Who are you and where are you from?
I'm Griffin Macaulay, or griffmac on most platforms. I'm a South Eastern Pennsylvania resident and have been for most of my life, although I've tried to find a place I like better.

When did you first discover roleplaying games?
My father was also a big time RPG guy and was working on making bugfixes for M&M6, 7, and 8, and I'd watch him delve through dungeons, take notes on a piece of paper, and then fix some improperly placed 0's and 1's (yeah, really) in notepad to fix issues that he found. He still runs the same online forums for those games that he did back then, too.
RPGs on a personal level started in '98 with Pokemon Blue. Totally caught me up in the love of leveling systems and tactical turn-based combat. The kind of dungeon crawling in video games isn't my favorite - I get spooked easily - but the kind of serendipitous RPG games like Pokemon or Final Fantasy really excited me.
I was toying with the idea of playing D&D at virtually the exact same time that Critical Role Season 1 first started. It was on my mind, and after a chance night-time perusal of Twitch introduced me to CR (episode 13), I was sold. I knew I wanted to play. These people were having such a good time of it, and it was 100% up my alley. A friend also, coincidentally, wanted to start DM'ing, so it was just a series of really convenient opportunities for me to get excited about the game.

What is your artistic/graphic design background?
I graduated from college with an BFA in Communication Design, which was our school's Graphic Design program. It was a lot more than that, though, and included subclasses, if you will, of Interactive Design, Advertising, Illustration, and Graphic Design. I wound up taking ID, IL, and GD all the way through my 9th semester. Ad was fun, but similar enough for the courses in GD without prepping me for a world of high turnover and constant over-stress. I didn't want to be a part of the ad world, although I had a pretty good head for it. I had an extra semester in school because I didn't take credits for my internships since I found them myself, so I was 10 credits short in the spring of '12. Fall of '12 was a ton of illustration classes with a few independent studies and typography classes. Lot of fun.
I freelanced for a couple years, hated it, got a job as a contract email designer for QVC, hated it (they didn't like my overzealous spirit, either), was fired for asking for a standing desk, got a job at a smaller marketing agency, which was okay with subpar management, and then was brought on to my dream job/company at a local studio doing work for large entertainment companies like NatGeo and History and Nickelodeon. Some of our clients were bought out, their structures changed, which put my job in jeopardy because of the sudden lack of work. We had 14 people in the office, but had to cull it to 7. I was the 8th. It was really hard, and honestly heart-breaking. I freelanced again for about 10 months, supplementing it with unemployment and savings, and got a job in a design role for a consultation company's R&D tech division. It was honestly soul-sucking, and in the end I was too frustrated with the company's direction that, as of tomorrow, I no longer work there. It's stressful, but with more freelance opportunities and the Saddlebag supporting me and my partner, I think we'll be okay if I really focus a lot of energy on the Saddlebag this year. It's kind of a make or break moment for us. My folks run their own business, and they do it for the love of the practice, which I think has really taken root in me, too.

What is your best RPG experience?
Any of the times when the table was wheezing from laughter or in stunned silence at a BBEG reveal. I have a different appreciation for it now that I DM my local game. Now my favorite moments are when I see a player at my table have heroic moments of character development or bravery, or when they're all watching me with intensity as I describe a scene or act out an NPC. I recently threw some real nasty encounters at the party, which they narrowly overcame (felt good to watch), and then when I got to give them Saddlebag spoils as a reward, that was doubly satisfying.

What is your worst RPG experience?
Tantrums and metagaming / rule lawyering. I think we all know the kind of fits that happen when someone's too attached to their character and can't accept when they die. It's not like "you lose," which I think is what it's heard as, but it just puts a real downer on the mood and energy of the table. If one of my characters dies, I get to play a new character, and that's pretty cool. So yeah, my least favorite experiences are when the actions of one person real sour it for the rest.

How did you get started making magic items?
I had an old DM and now a player in my game over, Mike. We had some drinks and had been goofing around playing Dark Souls and watching a movie when I just went full nerd and said, "Hey, wanna make some D&D items?" That was when the Thunderous Flail, Dagger of the Ogre Mage, and Chromacloth came into being. I started drawing them, had fun, and did it as a fun thing every few days for either my own imaginary items or for IADnDMN's Discord server. Eventually I thought I'd post them to reddit and instagram, and my partner said I should do it every day if I wanted to build an audience. I suddenly had an end goal of making a book, which is what we're aiming for at the end of this year, and making an item every day would get me to that finish line and improve my illustration skills. I already had a little experience making homebrew subclasses with friends, but making items every day has really polished my head for balance I think.

How do you create a magic item?
I'll often think about cool things in the real world and extrapolate from there. Or I'll go through the weapon or armor tables, making sure to consider frequently overlooked things, and think about what it'd be like to hold or wear them and what kind of gameplay that'd compliment. From there it's all about stretching out ideas. Sometimes I'll start with spells instead and work backwards, especially with very specific spells. For example, the Trident of the Hydra from yesterday was me thinking about how a trident was just like three spears taped together, so I made a trident that split apart. My professional history involves a lot of rapid ideation for creative problem solving, and I rely on that a lot when taking a small idea and running with it. I also have to make sure that they're in the SRD, too, if I want to publish them. Some items are suggested by patrons on the Saddlebag Discord, too. We always make sure to workshop them and polish their mechanics and language first. For example, the Staff of the Four Seasons was a suggestion, but needed some spell selection balance and adjustments to fit in the SRD's limitations.

How do you ensure balance?
I think of them in terms of a point balance. Like, if you have a +1 bonus on a weapon, make that worth a point. If you also have it let you cast a small spell, maybe that's worth another point. Points can change depending on the nitty gritty of these things, too. If you have an item that lets you cast fireball with a save DC of 14, that's worth fewer "points" than if it were fireball cast at fourth level with a save DC of 16. And based on the rarity you're going for, including if it's going to require attunement or not, you have a pretty decent idea of how many "points" you can give an item for it to fit that rarity.

Out of all the magic items you’ve created, which ones are your favorite?
I definitely do have favorites. They're mostly the ones that I feel that are paired with neat mechanics *and* art that I'm particularly happy with, even weeks or months later. I'm at over a hundred items now, so there are several! My favorites are, chronologically, the Storm thrower harpoon, fourarm bracers (back-to-back items), the Singing Stein, Timber, Ironleaf Maul of Entanglement, Frozen Dagger (another back-to-back series), Ether Spear, Splintershot, Staff of the Four Seasons, Silver Eagle Weapons, Spirit Pike, and the Fire Dervish Cloak.

How does fan feedback affect your development decisions?
I love balance feedback. There are so many passionate people in this game and nerd space that know way more than I do, and when someone asks for clarification on wording or suggests a way to improve an item to better match its rarity, I'm always 100% ears. The goal of the Saddlebag is to make items that are flavorful and mechanically balanced such that DMs and players don't even realize or mind that it's homebrew content. Homebrew can potentially destroy game balance, and I never want an item to do that. I'm about accessibility to tables and helping players and DM's make more meaningful and memorable encounters and characters through unique items.
Most the time I don't get much artistic feedback, and when I do it's always a good catch. That normally happens on Discord, though, since those folks see things first. The Phase Axe was a completely different color scheme when I first posted it, and the Dawnstar that was posted today needed to have its spiky head cleared up this morning before I posted it because it was too bright.

What advice can you give to aspiring item creators?
Make stuff you're proud of. That's the advice I give anyone, really, but it's so important. If you're proud of something, you want it to be as good as it possibly can be, which removes the stress of being overprotective of something. If you really want something to be great, and worthy of your pride and the love you've put into it, you'll always be open to suggestions on how to make it better. On a more mechanical level, refer to the DMG constantly for wording and balancing.

Let’s make an impromptu magic item right now based on out podcast name: Vox Arcana.
Vox means voice, and we all know what arcana is. A lot of spells use verbal components, so let's say that this Vox Arcana is a pendant that rests around your neck that can speak or replace the verbal arcane components for you when you can't or don't want to speak. We also need a limit on it in some way, whether by number of uses or by the types of things it can be used for.
"This magical ruby pendant can record and channel the words or sounds you use when casting spells. The pendant has 4 charges and regains 1d4 expended charges each day at dawn. When you cast a spell using an action, bonus action, or reaction that also requires a verbal component, you can expend one of the pendant's charges (no action required) to cause the ruby to glow with a dim red light as it listens to the spell's verbal component. For the next eight hours, whenever you cast the recorded spell, you do not need to provide the verbal components when casting it."

Call it either simply "Vox Arcana", or "The Vox Arcana" if it should be one-of-a-kind, or a bit more fantasy with "Amulet of the Vox Arcana".

This is a pretty flexible item, but is limited by charges. Because the charge is 1d4 and not a 1d3+1, there will be days when you only regain 1 point, which can be a drag. But that helps keep the rarity lower, too. This definitely needs attunement because it's using charges and needs to channel the magic from the caster, too. Attunement on a thing makes it worthy of more "points" from earlier, too, since it has to be worthy of a character's precious 3 attunement slots. I've been making a lot of rare things lately that require attunement, but this probably right in that zone, too, because of the limited number charges and the limited 8 hour duration. You could introduce this to a wizard after 5th level, which is about when rare items start making an appearance anyway according to the WotC literature in the DMG and XGtE.