November 26, 2024 • 59 mins
In this episode of Roll Play Grow, we delve into entrepreneurial journeys within the tabletop role-playing game industry. Your host, Courtney, interviews Hannah Rose and Clara Daly, co-founders of Wildmage Press, discussing their backgrounds, the inception of their new magazine 'Horizons,' and their experiences starting a TTRPG business. They highlight the magazine's unique offerings, efforts in playtesting, and the challenges and rewards of managing a new business. The episode provides insights into their collaborative process, marketing strategies, and future aspirations for Wildmage Press.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Hello, and welcome to Roll PlayGrow, the podcast for tabletop
entrepreneurs, creators, andfans.
In this show, we dig intoprocesses, challenges, tips, and
really look at how to grow abusiness in the tabletop role
play gaming space.
Sit back and join in as we learnfrom the creators behind your
favorite brands, about who theyare, and how they are turning
their passion for gaming into acareer.
Courtney (00:32):
Hey entrepreneurs.
I am so excited to share today'sinterview with you.
We've got a special two for onechat today because we are
talking with both Hannah Roseand Clara Daly about their new
endeavor Wildmage Press.
Hannah and Clara have a veryimpressive background in the
gaming industry.
We briefly touch on it and Iwould love to have several more
(00:55):
episodes discussing everythingthey do.
But in this episode, we arefocusing on Wildmage Press and
their first magazine Horizons.
I got to look at the first issueand it is so gorgeous with
spectacular tools for DMs.
I highly recommend becoming asubscriber.
And I know you'll see why afterthis chat.
(01:16):
We dig into not only whatHorizons is and what they are
dreaming about doing withWildmage Press.
But we learn what it takes tostart an indie magazine.
I think it is a reallyenlightening conversation and
the fact that it's with twoindustry veterans just makes it
that much more special.
Before we dive into theinterview, I do want to welcome
(01:38):
any new listeners to Roll Playgrow.
This show allows me to chat withso many amazing folks about
business, marketing, hardships,lessons learned, how to guides
across a wide spectrum ofindustries within the TTRPG
scene.
I'm talking with crafters, gamedesigners, musicians, editors,
artists, and more.
The variety is honestly reallyfun for me, and I hope it is for
(01:58):
you too.
Speaking of fun creators, I dowant to shout out my favorite
tea business, Friday afternoon.
This is an amazing nerdybusiness that makes the best
tea.
The shop is owned by a wonderfulhuman that I interviewed back in
episode six.
You could snag T gift cards,join a monthly book club that
has tea pairings.
Or if you're in the Seattlearea, they also offer a custom
(02:21):
blending sessions.
We are affiliates with them.
So if you go to Fridaytea.comand use the code, LightheartADV
you'll get 10% off your order,help wonderful business and
enjoy some delicious nerdy tea.
Thanks for hanging out and enjoythis chat with Hannah and Clara.
(02:45):
Hello, friends! I am so excitedto introduce y'all to Clara Daly
and Hannah Rose, the co foundersof the new Wildmage Press.
How are you doing today?
Hannah (02:58):
Good! It's great to be here.
Clara (03:00):
Thank you so much for having us on.
Courtney (03:03):
I'm so excited.
I've honestly been followingy'all for a while on your own,
and then when I saw theannouncement about Wild Mage, I
was just like, I have to getthem on! I want to talk about
all of the things.
But to kick things off, just alittle bit of an icebreaker, I
would love to hear from both ofyou on what is the first game
(03:23):
that you remember playing?
Clara (03:25):
Oh, that's a good one.
Are we talking like any type ofgame, like board game,
playground game?
Hannah (03:32):
My instant response was this 90s computer game called
Mixed Genetics, I think, whereyou had weird little like alien
creatures that evolved.
I was playing this when I waslike four, maybe less.
You had these weird little aliencreatures that evolved and
imagine like of graphics youwould have on a Dell laptop in
(03:55):
the 90s early 90s But I thinkalso Freddy Fish.
Clara (04:00):
I want to say, and I'm, I'm trying to dig deep back
into, into many, many moons ago,but I think it might have been
Frogger or something reallyclose to Frogger, like single
color, beefy, beefy computerthat took up far more space than
I had any right to, but.
Courtney (04:21):
Like, okay, Frogger, I know.
The other one's Hannah.
I have no idea what you'retalking about.
Hannah (04:26):
Freddy Fish was a kid's game where if I vaguely recall,
you're a fish going onadventures underwater.
Courtney (04:32):
enough, yeah.
Hannah (04:32):
So kind of an RPG.
Courtney (04:37):
Getting started young.
So, at what point did You startplaying TTRPGs.
Hannah (04:45):
I started towards the end of high school playing D& D
3.
5 with a group of friends thatI'd met through theater, yeah,
rolled up my first D& Dcharacters, and then when I was
in college I had a group that weplayed together for three and a
half years.
Courtney (05:05):
That's a long time.
Clara (05:07):
I am probably considerably more recent.
I think probably in 2017, 2018 Istarted playing D& D 5e with a
number of friends that I hadmade.
I've been interested in it foryears.
Like, I'd always been curiousabout it.
I'd seen folks playing it.
Same with Magic the Gathering.
Like, I'd always been, like, atthe periphery.
(05:28):
Of other people playing it andbeen really interested, but
never either had a group or hadan introduction.
It seemed kind of daunting andthen, know, around 2017 or so
one of my friends was like, Hey,do you want to play?
Like, I'm interested in runninga game for beginners.
I was like, that sounds perfect.
That's perfectly the on rampthat I need.
Hannah (05:49):
honestly, it was a few years earlier, but the same for
me, in terms of having hadpeople around me play and being
interested, but never havingbeen invited before, and that's
an experience I think a lot offemmes I've met have had.
Courtney (06:03):
Yeah, 100%.
Like, my first game wasn't D& D,and I was actually so opposed to
playing it because of just allof the stigma and the I didn't
want to walk into a game storeby myself because I was so tired
of, the bad attention that youget when you're a femme walking
into a store.
Hannah (06:20):
gamer
Courtney (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I stuck to video games.
I'm glad that that hasdefinitely changed though.
So these days, are y'all stillpredominantly playing D& D, or
how much are you able to mix itup?
Hannah (06:34):
We've been mixing it up a lot, actually.
I still love playing D& D.
I'm excited to be trying out thenew 2024 rules.
Hopefully I have another longcampaign soon, but I've been
playing a lot of Daggerheart.
We have been playing a varietyof RPGs, kind of in a staff and
tester circle.
(06:55):
So we just played deathmatchIsland, which is a game that
will be featured in an upcomingissue of Horizons, and a sci fi
RPG Mothership.
What else, Clara?
What else we've been playing?
Clara (07:09):
Those are the two immediate ones that came to
mind.
I also not too long ago played,I think it was Cyberpunk that
one of my friends ran for me.
Definitely primarily D& D, but Ifeel like one of the great
things is once you're in thiscommunity, I've been having that
opportunity of like, kind ofsame as how I got into D& D.
Someone says, I want to runthis, do you want to play?
(07:30):
Like, that's the easiest part,right?
Just show up as a player.
Courtney (07:33):
100%.
So I was saying before westarted recording that I'm sure
you've had to answer thisquestion a lot, so sorry, but
for both of you, and we canstart with maybe Clara, I would
love it too walk me through thetimeline of how you went from
first playing, and I think yousaid about 2017, to then
(07:55):
starting to work in thisindustry.
Clara (07:57):
So, since it wasn't all that long ago, my origin story
is relatively short.
But hopefully kind of inspiringto some folks.
So, I am primarily an artist.
My day job, I am a digitaldirector, and I do illustration
on the side, and that'sprimarily in the D& D space.
Like, what do I do?
I'm digital illustrator.
So, when I started playing D& D,and I started getting more
(08:17):
invested in the world, andinterested in what it was beyond
just our table, some of theplayers recommended Critical
Role.
And so I started listening toCritical Role, and was really
interested in that, and reallyinspired to make fan art, as a
lot of folks do for things thatthey love.
And it was within a month or twothat Hannah so happened to be
(08:40):
Looking for artists for ATal'Dorei Reborn, and my style
and themes and all of that kindof aligned so she hired me to do
some pieces there.
I was still doing fan art theentire time, and that, as the
years have expanded, kind ofbecame my Getting more and more
jobs from them, and working withDarrington, and establishing
(09:02):
myself as kind of a landscapeand concept and city artist,
really.
Especially for Campaign 3.
And I still do fan art.
Like, I still love doing all ofthat work, but getting that foot
in the industry and meeting alot of these folks and expanding
my portfolio, like, has then ledHannah and I along this path
that also helped us establishWildmage Press.
Courtney (09:24):
Had you done the more city type art before?
Clara (09:28):
I had, I've always been more interested in like
environments and landscape andconcept the slightly weirder
side of like portraits and allof that are really cool, but I
think a lot of folks do that.
I've always been interested inthose nuggets of information
that a GM will drop or put intotheir world that are so
evocative that I just want Iwant to make it real.
(09:48):
I want to give some kernel of asetting that can then hold that
story and continue it.
So that's always been myinterest point anyway.
Courtney (09:57):
so cool.
I love that it's been able toevolve like that.
So yes, Hannah, tell me aboutyour origin story.
Hannah (10:05):
Yeah, so mine also comes from getting involved with the
community and going from Beingat a table, you know, playing D&
D with my friends and having agreat time, to Saying, okay, I
guess I'm gonna get on Twitter.
I guess, is this gonna, am Igonna regret this?
(10:25):
But I did it because I got onTTRPG Twitter and started
talking to people about nerdstuff and feeling like this was
a community where can be a nerdin a lot of different ways,
right?
I can be a nerd about books.
I can be a nerd about science.
I can be a nerd about fantasy.
I can be a nerd about dice andtech and art and theater.
(10:51):
That was really cool andsomebody I met online Kelly
Butler, the opera geek made atweet about should be a College
of the Opera Bard and it'd bereally cool if it had these
powers and I was like, Yeah, Iwant to practice, like, just
play around with doing somedesign.
I'll write that up for her, thatsounds fun.
I started talking to her aboutit.
(11:11):
She was like, well, you have toput this on DMs Guild.
You need to actually publishthis instead of just posting it
on Twitter.
And I was like, Okay, I guessI'll practice doing some layout
too.
And it was, happened to be at areally fortuitous time where 5E
was really entering, like, agolden era and starting to boom,
(11:35):
and, but DMs Guild wasn't supersaturated yet and we put College
of the Opera up and it was ahuge hit, and I got contacted
about doing more things, and Istarted doing some freelance
editing, including for CriticalRole, and Wizards of the Coast.
And meanwhile, I was becomingless and less satisfied with
(11:57):
commuting for my day job, anddecided to go freelance and do
this, which is, I will say, ifyou live in the United States, a
thing I recommend if you haveanother source of healthcare.
Do not quit your day job justbecause you want to be a game
designer a freelancer.
Make sure you at least havehealthcare.
So Yeah I started doing thathave done a bunch of work with
(12:23):
Wizards and Critical Role andMCDM Productions and through
doing Tal'Dorei Reborn withCritical Role as the co lead
designer, managing editor, andco art director.
We looking for artists who coulddo Objects, props, scenery, and
(12:45):
was looking through the CriticalRole fan art tag and saw some
gorgeous art that Clara did,looked at her website, said,
Ooh, she's a graphic designer.
Like, she clearly has theseskills.
and she was just so fun andamazing to work with that we
have continued collaboratingtogether and become friends and
decided to found a companytogether.
Courtney (13:07):
Honestly, I like you, too, in this space.
Yeah, I feel like there's somuch that I could gloss over if
I had several hours to dig intothis with you, but this moves us
into wanting to talk about themain topic of today, which is
Wildmage Press.
So you decided to found acompany together.
(13:29):
What happened?
How did, like, this idea comeabout?
What steps did you take to getstarted?
All that fun stuff.
Clara (13:36):
I will hand that squarely to Hannah.
I actually went, I can at leastgive us the the starting
timeline that she shared theidea with me because I went
looking back through Discord outof curiosity after we had our
launch.
It was January 26th.
of this year, Hannah messaged meand said, Hey, marketing guru,
or something like that.
What do you think about the nameHorizon as a, as a periodical
(14:00):
name?
So apparently she'd already beenthinking about some stuff.
So Hannah, if you want to fromthere.
Hannah (14:06):
As Clara knows, I had been thinking about a TTRPG
periodical.
I had been the managing editorat MCDM Productions where I was
running Arcadia, which was a 5thedition magazine.
With art, with, with game designand art from a variety of
(14:27):
authors and illustrators, andthat was just, that was really
wonderful.
And MCDM decided to move awayfrom 5th edition.
decided to go back freelancing,and, there was a need in the
space for something similar.
The community was really sad tosee Arcadia go.
(14:49):
I was really sad to not beworking with wonderful authors
and illustrators.
I'd really enjoyed moving into arole as a creative lead and
managing editor, as well asgetting to do bits of design
here and there.
So I wanted to do somethingsimilar, but I wanted it to be
(15:11):
than I could do just as oneindividual on my own.
I wanted it to be bigger thanHannah Rose's Game Design
Patreon, you know.
I'd been tossing around ideas,writing up some specs, and I
knew Clara had a background inmarketing, so I guess I tossed
this idea for a name to her oneday.
Names are hard.
And I believe it was You know,within three minutes of, of
(15:37):
beginning that conversation thatI was like, Clara would be an
amazing collaborator on this.
She has a day job that is a verycool, busy day job, so she's
probably not gonna be, havetime, andalso, we have also
bonded over having too manyhobbies.
She's probably not gonna havetime, but let me ask! And so I
(16:08):
said hey, i'm looking for acreative partner on this.
Would you be interested inco-founding a TTRPG publishing
company?
And
Clara (16:14):
it was an immediate yes.
I don't, I don't think we hadhashed out much more than that,
but working with Hannah has beensuch a delight.
And all of the collaboratorsthat I've worked with and the
people that I've met, and I justlove this space so much that it
was, I didn't know what theshape of it was.
I truly didn't know what timecommitment I had just said that.
(16:35):
Yes, I can do, but it was, itwas instant and it started.
Building from there, we're like,Oh, this is actually going to be
real.
Let's, let's start taking thesteps to make it real.
What's that look like?
And the answer is a lot ofspreadsheets.
So many
Hannah (16:52):
So many spreadsheets, so many color coded spreadsheets.
Courtney (16:55):
That's wild that it was January of this year that
this all started.
Clara (17:00):
Almost February, very, very, very end.
And it was just an ask of like,what's your, what's your gut
thought on this name to a veryrapid, want to do this cool
thing with me?
And I,
Courtney (17:12):
So after you said yes, what were some of the first
things that y'all did to try tofigure out how to make this
happen?
Hannah (17:19):
From a, so one of the big spreadsheets was a budgeting
spreadsheet figuring out howmuch money this is going to
cost, how much money we need runthe magazine on an ongoing basis
and thus to start up the companywith.
Starting it, you know, inFebruary and then looking at
(17:41):
announcing it in September andgetting our first issue out in
October.
So that was a lot of math.
And research talking withlawyers and financial advisors
and accountants and CPAs andbeing like, Okay, well, I have
this question about running abusiness and taxes.
And the accountant says, Oh, youneed to talk to a different
(18:03):
financial advisor for that.
The financial advisor says,Actually, that's a question for
your lawyer.
And the lawyer says, Oh, well,we work with this financial
person on that.
Like, everybody has littleslices.
And Clara and I were hashing outdetails of what we want the
business to look like and Clarabrings a lot of the marketing
(18:24):
and brand experience there.
So we did a branding exercisewith questions like, what is
your value proposition?
And what words do you want toassociate with your brand?
What do you bring to the spacethat others don't?
And having to articulate all ofthat was a really good.
I will say, like, big,professional, real business
(18:46):
exercise.
That I think a lot of folks inthe TTRPG space aren't familiar
with, and it was hard.
I was like, this is really hard.
Clara (18:56):
and I think I kept saying, I know, but you have to
do I
Hannah (18:59):
think you said yeah, it's supposed to be.
And I And that has beenimmensely valuable so a lot of
exploration spreadsheets talkingto advisors And then reaching
out to authors for our firstissue Because we have about a
six to seven month lead time
Clara (19:18):
Yeah, and along the way, as Hannah mentioned, like, we
had to, we had to establish thebrand, everything from, you
know, registering the LLC tovisually creating logos and
colors and palette and decidingwhat platforms we wanted to be
on.
We knew that Patreon was goingto be, like, a go to for us.
We were absolutely going to beon there, but Hannah came
(19:40):
expressing, like, very fairly,like, hey, I don't want us to be
exclusively only on Patreon.
I also want to have our ownwebsite, which I had extensive
experience building and managingand maintaining.
So I started going on that sidelooking at what, what that stack
would look like, what the userexperience would be, starting to
apply the branding as we werecreating it and then
(20:01):
simultaneously we had the trackwhere we're getting the pitches
from the designers.
We're starting to choose whatthe articles are going to be,
looking at our budget trackerand like, all right, here's how
many words, here's what we'repaying those folks, here's what
the editing is going to cost,here's what we have for cover
and interior illustrations, andhow many do we want, and start
writing the art orders.
(20:21):
So like a lot of differenttracks moving.
Simultaneously to stand this allup.
And we had a pretty aggressivetimeline saying like, we are
going to market September andour first issue is going to be
October 9th.
Like we had established that andnow we have to, we have to back
into it.
Hannah (20:38):
And figuring out how to pay people, because we work with
a lot of folks who are not fromthe United States, a lot of
international designers andartists, and am really against
being paid through PayPal andpaying people through PayPal for
work, because PayPal takes sucha huge cut.
and I feel like it really isn'tfair.
(21:00):
So, researching the bestplatforms and practices for
that.
And setting up that pipeline,and, you know, as Claire said
registering the business,getting the business license,
bank accounts, all of, all ofthe little admin details.
Clara (21:17):
cloud storage, like all those little things that when
you slide into an existingbusiness, you take for granted
setting up our emails.
Buying all the domains, likefiguring out what platforms we
wanted to be on for for all ofthese different processing
things.
It's really something you don'tconsider until you're in the
thick of it setting it up.
Courtney (21:34):
Yeah, and it can be so overwhelming, I feel almost
envious that y'all have, like,each other to lean on in that.
Hannah (21:42):
I knew I couldn't do it by myself, it would just be so
lonely.
Courtney (21:47):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, gosh, that is wild,though, that just getting almost
the runaround of like beingpassed from different financial
person to lawyer to anotherfinancial person and just trying
to make heads or tails of thathas, I'm sure, was a probably a
stressful time.
Hannah (22:04):
Yeah, it, it was very much just knowing, this is just
part of the process, and, Thingscan take a while, but that
doesn't mean it's a major snag,right?
It doesn't mean it is anemergency, or is a huge upset,
or it's a catastrophe.
I do like to remind myself, youknow, when we're stressed about
deadlines, like, this is gamedesign, it's not life or death.
(22:26):
Ha ha
Courtney (22:28):
Yep.
That is my background in projectmanagement and it's always been
like, is someone dying?
Is someone bleeding?
If not, send an email.
So definitely related to that.,Stepping back a little bit, you
said that you were starting tofind the, all of the different
artists and the writers.
(22:49):
How did you decide on who toinclude for this first
publication?
Hannah (22:53):
We reached out to people mostly that we had worked with
before or who came super highlyrecommended, who we knew had
high quality work, who broughttheir own voices and original
ideas, and who were reallyreliable.
Cause we wanted, you know, wewant all our issues to be
bangers, but for this first one,we knew we really extra need to
(23:16):
stick the landing.
So those authors ended up beingAaron Roberts Imogen Gingell,
Willie Aveal, Andrew Dickey, andthe, the artists ended up being,
let's see if I can get those inthe same order, Zuzanna Wuzek,
Allie Briggs, Veronica O'Neiland Jessica Nguyen.
(23:37):
And also our lead testers, RomanPena and Anna Guiarmus, are
absolutely invaluable.
So I just rattled off a wholelist of names, and those are
only some of the people who arein the credits.
Courtney (23:51):
That's a lot of people to recruit and manage,
especially for such a tightdeadline for your first one.
Clara (24:00):
And fortunately we both had pretty extensive project
management experience.
I'd been an art director inpublishing many many years ago.
Hannah, Took the lead on all theart directing for Tal'Dorei and
I think had a pretty heavy handin it for Arcadia.
So we co art direct which isvery useful and helpful.
Sometimes we'll be like, hey,make sure we're aligned on
(24:20):
thoughts, but like, can you getback to this person today?
Can you get back to that persontomorrow?
So having both of us, you know,Really helps like divide and
conquer.
And I think it also helps,especially because we have folks
like internationally, I'm Eastcoast, Hannah's West coast.
We kind of can cover a fairamount of time zones as well for
getting back to people.
And we got more pitches that wewant to use than we can fit in
(24:42):
the first issue.
So fortunately I got to then saylike, Hey, that's awesome.
Let's start to slot those intofuture issues and start to flesh
those out.
And that also gives us an ideaof what other artists we want to
hire.
Courtney (24:54):
Yeah, for future issues, Will you be opening it
up for folks to reach out to youand pitch to you guys, or do you
want to keep it to specificpeople that you've worked with
in the past or that are on yourwish list?
Hannah (25:10):
We have several issues slated out already.
Like I said, it's a pretty longlead time, so we have several
issues slated out already.
We are not accepting pitches forgame design right now.
Artists are welcome to send intheir portfolios to our general
email address.
And for game design, we may havean open call for portfolios at
some point.
(25:31):
I actually was just chattingwith somebody about some of our
criteria for what we look for,and we're We absolutely want to
work with and spotlight new andemerging designers, and that's
something I loved about Arcadiaand want to continue to do.
However, there are certaincriteria of You know, of quality
(25:54):
and some experience and toreally making something the best
it can be that we look for.
We're paying top, top tier ratesin the industry, but it is a
process wherein and it's almostpartly a mentorship process, but
it's a process in which theauthor participates through
several rounds of playtestingand revision.
(26:15):
I think that, I think that aboutcovers it.
We're not accepting pitches atthis time, but we may do an open
call for game designerportfolios in the future.
And we are always keeping an eyeon the space for promising new
designers to reach out to.
Courtney (26:30):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
And again, you said you hadseveral issues already slotted
out, Hey, entrepreneurs.
I love introducing you to newcreators every episode, but I
could really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page, where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content, add your
questions to upcominginterviews, and you could even
(26:51):
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
To learn more, go tolightheartadventures.
com slash RPG.
And now back to the show.
I'm curious about, is thereanything that you learned after
doing this first publicationthat you realized you want to do
(27:12):
differently or improve forfuture issues?
Clara (27:17):
think the first issue, and this is maybe not
necessarily so much aboutHorizons itself, but like the
brand itself.
It took quite a few,unsurprisingly, to develop the
brand, develop the templates,develop the styles.
And then, like, make sure thatthose were all buttoned up in a
way that they could get pickedup down the road and be
(27:38):
repurposed.
So, I'm very glad we wentthrough all of that.
There were definitely some bumpsin the road, but it allowed us
to structure things.
Everything from social mediatemplates to video templates to
the InDesign document itself.
Additional assets that we'recreating for, patrons and
subscribers.
Like it was, it was slow andboth of our standards for
(28:03):
quality are very, very high, butI am glad that we took the time
because I think the additionalissues will not take quite as
long, which will allow us alittle more flexibility to
potentially get even morecreative with some of the layout
and some of the images and justsome of the type treatments.
Hannah (28:21):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is we've had this first, you
know, first actual run of our,first live run of our processes
of developing an issue ofHorizons from start to finish
engine.
There are definitely places tosmooth out, to streamline to
(28:43):
adjust, but a lot of it just isthat streamlining and adjusting
and giving us then room to trysome new things.
you know, we are two peoplerunning this company with a ton
of contributors and Clara stillhas her super cool day job.
So a lot of the limitationsthere just come from being a
(29:05):
really tiny team.
Courtney (29:06):
100%.
That makes sense.
And you know, even the mostcooperative, amazing freelancers
are, it can take a lot towrangle them and their
schedules.
So, taken from your website, thedescription of your quarterly
publication is that you've gotthree articles designed with 5th
edition in mind, an article fora featured TTRPG system, the
(29:30):
desk of many thoughts, a nerdyop ed column, and a plethora of
gorgeous illustrations.
How did y'all decide that that'show you wanted to break down
each of these issues?
That you wanted three, D& D, oneof a different game, the op ed,
talk me through how thatdecision came about.
Hannah (29:48):
So, as I mentioned, I came from running Arcadia in the
past MCDM's, 5eMagazine, and I Ireally enjoyed that and wanted
to fill that space in theindustry and the community while
also trying some new things andhaving room to explore and
branch out.
So, you know, as we discussed,we both come from a D& D
(30:11):
background.
I've been playing 5e since theD& D Next playtest we really
love that and also wanted toexplore new things.
And in the last couple of years,the Industry as a whole has been
out and diversifying, andpeople's interests have been
(30:33):
diversifying.
And I've just, as a creator,been trying to learn from more,
from other games and createopportunities to play more
games.
Because it's not, it's not aboutthe desire to play new game
systems, it's about finding, youknow, it's about scheduling
them.
So I really wanted to have aspace Where those D& D and not
(30:57):
D& D, TTRPGs, can co exist.
Where it's not all one or theother, and there can be a
variety.
And also a understanding that ifyou can use this content however
you want, we make everythingReally well polished and
(31:17):
playtested and edited and easyto drop into your game at a
moment's notice and use as is.
But we also think about, aswe're designing it, every, every
GM is a designer.
Everybody's mixing things up fortheir home games and their
settings and the way they play agame.
And Part of it is just, okay,you can pick up little bits of
(31:40):
bits of this and remix it anduse it as an ingredient in your
own campaigns.
And so when that comes to havinga variety of systems, I'm
looking at it, okay, even ifyou're an inveterate 5e player
and all you play is D& D, let'smake these articles for other
systems that might beinspirations, or you might
convert them, or you might justread them and think, hey, that's
(32:02):
cool, I want to steal thenarrative from that.
Yeah.
Or you might be like, okay, I'vereally been wanting to play this
system, maybe there are otherpeople in the community that
want to use this article.
and making, making a space forthat to co exist.
As for the desk of many things,and Clara, feel free to jump in
on any of this.
As for the Desk of Many Things,I wanted a space that would be
(32:27):
for prose writing in theindustry that's a little more
formal than a blog, but not partof journalism officially.
So not part of a media, youknow, news site, and also not a
formal academic paper, but justa place to, for something about
games in the magazine as well asall of that content.
Clara (32:50):
And to build on the why, why the fourth article being a
separate system, and I think Ialluded to this earlier, there's
so many games out there that itoften takes someone else saying,
hey, do you want to jump in onmy game, to be that
introduction, because otherwiseit can be so overwhelming.
There's so many, and I'm surethey're all amazing, but to
(33:11):
lower that barrier of entry,someone saying, hey, here's a
game, here's some.
Free quick start rules that comewith it.
Put your blinders on.
Just look at this real quick.
See if it sounds cool.
Like it's just making it moreaccessible and being able to
rotate and feature that.
So you're not just locked intoone system.
And I think having that, like,it's not that common out there,
(33:33):
right?
You'll follow different newssites, you'll follow different
folks that you really respect inthe area, and they'll sometimes
blog or tweet or whatever abouta game, but having that as like
a baked in part of this set ofarticles for a system you
already know and love, but alsoas an introduction to another
one that you might want to playor have been curious about or
just very easy on ramp intotrying it.
(33:55):
That's not something that reallyseems to exist out there right
now.
And that's the best way I'vebeen introduced to games, is
someone else saying like, Hey,here's this cool thing, do you
want to jump in?
And then I spend the next fivedays ranting about how everyone
needs to play Deathmatch Island,and, you know, prancing that
banner, and telling everyonethat this game's amazing.
And it's the first time a lot offolks have either heard of it,
(34:16):
or other people have been like,I've been meaning to play that,
let me try it now.
So, I think, I think that'ssomething that, And we did
discover, like, there's a reasonfolks don't do this, because
playtesting for a whollyseparate system takes a lot of
time.
Designing and the style for thesystem takes a lot of time.
But I think the value thatreaders get from that, and the
access to systems that theymight otherwise be too
overwhelmed to research, is Morethan worth it.
Hannah (34:40):
Yeah, and it's a lot of admin, too.
Like, I'm really excited tocollaborate with amazing
colleagues across the industrywho are making these games that
I haven't gotten to collaboratewith and develop for before, and
that's really awesome and fun.
It's also a lot of emails and sothere's a, there's a big admin
lift there, too, not justworking in one or two D20 based
(35:02):
systems.
Courtney (35:03):
Yeah, I think what you're saying, Clara, is just,
it's so true.
Like, I, my husband and I are, Iguess, the ones that like, oh,
we introduced the new games toall of our friends because we're
the
Clara (35:15):
Thank you for being those people.
all need those people articles.
Courtney (35:20):
but it's like, you know, because we back all of the
Kickstarters and he's usuallythe DM and it's like, okay,
cool, great.
But then we look at our shelfand we're like, okay, we have
all these games.
We want to play all these games.
It's so hard to like.
Not only get our own minds like,all right, switching over to
this new system, but now gettingall of our players and there's
so few of them, especially that,you know, on the smaller scale
(35:41):
side that have the on ramps tomake it really easy and
accessible.
I think that that's a veryneeded thing.
And I'm glad that y'all areincluding that.
Okay, so in looking at thecredits of the first issue, I
was noticing that you have avery large group of alpha and
beta playtesters.
And so I'm just, I'm so curiousabout how you recruited all of
(36:04):
them and like how much back andforth was going.
Were they playing it more thanonce or was it just a one time
thing, made some changes andthen moved on to beta?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hannah (36:14):
Yeah gosh, I probably could talk for an entire hour,
two hours just about ourplaytest process and my amazing
playtesters have a lot to sayabout it too and they are, I, I
defer to my lead testers fortheir knowledge of that.
So I had worked with several ofthem before at MCDM and knew
(36:35):
that these are people who reallyunderstand how to give
thoughtful, constructive testingfeedback where they know the
game and also know how toseparate is this about my
personal enjoyment or is thisabout how this mechanic or this
(36:56):
narrative is working at thetable?
Is this easy to run?
Is this confusing the players?
this you know, ending in a TPKand why?
to be able to give that feedbackin a structured way we actually
use a spreadsheet, morespreadsheets for delivering
feedback, and say, here is theissue, and then, Not backseat
(37:22):
game design, but identify whatthe issue is and what was
happening and then I, themanaging editor, that over and
try to identify what are somesolutions and make suggestions
and recommendations to theauthor.
For, here is the issue, we couldtry this or this, what do you
(37:43):
think?
So we have that pool of alphatesters, some of whom look at
all of the articles, some ofwhom just looked at some of
them.
and a large group of betatesters as well.
Usually people are looking at itin only one of those phases.
And, at least one person isrunning a live test.
(38:03):
With the content, if applicablein each phase, but sometimes
more than that.
Courtney (38:09):
I think that's really helpful because there are so
many people that want to beplaytesters and volunteer for
it, and then they don't givefeedback, or good feedback, and
so I, it's very valuable to havea group that you can, trust that
much.
Clara (38:24):
And, and they double also as like the last eyes.
It's already gone through copyediting.
It's all already gone throughproofing, but these are the
folks who know these articlesprobably the best by now because
they've run it and they've giventheir feedback.
So we also have them do lastlooks along with our editors are
in layout.
Hannah (38:45):
Or people who didn't have a chance to participate in
the playtesting, you know, werebusy, were not able to do that.
And so it's their first look andthey're looking at it with fresh
eyes.
And that's also great to haveeven more people putting fresh
eyes on it with theunderstanding that that final
proof is not the time for anymajor game design changes.
(39:05):
But they are looking at it freshand that helps to identify any
little typos and layout issues.
Courtney (39:11):
hmm.
So if I'm understandingcorrectly, Clara, you are more
in charge of the marketing sideof things, right?
Clara (39:18):
So I am kind of my I'm the digital side, so the
website, the content marketingsocial media, email marketing,
CRM's, all of that good stuff,anything data based So yeah,
your websites, your marketing isthe digital side Your branding,
(39:39):
graphic design, visual design,illustration.
That is, that is my arena.
Courtney (39:45):
So obviously leading up to the announcement and then
the actual launch of the firstissue itself was, I'm sure, a
lot to tackle.
But what are some of yourthoughts on how you're going to,
you know, increasedsubscriptions over time.
Clara (40:03):
So I think the biggest thing that we can do is, like
this, like continue tocoordinate with folks get the
word out there.
Hannah and I just came back froma couple days of being at Big
Bad Con in San Francisco.
So it's a lot of thatnetworking.
It's just like we're hiring fromour collaborators in the
community.
(40:24):
It's making sure that our nameis getting out there in the
community.
So sometimes it's in kind,sometimes it's simply, you know,
letting folks know that we havethis really cool thing out
there, requesting that theycross promote it, tell their
friends, tell their friends.
A lot of this community reallyis very word of mouth, just like
we were talking about that onramp into games themselves.
As very often, your friend toldyou about this cool thing and
(40:46):
wants to run it to you.
I think a lot of how we aregoing to survive and thrive the
best is going to be throughthose same networking
connections.
And that might not just be, youknow, our names, obviously, but
the names of the high qualityauthors and artists.
And everyone that we're hiring,like every, every touch point
(41:06):
there expands the reach a littlebit more.
So I think that that, that ontop of, obviously when the
quality is what it is, we'revery, very proud of the product.
We know it's going to stand foritself.
It's just getting it in front ofthe right folks that are gonna
be interested in it.
That is, I think, going to bethe ongoing effort and challenge
and promoting within our circlesand getting in front of people.
Hannah (41:29):
Yeah, I'll add on to that.
One of the challenges is,decided to make this a quarterly
magazine with four wholearticles, which is a good
number, right?
That's a lot, but we decided,they're all pretty robust in the
content and amount of materialthere is in each of them.
(41:49):
But we decided to do itquarterly, even though many
subscriptions are monthlybecause that was creatively,
made sense for our output andour team size and It gives
people a little more chance toplay around with the stuff
That's in each article beforethe next set comes out So we
(42:10):
have a bunch of bonus contentfor subscribers between issues
We are doing behind the scenesprocess posts on the art.
We have We're going to do tokensso people can easily use all
these on virtual tabletops.
We have some collaborations withother fun, nerdy creators that
(42:31):
we enjoy doing things with.
We have a bunch of other ideas.
Our subscribers will get toweigh in on what they want to
see, but we also got to keepfocus on Making the magazine
making the main product wecreate.
So each one of those bonusthings from a marketing
perspective is another thing totalk about on social media, is
(42:53):
added value for the people whoare giving us their hard earned
money, balancing that with, youknow, With as, as a marketing
aid again, with just creatingthis main project and making it
as good as it can be, is one ofthe things that is a business
consideration for us.
Courtney (43:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
I didn't realize you had all ofthe little fun things in between
issues too, which, on the onehand, cool, that's really great,
on the other hand, wow, that's alot more work that you have to
put into it.
Hannah (43:23):
Yeah.
mean, the more, you know, themore subscribers we get, the
more we can put a budget towardsthat too, right?
The more we can say, Hey, we'reYou know, I can go back to
authors and say, hey, folksreally like this article with
these Star Dragons, let's hireyou to make another stat block
that's a companion version of aStar Dragon that can, you know,
be a Drake Warden Ranger mountor a, you know, familiar or can
(43:50):
be used in some other mountedcombat system.
The more we can, you know, hireartists maybe to illustrate
other stuff, Clara can do someextra graphic design, things for
handouts that people could usein their games.
So yeah, the more subscribers weget, the more we can deliver.
Courtney (44:06):
I really do have to, from a, outside perspective,
agree that it's, it is veryhefty, and very involved, and.
You know, so for example, when Iwas first going over it and I
was reading the scrawler, I waslike, oh cool, like a method of
transportation.
And I'm used to thosedescriptions being like maybe a
(44:26):
page or two long, and then itjust kept going.
And there were so many differenttypes of scrawlers.
And it was honestly a lot moreinteresting than a lot of things
that I read in stat blocks,which My husband is the type of
person who reads rule books forfun, like he doesn't read novels
anymore, he just reads now rulebooks.
Hannah (44:45):
all power to
Courtney (44:46):
I know, I know, I'm like, I am not that person.
I will read a thing when I needto read it because it's relevant
to what I'm trying to do.
Hannah (44:52):
And I will not read it in order.
Courtney (44:54):
Yeah.
Hannah (44:55):
I do not, I do not make TTRPG books and assume someone
is gonna read them from thefirst page to the last page.
Courtney (45:02):
Well, now you know there's one.
But yeah, so like, even withthat being said, like, it was
still drawing me in and it wasjust like, very interesting.
Clara (45:11):
I Loved all, like, that article in particular.
I also loved all the tables,because when I've run games, I
feel like I am not necessarilythe best at, like, off the top
of my head, coming up with thatNPC, or that encounter, or, and
each of these articles have ahave that support.
You don't have to use it, or youcan use it for flavor, but like
I really appreciated that itwasn't just like, here's your
(45:32):
scrawler, here's how many feetit moves per turn, blah.
Like it's, it's this rich likeworld building that all the
articles included, which is oneof the reasons they're so big.
But we're, we're hoping thatthat really appeals to anyone's
style of running.
I know I personally Loved thosetables and loved, you know, the
little suggested folks thatcould be on the scrawler with
(45:54):
you or the adventures that youcould have to guide someone to
be able to use this.
Hannah (45:59):
Loved them enough to suffer through laying them out
in InDesign.
Clara (46:02):
Oh, tables are rough in layout, but it was worth it.
Hannah (46:09):
we really look at everything easy to use, not just
in being balanced, but also innot being a big lift for the GM,
right?
So there is stuff like, okay,we're giving you these vehicles
well, let's give you a table ofNPCs that might be, that appear
(46:31):
on them.
And not just Some, like,descriptions of those NPCs, but
also you can roll for whatsecret they might have, what
their destination is, give youencounters that might happen, so
you can really, if you need to,fill a session, fill several
sessions with this, like Clarasaid, it's, you don't have to
use any of that, but You canjust use all of it, and they
(46:55):
have very little prep time.
I
Courtney (46:58):
Yeah.
Clara (46:58):
And you know one of those NPCs is going to become the
party's, like, favorite personever that the GM is going to
have to have in the rest of thecampaign.
Like, you just know it.
That's how are.
Hannah (47:10):
actually want to stick a villain in as a scrawler, lore
writer, passenger, who justseems, you know, seems like a
chill public transit writer, andthen sessions later is revealed
to be a major villain.
Courtney (47:27):
yeah, I want to use Scrawlr so much now.
So one of the things that I loveto do in these interviews is
acknowledge that, you know,we're here because we love
making things.
We love games, but obviouslythere are a lot of challenges.
And I know that we've touched ona Some, already, I'm just,
(47:49):
there's a lot that y'all havebeen doing this year, but is
there anything in particularthat was maybe harder than you
thought it was going to be, orjust in general, you're like, I
knew it was coming, but it juststill sucked?
Hannah (48:02):
I, I feel like the answer is taxes.
Not paying
Courtney (48:09):
Okay that's fair.
Hannah (48:09):
because
Courtney (48:10):
100%.
Hannah (48:11):
freelancers.
We're used to that asfreelancers, right?
I actually do all my own taxesas a freelancer, and I've been
doing that for many years, andthat's fine, charging people tax
is something we have not donebefore.
Clara (48:25):
Yeah, the taxes have been an adventure, because then you
have to learn about the taxnexus, and then you have to
learn that the way that yourvery specific product is
categorized Confuses some of thestate level departments of
revenue who aren't really sureif they should recommend that
you go in this one or in thisone because it's a digital
(48:48):
product but it also has asubscription related to it but
it's also so like that side ofthings has for sure been and I
consider myself pretty wellversed in finance but like this
has been an adventure where alot of folks don't seem to
always even be in alignment.
Where you would expect them tobe between, like, your lawyer,
your accountant, the local StateDepartment of Revenue, your
(49:11):
financial advisor, like, it's,
Hannah (49:13):
the tax guidelines for the Netherlands, your website is
telling you that you might haveexceeded a tax threshold in the
Netherlands, even though youreally haven't, and you do not
need to be paying internationaltaxes until you make a lot more
money from customers of thatcountry.
But it's, yeah, turns outinternational finance is super
(49:35):
complicated.
Who would have thought?
Clara (49:37):
who would have guessed?
Hannah (49:38):
And we also want to expand to doing print, right?
Horizons is a digital firstmagazine.
People keep asking if it will beavailable in print.
And the answer is that we areplanning on it.
We are investigating it andplanning on it.
But Creating and shippingphysical products adds a whole
(49:59):
new level of admin and Tax andcomplications there, especially
with, you know, the, the qualitywe want to print something like
this and make it really nice,but also as affordable as it can
be while knowing thatinternational shipping is a
thing.
So,
Clara (50:18):
Finding that balance between, and I know that print
on demand is a lot better thanit used to be, but like, you
normally lose a bit of qualitywith print on demand versus
doing like a large scale evendigital print, but then you also
have, do they offer dropshipping?
Because if you're gonna dropship one by one, then suddenly
your price doubles, but then youcan actually get it to someone
versus warehousing it yourselfversus, so, it's It's very, very
(50:43):
involved.
And I know our very firstquestion is the quality and then
the second one's the pricepoint.
And then how do we get it tofolks and not end up with, you
know, 200, 50 page book.
Hannah (50:53):
right, right.
And this being something that'sbigger than we can ship out of
our living rooms, right, thatwould, I mean, just
administratively, that would bemiserable, but, you know.
Logistically, that's, that wouldjust, we're at a higher volume
than that could work for.
But also smaller than it'ssomething worth paying warehouse
(51:14):
space for.
Courtney (51:15):
I used to head up fulfillment, and I am like, I
am, yep, I'm there with you.
Hannah (51:20):
Well, we will take any tips you have.
Courtney (51:23):
For sure.
Yeah.
Okay, well.
Thank you.
Let's flip around.
What has been the most rewardingpart of this whole journey?
Clara (51:31):
For me, without question, being on the other side of the
fence, not being hired as anillustrator, but getting to hire
illustrators and working withthem and just watching that
magic from the other side.
Hannah (51:45):
That's one of my favorite things, too, and when I
stepped into art directing withTal'Dorei Reborn, despite not
being an illustrator myself,which, I think, to, to, on a
book of that size and scope andquality as an art director
without being an illustrator.
I was not qualified to do that.
(52:06):
Most people who are artdirectors are illustrators, but
it needed to be done.
And we learned from processesthat other people use.
And I sure do have opinionsabout visual design and kept
things organized.
And You know, without, withoutbragging, saying that I think it
went pretty well, and theartists really enjoyed working
(52:29):
with us, and I have reallyenjoyed to do that, and to learn
from the process, from artists Iknow, from people like Clara, I
have been overjoyed getting todo that again and art direct and
hire these artists and seesketches come in is just
absolutely amazing.
But then also to have someoneart directing with me who is an
(52:52):
illustrator and does have thatvisual design background and can
do paint overs and I can say,okay we've gotten this sketch, I
have some thoughts but I'm notsure how to communicate that,
and Clara just being able tojump in and know know what we
need to do there.
Clara (53:10):
Sometimes it's nice to be able to translate and use.
Use the language of like, Iunderstand exactly what you're
asking and I agree.
Let me put that in words thatthe artist will understand to be
able to action against.
Hannah (53:23):
And then I get to learn what those are so I can continue
to be a better art director,right?
Because I do not want to tellpeople, you know, please draw a
red line that looks like a bluecircle.
But, but yeah, I love learningthat and we have loved learning
from each other.
That's another one of thehighlights.
I wanted to also say one morehighlight, which is always the
(53:43):
case for this whole work I do,but is the reason I am in this
industry, is the reason Icontinue to be in this industry
is the reason why I've beenexcited to found this company
is, and excited to release ourfirst issue, that I love it when
people use our stuff.
I love hearing about it.
We have a, Creature in Horizons1 called the Terrible Crane,
(54:07):
which is the brainchild of oneof our authors Willia Beale,
and, God, the Terrible Crane,he's the worst I love him, and
somebody recently posted Thatthey were designing a whole
campaign around the terriblecrane, and it was just the best
news I heard, ever.
And I love, yeah, I love hearingfrom people who drop this stuff
(54:29):
in their games, and who remixit, and give it to their
players, and go on adventureswith it and transform it.
That's just the absolute best.
Courtney (54:39):
Amazing.
So obviously, you know, you'vegot this coming out every Are
there any other projects thatyou guys are working on, either
as part of Wildmage or outsideof Wildmage, that you're excited
about, that you're allowed totalk about?
Clara (54:55):
As they say, the allowed to talk about, I think, is the
biggest challenge there.
We are, we are looking at, as alot of publishers are expanded
beyond, like this is, this isour flagship pub for sure.
This is, this is what, We wantto be known for.
This is what's getting the mostof our attention.
This is what we're going toregularly put out.
But there is other stuff, andI'm going to dance very
(55:16):
carefully, Hannah.
Hannah (55:17):
Sounds good, I trust you!
Clara (55:19):
Other, other stuff that we were looking to leverage.
Our skills, our talents, prettymuch everything that we're
bringing to the Horizonspublication to do beyond just
that pub.
And partnering with someexisting spaces to leverage our
skills.
Hannah (55:37):
And things that we can talk about are terms of
freelance, Clara has, I'm sorryto answer for you here, but
Clara's continued to freelancewith Critical Role and
Darrington Press and hasrecently had, and I believe will
have some more art coming out,I'm just gonna brag about you,
you did the key art forDownfall, and that looked really
(55:58):
amazing, those pieces for Aeorand have kept working with
Worlds Beyond Number which anabsolutely incredible podcast
actual play with fantastic,wonderful people.
And I've been working workingwith their game design team that
Brennan Lee Mulligan puttogether to design some of the
(56:20):
player character options andother mechanics.
So, we just released a new andupdated version of the Witch
class.
That has been an absolute joyand really fun and I'm glad I've
been able to keep doing that andsqueezing it in.
Courtney (56:36):
Oh, for sure.
I have been very excited to seethat witch publication.
And I agree, Clara, that art wasabsolutely gorgeous.
Clara (56:46):
Aw, thank you.
It was, I, I swear every timethey hand me a new project I'm
like, this is my dream project,and then I get an even more
dream project, then I get like,it just, it's, it's so
validating and wonderful to beable to be, like, I would be
doing this stuff as fan artanyway, right?
(57:06):
So being able to like, beleveraged as an artist who loves
to do that, and then getting tomake some of those pieces canon,
like, it's just such a greatfeeling.
And this entire community is so,so amazing, and it's really the
collaboration that Horizons isaffording me to do that makes
the not a whole lot of sleepreally, really worth it.
Courtney (57:29):
Fair enough.
Amazing.
If people want to find you twoand Wildmage where should they
go?
Hannah (57:38):
Can find us at wildmagepress.
com or patreon.
com slash And our website willhave all of, all the links out
to to places and to subscribe.
We're on Instagram, Blue SkyTwitter, and TikTok at
wildmagepress.
And I am on most major socialmedia platforms, not TikTok as
(58:03):
wildrosemage.
Clara (58:05):
And I'm on almost all the social medias as EldritchBlep.
Very professional name.
Courtney (58:13):
Perfect.
I will have links to those inthe show notes.
Hannah, Clara, thank you so muchfor coming on today.
This has been a total blast.
Hannah (58:23):
Thank you, Courtney.
It's absolutely a delight tochat with you, and I am sure we
could chat for many hours.
Courtney (58:30):
Oh, oh, I wish we could.
So listeners, at this point I amgoing to stop the recording and
then I'm going to start it rightback up and go into a fun little
quick question blitz forpatrons, where I will ask these
two lovely ladies some moresillier questions.
Some are gaming related.
Some are not, like, DescribeYour Perfect Sandwich.
(58:52):
So if you want to listen to thatyou can go to patreon.
com slash rollplaygrow.
Again, thank you all so much.
Hello, and welcome to Roll PlayGrow, the podcast for tabletop
entrepreneurs, creators, andfans.
In this show, we dig intoprocesses, challenges, tips, and
really look at how to grow abusiness in the tabletop role
play gaming space.
Sit back and join in as we learnfrom the creators behind your
favorite brands, about who theyare, and how they are turning
their passion for gaming into acareer.
Courtney (00:32):
Hey entrepreneurs.
I am so excited to share today'sinterview with you.
We've got a special two for onechat today because we are
talking with both Hannah Roseand Clara Daly about their new
endeavor Wildmage Press.
Hannah and Clara have a veryimpressive background in the
gaming industry.
We briefly touch on it and Iwould love to have several more
(00:55):
episodes discussing everythingthey do.
But in this episode, we arefocusing on Wildmage Press and
their first magazine Horizons.
I got to look at the first issueand it is so gorgeous with
spectacular tools for DMs.
I highly recommend becoming asubscriber.
And I know you'll see why afterthis chat.
(01:16):
We dig into not only whatHorizons is and what they are
dreaming about doing withWildmage Press.
But we learn what it takes tostart an indie magazine.
I think it is a reallyenlightening conversation and
the fact that it's with twoindustry veterans just makes it
that much more special.
Before we dive into theinterview, I do want to welcome
(01:38):
any new listeners to Roll Playgrow.
This show allows me to chat withso many amazing folks about
business, marketing, hardships,lessons learned, how to guides
across a wide spectrum ofindustries within the TTRPG
scene.
I'm talking with crafters, gamedesigners, musicians, editors,
artists, and more.
The variety is honestly reallyfun for me, and I hope it is for
(01:58):
you too.
Speaking of fun creators, I dowant to shout out my favorite
tea business, Friday afternoon.
This is an amazing nerdybusiness that makes the best
tea.
The shop is owned by a wonderfulhuman that I interviewed back in
episode six.
You could snag T gift cards,join a monthly book club that
has tea pairings.
Or if you're in the Seattlearea, they also offer a custom
(02:21):
blending sessions.
We are affiliates with them.
So if you go to Fridaytea.comand use the code, LightheartADV
you'll get 10% off your order,help wonderful business and
enjoy some delicious nerdy tea.
Thanks for hanging out and enjoythis chat with Hannah and Clara.
(02:45):
Hello, friends! I am so excitedto introduce y'all to Clara Daly
and Hannah Rose, the co foundersof the new Wildmage Press.
How are you doing today?
Hannah (02:58):
Good! It's great to be here.
Clara (03:00):
Thank you so much for having us on.
Courtney (03:03):
I'm so excited.
I've honestly been followingy'all for a while on your own,
and then when I saw theannouncement about Wild Mage, I
was just like, I have to getthem on! I want to talk about
all of the things.
But to kick things off, just alittle bit of an icebreaker, I
would love to hear from both ofyou on what is the first game
(03:23):
that you remember playing?
Clara (03:25):
Oh, that's a good one.
Are we talking like any type ofgame, like board game,
playground game?
Hannah (03:32):
My instant response was this 90s computer game called
Mixed Genetics, I think, whereyou had weird little like alien
creatures that evolved.
I was playing this when I waslike four, maybe less.
You had these weird little aliencreatures that evolved and
imagine like of graphics youwould have on a Dell laptop in
(03:55):
the 90s early 90s But I thinkalso Freddy Fish.
Clara (04:00):
I want to say, and I'm, I'm trying to dig deep back
into, into many, many moons ago,but I think it might have been
Frogger or something reallyclose to Frogger, like single
color, beefy, beefy computerthat took up far more space than
I had any right to, but.
Courtney (04:21):
Like, okay, Frogger, I know.
The other one's Hannah.
I have no idea what you'retalking about.
Hannah (04:26):
Freddy Fish was a kid's game where if I vaguely recall,
you're a fish going onadventures underwater.
Courtney (04:32):
enough, yeah.
Hannah (04:32):
So kind of an RPG.
Courtney (04:37):
Getting started young.
So, at what point did You startplaying TTRPGs.
Hannah (04:45):
I started towards the end of high school playing D& D
3.
5 with a group of friends thatI'd met through theater, yeah,
rolled up my first D& Dcharacters, and then when I was
in college I had a group that weplayed together for three and a
half years.
Courtney (05:05):
That's a long time.
Clara (05:07):
I am probably considerably more recent.
I think probably in 2017, 2018 Istarted playing D& D 5e with a
number of friends that I hadmade.
I've been interested in it foryears.
Like, I'd always been curiousabout it.
I'd seen folks playing it.
Same with Magic the Gathering.
Like, I'd always been, like, atthe periphery.
(05:28):
Of other people playing it andbeen really interested, but
never either had a group or hadan introduction.
It seemed kind of daunting andthen, know, around 2017 or so
one of my friends was like, Hey,do you want to play?
Like, I'm interested in runninga game for beginners.
I was like, that sounds perfect.
That's perfectly the on rampthat I need.
Hannah (05:49):
honestly, it was a few years earlier, but the same for
me, in terms of having hadpeople around me play and being
interested, but never havingbeen invited before, and that's
an experience I think a lot offemmes I've met have had.
Courtney (06:03):
Yeah, 100%.
Like, my first game wasn't D& D,and I was actually so opposed to
playing it because of just allof the stigma and the I didn't
want to walk into a game storeby myself because I was so tired
of, the bad attention that youget when you're a femme walking
into a store.
Hannah (06:20):
gamer
Courtney (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I stuck to video games.
I'm glad that that hasdefinitely changed though.
So these days, are y'all stillpredominantly playing D& D, or
how much are you able to mix itup?
Hannah (06:34):
We've been mixing it up a lot, actually.
I still love playing D& D.
I'm excited to be trying out thenew 2024 rules.
Hopefully I have another longcampaign soon, but I've been
playing a lot of Daggerheart.
We have been playing a varietyof RPGs, kind of in a staff and
tester circle.
(06:55):
So we just played deathmatchIsland, which is a game that
will be featured in an upcomingissue of Horizons, and a sci fi
RPG Mothership.
What else, Clara?
What else we've been playing?
Clara (07:09):
Those are the two immediate ones that came to
mind.
I also not too long ago played,I think it was Cyberpunk that
one of my friends ran for me.
Definitely primarily D& D, but Ifeel like one of the great
things is once you're in thiscommunity, I've been having that
opportunity of like, kind ofsame as how I got into D& D.
Someone says, I want to runthis, do you want to play?
(07:30):
Like, that's the easiest part,right?
Just show up as a player.
Courtney (07:33):
100%.
So I was saying before westarted recording that I'm sure
you've had to answer thisquestion a lot, so sorry, but
for both of you, and we canstart with maybe Clara, I would
love it too walk me through thetimeline of how you went from
first playing, and I think yousaid about 2017, to then
(07:55):
starting to work in thisindustry.
Clara (07:57):
So, since it wasn't all that long ago, my origin story
is relatively short.
But hopefully kind of inspiringto some folks.
So, I am primarily an artist.
My day job, I am a digitaldirector, and I do illustration
on the side, and that'sprimarily in the D& D space.
Like, what do I do?
I'm digital illustrator.
So, when I started playing D& D,and I started getting more
(08:17):
invested in the world, andinterested in what it was beyond
just our table, some of theplayers recommended Critical
Role.
And so I started listening toCritical Role, and was really
interested in that, and reallyinspired to make fan art, as a
lot of folks do for things thatthey love.
And it was within a month or twothat Hannah so happened to be
(08:40):
Looking for artists for ATal'Dorei Reborn, and my style
and themes and all of that kindof aligned so she hired me to do
some pieces there.
I was still doing fan art theentire time, and that, as the
years have expanded, kind ofbecame my Getting more and more
jobs from them, and working withDarrington, and establishing
(09:02):
myself as kind of a landscapeand concept and city artist,
really.
Especially for Campaign 3.
And I still do fan art.
Like, I still love doing all ofthat work, but getting that foot
in the industry and meeting alot of these folks and expanding
my portfolio, like, has then ledHannah and I along this path
that also helped us establishWildmage Press.
Courtney (09:24):
Had you done the more city type art before?
Clara (09:28):
I had, I've always been more interested in like
environments and landscape andconcept the slightly weirder
side of like portraits and allof that are really cool, but I
think a lot of folks do that.
I've always been interested inthose nuggets of information
that a GM will drop or put intotheir world that are so
evocative that I just want Iwant to make it real.
(09:48):
I want to give some kernel of asetting that can then hold that
story and continue it.
So that's always been myinterest point anyway.
Courtney (09:57):
so cool.
I love that it's been able toevolve like that.
So yes, Hannah, tell me aboutyour origin story.
Hannah (10:05):
Yeah, so mine also comes from getting involved with the
community and going from Beingat a table, you know, playing D&
D with my friends and having agreat time, to Saying, okay, I
guess I'm gonna get on Twitter.
I guess, is this gonna, am Igonna regret this?
(10:25):
But I did it because I got onTTRPG Twitter and started
talking to people about nerdstuff and feeling like this was
a community where can be a nerdin a lot of different ways,
right?
I can be a nerd about books.
I can be a nerd about science.
I can be a nerd about fantasy.
I can be a nerd about dice andtech and art and theater.
(10:51):
That was really cool andsomebody I met online Kelly
Butler, the opera geek made atweet about should be a College
of the Opera Bard and it'd bereally cool if it had these
powers and I was like, Yeah, Iwant to practice, like, just
play around with doing somedesign.
I'll write that up for her, thatsounds fun.
I started talking to her aboutit.
(11:11):
She was like, well, you have toput this on DMs Guild.
You need to actually publishthis instead of just posting it
on Twitter.
And I was like, Okay, I guessI'll practice doing some layout
too.
And it was, happened to be at areally fortuitous time where 5E
was really entering, like, agolden era and starting to boom,
(11:35):
and, but DMs Guild wasn't supersaturated yet and we put College
of the Opera up and it was ahuge hit, and I got contacted
about doing more things, and Istarted doing some freelance
editing, including for CriticalRole, and Wizards of the Coast.
And meanwhile, I was becomingless and less satisfied with
(11:57):
commuting for my day job, anddecided to go freelance and do
this, which is, I will say, ifyou live in the United States, a
thing I recommend if you haveanother source of healthcare.
Do not quit your day job justbecause you want to be a game
designer a freelancer.
Make sure you at least havehealthcare.
So Yeah I started doing thathave done a bunch of work with
(12:23):
Wizards and Critical Role andMCDM Productions and through
doing Tal'Dorei Reborn withCritical Role as the co lead
designer, managing editor, andco art director.
We looking for artists who coulddo Objects, props, scenery, and
(12:45):
was looking through the CriticalRole fan art tag and saw some
gorgeous art that Clara did,looked at her website, said,
Ooh, she's a graphic designer.
Like, she clearly has theseskills.
and she was just so fun andamazing to work with that we
have continued collaboratingtogether and become friends and
decided to found a companytogether.
Courtney (13:07):
Honestly, I like you, too, in this space.
Yeah, I feel like there's somuch that I could gloss over if
I had several hours to dig intothis with you, but this moves us
into wanting to talk about themain topic of today, which is
Wildmage Press.
So you decided to found acompany together.
(13:29):
What happened?
How did, like, this idea comeabout?
What steps did you take to getstarted?
All that fun stuff.
Clara (13:36):
I will hand that squarely to Hannah.
I actually went, I can at leastgive us the the starting
timeline that she shared theidea with me because I went
looking back through Discord outof curiosity after we had our
launch.
It was January 26th.
of this year, Hannah messaged meand said, Hey, marketing guru,
or something like that.
What do you think about the nameHorizon as a, as a periodical
(14:00):
name?
So apparently she'd already beenthinking about some stuff.
So Hannah, if you want to fromthere.
Hannah (14:06):
As Clara knows, I had been thinking about a TTRPG
periodical.
I had been the managing editorat MCDM Productions where I was
running Arcadia, which was a 5thedition magazine.
With art, with, with game designand art from a variety of
(14:27):
authors and illustrators, andthat was just, that was really
wonderful.
And MCDM decided to move awayfrom 5th edition.
decided to go back freelancing,and, there was a need in the
space for something similar.
The community was really sad tosee Arcadia go.
(14:49):
I was really sad to not beworking with wonderful authors
and illustrators.
I'd really enjoyed moving into arole as a creative lead and
managing editor, as well asgetting to do bits of design
here and there.
So I wanted to do somethingsimilar, but I wanted it to be
(15:11):
than I could do just as oneindividual on my own.
I wanted it to be bigger thanHannah Rose's Game Design
Patreon, you know.
I'd been tossing around ideas,writing up some specs, and I
knew Clara had a background inmarketing, so I guess I tossed
this idea for a name to her oneday.
Names are hard.
And I believe it was You know,within three minutes of, of
(15:37):
beginning that conversation thatI was like, Clara would be an
amazing collaborator on this.
She has a day job that is a verycool, busy day job, so she's
probably not gonna be, havetime, andalso, we have also
bonded over having too manyhobbies.
She's probably not gonna havetime, but let me ask! And so I
(16:08):
said hey, i'm looking for acreative partner on this.
Would you be interested inco-founding a TTRPG publishing
company?
And
Clara (16:14):
it was an immediate yes.
I don't, I don't think we hadhashed out much more than that,
but working with Hannah has beensuch a delight.
And all of the collaboratorsthat I've worked with and the
people that I've met, and I justlove this space so much that it
was, I didn't know what theshape of it was.
I truly didn't know what timecommitment I had just said that.
(16:35):
Yes, I can do, but it was, itwas instant and it started.
Building from there, we're like,Oh, this is actually going to be
real.
Let's, let's start taking thesteps to make it real.
What's that look like?
And the answer is a lot ofspreadsheets.
So many
Hannah (16:52):
So many spreadsheets, so many color coded spreadsheets.
Courtney (16:55):
That's wild that it was January of this year that
this all started.
Clara (17:00):
Almost February, very, very, very end.
And it was just an ask of like,what's your, what's your gut
thought on this name to a veryrapid, want to do this cool
thing with me?
And I,
Courtney (17:12):
So after you said yes, what were some of the first
things that y'all did to try tofigure out how to make this
happen?
Hannah (17:19):
From a, so one of the big spreadsheets was a budgeting
spreadsheet figuring out howmuch money this is going to
cost, how much money we need runthe magazine on an ongoing basis
and thus to start up the companywith.
Starting it, you know, inFebruary and then looking at
(17:41):
announcing it in September andgetting our first issue out in
October.
So that was a lot of math.
And research talking withlawyers and financial advisors
and accountants and CPAs andbeing like, Okay, well, I have
this question about running abusiness and taxes.
And the accountant says, Oh, youneed to talk to a different
(18:03):
financial advisor for that.
The financial advisor says,Actually, that's a question for
your lawyer.
And the lawyer says, Oh, well,we work with this financial
person on that.
Like, everybody has littleslices.
And Clara and I were hashing outdetails of what we want the
business to look like and Clarabrings a lot of the marketing
(18:24):
and brand experience there.
So we did a branding exercisewith questions like, what is
your value proposition?
And what words do you want toassociate with your brand?
What do you bring to the spacethat others don't?
And having to articulate all ofthat was a really good.
I will say, like, big,professional, real business
(18:46):
exercise.
That I think a lot of folks inthe TTRPG space aren't familiar
with, and it was hard.
I was like, this is really hard.
Clara (18:56):
and I think I kept saying, I know, but you have to
do I
Hannah (18:59):
think you said yeah, it's supposed to be.
And I And that has beenimmensely valuable so a lot of
exploration spreadsheets talkingto advisors And then reaching
out to authors for our firstissue Because we have about a
six to seven month lead time
Clara (19:18):
Yeah, and along the way, as Hannah mentioned, like, we
had to, we had to establish thebrand, everything from, you
know, registering the LLC tovisually creating logos and
colors and palette and decidingwhat platforms we wanted to be
on.
We knew that Patreon was goingto be, like, a go to for us.
We were absolutely going to beon there, but Hannah came
(19:40):
expressing, like, very fairly,like, hey, I don't want us to be
exclusively only on Patreon.
I also want to have our ownwebsite, which I had extensive
experience building and managingand maintaining.
So I started going on that sidelooking at what, what that stack
would look like, what the userexperience would be, starting to
apply the branding as we werecreating it and then
(20:01):
simultaneously we had the trackwhere we're getting the pitches
from the designers.
We're starting to choose whatthe articles are going to be,
looking at our budget trackerand like, all right, here's how
many words, here's what we'repaying those folks, here's what
the editing is going to cost,here's what we have for cover
and interior illustrations, andhow many do we want, and start
writing the art orders.
(20:21):
So like a lot of differenttracks moving.
Simultaneously to stand this allup.
And we had a pretty aggressivetimeline saying like, we are
going to market September andour first issue is going to be
October 9th.
Like we had established that andnow we have to, we have to back
into it.
Hannah (20:38):
And figuring out how to pay people, because we work with
a lot of folks who are not fromthe United States, a lot of
international designers andartists, and am really against
being paid through PayPal andpaying people through PayPal for
work, because PayPal takes sucha huge cut.
and I feel like it really isn'tfair.
(21:00):
So, researching the bestplatforms and practices for
that.
And setting up that pipeline,and, you know, as Claire said
registering the business,getting the business license,
bank accounts, all of, all ofthe little admin details.
Clara (21:17):
cloud storage, like all those little things that when
you slide into an existingbusiness, you take for granted
setting up our emails.
Buying all the domains, likefiguring out what platforms we
wanted to be on for for all ofthese different processing
things.
It's really something you don'tconsider until you're in the
thick of it setting it up.
Courtney (21:34):
Yeah, and it can be so overwhelming, I feel almost
envious that y'all have, like,each other to lean on in that.
Hannah (21:42):
I knew I couldn't do it by myself, it would just be so
lonely.
Courtney (21:47):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, gosh, that is wild,though, that just getting almost
the runaround of like beingpassed from different financial
person to lawyer to anotherfinancial person and just trying
to make heads or tails of thathas, I'm sure, was a probably a
stressful time.
Hannah (22:04):
Yeah, it, it was very much just knowing, this is just
part of the process, and, Thingscan take a while, but that
doesn't mean it's a major snag,right?
It doesn't mean it is anemergency, or is a huge upset,
or it's a catastrophe.
I do like to remind myself, youknow, when we're stressed about
deadlines, like, this is gamedesign, it's not life or death.
(22:26):
Ha ha
Courtney (22:28):
Yep.
That is my background in projectmanagement and it's always been
like, is someone dying?
Is someone bleeding?
If not, send an email.
So definitely related to that.,Stepping back a little bit, you
said that you were starting tofind the, all of the different
artists and the writers.
(22:49):
How did you decide on who toinclude for this first
publication?
Hannah (22:53):
We reached out to people mostly that we had worked with
before or who came super highlyrecommended, who we knew had
high quality work, who broughttheir own voices and original
ideas, and who were reallyreliable.
Cause we wanted, you know, wewant all our issues to be
bangers, but for this first one,we knew we really extra need to
(23:16):
stick the landing.
So those authors ended up beingAaron Roberts Imogen Gingell,
Willie Aveal, Andrew Dickey, andthe, the artists ended up being,
let's see if I can get those inthe same order, Zuzanna Wuzek,
Allie Briggs, Veronica O'Neiland Jessica Nguyen.
(23:37):
And also our lead testers, RomanPena and Anna Guiarmus, are
absolutely invaluable.
So I just rattled off a wholelist of names, and those are
only some of the people who arein the credits.
Courtney (23:51):
That's a lot of people to recruit and manage,
especially for such a tightdeadline for your first one.
Clara (24:00):
And fortunately we both had pretty extensive project
management experience.
I'd been an art director inpublishing many many years ago.
Hannah, Took the lead on all theart directing for Tal'Dorei and
I think had a pretty heavy handin it for Arcadia.
So we co art direct which isvery useful and helpful.
Sometimes we'll be like, hey,make sure we're aligned on
(24:20):
thoughts, but like, can you getback to this person today?
Can you get back to that persontomorrow?
So having both of us, you know,Really helps like divide and
conquer.
And I think it also helps,especially because we have folks
like internationally, I'm Eastcoast, Hannah's West coast.
We kind of can cover a fairamount of time zones as well for
getting back to people.
And we got more pitches that wewant to use than we can fit in
(24:42):
the first issue.
So fortunately I got to then saylike, Hey, that's awesome.
Let's start to slot those intofuture issues and start to flesh
those out.
And that also gives us an ideaof what other artists we want to
hire.
Courtney (24:54):
Yeah, for future issues, Will you be opening it
up for folks to reach out to youand pitch to you guys, or do you
want to keep it to specificpeople that you've worked with
in the past or that are on yourwish list?
Hannah (25:10):
We have several issues slated out already.
Like I said, it's a pretty longlead time, so we have several
issues slated out already.
We are not accepting pitches forgame design right now.
Artists are welcome to send intheir portfolios to our general
email address.
And for game design, we may havean open call for portfolios at
some point.
(25:31):
I actually was just chattingwith somebody about some of our
criteria for what we look for,and we're We absolutely want to
work with and spotlight new andemerging designers, and that's
something I loved about Arcadiaand want to continue to do.
However, there are certaincriteria of You know, of quality
(25:54):
and some experience and toreally making something the best
it can be that we look for.
We're paying top, top tier ratesin the industry, but it is a
process wherein and it's almostpartly a mentorship process, but
it's a process in which theauthor participates through
several rounds of playtestingand revision.
(26:15):
I think that, I think that aboutcovers it.
We're not accepting pitches atthis time, but we may do an open
call for game designerportfolios in the future.
And we are always keeping an eyeon the space for promising new
designers to reach out to.
Courtney (26:30):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
And again, you said you hadseveral issues already slotted
out, Hey, entrepreneurs.
I love introducing you to newcreators every episode, but I
could really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page, where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content, add your
questions to upcominginterviews, and you could even
(26:51):
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
To learn more, go tolightheartadventures.
com slash RPG.
And now back to the show.
I'm curious about, is thereanything that you learned after
doing this first publicationthat you realized you want to do
(27:12):
differently or improve forfuture issues?
Clara (27:17):
think the first issue, and this is maybe not
necessarily so much aboutHorizons itself, but like the
brand itself.
It took quite a few,unsurprisingly, to develop the
brand, develop the templates,develop the styles.
And then, like, make sure thatthose were all buttoned up in a
way that they could get pickedup down the road and be
(27:38):
repurposed.
So, I'm very glad we wentthrough all of that.
There were definitely some bumpsin the road, but it allowed us
to structure things.
Everything from social mediatemplates to video templates to
the InDesign document itself.
Additional assets that we'recreating for, patrons and
subscribers.
Like it was, it was slow andboth of our standards for
(28:03):
quality are very, very high, butI am glad that we took the time
because I think the additionalissues will not take quite as
long, which will allow us alittle more flexibility to
potentially get even morecreative with some of the layout
and some of the images and justsome of the type treatments.
Hannah (28:21):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is we've had this first, you
know, first actual run of our,first live run of our processes
of developing an issue ofHorizons from start to finish
engine.
There are definitely places tosmooth out, to streamline to
(28:43):
adjust, but a lot of it just isthat streamlining and adjusting
and giving us then room to trysome new things.
you know, we are two peoplerunning this company with a ton
of contributors and Clara stillhas her super cool day job.
So a lot of the limitationsthere just come from being a
(29:05):
really tiny team.
Courtney (29:06):
100%.
That makes sense.
And you know, even the mostcooperative, amazing freelancers
are, it can take a lot towrangle them and their
schedules.
So, taken from your website, thedescription of your quarterly
publication is that you've gotthree articles designed with 5th
edition in mind, an article fora featured TTRPG system, the
(29:30):
desk of many thoughts, a nerdyop ed column, and a plethora of
gorgeous illustrations.
How did y'all decide that that'show you wanted to break down
each of these issues?
That you wanted three, D& D, oneof a different game, the op ed,
talk me through how thatdecision came about.
Hannah (29:48):
So, as I mentioned, I came from running Arcadia in the
past MCDM's, 5eMagazine, and I Ireally enjoyed that and wanted
to fill that space in theindustry and the community while
also trying some new things andhaving room to explore and
branch out.
So, you know, as we discussed,we both come from a D& D
(30:11):
background.
I've been playing 5e since theD& D Next playtest we really
love that and also wanted toexplore new things.
And in the last couple of years,the Industry as a whole has been
out and diversifying, andpeople's interests have been
(30:33):
diversifying.
And I've just, as a creator,been trying to learn from more,
from other games and createopportunities to play more
games.
Because it's not, it's not aboutthe desire to play new game
systems, it's about finding, youknow, it's about scheduling
them.
So I really wanted to have aspace Where those D& D and not
(30:57):
D& D, TTRPGs, can co exist.
Where it's not all one or theother, and there can be a
variety.
And also a understanding that ifyou can use this content however
you want, we make everythingReally well polished and
(31:17):
playtested and edited and easyto drop into your game at a
moment's notice and use as is.
But we also think about, aswe're designing it, every, every
GM is a designer.
Everybody's mixing things up fortheir home games and their
settings and the way they play agame.
And Part of it is just, okay,you can pick up little bits of
(31:40):
bits of this and remix it anduse it as an ingredient in your
own campaigns.
And so when that comes to havinga variety of systems, I'm
looking at it, okay, even ifyou're an inveterate 5e player
and all you play is D& D, let'smake these articles for other
systems that might beinspirations, or you might
convert them, or you might justread them and think, hey, that's
(32:02):
cool, I want to steal thenarrative from that.
Yeah.
Or you might be like, okay, I'vereally been wanting to play this
system, maybe there are otherpeople in the community that
want to use this article.
and making, making a space forthat to co exist.
As for the desk of many things,and Clara, feel free to jump in
on any of this.
As for the Desk of Many Things,I wanted a space that would be
(32:27):
for prose writing in theindustry that's a little more
formal than a blog, but not partof journalism officially.
So not part of a media, youknow, news site, and also not a
formal academic paper, but justa place to, for something about
games in the magazine as well asall of that content.
Clara (32:50):
And to build on the why, why the fourth article being a
separate system, and I think Ialluded to this earlier, there's
so many games out there that itoften takes someone else saying,
hey, do you want to jump in onmy game, to be that
introduction, because otherwiseit can be so overwhelming.
There's so many, and I'm surethey're all amazing, but to
(33:11):
lower that barrier of entry,someone saying, hey, here's a
game, here's some.
Free quick start rules that comewith it.
Put your blinders on.
Just look at this real quick.
See if it sounds cool.
Like it's just making it moreaccessible and being able to
rotate and feature that.
So you're not just locked intoone system.
And I think having that, like,it's not that common out there,
(33:33):
right?
You'll follow different newssites, you'll follow different
folks that you really respect inthe area, and they'll sometimes
blog or tweet or whatever abouta game, but having that as like
a baked in part of this set ofarticles for a system you
already know and love, but alsoas an introduction to another
one that you might want to playor have been curious about or
just very easy on ramp intotrying it.
(33:55):
That's not something that reallyseems to exist out there right
now.
And that's the best way I'vebeen introduced to games, is
someone else saying like, Hey,here's this cool thing, do you
want to jump in?
And then I spend the next fivedays ranting about how everyone
needs to play Deathmatch Island,and, you know, prancing that
banner, and telling everyonethat this game's amazing.
And it's the first time a lot offolks have either heard of it,
(34:16):
or other people have been like,I've been meaning to play that,
let me try it now.
So, I think, I think that'ssomething that, And we did
discover, like, there's a reasonfolks don't do this, because
playtesting for a whollyseparate system takes a lot of
time.
Designing and the style for thesystem takes a lot of time.
But I think the value thatreaders get from that, and the
access to systems that theymight otherwise be too
overwhelmed to research, is Morethan worth it.
Hannah (34:40):
Yeah, and it's a lot of admin, too.
Like, I'm really excited tocollaborate with amazing
colleagues across the industrywho are making these games that
I haven't gotten to collaboratewith and develop for before, and
that's really awesome and fun.
It's also a lot of emails and sothere's a, there's a big admin
lift there, too, not justworking in one or two D20 based
(35:02):
systems.
Courtney (35:03):
Yeah, I think what you're saying, Clara, is just,
it's so true.
Like, I, my husband and I are, Iguess, the ones that like, oh,
we introduced the new games toall of our friends because we're
the
Clara (35:15):
Thank you for being those people.
all need those people articles.
Courtney (35:20):
but it's like, you know, because we back all of the
Kickstarters and he's usuallythe DM and it's like, okay,
cool, great.
But then we look at our shelfand we're like, okay, we have
all these games.
We want to play all these games.
It's so hard to like.
Not only get our own minds like,all right, switching over to
this new system, but now gettingall of our players and there's
so few of them, especially that,you know, on the smaller scale
(35:41):
side that have the on ramps tomake it really easy and
accessible.
I think that that's a veryneeded thing.
And I'm glad that y'all areincluding that.
Okay, so in looking at thecredits of the first issue, I
was noticing that you have avery large group of alpha and
beta playtesters.
And so I'm just, I'm so curiousabout how you recruited all of
(36:04):
them and like how much back andforth was going.
Were they playing it more thanonce or was it just a one time
thing, made some changes andthen moved on to beta?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hannah (36:14):
Yeah gosh, I probably could talk for an entire hour,
two hours just about ourplaytest process and my amazing
playtesters have a lot to sayabout it too and they are, I, I
defer to my lead testers fortheir knowledge of that.
So I had worked with several ofthem before at MCDM and knew
(36:35):
that these are people who reallyunderstand how to give
thoughtful, constructive testingfeedback where they know the
game and also know how toseparate is this about my
personal enjoyment or is thisabout how this mechanic or this
(36:56):
narrative is working at thetable?
Is this easy to run?
Is this confusing the players?
this you know, ending in a TPKand why?
to be able to give that feedbackin a structured way we actually
use a spreadsheet, morespreadsheets for delivering
feedback, and say, here is theissue, and then, Not backseat
(37:22):
game design, but identify whatthe issue is and what was
happening and then I, themanaging editor, that over and
try to identify what are somesolutions and make suggestions
and recommendations to theauthor.
For, here is the issue, we couldtry this or this, what do you
(37:43):
think?
So we have that pool of alphatesters, some of whom look at
all of the articles, some ofwhom just looked at some of
them.
and a large group of betatesters as well.
Usually people are looking at itin only one of those phases.
And, at least one person isrunning a live test.
(38:03):
With the content, if applicablein each phase, but sometimes
more than that.
Courtney (38:09):
I think that's really helpful because there are so
many people that want to beplaytesters and volunteer for
it, and then they don't givefeedback, or good feedback, and
so I, it's very valuable to havea group that you can, trust that
much.
Clara (38:24):
And, and they double also as like the last eyes.
It's already gone through copyediting.
It's all already gone throughproofing, but these are the
folks who know these articlesprobably the best by now because
they've run it and they've giventheir feedback.
So we also have them do lastlooks along with our editors are
in layout.
Hannah (38:45):
Or people who didn't have a chance to participate in
the playtesting, you know, werebusy, were not able to do that.
And so it's their first look andthey're looking at it with fresh
eyes.
And that's also great to haveeven more people putting fresh
eyes on it with theunderstanding that that final
proof is not the time for anymajor game design changes.
(39:05):
But they are looking at it freshand that helps to identify any
little typos and layout issues.
Courtney (39:11):
hmm.
So if I'm understandingcorrectly, Clara, you are more
in charge of the marketing sideof things, right?
Clara (39:18):
So I am kind of my I'm the digital side, so the
website, the content marketingsocial media, email marketing,
CRM's, all of that good stuff,anything data based So yeah,
your websites, your marketing isthe digital side Your branding,
(39:39):
graphic design, visual design,illustration.
That is, that is my arena.
Courtney (39:45):
So obviously leading up to the announcement and then
the actual launch of the firstissue itself was, I'm sure, a
lot to tackle.
But what are some of yourthoughts on how you're going to,
you know, increasedsubscriptions over time.
Clara (40:03):
So I think the biggest thing that we can do is, like
this, like continue tocoordinate with folks get the
word out there.
Hannah and I just came back froma couple days of being at Big
Bad Con in San Francisco.
So it's a lot of thatnetworking.
It's just like we're hiring fromour collaborators in the
community.
(40:24):
It's making sure that our nameis getting out there in the
community.
So sometimes it's in kind,sometimes it's simply, you know,
letting folks know that we havethis really cool thing out
there, requesting that theycross promote it, tell their
friends, tell their friends.
A lot of this community reallyis very word of mouth, just like
we were talking about that onramp into games themselves.
As very often, your friend toldyou about this cool thing and
(40:46):
wants to run it to you.
I think a lot of how we aregoing to survive and thrive the
best is going to be throughthose same networking
connections.
And that might not just be, youknow, our names, obviously, but
the names of the high qualityauthors and artists.
And everyone that we're hiring,like every, every touch point
(41:06):
there expands the reach a littlebit more.
So I think that that, that ontop of, obviously when the
quality is what it is, we'revery, very proud of the product.
We know it's going to stand foritself.
It's just getting it in front ofthe right folks that are gonna
be interested in it.
That is, I think, going to bethe ongoing effort and challenge
and promoting within our circlesand getting in front of people.
Hannah (41:29):
Yeah, I'll add on to that.
One of the challenges is,decided to make this a quarterly
magazine with four wholearticles, which is a good
number, right?
That's a lot, but we decided,they're all pretty robust in the
content and amount of materialthere is in each of them.
(41:49):
But we decided to do itquarterly, even though many
subscriptions are monthlybecause that was creatively,
made sense for our output andour team size and It gives
people a little more chance toplay around with the stuff
That's in each article beforethe next set comes out So we
(42:10):
have a bunch of bonus contentfor subscribers between issues
We are doing behind the scenesprocess posts on the art.
We have We're going to do tokensso people can easily use all
these on virtual tabletops.
We have some collaborations withother fun, nerdy creators that
(42:31):
we enjoy doing things with.
We have a bunch of other ideas.
Our subscribers will get toweigh in on what they want to
see, but we also got to keepfocus on Making the magazine
making the main product wecreate.
So each one of those bonusthings from a marketing
perspective is another thing totalk about on social media, is
(42:53):
added value for the people whoare giving us their hard earned
money, balancing that with, youknow, With as, as a marketing
aid again, with just creatingthis main project and making it
as good as it can be, is one ofthe things that is a business
consideration for us.
Courtney (43:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
I didn't realize you had all ofthe little fun things in between
issues too, which, on the onehand, cool, that's really great,
on the other hand, wow, that's alot more work that you have to
put into it.
Hannah (43:23):
Yeah.
mean, the more, you know, themore subscribers we get, the
more we can put a budget towardsthat too, right?
The more we can say, Hey, we'reYou know, I can go back to
authors and say, hey, folksreally like this article with
these Star Dragons, let's hireyou to make another stat block
that's a companion version of aStar Dragon that can, you know,
be a Drake Warden Ranger mountor a, you know, familiar or can
(43:50):
be used in some other mountedcombat system.
The more we can, you know, hireartists maybe to illustrate
other stuff, Clara can do someextra graphic design, things for
handouts that people could usein their games.
So yeah, the more subscribers weget, the more we can deliver.
Courtney (44:06):
I really do have to, from a, outside perspective,
agree that it's, it is veryhefty, and very involved, and.
You know, so for example, when Iwas first going over it and I
was reading the scrawler, I waslike, oh cool, like a method of
transportation.
And I'm used to thosedescriptions being like maybe a
(44:26):
page or two long, and then itjust kept going.
And there were so many differenttypes of scrawlers.
And it was honestly a lot moreinteresting than a lot of things
that I read in stat blocks,which My husband is the type of
person who reads rule books forfun, like he doesn't read novels
anymore, he just reads now rulebooks.
Hannah (44:45):
all power to
Courtney (44:46):
I know, I know, I'm like, I am not that person.
I will read a thing when I needto read it because it's relevant
to what I'm trying to do.
Hannah (44:52):
And I will not read it in order.
Courtney (44:54):
Yeah.
Hannah (44:55):
I do not, I do not make TTRPG books and assume someone
is gonna read them from thefirst page to the last page.
Courtney (45:02):
Well, now you know there's one.
But yeah, so like, even withthat being said, like, it was
still drawing me in and it wasjust like, very interesting.
Clara (45:11):
I Loved all, like, that article in particular.
I also loved all the tables,because when I've run games, I
feel like I am not necessarilythe best at, like, off the top
of my head, coming up with thatNPC, or that encounter, or, and
each of these articles have ahave that support.
You don't have to use it, or youcan use it for flavor, but like
I really appreciated that itwasn't just like, here's your
(45:32):
scrawler, here's how many feetit moves per turn, blah.
Like it's, it's this rich likeworld building that all the
articles included, which is oneof the reasons they're so big.
But we're, we're hoping thatthat really appeals to anyone's
style of running.
I know I personally Loved thosetables and loved, you know, the
little suggested folks thatcould be on the scrawler with
(45:54):
you or the adventures that youcould have to guide someone to
be able to use this.
Hannah (45:59):
Loved them enough to suffer through laying them out
in InDesign.
Clara (46:02):
Oh, tables are rough in layout, but it was worth it.
Hannah (46:09):
we really look at everything easy to use, not just
in being balanced, but also innot being a big lift for the GM,
right?
So there is stuff like, okay,we're giving you these vehicles
well, let's give you a table ofNPCs that might be, that appear
(46:31):
on them.
And not just Some, like,descriptions of those NPCs, but
also you can roll for whatsecret they might have, what
their destination is, give youencounters that might happen, so
you can really, if you need to,fill a session, fill several
sessions with this, like Clarasaid, it's, you don't have to
use any of that, but You canjust use all of it, and they
(46:55):
have very little prep time.
I
Courtney (46:58):
Yeah.
Clara (46:58):
And you know one of those NPCs is going to become the
party's, like, favorite personever that the GM is going to
have to have in the rest of thecampaign.
Like, you just know it.
That's how are.
Hannah (47:10):
actually want to stick a villain in as a scrawler, lore
writer, passenger, who justseems, you know, seems like a
chill public transit writer, andthen sessions later is revealed
to be a major villain.
Courtney (47:27):
yeah, I want to use Scrawlr so much now.
So one of the things that I loveto do in these interviews is
acknowledge that, you know,we're here because we love
making things.
We love games, but obviouslythere are a lot of challenges.
And I know that we've touched ona Some, already, I'm just,
(47:49):
there's a lot that y'all havebeen doing this year, but is
there anything in particularthat was maybe harder than you
thought it was going to be, orjust in general, you're like, I
knew it was coming, but it juststill sucked?
Hannah (48:02):
I, I feel like the answer is taxes.
Not paying
Courtney (48:09):
Okay that's fair.
Hannah (48:09):
because
Courtney (48:10):
100%.
Hannah (48:11):
freelancers.
We're used to that asfreelancers, right?
I actually do all my own taxesas a freelancer, and I've been
doing that for many years, andthat's fine, charging people tax
is something we have not donebefore.
Clara (48:25):
Yeah, the taxes have been an adventure, because then you
have to learn about the taxnexus, and then you have to
learn that the way that yourvery specific product is
categorized Confuses some of thestate level departments of
revenue who aren't really sureif they should recommend that
you go in this one or in thisone because it's a digital
(48:48):
product but it also has asubscription related to it but
it's also so like that side ofthings has for sure been and I
consider myself pretty wellversed in finance but like this
has been an adventure where alot of folks don't seem to
always even be in alignment.
Where you would expect them tobe between, like, your lawyer,
your accountant, the local StateDepartment of Revenue, your
(49:11):
financial advisor, like, it's,
Hannah (49:13):
the tax guidelines for the Netherlands, your website is
telling you that you might haveexceeded a tax threshold in the
Netherlands, even though youreally haven't, and you do not
need to be paying internationaltaxes until you make a lot more
money from customers of thatcountry.
But it's, yeah, turns outinternational finance is super
(49:35):
complicated.
Who would have thought?
Clara (49:37):
who would have guessed?
Hannah (49:38):
And we also want to expand to doing print, right?
Horizons is a digital firstmagazine.
People keep asking if it will beavailable in print.
And the answer is that we areplanning on it.
We are investigating it andplanning on it.
But Creating and shippingphysical products adds a whole
(49:59):
new level of admin and Tax andcomplications there, especially
with, you know, the, the qualitywe want to print something like
this and make it really nice,but also as affordable as it can
be while knowing thatinternational shipping is a
thing.
So,
Clara (50:18):
Finding that balance between, and I know that print
on demand is a lot better thanit used to be, but like, you
normally lose a bit of qualitywith print on demand versus
doing like a large scale evendigital print, but then you also
have, do they offer dropshipping?
Because if you're gonna dropship one by one, then suddenly
your price doubles, but then youcan actually get it to someone
versus warehousing it yourselfversus, so, it's It's very, very
(50:43):
involved.
And I know our very firstquestion is the quality and then
the second one's the pricepoint.
And then how do we get it tofolks and not end up with, you
know, 200, 50 page book.
Hannah (50:53):
right, right.
And this being something that'sbigger than we can ship out of
our living rooms, right, thatwould, I mean, just
administratively, that would bemiserable, but, you know.
Logistically, that's, that wouldjust, we're at a higher volume
than that could work for.
But also smaller than it'ssomething worth paying warehouse
(51:14):
space for.
Courtney (51:15):
I used to head up fulfillment, and I am like, I
am, yep, I'm there with you.
Hannah (51:20):
Well, we will take any tips you have.
Courtney (51:23):
For sure.
Yeah.
Okay, well.
Thank you.
Let's flip around.
What has been the most rewardingpart of this whole journey?
Clara (51:31):
For me, without question, being on the other side of the
fence, not being hired as anillustrator, but getting to hire
illustrators and working withthem and just watching that
magic from the other side.
Hannah (51:45):
That's one of my favorite things, too, and when I
stepped into art directing withTal'Dorei Reborn, despite not
being an illustrator myself,which, I think, to, to, on a
book of that size and scope andquality as an art director
without being an illustrator.
I was not qualified to do that.
(52:06):
Most people who are artdirectors are illustrators, but
it needed to be done.
And we learned from processesthat other people use.
And I sure do have opinionsabout visual design and kept
things organized.
And You know, without, withoutbragging, saying that I think it
went pretty well, and theartists really enjoyed working
(52:29):
with us, and I have reallyenjoyed to do that, and to learn
from the process, from artists Iknow, from people like Clara, I
have been overjoyed getting todo that again and art direct and
hire these artists and seesketches come in is just
absolutely amazing.
But then also to have someoneart directing with me who is an
(52:52):
illustrator and does have thatvisual design background and can
do paint overs and I can say,okay we've gotten this sketch, I
have some thoughts but I'm notsure how to communicate that,
and Clara just being able tojump in and know know what we
need to do there.
Clara (53:10):
Sometimes it's nice to be able to translate and use.
Use the language of like, Iunderstand exactly what you're
asking and I agree.
Let me put that in words thatthe artist will understand to be
able to action against.
Hannah (53:23):
And then I get to learn what those are so I can continue
to be a better art director,right?
Because I do not want to tellpeople, you know, please draw a
red line that looks like a bluecircle.
But, but yeah, I love learningthat and we have loved learning
from each other.
That's another one of thehighlights.
I wanted to also say one morehighlight, which is always the
(53:43):
case for this whole work I do,but is the reason I am in this
industry, is the reason Icontinue to be in this industry
is the reason why I've beenexcited to found this company
is, and excited to release ourfirst issue, that I love it when
people use our stuff.
I love hearing about it.
We have a, Creature in Horizons1 called the Terrible Crane,
(54:07):
which is the brainchild of oneof our authors Willia Beale,
and, God, the Terrible Crane,he's the worst I love him, and
somebody recently posted Thatthey were designing a whole
campaign around the terriblecrane, and it was just the best
news I heard, ever.
And I love, yeah, I love hearingfrom people who drop this stuff
(54:29):
in their games, and who remixit, and give it to their
players, and go on adventureswith it and transform it.
That's just the absolute best.
Courtney (54:39):
Amazing.
So obviously, you know, you'vegot this coming out every Are
there any other projects thatyou guys are working on, either
as part of Wildmage or outsideof Wildmage, that you're excited
about, that you're allowed totalk about?
Clara (54:55):
As they say, the allowed to talk about, I think, is the
biggest challenge there.
We are, we are looking at, as alot of publishers are expanded
beyond, like this is, this isour flagship pub for sure.
This is, this is what, We wantto be known for.
This is what's getting the mostof our attention.
This is what we're going toregularly put out.
But there is other stuff, andI'm going to dance very
(55:16):
carefully, Hannah.
Hannah (55:17):
Sounds good, I trust you!
Clara (55:19):
Other, other stuff that we were looking to leverage.
Our skills, our talents, prettymuch everything that we're
bringing to the Horizonspublication to do beyond just
that pub.
And partnering with someexisting spaces to leverage our
skills.
Hannah (55:37):
And things that we can talk about are terms of
freelance, Clara has, I'm sorryto answer for you here, but
Clara's continued to freelancewith Critical Role and
Darrington Press and hasrecently had, and I believe will
have some more art coming out,I'm just gonna brag about you,
you did the key art forDownfall, and that looked really
(55:58):
amazing, those pieces for Aeorand have kept working with
Worlds Beyond Number which anabsolutely incredible podcast
actual play with fantastic,wonderful people.
And I've been working workingwith their game design team that
Brennan Lee Mulligan puttogether to design some of the
(56:20):
player character options andother mechanics.
So, we just released a new andupdated version of the Witch
class.
That has been an absolute joyand really fun and I'm glad I've
been able to keep doing that andsqueezing it in.
Courtney (56:36):
Oh, for sure.
I have been very excited to seethat witch publication.
And I agree, Clara, that art wasabsolutely gorgeous.
Clara (56:46):
Aw, thank you.
It was, I, I swear every timethey hand me a new project I'm
like, this is my dream project,and then I get an even more
dream project, then I get like,it just, it's, it's so
validating and wonderful to beable to be, like, I would be
doing this stuff as fan artanyway, right?
(57:06):
So being able to like, beleveraged as an artist who loves
to do that, and then getting tomake some of those pieces canon,
like, it's just such a greatfeeling.
And this entire community is so,so amazing, and it's really the
collaboration that Horizons isaffording me to do that makes
the not a whole lot of sleepreally, really worth it.
Courtney (57:29):
Fair enough.
Amazing.
If people want to find you twoand Wildmage where should they
go?
Hannah (57:38):
Can find us at wildmagepress.
com or patreon.
com slash And our website willhave all of, all the links out
to to places and to subscribe.
We're on Instagram, Blue SkyTwitter, and TikTok at
wildmagepress.
And I am on most major socialmedia platforms, not TikTok as
(58:03):
wildrosemage.
Clara (58:05):
And I'm on almost all the social medias as EldritchBlep.
Very professional name.
Courtney (58:13):
Perfect.
I will have links to those inthe show notes.
Hannah, Clara, thank you so muchfor coming on today.
This has been a total blast.
Hannah (58:23):
Thank you, Courtney.
It's absolutely a delight tochat with you, and I am sure we
could chat for many hours.
Courtney (58:30):
Oh, oh, I wish we could.
So listeners, at this point I amgoing to stop the recording and
then I'm going to start it rightback up and go into a fun little
quick question blitz forpatrons, where I will ask these
two lovely ladies some moresillier questions.
Some are gaming related.
Some are not, like, DescribeYour Perfect Sandwich.
(58:52):
So if you want to listen to thatyou can go to patreon.
com slash rollplaygrow.
Again, thank you all so much.
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