1) What were your early gaming experiences?

I bought Avalon Hill wargames starting when I was maybe nine. I read the rules to their early games like Tactics II, Gettysburg and Bismarck just to see the game ideas. I know it sounds incredibly nerdy. My Dad was a career USAF officer, so I had an interest in military history and we moved frequently. He also taught me chess, and I was good enough to represent my school in tournaments. I began playing D&D when it first came out in my freshman year of college at the University of Florida. At the time, it was in those three softback booklets, and it was truly groundbreaking: revolutionary. We take if for granted of course now, but back then it was incredible to have a game played almost entirely in your mind. I ran a campaign all through college called "Alamaze", which later was what I loosely based that PBM game on. Another game that stole countless hours of my time and was nearly as earthshaking as D&D was Magic the Gathering. I haven't played it much in the last few years, but I still have all those cards, including the rarest of all, an Alpha Black Lotus. I am of course an avid strategy game player, although almost all my play these days is on the PC, except the occasional family game of Settlers of Catan. Lately it has been Knights of Honor and World at War spinning in my cd drive. However, over the last five years, the PC game I have spent more time playing than any other has been Championship Manager. I like challenges like taking management of Rushden and Diamonds and getting them to the Premiership and qualifying for the Champions League!

2) Gamer designers often draw inspiration from other games of various genres, as well as books, films etc. Is this true of you - and if so, what have been your greatest influences?

I have been influenced of course, sometimes subconsciously. My two Labrador Retrievers are named Maximus and Caesar. I like the big epic movies like Gladiator, Braveheart, and of course Lord of the Rings.

Novels that have influenced me other than Lord of the Rings, include Julian (Gore Vidal), Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield), Caesar (Colleen McCullough), A Distant Mirror (Barbara Tuchman), maybe the Dune series. I've read a little of Conan and some other high fantasy. I read mainly non-fiction, and have a fairly extensive collection of military history. First and foremost is the unparalleled work of literature Decline and Fall by Edward Gibbon. History of the Later Roman Empire (JB Bury), Alexander the Great (Robin Lane Fox) and a host of others including several by John Keegan all have prominent places on my bookshelves.

Earthwood was my first exposure to PBM, but honestly I have no idea how I even found out about it. I thought it had good "roots" (pardon the pun)but could have been so much better. So I started to create Alamaze at the dawn of the PC in 1984 or so, and it couldn't be completed due to PC memory and other technology related issues until 1987. Then I discovered Flagship, Paper Mayhem, White Wolf, and others that covered PBM.

On the other hand, it has been flattering to also have Alamaze be the inspiration for other games. GSI's Middle Earth (perhaps your readership has heard of it?), is "strikingly" similar to Alamaze fundamentals, even using the exact same order numbers and order names. Legends designer Jim Landis stated explicitly in an article in Flagship he was inspired by Alamaze and that was the caliber of game he was looking to achieve. Adventurer Kings was heavily Alamaze influenced. Interesting that most of these games, including Alamaze itself (www.pegasusprod.com), are still being run today, in the case of Alamaze, eighteen years after first debuting. Oh, and I confess my own guilt, as clearly Fall of Rome takes its core from Alamaze.

3) What game (of any genre) do you most wish that you had designed yourself?

I am something of a Sid Meier fan. He won at Origins in 1988 for Pirates when I won for Alamaze. I consider the Civilization series (the first of which came out in 1989) to be the best single player turn based strategy games. Other than that, I had thought about making a card based game after playing a WWII game called Upfront. That's when Magic the Gathering was just going from Alpha to Beta version. Oops! Missed the bus on that one. I have several other games in mind that I hope to have the chance to design. Of games that have already been done that I think we could have done a much better job on, the old Company Commander game seemed to offer a lot to players, but was, ah, flawed in execution.

4) You designed 'Alamaze', but then seemed to disappear from the scene. What were your experiences with Alamaze, and what did you do in the intervening years?

Alamaze I wrote and programmed while in the "real world", which meant I couldn't give it full-time attention. I had a friend manage it, who wasn't quite up to the task, and then turned it over to my older brother Phil who has become something of a legend for his personal attention and great customer service. We are all pleased that Alamaze is still entertaining its players after nearly 20 years.

What did I do in the intervening years? First, I married my wife Susan and my pride and joy are my two daughters, Caitlin (16) and Carly (14). They are both very promising soccer players and I hope they land big college scholarships from their football! Work wise, my first full time job was with that incredibly exciting accounting firm (smile) Coopers & Lybrand after graduating from the University of Florida. I earned my CPA, what the English would call a Chartered Accountant, and meanwhile couldn't get out of accounting fast enough! My corporate career quickly changed to finance, which may not sound that different to some, but to me isn't nearly as boring. I was now in healthcare finance, earned by MBA from the University of Miami while working, then changed to work for Blockbuster, the movie rental company, and left there in 2003 after cashing in my chips (stock options, et al) as Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Anyway, that's all boring compared to developing games!

5) What inspired you to come back to game design? Why did you choose a mixture of historical and fantasy elements? Did you have an existing interest in all things Roman and Dark Age?

On reflecting on my career a couple years ago, I realized I had much more satisfaction knowing I had given lots of people years of enjoyment with Alamaze than from any particular thing in my corporate life. So I cashed in my chips (stock options, et al)and have tried to make a serious run at adding to the best offerings in our hobby with Fall of Rome, taking advantage of the internet, and introducing our GUI, discounted turn fees, and above all what we hope is unrivaled game play.

We initially set out to create Kingdoms of Arcania. After nearly two years and a development cost already that would rival a mid-level retail PC game release, it became apparent we needed a release sometime soon, so I created new kingdoms, map, and deferred other development like the Alamaze-like magic system. Fall of Rome is largely historically accurate, and took more than a year of research before we ever started game design and coding. I know a Flagship reader here or there has taken a nit to a specific historical point, but if you want to create an absorbing 12 player game like Fall of Rome, the liberties taken are minor.

On the fantasy aspects, the debate centers primarily around the presence in the game of weapon artifacts like Arthur's Excalibur and the Sword of Mars, wielded by Attila. Heck, we don't even know with certainty if Arthur existed (or if Shakespeare did, for that matter). We also have the high priestess character class, who can divine and heal, so that is also a nod in the direction of flavor rather than history. Each of the kings in the game is an intriguing, historical figure that carved a kingdom for himself through his courage, willpower, guile, and strength. I think they are all compelling characters.

6) To what extent is a game such as 'Fall of Rome' a collaborative effort between people with various skills?

The variety of technologies required to bring Fall of Rome to our players is fairly incredible. We have very talented people, but none come close to individually possessing the gamut of skills needed to produce the quality game we believe we have individually. It has been quite a collaboration! While based here in Dallas, Texas, we have had our web site designed by a Florida company, our cartographer lives in Germany, our artists are in California, Minnesota, and elsewhere. Probably half our player base is international as well. While the UK is the largest source, we have players in New Zealand, Poland, and Finland, among others.

7) What advice would you offer other game designers?

Don't quit your day job. Although we have our second game that has been recognized as Game of the Year, it is incredibly difficult to get players to try your game - even if virtually all of them love it subsequently. The marketing has been quite challenging and obviously takes away plenty of time from game creation.

Business issues aside, on design itself, I would say make sure it is fun - put in the things the players want. While some grognards love things like lines of supply, most players don't. They want to have fun, not a second job. I also truly believe the game needs to have substance and depth, not a superficial aura about them. For example, players new to Fall of Rome usually don't realize the number of variables that go into battle resolution. They don't have to understand them, or even be aware of them. Over time though, they come to appreciate the complexity in the code that provides for millions of possibilities while they themselves are not burdened with counting wagons or tending to the harvest.

8) At Flagship we have found that fewer people seem interested in traditional play-by-mail games. What do you think the future holds for turn-based gaming?

I don't believe there is a bright future for old-style PBEM games. They have shown they can hold onto their long established players, but significant growth seems quite unlikely. But turn based games beyond that, like Fall of Rome are another thing entirely! Turn based games offer by far the best game play of all games, in particular if they are strategy. For one, we appreciate that our audience in older than most would think - and that's not a bad thing. Teenagers and young adults gravitate to Grand Theft Auto or World of Warcraft, but Fall of Rome players tend to be 35 or older, and are more interested in the strategy and personal RPG elements than in pretty graphics and exploding pixels.

9) With the success of 'Fall of Rome', what are your plans for the future?

By the time this is in print we hope to have held our first Centurion (our introduction to Fall of Rome) tournament and to have announced the release of Campaigns of Centurion: a game set in Fall of Rome, but where each game is concluded in about two hours and players create and keep their customized setups with them from game to game, and improve characteristics of it with their success and the passage of time.

Next will be the development of the Veterans Game of Fall of Rome, kind of like the Second Cycle was to Alamaze. We'll introduce some magic here as well as plenty of other new features, four new kingdoms, and an active Roman presence (in Fall of Rome, all players play a barbarian king such as Attila the Hun or Arthur of the Celts).

The furthest our telescope goes is to launch Kingdoms of Arcania. We still hope that will happen by Christmas, but I can't make any promises. Meanwhile, Fall of Rome and Centurion are there and waiting for you to Rule Your World!

Thank you for extending me this invitation, it has been a pleasure!