Ken Rolston Article

I read over at RPGVault that Morrowind’s lead designer, Ken Rolston, is the subject of an article over at Computer Games Online. The article talks about his background in RPGs and some of what he has achieved over the years. Here’s a snippet:

He walked into a Science Fiction bookstore in Manhattan one day and found a little pamphlet called Tunnels and Trolls. It was mimeographed. It was 32 pages long. “As I opened it up, it said you could make characters,” he said. “I didn’t really understand that idea, so I rolled some dice, and I said, ‘You mean those numbers model a character in the same way that CRTs [combat results tables] and wargames work?’ And I said, ‘What a concept!’ And then I went to the dungeon, and I said, [delightedly] ‘You mean I get to draw on graph paper… and decide what’s there… and put little numbers down…?” Eureka, right? “That weekend I went to Vermont with some of my friends and we made dungeons for each other, and here we are, adults, OK? One was Vice President of an insurance company, I was a teacher, and we went into the weeds in the most tragic way. Our wives abandoned us and said we were hopeless.” And thankfully he is hopeless still. Although untried, Morrowind promises a beautiful design.