Jobs In RPGs: Questions, Advice, Suggestions

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Alright, the purpose of this thread is for aid in those who wish to make it in the world of RPG's.

For instance, despite nearly 10 years of homebrewing I am nearly completely oblivious to how one would go about the publication of any of it.

Does anyone here know, or have connections to anyone who would know, how one would go about getting it published? This may be through existing companies, or how to go about beginning one of your own. All is welcome.

All useful information I will compile here. Frequently asked questions, financial advice, links to places where these questions may be better answers.

[snoopy13a]

You could try submitting it to game companies but the chances of that being successful are likely extremely small (considering how many unsolicitated submissions these companies must get).

I guess the best way to get your stuff published would be through grass-roots word of mouth. First of all, it would need to be original so that it is solely your intellectual property. Next, you'd have to set up some sort of website and attend different conventions trying to spread the word of your game. If your game is very good and appealing, there is a small chance that it could develop a cult interest. If enough people are interested, there's a chance you could attract a company or a private invenstor.

The chances of success are remote but I think your best option is through the grassroots.

[Wizard of the Coat]

I remember that you are dutch, forgive me if I'm wrong. I am too and fortunatly I've talked to some people in publishing and printing in our country (information to get my thesis printed). I'd love to help you out on the road to generate some lowlands roleplaying expertise. (send me a pm if interested)

The modern advantage of digital printing allows for the creation of small volumes with ease. In essence it hardly matters whether you print 1 or 1000 copies in terms of price (provided they don't charge you seperately for the layout) and the format What publishing companies will do is generate a small number of copies of books and distribute them, if it catches on the volume will increase and so on.

It depends greatly on wether you want to still use an existing publisher or if you are willing to take the leap and publish it yourself. In the first case it's a matter of finding the right publisher. In the second case what I could recommend is that you register with the KvK (chamber of commerce/ dutch: kamer van Koophandel), get a small volume printed and simply distribute them amongst the larger RPG hobby stores. If it sells you could get more orders etc...

[Lost Demiurge]

If you want to get your feet wet, and try it before committing a lot of effort and cash to actually publishing books, you might look into the online .pdf trade. A lot of indy game designers are getting use out of places like Lulu, rpgnow, and the like. And generating a .pdf is a lot less hassle than trying to get a physical book published. Mind you, you'll have to figure out how to generate interest and advertise your work to customers, if you really want sales.

If you do well enough there, then it's probably worth considering moving on to actual physical publishing.

[Dallas-Dakota]

I remember that you are dutch, forgive me if I'm wrong. I am too
I don't think Tribble is dutch, but you're both heartily invited to the next dutch meet-up.(you'l probably see a thread pop up before christmas)

[valadil]

One of my friends has been publishing his groups LARPs recently. They use an on demand printing service and sell the books at cost. From the site:



The on-demand publisher we use is lulu.com. We’ve been very happy with the quality of their books so far and would easily recommend them to anyone thinking of doing on-demand book publishing.


One of the books sells for $12.70 paperback or $25.20 hard cover. Another book is $5.80 paperback. I don't know why the paperbacks vary so much - maybe one is color and one isn't? At any rate, these seem like reasonable prices and you could probably tack a few bucks onto each book if you want to turn a profit.

I've also been working on an RPG system I'd like to one day publish. I have no intention to make money from it though. If I ever finish writing it my plan is to release free PDFs and sell books at cost. I'll probably even throw up an html version of the books on a site somewhere. Naturally there'll be a paypal button with a suggested donation :-) If I make any real money off of this project it'll be due to someone noticing this game and hiring me to write another (like that'll ever happen).

--

Tangent:

I have the basic rules ready for my game. Committing them to PDF is the part I'm working on now. I'm getting stuck with little things like details. I know how skills work, but I haven't figured out what skills to include. At some point in the near future I'm going to run a mechanics test with this system. Not a full game, just a few scenarios to see if a) the mechanics work and b) if the mechanics are fun. Probably just have some players fight each other. If that works out I'll flesh out the rules farther and write a proper beta test for my friends. If the beta test works, I'll run an anonymous beta test. The idea of that is that when I run games with my friends, rules always work as intended because the intendor is there running the game. In an anonymous test, all you've got is the rulebook. I'd like to make sure everything is clear and sensible for players who don't have me peering over their shoulders. This step will probably involve me posting pdfs on the playground and asking for feedback. I have no idea when it'll happen (I have to do all the planning I just mentioned, plus I have two other campaigns I'd like to run, plus I'm getting married in May, plus, plus, plus). So yeah. Sorry for the rant, but at least I prefaced it by announcing my tangent.

[golentan]

A friend of mine was able to get started by putting up PDFs for 5 bucks a pop, hosted on someone else's site. Since it was an effectively zero cost distribution system, it worked out okay. He didn't make enough to make a living of of that, but it made nice supplemental income and he was able to parlay it into getting hired by a larger company.

[potatocubed]

I used to work in the RPG industry (for Mongoose Publishing) - the way I got the job was by applying on the company's website, the same way you get other jobs. :smalltongue:

(I still do freelance work for them and others from time to time - writing, editing, layout, etc.)

Less flippantly, there are two ways in that I know of, which I will call the Indie way and the Established way.

Established
Well, the easiest way to work for an established RPG company is to apply for jobs with them. Not many advertise writer positions (for reasons I'll get into later) but if you're willing to work in the post room and move up you can get in that way. (That's what I did.)

An alternative to this is to do an unpaid internship - a friend of mine did one of these for White Wolf a few years back and got a whole load of writing work off the back of that.

Now, if you want to be a game designer and/or writer you're going to have to be a bit more oblique. This is because the RPG hobby is packed wall to wall with writers, most of whom are awful. Even if you just start counting the good ones you've got more writers than any company will ever need. So you need to prove yourself.

Homebrewing is an okay start and it gives you some good practice, but if you really want to be taken seriously you need to start acting like a serious writer. Hunt down all the open publishing opportunities there are - Dragon and Dungeon magazines, the freelance forum on RPGnet, Mongoose's own Signs and Portents magazine, Goodman Games accepts unsolicited proposals, and I'm sure there are others - and start writing to order. Read the submission guidelines, follow them, and see what happens. Do not start chasing the submission - the people who assess these things are usually chronically overworked and harassing them is a quick way to get your name blacklisted.

Exception! If you have completed a work for hire and the payment deadline has passed without any money coming your way, then you can start harassing. In fact, if you don't, you'll probably never get paid.

Anyway. It is through these media that your name will get noticed. Keep submitting quality stuff on a regular basis and the editor will remember your name. The next time the company's looking for a writer, they may contact you instead of the other way around. Mongoose hired at least one full-time writer this way, and I've got freelance work handed to me specifically off the back of previous work I've done.

Also: Once the people at the company know your name and what you're like, you might be able to pitch larger projects to them. Wizards doesn't work like this, but most smaller companies are at least willing to read a proposal.

Advice: If you're looking to get hired by company A, do not slag company A off on the internet. We read the same forums that you do, and we are not stupid. Also? Companies talk to each other. If you're an ass to one set of people, the whole industry will know within a few months.

More Advice: Be professional. Unless you are a super-genius RPG writer (there are some, but it's best to assume that you aren't one) it is your professionalism which will make you stand out from the crowd rather than the quality of your work. I've known less-than-great writers to get regular work because they can be depended upon to turn out adequate material on deadline every time.

If you're looking to get hired as an artist, that's actually a lot easier. Get a proper website (DeviantART will do in a pinch, but it smacks of amateurism), go to cons, and start showing your portfolio and handing out business cards. Make sure your card features a piece by you and is stunning, because when we get back to the office a week later, hungover and weary, that's what we're going to be looking at. We also respond better to unsolicited emails from artists than from writers, because we like looking at pretty pictures.

Art Advice: Learn to do cartography. Good RPG cartographers are very rare and unthinkably expensive.

Indie
Alternatively, you can try setting up your own RPG company and either using it as a springboard into something bigger or making your own fortune. I looked into this at one point and I can tell you that it's a HUGE amount of work and expense for very little - if any - reward. It's why I prefer freelance work, since I get to get paid for my creative efforts without having all the attendant baggage of running a company.

As a result, this section is shorter than the other one because I know a lot less about it.

Anyway, once you've got your material together PDF or print-on-demand publication is the most straightforward way to get started on this. It's not a living, and you're very unlikely to make it big as a result, but it can help if you apply for a job at an established company later on.

If you want to get something bigger going on, you're either going to need to set up a proper business (someone else can give you advice on that) OR you can use one of the 'half and half' schemes that currently exist. I'm going to explain Mongoose's 'Flaming Cobra' imprint, since I know how that one works, but there are other companies that do the same thing. Key20 is the only one I know of off the top of my head, but some internet digging will probably turn up a couple more.

Flaming Cobra works like this: You write your material, get the art sorted, make it into a print-ready pdf, and send a low-res readable version off to Mongoose. If they think it's okay they'll publish it. They print it, they keep it in their warehouse, they market it, they sell it at cons. No one makes any money until the printing costs are covered, and then all profits are split 50/50. You take no risk, you keep all your copyrights and IP, you just get a bit less money than you might otherwise.

Caveat
You will need a thick skin to work in the RPG business. Go and read a typical message board and imagine all that hate directed at you. Imagine these people coming up to you at conventions for no better reason than to give you a mouthful of abuse because they didn't like the last product your company released. (God forbid you turned them down for a job. That gets personal very quickly.) Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of fun to be had working for RPG companies, and doing your hobby as a job is a joy all of its own, but you need the confidence to brush off a lot of crap at the same time.

Also, never buy printers from Xerox.

[Trog]

RPGNow.com allows you to publish PDFs for sale. If you contact them about becoming a publisher they may send you an e-mail with how to get set up doing so. It's actually a fairly simple and (as far as I can tell) free process to do so.

I had that all set up but in the end chose to go with my own free distribution just because it was more of a "share my work" thing than a "make money" thing. Though I suppose I could still distribute though them for free if I so chose. Anyway, there's a link in my sig (click the picture in the spoiler) for more info on what I did if you are at all interested.

Good luck, man. :smallsmile:

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Ok, gonna look through the rest shortly but to clear up, nope, not Dutch. I'm a good ole south-eastern, half-cherokee, mountain man American.

[Wizard of the Coat]

Ok, gonna look through the rest shortly but to clear up, nope, not Dutch. I'm a good ole south-eastern, half-cherokee, mountain man American.

My apologies. I must have mixed you up with another member of this board. (the memory is several years old afterall).

Regardless I'm sure that the idea of a limited volume digitally printed would still apply