Last year Derrick Norton very kindly shared some of his memories of working at GW. Derrick was part of the WFRP1 design team in the late 1980s and worked on the original Enemy Within campaign. He has already shared his recollections of working on ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and Power Behind the Throne. He has now also written about his work on the later parts of the campaign, starting with the adventure Something Rotten in Kislev, below.

Many thanks again to Derrick for sharing this.

Warning. Spoiler for Power Behind the Throne. RECOLLECTIONS ON SOMETHING ROTTEN IN KISLEV Having completed my probation as a freelancer I joined GW in February 1988. My first task was to complete work on Power Behind the Throne. This meant proofing long galleys (rolls) of text with red ink corrections, walking up and down stairs carrying hardcopy to and from the typesetting team (editing in those days required manual labour). There is no creative element at this stage of the process, just making sure grammar, spelling, punctuation, and format is all correct. It was during this period I met Carl Sargent on a visit to the Design Studio. I was introduced as the new guy working on PBT, and Carl was keen I did a good job. He said something like, “I hope you are taking good care of it, it’s this poor scribe’s Prince of Denmark.” Two things struck me: first, that the allusion to Hamlet was a stretch; and secondly, a realisation there was no need to consult a writer once their manuscript had been bought. In any event, I never had any discussion with Carl about PBT. One of my changes to PBT had been to add a concluding confrontation but, as no artwork had been commissioned, the final pages were text heavy. Phil Gallagher suggested we add a map to break up the text and help run the encounter (or, just as likely, because we still had a spare page to fill). I prepared an outline sketch, and a week later Phil walked into the office holding a full-page illustration: it was my map of Wasmeier’s town house drawn professionally for publication by the artist called “H” [Nick Coleman]. H’s work is on p89 of PBT, and here is my original rough drawing.

Draft map of Wasmeier’s town house in Power Behind the Throne

With my contribution to PBT over I started to work on other material. Compared to working freelance these early months were much busier as I was working on multiple products in parallel, to different deadlines. I worked on WD, WFB, and WH40K material (mainly editing but with some design and development work). My own preference would have been to work on the next TEWC adventure or (better still) Realms of Sorcery but I discovered RoS was on the back-burner. Phil explained that RoS was not a GW priority in terms of using in-house writers, the cost would have been too much. I was disappointed from a professional perspective (it would have been fun to work on RoS) and from a gaming perspective (the magic system was not one of WFRP’s strengths).

Ken Rolston

However, in spring 1988 there was some movement and we learned that Ken Rolston was coming from the USA to talk to us (us!) with a view to working on a WFRP product. Ken was a noted American games designer who, even at that time, had been working in the industry for some years so there was a feeling of anticipation about his involvement. The day, and Ken, arrived and we borrowed a manager’s office for the meeting: Phil was present plus one or two other Studio staff but I do not remember who. I believe I was introduced as the staffer earmarked to work on Ken’s material in due course. To the best of my recollection, the meeting began with Ken commenting on what he thought was good and not so good about WFRP. Ken’s specific observations now escape me but I remember him being quite confident. Discussion turned naturally to Ken’s views on how WFRP could be developed and improved, and how he could help. This included options for developing RoS: Ken had significant knowledge about the approaches used in other games and I recall discussing (in high-level terms) the merits of using this or that system for WFRP. I don’t remember a decision or consensus on how best to proceed. Finally, we moved on to consider the next TEWC adventure and Ken outlined what could be done and what he had in mind. He may have mentioned “Kislev” as a location but he certainly mentioned a plot revolving around, “The undead, more undead than you can possibly imagine.” I was in listening mode, making notes, and wondering how this angle could work, how it would link to TEWC, and so on. To my mind Ken was making a pitch as a potential freelancer which we would take away and consider as the potential client.

“More undead than you can possibly imagine”

The conversation continued with various contributions on a theme of “we could do this, we could do that”. After a few minutes there was a pause and Ken said something like, “Sorry, but I am not used to working like this.” He looked at me directly and continued along the lines of, “I am not used to my ideas not being liked.” There was an awkward silence. I hadn’t formed an opinion but, clearly, we were on different pages regarding the point of the meeting. I said as much and apologised if silence on my part had been seen as criticism. Initial glitch resolved, group discussion continued and I entered the fray pitching ideas like a good ‘un: “Yeah, and the undead dwarf pirate could have an undead parrot which squawks ‘pieces of heart, pieces of heart’” or some such. I was used to designing adventures on my own so this type of co-working was new. It was fun after a fashion but the process was “bottom up” and my preference would have been more “top down” given the adventure was meant to be the penultimate step in a campaign. Knowing how I work, I am sure I had these feelings but, at the time, I lacked either the insight or ability to express them constructively. Ken went on to write SRiK but I had left GW before his draft arrived so never worked on it. A year later, in a letter to Phil, I commented on SRiK writing, “I thought the Kislev adventure turned out quite well, apart that is from the Rolstenesque fudge ending.” Work continued into and over the summer and, with SRiK commissioned, I am sure there was some discussion with Phil and/or Graeme about the final TEWC instalment. We knew we ought to have an end in mind to guide how SRiK would set up the last adventure and to brief whoever would be writing it. And this is where my employment with GW came to an end. I had been applying for other posts since June 1988 and, in September, I accepted the offer of a job in London. I left the Studio on friendly terms and there was active discussion on possible freelance work. I visited the Studio one or two times after leaving to continue discussion, including on TEWC, but nothing concrete materialised. Six months went by and it looked like my involvement with GW, the Design Studio, WFRP, and TEWC had run its course. However, there was one final act to come. In March 1989 I received a heavy pack in the post: it was a long but still incomplete manuscript for Empire in Flames with a covering letter from Phil. He did not want to name the writer and invited any comments I might have. I would be working pro bono but I couldn’t wait to start reading.

The next post looks at the development of Empire in Flames.

Something Rotten in Kislev is now available again in PDF from Cubicle 7.

Title art by Les Edwards. Internal art by Martin McKenna. Used without permission. No challenge intended to the rights holders.