Interview: Steven Schend Date: September 8th 2002 by: Michael Burnaugh (Realmprotector)

Steven E. Schend Born in Wisconsin in 1967, Steven Schend fell into the world of fantasy quite quickly, growing up on L. Frank Baum's OZ books and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and Barsoom novels.

From February 1990 through March 2000, Steven was an editor and designer of roleplaying games for TSR and Wizards of the Coast. With over 50 writing, design, and editorial credits, as well as two short stories published in anthologies (Realms of the Deep, 2000; Dragons of MAGIC, 2001). Steven has worked extensively on numerous worlds, universes, and genres, from high fantasy to superheroes to science fiction and space opera.


GamingReport:
Let’s start at the beginning, when did you first start playing role-playing games and what got you into it?

Steven Schend:
I first started playing RPGs back in the early 80s. What drew me into it, initially, was spotting the dragon on the old box, the full color red dragon piece done by Dave Sutherland before the D&D; rules became split among the red, blue, black and other colored boxes. That single art piece grabbed my attention and it was my 14th birthday present along with the hill giant module G1.

What kept me in the game was the excitement of using far more of my imagination in a game than any board game allowed at that time. That and the friends I’ve made over the years and across many gaming tables... Gaming Report: Do you game now, if so what games do you play, and do you prefer playing a character or GMing?

Steven Schend:
My gaming now is quite limited due to time and the fact that I’ve moved away from most of the long-standing gaming groups with whom I’d played (and worked).

Also, time’s a major factor, as I’m horribly busy just juggling my work with Bastion Press, freelance short story writing, freelance game reviews for a variety of publications, and just having some semblance of a social life.

When I do find time for games at parties or just a few friends getting together, I’ve been playing a lot of card games (collectible and not). Munchkin by Steve Jackson Games is one of the most fun gaming experiences I’ve had in a long time, which is why I’ll plug it here.

GamingReport:
Please tell us about your first campaign and characters.

Steven Schend:
Well, my first character actually now belongs to Wizards as I wrote him into the Forgotten Realms setting in Lands of Intrigue. Gamalon Idogyr started out a basic wizard and in his first adventure (in which I learned the game from a family friend), he got ambushed by a quartet of orcs. One wizard with a sleep spell wasn’t effective against a dagger in his eye; rather than kill me as the rolls truly went, the DM decided the hit only knocked him out but cost Gamalon his left eye. Needless to say, I learned why wizards stay in the back of the party quite early on...

I joined another game group soon after and Gamalon had a long adventuring career that eventually won him the gem of seeing he jammed into the vacant eye socket instead of wearing an eye patch. The campaign, if it could be called that, was simply the random adventures we’d cobble together and alternately DM or the published adventures (the A, D, and G series modules being the highlights).

When I got the job at TSR in 1990, my game group had fizzled out during our college years, but we got back together every now and again, and I’d use Gamalon as an old veteran wizard NPC. Since I had to learn SPELLJAMMER® rules for my first editing project, I moved him up to the Rock of Bral and from there I used him as a mouthpiece for a DRAGON® magazine article. I later bridged him into the Realms when I found myself needing a wizard’s voice and point of view for Tethyr. Thus, Gamalon’s followed me around since 1982; scary to just now realize a character’s 20th anniversary...

GamingReport:
Are you into any other aspects of fantasy (collecting, fencing, archery)?

Steven Schend:
The collecting bug’s quite strong in me, as I’ve been an avid comics fan since 1975, a book reader and collector for a little while longer, and an unrepentant pack-rat with the inability to throw things away. Miniatures are things I go hot and cold on; I finally gave away at least 30 pounds of lead miniatures to Phil Athans a few years back as they’d only collected dust over the years waiting to be painted. I enjoy a day at Renaissance Fairs but rarely went so far as to dress up or take up archery or fencing. For other comics and fantasy fans, I suggest you check out CrossGen comics’ books as some quality fantasy work to read.

Does brewing my own beer count as an aspect of fantasy? It’s something I’ve done once with mild success (or at least no one got sick from it) but haven’t gotten around to making more for a while now. Still waiting for that eighth day in the week to get everything done...

GamingReport:
What first brought you to TSR and what made you decide gaming was going to be your career?

Steven Schend:
The lack of a job brought me to TSR, to be brutally honest. I’d graduated in 1989 with a teaching degree in English and didn’t land a teaching position that fall. I’d spent the late summer applying for editing positions at educational publishing houses and was getting dreadfully bored of living at home and sending out another retooled resume for each job. I’d been flipping through the latest DRAGON magazine one day in preparation for a game, and decided to send resumes in to DRAGON and to TSR’s game division on a whim. I figured I’d never hear from them and I’d at least have fun with a new variant resume.

There’s something to be said for being in the right place at the right time. Roger Moore called me in for an interview two weeks later for an assistant editor position that Dale Donovan landed, but I was called back and interviewed with Jim Ward soon after. By February of 1990, I had my own cubicle at TSR and it took me a few years before I stopped pinching myself. By 1993, I’d moved from editorial over to design full time, and in 1997 I joined the exodus out to Seattle with Wizards.

While it seems so given my credentials, I’ve never quite seen gaming as my career. I see my career and my job as a writer, editor, and/or developer, regardless of working on an RPG or a freelance article for a cooking website. On every project, I also look at it like a teacher and try and find ways for the reader to learn things without realizing he’s picking up more from the game than just an afternoon’s amusement. That said, I knew soon after I started that I wanted to always work with my imagination as much as my skills, and I’m happy to say I’m still doing that.

GamingReport:
You wrote and edited many great books at TSR and it has been commented that you are a meticulous historian. For the new gamers, tell us about all you’ve done in gaming and how do you feel about the work you have done?

Steven Schend:
Oy...Pack a bit into one question, will you? Sheesh...-cracks knuckles and stretches- Okay.... The more I think on it, the more important history and world-building are on nearly every product I’ve done, whether for the Realms or the Marvel Super-Heroes game or my short stint in STAR*DRIVE universe for the ALTERNITY® game. I’m a huge fan of history and believe it’s one of the most important subjects of study we can embrace. As much as I like the freedom to make it all up as I go along and say, "There’s a castle over the next hill, ruins in the forest to its west, and a dungeon a bit further along the river to the south." I have a driving need to have reasons for them. Even (or perhaps especially) in fiction, there needs to be reasons for why things are the way they are, in the places they’re at, or in the conditions they’re in. Worlds don’t spring up without rhyme or reason, and they shouldn’t be built that way either.

I’m grateful for the support of the fans who enjoy the work I put into my products, though I’d balk at calling myself a meticulous historian. Truth be told, much of my historical work was heavily corrected or collected from fans and fellow writers like Eric Boyd, Bryon Wischstadt, George Krashos, and many on the FR mailing list (the world on which I did most of my TSR work). All I did was insist every last fact ever in print had to be accounted for; I was just anal-retentive enough to want to gather all that information when possible and make it all work despite apparent mistakes.

My attitude then and now is this: Ed Greenwood (or someone else in other properties) created a marvelously rich place in which to play. We all got to play in that sandbox, but every now and again, someone had to go around and rake through the sand, find toys lost beneath someone else’s sand castle, and resort the toys to where they belonged before more play could continue therein. I just had so much respect and love for the Realms that I made it a major part of my job to ensure that every fact got acknowledged (especially the apparent mistakes, which we’d find ways to make them all work within the whole). I wanted the Realms to seem as real as a fictional world could be...thus, the importance of histories. After all, isn’t it better to know when something was built and ruined than to just have a random dungeon appear somewhere along the road your party’s on?

I’m not going to rattle off my credits list here for newer fans, as that’s as dull for me to write as it is to read; I’ve worked on nearly every TSR trademark world/game existing from 1990 to its demise with the exceptions of PLANESCAPE® (unless you count the BLOODWARS card game in it) and RAVENLOFT® (aside from playtesting). The bulk of my work from 1990 through 2000 centered on the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES® game and the FORGOTTEN REALMS® world. I’ve worked on more than 60 products and more than 50 articles for DRAGON and other magazines. I’ve been publishing short stories sporadically since 1999 and hope to move on up to novels eventually.

As for how I feel about the last 12 years of work, I’m proud of it on the whole. Sure, some products weren’t what I’d like them to be, and others worked and sold far better than we’d ever expected. Like any body of work, there are ups and downs, but I’m content with it overall. Still, it’s not my opinions on my work that matter but what the fans think of it. After all, I’m not writing or working for myself but for them. Best to ask the GamingReport audience to judge the work-I’m too close to it even after 12 years to judge any of it fairly.

GamingReport:
What would you say was your most challenging work thus far and why?

Steven Schend:
Sea of Fallen Stars was by far one of the toughest products I ever wrote for TSR/WotC for two reasons. One, it required me to learn about underwater ecology and life so I could build a relatively feasible fantasy setting beneath the Sea of Fallen Stars. Two, aside from about 20 pages or so linked with the surface, it was all entirely new material, and for the first time in the Realms, I wasn’t building off of someone else’s previous designs but all my own work. Loved it all the more for that reason, but it was tough trying to build something entirely new that lived up to the splendor of what had come before it. Lastly, I’d like to say that working with Phil Athans and Mel Odom on its tie-in projects between SoFS and the book trilogy Threat from the Sea was a great time and I wish we could work together like that again.

GamingReport:
Have you ever considered writing a novel?

Steven Schend:
Every day. I’ve a corkboard in my home office literally covered in index cards of short story idea fragments, novel outlines, and ideas. Like most writers, I’ve got more than a dozen stories lying around on scraps of paper or littering my hard drives at any given time.

I’ve been working for the past two years to get a particular novel wrung out of my head, and it’s still coming, though very slowly. Given the demands of paying the rent and eating, working on something without a paycheck attached becomes a lower priority. Still, I hope to someday get some novels out there for the public to read. Isn’t that every writer’s dream to live off the proceeds of their novels? I know it is for me.

GamingReport:
How was your experience working with TSR/WotC?

Steven Schend:
Exhausting and educational immediately leap to mind as the flippant answer. I had a lot of fun and made many friends on staff at TSR and at Wizards. That said, people often don’t realize that it’s not a bunch of people sitting around playing games. It’s hard work being creative on demand and on deadline every day. I learned a lot more about professional writing and technical editing on staff than I ever would have as a high school English teacher. Still, in another few years, I won’t remember the stress of 16-hour days to meet a deadline or arguments over whose vision was more important for what product. I’ll remember things like: