an introduction

[jc_madden]

Hello fellow game designers,

My name is J. Colin Madden.  I've been playing and GMing RPGs from various manufacturers as well as those of my own design for about 20 years now.  At some point we all probably realized that our GM binders were so packed full of goodness that there wasn't a reason that the rest of the world shouldn't see it too.  Perhaps for you, like me, GMing becomes a part-time job in terms of hours spent and work put out creating something that only a handful of guys are going to see.  Unless of course they blow off your adventure hooks and do their own thing, your beautiful death-trap dungeon lies empty and lonely.

And perhaps you're also like me and after a few attempts to publish a few modules/articles you realized that the competition is fierce among our small community.  Or perhaps you're like me and don't have a college degree and so the big name companies aren't interested in even considering you based on the merits of your work.  Maybe you're bitter or maybe you're optimistic.  Whatever your reasons you became an independent game designer.  You, like me are interested in this community that we've created and seeing the environment thrive and flourish through diversity not stagnation.  Maybe you're tired of seeing the same logo on every book these days.

No matter what your reason it seems like we have something in common.    I'm happy to have found this site and thought I'd take the time to introduce myself.

[Bill Cook]

Welcome, JC. Don't know if you've played any games whose designers forum here or if you've looked into GNS. Here are a couple of links to get you started. Feel free to ignore if you've absorbed as much from lurking:

[*]Etiquette.
[*]Infamous Five.
[/list:u]

:)

[jc_madden]

Been lurking for a few days, and read those already.  As well as most of the other posts concerning forum do's and don'ts.

[Andrew Morris]

Hey, J.C., welcome to the Forge.

Perhaps for you, like me, GMing becomes a part-time job in terms of hours spent and work put out creating something that only a handful of guys are going to see.

Hey, maybe you should give something like Scarlet Wake a shot. It's a really hot game, very cinematic and bloody, with no GM and almost no prep time. I've been looking to playtest it for a while now, but haven't had the time with school and work. I know Ben's still playtesting it, so if you get your group to play and give him some feedback, you get credits on the piece when it's finished. Details are on the website. And hey, while you're at it, check out Universalis, which is totally amazing, and has zero prep time, but still lets you create some amazing stories.

And if you're looking to get involved in some on-line game creation, swing by the GroupDesign project (thread index is in my sig). The most recent thread is here.

[clehrich]

Hi Colin,

Allow me to extend a welcome from the extreme weird theory end as well.  :-)

Just one question about your intro:

Or perhaps you're like me and don't have a college degree and so the big name companies aren't interested in even considering you based on the merits of your work.  Maybe you're bitter or maybe you're optimistic.  Whatever your reasons you became an independent game designer.

Can you describe this experience?  I'm a little surprised, because I hadn't realized that game companies pay any attention to prior academic or whatever credentials, and your prose is certainly no indicator of a lack of education -- god knows I wish my students wrote more like you do!

[Eero Tuovinen]

Can't say I have any trouble with not having an academic degree. To the contrary, I think I'll pass on that degree and go straight to writing stuff... Academia is not for everybody.

The point however is, there is no degree for game design. In Finland, which is very progressive in this stuff, such degree studies were just started this year. It'll take ten years or more for the field to close up for unschooled talent, and frankly, I don't believe it will even then. Art is art is art, and the best situation any academic codger can hope for is similar to music: sure, you can get a degree, but don't expect to get a record deal with that. Actually, don't expect to get into a band.

Currently game publishers are looking at prior work in related areas (writing, whatever) and in hobby projects. The important thing is to know the field and be able to do real work, finishing projects and such. If you want to be a heavy talent in rpg industry, why not start by self-publishing some promising work? That alone will give you more points than any degree.

The above is written from the viewpoint of general game design, including board and computer games as well. Might be that things are different in some narrow field I'm not intimate with (say, Chinese rpg industry), but I doubt it.

[jc_madden]

To all:
First off, thank you for the welcome.

Andrew M:
While I'm certainly up for giving new things a try my current group is not, they are die-hard D20 all night long.   Personally what I'm most interested in is finding playtesters for my own stuff.  Now I'm certainly not going to pass up a quid-pro-quo if anyone's willing to do something like that.

clehrich
I think my introductory post endend up comming across sounding a little bitter.  That wasn't my intention so I'll keep the mud-slinging level low.  Suffice it to say it was one the big ones and I was basically told in no uncertain terms to even THINK about getting a job or freelance work I needed to have a minimum of a BA or be perreviously published by someone else.  That's perhaps because it is a very flooded market and competition is at it's highest.  But again this serves the industry a greater good by forcing writers to seek other alternatives, beit self-publishing or joining coops/writers group.  As for my writing style, I'm self educated.  I think RPGs have certainly helped out in terms of reading level and vocabulary as 70%+ of the folks I've know in the hobby were very well read.  

Eero
That was just my experience in the industry, and strictly from the perspective of a writer seeking employment with an established company.  At the time I wasn't ready to build my own business financially or mentally.  Now I think I may be and it's easier than it was even just 2 years ago.