Join us as we have a chat with Ryan of Grinning Portal Games and their upcoming projects!
Jared Biti: First off tell us a little about yourself?
Grinning Portal: Hi, I’m Ryan, I live in Portland Oregon with my wife and two dogs. I’m a web developer for my day job and I run Grinning Portal Games on the side. I love games of all types and I’m thrilled that I’m able to actually make them now. I’m lucky to have several talented friends who’re helping me with Serenity Springs. Excalibird is doing layout and the kitbashed imagery. Grant Brees, of Mossy Antler, is doing big picture editing and feedback. They’ve both helped with previous projects of mine like No Time For the Wicked, and they were both players in the campaign that inspired Serenity Springs. I didn’t originally intend to have a soundtrack for this project, but my friend Clayton Davis (https://www.youtube.com/@claytonthedavis) is interested in making ambient game soundtracks and was a great fit. Finally, Spagheggi joined up to illustrate the elements of the project that we couldn’t create through kitbashing.
J: When and how did you get started in tabletop games? What made you want to make content specifically for tabletop games?
GP: I started with 5E back in college in 2014, played in a few different campaigns over the following years, and started running it myself in mid 2018. I had a great time with that campaign and immediately knew I wanted to run more. Over the following years I ran a mixture of homebrew and pre-written content, and the deeper I got into the hobby the more I considered creating and selling my own work. I’ve always wanted to create games, and I found that the TTRPG space had a much lower barrier to entry than video or board games. I dipped my toe into creating TTRPG content in October 2024 when I published an adventure I had created for my homebrew Ravenloft campaign called No Time for the Wicked. I learned so much and had such a great time making that adventure that I knew I wanted to make more.
J: How did Grinning Portal Games come about? Where did the name “Grinning Portal Games“ come from?
GP: After deciding to make more TTRPG things I realized I needed a name to publish under. I thought about it for a few months combining and re-organizing a variety of words and concepts that I liked. I wanted it to be a mixture of goofy, sinister, and mysterious because those are all elements I draw on as a GM. Close contenders include: Peanutbutter Pentagram, Feral Dice, and Folklure (logo would include an anglerfish). As soon as I thought of the name “Grinning Portal” I could see the mascot in my head and it was perfect.
J: Now, for your current project, tell us about Serenity Springs. When will the Kickstarter launch? When can the backers expect delivery?
GP: The idea emerged from the same campaign that inspired No Time for the Wicked. That campaign sent the players through various Ravenloft domains of dread. Most of the domains in that campaign came from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but I wanted to also include my own homebrew, the black and white spooky 1950s suburb idea came to me almost immediately. The final product is not a domain of dread, but Ravenloft fans will definitely see the influence.
Serenity Springs is an endless suburb of identical houses full of emotionally repressed people in a world devoid of color. The citizens are perpetually tormented by The Hayze, a malevolent cloud of static that censors all violence and sexuality… and occasionally conjures inhuman monsters of every shape and size (deemed “Commies” by the populace). The realm came into existence as a personal purgatory for Dorothy “Dotty” Davis, a housewife whose obsession with perfection and conformity led her to commit some heinous crimes. She spends her time trying to win the Best Burb award, fighting Commies, and directing her army of identical G-men to keep everyone in check. Meanwhile she maintains a tenuous relationship with the Xiculans, Roswell style aliens with mysterious motivations that she’s unable to dispose of.
The Kickstarter launches March 31 and will go through the month of April. Most of the project will be done by the time the Kickstarter launches, the remaining tasks will just be incorporating some feedback and adding in whatever stretch goals are achieved. Backers can expect delivery of the PDF early June. Physical fulfillment will happen through DrivethruRPG and that’ll take a few months after to finalize proofs.
J: What can people expect when they have this supplement in their hands?
GP: The first section gives you everything you would expect from a setting guide: NPCs, factions, key locations, adventure prompts, etc. My favorite part of this section is “Oddities of Serenity Springs,” which explains some of the unusual things PCs will have to contend with like the lack of color, strange travel rules, The Hayze, and a sentient Swear Jar.
The mid section is devoted to the adventure “Freaks from Beyond the Hayze.” In it, the players are pulled into Serenity Springs while looking for Miriella Dusk, a missing paladin. The players track Miriella to the Xiculan’s UFO where they rescue her, but find her brainwashed by Dotty into thinking she is from Serenity Springs. From there the players have to figure out how to de-program Miriella and escape the realm. The adventure is for 3-5 5th level characters, takes 15-20 hours, and is easy to integrate into existing campaigns.
The final section is an appendix to support the other two sections. It includes over a dozen custom items like the G-Men’s Cognitizer and the Xiculans’ Jetpack. It also has stat blocks for the G-men, several Xiculan variants, and Dotty herself.
Throughout the document you’ll find custom maps, kitbashed artwork using old 1950s magazines, and suggestions for which part of the soundtrack to play for different factions and characters. The entire project is human made with no AI.
J: What can people expect coming into the website/social medias etc of Grinning Portal?(links to website/social medias)
GP: My website mostly exists as a hub for all of my TTRPG work since it’s scattered across several different sources, though I also use it to host the occasional blog. I built the site from scratch myself and deliberately went for a scrappy early 2000’s aesthetic. My main social media is Bluesky, where I’m regularly posting fun facts and inspiration about Serenity Springs
Website: https://grinningportalgames.com/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/grinningportal.bsky.social
J: What do you see as the future of Grinning Portal? Goals?
GP: The only goal I have is to create a polished portfolio that’s true to what I love and brings in a little money on the side. This loosely-defined goal allows me to follow my interest and keep the pressure low while ensuring that my work is high-quality enough that I feel comfortable selling it.
J: What projects are you planning after Serenity Springs? Any Teasers?
GP: I wrote an adventure involving The Bagman from Van Richten’s Guide that’ll be part of an upcoming anthology. Also, when I ran the aforementioned Ravenloft campaign I came up with some novel mechanics for a zombie siege that I’m considering expanding into a bigger project. I also want to write a big blog series on how to use Obsidian (my favorite notetaking app) for TTRPG management. It’s all pretty fluid though. Last fall, after running a Monster of the Week Campaign, I made several PBTA supplements that were not at all pre-planned.
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