<$BlogRSDURL$>

Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Ask Ken Rolston 

This weekend I'm interviewing Ken Rolston, the original PARANOIA line editor in the hmid-1980s at the game's original publisher, West End Games. Ken brought to Alpha Complex its famous irreverent tone. In addition to editing the first and best bunch of adventures, he wrote the original GM Screen RED-Clearance mini-adventures (reprinted in PARANOIA Flashbacks), HIL Sector Blues (mostly reprinted in Extreme PARANOIA), and Orcbusters (to be reprinted in the forthcoming mission collection Collapsatron).

After masterminding PARANOIA's much-loved second edition, Ken left West End. He spent a year or two resurrecting the RuneQuest line at Avalon Hill, then joined Bethesda Softworks, where he was Lead Designer on the bestselling "Elder Scrolls" computer game Morrowind and its new sequel, Oblivion. That's actually the reason for my interview, which will be published on the popular hardware site HardOCP. I'll be asking Ken all kinds of questions about Oblivion -- ideally even one or two he hasn't heard a hundred times already. For that, I could use your help.

Please post in the comments one or more questions you'd like Ken to answer. It's best if they're about Morrowind or Oblivion, but if you're burning to know something about the early days of PARANOIA, ask and I'll try to slip in a question or two. I'll post pertinently paranoid answers here.
Posted by: Allen Varney / 10:29 PM

Comments:
Did he have anything to do with CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth and knows why it seems to have been (and the consumers are being) so raped towards the end?
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : April 18, 2006 1:24 PM
 
Both Morrorwind and Oblivion have a very dark, serious tone, and while both are great games, there's little humor in either. Yet under his watch, PARANOIA became hilarious and downright weird. Is the difference in tone something he did conciously? Was there a nagging inner voice saying, 'Puns! Put in more puns!'?
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : April 18, 2006 7:58 PM
 
Since the most recent computer game I played was Civilization II, I'm stuck with Paranoia questions.

The one that leaps out at me is: "Will you be writing any material for the new edition of Paranoia?"

Though that might be more of a question for you, Allen Varney, instead of Ken Rolston. I was almost two years old when the first edition of Paranoia came out, so I can't ask many questions about Thee Dayes Off Yore.
# posted by Blogger John Doe : April 19, 2006 12:46 AM
 
The traditional battle between computer-based RPGs has been between the "sandbox" model and the "storybook" model. For both Morrowind and Oblivion you went with the former, even though it severely limited storyline tools in your box, such as character development and set plot progression.

How does this choice square with your previous experience designing P&P RPGs? While the "sandbox" model allows for a great deal of openness and flexibility for the player, that flexibility was not always given primacy, especially in PARANOIA. Are you upset that you have to give up the narrative aspect? Was that a purely economic/management choice, or do you think that flexibility is simply more important?
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : April 19, 2006 8:40 AM
 
Post a Comment

Copyright © 2004-2013 by Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg. All your rights are belong to us. No bloody Creative Commons here! Bwahahaha!
No, seriously. If you make non-commercial use of stuff here, that's fine, but we reserve all commercial rights, and all rights to prepare derivative material on things posted here. In addition, posters of comments must be aware that we reserve the right to use whatever material they post here, and/or derivative works therefrom, in PARANOIA, supplementary products, licensed products, or derivative work, without any compensation whatever, for all time to come and throughout this universe and any alternate universes that may be discovered. At our discretion, and without obligation, we may, if it strikes our fancy, make a good faith effort to credit you for stuff we use, but we can't promise it won't slip our minds, in the hurly-burly of meeting deadlines. (Actually, we intend to do that, but it's possible we'll screw up.) By posting comments, you grant us a non-revocable, perpetual, non-exclusive license to use whatever you post, in whatsoever fashion we deem useful, here or in any other forum, in PARANOIA or in any and all future products, including but not limited to derivative works, and specifically but not exclusively including the microbrewery beer, ale and porter; salty and sugary snack; and tattoo design rights deriving therefrom. Woohoo! Is that enough legalese for you? The Computer is Your Friend.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?