Hello, and welcome to this nice return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today has weathered the storms of the savage seas taken refuge with nefarious characters in their places of refuge and planning crept into our nightmares with a smile on their face and a beer from a local brewery in hand, and recently been seen gallivanting with a rather portly reptilian humanoid is an absolute pleasure to welcome Mr. Jeff Stevens to the show. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me today. Thank you for taking some time out from your source of creativity. Before we dive into a few of the things I've alluded to in the introduction, which might tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into tabletop role playing games, please. Sure,
Jeff Stevens:yeah. I started I'm 49. So I started playing back in the 80s play through high school and some college. And then in the 90s, I graduated 99. At that time, I thought I was done with role playing games, sold my books, got rid of my dice and decided, you know, try and live the adult life. Little did I know that adults still played d&d. So about five years ago, my brother comes to me, he goes, Hey, Jeff, you want to get into a d&d game with some friends of mine from work? We started playing dodgeball and play? Like, yeah, I'll give it a shot. Well, I loved it was right at the end of fourth edition, beginning of fifth edition. And fourth edition was really cool. I mean, to see all the different cards and actions that you had at the time. But then we moved into fifth edition. I was like, Wow, this is so much easier. And fifth edition so far, I think is a great addition to the game. It's easy to pick up on, it's great for new start, or new players to learn the game, but then, so going from that when we when we ended our first campaign, the DM was like, Well, that's all I've got. Anybody else want to dm and I'd never done before I was always a player, I just enjoyed the whole player aspect of gaming, creating a character and building that character through levels or experience and, and adding cool items to them and just, you know, created that whole NPC or that whole backstory for that character. But I was like, Sure, I'll give it a try. And so I I started making some notes came up with an idea to make a d&d campaign based off of Metallica and Primus songs, some titles because you know, you can you get the Master of Puppets damage incorporated battery, justice, for all, you know, all these different things that just kind of inspired me when I was when I was coming up with ideas for little adventures for the campaign. And of course, the bad guy was the master puppets. So and then I be my first time dming I made, I made maps, I made notes, took really good notes of what I wanted to happen, and then took notes of what did happen during the game. And then I found the dungeon master skill I was looking around on there, I'm like, Well, they've got this template, they've got these other people putting some things up that, you know, I could probably do same quality, maybe a little better, hopefully not worse. And decided to put my first adventure up there which is house of the midnight violet. And that one continues to sell well, really around Halloween. Just because it's that spooky house type thing with a story behind it and then put up throwing a bone and then from there just came up with more ideas. And then came up with collaboration ideas and I have a writing partner that I work with often really far. And we've come up with several adventures that have done really well the manor house of touches kiss habitats Fun House recently released an Elise's revenge which was they'll all three of those are loosely tied together. But I just found that I loved doing this work I'm and that's what it is. It's work. It's hobby work, but it's something I want to go full time into. And that just takes time you've got to build a fan base and you got to learn the skill. Because when you first start writing and you do your your first adventure not I don't think anyone does it correctly, perfectly The first time I still don't write perfectly or create perfectly. But it's definitely been a learning experience. And I think I've created my own style as far as writing and adventure format. But that's how I got here.
Snyders Return:And then here we are and your back catalogue, as you mentioned there is is quite extensive with as so many different releases. A lot of them seem sort of horror based. I won't say all of them, but a lot of them and some of them you mentioned there is that a particular theme you prefer to write along? That sort of lines?
Jeff Stevens:Yeah, I prefer horror. Most of all. I do write some of the things like we've got Portola brewery, which a buddy of mine, Casey backs, who's the CO writer on that one, he ran a one shot for us. And he called it wartortle Brewery. And so while he was sitting there, I took $1 out of my wallet, I slid it to him, he goes, What's this for us? I just bought the rights to use that name on an adventure. And we all laughed and but I was serious. And so we came up with this I you know, he had the the basic idea. And so we built this adventure based off of that, and it's, it's a lot of fun. So it's, you know, it's one of those cookie ones where there's a brewery with animated tools and fruits and vegetables, hops. Just like gelatinous cubes that are made of hops or wheat and barley. So it's a lot of fun. And some others that are more like some espionage or not espionage, but spy type and one where you actually perform a play in. So yeah, I just come up with the idea these ideas and you run with them. And so I don't like to stick just with horror, but that's I like writing that the most.
Snyders Return:Well, moving on from from the the sort of the horror aspect to the maybe the more dramatic and that these all the collaborations you've done sort of the encounters on the savage seas and the villains and layer stuff. How, how is all of that sort of come about? And and have you got a favourite from those that you've produced in either of those lines?
Jeff Stevens:That's a hard question. As far as favourite goes. Those came about so Tony patrika was an author on the dungeon Master's guild when I first started in 2016. And he wrote journey through the centre of the underdark, which is basically a lot of like, a lot like my seven encounters books, there's little short adventures or encounters. And when I read that, from Tony, what he'd written, I'm like, this is fantastic. I love this idea. These little short adventures and encounters and I talked to Tony and Tony, I've become friends over this time of being on the dungeon Master's guild just by talking back and forth and actually ran, went to a game convention. It wasn't Gen Con, it was one up in Ohio, it was origins. And on the way there, I stopped at Tony's house and ran his d&d group through a session of one of the adventures I'd written it was really great to meet him and spend some time with him. But the whole idea with the encounters books was like when storm kings Thunder came out, and there was a whole section on the savage frontier. And I can't I had this idea, hey, wouldn't it be kind of cool to have just these little encounters the DMS could add to their game. And so I reached out to some, some other idea was to write it all myself, you know, come up with 10 little shorter ventures and write it all myself, then I'm like, you know, people after a while, might get tired of reading my writing my style, my stories, so why don't I reach out some other individuals. And so I reached out to some people, and they came on board said, Yeah, let's do this. And I paid them a very low flat rate at that time, just to submit to the book. And at that time, the dungeon Master's guild didn't have a whole lot of clientele. consumer base was not there. So things sold slowly, we didn't make a whole lot of money. That's changed now over the past four years, five years, actually, almost six, to where there's so many consumers now this is we're still not in the millions and millions of d&d players that actually are out there buying the watse books. You know, I'm not seeing millions of sales by my products. The most I've seen is 10,000 sales of one product and that's Madhouse Natasha's kiss which is amazing, by the way to have that many people enjoy that adventure. I think it's, it's fantastic. But anyway, go back to the seven encounter stuff. period with that idea. That book went well then I just came up with encounters in the savage cities next. Because everybody you know, you go to a city in d&d and deals like Well, we're gonna do here. So I just thought, you know, how is the little city encounters and there are different level characters would be a nice addition for the DMS and that one went off well, and then some of the others have done okay, savage wilderness not so good, savage jungles for jolt, did okay, you know, but, but, you know, I'm looking long term sales over time, not quick sales. So, you know, I invest money in those and I figure Well, if I make it back in a year or two years, I'm good. But it's more the fun of putting those products together, as far as reading with the writers have written finding the writers to add to it, and then developing the art and the maps for those because I commissioned a lot of those books. I commission a lot of the art and maps for those, and one of the things that I like doing is, you know, I'm finding success in this industry, I want to give back to or I want to pay it forward to other peoples who are trying to do the same. And so I commissioned artists and editors and cartographers to do work for me. Same thing with the NPCs for villains and layers had the idea for that book, just because sometimes you just need a random villain throw into the adventure, or maybe use it as a starting point for your campaign, and those have done really well to probably my favourite out of all those encounters on the savage seas. And not just because of the magnificent cover. I suppose you've seen that with giant. Yeah. But also, Aaron Harvey did the map of Badu, which is the giant sea turtle, or dragon turtle on the cover and the map and the interior map of that is just amazing. But there's just so many cool stories in that book that just blew me away. And the art that I was able to commission for that, too, was just so much fun. But yeah, it's really hard to put a to get to label number one, what's my favourite product out there? Because there's so many different styles of those savage encounters books and the NPC books, but that's probably my favourite.
Snyders Return:Wow, that's fair enough, and maybe a little bit of an unfair question for me to try and sort of nail it down to one given your No, no, that's all right. That's okay. But you you have produced all these these encounters in and other source books, and you release the race? Is that is that fair to call the the otter?
Jeff Stevens:Oh, yeah, the otter folk. Yeah, it's just, I just had an idea. So I saw that piece of art by the Nathaniel room. And I was like, that's a nice little thing. And so I just started jotting something down and just was researching otters for a little bit, see what their skills were. And their senses and that type of thing. I just came up with that. And the thing who actually the artists who did that cameras own autofocus camera, what they're called, but his is much better than mine. So if you could get one look at his.
Snyders Return:Fair enough, and another option for players and options and player choices and things is certainly something that's developing within the hobby. I think that's fair to say. So I'm gonna circle back slightly to, to what you said, right at the start about you playing the character and enjoy playing characters. So are you playing at the moment or are you mainly focused on the creating?
Jeff Stevens:Both I mean, I'm playing and my brother's running us through hoard of the dragon Queen, tyranny of dragons game and in that I'm a Goliath cleric fighter whose name is war fist, known as the chosen one Slayer dragons killer of Cobalts, Liberator of Kyoto eater sausages. So he has this bandolier of sausages. So, you know, imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Goliath, you know, and in a lot of Arnold's movies, he's got a big old cigar in his mouth to chew on the side of it like a predator, I think at one point had one. So that's, that's what Worf is does except that, you know, he's got that sausage in his mouth, just chewing on it and rolling it around, and instead of smoking the stogie, but he's got a bandolier full of source sausages. So when he runs out of Wendy's pops, another one in his mouth.
Snyders Return:I'm loving it. I'm loving it.
Jeff Stevens:I even talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he can and he tries to sound all tough. And, you know, I tried to do the voice not very good,
Snyders Return:but the odd props. I'm not gonna embarrass myself attempting to replicate that. But know that. So that's, that's sort of things that have led up to where we are close to where we are now. What about in, in your most recent times, recent projects, where do you stand? Now is in Malawi, January. What about Easter? And what, if anything, have you got beyond that sort of time? Yeah.
Jeff Stevens:Currently, I'm just kind of dabbling in some small products like I've been thrown out a couple free magic items just because I have ideas and I'll jot those down real quick. And my brother Brian will throw those into InDesign layup for layout for me, because every time I open InDesign, it looks like an alien spacecraft dashboard. So he's learned that for me, so we've been throwing a couple free things out there. But currently, I'm working on finishing up my Kickstarter, my first Kickstarter ventures from the potbellied cobalt, finished up in November, and I've got six months to finish to get it prepped and ready to go out hoping to get that done by April. And so working with cartographers and artists, editors playtesting Some of the adventures and just really trying to get that as just a really solid book because I want to impress people with it. And then hopefully the next Kickstarter I'll do, they'll, they'll say, Hey, you know, this guy did a really cool book the first time, this sounds pretty cool, too. So just try to build my business, you know, like I said, I want to do this full time. I love it so much. And trying to do two jobs as I have another full time job really takes away from family and other other things that I want to do. You know, spend more time with my parents when I can help them out when I can. Because when you're writing, you know, with doing your full time job, come home, right 234 hours, get up, do go to work, do all that saying the next, do it all over again, the next day, that just takes away a lot of time.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. Which kind of leads onto to a question when you're not creating and not playing, working, thinking of creations getting assistance with InDesign and all these other processes that are going on? And that's something I asked about in a bit. How do you on one, how do you sort of bring it back to centre and sort of keep that focus without getting lost in in it.
Jeff Stevens:So probably my best way to wind down is to play video games. And there's only um, I used to be good at first person shooters. Not anymore, I find that I don't have the reflexes like I used to, to compete in those. So and when I say video games, I have an Xbox 360. That's the my most recent video game platform. And on that I play MLB 2k 12, which is a baseball game. And you know, hey, it's fun. I keep drafting the same team over and over again. I'm not gonna draft this player this time, but I ended up with the same darn team every time because I like the players you know, and the the best players the cheapest ones for the for their value. And I don't know, so I'm looking for the new Xbox. It's gonna splurge. But the other sold out here in the States. And actually, a couple years ago, I did buy a ps4, but my daughter stole that from me and put in her like, well, I still got 360 I'm still playing baseball, and it's all okay.
Snyders Return:I don't think they might things may have changed, but I don't think they make a baseball game for the Xbox anymore.
Jeff Stevens:I could be wrong. They may not. Which is shame. I haven't had a look for a while. This is this is fair.
Snyders Return:Maybe it's something I'll have a look after.
Jeff Stevens:No, that's and then video games or video games and then watching TV movies. I try and find cool movies, but I think I've watched so many of them that I don't know if there's anything out there anymore. I like I like horror movies. You know, can I get some inspiration from that for stories? But like, I'm not into the really gross horror movies. I don't have to see how I have to see a bunch of blood and guts more like the jumpscares that type of thing. But like the descent I don't know if you ever watched that movie group of like a woman spelunkers go down in this cave and there's a whole nother like Raisa humanoids down there that eat them up, you know, and one gets out. And it's you know, those are fun. The thing aliens, sci fi horror like that. The Conjuring, those are good. annabell very dark,
Snyders Return:psychological thriller, sort of sci fi Kind of, yeah,
Jeff Stevens:that translates well to writing adventures, you know.
Snyders Return:That's fair. That's fair. Den, I got a great sort of spread of moving in inspirations. And speaking of inspiration, he mentioned that the horror side of things were out. Is there anyone else you told have? You go to France not saying you rip off things now? Is there any way you go and think I'm enjoying this this is like the horror. This is where I'm going to draw a little bit from and, and sort of turn that into an idea. Even if it looks nothing like what was represented on the screen or, or whatever.
Jeff Stevens:Right. I did that with one of my ventures called Dragon's Breath tavern. And that was basically the name from dusk till dawn liquidity guarantee, or quitting 10 deals. Whereas the vampire infested bar, that they draw people into the bar, and then they lock all the doors and, you know, turn into vampires at night and eat everybody that drew into the bar that I really got inspired by that movie. And so I wrote Dragon's Breath tavern, which is a similar take on it. But not the same. That makes any sense. Absolutely. And, but sometimes movies will give me ideas. I haven't written any of those down yet, as far as what those adventures would be, but like you know, the song titles are really cool. inspiration. But a lot of times I'll think of a title in my head. Or I'll or I'll get an idea, I'll commissioned the art first for the cover. And then I'll try and think of a title for that. I've got one from four years ago that I like commission, internal art and the cover art for that I haven't written yet because I can't come up with a good title for it. So yeah, I just get inspiration, from all different kinds of things. There's no one one source of inspiration for me,
Snyders Return:not as fed and the music choice I, I approve of a lot of my approval, but I appreciate and approve of the music choice. So going in from getting inspiration to turning that into a product, what's your sort of process when you sit down at tablet, keyboard, typewriter, pen and paper? How is how do you structure your work to keep you inspired and motivated and and on to completion?
Jeff Stevens:That can that's a difficult task. Sometimes you'll hit a spot, or I'll hit a spot when I'm writing them, like, what did I just write? Where am I going with this, but I'm not a big outliner I may just write some ideas down on a piece of paper. And but not fully develop an outline that way, you know, say like, you know, this section, they'll this happens is write down some ideas and go from there and just kind of let the story take me the way it's the way it wants to take me. I there's a lot of things that you want to try and incorporate when you're writing an adventure. You know, there's the three pillars of play exploration, combat and social. And you want to try and integrate that as much as possible. I don't think anybody wants to go through a room or an adventure, it has to battle something in every room. And not, you know, finding a treasure or reason for that. That really needs to be a really good story to the adventure, I think. And so I kind of let the story develop. And then once the story is developed, if I've go back and read it again, I missed something that I could have added there as combat or investigation, exploration or social interaction. I'll go ahead and write that in and add it. And you know, just kind of build off of what I've written. Sometimes you get the you get the ending in your head first. And you're like, Well, how do I get there? You get this idea for a grand fight. And, you know, how's this start? And what happens in between? And sometimes I could take a while to really figure out and do it right. And you may and you may love what you write, and others hate it. But it's it's the way with anything. You know, Stephen King books is like Game of Thrones. You know, the writers there when they wrote the last season of Game of Thrones thought they did a good job. There was no good way to end that show. I'm sorry. I don't know if you've watched it or not. Yeah. But but there was no good way to end that. That whole series because everybody wanted something different. Yes. And if you ended it with Jon Snow becoming King, then it would be like so predictable.
Snyders Return:Yeah. So I come in season three. Right. So I didn't mind the ending. I thought, Okay. Yeah, it definitely got mixed reviews. But as you say, it's it's make sure we get the right word subjective. Everyone will take away from it and apply their own preconceptions or preconceived notions to it. So I suppose it's a it's a valid point. So and that's your, sort of your, your thinking your process, but as we've just alluded to, that, not everyone is like, another person. So if someone was thinking of getting to, for the writing side of stuff, or even editing, but mainly writing since you've published so much, what advice would you give to someone looking to sort of take up that button that mantle?
Jeff Stevens:Yeah, first off, you want to decide what you want to write what you're passionate about, are you mechanics person, player, background, subclass, class, person. Are you an adventure rider? Do you have stories to tell? Can you integrate the mechanics of combat exploration and social socialisation in or social interaction within that adventure to make it a well rounded adventure? Figure out what you want to write and what you're good at. Don't worry about what necessarily people think you should write you know, saying that adventures are the hottest selling things on the DM skill. Do what you want to do, and make that your baby You know, really learn how to do that well. And then also pick up other things on the dungeon Master's guild similar to what you want to write. review those things, look at them, see what they did wrong. See what they did, right read the reviews. See what you can do differently. Or better than what they've done, put your own twist on the current mechanics, subclasses classes, races, and you just just learn from others. That's the biggest advice I could give anyone. Rather than thinking, Okay, I'm just gonna write this up, put it on the DM scale without ever looking at anything else. And not knowing, you know, how it's going to compare to other people who are producing things are selling well, you know, look at those bestsellers and say, Okay, why is this selling? Well, what's what's making it tick is that the cover? which covers important is the title titles are important. You've got all the writing, the mechanics need to make sense. Editing is important too. And although I don't find it as important for new writers, because it is expensive, there's a fee to it. So if it's a new writer, you know, I'm willing to say okay, well, they missed the word, or this word isn't quite right, or they used on when it should have been an just as typo, that type of thing. The worst reviewers of products are other writers, because we know what to pick out as far as spelling, word usage. fivey mechanics, there's a I believe there's a ffiv Dungeons and Dragons style guide on the dungeon Master's guild that explains how to write things how to write saving throws and skill checks, and you know, the verbiage to use for those. That's a really good thing to pick up, especially if you're going to be an editor because there's different styles. You're not just editing the words in a document for for dinner masters guild or for people playing d&d, you're writing the style as well. So it needs to, for the most part, it should read like an official book, you don't have to you can develop your own style as far as that goes. But other people will notice it and say, Hey, you didn't write this right? Well, then you have to say, well, careful, my own style, just deal with it. But you know, I, I talked to some other consumers. And they said, yeah, that stuff doesn't bother me if it's written their own way. But I can figure out what they mean. It's no, it doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. It doesn't have to match fifth edition style guide. So you know, there's all kinds of different things to consider when it comes to editing. But you know, if you're going to jump into this thing, you really need to do your research. Pick up a couple of those the items on the diems guild that are selling well that you want to do. There's also the RPG Writers Workshop. Well actually they change the name storytellers. storytellers collective. Yeah, yeah, the who, they run some sessions I think twice a year. They'll go through and basically give you a syllabus and outline of courses that you go through on their site that tells you you know, how to get your adventure on the dungeon Master's guild or drive thru RPG, I think there's a there's two slots now. So if you're not writing d&d, or you're not using the official IP and you want to go on the drive thru RPG and write for someone else, or create your own campaign setting because you can't do the dungeon Master's Guild, you have to stay to the current campaign settings on dm skill. If you're going to create your own campaign setting you have to go through that on Drive Thru RPG. Yeah, know so it's, it's a good course I've seen some great writers come out of that course.
Snyders Return:Yeah, definitely. So building on sort of picking out a few of the points you made the flip flopping is the wrong word. But switching between the DMS guild and moving on to say drive thru the one bookshelf. However, people used to refer to it. You mentioned playing d&d, do you look to do you look at or play other systems or given time are you more centred around solely d&d.
Jeff Stevens:So I love d&d, that but that doesn't mean I don't want to play out the systems, I'd love to play some Call of Cthulhu. I've played it a couple times at conventions, but I have not had the time to really dig into the books, or to run a session of that. Another game that I absolutely loved as a kid was gamma world blank there for a minute. I don't know if you've ever played gamma worlds post apocalyptic. You know, world, we've got Ray guns and kneelers, that type of thing and radiation and mutants, and it's just so much fun when I was a kid, I don't know if that was because of the dungeon master or because of the game itself. But I'd love to get back into that and I wish they'd come out with a new version for that. I would love to play Star Wars. I have haven't bought a book on that yet, but I buy other systems and read them and see what you know, try and do some I get some ideas off of those for how I can make my adventures different or maybe create some different mechanics or just to see how other systems are put together.
Snyders Return:Out of what you have seen and the research into other systems is is there a better ticular say game mechanic that that another system has that you're like, I like that it might not fit with what I'm writing at the moment, but I like that mechanic in that particular game system.
Jeff Stevens:Yeah. So I like the Cthulhu madness stuff. And so when we wrote Madhouse Natasha's kiss, I wanted to, I wanted madness to be part of that since it was in the name. And so are there, there's some systems in there that I just kind of built a counter that if they have so many different failures, then they create or get into short term madness or long term Master, you know, just just kind of see or kind of develop something a little bit different the current madness rules. But I think there's some other managed rules out there too. I don't know which ones those are. But people have written them for fivey. And I just can't remember the name of lamplighters. I think that might be on. Drive Thru RPG. Let me see if I can find it real quick.
Snyders Return:Yeah, there's a there's a few games with variations on stress mechanic, you mentioned Call of Cthulhu. There's spy hander. The alien RPG has a stress mechanic to it. So there's, there's
Jeff Stevens:Yeah. So I think that's really cool. Yeah, that's just because it would be really cool. And I haven't done enough research on that, to really know the different variances that people will come up with. But I think that's a great idea.
Snyders Return:Yeah, definitely. And sort of speaking of developing the game, and developing Dungeons and Dragons onwards, where, where do you want to see Dungeons and Dragons go next, both in a overarching term and a setting term? The two separate questions, but they actually are the same question. sees me repeating it twice. Right,
Jeff Stevens:right. Setting term. I mean, I know there are a lot of people out there that want like dragon Lance and plain scape and darks on all open the fifth edition, which is cool. But I don't see why they wouldn't come up with maybe just a brand new setting. To that's completely different. So something we haven't seen yet. I think that would be pretty cool. But you've also got you know, dragons doing so well right now with fifth edition. I think the number of players keeps growing I think it's gonna keep growing too because you've got critical roles cartoon coming out. You've got talk about dungeon dragons movie, you gotta talk about dungeons dragons live action show. So I think the I think it's gonna be they're reaching more and more people. What's I can only hope begin, I want to do this full time I want this to continue. As far as sixth edition goes, I have no idea when that would happen. I don't know why it would because everything keeps selling really well in fifth edition.
Snyders Return:So have the staying on the sort of certain settings side of things. You mentioned there a brand new setting, is there a setting currently within the multiverse? These Dungeons and Dragons that you would like to see explored more?
Jeff Stevens:I really don't have a particular preference on which one they would explore more. I think, you know, I was out of the game for many, many years. So I lost some of the lore knowledge. I don't claim I don't, I will state, you know, to anyone that I do not know the lore of Dungeons and Dragons. I know what I what I've gleaned off of researching projects. I've missed too much time in there. And it's sad for me because I know all these people who know so much lore so much of the different settings that I think it's really cool. But you know, I try and pick up what i can i buy books to try and you know, some of the ministers some of the Volos books, yeah. So the older Volos books that are out that they kind of their deep dives in certain locations. I think it's grant history of the realms. I was talking to Ed Greenwood the other day, and we were talking about that and there's some really cool, it's kinda like a Sword Coast adventures guide where it breaks down each little location and kind of gives you a detailed explanation of what they do there, that type of thing. So I know people want to go out of the Forgotten Realms, which is cool. You know, I dig it. I like the Forgotten Realms. But I know people want to get out of there, they want something new. Some people not but not everybody.
Snyders Return:So I've spoken to some people that would like like the feywild explore more, for example, and places like that. So not necessarily a whole new setting but just just an expansion that leads into the places where I think everybody is kind of aware of the shadowfell or the feywild and places to go. They've not really been, to the best of my knowledge, and I can be happily corrected. They've not really sort of gone into in within the fifth edition set up, shall we say?
Jeff Stevens:Yeah, what's his plans most of their books out three years. So if they didn't realise fifth edition was going to be this big three years ago, then, you know, they may have to either one, just create a new book on the fly by hiring freelance writers to work on it, or to wait for the current lineup of books to come out and then complete, because that's kind of like with the new unearthed Arcana that came out today showed some new rules for racial traits and that type of thing. And they tried to correct that with tosses cauldron cauldron when it came out. And it still wasn't quite correct. So you know, when, when there, we've got the public calling for change, change change, when their books are already, you know, in production three years ahead of time, it's really hard to implement, I think that change and make those press changes when the books are already being worked on. So I think they're trying to make these changes. It's just, they're not going to be I'll do it right away.
Snyders Return:It's a big, big machine to stop
Jeff Stevens:the process. Yeah, yeah, it takes a while. I know how long it takes to create a book. And it takes a while. So if you don't have those books in production, ahead of time, before other production issues may slow down the the books then you're in trouble.
Snyders Return:potential revenue. Lawson. At the end of the day, there are business attorneys I I love the way you casually named jobs, Ed Greenwood there as though he's just just some other person in a writing circle.
Jeff Stevens:And so I've had the pleasure of both email and working with Ed and interviewing Ed. And the interviewing Ed was just amazing. It was fantastic. A lot of fun. He's a great guy. I wrote just recently released an adventure that premiered at gamehole con this fall, it was virtual gamehole con, and it just hit the dungeon Master's guild last night or this morning, based on the border kingdoms where Ed and Alex caminar from gamehole con created this border kingdoms book. And that's where gamehole con adventures take place at the border kingdom. And so, you know, when I was working on this book, or this adventure, there were some questions I had. So I like reached out to Ed. I said Mr. Greenwood, I've got I'm working on this adventure for gamehole con and involves these two majors. And this area Can you give me some tips on what might occur within their castle? He's like, Oh, yeah, and call me Ed my my dad's Mr. Greenwood. And so he was a big help and come up with the ideas or given me an idea of what might be in those that castle and why it was the way it was. And so that that release today, and I'm pretty happy with it. Of course, you know, every adventure after you have it sitting on your, in your mind for three or four months can always change. You come up with different ideas for things, but and I'm happy with it. And so, yeah, actually, I've hired ed to write a short story for a video I have coming up that hopefully will be out in October, kind of a horror feel to it. And I was like, you know, I just like I liked working with it. I wanted to kind of pay it forward with him and said, Hey, if I hired you could you write me maybe a three to 5000 words short story to put at the beginning of this adventure to kind of give it a little lore for the story. And the area. He's like, Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun. So did that and now we're excited to show that off in October when it comes out.
Snyders Return:It definitely was the title of the one he released. today. It is once stolen twice deceived. It's a nice add on the adventurers league titles. Yeah. And so definitely go and have a have a look into that. I'll do my best to get a link in the description below. Speaking of links, something that we haven't touched on yet, where can people find you both social media and professionally?
Jeff Stevens:Sure. I am on twitter at j corvin. Stevens, that's j CR vi n STV ns worst Twitter handle in the world to try and run a business out of but you know, who knew when I first started Twitter and started tweeting my projects out that I would become, you know, go for Jeff Stevens games which is my website, Jeff Stevens games calm. You can find a bunch of my links to my projects out there. And some free stuff in my newsletter, sign up for my newsletter. And on the dungeon Master's guild under Jeff Stevens two, that's where I'm most prominent,
Snyders Return:but I will make sure there are links to all three all All of those places in the description text below this podcast so please go through check them out for the links you will find in October as the new adventure is coming out that the happy dogs Fun House and the other horror based adventures will shoot up to the best selling section
Jeff Stevens:they will have to look hard but but there's one thing I cannot beat and that is Phil back with PD publishing when his when it comes around Halloween October the haunt always kicks my kicks my butt and sales.
Snyders Return:It's nice to have that target to aim for.
Jeff Stevens:You'll have like, every year I'm like, I gotta come up with something to beat the hot boom to the top. Even though we know our titles are four years old now. It's just he just keeps people like it. It's a good little venture. I played it. It's a lot of fun. So if you're looking for something in October, and you don't want to buy my product, check out the hunt by IPD publishing good little adventure while they go.
Snyders Return:Well we've we've mentioned a lot of different places, different settings, different situations and so and the three pillars of d&d, which leads me on to not a tricky question, but taking all of that into account and all the things you've written and the various adventures and exurbs and supplements and things that you've created and released. What is your favourite? I don't want to say monster monsters on unfair but an NPC is too narrow. What is your favourite creature? Is that a fair question?
Jeff Stevens:I think so. Favourite creature I mean, it's hard not to like dragons. Because it is Dungeons and Dragons. But that's, you know, really General alvers are pretty cool. I don't know if I had a favourite creature though. I like to use the typical evil humanoids like orcs and goblins and you know, make them good. have adventures come across good versions of those you know, and that's that's been the big push lately is to not basically they're not born into an evil personality. And but yeah, when I wrote into the belly of the beast, there's a clan of good goblins in there. And I don't know if when I was playing when I was running my game, it was throwing my players off because others goblins and hey, how can we help you? And they're like, what? These are good goblins? Yeah, throw wrenches at people. Not all not all orcs are bad.
Snyders Return:Definitely play with the preconceptions? Yes, misconceptions as well. Maybe?
Jeff Stevens:Yeah, make the game your own to you know, this. mess things up.
Snyders Return:Yeah, I was gonna say about the album is the you released a an adventure that has an album and a lodge in the title. And I thought I'd throw that in there as
Jeff Stevens:a high. Yeah. haunting of albear a lot. Yeah. That that was an idea I was working on for another project that didn't complete, but I really liked the idea. So yeah, there's an undead albear. In that one. I also did the way of the albear, which is a monk tradition, where you study the albear and your, through your meditations and study, you can actually at the end of your Capstone there, decide to turn into an albear and live your life as an albear. As the fun thing I put together you know, like this, people may hate this sounds fun to me.
Snyders Return:And I definitely adds a different spin to things rather than just taking a maybe a druidic sort of take on it, where they can turn into many things, having that option to find that kind of inner peace and become,
Jeff Stevens:you just become an albear for the rest of your life.
Snyders Return:And then you get hunted down by the next group of adventurers and it's all up again to a wonderful story. You very well could. Yeah. So, you know, we've we've talked about a lot I do have one question that's just sprung to mind with respect to the adventures of the with the pot bellied kobold does the code have a name did I have I missed that in the writings?
Jeff Stevens:She does her I know her first name is Crystal Lee. I think it's tingle toes. Crystal Lee tangled toes because she's not really a possibility cobalt. She's a cursed gnome, who has been cursed to live her life out as a possibility cobalt and and stuck within this covered waggon which she is now her home. And so she's a nice cobalt and she has adventures. She can kind of scribe and see things that need to happen. to occur, and so she sends the adventures on these adventures and through some of this through the, within the writing itself, I'm going to put out a way for the adventures to collect certain things within each little mini campaigns that they can bring back, which will help crystal he turned herself back into a note. But that's, you know, there's gonna be different. The book itself is just a bunch of short adventures is 15 short adventures, ranging from first level to 10th level. So you can just throw them in as you wish, wherever you want to throw them. But I'm also going to kind of make a short mini campaign out about 10 of those adventures. You know, just suggestions for the DM is to Okay, go from here to here to here. This was why this why just, you know, we'll add a little value to a book of many adventures. Sounds,
Snyders Return:it sounds a lot of fun and the small, small, that's unfair, the the optional sort of thread to run through to help krisily is a nice touch on, I'm going to say, it's a nice touch x. That's my word means nothing, but it's a compliment to your work. So
Jeff Stevens:no, I appreciate that. It means everything, you You are a, you know, consumer, somebody who looks at my work. And if you say it's, it's a good idea that I appreciate that.
Snyders Return:What I do say is a good idea. So it's a pleasure to be here. So you know, we've we've covered a lot of ground and gone through through current work, past work, future work and releases and things like that. d&d as it is and the tabletop role playing game community as as it continues to grow. Is there anything we haven't touched on that you would like to, to discuss or, or talk about?
Jeff Stevens:Boy, if you're gonna do your first Kickstarter, do some research as far as the best outlets for advertising. I paid for a lot of advertising that didn't pay off. So just know where your consumers might be. And it could just been bad timing with the publicity as far as when I released the Kickstarter as well. But I, you know, I spent a lot of money on advertising, so maybe a quarter that back in and purchases, or backers, I think the best source of advertising is word of mouth, to get those backers talking about it, to tweeting about it. So hey, I just back this project. And also how quickly funds on Kickstarter. Because if you if you're on there for three days, and you're 200% funded in three days that will that says something, you know, everybody else is looking at like, Okay, well, it's already funded, are there stretch goals. And you don't have to have stretch goals. But also, if you do have stretch goals, make sure that you're covering your expenses for those stretch goals, because you don't want to add something every $1,000, you want to be able to make a little profit off of it to cover some other expenses, and add those stretch goals to it. But yeah, I had the idea for my Kickstarter. Oh, I'd say almost a year before I released it. And I actually hired out a lot of the writing by, you know, James Lynch, castle, empty black heroes, just you know, people in the industry who have written because I wanted to make I wanted it to look professional. And I think having some professional writers on it helped there. Because my name is not known as as much as some others. There's no
Snyders Return:amount of certainly well known. Yeah,
Jeff Stevens:yeah. And I invested quite a bit of money in it before it actually released on Kickstarter, which is I know, the backwards Way to go, but I wanted to have most of it ready to go. So I wasn't having to rush through it, trying to find writers and arts and everything in six months, because six months is not a lot of time to put it both together.
Snyders Return:No, no. I can imagine, and especially tying with other people's other professionals, schedules and all the work they would have, as well.
Jeff Stevens:Yeah. And if you if you've got you know, if you're if your layout person suddenly has something because most of us do this for you know, the hobby, or the second a second job. But if your layout person suddenly has something come up, and they can't do the layout anymore, well then you got to rush and find somebody else. Whereas if I wanted to have the right into the editing most of the editing done by the time that wants to Kickstarter, just to cover my own back as far as I wasn't going to produce or meet deadlines. But everybody's got their own way of doing Kickstarters. And that's just my way. But you know, can't it be sure you do your research ahead of time for you to your Kickstarter, it was definitely a learning experience for me. A lot of fun. It'll be even more Fun wants to get things done. I got it out there in the in the world and have people checking it out and buying it and talking about it, which I hope to talk about.
Snyders Return:I'm sure they will, I will, I will make sure I'll do my my bit write down. Thank you. That's all. So you know, as you say, it's about paying it forward. And you've been kind enough to give up some of your time to sort of come and speak to me, it's, it's only, it's not even about being fair, it's just that I'm interested in the product and interested in you. And I'd like to support you in that respect in in any way I can.
Jeff Stevens:And that's appreciated. There's a lot of times when I think other creators don't support other creators as best as they could. And there's a lot of creators out there. And it's really hard to notice when someone's a creator anymore. I mean, when back in 2016, I started, you know, we'd see, somebody puts up the dungeon Master's Guild, and then maybe something else, then, you know, they put a third or fourth project out there. You're saying, Okay, well, this is somebody I can. I know, I know the name. I've seen the name before. Now. There's so many new creators out there on the dungeon Master's guild putting new products out there all the time that I may never notice a new writer out there, who the new writers are, who the who those that are actually putting more than one thing out there, I may never notice that just because the products fly by so fast anymore. So yeah, it's really cool to, to help out others and give them shout outs when possible. So I appreciate it.
Snyders Return:Well, we can. One quote, that's, that's that was was given to me by Katie Downey of D for D and D, and her another product projects was that a rising tide lifts all ships, and I kind of stuck with me. And something that I think I was I was trying to do, but didn't really have any kind of mantra to follow. So that's kind of stuck with me, and why we try and be as as positive and supportive as we can.
Jeff Stevens:Yeah, no, that's that's, that's been said many times with a dungeon Master's guild with the influx of new writers that some of us are seeing, you know, and, and seeing our products that we release, sit there for 15 minutes, and then suddenly washed away in the new titles revenue, because new other new products are being hit, or hitting the dungeon Master's guild and kind of just taken over that ribbon. It's the idea that, you know, the same the rising tide raises all ships or however that that turn that saying goes you know, you're getting new consumers in there, because your stuff may not be something that people want. But they may say see this other thing, new consumers are hitting the dungeon Master's Guild, then maybe they'll find your stuff also. So, you know, the more consumers customers we can have. Find the dungeon, the dungeon masters guild and use it the better for the creators.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. And, and to help with that, would you mind just give me another rundown of where people can find you and your products just just to help push people across? Sure.
Jeff Stevens:Yeah. My website, Jeff Stevens games calm. Again, you can see a pretty good listing of most of my products on that website. My brother Brian created that for me and put a bunch of my cool covers on there with links to those adventures. You find me on Twitter at j corvin. Stevens? That's JCR vi n s t v ns. And then on the DMS Guild, if you search for Jeff Stevens, I think my name will pop up.
Snyders Return:It does. Okay. It's all right. It's been an absolute It has been an absolute pleasure and learning some of the pitfalls of Kickstarter and your processes for writing and how you see the game developing and, and all the the streams and things we spoke of, before we started the interview as well. So I appreciate your time, your experience and your products, I have to be honest,
Jeff Stevens:I appreciate that. One quick thing that I will add for anybody who wants to create. If you put something on the dungeon Master's guild drive thru RPG or wherever, and it doesn't sell, it doesn't take off, there's no interest in it. Don't stop there. If you are passionate about this, you have other ideas, keep developing, keep putting stuff out there. And eventually if you find something that takes off, then your other products might take off as well. People may find that one shining star in your work and say this is awesome. What else is this person created? And then some of your backs, your your older stuff begins to sell. You just never know it's gonna be a hit. I've had adventures and other things that I've posted on the dungeon Master's guild that I thought this is gonna be fantastic. It's gonna sell like hotcakes, and it doesn't. And you can't get discouraged about that because you just never know what the consumer wants. So you just got to keep working until you find something that consumer wants. So
Snyders Return:keep at it and on that motivational speech? Definitely. Well, I'm gonna, I'm going to call that I'm going to save. Thank you once again, Jeff, for joining me, and I'd love to have you back on the show in the future. You mentioned there in October, fresh releases, so maybe about that time we could speak again. That'd be cool. Yeah. Excellent. All right. Well, thank you very much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Adam. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snow'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