Gav Thorpe

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

I was always into toy soldiers – Airfix and such – and used to make up my
own games with my friends, as well as using Donald Featherstone books
from the local library. My older cousin introduced me to fantasy gaming with
Warhammer and Tunnels and Trolls, and my grandparents bought a copy of
D&D for my brother and me one Christmas. All of these things sort of came
together. At secondary school I met my regular gaming buddy of my teens,
Dan, and we started out with Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine, quickly
moving on to all of the other GW games. I coillected lots of RPGs, though
played only a few, and for the last twenty years or so have got into the board
games and eurogames side of things.

WHAT IS IT YOU FIND SO APPEALING ABOUT GAMING?

Different games hit different buttons. Some are about the imagination and
creativity, some are the intellectual challenge; most are a combination of the
two. I love the flow of good game mechanics, the way you can tell a story
through a game, even if somewhat in abstraction. And the social element is
high up there too, of course.

SHARE A FAVOURITE GAMING MOMENT WITH US

Hmm, lots to choose from. Most are from roleplaying games and occur from
general incompetence and cack-handedness on the part of the players
and/ or characters. From a wargaming perspective, I remember a game of
Warhammer in the first staff tournament at GW, during which a lone squig
hopper in my opponent’s army landed on a very tough and expensive tooled-
up Daemonslayer and killed him in one go... Looking back, as an image it’s
just too funny not to laugh, though I was less amused at the time.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY PLAYING?

I am in a regular roleplaying group, and we’ve been playing for a few years
now, mostly using Call of Cthulu rules for our own Victorian horror adventures.

My character is a paranormal investigator, who has a streak of Dirk gently
about him, always poking things to see what happens. He is also a bit of a
pyromaniac it seems, and is currently being haunted by an old woman in
black. I recently picked up Command & Colours: Napoleonic and have had my
first game of that which was fun, despite suffering a 5-0 drubbing.

Miniatures-wise I’ve not been playing all that much lately. Been working on
some games with a friend that will see the light of day sometime soon, as well
as some WWII rules, and we’re just starting to mess about with some 15mm
sci-fi. That’s a ‘genre’ that seems to be growing quickly at the moment and we
picked up a mix of GZG and Critical Mass minis to mess about with. Mostly
going for a narrative angle rather than any particular ruleset out there.

I also play Xbox, sneaking and shooting my way through Skyrim at the
moment.

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE GAMES ARE?

It varies over time, but ones I can always go back to and enjoy any time
include Blood Bowl, Columbia Games’ Hammer of the Scots, Space Hulk,
Hera and Zeus, Adeptus Titanicus and the later editions of Epic. As you can
probably tell, my miniatures gaming has fallen by the wayside a bit of late, due
to time constraints.

WHAT WAS THE LAST GAME YOU PLAYED?

Literally, it was Catan on the Xbox. With someone else, it was Command and
Colours: Napoleonics last week.

WHICH PRODUCTS HAVE YOU HAD YOUR WORK PUBLISHED IN?

I was a games developer with GW for fourteen years, the list is far
too long to put here! You can find an almost-up-to-date list here http://
mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/list-of-works/

Recently I designed the Open Fire! starter set for Flames of War and Pirates!
for Black Scorpion. There should be some more gaming stuff coming out
soon, but I can’t reveal that yet.

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY GAMING-RELATED PROJECTS AT THE
MOMENT?

Yes, some for my personal amusement, some that may be made
commercially available but haven’t yet been announced so I can’t say
anything more.

DO YOU HAVE ANY WEBPAGES OR SOCIAL NETWORK ACCOUNTS
WHERE FANS CAN FIND YOU?

Everywhere! I have a fanpage on Facebook as Gav Thorpe, my Twitter
account is @DennisHamster and my blog is www.gavthorpe.co.uk (which will
be updated shortly, I promise!)

Thanks for having me.
Happy Gaming!