[Doctor Chaos] Promo and production 2015

[Ron Edwards]

Here's my current tentative plan ...

Paying for the art + playtesting
I want to run a Patreon based on the artist drawing stuff - pay in, he draws, that's pretty much it, with pledge rewards being similar to most comics-illustration Patreons: get a portrait, get an action page, get the original art, that kind of thing.

The slight twist is that since it's completely based on "art for Doctor Chaos," I'll have the playtest PDF available for free (recently updated by the way based on Ezio's experiences), with a response sheet mostly based on in-play events and visuals rather than game-analysis. So if you send in that response sheet, then it can be the basis for artwork you get illustrated via the Patreon, if you want.

Basically, if you just want to playtest, that's fine, but if you pay into the Patreon as well, then not only does your actual game-stuff get illustrated, but it may well show up in the book. Or if you want, you can just pay into the Patreon if playtesting isn't your thing or doesn't work out, but that way, you just get the ordinary pledge award.

Although the money comes to me, I turn it right around and pay the artist. The idea is not a profit flow to me (or if so, not much at all), but getting plenty of work from him and plenty of playtesting, in a way which makes everyone happy.

The artist - who will be named when we hammer out all these procedures - is bonkers about the game, and no matter what, I'll be paying him a flat amount for a fixed amount of work, significantly the cover. He's also a gamer and is already arranging playtesting of his own, so this is going to have a co-author feel to it that is just right for comics-based work. We've already discovered a synergy between us which bodes well for the future, such that "Doctor Chaos" is now merely the working title - real title to be announced later.

Producing the game
Right now, I can conceive of two products, or rather, three based on format.

1. PDF and print copies of a rulebook, divisible into the main book and three playbooks, playable with ordinary cards but also with printable cards available (a file, not decks).

2. Print copy of a fancy version, even possibly a box, with the four books (the biggest is only about the size of an ordinary comics issue), two decks with artwork, play-tokens and pieces, and tearaway sheets for characters. (you'd get the PDF as above too)

The problem is the insane production process for the latter. I am pretty sure I can't set it up such that someone buys it POD without me having to do anything, which is what I really want. I can hardly stand the idea of packing up boxes, then packaging them for mailing, and then mailing them at all, let alone unto perpetuity for a given product. I simply don't have the storage and physical organization for Adept Press in place to handle that, either. And if I'm paying for them being sent to me from the printer as well, then I'd have to charge at least $60 for it, as much as $100 for international customers, and I really doubt that this would fly.

It's also the kind of thing which Kickstarter backers would drive into the red, in their expectation of a good deal from a catalogue-order perspective. There's no way I'd run this as a Kickstarter without some infrastructure solving some problems for me, and in fact I'd rather do it the old-fashioned way and pay its production up-front, then recoup through sales.

So I have to think about that with some care - maybe talk to Narrattiva, they're good at this kind of thing and indeed revel in it.

And afterwards
Here, the idea is that the artist and I can both benefit in the long run. If he wants, he could set up a webcomic, or otherwise develop the name and various IP, on his own, and my production of the game and its sales are my own - we don't owe each other money from such later work. We might shift a visual or terminological thing-or-two to specify which IP is at work, so his stuff is recognizably his and mine is mine; also, the plan is to cross-promote indefinitely into the future. But again, none of this is pre-ordained and if he wants to treat it all as a single freelance assignment that's over when it's over, he can do that too.

So ... my current concerns are first, organizing the Patreon sensibly and clearly, and second, about production and fulfillment of the finished game. The first is actually more important since I'm not on a deadline - getting a ton of artwork and a ton of excited playtesting.

Tell me what you think.

[Steve Hickey]

The Patreon sounds great. In terms of organising it clearly, these are the first four questions that occurred to me:

1. What are the $ levels we can be patrons at?

2. Is there an end-point for the Patreon? From what you've written, I could see it finishing when the game soon to be formerly known as Doctor Chaos (TGSTBFKADC?) goes into production but I could also see it continuing.

3. Do patrons get the use of any art that's generated from the campaign?

4. (And this is a dumb question that I know you've considered) Would it be easier for the artist to run the Patreon directly, given they're the one who will receive the funds?

I love the sound of the collaboration you've got going with the artist.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Steve,

1. Don't know yet. Probably up to the artist, who already runs Patreons and knows how backers think for this kind of work.

2. It's supposed to end just as you describe. Of course, since the artist keeps the IP for visuals of this kind, he could always do crowdfunding of his own if he sees fit, especially if he feels like a webcomic or something like that has been born.

3. I don't think so.

4. That was the original plan, but the artist thinks it'll benefit the game more directly if I do it, and I realized it makes sense to have it be income for me and then an expense for me, as a business/tax thing, and for him, as his pay for freelance work that he can name as such in similar business/tax terms.

[Ron Edwards]

We have a tentative plan ...

OK, so the page will show a new sketch under way per month. It'll be one of: one of the four covers, the logo, a superhero portrait (individual or group), a lesser villain portrait, a page of comics art/story, a full-size action piece, a pack of five superheroes for the deck, a Doctor Chaos portrait.

The page also has the playtest document right there as a free download, no pledge necessary.

You can pledge $1 for the "thanks partner" and listing as a backer.

You can pledge $5 for the above + a wallpaper-version of the finished picture of this month. Plus, one $5 pledger is randomly chosen to be considered a $25 backer (see below).

You can pledge $25 for the above + you can get your stuff drawn. Just fill out this handy form to describe a superhero to go into the custom deck; or if you fill out the playtest feedback form, you might see your own Doctor Chaos or any other single cool thing in there become one of the upcoming sketches, to be included in the game art. [no guarantee that it will be included, but we'd only not do it if it's incredibly not appropriate for the game]

The page also features a weekly short "about a villain" piece by me, with links & stuff as available, just for reading and fun.

Some clarifications ... your pledge becomes official on the 1st of the month, and you have a month to submit your content. You could, for instance, pledge $25 and submit a playtest feedback, and then pledge $25 again next month for more of your stuff to get into the game from the same feedback.

There's a cap on $25 pledges so we don't have to do a zillion pieces, but it'll be pretty generous, and we will keep doing the pictures of stuff for these pledges after the Patreon's over, so you won't miss out based on a deadline.

Thoughts, comments?

[Eero Tuovinen]

What's the overall schedule on this Patreon stage like? I guess it could be fixed-schedule (I understood from your description that you're paying the artist regardless of the Patreon income), but from how it's described it seems evident that more payers equals more work done to some degree as well. Either way, I believe that the patrons in this sort of set-up will be very interested in the overall length of the project, so as to figure out how much of a commitment supporting it until the end is going to be.

Your list of logistical issues with producing and selling a boxed set coincides rather precisely with why specialized publishers exist in the first place. Narrativa, or any other publishing house with a board game publishing history and an interest in the product should be able to license or co-publish the thing if you'd like to see it get made in a physical format.

In general I see potential in the idea of using Patreon as a foundation for a limited-time marketing campaign. It's sort of like a development blog, except with aggressive expectation for the readers/fans to join in paying for the procession. During the Patreon stage it'll provide a clear one-stop target for new audience to check out the project, and the periodical status reports about the overall progress of the illustration and product development of the game will encourage play and further attention.

[Ron Edwards]

Quick clarifier: the money I'm paying up-front accounts for a bare minimum of work: a cover, a couple of other things - just enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to put it out as a plain PDF. The idea of the Patreon is to get him paid for a lot more.

So, the time frame is intended to be a long time. Shorter if money pours in like a dragon's hoard of universal approval and excitement, longer if the monthly average is lower. But if the monthly average turns into just a trickle, then it won't worth continuing. Since I don't know what the response is, I can't even provide an estimate ... although a complete guess might be, a year. Or maybe that's how long I'd stick with it as long as the response is adequate, just based on the amount of stress I'm willing to bear by letting something develop until the point I can't stand it any more and simply get on with what I have.

[Eero Tuovinen]

It could be a fun bit of content for the Patreon to have an "ETA" listed for the finished product on the front page, alongside the current sketch, updated monthly. That would be a clear way of communicating the currently expected schedule, and you could change it up or down at will to depict how the project is doing. Sort of like the doomsday clock, if you will. Patrons would be able to see the progress at glance, and they'd get a clear sense of whether they might want to bail after a few months or stick it out until the end.

[Ron Edwards]

As far as physical production goes, it's not too naive to consider Game Crafter, is it? I don't really care about it as a point-of-purchase in shopping terms; I figure direct links from Adept and social media will do that job without any trouble. What matters to me is that a person can buy a deluxe version with a single click and I don't have to do a fucking thing extra when they do.

I haven't perused the site carefully yet, which I will, but as part of this process, can the pack of you throw your eyes on it and tell me all the downsides?

edited to fix link - RE

[Jesse Burneko]

A friend of mine used Game Crafter to produce a pirate themed deck building game which I now own.  The only thing I've noticed is that the glue that holds box art onto the box seems very sensitive to heat or humidity maybe.  After only a year of sitting in my closet it's beginning to warp a little and detach from the box.

Also I know that he had to hand assemble the components.  But I don't know if that's because different things needed to go into different boxes because of Kickstarter rewards or if Game Crafte doesn't actually handled product assembly only component manufacturing.

I'm considering using Game Crafter for a project of my own so I'll be watching this thread intently.

Jesse

[Eero Tuovinen]

A bunch of Finnish acquaintances have started a boardgame sales alliance called Arctic Union over the last few years. Solid, ambitious indies working to develop their international sales together. There was some discussion about proto shops (small press boardgame printing houses used for creating prototypes, early marketing copies and such) on their mailing list recently. I'll pick out some salient points:
* One of the guys had tested both Gamecrafter and Printer Studio for printing card prototypes. They found that while the two were about equal in price, the quality and speed of delivery of the Printer Studio were clearly superior to Gamecrafter. Both paper quality and color were better with Printer Studio, closer to offset gaming card quality.
* Apparently the currently recommended proto shop for other things aside from cards for Arctic Union is Print & Play, which apparently matches Gamecrafter in card quality ("basically the same cards" was the characterization), but is otherwise considered preferable - might just be because the guys have more experience with it.

Of course knowing about a cheap and specialized card shop isn't so useful if you're looking for a one-stop shop, but perhaps you'll want to check out Print & Play as well as Gamecrafter, as it seems like P&P offers a similar full range service solution. Better have several options for price comparisons, anyway. I didn't get the impression from recent discussion that there's anything wrong with Gamecrafter per se, it's just not particularly better than the shop the guys have been using recently.

A POD boardgame printer seems like a good solution to the desires of not having to touch stock yourself and to not enter into a publishing contract with a publisher. I was thinking about ways you might get somebody else to deal with an offset run overseas like boardgame indies often do, but ultimately it all amounts to the sort of business arrangements you aren't looking for, so it's probably better to focus on the POD route. My experience in general is that POD boardgames don't have quite as high a component quality as the Chinese offset usually used for commercial boardgames nowadays, but then who cares - only shallow people do, I say :D

[Jesse Burneko]

Looking over Print & Play I see that maybe they are better at quality but if you sell through them their offer is terrible.  Gamecrafter offers a pretty standard 70/30 split with the designer getting the 70.  Print & Play gives you, the designer, 10%... What?!  How does that make any sense.

Jesse

[glandis]

Ron - I'm sure your review of the site would find it, but I gotta say the Crowd Sale approach is one of the most ... sane things I've seen on the internet in a long time. It's a little fuzzy how to actually get selected/qualify/participate ("by the spring of 2015 there will be an official application process"), but the very existence of such a sensible thing is encouraging to me.

[Ron Edwards]

Thanks guys!

H'm ... OK, looking it all over, I want to specify a few needs and views, and then keep using our collective brain and internet skills.

1. I don't want to crowdfund the game. The Patreon is strictly to pay the artist for lots more than I can afford right at the start, to promote a playtesting culture (as with Circle of Hands), and to get a bit more money on top with any luck, and that's it.

2. For the game itself, I just want to sell it POD. I want someone to click "buy," and for some third party to manufacture, print, and send the finished box.

(subpoint: for the "easy" version, which is just four booklets and a printable card template, I can set that up through my current printer; I'm talking about the deluxe version which I hope will be a strong sales item.)

3. The game components don't include a board. They are:

- a main booklet, probably no more than 24 pages, stapled
- three user playbooks, probably 12 pages, stapled
- a pad of tearaway sheets for heroes
- Doctor Chaos sheets
- lesser villain sheets
- twelve targeting counters (two of each color)
- Doctor Chaos and lesser villain standup icons
- card deck for heroes and lesser villain
- card deck for Doctor Chaos

I can think of some other fluff items to include, but those are the actual game components.

[Ron Edwards]

Well, I've set up my, or rather, our Patreon page, and it just seems thin to me. Maybe it's the Kickstarter background, and maybe it's not a bad thing for Patreon, but I get the idea that if a person wants to pledge money, then they want a thing. And frankly, I don't want to have to throw money into making things. I need to come up with a reward thing that is fun, is something I like to do, is related to the project, and is easy enough that I can zip it out to dozens of people.

Ideas of the moment include ...

... a video and link feature about a comics villain that I like. History, imagery, thoughts, notions - don't scoff, I know my comics villains and can bust this out better than you know. Would this work best as a milestone? Every $100 or something like that?

... leading a playtest with over hangout? I'll be doing regular hangout playtesting for the forseeable future. That seems promising.

... posting playtest videos? As long as I'm doing playtests by hangout anyway, right?

... inclusion in a ferocious on-line debate about some topic I can post? (and we're talking about comics, topics are easy - and I'm a real fucker about this stuff, so watch out)

Help me out, I need ideas.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Could you maintain an active blog for the duration, for patrons only? I'm asking because I could actually see people being even more interested in that than the art. I know I'd love to read your thoughts about the sea-change in Spider-Man fight choreography in the late '60s, or about what Silver Sable means, or stuff like that. (I've been reading old Spider-Man recently.)

Obviously this would depend a lot on your motivation + spare time, but something with posts e.g. three times a week would seem entirely credible to me. You could publish it to the public on time delay or only make the newest post public (so as to advertise the project and hook more patrons), give all patrons unlimited reading rights, and give a higher class of patron commenting rights. The option to suggest new topics for the highest class of patron, maybe. Implication is, of course, that the discussion of comics is high-class, and thanks to the patronage thing the comment threads would also enjoy the attentions of high-quality commenters.

It seems to me like this would be a more natural sell than the income-related scheme you suggested, considering how Patreon thrives on regular content. A blog also has the benefit of being a rather flexible concept, so you could see what works for you creatively, and lean towards the types of content and publishing schedule that work for you and your patrons. Also, I have hopes that the combination of being a blog (and thus not as serious as many other publishing mediums), being in action for a limited time only, and being by you, we might see some pretty interesting articles about the superhero genre.

In terms of attracting patrons, a blog is ideal in that everything written for it also works for attention in the Internet (however you figure the public access part). You'll be wanting to get the attention of superhero fans anyway for the project, and I can imagine few better ways than by writing a blog with interesting thoughts about superheroes. Even if you hold the wrong opinion about Thor's gender or whatever, a thought-provoking piece is sure to make the rounds.