About
This zine will be a collection of interviews and unique look at some of the key people who help shape the public play of roleplaying games today.
Each interview will delve into not only who they are and what they do, but also what it takes, why they do it and what they need to do their jobs even better.
The Playmakers were a set of awards not for great rpg designers, game-runners or even players, but rather for the people who work hard doing the admin and scudwork creating spaces for others to play roleplaying games. Some organise multiple conventions, others help with a single event; irrespective of the scale, someone valued the playing-space they created to nominate them for this award.
As the culmination of these awards, I am interviewing as many of these Playmakers as I can and compiling them in a single collection: the Playmaker zine. These are their stories.
Other media
Epistolary Richard interviewed by On the Shoulders of Dwarves (podcast)
Epistolary Richard answers Five or So Questions About the Playmaker Awards (blog)
Shout out from The Smart Party (podcast)
Epistolary Richard interviewed by Scratticus of the Scratticus Academy (video)
The Playmaker zine is planned to include a list of all the Playmaker award winners plus interviews with the following:
- Avonelle Wing (Double Exposure, DexCon, Dreamation, Metatopia)
- Dave Winterbottom (Anime League)
- Dom Mooney (Furnace, Revelation)
- Elaine McCourt (Furnace, Seven Hills, Revelation)
- Eunice Hung (London Indiemeet)
- Graham Spearing (Furnace, Seven Hills, Revelation)
- Hao Zhang (Khan Kon)
- Jason Cordova (The Gauntlet)
- John Dodd (UK Games Expo, Dragonmeet, LongCon, Airecon, Eastercon)
- Josh Fox (Games on the Hour Dragonmeet)
- Kate Bullock (Breakout Con, Gauntletcon, Toronto Area Gamers)
- Lloyd Gyan (Games on Demand UK Games Expo)
- Mark Whittington (Games on Demand UK Games Expo)
- Marty Bucholz (RinCon)
- Rach Shelkey (Breakout Con, Toronto Area Gamers)
- Réka Korcsmáros (Sphere of Shadows, Wanderers of the Spheres)
- Rob Deobald (Breakout Con, Toronto Area Gamers)
- Salt Lord Ross (Salt & Sassy Twitch channel)
- Scratticus (Scratticus Academy Twitch channel)
- Sean Nittner (BigBadCon)
- Steve Segedy (Games on Demand GenCon & Origins)
In-line with the ZineQuest criteria, the physical Playmaker Zine will be A5 size, saddle-stitched and feature one-colour printing.
The zine will also include a piece of original artwork from Aviv Or. Aviv kindly allowed the use of her 'Zoya the Destroyer' sketch in announcing the winners and so part of these project funds will go to commission her to produce a new piece in a similar style to celebrate our winners.
Should we reach £2,000 the extra funds will go to add more artwork into the zine. I will consult with the winners with the aim of commissioning artwork that they can use in making play possible for others in the future. I will approach their preferred artists and look to get a license for the work to both include it in the zine and for the playmaker's free use going forwards.
Risks and challenges
The single biggest risk around this project is the key person risk around myself. I am conducting the interviews, writing up, compiling and will coordinate production & shipping. If I am permanently incapacitated or killed then the project will not go forward. To mitigate this, I am giving each interviewee access to their own interview as I write it up so that if something does happen to me then they will be able to release their interview publicly if they wish.
A lesser risk is that individual interviewees may not be able or choose not to complete or include their interviews. If this happens I will continue with the project and include them to the extent that they wish.
Finally, I am based in the UK which currently has increased political risk. I have allowed hopefully enough time to account for political disruption that may impact production and shipping, however if it is extreme then I may consider producing the zine within the UK for UK backers and outside the UK for non-UK backers.
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