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Re: Progetto: intervista a Dave Morris

Oggetto: Re: Progetto: intervista a Dave Morris
inviato da EGO il 22/11/2008 11:25:22

Vi propongo la lista delle domande che ho preparato (è piuttosto lunga, lo so). Vi prego di farmi sapere che cosa ne pensate, e se ci sono da fare aggiunte o correzioni. Vorrei mandare le domande a Morris entro domani o nei primi giorni della prossima settimana.

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Except for the scarce author information provided in your books, very little is known about Dave Morris. Would you sketch a short autobiography of yourself?

Your books and style show that you’re a very educated person, and an avid reader. What are your main interests and readings, and which have been your main inspiration for your own work?

Games, and especially role-playing games, clearly have had a great influence on your life. How did you discover RPGs, and what did you use to play back in the day?

Like many other RPG players you came to develop your own gaming world, Legend. Was it your own creation, or were there other people involved in its development?

Your Dragon Warriors RPG enjoyed quite a bit of success in the 80s, and it is still fondly remembered today – so much so that it’s actually being republished by Mongoose Publishing. What do you think made Dragon Warriors different from the rest of similar products?

The original publishing format of Dragon Warriors – six small gamebook-size volumes instead of the usual large-size manual – was very peculiar. Why was it decided to publish it in such an unusual format?

What prompted you to start writing solo adventures, and which was your first published adventure?

Golden Dragon was your first proper gamebook series. Why exactly was it called “Golden Dragon”?

Golden Dragon shows many similarities to the Fighting Fantasy series, except for less paragraphs and an effectively simplified combat system that doesn’t rely on player stats. Was it your intention to improve upon the FF system? Did Jackon and Livingstone’s series have any influence on your work?

Golden Dragon is still heavily based on the so-called “true path” through the adventure, especially The Eye of the Dragon, where even spells are actually to be used like items, at the right moment and in the right place. What do you think of this particular way of structuring a gamebook? Do you think it was a necessity in the early days of the genre, or just an easier way to plan the adventure?

Golden Dragon also clearly shows your literary ambitions. The delayed plot explanation in Crypt of the Vampire, and the incredible prologue to The Temple of Flame (the latter is so good that you used it again, slightly modified, in Down Among the Dead Men), are a display of storytelling skills that very few gamebook authors ever aspired to. Was it clear to you then that a gamebook is different from a set of instructions provided by a dungeon master? Do you think that gamebooks can be not only good games, but good books as well?

Blood Sword is one of the most ambitious and peculiar gamebook series ever written. How did you come up with the idea, and how did Oliver Johnson contribute to it?

Albeit being set in the world of Legend, Blood Sword uses very different rules from Dragon Warriors. Why did you decide to create a brand-new game system?

The opportunity to play the same adventure with one to four different characters is certainly the most intriguing and innovative idea in Blood Sword. How difficult was it to balance each adventure for each character? Do you think that the whole series can be completed by each character alone, or did you and Mr. Johnson made things so as to favour and encourage team play?

Each Blood Sword book has a “best path” through it, which makes things considerably easier for any combination of characters. Did you mean the series to be completed finding such a path in each book, or did you explicitly allow for some flexibility?

The Battlepits of Krarth is a very peculiar way to introduce the series, being only marginally related to the series’ main plot. Did you plan it like that to stay true to what you wrote in Dragon Warriors, that “an underworld adventure is best to start with, because its structured format makes it easy for the GM to handle”? Was the book in any way inspired by Ian Livingstone’s popular Deathtrap Dungeon?

The Demon’s Claw is probably the most significant book in the Blood Sword series. Not only it provides a staggering gaming experience, but it’s very rich in Arabian philosophy and lore (the “gift of possibilities” dialogue is especially striking). What’s even more surprising is that the book features challenges which can only be possibly beaten through cheating, yet you’re never reprimanded for it, like you are instead in other gamebooks. What did you want to achieve with such a complex, and rather experimental book like this? Did you want it to be more than just your average gamebook?

The Demon’s Claw also introduces the use of codewords in gamebooks. This is a very effective anti-cheating device, and it also works very much like a string of code in a computer game in differentiating outcomes according to what you did before. Did you realize the full efficacy of codewords at the time?

Doomwalk is an impressive melting pot of afterlife representations from very different cultures. Clearly a big inspiration comes from Dante’s Inferno, which you also quoted in Heart of Ice. How well do you know Dante’s work, and what is your personal opinion of it?

The Walls of Spyte offers a rather different gaming experience than the rest of the series, being more heavily combat-driven and, on the whole, much more difficult. Is this due to Jamie Thomson’s collaboration? Why was Mr. Thomson called to join the team for the final Blood Sword book, and what was his role in its planning and writing?

Probably for the first time in gamebook history, Blood Sword hints to the concept of a moral alignment of your characters. You can decide to play it good or evil; you can help people at your own expense, or turn them off, or even steal from them, be they rich or poor. Anyway, your actions are not judged in game terms, i.e. being good is not always remunerative, and being bad isn’t necessarily a free ticket to punishment. This grants the reader an exceptional freedom of behaviour, and contributes greatly to identification with your character(s). Again, this is particularly evident in The Demon’s Claw. When, and why, did you decide to integrate such an important RPG element in gamebooks as well?

Blood Sword is a much loved and sought-after series. However, as of today, availability is very scarce, especially for the English edition. Can you give an estimate of the series’ sales and success at the time of publication? Are there any chances to see it in print again?

Dice rolling is a lot of fun in pen-and-paper RPGs, being only one way of interacting with the game world. Unfortunately, it can become tedious between the bounds of a solo-player adventure, especially when it is heavily abused like it was in later Fighting Fantasy titles. Enter the Virtual Reality series, featuring only one page of rules and no role for luck whatsoever! The series’ formula is apparently a step back to a simpler gamebook format like that of Choose Your Own Adventure, but at the same time it’s a great improvement in terms of freedom and easiness of play. How was the idea behind this series conceived, and what did you aim to do with it in terms of narrative and gameplay?

Virtual Reality came pretty late in the life cycle of the gamebook phenomenon. Was is difficult to get it published? How much success did it achieve in terms of sales and readers’ appreciation?

The involvement of Mark Smith in Virtual Reality is quite peculiar, the series being the only gamebook collaboration between you and Mr. Smith. How did he contribute to the series’ creation, and what do you think of the way he used the series’ format? Do you care to express an opinion on his two books?

Down Among the Dead Men is an extraordinary gamebook. Although you’ve often used the theme of sea travel in your gamebooks, you had never before given it an explicit pirate twist like in this one. Seeing that the title of the book was anticipated in The Keep of the Lich-Lord (in the name of an inn!), how long did you entertain with the idea of such a story before finally getting to write it?

Heart of Ice is arguably the most mature gamebook ever written. The plot is superb, character design and development is among the finest ever seen, the atmosphere is perfect and the multiple endings mean that if you survive to the end, you can always “win” - if you can call a victory any of the ambiguous, bittersweet finales! Heart of Ice is a story full of deeper meanings, and it is so good that it may even have inspired a movie, called Post Impact. What inspired you to write such an original and mature story in gamebook format? Is there some particular message you wanted to convey to your readers?

Even more than The Demon’s Claw, Twist of Fate is a great, passionate homage to the Arabian Nights, with a lovely ending that perfectly sums up the essence of role-playing. How much do you owe to Arabian myths and tales?

Quite the opposite of Virtual Reality, Fabled Lands is possibly the most sophisticated gamebook series ever conceived. Why did you and Mr. Thomson decide to develop such a titanic project, and why did it come so late in the 90s, when the gamebook era was practically over? What was the reason behind the series being cancelled halfway through?

The incompleteness of Fabled Lands is one of the greatest disappointments for gamebooks fans, so much so that some readers have been planning for some time to write the missing books themselves. Can we hope to see the series completed one day or another? Did you plan some kind or ending or greatest achievement for players, or did you just want readers to be able to complete every quest and just keep playing until they had nothing more to find?

It is very interesting to see your name as the author of one -and just one- book in the long-running Fighting Fantasy series, along with Jamie Thomson. What is the story behind this book? What do you think of Fighting Fantasy in general, and what is your opinion on your own contribution to the series?

Some of your gamebooks were tie-ins based on TV shows like The Transformers and Knightmare, or on board games like Hero Quest. Some of them even include novellas to accompany the interactive adventure. Were those books commissioned to you, or did you propose to write them? In retrospect, do you think they were interesting books, both to write and to read?

Most gamebook authors found a good formula and stuck with it in all their works, barely modifying rules in different series and projects. You, instead, have always proposed something totally new and different every time you created a new gamebook series. Did you take it as a personal challenge to always create something new? Differentiating your works so much from one another was important to you, as a way of experimenting with new ideas? Or did you just want your readers to never risk getting bored with your books?

Who are the people you best worked with as a gamebook author? Are you still in contact with some of them?

Your gamebooks were illustrated by extraordinarily talented artists such as Leo Hartas, Russ Nicholson, and Bob Harvey. Did you have a good experience working with them? What opinion do you have of their work?

What do you think is the best way to structure a gamebook? How many possible paths to victory should there be? What about the role of chance: how much should your success depend on a dice roll? Some gamebooks have an estimated success rate of less than 10%, regardless of starting conditions: what chance should you have to complete an adventure when you’ve learned the path to victory? And about combat: how much is too much?

Is there one of your gamebooks that you like best?

Back in the day, did you read other authors’ gamebooks? If you did, what did you think of them? Did any of them leave an impression on you, or inspire you to do something similar?

The best-selling gamebook series have enjoyed a sort of renaissance in the last few years, with Fighting Fantasy first and then Lone Wolf getting back in print. Do you think there is still room for gamebooks in the 21st century? Can they really stir love in a brand-new audience, or are the reprints just a nostalgia operation for people who grew up with them twenty years ago?

Your gamebooks are just the work of a great storyteller with a seemingly endless fantasy, or you also enjoy travelling and adventuring all over the world in real life?

Did you also write non-game books during the 80s and early 90s? What were they about, and what kind of reader were they aimed at?

What have you been doing since 1996, when the last of your gamebooks were published? Are you still in the games business, or do you just write about games?

What do you think of video games? Do you play them? Have you ever considered collaborating to the video games industry?

What are your current projects? Can you reveal anything?

What plans do you have for the future?

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