I fixed a few things since Friday, mostly yesterday evening.

The big one is probably the Collision MySpace.  After a fair amount of hair-pulling, I managed to pull the black background out from behind the black print, so the site can now be read.  I also sent some friend invitations (to people who already know the band, so that means locals), added a brief history (which needs some editing), and uploaded the lyrics of our first song to the blog (since I didn’t see a place for lyrics).  I sent Baxter and Brittany notes alerting them to this.  I also took note that our MySpace site name is CollisionAtHopewell.  Checking in briefly now, I note that we’ve had positive answers to two of our invites.  If I tell you that they are from my son and Baxter’s sister, I hope that doesn’t make you think less of us.

The second repair job, which I actually did before that, was on the Temporal Anomalies site.  I proofread my response to Vazor’s blog, made a few minor corrections, and then redid a piece of the directory structure for the site, changing the section name that was “Correspondence” to “Conversation“, adding to the subindex of that section the new page plus the four pages which were responses to questions on another site years ago, and redoing the links on all the pages in that site to include those five along with the two dozen letters.  Hopefully it will make site navigation a bit easier.  Meanwhile, I note that Vazor has thanked me for my response, on his blog, and promised a followup post; I will have to keep alf an eye there, although I have asked that he notify me when he posts it.

The third thing that got repaired is really the first.  I started once more reading through the book Do You Trust Me?, and fixed two or three spots that could have been said better.  There is a rule in this business that if you wait until something is perfect it will never go to print, and I can feel the pain of that rule with this book; however, the reason for my delay is entirely that the cover art is not ready (which seems to be a reason that delays most of my books at some point), so the fact that I am still tweaking the text is not an issue.  I do have to format it to page size and add the page numbers to the table of contents, but that will come soon enough.

I have been giving serious thought to combining the three books, Do You Trust Me?, What Does God Expect?, and About the Fruit, into one volume, tentatively entitled A Christian Primer.  I could sell the one book for less than the three individually, and I think that they fit together in a coherent package.  I am minded in this that C. S. Lewis originally published the three books we know as Mere Christianity separately–somewhere I have a copy of the second, Beyond Personality–but that combined they make a coherent whole.  From a marketing perspective, the single volume would probably cost the reader less than the three books separately without impacting my profit.  I would keep the individual books available, though, because someone interested in only one would still be able to buy it (and then come back for the other two eventually).  Anyway, it’s on the table for consideration.  The Trust book has to go to print before anything will be done on combining them.

I accomplished something.

–M. J. Young

You get a treat this week. Three columns for the price of one. A lot of people say I ramble, but this week, I’m concise. I got a lot of ground to cover.

Part One: If I Could Talk to the Animals

I went to the San Diego zoo this weekend, took tons of pictures of critters - including some magnificent shots of reindeer - and spent the whole day with “the reverend doctor” Rich McHugh, my medical/biological advisor and producer. Rich and I talked about gestation periods, life spans, a “snake eyelid” for elves, yeti and heard a lion roar.

If you have never heard a real lion roar…

We looked at Arctic brown bears and found out they’re 1500 pounds and ten feet tall. Again, if you haven’t seen it, it’s hard to put those kind of number in proportion.

I think the summation of the experience is in the little word “big”. Everything in the wild is just so big. The reindeer’s shoulders are as high as my head and their bodies are twice as thick (maybe three times) as my own. The thing can kick through an aluminum wall! Kick through it!

All of this made me think of how to get these kinds of critters across in a roleplaying game. I mean, I could give ‘em stats, but in order to show you just how big these things are, I have to put pictures in the book. I mean, Rich, Jenny, Bonnie and I looked at the critters and the first thing that went through my head was, “Orks hunt these things. Who in their right friggin’ mind would hunt these things?” Even the boars are huge! They stand up to my waist, covered in bristles, tusks, hooves and weigh something around three hundred pounds! They’re mean! They ram you, then stomp on your face and I don’t care what your stats are, if three hundred pounds of angry ram hits you in the gut, you fall down and get your face stomped on. No die roll. No damage roll. Face stomped. Story over.

It’s hard to put these kinds of things into perspective. I mean, I never knew reindeer were that big. I just got done writing about ‘em, and I didn’t put the numbers together. Seeing a picture of a reindeer and seeing one standing not more than twenty feet away from you is something else entirely.

So, a word of advice to all you out there. Go to the zoo. Take a look at these beasties that inhabit the wilds of our world. Don’t see ‘em on TV, don’t read about ‘em in books. Go have a look at them right now. Then, you’ll see how much different they’ll be in your game world.

Part Two: The Talented Mr. Denmark

By now you’ve heard about Mr. Denmark, but I thought it was time you got a look at what he’s doing for Orkworld.

Thomas has been sending me concept sketches for a few weeks now. You can find ‘em at orkworld.com, but I put a few of my favorites here along with comments. [ED: Click on any of the pictures for a larger image.]

First Look

This is the first sketch he sent me. The day I got it, I made it my wallpaper. My wife was the one who saw the elf ears around his neck. I missed those entirely. That’s because I was busy looking at our boy’s face. There’s character in that face. Expression. There’s somebody in there. This picture convinced us that Thomas was The Man for our project.

Dowmga

This one just broke my heart. In my head, the most important thing in an ork’s life is his mother. I wanted a race that loved their mommies, and Thomas captured it perfectly here. And, incidentally, this one is also my own dowmga’s favorite pic so far.

Sizes

This size comparison chart brought a lot of questions into my head. Thomas mentioned wanting to do a kind of “evolution of orks” chart. Do I want to go that far? Do I want to even address evolution? That brings up a whole lot of questions that I might not want to address. If I ignore evolution and assume that all the myths are true (orks just popped out of Keethdowmga’s tummy one day), it makes things a whole lot easier.

On the other hand, his picture of the elf made me re-think a couple things about the race. Now, I picture elves as anemic, sickly things that are only kept alive by their own sorcery. The obvious reference is a “race of Elrics” (that was Jenny’s immediate response), so I may want to reconsider. On the other hand, I like it. We’ll see.

Ork & Reindeer

Here’s the reindeer. Thomas informed me (after he sent this one) that he needed to do more research on reindeer anatomy before he drew them for real. Of course, my response was “Whuddya mean fur real? This looks pretty fur real ta me!”

Breeds

Lastly, Thomas sent a second round of pictures that had orks looking just a little different than the first picture. Compare this one with First Look above and compare the snouts. See what I mean? Thomas liked the change, but I was in love with the first one. We had a little talk and came up with an interesting development.

Human beings don’t all look alike. Neither should orks. We spent some time looking at different breeds of orks and talked about making orks with different shaped features. The snouts would be longer on some, wider on others. Different ears, different eyes, different noses.

Of course, the whole time, Thomas and I both wanted this. We just stumbled across it at the same time. Funny how development works, innit?

Anyway, like I said above, you can see more of Thomas’ work at orkworld.com and at his website: http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/tldenmark/Index.html. Go check it out!

Part Three: It’s Survey Time!

And now on to another subject. A bit of advice I got from a friend. You see, I’m getting down to the wire. I gave myself a writing deadline, and that deadline is looming.

(And for all you aspiring game designers, you should do the same. All too often, I hear “Yeah! I got a game! I’ve been writing/playtesting it for (insert number here) years!” Listen up: Give yourself a deadline. If you don’t, you’ll be playtesting/writing it forever. Trust me on this. I could write about orks forever. Every day, I find out something new about them. But I have to publish the book sometime. If I don’t set myself a deadline, I’ll just keep writing.)

Here are my plans for printing Orkworld.

1) I only plan on selling them direct. From me to you. No middle man, no distributor, no game store.

2) The book itself won’t fit on shelves the way I’m planning to print it. Instead of the average 9″x12″ (round ’bout) that most game books are, I plan on Orkworld being 14″x14″, a little bit bigger than your average Time/Life book.

3) I’ll only print to order. That means, if I get 500 orders for Orkworld, I’ll only print 500. That means, after the print run, that’s it. No more Orkworld. Ever. I’m on to the next project.

4) I’ll sign and number each book, making each one unique.

5) You all know what’s going in the pages. You get the complete ork sourcebook, RPG rules, mass combat rules and “Big Picture” rules. No more rules, no more source material. A complete game world with complete game rules.

Now, that’s how I plan to do it. Here’s the problems that arise from all that.

1) Selling direct means a lot of distributors and retailers will call “foul!” After all, they want a piece of the action as well. I can’t say I blame ‘em. The problem is, I’ll only be selling 1,000 of these things at most. It’s gonna cost me a total of $4,332 to print the book. I’m taking pre-orders on the book, so I’ll have a rough idea how much I’ll have to charge in order to make a profit.

If I sell 250 copies, I’ll have to charge $17.33 to just break even.

If I sell 500 copies, I’ll have to charge $8.66 to break even.

If I sell 750 copies, I’ll have to charge $5.77 to break even.

If I sell 1000 copies, I’ll have to charge $4.33 to break even.

Sounds like good numbers, eh? Well, let’s look at some complications.

First, if I sell through distributors, they ask for a 60% discount. That means, if the cover price of the book is $20, the distributors buy it from me for $12. Remember those numbers up there? Compare that $12 mark with the number of copies sold. Now remember that a blow out in this industry is 3,000 copies. Most RPGs sell around 1,000 copies. If I do sell 1,000 copies, it’ll probably be to hard-core L5R/7th Sea fans. That suggests to me that I’ll sell 1,000 copies regardless of the distribution system.

Numbers (whose origins I cannot divulge) suggest to me that I can sell around 1,000 copies of Orkworld. That means, it’ll cost me around $4,332 to print it (remember?). That means, it’ll cost me $4.33 cents to print each book. That means I can sell them to distributors for $12 a piece - making a total $12,000 gross profit, or I can sell them myself for $20 a piece, making $20,000 gross profit. Subtract $4,332 from each total. Then subtract another $2,166 from that total. That’s how much my producer receives for putting up cash for the art and printing.

So…

Sell Through Distributors:

$12,000 minus $6498 = $5502

or

Sell On My Own

20,000 minus $6498 = $13,502

What would you do?

Of course, something important deserves to be said here. If I wrote Orkworld as a freelance project, I’d get paid anywhere between ¢2 and ¢5 a word. Let’s assume the better and say ¢4. It looks like Orkworld is going to be close to 100,000 words. That means I’d get paid $4,000 for writing it and would not own it when I was done. Compare that surefire $4,000 and the uncertainty of the other numbers mentioned.

I could sell Orkworld through the game stores and distribution channel, although (and I don’t think I’m stepping on any toes here - but you never can tell), the RPG distribution channels have… well… a rather unsavory reputation. That doesn’t mean that they’re all bad and it doesn’t mean that they’ll all screw me. What it means is that the RPG industry is a lean industry and they’re doing they’re best to stay alive. If that means they have to sell as much Magic or Pokemon as possible, then they’ll do it. I understand and sympathize with that situation. It also means that if I decide to sell through distribution channels, I have to ask for money up front. I’m a small company (just me and my wife!) and I really can’t afford to bet on the come line (go to Vegas, sit down at a craps table and figure it out if you don’t get it).

On the other hand, Eric Rowe over at Wizard’s Attic has also offered to give me a hand. (Go visit Eric at www.wizardsattic.com.) More on that later.

Now on to other matters.

2)Making the book bigger than your standard RPG is dangerous. Gamers are a reactionary lot. Look at Castle Falkenstein (cards instead of dice?!? What were they thinking?!?), Everway (same disease), Trinity (apparently size does matter) and any other RPG that’s tried something different. Making my book bigger gives it a distinct look. It makes graphic design easier, it gives me more room for maps (especially that Big map) and lets me have more fun with layout. Of course, it also makes it different. Gamers hate different. Different bad.

3)Printing to order isn’t so much a problem. In fact, if I send the book to Lightning Print (more on them later; but in short, they’re a print-to-order service), I can do this without a problem.

4)Signing and numbering each book is nice, but there’s probably a lot of folks who say “Who cares? How does the game play?” The fact of the matter is: Until we - gamers - start seeing our own hobby as worthwhile, until we - gamers - start looking at rare games as valuable, games won’t have value. I go to a lot of game conventions. I collect Cthulhu. I’ve got a copy of every edition, including most of the foreign editions. I also collect Chill. Finally, I try to have a copy of every basic RPG set. Being a collector in the game industry is funny. People look at you weird. “That’s not worth anything!” they tell me. Then, they open up their pack of Magic cards, pull out a little piece of cardboard with some picture and words on it and tell me “Now that’s worth something!” Yeah. Right. Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder - and so’s the Beast.

So, the point of this little survey is to test out whether or not I want to move forward on Orkworld the way I planned. What I’m asking for all of you do to - even if you don’t plan on buying the book: your opinion is still very valuable to me - is to fill out the below survey. It’s quick, painless and easy. I’d appreciate it.

ORKWORLD SURVEY

1) Would you buy a book that’s larger than the standard game book?

2) Would you prefer to buy a book at your game store or over the internet?

That’s it. It’s that easy.

E-mail the responses to me at orkboss@orkworld.com. It’d appreciate it. If it’s easier for you, just post them in the Article Comments section of the forums. Open discussion always helps.

Part Four: One Last Thought…

And before I go, one last bit of penny wisdom. Don’t ever let your audience see behind the screen. The second they see you’re human, just trying to put out the best product you can, they also get see all the flaws. Forget the fact that you’re trying to help others do what you do, forget the fact that you’re an Ariadne String, showing other people false doors and pitfalls so it’s easier for them to get started on their own labyrinth. Forget the fact that you think the small press is the heart and soul of this industry, forget the fact that you believe gamers run this industry, and not Hasbro.

Forget all that. Gamers are looking for an excuse to tear you apart.

Someone told me that once. I forgot who it was.

I didn’t believe them, either.

It all begins with Greg Stafford. At least, this week’s entry begins with Greg Stafford.

I just got a call from the Great One (no, not Rocky Miavia — Greg Stafford!) who asked me to do some writing for his new Hero Wars game. Unfortunately, I’m only vaguely familiar with Glorantha, so I took a peek at www.Glorantha.com for some reference material.

Oh.

My.

God.

Let me tell you something about that Wheel of Time thing. It’s a fragment of what Greg’s got on his little world of Glorantha. Maybe a particle on a fragment. A molecule on a particle on a fragment.

Eric Rowe once told me that Glorantha was the most complete game world ever. He’s right. Damn right. Go check it out right the hell now. Forget my column this week. Go check out Glorantha. Then, when you’re done, come back here and see what the Little People are doing.

* * *

You done? If you read everything that’s there, you probably missed five weeks of my column, but don’t worry, I’m still here.

Pretty intense, huh? I mean, here I am, about to embark on developing a brand new world to put a nice, happy, friendly little RPG into, when Greg has got the God-King of fantasy worlds right there on line, ready for anyone who wants to take a hack at it.

I feel pretty inadequate right now. I’m gonna need some time to recover. Sheesh.

* * *

(Many hours later…)

Okay, I’m back on my feet. Yeah, Greg’s got one helluva world right there, but he’s had a couple of decades to build it and a whole lot of friends to help him do it.

All I got is me, myself and I. And a few hundred people looking over my shoulder, ready to criticize, scrutinize, analyze, chastise and aggrandize every move I make. Are you ready? ‘Cause I’m not sure if I am.

Let’s go!

* * *

All right. Let’s start with the basics.

We’re here to develop, design and produce a roleplaying game. It’ll be a small press RPG, so we don’t have a lot of money to work with. I’ve already got a financial backer who’s willing to put up money, a financial manager to keep track of the bills, an art director to deal with those pesky artists and a writer/developer/designer whose won himself more than a couple of Origins Awards.

But before we go any further, the first thing we have to do is determine if this venture is gonna make us any money. See, my wife thinks that part of the process is pretty important. I guess someone has to, otherwise, I’ll just be writing myself into debt.

So, I called up a couple of folks, got some estimates and came up with some numbers. Let’s start with the printing costs.

Before we go any further, let’s start at the step that you can’t ignore: the printer. No matter how many corners you cut, no matter how many people volunteer their work for free, no matter how many ramen meals you stuff down your throat, sooner or later, you’re going to have to deal with a printer.

I want a 124 page book. I want that book to be trade paperback size (that’s around 8”x6”). I want a color cover. I want black and white line art inside — no gray scale. I also want 3,000 copies.

Right now, I’ve got a few options. I’ve talked with a few printers and here are the best estimates:

Printer A says they can do a book that size for $1.71 a copy, but that’s with a 2-color cover.

Printer B says they can do a book that size for around $3 a copy. That’s with a full-color cover.

That means the book will cost (printing alone):

Printer A: $5,131

Printer B: $9,000 (est.)

Now, let’s assume we go with Printer A. I’m rounding up the total to $2 a book to cover them shipping the book to me. That raises our price to $6,000.

The cover price of our book will be $15. That means distributors will buy it from me for $6 a book. That means I’ll have to sell at least 1,000 books to break even.

If I go with Printer B ($9,000), I’ll have to sell at least 1,500 books to break even.

And that’s just the printing costs, folks.

Like I said in Episode One, 5,000 books is an absolute blow-out in this industry. But then again…

Another publisher of a rather popular small-press product (who I’ll name later if he gives me permission) told me that his product has sold over 6,000 in the last two years and he’s going back on press with it because he’s sold out.

This means there’s a small chance that our book will do better than 1000 copies. It’s a small chance, but we’re going to have to work hard to make that belief a fact.

Okay, here’s the tricky part. I’m gonna need someone to illustrate this book.

I’ve got a lot of names in front of me. I’ve got to give each of them a call and tell them that I have $XX budget to spend on art and I want them to do it all. By the way, the reason those two XXs are up there is because I haven’t asked the artists if I can publish the amount I’m willing to spend on them. Some folks are testy about that, and I understand exactly why:

Game Company X: “What do you mean you need five thousand dollars to illustrate our book? You did it for Wick for just two hundred bucks!”

That’s why. Not that two hundred bucks is how much I’m gonna spend, I’m just using random numbers as an example. Get it? Good.

So, I’m calling artists this week, letting them know I’m doing a small press project and I’m going to let them know exactly how much my investor is willing to spend on art.

Then, I’m gonna spring a surprise on them.

I’m paying them up front.

Nobody does this in the gaming industry, and I mean nobody. But I have to. I don’t have enough money to pay them when the book comes out. I have to entice them with a different kind of carrot. The kind that sparkles.

I’m paying the artist who illustrates my book before I get the art. I’m a trusting bastard. I could get a pile of crap and be stuck with it. But then again, the artists I’m thinking of wouldn’t do that. They’re professional and honorable men and women who wouldn’t stiff me. We’ll see what happens.

This is the one you’ve been waiting for.

What’s Wick’s new world?

He’s done vampire hunters.

He’s done samurai.

He’s done musketeers and pirates.

What’s he gonna do next?

I’m gonna do Orks.

That’s right. Orks. You know, the green-skinned, one-hit-die beasties that die screaming on the end of your sword. Yeah. Them Orks.

It all comes from a long time ago, when my boss, John Zinser, told us that he was going to run a D&D game in the office. I told him, “That’s fine. But I want to play an Ork bard.”

He gave me a double-take and said, “No way. No way you can play an Ork bard.”

I asked, “Why not?”

He told me, “Because there ain’t no such thing as an ‘Ork bard’!”

That set me to the task of proving him wrong.

And a few weeks later, I gave him 4,000 words that showed him just how wrong he was. We never played that D&D game, but he did admit that if he ever did run it, I’d get to play an Ork bard.

Those 4,000 words appeared in Shadis #24 under the title: “ORK: A New Look at an Old Enemy”.

Well, now’s the time to share my Orks with the rest of the world.

ORKWORLD: The Roleplaying Game is part of a larger intellectual property. I’ve got an ORKWORLD novel in progress as well as negotiations for an ORKWORLD comic book. It’s big. And it’s gonna be bigger.

Developing Orks as their own race has been a personal project of mine ever since I first played D&D. I hated the fact that Orks were the “free XP” monster. They never got a fair shake. They never got character. They were, are and always will be (in most people’s minds) the quintessential nameless monster.

Well, no more.

In a way, developing Orks as their own race is my way of throwing a gauntlet into the face of hack-n-slash gaming. After all, it’s a lot harder to kill something that you respect. I love Colonel Potter’s line from M*A*S*H: (paraphrasing here) “I think there oughta be a rule in war that you have to sit down and talk with a guy a few minutes before you can kill him.”

I feel that way about Orks.

Besides, it’s got marketing potential written all over it.

The product will only be 10% RPG. The rest will be source material on Orks. How they live, what they believe, what they eat, how they hunt all that good stuff. And what fantasy GM is going to turn his back on a 124 page sourcebook on Orks!?! I mean, doesn’t everybody have Orks in their fantasy game?

That last 10%, by the way, will be the simplest game system you’ve ever seen. Okay, maybe not the simplest, but a game system that’s easy to learn and use.

Very easy.

We’re talkin’ one page of mechanics here.

Too many rules means I gotta sacrifice world development space and I don’t have time for that.

Also, I can make the Orks fit that new “Clan” oriented RPG that’s popular right now. I can make up six different Ork Clans, make ‘em all unique and then let players jump right in and pick their favorite Ork Clan. By the way, if you don’t dig Clan RPGs or if you’re tired of it, I understand. However, one of the reasons Vampire and L5R are so popular right now is for that very reason.

Don’t fix what ain’t broken.

Of course, I could try to find the “next big thing”.

Or, maybe I’ll just play it safe with this one and try the “next big thing” with my next endeavor.

It’s called The Flux.

But that’s all I can tell you right now. You’ll have to wait for that one.

* * *

Over the next few weeks (possibly months!), you’ll see the development of this intellectual property. I’ve already got a whole ton of notes and you’ll watch those notes become thoughts become ideas. Finally, I’ll print the sucker and we’ll see how it does.

For those of you who want a sneak peek at what I’m doing, go find yourselves a copy of Shadis #24. You can get ‘em from your local game store or from AEG.

Anyway, that’s it for this week. Lots of thoughts and nothing concrete. We’ll have more numbers and the name of the premiere artist who’ll be doing the illustrations for the book next week.

And if you have any ideas, comments or questions, you can e-mail me at: orkboss@earthlink.com.

(You’re asking for e-mail you dolt! What are you thinking?)

Ah well. So much for a life.

Hello.

Welcome to the first installment of what I hope to be a long and prosperous relationship. My name is John and I’m one of those rare breeds who can’t quite sum up his profession in one neat, little package.

Yes, I am a game designer, as the title above suggests, but that isn’t my job. At least, it isn’t my only job. A fact that I hope this series of articles will illustrate quite plainly.

I am a game designer, but I’m also an author, business manager, market strategist, and product developer. However, I am not an art director. I leave that job to my wife.

And quite frankly, she can have it.

I’m currently employed over here at Alderac Entertainment Group, a smattering of some of the finest folks I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing time with. I’m currently the Lead Developer for the 7th Sea line of games. That line currently includes a roleplaying game and (in a few weeks) a collectible card game. Soon, we will branch into the vast, deadly expanse called “the miniatures market”, but we don’t have quite enough ammunition for that little sojourn. Not yet, at least.

Now that the introductions are over, perhaps we can get to the meat of all this jabbering. Just what is this whole “journal” thing about, anyhoo?

Well, it’s about me writing down my thoughts once a week on the perilous task of game design and development. That’s right, you get a look behind the curtain, a peek at the Wizard, so to speak. I don’t promise what you’ll see there is very pretty, but I do promise you that it will be informative and maybe - if we’re both lucky - you’ll be entertained enough to stick around for a while.

This first installment is kind of a prologue of things to come. Instead of filling you in on what’s happening this week, I thought I’d give you a teensy little peek at how a roleplaying game actually gets itself on the shelf.

I’ll warn you in advance: my reasoning isn’t completely altruistic. There’s been a lot of talk on the internet lately (isn’t there always?) that spouts a whole lot of “Game Company X is only in it for the money!” business. While I usually ignore all that, I thought I’d pause and take a moment to clear the air about roleplaying game companies and exactly how much money we make off a game.

Right down to the penny.

You ready?

Well then, let’s take a look.

(Before we begin, a note of caution. The numbers we’re talking about are averages. I am not about to reveal how much AEG spends on art and words, nor share how much it costs us to print a book. That’s called “insider information” and it ain’t getting spilled by this little Irishman, no sir.)

Okay. So you want to publish a roleplaying game.

And, you want to do it right. You want it to look like a TSR/FASA/White Wolf/AEG product. You want top notch layout, top notch artists and top notch writers on the job, right? Of course you do. We’re not in this for the money, we’re out to make the best product we can, not a smacked together garage job.

Well then, let’s start with the numbers.

Here are the things you need in order to do this right.

You’ll need a writer. We’re going to assume for the sake of argument that your writer can also design games. And for those of you keeping score at home, this is a very generous gimme. I am a writer first and a game designer second. All the mechanics I come up with get passed by Dave Williams and Kevin Wilson. They’re the real game designers. I’m just a writer.

But anyway, you need a writer/game designer. Let’s assume you’re going to pick someone who knows what they’re doing. Someone like Greg Stolze or John Tynes (Unknown Armies), Jonathan Tweet (Ars Magica, Over the Edge, Everway), Robin Laws (Feng Shui), Greg Stafford (Glorantha, Pendragon) or Lester Smith (do I really need to tell you what Lester’s done?). You get one of these guys.

The standard payment for someone of this caliber in the game industry is anywhere between ¢.03 and ¢.05 a word. The standard roleplaying game is 100,000 words. That means you’re going to have to pay your author anywhere between $3,000 and $5,000. Let’s call it down the middle and say $4,000.

Now, you’re going to need to get art. We’ll assume that you’ll be your own art director. Again, I’m being very generous; even the smallest game companies has someone to take care of that chore. “Why is that?” you ask. Well, let me show you why.

You’ll also need a computer that’s powerful enough to handle layout programs. You’ll also need Quark Express, PageMaker and the most recent version of Photoshop. You’ll also need a scanner. And a CD Rom burner.

But I’m a forgiving sort. We’ll assume you already have all that stuff.

The standard basic RPG is 248 pages long. I’ll tell you why when we get to production. Let’s divvy up your book into 4 chapters:

1. Introduction
2. World
3. Game System
4. Game Master Secrets

Now, because you want your book to be top-notch, you’re gonna want a lot of art. You’ll want at least one piece of art for every 4 pages. That’s 64 pieces of art. We’ll make four of those full pages (for the four chapters), one third of those half-pages and the rest quarter pages.

That means you get:

• 4 full page illustrations
• 20 half-page illustrations, and
• 40 quarter page illustrations

Now, you have to get someone to draw all of that. You also have to write up contracts for all the artists who work on your book. And, you have to catalogue all the pieces that come in by artist, then catalogue them again by which chapter heading they’ll go into. Oh, by the way, did I mention you have to write up artist descriptions for each illustration? Each one is usually about 100 words.

For a total of 64 pictures, that’s 6,400 words.

Not a single one of those words goes into your book, by the way. In this industry, they’re usually written by the author and they’re words he doesn’t get paid for.

Then, when the illustrations are all sorted and catalogued (twice), and after you’re done with them (we’re going to talk about layout in a second or two), you have to package them all back up and send them back to the artists. It usually takes our art director a day and a half to do this.

Still don’t think you need an art director?

But, I’m getting away from myself. Let’s talk about paying the artists.

The typical pay rate for black and white illustration in this industry is anywhere between these figures:

Full page black & white: $50 - $150

Half-page black & white: $25 - $50

Quarter page black & white: $10 - $25

So, with those figures in mind (again, we’ll split the average), let’s look at how much you’re going to spend on art:

$400 (4 full pages)

$750 (20 half pages)

$700 (40 quarter pages)

——————————-

$1850 for your interior art.

Oh, did I forget to mention the cover?

Standard cover pay rates vary greatly. However, most of the really great artists demand as much as $3000 for a cover. Our artist, however, is generous (picking up a trend here, folks?) and he’s going to charge us just $1,500 for our cover.

That brings our art budget right up to:

$1850 +

$1500

——

$3,350 for our total art budget.

Which brings our roleplaying game up to:

$3,350 +

$3,000

———

$6,350

Still with me?

All right. Now we get down to the nitty gritty.

Your writer’s done. Your art is in. Now’s the time for layout.

We’re not going to assume that you can layout the book by yourself. I’ve been very kind with the writer and the artists. This is where you get boned.

You need to pay someone to lay out your book. You could do it yourself, but then it would look like someone did it on their home computer and we don’t want that. So, you get a professional layout guy to do this for you.

And he charges you $50 bucks an hour to do it. Don’t worry, it should only take a few weeks. Probably three.

At eight hours a day, that’s $2,000 a week. Three weeks later, you’ve paid $6,000 to lay out your book. That’s almost what you paid for writing and interior art.

Anyone want to take a guess why so many RPG reviews complain about the layout?

So, you lay your book out on your IBM or Mac at home. I lied. You got off the hook there.

So now you’re book is all laid out. Now what?

Editing.

So, you hire a professional editor to look over your book. She’s only going to charge you ¢.03 a word. That’s $3,000. That’s what you paid your writer.

Anyone want to take a guess why so many RPG reviews complain about the editing?

So, you get a bunch of friends of yours to do the editing for you.

You know. Let’s stop right there.

At the beginning of all this, I said I was going to give you a product that could compare with TSR/FASA/White Wolf/AEG level products.

Screw it. You’re paying the layout guy and the editor. If we have to do it, so do you.

And you’ll still get people complaining about the layout and editing.

So, that’s another $9,000 tacked on to your total, which brings us to:

$9,000 production

$3,350 art

$3,000 writing

———

$15,350 is our grand total.

Now, let’s talk about some real money. Let’s go talk to the printer.

The standard print run of a roleplaying game these days is between 5,000 and 10,000 copies. No, wait. That’s a lie. That’s what it was five years ago.

Nowadays, it’s between 2,000 and 5,000 copies. That’s the average. The big boys print more, but not often. However, this is a core rule book release. We’ll play it safe and call it 5,000 copies. Like I said, these ain’t the glory days no more, and the average core rulebook RPG run is about 5,000.

Chances are, if you’re printing in the game industry, you’re printing in Canada (it’s cheaper there). That means you have to put your RPG on CD Rom.

What’s that? You don’t have a CD Rom burner? Well then, you better go out and get one.

(To be honest, I don’t have the first clue how much a CD Rom burner costs, so I’m not lumping into the final cost here. Again, I’m being generous.)

You send it off to the printer. He’s in Canada. That’s going to cost you a varying amount, depending on where you are. Let’s call it $20 to be safe.

At 5,000 books, the printer will charge you about $8 a book. That’s $40,000.

Let’s recap.

$9,000 production

$3,350 art

$3,000 writing

$40,020 printing

———-

$55,370 total cost

So now, you have a book!

You’re ready to take in the big bucks, right?

Well, let’s stop for a moment and consider one last little detail.

Comp copies.

That’s what it’s all about, right? Giving away your art? After all, you’re not in this for the money - even though you just spent $55,000. By the way, the standard comp copy bit is usually one to three per customer.

So, who do you owe comp copies to?

• 2 for the cover artist (one for his portfolio and one for personal use)
• 5 for the author (one for him, one for his library and two for his parents)
• 14 to the interior artists (we’ll say you only used… ah, let’s say 7; that’s a fair number)
• 2 for the editor
• 2 for the layout guy
• 2 for the printer

and who are we missing…

Oh! That’s right! The playtesters!

(I intentionally didn’t mention them until now. Sorry for the trick.)

How many playtesters do you want? Is ten enough? Twenty? Thirty? I’ve found the average number of playtesters listed in a game’s credits runs about 20. Let’s assume they each get one book, okay?

So, our grand total of comp copies is 47. That’s almost a tenth of your print run. Remember that, it’s going to come in handy right quick.

So now we’ve got 4,500 books (I let you keep 3 of them for yourself). It’s time to sell ‘em. Off to the distributors!

Now, this article is no place for the Great Debate about the whole distribution system in the gaming industry. I ain’t gonna talk about that here. I’m just going to tell you what kind of money you’re going to get from them.

First, you gotta ship it. We’re going to use standard numbers here. To “fulfill” your orders, you’re looking at a shipping cost of about $5,000. That’s just to ship the books. That’s right, distributors don’t pick up the shipping costs!

The standard distributor discount (that’s how much you let them buy the book for) is 60%. That means your 248 page book with the $25 cover price only really earns you $15. You paid $8 per book. That gives you a profit of $7 per book. At 4,500 books, that’s a grand profit of $31,500!

And folks, that’s only if you sell the entire print run.

Which ain’t happenin’ a lot in this industry.

But anyway, you made $31,500!

Remember how much you spent?

$31,500 (profit)-

$40,370 (costs)

——–

-$8870

So, if you sell out your print run, you’ve put yourself eight thousand dollars in debt.

Aren’t you glad I let you have the comuter for free?

It usually takes a year to put one of these things together. That ain’t a part-time year, neither. That’s a full-time year; eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

The standard freelance author writes 10,000 words a week. That’s ten weeks for your book, not counting emergencies. And don’t think for a second that an emergency ain’t gonna pop up any second now. That means at the end of ten weeks, your author earned himself $1.3 an hour.

Your cover artist has it a little better. It usually takes a month to put out a really good piece of cover art. So, in four weeks, your artist earns herself $9.35 an hour. Not bad.

As for yourself, for developing a roleplaying game for a year, you just earned yourself six and a half bucks an hour. Just a little less than minimum wage in most states.

So, how do you lower the costs of an RPG?

• You don’t hire professional editors.
• You don’t hire professional lay-out guys.
• You don’t hire a professional author.
• You don’t hire professional artists.

Ah, the glamorous life of a game developer.

But then again, you’re not in it for the money, are you?

That’s it for this week.

Next week I’ll talk about Nude Nazi Surfers: The Roleplaying Game and Peter Hentges’ battlecry “Damn You John Wick!” that was heard resounding around Origins this year.

Stay tuned!

Printing is one of those mysterious processes that are so essential to any publishing endeavour (like roleplaying games!) but one which is shrouded in mystery. This can often be partly due to the printers themselves. One print broker I know (who shall remain nameless) commented that he had been speaking to a group that mostly comprised designers and writers but also included a single printer. The print broker said something along the lines of “…and now I am going to talk to you about paper, because it is fundamental to all printing.”

And the printer suddenly interrupted with “Why are you talking about paper? No one wants to know about that!”

To which the broker replied, “How do you know?”

And the printer’s answer was “Because they never ask!”

Needless to say this circular logic caused no small amount of amusement amongst the crowd. But it did raise an interesting point. How are you going to know about the printing process if no one ever tells you?

Well, I am not the source of all knowledge on this subject, but perhaps I can shed a little light on a very important area of information.

Printing is a vast subject (and indeed you can go on long drawn out courses that will fill you in on all the details), but I don’t have time for that in this article (and besides there are others out there who know way more about this than me). So instead what I will do is cover the absolute basics and the essentials so that you have some idea where to start. Hopefully, my advice will save you both time and money.

I must stress again that this article is way to short to cover the printing process in any real depth. Instead the aim is to give you some points to think about.

Short Overview of the Printing Process

There are several forms of printing. The two that most RPG companies will be concerned with is sheet fed lithographic printers and digital printing. I will come to digital printing later, but lithographic printing deserves a big mention because it is still one of the biggest (and best) printing methods available. Lithographic (’litho’) prints using the chemical properties of oil and water from printing plates that are made from printing films! Litho prints are the way the majority of roleplaying books and supplements you have seen will have been printed, and they are very good at this. The problem with litho prints is the size of the minimum print run. Print runs of less than 5,000 are often impractical. Before you do anything else you should sit down and discuss the various options with your printer.

Paper

There are three important things to know about paper. The first is that there are two types of paper: coated and uncoated. Uncoated paper is rough and course (the paper that newspapers are printed on is uncoated), whilst coated paper is significantly smoother (and often much more glossy). It is important to know which you need to print on because the end effect your printing achieves will vary significantly depending on the paper type used. Anything printed by laser must be uncoated for the toner to apply properly. On the other hand, any nice colour pictures (along with normal print) must be printed on coated paper because the ink dries cleanly on coated paper (apart from blue- that never dries! Always get a varnish applied to your colour prints to set the colour and hold it in place).

Second many of you are probably concerned with being environmentally friendly. Well be aware, there are four types of recycled paper and only two of them are genuinely recycled (the other two types come from printer’s scrap paper). Also the bleaching process used to restore recycled paper can often be more harmful than the original paper making process itself (hydrogen peroxide is used for this, and we all know what it does to hair).

The third thing you need to know about is ‘GSM’ (or grams per square metre) measured in the USA in lbs. Most paper suppliers will tell you that higher GSM = higher quality. This is not necessarily true. GSM is first and foremost a measure of weight, and not quality. In fact extremely high quality glossy paper tends to be of a much lower GSM because it is highly polished and compressed.

When it comes to paper you should talk to your printer and see what he or she recommends you use. At the end of the day they know how their printing machines work and will have a good idea of what is best for you.

Imposition

What is imposition I hear you ask?

Imposition is the placement of pages on the printed sheet, and good imposition can save you a fortune. When printing your book, the print run itself will be printed on a much larger size of paper first, and then later be cut and bound to make your document.

Supposing in your print run you have 8 full colour pages, well when it comes to printing you want to make sure that they are all on the same side of the printing paper because if they are- then you only have to make the colour prints once. You might have to rearrange things a bit, but colour printing is far more expensive than single colour printing, therefore stick them all together to get them done in one pass.

Ask your designer about Imposition!

Creep

Creep is the basic detail that when you staple-bind multiple pages together by stacking them on top of each other one at a time (i.e. the way newspapers are organised), then the inside pages stick out further than the outside pages. That is creep, and you can avoid it in your document by asking the printer to supply you with a sample stitched dummy brochure so that your designer can adequately compensate for this. This does not apply to perfect bound sections, which are glued together.

Colour

Colour is a fairly important area. Colour printing involves understanding CMYK and Pantone colours. CMYK is the industry term for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, and it is from these colours that the majority of colour prints are made. In order for this to happen your designer needs to arrange the colour separations, splitting the prints into the separate colours. This is fine for most prints, but to be honest CMYK prints can be a bit dull, so you might decide to add a Pantone colour or two. Pantone colours come from the Pantone range, and many of these ARE very vibrant. The only problem is that they cost extra!

Colour Bleed

Colour bleed is where the colours of any print are taken outside the basic limits of the page. Why would you do this? Well, during the printing process the paper moves around on the print press and you need to allow for that movement. You should leave a few millimetres (a tenth of an inch or so) of bleed at least to make sure you don’t end up with any ugly white lines on your print.

Printing Times

Printing times can vary enormously but expect anything between 1 day (for small digital print runs) to up to 8 weeks for full-scale litho prints!

Proofing

Always check the proofs that your printer supplies (such as Cromalins, Matchprint, Machine Proofs or Digital Proofs) but be aware that there are several limitations. The vast majority of proofs are not quite the prints you will get either because of the different colours, paper types of just the overall production method. Ask your printer how the proofs will compare to the actual printing run. Also mark anything that looks odd or strange. It is important that errors get picked up at this stage as once the printing process has begun there will be no going back.

Considerations When Choosing a Printer

You need to think about some of the following issues when choosing a printer:
Will the supplier be able to produce your work in-house and are they in control of their supplier?

• Is the company recognised by any trade organisations or federations?
• Have you used them before, or have you heard of their reputation?
• Are their printing presses the most economical for your needs?
• Is the communication between you and the printer good?
• Have you seen previous work from the printer?
• Does the printer have more than one printer in case of a breakdown?

Your Relationship With Your Printer

I cannot stress this enough. It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that you establish a good working relationship with your printer. If you talk to him or her, your printer can save you a lot of time and effort. Talk to them about all the stages of the process. Ask their opinions, and LISTEN to what they say. Let them know what it is you are trying to achieve and then if any problems crop up they will know how to resolve them.

Also (and this is highly improbable)- try and bring them into the process as early as possible (and make sure your designer is talking to them too). Try and allow enough time for the process to be completed. It gives you more flexibility. If your printer says to you (as they often to) “Something has come up. What is the absolute minimum amount of prints I can get to you by XX day?” Try and be reasonable. Printers have long memories and if you help them out, they help you out.

Who Owns What

There are more than a few surprises hidden here!

Of course you own all the artwork and text, but if you check closely you will find that anything the printer supplies the printer owns. This means that it might be your text on a print film, but the film itself belongs to the printer. If this is a problem for you then I would suggest you supply as many of the materials yourself as you can.

Remember to read the small print.

Digital Printing

One possible solution for the small-scale prints that RPGs do is that of digital printing. It requires no film; prints straight from PDF format, and can do any number of prints (no minimum).

If you get books digitally printed (on something like an Indigo e-print or a Xeicon) it will probably be far more cost effective for you (they work out much cheaper than lithographs for prints less than 5,000 copies).

They print in standard CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black- don’t ask me why it is ‘K’- I have no idea!), but they can also print in Indichrome (CMYK + Purple + Orange), which looks fantastic, plus you can use all your normal Pantone colours.

Digital printers seem to be perfect for RPG printing.

Oh, I forgot to mention, on top of all that digital printers are very quick- for small orders the total turn around time can be as little as 1 day! The one major disadvantage is that they are not as economical as standard Lithographic printing for numbers in excess of 4,000 - 5,000 (but that is not too much of a problem for this industry, currently), and that the current sheet size maximum is A2 for Indigo and A1 for Xeicon.

If this is a field you want to know more about I cannot recommend highly enough the benefits of going on a short course that covers the basics. I can recommend one in the UK who is outstanding, but in other areas have a look around. They are worth the money in the long run.

That’s it for now! If you have any comments or questions then let me know! Feel free to email me.

  It’s a perennial question:  why do role playing game companies publish games that aren’t complete, and then release perpetual streams of mandatory supplements?  Gamers often feel that they’ve been cheated when they discover that in order to play the whole game they have to buy something else.  Yet there are few games–and none of the major ones–which don’t have additional rules, expanded setting information, continued story lines all sold separately.  If these supplements are anathema, why are they so common?

Speaking Personally

  I began my role playing experience as referee of a basic version of a popular game.  Although it cost as much as any board game I had purchased, it was far from complete.  Characters could only advance so far, and then another book would be needed.  I never found the second book–I don’t know if it was ever published before that basic game was completely rewritten.  I did find the books for the advanced version of the game, at that time in three volumes, and continued the game with that.  There was much that was additional, new material to expand the limited game.  More significantly, there were many things which were different, slight inconsistencies which bordered on incompatibilities.  Some of the die rolls were different, some of the equipment had to be tweaked, and I never did introduce the corrected exchange rate for the money.  Still, the basic game had been a very limited introduction to a new kind of game, and the advanced version was more like finally taking the game seriously.  Fifty more dollars later, I began to build my world.

  A couple more books were published, providing mostly optional material–more creatures for encounters and similar expansions.  I bought each, not as soon as it came out, but when I had the extra cash.  Then a book came out which significantly impacted on my game.  It presented new types of characters, not merely new options but character types which had to be back-written into the world that had been expanding.  Major cities with huge populations and carefully considered fortifications suddenly were changed so that these other people were there, and had always been there.  On top of that, the new books made changes in the rules for character types my players were running.  So we all grumbled a bit; but we accepted the changes.

  And so with each new book, my game world expanded as I rewrote character information and recreated cities and dungeons to include the new material.  Three books grew to a dozen, each changing our game, creating more work, but giving us new options and ideas.  And then it all changed.  The game company produced a second edition.

  We had long awaited a second edition.  With the years of expansion through volume upon volume, the rules had become unwieldy and disorganized.  A new edition would bring it back together, putting the new rules and the old rules in the same book according to subject.  But the new edition was a surprise.  It was not like a new edition of a book, or a new edition of Trivial Pursuit.  It was more like a new and different game carrying the same name.  And it quickly became apparent that this new game was as much about selling supplemental rule books with character types and world expansions as it was about roleplaying.  Like so many other fans of the earlier version, we bought very little of the new game, and complained loudly about it.

  Then I was invited to help write a new game.  Its originator had the same feelings about games built on innumerable supplements.  We determined that our game would be complete in one package.  We invested literally years in finishing it, and then approached the problems of launching it.  Some of those we contacted told us we were crazy, that the only way to survive as a role playing game publisher was to break the game into many smaller books and sell them separately.  But we stuck to our plan, and released what we believed was a complete game.

Why Do They Do It?

  Perhaps that many publishers can’t be wrong.  All the big companies publish stacks of books expanding and detailing their popular games.  We can wonder whether they do this because, as the big companies, they can, or whether they are the big companies because they do this.  But in fairness, many smaller companies also do it, and survive through it.  And in this industry, there are a lot of reasons to move in that direction.

  If, unlike most young companies, you get good advice before you try to publish your first game, you will be told that your second book has to be ready and financed before your first one goes to press, and that you need to have something new on the market every few months.  This in itself is reason to keep part of your game out of the first book; you’ll need something to print in two to three months, and a small company has limited resources in all areas.  Also, whatever you print will have to sell, or you won’t have the money to prepare the next release; so it’s better to have something closely related to the original game, something that your customers will want, even which you can convince them they need.  And what better way to convince them they need the next book than to withhold non-vital parts of the game system itself?

  Even if you’re a big company, there are constraints on how much you can put in a book.  The core rule book can’t cost more than thirty dollars or it won’t sell; gamers will spend hundreds of dollars on a game, but they won’t spend more than about thirty dollars on one book.  They also don’t like the look of a book that’s more than about an inch thick.  If your game is bigger than that, you almost have to break it into two or more books.  Gamers will buy a three-book game for thirty dollars a book, one book at a time, even if they know up front that one book is not the whole system; they won’t buy a one-book game which costs more.

  And gamers themselves encourage this proliferation of supplements.  They call it “support”.  You can publish an excellent game, but if you don’t publish more books for it the average gamer will shun it, fearing that your company will fail and there will be no future material published for the game.  So, like parsley on the side of the plate, the publisher has to release books no one wants just so that distributors, retailers, and gamers will know it’s still alive.  But the publisher can’t afford to publish books no one will buy; and the distributors and retailers won’t stock new product from companies if their previous product doesn’t sell.  So every effort has to be made to convince the gamer that he needs the new book.

  At one time I wrote a page for my company which linked the catalogs of other game companies, listing all the books which the company claimed were “necessary” to their game or which appeared so integral to the game system that it would be difficult to play the game without them.  Someone criticized the page, saying that those familiar with the games would know you didn’t need all of those books to play those games, despite what the companies said in their catalogues.  This complicates the question greatly.  How can you tell whether a supplement is a necessary part of the game, or if it’s peripheral?

  One of the earliest games I played was a science fiction space adventure game.  The original rules contained no information about flying a spaceship, nothing about plotting courses, repairing spaceships, or ship-to-ship combat; there were only the sketchiest bits of spaceship design and space travel, and all that was given with any detail was the time it would take to travel between various known points in space.  For a game about space adventures, this would on its face seem unacceptable.  Yet the initial set was, in one sense, complete.  The players were expected to be computer and robotics specialists, technicians, trained fighters, medics, ecoscientists, and psychologists.  On spaceships, they were always passengers; their adventures took place in the halls and rooms of ships and stations, and on advanced and primitive planets.  We played hundreds of hours without ever needing anything which wasn’t included.

  Then a supplement came out, a second set which added a collection of spaceship skills, extended discussion of spaceship design, ship weapons, and spacesuits, and information about space travel generally.  It became possible for player characters to expand their abilities and become part of a crew, or even acquire a ship and run it themselves.  Arguably, this was a necessary part of the game, filled with rules that should have been in the original books.  Just as arguably, this was an optional expansion, and players could continue to enjoy the game for years without ever worrying about the problems it addressed.  It changed nothing previously stated; it only increased the possibilities for players and referees.

  It is to one degree vital that the game company convince its customers that they need the newest supplements, because these books have to sell to keep the company viable.  But the fact that the company calls a new book “necessary” or even “vital” is no proof that it even adds significantly to the material you already have.

The Alternative

  We published a game which we thought was complete in one volume; it is nearly six hundred pages, with a fifty dollar price tag not unreasonable for its size.  We packaged it with a setting book which presented several settings fully playable, almost two hundred pages included at no additional cost.  We promised up front that we would publish helpful supplements, but that nothing else would be needed to play the game.

  Some critics charged that because we promised supplements, we were intrinsically admitting that the game was not complete in one book; others agreed that the full game system was in the rules, saying even the accompanying settings were not needed.  No customer has yet complained that there was something lacking.  The most requested supplement has been another book of settings.  We’ve kept a high level of visibility, run on-line demonstration games, given away a stripped sample version of the game system and support material including a small but complete setting, and let people know that we intend to stay.

  But it’s an uphill battle.  Many gamers have said that we should cut the rules in half and sell it in two volumes at thirty dollars each, with the settings sold separately for another twenty.  They would rather pay eighty dollars for the full game as long as they can do it in installments.  The theory seems to be that you can buy part of the game, and even if you can’t play the game with that book you can at least get an idea of whether you want to buy the rest.  If they’re right, then we’re wrong–people wouldn’t rather buy the whole game in one package.  They would rather buy a cheaper first book, and pay extra to get the rest of the system.

  Supplements for our game are forthcoming; yet we’ve already tied our own hands in this regard.  We can’t tell those who have bought the game that they need something else, because we’ve told them already that they won’t.  It remains to be seen how many unnecessary supplements gamers will buy, and whether a game company can survive on such sales.

  But Multiverser has in large part been supported by volunteers who believe in the game, who are willing to work for stock options and the hope of future profits.  It has benefited from artists who have deferred collecting royalties on their contributions so that the company can put the money into daily operations.  Business has been done on a shoestring from our homes and over the Internet.  Were it not so, if Valdron Inc. had had to pay significant overhead during its first couple of years of operation, it would have vanished by now.  Survival in this business is not easy; companies need to find customers who will buy their games, and who will keep buying the supplements.  Would I have done it differently had I known all this before we went to print?  Probably not–I still don’t like games which require buying a complete library to play.

  But given the realities of the role playing game industry, I suspect this approach will be with us for a long time to come.

—–

M. Joseph Young is Vice President for Development of Valdron Inc and Co-author of Multiverser:  The Game.  His writings on the Internet are indexed for convenience.

Ahh, the small press. It is the primordial ooze to which all game companies
owe their origins. The RPG industry as we know it was built by obsessed
minds, determined to see their particular fantastic vision of a reality
brought to life with dice paper and pencils (little metal men optional).
From TSR, to White Wolf, to even the Great And Mighty Wizards of the Coast,
they all started small and got big. They had no huge marketing budgets, no
sales projections, and no freakin’ idea that they would make it as far as
they have. I firmly believe that if you had told Pete Adkinson back in 1992
that in 5 short years he would own TSR, he would have fallen out of his
chair laughing. These companies bootstrapped themselves up from basements
and garages with good creative ideas, a heck of a lot of stubbornness and a
metric ton of luck. And today they have become the industry leaders.

These days those who would follow in their footsteps, the small press
publishers, are on the ropes. It seems that good ideas and persistance
aren’t enough to make it anymore. Is the small press doomed? And what does
that mean to the average gamer?

First of all, a fundamental thing to understand is that, by the standards of
the publishing world at large, almost all gaming manufacturers are small
press. The print numbers that many companies deal with and accept as “good”
sales would be sneered at by Bantam or Doubleday. If most companies are
small press already, you can imagine where that leaves the companies THEY
consider small press.

Aspiring small press publishers have a lot more to contend with today than
in past years. The overall production bar has been raised industry-wide.
Back when even the big boy’s games featured pedestrian layout and mediocre
art, any guy with a game design, some friends who could half-way draw, and
access to a copy machine could produce new game. Those days are long gone,
and any game that wishes to be more than a blip on the RPG gaming radar had
better look at least competent.

Of course, looking good costs money. The economic investment required to get
a game line up and running today is pretty steep. You can’t hawk your game
at GenCon and be confident that the masses will come flocking to your door.
Art costs, print costs, warehousing, shipping, and the most neglected of all
costs in this business, marketing, can push the initial starting capital
necessary for a new company over $100,000. The advent of print-on-demand
services like Lightning Print have offered a small flicker of hope in the
doing-it-on-the-cheap department, but its still a tough row to hoe. The
consolidation of the distribution system and the embryonic advent of gaming
chain stores, while beneficial for the industry at large, has made it even
tougher for a small press start up. Convincing a major distributor that your
new game that he’s never heard of is going to sell like hotcakes is not an
easy task.

And a new game has to have a hook — something new and unique, like Feng Shui’s
take on Hong Kong action, or Deadlands mix of spaghetti western and horror.
Another fact that any small press wanna-be should consider is that the days
of innovation through system design are long gone. You’ll have to excuse the
bluntness of this next statement, but here’s a news flash: the public isn’t
interested in your house version of AD&D. If all a small press game features
is a new way to play elves, orcs and dwarves, it is doomed to fail, in my
opinion. A strong world background can survive with a fairly uninspired game
system. A brilliant game system with a lackluster world is doomed from the
get-go.

This has some unfortunate effects for those who don’t take a good hard look
at what they are doing. Every year at the big summer shows I see at least
two or three groups of people hawking their new game, hoping to hit it big.
All too often, my thought is “Wow, they just threw away a whole lot of
money.” Its an uncomfortable but real fact the there are a limited amount of
dollars floating around in gamer’s pockets, and if your product isn’t up to
snuff, no one will buy it. Not only will no one buy it in stores, it’ll
never even make it there because the distributors won’t touch it. These self
starters with the best of intentions will walk away from their experience
with self publishing with nothing more than a mountain of debt and a
bruised ego.

So where does this leave the aspiring game publisher? Well, it doesn’t look
to good for ‘em — and I have to say that this makes me pretty sad. I LOVE
small press games. Ever since I first poked my nose outside of the well
trodden fields of AD&D some 15 years ago, small press games have offered
some of the most innovative and daring ideas. Some of these games, like Over
The Edge and Big Eyes, Small Mouth have survived and managed to find
enough of a fan base. Others like Skyrealms of Jorune and High Colonies have
faded into the mists of RPG industry history. I would hate to think of a
world without the small press games. The RPG hobby would seem a lot less
rich to me without these often off-kilter publications.

But there is hope. Electronic publishing seems to be the natural next step
for an aspiring small press game publisher. Adobe’s PDF format is making it
easier and easier to create great looking documents and distribute them on
the cheap. With the growing power and ease of Internet commerce, I have high
hopes that the RPG small press will survive, and perhaps even flourish,
online.

-Hal Mangold is the Brand Manager for the Deadlands: Weird West RPG.