When he started playing Dungeons & Dragons in fourth grade, Brian Colin never would have dreamed that those hours playing make-believe would one day lead to a full-blown career.
But, decades later, Colin has made a living as a sculptor, graphic designer, and as a developer for tabletop roleplaying games, or TTRPGs. This year, he’s entering his third year as a guest at MomoCon, Atlanta’s annual celebration of all things gaming, comics, and anime.
While at MomoCon this year, Colin will spend his time on panels, encouraging people to try different types of role-playing games, and making sure people have a positive experience “rolling funny dice at a table.” Ahead of MomoCon, which runs from May 21-24, I spoke to Colin about his path to game design. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I know you live in Georgia now, but where are you from, and how did you first develop your interest in TTRPG, and everything that goes along with that?
Brian Colin: I moved to Atlanta in ‘97. I’m from Maryland originally. I went to a two-years art school in Pittsburgh, went back to my hometown in Maryland, and realized my friends weren’t doing anything. At the time, I wanted to self-publish comic books. I knew one person in Rochester, New York, one person outside of Philly, and one person in Atlanta, and I didn’t want to deal with snow anymore. So I came to Atlanta, and I lived all around Metro Atlanta for years. Now I’m in West Georgia, just because trying to live and support myself making weird RPG stuff in the Metro area – I mean, having a lower cost of living helps a lot.
What do you think it was about TTRPG and role-playing games that drew you in initially?
Colin: I started playing Dungeons & Dragons in fourth grade. I love playing make believe. I love sitting around a table making up stories together. I’m almost 50, but I’m like a kid all the time, I get to still play all the time. So doing that, being able to encourage other people to be creative – because whether they know it or not, when you’re making up things on the fly and improvising and things like that, you are using something in your brain that hopefully will then encourage other parts of your being to be creative in other ways – that’s a huge part of it. It’s unlike a lot of other industries. Everybody wants to sit around and play together, so the industry itself wants to help each other out.
I’m assuming you weren’t in fourth grade like, “I can do this for a living!” So when did that become a reality?
Colin: The first time I realized was in 2016. GenCon is the biggest tabletop show in the U.S., and I had been doing art shows around the Atlanta area. I was doing weird, large, like, monster taxidermy at the time.
I’d done Dragon Con, and I’ve done some other things … I’d done some toy shows around the U.S., but I’d never actually gone and been in an art show. I got juried into [the GenCon] show in 2016, and that’s when I realized there are so many other nerds that like playing make believe. I was like, “Wow, okay! I can take the things that I’m already doing and start making books and things like that.” Because I was a graphic designer at the time, and was able to just spin that, use the knowledge I already had from that, and start putting it towards the things that I made.
Do you remember, whether it be as a sculptor or as a graphic designer or a developer, what was the first thing that you created doing this professionally? The first time you were like, oh – this is my job.
Colin: It took a while because I had my own graphic design studio, and was doing this, so I was basically doing two jobs at the same time. But I knew that this was the path I was going down. But the very first thing that I did professionally – I made the big sculptures, and then I realized that people didn’t want to spend, like, $1,000 on a one-of-a-kind sculpture. But they wanted to support me. So I started making enamel pins, and I started making [pins] that were themed – like D&D classic creatures, but in a more cartoony way, taking the vector-based illustration stuff that I’d done for design work and just using that in packaging. I started doing those as products. But then I also met Drew [Foulke], who owns this company Norse Foundry. I met him at DragonCon, and pitched him on the idea of doing a deck of cards that were basically dungeon tiles … That was the first one where I made a big dungeon, and then wrote the contents that went inside of it, and put the monsters that I’d been sculpting and turned those into creatures in the storylines.
How important are conventions like MomoCon and anything else to creating those professional bonds and immersing yourself in this particular world?
Colin: They’re so important, and I really encourage all newer creators to try and get out and be a part of the community. Even as big as it may seem, and how much money it brings in, especially with crowdfunding and things like that, most of it is the connections you make and friends that you make along the way. Without that, it’s a lot harder. All of my things have built upon going and making friends with people and being nice to people, and helping each other out.
This year, I think I have 12 conventions on my list. Which is a lot of traveling, but even if they’re not giant financial successes, there are always other things that you get out of them that lead to continuing to grow and build relationships along the way.
Is there a relationship, whether that be a mentor or a professional partner, that’s been particularly impactful on you?
Colin: Not any one person in particular, but just seeing how well the community works together to help each other out. In a lot of other industries, people are very safeguarded about knowledge, whereas in this one it’s very easy to share and be like, “Hey, this is how much I spent on this, this is how much I made on my booth this year, this is what sold better than this and why.” Because there are very few people in the tabletop scene that feel like they’re competing. Especially on the role-playing side, because in the games, you’re working together. So the community itself feels like that as well.
I want to talk about Vast Grimm. When did the idea for that first pop up for you?
Colin: In tabletop role-playing games, a lot of different games have what’s known as an open game license. That is a license that allows you to use their core mechanics and their rules to then build off of that and create your own thing. People have different versions of that, different amounts that you can or can’t use and make money off of it. So, my friend Ross Brandt … he had run a game called Mörk Borg for my Atlanta friends. This was during the pandemic. We played online, if I remember correctly. But he had gotten that because one of our other friends had backed it on Kickstarter.
There was something very different about the game. There were way less rules, it was really fast and easy to get into. Then I got the physical book, which was very art-heavy, and each page spread felt more like a rock poster, or something like that. It wasn’t just columns and columns of text, like a lot of traditional role-playing gamebooks are. Having that, and having the graphic design background, something in my brain was like, “I need to do something different.” I had reached out to Ross. I started sculpting this one big monster that I limited my color palette on, and I made it grosser and meaner looking – because my sculptures up until that point had been a lot more whimsical. I was like, “Hey Ross – do you want to make that a sci-fi hack of this game? We can use their license.” At the time, for that game itself, people had only written adventures. People had used their license, they had published zines and things like that, but nobody had done a book that had all the rules within the book itself, where you didn’t need Mörk Borg to play it, even though it’s kind of like the child of it.
That makes a lot of sense – I have recently started dabbling in Dungeons & Dragons, and I think the idea of making something where it’s a little looser, and like you said, without the blocks and blocks of text that can be a little overwhelming at times, is a good idea for getting people who might be a little intimidated.
Colin: And there are tons of rules-light RPGs out there, which is fantastic. There are so many more games being played, between [the popularity of things like] Critical Role and “Stranger Things,” so many people have come into the hobby. A lot of people start with D&D and spill over into so many other games. Along with crowdfunding, that’s allowed so many people to create things. The low cost of printing zines and things like that also makes it easy, too.
I know you’ve also done some creative work with your son?
Colin: Yes, and my daughter, as well, contributed to some of the more recent things. They helped me create a game called “Over the Troll Bridge,” which is another rules-light game where you’re playing trolls who live on this island called Magic City that floats above a sea of lava, and you’re going to different lands trying to collect resources to try and keep the island afloat. I host a local RPG night twice a month in Carrollton, and they come to that every time.
What has that relationship been like for you, to be able to share this with them and have them develop an interest in it?
Colin: It’s wonderful. I mean, trying to help cultivate their creativity is great. Also, they’ve come to conventions with me, they’ve worked behind the booth, they see how I interact with people, and they see that’s really where I shine. Having them see that, I think, is really fantastic, and knowing that you can pursue creative hobbies and turn that into a career path and find rewards in it that are different from the traditional route that people take.
