AMA with Monte Cook (Numenera, D&D, Monte Cook Games, Malhavoc Press)

[Oryan77]

Hey Monte!

I'm a huge Planescape fan and PS is what got me interested in DMing back in the 90's . I still DM a 3.5 conversion of Planescape to this day. I finished running your Dead Gods adventure about 2 years ago and we spent about 3 years playing it due to a lot of extra filler I added in.

My question is (if you can remember), what was your inspiration and thought process behind creating all of those fantastic and creative scenarios in Dead Gods? I'm not asking for a chapter by chapter break down (although that would be fascinating to hear). I just mean in general, for any scenarios you think of, how did you think of writing such material?

You may not remember, but back when I was prepping to run Dead Gods, you actually replied to me here on Enworld about how you were a fan of Vault of the Drow which is why you included that scenario in Dead Gods. So I'd like to here about some of the other scenarios. Like why you decided to use particular locations or how you came up with the idea to use particular NPCs. As a creative person myself, I'd love to know your thought process when writing. Or if you want to just blabber about Planescape in general, I won't stop you.

Thanks! You have always been my favorite RPG designer and I have been inspired by your work for years. Or maybe you stand out to me because your name is easy to recognize and remember. I'm not really sure.

 

[Emus Graymullet]

Hi, my group and I are still running our campaign(s) set in Praemal since a month or two before the core Ptolus book was released. It's such a great setting and resource.

1. Did you create much content (NPCs, dieties, organizations) for that product that wasn't in the campaigns you ran? Or vice versa?
2. Are the lands outside of the Tarsisian Empire fleshed out beyond the blurbs about Uraq et al in the Ptolus: City by the Spire book? (I mean, we've pretty much started world-building beyond the borders without any published content, but I'm curious.)

 

[Elderbrain]

Planescape NPC Tarsheva Longreach

Hi, Monte. I have heard that you were the creator of the Planescape NPC character, Tarsheva Longreach.
This NPC never received a write-up for stats, class, level, alignment, Faction, etc. However, if you are indeed the creator of this NPC, I thought you might have statted her and thought I'd ask. Or if you never did, you could do so NOW and post it! I'd be eternally grateful. (I don't care if they are 2nd Edition stats - that's fine...)

(P.S. If you are not her creator, maybe point me in the right direction as to who to ask?)

 

[Elrith]

Hi Monte, Thanks for all the games. I appreciate the fact that your game products are often the result of at the table play and you haven't rested on past ideas, but have moved onwards to interesting territory.

I've been debating running Masks of Nyralathotep, which you've mentioned you are as well. I've been debating which system to run it in: I lean towards Trail of Cthulhu instead of Call of Cthulhu as it is, but I'm also tempted by the Cypher system. I think the GM-freedom and the lack of skill "pressure" in the system could free up investigative play. I also think the rewarding of discovery through XP works well for Masks.

But I really like Trail of Cthulhu's drive mechanics. I'm tempted to port them over, and here's where I am of two minds: I could add an extension to the Cypher sentence, essentially making characters an "adjective noun who verb who believes in noun," but I wonder if adding the additional step is necessary. I think it would be quite reasonable to ask players to define a quality related to the Descriptor or Focus and use that as a mechanic in tandem with the horror options in the Cypher book.

So I thought I'd pick your brain: if you were running Masks in cypher, would you make alterations?

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Hey Monte,

you've mentioned a few times here that you prefer to do new settings instead of revisiting old material, but have you considered redoing the old Dark Space Setting you wrote for Rolemaster/Spacemaster? It was one of my favorite books of yours, and I'd love to see it done for the Cypher System.

Also, we once talked breifly on Livejournal about the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, just after The Runes of the Earth was released - did you read the rest of the Last Chronicles as well, and what did you think? I admit I found Runes too depressed and too deep in self-pity, and never picked up the rest.

Greetings from Germany, we#re all just waiting for the translation of Numenera to get released

 

[indigonegative]

Mr.Cook
I want to design games. How can I safely spread my ideas around, without worrying someone will steal them? Do I need a contract first? Am I just worrying too much?

 

[Monte At Home]

What are the chances for a fractal all about of the Estate?
Worlds numberless and strange was great and developed well pretty much the entire "Strangeverse"... except for the Estate.

Sounds like a cool idea. Did you get the Dark Spiral? That has a lot of additional Estate info. Also, we did a fractal called the Estate Dossiers that was kind of nifty.

 

[Monte At Home]

Luckily I was able to find a hard copy on Ebay and bought it. Didn't get a chance to run it in 2e but it sure is giving the players attacks of shock and awe. I am hoping Ghostwalk will translate to 5e with as much fun. Thank you again for all that you have contributed to D&D. Wouldn't need another player for your OD&D? And thank you for taking the time to answer as well.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

[Monte At Home]

Hey Monte!

I'm a huge Planescape fan and PS is what got me interested in DMing back in the 90's . I still DM a 3.5 conversion of Planescape to this day. I finished running your Dead Gods adventure about 2 years ago and we spent about 3 years playing it due to a lot of extra filler I added in.

My question is (if you can remember), what was your inspiration and thought process behind creating all of those fantastic and creative scenarios in Dead Gods? I'm not asking for a chapter by chapter break down (although that would be fascinating to hear). I just mean in general, for any scenarios you think of, how did you think of writing such material?

You may not remember, but back when I was prepping to run Dead Gods, you actually replied to me here on Enworld about how you were a fan of Vault of the Drow which is why you included that scenario in Dead Gods. So I'd like to here about some of the other scenarios. Like why you decided to use particular locations or how you came up with the idea to use particular NPCs. As a creative person myself, I'd love to know your thought process when writing. Or if you want to just blabber about Planescape in general, I won't stop you.

Thanks! You have always been my favorite RPG designer and I have been inspired by your work for years. Or maybe you stand out to me because your name is easy to recognize and remember. I'm not really sure.

The beginning came about because I wanted to start things off with an adventure that seemed totally unrelated. I wanted the DM to be able to catch the players off-guard. We used to joke that every Planescape adventure could just start off with an old man that says "I'll give you 100 gp if you go save the multiverse." Obviously, that's a joke, but I didn't want the adventure hook to have anything to do with the adventure itself. You go to Yggdrassil for a completely different reason and THEN the adventure really begins. I think I even tell the DM in there to hide the book so the players don't know they're playing an adventure called "Dead Gods."

After that, I wanted an adventure that truly spanned the planes, but that played out more like a murder mystery than a "go get the twenty-three pieces of the thingamabob." The downside to that, I suppose, is that the trail of clues you follow in a mystery like that tend to make for a very linear plot. I also wanted to go to a lot of extremes. I remember thinking, "Orcus/Tenebrous would hide out in the deepest, darkest spot--the bottom of the multiverse. Where would that be?" And I knew I wanted to involve someplace really old, and Pelion seemed to fit that bill.

I also remember that I wanted to do the "make up new characters and play them through a scenario and then your real characters will learn about what happened to them" thing because I'd done that in a home campaign earlier (very different scenario) and it worked really well. I like the change of pace and unique sort of freedom it provides for both players and DM.

And, as you said, I already explained that I am a huge fan of Vault of the Drow.

I guess that's the great thing (one of the great things) about writing an adventure about Orcus. Orcus is so tied into the very essence of D&D in a way that you can create ties to anywhere you want, and you want to tie it into everywhere.

 

[Monte At Home]

Hi, my group and I are still running our campaign(s) set in Praemal since a month or two before the core Ptolus book was released. It's such a great setting and resource.

1. Did you create much content (NPCs, dieties, organizations) for that product that wasn't in the campaigns you ran? Or vice versa?
2. Are the lands outside of the Tarsisian Empire fleshed out beyond the blurbs about Uraq et al in the Ptolus: City by the Spire book? (I mean, we've pretty much started world-building beyond the borders without any published content, but I'm curious.)

Awesome. Love to hear that.

1. Not a lot. By the time I'd written that book, I was in the middle of running my third Ptolus campaign, so I had a lot of material to draw on. Some of the stuff in the book, of course, never got the focus that it did in the book. You know how PCs are. Sometimes they ignore plot hooks or turn left when there was something really interesting to the right.

2. I never developed those areas because I made it pretty clear to my players that--for all the reasons given in the book--Ptolus was where the action was. I always envisioned the rest of the world to be very low fantasy but not very D&D like, actually, because all the D&D-isms (dungeons, lots of monsters, lots of demons and undead, high level people running around) are crammed into Ptolus with explanations for why those--sometimes kind of weird--tropes actually exist there. That said, I think you are free to do with the rest of the world as you wish, of course.