art

This is a fun conversation for anyone interested in how the visual style of #planescape was pretty much done solely by the hands of @TonyDiTerlizzi – literally painted & mailed to the TSR office in WI!

Plus great Sage Advice on sidekicks here w/ @JeremyECrawford, not targeting. [Music]

everyone

let us welcome tony deter lizzie two

dragon talk welcome tony

hey

thank you for having me very good to be

here we are so excited

to have you here as i was saying before

there are

everybody in my household is excited

that you’re here you’re lots of fans

that’s terrific and i’m it’s weird i

feel old and

and and lucky when a long time fan is

like you know we started with

you know this old second edition monster

manual and then my kids read spiderwick

and

it’s pretty amazing and then their kids

who knows what they’ll be reading but

hopefully you’ll still be writing and

illustrating because you’re wonderfully

talented

thank you thank you absolutely um we

just read

in the house uh the newest book kenny

kenny oh no no wait we started with

kenny and the dragon i’ll show you here

um and i asked my son to please

write a review oh and would you like to

hear his review

i absolutely actually finished it

yesterday and i know it’s going to be

better than any goodreads review i’d

ever i mean you might i will

i will give you permission if you want

to blurb him on the front of your book

but watch out publishers weekly we got

we got a new

word quinn’s gives you um five stars

out of five uh and he said oh i love it

i like the rabbit and how there’s all

these animals

the night is cool i like the creation

the world creation and how the dragon

and the rabbit are best friends

i really want to live in this world oh

that’s a great review yes there you go

there it is

that’s it yes

it is it is an adorably wonderful

wonderful story um kenny being this

adorable little rabbit

and graham being the dragon thank you

thank you that was you know we

that that book came out a while ago it

was during the height of the spiderwick

books

um so geez 10 years ago now um

and i the publisher had offered at the

time they knew i loved all classic

kids books like you know alice in

wonderland and wonderful i love all that

stuff

such a part of you know why i do what i

do and all that stuff’s in public domain

so they’re like do you want to do an

illustrated version of

alice or wizard of oz and there’s a lot

of versions of those

already out there if you go to the

bookstore you’ll see various

you know incarnations but the reluctant

dragon was just

one of those little stories that i just

absolutely loved as a kid and i think

it’s because

now that i’m older i think because i

felt like i was the dragon the the

misunderstood monster

which ties into d d because i love the

monsters more than the player characters

i always was like yeah i feel like i’m

i’m like a kobold or a knoll or a

you know gambling mound some days yeah

did you i feel like sorry no it’s okay

go ahead

i was just gonna say i kind of feel like

we jumped in without

fully giving you um a proper

introduction

so that people know exactly how i mean

you’re not

you’re your

uh resume go runs real deep

in in especially if you’re a d d fan i

mean you alluded to

to long time fans but they may be very

familiar with

um some of your work from was it second

edition dandy

yeah you had to recall that like how far

back

how far about let me do the math here

second yes

um yeah and then like not just you

you’ve

authored so many books

so many books um but you’re also uh an

illustrator

and um you’ve written some wonderful

geeky blog posts that people may

have read and um found inspiration from

but yeah i mean you have

why don’t you just like in a nutshell

more articulate than

than i did just tell us a little bit

about your history who are you

you’ve you’re so many things i want to

talk about spiderwick i want to talk

about the books i’m gonna take

illustrations

well i’m tony dieterlizi i am a uh

he long lifetime dungeons and dragons

player

and i was fortunate enough to contribute

to the game

mostly through the 90s um and probably

many gamers would know me from

the planescape role-playing game which i

was the

um the primary illustrator for for

almost 10 years wow which tsr had never

really done

and i don’t know if they’ve done it

since it was kind of a

crazy experiment anyway and then i i

went on to

illustrate for magic the gathering for

many years also in the 90s and early

2000s

all while pursuing a career in

children’s book

uh writing and illustration and

i’ve done children’s books now for 20

years

and um most famous many people as we

mentioned earlier

probably know me from the spiderwick

chronicles which was absolutely inspired

by the monster manual

if you couldn’t figure that out

that was the jumping off point for sure

yeah yeah but yeah i

i the the planescape visual look is

you know what i think of when i when i

hear your name like i was i’m oh that’s

that’s

the you know the aesthetic the uh the

weirdness was

was there something about that setting

that spoke to you

other than being assigned it you know

like was it was it was was it part of

um you know your you’re uh emil you as

an artist

um well you know to to go back a little

bit

on in that early 90s greg i mean i

i’ve been asked to my first project for

tsr was dragon mountain

and uh which i did okay illustrating it

was way more than i

had banked i thought i was gonna get

like a module or something i get to do

like

you know three or four illustrations or

an adventure module

i didn’t think they’d give me a box set

um but i excelled at the monsters

and so tim beach was the was like the

head designer the head editor on the

monstrous manual

and this would have been the first ever

color monster manual if you can

when they had vented color finally for

and uh and i he had originally wanted me

to illustrate the whole thing all

300 and something entries oh my god but

there was no way i could have

done it in the time a lot it and i

didn’t i

i i worried that i would rush and and i

didn’t want to rush it because that

monster manual those early source books

were so inspirational to me and i

didn’t want to blow it i was i really

meant a lot to be asked to do that

and so i think um you know at that time

i

you know a lot of uh the staff artists

like you know jeff easley

and and and and uh people like larry

elmore and clyde caldwell and keith

parker’s all these

giants that had worked for tsr during

the 80s

they were oil painters um they were

inspired by classic fantasy

um along the lines of like frankfurzeta

and boris vallejo and stuff that would

have been very popular in the late 70s

and early 1980s

and i was inspired by like brian froud

and and

alan lee and and then the people that

inspired them like arthur rackham

these kind of old fairy tale

illustrators that drew

you know twiggy creepy skinny things so

that

came through in the art that i did for

the for the monstrous manual

and and there was a polarized kind of

reception you know some people really

liked it because i didn’t use bright

color i used all

brown with more brown and earth tones

not every monster was jacked some of

them were

fat some of them were skinny and scrawny

and you know

um and that i think caught the eye of

the team

that was putting together planescape and

they thought this guy might be

the person to to do the visuals

for this this incredibly epic world that

zeb

cook was was creating um at the time

and they had actually hired they

originally wanted me to join a staff

um and i and i declined

which was a very hard decision but um

my i was dating uh a girl who ended up

becoming my wife angela and

and it was right at that point where i’m

like i might move to wisconsin and it

was like i could see the look in her

eyes like

so i i was able to just remain freelance

and

um you know here i am i mean as i said i

mean i

i was the sole illustrator golly for

i’m almost 10 years it was crazy it was

a roller coaster it really was very

when i think back on it i’m i’m

incredibly thankful that i

was given that opportunity because i

learned so much

it’s really powerful work i mean i i

have one of my favorite t-shirts is the

uh

lady of pain uh symbol uh yeah

and there’s just something so iconic and

you know other than normal dnd t-shirts

that i wear like that’s the one that

gets the most comments

uh just on the on the striking nature of

of that

uh oh yeah that was designed by dana

knutson he was the staff artist at the

time but he designed the lady of pain

and he was kind of like an in-house

concept guy so he

they had like like almost like a movie i

guess they probably do it now with the

newer iterations of the game and magic

you’d have

these kind of concepts of like this is

what we want it to look like

and um and dana had done a lot of that

initial

homework for what planescape should look

like including designing the lady of

pain

that’s awesome yeah and then so yeah so

talk us through like what it’s like

having that kind of creative not control

necessarily but like the

the visual look and then being able to

to iterate on it

so that it feels oh and we’re

introducing a new character or a new

thing but it needs to feel

both familiar and new um and that’s

gonna be i mean

some of the the joy i see in watching

our art directors now is they bring in

new people to

to do and do that work so it’s gotta be

a little bit hard for someone who is

hey this is my style but i have to to

keep it fresh

not only for the audience but for

yourself well i think

it started to um expand

the window of what fantasy art

can be you know what i mean so i think

you know

there was for many years when you when

you said fantasy art you thought of

you know frank rosetta airbrushed on the

side of a custom van like oh yeah i know

what that is it’s

conan with no shirt on you know with a

giant

axe and a you know a naked girl wrapped

around his legs and

and so i can see every muscle and

everything yeah

every muscle will simultaneously flex as

strong as it could be

yeah it’s so physically impossible to do

um and i i remember

um i was up at the offices when we were

doing some of the initial meetings and

zeb

showed me uh these art books he had got

and

he had purchased in on a recent trip to

japan

and it was the art of yoshitaka amano

who uh famously is amazing famous

illustrator but most famously known for

being the

lead designer for final fantasy and and

amano’s

watercolor sketches uh have a manga

influence but they’re certainly been

westernized in a lot of ways and they

were absolutely

just mind-blowingly beautiful and

and he was like can you do something

that that looks kind of like this like

do your frowty rackham thing

but can you infuse some of this in it

and i was like absolutely because it was

pencil and watercolor was it was in a

visual

medium that i could i could understand

and so um we were expanding already then

at that point we were starting to push

boundaries of what

you could do to describe or illustrate

what a dungeons and dragons world could

look like that it didn’t just have to be

these muscly characters um

that you could have these parts that

look different i kind of think of it

almost in a way of like the marvel

expanded universe how you know

okay there’s the the earthbound

superheroes but then when we go

in these other universes you know things

can look like guardians of the galaxy or

whatever so

um it was it was an amazing time

at the same time tsr was developing

another

huge campaign system called birthright

and frankly that’s where they put

all the money and all the attention was

on birthright so all the

the heads of the company all the big p

they were like they slid

all their chips on that they’re like

this is going to be the big thing

and and then they kind of left us alone

to create planescapes so

we really pushed what we could do and um

you know one of the things coming out of

doing that monstrous manual was

you know you had these boxes with a

monster kind of just floating in the box

and i remember don muerin who’s still at

wizards now

was the designer uh for planescape and i

remember like a monster wouldn’t do that

a monster would want to tear across the

page or

upset the text or you know that’s what a

monster would do

and you know don was able to kind of

figure out

how to i mean things like doing a text

wrap back then

were incredibly difficult because we

were laying it out like quark

you know there was no indesign you know

the artwork would have been

scanned even if i did the piece 11 by 14

the scans would have already been scaled

down as they’re scanning it because they

just the computers just couldn’t handle

a big high-res file so it was a really

um

yeah the 90s i didn’t even think about

that but the 90s were this weird

uh uh you know old-school type setting

and you know literally copying and

pasting

uh you know text on a page and then

scanning that in like there were some

people who were still doing it that way

uh during that time while the digital

you know tools were being developed and

and happening so

so did you paint every single

image you know by hand or did you do

anything digitally

[Laughter]

it’s just funny to me now because of

course i painted everything by hand

there was no

yeah i still paint everything by hand

but i mean i remember they wanted

drop shadows and so we would

do a sketch a lot of the times dawn

wanted the artwork

um vignetted so in other words it would

go to white so they could they could

scale it however they want it and

float it anywhere on the page that they

felt would work best with the flow of

the text

and they wanted drop shadows well i

didn’t

you know now you click literally you

click a button and photoshop will give

you that drop shadow

so this is how we did it i would i would

draw it on a piece of paper

and then i would paint it put some color

then we would rip

i would rip the sheet of paper so it

looked like a torn piece of paper

oh my god then i would take a piece of

white board and airbrush

a shadow and then glue the sheet of

paper

on it to look like a shadow and that’s

that’s how we did the drawing you

scanned that whole thing and then they

would scan that

wow you know was this really that long

ago because

am i the 90s seemed like that wasn’t

that long ago

that but i mean to think over the years

oh god i guess it is that long ago

and then you were just born shelly yeah

i mean i was just a baby so what do i

know

my whole my whole life has been just

clicking buttons in photoshop and

getting what you want but just photoshop

was out that’s photoshop was out

creative i mean it does just like

thinking of you tearing the paper and

airbrushing and

how long all of this stuck oh it took

and then we

i remember we had a we had a fire one

and they were like oh it’d be cool that

the edges were burned because it was

like a fire

imp or something oh yeah so i did the

whole drawing and i take a lighter

and the thing just goes woof

was hilarious and i’m like okay maybe i

should burn the edges first

and then draw it how long would it take

you to do

one like one piece of art with or

without a drop ship

okay so when we first start first year

was 1994 when we first started doing

planescape like full tilt that was the

campaign setting the monster book and i

think planes are chaos so a lot two box

sets

and uh and a monster book so when i

finally got hired i was like well who

else is contributing

and they’re like it’s just you and i’m

like

you mean like the enti like there’s

there’s four books in this campaign

setting

and there’s another like they’re like

yeah it’s just gonna be you

we just want you to set the look and i’m

like

okay so we looked at the schedule

and i said to them there’s only one way

i can i can do this

i’m gonna i’m gonna just go to final art

and i’m just gonna send you guys

finished art to keep because the

deadline that they had already had their

printing deadlines and their release

deadlines but something happened on the

development end

that delayed the start so there was a

weird thing in like 93 where they didn’t

give me any work

and i i went from like feast to famine

because

they were feeding me steady work and i i

was out of art school so i now had an

apartment

i’m paying off student loans i’m like

this is great i’m a dungeons and dragons

illustrator making a living

and then all sudden it just stopped and

the art director

uh peggy cooper was like we’re holding

you for a special project and i don’t

know how long it’s gonna be but it’s

gonna be a little while before we give

you

any work oh my god so they want because

they didn’t want me tied up on something

else

when i started anyway that went on in

almost until the end of the year i want

to say like that right before the hot

right around this time of the year i

flew up to meet with them for planescape

but these other deadlines hadn’t they

were unmovable

which meant i’d we’d lost a lot of time

which would have been

sketching and approval of the sketching

and revising of the sketching

so i said the only way we’re going to

make our deadline is if i just go to

final art and if you guys don’t like the

art just send it back and i’ll just redo

it

and they didn’t they didn’t send any of

it back i just went nuts guys i just

it was like the wings were grown they

opened up the cage and

i just went well it sounds like that

might have had to do with

you know the concentration on birthright

and you know all the focus being on that

and then just being like all right well

we hired the right person let’s just

trust their their visual look

that’s a big leap of faith that is a

huge leap of faith especially when i

think back on it now

because you had huge teams so it wasn’t

like this was a cheap endeavor i mean

there was

there was a lot of key people involved

on this project

and they were at the same time winding

down things like spell jammer and dark

sun they

i think those that kind of run their

course at the time so i think they were

you know looking to do a new campaign

and

you know we got you know everyone loved

it

we crossed our fingers and hoped that

the rest of the world felt the same way

and fortunately for us

they did you know and and and so it’s a

great story

um yeah especially with like the idea

you know i mean you mentioned birth

right like

you know i don’t i don’t see that in the

zeitgeist as much

now as planescape is and how much people

talk about it you know i mean obviously

i think the um

the video game has a lot to do with that

because that brought it out to a whole

bunch of different um uh audience

members who you know grew up with it

uh yeah um did you were you involved

with

the that at all planescape tournament i

wasn’t but

um colin mccomb who was one of the

designers on planescape

then took the job and moved with

camera the name of the game company that

did that but yeah he was kyle

maybe yeah he was part of that team and

and

you know tsr owned all my designs so all

the all the design work that i had

already done for planescape was then

just sent over to them

and then you know so they had it all

already they had me for free

yeah it still feels like it’s in the in

the middle you of all your work

uh for sure yeah um but some cool things

little tidbits for any

modern day dnd fifth edition d d fans

you know the mojon’s got a re-skin

during that time and that was a big

though mojons almost didn’t make it into

planescape

um and zeb had called me one afternoon

and asked if i knew what they were and i

said you know i vaguely remember the we

i’m like the shape people you know the

little

and he’s like yeah yeah and he’s like do

you did you ever play him did you ever

i’m like i

i don’t know nothing about lamb so he’s

like read the entry

and see what you think so i read the

entry and i’m like this is

amazing you know the whole thing how

they ascend to primus and everything

so for some reason i immediately um

thought of the of the wizard of oz and

not really the tin man but more like

tick-tock

from the second book asmavas and some of

the other books yeah and so i drew

uh a monodrone like tiktok and i faxed

it back to zeb

and he called me back and was like we’re

putting we’re putting mojons in

planescape

and that was a huge thing and i’m

delighted when i see that the

the design is essentially the same kind

of steam punky design that we came up

with

30 years ago the other one that was huge

was tieflings

you know they they created pretty much

as far as i as i can recall

i think the tieflings were created

during the planescape era as well

yeah um which was again an amazing

you know you’re just drawing it trying

to figure it out yeah so what kind of

direction

would you get like was it did they was

it like an art order like

or did they was it more creative freedom

like

they probably have horns yeah well the

early the early years shelley it was

definitely like

for a monster book they were like here’s

the entry just do your thing you know go

nuts

and um so i would always try to be like

loyal because i grew up on

all the original first edition and basic

books so i tried to be very reverential

to those books

but try to draw it in a way that i

thought modern day gamers would like it

um but with regard to the to the

tiefling i remember

the thing that that was tricky at the

time for me to kind of get my head

around was they were like you know

it was described to me they have fiend

blood

in their ancestry but they’re not

aloofines

like it was very like you know it it was

more

watered down i guess and so they were

like it can manifest

in a variety of forms they could have

horns they could have

cloven hoods they could have a tail they

could have wings

you know they’re primarily the

descendants of succubi and incubi

at the time this is what i remember so

you know i often drew him scantily clad

that was the only way i could think of

to kind of

visually interpret you know i’m the

granddaughter of a succubus

you know or the grandson of a of a

succubus

um and then i would you know i

randomized sometimes i would do them

you know hairless you know some

designers had like can you make it look

like this i really want and we really

tried to push

that that um that variety

in in the design so that they really you

didn’t know

what you know what they were going to

look like which was a lot of fun i mean

i

you know i loved i loved that i know now

they’re traditionally kind of

they have the horns and the red i think

a lot of times

they’re a little more like devil people

now yeah

yeah there is there is i think the idea

of variety in there but traditionally

folks usually tend to go with colored

skin and

uh you know whether it’s purple or blue

or red yeah

and uh and the horns yeah you’re right

um

well you’ve mentioned this a couple of

times and i want to kind of go back to

it because it’s something that’s that’s

fascinating

how you’re you identify with the

monsters you know that

you’re good at drawing them uh but you

know you said it back when we started

that you know that that that is

the the identity that that you identify

with the most

um why is that what was it like when you

started playing dungeons dragons was

was it something in that monster manual

you know from from the 70s that that

spoke to you and then

is that why what do you think you know

i so i probably started playing in 8182

right right at the rise right

as it was becoming incredibly popular i

would have been 11 12 years old would

have been in middle school

the worst time of your life yeah for

everybody

speaking so bad right yeah um

and you know it was a in in my i grew up

in south florida

and so in my school what’s the way i

wanted to

it’s number one on my notes i can’t

believe i forgot to mention that

jupiter florida jupiter florida i have a

very strong connection to jupiter

florida do you oh wait do tell i want to

hear were you going to say home of burt

reynolds i was going to say homer burt

rouse that’s

always the thing everybody says anytime

you like the home of well

my dad right now because he’s a snowbird

so we’ve been going to jupiter florida

for years like 30 years or so

i swear to god every like spring break

and christmas

actually i should be going there in a

couple of weeks but can’t

um but yeah we’ve had every um at least

once or twice a year i go to jupiter for

the past 30 years

oh my gosh well we have to i know we

have we

we summer down there now because we’ve

got so much family down there and

you know our daughter’s in school so we

can only go in the summer sometimes we

go over

the holiday break but like you we’re

stuck here yep

but yeah i mean so all

a bunch of that planescape stuff was

done all down in jupiter

i have now i have to look at jupiter

with fresh new eyes now

yeah now that yeah i know this and now

you know why all the the

tieflings are scandaling clowns yes

going to the beach and everyone’s

running around their bathing suits

too hot for chainmail yeah well not

maybe not chain mail

definitely not it breathes really well

it does

it does oh that’s so funny you know but

yeah so but also

you know uh having grown up in florida

you know it was and in jupiter

you know you’ve got a lot of beach bums

you’ve got a big sport a lot of people

love sports you got a lot of rednecks

um and then you’ve got a guy

you know an art twerp who you know i

love

drawing um mythical creatures

and i love reading fairy tale no no

no you’re out you’re out of here you’re

you’re walking around middle school the

giant target on your back

um and so you know d was like i said was

very popular but it was like a fad i

want to say more

for like a year or two and then it kind

of you know gave way to

rubik’s cubes and mtv and whatever the

next thing

that everyone got excited about um but i

still kept playing because i love

and for me personally um

and i’ve talked about this a couple

times i was kind of we were talking

earlier about a reluctant reader i was

absolutely had i don’t know if i was a

reluctant reader but i’m a visual

learner

so reading books at that transitionary

period where you’re going from books

that are heavily illustrated to books

with no illustrations

i was immediately like turned off like

i’m like i don’t want to read this

because

i’m having problems understanding it

yeah and i want i need pictures so i

read a lot of comic books which

you can’t do a book report on that um

but

man i tore through those d rule books

and

every module i could get my hands on and

dragon magazine and dungeon

magazine and that led to you know

reading tolkien

reading you know elric and edgar rice

burrows and you know on and on

so it was a huge in um

you know player in me becoming a

lifelong reader

yeah but but back to your question about

feeling like a monster i just felt

misunderstood greg i mean i i felt like

i’m not a wizard i’m not a fighter i’m

not a thief i’m none of those things

those things are cool

i’m the you know i’m an udiyug

i’m the garbage monster underneath the

underneath the city

i’m the trash heap from fraggle rock

she was my favorite yeah that’s always

when i think of the audio i’m always

like i you know i want to like a

singing audio i need to do that for our

our campaign oh my god that’s got all

this attitude

so are you a dungeon master and then or

a player yeah

i well i actually we’ve had a group um

that we’ve played off and on for

forever and then actively my daughter’s

13 now

and so we’ve had an an ongoing campaign

now i want to say maybe three years

okay and i wanted to run her through

modules that i experienced

at her age so that we could have that

can so we can talk about the keep on the

borderlands together like we can

both have that experience and uh scott

fisher who’s

a big contributor to dungeon dragons

over the years is in our group and

he’s actually taken over this well he

did this year for

part of the year and now we’ve haven’t

had a chance to play but he’s been

running the game

uh now which has been great so i can

play and annoy everybody with my bad

pirate voice

it’s part of the game you gotta do it

that’s adorable trying to find something

that your

you and your daughter can experience

together i mean

it’s it’s a smaller comparison but uh

star trek the next generation came out

when i was nine and my daughter’s nine

now so i was like i’m we’re going back

and watching those old episodes and

there’s something just really

great about me being transported into my

youth but then also

her uh you know taking a cue from

from things that were formative for me

back then

that reverb as an as a parent and that

like oh my gosh i was this little when i

you know she when she was seven we’re

like we’re watching star wars this is

how old i was when i saw star wars we’re

gonna watch it

you know and then i’m like i was this

little you know and then i’m like

now i’m old and i’m watching it and the

tears the tears is coming from this

tears always tears

sounds like my son’s gonna have to start

reading some sweet valley high

nice so we can have that connection some

babysitters club

babysitters clubs back on netflix it is

it’s really good i didn’t watch that i

think i’m i’m too old for babysitter’s

club

he’s gonna have to read jackie collins

and sweet valley

flowers in the attic yes oh

definitely that’s good yeah so as

someone who loves monsters is it hard

for you

to fight the monsters as a because

sometimes it is for me like anytime we

fight a creature that has anything

to do with a dog any kind of hellhound

i’m like i’m not touching it

just let it go yes and and we were that

that was how i was with kobolds when i

was younger and that’s how my daughter

is with kobolds now because

we have two small rescue dogs and

they’re essentially kobolds

they steal they pilfer they hide they’re

mischievous

they set mechanical traps

[Laughter]

sometimes i’m hit with a poison dart i’m

not sure why

they’re the most genius dogs they

develop their posable thumbs

it’s it’s great um

you know i try to um we’ve definitely

done some

if it’s a very animal type like an owl

bear or something

i you know i just play it like a bear

like like it’s just doing what it does

right um and then when we’ve done

humanoids we just i try to play them

like from their point of view they’re

right you know like you’re that you’re

the scourge you know you’re the one who

you abandon this dungeon so it’s

rightfully ours why are you coming back

and taking

this thing from us like this is our lair

this is this is where

our den this is our you know you taste

delicious

you know that so we may have you for

dinner um

but we always yeah i try to because i

love that moral ambiguity

way i love when they like i feel weird

that i had to kill this thing now like i

i don’t know what to do with those

feelings like good

you guys sit around a campfire and work

that out

that’s real that’s the good stuff and

yeah that’s the best stuff to me

yeah and i i think many role players

when you start off you hack and slash

through a dungeon like it’s a video game

and if you stick to it long enough

within a couple of adventures i feel

you’re like wait a second i

what how is there another way we can do

this without just killing

everything and that’s where it gets

really good for me

at least you know my experience is

showing yeah

that’s where drama comes right yes you

start to be like where am i where’s the

character gonna progress and grow from

from here and that’s i mean i think

that’s the thing that dungeons and

dragons does better than

any other game out there is because you

you develop empathy without even

realizing it yeah yes

that is true are there who are what are

your particular

favorite monsters either to to drop in a

game as a dungeon master

or to come up against as a player or

even just to illustrate

oh wow that’s a great uh question i love

i mean i

i love the monsters that are um

holy part of the game that are really

like

the beholder the rust monster the boule

the albert the stuff that only can exist

in dungeon the dragon i mean i love all

the stuff that’s borrowed and inspired

from tolkien

obviously but um but there’s a lot of

fantasy that has that and it’s that

weird tales space

stuff that that weird wacky stuff is the

stuff that really

makes it so totally unique

um you know even in the if you look at

the original

um wood grain like the old old dungeons

and dragon stuff there’s um

tharks from you know john carter of mars

there’s time travelers in it like i love

that they had

that kind of vivid rich imagination just

pouring it all into the same landscape

and

part of you know this is what you could

potentially encounter that’s why i love

expedition to the barrier peaks when i

was a kid because i was just like

there’s a spaceship in the middle of

of this hamlet you know what i mean like

that is

so cool i love all that too yeah i think

some of all that stuff when someone in a

dnd game and described to me

a it was it looks like a bent wand

that when you hold it and you pull a

lever it shoots fireballs

and i’m like what what is this thing

that you’re describing and then it just

oh you’re talking about like a laser

pistol like that’s a

blues blue blow my mind yes

that’s still awesome my mind is blown i

can’t even say the word blonde

of course you’re still you’re like so i

look down the barrel of it

what happens when i squeeze it now

that was the thing with expedition was

that the you didn’t know what was a

laser gun you didn’t know what was one

was like pesticide or something and you

thought

this is the i’ve got the pumping air

like laser rifle and it just squirted

like

you know ddt out of the you know just

great

and it’s so good and you know it’s

interesting that i think back on

on uh two more horrors and that one you

know they had those incredibly they were

very richly illustrated and again

favorite modules i think because of that

the way the art just had such an

important role in the adventure you

could just as a

as a dungeon master you could you could

just show them the illustration as a

player you could

you know look at it and study it and i

think that

absolutely would have been influential

on my later contributions to the game

yeah absolutely um the

different philosophical kind of ideas

that are in planescape

you know uh i think really

coalesce around the artwork of it right

so how how did you

think how did you approach you know

illustrating

things that were from the plane of dust

versus the plane of

uh you know or you know from the from

sigel or things like that like how

how did you think about um

portraying those different things in

such a way so that you didn’t

necessarily even have to read the text

you’d be like oh that that

that creature is from that plane and

that preacher’s from that plane

um you know it wasn’t always easy and

some some things were

were easier than others i mean mechanics

you kind of are okay it’s got gears and

cogs and

always geometric shapes and stuff like

that when we did

um i can’t remember what they called

hell but it

they attore um we looked at i looked at

um hieronymus bosch you know we just

were like we’re gonna just make it look

like you know weird bird people

crawling on their hands and knees and

you know weird chimerical

demon things um when we um

thought of like the the plane of dust i

mean honestly i just thought of like

goths like the cure like let’s give them

just big

hair and and washed out robes and stuff

like that

sigil for me was always um mos eisley

like it was always just a who’s like

random like

anything goes you know you’ve got a you

know a carillon space pirate and his

giant talking dog and

there’s a you know there’s a

walrus-headed guy and you know it’s just

whatever you know you just kind of

mix it all up it was just a big kind of

mash-up

so we you know we try and if i didn’t

know i mean i you know i um

i would call and and ask questions and

as the as the years went on i i became

so friendly with a lot of the designers

like colin mccomb

um and zeb and uh

i’m telling you guys sorry i’m

remembering this right now one day um

so i’m in jupiter shelly so i’m still in

jupiter at this point the phone rings

and i see

on the caller id it says you know tsr

but it was an an extension i didn’t

recognize

so i i pick up the phone and i go hello

and they’re like

who is this and i said

it’s it’s tony who is this and i don’t i

can’t place the voice

and they’re like this is blah blah blah

in accounting and i go oh

is something wrong with my billing or

something and they’re like no we have

all these long distance phone calls to

this

number and i need to know who

everybody’s calling

why so they were paying the bill like oh

my god

i guess apparently long phone calls to

jupiter florida

from like three different people and uh

i was like oh i’m the illustrator for

planescape we’re having you know

we’re changing the world you know oh my

god

i love that they have they had a call

find out

who is this that’s why it would be

cheaper if you were on staff

yeah that’s why tsr went under was all

the long distance phone calls it was me

it was you yeah

americo profits went down

so were you at tsr when wizards bought

tsr

i that would have been late 90s i was

phasing

out so in mid 90s uh

my wife and i angela moved to new york

city um

she became a makeup artist for nbc and i

was

um still illustrating for tsr though not

as much i was

i switched gears and was illustrating

for magic more at that point and really

chasing

um the new york city publishing uh

houses to try to break into children’s

publishing

and um so a couple things kind of

happened at the same time

there was like a lot of turnover near

the end of the 90s uh

in in-house at tsr so when that

started to happen the art directors that

came on were more like

yeah we’re going to bring them some

other people on planescape and that kind

of suited me just fine at that point

because

i’d done it you know for most of the

decade and i was

a little burned out the deadlines were

really really rough they were brutal i

mean

those those things i mean i was

illustrating those things you would ask

earlier how many would i do a day i mean

some days i did like

three or four illustrations a day wow

you know i mean i was just going and

going

a couple of those things i was doing

all-nighters to get those deadlines and

bear in mind the uh there i had no

scanner

i didn’t have a computer so i would

finish all the art put it in a fedex box

and fedex it in batches up to

lake geneva and uh you know where they’d

scan it and do all the

all the productions up there and it’s

the originals

oh yeah like that just makes me so

nervous thinking about like there’s no

backup

just pray that box gets there yeah yeah

you did you just were like

okay well here we go off it goes but you

know again at the time you’re just like

there was no other way what’s this worth

no you know whatever who cares

same with magic i mean you know the mat

the

same thing you would just put them i

would literally put it in i would

not even open the fedex box i would

leave it flat

and just tape it and just put the magic

art in it and tape it shut and send it

wow oh my god

i know now you’re like you know well it

doesn’t even leave the studio i think

for most people it’s just

you know you upload it exactly right

like or you know at least take a photo

of it and send that

like rather than uh yeah uh gosh it’s so

it’s it’s

very strange to be in that like 90s

period where

all this old school publishing thing was

happening but there’s so much uh

technology on the horizon yeah um the

last of the analog

really yeah kind of making things in an

analog way amazing so how did you break

into

children’s publishing in in new york

what’s the was it just persistence and

and good ideas uh with persistent luck

really i mean it’s the same the classic

you know formula i

you know i did it was the end of the uh

again i kind of feel like this is the

theme of the chat today

it was the end of the drop off your

portfolio in person

because there was no social media there

was no really website you couldn’t

send them to a website like here’s a

here’s a portfolio in my work

so what they used to do in the old days

was you’d go

you know you’d go to the publisher on

like a thursday or friday and you drop

off your portfolio and then you’d come

pick it up on a monday and they’d have a

form letter and there’s like

you know thanks for your submission

we’ll you know we’ll call you

and i got to experience kind of the end

of that era

um when i was in new york so you you you

know you’d leave

you know a couple color copies of your

art and you’d have a bunch of samples in

your portfolio

and i did that for about a year you know

just making the rounds and you’d meet

people

along the way um as i said angela my

wife was a makeup des

uh artist and she worked at

mac down in soho mac cosmetics and right

around the corner from her

was scholastic publishers of books like

harry potter

and um and scholastic book fairs and

a a gal came in to get her makeup done

and angela sees she has the scholastic

bag she goes oh do you work at

scholastic and she’s like yeah

so ang does the makeup on one eye and

she goes

how do you think yeah it looks good can

you do the other eye

i need to know can i have my husband

drop his stuff

oh nice hell they’re hostage

yeah yeah one eye cause that’s a lot of

people be like i gotta go to a thing can

i get a

thing and i’ll buy the lipstick and the

eyeshadow kind of thing so she i

she relented and here here’s my card

whatever

and i and i came in like the next day

the following day and

and just you know i was very much like

hey listen you know i don’t

i don’t want to be a pest here you look

at it if it’s something you think you

can do something with

then that’s great and if you can’t i

understand i don’t want to be a burden

and she looks like wow you’re really

talented and let me see if i can

i can get somebody in there and i met uh

an editor named kevin lewis who changed

my life and and

um no one at scholastic they weren’t

that interested in my stories and my art

but

kevin uh jumped ship and went to simon

schuster and immediately

um he started publishing my books and

you know

the rest is history wow oh my god when

what year is that

just out of curiosity that was late that

was like 90

98 i want to say 98 90 because my first

kids book came out in 2000 so i would

have handed in all the art

for that in in 99. you always hand it in

about a year early

right and uh at that point i don’t think

i was doing much

for for dungeons and dragons i did a

little bit for third edition because

they were ramping up

for third edition at that point but i

continued doing magic cards

right up until spiderwick like because

the magic

uh stuff i mean it was it was less

work for more pay that means you’re

doing essentially one image

and you’re making more money than you

would right for dungeons and dragons so

i i did the magic cards right into

all the spiderwick things kind of taken

off i don’t know if i can

do any more for you guys i wish i could

and so

yeah that was kind of that was it once

spiderwick took off i was

i was gone nice well the reason i asked

is i i moved to new york in

2000 uh and i lived in brooklyn uh

and wait where did you live i lived in

williamsburg uh before it got

big well even park slope then was was on

the rise but it wasn’t

what it is now that’s for sure yeah yeah

that’s where we were you were in parks

yeah i had a lot of friends you were

neighbors yeah yeah it was hard to get

there

i had to go basically into manhattan to

get to par to get to park slope uh

because the g

train was a pain in the ass but uh yes

it was i had a lot of fun

uh you know going there and there’s

there’s you know i i still see like

images of like grand emory plaza and

stuff and uh in movies and stuff and i’m

always like oh yeah

i love that area i know where that is i

know where yeah yeah

yeah exactly that’s great so what is it

about children’s books

that’s appealing to you writing stories

for kids

i think that um that’s when i became a

reader i mean we talked about

in middle school you know i’m playing

dungeons and dragons and i’m reading

these books

in middle school and and they make they

help me become a lifelong

reader so i’m i i was probably a little

behind what other kids were reading

so i read you know phantom toll booth

and and uh wrinkle and time

and things like the hobbit and stuff and

those types

of stories absolutely you know shaped me

at that age and i wanted to be part of

that

community part of that conversation

i just feel like those stories

um have such a tremendous impact

on on a young developing human

mind yeah and i i just really wanted to

[Music]

to be a part of that like you know just

it’s the stuff that’s most meaningful to

me when i think back on

you know when someone’s give me your top

10 books that you’ve read and loved

they’re all kids books

yeah you know there’s adult books that i

love but i mean but that stuff that you

know when i read watership

down i was like like shook like i was

just

you know so uh you know that’s that’s

what i’m that’s

what i aspire towards yeah it’s got to

be very rewarding to see

to talk to kids because you do like i

assume you do like school visits and

things like that to to see them the way

they i mean

how much do you make questions aside but

to actually like

see like the impact that your work is

having on them and how excited they get

you know about when’s the next book

coming and how immersed they feel with

the characters and like you know

my my son wants to live in your world

the world

that you created it’s got to feel got to

feel good

very validating yeah it really is i mean

and

you know i figure first of all kids tell

it like it is they’re not

they’re not gonna i wouldn’t have read

you the review if it

[Laughter]

she’s like i read the review for book

one i didn’t read the book review for

booktube

we’re starting book two tonight i will

let you know oh hopefully she likes it

too

that’s good um yeah i just that when

they come up and they’re

and if their parent i mean any adult

like if a teacher or librarian or a

parent like we read it together like

yeah

that’s like gold for me because i’m

fortunate enough that my mom

read to us dieter litzy kids so um

that’s like a very

cherished memory in my memory banks and

so

um the idea of of sharing books together

i i absolutely it’s like to me it’s like

watching a movie together or listening

to a favorite song together like the

and then talking about it afterwards um

that is very meaningful to me yeah

it is very sweet and it’s it’s so

formative

to have those worlds to go into you know

and

and have the maps and things be a part

of your life you know it’s

it’s the good stuff that dungeons and

dragons can do for young ages as well

but there is something

um about cracking open a book

and going to another world for for a few

hours

well i don’t know if you guys have

experienced this but the thing with

with both d and d and a fantasy

story was if it did tackle

some worldly themes but somehow you’re

in a safer space to talk about them

you know what i mean so um that happened

with me a lot like we talked about

watership down

you know and i would talk to my mom

about it or hobbit

you know and like you know this you know

that that was

that was terrible what you know what

what this character did to this

character and then

we would kind of talk about it and then

inevitably it would it would jump out

into

the real world and you’d started to see

these

parallels and the things that were

happening in these stories or in a d d

game

and you could start to see these things

playing out also

in the real world and i i i think for

some of us myself included you

i like that there’s maybe a safe place

to talk about some of these types of

things

and and and and start to process and

comprehend

these concepts and if it’s in a world

with a talking rabbit who’s best friends

with a dragon then i’m i’m all for that

absolutely makes it even better yeah

yeah i hope so and i think it means the

youth who are reading it you know

think about you know what what people

today might call political topics but

like things like

you know uh racism and sexism and things

that are

are um you know still very prevalent in

our world but i feel like the youth

are always experiencing that through the

stories that are told and

asking those questions and i i feel real

sad i mean i came from a

bit of a religious background where

fantasy was always at arm’s length it

was always like hey you know

i’ll let you read those dragon stories

but you gotta have

you know quote-unquote real books to

read as well and

um i feel like i learned more from star

trek i learned more from

from planescape i learned more from from

the children’s books that we got into

because they were so open about

you know what it feels like to be other

what it feels like to

uh walk in shoes that aren’t yours

at that moment and and um

i don’t know i i i feel optimistic

thinking about the fact that that my

kids and

and shelly’s kids and and your kids and

everybody’s kids are getting these

stories that have so much

representation and diversity of

characters within them

um you know that that hopefully we can

push towards

you know a better future for you know

the people who are going to be leaving

this world in 2050

and that fantasy is not kept at arm’s

length anymore

right it’s very you know it’s been

embraced by educators and by

by parents because we know like you you

said

d d is what got you into book i mean

yeah

you wanted to read books with pictures

or comic books but

we and we hear that a lot that people

kids just get

real immersed in these worlds and they

just want more

yeah yeah i agree and i i do i think

that um

you know i mean shelley you read kenny

and the dragon

um with with your son so you saw it’s

about prejudice i mean that’s

simply that’s what that story is about

and and and it dives in deeper in the

book of beasts and talks about that more

um because i wrote that story during the

backdrop of what was going on the last

two years in our country and it

inevitably is going to soak in

to the storytelling and i think that the

same can be said

for any d game that we’d be running we

may be

escaping reality by rolling dice and

and and being an elf or halfling or what

have you but

you’re still talking there’s that stuff

is still in your mind you’re still

thinking about that

yeah um and i think that’s a good thing

especially with our kids

i think it’s a great thing because like

this book will now give us

a way to talk to him about prejudice

in a way that’s going to be easily

understood for a seven-year-old

and yeah you know his one of the things

about there’s

there’s pros and cons to having your

kids at home while they’re doing school

but one of the pros like i mean i can

hear what they’re talking about

in class and when the teacher reads them

a story she does these

they have to talk about connections

they’re real big on the connections

which i don’t remember doing greg i

don’t know if you did this but you’re

probably hearing your kids

doing it now and after they read a story

they talk about how

a personal connection to the story what

in your life can you

relate to with what you’re reading and

the man the things that these kids

talk about some of them because they’re

just kids i mean they don’t

they don’t have a filter but yeah you

hear like they go pretty deep

and just like and it seems like well

this is just a kid’s book you know but

it’s not

they they’re they really are reaching

deep to find those connections and how

it they they feel you know particularly

personally impacted by something

they’re smarter than we are yeah they

they’re exposed to more than we ever

were

um they’re seeing things they’re they’re

much more

um inundated with everything the good

and bad

news not news whatever you know it’s

they are very aware

of what’s going on and i find as a

parent the tricky part is

talking i don’t i don’t want to take my

daughter’s childhood away from her by

burdening her with all the realities of

the world right but i’m also

trying to just talk to her realistically

like here’s what’s going on right now

and that’s such a tough balancing act

yeah um but but

you know again i think you know having

playing a game of d

or or magic or you know whatever

board games you want to do or a video

game or reading a book together i think

those those reinforce closeness and

family

um and you don’t have to be flesh and

blood you can you can just be friends

that are your family or people in your

life that are family and that’s

so important especially during uh

times like we’re living through right

now yeah yeah it gives a language it

gives like a

a reference point for them to be able to

discuss all that and it’s yeah yeah it’s

great yeah so

good job you’re doing you’re doing good

work uh you know

doing the work for us for 30 years four

years we’ve been doing it

before there were computers

yeah that’s great there’s a great guy

old dnd guy your quill pen

i did use quill pens i was i was totally

we i it was an artist by choice by

choice yes by choice yes

definitely yes yes i’d love to see that

again that kind of exploration that kind

of um

i think you know what’s interesting um

i um richard witters invited me to talk

to the d d

team during this pandemic they kind of

have like coffee together

and talk and i was delighted to talk to

to the team and stuff because like we’ve

enjoyed fifth edition greatly

um and we just talked about

different aspects of the game and stuff

and and

um you know we were like you know the

game the beauty of this this game is

visual as far as an artist is concerned

is you can actually make it look

like you could do if you wanted to do an

anime manga version

you could make it look like that if you

wanted to do a super realistic version

you could make it like everyone’s

visualizing it

in their own way and that and the the

beauty of it is the game

works on any of those versions

which is just so unbelievably amazing to

me

that you can do that and and and i think

artistically

in the coming years it would be you know

i challenged them to be like

find someone unexpected to illustrate

dnd i think would be yeah sure you’ll

you’ll it’ll be met with some pushback

but i also think that’s how you open

you you also start to open doors and

push the ground and certainly in

describing

what is fantasy art now because i think

that

is to me more compelling than anything

that that a game

that at for many years would have been

viewed the artwork and the visuals were

you know below you know weren’t even

considered

for so many years and now has become

a shaper of the genre you know an

influencer of what we think of when we

think of fantasy illustration

um i think that’s that’s incredible

and i think that that they they can

actually use that

to really push the boundaries of when we

think of an elf

or a wizard or an owl bearer or kobold

or what have you

what that looks like and i and i’m

really excited to see what’s to come

yeah and i hope um there’s a there’s a

chance or an opportunity for

someone to get the the uh opportunity

that you had to to work on in

a a new story or or

reimagining of a story that is like one

artist’s vision or at least one art

director’s kind of vision of

of what it looks like i think there’s a

lot of different uh styles

and um aesthetics that can be pushed

uh that i you know i’m not a visual

person i don’t i’m not

i wouldn’t even consider myself an

artist but i love seeing that and

and and it transports me into another

world and i’m waiting for

um you know as we’re looking to what the

future of dungeons and dragons is like

you know it’s sky’s the limit

not only in our imaginations but just

like what the visualizations can do

to uh to put that seed of imagination in

everybody

who reads the book’s mind i think that’s

could be why it’s tricky to adapt it

into like a feature film or something i

know there’s been talk of that for years

because i think

each one of us has a different visual

idea of what they think

the game should look like it could be

partly informed by when we came into the

game

you know so for me d d always has kind

of a cheesy 80s

veneer yeah that i love you know

um but someone else who might came in

when i was contributing in the 90s

things oh it’s all gritty and dirty and

grungy

and that’s the you know and steam punky

and all that there’s robert

smith uh hanging out in the corner with

chewbacca

clove cigarettes oh that’s totally

roll a savings throw

that’s odd my bad robert smith

impersonation i liked it

i thought it was good

but your point about the visualization i

i totally agree it’s it’s

why i think the the next dramatization

of dungeons and dragons should be

a combination of uh you know reality

what’s happening at the table

and what each care each person at that

table is imagining

uh and it will look completely different

and because i mean

the only thing that is very d other than

all the visual looks and stuff that

we’ve been talking

about um is the fact that there is

a story that’s told at the table and

then there’s a story that’s happening in

each player’s head

and i think i feel like to have a

dramatization

of dungeons and dragons it needs to have

both of those or else you’re just

you know you’re retreading uh uh lord of

the rings or harry potter or spiderwick

or whatever it is right like you’re just

showing

a different ip but for me it’s so much

about

that conversation between the collective

imagination

and the drama that can happen amongst

friends at a table

that’d be really really cool if they

could pull that off i don’t think they

can

[Music]

yeah meaning you know the yeah whoever

it is hollywood producers that are going

to try to crack this

it’s probably too difficult to do but

the way you just mentioned that i’ll be

like oh what if it looks different

depending on what

character’s point of view is

uh you know so say like the dungeon

master’s got one point of view and you

see that visualization but then you see

yeah

the fighter makes it look at you know

he’s got a much more different way of

thinking about it or she’s got a much

cooler was that i i think that would be

really hard too it’s like the affair

remember

that tv show you didn’t watch it no the

affair

but like they had different they would

show the same scene

but from different characters oh and it

was really interesting because like

they obviously have different

perceptions about how things happen

there’s a famous x-files episode that

does that too or yeah yeah

but it’s one from from scully one from

older and older yeah very different yeah

yeah you could you i wonder if that

sounds less like a movie though and more

like a a series

that would be the way to do it which

would be so so cool because you can see

the dungeon masters

everything’s just it is like tolkien

it’s super serious and real

yeah you know and then the fighter

everything’s just small and puny

compared to

the fighter yeah you know and he or

she’s just walking around like yeah i

take it out

the wizard cowering in the corner yeah

yeah totally

but it’s like even how like just you as

a player

likes uh monsters like you would have a

different

the way you would see a monster is

different than the way other people in

your

party would visualize yeah i mean that’s

it’s it’s funny too because when so when

i when when i dm

i always like to show them a picture of

the monster so i’ll i’ll

you know have the the books on pdf and

stuff so i can print out the

picture of the thing and so it’s always

like what version do i want to

do i want to show them of the thing you

know and and it is

hard you know so i first of all it’s

never my version it’s always somebody

else’s

i think it’s way cooler than the thing i

drew but i

you know i go back to some of the

weirdness of those early i mean i love

that uh shelly you mentioned the blog

post i did years ago

for the toys i mean i love that story

that guy gasps me too buys a a

bag of dime store plastic toys and turns

them into i you know with tim cask turns

them into these i know and i love that

you should kind of show the evolution of

how

like this little toy turns into a rust

monster

i’ve got them all over my desk i’ve got

the the the you know the

little rusty guy so i i i connected with

i’m gonna totally geek out now and

there’s going to be a

two people in your audience who’ll get

this but i can i connected recently with

arrow lotus who was

one of the early um and so i have been

slowly collecting

all the things that that little article

about the the origins of some of those d

d monsters i’ve been kind of annotating

on

a first or second edition monster manual

of like where they got all the

inspirations it fascinates me to no end

you know so i’ve got the lumley book

that was the inspiration for the mind

flayer i’ve got the

um the uh it’s the sci-fi book that is

the displacer where the displacer beast

came from

and so when i talked to errol i i knew

he designed

two iconic d d monsters the remarks

which he corrected me that’s how you say

it the rem ras and the ankh head

donkey which are basically if you think

about are kind of the same

in in look the way they were kind of

wormy and septic

insectoid things so i asked them when

you did these for dragon magazine that’s

the first time they appear

and you designed them what were you

looking at

and he goes oh hold on we were zooming

and he comes back

with two rubber toys oh my god i tracked

one down on ebay

this rubber jiggly toy from the 1960s

wow is the ankh egg

oh my god that’s what he used to design

it and i’m like

my geek head just exploded i was like

went bonkers

i’m still trying to track down the other

one which i’m not going to regret that i

shared it on your podcast

because now we’re all on ebay looking

for the channel

yeah wait don’t don’t put other toys in

the in the search bar though yeah

exactly

but uh so cool

that is cool i love that it comes from

something that is like

also very uh centered around child

imagination right like i mean how many

times i mean maybe

we’re of an age where we can remember

this but having like little army guys

and and little

just plastic bits and bobs were like the

only toys you had

back then yes and so you in order to

make them entertaining you had to come

up with stories and come

up with personalities and why they were

and that was

just codified by by by gygax and the

visualization team

um in those early manuals and it’s it’s

still the

the the stuff that we do today when we

bring the anche out or

the mind flayer out it’s still you know

i love that there’s just iterations of

little plastic toys yeah yeah i mean the

um

the ogre and the troll are modified

plastic army men essentially that’s what

they were dave sutherland

whittled on a set of little i think they

were native american like apache

warriors

and then painted them up with like model

paint and like which

would explain the scale right because if

you take a uh a traditional army man and

place it next to like a you know

what would have been a war gaming

miniature right because that’s really

all they had yeah

you know you there’s your scale right

bigger which is the same for

you know you put an owl bear next to the

thing and it’s the same scale so

um i think that’s just so cool that that

also it

it’s it’s by necessity like well it’s

big because you know the

the toy is big so i guess that’s how big

it is

that’s just mind-blowing to me that

they’re just grabbing

like you said just crap off their you

know here

one of the stories i heard was guy gax

takes a stuffed animal

and puts it in the middle of the play

mat and says

roll initiative

[Laughter]

come on awesome

yes this is like a giant teddy bear god

you know and it bleeds beans or

something you know like a beanie baby

like can you imagine how amazing that

would have been

don’t do that marshmallow games yeah yes

it’s totally like the staple of

marshmallow

that that’s you hate it greg when stay

puft marshmallow when you see that when

you saw that for the first time in

ghostbusters you’re like

what the what that’s the same feeling i

get when i

that i love about d d and the that

unpredictability

of it like wait what is it fighting that

i love that i love that about the game

that’s awesome well so good i feel like

uh

you know we should we should talk again

because i feel like there’s a lot more

yeah to go over we didn’t really even

get into

uh what’s cool about spiderwick and all

the uh amazing work that we’re doing

um so uh thank you so much uh for

joining us

uh tony and talking through some of this

older stuff as well as

um you know sharing the stories of of uh

uh playing with your with your kids and

and all that stuff it’s just been it’s

been a great great interview thank you

yes oh it’s my pleasure greg shelly

thank you guys for having me long time

listener

love being on the show it’s it’s uh it’s

my pleasure

hope you guys are safe and well you too

you too thank you so much

https://t.co/sYp1oAUPXH

— Greg Tito (@Gregtito) January 7, 2021

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