Forge Midwest 2009: Tim Koppang Interview
In early April Jen and I took a road trip up to Forge Midwest 2009 in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. We played a lot of games and met a lot of cool people, expect a fair amount of content related to that in the upcoming weeks. One of the high points was a chance to play Hero’s Banner with it’s creator Tim Koppang. After running it for myself and two others (Edward “Sabe” Jones and a dude named Tim who’s contact info I didn’t get) I grabbed Tim (Koppang, not the player) and did a short interview with him. We discuss his inspirations for the game, the term “Storygames” (he’s not a fan), his gaming history, and whether free will actually exists or not. It was a real pleasure to meet and interview him.
Relevant Links:
- Hero’s Banner Homepage
- Song of Ice and Fire
- Bill Mudron (Cover Art for Hero’s Banner)
- Keith Senkowski
- The Forge
- The Gaming Outpost
- GURPS
- Deadlands
- Shadowrun
- Story Engine
- Dust Devils
- Storygames Forum
Crunchy Bits!
- Intro and Outro Music Provided by
Podcast: |
Tags: Bill Mudron, Deadlands, Dust Devils, GURPS, Hero's Banner, Keith Senkowski, Kevin, Shadowrun, Song of Ice and Fire, Story Engine, Storygames, The Forge, The Gaming Outpost, Tim Koppang
Glad I looked backward to see if I missed anything. For someone who has sold their soul, you couldn’t meet a nicer guy than Tim.
Anyway… two comments. One, a community where everyone agrees is referred to as a cult. Don’t mistake personality conflicts, and ideological differences as a fractured community. That stuff is normal.
Second, my programming is going to end up pushing me to progressive Iowa to burn Kevin’s, B.F. Skinner, Sarte, Hume, or whatever books he’s allowing to rot his mind. No Free Will? Really? How do you explain invention, happiness, sadness, emotional anything absent Free Will? How could you make a judgment about ethical concerns? How does right or the good exist in a mechanical universe? I recommend moving on to Pirsig.
The brain isn’t the person. The whole body is the person, the brain just happens to be the electrochemical computer that takes input and processes it into reaction. Changes to physiology have profound effects on cognition. We exist at the edges of ourselves as much as at the center, without one there would not be the other.
We are simply machines, but not simple machines. The complexity and intricacy of the fragment of conscious causality that is a human being is the most wondrous of the universe’s myriad mysteries, inextricably linked and integrated with all the other mysteries on every scale, extending beyond our capacity to understand or even sense, infinitely in both directions.
Wow, I must be tired, I’m waxing poetic and shit.
Good interview. Tim doesn’t get on enough ‘casts.
Oh, um. check you out some Vilyanur S. Ramachadran for some good neurobiology and behavior reading.
That is all.