This interview originally appeared in Mass Movement 27′

The Dungeon’s Master meets Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone

In the history of role playing games there are two men who stand held and shoulders with the greats. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone not only founded Games Workshop, but brought RPGs to these shores; as well as creating one of the most enduring and unique fantasy book series ever… Fighting Fantasy! So it was that I, the Dungeon’s Master, found myself in the privileged position to interview two legends of the industry (and I didn’t use torture once! Well, maybe a little)!
Interview by Brady Webb

MM: You are friends from your school days; please describe how you met and what your first impressions of each other were?
Ian: I can’t actually remember how we met. But we soon found out that we shared a big interest in wargaming and Subbuteo.
Steve: Maybe Ian doesn’t want to admit it – we used to go to the same pub! We had some mutual friends who played together in a jamming blues band. We joined in. Ian played harmonica (still does) and I play guitar.

MM: At what age were you when you first discovered the world of role-playing games and how did you first stumble upon them?
Ian: I was 25 and Steve was 23. It was 1975 and the early days of Games Workshop. We’d heard about this amazing new role-playing game that had just come out in the USA called Dungeons & Dragons. At around that time a copy of Owl & Weasel found its way into the hands of Gary Gygax whose company TSR published Dungeons & Dragons. He sent us a copy of D&D and we were soon hooked. We ordered six copies and ended up with a three year exclusive distribution agreement for Europe!


Steve and Ian in 1976
MM: What was your first experience of role-playing like? Are there any moments that are especially memorable?
Steve: We’d heard about Dungeons & Dragons - the term ‘role-playing games’ hadn’t come into existence yet – but when we got our hands on a copy, we were dismayed. It was impossible to follow what was going on. No winner. No end to the game. One player didn’t even ‘play’ in the traditional sense! Was it even a game at all? And no rules on combat – you were referred to a set of medieval battle rules for tabletop wargaming called ‘Chainmail’. We couldn’t make any sense of it. But then we discovered a D&D gaming group at City University in London lead by Andrew Holt and Steve Biggs. They showed us how it worked and that was an moment of epiphany. Our lives would never be the same again…
Ian: I remember spending days designing my first dungeon on graph paper. It was called Temple of the Golden Skeleton. I still have it today I’m pleased to say. I also remember ‘rolling’ my first character. He was a barbarian called Anvar. Sadly he is no longer with us…

MM: You both founded Games Workshop together, along with fellow friend John Peake. Is it true that you all shared a flat together in Shepherd’s Bush? What made you decide to found the company, how did you come up with the name and what was the original vision for the company?
Steve: All three of us were bored with our jobs - and indeed our existence in a poky rented flat. So, one drunken night we decided we were going to change our lives. We’d start up our own business. But what in? We all had an interest in games. But what would we do? So we decided to publish a monthly fanzine, sell obscure games, do game-related services. John was a talented woodworker. He came back from a holiday in Greece with a backgammon set and made a perfect copy. He also liked the Japanese game of Go and made a Go board. These were professional quality and Ian, the salesman of the three, manages to sell John’s games into Just Games and Harrods. Hence the name ‘Games WORKSHOP’. But when D&D came along and it was obvious what direction GW was taking, John lost interest and left. He didn’t enjoy playing D&D at all.

MM: You published a magazine called ‘Owl & Weasel’; was this your first foray into publishing? Where did the title ‘Owl & Weasel’ come from?
Ian: We had started Games Workshop but nobody knew we existed. So we decided to tell the world about Workshop by publishing Owl & Weasel. In February 1975 we mailed out the first issue free to everybody we knew in games hoping that they would subscribe. Luckily quite a few did subscribe but the circulation always remained in the low hundreds. The name was supposed to represent the characteristics of a good games player; the owl is wise and the weasel is cunning. But after 25 issues it was time for a change. And that was White Dwarf.

MM: In 1976 you went to GenCon, the role-playing convention in Lake Geneva, USA, to get exclusive deals to European distribution deals. That convention also happened to be the event first funded by TSR to support the growing popularity of their game D&D. What do you remember of that convention, whom did you meet and what was it like trying persuade companies like TSR to give a deal?
Steve: It was a very amateurish affair, with tressle tables and sheets for covers. Games packaged in zip-locked bags selling for $10 a time (very expensive, but the publishers could only afford short print runs) For us it was a turning point. We got to meet Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and Brian Blume, along with many of the other future big names in the hobby like Mark Miller (Traveller). But at this stage they were all garage companies, who were delighted to think that their obscure games were going to be sold in Europe. We were the only Europeans at the show and so we signed up the entire industry!.
Ian: I remember it took a long time to get there! We decided to see a lot of the USA on the way! We landed in New York; we being myself, Steve, Steve’s sister Vicky and her friend Jane. We drove to Los Angeles along Route 66, to deliver a Buick Skylark. We dropped that off and picked up another car to San Francisco. We then delivered another to Chicago and eventually reached Lake Genvea, Wisconsin in time for GenCon. It was a memorable journey and made our arrival at GenCon all the more amazing. We met Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and loads of other designers and writers. We already had the TSR distributorship and had been doing well with D&D. All the new role-playing companies were keen to get us to distribute their games too.


Games Workshop store
MM: In 1978 you opened your first Games Workshop store in Hammersmith; what were the early days of the company and running a shop like?
Ian: The main reason we decided to open our own store was because we were having trouble getting other retailers to stock role-playing games. They just didn’t get it. All the rule books, supplements, figures, dice, etc was a nightmare for non-specialist retailers. But for us it just seemed like a natural extension of our mail order and distribution business to have a flagship store. Tucked away in a side street in Hammersmith, the first store became a gaming Mecca for role-players, some of whom travelled hundreds of miles to visit us. Steve and I had our office above the store and usually worked behind the counter on Saturdays. There was always a great feeling of excitement in the store and we felt very lucky to have turned our hobby into a business. We were far from being the best retailers in the world but our knowledge and enthusiasm for D&D rubbed off and the games began to sell themselves! They were great times.

MM: 1980 you came up with the idea for the first Fighting Fantasy novel, the legendary ‘Warlock of Firetop Mountain’. How did you come up with the concept and what was it like writing the first books, especially as you were both running GW at the time? Is there anything you would have done differently?
Steve: Those were balmy days. How our girlfriends stuck with us through 1982-86, I’ll never know. Up at 7, off to Games Workshop for a day at the office. Home at 7-8pm. Then typing away until midnight, working on the next FF book. Anything different? Perhaps we should have published the FF books ourselves (i.e. GW). That would have given the company the mass market game we were always looking for. But we couldn’t actually foresee how successful they were going to be. And by that time, we were well and truly in bed with Penguin.

MM: Steve, you’re responsible for the first of the FF books that weren’t fantasy based, moving into the realms of horror (House of Hell, which I still haven’t beaten!), Sci-fi (Starship Traveller) and superheroes (Appointment With F.E.A.R.), as well as creating the Sorcery series. What made you want to step outside the safe boundaries of the fantasy genre and what was the readers’ response like?
Steve: I was keen to take the idea to different genres. After I’d written a few fantasy adventures I wanted to see where else we could go. In retrospect I think fantasy was the best genre; it suited the game system best. But I was having fun trying a multi-part adventure (Sorcery), horror (House of Hell), superheroes (Appointment with FEAR) etc.

MM: Ian, with Steve forging into new genres for the FF books, you continued to explore the world of Titan. How did you create the world and what influenced you? Did you discuss with each other any new additions or directions that you wanted to take?
Ian: I wanted to keep all my adventures in a one world, Titan, and particularly within Allansia. The plan was to build a fantasy world and introduce people, places, legends, characters, races, monsters and history that would be consistent and recognisable in many of my books to try to build up some familiarity. Hence recurring characters like Yaztromo became popular. I did stray away from Titan once with Freeway Fighter!

MM: What character, race and continent are your favourites?
Steve: I liked the little Jib-JJib that you encounter in Sorcery. When you enter its lair you hear this ferocious roar and fear for your life. But turns out it’s a small furry creature which is not dangerous at all. Its bark is worse than its bite.
Ian: My favourite character has to be the grand old wizard of Darkwood Forest, Yaztromo. Favourite race are Lizard Men and favourite continent is Allansia.


MM: Which of the FF books are your favourite and why?
Ian: Warlock of Firetop Mountain because it was the first and gave us a great sense of pride. Deathtrap Dungeon because it was a great dungeon bash and gave readers a bit of a moral dilemma when they were obliged to fight to the death a friendly NPC called Throm. City of Thieves because of the story and the atmosphere of Port Blacksand.
Steve: Has to be the Sorcery series since I put so much time and effort into those books. But Warlock will always have a special place for me since it was the first.

MM: The FF world is populated with numerous races of a near unending variety, as chronicled in the excellent ‘Out of the Pit’. However, are there any creatures that you look back and say to yourselves, “What was I thinking?”
Ian: Actually I quite liked most of my monsters! They were mostly created to fit a specific purpose or scenario. But there was one in Armies of Death…. It was a chubby dog-headed human with a blowpipe. I called it a Blog. Not quite like the blogs of today’s internet generation.
Steve: The Wheelies in Citadel of Chaos. Ouch!

MM: Other writers were brought on board, along with Marc Gascoigne who went on to become the series editor, to help your workload. How involved were you from that point and did you have the final say? Were there any ideas that were propose that you just thought “No way!” and if so, what were they?
Steve: We did have final say, but Marc was well tuned in to our own vision of the series. We all shared a common view.

MM: The Fighting Fantasy novels were brilliant fun. What inspired you to take the world of Titan into the realm of the prose novel? The principal character of Chadda Darkmane first appeared in ‘The Trolltooth Wars’; what influences, if any, were there on this characters conception? Are there any other tales that you wanted to tell and if so, do you think that you will ever be lured back to the world of Titan for either a novel or a new gamebook?
Steve: Trolltooth Wars was the book that took me longest to complete. Very different from writing a gamebook, that’s for sure. Originally I’d intended that Trolltooth Wars would provide the solution to Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The solution had not been published anywhere, and there was no Internet for people to post up their own solutions. I thought it would be neat to have Darkmane follow the ‘one true way’ through Firetop Mountain. So anyone who was inclined to could work out how to solve the original book. But when I submitted it to Penguin, the Editor said the book seemed completely unbalanced. The beginning and end were relatively short, with this whole great long Firetop Mountain episode in the middle. It didn’t work. So back to the typewriter. I finished the book off whilst I was living in Spain, and it was all written on a new-fangled – and very expensive – gadget that I was in love with. A word processor. How I wished these things had been around in 1980…!

MM: After stepping back from the FF books and eventually leaving GW, you both have forged very successful careers in other areas. Steve, in the ‘90s you devised a number of very successful interactive telephone games, such as ‘F.I.S.T.’ as well as ‘Battlecards’, a collectible card game, and moved into journalism and game design. In addition, you are a Honorary Professor at Brunel University teaching a course in Digital Game Design. Ian, you have gone on to have one of the most influential careers in computer gaming, being involved on such incredible franchises as Tomb Raider and Hitman, to name but two, and have earned an OBE. Considering that you are both now so heavily involved in the worlds of computer gaming, how do you see computer games developing in the years to come and Fighting Fantasy’s place in the market? Also, considering that computer games have eclipsed tabletop role-playing in popularity?
Steve: No question the future is in digital games. The size of the market is enormous, and board games have unfortunately become very much a niche market. The future will see constant expansion of games into all walks of life. We’ve seen console gaming become a multi-billion dollar industry, yet iApp games sell for 59p. And free-to-play Facebook-type games are making millions. Huh?? Gaming has become a creative area of the entertainment industry like music and movies. Who’d have thought that in 1976 when we were wandering around GenCon with 100 other bearded hippies equally as hooked on games as we were. It’s been a fantastic journey
Ian: The games world is growing rapidly. Advances in technology allow new ways of delivering and playing games. Computer and video games is now the largest entertainment industry in the world. It is estimated that global revenues from games will exceed £50 billion, yes BILLION, by 2015. Diverse content available on diverse platforms, both online and offline means that 70% of the UK population now plays games of some type. The important thing is that games have become much more socially acceptable and there is something for everybody to play. Fighting Fantasy might not have the audience it used to have in book format but Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Deathtrap Dungeon are available as Apps on iPhone. That’s pretty cool.

MM: I understand that you still meet up for regularly and play board games, which you call the ‘Games Night Pro’ and compete for an annual trophy, the ‘Pagoda Cup’. How long have you been holding this night, and what is your favourite board game and why? Also, who has won the cup the most and has anyone been caught cheating? Do you, or are you ever tempted, to play any role-playing games? If so, what is your favourite genre and what games do you play?
Ian: The Games Night Club has been running since 1986. There are six members and we meet usually every two weeks at ‘The Club’. The members are myself, Steve, Peter Molyneux, Clive Robert, Mark Spangenthal and Skye Quin. It is very much a spoof of a Gentleman’s Club. As Secretary, I arrange the meetings, keep score on the night and publish the Games Night Newsletter in which I berate the members and report on the games played. I am currently publishing issue 343. Points are given for every game played, double if it qualifies as a ‘game of substance’ which is one that lasts over two hours and causes headaches. At the end of the year, the person at the top of the league table wins the Pagoda Cup and gets their name engraved on it. I am pleased to say that I have won it the most times. Let’s say there have been a couple of incidents over the years that could be termed mild cheating but the perpetrators shall remain nameless. They know who they are. But as a result a new phrase entered our language called ‘the practice roll.’ We only play board games or card games. Our current favourite is Caylus although it is only 5-player which means we need one of us to be away. As for RPGs, well at our age we feel far too self conscious to play them.


MM: Lastly, what projects do you have coming up that you think we should really be looking out for?
Ian: At Eidos I continue to put my finger in everybody else’s pie. By that I mean that I work with our studios adding creative input. Just Cause 2 recently came out and reached No.1 in the charts. Kane & Lynch 2 will be our next release. I’ve also recently invested in a couple of start-up companies that are making social games although I can’t really talk about them right now. I’m also involved with Socialgo.com, a solution that allows people to build their own private social networks and monetize them should they wish.
Steve: You may be aware that a movie producer, Superteam Productions have just bought an Option to turn House of Hell into a movie. But more than a movie it will be playable on-line and via Blu-Ray. This is an exciting project. There’s a long way to go yet. But if it is successful, where could it go? Remember there are 70+ other books in the FF series…!