Game design and writing Colville first worked for
Last Unicorn Games. He stated that in 1997, he "started out in the tabletop industry working on the
Dune CCG & RPG" before he joined
Pandemic Studios where he "worked as a designer and then Lead Writer for [the video games]
Mercenaries 1 & 2". Colville was then the lead writer for the video game
Evolve (2015) when he worked for developer
Turtle Rock Studios. In 2024, Tyler Chancey of
TechRaptor commented that "Colville's influence in the TTRPG space cannot be understated", noting that Colville has contributed to "the CODA System
Star Trek RPG, the (now-discontinued)
Arcadia magazine, and multiple supplements for
D&D 3e". He
self-published the fantasy novels
Priest (2011) and its sequel
Thief (2014). In 2017, Colville started co-writing with
Matt Mercer on the
Critical Role comics line,
Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins, for
Dark Horse Comics. A hardcover collection of the first six issues was released in May 2018; the
trade paperback was then released in October 2019. In 2024, he contributed a
vignette in the book
Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons.
YouTube By 2014, Colville had been a
Dungeon Master for 28 years, and as a writer and game designer he shared tips on
Reddit "on how Dungeon Masters can best serve their players, their stories, and their games." Colville started the
YouTube series "Running the Game" in the 2010s; by 2018, his
YouTube channel had over 180,000 subscribers and on Twitter he had around 40,000 followers. Kym Buchanan of
PopMatters called Colville's "Running the Game" series "excellent" and said that "he tries to bolster expectancy among novice DMs. In so many (rapid fire) words, Colville encourages finding the sweet spot of facilitating anxiety." On his introductory videos on how to play
Dungeons & Dragons, William Herkewitz of
Popular Mechanics said, "Matt's amazing intro-to-D&D videos are lengthy, but they delve even deeper into the machinery of the game than I get to in this article." Academics Michael Duddy and Benjamin Rosnau, in their study on the impact of TTRPG-specific media on players, highlighted a reference to the positive influence of Colville's instructional videos.
MCDM Productions Colville launched a
Kickstarter in 2018 to publish a guide that would help players design strongholds and other features for a
Dungeons & Dragons game campaign. After seven days, his Kickstarter for
Strongholds & Followers raised over $1,000,000 USD, far exceeding its $50,000 goal. Colville became known as the "King of Kickstarter" after his success on this Kickstarter. This led Colville to found MCDM Productions in 2018, with
Strongholds & Followers as the company's first release. Colville is the
tabletop role-playing game design studio's Head of Writing and Design. Following the release of
Strongholds & Followers, MCDM Productions ran successful crowdfunding campaigns for additional
Dungeons & Dragons supplements such as
Kingdoms & Warfare,
Where Evil Lives, and
Flee, Mortals!. He ultimately earned $4.6 million to create this fantasy role-playing game. On the success of the crowdfunding campaign for the
MCDM RPG, Chase Carter of
Dicebreaker commented, "chalk up part of that windfall to Colville's career as a YouTube creator and 5E designer – he gained acclaim as the internet's favourite dungeon master by doling out advice on running D&D campaigns with a killer combination of approachability and wisdom usually only seen in community college adjuncts". The game was released on July 31, 2025 with two sourcebooks: "
Draw Steel Heroes for players and
Draw Steel Monsters for game masters". == References ==