INTERVIEW: JOLLY BLACKBURN, Story Teller, Game Designer, Writer, Gamer
By Alex Ness
October 6, 2025
I used to go to grad school far from home. My wife remained there while I was 200 miles away. We lived apart so I had numerous weekends where none of my friends shared my pastimes or interests, so I was alone. But I found gaming material to build my fictional worlds, and the best creator of the early 1990s was Jolly Blackburn. I found his work in the magazine Shadis, and found most of the back issues in the archive vaults of The Source Comics and Games. He created a corporate feel for his magazine that was serious, but fun. Also, he never talked down to or about the fans of the hobby or games. Shadis went different directions, Knights of the Dinner table went to Dragon, and Kenzer and Company soon began to publish the various works of Mr. Blackburn.
His KODT creation was something that let fans know that, he'd been in the gaming life just like them. His game commentary and editorial flavor ended up creating more than just good reading, but informational and valuable game aids.
Over time I did connect on Facebook and Twitter/x but more with his wife Barbara at that time. She probably felt pity on a long time gamer wanting to ask questions. That was more than 10 years ago.
But this interview reflects at least 15 questions I've wanted to ask, and when Jolly said sure, I pumped a fist and shouted hoody hoo. (KODT fans will identify).
I present here, therefore, an interview with Jolly Blackburn...
What led you to move from playing games, of your construction, and
of
others, to the creating new games and worlds? Was it the absence
of
what you were looking for, or was it homage to that which you
enjoyed?
Honestly,
from the very beginning when I first started discovered gaming in high
school, (although at the time it was Avalon Hill titles and other
cardboard chit war games) it was just natural for me to want to apply my
own house rules and build on them. That was even more true later, which
I discovered RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. My friends and I, much
like gamers every where I suspect were constantly creating our own
random tables, adding house rules and engaging in world-building.
Every
gamer I knew at the time in fact, had a desire to their own
role-playing game system that catered to a specific favorite theme or
niche, and I was no different in that regard. I recall having an
interest in WWII at the time, and designing adventues with the D&D
rules that allowed players to take on the role of squads on patrol. 😉
For me RPGs were an answer to prayer. It let me scratch all the various
creative itches I had. Part of me wanted to be an artist for example,
despite the fact I was lacking in those skills. Another part of me
wanted to be a writer. I also had a keen interest in the Sciences (I
majored in Cultural Anthropolgy in college). Gaming let me throw myself
at all the interests and have a reason to focus on them.
If
you had not entered works about or creative of ttRPGs, where
would you
have gone? I believe my gaming would never have arrived in
certain
positive places without reading your works, and thoughts on
the subject. What traits are best for someone entering the world
of RPGs and
gaming in general?
I’ve often wondered what would have
happened if one of my friends hadn’t shown up one night with the D&D
Whitebox edition. It changed my world. I’d always wanted to be a
writer, ever since I could remember. So that was something I was spent a
lot of time doing. Mostly fiction, set in a world of my own making
(inspired by my love of LotR and Dune). I’d like to think I would have
continued that pursuit, although I have no idea how successful I would
have been. But I know it’s something I would have never stopped chasing.
As far as my college education, I had a mind on teaching and felt that
is what I would have ended up doing eventually.
I know
dozens of RPGers who came to play as a result of being in
the military,
on a base, with nothing to do but sleep, eat, work or
read. One fellow
sent me a 20 page hand written letter about the
comics they read, and
wanted a best fantasy, best superhero, best
horror list. And later he
sent another one about ttRPGs. His many friends in the military RPGed. I
must say, they were
highly insightful. I suspect it is from having the
time to think, the
time to play, and the lack of things to distract.
How did your
experience in the military, and time away from home mold
your
development of games, and writing about them?
I joined
the Army after college, (and after getting married). My wife and I
wanted to see the world before settling down and the Army had a married
couple program at the time that guaranteed we’d always be assigned
together. So it was perfect. We were both already avid gamers. Something
we did all through college together during dates with two other couples
we knew. We developed a habit of hitting a new base, seeking out the
local gamers and starting a D&D group and making friends. It was a
great experience. My time in the military indirectly inspired by first
gaming endeavor — Shadis Magazine. Originally it was meant to be a
newsletter of sorts for all the players who had played in the many
groups I ran while in the Army. A way for them to be involved in the
campaign world, even if they weren’t actively playing in it. Part of the
idea was to present maps from the world (Alderac) each issue along with
an anthology of fiction set in that world that were loosely
interlinked. From that idea, it slowly turned into a gaming magazine. So
I owe a lot of my military experiences.
(click to enlarge)
I definitely drew
inspiration from real people I knew when creating the original
characters, and I still do so when introducing new characters to this
day. It’s a good way to hit the ground running with a character having
personality and certain traits that set them apart from the others. But I
find the characters quickly take on their own qualities as time moves
on and quickly so. For example, Bob Herzog was based on my good friend
Lew. Lew is one of the greatest guys you could ever meet. Nothing like
Bob — other than the fact that years ago in college, I explained a rule
to him wrong while we were playing, Avalon Hill’s Luftwaffe and the
flipped the table in a moment of anger. But that one moment is what I
borrowed when creating Bob.
Is Brian, of KODT, an example of
Lawful Evil character? He knows
the rules, will do whatever it takes
to get his way, but cooperates since it helps the mission succeed. I
know, I know, it is just a game,
but Brian and Sara seem to get along,
despite her being Good.
I don’t think of Brian as Evil or
particular bad, just someone with a lot of flaws that tend to trip him
up. He wants to be good, and probably thinks himself a good person, but
his wiring sabotages him. I think that’s something Sara recognizes that
many of this others friend don’t. In fact at one point, in the comics,
after Brian’s life has completely gone off the rails, she pulls him
aside and more or less offers to be his social bodyguard (simply nudging
Brian by saying, “You’re doing it again!” when his behavior is becoming
destructive. I’ve games with people like Brian over the years. People
who are fundamentally good people but have a lot of baggage that trips
them up. Maybe they get caught up in the game, either wanting to win, to
be the hero in any given situation, or just to be recognized and have
center stage.
As the character developed over the years, I
started to explore Brian's childhood and background, revealing (and
hinting) that he has suffered a lot of trauma. In one strip, where
accidentally locks himself in the basement (along with Bob and Dave) A
significant moment occurs in that strip when a photograph of Brian’s
father in a box and Brian completely freaks out, insisting, "Put that
away. Put that away!" In another strip, it’s revealed Brian lost his
parents when they killed in a car accident, and his uncle was mishandled
his trust fund. So there are many layers to Brian.
Again, my
take is Brian takes comfort in the game because there are rules that
help make sense out of all the chaos — at least within the game. And
those rules provide him a sense of control, unlike his real where
everything seems to go wrong. Unfortunately, this desire to control the
game can lead others to perceive him as the bad guy. Especially when the
tried to bend and twist them to his advantage. Okay, you’re right. It
IS just a comic book. Lol. But I’ve spent a lot of time with these
characters.
What is the most rewarding aspect of creating
KODT? Is it catching
the true vibe of gamers at play, delving the ideas
and aspirations of
players in RPGs, or something more? I sincerely
enjoy the love you
seem to have about the event of playing, with no
judgment of the
specific character traits or their aspirations of
success?
That’s a good question. And honestly, I think it’s
rewarding for me on so many levels. For many of the same reasons I love
RPGs. I get to exercise so many creative muscles through the strips.
Drawing, something I was never great at but enjoyed doing. Storytelling.
That sense of shared experiences with the reader. Making people laugh,
or occasionally touching them in some way. And to my surprise, there’s
even a lot of world building involved. Both the world the characters
live in, the “Muncieverse” (a term a reader coined by the way) and the
worlds the characters play in in-game.
Even though it was a bit of an
accident and I fell into doing a comic about gamers, looking back it has
to be the best possible path I could have taken. If I’m short on ideas,
I usually find just taking a couple of characters and putting them in a
panel and letting them talk, is enough to get me going.
I
truly appreciate what Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax created. I
interviewed Gygax 20 years back. But one thing about RPGing, I never
bought into, or thought I did, anyway, was "official rules or
content." I wonder, if RPGs have rules, how firm are they, as the
whole of the system is played in the minds of players. No one would
change Stratego or Risk, (no, they would, just not with as little
fear
of changing the game). Do RPGs occupy a special place in games,
where
the rules are basically agreed on, and changed for a different
play?
Personally my experience has always been the rules add
structure to the game we all already knew as kids, playing pretend.
Those rules can always be changed. Especially if those playing all
agree. Right out the gate, like many gamers back in the day we were
using homebrewed critical hit tables for maximum rolls and fumble tables
for rolling a 1. Despite the fact, Gary railed against them in Dragon
Magazine. It was just part of the fun. On the other hand, I greatly
appreciate the fact that Gary attempted a Hoyle’s Rules approach to
D&D and tried, at least early on, to encourage everyone to play by
the same rules. In the military it was of great benefit. I could got
anywhere in the world, find a local D&D group and be fairly
confident we were all playing by the same rules, other than any
house-rules that may have been added. AD&D in particular was like
the Rosetta Stone in that regard. And I think it helped the game to grow
and be shared.
Incidentally, I know in later years, Gary backed off the idea of having to have a rule for every occasion.
Is
Fantasy the easiest genre of RPGing to create within? Would
Space RPGs
therefore be the most difficult? I suggest so because one
is born from
the imagination, whereas the ability to RPG in space
would necessarily
need technical and science knowledge to function...
I suppose
Fantasy is the easiest for most people. Since there are fewer
restrictions or expectations. “Hey my dragons are never surprised and
can breathe any number of times!” Who’s going to argue with you? But if
I say, (quoting B.A.), “Hydrogen is a very rare element.”, yeah, I’m
tripping over actual science. And my players might laugh at me. That
said, I love most all genres of RPGs. Back before I started SHADIS, I
dabbled with making a time travel game with a couple of my friends and
later a scifi game based on something similar to Water World, only with
undersea corporations feuding with one another over resources and
such.
SHADIS was, for 20 or so issues, at least, was one of the
very most
useful and interesting RPG magazine. And I should say, I like
to read
how to improve my games. But Shadis wasn't your first game
magazine
work, was it? I might be wrong on the dates, but D8 was easily
one of
my favorite magazines because it was so thoughtful, and you
contributed to that. Would you ever return to create a game content
RPG
periodical? And, if so, how would you approach it now, as to 20
years
or more ago magazines were aimed?
Shadis was indeed my
first magazine. I started it in 1990, a good five years before I was
invited to write a column for D8 (I think I only managed to write two or
three entries). Before Shadis, I had an article appear in the Traveler
house magazine (Journal of the Traveler’s Aid Society).
Crazy
story, after I sold Shadis and set out to do KODT as a monthly comic, I
was also working on launching a new magazine called, Boomer. The idea
was to make it a general pop culture zine dedicated to, um, Boomers.
Covering the old tv shows, albums and movies we grew up on as well as
games and comics. Although I had some interested investors, I realized
my time would be stretched more than it was and decided to focus on KODT
exclusively for a while.
Although, I love the idea of doing
another full blown gaming magazine, the truth is it’s more difficult
today to do a periodical than ever. Most gaming companies self-promote
on social media or through their own websites. There’s very little
incentive to lay down a grand for a full page ad when you can advertise
for free to your target audience online. Add to that the fact that
almost all the gaming distributors have dropped periodicals completely,
it’d be an enormous challenge to do a magazine unless it’s set up to
survive without ad revenue (sort of the approach we have with KODT. Any
realized ad revenue is simply extra gravy).
The only model I’ve
seen is interesting are those magazines that go the crowd funding route,
with each issue funded on Kickstarter and then sent to backers. (Jim
Wampler has had great success with this with his Scientific Barbarian
magazine).
Honestly, KODT is roughly 50% comic strips and 50% gaming
articles and gaming related columns (many of which used to appear in
Shadis, like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and with many of the same
freelancers). And it’s been like that since at least issue 50 of the
comic. In many ways, it’s felt like I’m still doing Shadis, just under a
different format.
Interesting side note... Back in 1999 or so,
my former partner at AEG contacted me offering to give Shadis back to
me. They had the last issue sitting on the press. If we (KenzerCo) were
willing to pay to have the issue printed and agreed to fulfill any
current subscriptions, I could step back in and take it over. I think I
surprised even myself when I immediately declined the offer. I loved the
magazine and the journey it had taken me on but I think it was best to
let it go.
What people, presumably in gaming, are
inspirational for you, and
in what way did they lead to changes in your
outlook? I suspect I
know some of the names, but I know for my own
list, and gaming,
creating games, and philosophy of games, the list
came from who
created great works, people who inspired art and creative
work, and
made me think outside of the dice rolls.
Two
people come to mind immediately, Gary Gygax of course, and Kevin
Siembieda (Palladium Books). When I first started SHADIS it was on a
shoe string budget out of a spare bedroom. And besides sending copies to
all my friends and former players who had sat at my table, I wanted to
send it to as many Gaming industry types as I could. I saw it as sort of
my resume saying, “Hey, this is what I can do”, secretly hoping someone
like Dragon Magazine would hire me. I laugh when I say that now.
Anyway, of the 50 copies or so I mailed out to industry types, two
people responded. Gary and Kevin. Gary actually called me on the phone
and we talked for about an hour. He was encouraging and told me I should
keep doing what I was doing. It was a real pep talk to quite frankly, a
nobody. And I couldn’t believe he was so down to earth and willing to
share his wisdom and take the time.
Kevin on the other hand send
me a handwritten letter (two pages). It was hyper critical of my first
issue. He complained about the unreadable font I had chosen for the body
text, (“stick with times or Helvetica, there’s a reason every major
publication used them”). Then, after thoroughly being crushed, the last
paragraph read, “that said, I loved what I read. You should keep doing
it. Enclosed is a check for a full page ad”.
I have kept that letter
and a photocopy of the check for over thirty-five years. I treasure
them. He gave me honest feedback and he didn’t varnish hit. It was
exactly what I needed to hear. If you ever look at Shadis #1 and compare
it to Shadis #2 you’ll see a night and day change. I took everything he
said to heart.
Another person who was inspirational was Rick
Loomis of Flying Buffalo. Rick was one of the first old guard designers
in the business who brought me into the club and treated me like a peer.
I think that was just his nature but for years, he was always one of
the first people I would seek out at every con to shake hands an catch
up. When I was inducted into the GAMA Hall of Fame, I was told Rick
personally requested the honor of handing me the award. I really miss
that guy since his passing a few years ago.
I could go on and on. So
many people inspired me along the way over the years.
While I
am sorry to ask this, since it sounds or feels juvenile in
depth, but I
think it would be valid to ask, do you find that there
is one single
game or game system that is better than all others? Is
there a concept
not yet birthed into game form, what is that? Would
RPGs with pencil,
papers and dice, have ever come into physical form
without Gygax and
Arneson making modifications to strategic miniature
games? Is there one
game or system that makes no sense to you?
Tough question.
I’ve played scores of RPGs over the years, and I’ve enjoyed most of
them. If not. Because of the rules or system, but because of the GM and
the players I tossed dice with. In my opinion there is no “best” game
out there. It all comes down to personal preferences and style of play.
While I LOVE AD&D, and played it for years, it’s not a game I’ve
played for 25 years and I doubt I’ll ever play it again, other than a
one off if asked to fill a chair. I was also a huge fan of Call of
Cthulhu, Traveler, Gangbusters, Boothill and Top Secret. I was even
really into Fasa’s Star Trek TOS rpg.
But like most game
designers, I suppose, I’m biased. If I’m playing or running an RPG these
days, I prefer one of our own games like HackMaster 5th edition or Aces
and Eights. Both have crunchy rules but I love the combat system which
doesn’t require a lot of table consulting and page flipping. It really
comes down to bandwidth. We’re constantly developing new material for
the games, so it just makes sense to combine work and play while
focusing on them.
That said I’d love to play Fiasco someday. I also
love the look of The Troubleshooters.
What can be said to be
the greatest contribution to gaming, or
games, by the ttRPG? Does it
force people to learn to be cooperative
or socially beneficial over
individualist and selfish in their
outlook? Is it the act of freeing a
game from ironclad rules that
allows a person to act creatively, and
with all others perform a
collective story?
All of the
above. A friend of mine said it best recently, “RPGS force you to play
well with others”. They also allow you to use your imagination and be
childlike again. I’m sure everyone is attracted to RPGS for their own
reasons and come away with different benefits. For me, ever since I was a
small child I was just as content to being alone as I was playing
others. But my natural inclination was to seek solitude. Be it writing
or busying myself with some creative project (even if it was running
battles of trench warfare with my G.I. Joes and model tanks in the
ravine behind our house).
RPGs have more or less forced me to buck that
tendency over the years, which I’m really grateful for. Nothing I love
more than tossing dice with 5 to 12 friends. I think if I hadn’t
discovered roleplaying games when I did, I’d have maintained far fewer
friendships over the years and made far fewer new friends.
I remember
in high school one of my social study teachers told us, “You’ll make
most of your good friendships before you’re thirty, than you will after
thirty.” I don’t know why that stuck with me but it did. But I can
honestly say that for myself, the opposite is true. I’ve made far more
friends afterwards. And almost all of them through gaming.
How
great of an asset is your wonderful wife Barbara to your career in
games? I think with certain genres and media it benefits the writer or
creator to have someone to bounce ideas off of, but also, with her
involvement, it must be a second set of eyes to help wade through the
vast number of people wanting more access.
Without Barb
nothing I’ve done since high school would have been the same. We met as
Sophmores in high school and our mutual interest in writing immediately
drew us together. We’ve been inseparable since. She was one of my first
players when I discovered D&D, she was my sounding board for every
crazy idea I ever had. And of course she helped launch SHADIS. She was
also there when I drew the first KODT strip and the first to read it.
Our lives are so intertwined when it comes to the comic, I can’t imagine
ever doing it without her. She’s a gem.
With so many forms of
media being non physical and only digital, does that drive creativity
into a niche where aspects of gaming directly need the physical form.
Does ttRPG stand to become a dinosaur in an ever changing media form?
How will games change with the "times"?
I’m 66 so you’re
talking to a guy who will always prefer print over digital. Nothing
thrills me more tan getting a new issue or KODT or HackMaster product
back from the printer with that new ink smell. It just has a way of
recharging my creative batteries in a way a PDF never will. That said, I
use digital versions of the rules and comics when working or looking up
references. It’s just so much easier. I think there will always be room
for both. I don’t see digital entirely replacing print regardless.
Last Question, How did having your daughter Amber change how you lived, played, and created?
Amber
had cerebral palsy which in case impacted her motor control and speech.
She was confined to a wheelchair her entire life and although she was
smart as a whip, she was unable to vocalize words without great
difficulty. And even then it took a parent’s ear to understand her
(unless you’d been around her enough to develop an ear for her speech
patterns). Most parents of children with CP with tell you the same
thing. They tend to have hearts of gold and inspire others around them
to be better people than the might otherwise be.
Jolly Blackburn
Kenzer and Company
Editor-in-Chief
Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Jollybgood
Website: www.kenzerco.com
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