Bruce Cordell Interview

This interview was also done around the late 90′s for Planewalker.com. At the time I was helping with the website, doing a little coding (Coldfusion) and just general help with pages. I made first contact with Bruce and took care of compiling the questions and emailing back and forth once or twice to get the answers. Was a fun time and I’d hate to see these just go poof.

I’d like to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I’d like to start with some questions tied to the Illithid and Gith races then move on to a few related topics such as psionics and finish up with a few general questions.

1) How did you get involved with the Illithiad project? Was it a pet project of yours?

Project assignments at old TSR (and now at Wizards) has to do with personal desire and with scheduling realities. Not everyone gets to work on a pet project all the time. But, I’ve been pretty lucky on this score. Every project I’ve requested, I’ve gotten (not to say I haven’t also gotten projects I didn’t request). That’s the way it was with the Illithiad and the three illithid modules—I really wanted to work on them. I guess everyone could tell I was excited about it by the way my eyes would glaze over when we decided to do an illithid trilogy and sourcebook.

2) You’ve worked quite a bit with illithids, gith, and psionics. What about them interests you?

The strange history of the illithids and their slave races, their past might, and their promise of a future return to grace (at the expense of all other races). I like their easy tie in with cthulhuoid environments. I like psionics because it has a psuedo-science feel, which I’m also a big fan of. I particularly like to mix elements of fantasy and pseudo-science, which there is often not a lot of call for in most D&D environments.

3) Through your extensive work on the illithids and psionics you’ve introduced some rather original concepts most notably the pseudo-technological air around them. Are these the results of a grand, unified vision of yours, or just unrelated idea fragments? If you have such a vision, is there more to it, something that couldn’t get into what we’ve seen, and that you’d like to share with us?

My ultimate plan is to show that the D&D universe is really just the dream of an Old One… Nah, just kidding. If I do have a grand vision, it is one that comes to me piece by piece. My agenda is to create, bit by bit, elements of a prehistory that are not generally accepted in a standard fantasy milieu. Gates of Firestorm Peak, the illithid trilogy, and the Shattered Circle show elements of this history most closely, but bits and pieces of it, even if just a single phrase or word, appear in most everything I do for D&D. The great thing about fantasy history is that it can extend for millions of years, a never-ending story of the ages revealed bit by bit.

4) You touched on the githyanki and githzerai in the Illithiad and the adventures that back it up. Would you care to expand on how you use these races or would like to see them expanded?

I’m pretty happy with the expansion these races received in their treatment in various Planescape products. I’m sure that there are splinter groups of both of these races, lost somewhere on a burned out moon. Also, several entire civilizations of these (or even precursors) races exist on the “world” of Penumbra, whose potential for strangeness is unlimited.

5) If you could change the illithids and matter related to them without regard for continuity with the existing body of material, what would you really like to change?

I’m pretty happy working with the continuity provided.

6) Gates of Firestorm Peak introduced the Far Realm and some really disgusting monsters. There are hints that it might be related to ‘Outside’, as mentioned in the Illithiad, and the term ‘far realm’ was used — is any relation between the two intentional?

100% intentional. Gates of Firestorm Peak was my first project for D&D (and TSR). I didn’t really know what I was going to do, but it all gelled in the end. Because it was my first project, it sort of has a “resonance” with me, and so I like to throw in bits about the Far Realm (also called Outside) here and there. It could be that Outside is merely the boundary of the Far Realm, but even to get Outside, you have to pierce the boundary of time, going so far back (or forward) that time ceases to be a valid concept. That’s where you find the really weird stuff, stuff so insane that it warps our own fragile reality by mere contact.

7) You are usually pretty good about listing influences to your work in your published material. Would you like to expand on that related to the Illithiad books.

Well, Fiend Folio and the expanded Planescape treatment was a biggie for the Illithiad, of course. Also, Larry Niven’s Known Space series of novels probably shaped some of the illithid-gith stuff (both indirectly, and directly with the Alderson Disc of Penumbra). I’ve also always been a big fan of Lovecraft and his material.

8 ) How did you get involved or interested in the Guide to the Ethereal? Were you drawn to this project because of your own interests?

This was one of those projects I lobbied for, and got, luckily enough. Yes, my conception of the Ethereal as the connective blood of reality was something I wanted to get into print. I am glad I was allowed to do so. Plus, it was a great place to put many of my favorite little ideas, such as Anavaree’s Ruptured Dreamscape and the Demiplane That Lives.

9) There isn’t much space concerning the Demiplane of Shadow. Are there any bits of information or thoughts on the demiplane you wish could have made it through to the final draft?

Shadow probably deserves its own book. In fact, I think with the recent shake-up of the planes due to Vecna’s unsuccessful bid for the seat of the “One True God,” you’ll find that Shadow has graduated into a full-fledged plane.

Ok, I’d like to move on to psionics now.

10) Gamers tend to be have a very love/hate view of psionics. The word has gotten out that your working on the 3rd Edition rules for psionics. Do you think they are just misunderstood because of the way the rules for psionics have been handled so far or is it just a matter of gameplay style?

There are those who do not like psionics, and never will, at least in their fantasy games. I know for a fact that there are people who revile my use of pseudo-science in the illithid trilogy, even though it is psionic. That said, I hope that is mostly due to the way the previous editions have handled psionic rules, which were nothing if not unbalancing. In both cases, they are obvious add-ons that do not speak well to the core rules. The 3rd edition psionics are integrated into the mechanics of D&D. A psionic character will be balanced with a D&D character of equal level. You’ll be able to multiclass into and out of the psionic character classes like you can with the core classes. It won’t unbalance your game to add psionics to it.

11) How far into the development are you? How much of a role do psionics play in your own games?

I’ve got most of it down, just finishing off the last few chapters. However, constant in-house playtest drives constant revising and fine-tuning, but that’s par for the course. My editor gets my final turnover in mid July, then he can hack at it for a few months himself. I’m pretty excited about it.

12) Are there any aspects of psionics you really haven’t liked and are going to change? Any tidbits you’d like to let slip?

Well, the mechanics of psionics have always peeved me, in that they don’t integrate with the mechanics of D&D even in something so basic to the game as saving throws. That’s changed. Psionic combat retains familiar elements, but is expanded and redirected. Psionic powers are vastly expanded. So are psionic items. Plus, many other things I should probably not talk about :-).

13) The Guide to the Astral plane hinted at an important connection between psionics and the Astral, that was to be explained in Skills & Powers, but we never heard about it again. Some material from The Will and the Way could also have been interpreted as hinting at a similar connection. Do you plan to incorporate this idea into the new incarnation of psionics?

You’ll find that the Astral Plane has much more significance in D&D, at least if you get the latest manual of the planes, even now being lovingly crafted by the author of the original. And yes, the Psionics Handbook makes the connection in some ways more explicit.

14) How integrated into the 3rd Edition rules will psionics be?

Very, see above.

Now for some of the more general questions.

15) What type of campaigns do you run for your own groups? Several of your published adventures have the feel of coming from a cohesive setting all their own.

My campaigns run the gamut. I have picked up the 1st edition Forgotten Realms and running characters from 1st-10th level, and I’ve created 3 different worlds from the whole cloth, where the rules of magics, technology, physics, and time were variously warped and altered. I managed to slip one of those campaigns into my Alternity book, Tangents (Mhegadon), which made me pretty happy. But, the stuff I’ve written for D&D is its own creation, and generally has not seen the light of day in my own campaigns. But, you’re right, the bits of history are interweave through my products are meant to be cohesive, and if taken as a whole, capable of telling a little story of their own (or at least hinting at what the story might be like).

16) Would like to share a little history on how you started playing and running D&D?

I started playing D&D after a particularly illuminating summer boy scout camp where I witnessed a game the older kids were playing. The DM happened to be describing the exploits of an ogre and a group of dwarves it menaced, as the player characters looked on in real fright. Soon, I had the blue books from the basic box (no dice, just chits) and was off to a roaring start. Though the other boy scouts were never as hip to it as me, I finally made friends with a couple of others of like mind from my Industrial Arts class (of all places) in 8th grade. We’re all still great friends to this day, and in fact, I work with one of them (Monte Cook).

17) In your own gaming, what are your favorite races, classes, or whatnot? Any particular characters or encounters stick out in your memory that you Would like to share?

My favorite class is probably the wizard, the rogue is a close 2nd.

18) Are there any ideas that didn’t quite make it into the Dungeon Builder’s Guidebook that you’d like to share with the public?

Heh, heh, no, they wring me pretty dry here :-).

19) Return to the Tomb of Horrors; are there any traps which you thought were just *too* nasty?

No, all those got taken out :-).

20) Do you have a dream project you’d love to work on or have on the back burner?

I’d like to fully produce my Mhegadon campaign (see above) as a one shot campaign world for TSR. I actually incarnated it once on a MUSH (I did this before I ever got a job at TSR, probably in ’92), but I’m sure that code is long gone.

21) What are your cats’ names?

Bella, Bengal, Oliver, and Raina.

Finally, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. We really appreciate it, and hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have. I know we are all very pleased you decided to give up synthesizing DNA for your design position at TSR/Wizards!

Well, that was fun :-). Talk to you later!

brc