Interview with Anders Blixt - Elder Statesman of Swedish BRP

[clarence]

Since the early 1980s, Basic Roleplaying has dominated the Swedish RPG scene. For me and most other 80s and 90s teens here, it was the first system we ever learned. Dungeons & Dragons never stood a chance. 

To find out more about that Golden Age, I talk to Anders Blixt, the elder statesman of Swedish BRP, in a new interview. He authored many of the most beloved books of the early years, but also wrote for Traveller and, much later, Mutant: Year Zero. 

We also talk about his Swedish adaption of Call of Cthulhu - and discuss his first BRP game for many years, Expert Nova, now in English. 

Read the interview here:

http://www.frostbytebooks.com/blog/interview-with-anders-blixt

 

Clarence Redd

[foolcat]

Didn’t know what to expect, yet piqued my interest, and read it. Wow, what a blast to read! I always love reading about the history of my beloved hobby. KSR sounds close to my preferred style of playing. 🤠

NB: I was under the impression that Warhammer FRP also always had a strong following in Sweden. 

Touched on my favorite subject, system building, quite nicely as well. Sure as hell will I check out Expert Nova!

Thank you for this, @clarence!

 

 

[seneschal]

Thanks for posting the interview.  I would be interested in learning how the cultural changes in Sweden are affecting gaming and role-playing.

[foolcat]

Just found this gem in Expert Nova section 2.4 Language Proficiency, had to share it because reasons:

“Example: A Dane understands spoken Swedish as Good Danish, whereas a Swede understands spoken Danish as Broken Swedish.”

🤣🤣🤣

On a more serious note, this is one well-written and -structured rules book so far, well done!

[clarence]

I lived in Malmö for a few years, visiting Copenhagen regularly. Sadly I always had to ask people to switch to English. Norwegian is easier for us, as long as it’s not in too much dialect. 

And yes, Expert Nova is a fascinating little game. It’s as if 40 years of BRP has been boiled down to only the most essential pieces. 

@seneschal The big change in roleplaying is that Swedish RPG companies produce games for the international market these days. And a surprising number of them turn into bestsellers. To explain the reasons behind this boom would require a lengthy reply though. 

[Joerg]

11 hours ago, foolcat said:

Just found this gem in Expert Nova section 2.4 Language Proficiency, had to share it because reasons:

“Example: A Dane understands spoken Swedish as Good Danish, whereas a Swede understands spoken Danish as Broken Swedish.”

🤣🤣🤣

Living just south of the Danish border and speaking (or at least understanding) Swedish and Norwegian quite well, I was told that Danes understand most spoken Danish from different regions as broken Danish, if they understand each other at all... In those pan-Scandinavian Christmas crime TV series, the spoken Danish usually was quite intelligible. Encounters with people speaking Danish with one another were totally different.

 

11 hours ago, foolcat said:

On a more serious note, this is one well-written and -structured rules book so far, well done!

One I'll have to check out. I've been lamenting the documented incompetence on the RQ character sheets for quite a while.

I always envied the Nordic rpg hobby - they got DoD two years before German language roleplaying lifted off, and they got a BRP based fantasy rpg rather than the Dark Eye. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the coming of the nineties that my Swedish was sufficient to read those.