What Can Twelve People and Tabletop Games Teach a Distracted Culture?
The independent publisher behind Tales of the Valiant will appear in a forthcoming feature examining how collaborative storytelling builds literacy, teamwork, and community, and why the company staked its reputation on work made by people.
Kobold Press will be featured in a forthcoming segment of “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia,” a short-form documentary series distributed to Public Television stations nationwide. Filming is scheduled for September 19, 2026, at the production company’s Florida studio, where Kobold Press Chief Executive Officer Alexander Stangroom and Marketing Director Dot Steverson will travel to represent the twenty-year-old publisher.
The feature will examine how tabletop roleplaying games function as tools for reading comprehension, quick arithmetic, negotiation and improvisation, and why libraries, schools and community organizations have added them to their programming.
Founded on LiveJournal with a digital tip jar years before crowdfunding platforms existed, Kobold Press has published material for more than ten game systems, including the cozy animal adventure RiverBank and the card game Necromancer alongside fantasy staples such as Tome of Beasts and Tales of the Valiant. That variety is deliberate. The company argues that the hobby is far broader than any single title, and it maintains free entry points, among them a library game night resource program and starter kits, so newcomers can try a session without spending anything first.
“The whole team is thrilled to dive into the Kobold Press story with All Access. For more than 20 years, the kobolds have been driven by a love of games, storytelling, and the worldwide community that has grown around it. This is a wonderful opportunity to look at where we started, celebrate how far we’ve come, and provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the people and passion behind a small publisher like Kobold Press. It’s an honor to have this opportunity, and we can’t wait to invite viewers into our world.” – Wolfgang Baur, Kobold Press CEO
Creative industries are still working out where generative systems belong, and the debate has been sharp among illustrators, editors and game designers whose work trains those systems. In 2025 Kobold Press issued a public pledge committing to human authorship across its catalog and invited colleagues to sign on; hundreds did. The position is practical as much as philosophical. Readers of a monster manual are buying judgment, voice, and the particular decisions of a named artist. The company also declines to disparage competitors, holding that a larger, healthier field brings more players to more tables, which benefits publishers of every size.
Household entertainment budgets have tightened, and tabletop publishers feel that pressure alongside everyone else. The industry’s counterargument is durability. One hardcover book can occupy a group of friends for hundreds of hours, and staff at Kobold Press still play from books printed back in the 1980s, volumes now handed down to their own children. Very few forms of entertainment survive that long. The company hosts hundreds of organized play tables at Gen Con, sponsors the tabletop gaming track at Dragon Con, and runs Kobold Con, an annual online anniversary gathering with community games, product reveals and charitable donation matching.
The Story Continues
The story of Kobold Press is still being written—and now, more of it will be coming to the screen. The Kobold Press episode of All Access with Andy Garcia is expected to be available in early 2027 on public broadcasting channels and YouTube, offering viewers a closer look at the people, ideas, and passion behind Kobold Press.
Until then, Kobold Press will continue sharing behind-the-scenes footage from the filming, along with early glimpses of what’s to come. From the people around the table to the stories created around it, there’s plenty more to discover.
About “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia”: “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia” is an educational short-form documentary series airing on Public Television stations across the country. Each feature profiles organizations, institutions, and companies whose work carries broader instructional value, presenting their methods and their fields in accessible terms for a general audience. The series covers subjects ranging from healthcare and infrastructure to education, conservation and the arts. Additional information about the program, including previously produced features and submission details, is available at allaccessptv.com.
The post Kobold Press Answers on “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia” appeared first on Kobold Press.
Read more at this site