|
Kobold: |
Thanks for coming down to
my humble cave, Mr. Nephew. Um, watch your feet, I'm not sure what
that puddle is. Anyway, let's get right to the prying, personal
questions.
You started Atlas Games.
You're the Big Kahuna. The Head Honcho. The Man. You've got the
power, the money, the recognition, the babes, and the vast armies of
bootlicking lackeys to carry out your orders. You rule over a
publishing empire spanning what could be, for all we know, dozens of
square feet of space. Tell us, please, what a typical day in the
life of John Nephew is like. Don't leave out any bar fights or
illegal activities. This is for posterity. |
|
John Nephew: |
I start my day with
three cups of coffee. I try to avoid making any significant
decisions or having any conversations until at least the first dose
of caffeine is in my system.
Beyond that, every day is different. I wear a lot of different hats
(as you might expect in a company this small, and a part of the
world this cold), and one of my eternal challenges is prioritizing
all the things that appear on my to-do list. In a given day I might
take care of some distributor orders (which involves invoicing,
packing, and shipping the order; and may also involve processing a
credit card payment), take care of customer service issues (such as
mailing someone cards that were missing from a miscollated game
deck), negotiate a translation license, make an offer to someone
whose original game we want to publish, write checks to freelance
writers and artists, rearrange boxes and pallets in the warehouse to
make room for more stuff, request estimates from several printers
for upcoming projects, play a game submission that Michelle has
flagged as worth considering for publication, proofread an RPG book
that is almost ready for press, or try to figure out why a shipment
of games produced overseas hasn't cleared customs yet. |
| |
|
| K: |
If you were an animal featured on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom,
what would you be, and why? |
|
JN: |
Some kind of hirsute, balding primate. Or maybe an ocelot, because
I think it's a cool word. |
| |
|
| K: |
You've been a gamer for a long time now, and your company produces a
number of role playing games, so you're obviously familiar with the
many game systems available. Which game do you think has a really
good idea or story background, but has mechanics that suck so bad
you wouldn't want to actually play? |
|
JN: |
Hmm. I don't have a good answer for this. I think there are lots
of highly complex game mechanics that are really not to my liking
... but I wouldn't say that they suck, because I know there are a
lot of people who really like them and get into them. Conversely,
I'm partial to a game system like Over the Edge, which is really
stripped down; but I know that it drives some people crazy because
there is so much that it doesn't quantify. Plus I think the nature
of gamers is to read rules through their personal gaming lens, and
to adapt or ignore elements of rules as they see fit. I mean, did
anyone actually play 1st Edition AD&D using weapon
speed factors? Even more important, gamers usually learn game rules
from other gamers, and then read additional rules through the lens
of the way they've already been taught to play a game. |
| |
|
| K: |
Your office is on fire thanks to a faulty George Foreman grill and
some suspiciously flammable sausage links. You have 10 seconds to
get to safety. What do you grab? |
|
JN: |
My wife. |
|
K: |
Ooo, good one!
When she reads this, she'll prob'ly go all wobbly with lust for you.
Damn, you're smooth! |
| |
|
| K: |
Speaking of your chick,
I know Michelle Nephew is on your staff. An incredible
coincidence that you hired someone with the same last name as yours,
huh? Tell us about working with Michelle. What's that like? |
|
JN: |
We recently celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary, and
we're still not tired of each other. It's kind of amazing to know
that we are in each others' company for all but maybe, I dunno, ten
or twelve hours of any given week, and we still get along. As long
as I make sure she's fed on time, anyhow. (If you have any
experience with hypoglycemic goblin women, you know what I mean.) |
|
K: |
If we have
experience with goblin women?! Lemme tell you, I dated this one
norker in college, she used to get so worked up she'd bite the heads
off freshmen. Although I think that was more of an anger management
issue than a medical condition... |
| |
|
| K: |
Where's your favorite vacation spot? What do you do for fun on
vacation? |
|
JN: |
I'm not much of a vacationer. Michelle
has decreed that we will take a vacation every year, however, and
I've decided the path of least resistance is just to go along with
whatever she wants to do. Last year it was a Costa Rica; next
month, shortly after we get back from the GAMA Trade Show, it'll be
a cruise in the Mediterranean to see the solar eclipse and visit
various ancient sites.
I'm not a huge fan of travel, but if I must,
I like travel in places with ruins, archaeological digs, etc. And
though I'm initially surly about being dragged out of my own cave
into the daylight, I wind up enjoying myself. |
|
K: |
Hey!
I'm the same way! They call me names, like "disgruntled", whenever
the webmistress of this site wants me to leave my cave and go
someplace, you know, to promote the site, or make a court appearance
or somethin'. But once I'm out in public, I usually end up having a
lot of fun! Until the complaining starts, of course. "Hey, kobold!
Put your pants back on!" That kind of thing.
But anyway, you were talking about vacations? |
| |
|
|
JN: |
As for a favorite vacation spot? I'd say home. I like staying at
home reading, watching TiVo or Netflix, playing computer games,
lounging in the hot tub, or doing something like making mulberry jam
from the tree in our back yard. But then, I can do that sort of
thing any day that I wake up and feel like I just don't want to go
to work today – one of the perks of being your own boss – so I guess
it doesn't count as a real vacation. |
| |
|
| K: |
Connery, Brosnan, Dalton, or Moore? |
|
JN: |
Connery. |
|
K: |
Hm. Interesting
choice. If you'd said "Lazenby," you'd have been fed to the dire
weevils, of course. |
| |
|
"Bond...
James Bond." |
| K: |
You've written several
role playing products, of course. Do you start with one really
bitchin' idea, perhaps a climactic battle scene in your head, then
flesh out the details of an adventure based around that image? Or do
you start from the beginning and gradually decide what the product
will look like as you go, maybe not knowing how the adventure will
end until you start writing the final pieces? |
|
JN: |
It depends. A lot of the stuff I've
written was done for TSR, where I was writing to specifications and
a title that they had provided. They'd tell me “this is a book
about making fairy-type creatures as PCs” (Tall Tales of the Wee
Folk), or “This is an adventure where the PCs become gladiators”
(Arenas of Thyatis). Then my job was to fill in all the
backstory, plot, and details. What I often found interesting was
trying to make something that actually had continuity with the rest
of the product line, which I discovered that a lot of writers didn't
pay much attention to. It was like solving a mystery, only whatever
answer I made up would be decreed correct.
It's really been a long time since I wrote any game products; it's
hard for me to remember exactly what I was thinking when I was
writing them. I've been on the other side of the editorial and
managerial pen over the last decade – telling writers, “Here's a
title and a rough concept, go make this into an RPG supplement!” |
| |
|
| K: |
How does this shirt I'm wearing smell to you? Because I took it off
a hobbit, and those guys are grubby. I think he may have rolled
around in something. |
|
JN: |
I'm relieved to learn that smell is you. I was worried it might
have been something I ate. |
| |
|
| K: |
How do you find art for your products? I mean, you'd go broke paying
the Big Names in the industry for their services for every module
and compendium. Do you have 'go to' artists standing by, or do you
look around until you see someone's work somewhere and say, "Hey,
I'll ask this guy to draw some crap for our next sourcebook!" |
|
JN: |
There are a number of artists we've
worked with for years and years.
Grey Thornberry, for example, was
illustrating On the Edge cards in 1994, and he did the cover
of Covenants (the new Ars Magica book that recently
shipped to distributors); Jeff Menges and
Eric Hotz did some
interior artwork on Covenants, and I think I've worked with
them since before Atlas existed (when they were doing illustrations
for 2nd Edition Ars Magica under its original
publisher, Lion Rampant).
So a lot of the time we return to the familiar folks that have
worked well for us in the past. We also try out new talent now and
then. We have a big filing cabinet stuffed full of artist
portfolios. When we need to look for someone new, we hit the
portfolios and pull out likely candidates, and go and see if the
promising artists are available for the schedule and budget at hand. |
| |
|
| K: |
OK, seriously, John… how much were you guys drinking when you looked
around for a new product to publish, and said, 'You know what'd be
great? Furry Pirates !' |
|
JN: |
Heh. Trust a goblin to take a pot shot
at the easy target.
The truth is that most games we've
published came to us through the slush pile – an unsolicited
proposal or manuscript comes in the mail (with the obligatory
release form included), we look at it, and we decide whether we'd
like to publish it. Furry Pirates was such a submission and,
while I wouldn't have listed “anthropomorphic animal pirates” as
something I was looking for specifically, the manuscript sold me.
It was well written, fun to read, and the whole concept was
strangely compelling.
Obviously Furry Pirates didn't
make it to the all-time bestsellers list, but it was profitable and
I count it a success. We only intended it to be a standalone book;
it's easy to get pulled into the exercise wheel of supplement
publication, which can take a decent business success and turn it
into a big sucking drain on capital and resources for a publisher.
I think there's room in the market, though, for niche products like
this, if you keep a careful eye on the budget. |
 |
| |
|
| K: |
Do you play any instruments? |
|
JN: |
Nope. I took piano lessons in grade school, but hated practicing
and was incredibly relieved when my parents let me stop. I took a
semester of guitar lessons in college, but didn't seem to go
anywhere there. When I was taking piano lessons in grade school,
all I really wanted to do was compose music, not practice and play
it. |
| |
|
| K: |
In perusing the Atlas Games products list, we've been very aware
that you produce no science fiction material, in terms of space
games. What's the deal? No love for laser guns? |
|
JN: |
I
actually have an epic science fiction game I want to write. If I
ever get around to writing it...well, we'll see. Don't hold your
breath. The downside of turning from writer into publisher is that
you get a lot of direct contact with the work of writers who, you
realize, are way better than you yourself are. It makes it a little
harder to motivate yourself to sit down and write something when you
can imagine, say, how much better Robin Laws could do it. |
| |
|
| K: |
If a movie were made about your life, who would you want to play
you? |
|
JN: |
Judd Nelson. Though he's like a decade older than me, so you'd
either need a time machine to get him from the Breakfast Club
days, or you could maybe do a science fiction tale about my life in
a dystopian future ten years from now. |
| |
|
| K: |
Hey! We're heading to the Origins game convention in June. Are
you gonna be there? Do you wanna hang out? Get some pizza or
something? I'll wear a clean shirt. (Well, a cleaner one…) |
|
JN: |
I'd love to, but this year my little sister is getting married the
weekend of Origins. Various people who know about these things have
advised me that in spite of how difficult the choice seems to be, I
really should go to the wedding. |
| |
|
| K: |
Let's do a mental association drill. We'll give you the title to a
song, and you jot down the image that pops first, immediately, into
your head. Ok, ready?... |
| |
|
| K: |
Simply Irresistible (Robert Palmer) |
|
JN: |
Those chicks with the freaky makeup in the videos. That was Robert
Palmer, right? |
| |
|
| K: |
Back in Black (AC/DC) |
|
JN: |
Lewis Black on the Daily Show. |
| |
|
| K: |
That Don't Impress Me Much (Shania Twain) |
|
JN: |
Who the hell is Shania Twain?
OK, I know she's some current pop star, but I stopped listening to
current music when the only independent station in the Twin Cities
worth listening to got sold to a big media conglomerate that
promptly changed the format to some crap piped in from their
corporate HQ somewhere on the other side of the country. |
|
K: |
 |
That's OK, John. You really
don't need to listen to her current music.
Actually,
it's best if you 'mute' the sound and just stare at the video... |
|
JN: |
There's actually now a very good public station playing music in the
Twin Cities, and featuring some of the same DJs of the late and
lamented Rev105, but I have to admit that I got in the habit of just
listening to the public radio news station and pretty much stopped
listening to music radio, even though there is a good station again
and any time I've tuned it I've thought to myself, “Damn, this is a
good station.” |
| |
|
| K: |
Macarena (Los del Río) |
|
JN: |
All the human chicks on World of Warcraft dance the macarena,
don't they? |
|
K: |
We wouldn't know.
You humans do the weirdest crap. |
| |
|
| K: |
Stayin' Alive (Bee Gees) |
|
JN: |
I'm seeing bell bottoms and chest hair. |
| |
|
| K: |
Sussudio (Phil Collins) |
|
JN: |
I'm remembering some interview in which Phil Collins explained that
it's really the tune of Prince's “1999,” but changed a little. And
I have always thought, isn't it amazing how a little change can turn
something from “excellent” to “sucks.” This is a lesson that game
publishers must always remember. |
| |
|
| K: |
What's your favorite city in the whole wide world? |
|
JN: |
Duluth, because I grew up there. |
| |
|
| K: |
With all your rpg-ing, do you have any time for computer games? You
play any Neverwinter Nights? Baldur's Gate? Sonic
the Hedgehog? Q-Bert? |
|
JN: |
Apart from a minor World of Warcraft addiction my wife and I
are presently coping with, I mostly play older PC games –
Civilization III and Imperialism II are ones that I find
I like to play again and again. |
| |
|
| K: |
If you and famous actor Kevin Spacey were engaged in mortal combat,
who would win? |
|
JN: |
He would. |
| |
|
| K: |
What was your favorite Halloween costume when you were young? |
|
JN: |
Superman. |
| |
|
| K: |
Speaking of holidays, today was Groundhog's Day. What did you do to
celebrate? |
|
JN: |
Left the office a bit early, only to find that my “brief” stop at
the post office on the way home took 45 minutes, so I wound up
logging more than 8 hours of work after all. |
| |
|
| K: |
If we say nice things about your fashion sense, can we get a free
copy of
Glimpse of the Abyss
when it comes out? |
|
JN: |
Is it actually coming out? You might think I'd be in a position to
know. Don't get me started... |
