Ropecon 1996: Andy Chambers: Andy Chambers Q/A

Event: Ropecon 1996
Place: Paasitorni, Helsinki, Finland
Date: 3rd of August, 1996
Topic: Andy Chambers Q/A
Speaker: Andy Chambers
Video production: Rami "Videotoaster" Hänninen
Links:
www.ropecon.fi/
orc.ayy.fi/
www.games-works...
Description:
Andy Chambers was one of the two Guests of Honor in Ropecon 1996. He is best known for his work with the Warhammer 40.000 rule and source books. In this interview he tells about his work and answers questions from the audience.
This presentation was recorded at Ropecon, the largest non-commercial roleplaying convention in Europe. The convention was held for the 3rd time during summer 1996 in the Paasitorni conference center in Helsinki, Finland. Ropecon 1996 gathered over a thousand visitors for one weekend to play roleplaying, collectible card, miniature, board, and live action games, to listen to presentations, and to participate in workshops.

[@lukehawksbee]

Some of the questions are really annoyingly specific or based on special-pleading etc, but Andy does a good job of answering them and putting them into a broader context. It's fascinating to see the conflict created by a game designer who broadly seems to emphasise the game as a bit of fun and a medium for telling stories and exploring a 'world' coming head to head with a bunch of players who are clearly very competitive and cut-throat. (For instance his comments about re-introducing more of the roleplaying elements and wanting to get away from pitched battles between equal forces, or his comments about trying to use characters as a means of breathing individual life into the lore rather than as just super-powerful units)

[@drewf2et54yu47mij67]

Basically, power gamers need to fuck off and get a life.

[@Merrexz]

Astounding, what a gem of a clip!

[@tauofwar]

Jeez, these guys are real whiney about the Chaos Codex...interesting thing that Andy said, "the more choice that players have, the more opportunity the players have to create some super monster army." Kind of interesting to hear that in the current era of unbound armies.

[@Glabro100]

I remember meeting and chatting with Andy a bit that year, and even got my codex signed, although I didn't attend this seminar. He probably wanted to talk all about his crazy new ideas about modelling. cool scenarios, campaigns and themed gaming without worrying about army lists and such, but of course already by then people were all about the competitive side of the game(s).

[@ObjectiveMedia]

Sami Kilpinen those two things aren't mutually exclusive... you can have a narrative/scenario game with legal army lists and equal points

[@IVIaskerade]

It's really interesting to compare this to GW's approach today. I think it's the widespread adoption of the internet that's generally removed most of the issues Andy was talking about with regards to distribution of information.

[@ObjectiveMedia]

These 2-3 people are really whiney, especially the guy at the start who keeps complaining about meaningless nonsense

[@danacoleman4007]

Lemmy!?!?

[@ja37d-34]

Andy´s hairstyle has always been interesting. Especially this era, lol. Very British?