Interviewing Stoo Goff

Stoo is a programmer, game designer and musician. He works on his own and collaborates with others on games and supplements.

Please tell me a bit about yourself

Hi, I'm Stoo Goff, a programmer, game designer, and musician originally from Norwich, now living in Glasgow. I make games, including Aegean and the Gaslight Club, as well as a bunch of supplements for other games. While I enjoy designing games myself, I'm also keen to see what other people can make so I've also published WILD by David F. Chapman and Action Potential and Show of Hands by Rhiannon Swann-Price.

When I'm not designing games I build tools to help with games, including a support app for WILD and an adversary tracker for the Star Wars RPG by FFG/Edge. I'm also the audio engineer and sound designer behind the Tales from the Alethian Society audio drama podcast.

What do you like best about designing games?

There's an immediacy to game design which really appeals. Which isn't to say finishing an RPG is a quick process — it's really not! Aegean took about eight years from concept to fulfilling the Kickstarter and WILD took a similar amount of time. Getting from a designed game to a finished product is a long and laborious process, but the design of the mechanics can be very quick.

Getting a basic system to the table and trying it out and iterating on it is fast. Plus it's interesting to see how something you thought up plays at the table — the mechanic you thought of isn't always the one you end up with and something which seemed cool could be disastrous! Plus there's the collaborative nature of a bringing a new mechanic or game (or setting or adventure) to the table and bringing any feedback back into it.

What are you working on at the moment, and what excites you about it?

I've got a couple of things I'm working on at the moment. I'm still writing the final bits for the Isle of Pelops, a new supplement to Aegean. I'm also playing around with different game ideas using the Aegean system. I ran a campaign for one of my groups based on a Beowulf/Viking style setting. I was planning to develop that further but there are already a lot of games filling that niche. Instead I've been thinking about a Roman invasion of Britain, either from the Roman perspective or the Celtic perspective as I think Aegean's city management system could work well with that style of game. Or possibly something around Robin Hood with something like the vibe and mysticism of the 80s Robin of Sherwood TV series. Again, there's a potential base or gang building aspect to that which could be a lot of fun.

Could you tell me more about the city management system you mention, and how that might look for a Romans vs Celts game?

In Aegean all of the PCs come from the same city so they have a vested interest in working together. The city management rules cover things like getting elected to the city's council and building new features. The city has characteristics (Military, Culture, Produce, Trade, Resources) and a ruler with some skills who can make rolls for e.g. trading or going to war. PCs elected to the council take charge of one of the characteristics and can use their skills to roll for the city, e.g. a PC could roll Culture with their Vigour skill to host games to bring in more money. Usually the PC has better skills than the ruler so it makes sense to try and take charge.

There's also rules for stealing the city's funds and building statues to your own glory! This all feeds back to the characters as most of the careers need the city to have a feature before a PC can take it. So a PC can't become a soldier unless the city has a training ground, or become a merchant unless there's a marketplace.

For a Roman invasion game I could see the existing system working quite well but maybe with a focus at a larger scale — so not just city management, but a whole expanding or defending your region kind of minigame.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I like giving the players the option to succeed at a personal cost. Aegean is very much a balancing act for the players. You can choose to gain Risk — kind of like hit points — to succeed but gain enough Risk and you can seriously injure or even kill your character with an unlucky injury roll. But maybe in this situation it was worth it? It's up to the player to figure that part out.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Right now I've just finished running a Kickstarter for a supplement to the Aegean line. This is the Isle of Pelops, which will be a guide to the important people and places of the Peloponnese along with an accompanying adventure. Format will be 6" by 9" hardback and it will be around 180–200 pages. You can read about it here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoo-goff/aegean-the-isle-of-pelops

Where should people go to follow you, and to find your products?

• You can follow me on Blue Sky which I post to semi-regularly.
• The we evolve website has information on the games and supplements I've published .
• There's also an Aegean Facebook group which gets occasional updates and some conversation around the game.