really was They became front and central focus for
(15:55):
the whole of the company.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
So all the rules enabled more minutes to be sold.
White Dwarf then focused.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
On on on on Warhammer the retail stores. There something
less of imported products and more of our own products,
and that's that slow move over happened over quite a
few months before it became a totally Warhammer focused company.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Now in the book, you describe the first space marine
minis that come about, and there are some lovely photographs
as well. I have to stress for anyone out there
who's interested in the book, there are so many wonderful
photographs and scans as well of some of these uh uh,
these early magazine publications and you know, early editions of
(16:41):
White Dwarf. It's it's fact, it's like a scrapbook.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Well, I like to think it as as a personal
memoile where there as much historical, photographic and image reference
as possible. And it's say it's more of a a biography,
personal biography warts and all and full of anecdotes, or
on a business, a book about business.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
And that's why there are over four.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
Hundred photographs in the book, some which of which I
mean a lot of which had never been seen before, you.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Know, rummaging around in the roof.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
In the in the left looking for a old thirty
five millimeters transparencies slides that we had to have scan
and getting really excited finding looking at slides you hadn't
seen for some you know, forty five years. It's just
as an amazing experience in itself. And then writing more
and more, and then talking to more colleagues to validate
(17:32):
what we've said, and remembering all this weird stuff that happened,
like having to live in a van for three months
because he couldn't get any bank finance. You're going to
see the bank manager telling about dungeon and dragons. It
looks like you're like, you're mad and nice you to leave.
So we had to finance everything out of out of
cash flow, and it'd only afford her into a very
small office at the back of the state agent, and
(17:53):
had to live in Steve's van throughout three months of
an awful winter. But you know, I think I said
it the books. You could call it living the gym,
but clearly it wasn't. But when you're driven by passion
around your own hobby, it doesn't seem like hardship.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The van in question, is this is Van Morrison? Correct?
Speaker 5 (18:12):
That was the nickname, the one only Van Morrison. Yes,
a big blue van that was our home for three months.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah. The personal stories are so such a wonderful aspect
of the book. Again, all these photographs of the real
people involved in these games and in games workshop, but
it really beefs up the personal story. And then you
have these little so many of these anecdotes and sort
of little adventures that pop up along the way.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Yeah, like going too the States to see let's see
Carrie in nineteen seventy six to in theory a ten
gen Con nine, but taking that two months to get there,
and delivering cars from New York to LA, then another
one from LA to San Francisco and then on from
to Chicago, and all the adventures had along the route.
It was a year of the It was the Olympics
(19:03):
year and McDonald's are running this promotion where if the
US want to a gold medal, you want to I
think it was a big mac and then if they
want to selve medal, you get a large fries and
a bronze you get a coke.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
And so we were being kind of pretty.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
Chatted by wanting the US to win all these all
these all these medals, because if you had a ticket
that matched the winning winning sport, you'd win one of
the items.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
So that kept us alive on the road.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And this is was this off the trip where you
went through Vegas?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, yeah, that part was very interesting as well, in
part because you're describing like taking a jount through the
casinos there and in a way kind of witnessing gaming
or at its worst, you know, at it's kind of
like crushing worst whilst you and your cohorts are kind
(19:58):
of on this like mission of and you know, and
you've been describing like just being so inspired by these
new ideas and then these two game possibilities they're emerging.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
I mean, I think that Vegas and if you go
there for a few days, but to see people isn't
their money. One particular gentleman from Japan, it was a
bit sad to see his one hundred dollar bills disappear
so quickly that we didn't dare gamble a penny because
we just couldn't afford it.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So how long did this did this process of going
back and sort of piecing together the story of the
early games workshops days, you know, trying to find these
various photographs, Like how long did it take to put
all this together?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Well?
Speaker 5 (20:42):
I thought it was going to take about six months,
and I think it took nearly four years. Because it
wasn't just the process of doing it I was.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It was also.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
It was doing it in times when I was free,
because even though I'm nearly seventy three years old, I'm
still very much looking full time on various projects, still
writing firey fantasy game books and game books in which
you are the hero of the branching narrative with the
game system attached.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's the fortieth.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Anniversary of this year and I wrote a new book
to celebrate that, Shadows of the Giants, which was great
to go back to my roots in that respect. And
I'm also I also have my own school in Bournemouth
which is all around digital creativity and good arts education
using game based learning and very much influenced by Dungeon
Dragons the power of players it were. And as I mentioned,
(21:34):
I'm also a general partner Hero Capital, which is a
venture capital fund investing in video games, studios and technologies.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
So it's a question of finding the time.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
And then the more I spent researching and writing, the
more I wanted it to be as good it could
possibly be, And so I went the extra mile, so
to speak to to try and tell the full story
and make sure what I said was validated by cross
referencing in magazines and talking to the people were who
(22:07):
were around at the time. Sadly some of those people
have since passed away, but nevertheless, I think it's a
it's a pretty accurate account of those origin years of
origin story years of seventy five to eighty five.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, and I have to stress to everyone out there,
you don't have to be like a game designer or
just to be like a really hardcore gaming fan to
find the story engaging. You know, it's it's ultimately the
story of people and their passions.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yes, I says, I'd like to see almost like a
coffee table book where you can just casually look at
the images of the time, the fashions and the things
we did in the seventies and early eighties, but also,
if you're curious, you know, read some of the story
behind what became an incredible company. Now were some three
billion dollars on the London Stock Exchange and also perhaps
(22:59):
be amused by some of the anecdotes told in the story.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Now, you mentioned the Fighting Fantasy game books series, and
I definitely wanted to ask you about about that. I
actually I picked up I picked up The Warlock of
Firetop Mountain prior to this interview, and I was playing
through it with my son a bit and tremendous fun,
encountering all you know, encounting crocodiles and buranas and goblins
(23:23):
and so forth, and very very captivating for both of us,
and I think he was getting he was almost getting
a little too into it, concerned about the danger we
were encountering.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
He's ten.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But this this idea of the game book, Like how
does it?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Like?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
What is that? What is the world of game books?
Prior to your work with game books? And then like,
how like what is the process like of laying these
out and and and creating one that works? Because I
definitely remember as a younger person picking up a game
book by someone else. It was another company, a competitor
(23:59):
I met, and it was heartbreaking when it broke, like
it reached a point where I could not go any
further because there was some sort of number error in
the publication right well.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
I believe Fighting Fancy was the very first game book
series which had a branch and narrative and the game
system attached to it around about the same time, although
we hadn't seen them.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
On this side of the Atlantic.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
The Chooser and Adventure books were out, but they were
more choose your own paragraph. There was no game element
to making. So what we tried to do with Fighting
Fancy was distill a role playing experience into a single
player solo adventure whereby the book replace the games master
(24:47):
and you, the reader, moved from a passive reading experience
into an interactive experience by baking choices. So it's that
empowerment because you are the hero at the end. There
were four hundred paragraph At the end of each one,
you have to make a choice. Simplistically, you turn left
or right, and then there are puzzles to solve. There
(25:08):
are monsters to fight. That's when you use the dice.
There are three basic characteristics skipdamina, and luck, which are
modified through your progress through the adventure. Your skill might
go up if you find a magic potion, or your
stamina might go down if you lose a fight in
combat with a monster and then you test your luck
(25:30):
to escape or try and get extra extra benefits by
rolling dice against your luck roll. So we wanted to
have a very thrilling experience with people that given the
agency through choices empowering and they were hugely successful. They
went on to sell over twenty million copies globally and
(25:52):
they got a whole generation of children reading in the
eighties because of the agency. That empowerment was very compelling.
And this read by word of mouth. Clearly there was
no Internet at the time, but it was the word
of mouth, which is the best kind of variety you
could possibly hope for in the playgrounds of the schools,
initially in the UK and then it spread into Europe
(26:14):
and ultimately globally, and so Walkfi Top Mountain as you
read was the first one. And we wanted to use
our own artists that we'd use at Games Workshop because
we found those really stimulated children's imagination because they were
realistically detailed where it's puffing. Were a bit nervous about
(26:34):
it that the imprint because as they were children's books,
they wanted to write nice safe covers with a little toadstool,
little gnomes sitting on the toe, all of them, butterflies
in the air whilse. We really wanted the kids to
be kind of go, oh, my goodness, what is that
horrendous creature coming at me.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
It's going to buy my head off. So we wanted that.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
Kind of thrill of excitement and then the joy of them,
you know, succeeding by getting.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Through the through the through the books.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
So finally a key in one room allow used to
open a chest or door further on in the adventure,
but right to them, as you say, was an absolute nightmare.
It was like writing multiple storylines at once and having
to bring the readers back to certain common points, no
points where they had to have essential information to allow
(27:26):
them to progress. You had to balance the economy so
there wasn't too much gold or too little gold. You
had to make sure it wasn't too difficult or too easy,
so it was a fun experience but with enough enough
of challenge but not impossible. Make sure there were no
culder sacks and all the choice you make. So he
designed them on a flow chart really is like a
computer computer flow chart, making sure every every split in
(27:50):
the in the in the adventure was notated and what
could be found or not found at each decision point.
But the important thing is that every decision had to
have a consequence, otherwise why have bit branching anyway, So
it was really good fun, and of course my joy
was to lure people to their doom, promise them wealth
and glory with nice rose petals along the pathway, only
(28:12):
for them to fall on poison spikes down a pit,
which was always good fun for me, but of course
most people cheated. It had their multiple pages in the
in the book, and you could see them on public
transport on buses and trains where their fingers about five
places in the books. It always used to make me
laugh when I see that. I used to see that
in those days.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I love the innovation of it. You mentioned the dice
that are used a couple of d six, but I
love the innovation of the dice at various dice combinations
at the bottom of each page that you can flip through.
You don't have physical dice and do a dice roll.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
That was a more recent adaptation innovation in the original books,
which were a much more highly detailed in their illustrations
and perhaps more threatening, it didn't have the distroll.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So yeah, I guess that's.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
It would have made it easier for playing it on
the train. I guess now you mentioned computer games. The
games like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and these other
game books you worked on, these have eventually find their
way into the world of computer gaming, right they did.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
I mean, Iceman doesn't really cover too much about video
games except for what we did at the time in
the early eighties selling Activision games and very early PCs
and console gaming, just when there was an early crash
(29:47):
in the early eighties which had quite a negative impact
on Games Workshop for the amount of stock we had
a retail. But more recently the five Defense of Game
books have been available digitally from from from tim Man
Games in Australia designed them as apps and Nomad Games
have created on games on Switch and also on PC.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
It's more of a top down.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Kind of not a collectible car game, but being rewarded
with cards when you progress through the adventure and ultimately
get through so depth. Chup Dungeon, City of Thieves, the
Forest of Doing of all be important to digital formats,
so there's something for everyone these days.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Books or video games.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
One thing I was wondering about as well is that.
You know, obviously we have this, you know, the rich
world of miniature based games and dungeons and ng dragons,
various role playing games, and these these game books as well,
and in the background or in the forefront, depinding you
look at it, I guess we have the emergence of
of even more video game opportunities. And today we have
(30:54):
some pretty amazing video games out there. The graphics are
better than ever before, the game systems involved are so complicated.
But we as gamers, gamers of all ages, we keep
coming back to to that, like we're coming back to
these game books. We're coming back to physical tabletop games
and to games that take place predominant in our imagination.
What does that mean you think?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
I think one is at the expense of the other.
I think it's nice to have. Do you know I
play both board games. I'm sitting in a room here
you might see with over fifteen hundred board games in
the room, but I also have, you know, hundreds of
video games. I think it's it depends how you feel
on the day. And you can also see that it's that,
you know, Vinyl's made a revival as people don't just
(31:39):
want to stream music to whatever digital advice they have,
they like to have the physicality. Physical books have made
a revival because people like to surround themselves with things
that give them pleasure. The physical as well as the digital.
I think helps satisfy all parts of the human mind,
rather than one at the expense of the other. House
(32:00):
so I enjoy both. It depends on who I'm going
to play with or what I'm going to read, and
in what form I happened to be using at the time.
If I'm traveling, obviously it's going to be digital. If
I'm at home, probably physical.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Now I'm going to Coneck to something I was going
to ask earlier and we end up going in a
different direction. But you describe the first space Marine minis
in the book, and there's some lovely photographs of the
little minis as well. The space Marines of warm Er
forty thousand have certainly become very iconic. They're very recognizable,
part of the of the of the brand in clearly
(32:36):
big business as well. How did this concept originally come together?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Well, they've changed an awful lot of time, the Space
Marines of the eighties to the Space Marines of today.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
They've just got bigger.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Bolder and stronger and have got an incredible esthetic around
them now of course, and everyone everyone loves them.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
They came from very hubble beginnings.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
I think Bob Nasmith came up with the original space
bringing look and feel in his iconic first miniature. So
I call things small like acorns. They become oaks over time,
have given the rights environment for growth through their popularity.
So it's great to see them so amazing successful today.
(33:21):
And there's the power of Warhammer Porty k is extraordinary.
I think there's some talking to about video games. I
think there's some fifty licenses now and some extraordinary games
being put out there. So the world of Warhammer is
rich and famous and widespread now.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Obviously there's a there's a lot to say about about
game design and approaches to game design and in the
business of game design and the business of gaming. Do
you have any quick advice to throw out there to
anyone who is a budding game designer or thinks they
want to get into the industry of game design.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Well, I guess it depends on what part of the
industry you want to get into. Is it tabletop war gaming,
is it board games, is it video games?
Speaker 3 (34:06):
The thing that unites them more.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
When people ask me what's the most the three most
important things about a game, I will say gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.
In video games, whilst technology and graphics are essential, they
play a supporting role. It always comes down to how
you're enjoying the game to play, rather than what things
look like. But in a board game, of course, great
production values has really enhanced that experience now with all
(34:32):
the bits, and the graphics are amazing now, but the
gameplay is what makes us want to start playing in
the first place. So games should be quick to learn
but difficult to master, so you can get various degrees
of expert abilities in these games. The better play you are,
you should be more successful in winning. And of course
(34:55):
you need an exciting theme that resonates with everybody. I mean,
in board games, it's no surprise that Ticket to Ride
has been successful. You could learn it very quickly, but
it takes a long time to become a master of it. Really,
all the strategies, it looks great, The trains resonate with everybody.
(35:15):
The pieces are lovely because you pick up these little
train carriers and plot them around the board. So it's
kind of got all the component parts of a classically
successful game, and similarly with video games, there the appeal
has to be in the gameplay and then the meta
level of course that's common denominate about all these is
(35:37):
the enjoyment caused by people playing together. So it's that
joy by anything that is a shared experience is always enhanced,
and there's always an enhanced experience, whether it's looking at
a sunset or having dinner or going to the cinema
with somebody, and obviously with games, you're playing.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
With somebody that that's that's.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
That's that fun that's created by just the conversation, whether
it's the shared experience of enjoyment or doing a deal
and renegey on it. That's as that extra level of enjoyment.
So there's a there are many things to consider when
designing a game, but there's kind of there's there's four
basic principles.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I think he's absolutely vital to include.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Now you mentioned earlier all the all the activities that
you're involved in. You and of course you're a legend
in the game design industry. Do you do you still
gather with friends and just play games purely recreationally.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
We play once a week with the same group of
people since the eighties, so still Steve Jackson plus Peter
Molnu from the video games industry, one of the UK's
premiere designers. I mean he created Populos originally, and Fable
and Black and White and other amazing video games titles.
And it's kind of a tongue in cheek Gentleman's club
(37:02):
in that we play games and keep a record all
the games played every every week and score points, and
I send out a newsletter the games. That newsletter largely
just to criticize the other people playing. It allows me
as secretary to treat it as my own kind of
give them verbal abuse the whole time. At the end
(37:24):
of the year, we have a cup, the cup that's
presented to the champion. So we don't take ourselves seriously
about doing it, but it adds another dimension to play
in the games that we do. So you've been doing
it for say, since the eighties. I've published six hundred
and twenty seven issues of the Game that Newsletter to
(37:45):
a circulation to six people.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So coming back to the book for a second again.
The book is Dice Men, The Origin Story of Games Workshop.
We talked a little bit about how it came together.
But why did it come together? Why now?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Two?
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Well, I started writing it about four years ago, largely
because Games Workshop was doing so well as a company.
Everyone was saying, what is this games company on the
London Stock Exchange that's now worth three or four billion dollars?
Speaker 3 (38:14):
That's ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
How can it be worth more than some of the
major corporations I've known all my life? Where did it
come from? And when I meet people, I said, you know,
what was your first how do you get into into games?
And so I started coming calls Games Workshop and they said,
well how did that come about? So I thought, you
know what it really is about time this was put
down in writing as a kind of a personal memoir
(38:37):
and something that could be there for posterity long after
I've gone and Steve's gone. It would be there for
people who might be remotely interested in what has been
an incredible journey, the kind of birth of the game
industry in the UK and globally. Really it was such
an amateur thing in the in the in the seventies.
(38:59):
But to see that down on paper and won't be
lost forever, I thought it was important thing to do.
So here we are life is a game for us.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Well, it's a it's a it's a great read. I
highly recommend it to our listeners. And I want to
thank you for coming on the show. And I also
want to just thank you for you know, helping to
bring about all these great creations that mean so much
to us. I mean the Warhammer, Warhammer forty thousand, uh like,
these are these are things that still bring me a
lot of joy today as an adult, and certainly gave
(39:30):
me a lot of joy when I first discovered them
as a kid.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Thank you. That's very kind of you said that.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
I mean, for me as a games player, to being
able to working games for forty seven years being absolute
privilege and a joy.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Thanks once more to sir Ian for taking time out
of his day to chat with me here. It was
a real pleasure.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Again.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
The book is Dice Men, the Origin Story of Games Workshop,
written with Steve Jackson. You can find that wherever you
get your books. I highly recommend checking it out and
picking it up. Just a reminder that core episodes of
Stuff to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
with a listener mail episode on Mondays. A short form
(40:14):
Monster Factor Artifact episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays, we
set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a
weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you have any
questions that you would like to ask, any information you'd
like to share. Do you have particular memories of any
of these games workshop creations that you would like to
(40:34):
bring up, or if you have experience with the Fighting
Fantasy game books series. I know these were near and
dear to a lot of folks growing up, write in.
We would love to hear from you and potentially read
those messages on a future episode of Listener Mail. Thanks
as always to Max and JJ for producing, editing, and
(40:55):
splicing everything together here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind
and Yeah, if you want to reach out to us,
you can email us at contact and Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to
go into the vault for an older episode of the show.
This one originally published on December twenty seventh, twenty twenty two.
And Robert, is an interview you did with Ian Livingstone.
Livingstone Livingstone Livingstone.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yes, yeah, this was a fun one that I did
last year. I think they're in like the holiday seasons
when you know, some folks were out and trying to
line up some chats and yeah, this is one of
the creators of Games Workshop, and he has his hands
and his mind and so many other games and just
like game systems in general. So this was a really
(00:47):
fun chat and I'm excited to share it with everyone again.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Let's jump right in.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb, and today I'd like to present an
interview I recorded earlier this month with Sir Ian Livingstone,
co founder of Games Workshop and co author of the
Fighting Fantasy game book series. Now, the creations to come
out of Games Workshop, especially have meant so much to
me over the years, and it was a real honor
(01:26):
to chat with him about the early days of Games Workshop,
about old school gaming in general, the meaning of games,
and of course his new book, Dice Men, The Origin
Story of Games Workshop, which he wrote with Steve Jackson.
The book is out now digitally in the physical version
is either out or available for pre order, depending on
(01:47):
what region you're in. Either way you get it, pick
it up. It's a great read. It has so many
wonderful images in it. It will really transport you back in time.
It tells a great tale. So, without further ado, let's
jump right into the interview. Hi, Ian, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
It's great to speak to you today.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So the book is Dice Mean The Origin Story of
Games Workshop, written with Steve Jackson, and I think at
this point a great number of our listeners out there
are certainly well acquainted with the name Games Workshop. Even
if you didn't grow up with the games and the
miniatures like I did, and like many many others did,
you're still going to probably be aware of all the novels,
(02:26):
the video games, the animated series and so much more.
It's big business. But I thought you might take us
back and just in brief remind us what Games Workshop
was back in the day when you and Steve Jackson
co founded it.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Well, Steve and I were old school friends and we
met up in London in the seventies and our passion
was playing board games, mainly those that came from the US,
games like Diplomacy and Avalon Hill Games. And we thought,
wouldn't it be great we could somehow turn our passion
of playing games into some sort of fledgling business. So
we decided to publish a small fan called Out and Weasel,
(03:01):
and we sent one copy to everybody wenew in Games,
and although we hadn't sent it to him directly, one
found its way to the desk of Gary Gygax in
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and Gary wrote to us and said,
love your little fanzine. His this game I've just published
and designed. What do you think? And that game was
(03:22):
Dungeons and Dragons, And whilst it didn't look much pretty
playing box with a very ordinary illustration on the cover,
it opened up your imagination like no game had ever
done before, and I don't think any game ever will again,
in that it allowed a new form of interactive entertainment.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Role playing people playing.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
As heroes and wizards, exploring the labyrinth designed by games Master,
and through theater on the fly, conversing in craziness. Incredible
narrative story between the players as they forged their way
through the dungeons, killing monsters and finding treasure. So we
ordered six copies of D and D because that's all
(04:02):
the money we actually had in our lives. And on
the back of that order, Gary gave us a three
year exclusive distribution agreement for the whole of Europe, so
we were effectively all playing is role playing people about
a role playing game. It was very amateursh but that's
how things started in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, it was fascinating to read your take on the
gaming world prior to the creation of games Workshop and
prior to the introduction and creation of both Dungeons and Dragons,
just how niche was gaming beyond family staples like Monopoly.
During the nineteen sixties, for example.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Well, in the UK there was one company Dominator that
was Waddington's and they published Monopoly include which is Clue
in the US, Buccaneer and Formula one. And these games
were enjoyable enough, but they were never satisfied gamers like
Steve and myself. We wanted something more where there's more
strategy than luck, and where you could do a negotiation
(05:00):
and have a kind of a metal level of enjoyment
by all the bargaining and reneging on deals that could happen. Obviously,
Diplomas is perfect for that kind of play where you
can backstand people at will in order to dominate the world.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So those are the games we looked out for.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
But D and D really changed our minds of the
type of game we want to play. We suddenly immersed
in this incredible fancy world and a kind of tolkienesque
world of monster magic going on, these fantastic jos of
mind through conversation, and it was that theater of the
Fly that I just mentioned that became a place where
we wanted to visit all the time.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Are you saying that it also Dungeons and Dragons sort
of opened up the space for fantasy itself to be
part of gaming because you describe a lot of the
gaming prior to that is very like historical military based, right.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
The miniatures companies in the UK in particular were all
based on napoleonics, ancients and some World War two, but
there was no fancy element as such, even though fancy
was pretty well established in UK mythology from George and
the Dragon or a Thurian Knights, and of course the
books from Tolkien and others. So I guess there was
(06:17):
no surprise that fancy gaming would ultimately come along as
a viable genre to enjoy play.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, you described that, even Dungeons and Dragons kind of
arises out of Chainmail, this military battle game that Gary
Gygax said co created.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Right, Yeah, but he had this fancy supplement and when
he played Dave Arnison's Blackmore, there was that fusion of
the two coming together to create you know, this this
male stone in gaming history that is Dungeons Dragons. But
it was largely down I think to Gary's making it
happen that it was as successful as it was. Clearly
(06:56):
Dave answered kind of probably the original role playing concept
in a fancy world as a result of its previous
gaming experiences, But it's Gary who made it happen. He
took what was largely in Dave Anson's head and turned
into fifty page rule book and then began the commercialization
of that. So he was the driving force behind it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So you mentioned earlier, you know, you had like the
family games and then you mentioned like the Avalon Hill
games that were coming down. Now was there was there
just kind of like a big gap in complexity between say,
the Avalon Hill games and the family games. Was there
not much in between?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
There wasn't really.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
It was kind of full on hobby game as hex
grid long and sometimes difficult to understand rules, which were
the war games and particularly SPI war.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Games and most of the Avalon Hill games.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
And then there was kind of on the other side
of the fence that's almost too easy to play. So
we we wanted some more thing in the middle. And
whilst that was something that we sold through playing Dungeon Dragons,
we also as Games Workshops, started publishing our own board
games to fill out what we thought was a viable gap,
what kind of mid mid core gaming experiences, games like Talisman, Judge, Dread,
(08:19):
Battle Cars, Apocalypse and others that we published under Workshops brand,
as well as publishing Dungeon Dragons.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I remember as a child before I became exposed
to many of these other games, before being exposed to
Dungeons and Dragons and Games Workshop games, we had family
games in the household. My father had some of those
SPI games, and I remember wanting to understand them and
play them, but as a child that was completely overwhelmed
(08:48):
by everything I found in the box.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Well, not only were the rule books completely lengthy and
that you need to be kind of a Philadelphia lawyer
to understand them, just setting up the counters would take
hours as well, and I left any time for actually playing.
I mean, some games like nineteen fourteen would last for
days if you fee allowed it too, so it was
almost like work rather than play sometimes.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
And now on the subject of miniatures and miniature war games,
until very recently, I really didn't know how much how
far back it went. I think I saw in this
is tremendously ill, but I saw some wonderful footage of
the late actor Peter Cushing painting miniature soldiers and plotting
out battles with historical bas Napoleonic yeah figures, this is
(09:38):
pretty much what it consisted of. Prior to your work.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
Well over one hundred years ago, there was lead miniatures
put out there, a kind of fifty four millimeter scale
or the twenty five millimeters that we did through typical
wargaming and fantasy gaming miniatures of our time, but there
were many historical figures that people collected and sometimes four battles.
I mean, if you go back to Edwardian times, those
(10:06):
there were many companies actually put producing lead figures which
were painted, and so I think toy soldiers is nothing new.
It's just that toy soldiers that we made at Citadel
Miniatures were fantasy figures rather than historical wargame figures.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Can you describe a little bit how Citadel Miniatures came
together as part of or auxiliary to games workshop.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Yes, well, we'd been running workshops since nineteen seventy five.
We decided to up our game in terms of publishing,
so we dropped al and weaseled our little fanzine and
started publishing White Dwarf Magazine, and we started running conventions
Games Day. It's one of those conventions that Brian Ansell,
(10:53):
who was running a company called as Guard Minutes of
the time, we met him briefly. There also ordering quite
a lot of giant rats and other figures from him
that could be used in d games, and he requested
a meeting with us, and so we met him in
seventy eight and he said that, you know, I can
(11:14):
be the answer to your miniatures problem. Because at that
time we were importing most of our games from the US,
from Ralph Parth in particular and Archive miniatures, and they
were obviously very expensive to import, with not just a
shipping cost but the import duty costs, and then the
delivery times were also sort of the logistics of the
supply chain was a bit challenging. So we agreed that
(11:36):
we set up a company with him, and we call
that company citid Our Miniatures. But it was based where
he lived in the Midlands, around around Nottingham, and that's
how Ciciel came to be and it became just an
amazing additive to the Games Workshop REMIT, which had historically
just been publishing board games and opening retail shops.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And if things keep moving with the miniatures, how does
it how does it grow in terms of the miniature's
role in the games, Because I mean nowadays with Games Workshop,
at least for me, like I think about the games
and the minis and it's like it's very hard to
differentiate between the two. But it sounds like from what
(12:25):
are read in the book, like at times that is
kind of a struggle to decide even in the early
days of Games Workshop, like what is what is the
area that should be receiving the most attention, the miniatures
or the games, Like what is the interaction between these
two areas well?
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Steve and I were running the games division effectively, so
we wanted to put more resource into publishing board games,
publishing more role playing games, opening more shops, publishing more
magazines as well as white dwarf. So it's all around
the kind of print media and retal division. Whereas Brian
Anser was running miniatures, wanted more resources allocated to more miniatures,
(13:04):
and he had a great point because that the gross
margin in miniatures was quite high, and he also argued
that there should be a set of rules that enabled
more minutes to be sold, because if you're making miniatures
for role playing game, you tend to sell them in
single units because you only need one beholder or one skeleton,
(13:24):
or one cleric or one fighter. So really that's how
the Warhammer concept came about, as a way to sell
units of miniatures rather than single figures. At the same
time in ninety at the end of nineteen seventy eight,
and we lost the exclusivity with Dungeon Dragons. Now, Gary
gig As I said earlier, had given us a three
(13:45):
year exclusive distribution agreement which ended the end of seventy
eight in the beginning, then in seventy nine he came
to business and said that he wanted to merge his
company TSR with our company Games Workshop, and we would
be given like kind a third of the by identity.
But Steve and I were kind of independently minded young
Brits at the time and we didn't want to have
(14:07):
a split life between London and Wisconsin, so we said
no to that merger opportunity. So whilst remind the biggest
distributors of Dungeons and Dragons and TSR Hobbies Games, we're
no longer the exclusive distributor, and it was only a
matter of time before they had set up in the
UK and have their own distribution points and we might
obviously be.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That would obviously impact on our celves.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
So we know, we knew we needed something that was
going to be our own intellectual property. We determined our
own destiny in our future. But it had to something
that could resonate with a wide audience and be able
to scale. So as we had some considerable success with
some of the board games that we published, another role
playing games that we published on the license, like Traveler
(14:52):
and ruin Quest, and important games like Call of a Cuthulhu.
It wasn't really until Warhammer came about that we were
suddenly in in a much better place in terms of
being able to be independent. And it was an original
idea from Bright Ansel to publish a kind of free
set of rules as a as a giveaway with the
(15:12):
mail orders. But then he brought in Rick Priestley and
Richard Halliwell to kind of beef up the rules, and
when they were played, he decided, well, rather than just
give them away, let's make this into a product itself.
And that's how Warhammer, the original Fancy Battle game came
out in nineteen eighty three, and even though it was
loaded with errors and mistakes and wasn't particularly complete, it
(15:34):
sold out very quickly. Some three thousand copies went pretty
much immediately. So that's how the second edition of Warhammer
came about. And then they realized that, you know what,
if this is our own ip, we should focus more
on it rather than other people's products. And therefore Warhammer
was really was They became front and central focus for
(15:55):
the whole of the company.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
So all the rules enabled more minutes to be sold.
White Dwarf then focused.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
On on on on Warhammer the retail stores. There something
less of imported products and more of our own products,
and that's that slow move over happened over quite a
few months before it became a totally Warhammer focused company.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Now in the book, you describe the first space marine
minis that come about, and there are some lovely photographs
as well. I have to stress for anyone out there
who's interested in the book, there are so many wonderful
photographs and scans as well of some of these uh uh,
these early magazine publications and you know, early editions of
(16:41):
White Dwarf. It's it's fact, it's like a scrapbook.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Well, I like to think it as as a personal
memoile where there as much historical, photographic and image reference
as possible. And it's say it's more of a a biography,
personal biography warts and all and full of anecdotes, or
on a business, a book about business.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
And that's why there are over four.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
Hundred photographs in the book, some which of which I
mean a lot of which had never been seen before, you.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Know, rummaging around in the roof.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
In the in the left looking for a old thirty
five millimeters transparencies slides that we had to have scan
and getting really excited finding looking at slides you hadn't
seen for some you know, forty five years. It's just
as an amazing experience in itself. And then writing more
and more, and then talking to more colleagues to validate
(17:32):
what we've said, and remembering all this weird stuff that happened,
like having to live in a van for three months
because he couldn't get any bank finance. You're going to
see the bank manager telling about dungeon and dragons. It
looks like you're like, you're mad and nice you to leave.
So we had to finance everything out of out of
cash flow, and it'd only afford her into a very
small office at the back of the state agent, and
(17:53):
had to live in Steve's van throughout three months of
an awful winter. But you know, I think I said
it the books. You could call it living the gym,
but clearly it wasn't. But when you're driven by passion
around your own hobby, it doesn't seem like hardship.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The van in question, is this is Van Morrison? Correct?
Speaker 5 (18:12):
That was the nickname, the one only Van Morrison. Yes,
a big blue van that was our home for three months.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah. The personal stories are so such a wonderful aspect
of the book. Again, all these photographs of the real
people involved in these games and in games workshop, but
it really beefs up the personal story. And then you
have these little so many of these anecdotes and sort
of little adventures that pop up along the way.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Yeah, like going too the States to see let's see
Carrie in nineteen seventy six to in theory a ten
gen Con nine, but taking that two months to get there,
and delivering cars from New York to LA, then another
one from LA to San Francisco and then on from
to Chicago, and all the adventures had along the route.
It was a year of the It was the Olympics
(19:03):
year and McDonald's are running this promotion where if the
US want to a gold medal, you want to I
think it was a big mac and then if they
want to selve medal, you get a large fries and
a bronze you get a coke.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
And so we were being kind of pretty.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
Chatted by wanting the US to win all these all
these all these medals, because if you had a ticket
that matched the winning winning sport, you'd win one of
the items.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
So that kept us alive on the road.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And this is was this off the trip where you
went through Vegas?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, yeah, that part was very interesting as well, in
part because you're describing like taking a jount through the
casinos there and in a way kind of witnessing gaming
or at its worst, you know, at it's kind of
like crushing worst whilst you and your cohorts are kind
(19:58):
of on this like mission of and you know, and
you've been describing like just being so inspired by these
new ideas and then these two game possibilities they're emerging.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
I mean, I think that Vegas and if you go
there for a few days, but to see people isn't
their money. One particular gentleman from Japan, it was a
bit sad to see his one hundred dollar bills disappear
so quickly that we didn't dare gamble a penny because
we just couldn't afford it.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So how long did this did this process of going
back and sort of piecing together the story of the
early games workshops days, you know, trying to find these
various photographs, Like how long did it take to put
all this together?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Well?
Speaker 5 (20:42):
I thought it was going to take about six months,
and I think it took nearly four years. Because it
wasn't just the process of doing it I was.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It was also.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
It was doing it in times when I was free,
because even though I'm nearly seventy three years old, I'm
still very much looking full time on various projects, still
writing firey fantasy game books and game books in which
you are the hero of the branching narrative with the
game system attached.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's the fortieth.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Anniversary of this year and I wrote a new book
to celebrate that, Shadows of the Giants, which was great
to go back to my roots in that respect. And
I'm also I also have my own school in Bournemouth
which is all around digital creativity and good arts education
using game based learning and very much influenced by Dungeon
Dragons the power of players it were. And as I mentioned,
(21:34):
I'm also a general partner Hero Capital, which is a
venture capital fund investing in video games, studios and technologies.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
So it's a question of finding the time.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
And then the more I spent researching and writing, the
more I wanted it to be as good it could
possibly be, And so I went the extra mile, so
to speak to to try and tell the full story
and make sure what I said was validated by cross
referencing in magazines and talking to the people were who
(22:07):
were around at the time. Sadly some of those people
have since passed away, but nevertheless, I think it's a
it's a pretty accurate account of those origin years of
origin story years of seventy five to eighty five.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, and I have to stress to everyone out there,
you don't have to be like a game designer or
just to be like a really hardcore gaming fan to
find the story engaging. You know, it's it's ultimately the
story of people and their passions.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yes, I says, I'd like to see almost like a
coffee table book where you can just casually look at
the images of the time, the fashions and the things
we did in the seventies and early eighties, but also,
if you're curious, you know, read some of the story
behind what became an incredible company. Now were some three
billion dollars on the London Stock Exchange and also perhaps
(22:59):
be amused by some of the anecdotes told in the story.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Now, you mentioned the Fighting Fantasy game books series, and
I definitely wanted to ask you about about that. I
actually I picked up I picked up The Warlock of
Firetop Mountain prior to this interview, and I was playing
through it with my son a bit and tremendous fun,
encountering all you know, encounting crocodiles and buranas and goblins
(23:23):
and so forth, and very very captivating for both of us,
and I think he was getting he was almost getting
a little too into it, concerned about the danger we
were encountering.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
He's ten.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But this this idea of the game book, Like how
does it?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Like?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
What is that? What is the world of game books?
Prior to your work with game books? And then like,
how like what is the process like of laying these
out and and and creating one that works? Because I
definitely remember as a younger person picking up a game
book by someone else. It was another company, a competitor
(23:59):
I met, and it was heartbreaking when it broke, like
it reached a point where I could not go any
further because there was some sort of number error in
the publication right well.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
I believe Fighting Fancy was the very first game book
series which had a branch and narrative and the game
system attached to it around about the same time, although
we hadn't seen them.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
On this side of the Atlantic.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
The Chooser and Adventure books were out, but they were
more choose your own paragraph. There was no game element
to making. So what we tried to do with Fighting
Fancy was distill a role playing experience into a single
player solo adventure whereby the book replace the games master
(24:47):
and you, the reader, moved from a passive reading experience
into an interactive experience by baking choices. So it's that
empowerment because you are the hero at the end. There
were four hundred paragraph At the end of each one,
you have to make a choice. Simplistically, you turn left
or right, and then there are puzzles to solve. There
(25:08):
are monsters to fight. That's when you use the dice.
There are three basic characteristics skipdamina, and luck, which are
modified through your progress through the adventure. Your skill might
go up if you find a magic potion, or your
stamina might go down if you lose a fight in
combat with a monster and then you test your luck
(25:30):
to escape or try and get extra extra benefits by
rolling dice against your luck roll. So we wanted to
have a very thrilling experience with people that given the
agency through choices empowering and they were hugely successful. They
went on to sell over twenty million copies globally and
(25:52):
they got a whole generation of children reading in the
eighties because of the agency. That empowerment was very compelling.
And this read by word of mouth. Clearly there was
no Internet at the time, but it was the word
of mouth, which is the best kind of variety you
could possibly hope for in the playgrounds of the schools,
initially in the UK and then it spread into Europe
(26:14):
and ultimately globally, and so Walkfi Top Mountain as you
read was the first one. And we wanted to use
our own artists that we'd use at Games Workshop because
we found those really stimulated children's imagination because they were
realistically detailed where it's puffing. Were a bit nervous about
(26:34):
it that the imprint because as they were children's books,
they wanted to write nice safe covers with a little toadstool,
little gnomes sitting on the toe, all of them, butterflies
in the air whilse. We really wanted the kids to
be kind of go, oh, my goodness, what is that
horrendous creature coming at me.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
It's going to buy my head off. So we wanted that.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
Kind of thrill of excitement and then the joy of them,
you know, succeeding by getting.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Through the through the through the books.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
So finally a key in one room allow used to
open a chest or door further on in the adventure,
but right to them, as you say, was an absolute nightmare.
It was like writing multiple storylines at once and having
to bring the readers back to certain common points, no
points where they had to have essential information to allow
(27:26):
them to progress. You had to balance the economy so
there wasn't too much gold or too little gold. You
had to make sure it wasn't too difficult or too easy,
so it was a fun experience but with enough enough
of challenge but not impossible. Make sure there were no
culder sacks and all the choice you make. So he
designed them on a flow chart really is like a
computer computer flow chart, making sure every every split in
(27:50):
the in the in the adventure was notated and what
could be found or not found at each decision point.
But the important thing is that every decision had to
have a consequence, otherwise why have bit branching anyway, So
it was really good fun, and of course my joy
was to lure people to their doom, promise them wealth
and glory with nice rose petals along the pathway, only
(28:12):
for them to fall on poison spikes down a pit,
which was always good fun for me, but of course
most people cheated. It had their multiple pages in the
in the book, and you could see them on public
transport on buses and trains where their fingers about five
places in the books. It always used to make me
laugh when I see that. I used to see that
in those days.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I love the innovation of it. You mentioned the dice
that are used a couple of d six, but I
love the innovation of the dice at various dice combinations
at the bottom of each page that you can flip through.
You don't have physical dice and do a dice roll.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
That was a more recent adaptation innovation in the original books,
which were a much more highly detailed in their illustrations
and perhaps more threatening, it didn't have the distroll.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So yeah, I guess that's.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
It would have made it easier for playing it on
the train. I guess now you mentioned computer games. The
games like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and these other
game books you worked on, these have eventually find their
way into the world of computer gaming, right they did.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
I mean, Iceman doesn't really cover too much about video
games except for what we did at the time in
the early eighties selling Activision games and very early PCs
and console gaming, just when there was an early crash
(29:47):
in the early eighties which had quite a negative impact
on Games Workshop for the amount of stock we had
a retail. But more recently the five Defense of Game
books have been available digitally from from from tim Man
Games in Australia designed them as apps and Nomad Games
have created on games on Switch and also on PC.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
It's more of a top down.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Kind of not a collectible car game, but being rewarded
with cards when you progress through the adventure and ultimately
get through so depth. Chup Dungeon, City of Thieves, the
Forest of Doing of all be important to digital formats,
so there's something for everyone these days.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Books or video games.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
One thing I was wondering about as well is that.
You know, obviously we have this, you know, the rich
world of miniature based games and dungeons and ng dragons,
various role playing games, and these these game books as well,
and in the background or in the forefront, depinding you
look at it, I guess we have the emergence of
of even more video game opportunities. And today we have
(30:54):
some pretty amazing video games out there. The graphics are
better than ever before, the game systems involved are so complicated.
But we as gamers, gamers of all ages, we keep
coming back to to that, like we're coming back to
these game books. We're coming back to physical tabletop games
and to games that take place predominant in our imagination.
What does that mean you think?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
I think one is at the expense of the other.
I think it's nice to have. Do you know I
play both board games. I'm sitting in a room here
you might see with over fifteen hundred board games in
the room, but I also have, you know, hundreds of
video games. I think it's it depends how you feel
on the day. And you can also see that it's that,
you know, Vinyl's made a revival as people don't just
(31:39):
want to stream music to whatever digital advice they have,
they like to have the physicality. Physical books have made
a revival because people like to surround themselves with things
that give them pleasure. The physical as well as the digital.
I think helps satisfy all parts of the human mind,
rather than one at the expense of the other. House
(32:00):
so I enjoy both. It depends on who I'm going
to play with or what I'm going to read, and
in what form I happened to be using at the time.
If I'm traveling, obviously it's going to be digital. If
I'm at home, probably physical.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Now I'm going to Coneck to something I was going
to ask earlier and we end up going in a
different direction. But you describe the first space Marine minis
in the book, and there's some lovely photographs of the
little minis as well. The space Marines of warm Er
forty thousand have certainly become very iconic. They're very recognizable,
part of the of the of the brand in clearly
(32:36):
big business as well. How did this concept originally come together?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Well, they've changed an awful lot of time, the Space
Marines of the eighties to the Space Marines of today.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
They've just got bigger.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Bolder and stronger and have got an incredible esthetic around
them now of course, and everyone everyone loves them.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
They came from very hubble beginnings.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
I think Bob Nasmith came up with the original space
bringing look and feel in his iconic first miniature. So
I call things small like acorns. They become oaks over time,
have given the rights environment for growth through their popularity.
So it's great to see them so amazing successful today.
(33:21):
And there's the power of Warhammer Porty k is extraordinary.
I think there's some talking to about video games. I
think there's some fifty licenses now and some extraordinary games
being put out there. So the world of Warhammer is
rich and famous and widespread now.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Obviously there's a there's a lot to say about about
game design and approaches to game design and in the
business of game design and the business of gaming. Do
you have any quick advice to throw out there to
anyone who is a budding game designer or thinks they
want to get into the industry of game design.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Well, I guess it depends on what part of the
industry you want to get into. Is it tabletop war gaming,
is it board games, is it video games?
Speaker 3 (34:06):
The thing that unites them more.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
When people ask me what's the most the three most
important things about a game, I will say gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.
In video games, whilst technology and graphics are essential, they
play a supporting role. It always comes down to how
you're enjoying the game to play, rather than what things
look like. But in a board game, of course, great
production values has really enhanced that experience now with all
(34:32):
the bits, and the graphics are amazing now, but the
gameplay is what makes us want to start playing in
the first place. So games should be quick to learn
but difficult to master, so you can get various degrees
of expert abilities in these games. The better play you are,
you should be more successful in winning. And of course
(34:55):
you need an exciting theme that resonates with everybody. I mean,
in board games, it's no surprise that Ticket to Ride
has been successful. You could learn it very quickly, but
it takes a long time to become a master of it. Really,
all the strategies, it looks great, The trains resonate with everybody.
(35:15):
The pieces are lovely because you pick up these little
train carriers and plot them around the board. So it's
kind of got all the component parts of a classically
successful game, and similarly with video games, there the appeal
has to be in the gameplay and then the meta
level of course that's common denominate about all these is
(35:37):
the enjoyment caused by people playing together. So it's that
joy by anything that is a shared experience is always enhanced,
and there's always an enhanced experience, whether it's looking at
a sunset or having dinner or going to the cinema
with somebody, and obviously with games, you're playing.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
With somebody that that's that's.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
That's that fun that's created by just the conversation, whether
it's the shared experience of enjoyment or doing a deal
and renegey on it. That's as that extra level of enjoyment.
So there's a there are many things to consider when
designing a game, but there's kind of there's there's four
basic principles.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I think he's absolutely vital to include.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Now you mentioned earlier all the all the activities that
you're involved in. You and of course you're a legend
in the game design industry. Do you do you still
gather with friends and just play games purely recreationally.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
We play once a week with the same group of
people since the eighties, so still Steve Jackson plus Peter
Molnu from the video games industry, one of the UK's
premiere designers. I mean he created Populos originally, and Fable
and Black and White and other amazing video games titles.
And it's kind of a tongue in cheek Gentleman's club
(37:02):
in that we play games and keep a record all
the games played every every week and score points, and
I send out a newsletter the games. That newsletter largely
just to criticize the other people playing. It allows me
as secretary to treat it as my own kind of
give them verbal abuse the whole time. At the end
(37:24):
of the year, we have a cup, the cup that's
presented to the champion. So we don't take ourselves seriously
about doing it, but it adds another dimension to play
in the games that we do. So you've been doing
it for say, since the eighties. I've published six hundred
and twenty seven issues of the Game that Newsletter to
(37:45):
a circulation to six people.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So coming back to the book for a second again.
The book is Dice Men, The Origin Story of Games Workshop.
We talked a little bit about how it came together.
But why did it come together? Why now?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Two?
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Well, I started writing it about four years ago, largely
because Games Workshop was doing so well as a company.
Everyone was saying, what is this games company on the
London Stock Exchange that's now worth three or four billion dollars?
Speaker 3 (38:14):
That's ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
How can it be worth more than some of the
major corporations I've known all my life? Where did it
come from? And when I meet people, I said, you know,
what was your first how do you get into into games?
And so I started coming calls Games Workshop and they said,
well how did that come about? So I thought, you
know what it really is about time this was put
down in writing as a kind of a personal memoir
(38:37):
and something that could be there for posterity long after
I've gone and Steve's gone. It would be there for
people who might be remotely interested in what has been
an incredible journey, the kind of birth of the game
industry in the UK and globally. Really it was such
an amateur thing in the in the in the seventies.
(38:59):
But to see that down on paper and won't be
lost forever, I thought it was important thing to do.
So here we are life is a game for us.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Well, it's a it's a it's a great read. I
highly recommend it to our listeners. And I want to
thank you for coming on the show. And I also
want to just thank you for you know, helping to
bring about all these great creations that mean so much
to us. I mean the Warhammer, Warhammer forty thousand, uh like,
these are these are things that still bring me a
lot of joy today as an adult, and certainly gave
(39:30):
me a lot of joy when I first discovered them
as a kid.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Thank you. That's very kind of you said that.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
I mean, for me as a games player, to being
able to working games for forty seven years being absolute
privilege and a joy.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Thanks once more to sir Ian for taking time out
of his day to chat with me here. It was
a real pleasure.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Again.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
The book is Dice Men, the Origin Story of Games Workshop,
written with Steve Jackson. You can find that wherever you
get your books. I highly recommend checking it out and
picking it up. Just a reminder that core episodes of
Stuff to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
with a listener mail episode on Mondays. A short form
(40:14):
Monster Factor Artifact episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays, we
set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a
weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you have any
questions that you would like to ask, any information you'd
like to share. Do you have particular memories of any
of these games workshop creations that you would like to
(40:34):
bring up, or if you have experience with the Fighting
Fantasy game books series. I know these were near and
dear to a lot of folks growing up, write in.
We would love to hear from you and potentially read
those messages on a future episode of Listener Mail. Thanks
as always to Max and JJ for producing, editing, and
(40:55):
splicing everything together here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind
and Yeah, if you want to reach out to us,
you can email us at contact and Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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