Humble Supplicants,
Seekers of knowledge, I bring to you a conversation with one of our game design titans — Greg Costikyan. Greg is a designer of war games, board games, computer games and roleplaying games. His roleplaying games credits include Bug-Eyed Monsters, Toon, Paranoia, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, The Price of Freedom and Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed.
We talk about his start in games as an eager, earnest 14 year old play tester who evolved into a developer at game designer at SPI and West End Games.
A few things that we touch on with Greg during the interview:
Poverty is a motivator for young game designers.
System must be tailored to setting.
Defining games is fascism.
Or if you’d prefer a non-Substack donation link.
I Have No Words but I Must Design
You can find Greg’s clear-eyed 2002 essay here.
