Darklands Retrospective Interview
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RPG Codex: Darklands immediately stands out as the only CRPG among your Microprose titles. Why did you decide the game had to be a role-playing and not a strategy or action game? Did you look to other role-playing games (computer or pen and paper) for inspiration?
From a design standpoint, I took all my knowledge and experience of paper RPGs, the most influential of which was Traveller (GDW's original version) and RuneQuest (Chaosium's original version). I was also familiar with AD&D (then in its second edition), and back at Heritage in 1982 had even acted as editor and developer for a very minor paper fantasy RPG (Swordbearer). I was keenly aware of the general design issues. Most of all, I was very taken by Games' Workshop original Warhammer fantasy RPG, which was set in late medieval Germany. That game caused me to look into medieval German history somewhat before Darklands.
Josh Sawyer: Your background is in military history, but there's a fair amount of social history in Darklands. When you set out to design Darklands, did you always intend for it to be set in the 15th century Holy Roman Empire, or did you consider other times and places? What about the setting most appealed to you?
You're correct, my academic training is in history, and my specialty is military history. However, any decent military historian should be aware of the social, political and economic issues surrounding warfare. At the very start, I wanted the Darklands' (hook) to be that it would be use some beliefs from the era to (justify) fantastical elements, rather than trotting out the usual bog-standard wizards, clerics, bards, etc. Where possible, I like my game designs to provide an insight into history a (you are there) feel. When searching for tactical tradeoffs and interesting details, why goof around conjuring up stuff when there is plenty of interesting historical material to use?
I was also aware that no RPG set in a pre-medieval era had been successful. This meant the earliest conceivable period was the Dark Ages after the fall of western Rome. Given how risky the project already was, I decided the time period had to include some things familiar to fantasy gamers. This included all types of armor up to and including full plate. This in turn meant a full panoply of weaponry, from swords, axes, maces and bows, to hammers, bills, halberds, crossbows and longbows. This virtually required the game to be set in the late 1300s to 1400s.
If the game were set in France or Britain, it would inevitably be drawn into the events of the Hundred Years War (1330s to 1440s), on which I lacked sufficiently detailed material at that time. Germany's chaotic (robber knight) (raubritter) era became an obvious choice, especially since the very chaos of the period gave me consider (historical license.)
Josh Sawyer: Darklands features a number of mechanics that were unusual for CRPGs of the time, most notably the lack of classes, levels, and experience points. What were your motivations and goals when you were designing the character mechanics?
As a designer, I like to give players choices. Choices mean trade-offs and hopefully replayability. Players need the ability to make different, equally valid choices and see very different things happen.
The character generation system with its various tradeoffs, was something I always wanted to try since I first played Traveller. I liked the skill-based advancement system in various D&D competitors. The Darklands system was the result. You could mix fighting abilities with alchemy or religion for a character, but I (rigged) the systems to insure that it was virtually impossible to be good at everything. As a result, the best party has people of varied skills and specialities. I felt that there was a great deal of (fun) in creating various characters, seeing how they did when teamed up with other interesting characters.
All this is quite different from the (game as telling a story) philosophy popular in the last decade. The difficulty with storytelling is that each step of the story requires custom art assets and often gameplay, which is not especially replayable afterwards. Just because its different doesn't make it better or worse.
