Interview– Mara Holmes

@/maraholmes_
https://www.highrollersdnd.com/

Our new season of interviews is here! We’re bringing you a whole host of interviews from amazing women all across the TTRPG space. Give us a follow now to make sure you don’t miss a thing.

We’re kicking off this new season with the one and only Mara Holmes! Mara has been bringing epic tales to the TTRPG space for over 10 years, as the GM for HighRollers, as Calianna on Critical Role, and as a celebrated TTRPG writer. 

Not only do we hear all about Mara’s early days in TTRPGs, she also gave us the inside scoop on all things HighRollers, including bringing the world and adventures of Altheya to players around the world in a hugely successful kickstarter campaign.

Settle in for an excellent read, adventurers!

1. What's your TTRPG origin story? How did you start playing?

My school friends and I (we were like 14-15 I think?) used to go to a local comic store in Southend-on-Sea pretty much every weekend. We were already big nerd kids, we played Warhammer, we did LARP, played MUDS (text-based online games, I am quite old haha) and one Saturday we saw that they had this brand new 3rd Edition Start Set for Dungeons and Dragons. We all knew of D&D and some of us had played Baldurs Gate 2, but never tried playing AD&D or anything like that. We grouped our money together and bought the set, rushed home to my house and opened it up.

None of us had a clue what to do, so I offered to be the Dungeon Master and we just started playing it. It was awful. I made up rules, changed the pre-written adventure plot and made it cringe, but we still had loads of fun and we kept coming back to it. Eventually, my friend Harry wanted to run a proper adventure and that led into our first proper big campaign that we played for years. We played 3-4 times a week at my pal Dave’s house, because he had the biggest dining table and chillest parents hahah.

After sixth form/college, I ended up working at a video game company in Cambridge and D&D became my way of making new friends. The rest, as they say, is history.

2. We'd love to hear how HighRollers first started, and what its been like creating Europe's biggest TTRPG stream.

Ten years ago now (gosh so old) I was working for a YouTube Channel Network called The Yogscast (they were big early minecraft youtubers if you don’t know the name) as their community manager. Every year they did a big charity streaming event called Jingle Jam where they streamed different games/events every day, and because I had acting/camera experience I ended up doing a few bits here and there including running a Star Wars Edge of the Empire one-shot for my pals Hat Films. After Jingle Jam was over the Yogscast owners asked me if I wanted to do a D&D thing as part of a new weekly streaming schedule they wanted to try out. Nobody else wanted the Sunday afternoon slot, and my friend Matt Mercer had just started Critical Role on Geek & Sundry a little while beforehand and it was amazing, so I got together some pals and we started HighRollers! We honestly thought nobody would watch it and we’d be replaced in a month or two, but it was a huge success. We streamed on the Yogscast for a while before starting our own channel, and then a few years ago now, we went completely independent with our own studio, and that brings us to today!

It’s incredibly humbling, honestly. It doesn’t often feel real that we’ve gotten to do the things we’ve done, or have the support that we have. I think we had the right level of a great opportunity meeting hard work, talent and good timing, which really gave us a boost. Since then we’ve tried to just stay true to who we are, why we do this, and provide a welcoming space that feels more like your typical home-game. Something everyone can relate to and see themselves in.

3. We wanted to say a huge congratulations on your Kickstarter with the wonderful folks at Roll and Play Press. What's it been like bringing your world and adventures to the page, and what do you hope for all the backers that will be exploring Altheya: The Dragon Empire?

Thank you so much! I’m still so blown away at what we achieved with the Kickstarter. It was nerve wracking but I knew we were in good hands with Roll and Play Press. They’ve been good friends of mine for a while now, I met them at their first convention and it really feels like we’ve grown up together in the industry. They understand me and HighRollers exceptionally well, which makes working with them a joy.

I know everyone says it, but it really is unreal to have people care about my homebrew worlds enough to support a campaign guide for it! I never thought I’d be in this position, I’ve always loved writing and worldbuilding but struggled with the discipline in writing a novel, so this really brings that dream into something I can manage with RPP’s help!

I’m very excited to provide players and GMs an alternative, classic high fantasy world to play in. Something that feels nostalgic and timeless, whilst also having modern design elements and worldbuilding ideas. A place that really just captures the exact feelings of why we want to play heroic fantasy TTRPGs. A world with lots of room for stories both bombastic and serious, bright and bold. I joked with Roll and Play that I wanted to capture the feelings I had when loading into Azeroth (World of Warcraft) for the first time, or the first time I watched Record of Lodoss War or Slayers!

4. We'd love to hear about your creative process and inspirations when writing your campaigns and designing your worlds.

Honestly, I think my process could be quite boring compared to other creatives in the space. I’m mostly inspired by the media I consume and travel. I’m not a history buff, I don’t consider myself particularly cultured or smart, I find research a bit boring and hard with my ADHD.

I ask myself a lot of questions when I do get inspired by something. I see a cool move in an Anime, or a rad concept in a book, or a beautiful place in the world and I start asking; “How would that work in my setting/X system? If that did exist what would it affect? What caused it? What could create something similar and how would it be different based on X, Y, Z in my setting?”. I sort of spider web my worldbuilding, asking questions about a concept or an element, and then spiraling out with answers and more questions. But I only go as deep as I need to, not everything needs an indepth answer or deep lore. I jokingly call this my “Iceburg Method” on streams; You give detail and substance to the stuff the players can see/crash into, and then you “thin out” the rest as it draws away from them. If a player wants to dive beneath the surface and see how far the iceburg goes down, you build that with them as they go.

I don’t have the time, focus, or energy, to be writing out pages and pages of deep lore and prep beforehand when it isn’t relevant to the players interests or actions. I’d rather do that between sessions once I know they’re into it, or during character creation/campaign building if they show interest.

5. For anyone thinking of starting to stream their TTRPG games, what's one thing they should know?

This is a tough one, because a lot has changed since we started HighRollers and to be very honest, we were very privileged to get the start that we did. We worked hard and brought great talent to it, but we also got very lucky with the timing and starting early.

Right now, TTRPG streams are very popular and a lot of people are doing them. Publishers are making their own high-budget shows, with actors/voice actors, streamers and youtubers are doing more comedy orientated shows, people with production backgrounds are making highly produced, exceptional podcasts etc. It makes it very hard to stand out, in my opinion, right now. And the audience time is limited. TTRPG streams tend to be very long, requiring focus and attention. If someone only has 4-5 hours a week to watch content, and you’re up against these big budget/high production shows… it’s really tough even for us!

I guess my advice is really think about why you want to stream your TTRPG game? Do you think you’re going to be the next Critical Role? Or do you want to make a lot of money from it? Or get loads and loads of views? If those are the reasons, I think you need to reconsider it. I don’t think you’ll find the success you want and end up burnt out and disappointed. If, however, you have a story you need to tell, or you want to showcase diverse voices, or indie systems, or you just want to have something to help commit to playing weekly, and the numbers/views/subscribers will all be a lovely bonus on top? Those are great reasons to stream your game and I think you should!

6. What's been the proudest moment in your career so far?

Argh this is so hard! There’s so many amazing things we’ve done and been involved with…

I think I can’t pick between three things. Firstly, our two-shot with the BG3 cast. We were contacted by Larian themselves, and put in touch with Neil to make that happen. We got to introduce them to D&D first, before anyone else, just at the height of BG3’s popularity. They sat at our table and still talk about what a good experience it was. I’m so very proud of what we produced together. It was a bit chaotic, but I feel like we gave them a truly authentic D&D experience

Secondly, I think our Adelphi Theatre live show on the West End. The West End! We did a full house show to fans who travelled across the world to see us and be with us in that theatre. I got to go on a West End stage dressed as a sexy red dragon lady, with my friends and do a kickass show to 1500 people. It was a really special moment for all of us.

And lastly, more personally, I am so immensely proud of the amount of people we have helped discover themselves and find happiness. Through my own journey, which I’ve shared publicly, or through the broad and diverse range of characters and NPCs we’ve had. We have so many people come to us at conventions or events and say things like; “Thanks to you I figured out my sexuality, my gender, my identity” or just helped them keep going during a dark time in their life. I think that’s honestly one of the things that reminds me why I do this every day.

7. In today's world, making time for play and creativity seems more important than ever. How can we foster that and make it more accessible through TTRPGs?

It’s SO, so, important. For everyone’s mental health and happiness. I think we’ve reached a really great place with TTRPGs in the last ten years. There’s such a wider variety of games, genres, Actual Plays, and material now than there used to be. You can get games which are focused on queer identities, you can get casual games, solo games, hard systems, soft systems, OSR games, and so much more. And those things are getting highlighted and showcased to the community, even if there is still room to grow there, it is happening more and more.

Likewise, there are so many more tools for new Gamemasters/Dungeonmasters now. One-Shot Wonders by Roll and Play, Lazy DM’s resources, VTTS with built in modules/tokens etc. All this stuff just makes it easier for new GMs/DMs to start, and that’s often the biggest hurdle. Once folks get going, they get the practice and time they need to build those skills.

I think a key thing in the future will be offering games, actual play and tools which cater to different amounts of free time. Not everyone can manage a 3 hour campaign session these days. Having games/systems/streams that can be fun, functional and tell a good story in 1-2 hours is needed I think. Everyone’s time is so valuable now, I know mine is!

8. As a mainstay of the TTRPG industry for over 10 years, how has the TTRPG community changed since you first started out, and what would you like to see improve?

I think it’s both changed a lot, and also in some ways hasn’t changed at all. Or at least, from my perspective anyway.

Some folks would say it’s become more theatrical and focused on ROLEplay, with the rise and popularity of Critical Role, HighRollers, etc. But in my view, people have always played the game like that, or at least my groups did and my friends groups did. We loved the theatre of it, as well as the combat and the crunch, and would do voices and get emotional and have romances and all sorts. So I don’t think that has really changed so much as it is just more visible.

I think the biggest change is how much more diverse and accessible it has become. I see more women, more POCs, more queer, people playing these games publicly and visibly. I think there were always women/poc/queer players going back to the 80’s, but now I think they can be more vocal, and the products themselves are far more welcoming for groups outside of the ‘traditional’ market for these games. Is there still work to do there? Absolutely, but it’s vastly better than it was 10 years ago.

There’s now a group, or a system, for pretty much everyone. Want to play hardcore OSR, dungeon-crawler? There's a group and a game for that. Want to be in a ridiculously queer, dramatic, narrative-driven, game? There’s a group and a system for that. And that’s a good thing, because it means that if you don’t like the direction a company/publisher or system is going, you have so many great new options that might be more what you want. We’re spoiled for choice!

9. What role can creators and streamers play in developing a more welcoming and diverse TTRPG space?

My voice is only one voice in all this, and my opinions may not be perfect, but I genuinely think that visibility is the key to this.

When someone sees a Creator/Streamer on a TTRPG show that can represent them, that has meaning. When someone can see a trans woman DMing a popular D&D show, working with some of the biggest names in the biz, I think that has a lot of power. When someone can see a SE Asian player, embrace their heritage and incorporate parts of their culture into their character and the DMs world, and it is celebrated by the players, DM and audience… that has real power. Or a young woman can watch a D&D show and see a table that is 50% (well I guess 66% now, haha) women/femme presenting who are just as (if not more) capable than the guys, that has power.

It says; “This is okay. You are allowed to be here. This game is for you too.”

Those are specific examples for us, for me and HighRollers. I can’t speak for anyone else. But I think just us existing, and being a part of the community and industry really matters and has a big impact on many people over the last decade.

And a part of that is being supported, and included, by the publishers and big names in the business. Being featured by WOTC, or Modiphius, CR, etc also sends a powerful message.

So for creators and streamers, I think the key thing is to make your stuff. Put yourself out there. Start a YT channel, or an AP, or tiktok reviews, or whatever it is you want to do. It may not blow up or be a huge commercial success right away, but you will send a message to people like yourself and let them know they belong and that’s so important.

What’s out of creators and streamers hands, though, is that Publishers, and other big companies, need to include diverse creators and showcase them on their work. It’s no good just putting out a “Trans Lives Matter” post on social media, if they won’t invite a Trans player or DM to their shows/marketing events for fear of outrage/response from the hateful and the bigoted.

On the flip side, I do believe that these things need to be genuine and sincere as much as possible. Including someone you don’t have chemistry with, or don’t respect and value the opinions of, to tick a diversity box is no good. Visibility is important, but not at any cost because I think there can be harmful consequences (or just bad/uninspired results) from that. The BEST content/work out there is when it comes from a place of sincerity, of authenticity, of celebration and excitement.