The Paid to Play Podcast

Tabletop Gaming Company Founder and Publisher Chris Birch loves the tabletop gaming scene, from roleplaing games to wargames and boardgames; he grew up on Dungeons & Dragons, Steve Jackson’s Ogre and 15mm historical wargames. He loves it so much that he long harboured a dream of making and publishing games.

Five years ago, Chris followed his dream to create and run a game company and founded founded Modiphius. The company used Kickstarter to enable their first project, Achtung! Cthulhu; since then Modiphius has become full-time employment for Chris and around twenty employees. Modiphius has created new games and secure the licenses for some of the biggest franchises around, including Infinity, Fallout, Conan and Star Trek.

Join Chris and I for a great chat about headphone-stealing squirrels, what a major convention does to your work schedule, preparing for the tabletop gaming business through the music and fashion industries and making sure you choose projects based on whether you genuinely love them!

Chris Birch and Modiphius

Official Website of Modiphius

Modiphius on Facebook

Modiphius on Twitter

Modiphius' Games

Achtung! Cthulhu

Fallout: Wasteland Warfare

Star Trek Adventures

Thunderbirds

Games, People and Events

Cubicle 7 (tabletop game company)

David Grant (Wikipedia)

Free League Publishing

Gen Con

The Lord of the Rings - 1981 BBC radio adaptation (Wikipedia)

Matt Leacock

Mike Pondsmith (Wikipedia)

Ogre

Starblazer - Space Fiction Adventure in Pictures (Wikipedia)

Tabletop roleplaying and digital game designer Jared A. Sorensen has been a mainstay of the indie scene since the turn of the millennium. He's probably best know for his roleplaying game InSpectres, about busting ghosts while balancing the budget, but he's worked across projects across the gaming spectrum.

Jared is one of my classic guests. I first spoke with him for Episode 8, all the way back in 2012, and I'm glad to have him back on to talk about his latest project, a hardcover compilation of his Parsely series of party games inspired by the text-based computer adventures of the seventies and eighties. As of this posting, the Kickstarter for the Parsely book has finished with over 300% of the requested target!

Join us for a chat about nightclubbing spiders, the great screenwriter in the sky, running a game at a planetarium, adjectives and expletives in Australia and the United States and being a travelling mad scientist!

Jared Sorensen

Jared A. Sorensen's web site and RPG brand, Memento Mori

Jared A. Sorensen on Twitter

Jared Sorensen's chat for Episode 8

Jared's Games

Parsely

* The Parsely Games Compilation on Kickstarter

InSpectres

* Steve Darlington's RPGnet review

octaNe

FreeMarket

Friends

Luke Crane

* Sorensen/Crane

Vincent Baker

Games, Gamers and Gaming

Atari 2600 game console (Wikipedia)

Burning Wheel and Burning Empires

Greg Costikyan

The Forge

Gen Con

* Gen Con 50 Retrospective Panels, including "Creative Millennium: RPGs at the turn of the century"  with Jared Sorensen, Jonathan Tweet, James Wallis, Vincent Baker and Ron Edwards; hosted by Luke Crane

Ghostbusters roleplaying game (Wikipedia)

Iello Games

* King of Tokyo

*

Game designer, writer, executive and philanthropist Ian Livingstone is one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry. He co-founded iconic games company Games Workshop in 1975 with Steve Jackson, creating hobby magazine White Dwarf and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which soon after spawned the juggernaut tabletop miniatures games Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000.

Ian also co-authored The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first interactive book in the Fighting Fantasy series, with Steve Jackson in 1982. Since, the series has sold 20 million copies worldwide. Ian has written 15 titles in the series, including Deathtrap Dungeon and City of Thieves. His new book, The Port of Peril, will be published by Scholastic in August 2017.

In 1995 Ian oversaw a merger that created Eidos plc where he served as Executive Chairman until 2002, and later as Creative Director. At Eidos he launched global video games franchises including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Ian co-authored the influential Livingstone-Hope Next Gen review published by NESTA in 2011, recommending changes in ICT education policy. He chaired the Next Gen Skills campaign, working with government to introduce the new Computing curriculum in schools in 2014. He is opening Livingstone Academies in 2019 in association with Aspirations Academies Trust, with a curriculum focused on problem-solving and digital creativity.

Join us for a chat about saying "no" to partnering with the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, retaining control of your intellectual property, the Twittersphere posing a question Ian has never been asked before and Ian throwing a game mastering gauntlet down at the feet of your humble host!

A huge thank you to guest for Episode 111, Neil Rennison of Tin Man Games, who are republishing the Fighting Fantasy series as digital gamebooks for computers, tablets and smartphones, for getting Ian and I in touch!

Thanks also to Twitter fans MalcolmGarcia and furious george ☭‏ for your questions!

Ian Livingstone

Ian Livingstone on Twitter

Official website of Fighting Fantasy

* The Fighting Fantasy section of Gamebook Adventures, app versions of game-books

* Fighting Fantasy Legends by Nomad Games

Games Workshop

Tabletop Gaming

Dungeons & Dragons

Video Gaming

Eidos Interactive (Wikipedia)

Tomb Raider (Wikipedia)

3D character artist Delaney King has worked on a swathe of triple-A video game titles, including Unreal Tournament 2004. She was instrumental in developing the Australian video game design scene by starting professional courses based on her education during trips to the United States.

Delaney has also started the brands, King’s Minis and Darkling Games, and is preparing Skulldred, a set of tabletop miniatures gaming rules designed specifically to allow those who have impairments with numerical literacy to enjoy the full competitive experience of miniatures wargaming, for release.

If those weren't enough, Delaney, identifying as queer herself, is a tireless advocate for the LGBTIQ community within the video game industry.

Join us for a great chat about the good old days of miniatures gaming, the struggles of unionising in a digital industry, the three main qualities people look for when hiring game designers, the relative densities of hobbits and lava, how hard it can be to ask for help and how you really, really, really need to back your stuff up!

Thanks again to my guest for Episode 80, Sim Lauren, for recommending Delaney to me, and my fantastic backers on Patreon (including Sim) for the questions!

Delaney King

Official Website of Delaney King

* Delaney King on Twitter

King's Minis

Darkling Games

* Skulldred

Enemy Infestation (Metacritic)

Tabletop Miniatures Gaming

Batman Miniatures Game (Knight Models)

Games Workshop

* Warhammer 40,000

* White Dwarf (Wikipedia)

* Volume 1, Issue 95 (by fan site Chilvers Industries)

Eureka Miniatures

* Hawkmoon

Lead Adventure

Malifaux (Wyrd Games)

Ral Partha

Warzone: Resurrection (the Mutant Chronicles wargame) by Prodos Games

Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Paizo, Inc.

* Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

Song of Blades and Heroes (Ganesha Games)

Video Game and 3D Design

Academy of Interactive Entertainment

Blender 3D Modelling

GIMP

Maya

Modo

Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit (SEUCK) (Wikipedia)

...

Narrative designer for computer and video games Evgeni Puzankov works as a freelancer in the video game industry from his home base in St. Petersburg in Russia.

After working as an employee doing scripting and production for video games and becoming a lead narrative designer on Suricate Games’ title Panoptes, Evgeni went full-time as a freelancer in October 2016.

Since, he’s crafted narratives for the Steam Greenlight game The Long Reach and a few more games yet to be announced.

Evgeni Puzankov

Evgeni Puzankov on Twitter

Evgeni's Games

Depths of Betrayal

The Long Reach

Panoptes

Phantom Trigger

Evgeni's Favourite Games

Darkwing Duck (Wikipedia)

* Darkwing Duck Video Game (Nintendo) (Wikipedia)

Video Game Design

Source Engine (Valve)

Unity

Unreal Engine

Miniature model maker Fon Davis has worked on over thirty feature films across a two decade career. He’s an alumnus of the Industrial Light and Magic Model Shop and Disney, having produced concept art and made models for Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. Recently, he’s worked on Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium.

Fon founded his own design and fabrication studio, Fonco Creative, in 1997 in San Francisco, and after setting up shop in the premises of Vanaheim Studios in Los Angeles, he bought the whole 16,000 square foot facility out at the end of first quarter 2017, renaming it Fonco Studios.

Join us for a fantastic chat about the importance of a portfolio in the special effects industry (and why Fon didn't wind up needing one when he interviewed at ILM), the possibilities of virtual reality in entertainment, how special effects folks insert themselves into the movies they work on and the questions from the show's Patreon backers!

Thanks again to my guest for episode 86, Lauren Matesic of Castle Corsetry, for getting Fon on the show, and thanks to Patreon backer Matt Dawson for your questions for Fon!

Fon Davis, Fonco Creative and Fonco Studios

Fon Davis on Facebook

Fon Davis on Instagram

Fon Davis on Twitter

Fonco Studios / Fonco Creative

Fonco Creative on Facebook

Fonco Studios on Facebook

Movies

Coraline

Galaxy Quest (Wikipedia)

James and the Giant Peach (Wikipedia)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Wikipedia)

Starship Troopers (Wikipedia)

Fon's Projects and Loves

Kaiju movies (Wikipedia)

MORAV

Movie and Effects Companies

Colossal Pictures (Wikipedia)

* Henry Selick (Wikipedia)

Disney

Industrial Light and Magic

* Mark Anderson (IMDb)

Lucasfilm

Stan Winston School of Character Arts

Tippett Studio (Wikipedia)

Television

BattleBots

Other Projects

Hyper-Reality

MegaBots

Voice actor, narrator and RPG actual play podcast Host David O. Steele is one of the crew of the podcast, A Quest for Magic and Steele. In each episode, David and five others create a tale of sword and sorcery, elves and dwarves, using the fifth edition of the Dungeons and Dragons RPG rules. They get paid to play via a Patreon page created in December 2016.

I've been catching up on A Quest For Magic And Steele for the past few months and it's always fun listening to David portray his character, Gnu Gnu, a gnome bard with a mouth quite big enough to fit both his feet in, which he does regularly and gleeflully.

Join us for a chat about approaching Patreon as a podcaster, David's next projects, the joy of discovering roleplaying games through your children and repurposing content for Patreon!

David O. Steele

Steele Empire

Steele Empire on Facebook

David O. Steele on Twitter

A Quest for Magic and Steele

A Quest for Magic and Steele

A Quest for Magic and Steele on Patreon

Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Dungeons & Dragons

Podcasts and Resources

Critical Hit

Podcasting Resources

Dave Jackson - School of Podcasting

Voice Resources

Voice123.com

Australian science fiction and fantasy author Saffron Bryant has been writing since she could first hold a pencil but only started getting serious in 2011. Saffron's first book, The Fallen Star, was released in 2012 after Saffron was forced to take leave from her studies in biomedical science at uni while recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumour.

Now, at the age of twenty-six, Saffron has fifteen novels available for sale on Amazon, a degree in Biomedical Science (with honours) and has just finished her PhD in chemistry at the University of Sydney. As of last year Saffron earned enough royalties to pay all her bills.

In her spare time, Saffron is a huge fan of multiple fandoms, including The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones and Stephen King (especially The Dark Tower). She also plays Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs and even tabletop ones like Dungeons & Dragons.

Join Saffron and I as we get back together (after our chat for Episode 16) for a great chat about the first fiction you write, how writing is the perfect cure for the boredom of convalescence and the process of screening editors - not to mention a geek-out about Doctor Who!

Saffron Bryant

Official website of Saffron Bryant

Saffron Bryant's author page on Amazon

Self-Publishing Tools

BookBub

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Black Mirror (Netflix)

Doctor Who

Game of Thrones

The Lord of the Rings (movies)

Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear

Stephen King, author of The Dark Tower series and many more

Supernatural

Games

Dungeons & Dragons (tabletop roleplaying game)

* The Legend of Drizzt (board game)

The Lord of the Rings Online (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game)

Pathfinder (tabletop roleplaying game)

An audio AND video thank-you from your humble host to all the wonderful folks who made April an unexpectedly massive month - even with the schedule change from weekly to fortnightly!

Australian comic artist and writer Dean Rankine has contributed work to the Dark Horse Comics title Hellboy, the classic UK kids’ comics Beano and Dandy, and the Australian MAD Magazine, but he is best known for his work on the official comic books of the animated mega-hit TV series, The Simpsons, published by Bongo Comics. You can often find him at Australian pop culture conventions creating commissioned "Simpsonised" portraits of con-goers.

Dean has also created his own title, the twisted comic book Itty Bitty Bunnies in Rainbow Pixie Candy Land, published by Action Lab.

Join us for a chat about setting goals for publishing your comic, showing your kids how to follow a creative path and moving from comics to storyboarding!

Dean Rankine

Dean Rankine on Facebook

Bongo Comics, publishers of The Simpsons comics

Itty Bitty Bunnies in Rainbow Pixie Candy Land (Facebook)

Inspirations

Adventure Time!

The Regular Show

SpongeBob Squarepants

Comic Books

Writers and Artists

Gary Chaloner

Jhonen Vasquez

Comic Book Titles

Beano

The Dandy (Wikipedia)

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (Wikipedia)

Australian MAD Magazine (MADtrash.com website)

Comic Book Labels

Action Lab Comics

SLG Publishing (Slave Labor Graphics)

Featured image provided by Dean Rankine