Last blog, I gave you a bit of background on myself. I'd like to share a little more with you all. Remember, I am ancient and played D&D when it was brand new. After a few years of playing D&D, we moved into AD&D. My daughter was five and starting school. My adult life was getting very complex and busy. Between divorce, my daughter, and work, I lost the energy to continue playing tabletop games. This was true until my son was about 10 in about 1990. We were still using AD&D (2nd Ed.), and I introduced my son and nephew to this beautiful game. They only played a couple sessions with me and then 'borrowed' books. (Oh, I found my 3rd edition books last year, which my son had also 'borrowed' back in 2000.) But this started a lifelong love of the game with my son and nephew. My daughter was not interested in this; she was in high school and a bit busy with school activities. Once again, life demanded more attention, and my TTRPG life was put on hold.
Enough about me! This month, we are talking to someone who does not make their living from the TTRPG community. . . yet. However, he does conversions for Roll20, Foundry, and Alchemy RPG. Adam "Urist" Portman adam@bitsandhexes.com http://www.bitsandhexes.com/ works for a large entertainment conglomeration out of Florida doing their data engineering. He and I met while working together on several Roll20 conversions for Arcane Minis. I immediately appreciated his skill, work ethic, and humor.
Adam was happy to answer my questions regarding his life with tabletop role-playing games. A late bloomer (just kidding) to the Tabletop RPG gaming life, Adam started playing Magic the Gathering when he was about 14 - 26 years ago! More and more of the people I meet in the TTRPG community are 40+ years old! We probably need to work on teaching the youth the joys of this style of game play. Less time involved in the screen games and more time involved in theater of the mind. By the time Adam was out of high school, he had collected around 3,000 cards for different type of games with the majority being for Magic the Gathering.
When I asked Adam to explain his love of Magic the Gathering, he answer, "Magic the Gathering is a little like smoking cigarettes, you never really 'quit' and will always be in recovery." Like everyone, the pandemic changed his life. He moved out of Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic. He played competitions when he was living in Los Angeles, but since the pandemic had stopped all of those gatherings, he has not really played since. He went on to say, "The game itself is very fun and rewarding in many ways, I miss it greatly. I like how it teaches you to lose gracefully and learn from your mistakes." Who knows, perhaps Adam will find the time to get into competition again locally.
Life, family duties, and establishing a career curtailed his gaming time for a bit. Like many people who have found Dungeons and Dragons later in life, it was after watching Critical Role for a year or two. After taking the plunge, he never looked back. He met with some co-workers to learn to play 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons in January 2020. Unfortunately for Adam, they were playing a super customized and home-brewed version of 5e which was a big turn-off for him. Learning something new is more challenging if the rules are a bit 'ambiguous.' A while back, I ended up in a 'custom home-brewed' game a few years ago. I played regular D&D weekly games for about 3 years before joining the home-brewed game. It was that the rules were 'whatever the GM decided' that was a big turn-off for me. I was only in that game for a few weeks before I dropped. But that works well for many people. People love to roll dice. Sometimes the rules are incidental to the clacking of the bones.
Adam has some exciting scripts that help him to make conversions quicker and less painful. Oh? The rest of you don't find them just a bit painful? In response to my question about when he started working professionally for the TableTop RPG community, he told me that he had been utilizing PDFs from Benny (Arcane Minis), a creator, and they chatted on the creator's discord server. Adam said, "My VTT conversion work was born from direct involvement with the creator's discord community because I run their (the creator's) content in my own games."
Benny and Adam came to an agreement, along with another man, Jeff, to bring Benny's work to the virtual world. Adam and Jeff started working together to convert the creator's adventures into Alchemy RPG. That led to working in Foundry, which led them to me since I worked for Benny on his Roll20 conversions. While Adam has only been in the field for a hot minute, he has made the best of all his skills. He does beautiful conversions quickly and can give creators a timely return on their products.
Adam is just starting out professionally in the vast TTRPG world and plans to do conversions as a side gig for now. He has other plans for the future, though, and I can't wait to see what he has. He did say, "It will be a long time before it can replace my normal income, if ever, so I'm still working on plans." He didn't share what the future holds for him, but he said that in 3-5 years, he wants to release monthly content that people can rely upon. I, for one, am excited to see where Adam goes from here.
We all have plans for the future, and we must set goals to achieve them. Dream big and plan hard, my mother always said. Any of you who know me know that I'm my mother's biggest fan. When I was in high school, I was not a big fan of anyone in authority. But after I reached adulthood, the lessons my mother and father taught me were the foundation for the rest of my life. So, I tell all of you reading this that there is no dream that you should not explore. One day, you will be able to achieve it.
I'd like to thank Adam for agreeing immediately to participate in my blog for TTRPG Rising Tides. I thank all of you who have read my previous posts, and next time on Before and After, I'll have my interview with Dungeon Master Mike for your reading enjoyment. Until next time, happy gaming, and roll those dice! Rattle, clatter, clack.
Thanks for reading, Jonah.