Interview with Jon of Tale of the Manticore

Procedural stories are, I believe, the most exciting kind of stories. Instead of wondering "How will the protagonists win?" We instead ask "Will the protagonists win??" And this makes all the difference.

An interview with Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore, an adventure solo play podcast. Latest in series of solo gaming interviews.

Disclosure - I'm a DriveThru RPG affiliate.

Chat with Jon of Tale of the Manticore

Jon Cohen is the creator of Tale of the Manticore (blog link), an adventure actual play Podcast using Old School D&D, currently in its third season. And has published a few items on DriveThruRPG.

We have favourite character of the show, challenges & highlights of TotM, other adventure actual play podcasts, managing voice actors and the Pendulum world building tool. Among other questions.

What was your gaming story before starting Tale of the Manticore?

I was a kid playing D&D during the Satanic Panic in the 80s.

The stigma around D&D was very negative back then, and it beat me in the end: I abandoned the hobby in exchange for a social life and girlfriends when I was a senior in highschool.

I didn't come back until three decades later!

How did Tale of the Manticore come into being?

During my 30 year break from rpgs, I got my fantasy fix through media (games, books, etc) and eventually discovered the world of podcasts. Two shows changed my life: The Adventure Zone (Balance Arc) and The Iron Realm.

The former showed me that audio drama could be very powerful, emotionally; the latter provided the seed for the weirdly mashed-up style of TOTM. It also introduced me to solo play (which, before then, I would have pooh-poohed as weird and impossible, tbh).

Which have been your favourite characters and moments in Tale of the Manticore?

This is like a Sophie's Choice question. How to choose among my babies??

I have enjoyed all of them for different reasons, but there's something about Aradine in Season 1 that breaks my heart a little, and I love that. She has a real arc, and her moral ambiguity in the beginning is justified.

For NPCs, I think I'd have to choose Sov Merrimon (again from S1) who is voiced by YUM DM. Sov also undergoes a metamorphosis, though in his case it's literal.

What have been the challenges and highlights of creating the podcast?

Highs and lows have been legion.

At first, I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't have a mentor, so everything was a challenge (how to record well, how to find a host site, how to do character voices, how to promote... these were all big learning curves).

Highlights have been many as well: watching the show grow; having Professor DM, Trevor Devall and Runehammer doing guest voices; having Ed Greenwood do my S3 intro; getting invited to several cons as a speaker; and - perhaps most of all - having people write to me to say they were inspired to play, write, or create something.

What could be better than inspiring other people to do something new?

What other podcasts are "Adventure Actual Plays" and how do you see this space developing?

This is really exciting for me because it feels like there's a scene coming up.

Over the last few years, there have been: Legend of the Bones (interview here), Echoes of Eshaton, Swords Against Madness, Stories From the First Watch, Tales From the Fireside, The Lone Adventurer (interview here), Errant Adventures (interview here), A Wasteland Story, and The Chronicles of Nephes...

That's just to name some of them. There are other up & comers, and some that are not hybrid style, but do take their cues from solo gaming, like Soul Operator (where the game is behind the curtain and the narrative fills the space entirely).

What's the secret to managing a cast of voice actors for characters which can perish in a die roll?

The managing part is harder than the mortality part :)

With volunteer actors, I need to provide a reasonable 'turnaround' time when I send scripts out. Also, occasionally people will 'no show' and then it's necessary to scramble for a new actor.

The fix is to have a big buffer of at least four episodes in the bank; this solves for all the uncertainties and allows for a predictable and regular release schedule.

As for character morality, by far, most voice actors are invited to do a cameo appearance. These 'one-and-done' roles are perfect for folks who dig the show but don't have time to commit to months and months of script reads.

When I do offer a long term role to an actor, I always have experience working with them and I know they are reliable. There's always a conversation about potential character death, but they know the show and they know what they're getting into.

What's the story behind Pendulum and any advice for using it?

In Season 1, I did the 'blank page' method of world building. The method works very well (using it in S3, in fact) but for S2 I wanted an urban setting and knew that style of small-to-big design would cause me to paint myself into corners in the narrative.

I wanted a scaffold of a city's history so I could avoid continuity-error-anxiety. That's why I made Pendulum - as a tool for my personal use. Once it existed, I figured "Why not release it?".

Advice for using it: be very brief in responding to prompts. Even the express version takes a few hours to go through. This is not a one shot kind of product... it might take days or weeks to finish.

Also, don't be afraid to break the rules or go back and make edits if it helps the finished history work better for you. It's just a creative writing prompt, after all. (Pendulum just became a Gold Best Seller on DTRPG, btw... very exciting!)

(Pendulum was used in an actual play for Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e)

What are your next big projects that you can talk about

I have another product out there called One Shot in the Dark. It's the first thing I ever put out into the world to sell. At some point I thought: "If this little guy ever reaches Platinum Best Seller status, I'll make an expansion module."

Just this last month I have started work on the expansion as it looks like I will hit that success milestone in the next month or two.

Aside from that, I have a couple of bonus episode ideas cooking right now that I think fans of the genre will enjoy.

Where can people find you online?

I can be found on Insta (Taleofthemanticorepodcast), X (ManticoreTale), Bluesky (taleofthemanticore.bsky.social), and email (taleofthemanticore@gmail.com). I truly enjoy interacting with listeners and I always reply.

Is there anything else you would like to talk about?

I'd like to say thanks for the interview and also to encourage anyone who is interested in making something out of their soloplay (a blog, a pod, a novel...) to do it.