Monday, February 18, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with Monte Cook

I studied journalism through high school and college. I worked on the various papers of the schools that I went to, and as a blogger I have tried to utilize the skills and training that I picked up while studying journalism. When I was in high school, still living in Indiana, my mom manager to wrangle my getting to interview (then) local morning radio personalities Bob & Tom. It was a big thrill, but I think being a full of himself teen took the edge of of the awe that I felt in talking with them.

Yes, there is a point to this.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to interview +Monte Cook for my Dorkland! Roundtable. I think for the first time since I have been interviewing people, I was nervous during my interview. I tried to work around it. Who knows, hopefully (if I wasn't telling all of you about it now) it won't be noticeable.


Monte Cook was one of the designers of D&D 3e, the game that brought me back into the D&D gaming fold after so many years of wandering in the role-playing deserts of the world. Monte also was given the opportunity to not only revamp the World of Darkness, but he was able to convert it into a different gaming system. Of course, we talked about all of that.

Monte also had a big Kickstarter for a game that he is working on now, a science fantasy game called Numenera. I didn't back the Kickstarter, but I am looking forward to when the game comes out.

One of my big regrets of my many years of not playing D&D is that I missed out on Planescape, one of the big second edition settings. Honestly, from what little I do know about it I think that I would have really enjoyed playing in the setting. That's also probably why Planescape, despite being one of the things that Monte has worked on over his career, gets so little mention in our interview. Maybe one day I will find the books for cheap and I will get to see what was such a big deal about the game. Until then, I guess that I just have my imagination. I hope that you all enjoy the interview.