Interview with Game Designer Wilhelm Person

When I started writing about Wilhelm Person's game Until Dawn, I got really fascinated by the simplicity of the rules and how they enforced the emotional drama that the game wants us to enact. I took a closer look at his other games and found them equally fascinating. So I contacted Wilhelm and asked him if he were available to answer a few questions. He was and here is my interview with Wilhelm:

Eike: Tell us a little bit about your roleplaying biography, Wilhelm!
Wilhelm: Hi, I'm Wilhelm, and I've been playing RPGs for 30 years. Like most of the young Swedish gamers who were pulled into the hobby in the 80s I started with the BRP based games from the company Äventyrsspel, Drakar och Demoner and Mutant (the very popular Mutant Year Zero game traces its roots to the old Mutant, even if they have little in common these days). In the 90s we moved over to more 'mature' games, that is 'games written in English'. For me that meant mostly stuff from GDW, Twilight 2000 and Mega Traveller, some Vampire and a bit of AD&D.

I went to the university by the turn of the century and played more Vampire, some Rolemaster, more Drakar och Demoner. 

And as The Forge and the Indie scene was slowly starting to take form in the US I played Shadowrun and D&D 3 and 3.5. And I suddenly realised that I didn't enjoy gaming anymore. I liked hanging out with my gamer friends, but I didn't like gaming. That was huge, I had been gaming for two decades by then. Should I stop?

One thing lead to another and there I was, designing my first game, one to address all the faults I felt that the games we played had. So quicker combat resolution, simplified equipment and inventory handling, char gen in a matter of minutes. That was Höstdimma, my first game, it sold 30 copies. The next year in a fit of hybris I ran a game design course/workshop online and built While the World Ends as a demonstration example. And suddenly I was a game designer.

Since then I have published about one game every year. The games being in the style I'm currently enjoying at the table. First it was all indie games, last year I published a Mutant retro clone, and now I'm doing things in the OSR style of games with my new horror RPG Kuf.

Eike: You mention a number of Swedish games and the publisher Äventyrsspel. That makes me curious... Sweden and Norway have an immensely active roleplaying scene. Could you tell us a bit about that? Is that a very centralized scene (with, perhaps, Stockholm and Oslo as its centers)? What are the commercially successful games in Scandinavia? And how connected are the scenes from the different Scandinavian countries?

Wilhelm: Well, less than one would think. While Norwegians seem to keep an eye on the Swedish scene, Swedes in general aren't even aware of the Norwegian one. The  Norwegian game Itras By has had some very minor following here but I think that is all.

As for sales in Sweden, I don't know of any good sources for sales figures. But Dungeons & Dragons is promoted heavily in online stores so I guess that sells well. And when people ask for recommendations for games on forums, 80% of the answers tell them to get whatever Fria Ligan makes in that genre. This doesn't seem to have dampened the enthusiasm among small scale designers however, and it seems that there's always a Kickstarter going that makes sales in the hundreds of copies. White Wolf is Swedish these days, but most don't seem to think of them as such, probably because they haven't started to release books in Swedish (not that they need to, their audience is fluent enough in English).

Eike: Thanks for all the insight into the roleplaying scene in Sweden! Let's talk about your game Until Dawn. In the rulebook, you both tell us where it went (it developed into Okult) and where it came from (you list Jackson Tegu's Silver and White as a source of inspiration). What was it in Silver and White that struck a spark and led you to develop Until Dawn? What was it in Until Dawn that you realized needed further development, so that it would become Okult?

Wilhelm: Silver and White was cool, the setting was amazing, but it was a one shot deal. One cool setup, one cool adventure, and not much replay value. I wanted something like it that we could play over and over. And I wanted something a bit simpler rules wise.

As for Okult, I didn't see the similarity between them until I did the revised edition of Until Dawn, until that time they had been completely separate things to my mind. But Until Dawn is only for one shots, and Okult needs the time for multiple sessions to be allocated. I clearly prefer Okult of the two, but it is much harder to schedule.

Eike: I understand your point. Okult is clearly more developed, although I really love the simplicity of Until Dawn. In my post, I compared the warming-up exercise in Until Dawn to that in Matthijs Holter's Society of Dreamers. While Matthijs stands firm over this exercise, you seemed to have some reservations. In your design notes you write that you decided to keep it "for completeness to the original game, but also because it has been an appreciated and memorable part of the play testing sessions". Why so apologetic? Has anything bad or awkward ever happened, while your players were sneaking around in your house, "stealing" things and bringing them to the table?

Wilhelm: When I first wrote Until Dawn we were experimenting with gaming rituals and warm ups. So I put one my new game. But ultimately I'm not a LARP'er. That stage always felt awkward to me, even if everyone else liked it a lot. So I left the rule in place, and I do adhere to it when I facilitate at conventions. Still, for me personally it would make the game a smoother experience without it.

But as I said, everyone else likes it a lot. So I suggest you try it the first time you play, and if you're like me you have my blessing to remove it.

Eike: The rules don't explicitly state what kind of stories you wish Until Dawn to tell. You highlight that it's about "relationships and feelings", but phases like "The Surreal", "Tension", and "Danger" suggest that it's also plot- and action-driven. Or is it both?
Wilhelm: Ultimately, Until Dawn is about the emotional rollercoaster that the characters go through during the night. The escalation of the themes is there to push the players to go wild, as the stress levels increase in the relationships between the characters.

Eike: Mechanically, that stress level is brought about by the touch and emotion card mechanisms only.. They help the players create a physical and interpersonal intimacy. How important was it to you that the characters experiencing this intimacy are teenagers, rather than adults?

Wilhelm: Teenagers are superheroes in a way. They see the world in absolutes, and they are victims to their emotions and the physical changes they go through. All coupled with the insecurities of finding out both who they are on the inside and what their place is in the social context.

At least the teenagers of popular culture are like that. And it is them that the game models. My own teenage years were uneventful and I don't have any kids of my own to serve as a template.

Eike: In 2014, you revised your earlier version of the game. Do you have any plans to expand or revise it further?
Wilhelm: One should never say never, but I can't think of anything further I'd like to do with Until Dawn. It’s a pure indie title, and I don’t play that kind of games much these days. Instead I focus on various kinds of retro gaming: OSR and Classical Swedish RPGs, that is clones of the BRP games that were huge here in the 80s.

Eike: What are you up to next? Any exciting roleplaying game projects you want to tell us about? 

Wilhelm: Absolutely! I’m wrapping up the English translation of this year’s game Kuf, and the game is already up on DriveThruRPG as a beta/early access. Kuf is a modern day Gnostic horror rpg, built on top of Ben Milton’s Knave rules (light OSR) [Eike: The German translation of Knave is available on Julian's blog tearlessretina]. But to those I have added some minor tweaks when it comes to experience and the combat/damage system to better emulate the genre. In Swedish there’s an adventure and a magazine for Kuf already. A second supplement - a campaign setting based on rural life in the northern parts of Sweden -  is already in play testing, and that one will likely see an English translation some day.

That one is my main project.  Then I have a handful of other, smaller, projects that compete for my attention. Sweden’s largest RPG con, GothCon, takes place every Easter in Gothenburg, and it would be nice to have something new with me next year, too. But that is just half a year away already so it is about time I decide what I want to do. 

I also edit Hydra, a small retro gaming fanzine in Swedish, and I host the Nordnordost podcast with some Swedish and some English language episodes. We try to make one episode of the podcast every month, so that is a returning project.

Eike: Thank you so much for your time, Wilhelm. I wish you the best of luck with all your ongoing and future projects, and I look forward to playing more of your games.