Pirates of The Public Domain is the currently-running series of the immersive role playing podcast 20 Sided Stories. It is based on and played with an original tabletop role playing system of the same name (not yet released). The podcast takes improvised recordings and brings them to life through sound design, music, and pickups. My job as the Director and Designer is to walk a tightrope between scripted, unscripted, and fully improvised content that captures the magic of spontaneity while guiding it into a satisfying conclusion.
I wrote the above to excite listeners for the voyage, introducing all the most important worldbuilding elements and characters in a big sea-shanty musical buildup.
Though 20 Sided Stories is mostly improvised, I’ve been writing, designing, and directing compelling characters, plotlines, scenes, and marketing material for the last 6+ years of broadcasting, immersing an ever-changing ensemble cast, as well as over half a million listeners from around the globe, into a wide variety of fantastical worlds.
I’ve written and designed several small-to-mid sized tabletop role playing games. I like to focus on narrative, with streamlined, thematic mechanics that empower novice players or even kids to skip the math and start an adventure with ease.
No one remembers how The Old World ended. As a dust storm howls through the New Frontier countryside, two solitary souls find refuge in an abandoned cabin. Guide Micah through a single night of survival and storytelling as he and Nora, through confrontation and conversation, shelter together 'til morning.
Soot & Soil is an interactive novella about finding purpose in a dead world. It uses a dynamic Trust/Distrust system to ensure player choice is always impactful, no matter the choice or place in the wider narrative.
The story and logic is being written and designed in Articy: Draft X. It will be released in 2024.
Choice of Action is an interactive live action comedy film spanning several different genres and two opposite perspectives. After The Boy and The Girl meet each other strangely on a cemetery bench, the viewer chooses not only which perspective to follow but how their day plays out. Only through exploring the multiverse can you uncover just how entangled the lives of The Boy and The Girl really are, or could have been.
