Malhavoc Press

The Banewarrens and Call of Cthulhu Chat Transcript

Interview With Monte Cook at Wizards Live!
June 18, 2002 -- 5 p.m. PST

Monte joined folks in the Wizards Presents chat room at Wizards Live! to discuss his new adventure The Banewarrens, his recent Call of Cthulhu d20 Roleplaying Game release, the forthcoming Book of Vile Darkness, and more. Thanks to the almost 30 people who attended this hourlong chat, as well as to all the folks at WIZARDS.COMmunity for making it happen. We'd especially like to thank Wizo_Mel for sharing this transcript* with us.

wizo_dabus: Our monthly d20 chat is starting now in Wizards Presents. This month's speaker is Monte Cook from Malhavoc Press, and the topic is The Banewarrens and other Monte projects. Join us now, or forever regret it! Now, Monte, do you have any opening statements you'd like to make?

monte_cook: Sure. It's great to be here, and I'm happy of all of you took the time to be here. I've been extremely busy lately, and happy to talk about any and all of what I've been working on. That includes The Banewarrens (just out in PDF), Book of Eldritch Might II (just out in print), Call of Cthulhu, the Book of Vile Darkness, or anything else.

wizo_dabus: The queue is now open...does anyone have any questions?

kvantum: Monte, when is The Banewarrens coming out in print? I ask because, to be honest, 128 pages is too much as a PDF.

monte_cook: The Banewarrens will be out in time for Gen Con, so early August.

kvantum: The Book of Eldritch Might was great as a PDF, Book of Eldritch Might II was still usable, but 128 seems too much IMO.

monte_cook: Fair enough. It doesn't matter to me which version you prefer.

wizo_talisman: I have a question about the d20 Call of Cthulhu. I picked that up right away, and am very pleased with it. It's one very packed book. But I was wondering about what didn't make it in. If there was one thing more you could have crammed in there, what would it have been?

monte_cook: Well, the editors had to cut a couple things for space -- the Spawn of Cthulhu, and something else I can't remember. It also would have been nice to put another adventure in. For example, it would have been cool to take the traditional Call of Cthulhu haunted house adventure that's been in every version of the regular rulebook and convert it to the d20 System.

monte_cook: Someone, by the way, just reminded me that today, some of the stuff left out of Call of Cthulhu d20 was posted to the Wizards site. You should check it out -- shantaks and Y'Golonac!

rylan_stormguard: Actually, same turf with Call of Cthulhu...when you were doing the conversion from the old system, did you run into a lot of problems from Chaosium, or were they pretty cooperative? I agree with the haunted house scenario from the "old days" -- very, very good introductory adventure.

monte_cook: Chaosium was great. Absolutely no problems working with them. Not one. They were very generous in providing me with source material in various formats. They are cool people.

davane: Why did you decide to make the Cthulhu Mythos skill work the way it does? Were there any alternatives?

monte_cook: The skill is pretty dependent upon how we did Sanity. When I decided to port over the sanity system pretty much directly, it seemed the right thing to do.

fagan_skullcrusher: My question is about high-level play: When wizards can cast wail of the banshee and donut it so that it doesn't affect their allies, what possible challenges can you throw at a high-level party to make them frightened? (This isn't a troll, I'm really perplexed about high-level play on this point.) Wail of the banshee is a specific example to a general question....

monte_cook: Well, anything the PCs can do, the NPCs can do right back at them. If, for example, a demon isn't powerful enough to really challenge the party, make it a demon with a bunch of class levels. Make good use of spell resistance (that'll take care of wail of the banshee). Make good use of high saving throw bonuses. The game does, in my opinion, scale up better than ever before.

wizo_talisman: The upcoming Book of Vile Darkness is perhaps the most controversial d20 book yet. It seems most people are either anxiously anticipating it, or are upset that it's even being made. What is your response to the negative reactions?

monte_cook: That's hard to answer, because the negative reactions have been of two different kinds. Those who have decided that the book will be mamby-pamby, and those who have decided that it will be so horrible that it will bring down the wrath of god (or at least his worshippers) on us all. To both, however, I say: Wait until the book comes out to judge it. People are making a lot of assumptions, and from what I've seen none have been entirely accurate.

zero_gain: Big fan of Book of Eldritch Might II -- use the alternate bard in my own games now. Are any of your alternative classes included as part of The Banewarrens? Also, I gather The Banewarrens is set in your campaign city of Ptolus; any off-hand recommendations for alternative cities in either the Realms or Greyhawk?

monte_cook: The Banewarrens makes use of both the alternate bard and the alternate sorcerer, as well as my (somewhat controversial) alternate ranger. The adventure contains pretty much all you need to insert Ptolus into a regular campaign, or how to change the adventure to set it in any medium- to large-sized fantasy city. It's really quite easily adapted.

rylan_stormguard: General one, with the d20 System now on the map, do you see this as a revival of RPGs, or just an improvement on what's already out there?

monte_cook: Well, 3rd Edition/d20 has sold really well. I hear from people all the time who say "I stopped playing RPGs, but now I'm back." So that's nice. I think it might be a mini-revival. And I do think it's an improvement as well -- I think the opportunity to have so many people putting out d20 material is just a creative boom. So overall, I think it's great.

josh_kablack: Getting back to fagan_skullcrusher's point, while the game does scale quite nicely for higher levels, making a challenging encounter by using the advancement rules is a complex and involved process. Will your Book of Vile Darkness (or antything else you're working on) contain useful "plug-and-play" type encounters for higher levels? Even without using advancement, it can be puzzling for a DM to try to make effective use of the abilities available to some higher-level opponents, since the abiilties are so many and varied. Will the Book of Vile Darkness contain advice for using tactics in such cases?

monte_cook: Book of Vile Darkness is not intended to be aimed specifically at high levels, although it does contain a number of hig-level opponents, in the form of archdevils and demon princes. However, I could recommend that you check out an adventure that I wrote called Demon God's Fane, which I wrote just for the reasons that you state. I wanted to give specific examples of how to stage high-level encounters. There's also the epic-level rules coming out [the Epic-Level Handbook], and Monster Manual II, which has a lot of tougher creatures, but I don't know if either provides much in the way of staging high-level encounters.

jrscott: Have you considered perhaps writing a Book of Exalted Deeds? (the opposite of the Book of Vile Darkness)

monte_cook: Originally, I proposed both books, or in fact a single book that would be both (maybe even a flip book). I don't know what will happen with that suggestion, however, as far as Wizards of the Coast is concerned. I'm fairly certain that I won't write it. I am getting ready to write The Book of Hallowed Might for my own company. It will *sort* of be like what you're asking. Mostly it will be for divine spellcasters what The Book of Eldritch Might was for arcanists.

josh_kablack: Flip books rule!!

monte_cook: :)

womblehunter: There is a sense that, even with the touted plot twists and devious NPCs, The Banewarrens is nothing more than a retread of some overly familiar themes in this genre. For example, it has been said that the whole concept can be rendered down into "fight the demons, destroy the evil, watch your back," which is hardly flattering, as these are things that can be applied to many generic adventures, despite the inclusion of new items, classes, and so forth. What is your response to this? What makes the adventure, ultimately, so different?

monte_cook: Well, I haven't heard that (and in fact I don't understand the comment, since it's not really a "demons" adventure), but I would say that what makes it different is that it attempts to fuse together both a site-based adventure and an event-based adventure in the way that the encounters are set up. That makes it more dynamic. It also isn't a "go destroy the bad guy" kind of adventure. There are lots of various goals, and not every PC group is, in the end, going to pick the same goals or the same NPCs to ally with or fight. Lots of choices in this one.

womblehunter: Minor point: demons used semi-generically to denote evil creatures within the context.

monte_cook: Ah.

davane: How well do you see the Cthulhu Mythos and Sanity rules porting to other d20 systems, like Star Wars or DragonStar?

monte_cook: I know of someone who ran a one-shot Call of Cthulhu/Star Wars crossover (based, strangely enough, on "All Your Base are Belong to Us"), and that seemed pretty fun. Overall, though I don't see a lot of people losing their minds in the Star Wars universe. Maybe in Dragonstar it would work better, because the genre's a little more open-ended. Mechanically, I think it would work just fine as long as you use the rules provided in the Call of Cthulhu appendix on giving characters a sort of "sanity hardness" as they progress.

baloo: Given that Star Wars is a setting where hope is a big thing, and the little guy with a spacefighter can take out a space station the size of a moon, I don't think Call of Cthulhu and Star Wars mesh all that well.

monte_cook: I pretty much agree.

davane: I was thinking more along the lines of the Sith....

rylan_stormguard: Back to D&D, are there any plans in the future to convert some of the "classic" 1st Edition modules (e.g. Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, Against the Giants) to d20?

monte_cook: Not that I know of, but I'm a bit out of the loop nowadays on that sort of thing.

baloo: I came in late, so this might have already been answered... but anyway: Do you have any plans to release a Ptolus sourcebook -- either for the whole world or for just the city?

monte_cook: Not in the near future. The section in The Banewarrens will have to tide us over on that account for a while. Perhaps next year. Sadly, I can only write so much, and I don't want to rush anything at the expense of the quality.

louminator: First of all, I just wanted to express my admiration and respect for the one person I truly consider to be the Master of Dungeon Mastering. And I'll have to leave it at that, otherwise I'll fill the room to overflowing with praises and many (well-deserved) accolades... but my question for you (and I'll understand if you decline to comment...): how do you feel about the contest Wizards is sponsoring for their great Setting Search? And for the record, I prefer your alternative ranger for the very reasons you had designed it!!

monte_cook: I think it's a great opportunity for everyone, published and unpublished alike. I must admit, if I was still in the Wizard's R&D staff, I'd be a little hurt that my superiors felt the need to look elsewhere for a new world, but I think that just means that Wizards of the Coast doesn't want to leave any stone unturned to get the best setting. So overall, I think it's pretty cool. I'm entering, by the way. I mean, who can't use 120,000 bucks, right? And by the way, thanks for the nice comments. I really appreciate it.

friadoc: Monte, I'm sure this has been asked a few times before, but have you decided to drop your hat into the "Create the next D&D Setting" thing? Or are you working on one, independently, for Malhavoc Press?

monte_cook: Yes, I am submitting a proposal. Other than that, I'm working almost exclusively on Malhavoc stuff.

davane: Why did you decide on the offensive / defensive option [in d20 Call of Cthulhu] as opposed to classes? Were there any other methods proposed?

monte_cook: I was going to do classes, but they were all sort of coming out the same. Rather than do a bunch of similar classes, or a couple of really generic ones, I just decided to forgo classes altogether. The point of the game isn't really to have diverse characters, the way it is in D&D. Ultimately, even in original Call of Cthulhu, the doctor and the lawyer and the professor all start to look the same by the end anyway....

rylan_stormguard: Okay, generic question of the night here...what advice would you give for someone interested getting into this line of work?

monte_cook: I would advise that you go to Dragon's website or Dungeon's website and find out all you can about writing for those magazines. Getting published there is the best way to get noticed in this industry, right now, and it will give great experience.

friadoc: [Regarding] items worked on before, but not yet released, is there anything you can hint to with respect to Project "G," even if it's Lovecraftian vague?

monte_cook: G stands for "Ghostwalk." How about that?

degaalth: Do you have any plans to make the PDFs a little more printer friendly? I love the PDFs, and they look really good, but they overload my poor printer's memory when I try to print them.

monte_cook: As a matter of fact, we took huge steps to make our latest PDF, The Banewarrens, more printer friendly. Less intensive graphics, but still a very cool look. We're gettin g a lot of great feedback about the changes on our message boards.

baloo: Friadoc>I did see a post from Anthony Valterra the other day to the effect that "project G" was more or less a matter of finding the right time rather than whether or not to release it at all... so we *will* see it. And yes, the layout of The Banewarrens was a great improvement, just printed it out.

monte_cook: Glad to hear that you liked it, baloo.

friadoc: Thanks for that answer, as well as the one before it. You, Sean, JD, and Andy were always the most "interactive" of the Wizards folk. As you've all been rather solid when I've talked with you, textually that is.

monte_cook: Thanks.

louminator: Do you miss working on the in-house stuff (like GH and FR titles)? Or are you happier doing your own thing (paychecks not factored in)?

monte_cook: I've got to say that I'm really, really happy working on my own stuff. My time at Wizards was great, but I haven't regretted my decision to leave once. I love the creative control and freedom that I have at Malhavoc. I think I'm living most writers' dream -- I get to write whatever I want!

rylan_stormguard: What was your most memorable roleplaying experience?

monte_cook: Hmm. There have been a lot. Once, in college, the PCs did some things that resulted inadvertently in destroying a town (I was DM). Much later, they got a device that would allow them to travel back into the past. They decided to use it to go back and stop themselves from doing the stuff that destroyed the town. However, they could not allow their "old" selves to see their "new" selves or it would all not work. They had to remember what they did in the original adventure and hide from their past selves and yet undo the actions that took place. But it didn't end there. The PCs were successful, and undid the actions. But, returning to the present, they discovered that things were worse than ever. So they had to go back AGAIN and stop themselves from stopping themselves, without either of the previous two versions seeing them. It was madcap fun.

azmael: Hi Monte. Do you ever play D&D as a player? If so, what is your favourite class to play and why?

monte_cook: Most of the time, I am the DM. My most recent character (other than the occasional one-shot adventure) was in [Star Wars RPG creative director] Chris Perkins' D&D game, and it was a druid. However, my favorite class is still the wizard. I like the whole "I know things that you don't know and it makes me powerful" thing, I guess. I like spellcasting. I like to be the smart one. :)

wizo_dabus: I don't want to cut anyone off, but our chat time is at an end. I want to thank Monte for joining us, and all of you for the fantastic turnout!

monte_cook: Thanks, everyone. Very fun. Cool questions.

wizo_dabus: Do you have any final comments, Monte?

monte_cook: Well, I hope you'll check out The Banewarrens or Book of Eldritch Might II. See you at Gen Con!

wizo_hydragon: Thank you, Monte! Come back when your next product is released!

monte_cook: I'd be more than happy to come back.

wizo_dabus: Thanks again Monte. We appreciate your time.

monte_cook: :)

* Transcript edited for style and clarity.