Interview with the Deadguy:
A peek behind the mask of Wraith: the Oblivion Developer Richard Dansky
as interviewed by the interview guy Andrew Besuden and backed up by the Pardoners Guild, and J. Edward Tremlett

ost of the fans of the World of Darkness know who Richard Dansky is, unless you've been in a harrowing for the last five years, Head developer for Wraith: the Oblivion, Author of both Kithbook: Sluagh and Kithbook: Redcaps and many other books for the WoD. His current projects include Book of of the Wyld for Werewolf: the Apocalypse. So without further mention, here's the interview.

Wraith Questions

Andrew: "What were the highest and lowest points for you as Wraith Developer, and what do you think you learned from each?"

Rich: The low point, obviously, was the cancellation of the line. So many people had put so much into it, and to see an expiration date stamped on it was just very disheartening. I'm just glad that I was given the chance to wrap up the storyline with dignity.
As for the high point, it would most probably be the publication of Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah. It's a book that I felt was very important to do, that taught a lot of folks things they might not have learned otherwise, and that really took a tremendous commitment from a lot of people to create. It's not the sort of thing the gaming industry sees often - a lot of people were adamant that we could only do entertainment, for example, and that serious subject matter had no place in a game book - and that was part of the challenge of making it.

Andrew: "If you had your time as Wraith Developer to do all over again, is there anything you would have done differently?"

Rich: Negotiate for a higher salary? Seriously, if I had the chance to sit down and rework the books that had come out, I probably would have placed more emphasis on the Legions and a bit less on the Guilds. I'm still very happy with the books, however. It's not like I'm sitting here saying to myself "Geez, I wish I'd never made Dark Kingdom of Jade Adventures. What was I thinking?" If you had to poke me for content changes, though, the only two I'd really make would be putting a big sidebar in Wraith 2nd Edition that outlined all of the changes from 1st, and putting an absolutely huge disclaimer in The Risen that it was honest-to-murgatroyd not an attempt to rip off The Crow.

Andrew: "Out of all the Wraith books that were never published, was there any one book in particular that you really regret not getting out?"

Rich: Memoirs of a Ferryman - a Wraith-style Book of Nod - was the one I most regretted not getting out there. Wraith's product line was always relatively limited in terms of numbers of books, so I never really planned too many titles that were above and beyond what I knew would fit in the pipeline.

Andrew: "Just to put the online rumor to rest for once and for all -- did Hunter: The Reckoning "kill" Wraith?"

Rich: Absolutely not. The concept for Hunter came up and got kicked around at the same time the decision was made to end Wraith, and we saw a way to use one to kick-start the other. Actually, I think Hunter extended Wraith long enough to allow Ends of Empire to come to fruition - it helped set up the new game line, which allowed Wraith to go out with some dignity.

Andrew: "What's the climate like for starting Wraith: The Oblivion's Production up again? Is there any chance we may see Wraith Revised in the next few years?"

Rich: You'll have to ask folks who are still at White Wolf about that one. I still do some writing for the Wolf, but I'm strictly freelance now, and so I really don't know what the plans are for the property. If it did happen, I'd be very happy to see it, even though it would obviously mean that a lot of my work would necessarily get paved over. But I'd be ecstatic to see it. I think it's a great game that still has a ton of potential.

Andrew: "It seems, based on the comments of White Wolf fans, that a lot of players just "didn't get" Wraith: why do you think that could be?"

Rich: Wraith is a tough game. It's one of the very few roleplaying games out there where who your character is defines the character stats, as opposed to the other way around. It also requires a level of trust that's rare, primarily because of Shadowguiding, and it asks a lot of its players. It's not a beer-and-pretzels game, and it doesn't really lend itself to fast "punchiminnaface" one-offs. It asks a lot of both Storytellers and players, and not everyone's willing to give that. Mind you, that's fine - we play these things for fun, not because they're the dice-rolling equivalent of cod liver oil - but I think that level of commitment was off-putting for some people.

Andrew: "Obligatory Fan Boy Question: Are roly-poly fish heads REALLY never seen drinking Calistoga in Italian Restaurants with oriental women, or is this all some strange plot on behalf of the Solicitors? (You CAN plead the 5th, here)"

Rich: Ask Slander. He's probably behind the whole thing.

Andrew: "Were there any ideas about making a Wraith-based computer game?"

Rich: There was a rough design sketched out for a Wraith computer game at one point, but it never really got anywhere. I have no idea if any progress has been made on it since I left White Wolf, though it was a neat idea. Hopefully it will see the light of day one of these years.

Andrew: "What sources inspired you most to create Wraith, and in what ways?"

Rich: How much space do you have for me to answer this one? In no particular order, the main sources were Greek myth (notably the chapter in the Odyssey where Odysseus talks to the dead), the writings of Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, the short stories of Thomas Ligotti, Hesiod, the photographs of Simon Marsden, Noel Carroll's A Philosophy of Horror, the critical work of S.T. Joshi, odd bits of Umberto Eco, noir writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and a fair bit of Clive Barker and Dan Simmons. Oh, and a visit I took to a haunted mansion in Philadelphia when I was very young. Trying to separate what from that list influenced what in the book is a task that's beyond me - it all sort of blended together and distilled into Wraith.

Andrew: "What have you to say to those who think Wraith is a depressing game about death and failure?"

Rich: Hmm. Probably "nyah nyah nyah." There's a reason I mention Our Town as sort of the archetypal Wraith book - the game is about last chances. You have the opportunity to do something. I always saw Wraith as offering more hope than the other games - Transcendence is very real, and there's the chance to resolve Fetters. It's just something you have to work hard for. At the risk of getting in trouble, I look at it this way: In Werewolf, part of the premise is that the Garou are losing, and part of the fun is the nobility of the fight against overwhelming odds. In Vampire, part of the fun is the looming imminence of Gehenna. In Mage, the Traditions have flat-out lost. Compared to that, the chance to maybe make a small difference, to fix the stuff you left unresolved seems like a decent one, even in the face of Oblivion - I find that relatively hopeful indeed.

Andrew: "When you get a chance to RP, what sort of Wraith characters do you tend to play?"

Rich: I always preferred Storytelling Wraith to playing it. A few of my favorite Storyteller characters from the playtest chronicle I ran actually ended up in the books - Salazaar the Solicitor being one of them; he spent a lot of time skulking around the Hanging Gardens - but the Artificers, the Mnemoi and the Solicitors were always my favorite Guilds.

Andrew: "What do you feel Wraith's most important message is?"

Rich: Make the most of your chances. They don't last forever. Also, playing poker with a skeletal maniac wearing Macedonian armor is generally not a good idea.

Andrew: "Did you feel you accomplished what you set out to do when you developed Wraith?"

Rich: I had no idea what I was getting into when I agreed to develop Wraith, so the question doesn't necessarily have an answer. What I will say is that I am very glad that people who read the books enjoyed them, that some of the work I helped create inspired people, and that I can still go back and read old Wraith books and be proud of what went into them.

Andrew: "If you could give some advice to other writers who seek to create roleplaying games of their own design, what would it be?"

Rich: Keep the day job. This is not a field to get into in order to get rich. More seriously, I'd say make sure that your idea is accessible; that other people can tell their stories with it, not just repeat yours. Also, get a thick skin. It doesn't matter if you're Shakespeare's love child with James Joyce, and foster care provided by Virginia Woolf, someone out there will find something to criticize in your work, nastily. You just have to be satisfied with what you've done even when the yobbos (some of whom inevitably will not have even read the book) are screaming.

Andrew: "Which of the guilds have disbanded, which are still underground, and which have gone public again?"

Rich: Well, I can't give an official answer on that, but I know how I saw things going. Let's just say that there would have been some shakeups, and I wouldn't have wanted to be a Chanteur for a while.

Andrew: "Is there any chance of Wraith being arthaus'ed, such that we may see more material for it? I know it's worked for Changeling, Aberrant and Trinity so far..."

Rich: Arthaus is its own company, and it's got limited resources. I think right now they've got all they can handle. Mind you, this is a good thing - I'm glad to see success in that venue for games like Trinity and Changeling.

Andrew: "If Wraith were to ever been brought back from the dead, and you were given the chance to head developing it again, what would your first sourcebook be for the game?"

Rich: Besides a revised edition? Probably something along the lines of Spirits in the Material World (Terrible title for a book, I know) a guide to playing wraiths in low-level games, crossover with the Skinlands, things like that. I'd like to start from the ground up and rebuild, and leave things like the ruins of Stygia lurking in the distance.

Andrew: "In a couple of your conversations, you've said you've been influenced by J. Michael Straczynski in your work with wraith. What got you hooked on the creator of Babylon 5?"

Rich: I was a big Babylon 5 fan in part because of the overarching plotline, and in part because the characters' actions had consequences down the line. Those were qualities I wanted to capture in Wraith. Amusingly enough, I actually got Claudia Christian to autograph a copy of Wraith for me, and according to one unsubstantiated rumor, she was seen reading a copy of the book on an airplane. Hopefully, she enjoyed it.

Andrew: "What book(s) do you suggest for those who want to get into writing about the supernatural?"

Rich: Stephen King's book on writing is quite good, and I highly recommend it. I also recommend Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of Murder" for its implied lessons, and reading as many of the masters as you can get your hands on.

Kithbook Sluagh and Redcaps questions

Andrew: "What were your favorite moments when you were writing both books?"

Rich: According to a former intern (Clayton Oliver, who's a damn fine writer), he once came by my office while I was working on Sluagh in hopes of getting me to go in on a pizza with him. Apparently, he saw that my office was lit only with candles, that strange music was playing and that I was cackling. That was pretty much the writing sequence on that book - lots of fun.
My favorite part of Redcaps was the sidebar on why the kids go bad. I've always described Redcaps as being written with the schoolyard mentality, and that sidebar really distilled the essence of that feeling.

Andrew: "In forums and in the developer's chat for Changeling you talked about how Redcaps represented hunger and sluagh fear. What was the inspring moment for basing bothe kiths on these sources?"

Rich: That's always the feeling I had for Changeling - that it came from these primal emotions, and that the various guises put on those deep-seated drives and feelings were all derived from those basic truths. It's the only reading of the material that made sense to me, and once I came to it, the writing really clicked. Sluagh's interpretation goes back to a discussion I had with Ian Lemke, and to Ray Bradbury's Halloween Tree. Redcaps? Probably more from getting beaten up on the playground a lot.

Andrew: "Just to dispell the net rumors: Is it true the sluagh are the last incarnation in the changeling way before they die forever?"

Rich: Well, I know what the sluagh themselves think - and that's in the kithbook.

Andrew: "What was your inspiration behind the River Hags subkith in Kithbook: Redcaps?"

Rich: Faerie myth has always been an interest of mine. It's fascinating to me the way that faerie legends were used to set up rules for society - Barbara Rieti's Strange Terrain is a good book for that sort of thing. River hags grew out of that - they're warnings to kids to keep away from dangerous rivers. And so I just sort of plucked them from the body of myth to use in the book. Jackie and Nicky asked me to widen the focus beyond Celtica a little bit, and they seemed like a good way to do so.