Talisman Creator Bob Harris | In Conversation with Jordan Sorcery

Bob Harris, creator of the original Games Workshop boardgame Talisman joins Jordan Sorcery to chat about the origins of the game and how it developed over time.

Bob Harris in conversation with Jordan Sorcery.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello. Some games quickly fade into obscurity, whilst others understand the test of time. A perfect example of the latter is Talisman, the magical quest game. First published in 1983, the same year as Warhammer Fantasy. It has almost continuously been imprinted since that time. My guest today is Bob Harris, the game designer responsible for the creation of Talisman and many of its early expansions. We talk about the design of the game, where the ideas came from, what it was like working with Games Workshop in those early days, and some of the game ideas that never got off the ground. I'm Jordan, this is Jordan Sorcery, and today I'm in conversation with Talisman creator, Bob Harris. Bob, thank you so much for joining me for a conversation about your amazing work on Talisman. I I think a great place to start would be just where you first started gaming. How did you become a gamer in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Well, of course, in those days nowadays you've got the differentiation between like board games and then computer gaming and online gaming, and all the then the only games you had were things you put on a table. And so we're we're going back quite a long way now, without without revealing too much about my age. I've been going back quite quite a bit of time now. Um you know, there were no mobile phones or home computers or anything. And um so the earliest uh I can remember thing I remember about games was actually making um my own version of Monopoly. Now I don't remember having a Monopoly set, I must have played it somewhere. I made a much simplified version about my hometown of Dundee, so all the places in it were actually you know places in Dundee. And I must have made fake money to go with it. Um I remember doing that, so I must have uh uh I've done that. That's the first my first step into making games was that. Um the the the board the game I remember playing most, and I still have it and still play it, is well my my mum and dad, I was an only child, mum and dad used to take me, we used to go um either go up three places of players in Scotland to camping, uh, or we go down to camp outside Blackpool uh or Morcom, a holiday place like that. Uh and that they were staying there on the street, we go and do all the the the the the holiday things there. Um and on one of these trips, um we used to bring along my occasionally bring my cousin George along, he was my age, so I'd have some company. And uh the dog's barking now I can so uh we we picked up this game called The Adventures of Bugs Bunny, which I still have and I've been playing it for decades ever since, where you you each of you is a Bugs Bunny character, and you've got a card for that, and you've got a spinner which moves you around the board, and there's four circles on the board, and there's things that say, you know, Bugs and Elmer change, so you swap your identity with Elmer Fudd and you become a different character. So wherever you are in the game, you're suddenly there's no judgment or anything in it at all. But the fun of it when you're playing it with your student friends and then adult friends is pretending like you've got some control over it, even though it's all completely random, right? And cursing when when you're you're doing so well, and obviously you have to change a different character, and there's holes in the board, and you land on a space that's fell down a wabbit hole, and there's an actual hole in the board, and you go in there and you sit in there and have to roll something to get out. And so it it's it's that thing where it's fun because it's Bugs Bunny and it's got all these kind of elements to it, um, and is is just that kind of non-competitive aspect where it doesn't really matter, you've no control over it. And so I've introduced people to that university, and everybody loves it. We it's it's a really beaten and battered thing now, and uh, you probably couldn't get a new copy, but um just the sheer fun of that. So that that is the game I remember playing most in my childhood, playing in a tent at some point because when I'm going camping, then playing it at home with friends from school, and then university I brought along, and people just got into it as well playing that. So um so that uh beyond that, I'm not remembering that many games you know that I played because it's it this is a a while back now. Um then we get into my teenage years when I went to school, that's when I actually started that's when I started uh getting into into more into game, more into like uh postal diplomacy and um uh and making my own games um and uh beyond that. So that at school, um sorry I've told before about where Talisman comes from, I made a board game called Rectocracy because uh the the Rector was the title of our school, Morgan Academy in Dundee. And um I I was uh a few years ago I was invited to go do the a speech at the prize giving. So we have to tell them about my experiences at school, which are actually kind of dull because I was a really nerdy kid. And then I I I I I was a member of the bridge club, you know. We went along and we learned to play bridge. I mean, that's a that's a wasted teenage years, but um it it I became cooler later on, but I made the uh victocracy about in which you uh competed to become the head of our school, the rector. And that had um the kind of you know, like the the the um standard monopoly thing with the squares outside, and that's it. Um but I didn't think you could move in either direction, which is a variant on that, and then more sections inside. So you started off as a teacher on the outside, and you you you gained prestige points as you went along from from various things. I'm sorry the game's lost because it would be fascinating to have it out again and play it, but it's it's lost somewhere. I don't know whatever happened to it. Um and then but you got enough points, you became a head of department, so you got to move into the next circle of department, and then you finally got enough points you could go into the rector's office and demand that he resign and let you take over the school in his place. Tremendously realistic, of course. And all that happened then was you rolled a die, and if you rolled a four, five or a six, he succumbed and left and you you took over. Uh you rolled a one, two, or three, he simply kicked you out, and you had to start the game all over again as the janitor. Uh and the janitor school, the advantage he had, although he was he was lacking various things, he had a dog he could set on people. Um, and some of the teachers had special abilities, like the gym teacher could actually move extra spaces and such that. And you could put you could put booby traps in rooms to electrocute people. And the the the chap who was in charge of the school cadet corps had had had three cadets he could send in rooms ahead of him to die in his place. So there were the beginnings of of the kind of special abilities, and the fact that you're working way towards the centre of the board was there. Um, but this was not something one could imagine actually to publish anyway. Um, and I made a card game called Gibbon, which um because we used to listen to I'm sorry, I'll read that again, it's a radio show back then, which you can only get if you go on YouTube or something, you can probably find it now. And there used to be a lot of stuff about gibbons in that. So I made this card game, Gibbon, where you had to match Gibbons with bananas or get three gibbons and and with other things like the teacher, our geography teacher, we imagined was a vampire, and so you had to match him with a coffin, or you get three of him and three or three coffins, and you had cards had special things as a card that was a cheesy grin and a blank stare. Once again, this is just lost. I I just wish I had it to get out again. So playing with my friends at school. So uh and that so that so my memories are are are are more vivid of actually making games than of playing them. Um suddenly when I got into doing role-playing games, I I I I always I I find I preferred actually running them, being the games master for things, rather than being a player. If I actually enjoyed setting up games for other people, right. So uh yeah, so I I I was playing games obviously from a a young age because otherwise I wouldn't be making them, and um but what what they were, and then of course in the um uh we did war games when I was a st uh at high school, I had an War Games Club.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

And m my favourite story about that is that we so we had like Greek and Roman armies and some of the guys in Napoleon, I don't know, we don't give these things where we had books of tables you had to look up and dice. And so we we were one evening we're doing it was in a community center in Dundee, and some sort of uh sort of slovenly street kids, I mean not that with there were probably you know I mean I I would talk about a poor family, but they were they seem to be just slouching around the streets looking for something to do. So a bunch of them came in, they didn't they weren't really unpleasant anything. They were like, What is this? What are you using toys and so um we would explain to them, you know, well you you roll these dice and you move, you've got a ruler to move the figures, and you look up these tables, and I mean we explain all your girls chewing gum just looked at us and made this existentially destructive statement. She just said, So what does it prove? All human endeavor was reduced to this. So what does it prove? Well, well, it doesn't prove any we just kind of enjoy doing it. So it's like you just thought, yeah, she's right, why are we doing this? So uh interestingly, we we we did um a lot of ancient war gaming, and my friend and a friend Steve and I who did this, and we developed our own rules of playing Lord of the Rings because we were leaving the Lord of the Rings at this time. So probably uh perhaps simultaneous with Gary Gyjax and his friends, we had made our own Lord of the Rings rules to play Lord of the Rings battles. Um, but of course, we wouldn't did not have uh the ingenuity to actually parley into a money-making business. But we had the same idea uh of doing that originally, um and uh yeah, so those are that's the early days of of uh of my gestation of that. Also, I was writing stories and making comic books, uh none of which I thought of as a future career of any sort, making games, writing stories, uh which of course what I've been doing for years now, and being paid modestly for doing it, but getting paid at all for doing for doing that kind of stuff is actually kind of nice. Um so but so it all eventually blossomed um into a sort of garden of weeds.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So am I right in thinking then because you you have written in your sort of biography online that you then went to university and that's where you first encountered the the Dungeons and Dragons that that Gargax was was developing and started playing those kind of role-playing games. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, my most of the game I did well that we we we played risk a lot with. We all chipped in to buy a risk set. Um and we had very competitive. The guy hold himself up in Australia every time. You just hated him. He just hold himself up and then just build armies and he only had one route in. So we played that a lot. And I I was playing um postal diplomacy at that point, and just recently somebody sent me an email saying all these postal diplomacy magazines um are now available online. Probably people are still doing it, but using magazines to do these things rather than just doing all online. And I I because I think diplomacy must have been much easier if you just email people and lie to them by email rather than deceiving them by a long letter. What do we have to do? You had to write a letter to somebody saying, Oh, well, look, if you don't attack me here, I will guarantee not to attack you there. And you'd have to you'd have to have weeks for the letter by board, and then you attack them just like uh you have lied about. Um and there were log the links variants of that. And we used to write press releases, um, which started off as like propaganda statements, but they morphed into vast stories about characters you were making up and stuff. So I wanna I we sent a link to to the website where all these things apparently have all been scanned up, and I haven't got around to it yet, but I'm very keen to go back and read some of them stories because there was a there was a one game, a lot of things game, but we were just deadlocked, three of us were like deadlocked for like a couple of years and churning out all these Presley stories about all the what was going on. Um so that that was the kind of gaming thing to then, which had that kind of imaginative thing, it was going beyond the tactics of of uh uh the tactics and sneakiness of playing diplomacy into that. I played some real diplomacy as well. Um we had face-to-face diplomacy and we had conventions. I remember going to we're in Preston with some guys who had a flat above an antique shop they ran. And we don't we're supposed to go to a bigger place, but the guy was supposed to be hosting that suddenly it was an illness in his family. So somebody saved it by saying he can come and do it at our flat. So, like 30 of us packed into this flat, and then at lunchtime we'd nip down to the pub down the road and eat Cornish pastes and bring out board games. I mean, the the locals are all looking at us, what is this? And we'd play diplomacy and other games uh for the weekend, so it was like weekends of mad gaming. Um and so the the the first I heard of uh uh Dungeons and Dragons was um uh it was uh he was like a friend of a friend. He was in the he was in the university war games club, and so I I no longer was doing that stuff, but I used to play war games, as I said. We used to be in a war games club with all the tabletop figures and all that. And um I was asking him about what what sort of wars he does. He said, Oh, we played Dungeons and Dragons. I said, Well, what's that? He said, Well, you're sort of pretending you're going through a maze in a dungeon and you you draw maps of it as you go and fight monsters. And I'm thinking, this is this sounds like absolute bollocks. I mean, you're supposed to have vast armies of painted Greek hoplites, you know, clashing with Persians, vast you're you're just uh peddling around with this stuff. Now you're so used to it. Imagine though people describing it to you for the first time, and you're thinking, What are you talking about? What what a total way it's like that girl saying, Well, what does it prove? Why are you doing this? Um, and so it was only when I uh so that was my undergraduate days, and um I uh I came back to do to do um uh postgraduate work in Latin, which didn't lead you anywhere, but during that time I met my wife and other things happened. But also, so we we we saw this thing where we'd all chip in for for for games and stuff, and uh and she'd played Dungeons and Dragons in America, and uh there was a there was a set on sale in local toy shop. She said, No, we should all chip in for that and we could all play it. So we did that, and there was a guy called Tony Kant, who was Australian, and he he was he he he was a scientist, he was a physicist, and he was multilingual, and he was a massive fan of punk rock. He had a great collection of punk records, which because that was what was going on at the time. And he'd he'd played it sometime, so he he was our first dungeon master. So a bunch of us went this first weekend playing Dungeons and Dragons virtually without sleep. You know, every time my character got killed, we'd characters got all got killed, we'd we'd be back at the tavern, rolling up new characters, we'd be back in there, all get slaughtered again. We were just intoxicated with it. It was it was like nothing we'd ever done before, it was such a great fun. And so then we went into playing Dungeons and Dragons, and um uh and I that's what started me thinking, you know, well, somebody's got to actually go to all the bother of setting all this up. I mean, you had you could buy the scenarios, but then somebody had to be running all. So it wouldn't be great if you had to open a box and make it all play, I think. Now uh TSR who did Dungeons and Dragons but a Dungeons Dragons board game, which was just rubbish, it was utter rubbish. Every player had their own separate section of the board where they go around and try to kill monsters and get treasure, but there was no interaction between the players at all, which of course, in a role-playing game, a lot of the fun of it is the interaction between you and the other players, yeah, and your imaginary characters. So um I found a couple other good games. There was Sorcerer's Cave and um Magic Wood, which were both designed by the same guy. And they were brilliant games, they had their limitations though. Um Sorcerer's Cave involved joining bits of this cave together, leave a a vast room, and the thing would like expand out of control. And um Magic Wood still was very they were both similar systems, but both very good games. But they tended to disappear. I mean, I liked them, but they still didn't have quite the DD sort of feel. And then I thought about um adapting my game retocracy to take that same idea of moving on the outer board and instead of being teachers, you'd be wizards and warriors and elves and trolls and things. Um and instead of gaining sort of points, you would gain strength and craft and all that kind of thing. And so uh I just started doing it by myself to sit and had a bit all in pencil so I could change all the cards were in pencil. And I was sitting there on the floor of my room, and um, I had my had my Parenton bear, Tommy Paddington Bear there, and a little plastered dog there, and I was playing with dealing out the cards to everybody and you know, and doing it. Then first I started playing with people and it's and it started to work. Um so this all came from my girlfriend at that time. My wife was her her inspiration to do DD. And um so uh eventually it it was so good. The reason I think the game itself was so good is it was made for fun, it wasn't some games company thing, oh, we can make a bit of money out of this. It was just for us to have fun with, and so it was played. We played it lots and lots. So, of course, I kept holding it. It was like it's got this developmental thing that was going on. Um and so by the time we actually sent it off to Games Workshop, it was really in really good shape. It'd been played, played, and played, and it really did work. Um yeah. So so there, we'll we'll come up to the creation of Talisman and uh in a rambling roundabout sort of way. But so once again, keep giving me questions that I'll sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah. I mean, so th that version then you said you sent it off. Did you l did you create a second version to send, or did you literally send the version you guys were playing?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

No, the version we were playing was still all in pencil. Right. And I realized that to send it to a company, you'd have to actually do make it look better. Um and I found I found a company but by buying a gaming magazine and um looking for the adverts for games companies in Games Workshop, which like the previous year they'd been been selling batgam and sets at the back of a van, basically. And they uh they had four games out at the time, uh none of which survived very long. I can't remember, I can't remember what they all were now. Um but I thought that they looked like they were doing the kind of thing that that would be right for me. So I know the address there and all this. And so uh I um got lots of coloured pens and I made a uh coloured all in and did it all once again did all the art, all the drawings, which is uh on my website. You can link to see the what it all looked like in the original. It was good enough, you know, to to do so it looked good. They had to laboriously type up all the rules, you know, with typewriters and TipX and all that. People people who didn't who have got Scott Peers, they don't know they were born. I mean, if when you're two getting on a typewriter, you you look back on that and they think, how it's like chiseling away in blocks of stone. Every mistake had to be corrected. So I typed up all the rules and um I I probably had had carbon paper to make a copy. And uh I so I sent that off to them with a cover letter. I just don't know who they probably were here. Here it is. You would sit in publishing this. And within a matter of weeks, so once again, there's no email. This is all just come by letters. A letter arrived and said, Will you just doing this? You want to come down and and and and talk to us about it? So I went down there, and there was Ian Livingston, Steve Jackson, and a couple other guys who, if I thought hard, I'd remember the names. But and we we had a go playing the picture I think I've got online somewhere above me playing it with them in this warehouse that they were in at the time. And um and they were really keen to do it. So that so the the very quickly we had uh we'd signed a deal, which um they they offered me a small lump sum just for the rights of the whole thing, or a royalty, a modest royalty for every copy sold. So I took the royalty, um, which was modest, but of course, once the thing was selling globally, I was actually making a living out of it. I mean, I was making as much money as I would have made if I'd be doing a proper job, you know, and without actually doing a proper job. So uh um but I got on very well with those chaps, and we we had our games day launch with my now my wife and some friends and um at McDonald's screwing up by guys in Viking armor to get burgers and things all this. And uh I was actually quite a bit I was quite a bit hung over because I was in some friends down in Islington and there's a pub there where they were still using all the pre-decimal money, and we drank there a lot, and my god, we drank a lot, and then so I was staggering into Games Day next day to launch my game. And I've not seen it all, but were some crude photocopies of zero of the rules. I know I didn't see a copy of the game until we actually got there for the launch, and I was given a copy of it. Um and uh yeah, so I I I I I got Ken St. I ran into Ken St. Andre, who who created Tunnels and Trolls, which at that point I was using Tunnels and Trolls as the basis for for role-playing games that I was running. Um, because I kind of liked the dice system and I but I'd adapted it quite a bit, but I got him to write on my the rules for the that first talisman game, the best fantasy of role-playing board game in the world, Ken St. Andre. So um so that was it was quite a thrill to be to be down there doing all that. So uh yeah, um and that that was the beginning of it, where it was going. But I I remember one thing I remember when I was talking to the guy when we were first playing and discussing it um at Games Workshop, and I said, you know, the way it's been designed, you could add expansion sets to it, and they laughed the notion that you'd add expansion sets to a board game, because uh but of course in those days it was actually quite radical. I mean, now it's like you've got to have extra. But then it was it was quite funny. But of course, I've lost track of all the versions of Talisman, you know. But um a few years back, I did get invited to the local um the the New Vetter's Gaming uh Society to play Talisman with them. And they had the the full thing, you know, all all the corners that put extra boards on and big tower in the middle with a dragon on it and stuff. So I had a great time playing it, but it's only some I've actually played the full panor plate of things I've played. I generally just play the old version of the the board because it's uh or maybe one or two of the expansions that I I designed because uh there's a there's only so many hours in the second. So uh so that takes us up to to show yeah, sending making putting the work in to make it look decent. Yeah. What it could look like, a professional version, and sending off and uh it it it's like you know what it seems almost too easy. The the first company I sent it to said, Yeah, we want to do that, and and they grew over the next few years, and Talisman grew with them. And um, so I did very well out of that, and so did they.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Um, yeah, I mean, because there were a couple of changes, I believe, at that point as well, right, when you were developing it for the sort of the published version. So one is the name, because it was necromancer, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

I called it necromancer, which they thought was a bit evil sounding. Right. So they they they came up with the name Talisman, which is fine because that you've got so the thing that well, I can't what it was called now, the thing that you had to collect was called something else. Well, the crown of command was I think at the beginning, but the token you needed to get it to get in there was actually um um called something else at the time. Um and they called it a talisman and made the game talisman, which is like that that's what they're supposed to do. They're a games company. And so they and they got you know really good artwork and all that done. But in the first edition, uh the cards were all in black and white. And then it was a massive thing when they thought, man, we could we could spend a bit more and make the cards all in colour, that'd be just deluxe then. Um because once again, they were quite a small company then, and that this was a whole new thing. And the the things I remember would be different from what in the original version of the game, because I could it was quite big, um, it's about you know this size. Um and uh so the cards are all laid out face down on the spaces on the board, which was specific cards, but they're actually on there. So basically they're like two cards or three cards, they're all on there. So it's like it was kind of nice, they're sitting there waiting for you, you know, that you what is there, and you could and so you had a character out there, profit as well. You could actually look at some of the cards and something, which once you've got them in a deck that you draw, which is more practical probably for making a compact version of it, um, that changed how some of the things worked, but not in a drastic way. Um the big thing that they changed was that um the the mines and the the the tunnels everything in the centre of it. Um I had it that you had to roll to get through them, you know, with your strength in one craft and another. And however much you'd fallen short of what you need to get, you spent those number of turns just sitting there. But then you'd get through to the island in the centre, in the center, which was the necromancer's island original version. Um and they thought people didn't want to be sitting around doing nothing for turn after turn. And so they had the thing where instead of that, if you didn't make the target roll, you were bounced out to the game again, which is why it it took a long time to play, because if if you sit for like five turns in in a mine, and you but and you're through, you're actually in the centre. People want to get to the centre for the game to end. If the constant bounce back out again, it could take a long time. So whenever I've we've played it, um, you know, with friends and that, we always use my original rule because that way the game will actually end in a finite amount of time. Um and uh yeah, so the the the the the so those are the things that the the major trade from other than that it's very much as I as I designed it, how the how the game worked.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Um I mean having seen your original like the card that you drew for for the talisman itself, like that you already had the sort of triangular shape design.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, it's a charm, it's called the charm, remember. So they they they took that.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, so could I just curious about that because it's such a cut, it's I mean, obviously it's become so iconic with the game. Do you remember where that came from? Like as a shade.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

No, just an easy shade. Right.

unknown 25:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

And yeah, it became like a nice symbol for the whole thing. So it it's just a good fortune in a way that things tend to work out. And Talism was a great name for it, better than Necromancer. Um, and uh yeah, so um we so we the well I I don't want to get into the behind the scenes highlight over things, but there were there were some disputes over what rights I had to the material in the game concerning computer versions and everything else. And so we had a uh uh a bit of a dispute about that, which um Livingston uh said, okay, well, we'll just agree you can have you have a royalty for everything to do with it. At that point, they of course had no idea what was going to happen, that there were going to be expansion sets and there were gonna be figures, and so I got I got all the figures that were made. I I got a percentage of of the sales of the all the little metal figures that went with it. Every expansion set I got a percentage of that, even though I didn't design it, because uh everything had been it'd been conceded that everything to do with the game of talisman, uh I got my cut of it, which was great. So uh um and then of course it was overseas licensing, that's when things really started to take off.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Um when uh I I uh check, uh I think from King's workshop and said, This is your share of the advance money from France and Germany for licensed versions of Talisman. And I I sat down in the step, looked at it, and thought, this is this well, I said to my wife, I think we're rich. Now, rich is like not living in poverty. You know, the rich is a relative thing. Rich means you can afford to eat out occasionally, you know, you can you can pay the rent without struggling. And uh so the yeah, it was it was up to making an actual living out of it. Um during which time I I was making um the coming up, the expansion sets. Now let's talk about the expansion set, how that'll work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that the um it was doing well enough that um I I don't know how often I went down to see them, but uh at some point uh they were saying, we were thinking you could do an expansion set, maybe an extra board to go with it. And uh I thought, okay, so um oh no, I I'd already done the the first expansion set, but just more characters and more cards and stuff. And that that and doing that was interesting because I found the I thought the characters for that were better than the cards in the original game. They were it was like having had a break from the whole thing, and my brain was coming back to it afresh. Um and I can't remember which who was the originals and who were in the expansion there, but the expansion I was so pleased with all the stuff I could come up with. It was actually easy to add a whole bunch of new characters and cards and all that to it. And that was quite successful. They made something called Talisman the Adventure without consulting me. I still got my share of money for it, which is kind of stupid, because it was full of mistakes. You know, I think, well, you know, you're paying me, you're paying me money for these things. You just sent it to me just to proofread it. I could have sorted these things out that actually were were flaws that went to the uh into the game. But that's business. Business is a kind of there was a time when I was uh you know a Carlo youth, but I thought people who ran businesses were all hyper intelligent and really no, they're not, they make terrible mistakes and misjudgments and things. So they they so they then they they said we thought we'd add an extra board to you. You could do that. I said, Yeah, so I went to the talisman dungeon, which was a nice idea because it's it's at the side, but ideas that's under the land and it links in, and you can and the the movement around it was good new pop up. And I I I you know that was quite a bit of work to make that fit in without ruining the game by making it unbalanced anyway. And that that worked out really, really well. Um so that uh after that back then that that was oh well the expansion set sold really, really well. Um and of course it that helped more interest in the game. The game could keep being renewed by adding stuff to it, not just adding more characters and cars, but actually adding sets. So then they they did the talisman timescape, which um mentioned in your notes that you sent to me. Um which I had nothing once again, I there were bits and I thought it could have been better. Um, you know, but I thought, well, yeah, I mean, um it's fine. I mean it it it's not part of the kind of real mythos of the world of talisman, but it's like so so what, you know um if people enjoy playing it, and they had the chainsaw warrior in it, and uh which was one of the things that I I uh Stephen Hand who created that game. I mean, I uh I was down there for a games day and got to hang out with the guys who were designing stuff, and he he designed that and he designed the Fury of Dracula, which I thought was a brilliant game. I loved Fury of Dracula.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

We had a great time talking about creating games, and how you know when your your head is filled, all the ideas are coming to you, and your type brain's expanded. You're in you know, another level, you know. Um it just it just heightens your your consciousness in a way, because you've got you've got all these ideas things swirling around. And um, I remember his team's talk about how how Chainsaw Warrior he they he'd called it Zero Hour, but they thought, well no, it'll appeal more to the frothers who buy their games if we could make it all about chainsaws, got chainsaw warrior. So there's quite a clever little game about going through a building and all this kind of stuff. But chainsaws were inserted into it for marketing purposes. So uh yeah, and I that at that point when I was down there for for a games day event, and um uh this was the first time I was there with talisman fans. You know, people who who, when you're rolling things, are going toad, toad, toad and they were buying me drinks afterwards and everything, and it was great. That's uh that's my first experience of being semi-legendary, you know, that uh that that I'd done this thing that people just loved. Um and I was my wife from Florida, so we'd be over in the States visiting over there, and I was in a game shop there and saw somebody buying a copy of Talisman. I was like, I'd not have the nerve to go and say, I don't I just quite thrill to be there and see somebody buying my game. Uh and so of course, yeah, so so the the the the growth of it um was was quite phenomenal. Um and but but uh some people might recall that uh when it was reviewed in the White Dwarf magazine, it got a really lukewarm review. Yeah, it's okay. I mean, if you if it's raining outside, you could play this and it would pass a couple hours. After that, they they abandoned the policy of independent reviews of the product of the own magazine. But it didn't that didn't seem to matter because uh people playing it really loved it, and Word got out and that and it was like uh um it it just spread and became really popular, which is great. So uh I've I've rambled on a bit, so I'll let you rein things in and ask a proper question about something.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

I mean it it's it's fascinating to hear that because obviously and you mentioned like it started to get international appeal as well, right? I mean that like as a creator, that must just be quite satisfying to know that you people are engaging with something you've built and made and it is growing in meditation.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

I mean sorry, I've got a website which my wife shares with me because she's also a writer, although she's she's kind of retired from writing and just edits me, um, which is harder work, probably. But um some friends set up a website for us uh years back, um, which is the first time we were actually able to have email, and people could actually contact me about talisman and send me emails. And I kind of click on and send with some guy, he's very quite tough, he said, I don't have total respect for many people, but I do for you, because you created talisman. Thanks. Great, you know. And I got a beautiful uh email from uh a lady in Poland, um which I still got preserved. Um and uh she said uh you know, when I was a little girl, um um my my my father took me into a toy shop to ask what I wanted for like St. Nicholas Day, she was to ask and I saw this game up there at a point I don't want that. And she said, I was kind of lonely. My life was a sad number. So I used to sit and play it myself and get lost in this wonderful world. So I want to now grow up, I want to write to you and thank you for this sort of magical world you've given me. And I was virtually in tears. And that's not the only one I've had. I'd I'd uh letter from a uh an evil woman more recently. She had met her husband playing talisman, and they they they'd raised their children on talisman and everything. It was it was it was uh once again, it was like very, very moving. Um that that it meant so much in people's lives, like like a like a favorite song or a favourite film or a favourite book, Talisman had that sort of role in people's lives. It bonded them together, they made friendships over it, they got married. But I've been sent a picture of a talisman-themed wedding cake, which has got all the kind of characters all over. Amazing. So somebody has a w had a talisman wedding, you know. Uh so you know, um although I have no direct say in the game anymore now, if not for some time, um I I just love the fact that people still love it. And then it I really when people write to me to see how much it means to them, I really appreciate that. They don't have to do that. Saying people write to me about the books I write and say, Ah, that book was so great, you know. And there was uh one of my Sherlock Holmes novels, some guy wrote to me and said that that that that was a highlight of my summer reading that book. I thought, well, that's really nice. So I think you know, I I'm not selling weapons or or advertising you know cigarettes or anything. I'm actually doing something that makes people happy, you know, and it's harmless and it's brought a lot of pleasure. So if you know, if I should ever die, you know, um uh talisman will go on forever now. I mean it's it's been on for so long now. There was a time it wasn't around, it looked like it might just die off like everything else. Um but then it came back and now it looks like it's just like Monopoly and everything else. It looks like it's immortal now. It there's so many variants of it. And I only have some of them. I mean, I I I mean, I believe there's a Batman version, a Harry Potter version, like a Star Wars version. I haven't even looked, I haven't caught any of those. I think you know, I wouldn't I couldn't find time to play them all. So uh um what I think, well that that's amazing. That's a kind of immortality. And so like you know, you contact me to do this, that's really nice. That people say, Well, the guy that created this thing, it it's kind of it didn't it wasn't made by some company, they didn't all get together and say, let's make something that'll exploit people's love of Dungeons and Dragons. Um and in fact, um just recently I was I've been invited, and I look forward to this, to um a fantasy convention in Poland in June to go and talk about talisman and play talent people there, which I think is just amazing. And even said, Oh, uh you can bring a companion if you like, so my wife's gonna come along as well, so she's looking forward to that. I've never been to Poland, but Talisman in Poland had it, they did their own art, they've got a different name and they've their own artwork for it, which is quite unusual. And also, my my first solo novel, Leonardo Death Machine, was published in Poland as well. So it's that there's so I've got stuff in Poland, you know, that I've got that connection, so I'm looking forward to that. But that's like people think it it's worthwhile they're paying my plane fare and putting me up and feeding me for a few days because of talisman. So it's like, yeah, I guess it it is that that thing. And it's nice that people think, yeah, it kind of matters who created it. Yes, Games Workshop brought in the artist and all that, but basically it's still the game I I created originally, and the whole notion of doing expansions to it, I did that uh originally and had planned it that way, and um people have up and run with it. So I'm saying lots of people have contributed now. What's out there now? People have been expansions and alternate versions and all sorts of things, which is what you would want really to rather than it just be, oh, we're so tired of playing this talisman game, let's just do something else. So um, yeah, so it's very, very gratifying that that it's it's so phenomenally successful.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah, I mean it and it is amazing. I think you're you're right in that it's I I would say it's joined that pantheon with with Monopoly and and Risk and those other games as well. It absolutely stands alongside those, and you there have been so many iterations, there have been so many generations of people who've played it. It is part of people's lives and childhood, so I'm not surprised that there's still that love, like because it yeah, it's it's been enormously, enormously popular, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Yeah, and people have like grown up playing it, and now they're they're playing with their children, yeah. So yeah, which is great heritage, you know, to to do that. Um I think well that that's absolutely wonderful. And I've had uh um a couple of things recently. Um somebody asked me to do something for a wedding prisoner for a wedding. I was a chap in America. He'd uh he he his best friend had and part of the friendship was playing talisman together. And he'd he'd managed to make a fake card, he slipped into the cards, and it was it was called uh the the the bond of brotherhood or something. And on this card it said, you know, I mean you've been my best friend for years, and you always have my back, except when we're playing talisman. So would you please be the best man at my wedding? And so the guy came the best man emailed me and he said, Look, look at this guy's made this. Could you possibly do something for the wedding? So I made a scroll, which with a picture, a picture of me um dressed as Odin from my days of visiting, doing school visits, and uh and made a scroll of the the the spell of binding about how the the happy couple would be you know together. And so after they told me a photograph afterwards of of him and the couple with with the framed copy of this, which is hanging in their their marital home. And somebody else asked me to do a big uh talisman fan this guy, and it was 50th birthday. Could you do a video of him? So I did that. I dressed up again a bit and had my magic staff. I I delivered this message and wished him all the best for his birthday. And they sent me a video of him seeing it, which was exciting and all that. So yeah, that's just nice. It means things people, and occasionally I I I someone will ask me, Can you do something for them for that? I'm like, well, yeah, that that's I'm very pleased to do that. Um, although I I appreciate it if they if they could maybe give me an Amazon voucher or something.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Um I was curious Oh well I was I was curious about the world of talisman as well. So the the actual like setting obviously draws on a lot of inspirations, like the you know, you you talked about DD, you talked about Lord of the Rings. It is that classic fantasy world, yes, but you expanded it and explored it. I mean, did you ever did you ever want to go anywhere else with that world and to sort of take it into other spheres to write stories, that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Um yeah, I mean uh it it's very generic. Uh you know, it it's a generic D D world, so the characters don't have names or anything like that. Um so uh well now I have designed a number of games since then rather than trying to do more with Talisman. I mean at one point in Talisman that they had the idea we could make it into a s a quartet of different games that we developed much. I mean, I worked on that with games worked for well, but I don't think it ever really gelled. Um and uh uh uh it was after that they started to move over to do a lot of Warhammer, they kind of lost interest in Talisman to an extent. And then we had some discussion because we'd we'd signed different contracts for different bits of it about who actually had the rights to it. And uh eventually um I don't want to get into details about all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on, but um eventually I got the upper hand in this uh by just being very ballsy over the phone and um they realized they'd be a bit of a misstep and conceded far too much to me. And so somebody who must have taken over their lights environment just said this is a catastrophe. And so offered me uh a nice sum of money to free such rights. At this point, the game wasn't even being published at that point. It was it was making no money or anything, and they offered me quite a bit, uh, you know, to me a fortune, to some people, and what it made what it makes now and nothing, but on that, I was financially secure for a few years, took the family to a fabulous holiday in Florida, that's me, my wife, three kids. Um, and uh we had an amazing time. So uh and uh you know I think say, well, but if you if you still had a say in this, you'd be making a fortune from this now. Well, well, maybe not. I mean I don't regret it. I mean I needed the money at the time, I've got good use of it. But um without without me being attached to it, probably made it easier for them to license it to various different companies and things. I mean, you know, without my cut being involved, that would probably have slowed it down a bit. And so I'm happy they they paid me what I thought was a decent sum of money for the rights to the thing, which was actually worthless at that point. Um and I had great fun with it, but I was out of it. And um and people have kept on loving the game and and still recognizing me as the guy who created it. And uh I I create other games, none of which were published professionally. Right. Um and so the so the talisman what I w I should talk a little bit about Myth Guardia. Well with Talisman, what I did after that, I I I I've uh we've been to see I think the second Indiana Jones film. And I thought as I thought as I when I'd wished there was a kind of a DD board game that you could play, and so I made it. I thought I wish it was an Indiana Jones game you could play, a sort of 1930s adventure game. So I'm I made one, I made one and I called it Cliffhanger, and it was you know it was very different from Talisman, it was a map of the world that you moved around, and you had uh all kinds of adventures and things in it, and you had characters based on Doc Savage and Indiana Jones, there were different names on that. There were those kind of cult fiction characters, and send that to Games Workshop and uh and they they they liked it but they did uh the movement was a bit slow, so I just I tweaked the root movement rule, so that was fine. So they kind of liked that, but they thought, well, um what we want we think it'll Sell if we got an Indiana Jones license for it. So they tried to get an Indiana Jones license and didn't get it. So they lost interest. Then I kind of thought, well, I woke up at four in the morning when my best ideas come through. Oh, well, I could just take the thing and make it into a fantasy game. So instead of being a map of the world, I've been up this fantasy world, which is based upon the role-playing games I was running at that point in a world I called Aldergaard. And so I made this game called Legends. And I sent off them and they loved it. And uh so we signed a deal, which did not involve an advance, sadly, but I wasn't smart enough for that in those days. But then they were moving more and more over to just doing exclusively doing Warhammer. And um this is before you know I I I sold off the Ice of Talisman. I was still the Ice of Talisman at this point. Um and so it that just kind of fell by the wayside. So I I I've various times was talked to other companies to do this because it was a fantastic game. And part of the point of this is relating to how you were talking about expanding Talisman, was that in this game the characters all have names, they're all actual characters, they have they have background stories, they have background stories interconnect with each other and with the world they're in has has villains and characters. And it's so it had that kind of more of a story aspect, um you know, uh whereas than Talisman does. When Talisman does that does this D D thing, versus kind of more like you're in a fantasy novel, you know. Um and the way that people when you're playing role-playing games, we started off was pretty basic, you know, you're going to dungeons and killing things, but as we go on, we expanded them to more interesting adventures with whole cities and the the characters would be ongoing characters having adventures and other characters would turn up and all this. So I put that into this this game. So it went on and on and on, and then um uh nothing, I mean, God, I was with Gibson's game back and forth for ages, looking to adapt it to suit the kind of family market they wanted, and then other covers and um i it gets quite tiring. And eventually though, uh um I thought uh what I could do was hand make uh half a dozen copies and sell them for like 100 quid each on eBay or something, as collectors' items. Um he's a game uncalled to come with the weather. But a friend of mine um who's very good at being efficient, she she we're having a uh kind of Easter barbecue when you're back about 2008 or something, 2017. I know. Anyway, she'd been to see I'd asked her for advice about how to best print up this stuff, how to to produce these things myself. And she'd been to see a local printer, and she came back with all the facts and figures of what it would cost to actually print uh, you know, so it'd be a box and all that be printed and all that. And so we we so we did that. Um the the whole the the whole story is not when we were online, but the the the but it it was quite we made a great reality TV show us doing this. Um because I thought, well, okay, I I'm always getting emails from Talisman fans. I mean I only used about a hundred of them to want a copy of this, and that's it. So I I could actually market it online. So I I uh um so I had to re- I revamped the game, had to come up with a name for it because Legends wasn't a good game. Um I'd so I I I I was the thing is there are so many role-playing board games, computer games, live action games. All the fantasy names have been used. I've I've come up with I'd Google them and say, Oh, that's a this computer game, oh that's a live-action role-playing. And finally came up with Myth Guardia, typed in Myth Guardian, it said no matches found. I thought, yes, that's such a great name for it. So we made it and um we sold a hundred. And um then we we sold another fifty on top of that, and then we did an expansion set, sold a bunch of those. But it was just too much hard work. I mean, we couldn't make it to make it that it would be as solid as as as you know, in its components, as a professional game. We'd have to have had so many, we'd have to invest so much money in it, more money that I could gamble with on that, as it was we'd all chipped in to to to do this version of it. So, and every now and again, so that we did that and stopped because it was like there's no way to make that a realistic thing to you, but it was nice to have done it. And people who bought in played it loved it. We got fantastic reviews on it, but I think it is so um uh and I was in talk once again I was in talks and come to have to that and I think but now we now have a much better version to show. Um my wife did all the artwork for it, and um and so it got a buzz, but then it was like just get over them. So, anyway, more recently, um I have I I was a contact by some guys in America. Now I can't go to what detail was things are kind of in flux just now, so I can't go into a lot of detail about it. But um a contract was signed and there's been development work done on it. Um due to fluctuating um printing costs and things, though the the future of the thing has sort of wobbled quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

But it's got wholly revamped professional-looking artwork. It all looks great. Um it shouldn't take much to get it to go to a printer or do it online. So um I did say uh to some of the guys, we know I'll I'll mention this in your your podcast and the millions of people watching this. Anybody anybody out there who who has the the resources to go into a partnership on this would like to be involved in it to to do it, um you know, not just say, Oh, I'd buy a copy, no, that that's not enough. You know, it needs something a bit more. And that there's still various prospects out there. It might I'm hoping it'll come out because uh enough being invested in it in terms of new artwork, and I I've come up with all kinds of notions of how we'd expand it in the future and all that. So um it was all it was gonna be coming out, um but um that that kind of fell through. So it's Mithguardia is there, it's it's kind of like quite a long way along. So um we're kind of looking for ways to get it to that next step to either have it as a board game that people could just actually buy, uh and possibly also an online version of it. Um so um if anybody out there watching this wants to invest vast some in this or as a games company and think we'd like to do that or something like that, yeah, get in touch. If you get in touch with you, you'd pass it on to me or me through the website, and um maybe maybe something will just click.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Um you'd hope so, because there's I mean, if it's that close as well. I mean, what would you guys ever consider like a clo a crowdfunding approach? Like, that was the original idea.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Then they weren't sure that the that like they could match the the increased printing costs, which have gone up due to tariff wars and such like, which has hit a lot of things. Um so the original estimates were kind of thrown off by all that. So it's it's things are kind of wobbly just now, but well, a lot of work and money's been invested in at this point. Um, not by me. I I've done some work on it, you know, and all that, but um I've not spent my money on it. But um, yeah, it it it's it look it now looks great. The artwork they've got they've got for it. Looks fantastic. And it's a brilliant game to play. I mean, it's just a really great game. So uh and I think people who love Talisman would love this too. Sure. So it it's just been uh kind of uh I don't get frustrated about things, you know. I don't I don't worry about it, but it's like, yeah, it's kind of a bit frustrating that it's not out there. It's not that I'm looking to make a fortune out of it, I just love it to be out there of people playing it and enjoying it. Because this is like speak to God, how many years? Decades now, it's been in existence in different forms, and it's like if only people could just get it and play it. I'd be so happy about that. I am with talisman, I can make no money out of talisman now, but it makes me so happy people are enjoying it, and then they they'll they'll contact me about it. So um, yeah, so that so that that that's where we are. It kind of takes off of your question about developing talisman instead was to make another game that would do something a bit different, but like talisman would be expandable, could be added to and and all that, but would have the sort of a storytelling richness to it. But probably talisman, I'm sure they make up their own backgrounds to characters and stuff like that. But um, well, this this comes with it with its world, which I think is a really colourful one and full of humour and such like. So uh and people can see on my website there's a link to the original version of Myth Guardian, but you can see the the game we produced back in about 2008 and 9. Um, and you know, if I I could have just kept making those and doing it, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work making.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

I imagine it would be, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Yeah, you had you had to sort all the cards out and glue the boxes together, and you had to pad the all this. And I had you know, I had plans for doing further versions of it, it'd be easy to do, but I thought, well, no, it's it's just too much. I I'll just we've got this now to offer to uh professional games companies. We've got a a a finished version. You can just you look at this and think, yeah, if if if the box was a bit less flimsy, you know, and the artwork was ramped up a bit and and all of it, the the board wasn't just on a fold out bit of thick paper, you know, you it would be fantastic. So uh um yeah, so so uh yeah, so I but as I say, but because uh there's other people involved in it, I I I can't go into too much detail about about the whole thing. I did check through one of the guys, and he said yes, if you mention that we'd be happy to have anybody who who could in in some way maybe enter a partnership with it or had had the resources to to move it along. Um so they they contact me directly to my website or you and send it on to me, and I'll contact them and say, well, you know, but but you know, as I say, it's not a matter of oh, I buy a copy of it. No, we need somebody who's actually got either got a company interested in working on it, or has actually just got money to burn and would like to just burn some of it on promoting this, invest it in this and see what happens. Because I'm sure once it got going, it'd be a great success when people actually had a chance to to have their hands on it, they would just love it as much as they love talisman. Yeah, um, and would go it's also you can play it in a much shorter time. The victory conditions are adjustable. You could you could play a game in an hour or you can extend it to three or four. So that the you're not you're not committing like an entire day playing a playing a vast talisman game.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

You mentioned that uh the Games Workshop took a look at an early version of that, and then but before that, you'd mentioned there was almost an idea for a quintet of games or a quartet of games. Was that one of the things?

SPEAKER_00 54:20

No, there's gonna be a talisman realm of chaos and a talisman city. So something like the city which became an expansion set, which isn't gonna be a separate game. And I did designs for all of those, um, but it kind of fell through. And once uh once again, they were because they were going more and more towards Warhammer, they become a Warhammer company, which is still what they are, really, um, because they licensed talisman elsewhere. And uh so I think you know they p they bought me off, and I'm happy enough for that deal, and um possibly that's just helped uh to extend the life of talisman. So the Quartet games, there's probably I don't know if I've got copies of any of that, but um I'm not sure it was really a good idea to do. It was the idea that we should do it and work on it, and I put a lot of time into it. Um, but nothing came of it.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Um Talisman Realm of Chaos sounds particularly interesting. So would that literally be like you you're playing traditional talisman, but you are in the realm of chaos instead of a fancy.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

The bit bits on the board move around. Oh wow. That's what I remember of it. It's a long time ago now.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

True, true, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

But uh so yeah, and I I've I've had other games I tried to sell to people, but one of the games workshop, suitable games. It was a a great space game called Spaceways and um a barbarian invasion game called Attila, all of which were like looked at by companies, they're well that's really good, but it's not quite what we're looking for. And um, so we get to the point now where um I got to the point where I I I could pitch a novel to a publisher and get it published much more easily than beating my brains out. So um but the nice thing with having Dungmouth Gardi ourselves, it was tremendous fun to do it. Um, you know, because I was doing all the marketing and friends of ours were doing all the technical aspects of setting up templates online that could be printed off at the printers and gathering all together and sending copies off to Australia and Canada and everything. And that was really exciting. Um so I'm glad we did that. And I meant we had a copy I could send off and say, look, this is it in a box. You look at this now and you can see what it could look like. So um so yeah, so there's various dead ends. I mean, this is it's alive, you know. Like I think the monster on Franklin's table, it just needs a bolt of lightning to just animate it. Where other things have uh uh which are fun games I made, um, and um yeah, but I think some would be easy to make, but you know, I I if somebody had money say, I'll I'll just bankroll. I I met when my writing career I met a guy who writes golf books and he's just got a rich patron.

unknown 57:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

This obviously bankrolls the books, he pays him to write his golf books, and he pays some publishing. I wish somebody would do that with me. Yeah, but any game you design, I'll just bankroll the whole thing, I'll make sure they get printed and added and all that, that'd be really great.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Well, I was meaning to ask you about your writing career as well, because that obviously you move across into writing novels, including like Sherlock Holmes stories and things like that. I mean, how how different is that as a discipline to games design?

SPEAKER_00 57:29

It's it's it's very different. I mean, but but um to to be to write professionally, you've got to knuckle down to it. You know, it's like you can't just do it when you feel like it. I mean, uh game design is very bitty. Um but there's the same rush of thing when the ideas are coming, you know, and when you're doing it. And then um so the the the novel thing, I mean, I the first thing I wrote, my wife when she saw my girlfriend back then, we were both graduate students in St. Andrews, and she was working on a fantasy novel. And uh I thought, I'll have a go at that. So I taught myself to type. I had a book called Type It Yourself by Brendan Roux, and I thought how to sit at the table, how your thighs would be parallel with the floor and I learned to type, so so I I wrote it all at longhand and I was typing. And I was about 120 pages into it. Um it's a kind of a sub-tolkien fantasy novel. And uh I thought, that's not very good, actually, is it? So it's it's not great. But I found that I could write, I wouldn't, it wasn't like I wrote 20 pages and run out of ideas, actually I could develop a story. But then I I left that because of course after that that that was like pre-talisman, so that after that I was the the whole gaming thing. And then um much later on, my wife had the book she's writing on was published and became a trilogy, and she was she had six novels of her own and seven should uh in collaboration with Catherine Kurtz. And um, but what was a point where uh she got pregnant and uh she had the book we it was a book we plotted together, the first it was called Calder of the Mists, and we plotted this book together, and the publisher wanted it and they wanted to make it into a trilogy, and she was getting quite prepped. She said, Well, you have to help me because I I uh my so I thought, okay, I'll pitch in and then write. So I was writing I was roughing out chapters for for the the books in that series, and a couple, you know, otherwise Catherine Kurtz on bits where I I I would rough out the battle scenes and such like and it was uh in one of these book books that uh our friend Jane Yolan, who's a very dear friend, and a very she's written about probably about five hundred books now of novels and poetry books and picture books and all that. And we become really good friends with her, and uh and she was talking about a bit in one of Debbie's books that she said it was really, really good. Debbie said, Well, Bob wrote that bit. Well, why isn't he written his own books? So she she took me by the by the collar and um um uh and getting me to writing some short stories. And my first few efforts writing with her were just awful. I mean, I I was just rubbish at it. And then I wrote I wrote then we had one we were writing for a a magazine um called Requiem Antarctica. It was about bringing vampires into the Scott South Antarctic expedition. And I did the first draft of that and it came out really well, and then she phoned me up and said, I I should take my name off this, you've done such a good job. I'd finally managed to get it going. And she and she also thought we should write a novel together, and she had this idea for a book called a book about I've seen a painting of as a female jester of Mary Queen of Scots in a castle, and she'd like me to agree it suit the kind of books that she wrote, but we could do it together. Um, and uh that that sounds nice, and she published agreed to that because I was Scottish, so that kind of selling point to it. And so we did that, and it was it was such hard work, it was really, really hard work writing that book. But the hardest thing to write because America Scots was first queen of uh France for a while. She had to like all about France and all about the people in France and the corporate. And then her husband died, she was kicked out and went to Scotland to become queen there. She had a whole other society, whole other characters and all this. And the book was just getting longer and longer. And I'd say, can we can we maybe cut it off? No, no, no. And she said, Publishers don't mind if it's a long book at all. So we did that, but came, it's very successful, it was a very big seller in the States and did a follow-up um, Girl in the Cage, about about Robert the Bush's daughter. Uh then we had a book of uh novels based on Greek mythology. Um so I wrote eight books with Jane together, and I learned a lot doing that. And um and and she I mean uh she split the money was half and half between us, even though she was the senior writer and was selling on her name. She she's just wouldn't have any any other way that we I I would do that. So um uh so uh I was so beyond that thought I did try and do something on my own. So my um my Leonardo da Vinci novel, about the teenage adventure of Leonardo da Vinci, which was turned down by both our American publishers. Um one uh who would maybe do revamp it a bit and then decide they didn't want to do it, even though I'd done all this work on it. Uh and the other one just dismissed it uh completely out of hand. Um they thought it wasn't very Italian, you know. And um but then so I went I so eventually end up with Harper I attended Harper Collins um in London, and uh they said they eventually said, Oh yeah, we want to do that. And uh could you do us another book? So I did a Shakespeare book for them. And so Leonardo was was uh so basically I sold that book. Every novel, I've got my 14th novel coming out this year, every one of those I sold myself. It wasn't agent that did it for me. I went to publishers myself and sold it. So they've there's a titry pull out there because sometimes agents can be good or bad. Um, and um so the Leonardo um just recently I've just signed a contract with Mondadori and published the Italian version to renew their rights to it for another seven years. They've been publishing that for 20 years now, and it still sells in Italy.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

So poo people said he wasn't Italian enough. A huge success in Italy. It was also published in Poland. Um quite a lot of countries. So I I don't know if anybody when I meet them over there in in June, whether they're gonna have copies of this. I'll try and take some of my copies with me, sign all that. So uh yeah, so I went on from and then my career died, and then I came back as a children's writer and uh and then segued into being an adult writer. Um and it's great because uh for about 10 years I always had another book coming up, but they were all sold on outline. Um that I did an outline public said, yeah, I want to do that, they pay me in advance for it of however much. And um and so I knew it was gonna I'd had money up front for it, and I knew it was gonna get published. So I wasn't writing in the hope that somebody would want this book. Uh and that was a great position to be in, always knowing what your next book was going to be. I'm kind of uh beyond that now, but I have great hopes for my new novel, Crescendo, which is coming out uh in the summer uh in the UK and in the USA. So um I hope that's going to be a massive global success um and made into a film by Steven Spielberg and um what's the pitch for Crescendo? Um it's uh it's set in 1959. It's a Hitchcock and thriller. So Itchkockian that Alfred Hitchcock's actually in it. Right. Um I'd had the idea a couple of years a few years ago um for it when I was just anyway. How how it came out. But anyway, the I it's set in 1959 and I did a bit of research on my basic idea of having some of having uh I come a murder on the set of an Art Hitchcock film uh having to be investigated. So uh once I'd done all the work on it, I found a nice spot in 1959 where the idea of the book is that this is uh North by North West, which is what people have all seen. It's a fantastic thriller with uh Cary Grant, it's it's just a big glossy fun thriller, and it's a massive success in Hitchcock. Like he could he could just make anything he wanted after that. And then reading about it, it's like I found out that in fact he had a project lined up after that, but it all fell through for whatever reasons, and he lost a lot of money on it. And because of that, he made Psycho because he didn't have any money. He had to finance his own film himself because no one wouldn't give him money anymore because this thing had fallen through. So he made Psycho in like six weeks using the people who made his TV show because they they could make it quickly and cheap, and in black and white, so as cheap as possible, and then psycho becomes this massive global success. Completely the opposite from like before. So my design I made up an imaginary film in between the the the I wasn't going to tell about the actual film he had, he brought the right store book and was going to do that, and it all fell through. So I I made up this film, Crescendo, which is making. It's going to be even bigger than North by Northwest. It's going to just have everything. Rat chases down the Grand Canyon and people fighting on top of the Hollywood Bowl, and I mean it's going to be just a vast extravaganza. But it's on top of the script, so he hires uh Bobby Burgoyne. Bobby Burgoyne is the he's the he's he's a struggling writer of detective stories. And um He's he's keep using these to keep himself alive or trying to write his great American novel. But it's highly on the basis of a snappy dialogue of his detective stories to come and fix the script, finish the script for the film, because it's already been made. And and the the the original screenwriter has walked off instead of falling out with Hitchcock and has just left. So Hitchcock has to find this guy and he brings him in. But this the the film's been plagued by suspicious accidents. And eventually somebody dies as after one of those. Hitchcock presses our hero, Bobby, into investigating about what's going on. And he says, You write detective stories, true. Yeah, I write the stories. I haven't known nothing to detective. So he gets done, so he starts investigating, he decides that somehow there's something to do with the cheap, obscure novel that that this film is based on. Hitchcock's got the rights for for peanuts. And so he has to go and look, find the reclusive author of the of this novel, uh, and find out what's wind all. And that leads them to you know, murders and car chases and all sorts of things, and and full of Hitchcockian moments of suspense and the rest of it. To make it make it that I was to make it very Hitchcockian and also like a classic American detective story, but all the elements of that, with all the snappy dialogue and such like. So um I I actually had to dodge writing it for a while, but it was the only thing my publishers were interested in. I I pitched up other things and they turned them all down, and we were actually packing up to go. And I said, Oh, I've got I've got one more idea. Uh I'm giving them gist of the Hitchcock thing. I said, Oh yeah, we could sell that. Good do an outline for that for us. So I went home. I went back to my notes, which I could not get it to gel before, but I spent a week on it. I came up with a detailed outline, everything, it all fell into place. And uh so I'm really pleased. I get I think it's people people read it, those people read it now, it's the best thing I've done. It's it's and in a way, it's it's interesting because you know, I I've written three novels about John Buck and Tiro Richard Haney, where I'm kind of channeling that character who's telling his own story. In my Sherlock Holmes novels, I'm channeling Dr. Watson to try to write, you know, as they as those books would have been written. Um but this was a wholly new thing. I had to develop a silo I won to do this. So that's it. I've also got a I've written uh the first of a seas of tech novels in uh uh set in Scotland. I I I need to uh uh find somebody to f to f force to publish it. So I've got plenty going on between all that. So I've got this book coming out. I've got um I'm gone off to see off to Poland in June, so that's gonna be exciting. So the talisman thing just keeps going. And uh it's nice to just be, you know, uh do you say, but uh if we uh if you had a talisman quiz or something, I would do really badly because I I'm so behind the times now. I've got copies of talisman expansion things that I haven't even opened. Um it's fine when you're you're young and you haven't got children, you know. You when you're you're when your gaming group all have to have children and they all go off and and they move somewhere else. It's hard to get a gang out together to play things regularly. So uh um but yeah, so the right me excited. So I walking my dog keeps me physically active, and writing keeps me mentally active. So hopefully I'm good for a few years yet, but uh I'm having a fantastic time doing it, and uh I mean I'm really excited about this new book and all the ones I've done so far. I mean the Sherlock Holmes books have been very successful in America, and so I've got a plot for a third one of those, which the idea of those being that um I've taken the Battle Rathbone films of Sherlock Holmes where they're set in the 1940s, they updated Sherlock Holmes to to fight Nazi spies and such like, and I had the idea of thinking, well, that you could do that in a novel, couldn't you? You could you could do that, it's really like Sherlock Holmes, but you could you make use that kind of version of Sherlock Holmes. And that was a great fun to do that because it kind of freed me up to do new things with it. Well, still being very true to Conan Doyle in the characters. So uh, but now with the with the so I'm I'm developing um new characters of my own rather than stealing other other characters from dead authors and exploiting them. Uh and I hope that we'll get Mithguardia will go and um and somebody will come along and say, like, well, any game you design, I'll just back roll it. It's okay. Good enough for me that you made it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:55

Well, the the call is out there now, Bob, isn't it? If there is anybody who's interested in that and who's watching this, then definitely get it to us. It has been absolutely terrific to chat, Bob. I really appreciate you finding the time to see the time's flown by. It has, it really has.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:13

Sleep for lunch, we're both getting hungry.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

But yeah, thank you so much. It's been great. Massive thanks to Bob. It was a real joy to chat about the creation of Talisman and the rest of your body of work. Really fun stuff. So thank you so much for taking the time. If you would like to find out more about Bob's other games, his other ideas, and his work as an author under the name Robert J. Harris, you can check out his website via the link in the description below. And if you want to go and find out more about Warhammer's history, you can check out patreon.com slash Jordan Sorcery, where I share exclusive early content, interviews, articles, blog posts, lots of other fascinating stuff. There is a load of free content there as well if you are interested. It is your support that allows me to continue doing this work, researching and documenting the history of Games Workshop. So thank you for anything you can do to support it. Thank you once again to Bob. Thank you for joining us. I'm Jordan, and this is Jordan Sorcery.