095: Celebrating 4 years of RPG & exploring the intricacies of content creation with Fondue of Dice & Easy

[00:00:00]

Courtney: Hey entrepreneurs. Before I introduce today’s guest, I wanted to celebrate a milestone with you all. Roll Play Grow is officially four years old. My first episode dropped on new year’s day back in 2021. And it is wild to think that I’ve been doing this podcast for so long. Admittedly, it’s been a little sporadic at times. And I don’t have nearly as many episodes out as I thought I would by now because of [00:01:00] it.

But despite multiple breaks, I always love coming back to the show and chatting with amazing people. I’ve made so many friends because of this podcast and the online TTRPG community. And I just want to thank all of you for hanging out with me. As we look into 2025, I am building out my interview schedule. If you are a creator in either TTRPG or board games and are interested in coming onto the show, feel free to reach out. I have a contact form you can fill out at LightheartAdventures.com/RPG. I can’t always get to everybody who reaches out, but I would still love to hear from you.

All right. Today we are chatting with fondue, the creator behind Dice & Easy. Fondue works in the video game industry, streams on Twitch has a YouTube channel, which has a lot of tutorials on using Foundry virtual tabletop. We cover a lot of topics in today’s episode, including Dming [00:02:00] tips, community management, Foundry and the grind of content creation. Fondue has some great advice, and I know that y’all are going to enjoy it.

As always, I want to shout out my favorite tea company, Friday afternoon tea. For Christmas, I was just gifted three teas that are brand new to me and a gift card, which I got another five bags of tea.

So suffice to say a, my collection of their teas is growing. I absolutely adore Friday and her shop, and if you have been hankering for tea blends that are based off of your favorite books and movies, you should definitely try them out. They currently have their Lord of the Rings teas out, which happened to include some of our favorites. Like brother, captain king and the gray wanderer. Check them out at fridaytea.com, and if you use code LightheartADV you’ll get 10% off your order and help support the show.

Happy new years friends. Here’s hoping 2025 is better than 2024. Let’s go talk to [00:03:00] fondue.

Hello, friends! Today I am joined by Fondue, the content creator behind Dice and Easy. How’s it going today?

Fondue: Hello everyone, it’s going great! I’ve had a very relaxing day, went to the gym, so it’s very nice.

Courtney: Yeah, it’s awesome. I know you are ending your day just as I’m starting it, so time zones are super

Fondue: fun.

Yes! Time zones.

Courtney: So to kick things off, I would like to know what is the very first game that you remember playing?

Fondue: The very first game- Are we talking like video games or TTRPGs?

Courtney: of the above.

Fondue: Okay, I can do both. For video games, the first one I remember playing is Super Mario Bros. for the NES, because I got an NES as a birthday present when I was 5 years old. And I think I got Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt with that. What I didn’t know at the time is that my [00:04:00] parents bought it, like, pre owned, second hand.

But I was, I was very stoked. I was, like, so happy. Because the console had been out already for, for some time already at that point. So they could get it, like, for cheap. So they did, but I was stoked. I was so happy to get that thing. At least that’s what my mom tells me, that I was very, very excited. And that’s the first video game I can remember playing is that one. And I’ve played games ever since.

And for roleplaying games, the first one I remember playing is Middle MIRP. But I played the Finnish version, because I’m from Finland and I grew up in Finland, it’s called KERP, because it’s Keskimaa Broli Peli, Keskimaa is Middle Earth in Finnish. So, that’s the first one I remember playing, and I remember it being very crunchy, and it had like a whole critical hit table of like, if you do a critical hit, then you have to roll on this huge table of things that can happen, and they were like very descriptive and very precise on like, what part of your body takes damage and how, and We played that when I was like, I was like 12 with like a [00:05:00] neighbor of mine started playing there and then moved on to D&D 3. 5e eventually when I was a teenager.

Courtney: Yeah, I, you know, whether being like, Finnish version aside, I just, I have not even heard of that one.

Fondue: It’s not a current game anymore It I don’t know when the last edition of that was. It’s very old. It is like very very old I think it was second the second edition of that that I played

Courtney: Mm hmm.

Fondue: yeah, that was in the late 90s early 2000s. Yeah late 90s Yes so I have no idea what the latest version of that would have even been because now it’s like the one ring which is made by Free League and then they’ve also made the D&D one which I, it’s kind of just called like Lord of the Rings role playing game I think.

Courtney: No, I was gonna actually

ask, have you played The

One Ring?

Fondue: I haven’t, no, but it’s Free League’s it’s, it’s not the D&D ones.

I’m, that’s more exciting for me, personally and Free League stuff is really good. [00:06:00] Like, I’ve, I’ve played Vassen, and Vassen is really good, or Vassen as is the English pronunciation and it’s really good, and their overall, like, systems are very interesting.

So, I would definitely be into trying it, but I’ve, haven’t gotten around to it.

Courtney: Fair enough. I’d say The One Ring is definitely one of my favorites right now. It’s a very, yeah, it’s a much more unique system, I think. It’s just, it’s really fun and it, it takes place setting wise in between like the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings

Fondue: Ah, cool.

Courtney: So you get to explore a lot of that time frame.

Fondue: Yeah, yeah. And trying different systems is always interesting and seeing how How like different genres and settings and whatnot can benefit from having different systems because it always tends to be like we made this 5th edition thingy and it’s like cool but I know exactly how it’s going to play.

There’s not going to be any surprises there. I’m like sure there’s people that build stuff on top of 5th edition and they’ll have like we built our this system but at the end it’s [00:07:00] 5th edition and I kind of know what I’m getting into. I’m not going to really have any surprises but with new systems it’s always like oh how did they Think about the, you know, problems that they have, or the creative intent that they had, and how does that come through through the system, is interesting.

Courtney: Yeah. What games are you playing these days?

Fondue: I have one group at the moment, and the whole point of that group is that we don’t play D&D, we try different types of things. And we’re currently playing Blades in the Dark, which is really interesting. It is a very, very interesting system. We’ve had a bit of a break for a few months, because adult lives have come into the way.

But I do like the way that it works and the way that a session is structured feels really nice like you do basically one heist in one session, roughly speaking, and I do like how it’s paced and how it all works out. And the world is really interesting. Like, I find the, usually I’m not really into the kind of steampunk esque, like Dishonored esque type worlds, but this one is very [00:08:00] interesting, like how they’ve built it.

And it’s like, it’s technically a post apocalyptic world, but it doesn’t feel like a post apocalyptic world. And They have really interesting things like the Devil’s Bargain, where anyone can basically be like you can get an extra die, but something bad is going to happen, or something unexpected is going to happen, and the fact that even players can do that to each other, I think is really cool, because usually that’s a mechanic that you would give, like the GM is allowed to do that mechanic, but players aren’t, but in this one it’s like, no, the players can also, you know, do that, And I think it creates an interesting dynamic on the table.

Courtney: Yeah, I really love games where it gets to be more collaborative in the actual world building itself. .

Yeah,

Which, I know, some of that too just depends on your GM, but when, like, when the actual structure of the game is there to help support that, I think makes it just a much more interesting story.

Fondue: Mm hmm.

For sure. And I mean, Blades in the Dark, like, they do give you the setting, but a lot of it is like, You can fill in the blanks like, you know, there’s these factions but what do the [00:09:00] factions actually do and who’s in the factions like it’s not really determined or even like the different parts of the city like they’re described to you but what’s really in them is not really described so like so that when you’re playing you know you can fill those in the players can fill those in like oh I know this bar over there called whatever and it’s like okay this bar is now here and I do also like although I do find The challenge is that your table might have a hard time with that, depending on what type of games they’re used to.

If they’re used to more like, well the GM is at top and then they kind of describe everything and then you react to them, like D&D tends to be, then those types of games can be very difficult for them to wrap their head around, where they have more agency and it’s more like, even leveled I’ve found.

Courtney: hmm. Now that’s actually really interesting, because while one of the groups I’m playing with we’re definitely trying to play anything but D&D. We’re also still In basically, like, Baby’s First D&D, with some of our local friends [00:10:00] that we met who had just never played any game whatsoever. And getting them out of their shell to even just do a little bit of roleplay, do a little bit of reaction, has been a challenge.

Fondue: Yeah, I mean it is hard because like role playing, you’re essentially acting or you’re playing. It is play, the thing that we did as kids, which was really like natural for us. But now as adults, it is seen as not a thing that adults do. It is seen as embarrassing because you have to be quite vulnerable in those moments.

Because, you know, inevitably when you’re acting, when you’re role playing, You’ll do something that doesn’t quite land well or that it was very, you had a very clear idea of it in your head. And then when it comes out, you’re like, that didn’t, I didn’t mean to say it like that. I didn’t mean to do it like that.

And those are vulnerable moments. People are afraid of those moments in general. Like they’re very difficult for us to do, especially if you’re with new people. Like if you’re not with a table that you’ve known for a really long time, and it’s even more scarier to try to do stuff. Cause you’re like, what if I, what if I make myself looks silly or foolish and, and it’s understandable.

[00:11:00] But the good thing with Playing other systems with people who haven’t played any games before is that they don’t have any preconceived

Courtney: Mm hmm.

Fondue: ideas. Like if you’re, you’ve been playing D&D for like five years and then you try to play other stuff, it’s hard because you have such a D&D kind of puts blinders on you and you’re like, oh, but in D&D it works like this.

Yeah, but this is not D&D. Like, this is very different. It’s not as strict and it’s not as GM driven. This is more collaborative and then that can create problems. I

Courtney: Yeah, what techniques or methods have you seen work to help those players make that transition? .

Fondue: I think one thing that really helps is asking players to do things, or like, asking players to describe things, for example, in a scene. You’re like, you describe a scene, and then you go to player A. Like, player A, what is an interesting thing that you see? Or what is a thing that is making you feel uncomfortable that you see in this scene?

So you give them kind of an opportunity to describe something in a scene, for example. Or, if they see a, [00:12:00] if they meet a character, then you can be like, what’s something that your character notices about this character? And that gives them a little bit of agency, but it’s not usually a huge situation there, but oh, They have a scar over their their eyebrow and it’s like, okay, now this is a detail that we can together work on or like we have together established this detail.

So I think that’s like a nice way of doing it. Then in general, like having a session zero is always really important with any, any group and trying to there kind of lay the groundwork. Like, hey, we can, we can act, we can play, it’s fine. If you fail, don’t worry about it. So trying to be encouraging always helps.

And For me, at least, I like role playing, so I do it a lot myself, and I feel like that also um, it helps to lower the barrier for others. If I’m doing a lot of silly voices and being silly and, and looking, looking embarrassing, then they also feel less pressured or they’re, they don’t like, oh, okay, well I can do it too, because they’re also doing it.

So I think those are some techniques [00:13:00] that really help. On a personal level, if you’re thinking about how could you do it yourself, I would say do some improv theater classes. They do wonders. I’ve been doing improv theater for six, seven years. I haven’t done it actively for a couple years now. But it’s really good for for tabletop role playing because you essentially just get to play around and you do scenes and you get to act characters, and then you usually, at least the classes that I’ve had, we usually like, do a scene and then we kind of stop and it’s like, Okay, what didn’t work in this scene, and why? And it’s usually the basics of like, who are you, what was your relationship, and where were you? Those are like the basic things you have to define in an improv scene, which very often you forget, and then it makes the scene very complicated and very difficult to understand.

And what it also teaches you is listening. Listening is really, really important and it sounds mundane, but what it really means is you are listening to [00:14:00] what the other actors or players in this instance are bringing to the scene. So you’re, you’re listening, okay, they’re bringing this thing to the scene and then you build on top of that.

So you’re like, what can I add? Like one thing that I can add and then they can build off of and then you create this kind of flow of you’re all bringing something to the, to the scene that you’re all building off of together, which then leads to You creating something that couldn’t have happened without you doing it together If some one of you would have like tried to script this it wouldn’t have happened.

It would have been very different So this like listening and taking a kind of step by step approach to building things in the scene It’s really difficult by the way. I don’t mean to say that it’s easy. It’s really hard like in improv It’s really really difficult because what ends up happening a lot of times is You have your own idea, you’re like, I want this, this scene to go this way, and I’m going to try to steamroll that, and it never works out.

It, it always creates a lot of issues, it creates friction, the other actors are like, what are you doing? It just never works out. And then the other thing [00:15:00] is, Even when you are listening, okay, I’m going to try to bring stuff to the scene. You bring too much, you bring too many things. And then the other actors, like, I don’t know what to grab onto.

There’s too much stuff. So trying to like be just one thing and then step by step build things. It’s, it’s difficult. Yeah, I guess those are some things if, if that makes sense.

Courtney: Oh, absolutely. Like, it’s so interesting. I studied theater my whole life. I used to work in theaters as a stage manager after I graduated college. And what’s so funny is I loved performing, and yet I hated improv. And now I’m playing tTRPGs all of the time. It’s

Fondue: Yeah. I’ve only done like improv theater, so I don’t, I don’t know like the traditional side of things at all. Really. Yeah.

For me, it’s like I get to play it’s to me to me It’s just playing as an adult like we just get in the room like now we’re at an airport Like okay, cool We are and now we’re just gonna pretend that we are and it’s just like like being a kid again It’s really fun for me because I just like doing that.

It’s just fun. It’s just silly

Courtney: I know, I feel like if I were to go back and do it now, that I’m not, I don’t know, [00:16:00] embarrassed or feeling the pressure, I’d probably have a lot more fun, and it’s maybe why I’m able to play games like this, but Yeah, like, it’s funny how I’ll advise people to, like, Hey, learn some improv techniques.

Like, they’re really helpful. And I’m like, I know these techniques. I hated it, though. What?

Fondue: It is very like improv, low key, like high key is very, very, helpful when it comes to tabletop role playing games. If you want to get better at the role playing aspect of it. Of course, if you don’t want to get better at it, then

Courtney: Then, like, why are you

Fondue: playing?

You do you. You do you. I mean, there’s different types

of games, you know, some people like the more like wargame y simulations type of thing where they like having figurines and rounds that take a long time and a lot of strategy.

That’s fine, you know, there’s, there’s different types of games, you know, there’s Pathfinder there’s games that are more crunchy.

That’s, that’s totally

Courtney: Alright, I do want to transition into talking about your content creation. So I know

that you’re on Twitch, you’re on YouTube, and I’d love [00:17:00] to just hear the story of how you went from playing video games, playing tabletop RPGs, into making content around them.

Fondue: Sure. I originally started because in 2019, I Got a new job in Sweden at a game studio called Avalanche. And just FYI, I work in the games industry. I used to be a producer, which means project management stuff. I am a community manager nowadays. But I got a new job in Malmö, Sweden, to work at Avalanche.

And I moved to Sweden, and I moved by myself. And when I was there, I was missing my friends a lot, and I was feeling lonely, so I was like, maybe I could, like, stream to hang out with people abroad, like, abroad, and I asked people on my Facebook, like, personal Facebook, like, hey, would anyone wanna come and hang?

And they said yes, so I started streaming and The first stream was terrible, as is for any

new creative endeavor that you do. I didn’t understand anything about audio production [00:18:00] or, you know, even not using your Wi Fi connection because that’s going to create a lot of issues for you if you’re streaming.

You shouldn’t use your Wi Fi connection because it’s really unstable. The game didn’t run well because, of course, like, I didn’t understand that, you know, If you stream something, it requires more resources from your PC, so it didn’t go well. But, I was like, I like this, and I’m gonna continue doing it, so I, I continued streaming.

And, I did that for, well, I’m still doing it, you know, I’ve been doing it now for five years now. And, at some point I started doing YouTube stuff, I was doing something very different more on the political side of things for a while. But then I thought that, you know, I’ll, I’ll, I wanna pivot to something else.

I wanna do something that is not as tiring for me mentally. So I was thinking like, what could I do that is something that would kind of be different that, that I’m interested in? And I had started running a game of D&D on a Foundry [00:19:00] VTT in, I think it was 2020 or 2021. I forget. But I started running a game because I wanted to play, and I had some friends, so I asked them, do you want to play virtually?

So we did, we played on Foundry, and I loved tinkering around in Foundry, and I loved checking out all kinds of different modules, and, and adding them, and seeing what, what can be expanded upon in Foundry, and that’s like, one of the things I really appreciate. Fell in love with with Foundry is that is so expandable with all the mods that you have for it. Like you can you can add almost whatever you want to it with the mods and then the price point being so cheap as well It’s like I think 60 euros with Finnish VAT Like it’s really cheap and then just the GM needs to buy that was like this Incredible product so cheap and then you can expand upon it and it’s great And yeah, so then I was like, I could do tutorials.

Like I know a lot of stuff about Foundry. So then I just started making Foundry VTT tutorials. And yeah, that’s kind of how I ended [00:20:00] up doing what I am doing. Originally just streaming and then, you know, Eventually doing foundry tutorials and still doing streaming on that end as well And then a little stint of like pro gming as well there for a while like about a year Until I realized that I don’t have the energy for this because it’s a lot of stuff to do Because it’s not my this is not my full time thing.

This is completely on my hobby side of things my full time Nine to five is my game industry job. So at some point I was like running four different campaigns like two paid and two of my own. And then I was like, I can’t, I, it’s too much, I can’t, I’m tired, I want, I wanna have weekends to myself at some point, so, cut down on those yeah.

So that’s kind of the short of it,

Courtney: Alright. Digging into getting started with YouTube, what steps did you take to start?

Fondue: Well create a YouTube channel, the usual, [00:21:00] yes, I had already like been making videos. So I knew how video editing worked and, but I took a different approach for this channel. I was like, I’m going to script the videos. So that was like a different, or in the beginning I didn’t actually script or my scripts were like bullet points.

So I would basically just start like, okay, what do I want to talk about? Like what are some topics that I think are interesting? Maybe some modules that I want to highlight that I think are really cool. So I like, I started off with basically thinking of things that I want to talk about on my videos. And then writing scripts.

They were mostly just bullet point related stuff. And then at some point I was like, I want to write the scripts like fully out. Because when I was just doing bullet point stuff, it was like, I would be like, okay, how do I want to formulate this? And I have to kind of think of it on the spot, which for the style of video that I was doing, I don’t think is the best.

Because it’s more like informational of like, here’s how you do things. First do this, first do that first, and then do this. And for that kind [00:22:00] of, It felt like it was better that I formulated like beforehand so that I just read it and then I and that’s like more clear and concise. So yeah, first things I started is like thinking of what do I want to talk about listing like just putting those in a, in a Not a monday duck.

Notion, in a notion board basically being like, here’s the type of videos I want to do. That’s like what I usually do is like, I have a notion board, and then I have video ideas there, and then I will write like thoughts in the, in that notion card for the video like okay, I want to talk about this and this and this if I have any links that I need I’ll put them in there and then eventually I started writing the full script there and all that stuff It’s kind of how I got started on that

Courtney: Yeah, for sure. I can definitely relate to the bullet point versus writing script. Because like, I’ve started doing mini episodes where I’m very informational and I’m like, wow, I just ramble if I don’t have it written out.

Fondue: Yeah, and it really depends [00:23:00] on like what the goal is like For some stuff a more conversational style can be better like if let’s say I were to Talk about something that’s going on in the TTRPG industry then a more conversational style Could be better because it makes it feel a lot less like a news show if I’m reading it but when I’m like basically telling you like here’s how this module works or or Here’s how to use this module Then usually scripting it out works better.

Although if I’m, like, I have some videos where I, like, I jump into Foundry and I’m doing stuff in Foundry and I’m explaining what I’m doing as I’m doing it, those I don’t script because it’s quite difficult, or I could, but But capturing the b roll would be a huge amount of time. Like, it would be really time consuming for me to capture all that b roll of like, doing all those things and then lining up the VO to be like, good with it.

Like, that would be really time consuming. I could do it, but it would be really, really time consuming. So it’s easier for me to like, okay, well, let’s just have my camera [00:24:00] here, and then I’m just gonna be like, okay, now I’m doing this, then I’m gonna go here, and then this, I’ll do this. So, for those, it’s more I’ll have the bullet points of like, I want to, I have to go through all these features, but I’ll just do it as I’m doing it.

But if it’s like, yeah, just me talking to the camera, then yeah, scripting works better for the style of content that I do for the informational purposes and like tutorial purposes. But like there’s no, there’s no one right way to do it.

Courtney: hmm. That makes total sense. I’m curious with Foundry too, like, I know that you have a video where you talk about different VTTs out there, so maybe it’s just a little short preview of that video that listeners can go find.

Why did you pick Foundry over the others?

Fondue: So I didn’t only pick Foundry. I want to emphasize that that video I gave my my top picks for different types of content. Use cases, and I think I picked Foundry because this video is almost, it’s a year and a half old,

so I’m trying to remember what did I pick Foundry for. I think I picked it as the most versatile [00:25:00] VTT because it’s, from the others that are like versatile like that, when I was doing the research like a year and a half ago.

The other ones that are out there is like, Fantasy Grounds. I found that really difficult to use. Like, I found it, like, the UX of it was really, really difficult. It’s really, it’s also really expandable. But from my perspective, it was very hard to use compared to Foundry. Granted, I had a bias in that because I’ve been using Foundry for a long time.

And I, I’m, you know, I don’t shy away from that. I do mention in the video that I’ve been using it for a long time. So I’m, I’m biased. Obviously, but one of the reasons were like it is relatively speaking like straightforward to pick up like any of the more complex VTT’s you will there’s a learning curve like if you go to roll 20 and You’ve never used a VTT.

It’s gonna take some time before you learn the ropes So if you’re like going for something more complex, you’ve never used a VTT and I think learning those It’s a similar learning curve and Foundry is relatively straightforward on that and I’m [00:26:00] actually really excited for the next version because then they’re going to redo the UI for the in game stuff and I’m interested to see like, where does that go?

Because they’ve done that for the landing page stuff already, which some people don’t like. I personally do like because it’s more modern and to me more usable, but I understand that not everyone likes it. But yeah, it’s also the expandability of Foundry that it’s so easy to just install modules You just like I want to install this module click boom.

It’s there It’s very easy to expand upon You can get it to do like really whatever you like with as long as you do some research on it and find the modules That you like so those were kind of the reasons why I picked Foundry for that specific category but there were like others like One more multiverse.

I think it’s is it still called that because they they they went away But then they came back which like most people don’t know You that they came back, so they

Courtney: When?

Fondue: away. Yeah, so they’re they’re back. But the URL is different, no? geez, it used to be, one more multiverse I need to find it, ahh But yeah, they they went [00:27:00] away, because they were like well, the they they ran out of funding, and then You know, they were saying like, it’s GG’s, but then they came back, I think they have a Patreon now, and it’s called PlayMultiverse.

com nowadays, but it’s, now it’s still, it’s still going, and I thought that that was a really cool VTT that’s really different to anything else out there, and I was, I was kind of bummed that it was going away, I was like, oh, it’s really different and interesting, so I also tried to like, See what type of different VTTs there are out there.

And then of course the whole like 3D VTT stuff is still kind of coming. It was, it was way early a year and a half ago, like Maneer, which I have kickstarted. I’m still kind of waiting to see what comes out of that. Then Wizards of the Coast has their own 3D VTT that’s coming out. I think there’s one or two other ones.

That’s also like an interesting thing on the horizon that I’m working on. Interested to see how that pans out because the problem with those is that they’re usually quite resource intensive and a lot of TTRPG players don’t have mega [00:28:00] PCs. So I’m also looking forward to see how that works out. Yeah,

Courtney: some of the, or I guess like the local D&D group that I play with. We are starting to use D&D Beyond’s new platform for at least maps, which, I don’t know, it’s I feel torn. I’m not the DM. My husband’s the DM. And like, we’ve got Foundry. We use the Forge, technically to use the Foundry.

Yeah. I think it’s just easier.

Mhm.

Fondue: is great unless you’re really into figuring out the self hosting side of Foundry which, like, if you’re into that, cool, go for it. Me, myself? Nah. No thanks. I don’t want to look into port forwarding and all that stuff, so the Forge is

phenomenal.

Courtney: Yeah, but I’m like, okay, so we’ve got the subscription to the forge, like, let’s just use that! It’s got more features, at least for now! But I do get the ease of, all right, you make a character on D&D Beyond and now you have a [00:29:00] token that you can just drop into a map, and while

functionality is basic, it’s still just, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see how long

Fondue: I totally get that as well. And it really does, like, depend on, like, what are your needs? Like, if your need is, I just want a token with a picture to move on the map, But I’ll do everything else myself. Then, yeah, Foundry is a bit too much. Like, you don’t really need Foundry for that. You can just go for what is it called?

One of the, Albert Rodeo, for example. Although they’ve added a lot of features there, but that’s, like, quite straightforward, you know? So, it really depends on what you want to do, but if you’re like, I want the VTT to handle all the math stuff, I want it to check, you know, skill checks and all that, it’s like, yeah, then you probably want something more robust.

So, if you’re thinking about VTTs, like, think about your use case, like, what do you want to do? If you want just a digital Map on your, at your table that you can just move stuff around. Yeah, Foundry is a bit overkill in my opinion at that, that point.

Courtney: Fair enough. how much time [00:30:00] were you spending on each of these videos?

Fondue: I’m trying to remember. Haven’t made a video in a couple of months. It varies a lot. It depends. So if it’s a video where I’m just talking, those are the quickest to make. Those are like four ish hours to make. Like a video where it’s just me talking, no b roll or very minimal b roll. Those are like four hours or so.

If there’s, or like four to six hours, if there’s b roll involved then it’s probably going to be around 10 ish hours. And then, like, the VTT one is the one where I spent the most time because I had to do a lot of research on that one. So that one was probably like 30 hours, I want to

say, something along those lines.

Like, that’s, like, that’s the longest one, maybe even 40, with all the research that I had to do and then all the b roll that I had to capture for, for different things. So It varies a lot, but I would say on average like 10 to 15 hours per video, I would [00:31:00] say it takes me I’m pretty quick with the edit stuff So writing the script is usually like an hour to two hours or three hours depending on the script Then shooting it is about an hour, maybe an hour and a half Editing is the largest chunk of it.

Obviously that’s going to be like Five to ten hours, depending on what type of editing I’m doing, because my edits are not super complex. It’s mostly, you know, talking head. Cuts add some b roll here, you know, maybe some transitions and that’s about it. It’s nothing crazy And a simple color grade, but I just use the same one every time so it’s a preset and I use a Software called recut which takes out all the like silent parts out from the video automatically for me So I don’t need to manually edit although like there’s a long silent gap here So it just cuts that out for me automatically saving me a little bit of time and then, then I have to do the YouTube publishing side of things, so I have to make a thumbnail, that’s usually an [00:32:00] hour or two to make a thumbnail.

I hate, I hate doing thumbnails. I’m not good at them. It’s one of my big weaknesses as a creator. It’s just, I’m not a graphic designer, I don’t really have interest in that area, but I got to do them and yeah, then doing YouTube SEO. So, you know, looking up like, okay, what’s, what’s the good name for this?

I use a tool called TubeBuddy to do like competitive, like analysis of like, okay, if I use this title, how well does it rank in the search? Like, are, are these words, things that people search for and if they do, is there a lot of competition in that? So like, so that my video can pop up. So that takes a little bit of time to research and then writing all that stuff.

So yeah, that’s another hour ish. There, so that’s kind of the breakdown of it. And at one point I also did have another editor that I worked with who did do some of my videos as well. But it was, it was yeah, me and him. I would do some videos and he would do some.

Courtney: Thank those are some really interesting tools that I need to go look up now.

Fondue: Yep, mhm, and there’s also, so TubeBuddy is one for the, like, YouTube [00:33:00] SEO stuff, other is vidIQ, I think that’s quite popular among the YouTubers, but yeah, it’s, it’s very, very useful because it lets you basically check, like, well this is the idea, I have it for the title, and then it basically tells you, like, it gives you a score based off your channel compared to other channels in, that are using those types of words, and then are people even searching for those words, because if no one’s searching for that stuff, Then, like, your views are gonna be bad because no one’s searching for that stuff, so it’s really useful in trying to find, like, what’s a good title for a video.

And of course, as is the name of the game, you have to try to think of from a viewer perspective and kind of in a clickbaity ish type of way, which sucks, I don’t like it, but unfortunately it is how you have to make things. I would just like to call it, Hey, check this, check out, this is a cool module, but I can’t do it like that, I’d be like, This module will change the way you think about maps, or something like that.

And that’s just how I have to do it, cause that’s That’s how the attention economy works, and I don’t like it, but it is, unfortunately, how it works. And then it’s me being like, whoa, like, I’m [00:34:00] making a very exaggerated face on the thumbnail, and then pointing at something, and then there’s a circle, you know?

Courtney: Yeah, I was, I was definitely looking at your thumbnails and I was like, all right, you got

Fondue: They’re like that because, they’re like that because it works, I’m not good at the thumbnails, so it’s what I can do. Like, if I was a really good thumbnail artist, I would make something a lot more interesting and unique. But I’m not unfortunately.

Courtney: Hey, I mean, it works, you know. I can definitely relate, though. I despise coming up with titles for this show.

Fondue: Yeah

Courtney: Ugh. Yeah. It’s just, like, I am familiar with SEO tools for, like, websites and blog posts and, I mean, now that you say that, I’m like, of course there’s also that for YouTube. It just, yeah. YouTube isn’t something that I’ve really delved into yet. Maybe in the future, but yeah, it’s good to know ahead of time.

Fondue: It’s a whole it’s a whole different

it’s a whole [00:35:00] thing

Courtney: Okay, so talk to me about your Twitch streaming journey.

Fondue: so my twitch streaming yeah, as I mentioned I started in 2019 of just like playing games and talking with my friends and Then I just continued doing it. I was like, this is fun. I’m really enjoying this At that time I was also like, feeling kind of tired of doing game production, like project management, I was kind of like, this is not really what I want to do anymore, I’m kind of bored of it, it’s not creative in any way that is [00:36:00] meaningful for me.

So I was like, I want to switch to doing something else. So that was kind of a creative outlet for me and kind of be like, maybe if I make this happen, this could be my job. But making it happen in content creation is really, really difficult. It’s very difficult. There’s luck involved. Not only luck, of course, there’s a lot of other stuff involved, but luck is a factor of it.

If you don’t live in North America, it also makes it more challenging for you, depending on where you live, of course. Like if you live in France or Brazil or like a big country with like a local language, then you can. Do it with your local language. I’m from Finland making content in Finland. The market cap is very low There’s very few.

There’s 5. 5 million people in Finland. So you need to make like really mainstream stuff and it’s not really my interest There’s a lot of challenges in making it like making a breaking through as a content creator So I was doing that as, you know, on the side, first just playing games, then talking about politics [00:37:00] stuff, and then eventually just moving more towards now, just like, kind of, I’m more treating it as a hobby nowadays, I’ve kind of shifted to having it more like a hobby thing.

Where I’m just doing what makes it feel good for me, right now. Because I have my main job, which is now more creative, as I’m a community manager, I get to flex more of my creative stuff. So, now I’m just kind of, with streaming, kind of doing what makes me happy. A lot of the time is playing games, talking about the games industry a lot, because I have a lot of insight into what’s going on in the games industry that a lot of people don’t or and especially with how things are currently in the gaming space there’s a lot of misinformation going around there so I think I can give some interesting insight but yeah that’s kind of how it went down is just yeah first kind of being like hanging out with friends then seeing could I become like a full time streamer and then realizing it’s very difficult and being Lucky enough that I got this community management job, and then that being kind of like where I do my creative main thing, and [00:38:00] then now this is just like, I’m doing it for me.

I’m doing this for fun.

Courtney: Yeah, so the community management is at Remedy Entertainment?

Fondue: Remedy Entertainment, yes, we are known for Control. Alan Wake, Max Payne. Those are our games.

Courtney: So how did that job move happen?

Fondue: So I moved back to Finland in 2022 because I had been living in Sweden for, I lived there for two and a half years, of which two years I was working remotely because of the pandemic. I moved there half a year before the pandemic hit. And so after being like a year and a half working remote, I was like, I’m really lonely, I don’t have any friends in Sweden, I want to move back to Finland because all my friends and family are there, and then I asked at work, like, hey, can I move back home and work remotely for you, because I’ve been doing it now for like a year and a half, and they said, no, that’s not possible, and I said, okay, well, then I’m going to quit.

I’m sorry, nothing personal it’s not that I don’t like the company, but I want to move back, so I, I moved back and [00:39:00] then I got a job at Remedy as a producer, working on a project called Vanguard, which no longer exists. And I did that for a year and a half? Yeah, a year and a half ish. And I mentioned to my boss like, Hey, I would like to transition to this community management job.

If it would be possible within Remedy, I would love to. And at first they said, Well, it’s not really possible at the moment. We don’t have any, like, openings in that area at the moment. So unfortunately, it’s not possible. And I was like, All right, well, I tried, but, you know, whatever. And then a couple of months go by and they’re like, We could really use someone here because Alan Wake 2 is coming out in the fall and we actually need some, someone here to help.

Would you like to do it? I was like, yeah, sure. And of course. So then I transitioned to that job a bit over a year ago. So I’ve been doing that for about a year or so. And it’s been a lot of fun. I moved in to this role just as Alan Wake 2 launched. And so I’ve been there for the Post launch of Alan Wake 2 for all the updates and [00:40:00] the two DLCs.

And now we’re, we’re preparing things for our upcoming game FBC Firebreak for next year. So it’s very exciting.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That does feel like a big transition though. You know, my background is also project management and so just thinking of moving from that to dealing more directly with the community, I feel like that, yeah, that must have been, well, hopefully exciting, maybe a little difficult at times.

Fondue: Yes, but it was also very familiar because I’d been doing content creation for like

four years at that point I have my own discord community. I talk with people on stream all the time I do YouTube so I interact with people like where my viewers through there So I think and that was like one of the reasons why I was able to like say like hey I have experience in this because I’ve been doing this on my free time for four years already So that prepared me a lot for what it was to be a community manager.

Of course, it’s different because now I’m [00:41:00] representing a company. I’m not representing myself as myself. I can just be like, you know, whatever, blah,

you know, and you know, the stakes are a lot higher because I’m a very, very small creator. So the stakes are very low, but now, you know, I’m dealing with, You know, people who have expectations about the game and the company.

So it’s, it’s been very different. And I guess the challenging part in the beginning was like, this is only two came out. So there was a lot of feedback coming in and like taking those and filtering them towards the team and then learning to, Understand, like, what can I say? What can’t I say? What’s the overall tone of how we communicate?

Like that, I think, was the hard part in the beginning, because I was like, can I say this stuff? Like, can I respond to this person and say this stuff? Or can’t I? Like, I’m not sure. Because every studio does it very differently. Like, some studios are very transparent. Like, they talk a lot to the fans and they answer everything.

Others are like, They post official updates and that’s it. So it’s very different for each studio. So it was, it was for sure challenging, but it was a lot of fun. [00:42:00] I really enjoyed it. And like having done content creation on like different avenues. So, you know, streaming, YouTube, short form videos as well. I, I’ve been doing myself for a while.

That stuff helped like prepare me for that. I already had the tools to deal with that. I understood, like, I know how discord works and I, I, I understood like, you know, Our discord was there, but we hadn’t really been using it as actively, so I was like, okay I want to change the discord in this and this and this way I want to have these types of changes be done here and then the rest of the team was like, yeah that that makes sense or earlier this year I was like, I think we should do short form video stuff.

I think that would be cool. And then the rest of our team was like, well, we don’t really know much about it, but if you want to do it, go for it. So then we started doing short form video stuff and that’s been really fun and it’s been good for us. So there’s a lot also within Remedy of like, if you want to do something and you have the passion and knowledge for it, you [00:43:00] can do it.

So there’s like trust given to people as well.

Courtney: What does a normal week look like for you as a community manager now? Like now that you’ve kind of settled into the role.

Fondue: So now especially like a year after Alan Wake 2’s launch, my week is like, in the beginning of the week, I’ll usually plan like some fan art that we retweet. We usually do like two retweets of fan art per week from the Alan Wake account. Cause we get a lot of really nice fan art and like virtual photography because we have photo mode now.

The plan though is usually a short form video of some sorts as well. Now there’s been a lot of planning stuff for next year because of FBC Firebreak. So there’s a lot of meetings about stuff and a lot of planning and thinking. I can’t go super into detail, but yeah, a lot of meetings and planning stuff for next year.

Talking to our fans on Discord. I try to be at least a little bit active every day. At least. Go in and say like happy time zone. How’s everyone doing? So yeah, [00:44:00] I’m not sure if everyone’s familiar with like the the happy time zone kind of Greeting it’s basically a way to say like good morning without saying good morning because it’s not morning for everyone So you say happy time zone because you don’t know what time zone everyone’s on so at least go in there and say that and Kind of keep an eye on what’s going on in the discord at least briefly Also to some degree try to see if there’s any You Major issues that are being reported about our game and then put like move those forward to the dev team at this point There’s not as much anymore Compared to like the first few months when there was a lot of feedback coming in that we could filter through there So yeah, that’s kind of what it looks like right now.

There’s a lot of planning and preparing stuff for next year that we’re at right now, but then you know at different points It looks very different at one point. We were doing an Alan Wake 2 development stream series so then my weeks in involved like planning the streams and then Doing the production, so I did the production side of those streams, like I set up our OBS scenes and everything and how that works and all the bots and everything and I [00:45:00] could do that because I had done streaming myself for, for four years so I knew how all that worked so that was like, if I had done that without ever having streamed it would have been really difficult.

It would have been very, very difficult, but because we had done it, I was like, okay, I know exactly what I want, I want these and these and these scenes, I’m gonna put the microphones here, I’m gonna have these filters, I’m gonna do this, need to do some color grading, da da da da, so then I could set it up.

So that was at one point I was doing that then also I have made, we have like these actor interview videos that we’ve been posting for Alan Wake 2 I edit those, so some weeks are me working on those videos, editing them together. So it varies a lot, but that’s kind of what it looks like. Making some content, usually here and there.

Right now, planning a lot of stuff for next year. Posting stuff online. Interacting with our community on Discord. That’s kind of the short and sweet of it.

Courtney: Yeah, it definitely sounds like a very busy job.

Fondue: Yeah, I mean, there’s never a lack of stuff to do in the games industry. [00:46:00] Yes.

Courtney: So one thing that I do like to talk about in these interviews is, you know, you’re working in the games industry, presumably because you love it, but there can be some challenges. So,

yeah, so talk to me about, you know, some of the most, like, challenging things that you have been dealing with over the last Several years since 2019.

Fondue: So if we’re talking about, like, game development, or are we talking about, like, The content creation side of

things. I

Courtney: do

Fondue: want to make sure. Okay, on the game development side of things, the hardest part as like being a producer is communication. For me, like, that’s the hardest part and that’s where a lot of issues in game development arise from.

is that people don’t communicate enough or they don’t make their ideas or their intentions clear and then someone does something that they weren’t supposed to do and then that leads into issues and cascades into problems. So a lot [00:47:00] of issues that I see in game development are communications related.

It’s a bit reductive to say it’s just communications, it’s definitely not. There’s a lot of other things Other challenges that come in the way. But I feel like communication is like a big deal of it because it’s the bigger you get, the harder that stuff becomes. Cause if you’re like Two friends making a game.

It’s really easy. Like you, you presumably talk to each other constantly. You’re very in sync. It’s easy for you to be like, I’m going to do this thing. You do that thing. Cool. But then once you start being like 40 people, a hundred people, it becomes a whole different thing of like, you have to make sure that things are being delivered on time, that other people aren’t blocked because of what you’re doing that, you know, all the different departments are all pulling in the same direction.

Like it becomes a huge. I used to work at Ubisoft at one point, and Ubisoft has a lot of producers, and they’re kind of known for having a lot of producers. And it’s because they need to, because a lot of the games have like [00:48:00] hundreds of people in several studios and several times on, so you’ll have like The head studio for this Assassin’s Creed game is in Canada, and then another studio in France is helping, and then a studio in Romania is doing QA, and like, you have so many different parts that have to communicate with each other, then you need people to facilitate that communication a lot.

So communication, I would say, is a really, Big challenge, not because people are malicious or anything, it’s not usually the case. A lot of it is just people assuming a lot of things, and then that leading to issues. And a lot of the stuff is also that the different areas of game production, programming, design, art, audio, they talk very differently.

And they have different problems, so when they talk with each other, they don’t necessarily all have the shared language to describe their issues with. And that can lead to misunderstandings and frustrations. [00:49:00] So, having people who can kind of bridge that gap is always really, really valuable. Sometimes you have those people in production who are like, Let’s get together these different departments, and then they talk with each other, and then that person in the middle is like, I think what you’re, so what you’re saying is This thing and then they say yes, and then I was like, oh, okay.

That’s what you meant. I’m misunderstood So sometimes it’s really useful to have someone in a meeting go like from what I’m hearing You’re saying this and then they can say yes exactly or they can say no. No, that’s not what I meant And then they clarify and that can be very useful. Sometimes it’s production, sometimes you have people within those disciplines who are really good at cross discipline communication, which is always really nice.

Ideally, you would also always try to have your teams, in my opinion, set up to be cross disciplinary around features, rather than like, here’s the programmers, here’s the artists, here’s the designers. Rather like, here’s the team that’s working on enemies, for example, just a random example, and it has animators designers, programmers, and so on, so it’s interdisciplinary.

So that’s like on the, [00:50:00] on that side, I would say, is a difficulty. As a community manager, difficulty is aligning like what the team can do in the time that we have versus what the community wants. So community, the community wants certain things, but you know, not everything can be done like this. You know, there’s priorities, there’s other stuff that happening and then being like, okay, what can we do with what, what the community wants in a certain amount of time.

So that’s kind of one thing. And then for, you know, for an upcoming game, it’s, it’s more like, okay, what can we. What can we make sure that it, that we can do for the launch of the game? Then, for content creation, biggest challenge is, is the treadmill, I would say. Because you’re like, I made a video, it’s out now!

And then, then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. So the, the constant, Treadmill of making content, which is a weirdly dehumanizing way [00:51:00] of saying art, because in the end a lot of content is art, but we don’t see it as art, which is frustrating kind of recent hang ups I’ve been having with content is that it’s very dehumanizing in a way that it’s like it creates this kind of depersonal like product that needs to be consumed, where it’s well, If we could have less of it and it can be more meaningful, that’d be cool.

Of course, we don’t live in that world. So it’s like the Concentrate Melodica. You made, you made a video now on onto the next one. So like, you don’t really get to sit with it that much. Like you kind of have to move on to the next one. And then finding that energy always to make the next one, finding the inspiration to make the next one is, is a challenge at times.

And sometimes you’re just like, you just make a video. You’re like, well, I’ll just make this video to have. Stuff out because usually you want to have like a regular cadence as well Let’s say you have a weekly cadence and then sometimes you’re just like you’re just super out of the juice You’re just like I don’t know man.

I’ll just make this video. Whatever [00:52:00] To have something, which is, which is not a fun feeling as cause if you’re just doing stuff to have, for, for having stuff’s sake, it’s not a fun feeling, but at the same time, especially if you’re full time, you have to do it, because that’s your livelihood. If you don’t publish a video, you’re not making money, or if you’re a streamer, it’s even more grueling, because if you’re not live as a streamer, you’re not making money, so you have to go live whenever your schedule says you go live, and then some days you’re just like, I don’t want to stream, I, I just don’t feel like it.

This fucking sucks. I don’t want to be perceived right now. I don’t want to try to entertain people or whatever, but then you have to do it and you have to just like push through and you just have to do the thing. And that can be really difficult, I think. The treadmill of making content and finding the inspiration creatively and the energy to do that Consistently is difficult No,

Courtney: 100%. I can relate so hard. Thank you. I know that that was a lot to go over. [00:53:00] But I guess to not end on a sadder note, let’s flip it around.

Fondue: Yeah

Courtney: What are some of the more rewarding parts of working in this industry?

Fondue: the more rewarding parts for me when it comes to the content side of things is Getting the comments like this video really helped me like those are

those are like I really love those comments where people like this video really helped me like i’m My favorite ones are when people are all like this video really helped me the content Your communication is really clear and concise.

And that, those are like the comments that I. Resonate with the most because that’s when I write my my scripts for the tutorials and for the videos that I make I try to make it as succinct and to the point while being Enough so I don’t want to make it too brief so that it’s not It’s not clear, but the point in my writing and my communication is that I want it to be clear and understandable.

And the way that I speak also on camera, I [00:54:00] try to enunciate and make it really, really clear what I am trying to teach the other person. And then when I get comments saying that, that, that did happen, I’m like, awesome. That’s exactly what I wanted. And it resonated with people. And then on the community management side I think just seeing our fans be really happy with what’s coming out.

You know, we had the announcement for FBC Firebreak and people were very excited. That was cool. Or when Alan Wake 2 was coming out and people were really excited, you know, that’s cool. Or the two DLCs came out and people were really excited. So. Seeing people be really excited and then on a more personal note like the stream series that we did and the people were so excited for that I was really really happy with that because that was like a thing that I produced so I was really happy that people really liked the vibe of it and and the kind of more laid back conversational nature of it and like got a lot of out of it.

So those are the types of things that make me happy. Well, FBC

Courtney: [00:55:00] Amazing! Well, I know that some of the videos have been on hiatus for a bit, and obviously I know with your professional job you’re not necessarily allowed to talk about a whole lot of things, but with all of that said, are there any upcoming projects that you can talk about that you’re excited about?

Fondue: Firebreak, like it’s, it’s coming out next year. I’m really, really excited for that. Cause like it’s my first time working. On a upcoming project as a community manager So it’s like my first time like planning stuff out for the launch of the game Like how are we going to

do things and all that kind of stuff?

So that’s really exciting also terrifying because i’ve never done this side of things as much before i’ve more been on the production side of things like how do we get the game out the door? So it’s really exciting that that part is is very very exciting for me. So That is like an upcoming thing.

I’m super super excited about Because it’s also something different like it’s a it’s not the type of game that we usually do at remedy So it’s also a new type of game, which is exciting.

Courtney: [00:56:00] Okay, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how launch goes and what the reaction

of the community is.

Fondue: for sure. Yes.

Courtney: All right, well, Fondue, this has been really awesome. If people want to

find you, where should they go?

Fondue: So on YouTube, it’s dice and easy you can find me so dice ampersand easy. That’s the Symbol over there, you can find me on YouTube, also on Twitch, Dice and Easy but then it’s written out, Dice and Easy together. I stream every Monday and Wednesday at 6. 30 p. m. Eastern European time, which is 8. 30 a. m.

Pacific and 11. 30 a. m. Eastern time for the American time zones. If you want to come chat with me and watch as I play games, you’re more than welcome to. Then on Twitter, you can find me at DiceAndEasyRPG, and on BlueSky, DiceAndEasy.

Courtney: I know. So many places these days.

Fondue: There are so many places these days.

Courtney: Awesome. I will have links to that in the show notes, [00:57:00] but seriously, this has been so

fun. Thank you for coming on

Fondue: Yeah, this was great. Thank you for having me. I had a blast being here.

Courtney: Alright, lovely listeners, at this point we are going to wrap up the interview portion of this episode and pretty much immediately jump into a fun little quick question blitz for Patrons, where I’m going to ask him 10 additional questions that are a little bit sillier. So if you want to listen to that, you can go to patreon.com/rollplaygrow. Thanks again.

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