084: From Video Games to Tabletop Games: A look at Margaret Krohn’s Journey in Gaming

Courtney: 25:11 

So I’d love to switch gears a little bit and talk about role for it. So, for starters, for any of the listeners that may not be familiar with you guys, can you just tell us a little bit about what role for it is and how it got started?

Margaret: 25:52

So Roll Forward is a tabletop RPG broadcast studio. We pay all of our members to be on the cast. If you’re a moderator, pretty much anybody involved is paid. We value people’s time. That’s one of the big things and big reasons why we’ve gotten backing. You can find us on Patreon, youtube, twitch, roll for it Super easy to find us, and really we just love telling stories. It’s about telling deep stories through tabletop RBGs and I think that a lot of times people think about tabletop RBGs as like, oh, we’re just rolling dice and doing things, but we really bring it to the next level of improv acting, and so if you want to listen to something that’s going to be there’s going to be a game that we’re going to be playing with it and that is going to change the trajectory of what story is told but if you want to watch some people who really should just be actors and actresses because they’re amazing at improv and doing voices or we always dress up to really telling a story I would highly recommend it, totally, not bias.

Courtney: 27:07

How did you get involved with the group?

Margaret: 27:10

So about? Well, at this point is it six years, five years ago, something like that I had been playing a lot on a bunch of different other tabletop RBG shows across a ton of channels and I got invited onto one of their shows through one of their cast members who played on another show with me and was like we want you to come join us and I was like I would love to. And after joining them, after a little bit of time, they had a moment where basically some of their leadership was dropping out. They wanted to focus on their other content instead of focusing on role for content, because they weren’t making a lot of money off the tabletop RBG stuff at the time.

Margaret: 27:54

And so I saw a leadership opportunity open up Only in two of the spaces that I was playing on and I offered my assistance to both and one said no and roll for it said sure, and I joined them and I came with spreadsheets and a plan and they were like all right, this is cool. And from that moment we kind of changed our marketing. We created a brand with brand identity. There was a Patreon that already existed, but we really revamped it to ensure people were getting the rewards that they should be for the tiers that they were. We revamped what those tiers were and tried to make sure that there were things that people wanted and, yeah, just kind of started making a business out of the broadcast studio.

Courtney: 28:46

It’s funny, though just started making a business out of the broadcast studio. It seems like such a. It almost makes it sound easy, but I know that there’s no way that it was easy.

Margaret: 29:01

Imagine, I think, a lot of people. You try to plan. Think about this. You try to plan to meet up with your friends to play D&D or whatever it is Pathfinder D&D, whatever the game is of your choice. You’re trying to figure out what day can work for everybody. You’re trying to work around people’s lives, their families, and sometimes it can be hard to even just organize a group of friends.

Margaret: 29:26

Now imagine that on a scale of like, hey, you’re running three shows with six people and you have to run audio and you have to run visual and you need to make overlay assets and you need to share this on social media and make sure that everyone has their characters created before the time.

Margaret: 29:42

You need to do all these things in these moving pieces in order to make sure that you can deliver a product. And it is more about delivering something that is quality and finding the right cast members for those pieces. We have a variety of different shows. You were saying you’re watching Project Marana. When I was casting for that show I was like, ooh, I need to find people who can really pull off horror, right, and who are those people and will their chemistry match with each other? And we’ve been very fortunate that the cast that we’ve put together have always killed it, and sometimes you have a full cast of people who don’t know each other at all and their chemistry is just amazing because you find the right people for the right show and they just meld so well together.

Courtney: 30:25

What is your casting process like?

Margaret: 30:28

Now, at this point, we have a large group of people that we can pull from, and sometimes I’m still scouting. So I watch a lot of tabletop RPG shows and there will be one or two people from that that I’ll be like, ooh, I really like their acting style and I could see them transition into something more like what we do, because when I watch a lot of shows they’re less RP focused and more like they’re playing a game, like. It’s often how I feel when I’m watching these shows and I’m always looking for a talent that is, that can take it to that next level. Even if they aren’t doing it now, I could see the potential in them to do so. So once in a while we’ll pull somebody new into our channel. We do have a lot of really amazing people to pull from, so we kind of do go through those cast members. Unless we’re like, ooh, we’re looking for a specific type of person for a certain role, then maybe we’ll hunt them down. But yeah, it’s just finding the right people that can have the right chemistry, that can melt together and tell a great story.

Margaret: 31:31

And you don’t want everybody to be the same either, because if you have everybody who’s the same, they’re just going to make the same character. You want variation and differences and I think that’s what really makes a show a show where you go and you’re like, oh wow, these are real. I feel like these could all be real people and that they have background stories and that they have motivations and goals and I don’t know how to explain it. But that’s just character. When you watch a show or read a book, it’s about that character progression for a character and not just stats. It’s also about them mentally and where they want to go and where their trajectory takes them, and sometimes you leave it up to a dice roll.

Courtney: 32:14

As it should be. So I guess I would love to dig a little bit into it, because I love to learn about processes and things, because I’m a project manager and I don’t know that’s just what I do, but I guess, using Project Marana as an example, just other than the casting process, I’d love to hear about the journey of getting that ready for production.

Margaret: 32:41

I think it’s pretty much a very similar process for every show that we do. It is first and foremost we get Sometimes it’s a proposal, sometimes someone will send us a proposal. This one was a proposal that was sent to us by Kelly Wright, who is the GM for that show and the owner of the IP for that show. To some extent Roll4 owns a portion of that IP for the characters and what it’s shown, but he owns the story. We contract everybody. So there’s contracts for every cast member, for every GM, for whatever we do, and sponsors as well. So first getting the show idea whether that is internally, we make a show idea.

Margaret: 33:19

We’re like oh, we really want to do this thing or if it’s something that is proposed to us through somebody else. We have quite a few proposals that are in the books that are coming down the line in the next couple years. We actually have the next couple years planned, which is wild and we take that proposal, we go through it, we’ll ask any follow-up questions that we have. We’ll make adjustments. Sometimes we change the way something works, or a good example is for our Eaton Grain show. We actually asked the person who made the game game if we could change the rules a little bit because she was jamming it In order to make it better for an online show. Sometimes you can’t use some of the things in the system in the way that they are meant to be played, because it just doesn’t fit with a show. So we found a way to incorporate it, but in a different way, which was really cool. So that sometimes can be a thing. So it’s finding ways to make sure the system works for a live show. Sometimes it’s omitting portions of the rules or adjusting them or whatever it might be. Luckily, we’re using Call of Cthulhu, which is perfect. It works great for what we’re doing, and then the next thing is reaching out to all the cast, ensuring that everybody is interested and that they’re okay with the pay that they’re going to be provided and the timeline and the dates and stuff like that. Sometimes we’ll pull everybody together and then figure out a date that works best for people and that can be challenging. But I usually put out like a when to meet or something of that sort, where I look at schedules and I find like the best time, and usually I would say 90% of the time there is not a perfect time and I have to find the time that has the most people available and the people who are not. I’m like, hey, with enough advance notice, do you think you could change your Thursdays every day to be able to do it? Between this time and for Project Marana, the only time that we had available to everybody was like a very specific, weird timeframe. So we did that as a prerecorded show. Sometimes we do live shows and sometimes we do prerecorded shows. For this one we had to do prerecorded just because the cast wasn’t available during our normal live show time and then we play that on the live show.

Margaret: 35:28

So it’s getting all the contracts signed and then from there getting everybody’s characters created and then getting all of their information. I have like a form that they fill out for their character art and they get that to me by a certain timeline so that I can then contract the artist to make the art for the characters. And then I did all the overlays and all the social assets and all of that. Sometimes we do contract that out. I’m getting better at it. So it’s just cheaper for us to do it in-house if we can. It just depends on if I have time or not. So a lot of the overlays and social assets you’ll see are made by me, but some of them we have contracted out. And then, after that’s all done, we have a schedule, we stick to it and produce the show and then we push things out to our Patreon as rewards and it rinses and repeats until it’s over and then we restart the whole process with another show.

Courtney: 36:29

I have just like a. It’s so interesting and like so much work that goes into it, and then like also just keeping in mind that and everybody has like their, you know, other like full-time jobs or whatever it is that they’re doing to like balance as well.

Margaret: 36:44

Yes, I also have other things that I’m doing on top of all that.

Courtney: 36:49

But you know for me.

Margaret: 36:50

How I see it, is that I could just be playing tabletop RBGs for free, like I would do that for free. So to be able to get paid to do it is pretty awesome. So it’s worth the extra work for me and I enjoy the work that I’m doing. I love, you know, grouping people up and organizing and that community element of things, and I do love creating assets and the creative process of creating shows and live production. So it’s kind of fun. I mean it is fun, not just kind of fun, it is fun. It has moments where it’s not fun, like anything that you do.

Courtney: 37:31

Is there a specific episode count that you all agree to at the beginning of the process that gets worked towards?

Margaret: 37:38

Yeah, so that’s part of the proposal process. So, and that is negotiated. Sometimes we are pretty good judges of like the show is really maybe better to be told in five episodes or four, or this is a really good long format show, let’s do 20. Project Marana had two options. He had one that was like a 10 episode and one that was 20. And we’re like no, we want the 20 episode one. We can see where this project could go and we loved the concept of having these flashbacks from 1994, 1995, and then having the present day, 2023, which is really just all the cast members have been killing it, making it feel like, wow, these people are real. And then it’s like where’s that in between mark where something disastrous has happened? Right, and we’re slowly getting there and I think it’s been pretty exciting to see it coming to fruition.

Courtney: 38:30

Yeah, I’m loving it and even just like, okay, like it’s the date, and I’m like, oh, what was I doing on January 4th 2023?

Margaret: 38:37

Yeah, that is kind of fun to think about, right.

Courtney: 38:42

And I just I love how spooky it is and I’m definitely getting a lot more into like horror, actual plays, so I’m very happy that that is what y’all are doing.

Margaret: 38:51

We have a variety. We have shows that are very much like a complete opposite of that. So it’s kind of like, whatever your vibe is, sometimes you just got to find what show makes the most sense for you.

Courtney: 39:06

Yeah, absolutely. So I know that, like, you have honestly been doing actual plays as like a guest, in addition to working with Role for it for a very long time, and I’m just curious, like, is there a particular character from any of the shows that you are just like? That is one of my favorite characters and I would love to play them again.

Margaret: 39:30

Oh, so I have two, but for very different reasons. And one it’s less about the character and more about the show. I think Layla is probably my favorite character to play from Layla the Vampire Slayer. Just going back and thinking about that show, it’s very not like me and you’ll see even like early on if you go watch that I’m like apologizing all the time for being mean and swearing at people. I’m like I’m so sorry Because it’s just not the type of person I am. I don’t do that. I would like to say that I’m a nice person, but I think playing a character that’s very different from me was really fun. And then getting to put little pieces of me into it and then I think the player or the viewers getting to learn why she was the way she was was really cool. And just the episodic, every episode, how it turned out, and like getting to know the characters and the relationships between the characters and just I can see that show going forever. We always said you know seven seasons in a movie. We got pretty close, but I could definitely see that that character progressing and being part of something bigger and I would just love to play her again. You know my goth, babe, I just can’t let her go. And then the other show that I really liked and I don’t I don’t necessarily think I want more from it, but just to be like, my favorite show that I’ve ever been a part of is Missing Annie Lee.

Margaret: 41:00

It is a podcast. I would highly recommend looking it up and listening to it. They’re short, like 45 minute, like episodes there’s 10. It’s so you can get through pretty quickly, but it’s just so well done. I think the story, the editing, like summer did such a good job with like the audio and the video or the audio editing. It’s audio only and it’s just so good. And even as a cast member like I don’t normally rewatch stuff that I’m on, but they remove stuff, they added things, they move things that were in one spot to another spot. It’s very similar to Project Marana in the sense that like there’s a past and a future and like you’re flashing your back between them and just so well done. I love it. So I think that there’s just that’s like my favorite tabletop show to be part of. And then the other one is just my favorite character that I would love to play again someday.

Courtney: 41:53

Just sitting here like, OK, I don’t think I saw that second one and now I need to go find it, because that sounds really really fun.

Margaret: 42:00

Yeah, it’s not on roll for it so, but you can find it on any place where you pod your cast.

Courtney: 42:06

Yes, amazing. Well, thank you for giving me some listening recommendations.

Margaret: 42:12

You have to tell me what you think. After you listen to it You’re gonna be like oh, that’s the worst one, I’m just kidding. It is also spoopy, so you, you know it’ll keep you in the spoopy seasons.

Courtney: 42:24

Amazing. I guess it is the time for that, isn’t it?

Margaret: 42:28

For sure.

Courtney: 42:29

Well, so one thing that I like to talk about in all of my interviews is the fact that you know we’re working in these industries because we love them. However, it tends to be a little hard sometimes, and so, just kind of thinking back through, you know just your time with roll for it, what would you say have been some challenges that you’ve had to face?

Margaret: 42:53

Oh, I oddly don’t feel like there have been major challenges, fortunately for roll for it. I think that there are challenges in regards to budget and ensuring that we can pay cast the way that we want. There was a time where certain cast members were like, hey, I want to be paid this much, and I was like that’s great that you can find somebody who can pay you that much, but we can’t afford that. So I think budgeting has been probably the hardest part for us personally is because we get people who want to be paid a specific amount and hey, if you’re worth that, you get what you’re worth, as we totally understand that, but I can’t afford that. So I got to find somebody who is within our budget and it’s sad to not be able to have the person you want. So I think that would be like the biggest challenge. Other than that, I think just schedules and finding time that matches for everybody.

Margaret: 43:49

Whenever we have to cancel episodes because someone’s sick or something emergency happens is always unfortunate, especially when it’s last minute for our viewers. I think that that can take a major hit. I would say the biggest. Biggest thing that has happened and it’s not just for us, it’s for probably all content creators is the pandemic, and the beginning of that in 2020 was really hard. We lost two thirds of our income from people just stopping because they couldn’t afford their own lives, which obviously is, first and foremost, worry about yourself. Don’t pay for a Patreon that you can’t really afford. So I think that is the hardest thing is and it goes back to that budget element of it and having to try to hustle to get sponsors in order to afford shows where we normally could have just afforded them through our Patreon.

Courtney: 44:46

Yeah, that is a lot to lose, like so quickly.

Margaret: 44:51

Yeah, we went from three shows away to one and that one is now a three hour show instead of our normal four hours. But we’re very open with our viewers and our community and it’s like, hey, if we have more money we can afford more stories, and if we don’t, then we don’t make as many stories or we make shorter form stories. But we’re gonna keep doing what we can in order to pay the people that we can for the time that they’re putting in their talent Because, like I said, some of these people should be actors and actresses. They’re just so good at what they do.

Courtney: 45:26

Yeah, absolutely. Have y’all been able to recover some of like you lost in the beginning of COVID?

Margaret: 45:34

Not fully, I wouldn’t even say 50%, like we are still. It’s going back up, but not drastically.

Courtney: 45:45

Got to well. I really hope that that changes soon, because y’all definitely deserve to be able to get back up to doing three shows at a time.

Margaret: 45:52

It would be nice, I think, being able to tell more stories would be fantastic, but at the same time, you know it is what it is.

Courtney: 46:01

Well, to flip things around, so I guess same kind of timeframe of like looking back over your time for Roll 4. What have been some of your favorite parts?

Margaret: 46:11

Ooh, there’s so many. I think a lot of them have to revolve around shows that we’ve had. I think we’ve had some really amazing shows with amazing characters and amazing casts and I think like for me, that is always a great feeling is when you’re done with a show and they’re like can we do another season? Those are the big moments where viewers are like really pushing us to continue shows and not only pushing us to continue doing the show, but then show up to watch them. So I think that those are the high moments is when you have the people enjoying it and the people who are creating it or enjoying it, and you have this amazing synergy, which doesn’t always happen. So I would say that those are the big times that I really, really enjoy things, and also the element of community. I think we built such a wonderful community of people who love tabletop RPGs, who are helpful, who teach each other, who answer questions and are kind to one another. I think that is a big win.

Margaret: 47:12

In my mind, there’s a lot of communities out there where it’s not as inviting and caring, and I would say that that is a challenge that I challenge everyone to build build the community that you want to be a part of, and maybe that is something hateful, but that’s not what I want to be a part of. I want to be part of something that’s like helpful and gets more people involved in tabletop, and I think seeing some of our viewers play games together has been really cool too. Like they’ve formulated friendships and so much that they are playing a bunch. And the stories when people tell us they started playing because of us, I think are so sweet. Like they never, ever played any tabletop RPG games and now that they’ve watched us, they’re like playing a ton of them and they have a weekly group that they play with and I think that’s really sweet. And it goes to show that, like you know, people think that it’s like this weird thing, but then when they get to be a part of it, they’re like, oh, this is actually pretty cool.

Courtney: 48:20

Yeah, that is really really special. Yeah, well, we have touched on a lot of different things, but I want to make sure that we have time for if there’s any upcoming projects that we haven’t talked about, that you’re excited about and allowed to talk about, and I’d love to hear about them.

Margaret: 48:40

Yeah, we talked a little bit about Project Marana. I would say, if you’re looking for something that little spoopy, some call-a-catholique action, come watch it, but we also have a whole bunch of stuff on roll for it. We played a whole ton of different types of games, like even the little obscure ones. So I would definitely say, come check out our channel on YouTube and find whatever it is the genre that you’re looking for. We probably have a show that is like that. I also made a tabletop RPG game called Witches and Spellcraft, which you can check out on Drive Through RPG. You can get it for free or you can pay whatever you want. I’m working on a advanced version of that that has a lot more rules.

Margaret: 49:25

A lot of the feedback I got and I think even one of the reviews I got on tabletop RPG was like oh, the system’s really simple, it should have health and they wanted to add all these things to it and it’s like that’s the point of the system. It’s supposed to be simple. I created that system because I had a group of girlfriends who didn’t really. They thought tabletop stuff was kind of stupid or nerdy or weird and which is probably all those things which I think is awesome. I think they’re awesome, not stupid, and so I created a game because I think they all like witchy stuff, and so I put this together. It’s very simple, More like Mad Libs and D&D had a baby type of thing and they loved it. They had so much fun. One of them now does tons of tabletop RPGs all the time and they didn’t realize how fun it could be.

Margaret: 50:16

And I think that that’s, for me, is. I just want a simple system that anybody who plays table or who has never ever played before, can easily pick it up and play together and create a story. And now I’m working on the advanced version of that, which I’m really excited about, which will be more like Warhammer-esque in the sense of like it’s going to have a lot of a lot more roles, but it will be fun. So, yeah, that’s kind of what I’m working on. And then I also am working on Ashes of Creation, which is a MMORPG. You can check it out at Ashes of Creation all of the spaces. So kind of the main projects I’m working on and then planning a wedding. So I don’t think I need any more projects on my plate.

Courtney: 51:00

Yeah, that’s totally easy and simple project to plan for.

Margaret: 51:04

I’ve actually not. You know, a lot of people tell me it’s going to be stressful, but I have not been stressed out at all. The last piece that we have is picking out our dress and our tux, and we’re doing that on the 14th of October, which is going to be really fun. My family’s flying out and I’m just, I’m excited, I’m probably going to cry a bunch, but it’ll be fine, I’m fine. So it’s the last piece and then you know it’s done for us, and my friend put this into good perspective for me. She’s like Margaret, how many events have you run in your life? How many people are those events for? I was like, okay, that’s fair. I’m used to running like large events for companies, and so a small wedding is probably why I’m not that stressed out about it.

Courtney: 51:50

I’m so excited for y’all, Like we’ve been Facebook friends for such a long time and it’s just kind of like following along and it’s like, oh, I saw the pictures of your cake and I’m just like, oh my God, it looks so pretty.

Margaret: 52:01

Yeah, it’s going to be very fun and a lot of happy tears and just celebrating love. We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary with a wedding because we want to start having kids and that’s kind of like the next stage in our lives, and it’s less about being married because in our hearts we’re already there, but you know the formalities of it in order to make sure that our kids have the best life they can Amazing, yeah, and then we teach them to play some tabletop or VG’s yes, Starting young.

Margaret: 52:33

Yeah, no, I don’t know. We’ll see what they’re into, but if they have a semblance of it, you know I’m going to try.

Courtney: 52:42

If people want to find you to be able to follow all of your cool projects, where should they go?

Margaret: 52:48

Yeah, I’m pretty easy to find. I’m Margaret Crone in all of the places, margaret Crone everywhere except for TikTok. I’m Margaret Crone1337 because someone took my name. We’re not using it so I don’t know. I can’t get it. So that’s how to find me, super easy. I have a website too, margaretcronecom. It’s pretty much the same stuff, but, yeah, I post whenever I’m doing stuff and, like I said, those are kind of the main projects that I’m working on right now, at the moment and trying to keep it chill but also still do the things that I really love and enjoying life.

Courtney: 53:24

Amazing. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show today, margaret. This has been really fun.

Margaret: 53:30

Yeah, thank you for having me. Hopefully people aren’t bored out of their minds.

Courtney: 53:36

Definitely not, and thank you, listeners, for tuning in today. At this point I am going to stop the official interview with Margaret and then I’m going to start recording again for a fun little quick question blitz that is exclusively for patrons, which you can find us on Patreon just that roleplay grow and I’m going to ask her a series of questions. Summer gaming related summer not, but just a good chance to get to know a little bit more about Margaret outside of the gaming sphere. Thank you again for listening and thank you, margaret. This has been an absolute treat. You just finished another episode of roleplay grow.

Courtney: 54:16

To check out the show notes and transcript from today’s episode, you can go to lightheartadventures. com/rpg. To keep up with every episode, please subscribe on your podcast player of choice and if you’re enjoying the show, I would absolutely love if you would leave me a review and share this episode with your friends. Your review might even get featured on an upcoming episode. To contact us, you can email roleplaygrow at gmailcom. There are a lot of social media sites out there right now, so look for roleplaygrow for the show account and look for either Ketra or Ketra RPG for my accounts and Dungeon Glitch for Matt’s accounts. Lastly, I want to give a special shout out to our editor, sam Atkinson. Your help is always appreciated. Sam, thank you all so much for listening and I’ll see you next time on roll play grow.