Philip's Entries
June 6, 2006

If you've already read the Immortal Eyes Games Background then you know the basics of the IEG story. However, what you don't know is why we're doing this. It's a tough thing to explain, exactly. I'm reminded of characters in thrillers who, out of breath and running for their lives, finally find someone to help them. The problem is they're so out of breath, and have so much to say at once, that they don't even know where to begin. Sometimes they say as much, to which the would-be-helper typically responds: 'Begin at the beginning.' Of course, that's easier said than done, but let's take a shot at it.

First off, as you can read in the header, my name's Philip. I'm 35 years old. I grew up in a game family. Dad (Phil Sr.) worked for Ideal Toys in the 70's and for Parker Brothers in the 80's. We had a basement chock-full of games: old games, new games, prototype games, out-of-print games, shrink-wrapped games for his collection, bookshelf games from Avalon Hill, not to mention hundreds of model airplanes (and some ships), toys, miniatures, even a computer-controlled, multi-track train set that Dad built and designed himself. In retrospect, we had a hella cool basement. My friends and I would go down there and have fun with all the games, but none of it really rocked our world.

That event, the unveiling of the game that would rock our world, occurred in 1981. I was ten years old. Dad was a young up-and-comer at Parker Brothers. A strange game had appeared on the 'corporate radar' of the big game companies, something they didn't quite understand. It was something they themselves would never make, nor anything like it, yet it was something that was capturing the minds of millions of gamers (young and old), the world over. My dad acquired a copy of this strange game. It came in a small brown box. It contained four booklets (three core booklets and a supplement booklet). In addition, the box he handed to me had some paper (folded in half to fit) inside of it; some covered with squares (graph paper) and some covered with hexagons (hex paper, which I'd never even heard of before). There were also all sorts of strange dice: dice with 4 sides, dice with 8 sides, dice with 10, 12 even 20 sides. There were also a few lead miniatures, really cool miniatures: a couple of warriors, a sorceress, a skeleton with a spear, and something I would later learn was a troll. Of course what he handed to me was a copy of the original version of Dungeons & Dragons and some basic gear to play it with. Long before first edition and basic/expert, decades before 3.5 and d20, there was original D&D. He handed me the game and used some basic psychology on me: 'Here, it's probably too advanced for you, but if you think–'

Give me that.

Taking the weird, interesting box from his hands (thus playing right into his 'plan' of unraveling the secret behind D&D's appeal) I went upstairs to my room. I became absorbed with the contents of the brown box. I can say, without reservation, that that night changed my life. I know I'm not alone in that regard.

I had never seen anything even close to Dungeons & Dragons. The scope of D&D is essentially infinite. The only limit is the imagination of the referee (nowadays called the dm, or gm, but in original the gm was called the 'ref') and the imaginations of the players. The very concept of 'rolling a character' that was yours and yours alone, to in effect become an actor in order to play the game, was so amazingly unique. I devoured those booklets. I read them, cover-to-cover, over and over again. I shared the game with my circle of friends. Within a week we were playing. Within a month we all had the books and were scraping up money for the first hardbound book: the original Monster Manual. Many of my friends and I were (and are) artists. We drew, painted, sculpted, made models, goofed around with then-modern computer paint programs (on our Apples and Atari 800's), painted, all of that. D&D was the holy grail of creative outlets. Here was a game that was so gargantuan, so damn cool, that we had a milieu in which to focus our work. Rather than models, we focused on painting miniatures and creating battle boards to play our campaign battles on. (My friend Jon made the most amazing tabletop of a desolate plain, broken by a river, patrolled by skeletal wooly mammoths and undead legions.) Our drawings began to focus on castles (preferably ruined, possibly the haunt of an arch lich), xorns, warriors, dungeons... the world of D&D. I became the dm (we stopped calling the role 'ref' early on, since dungeon master sounds so much cooler). I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes, maps, illustrations, and key info for the adventures. The players in our group made detailed folios for their characters, often with rich illustrations and detailed back stories to flesh them out.

Without realizing it, we became hardcore gamers. We never looked back.

When I joined WMG, in 1995, I had to 'un-learn' many of my gaming habits. WMG was not about rpg's or ccg's (though by then I was a M:tG player, big time). WMG was basically a baby Parker Brothers. We made (and still make) some darn cool games, some of which trace their origins back a hundred years, others which are brand-spanking new. However, the audience for WMG's games is much more mainstream. To invoke a Seinfeld-ism: 'Not there's anything wrong with that!' However, in my heart of hearts, I longed for the day when we would devote time and passion to making games for people like my friends. Games with meat on their bones. Games designed to reflect the tastes of discerning gamers that want and expect more from their games.

That time has arrived. I know that many of the people that enjoy WM's main line of games might not 'get' the IEG games. That's okay, the world has room for many types of games. However, I'm willing to bet that some of the people out there that enjoy our main line of might be up for something different, something more involved. I suspect that many of you (who have kindly taken the time to read this) are already players of designer games. Whether it's rpg's or ccg's or European imports, if you're the kind of person who enjoys a game that is designed, first and foremost, with dedicated gamers in mind, then you've come to the right place. That's what IEG is all about.

As time goes on I'll add to this journal. Perhaps others will, as well. I'd particularly be interested to see if we could get Joe to chime in. In many ways (and this is somewhat ironic) Joe is the #1 reason IEG exists at all. And I am insanely anxious to find out what gamers like you think of IEG and IEG's games. Sure, we've tested these games with dozens of people, previewed them with store owners and distributors, shared them with the other WM companies. We know they're good games, at least in their eyes. However, what really matters–indeed, its the reason I go to work every day–is that we make games that you enjoy.

Feel free to send me an email. Let me know what you think of our games, this site, any suggestions you might have, or... whatever. Also, stop by our blog and add to the fray.

Philip Christopher Orbanes
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P.S.
For the record, Phil E. Orbanes is the guy who (among many other things) invented Conquest of Pangea. He's also my dad, not to mention the president of WMG. My involvement thus far with IEG games is as a producer and play-tester (and writer of rambling journal entries).

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