First at all, hello and
thanks for your collaboration.
Your name and work or occupation
Paul Cardwell, free lance writer.
How did you met rpg's ?
I owned a book store at the time and decided to stock RPG. I couldn't
get interested in D&D because of all the illogic in its structure
(armor making hitting harder rather than absorbing damage, no damage
until the last hit point is taken, glass ceilings for women and non-human
species, etc.). I encountered RuneQuest at a convention and started
with it, even doing some writing for them. When the third edition
was being prepared, we disagreed on amount of detail and parted
(friendly) and I developed Mythworld.
Could you give us a synopsis
of Mythworld?
Mythworld, as the name implies, is set in the traditional fantasy
setting. It consists of a boxed
set of books of: rules, bestiary, skills, spells, equipment, an introductory
scenario, ten character sheets, and D4, 6, and 20 dice. The rules
cover everything, including material for scenarists, weather, rarities
such as volcanoes (ash, lava, and pyroclastic flow) and earthquakes
(Mercalli scale).
The bestiary gives actual meters per second running
speed for 100m, lkm, and 100km, jumping distances, population density,
life-cycle chronology, and was used for an Olympics tie-in exhibit
by the Dallas Museum of Natural History.
All characters have a trade, which comes in handy
at the oddest times, and a religion. The character sheet is four pages
to account for different abilities in over a hundred general skills,
plus trade skills.
The game is rules-heavy (everything has a written
or implied rule), skill rather than class based (a character is good
in some things, bad in others, and most somewhere in between - like
real life), magic is rather low-key, and it tries for a logical world
similar to our own except for the traditional fantasy overlay of polytheism,
magic, and all those intelligent species.
Do you remember your first
role session? At the book store with some local high school
students. It went well and we all got hooked.
What was the first game
you played? RuneQuest, second version.
Which is your best memory
from this session? That it went so well.
Which is the worst?
That we were hesitant because we weren't sure we knew what we were
doing..
What percent of your friends
play role games? Probably well under 5%.
What do you like about RPGs?
The challenge of solving the problems the game presents.
What don't you like?
Difficulty in getting a group together to play (now that I no longer
have the book store, there is no central place, the original players
are grown and scattered).
What do you like about role
players? Their wide range of interests.
What don't you like?
They have too many other things to do than to play.
What good things has the
role games brought to your life? Friendships, new areas
of knowledge to explore.
What negative things?
I don't think I have any.
What do you think about
the stigm of "satanism" which sometimes have the RPGs? Having
diakonal orders, I find it just another opportunity to educate the
ill-informed about theology.
Why and how did you began
to be a storyteller ? When we ran out of commercially available
scenarios and I had learned enough about RPG to start writing my own.
With which game?
Originally with RuneQuest, but it was in this period that I (with
the help of other players) began thinking in concepts that became
Mythworld, although there was no conscious attempt to do so at the
time.
How was this first time?
It was so gradual, I couldn't point to a "first time".
What type of games do you
prefer now? I still prefer the fantasy format, but I designed
a game called Nuclear Winter (in part as an education tool for those
wanting first strike) but when it was ready for publication, the Soviet
Union collapsed and with it any chance of nuclear war without knowing
who started it. I have considered adapting it for history curriculum,
but never seem to have the time.
Could you give us a synopsis
of Nuclear Winter?
Nuclear Winter started as an argument against nuclear war because
most of its advocates have no idea of its reality. It is essentially
Mythworld without the fantasy element, depicting a group of survivors
after a world-wide nuclear war.
Because an unconstitutional law provides for a military
dictatorship in such an event, it assumes a civil war in the US between
the juntistas and constitutionalists, with Canada and Mexico dragged
in (because the anonymous general is to rule North America). I had
the help of a former Air Force nuclear weapons officer for the war
details and Physicians for Social Responsibility for the epidemic
rules.
Where we can find Mytworld
and Nuclear Winter?
Mythworld can be mail-ordered directly from me at 1127
Cedar, Bonham, TX 75418 for $30 US. Nuclear Winter has no market
now that any use of nuclear weapons can be traced to origin.
What do you direct actually?
Mostly Mythworld, with an occasional Toon.
What do you play actually?
Same. I have enjoyed games which some of the players have refereed
in which we try other games' scenarios with Mythworld rules. The most
successful have been Iron Crown Middle Earth and Chaosium's 1930s
horror movies, using Nuclear Winter rules with the technology back-dated
to the period.
What type of charactes do
you prefer? A wide variety. I also like to base characters
on actual historical cultures as it brings in a wealth of details
about equipment, attitudes, and behavior, making the character well
developed in those aspects (if not in adventuring skills) from the
beginning.
Which is the best RPG or
which are ? Why? Mythworld, GURPS, RuneQuest (now extinct),
because they have an inherent logic which makes learning and playing
easier (accept the fictions of polytheism, magic, and many intelligent
species, and play the real world with those overlays).
Which the worst? Why?
D&D because of hectares of charts with no bearing on even fictional
reality.
Which game would you like
to play or to direct and you haven't been able to until the moment?
I am waiting for it to come along.
Is there a Role Play culture
in your city? Not any more.
Why do you think it?
Because I lost the book store building and thus the meeting ground
(ludotheque) for gamers to play and get supplies. The nearest source
is 80km away.
What city is?
Bonham, Texas, north northeast of Dallas, almost to the Oklahoma border.
The role players are a disgregated
group? why is this way? or aren't they? Today more ignored.
What do you know about the
role players in other cities of your country? of your continent? around
the world? CAR-PGa currently has members in the US, Brazil,
UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Russia, and Australia. We keep each
other posted.
Why the RPGs don't have
the best image? Between 1983 and 1994 there was a well-organized
and well-financed group specifically attacking RPG in the US. By the
time the mass media found out the truth, they dropped the subject
rather than correcting their errors (a habit they have in other fields
too). While this image is dying of apathy, it still exists to some
degree in the US. However, there is little of it in Brazil, France
(due to an archivist with the Gendarmerie Nationale setting the media
straight), and Germany, and an attempt in Denmark was countered before
it caught on, as did Finland. Britain and Australia have had minor
outbreaks. Canada (the "branch plant" mentality tends to
follow US trends) has had some problems, but former members in New
Zealand, Belgium, and Luxumbourg did not report any problems.
What motivated you to put
online a role website? One of our members thought it would
be a good way to let the online public know we existed and help.
Define your site please:
See the site at <yahoogroups.com/car-pga>.
Yeah, we include the link
but could give us an idea?
Which were the original
objectives of your site? They are still posted at the site.
Are all of them fulfilled?
Why do you think that it happens?
All but the scholarships. We never got big enough to have the finances
for that.
Do you write for rpgs?,
draw?, other? Write. My drawing is terrible. I made mounted
and dismounted figures for all my PCs until effective tremor damaged
my model building ability.
Where we can find your texts?
The only bylined work I did for Chaosium is Eight New Weapons for
RuneQuest in Different Worlds back in the 1980s. The Skeptical
Inquirer article is reprinted on several Internet sites, and a
search under Paul Cardwell should find most of them. I did an paper
on use of RPG in curriculum for Gifted Education International, and
Reply to Leeds for the Cultic Studies Journal. These are my peer-reviewed
scholarly journal works. The rest are too numerous to remember, but
include Comics & Games Retailer, and a large number of Internet
postings on CAR-PGa, Christian Gamers Guild, Roleplayingtips, and
others.
Two things which all role
players must know
Keep in mind the setting, and keep the PC in
character.
Two things all role players
must avoid while playing
If a PC is working in character, don't blame its player;
there are more solutions to the problem than hack'n'slash and most
of them are better solutions.
Role players are principally
male? Why? this question is because looks like is this way here I
wish I knew. My test players were overwhelmingly male, even though
Mythworld has sex as a secondary characteristic and statistically
half the characters should (and basically are) female. Conventions
have better luck and (probably because they dare to be different in
that they play at all) most of the outstanding players I have encountered
in convention games have been female.
From what age could girls
and boys start playing rpgs? I have found 12 about the
minimum for Mythworld because it is unlikely for younger ones to have
the base of knowledge acquired to play at a reasonable standard.
With what type of games?
I keep hoping someone can designe an RPG for younger children, but
I have not been successful in trying.
An anecdote from your life
in the RPGs. The one that best illustrates my attitude
is that I refereed the first public demonstration of the third rules
for RuneQuest at the 1984 Origins convention the day before I did
the same for Mythworld. I support RPG as a whole, and not just my
own game.
About Car-Pga. Why? why
make the effort of create a defense against desinformation and lies?
Truth is valuable enough that someone should speak up for it. Actually,
while we started as game defense, and still have to attend to it from
time to time, most of our work today is in using RPG in the classroom
or in improving the state-of-the-art in rule design and playing techniques.
When and where begins Car-Pga?
In 1989, from the correspondence between two gamers, one Canadian,
one US, who met at GenCon. I joined in 1991.
What do you think about
the role in Latinamerica? If Brazil is any indication,
it should become a major recreational activity once games get available
in Spanish on an extensive basis (including some originally in Spanish).
But Brazil speaks Portuguese
almost all the rest of Latinamerica speaks Spanish. Yes
and has an extensive array of Brazilian games available only in Portuguese.
I am also on a Brazilian discussion list to which I have not contributed
because while I can somewhat read the language (same for Spanish),
I can't write in it.
Do you have kids?, they
play role or could play role some day? Why? I have kids,
but they are grown and gone. Grandchildren have shown no interest
in RPG, but I don't get to see them for extended periods to try to
develop the interest.
Excuses but, how many years
old are you? On the 26th of this month, I will be 70. And
I am not
the oldest member of CAR-PGa!
Please a picture, image
or avatar to illustrate your interview. I have neither
a downloadable picture nor the facilities for doing so.
That´s all. Again
thanks for the interview and for your work in CAR-PGa.
Paul es miembro de : The Committee for the Advancement
of Role-Playing Games. Si no has visitado su sitio hazlo ahora en
The
Escapist, y no dejes de colaborar en lo que puedas, es en beneficio
de todos.
Paul is member of : The Committee for the Advancement
of Role-Playing Games. Visit his website at The
Escapist, and collaborate, is for the benefit of everyone.
