One of the cool things I got to do earlier this month when I traveled to the big Gen Con convention in Indianapolis was to sit down with Rick Heinz of Storytellers Forge Studio and talk about the subject. The talk was about his studio’s next big flagship project: “The Black Ballad,” a 5E-compatible scenario book for pen-and-paper role-playing games that addresses the question of “what happens to adventuring parties when they die.”
The 42-year-old Chicago native is a prolific writer and avid gamer and storyteller with deep roots in the hobby and even bigger plans for his young studio, which tackles everything from fantasy novels to graphic novels and RPG system books.
“I spent countless caffeine-fueled hours playing Diablo,” he writes on his website, “and that’s how I became addicted to writing and storytelling.” His works include the Seventh Age series, a post-apocalyptic, sarcastic urban fantasy, as well as the official pen-and-paper role-playing game adaptation of the immensely popular “Crow” film series, the reboot of which will be released in the US in a few days by Lionsgate Films, starring John Wick 4 actor Bill Skarsgard.
Heinz appeared at this year’s Gen Con to promote a variety of projects, wearing nothing but a black T-shirt with a nod to the Unholy Masquerade from the Emmy-winning horror mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows. He professed his love for the show and all things dark, true to his gothic roots growing up in Chicago. “People say I write about the end of the world and dead things with a dash of sarcasm,” he said, adding that his work mostly revolves around pen-and-paper role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, Dread, Eclipse Phase, and Vampire: The Masquerade. But how did he get into these niche hobbies?
“I happen to be a kid who grew up at a time when we, I guess I’m part of the Oregon Trail Generation, went to chess club and put roleplaying books on the table, we were literally such nerds,” he said, nostalgic in his voice. “I got into storytelling through Vampire the Masquerade. I was a goth kid in the ’90s, walking by the river, we did all that and I started hosting games in our groups. The projects I was running would reach up to 600 people in Naperville outside Chicago, so I had these huge live-action games and I spent all my time writing character backgrounds, plots, storylines, hiring actors and we all create this big, completely emergent world.” He was working on a lot of supervised live-action roleplaying (LARP) events at the time.
The transition from storyteller to freelance writer was easy after he got a nudge from friends. “At some point my friends said, ‘You have to stop taking notes, you have to just sit down and write,'” he said, adding that his first novel was heavily inspired by many games and the characters of those storylines.
He soon found himself writing for a channel familiar to many gamers: Geek and Sundry, the web channel created and popularized by Felicia Day, known for The Guild and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among others. D&D and gaming fans no doubt associate this channel with its breakout star, game master Matt Mercer, known for Critical Role, but Heinz was there before Mercer hit the big time.
“When G&S was looking for someone to write about or know something about game systems other than D&D, I thought, ‘Finally, one I haven’t played or run yet.’ That led to a press write-up on the web channel, writing about independent content creators and helping with vlogs for Matt Mercer’s popular GM Tips series. “I remember covering the first few episodes of CR when nobody knew what CR was. During that time, I was writing my second novel and saw G&S waning in terms of the press and their activities.” Heinz said he had a great idea for a gamebook and during that time wrote his first roleplaying game, Red Opera: Last Days of the Warlock, a campaign book about a warlock city that anyone can put into their own homebrew worlds.
Heinz was able to get heavy metal band DiAmorte and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra to produce a full soundtrack for each chapter of the story. The book was crowdfunded, he says, and was “beautiful.” The project also taught him a lot about the publishing process. “I learned a lot about copyright. The publishing process didn’t go well in the end, but all those hurdles and ups and downs led us to create Storytellers Forge Studios, our new company that we started about two years ago.”
His life experience has helped him succeed in his field, and he offered advice to aspiring writers and producers: “Set yourself something small, do a little freelance writing on a project, get to know the team you’re working with, and if you have a screenwriter, an art director, a voice actor, and you want to go even further, turn it in early, whatever deadline they give you. If you can meet your deadlines before the due date and do that consistently, it leads to more stable projects.”
“Our goal as a studio is to develop immersive storylines that fit into other people’s worlds, but also to write fantasy novels that fit into that. For ‘The Black Ballad’ in October, we have four novels, each written by different authors, including a debut novelist. Crowdfunding for that is underway right now,” he said, stressing the studio’s goal of giving new creatives a chance.
The reboot of The Crow will be in theaters in Lakeport on August 23. For more information on The Black Ballad, The Red Opera, and other RPG projects and fantasy novels from Storytellers Forge Studios, visit Storytellers Forge.
Ariel Carmona Jr. is the editor-in-chief of the Lake County Record-Bee. When he’s not covering the county budget, council meetings and other important news of local interest, he enjoys his hobbies such as tabletop RPGs, MMOs, European board games and other geeky interests. You can hear “The Nexus of Geek” Fridays at 4 p.m. PST on KPFZ Community Radio 88.1 FM.
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