The Draw #15: Randy Wolfmeyer

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Let's see... like a few others, I think the first time I met Randy Wolfmeyer was on Is He Dead?, having become acquainted with his wife Gretchen in the previous production I was in, She Loves Me.

From there, I think the time he properly joined TAPAS was in discussion of the construction of the TAPAS roleplaying game, thoughts catalogued in the many blog posts you can find in the latter half of 2020, trying to piece together the world and system. I wasn't interested at first in using his system, figuring ta the time that it would use the 5th Edition Open Game License, but I eventually changed my mind and wanted to do something new.

Randy's system is derived from Mistrunner, a system he assisted in creating some time ago, and from there we've shared thoughts on its basic design intent, which led me to name the system, or at least the multiverse of fantasy stories I've been working on, AE:GIS - an "adaptive engine" for "gaming, interactivity, and simulation". One of the pillars was storytelling, not interactivity, but, you know, this way it spells something. There are other indie RPGs called Aegis, more than one, hence the stylization.

Somewhere amid the RPG talk, Randy played Uncle Gary in Better Yet? and afterward became the voice of Lambert in Irregular Fantasy! - he certainly knows the gaming material IRF is based on, and apparently he even read Irregular Webcomic! back in the day.

All the while, he's hard at work in the local theatre community, providing not only performances - like Lefou in Beauty and the Beast - but doing a lot of effects work, from the magical rose in that show, to Smaug in The Hobbit, building and operating an amazing massive puppet. Per my own request, I got to operate the mouth while I performed the dialogue; I figured that'd make for the best performance all around, if I was doing the voice and the mouth, and indeed Randy got a lot of compliments that whoever was operating the mouth in time to the dialogue knew what they were doing. It was me! And after the show, he kept the puppet intact a little while longer to use as a Halloween decoration.

In conclusion... I'm really unsure about TAPAS's future, but I do hope there's more Lambert and more gaming/world development.

The Draw #14: Jessie Crockett

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Jessie Crockett's entry into the group is a favorite story. It was early to mid 2020 when I opened up auditions for the main characters of Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices. That was a dark time, of course, and I didn't get many auditions. But at the last possible minute, Jessie submitted an audition for Cristela, the character whose vibe had been the hardest to nail down, and, well, completely nailed it!

And, oh, about two years later we finally assembled the whole cast to record the pilot. Got the job done! And Jessie did it while taking care of her kids and their school functions and dealing with her own health - very much has my respect and admiration.

I hate to cut to my own angst at the end of each of these, but I do regret not having really achieved these projects yet. I've pondered giving up a lot over the past year or so. But I'm going to make them happen.

The Draw #13: Aaron Joseph Schmitt

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Agh, okay, I'm really, really trying to make these more regular. It's another big one here, AJ Schmitt.

We met in 2018, in a production of Mark Twain's Is He Dead? - I auditioned for that show very last-minute, having found myself without anything else to do. We both had fun in the audition doing all the funny accents the show required; eventually he was cast as the German guy, and me as the Chicagoan guy.

It was fortuitous that we happened to be there and meet, because it was Aaron who enabled the creation of the first TAPAS project, recording sound sets of the Irregular Webcomic! characters. Not only did he have a little homemade sound booth in his place, but he had just the right personality to play Dwalin, one character I hadn't figured out how to cast.

We recorded those characters, got a few guests into his booth, and I had to leave Quincy before the project was entirely finished, but I worked to come back, eventually doing so in late 2020, having by this point been inspired to create an entire Irregular Webcomic! adaptation. After creating Better Yet?, we got Aaron into the studio to be Dwalin again.

And... I don't remember how it happened, but at some point me and Aaron and Mason became an inseparable trio, meeting up multiple times every week, usually to talk about TAPAS stuff but sometimes just to hang out and be supportive. Kind of all we've been doing for a few years now. Ahh... I'm determined to do a few more of these but I fear it may just depress me. I feel like TAPAS has died and I'm letting all these people down.

Due by Feb

I had a realization last month while sort of zoning out at work that, if the pace could keep going, a whole bunch of TAPAS stuff we're working on would all converge in February. So I prepared myself to have eight things finished by then! Then I realized, hm, nope, don't have the funding to just do all of those things at once, that plan needed revising. I thought I ought to blog about both versions of that plan just for the record.

Here are the original eight plans, told in a bit more detail than how I discussed them with insiders in our Facebook and Discord group.

1) Commissioning artwork of the main Keys & Kingdoms peoples. That's been going on and can be seen in the previous blog post: two of each species with some simple profiles on each. I'm currently moving on to the next stage of that, producing 4-6 more samples of each species and putting together videos on them, including talking about how I'd adapt their traits to D&D rules. One or two of those videos every month... by February I'll at least have most of them, so that's still going on mostly as originally planned.

2) Rehauling the character design system. Stacy is moving on to other things, and I think with that in mind, with the singular style of character design and how well we had adapted to it... that can't be replicated. I need a new artist and an entirely new, much simpler, character design system, with less focus on perfection. But I think I'm going to save that for a little bit later... say, after the K&K pilot. Seems like a natural thing to use the current designs for the pilot and update them later. I want to find a local artist who's easy to communicate with, and I'm already working on flyers I can hang up in places.

3) Consolidating and organizing all my story data so I can get the team together to plan things out. That's going pretty well, making strides every week... I was actually kind of nervous, but now I remember, yeah, not due until February. I think I can easily finish all of that consolidation by February. And we'll start writing then then, starting by planning out every season into the proper amount of episodes with proper storylines, and then from there writing every episode. In true fanfic style, we'll post chapters as soon as they're written. Guess that'll start in February!

4) The boys and I are out to make some voice-acting demos so we can pick up some freelance work! We just need another reliable local studio/engineer... for that and all future projects. Let's see... yup, that's coming right up on our revised schedule. We'll get to that very soon.

5) The first Keys & Kingdoms teaser. I think we can finish it by February, but I'm not out to release it yet by that point, because from the moment it releases we must begin running the fundraiser and working on the pilot! So, when it's done... that's when we'll prep the fundraiser. This one I've prioritized strongly, because we held a fundraiser for the teaser some time ago. It's about time we actually use that money.

6) Storyboards. Those to be completed by February: the Halfling Trailer, so we can start really working on it afterward. And both pilots, both Irregular Fantasy and Keys & Kingdoms. Having them all boarded so we can proceed from there. I'm making this priority number two in the revised version, number one being the teaser. Doing it now-ish will mean we have lots of foundation set by February -- hopefully we can get our production managers back to work out what happens next.

7) Mason is hard at work on writing I'm Telling Mom!, his next stage project. He's certain to have a workable draft well before February... he's determined to have it done as a staged reading, but I'm of the opinion that that's not a real project and he should do it as an audio play the same as Better Yet?, but, it's not up to me.

8) Playing some D&D... this proved quite impossible. I don't have time to prepare sessions, and I'm completely incapable of improvisation. But I still hope to gather some people together once a month or so to prepare "chapters" of this story, which has come to be called Keys & Kingdoms: Tales within Tales. Just something new set in this world; a nice and easy side project.

So... actually, yeah, there's no need to explain my revised version, it's... well, seemingly all of it except for #2 is still being done right now to be concluded around February! Very nice. I've divided all tasks into four segments: the stuff I do on my own during the week, stuff I do with the online team, stuff with the local team, and stuff on my own during the weekend. It's going okay.

Peoples of Keys & Kingdoms

Posting these everywhere -- Where is everywhere, you ask? Well, take a look at this: https://linktr.ee/tapasandstuff

Check the Linktree, if there's anyplace there where you have a profile but do not yet follow TAPAS, be sure to give us a follow.

So, might as well feature this here on the blog as well: I've commissioned these examples of all ten core races of the Keys & Kingdoms setting; a single pair of each, then we'll see more of them as I continue commissioning! I'll be making videos on their more specific stats as I go.

Art by Maria (@mariavyasene)

If we were rolling up a game of Keys & Kingdoms, what would you pick? ;)

Cast of Characters: Irregular Fantasy! Part 13

The conclusion of this series; we'll be introducing all of the currently-planned characters in TAPAS's upcoming series Irregular Fantasy!, based on David Morgan-Mar's webcomic Irregular Webcomic! In short, it's a typical RPG adventure set in a typical fantasy world, taking the silly atmosphere of the comic and making it our own.

Spoiler warning: While this presentation will try to avoid any details about backgrounds, plotlines, or relationships in order to focus entirely on the characters and not give away the story, some details that might be considered spoilers will inevitably leak through now and then.

It's our final chapter of this series, where we meet characters encountered in a later-ish story arc taking place in elven lands. And then... miscellaneous.

These character concepts were drawn by me and therefore aren't very good. Linework and color by Naty Jenfjord.

Click on the images to zoom in and read the descriptions.

And that's it for this Irregular Fantasy! series. As of this posting, we've put out the pilot in literary prologue form, and from there we're working on more of that to get the story out of our system while we continue the slow process of creating the motion comic.

The Draw #12: Jack Stegman

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Today we're going with one of the OG members of the TAPAS team, Jack Stegman.

One of my oldest friends, I met Jack at Red Rocks Community College. My icebreaker was that I was putting together a fandub of The Order of the Stick - that really never panned out, but I think I might look into TAPAS doing that once the whole series is over... it's still going, it's a 20-year-old D&D stick figure comic at this point, but it's definitely in its final story arc.

Jack was eventually invited into the chat room where I met all my DeviantArt buddies who eventually became Team Salmon, the core crew of TAPAS and Stuff Productions. From there she was a big part of Whirlwind, our D&D campaign - I intend now to make the setting of that campaign the base setting of the AE:GIS game system, and for all the players to take part in retelling the story. Just as a story, we don't have time to campaign it, but we will be playing some semi-canon games to help us build the settings, starting soon in the Keys & Kingdoms universe...

Like Ziya in the previous entry, Jack's had a prominent place in some of my Jackbox Party Pack videos - oh, and a reaction to Killer Bean Forever that we filmed four years ago that I never got around to editing, I really ought to do that sometime...

In short, Jack's not a creative type as much as most of my people, but she is... forever one of my people.