DIE Interview: Kieron Gillen and Grant Howitt Discuss Influences, Aspirations, and More About Kickstarter TTRPG
Kieron Gillen, author of the award-winning The Wicked + The Divine and Phonogram, teamed up with veteran TTRPG designer Grant Howitt, to adapt DIE into an actual tabletop role-playing system. Gillen's highly metafictional and at-times emotionally devastating comic about role-players trapped in their game world, DIE explores the relationship between reality and fantasy, identity crises, and confronting trauma through fantasy. The forthcoming RPG, currently raising funds on Kickstarter, is structured around the same premise, with players adopting a dual identity of fictional gamers in the real world, who are transported to a harrowing other world.
Gillen and Howitt recently spoke to Game Rant about the game's unique properties, underlying mechanical philosophies, and varied influences. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Q: Can you introduce yourselves and share your favorite tabletop RPG class or archetype?
Grant Howitt: I'm Grant Howitt, I'm a role-playing game designer from the UK, and my favorite archetype is the Frontman. So I guess Bard, or Paladin, or Sorcerer, or really anyone with a high enough Charisma score to make my audacious gambits pay off.
Kieron Gillen: I’m Kieron Gillen, and I’m a writer also from the UK, mainly known for my comics work for Marvel and my own books over at Image. I only at this moment realize that I basically am Grant in terms of my classic RPG classes. Anyone with a Charisma score and an urge to talk their way through. Also, the older I get, the more I get to play ethical Paladins, no matter what the system. When I played a character who was basically Parks & Rec’s Leslie Knope meets Red Sonya in Visigoths Vs. Mall Goths, I
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