The Players
Stephen Glicker (owner of Roll For Combat and GM) first got into tabletop gaming after getting the Dungeons & Dragons “blue box” edition … which was so old it didn’t even come with dice! Instead, there was a piece of laminated paper with numbers ranging from 1 to 20. The player was instructed to carefully cut out the number chits, put them into a cup and whatever number was pulled from the cup was your “roll”. Despite this poor excuse for a d20, Stephen was instantly hooked.
In addition to tabletop gaming, Stephen began his career in computer games when he founded his first company during high school, Creative Simulations. Stephen published his first computer game Mall Maniacs for the Apple II computer system – which he also wrote, designed, and programmed – where players had to fight to survive in an apocalyptic future shopping mall filled with mutant creatures. It was a modest hit due to its “unique” premise.
After attending college, Stephen started the Manhattan-based full-service digital media agency SuperNova Productions. This award-winning, multi-million dollar company specialized in creating a large variety of projects for a wide variety of media, including web-based games, CD-ROM games, children’s games, cell phone games, and games for museums and galleries. Stephen has worked with some of the largest licenses in the world including Harry Potter, The Lion King, and Blue’s Clues, as well as many others.
Adventures: Agents of Edgewatch (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Agents of Edgewatch), Three Ring Adventure (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Extinction Curse), Tales from the Black Lodge, Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone, Starfinder Adventure Path: Dead Suns, Starfinder Society #1-04: Cries from the Drift, Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
Jason McDonald (Basil Blackfeather, Brixley Silverthorn and Tuttle Blacktail) first got into tabletop gaming in his early teens with friends from his local neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA – mostly Dungeons and Dragons and Top Secret, but after a few beers, he might admit to having played a session or two of Boot Hill.
As childhood gave way to college and beyond, tabletop RPGs gave way to the computer variety (particularly MMORPGs and the Baldur’s Gate/Neverwinter games), leaving a trail of various characters named “Jerryx” strewn across the digital landscape. Jason’s sweet spot is cloth casters and dual-wield rogues – because if you can’t stab stuff or set it on fire, what’s the point?
By day, he’s an IT guy for a local university; at night … well he was fighting crime dressed as a giant bat, but the cease-and-desist letter from DC’s lawyers kinda put a stop to that, so he went and had some kids and bought a PS4 instead.
Adventures: Agents of Edgewatch (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Agents of Edgewatch), Tales from the Black Lodge, Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone, Starfinder Adventure Path: Dead Suns, Starfinder Society #1-04: Cries from the Drift, Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
John Staats (Cadet Dougie McDougal and Maurice “Mo” Dupinski) was born in raised in Akron, Ohio, and has been a roleplay gamer since 1979. Using his art background, he’s authored over a dozen home-made adventures. His only break from roleplaying games was, oddly, during college, when he attended Kent State’s (#1 nationally-ranked) graphic design program for four years.
After school, he moved to NYC for a decade to pursue a career in design/advertising and adopted 3D level design as a hobby after discovering level editors for early FPS games. Originally, his only aspiration was to walk around in his own dungeons (which got boring quickly). He built a number of Capture the Flag levels for his Quake mod team, Loki’s Minions CTF and they earned him a job in the gaming industry, building dungeons for World of Warcraft. He built most of the game’s non-instanced dungeons and half of its instanced dungeons. After Vanilla WoW he designed dungeons for three more expansions.
John is the author of The World of Warcraft Diary, which you can read more about at https://whenitsready.com/wowdiary/.
Adventures: Agents of Edgewatch (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Agents of Edgewatch), Tales from the Black Lodge, Starfinder Adventure Path: Dead Suns, Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
Born and raised in Cleveland, OH, Bob Markee (Rusty Carter) was obviously very confused as a young man. Fortunately, when he was 11 or 12 his older brother brought home an original Basic Set of a new game called “Dungeons and Dragons” which seemed to make living in Cleveland a little less of a problem.
Since then he’s managed to escape from the Midwest for most, though not all, of his life. Some foolish people gave him a Masters in History and then he accidentally fell into an IT career because that’s totally what people do with an M.A. in History, right? It’s really very confusing but fortunately, Mr. Markee has found out they keep updating the rules to games like that original 1970s D&D, which has made living with the chaos of his professional life a little less of a problem.
Adventures: Starfinder Adventure Path: Dead Suns, Starfinder Society #1-04: Cries from the Drift, Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
Chris Beemer (Lo Mang and Hirogi) hails from Brooklyn, New York. He’s been a lifelong gamer over the years, spanning multiple different flavors of D&D as well as some more obscure RPGs. When he’s not gaming with the Roll For Combat group, he enjoys obsessing over his Warlock in World of Warcraft, and he’s never one to turn down a game of poker. He’s also a Mets fan, though “enjoys” may be the wrong word the last few months/years/decades.
Chris is also a huge fan of anything related to the Star Trek universe – anyone can have the TOS communicator sound as their ringtone, but Chris may even be willing to go to bat for Grand Nagus episodes of DS9. Don’t be surprised if we find some in-game reason to force him to sing the “Enterprise” theme song.
Adventures: Agents of Edgewatch (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Agents of Edgewatch), Tales from the Black Lodge, Starfinder Adventure Path: Dead Suns, Starfinder Society #1-04: Cries from the Drift, Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
Vanessa (Celes Karvasalon and Alhara Varus) has been creating games and adventures since she was 10 and raided the family board games for dice while using her vast LEGO collection for minis and locations. Her sojourn in TTRPGs properly began with the launch of D&D 3rd edition; she’s been playing and running games in evolutions of that system ever since.
Today, she has authored several Pathfinder and Starfinder Society scenarios including an interactive special. She’s also crafted adventures and encounters for multiple 3rd party publishers in addition to her devious player options appearing in both Paizo and 3rd party products.
When not writing, running, or playing role-playing games, she enjoys narrative-based video games, musical theatre, and spending time with her wife and their adorable cat.
Adventures: Three Ring Adventure (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Extinction Curse), Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone
Loren Sieg (Prue Frosthammer and Hap) has been writing and playing in tabletop RPGs since 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons. As both a GM and player, she pours heart and soul into producing new content and helping shape the way TTRPGs are experienced. She’s worked with companies including Paizo Inc., Legendary Games, Swords for Hire, and Encounter Table Publishing to publish material for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. On the Know Direction Network, she runs the Dear DovahQueen and Bend the Knee blogs and plays in the Adventurous and Stellar podcasts as Lily Campbell and Sam Hammich respectively.
When not knee-deep in character sheets and critical hits, Loren can likely be found studying Biology at Indiana University, doing research on marine ecosystems, or painting Warhammer 40k miniatures.
Adventures: Three Ring Adventure (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Extinction Curse), Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone
Rob Trimarco (Cade Thistlerot and Darius Varus) is a nerd native to New York and a lifelong gamer. He’s an avid fan of tabletop role-playing games, slow cooking meats, and turning his basement into a gamer’s Valhalla. He has been involved in many nerdy pursuits including running the Gotham Gaming Guild for NerdNYC and being president of the ENnie award-winning Pantheon Press.
When not playing tabletop games Rob can be found organizing the next time he will be playing a tabletop roleplaying game. That’s what he does! That’s ALL he does! You can’t stop him! He can’t be bargained with, he can’t be reasoned with he doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear and he absolutely will not stop!
Adventures: Three Ring Adventure (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Extinction Curse), Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone, Starfinder Society #1-04: Cries from the Drift, Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
Rob Pontious (Ateran) is a lover of TTRPGs starting way back with D&D 1st Ed and now Pathfinder and the World of Darkness. He DM/GM/Storytells more than he plays, but he loves crafting a story whether for a world or a character, enjoying the collaborative nature of the game. You may know him as a member of Order of the Amber Die, as a blogger for Know Direction’s Investing In article series, or maybe that tall guy you met at a convention.
Rob’s a resident of Rhode Island and a football fan, works in web commerce by day, and enjoys writing and gaming as a creative outlet. He’s a gamer of board games, video games (Dragon Age!), card games, and even done a little LARPing in his time. He’s also a GAYMER! He loves meeting new people and wants to celebrate them and their interests with a motto of work hard, play harder!
Adventures: Three Ring Adventure (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Extinction Curse)
Seth Lipton (Gomez) has been playing, and running games since the release of the Holms editions Basic Dungeons and Dragons boxed set in the late 70s. Since that time, he’s been involved as a player and GM in gaming organizations and private clubs, from organizing a local gaming convention in college, to later running games at local conventions, to GMing tournaments at Gen Con. His experience with all genres of RPGs is extensive, be it tabletop, online, video game & MOO, LARP, fantasy, science fiction, horror, tactical, story-based, rule-heavy, or diceless, but his first and true love has always been classic dungeon crawling quasi-medieval fantasy. He’s played every edition of Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder, and he still enjoys dungeon mastering his own versions of that first and most iconic dungeon adventure, which started it all, Basic Dungeons and Dragons Module B1: Search for the Unknown.
He also enjoys all of the entertainment and culture which owe their heritage to RPGS, being a fan of Isekai Anime, as well has fantasy genre video gaming, movies, and television. Name something that could involve a Dungeon and a Dragon, and it’s a fair bet you’ll find Seth Lipton there.
Adventures: Agents of Edgewatch (Pathfinder Adventure Path: Agents of Edgewatch), Tales from the Black Lodge.
Jason Keeley doesn’t really remember how he got here. He has always loved games but spent most of his life playing computer-based RPGs like Might & Magic and Bard’s Tale. One day, he got invited to participate in one of these tabletop games with a bunch of actors, writers, and Ren Faire folk… and the rest has all been a bit of a blur. Looking back, it seems as though he was the editor-in-chief of his own game company, Pantheon Press, which produced some d20 supplements and the ENnie-award-winning Tarot-based game called Fortune’s Fool. Somehow, he got hired on to Paizo as an editor and no one stopped him when he snuck over to a developer’s desk and started working on Starfinder. Now, he works every day on the Starfinder Adventure Path line. In his spare time, he does freelance writing and editing, as well as playing video games to keep in touch with his roots.
Adventures: Starfinder Society #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets
TSRodriguez has created the artwork for several Roll For Combat characters, including those found in the Pathfinder Adventure Path: Extinction Curse and the Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone. His artwork always astounds and will continue to illustrate future characters and adventures in the near future.
Champaign, IL based Rob Csiki has 30 years of professional experience as an artist, illustrator, graphic designer, creative director, and a dynamic artistic collaborator. He currently operates ChickyGeek Studio creating digital art for comics, film, television, toy companies, and video game developers.
Over the past 30+ years he has worked with various toy and hobby companies in the areas of: conceptual illustrator, screen print artist, packaging and product designer. During that time he has gained a great deal of knowledge and expertise in the fields of marketing, branding and product development. Some of the his clients have included: IDW Publishing, USAopoly, Loot Crate, Hasbro, Marvel, Estes, Revell, Racing Champions/ERTL, Maisto, Bburago, Nascar, Stombecker and Tootsie toys.
He is currently focused on using his experience and talents to create unique and highly desirable poster art for film and television. His work has been seen by the geek community on various social network outlets. Rob has also garnered the praise and excitement of a growing list people in the movie industry including: James Gunn, Chris Pratt, Paul Rudd, Peyton Reed, Ron Perlman, and Doug Jones.
Los Angeles-based Michael Gordon Shapiro composes for film, games, television, theater, and the concert hall. Classically trained, he delivers a romantic sound that blends the acoustic orchestra, evocative soloists, and organic-sounding electronics.
Michael’s background spans both film/television scoring and the more technical discipline of music for games. He entered the game world as audio director of Boston-based Zoesis Studios, where he composed live orchestral scores and designed the studio’s adaptive music system.
His feature film credits include Home Room (starring Erika Christensen, Victor Garber, and Busy Phillips), Against Time (starring Robert Loggia and with Craig T. Nelson), and a catalog of projects ranging from intimate documentary to over-the-top thriller. He contributes to top-tier production libraries such as APM and Extreme Music. His music has been used on such television shows as Nip/Tuck, Spongebob Squarepants, The Joe Schmo Show, Undercover Boss, and many others.