Gav Thorpe is a name that will be familiar to anyone acquainted with many of Games Workshop's various rule systems writing several himself, as well as being accredited with work in developing many others including the Lord of the Rings game. He is also a Warhammer novelist, regular contributor to White Dwarf and organiser of games at the Nottingham headquarters, however he has found time in his busy schedule to talk to us here at Gamer Heaven.
KD: When did your interest in wargaming first begin?
GT: When I was around eight or nine, I would say. I had lots of plastic toy soldiers, and a friend and I made up some rules for them. When I was ten years old or so I discovered several wargaming books in the local library, including a couple by Donald Featherstone, and I realised there was this whole hobby out there just waiting for me.
KD: How did your career at Games Workshop start, and what was the first project they had you work on?
GT: I started GW as an Assistant Games Developer in 1993, after speaking to Jervis at Games Day and sending in a letter and some stuff I had written. My very first job was pasting together mock-up wargear and psychic power cards for the playtests of Dark Millennium for 2nd ed 40K! Writing-wise it was the relaunch of the Citadel Journal, alongside Mark Hawkins and Ian Pickstock. My first ‘mainstream’ product was the Pit Fighter warrior pack for Warhammer Quest, and my first WD article was about the Squat Cyclops for Space Marine (Epic).
KD: Of all the codex's, Army books, Rule books you have worked on which is your favorite, which are you most proud of?
GT: Tough choice! I’m really proud of Codex: Sisters of Battle and Inquisitor, both of which allowed me to introduce all kinds of things to the 40K universe that are now taken as granted and seen everywhere, but were fresh and new at the time. I’m also quite pleased with my last two contributions – Vampire Counts and Dark Elves. As projects they were perhaps the most complete and rounded things I have worked on, combining background, miniatures, rules and art from concept to completion in a very pleasing way.
KD: Are there any of the codex's/ Army Books that you thought looking back "Oh I wish I had(n't) done this!" or "Damn I could have included/ changed that special rule"?
GT: Every single project contains a few things that you would tweak in retrospect. One that I usually bring up is the special bonus movement rule for the Blood Angels in 3rd ed. Originally the rule simply made the Blood Angels squad move forwards, but after a discussion with Jervis (who rightly said “players tend to forget rules that aren’t of benefit to them”) I changed it to a bonus movement and look where that ended up! As I said, there is always a points cost that can be modified, a rule worded better or changed, a magic item or piece of wargear that is under- or over-powered.
As a project, I think the rewrite of Chaos Space Marines could have benefitted from a bit more ‘grit’ and options, and we were overall too puritan at that time. I still think the principle of streamlining the list and rules was right, but we took it a little too far.
KD When working on the Army book/ Codex of one of your favorite armies is it hard to resist the temptation to make it especially hard so you will win more games?
GT: Not hard at all. My primary goal has always been to make an army interesting to collect, play and face, and you have to bring the same enthusiasm to every project. You find and angle that you think will work as a dynamic and stick with that. If you’re already deeply involved with an army it’s often tempting to write for only those people who have the same experience as you, but you have to be professional and remember that you are writing for newcomers as well as established players.
You can’t second-guess everybody, so you have to go with what feels fun and cool and hope that other players agree with you. Power-levels and all of that are part of what you need to keep an eye on, but blandness is a far more significant problem.
KD: The career route of Games Developer to author seems to be quite popular (yourself, Graham McNeill to name a few) how did you go about writing and submitting your first novel/ short story.
GT: I was sat in the same department as Andy Jones when Black Library was started, so it was a simple matter of having a chat with him about writing a short story for the to-be-launched Inferno magazine. Rather bravely I pitched in with Birth of a Legend, telling the story of how Sigmar got his hammer! Later came the debut of Kage and the Last Chancers, which naturally led me into the novels when BL were looking to turn some of their Inferno characters into series. I’ve been very fortunate to have it this easy!
KD: So can you give us a quick list of the armies you collect yourself and which is your favorite?
GT: I must confess that I haven’t done much with my GW armies for a while now, they’ve sort of fallen fallow for the last couple of years. That said, I have Dwarfs for Warhammer, Eldar for 40K and Orcs and Easterling allies for LOTR. The Dwarfs have seen the most use, so I guess that says something about which I have the greatest love for.
KD: If you could introduce a new plotline or race to 40k who and or what would it be?
GT: This sorta follows from the last answers, but if I had a magic wand I would bring the Demiurg into full existence as an army and race. Various discussions over the years about making space dwarfs make me believe there is a fantastic image and background to be explored there. I came up with the Demiurg name, by the way, when we were trying not to use ‘Squats’.
KD: One of your biggest acheivements has to be the "Inquisitor" system. How did that come about? Did you pitch the idea to "Them" or did "They" approch you?
GT: There was a ‘slot’ open for a spring 2001 game. Games Dev got together and devised a bunch of pitches, including bringing back Man o’ War, recreating Space Hulk as a boarding actions game, doing Warhammer pirates, Adeptus Titanicus pitting Necron War Engines against Mechanicus armies on the surface of Mars, all kinds of stuff. Amongst them was a 54mm skirmish game. We had an Inquisition angle in mind, though nothing with any detail.
The idea of creating a highly collectible range of 54mm models appealed to the higher-ups and that option was taken. At that stage of my career is was felt my next step was to create a rules system, so I became lead designer and we went from there. The original idea was for the ‘sides’ to be Inquisitors and Chaos Magi, but after considering the somewhat small size of the range I came up with the puritans and radicals idea to allow the majority of miniatures to be used by any player.
KD: How would you respond to the comment that "the lack of balance/and power creep in all of gw's creations is spurred by an imbalanced need to sell than fun or for the good of the game."?
GT: I would say that power creep is not as prevalent as some gamers would like you to think, and that it exists not because of official policy but by the human nature of games developers. If power creep were enshrined in the games development strategy, you wouldn’t have some of the older armies still being more powerful, in some players’ eyes, than the new ones. There is imbalance, unfortunately, but there are only a couple of armies that are so out-of-whack it makes any difference outside of the narrow tournament mentality.
There are some factors inherent in 40K and Warhammer that favour certain army styles, but as can be seen with many of the other games systems like LOTR, Epic, Blood Bowl and so on, that’s more to do with the ‘inheritance’ of many years of constant development and the complexity of the basic system as anything any individual developer creates. At no point in any briefing I was part of or wrote did the words ‘This army has to be more powerful than the other ones’ appear. Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence!
KD: Have you ever played any non GW games systems? (Privateer Press, Battletech, Flames of War etc)
GT: I’ve toyed around with various other games. I wrote the ‘Open Fire!’ starter booklet for Flames of War, for instance. Recently I’ve been concentrating on creating some games systems of my own, just like it was when I started out, rather than off-the-shelf games systems already out there.
KD: If the answer is yes then was there any part of their systems that you thought "Wow thats good I wish we had thought of that" ?
GT: The examples you cited are all very different games trying to achieve a different gameplay. Particularly with 40K and Warhammer the style of the game has been established for so long you’re not going to do anything that radical to the underlying games system. I like all kinds of games, whether miniatures, roleplaying, board and card games, video games, and I always look for interesting ways of organising rules or mechanics for resolving certain things.
KD: To date (Nov 2010) you haven't written any full novels for the HH series. Is there any part of the HH that you think "I would sell my soul to Khorne to write about that" and if so what part?
GT: I’ll be starting my first HH novel after Christmas. I wouldn’t sell my soul for any particular subject, it just isn’t helpful to become wedded to a narrow idea, but I’m very happy to play in that big sandpit with the other authors.
KD: Apart from your own which is your favorite BL Book?
GT: Probably Execution Hour, by Gordon Rennie. Not only is it a cool 40K novel, it reminded me a lot of the Hornblower and Ramage novels I read as a teenager.
KD: And to continue my $h!t stirring. :) In his interview, Graham is convinced that if all the BL Authors got together for a session, he would be the last man standing (Air Guitaring). Do you agree with that statement?
GT: Hell no! McNeill is such a lightweight these days, he’s always falling asleep. Something about having a young kid, and all that... Not that I’m claiming the prize for myself either – three beers is about my limit these days. I think I used up all my ‘Resist Alcohol’ points in my youth.
KD: Do you have a preference when it comes to writing 40k or fantasy books?
GT: No. Both have their different appeals and challenges.
KD: If one of our readers was thinking of trying to get into the games development field what advice would you offer?
GT: Think of it as a whole, don’t fixate on working for a particular company or on a single games system. Opportunities are too few and far between to limit your options. Everyone I know that is a games designer or developer started out just doing it for themselves. You either have the urge to write games and scenarios and stories, or you don’t. If you get the chance to turn that into a career, all the better, but if you want a chance to make a decent living out of it, get into computer games!
Or found your own company...
KD: Do you get much time to play/ paint now or doesn't your timetable allow it?
GT: Not much time. I still play plenty of games, I just don’t have much time to do the painting. I’ve always been hot and cold in that respect, perhaps going on a binge for a few weeks before cooling off. If I ever get around to sorting out a permanent painting area, that might improve.
KD: What was the last model you painted and game you played?
GT: I can’t say... It’s a game I’m currently working on for a miniatures company!
KD: Did you win?
GT: I sort of did, but since I was just testing out the basic rules, it doesn’t really count.
KD: So finally can you give us a few hints on what you are working on now or will be in the near future?
GT: For Black Library, I’m just finishing Path of Seer. After Crimbo is the Horus Heresy, and rewrites for my Angry Robot novel The Crown of the Conqueror. There’s plenty of other Black Library stuff over the next couple of years!
On the games front, I’ve written/ am writing a couple of different rules systems at the moment; one a skirmish game, the other for slightly larger forces. That’s about all I can say at the moment until the information has been released by the companies involved.
KD: Well thanks for taking the time to answer these questions its been a pleasure as always. The next time you are in Ireland promoting a book or whatever the first drink is on me.
GT: Cheers, I’ll take you up on that!
Till next time
KD
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