Marcus Rowland (author)

Marcus L. Rowland (born 1953) is an English retired laboratory technician and a notable author in the field of role-playing games, particularly games with Victorian era content.

Biography

Marcus Rowland owned a copy of the original boxed set of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' as early as 1977, then switched to ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' in 1979 and started to act as Dungeon Master. Rowland had an interest in writing magazine articles — he had already written two articles about scientific photography for ''Amateur Photographer''. After playing ''AD&D'' for a couple of years, he started to submit articles about role-playing games to hobby magazines, beginning with a variant character class for '' AD&D'', the Detective, that appeared in the April–May 1981 edition (Issue #24) of ''White Dwarf''. He became a frequent contributor to ''White Dwarf'', ''Dungeon'', '' Challenge'', ''Different Worlds'', ''The Space Gamer'', and ''Dragon'', starting with articles about ''AD&D'', but quickly branching into ''Traveller'', '' Call of Cthulhu'', and ''Judge Dredd''.

Scenario and game design

Starting in 1985, Rowland began to write complete adventures and sourcebooks for various role-playing games, including seven adventures and sourcebooks for ''Call of Cthulhu'' (such as ''The Great Old Ones'', 1989), ''Judge Dredd'', ''GURPS Steam-Tech'' and '' Space: 1889''. In 1990, Rowland wrote ''Canal Priests of Mars'', a ''Space: 1889'' adventure, for Game Designers Workshop (GDW), but objected when GDW cut 15,000 words from his 55,000 manuscript without consultation. At the same time, he was having trouble writing a large ''Call of Cthulhu'' adventure for Chaosium; he finally gave up on the project and voluntarily returned his advance.

The fate of these two projects caused Rowland to consider the idea of self-publishing. He had already written a few small computer programs as shareware, and reasoned that he could do the same thing with a role-playing game. The result, in 1993, was a new steampunk role-playing game, '' Forgotten Futures, the Role-playing Game of Scientific Romances'', set in the early 21st-century utopia envisioned by Rudyard Kipling in his stories '' With the Night Mail'' and '' As Easy as ABC''. Rather than selling the product to a publisher, Rowland released the game rules as shareware, initially on a 720-kilobyte floppy disk. This has been noted as an early example of independently published role-playing games, along with several other of his self-published works.

Rowland enjoyed enough success to expand the concept as technology advanced, adding HTML, switching to CD-ROMs, and eventually selling products via a website. From 1994 to 2010, a number of ''Forgotten Futures'' expansions followed. In addition, Rowland created the "Forgotten Future Library", an anthology of genre literature by George Griffith, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Rudyard Kipling, William Hope Hodgson, and other Victoria authors, as well as Victorian-era resources, including two world atlases from 1903 and 1913. His adaptation of Kipling's Aerial Board of Control setting has been described by scholars as "a remarkable piece of extrapolative worldbuilding".

Other writing

Rowland has also written some short stories, "Frog Day Afternoon", "Playing Safe", and "The Missing Martian", published in the Midnight Rose collective's anthologies. He has also written for '' 2000 AD'', ''New Scientist'', and various computer magazines. He also contributed to articles on gaming in the second edition of ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' and the ''Encyclopedia of Fantasy''. Extensive collections of his fanfiction can be found on ''Archive of Our Own'' and '' Twisting the Hellmouth''.Rowland on ''Twisting the Hellmouth''
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Works

*RPGs
**''Forgotten Futures'' (shareware release 1993 onwards)
***''Arcane Presents Forgotten Futures'' (Future Publishing 1997 - abridged version of rules)
***''Forgotten Futures'' (Heliograph Inc. 2000 - expanded version of rules)
**''Diana: Warrior Princess'' (Heliograph Inc. 2003 , PDF 2005)
**''The Original Flatland Role Playing Game'' (PDF 2006)
*Game Modules
**'' Queen Victoria and the Holy Grail'' (Games Workshop 1985) - ''Golden Heroes''
**''Trail of the Loathesome Slime'' (Games Workshop 1985) - ''Call of Cthulhu''
**'' Nightmare in Norway'' (Games Workshop 1985) - ''Call of Cthulhu''
**''Do Troubleshooters Dream of Electric Sheep?'' (Games Workshop 1987) - ''Paranoia (2nd Edition)''
**''Judgement Day'' (Games Workshop 1988) - ''Judge Dredd''
**''Canal Priests of Mars'' (Game Designers Workshop 1990, abridged ) - ''Space 1889''
***Expanded as ''The Complete Canal Priests Of Mars'' (Heliograph Inc. 2009 )
**''Log of the Astronef'' (Heliograph Inc. 2000 ) - ''Forgotten Futures''
**''Elvis: The Legendary Tours'' (For ''Diana: Warrior Princess'', PDF publication 2006)
*Other works
**''Into the Detectives Casebook'' (Magellanica Company 1999) - card game
**(ed) ''Stories of Other Worlds and A Honeymoon in Space'' by George Griffith (Heliograph Inc. 2000 )
**(ed) ''Tsar Wars Episode One: Angel of the Revolution'' by George Griffith (Heliograph Inc. 2003 )
**(ed) ''Tsar Wars Episode Two: Syren of the Skies'' by George Griffith (Heliograph Inc. 2003 )
*Contributions
**'' Judge Dredd Companion'' (Games Workshop 1987 - ''Judge Dredd'')
**''The Great Old Ones'' (Chaosium Inc. 1989 - for ''Call of Cthulhu'')
**'' Blood Brothers'' (Chaosium Inc. 1990 - for ''Call of Cthulhu'')
**''Fearful Passages'' (Chaosium Inc. 1992 - for ''Call of Cthulhu'')
**'' Blood Brothers 2'' (Chaosium Inc. 1992 - for ''Call of Cthulhu'')

''Diana: Warrior Princess''

''Diana: Warrior Princess'' is an indie role-playing game written by Rowland and initially published by Heliograph Incorporated, based on an article describing the setting which originally appeared in ''Valkyrie'' magazine. It is distributed as a PDF via Steve Jackson Games. It describes a fictionalised version of the twentieth century as it might be seen a few thousand years from now.

The game is a parody of '' Xena: Warrior Princess'', and its setting tries to portray the present day with the same level of accuracy that ''Xena'' portrays Ancient Greece – i.e. not much. Historical figures are distorted and confused with each other. Diana, Princess of Wales rides around in shining white motorcycle leathers on a semi-sentient motorcycle, doing battle with the war-god, Landmines, and " Bonnie Prince" Charlie, from whom she took her mystic powers of royalty.

Diana is aided by Fergie, the barbarian " Red Ken" and " Wild Bill" Gates, while Tony the Vampire Slayer battles the sorceress Thatcher and her masked assassin Archer. The milieu also includes figures who lived before the twentieth century such as Emperor Norton, Queen Victoria and the "disease" lepus (described as a scriptwriting error since ''lepus'' is actually a reference to rabbits and not leprosy as the scriptwriter intended)

There is one supplement, entitled ''Elvis: the Legendary Tours'', published as a PDF only. Set in the same world as ''Diana: Warrior Princess'' but focusing on the United States, it describes the exploits of the legendary bard Elvis (no surname is given) and his attempts to return home to the magical Land of Grace, which is currently ruled by his evil brother Abbot Costello. He is aided in this quest by the "Mystic Power of Music" and companions including barbarian bass player John Lenin, guitarist 'Senator' Joe McCartney, mystic roadie Bob 'The Builder' Marley, frontier law-woman and medic Billie 'Doc' Holliday, and martial artist and shaman Jean Claude Van Halen. The setting is an anachronistic America split into several rival states; Norton's Empire (ruled by Emperor Norton), Martin Luther's kingdom (a theocracy) and a military dictatorship run by demagogue Uncle Sam and his so-called sons, nephews, and other lieutenants; other areas include Indian Territory (complete with Sikhs and elephants) and dozens of small kingdoms and independent states.

''Elvis: The Legendary Tours'' was one of several spin-off series mentioned in the original game; others included '' Parton: Lust For Glory'', a military adventure series; ''Toni the Vampire Slayer'', in which teenager Toni Blair fought the undead; ''Gandhi's Angels'', a martial arts detective series; and ''Richard of Hollywood'', a Robin Hood parody in which Richard Nixon battles the evil Uncle Sam. In a LiveJournal entry Rowland stated that he does not plan to write ''Parton: Lust For Glory''; the other settings were not mentioned. Subsequent entries have included a cover design for ''Gandhi's Angels'', and more recently several entries discussing ''Fanfic: The Role-Playing Game'', a possible future project based on a variant of the ''Diana: Warrior Princess'' rules.

References

External links

*

News on Rowland's game writing

Marcus Rowland
at RPG.net
*

Marcus Rowland
at the RPG Database

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowland, Marcus L.
1953 births
Living people
English science fiction writers
Indie role-playing game designers
Role-playing game designers
Missing middle or first names