Richard Launius takes a few moments to discuss the past, present and future of his board game baby, the popular Fantasy Flight horror game: Arkham Horror.

GameShark: How did you first get interested in board games? What game was the initial “hook?”

Richard Launius: In the late 60’s my aunt gave me the game Feudal by Avalon Hill and it opened up a whole new world of gaming. Then came a few sports games and then in the 70’s a few fantasy games. Since I was good at art (a few years later achieved a Fine Arts degree) the combination of creativity and graphics arts in board games really appealed to me – both then and now. I guess some things never change.

GameShark: What other forms of gaming do you enjoy? Any video or PC gaming or are you strictly a table man?

I play some PC games, but try to limit my time on them. My basic philosophy is that I can create games or play games, but I don’t have time to do both. So for the most part I create. Now in the mid-70’s I was more into computer games. At that time I teamed up with a childhood friend who was quite a programmer and had formed the Computer Company Interstel. I provided artwork and creative design to several games including Start Fleet I, Starfleet II, Balkon Rader and Scavengers of the Mutant World. A few years later after we created a partnership company Super Nova Creations and did Star Legions. All of these designs while working full time jobs elsewhere. Finally the creative artwork required to design computer games became too difficult to do as a part time job, so we all decided to stick where the real money was – the corporate world – and left our computer gaming work behind.

GameShark: You helped design the original 1984 edition of Arkham Horror – what was the ultimate goal with the redesign?

Actually, I was the designer of the original Arkham Horror. At the time I we had 3 small children and I was the Territory Graphics Manager for The Berry Company in Rochester New York. My wife is a registered nurse and worked the night shift while I worked the day shift. At night I had the kids. I had already designed several board games and had published a few role-playing modules, mostly for Call of Cthulhu either with Chaosium or in Different Worlds magazine. I loved adventure type games and decided to design a Call of Cthulhu board game that I could play solitaire while I was watching the children, or play with my friends on weekends. Arkham Horror was the game I designed. Up until now I had never submitted any board game designs to any companies, they were just for me and my friends, but we all liked Arkham Horror so much that I made a second copy and submitted it to Chaosium.

For several months I never heard anything, then one day Greg Stafford, the President of Chaosium at the time, called me and told me that the play testers loved my game and they wanted to publish it. Now the original design was not called Arkham Horror—that was the name Chasoium gave it, and interesting enough it had no real ending. You played it by time period. It was the folks at Chaosium (Charlie Krank and Lynn Willis) who did the development worked out the victory conditions of the original by closing gates. In my version, you just went to other worlds, had encounters, came back and just kept on fighting monsters until you decided to call it a game.

I appreciated all that Lynn and Charlie did on the original. Then a couple of years ago I decided to redesign it and bring about what I called Mythos Tokens (what you see today as Clue tokens), a final battle, more encounters for each location, more items, and many more changes. I was playing my revised prototype at Origins in the breezeway and Kevin Wilson joined the game for a while. Obviously he enjoyed playing and a few months later Fantasy Flight contracted to publish the new game and Kevin got the job of development. Kevin brought so many great changes to the game, like the Skill Sliders and the Terror Track that I was more than happy to expand design credits to include his name. Kevin is a brilliant designer – very creative, and a really nice guy too. He has been a pleasure to work with, both on the original and the expansions.

GameShark: Arkham Horror seems like one of those ‘love it or hate it’ type of games. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground with most gamers. I know this is a tough question – but can you offer an opinion on why that is?

I guess the simple answer is that some people like vanilla ice cream, and some chocolate, and some people do not like ice cream at all and the same is true in people’s taste in games. OK - having said that, the long answer will hopefully prove to be a little more insightful.

Arkham Horror is a unique game that will not appeal to many traditional gamers for the same reasons that make it unique. First of all, it is a cooperative game and therefore players who like games in which you compete with the person (or people) sitting across the table are not likely to embrace it. If that is not different enough to turn some gamers off, the idea that victory or defeat is really not important, but rather the experience of the adventure is just too far out there for many gamers who believe a good gaming session is when they have notched 2 or 3 wins over their favored opponent.

I do not want to sound as if I do not enjoy competitive games, because I do. I cut my gaming teeth on everything in the Avalon Hill catalogue and enjoy a broad range of games today, but for me it has always been more important to create a memory, both in terms of the game and the people you play it with rather than tracking who wins or loses. Once again the concept of playing a non-competitive game (especially one that lasts 3 hours) is a very different concept that will not appeal to gamers who gain enjoyment from knowing who won or lost at the end of the game.

Add on the massive randomness (which is by design because I was designing it to have a very high level of re-playability), both in events, monster appearance, and skill or combat resolution, and you have a game that will not appeal to gamers who want predicable strategy that rewards their intelligence of each move and grants them victory of some sort over an opponent.

It is clear that there are many different gaming tastes, and I think that is a good thing. Personally, I love all kinds of games for what they offer and like most people, some types of games appeal to me more than others. For me it is usually epic fantasy games and the more adventure they create, the more I enjoy them. Therefore, Arkham Horror was designed to appeal to people who want to escape into an adventure. It has never been about winning or losing, but rather about the story that the game creates and brings to life in the imaginations of the players.

I know that many who love the game see it the way I do, because I love reading the replays they post on boardgamegeek.com or the Fantasy Flight message board where the players tell the flow of their gaming experience in story form. It has been my observation that players who love the game love it for the same reasons as those who dislike it dislike it. Often it comes down to personal taste and I advise people that you will like Arkham Horror if you fit the profile of the type of person it was designed for – the artists, the writers, the adventurers at heart. Every game creates a story and creates a memory that goes far beyond whether they won or lost. I believe that it is within those memories that everyone wins when playing Arkham Horror.

GameShark: I think the Dunwich Horror add-on is really a must own for fans of the game. Are there any plans for further “extra board” expansions in the same vein as Dunwich Horror? If not, can you let us in on what you’re working on now?

I am glad you like Dunwich and I agree that it is a must for players who enjoy the game because it is truly and expansion. Not only in new territory, but also in the total game play experience. The Mania and Injury cards, as well as the new characters add so much to the role-playing aspect of the game, while the new monsters, encounters, and Great Old Ones create more variables to make each game session unique.

Yes, there are more planned expansions. As you may have already heard, the King in Yellow will be the next encounter. It will be a small card encounter similar in scope to The Dark Pharaoh. I do not really get too involved in the smaller expansions other than having the opportunity to look at the material prior to publication. I do work with Kevin on the major expansions, like Dunwich and my focus is to expand the adventure aspect of the game. So I have already submitted another section with a new board for another city (that at present will remain un-named) and several new Great Old Ones, some new Investigators, new monsters, and something that really changes fighting with the Great Old One if he awakes – Epic Combat Cards.

I think everyone will like the new stuff. Additionally, we have one more big box expansion planned for the future beyond the current work – so if sales continues to be good on Arkham Horror, more neat stuff will continue to come out.

Beyond Arkham I am working on several new designs. Trail of the Brotherhood will be published by EOS Press later this year. It has been held up for some time due to production issues, but is moving well now. It is a Lovecraft game in which one player is a Cultist Leader traveling around the world influencing various cults to join him in summoning a Great Old One. The other players are working together to stop him.

I also have several games in prototype that I need to get off to game companies to review. Assault of the Dark Lord is a cooperative fantasy game in which players band together to fend off the attacks of the Dark Lord. As the game is played, the land turns dark and it is a desperate struggle against the hordes that continue to attack until Monarch City will either fall and the players lose, or the 4 artifacts to defeat the Dark Lord are found and he is defeated.

Also in the works is Marvel Team Up in which each player is a Marvel Super Hero and they band together to defeat the adventures that are spawned each turn. The Rewards are collectable comic tiles in which players collect to create the best sets. And last but not least is CIA Operatives in which players are Field Directors within the CIA building their teams to carry out missions throughout the USA and the World.

Those are just some of the games in the works. Many of the designs are as epic as Arkham Horror. Unfortunately, I do not enjoy the marketing aspect as much as the doing the designs, so many remain unpublished because they have yet to be shown to any companies.

GameShark: What has been on your table lately? Any personal favorites you’d like to share?

I enjoy a broad range of games and have a massive collection. Most of the time we play test some of the designs mentioned above, but when we do play other games they include: Descent, Battlelore, Drakon, Funny Friends, Marvel Heroes, Return of the Heroes, Runebound (with only 2 players – never more), Twilight Struggle, and Red Planet to name a few.

GameShark: Thanks a lot for your time, Richard.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk – and I hope you enjoy Arkham Horror.

- William Abner