Interview with James ‘Grim’ Desborough of Postmortem Studios

Today I’m sitting down with James ‘Grim’ Desborough, an Origins’ Award winning writer and owner of Postmortem Studios.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to do this interview with us, James.

Please call me ‘Grim’, nobody except my mother calls me James, or my wife – when I’m in trouble.

Okay, fine, “Grim” it is. But why Grim? That’s “ugly” in Danish, you know.

When I was at college my parents were getting divorced so I was a rather stereotypical gothy type. Add to that that I used to tell decidedly off-colour jokes and the slang at the time for something unsettling was ‘that’s Grim’ and you can see where it came from. Grim Jim naturally followed, initially as an insult but I took it, reclaimed it and made it mine.

Before we get into Grim the game guy, how about Grim the man? What’s your background and life situation?

Grew up in the idyllic English countryside, son of a teacher and a legal secretary. My dad later left teaching to get involved in IT. Always had my head immersed in books and computers – though as a user not a programmer – always fascinated by the strange, the folklore myths and legends of my country and also by science, space, the sea. I grew up wanting to work in comics or art but somehow that changed over time to take me into writing. I’m married to a tremendously supportive woman, Donna, who I snuck out on the underground railroad before the Stupid Curtain of the Bush administration came down and I have a cat called Charlie who is my muse and daytime companion. I live in my grandmother’s old house in the village where I grew up. Sometimes you just can’t get away from your roots!

How did you get into gaming? How old were you? Do you remember what your first game was?

I was at primary school… maybe seven or eight. I started out really by reading stories to other kids and then me and my friend Russell discovered Fighting Fantasy books, as did a few of the other kids. We’d read them to each other with one person playing the hero and one the ‘GM’ before we even knew what a GM was. From there it was the orange covered ‘make your own Fighting Fantasy adventures”” and that was it. Hooked!

Would you please tell us a little bit about how you initially got into game design?

I was always making stuff, props, magazines and things for my friends and extended gaming group as props, always coming up with new rules. We set down some of our ideas into an – horribly illegal – photocopied Cyberpunk supplement as ‘Dead Hamster Games’ and never looked back really. My first ‘proper job’ was writing The Munchkin’s Guide to Powergaming for Steve Jackson Games. From there other opportunities came along, unfortunately I got a bit pegged as comedy guy, which was both a help and a hindrance.

The Munchkin’s Guide to Powergaming, eh? Is that related to Steve Jackson’s beloved card game, Munchkin?

Oh my, a source of bitterness for me indeed! Yes. First came the Munchkin’s Guide, then the d20 Munchkin material, then the card game. I wanted Kovalic to do more of the illos for the original Munchkin’s Guide but he didn’t end up doing that many. I think he’s made up for it with the card games though. Me and Steve Mortimer wrote the guide and it was a big hit and won the Origins Award but since then neither of us have been involved which, to be honest, is more than a little upsetting. It’s all kosher and legal but a lot of the first set is derived from our sense of humour and I’d liked to have been involved more, and not just because of the money. Still, more power to them for such a big success.

How did Postmortem Studios come into existence?

Initially I wanted to create a sort of bohemian gamer’s collective. Bring people together, produce games, share the proceeds and so on. All very hippy of me. A combination of things – me losing my ‘proper; job during the .com bubble collapse and people being a useless bunch of bastards who wouldn’t put any time or effort in, lead to me turning it into a ‘proper’ business and doing it full time because it was either that or languish on the dole.

How did you come up with choosing the name “Postmortem Studios”?

Horror’s always been a bit of a focus for me, though it doesn’t always come through. There’s also the meaning of ‘after death’ (which is part of the reason I ditched the conventional spelling/separation). It was a sort of rising-from-the-ashes affair to get it all going really.

What do you feel are your biggest challenges as an author?

I suffer from moderate to severe depression. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t suffer from it but some days you just feel that you can’t do anything and most days it’s like dragging a heavy weight behind you. It makes everything more difficult, more time consuming, more energy draining. On top of that you get self-doubt, you second guess yourself and criticism easily cuts you to the bone while praise gets dismissed. It’s all very masochistic and all things considered I’d rather be a sadist if given the option.

I’d say my other biggest challenge is having an eclectic and dark sense of humour and a very low bullshit tolerance level. I find a lot of things, a lot of people, exasperating and stupid yet at the same time if someone doesn’t ‘get it’ I feel that I’ve failed in conveying what I’m trying to say to them.

Can you describe your daily process? Clothes? Snacks? Drink of choice? Music? Scenery?

On a good day I get up and get dressed because it helps create a sense of ‘going to work’. The surrealist painter Rene Magritte used to get up, put on a suit, paint for a normal work day and then stop. It’s great for being disciplined.

On a bad day I don’t get dressed and I sprawl somewhere with a laptop with some music or wallpaper TV in the background and just peck out a few thousand words.

I’m not a breakfast guy, breakfast foods aren’t very appealing to me and I hate the way the taste stays with you all day. I only bother eating lunch maybe half the time, if that. If I get hungry I’ll just graze, a packet of crisps, a piece of cheese, some bread with some kind of spread but I really only eat properly in the evenings.

I’m not a big music guy, I only really listen to music if I’m working at the desktop rather than the laptop. As a one-man-band I do layout, art etc on the desktop and music helps with repetitive tasks like that. I listen to a bizarre mix of soundtracks, metal, industrial, goth and electronic music.

I live way out in the sticks of the British countryside so, while it’s clement, there’s plenty of inspiring fantastical scenery. These are the sorts of areas that inspired The Shire for Tolkien and Narnia for CS Lewis, so I feel a big connection living in the home counties, with some of the formative fantasy authors.

Where / how do you find your artists and/or writers?

Writers are a constant let down alas, very few follow through on what they say they can do for you. Bunch of flakes… As a writer myself I believe I’m entitled to whinge about that!
Artists I’ve generally had a good experience with. I think it’s because I try to forge personal relationships, people become my friends. I pay on time and while my pay’s not great I think people appreciate the fact that they know when and how they’re going to be paid and, since I originally wanted to be an artist, I think I appreciate the issues of being one and am more understanding than some.

I find people mostly through social networking, not just facebook or whatever, but friends of friends. Recommendations. The same way you find a good plumber.

You’ve been designing games for many years now, yet you always seem to have plenty of new ideas in mind. Where do you find your inspiration, and what keeps you interested and engaged in the process of game design?

As a gamer I’m always interested in new ideas, new games, new worlds. This is also true of me as a reader, as a comic fan, a film fan a computer game fan. I’m always fascinated by new ways of doing things, new approaches, finding the right tool for the right job. I make the things that interest and engage me and I hope that they interest and engage other people. There’s also a bit more of an engineering quality to some projects, like the adventure seeds, in that I ask myself what would I find useful, and then try to make that.

What do you see as the difference between working for a big name publisher and being small press?

I’ve worked for SJG, Mongoose, Cubicle 7, WotC and nearly worked for others. I guess that means I’ve worked solidly for top and middle tier companies in the industry when it comes to the freelance work I’ve done. The main thing about working for big companies I find is that everything moves, frustratingly, glacially slowly. You get a query about a project, you turn in your ideas, you hear nothing for maybe months, then they back in touch and you’re expected to remember what the fuck it was you were talking about and to get back into that mindset. Then you turn in a draft and a long time later – maybe – someone gets back to you with changes, you make those and they vanish into the aether then, perhaps, months later whatever it was gets published and then, MAYBE, you get paid.

Christ, I sound like Denis Leary.

Small press it’s much more handshake and friendly and there’s a much greater level of immediacy to everything. You can bash out an idea, get it rolling and get some money coming in, in relatively short order.

Another issue is that bigger companies tend to be over-concerned, in my opinion, with image. They don’t take as many risks with ideas, they worry about trying to appeal to families and kids and the effect one product line might have on another. That and the slowness annoy the piss out of me. Take risks. If there’s tits and gore in one product that’s got sod all to do with the content of another. Move faster, it’s the internet age, you’re quick or you’re dead.

What sets Postmortem apart from the others?

I don’t think there’s any one, singular thing that sets Postmortem apart. Other companies don’t give a fuck, look at Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Others share my dark sense of humour and satirical streak. Others share my ethos when it comes to piracy, internet culture and so on. I guess the only thing that really makes it individual is me. I’m a bit of a control freak, if I was feeling arrogant I might call myself an ‘auteur’ I suppose. I work hard at what I do so I suppose what you get is ‘me’.

Would you share a little bit of your thought process when coming up with a new game concept? What elements do you tend to focus on first, and where do you try to place the balance between design elegance, gameplay balance, and sheer fun factor?

1. Idea first. What is this game about? What will the players do? Why is this a good idea? What’s engaging about it?
2. Mechanics second. What game mechanics support the style of play that fits this genre, this idea. What needs to be added or taken away? Can I use an existing system or do I need to make one up? What do I like or not like about that system personally?
3. Build the mechanics. The mechanics are the skeleton upon which the game hangs. If you don’t get that right, it won’t work. Character creation especially.
4. Construct the background.

Balance doesn’t especially concern me unless it’s completely out of whack. Groups will find their own equilibrium and I think you can be balanced without being homogeneous or identical in power level. I’d rather people had the freedom to make the characters they want. Elegance is helpful, but a secondary concern. Fun factor is hard to pin down, different people find different things… fun!

Do you prefer a rule set with a strong central mechanic, but is open enough to take that central mechanic and apply it to different situations?

If a game is fast and loose a general mechanic works fine, I think. You get issues when you try to cram things that really don’t work with that mechanic into it, just to maintain a purity. I take a more pragmatic approach I think. That can make things more complex but it all depends on the design goal.

What advice do you have for hopeful authors trying to get into the RPG industry?

Don’t. There’s enough competition already.

More seriously, make sure you have a good idea. Even if you have nothing else an exciting, interesting, novel idea will take you a long way all by itself.
Use the internet. Don’t take risks financially, only conceptually. You can test your ideas commercially with virtually no outlay. Don’t spend money you don’t need to.

When you’re not working on your own prototypes, what do you find yourself playing? Are there any recent releases from other designers that have really grabbed your attention?

I had a prolonged dry spell when I moved back to the countryside but now I’m gaming quite a bit. I’m GMing a 4E D&D Dark Sun game, with quite heavily customised rules as I wasn’t a fan of many of 4e’s ideas and its tie to the board. I’ve also been playing Eclipse Phase, Cthulhutech and GMing Dragon Warriors and The Laundry.

The One Ring has my interest at the moment, mostly for the explicit ‘downtime’ mechanics. I have always liked games where the players make a tangible impact on the world around them, Underground was great for that. It’s something that keeps me from diving fully into MMOs and a strength I think TRPGs have over them.

You have a… let’s say, “controversial” reputation online. There are certain parties who have accused you of being homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, vile, and cruel (just to name a few choice terms). Yet the same parties who have accused you of these things have been revealed to be scam artists and are known frauds of the first order. How do you deal with the portion of the internet gaming community that will do nothing but slam you no matter what?

I try and fail to ignore them. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about failing to communicate. It’s hard for me to accept that some people are just so biased, hateful, self-obsessed or plain stupid that they can’t parse anything deeper than surface appearance so I end up thinking the fault is mine.

Am I homophobic? No. I don’t like guys that way but that doesn’t make me homophobic. Does that mean I’m going to shy away from writing games where protagonists and villains ARE homophobic? No, it doesn’t. Satire and exposure are great ways of acting against these things.

Am I transphobic? No. Again, not my thing though I wish western trans people would make a bit more of an effort to actually look like the gender they wish they were. Am I against pompous, arrogant, nasty, exploitative people who just HAPPEN to be trans? Yes. Will I use that to hurt them if they lash out at me? Yes. From Hell’s Heart I stab at thee! I may not be proud of it but when someone hurts you, you lash out to hurt them back and you use what’s available be the fat, ugly, hypocritical, talentless or whatever else. Just as they use things that I find hurtful – such as accusations of ‘isms – to attack me. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.

Misogynistic? I’m sex positive, I love women. I also like pornography and sex, I think women are beautiful and I see no harm whatsoever in appreciating the female form or indulging fantasies. Surely the gaming community – if ANYONE – can tell the difference between reality and fantasy, yes? Drawings aren’t real. Written characters aren’t real. I won’t call myself a feminist because I feel it’s taken on a horrible taint from extremism. I’ll call myself an egalitarian but I’m also a libertine and anti-censorship and whether the source is a Bishop or a lecturer in Women’s Studies I’ll buck against it.

Vile? Cruel? Garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t like me, don’t buy what I write. If you can’t read subtext or see beneath the surface, don’t buy what I write. It’s entirely in your control. I value the freedom to communicate to the people who do like it and do get it over and above your custom. Just don’t expect to insult me without getting a little vitriol back.

Those who actually bother to get to know me or are capable of reading subtext know I’m not ‘ist’ – far from it, that I go out of my way to help people out and that I’m a good, loyal friend no matter who – or what – someone is. Provided they’re not an arse.

I think this all really boils down to my low bullshit tolerance. I place a premium on what’s true and accurate over what’s convenient or nice or comforting to people.

On a related note, you tend to put a lot of your personality into your writing – more so than just about any other game designer I can think of. Do you think that this has helped or hurt you?

Both.

I’m like Marmite, you love me or hate me. Very few people are on the fence about me.

The one consistent bit of praise I tend to get is about that style of writing so I don’t think I’m going to change it much soon. I try to write as though I’m the GM of the group, not some person on high elsewhere, separate from the game.

What’s next for you?

Some big projects, PROJECT and Gilder, wrapping up am intense and exhausting social media project called Outbreak and then taking a break through December after the cons.
I’m going to seriously re-evaluate how I work, who I work with, the process, whether the freelancing for others is worth it and then I’m going to try and get a ton of backed up short-projects and mini-games out.

I’m also being published in fiction as part of the Red Phone Box story cycle and I hope to do some more ‘proper’ writing, finally. Salome Jones has been very encouraging and helpful in getting me to believe in my fiction.

Sounds as though you are very busy. What can you tell us about PROJECT and Glider?

PROJECT is a resurrected game project from, I believe, the 90s that was bandied about the SLA Industries fan community for a while. It posits a future where the barriers between realities are breaking down and ‘things’ are creating an incursion to our world. PROJECT stands against this trying to keep things – relatively – normal.

Gilder I can’t say anything much about other than that you could think of it as urban fantasy with a near-cyberpunk ethos.

What is this social media project “Outbreak” about?

An interactive fiction zombie story that should appear across mobile and social media. I’ve striven to give it more of a story than most mobile gaming materials and offerings have at the moment. It’s more linear but decisions influence and affect the narrative and the character.

Congrats on being published in the upcoming Red Phone Box anthology. When can we expect to see that available?

I believe the first versions should be available in a month or two. You can keep an eye out at salomejones.com for more info and Ghostwoods Books.

Once again I’d like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer a couple questions for us; is there anything you’d like to add in closing that may not have been covered in the questions?

Just this I suppose: We have e-mail, social media, blogs, so many ways to communicate yet it still feels, most of the time, as a creator, that communication is mono-directional. I think most of us would like greater engagement from our communities, to hear about people playing our games. We’d like to see more reviews, more feedback, we like to know that people are reached by our work. So as a creator I’d like to appeal to people reading to send words of thanks or appreciation, to discuss our games, to come and talk to us, to me, wherever you can. Let us know you’re out there and that you’re reading and playing.