[Musings of a Game Store Owner] GGP: Kickin' It

I am interested in learning to ride a motorcycle. My local university offers a free rider's class that teaches you to ride, and if you pass the class, you can get your Class M license without having to take the test at the dreaded DMV. Several of my friends have taken the class and were offering me various bits of advice in the case that I take the class. Apparently they teach you on small bikes, and some of them are tricky to get started. A buddy of mine was saying that on these little bikes, it is totally ok to STOMP on the gas to get going.

That same idea is behind Kickstarter.

Can't get started? Need a little help? Kickstarter is the answer for many folks.




Kickstarter is a lot like passing the hat, but with a promise attached to the contents. You think up your idea, you come up with a great pitch, you ask your friends, relatives, neighbors and so forth to support it, and then ask them to tell THEIR friends, relatives, neighbors and so forth in hopes that they support you, too. Of course you have a goal for the amount you want to raise, and if your supporters promise that many dollars, you're in business. If you can't get enough support and don't hit your goal, no one is out any cash and you have to figure out another way to get some money.

Kickstarter is almost entirely dependent on social media to work. Facebook is an embedded program, and Kickstarter encourages you very heavily to sign up using your FB log in, and to share when you back a project. Kickstarted did not forget Twitter as a way to get the word out. You can also tweet to your followers about projects using shortened links, and encourage them to check out the goods as well.

If the idea is popular, innovative, novel, or just plain "cool", the hope is that your friends will click, check it out and share as well- and continue to do so until the project has gone fully "viral".

That's the idea.

Like all ideas, how things really work is often completely different. There are plus sides, and not-so-plus sides. There are glitches and there are great successes.

On the positive side, when something works, it REALLY works. Examples like Reaper, Redshirts, Get Bit! , Numenera and  Glory To Rome  show just how effective Kickstarter can be as a source for funding. It's also a way to get your project known and even helps develop a market for you to sell to once you have a finished product.

The ones that don't succeed? Well, you don't hear about them.

Kickstarter has some distinct positives as a funding venue:

It's easy.  Anyone with an internet connection and an idea can put a product onto Kickstarter for backing. There are no barriers and no "it's who you know" kinds of standards.

You don't need a finished prototype. If you have an idea for a miniatures game, but can't bust out the funds to mold and cast them, you're not totally boned. You can pitch with your rules and sketches of what the miniatures might look like and still be in business.

You can reach a wide audience very quickly. The extreme nature of the social media build-in for Kickstarter means that if someone with a lot of friends or followers shares your idea, you can be pitching to literally thousands of people overnight rather than just the 20 dudes you play poker with.

Rewards. You can offer cool and innovative goodies to folks that promise you money- and make the goodies get better as folks offer more money. PBS used this model for years and it worked, so why not do the same and get people fired up about your idea?

Kickstarter also has some very real downsides:

It's easy. You think the independent game designers are the only ones that have figured out that using Kickstarter is a way to get money? Sorry to burst your bubble, but as seen above, Reaper hit it BIG with Kickstarter. Guys like Steve Jackson Games and Monte Cook have also tapped into this super easy fundraising avenue, and come away with a lot of money. Trying to compete with those big guys and their slick, highly produced pitches can be exceptionally frustrating for a small scale operation.

It's easy, Part 2. Good production and a great pitch are some of the most fundamental elements of a successful Kickstarter project. Not everyone on there has those, and it's terribly obvious that they're not ready yet.  Badly hand drawn sketches and "I can haz moneez nao?" pitches can make Kickstarter projects look like a risk far too often. This "not ready for the big leagues" kind of assumption can bleed over onto serious, well thought out projects very easily.


You don't need a finished prototype.  If you have a great miniatures game idea, but no clue how to render, sculpt, cast or mold; you might have a problem. It's fine to pitch when your idea is still in the "planning stages"; but undone projects can make your backers very antsy. All it takes is ONE guy or gal that feels burned and delays, problems or just plain logistics that are legitimate reasons to be behind schedule can turn into the "flake" label very quickly.

There's no enforcement. Promises are only good if they are kept, and Kickstarter doesn't have any enforcement in place for those that take the money and run. It's entirely up to the folks behind the projects to actually hold up their end of the promisory deal, making many very leery of investing as freely as they might in other venues.

Rewards.  It's not good enough to have a great product, superb pitch and excellent supply chain awareness. No, on top of that. you have to lure potential backers to your idea with bonuses based on level of support. "Lame" rewards mean you won't get backed, and too many "pay to play" options burn your options for support as well.

The "Popularity" Problem.  This is where the clique-y "who do you  know" portion of   networking comes out. The more popular, well-read and well followed folks you know are higher on the tree of low hanging fruit. You start to gamble with what connections (direct or not) you can make to benefit your exposure, and the real honest to goodness connections you once had can up and disappear.

We've talked about a lot of the ups and downs of this particular avenue. But what is a Kickstarter project experience really like? I decided to find out. I got a lot of information for you guys and gals- so much that it deserves its own post.

Next week, I talk in depth with Matthew Sears, Mike Bohlman, and our very own Dethtron about the actual process and results of stomping on the gas, and whether their motorcycles are still running.

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[Musings of a Game Store Owner] GGP: Go Your Own Way

Making your designs appear in someone's FLGS is more work than a lot of people know. We previously talked about third party publishing and all the concerns that go with that avenue.

What happens when you don't trust a third party to convey your idea properly? Or there aren't vendors interested in your idea? Or you just got locked out from those avenues?

Maybe there's another way- maybe you can do something your way- with the style, substance and scale you want. 

Maybe you can do it yourself! 

You're already doing a lot of the work yourself any way; why not self-publish, too?

Self publishing isn't just as easy as writing your idea down and printing it out of your laser printer. There are a lot of challenges that come with going it on your own. 

I asked Ed Healey, Co-Creator of Eden Studios (Conspiracy X, All Flesh Must Be Eaten) about his experience starting in the industry. 

Can you tell me how you started Eden Studios? Did you have partners or

products lined up before opening? What challenges did you face?

Eden was formed when Alex Jurkat and I put in money and George Vasilakos brought in Conspiracy X. The game was originally released by New Millennium Entertainment, which was about to implode, so we rescued those adorable alien invaders so they could live to abduct another day. Our first ConX release as Eden Studios was Cryptozoology.

I actually wrote a short version of the Eden story back in '07 on my blog: http://ephealy.com/2007/07/04/happy-birthday-eden-studios/

Challenges? Well, we had a game that was selling well. We had in-house line development (Alex) and art/design (George). I managed the books, keeping those guys clear to create. What we didn't have was a huge bank account, so cash flow was a big deal.

It's the issue publishers have today. How do they judge demand so they print enough copies to sell through quickly to maximize profits. The temptation is always to print too many because you get discounts (which translate into profits), but the flip side of warehousing that extra product is that that product could be cash in your account.

Cash is king. Without cash flow, you can't pay bills, and you can't take advantage of opportunities, and you could be dead in the water when the economy tanks (*look around*) and vendors stop paying their bills to you.

Ed's not the only one that had experiences to share.

Matthew Sears of Hyacinth Games was kind enough to spend some time talking about the process. 

I'm very interested to hear about what led you to designing your own games.

I was drawn to the project primarily as a creative outlet, after a long conversation with Anton two years ago about the kind of games we would like to play that don't quite exist. Brian already has a history of game design with Killzone, but he was interested in working on something that he could call his own and joined up shortly after we started taking this seriously.

Outside of your Kickstarter, how did you go about funding? 

Other than Kickstarter we are primarily self funded, although we have been lucky enough to get some distribution for our miniatures that lightens that burden a little bit. Both Anton and I have some background in DIY record labels, and there is a remarkable amount of similarity with pressing vinyl and casting pewter. That experience has helped us stretch the dollars we have quite a bit, but that isn't to say we wouldn't be adverse to an investor or two jumping in the mix ha ha.

The fact that Brian is a killer editor and Anton can perform magic in photoshop gives us a leg up as well. When those tasks can be taken care of in house you  have more control of the product every step of the way, not to mention freelancers can be expensive! Right now we only have artists, sculptors and a few writers on the team outside of our core trio.

What have your found most surprising and most interesting in your process?

I would say the exposure and positive feedback we have gotten so far, and do quickly with so little shown, is what surprises me. The amount of people offering to help out in some capacity has been pretty shocking, we have even had to turn a few people down for the time being! We seem to draw some of the best kinds of gamers, and the fact that some of them have run demos at their LGS, helped us market the Kickstarter, even edit a video or two for us has been great. I think I made five good friends at Adepticon this past year, all because of their initial interest in our little game.

How did you find artists and sculptors? 

At first artists and sculptors were difficult to come across and we spent a lot of time perusing conceptart.org and deviantart with mixed results. But once word gets out that you are a reputable business (so many game companies burn bridges with artists and sculptors that they are wary of new companies as a rule) you begin to get referrals through existing contacts and even people contacting you out of the blue looking to do some work for you. Eventually you end up with a stable of artists, sculptors and freelance writers that know the product pretty well and need less direction, which is much less of a headache for all involved.

Another member  (Brian Nero) of Hyacinth answered some questions, including one I'm paraphrasing here: 

What makes your game special?

In all my tabletop games (skirmish games included), I’ve always been quite persistent and greatly preferred games with a strong sense of narrative in them. Better yet, I really enjoy those tabletop encounters that have a narrative strung between them. I haven’t met a tabletop campaign of one kind or another that I didn’t accept unflinchingly. When none were at hand, I was always trying to invent motives for otherwise rather banal confrontations to occur. I wanted there to be a story in these games. And for me, this is what Wreck Age offers - the most compelling blend of tabletop game and RPG format. In this dynamic, the miniatures that I paint for my skirmish-level faction have real identities, and these personages have a genuine stake in the games we play. With the blend of RPG and tabletop dynamics, Wreck Age creates a simple way to invest narrative into tabletop encounters that only RPGs could offer otherwise, with complexity, character, and genuine meat in the matter. By assigning narrative identities to these characters, there is something more intriguing and a more simple kind of emotional investment in the game itself. Put simply, I care if my model dies.

Of course, one can play the game at either end, as an RPG or a tabletop skirmish game, and simply enjoy the game quite fully at that. But that blend is what got me most excited about working on the project. 

In these discussions, we've discovered that self-publishing/releasing has some common problems.

Those problems are Cash/funding, distribution, and reputation. A small scale studio has to dump a lot of their own money into their project and/or seek outside sources, develop at least a small amount of respect in the industry so that writers and artists will work with them, and try to get it to the public (which is sales on a whole different level- cold calling's a BITCH, yo). All of this goes on with minimal staff and almost no experience in the industry, and often while working a day job as well.

So what's the upside, if it's so much work?

Ed Healey gives a little insight here:


Starting a business is like having a child. You nurture it and watch it grow. You lose sleep over it. You have dream for what it will become one day.


The benefit of seeing your dreams, your hard work and investment come to fruition is a big one; and many people chase after this elusive outcome with no other plan in mind than: "I want to see what this can become".

There are other ways to go about pursuing your dream. And there are solutions to the funding issue.  I'll talk a little about the Kickstarter phenomenon next week, and how that fits into the whole picture. 

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[Musings of a Game Store Owner] GGP: More Networking

Networking- we talked about it last week. I promised a little more this time around.

Honestly, it's an art. Most ambitious people mess it up, and the people that need it most are dearly lacking in ability or willingness.

Art is subjective to most people, and creating it is a lot of work. It's something that can (and honestly, should) be practiced. Working at networking- practicing-  is difficult.

Networking as an art form uses people in relationships as its medium. Relationships by nature are organic- messy, loose, and disorganized.

Relationships don't follow rules, or listen to a DM, or work better with specific HQs. They don't make insane OP combos or buff the tank with gear and spells. In effect, relationships are the opposite of what most gamers are familiar with in their hobby activities. Relationships are fluid and ever changing, without anyone in charge and no clear directions.

Explaining the art of networking is just a fine thing as practicing it, but it's worth attempting so that budding designers or new sculptors might have some sense of how to approach things when pitching a project.

Something I've noticed this and the previous Intelligent Design series is that there are folks who flat out ignored my requests for interviews. There are also those that said yes, but gave very limited answers. These folks didn't seem interested in networking or expanding their reach (to me).

It appeared to me that the folks that were interested in networking asked me as many questions as I asked them, and inquired where the articles were being published, and shared my work as much as I shared theirs.

Networking is a zero sum game that is mutually beneficial. There's no keeping score or tracking; it's sharing knowledge or talent just to get your name, idea, or work presented to others. Every time you talk to a new person is an opportunity to find a good fit for them and what they might need. It might be a new author, a new designer or a friend who needs a job; passing on that name is being intuitive and being helpful to people you encounter.

This kind of activity builds you an invisible sort of credit, where your word and mention mean more as your helpfulness and referrals increase in value. As your reputation grows, others are more likely to help you in return, and a kind of synergy grows in your interactions with others.

Applying this art isn't just like slapping a sticker somewhere. It's something that requires a lot of judgement and intuition; and it takes active listening. Having a good memory for people and their ideas, projects and directors of them, talents and who has them- is invaluable. Passing on a little hint here and there is a huge benefit if you want people to remember and value you.

Once you've got your name into the cycle of networking, and you're working on a project; you'll find it much easier to gain recognition and see your ideas moved forward by others than if you're a "nobody".

Another explanation on how to do this, as described in my interview with Ed Healey:

What advice can you give to someone trying to connect to and grow a game and its brand? How do you build a following and community around your game?

Ed: The best way to do this is to think about community engagement before you publish anything. If you want a game that will become part of a lifestyle for your customers, you need to bake that into your product.

Being engaged in the community. Being part of the networking process already. 

It's not always who YOU know; sometimes it's who your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate knows- AND that they know about you. 

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[Musings of a Game Store Owner] GGP: Networking

Last week a reader asked about networking, and it's a big enough component to the publication industry that I'm doing what I can to address it.

Let's start with a definition. 

Networking in a nutshell is developing and cultivating relationships in a way that grows your business.

Maybe that seems like "using" people (it sort of does to me). I don't make it about my business; I like to think of it as making friends.

For those of you that are shy or introverted, perhaps message boards, forums and blog communities are better for you since they don't involve face to face conversations. These avenues are also great for those that enjoy writing and meeting lots of people without using a lot of face to face conversations.

If you're more like me, and love talking to people- that's all it is. It's talking to people. I personally use a mix of in person, phone, email. Facebook, Twitter and blogs to talk to people; but it's talking to people.

It's important to know that networking is a careful balancing act- you can't just meet a person at a convention or event and then a week later drop your pitch. It should be a natural outflow of your relationship with the person, so they WANT to help you because you're friends or work in the same circles or whatever.




Here are some examples of how networking happens:

Mike Bohlman 

I heard you got backing from some pretty big names in the industry. Did that help your project get publicity at all?

It did a little bit because of the social aspect of Kickstarter. When those people backed the project, their friends saw that and backed the project, too. Ben McFarland actually ended up joining the project after hearing about it. Since we're an unknown in the industry, I think the big names are likely to hold back any big promotion until they see that we can produce a good product. If that happens, I think the post-Kickstarter sales will be fantastic.

How do you publicize something like this? 

The main places I publicized were d20pfsrd.com, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. The d20pfsrd.com publicity made the biggest difference. John Reyst is a big fan of our setting, and he was happy to post our project to the front page. Google+ was the next best place because the gaming community is very active there, and there is a bit better chance of becoming viral.  (Check THIS out.)

Joseph Wolf

I've been working with Reaper for 15 years now. I got my start while

working for Riders Hobby Shop in Kalamazoo Michigan. I managed to get

Ron Hawkins on the phone to tell him we were ramping up our interest

in their minis and he sent me a copy of the main rules.
---------------------------------------


Jeff knew me from the Barbarians of Lemuria and HEX forums. I
contacted Simon of Beyond Belief Games who published BoL and asked if
I could help out so he provided an introduction.

-----------------------------------------
Forums to share your knowledge and ideas coupled with emails to open
the lines of communication. I attended a lot of conventions in the
late 90's as a featured GM for RPGA events when they did more than
promote the latest incarnation of D&D. I ran the oddball games like
Cthulhu and Paranoia. Lord did I run a lot of Cthulhu at AndCon,
Origins, Three Rivers Gamefest, Gen Con and Winter Fantasy.

Ed Healey 


The best way to do this is to think about community engagement before
you publish anything. If you want a game that will become part of a
lifestyle for your customers, you need to bake that into your product.
Once you publish, it's too late. The importance of this can't be
underestimated. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
How much better to make something that doesn't need any masking.

Not having to hide the blemishes of your product will help you be more
authentic when interacting with potential customers after release -
and will drastically influence your relationship with your community
and with influencers, such as podcasters and bloggers. That's really
the magic sauce after release - be yourself and you will not only
attract customers that like the game, they're more likely to be of a
temperament that make them perfect evangelists for your company.

Porky

If you're looking for more interviewees, I could suggest quite a few from the RPG and old version D&D end of things- As a start, here are some of the more obvious ones, Tim Shorts, Christian Walker, Trey Causey and Christopher Brandon.

Tim Shorts published an old school D&D pdf adventure called Knowledge Illuminates and runs a print zine:

Knowledge Illuminates page -  Zine and updates blog - 

Christian Walker really got the current zine thing going, but you probably know that, and he covers different systems too.  Zine blog - 

Trey Causey published a pdf and print system-free sourcebook called Weird Adventures for an early 20th century weird fantasy in North America.

His blog -                WA - 

Fenway5 / Christopher Brandon has all kinds of free mini rules-light systems, but published a version of Rogue Space RPG in pdf and print witht the subtitle The Dark Frontier. All his blogs listed - the ones with games have free downloads via the sidebar -  Here's his profile 

Brian Nero (of Gentleman's Ones and Wreck Age) 

So. I met Anton almost two years ago at AdeptiCon (2011) where I was running the first eventful trial of Special Operations: Killzone on some tables that I’d made. I made a lot of noise about it all on my blog, but this was a very interesting trial period for a set of skirmish rules that I was pushing an informal, derivative game into an arena of rather solid and ambitious gamers. It was billed as a kind of fun alternative to the more rigorous and competitive games happening all around, but still there has to be a level of competence when placing fan-based goods in that atmosphere.

Me to Brian:

It is the strangest thing. Something about your reply struck a bell with me, and I went searching in my many emails- and found:

An email from ME to Von (of HOP, and also a friend) about Wreck Age. I was telling him he might find it interesting and enjoyable, as it touched on single, multi, skirmish and RPG play capability. 

-------------------------------

And there you have it. Anytime someone else is talking about your product or design to another person (especially if it is someone you don't know); it's networking. It can be on your behalf or you working on someone else's behalf (like Porky did), but that's networking in a nutshell. All of this factors into publishing, and I'll show you how next week. 

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[Musings of A Game Store Owner] GGP: 3PP

I had this great series all planned out in my head, with some incredible interviews lined up. Funny thing- life is what happens when you're busy making plans. I hoped to have the parts of the series follow a specific order, but that doesn't look like it will happen. I'm still waiting on replies from a few people I really think you'll enjoy. What I do have is great, and I'll get to it in just a moment.

I hope you'll forgive me for last week, I was slowly dying of the plague that's going around. it was a sneaky plague in that it acted like it was going away only to come back with a vengeance this weekend.

Not very menacing, but they got me none the less. 

So game design and publishing games seems to be on everyone's minds right now. Maybe I've tapped into that great collective unconscious, but I ran into no less than three "mainstream" articles about the subject since I started the series.
Here's one from a personal finance blogger that I found pretty interesting.


But it's not just design- it's actual publication that I'm talking about in this series.

There's a lot of ways to try to do this, as I mentioned in my introductory post. One way that has worked for quite a few folks in the industry is to work through small vendors or third party publishers. I took some time to talk with a few pros who were willing to share:

Josh Gullion, of AdventureAWeek: 

AdventureaWeek.com, or AaW as I refer to it for ease of typing, started as an idea between two friends, Jonathan G. Nelson and Todd Gamble. The idea being to create a resource for GM's to allow them to have fresh material every week, ready to go. Originally the business model was to offer a website filled with a catalog of adventures as the inventory grew, with each adventure formatted to run perfectly upon a tablet at the game table. 

With consistently good reviews, and the praise of several of our peers (who still think we're crazy  we manage to get a new adventure on the site every week. Each new adventure comes with cartography from the award winning, always amazing Todd Gamble, as well as art from a variety of artists we work with, including the simply awesome Tim Tyler.

Whereas a great deal of our written material has come from the mind of our very own Jonathan G. Nelson, my fellow beta alumn Stephen Yeardley has stepped up to that plate several times now. Will Meyers, another of the alumn from the beta test, has gotten his first author credit under the belt, and Nathan Land , yes another beta boy, is currently writing an introductory adventure for Roll20 that we are producing in a joint collaboration with the Roll20 crew. We also have featured adventures written by a handful of RPG Superstar alumn, as well as a slew of other guest authors. We welcome any and all submissions, as you never know where the next great adventure will come from.

In the end, it comes down to a basic truth, AaW are a group of guys who love gaming. We simply want to share that love of gaming with our fans, and help make sure that your gaming sessions are fun and memorable.

Do you at AaW have any official sanctioning or approval from Paizo?

None of the 3rd party publishers have "official" much of anything from Paizo, but we do get the nod from time to time, as conversations have left us with the impression that they like what we are doing, lol. 

We have skirted the boundaries of the compatibility license in one particular instance, and had to make some changes to the theme of an adventure as well as the design of a primary monster as we has overstepped our bounds.  But, Paizo was cool about it, they let us know where we had gone off the rails as far as what they would allow to have their compatibility logo on it, and what they wouldn't, and then let us make some quick changes without sacrificing story.

How do you get publicity?

The Power Duo (Jonathan and Todd) have done some advertising on various forums and sites, including the PFSRD.  We run ads in Pathways each month, and do an ongoing feature for that magazine as well.  All of the guys involved in the team do what we can to advertise on our personal walls and sites, as well as spread the word through friends.  There are buttons floating around amongst the world now thanks to the efforts of Jonathan and Todd at this years GenCon to put our logo on as many fans as possible.  We are seeing support from our fellow 3PPs beginning to pick up as they are helping us spread our name as well (Wolfgang Baur recently featured something of ours in his Kobold Press newsletter). 

What's the toughest thing about being a 3rd party group for adventures? Best?

Worst - Proving yourself to the industry and client base in general.  After the immense glut of "publishers" surfaced during the initial phase of the OGL, a lot of people are simply not willing to trust a 3PP these days.  It is one of the reasons that we rotate through our catalog giving away free adventures randomly, wanting to give people a chance to check out what we are doing with no risk. 

Best - The first time I saw something I helped create not only get compared to a classic TSR/WotC adventure, but have it stated as surpassing and establishing the new baseline for this style of adventure...that was a good day. 

Second Best - The immense amount of people I have gotten to know and talk with, the world that has opened for me since starting this journey.

Ed Healey of Gamerati:

Either design a game or publish a game, but not both - at least not for your first go. If you know you want to publish your game, freelance for others for a while so you get some experience before you try to hang your own shingle. There's more to running a business (being a publisher) than designing a good game (and getting published). From project management to marketing, art direction to accounting... They really are two different animals, and very few people can do both well.

Grady Elliot, Designer of Terracide:

The moral of the story: network with as many people in the gaming community as you can. If they ask about what you're working on, make sure you've got something awesome to show them. You never know who they'll mention it to.

How did your game go from something your friends thought was cool to "pitching to a publisher stage"?

I mentioned above that I had the good fortune (or sheer luck) to be gaming with a couple of previously published authors. They were heavily involved in the development of Terracide from the beginning: whenever I wrote a new adventure for our local convention, they were in the play-testing group, and afterwards they'd help pick it apart and put it back together. At some point Terracide started to look like a fully-realized setting in development, with a significant page-count: in other words, a book waiting to happen. In 2010 I made plans to attend GenCon with Mike Surbrook (author of the Kazei5 setting for Hero, among others) and he informed me we would be sharing a room with his publisher, Dave Mattingly from Blackwyrm Games. This, he said, was the time to pitch Terracide.

A couple of other lucky breaks contributed to the success of "the pitch" for Terracide. Around that time, Hero Games announced that the next edition of Star Hero would be released the following year, at GenCon 2011, and that Hero would not release any 6th edition settings. This put me in a very good position: I had an original Star Hero setting that was already half finished! The other lucky break was when I checked the program and found a seminar titled "How to Pitch Your Game to a Publisher" about three hours before I was meeting with Mr. Mattingly. So... I went to that seminar, which turned out to be very informative; I took tons of notes (for once) and then had a couple of hours to re-write the pitch for Terracide before our meeting.

Needless to say, it helped immensely. Blackwyrm Games decided to publish Terracide based on that meeting.

How did you pitch your project? What is that process like?

I still have the notes from the "How to Pitch Your Game" seminar, and the meeting with Dave Mattingly. It was actually rather informal; we both had an opening in our schedule (which is amazing for a Thursday at GenCon) so we sat in our hotel room and he asked me to tell him about the setting. What was interesting about it? What was different about it? When someone read the back cover, what would they see? (I had an awesome blurb for the back cover, but it never appeared in print! Maybe next time....) We ended up discussing a lot of things about SF RPGs in general over about 45 minutes.

I know you are working on developing Terracide as a setting for Savage Worlds. Who brought up that idea (you or Blackwyrm)?

I did some old-fashioned leg-work and went to game conventions and games stores, where I talked to the dealers about which systems people were buying and playing. This thing called Savage Worlds kept coming up, so I looked into it a bit more, and I liked what I saw. Aside from the excellent rules-set, the Savage Worlds product line wasn't saturated with science fiction offerings. And the SF settings they did have were of the "pulp" variety, completely different from Terracide. My project looked like an excellent fit for an opening in their product line. (Note to writers: Publishers *will* notice during your pitch whether you've done this type of market research. Or not.)

So it was my decision to do a Savage Worlds version of Terracide, but until earlier this year I didn't have a publisher for it. I pitched the idea to Pinnacle and a couple of their licensed publishers last year, without immediate success. It was when favorable reviews of Terracide began appearing online that the Pinnacle folks asked Blackwyrm to publish a Savage Worlds edition of Terracide. I was very glad things worked out this way; Blackwyrm Games is now licensed to produce Savage Worlds products, the new version of Terracide will be published by people I already have excellent working relationships with, and I don't have two editions of my book out there released by competing companies. Everybody wins.

Once the project is ready for print, how does that process work (if you know)?

Blackwyrm likes to have my manuscript in hand seven to eight months prior to the book's release date. As a writer, that's pretty much the end of my involvement; I do the manuscript, and they have others take over for layout, editing, artwork, and so on. I'm still relatively new in this business, and I'm planning to learn more about other aspects of it, particularly page layouts. After the manuscript is done, most of what I do prior to the release date is promotions work: running demos and previews at conventions, and getting people interested.

That's really the best part of my job. I love writing RPG's, but getting out there, GM-ing and playing a new RPG setting is what it's all about.

Joseph Wolf of MULTIPLE Projects: 

I'm currently the point man freelancer on Reaper's Pathfinder campaign

setting. I'm wearing the design-developer hat working on converting

3.5 adventures and content over to Pathfinder. Not hard, just time

consuming.

How did you get involved in this project? How long have you been working

with Reaper?

I've been working with Reaper for 15 years now. I got my start while working for Riders Hobby Shop in Kalamazoo Michigan. I managed to get Ron Hawkins on the phone to tell him we were ramping up our interest in their minis and he sent me a copy of the main rules. We hit it off and since then I've written an occasional fluff piece appearing in Casketworks or the occasional sourcebook. I wrote a big chunk of the character and creature as well as faction stuff in the Savage North stuff in support of the Warlord line. Interestingly the Icingstead faction consisting of ice giants and similar polar beasties came out of a Casketworks article I wrote on the notorious white dragon Deathsleet. I've been given the chance to actually name a bunch of the Reaper dragons including Ebonwrath, Deathsleet, Cinder and a few

others escaping my mind. I've been converting a bunch of adventures and campaign material set in Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends world to Pathfinder for the past few months. It's kind of official but we premiered a lot of the stuff at ReaperCon 2012 using both Pathfinder and Savage Worlds and it was very well received. I ended up running games for 8 hours a day and one night session for the painters/sculptors. Folks were keen to see our stuff in print as am I but it's all speculative until we get a few things in place first. Regardless I'm working on my end of things so I'm hopeful.

I'm waiting on the publication of a pulp adventure I wrote for Dicey Tales via Jeff Mejia's Evil DM Productions. It's hit a layout snag so it's long overdue but should see print in a month or so.

I'm working on a Kyber Pass pulp adventure for Jeff now.

Again, I would love to know how you got involved in these projects!

Jeff knew me from the Barbarians of Lemuria and HEX forums. I contacted Simon of Beyond Belief Games who published BoL and asked if I could help out so he provided an introduction. Jeff brought me on and I quickly became his go-to guy when I produced a detailed scale map of an underground Nazi sub base. He was pleased with the adventure and map so he showed the goods to the artist who was doing the cover for Dicey Tales 2. The artist was inspired so the original cover was

scrapped and they went with my adventure instead. The Khyber Pass adventure is heavily based on the adventure pulp fiction of R. E. Howard's El Borak stories. I'm a fan of Howards Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane but I must admit I hadn't read El Borak until I signed onto the project.

I'm working on a Savage Worlds Slipstream adventure for PEG now.

I am desperately curious to know how this one came about. Did you pitch it, or was there a call for publication? How long have you been working on this one? What stage in the process are you? (Sorry HOP readers, I'm showing my PEG/SLH love here...) 

It's non-commission work meaning I'll finish it sometime after the playtest and I'll submit it to Shane for consideration. If he likes it they'll buy it if not rewrite and try again or scrap the project outright. No contract. I'm doing it to establish myself as a Savage Worlds author in the hopes of opening other freelancing opportunities as well as getting my own SW stuff into print. I'm in love with the rockets & rayguns genre and I'd love to work with Wiggy to reignite Slipstream with supplemental material like rocket construction rules and fluffing up the setting.

Prior to this I've written for Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Alderac Entertainment Group, Pulsar Games, Sovereign Stone Press, and TSR. I wrote the AD&D 2nd ed. Skullport sourcebook for The Forgotten Realms.

I'm currently ramping up my own tabletop company and most of the stuff

above will bear my logo and name in partnership (limited) with another

company.

Under my own label I've got another 4-6 campaign settings in the works

using borrowed open house systems.

Without sounding totally agape, HOW do you get all this done? And what kind of work does it take to make the right connections to get into this field?

Forums to share your knowledge and ideas coupled with emails to open the lines of communication. I attended a lot of conventions in the late 90's as a featured GM for RPGA events when they did more than promote the latest incarnation of D&D. I ran the oddball games like Cthulhu and Paranoia. Lord did I run a lot of Cthulhu at AndCon, Origins, Three Rivers Gamefest, Gen Con and Winter Fantasy. I actually got two Deadlands Weird West adventures approved and published in the

RPGA and I eventually got the rights back on both. I eventually published Trouble at Table Rock in PEG's Epitaph 1. Good times.

So a little personality and determination is the short answer.

You can see that going third party takes just as much work and determination as any other route to publication we'll discuss later in the series. 

These guys really had a lot of knowledge on the third party avenue- and it seems to boil down to networking and relationships. This is something I'm pretty big on myself, and I know is critical to getting anywhere. If there's interest, I would be happy to discuss networking and the ins and outs for you very soon.  Please let me know what you'd like to see next, and I'll see what I can do. 

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[Musings of a Game Store Owner] GGP: Which Way to Go?

You have a great project. You've playtested it. You think other gamers will love it.

So how do you get it to them? Where do you go to get your design published?

Do you stand before the gates of the great castles and hope for entry?

Direct Publication

Do you Rapunzel your way in?

Third Party

Do you say "forget that castle, I'll build my own"?

DIY

 Do you rent your ideas out in hopes of funding your own castle?

Kickstarter

No matter your chosen option of getting where the people are (inside the castle, duh), it's figuring out HOW to get there that bogs many people down.







I'm using analogies and symbolism for a reason- and I'm not just talking out of my ear. TheDude and I were involved in a project that was pretty close to done at one point, a long time ago. We were working on getting it published, and we tried several of the approaches I'm mentioning here. I know the frustration of failure, and the fantastic feeling of a getting somewhere.

When we were working on our project (early 90's), there was a certain expectation that new ideas should be sold to big companies. (Standing at the gates of a castle and trying to get inside, or Direct Publication.) At the time, there was an understood "formula" for getting noticed by the big guys if you didn't know someone. Following the formula was the way to go, "they" all said; and to do otherwise was to risk not being noticed.

In a lot of ways it reminded me of being in a band.

The story in music that everyone knows, where the "way to get noticed" was to have shows with high turnout, and then move to bigger venues, and then an agent would hear about you. And then demo tapes and trips to LA and so on.

Only with game designs, the way to get noticed was to demo your game at conventions. Traveling from con to con, drumming up a following and getting lots of exposure was the "surefire" way to get the attention of the guys with the checkbooks. From there, you could wow them with your awesome game design, sign a contract and presto; publishing.

If any of you have been in a band, you know it doesn't always work that way. Often times the crowd is made up entirely of girlfriends and parents; and no matter what you do, you can't get other people to actually COME to a show. No one ever wants to see a band they've never heard of, they want the "BIG ACT" and so they come late or don't come at all.

And so it is with game designs. Getting folks to try new games is a tricky thing, and in the days before social media and widespread internet exposure, it was often even tougher. Getting someone besides the "homers" to play can be a huge challenge.

Social media and internet exposure have changed in the publication landscape. Now it's not so unusual to be Twitter buddies with Matt Forbeck, Trevor Kidd, Mike Mearls or Neil Gaiman, or have Wil Wheaton in your Facebook feed.  While those factors don't make getting noticed easier per se; they do make getting your noticed product into the right hands a lot less difficult. They are on the inside and can let you in. Their recommendation or referral can get you published.

It's the getting noticed by these folks that's the issue for "storm the castle" types- and it always was. The big boys don't just open up because you ask nicely; and getting someone legitimate inside to let you in is the challenge for anyone going that route.  With all the voices and people trying to gain their attention, how are you going to get any of them to listen to you long enough to make a pitch?

(Don't worry; learning about how to get inside and how to be noticed are going to be included in the series. Keep reading!)

So storming the castle isn't for you. You think- hey; maybe I'll get someone who already has a deal with the castle to let me in, riding on their coat tails. I mean, they did a lot of the legwork already, why shouldn't I see if they can help me? (Also known as the Rapunzel/third party method per my above scenario.)

In this situation, you have to convince the Princess to let you in (and that you mean no harm), and that you can even potentially offer something that will be of interest and value in return. Real life Rapunzel can be as foolish as a fairy tale maiden that gets knocked up by a visiting squire; or as shrewd as the enchantress that locks the maiden in a tower with no stairs and no door.

Third party partnerships can be wonderful and easy, with good contracts and well defined expectations, or they can be terrible disasters with bungled designs and embezzlement. Just because Rapunzel is already in the castle doesn't mean she knows what she is doing any more than you do, or has any kind of influence. I mean, she's not part of the castle staff for a reason, and it's smart to know what to expect before you ever ask her to let down her hair.

It's not unusual to "woo the princess"; only not to get anywhere. Paying for editing, printing, promotion and even staff at conventions is not out of the ordinary. I've seen designers do all that and still end up with nothing, because of the princess (third party) "knows a guy", or hires her second cousin, or is a total flake.  I've also seen people make a good living by finding a great match with their princess and knew what they were getting into.

Then maybe building it yourself seems like the way to go. You're handy with tools, and you have an idea of what your castle needs to look like when it'd done, so you get to building. Or you try to.

The castle down the road has all the bricks, and the one a few doors over owns the rights to all the land and won't sell (or license) to you for a reasonable amount. The plans you've drawn have to go to the architect to see if they are structurally sound, and someone steals them before you can get started.

Perhaps none of this happens to YOU, and you build your castle without incident. You have a self publishing scenario that puts you at low risk and you don't have to deal with OGL. But no one is inside your castle. No one knows you exist. How do you get people to your property to check out the cool things you built in? How do you convince someone to head to the middle of nowhere for your idea?

So none of those options sound good to you. There's a lot of risk in them and while you're not afraid to take a chance, you need to eat. So you concoct a way to get funding without shooting yourself in the foot. You decide to rent out your idea, sort of like a trailer of a movie. It gives folks a concept, but doesn't reveal it all. Then you get a ton of people to promise to help you build it, with an expectation of something for them in return later. This "rental" idea has taken a lot of forms in the past, but the latest incarnation is Kickstarter.

For those of you unfamiliar or living under a rock, Kickstarter is a "crowd sourcing" funding avenue for all kinds of things that might not get mainstream opportunities. The trick with Kickstarter is that no money changes hands until or unless the dollar amount you want to raise is reached. So if you think you need $5K to develop all the components you need for your new hotness, you throw up a Kickstarter project (don't forget a video!) and wait for the money to come in. If you get $4999- no project. Nothing happens. No one is charged and you are out of luck.

Kickstarter is entirely dependent on someone thinking your idea is cool, and SHARING that premise with other people. Otherwise it's a lot like being the opening band with moms and girlfriends in the audience. You need for your idea "to go viral" in order to make any headway on the funding end. You need to put your idea in a "high rent" neighborhood for anyone to see your little sign.

So how do you get people to notice your project? How do you get the word out? How do you convince people that your design is awesome and they should fund it?

These are just some of the issues a designer will face when trying to get published. We'll talk about each step and find out what others in the industry have done to make their dreams reality. We'll see that there isn't "one true way", and that a lot of new and different options are out there.

We'll have fun storming the castle!

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[Musings of a Game Store Owner] GGP- The Initial Stages

It all starts with an idea - a new, unusual, brilliant, innovative or just plain unlikely idea. That idea takes shape; whether it's slowly, like a strike of lightning, in your dreams or in the doodles of your work meetings. You tinker, play and fuss with it until it becomes something a little more solid than the cottony ether from your imagination, and then you take the next step- you show it to your friends.

Maybe they love it. Maybe they think it has potential but they want to test it out. Maybe they need convincing. For those of us interested  in taking the game beyond our nightstand, something more than a casual once through becomes something we think about.

Thus, plans are made.

The plans might start out simply enough. "Hey, we'll playtest this and see where it goes". After trying your idea out, you decide it's pretty rad and want to get it out there beyond just your local gaming group. Or your plans are more complex to begin with and you KNOW you want to do something with your idea beyond just playing it in your basement. So you start planning for something bigger.

Playtesting is an essential part of any product that is going to be produced to more folks than just the guys at your FLGS. It helps determine weaknesses, strengths, possibilities and limitations. It also helps determine how fun a game is to others outside your group. If you get regular spectators while you are working the kinks out, maybe you have something good.

Playtesting is its own animal. It's more than just you and your buddies trying out your idea. When done right, it's a vigorous process intended to break your precious game so that you know what others can (and will) do to it given the chance. Playtesting also involves having someone other than yourself demo the game. Your personal involvement and ability to explain it won't do a damn bit of good if the guy in Milwaukee doesn't understand it when he buys it. It needs to be easily understood by anyone that decides to try it out.

So you get through the playtesting and your idea still stands up. You think you have something truly awesome and special, and you decide you want to publish your idea.

What next? How you get your idea off the ground and out to the masses? What factors go into the various choices people make when pursuing avenues for publication? And how does it get from idea to product on the shelf?

We'll talk about all of that and more, with interviews and discussion of finished projects, projects in process and projects just starting out in the weeks to come. I hope you'll enjoy what I've got in store for you, and that you ask questions and comment as the series progresses.

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