Hello, and welcome to Snyder’s return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today is an expert and an educator in the world of TT RPGs are moving picture shows, from GM tips to actual closing conventions. It wouldn't be so bad if we ended up in detention with this particular professor here to teach us about their forthcoming Kickstarter action 12 cinema or more is esteemed member of the faculty, game designer and content creator of RPG Academy, Michael Ross. Michael, welcome to the show.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much.
Snyder’s Return:Well, no, it's an absolute pleasure to have you join me up. Michael, before we get into a few of the things I've alluded to the in the introduction, how did you yourself get into tabletop role playing games, please.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:Alright, so I'm a nerd from a long time ago. And I was big into fantasy, you know, reading all kinds of books and that kind of thing. But yet my introduction to a role playing games, which for me was through dungeons and dragons. The old red box edition, was due to my best friend. We had a small bookstore, not even our town from a really small town in Kentucky in the US. We didn't have a bookstore in our town. So we had to drive to the next town over to go to the bookstore, and we were there. And my best friend, he goes, I want to buy this d&d game. And there was the red box, I think, the Mintzer red box. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. Because it's a game where we get to play like fantasy stuff. I'm like, okay, so we wouldn't have these because he couldn't afford it on his own. I couldn't afford it. So we both through it. It's probably like 10 bucks each or something. I don't even know what it cost. This would been like early, mid 80s, like 8586. And so we're we get the red box, we go out his mom is the one who driven us there. We were on 12 years old. And we're just in the backseat, he opens up the DND red box. And there's a few familiar but there's there's multiple booklets. There's like the player booklet. And then there's the DM booklet. And I to this day, I don't know if it was intentional or happenstance. But he handed me the GM booklet as he started flipping through the player booklet. And I have been running games ever since.
Snyder’s Return:Wow. Wow. So from that early beginning, early bird catches the worm or something. So from the early beginning, where did you go from there? So 12 years old, you get it? You start running games? Where does your story continue from there?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:Oh, well, we were big into d&d for quite a while. But superheroes is kind of like my second favourite genre of RPGs. So within, I don't know, a year or so we also ended up getting that the old TSR Marvel superhero game, the one most people call face rip based off of the your stats, you know, you're fighting agility, strength, endurance, reason, intellect or insight psyche one of those. So we got that. Then we expanded into GURPS for a very short period of time, DC superhero game, also a very short period of time. Then we went on to advanced d&d, and pretty much I stayed with d&d. After that I played advanced through college, Second Edition when it came out. As I got into a career and moved and I found some friends. In my new city, when I moved with my job, we started playing three and 3.5. I actually was about I kind of had fallen out of the hobby. This would have been like, maybe 1015 years ago, I just didn't have a group of people to play with. I was moving again, to a new town with my job. And like, I guess, maybe I'm just old enough now I don't need to play role playing games anymore. And then fourth edition, d&d came out. And I just bought the books just kind of like of interest, like, hey, I want to honour what they've changed. And fourth edition was such a drastically different version of the game. And ultimately, I think it fails more marketing than anything else. I think it was marketed very poorly. But I think it actually introduced some very interesting concepts. And it kind of reinvigorated me a little bit to start playing again. I ultimately fell away went back to third edition. Once I kind of lost my love with fourth edition, but I still am so excited that it kind of brought me back and kept me going. And then when fifth edition came out, that's when we started our podcast. And I've just kind of been involved with that ever since. And I've played tonnes and tonnes of other games like one shots, two shots, trials, that kind of thing. But d&d is still kind of my anchor. It's what I love. It's what brought me into the hobby and it's kind of what has kept me here.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, so that's that's a lot of additions and a lot of games in a relatively short span of time, which is impressive in his own feet. But I guess the way that that The games have progressed and your tastes sort of went with it. Well, I'm
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:an old man. So that's like 40 years for me. So it's not that short.
Snyder’s Return:will condense it will say you're in your 30s. Okay, yeah. 29 and a half as a mid 20s. Individual you played? Yeah. So when, what was the spark To start the podcast thing? Because you mentioned sort of playing all these different systems. And then you started the podcast? Why then what was it that made you go, now is the time? Well, very similar
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:to my story of coming in to the PI, or to me to RPGs in general was because of my friend. Same thing happened with podcasts. So I started playing role playing games with a friend of mine that I worked with. And there's a whole kind of sub story there, I won't get into all of it. But anyway, he wanted to become a dungeon master. Like he really enjoyed the game, but he wanted to tell his own story. But he was really afraid that he would mess up like he was very anxious. And I think that's a very common refrain from a lot of people who want to be dungeon masters or Game Masters. They want to do it, but they're afraid. So I said, You know what, here, this is a great, this is a great opportunity, we will create a table of players that's perfect for you to run the game. I had a couple people who were playing with already at the time, I knew they'd be very lenient to a new DM, they would take advantage of them. I said, You don't worry at all about the rules. I will handle the rules at the table for you. So you just tell me the story. You introduce things and if there's a fight I'll I'll deal with all the rules for you as you get started. And in preparation for becoming a DM he started listening to podcasts about becoming a DM particularly fear the boot was the one that he listened to and really enjoy engaged with. So then it was his idea of well, why don't we chronicle my journey into becoming a DM you're the old hand, you're the guiding expert here, I'm the new person has nothing. And if you go back and listen to our earliest episodes, that's really all we did is he would run a session, and then we would debrief and I would say, when you did this, I thought it was great when you did this, here's a suggestion. And we just kind of developed it from there. So initially, it was just me helping him become a DM, we went through three or four different names. Again, it's a whole story. But after about six to eight months, he ended up leaving the show. life got in the way. We're still friendly, though, actually. I've moved and he's moved, so we don't talk anymore. But it wasn't like it was acrimonious or anything. We just he didn't have time, his job had changed. He got married, he's about to have a kid, he just didn't have time for it. And I just became enamoured. I loved being a podcaster. And so I kind of took it by the reins. And I've I think we're going on 12 years now of the show. And yeah, I think he was around for maybe the first year. And it was it was totally his idea. And then I just sort of took it and ran with it. Yeah, that's 12 years. Well, I can only dream. I think especially for a 29 year old. I mean, come on.
Snyder’s Return:Ross. Yeah, you've done well start the game at 12. And doing all this by 20. Yes. So that was sort of a co DMing experience and then being able to pull that across in podcast form. But I'm sure many people like myself who are thankful for for your sort of guiding voice. Podcast must be a voice guiding voice to people like myself, who is sort of picked up a hobby, either recently or relatively, later into the sort of respective lifespans. So of the the, I'll tell you what, we've mentioned it, where can we find you? Where can we find you? And where can we find the RPG Academy?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:Please. So I'm most active on Twitter. And I have sort of this weird relationship with Twitter now because I have people in my life that I care about more than anyone else other than my immediate family that I only know because of Twitter, like So Twitter was a huge thing about when the podcast started, we started the account, and I truly have friends people I consider my best friends that I've never actually met. I only know them through the internet. So I still love Twitter and I will hold on to it for dear life as long as it lasts. But I fear that those days may be numbered, but I'm most active on there. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Mastodon, but really Twitter is the place to find me and it's at the RPG Academy.
Snyder’s Return:All right, we can also find you on YouTube is something we'll come back to in a bit. So yeah, I will make sure there are links to to your socials down in the description below. They'll also be more important, more important other links which are important. Also down in the description below but we'll get to them shortly. So RPG, the RPG Academy, you have played a plethora, a smorgasbord of systems. You mentioned that you've done some some samples, you even break it down on the website, which is a great reason Last two samples, field trips, campaigns and trials. So people can sort of check different things out. Where does your inspiration come from sort of choosing what you're going to run next, or what episode you're going to put up.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So we do too many things. Like, it's, it's too many, it really is. But I just I love the idea of playing games and sharing those experiences with other people. And, you know, again, 12 years, the podcast has been running, we've had the opportunity to do a lot of things, we really lean heavily into the academy thing, like we're a school, you know, that's kind of like what we're going for. So all of our episodes as best we can, are kind of themed around that idea. So things like field trips are one off game. So we just play a game random game, we play it, we run it, that kind of thing. We have something we call trials. And that's where we actually get a designer to run a game for us. And these are usually like smaller indie games, like we're not getting, you know, the people who created d&d to run d&d, for us. That's not how that works. Campaigns are just campaigns just longer running games that we play. And, you know, we are fortunate enough that we've been around long enough that a lot of people know our name, you know, again, we I like to say we have a little bit of clout in the industry. There's so many podcasts now that are bigger and more important than us. But I think there's a there's a group of people that still know the academy, and they will come to us and say, Hey, I have a Kickstarter coming out soon. Would you mind showcasing our game? We don't say yes to everything, because we can't. But we say yes to a lot of stuff. And we say if you'll run it, we'll we'll record it and put it on the air. And so there's a lot of these games that we have in these trials. And one offs are, quote unquote, promotional things that we did for the designer, but we kind of have a royalty Academy, we only talk about things we love. Like we try very hard to be very positive. And if we if we get a game that we don't like, you will never hear about it. We just we don't do bad reviews, we just don't review it. So if we play a game, if it's on the podcast, it's there. Because we had a good time. And we want to showcase it like we, you know, we don't just put things up because people asked us to or in some cases, people have paid us, we will not accept money, like we actually play the game first. And then if we're like, okay, yeah, we will put this up. Sometimes they will, like pay us for the privilege type of a thing. We've actually kind of gotten away from that we don't even do that anymore. But there was a period of time where people would would pay like a commission rate. We don't do that now. So if anything's been on the on the show, probably the last three or four years, it's there is no money changing. And it's just we wanted to play it type of a thing. I don't know if that answered your question very well, but that's what I said.
Snyder’s Return:Well, it just opened up another question, which, over the 12 years, and all these different systems you've played, or the different campaigns that have been run, what has been your favourite game or game system or campaign that you've run? I'll let you sort of pick one, whichever sort of springs to mind first.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:Oh, wow. That is that is way too hard of a question. Because I, I really do enjoy playing unusual systems. I mean, I love d&d. I do think d&d is actually a better design game than a lot of people give them credit. Because it it's like, I don't know if you're familiar with Waffle House. It's kind of a US based, like, fast food diner. Is Waffle House great food. No, but you can get almost anything you want there. And it's still pretty good. And that's like the indie dummies like, is it not the it's not the best version of anything, but it's a pretty good version of almost everything. So no matter what you're wanting to play, you can probably manage it well enough. And if you'd like a lot of variety, like if you're playing Call of Cthulhu, you probably want to play Call of Cthulhu. But if you want to play a high action adventure game, and then have like two sessions that are in a in a murder mystery house, d&d will do that for you anyway. So I like to experience games that aren't d&d, because I play d&d so much in though I love it, I like to experiment outside of that. So out of the campaign's that I've ran, probably my favourite would be dark discovery. That is a d&d fivey game that I ran that we use some very sort of collaborative story building elements that aren't always included in d&d. It's structured very much like a TV show. So we would start new sessions with like, a cold open, where I would just say, this is where the characters are. And we do like a 10 or 15 minute scene, and they would end on like a cliffhanger. And then I would say, Okay, it's now three weeks before that. And we would have to figure out a way to play and get back to what we just said, made sense. And I thought it worked really well. And we had some really interesting characters. We had some really interesting roleplay unfortunately, almost every time I've ever in a campaign, it just dies. Like we don't get to a satisfying conclusion. It's just like, well, people scheduled change, somebody moves, someone can't do it anymore. This one does the same thing. It just stops. But the episodes that we have, I think are some of the best Do I mean that I've ever done and I had some wonderful players who would play along with my shenanigans. And they let me experiment with that. Because they bought in, they knew, Hey, Michael is gonna throw us three weeks in the future. We know we have to make it. It makes sense because they could have easily been like, well, we're gonna leave town. Yeah, and you know, okay, then that doesn't happen. So they were all in on the gag. But I'd say that's one of the big things about role playing games that I enjoy is the collaborative aspect of it where we are working together. I'm not trying to make it harder on the DM, I'm trying to make it easier on them. Which is a little bit of a plug for action chosen and because I know we're gonna get there soon. As far as game systems. Oh, man. Oh, hold on one sec. I'm gonna look at my website. You can edit this out. Let me see what I played here.
Snyder’s Return:You played a lot.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:I played a lot. Wow. All right, I want to say, actually, the two that jumped to my mind are cold steel wardens, which is a superhero, kind of like Iron Age superhero game, your street level heroes. The person who ran that actually has become a friend of mine. Now through the show and through some other things. It's not a really well known game, but I think it's a very solid superhero gaming, and it's still my second favourite genre. And then masks, which is another superhero game is powered by the apocalypse system. And I'm actually not a fan of power by the apocalypse. I don't really connect with it strongly. But masks is my favourite version of power. By the apocalypse the trial, we did have that one, which again, it was ran by the lead designer of the game is one of the best things I think we've ever done. If you're interested at all in mass, our our trial is a great representation of how that game can work at your table.
Snyder’s Return:Mosques is a lot of fun. I'm surprised you're not a fan of power by the apocalypse. But I suppose there's there's systems for everybody. And not everybody likes every system, which is totally fair, moving away from established systems almost to what you have created. And we're moving on to your Kickstarter now. Cool. With respect to so you mentioned d&d isn't the best at certain things, but it is good at many things and you haven't engaged with certain systems. You have created your own game your own system effectively. But it's gmls. So, action 12 cinema? How did the concept come about? And what was the creation process for that? Like before we get into the game itself?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So I'm laughing if you can't hear because it's a typical Michael thing. And if you know me, if you may listen to my podcast regularly, you kind of know, I'm an odd duck, as it were. And 100% No lie. The game started out as a joke. It absolutely started off as just sort of this because I talk all the time about how I love the D 12. And I really do, I lean into it, because I think it's funny, but I truly think the D 12 is the most fun die to roll at a table. At least it is for me. Like if I line up all the dyes from four through 20 and even add in the weird ones for like DCC. I think the 12 is just the most fun, wonderful. So I thought I'm going to create a game that has no other purpose than to get people to roll lots of details like handfuls 1012 D 12 at a time. And so the game actually started out I had this it was called Michael's ridiculously overly complicated, unnecessary rules heavy game or something like Mr. myko particular. And I just ran it two or three times, just to be kind of silly, right. And then I started thinking this was actually a lot of fun, like, and I had plenty to go this was actually a lot of fun. So I started thinking, well, maybe there's actually something to play and pretend with your friends and Roland D 12. So I started taking out all the parts that were added in just to make it ridiculously overcomplicated and it kept paring it down, paring it down, paring it down. And now it's a very streamlined, simple DC D 12. Dice pool system. That is definitely a sort of a love letter to games like wushu if you're familiar fiasco, certainly, where you create a broad scope outline of a probably a bad movie if I'm being honest. And you just story collaboratively tell what's happening. And the dice don't determine if you're successful you determine that by what you say whatever you say happens happens. But the dice will tell you if it actually helped or not very, very similar to wushu. If you're familiar with that game system, where, you know you're you're fighting off a bunch of you know, muggers, like maybe it's a superhero Batman thing. You're in an alleyway, and there's 15 muggers that are all attacking you at once. You can just describe how you take all of them out like you don't have to roll to see if that happens. You just you know describe yourself in the most over the top action way. As cool as you want to be. All the muggers are unconscious. Then you roll the dice and that will tell you whether or not you actually helped the situation. If you rolled really poorly, maybe these were just the first soldiers under 30 More muggers coming around the corner if you wrote really well no that was it. You took them out and there's all these varying degrees kind of in the middle. But that's basically how this game works it's all just you get to say what happens in it absolutely happens. The dice determine if it actually made a difference in the story of the overall story The game is telling or not, but is
Snyder’s Return:it sounds like a lot of fun and definitely something that they'll be checking out I have already clicked on the notify me for the Kickstarter. So thank you, sir. When that want to get the chance, not a problem. What is it? You've mentioned? You know, you begin to fantasise the things, superheroes being your sort of secondary favourite theme or genre, but this is being movies. This is. So where did what inspired you to choose that theme over other potential themes?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So again, I love movies like it outside of role playing games, it's probably my biggest hobby. I just enjoy movies, I would go into movies. And again, as an older gentleman, in my 20 nines, I, I grew up in a time where we had like I was alive when you had three channels. You know, I was alive when we had basic cable with like 10 channels. And I remember as a youngster, that we had things like TBS TNT WGN. And every Saturday they would have these like action movie blocks, where you would watch these action movies on a Saturday for like for eight hours. Things like The Last Starfighter Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Alan Quartermaine, and velocity of gold. These are not your blockbuster action movies. These are pretty bad action movies. And I love them. I love them so much. And the game the way it works, where it's all collaborative story building. And you know, whenever you say happens happens, those types of games lean into silly more than dramatic. So it made sense that if we're going to have a game where you can do anything, I love movies, I have years and years of encyclopaedic knowledge of bad movies, Why not marry them together? So it's basically like my three favourite things, the 12 bad movies and collaborative storytelling, like the three things that you mix together in a cauldron and sprinkle some magic dust over it, you get action from cinema. That's the name actually is from the obviously 12 is because the D twelves. But action cinema is straight off like a WGN Saturday afternoon movie marathon.
Snyder’s Return:So building on your inspiration then, because that was you sort of given me that and I want to sort of dig just a little bit deeper. What is the best worst film that you can remember?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:Oh my god, the best worst film Maitlis again, you gotta gotta figure out genre. Because Alan Quartermaine is a terrible but fun pulp action adventure. Last Starfighter. I love that movie. But if you watch it today, it is pretty much unwatchable. Probably a little bit a little bit anything with Van Damme. There's a few good ones in there, but most of them are pretty bad from a martial arts standpoint, or standpoint. Oh my god, Best Worst action movie. Maybe they come in peace. Are you familiar with that one at all?
Snyder’s Return:It sounds vaguely familiar, but I wouldn't be able to describe the plot.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:It's about an alien who comes to earth. And he forcibly pumps drugs into people and then sucks out their brain chemicals on that drug because that is a drug that his race or his alien species gets off on. It's like, their version of heroin is people's juices on heroin. And it's just like some New York cop is like, fighting him. It's called I come in peace. Because he says that before he kills people.
Snyder’s Return:Nice. Alright, so we have built up the the somatic excitement around action 12. Cinema. When go into the sort of the Kickstarter side of things, when does a Kickstarter run from until? What can we expect to see when we back your your Kickstarter project for action search cinema.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So it's going to go live on February 28, which the last day of August, we're in February now. I think 3pm Eastern time is when I'm actually going to hit the big green button. It's going to run for about 22 days. I think it actually ends on March 22. So slight tangent. So I do run my own convention. I've run it for several years now. And we've always used Kickstarter to like pre sell badges to make sure we have enough money for deposits and stuff. So I've run multiple Kickstarters before but it's always for my convention. It's never been for an actual product. And our tradition has been since that very first one that we do a live show on the last day of the Kickstarter. We have a radio show we go do called detention. You kind of mentioned at the top it's every other week show on Wednesday nights. We're making a guest our co host and sometimes the guests will come on and we Just talking about role playing game stuff through the lens of that we're in detention after school. So the 22nd is our regularly scheduled detention. So we're going to count down the Kickstarter that day, I couldn't do it the next week for other obligations that I didn't want the Kickstarter to be less than 22 days, and I didn't want it to be more than like, you know, 38 or whatever. So that's why it's kind of running. Because most kickers run 30 days, that's why ours is shorter week because of scheduling issues. So March perfumey, February 28, through March 22, it'll end at like 10:15pm on March 22. As we do our live countdown show, there are still a few numbers that are being moved around. Actually today I finalised a contract with a penny for a tail, which is a professional group that does streams and books and they're kind of helping me make sure that I don't get myself in trouble because I don't know what I'm doing. So I don't want to quote hard numbers right now. But I will say that probably the books gonna be $25. Like that's probably where it's going to land for a hardback there's only going to be hardback, or digital. If you bought the if you get the hardback, you will also get the digital version. There'll be a digital only version, probably $12, maybe 10, maybe 15, but also good number. And then the game is done right now, like I have shared the rules with other people. It's playable. But it really needs one more rewrite, I think one more pass, there's just there's, there's one rule, for example, that I've recently added that needs to be added in. And just I've never written a book before. Like, it's kind of hard. I can, like I can tell you how the game works pretty quickly. But to write that in a way that you can read and understand, but also cover all the things that I might say Does that make sense. And then like, give you another, you know, clarifying explanation, writing that out is really hard. So I don't know that the book makes a heck of a lot of sense, unless you already know. So I want someone to help me go through that one more writing pass, you're getting art. But the goal is that pretty much as soon as the Kickstarter ends, I'm going to send out the current version, people will get the digital copy, they can start playing it, we're gonna do one more writing pass ad in the art that we can help pay for through the Kickstarter, more professional editing layout. And then the book will be published and sent out. I do a show about Kickstarters. Every other week on Sunday, we do a thing we're meeting to coast, we look at three, not just Kickstarter bid, crowdfunding things. So I have a lot of experience looking at other people's Kickstarters. So I'm kind of stealing from what I think has worked well, and what I've liked from other people's Kickstarters. But I don't truly know what I'm doing. Don't know if that helps sell the book or not. But that's what we're talking about.
Snyder’s Return:Well, you know, we've got to be able to learn from our peers and learn from our own experiences and things like that. So sounds like you're doing all the good things and and I can't wait to sort of see go live and you know, back it and support it. And so, no, it sounds it sounds a lot of fun. So you mentioned there, the Khan Academy catacomb perfect and nailed it in no one in make sure I say this right? Because it's about I'll get wrong in Dayton, Ohio. Yep, there we go. So, if someone is was to or when, when someone attends your, your convention, what are they gonna probably gonna find when they get when they cross the threshold and come and join you.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So it is a very small regional gaming convention, we have, you know, three 400 people that show up each year. Not surprising. COVID was a problem for getting three to 400 people together in a room. So you know, we we actually missed one year. And then the next year that we came back, we were much smaller, you know, I think we had like 120 people show up. But last year was great, best year we've ever had. It's very much focused on role playing games over board games, and that is unusual for a convention our size. Most conventions in our neighbourhood are more of a neighbourhood I mean size, not geographic, but are more board game focused. And we have more games. I love board games playing all the time. But Roebling games are my my love and my passion. So we leaned very heavily into role playing games over board games. And then as much as I love d&d, very few of our games are d&d or Pathfinder, which is also very unusual for convention our size. We have those there. We usually have the organised play versions there. But the vast majority of the games that you would play at my convention, are not those two savage worlds Cypher system. Dread fiasco, mass cultural wardens like tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of Indie games are being played there over the big two, which again, I love both of them. But when I go to convention, I actively seek out games that are not d&d, because I play d&d all the time. I want to experience something unusual. The other thing because of our small size, like it is very much like a family again. I know a lot of people say that but It's very much true. The people who helped me organise it are all people that are connected to the RPG Academy. None of us get paid myself included, like we do not make any money off this, our goal is to not lose money. And most years, we come close to that. So they're just doing it because they love it, they love supporting, what we're doing is, you know, it's not a money making thing for any of us. So we can't really incentivize running games like a larger convention, like you go to Gen Con, if you run four or five games, you get a free badge. We can't afford to do that. Because if everyone did that, then we would lose money. So if you're running a game at a comic con, you're running it because you love that game. And you just want to share it with other people. So you can pretty much guarantee if someone's running the game, they just want you to play it. And that's why it's been ran. And yeah, we only have you know, 300 people, we don't have 60,000, like GenCon. But you're going to get a really fun engaged DM GM. I will not say 100% 95% of the time, I've had a few very few complaints on issues. And it's usually like someone got sick and didn't show up. But for the most part, it's a small, it's most of it's in one room, like we have one large room that we ran out in a convention centre. So intimate is the word again, it's not like, you know, not well, not one connotation, intimate. But it's that like, if you sit down and we play a game together, and we had a really good time. I'm gonna see you tomorrow. Yeah, because when you maybe three tables over, but I'm still gonna see you and I'm gonna wave and go, Hey, do you have a good game? What do you play now. And, you know, we have people who are Cata conference, they met at a catacomb they became gaming groups, because they're most of them are kind of local to the area, they see each other. And it's just, it's a very cool, intimate, indie focused vibe. So if that sounds cool to you, then come to Dayton, Ohio in November. There's no other reason to go to Dayton ever, especially November because it's really cold there. But we had this little like huddled mass of three 400 people in a room having a wonderful time for three days.
Snyder’s Return:I mean, that sounds like a lot of fun to me, sadly, the wrong side of the Atlantic time. So maybe in the future, I'll be able to stretch my legs and fly over there.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:If you get the airfare, I'll give you a free ticket, I'll cover that, make it make it you cheat as much as I can,
Snyder’s Return:I will make sure that's in the transcript. So between the RPG Academy Academy on the Kickstarter, game development, these sort of ongoing detention and ongoing shows do you get time for us? Is there downtime from your immense creative output?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:No, I am done. I, I do way too much. And but I do enjoy like and I I joke about having ADHD. And I know that's really not something you should joke about. Because for people who truly have that it can be debilitating. Osman should have like OCD tendencies, but one of the benefits of being ADHD is you can hyper focus. And I definitely have that. So when I'm, I all my creativity comes in spurts. I will go days or weeks without thinking about a project at all. And then I will take 15 hours one day and I won't eat or sleep or you know, I just will look up and go holy crap. It's three o'clock. And I've been doing this thing for that long time. And I'm old enough as a 29 year old that I know this about myself. And rather than fight against it, I just I kind of lean into it. So I work a part time job. I have two other part time jobs that are very flexible. And that's kind of how I live. My wife makes decent money and she works from home and we have kids. So you know I'm doing all the family stuff. And I play games with my kids like that's like my true downtime. I play role playing games with my kids. We play board games together. We play some video games together, though me it's mostly board games and role playing games. I do another podcast about the show Smallville, because I'm all nice. And then I actually I had to explain this. So I am an AmeriCorps service member, which is a volunteer organisation that's based off of like a US government grant. And they don't pay me but I get a living stipend. It's a technical differences there. So it's not a paycheck. But because I'm volunteering through that service. I get a little bit of money every couple of weeks, like a paycheck. But it's very clear that not a paycheck. They have they made me say that anyway. I'm like, this is a cool thing. He lets me work. Basically I work at a school and then I also volunteer at the same school through America. So I have two part time jobs. Long story already too long. I told the like, Hey, I've been a podcaster for 12 years. There's no official, Healthy Minds Alliance America podcast. Would you like me to create one? And they said yes. So now I'm also making a podcast that's about the Healthy Minds Alliance, which is a nonprofit organisation that works with AmeriCorps Which again, is this government funded service organisation, to interview people who serve in their communities and talk about all the stuff we as service members do. So I currently have three podcasts, the RPG Academy, which involves multiple shows weekly, if not monthly, plus live streams, plus all the other stuff that I do. And then the Smallville podcast, which comes out weekly. And now this HMA podcast, which I'm still developing, but I'm also spending the time I'm interviewing people editing coming up with this and the other. So no, I, I do so much stuff. It's it's kind of dumb, actually.
Snyder’s Return:That is amazing. I mean, I do these interviews on an actual play show, and I'm trying to put some YouTube stuff together. I'm struggling on YouTube, three, four or five times the workload, I do it seemingly a third of the time,
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:but I do it poorly. That's the key. I do it all poorly.
Snyder’s Return:Set the bar low. Exactly. Okay. So the Smallville podcast, what's it called?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:It's called farm to fable. New listener. Oh, fantastic. I it is absolutely a tonne of fun. But just recently, the talk Phil show came out which actually Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling. And I have to say it sucked a lot of the air out of the room, because now that's all anybody wants to talk about. And I do love that show. But ours is very different. We we approach it as if this was a real thing. And so we talked about like, why would Clark do that when just last week this happened. And it's all tongue in cheek, we know it's not obviously real. And we you know, I do love the show. But we also make fun of it a lot. But we're in middle of Fifth Season. So I think I'm recording episode season five, Episode 18. This weekend. Each season, I'll take like a month or two off to kind of recuperate. Also watch the entire next season. And like a weekend. I have a rotating cast of guest co hosts. So if you'd like to be a co host, we can actually make that happen. Oh, and so it's me every week. And then it's a different co host. Not every single time but like a rotating I have like 20 Something different people that have come on. And so basically everybody gets one episode of season now.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah. Yeah, I'd be. Yeah, please. If we can organise that at some stage, I'd love to come on. But that's that's quite a sidetrack and yet still a workload and it's still a whole season in a weekend. With everything else you do.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:In this hyper focus is like I'm gonna watch Netflix for 15 hours today. We're actually taking away that Hulu, but yeah, yeah.
Snyder’s Return:So what else do you watch to relax?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So my wife and I have a few shows that we usually like to watch together. Currently, it's the last of us. I don't know if you're watching that on HBO. We both really like that. She's not really into superheroes like I am. But we both really liked Peacemaker. James can show we we watched that twice all the way through and that is very unusual for my wife to do that with me. And I'm currently watching arrow I have tried to watch the arrow show to other times and I could not get through it. I just again I have a friend who really likes it just didn't land with me but I'm trying to power through it. I'm I'm almost at the end of season three right now. I think I got two episodes left. And I am further along now that I've gotten the other two times. But I don't really watch. Like a lot of new stuff. I can always watch an old so that's why I was Smallville is when the pandemic hit. I was just trapped. You know, we didn't go outside for a very long time we were huddled in their house and under lockdown and stuff. So I just started rewatching all these old TV shows. I watched the entire series run of Psych. Um, if you're familiar with that show, model fun. I watched the entire series run of The Mentalist, which I watched most of when it first came out, but I fell off. I couldn't remember who the main bad guy was. I still don't think it holds up exactly together. But it's still fun, Joe. And then I rewatched all of Smallville. And that was like, hey, this was really cool. I should do a podcast about Smallville. So that's kind of how all that happened. And yeah, I watched the entire 10 seasons in probably a summer, like probably two or three months, I'd watch a couple episodes a day. And then now that I'm doing the show, I watch the entire season that we're about to record basically as quickly as I can like whether it's three or four days a week, no more than two weeks as power binge through them. And then before each episode, I watch it two or three times. So I'll watch it. And I'll watch it again while I'm taking notes. And then I watch it one more time right before we record and if it's a particularly good episode, or I got a lot of notes, I might actually watch it again. So a lot of my time is spent and I don't get paid for this. Let's be clear. This is all just because I like doing it. You know I watch the episodes three or four times in a week to get ready to record. Do you do it's a lot I know
Snyder’s Return:it is I'm thinking do should you not set up a Patreon or something for people to
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So to be fair, I do have a patreon. We've had it up for the RPG Academy for about 10 years now. And I did add a farm to fable level. So to be perfectly transparent, I have three people that are currently donating $3 a month. So technically, I get $9 a month for this. So it's not totally free.
Snyder’s Return:I'm sure there's tonnes from Patreon that probably cut that down. Oh, yeah,
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:I'm sure it's probably like two and a quarter for each one. But again, I don't honestly I do it because I love it. Like if I was doing it for the money, I would have stopped 12 years ago. I do it because I truly love doing I love sharing role playing games, I love helping to promote other people on whatever platform we have at the academy. I love sharing other people's creations and helping them be successful. And I enjoy the show Smallville, and I enjoy talking about it. So all I'm really doing is putting a microphone in front of me up for conversation I want to pad Anyways, now what I like to have 1000 patrons and you know, make a career out of doing that. Absolutely, I would never say no to that. But I'm not doing it for that reason. So the fact that when it doesn't happen, it doesn't bother me.
Snyder’s Return:That's fair enough. So going back to systems you played so many already, we mentioned some you can go and find this out all on the the RPG Academy website and sort of follow it through. Again, links will be in the description below. And we'll get refresher on those things very shortly. But are there any systems that you haven't played yet that you've sort of lined up in your mind maybe for future recordings, or just for for home or personal experience,
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:tonnes and tonnes and not not to get too hard into the plug machine, we have a newer show type that we've just started called the sample adventures. And these are all streamed games, where we try out a new system where we run it so it's not the designer that we didn't look into heaven, one designer run for us. But basically it's we're exploring that system through the included adventure in the core book if it has one. So we're getting to we've got a whole document there's like 60 games that we've just thrown on this list of games that have a sample adventure because they don't all have one. And so we just were working through that list. We just played Shadow the demon lord Monday. I wish I had played that one before, but I have not played through the sample adventures. We did fantasy age. We're working on Dune I want to do blue rose. I have the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer role playing game we're gonna do that one. There is a small little role playing game is cortex plus my brain is not smart enough to figure out cortex but eventually we're gonna get to that one. So I'm constantly just have new games, probably on my bucket list of games that I've been wanting to play forever. And I haven't got to as Meissen mouse card. Sorry, my son mystics is the word game mouse card has definitely been on that list for a long time. And then the new code or not new code on the 2d 20 CONAN system by Mateus, which they lost the licence, but that also has a sample adventure. So it's gonna be out there. So yeah, absolutely just so many savage worlds, which I have played before, but I'm about to start a new streaming show because again, I got it's gonna be based using the savage world system. So that's another one that I've been refreshing myself on lately. I will throw out if anyone wants to join our Discord. It's not an open, like you can't just join you have to ask for an invite, we let anyone in who asks. But when we first started the community we had a tonne of people jumped in were spamming stupid stuff. So we just banned everybody and then started over. But it is the most amazing small community. And I'm very open there about everything, like everything's pretty much on the open. So like the sample adventures, anyone on the discord can participate. Like you don't have to be faculty, as long as you got a microphone and his webcam and you're not a jerk. You can participate. So the documents and open document, you can just go there, you can add in games, you can volunteer, I'll run this one, I'll play this one. So you know, it's a very cool community if you want to get involved with what we do at any level. Join the discord. And you're basically there by I
Snyder’s Return:think I will. I don't think I will. I know that was an open invitation to everybody else. But
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:I'm talking to you right now, though.
Snyder’s Return:You are you the listener and me and you
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:Yes, I'm pointing at you, you the listener.
Snyder’s Return:So, yeah, well, you mentioned it there. Your discord. So we'll refresh the links. So, Michael, where can we find your console? Where can we find the RPG Academy and everything you're associated with the police?
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:So if you search the RPG Academy anywhere and you find something It should be me. So if not let me know but primarily I'm active on Twitter. I am very active in the discord against closed community, but I'll invite in, just ask me for the invite. I'll send you one. Our website is the RPG academy.com We have a cat icon.com For that I think they cross post to each other but that's the one specifically for the convention. We are on YouTube. Primarily. It's just things that were on Twitch that we will Upload there as well. So I do a video game stream most weekdays Monday through Friday around one o'clock I play old video games, it's called Michael place the classics. So I played like the original Legend of Zelda, the original Metroid, original Final Fantasy. I played through Castlevania. And so I couldn't get through it and stop because I couldn't beat it. I'm currently playing to the original Warcraft. So not World of Warcraft, the original Warcraft game I played through the entire human campaign, I'm currently going into the orc campaign. So all those are live streamed, and then they get put up on the YouTube, our sample adventure streams go to YouTube. But for the most part, it's, it's the same thing on the podcast that gets put on over there. And then of course, Twitch, but again, if you search the RPG Academy, it should be me on the other end of it.
Snyder’s Return:All right, I will make sure there are links to all of those down the description below as well as the link to your Kickstarter.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:That'd be fantastic. Thank you so much.
Snyder’s Return:No problem. So if you follow this before the Kickstarter launches, then you will find the link to the Notify Me page. If you follow it. Once the Kickstarter has begun, you will find the link to the Kickstarter page itself. And then after that, whatever comes when the Kickstarter closes will be down to Michael to deal with back after that. So we have covered a lot. You're sort of growth into a TTRPG playing podcasting streaming powerhouse of sort of convention sized awesomeness with what seems to be more activities than there is hours in the day. And I don't know how you manage it. Is there anything we haven't spoken about you want to bring up here towards the well,
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:hopefully, you know people listening, get a sense of who I am. And that's obviously the goal. I was gonna say the model we've had for the RPG Academy is very near and dear to me. And it's if you're having fun, you're doing it right. We try very hard to say at the end of every show, I often forget it's among catchphrase. And I still forget sometimes. But we came upon this very early in the podcast. It's something I said specifically to Evan, who was my original co host, because we had an episode where he was like, I feel like it's going poorly. Like I'm always worried that you aren't having fun. And I said, Well, we keep coming back. So it must be fun. So you're doing a good job. And so I think there's actually an episode where you can hear me say that to him. And then like the next episode, so we've been saying that for like 1011 years. And that truly is the heart of what I believe and when I tried to you know, being an ambassador to the hobby 12 years ago was a very different landscape than it is now this was before the explosion of like critical role and just even in like, you know, mainstream media, Bin diesel and every basically everyone and their brother and sister apparently played d&d and Hollywood, they just never told anybody. So now people are coming out saying yeah, like Game of Thrones, RR Martin. He plays role playing games all the time. And a lot of his stories come from that. So it's become more readily acceptable. But I you know, I grew up that nerd in Satanic Panic where I didn't tell anybody. I played d&d, and even you know, before the podcast in my professional life, I would not tell people, I played role playing games, I would, I would lie and say, Oh, my buddies are coming over white people like why we're gonna play poker, because for some reason, I thought it was more acceptable to say I was playing poker than playing a role playing it. And it's, it's a different world. Now. Now, I won't stop telling everybody about my role playing games, right. But that's kind of like what our goal was, is that if you're having fun, and by you, I mean, your entire group, not just one player, because that is a problem. But if everyone at your table is having a good time, then you're doing it exactly right. And you know, there's a, there's a more expanded version, which is, no matter what rules you use, don't use or misuse. If everyone at your table had a good time, then you did an absolutely great job of running that game. So you should not be worried about, you know, you can get better, absolutely try to get better. But if everyone had a good time, you did it right. And everything we do, we try to sort of, you know, encompass that feeling of inclusivity everyone's welcome at the table, everyone should have a good time. As long as you're not a jerk, and then, you know, share that hobby with other people so that they will grow and grow and grow. So just I would be remiss if I didn't say if you're having fun, you're doing it right. It's at least one time on this podcast. Also session zero very important thing, take a drink,
Snyder’s Return:session zero lines of veils, safety tools, calibration tools, all those sorts of good things. Absolutely. On such a positive note. It has been an absolute pleasure to get just I almost feel like we were still just scratching the surface of your abilities and and sort of potential but you've been, you know, you've been this trendsetter and trailblazers since the age of 12. Now into your late late 20s. We'll run with that joke a little bit. And it has been an absolute pleasure. I'd love to get you back on the show. If Michael if you'd be willing to come back and join me Of course Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:And I love talking about stuff like that. That's my superpower if I have one is that I'd love to talk about the things that I love. And I love talking about role playing games and bad movies and you know, video games that I like, and you almost can't shut me up. So if there's an open ended up, I will take it again. I absolutely had a blast. I'm so happy that you had me on I truly mean open invite if you go listen to Farmer fable, make sure you know you. You're vibing with what we're vibing. But yeah, throw yourself on the list for for next season. I'd love to have you on.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, absolutely. Well, until we get that arranged, and until we speak again, and I hope it's relatively soon. Thank you so much for joining me my
Michael Ross - The RPG Academy:absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Snyder’s Return:Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to www dot Snyder’s return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At return Schneider, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon and we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content out for for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you