Q&A met Mark Chaplin, auteur van o.a. Revolver

[Bartjes!]

52. You designed Revolver 2 together with your gunslinger-in-crime Leigh Caple. How did that cooperation come together?

53. Who designed which parts or aspects of Revolver 2, or was it all designed in cooperation with each other?

54. I don't know if there were times that you and Leigh disagreed during the design process of Revolver 2, but if so, who put a revolver on the head of the other to make sure that his word would be law?

55. How nervous is Leigh now its his first Spiel where a (co-)design from him will be available? (And: did Leigh also buy a wild west outfit in the meantime?)

[RebelMage]

To celebrate reaching 50 questions, I have a question for you guys and gals:
What would you like to see on expansion cards in the future?

A card with a watch on it, starting an immediate shootout.

[markchaplin]

51. Are you related to / a descendant or Charlie?

No.

52. You designed Revolver 2 together with your gunslinger-in-crime Leigh Caple. How did that cooperation come together?

I respect his opinion. I asked him to become involved in a more direct capacity than he was previously. It all worked out rather well.

53. Who designed which parts or aspects of Revolver 2, or was it all designed in cooperation with each other?

It was a total collaboration of brainwork. For example, I might have designed the Poker tournament, but Leigh worked on using that feature as a constituent of the game's setup.

54. I don't know if there were times that you and Leigh disagreed during the design process of Revolver 2, but if so, who put a revolver on the head of the other to make sure that his word would be law?

I find creative personality types to be frequently abrasive, and we are no exception. Even though there were infrequent disagreements, there is nothing that went into the final game that either one of us disapproved of. If neither of us saluted a game idea as it was raised or tried, eventually it was dropped jointly in the trash.

I tried not to bully Leigh - after all, if I didn't want to hear what he had to add, I really shouldn't have suggested the alliance in the first place. I think Leigh was also keen not to *piggyback* on Revolver #1, and wanted to make Revolver #2 its own beast. In that, we definitely succeeded.

55. How nervous is Leigh now its his first Spiel where a (co-)design from him will be available? (And: did Leigh also buy a wild west outfit in the meantime?)

I believe he's more excited than nervous. We're both supremely looking forward to people's reaction to the game, and hope players find it a worthy sequel. If it sells well, more content has been planned - and, obviously, we'll continue to support the first Revolver game.

Sorry to disappoint, but neither of us will be wearing spurs and ten-gallon hats, this year!

[Wyckyd]

37. Which game would love to redesign?

Great question! At this moment in time, I think that game would have to be the Trilogy Edition of Lord of the Rings: RISK.

Necessary follow up question:

56. What would change in your restyle of Lord of the Rings: RISK?

[Wyckyd]

57. Have you found that your game tastes have changed since you became a board game designer?

[Wyckyd]

Another one the subject of redesigns:

58. Which White Goblin Game would love to redesign?

[Wyckyd]

59. White Goblin is coming out wih Rattus Cartus this Essen - a game with the sam setting as Rattus, but a completely different game.
Seeing that you start with a theme when designing, do you think you could design a game for this 'series'?

[Wyckyd]

To celebrate reaching 50 questions, I have a question for you guys and gals:
What would you like to see on expansion cards in the future?

Tough one. How about Aliens that are here to steal our gold?



I'm sorry to say I haven't played Revolver yet, so I have no idea on what to add.

[markchaplin]

56. What would change in your restyle of Lord of the Rings: RISK?

Firstly, in this thought experiment, I would like to make the decision not to release the game-board in two halves! When I first bought the game, from a games shop in Nottingham (now sadly shut down), and got it home, I was pretty disappointed that the land of Mordor was not drawn on the map - I had to wait a month or so for the extra board. This is the first game I remember whereby expansions were planned that meant that elements of the main game were omitted from the main release - Knizia's cooperative Lord of the Rings game was the next to try this.

That's the first thing. Second thing would have been to have blowup sections on the map, so that areas such as Minas Tirith or Dol Guldur had an overflow space - some versions of Axis & Allies do this well.
Next, the rules need a complete rewrite, and all the cards need to be redone.
*I think the setup should be 90% cast in stone, with definite sides.
*Replacement figures placed only in fortresses.
*Special powers for including trolls in your army, and other tweaks.
*Good players having control over the Fellowship.
*Character pieces for Shelob, Aragorn, Gandalf, etc.

It sounds like I'm designing War of the Ring! My LoTR: RISK would be that game made light, and totally playable in 90+ minutes, rather than 3 hours.

[markchaplin]

57. Have you found that your game tastes have changed since you became a board game designer?

I'd have to say that they haven't changed, but that my appreciation of a game's design has increased, the inner workings, as it were. I still like games about starships, zombies, snake-people, trolls, and goblins as much as I ever did.

58. Which White Goblin Game would love to redesign?

Panic Station. I'd have liked to see what I could have done with David's wonderful map tiles and components - a variant, if you will.

How about Aliens that are here to steal our gold?

I'm not sure what the appetite is for a crossover product. I would certainly do it if there was enough demand.

59. White Goblin is coming out wih Rattus Cartus this Essen - a game with the sam setting as Rattus, but a completely different game.
Seeing that you start with a theme when designing, do you think you could design a game for this 'series'?

Yes - I'm sure that'd be an interesting diversion, but I doubt that anybody would ask me to do it.

[jeroenh]

60. How do you come up with the card titles for Revolver? Are the cards tested at first and does the name comes later or do you start with a theme/title for a card and try to fit this into the game?

To celebrate reaching 50 questions, I have a question for you guys and gals:
What would you like to see on expansion cards in the future?

How about hidden goals like: if a Colty manages to keep x gangmembers alive after leaving Rattlesnake Creek, he may do something special? Or if McReady kills three bandits in one turn he gains as special card.
Maybe you can come up with different goals for each side and only two are used in each game (one for each faction).

[P.T.]

To celebrate reaching 50 questions, I have a question for you guys and gals:
What would you like to see on expansion cards in the future?

So far I only played the basegame off Revolver 1 and it's been a while ago
But if I remember correctly, almost all cards have some kind of attack feature (pistols, persons, animals). What about a defense feature? for example a card with a crate on it. For once, the other player will need one more poker chip in total to kill one of your guys. The crate is then discarded because it was shot in pieces. Or you can hide behind a carriage, which is harder to pass by.

Just a random thought

[16 Feet Pauly]

To celebrate reaching 50 questions, I have a question for you guys and gals:
What would you like to see on expansion cards in the future?

So far I only played the basegame off Revolver 1 and it's been a while ago
But if I remember correctly, almost all cards have some kind of attack feature (pistols, persons, animals). What about a defense feature? for example a card with a crate on it. For once, the other player will need one more poker chip in total to kill one of your guys. The crate is then discarded because it was shot in pieces. Or you can hide behind a carriage, which is harder to pass by.

Just a random thought

This is kind of like the true grit hat token which gives the character 1 extra wound... maybe you could implement a die rol to this, even is miss od is hit, if miss then discard crate, or something like that. But then again the speed would be take out of the game a bit by having to rol a die. HO!? maybe better to flip a coin or 2-sided poker chip, that would be fitting to the theme as well .

[Wyckyd]

To celebrate reaching 50 questions, I have a question for you guys and gals:
What would you like to see on expansion cards in the future?

How about hidden goals like: if a Colty manages to keep x gangmembers alive after leaving Rattlesnake Creek, he may do something special? Or if McReady kills three bandits in one turn he gains as special card.

Ooh - like I said, I haven't played the game, but hidden goals sound great.

Especially if you have to pick some in the beginning from a known set, and they 'trigger' when your opponent does something. So, he knows that you may have the card that lets him do X if you kill 3 of his men in this round, and he's not guarding the last one. Is he bluffing, or did he actually choose the card?

[P.T.]

I know about the true git markers. However, these are placed on an already defined character and may sometimes move to other battle fields. I am talking about one time only cards, which would fit the story.

Ever saw a battle were people were not hiding behind items?

You could also go one step further: hide behind an oil barrel which gives you + 2 protection (which you add to your total firepower), but if the other player even then scores more firepower, the barrel blows up, making 2 victims. So, is it worth the gamble?

Btw, I am talking all the time about protecting cards on battlefields. Not the bandits. Although in the oil barrel example, both victims could be bandits.