BESM Third Edition (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} guardiansorder) wrote,@ 2004-09-30 12:04:00 |
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Authority Author Interviews
We've talked a lot about The Authority RPG and Resource Book over the last six months, and we've recently released a ton of previews for the book. Now we're going some of the guys directly responsible for the core of the book - authors John Chambers, Matt Forbeck, and John Snead. Hear what they have to say about working on The Authority RPG and Resource Book and their feelings about The Authority in general!
John Chambers: I handled the recaps of the Warren Ellis/Brian Hitch run of The Authority.
Guardians Of Order: What makes The Authority an exciting basis for a campaign?
John Chambers: The Authority, both as a comic and now as an RPG, posits a very realistic take on what would happen if a small group of people literally had the power and the will to change the world and make it a better place. Unlike most superhero groups of the world-shaking power level variety, the Authority is proactive in its mission. It doesn't wait for threats to spring up, it doesn't care about international laws and jurisdiction, and it doesn't give a damn if the entrenched power structure wants the team's help or not. The Authority does its thing because its members believe that it's the right thing to do.
As a comic fan and gamer, I think that broad mission statement provides a forum for players to think about what it is they would like to change about the world they live in if they only had the power and then a stage on which to play out those usually idle fancies to their realistic and often hyperviolent conclusions. I find such play very cathartic myself. And the great thing is, those sorts of stories are infinitely customizable to the beliefs and play style of the players themselves. Two groups might both think that the source of most crime in the USA may be traced to the government's War on Drugs. The thing is, one group might take it upon itself to demolish the Colombian drug cartels in order to win the War on Drugs, while the second might think that it's the war itself that's the problem and bully Congress into legalizing a number of illegal drugs, thereby allowing legitimate business to take over the drug trade and causing the cartels to collapse in that way. From the perspective of the Authority, either approach would work and leave the common man better off.
Guardians Of Order: What future projects based on The Authority would be fun to work on?
John Chambers: I'd love to work on projects featuring the Mark Millar/Frank Quietly run. Though very different in tone to the Ellis/Hitch issues, they were still a blast to read and really marked the beginning of Millar and Quietly's rise to comics superstardom.
Guardians Of Order: What is your favorite Authority storyarc, and how might you use it as a cornerstone for your own campaign?
John Chambers: I actually really enjoyed the misadventures of the new Authority (the Colonel, Street, the Machine, the Surgeon, Teuton, Last Call and Rush), and could see a lot of fun story potential there. I think playing a group of toadies to the world's superpowers who nevertheless need to appear like their rebellious, free-thinking predecessors to the world's people and manage to do so through an immense spin doctoring campaign even as they repeatedly screw up and massacre innocent people is incredibly appealing ... in a very black way.
Matt Forbeck: Back in 1994 or so, John Nee, VP at WildStorm, called me to ask me to help out with a CCG that Drew Bittner and Jim Lee had designed in-house. They flew me out to play it, and after a quick look I could see that it needed a lot of work. They hired me for that job, and I helped them out through the main game and all of its expansions.
I was on their comp list until DC bought the company, so I read literally everything they produced for a couple years. I even sold them an inventory story for WildC.A.T.s that never got published. This was during Alan Moore's run, so that's no surprise.
I'd been a fan of The Authority since Warren Ellis first introduced the characters in the pages of StormWatch. When I found out that Guardians of Order had the license to produce the RPG based on the series, I jumped at the chance to work on it.
Guardians Of Order: What does your Player's Advice chapter contain? How is playing an Authority character different from a "standard" superhero?
Matt Forbeck: The chapter gives you the tools you need to play a character in a high-powered campaign. This includes new character archetypes and advice covering origins, motivations, styles, dealing with celebrity, and having godlike powers.
Authority heroes tend to think at the strategic rather than the tactical level. They could easily stop bank robberies or clean up all the crime in a major city, but they're out to change the world, literally.
Guardians Of Order: What kind of Authority character/campaign would you like to play or run, given your druthers?
Matt Forbeck: Someone like the Midnighter always appeals to me. He's the ultimate fighting machine.
As for a campaign, I'd try something that explores what happens if the heroes exert their powers at a political level. There are issues that are complex enough that using most kinds of superpowers to fix them is like performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer. There's a lot to work with there.
I've also long been interested in topics like "What kinds of rights are normal people willing to give up to feel safe from those with the power to hurt them?" My role-playing game Brave New World is now out of print, but it tackled those issues, and I'd love to see what would happen if you threw the Authority into the mix.
Guardians Of Order: How many years will it be until your kids are ready for the Authority?
Matt Forbeck:My eldest is five and the others are two. It's going to be a while. As much as I adore The Authority, it's miles away from an all-ages title.
John Snead: I was initially attracted to the Authority because Warren Ellis is one of my three favorite comics authors (the others being Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore) and I had also greatly enjoyed the work Warren Ellis did on Stormwatch. I was already quite involved with the characters there and looked forward to reading more about them in The Authority.
I very much enjoyed this project because it gave me a chance to both delve more deeply into the comic and to (in an exceedingly limited fashion) work with that the world and the characters in it, as I helped clarify details of the background and the characters.
Guardians Of Order: You wrote the chapters on the characters' and the world of The Authority. How did you approach them, and what did you bring to the book?
John Snead: My first imperative was to be absolutely true to Ellis' vision of the setting and the characters. I exhaustively studied both the text and the fine details of the art for clues to any questions that I had. I hope that I have done justice to both characters and setting and was very much helped by the fact that I have a very broad education and familiar with details of everything from Chinese culture to quantum physics.
One of the most important challenges for any RPG adaptation of a book, comic, or film is that players and (especially) GMs require more minute and exacting details to play in or run a setting or to play characters than an author or director need to tell an excellent story. Ellis never needed to describe the full range of Jack Hawksmoor's powers or details of Gamorra Island's economy or geography. However, both are necessary for running an RPG in this setting. I used my knowledge and experience to help me fill in these minute but crucial details.
Guardians Of Order: How well do you think the Authority RPG captures the over-the-top action of the comic?
John Snead: Extremely, the Tri Stat mechanics are in my opinion the best existing mechanics for modeling highly cinematic action and so the rules very much support the level of earth-shaking power found in the comic. Also, I feel that the character stats do an excellent job of reflecting the vast power of the characters.
Guardians Of Order: Who is your favourite character, and why? And is the kind of character you would like to play in an Authority game, or something else entirely?
John Snead: The answers to those questions are different. Like many other people, my favorite character is Jenny Sparks. I was deeply impressed with that character when I first read Stormwatch and I very much enjoyed seeing what Ellis did with her in The Authority. However, she is not a character that I think that I would be terribly good at playing, I do not excel at playing cool, hard-edged cynicism. Instead, I would always choose to play Angie, the Engineer. She is just the sort of slightly naive but brilliant character that I enjoy and I am fascinated by the range and diversity of her powers.
We've talked a lot about The Authority RPG and Resource Book over the last six months, and we've recently released a ton of previews for the book. Now we're going some of the guys directly responsible for the core of the book - authors John Chambers, Matt Forbeck, and John Snead. Hear what they have to say about working on The Authority RPG and Resource Book and their feelings about The Authority in general!
John Chambers
Guardians Of Order: What role did you have in working on The Authority RPG and Resource Book?John Chambers: I handled the recaps of the Warren Ellis/Brian Hitch run of The Authority.
Guardians Of Order: What makes The Authority an exciting basis for a campaign?
John Chambers: The Authority, both as a comic and now as an RPG, posits a very realistic take on what would happen if a small group of people literally had the power and the will to change the world and make it a better place. Unlike most superhero groups of the world-shaking power level variety, the Authority is proactive in its mission. It doesn't wait for threats to spring up, it doesn't care about international laws and jurisdiction, and it doesn't give a damn if the entrenched power structure wants the team's help or not. The Authority does its thing because its members believe that it's the right thing to do.
As a comic fan and gamer, I think that broad mission statement provides a forum for players to think about what it is they would like to change about the world they live in if they only had the power and then a stage on which to play out those usually idle fancies to their realistic and often hyperviolent conclusions. I find such play very cathartic myself. And the great thing is, those sorts of stories are infinitely customizable to the beliefs and play style of the players themselves. Two groups might both think that the source of most crime in the USA may be traced to the government's War on Drugs. The thing is, one group might take it upon itself to demolish the Colombian drug cartels in order to win the War on Drugs, while the second might think that it's the war itself that's the problem and bully Congress into legalizing a number of illegal drugs, thereby allowing legitimate business to take over the drug trade and causing the cartels to collapse in that way. From the perspective of the Authority, either approach would work and leave the common man better off.
Guardians Of Order: What future projects based on The Authority would be fun to work on?
John Chambers: I'd love to work on projects featuring the Mark Millar/Frank Quietly run. Though very different in tone to the Ellis/Hitch issues, they were still a blast to read and really marked the beginning of Millar and Quietly's rise to comics superstardom.
Guardians Of Order: What is your favorite Authority storyarc, and how might you use it as a cornerstone for your own campaign?
John Chambers: I actually really enjoyed the misadventures of the new Authority (the Colonel, Street, the Machine, the Surgeon, Teuton, Last Call and Rush), and could see a lot of fun story potential there. I think playing a group of toadies to the world's superpowers who nevertheless need to appear like their rebellious, free-thinking predecessors to the world's people and manage to do so through an immense spin doctoring campaign even as they repeatedly screw up and massacre innocent people is incredibly appealing ... in a very black way.
Matt Forbeck
Guardians Of Order: Can you briefly describe your long association with WildStorm, and how that shaped your approach to the book?Matt Forbeck: Back in 1994 or so, John Nee, VP at WildStorm, called me to ask me to help out with a CCG that Drew Bittner and Jim Lee had designed in-house. They flew me out to play it, and after a quick look I could see that it needed a lot of work. They hired me for that job, and I helped them out through the main game and all of its expansions.
I was on their comp list until DC bought the company, so I read literally everything they produced for a couple years. I even sold them an inventory story for WildC.A.T.s that never got published. This was during Alan Moore's run, so that's no surprise.
I'd been a fan of The Authority since Warren Ellis first introduced the characters in the pages of StormWatch. When I found out that Guardians of Order had the license to produce the RPG based on the series, I jumped at the chance to work on it.
Guardians Of Order: What does your Player's Advice chapter contain? How is playing an Authority character different from a "standard" superhero?
Matt Forbeck: The chapter gives you the tools you need to play a character in a high-powered campaign. This includes new character archetypes and advice covering origins, motivations, styles, dealing with celebrity, and having godlike powers.
Authority heroes tend to think at the strategic rather than the tactical level. They could easily stop bank robberies or clean up all the crime in a major city, but they're out to change the world, literally.
Guardians Of Order: What kind of Authority character/campaign would you like to play or run, given your druthers?
Matt Forbeck: Someone like the Midnighter always appeals to me. He's the ultimate fighting machine.
As for a campaign, I'd try something that explores what happens if the heroes exert their powers at a political level. There are issues that are complex enough that using most kinds of superpowers to fix them is like performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer. There's a lot to work with there.
I've also long been interested in topics like "What kinds of rights are normal people willing to give up to feel safe from those with the power to hurt them?" My role-playing game Brave New World is now out of print, but it tackled those issues, and I'd love to see what would happen if you threw the Authority into the mix.
Guardians Of Order: How many years will it be until your kids are ready for the Authority?
Matt Forbeck:My eldest is five and the others are two. It's going to be a while. As much as I adore The Authority, it's miles away from an all-ages title.
John Snead
Guardians Of Order: What initially attracted to you to the Authority, and what was it like to work on this project?John Snead: I was initially attracted to the Authority because Warren Ellis is one of my three favorite comics authors (the others being Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore) and I had also greatly enjoyed the work Warren Ellis did on Stormwatch. I was already quite involved with the characters there and looked forward to reading more about them in The Authority.
I very much enjoyed this project because it gave me a chance to both delve more deeply into the comic and to (in an exceedingly limited fashion) work with that the world and the characters in it, as I helped clarify details of the background and the characters.
Guardians Of Order: You wrote the chapters on the characters' and the world of The Authority. How did you approach them, and what did you bring to the book?
John Snead: My first imperative was to be absolutely true to Ellis' vision of the setting and the characters. I exhaustively studied both the text and the fine details of the art for clues to any questions that I had. I hope that I have done justice to both characters and setting and was very much helped by the fact that I have a very broad education and familiar with details of everything from Chinese culture to quantum physics.
One of the most important challenges for any RPG adaptation of a book, comic, or film is that players and (especially) GMs require more minute and exacting details to play in or run a setting or to play characters than an author or director need to tell an excellent story. Ellis never needed to describe the full range of Jack Hawksmoor's powers or details of Gamorra Island's economy or geography. However, both are necessary for running an RPG in this setting. I used my knowledge and experience to help me fill in these minute but crucial details.
Guardians Of Order: How well do you think the Authority RPG captures the over-the-top action of the comic?
John Snead: Extremely, the Tri Stat mechanics are in my opinion the best existing mechanics for modeling highly cinematic action and so the rules very much support the level of earth-shaking power found in the comic. Also, I feel that the character stats do an excellent job of reflecting the vast power of the characters.
Guardians Of Order: Who is your favourite character, and why? And is the kind of character you would like to play in an Authority game, or something else entirely?
John Snead: The answers to those questions are different. Like many other people, my favorite character is Jenny Sparks. I was deeply impressed with that character when I first read Stormwatch and I very much enjoyed seeing what Ellis did with her in The Authority. However, she is not a character that I think that I would be terribly good at playing, I do not excel at playing cool, hard-edged cynicism. Instead, I would always choose to play Angie, the Engineer. She is just the sort of slightly naive but brilliant character that I enjoy and I am fascinated by the range and diversity of her powers.
