The following is an interview with S. John Ross, full time freelance
writer for a number of different companies and all around swell guy. S.
John has a web page that gives you a much better view of him than I ever
could hope for in one paragraph, so when you are done here at Wedge, go
visit the Blue Room at http://www.io.com/~sjohn,
and tell him that WEDGE sent you.
How did you get your start in the gaming biz?
Argh. That's a trickier
one than it looks. The short version is that I decided I wanted to write
games, and pestered publishers until they let me. The long version is that
I made a point of playtesting for the games I wanted to write for, sending
piles of "shotgun" submissions to gaming magazines, schmoozing
editors at conventions, and phoning Steve Jackson up in the middle of meetings
until he yelled at me. Really, it's not an approach I'd suggest for others
;)
So, what was your first "big Break"?
My first big break came
with Avalon Hill.
Tales of the Floating Vagabond?
Tales From the Floating
Vagabond, yep. Nick Atlas and I met in a game of Blind Man's Bluff at a
local con. He was pretending to be Worldcon, and I was pretending to be
the moon Titan. I explained to him that I was writing tons of material
for SJ Games' Roleplayer, which gave me instant credibility ;) Nick offered
me an interview with Avalon Hill, which is a pretty rare way of getting
writers these days. But AH is an old-fashioned outfit.
I had met Nick once before,
at the con where Vagabond's designer met Nick and sold him on the game
to begin with, after having scmoozed at ME to try to get Steve Jackson
to publish it. Strange business.
Ok.. now.. how did you get involved with WEG?
Again, convention
contacts. There is a valuable lesson here. I did panels and chewed the
fat with WEG editors first at I-Con, and later at other cons. They got
to know me, I got to know them, and that's the basis of it all. Editors
like to work with people they know; it's just like any other business in
that respect.After a couple of years of being chummy at cons, the WEG guys
got a copy of Warehouse 23 and figured it was about time they hired me
for some freelance work.
What is your favorite article or book of your
own?
GURPS Russia and
GURPS Warehouse 23, currently, but if the Star Wars Adventure Journal lets
me write as many solitaire adventures as it looks like they may, that'll
switch fast ;) Russia's my best work though, seriously.
What is your favorite game written by someone
else?
I think Ghostbusters
was the best RPG ever published. With Call of Cthulhu a close second, and
Paranoia a close third. So, you can tell I like games where laughs are
to be had. A lot of people overlook Cthulhu's sense of humor, but for a
dread alien god he's a barrel of chuckles.
What about Ghostbusters makes it so good?
Ghostbusters works on so
many levels. The GMing tips were revolutionary for me. They practically
taught me to GM all by themselves. The adventure-potential was so huge:
new-age pulp, they called it. Ghosts and aliens and wierdness in the modern
day. These days, with all the X-Files stuff, it's trendy. Then, it was
revolutionary, and they still did it best. That and the system was so clean
and simple, the writing so unpretensious and fun.
Any book that says, by
way of advice to GMs "let them blow something up every half an hour,"
is clearly the work of people who know what makes a game tick ;)
So, what shuld we look forward to reading from
you in WEG products?
To be absolutely
frank, the same kind of stuff I've written everywhere else, only with stormtroopers
in it.
The Men in White?
The MIWs, yes ;)My
style is fairly personal, and the WEG editors seem to think it'll mesh
nicely with Star Wars. I agree. I like fun, cinematic, over-the-top action
with a sense of importance and visual impact. That's Star Wars all over.
It's like a homecoming. Plus, they're letting me write solos, as I said,
and I love solos.
So we will see you in the AJ soon? what other
products could we see you in?
I should be in the
AJ very very very soon. And, schedule allowing, I may well be in every
issue of the AJ from now on. Right now I'm also part of the SpecForces
Instant Adventures book, and the Corporate Sector Boxed set. I've also
got a handful of ideas for projects that I intend to propose to them, down
the road.
If you had no concerns about profitability, what
setting would you want to write the most?
The universe of
Douglas Adams' hitchhiker's novels is probably at the top of a very long
list.
And do you have favorite writers or artists in
the industry?
Most of my heroes
are gone, unfortunately. I think Greg Costikyan was the best game designer
we had, for instance. I have plenty of favorite artists, though; there
are dozens of brilliant illustrators working the gaming side of the street
these days. Elizabeth Danforth and Eric Hotz are big favorites. And Denis
Loubet.
Anything about you that we should know that we
don't already?
That my secret ambition
is to write a D6 adaption of Lucasfilm's Full Throttle computer game. ;)
Is it true that you have a website, for folks
that want to follow your progress and learn more about the man known as
SJohn?
Absolutely not.
There's a site up at http://www.io.com/~sjohn
that claims to be my site, but I deny it emphatically. In fact, I'm considering
denying it right there on the site, so that people know I'm being sincere.
Odds are, the D6 adaption
of Full Throttle is more likely to end up on the site than in print, so
keep an eye out ;)
Sjohn is quite friendly, and can be reached at [click
here for email], and he loves email. Ask him. He'll say so.
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