The Best of Troll in The Corner Vol 1

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The Best of Troll in the Corner Vol. 1 ............................................................................................................ 1
To a few players, but really to everyone ....................................................................................................... 2
An interview with the Creators of Twilight: 2013 ........................................................................................... 4
An interview with the Creators of Twilight: 2013 Part 2 ........................................................................... 12
Jen Page is a chaotic-neutral gamer, actress, geek and our latest interview subject ................................ 17
Building Cities ............................................................................................................................................. 22
Zombies in Fantasyland or Creating a fantasy world that experienced a zombie apocalypse 100 years
ago .............................................................................................................................................................. 23
Tunnels and Trolls: Creator Interview ......................................................................................................... 26
When Randomness Intrudes ...................................................................................................................... 29
10 Things D&D taught me about relationships ........................................................................................... 31
An unexpected online gaming aid ............................................................................................................... 32
My pathway to gaming a look at one girls evolution of RP ..................................................................... 34
Playing a story in a believable world ........................................................................................................... 35
David Beaupre (Order #12258662)

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Hello and welcome to Troll in the Corner! Here youll find a collection of the best 11ish articles
weve featured over the past year plus on our site. New to Troll in the Corner? Heres what
were all about!
Our aim is to provide a fun, vibrant community for folks like us. Who are we you might ask?
Were gamers. We love RPGs, board games, video games, CCGs, dice games; games where
you juggle live hedgehogs. You name it, we love it. Were figuring you do as well or you
wouldnt be here.
Were comic book readers. Give us a cover where someone is wearing a cape or a nice
example of Onomatopoeia and were in heaven. Who needs sunlight when there are stacks to
read, sort and box up?
Were SF/F fans. Elves and of course Trolls rock. Give them a beam weapon and the ability to
hack SSL certs on a distributed network of proto-AIs and were talking good times.
Please, make yourself at home, loosen up and be who you really are while you spend time in
this community. Were all a little different and we ask that you accept these differences rather
than harp on them so that we can all feel free to indulge in our love of gaming.
Please enjoy these articles! If you like what youve read here, check http://www.trollitc.com for
news, updates and new articles daily.
TO A FEW PLAYERS, BUT REALLY

TO EVERYONE
By Mati
To: My players
cc: Every player in the world
From: Your GM
Subject: Seriously, come on, guys
I love you guys, I do. You make me laugh. You bring my ideas to life. Without you,
none of these adventures I dream up would see anything but the inside of a notebook,
or the inside of my head. But GOD you can be frustrating.
First, roll your dice on the damn table in front of everyone. If I see you roll your dice,
then immediately pick them up again and pour over your character sheet, what do you
think I am thinking? For the love of all that is holy, stop fudging your rolls! See, failing a
roll is not the end of the world. I will NEVER have you make a roll that says Succeed,
and you save the world, fail and it burns. Furthermore, you are disrespecting all the

~3~
preparation I do for an adventure. Even if I am improvising a lot of the session, I have

drawn up some stats ahead of time, and balanced them for the group to make them
challenging, but not certainly lethal, and to do that, I have carefully considered the
probabilities of success and failure inherent in the system. You dont have to connect
with every hit, or block every blow. If you come through an adventure unscathed, either
I have not done my job of creating a challenge for you, you have been lucky beyond
reasonable expectations, or you have been cheating. Stop it. Furthermore, I might be
field-testing a new system, trying to fine-tune its balance. If you fudge even ONE roll, it
throws off my entire sense of what I need to change and whats about where it should
be. Dont do that to me, please.
And please, please, be a man. If you take damage, deal with it. You are NOT
invincible, and every warrior worth his salt has scars. Dont bitch when enemies attack
you. Dont bitch if you are suffering penalties. Dont bitch if everything didnt go as you
planned. Dont sigh heavily or sulk. Dont say things like not like it will matter, or well,
Im dead, after making a roll. It makes you sound like a whiny little kid. You dont know
what I rolled, if youre taking damage, or what is happening next. Suck it up.
And be ready. I might be running a game with 7-8 people in it, and with that many
people, things get hard for me. I have 8 people to keep track of, plus all the NPCs,
enemies, and so forth. I can do it, Im a highly trained professional, but you need to
work with me. When your turn comes around, be ready to tell me your action, roll your
dice, and give me the results. See, if every player takes about 30 seconds for a combat
action, the round takes about 4 minutes, give or take. If every player takes 2 minutes,
the combat round takes 16 minutes. Now, combat rounds represent a few in-game
SECONDS, so lets try to make them move along, please. This isnt rocket science, its
basic arithmetic. If you have questions, you may ask them, but the point is, dont waste
my, and your fellow players time.
And dont destroy the mood. See, I work hard to maintain the tone that I want out of the
game. Thats not to say there wont be some comic relief in a serious game, but I
swear, if you keep spouting one-liners during combat with untold horrors, or swaggering
about cockily while in the depths of hell, I cant be held accountable for my actions. If
Im trying to cultivate a feel of desperation or panic, and youre yelling things like This is
how we do it in my town! there is very little I can do to bring the tone back down to
where I want it. I dont want to invent sanity mechanics just to bring you under control,
but Im thinking about it. I think long and hard about the feel I want my game to have,
and I work to bring that to the players, so they can experience the atmosphere I had in
my mind when I came up with this adventure. I promise, if you stop and think for a
second, its fairly obvious that an adventure that centers around the struggle for survival
in a collapsing city is not the time for cocky catchphrases. So shut up.
One more thing; cut down on the tangents and cross-talk. Youre welcome to enjoy
yourselves, but when I am talking, or when another player is talking, discussing WoW in
depth, or quoting the latest internet short is disruptive. This ties in to the whole ruining
the mood thing, and the whole be ready thing, and if there was only one thing I could

~4~
get you to remember, it would be this. Youre here to play a game, not talk about WoW
or quote Monty Python. If that isnt why youre here, go away. I am serious. If you
cannot refrain from inane comments, dont bother to show up. So guard your tongues,
and play the game. I am pretty sure, nay, I am CERTAIN that you will enjoy a game
more than you will enjoy 4 hours of quotes, memes, and MMO theory.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE

CREATORS OF TWILIGHT: 2013
By Scott Lazzari
We have a treat for all of you Troll in the Corner has managed to secure an interview
with the people at 93 Games Studio creators and writers of the new RPG
Twilight:2013! interviewed below are Keith Taylor and Clayton Oliver we hope to
secure answers from Ed Thomas also, however he is a little busy in South Baghdad
right now. Well post his interview answers should he find the time to get back to us.
(P.S. Ed, keep your head down, and come home safe!)
Twilight:2013 was recently released for pre-order and online at Drivethroughrpg.com for
.pdf downloads. Hardcopy books are still a few weeks out. I have been anticipating this
game for years and from the quick review of the material that I got in the pre-order, it
looks to deliver on all my expectations. With no further delay, on to the interview:
1 ) Can you tell us something about 93 Games Studio, how it came about, and the
people involved?
Keith Taylor: In 2001, I had a buddy who needed a place to stay so my wife and I
offered up our place. To fill our time I thought that we should take our combined role-
playing experience and create an RPG. It ended up that he never moved in but I kept
working on the RPG. After 2 years I released The Swing. It was a modern magick
game based around a realistic feeling engine. Over the next couple of years I released
a few supplements for that system and even converted parts of it to D20 Modern. Ive
also done a few freelancing gigs to keep active in the industry (Ronin Arts, Expeditious
Retreat Press and White Wolf).
Technically, 93 Games Studio is a one man showme. Up till Twilight: 2013 I handled
all the writing, editing, art, layout and marketing myself. With Twilight though, Ive
branched out a little bit and brought in some freelancers for writing, editing and art.
Clayton Oliver: As Keith says, 93GS is his circus hes ringmaster, lion tamer, and
clowns all in one. <chuckle> My day job is technical writing translating Engineer to

~5~
English but Ive been freelancing in the RPG industry since a college internship at
White Wolf in 96. I did a fair amount of work on the old World of Darkness, then was on
AEGs Spycraft design team for most of the first editions run. I parted ways with AEG
around the time of the Spycraft 2.0 project and went back to writing for the Wolf for a
couple of the generic WoD books. I did large chunks of WoD: Armory (into which I
pulled Keith to pinch-hit for the heavy ordnance chapter) and Tales from the 13th
Precinct, after which I dove straight into core system design work on 2013.
2 ) Why Twilight: 2013? To add to this, how did you come to acquire the license to
develop Twilight: 2013 (Twilight: 2000 3rd edition)? How similar is this 3rd edition
to the previous games?
Keith Taylor: While writing The Swing, I used several models to judge my system
against. Twilight: 2000 was my most important model, as Ive always loved that system.
I met Clayton Oliver a couple of years ago and since then weve talked about writing,
systems, and the industry. In our talks we both felt Twilight: 2000 was one of the best
(or at least most memorable) systems weve ever played.
In 2005 doing a random internet search I found out who the current license holder of the
Twilight: 2000 system and on a whim emailed them asking if this was available and
could I purchase it. Surprisingly they replied back Yes. Before I proceeded though I
made sure that Clayton would be on board as the lead developer.
After getting his interest I proceeded to purchase the license. I was surprised at how
easy the process was. It took 6 months (mostly because of communication delays) but
in 2007 we started work on Twilight: 2013.
Clayton Oliver: Wed talked about getting our palsied claws on the T2k license, but I
didnt really think wed ever pull it off until Keith called me to ask if I knew where he
could sell one of his kidneys (or maybe he said kids it was a bad connection).
As far as similarities to previous editions not so much, at least on the surface. GDW
was primarily a wargame design shop, and their roleplaying games reflected this
mindset with a strong focus on military characters and fairly crunchy combat. I dont
have anything against wargames, but thats not where my strengths as a writer and
designer lie. The Reflex System the engine we built for 2013 is radically different
from either of the previous editions rule sets. Its designed to allow a scaled level of
complexity, ranging from soft like White Wolfs Storyteller/Storytelling engines to full
tactical crunch. There are some familiar concepts the old Coolness Under Fire
attribute is still integral to how your character handles combat but I think the only thing
we ported over from 2.0/2.2 in recognizable form is vehicle operations and combat.
The world, of course, is radically different next question.
3 ) What about the previous editions of Twilight: 2000 did you like, and dislike?
How did this affect the rule set in Twilight: 2013?

~6~
Keith Taylor: When I spoke with Clayton we were both in agreement that this shouldnt
just be an update (the previous editions were pretty good in their own rights). We had to
do something different.
Ive always felt that the original version was more of a war game about WWIII with some
role-playing elements. I think version 2.0 and 2.2 had improved on this, but they still had
their focus on combat. Not that that was bad, they did it well. But as experienced
gamers, weve been there and done that. We were looking for something more (not to
mention were both more story oriented).
My goal then became to do what the new Battlestar Galactica did for the series. The
original was great, but the new one refocused the series on the characters rather than
the setting. Space and the sci-fi elements became almost a backdrop and I feel the
show could have been done in any era using the exact same scripts and still would
have been phenomenal.
So that was my bar for this edition. I wanted to add to the series by changing the focus
onto the characters, their actions and the repercussions. Everything we wrote had that
in mind. Because of that, we placed a lot of detail on character creation, to make better
more detailed characters. We also increased the lethality and realism of combat;
thinking that this will create more thoughtful actions rather than a gamey combat
session of hit point management.
Clayton Oliver: Twilight: 2000 was a product of its time. The first edition came out
when the Cold War was still _the_ major factor in world news and a long, grinding World
War III was a plausible fear. I think a lot of the games success is attributable to the
immediacy of the setting. It was all too easy to envision the end result of the time line, if
not all of the precise events that led to it. That was what first captured my interest, and
whats held it for two decades: the ability to tell stories about tomorrow in the ruins of
today.
The thing is, that time isnt our time any more. The world has, as Steven King says,
moved on. The Cold War is over (though good old Uncle Vlad looks determined to
bring it back, one former Soviet republic at a time). Human extinction, paradoxically,
seems to be even closer, but its harder to pin down a single potential conflict or disaster
that would be responsible. Its an ambiguous threat environment. We looked at the
previous editions and realized that we could never recapture GDWs particular brand of
bottled lighting, so we decided to start from the core ideas and discard a lot of the
period-specific details. World War III happens; a lot of people die; this game is about
the survivors. But its a World War III of _our_ world, not the world of 1984 or 1990.
2013 is also a game, in both setting and mechanics that pulls back from previous
editions narrow military focus to allow for the possibility of playing civilian
survivors. That, I think, was the thing that always bugged me about T2k: what
happened to the other 99% of humanity? It seemed like everyone not wearing a
uniform was reduced to a random encounter or a source of supplies or loot. We havent

~7~
taken away the ability to play a purely military game in 2013, but we have expanded the
focus to make civilian survivors and stories about them not only viable but
enjoyable.
4 ) Can you tell us the process you went through while developing the game?
Keith Taylor: One of the coolest things we did was to hold a World Destruction
Conference. During which we worked out the major events and their effects of the
Twilight: 2013 timeline. This took place in the spring of 2006. Almost all of the major
events in the timeline were decided back then. Several times since, weve had private
and sometimes public conversations about how things have worked out in the real
world. It has been eerie how close weve come to the fictional Twilight: 2013 timeline.
Clayton Oliver: There was a lot of screaming, throwing things at the walls, and deleting
vast swaths of text to start over from scratch. I pretty much started designing Reflex with
a blank slate. I lined up all the existing games whose systems I thought were close to
our vision (Conspiracy X, MechWarrior 3rd Ed., Riddle of Steel, Godlike, Unknown
Armies) and started asking myself what about
each one was particularly compelling to me as a
player and GM. Once I had a grocery list of
system traits, I started on the core traits that
described a character and the task resolution
system that would allow him to do things. The
early iterations were ugly about three times as
many skills as the final product has, d20-like
attributes with separate modifiers, and a task
resolution system that almost required a
flowchart. This was when the screaming and
flinging started.
It helped that Id been a spectator for the redesign of Spycraft, so I had at least some
idea of how to slim down a cumbersome engine for smoother play. After I had the
basics more or less down, I started working with our playtest group. This was different
from the major companies systems, where a game goes to playtest only when its
complete. Our process was a lot more iterative: Id write a section, throw it at the play
testers, get their thoughts on it, and then come back a day or a week or a month later to
submit the next draft for their fear and loathing. I farmed out some parts entirely. The
math behind our small arms ballistics is entirely the product of Justin Stodola, one of my
local players and shooting buddies. Ed Thomas, our third designer, had to sit me down
with a bunch of martial arts videos and walk me through an analysis of them before I
had the faintest clue of how to build hand-to-hand rules that approached the firearms
stuff for plausibility. It was not an elegant process. <wry chuckle>
As an aside, I will admit that Im the outlier on the team Ive never served in uniform. I
occasionally shoot IDPA and have done a couple of entry-level defensive firearm
classes, but I do not have the level of military or law enforcement combat training that

~8~
Keith, Ed, and a lot of the play test team brought to the table. So I tried to pay very
close attention to what they were telling me about how the evolving system needed to
model reality in gunfights.
5 ) Is the Reflex engine designed from scratch, or a licensed property?
Keith Taylor: The Reflex system was designed from scratch. FYI, our plans are to
release the Reflex System as a generic rule set and then release small setting
supplements to use with the rules.
Clayton Oliver: Its entirely new, save for vehicle rules and some parts of heavy
weapon damage that came out of Twilight: 2000s second edition.
6 ) What were your goals in creating Twilight: 2013, and do you think you realized
most of them?
Keith Taylor: In addition to what Ive said about setting the bar, a lot of the design team
are ex-military (including myself) and wanted a system which more closely represented
real-world tactics and combat. I think weve accomplished that. During play test we
learned early on that tactics saves lives and conversely the lack thereof fills body bags.
Clayton Oliver: Keith and I have a shared ethos in game design: we believe in building
systems that keep the action immediate and personal without sacrificing verisimilitude. I
cant stand systems whose mechanics are abstracted to the point of mushiness, but I
get frustrated with ones that penalize players who dont have the system familiarity
necessary to do the most mathematically advantageous thing every round. The name
of our system Reflex emphasizes our desire to build a system in which the best
action for a given situation is also the intuitive one. I like to think weve accomplished
that.
I also wanted the game to make a few points outside the combat chapter. In a post-
apocalyptic setting, you need all sorts of skills besides grip, stance, sight picture, and
trigger control. The same applies to most other sorts of emergencies and
disasters. Most of the gear chapter is not weapons, and the chapter on maintenance
and survival is actually longer than the one on combat. This is a lesson I hope our
readers apply both inside and outside the game. The events of the 2013 timeline are
not (we hope) going to occur, but bad shit happens on a smaller scale everywhere,
every day. Build an emergency kit, get certified for CPR, volunteer for your local Red
Cross chapter or CERT team learn how to be part of the solution so you wont be part
of the problem. Become less of a helpless NPC.
7 ) What would you do differently if you had to start the whole design process
over again?
Keith Taylor: I think it would have to be to not change jobs and move across the state
right in the middle of things. It probably cost us 6-8 months of production.

~9~
Clayton Oliver: Id do a better job of documenting my own work as I built the

system. The design bible for 2013 is a scattered-ass collection of notes and emails
strewn across two and a half years worth of design and discussion. I have not done
well at educating Keiths other writers about how and why certain parts of the system
work the way they do.
Also, I need to learn to delegate more. I wrote or rewrote way too much of the
peripheral rules myself when I should have been supervising other writers on those
tasks.
8 ) What is your favorite aspect of the new Twilight: 2013 RPG?
Keith Taylor: The Team rules. Which is unusual

since RPGs are normally individual oriented. Ive
never seen an RPG handle team actions and
command effectively. I think weve tackled them
pretty effectively. Youre now able to play an
effective military team with command, team
orders, reaction drills and integration. Weve also
added similar rules in place to handle squads of
NPCs (not only for the above reasons but to
more streamline combat).
Clayton Oliver: Oh, man, just one? <laugh> Its

a hard choice, but Id have to say that the overall tunable nature of the game is at the
top of my list. Its not a pure toolbox system like GURPS or Spycraft 2.0, but it is
possible to select or deselect certain rules to provide as gritty or cinematic an
experience as an individual group wants.
Honorable mention goes to the rules for gearing up. Your characters starting personal
equipment is based on what he can carry rather than any monetary value, and that calls
for some hard choices for any PC. In addition, each character contributes a number of
points to a team pool; the team then uses those points to buy random rolls on various
tables for vehicles, support weapons, bulk supplies, and heavy equipment.
9 ) What would you like to see happen with Twilight: 2013 over the next few
years? Are you planning expansions and sourcebooks?
Keith Taylor: Ive got plans for 5-6 country sourcebooks, as well as tons of PDF
supplements (both free and for fee). Immediately Ive got a city sourcebook and a piece
of fiction in edit right now. We also have the UK country sourcebook and a Nautical
handbook in development. In a week or so Im going to make a huge open call to bring
in writers to fill out the rest of development for 2008 and 2009.
Clayton Oliver: Keiths already let my next assignment out of the bag: a rules
expansion to adapt the Reflex System to modern non-post-apocalyptic play. After that,

~ 10 ~
as the core systems guy, I suspect a lot of what hell have me working on will involve
Stage III material the optional high-crunch systems. Ive also got my eye on some
short, themed gear PDFs that dont focus on weapons (Chromebook 4, for the die-hard
CP2020 fans). There are a few other things Id like to do with the Reflex System that
dont necessarily involve 2013, but were keeping those under wraps for the moment.
10 ) Can you give us a few quick campaign starter ideas? What have you played
in Twilight:2013 thats really worked well, and what hasnt worked so well?
Clayton Oliver: Most of my convention demo games have been in the classic
American soldiers overseas trying to get home model because its a good bridge
between the editions.
Ive been running a campaign for my home gaming group for about two months
now. Unfortunately, I cant talk too much about it because it uses the plot arc of a
planned product. My general setup was similar to classic Twilight: 2000 survivors of
EU forces trapped in enemy-occupied territory. I started off with a mixed bag of civilians
and military personnel, but the players of the photojournalist and the smuggler dropped
due to schedule constraints, so its now an entirely military or ex-military team.
Id really like to do a home front game set in somewhat familiar territory: 93GS home
state of Kentucky. The campaign I have stuck in my head would focus on a field team
working for the Governors Office of Recovery. The PCs would be going out into the
rural parts of the state to try to get outlying communities back in contact with one
another and assess the overall condition of the region.
Id also love to do a post-apocalyptic monster hunting game this ones a story seed in
the GM Toolkit chapter. Its not canonical Twilight for any edition, but Id have a lot of
fun running it.
11 ) 93 Games Studio is an independent publisher. Can you describe the

challenges that you face in bringing a game like Twilight: 2013 to market?
Keith Taylor: Money, money and oh yes, money. Everything costs money. Just to give
everyone an idea, the writing, art and editing for Twilight: 2013 cost me a little over
$10,000. This doesnt count the license fees or the printing cost or the advertising costs.
Most of the costs for Twilight: 2013 are paid prior to me ever making a dime, so Ive had
to do some severe money management during the last few years.
Clayton Oliver: Keith hit it on the head: he just doesnt have the budget of the major
players, so this whole process has involved doing more with less. Art, layout, my
munificent writers fees it all comes out of his pocket until the sales figures hit a
magical coke and hookers for everyone and we all party like White Wolf developers
point. Its not just money, either all of us are working on this in our free time, and
every night we spend planted in front of a keyboard is a night not spent with our families
or our other hobbies and commitments.

~ 11 ~
Advertising is a particular challenge, especially with the current lack of hardcopy books
to sell in FLGSes and on Amazon. Thatll change soon enough, but the lack of
audience awareness of the initial launch has cost me some sleep over the past week.
12 ) What is it about Twilight: 2013 that differentiates it from other post-

apocalyptic games? What hope would characters in this world have of not eating
rat at the end of the day?
Keith Taylor: I think with the earlier editions definitely and hopefully with this one, the
fact that the timeline of events are both possible and plausible. Nothing is that far out of
the realm of possibilities that it ruins your suspension of disbelief.
As far as not eating ratnothing in this edition. Its a brutal world, things arent fair and
bad things happen to everyone. But there is hope. I think Clayton said it best:
Twilight: 2013 is a roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic survival and renewal.
This last part is the unexpected one.
Yes, the world is hurt. Bad. But is it terminal? Are we ready to turn out the lights, close
the door, and leave it to the rats and roaches? No.
I repeat: you cant have hell without hope.
In this case, the hope is that the characters can salvage something from the ruins not
just to sustain themselves, but to start rebuilding. The war was last year, not a decade
or a generation ago. They arent sitting around the campfires telling their children of
metal boxes that once moved on wheels and glass spheres that lit the night without
burning. They remember the glory and the power of civilization in all its finery, and while
there may be a few barbarians who like things as they are, most of the survivors are
going to want to recapture as much of what theyve lost as they can.
I say, let them try. Give them the tools and stand back and see what they can do. Do
not assume that the only option is simple subsistence followed by surrender to the
night.
Clayton Oliver: I love how Keith takes part of my half-baked writers guidelines and
turns them into a St. Crispins Day speech. <grin> But thats pretty much my statement
on the subject. You can play it however you want, but my own campaigns will always
be about keeping the fires lit through the night.
13 ) What types of games did you grow up with? What was your favorite games
growing up (besides the obvious Twilight: 2000)?

~ 12 ~
Keith Taylor: Most played Vampire: The Masquerade

Most loved Star Wars from WEG
Most wanted to play but never did Shadowrun
Again, based on taking Twilight: 2000 out of the picture.
Clayton Oliver: Ive got 36 linear feet of shelf space devoted to gaming books and you
want me to make a choice like that? Okay, okay. I got started on Car Wars and Ogre
from SJG around 1983, then moved to Battletech. My first three RPGs were TMNT, first
edition T2k, and Vampire. Dirty secret: prior to the release of D&D3, Id played only two
sessions of D&D in two decades of gaming.
Most played: I spent an inordinate amount of time in the social circles that sprang up
around World of Darkness games, but I probably have more actual table time invested
in Shadowrun.
World in which Id most want to be a PC: Trinity.
14 ) Last but not least: M16, AK-47, G3 or FN-FAL?
Keith Taylor: None of the above. Im a big M14 fan.
Clayton Oliver: The M16/M4 family has the edge in aesthetics, but unless the
manufacturers stamp says Colt, FN, LMT, or Noveske, Ill take a pass on an AR and
trust almost any AK to work when I need it to.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE

CREATORS OF TWILIGHT: 2013
PART 2
By Scott Lazzari
Hello all, again today we bring you part two of our interviews with the Twilight:2013
creators. We really hope you enjoyed part one. We did, and it gives some great insight
into the behind the scenes effort that went into creating this new RPG.
This time we bring you the same questions but new answers from the third creator,
Eddie Thomas. His responses were delayed a bit due to being deployed overseas with
the Army. Well forgive him for the delay :)

~ 13 ~
1 ) Can you tell us something about 93 Games Studio, how it came about, and the
people involved?
Eddie Thomas: In all honesty, 93 Games Studio seems like a favorite aunt or uncle
that lives across the country from me. Its something I hold near and dear to my heart,
but with my career and being the one designer that is not from Kentucky, Ive had very
little to do with day-to-day decisions. That, and Claytons constant another 8,000 words
written this weekend, fingers bloody, going to bed now-posts throughout the
development process.
My interaction with Keith and Clayton came in 2003, I guess, when I purchased my first
d20 product, Stargate SG-1 by AEG and joined their forum community. As with any
military game, there were a flurry of posts about what the real military would or wouldnt
do, and being the person that I am, I would weigh in. Clayton and I butted heads a
couple of times because of it, then I became a moderator on the boards and we butted
heads more. After several instances, a pretty good friendship evolved. Keith popped up
a time or two and being two Army guys, we hit it off and saw eye-to-eye a lot.
Clayton brought me on as a consultant to a few Spycraft books, US Militaries, World

Militaries, and Battlegrounds. I had maybe 1,000 total words between the three that I
wrote, but I spoke up a lot, verbalized a lot more than I wrote, and worked fairly well with
Clayton and the others.
Clayton asked me to work on this project pretty close to the start. I remember thinking to
myself, Keiths not going to get the license to thisbut Ill nod my head and smile in
case he does. Then, sure enough, he did and I was grateful for the opportunity.
2 ) Why Twilight: 2013? To add to this, how did you come to acquire the license to
develop Twilight: 2013 (Twilight: 2000 3rd edition)? How similar is this 3rd edition
to the previous games?
Eddie Thomas: With my budding friendship with Clayton, we had many discussions
about Twilight: 2000 and how it was such a huge influence on both of our early gaming
experiences. As Keith and I talked, we found we had the same thing in common. They
both knew that I had made the T2K setting and genre the subject of many of my games
and, of course, my subsequent dissatisfaction with how other systems failed to capture
the essence of the real systems. So as I said previously, the two of them conspired to
bring my doubting-self on board and now here we are.
Even with my love of the setting and feel of the game, I was no different from Keith and
Clayton in feeling that certain aspects were lacking in the earlier versions. My input as
to more character-centric play came in early on in discussions before we ever got the
ball rolling on the license. So with me being the latecomer to the team due to Army
schools, I was pleased to find that they had already set that down as a fundamental trait
of our redesign of the game.

~ 14 ~
3 ) What about the previous editions of Twilight: 2000 did you like, and dislike?
How did this affect the ruleset in Twilight: 2013?
Eddie Thomas: What did I like and dislike about the previous editions? All of it! None of
it! I never had the chance to play Version 1, so I cant speak intelligently about it, but 2.0
and 2.2, man, I spent hours and hours playing and running those games. At varying
times you could find me alternately cursing and praising every aspect of those books.
If I have to narrow them down though, I would have to say that my favorite part of the
2.0 and 2.2 were the character classes. Coming from Palladium games and WEG Star
Wars as teeth-cutters, I was astounded to see all of the options for military characters
and some of the civilian options combined with different nationalities. I was like, Yes! I
can make an Airborne Ranger SF trooper for real! Conversely, that also came to be my
biggest dislike, when the names were correct, but the skills didnt accurately model the
named occupation or they fell into popular stereotypes.
This is what I brought to the design process with a vengeance. I was the guy that kept
yelling at them that they cant do this or that, Group X doesnt really have that capability,
but Group Y is an expert in it. Clayton and I spent many hours discussing the facts of
certain things and how we could write them up to accurately model them in a post-
apocalyptic environment.
4 ) Can you tell us the process you went through while developing the game?
Eddie Thomas: The process I went through developing this was a lot of emailing and
forum-posting and banging of my head on my keyboard when I felt that I was being
ignored. Im an excitable person and would quickly jump to conclusions before Id see
the working document and realize how much I was being listened to. Case in point, the
martial arts rules that Clayton mentioned.
A lot of that came from me being the most distracted member of the design team. The
first three months of talking about stuff in 2006 I spent out of touch due to being in a
live-in school for the Army. Then I had more schools after that, and in 2007 preparation
for deployment to Iraq took up much of my time. So I didnt have time to really notice the
effect I was having. The last year has been even worse being deployed. It prevented me
from doing much of the writing that I had initially wanted to do and had to rely on
verbalizing things to Keith and Clayton.
5 ) Is the Reflex engine designed from scratch, or a licensed property?
Eddie Thomas: It feels weird to say it publicly but here it is, Its our system. Mine,
Keiths, Claytons, Simons, Justins and all the other people that spent the last two
years or more working on this thing. And with the Staging of rules, its the players
system as well as they mix-and-match the parts of the system that they want for their
games.

~ 15 ~
6 ) What were your goals in creating Twilight: 2013, and do you think you realized
most of them?
Eddie Thomas: My goals for Twilight: 2013? To write the best damned game ever,
make a gazillion dollars, retire to a private island stocked with a lifetimes supply of guns
and beer, and maybe my wife if she isnt harassing me too much about the laundry that
day. <grin>
In all seriousness, my goal was to make a game that I would want to play. Ive tried
dozens of systems and never found one that quite fit me exactly. Weve definitely
realized that goal, and at the end of the day, with a labor of love such as this, what else
is there that matters?
7 ) What would you do differently if you had to start the whole design process
over again?
Eddie Thomas: Id definitely not start it in my final semester of college, the last time I
had before becoming an Infantry officer in the military getting ready to deploy to a
combat zone. Id definitely be more involved if I didnt have all the items on my plate that
I did the first time around. Id probably be a little more diplomatic than I was the first time
as well.
8 ) What is your favorite aspect of the new Twilight: 2013 RPG?
Eddie Thomas: I have to kind of echo Clayton on the modularity of the game. Generally
speaking, I like generic systems that allow me to put rules to my stories, such as
GURPS 4E. However, Twilight has a certain feel to it that doesnt work well with toolkit
systems. The modularity of the Reflex System allows almost the exact same flexibility,
but definitely has the flavor and feel of all Hell breaking loose on humanity.
An almost negligible second place goes to the lethality of the system. If youre not
smart, youre going to be dead. If you think like your character actually would, Oh crap,
theyre shooting at me, then youll survive and continue the story.
9 ) What would you like to see happen with Twilight: 2013 over the next few
years? Are you planning expansions and sourcebooks?
Eddie Thomas: First off, I want to be more involved in the future books. My time in Iraq
is ending soon and Ill have free time for the first time in almost three years. I plan to
clear out the cobwebs and get back to some serious writing. Obviously with a slant on
Twilight: 2013. Outside of my own goals, Id love to see this game take off like the
originals did. Id like to see Keiths company, his sweat and heartache, become a payoff
that allows him to finance a new life to this game.
As far as supplements, yeah, I have a few Id like to pitch to Keith since hes the boss,
but I have to get the time to actually be able to follow through on what I sell him on.
10 ) Can you give us a few quick campaign starter ideas? What have you played
in Twilight:2013 thats really worked well, and what hasnt worked so well?

~ 16 ~
Eddie Thomas: Oh man, actually playing a game would be so sweet! That whole time
thing has been a major joykill for a while now. After redeployment I have some ideas
that Id like to run with, but I have to find a group to game with first. New towns suck in
that regard. Being stationed in Hawaii and stuck on an island, its given me some good
ideas as to what would have happened on some of the other islands that dot our
oceans. How do you deal with a problem when you have no choice but to face it on a
regular basis, especially when that problem refuses to see reason?
11 ) 93 Games Studio is an independent publisher. Can you describe the

challenges that you face in bringing a game like Twilight: 2013 to market?
Eddie Thomas: Who?You did what?Oh, yeah, Ive heard of thatreally

Unfortunately there is a stigma with all start-ups, not just in the gaming industry. The
bigger, more established guys must have a better product and be more reliable. Of
course we have the die-hard T2K fan-base to draw on as a starter, but one of the major
concerns we talked about was how to entice a newer generation of gamers that seem to
revolve around the ease of certain other systems and the internet domains of
MMORPGs. A niche-genre in a niche-market is a difficult thing to try and sell. I think we
have the product to do it, now we just have to have the guts to stick it out and take the
criticisms and praises and hope the latter outweighs the former.
12 ) What is it about Twilight: 2013 that differentiates it from other post-

apocalyptic games? What hope would characters in this world have of not eating
rat at the end of the day?
Eddie Thomas: As a man whos eaten worse than rat and been told its a delicacy,
eating a rat aint so bad. At least youre eating, right? As a parent and husband, I can
tell you that if something like T2K13 were to happen, Id want more for my kids than just
survival. Id do my best to make their lives as happy as I could. Whether you have the
information superhighway, video games, and central heat/air, or are living a foraging
existence like our ancestors in furs and animal skins, certain aspects of intelligent,
civilized life would drive you. Anyone that really gets into their character should go
beyond Maslows Hierarchy of Needs and find some motivations and desires. The
seeds are there, now its up to the players to take them and grow them into some tulips
that glow in the dark.
13 ) What types of games did you grow up with? What was your favorite games
growing up (besides the obvious Twilight: 2000)?
Eddie Thomas: Besides the obvious? WEG Star Wars, Rifts and Robotech for the
longest time, LUGTrek, Im really digging on GURPS 4E right now, and I at least tried
most systems other than AD&D and then d20. My big draw was story more than
mechanics because I always knew that other peoples rules never fit what I wanted
exactly. GURPS 4E was probably the closest to come to it, and it influenced a lot of my
decisions on the Reflex System. I gravitate much more towards Sci-Fi games though
than Fantasy, so that was a big factor in games that I played.

~ 17 ~
14 ) Last but not least: M16, AK-47, G3 or FN-FAL?
Eddie Thomas: A truly prepared survivor wouldnt have to pick just one, just the one he
was carrying that day. All things being equal though, I carry an M4 every day, so I lean
toward that, but in an end of the world scenario in a foreign land, Id have to go with an
AK-47. Ive seen some horrible-looking weapons come out of caches and still be
operational. But my heart would always be with Cathy.
JEN PAGE IS A CHAOTIC-NEUTRAL

GAMER, ACTRESS, GEEK AND OUR
LATEST INTERVIEW SUBJECT
By Ben Gerber
If youve seen The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, you know who Luster is. If you dont
know who Luster is, go watch the film. Jen Page (Luster in G:DR) is the multi-talented
woman who plays the female Luster in the flick. Shes also something of a geek, gamer
and SF/F aficionado as well as wrangling web pages for Wizards of the Coast and being
cool enough to willingly submit to an interview with me.
Not only did Jen vaporize a zero level NPC with a 4th level spell, change the web at
WotC and wear a corset to GenCon, shes also got a few upcoming projects that look
like a lot of fun as well. Shell be appearing in a vampire themed short film. Shes also
been cast in a Capes! A web series that looks at some college-aged gamers who wake
up one day with super powers.
Thats a lot like me actually. I woke up one day with the power to blog and now here I
am interviewing folks like Jen.
Another project that Jens working on which

looks absolutely fantastic is Project London
a feature length SciFi film with 500 or so
effects scenes created in (open source
software) Blender and done almost entirely by
volunteers. The films is in post production
now and well be talking a lot more about it
here on TC in the near future. Look, I love
vampires and I was a college age gamer (now
with the power to Blog!) but a SciFi film done
through the internet with open source software

~ 18 ~
thats got Jen with blue hair in it? Sold! Wheres the popcorn?
Alright, enough babbling. Heres Jen!
TC: Making a movie to me always seemed like an amazingly fun adventure. Am I

completely misguided on this thought? What was it like to make this film in terms of
enjoyment, stress and general cool factor? Does it differ from film to film?
Jen: Making a movie is an amazingly fun adventure as an actor. When the camera
is rolling, you truly believe that world exists. When I explode a peasant or torture
a demon, everyone reacts as if I did. It can be fantastic fun. Of course, when you
are waiting for your scene to be shot, you are very much aware that you are in the
real world.
TC: I will hazard a guess that you are or have one time been an active gamer. What
system(s) do you play and what got you into gaming in the first place?
Jen: I read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy in high school so I was really psyched to try those
ideas out in gaming. I play D&D, Alternity, Paranoia and Cthulhu but Im always
up for trying a new setting.
3. Many film franchises have gone the route of the musical. Legally blonde, Titanic,
Spamalot, Schindlers List. Have any of you given thought to a Broadway adaptation of
Dorkness Rising? If that happens, can you sing?
Jen: Uh, that would be awesome fun. But the jury is out on whether or not I sing
well.

~ 19 ~
TC: I still think Christian Doyle looked pretty damned good in the red Luster outfit. Your
thoughts on this?
Jen: Im still disturbed that some people couldnt easily tell us apart from behind.
TC: Star Trek or Star Wars?
Jen: I feel like I am betraying my childhood, but I have to go with Star Trek.
TC: Theres a scene in Dorkness Rising where Joanna walks into the gaming store for
her first gaming session in the back room. All of the men in the store suddenly appear
and stare, stupefied. I order most of my gaming stuff online and have since about 1998.
Does this still happen? Does it happen to you?
Jen: Ive been in stores where it has gotten really quiet around me, but nothing to
the extreme as what we staged for Joanna. Ive attended Gen Con about 6 years
straight and have felt nothing but welcomed. But maybe that is due to the corset.
(Editors Note: I attempted to wear a corset into a gaming store and indeed, got a lot of
stares. That must be it.)
TC: (My investigative journalist question which took several seconds of intense
investigation) You had platinum blond hair in Dorkness Rising, you appear to have Blue
hair in Project London. In the photo you have provided you have darkish brownish hair.
What kind of project would it take for you to have green and purple hair?
Jen: It wouldnt take much! In fact, I would love to read a script that caused me to
have green or purple hair. I love sci-fi/fantasy/steampunk/action/horror so Id
probably dig it.
TC: How did you end up involved with the Dead Gentlemen and Dorkness Rising?
Jen: Matt Vancil (writer/director) was in a writers group with me back in 1999 and
he invited me to a screening of Demon Hunters: Dead Camper Lake. I was hooked
by his humor and immediately wanted to contribute to anything Dead Gentlemen
did. I was with the company for a few years before auditioning for Dorkness
Rising. (Yes, even company members need to audition. No handouts.)
TC: Can I have your autograph?
Jen: Depends on where you want me to write it.
TC: What can you tell us about your most current projects? Can you go into details on
Project London?
Jen: Im currently working on a vampire short film, a werewolf short film and a

~ 20 ~
web series about a bunch of college gamers who wake up with super powers. Life
is good!
Project London is a very ambitious sci-fi/action feature that has been in post-
production for CGI since August of 2007. I believe it will be completed at the end
of 2009. I am very much looking forward to seeing it all come together. It is going
to be an amazingly rad sci-fi film.
TC: Are you the same Jen Page that works for Wizards of the Coast? If so, what
exactly do you do there and how cool is that?
Jen: Have you been Googling me again? Yes, I am the same Jen Page of Wizards
of the Coast. I have been a web designer for Wizards for 7+ years now and Magic
fans know my article image work for MagictheGathering.com. (There are legends
of a giant blue penguin in a wizard hat as well as a ninja unzipping from a boar.)
Speaking of blue, I use to co-host a webcast show for Wizards called Gamer
Radio Zero (or GRZ) and my host name was Blue. Currently, I am redesigning the
D&D website. Im really jazzed to be giving it some design love. I really enjoy
working for Wizards. Marinating in the geek gaming culture on a day-to-day basis
is so rad! I should give you a pic of my cubicle. (EDITORS NOTE: SHE DID GIVE
US PICTURES OF OUR CUBE. CHECK THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST!)
TC: What are you reading now? What are some of your staple SF/F books and
authors?
Jen: The first novel I read as Stephen Kings Pet Cemetery in fourth grade. That
pretty much set the reading tone for me. I moved on from horror to SF/ F. I will
always be grateful to my best friends mom who gave me my first Peirs Anthony
Xanth novel to read in 8th grade. I just finished Terry Goodkinds Sword of Truth
series (one of my favorite series EVER) and Im looking forward to reading the
next Anita Blake novel -Skin Trade.
Remember Jens gig at WotC? Well heres proving that she has a better cube than I
do. Probably better than you do to.

~ 21 ~
If you have not seen Jen in The Gamers: Dorkness Rising be absolutely sure to check
that movie out. You can snag it at Netflix and most likely at your video store. When you
see it and realize you need to own it grab it from the link above.

~ 22 ~
BUILDING CITIES
By Benjamin
In most world building scenarios your players will end up in cities frequently and if you
dont do enough prep work all your cities can end up looking about the same. There are
many different GMing philosophies on this but Im going to share whats worked for me.
When I first started I tried to map out every single house in each town. I ended up with
very small towns, which isnt always a bad thing but definitely not something you want
all the time. This tactic made villages seem homier. I knew each character; it was easy
to know exactly what dynamics where going on in the town, and it took a lot of the
improv work out. I still use this for small fishing villages and really most towns that
arent major cities.
Larger cities are a bit more difficult though. You want to give an idea of scale while also
not mapping out every character, or anywhere near that, and spending all your time on
planning and none on playing. So Ive slowly made a compromise. In many cities there
are certain areas for certain things. The downtown area tends to be where government
buildings are along with any headquarters or major businesses. Along the main roads
are going to be a lot of trade areas. There will generally be poorer housing towards the
center of the town, middle income housing just outside of that, and the rich housing
generally in a certain section of town farthest away from the others. In a highly religious
culture churches may replace some of the shops on the main thoroughfare and in less
religious places the churches will be scattered with one or two large ones for the rich
and many small ones dotting the poorer areas. Only for particularly special or amazing
buildings do I actually put them on the map, other than that everything that would fit into
that category is just generally in whichever area it fits best into.
As for how the towns are laid out others may see the world differently then me, and they
may be more correct as Ive not officially studied this, but the idea is to take ideas from
the real world and how cultures in it similar to your fantasy ones behave. I usually have
general areas and only know which areas main NPCs live without ever marking exactly
where they live. I try to time out how far it would take to travel from one place to
another by how many miles I think it would be so it gives players a bit more of a sense
of scale to the place. The culture to the cities is up to you. Few cities are uniform in
culture, but there often are trends. I try to get the general feel and then have certain
people play against their culture and others be immersed in it.
Finally you add your main NPCs. I dont think you need to have everyone mapped
out. If theres crime I try to get an idea of what major crime families and who their main
players are, same with government and policing officials. Then I move to who else I
think the party might interact with or could be an interesting product of the culture of the
city. Once I have my main NPCs mapped out, usually theres about 15-20 per large
city, I make a list of random the names to use in a pinch. I hopefully now have an idea

~ 23 ~
of how the cultural dynamics works to the extent that if the players go in a surprising
direction Im always prepared with a name and can usually figure out a character as it
comes. I always mark down and make a note next to names Ive used. I also try to
keep a few spare NPC ideas in my head for such occasions, that way random NPCs
arent too bland or too zany compared to my other NPCs.
What are your tips and tricks for building cities and towns? Have any cities or cultures
youre particularly proud of? Leave your ideas, thoughts, and stories in the comment
section below for others to see.
ZOMBIES IN FANTASYLAND OR
CREATING A FANTASY
WORLD THAT
EXPERIENCED A ZOMBIE
APOCALYPSE 100 YEARS
AGO
By Ben Gerber
Note: If you want to follow the development of the Aruneus world,

just click this. Bookmarking that will bring you back to the latest news. This was the first
post written about theWorld of Aruneus long before the details were ironed out and a
source book for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game started getting written.
A friend and I are working on a high fantasy zombie apocalypse setting for play
amongst our yet-to-be-formed group. We were toying with the idea of your standard,
garden variety zombie apocalypse taking place in a standard, garden variety high
fantasy world. One where Elves and Dwarves were in decline faced with the faster
multiplying, less rigid Human society. Then one day a patient Zero and all hell breaks
loose. Now we find ourselves 100 years after.
This is more a series of notes than anything else but wed really, really like to see your
comments.
Most likely a D20 system.

~ 24 ~
100 years ago, a zombie apocalypse happened.
In the present, the population of intelligent races has shrunk to about 5% of what it once
was.
Societies are bootstrapping and starting to pull themselves together.
Humans are susceptible to the disease one bite = zombification.
Zombies will instinctively attack and try to consume any warm blooded creates. From
mice up through dragons.
This means that a large portion of this worlds population has been killed off. Many
races are currently living in walled cities.
New magical means of detecting the undead have been created. In addition to this,
lighter-than-air craft have become the safest mode of transportation.
Clerics have become the new nobility. With their ability to turn the dead (undead) they
have become the wealthy elite, admitting very few in to their ranks and supplanting
kings and emperors as the new, untouchable power. Anger them and their protection
can be withdrawn, leaving you and yours to fend for yourself.
The historic treaty of Groznakc, signed 29 years ago, when the High King Gronk, ruler
of over 72,000 Orcs submitted willingly to the rules and laws of the human kingdom
Fareweather. Now the Orcs labor as second class citizens, enjoying protection but little
freedom.
Wizards have become something of a rarity, as the practice and study of magic is a
luxury not often had when fighting for mere survival. While the number of sorcerers in
the population havent declined, wizards have dropped to about 15% of the level they
were previously at. In this worlds society, wizards are something of a legend to
themselves. The lay people would look at a PC wizard as a curiosity and a person to
put their hope into. Whats left of the old nobility would seek to manipulate them in their
secret war against the Clerics. Clerics look at wizards as lesser magic users who are
more shut-in scholars than a threat.
The once mighty Guild of Wizards have found themselves a client to the Clerics. Much
reduced in numbers and wealth, the formal guild now exists solely to serve the whims of
the Gods of Light. They assist the Clerics in such matters as teleportation, offensive
magic and the creation of weapons and items to assist the Paladin Army. They are
mostly kept out of the public eye and have found themselves subservient to the Clerics.
There are rumors of a small island containing the last operating wizards collage not
affiliated with a Clerical overseer but at this point, they may just be rumors.

~ 25 ~
Hmm some world building ideas.
The world of (your name here)
101 years ago.
Demographics total world population 11,500,000 sentient individuals maintaining

friendly relationships with humans.
Humans 70% of the population. 8,500,000

Dwarves 15% of the population. 1,725,000
Elves 10% of the population 1,150,000
Other sentient races 5% of the population 575,000
Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and other unfriendly races total population 2,000,000.
Although no formal census has ever been taken, its felt that Orcs comprise roughly
85% of that number.
Today
Demographics total world population 800,000 sentient individuals maintaining friendly

relationships with humans.
Humans 20% of the population 160,000

Dwarves 45% of the population 360,000
Elves 34% of the population 272,000
Other sentient races 1% of the population 8000
Orcs Goblins, Trolls and other unfriendly races total population 1,200,000.
With the rise of the Orcish empire it is estimated that roughly 1,000,000 of these are
Orcs.
The Orcs have taken the opportunity presented to them with the fall of humanity and the
subsequent decimation of the other higher races to form their own contemporary
civilization. They have banded together under several kings, answering to a High
King and are currently multiplying faster than the other races. Goblins, Trolls and other
lower races who share a tendancy to tribal existence did not fair anywhere near as
well as the Orcs and are now often finding themselves as client villages to the Orc state.

~ 26 ~
TUNNELS AND TROLLS: CREATOR

INTERVIEW
By Nundahl
Last week I introduced many of you to Tunnels and Trolls, an often overlooked RPG
that has been around almost as long as any other. If you havent read last weeks
retrospective, I recommend you start there. This week, Ive compiled a list of crowd
sourced questions for the games creator Ken St. Andre. Thank you Troll in the Corner
readers, and special thanks to the community at Reddit.com/r/rpg if you arent
subscribed to that subreddit, get to it.
Nundahl: Ken, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview, I think our community
can really benefit from your years of experience in the industry. Id like to start with a
question of my own, and Im sure it is one youve heard countless times before. What
do you say to the young game designer looking to break into the RPG market,
particularly advice for starting up?
Ken: Hello, young game designer. Whats new? Everyone has their own way of
getting into game design. Dont waste a lot of time preparing, or getting
advice. Do what works for you, and what makes you happy. Dont count on
successyou are not Croms Gift to Game Design (heh, neither am I), but believe
in yourself and never give up.
Nundahl: Do you or Rick Loomis from Flying Buffalo have plans that would sustain
Tunnels and Trolls for the next 35 years? Do you think T&T will be forced to evolve in
relation to new game systems and technological advances or do you think it will instead
remain as-is for the old school niche market?
Ken: Of course T&T evolves, but I dont think it is being forced to do so. Were
not big enough as a game to actually worry about market forces. T&T glories in
the creativity of its players. If they evolve, so will the game.

~ 27 ~
Nundahl: What, if any, games do you play currently, other than T&T?
Ken: I play dozens of games. Nothing dominates my gaming life. I very much
like Shadowfist, but I spend more time playing Magic. Should you meet me at a
Con, Im up for any rpg I can get into. If I dont know the rules of something like
Pathfinder (and believe me, I dont) I will just role play the character, let the Game
Master tell me what to do next, and seek explanations when needed from the
person sitting next to me. The WHAP system is a lot of fun, and I did a module
for it called Cowboys and Dinosaurs. When it comes to computer gaming,
Runescape, not World of Warcraft, is my game of choice. I really believe simpler
is better in computer games too. I wish I had time to play Lord of the Rings, or
Conan, or Star Trek, or Star Wars online, but there is simply not enough time or
money in my life for those games. Damn!
Nundahl: The Outlaw Press controversy brought a lot of gamer and artist press on
T&T. Do you think this negatively impacted the way people might look at 7.5 T&T, in
spite of this edition and publisher not being linked to the art infringement?
Ken: I dont believe the Outlaw Press fiasco has had much effect on T&T
7.5. Fiery Dragon uses their own art and everyone knows it.
Nundahl: Thats all for me, now I want to get into the good stuff, our reader questions.
Reader Questions
Undergarden: I remember how unique and fun the solo T&T adventures were. How
influential do you think T&Ts solo-support was upon future game books like Fighting
Fantasy, Fabled Lands, etc?
Ken: I honestly dont know. Do you think theres a connection?
Tomatospike: Youve been involved in the RPG and gaming industry from the
beginning. What other projects [do] you have other than Tunnels and Trolls?
Ken: Do you mean now or in the past? I am a freelance designer. I have worked
on Stormbringer, Shadowrun, Wasteland, WHAP, Monsters! Monsters!, Starfaring,
and some other stuff that I forget. Cross my palm with silver and Ill be happy to
work on games for any company out there. J Currently I just released a T&T card
game called OgreOcre. Look for it on Lulu and Drive-Thru RPG.
YakumoFuji: Wasteland is one of my top 5 favourite CRPGs of all time. How much
influence in the design did you have? Did your Wasteland experience sour you on
CRPGs [or] are you are not listed as having worked on other computer game designs?
Ken: Wasteland was a team effort. My greatest contribution was the idea for the
Southwestern setting, the Terminator style robotic bad guys, and the general

~ 28 ~
story arc. I also recommended that we bring my friends Mike Stackpole, Liz
Danforth, and Dan Carver into the design team. They added most of the brilliance
for which the game is famous.
GameHermit: One thing I would like to have him discuss [is, what] are some tips and
tricks to keep the magic alive in the game?
Ken: Enthusiasm is more important than anything. Keep the game

moving. Dont let it bog down.
Khaydhaik: [I]f the intent was to design a simplified system, why do the combat rules
for higher level adventures require buckets of dice?
Ken: I like buckets of dice. The mere idea of rolling a couple hundred dice at a
time is inherently funny. Besides, I knew that clever gamers would find ways
around the problem of too many dice. If you cant solve that problem, youre
really too dumb to be playing this game. Anyway, Khaydhaik, the original intent
was not to produce a simplified systemit was to produce a game I could
actually play. Being simpler was just a good side effect.
Graal: [I]s the Ranger a Warrior Plus, with all the normal warriors abilities plus the
Missile Mastery Talent?
Ken: No. Hes a specialist, great with missile weapons, but he doesnt get the
warriors extra armor protection.
Deez: What was the process to bring the game from a cool idea to print production?
Ken: I turned a manuscript in to Jason Kempton of Fiery Dragon, and the rest of
the job was up to him and his production crew.
Thor: D&D is widely known for dorkdom all over the world. Does he think that if T&T
was released before D&D, would T&T hold that title?
Ken: No. Dungeons and Dragons has the cooler name. It even alliterates with
dork. D&D has always had the money, distribution, and publicity that T&T has
lacked. None of that makes D&D a better gameI think T&T is better in many
ways. It just means that more dorks will be attracted to it.
Eric: Ask him if there is any way to resist hold that pose. Thats always bugged me.
Ken: In the first 5 editions of T&T there was no way to resist spells cast upon a
creature, except to carry a kris made of meteroric iron. The character can still do
that, but he can also resist being bespelled by simply having a higher Wizardry
attribute than the attacking wizard.

~ 29 ~
Afterword
Nundahl: Anything else youd like to say?
Ken: Id like to thank you, Nick, for the chance to talk about Tunnels & Trolls and
some of my other games. Readers of this interview who actually play and enjoy
T&T are invited to join the greatest bunch of T&T players in the world. Details can
be found at Trollhalla.com. You have to make a level 1 saving roll on your
intelligence to get in.
Nundahl: Thank you a thousand times over Ken, Reddit, and Troll ITC readers!
WHEN RANDOMNESS INTRUDES

By Tracy Barnett
Dice are awesome. Most gamers agree on this. We, as a group, tend to have far more
dice than we need, and we use them for almost every game we play. From the
venerable d20 to the poky, caltrop-like d4, we gamers love our dice. Well, most of us
do. From time to time, I see article that deal with diceless systems for RPGs. Some of
these systems substitute cards for the dice, some do away with any kind of randomness
altogether. Even though polyhedral pieces of plastic hold a dear place in my heart,
sometimes I think those people are on to something.
We all play RPGs for a lot of different reasons. For most, myself included, RPGs give a
chance to do things that we could not do in real life. We get to be awesome. We get to
be the dashing hero, the vile villain, the seducer, the princess, the rascal, the power-
broker. We get to step outside of reality for a little while and be something that we are
usually not. But those damn dice can get in the way of that at the most inopportune
times.
This is an especially difficult problem for new players and GMs. If youre new to the
hobby, you are likely in the business of trying to have your character or NPCs be
awesome. Everything about the game, everything you try to do is focused on that
moment in the sun, on that little slice of time where you get to say to everyone around
you look at how great I am! And the hardest thing, I think, for a new player to accept is

~ 30 ~
when they have set things up perfectly for one of those moments, and upon the roll of
the die, they end up staring failure in the face.
So what do we do about that? Some systems, like Savage Worlds, have fail safes
against things like this. Each player gets a number of tokens, called Bennies, at the start
of the game that let them re-roll certain rolls. Systems like this know that players want to
feel awesome. But a lot of systems do not offer a chance to grab success from the jaws
of failure. What do we do then? As a GM, I have occasionally ignored the 20 I just rolled
when it would mean the ignominious death of a character (shhh, dont tell me players),
and I have let enemies die a few HP before they otherwise would have if things have
been going poorly for my players and I feel like they need a boost. Some GMs hate
fudging of any kind, but I feel its a necessary evil, at times.
But what about when youre a player? By and large, your rolls are out in the open, and
theres no chance to recover from a critical failure. Some players never get beyond the
point of proto-tantrums or out-and-out dice throwing when things dont go their way. I
have been disappointed more times than I care to count when I have seen the dice
didnt go my way. But, things change. As I have grown as a player, Ive learned
something really important: sometimes not being awesome is the best thing of all.
Yes, I love the moments in the sun when my character gets to be The Man for a few
seconds. But more and more, I have come to realize that the tapestry of successes and
failures is what makes the game memorable. Its kind of like the adage that shadows
prove the sunshine. If we gamed in a perpetual God Mode where nothing ever went
wrong for our characters or players, we would be bored of it very quickly. If nothing bad
ever happens, then how in the world will we ever appreciate it when good or great
things happen.
So yeah, dice and randomness are not always our friends. Sometimes they jump in and
ruin the best pre-planned moments of both players and GMs alike. However, if we step
back and take a look at the big picture, I think we would see that the element of chaos,
the possibilities of failure, and even failing, well, those are the things that make those
critical successes so enjoyable. The things we initially call failures can often be the
things that make the game awesome, because they make us think outside the box and
come up with solutions that we had never thought of before.
The next time your dice come up snak eyes, just smile and enjoy the pain to come; it
wont be long before your dice explode just when you need them to, and all will be right
in the world.

~ 31 ~
10 THINGS D&D TAUGHT ME ABOUT

RELATIONSHIPS
By Ben Gerber
Early on D&D in several incarnations was my groups game of choice. As my friends

and I were moving through pre-teen and into that awkward social phase that happens
when puberty comes a knocking, D&D played an important social role. I got a lot out of
my friends, my gaming group and even the games themselves. I learned a lot about
being social, making and keeping relationships going. Some of these thoughts are still
with me today.
Here are 10 of them.
1. Charisma doesnt just mean looks.

2. Its not about winning.
3. Staying up all night to have fun isnt necessarily a bad thing.
4. Sometimes you just have to risk it and roll the dice. Even if you fail, youll
probably still gain experience
5. Money may not buy happiness but it can pay for henchmen.
6. When you try to show off, your chances of a critical fumble increase tenfold.
7. Its good to know the rules well enough to know when to change them.
8. Being kind to NPCs can lead to some interesting and rewarding experiences.
9. No matter how well you plan an adventure, those going on it will find a way to
take you in a different direction than anticipated.
10. Subtlety and intelligence can take you just as far as strength and forcefulness.
Take them for what they are, axioms that have helped me and may help you as well.

~ 32 ~
AN UNEXPECTED ONLINE GAMING

AID
By Nick Nundahl
Before I begin this article, I have to give credit to my brother, who I stole the idea
from. Certainly hes not the first to use social networking in this way, but he is the one
who showed me.
In the past I would often try to keep my players up to date on my game sessions with e-
mail. Just a quick note to let everyone know, game is on this Friday or sorry guys, I
need to cancel. Eventually this evolved into a good way for players to ask me
questions. I could work out some character background information, clarify rules, etc. It
was just a little later on, still early in my gaming career, that a friend running a LARP
introduced me to Yahoo! Groups. He had too many players and needed a good way to
get both in character and out of character information to the lot of them.
Yahoo! Groups provided a way to upload pictures, post stories, recaps, whatever a GM
might need to do, but the format was always a little clunky. Posts, threads, and e-mails
were cluttered and often delayed publishing for several hours after submitted. But the
biggest problem was that the users had to go to a site they otherwise never use. I had
plenty of players who never visited some of my game Groups because they just didnt
take the time to visit websites outside of their normal routine, even though they showed
up to each play session on a weekly basis.
Plays by Post games suffer these issues as well. Though both can have e-mail
notifications of posts, those updates hardly offer the same quality of experience as the
actual site. Days stretch on and on between posts because players just never happen
to check the site. It can kill a scene or totally ruin a campaign.

~ 33 ~
Enter Facebook. Alright, it kills me to promote anything relating to this soul drinking
succubus of a website that has no concern or compassion for its user base, but odds
are you use it anyways. Inspired by my younger brother, I recently started a Play by
Post game on Facebook, which has been fantastically successful so far. I think the
reason the game has done so well is painfully obvious, Facebook sucks you in. You
already check a few times a week, maybe every day, maybe several hundred times a
day. You already waste so much time on the site playing
Mafiafarmvampireorgyville. Now, if you see that theres an update on your campaign,
why wouldnt you just click it and take a look?
This is only my first time using Facebook as a vehicle for Play by Post, but it has
everything I need so far.
By creating a new group on Facebook, I can make it private or open it up to

spectators if I so choose.
The Discussion threads are great for actual gameplay and side
scenes/conversations.
The Photos section allows me to upload maps, PC or NPC portraits, monster art,
item cards, etc.
I have a quick way to get in touch with everyone in the group by simply posting to
the main page or sending a Facebook private message.
Posts go up immediately when I submit them, and responses notify me just as
quick when they go up. Get a group of people as addicted as I am and youd
almost have a real time game.
I can create a growing list to track locations or NPCs the party has
encountered. Both for my benefit and to keep the players aware of who they
know and where they are.
Facebook Groups feature a recognizable and easy to read layout. Almost all of
my players are in other groups for their various interests, so there is nothing new
to teach.
Afterword
I plan to start a new tabletop campaign soon and I absolutely intend to create a
Facebook page for that game as well. I still think that if you havent already been
consumed by the Facebook beast, you should probably stay away while you yet remain
pure. However, if already you are forced to toil hour after hour reading your friends bad
jokes and inappropriate updates on their love life, why not get some gaming done?

~ 34 ~
MY PATHWAY TO GAMING A LOOK

AT ONE GIRLS EVOLUTION OF RP
By JB
I was thinking about the idea of role playing the other day, my thought process started
as usual from a question asked by one of my students. We had the what did you do
this weekend conversation and I truthfully told them I was running a D&D game. We
got into a conversation about what role playing is and my students concluded that what I
do on the weekends is a mixture of the video games they all play with the kind of
imaginary games they used to play as children. As 12 to 14 year olds its been a very
long time since they played those kinds of games and they were slightly amazed at the
fact that as their 26 year old teacher I was still playing them. On my subway ride home
that night I came to the realization that I never really stopped playing my imaginary
games, I didnt go directly from playing with Barbies or dress up in moms clothing to
pen and paper games, but I found other less satisfying ways to keep my imagination
moving at a faster pace.
I was the grade six student who spent her recesses and lunch times playing games with
a group of children who were in grade three. I was the grade eight student who spent
her summer before high school playing games of pretend with a group of kids four to six
years younger than me. In high school, not having an imaginative outlet in which to
partake, I put pen to paper and created a story about the characters that my younger
friends and I used to play. In the year 2000 my mom bought a computer and got us THE
INTERNET. It was through this new portal that I was able to find my first encounter with
actual role playing.
I found myself searching for role playing before I had actually really known what it was,
cant remember exactly how I did it but I found a website where people were creating a
character bio and then making posts as that character, I wasnt able to sign up quickly
enough. Soon enough my online role playing would expanded and I found myself
playing on a vampire werewolf site, a Harry Potter site, an X-men site, a site based on
Neil Gaimens Sandman series, and those are only the sites that were successful. It
was an obsession but it was a way to engage my imagination, until the next step up the
ladder of role play was presented to me.
Thinking back now I cant exactly pinpoint the exact moment when D&D entered my life,
I know that the summer before my second year of university my sister had me join her
and her friends in a D&D game, as well my boyfriend at the time had a childhood friend
who played and she let me flip through her PHB, but I cant remember when I actually
first decided I wanted to start playing I just know that I did. Personally I dont think my
love for the game started until the day I was asked to run my own campaign. It was only
a few weeks after I had rolled my first d20 as a player, but I was more than willing to

~ 35 ~
create my own world. From that point on pen and paper roleplaying became my favorite
past time.
For the next two years of my university life I spent every Friday night gaming,
sometimes we even spent Saturday and Sunday gaming as well. Even when I had a life
crisis, such as my boyfriend and fellow gamer of 5.5 years breaking up with me out of
the blue, I gamed. Mind you I wasnt able to do as much as I wanted to because of my
three players one had been my boyfriend and the other was now siding with him. I
coped, and I found a new group online even though I usually was so shy in new
situations I had an anxiety attack when needing to make a phone call to someone other
than my best friends. I always seemed to find a way to game, even when I wasnt really
looking. I moved to a city a 24 hour drive away from home, and more importantly my
gaming group so I could get my teaching degree. I lived in a dorm with students all
younger than me and somehow the rumor that I played D&D was started and before I
knew it I had six or seven guys wanting me to teach them. Even now, as a busy teacher
I game. Sure its not the same as university with the need to game every weekend or
its the end of the world, but its nice to spend a few hours on the weekend in a different
world.
This is my story about how I became a gamer. Ive heard words like escapism thrown
around when talking about why people game, and I wont deny that sure its nice to get
away from the real world, however I dont think its the main reason I have and will
always game. I have an over active imagination, its a true fact and its something I
would never change about myself. It has needs and it needs to be fed with stories of
dragons and faeries. I dont game because I need to get away from a horrible life, I grew
up a very happy, naive little girl and I am now happier than I could ever be with a life I
would change for nothing, yet I still game.
Ive now shared my pathway to the world of gaming, maybe Ive got you thinking about
how you started. Was it similar to my story? Did your love to roll dice start from playing
games such as cops and robbers or was it something else? Id be interested in hearing
other peoples stories, like I said; I love my stories of dragons and fantasy.
PLAYING A STORY IN A BELIEVABLE

WORLD
By Nick Nundahl
For far too many games, as both player and GM, I have found myself in one of two
dreadful scenarios. Most often a game is so tightly bound to a plot line that any
deviation is brushed under the table to make way for The Plot to push and shove me

~ 36 ~
along into the next scene. In the other possibility I find myself in a world so grand and
so wide that I am left to explore and find my own plot hooks but the GM fails to spin
these into believable or dramatic adventures.
My hope is to see more games (and run more games!) that can better blend the two. Is
it too much to ask for freedom and a great story? I intend this article, and perhaps
others to follow, to help me realize what aspects of my games have accomplished this,
and I can pass those realizations to others.
The Truth is Only an Illusion
The truth is that no matter how much I want to run a game allowing my players to do
anything theyd like to while at the same time advancing the story I want to tell, this is
hardly realistic. I think the trick is to lead by the hand, not by the earlobe. Players need
to feel like the choices are decided by them, not for them. Every NPC ally, every
mission, and every monster killed should not be thrust upon the party, but instead
should be a choice the players are allowed to make. Odds are unlikely that the players
are going to turn down the wealthy landowners plea to save his daughter. The simple
act of letting even one player give voice to the accepting the mission can mean a
lot. Now it is a charge he has chosen for himself, and that is going to be important as
the journey stretches on and fatigue may set in for player and character alike.
The obvious question becomes, how can you pull this off? Certainly not a simple
answer, the reality is that every GM, player, and character that player may have, is
going to need to be drawn in a different way. For the purposes of this article, I think its
more fruitful to consider the fantasy game party dynamic as an example. Ive played
and even run sessions in several games where the adventure begins with something
along the lines of, You are travelling North from Startington, where Lord Nobodycares
sent you on a mission to investigate Mountainmine, a place where his workers have
been mysteriously disappearing! Not only is this poor use of clich, which is something
Id like to write on later, but the players are given neither hook, nor emotional investment
to rope them in. Instead, the first step as GM should be to establish the characters as
part of this world. Nobody is born as a 20 year old adventurer with silver armor and a
claymore, but for some reason games always begin at that point. Why not step it back
just a half-step to weave them into the story?
Perhaps you have a Dwarven warrior who has spent special points to make sure his
character is the best stonesmith he can be at level 1; I say reward that. Lets have him
contracted from the start of the game to build foundations for the homes in Startington.
He depends on the stone from those mines to get his work done, and has noticed in the
last couple of weeks that supply has been thin. The partys Half-Elf mage might be
visiting her human heritage brother, who happens to work in the mines, and suddenly
he has gone missing. From here you can start playing with your level of depth on the
hook. The aforementioned Lord Nobodycares might put out a call for heroes, or for a
less clich approach, you can drop the hint that the townsfolk have grown very
concerned and a town hall meeting has been called. At the meeting an irate citizen

~ 37 ~
demands that someone step up and put an end to the towns suffering, and what good
heroes (with a little something personal at stake) wouldnt offer to help?
This same technique can be carried on into other adventures, now with the added
benefit of actually role playing the character investment. You can bring in recurring
NPCs met on previous adventures that later get into a bit of trouble, merchants whom
the characters have formed good relationships with might spread rumors of treasure
troves, or perhaps the mine flourishes, once more opening caravan routes to new cities
where adventures can bloom with a realistic connection.
The point of it all is that the players took it on themselves to step into the fray. You
havent just told them they need to fight evil and save the day, you made them heroes,
but in truth you knew they would be all along. Choice is an illusion, and it can go far
deeper than the example listed above. Hopefully this is a good starter to get you going.
DO allow players to say no to your plot.
DONT let your plot end just because players turned it down. Let them feel the weight
of the choice and all its consequences.
DO give a little personality to NPCs, even if they have nothing to do with the plot.
DONT write-off potential player interactions with lesser NPCs because you are too
excited or distracted by the important characters in your own story.
DO let players explore characters and places beyond your story.
DONT let players waste time if there really is nothing to be found.
DO go against the mold sometimes, even if the above is your norm. Maybe one
adventure in a campaign should find the players forced into a choice they wouldnt
necessarily make for themselves, just to make them appreciate the times they do get to
choose.
Craft Expectations, Keep the Illusion Going
Often GMs forget that players are not truly experiencing the moment to moment tension
or excitement their characters should be. In a movie or television show the audience is
granted intense facial expressions, specifically planned dialogue, and note-by-note
music all geared towards creating an emotional state for the viewer. While in a role
playing game you can attempt to recreate those elements, you can also compensate by
using homage, clich, and even TV Tropes to build certain expectations. Players that
are at all interested will make assumptions about what is going to happen next in any
given game. You are still going to get the chance to surprise them once in a while, but if
you apply familiar concepts to your ongoing campaign you can start to control those
assumptions. Frankly stated, it feels good to be right; if properly led a player can

~ 38 ~
cleverly discover information rather than having it force fed to them by GM

exposition. I can almost guarantee more player interest in your game world and plot.
In what was likely the best campaign Ive ever run, I started by establishing the story I
wanted to tell. I realized it was sort of a Pulp, Spy-Tales kind of story, mixed with
Paranormal Investigation and Horror. I re-watched the Hellboy movies, as well as
plenty of other Pulp, early Sci-Fi, and Horror films. If you dont have a Netflix account,
you may never know how many otherwise awful movies can inspire a great Horror
plot. I had a lot that I didnt want to tell my players from the start, so while I didnt
promote my game as Action Packed Espionage Terror, the Pulp genre captured
enough as a baseline to let them know how to design their characters.
After establishing the high action theme, I was able to introduce Horror subtly within the
game. The first night of play found the group as strangers huddling in a church to take
shelter from a raging storm. I created a playlist of soft toned music from Thriller
soundtracks and other similar pieces. During that first session I established the theme
song for my game, of all things Aerosmiths Boogie Man (Instrumental). This went on
to be played at the start of every session to set a mood.
Rain fell in sheets, streets flooded, and thunder rumbled even the stone structure of the
old church. The church doors swung open, a group of soldiers entered, a man with them
bound in chains. He was dirty, bloody, and his face was shrouded by his wet, long,
black hair. He was taken to a back room. It was explained that the weather had made
travel too difficult. The prisoner was a war criminal in transit to a high security location
and he would have to be held at the church until the storm subsided. Tensions were
high, NPCs wailed, a pregnant woman in particular was frightened for the safety of her
unborn child with the presence of an unsafe and unsavory criminal. Ultimately, our
villain was aided by a support group that had been following the transit, stained glass
windows shattered and armed men struck. With his release he attacked a soldier,
displaying the danger the party was in he killed the man instantly by sinking his teeth
into the victims throat and slurping fresh blood. The party battled the pale and unkempt
man between church pews, the fight lit by background lightning strikes. He made his
escape to the churchs catacombs. The PCs set out for him at the request of dying
soldiers and found him in bat-like pose hanging from the roof of a cave near the coast,
where his final moments were met with a wooden arrow to the heart.
After the party returned they were invited into a secret organization, one designed to
keep the world safe from creatures like the one they faced. By the next session it was
clear exactly what the game would focus on: hunting and destroying dangerous entities
for a top secret theocratic government agency. The party instinctively knew when they
would have help, who they could rely on, and who best not to trust. As the GM, I never
had to expressly tell them any of this. I cant claim to be a great manipulator, but I know
I led them to these assumptions by generating a necessary tone scene to scene.
Play on Assumptions

~ 39 ~
Adventures can be inspired from anything. In the campaign I mentioned last article, one
particularly nasty antagonist that the party set out to destroy was almost completely
based on H.P. Lovecrafts Pickmans Model. Its a story that hardly lends itself to high
combat, but with a little modification I was able to pay it homage while making
something unique and fun that Lovecraft fans could make a few guesses about along
the way. Another adventure, to hunt a sewer dwelling urban legend called Croc-Man,
led the party to call up thoughts and stories of Killer Croc from the Batman
cartoon/comics. The story hardly had anything to do with the DC character, but it
allowed me to direct the investigation because I knew what assumptions the party had
made.
As my campaign evolved, the story called for higher action and less intrigue. Though I
never stated that a genre change was impending, I did allude to it repeatedly. A war
was brewing in my plot, a battle to epitomize Good vs. Evil on a mass scale. The
players could feel the danger growing larger session by session, NPCs spoke of an end
to the battles they faced, and prophecy warned of the final confrontation. To prepare for
the massive combat, I watched movies like 300, Gladiator, and other violent action
flicks. I noted their soundtracks and during my battles, played those coupled with other
powerful songs; music that I knew (knowing my groups tastes) would pump some
adrenaline into the room. I cant say I recommend Metallicas Battery covered by
acoustic metal group Van Canto for every game, but with my group is was the perfect
choice. Battles truly felt like epic moments of intense rage directed at an irredeemable
enemy, exactly what I hoped to convey.
Afterword
Every group is different; I cannot tell you specifically how to lead every player to the
assumptions you want from them. However, I do feel that being aware of the mood you
are crafting will help you figure out how to guide your particular group. Here are a few
starter ideas to help you establish a Continuity of Theme, Tone, and Mood.
Choose and communicate a genre style. Every genre comes with its own set list
of assumptions on the types of characters, adventures, and so much more. Use
this to quickly explain the feelings your story is trying to create.
Watch movies or read books that capture the chosen genre. Anything that well
illustrates the given tone you want to recreate can serve as inspiration.
Dont be afraid to make references to the genre directly or indirectly in your
campaign. I dont recommend taking your plot straight from Mass Effect for your
Sci-Fi RPG, but if your group is familiar with the game and it has elements that
blend well, use them.
Spend some time with Thesaurus.com (or a real thesaurus! Advice I could use
myself). Look up descriptors for the mood you are establishing and find similar
words, then use these in your descriptions for locations, artifacts, or characters.
Try to stay consistent from the outset. This is probably the most difficult tip to
master, if such a thing is possible. In the event you are forced to change your

~ 40 ~
mind about your genre due to disinterest or dramatic plot change, be sure to
review this list of tips, choose a new genre, and communicate it to the players.
I think it is very important to mention here not place yourself in a box. Your chosen
genre should serve only as a baseline, a point from which assumptions can be
made. How you twist and direct those assumptions is entirely up to you as the writer
and GM. Lastly, crafting a believable world to tell your story in doesnt end here, these
are only steps along the path. Experiment, read on game theory, and decide what
works for you. Im working on more articles regarding NPC Relationships, Time Use,
and Equipment that all tie your series of adventures into a story world your players can
really get into.
THE END
Thank you so much for reading our articles. We invite you to return to Troll in the
Corner as were always updating the site with new content, contests, lists, and more! If
you would someday like to see your article in one of these here Best Of publications,
feel free to contact us and tell us a bit about yourself. Its not currently a paying job but
it does come with plenty of perks!
All content copyright 2010 Troll in the Corner.

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~1~

The Best of Troll in the Corner Vol. 1 ............................................................................................................ 1

To a few players, but really to everyone ....................................................................................................... 2

An interview with the Creators of Twilight: 2013 ........................................................................................... 4

An interview with the Creators of Twilight: 2013 Part 2 ........................................................................... 12

Building Cities ............................................................................................................................................. 22

Tunnels and Trolls: Creator Interview ......................................................................................................... 26

When Randomness Intrudes ...................................................................................................................... 29

10 Things D&D taught me about relationships ........................................................................................... 31

An unexpected online gaming aid ............................................................................................................... 32

My pathway to gaming a look at one girls evolution of RP ..................................................................... 34

Playing a story in a believable world ........................................................................................................... 35

David Beaupre (Order #12258662)

TO A FEW PLAYERS, BUT REALLY

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preparation I do for an adventure. Even if I am improvising a lot of the session, I have

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AN INTERVIEW WITH THE

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5 ) Is the Reflex engine designed from scratch, or a licensed property?

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Clayton Oliver: Id do a better job of documenting my own work as I built the

8 ) What is your favorite aspect of the new Twilight: 2013 RPG?

Keith Taylor: The Team rules. Which is unusual

Clayton Oliver: Oh, man, just one? <laugh> Its

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11 ) 93 Games Studio is an independent publisher. Can you describe the

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12 ) What is it about Twilight: 2013 that differentiates it from other post-

Twilight: 2013 is a roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic survival and renewal.

This last part is the unexpected one.

I repeat: you cant have hell without hope.

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Keith Taylor: Most played Vampire: The Masquerade

Again, based on taking Twilight: 2000 out of the picture.

14 ) Last but not least: M16, AK-47, G3 or FN-FAL?

Keith Taylor: None of the above. Im a big M14 fan.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE

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Clayton brought me on as a consultant to a few Spycraft books, US Militaries, World

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5 ) Is the Reflex engine designed from scratch, or a licensed property?

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8 ) What is your favorite aspect of the new Twilight: 2013 RPG?

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11 ) 93 Games Studio is an independent publisher. Can you describe the

Eddie Thomas: Who?You did what?Oh, yeah, Ive heard of thatreally

12 ) What is it about Twilight: 2013 that differentiates it from other post-

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14 ) Last but not least: M16, AK-47, G3 or FN-FAL?

JEN PAGE IS A CHAOTIC-NEUTRAL

Another project that Jens working on which

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Alright, enough babbling. Heres Jen!

TC: Making a movie to me always seemed like an amazingly fun adventure. Am I

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TC: Star Trek or Star Wars?

TC: Can I have your autograph?

Jen: Depends on where you want me to write it.

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