Get to know your organizers! Ten questions with Anthony Gallela
“So let me introduce to you, the one and only Billy Shears…”

This second issue of Khannections continues introducing our staff members to you. Some of you may already know these people and we here at the newsletter give our sincerest condolences to you folks for having to put up with them for all these years. For those of you who don’t know our next interview volunteer, we will introduce you to the second half of the Founding Fathers of KublaCon, Anthony Gallela.

1. Tell us a little about yourself…

I was born in Val’Dor, Quebec, Canada (my father was stationed in Canada with the U.S. Air Force—long story). I grew up in Anchorage Alaska, and was an avid reader and game-player from my early childhood years. Of course, I had no idea as I grew up watching, reading, and playing sci-fi, fantasy, and history shows and movies, books, and games; that I would make a career out of all that great stuff, but it makes sense to me now.

2. What do you do (or have done if you have had several jobs) at KublaCon?

I’m the producer of KublaCon, which means that my job, at its essence, is to do what our staff and volunteers need me to do so they can do their jobs. Putting on an event like KublaCon can look easy, but there are thousands of hours that go into making sure the event goes off correctly. Here’s how I like to describe it. In most work environments, delays of a day or two—or even four—can be dealt with easily. If you have a key computer system down for a couple of hours, it may be a pain, but it won’t likely matter too much. During a convention, everything has to work all the time. If a computer system is down for a couple of hours at a con, it can be disastrous. Making sure everything goes just right for those four days requires a lot of work before the show. My job is to help all of our folks do just that.

3. How did you get involved with KublaCon and how long have you been here (years as an attendee count, but let us know that)?

Japji and I have been running KublaCon together (and ManaFest before KublaCon) for 11 years. The first ManaFest (called ManaFest Destiny) was run by Japji as a day of Magic: The Gathering tourneys in a recreation center in Golden Gate Park. My simple job at that first ManaFest was to champion Japji’s decks in the day’s tournaments. (The best I did was to make it to the semifinals in the anything-goes tournament.) That was 1994. In 1995, Japji wanted to include the 40-some new CCGs that had sprung on the market since Magic had opened the category (making a total of about 51, by the way). Japji asked Andrew Finch (who now works in the R and D department at Wizards of the Coast) and me (who now works as the Executive Director of the Game Manufacturer’s Association) to help him with tournaments and exhibitors for ManaFest. (Japji dropped the “Destiny” from the name of the show for the second year.) Japji, Andrew, and I ran ManaFest for a few years; and when Andrew went to Wizards (originally to run their organized play department), Japji and I asked Dave Stevens to join us in running the con. Dave moved to England in the late 90s, and since then Japji and I have been partners in running the show, with me as the producer, and Japji as the Executive Producer.


4. What motivates you and what rewards do you get out of being involved with KublaCon?

There are three main things that fire me up about KublaCon. One is working with Japji. He is a great friend and has been a partner in many endeavors over the years. I love working with him. In a similar way, the volunteers and staff of KublaCon fire me up. I work with some of the best folks around at GAMA, but I’ve never worked with a group as good as our friends at KublaCon. The third thing that fires me up is people at the show. When I see our attendees playing games; having fun; winning and losing; and buying products in the auction, flea market, and dealer’s room; I get a feeling of happiness that’s hard to describe.

5. What is your earliest gaming or game convention memory?

My earliest gaming memory is from elementary school, when I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. Some friends told me I’d love it. I made a character based on a daily comic strip character called The Phantom. Our DM told us there was a dungeon just outside of town (hey, he was seven, give him a break). We walked into the dungeon with my character in the lead. Twenty feet in my character fell into a 10-foot pit with five-foot spikes and died. I was hooked.

My earliest convention memory is receiving Filthy Pierre’s convention quarterly convention listing newsletter (now called ConTemporal, put out monthly, and owned by another outfit). I remember sitting there in Alaska reading about all these cool conventions and wishing I could attend them. (Which I eventually did, of course, running events and gaming programs at many of them.)

6. What is your favorite gaming or game convention memory?

I have a few favorite gaming memories, and a few more favorite game convention memories. Most of my favorite gaming memories involve role-playing sessions, perhaps my most favorite being the first session I played in. I also very much enjoy remembering winning tournaments playing Squats in the “second edition” years of the Warhammer 40,000 miniatures game. No one would expect me to win with Squats. For conventions, my favorite memory was covered in our last newsletter. My second favorite memory is from KublaStaffCon (the annual get-together of the staff for the sole purpose of playing games and eating good food for a whole weekend). It was Sunday morning, and I was making breakfast for the folks as they woke up and came to the common room in the main house we meet at. The memory is of me coming out of the kitchen to see my gaming family all sitting, eating the food I’d made them, laughing about the previous night’s events; and the feeling of joy I had just being involved with the group.

7. What is your least favorite gaming or game convention memory?

I was running a large game convention in the Midwest, and was called into the CCG hall to deal with a theft. The victim was an elementary school boy who had saved up his allowance to attend the show, and had been practicing with his best deck. Both he and his mother had been looking away when his deck box was stolen. It was so sad to see the young boy, who had been looking forward to playing in this tournament for so long, shattered by the greed and selfishness of another. I’ve seen other folks—kids and adults—have things stolen as conventions, and often the culprit is caught. You can bet I always prosecute the guilty to the maximum extent of the law. There is no excuse for stealing someone’s gaming materials. None.

8. Give us a top three list of your favorite games and tell us your least favorite game. (and give us a brief reason for your best/worst choices)?

A list of just three top games is very, very hard to come up with, as I’ve played hundreds of game, of all types. How about a top three from a few categories?

Tabletop Games:
3) Dwarven Dig!, by Kenzer and Company. Okay, so this is the game Japji and I designed about fantasy dwarves racing though a mountain, battling hazards and each other, trying the get treasure out before the others do; but I really do love the game. Some things one designs get old and uninteresting to the designer. Dwarven Dig!’s never lost its luster for me.

2) Tales of the Arabian Knights, by West End Games. This out-of-print game is an adventure game that shares some qualities with choose-your-own-adventure books. I like this game because I like adventure games, and this one is the most creative and interesting one I’ve ever found. The story-telling aspects of the game, and its connection with those classic writings and mythologies, make it very fun for me to play.

1) Fury of Dracula, by Games Workshop. “Back in the day,” GW put out a number of very cool board games. Fury of Dracula is an out-of-print game where one player is Dracula, and the other players are the investigating characters from the novel. Players use a stylized map of Europe to play where Dracula’s movements are in secret. The point is for the other players to find Dracula before he can either kill them, or infest Europe with vampires. I like this game because of its communal play aspects; the way the novel is treated by the game; and of course, because it’s an adventure game with an interesting twist.
Role-playing Games
3) Expendables, by Stellar Games. I just love the premise of this game. You play a team of space explorers who travel to uncharted systems searching for new technologies, new civilizations, and more. A favorite start to an RPG session is the old “A noble hires you to go find a treasure.” In Expendables, the whole genre is based on this concept, so the suspension of disbelief is that much easier. Plus I dig space adventures. (This game’s out-of-print too.)

2) Earthdawn, by Livingroom Games (originally by FASA). Earthdawn is a fantasy RPG, with the conventions you might expect, but also with a few things that makes the system really stand out for me. The back-story for the world is that a magical apocalypse of sorts occurred some time ago, releasing many dangerous “Horrors,” forcing beings in the world to go into hiding. The timeline has the players adventuring some 400 years after folks have started coming out of hiding. This back-story is great because it opens up all kinds of realistic adventuring scenarios for the players. The system is dice-based, but much of it requires role-play for success. For example, if you obtain a magic item in the game, you often must go on a quest of some sort to learn enough about the item to use it. Earthdawn is one of my favorites because it’s not just a rich game, it’s also one that’s designed—at its core—to help and encourage adventure role-playing.

1) Theatrix, by Backstage Press. Okay, this is another one that I co-designed, but like Dwarven Dig!, Theatrix has never lost its luster for me. It’s a dice-less, universal role-playing system that doesn’t replace dice with coins or bidding, or any other obfuscated randomizer. Theatrix uses a short question flowchart to help the director (GM) decide what happens in a given situation—even in combat. I like it because I like the pure story-telling nature of the game, and the freedom it provides the director and actors (players). When I want dice, I can play board and miniatures games. When I want to tell a story with my friends, dice can get in the way.
Miniatures
3) Warhammer Quest, by Games Workshop. Okay, WHQ is really a board game with miniatures, or a role-playing game with a board and minis, or whatever, but as I came to the game though my love of GW minis games, I’m going to call it a miniatures game for the purpose of answering this question. Warhammer Quest has several cool twists (or a combination of old, cool twists) in the adventure game category. The board is in pieces—halls and rooms—and is built as the game is played. The game came (it’s out of print) with quite a few monsters, but it also comes with a book listing many other monster that you can add, if you have the miniatures (or even if you don’t). It plays like a hack-and-slash, dungeon-crawl role-playing game, without the pretence of role-play (though you can role-play with it, if you like). It’s just killing monsters, collecting treasure, and leveling up. Whoo hoo!

2) De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA), by Wargames Research Group. This historical miniatures system is clean and simple, and can handle many time periods very well. I like DBA because it’s so clean and solid. Plus, many historical gamers know the system, so it’s easy to find folks to play with. (They have versions for other time periods too.)

1) Warhammer 40,000, by Games Workshop. The back-story for all the races, the cool miniatures, the painting and terrain-building hobby, the even the much maligned rules systems, are all to my liking. It’s an all-around great game. ‘Nuff said.
Collectable/Tradable Card Games
3) Mythos, by Chaosium. The first CCG based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos was (it’s out of print too) an adventure game where players had story cards in their decks that they had to complete by playing locations, events, monsters, and allies from their hands during the course of the game. I really like the development of storylines, and the way cards and mechanics of the game interact with each other. I have not played the new CoC CCG yet, but I’ve pick up some cards to give it a try.
2) Lord of the Rings Tradable Card Game, by Decipher, Incorporated. Another storytelling game, I really like the LotR TCG for the way it treats the LotR story, and for the solid progression of events and hazards. I like it a little better than Mythos because there is more interaction between players in the game.
1) Hockey One-On-One Challenge, by Payoff. This out-of-print game is simple and elegant, and just plain fun. While in print, it seems the game was collected more than played, but I loved playing it, and still pull it out to show other CCG enthusiast whenever I can.
Other

I also very much like Poker, Casino, Murder Mystery LARPs, and Go (I tend to like Go variants made into other, published games as well).

Least Favorite

My least favorite game is probably MONOPOLY. The end game is the problem. For those who don’t know, MONOPOLY was based on the Landlord Game, designed by a woman some ten years or so before MONOPOLY was designed. (Look to early copies of MONOPOLY to see two patent numbers—one for MONOPOLY, and the other for the Landlord Game.) She based her design on the teaching of an economist of the time who warned about the dangers of monopolies.

The original game was very preachy (or maybe just “educational,” rather than “educational and fun”) and the point in the end was that one person would own everything, and the other people would be miserable. When the MONOPOLY variant of the game was designed, the overt message of the game was removed, and the basic mechanics were all that remained.

The one bit of the Landlord Game’s message that still comes through is everyone being miserable at the end of the game, save for one person. Thinking about this question, I’m thinking that most of the games I don’t like to play have end game issues. MONOPOLY tops the list.


9. Where do you currently play games and what do you play when you are there?

I share a weekly game night with my friends and co-workers. We play Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 once a month, a one-off of some other RPG system once a month, and board and card games the other two weeks. I’m lucky to attend a lot of conventions for fun and for my job, and I play as much as I can at those cons as well. I don’t have a usual thing I play at cons, but whatever I play, it’s usually on the short side, as I generally have limited time.

10. If you want to tell all of the KublaCon attendees one thing, what would it be?

Thanks for attending our convention. We expend a ton of time, energy, and money putting this event on, and we’re really happy you come to share the experience with us. Please have fun, and please let us know what we can do to make the event even more fun for you.

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