Banana Chan is a Cantonese Canadian game designer, writer and publisher living in the US. Her latest work has been on Forgery, Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft and Betrayal at House on the Hill: 3rd Edition. They won Dicebreaker Awards' Game Designer of the Year 2022 and 2 Silver ENnie Awards in 2022. I had the pleasure and honor to meet Banana during Gary Con 2024 and it was amazing. We played a board game she developed and talked a little bit about games, a...
Jul 31, 2024•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 84
W. F. Smith, also known as Prismatic Wasteland, is a blogger and game designer, author of Barkeep on the Borderlands, making Prismatic Wasteland RPG, and creator of many other amazing things! He comes to the show to talk weird! Prismatic Wasteland, the blog, is one I've been visiting and coming back to for years, and it's been around for a long while. We even talk a little bit on the show about how the blog culture changed over time but is still on of the most reliable ways gamer and creators sh...
Jul 25, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 83
Justine Jones is a self taught illustrator living in Philadelphia. Her influences come from comic books, video games, mythology, and folklore. She has done work for Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, and many small publishers. She makes Magic the Gathering card pieces of art, and her unique style also appears on our award winning adventure Halls of the Blood King, and many other amazing creations. I am fascinated by Justine's work. The attention to detail, the otherworldly and yet familiar figu...
Jul 19, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 82
Courtney Campbell is a game designer and artist, creator of the Hack & Slash blog, author of many great posts about gaming, and the game designer of many RPG books, including more recently Sinless, a new take on cyberpunk dystopias where the players are faced with really hard hitting questions. I've been following Courtney's work from afar for a long while. I think he wrote some of the best OSR and adventure gaming posts out there, and I even have the zines he published compiling some of the...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 57 min•Ep. 81
Alex Damaceno, also known as Gnarled Monster, is the creator of Beyond the Borderlands zine series, Archon Ruins, Dungeon Reavers, and a lot of more stuff! His art and cartography is known for its unique style and use of bright colors. And he is also a awesome friend, and cool person to hang with! We met in person recently and had the best of times hanging out. So inviting him for an interview for the show was only natural. We talked art, creativity, process, how he came up with some of his crea...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 80
John Wick is not only the legend who inspired a multi-millionaire Hollywood franchise, but he is also the legendary game designer of Legend of the Five Rings, 7th Sea, Orkworld!, Cat, Wield, and so many others! He is also famous for his writing and opinions he shares on his YouTube channel. We don't agree on a lot of things, but we agree to disagree and I love it! In this chat we talked about D&D, it's many versions, whether if any of them is an RPG, we talk about how it is to be much harder...
Jul 05, 2024•2 hr 18 min•Ep. 79
Matthew Orr is a TTRPG creator and co-owner of Wet Ink Games. He likes to read about history, about animals (especially cryptids), and he loves comics (but not superhero comics). He has an obsession with bleak 1970s sci-fi movies he can't quite explain. All of this seems to show up in his games. He makes games, publishes games, and help other do the same! I recently had the honor and pleasure to collaborate with Wet Ink Games on a project and it was one of my favorite experiences ever! I, of cou...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 58 min•Ep. 78
Dan Algstrand is the fantastic Artists, Art Director and Graphic Designer who worked on titles such as Kult Divinity Lost, The One Ring, Mutant Year Zero, and many other titles. Dan is a freelance graphic artists rumored to have worked on pretty much all Swedish RPGs, he is a member of the fantastic Stockholm Kartell ! In this weird and wonderful chat we talked about his work as a graphic designer, how is his process, influences, and way he things about art and games. We talked also about his co...
Jun 26, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 77
Scott found his father's 1st Editon Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide at age 8 in 1983, and his path was set. He moved on from D&D to Car Wars, Gamma World, Vampire: The Masquerade, and Starfinder, both playing and game mastering, untill settling on Mörk Borg and its ilk during the pandemic. Now he is finding out the ups and downs of crowdfunding and self-publishing as he attempts to bring his own post-apocalyptic vision into the world with Wasteland Degenerates! We talk...
Jun 20, 2024•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 76
Alex Kobyashi is a passionate creator who seems to can't stop making games. He is the creator of The Black Sword Hack, Rats in the Walls, Extinction, Cursed!, and many other great games! In this chat we talked about the many great things about being a full time game designer, and the many and things about being a full time game designer. Alex talks a lot about "being lazy" despite his impressive production, and how he values structure and routine to help him work. We talk a lot about process, ro...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 75
Pawel Klimczak is the game designer and a publisher of Slav Borg, a Post-Soviet, Semi-Fantasy Role-Playing Game. He is also a journalist and a musician interested in the intersection of the social conditions and art. I immediately backed Slav Borg when I saw it on Kickstarter. It had cool looking post-apocalyptic cars. It was inspired by Mörk Borg, an incredible game I love, and it drew from a topic that interests me a lot, which is the the culture from other countries that did experience social...
Jun 14, 2024•1 hr 50 min•Ep. 74
Nick Cardarelli is a Professional Dungeon Master and the host of the Raised on DnD podcast. He has created dozens of original tabletop role-playing game adventures for several different game systems. Nick has been a gamer for over 30 years and has used TTRPGs to connect with his family, friends, and co-workers. I've been a guest on Nick's amazing podcast for a few times and he is always bringing in amazing guests and talking about great things concerning parenthood, games, and talking to amazing...
Jun 12, 2024•2 hr 3 min•Ep. 73
Jeremy Pillipow is a Canadian hobby YouTuber, artist, and game designer. His YouTube channel is full of tutorials on how to craft terrain, and many other things too, as Jeremy learns in public, sharing lessons, mistakes and, more importantly, constantly encouragement and quite a bit of wisdom. Jeremy also recently published a Skirmish game inspired by TTRPG as well called Idols of Torment, and we talk a bit about the game, and how RPGs influence his work. The episode main themes are crafting, ma...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 58 min•Ep. 72
Jason Morningstar is perhaps the iconic Indie RPG Game Designer in my mind. He is the legendary creator of Fiasco, one of my favorite games of all time, which continues to inspire me to this very day. He also created many other masterpieces like Night Witches, Durance, Skeletons and many others. He is also an educator, and, more importantly, he is generous, kind, and supportive with other in our community. This chat was only supposed to last for 1 hour but we managed to stretch it to a little ov...
Jun 05, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 71
Goblin Archives is a game designer and educator, creator of Liminal Horror, and fomenter of the fantastic (and horrific in a good "horror is cool" kinda way) community of players and creators around it. He thrives on collaborative work, and in this episode this becomes a theme that we explore deeply. Liminal Horror is a fantastic gem of a game of Investigative Horror that uses the framework from Cairn and provides it's on set of tools and structures to create very instigating scenarios. This fos...
May 30, 2024•2 hr•Ep. 70
Fellipe is curious brazilian designer and illustrator. He had done a little bit of everything in design and enventually started to design its own RPG material and games where he tries to make than as light ans silly as possible. He is the creator of Forgotten Ballad, an adventure game inspired by the OSR and the Legend of Zelda series! He is also developing The Way, a new weird take on fantasy adventure gaming that I am excited to see him develop in the open! In this chat we talked about this, a...
May 28, 2024•2 hr 7 min•Ep. 69
Joseph Goodman runs Goodman Games. He has written a number of RPG titles, including DCC RPG, DragonMech, and many dungeon crawl adventures. His best work, though, is mentoring the amazing group of creators who have come to publish their work through Goodman Games. Joseph is also well known within the DCC RPG community as the Dark Lord, but in a very dear way. I had the pleasure to work with Goodman Games a few times, but I've always been an admirer of not only their work with games, but especial...
May 23, 2024•2 hr 2 min•Ep. 68
Brian Colin has been working in the industry since his first exhibit in Gen Con's art show 2017. He is a sculptor, graphic designer, and product developer who is best known for Vast Grimm. Founder of Creature Creation, he is also the creator of many other weird things! I remember the first time I saw Vast Grimes maw cover! What a cover. And Vast Grimm visuals continues to be super rad! Brian's writing, art and design mix up so well in this series, as he continues to create more and more adventur...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 53 min•Ep. 67
Tim Hutchings is an award-winning artist and game designer best known for his game Thousand Year Old Vampire. He is also the creator of A Collection of Improving Exercises, Our Vacation, and many other games that explore the frontier of RPGs, games, and art. He's a soon-to-be-former university professor and closing up his art studio to focus on making games full time. I love games that do things in very unique ways that tie well with their themes. That explore spaces that haven't been explored o...
May 16, 2024•2 hr 6 min•Ep. 66
Lin Codega is an entertainment journalist who co-founded Rascal--a worker-owned, alternative tabletop roleplaying game news outlet. They previously wrote for io9, Polygon, and MIT's Immerse magazine. They also make games, and a lot of other weirdly wonderful things we talk about in this episode! The first time I met Linda as at Gen Con, and my friend Richard said I should meet them, talked about het work a bit and them I went to talk to Lin. She made a bunch of interesting questions and I answer...
May 14, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 65
JP Coovert writes and illustrates whimsical TTRPG zines every month. He also makes videos that teach and encourage creators to make cool stuff for their tabletop roleplaying games. He creates complete games, one-shot adventures (some that can be strung for an campaign, others thematically to each game), toolkits, guides, and so many other wonderful things. I honestly think JP's Patreon is one of the best bangs for your buck in the entire industry. He mixtures creative writing, good game design, ...
May 09, 2024•2 hr 3 min•Ep. 64
Cassi Mothwin is a multi-award winning tabletop RPG designer and illustrator. When she’s not working on her own projects, she’s usually reviewing or exploring other indie tabletop games developed by her peers. She enjoys video editing, video games, and reading a lot of genre fiction. Cassi body of work is pretty impressive and she has been doing this for only a few years. But not only that, she explores themes and avenues of play, multimedia, interactivity. It's really fantastic, creative and in...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 47 min•Ep. 63
Craig Hatler (he/him), @tezrak on most socials, bis the IT Help Desk Manager for a small historically black university in Raleigh, NC, USA. He has been playing #TTRPGs for over 30 years & have been developing/designing for over half that time. He has created a modular system and setting, both released as Creative Commons, allowing others to create with his work collaboratively. I confess I didn't know much about Craig's work before the interview, and he helped me out when a guest had to canc...
May 02, 2024•2 hr 13 min•Ep. 62
Adrián Mejia was born and raised in Quito, the city that he loves and hates. He wants to see more latines in Fantasy, both as characters and players, and tell stories he doesn't see elsewhere. He is the lead director of the Koboa project, a South American Fantasy setting for D&D, Pathfinder and other fantasy ganes, and is hoping to get a few more projects underway as he keeps experimenting with game designs he finds interesting. The first time I saw the vibrant colors and unique characters o...
Apr 30, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 61
Onslaught Six is the head honcho of Tidal Wave Games, who make the game SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY... and other TTRPG stuff. You can find out more about him on his website at onslaughtsix.com or his games at tidalwavegames.com I love games about scoundrels and thieves with good hearts, so I was instantly interested in Onslaught Six's game, so when we talked about the interview I was quickly excited! This chat proved I was right! We talk about many cool things, share ideas, personal stories, and a lot...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 60
Otavio Lessa is an Entrepreneur, Advisor, and Educator with +25 years of experience in Entertainment Content, Operations, Communications, and Business. Worked with brands and franchises like Warcraft, Call of Duty, Diablo, Gundam, Digimon, Godzilla, Magic The Gathering, Twitch.tv, and Amazon Prime. Currently, he is the President and Co-founder of Mind's Vision, a professor of entertainment business at Full Sail University, and a marketing consultant for video games and entertainment startups. Ot...
Apr 23, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 59
Jordan Dube is the owner & operator of Goosepoop Games! He is greatly involved with the community: running game meetups and conventions as executive director of his local game group in Portland, ME, performing clarinet in a swing band, writing video game review articles, and climbing rocks at the rock gym. Formerly a UX designer, programmer, sound engineer, and Army clarinetist, Jordan uses his diverse knowledge to create accessible and approachable games for players of all types. Connection...
Apr 18, 2024•2 hr•Ep. 58
Harley Stroh, legendary RPG writer, Skate Punker, and an incredible Judge (or GM for the non-DCCers out there)! Author of moderns classics like Sailors of the Starless Sea, Doom of Savage Kings, Blades Against Death, Journey to the Center of Aereth, Tower of the Black Pearl, Peril on the Purple Planet, and more recently, the impressive The Music of the Spheres is Chaos, a massive boxed-set adventure with a spinning dungeon map! His work in the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG line is super inspiring, ...
Apr 16, 2024•2 hr 2 min•Ep. 57
Luke Stratton, or Limithron as he is known throughout the seven seas of the internet, is an artist, game designer, producer, and so many other things. He is the creator of Pirate Borg, as well as Limithron's Guide to Naval Combat for 5th Edition D&D! He was with me on both Game On Expo and Gary Con, so we get to talk a little bit about those. Luke and I had the chance to bond over the course of 2 weeks, as we both attended Game on Expo as Guest/Panalists, and went to Gary Con afterwards to r...
Apr 11, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 10
Denis McCarthy has been illustrating and making stock art for indie games since 2016. He has work on multiple tiles in the Indie and OSR community, having a style characterized by an attention to history and architecture. He also sells a lot of stock art, which features in innumerable products, including my own! I've met Denis in a trip I made to Gen Con one of those years ago while I spent some days in NYC before the convention. We talked about art, games, design, life, and everything else. I h...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 57 min•Ep. 55
