Welcome to Fridays & Functions; a series of a posts that will always deal with what goes on behind the scenes, including design diaries, interviews, technical commentary, etc. First up is a 5 part interview with Frank Carr Author of Heroes of the Jade Oath
Frank Carr is the Jade Mandarin of Lands of the Jade Oath. He is also a criminal and military intelligence analyst who worked with both the U.S. Army and the ATF, serving in the United States, Asia, and the Middle East. He play-tested for Monte Cook and Mutants and Mastermind's Algernon Files along with several others. He has been gaming since 1982, enjoying every version of D&D, L5R, Earthdawn, Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, Rifts, Mutants & Masterminds, Fireborn, World of Darkness, and many others.
We are doing a 5 part interview with him, that we will be releasing every Friday, in anticipation of the retail release of Heroes of the Jade Oath BETA on February 1st, 2010.
1. Please provide a brief bio about yourself, you gaming habits, and your professional work.
I grew up on traveling on the carnival circuit with my folks until I was about 11 when we settled in our long time summer home in Florida where I spent my teen years until I joined the military. I have been an intelligence analyst ever since with the occasional odd job for a year or two simultaneous being an analyst and going to college. I have visited a few different countries and even met my wife in South Korea. I currently live in the midwest with my wife and two sons, when not working overseas.
I like to play fantasy rpgs, but also enjoy the occasional board game like Operation Tannhauser, Heroscape, and Shogun. I like most rpg genres - mainly fantasy, but I find that you really need a DM with the wherewithall to run a game if the genre is a little unusual for your group. Given the right DM, I enjoy steampunk, wild west, supers, sci-fi, and horror, but most of all I enjoy the Asian/oriental fantasy genre. I think I am a decent DM given enough time between games to prepare, but often find that a weekly game will burn me out pretty quick as I too often do not have the necessary time to prepare for my games due to work and/or family, which always has priority. I like to use props for my adventures and unique mannerisms for my NPCs, but I find that I can let my introverted nature get the best of me sometimes and end up holding back when I should cut loose with characterization. I often do the same thing when I am a player, too. Occasionally, I cut loose and channel a stern martial arts master, a southern waitress, a cowardly maniac, or whatever strikes me as the correct persona at the time. Those are always the best encounters for my players, but I usually need a sugar and caffeine high before I can channel those characters.
You can see from the bio above what I do for a living, but I would rather not delve into that too much if it is okay. In my line of work, you run into a lot of people who dislike you for what you do.
2. Ok I have to ask why a 334 page book? Why did you not start small, like a introductory adventure to the setting with standard characters. A “Strangers in a Strange Land” type of choice? (I have always wondered this because it would have generated more support from 90% of your audience “the players”).
It started as a proposal for a single 256 page book to Monte Cook, but ended up as a three part PDF project with the first PDF being around 250 some-odd pages and the second and third PDFs planned on being around 60 to 90 pages each. It all boils down to not knowing what I was getting into and the idea behind teaching a man to fish.
I wanted a book that would allow a game group to run as many adventures as they like in an oriental campaign rather than the one I lay out for them. So, to do this you have to provide a game setting with lots of angles for them to use for adventures. So, I wanted to do a setting book, but it turned out that I had too many ideas that I wanted to incorporate into the book, so the size of it all got away from me.
3. Did you ever think about each section as individual PDFs instead of one large PDF? Or doing something like Monte Cook’s Way of the Sword or Way of the Staff?
Yeah, see above. That idea was pitched to me in a manner similar to your question that I should do this and it would allow me to get something out sooner. I liked the idea and went to Monte with it and he approved of it.
4. Could you please sum up "Lands of the Jade Oath" in a paragraph?
Long ago the dramojh rose up to threaten the world, but ancient defenders, with the backing of divine power, beat them back and banished them from this realm of existence. However, their banishment took a toll - access to the celestial courts of the gods was cut off in the final backlash of a powerful curse by the dramojh, though mystical access to the lands of the dead and the ten thousand hells was not. Since that time, those who protect these lands against the depredations of the infernal allies of the dramojh that have been sealed away do so with the mystical power of ch'i, the enlightened might of sutra magic, sagacious martial arts, and the magical power of ceremonial spells and oaths - but, most of all with their stamina, wits, and the will of the Jade Oath. In these lands, the magic is potent - but, potent magic always has its curse to bear.
5. How did you first become interested in creating a book about Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved rather than standard d20 product like Jade and Steel?
Products like Jade and Steel, while good and different (i.e. not Japan-centric) from most oriental game supplements out there, they just didn't have the right spark to hold my interest for long. They were just nothing like Kara Tur or Chris Pramas' Jade Empire. So, when I saw what Monte had done with his rules, I saw a lot of similarities to what I knew could be a powerful part of any strong, Chinese fantasy rpg. It had truenames, quasi-magical ceremonies, a flexible magic system with template and spell weaving, it meant something to not have a truename, rune magic, racial levels, classes like the mage blade and the witch, and it was a breath of fresh air for a lot of D&D game tables. Others were doing Asian-themed material for D&D, but not Arcana Evolved (AE), then called Arcana Unearthed, and even then most were Japanese-themed with almost nothing to do with the other cultures of Asia. I wanted to have a grand setting that covered multiple Asian culture for AE the way Kara Tur did it for Advanced D&D.
6. How did you feel, when you discovered someone has signed up for the Patronage Project?
Flabbergassed. I couldn't believe somebody actually paid money for things from out of my imagination. I thought, "This crazy patronage thing might work after all!" Really, it was awesome and very humbling at the same time.
7. Could you list some of your major influences in the creation of Lands of the Jade Oath?
There are so many, but here are a few: Journey to the West (literature), Romance of the Three Kingdoms (literature), The Water Margin (literature), A Chinese Ghost Story (film), Big Trouble in Little China (film), The Bride with White Hair (film), Musa (film), Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (film), Swordsman 2 (film), Princess Minonoke (animated film), Daughter of the Empire (fiction), Spirited Away (animated film), Avatar (television cartoon series), Inu Yasha (anime), Hero (film), Ninja Scroll (anime), Way of the Rat (comic), The Path (comic), and Jade Empire (video game).
8. What are the strengths of Lands of the Jade Oath over other Eastern settings like L5R or Oriental Adventures?
It has Arcana Evolved for its rules base. That's all it needs right? If it isn't, then I should mention that it is not Japan-centric the way those other books are. It is focused on a variety of Asian cultures, much like Kara Tur was, though many of those cultures are strongly influenced by the Chinese-like empire at the center of the map. It has new races like the mandragorans, the shenxue, bakemono, and others. It has 4 new base classes: the demon hunter, the kensai, the kusa, and the enlightened scholar. It has a feat-based magic system any character can learn to use to represent the power of ch'i. It has sutra magic, new totems, new causes to champion, new witcheries, oaths of power, evolved totems, alternate classes, new spell templates, paths to bring the power of martial arts and caste backgrounds to your characters, conversion notes for using material from the core rules, and new feats, including Unbound feats to represent those who are learning to break away from the karmic cycle of rebirth towards ultimate enlightenment and oneness with the universe. It has a lot of weapons from the far east that those books never discussed, including the guan dao, the monk's spade, hooked swords, the three section staff, and many others along with new weapon templates, new alchemical items from the exotic orient and many other items. It has wu lin factions, secret societies, immortals, religious cults and sects, government bureaucracies and cover-ups, powerful spirits, imperial courts, exotic locations, demons bound to the very land itself, and ancient mysteries. Is that cool enough?
9. Can you tell me about your experience so far of working with Rite Publishing Vs. Other publishers you have worked with?
I don't really have much experience dealing with other publishers as we never got far into the process for one reason or another. However, what I have experienced with Rite Publishing has been pretty cool so far. I couldn't have picked a better group of folks to work on my project.
10. Can you tell me how you felt when you first saw the cover art by Wayne Anthony Reynolds?
Ecstatic. Awed. Blown Away. It was absolutely mind-blowing to see him take that image in my head and turn it into something even better than anything I could have ever dreamed up. Of course, I got to see it bit by bit as he worked on it, but even after that seeing that final product just knocked me over with a feather. The detail is amazing. It is sitting on my dining room wall right now and I still can't believe it all.
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