Welcome everyone! Thanks for joining me for the continuation of my Table Top Role Playing Gaming: Before and After blog! Hi, I'm Krys, err Linda, well many of you know me as Krystaline.
The original Dungeons & Dragons (commonly abbreviated D&D) boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneso was published by TSR, Inc. in 1974. I've been playing Table Top RPG's since that day! And yes, I was a grown adult at that time, so I really am an ancient dragon. I remember sitting on the floor making my first cleric ever – Krystaline. My brother was the original DM, and he killed us so many times. The ability scores were rolled on 3d6 dice, in order, by the referee (DM). My brother did let us roll our own scores. We had to choose our character class based on what ability scores we rolled, rather than to fill a party role. We played many games with a less than optimal party. But it was fun and I mean, boy, did we have fun.
Now that I took that short walk down memory lane, let's get to it. Ryan Haden of JRH Multimedia, and The Token Vault, has graciously answered my questions regarding the life changes he has experienced before and after finding Table Top Role Playing Games. I have known Ryan for the past 3 years, and he has always supported all forms of creators for TTRPG, both virtual and live gaming. Let us look into the brain of Ryan.. Well, oops, that sounded like I am a Mind Flayer. So get your drinks, get your snacks, and for deity's sake, don't forget to get your cup full of dice! Session Two is about to commence!
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Ryan was 11 years old when he first found tabletop gaming. He joined the Warhammer Club in school and bought his first few models (Lurtz, the Uruk-hai captain, and a few goblins) from friends. Initially, he played several RPGs, specifically those online. Runescape and World of Warcraft were the first online games, but in his late teens found Dungeons and Dragons. He started playing with friends and never turned back! The same group of friends still play weekly, now on Alchemy RPG!
Enjoying the home brewing content for running games on a virtual tabletop, Kieran (his brother) and Ryan decided to make a way to customize tokens quickly for a virtual tabletop without needing the skills to use costly photo programs. They did a little brain-storming, and within a short time, the Token Vault had been hatched. Ryan says they both "had a ton of fun making it [Token Vault]." While doing that, Ryan was asked by Cze (from CzePeku) if He would be interested in helping out with their Foundry programming work. The work would include Line of Sight walls, Lighting, and Music. Ryan then started to help them with marketing and social media. Ryan states, "After working with Cze and Peku for a few months, I decided to take the plunge and leave my job to attempt to work in the RPG space full-time. I've been doing this for almost 2 years and can honestly say I've loved all of it."
Ryan and Kieran's first professional creation was an incredibly rough version of the Token Vault. The brothers jumped all in with their project by marketing the Token Vault using Kickstarter! Ryan said, "In hindsight. I would have changed a LOT about this, but we still had a lot of fun doing it."
Ryan, as JRH Multimedia, started managing one social media account. He has expanded to act as a project manager for several Patreon sites. JRH Multimedia now has a small team of four (4) people. JRH Multimedia works to help creators concentrate on actually creating content rather than having to focus on social media. For the future, he states he is "absolutely content with where I am right now.." He still has more aspirations and projects that he would love to see come to fruition. I asked for more details on the future to which Ryan replied, “future aspirations, I can say that I'm working on some very fun projects behind the scenes that will hopefully be announced later this year and that I hope to branch out more with JRH Multimedia to allow expansion in years to come.” Ryan states emphatically, "I hope to spend the rest of my working life in the TTRPG space!"
Concluding, I asked Ryan, "Would you recommend a career in tabletop gaming to others?" Ryan answered, "Absolutely. But only if you're truly passionate about it. I enjoy what I do because I love the people I work with and... tabletop gaming."
Ryan's The Token Vault is still up and running; you can stop by at https://www.patreon.com/TheTokenVault or https://the-token-vault.com/. Most of the work on CzePeku's Foundry modules has been brought to you by JRH Multimedia. If you are still getting familiar with the beautiful map work by CzePeku, and their new CzePeku Scenes, you can find them here: https://www.patreon.com/czepekuscenes.
Thank you, Ryan, for agreeing to guest on TTRPG, Before and After. From all of us at TTRPG Rising Tides, we welcome all to our Discord server – https://discord.gg/UhXd3zMc. And, if you would like to be part of this series, send me a discord message there. See you next time for my visit with Adam "Urist" Portman. Honestly, Urist, I'm not a Mind Flayer.
Great!
That part about your brother killing your party so many times gave me a chuckle.
My older brother’s only source of enjoyment Dming our early days of Ad&d seemed to be massacring the party in increasingly more and more gleefully malevolent ways.
We had fun somehow in spite of him!
Thanks for sharing!