Interview with D&D Kids Author Uri Kurlianchik (3)

This arti­cle is the last part of my three part inter­view with Uri Kurlianchik. It is sup­posed to shed some light on the events around removal of the D&D Kids series from the Wiz­ards of the Coast home­page. The pre­lim­i­nary arti­cle of my series can be found here. After the inter­view I will take a look back at what was said and writ­ten and as well hope to pub­lish an inter­view with Kynn, who is men­tioned by Uri in part two.

Jan: How did you get to vis­it­ing schools and pre­sent­ing D&D to kids? What are your motives and goals con­cern­ing this kind of work?

Uri: I came upon this job by chance dur­ing my uni­ver­sity years and signed up imme­di­ately. Trav­el­ing from school to school and telling sto­ries and play­ing games, work­ing with a bunch of awe­some DMs and all-around groovy peo­ple? This was noth­ing short of my dream job! After I fin­ished my BA, I started doing this full time (13–14 groups). The rest is history.

Jan: Do you still visit schools to present D&D to kids? If so, in the name of WotC?

Uri: Sure do! Just this month, we had an adven­ture build­ing sem­i­nar which had pro­duced some extra­or­di­nary ideas, a series of LARPs based on High­lander and a week-long adven­ture explor­ing Gnos­tic and neo­pla­tonic ideas. Now it’s sum­mer vaca­tion but after­ward I’m get­ting back to reg­u­lar gam­ing with full throttle.

Jan: Has your finan­cial rela­tion with WotC changed dur­ing course of recent events? Like, if they paid you for school vis­its or writ­ing arti­cles, do they still do so? Or have they com­pletely bro­ken up with you?

Uri: Wiz­ards had hon­ored all con­tracts and agree­ments. Say­ing more would be a breach of con­fi­den­tial­ity. Regard­ing my after school-activity, it was not affected by “the events” (sounds omi­nous, doesn’t it?) in any way.

Jan: If I may ask, have the recent events put you in some kind of per­sonal jeopardy?

Uri: I cer­tainly hope not! Much can be said about my crit­ics, but I very strongly doubt any of them are mad enough to come here all the way from the States to try to assas­si­nate me!
I did find the whole affair very frus­trat­ing how­ever. Through­out my life I was spared the com­pany of hate­ful peo­ple who lack any­thing even remotely resem­bling a sense of humor. Finally get­ting to meet them was a very sober­ing and unpleas­ant expe­ri­ence.
I shud­der to think of these peo­ple around chil­dren. I think noth­ing muti­lates a child more than an edu­ca­tor with­out a sense of humor. My grand­fa­ther, blessed be his mem­ory, used to say that peo­ple with­out a sense of humor are crip­ples. I want to upgrade his state­ment; peo­ple with­out a sense of humor are a great dan­ger to this world.

Jan: Is there any­thing you’d like the read­ers to know? Or some things you like to explain?

Uri: Yes. Those who liked my arti­cles, espe­cially the funny quotes that came along with them, could be inter­ested in vis­it­ing my new site, DND­kids. It’s got tons of funny table talk from both kids and adults, as well as old and new arti­cles about gam­ing with chil­dren. Gamers with quotes of their own are more than wel­come to send me their funny (or scary) sto­ries – the more fun and LOLz there are online the bet­ter life will be for every­one.
Soon DND­kids will also have gam­ing mate­ri­als and art pro­duced by my stu­dents. Any­one who’s inter­ested in gam­ing with chil­dren, either because they want some advice on play­ing with kids or sim­ply because they find my anec­dotes amus­ing, will enjoy what DND­kids has to offer.

Lastly, I write of what I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. I have nei­ther the means nor the desire to gather sta­tis­tics on global gam­ing or edu­ca­tion habits, nor do I write of what should be, I have no idea what should be, I’m not a politi­cian.
I write only of the var­i­ous expe­ri­ences pro­vided by my work. If this offends some­one, they should address their com­plaints to the source, not the vessel.

Related posts:

1. Inter­view with D&D Kids Author Uri Kurlianchik (2)