Obviously I dropped everything to check it out, and I have to say I'm super intrigued. And I'm not a tabletop RPGer. At least, not yet. If anything would turn me into one, it would be the idea of rolling through a dungeon with these gals! Just look at them -- confident, strong, fierce!
I chatted with author Scott Fitzgerald Gray and illustrator Jackie Musto about this amazing project and the importance of representation and accessibility in gaming, for folks from all backgrounds and all ages.
SRPS: First of all, can you tell us a little about yourself? What's your background? What inspires you?
SFG: I'm an extremely middle-aged Canadian geek who's lucky enough to make a living through writing, editing, and tabletop RPG design. The latter part of my job has involved a lot of work for Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast over the last fourteen years. I fell in love with fantasy and speculative fiction at an early age, then discovered roleplaying games in high school. Over the long, complicated process that got me into writing and storytelling as first a screenwriter, then a novelist, RPGs (and D&D in particular) were an essential anchor for my creativity and an amazing source of inspiration. I still draw a lot of inspiration from my own gaming, and from being part of the community built around the shared storytelling that's at the heart of what RPGs do.
SRPS: What is The Hidden Halls of Hazakor?
SFG: This book is an adventure for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons that I've wanted to publish for a while now. It started out as a piece I wrote for the RPG club I ran at my daughters' middle school some years ago, as a kind of "learn by doing" adventure for young Dungeon Masters. Though I wasn't as young as a lot of first-time D&D players when I first picked up the game, I still remember the process of sitting down in the DM’s chair for the first time and how daunting it was for me. The adventure kind of grew out of my own memory of the things I wish I'd known when I ran my first dungeon crawls, combined with some first-hand observation of the things that the young players I was working with found the most challenging to deal with.
SRPS: What inspired you to create an RPG book?
SFG: I've written and edited a lot of D&D adventures over the years, and have published some of my own. But this one always had its own odd place off to the side of other things I've worked on. The kids who ran and played the original version of the adventure really enjoyed it, and I've thought more than once about putting it out just as a free text-only book (which it was in its original RPG-club form). But at the same time, I understood that a full version with awesome artwork would potentially be an even better tool for young, first-time Dungeon Masters, so it always stayed a kind of back-burner project. Then a few years ago, I discovered Jackie's steampunk webcomic Lady Skylark and really fell in love with her art. When I first talked to her about the possibility of working on the adventure, her enthusiasm was the metaphorical kick in the ass I needed to finally figure out how I wanted to do it.
SRPS: I see a lot of people raving about the artwork (myself included!), and especially the fact that it shows amazing, powerful female characters of different ethnicities. Was that a conscious decision on your part?
JM: It is really important to me that we represent the world around us and all the different types of people in it. I can remember growing up and finding it difficult to see representations of women in the industries that I liked that weren't just the same stereotype over and over — so I hope I can help a kid or teen see something of themselves in this genre and think they belong there. Lucky for me, Scott and I see eye-to-eye on this — in fact when he sent me the pitch he made that point super clear and I remember shouting "Yes! I have to do this project!" For me, this project marries all the things I love to draw — cool fantasy settings, rad ladies doing stunts — and it being for a roleplaying game just brings it all home. Roleplaying was my introduction to art as a career as well as a creative force. When I got started it was with an awesome group of folks who encouraged me to play whatever type of character I wanted to, and we crafted these amazing worlds together. It all gelled into a career path when I would draw their characters -- and I guess I've never stopped! My hope is that young folks can look at this game and imagine their characters and be inspired to create themselves.
SFG: The book is just an adventure, so although it provides a lot of advice and tips on how to be a good Dungeon Master and handle some of the situations that can arise at the gaming table, players and would-be DMs need to have the D&D rulebooks as a starting point. Those books definitely address the concepts of what it means to play an RPG and how things work around the game table, and they remain an essential resource even for experienced players. But for me, there can never be enough good starter adventures to go with those books — and the idea of a starter adventure written not just for beginning Dungeon Masters but for young Dungeon Masters has always been something I've wanted to play around with.
SRPS: What about experienced RPGers? Is The Hidden Halls of Hazakor going to be too simplistic for them?
SFG: In terms of the writing style, experienced players will undoubtedly find the adventure giving them tips and advice that they already know. But the adventure itself should appeal to players of any age. There are lots of straightforward encounters, as is true of any adventure for 1st-level characters. But there are also plenty of devious surprises, and a number of sections where more experienced DMs will be able to go nuts with the environment and the intelligent monstrous NPCs to put their own stamp on things. Ultimately, a published adventure is always meant to be reworked and changed up by an experienced DM as they make it part of their own campaign. And The Hidden Halls of Hazakor has just as much raw material for that as any adventure.
SRPS: What else can tabletop gamers expect from The Hidden Halls of Hazakor?
SFG: The adventure holds a fair bit of humor, which I've always found is a good way to keep the interest of younger players (both working with middle-school-age kids in the RPG club, and introducing my own daughters to D&D when they were young). Jackie's amazing art is going to be taking a big role in bringing some of that humor to life. The writing is also intentionally straightforward and explanatory, with the intent of being something that a young, first-time DM can easily process. But aside from that, the adventure is just a straight-up, old-fashioned dungeon crawl, very much in the vein of some of the classic D&D starter adventures. Though its presentation is straightforward, the adventure isn't dumbed down in any way, and I hope it's ultimately something that gamers of all ages can have fun with.
SRPS: It all sounds super fun. Where else can folks find both of you online?
JM: My comics are Kay and P, and The Adventures of Lady Skylark, and I'm on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.
SFG: I can be found online at my website InsaneAngel, on Facebook, and Twitter.
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