I live in Utah with my amazing wife, Alysia, our beautiful daughter, Lark, and our neurotic beagle, Charlie, in a house full of books, movies, and games.

MartinRalya.com is my online hub — an easy way to check out my published work, get in touch, and see what I’m up to.

Publishing

In 2009, I started a small-press publishing company, Engine Publishing.

Our first product, Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters, was written by the authors of Gnome Stew. It’s currently available in print and PDF in our online store.

Engine Publishing products, starting with Eureka, are distributed to retail game stores by Studio 2 Publishing.

Blogging

I started gaming in 1987, and I’m passionate about game mastering (GMing). I’ve been writing GMing articles online since 2005, and have written close to 1,000 to date. Together, my two for-profit blogs represent an informal portfolio of my work.

I run and contribute to Gnome Stew, the most widely read game mastering blog on the planet (with over 1,000 daily visitors and 3,700 RSS readers). Along with a team of other authors and veteran GMs, I publish new GMing articles on the Stew every month; together, we’ve posted over 700 articles since May 2008. (See all of my articles.)

From 2005 to 2007, I ran and authored Treasure Tables, my first GMing blog. Although I no longer update TT, over 750 GMing articles articles are available in the site’s archives.

Awards

Gnome Stew won a GenCon EN World RPG Award (an “ENnie”) for Best Blog in 2010.

My work has also been nominated for two previous ENnies: Treasure Tables was nominated for Best Fan Site in 2007, and Bits of the Wilderness: Into the Open (to which I contributed) was nominated for Best Electronic Book in 2006.

Published Work — Engine Publishing

Engine Publishing’s first product, Eureka, was an ambitious venture: Running 312 pages, released in both print and PDF, and created by a team of 19 people, it took us a year to produce.

Game designer and RPG industry veteran Wolfgang Baur said this about it in his Kobold Quarterly review: “Much more than a simple book of plots, Eureka! stands as one of those essential tools that GMs and game designers will find themselves reaching for again and again.”

• Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters | Lead designer, developer, contributing author (23,000 words), lead editor (214,000 words) (2010)

Published Work — Freelance

I’ve been a freelance writer for the RPG industry since 2004, with 25 published credits and roughly 90,000 words in print (not counting Eureka, above). I’m experienced at writing both rules material and descriptive text, and I’ve worked in a variety of genres and to a wide range of specifications. I have never missed a deadline.

My freelance work has included a section of the GMing chapter in Twilight: 2013, player-oriented material for Dragon Magazine, a setting chapter for Goodman Games’ DragonMech line, system-neutral material for Tabletop Adventures, game mechanics for E.N. Publishing, adventure seeds for Expeditious Retreat Press, and more.

Paizo Publishing

• Dragon Magazine #345, “Excursion: Four Ways to Travel the World” | Author, 4,000 words (2006, print)

Goodman Games

• Almanac of the Endless Traders | Contributing author, 10,000 words (2006, PDF)

Necromancer Games

• The Mother of All Treasure Tables | Contributing author, 11,000 words (2006, print)

Tabletop Adventures

• Destinations: Charon’s Wall | Author, 4,200 words (2009, PDF)
• Derelict Starships | Contributing author, 125 words (2009, print)
• Destinations: Spaceport Black Orchard | Author, 4,400 words (2007, PDF)
• Destinations: Repair Station 7-Osiris | Author, 11,000 words (2006, PDF)
• Destinations: Spaceport Trident Vespa | Author, 4,300 words (2006, PDF)
• Bits of Darkness: Dungeons II | Contributing author, 1,900 words (2006, print)
• Bits of the Wilderness: Into the Open | Contributing author, 1,500 words (2006, PDF)
• Bits of the Boulevard | Contributing author, 2,000 words (2005, print)
• Bits of the Wilderness: Into the Swamp | Contributing author, 1,000 words (2005, PDF)
• Bits of the Wilderness: Into the Wildwood | Contributing author, 1,000 words (2005, PDF)

93 Games Studio

• Twilight: 2013 | Contributing author, 6,000 words (2009, print)

Open Game Table

• Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 2 | Contributing author, 2,600 words (2010, print)
• Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1 | Contributing author, 700 words (2009, print)

E.N. Publishing

• E.N. Guilds: Messengers’ Guild | Author, 13,000 words (2006, PDF)
• EN World Gamer #2, “Sold! A Little System for Selling Magic Items” | Author, 2,000 words (2005, print)

Alea Publishing Group

• Poor Gamer’s Almanac #5, “Three Games of Chance” | Author, 2,000 words (2005, PDF)

Expeditious Retreat Press

• Seeds: Post-Apocalyptic V | Contributing author, 400 words (2006, PDF)
• Seeds: Horror IV | Contributing author, 500 words (2005, PDF)
• Seeds: Pulp IV | Contributing author, 600 words (2005, PDF)
• Seeds: Horror III | Contributing author, 250 words (2005, PDF)
• Seeds: Fantasy IV | Contributing author, 250 words (2004, PDF)

Mad Kaiser Games

• Nightmarket: Games of Chance | Co-author, 4,800 words (2004, PDF)

Other Work

Over the years, I’ve also accumulated some oddball credits that don’t really fit the list above, including:

• The Scroll #2, “Arcane Wizardry” (Sage Lore Productions) | Author, 1,400 words (1990, print) — This was my first published work, written when I was 13. The Scroll was a small-press gaming magazine that ran for a couple of years in the early ’90s.
• 40 Years of GenCon (Atlas Games) | Contributing photographer, 3 photos (2007, print) — I love GenCon, and I was thrilled to have my photos published in this book. You can find them on pages 115, 145, and 156.
• Adventure Burner (Burning Wheel) | NPC (2010, print) — I’ve played in Luke’s GenCon events for years, and sometime around 2008 he made me a character in one of his demo scenarios; I then wound up in the Adventure Burner as Marten Rayla, Wojt of Hochen.