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sebmojo posted:Has any indie tg game designer ever done this? I mean I guess gygaxs et al, but since then? Yes? There are tons of indie rpg designers making a living off it.
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Jul 21, 2022 22:36
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Tulip posted:That makes me curious - I know that we've got a couple of game designers on this board, mostly of the indie sort who've made a few games. Have any of them like...made it? By which I mean, gotten enough money off of their indie games that they can pay the bills? I would guess, pulling this number entirely out of my rear end, that there are fewer than 100 full-time positions in the US-based RPG industry that pay a living wage on a multi-year basis. I'd distribute ~90 of them between the various larger companies and the people they regularly hire/contract with and guess that there might be around 10 totally independent writers or artists who can pull in more than $25k a year for several years by just insane levels of hustle. I might be off by a hundred or two but I'd be astonished if I was off by an order of magnitude.
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Jul 21, 2022 22:39
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Leperflesh posted:I would guess, pulling this number entirely out of my rear end, that there are fewer than 100 full-time positions in the US-based RPG industry that pay a living wage on a multi-year basis. I'd distribute ~90 of them between the various larger companies and the people they regularly hire/contract with and guess that there might be around 10 totally independent writers or artists who can pull in more than $25k a year for several years by just insane levels of hustle. Yeah I figured something like that, I was wondering if any of them had like, an insider perspective that I could pick at. I love labor sociology and learning how different industries operate more than I love, well, gaming tbh.
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Jul 21, 2022 23:05
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sebmojo posted:Has any indie tg game designer ever done this? I mean I guess gygaxs et al, but since then? Greg Stolze, maybe? he's both kind of marginal in terms of "indie" and is also a fiction author, though
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Jul 21, 2022 23:36
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Greg Stolze, maybe? he's both kind of marginal in terms of "indie" and is also a fiction author, though
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Jul 21, 2022 23:45
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Nuns with Guns posted:Though there needs to be something to discuss. Like has anything come out for Cortex since they finished the handbook and the really broad overview website? Or any licensed game settings it was promising? I guess this is getting into actual industry talk now though. Tales of Xadia (the Dragon Prince licensed rpg) has actually come out, but otherwise it's been a lot of working on the spotlights and making the Cortex Codex that just lists all the mechanics they've made in first party Cortex Prime games but is otherwise just an add-on for the main rules.
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Jul 22, 2022 00:49
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I'm pretty sure Kevin Crawford makes a decent living.
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Jul 22, 2022 04:31
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Hard Wired Island paid my bills for a while. I haven't done TTRPGs as long as most of the folks who make a good living so here's hoping the trend continues upward 
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Jul 22, 2022 07:10
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Ettin posted:Hard Wired Island paid my bills for a while. I haven't done TTRPGs as long as most of the folks who make a good living so here's hoping the trend continues upward Forgive me if this is a bit personal, but do you attribute this to anything particular? Social Media, Crowdfunding, being a known entity on SA, etc? I'm just wondering for those who might want to replicate that level of success. (Note: That person is not me.)
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Jul 22, 2022 09:24
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He is a Known Goon,
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Jul 22, 2022 15:49
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Halloween Jack posted:He is a Known Goon, That helped! I think a lot of it came down to community building: I've been posting in big RPG communities/RPG Twitter for years, and I made a bunch of smaller games that did fine, so a lot of people are willing to both promote my games and work on them with me. My advice would basically be to find communities to get involved in and try to make some friends. (Actual friends though, not just people who can give you a boost - most people will pick up on it if you're trying to use them and avoid you.)
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Jul 22, 2022 18:52
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I think cases like Ettin's are illustrative, actually. It's possible to make a product that pays the bills, for a while: to sustain that for years requires a sustained hustle (and probably some good luck). I hope it works out of course!
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Jul 22, 2022 19:11
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Leperflesh posted:I think cases like Ettin's are illustrative, actually. It's possible to make a product that pays the bills, for a while: to sustain that for years requires a sustained hustle (and probably some good luck). I hope it works out of course! I think that’s true for all artists/authors. There are numerous authors who made a mint on a hit book, but ended up near broke later in life because even a hit book doesn’t provide funds forever. Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged being a famous example.
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Jul 22, 2022 21:46
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Nm, double post
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Jul 22, 2022 22:03
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Ettin posted:Hard Wired Island paid my bills for a while. I haven't done TTRPGs as long as most of the folks who make a good living so here's hoping the trend continues upward Ettin posted:That helped! I think a lot of it came down to community building: I've been posting in big RPG communities/RPG Twitter for years, and I made a bunch of smaller games that did fine, so a lot of people are willing to both promote my games and work on them with me. My advice would basically be to find communities to get involved in and try to make some friends. (Actual friends though, not just people who can give you a boost - most people will pick up on it if you're trying to use them and avoid you.) Thank you for this! I'd love to hear more reflections if you'd be willing to share. That part about communities makes sense to me - RPGs are a very small world and with a rare few exceptions have very little brand driving, so charisma & connection are more important than they might be in a world less driven by individual creators.
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Jul 22, 2022 22:11
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https://twitter.com/KamalaKaraA1/status/1550704486972268545?s=20&t=33cay2CHq9RWh1HsDhN4Ew
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Jul 23, 2022 06:03
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Covok posted:https://twitter.com/KamalaKaraA1/status/1550704486972268545?s=20&t=33cay2CHq9RWh1HsDhN4Ew what the gently caress am I actually going to put money into an indiegogo campaign
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Jul 23, 2022 06:10
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Hey, I posted about this in the OSR thread because OSR stuff was a big inspiration on this, but it was also suggested to me about posting in the general chat thread. I, uh, am trying to make a fantasy movie. I got a real bug up my rear end about it last year for a lot of reasons, and because I wanted something more to crowdfund off of than just an idea, I got some film friends together and we made a short trailer. Today I launched the crowdfund. Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgwmak8F954 Anyway, I'm fighting through big project launch terror-anxiety, but if anybody's at all interested, I will be around to answer general questions about it on and off tonight while I work on the next updates for it. Warlocktopus fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jul 24, 2022 |
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Jul 24, 2022 01:13
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You forgot the link, Warlocktopus.
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Jul 24, 2022 06:07
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lmao i'm going to make so much fun of him https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fool-s-fantasy--2/x/12523876#/
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Jul 24, 2022 08:53
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It's a good idea, but that trailer.. isn't the most inspiring to be honest. Not that far off, though.
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Jul 24, 2022 17:08
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Tulip posted:Thank you for this! I'd love to hear more reflections if you'd be willing to share. That part about communities makes sense to me - RPGs are a very small world and with a rare few exceptions have very little brand driving, so charisma & connection are more important than they might be in a world less driven by individual creators. Do you have any questions or should I just think about what seems interesting? I feel like I'm not 100% qualified to do this yet, but maybe that is a lesson that impostor syndrome is real 
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Jul 24, 2022 17:18
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hyphz posted:It's a good idea, but that trailer.. isn't the most inspiring to be honest. Not that far off, though. I get that. My hope is enough people will understand its "proof of concept" nature that lacks sfx or a fight choreographer, so I wanted to try and focus on ability to deliver some of the humor and to use action as drive for basic narrative, which a lot of other fantasy movies... don't. It's a gamble on how many will "get" it, but thaaaaat's entertainment!
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Jul 24, 2022 17:18
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Ettin posted:Do you have any questions or should I just think about what seems interesting? I feel like I'm not 100% qualified to do this yet, but maybe that is a lesson that impostor syndrome is real Oh jeeze I could go on with a lot of questions but I'll start with a slightly off-center approach - The art in HWI is beautiful. How'd you find the artist? Were they somebody you'd worked with before or knew already, or did you have a formal process, or did you just DM people on twitter who had portfolios you liked? Did you have difficulty communicating your ideas to the artist or was it nearly spot-on with no effort? And conversely, did seeing the art take shape influence the game design? Was the game near-complete when you started getting art or was that an early part of the process?
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Jul 24, 2022 17:48
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Warlocktopus posted:I get that. My hope is enough people will understand its "proof of concept" nature that lacks sfx or a fight choreographer, so I wanted to try and focus on ability to deliver some of the humor and to use action as drive for basic narrative, which a lot of other fantasy movies... don't. It's not so much the lack of sfx as the highly confusing storytelling. I mean, the first time I saw it I actually thought the guy in black was the hero's sparring partner. Is he supposed to have been chasing the hero, and the hero led him to this clearing where he has everything set up for the trap? That would make sense but the opening shots have too little momentum to convey that. The "oh yes" look he gets on his face when he sends the guy's sword reeling is funny (especially in a tabletop gaming context where I immediately thought 'hey, he rolled a 20') but makes it contradictory that he doesn't have that look on his face when the bad guy stops in just the right place for the trap.
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Jul 24, 2022 18:20
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I'm super late to the party, but I just discovered there's an Earthdawn podcast starring the line developer for 4th edition Earthdawn. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/earthdawn-survival-guide/id1483390217 Just started it, but it's looking to be pretty sweet, and Earthdawn content is pretty sparse.
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Jul 26, 2022 00:22
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Tulip posted:Oh jeeze I could go on with a lot of questions but I'll start with a slightly off-center approach - - Most of HWI's artists are people I followed on Twitter or found through art hashtags. I used to just post that we were looking for artists (and we got at least one artist that way), but I stopped because in my experience a lot of artists just waited for clients to come to them and some of the people who did respond were really pushy/wanted to upsell me on commissions I didn't need. I email instead of DM because it feels more professional though. Some artists were also friends or recommended by friends (which is why a lot of them are Lancer-adjacent). (I kind of screwed up the art direction, actually—originally we were going to release sooner, so I commissioned a bunch of extra artists for single pieces to hit that target. Then we moved the release date anyway. I'm not unhappy with the art but I did waste a lot of effort, and DTRPG's product page won't fit all the artist names now )- I haven't had much trouble communicating with artists! I am generally fine if it doesn't come out exactly how I imagined it, the new versions grow on me anyway. I only had problems when the O'Neill cylinder the game's set in is visible in the background; I eventually just commissioned a 3D model to use as reference. - I usually start art and writing around the same time to get things done faster (and so I don't have to sit on my cool art ideas for months). Sometimes discussing the art gives me ideas for the game, but with HWI it didn't really change much. We started with the big generic wide shots of the station and by the time we got to the other stuff Freyja and I knew what we wanted. I did make up the Shin Umeda location because the art piece on p. 142 had signs that needed to be filled in though.
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Jul 26, 2022 17:47
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I logged into my corporate vendor's online ordering portal just now, and was confronted with this:  e: clicking through presents you with this document -  
FMguru fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jul 26, 2022 |
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Jul 26, 2022 22:02
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Has anybody played Forthright Open Roleplay? I've never heard of it and then seen it mentioned a half dozen times this week.FMguru posted:I logged into my corporate vendor's online ordering portal just now, and was confronted with this: Uh... You have to share that poo poo.
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Jul 26, 2022 22:18
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Seems to be a thing to use trad game stuff like that to promote IT or cybersecurity stuff. At the last cybersecurity conference I was at, there were multiple CYOA-style books about preventing data breaches. These were like promotional materials you could pick up for free at booths.
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Jul 26, 2022 22:23
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do a F&F write up, pleeeeeease
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Jul 26, 2022 22:50
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Looks like anyone can go to https://www.cdw.com/ and download it, if you're interested.
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Jul 26, 2022 22:59
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Leraika posted:do a F&F write up, pleeeeeease
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Jul 26, 2022 22:59
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The final boss is Clippy
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Jul 26, 2022 23:21
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Eight pages. Sir, this isn't a Wendy's.
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Jul 26, 2022 23:32
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I browsed through it, it's pretty silly and dumb, but nothing really offensive. There's no stats or anything, you're expected to just use whatever system you want, which means it's pretty useless as an actual adventure module, since you basicly have to make everything up for it anyway.
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Jul 27, 2022 01:27
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Yeah., it feels like somebody mentioned the Wendy’s marketing in a pitch meeting and then got one week and a $100 at budget.
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Jul 27, 2022 01:41
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Is there a discord for trad games goons? Also, is there a superhero rpg thread?
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Jul 29, 2022 00:26
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Man it's really depressing how the recruitment thread went from one page in 12 days to one page in nine months. I guess people are too burned out on PBP but there aren't that many recruits for roll20 or foundry stuff either on it...?
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Jul 29, 2022 20:03
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I think play-by-Discord took over that space, with people recruiting on their favourite Discords.
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Jul 29, 2022 20:25
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