Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop role playing podcast. If you haven't seen my guest today on social media, then you may need to get your eyes checked. If you have, then you should join his tabletop fandom. And then come with us as we delve beneath the surface layer to see what develops below. We are going beyond mere dungeons to a place of modularity with a master of any universe. The bad guy himself, Mr. Adam Bradford. Adam, welcome to the show.
Adam Bradford:Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Snyders Return:It's an absolute pleasure and such a joy to have you agreed to come on. Adam, before we get into your your work and, and everything that's sort of moving into the future, would you mind to give us a bit of background about yourself and how you got into tabletop role playing games, please?
Adam Bradford:Yeah. So I was born on a cold April. No. We won't start all the way back. Yeah, I. So I have lived here in Huntsville, Alabama, which is where we have offices today, my entire life. And so just, you know, happen happen to be here, I've had the good fortune to be able to travel quite a bit. But this has been home base for me for a long time. And as I was growing up, always an imaginative kid, I've been an artist since as long as I could hold a pencil. And so, you know, essentially Dungeons and Dragons would have been the best thing to ever happen to five year old Adam. But unfortunately, I didn't really come into the game until I was about 15. Because here in the area of the world where I live, the Bible Belt, the satanic panic was a very real thing back in the 80s. And so so yeah, it was it was just a kind of a roadblock. And that didn't happen. I love the DND cartoon back then. And as I was coming into high school, I actually ended up seeing, you know, one of this kind of ironic, it was actually a minister at a church, which ordinarily would be very against these kind of things, introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. And it really was not to, you know, dramatic size it too much. But it was kind of a life changing event. And it was kind of like finding, finding a home for all this imaginative energy that I had had all along the way. And so played, I guess I've played for 25 years or so at this point in time. And of course, that is not, I never thought that this would develop into a career by any means. So it was always just playing for fun, the top hobby that I had. And, you know, ultimately, things have a way of working out and found my way to this little company called curse after spending more than a decade in defence and aerospace. Huntsville is actually called the rocket city. So there's a lot of NASA presence and, and everything here and so worked at fortune 500 here in town that was, you know, electronic manufacturing, definitely not what I do today. And I had the good fortune to learn all about business, while maintaining all of those, you know, hobbies that I had that were gaming related, primarily Dungeons and Dragons. And then this video game company called curse moved into my backyard, they moved their headquarters here to Huntsville, and I kind of started asking the question, Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? Or do I want to maybe have something a little more adventurous, so took a shot at trying to work there, they didn't even have a role open for me. But I said, Hey, you should hire me. And, and I did. And and then, you know, it was a year or two later. And this thing that became dungeons in d&d beyond. It was started there.
Snyders Return:And that's, I'd say the grace was literally greener on the other side of the fence.
Adam Bradford:Yeah, again, it was just one of those things. So I have a degree in religion and a degree in sociology, actually. And so if you had asked me in college, if you had asked me in high school, what would you be doing? Today? There is just no way that I would have come up with this answer. And you know, I think a lot of people talk about dream jobs all the time. And I think that this I could not really call this a dream. job because that would indicate that there was an actual, you know, idea that this job even existed in order for me to dream about it. But, but yeah, I think that I've definitely backed into what I could maybe, you know, quantify as, you know, the closest thing to a dream job that someone could have.
Snyders Return:That's amazing. That is amazing. Do you mind if I rewind the clock a little bit through that? So you said that you sort of picked up dungeons of dragons having sort of been introduced to it a bit, bit later than some others? And you said mainly d&d, what other systems Did you experiment with before sort of being where you are today? Yeah, so
Adam Bradford:actually, you know, I guess being entirely historically accurate here, I started playing Western games Star Wars as my first role playing game. So because for whatever reason, here with the satanic panic, it was completely okay to play as you know, crazy wizards using the force instead of, instead of casting the spells of the day, and so we actually played Star Wars for a couple of years. And then we eventually gravitated towards dragon lands. So that was the first experience I had with actually playing d&d. So played Star Wars, the western games version still holds a very special place in my heart, but then moving into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. And then really, from there in those first five years after I realised what role playing games were, I played virtually anything I could get my hands on. And I, you know, I think the highlight that I would call out there was, there was a saga version of Marvel superheroes that was made. And it kind of, you know, around, there was a saga version of Dragon Lance. And then there was a Marvel version of it, that TSR had put out, and that was probably outside of d&d, and that Western game Star Wars. I would say that that card game, so it was card based instead of dice based. Some of the fondest memories I have from those early days were definitely from that game. Because I love superheroes. As I mentioned, I'm an artist I do. Comic art has always been my favourite type of art. And I collect comics. And so seeing that personified in a role playing game was a dream come true. So I really, really loved that too. But yeah, I played virtually anything that my local game store had, I would, you know, purchase that and crack that open. Wow, you
Snyders Return:certainly have a eclectic mix of skills. If you don't mind me saying, artist, have you degrees, you have the experience with the missile city as it were an all that side and the business side of stuff. So Wow, you potentially could wear many hats until you manufactured your own job in a company who'd moved in next door?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, that's a, that's a really great way to put it. So you know, people ask me what my title is all the time. And I have to provide a good bit of explanation. Typically, it's like, well, this is the made up title of VP of tabletop, that I now have here at Phantom. But yeah, you know, and I think that a big part of that the wearing many hats is something that, you know, I think I could just Group A lot of that into a couple of categories that have, you know, just been strengths for me over the years, which is, you know, being being creative, but then also being a, you know, kind of relentless and being able to, you know, take initiative on things. And so with d&d, beyond for instance, I came into the company there with curse and curse was historically a video gaming based company, nothing about tabletop gaming. But the second day that I was on the job, we were in this gigantic company retreat, and all of the executives were talking about, hey, we need to move outside of the video gaming space, it's getting too crowded. We need to move into other types of verticals and we need to figure out how to make money outside of display advertising because media businesses are really having a hard time in today's world with adblock and everything else and and so you know, with that, of course, on my second day on the job, I didn't want to be that overeager new guy and so I didn't quite you know, say hey, you should do this DND thing, but I play I played the long game there. I started building a case internally that like, you know, look at how much this industry is growing. Look at how much expertise you have. Here with with me And hey, you know, these people that started a game and many of the people in the office had never played. And, and I'll never forget, after I ran that first session, we had one of the players went out and spent, you know, 350 $400 on miniatures the very next day, and they were just, you know, hook line and sinker. They love Dungeons and Dragons. And so they helped me sell the case, and, and all of that got off the ground. And as that was getting off the ground, we had a such a small team, there were, you know, four of us really starting out with that. And in the middle of that, that meant that wherever there were gaps, since it was, you know, up to me, and it was my responsibility to make this thing happen. Ultimately, the buck stopped with me, that meant that I ended up having to fill in a lot of gaps. And so I do have, again, the art background. So I did a lot of the design I, you know, entered content, I literally did, you know, all the things and I think that the eclectic mix of the background, helped with that quite a bit. But I think there's also just a willingness to step in and do what's needed to ultimately make something happen. And, and that was what we were fortunate enough to do with d&d beyond was, was to make that happen. And I think that, you know, the those are the things that I probably enjoy personally doing more than anything, I love seeing that act of creation take place, where you start with, you know, nothing, and then you move to something that actually exists. And especially if that thing is something that others can appreciate.
Snyders Return:Before we move on to the title you made up for the job you made for yourself, and a company that moved in next door. Before we move on to that, you mentioned the creative side, starting from nothing, what piece of artwork Do You Do you still do all the drawing? And where would someone saw recognise a piece of your artwork?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, that's a great question. So a lot of the early artwork, so I genuinely thought I was going to try to break into the comics industry when I was in college. So I had a portfolio and I was, you know, studying all the ways this was, you know, very early internet days. And so, you know, it's a lot harder than it is today to kind of at least get your stuff out there. But a lot of that stuff, I don't even know where that has been buried. But over the years, I've continued to paint so I'm actually staring at a painting right now that unfortunately, is taking me longer than I'd like because I have to do it in 10 minutes spurts in between meetings, typically now, but I'm painting a scene from a charity stream that I did recently where they auctioned off one of my paintings as as one of the incentives to donate but um, you know, I definitely paint today and then I think this was a an interesting one, I love graphic t shirt design. And my wife will tell you, I'm pretty sure that she is actually recently counted I have you know, well over 100 graphic t shirts and so I I got into t shirt design so probably the best place for people to see a little bit of my artwork would be you can go to ripped apparel or T public COMM And you can search for bad eyes. So you're going to find bad is my my username there and and you should see some of my T shirt design. So you're going to get again, I have a lot of interest, a lot of types of fandoms and so you're going to see doctor who you're going to see Marvel, you're going to see you know, just just all over the place different things that I've designed out there. So that's probably the most public thing that I have out as far as my artwork goes.
Snyders Return:Okay, and so definitely see if I can find a link to that to put in the description below. But where else can people find you then? Not just selling graphic t shirts?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, I think that the place that I probably hang out the most is Twitter so you can do at bad i Adam there and part of the reason that I like Twitter is because pretty much found any of the other places are take me too long to read. Because time is very hard for me to find. So I you know, I just I actually I was one of the lucky ones that got a PS five recently. And of course that was primarily spurred about because I have a 15 year old and 11 year old son. And so with that they wanted it very badly and I have barely played the thing. So you know, it's like, time is tough to find but but yeah, Twitter is bite sized enough for me to jump in there occasionally. So you can definitely find me there. I answer a lot of questions there. discord is another Place so I hover around the d&d beyond and the cortex, discord servers as well. So those are probably the best places.
Snyders Return:Right? Well, I will put links to those in the description below a quick question sidebar possibly a bit personal. What's the top game in your house at the moment, given the PS five is still relatively new?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, it's got to be miles mirallas it's, it's just super, super strong. I'm a huge fan of the IP already. So just Marvel Comics, and especially what we've seen take place over the last, you know, 10 or 11 years here with the Marvel Cinematic Universe that has really emerged as kind of my top tier fandom. absolutely adore what we've seen in in seeing those characters come to life. So it's been really great and so anything Spider Man related is already going to have quite a leg up on any competition for me, but yeah, Miles Morales is really well done. It runs unbelievably on this PS five, and it really is just one of the prettiest games I've seen. And and there's just something there's something so great about that character and and you know, just what he represents in our world, you know, with just you know, representation and everything else that's going on with with miles he he is just one of my favourite characters. When, when miles was introduced in the comics, I read that entire Bendis run, when that came out, like that was one of the few comics at that time. Because I was didn't have the most disposable income at that time. And I was one of the few that I made sure that I had every month and so yeah, Mr. Miles Morales has special place in my heart and He looks really, really great on the PlayStation five.
Snyders Return:And it carries over the aesthetic from into the spider verse if I'm not mistaken.
Adam Bradford:Yeah, it's so you know, it, there was a really strong Spider Man game on ps4 that I also loved. And of course, they've remastered it for the PS five and, and what I what I love about what they're doing there is they've built up this very believable version of New York City. It looks great, it feels right, the swinging feels really good. And so it looks like they're trying to kind of build a video game universe that takes place there. And so yeah, you You see, Peter, in the game, you see miles, some of the you know, I won't provide any spoilers here. But I think it's very reasonable to think that they would introduce, you know, some other members of the spider verse there. And it would not surprise me if we saw a sequel, whether it's the next one or possibly the one after that, that, you know, we would have a scenario where you could probably play as multiple versions, and it's probably going to take that track of going very similar to the animated movie. I think, as much as I love the MCU. And everything I just said it's going to be really, really challenging for me to pick an actual favourite Marvel film between something like the Winter Soldier or into the spider verse, because even though it's animated, it is just you know, so well done. So well executed. It really is just a masterpiece.
Snyders Return:Totally, totally agree. But speaking of fundamental, bringing this back to your your work, and not just your passion, your passion and your work, but maybe your fandom, expand a little bit because people probably have seen your developer updates on Twitch or Twitter with the link to twitch and all that sort of good stuff. So when cursed became fandom and d&d beyond started to grow. How have you found working there? And where is it? In your eyes going? in the future?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, so I think, you know, again, I am a very transparent person. And, and, you know, I want to not bury the lede here and say that I love working for fandom. And I think that d&d, beyond has had resources that it would just never have had access to, in the former environment, we were owned by Twitch, you know, for a time before fandom, and it really was just a situation where Twitch, saw that, you know, this was really successful early on, but they didn't know what to do with it. And it really didn't align with their core mission, which they are pretty laser focused on there at Twitch, which, you know, actually is a very good thing. I have a lot of respect for what they're, they're trying to accomplish there. But, you know, this was just a part of their business that didn't make a lot of sense for them. And thankfully, Amazon, you know, unless I'm mistaken, I've been told Amazon has never, which, by the way, Amazon owns twitch also. So I know that that's a little bit of a What are those Russian dolls, that you know everything inside of each other but, but ultimately, you know, I've been told that Amazon has never actually sold a company and that we were the first. And, you know, because I think Amazon most of the time, if they want to divest from something, they close it, because it's a, it's probably easier to do that. But um, you know, they saw that we were, you know, just really, really doing well, and they let us go and fandom came in. And again, it's provided resources, you know, the flip side of that is naturally with anything as it's getting off the ground, you know, is, is a different part of the lifecycle of a platform or a product than when, you know, something has to scale. And so, you know, d&d, beyond, from the start of development has been around just over four years from the start of development, we've been launched and released for three years. But, you know, I think that, in that time, we have scaled just rapidly. So as I said, Before, we started with four of us. And we probably have, you know, across the organisation 40 or 50, people working on d&d beyond, and of course, you know, cortex and just kind of fandom, the tabletop part of fandom at this point. And so, anytime you go from that small of a group to as large of a group as we are right now, lots and lots of growing pains of just seeing this happen, you know, so many times over my career, and I think that what is really great about where we are here at fandom and one of the challenges that I appreciate and kind of enjoy tackling at this point, is doing the best that we can to remember, what made us special in the first place with d&d beyond and you know, making sure that we don't lose that loving feeling, so to speak, as as we continue to scale. And, you know, something, again, I told you, I have a degree in religion, and sociology and sociologists, and theologians talk about something called the Prophet priest cycle. And you see this play out in businesses a lot of the time too, and it's just this idea that when something is starting, whether it's a movement, or an organisation, or a business, you know, whatever you're doing, a lot of times it starts very prophetically, you know, you've got, you know, small group of people or an individual, you know, most of the time charismatic, that's kind of getting something off the ground. And then, you know, as that movement or organisation continues to grow, you get to a point, and I've seen this play out myself, where you can't be in all the places and you can't, you know, have that kind of prophetic voice be in all of the operations that are going on with that. So in order for that thing to thrive in order for that thing to actually grow, a priesthood has to develop, that, you know, can understand that prophetic voice. And be be sure that that propagates across that movement or that organisation. And so I think that, you know, with what's going on with fandom tabletop right now, we have just such so many opportunities ahead of us. And, and I'll touch on that here after a take a breath in a second. But, but yeah, I think that, you know, we're just in that phase right now, where we are trying to work through the growing pains of figuring out how to, you know, best to make sure that we don't lose that prophetic voice, that that made us unique in the first place. And make sure that at the same time that we can scale where we can serve more and more fans, and we can, you know, do bigger and better things. And to me, that's a that's a really, really worthwhile challenge. And, you know, I can sink my teeth into that just as much as you know, starting something from nothing.
Snyders Return:So, while you catch your breath, and thank you for that exposition effectively with respect to the growing pains of the group, the teamwork, sort of keeping the fan base engaged and things like that, there are a lot of things in either alpha testing or beta testing or have run the course into a finalised models. What if you are able to sort of give a hint what is just beyond the horizon with respect to any of those newer developments?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, I think you know, the the next steps for us with Dungeons and Dragons in particular, but of course, we're starting our work on cortex here. And really for both of those, but then you know, who knows what the future holds possibly even other rules systems in the future. We want to start moving more and more, you know, we've got character management and the ability to find things quickly. And easily listings Compendium content that we have all of those things were, you know, in a pretty strong spot with those now. And as we're looking towards the future, we are very much so looking into how do we unlock and enable more convenience customization and really just captivation that we call them the three C's, convenience, customization and captivation for the fanbase in, in virtual place. So we've seen with the, as this pandemic, is just, you know, unfortunately ravaging, especially our country, right now, people are turning more and more into just playing playing online and finding the joy that they're seeking through playing these types of games. And so, you know, regardless of how the pandemic resolves itself plays out, I think that people are going to just see on even on the other side of this, that playing these games remotely is still a really viable way to connect and, and again, have that fun with their friends. And so we're trying to move into that virtual part. So we will have a virtual tabletop. You know, we don't call it a VTT really, we call it a virtual gamespace or VGS. Because I think that our final offering, you know, impossibly not the initial offering, but kind of the end state of where we're going is is absolutely going to be next gen over what, you know, we currently have out there today, the existing btts are, you know, pretty, pretty long in the tooth from a development standpoint, they started many years ago. And so when we were starting d&d beyond, we intentionally did not kind of go the VTT route, we could have gone there first. But we knew that with existing virtual tabletops out there that it was would be a good idea for us to focus in the gaps and the places that were not really strongly covered and where people didn't have solutions in the community. And so that's why we focused on presenting the rules content in the easiest to use way. And then we focused on kind of character management as a first step. And of course, we are starting to get into what we call challenge management. So you know, encounters combat, those kinds of things are starting to kind of see their beginnings. And then the logical next step would be to come back now, and connect all of those threads together into some kind of virtual plague experience. And so I you know, we actually had a hackathon here at fandom over the last couple of days, and even just seeing some beginnings of what you know, that virtual experience is going to look like, is really exciting to see
Snyders Return:the size of the the sort of the technology and your progression and development through DMD, beyond or bring it back to that virtual gaming space that you're looking to sort of introduce in the future rather than of being, shall we say, somewhat dated, such as other virtual tabletops?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, so. So ultimately, yeah, what we are looking to do in the virtual game space that we are going to develop, is really to just bring it into a next gen category. And, you know, because of the older technology that's out there in the space right now, we think that there's room for quite a bit more and and that's what we've really been looking forward to offering, we wanted to first get in there and make character management. And we're working on kind of what we call challenge management, and everything going on with encounters and combat tracking, and all of that, we're kind of seeing the early stages of that for us. But then we do want to move into tying all of those elements together. So it's kind of been a stair step approach for us. But tying all of those things together. And the result is really, really remarkable. And it's hard to describe to people until they get their hands on it. So you know, using a very concrete example, we have something that you know, I won't give any dates necessarily here, but it's not going to be too too far down the horizon, where people are going to see shared dice rolling. So you've probably seen that we've introduced digital dice and some dice rolling happens on d&d beyond now, and I think that with this shared dice rolling concept, it will allow everyone to connect in a game session, and then everyone can roll dice on their own screen and then those results will be all in one place. And of course, this is something that roll 20 and fantasy grounds and you know existing virtual tabletops have done but what is fascinating when I have used this, and the various Very early, you know, almost pre alpha, you know, versions of this, the way that it is integrating all of the things together without having to do, you know, hours of setup to get it to do that through macros or, you know, whatever else the current gen v TTS do. Even that kind of integration just makes that experience so easy to use. So, you know, just kind of delightful to use. And so what's going to be fascinating is, as all that integration, you know, all the work that we've done with character management, challenge management, combat tracking, all of that is going to really culminate in a virtual tabletop, virtual game space experience that it, you know, feels really, really seamless. And that's the part that I'm excited for people to start to see that To be honest, we wouldn't have had that kind of seamless experience. Had we simply started with, hey, we need a canvas to move virtual miniatures around, and then we're going to add some fog of war. Like if we'd started there, we might be struggling to get some of that. Just you know, that feel and that integration, right. But since we started on the other direction, the other side of that, now that we're integrating, to be honest, some of the easier parts, like getting a canvas, where you can move around some, some miniatures is not the hard part, I think, you know, some of the harder parts or some of the things that we've already done.
Snyders Return:Hmm, absolutely. And tomorrow, one of your three C's is captivating, and I can't wait to see it all starts to play out and and be there for people such as myself, subscribers and users of d&d beyond. So that sort of ties up some loose ends or questions I'm sure we could potentially discuss that for. You probably run out of time before I would. But so that sort of ties up that side of stuff. Would you mind give us a primer on cortex and how you guys have found a bringing, but to the role tabletop role playing space?
Adam Bradford:So yeah, cortex is a really exciting opportunity for us. And for me, personally, I am really, really thrilled about what is happening with cortex. And of course, most people aren't sure what's, what is actually happening with it at this point, because we're just starting out but cortex really started as I started thinking through, you know, hey, we've got what we're doing on d&d beyond, but they're, you know, on the fandom side, especially the wiki side of our business, we work with so many partners out there that really love what we do. And of course, we love what they do. And I know that role playing fans, constantly, you can go to Reddit, you can go to discord, you can go to anywhere that people talk about these things. They are always thinking about ways to play in their favourite worlds. And, you know, the truth is something like the 20 system that Dungeons and Dragons uses. A good bit of the time can be a square peg in a round hole, because d&d is its own ecosystem. And by the way, it's an ecosystem I adore. So I love playing d&d, but but you know, I think it is really its own ecosystem that provides one kind of experience. And so we started asking the question, is there a way that we can leverage some of our learnings from what we've done with d&d beyond and understanding more and more about the space and reach out to those partners and see if we can create role playing experiences in those other IPS out there. And in order to do that, we had a decision, you know, hey, we can build this internally, I've done some game design, we can obviously, you know, hire the best of the best. And we can start putting a system together. Or we could try to find a system that would support the kind of flexibility and modularity that we would need in order to, you know, be able to work with these IPS and realise the worlds that they have put together. And so cortex, dates all the way back to the serenity role playing game. That is actually where it gets its name, because in that universe, the internet is called the cortex. So So ultimately, it comes way back there. But then cortex supported game in Battlestar Galactica, leverage supernatural Smallville, and then it ended up doing the latest version of Marvel role playing, which was called Marvel heroic role playing. So with, with all of that cortex proved itself as a very adaptable storytelling system that can bring these worlds to life, and I was part of Margaret Weis productions, Margaret was looking to retire from the game design part of the business anyway. And as she was looking to do, so there was an opportunity for fandom to acquire that rule system to support our vision for, you know, kind of realising some of these franchise worlds out there. And, you know, the decision really came down to, again, we can make this internally and spend 1000s of hours playtesting it or we can find an award winning system that's already been play tested extensively that we know people already like. And so the the decision came down to acquiring cortex. So we did that a little over a year ago. And everything is kind of just now starting to come together. So we had Critical Role talk about the cortex, prime game Handbook, in their last episode. And, and so that book is out, you can get that the hardcover now the hardcover comes with a digital code to unlock the the digital version. And it's a beautiful book like it, you know, again, I've talked a little bit about my art background, we ended up working with 48 artists, and I'm really very excited about the fact that out of those 48 artists, only two of them were sis white males. And so I you know, I believe, unless someone corrects me, it's probably the most diverse cast of artists that have ever been used for a project like this. And the end result is just stellar. It's it's one of the best looking books, I'm heavily biassed, obviously. But I've seen some reviews out there that agree with me, that it's one of the most beautiful hardcovers that's ever come out in the space. And that's the foundational book and and cortex is all about being pretty much a Lego set. And it's a framework that you can then take and build those bricks into whatever kinds of sets you want. So I'm sitting here staring at a razor's crest Mandalorian. Lego set, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and put together with my son at some point. But you know, it's like, you can use those Legos to build out whatever kind of game that you want to. And that's where cortex is really, really powerful. And so we've kind of started the IP side of that, with we have signed wonder storms, the dragon prints, and then Mattel's Masters of the Universe. So both of those games will be releasing at some point in 2021. And we have others that I can't talk about yet that are in the pipeline after that, that were just, you know, terribly excited about. So yeah, cortex is about to be something that everyone is going to know about. It's probably a circumstance where a lot of people don't yet. But you know, give give it a year here and people are going to really know what cortex is because we're really hitting the ground running. And we'll we'll make sure that we're shouting it from the rooftops.
Snyders Return:Yeah, no, definitely. And if you because I was reading the the your website, which is really informative given gives a great sort of breakdown of just how the system can work and how it how the modularity can work for you. And you mentioned some of the great IPS. Most of the universe, you were in a martial universe stream, I think when you wait a little while ago.
Adam Bradford:Yeah, so during power con this last year. So again, everyone who does conventions is having to do so much adjustment at this point, to try to figure out how to do that in our pandemic world. But power con went virtual. And during power con, we had a situation where we pulled in Felicia Day, Phil LaMarr I'm huge fans of both of them. So Phil LaMarr voices Samurai jack, which is one of my absolute favourite animated series, but um, and then we had Tiffany Smith, and those three influencers joined cam banks, who is our lead designer and our creative director that works for me on cortex and the five of us if I'm doing Matt Yeah, five of us there played a sample and counter from legends of grey skull. And I think one of the best things that people have told me about seeing that at play is they do recognise that it really is a collaborative storytelling game. It's not as transactional maybe as d&d, that you know, hey, I roll on attack and, and that beats an armour class and so therefore, I do you know, I roll my damage. All of that's great. And that's an experience that I love having myself but, you know, core cortex is looking for something a little Different there's, there's a lot of player agency. And again, it focuses a little less on just kind of the crunch of what's happening in that transactional way and more on, you know, the role playing elements of that. So I'm really excited for people to see that I adore the world of stadia from the dragon Prince. That's one of those that my son's, my family and I, we just, we watch it the moment that releases we binge every season of that show. It's just been renewed for four more seasons, which is unprecedented for Netflix to do that. So you know, really excited about that one. And then yeah, Masters of the Universe, I've got behind me on the shelf here. Some of my original he man Skeletor toys, and it's just, it really is three year old Adam never would have dreamed being able to work on a role playing game in the Motu world.
Snyders Return:Amazing. And I, to me, reading through it, it sort of ties in what's really good about a game like city of mist that is very much sort of that sort of episodic narrative driven game, and something like savage worlds that it's very sort of modular and flexible, but bringing it together, and creating this new new IP that you can, as you say, it's like the Lego set. And I've just double check in there, into the Motherland, the Dave Walters and Seifer tear project also uses the cortex system.
Adam Bradford:Yeah, I think that was one of the early confirmations that we've had, that are, you know, things that we can publicly talk about, at the moment where we saw, you know, hey, there is a thread to pull here with cortex. And that was, you know, because Tanya and B Dave and some of the other folks associated with into the motherland's, we're aware of the work that we've done on d&d beyond and they're friends of d&d beyond, and of course, we've worked with them. Many times in the past, they were, you know, kind of given this, this ability to have a stream show, and be able to create their own content. So they were able to create whatever they wanted twitch sponsored that. And, you know, they didn't have much time to do it. Like, you know, by the time it was like, Hey, you can have, you know, 11 or 12 episodes, before the end of the year, they didn't have much time to pull that together. And so they actually, you know, came to us and said, Hey, you know, do you think cortex would work with this. And so, cam, you know, consulted with them for just a little while, showed them a little bit of what was going on with cortex. And it was, you know, a perfect fit for what they were trying to do. And so, I think it highlights the flexibility and the power of the framework in the system that is cortex to be able to do something like that as quickly as all that came together. And it's been fascinating to see them, you know, kind of creating as they go here, as they're playing that out, I can tell you that for, you know, it actually started with legends of grey skull, this was the first conversation that we had had about it. So you know, as we were trying to sign some of our first intellectual properties out there, that were going to be on cortex, we were going to put together kind of in a second meeting with Mattel, we were going to put together a demo place session. And in core, of course, in order to do that, you have to have a game. And so cam, and I spent three hours on a Saturday, just kind of fleshing out what that game would look like. And genuinely, at the end of that three hours, we have a fully playable game that I think really captures the feel of what's going on with with the Masters of the Universe setting. And, you know, obviously, we've made updates, and there are things to continue to flesh out through playtesting. But by and large, the things that we talked about in those first three hours, are still there in the game today that we're internally play testing. So again, it really just comes down to the power of the system, and the fact that it is that flexible, that, you know, more or less you can have any trait you could imagine. And those things can come together and kind of that core conceit of roll a dice pool and keep the highest to holds true, you know, regardless of the some of the specifics there. And And so yeah, I think I think it's fascinating to see how the core and the foundation of these games how quickly that can come together. But then there is that other element of polish and being able to add some of the other we call them mods, the ways that you can Modify the game, from there to really, really dial that up and make it good for beginners and also pretty rewarding for veteran players.
Snyders Return:Nice, it's gonna be exciting to see it sort of land on the tables and the the sort of the PDFs of people across. And it's something that I'll certainly be checking out the website and the way you describe it the again, stealing or reusing the same thing. captivation the flexibility and the narrative play really appeals to my preferred play style.
Adam Bradford:Yeah, I think one of the another thing that I can interject really quick that is going to really set cortex apart from from a lot of the other systems out there is I've kind of alluded to the game creation aspect of that. So the point of the core cortex experiences, you can make any kind of game you can imagine. So if you want to play some kind of piratical swashbuckling adventure with your friends one week, you're able to do that with cortex and what is really going to be exciting, and that I can't wait to see, you know, hopefully, as we get into the back part of next year, early, early, the next is even the ability to digitally build that game. So, you know, in addition to character building, and all of the digital support that we plan to provide, for cortex games, we would also have a game builder that will allow people to as they are defining the traits that are available in their game, which mods they're wanting to use, and all of those elements, the way that the ingredients of the recipe comes together, you're able to pull all of those in in a digital way through a you know, almost wizard like approach. And as you're you're doing that, the output of that can be a hyperlink that you send to your players, that will take them into a character sheet, that's using the different ingredients that you just put together for them to build out their characters and be ready to play in your game. And so once this all starts working the way we intend it to, you really could as long as you have the ideas, you could build a playable game in, you know, 30 minutes an hour, you could send that to your friends, they can build a character in five minutes, and then everybody can be ready to play as long as you're coming with your you know, lore and storytelling hats on, the mechanics would be taken care of. So that's another angle that really just hasn't existed before in the tabletop role playing space. And we're really excited to see that come to fruition as well. Yeah, definitely.
Snyders Return:sounds really good. And something I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for. So you sound incredibly busy. 10 minutes to paint and every meeting and cortex in d&d, what is it other than buildings from Lego? Do you do for sort of downtime? How do you how do you unwind? If you ever get a chance to touch the PlayStation five?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, I definitely have played some miles mirallas. So for instance, as I head into the weekend, here, I have very much so carved out time that I'm going to get some, some real playtime in there. With that I actually today play very few video games. So it takes a very special game for me to dive in. I do have to say as well. I'm looking forward to age of calamity for Zelda. I love that franchise. And, and that's actually my first exposure to role playing games was The Legend of Zelda when I was five. So love all of that. And I'll play that game as it comes out, I believe tomorrow. But But yeah, most of the time, very avid, film and television watcher. So my wife and I are huge fans of a variety of things. We are in the middle of finishing the fourth season of the crown right now. So I think well, we'll watch the final episode of that season. Tonight. So yeah, I think, you know, it might sound a little boring after some of the other stuff that I do, but I genuinely love. I'm a cinephile and love watching those things. And, and definitely the television Renaissance that we're in the middle of, or there's just so many good productions and shows, we really keep our eyes out and, you know, fingers on the pulse of all that so that that probably is the primary way I in the middle of this pandemic and quarantine I'm trying to get, you know, get a little better shape. So I definitely the way that I relax most of the time is you know, take a walk and we've got some beautiful weather going on right now. So So spend a lot of time I'm just walking and thinking when I do have that free time. And, you know, I don't want to act like some of the stuff that I do that that is work isn't fun, because I know that I'm very fortunate to be able to work in a field that, you know, happens to be my hobby as well. So I take full advantage of that. So even if I am painting in those 10 minute spurts, I love painting. So that part's great. And even if I'm, you know, streaming some d&d, I love doing that, because, you know, I love playing those games. Alright, well,
Snyders Return:and nothing you said there was was boring if it's windy, and I can totally respect that. It's great. I bring renea battery. You mentioned there about loving your work and the roleplay sort of stuff is there. Outside of d&d and the cortex stuff, obviously, you're devoting some time to other other role playing games that you'd look at? And you think, if I get a chance, maybe we'll sit and have a have a shot at that? Or is there a mechanic or any, any about that sort of you look at a different game system? And you think, I like that I enjoy that or that IP is something I'd like to maybe have have a throw some dice with and maybe have some fun?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm going to, and I have in the last year, a couple of times played fantasy flights, new version of Star Wars, just a huge Star Wars fan. So definitely on board with playing that I like some of the aspects of that system, I love the idea that you can succeed. But even as you succeed, complications arise, you know, all of that's a really great storytelling mechanic, the one game that I can say that I have never played, that I have tried to play, literally for decades, plural at this point time that I never have that I actually think I will reasonably soon is pen dragons. So you know, so cam, on the team here, he really, really loves pin dragon. And anything that is Arthurian is, is going to be a favourite of mine to begin with. And so again, I've been trying to convince somebody to play that with me for a long time, and cam thinks very highly of it. And so he has mentioned to me that he will absolutely run some pin dragon for me pretty soon. So we're trying to put that together and plan that. So looking forward to it. I absolutely love. You know, I guess I'm an Anglo file and a lot of ways. So you know, huge Doctor Who fan and, and I keep up with what's going on across the pond quite quite a bit. And so, so yeah, I think that anything that is our theory, and that that was really the driving force. So you know, Arthurian legend, as well as everything surrounding Robin Hood. All of those were just kind of the crux of my childhood. So. So yeah, I think I would enjoy pin dragon quite a bit, but haven't had the chance yet.
Snyders Return:Sounds like good fun. And you're picking some good mythology to draw from So
Adam Bradford:yeah,
Snyders Return:I can respect that. Adam, before we before we finished, would you like to remind everybody where they can go to find you and your content and everything you do? professionally? Please?
Adam Bradford:Yeah, absolutely. So we definitely check out d&d beyond calm. And the newly released cortex RPG Comm. And what myself and the teams I work with are working on is going to be on full display. And those places, personally, you can catch me on twitter at bad eye, Adam is probably the best place to find me. You can also see sometimes when I'm not getting overwhelmed by notifications, you can see me on discord on the DND beyond server, or on the cortex role playing server there as well.
Snyders Return:All right, well, I will make sure there are links to all of that in the description below. So please, if you have been listening and have been captivated, I'm gonna steal that word. Again, by anything you've heard, please scroll down a little bit and just follow those links and support Adam In the fandom team. Adam, it's been an absolute pleasure. And I have probably another hour's worth of questions, but I realised that I can't take up too much more of your time. But I'd love to have you back on in the show in the future.
Adam Bradford:Yeah, very, very happy to do that. And yeah, you know, I'm sure you would have gotten to more questions if I didn't talk as much as I do. So I appreciate you putting up with the rambling.
Snyders Return:Not at all. You know, people are here to listen to you talk rather than me ask you questions. So
Adam Bradford:Well, I appreciate you having me. Thank you.
Snyders Return:It's a pleasure. I will speak soon Adam. Thanks. You
Adam Bradford:sounds great.
Snyders 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 Snyder, 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