Dave Pryzbyla was kind enough to answer a few questions for us for us while we were researching Kith’takharos.  Below is a full transcript of the e-mails and his responses.  Normally I write a question to the audience at the end of the post but due to it’s length I’ll post my follow up question up here.

Do you have a question for Dave? Let us know in the comments! While we can’t guarantee he’ll respond to every question we will pose any questions to him and post any responses he gives.

To begin the interview Dave told us a bit about White Haired Man.

Dave (viz) will answer most of the questions. When an answer requires contributions from both of us, the name will precede that portion of the text.

Before I answer your questions, I want to provide background about White Haired Man. Some of this has been adapted from an adventure introduction and will help you understand our goals and how we fit into the Savage Worlds universe.

The creative personnel of White Haired Man have been Gamemasters for many years. We have experienced the pressure of developing new campaign material every week. Like many other Gamemasters, we have also wished for a little help every now and then. White Haired Man was created to provide this help.

As Gamemasters, we generally had a developed campaign world and did not want our whole campaign planned out for us. That is why White Haired Man offers small-scale settings and adventures that can easily be introduced into a campaign and reduce the Gamemaster’s preparation time. Our settings do not force the Gamemaster to rework an existing campaign setting.

Our work also reflects the roleplaying styles we enjoy: a low level of magic, high drama, intense roleplaying opportunities, and realistic consequences for character actions. We must stay true to the types of adventures that generate our passion for roleplaying, and hope that others will be equally as excited.

The settings themselves are available for free on the White Haired Man web site (www.whitehairedman.com) in a rules agnostic format. That is, the free setting contains no rules that tie it to a particular game system. On the other hand, the adventures created for the settings comprise our core products, and do contain the information necessary to run the adventure in a particular game system such as Savage Worlds.

Each setting will include a number of linked adventures. While the adventures are designed to follow one another in a series, most of them can also stand alone if the Gamemaster desires.

In addition to the linked adventures, White Haired Man also offers Simple Scenarios for each setting. A Simple Scenario is a set piece encounter or very short adventure the Gamemaster can insert when needed to fill a gap or spice up an ongoing adventure. The Simple Scenarios are not necessarily connected to one another or any published adventure.

We have published one setting based in the swamp village of Kith’takharos, with three linked adventures and two Simple Scenarios. We also run a biweekly online Savage Worlds Kith’takharos campaign.

Our current focus is providing adventure modules for virtual tabletop (VTT) software such as Fantasy Grounds II. Each of our adventures contains a Fantasy Grounds software module as well as a PDF. The software module includes everything necessary to run the adventure within Fantasy Grounds. The PDF includes all the adventure material, and can be used as an aid to running the adventure in Fantasy Grounds, or as the basis for a traditional face-to-face roleplaying session.

We are also exploring print editions of our adventures, and should have a firm idea of the viability within the next two or three months.

Do you have a release schedule for when the adventures will be released?

White Haired Man has only two creative personnel. Release schedules are very difficult to project when we have other commitments such as jobs or family that demand much of our time. We are wary of advertising specific release dates because so many things can happen to push back the date, and we do not want to make promises upon which we cannot deliver.

But I can say that two adventures are currently in production. One is a Simple Scenario called The Repository that is ready for playtesting. I expect it to be released sometime in June, but I do not have a date.

The second project is a Kith’takharos adventure called The Dreamers Awaken. It is the fourth linked adventure in the Kith’takharos setting and is still in the early stages of development. I don’t expect it to be available before the end of the summer.

It is quite possible that an additional Simple Scenario will be released after The Repository but before The Dreamers Awaken. This one is tentatively titled Forgebrothers.

What are these adventures going to be about? Do you have a releasable summary yet?

Here is a summary of The Repository.

Thousands of years ago, the Harlass Orn thrived in the swamps surrounding Kith’takharos. This reptilian race built elaborate cities, engaged in far-reaching trade, and gained a reputation as masters of the combined arcane and biological arts. At the height of their achievements, the Harlass Orn fought a desperate war against extra-dimensional creatures called Veilwalkers. Most Harlass Orn were slain or fled to hidden shelters. The Veilwalkers eventually retreated to their home dimension.

The Repository is a Simple Scenario designed for 3-5 Veteran characters. In this Simple Scenario, the characters encounter a Veilwalker repository that houses a cache of deactivated battle constructs.

Since The Dreamers Awaken is still in early development, I do not have such a firm description. However, I can say the following. As implied in the summary of The Repository, some of the Harlass Orn sought refuge in magically protected shelters. The most important shelter was named Tarass Shar Orn, or City of Sleepers. Here the Harlass Orn planned to hibernate for centuries, and expected that the Veilwalkers would be gone when they awoke.

But a Veilwalker called Dreamseeker infiltrated Tarass Shar Orn and transformed the dreams of the hibernating Harlass Orn into nightmares. In The Dreamers Awaken, the characters enter Tarass Shar Orn and attempt to free the Harlass Orn. This will include encounters in the physical world as well as the psychic dream realm inhabited by the Dreamseeker.

Unfortunately I don’t own Fantasy Grounds which makes me feel like I’m missing some of the subtly and extra fiddly bits of your game. Am I correct with that?

Yes and no. The PDF that accompanies the Fantasy Grounds module includes the entire adventure. So you can run the adventure from the PDF without any loss of content.

We are also currently printing and binding physical copies of our adventures, which are based on the PDFs. If this works out well, we will move into print, which may affect how we offer our products. In that case, we may end up uncoupling the Fantasy Grounds module from the PDF.

We believe one of our strengths is the adventure material organization in the Fantasy Grounds module. A well-designed module makes sure the GM has what he needs when he needs it without extensive searching. Erik Steine writes about our module organization in a review of The Nine Towers on RPGNow.

“The Nine Towers is a great insight in to how, or at least, how high one can strive, to make your own FG2 module for your own use. This is the example one should follow. Links are there where you need them. Need to find the handout of Tarshal’din’s Shining Spear for your players? Its linked right in the encounter. Narrative boxes? Check. Tokens specific to the module that can be readily recycled into other game session or systems… or even, heaven forbid, a different VTT? They are there, waiting to be used. They are also very attractive.”

I know that White Haired Man consists of mostly the two of you (Dave Pryzbyla aka viz and Michael Galligan aka Andugus) how did the two of you meet and decide to start a company together?

We met in 2001 or 2002. We were both working at a small, family-owned IT company. As always seems to happen in these situations, we learned of our mutual interest in roleplaying and formed a gaming group. The group stayed together for 3 or 4 years, even continuing for a while after I moved from Michigan to Florida. We cobbled together our own version on online gaming with a network whiteboard, network cameras, and a campaign web site.

After the group split up, Andugus and I remained in intermittent contact. I know that we both had an interest in creating roleplaying products, and had wanted to pursue this interest for many years. But we did not seriously discuss working together until the summer of 2007. By then we were both players in a Savage Worlds campaign played online via Fantasy Grounds.

What got both of you into gaming?

Viz: I’ve been roleplaying a long time. I started with 1st Edition AD&D in High School. One Saturday I got together with some friends for a game, and I’ve been playing ever since. Somehow, it seemed like a natural adjunct to my interests in science and Science Fiction. Oddly, I am not interested in Science Fiction roleplaying.

Andugus: During my 7th grade summer I saw a friend of mine walking with a book that had a cool looking red statue with huge gems for eyes. I asked about it and he tried to explain it. After about a minute of explanation he invited me to play. That was the summer of 1980 and I’ve been roleplaying steadily since then.

How did your nicknames come about? Do they have any special meanings?

Viz: A few years ago I was involved in another roleplaying project. One of the guys started calling me Visionary. I don’t even remember why. This probably was tongue-in-cheek, but I found it amusing. The project died but I shortened it to viz and started using it as an online name. It really doesn’t have any special meaning now.

Andugus: I created a bard for a MERP game back in the mid nineties. I wanted to create a spin off of Angus, a rugged Highlander-like name. The character lasted a few years before dying ignobly in an ambush. I somehow identified with the exploits and character growth and continued using the name as an online persona in games such as Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest and every MMoRPG since.

Why the name White Haired Man?

I once ran a campaign where one of the more powerful, twisted, and persistent villains was a young man with white hair. The characters started calling him the White Haired Man. He hounded them for a long time before the final reckoning. Andugus was in that campaign, and remembered that memorable bad guy when we were looking for a company name.

Our logo is a crouching White Haired Man with his two-handed sword carried on his back.

Andugus: What Viz says is true, I had been wracking my brain out for a company name that would jump off the page. When White Haired Man popped into my head, I felt an immediate connection. I thought we would benefit from the mystery as to who or what the White Haired Man was. I suspected most would consider the name White Haired Man literally, as an aging experienced gamer behind the scenes creating the material, though neither of us has more than a smattering of white hair. Meanwhile, I smile knowing that someday our customers and fans would come to know who the White Haired Man is through our work.

Tell us a little bit about Kith’takharos, what inspired you to write it?

I am the writer for White Haired Man. It probably would not surprise you that Kith’takharos stems from a campaign I ran. When we were working out our creative direction, we realized that extending an existing setting would jump-start our product line. In addition, as a GM I tend to write my material in a very complete form, as if it will eventually see publication, so the writing began in good shape.

But this was not really enough to choose Kith’takharos. There were other settings we could have picked. More important reasons for Kith’takharos are the compact size and exotic nature of the setting. The entire setting map is only 15 by 20 miles, which we hoped would make it easy for a GM to place in a world; that small area contains a lot of possibility for adventure! Also, we hoped that the unusual nature of the swamp setting would appeal to GMs looking for something a little different.

You mention on your site and in your book that it should be dropped into a current running campaign and world. So with this in mind what hooks have you used, or seen people use, to work Kith’takharos into their campaigns? (I understand you offer some hooks in your book I’m looking for stories from play testing or conversations you’ve had with people using your adventures).

We don’t have good information how other people use the setting, which is one of the areas we want to improve with our new web site. We know that people have purchased the setting and adventures, but not what they’ve done with it. We hope that a more vibrant web site that includes a blog will help generate a dialog with the people who use our settings.

I’m working on the new web site right now. We expect to include articles on how we have used Kith’takharos and how a GM could use Kith’takharos. We currently have a Savage Worlds Kith’takharos campaign that has run about 40 game sessions, so there’s a lot we could say that might help other GMs.

One example of a GM using Kith’takharos is posted on savageworldsonline.net. Doswelk has written some nice session summaries of the Kith’takharos adventures. I find these an interesting read, especially when I learn how other players have approached the adventure challenges. There are always surprises.

Why did you decide to release Kith’takharos as a rules agnostic free setting?

Andugus and I knew that we wanted to create roleplaying material. We are driven to do it. Yet how could we get others interested in our work? We decided on two approaches. First, we had to get our work in front of people. We had to convince them to take a chance on our products. It seemed that we could put the basic setting on the web for everyone to see. The value added by purchasing our products would be the adventures and the game mechanics for the setting.

The second point is answered in the next question.

All of your games tend to be released as a Fantasy Grounds module. How did the decision come about to use that as your platform?

When we formed White Haired Man, we had been using Fantasy Grounds for a couple of years. We like Fantasy Grounds. At the time, there were few adventures available as Fantasy Grounds modules. So there was room for newcomers to make a name in a niche that was not crowded. It would be easier to stand out. Even now, while the number of Fantasy Grounds adventures has greatly increased, there are very few adventures designed to be Fantasy Grounds modules; most are ported from adventures already in print.

As I mentioned earlier, we are now exploring print and may decouple the adventure PDF from the Fantasy Grounds module. We have no desire to cease producing Fantasy Grounds modules, but we would like to reach a wider audience and hope this will help achieve that goal.

I noticed when reading your adventure The Missing Harvesters that you designed an adventure that is rather linear which tends to be against the typical design of Savage Worlds plot point style games. You point this out in the afterward of the adventure noting that linearity is sometimes criticized. Why did you choose this form for your adventure instead of plot points?

When we devised our business plan, we did not explicitly choose to ignore Plot Points. Rather, we think our model favors certain types of adventures.

We are also a small company. We do not have the resources or time to produce something in the manner of 50 Fathoms, which includes a world with an overarching story and Plot Points to facilitate telling that story. We have to think on a smaller scale, and present our stories and adventures in smaller pieces.

Because we can only produce one piece at a time, these adventures must stand alone and thus are generally linear. However, our adventures are usually much more than a straight path from point A to point B. First, the Kith’takharos adventures can be used to tell one longer story, which will be complete after the fifth adventure. Second, within each adventure are possible side trips and alternatives should the Gamemaster or characters choose to pursue them. Some of these are obvious; others are described in the adventure.

For example, The Missing Harvesters has at least two opportunities similar to Plot Points that involve poachers. These can change the adventure in dramatic ways, or even lead to new adventures. We have seen this in our playtesting.

We do not believe linearity to be negative, since every adventure must have a beginning and an end. What would be bad is forcing the characters along a particular path between those points. In our adventures, we strive to include opportunities for the characters to make meaningful decisions that affect the adventure outcome. From our experiences as players, we think that is much more important than whether one uses a linear adventure, Plot Points, or something else entirely.