In Conversation with Jordan Sorcery

Steve Jackson in conversation with Jordan Sorcery We talk about founding Games Workshop in the 70s, starting White Dwarf, working with Bryan Ansell as his Citadel team created Warhammer, co-writing Fighting Fantasy with Sir Ian Livingstone, and creating cutting edge interactive storytelling over the phone with Steve Jackson's F.I.S.T (Fantasy Interactive Scenarios by Telephone!) This was a hu...

Mark Gibbons in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Former Games Workshop artist and concept artist for Sony and Blizzard. Mark has had an extensive career creating dynamic, detailed, and amazing imagery for Warhammer, including memorable pieces like the box covers for Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition, the Circle of Blood campaign set, and the Man O’ War expansion Plaguefleet. Not to mention his countl...

Jonathan Green in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. We talk about a career working in science-fiction and fantasy IPs, novels, and gamebooks. Jonathan is credited on 8 gamebooks in the Fighting Fantasy series, wrote the definitive history of the series, has worked on several stories for the Black Library set in the 40k and Warhammer Fantasy worlds, including rare gamebook adventures in both! Jonat...

James Wallis in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. James is the founder of Hogshead Publishing, the company that resurrected Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first edition, refined it, expanded it, and kept it alive for a decade. And then he decided to shut down the successful company and walk away. We talk about why, his remarkable journey in the RPG industry, and what he learned from crafting some of t...

Chris Pramas in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. After a career at Wizards of the Coast working on D&D, Alternity, and Chainmail, Chris Pramas co-founded independent RPG publisher Green Ronin and began releasing award winning and critically acclaimed TTRPGs like Mutants and Masterminds. And after that Chris was asked by Games Workshop to develop a brand new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Rolepl...

Dominic McDowall in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. The man behind the incredible homegrown success of UK RPG publisher Cubicle 7, Domininc McDowall has helped to rejuvenate the RPG marketplace with a broad range of well received and successful roleplaying games. Not only that, but he brought together the team that would reinvent and restore Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay to its rightful place as on...

Tuomas in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. In my second conversation with Tuomas Pirinen (you can find my first interview exclusively on my Patreon) we talk about his work redefining Chaos in the Warhammer Old World, and beginning the journey to dividing the forces of the ruinous power by beast, warrior, daemon, and god.  We also explored Tuomas' complete reinvention of the magic system for...

Graeme Davis in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. One of the key game designers involved in the creation of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and The Enemy Within campaign, Graeme Davis has long been an important voice in the TTRPG industry. Graeme talks with me about the early culture and ways of working at Citadel and Games Workshop under Bryan Ansell, how things changed over time, the end of Flame Pub...

Rick Priestley in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. The creator of 40k and Warhammer Fantasy, Rick Priestley in conversation! Rick Priestley and his school friend Richard 'Hal' Halliwell created Warhammer Fantasy for Bryan Ansell at Citadel in 1983. After that Rick worked on 5 more editions of Fantasy, as well as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, countless other games, and of course, also inve...

Johnny Fraser-Allen in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. After working as a conceptual and special effects artist at Weta Workshop on films like Steven Spielberg's BFG, Guillermo Del Toro and then Peter Jackson's the Hobbit movies, and James Cameron's Avatar Johnny Fraser-Allen began making miniatures for gaming in the fantasy realms he loves so much. Working with Alessio Cavatore &...

Alan Merrett in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Alan has held many roles in his 36 year career at Games Workshop; starting as a caster at Citadel in the early days of the company and ending as the Head of Intellectual Property for the international hobby mega-corp that GW had become by 2016. Over that period Alan was involved in some of the most significant business decisions in the company&apos...

Jim Butler in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Jim  worked at Games Workshop for 30 years holding a variety of management and leadership positions. Working under Bryan Ansell, Tom Kirby, and Kevin Rountree Jim was responsible for developing the GW management trainee programme and academy, leading the design studio for a number of years, and ultimately taking on the role of head of e-commerce for...

Sir Ian Livingstone in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Along with a couple of friends Sir Ian Livingstone founded Games Workshop in 1975 to sell wooden toys and games. Within a few years they had become the exclusive European distributor of TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons, had been offered a merger by Gary Gygax, launched White Dwarf magazine, and started producing their own board games. In our con...

Mark Wells in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. We explore a period of incredible change in the organisation as it shifts from the 90s approach of 2 core games (Warhammer Fantasy & Warhammer 40,000) with specialist games like Gorka Morka, Necromunda, and Mordheim alongside them, to the 2000s focus on 3 core systems - Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 40K, and the Lord of the Rings. During Mark's...

Gav Thorpe in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Gav has worked on innumerable games, supplements, and stories at GW for Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer: 40,000, Warhammer Quest, Inquisitor, Battlefleet Gothic, and just about everything else released by Workshop in the early 2000s! As one of the designers who resurrected the Citadel Journal, helped develop Tau and Sisters of Battle for 40k, created In...

In Conversation with Jordan Sorcery brings to podcast feeds all of the amazing interviews that Jordan has recorded with the most important figures in the history of Games Workshop, Warhammer, and tabletop gaming. Featuring interviews with Rick Priestley, Andy Chambers, Gav Thorpe, Alessio Cavatore, Sir Ian Livingstone, Steve Jackson, and many more! Settle in and listen to stories and insights abou...

Robin Dews & John Stallard in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Robins Dews, the former editor of White Dwarf and later the Games Workshop Design Studio Manager, and John Stallard, former GW Sales Director and subsequent co-founder of Warlord Games, join me to talk about their recent project to document the history of Citadel and Games Workshop through conversations with key alumni from the st...

Alessio Cavatore in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Alessio has designed countless games in his remarkable tabletop career. At Games Workshop he worked on a host of Armies Books before taking over as design lead for Lord of the Rings: Strategy Battle Game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and Warhammer 40,000. Since leaving Games Workshop Alessio has contributed extensively to games like Bolt Action f...

Andy Chambers in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. Andy Chambers was lead designer, AKA the Overfiend, for 40K 3rd Edition and was arguably the person most responsible for evolving it into the foundations of the modern game. Starting with White Dwarf articles for Space Marine & Adeptus Titanicus, writing Battle Magic and Warhammer Armies: Skaven for Fantasy Battle, and then leading the develop...

Martin Wallace in conversation with Jordan Sorcery. The legendary game designer behind Brass, A Few Acres of Snow, Study in Emerald, Struggle of Empires, and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork joins me to talk about the process, business, and career of games design; the use of kickstarter for launching new games; and the projects he’s working on for the future. Starting from a retail job in Games Workshop to...