Welcome to part II of our interview with Jonathan Roberts, about the upcoming and exciting patronage project The Breaking of Fostor Nagar (PFRPG) that will being using the MapTool program from RP Tools. So, without further ado, on with the interview! (You can find Part I HERE)
7. Could you give us a quick bio of your professional work?
Well Rite Publishing gave me my first professional job with the cartography for The Living Airship, and since then it's been pretty non-stop. I've done everything from space ship deckplans (Mongoose Publishing's Ships of Babylon 5) to cursed dwarven mines (Halls of the Mountain King for Open Design). My work tends to fall into regional maps, world maps, and encounter scale maps. I've worked for Mongoose Publishing, Rite Publishing, Open Design and Kobold Quarterly, Headless Hydra Games and a range of small publishers and private commissions. I've also set up my own series of pdf maps on RPGNow under the Fantastic Maps label for use in virtual tabletops play or to be printed out as battlemats.
I love fantasy cartography because the maps are always different. What other job would require you to draw a steampunk world on a gigantic cog or a series of islands suspended in trees?
8. So this is a PDF and POD (print on demand), will this have printable map packs like your Fantastic Maps imprint?
As well as working inside maptool as an electronic adventure, the maps will be available to patrons as printable map packs. Obviously these won't be as interactive as they will be inside the electronic adventure, but they'll be just as detailed and will be usable printed out at the table.
9. Why Maptool? Is there a concern that the technical aspects of a project like this could scare the traditional tabletop players away? If so how do you plan to overcome that?
I've been using maptool for years, ever since I moved country to Poland leaving my old gaming groups in the UK. Now I'm based in the US and it allows me to stay in touch with old friends. It's a great tool to allow gamers to connect. However it's also great at the tabletop. Now, when I play with people at the table, I still use maptool for myself so that I can keep track of line of sight, initiative, hit points and all the other things a GM needs to track to keep a game going smoothly. If possible, I hook up a second monitor to my laptop that the players can see, with only the player visible information. It makes such a difference to visualising the battlefield for tactical play. I find that when players can see the terrain they are a lot more likely to use it, and that has led to some great combats. So yes, I think the computer aspect is something that might be a little concerning to more traditional players, but we'll be making sure that we help people out with getting used to the software. Once you've used it you wonder why you haven't been using it all along.
It's clear that traditional gamers are interested in these tools. When the D&D Gametable was announced it generated a huge buzz and people were very disappointed when it didn't materialise. Maptool does precisely what the Gametable proposed, and it's free, cross-platform and open source. There's really no excuse not to try it out, and the community is very friendly and supportive if you get stuck. You can't buy that kind of product support and that's certainly one of the key factors in choosing maptool. We will also be doing conversions of the adventure into other VTTs (virtual tabletops) and we'll be talking more about those in due course
10. Could you please sum up "Breaking of Fostor Nagar" in a sentence or three?
The Breaking of Forstor Nagar will be a high fantasy race against time. The heroes must infiltrate and escape from a crumbling city of ice before it is overrun by the ravening horde.
11. How did you first become interested in creating Breaking of Fostor Nagar for the Pathfinder Rpg rather than standard 3.5 or 4E?
Pathfinder is the new kid on the block and has a great community behind it. It also has an open license that allows us to create an electronic adventure - something that would be a lot harder to do for 4th edition. But essentially I love Pathfinder. I play it in my home game and see it as the natural extension of 3.5 that I've been playing for years.
12. How did you feel, when you discovered you had your first patron?
Coming up with ideas for a product is a lot of fun, but it only starts becoming real when you persuade others to get excited too. Finding out that other people were as excited as I was to be part of this project was a great feeling. I'm greatly looking forward to hitting goal and really getting going on this.
13. Could you list some of your major influences in the initial artwork you created?
The idea actually came from an old adventure I ran. I sent my players into the mountains to parley with an orc tribe. I wanted the tribe to be more than just your standard bunch of humanoids to I placed them in a glacier and had them revere a dragon god. I was in the middle of describing the view as the players crested the hill when the idea hit me and suddenly the tribe of orcs lived in a city carved into a glacier with the head of the glacier carved into the enormous form of a dragon. The image stayed with my players for years and I've always wanted to revisit the concept. It was great to get this chance to actually sit down and draw a city carved out of a glacier - and then set fire to it!
14. What are the strengths of this project over other adventures and patronage projects?
One of the major advantages of this adventure is that it takes place in a remote location, allowing the adventure to be dropped into any GM's world. This means we can create a remarkable new environment for players to explore. It should be an entirely self contained adventure that plugged into any ongoing campaign.
We've got a great team of developers involved - with Ben McFarland (ENnie winning designer) on as the designer and author, Mark Moreland (editor of the Pathfinder wiki) keeping us straight on the pathfinder rules, James Hazelett (who many will know as DevinKnight and one of the Four Ugly Monsters) doing the tokens and Tyler Bartley doing the art. I'm really excited to have these guys on board and I'm sure we'll get a great adventure out of it.
15. Can you tell me about your experience so far of working with Rite Publishing Vs. Other publishers you have worked with?
Rite has been a great company to work for. As a small company of people who are very committed to the hobby they are very responsive during the development process of an adventure. They also have a habit of coming up with remarkable locations for me to map - from towering vertical dungeons with rope bridges to glass balconies over waterfalls. It's always fun to find out about the next Rite project.
16. Can you tell me how you felt when you got the finalized pitch for the adventure from the ENnie award winning Ben McFarland (Tales of Zobeck)?
The pitch was fantastic. I first worked with Ben when I was doing the maps for his adventure in the Halls of the Mountain King and he's a great guy to work with. He has a talent for really finding the essence of adventure in an idea. I love the way he took the concept and ran with it, coming up with a high stakes rescue attempt through an invading army of cannibals! I can't wait to work on the full blown adventure and find out what twisted plans he has in store. He's a great person to collaborate with and a veteran of the Open Design patronage project so patrons will have a great experience.
We will be psoting part III of this five part inteview on Wed. Your welcome to sign up as a patron today!
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