Ben Wolf, Ryan H Reid and Gary Furlong - JordanCon Interview #2

We’re recording from the middle of JordanCon, where the background noise is real and the best conversations are the ones you can’t script. Author Ben Wolf joins us alongside Sound Booth Theater narrators Ryan H. Reid and Gary Furlong to talk about what happens when a story moves from page to performance and how LitRPG is changing what listeners expect from audiobooks.

Ben breaks down Rickshaw Riot, his debut LitRPG series co-written with Luke Messa. The hook is pure gamer wish fulfillment with a sharp twist: a billionaire builds a massive video game world that mashes up beloved game styles across history, then gets trapped inside it with 1.3 billion players and no “good” class left. He’s stuck pulling a rickshaw like Crazy Taxi, grinding for survival while a Scrooge-like character arc pushes him from cynical profiteer toward something better. We also get practical craft talk on navigating LitRPG tropes, keeping stats readable instead of crunchy, and why planning an ending (six books, not endless sprawl) can make a series hit harder.

Ryan and Gary take us inside the booth, where “just reading” isn’t enough anymore. We dig into immersive audiobook narration, live duet chemistry, casting choices, and the little production decisions that make audio feel three-dimensional. If you care about LitRPG, audiobook performance, progression fantasy, or how fandom communities like Dungeon Crawler Carl’s ecosystem influence new work, this one is for you.

Subscribe for more creator conversations, share this with your favorite audiobook friend, and leave a review if you want more live convention chaos. What’s the one audiobook that made you forget you were “listening” and made it feel like you were there?

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:50

All right. So this is exactly the kind of moment we live for on Lit on Fire. We are coming to you live. Well, as live as it gets on a podcast. From the middle of Jordan Con where the background noise is real, the energy is chaotic, and the conversations are completely unplanned. We just pull together something special, like genuinely lightning in a bottle special.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

We're sitting here with author Ben Wolf, whose work dives into epic fantasy with heart and scale. And we've got not one but two incredible voices from Sound Booth Theater, narrators Ryan H. Reed and Gary Furlong. So what you're about to hear is not polished, it's not pre-planned. This is the raw version of what happens when storytelling collides in real time. We're talking writing, performance, adaptation, and maybe even stirring the pot a little about who really owns a story once it leaves the page. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Howdy, I'm Ben Wolfe. I'm the author of Going on 30 Books across the genres of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, young adult children's nonfiction, and now lit RPG with my debut Lit RPG, Rickshaw Riot.

Romance Fatigue And Better Builds

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And I'm Ryan Reid. I'm a uh audiobook narrator for primarily soundbooth theater and a Thon Books. And um yeah, I do a number of genres, uh, mostly Lit RPG, but I enjoy cozy fantasy as well, and uh some horror, and uh I've been doing romance, but I'm not a big fan.

SPEAKER_05 2:22

Not a big fan of romance.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

You know, I it it's hard it's good because it's such an a saturated uh you know genre that quality is sparse. Sparse. You gotta do what you gotta do, though.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

So no, I gotta push this further. What is off-putting about the romance to you?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

It's just it feels very um like just that it's just for the sex and everything. It's just kind of shoehorned. We focus so much on um like the instant gratification of things. We're so attached to our phones and getting the instant dopamine that it's like we forget the build and the joy in things. And like, so if that's your thing and you want to read and and enjoy the the the erotica, great. But in you know, build it with something that yeah, I can care about the characters too. And it's not just like, I'm like, you know, I'm not a prude or anything, but I just you know you're I was doing one that was like a western, and you know, he's like looking off on the fence flying or something like that. He's like, and then I thought of her pushy. I'm so sorry. I don't know if I'm it's just jarring as that.

SPEAKER_05 3:17

I'm like, what do you want?

SPEAKER_03 3:19

And he was like, No, I mean um my wife is a huge romantic fan, and I try to be supportive and read all the things that she reads, but sometimes I'm like, oh, we're having sex again in this book. It was two pages ago. I mean, this guy just got tortured and he's already warning. What is going on? That's not a good thing. We don't need to change anything. Yeah, they can let it, you know, thank you. Well, but uh you know, and and when a genre really has a behavior like romanticity is having right now, I feel like you start to feel like you're reading the same book over and over again with just different names and certain things.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

And you know, though, for some people, like, you know, if you you you obsess over a certain title or something, and then you know, you can get enjoyment out of like a slightly reworked version, but it is, it just gets a little trying. And I think we're gonna come back to that probably later. But yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Oh yeah. No, it's okay. This is a book podcast. We talk about books.

Rickshaw Riot Pitch And Heart

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Hi, I'm Gary. I'm an audiobook narrator. I do some stuff with Sambo Theater. I do a lot of romance too. I feel like have similar opinions, but um, it's good fun. I've been doing narration for just over ten years now, and enjoy it greatly. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

So Ben, uh, why don't you tell us about your basic pitch for uh Rickshaw Riot and how this happened?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah, happily. Rickshaw Riot is a story that I'm co-writing with one of my best friends, Luke Messa. And he and I have been buddies for going on seven years now. He was originally an editing client of mine, and as a result of our first collaboration, which was on his series, he ended up getting a four-book contract from Aethon Books for his very first novel that he ever wrote. Which, if you are familiar with how the book world works, that's unheard of uh not unheard of, but very rare. Very fortunate. Very rare. And it part of it was because he wrote an excellent story. It was on genre for the target audience he was aiming for, and I had all had just recently been published by Aethon as well, and so I was able to help make that connection for him. But if he hadn't already been good, he would not have been published. So because we were able to work on that, I edited all four books in the series for him and just really got to know him and got to know his writing. And because we became such close friends, I had an idea for LitRPG that I wanted to pursue, but it wasn't going quite the way I wanted it to go. And while I was working on that project, which is still not published, the idea for Rickshaw Riot came to me. And it was essentially a guy getting stuck in a video game world, and all the good classes are taken, all the good games and classes are taken. So he just gets stuck pulling a rickshaw like he's playing Crazy Taxi. That old fetch quest, pick up a fair, get money, and then survive. And so Eric, the main character of Rickshaw Riot, that's exactly what happens to him. He creates a video game world that combines all the most popular video games throughout all of history. So you've got people playing Frogger next to people who are playing Call of Duty, next to people who are playing Grand Theft Auto, Mario Kart. Pick pick a video game property, and it'll probably end up in the series at some point.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

So we're gonna feel a lot of nostalgia reading this.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

It's it's a lot of nostalgia. I was gonna say nostalgia baits, but that might I it's there's so much more to it that I don't want to demean it or diminish it to just that level. Right. Because there really is a really heartfelt and uh interesting story that actually, with the reason I asked about you being a teacher earlier in this was because with you being a fan of classics or at least aware of the classics, this is kind of like a reimagination of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol.

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Because our main character, Eric, is very much a Scrooge archetype, and throughout the course of the series, he's going to show a lot of growth and development away from being miserly and kind of the jerk.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Well, I read it was a billionaire on the back, and I immediately didn't like him.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yes. And that's all by the way. Yes. Right. So we're giving you a baseline of character and and part of that is yes, in the real world, he is definitely a man of means. He's built a really successful gaming company. He just wants to make money off of Gallibou gamers. So when he opens up this world, and it goes horribly wrong, he gets trapped in the video game with 1.3 billion other gamers whom he finds insufferable because he just wanted to make money off them. He wanted to create this world, let them play it, and he can live in the real world and enjoy the benefits of them spending all their money. But now he's stuck with them, he has to play the game with them, and some of them are actively trying to kill him in the game.

LitRPG Tropes Without The Crunch

unknown 7:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

You know, I heard, as noted, I'm a literature teacher, I heard Ryan talking about the oversaturation of the romantic that we've had. And lit RBG is such the big booming thing right now. It is so big. And so as we watch this progress, I know as a literature teacher, you mentioned archetypes, that so much of our literature really is based on a similar model. We have hero quests, we have archetypes, we have tropes that happen in literature, and we know that. How did you approach this book coming up with an original idea while still paying homage to the tropes that are there in lit RPG? Is there an intimidation factor associated with being in this genre and trying to, you know, stand up alongside Dungeon Crawler Carl and all the other little RPGs and going, okay, where is my place in this and what am I trying to do?

SPEAKER_03 8:47

And how I show something new that hasn't been done with it.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

That's such that's such a great question. I'm sure I could talk about this for an hour, so I'll try to be succinct. For me, it started with a love of the genre and a love of video games and tabletop games. That's that's where this comes from. And then my my skill set is telling stories. It's writing, and it's something that I've been working on for going on two decades now on a professional level. So all of that feeds into it the craft of writing, the business of writing, understanding how to tell a good story, having experienced classic literature in high school and beyond, all that fun stuff. It all feeds into this. But with lit RPG specifically, I was very intentional before I started writing this series, before Luke and I started writing it, to make sure that I was consuming a lot of lit RPG so I could begin to understand those tropes so that I could kind of pick and choose which ones I wanted to feature in the story. And so what you're gonna get with Rickshaw Riot, the series and the book, the first book is called Rickshaw Riot. It's also the name of the series. What you're gonna get with the series and the first book is really great storytelling, but you're gonna get a lot of the familiar litRPG tropes that you know and love if you're already a lit RPG fan. And if you're new to Lit RPG, this is not an intimidating book as far as it being really stat heavy. Yes, it has numbers, yes, the numbers work, but it's not to the extent of some other we they're known as crunchy lit RPGs with lots of stat blocks, heavy stats. We're more focused on building the characters, building the world, and telling an excellent story, but the numbers are just a mechanism by which we help show character growth. And so we want this to be accessible, and again, back to that nostalgia point, that's a huge element of what we're trying to do. We're m mixing nostalgia with contemporary lit RPG troops, kind of like Ready Player One did 10 or 15 years ago, right? But with a different spin on it because we're using established gaming properties and then twisting them so that they're a little bit different.

SPEAKER_05 10:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And so some there's some joy in the like, you know, meaning of it. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Right for sure. Right. We we are we we're taking it seriously in that we want to do a good job, but when you read it, it's just gonna be a blast. It's super fun, and we take all sorts of risks and chances, and we're all really dumb. We're all really dumb things funny. Yes, like this is this is as a fan of Dungeon Crawler Crawl, a big fan, and as someone who's written for that universe in a couple of different contexts, I really value what it brings, not only to Lit RPG, but also to literature in general. It's got depth, it's got great characters, it's entertaining, it's hilarious. We're trying to capture those same elements while writing a very different story with Rickshaw Riot.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

See, I'm so impressed with Lit RPG because as a literature teacher, I love the classics. I do. I'm a huge fan of that. And I love good storytelling, and I love talking to my students about setting and characterization and symbolism. Lit RPG has all of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

It does.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

And you have to go into so much effort to develop the characters and the relationships and the setting and the growth that takes place over time. Totally. That it is so involved that the writing has to be exceptional, otherwise, it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_05 12:16

Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

So, I mean, there's a lot involved in it, and that's what fascinated me about Dungeon Crawler Carl, and that was my gateway drug, if you will, into the into the whole experience, is that it were those books, and I was so fascinated by everything that was there. Because when he first came in wearing the stupid t-shirts, I thought, I thought, what is this? And then I read it and I was like, oh my goodness, like I'm on my third read-through now. And and I can't, you know, have you done any listening to it yet? Oh, I've listened to the whole set of comments. Yes. So, and it's the first time my husband and I have listened to something together where we've both been equally drawn in.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

And that's that's the such a fun thing about it. It is, it does feel like such a community thing because it is so uh people can obsess so much over it because there's so much to obsess over, and that yeah, it becomes something that people share with their family. And like, you know, I question a little bit with when people are like, yeah, my son, then I listen to it. I'm like, he's like mine. Yeah, use your own judgment, parents said.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Yeah, I actually a video came up the other day because we were doing a video, and my 11-year-old video bombed us in the back because he was over at my house, and my 11-year-old's back here doing this. And so he asked to be on our next video, and I was opening keychain packets to see what keychains I got, and he was calling out the characters, and I had to acknowledge on the video, okay. Yes, my 11-year-old knows Dungeon Quella Cromwell, and he looked at the camera and out at me and said, I've listened to the whole first book. You're like, no, don't say these things, Liam. What do you say? But yeah, so this sounds awesome. It just sounds rich on Riot sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. And I love what you're telling us.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

We're really looking forward to it. And uh, Luke and I are almost done with the second book. We're uh it's gonna be longer than this one. This one's clocking in at a short, a nice short 105,000 words, which for BitRPG is short because a lot of those are 200,000 plus. Uh the second one, it's looking like it'll be in the 130-ish range. Okay, it just kind of is a bigger story, and we're okay with that because the world expands. You get to see more of the world that's in the series and more characters, more interesting character dynamics. We're building and building and building. One thing that I can say we're gonna do differently than a lot of other established Glit RPG authors is we know how and when this thing ends. Matt is doing everybody a great service by saying, Hey, we're done after 10 books. We're gonna do the same thing with Rickshaw, we're done after six.

SPEAKER_05 14:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Because we know we've got a uh a rough outline for each book, and we don't need to have this go on forever. I want the story to end. Luke's Luke wants the story to end, and I think deep down, our audience is gonna want the story to end too. They're gonna want a satisfying ending as opposed to some of what we've gotten from other major properties, which shall remain nameless over the years.

Ryan’s Road Into Narration

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Yeah, it's a personal opinion and a matter of taste, but in my personal opinion, I think a lot of lit RPG authors, as they get pulled into the spotlight because of what Dungeon Crawler Carla has done for the genre, are going to learn that a lot of people want a series to go like that. Like you don't want to have the series that you're really loving just go until no one cares about it and it's not very good anymore. So I always feel like having the end in sight always looks so much better for a series. It's one of the things I usually ask authors when I get, do you know how many books this is going to be? So I'm I'm happy to hear that. I think that makes it nice and strong. So now, Ryan, how did you get involved in this project? And when people hear the book, who what character is going to be coming from Mule?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Well, because this man beside me, and for those of you at home, uh Ben Wolf is one of my best friends in the whole world. Uh like uh I I think of him and his wife and daughters and and son like family. Like we're I'm one of the uncles. And uh so and I got to know him actually through a convention uh called Gen Con, uh board gaming convention. My dad is super into board gaming and has pulled me along too, and I'm like, okay, yeah, this is great. And uh and so we we've gone every year for about seven, eight years, and um the first year that I was getting into narration, because uh so you know, COVID shut everything down. Right. And I was like going nuts, being like, I need to do something creative. And so I switched over from uh filmmaking. I had just done like my first um like self-directed and produced short film, had like a crew of about 40 people, was really like, oh my god, I'm really taking on life by the horns and everything. And then, you know, we all got shot on. So yeah. So I was just like kind of you have to go, well, what are we gonna do? And uh then so what I went into was narration. One of my friends had been doing it for about 18 months and uh is so generous. His name is Gabriel Michael, he's a fantastic um uh narrator, and um he so graciously opened up his apartment in in Brooklyn, and he was like, You're having a shit time in in in Chicago. Like this is your time. Like you are a fantastic actor, and like really put a lot of of love my way and support. And so I was like, you know what? Yeah, we're all starved for um uh interaction. And so I lived with him for about a month and um built up a uh a reel and understood how to edit and everything else. And um yeah, so then I uh when I was uh going to Gen Con, it was a um I don't think I had even done a title yet. And I just saw like there were 30 authors down a row and I went, okay, let's do this, and just went and made FaceTime with every single one of them, talked to him, let him know that I was starting out. And that was my first year of work. I just like didn't have to audition for anything. I was very fortunate. And uh I went back for the second round, and that's when I met him, and I went up to his table, and uh his wife is stunningly beautiful, and everyone was like, No, she's scary.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

And I went to the and I went to him, went to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

I was like, yeah, uh, that's that's more that's more my speech. Uh no, but um yeah, then we just hit it off. And actually, if it was from that moment, so I like you know, I don't want to give him too much credit, but I have to say he's the man that introduced me to Jeff Hayes because they had been they'd known each other for a couple of years at that point.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

About six months, actually. Oh, really? Okay, because I had met him in November before. But we hit it off because you know, he's very personable, I'm very personable. And then Matt Dinneman, author of Dungeon of Colour Carl, introduced us because I had known Matt since before he started writing DCC. And so because Jeff had done such a great job, I said, Matt, Matt, Matt, can you introduce me to Jeff? And he said, Yeah, of course. And so then Jeff and I hit it big. And that was the first time I had ever been to Jeff's house down in Kansas City. Um when so after Gen Con, he when he got connected to Jeff, we all went down to uh Jeff's house in Kansas City for Planet Comic-Con, which is another enormous show. And it was kind of almost like an audition of like, uh is Ryan a cool person or in some ways. I did have to do an audition, yeah. And and he nailed that, of course, as well. Uh but yeah, that's that's sort of the the very abbreviated story of how we all kind of ended up in the same nest.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

And so through meeting him, I'm uh got to listen to some of the because I didn't know Duncan the Collar Carl. This was like 2021, so it was already decently big, but I, you know, kind of miss my radar. And uh so I didn't really have any sort of you know nerves or anything talking to Jeff. I was just like, oh, cool, you have a company, uh, you know, what's it in a so I listened to some of their work and I was like, oh, I've got to put together a baller audition or I'm uh you know. Because it's exactly the work that I wanted to be doing. Soundbooth, you know, has these such immersive because the thing is like, you know, I have ADHD and it's real tough to like sit through what I thought was all an audiobook was. My you know, my my perception being that it was just like, and then he walked down the hallway and he felt this about it.

Narration As Real Acting

SPEAKER_04 19:41

That's how my students feel about it.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

It is like that sometimes. And I think that litRPG has actually raised the bar. We were just talking about this yesterday. I think that's it. Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Yeah, no, yeah, it's I think the moderator Brian Norton made a really good point that when you do Lit RPG as a narrator, it's just reading it's not enough. It becomes a full performance. So, like if a character is shouting in the story, gain down your mic and shout into it so like you portray the correct emotion. And I personally, and I think a lot of narrators do it, narrators do it as well, take that aspect of performance and bring it into traditional literature, like in romance books, just every now and then like kind of weave it in, do a little go a little bit extra. And personally, I've never had any pushback when I've done that. Whereas the truth, the traditional wisdom was you don't shout, you don't emo, you don't do too, don't go too dynamic because you'll upset the listener or whatever. I don't believe that to be true. No, and it's bullshit. And the more I get to perform in other books, uh, makes me happier. So and I think it is a better listen. I think it's a more authentic listen. I think the greatest disservice you can do to a story is to half-ass it because someone said, Well, you can't go too dynamic because it you'll upset the listener. It's like that's not good.

SPEAKER_04 20:49

You'll plug the listener to sleep. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

I because I Stephen King narrate his own books, and that's what I'm looking at.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Well, it also kind of fed into the thing that narration is not acting.

unknown 21:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

And that's a voice voiceover in general's had a hard rap in the world of acting, it's like, well, theater's the top, and then okay, stay screen, but like voice actors, mm-mm, you're not real actors, and then narrators. So it's like, no, dude, we are actors, and uh I think we're pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

So yeah, and that's where I came at it from was for uh, you know, I got a BFA in acting and musical theater and that sort of thing. And and so when I came into it and met Jeff, like I I'm telling you, I think I got like an elite like fast pass line or something because like I didn't know a lot on audiobooks and stuff, but the the world that my friend Gabriel was in was Lid RPG already, and you know, more of like the Lid RPG harem sort of thing, and doing a lot of this uh dual narration or duet narration where you know you're interspersing different uh character, different actors. Um and I just assume that's kind of how it was. And so that was like my bar. And so everything, every project that I've done, I bringing, I try to bring like as much as I can to it and truly accidentally object looking for that exact thing. Yeah, I was like, this is exactly the way that I think that I do it. And I found him being the perfect person to because honestly, he just started the company because he is so passionate about what he does and was lonely. Is in his own words, he was just like, I because it is, you just sit in your darn booth for hours of the day by yourself. But I always equate it to it feels like when you're done, it's kind of like you've been at a party for eight hours and you've had to be on socially. And so what I the the the the thing that I fell into was like I my my social life went tremendously down because I felt like I was draining that and I was like, you know, but um I was still so isolated.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

And so um yeah, to build a company based around that, I think it's just like it and it does, it feels like a family, like the whole uh the whole sound booth theater crew just uh we get along so well to the uh level, in fact, that um last um Uh January before last, so about a year and three months ago, I moved to Kansas City, uh, right next door to Jeff A's. Yeah, he was like, uh, I bought a house. Um I don't know why. No, I don't know. Like, not quite that, but it was, it was, you know, the the dream being that we have this like Sounddooth headquarters that is a place where um because the more that we turn into this immersion, it's like, okay, well, how far is unnecessary versus how far is is an you know, so creating a space down in the basement that's gonna have several sound studios so that people can come in and we can have these big rooms that we're doing all the acting live together and like makes a massive difference.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

It really does. You like we can be an excellent self-director, you still won't get as good a performance as if you're right across from another actor and be able to bounce and play off, then it really does bring it at an extra level.

unknown 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Well, I I have a theater background and I know how much it means to play off another person's energy. Oh, yes, and that's crucial.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Completely change what take you, you might uh I'll do it this way. Then you hear how they perform with it. Oh, I'm gonna do it this way.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Because I yeah, I would argue to do this well and to do the immersive audio well, you actually have to be a little better of an actor because you're just working completely on your own. Like, and then you take the, you know, I can't remember, uh, Neil Helligers was saying he calls it uh dead. Oh, yes, uh dead duet and live duet. Yeah, dead duet versus and live duet. Live duet mean meaning that you know you are on a Discord call or doing something, or if you can being in person and doing the lines uh, you know, that way versus what's traditional, if you're gonna do that, is you one person does all of their stuff, sends it to the next person, or they're doing it simultaneously, but like ne'er the two shall meet. And so, like, you know, to make that convincing, it has to you ought to be pretty good. But even the best at that, you have no idea what this person's reacting, yeah, or how they reacted. And it's like he said angrily, well, anger can manifest in a lot of different ways, right? And then how you respond to that anger, you know. So it's it's just such a blessing that the so the way that we do it um is the lead narrator will record everything. So, like, talking about Rich Rickshaw, I would be taking the whole book and I will actually record every single line in the book, whether they're mine or not, um, to kind of keep a cohesive feel on everything.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

So you are the lead narrator. All right.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

We've talked about a lot of stuff to dig that one thing that you're asked for the very just clarifying.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

So you'll record everything.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yes, I record every bit of it and then um give like a I I try to give a pretty accurate performance on what I'm hoping for in the other ones. Um, but you know, again, like if you're doing it for eight hours and then all of a sudden you can do it. You can't get a goofy something. Yeah, you can you can get a little limpy and you're like, this isn't gonna make it in there. So I'm like, uh so it serves several purposes so that uh visually it um you can see exactly because we separate them into different tracks. So I will have my narration track, I will have my uh lead actor track, and then maybe two or three other ones because um what we also like to do again, trying to bring as much immersion as possible, you um tilt the pan of where the audio is coming from for different characters. So one track is going to be like slightly to your right, one so that when they're talking, you're hearing a sense of space. Right. And so that that way it can, you know, just little just those little details to make it uh as immersive as possible. And um, so then yeah, I'll go in and record everything and then send it off to Gary and he'll record Silas, which is the uh one of the companions for little red octopus-looking creature on the cover.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah, there's a Silas.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

How much are we allowed to say about you can well don't tell him what I told you. Okay, yeah. But yeah, Silas is uh is it's gotta be an attitude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

And we're we're as all animal companions should have.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Exactly. Sentient speaking companion. We're going with a kind of a sort of cognizant thing. Oh, yeah. I ain't doing my That's what he's gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

Okay, very cool. So that's the character you play.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

That's character.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

All right, and then we have a brilliant female cast who are going to jump in on various different roles. The unlike Dungeon Crawler Carl, where uh Jeff is very definitively playing a male system AI. In this one, the system AI is female. And it's it there's a specific reason for that, and I don't want to get too into weeds on that. Yeah. I don't want to spoil anything. But that uh that character will be played by Annie Ellicott, who is phenomenal. Yes, she is excellent. Arguably one of the best female narrators, arguably one of the best narrators, period, yeah, in the space these days. And then uh three. Jessica, yeah, and my yeah, Andrea Parsono's fancy. Andrea Parsons. I'll have some shout outs to it.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

With all of them, yeah, truly. Um, but yeah, there's just a certain level of goofiness with Andrea that I adore. And just just once we're gonna end this road of like who's good, like, oh, and this person. Oh, and that person. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

And then yeah, that's the oh sorry, Grand. Oh, I was just gonna say, and then of course, uh Rebecca Brokaw Sands is the female lead, and she I've actually known her since college. We went to the same college together. Oh wow. And so she's another one like Ryan, where I introduced her to Jeff, and then Jeff saw something and brought her in.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Speaking tangentially of Jessica, we got the chance to interview her yesterday, and it was interesting how you said that COVID was your big transition from acting into a voice acting and stuff like that. And she said the exact same thing. And I was just like, I've done over 500 titles now, and I'm like, Six years. And no, I'm so how many, uh, how many books do you guys do? How many have you done total, and how many of you average, I guess?

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I just over 500 uh between myself and my pseudonym Richard Sawyer, which I don't really use anymore. It's just I think I just passed 500 there recently.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Okay, what about the?

SPEAKER_01 28:27

I actually, weirdly enough, I'm such a like when I play video games and stuff like that, I'm a very like completionist and like very like goal-oriented and stuff. I've never counted. Yeah. I have no idea. Oh, okay. Really? Yeah. So I'm I'm saying probably over 150 or so in two years. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

You know, okay. So I um I asked Jessica at this yesterday, but do you have at this point a character that's particularly resonated with you? Something you've enjoyed doing specifically that just stands out?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

We haven't done it yet. I we've done some promo for this book, and anytime I get to be this little guy with this with this octopus costume we brought, have an awful lot of fun doing that.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

Okay, so you're really excited about that one. What about you, Ryan?

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Gosh. Um there's a uh a series by an author that's here actually, named Rin Stryker. Um she goes by Jonathan uh Smith as her uh pen name. Um but the series uh is called The Elemental Gunslinger. And oh yeah, I know that series. Okay, yeah. And I have that that one was so easy for me because I love her writing. Uh-huh. And um she's very introspective in her writing too, and that plays so well with uh first-person narration. And so I I genuinely just kind of like is the whole, you know, it's a it's a Western sort of thing. So I just sat back into this voice and just let that sort of guide me. And it just ended like his way, his way of thinking, and just kind of like it just informed the acting so easily, the way that it was written. So I was just like, oh, okay, yeah. I'm just gonna give you that.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Well, now that I know I've met the narrator of that series, it just moved up on my own.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

Yeah, that's awesome. And the octopus. I just have 30 years.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Absolutely. Um, Ben, you said that you've done like this over 30 books, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

I'm a pro so actually Brickshaw 2 will be number 30.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Okay, and this is your first lit RPG series.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

This is my first yes, the first one that I've written. I again I participated in a lot of Dungeon Crawler Carl peripheral content, including writing bonus content for Soundbooth Theaters, audio immersion tunnel versions, uh, seasons one, two, and three. And then I'm also the lead writer for the uh Dungeon Crawler Carl role-playing game, the tabletop game that just hit 6.25 million on Records.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Which I invested an ungodly amount of money in.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

So, and I can tell you, anyone who's listening, and of course, you guys as well, it's great. Uh, the team at Renegade is spectacular. They're not paying me to say this. Like, I I've seen it from the inside out, and the the passion, the dedication, the absolute fandom of the people who are working on developing it is second to none. Like it's the right crew to get the job done. So bid with confidence. We'll just put it that way.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

We're super excited to play it.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Yeah, we are so excited.

Casting Choices And Wild Challenges

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Uh so you've been a fan of litRPG for a minute now. And one of the things that I love about reading LitRPG and this community in general is the way that all the authors support one another, even in their writing, kind of like how uh Matt calls out Steve Rowland. That's an extra right, and and then I I get references to He Who Fights with Monsters or Heretical Fishing or all those things all the time in other books. Do you have any sneaky shout-outs that you have done or planned to your favorite litter IPG authors or series?

SPEAKER_00 31:42

There are there are a handful of off-the-cuff references to DCC stuff in Rickshaw Riot, and there are a couple of, I mean, we have stuff certainly in the works, and I part part of this is it's meta at this point, because since I'm involved with Dungeon Crawler Carl, obviously there's going to be references to that, but also just by virtue of being in this community, I can do things. And because I know that Soundbooth is working on this specifically, we're writing parts for our favorite narrators specifically. And that's very much what happened with this. Like when we started writing this, we were like, Luke and I were talking with each other. It's like, yeah, we want Brian to narrate this, and I think Gary needs to be the octopus. So that's just two examples right there. And then Sync, uh the female main character, I was thinking Becca would be perfect for her. My my old college buddy, I would love to get her on a project. She's done a little bit, she worked on Love Mercenaries, but this is like a leading role for her on one of my Monomai projects. So that was one that we planned. And then Annie just has such a perfect voice. She played the AI in my kids' books, and hearing her do that, uh, also on Sound of the Theater, hearing her do that was just like kind of a good test for this, too. And also because Annie is just such a great actress in general, the level of emotional depth that will come as a result of her being cast in that role, we knew that was going to come down the road. Because again, Luke and I are planning this out well in advance. So we're casting these players very specifically, and then of course, Jeff Hayes is the villain in the series as well, because who else could do it? Right. Yeah. But even then, beyond that, we've got we've got uh other characters, and it's up to Ryan's discretion because he's the boss. But uh, we have other characters who are gonna come show up later in the series who are other big name narrators that you may have heard of. If it does well enough, we're gonna bring them in too.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Awesome. Yeah, and that's part of the fun and freedom, though, is that like I do really uh honor and respect his uh thought process on who he wants to cast as well, because you know, I want to see his world realized as as well as possible. And he knows it better than I do at this point, you know. Right. Um, but that's part of the fun and freedom of Soundbooth is that Jeff is he I I was gonna say he keeps us on a long leash, but I don't even feel like there's really a leash. It's just like he's like run with whatever you are inspired to do. Like uncredibly generous. It's like the ability to like, you know, if if the project is put in, you know, my lap, then it's I I get to decide, is there music? In what kind of way is you know our how many how much sound effect is gonna be put in in that sort of thing. And and it's just yeah, it's an incredibly uh it's such a gift. Do either one of you have to sing in the book? I have sung it in one book.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

I've sung in one book.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Two actually. I'm just kidding, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

I also sang in a book where it was not called it was kind of called for. I thought it was suitable, and I they were proofed out of it. They were said, please don't sing the lines, but I made sure it wasn't unnoticable.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

I like it when the narrator sings the lines.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

He it was the character was a bird. Oh, and he was an anamorphic bard, like it was a it was a beast creature of some kind, we'll say, 'cause it'll give it away. And I was like, this is perfect, please, please, please, please, please. And the proof proof is like, no, you gotta get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Well, I have good news for you, Gary. We're gonna be doing a little bit of singing in this one, and you may even end up doing a little bit of rapping.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

It doesn't have to be good because it's enough good to do that.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

I was talking a little bit to uh Steve Campbell about having to do Winnie the Pooh in the last Discount Dan book, and he'd never tried to do a Pooh voice before ever, but suddenly he's just, I'm throwing this in the book and you're gonna figure it out, right? So, I mean, rising to those kinds of challenges. I mean, what was probably the hardest, like out of the blue, like, I don't know if I can do that, but I've been asked to do it.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

I mean, on the topic of singing, I had this on the book that I was like asked, could I sing on it? I had to be various small animals and very small female animals, and I was like, okay, I can sing pretty high, but is it gonna sound kind of corny and bad? And so I did my very best to make it sound like a heartfelt good performance, and luckily it turned out, but I was like, there is a world in which I might say, guys, I can't do a good enough job on this, so I'm not gonna do it because I don't want I'd rather not not be there than it sound bad. And luckily it worked out.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

I would say for me, uh actually it was a challenge of my own creation. I I did this to myself, but uh it was I think it was one it might have been the trip that we were talking about, or kind of like well, anyways, we were all in Kansas City together before I'd moved there, and Ben and Jeff and I were sitting around with a bottle of scotch and and talking about uh his series The Blood of Mercenaries and How exactly we would bring that to light because you know with High Fantasy, you know, a a rather posh British sound could could do well. Um, but the it didn't quite fit the vibe. This is more of a a dungeon uh DD campaign brought to a book series. And so it didn't quite really feel right for American, but those are kind of the only two that I was like, I'm not gonna do like a insane. And he was like, What about a Yorkshire accent, Jeff, Jeff? And I was like, I'm I don't know, I don't know what does that sound like and he was like, you know, have you ever watched Game of Thrones? It's like the people in the north, you know, they all bean the Sean Bean, the way that they all talk. And so I went and I studied for weeks and and and worked with a vocal coach named um Amy uh Walker and just worked the hell out of the Yorkshire accent until I was like, and I was like so proud. And so I did the entire narration for all four books in the Yorkshire accent. Yeah, not just a character, but like, you know, like the whole thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

And I don't know if I was on top of that, other character voices that weren't Yorkshire accent, because he's very versatile. He he can do all sorts of voices. So but the yeah, the base narration was that beautiful Yorkshire accent. Yeah, and then he built on it from there.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Yeah. Wow. So that was the definitely the biggest challenge was he was like, You want to try to try doing a whole narration and a voice you don't know yet? Let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 37:46

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Well, I know I have two more questions, but I'm dominating right now. Do you guys have still had time? Oh my gosh, yeah. Okay. Liz, you want to go?

Co-Writing Workflow And Cover Art

SPEAKER_04 37:54

I I I defer to you with the moment. What do you want to say?

SPEAKER_03 37:57

Okay, well, when uh when authors collaborate, I often wonder how that works. Like, what is your process working with Luke?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Oh man, so the concept was a concept that came to me. The idea of all these different video game worlds being mashed together and having overlap and what all that could entail. That was my concept. I brought it to Luke. Luke liked it. I wanted to work with Luke. I offered, Luke, do you want to do this? And he said, Yes, absolutely. What I mean, it's a chance to have fun and play with your friends. Like that's why we're all doing this too. We all get to be in the same playground together. It's it's being back in school all over again, you know, all about this. But even you know, we get to be little kids playing around and having fun. So Luke, what we what we came up with with the agreement, Luke is more introverted, he's less experienced in writing and in the marketing side of things. Not that I'm a marketing dynamo, because I'm not, but I have more experience with it. And so what we came up with was an as an agreement was my concept, we outline it together, so we just talk through it. He takes notes. Usually while we're driving to an event or whatever, uh, he takes notes, I clean it up, and then he takes that outline and he starts writing. Now he doesn't write the entire thing, he'll write a chunk, he sends me the chunk, and then the old theater adage, you do a yes and. So I take what he writes and I say, yes, we're doing this, and on top of that, I expand it, I add additional depth, I add additional color, and then it's more or less finalized at that point. Now we've we go back, we do our editing and all that fun stuff. But basically, he drafts, I polish, and then it's pretty much done. And so we're doing that for all the different books. Wow. Yeah. And so it's not like he's got one character and I've got another. I've done that as well, and it can work really well. But for this particular series, we want one unified voice. So whatever he gives me, I just amp it up as it where it needs amped up, I clean it up where it needs cleaning up, and then I add to it where it needs to be added to it.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Speaking of marketing, uh this cover is amazing. Marketing, and I know that a cover can really make or break whether or not I read a book. I I I can't I can't avoid sometimes judging a book by its cover. Absolutely. There are some books that I've loved, but I've hated the cover.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah, you should judge a book by its cover at least. I think that's one of the worst idioms over the colours. It's an investment because it not doesn't apply to books at all. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

So who do who's first of all who's responsible for this?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Kirk DuPonts is the cover artist. He lives in Colorado Springs. He is a professional cover designer, that an artist, that's what he does. None of that is AI. He sculpted everything digitally and then he painted over it, and then he also did the text. He's very, very talented.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

And he, if you you guys are we're all here at JorgicCon, most of the books on my table are Kirk DuPont's covers. The few that aren't, honestly, they don't sell as well as the ones that aren't because they're just such spectacular covers. And he's doing the whole series too.

Favorite Series And July Release

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Well, then let me end out with this question, guys. Sure. Favorite lit RPG series of all time.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Aside from Dungeon Crawler Carl. Yeah, let's go ahead and just assume Dungeon Crawler Carl is a bit of competition that we think. Does it have to be straight up lit RPG or just progression? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, very close. It's like neck and neck. There's DCC, and then there's Cradle by Will White. And Cradle is just it's everything that I want out of a great fantasy series and progression cultivation fantasy.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

For me, honestly, it's one that I just worked on, and I just fell in love with it. It's called The Legend of William O, and it's by Macronomicon, and he does uh such a phenomenal job. And I just it's it's a beautiful balance of humor and and I'm listening to it right now.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Good, cool. I'm the same. It's a book I narrate, a series I narrated called Hero Slayers. I just I loved all the characters, I loved the way they approached in the system. It was just a really good story from beginning to end, and it was just very nice to narrate, and it was really enjoyable to read.

SPEAKER_04 41:49

Awesome. Well, we thank you guys so much for spending some time with us, and we look forward to reading this and listening to it as soon as possible. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Coming out in July.

SPEAKER_04 42:01

Awesome. July. That's it. Thank you.