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Interview with Nicholas Ozment, author of Knight Terrors
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I first met Nick Ozment years ago at World Con. Nick is a literary triple-threat: gamer, author, teacher. A true gentleman gamer and scholar, this interview was a great opportunity to spotlight his upcoming work, Knight Terrors: The (Mis)Adventures of Smoke the Dragon and all the other gamer-friendly projects he's working on.
MT: Your upcoming book has some chapters that will really resonate with gamers. Tell us a little about it.
NO: Knight Terrors: The (Mis)Adventures of Smoke the Dragon is a lovingly parodic fantasy with dashes of random satire. Readers familiar with the humorous fantasies of Robert Lynn Asprin, Terry Pratchett, John DeChancie, or Craig Shaw Gardner will have some idea of the tone. I’m taking common fantasy tropes and having fun with them, so fantasy readers and gamers will find themselves on familiar ground—and in on the jokes.
MT: You're a gamer yourself. What's your history with role-playing?
NO: I was introduced to D&D when I was in fifth or sixth grade, and I was hooked. My friends and I played at recess. I had the 80’s box set, and I remember my sister, three years younger than me, going into those kobold caves and slaying those wicked little reptiles. I may have scarred her for life—but she’s a Fish and Game ranger now, so she turned out all right. I DM’ed for my friends until freshman year of high school, at which time I gave it up for well over a decade.
As an adult, I returned to gaming. I played GURPS, a couple other systems, but here I am at 37 back to playing D&D. Only now it’s version 3.5. And my wife is a 13th level druid.
MT: You've run D&D workshops at your local public library. What's that experience like and what did you learn from DMing for the next generation of gamers?
NO: The librarians at my local branch are wonderful—very proactive with youth, finding out what the kids are into and bringing them into the library system through those interests. They thought it would be great to get some of these kids off the computer games for a bit and sitting face-to-face interacting over a table. I mean, table-top RPGs will always have two advantages over their computerized descendants: A) good old-fashioned social interaction, and B) use of your imagination. You’re not staring at an artist’s conception in pixels when you bump into a troll; you’re creating that troll in your head. It’s demanding in the way that books are versus movies.
Anyway, one of the librarians, Alice, knew that I played and that I am a teacher, so she asked if I would volunteer to teach a course for new players. It met for one month on Saturday mornings. Six students signed up—all boys in junior high. That was about two years ago. Those boys went on to form their own campaigns, and to this day there are now two or three spin-off campaigns going on in this small town. The ratio of gamers to total number of youth is, partly as a result of the library’s efforts, really quite high. Sure, they still play the computer games, but they’re also doing something that is more mentally challenging, imaginative, socially interactive, and that involves a lot of reading. So way to go, librarians. There’s also an adult D&D group that meets at the library.
MT: You wrote on the ethics of magic in Tolkien and Shakespeare, discussing Gandalf and Prospero. If the two got into a fight who would win? :)
NO: Gandalf, hands down—with this caveat: if he weren’t holding back. Throughout LOTR, Gandalf rarely displays the true depth of his power. But when you come down to it, Prospero is just a mortal man who has some books of magic. Gandalf is an immortal being
MT: Like me, you're also a movie aficionado. Where can we find your reviews?
NO: Sadly, the site I was reviewing horror movies for, Down in the Cellar, has been on hiatus for over a year now, but I reviewed nearly twenty films there between 2006-2008. All of them are still up at www.downinthecellar.com. I also “co-host” reviews by David Manning. I’m sort of the voice of reason while David heaps praises on some of the most strange, bizarre B-movies available on DVD. We take turns commenting in writing, so it’s kind of like Ebert and Roeper meet MST3K in script form. If that sounds exciting, you can read those reviews at http://manning.coldfusionvideo.com.
MT: You teach classes that I think would definitely appeal to gamers. Do you have any particular topics that you think gamers might enjoy? And if so, how does a student sign up for your classes?
NO: Next semester I’ll be teaching an Introduction to Literature course on American fantasy. It will trace fantastical themes in American literature from Irving and Poe through to the present day with writers like Ursula K. Le Guin (I was in touch with Le Guin and will be teaching the book that she specifically recommended). Any interested Winona State students should sign up as soon as their registration window opens, because this class will fill up fast. Classes such as this one usually fill up in two or three days.
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