Tanys Foster

My name is Tanys, I am a game developer and storyteller with more than 25 years of scenario design experience and over 100 scenario games designed, developed, and delivered. Game design and development has been a passion of mine for my entire life, with a focus on world building, scenarios, moral dilemmas, ensemble & solo character development, story arcs, and narrative structure.

I got my gamedev start in the 90s with engines like RPG Maker and Multimedia Fusion by Clickteam. I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in the early 00s, and I designed dozens of campaigns, adventures, and scenarios over a 15-year career as Dungeon Master. I wrote a public gamedev blog from 2011-2020 and wrote several million words on the subject of game design and development. I wrote an academic paper on TTRPG game design.

During my tenure as Dungeon Master, I ran scenarios for individuals and groups as large as 20 players, in both private and organized play capacity. I attended more than 30 conventions across the USA in a 5-year span, and served more than 200 hours as DM to hundreds of players from across the country. I ran games for the RPGA as part of their Mark of Heroes and Xen'drik Expeditions (2004-2008) living campaigns. I helped organize a TTG convention in SLC in 2014 called Tablecon.

I was employed in accounting and worked as a bookkeeper for 8 years before I returned to school to pursue an MBA. Following one fateful programming course, I changed majors and graduated in 2019 with my BS in Computer Science. I worked as a software developer for several Utah-based startups until the beginning of the Tech Layoffs of '22.

While I was born and spent the first twenty years of my life in Southern California, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in 2006 where I met my wife, a proud Arizonan. We live together in SLC with our 3 children.