Interview: Jeff Grubb Date: June 28th 2002 by: Michael Burnaugh (Realmprotector)

Wizards of the Coast's Jeff Grubb was the creator of the worlds of the original Marvel Super Heroes game, Spelljammer and Al-Qadimhas. Most recently Jeff has been involved with several D&D; 3e releases including, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Manual of the Planes, Enemies and Allies, and the upcoming Monster Manual II, Jeff has also has written several novels set in the Forgotten Realms setting with his wife, Kate Novak.

GamingReport:
First Mr. Grubb I'd like to say it's an honor to be interviewing you. I've enjoyed your writing for many years. Thank you for this opportunity.

Jeff Grubb:
Thanks for having me here.

GamingReport:
Let's start at the beginning. When did you first start to play role-playing games and what was it that got you into them?

Jeff Grubb:
I started out as young man playing the Avalon Hill (and later SPI) wargames. When I first went to college (Purdue University, in 1975), I was a regular at the weekly wargame club. One evening, there was group of people at a corner table, talking excitedly, but without a board or miniatures on the table. I walked up and asked what was going on. One guy pushed three six-siders into my hand and said "Roll these. We need a cleric." And the rest is history (and hysteria). What I liked about roleplaying back then (and still like now) was that it was a largely social game. A group of people as opposed to a single opponent, with a lot more interaction. In college, I was known for running the "couple's game" - my campaign was suitable for bringing your non-gaming girl- or boy- friend to and they would not be scared off.

GamingReport:
Do you still game now and what games do you play?

Jeff Grubb:
I still game. A lot of my D&D; gaming is D20Modern gaming right now as we torture-test the mechanics. I've been in Bill Slavicsek's campaign, and have been running a lunch-time game for "Team Bravo" (Hill Street Blues meets X-Files). I'm part of a dedicated group of Call of Cthulhu fans and am playing in two campaigns at the same time right now (former WotC editors Wolf Baur and Dale Donovan are the GMs). Other than that I'm a fan of European board games. My two rainy-day faves are the classic Talisman and Formula De. (And when I can't find players, I'm addicted to Civilization III for the Macintosh).

GamingReport:
When role-playing what do you like best DMing or playing a character and what type of character is your favorite to play?

Jeff Grubb:
In the past I usually DMed, though I'm playing more characters now. Under previous editions of D&D; I've tended towards dwarven fighters, since they are low-upkeep some cool special abilities (and they match my personality). In third edition, I still tend towards them, but splash a level of sorcerer or cleric for an extra punch. And in the new D20Modern set, the "Moondog" character is my character from Bill's campaign.

GamingReport:
When did you first get into the business end of role-playing and what made you decide to do it for a career?

Jeff Grubb:
I got involved in moderating the D&D; Open at GenCon, run at that time by Bob Blake. One year, after the sessions, a friend of mine mouthed off about "how we could do better than that". Bob was in earshot and told us we had just volunteered to write the next year's Open. I ended up writing a big chunk of it, playtesting all of it, and getting it delivered to TSR six months before the Con. (That would be the LAST deadline I ever made that handily J ). On the basis of that work (and my relentless weekly pestering), I was hired as a full-time game designer in 1982.

GamingReport:
Will you be at Gen-Con this year and if so what will you be participating in?

Jeff Grubb:
I will not be at GenCon this year. I will be at Origins, running demos for the company. Stop by and say hi!

GamingReport:
In the "Dawn of Time" there was the "Old Grey Box" Forgotten Realms campaign setting. What are you thoughts on how the Realms have changed over the years from that product till now?

Jeff Grubb:
One of the things I'm really proud of with the Realms is that we made it an accessible world, one that could accommodate a large number of creatives. I've seen it develop through a number of hands, and have been very pleased with the innovation that fresh blood brings into the world. While I feel strongly towards the Realms, I don't feel the need to protect it and keep it "true" to my personal vision. I left - went and built other worlds, and entrusted the Realms in good hands. The best thing I can give new designers is my quiet blessing when I agree with them, and my public silence when I disagree.

GamingReport:
Out of all the characters in your Forgotten Realms novels which were yours and which were Kate Novak's and who were your favorites?

Jeff Grubb:
All the characters were created originally for the books - none came from campaigns (though a number of them were based on real people we knew). Most of the characters were mine, at least initially. Alias in particular was very much like me, particularly in my temperament at the time. Olive, on the other hand, originally was a male character, but Kate adopted her and turned her into the smart-mouthed schemer that she is. Giogi was mine (I'm a Wodehouse fan, and he's pure Bertie Wooster) and Cat is definitely Kate's. The Wyvernspur kids in the later books are all Kate's. Favorites? Alias and Dragonbait, though Olive gets all the really good lines. Finder is a personal fave as well, since he gets down to the question of responsibility of creation - when you build something, how responsible are you for what happens next?

GamingReport:
Sean K Reynolds wrote a great 3e update for the Saurials in Dragon magazine. Is there the possibility you would write an adventure concerning them for Dungeon?

Jeff Grubb:
Possible, but unlikely at the moment, only because I am carrying a heavy workload as it is. I have a list of "things to do" that is yellowing on my computer terminal right now. If I did something in the Realms, it would probably be in a new area entirely.

GamingReport:
It's been a few years since you wrote a novel in the Realms. Do you miss writing in the Realms and do you and Kate Novak have any plans to write more for the Realms perhaps new adventures for Alias and Dragonbait or other novels, game accessories, maybe a short story for dragon?

Jeff Grubb:
I haven't missed writing for the Realms - I've told a lot of the stories I wanted to tell in the first place, and don't feel the need to just keep pressing on for the sake of it. I like to do new things, and go in different directions, so I'm not particularly hurt by not doing a Realmsnovel a year. Also, within the Realms, I think our "ecological niche" is filled quite nicely by Elaine Cunningham's work. Her characters are of modest power level, her language is bright and descriptive, and her dialog is sharp and realistic. So I don't think the Realms is harmed by a lack of Grubb-Novak books. And the old ones are STILL extremely popular, even though they've been out of print for years. So I've been playing in other worlds. Since the six books with Kate (and one more with Ed Greenwood) in the Realms, I've done a single solo novel for Dragonlance, four books for Magic: The Gathering, and most recently a pair of novels on the Blizzard lines of Starcraft and Warcraft. I've kept busy. One thing that I'm particularly proud of is getting a story sold into the first new Thieves' World collection that will be out this fall. This is NOT a WotC project, but Lynn Abbey asked me in, and since I was a fan of Thieves' World back in college, it’s a real treat for me. As tempting as it is, I would be hesitant to return to Alias and Dragonbait unless I had a really cool story for them. Probably something that wrapped up all the loose ends with the Legion of Aliai. But no plans at the present.

GamingReport:
I must say I enjoyed the new Manual of the Planes as much as the original. How did you go about taking the info from that book along with all of Planescape and putting it all together for the new book?

Jeff Grubb:
I took the same approach that I took with the original Manual. For the original MotP, I pulled together everything that we had done before, include Q1, Ed Greenwood's Hells articles, and Roger Moore's notes of the Astral, and synthesized it into a common whole, looking for commonalities and unstated meta-rules. For the new version, I added both the further developmental work on Planescape, and the fundamental changes we made to the rules with 3rd Edition. The biggest influence was what we did for 3rd, and as far as a mindset change. Instead of saying "This is The Cosmology" we are saying "This is >a< Cosmology, and these are the tools we used to build it". Now, go build your own. A lot of the most important material is basic in nature, but far-reaching in effect.

GamingReport:
One of my favorite settings as well as many gamers is Spelljammer. Can you tell us the story of it's development at that local Lake Geneva restaurant and what would you say was your biggest influence in writing it?

Jeff Grubb:
The restaurant was called Augie's - its now a Mexican restaurant called the Cactus Club. One afternoon the entire design department under Jim Ward adjourned there to come up with new concepts for next year's boxed sets (the waitstaff, overhearing our increasingly odd conversations, thought we were Movie People, and that manager Warren Spector was Steven Spielberg). I pitched the concept of Spelljammer, and Zeb Cook came up with the "Far Side of Krynn" idea that became Taladas. I think Spelljammer was appealing at the time because it provided a non-planar method of traveling between the various campaigns. My biggest influence was a single image - the fighter in plate mail standing on the deck of a ship in space, without blowing up in vacuum or floating away. All the weird "Grubbian Physics" of that set comes from making that happening. The other big influence was Jim Holloway's art. I turned him loose on the ships with some basic requests ("Give me a ship that looks like a chambered nautilus"). Then I took his designs and worked with mapmaker David LaForce ("Diesel") and laid out the interiors based on his sketches. He did so many cool beholder ships we decided to use them all, and turned the beholders xenophobic in the process!

GamingReport:
Spelljammer grew a lot in the years of it's production. Do you feel it was complete when production stopped or was there more you would have liked to have seen done with it?

Jeff Grubb:
My contribution was wrapped up with the Legend of the Spelljammer boxed set - for me it was always about the ships, so I feel it was complete from that point. War Captains Companion and Astromundi cluster were good products, and they were definitely growing the line in new directions, but they were not my primary focus. The only thing on the lineup when it finally closed up shop was a new Unhuman War in the offing.

GamingReport:
What do you think of the new mini-game Spelljammer Shadow of the Spidermoon and would you like to see this developed into a full setting?

Jeff Grubb:
I think its great, and Andy did a great job on it. (and I'll note that it was Polyhedron editor Erik Mona, and not Andy, who called the Giff "Goofy"). Andy did not violate any of the core concepts of Spelljammer (and he kept it to a single system, so we don't worry about the crystal spheres), and he put a new spin on it. I really like that. I could see some enterprising D20 Company licensing the name and bringing Andy in as a consultant to help.

GamingReport:
Al-Qadim is another great setting you developed. One I've played in a lot. Have you had any thoughts about writing the setting as a d20 mini-game for Polyhedron?

Jeff Grubb:
I don't know if it would fit in a single issue. J Yeah, I could go back to Zakhara.

GamingReport:
The rules for D&D; have definitely changed since the beginning and many gamers miss all the settings being tied together. Do you think it was better before with everything tied together or separate as it stands today?

Jeff Grubb:
We've definitely gotten away from the "Unified Cosmology" of a few years back, and sent the various campaign worlds on their own. I think it allows a lot of GMs and players to make their campaigns unique without worrying about what's happening in planes that are not relevant to their work. The presence of the great wheel Now, while sent to separate Alternate Material Planes, there still can be links between the campaigns, if you so desire. The Plane of Shadow, under-utilized in the past, now comes forward a great transitive plane to link campaign settings. Sometime, probably within my career lifetime, someone in charge will come up with the idea of mushing everything back together again ("Crisis on Infinite Oerths?"), and the pendulum will swing back. There is information in the new MotP to handle that, should it occur.

GamingReport:
OK lets talk about Star Wars. What are your thoughts on writing for the setting and what kind of research did you do for it?

Jeff Grubb:
I was a big Star Wars fan back in the days of the early movies, when the comic-book tied-ins dealt with giant green carnivorous bunnies. I had not kept up, so I was faced with a mountain of material, and spent a LOT of time wandering through Lucasfilm's database. Fortunately, the team here includes both the extremely knowledgeable JD Wiker, and Bill Slavicsek, who wrote the Guide to the Star Wars Universe. These guys are our touchstones, the ones that separate the gold from the dross.

GamingReport:
I've read through Tempest Feud and it's a great book. How did you go about developing it?

Jeff Grubb:
We (Owen Stephens and I) were presented with the task of making an 128-page super-adventure, and I came up with the idea of making our own movie. We paced it similarly to the early Star Wars films (the action moves in three acts between three planets), and deals with a galaxy-wide threat with the Tempest Spice. Add a couple space battles and stir. One thing we did NOT want to do was another "Death Star" as an ultimate threat - there have been a lot of that type of menace over the year. As for the Hutts at the center of the adventure, I pulled from ANOTHER movie of the 70's for inspiration. Picture Brando as Hutt patriarch Popara, James Caan as hedonistic Zonnos, and Al Pacino as quiet Mika. Then I took their personalities in different directions as the plot unfolded. What I really like about Tempest Feud (Thomas Reid chose the name, by the way, and left us to explain what it meant) is that it is set up as an series of adventures that can be inserted into an overarching campaign. Kate is a big Star Wars gamer (Star Wars designer Steve Miller is her GM), and I wanted to come up with something that could thread through a existing campaign without negating on-going plots. A lot of adventures are hermetically sealed - this one has a lot of tendrils that reach into the rest of the campaign.

GamingReport:
You have two other upcoming Star Wars accessories many gamers are looking forward too. What parts of Power's of the Jedi and the Arms and Equipment Guide did you write?

Jeff Grubb:
Power of the Jedi is mostly JD's child at this stage - he's done a lot of the design, development, and refinement. I've added some new force-based monsters, did a bit about running Jedi campaigns, refined some of Owen Stephenson's new character classes and did the "Crunchy bits" in the enemies and allies section (Stat-block generation is one of the hardest and most tedious parts of the current design process). Arms & Equipment was a straight split between me and Owen. I did the arms, he did the equipment (armor on up). The big challenge there was that the RCR (Revised Core Rulebook) was still under design, so I had to keep track of ongoing changes that affected material that had already been designed under the old system.

GamingReport:
There was talk at Star Wars Celebration II of the future of the setting. A hardback Alien Anthology, Guide for Hero's, Sector Guides, Star Wars Galaxies PC game tie-in. Are you involved with any of the mentioned or other projects?

Jeff Grubb:
I have moved on at the moment from Star Wars to other projects. D20 Modern has been a big chunk of my time of late, and I am currently involved in building a campaign setting for that system (the rest of the design team for the new setting is David Noonan, Eric Cagle, and D20Modern lead designer Bill Slavicsek). I am also the in-house contact and developer for Sovereign Press's work on the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, which WotC will be producing). By speaking of Celebration II, something was mis-reported there. Someone came away with the idea that every item in the upcoming Arms & Equipment guide will be illustrated. Unfortunately that's not the case - what was said (Bill assures me this is what was said) is that every DROID we cover is illustrated. (We laid them out like a police line-up, in order to make them all fit).

GamingReport:
Have you ever thought about and would you like to write a novel for Star Wars?

Jeff Grubb:
Never thought about it. While a number of our fantasy authors, like Troy Denning and Bob Salvatore, have expanded into the Star Wars universe, its not been a major goal for me.

GamingReport:
The next big project coming out that you are contributing to is d20Modern. I know Mat Smith has a monthly column coming up dealing with this setting however is there any hints you can give us about the project?

Jeff Grubb:
No. Well, OK, its really, really good. I'm very happy with the way the Basic Classes have come together in this design - and I think it will really allow a lot of versatility for the game. We've fought hard to create a rules set that will allow a number of different playing styles from SWAT Teams to Scoobies, and it is all coming together (at high speed) right now.

GamingReport:
Will you continue to work on this setting?

Jeff Grubb:
D20 Modern is the rules set. I am working on a campaign setting based on the rules. I hope to continue in this world for a while, but I also know that I tend to get kidnapped off projects and sent elsewhere as need be.

GamingReport:
Out of all the gaming products you've worked on over the years which is your favorite and why?

Jeff Grubb:
I don't have a favorite, or rather, the favorite changes on a daily basis. I really love the way Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures book turned out. I really love the wonkiness of Spelljammer. And I really appreciate the popularity of the Realms. But I'm also proud of the color-coded combat chart at the heart of the Marvel Super Heroes game and the simplistic design of the Buck Rogers High Adventure game. One particular favorite is not a TSR/WotC product at all. It’s The Autobiography of Auberon, King of the Faerie, for Castle Falkenstein. I wrote it during a fling as a freelancer, and was extremely pleased with the way it turned out. My LEAST favorite project, oddly enough, is always the one I'm working on. There's an old saying about how anyone who loves law or sausage should not watch either being made. The same applies to game design. I'm always in a flurry of writing, kit-bashing, and what we used to call "meatball design" - getting stuff on paper for playtest. I am honestly surprised when it turns out as well as it does.

GamingReport:
If you could work on a dream project for gaming what would it be?

Jeff Grubb:
I've done a lot of my dream projects over the years - Marvel, Spelljammer, FREELancers (cyberpunk superheroes for Top Secret). I put a couple dream projects into the mix for this "New Setting Cattle Call" that WotC is running - we'll see if they get a nibble or not. One thing I'd like to do would be a project that captures the other-worldly nature of Clark Ashton Smith's fiction, but that may be some ways off. GamngReport: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to get into writing RPG material?

Jeff Grubb:
Read widely. One of my peculiar habits is to read about five books at the same time (Kate's always griping about the pile of books at my bedside). Right now I'm reading John Conrad's Nostromo, a book on the ecology of North America since the death of the dinosaurs, and a book on Smallpox epidemics in Revolutionary America. Oh, and I have a book on Greek and Roman tactics and armor in bathroom. All of these may find their way into my work.

GamingReport:
In closing, looking back over the years what are your thoughts on the industry from the past to the present?

Jeff Grubb:
Game design has always seemed like a conversation for me - a new design or mechanic is often a response to that which came previously, either as a refutation, a revision, or an expansion. For example, a lot of early RPGs were attempts to "fix D&D;", and turn it in directions that better met the needs of the designers. Since those early days, I've seen the various pendulum swings as far as the popularity of campaign settings, metastory, metagaming, humor, historical approaches, realistic approaches, live action, universal systems and unique die mechanics. Right now we are in the grip of the success of the D20 system as a quasi-universal system, and with it has come a very strong mechanical component to our designs (Translation: There are a lot of "crunchy bits" in the products coming out these days). This is not the ultimate in design, but just one more stage of the conversation.

GamingReport:
On behalf of GamingReport and gamers everywhere I thank you for your time.

Jeff Grubb:
Thank you for interest, and thanks to everyone for playing, reading, and enjoying my work!