Amanda P is a publisher I became aware of when she published her first adventure, Beyond the Burning Teeth (which I mentioned, I believe, in the very first OSR Roundup), following that soon after with Pilgrimage of the Sun Guard. She was kind enough to answer some emailed questions, and if you'd like to check her work out there are links at the end of the interview.
Question: Your two products (Beyond the Burning Teeth and Pilgrimage of the Sun Guard) seem pretty different. BtBT is a sort of classic dungeoncrawl while PotSG is a solo, more cerebral game. Can you talk about what inspired you to write such thematically different products?
Answer: I came into the indie tabletop rpg scene as a creator (as opposed to only playing) through reading blogs like Goblin Punch, Emmy Allen's blog, Against the Wicked City and Githyanki Diaspora. Beyond the Burning Teeth was my first attempt at writing an adventure for others to use, a way to get my feet wet. It was written for the Random Adventure Jam that Chris Bisette organized. Pilgrimage of the Sun Guard came out of a writing process where I was in the early stages of writing a megadungeon. I created the idea of the Sun Guard as a faction, and then happened to play Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings which completely blew my mind. I ended up reading and listening to a lot of Arthurian stories and decided to make a solo game based around the Arthurian quest model. In terms of writing processes, Beyond the Burning Teeth took me from October - December 2021and Pilgrimage I wrote between December 26, 2021 - January 23, 2022. Q. What was your experience writing BtBT for three different systems? I've toyed with the idea of doing dual stats with OSE and 5e, but I don't really have the system mastery for 5e and have been intimidated by the thought of trying. A. I initially wrote BtBT for 5E because that's the system I run the most often. Three online tabletop friends Xenio, Sage, and Yochai Gal helped me convert it to B/X and Cairn. I think I will be focusing on just writing things with B/X (or OSE) in mind. It seems like those are the most approachable for my desired audience. If I were to keep making 5E conversions, it's more (for me) about giving the GM permission to thoughtfully adjudicate in a light handed way. If it's really just about stat block conversions for monsters, that's doable or you can always just say "Denethor the Barbarian (stat as Bandit Captain)" if you really want. Q. Do you have any upcoming projects that you'd like to talk about?
A. Pilgrimage of the Sun Guard, my solo adventure game with an Arthurian bent, will be on sale at LFSOR (https://lfosr.com/) soon, I'm getting sample prints any day now. I'm drawing a lot of maps for pamphlet dungeons that I will probably put up for sale. I find that I can always use small dungeons as side quests in campaigns. Other than that, I'm slowly writing one larger project and a few smallers ones. I'm honestly trying to play more games, Zine Month 2022 has been an excellent growth period for me creatively, but it has also been tiring and I need to refuel creatively speaking.
Q. I see you're selling both on itch and Drivethru. What has your experience been on the two platforms? It's been interesting to watch itch burst onto the scene in the past year or so as a place for indie creators to sell their work.
A. So far, my work is selling much better on itch, but that may just be that I'm marketing it there more heavily. I feel like I'm underutilizing DriveThru right now, I need to take some time to work through how to get my stuff in front of the right people there. Itch has been okay, I think you don't get casual browsers like you would on say, a kickstarter, but my goals are more about getting my games in front of people to play, making games is not my occupation. I'm trying to approach my game making in a measured way so as to not get creatively burnt out. I also find it important to be less beholden to any one platform.
Q. Finally, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get involved in role-playing, what's your favorite system, etc.
A. My name is Amanda P. and I'm an indie tabletop game creator, map maker, and designer. I approach making games as an art practice. I have been playing tabletop games since the TSR game Dragonstrike which a good friend had in middle school. I have played D&D itself from 3E to 5E and am currently GMing a Spelljammer game using 5E.I've played many games because I'm blessed to have a friendly local gaming group that's open to trying stuff. I'm interested in games that try to explore a mix of whimsy and danger, with loveable characters and real stakes, and enjoy both dungeon delving, point crawls, and story games. I am preparing to go through some of Nate Treme's dungeons in Haunted Almanac with the Black Hack as a solo roleplaying experience. Links to my stuff: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/20910/Hopeful-Weird-Wonder https://hopefulweirdwonder.itch.io/ https://hopefulweirdwonder.substack.com/p/welcome?r=18oa6d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=url twitter.com/weirdwonderdev