It's always exciting when a new company starts, but what have you guys done before? How long have you been gaming? Why did you pick Ubiquity? Why not d20/OGL?

Good luck with Desolation, it sounds interesting.

OK. I'll start. My name is Jamie Gooch, I've been gaming for about 26 years now (funny, I don't feel old), which makes me the least experienced gamer in the company.

I'm a writer and editor by trade. My wife and I own and operate a small company doing just that, mainly for business-to-business magazine publishers. Of course, that's all just been preparing me to help create the next great American roleplaying game ....


As for why Ubiquity, allow me to direct you here.

Glad to see someone with some fresh ideas for a change, not just the same old thing wrapped in a new package.

I look forward to hering more about you guys.

I'm Stephen Herron, originally from Northern Ireland, having moved to Cleveland in 2000. I like it here. I get back for visits now and then, but I consider myself a Clevelander/Ohioan these days.

I work at an online company as their copywriter/editor/consumer experience analyst (I have huge business cards) and I've been writing my own rpg stuff for a long time. I got some material published by White Wolf in the 90s in a Changeling sourcebook, and wrote quite a long online novel called The Belfast Child. Some folks liked it.

After that, I wrote and published an RPG called The Nearside Project, and I've been involved in playtesting games like Serenity and 2320AD, and the upcoming Battlestar Galactica RPG. If you look hard enough online, you can also find an AD&D sourcebook I wrote for the Belgariad. I was quite proud of that one.

I'm excited about Desolation, and I'm really looking forward to sharing more with everyone over the next few months!

I can hardly wait, I have been telling my regular gaming group about this and they are excited about the whole idea behind it.

Hullo, Jamie, Steve,

Thanks for posting the basic intros here about yourselves, since I think it's always nice to know something about the folks who are putting together a new rpg and all that.

I've been gaming myself since the mid-1970's (first started with Chainmail, then moved to D&D, Empire of the Petal Throne, RueQuest, Tunnels & Trolls, and finally found a fantasy system called DragonQuest) and have played many different genres. Some of my favourite rpgs of all time are DRAGONQUEST, UNIVERSE, SKYREALMS OF JORUNE, OVER THE EDGE, TORG: THE POSSIBILITY WARS, WITCHCRAFT (check out how many times my name appears in the 2nd Edition credits), and DELIRIA.

Got me curious, guys...what are some of your favourite rpgs?

Well... since everyone else is doing it...

I am originally from Indiana, but livied in Chicago for a while and now reside in the tropical suburbs of Clevelend.

I am the IT Director for a company that provides online background checks. It sounds terribly sexy, I know.

I've been gaming since the 6th grade... I recall my first game of D&D which consisted of a guy with some graph paper killing us with green slime a lot. No dice, no characters - just lots of dying. I was hooked.

I have done playtesting for a handful of different games out there, but have never tried publishing anything myself... until now.

My favorite games of all time... a little game called Adventure Quest that was run at Purdue, D&D 2.0 holds a special place in my heart - I spent many years running a home-brewed world with massive house rules, the d6 Star Wars RPG, Feng Shui over PBEM was very fun, etc...

Well, let's see- D&D is obviously a favorite, even if we have tired of the system recently. Traveller is close to my heart, as is 2300AD (and 2320AD, finally get my name in a Traveller product, though I'm uncredted in the Starfall sourcebook for Traveller). I ran 75+ games of Shadowrun in 1990-1991, roughly twice a week. World of Darkness/Changeling also have a place in my heart, for obvious reasons.

Lately, games that have impressed me have been HEX, Promethean and I've just started reading all of the Unisystem books I've bought over the years.

I have what I consider to be an impressive collection of books. Someday I'll read them.

I still consider D&D an all-time favorite ... I've played it much more than anything else. I like the World of Darkness setting quite a bit and enjoy playing it. I like Traveller's "vastness" and character creation. HEX, of course, has been a lot of fun. Lately I've really enjoyed playing Faery's Tale with my daughters.

Hullo, Steve,



Interesting that your roleplaying roots are back in some of the classics of the fantasy and sf rpg fields with D&D and TRAVELLER. That's a pretty impressive run on SHADOWRUN, mate, and to be honest I am wondering how much influence that game is having on DESOLATION...



hehe That's what I say about my reading stacks of books... I have a To Read Queue and a Read Sooner Rather Than Later Queue.

Hullo, Jamie,



I absolutely love A FAERY'S TALE, and think it is one of the best rpgs of its type ever made. That style of fantasy is so difficult to do, to be honest, and it's good to see soemthing like that on the market.

I agree. As soon as I saw my four-year-old daughter furiously flapping her arms so her faery could fly fast enough to escape the giant, I knew we had a winner. There aren't many games that will hold the attention of a seven-year-old and a four-year-old (and their mother) for two or three hours at a time.

Hullo, Jamie,



Oh, that is just sooo neat!

Btw, you do know that Colin Chapman is active in the FT forums as well, don't you?

I haven't checked out the FT forums in awhile. I'll have to go get caught up.