{"id":416,"date":"2014-03-19T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2014\/03\/19\/five-or-so-questions-with-adam-koebel\/"},"modified":"2021-11-16T00:42:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T05:42:02","slug":"five-or-so-questions-with-adam-koebel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2014\/03\/five-or-so-questions-with-adam-koebel\/","title":{"rendered":"Five or So Questions with Adam Koebel"},"content":{"rendered":"
Content Warning: There have been multiple statements against Adam Koebel for violation of consent<\/a> , abuse<\/a>, and abuse of power<\/a>. In accordance with my policy on perpetrators of harm, I am putting this notice to raise awareness of the statements of the victims and ensure future readers are aware.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I got to interview Adam Koebel<\/a> about his current projects and his photography. It was super fun!<\/div>\n
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Tell me what you\u2019re currently working on. What\u2019s new and big in the world of Adam?<\/b><\/p>\n

Right now the big thing on my plate is working on what\u2019s we\u2019re tentatively calling Inglorious<\/i> – which is the Dungeon World \u201cmass combat\u201d or \u201cwar\u201d or \u201clarge scale conflict\u201d supplement. Whatever your preferred method of describing big messy battles with lots of craziness going on. Sage and I have been hammering away pretty hard at that, and it\u2019s in the hands of playtesters right now. So we\u2019re kind of in that harrowing phase of wondering if we\u2019ve made something as cool as we think we have or if we\u2019re just embarrassing ourselves with something crap. There\u2019s always that to wonder about when you\u2019re in the process of unleashing new stuff on the world. I think it\u2019ll turn out okay, though. We\u2019ve been really inspired to make it particularly old-school in the sense of it being inspired by pre-D&D war-games with a referee. Blame Jon Peterson for teaching us what a kriegspiel<\/i> is.<\/p>\n

Other than that, working on some miscellaneous little projects. Helping Sage polish up Black Stars Rise (his minimalist creepy horror game) and poking away in fits and starts at my unnamed space-opera-future-romance-game-based-on-an-IP-I-would-never-be-able-to-afford-in-a-billion-years project. Taking photos of myself and posting them on G+. Getting in heated debates about design. Making new friends on Twitter<\/a>. Business as usual!<\/p>\n

Inglorious sounds interesting! What kind of mechanics are you messing with for mass combat?<\/b><\/p>\n

What we\u2019re trying to do with Inglorious is port the core concepts of Dungeon World out of the dungeon and onto the battlefield. The idea that narrative is paramount – that what really matters at the table is the stuff that the players\u2019 characters are actually seeing and doing – is something I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve seen in many mass combat systems before. So we\u2019re playing around with the idea of units designed much like monsters, with their own stats but also their own agenda and foibles. Players who want to lead an army will have to rely on messengers or magic to carry their orders to their troops who, depending on the way the dice fall, will interpret those orders according to their tags. So, it\u2019s going to have all the potential for chaos and craziness that you\u2019d see in a more tightly-focused dungeon-based adventure. We\u2019re really being influenced by what came before – by Chainmail and older games in the genre. Though, there\u2019s definitely some impact on the mechanisms coming from some more modern war-games we\u2019ve been playing lately; astute readers will see some similarities to Sekigahara or Commands & Colors when they bring Inglorious to the table. Influences aside, our big goal was making sure that Inglorious felt like a Dungeon World game. That drove our designs more than anything.<\/p>\n

Dungeon World was a huge success. What’s your takeaway from the success and aftermath?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s crazy, right? I think that we had some idea that the game would be popular. To be completely honest, we kind of hit the right audience at exactly the right time with a product I think that people were already looking for. Most of that was blind luck – I\u2019m sure that if D&D Next had released a year or two earlier, we wouldn\u2019t have seen as much of a big jump in not-quite-D&D games and their popularity. We\u2019re lucky to belong to this weird little outcaste set that’s are filling that \u201cwaiting for D&D\u201d void – 13th Age, Torchbearer and Numenera particularly. Rob Donoghue said some really smart stuff about the D&D Offramp, as he calls it, over at The Walking Mind a while back (http:\/\/walkingmind.evilhat.com\/2013\/09\/16\/d20-and-the-dd-off-ramp\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I think the takeaway has been that dungeon crawling as a genre still really represents what \u201croleplaying\u201d is for a lot of people. We were surprised because I think at first our intent was to make a D&D for the Apocalypse World crowd but we ended up making an Apocalypse World game for the D&D crowd. Some of our most ardent supporters are folks with little to no experience in the hobby outside of Good Old D&D (whether that was actually a TSR, Wizards of the Coast or Paizo \u201cversion\u201d of D&D\u2026) who discovered Dungeon World looking for something with a different focus, but that felt familiar. What I\u2019ve really loved, though, is seeing how people are taking it and making their own. I\u2019d like to think we set a positive precedent by making the game creative commons licensed and offering The Planarch\u2019s Codex as a \u201claunch title\u201d for the game. I like the idea of DW as a platform rather than just a game in and of itself. There are some amazing supplements for it that we had literally nothing to do with. It\u2019s a great feeling!<\/p>\n

What I really hope, in the long run, is that DW is a comfortable start for folks who want to expand and try new stuff. A Dungeon World fan who\u2019ll give Sagas of the Icelanders a try because the system feels familiar or who\u2019ll pick up a copy of Dogs in the Vineyard because it\u2019s connected to DW by way of Apocalypse World. I think everyone should try every game there is – an informed gamer is a happy gamer.<\/p>\n

Tell me your secrets about this unnamed space-opera-future-romance-game. What are the mechanics? What does it feel like? (No need to name the IP.)<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s okay! It\u2019s fairly easy knowledge to come by that I\u2019m working on adapting some of Dungeon World\u2019s mechanics to a Mass Effect game. It\u2019s an amazingly deep canon with great setting and characterization but what really drew me to Mass Effect is the humanism of the stories it tells. That\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t love transhuman sci-fi, Freemarket and Eclipse Phase are both favourites of mine. What I love about it is that it is, ultimately, about being human. Not transcending your humanity, not becoming part of the galactic melting pot but really embracing your humanity and staking a claim on the galaxy. On top of that, I love what Bioware is starting to do with game-character romance? They have this cavalier attitude, barring a few missteps, wherein your protagonist can love who you want, regardless of their sex or gender or even species. I want to make that a core part of a tabletop game, because I think the venue of face-to-face roleplaying can create an experience that video games aren\u2019t able to, yet.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an ambitious adaptation, but I\u2019m trying to bend the apocalypse engine to my will by stealing liberally from all the other games published using it and putting in some weird twists. It\u2019s a little like DW was to D&D – I want the game to feel like a proper tabletop RPG and leverage all the cool, intense personal stuff you can experience in that venue but also, I really want to make it feel like a Mass Effect game. I want players to make Renegade and Paragon choices. I want shield timers and ammo types but I also want big messy interspecies poly love. I\u2019m smiling just writing about it, which must mean I\u2019m onto something.<\/p>\n

Your photos are great! What kind of camera do you use? What do you like most about photography?<\/b><\/p>\n

Thanks! I\u2019ve been taking photos longer than I\u2019ve been designing games, though I mostly do it for fun, these days. I picked up a Sony RX1 from a camera shop in Akihabara this past June and it\u2019s really fired up my love of photography. Right now, I\u2019m really into taking convention shots – some of my favourite photos in the last year have been folks at GenCon or GoPlay Northwest just hanging out and playing games. It\u2019s such an intense experience, certainly as intense as sports or theatre, but so intimate and subtle. It\u2019s really great being able to capture someone in a passionate moment at the table. I don\u2019t think anyone is really taking convention photos like that right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Thanks so much to Adam for the interview! You can catch him on Twitter\u00a0@skinnyghost <\/a>and read more about Dungeon World here<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Content Warning: There have been multiple statements against Adam Koebel for violation of consent , abuse, and abuse of power. In accordance with my policy on perpetrators of harm, I am putting this notice to raise awareness of the statements of the victims and ensure future readers are aware. I got to interview Adam Koebel … Continue reading “Five or So Questions with Adam Koebel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[390,1],"tags":[13,20,17,89,25,147,18],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-tbd","tag-dd","tag-five-or-so","tag-gaming","tag-geek","tag-interviews","tag-photography","tag-tabletop-rpgs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paHOcG-6I","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":410,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2014\/04\/five-or-so-questions-with-sage-latorra-on-black-stars-rise-and-more\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":0},"title":"Five or So Questions with Sage LaTorra on Black Stars Rise and More","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"April 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I got to interview Sage LaTorra about his current projects, like Black Stars Rise!Tell me about Black Stars Rise and your other current projects. What are you excited about?Black Stars Rise is a game I'm working on with Adam that draws on X-Files, the comics of Jeff Lemire, and certain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1356,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2019\/06\/five-or-so-questions-on-critical-core\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":1},"title":"Five or So Questions on Critical Core","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"June 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I have an interview today with AdamD from Game to Grow about Critical Core, which is currently in preorder! It sounded like such a fascinating project focused on helping autistic gamers! Check out Adam's responses below! -- Tell me about Critical Core. What excites you about it? 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