April 15, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Nathan Doyle, the game designer behind 'Attention Deficit and Dragons'. Nathan discusses his early gaming experiences, from playing Super Mario Bros. and Candyland to discovering tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. He shares his journey from being a player to a game designer, detailing his contributions to the DMs Guild and the evolution of his projects. We dive deep into his upcoming project, 'Laszlo's Cubed Crypt', a unique adventure featuring a puzzle cube, discussing its development process, challenges, and future plans. Nathan also highlights the joys and difficulties of working on collaborative projects in the RPG industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Courtney (02:32):
Welcome back, friends! I am here with the game designer
behind Attention Deficit andDragons, Nathan Doyle.
How's it going, Nathan?
Amazing.
We are also joined by some verypretty birds.
Nathan (02:47):
They will make noises occasionally.
Courtney (02:50):
Yes, I get to enjoy watching them in the background.
I'm sorry to my listeners thatyou don't get to see them, but
they're very pretty.
So Nathan, to kick things off, Iwould like to know what is the
very first game you rememberplaying?
Nathan (03:06):
I think the very first game that I remember playing is
probably Super Mario Bros.
However, I'm pretty sure that Iprobably played Pac Man on an
arcade console before that, butI don't remember it.
But yeah, the original SuperMario Bros.
I was bad at it, because I was4.
Courtney (03:24):
Yeah, I have never been able to be good at
platformers, despite startingwhen I was like eight.
Does not work for me.
I am so bad at jumping andhitting the target.
Mm
Nathan (03:36):
Yeah, the first one wasn't as bad as the second one
that never even came out inAmerica until much, much later,
Super Mario Bros., probably DuckHunt also.
Courtney (03:46):
Mm hmm.
Nathan (03:47):
Had the classic zapper.
Courtney (03:48):
I do remember Duck Hunt, yeah.
What about board game?
Nathan (03:53):
first board game I remember playing was Candyland.
Not really much of a board game,but I mean it is.
It's a board game for children,and that is exactly an apt
description of it
Courtney (04:05):
yeah, I think Candyland and Hi Ho Cheerio are
the first ones I can remember.
Nathan (04:11):
I remember having seen HiHo Cheerio, but I don't, I
don't remember ever playing it,or knowing the rules to it.
I remember there were a bunch ofcherries, and like little
barrels, and you, you put themin the barrels, or you took them
out of the barrels.
You had a tree?
Courtney (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, I do remember like picking up the
little cherries out of the tree,but that's kind of all I
remember.
Nathan (04:33):
Like I remember playing with the pieces to that game,
but I don't think I ever playedthat game.
As a kid, I, I, part of myattention deficit, I, I liked to
play with the pieces of boardgames, and I didn't always put
them back.
I probably ruined several of myfamily members board games.
I feel bad about that now, inhindsight, as an adult.
(04:55):
I don't think that any of thoseboard games had dice after I got
through it.
Courtney (05:00):
So you became a dice goblin very young is what I'm
hearing.
Nathan (05:04):
Oh no, I became a dice misplacer very young.
Courtney (05:07):
Ah,
Nathan (05:07):
I didn't keep the dice, I just lost them.
Courtney (05:11):
awesome.
Okay, so let's transition intotabletop RPGs.
I'd love to hear about just yourstory and how it's evolved from
playing them into designingthem.
Nathan (05:24):
2nd Edition when I was about 8 years old.
My half brother, I don't know, Ithink he was like 15 or 16 at
the time.
He played a bunch of 1st editionwhen he lived up in Alaska with
his friends.
Then when he moved back here toOregon that's right when 2nd
edition came out, and he boughtthe 2nd edition books pretty
much right when they came out.
(05:44):
And then introduced me and mystep brother to the game.
And he's two years older thanme.
So it was just basically, it wasthe three of us.
My half brother was the dungeonmaster.
Me and my step brother, weplayed.
I was a fighter.
I don't remember my character'sname, because that was a really
long time ago.
But I do remember that mycharacter used a flail, because
(06:08):
the previous year I went toMedieval Times.
And the Green Knight, who was onmy side, I was in his area, used
a flail, and I thought that wasreally cool.
And that's, that's how DungeonsDragons works for kids.
It's like, hey, this is cool, sothat's what I'm gonna do.
So I was a fighter with a flail.
And then, kind of, didn't reallyplay a whole lot after that
(06:31):
until, like, I got to highschool.
And that was still secondedition, because third edition
didn't come out until, like, mysenior year.
But yeah, 3rd edition wasbasically when I started DMing.
Courtney (06:42):
When did you start writing?
Nathan (06:46):
Writing in general, like, I mean, aside from the
stuff that we were alwaysrequired to do in school,
writing reports, writing this,writing that, I kind of always,
like, enjoyed, like, I alwaysenjoyed fantasy games, I enjoyed
sci fi games, a lot of videogames, and then stuff, and so,
like, I kind of always wrote.
I thankfully do not have copiesof any of the stuff, but I, I
(07:11):
know for a fact that when I wasin middle and high school that I
wrote several Star Wars fanficsthat I am, I am thankful that
there was no social mediaplatforms at the time to
remember that garbage for alltime.
Absolutely glad that that stuffis not preserved to come back
and haunt me nowadays
Courtney (07:31):
I mean, there definitely were forums.
Are you saying you didn't poston any
Nathan (07:35):
Oh, no, no I I did not know about if ao3 existed then
did not know about it back thenand I am glad think the closest
thing that might randomly havesome stuff if it still exists
There was a website calledpolycarbon an artist by the name
patrick shuttlesworth There werekind of very inspirational for
me when I was in high school.
(07:56):
They had forums.
People did roleplays, people didother stuff there.
There's, if that forum isarchived somewhere, there might
be something.
Please don't go looking for it.
You, you won't like what youfind at all.
You'll spend hours to find likeMiddling 3 out of 10 garbage.
(08:17):
Not worth the effort.
Courtney (08:18):
I remember elementary school, middle school, I was a
horse girl, I actually like hada horse.
And there was a forum for like,writing stories about horses,
like, as the horses, and I couldnot tell you what the name of
this forum was, and that'sprobably a good thing, because I
know I contributed to it.
(08:39):
And I'm just like I am literallyremembering this for the first
time in several years, so thankyou for that.
I am, cannot even imagine howgod awful that was.
The things that we do when weare young.
Nathan (08:53):
I can imagine, trust me.
Courtney (08:54):
Anyways so you started playing third edition in high
school, I think you said.
Nathan (09:01):
Yeah, the When 3rd edition came out, because that
was right after Watsi purchasedit and had been developing 3rd
edition and they wanted peopleto like really get into it, and
so like the first printings ofthe 3rd edition books were$20
each, and that was like nice.
It was basically a collegetextbook size, manual, and they
(09:22):
were 20 bucks each.
And yeah, they came out like my,basically when I was my last
year in high school.
I was a senior in 2001.
The real class of the newmillennium.
All those 2000s, that was thelast year of the old millennium.
Courtney (09:38):
Hmm.
Nathan (09:39):
Yeah.
Also as a random aside.
83 is when the Millennialsstart.
81s and 82s aren't Millennials.
I don't care what anybody says.
They were adults before the newMillennium started.
Ergo, not Millennials.
Courtney (09:51):
I'm like right smack dab in the middle of the
millennial generation,regardless of what you want to
call it.
I feel like I got the end of preinternet, like I was old enough
for that, but then also had myfirst cell phone by sophomore
year of high school.
Now like six year olds have cellphones, but whatever.
(10:12):
It's fine.
Nathan (10:13):
Yeah, no, I know.
I remember a handful of kids inhigh school had those little
Nokia flip phones.
And some of them even had Snakeon their phone.
Courtney (10:24):
Ohhhhh
Nathan (10:25):
Yeah, back then I was still lucky if I had my Tetris
watch.
Although, not gonna lie, theTetris watch was pretty cool.
Courtney (10:33):
I don't I think the Tetris Watch was before my time.
Nathan (10:37):
Tiger Electronics had those little games where, like,
they were really simple, and,and yeah, the Tetris one was
actually pretty faithful toTetris, but yeah, no, I had a
Tetris watch at one point.
I probably had to turn in, like,five box tops from Honey Nut
Cheerios.
(10:57):
Send 14.
95 or something to get it,because that was how things
worked back in the day.
Courtney (11:05):
Like, oh god, box tops?
Like, do they do that anymore?
Nathan (11:08):
Now there's box tops for education.
If you bring in the box topsfrom like craft products, I
believe, you get like a nickelfor your school or something,
because, you know, heavenforbid, craft just donate that
money anyways.
Let's make people do work, andthen we'll be philanthropists.
Courtney (11:25):
Huh.
Nathan (11:27):
Yeah,
Courtney (11:27):
Giving back the money that they already paid for it.
Anyways!
Nathan (11:31):
yeah
Courtney (11:31):
so at what point did you start publishing?
Nathan (11:34):
I think yeah 2019 was when I did the the storytellers
collective which at the time wascalled the RPG Writer's
Workshop.
I, I signed up for their class,did the thing, got some free art
for it, did their littleclasses, and then I published
online my, my first DungeonsDragons adventure for 5th
(11:54):
edition.
The Tower of the Elementalist.
It had its own maps.
I made them myself.
In the style of Dyson Logosbecause I'm, I'm into that old
school black and white look.
Courtney (12:07):
Yeah.
Looking at your name on DMsGuild, you have either
contributed to or been the maindesigner behind looks like 35
items that are on DMs Guild.
Nathan (12:20):
It's, it's technically a lower number than that because
on the DMs Guild, the, there'sThere's a separate thing for an
item and then the FantasyGrounds version.
So, So, anything that has aFantasy Grounds version, those
are the same item, but they'retwo separate entries.
So it's probably closer to liketwo dozen or so.
Courtney (12:42):
Yeah.
Still, that's a lot.
Especially if you didn't reallystart until 2019.
I'd love to just dig in a littlebit to kind of the evolution of
the things that you've publishedand, you know, from like where
you started and things that youlearned along the way, how you
adapted, how you work on yourdifferent projects.
Nathan (13:03):
The first thing I did was an adventure.
I learned after that and afterlike working on some of my other
like Collaborations with peoplei've did collaborations with
like subclasses items andwhatnot all for fifth edition
and that's kind of when Ilearned that adventures don't
actually sell very well comparedto other things because and like
at the time I didn't reallythink about it, but like from a
(13:24):
mathematical perspective If agame has four players and one
Dungeon Master, the peoplebuying the adventure is only 20
percent of the market.
And while the Dungeon Masterwould have to approve any
subclasses or magic items,players will buy the other
books, will buy subclass stuff,and then show it to their DM and
(13:46):
be like, Yeah, can I play this?
Or like, they'll get a magicitem book and they're like, I
would like this, do you thinkit's balanced?
And so like, there are certainthings where more than 20
percent of the audience isbuying them.
And so, that's an inherentproblem with adventures.
That doesn't mean I'm going tostop writing them.
(14:06):
I, I like writing theadventures.
There's more of a storyinvolved.
Whereas a book of magic items,sure, the items can have a story
behind the item, but like, atmost, they're going to be a
paragraph or five.
Whereas the adventure can be afull story.
And I like writing stories.
I've, you know, consideredtrying to like, maybe write
(14:28):
novels also, but finding thetime to do even what I do is
difficult.
But yeah, that's pretty much theevolution.
Products for more than one outof five people is good.
And I know that, also from acertain standpoint, I shouldn't
write products, write things forother people.
That's kinda how you losepassion in it.
(14:48):
You gotta write stuff foryourself.
Which is why I still writeadventures, because I like
writing adventures.
Even though only one person outof five at a table was buying
them.
And that's okay.
I've come up with other ideasfor things that, you know, would
be able to involve other people.
Some stuff I have no idea how togo about producing or releasing
(15:09):
them.
But, you know, there's a lot ofstuff.
A lot of ideas.
I never stop thinking of things.
It's actually my curse becausesometimes I will think of
something new before I'vefinished another idea and then
I'll just add a half writtendocument to the folder of 30
other half written documents.
When I mentioned that the otherday on the other Show I was on.
(15:33):
They, they jokingly took it as apersonal attack because I, I
feel like they've done the samething.
I, I think a lot of us creativeshave attention deficit disorder
of some kind and do somethingsimilar.
Courtney (15:47):
You know, it's always about like the new shiny thing
over there
Nathan (15:51):
Right?
Courtney (15:52):
yeah,
Nathan (15:53):
Do a shiny thing.
Courtney (15:55):
it's so hard to focus.
Nathan (15:58):
that makes that quasi energy drink.
Five hour energy.
It's like, when are they gonnamake five hour motivation?
Or five hour pay attention toone thing.
Okay, that last one is Adderall,but still.
Courtney (16:12):
That's fair.
Like that one kind of exists,but motivation, five hour
motivation, yeah, I couldabsolutely use that.
Yeah.
Nathan (16:20):
I think everybody probably could.
Courtney (16:22):
Yeah.
So I do think that that is.
It's an interesting, I don'tknow, about the fact that while,
yes, it's probably going to bemore fun to write things that
are targeted towards DMs.
It's a lot harder to tell forthem.
Yeah.
Like, I know the first thingthat we published was an
(16:43):
adventure and so, you know.
Didn't really know much aboutDMs Guild, and it was kind of
the same thing.
And then it started to go intomaps, which are still targeted
towards DMs, but at leastthey're pretty.
Nathan (16:52):
Well, the thing with maps everyone likes a good map,
and I can say from like, I mean,I'm, I'm not, I'm not
discouraging people from buyingmaps.
And I'm not discouraging peoplefrom buying map products.
But I can definitely say that Ihave purchased more map products
than I have ever used, and thatI probably could ever use.
Courtney (17:10):
Mm hmm.
Nathan (17:12):
Like, I've got a bunch of those Lok, Lok or Loki, I
don't know if the, the E ispronounced.
Battle maps, big, big, big booksthat just are fold out, and then
they're actual, you just havethem on the table.
I've got five decks of, like,Atmar's cartography collection
cards, where you just pull allthe cards out and then you just
make a map on the fly, althoughthey're not big enough to use as
(17:34):
the actual dungeon map.
I've got some wooden, actualuses battle map battle mat tile
things maps that have a bunch ofrandom stuff, but it also
explicitly comes with all thepieces necessary to do the the
starter kit adventure.
The Lost Mine of Phandelver.
(17:55):
So like, it has tiles to do thatentire module, which is cool.
And then it has other stuff, andthen you can just mix and match
for your other thing.
I'm also a big fan of buyingboard games that effectively
have those things.
I have Descent I have the theStar Wars one, Imperial Assault,
if I ever run a sci fi game.
Or if I ever just run a StarWars game, I have a whole bunch
(18:15):
of Stormtroopers.
I actually have two copies ofthat game because I put one in
the closet and forgot that I hadit and then bought another one.
So now I have twice as manyStormtroopers.
Courtney (18:25):
Yeah.
I have definitely thought aboutthat because we've got most of
the WizKids games
Nathan (18:31):
Oh yeah, no, those, those are great.
Cause like, they're a board gameon their own and you've got
minis that you can use for thegame.
In fact, I'm pretty sure thatthe minis are the exact same
ones that you get in the blindboxes.
Courtney (18:44):
Yes, it's like you've got all of that and it's just
like, oh, it's the same story.
Just a board game.
Sweet.
Accessories.
Nathan (18:51):
Yeah.
Although, for some reason youhave to pay more on the board
games to get the painted minis.
When I think most people wouldprefer to get the unpainted
minis, what do I know?
I know that at one point wedefinitely preferred the getting
the painted, the pre paintedminis, but now my wife has
actually gotten into paintingminis.
So now we definitely don't wantto get the pre painted minis.
Courtney (19:13):
it's all just personal preference.
Nathan (19:14):
Yeah, also we run into this new problem of that's the
we still buy minis faster thanmy wife can paint them.
Courtney (19:20):
Mm hmm.
Funny how that happens.
Nathan (19:22):
Yeah, I hear it happens to Warhammer players too.
Courtney (19:26):
Oh, God.
That is one hobby that I refuseto get into because I do not
have the money for it.
Nathan (19:33):
Well, I mean, some of the minis work great for
Dungeons Dragons.
There's a bunch of really goodLizardfolk minis.
And, like, you know, if you wantyour skeletons or zombies to
have, like, an Egyptian theme,there's, there's a faction for
that.
So, you don't have to get intoWarhammer, but you can buy the
minis.
Courtney (19:52):
Stop.
I don't have money.
You don't need to be moretempted.
Nathan (19:56):
Buy the minis.
Courtney (19:59):
Back to D& D stuff.
Nathan (20:00):
D& D stuff.
Right, right.
Courtney (20:02):
So I know that you have also got some
collaborations with somedifferent folks, and so I'd love
to learn about, how you gotconnected in the space and like,
different collaborations going.
Nathan (20:15):
it, it, so the way that I got connected in the space and
all the collaborations going wasat one point in time, while
trying to like promote my stuffon Twitter, back when it was
still called that, back when itwasn't set on fire, and all the
other things.
I, I don't remember exactly whatled into it, but the
conversation came up abouteditors, and Basically, I, you
(20:40):
know, someone had said like, oh,you should always have an
editor.
You should never edit your ownstuff because you're Blind to
your own mistakes and that'scompletely right I completely
agree but like You know and thenlike I just threw in the
question of like well What ifyou're just like some one person
and you're just doing yourstuff?
How do you how do you find aneditor?
How do you afford an editor?
(21:01):
And they mentioned that likewell for people doing stuff on
the dms guild like you had doneThere is a discord and there are
People who are willing to do theediting for a royalty share
instead of payment up front.
And that's, that's pretty muchhow I got introduced to a lot of
the people that I've wound upcollaborating with because the
(21:21):
server, the Discord server, hasbeen pretty much a godsend.
It's a little bit less activenow than it used to be, but, you
know, Wizards has tried torescind the OGL and sent
Pinkertons to people.
Can't seem to go three or fourmonths without doing some kind
of a colossal PR nightmare forthemselves.
(21:42):
So there's that, but yeah.
So I've met a lot of people anddone a lot of collaborations
with people who are willing towork for a royalty share instead
of needing to be paid up front.
Now a lot of times people willstill want to be paid up front
and that's completely valid.
Or paid upon completion and willnot want to do a royalty share
for like really big projectsbecause like, you know.
(22:03):
It's one thing if you're doinglike Royalty share on editing
for an adventure that's maybe20, 25 pages.
But it's another thing to do aroyalty share for a project.
That's 350 pages, because thenif that project doesn't do well,
the person will have done 350pages worth of editing work,
(22:24):
maybe 20 bucks across the yearin royalties, and that's not
really worth everyone's time.
So some stuff is more.
Feasible for that kind of thing,and other things are not.
And it's just kinda, sometimesyou can find people who are
willing to do it, especiallypeople starting out.
Like, you can probably findpeople who don't have a lot of
experience, who are willing towork for RoyaltyShare to get the
(22:47):
experience and get their nameout there, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
Just, obviously you don't wantto get a reputation for like,
abusing those people.
I've seen a couple of pretty badfaith things where like, you
know, someone's like, Ah, payingtwo cents a word.
And we'll own it in perpetuity.
And it's like, how about no?
But, so some people will dothat, I don't.
(23:09):
I try to, you know, If I'm, ifI'm gonna own something in
perpetuity that someone elsewrote, I'm, I'm gonna try to
make sure I offer them at leasta quarter a word for the
writing.
Editing is a little bit of adifferent story but yeah.
But there have been severalprojects where I've done stuff
for royalty shares, and thenother projects that I've led,
and the people involved gotroyalty shares, and they've been
(23:31):
pretty good.
Sometimes more successful thanothers, sometimes very
successful.
One of the projects I was on,the Tasha's Cauldron of
everything else.
Not Cauldron, Crucible.
We went with Crucible becausethe official one was Cauldron.
And that's been a thing thatthey've done on the DM's Guild,
was they'll do Name of personwhose book just came out,
(23:54):
different word, everything else,it's a theme, it works.
And that, that one did prettywell.
I wrote a bunch of the things inthat, and then a bunch of the
stuff that didn't get chosen inthat, I got to just work with
them and put them into otherproducts.
So, and that's, that's the otherthing.
If people, you know, if youwrite something for it and then
you don't get chosen, you stillhave done that writing and you
(24:15):
can still use that.
Courtney (24:17):
I think that that's really good advice.
Like I know I've, I've been inthat discord server for a while,
kind of lurking since my stuffis a little more uncommon, but I
do think that there, it's been areally good way to make
connections.
Same with like the drive thruRPG one, if you're not wanting
to be specifically on DMs Guild.
(24:39):
Hey, entrepreneurs.
I love introducing you to newcreators every episode, but I
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I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page where
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Add your questions to upcominginterviews, and you could even
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To learn more, go to lightheartadventures.com/rpg and now back
(25:02):
to the show.
I want to switch gears now andtalk about the upcoming project,
Laszlo's Cubed Crypt.
So let's start by having youintroduce what it is and then
we'll kind of get into some morespecifics.
Nathan (25:20):
so, at its core, the baseline, Laszlo's Cubed Crypt
is an adventure that I'vewritten to go with a prop that I
made.
The prop is a puzzle cube.
We all know what kind of a cubeit is, but I have to be careful
about saying that name becausethat name is trademarked and so
I can't actually advertise it asthat because legally and
(25:43):
officially it's not that.
It's a puzzle cube.
But we all know what kind of apuzzle and what kind of a cube
it is.
So, the, the map that was chosenon it was, is designed to be on
a cube.
It's, it's, it cannot be mappedproperly on a two dimensional
plane, which has its ownadvantages if you force your
players to draw their own maps,and don't actually show them the
(26:06):
cube.
That will basically create thisweird headache for them, and
something else for them to solveinstead of solving the puzzle
itself.
But it basically, it juststarted, like I, I have one of
my players He has several puzzlecubes and he really likes them.
I don't know if he's good atsolving them, but I know that he
has like five or six of them andhe likes them.
(26:27):
He likes puzzles in general andhas a bunch of other puzzle
things including, but notlimited to, the puzzle cube.
So when I saw that I'm like,hey, I can print that map
because the map was never meantto be on a puzzle cube.
It was just meant to be a cube.
It was one of Dyson Logos Like,free for commercial use maps,
(26:48):
but like, because at the time, Iwas looking for a map, just,
like, I was just looking aroundthrough it, and I thought, I'm
like, oh, I can use this in myhome game with my players, and
so I did that, and I'm like,hey, I'll put this on a cube for
that player, and then, after Imade it, I'm like, hey, you
know, Dyson Logos would probablywant to see this, made a little
(27:08):
video of it, posted it onTwitter, tagged him, and then he
retweeted the post, So noweverybody who follows him could
see it, and then when I woke upthe next day, I had like
hundreds of Twitter posts ofpeople saying, Oh that's cool,
oh where can I get one, or theFuturama Fry meme, where it's
the go ahead and take my money,and I'm just like, Oh, I guess I
(27:32):
could do a thing with this, andthere's at least a hundred
people interested.
And so, that's where it became aproject, that's where it became
a product.
I very much like to distinguishthat, like, when I make stuff,
it's a product.
It's not homebrew.
I very much want to put my footdown that homebrew is something
(27:53):
that you make for your own gain.
And not necessarily for others.
And that, if you're making itfor others, then it becomes a
product.
Even if it's free, it's still aproduct.
I, I don't make homebrew.
I do make homebrew.
But like, when I'm sellingsomething, I'm not selling
homebrew.
I'm selling a product.
And so like, there's kind of alittle bit higher of a Standard.
(28:14):
I can't just, you know, come upwith whatever I want and sell
it.
I mean, I can, but that's notalways good.
But I thought I got off track.
So, I started looking into stufffor making this into a product.
And then this was right aroundthe time that Wattsy tried to
rescind the OGL.
And so there was a brief periodof time where I was worried that
I would not be able to make aproduct of it.
(28:37):
Because I predominantly writefor 5th edition.
Which required the use of theOGL and then, so, during the
course of this, I basically, Igot permission from Dyson Logos
to just sell the Puzzle Cube byitself.
If necessary, because normallyhis non commercial license rules
say that you can't, you can'tjust put it on something and
(29:00):
then just sell it.
So, I mean, while peopleprobably wouldn't want to just
do a t shirt with one of hismaps, you can't just do a t
shirt with one of his maps.
You can't just put his maps on aposter and then just sell those
posters for people to use asbattle maps.
Because that's not, you're notdoing anything with his art in a
way that makes it your own.
(29:22):
And so, by my understanding ofthose rules, the Puzzle Cube
would also fit that, that beingon a Puzzle Cube itself wasn't
enough to make it my own thing.
But, he gave me permission tosell just the cubes alone, so
there will be an option in it tojust get the cube if you don't
want the adventure.
(29:42):
But, the OGL has since been notrescinded, so there will be
adventures, and so there will bea big full product.
Courtney (29:50):
How did you go about getting it manufactured?
Nathan (29:54):
Uh, the first one I typed into Google, custom
Rubik's Cube.
I mean, custom puzzle cube, Ididn't, I didn't, I, I typed in
the other word, I'm not, I'mnot, I'm not advertising that.
That's, that's not an advert.
That's just what it is.
And I found a place that did it,and it was a website that mostly
does, like, custom mousepads,but they also had that as an
option.
Went through using their little,their web uploady thingy to
(30:18):
upload all the images.
It showed me a three dimensionalpreview.
The preview looked great.
I ordered two of them.
You know, one for myself and onefor the player.
This was also before I hadposted the thing online.
And it came back botched.
It was not printed right.
It did not look like what thepreview showed me.
So I had to call them up andwork with them again and talk to
(30:39):
them.
Sent them a new version and thatset came through botched also.
And so the third time when I,when I called them up, i, I
basically said on the phone, Iwas like, before you guys like
actually like make the item,look at whatever preview the
computer system that you'regoing with has, and then ask one
(31:00):
of your employees that playsDungeons and Dragons to look at
it first, and make sure it makessense to them.
And then go with it.
I don't know if they actuallydid that but that set came
through fine.
So I have Four botched ones andthen two good ones and then
later once I eventually foundthe producer That's actually
(31:21):
going to be doing it for thecampaign I have another
prototype so I have a third goodone that i've jumbled up and I
can't solve
Courtney (31:29):
In what ways were they botched?
Yeah,
Nathan (31:39):
or on the wrong spot.
And so the the The corridorsthat link up around the sides of
it didn't match up.
So, like, you look at it, and itlooks like a map printed on a
cube.
But, like, when you look at itclosely, it's just not right.
It came pre jumbled up, but notin a way that would be good or
solvable.
Courtney (32:00):
So what is the adventure about that is paired
with this
Nathan (32:04):
So, the adventure that I wrote for it is about Laszlo the
Lavish, or Laszlo the Lich, ashe is known nowadays.
He's been gone for an amount oftime.
I don't remember if I specifiedthat it was hundreds of years or
thousands of years or a nondescript number of years.
The location of his tomb hasbeen found, and so adventurers
(32:27):
are needed to go and put an endbefore he can come back and try
to take over the world again.
And basically the players, oncethey get in there, they'll find
the puzzle cube jumbled up, andthen once they solve it, then
they're transported into theactual dungeon.
(32:48):
And then they'll have to fightthrough the traps and all the
stuff.
Find the keys necessary tounlock the final gate and final
door to then confront Lazlo andslay him.
If the players are using thecube.
I also wrote it in a mannerthat, cause not everyone's gonna
be good at solving a puzzle cubelike myself.
So, that's where I had said thatlike, if you just have the
(33:10):
players go through the dungeon.
Without them knowing thatthere's a Puzzle Cube involved.
If you, if you use it the oldschool style, where the players
have to map out the dungeonthemselves, you can basically,
as they'll map it out, they willbe able to go in circles in
character, but on the map, itwill not connect, and it might
(33:32):
take them a while to figure thatout.
Which adds a different dynamicto running the adventure, which
will still create a puzzle forthe players, but it's not the
Puzzle Cube.
And so, yeah, there are two waysthat you can run it, one with
the cube, one without the cube,and the adventure itself won't
change, it's just the nature ofthe puzzle is what will be
(33:54):
different.
Yeah, so, liches, they likeundead, themselves undead, so
there's a lot of undead.
So, spoiler alert, if you'regonna play and you wind up
playing in this, don't justcreate a party of paladins and
clerics just to spite your DM.
Ideally, they should just beplugging it into their game
(34:14):
somewhere, not necessarilyWarning people that it's there,
so.
But, you know, you never know.
Sometimes, I mean, it couldprobably make a fine one shot
for people who are into those.
I, for one, have never actuallyplayed in a one shot, because
every time we've said, Hey,let's do a one shot, it's turned
into five or six, or an entirecampaign.
As it probably goes foreverybody.
Courtney (34:37):
I think the only one that I ever actually
successfully did in one daywound up being a 12 hour day.
Nathan (34:45):
that's
Courtney (34:45):
was, I learned some lessons on that one, such as
shorten it.
Don't do everything that'swritten.
Nathan (34:52):
I have not done a twelve hour D& D session since high
school.
Courtney (34:57):
That's, that's exhausting.
Nathan (35:00):
The mind is willing, but the body is weak and fleshy and
needs to take a nap.
I,
Courtney (35:06):
Yeah, for sure.
I don't want to do it again.
Nathan (35:09):
I have actually considered, like, I don't know
if I can get my Players in my myweekly game if we can like all
manage to take time off at thesame time and maybe like just
have Like a weekend D& D tripwhere we'll play for 12 hours a
day and then do some stuff otherthan that Like we'll go rent a
beach house or something.
I figure that maybe like once ayear I could probably handle
(35:31):
that but yeah, 12 hour D& Dsessions and all night land
parties Those are those are notthings I can handle anymore.
Courtney (35:40):
Yeah, for sure.
So, because I happen to knowquite a bit about this project,
what are some of the ideasbehind some stretch goals,
assuming that, you know, we fundand we keep funding because
everybody wants a really coolpuzzle cube?
Nathan (35:57):
So the The main thing is that my adventure is written for
level 12 characters, but noteverybody's going to be at level
12 And so like I don't want tocut out the people who don't
have a game that high level orwon't have a game that Won't get
to that high level.
So instead of writing a bunch ofadventures that are all like one
contiguous story My idea waslet's write a bunch of different
(36:21):
adventures that all use thepuzzle cues And so that way, if
it funds and gets to the pointwhere we unlock enough of those
adventures, DMs will have a bookthat will have multiple
adventures where they can usethis prop.
And so then if they run multiplegames at different levels, they
can use the prop in any of theirgames if they wish to, and
they'll have a different leveladventure for whenever they wish
(36:43):
to use it.
Additionally, because the mapitself is system agnostic,
there's nothing about the mapthat says you must play Dungeons
Dragons at 5th edition only withit.
So, some of the other proposedstretch goals is to get a
Pathfinder 2nd editionconversion And then one of the
(37:04):
other things is because one ofthe questions that people keep
asking is can you mix up thecube and have a random dungeon
every time and the answer tothat question is not really, you
could probably do something withthat if you're willing to do
like extra work but with the mapwhen you mix it up the rooms
don't connect and it's supposedto be a puzzle cube first and
(37:26):
then Kind of the adventuresecond.
Originally it was just thepuzzle cube, but not the
adventure itself.
So one of the other proposedstretch goal ideas would be to
get a puzzle cube made that wasall geomorphs on it so that that
way each face would be ninedifferent geomorphs that would
(37:47):
be a full dungeon and then youcould mix it up and then get a
random dungeon every time.
We asked Google and A 3x3x3puzzle cube where each face is a
different thing would have 7.
4 quintillion differentpermutations.
And so that's enough dungeons todungeon probably forever.
(38:10):
But even though they wouldtechnically be different,
there's gonna be a level ofsaniness to it.
Which, for an OSR game, that'sexactly what people want.
They want to delve into thedungeon, go from room to room,
kick it in, kill the goblins.
Or orcs, or whatever is there.
Take the treasure, probablymaybe still using gold as
(38:31):
experience to level up.
I don't know, I always thoughtthat was kind of weird.
It is what it is.
And yeah, so, that is a thing.
Now, for that particular one,because Dungeon Geomorphs would,
like if they were all black andwhite, that would be a puzzle
with no solved state.
You would have no way to knowwhat was the original
(38:52):
positioning of everything.
Unless we made the faces alsocolor coded, which, is probably
something I'm going to do sothat it could be solved as a
puzzle as well as being ageomorph randomizer.
I've come up with a couple ofother ideas of like, hey, what
can we do with the idea of apuzzle cube and still have
things?
Courtney (39:10):
Yeah, I, I definitely feel like there are a lot of
possibilities.
It could use with the puzzlecube, for sure.
And, I don't know, I just reallyhope that we get to have all of
the adventures, because I thinkit would be really cool to have
just a big old book packed fullof adventures that are using
this really fun cube map.
(39:31):
So something that I like to doin every interview is focus a
bit on the fact that, you know,we are Working in this industry
because we love games and it'sfun, but obviously there are
challenges.
So I would love to hear aboutjust, you know, over the last
(39:55):
few years where you've beenpublishing on DMs Guild and now
like you've got this project andeverything, what are some of the
challenges that you have had toface and how have you overcome
them?
Nathan (40:04):
so the big challenge is because a lot of the
collaboration is with peoplethat are not In the same town
and not meeting at the samebuilding.
Like, you know, obviously likeif you worked for wizards, you'd
go to their office building andyou meet your coworkers every
day and you work with them everyday and stuff like that.
So the big problem with onlineis that sometimes people have
(40:26):
real life stuff happen and justdisappear.
Sometimes they haven't finishedtheir projects and.
That kind of puts a huge speedbump into things.
So, miscommunications, lack ofcommunications are the biggest
problems that I've come up with.
Sometimes, like, tone is hard tounderstand over text.
So sometimes people can getoffended by things when you're
(40:49):
not actually speaking.
And you can't hear whatsomeone's saying or how
someone's saying.
You just read the text and it'sIt's rough dealing almost
entirely online with people, andthen yeah, it's like if somebody
disappears, it's like, then it'slike, are they okay?
Did they get in a car accident?
(41:09):
Did they die?
Do they hate me?
Did they just block me becausethey just can't stand looking at
my bearded face?
I don't know.
You never know, because like,sometimes just communication
breaks down and projects getlost and unfinished.
I mean, there was one of thoseprojects where that happened for
(41:30):
like A year and a half.
And I finally just got to thepoint where I, like, I managed
to get a hold of the person whowas the project lead for it.
I'm just like, Hey, can I justtake this project over and I'll
get the stuff done?
And they're like, yeah, thatwould be great.
I'm not doing stuff muchanymore.
So I did manage to finally getthat one released.
(41:52):
I had some other ideas for it.
And I just like, you know what,I'm going to scrap those ideas
because if I keep working onthis, this might happen again,
let's push this product out andmake sure of it.
It can't be purchased.
It is in a usable state.
But I have other projects wherethat's just never happening.
I've still just got stuffsitting around that I've written
(42:12):
for a thing, and they just I'llfind another spot for them
somewhere.
Maybe.
Who knows.
Courtney (42:21):
Yeah, that can be really tough to herd a bunch of
freelancers around, and
Nathan (42:29):
Sometimes they're on the opposite side of the world,
which then creates its ownproblems where it's like,
They're asleep when I'm awake,and stuff.
So it's like, when you do wantto try to talk to them, In a
discord call or whatever it'slike well, I go to bed at this
time and that's 5 a.
m for you.
So we have to find a time before5 a.
(42:49):
m for you to talk and she's likeSometimes that's rough.
Courtney (42:54):
Okay, well to flip it around, what are some of the
best parts of working on allthese projects?
Nathan (43:00):
Not to try to like sound like some kind of money grubber
But to a certain degree when Isell products and like I see the
like account credit on Dms guildgo up that always does make me
feel good Because it's like,hey, people are interested
enough that they're, they'repaying me for these things.
Like, I, I like the fact thatpeople like my work enough to
(43:20):
buy it.
Like, I usually, I usually setthe previews to be the preview
of the entire thing, so peoplecan look at the entire thing
before they decide to buy it.
The downside of this is theycould look at the entire thing
and then just have it, have thepreview open from their computer
and run an adventure withoutactually buying it.
But, you know.
I just figured, like, you know,when you go to a bookstore, you
(43:43):
don't have to unwrap the booksafter you buy them.
You can look at, you canhypothetically read an entire
book at a bookstore and notpurchase it.
But, like, that's not why peoplego to bookstores.
People go to bookstores to buybooks.
So I figured, you know, the oneor two people that will run an
adventure without buying it isnothing compared to, like, the
30 or 40 people who will buy it.
(44:06):
And, you know, even 30 or 40people, that's, you know, if I
can help some, help 30 or 40people make their games better.
That's good.
I like that.
Courtney (44:16):
Mm hmm.
So, obviously we've got Lazlo'sCrypt.
But are there any other projectsthat you're working on that are
coming up sometime in the nextyear?
Nathan (44:26):
So, I have a pirate thing coming up.
And I wrote it for a differentproject back before 2019.
So it's been modified andtweaked a little bit.
I, I will admit that I, I wrotethat before I knew about certain
things.
So, like I got a sensitivityconsultant for it because, well,
(44:48):
I didn't, I didn't even knowthat sensitivity consultants
existed back then.
so, you know, there's, there'ssome changes that have been
made.
You know, working on that, got abunch of art for it.
That adventure is also prettymuch written.
One of the things I hadconsidered also for that was
getting a puzzle cube that wasjust all ocean but then each,
each face had little islands onit so you can randomize it and
(45:10):
get your own custom island chainfor people's own games because
as it stands right now, thatadventure does not have a world
map.
It just says that, hey, thisthing is this many days away
from the city.
But like, the locations of thesethings is not.
So, the Dungeon Master can like,come up with their own world
(45:32):
map, put these cities whereverthey need to.
And then if they need to domore, further adventures later,
have some stuff.
That doesn't mean that therewon't be a map for it in the
future, it's just at thepresent, there isn't one.
And yeah.
It's a pirate thing, but theplayers aren't the pirates, the
bad guys are pirates.
(45:52):
Because, you know, while it'sprobably fun being a pirate in a
D& D game, Generally speaking,pirates were bad people, they
were stealing things.
I know that probably some ofthem were in a desperate
situation and, you know, lifeunder the thumb of the British
monarch was probably not good.
A bunch of Americans decidedthat in 1776, so, you know,
(46:15):
going against that kind of thingis fine.
But in this, in Dungeons andDragons, pirates are usually the
bad guys, and that's how I'vewritten the adventure.
Courtney (46:25):
So if people want to find you, find these projects,
find Laszlo's Cubed Crypt, whereshould they go?
Nathan (46:32):
So I have a website.
It's on card Uh, it's justdeficitdragons.carrd.co Card,
card has two R's in it.
I'm on most social mediaplatforms as DeficitDragons, so
that's where people can find me.
Going to the website, the cardwebsite will have links to all
of the social media platforms togo to my profile so that you can
(46:53):
then follow me on them.
So like, if you want to followme on everything, going to the
card website is Probably theeasiest way, instead of having
to type in Deficit Dragons onlike 30 different things.
Plus it also has links that'lltake you directly to the stores
for several of my products.
Some are in print, some are notin print.
(47:14):
And yeah.
Courtney (47:15):
Great, I will have links to all of that in the show
notes.
Nathan, thank you for joining metoday.
Nathan (47:23):
Yeah, no problem.
Courtney (47:24):
been fun to chit chat about, your background.
I learned things I didn't know.
And then also the project thatwe've been working on together.
Nathan (47:31):
Yes.
Courtney (47:33):
So at this point, listeners, I am going to stop
the official interview and.
Then we will just go ahead rightback into recording where we're
going to have a fun little quickquestion blitz for patrons.
So I'm going to be asking Nathansome more silly questions.
Some are gaming related, someare not.
(47:53):
And that'll be available topatrons at
patreon.com/rollplaygrow.
Thank you for listening andthanks again, Nathan.
Nathan (48:03):
No problem.
Welcome back, friends! I am here with the game designer
behind Attention Deficit andDragons, Nathan Doyle.
How's it going, Nathan?
Amazing.
We are also joined by some verypretty birds.
Nathan (02:47):
They will make noises occasionally.
Courtney (02:50):
Yes, I get to enjoy watching them in the background.
I'm sorry to my listeners thatyou don't get to see them, but
they're very pretty.
So Nathan, to kick things off, Iwould like to know what is the
very first game you rememberplaying?
Nathan (03:06):
I think the very first game that I remember playing is
probably Super Mario Bros.
However, I'm pretty sure that Iprobably played Pac Man on an
arcade console before that, butI don't remember it.
But yeah, the original SuperMario Bros.
I was bad at it, because I was4.
Courtney (03:24):
Yeah, I have never been able to be good at
platformers, despite startingwhen I was like eight.
Does not work for me.
I am so bad at jumping andhitting the target.
Mm
Nathan (03:36):
Yeah, the first one wasn't as bad as the second one
that never even came out inAmerica until much, much later,
Super Mario Bros., probably DuckHunt also.
Courtney (03:46):
Mm hmm.
Nathan (03:47):
Had the classic zapper.
Courtney (03:48):
I do remember Duck Hunt, yeah.
What about board game?
Nathan (03:53):
first board game I remember playing was Candyland.
Not really much of a board game,but I mean it is.
It's a board game for children,and that is exactly an apt
description of it
Courtney (04:05):
yeah, I think Candyland and Hi Ho Cheerio are
the first ones I can remember.
Nathan (04:11):
I remember having seen HiHo Cheerio, but I don't, I
don't remember ever playing it,or knowing the rules to it.
I remember there were a bunch ofcherries, and like little
barrels, and you, you put themin the barrels, or you took them
out of the barrels.
You had a tree?
Courtney (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, I do remember like picking up the
little cherries out of the tree,but that's kind of all I
remember.
Nathan (04:33):
Like I remember playing with the pieces to that game,
but I don't think I ever playedthat game.
As a kid, I, I, part of myattention deficit, I, I liked to
play with the pieces of boardgames, and I didn't always put
them back.
I probably ruined several of myfamily members board games.
I feel bad about that now, inhindsight, as an adult.
(04:55):
I don't think that any of thoseboard games had dice after I got
through it.
Courtney (05:00):
So you became a dice goblin very young is what I'm
hearing.
Nathan (05:04):
Oh no, I became a dice misplacer very young.
Courtney (05:07):
Ah,
Nathan (05:07):
I didn't keep the dice, I just lost them.
Courtney (05:11):
awesome.
Okay, so let's transition intotabletop RPGs.
I'd love to hear about just yourstory and how it's evolved from
playing them into designingthem.
Nathan (05:24):
2nd Edition when I was about 8 years old.
My half brother, I don't know, Ithink he was like 15 or 16 at
the time.
He played a bunch of 1st editionwhen he lived up in Alaska with
his friends.
Then when he moved back here toOregon that's right when 2nd
edition came out, and he boughtthe 2nd edition books pretty
much right when they came out.
(05:44):
And then introduced me and mystep brother to the game.
And he's two years older thanme.
So it was just basically, it wasthe three of us.
My half brother was the dungeonmaster.
Me and my step brother, weplayed.
I was a fighter.
I don't remember my character'sname, because that was a really
long time ago.
But I do remember that mycharacter used a flail, because
(06:08):
the previous year I went toMedieval Times.
And the Green Knight, who was onmy side, I was in his area, used
a flail, and I thought that wasreally cool.
And that's, that's how DungeonsDragons works for kids.
It's like, hey, this is cool, sothat's what I'm gonna do.
So I was a fighter with a flail.
And then, kind of, didn't reallyplay a whole lot after that
(06:31):
until, like, I got to highschool.
And that was still secondedition, because third edition
didn't come out until, like, mysenior year.
But yeah, 3rd edition wasbasically when I started DMing.
Courtney (06:42):
When did you start writing?
Nathan (06:46):
Writing in general, like, I mean, aside from the
stuff that we were alwaysrequired to do in school,
writing reports, writing this,writing that, I kind of always,
like, enjoyed, like, I alwaysenjoyed fantasy games, I enjoyed
sci fi games, a lot of videogames, and then stuff, and so,
like, I kind of always wrote.
I thankfully do not have copiesof any of the stuff, but I, I
(07:11):
know for a fact that when I wasin middle and high school that I
wrote several Star Wars fanficsthat I am, I am thankful that
there was no social mediaplatforms at the time to
remember that garbage for alltime.
Absolutely glad that that stuffis not preserved to come back
and haunt me nowadays
Courtney (07:31):
I mean, there definitely were forums.
Are you saying you didn't poston any
Nathan (07:35):
Oh, no, no I I did not know about if ao3 existed then
did not know about it back thenand I am glad think the closest
thing that might randomly havesome stuff if it still exists
There was a website calledpolycarbon an artist by the name
patrick shuttlesworth There werekind of very inspirational for
me when I was in high school.
(07:56):
They had forums.
People did roleplays, people didother stuff there.
There's, if that forum isarchived somewhere, there might
be something.
Please don't go looking for it.
You, you won't like what youfind at all.
You'll spend hours to find likeMiddling 3 out of 10 garbage.
(08:17):
Not worth the effort.
Courtney (08:18):
I remember elementary school, middle school, I was a
horse girl, I actually like hada horse.
And there was a forum for like,writing stories about horses,
like, as the horses, and I couldnot tell you what the name of
this forum was, and that'sprobably a good thing, because I
know I contributed to it.
(08:39):
And I'm just like I am literallyremembering this for the first
time in several years, so thankyou for that.
I am, cannot even imagine howgod awful that was.
The things that we do when weare young.
Nathan (08:53):
I can imagine, trust me.
Courtney (08:54):
Anyways so you started playing third edition in high
school, I think you said.
Nathan (09:01):
Yeah, the When 3rd edition came out, because that
was right after Watsi purchasedit and had been developing 3rd
edition and they wanted peopleto like really get into it, and
so like the first printings ofthe 3rd edition books were$20
each, and that was like nice.
It was basically a collegetextbook size, manual, and they
(09:22):
were 20 bucks each.
And yeah, they came out like my,basically when I was my last
year in high school.
I was a senior in 2001.
The real class of the newmillennium.
All those 2000s, that was thelast year of the old millennium.
Courtney (09:38):
Hmm.
Nathan (09:39):
Yeah.
Also as a random aside.
83 is when the Millennialsstart.
81s and 82s aren't Millennials.
I don't care what anybody says.
They were adults before the newMillennium started.
Ergo, not Millennials.
Courtney (09:51):
I'm like right smack dab in the middle of the
millennial generation,regardless of what you want to
call it.
I feel like I got the end of preinternet, like I was old enough
for that, but then also had myfirst cell phone by sophomore
year of high school.
Now like six year olds have cellphones, but whatever.
(10:12):
It's fine.
Nathan (10:13):
Yeah, no, I know.
I remember a handful of kids inhigh school had those little
Nokia flip phones.
And some of them even had Snakeon their phone.
Courtney (10:24):
Ohhhhh
Nathan (10:25):
Yeah, back then I was still lucky if I had my Tetris
watch.
Although, not gonna lie, theTetris watch was pretty cool.
Courtney (10:33):
I don't I think the Tetris Watch was before my time.
Nathan (10:37):
Tiger Electronics had those little games where, like,
they were really simple, and,and yeah, the Tetris one was
actually pretty faithful toTetris, but yeah, no, I had a
Tetris watch at one point.
I probably had to turn in, like,five box tops from Honey Nut
Cheerios.
(10:57):
Send 14.
95 or something to get it,because that was how things
worked back in the day.
Courtney (11:05):
Like, oh god, box tops?
Like, do they do that anymore?
Nathan (11:08):
Now there's box tops for education.
If you bring in the box topsfrom like craft products, I
believe, you get like a nickelfor your school or something,
because, you know, heavenforbid, craft just donate that
money anyways.
Let's make people do work, andthen we'll be philanthropists.
Courtney (11:25):
Huh.
Nathan (11:27):
Yeah,
Courtney (11:27):
Giving back the money that they already paid for it.
Anyways!
Nathan (11:31):
yeah
Courtney (11:31):
so at what point did you start publishing?
Nathan (11:34):
I think yeah 2019 was when I did the the storytellers
collective which at the time wascalled the RPG Writer's
Workshop.
I, I signed up for their class,did the thing, got some free art
for it, did their littleclasses, and then I published
online my, my first DungeonsDragons adventure for 5th
(11:54):
edition.
The Tower of the Elementalist.
It had its own maps.
I made them myself.
In the style of Dyson Logosbecause I'm, I'm into that old
school black and white look.
Courtney (12:07):
Yeah.
Looking at your name on DMsGuild, you have either
contributed to or been the maindesigner behind looks like 35
items that are on DMs Guild.
Nathan (12:20):
It's, it's technically a lower number than that because
on the DMs Guild, the, there'sThere's a separate thing for an
item and then the FantasyGrounds version.
So, So, anything that has aFantasy Grounds version, those
are the same item, but they'retwo separate entries.
So it's probably closer to liketwo dozen or so.
Courtney (12:42):
Yeah.
Still, that's a lot.
Especially if you didn't reallystart until 2019.
I'd love to just dig in a littlebit to kind of the evolution of
the things that you've publishedand, you know, from like where
you started and things that youlearned along the way, how you
adapted, how you work on yourdifferent projects.
Nathan (13:03):
The first thing I did was an adventure.
I learned after that and afterlike working on some of my other
like Collaborations with peoplei've did collaborations with
like subclasses items andwhatnot all for fifth edition
and that's kind of when Ilearned that adventures don't
actually sell very well comparedto other things because and like
at the time I didn't reallythink about it, but like from a
(13:24):
mathematical perspective If agame has four players and one
Dungeon Master, the peoplebuying the adventure is only 20
percent of the market.
And while the Dungeon Masterwould have to approve any
subclasses or magic items,players will buy the other
books, will buy subclass stuff,and then show it to their DM and
(13:46):
be like, Yeah, can I play this?
Or like, they'll get a magicitem book and they're like, I
would like this, do you thinkit's balanced?
And so like, there are certainthings where more than 20
percent of the audience isbuying them.
And so, that's an inherentproblem with adventures.
That doesn't mean I'm going tostop writing them.
(14:06):
I, I like writing theadventures.
There's more of a storyinvolved.
Whereas a book of magic items,sure, the items can have a story
behind the item, but like, atmost, they're going to be a
paragraph or five.
Whereas the adventure can be afull story.
And I like writing stories.
I've, you know, consideredtrying to like, maybe write
(14:28):
novels also, but finding thetime to do even what I do is
difficult.
But yeah, that's pretty much theevolution.
Products for more than one outof five people is good.
And I know that, also from acertain standpoint, I shouldn't
write products, write things forother people.
That's kinda how you losepassion in it.
(14:48):
You gotta write stuff foryourself.
Which is why I still writeadventures, because I like
writing adventures.
Even though only one person outof five at a table was buying
them.
And that's okay.
I've come up with other ideasfor things that, you know, would
be able to involve other people.
Some stuff I have no idea how togo about producing or releasing
(15:09):
them.
But, you know, there's a lot ofstuff.
A lot of ideas.
I never stop thinking of things.
It's actually my curse becausesometimes I will think of
something new before I'vefinished another idea and then
I'll just add a half writtendocument to the folder of 30
other half written documents.
When I mentioned that the otherday on the other Show I was on.
(15:33):
They, they jokingly took it as apersonal attack because I, I
feel like they've done the samething.
I, I think a lot of us creativeshave attention deficit disorder
of some kind and do somethingsimilar.
Courtney (15:47):
You know, it's always about like the new shiny thing
over there
Nathan (15:51):
Right?
Courtney (15:52):
yeah,
Nathan (15:53):
Do a shiny thing.
Courtney (15:55):
it's so hard to focus.
Nathan (15:58):
that makes that quasi energy drink.
Five hour energy.
It's like, when are they gonnamake five hour motivation?
Or five hour pay attention toone thing.
Okay, that last one is Adderall,but still.
Courtney (16:12):
That's fair.
Like that one kind of exists,but motivation, five hour
motivation, yeah, I couldabsolutely use that.
Yeah.
Nathan (16:20):
I think everybody probably could.
Courtney (16:22):
Yeah.
So I do think that that is.
It's an interesting, I don'tknow, about the fact that while,
yes, it's probably going to bemore fun to write things that
are targeted towards DMs.
It's a lot harder to tell forthem.
Yeah.
Like, I know the first thingthat we published was an
(16:43):
adventure and so, you know.
Didn't really know much aboutDMs Guild, and it was kind of
the same thing.
And then it started to go intomaps, which are still targeted
towards DMs, but at leastthey're pretty.
Nathan (16:52):
Well, the thing with maps everyone likes a good map,
and I can say from like, I mean,I'm, I'm not, I'm not
discouraging people from buyingmaps.
And I'm not discouraging peoplefrom buying map products.
But I can definitely say that Ihave purchased more map products
than I have ever used, and thatI probably could ever use.
Courtney (17:10):
Mm hmm.
Nathan (17:12):
Like, I've got a bunch of those Lok, Lok or Loki, I
don't know if the, the E ispronounced.
Battle maps, big, big, big booksthat just are fold out, and then
they're actual, you just havethem on the table.
I've got five decks of, like,Atmar's cartography collection
cards, where you just pull allthe cards out and then you just
make a map on the fly, althoughthey're not big enough to use as
(17:34):
the actual dungeon map.
I've got some wooden, actualuses battle map battle mat tile
things maps that have a bunch ofrandom stuff, but it also
explicitly comes with all thepieces necessary to do the the
starter kit adventure.
The Lost Mine of Phandelver.
(17:55):
So like, it has tiles to do thatentire module, which is cool.
And then it has other stuff, andthen you can just mix and match
for your other thing.
I'm also a big fan of buyingboard games that effectively
have those things.
I have Descent I have the theStar Wars one, Imperial Assault,
if I ever run a sci fi game.
Or if I ever just run a StarWars game, I have a whole bunch
(18:15):
of Stormtroopers.
I actually have two copies ofthat game because I put one in
the closet and forgot that I hadit and then bought another one.
So now I have twice as manyStormtroopers.
Courtney (18:25):
Yeah.
I have definitely thought aboutthat because we've got most of
the WizKids games
Nathan (18:31):
Oh yeah, no, those, those are great.
Cause like, they're a board gameon their own and you've got
minis that you can use for thegame.
In fact, I'm pretty sure thatthe minis are the exact same
ones that you get in the blindboxes.
Courtney (18:44):
Yes, it's like you've got all of that and it's just
like, oh, it's the same story.
Just a board game.
Sweet.
Accessories.
Nathan (18:51):
Yeah.
Although, for some reason youhave to pay more on the board
games to get the painted minis.
When I think most people wouldprefer to get the unpainted
minis, what do I know?
I know that at one point wedefinitely preferred the getting
the painted, the pre paintedminis, but now my wife has
actually gotten into paintingminis.
So now we definitely don't wantto get the pre painted minis.
Courtney (19:13):
it's all just personal preference.
Nathan (19:14):
Yeah, also we run into this new problem of that's the
we still buy minis faster thanmy wife can paint them.
Courtney (19:20):
Mm hmm.
Funny how that happens.
Nathan (19:22):
Yeah, I hear it happens to Warhammer players too.
Courtney (19:26):
Oh, God.
That is one hobby that I refuseto get into because I do not
have the money for it.
Nathan (19:33):
Well, I mean, some of the minis work great for
Dungeons Dragons.
There's a bunch of really goodLizardfolk minis.
And, like, you know, if you wantyour skeletons or zombies to
have, like, an Egyptian theme,there's, there's a faction for
that.
So, you don't have to get intoWarhammer, but you can buy the
minis.
Courtney (19:52):
Stop.
I don't have money.
You don't need to be moretempted.
Nathan (19:56):
Buy the minis.
Courtney (19:59):
Back to D& D stuff.
Nathan (20:00):
D& D stuff.
Right, right.
Courtney (20:02):
So I know that you have also got some
collaborations with somedifferent folks, and so I'd love
to learn about, how you gotconnected in the space and like,
different collaborations going.
Nathan (20:15):
it, it, so the way that I got connected in the space and
all the collaborations going wasat one point in time, while
trying to like promote my stuffon Twitter, back when it was
still called that, back when itwasn't set on fire, and all the
other things.
I, I don't remember exactly whatled into it, but the
conversation came up abouteditors, and Basically, I, you
(20:40):
know, someone had said like, oh,you should always have an
editor.
You should never edit your ownstuff because you're Blind to
your own mistakes and that'scompletely right I completely
agree but like You know and thenlike I just threw in the
question of like well What ifyou're just like some one person
and you're just doing yourstuff?
How do you how do you find aneditor?
How do you afford an editor?
(21:01):
And they mentioned that likewell for people doing stuff on
the dms guild like you had doneThere is a discord and there are
People who are willing to do theediting for a royalty share
instead of payment up front.
And that's, that's pretty muchhow I got introduced to a lot of
the people that I've wound upcollaborating with because the
(21:21):
server, the Discord server, hasbeen pretty much a godsend.
It's a little bit less activenow than it used to be, but, you
know, Wizards has tried torescind the OGL and sent
Pinkertons to people.
Can't seem to go three or fourmonths without doing some kind
of a colossal PR nightmare forthemselves.
(21:42):
So there's that, but yeah.
So I've met a lot of people anddone a lot of collaborations
with people who are willing towork for a royalty share instead
of needing to be paid up front.
Now a lot of times people willstill want to be paid up front
and that's completely valid.
Or paid upon completion and willnot want to do a royalty share
for like really big projectsbecause like, you know.
(22:03):
It's one thing if you're doinglike Royalty share on editing
for an adventure that's maybe20, 25 pages.
But it's another thing to do aroyalty share for a project.
That's 350 pages, because thenif that project doesn't do well,
the person will have done 350pages worth of editing work,
(22:24):
maybe 20 bucks across the yearin royalties, and that's not
really worth everyone's time.
So some stuff is more.
Feasible for that kind of thing,and other things are not.
And it's just kinda, sometimesyou can find people who are
willing to do it, especiallypeople starting out.
Like, you can probably findpeople who don't have a lot of
experience, who are willing towork for RoyaltyShare to get the
(22:47):
experience and get their nameout there, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
Just, obviously you don't wantto get a reputation for like,
abusing those people.
I've seen a couple of pretty badfaith things where like, you
know, someone's like, Ah, payingtwo cents a word.
And we'll own it in perpetuity.
And it's like, how about no?
But, so some people will dothat, I don't.
(23:09):
I try to, you know, If I'm, ifI'm gonna own something in
perpetuity that someone elsewrote, I'm, I'm gonna try to
make sure I offer them at leasta quarter a word for the
writing.
Editing is a little bit of adifferent story but yeah.
But there have been severalprojects where I've done stuff
for royalty shares, and thenother projects that I've led,
and the people involved gotroyalty shares, and they've been
(23:31):
pretty good.
Sometimes more successful thanothers, sometimes very
successful.
One of the projects I was on,the Tasha's Cauldron of
everything else.
Not Cauldron, Crucible.
We went with Crucible becausethe official one was Cauldron.
And that's been a thing thatthey've done on the DM's Guild,
was they'll do Name of personwhose book just came out,
(23:54):
different word, everything else,it's a theme, it works.
And that, that one did prettywell.
I wrote a bunch of the things inthat, and then a bunch of the
stuff that didn't get chosen inthat, I got to just work with
them and put them into otherproducts.
So, and that's, that's the otherthing.
If people, you know, if youwrite something for it and then
you don't get chosen, you stillhave done that writing and you
(24:15):
can still use that.
Courtney (24:17):
I think that that's really good advice.
Like I know I've, I've been inthat discord server for a while,
kind of lurking since my stuffis a little more uncommon, but I
do think that there, it's been areally good way to make
connections.
Same with like the drive thruRPG one, if you're not wanting
to be specifically on DMs Guild.
(24:39):
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.
To learn more, go to lightheartadventures.com/rpg and now back
(25:02):
to the show.
I want to switch gears now andtalk about the upcoming project,
Laszlo's Cubed Crypt.
So let's start by having youintroduce what it is and then
we'll kind of get into some morespecifics.
Nathan (25:20):
so, at its core, the baseline, Laszlo's Cubed Crypt
is an adventure that I'vewritten to go with a prop that I
made.
The prop is a puzzle cube.
We all know what kind of a cubeit is, but I have to be careful
about saying that name becausethat name is trademarked and so
I can't actually advertise it asthat because legally and
(25:43):
officially it's not that.
It's a puzzle cube.
But we all know what kind of apuzzle and what kind of a cube
it is.
So, the, the map that was chosenon it was, is designed to be on
a cube.
It's, it's, it cannot be mappedproperly on a two dimensional
plane, which has its ownadvantages if you force your
players to draw their own maps,and don't actually show them the
(26:06):
cube.
That will basically create thisweird headache for them, and
something else for them to solveinstead of solving the puzzle
itself.
But it basically, it juststarted, like I, I have one of
my players He has several puzzlecubes and he really likes them.
I don't know if he's good atsolving them, but I know that he
has like five or six of them andhe likes them.
(26:27):
He likes puzzles in general andhas a bunch of other puzzle
things including, but notlimited to, the puzzle cube.
So when I saw that I'm like,hey, I can print that map
because the map was never meantto be on a puzzle cube.
It was just meant to be a cube.
It was one of Dyson Logos Like,free for commercial use maps,
(26:48):
but like, because at the time, Iwas looking for a map, just,
like, I was just looking aroundthrough it, and I thought, I'm
like, oh, I can use this in myhome game with my players, and
so I did that, and I'm like,hey, I'll put this on a cube for
that player, and then, after Imade it, I'm like, hey, you
know, Dyson Logos would probablywant to see this, made a little
(27:08):
video of it, posted it onTwitter, tagged him, and then he
retweeted the post, So noweverybody who follows him could
see it, and then when I woke upthe next day, I had like
hundreds of Twitter posts ofpeople saying, Oh that's cool,
oh where can I get one, or theFuturama Fry meme, where it's
the go ahead and take my money,and I'm just like, Oh, I guess I
(27:32):
could do a thing with this, andthere's at least a hundred
people interested.
And so, that's where it became aproject, that's where it became
a product.
I very much like to distinguishthat, like, when I make stuff,
it's a product.
It's not homebrew.
I very much want to put my footdown that homebrew is something
(27:53):
that you make for your own gain.
And not necessarily for others.
And that, if you're making itfor others, then it becomes a
product.
Even if it's free, it's still aproduct.
I, I don't make homebrew.
I do make homebrew.
But like, when I'm sellingsomething, I'm not selling
homebrew.
I'm selling a product.
And so like, there's kind of alittle bit higher of a Standard.
(28:14):
I can't just, you know, come upwith whatever I want and sell
it.
I mean, I can, but that's notalways good.
But I thought I got off track.
So, I started looking into stufffor making this into a product.
And then this was right aroundthe time that Wattsy tried to
rescind the OGL.
And so there was a brief periodof time where I was worried that
I would not be able to make aproduct of it.
(28:37):
Because I predominantly writefor 5th edition.
Which required the use of theOGL and then, so, during the
course of this, I basically, Igot permission from Dyson Logos
to just sell the Puzzle Cube byitself.
If necessary, because normallyhis non commercial license rules
say that you can't, you can'tjust put it on something and
(29:00):
then just sell it.
So, I mean, while peopleprobably wouldn't want to just
do a t shirt with one of hismaps, you can't just do a t
shirt with one of his maps.
You can't just put his maps on aposter and then just sell those
posters for people to use asbattle maps.
Because that's not, you're notdoing anything with his art in a
way that makes it your own.
(29:22):
And so, by my understanding ofthose rules, the Puzzle Cube
would also fit that, that beingon a Puzzle Cube itself wasn't
enough to make it my own thing.
But, he gave me permission tosell just the cubes alone, so
there will be an option in it tojust get the cube if you don't
want the adventure.
(29:42):
But, the OGL has since been notrescinded, so there will be
adventures, and so there will bea big full product.
Courtney (29:50):
How did you go about getting it manufactured?
Nathan (29:54):
Uh, the first one I typed into Google, custom
Rubik's Cube.
I mean, custom puzzle cube, Ididn't, I didn't, I, I typed in
the other word, I'm not, I'mnot, I'm not advertising that.
That's, that's not an advert.
That's just what it is.
And I found a place that did it,and it was a website that mostly
does, like, custom mousepads,but they also had that as an
option.
Went through using their little,their web uploady thingy to
(30:18):
upload all the images.
It showed me a three dimensionalpreview.
The preview looked great.
I ordered two of them.
You know, one for myself and onefor the player.
This was also before I hadposted the thing online.
And it came back botched.
It was not printed right.
It did not look like what thepreview showed me.
So I had to call them up andwork with them again and talk to
(30:39):
them.
Sent them a new version and thatset came through botched also.
And so the third time when I,when I called them up, i, I
basically said on the phone, Iwas like, before you guys like
actually like make the item,look at whatever preview the
computer system that you'regoing with has, and then ask one
(31:00):
of your employees that playsDungeons and Dragons to look at
it first, and make sure it makessense to them.
And then go with it.
I don't know if they actuallydid that but that set came
through fine.
So I have Four botched ones andthen two good ones and then
later once I eventually foundthe producer That's actually
(31:21):
going to be doing it for thecampaign I have another
prototype so I have a third goodone that i've jumbled up and I
can't solve
Courtney (31:29):
In what ways were they botched?
Yeah,
Nathan (31:39):
or on the wrong spot.
And so the the The corridorsthat link up around the sides of
it didn't match up.
So, like, you look at it, and itlooks like a map printed on a
cube.
But, like, when you look at itclosely, it's just not right.
It came pre jumbled up, but notin a way that would be good or
solvable.
Courtney (32:00):
So what is the adventure about that is paired
with this
Nathan (32:04):
So, the adventure that I wrote for it is about Laszlo the
Lavish, or Laszlo the Lich, ashe is known nowadays.
He's been gone for an amount oftime.
I don't remember if I specifiedthat it was hundreds of years or
thousands of years or a nondescript number of years.
The location of his tomb hasbeen found, and so adventurers
(32:27):
are needed to go and put an endbefore he can come back and try
to take over the world again.
And basically the players, oncethey get in there, they'll find
the puzzle cube jumbled up, andthen once they solve it, then
they're transported into theactual dungeon.
(32:48):
And then they'll have to fightthrough the traps and all the
stuff.
Find the keys necessary tounlock the final gate and final
door to then confront Lazlo andslay him.
If the players are using thecube.
I also wrote it in a mannerthat, cause not everyone's gonna
be good at solving a puzzle cubelike myself.
So, that's where I had said thatlike, if you just have the
(33:10):
players go through the dungeon.
Without them knowing thatthere's a Puzzle Cube involved.
If you, if you use it the oldschool style, where the players
have to map out the dungeonthemselves, you can basically,
as they'll map it out, they willbe able to go in circles in
character, but on the map, itwill not connect, and it might
(33:32):
take them a while to figure thatout.
Which adds a different dynamicto running the adventure, which
will still create a puzzle forthe players, but it's not the
Puzzle Cube.
And so, yeah, there are two waysthat you can run it, one with
the cube, one without the cube,and the adventure itself won't
change, it's just the nature ofthe puzzle is what will be
(33:54):
different.
Yeah, so, liches, they likeundead, themselves undead, so
there's a lot of undead.
So, spoiler alert, if you'regonna play and you wind up
playing in this, don't justcreate a party of paladins and
clerics just to spite your DM.
Ideally, they should just beplugging it into their game
(34:14):
somewhere, not necessarilyWarning people that it's there,
so.
But, you know, you never know.
Sometimes, I mean, it couldprobably make a fine one shot
for people who are into those.
I, for one, have never actuallyplayed in a one shot, because
every time we've said, Hey,let's do a one shot, it's turned
into five or six, or an entirecampaign.
As it probably goes foreverybody.
Courtney (34:37):
I think the only one that I ever actually
successfully did in one daywound up being a 12 hour day.
Nathan (34:45):
that's
Courtney (34:45):
was, I learned some lessons on that one, such as
shorten it.
Don't do everything that'swritten.
Nathan (34:52):
I have not done a twelve hour D& D session since high
school.
Courtney (34:57):
That's, that's exhausting.
Nathan (35:00):
The mind is willing, but the body is weak and fleshy and
needs to take a nap.
I,
Courtney (35:06):
Yeah, for sure.
I don't want to do it again.
Nathan (35:09):
I have actually considered, like, I don't know
if I can get my Players in my myweekly game if we can like all
manage to take time off at thesame time and maybe like just
have Like a weekend D& D tripwhere we'll play for 12 hours a
day and then do some stuff otherthan that Like we'll go rent a
beach house or something.
I figure that maybe like once ayear I could probably handle
(35:31):
that but yeah, 12 hour D& Dsessions and all night land
parties Those are those are notthings I can handle anymore.
Courtney (35:40):
Yeah, for sure.
So, because I happen to knowquite a bit about this project,
what are some of the ideasbehind some stretch goals,
assuming that, you know, we fundand we keep funding because
everybody wants a really coolpuzzle cube?
Nathan (35:57):
So the The main thing is that my adventure is written for
level 12 characters, but noteverybody's going to be at level
12 And so like I don't want tocut out the people who don't
have a game that high level orwon't have a game that Won't get
to that high level.
So instead of writing a bunch ofadventures that are all like one
contiguous story My idea waslet's write a bunch of different
(36:21):
adventures that all use thepuzzle cues And so that way, if
it funds and gets to the pointwhere we unlock enough of those
adventures, DMs will have a bookthat will have multiple
adventures where they can usethis prop.
And so then if they run multiplegames at different levels, they
can use the prop in any of theirgames if they wish to, and
they'll have a different leveladventure for whenever they wish
(36:43):
to use it.
Additionally, because the mapitself is system agnostic,
there's nothing about the mapthat says you must play Dungeons
Dragons at 5th edition only withit.
So, some of the other proposedstretch goals is to get a
Pathfinder 2nd editionconversion And then one of the
(37:04):
other things is because one ofthe questions that people keep
asking is can you mix up thecube and have a random dungeon
every time and the answer tothat question is not really, you
could probably do something withthat if you're willing to do
like extra work but with the mapwhen you mix it up the rooms
don't connect and it's supposedto be a puzzle cube first and
(37:26):
then Kind of the adventuresecond.
Originally it was just thepuzzle cube, but not the
adventure itself.
So one of the other proposedstretch goal ideas would be to
get a puzzle cube made that wasall geomorphs on it so that that
way each face would be ninedifferent geomorphs that would
(37:47):
be a full dungeon and then youcould mix it up and then get a
random dungeon every time.
We asked Google and A 3x3x3puzzle cube where each face is a
different thing would have 7.
4 quintillion differentpermutations.
And so that's enough dungeons todungeon probably forever.
(38:10):
But even though they wouldtechnically be different,
there's gonna be a level ofsaniness to it.
Which, for an OSR game, that'sexactly what people want.
They want to delve into thedungeon, go from room to room,
kick it in, kill the goblins.
Or orcs, or whatever is there.
Take the treasure, probablymaybe still using gold as
(38:31):
experience to level up.
I don't know, I always thoughtthat was kind of weird.
It is what it is.
And yeah, so, that is a thing.
Now, for that particular one,because Dungeon Geomorphs would,
like if they were all black andwhite, that would be a puzzle
with no solved state.
You would have no way to knowwhat was the original
(38:52):
positioning of everything.
Unless we made the faces alsocolor coded, which, is probably
something I'm going to do sothat it could be solved as a
puzzle as well as being ageomorph randomizer.
I've come up with a couple ofother ideas of like, hey, what
can we do with the idea of apuzzle cube and still have
things?
Courtney (39:10):
Yeah, I, I definitely feel like there are a lot of
possibilities.
It could use with the puzzlecube, for sure.
And, I don't know, I just reallyhope that we get to have all of
the adventures, because I thinkit would be really cool to have
just a big old book packed fullof adventures that are using
this really fun cube map.
(39:31):
So something that I like to doin every interview is focus a
bit on the fact that, you know,we are Working in this industry
because we love games and it'sfun, but obviously there are
challenges.
So I would love to hear aboutjust, you know, over the last
(39:55):
few years where you've beenpublishing on DMs Guild and now
like you've got this project andeverything, what are some of the
challenges that you have had toface and how have you overcome
them?
Nathan (40:04):
so the big challenge is because a lot of the
collaboration is with peoplethat are not In the same town
and not meeting at the samebuilding.
Like, you know, obviously likeif you worked for wizards, you'd
go to their office building andyou meet your coworkers every
day and you work with them everyday and stuff like that.
So the big problem with onlineis that sometimes people have
(40:26):
real life stuff happen and justdisappear.
Sometimes they haven't finishedtheir projects and.
That kind of puts a huge speedbump into things.
So, miscommunications, lack ofcommunications are the biggest
problems that I've come up with.
Sometimes, like, tone is hard tounderstand over text.
So sometimes people can getoffended by things when you're
(40:49):
not actually speaking.
And you can't hear whatsomeone's saying or how
someone's saying.
You just read the text and it'sIt's rough dealing almost
entirely online with people, andthen yeah, it's like if somebody
disappears, it's like, then it'slike, are they okay?
Did they get in a car accident?
(41:09):
Did they die?
Do they hate me?
Did they just block me becausethey just can't stand looking at
my bearded face?
I don't know.
You never know, because like,sometimes just communication
breaks down and projects getlost and unfinished.
I mean, there was one of thoseprojects where that happened for
(41:30):
like A year and a half.
And I finally just got to thepoint where I, like, I managed
to get a hold of the person whowas the project lead for it.
I'm just like, Hey, can I justtake this project over and I'll
get the stuff done?
And they're like, yeah, thatwould be great.
I'm not doing stuff muchanymore.
So I did manage to finally getthat one released.
(41:52):
I had some other ideas for it.
And I just like, you know what,I'm going to scrap those ideas
because if I keep working onthis, this might happen again,
let's push this product out andmake sure of it.
It can't be purchased.
It is in a usable state.
But I have other projects wherethat's just never happening.
I've still just got stuffsitting around that I've written
(42:12):
for a thing, and they just I'llfind another spot for them
somewhere.
Maybe.
Who knows.
Courtney (42:21):
Yeah, that can be really tough to herd a bunch of
freelancers around, and
Nathan (42:29):
Sometimes they're on the opposite side of the world,
which then creates its ownproblems where it's like,
They're asleep when I'm awake,and stuff.
So it's like, when you do wantto try to talk to them, In a
discord call or whatever it'slike well, I go to bed at this
time and that's 5 a.
m for you.
So we have to find a time before5 a.
(42:49):
m for you to talk and she's likeSometimes that's rough.
Courtney (42:54):
Okay, well to flip it around, what are some of the
best parts of working on allthese projects?
Nathan (43:00):
Not to try to like sound like some kind of money grubber
But to a certain degree when Isell products and like I see the
like account credit on Dms guildgo up that always does make me
feel good Because it's like,hey, people are interested
enough that they're, they'repaying me for these things.
Like, I, I like the fact thatpeople like my work enough to
(43:20):
buy it.
Like, I usually, I usually setthe previews to be the preview
of the entire thing, so peoplecan look at the entire thing
before they decide to buy it.
The downside of this is theycould look at the entire thing
and then just have it, have thepreview open from their computer
and run an adventure withoutactually buying it.
But, you know.
I just figured, like, you know,when you go to a bookstore, you
(43:43):
don't have to unwrap the booksafter you buy them.
You can look at, you canhypothetically read an entire
book at a bookstore and notpurchase it.
But, like, that's not why peoplego to bookstores.
People go to bookstores to buybooks.
So I figured, you know, the oneor two people that will run an
adventure without buying it isnothing compared to, like, the
30 or 40 people who will buy it.
(44:06):
And, you know, even 30 or 40people, that's, you know, if I
can help some, help 30 or 40people make their games better.
That's good.
I like that.
Courtney (44:16):
Mm hmm.
So, obviously we've got Lazlo'sCrypt.
But are there any other projectsthat you're working on that are
coming up sometime in the nextyear?
Nathan (44:26):
So, I have a pirate thing coming up.
And I wrote it for a differentproject back before 2019.
So it's been modified andtweaked a little bit.
I, I will admit that I, I wrotethat before I knew about certain
things.
So, like I got a sensitivityconsultant for it because, well,
(44:48):
I didn't, I didn't even knowthat sensitivity consultants
existed back then.
so, you know, there's, there'ssome changes that have been
made.
You know, working on that, got abunch of art for it.
That adventure is also prettymuch written.
One of the things I hadconsidered also for that was
getting a puzzle cube that wasjust all ocean but then each,
each face had little islands onit so you can randomize it and
(45:10):
get your own custom island chainfor people's own games because
as it stands right now, thatadventure does not have a world
map.
It just says that, hey, thisthing is this many days away
from the city.
But like, the locations of thesethings is not.
So, the Dungeon Master can like,come up with their own world
(45:32):
map, put these cities whereverthey need to.
And then if they need to domore, further adventures later,
have some stuff.
That doesn't mean that therewon't be a map for it in the
future, it's just at thepresent, there isn't one.
And yeah.
It's a pirate thing, but theplayers aren't the pirates, the
bad guys are pirates.
(45:52):
Because, you know, while it'sprobably fun being a pirate in a
D& D game, Generally speaking,pirates were bad people, they
were stealing things.
I know that probably some ofthem were in a desperate
situation and, you know, lifeunder the thumb of the British
monarch was probably not good.
A bunch of Americans decidedthat in 1776, so, you know,
(46:15):
going against that kind of thingis fine.
But in this, in Dungeons andDragons, pirates are usually the
bad guys, and that's how I'vewritten the adventure.
Courtney (46:25):
So if people want to find you, find these projects,
find Laszlo's Cubed Crypt, whereshould they go?
Nathan (46:32):
So I have a website.
It's on card Uh, it's justdeficitdragons.carrd.co Card,
card has two R's in it.
I'm on most social mediaplatforms as DeficitDragons, so
that's where people can find me.
Going to the website, the cardwebsite will have links to all
of the social media platforms togo to my profile so that you can
(46:53):
then follow me on them.
So like, if you want to followme on everything, going to the
card website is Probably theeasiest way, instead of having
to type in Deficit Dragons onlike 30 different things.
Plus it also has links that'lltake you directly to the stores
for several of my products.
Some are in print, some are notin print.
(47:14):
And yeah.
Courtney (47:15):
Great, I will have links to all of that in the show
notes.
Nathan, thank you for joining metoday.
Nathan (47:23):
Yeah, no problem.
Courtney (47:24):
been fun to chit chat about, your background.
I learned things I didn't know.
And then also the project thatwe've been working on together.
Nathan (47:31):
Yes.
Courtney (47:33):
So at this point, listeners, I am going to stop
the official interview and.
Then we will just go ahead rightback into recording where we're
going to have a fun little quickquestion blitz for patrons.
So I'm going to be asking Nathansome more silly questions.
Some are gaming related, someare not.
(47:53):
And that'll be available topatrons at
patreon.com/rollplaygrow.
Thank you for listening andthanks again, Nathan.
Nathan (48:03):
No problem.
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