Yes is More -A Guest Post from Editor Tom Russell

BEHIND THE SCENES OF YAAH!, OR: YES IS MORE

One November morning, I powered up my computer and found an email from Mark (That's me -- Mark Walker) that said-- and I'm quoting this verbatim and in full-- "Any interest in becoming a magazine editor?" I thought about it for about two seconds and said "Yes."

Okay, so I might be exaggerating; I doubt I thought about it for even a second. My general approach to an opportunity is, if I can say "Yes", I will. "Yes" opens doors; "No" keeps 'em closed. I actually think that's why Mark thought of me in the first place-- way back in 2012, when he published my first game, BLOOD ON THE ALMA, he asked me if I could design a couple of other games in a similar vein. I said "Yes" to that, and because of those two designs, I kept in contact with Mark over the years, keeping myself, my skill-set, and my personality fresh in his mind. "Yes" creates opportunities. If you want to get anywhere, especially in a creative field like gaming, you want to say "Yes" whenever you can. At least that's how I see it.

I spoke with Mark that afternoon, and he laid out his general idea for what the magazine should be. It would have a broader focus beyond historical war games, embracing other conflict-based genres like fantasy, science fiction, and horror; it would be focused on newer games, and those older games with large fan bases-- "the games people actually play"; we would only write about the games that we love and not get into bashing; it would have a full game in every issue.

Yaah! #1

Mark said he wanted the first issue to press ASAP-- in January if possible. That would only give us two months to assemble a team, write the articles, get them edited and laid out, and then to get the magazine to press. It wasn't a lot of time, but it seemed doable. As it turns out, it took us an extra couple of weeks to get the look of the magazine just right. That's close enough to be a victory in my book, and we've now put into place the format and the process that will make "Yaah!" that rare beast, a quarterly gaming magazine that actually comes out every three months.

I think we were able to pull it off because of something that I think Mark and I have in common: neither of us are particularly blessed with patience. We can't stand to sit around and wait, or to gab on about projects we're going to do somewhere down the road; we just get to work and start doing it. When there's some kind of crisis, we don't shut down and wallow in it; we work our asses off to find a solution. It's an attitude I picked up from working in no-budget film.

The first problem, of course, was finding a game for our debut issue. The bane of magazines are underdeveloped, untested games, and I knew that we would not have time to test and develop a game from scratch. It would need to be a game that was already fully tested and developed. I racked my brain for a moment, and it occurred to me that I had a game that would fit the bill.

Back in 2010, I had designed a very simple introductory series of medieval battle games. How simple? The counters have one stat, that's how simple. I had intended to pitch the line to a publisher specializing in small, simple war games-- really, I had designed it specifically with them in mind. I sent them the first game, STAMFORD BRIDGE, and in 2011 they said they'd love to publish it. They put it in their queue, which is as I later found out rather famously long. In late 2014, when I was first discussing "Yaah!" with Mark, it still wasn't anywhere near the top of that list. Seeing an opportunity, I wrote the publisher an email and asked if I could have the game back; graciously, they agreed.

I sent Mark the game, and he said yes, let's run with it. One problem, though; STAMFORD

Tom Hissownself.

BRIDGE only had 45 counters, which left us with 43 blanks. How were we going to fill the rest of the sheet? Well, like I said above, STAMFORD BRIDGE was intended to be the first in a series, and I had designed a few other titles using the same system back in 2010 and 2011. One of these was the direct sequel to STAMFORD, covering the Battle of Hastings. And that's how we got two games in our first issue.

Mark assembled a great bunch of writers he had worked with previously-- Ania B. Ziolkowska, Alexey Beznin, Peter Perla, John Burtt-- and I roped my friend Gabe Kleinert into it. Great articles came in from all of these fine folks. There were two articles we had slated for which we didn't have writers. One was the zombie co-op game DEAD OF WINTER. The other was D&D ATTACK WING. I decided to write one of them myself. Since the ATTACK WING game was $50, and the out-of-print DEAD OF WINTER was going for $200, I went with ATTACK WING. I was able to get a copy of DEAD OF WINTER on the next printing, and it's the cover feature for our second number.

Not Nathan Powell, but
certainly steampunk.

Speaking of cover features, about a week before the writers' deadline, we lost the writer for our first issue's RIVET WARS cover feature. Being that we had already solicited the first issue with RIVET WARS on the cover, it'd be a little silly to not feature it in the magazine. My first instinct would be to buy the game and do it myself like I had with the ATTACK WING article, but there was no way I could get enough experience with the game to write about it in a week's time. So I spent an evening lurking through RIVET WARS fan sites and forums, trying to find someone who could write well, loved the game, knew it backwards and forwards.

I found such a person in Nathan Powell, a passionate steampunk aficionado who had designed several custom scenarios for the system. Finding the right person was one thing, contacting him was another: common to steampunk fandom, he had a number of aliases and alter egos, and I had to traverse a stream of fiction sites, Facebook pages, and forums to find a real name and an email address. I asked him if he'd be interested, and related to him the tight spot we were in. Could he do a 3200 word cover feature, with photos, and possibly a custom scenario, within the week? He thought about it for maybe two seconds, and then he said "Yes." And then he went ahead and got it done.

Nathan's already given us a RIVET WARS scenario for our second issue, and it looks like he's going to be able to give us one on a regular basis. I don't know what the future holds for that young man, but I can guess they're good things. "Yes" is the magic word; it opens doors; it creates opportunities.

Tom Russell is an outstanding editor, a passionate gamer, and also the author of the Orphans of Mars novels. Yaah! #1 is at the printers, and if they don't muck it up, will be shipping before the end of February. You can get your copy here.