Publishing in the TTRPG Industry

While no publishing journey is straight forward, publishing a TTRPG can be particularly difficult and

complex. When hoping to publish a TTRPG for the intent of profit and reach a wide audience, there

are many, many things to consider. To help illustrate my points, I’ll be using the production of the

game Demigods by Jason Mills, a Powered by the Apocalypse game meant to emulate stories like

Good Omens and Percy Jackson, as an example. (Mills, n.d.)

The term “TTRPG” stands for tabletop roleplaying game, a type of game originally designed

to be played by a group usually ranging from three to seven with pen and paper on a shared table

top. While the genre has evolved since then, such as some games not only being optimised to be

played online but designed to be played that way, many core tenants are still around. One of the

most famous examples of a TTRPG is the popular game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), invented by

Gary Gygax and currently owned by Wizards of the Coast (Appelcline, 2013).

While D&D is the most famous and most stereotypical of TTRPGs, there are thousands of

games both physically and digitally published. These vary in way played, number of group, and

equipment needed nearly as widely as sports do. Each type of game is enjoy by millions of people

worldwide.

Traditional publishing works very differently for TTRPGs than books. Most game companies

that publish TTRPGs don't accept submissions and those that do are usually looking for a very

specific type of game. Take two separate companies as an example: Magpie Games is a smaller

press. They make exclusively “Powered by the Apocalypse” TTRPGs and board games and they don’t

accept any submissions (About Us | Magpie Games, n.d.). Paradox Interactive, the company that

now publish Vampire: The Masquerade, do accept submissions, however they rarely take on a new

game unless it’s specifically what they’re looking for (Pitch your game to Paradox - Paradox

Interactive - Global Games Publisher, n.d.).

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 This means that while traditional publishing with TTRPGs is possible, it’s unlikely unless you

form your own company (which is what many smaller TTRPG presses are). Getting accepted by a

larger company also comes with many drawbacks. While they do pay for all the publishing costs, the

company gets to decide whether you’re paid for your work on a work-for-hire basis (a single

payment for all your work) or paid through royalties (a cut of the profit for every copy sold). The

company also acquires all rights to the game, meaning they can change it any way they like and

prevent you from making any expansions for it. It’s entirely possible, when selling to a big game

company, that through internal machinations, your game may be stuck in development for a long

time before being cancelled entirely.

So what are the alternatives to traditional publishing? For TTRPGs they are numerous. For

one, a lot of creators who don’t make a living off of their games release their games for free. This

means linking a Google Drive or uploading a PDF of their game to any site or forum that allows it and

just letting whoever wants to download it. This is especially common with smaller games and

“hacks”, a game where it has been created based entirely off another, pre-made game. An example

would be Jedi Hearts, a Star Wars hack of Magpie Games’ Masks: A New Generation.

Creators who wish to make a profit also have many options at their disposal. Online stores

and company websites are the most common choices for them. For example, both print books and

PDFs are sold on Magpie Games’ website. However, for creators without a company or the funds for

a website, sites like DriveThru RPG (also known as RPGNow.com) are usually used.

DriveThru RPG allows creators to upload their work and set their own price for sale. The site

takes a cut of the profit but many creators still use the site as its popular, trustworthy, and has a very

well utilised tagging system to make games easy to find.

DriveThru RPG is such a popular site that even websites designed to allow player to upload

“homebrew” material (material made to be played in a certain game that isn’t a hack but isn’t

involved in any official materials) upload onto it. These include the Miskatonic Repository, a site for

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the game Call of Cthulu (O'Brien, 2017), and Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeon Master’s Guild is hosted

on a site by the same parent company, OneBookshelf (Dungeon Masters Guild Now Open |

Dungeons & Dragons, 2016).

While DriveThru RPG is the most popular site of this type, there are alternatives for creators

to use. Another favourite is Itch.io. Itch.io is a good example of the smaller known sites. It’s

considered much more creator friendly due to its easy to use layout and because it takes a smaller

price cut than sites like DriveThru RPG. However, Itch.io does also have less traffic and TTRPGs tends

to get buried under all the other types of games also available on the site.

When discussing the production of the game, Mills says on the Kickstarter page for

Demigods that “Once fulfillment is done, [he] will publish it on DriveThru RPG” (Mills, 2019). As Mills

is not making this game in conjuncture with any company and no other site was mentioned, it’s

likely that DriveThru RPG is the only site the game will be uploaded on. This shows the near

monopoly DriveThru RPG has with online marketplace for TTRPGs.

A very important thing to consider when making a TTRPG is what system is uses. System

refers to the ruleset the game uses. While making a new ruleset may seem to be the norm, it’s

actually far from it. Most widely used systems in use with TTRPGs are named after the original game

or creator of the system. For example, Powered by the Apocalypse games are named after

Apocalypse World, games using the rules of Vampire: The Masquerade use the White Wolf system,

named after White Wolf studios.

While this may seem to be purely a game design consideration, system can affect whether

or not a company will sell your game as well as how many players it could attract. Players are more

likely to play a game they already know the rules to, rather than having to learn a whole new set of

rule or even having to buy new dice or tokens.

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 Using Demigods as an example, it uses the Powered by the Apocalypse system to allow a

focus on story. In the comments on the Kickstarter page, backers specifically mention that they are

excited to play the game because they like Powered by the Apocalypse systems, like Scott Waring

with “I’ve played a lot of Dungeonworld and am waiting for the chance to run some other PbtA

games” (Demigods - Comments, 2019). There were also others saying they might not play the game

because of bad experiences with the system, like Jefepato with “If I'm being honest, there is little

chance of me ever playing this game. I don't like the PbtA system at all.” (Demigods - Comments,

2019), which shows that the association with the system goes both ways and has to be considered

beyond playing the game.

Having a unique system can be a selling point of a game, but it’s when it’s complicated or

requires too many extra pieces, it’s a turn off rather than an attraction.

The biggest drawback of self-publishing a TTRPG is the cost. Unless you have a team willing

to work for free, everything will cost money. Price will vary depending on length of the game (a one

page hack of Lasers and Feelings may not actually require any art or editing, while a full four

hundred page core book most probably will). Typically, the complete cost will be somewhere in the

thousands but unless it’s a particularly large project or a particularly expensive service is being used,

it’s highly unlikely to go into five digits.

The reason it can be so expensive is because there are so many necessary services. Writing,

editing, layout and art, marketing, a website, any physical pieces that need to be made, safety tools,

printing, advertising. All of these can cost hundreds to thousands of pounds. To make sure the book

is of publishable quality, all of them are necessary.

Fundraisers are a very common way to raise this money for independent developers.

Kickstarter is a very popular website for this and it even has a dedicated section for games. Like

DriveThru RPG, Kickstarter is well liked for many reasons but not the only site of its kind.

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 The Kickstarter page for Demigods is a good example of the typical page for TTRPG

Kickstarters. It contains basic information on the game and funding goals, such as the premise and

the stretch goals, but also goes into more detail with information on the playbooks in the game

(“The Elemental embodies a specific element and is in a constant struggle between their mortal and

primordial natures” (Mills, 2019)) and the additional artists and writers they intend to add at the

stretch goals (such as telling the backers “She is currently based in Albuquerque as the Director of

Marketing and Sales for Magpie Games” about Sam Saltiel (Mills, 2019)).

However, the information given by Mills also gives insight into the game making process

before the Kickstarter campaign is launched. In the “Risks” section, he says “[the Kickstarter] funds

will recoup my personal costs and pay for additional art, editing, layout, and distribution” (Mills,

2019). Much of the manuscript and art is already done and paid for out of pocket, with the

Kickstarter page being a way to reimburse the costs, rather than fully fund the project.

Format can also affect how well perceived the game is. A popular format for games these

days is as a PDF. It allows for quick play as the core book doesn’t have to be shipped. It’s also more

environmentally friendly, many game runners prefer it as it’s easily shareable with players, and it’s

cheaper to make as there’s no printing costs. However, there is one major drawback: collectors.

Collectors make up a large amount of profit in the table top industry. They enjoy owning

physical copies, which are usually more expensive, and will pay extra for the limited editions or

unique tools that may come with the game. For example, Chaosium’s 7th Sea has a PDF core book, a

hardback core book, and a leather bound core book for a higher price. The risks of physical books,

and especially limited editions, are that demand is estimated and profit may be lost printing the

books. Mills sums this up as not “[knowing] how many physical books to order versus PDF copies”

(Mills, 2019) when discussing Demigods.

There are two alternatives that may be a solution to printing books that may not sell. The

first is “print and play”, where the player downloads a PDF and assembles any physical components

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themselves. This is not a popular solution among players as it’s not the entertaining DIY of painting a

miniature, but usually just cutting and sticking.

“Print on demand” is a more commonly used alternative. This is when the book is printed

only when one has been ordered. This is more reliable to turn a profit as no money is wasted on

printing books that might never be bought. The downsides are that it can still be expensive and the

printed books can be quite low quality depending on the company used to print the books. This is

the printing being used by Mills for Demigods (Mills, 2019).

Once the game is completed, edited, uploaded or printed, only advertising remains.

Advertising is the best way to get your game bought as, unless it fills a very specific niche, people

won’t search for it. There are several ways to market your game. Actual advertisements are the most

obvious way to advertise the game. This can include inserts in gaming magazines, posts on social

media, even things like Spotify banners and YouTube adverts if the budget is big enough.

There are less straightforward ways to advertise, too. Kickstarter campaigns, while seeming

like just a way to raise funds, can work as an advertisement. It not only gives an easily sharable page

with game information on, but also a deadline for people to look forward to, though those deadlines

rarely work out. In a similar vein, game demos, “quickstarts” (the bare basics of the game needed to

play) or “ashcan editions” (unfinished versions) (Magpie Games and Doombringer, n.d.) can also

work to both advertise and contribute to the making of the game. They can be charged for, ashcan

editions more often than demos or quickstarts, give players a taste of the game, and allow for

playtesting while other processes like editing or art are still being worked on.

Using Kickstarter as the only advertisement for a game isn’t recommended. It requires a

release date, especially if getting a copy of the game is one of the backer rewards. As these release

dates are usually inaccurate, this can lead to people disliking the game and being less likely to

recommend it. This can be seen with Demigods. The original release date was “November 2019”

and, as of December 2020, it has still not been released. On the comments page, it can be seen that

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some backers got impatient with the schedule and some even revoked their pledge (Demigods -

Comments, 2019).

The official Demigods website also has a link to a downloadable quiskstart for the game. It

contains what is usual for a quickstart: the base rules and moves necessary for play and the

character playbooks for players. (Mills, n.d.) While quickstarts may seem like an alternative to buying

the game, and many people do use them as such, when they’re being released before the actual

game they might require “evolutions” as Jason Kottler said (Demigods - Comments, 2019). This could

be just layout or missing content, such as updated rules, moves, or even completely new playbooks

in a Powered by the Apocalypse game.

Another way that works more similarly to traditional advertising are reviews and actual play

podcasts (APP). Sending review copies to magazines or websites that specialise in TTRPGs is a great

way to let their followers know that your game exists. APPs work the same way. While most APPs

stick to a single game for a long time, some of them change the game they play every episode, like

+1 Forward or Party of One. There are limitation, such as +1 Forward only plays Powered by the

Apocalypse games (Rogers, 2016), but it’s a very effective way to spread the word of your game as

the audience learns about not only the concept, but also how to play it.

A very rewarding way to spread the word about a game is at a convention. Booking space at

some of the various Comicons around the globe, or more focused gaming conventions like UK Game

Expo, CoxCon, or Insomnia. Booking a booth or talk at these conventions helps with publicity as your

company and game will be listed on official events lists and people, who otherwise may never have

heard of your game, will find your booth while looking around. This also will, at least temporarily,

increase sales if you have copies of the game for sale at the convention. Some creators will also have

live games available to either watch or play in as an example of how the game works. The people

running these games can be the creators of the game or just experienced game runners. The games

may not even be officially affiliated with the creators of the game.

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 The current complications of attending a convention are mainly Covid-19. Most conventions

have been cancelled for safety reasons, and even those that haven’t have a drastically dropped

number of attendees. However, some conventions have moved online. UK Games Expo hosted

Virtually Expo in 2020 instead. It contained many of the things the physical Expo would, only hosted

online. These included “game demos, tournaments, workshops, seminars and other elements of UK

Games Expo, such as cosplay and the show’s awards” (Jarvis, 2020). There were even several games

of TTRPGs hosted online, including one Masks: A New Generation game that I attended and enjoyed,

despite it not being in person.

While the TTRPG publishing industry is much more community oriented than many

publishing industries, it surprisingly didn’t suffer from the limitations Covid-19 caused as much as

other industries may have, and this was for one reason: much of the community already operates

online. Whether through Kickstarter, PDF downloads, Discord servers, or sites designed to help

online play like Roll20.net, not too many adjustments had to be made to the way TTRPG publishers

and players worked.

In the end, unless the game being published is exactly what a larger company is looking for,

or the creator is already working for a company, much of publishing a TTRPG relies on the

community because of the prevalence of self-publishing. Crowd funding and word of mouth are

essential to the process of self-publishing in a community like the tabletop community. This is

because TTRPGs aren’t commercialised the way the book trade is and are generally more expensive

to self-publish due to the extra costs of things like additional art and safety tools. Even now, despite

everything happening in 2020, the TTRPG industry is still going strong with new releases like Tasha’s

Cauldron of Everything because instead of having to adapt to everything being online, most things

already were online. Physical meetings were the exception, not the rule. In fact, with a lot of people

spending more time at home and looking for more hobbies, I wouldn’t be surprised if the TTRPG

industry found itself in a boom.

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