Risk is one of the most popular, enduring board games ever published yet in the board gaming hobby it is widely dismissed, considered “broken” and regarded as obsolete. Why do you think this is, particularly in light of the fact that the game is hugely influential and significant to development of gaming?

I often say that Risk is either the last “kids’ game” you play or the first real game you play. It offers much more strategy than most mass-market games but this strategy is somewhat easy to master. So most gamers forget the heady time of actually realizing that you could think about a game in this way for the first time, which is what Risk really is about. Once you’ve played a lot, the strategies become somewhat obvious and that leads to people thinking as they do.

That’s a really good point, that Risk sort of opens up the possibility of thinking about the potential for choices, creative strategy, and really moving beyond the more structured, scripted format of many mass market games. Do you think that the mass market or casual gamer might be resistant to games that really have this kind of depth? I hear from a lot of people who don’t want to think when they’re trying to do something fun.

I think that we need to recognize that people want to have different levels of thinking with their down time. Some people just want to catch up with friends and the game on the table is a reason to be there. It’s not about the game; it’s about the people. So you have people who want diversions and people who want depth of thinking. Risk is somewhere in the middle.

I personally think that no gamer’s life is complete without, at least once, seeing a Risk board and every piece in play go flying in the air in reaction to a crushing defeat at the hands of another player. What is it about Risk that evokes such strong reactions from players? Why do you think that the stakes seem so high?

I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately. Why is Risk so personal? Not sure really but people do take it very seriously. Eight years ago when Craig Van Ness and I were playtesting – playtesting – Risk 2210AD we had to stop playing in the middle because we were getting seriously angry with each other. We’ve laughed about it ever since.

I think it has to do with the stakes- I mean, you’re trying to take over the world and since it’s all about taking that titular Risk, it almost takes on an element of gambling, which gets people fired up unlike anything else. I also think that there is something very elemental about the game- it’s very uncluttered by rules or a lot of the complexity we see in a lot of hobby games.

It’s an interesting psychological experiment, that’s for sure. Someone, somewhere on the internet, once described Risk as “an experiment to see how people react to bad dice rolls”. Or something to that effect. So there’s that. And then there’s the fact that one guy always insists on pushing the aggression thing just a bit too far.

What do you think it is about Risk that makes it different from hobby games? Why has Risk been embraced by mainstream audiences while hobby games- and even some of the Risk variants- remain mostly a hobby concern?

I think that Risk has this interesting place in the gaming pantheon – just enough bravo and swagger and strategy to appeal to non-gamers but not enough paths to victory for the hobby gamer. This is something I tried to address with the refresh this year. I wanted some way to break people’s habits when playing. I wish that the other Risk games I’ve worked on had achieved more of a mainstream audience but I think that there are just too many rules and options for a casual gamer.

It definitely seems like the new edition addresses the “paths to victory” issue in a really smart, accessible way with the major and minor objectives. I think a lot of folks are going to be shocked that it’s not just about domination anymore. I think that’s a smart decision overall, but do you think more mainstream gamers are going to be leery of planning for long and short term objectives like that? Or do you think that may give them more focus?

Well, they can still play to conquer the world. I’ve played that way a number of times with the objectives and benefits and it works well. We just wanted a more dynamic, faster version in there as well. Truth, be told, I’m curious as to how well this will work across wide audiences.

You are widely credited with bringing a lot of innovative ideas to Risk, beginning with Risk 2210AD and continuing on through several licensed editions such as the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars iterations and culminating with this, the official revision of the standard Risk. What was behind the initial impetus to modify Risk?

First off, I’d like to say that in almost every case I’ve had very active collaborators on the Risk games – Craig Van Ness on 2210AD, Dan Sanfilippo on the Star Wars games, and members of our UK design team for Lord of the Rings. So I’m the common thread but by no means am I the only one.

Do you prefer to work collaboratively?

Yeah, very much so. Even if there isn’t official collaboration on projects, most designers here get a lot of feedback, input, and playtesting advice from the other designers. Having gotten that cleared up, it’s obvious that Risk has a lot of flexibility in its core engine. You can change goals, cards, objectives, add a layer, tweak a layer, and it all holds together fairly well. We’ve gotten some flexibility to do so given that Risk plays as this quasi-hobby game.

Of the versions of Risk that you have been involved with, I think the Star Wars Original Trilogy edition is my favorite. It offers more theme and narrative than any other version yet it plays in an hour and gives you a full sense of the epic, sweeping conflict of the films. Which is your favorite and why?

I don’t know if I have a favorite; it’s hard to pick favorites with your children. I like the intensity of 2210 A.D., the leaders of LotR, the ‘active neutrals’ rule in the 2-player version of the 2003 edition of Risk, the team play of Star Wars Clone Wars, and the individual win objectives of Star Wars Classic Trilogy. Not sure what I like most about the new version of Risk; I need some time and distance to analyze these things.