Interview - Kevin Sherry - Scales and Tales TTRPG

Today I chat with Children's Book Illustrator, Author and TTRPG Creator - Kevin Sherry.

We discuss the new TTRPG which aims to bring our juniors into our TTRPG adventures 'Scales and Tales: A Beginners' Guide to Fantasy Roleplay Games', Art and much more.

You can find Kevin and all of his associated content via the links below.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KevinSherry_

Website:
https://www.kevinsherryonline.com/

Other:
https://www.instagram.com/kevinsherry_/
https://www.instagram.com/scalesandtalesrpg/
kvnshrry@gmail.com
https://www.instagram.com/cave_evil/

Calibration Tools:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/114jRmhzBpdqkAlhmveis0nmW73qkAZCj

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

~~~~~~~~~~

CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Kevin Sherry

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

~~~~~~~~~~

Website:
https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIoZ8iiYCp919UHXUYGghbw
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?query=Roscoe%27s%20Chimkin&ref=search_box

Buy us a TTRPG Source Book: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SnydersReturn

Are you on DISCORD? Come hang out in our server! https://discord.gg/QgU5UNf Join us in the Snyder’s Return Facebook Group!

Visit https://www.patreon.com/snyders_return?fan_landing=true

~~~~~~~~~~~

Social Media:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReturnSnyder

Instagram -  Snyder's Return (@snyders_return)

Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

Adam Powell (00:18.195)
Hello and welcome to Snyder's Return, a tabletop role play podcast. My guest today has many creative outputs, but has stepped up to break down the potentially tongue twisting, mind boggling, overwhelming realm of the tabletop role playing game. For the good of those who are adventuring and who's adventuring and real lives are very much in their junior years. It is a great pleasure to welcome illustrator, author and creator of Scales and Tales, Mr. Kevin Sherry to the show. Kevin, thank you for joining me today.

Kevin Sherry (00:46.07)
Hello, yeah, thank you for having me. It's such an honor to be here. Yeah, this is great.

Adam Powell (00:52.059)
Well, thank you. As I said, thank you there for joining me. Kevin, before we get into the crux of this interview, how did you yourself get into tabletop role-playing games, please?

Kevin Sherry (01:03.722)
Well, yeah, actually, I didn't get into tabletop role-playing games until, you know, maybe I was 30 years old, honestly. I grew up on the eastern seaboard of the United States, so, and I was born in 1982, so as I was coming up, there was a lot of, I don't know if you've talked about it, satanic panic going on in America, and my mom just thought Dungeons and Dragons looked too ridiculous, too, I don't know, evil.

I wasn't allowed to play actual role-playing games, but I played all the periphery stuff, like HeroQuest. I was obsessed with HeroQuest. I played Battle Masters. That was another one I really liked. And I also was obsessed with collecting White Dwarf magazines. I have probably 200 pounds of White Dwarf magazines in my basement. And...

I would really fantasize about those, but I never got it together. I was never able to get over that hump of actually playing. And then in my thirties, some, you know, when I was 30 here in Baltimore, in Baltimore, Maryland, a fellow writer whose name is Justin Sorois, he Baltimore is an extremely good city for artists or it has been for the past 20 years. This is why I've been here for 20.

four years now. Tons of artists here. There used to be a lot of cheap housing and so one of my fellow artists invited me and a small group of writers to do a role playing game that he actually wrote. So it was blowing my mind in two ways. I was playing a cooperative storytelling game for the first time and someone who I knew and respected had wrote it themselves.

So two of my minds were exploded because I didn't think we could do that. I thought all the quests come from the official Dungeons and Dragons books. And that was one of the gates of role playing that I didn't understand. I said, oh man, you have to understand all this, in these books, all this information in these books to be able to play at all. So yeah, when I was 30, my buddy,

Adam Powell (03:23.711)
Hmm.

Kevin Sherry (03:28.554)
He puts books out under the severed books label. They're very good and but yeah he invited me and I played and he actually you know I was already a children's book illustrator. I start my first book my first children's book a picture book it's called I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean that came out in 2007 so I was already writing children's books and after we had played this whole campaign

that my friend Justin had wrote, he said, Kevin, like, with your background, you should write a game. So, you know, after that first campaign, a lot of, you know, a lot of my thought was going into writing what would have become this book that I'm promoting, Scales and Tales.

Adam Powell (04:02.367)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (04:14.131)
Mm-hmm. So if you wouldn't mind then, since you've sort of moved into it so brilliantly, Scales and Tales, a beginner's guide to fantasy role-play games. So you mentioned there a bit about the Genesis, but what really sort of tied you into targeting, maybe the wrong word, encouraging junior players and bringing them into the TTRPG fold?

Kevin Sherry (04:37.962)
Because I just saw, when I played it, I always wanted to play it, but when I actually played it, I realized how incredibly fun collaborative storytelling and doing a puzzle with multiple people and just solving problems together in real life around a table with human beings. I realized how valuable that was and how incredible that felt. And I was already, I...

I fully believe that children are the future. I mean, that's like my whole thing. Like, you know, when I was in third grade, I was inspired and it never stopped. And that's why I wanted to bring it to younger kids because I wasn't allowed to play it when I was a kid. But if some of those books were cute, I would have been able to play it. So yeah, that's basically how.

Adam Powell (05:36.74)
And you mentioned they're younger. So what sort of age ranges is the sort of the book primarily aimed at? Parents, clearly, but.

Kevin Sherry (05:43.15)
Well, like I said, I was always inspired, like when I was in third grade, I only read comic books. Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, I only read comics. I wouldn't read novels, but then a teacher gave me Matilda and I just was enchanted by this book and I just never stopped reading after Matilda, honestly. And...

So I write for third grade always if I'm not writing a picture book, which is for little babies essentially I write for third graders. So I see scales and tails as like eight and up But I've had six six-year-olds play it too. And if with a little guidance they can do it and it's fun So yeah, actually eight and up but to be honest, these are the rules I play with when I DN They're just the

You know these rules put the storytelling up front and kind of the party games up front and the collaboration up front So that's just the way I like to do my role-playing game So when I GM these rules which I deem okay for eight eight-year-olds These are the rules I play and no one complains

Adam Powell (07:01.511)
No, it's amazing. So you mentioned the rules and party games. So could you give us a couple of examples without sort of giving us a whole book in an interview, but some of the rules that you're particularly fond of or some of the party games that you were inspired by and have brought into the book for us as GMs, DMs, parents, to be fair, to use at our tables?

Kevin Sherry (07:28.102)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, sure, sure. So for like basic mechanics, we still use a d20 for like making troublesome moves or for you know, discovering treasure. We still use d20 because you know, it took me in a little bit to understand how to use the d20 when I first started. So I want to get kids using the d20. But then for combat, which combat is fun, kids need combat, you know, they're playing

All the games, they're playing Fortnite, they're playing every single game. The combat needs to be there. So, but I have a dice pool system. So, the bigger the weapon, the more dice you hold. So, it's kind of a fun thing for a kid. You know, the more leveled up, the more dice they're holding in their hand. And then they're rolling a big slew of dice. In the same way, it looks really dangerous when you got a big bad guy, and I come up here, I'm the DM, and I got a big old handful of dice over here. So, we use a dice pool system.

But as far as some of the party games, like when you, familiars are a big thing in my game because kids love pets. And the mechanism for finding a familiar is a pictionary mechanism. So you're drawing and testing the other heroes to find your familiar. That's one of the mechanisms. And then, so.

This is another thing that I use to try to make it more okay for parents to buy. So as the game gets, uh, so there are 14 one night quests in my game as well in my book. And as you get towards the end, there's more end bosses, but like, as I found it kind of gets old and bloody and violent.

when something has a ton of hit points and you're just hacking at it and pieces are falling off, it's bleeding everywhere. I've been in those situations with adults. And I couldn't fully sign on for that for kids. So when it gets to the real end bosses in my game, you're doing drawing games. You're doing a, like a picture telephone, a drawing game where you draw something, you show it to the next player for only two and a half seconds and then they can't see it.

Adam Powell (09:20.723)
Hmm.

Kevin Sherry (09:45.654)
they have to draw that thing. It goes down the line. There's something called image scrimmage, where you start really small with a small idea, and then the players and the DM battle back and forth by drawing their next idea. And it's kind of like a clever game of one-upsmanship, but with drawing. So it stays like very...

Adam Powell (10:09.689)
Yeah.

Kevin Sherry (10:12.974)
kind of friendly and happy and like, you know, good mental, emotional environment. So listen, there's combat, there's violence. You can sneak up, you can, you know, you can, you can, that is all in the game, but when it gets to the end bosses, you battle them in their minds using these drawing games. So I think that's one of the things that kind of separates Scales and Tales from some other games that are geared towards kids as well.

Adam Powell (10:34.17)
Oh... Mmm.

Kevin Sherry (10:42.35)
Because I know that I know they're coming out. I know dads want to play with their kids, you know role-playing games Lord knows I do in the future, but I Have like these end boss drawing games, which I think are really fun and you can like literally incorporate them in your own Home brew or your own stories, too

Adam Powell (11:05.275)
Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned they're coming out for other titles. Scales and Tales, when is it available on bookshelves or available from retailers?

Kevin Sherry (11:14.186)
Yeah, it's coming out April and it's April. It's basically April now. So I know it's available for a pre-order, but they told me April. I don't know if that means April 1st. I don't know if that means April 15th, but it's dropping this month, April, 2024.

Adam Powell (11:31.231)
So once it's out and if you're listening to this in the future, go and go back and buy it. No, don't go back and buy it. Go and buy it. Bad wordage. It'll still be available for you to purchase. Go and pick it up. Link will be in the description below this podcast. Once it has been released, I'll make sure I go back and update that. So we're drawing a lot of inspiration from various...

Kevin Sherry (11:42.06)
It'll still be out.

Adam Powell (12:01.555)
sectors so we can sort of channel this energy down to incorporate family and younger players into our into our TTRPG games. You seem to be incredibly creative. Do you have other creative outputs at the moment that we could check out or other things we should be sort of looking from your good self?

Kevin Sherry (12:24.282)
Well, as an artist in America, you don't make much money, so you do have to do a lot of different stuff. So, yeah, I, like I said, I have 18 children, this is my 18th children's book. So there are some picture books for little ones. There are a lot of graphic novels. That's sort of what I specialize in. One is about a Yeti. It's called the Yeti Files. One is about a coral reef that's a school that's called squitting around.

Adam Powell (12:35.423)
Hmm.

Kevin Sherry (12:52.314)
So the and I'm the biggest thing in the ocean is my big splash hit picture book I'm also a puppeteer and We have a puppet theater here in Baltimore, Maryland called black cherry puppet theater that I perform at and it's brilliant there's a puppet master who's taught me so much and I actually the thing I do most

Authors will tell you the books themselves don't make that much money. So What I do is I book school visits at elementary schools With librarians and I'll go into an elementary school and have a whole inspirational slideshow and I Incorporate puppets. I have a dancing marionette. I put big heads on I put a big yeti head on

I play guitar songs for the kids and kind of get them pumped up about, you know, creativity, inspiration and the hard work that it actually takes to get by with art. So yeah, actually, like visiting elementary schools is my main gig. And you know, I'm an author, I'm an illustrator squarely. But to me, that means visiting elementary schools. So that's something I...

really love to do.

Adam Powell (14:19.567)
Yeah, it sounds like you're a constant source of inspiration, for sure. So with Scales and Tales, just sort of looping back around to that, with all this inspiration and sort of bringing these young people into the artistry and all these spheres of creativity, will we see more from you with respect to Scales and Tales, where there'll be follow-ups and things like that? Or is this a sort of, not a one and done thing, but something you're very proud of and that you'll move on to new...

Kevin Sherry (14:23.563)
Thank you.

Adam Powell (14:48.863)
projects once this is sort of released and out there in the wilds for us to enjoy.

Kevin Sherry (14:54.274)
Well, you know, with my other, but with being an author and being an artist, I'm constantly thinking of the next thing to do, because you need to keep making money, because the money you do make is not that much. So yes, I'm constantly thinking, I want another picture book out. I'm writing a middle school graphic novel. But this is something I'm going to stick with, I'm going to linger with for much longer than a normal book cycle, this Scales and Tales, because it actually has

more content to it than just a story. It also has the ability for children to create their own stories. There's this great stuff in my book that has a backstory generator. There's a generator for campaigns, a generator for settings. So, you know, it gets kids writing stories, which I think is great.

You know, if kids can kind of frame it as like, oh, I'm doing this, you know, I know video games, I know Fortnite, I know Minecraft, but like, this is just on paper. Okay, let me do it on paper. I think we've done a great thing to, you know, get their minds off the screen. That's okay that they're on the screen. We're in the future, baby, you know what I mean? But like, also, maybe this book will help them see that maybe we can take some stories.

You know that are swirling in their mind that they maybe have been inspired by a little bit of fortnight or a little bit of zelda over here and let's funnel that into a Something that's really on paper. That's really with friends that can also add in things experiences from their own lives so

Adam Powell (16:37.607)
Yeah, that would be incredible. So you've mentioned the 14 sort of one night quests and the content of the book and the party games. Were there any particular challenges that came up when you were putting the book together?

Kevin Sherry (16:52.118)
Hmm when we were putting the book together challenges well, you know when we were putting the book together like Dungeons and Dragons was doing that thing where they were like We're gonna monitor everyone and see what they're doing. So that did give my publishers a bit of a royal Really? Oh should we keep it the same way? But You know my left my rules are so base level. They are they do

Stay true to a lot of role-playing games, but there's something to build on. Kids can start, or anyone really, kids and adults, they can start with my rules, and as they level up to the different kinds of role-playing games, and different kinds of dungeons and dragons, different kinds of in-depth things, all they'll be doing is adding more depth to it. You know, they're not gonna have to change their brains to get on to, you know, what other people know about.

role-playing.

Adam Powell (17:51.071)
Yeah, absolutely. And so these 14 one-night quests, each very special in their own way, I imagine, do you have a particular personal favorite of the 14?

Kevin Sherry (18:05.946)
Oh, yeah, it is a really fun, I mean, it's a really fun quest. You start at the school, and the school is ransacked, and the, um, and the, uh, the mascot, the Moondrake, Tazzafer, the Moondrake, is kidnapped. Okay, so, then it's 14 nights, onto an island, onto a giant, animate island, turns out to be a giant toad.

You know, and you know, there's an airship level where you're in the air and little Thopters full of bad guys are attacking you. There's one where you're on a ship There's one where you have to sneak around a castle full of bad guys There's basically a kind of like a trope of every One night quest there's one where you have to go in and out of little businesses in a town

So I tried to make each one of the 14 night quest, there's a, you have to attack, you have to infiltrate and get something from a castle, a big muddy castle full of trolls. There's like every night, I wanted to be specifically different, whether it's on the water, in the air, in a dungeon, in a castle, in a city, open air. So it kind of like hits, it shows kids, you know.

all the settings that these things can have.

Adam Powell (19:33.691)
Yeah, it's just incredible that you've been able to sort of bring all that together in such a user-friendly format and allow us to explore and go into these games with our families and children, whether it be in a school setting or around the family table or other places, youth clubs and so on and so forth. So with all of that sort of...

going on and swirling and moving in the background. Do you have a favorite monster within the book that has inspired you to sort of build on that outside of scales and tales, maybe something to carry on just niggling in the back of the mind to sort of move on your own creativity?

Kevin Sherry (20:26.414)
The monster? One of the monsters we do. Um, what would I say? We battle a good Hydra where the heads switch around and the Hydra actually becomes a drawing game. When you chop off a head, you roll a dice and the dice tell you what the new head is gonna be. It's a wide variety of things and you can't defeat the Hydra until you have the correct combination of kinds of heads.

Adam Powell (20:27.472)
A monster, yeah, why not?

Kevin Sherry (20:56.034)
So it's a mixed up Hydra. It's one of the funnest knights. And that's kind of just one of the, that's one of the knights where you're just traipsing through the woods, avoiding bat-like little caiman alligators, and then you come upon this really mixed up Hydra. And that's a good one.

Adam Powell (21:17.599)
I love it. That is amazing. And you mentioned not really getting the chance to play D&D until you were into your 30s, and you've come up with this fantastic rule system. Have you been able to expand out and play other rule systems, maybe in the conceptual parts of putting scales and tails together, or have you more D20 focused in your experience?

Kevin Sherry (21:42.274)
I'm G20 focused. And basically what I've, you know, I've been a party member with some writers and like I said, severed books, Justin Sorois. But honestly, if you wanna play, you're gonna DM. So me as like a known writer here in Baltimore, people expect me to DM. Do you know what I'm saying? So if I wanna play, I'm dungeon mastering. I'm the game master. I don't get to be a

I don't get to be a player that much. And that's okay with me. I'd rather get the people around the table. Something we do, the thing we do play is something called Cave Evil. I don't know if you know Cave Evil. It was developed by a bunch of noise musicians and it is punishing. And it has stark black and white, very creepy artwork.

And me and my friends go in a basement and we will jam hard on Cave Evil, which I also recommend. And those dudes are cool, if you could get them on too. Shout out Cave Evil.

Adam Powell (22:56.623)
I'll put a link in the description below and maybe try and touch base and see what their schedule's like, for sure. So we've spoken about the book, its contents, monsters, the puzzles, how you got into tabletop role-playing games and things like that. How have you found the?

Kevin Sherry (23:04.035)
They're cool.

Adam Powell (23:24.991)
the inclusivity of the TTRPG sphere building around... So this game is for young people from everywhere. Have you found that the TTRPG sphere is opening out to new places and new people?

Kevin Sherry (23:44.466)
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the reasons was to get people around the table, get people talking. We have a great game store called No Land Beyond here in Baltimore and they are constantly hosting really inclusive D&D nights, model making, model painting, of course some MTG in there, you know, like.

Just really inclusive, great place, really community hub. And I think that sort of like RPGs, tabletop RPGs, and just like gaming in general, is where inclusivity really thrives. You know, we all know, we're all around the table for a common reason, you know? And if we're gonna be included, this is the place.

of course this is the place to be, to do it. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it's been lovely.

Adam Powell (24:49.807)
Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned when you want to play, you have to GM or DM. The terms are interchangeable depending on systems and all that sort of good stuff. So not necessarily just for scales and tails, but as a now experienced dungeon master, games master, any advice you would give from your own experiences and perspective, and obviously each GM is different and tables and various things, but any advice you would share?

Kevin Sherry (24:58.252)
Yeah.

Adam Powell (25:19.259)
of things you've learned through your GMing experience.

Kevin Sherry (25:23.93)
I just think I give out rewards. I shower the people but I have you know, I have my tables set up So if I want to give out, you know a lot of kind of treasure I set up my d20 tables of treasure of Magical items before it starts and then the magical items that the players get become narrative tools instantly So they're like, you know the more kind of crazy stuff you give them the more the narration is going to be entertaining

Kevin Sherry (25:54.739)
What was the other thing I was gonna say? I can't remember, can't get back there. But that's what I'll say. Just have your table set up. And yeah, yeah.

Adam Powell (26:09.403)
Well, sage advice. If the other thing comes to you, please feel free to just throw it on out there. So one thing I failed to do as a host, and I do apologize, is to get your... Where can we find you? Where can we find you on the internet? Where can we find you on social media? Outside of coming in person to your shows in Baltimore? Where can people come to connect with you in that aspect?

Kevin Sherry (26:31.534)
Sure, just search Kevin Sherry. There are a couple other of them, but I think I'll probably come up first. And then, I'm kevinsherry underscore on Instagram. I do Instagram the most. There's a Scales and Tales RPG Instagram. I have a YouTube channel that I intend to put some more gaming videos up. There's more drawing based things on my YouTube right now, but I intend to put some more RPG based things on my YouTube.

My website is kevi It's not very fancy, it's just to kind of get in touch with me. But yeah, really just buy the book. Buy Scales and Tales. It's fresh, it's cute, but you know, there's so much content there. Even for experienced gamers, I am absolutely certain that there's something in there, some weird table, some weird mechanism that like they will be joyful to put into their own.

games.

Adam Powell (27:33.339)
have to say that the hydra, but the interchangeable, maybe not the right word, the variable heads, I think is spawn and one eye will be taken away because that sounds epic. So just before we come to the end, Kevin, is there anything else you'd like to add at this stage of the interview? Anything we haven't brought up yet?

Kevin Sherry (27:57.014)
No, honestly, this is of all the you know, this is my this is my children's book And I didn't I didn't like ever really know I was gonna be a oh, I'm showing it. We're not this is audio but I you know, I this book scales and tales is the book I always wanted to read as a kid and It's it's been an incredible honor to be an author a published author at all

But it's even more of an honor to put out this book that I think is gonna inspire so many kids. Because this is the book I would have wanted to read as a kid. It would have explained a lot. I wouldn't have had to wait till I was 30 to understand some of these things. But yeah, this is the book I always wanted to write. I'm really proud of it. So yeah, thanks so much for having me here.

Adam Powell (28:53.639)
So I will make sure there are links down to Scales and Tales, your own personal socials and website, and Cave Evil as well, and a few other things we've mentioned during the course of this interview. So please scroll down, follow those links, support Kevin's support, Scales and Tales, and support bringing our future into the future of TTRPGs. Kevin, it has been such a pleasure to get the chance to chat with you today.

Kevin Sherry (29:04.843)
I'm sorry.

Adam Powell (29:22.1)
about Scales and Tales, roleplay games, and a whole myriad of things. So thank you so much for joining me.

Kevin Sherry (29:28.422)
It was an honor, Adam. Thank you for having me. It's been a joy to talk about. And I hope some people pick it up. Thank you so much.

Adam Powell (29:36.063)
That's all right. Well, should you release more books in the future along this line or expand on Scales and Tales or something else TTRPG related? I would love to get you back on the show in the future if of course you'd be willing to join me.

Kevin Sherry (29:49.588)
Of course, yeah, this is lovely.

Adam Powell (29:51.451)
All right, well thank you so much for being my guest today, Kevin. It's been a real pleasure.

Kevin Sherry (29:56.903)
Okay, peace, talk to you later.

Adam Powell (30:00.063)
Okay, bye.