Sections FT Home Features Interviews FR Projects FR Places FR Magic FR NPC's FR Fiction Top 10 Sites Odds & Ends Classifieds Feedback The Staff Peter Oliva Chris Labonville Mike Vandergrift Mike Lejeune Chris Warter Mike Unknown Hargrid Tenslayer Staff Details		Volume 1, Number 2 June/July 1999 Interview - Eric Boyd Interview with Eric Boyd By Kimberly Moser <Chittlin@aol.com> Welcome! What follows is an interview with Eric Boyd. Kim: Eric, you are a veteran listmember, a published author of gaming material and a guru on the trivia of the Realms. Yet, despite all the coverage you give and the information you relate, we know very little about the person behind the name. Could you please begin by telling us a little background about yourself and your interest in things fantastical? Eric: To paraphrase "The Princess Bride," I guess the easiest place is to begin at the beginning. I'm a voracious reader, and I've been reading all sorts of books since I was a little kid. When I was 5 or 6 years old, I decided I was ready to read my first "real book." My mom sent me up to the attic to find something to read, and I came down with "The Jungle Book." She was a little dubious about the difficulty of my choice, but I plowed right through it. Kipling's tale must have struck a chord with an inborn love of the fantastic and strange new worlds, as I quickly gravitated to science fiction and fantasy novels. I think Anne McCaffrey was my favorite author and Pern my favorite world when I was growing up, but I also loved the fantastic landscapes of Piers Anthony, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, J. R. R. Tolkien, and all the other classics of those genres. In fact, I went through my own books so fast that I was always running out of things to read. In desperation, I'd usually have to borrow books from my younger sister until we could go to the library again, so I've probably read more "teenage girl" books than I should ever admit. When I was 11, the son of some of my parents' friends introduced me to D&D. We spent two hours rolling up an elf (using the old Basic D&D rules). My character was killed by 3 goblins in the second room of the dungeon - you're really dating yourself if you know which published adventure I'm talking about-before our parents made us stop for the night; I've been hooked ever since. I played off and on through high school, with my favorite character being Sapphire VII, seventh in a long line of identical magic-users and the first to survive an entire dungeon crawl. Unlike many gamers, I basically stopped playing AD&D in college, although I didn't stop buying products to read, but then I picked it back up again in graduate school. Through four years of graduate school, I ran a Forgotten Realms campaign that rarely strayed beyond the Haunted Halls, despite my intention to use that dungeon as simply a jumping off point. When we weren't gaming, instead of doing research or writing my dissertation, I preferred to write all sorts of homegrown Realmslore, much of which I still draw on today to slip into products I write. The Realms list started up in its first incarnation around that time as well ('91 or '92, if I recall correctly), and my interest in Ed Greenwood's world really took off. Fortunately, I had bought every single Realms product released up until that point, so I had a wealth of material at my fingertips. The opportunity to chat with folks such as Sylvain Roberts, Bobby Nichols, Alistair, Moonsong99, and many other early listmembers about Realms esoterica morning, noon, and night fed my addiction, and I've been a regular contributor to the Realms list (through half a dozen or so incarnations) ever since! After finishing my doctorate in computer science and engineering, I graduated to the "real world." For me that means writing performance analysis tools for a large computer company and freelancing for TSR. I'm also engaged to an incredible woman who doesn't mind me hanging a large picture of Garagos (the original painting for Powers & Pantheons) on the study wall and who has taken up gaming willingly. We get together with a local gaming group on a semi-regular basis, and we're both involved with an ongoing PBEM. To top it off, we're planning on getting married in a real castle at the end of the summer! Kim: You have been a leading voice on the Realms Lists even dating back to the old TSR Online at AOL. How do feel the lists and discussions have progressed? Are there any trends you, personally, would like to see thrive or even die out? Eric: Actually, to date myself even further back, I was a member of the Realms list before TSR Online presence on AOL. (For the curious, I just turned 31.) To answer the question asked: Overall, I am very content with how the lists and discussions have progressed. Many of the things I would prefer to see change seem to be symptomatic of email lists in general, so some of the things I might wish for are basically tilting at windmills. I am very happy with the emergence of a "self-regulated" community of posters in the Realms community. The FR FAQ and the creation of both moderators and monitors build on the traditions of the earliest days of the "online Realms community" in a good and productive fashion. The FAQ seems to have "broken the back" of numerous recurring and silly threads that were brought up over and over to no real end. The moderator and monitors seem to have tamped down what little "abusive" behavior there has been, although fortunately the Realms community has always had a high signal-to-noise ratio. I also applaud the rising interest among posters in contributing to the ever-growing body of Realmslore. It seems to me that an increasing percentage of FR fans are willing to really learn about the world and then contribute to it in a logical and consistent fashion. To my mind, this is what makes the Realms "live" as a world, one of my primary sources of motivation for writing. Unfortunately, many projects die out rather quickly and predictably, following a familiar and somewhat depressing cycle. The good news is that, in my opinion, as a community we are making progress towards establishing processes to keep the enthusiasm "alive." The Arylon project in particular seems to have created a structure through which an ever changing roster of fans can contribute to a growing creation without relying on the unflagging enthusiasm of a single individual or small group. I hope other projects achieve the processes, critical mass, momentum needed to cross this threshold. I would like to see the Realms community produce a regular "magazine" of the quality evinced by the Oerth Journal submission (see http://members.xoom.com/cogh) or a website of the quality produced by the Kargatane (see http://www.kargatane.com). In many ways, the Realms community has been spoiled by the large number of products TSR has produced for the game line, and I think this has impeded efforts to develop our own body of quality work in an online forum. The first issue of the Forgotten Times (Forgotten Trails?) seems like a great step in that direction, and I hope it develops sufficient "legs," as it were, to survive the inevitable changes in editors and in the roster of regular contributors. I will caution that the first issue is, relatively speaking, the easiest to produce. Getting to issue three or five or ten is the hard part. Kim: Are there any thoughts or advice you can give to the fans and novice writers with regards to campaigns, or actual submissions to Dragon, Dungeon and Polyhedron? You have been writing articles for Polyhedron and Dragon for years. In the recent past you were brought in as a freelancer to do things like Powers & Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities. How did you make this transition and how has it affected you? Eric: I'll take a stab at these two questions together. The short answers: "Keep at it," "Dedication coupled with a strong dose of luck," and "Greatly." The long answers: TSR has always laid out a very clear path to writing articles and gaming products, something that most gamers fantasize about at some time or another. In the past couple of years, I've gotten quite a few private emails asking how one gets published by TSR, how to submit an article to a TSR publication, or how to get a job with TSR as a freelancer. Getting published takes writing ability, persistence, and a little bit of luck. Whatever the goal, I recommend beginning by submitting articles to the periodicals along the lines of what they are currently publishing, saving more radical ideas for after a few articles have been accepted for publication. Looking through the past dozen or so issues of a periodical for content, style, and theme should provide a sufficient base of examples from which to begin. Quality of writing and presentation are very important. Submissions should be at least of sufficient quality to merit an 'A' in a college freshmen writing class. Spelling errors, bad grammar, poor punctuation, and unreadable formatting almost immediately disqualify a submission. Follow the submission guidelines carefully, and write prolifically. Don't be discouraged by rejection. Eventually, if you keep raising the quality of your work and you listen to feedback from the editor, you have a good chance of getting published in one of the periodicals. As far as I know, the folks at TSR are not (and have never been) interested in publishing a "work" brought to them by a fan, except in the context of Dragon, Dungeon, or Polyhedron. Even if you write a "Complete Half-Orc Handbook" of better quality than anything TSR has ever published, it's just not going to get published unless it can be pared down into an article for one of the above-mentioned publications. This creates the obvious difficulty that not every topic an aspiring author might want to write about is appropriate for any of the established forums. Nevertheless, if you want to get published, you have to write articles for periodicals (at least initially), and they have to be along the lines of standard articles written for a publication. TSR does not take manuscripts and say, "Hey, this is neat. Let's publish it as a product." Instead, the mangers determine the list of upcoming products in-house in consultation with designers and then assign them to designers and a small number of freelancers. If you really want to write for TSR as a freelancer, follow the above-mentioned route to get published in the periodicals. Once you become a regular contributor, the editor will hopefully come to "trust" you and your abilities, and you might be called on to write a specific article to fit a need. Over time, if you prove you can be relied upon, can write well, can write to specifications, and have the motivation to keep at it, then and only then might you get a chance as a freelancer. Unfortunately, TSR seems to be decreasing its reliance on freelancers of late. Finally, the brutal truth is that you can make a lot more money as a website designer than you can as a TSR employee or as a freelance game designer. Recognize the amount of effort it will take and the degree of commitment you need to have before embarking on such a course. I would only recommend taking the plunge if you really enjoy writing and enjoy the hobby for its own sake. Actually getting published should simply be the icing on the cake for an unstoppable creative drive. I basically followed this route myself. I joined various electronic Realms forums and really learned the setting. I began to write homegrown Realmslore and shared it with the electronic community. I really worked on my writing skills. Eventually, I got the nerve to submit an article to Polyhedron. My submission was strange enough that Skip Williams (the editor at the time) accepted it for publication in Polyhedron #60. (For the curious, I'll admit only that it involved an ettin druid and a helm of alignment change. Think about it.) Then I got really interested in all the obscure gods of the Realms that no one else seemed to care about or know about. I wrote this ridiculously long, 50-page article on the gods and sent it to Dragon. It was rejected. I worked on it a bit and sent it to the Realms group at TSR. It was rejected (by Julia Martin, no less). I kept working on the article, and Dave Gross (the editor at the time) finally accepted it to Polyhedron as a regular column. Here's where the luck part comes in. Just as my "Forgotten Deities" column was taking off, several folks at TSR became active participants (or at least attentive lurkers) on the Realms list. Julia Martin was one of them, and, as it turned out, she had just embarked on the monumental task of writing Faiths & Avatars. As I posted a lot to the Realms forum, I started responding to a lot of her questions about obscure gods, and gradually we started having a lot of private email discussions about the pantheons of the Realms. As one might guess, the task of writing one of the god books is immense, and Julia was strapped for time. I started helping her, first by looking over and later by working on god write-ups she had partially completed. The fact that I was regularly contributing a column to Polyhedron, the fact that I had completed a doctoral thesis, and the fact that I knew a lot about the Realms convinced Julia and Thomas Reid to take a chance on me. (In other words, they were pretty sure I could write, and they were pretty sure I could complete a large project.) So TSR hired me to write up the Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons as well as a chapter on artifacts. I completed my assignment on time and to their satisfaction. Then, because the book still wasn't done, I kept working on various other god write-ups in the Faerunian pantheon. As it happened, nothing I was officially contracted to write actually appeared in Faiths & Avatars, but lots of stuff I wrote "unofficially" to help out did fit. (The write-ups of Torm and Mielikki in particular draw very heavily on material I developed for two PCs in my home campaign.) Thus it was a logical development that I got asked to write Powers & Pantheons, given that I had already written up most of the gods either in "Forgotten Deities" or while under contract for the previous volume. As for the artifacts chapter, TSR simply moved it to Volo's Guide to All Things Magical. Since Powers & Pantheons went well, after the "Time of Troubles" at TSR I got asked to write Demihuman Deities and the Adventurers' Guild module that went with it. That in turn led to my most recent Realms project - which I turned over in December 98 and which should appear in Q4 99-and my current Realms project-which will appear in 2000. I've also gotten my name on the inside cover on several occasions by "pitching in" or "heavily reviewing" an early draft of other products. As for how it has affected me, I'd have to say in many ways. I enjoy the recognition I get for my writing, even among my non- gaming friends. I really get a thrill walking into Barnes & Noble and seeing my book on the shelf. Although the money is nice, it certainly isn't enough to live on. However, by supplementing my income, freelancing lets me buy a lot of toys and add a little bit to my savings. There are downsides as well. I spend most of my evenings and weekends writing. My "hobby" has become a job, at least in part, which means that gaming does not provide me as much relaxation as it used to. Overall though, the experience has been wonderful. Personally, I thrive by exercising my technical and creative sides, and, between work and freelancing, I'm never bored intellectually. Kim: Over the recent weeks there have been rumors abounding that you are working on things for Greyhawk. If you are working cross-world, how does your work differ from project setting to project setting? What do you see as tickling the fancy of the Realms gamer as opposed to the same for the Greyhawk fan? Are there truly any differences between the two? Eric: I haven't heard any such rumors, but maybe that's why they're floating about: no one has asked me until now. As I mentioned above, the truth is that I am not currently working on any Greyhawk projects except for the occasional Polyhedron article, the occasional Oerth Journal submission, and a small unofficial contribution to someone else's product. (You should be able to figure out which one when you see the TSR catalog for Q4 99 or Q1 00.) I suspect the rumors concern the possibility of a Faiths & Avatars-style product for the World of Greyhawk. While I would not be opposed to doing such a product, I am not currently working on one. As for the other question, that would be a "religious issue" in the parlance of most computer scientists. In my opinion, in their original form (i.e. the original boxed sets), there was not a lot that was different between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. Both worlds were presented as quasi-medieval Tolkienesque worlds, with wizards, priests, warriors, and rogues wandering about battling all sorts of mythological monsters. The major difference was that the Realms boxed set was more focused on city-states and wilderness, while the Greyhawk boxed set was more oriented towards contiguous nation-states. However, a decade or more after their first publication, I think the worlds have diverged significantly in "style," albeit not through any conscious design. The Realms has had so many products published for it that it has become very attractive to DMs who thrive on discovering layer upon layer of lore and linking it all together. Since most of those products were written in the narrative-driven AD&D2 style, it became an ever evolving character-driven world. In contrast, Greyhawk, by virtue of being essentially neglected for a decade or so, preserved the stark AD&D1 style in which settings were presented as simply as possible and DMs were left to come up with the entire story. Is either approach "better?" In my opinion, not really. Both worlds require a great deal of dedication and creativity on the part of the DM. However, most DMs seem to fall in one camp or the other, with little understanding of how the other could be appealing or challenging. So what does this mean for game designers? Given the precedents laid down by previous products, I would argue that a top-notch Realms product is incredibly rich in history, characters, adventure hooks, and tangential asides. It should weave together obscure references in numerous other products, add new layers to old secrets, and hint at new secrets. The PCs should be the heroes able to influence the course of events, but their actions are fraught with danger as they weave their way through never-ending struggles between the various "great powers" of the world. In contrast, I would argue that a top-notch Greyhawk product should cover a much broader sweep of the world, laying out a skeletal framework and leaving the rest up to the DM. Characters and locations should only be briefly touched upon, and it should be possible for the DM to weave countless stories through the same framework. The PCs should be heroes of more legendary stature, able to influence the history of nations if they so choose. Kim: I know you have been an active voice for many list-subscribers and some of the projects currently underway. You are enigmatic, yet very easy to approach and you are always courteous in your responses. What would you like to see from us and how can we help you? Also, are there any sneak-peeks you can give us? (Like . . . is there a Humanoid Pantheon book on the way?) Eric: This may seem a pipe dream, but I would like to see the online Realms community spend more effort working to extend the information we have about the Realms, and less time debating what should and should not be. For example, one of the unstated tenets of the current team of Realms designers is that "there are no mistakes." What I mean by this is that errors in fact or consistency should be avoided as much as possible, but those that do slip in are opportunities to be exploited rather than problems to be ignored. For example, to pick on the two original creators of TSR's Realms, Jeff Grubb and Ed Greenwood, in their novel Cormyr: A Novel, it is stated that the Obarskyrs came from Impiltur to settle The Forest Kingdom. When reading this, one might recall that FR6 - Dream of the Red Wizards claimed that Impiltur had been founded circa 1000 DR, approximately a millennium after the founding of Cormyr. Was this a "mistake?" Yes. Is it an "opportunity?" Absolutely. All of a sudden, we have "proof" that Impiltur's history is longer than we thought. It looks like there was an "Old Impiltur" and a "New Impiltur" and that "Old Impiltur" collapsed into city-states. This suggests a host of new questions: Why did this happen? When did it happen? What cities got destroyed, leaving only ruins for adventurers to pick over? What prized treasures got lost, and now wait to be found by adventurers? From one simple mistake we have a host of new adventure ideas. As another example, when writing Demihuman Deities I decided to include Urogalan, the halfling god of earth and death, as he had been included in the halfling pantheon detailed in Monstrous Mythology. One thing I noted is that his symbol is a black hound. This got me thinking about the fact that "black hounds" look a lot like onyx dogs, a type of figurine of wondrous power detailed in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Inspired, I decided to link the two, and suggested that most or all onyx dogs found in the Realms were created by halfling priests of Urogalan. Sure it's only a little tidbit, but it adds another little piece of Realmslore to the puzzle and makes two otherwise unrelated aspects of the Realms slightly more interesting. What would be great to see more of from folks in the online Realms community is to connect similarly unrelated pieces of Realmslore and then take such ideas one step further. For example, I decided to link onyx dogs with the church of Urogalan, so let's think about what are the logical implications. Are all figurines of wondrous power created by halflings? If so, which of the commonly known types of figurines are made by which faiths and by which communities? Is there a reason that halfling cultures creates these kinds of artifacts? Is there something in the halfling personality that ties into to this link? Are such ties reflected in halfling lore and mythology? By asking these types of questions, our shared world grows in a logical fashion with unexpected results. From a gaming standpoint, I now have a host of ideas to incorporate into the design of a halfling tomb or ruined temple, something I bet my players have never explored before. As for upcoming products, I wouldn't count on a Humanoid Pantheon book any time soon, but, if you'd really like to see one, send mail to folks at TSR like David Wise (wiseguy@wizards.com). While I can see the merits of doing a fourth F&A style book, I think that we have certainly given DMs enough examples already to construct their own write-ups, as needed. Thomas Costa and the Exultant Tiefling have certainly done a wonderful job with the gods they have written up for the 'More Gods" project (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/9974), and interested contributors could certainly embark on some of the humanoid pantheons. TSR hasn't given me permission to talk about my recent endeavors yet, so I all can say that I have been working on Realms products of late, and that they are in the pipeline to be released late this year or sometime next year. As for the topics, let me say simply that both cover areas for which folks have asked for more Realmslore for quite some time. The first one I wrote, while the second one I'm in the process of co-writing with two other authors. To my delight, both products are chock full of Realmslore and absent of any "rules." In other words, they've been great fun to write and they should give folks plenty to talk about. Kim: As a consumer of products produced by TSR/WotC, what would you like to see that hasn't yet been done? What have you seen too much of and how would you make it better? Eric: I can still remember the anticipation at my local hobby shop when the Dungeon Master's Guide-First Edition, of course!-was released. No one was sure if that was a demon or an efreeti on the cover, but we were all convinced it would be much easier to run a campaign than with that long-anticipated tome in hand than it had been with just a Monster Manual and a Player's Handbook. Since then, TSR has released huge number of products, and I've bought the majority of them. These days I can predict pretty accurately which products I'm going to like and which ones are going to be skimmed once and then left to gather dust on the bookshelf from the catalog write-up alone. I would like to see products that combine the strengths of the Arcane Age line with regional supplements. In other words, I would like a product that gives the DM sufficient details to run a campaign at any point in a 1000-year timeline. Such a product would chart the evolution of enduring sites (like castles) from construction to ruin to rebirth, through the life of half a dozen different realms. It would chart the history of specific magic items (like the sword of lordship wielded by a long-extinct line of barons) from its crafting, to its loss, till it is reclaimed, through the lives of a dozen wielders. For me, this level of detail would add a level of richness and detail lacking from many campaigns. When the PCs explore a dungeon or find a magic sword in such a setting, I'd like to know the history of such a site or item through multiple incarnations, not just one or two. The castle should not just have been the home of the vampire prince, but also an orc tribe, a paladin bandit, and a shelter from the rain for local shepherds at various times in its history. The ebb and flow of the castle's history should be interwoven with the history of the region as a whole. A sword should have a name, powers, and history, but that history should be tightly coupled with the region's history. I want to know what the bards sing about it and what a legend lore spell would reveal. If I have a complaint with Realms products, it stems from the split personality of books and game supplements. Too often the game products are forced to play "catch-up" to world-shaking events unleashed in novels, and sometimes novels are moved out later in the timeline to match the "current year" of the game products. I wish TSR would integrate their book and game setting lines under a single management structure, as I think increased coordination would improve the quality of both. Kim: How do you view and use information in the novels as opposed to information in the game products? Should the two lines be independent or co-joined? In your opinion, how have the recent products compared to past products? Do the designers and editors make a distinctive difference in their approaches to the products? Eric: Novels are a great way to bring a gaming world "alive," and novels set in the Realms frequently bring to life an aspect of Faerun that I might otherwise overlook. I routinely recommend novels to players if I think they will help the player better appreciate the setting. I also draw on novels as a ready source of "parallel stories" that I can feed as rumors to player characters whose own adventures are unfolding concurrently. However, I rarely have characters brought to life in novels make cameo appearances directly in my campaigns, as for me it is enough to know that other stories are unfolding across the Realms, creating a tapestry of interrelated tales. Although the beautiful half-elf at the next table with an unusual two-handed fighting style might very well by Arilyn Moonblade, her story is just one of many, and for me that makes the Realms come alive. In a shared world like the Realms, great game supplements contain the seeds of a hundred tales, and great novels contain the seeds of a hundred adventures. I believe there are some stories that are best suited for fiction, as opposed to game supplements, and the converse holds true as well. For me, the best novels are ones that tell an important story, yet not a story that necessarily impacts on all other stories unfolding concurrently or in the future. My favorite example of a great Realms novel is Elfshadow, by Elaine Cunningham. It tells an important story about the events surrounding the death of King Zoar of Evermeet, yet it does it in such a way that the reader can easily imagine that equally interesting stories are unfolding across the street, around the corner, outside of Waterdeep, and across the Realms. In addition, while the events in the novel are considered part of the Realms "canon," a Dungeon Master need not read the book to fully enjoy overlapping game supplements. I think that novels and game supplements should be closely coordinated, much more than has historically been the case, but not necessarily tightly linked in focus. For me, an ideal novel (or trilogy of novels) explores an aspect of the Realms in such a way as to make the reader want to run a character or campaign in the story's setting. Novels that largely invalidate a preexisting game supplement or that resolve too many adventure hooks without creating equal or greater number of new ones never fail to disappoint me. Likewise, game supplements that focus overmuch on the characters in a related novel or that convey the impression that a novel resolved all of the important problems are also poorly crafted. I do believe that novels should advance the timeline, but they should do so in a slow and careful manner that works well with the slow advance of history in the game products. The world of the Forgotten Realms has never been a wholly static setting, and I believe that most fans of the world are drawn to the sense of "stories in progress." Novels that both tell a great tale and add to the "meta-story" of the Realms leave me eagerly awaiting the next offering, whether it is a novel or a game supplement. Excluding products that I have worked on, my impression, as a fan of the setting, is that the quality of game supplements has vastly improved in recent years. The number of ties between products, the degree of attention to detail, and the sense of history contained within have vastly increased of late. I actually don't think the quality of the novels has varied that much since the release of the old gray box set, as the proportion of "hits" and "misses" seems fairly constant from year to year. Certain authors consistently choose good stories, create interesting characters, and work well within the shared world of the Realms, while others never seem to match my image of the setting, don't integrate their stories into the "meta-story" tapestry, and/or routinely "blow up the moon." Of course, my list of hits and misses is by no means universally agreed upon by all readers, a difference in taste that suggests that the book department has a lot of differing expectations to fulfill. Authors, game designers, editors, and artists all make a huge difference in the "feel" of a product or a novel. Each contributor has his or her own distinctive "style," and each position brings its own set of constraints. I've had the opportunity to see early drafts of many products, and in every case, the final product bears the distinctive imprint of each person to contribute to the overall effort. Comparing editors and designers in particular, it's been my experience that designers create the general theme of the product and at least broadly define its approach. The role of the editor varies widely: In some cases all that is necessary is to "clean up" the product, while in other cases the editor serves to focus the product or (in the worse-case) do a partial redesign if the draft really needs work. [ Copyright/Credits | Submission Guidelines | Subscribe ]