December 17, 2024 • 53 mins
In this episode of Roll Play Grow, Courtney chats with Andrew Gronosky, the creative director of Shewstone Publishing, about his historical research for the game Magonomia, and the upcoming Kickstarter for his monthly publication, Drinterra. They delve into the importance of lore and world-building in game development and discuss Andrew's gaming background and his influences from Call of Cthulhu and Ars Magica. Andrew also provides insights into starting and funding a TTRPG project, including selecting a game system, crowdfunding, and building a diverse design team.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Courtney (00:32):
Hey entrepreneurs today, we are chatting with
Andrew Gronosky, the creativedirector of Shewstone
Publishing.
We talked about all of theresearch that went into the
historical understanding ofmagic while creating his game,
Magonomia and about his monthlymagazine publication, Drinterra,
which will be funding viaKickstarter next month.
(00:54):
It is a great discussion abouthow important lore and
world-building is while you aredeveloping your games.
And I found it reallyfascinating.
I hope that y'all enjoy it.
Before we dive into theinterview, I want to welcome any
new listeners to Roll Play Grow.
This show allows me to chat withso many amazing books about
business marketing, hardshipslessons learned, and how to
(01:16):
guides across a wide spectrum ofindustries within the TTRPG
scene.
I talk with crafters, gamedesigners, musicians, editors,
artists, and more.
And speaking of fun creators, Ialso want to give a quick shout
out to one of our favorite dicecompanies, dice envy.
My very first interview on theshow was with David Derus, the
(01:36):
founder of Dice Envy, and wehave gotten so many different
dice sets from them over theyears.
I'd highly recommend you checkthem out as they have dice and
all sorts of materials, likeresin, metal, wood.
They've got chunky d20s andreally cool shapes for their
d4s.
We are affiliates with them.
So if you go todiceenvy.com/lightheartadv you
(01:59):
can grab some snazzy dice andyou'll also help support the
show.
All right.
That is enough for now.
Let's jump into this interviewwith Andrew.
Hello, friends! We are back nowwith Andrew Gronosky, the
(02:19):
creative director of ShewstonePublishing.
How you doing today, Andrew?
Andrew (02:23):
I'm doing very well, happy to be here.
Thanks, it's a lovely bright dayin Boston.
Courtney (02:29):
It is not a lovely bright day in Seattle, so I'm
envious.
To start things off, I wouldlove to know What is the first
game that you remember playing?
Andrew (02:41):
You mean tabletop role playing game or any game?
Courtney (02:45):
Any game.
Andrew (02:47):
First game that comes to mind is Candyland.
Courtney (02:52):
Nice.
Andrew (02:54):
yeah, I'll stick with that.
Courtney (02:56):
I don't know if it was my first game, but it was
certainly one of them.
Andrew (03:01):
Chutes and Ladders was in there.
Courtney (03:04):
Mm, yep.
Andrew (03:06):
Yep.
Courtney (03:07):
I remember playing a lot of, like, what was it?
I think it was HiHo Cheerio?
Was that?
Andrew (03:12):
Yes! I do!
Courtney (03:14):
putting the cherries in the tree.
Andrew (03:16):
Yeah, yeah.
And, alright.
So, there were Melton Bradleygames.
I remember, but they weren't thefirst.
Yeah, they were
Courtney (03:24):
Yeah.
Andrew (03:24):
good times.
Courtney (03:26):
Okay.
So now what about TTRPG?
Andrew (03:29):
The first TTRPG I played, was original Dungeons
Dragons.
My older brother brought it homefrom military school in 1978 and
he introduced me to it.
I was immediately captivated.
I've been gaming ever since.
I'm a forever game master sincemy brother moved away.
(03:54):
So
Courtney (03:57):
I honestly love that he picked it up in military
school.
Andrew (04:01):
Yeah early Dungeons Dragons circulated through the
wargaming community and it waspopular in the military.
Courtney (04:09):
So, okay.
You said you've been a foreverDungeon Master.
Does, have you occasionallygotten to play?
Andrew (04:15):
of course.
Courtney (04:16):
Okay.
Okay.
Andrew (04:17):
Okay,
Courtney (04:19):
Awesome.
What are you playing these days?
Andrew (04:22):
Mostly I'm playing the games that I make.
Actually, that's not true.
I have a weekly Call of Cthulhugame.
7th edition we're playing theMasks of Nyarlathotep campaign
which is the best game product Ihave ever read in my opinion.
So I can talk about why it'sawesome.
(04:44):
I don't make Call of Cthulhusupplements but I learned a lot
from Call of Cthulhu and itinfluenced me as a designer in a
lot of ways.
So I play weekly Call ofCthulhu.
I play A game that I make calledMaginomia, the role playing game
of Renaissance Wizardry withsome of my old friends from
(05:09):
college.
And, that's mostly, that's aboutit for the past year or so.
Courtney (05:18):
So we're definitely going to get into your own game
in a bit, but I am curious tocircle back on something you
just said, which is that Call ofCthulhu influenced your design.
In what ways?
Andrew (05:29):
Call of Cthulhu has a definite tone.
It has a mood and a vibe.
I do think that there's a lot ofrange in how you can play Call
of Cthulhu, but the game takes astand on how it is to be played
and the experience that it'strying to create.
And that is a real strength ofCall of Cthulhu.
(05:53):
I think it's why people love itand I tried to draw inspiration
from that and to do the samething with Maginomia.
and the, the system you can seein Call of Cthulhu is designed
with mechanics to support theexperience.
(06:13):
And this is true throughout thesystem.
I mean there's a special sanitymechanic.
The way spells work in Call ofCthulhu will only work in a
horror game where magic isforbidden and to be used
reluctantly.
(06:34):
So, and I don't know so muchabout 7th edition, but I think
3rd edition and 5th edition arethe ones that I've read
thoroughly cover to cover.
And 3rd edition told you how toplay.
Told you what the mysteryexperience was.
And that, that it is a mysterygame of that the pacing should
(06:56):
be of Well, they use themetaphor of peeling an onion,
where you discover layers oftruth and trouble and horror,
because it's a horror game.
And, you know, Call of Cthulhuis perennially one of the most
popular role playing games.
If you ask the tabletop roleplaying game community what are
their four favorite games orthree favorite games, Call of
(07:19):
Cthulhu is going to rank in thetop three.
Courtney (07:22):
Yeah, I think that that is really a cool way to
pull into what's in your games,and so I want to talk about now
how you went from playing todesigning.
Andrew (07:34):
You know, back in the day in junior high school and
early high school we didn't havepocket money, my gaming buddies
and I, we had a lot of time onour hands and we did have Dragon
Magazine, which is great and weWe experimented and we made
(07:58):
variations on systems just to totry something out.
So, you know, we wanted a, ascience fiction adventure game.
And I think Traveler wasactually on the shelf of my
buddy's brother.
But we didn't, instead of askingfor, to, to learn Traveler, we
(08:19):
made our own space game.
And it was, I mean The designyou'd expect from junior high
students, but we had fun playingit.
And then later I became a bigfan of the historical games.
fantasy game called Ars Magica,which is just wrapping up a very
(08:40):
major successful crowdfundingcampaign for sort of a capstone
product of their probably 30years or more of print history.
And There was an onlinecommunity early on and I was
active in that.
People were sharing occasionallyrule mods and character ideas
(09:02):
and definitely spells that theyhad invented.
And so I started writing forFanzine and then when the 5th
edition came around, when it wasunder development I had just
happened to have written afanzine article.
I don't remember what I wasasking for, but I, I asked the
(09:26):
editor, hey can I make some kindof contribution and he sent me
back a non disclosure agreement.
And that was for the, I can'ttell you what it was for.
Now it was for the playtest.
It was to be a playtester for5th edition and After
playtesting it there was akerfuffle over from, from the
fans when it was released, therewas something missing.
(09:48):
And it was animal, statisticsfor animals, which used to be in
the Bestiary, and they weren'tincluded in the Core Rulebook.
So I offered to write that, andthat's how I got started writing
for Ars Magica.
Courtney (10:02):
That's a really fun way to get into it.
Andrew (10:06):
Yeah.
Oh, I wrote, when I was in highschool, I wrote an article for
Dragon Magazine.
So I've got one Dragon Magazinearticle credit.
Courtney (10:15):
So how long ago was this that you got involved with
Ars Magica?
Andrew (10:19):
I'm trying to remember.
Probably 2005 ish.
Courtney (10:25):
Okay.
And are you still working withthem?
Andrew (10:29):
No, after David Charr announced his retirement as line
editor and there was there wasno replacement.
I wanted to be his replacement,but there was no replacement.
And I got together with a bunchof my friends and we, Started
having discussions about design,And after we realized we weren't
(10:53):
going to be writing for ArsMagica, I asked, well, what if
What if we were to change someof the assumptions of this
historical fantasy setting whereeverybody plays a wizard.
And we keep historical fantasyin Europe because we like that.
And we keep everybody's a wizardbecause who would want to be
(11:16):
something else when you can be awizard.
And then question some of theother design assumptions of the
game.
And this turned into Maginomia,game of Renaissance Wizardry.
So the first thing that wechanged was the time period Ars
(11:37):
Magica is set in a fantasyversion of the 13th century, the
high middle ages.
And it's cool.
It's a cool time period.
It's less well known and lessapproachable.
And I was looking for what canwe do to make this, Ars Magica's
Famously known as the game youhave to learn Latin to play.
(12:00):
I mean, that's not quite true,but there's Latin, there's Latin
jargon in the game.
And I was looking for somethingmore approachable and quickly
came to the Renaissance.
And then did a little bit ofresearch and quickly came to a
time period.
I don't know if I'm going toodeep into Maginomia
Courtney (12:23):
No, not at all.
Andrew (12:24):
but very good.
Because there was a turningpoint in European intellectual
thought.
So from Ars Magica I had learnedsome of the history of real
magic.
When I say real magic, I meanmagic that people believed in at
the time.
(12:45):
This is a very alien concept tous now, but astrology was
thought to be real.
Astrology was considered ascience.
And there was a time when thegreat intellectuals of Europe
also studied magic.
And that stopped right aroundthe Reign of James I of England,
(13:12):
James VI of Scotland, because hehad as one of his courtiers
Francis Bacon and Francis Baconsaid we should use a scientific
method to test our ideas andthat's the turning point when
magic really sharply declined inits relevancy, in its currency.
(13:37):
But before that magic wasscience and it was, it, it's
oversimplification to say thatmagic was accepted, but things
that we today regard as magic oras paranormal were definitely
accepted.
So, That was a time period thatI, that I picked.
(14:00):
When people think abouthistorical magic, you know,
there are some tough topics inthere with witchcraft trials and
so on and there was a relativelysafe spot and it was really in
between.
Henry VIII and the end ofElizabeth, I reign in England.
(14:24):
We picked England because thesources are so much easier,
right?
If you want to do research, youcan pick up a digital scan of a,
of a edict from from 1580 andyou can just read it like I can
other people could read onesfrom Spain and so on, but not.
You know, my other languages area little soft.
(14:45):
And the Renaissance period is,it's fun, it's vibrant.
There's a lot of change goingon.
You actually can learn somerelevant things about our own
society by looking at it,because it's so, it's more
proximate.
And also, they had the printingpress, which just changes the
whole nature of history andscholarship about the period.
Courtney (15:07):
I honestly am now really feeling like my education
is Or my historical education islacking because
Andrew (15:16):
I'm sorry.
Well, go
Courtney (15:17):
no!
Andrew (15:18):
and, and ask me some questions because, you know,
yeah, it's, it's funny how, youknow, I started reading about
history.
The fire got lit with Ars Magicawhen I started playing it, and I
started looking at what wasgoing on in the 13th century,
and England ruled half ofFrance.
(15:39):
What?
For example, okay so, you know,I've been reading history since
of Europe mostly, although I'mbranching out now because I, I,
I want and need a more globalperspective but you know, I've
been reading history for, youknow, 30 years now, so you
shouldn't feel that your youreducation is lacking when you're
(16:04):
next to a long term hobbyist.
Courtney (16:08):
No, it's mostly just this, when I've thought about it
because I have had a very largelike interest in Celtic
mythology and Norse mythologyand everything for a while.
The transition from believing inmultiple gods to Christianity,
whether that was willing orforced you know, there's
(16:31):
definitely, I guess, a period,but I had always thought that by
the 16th century, you know, inyour local village you might
have a healer that everyonethinks is, has magic, but, you
know, they accept it becausethey need the help until it's
too dangerous to, and then, ofcourse you hear about the witch
trials, and that's just kind of,My understanding?
(16:53):
Or what I thought was going on?
Andrew (16:56):
far off.
Courtney (16:58):
Yeah.
Andrew (16:59):
I mean there, there's a lot of complexity that I could
layer on to that summary, butit's not wrong.
Courtney (17:08):
Alright, so, I love all of the research that went
into starting with this game andthat y'all picked the
Renaissance, and really wantedto dig into the wizardry aspect
of that.
So talk me through the processof pulling this game together.
Like, how many people were youworking with, and who did what?
Andrew (17:30):
I was, I hope I don't lose count.
So I was working with here I amwith my fingers well I'll name
names.
I was working with KristenJensen Romer who's a mate of
mine from freelancing in ArsMagica Timothy Ferguson, another
mate of mine Tom Knoll new to mefriend at the time, also a big
(17:55):
Ars Magica fan.
So everybody really, and my wifeVesna whom I met playing Ars
Magica, so it was really an ArsMagica crew, right, that we we
worked with.
And then I need to mention theartists because the illustrators
for Maginomia were people that Irecruited after I'd formed a
(18:19):
company.
Right, and they're all great.
In the core rulebook, we've gotJeff Koch we've got Colin Throm,
and Teresa Guido.
And So they, I recruited asfreelancers.
They were not part of thissecret council trying to keep
(18:41):
Ars Magica or take over ArsMagica after it retired.
And yeah so, so that's about thepeople.
So the first design decision wasdo we build our own rule system
or do we buy one?
And this is where myprofessional experience or
(19:02):
professional deformation, youmight call it, comes into play.
I'm a software engineer and Iworked for more than 20 years in
the defense industry forresearch contractors.
And the build or buy decision ispart of just their proposal to
me.
Creation process.
(19:23):
It's a normal business processfor these government
contractors.
So, I did it.
I made that decision.
I shopped around for a systemthat was customizable to include
the kinds of magic effects thatwe wanted to create that that we
(19:43):
imagined.
I didn't have specific ideas forsomething and for something that
really encouragedimprovisational gameplay and
encouraged and could rewardoriginal thinking.
And would create what Iconsidered a sense of immersion
(20:07):
in the in the setting and in theexperience of being a wizard in
the setting.
So, it was Goldilocks.
I looked at Chaosium Basic RolePlaying System, which is the
engine for Call of Cthulhu.
Call of Cthulhu magic could beadapted.
I'd take away the sanity cost ifyou play Call of Cthulhu.
(20:30):
But I could build a magicsystem.
I knew I could build a magicsystem onto the Chaosium Basic
Role Playing Engine.
But at the time, their licensewas not fully an open license
now it's licensed under the theORC, my favorite license, the
(20:52):
Open Role Play Creative License,but at the time it hadn't been
ORC licensed yet, it was notOGL, they had their own license,
I didn't like the terms, so thatwas a non starter, and it's
probably good because I'm happywith where we landed, and I
would have stopped looking.
Then I tried Powered by theApocalypse, and I liked the
(21:15):
system, I had not played itbefore and I knew that it was
suitable.
And it gave the experience thatI wanted, but it was a big
learning curve.
It was, it was a paradigm shiftfrom what I'll call second
generation role playing gameslike Dungeons Dragons and Call
(21:37):
of Magica.
It was, it was a whole leap inthe play experience and I didn't
think that I was ready to teachthat.
I didn't think I was ready towrite a book that would teach
that and I wasn't sure that Icould sell it and I thought that
the market for this is Thepeople who play Powered by the
(22:01):
Apocalypse are either going tobe already have a system that
they're playing or that they'regonna be making their own.
So next I tried Fate.
which had been recommended to meand I gotta say I didn't take to
it right away.
(22:22):
I was about to reject it andmove on and actually I was on
the brink of switching to to anopen, open game license 5e
variant for Maginomia.
I'm sure it would have soldbetter if I had done this but I
like the, I like the fate systema lot better.
(22:45):
It was just really hard to getused to I think that the Fate
Core rulebook wasn't very wellwritten as a tutorial at the
time.
They've since published FateCondensed, which is what I
strongly recommend for anyonewho's going to be playing Fate.
It's just a much better written,much better presented system.
(23:06):
But there was a episode of Oh,Will Wheaton's show, and I
haven't watched much of WillWheaton's YouTube show I forget
now what it's called, but it'smostly about board games and
role playing games.
And they demoed a game of Fate.
And I saw how it's meant to beplayed, and I said, alright,
(23:27):
that's it, that's the thing.
So, we just leaned into Fate,and now Maginomia is a Fate
game.
Courtney (23:34):
Alright.
How long did that researchprocess take you?
Andrew (23:38):
Selecting the system took me about four months, but I
was reading a ton of history andhistorical magic at the time.
That's another thing about theRenaissance is the books of
spells by people who thoughtthat these spells would work You
can just buy, right?
(24:00):
That's not true of 13th centurymagic.
But also Ars Magica wasn'taiming for that kind of
historical fidelity.
That was another one of thedesign questions we asked
ourselves.
What would happen if we stuckcloser to what would happen if
we stuck closer to historicalmagic to more accurately,
accurately try to portray in thegame?
(24:22):
And It turns out that it's veryplayable.
There are, I know game balanceis a term that people tend to
scoff at in the community, butI'm a big believer in it.
And there are balancerestrictions built into
historical magic.
You can't control people'sminds.
(24:45):
Okay it just was thought.
not to be possible by theintellectuals.
And other things that historicalmagic doesn't create things from
nothing.
So, no fireball.
Sorry.
Gas Fireball.
That's for D& D.
And, you know, it of course wasrationalized, right?
(25:10):
And by that I mean that it wasfit into a framework of how the
universe works.
So it's already figured out foryou.
It's already consistent with noplot holes.
I'm a software engineer in myday job.
Making a complex system with noholes in it is like, it's easier
(25:33):
said than done.
Courtney (25:34):
Mhm.
Andrew (25:35):
Which is why we also went to buy to buy or acquire
the rules engine.
We didn't buy FATE, it was openlicense.
Thank you very much Evil Hat.
Courtney (25:45):
Alright.
Alright.
Once you Had the system pickedout what happened after that?
Andrew (25:52):
we started making spells.
We had to designed for thegameplay experience and we
decided since everybody'splaying a wizard that we're
gonna make different flavors ofwizard with different spells and
the flavors or classes, dare Isay, were, well we call them
(26:14):
sciences.
And this is actually a little injoke because Ars Magica calls
the Magic Skills Arts So, um,humor me.
And there are four of themactually five.
There's astrology, alchemytheorgy, which was, it was magic
(26:37):
that was rationalized intoChristian theology and was
called magia or white magic itwasn't fully accepted but there
were people who were willing todefend it.
And then there's sorcery, whichis Blackmagic.
(26:58):
For us, we didn't believe inwriting good and evil into the
game, but the difference betweentheorgy and sorcery is that
theorgy is the hard road ofbuilding up your spiritual
authority so the spirits chooseto obey you.
(27:21):
And sorcery is using other meansto get the spirits to do what
you want.
Offering them payment, makingdeals, or if you're a villain,
coercion.
But that's that's for villains.
And then the village healer thatyou mentioned You know, these
(27:44):
all are, the previous four wereall what is considered high
magic, and I don't even likethat label, but they're
academic.
And then there's the nonacademic folk magic.
We didn't have a good word forit.
We went with witchcraft.
As the, as the least badavailable word and Witchcraft is
(28:07):
probably the most powerful ofthe sciences because it, it
picks and chooses from some ofthe others and it you know, so
it brings in elements of alchemyand astrology and a little
sorcery.
Yeah.
So.
You know, we designed that, andthen we we began making spells,
(28:32):
making lots of spells.
I thought that it would be hardto make enough spells.
It wasn't hard to make enoughspells.
Once it got rolling, it was hardto stop making spells.
And we've got, I think, 190 inthe, in the core book.
It's a good selection of spells.
(28:52):
And probably a quarter of thoseare adaptations straight out of
16th century grimoire.
And the rest have someconnection to either period
literature or, not all of them.
Some of them are just cool andwe had a cool idea.
But you know, a lot of them areconnected to European folklore.
Courtney (29:16):
So I see that Maginomia is available on
DriveThruRPG.
Andrew (29:21):
It
Courtney (29:21):
Was that the original place where y'all sold it once
it was done?
Or
Andrew (29:26):
Yeah, we crowdfunded it.
at the time this was during, um,the previous CEO of Kickstarter
and they were strike breaking.
So I, I tried a Kickstarter.
I wasn't actually ready.
It didn't fund.
And then, I tried again, but Itried it on a different
platform.
(29:46):
And was successful on Game onTabletop.
and, yeah, the idea all alongwas to publish this as print on
demand.
Right.
And you know about this from,from your role as a project
manager, right?
The production, thedistribution.
I'm running this part time.
It makes sense after you get toa certain volume of sales.
(30:10):
And, I'm not there, yet.
Courtney (30:13):
I'm curious if you Changed anything about your
crowdfunding page or advertisingbetween the first and second
attempt other than just pickinga different platform?
Andrew (30:26):
Yeah, I think the message was, there was a lot
more of a focused message aboutthe game.
I think I put up some more artbecause there was more art that
was done.
Not a lot really was, did Ichange.
And mostly I got the backersthrough some, paid advertising
(30:51):
on Facebook before CambridgeAnalytica and the scandals and
people lost confidence inFacebook.
There was a, there was a briefsummer time when you could
actually pay for ads on Facebookand people would read them and
buy your stuff.
That was cool.
And some organic social media.
Courtney (31:12):
Yeah, I'm always interested when, because
Burnaway actually went throughthe same thing where we didn't
fund the first attempt and so weactually made a bunch of changes
and funded the second attemptand so it's just always, I don't
know, something that I'm alwayscurious about is you.
Andrew (31:27):
Oh, I lowered the funding goal a
Courtney (31:29):
Yeah,
Andrew (31:30):
right?
Courtney (31:30):
that helps.
Yeah,
Andrew (31:39):
you know, what is it, what are your actual costs?
So I tried to fund to the actualcost.
If I had funded to half theactual cost, the Kickstarter
would have been way moresuccessful.
But, you know, I listened to badadvice.
Nobody talked about this.
I went to a couple of seminarsat Gen Con about how to run a
(31:59):
Kickstarter and nobody said youhave to sandbag on your funding
goal.
But you have to sandbag yourfunding goal.
You should set it to 25 percentor less of your total cost.
Courtney (32:13):
we learned that too.
Andrew (32:15):
Yeah, I was actually expecting, you know,
crowdfunding to fund my project.
Silly me.
And that was, you know, 2020,which was quite some time ago.
The industry is a bit of arollercoaster and things have
changed.
Courtney (32:30):
Yeah, it feels like they change monthly.
Mm.
Andrew (32:35):
That, I didn't expect when I founded the company.
I, I thought, you know, I'vebeen following the industry for
years and You know, I kind ofknow what's going on.
No When you actually startwriting checks And you know
(32:57):
Trying to run a business thingschange And Some things I mean I
partly called the companyShewstone Publishing because
mean that's an archaic word fora crystal ball that was used in
Renaissance England and it'sjust a cool name but also
(33:19):
because you know I thought Icould see where the industry was
going and I wasn't wrong.
I was right about a lot ofthings.
I was right that it was going tobe a lot more important.
You're not gonna it was going tobe important to be inclusive and
to find ways to make gamers feelcomfortable with the setting
(33:43):
that you're providing.
Print distribution was going tobe less important.
I got right that, you know,distributed freelance teams is
the way games get written andthat you can do this all
electronically throughcollaboration tools.
Courtney (33:58):
Man, so you founded this company in 2020?
Andrew (34:02):
No, I founded it in 2016,
Courtney (34:05):
Okay.
Andrew (34:06):
alright.
Worked on the game for threeyears, tried to crowdfund it,
didn't crowdfund it.
Crowdfunded it again thefollowing year, successfully.
Delivered a year late because itwas my first project.
Timothy Ferguson saved our baconcoming to the rescue when we
(34:29):
really needed him.
And now we've got this reallycool game.
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
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
(34:51):
To learn more, go tolightheartadventures.
com slash RPG.
And now back to the show.
Courtney (35:00):
And now you're working on Drintera.
Andrew (35:03):
Drintera.
Thank you for mentioningDrintera.
Courtney (35:08):
Yeah, so I definitely want to dig into this because
it's a monthly digital magazine.
Andrew (35:16):
That's correct.
Courtney (35:17):
I'm very curious about how this came about and what all
is included.
Andrew (35:23):
Yeah, thanks.
So this came about from Gen ConI went to a panel discussion and
Greg Stafford was on the panel.
For those who don't know, GregStafford was the lead designer
(35:43):
for the World of GloranthaRunequest, which is a Amazing
opus and a really deep richworld that is one of the first
multi, it was the firstmultimedia fantasy world that I
can think of.
It's appeared in board games andthere's the RuneQuest role
(36:06):
playing game.
There's a computer game which iswhere I first encountered
Glorantha called King of DragonPass.
It's a classic.
The panel discussion was aboutgods in a fantasy world and Greg
Stafford is an authority onmythology.
He created a really richmythology and I was blown away
(36:27):
by how he characterized pagangods, polytheistic gods, and
just the thought.
That he put into it.
I said I want to bring that togamers because so many fantasy
worlds have are Pretty shallowin their treatment of
(36:48):
Polytheistic pantheons andreligion And there's so much
potential I could go play inGlorantha, but Glorantha is a
little weird It's just a little,it's just not quite accessible.
If people who are willing totake a big departure from DD
conventions are already playingin Glorantha, right?
(37:10):
So I want something that'sricher and will be more thought
provoking and will be for willencourage a a deeper, more
thoughtful kind of storytelling.
It will, it will invite it,right?
And, and yet still beaccessible.
And within reach from these D& Dconventions.
(37:32):
So that's where the idea ofDrintera started.
It started with the gods.
And when I said I was making afantasy world, the first
question people would ask me iswhat are the gods like?
Now interestingly, no matterwhat I said, the answer was
always meh.
I think, that they're hesitant,they're apprehensive about
(37:56):
religion, okay?
And in a fantasy world, theyexpect that there's going to be
religion, but what's it going tobe like?
Is it going to be as bad as itis in our world?
Right?
I get it, okay?
So, and I worked on that and puta lot of thought into it.
Dreamterra is a pantheist world.
Everything has a spirit.
(38:17):
People, animals, plants, eveninanimate objects like like a
clay pot or house, have aspirit.
And some of, some things innature are Globally Visible,
Globally Influential.
The Sun, Moon, the Sea,Mountains.
(38:37):
These are the gods.
Their spirits are the gods.
So that's what the gods arelike.
And actually, like Glorantha,The gods are recognized all over
the world.
They'd be known by differentnames.
They'd be, but they'd berecognized and they'd be
(39:00):
regarded in different waysdepending on the importance of
their domain to the society.
So, hunter gatherers don't carethat much about the sun god,
right?
It's the agricultural societiesthat put a great deal of weight
on the importance of Zuvonar,the sun god.
(39:22):
So, how we actually got startedwas a professional acquaintance
of mine posted on Twittersaying, hey I lost my job, I
need some freelance TTRPG workto, to fill in the gap and I
said, well, I'm going to helpout my buddy and I'm going to
(39:44):
light this candle and So, westarted building the world and
for two years it was just thefoundation of the world without
thinking about how to monetizeit.
And the team grew.
So it started as a partnershipwith me and Jackie.
And I brought in some othercreators early on and the team's
(40:07):
grown and I'm paying for allthis out of pocket.
So after about two years, it'stime to monetize this.
Right?
It's time to monetize.
So I soft launched it onPatreon.
It's there now.
But listeners, please don't gorun out and join my Patreon.
(40:28):
That's a weird thing to say, butwe've got a Kickstarter coming
in a few months and What we'retrying to do is just get
subscribers on board, right?
The rewards are going to be asubscription.
So we're making this as amagazine.
I've been publishing it sinceMarch of 2024, and have got my
head around how to produce amagazine on a schedule.
(40:52):
It's, it's not meant to beentirely a pitch for the
Kickstarter.
You asked about the magazine, sowhy a magazine format?
A book is a lot.
A book is a lot of investment.
Not for me, but for the reader.
Alright A book is something thatyou want to buy and read if
you're going to run in theworld, or if you collect worlds,
(41:16):
which some people do, okay?
It's fine to collect worlds, infact, you're my target customer
if you collect worlds.
But, I think, I am very focused,because I'm a forever game
master myself, I'm very focusedon the game master experience.
And one of the things gamemasters need is they need some
(41:39):
stimulation.
I think that experienced gamemasters in particular are often
less interested in ready to playadventures they can just buy and
they're more interested instimulation, creative fuel I
call it.
For their home campaign, fortheir home group world.
(42:01):
And instead of selling a dumptruck full of creative fuel in
the form of a book, I want togive it as a steady
subscription.
So that's one of the reasons forthe magazine format.
The other is there's too much.
There's actually too much to putin a book.
(42:22):
So, the magazine makes itdigestible, but it also makes us
not have to publish three orfour 200 page books, okay?
And then finally, and this is avery important point, is it
allows us to bring more authorsinto the pool and more diverse
voices.
So, one of the things that Iwanted from the beginning is for
(42:44):
Drintera to be less Eurocentric.
Than a lot of the products thatyou've seen out there.
And I, I'm talking aboutEuropean history and Europe.
Europe this year.
Your, that, the whole interview.
The world is bigger than that.
And you know, my crystal ballsays maybe we should let
(43:04):
people's whose heritage is fromoutside Europe, right.
Let them be seen and let themshow us.
what fantasy in their culturalheritage would look like.
Show us what fantasy in a, in aChinese inspired setting by a
person of Chinese heritage.
(43:26):
What would that look like?
All right, there's a little lesskung fu than if an American,
white American, had writtenthat, okay, and more about You
know, the importance of theirfamily, very much more about
literature and calligraphy andliteracy and poetry.
So, the magazine lets me be avehicle for more diverse voices.
Courtney (43:53):
I love that so much.
I'm really glad that you're ableto provide a platform for these
writers.
How are you finding them?
Are people submittingsubmissions?
Are you out recruiting?
Andrew (44:06):
Yeah I guess the first thing I want to say is all you
aspiring writers out there, Ineed more subscribers before I
can take on more freelancers.
But how am I finding them?
I started with my network, suchas it was, because I had been in
business for a few years.
And then, believe it or not, twoof my freelancers contacted me
(44:32):
on LinkedIn.
They made a professionalpresentation with Portfolio, and
I said yes, come on board.
Now I had joined the Rising TideTTRPG Discord server, and its
predecessor, but now it's RisingTide.
(44:53):
And that is just a huge boon.
If you have Financing.
If you're able to payfreelancers, you just run up a
flag on Rising Tide and you willget more freelancers than you
can handle.
Courtney (45:09):
Yeah.
I honestly, I love thiscommunity and just finding folks
to work with on really funprojects.
I do wanna make sure that wehave time for some questions I
like to ask in every interview,which is that.
I mean, you've been working onthis for a long time now, and we
do this because we love it, butobviously there are challenges.
(45:31):
So I would love to know, like,what are some of the biggest
challenges that you've run intoduring this journey?
Andrew (45:38):
Finding my audience.
Getting my message in front ofthe people who want my product.
I know there are people who wantMaginomia.
You know, listeners, if you wantit after hearing me talk about
it, right?
But you may be hearing about itfor the first time.
So that's the biggest challenge.
And the fragmentation of socialmedia is terrible.
(46:04):
It's not just the gamingindustry that's struggling with
this.
Big companies are strugglingwith this.
So, I mean that's the biggestchallenge, and Kickstarter is
effective.
Crowdfunding is effective.
Crowdfunding is necessary now.
And crowdfunding is not whatit's claimed to be.
Crowdfunding is a distributionchannel.
(46:26):
You, you will not, I don't thinkyou have good chances of
success.
I'm not going to say you won'tsucceed, but you don't have good
chances if you are starting yourproject and you start
crowdfunding, right?
You need to, unfortunately,invest the time, the money,
(46:47):
large amounts of money andeffort to create a professional
product.
then maybe you can crowdfund it.
You can attempt to crowdfund it.
So those are the challenges.
The challenges are all on thesales and distribution side.
However, I will add that I havetalked to print distributors who
(47:10):
sell the brick and mortar gamestores and they are super easy
to work with.
If you have a A few hundredcopies of inventory, if that
works for your budget, justliterally look them up and call
them.
And I thought it was going to beintimidating.
So I, I have explored printdistribution, right?
(47:33):
And don't be afraid of it.
Be afraid of how you're going topay for your print run.
and how you're going to recoverthat cost.
Be afraid of the high cost ofprint on demand relative to
offset printing.
So, so those are the, those arethe challenges.
For me is, and it's a crowdedfield.
(47:54):
There are millions of gamers.
There are, I think, millions ofpeople who want to read role
playing games and, and see newthings, and it takes me some
time between when I buy a gameand when I play it, right?
But I buy them.
But, it's a very crowded field.
Courtney (48:17):
Mm hmm.
Andrew (48:23):
I can just sell on social media.
Well, it's not that easy, right?
So Thank you so much for thehelp, for the visibility that
you're giving me for free,right?
And it's a real service to thecommunity to run a podcast like
this.
Courtney (48:43):
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Honestly, I just have funchattin games for an hour.
Andrew (48:49):
Don't we both?
I mean, this is why I startedthe company.
This is why I'm not crying overthe I'm not at all profitable
yet,
Courtney (49:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Andrew (49:02):
you know it'd be good I'd love to keep doing this for
another gosh eight years but youknow I've got it I've got to
pick up my game I've got up mygame on the
Courtney (49:17):
Mhm.
Andrew (49:18):
Those are the main challenges.
Oh, I mean I can, I can talkabout something else that wasn't
a challenge, but I wouldrecommend, I like did it right
the first time which is do get alawyer and do get a lawyer's
help with preparing yourcontracts.
It will give you security.
(49:40):
So, I did great.
This was the thing at thebeginning.
I wanted to create the businessto be future proof.
To be able to grow.
What I mean by that is, I wantedto, if it's successful, I wanted
to be able to bring in apartner.
If it's successful, I wanted tobe able to sell it.
Maybe when I'm too old and it'snot fun anymore.
(50:02):
And to do that required settingup the legal stuff in advance.
You don't have to do it like Idid.
You don't have to hire a lawyerfirst, but you should hire a
lawyer before you startexchanging money or equity or,
you know, share future saleswith somebody.
Courtney (50:26):
I think that's really good advice.
Unfortunately, we are gonna haveto wrap up, despite the fact
that I really do have so manymore questions.
But do you have a launch datefor Kickstarter, or for the
Kickstarter campaign at thispoint?
Andrew (50:40):
Yeah, I do.
the Kickstarter campaign forDrinterra is going to launch in
mid January, and you can sign uptoday to follow it to be
notified on the launch.
And you know probably howKickstarters work.
We want to have a strong firstday.
We want to fund fully on thefirst day.
(51:00):
So please don't wait for thelaunch date, but the launch date
is coming in mid January.
Courtney (51:07):
Perfect! Yeah, I will have a link to that in the show
notes.
Andrew (51:11):
Thank you.
Courtney (51:12):
If people want to find you and find your company, where
should they go?
Andrew (51:17):
Shewstone.
com.
I'm also on Linktree.
Shewstone, I should give youthat link for the podcast.
I'm active on Threads, and BlueSky, and Mastodon, and Facebook.
Courtney (51:36):
Perfect.
Well, Andrew, this has been areally fun conversation.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday.
Andrew (51:43):
It was a real pleasure.
Thank you.
Courtney (51:45):
So, listeners, at this point, we are going to stop the
official interview.
I'm gonna hit Stop.
And then we're gonna start rightback up and jump into a fun
little quick question blitz,which is available for my
patrons.
So if you go to patreon.
com slash rollplaygrow, you willfind this fun little tidbit and
(52:08):
tidbits from previous guests aswell, where we talk about more
silly things, like Describe theperfect sandwich, which is a
personal favorite question.
ha, ha, ha,
Andrew (52:18):
Oh wow,
Courtney (52:19):
So now you get to think about that.
Thank you so much for listening,guys.
Hey entrepreneurs today, we are chatting with
Andrew Gronosky, the creativedirector of Shewstone
Publishing.
We talked about all of theresearch that went into the
historical understanding ofmagic while creating his game,
Magonomia and about his monthlymagazine publication, Drinterra,
which will be funding viaKickstarter next month.
(00:54):
It is a great discussion abouthow important lore and
world-building is while you aredeveloping your games.
And I found it reallyfascinating.
I hope that y'all enjoy it.
Before we dive into theinterview, I want to welcome any
new listeners to Roll Play Grow.
This show allows me to chat withso many amazing books about
business marketing, hardshipslessons learned, and how to
(01:16):
guides across a wide spectrum ofindustries within the TTRPG
scene.
I talk with crafters, gamedesigners, musicians, editors,
artists, and more.
And speaking of fun creators, Ialso want to give a quick shout
out to one of our favorite dicecompanies, dice envy.
My very first interview on theshow was with David Derus, the
(01:36):
founder of Dice Envy, and wehave gotten so many different
dice sets from them over theyears.
I'd highly recommend you checkthem out as they have dice and
all sorts of materials, likeresin, metal, wood.
They've got chunky d20s andreally cool shapes for their
d4s.
We are affiliates with them.
So if you go todiceenvy.com/lightheartadv you
(01:59):
can grab some snazzy dice andyou'll also help support the
show.
All right.
That is enough for now.
Let's jump into this interviewwith Andrew.
Hello, friends! We are back nowwith Andrew Gronosky, the
(02:19):
creative director of ShewstonePublishing.
How you doing today, Andrew?
Andrew (02:23):
I'm doing very well, happy to be here.
Thanks, it's a lovely bright dayin Boston.
Courtney (02:29):
It is not a lovely bright day in Seattle, so I'm
envious.
To start things off, I wouldlove to know What is the first
game that you remember playing?
Andrew (02:41):
You mean tabletop role playing game or any game?
Courtney (02:45):
Any game.
Andrew (02:47):
First game that comes to mind is Candyland.
Courtney (02:52):
Nice.
Andrew (02:54):
yeah, I'll stick with that.
Courtney (02:56):
I don't know if it was my first game, but it was
certainly one of them.
Andrew (03:01):
Chutes and Ladders was in there.
Courtney (03:04):
Mm, yep.
Andrew (03:06):
Yep.
Courtney (03:07):
I remember playing a lot of, like, what was it?
I think it was HiHo Cheerio?
Was that?
Andrew (03:12):
Yes! I do!
Courtney (03:14):
putting the cherries in the tree.
Andrew (03:16):
Yeah, yeah.
And, alright.
So, there were Melton Bradleygames.
I remember, but they weren't thefirst.
Yeah, they were
Courtney (03:24):
Yeah.
Andrew (03:24):
good times.
Courtney (03:26):
Okay.
So now what about TTRPG?
Andrew (03:29):
The first TTRPG I played, was original Dungeons
Dragons.
My older brother brought it homefrom military school in 1978 and
he introduced me to it.
I was immediately captivated.
I've been gaming ever since.
I'm a forever game master sincemy brother moved away.
(03:54):
So
Courtney (03:57):
I honestly love that he picked it up in military
school.
Andrew (04:01):
Yeah early Dungeons Dragons circulated through the
wargaming community and it waspopular in the military.
Courtney (04:09):
So, okay.
You said you've been a foreverDungeon Master.
Does, have you occasionallygotten to play?
Andrew (04:15):
of course.
Courtney (04:16):
Okay.
Okay.
Andrew (04:17):
Okay,
Courtney (04:19):
Awesome.
What are you playing these days?
Andrew (04:22):
Mostly I'm playing the games that I make.
Actually, that's not true.
I have a weekly Call of Cthulhugame.
7th edition we're playing theMasks of Nyarlathotep campaign
which is the best game product Ihave ever read in my opinion.
So I can talk about why it'sawesome.
(04:44):
I don't make Call of Cthulhusupplements but I learned a lot
from Call of Cthulhu and itinfluenced me as a designer in a
lot of ways.
So I play weekly Call ofCthulhu.
I play A game that I make calledMaginomia, the role playing game
of Renaissance Wizardry withsome of my old friends from
(05:09):
college.
And, that's mostly, that's aboutit for the past year or so.
Courtney (05:18):
So we're definitely going to get into your own game
in a bit, but I am curious tocircle back on something you
just said, which is that Call ofCthulhu influenced your design.
In what ways?
Andrew (05:29):
Call of Cthulhu has a definite tone.
It has a mood and a vibe.
I do think that there's a lot ofrange in how you can play Call
of Cthulhu, but the game takes astand on how it is to be played
and the experience that it'strying to create.
And that is a real strength ofCall of Cthulhu.
(05:53):
I think it's why people love itand I tried to draw inspiration
from that and to do the samething with Maginomia.
and the, the system you can seein Call of Cthulhu is designed
with mechanics to support theexperience.
(06:13):
And this is true throughout thesystem.
I mean there's a special sanitymechanic.
The way spells work in Call ofCthulhu will only work in a
horror game where magic isforbidden and to be used
reluctantly.
(06:34):
So, and I don't know so muchabout 7th edition, but I think
3rd edition and 5th edition arethe ones that I've read
thoroughly cover to cover.
And 3rd edition told you how toplay.
Told you what the mysteryexperience was.
And that, that it is a mysterygame of that the pacing should
(06:56):
be of Well, they use themetaphor of peeling an onion,
where you discover layers oftruth and trouble and horror,
because it's a horror game.
And, you know, Call of Cthulhuis perennially one of the most
popular role playing games.
If you ask the tabletop roleplaying game community what are
their four favorite games orthree favorite games, Call of
(07:19):
Cthulhu is going to rank in thetop three.
Courtney (07:22):
Yeah, I think that that is really a cool way to
pull into what's in your games,and so I want to talk about now
how you went from playing todesigning.
Andrew (07:34):
You know, back in the day in junior high school and
early high school we didn't havepocket money, my gaming buddies
and I, we had a lot of time onour hands and we did have Dragon
Magazine, which is great and weWe experimented and we made
(07:58):
variations on systems just to totry something out.
So, you know, we wanted a, ascience fiction adventure game.
And I think Traveler wasactually on the shelf of my
buddy's brother.
But we didn't, instead of askingfor, to, to learn Traveler, we
(08:19):
made our own space game.
And it was, I mean The designyou'd expect from junior high
students, but we had fun playingit.
And then later I became a bigfan of the historical games.
fantasy game called Ars Magica,which is just wrapping up a very
(08:40):
major successful crowdfundingcampaign for sort of a capstone
product of their probably 30years or more of print history.
And There was an onlinecommunity early on and I was
active in that.
People were sharing occasionallyrule mods and character ideas
(09:02):
and definitely spells that theyhad invented.
And so I started writing forFanzine and then when the 5th
edition came around, when it wasunder development I had just
happened to have written afanzine article.
I don't remember what I wasasking for, but I, I asked the
(09:26):
editor, hey can I make some kindof contribution and he sent me
back a non disclosure agreement.
And that was for the, I can'ttell you what it was for.
Now it was for the playtest.
It was to be a playtester for5th edition and After
playtesting it there was akerfuffle over from, from the
fans when it was released, therewas something missing.
(09:48):
And it was animal, statisticsfor animals, which used to be in
the Bestiary, and they weren'tincluded in the Core Rulebook.
So I offered to write that, andthat's how I got started writing
for Ars Magica.
Courtney (10:02):
That's a really fun way to get into it.
Andrew (10:06):
Yeah.
Oh, I wrote, when I was in highschool, I wrote an article for
Dragon Magazine.
So I've got one Dragon Magazinearticle credit.
Courtney (10:15):
So how long ago was this that you got involved with
Ars Magica?
Andrew (10:19):
I'm trying to remember.
Probably 2005 ish.
Courtney (10:25):
Okay.
And are you still working withthem?
Andrew (10:29):
No, after David Charr announced his retirement as line
editor and there was there wasno replacement.
I wanted to be his replacement,but there was no replacement.
And I got together with a bunchof my friends and we, Started
having discussions about design,And after we realized we weren't
(10:53):
going to be writing for ArsMagica, I asked, well, what if
What if we were to change someof the assumptions of this
historical fantasy setting whereeverybody plays a wizard.
And we keep historical fantasyin Europe because we like that.
And we keep everybody's a wizardbecause who would want to be
(11:16):
something else when you can be awizard.
And then question some of theother design assumptions of the
game.
And this turned into Maginomia,game of Renaissance Wizardry.
So the first thing that wechanged was the time period Ars
(11:37):
Magica is set in a fantasyversion of the 13th century, the
high middle ages.
And it's cool.
It's a cool time period.
It's less well known and lessapproachable.
And I was looking for what canwe do to make this, Ars Magica's
Famously known as the game youhave to learn Latin to play.
(12:00):
I mean, that's not quite true,but there's Latin, there's Latin
jargon in the game.
And I was looking for somethingmore approachable and quickly
came to the Renaissance.
And then did a little bit ofresearch and quickly came to a
time period.
I don't know if I'm going toodeep into Maginomia
Courtney (12:23):
No, not at all.
Andrew (12:24):
but very good.
Because there was a turningpoint in European intellectual
thought.
So from Ars Magica I had learnedsome of the history of real
magic.
When I say real magic, I meanmagic that people believed in at
the time.
(12:45):
This is a very alien concept tous now, but astrology was
thought to be real.
Astrology was considered ascience.
And there was a time when thegreat intellectuals of Europe
also studied magic.
And that stopped right aroundthe Reign of James I of England,
(13:12):
James VI of Scotland, because hehad as one of his courtiers
Francis Bacon and Francis Baconsaid we should use a scientific
method to test our ideas andthat's the turning point when
magic really sharply declined inits relevancy, in its currency.
(13:37):
But before that magic wasscience and it was, it, it's
oversimplification to say thatmagic was accepted, but things
that we today regard as magic oras paranormal were definitely
accepted.
So, That was a time period thatI, that I picked.
(14:00):
When people think abouthistorical magic, you know,
there are some tough topics inthere with witchcraft trials and
so on and there was a relativelysafe spot and it was really in
between.
Henry VIII and the end ofElizabeth, I reign in England.
(14:24):
We picked England because thesources are so much easier,
right?
If you want to do research, youcan pick up a digital scan of a,
of a edict from from 1580 andyou can just read it like I can
other people could read onesfrom Spain and so on, but not.
You know, my other languages area little soft.
(14:45):
And the Renaissance period is,it's fun, it's vibrant.
There's a lot of change goingon.
You actually can learn somerelevant things about our own
society by looking at it,because it's so, it's more
proximate.
And also, they had the printingpress, which just changes the
whole nature of history andscholarship about the period.
Courtney (15:07):
I honestly am now really feeling like my education
is Or my historical education islacking because
Andrew (15:16):
I'm sorry.
Well, go
Courtney (15:17):
no!
Andrew (15:18):
and, and ask me some questions because, you know,
yeah, it's, it's funny how, youknow, I started reading about
history.
The fire got lit with Ars Magicawhen I started playing it, and I
started looking at what wasgoing on in the 13th century,
and England ruled half ofFrance.
(15:39):
What?
For example, okay so, you know,I've been reading history since
of Europe mostly, although I'mbranching out now because I, I,
I want and need a more globalperspective but you know, I've
been reading history for, youknow, 30 years now, so you
shouldn't feel that your youreducation is lacking when you're
(16:04):
next to a long term hobbyist.
Courtney (16:08):
No, it's mostly just this, when I've thought about it
because I have had a very largelike interest in Celtic
mythology and Norse mythologyand everything for a while.
The transition from believing inmultiple gods to Christianity,
whether that was willing orforced you know, there's
(16:31):
definitely, I guess, a period,but I had always thought that by
the 16th century, you know, inyour local village you might
have a healer that everyonethinks is, has magic, but, you
know, they accept it becausethey need the help until it's
too dangerous to, and then, ofcourse you hear about the witch
trials, and that's just kind of,My understanding?
(16:53):
Or what I thought was going on?
Andrew (16:56):
far off.
Courtney (16:58):
Yeah.
Andrew (16:59):
I mean there, there's a lot of complexity that I could
layer on to that summary, butit's not wrong.
Courtney (17:08):
Alright, so, I love all of the research that went
into starting with this game andthat y'all picked the
Renaissance, and really wantedto dig into the wizardry aspect
of that.
So talk me through the processof pulling this game together.
Like, how many people were youworking with, and who did what?
Andrew (17:30):
I was, I hope I don't lose count.
So I was working with here I amwith my fingers well I'll name
names.
I was working with KristenJensen Romer who's a mate of
mine from freelancing in ArsMagica Timothy Ferguson, another
mate of mine Tom Knoll new to mefriend at the time, also a big
(17:55):
Ars Magica fan.
So everybody really, and my wifeVesna whom I met playing Ars
Magica, so it was really an ArsMagica crew, right, that we we
worked with.
And then I need to mention theartists because the illustrators
for Maginomia were people that Irecruited after I'd formed a
(18:19):
company.
Right, and they're all great.
In the core rulebook, we've gotJeff Koch we've got Colin Throm,
and Teresa Guido.
And So they, I recruited asfreelancers.
They were not part of thissecret council trying to keep
(18:41):
Ars Magica or take over ArsMagica after it retired.
And yeah so, so that's about thepeople.
So the first design decision wasdo we build our own rule system
or do we buy one?
And this is where myprofessional experience or
(19:02):
professional deformation, youmight call it, comes into play.
I'm a software engineer and Iworked for more than 20 years in
the defense industry forresearch contractors.
And the build or buy decision ispart of just their proposal to
me.
Creation process.
(19:23):
It's a normal business processfor these government
contractors.
So, I did it.
I made that decision.
I shopped around for a systemthat was customizable to include
the kinds of magic effects thatwe wanted to create that that we
(19:43):
imagined.
I didn't have specific ideas forsomething and for something that
really encouragedimprovisational gameplay and
encouraged and could rewardoriginal thinking.
And would create what Iconsidered a sense of immersion
(20:07):
in the in the setting and in theexperience of being a wizard in
the setting.
So, it was Goldilocks.
I looked at Chaosium Basic RolePlaying System, which is the
engine for Call of Cthulhu.
Call of Cthulhu magic could beadapted.
I'd take away the sanity cost ifyou play Call of Cthulhu.
(20:30):
But I could build a magicsystem.
I knew I could build a magicsystem onto the Chaosium Basic
Role Playing Engine.
But at the time, their licensewas not fully an open license
now it's licensed under the theORC, my favorite license, the
(20:52):
Open Role Play Creative License,but at the time it hadn't been
ORC licensed yet, it was notOGL, they had their own license,
I didn't like the terms, so thatwas a non starter, and it's
probably good because I'm happywith where we landed, and I
would have stopped looking.
Then I tried Powered by theApocalypse, and I liked the
(21:15):
system, I had not played itbefore and I knew that it was
suitable.
And it gave the experience thatI wanted, but it was a big
learning curve.
It was, it was a paradigm shiftfrom what I'll call second
generation role playing gameslike Dungeons Dragons and Call
(21:37):
of Magica.
It was, it was a whole leap inthe play experience and I didn't
think that I was ready to teachthat.
I didn't think I was ready towrite a book that would teach
that and I wasn't sure that Icould sell it and I thought that
the market for this is Thepeople who play Powered by the
(22:01):
Apocalypse are either going tobe already have a system that
they're playing or that they'regonna be making their own.
So next I tried Fate.
which had been recommended to meand I gotta say I didn't take to
it right away.
(22:22):
I was about to reject it andmove on and actually I was on
the brink of switching to to anopen, open game license 5e
variant for Maginomia.
I'm sure it would have soldbetter if I had done this but I
like the, I like the fate systema lot better.
(22:45):
It was just really hard to getused to I think that the Fate
Core rulebook wasn't very wellwritten as a tutorial at the
time.
They've since published FateCondensed, which is what I
strongly recommend for anyonewho's going to be playing Fate.
It's just a much better written,much better presented system.
(23:06):
But there was a episode of Oh,Will Wheaton's show, and I
haven't watched much of WillWheaton's YouTube show I forget
now what it's called, but it'smostly about board games and
role playing games.
And they demoed a game of Fate.
And I saw how it's meant to beplayed, and I said, alright,
(23:27):
that's it, that's the thing.
So, we just leaned into Fate,and now Maginomia is a Fate
game.
Courtney (23:34):
Alright.
How long did that researchprocess take you?
Andrew (23:38):
Selecting the system took me about four months, but I
was reading a ton of history andhistorical magic at the time.
That's another thing about theRenaissance is the books of
spells by people who thoughtthat these spells would work You
can just buy, right?
(24:00):
That's not true of 13th centurymagic.
But also Ars Magica wasn'taiming for that kind of
historical fidelity.
That was another one of thedesign questions we asked
ourselves.
What would happen if we stuckcloser to what would happen if
we stuck closer to historicalmagic to more accurately,
accurately try to portray in thegame?
(24:22):
And It turns out that it's veryplayable.
There are, I know game balanceis a term that people tend to
scoff at in the community, butI'm a big believer in it.
And there are balancerestrictions built into
historical magic.
You can't control people'sminds.
(24:45):
Okay it just was thought.
not to be possible by theintellectuals.
And other things that historicalmagic doesn't create things from
nothing.
So, no fireball.
Sorry.
Gas Fireball.
That's for D& D.
And, you know, it of course wasrationalized, right?
(25:10):
And by that I mean that it wasfit into a framework of how the
universe works.
So it's already figured out foryou.
It's already consistent with noplot holes.
I'm a software engineer in myday job.
Making a complex system with noholes in it is like, it's easier
(25:33):
said than done.
Courtney (25:34):
Mhm.
Andrew (25:35):
Which is why we also went to buy to buy or acquire
the rules engine.
We didn't buy FATE, it was openlicense.
Thank you very much Evil Hat.
Courtney (25:45):
Alright.
Alright.
Once you Had the system pickedout what happened after that?
Andrew (25:52):
we started making spells.
We had to designed for thegameplay experience and we
decided since everybody'splaying a wizard that we're
gonna make different flavors ofwizard with different spells and
the flavors or classes, dare Isay, were, well we call them
(26:14):
sciences.
And this is actually a little injoke because Ars Magica calls
the Magic Skills Arts So, um,humor me.
And there are four of themactually five.
There's astrology, alchemytheorgy, which was, it was magic
(26:37):
that was rationalized intoChristian theology and was
called magia or white magic itwasn't fully accepted but there
were people who were willing todefend it.
And then there's sorcery, whichis Blackmagic.
(26:58):
For us, we didn't believe inwriting good and evil into the
game, but the difference betweentheorgy and sorcery is that
theorgy is the hard road ofbuilding up your spiritual
authority so the spirits chooseto obey you.
(27:21):
And sorcery is using other meansto get the spirits to do what
you want.
Offering them payment, makingdeals, or if you're a villain,
coercion.
But that's that's for villains.
And then the village healer thatyou mentioned You know, these
(27:44):
all are, the previous four wereall what is considered high
magic, and I don't even likethat label, but they're
academic.
And then there's the nonacademic folk magic.
We didn't have a good word forit.
We went with witchcraft.
As the, as the least badavailable word and Witchcraft is
(28:07):
probably the most powerful ofthe sciences because it, it
picks and chooses from some ofthe others and it you know, so
it brings in elements of alchemyand astrology and a little
sorcery.
Yeah.
So.
You know, we designed that, andthen we we began making spells,
(28:32):
making lots of spells.
I thought that it would be hardto make enough spells.
It wasn't hard to make enoughspells.
Once it got rolling, it was hardto stop making spells.
And we've got, I think, 190 inthe, in the core book.
It's a good selection of spells.
(28:52):
And probably a quarter of thoseare adaptations straight out of
16th century grimoire.
And the rest have someconnection to either period
literature or, not all of them.
Some of them are just cool andwe had a cool idea.
But you know, a lot of them areconnected to European folklore.
Courtney (29:16):
So I see that Maginomia is available on
DriveThruRPG.
Andrew (29:21):
It
Courtney (29:21):
Was that the original place where y'all sold it once
it was done?
Or
Andrew (29:26):
Yeah, we crowdfunded it.
at the time this was during, um,the previous CEO of Kickstarter
and they were strike breaking.
So I, I tried a Kickstarter.
I wasn't actually ready.
It didn't fund.
And then, I tried again, but Itried it on a different
platform.
(29:46):
And was successful on Game onTabletop.
and, yeah, the idea all alongwas to publish this as print on
demand.
Right.
And you know about this from,from your role as a project
manager, right?
The production, thedistribution.
I'm running this part time.
It makes sense after you get toa certain volume of sales.
(30:10):
And, I'm not there, yet.
Courtney (30:13):
I'm curious if you Changed anything about your
crowdfunding page or advertisingbetween the first and second
attempt other than just pickinga different platform?
Andrew (30:26):
Yeah, I think the message was, there was a lot
more of a focused message aboutthe game.
I think I put up some more artbecause there was more art that
was done.
Not a lot really was, did Ichange.
And mostly I got the backersthrough some, paid advertising
(30:51):
on Facebook before CambridgeAnalytica and the scandals and
people lost confidence inFacebook.
There was a, there was a briefsummer time when you could
actually pay for ads on Facebookand people would read them and
buy your stuff.
That was cool.
And some organic social media.
Courtney (31:12):
Yeah, I'm always interested when, because
Burnaway actually went throughthe same thing where we didn't
fund the first attempt and so weactually made a bunch of changes
and funded the second attemptand so it's just always, I don't
know, something that I'm alwayscurious about is you.
Andrew (31:27):
Oh, I lowered the funding goal a
Courtney (31:29):
Yeah,
Andrew (31:30):
right?
Courtney (31:30):
that helps.
Yeah,
Andrew (31:39):
you know, what is it, what are your actual costs?
So I tried to fund to the actualcost.
If I had funded to half theactual cost, the Kickstarter
would have been way moresuccessful.
But, you know, I listened to badadvice.
Nobody talked about this.
I went to a couple of seminarsat Gen Con about how to run a
(31:59):
Kickstarter and nobody said youhave to sandbag on your funding
goal.
But you have to sandbag yourfunding goal.
You should set it to 25 percentor less of your total cost.
Courtney (32:13):
we learned that too.
Andrew (32:15):
Yeah, I was actually expecting, you know,
crowdfunding to fund my project.
Silly me.
And that was, you know, 2020,which was quite some time ago.
The industry is a bit of arollercoaster and things have
changed.
Courtney (32:30):
Yeah, it feels like they change monthly.
Mm.
Andrew (32:35):
That, I didn't expect when I founded the company.
I, I thought, you know, I'vebeen following the industry for
years and You know, I kind ofknow what's going on.
No When you actually startwriting checks And you know
(32:57):
Trying to run a business thingschange And Some things I mean I
partly called the companyShewstone Publishing because
mean that's an archaic word fora crystal ball that was used in
Renaissance England and it'sjust a cool name but also
(33:19):
because you know I thought Icould see where the industry was
going and I wasn't wrong.
I was right about a lot ofthings.
I was right that it was going tobe a lot more important.
You're not gonna it was going tobe important to be inclusive and
to find ways to make gamers feelcomfortable with the setting
(33:43):
that you're providing.
Print distribution was going tobe less important.
I got right that, you know,distributed freelance teams is
the way games get written andthat you can do this all
electronically throughcollaboration tools.
Courtney (33:58):
Man, so you founded this company in 2020?
Andrew (34:02):
No, I founded it in 2016,
Courtney (34:05):
Okay.
Andrew (34:06):
alright.
Worked on the game for threeyears, tried to crowdfund it,
didn't crowdfund it.
Crowdfunded it again thefollowing year, successfully.
Delivered a year late because itwas my first project.
Timothy Ferguson saved our baconcoming to the rescue when we
(34:29):
really needed him.
And now we've got this reallycool game.
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
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
(34:51):
To learn more, go tolightheartadventures.
com slash RPG.
And now back to the show.
Courtney (35:00):
And now you're working on Drintera.
Andrew (35:03):
Drintera.
Thank you for mentioningDrintera.
Courtney (35:08):
Yeah, so I definitely want to dig into this because
it's a monthly digital magazine.
Andrew (35:16):
That's correct.
Courtney (35:17):
I'm very curious about how this came about and what all
is included.
Andrew (35:23):
Yeah, thanks.
So this came about from Gen ConI went to a panel discussion and
Greg Stafford was on the panel.
For those who don't know, GregStafford was the lead designer
(35:43):
for the World of GloranthaRunequest, which is a Amazing
opus and a really deep richworld that is one of the first
multi, it was the firstmultimedia fantasy world that I
can think of.
It's appeared in board games andthere's the RuneQuest role
(36:06):
playing game.
There's a computer game which iswhere I first encountered
Glorantha called King of DragonPass.
It's a classic.
The panel discussion was aboutgods in a fantasy world and Greg
Stafford is an authority onmythology.
He created a really richmythology and I was blown away
(36:27):
by how he characterized pagangods, polytheistic gods, and
just the thought.
That he put into it.
I said I want to bring that togamers because so many fantasy
worlds have are Pretty shallowin their treatment of
(36:48):
Polytheistic pantheons andreligion And there's so much
potential I could go play inGlorantha, but Glorantha is a
little weird It's just a little,it's just not quite accessible.
If people who are willing totake a big departure from DD
conventions are already playingin Glorantha, right?
(37:10):
So I want something that'sricher and will be more thought
provoking and will be for willencourage a a deeper, more
thoughtful kind of storytelling.
It will, it will invite it,right?
And, and yet still beaccessible.
And within reach from these D& Dconventions.
(37:32):
So that's where the idea ofDrintera started.
It started with the gods.
And when I said I was making afantasy world, the first
question people would ask me iswhat are the gods like?
Now interestingly, no matterwhat I said, the answer was
always meh.
I think, that they're hesitant,they're apprehensive about
(37:56):
religion, okay?
And in a fantasy world, theyexpect that there's going to be
religion, but what's it going tobe like?
Is it going to be as bad as itis in our world?
Right?
I get it, okay?
So, and I worked on that and puta lot of thought into it.
Dreamterra is a pantheist world.
Everything has a spirit.
(38:17):
People, animals, plants, eveninanimate objects like like a
clay pot or house, have aspirit.
And some of, some things innature are Globally Visible,
Globally Influential.
The Sun, Moon, the Sea,Mountains.
(38:37):
These are the gods.
Their spirits are the gods.
So that's what the gods arelike.
And actually, like Glorantha,The gods are recognized all over
the world.
They'd be known by differentnames.
They'd be, but they'd berecognized and they'd be
(39:00):
regarded in different waysdepending on the importance of
their domain to the society.
So, hunter gatherers don't carethat much about the sun god,
right?
It's the agricultural societiesthat put a great deal of weight
on the importance of Zuvonar,the sun god.
(39:22):
So, how we actually got startedwas a professional acquaintance
of mine posted on Twittersaying, hey I lost my job, I
need some freelance TTRPG workto, to fill in the gap and I
said, well, I'm going to helpout my buddy and I'm going to
(39:44):
light this candle and So, westarted building the world and
for two years it was just thefoundation of the world without
thinking about how to monetizeit.
And the team grew.
So it started as a partnershipwith me and Jackie.
And I brought in some othercreators early on and the team's
(40:07):
grown and I'm paying for allthis out of pocket.
So after about two years, it'stime to monetize this.
Right?
It's time to monetize.
So I soft launched it onPatreon.
It's there now.
But listeners, please don't gorun out and join my Patreon.
(40:28):
That's a weird thing to say, butwe've got a Kickstarter coming
in a few months and What we'retrying to do is just get
subscribers on board, right?
The rewards are going to be asubscription.
So we're making this as amagazine.
I've been publishing it sinceMarch of 2024, and have got my
head around how to produce amagazine on a schedule.
(40:52):
It's, it's not meant to beentirely a pitch for the
Kickstarter.
You asked about the magazine, sowhy a magazine format?
A book is a lot.
A book is a lot of investment.
Not for me, but for the reader.
Alright A book is something thatyou want to buy and read if
you're going to run in theworld, or if you collect worlds,
(41:16):
which some people do, okay?
It's fine to collect worlds, infact, you're my target customer
if you collect worlds.
But, I think, I am very focused,because I'm a forever game
master myself, I'm very focusedon the game master experience.
And one of the things gamemasters need is they need some
(41:39):
stimulation.
I think that experienced gamemasters in particular are often
less interested in ready to playadventures they can just buy and
they're more interested instimulation, creative fuel I
call it.
For their home campaign, fortheir home group world.
(42:01):
And instead of selling a dumptruck full of creative fuel in
the form of a book, I want togive it as a steady
subscription.
So that's one of the reasons forthe magazine format.
The other is there's too much.
There's actually too much to putin a book.
(42:22):
So, the magazine makes itdigestible, but it also makes us
not have to publish three orfour 200 page books, okay?
And then finally, and this is avery important point, is it
allows us to bring more authorsinto the pool and more diverse
voices.
So, one of the things that Iwanted from the beginning is for
(42:44):
Drintera to be less Eurocentric.
Than a lot of the products thatyou've seen out there.
And I, I'm talking aboutEuropean history and Europe.
Europe this year.
Your, that, the whole interview.
The world is bigger than that.
And you know, my crystal ballsays maybe we should let
(43:04):
people's whose heritage is fromoutside Europe, right.
Let them be seen and let themshow us.
what fantasy in their culturalheritage would look like.
Show us what fantasy in a, in aChinese inspired setting by a
person of Chinese heritage.
(43:26):
What would that look like?
All right, there's a little lesskung fu than if an American,
white American, had writtenthat, okay, and more about You
know, the importance of theirfamily, very much more about
literature and calligraphy andliteracy and poetry.
So, the magazine lets me be avehicle for more diverse voices.
Courtney (43:53):
I love that so much.
I'm really glad that you're ableto provide a platform for these
writers.
How are you finding them?
Are people submittingsubmissions?
Are you out recruiting?
Andrew (44:06):
Yeah I guess the first thing I want to say is all you
aspiring writers out there, Ineed more subscribers before I
can take on more freelancers.
But how am I finding them?
I started with my network, suchas it was, because I had been in
business for a few years.
And then, believe it or not, twoof my freelancers contacted me
(44:32):
on LinkedIn.
They made a professionalpresentation with Portfolio, and
I said yes, come on board.
Now I had joined the Rising TideTTRPG Discord server, and its
predecessor, but now it's RisingTide.
(44:53):
And that is just a huge boon.
If you have Financing.
If you're able to payfreelancers, you just run up a
flag on Rising Tide and you willget more freelancers than you
can handle.
Courtney (45:09):
Yeah.
I honestly, I love thiscommunity and just finding folks
to work with on really funprojects.
I do wanna make sure that wehave time for some questions I
like to ask in every interview,which is that.
I mean, you've been working onthis for a long time now, and we
do this because we love it, butobviously there are challenges.
(45:31):
So I would love to know, like,what are some of the biggest
challenges that you've run intoduring this journey?
Andrew (45:38):
Finding my audience.
Getting my message in front ofthe people who want my product.
I know there are people who wantMaginomia.
You know, listeners, if you wantit after hearing me talk about
it, right?
But you may be hearing about itfor the first time.
So that's the biggest challenge.
And the fragmentation of socialmedia is terrible.
(46:04):
It's not just the gamingindustry that's struggling with
this.
Big companies are strugglingwith this.
So, I mean that's the biggestchallenge, and Kickstarter is
effective.
Crowdfunding is effective.
Crowdfunding is necessary now.
And crowdfunding is not whatit's claimed to be.
Crowdfunding is a distributionchannel.
(46:26):
You, you will not, I don't thinkyou have good chances of
success.
I'm not going to say you won'tsucceed, but you don't have good
chances if you are starting yourproject and you start
crowdfunding, right?
You need to, unfortunately,invest the time, the money,
(46:47):
large amounts of money andeffort to create a professional
product.
then maybe you can crowdfund it.
You can attempt to crowdfund it.
So those are the challenges.
The challenges are all on thesales and distribution side.
However, I will add that I havetalked to print distributors who
(47:10):
sell the brick and mortar gamestores and they are super easy
to work with.
If you have a A few hundredcopies of inventory, if that
works for your budget, justliterally look them up and call
them.
And I thought it was going to beintimidating.
So I, I have explored printdistribution, right?
(47:33):
And don't be afraid of it.
Be afraid of how you're going topay for your print run.
and how you're going to recoverthat cost.
Be afraid of the high cost ofprint on demand relative to
offset printing.
So, so those are the, those arethe challenges.
For me is, and it's a crowdedfield.
(47:54):
There are millions of gamers.
There are, I think, millions ofpeople who want to read role
playing games and, and see newthings, and it takes me some
time between when I buy a gameand when I play it, right?
But I buy them.
But, it's a very crowded field.
Courtney (48:17):
Mm hmm.
Andrew (48:23):
I can just sell on social media.
Well, it's not that easy, right?
So Thank you so much for thehelp, for the visibility that
you're giving me for free,right?
And it's a real service to thecommunity to run a podcast like
this.
Courtney (48:43):
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Honestly, I just have funchattin games for an hour.
Andrew (48:49):
Don't we both?
I mean, this is why I startedthe company.
This is why I'm not crying overthe I'm not at all profitable
yet,
Courtney (49:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Andrew (49:02):
you know it'd be good I'd love to keep doing this for
another gosh eight years but youknow I've got it I've got to
pick up my game I've got up mygame on the
Courtney (49:17):
Mhm.
Andrew (49:18):
Those are the main challenges.
Oh, I mean I can, I can talkabout something else that wasn't
a challenge, but I wouldrecommend, I like did it right
the first time which is do get alawyer and do get a lawyer's
help with preparing yourcontracts.
It will give you security.
(49:40):
So, I did great.
This was the thing at thebeginning.
I wanted to create the businessto be future proof.
To be able to grow.
What I mean by that is, I wantedto, if it's successful, I wanted
to be able to bring in apartner.
If it's successful, I wanted tobe able to sell it.
Maybe when I'm too old and it'snot fun anymore.
(50:02):
And to do that required settingup the legal stuff in advance.
You don't have to do it like Idid.
You don't have to hire a lawyerfirst, but you should hire a
lawyer before you startexchanging money or equity or,
you know, share future saleswith somebody.
Courtney (50:26):
I think that's really good advice.
Unfortunately, we are gonna haveto wrap up, despite the fact
that I really do have so manymore questions.
But do you have a launch datefor Kickstarter, or for the
Kickstarter campaign at thispoint?
Andrew (50:40):
Yeah, I do.
the Kickstarter campaign forDrinterra is going to launch in
mid January, and you can sign uptoday to follow it to be
notified on the launch.
And you know probably howKickstarters work.
We want to have a strong firstday.
We want to fund fully on thefirst day.
(51:00):
So please don't wait for thelaunch date, but the launch date
is coming in mid January.
Courtney (51:07):
Perfect! Yeah, I will have a link to that in the show
notes.
Andrew (51:11):
Thank you.
Courtney (51:12):
If people want to find you and find your company, where
should they go?
Andrew (51:17):
Shewstone.
com.
I'm also on Linktree.
Shewstone, I should give youthat link for the podcast.
I'm active on Threads, and BlueSky, and Mastodon, and Facebook.
Courtney (51:36):
Perfect.
Well, Andrew, this has been areally fun conversation.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday.
Andrew (51:43):
It was a real pleasure.
Thank you.
Courtney (51:45):
So, listeners, at this point, we are going to stop the
official interview.
I'm gonna hit Stop.
And then we're gonna start rightback up and jump into a fun
little quick question blitz,which is available for my
patrons.
So if you go to patreon.
com slash rollplaygrow, you willfind this fun little tidbit and
(52:08):
tidbits from previous guests aswell, where we talk about more
silly things, like Describe theperfect sandwich, which is a
personal favorite question.
ha, ha, ha,
Andrew (52:18):
Oh wow,
Courtney (52:19):
So now you get to think about that.
Thank you so much for listening,guys.
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