The Origins of Games Workshop, with Sir Ian Livingstone

of the Fighting Fantasy game book series. Now, the creations to come out of Games Workshop especially have meant so much to me over the years, and it was a real honor to chat with him about the early days of Games Workshop, about old school gaming in general, the meaning of games, and of course his new book dice Men, The Origin Story of Games Workshop, which he wrote with Steve Jackson. The book is out now digitally. In the physical version is either out or available for preorder, depending

on what region you're in. Either way you get it, pick it up. It's a great read. It has so many wonderful images in it. It will really transport you back in time. It tells a great tale. So, without further ado, let's jump right into the interview. Hi, Ian, thanks for joining us. It's great to speak to you today. So the book is Diceman, The Origin Story of Games Workshop, written with Steve Jackson, and I think at this point, A great number of our listeners out there are certainly

well acquainted with the name Games Workshop. Even if you didn't grow up with the games and the miniatures like like I did, and like many many others did, you're still gonna probably be aware of all the novels, the video games, the animated series, and so much more. It's big business. But I thought you might take us back and just in brief remind us what Games Workshop was back in the day when you and Steve Jackson co

founded it. Well, Steve and I were old school friends and we met up in London in the seventhies, and our passion was playing board games, mainly those that came from the US, games like Diplomacy and Avalon Hill Games. And we thought wouldn't be great we could somehow turn off passion of playing games into some sort of fledgling business.

So we decided to publish a small fanzine called Al and Weasel, and we sent one copy to everybody We're neewing games, And although we hadn't sent it to him directly, one found its way to the desk of Gary Gygax in late Geneva, Wisconsin, and Gary wrote to us and said I love your little fanzine. Here's this game I've

just published and designed. What do you think? And that game was Dungeons and Dragons, And whilst it didn't look much pretty playing box with a very ordinary illustration on the cover, it opened up your imagination like no game had ever done before, and I don't think any game ever will again, in that it allowed a new form of interactive entertainment, role playing people playing as heroes and wizards, exploring the labyrinths designed by games Master and through theater

on the fly, conversing into in craziness and edible narrative story between the players as they forged their way through the dungeons, killing monsters and finding finding treasure. So we ordered six copies of Dandy because that's all the money we actually had in our lives. And on the back of that order, Gary gave was the three year exclusive distribution agreement for the whole of Europe. So we're effectively all playing is role playing people about a role playing game.

It was very amateursh but that's that's how things started in the seventies. Yeah, it was fascinating to read your take on the gaming world prior to the creation of Games Workshop, and prior to the introduction and creation about Dungeons and Dragons, just how niche was gaming beyond family staples like Monopoly. During the nineteen sixties, for example, when in the UK there was one company dominated that was Waddington's and they published Monopoly included which is Clue in

the US, Buccaneer and Formula one. And these games were enjoyable enough, but they were never satisfied gamers like Stephen myself, we wanted something more, where more there's more strategy than luck, and where you could do negotiations and and have a kind of a metal level of enjoyment by all the the bargaining and reneging on deals that could happen. Obviously, Diplomas is perfect for that kind of play where you can backstand people at will in order to dominate the world.

So those are the games we looked looked out for, but d indeed really changed our minds of the type of game we want to play. We're sudden immersed in this incredible fancy world and a kind of tolknesque world of monster magic, going on these fantastic journey as the mind through through conversation, and it was that theater of the fly that I just mentioned that became a place

where we wanted to visit all the time. Are you saying that it also Dungeons and Dragons sort of opened up the space for fantasy itself to be part of gaming, because you describe a lot of the gaming prior to

that is very like historical military based, right. Yeah. The miniatures companies in the UK in particular, we're all based on Napoleonics, Ancients and some World War two, But there was no fancy element as such, even though fancy was pretty well established in UK mythology from Georgia the Dragon or Arthurian Knights, and of course the books from Tolkien and others. So I guess there was no surprise that fancy gaming would ultimately come along as a as a

viable genre to to enjoy play. Yeah, you described it. Even. Dungeons and Dragons kind of arises out of chain Mail, this military battle game that Gary guy GaX had co created, right, Yeah, but he had this fancy supplement and when he played Dave Arlison's Blackmore, there was that fusion of of the two coming together to create you know, this this malester in gaming history that is Dungeon Dragons, but it was largely down I think too, Gary's m making it happen

that it was as successful as it was. Clearly Dave Anson kind of probably conceived the original role playing concepts in a fantasy world as a result of its previous gaming experiences, but it's it's Gary who had made it happen. He took what was largely in Dave Ansen's head and turned into fifty page rule book and then began the commercialization of that. So he was the driving force behind it.

So you mentioned earlier, you know, you had like the family games and then you mentioned like the Avalon Hill games that were coming in UM now was there was there just kind of like a big gap in complexity between so that the Avalone Hill games and the family games,

was there not much in between. There wasn't really as kind of full on hobby game as hex Grid, long and sometimes difficult to understand rules, which were the war games and particularly SPI World War Games and something most of the Avalon Hill games, and then there was kind of on the other side of the fence that's almost too easy to play. So we wanted somewhere thing in the middle. And whilst that was something that we sold

through playing Dungeon Dragons. We also, as Games Workshops, started publishing our own board games to fill that what we thought was a viable gap for kind of mid mid core gaming experiences. Games like Talisman, Judge, Dread, Battle Cars, Apocalypse and others that we published under Workshops brand, as well as publishing Dungeon Dragons. Yeah, I remember as a as a child before I became exposed to too many

of these other games. Before being exposed to Dungeons and Dragons and Games Workshop games, we had family games in the household. My father had some of those sp I games, uh, and I remember wanting to understanding and play them, but as a child that was completely overwhelmed by everything I found in the box. Well, not only were the rule books lengthy and that you need to be kind of a Philadelphia Lloyd to understand them, just setting up the counters would take ours as well and not left any

time for actually playing. I mean, some games like nineteen would last for for days if you feel out it too, so it was almost like work rath in play. Sometimes now they on the subject of miniatures and miniature war games. Until very recently, I really didn't know how much how far back it went. Um, I think I saw and this in tremendously all. But I saw some wonderful footage of the late actor Peter Cushing painting miniature soldiers and

plotting out battles with historical based Napoleonic figures. Is this this is pretty much what it consisted of. Prior to your work, well over a hundred years ago, there was lead miniatures put out there, a kind of fifty four millimeter scale on the twenty five millimeters that we did through typical war game and fancy gaming miniatures of our time, But there were many historical figures that people collected and

sometimes four battles. I mean, if you go back to Edwardian times, there was there were many companies actually put producing lead figures which were painted and so I think toy soldiers, there's nothing new, It's just that toy soldiers that we made at Citadel Miniatures, where n fantasy figure as well as historical wargame figures. Can you describe a little bit how suitable miniatures came together as part of our auxiliary to games workshop. Yes, well, we've been running

workshops since nineteen seventy five. We decided to up our game in terms of publishing, so we dropped out and weasel in our little fancy and started publishing White Dwarf Magazine, and we started running conventions Games Day. It's one of those conventions as that Brian Ansell, who was running a company called as Dark as Garments of the time, we

met him briefly there. We're also ordering quite a lot of giant rats and other figures from him that could be used in indeed games, and he requested a meeting with us, and so we met him in sight and he said, you know, I can be the answer to your miniatures problem, because at that time we were importing most of our games from from the US from Ralph Pathur in particular and archived miniatures, and they were obviously very expensive too to import, with not just a shipping

cost but the import duty costs and then the delivery times were also in most of the logistics of the supply chain was was a bit challenging. So we agreed that we've set up a company with him and we call that company seay Man. It was based where he lived in the Midlands, around around Nottingham, and that's how Cecil came to be, and it became, you know, just an amazing additive to the to the game's workshop remail, which has had historically just been publishing board games and

opening retail shops. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And if things keep keep moving with the miniatures, like, how does it how does it grow in terms of the miniature's role in the games, Because I mean nowadays with Games Workshop, at least for me, like I think about the games and the minis and it's like it's very

hard to to differentiate between the two. But it sounds like from from what I had in the book, like at times that is kind of a struggle to decide, even in the early days of games Workshops, like what is what is the area that should be receiving the most attention the miniatures are the games? Like well, what

is the the interaction between these two areas well? Steve and I were running the game's division effectively, so we wanted to put more resource into publishing board games, publishing more role playing games, opening more shops, publishing um more magazines as well as White Dwarf. It's all around the

kind of print media and retail division. Whereas Brian answer was running sitting on miniatures, wanted more resources allocated to more miniatures, and he had a great point because that the gross margin in miniatures was quite high, and he also argued that there should be a set of rules that enabled more minutes to be sold, because if you're making miniatures for role playing game, you tend to sell them in single units because you only need one behold

or one skeleton, or one cleric or one fighter. So really that's how the Warhammer concept came about, as a way to sell units of miniatures rather than single figures. At the same time in nineties, at the end of nine and we lost the exclusivity with Dungeon Dragons. Now, Gary gy as I said earlier, had given us a three year exclusive distribution agreement which ended at the end

of seventy eight. In the beginning, and then in seventy came to Businesses and said that he wanted to merge his company Tiarsar with our company Games Workshop, and we would be given like kind a third of the combined entity. But Steve and I were kind of independently minded young Brits at the time, and we didn't want to have a split life between London and Wisconsin, so we said

no to that merger opportunity. So whilst remind the biggest distributors of Dungeon, Dragons and Tears, our hobbies games were no longer the exclusive distributor, and it was only a matter of time before they had set up in the UK and have their own distribution points, and we might obviously be that would obviously impact on our on our selves. So we know, we knew we needed something that was going to be our own intellectual property that we determine

our own destiny in our future. But it had to something that could resonate with a wide audience and be able to scale so well as we had some considerable success with with some of the ball games that we published, another role playing games that we published on the license like Traveler and Room Quest, and imported games like Call of a Cathola, it wasn't really until Warhammer came about that we were suddenly in a much better place in

terms of being able to be independent. And it was an original idea from Brian Answer to publish a kind of free set of rules as a as a as a giveaway with the mail orders. But then he brought in Rick Priestley, and Rick Richard halliwell to kind of beef up the rules, and when they were played, who decided, well, rather than just given them away, let's make this into

a product itself. And that's how Warhammer, the original fancy battle game came out in three and even though it was loaded with errors and mistakes and wasn't particularly complete, it sold out very quickly. Some three thousand copies went pretty much immediately. So that's how the second edition of Warhammer came about. And then they realize that, you know what, if this is our own i P. We should focus

more on it rather than other people's products. And therefore Warhammer was really was that became front and central focus for the whole of the company. So all the rules enabled more minute to be sold. White Dwarf then focused on on Warhammer. That retail stores were something less of importive products and more of our own products, and that's that slow move over happened over quite a few months

before it became a totally Warhammer focused company. Now in the book you described the first space marine minis that come about, and there there are some lovely photographs as well. I have to stress for anyone out there who's interested in the book. It um, there's so many wonderful photographs and scans as well of some of these these early magazine publications and you know our early editions of White Dwarf.

It's it's facts like a scrap book. Well, I like to think as a as a personal memoir, where as much historical photographic and image reference as possible, and it's say, it's more of a a biography, personal biography warts and all, and full of anecdotes are on a business, a book about business. And that's why there are over four hundred photographs in the book, some which of which I mean

a lot of which have never been seen before. Rummaging around in the roof and in the in the loft looking for old thirty five millimeter transparencies slides that we had to have scan and getting really excited finding looking at slide hadn't seen for something, you know, forty five years.

It's just as an amazing experience in itself. And then writing more and more, and then talking to more colleagues to validate what we said, and remembering all this weird stuff to happen, like having to live in a van for three months because he couldn't get any bank finance, you're going to see the bank manager telling about Dungeon dragons. It looks like you're like, you're mad and asked you

to leave. So we had to find us everything out of a cash flow and it only after into a very small office at the back of the States Agent and had to live in Staates Van throughout three months of an awful winter. But you know, I think I said in the books you could call it living the dream, but clearly it wasn't. But when you're driven by passion around your own hobby, it doesn't seem like hardship. The van in question is that this is Van Morrison, correct,

that was the nickname, the one only Van Morrison. Yes, big blue van that was a home for three months. Yeah. The the personal stories are are so was there such a wonderful aspect of the book again, all these photographs, all the real people involved in the in the in these games and in games workshop. But it really beefs up the personal story. And then you have these little so many of these anecdotes and sort of little adventures

that pop up along the way. Yeah, like going going to the States to see let's just see carry in in theory attend gen Con nine but taking back two months to get there and delivering cars from New York to to l A. There another one from l A to San Francisco, and then one from Chicago, and all the adventures we had along the route. It was a year. Of the amount of it was the Olympics, sure, and McDonald's running this promotion where if the US want to a gold medal, you want to I think it was

a big mac. And then if they want to that Selver medal, you get a large fries and a bronze you get a coke. And so we were being kind of pretty chat if by wanting the US to win all these all these all these medals, because if you had a ticket that matched the winning winning sport, you'd win one of the items. So that kept us alive on the road. And this is this off the trip

where you went through Vegas. Yes, that's right, Yeah, yeah, I I that part was very interesting as well, in part because you're describing like taking a jant through the casinos there and in a way kind of witnessing gaming or at its worst, you know, at it's kind of like crushing worst whilst you and your cohorts are kind of on this like mission of passion, and you know, and you've been describing like just being so inspired by

these new ideas and in these new game possibilities they're emerging. Yeah, it was it was. I mean I think that Vegas and did you go there for a few days? But to see people listen that money, one particular gentleman from Japan, it was it sets these hundred dollar bills disappears so quickly that we didn't dare gamble a panic because we

just couldn't afford it. So how long did this? Um did this process of going back and and sort of piecing together the story of the early games workshops days, you know, trying to find these various photographs, Like how long did it take to put all this together? Well?

I thought it was going to take about six months, and I think it took really four years because Um, it wasn't just the process of of doing it, I was, it was also it was it's doing it in times where I was free, because even though I'm nearly simply three years old, I'm still very much working full time on on various projects, still writing finaly fantasy gamebooks and gamebooks in which you are the hero of the branching

narrative with the game system attached. It is the Forces of fortive anniversary this year, and I wrote a new book to celebrate that, Shadows of the Giants, which was great to go back to to my roots in that respect.

And I'm also I also have my own school in Bournemouth which is all around digital creativity and good arts education using game based learning and very much influenced by Dungeon Dragons that the power of players it were, and as I mentioned, and also a general partner in Hero Capital, which is a venture capital fund investing in video games, studios and technologies. So it's a question of finding the time.

And then the more I spent researching and writing and the more I wanted it to be as good it could possibly be, and so I went the extra mile, so to speak to to try and tell the full story and make sure what I said was validated by cross referencing in magazines and talking to the people who were who are around at the time. Sadly some of those people have since passed away, but nevertheless I think it's a it's a pretty accurate recounts of those origin

years of origin story is of seventy five to eighty five. Yeah, and I have to stress to everyone out there you don't have to be like a game designer or just uh to be like a really hardcore gaming fan to find the story engaging. You know, it's it's it's ultimately the story of people in their passions. Yes, I say it's. It's I'd like to say, almost like a coffee table book where you can just casually look at the images of the time, the fashions and the things we did

in the seventies and early eighties. But also, if you're curious, you know, read some of the the story behind what became an incredible company now were some three billion dollars on the on the London Stock Exchange, and also perhaps be amused by some of the anecdotes told in the story. Now, you mentioned the Fighting Fantasy game book series, and I

definitely wanted to ask you about about that. Um. I actually I picked up I picked up The Warlock of fire Top Mountain prior to this interview, and I was playing through it with my son a bed, and tremendous fun encountering all you know, encountering crocodiles and Biranhas and goblins and so forth, and um, very very captivating for for both of us, and I think he was getting he was almost getting a little too into it, concerned

about the danger we were encountering. He's he's ten. But this this idea of the game book, Um, like, how does it? Like? What is the what is the world of game books prior to your work with game books? And then like, how like what is the process like of of laying these out and and creating one that works?

Because I definitely remember as a younger person picking up a game book by someone else there was another company with a competitor, I imagine, and it was heartbreaking when it broke, like it reached a point where I could not go any further because there was some sort of number error in the publication. Right well, I believe Fighting Fantasy was the very first game book series which had a branching narrative and the game system attached to it.

Around about the same time, although we hadn't seen them on this side of the Atlantic, that choose your and adventure books were out, but they were more choose your own paragraph. There was no game element to making. So what we tried to do and Finding Fantasy was distill a role playing experience into a single player, solo solo adventure whereby the book replace the games master and you, the reader, moved from a passive reading experience into an

interactive experienced by baking choices. So it's that empowerment because you are the hero at the end. There are four hundred paragraphs. At the end of each one, you have to make a choice simplistically, do you turn left or right? And then there are puzzles to solve, there are monsters to fight. That's when you use the dice. The three basic characteristics skidamina, and luck, which are modified through through

your progress through the through the adventure. Your skill might go up if you find a magic potion, or your stamina might go down if you lose a fight in combat with a monster. And then you test your luck to escape or try and get extra extra benefits by rolling dice against your your luck role. So we wanted to have a very thrilling experience with people that given the agency through choices empowering and they were hugely successful.

They went on to sell over twenty million copies globally and they got a whole generation of children reading in the eighties. Because of that, the agency that empowerment was

very compelling, and they spread by word of mouth. Clearly there was no Internet at the time, but it was the word of mouth, which is the best kind of reality you could possibly hope for in the playgrounds of the schools, initially in the UK, and then it spread into Europe and ultimately globally and so well if I Top Mountain as you read, was the first one, and we wanted to use our own artists that we'd use the game's workshop because we found those really stimulated children's

imagination because they were realistically detailed where it's probably were a bit nervous about it that the imprint because as they were children's books, they wanted to around nice safe covers with a little toadstool, little gnomes sitting on the top, all of them, butterflies in the air. Wise, we wanted to the kids to be kind of go, oh, my goodness, what does that horrendous creature coming at me? He's going

to buy my head off. So we wanted that kind of thrill of excitement and then the joy of them, you know, succeeding by getting through the through the through the books so finding a key one room allows to open a chest or door further on in the adventure, but right to them, as you say, was an absolute nightmare. It was like writing multiple storylines at once and having to bring um they read is back to certain common points, no points where they had to have essential information to

allow them to progress. You had to balance the economy so there wasn't too much gold or too little gold. You had to make sure it wasn't too difficult or too easy, so there was a fun experience but with enough enough challenge but not impossible, and make sure there were no colder sects and all the choice you make.

So we designed them on a flow chart really is like a compluter computer flow chart, making sure every every split in the in the in the adventure was notated and what could be found or not found at each decision point. But the important thing is that every decision had to have a consequence, otherwise why have it branching anyway.

So it was really good fun and of course my my joy was to lure people to their doom, promised them wealth and glory with with nice rose petals along the pathway, only for them to fall on poison spikes down a pit, which was always always a good fun for me, but of course most people cheated. It was had their multiple pages in the in the book, and you could see them on public transport on buses and trains where their fingers about five places in the books.

They always used to make me laugh when I see that. I used to see that in those days. I love the the innovation of it. You mentioned the dice that are used a couple of d six, but I love the innovation of the dice at various dice combinations at the bottom of each page that you can flip through. You don't have physical dice and do a dice roll. That's that was a more recent attation innovation in in the original books, which were much more highly detailed in

their illustrations and perhaps more threatening. It didn't have the dice roles, so yeah, I guess that's it would have made it easier for playing it on the train. I guess, thank you, thank you. Than now you mentioned computer games. The games like The Worldlock of Firetop Mountain and these other game books you worked on. These have eventually found their way into the world of computer gaming, right they did.

I mean, Diceman doesn't really cover too much about video games except for what we did at the time in in the early eight selling activision games and and very early PCs and console gaming just when the there was an early crash in the early eighties which was had quite a negative impact on games workshop and the amount

of stock we had a retail. But more recently five defensive game books have been available digital digitally from from from tim Man Games in Australia designed them as apps and Nomad Games have created on games on on Switch and also on PC. It's more of a top down kind of not a collectible car game, but being rewarded with cars when you progress through the adventure and ultimately get through. So the Death Chap, Dungeon City of these, Forest of Doing of all be imported to to digital format.

So there's something for everyone these days, books all video games.

One thing I was wondering about as well is that you know, obviously we have this, you know, the rich world of miniature based games and dungeons and Enderhagen's various role playing games and these these game books as well, and in the background, more in the forefront of being how you look at it, I guess we have the emergence of even more video game opportunities, and today we have some pretty amazing video games out there with the graphics are better than ever before. The game systems involved

are so complicated. But we as gamers, gamers of all ages, we keep coming back to to like we're coming back to these game books. We're coming back to physical tabletop games and to games that take place bromily in our imagination. What does that mean you think? I think one is at the expense of the other. I think it's nice to have. Do you know I play both board games. I'm sitting in the room here you might see with over fifteen board games in the room, but I also have,

you know, hundreds of video games. I think it's it depends how you feel on the day. And you can also see that it's that vinyl is made a revival. People don't just want to stream music to whatever digital devices they have. They like to have the physicality. Physical books have made a revival because people like to surround themselves with things that give them pleasure. The physical as well as the distal, I think helps satisfy all parts of the human mind, rather than one at the expense

of the other. So I enjoy both, and depends of who I'm going to play with or what I'm going to read and in what formats I happened to be using at the time. If I'm traveling, obviously it's gonna be digital. If I'm at home, probably physical. Now I'm gonna connect to something I was gonna gonna ask earlier, and I we end up going in a different direction. But you describe the first space Marine minis in the book,

and there's some lovely photographs of the little minis as well. Um, the space Marines of warham Er have certainly become very iconic. They're very recognizable, part of the of the of the brand in clearly big business as well. How did this concept originally come together? Well, they've changed an awful lot of the time space Marines of of the eighties to

the space Marines of today. They just got bigger, boulder and and and stronger and have got an incredible esthetic around them now of course, and everyone everyone loves them. They came from very hubble beginnings. I think it was Bob Naysmith came up with the original space marine look and feel in his iconic first miniature. So I call things small like acorns, they become oaks over time, have given the rights environment for growth through their popularity. So

it's great to see them so amazingly successful today. And this the power of Warhammer fort ks extraordinary. I think there's some talking to about video games. I think some fifty licenses now and some extraordinary games being put out there. So the world of Warhammer is rich and famous and widespread now. Obviously there's a there's there's a lot to say about about game design and approaches to game design and in the business of game design and the business

of gaming. Um, do you have any quick advice to throw out there to to anyone who is a budding game designer or things they want to get into the industry of game design? Well, I guess it depends on what part of the industry you want to get into. Is it tabletop war gaming? Is it board games? Is a video games? That the the the thing that unites the more. When people ask me what's the most the three most important things about a game, I always say gameplay, gameplay,

game playing video games. Whilst technology and graphics are essential, they play a supporting role. It always comes down to how you enjoying the game. To play rather than what things look like. But in the board game, of course, great production values has really enhanced that experience now where all the bits and the graphics are amazing now. But the gameplay is what makes us want to start playing

in the first place. So games should be quick to learn but difficult to master, so you can get various degrees of expert abilities in these games. The better play are you should be more successful in winning, and of course you need an exciting theme that resonates with everybody. I mean in board games, and it's no surprise that Ticket to Ride has been successful. You couldn't learn it very quickly, but it takes a long time to become a master of it. Really, all the strategies it looks

great trains resonate with everybody. The pieces are lovely because you pick up these little train carriers and plot them around the board. So it's kind of got all the component parts of a classically successful game. And similarly with video games, there the appeal has to be in the gameplay and then the metal level. Of course, that's common denominating about all these is the enjoyment caused by people

playing together. So it's that joy by anything that has a shared experience is always enhanced and there's always an enhanced experience, whether it's looking at a sunset or having dinner or going to the cinema with somebody. And obviously with games, you're playing with somebody, that that that's that's um that's that fun that's created by just the conversation. Whether it's the shared experience of enjoyment or doing a deal and reneging on it, that's as that extra level

of enjoyment. So there's a there are many things to consider when designing a game, but there's kind of there's there's four basic principles. I think he's absolutely vital to include you mentioned earlier all the all the activities you're involved in. Uh and of course you're a legend in the game design industry. Um are do you still gather

with friends and just play games purely recreationally? We play once a week the same group of people since the eight it so still Steve Jackson plus Peter moll anew from the video games industry, one of the UK's premier designers.

I mean he created Populist originally and Fable and Black and White another amazing video games titles and it's kind of a tongue in cheek gentleman's club in that we we play games and keep a record all the games played every every every week and score points, and I send out a newsletter, the Game's Night Newsletter, largely just to criticize that the other people playing. Allows me as secretary too, to treat it as my own kind of

give them verbal abuse the whole time. At the end of the year, we have a cup, the cup that's presented to the champion. So it's it's, it's, it's it's We don't take ourselves seriously about doing it, but it has another dimension to to to play in the games that we do. So you've been doing it for same since the eights. I've published six twenty seven issues of the Game that newsletter to a circulation to six people. Still coming back to the book for a second again.

The book is is Diceman the origin story of Games Workshop. We talked a little bit about how it came together, but but why did it come together? Why? Now? Well, I started writing it about four years ago largely because Games Workshop was doing so well as a company. Everyone was saying, what is this games company? On the London stock exchange that's now worth three or four billion dollars. That's ridiculous. How can it be worth more than some of the major corporations I've known all my life. Where

did it come from? And when I meet people, I said, what do you what was your first how do you get into into games? Or so I started coming called games workshop and they said, well, how did that come about? So I thought, you know what it really is about time this has put down in writing. There's a kind of a personal memoir and and something that could be there for posterity long after I've gone and Steve has gone. It would be there for for people about being remotely

interested in what has been an incredible journey. The kind of birth of the game is in the UK and globally. Really it was such an amateur thing in the in the in the seventies. But to see that down on paper and it won't be lost forever, I thought it was important thing to do. So now we are life is a game for us. Well, it's a it's a it's a great read. I highly recommend it to our listeners. And I want to thank you for coming on the show.

And I also want to just thank you for you know, helping to bring about all these great creations that that means so much to us. I mean the Warhammer, Warhammer forty thousand, uh like, these are these are things that still bring me a lot of joy today as as an adult, and certainly gave me a lot of joy when I first discovered them as a kid. Thank you.

That's very kind of you said that. So I mean, for me as a game's play out of being able to working games for forty seven years been absolute privilege and a joy. So thank you, Thank you. Thanks much more to sir Ian for taking time out of his day to chat with me here. It was a real pleasure. Again. The book is Dice Men, The Origin Story of Games Workshop, written with Steve Jackson. You can find that wherever you get your books. I highly recommend checking it out and

picking it up. Just a reminder that core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a listener mail episode on Monday's, a short form monster fact or Artifact episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema, If you have any questions that you would like to ask, any information you'd like to share to your particular memories of any

of these games, workshop creations that you would like to to bring up, or if you have experience with the Fighting Fantasy game book series. I know these were near and dear to a lot of folks growing up right in We would love to hear from you and potentially read those messages on a future episode of Listener Mail.

Thanks as always to man X and j J for producing, editing, and splicing everything together here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Yeah, if you want to reach out to us, you can email us at contact and Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.