Interview with Sigfried Trent (2022)
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The following is a Wikizilla-exclusive interview. The Boy Who Cried Godzilla's interview with Sigfried Trent, Game designer at Evil Genius Games |
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Interview with Sigfried Trent, writer and designer of the 2022 tabletop role-playing game Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure built on the Everyday Heroes system for Evil Genius Games. This was spurred by a message sent by Wikizilla administrator The Boy Who Cried Godzilla to the Evil Genius Games contact form in May of 2022. He was encouraged by the company CEO Dave Scott to ask again later in the year. In mid-October of that year he followed up and was connected through Scott to Trent for the interview. Due to the layered nature of the correspondence, the text of the interviewer's original queries have been lost, but the bulk of the message-chain between he and Trent is presented here.
Interview
ST: Hi The Boy*,
I'm the lead designer on Evil Genius Game's Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure
Deal with Legendary: Correct, we have a licence with Legendary. We approached them with the idea for this and other products and they agreed to work with us. I helped write the pitch but wasn't in the room for it.
What's the focus: The Cinematic Adventure is both a setting book and an adventure. The setting part covers the Island itself, some background elements of the Monsterverse such as Monarch and Apex. We detail some of the main characters and all the creatures from the film, introduce new game rules for titans and have an adventure set in the period during which Monarch is building their Kong habitat dome.
We didn't create a lot of new lore for the book as there was a lot of existing material to cover from the film and comics. I do some work to contextualize and synergize some elements from the movie into the greater Monsterverse. I also create lore around technology items invented by Monarch and Apex that characters can use in the game. We've got a bit more detail about Camazotz (from the comics) and some extra little details about various superspecies from the movie and comics.
One creature we expand on quite a bit in the adventure are the Singing Ants that are heard in the film but never seen. They are part of the story in the adventure along with a new creature called a Shock Squid that lives in the seas surrounding the island.
So most of the new lore material is more in the little details than in broad strokes. We are still editing and working on our final cut so not everything is set in stone just yet. All our work gets vetted by Legendary.
Looking forward: We're hoping to do some more products in partnership with Legendary in the future so keep an eye out for that.
Question for you
Are you part of a fan group or work on a Monsterverse Wiki?
All the best,
Sigfried Trent
Boy: Thank you for reaching out! It seems like the original context of my message didn't make it through the grapevine, but yes, I am a site administrator on Wikizilla.org, an encyclopedia fansite (and associated YouTube channel) dedicated to all things Kaiju, where I have ended up as the resident Kong expert. And I'd like to add that the minutiae you describe for the RPG's worldbuilding sounds absolutely tantalizing to that part of my brain.
That said, your rundown did not mention characters, so I'm wondering if that means there won't be premade character sheets/backstories? The prevalence of the one-armed woman in the available art made me wonder if she was an important NPC or even a playable character/class. I'm not terribly familiar with the Everyday Heroes system, so I apologize if I'm using the wrong terminology or making bad assumptions.
I can't wait to see everything you've cooked up for the adventure, as it sounds like you'll be rounding out some of the smaller creatures as well. In all honesty, the more I hear about it, the more excited I am to try it out. Best of luck on the road to the final release.
Thank you so much,
The Boy*
ST: Sure thing. Honestly, the fine folks such as yourself that do the work of maintaining Wiki's are a key resource for me working on the Cinematic Adventure books. So anything I can do to repay the favor, I'm happy to do so.
The one-armed woman is an image created to represent the "Monster Hunter" class we made for the book. They are people who hunt/track/find superspecies either as mercenaries or freelancers. We also have a class for "Fied Researcher" which is meant for Monarch or Apex scientists who go out into the field to study superspecies (but with less violence and more science)
The adventure will have some pre-generated characters, but these will be new characters.
I do have write-ups in the book for Bill Randa, James Conrad, Houston Brooks, Hank Marlow, and Mason Weaver with character-style stats. Preston Packard is in the Antagonist listings but gets an extra-long description like the hero write-ups have. We didn't have room for all of Packard's men as the movie has such a huge cast.
BTW: Everyday Heroes is a brand new game, but it's a 5e/D&D based game system, we only just delivered our core book to our backers and it won't be in stores until next year.
So... I've just delivered the manuscript for my half of the book to our editor, and I'm starting work on Highlander.
Boy: I cannot wait to see what else is up your sleeve for the final release. I'm hoping that the ambulatory plant you teased makes an appearance. I'm guessing that "Sliver of the Skull" is a campaign written for this book? It seems to rely a lot on homebrewing stories with the given information, which is indeed part of the fun of a TTRPG, but naturally I'm curious if there will be any original NPCs involved in setting up the bases and what those characters are like. If the others have half the effort, care, and dare I say love put into them as Kong: Skull Island has, I expect these Cinematic Adventures will be well received. I wish you and the entire Evil Genius team the best of luck in the ever-treacherous world of sales.
