Intro

This episode I'm joined by Hannah Rose. She's had a busy career and has worked on the Taldorei setting for Critical Role, worked on multiple Wizards of the Coast books, and maybe most famously in the MCDM community, been the managing editor for Arcadia. We talk about her new venture, the quarterly magazine Horizons, trying to maintain a viable freelance market in TTRPGs, and what ever Deathmatch Island is.

I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.

Interview

Jon de Nor: Welcome to Goblin Points, Hannah Rose!

Hannah Rose: Hey, Jon. Great to be here.

Jon de Nor: Oh, wow. Here's the cat — we spoke about, before we started recording, about your cats. And now one's visiting us already. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: She saw that I was busy with something that was not giving her attention, so she came over to make her presence known.

Jon de Nor: Cats are always welcome. Hannah, tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up in the MCDM sphere, basically.

Hannah Rose: Yeah! I am a game designer and editor, in tabletop games, obviously, and I started out editing for Arcadia magazine back in...God, what would it have been? Well, when did — whenever Arcadia started. I think it was 2020, I want to say.

Jon de Nor: Something like that. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: It's all a blur. I had worked with James Introcaso a bunch before, and he brought me on to copyedit Arcadia. I was just so excited to hear about the project. And then when the MCDM team expanded and James became the lead game designer, I became the managing editor of Arcadia.

Jon de Nor: Right, yeah.

Hannah Rose: I did that for about a year and as, you know, Draw Steel started, worked with James and Matt on laying the foundation a little for Draw Steel. And now I am running my own tabletop company, Wildmage Press, and we are actually publishing a quarterly magazine that is in some ways a spiritual successor to Arcadia. So if you miss Arcadia, come check out Horizons.

You know, Jon, you and I have been talking pre-show about rambling on, and how great it is when people just get to talk about what they're passionate about. And one of the things we're trying out in Horizons is an editorial column, an op-ed that's called "The Desk of Many Thoughts".

Jon de Nor: Ah, nice!

Hannah Rose: Which was a name that my co-founder Clara Daly suggested, ad it stuck.

Jon de Nor: It's a good name. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: It's a great name. And, so far we've had an introductory editorial from Clara and me; an article on bringing realism, letting reality inform the fantasy in your games from Quinns of Quinns Quest; and an interview with Brennan Lee Mulligan about philosophy, antagonists in TTRPGs, power systems, and, you know, how he turns that into telling stories about hope and solidarity and community.

So, yeah, so that's our chance to bring in other creators to just ramble on in a setting that is related to games, to fantasy, to creation, but is not — you know, is a prose format that's not game design, that's not journalism about games. And yeah, that's been something that's been really fun.

Jon de Nor: I've actually become a subscriber of Horizons. I haven't gotten around to the Brennan Lee Mulligan interview yet, because I just leafed through it and realized, oh, wow, this is long. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yeah. You know, Brennan and I chatted for an hour, and probably about 40 minutes of that became the written interview. Right?

Jon de Nor: Right, okay, yeah.

Hannah Rose: As I turned it from, like, the raw transcribed text into this written interview, I was like, okay, this is going to be like three pages. Oh, no, this is four pages — oh, no, this is six pages. But yeah, it's been — it's always great to talk to Brennan. And it was really fun. And I think it is a really interesting conversation. So I'm happy you're subscribed, and I would love to hear what you think of it.

Jon de Nor: I have to admit that my first reaction was, when leafing through the first issue, it really brought me back to Arcadia. I think some of your layout that's kind of similar, maybe?

Hannah Rose: I mean, you know, we've got the D&D DNA, right, in the layout. And so that's a strong basis.

Jon de Nor: Sure, yeah.

Hannah Rose: But then also being able to depart a little from that and make ours a little more colorful, and have our own trade dress, and have some interesting textures. So...and then of course, our contributors, you know.

Jon de Nor: Yeah! I'm so happy that you kind of continued the front covers and the art inside. Oh, it's so good! I just really enjoy the art. And especially, I...is it the first issue with the dragons, or is it the second issue?

Hannah Rose: The first issue has the star dragons, yes.

Jon de Nor: Yes, yes. I remember just the first one kind of caught me off-guard, and I was...bwah! I had to show my kids, like, look at this! And they go, wow, what's this?! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yeah! Honestly, star dragons would be great for a kids' game because they're, you know, very adaptable and neutral, and, you know, you got little protostellar wyrmlings. Like what nerdy kid wouldn't love that? I would've!

Jon de Nor: It's so, I love all the colors. I just love colorful stuff. And, ah, man, really captivated by the art. But speaking of Horizons, in addition to the 5e stuff, you also have the last article that's usually from another system. What's the idea behind bringing in other systems into the magazine?

Hannah Rose: Dare I reduce it down to "games are cool, we want to make stuff for games"? You know, I do really enjoy playing 5e and making stuff for 5e. When you are just creating stuff for 5e, you know, I don't have as much of an excuse to play other games and get to know other games and work with other amazing creators in the tabletop industry who don't do D&D.

Clara and I both really like trying new things and learning new things. One of the things about our collaboration and founding a company together is that, you know, I'm learning from her and the graphic design and marketing, and she's learning for me on publishing the magazine. This was an opportunity to do even more of that. And the hope is that we're saying, you know, to our audience and to our community, "Hey, games are cool! If you love D&D, you're welcome here and we're making stuff for you. If you love other games, you're welcome here and we're making stuff for you."

With all of the articles that we create, well, I think having crunchiness and detail and that, you know, Arcadia trademark of, this is stuff you can drop in your games right away, is really important...we're also looking at it as, yeah, you could adapt this for other systems. And I'll mention, you know, in the table of contents post, in the release post, like, this is easily adaptable, or, you could adapt this, but it'd be some work. And so we're looking at it as, okay, we published a Pathfinder article — hey, we think there's still a bunch of stuff in there that you could either lift for D&D, or if you want to convert the statblock, you could go ahead and do that.

We're, you know — actually, some folks in our community who overlap with MCDM have already converted some content to Draw Steel. So the Nim roc that's in issue 1 has a community conversion for Draw Steel, whatever the, you know, Draw Steel rules were a couple months ago. So yeah, so that's great. It's just kind of a chance for people to try out new things, or to take inspiration from those systems and bring them into whatever game they're playing.

Jon de Nor: In the...was it in the most recent issue? Because you did the Pathfinder 2e in the first issue.

Hannah Rose: And then Candela Obscura.

Jon de Nor: Yes! And I think it was a...was it scifi-themed in the last one? I just remember...because I leafed through the third issue, I haven't sat down to actually read it in detail yet. And I remember getting to the last article and seeing the completely different layout and design.

Hannah Rose: Yeah!

Jon de Nor: And it was really different. And it had a scifi feel, but I can't remember for the life of me what the game was.

Hannah Rose: It's Deathmatch Island.

Jon de Nor: Yes! It was completely different, and I really appreciated how different it felt, even inside of Horizons, that this is a different game. And it's really, I assume that's kind of their default layout that they use?

Hannah Rose: Yeah! So the designer, Tim Denee, the game designer, is also the graphic designer for the base game, and he did the initial layout for the article as part of him designing it for us. You know, you asked about the impetus behind us featuring different systems, and, you know, I mentioned working with other creators who design for non-D&D systems, but also working with other publishers! Like, this is such a fun, tiny, really tiny industry.

And to be able to say to, you know, our friends at MCDM, at Critical Role and Darrington Press, at Evil Hat Publications who published Deathmatch Island, "Hey, let's collaborate! We'd be interested in featuring one of your games in Horizons," and they suggested Deathmatch Island, hooked us up with Tim...anyway, so Deathmatch Island is definitely a conglomeration of genres. It is a game in which you are competitors waking up mysteriously, on your way to an island where production expects you to fight to the death.

So it's dystopian battle royale, you know, inspired by Squid Game, Lost, Survivor, The Hunger Games, basically anything you can think of that might be on the inspiration list probably is. It is just a really cool system — really beautifully laid out, too, in that base graphic design, which we were able to kind of marry with our Horizons trade dress.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, I really like the design and layout that they used. I also appreciated — in some cases, I think it would be bit strange to kind of, when you suddenly just genre shift like that in the layout, but I really appreciated that this is very clearly its own thing, and you're kind of respecting the source material with having the "proper" layout. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yeah, yeah! I was really pleased. I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Jon de Nor: I kind of want to jump back to Arcadia for a bit, because this is an MCDM community podcast, so...and Arcadia is sorely missed by a lot of the community, at least by the frequency they're asking whether or not there would be an Arcadia for Draw Steel. And Matt has, and I think rightly, said that if there's going to be an Arcadia or something similar for Draw Steel, it has to come from someone else than MCDM. Because they were a third party to D&D 5e, and you kind of need the same kind of relationship to achieve the same thing. And I think he's right in that. And, going back to Arcadia, when that was still a thing...because you started out contributing to the first issue of Arcadia. Isn't that right?

Hannah Rose: So I was the editor.

Jon de Nor: You were editor, okay.

Hannah Rose: I was the copyeditor. James was, you know, managing editor, commissioning and developing all of the articles. And then I would do the copyediting on them before, you know, they went to layout and publication. And then I did write two articles for Arcadia. I think, in...I want to say issue 7, And then I know Shieldbearer subclass is in issue 20. And that was, you know, a blast to...I mean, I love working with James.

And then Sadie Lowry, also ended up doing a bunch of the copyediting for it, especially once I took over as managing editor, she was our main copyeditor, also with Scott Gray, and Amber Litke, and Laura Hirsbrunner. So yeah, that was my...I have I have worked on every single issue of Arcadia in one form or another.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) I have to almost ask you a favor! As someone who's never worked in publications or anything, could you possibly explain the difference between all the different kinds of editors?

Hannah Rose: Yeah, yeah!

Jon de Nor: Because you're mentioning editors and copyeditors, and then there is someone who is called editor-in-chief, and is that different from a managing editor?

Hannah Rose: Editor-in-chief and managing editor are basically the same thing.

Jon de Nor: Okay.

Hannah Rose: So, like, for Wildmage Press, I — right, I am also the CEO, and, CFO and, you know. (laughter)

Jon de Nor: A lot of hats.

Hannah Rose: A lot of hats, right? So I was like, well, I have to pick one. So editor-in-chief sounds like the most high-up, right?

Jon de Nor: Sure, sure. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: But, you know, "person in charge of making the publication happen". And responsible for the final quality of it. So in terms of editing specifically — and if you look at like freelance — well, if you look at in-house, kind of the scale of potentially in-house to freelance editing, you would have developmental editing, which is giving more high-level feedback. Especially in TTRPGs, looking at game design feedback, organization...you know, with the rigorous playtest process that both MCDM and Wildmage Press go through, working with the testers and the author to shape the article through its many rounds of revision.

And then overseeing the copyeditor, who looks more at the paragraph-by-paragraph, and line-by-line level, to make sure everything is — to do another check, ,ake sure everything is clear, consistent, make the sentences flow well, make it sound good. Then we also have our beta testers, and sometimes alpha testers, who additionally help out as proofreaders at the final stage, because having more eyes on something is always better.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask, mentioning Wildmage Press and Horizons, because you're two co-founders of the company itself and starting Horizons. But then you also have some testers that freelance for you, or...?

Hannah Rose: Yes! So my co-founder, Clara Daly is an illustrator, web designer — in her day job, she is a web designer, marketing expert, basically director of communications. So yeah, we have — my co-founder has a day job! We are a lot smaller than people think we are. And she's amazing. I'm super lucky to have her. She...we met working on Tal'Dorei Reborn, when she did illustration for that. And she's also done work for, a lot more work for Critical Role and then work for Arcadia. The arcanolinguistics language tree and the Nocturne Market map are both from her.

Yeah, so we founded Wildmage Press, and then we have a number of freelancers for, you know, obviously, design and testing and editing, and a community of volunteer beta testers as well.

Jon de Nor: Is it fair...(laughter)...is it fair to say, that you've, let's say, was inspired by MCDM's testing regime when you started out with the Horizons?

Hannah Rose: I would say, yeah, we learned, I've learned, you know, how to be a really good test developer. And I think that MCDM brought some, you know, knowledge from the video game playtest process. Lars brought a lot of that from the video game playtesting QA process into, how do you playtest well? And I think that is something that MCDM does better than — say this not too putatively — MCDM does uniquely well in the tabletop space, exceptionally well in the tabletop space.

And I learned a lot working there and working with the amazing testers there. Many of the testers we have at Wildmage Press also overlap with the MCDM test pool. So yeah, there's shared DNA there. And I learned a lot when working with James and the design team at MCDM.

Jon de Nor: Coming from you that they're doing well when it comes to testing means something. You've worked on a lot of stuff. You mentioned the Tal'Dorei Reborn setting guide, is it —?

Hannah Rose: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn.

Jon de Nor: Yes! (laughter) That one. Was it through Darrington Press, or was it through WotC, maybe?

Hannah Rose: Darrington Press. So Darrington Press is the publishing arm of Critical Role. I also worked on Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and Call of the Netherdeep, which are the Critical Role books published in partnership with Wizards of the Coast.

Jon de Nor: Right, okay, yeah. Ah, the business...(laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yeah, yeah. Don't even get me on to talking about the SRD stuff.

Jon de Nor: You've also worked on quite a few products from Wizards of the Coast. I've noted down Candlekeep Mysteries, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, and Descent into Avernus. What did you do on those projects?

Hannah Rose: I was editor on those projects, and also contributed a tiny bit of game design to Candlekeep Mysteries as part of the developmental editing process. And Netherdeep as well, really. So yeah, I've worked on a bunch of titles with WotC and really learned a lot of different things. You know, I was not part of the playtest process, but learned a lot from there that I've been able to take forward into knowing how to publish, and knowing how to, you know, be a lead designer and managing editor for things like Tal'Dorei Reborn and Horizons.

A lot of — very informal, but just Chris Perkins being, like, showing me some of his process as we work together. And, you know, the lead designers at WotC really do such an immense amount for the book that I think most people don't realize. It's not just writing, they also flow the entire text into layout. They do the initial layout for the book. They write the art briefs. It's truly an immense amount of knowledge and work. And so a lot of things that I was able to observe, that then I got to put into practice co-leading Tal'Dorei Reborn and working on Arcadia and now running Horizons.

I really believe that every lead designer should know how to use InDesign or whatever the layout software of your company is, and be able to get into the text and edit without having to go back and forth with the layout designer. It allows you to shape the text and facilitate better communication with your design and editorial team than if you, you know, if you can't touch the file in layout.

Jon de Nor: Right, yeah, I can imagine. I wanted to ask — I'm all over the place. (laughter) I wanted to ask about the release, the frequency of releases of Horizons. Because you're doing quarterly now. I can only imagine how much time it takes to bring a whole issue together, because Arcadia, which I'm comparing you very much to —

Hannah Rose: Sure!

Jon de Nor: — did it monthly, and I've heard from both James and Matt when they're kind of being retrospective, that it was a ton of work and it, in reality, slowed down MCDM's progress doing other stuff, because it was such a huge amount of work getting Arcadia out every month. I assume that kind of influenced your choice when going for quarterly releases instead of monthly, or...

Hannah Rose: Yeah, so our quarterly releases, we do...at least, so far. we've done four articles per issue. So they're bigger than Arcadia, which was three articles per issue. Originally when I was thinking about doing this, you know, could I, I really loved working on Arcadia. I know the community really was sad to see it go. Could I do something similar? I was like, well, there's no way, you know, even with a team of 2 or 3, there is no way I can do monthly. But people, you know, the Patreon subscription model is monthly, and people are gonna expect that.

Eventually I came around to, you know, from the creative perspective, we want to create something really good and high quality, although creative cadence means doing it quarterly. I mean, publishing anything monthly is just a lot. There is so much work involved in the release. Yeah, there were a lot of people, you know, even though the managing editor does a lot, and I ended up as managing editor of Arcadia, writing a lot of the art briefs, working, you know, working with playtesters and all of that.

But there's still a lot of people who are helping out and have their hands in the pie and who are, you know, also responsible for running the company, which is something that I do now, running my own company. And yeah, it's a...it is a challenge to balance the...like, I actually like doing a lot of the admin work. I find, you know, I like spreadsheets. But.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) Ah, you're that kind of person, I see! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yes, yes. I have fancy, color-coded spreadsheets. But it is a big challenge to balance the administrative part and the creative part and the running-our-social-media part, and the making-sure-we're registered-for-our-business-licenses-and-are-paying-our-lawyer part, you know? So it's...that's, you know, it all goes into, yeah, into it being quarterly. And then we put out a bunch of bonus content between issues. The more subscribers we get, the more bonus content we can do! (laughter)

Those are things like tokens — actually, just a few hours ago before recording this, I put out a behind-the-scenes post on our art process. You mentioned, you know, how much, how gorgeous the art is. And coming from...I sort of fell sideways into being an art director and then doing that more and more, despite not being an illustrator, not erally being an illustrator at all myself. Clara, my co-founder, is an illustrator — we really wanted to highlight the work of the artists as well as the game designers.

We have done some behind-the-scenes posts on that art, showing the concept art, talking about the art direction process. This one, I included some really cool references from the artist: a clean air study that he did during his exchange program in Granada that was one of the reasons we picked him for this, te concept for this piece; photos he took at the National Museum of Archeology, where he lives in Mexico City...

Jon de Nor: Wow.

Hannah Rose: Yeah! It's really cool. So we wanted to highlight that and talk about that. And that's part of our bonus content. And then we have other bits of game design, magic items, collaborations with other creators, and again, more things we would like to put out when we have the funding and bandwith.

Jon de Nor: You're basically doing, like, a second behind-the-scenes magazine on the Patreon beside the main — it almost sounds like.

Hannah Rose: I would say it's more of a...it's more, I don't know, a blog and downloadables?

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Hannah Rose: But it is. Again, and that's like, well, I, you know, all the time that I spent setting even that relatively simple post up, and publishing it both on Patreon and our website, and sending it out via email, is time I do not get to focus on designing the next edition. I'm not complaining here! But it is like, again, a very small staff and that is the challenge. This is one of the challenges of being a small creator.

Jon de Nor: Yeah. It sounds like you're putting in not an insignificant amount of work in, I mean, what's — something that's not really your main-line product...but I'm not complaining, either! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: (laughter) Well, you know, we...again, with the quarterly release, and being, in the ways that we are, a successor to Arcadia, where people did get something monthly, I think it is both something we really want, to maintain that contact with our community, and also, frankly, something that's just necessary from the marketing side, to feel like people are providing value, to not have subscribers drop off between issues. Yeah. That's important.

Jon de Nor: To ask you a bit of a business question, which you're free to not answer, but do you see a drop between issues and people coming back once you release a new issue?

Hannah Rose: We see some. There definitely are people who drop between issues, more on Patreon than through our website, but also, a large percentage of our website subscribers are annual, because there's a 10% discount there. So...it's some, but, you know, the majority of the community also wants to support us and support what we're creating. But I think, if we didn't put anything out for two months, you know, then we're going to see more, more attrition.

Jon de Nor: Sure. I can believe that. To bring it a bit back to MCDM again, because...that's where we are! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yes, absolutely! (laughter)

Jon de Nor: I am kind of curious, because you were at MCDM right when design of Draw Steel started. I remember you were, in that first week when you did intensive playtesting every day, writing a Patreon update every day.

Hannah Rose: Yeah. I was also finalizing an issue of Arcadia that same week. (laughter)

Jon de Nor: Right! (laughter) Oh, I can only imagine how busy that was.

Hannah Rose: One of the things I really loved about working on Arcadia, and honestly, the thing that made me feel really connected to the community, was working with so many different creators and putting something out on a regular release schedule. You know, monthly is a lot, as we've just been discussing. You know, having that connection with the community and getting to hear all about people using what we create right away...we're getting to work with a lot of hand-picked designers and artists and playtesters and editors in the industry.

And providing that work for them, too, right? This is a hard, you know, a very small industry. And it has only gotten harder for freelance creators. I don't think I could make a living doing...I was making a living doing full-time freelance for a few years before I was at MCDM. That is harder these days. I mean, it was always very hard!

Jon de Nor: Yeah, I can imagine.

Hannah Rose: But I was lucky to be able to do it, and there are a lot of factors and privilege that went into that. But yeah, I felt really bad with Arcadia ending, honestly, not just for the community, but for the creators. At a time when things were really up in the air because of the OGL debacle, because of people pivoting to different systems, and publishers kind of tightening their belts, WotC being at a point where they were really staffed up on full-time and not hiring a lot of freelancers...yeah, it was hard for creators. And I know that our contributors were really sad that they weren't gonna get freelance work, at least until, you know, until Draw Steel picked up. And I really just loved getting to work with so many different people. The collaboration was very important to me. So that's one reason why I wanted to start Horizons.

Jon de Nor: I'm really glad you did. I'm one of those that really miss Arcadia. I ended up using a lot of that material to just drop into my campaign, especially at that time, because I was running a campaign in my own homebrew setting. And, you know, it's a lot easier just...there was one of those mega-lists that someone in the community made of, like, all the Arcadia articles.

Hannah Rose: Ruben. Amazing.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah. And just going through it, "Okay, I just need, like, a short adventure. I just need, like, a three-room dungeon."

Hannah Rose: I need a CR 7 statblock. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So using Arcadia for that was fantastic. And I'm really happy seeing some of that doing a reprise with Horizons. And honestly, especially with like Deathmatch Island, it's probably going to make me try some new games, because I was really intrigued in that last issue. I can't even explain, because I didn't...I usually skip the table of contents, because I want to be surprised when I get to each article, and turning the page and just — what is going on here?

Hannah Rose: Oh! What are these skull logos? What is this, yeah, table of acquisitions? What are these redacted parts?

Jon de Nor: Yeah, that was a treat. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, Deathmatch Island, we also had a staff game of that when we decided to feature the system. And that was really fun. And just, it was a game that we all fell in love with.

Jon de Nor: I'm to figure out if I can get a group together to try it out because...(laughter) I don't think my regular group would enjoy it. They have...there's like a taste that they kind of like. But yeah, maybe. Who knows. I'm not averse to just running like a short thing for like a couple of sessions just to get them, just to try something out.

Hannah Rose: That's right. You can probably — if they, like, really love fantasy too, you could reflavor it as fantasy. Or if the battling to the death is — you know you can do a nonlethal mode. Also one of the core...beyond mechanics, really, both sort of mechanics and themes in Deathmatch Island, is that production wants you to Play to Win™, but you can also unite and break the game.

Jon de Nor: Oh, okay! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: So you can work against the evil forces of production.

Jon de Nor: Now we're talking! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: And it's very fun that way.

Jon de Nor: Okay, yeah, that's, interesting. That actually — well, you mentioned Hunger Games being an inspiration.

Hannah Rose: Yeah, yeah. Very much all Hunger Games in that sense. You can play to win, or you can try to work together to figure out what's going on behind-the-scenes, and...yeah.

Jon de Nor: I, of course, have to ask, considering that you're including other systems in Horizons, do you foresee a Draw Steel article in Horizons at some point?

Hannah Rose: Yeah, yeah. I mean absolutely, right? Our...I know there is going to be a license for it because MCDM is really passionate about that. Obviously we have a lot of shared community and shared creator DNA. Willy Abeel, who's now a game designer at MCDM, wrote an article for the first issue of Horizons. James Introcaso wrote an article for the second issue of Horizons. Yeah, he wrote some really cool traps. And actually, another member of our community use those in a Draw Steel game. At least one person.

Yeah, we have Leon Barillaro, who's a frequent MCDM contributor and Draw Steel designer. Sadie Lowry, who wrote one of the Draw Steel intro adventures and a bunch of monsters. So yeah, we have shared community and creator DNA, and that will absolutely happen at some point.

Jon de Nor: Fantastic.

Hannah Rose: I will say one of the kind of bonus content goals I have, that we would really need a budget for — because obviously we believe in compensating people well, and compensating people, you know, not just at minimum, but to be able to feel like they could devote time and passion to it and do their best work —

Jon de Nor: Nice.

Hannah Rose: — is, you know, having pre-made conversions. Not just saying, "Hey, you can convert this for yourself, it's not too hard."

Jon de Nor: Oh!

Hannah Rose: But, you know, being able to convert for other systems, being able to turn our Pathfinder article into a 5e article. Being able to turn that trap article, and you know, Willy's sky city of Cuculan, and anything else, into a Draw Steel article for our patrons and our subscribers. And just having that up front. You know, if folks in the community want to do, that's cool too. But it would be nice to be able to do it ourselves, and have that be available. But it is definitely work and requires a budget.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hannah Rose: And you know, needs to be not only converted but re-edited and re-layed out.

Jon de Nor: Right, yeah. Speaking of publishing stuff in Horizons, how much lead time do you have? How long does it take to put together an issue?

Hannah Rose: Right. So, similar to Arcadia, we try to have at least 6 to 7 months lead time.

Jon de Nor: Oh, wow. Okay.

Hannah Rose: For some of the articles, it's not that much. It kind of depends on the playtesting needs. For some of the articles, it's a little longer. But, occasionally, as I'm juggling everything, a draft will sit in my inbox for a bit. But it is — and again, that's a reason it's quarterly, right? I can just, we can only juggle...again, with four articles per issue, just, it's a lot of plates to be spinning, even on that purely creative side. Because not only are we working with the designers for each of those, they're also going through several rounds of playtest feedback, and writing — deciding what the art briefs are going to be, and then writing the art briefs, and reaching out to an artist and contracting artist for them...working with the artist through their own phases, of, maybe, thumbnails and work-in-progress updates and prefinal, nd do we want any adjustments before finalizing it...so yeah, it's a lot, but that's our goal, is to have six, seven months of lead time on it.

Jon de Nor: Wow. That is...I feel like I only have scratched the surface of how much work it is to put together these issues. I'm trying to comprehend how much work Arcadia was! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: I will say you — could decide whether to leave this it or not. I, finally this year, got a wonderful therapist who is familiar with the games and with the TTRPG industry, which has been, kind of a like, you know, dream of mine for a long time, to be able to work with a meental health professional and have that support from somebody who gets it. And she told me recently, hey, I don't think you're even charging enough. Like, "I think it's a steal. I think you could be charging more." And I was like, wow. My therapist says that $5 a month or $15 an issue is a steal for folks, then...(laughter)

Jon de Nor: Yeah, it's really good value! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yeah, good! I'm glad!

Jon de Nor: I mean it feels...again, this, for me, it really comes back to the art, which...I just adore the art that you get for Horizons. It's...ahh! Also, I really like the logo!

Hannah Rose: That's Clara, my co-founder, graphic designer. Both our Wildmage Press logo and our Horizons logo, and the kind of base layout, come from her work and expertise. And it's been really fun. Once we're — if we have time at the end, I will show you some of the framed prints of Horizons art I have.

Jon de Nor: Oh, wow. Yes, please!

Hannah Rose: Yes. I need to post some pictures of that, but I have a couple that I just recently got framed.

Jon de Nor: Wow. I've been debating doing this with some of the Arcadia issues too, trying to figure out, could I get these in like proper prints?

Hannah Rose: Feel free to — a lot of, not all, but many of the artists have prints on their sites, or in print. If there's a particular piece of art you want, just ask me. Because the artists are not credited per article. Which I've started doing in Horizons.

Jon de Nor: Yes, I noticed in the latest issue!

Hannah Rose: Yeah, the latest issue. Yeah, because I knew I wanted to do that, but I had to figure out how to place it. Anyway, so, if there are any pieces from Arcadia you want, tell me, you know, email me, whatever, tell me which piece, which page it's on, and I'll be able to tell you who the artist is and point you to prints if they have them.

Jon de Nor: Wow, okay. Fantastic. Yeah, I love the work you've already done with Arcadia and doing it with Horizons when it comes to the art. It's just, ah, it's such a treat! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: It is! It's such a treat to be able to commission these artists, and to have, you know, the support and the subscribers to be able to commission these really amazing artists, and work with them, and work with people from all over the world who bring their own expertise and stories and backgrounds and inspiration. I mean, you talked about Adrián, with both his exchange program in Spain and his, you know, being in...drawing inspiration of references from where he lives in Mexico City, and then the desert landscape that you can see through the magical portal, right, of the wizard study, the door in this, the cover of this most recent issue — he told me, completely after the fact, "Oh, yeah, that landscape was inspired by the desert near my grandfather's house." It's like, oh, awesome!

Jon de Nor: (laughter) Okay! Wow.

Hannah Rose: So, yeah, it's it's really fun to work with people, who bring so much of their own creativity and passion and skill.

Jon de Nor: Yeah. I have to say, I really like...I was, I had to double-check because Quinns always goes by Quinns online, so was it —?

Hannah Rose: Yes. (laughter) "Quinns", plural, but — yes.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, so it says Quintin, I'm like, "Is that Quinns' full name? I can't remember!" And luckily in the back, you credited him with both his full name and "Quinns".

Hannah Rose: I asked him which he wanted to be credited by, and it was like, you know what, can we do both?

Jon de Nor: Thank you. Because I was really unsure, like, is that Quinns' full name? I can never remember. I just remember that he's named Quintin, but...

Hannah Rose: Yes.

Jon de Nor: But yeah. So I really enjoyed the Desk of Many Thoughts. And I'm really looking forward to the Brennan Lee Mulligan interview because he's, I mean, he's a really big-time DM at this point, but he's also one that has...he's not afraid to state his opinions, I feel, and I know, at least in the past, he's had opinions that I don't agree with, but I always find them interesting. (laughter) So I'm really looking forward to that interview. And it is long, but I'm kind of saving it for...(laughter)

Hannah Rose: (laughter)

Jon de Nor: But yeah, I've really enjoyed the editorial at the beginning, because usually, that's...or, I say "usuall". In some of the magazines that I've purchased and subscribe to, it's usually like a letter from the editor. And I've been really enjoying getting these other — well, I mean — (laughter) and now it sounds like I don't want to read your writing!

Hannah Rose: No, no, no, I totally get it!

Jon de Nor: That's not what I meant! (laughter)

Hannah Rose: You know, I will tell you, the letter from the editor in Arcadia was something I thought was really cool. I always, you know, enjoyed I mean, "editing", quote-unquote, James's letter from the editor was, like, a quick proofread and a couple suggestions. But, you know, and I'm really proud of some of the ones I wrote, but it was always like, oh my God, we're leading up to release, you know, I'm trying to copyedit all these, get all these other articles copyedited, and get them to layout — oh, yeah, I gotta somehow figure out a kind of topic that will encompass or relate to all of these, and then write it and get into that creative mindset while I'm in a very, like, coordinating and administrative mindset...

And again, I'm proud of a few of them in particular that I really did enjoy writing, but I both felt like it was a little bit of a burden to always be writing that, and wanted to open it up to other voices and have something I felt like I don't see in the industry, which is non-game writing. You know, not game content; prose writing that's not a press release or a review of a product or a formal academic, you know, full-on formal academic paper. Right? Like we have footnotes. Brennan uses some big words in his article. Boy, I used some big words in, you know, the one Clara and I wrote. And people — there are just so many people here who have really keen insight.

Some of the inspirations, I think, were from places that have really great insights in other formats. So like, the Monte Cook blog is a little more aimed at game designers, and secondarily DMs, but it is that just...somebody being able to talk about something they're really passionate and knowledgeable about. And then the fireside chat that Brennan does on Worlds Beyond Number, which will probably be my shout-out at the end of this episode. That's just such a mix of unhinged silliness and incredibly insightful creative and philosophical insights into playing D&D and telling stories.

Jon de Nor: As you mentioned, we're coming up on the end of the episode, and I always ask my guests to bring a few recommendations. It can be anything from, like, a book or a TV series or a piece of music or a game to try out, or that people should become aware of, maybe. So I hope you've brought some interesting stuff. (laughter)

Hannah Rose: Yeah! Well, you didn't tell me I could do multiple, but don't worry, I'll have them. So I'll start with Worlds Beyond Number because I just mentioned it. Worlds Beyond Number is a...truly, to me as a fan — even though I have, I am now doing work for them — but truly, to me as a fan, incredible, groundbreaking actual play podcast. Folks listening to this, who like podcasts and maybe prefer it over watching something on a screen, episodes that are about an hour to 90 minutes long, a story that is told, you know, through the vehicle of 5th Edition D&D, but the vibes are very much Studio Ghibli for adults.

Jon de Nor: Oh, interesting.

Hannah Rose: So it's kind of Studio Ghibli, but it gets, you know, it gets darker. I mean, Studio Ghibli could get pretty dark, but, you know, they're telling continent-spanning stories, and really...it's Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Lou Wilson, and Erika Ishii. I think I've used the word incredible already? But, fantastic game design, fantastic sound design by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse. It's just never compromising being able to hear and understand it, but immersive auditory experience. And yeah, I enjoy so much. I enjoy it deeply as a fan, aside from working with them on some stuff, on some game design. Would recommend it to anybody who likes podcasts, D&D actual play, fairy tales, storytelling...really, really fun.

Jon de Nor: Did you have any backup recommendations? It sounded like you...?

Hannah Rose: Yeah! You didn't tell me I could do multiple. For TV show...one of my favorite shows of all time is Leverage.

Jon de Nor: Oh, interesting.

Hannah Rose: Which, one of the creators, John Rogers, is actually a big TTRPG nerd, and I think has described Leverage as "if you had a D&D party of five rogues". It's about...you should turn away from crime purely for the sake of crime or profit, and to take down the powerful and corrupt that the system permits to continue hurting people. Incredibly cathartic. And now — also the best, like, sequel, not even really reboot, but sequel to a TV show is Leverage: Redemption, which is on its third season. Getting a little too real with some of the AI-related episodes, but really good, nerdy creators, and again, just like, incredibly cathartic in these times.

Jon de Nor: Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on, Hannah. It was a delight speaking with you.

Hannah Rose: It's fantastic chatting with you! Anytime.

Outro

Thank you so much to Hannah for coming on. After we stopped recording, Hannah showed me a couple of framed art pieces from Horizons, and I'm a little jealous. As I mentioned, I'm a subscriber to Horizons, both because I enjoy and make use of the content, but also because it's part of what makes this hobby better. By allowing artists and writers make money creating wonderful art, great designs, and fantastic writing.

Paying patrons can submit question for upcoming guests. Link to join can be found in the episode description.

If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on tips@goblinpoints.com.

Links to the MCDM Discord server, the subreddits for MCDM and Draw Steel, the YouTube channels of Matt and MCDM, the complete link section, and this script is in the show notes. It's also on goblinpoints.com.

Next episode is on the 5th. That'll be the new roundup for July. See you next time. Snakkes.

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