Party Spotlight: Alex Zubarev (Creator)

Thank goodness it’s Friday! Today, we’re unfortunately bringing our party spotlight series to a close… but it’s super exciting because it's about someone you already know! You know him as the creator and developer of War & Aether, but today you get to deep dive into his thoughts as a player! It’s the one, the only, Alex Zubarev!!! Keep reading to learn more about Alex’s process of developing his tabletops as a playtester! Is there a specific piece of media that you wish was transformed into a tabletop setting? We’d love to hear about it, tell us more in the comments below! Now, without further adieu, Alex Zubarev.

Q1: What brought you into the world of Tabletop?

Alex Zubarev (AZ): I first heard about tabletop games in early high school and had an immediate interest in it. I readily understood that it was like an RPG video game, but with limitless freedom and options for tackling the experience. Then some friends had a player drop out of their game and I was invited to participate in a short game, where I was then hooked straight into the experience and offered a chance to return. A chance of which I readily accepted.

Q2: What do you enjoy about tabletops over video games?

AZ: The limitless progression. Play a video game long enough, and you will have done everything there is to do. Beat all the bad guys, get all the best gear or equipment, and become the number one person in that game’s world. But once you’ve exhausted everything in a video game, there’s nothing more to progress towards. No grander goals, no bigger story, just playing the game for the game’s sake and/or grinding for the unreasonably difficult to acquire best-gear. Usually waiting until the next installment comes out to (maybe) continue all that you’ve built up. But that’s not the case in tabletops. In tabletops your goals are only limited by your imagination. When/if you manage to achieve your goal, you can just set a new goal, literally any goal, and in tabletops you can always strive to reach higher and higher platforms in any direction. If you play a racing game and become the number 1 racer, that’s all there is to do; but if you play a tabletop with the goal to be the number 1 racer, you can achieve that, and then just go decide you want to be the number 1 chef too - why not?

Q3: What caused you to want to develop your own tabletop systems?

AZ: It started off pretty simple. I was always big into doing custom mechanics and homebrewed rulesets. I always liked experimenting with different tabletop systems instead of just sticking to one. One day I helped a guy playtest his superhero tabletop, thought to myself “I’m not having fun with these rules, I’m gonna change and recreate them to suit my interests.” And then one day there was a very specific game that I wanted to play and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find that type of game anywhere. With all of the tools and experience that I had on hand, I decided that if I couldn’t find it, I’d make that game myself. And that game would become War and Aether.

Q4: As a tabletop developer, are there certain things you look for as a player instead of when you’re a GM?

AZ: As a GM, I’m always looking at the technical side of things. Are the creatures balanced, are the rules working, is everything mathing the way I intended it. But as a player, there are two things I can do: 1) Exploit a certain build style as hard as I can to see how the balance works out. 2) See for myself, is the game actually fun to play? Being a player is an entirely different experience to being a GM, and it's an experience I deem critical to experience first hand before I release any game.

Q5: How does it feel to be able to playtest a game that you’ve developed on your own?

AZ: Fantastic. Not only do I have the extra pride of, “I made this :3”, but also my tabletops are the systems that I dream of playing the most. I am most certainly biased as the developer and I recognize that, but also I wouldn’t be making my own tabletops if I didn’t think they are the best and most entertaining tabletops I have ever had the pleasure to play in my life.

Q6: What’s your favorite character you’ve created?

AZ: That is a list far too long and arduous to go into detail about, but I will bring up my most recent character that has been brought up in recent Party Spotlights, Füt-Füt. Füt-Füt was a monstrous ratling I had made who had lost his home and delved deep into dwarven alteration/runic spell magic. The two things that stand out most for him are: 1) His misinterpretation of the phrase “Figure of Speech”, which led to him creating an entire world-wide religion on a god that doesn’t exist, as the sole voice and prophet of that god. 2) I made this little rat a fantasy mech-pilot. With permission from my GM, I created a Construct with a cannon chest and a piloting cavity inside to turn my weak, defenseless Ratling into a literal walking tank.

Q7: Does being a player rather than a GM alter the way you develop the game?

AZ: Absolutely, it’s one of the most critical steps of the development process for all of my games. Sometimes, you think things work, because they sound really good on paper - but then you try it yourself and it just isn’t fun or isn’t what you expected. For example, I remember the Conjuration Magic system for the War and Aether Core Rulebook underwent some pretty significant changes to resource management after I had a chance to actually play it myself. A lot of things sound good on paper, but I can’t know for sure if it works or if those ideas are even fun until I try it myself.

Q8: What do you prefer, being a GM or a player?

AZ: 50-50 between the two. The reality is that I’m known as a “Forever-GM” in my friend group, and I rarely get to participate as a player. As a result, I always yearn for the opportunity to participate as a player again. But also, I know that if I were a player too often, equally would I yearn to be a GM again. For me, I love both experiences equally, and in a preferred group I would be regularly switching back and forth between being a player and being a GM.

Q9: Has a character you created directly affected the development of your tabletops?

AZ: Every single character I have ever developed has influenced or affected every tabletop system I’ve made (or am working on). I indulge in a large variety of play styles, and part of the foundation of every tabletop system is being able to look back at every character I’ve made in the past and ask myself: “Could I build this character again in this game, and have just as much fun, or even more fun?” And then the characters I build for new campaigns to test my own games always affect development as I see what works and what doesn’t, and I do everything I can to make sure the game stays fun.

Q10: If you could bring one thing from W&A into the real world, what would it be?

AZ: Aether. The magical force that brings the fantasy world of spells and monsters to life, that can be learned and studied by anyone with the dedication to do so. While I recognize full-well the sudden introduction of magic into our modern world would cause mass-chaos worldwide, I am very interested in witnessing how that would play out. What impact would Aether have on our technology, our politics, and our society as a whole? But also, man I just wanna cast magic spells and have my hands go zap-zap in real life - y’know?

Thank you, Alex, for taking the time out of your schedule to answer these questions! Is there a specific piece of media that you wish was transformed into a tabletop setting? We’d love to hear about it, tell us more in the comments below! And make sure you check back here for all things regarding War & Aether.