Think Like A Game Designer - Jason Charles Miller — From Rockstar Stages to Voiceover Booths, Navigating the Entertainment Labyrinth, Time with Ozzy, Breathing Life into Characters, and The Magic of Live Streaming RPGs (#28)

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Jason Charles Miller is a multifaceted artist, best known for his accomplished music career and significant voice acting roles. As a musician, Miller has released numerous albums, both as a solo artist and with his band, and has shared stages with prominent names in the music industry. Transitioning to voice acting, he has lent his voice to a variety of characters across video games and animated series, solidifying his place in the entertainment industry. In addition to music and acting, Jason is an avid live streamer, engaging with fans through platforms like Twitch where he shares stories, plays music, and even collaborates on songwriting. With his undeniable passion and wide-ranging talents, Miller continues to leave an indelible mark on every medium he touches. It’s awesome to have him here to tell his amazing stories! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. Welcome to season three of Think Like a Game Designer. I'm very excited to continue to bring you more amazing guests, design lessons, and tips about the gaming industry. but I also want to share something new and exciting that I'm launching this year. In addition to the podcast and the book for Think Like a Game Designer, I'm also launching a masterclass for those that really want to go deep into game design

and work with an incredible group of people to take your projects to the next level. We've already had an incredible beta group go through the course last year. It includes video lessons for me, access to an exclusive Discord group, monthly masterminds where we can dive deep into the actual problems that you have with your own designs and really walk you through everything that it takes to go from initial idea, whether you have a project you really want to work on, or you have no idea where to start, all the way through to getting your game published, whether that's launching it via Kickstarter, launching your own company, selling it to a publisher, or whatever you want to do to make your game design dreams come true.

If you think you might be the right fit for this course, go to think like a game designer.com, to learn more. In today's episode, I speak with Jason Charles Miller. Jason is a rock star. And when I say that, I mean it literally. He is literally a rock star. He has toured on Oz Fest with bands like Slipknot, Disturbed. He's produced tons of great songs, music. And then he became a voice actor and has been a voice actor for every game that you've ever heard of, including now he's going to play as Optimus Prime. He's been voice actor in Diablo and Harstone and World of Warcraft and Avatar the Last Airbender and all kinds of incredibly cool programs. And now he's a celebrity streamer, streaming role-playing games through critical role and a variety

of new shows that he has been involved in. He's an incredibly talented, incredibly fun guy to talk to. And I just have so much fun digging into his background, learning how, what the nuts and bolts are. if you want to become a voice actor working in games or cartoons or anything, what you would have to do to do that, how that happens. We talk about the nature of luck and hard work and how you can create your life such that you're going to be able to be lucky and find those connections and connect with great people and be able to build a career. We talk about the world of role playing games and streaming and what makes games really good to teach and what makes them good to watch and how these things can all go together, both as a designer. as a streamer, what types of things that he looks for.

And we also get some cool stories of rock and roll, including a private concert from Ozzy Osbourne. So, you know, this episode is definitely not like any other one that I've done, but we have plenty of cool lessons about the industry, plenty of great stories, a lot of fun things. We even get pretty deep at one point in talking about the nature of, you know, when you say yes to things and how you say no to things. Because at different points in your life,

you want to be trying stuff that's going to make you uncomfortable and pushing and saying yes to all kinds of opportunities. And at other points, you've got to be able to face those difficulties of turning down work or projects or quitting jobs or doing things that aren't serving you. And so we dig into that stuff too and go back and forth on that as well. So it's a really fun episode. I am sure that you're going to enjoy it. And without further ado, I'm going to give you Jason Charles Miller.

Hello and welcome. I'm here with Jason Charles Miller. What's up, Jason? It's going good. I always love the little announcer voice thing. going to do with this normal voice chat. Dude, I'm really excited to get to talk to you for a couple

reasons. One, I know you've been good friends with George Rockwell, who's our creative director, and he's just an awesome dude. It says nothing but amazing things about you. Two, my initial introduction to you was like brought in to do the voiceovers for our Shards of Infinity, shadow of salvation, like

story, which was just the most epic thing. Like, it turned, just for those that aren't familiar, I think most of the audience will be, but you know, Shards of Infinity, It was a deck building game. It was competitive fun. And we decided to build this campaign cooperative expansion to it. And so it was kind of a choose your own adventure book.

And based on how you did in the campaign, you got different outcomes. And we had this story. The story was great. And then George had the idea to bring you in to read it and do the voiceos for it. And it's free. Anybody can listen to it now on stoneblade.com. And it's the coolest thing ever. Like you do such a good job of bringing all the characters to life

of making the thing come alive so you can listen to it. and play along and I was just such a so I knew you were a badass from the beginning but then I started digging into your background and it's like you're I mean I've been a fan of like rock music and things forever and you have just I've started listening to some of your music and you've toured with like

huge bands and flipped on and disturbed and have tons of cool records out there and I so I and you've done like voiceovers just for prompting the audience of voiceovers not just for you know, for our thing, but huge, you know, games everybody knows, Theoblo and World of Warcraft and Street Fighter and Starcraft and all the, every, like, everything I loved as a kid, like you are now involved in and have been a huge part of these days. So I want to know the story. I want to know.

I mean, me too. Like, I still pinch myself, you know, this past year, I actually got cast as Optimus Prime in a game. That's so cool. Which is just like, you know, bucket list item for sure. Actually, it was one that I never thought that I would ever, I didn't even dream about being the voice of Optimus Prime because I didn't think it was possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. That's what, like, when you're a career path of being Optimus Prime was if that, if I knew that was an option, that would be the only thing I tried to do from the moment I grew up. I would be the only thing I ever tried to do is like, I could just grow up to be Optimus Prime. Yeah. Great. Perfect. Problem solved. So, yeah, that's, I mean, that's why it's great.

Because like, I always, I mean, I have a lot of, you know, mostly game designers, but people from all around the game industry because, you know, these are the dream jobs. These are the things that people, like, are so passionate about and love so much. And part of the point of this podcast is to be able to, like, pull behind the curtain a little bit, and be like, no, no, there's paths. Like, this can be your life. This can be your career. And while with a lot of the game designers I speak to, I'm like, the stories are always very

similar and I know kind of where it goes and anybody that's listening to the podcast for a while can see trends. I have no idea how you got to do what you do. So, so yeah, let's, I mean, wherever you want to start in your, in your origin story of kind of what got you to, you know, from from kid playing with Optimus Prime to adult being Optimus Prime, I want to. That sounds like a great news. I guess we can figure it out a lot of the way. Yeah, you know, for me, I mean, I'm all, like, music is what brought me to everything, right? And so, you know, now I consider myself a, you know, a career entertainer. and I have, you know, have written songs for huge projects that I had nothing to do with other than I was writing the song for that. I've, you know, performed all over the world, you know, in front of, I remember, you know, doing the Oz Fest and looking out and not being able to see the end of the people.

Oh, man. You know, that's kind of what a weird feeling. Oh, dude, I can just, that's such an epic, epic dream. to live. That's so cool. And then for the last 17 years, I've also been a voice actor. And the great thing about that is, you know, I just, I kind of let, I let things sort of happen themselves. Like, I don't push the fact that I'm a singer on to any of my voice acting connections. And I don't, you know, try to, if I get cast in a game as an actor, I don't

try to like get my music in there or anything like that. I just sort of like let people know what I do. and it's interesting when those worlds collide, and it's really fun when they do. But yeah, so I've been performing in front of audiences since I was five. I didn't have like stage parents or anything, but it was all like my pursuit of it. They supported me, of course,

but it wasn't like I was this, you know, they were pushing me to be a child star or anything. It's just I got the bug early, early on and just always wanted to be a performer. And luckily, I've had a lifetime of being able to do that. So starting, there's a couple of things that I want to unpack there. We'll start with this performing at five or six. And you know, so you naturally want to be on stage.

You get, you get some kind of instrument in your hands or you start singing and you just, you just, you love it. Your parents are supporting you. And you're getting that positive feedback loop from very early on. this is something that you love. Now, out of curiosity, was, was gaming a big part of your life at that time as well? Or really primarily music and other traditional kid things? No, gaming was definitely a part of my life starting around eight. My cousin, my cousin Wesley introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. And then it turned out that my neighbor, I grew up in the woods of Virginia in Fairfax County and no sidewalks. You know, you had to walk through the woods to get to the next person's house.

And luckily, for a few years, the next house over, my friend John Franklin, he also played Dungeons and Dragons. So that really was an early impact for me. And then I remember my dad got me the 1980 box set, you know, basic Dungeons and Dragons, I think it was called. Is this the Red Box? The Red Box, yeah. And that the first Red Box, that, in fact, it's right over there. And that really, like, in, that just totally impacted my life in, like, even like, just for an example, us sitting here right now, like, look literally what is in reach is this old against the Giants module. Like, I can reach it without moving.

But that's another, that's another story. But anyway, yeah, so that, that I devoured it. And being kind of isolated, John moved away. The Aldous brothers were the next closest friends to play with, but they didn't play D&D. So it was just me reading and reading and reading and reading and reading and just like buying a module, having no one to play with it, but just reading it from cover to cover and imagining how I would run. Yeah, that wasn't really until high school that I finally found friends that I could play with all the time. Yeah, I think about the percentage of my time that I spent like playing. role playing games as a kid versus the amount of time we spent reading and like creating imaginary characters and things that never got to actually play.

It's like I've read so many more role playing games than I actually played for the longest time. And just because, you know, it's passionate. It's a passion and that idea of like creating worlds and imagining those things is just such a such an engrossing thing. And so and so it you're performing at a high tier from very early on. You're, you know, into role playing games from very early age, but don't have, you know, sort of get a regular play group until you're in high school. And then is it, what at what point of those, you know, paths cross or that the music starts to enable this entering into the world of gaming?

That didn't happen until much later. As far as, I mean, really meeting, do you talk about George in your podcast? I've talked about George in the podcast. I mean, he's not been on the podcast, but I've mentioned, I've talked about him. So he's here, you know, he's awesome. Okay, because meeting George Rock, actually really propelled me into, you know, being one of the first celebrity D&D players because he knew Sateen Phoenix, who was putting together a live stream celebrity D&D game.

And that's kind of like what brought me into that world. Because that was like 10 years ago when you talked about playing Dungeons and Dragons in hushed tones in Hollywood. You guys go stand in the corner, you weird Dungeons and Dragons people. Yeah, and now like, you know, you know, Joe Mangonello plays it with Vince Vaughn and, you know, and, you know, the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine and check us out playing in here. And it's funny because I'm friends with Joe now, too, but I originally had a song in True Blood years ago. We became friends then. And then when he started doing D&D online and I was too, we sort of rekindled our friendship that way.

It was kind of fun. So, so, yeah, a couple things here. Satin has been on the podcast also. We've been on some panels together. She's amazing. So anybody that wants to check her out, check out one of our older episodes. She's absolutely incredible.

Such a vibrant energy. Like that's why I met her. We were on a panel together at San Diego Comic Con. It was like, oh my God, we're going to be the best of friends. She's just so cool. So your first experience then moving to some kind of professional gaming world is this celebrity live streaming,

not the voiceover work. You hadn't done that at that time. No, I mean, I don't think the voiceover work. I mean, the fact that I had a lot of voiceover credits already, I think sort of helped establish me in that sort of online D&D player world, but I don't, yeah, I mean, the voiceover stuff, I loved any time I got to play a character in an MMRP, you know what I mean? Like, those are my favorite still to this day. I love those kind of things.

But I don't know if the working on those led to me jumping in any further into the games. Because it's almost like when you're working on something, you're concentrating so hard on the work that it's harder to be a fan of it. Yeah. Well, so maybe I'm fast forwarding too far ahead because it's a couple different things that I want to unpack, which is, you know, what? What brought you from music and being a professional musician to voiceover work? Oh, sure. One very specific thing happened. So I'll give you.

So I did act a lot in, you know, early on. I did high school theater and community theater and things like that. but when Godhead was on a touring break and we had relocated to Los Angeles from the Virginia, D.C. area, our publisher at the time, one of the guys that worked at our publishing company was like, hey, you know, there's this lady that runs this company and they do a lot of music for commercials. You should reach out to her and see if they're looking for anything. It's a way for you to make extra money, kind of, you know, off the books or whatever from. our publishing contract.

So I reached out and they were looking for music for a Pop-Tarts commercial and they wanted it to sound like the end of Pearl Jam's Alive. So they didn't want it to be a jingle. It was just like going to be the soundtrack for the commercial. There are this kids jumping up and down on his bed and they wanted it.

It's weird that they said they wanted it to be Pearl Jam's. alive because this was like in 2004. So like Pearl Jam's Alive was already like 10 years earlier at least. But anyway, so we got it. And there was one point in the commercial where they wanted it to sound like the singer was going, oh yeah. So I got that, you know, obviously I sang the part and the way that the sag after rules work are just that if you sing.

in a commercial, it's the same as acting in a commercial. So therefore, I was eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild. And so I said to myself, look, this is a golden opportunity. I should really pursue voiceover. And so I took classes and met a bunch of people and just really nose to the grindstone did it. There was no special treatment or anything. I didn't really get any, any, you know, everybody auditions for every role each time as if they had never worked before. That's just kind of how voiceover goes. Like sometimes people will cast you in a, you know, in a role if they know you're good, but you're never going to get a lead role in voiceover without reading for it. That's just the way it is. Like, um, and so anyway, so yeah, so I, that was like

17 years ago and I, uh, you know, have taken it very seriously ever since and just, you know, job to job. Yeah, I want to, I want to, yeah, I want to know. Yeah, I want to know. more about that learning where you were living in LA at the time and so there was plenty of voice coaches and things and you just found one and started getting like live training. Is that how it works?

Yeah, I found a couple of coaches. I found some classes to take and that's in LA there's a lot of them. You know, luckily. And if you're lucky and you know and you do some research, you know, you can get a class with people that are very experienced in the field.

Yeah. And you, what, what made you hook on to this as a, as like, this is a great opportunity? Like, I really want to go down this road. Like, from just singing, oh, yeah. I think it's so much fun. It's so much fun. Yeah. You know, so it's like the most fun part of acting because if you're scheduled, you know,

you're working the whole time. It's not like on-camera acting where they want you there at 6 a.m. And your first shot isn't until 5 p.m. You know. Right. What's the old adage? They don't pay me to act. They don't pay me to act.

They pay me to wait around. I do the acting for free. I think John Wayne said that way, you know. Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. And then, and, you know, I want to sort of emphasize. So there's this thing that you, you know, you sort of, that you mentioned this actually earlier on.

And I think it may be a key part of your personality and success is that, you know, you're sort of very open to experiences and very open to where things take you and where the opportunities present themselves and you jump on. those, right? A lot of people would let that moment go by and be like, okay, whatever. Yeah, I saying, oh, yeah, in a jingle and now I'm going to move on. And so I think that's just a valuable sort of skilled to understand. And then that, you know, that working hard and grinding your way to get there, right? You want to be Optimus Prime. It's going to be, it takes a lot of work, takes a lot of years. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Like, yes, I am fully aware that there can be

a moment or there can be one thing that changes the trajectory of your entire life. And so I regret turning down anything that I said no to. Like if I can say yes to something, I will because it'll always lead to something else. It's crazy, but you just have to sort of let the universe take you there. Yeah. You know, and, you know, luckily for me, I have so many, during this pandemic time, if people listen to it, we're, you know, a year into the pandemic now, when everyone's listened, and if anyone's listening to this, that, you know, work didn't really slow down for me in the last year because I have so many irons and so many fires all the time. Yes. And it's a lot harder to get those irons, those fires started when.

there's no events to go to or no one to see, but still, I do my best to always stoke those fires because that, I mean, look, even you could be on the most successful show or in the most successful game or in the most successful movie franchise of all time, but it's going to end. You know what I mean? Like, they always end. There's always a set amount of time and then they end. So for entertainment in this business, you always have to kind of look for the next, for what's happening next.

Yeah, always, always hustle and always being open opportunities. Now, I'm actually curious because I think I felt this at a couple points in life. And I know I share your drive on that, right? I'm always looking for more stuff to do. I always have a dozen different projects, irons in the fires. You put it constantly running and certain ones will like bubble up to the top and take tons of energy. And other ones will be like slower burns and then eventually come up. But I always have stuff going on.

And I think that ability to always say yes and take on things, especially if you're first getting started out there. If you, you know, it's so critical. You need to just open yourself to opportunities, be willing to work hard, be willing to try different stuff. You know, be someone that people actually want to work with. But I've noticed as my career has gone on and as I've gotten older, that I've had to cultivate a better ability to say no. Because everything that you say yes to is really also saying no to everything you could be doing other than that. And so I'm curious if you've experienced that or felt any of that shift in your life or times in your life where you've had to change gears, if you will, from the yes to all to actually, no, I need to focus on just these few things or I need to be able to close. close out certain allergies in my life.

Yeah, it's extremely difficult because I'm also a people pleaser. Yes. You know what I mean? Like, like, like cripplingly so. And I don't mean to be and I try better to do that. But I'm always just like, oh, I want to make everyone happy all the time. Yeah. It is a blessing.

It is a blessing and a curse. Yeah. John Mullaney, the comedian, said that his wife, made fun of them and said you act like you're running for the mayor, you know, every day of your life. And that's what I feel like sometimes too. But it's really just coming from a genuine place, at least I think it is, you know. But, but yeah. So it's really hard for me to say no, but I do. I have to. And, but I always, it's better for me somehow if I justify it to them or justify it to myself by saying no, I always give a reason why I say no.

You know what I mean? Like, I'm on deadline for either I get specific or I can just be like I'm on a heavy deadline for this huge project and I just can't, you know? And people understand that. You know, so I always give a no but, you know, or I know, no right now. Right, right. It might be bad advice. I don't know.

What do you think? Well, you know, so what you're doing is a couple of things. The one thing that's definitely good, which is if you give a reason, there's actually some really interesting studies that people are way more accepting if you give a reason. And even if the reason is nonsense. So they did one study where somebody, there was like a line for like a copy machine and somebody who was a confederate would walk up to the front and say, skip the line and say, you know, can I use that?

And certain percentage of people would let them, and certain percentage people would not let them go to the back. But if you say some percentage would say, can I use that because I need to, they would, the percentage goes way up. Like people are way more accepting, even though you've told them nothing. You just said, because, right?

So people are more accepting if you put it because. So it's a more effective tool. And it psychologically relieves some of your pressure. but it's and so that's helpful internally but i would say on the flip side that it's also letting yourself you're being sometimes maybe a little disingenuous or you're you're you're letting yourself off the hook in that way and i say this only because i know i do the exact same thing i am also by default to people pleaser i want to say yes to everybody uh and so i try to think for myself uh can i you know sort of be in integrity and say when i say no if it's true and you know

you really are on deadline and you have this thing that's there, then of course, I think it's, it's valuable. But it's, I worry also that when I, I force myself to only say it when I've got one of those specific excuses, then I might by default continue to say yes when I don't have a specific excuse or, or I'll feel worse, right? Maybe this has happened to you where you say, because I'm on deadline, I can't do this. And they say, okay, I understand. But then when they ask you something later, you feel like now you have to do it, right? Now you, you, yeah. 100%. You're right. You're absolutely right. And I've done that before. And still, you know, I had to reschedule something like three times because it just, it wasn't really that.

Maybe I had to reschedule it twice because it, you know, and then, and then the third time, I was like, I have to do this no matter what. I've already rescheduled it twice. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Brunei Brown. She's, you know, the sort of studies vulnerability and shame. She had a big TED talk several years ago and I read some of her books. And she has a mantra that's sort of to deal with this, which is choose discomfort over resentment. Choose discomfort over resentment.

It's uncomfortable to say no to somebody in a situation where it's not right for you. But if you do a thing that you're like, this is not what's right for me. I'm doing it because I feel like I'm obligated. You can resent that person. You resent doing the thing. And that's just unhealthy for everybody in the long run. And so that I've actually used that mantra in times before like when I, before I say yes to something. Because the more you become well-known and successful, the more inbound you have, the more stuff that's thrown your way, the more people ask things of you.

And my default is like yours, always say yes, always try to help. And that's a great place to be, generally speaking, but I've definitely learned that you got to practice boundaries also. So it's an interesting, it's an interesting shift. It's an interesting shift. And that's why I was happy to kind of talk to you about it because I've, and this has been true. your greatest strength is always your greatest weakness and the things that that drive you forward in the wrong context can pull you back and it's it's an interesting

place to dig into. Okay, so we've, we dug, we went off on a little bit of a tangent there, but hopefully it's interesting to other people assist us because I think it's an important and not often discussed. Maybe we help somebody. Yeah, maybe there's somebody out there that's going to finish this podcast and be like, no, I'm not doing that. Or yes, you know, again, I want to reemphasize,

If you are not in the position where you just have so much to do, too much stuff going on and you know exactly what you love, you should be saying yes to pretty much everything. And yeah. Yeah, and here's the thing. Sometimes you've got to be self-aware of your own value, right? So I know people that have done stuff for low money or no money for years. And now they're making more money than the person that said no at the beginning because it wasn't enough money the first. time. Um, so that's really a balance too. Like, because, you know, uh, as, you know, people say they do stuff for exposure and then you're told, you know, well, people die of exposure

every day. It's true. You know, uh, you've got it. There are, there's that balance as well, like knowing like what, what I find, what I find is, um, when I, rather, if someone offers me a job or something like rather than ask them what the rate is i ask them what the budget is for me and that seems to like get a more honest answer uh than what because then i usually if something that's being offered and i have a relationship with them already um i feel like most of the time if i already have a working relationship with them that that it's because they're honest so their honesty is going to come out a little bit a little bit more. Yeah.

Yeah. This is actually a great topic. It's a great topic because it's talking about how do you price your services and how do you deal with negotiations when it comes to especially creative work and entertainment style work. And this is actually something I had no idea how to do. When I first started as a game designer and to do contract game work, I got my first offer and I was like

oh this is so great and I you know like I would I would do this for free this is like this is what I want to do but wait I can't do that I need to make a living what do I charge them but I just think like I try to think through like my hourly rate like okay what do I want like what would I need if I was like how many hours is going to take me and I like quote them a number and this was to make a toy this toy game for a cartoon and they just kind of laugh at me and they're like okay sure

I was like oh that was too low I made a mistake and then my next My next gig, I doubled that price. And they're just like, yeah, okay, fine. And I was like, and I just, my strategy was every time I would double until I got resistance. It's not bad. But, but like you, I think there's, there's, there's, nowadays, it will, it very much depends. Like, I will, I'll, I'll framing it as budget, what, you know, what's your budget, not what, what, what's hourly rate.

Because I, I, I, I never work for hourly rates anymore. I hate hourly rates. I don't, you don't care about my hours. You care about results. You want awesome thing, and I want to give you awesome thing. And let's see if we have the budget to do that. And if so, great. And if it's not, then I'll have the different conversation of, okay, well, that's not

going to get you the awesome thing you think you want. But either I can point you to somebody else because there's plenty of designers that are out there that are cheaper than me. If you want that, you know, and I'm happy to connect you. I want everybody to be happy. Or we say, okay, what if you scale down and did X, Y, or Z? or if I think it's a partner that I want to work with long term, I'm happy to get creative and be like, okay, you know, do less or get something on the back end or, you know, negotiate in that sense. But that's like you identified is really much better when you have relationships with people and you could just be very straightforward. Like I take it as a principle that I want everybody on the other side of the deal, right? And after we're done working together, everybody to come out being like, man, I got a great deal. That was awesome. That was a steal. Like, that's the philosophy I want everybody to come away with at the end because then, you know, they're going to want to work with me again and they're going to recommend to me to other people.

And, you know, of course, I have to do that in the range of, you know, I'm doing, I'm well enough and I can support my team and move forward. But I think if you are genuine with the people that you want to work with and you find people that are the same as you, it's amazing how that works. And at least in my industry, and I assume it's similar in what you've done. It's like, you know, you're going to be working with these same people for years or decades and you, you know, treat people well as way more important than getting the highest paycheck you can right now. Exactly. Yeah.

So, okay, I feel like I got a pretty good picture of how the voice acting thing started and that path. And now we touched on this before and your meeting with Satin and how you started to get into this being a celebrity gamer, streamer, which is yet another dream job. You have awesome rock star dream job that you just, you know, you worked out, you're working towards. And I may have missed an opportunity to get you to share some rock star stories. I think I skipped over that a little too soon, possibly. but, uh, good.

You know, they always get peppered back in. Yeah, yeah. So anytime you want to drop in a rock and roll story, you please do, uh, especially if we can tie it into some lesson that I can at least pretend like I'm teaching people with by listening to cool stories.

Uh, and then, uh, and then we've learned the, you know, kind of opportunity that you spotting the opportunity and grinding to really learn and develop the skills to be a voice actor. Now you've got this other opportunity that presents itself to marry your,

your, your, your love of Dungeons and Dragons with your, with your, you know, celebrity and now talk to me more about how that goes down. Yeah. Well, so, I mean, I look at like all the little moments, opportunities that sort of like thread their way all the way to where it is now. So Ben Moody was the co-founder of the band Evanescence. and he is a good buddy of mine.

He saw one of Godhead's music videos on MTVX. My manager at the time was friends with the head of his record label, and we met at a party. And he was like, I saw your video. And we became friends. And we actually wrote and recorded a lot of music together. And one, even for the, Punisher soundtrack, the Thomas Jane movie.

Through Ben, I met Zach Ward, the actor. Through Zach Ward, he was filming a sci-fi channel movie called Battle Planet and thought I would be good in a small role. So I, the director of that movie is a guy named Greg Aronowitz. This is a long thread, but let me just. tell you how, like, it all kind of threads. So I just want to know where Kevin Bacon comes into this. Yeah.

Soon. Greg was the production manager for the show The Guild, Felicia Day's show, the most popular web series of all time. It's now in the Smithsonian, in the media part of the museum of the Smithsonian for, like, being like the breakthrough web series. they need a song for their opening of season four. And season three, they worked with Jed Weeden, who wasn't available.

So Greg recommended me. I brought in my team, wrote the song with Felicia. Felicia launches, then I end up appearing in season five of the Guild as myself. then she launches her network geek and sundry and i start doing music and work for them then they launch their twitch channel um then critical role launches i know all of them from being a voice actor already uh ask them early on if they need an opening theme song for their show then more shows start popping up on geek and sundry then i'm on a show then i'm a regular cast member on a different show So it all, like, imagine if I hadn't met Ben Moody at that party that night.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It, the, who knows where, you know, if any of that stuff would have happened. So I look back at just things that have happened from one thing. And I can trace them all back to like meeting this one guy or meeting this one person or, you know, or just, you know, right place, right. time and that's sort of how everything seems to happen in entertainment. Yeah, I think it's not just entertainment. Of course, you got to be good.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's, I've got to be pulling it. Yeah, well, there's multiple things that are going on here that I think are interesting, this idea of, you know, you met the right person at the right time and you got lucky, but I think that there's things that make you more likely to be lucky. It was actually, I started reading this book that was actually recommended by a podcast, listener that had said he heard this thread through the podcast and it totally seemed true. And there's a lot of scientific validation by it. But like you become lucky in large part

because there are certain things you consistently do. Like for example, going to the party, right? The people, a lot of times nobody gets a new job opportunity by sitting on their couch watching Netflix, right? You've got to be willing to put yourself out there. And whether you're an introvert or an extrovert or whatever, like a lot of times nobody wants to go to those freaking parties, but you do. It's just like, eh, but, but by forcing yourself to be out there, you never know. You went to a hundred parties where nothing comes of it, and you went to the one that it did. And so it's, it's that putting yourself out there, being in, you went, you were in,

sorry, you said you started in Virginia. Is that right? And then you went, well, you moved to Los Angeles because if you want to find other people that are going to be in the entertainment industry, you need to be surrounding yourself by people in the entertainment industry. That's where you should be, right? And then as you mentioned, of course, being good, being someone that is consistently kind and that people want to work with, following through on things, and, you know, then and putting out there, not being afraid to put out there, your skills and your needs, right? Being willing to say, hey, here's, yeah, I can write songs.

Do you need songs? Hey, I'm looking for work in the voice and just voice acting now. And I've done this thing, right, by being a lot of people that are very, especially I've imagined quite a bit of the audience here because this is common in the gaming industry where people are. shy, where they're afraid to kind of, you know, put themselves out there or ask for what they want or offer what they have. And I think those skills are just critically important things to train because they let this serendipitous stuff happen. And so that's the story of what you told. There's, it's not just quote unquote luck. It's it's luck that you are prepared for and that you are available to make it happen. So it's a cool. It's a really cool story. And so I want to,

I want to shift then a little bit because, again, I think, well, you know, hopefully this is really as interesting to others as to me, you know, people that want to be in these other more unique aspects of the industry, whether that's, you know, acting and voice acting or, you know, streaming and, you know, presenting stuff. But I want to also kind of take some lessons of what you've, from your perspective, to those of us that are game designers. and you as someone that streams professionally and what kinds of games do well on streams? What things have you learned? What things do you wish maybe exist that maybe don't or best that would make? Because streaming is such a huge part of gaming now

and being able to attract people like you to stream the games that can make or break a game, right? If you stream out to your audience and you're playing a game and having a great time, a bunch of people are going to buy it, they're going to tell their friends. And so what things do you think make? a game's either successful for streams or some of your favorites or stuff that you might advise

those of us that are trying to, you know, get your attention and play, play some sweet things that you can stream. You know, what I've, what I've found is, um, it, it really, you know, so I'm in, I don't stream video games. I only stream role playing games, um, where it's interaction with other peep. And I think that like the, the, the experienced role players, you know, you can feel, as an audience member, you can feel like you're watching, you're either listening to a radio play or you're watching like improv theater as it happens. And so for me, it's less about what game we're playing and more about the interaction between the other players and me. So right now, and it's actually tomorrow we're launching,

Luke Gygax, the son of Gary Gygax, runs Gary Con, which is a convention every year, sort of in his father's honor. It gets bigger every year. Of course, because of COVID, the last two years it's been online, he asked me to run a three-episode arc of a game. And people enjoyed the game so much

that now it's going to be a weekly series called the Gax Pack. Oh, that's awesome. And what I did was is I took, I told everyone they were going to play a D&D game, but then I had them, I transported them into Gamma World and then had them use their D&D powers with the physics of the game, Gamma World. A little unconventional, and the game's going to be doing that more and more. But, you know, it's funny because every time I wish that there was something more

that could be added to the online experience, it gets added. So, for example, D&D Beyond has now an overlay where if you're watching us play D&D, you can actually go to the D&D Beyond overlay, add that to your Twitch channel, or add that to your Twitch account, and then see what everyone's hit points are

and what everyone's level is and whatever their initiative score was and all that. And I think that that's fascinating. as you know, I have a lot of friends who will stream indie games, who will stream other games. I think like games, video games that might really be engaging for a one-on-one experience might not always work on a streaming experience. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that specifically speaking to the areas of expertise that you have in role-playing games, the kinds of things that that people watch.

I still think there's a lot that matters from the game side. And like you even just hit on one point, which is, you know, with D&D Beyond, it's allowing you to display the information in a way that people can see. And so that's just one principle I think is really important, is that like if I tune in at some point in your stream,

maybe I didn't catch it from the beginning, or you're just kind of moving through, I need to be able to quickly kind of figure out what's going on. And the more that that makes it easy for me to, get into the action and understand what's happening, the better and more powerful a stream it's going to be. And then the follow-up of the obvious one, I think, is that player interaction, which, of course,

when you're working with professional actors, you know, you just give them a stage and they'll improv and make their way to do it. But I think there are game mechanics that can make that more or less likely also. There are certain kinds of things that maybe there's some, maybe it's just about a good story. It's funny that you bring that up because, yes,

what I found is this I feel like theater of the mind works better if you're role playing a streaming RPG than if you have a map and terrain

and minis because as soon as you bring minis into the streaming experience and people have to move them around you I lose focus

as an audience member, right? You kind of lose the audience. The pace of the game slows way down and there's a way to stream RPGs that's wildly different than playing RPGs at home with your friends.

There are certain things that like that specifically that can just slow it down and not making it not make it a fun experience for the viewer anymore. Yeah. And so, I feel like the simpler game, I think the reason why fifth edition D&D is so wildly popular

is because of the simplicity of the mechanics. It's just complicated enough to where you can feel the stakes, but it's not so complicated that you're bogged down with too many rules. Yeah, there's this really interesting line that you need to kind of walk when it comes to these kinds of games and these kinds of rules because you want the rules to give you that creative spark, right? Like we talked about earlier, like you could just read through the rulebook and imagine your character and imagine the world that you're going to be and figure it out. It gives you this kickoff and drives you in a direction, but you don't want it to be a straight check. you don't want to be something that forces you to pay attention to this and be in the super crunchy world.

And where that line is is going to be very audience dependent. Actually, there's a student that's in my, I think like a game designer class that is building what's functionally an RPG for kids. And it's designed where you just have these very light, kind of almost mad libs-like prompts that come up to give the kid the opportunity. And they have toys on a simple little board because kids playing with toys, that's just sort of the natural way for them to get engaged. And then all of it is, it's just this basic,

give them the prompts, then roll a die, see what happens, kind of thing. And then, you know, for other people, they want the super crunchy, you know, I want to, you know, whole, I want to know what exactly what my max heat rating is and which armor plating is out. And, you know, and so it's, it changes,

but I think where we're talking now, it's so important to remember that the, you know, when I say that, you know, the job of a game designer is to craft an experience, for their audience. And this is the job of an entertainer as well, right? And for a game designer, mostly the default, your audience are the players. But when you're in this world, it's not.

It's the people that are viewing, right? You need to craft that experience that's fun to watch, that's engaging. If you look at the success of something like Among Us, which is a really fun example, because that game was out, came out many years ago and was not popular, right? And then streamings took off, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's everywhere because It's the most popular game in the pandemic. Like, you know, you've got celebrity among us tournaments and things like that. Yeah, exactly, because it's so much fun to be a viewer of that and watch these people all sort of interact and just mistrust each other.

And like that thing, you know, the play of it by itself is fine. It's a good game. But that targeting of how much it is great for the audience and it's so easy for them to jump in and play along. And that's, I think, one of the great things about it, those kinds of things. And I don't know if that's as true in RPGs as much, but I think that there's definitely this experience, sort of like the same way you watch game shows, right? Like, why does Jeopardy fun, right?

It's very little going on, but you have these people that are there competing. And then as that answers on the screen, you could be like, oh, what is Czechoslovakia, right? Back at home screaming at your TV. And there's this fun engagement that's happening because you feel like you know it or you don't. And so do you think there's any element of that?

I'm genuinely curious if it is RPGs. Is there some of that as an audience member? I'm kind of feeling like I'm in the action, or is it just the joy of watching? Oh, definitely, I think. And I think that, like, people will be like, oh, you know, she shouldn't cast lightning bolts. She should cast fireball here. You know what I mean?

Stuff like that. I think that people totally, you know, get engaged in that way and continue to, to interact. You know, I'm sure they're yelling at the screen at home, too, you know. Oh, yeah, for sure. I feel like I get that when people are listening to the podcast, like, why didn't you ask him this thing. What were you, what were you thinking? How did you get the cool rock and roll stories? You were so close to asking this. Right. Right. No, I always try like, all right, don't drop any threads because I know that I know I hate it. I'm on the other side too. I know I hate it when like you've got a

host that's like going down a track and then just like, oh, you just left that thing. Bye. All right. Let me give you, I'll give you two rock and roll stories right now. All right. And both of them talk. Both of them are about meeting your heroes, right? So when I got my first record deal, working on my first record for my band Godhead. Our producer at the time, Warren Croyle, said, hey, do you have, like, bucket list? Like, was there anybody that you would like, you know, maybe like to appear on the album,

play a guitar solo, just somebody cool like that? And I said, yeah, I'd love to have Ace Freely from Kiss play a guitar solo on one of our songs. Because that would be awesome, you know what I mean? Like, I learned guitar figuring out Kiss songs and Rush song. So I would love that. And he was like, all right, cool, I'll call his manager. We'll try to make this happen.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So then I was still living in Virginia at the time. And Ace, it was before the Kiss reunion. So Ace was out of Kiss, but he was touring as a solo artist. And a lot of people were still going to see him. So it was arranged that I would meet him backstage at, I think it was called Gay, A. L. Gators in Baltimore or something. I think that's what it was called.

I can't remember the name. It had Gator in it. Anyway, so I met A's Freely backstage. And I hadn't really known that many celebrities yet. You know, and we got our record deal living out of the D.C. area in Virginia. So we knew other musicians. And, you know, I just, I kind of, like, broke all the rules. And so when I met him, I was like,

He knew who I was. He knew he was going to be playing on our record. But when I met him, I sort of blurted out. I go, you're the reason I play guitar. And he went, he never heard that one before. And I was just like, oh, man. Like, I sort of like, ha, I laughed too to like, because it was so awkward and like, I just felt so deflated and shitty.

And then he never ended up playing on the record either. Oh, boo. But I'm glad because they didn't want him to. Yeah. All right, but here's a good rock and roll story. Are you ready for the best one? Yes. Okay, this literally like goes, this goes down as, you know, one of the coolest things that ever happened.

So God had played the Oz Fest in 2001. And through my friend Sarah, I became friends with Jack Osborne, who was in his late teens at the time. still a teenager, but, you know, we got along and, you know, rock and roll, big family, you know, Oz Fest is like a giant cookout for rock bands. After the Oz Fest was over, I was invited over to their house a few times in Beverly Hills. And one night, like, I was there and like Jack and Kelly got into a fight or something and ran off. And so I'm there. It's me and Ozzy.

And Ozzy knew that I was in a band on OzFest, but didn't know much more about that than that. And he was like, oh, what are you doing your band? I was like, I'm the singer. He's like, oh, you're the singer. And like, he immediately got like super excited. And he was like, have you heard my new album? And I said, well, no, because it's not out yet.

Because he had a new album that was coming out like early next year, already recorded, but not out. Right. He's like, well, let me play it for you. So then he like goes to find like the burnt CD because this is back, this is like in 2002 when, uh, you know, iTunes was still like in its fledgling. So you still had like burnt CDs back then.

He goes to find the burned CD. He puts it in. He blasts it, right? Where it's just me and Ozzy in his living room blasting his album down to earth. And here's the coolest part. I'm thinking to myself, oh, he's probably going to play me a song or two or like a snippet off. of it or something, you know, just like something minor. No, he played me the whole album from beginning to end,

and he sang along to every song. So Ozzy's singing to me his songs while I'm sitting next to him on the couch. And I'm like, first of all, I can, whatever happens the rest of my life, I can die complete. And secondly, no one's ever going to believe this. No one's ever going to believe this, but I do appear in two episodes of the Osbournes in the house. So you see me in the background. I'm clearly on the screen, but there I am in the Osborne house.

So at least I can prove that I was there. I can't prove that moment ever, but it happened. You can't prove the private concert one to 101 private concert with Ozzy. That's amazing. But I know it happened, so that's all that matters to me. That is amazing. Well, now my audience knows as well. This is, this is so cool.

I appreciate, I appreciate you, humoring me and coming back around with the rock and roll stories. I think it is, it's always something when you meet, when you meet your heroes. There's a, there's this, and then there's this other piece when you kind of take your place in that, you know, in that stratosphere, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in industry that you got so inspired by, right? Obviously, the kiss story was a little deflating, but that, you know, that part where you're sort of welcomed in and you're able to create

awesome stuff and be on stage and see a sea of people, you know, I haven't quite had a stage at that size. But that, you know, for me, it's the, you know, my, me, it was always Richard Garfield, right? Like, he created a bad gathering. He, like, dictated the entire course of my life. And when I was able to actually like interact with him and we're at a we're at the pack dev concert conference and uh he uh somebody asked him a question after he gives a talk about what his favorite game was at the time and he said oh it's i've been playing ascension and i like i'm in the room and like literally to like jump up in the back of the room like hilariously everybody starts laughing and uh and it was like i can't believe that that that's case this guy who was like i can't count

the number of thousands of hours that he have joy that he has provided me and how he dictated the whole course of my life. And then, you know, afterwards, I got to work with him. And we made the game SoulForge. And now we're working together again to make a new version of SoulForge called SoulFord Fusion, which is just like, it's just the coolest, like, experience. And just like, okay, I can die. I did it.

Like, got to, yeah. And it's, you know, not quite the same. As is actually a private concert from Ozzy, but the emotion was there. And it's, it's pretty exciting. Well, by the way, speaking of Magic the Gathering, the brand new trailer for Magic Legends, the video game, I'm actually narrating the trailer. Oh, cool. I've got a British accent, but that's cool. That's really cool.

I kind of want to go practice some voicemover skills, man. It just sounds like such a fun thing to be able to do. Like, I've interacted. You should, man. It's fun. But once again, like, it's all about like, you know, I've had 17 years in now. You know what I mean? And 17 years of working with producers and directors that know what I can do.

And of course, I'll still nail the occasional audition. But a lot of my roles come from recurring people that bring me in. I've got one director that calls me his Swiss Army knife. So I might never play the lead for him. But I know I'm always going to get work because the next game that he works on, he's going to bring me in and I'm going to play seven characters. Right, right. Yeah, no, it's one of it.

And it's worth like really underscars. this lesson because for a lot of people, they are looking for that, like, quick break or quick fix or being able to, like, if they don't succeed out of the gates, they kind of, oh, this isn't for me. It's, you know, a career is built over years and decades and that, remembering that both in terms of keeping the drive and working hard to get it to come to life, remembering that in terms of the, you know, being good to people and building relationships that are going to yield dividends or, you know, it's just just good to be good to people in general, but you'd never. know when those things are you know karma karma is real it will come back right know it will 100%

come back i probably like i can't this is there's a little opportunity that just came into my lap this last week which is i'm not allowed to talk about but it's like you know a friend that i had known for years i never expected anything out of calls me out of the blue and it's connected to this super huge project and it's bringing me in on and it's like you just never know i really just i believe that stuff is so so important and you clearly exude that it's been it's been really fun uh just getting to chat with you here and i hope you We can actually, you know, post-pandemic world all get together and do this IRL at some point because I'm not that far away. Yeah, that's hang for sure.

We got to get George back in town. We can all play some games and drink some whiskey and have a good old time. Yeah. Yep. All right. So we're kind of running closer to the end of time. I know you've got, you mentioned the one new project that you're working on. What other things are you, you know, people want to find more of your stuff, whether that be music, game, streaming, cool,

stuff what we got so i mean right now i'm streaming like gosh i i i'm streaming like five days a week because what's happening is so monday night i i have a show called millers music mondays on my channel the jason charles miller twitch channel and i have a guest every week and we go back and forth so my guests will play a song and then i'll play a song and then they'll play a song and i'll play a song running it like a nashville songwriter around um and then i'll interview them in between we'll catch up So that's Mondays. Tuesdays on the Codename Games channel, the company that puts out Idol Champions, I host a songwriting show.

And we pick a different character from Idol Champions every week and write a song about that character live in front of the audience. And then the audience contributes to the song. So they're learning about songwriting. They're contributing to the song that we're writing. And then in the end of two hours, we have a completed song every time. And what's happened with that, that's just me and an acoustic guitar and my co-hosts, Dylan, who works for code name. But then we just, we pick our favorites and then I fully produce them and then they place them in the game.

That's awesome. So we now have eight songs in the game from what we crowdsourced, you know, on the show. Then Wednesday night is my straight up request show, which is I just, I have a list of like 170 songs that I know. And for two hours, I'll just take requests. people throw me tips for you know and i've split my tips with my twitch mod moderators and um and and so that's that and then uh fridays now i'll be doing the new sirens of the realms game uh and then saturdays is the gax pack on the gary con twitch channel for uh for luke guy gags that i'm the dungeon master of so that's yeah there you go that's five five days a week i'm on i'm doing

something on so you're just slacking on thursdays and sundays then. Yeah, Thursdays and Sundays, I'm in a coma. I mean, you're in a coma, or I'm working on all these other projects that I have to finish. And then don't forget, I usually have a couple of voice acting gigs a week, too, so I have to pepper those in somehow and fit them into the schedule. You do seem like you got it needs to say no more often. That's, that is exciting how much stuff you have. Yeah, I know, I know. But at the same time, it's like, I can't, it's, you know, as you probably know, it's really hard to say no to money. Yeah. Well, if it's, if it's, It's money and stuff that you love.

That's really, like, when you have that overlap, that's really, like, presumably these streams, like, you really enjoy what you're doing. It's super fun. Of course. And so, for me, it's like, I'm so passionate about the things that I'm doing that it's like, I don't want to put the project down. I don't want to stop the thing. You know, it's like, yeah, okay, I don't need as much sleep, maybe.

I don't need to, you know, like, I won't, I, it's funny how much for me I went from, you know, I love to play games and I played games all the time, like, all the time, to now. I actually don't have that much time to play games because I spend so much time making games that I'm playing the games I'm working on and I just love it. So when you're passionate about it, like I, you know, work hard, enjoy the things, make cool stuff, contribute to the world. And you're clearly the epitome of that. So even though I've been joking about saying no, I mean, I think if you are loving what

you're doing and firing all cylinders, then man, rock out. Thanks, man. I mean, but yeah, I often joke with friends. I go, you should see my Google calendar. and how it's just, you know, bab, bat, bab,

yeah. And I need to, I need to place things in my calendar of like, chill time, just relaxing time. Yeah, I actually have, I actually have done the same thing because I also have a fill,

I actually, not only have to have my own full calendar, but I also have like a calendar events and things that I run for the, for my, think like a Game's honor course and other things. And so it's like they overlap. So now they're, they're all there.

But I have actually learned to block off like solo creative time. And like, you know, this is like, I'm going for a walk here. So I block off these times throughout my day because my default is just go, go, go, pack everything in. And I found that's actually super valuable. Both I actually work better, right?

Because solo creative time where you actually spend to build things, not just, you know, work on other projects or work on execution. But and then rest and recovery time because doing creative work requires rest and recovery. So easier said than done, but it does help. And it's not real. If it's not in the calendar, it definitely won't happen. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, thank you. I know you are now, especially I know how busy you are. So I very much appreciate

you taking the time to come chat with me and working on our awesome projects. I know we are going to work on more awesome stuff together because I can't wait. I'm not going to say no to you. Oh, good. Yeah. Don't listen to any of that no stuff when you're talking about me. Okay. Thanks very much. Thanks a lot. Have a great day. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share. share on your favorite podcast platforms, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listener reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to

bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews, along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry and compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast. Think like a game designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at think like a game designer.com or wherever fine books are sold.