Finishing Touches on a new Game (well now what?)

[slade the sniper]

BLUF: I need art and advice on completing a game that is 75% to 90% done, but no art and no strategy for distribution or a final plan on the games' eventual media form (electronic or paper).

Hello everyone, I am a long time gamer, a long time rules modifier, and am now attempting to put the finishing touches on my first real "game".  The rules are a modification of the Basic Role Playing System minus the Resistance Roll Table (though the complete rules are only 5 pages).

The book is currently 200+ pages in Verdana 8 point font, no art, 1 inch margins.  I have completed one playtest, and all concerned were quite happy with the result, though the "supernatural powers" needed a complete rewrite as a result.

The layout of the book is as follows:
Introductory story, prologue, world overview, world history, technology overview (11 different types of technology/magical traditions),  setting (56 nations), races (62 races), religion (15 "churches"), rules (5 pages), character creation, equipment (everything from daggers to nuclear powered leviathans to ensorcelled armor), organizations of importance(13 of them, all different), bestiary, GM chapter, 2 adventures (of vastly different types) and a d20 conversion chapter.

The game is quite rich in setting, of which easily 3/4 of the book is, with over 50 sections of flavor text, over 100 NPC's and a full description of economics, demographics and history of each nation.

My question is:  Now what do I do?

Editing is continuing and should be complete by April 07.

At this point I have ZERO artwork.  I would like to procure approximately 300 pieces of artwork.

I would like to do one of the following:
Complete this book (without art) and make it a free PDF.

Complete the book (with art) and make it a PDF with all proceeds going to the artists

Complete this book and have it published indie style with ALL proceeds going to the artists who made the book (minus the cut to the publisher).  In other words, complete the book with NO profit coming to me.

Complete the book and sell it to one of the main publishing houses (My preference is Chaosium since the rules are heavily based on the BRP system) with all proceeds going to the artists.  The only issue with this is that I would still want some form of "control" over the setting, and I am not savvy enough in the publishing world to ensure that this would happen.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

-STS

[daMoose_Neo]

Well,
A) 300 pieces? Thats quite a bit and is it REALLY neccesary?
B) I highly doubt any established publishing house would pick it up, relying on that strategy as others did years past simply can't be done anymore - sides that, Chaosium is in financial straights enough if they're canceling their longstanding presence at GenCon this year (Heard bemoanments about this on the GC forums).
C) And few artists I know would do that quantity of work on future promise of payment.

[Nathan P.]

Huh. Why do you not want to turn a profit on your work?

(I imagine that, if you're interested in discussing that question, its more a matter for the Publishing forum, by the by.)

[btrc]

I'll throw a couple more pragmatic concerns. 8 point Verdana is too small, and depending on your layout style, 1 inch margins may be too large. I'd say to stick with a minimum of 10 point for your body text, and maybe expand your margins to 1/2" to 3/4". Games like My Life with Master do very well visually with large margins, but they aren't 200+ pages.

Second point is that perhaps it should be broken down into 2 books?

I agree that 300 pieces of art is a freaking huge amount. Even if a lot of them are small pieces like inset character illustrations.

Greg Porter

[slade the sniper]

Granted 300 pieces is a LOT of artwork.  It may very well require 2 (or more) books to present the game, but there are several motivations for the way I have designed it.

1.  I love artwork and relating to a topic thread earlier, I think that the setting should be as descriptive as possible, and function as much as a travel guide as it does to "playing the game"

2.  In my opinion, based upon my purchasing history, if it has great artwork that has DIRECT relevance to the setting, I will almost always buy the book.  Great artwork that has some relevance, I might buy the book.  OK artwork with no relevance to the setting, I will not buy it.  Artwork, again in my opinion, sells games.  The cover piece grabs the consumer, and makes them pick the book up.  The back blurb gets them to open the book.  The interior artwork pulls the reader in and the captions/flavor text for the artwork direct the reader to the main text of the page and before you know it, they will have flipped through 50% of the book, seen a large portion of the world, understand that the artwork directly reflects what their characters can be and do, and they will carry it around with them while they peruse the rest of the store.  When the time comes to finally buy the item, if there is a choice to be made, a low priced, hefty book with a lot of artwork is going to win out over an over-priced supplement to a game filled with less that stellar art, and is rather thin on content, but is rather a rehash of "revamped" or "new and improved" ideas for a game they already have.  Most likely, I am not the average consumer, but because I do buy large quantities of RPG's, and there is no one else to ask, I have to go with my own experiences.

3.  I would like to think (and therein is the reason that this entire project will fail) that I could produce a good quality, large, hard bound RPG book that would retail at or below $20.00 if I cut my profit margin out of the equation.  I make games, because I am a gamer.  I will not produce games as a job, because if I did, then it would lose a lot of the magic that they hold for me.  In order to maintain that "games for gamers" mindset, I have chosen to remove the possibility of profit from this endeavor.

4.  As to why my book is so large, I have not come to a decision on how to cut the book into parts.  I am personally irritated at multi-book games where you have to purchase two or more books to run a full game.  I doubt that the average gamer likes that ploy either.  Granted, many of you may use this medium as a means of income, which I congratulate you for, but I dislike "business" getting in the way of my fun.  I have a job that I love very much, and this is a wonderful, life long hobby, and I do not want to make it my second income.

5.  As far as cutting the book into different pieces, I find that there is a not a logical way to cut the book into "equal parts". 

If anyone has any constructive, or destructive criticisms, by all means, send them my way.

-STS

[Luke]

Slade,

Let's break it down into numbers. I just finished a book very similar to what you're after -- hardbound, glossy and close to 400 pieces of artwork.

First off, before you even get to art, you'll need an editor. At $15 an hour and at 10 pages an hour, one pass on a 200 page manuscript will cost you a very reasonable $300. That's rock bottom bare minimum. My book had three editors. My editing costs were close to $2500.

300 pieces of Black and white art at $20 a piece is about $6000. That's a hefty art budget and $20 a piece is pretty much slave labor wages for an artist.

Printing a 1000, 8.5x11, 300 page, hardbacked with a 4C cover books -- I'd give a very rough $5 a unit. You can definitely get cheaper per unit costs, but usually only for larger quantities. Another $5000. That's pretty reasonable, actually.

So your initial investment would be about $11,300, and that's without incidental costs for office supplies, new software, printing proofs and shipping between yourself and your freelancers and between you and the printer.

Once you get those 1000 shiny, awesome books you have to move them. You need a website, a paypal account and a web presence. You might even be able to hook up with a fulfillment house, but they do take a percentage of each sale. That's just the first step. Once you're set up with your site and your books, you've got to promote your game. You've got to go to conventions (which are expensive, I only break even at one or two cons a year -- I go to about 8 a year) and you've got to spend time online pimping your wares. The costs for this stuff is hard to measure, but I spent close to $5000 my first year out.

Does that help?
-Luke

[Valamir]

Luke's numbers are pretty sobering.

But I'll tell you what worries me in your first post.

75% to 90% done,

I have completed one playtest, and all concerned were quite happy with the result

"Completed 1 playtest" doesn't sound anywhere near 75% done to me...?

[slade the sniper]

Ah, the infamous playtest was actually a full adventure series.  It lasted five months, meeting once a week for four hours per session.  Therefore, it was a playtest of 20 sessions lasting approximately four hours each.  It was not a singular event, which it may have seemed to be.

Actually, there were two other playtests that were singular events, but Iraq is not the place to playtest a game, and Afghanistan is also not a place to playtest a game, therefore, when I am home, it gets tested...while I am away, it gets..."refined and tweaked".

The 75% to 90% complete part referred to editing (being done for free, by a professional, but then she is married to me, a gamer, and a co-developer).  While that may not seem to be the smartest idea, having someone who helped make the game be the editor, she provided ideas, and I wrote the entirety of the text, therefore this is really her first look at the game itself instead of merely playing in it.

Luke, I appreciate your candor when talking about your production costs, and the financial loss will be what drives the decision to go with electronic or hard copy.  Granted, I have been accused of being egotistical, which may force my hand to dump about 10 grand into a book nobody wants, but self actualization is rarely based on money.

Thank you for all of the information provided so far.

-STS

[daMoose_Neo]

Actually, I find you don't want someone who WROTE portions editing or proofing.
My partner, DJ, is heavily involved with most all actual stages of development, but has nothing to do with the actual writing portions. Thus, he's good for doing basic editing and proofing, because while he knows the gist of the game he doesn't know the text.

[MatrixGamer]

Slade

Welcome to the wonderfully insane world of game making. You've had the cold hard reality splooshed in your face and you're clear that this is as much about self actualization as it is about selling books. Personally I think that's a fine reason to publish - just not in the traditional method.

You could go the "do it like a business" route and print 1000 books. The numbers cited above are on the mark. If you do this then your journey will lead you into learning accounting, working a booth, writing/pimping of the web, web page design/maintenance, the joys of marketing and the frustrations of production. The fun stuff is running your game at cons. All of this stuff does make one more aware of how business is done and to have more confidence in one's own abilities. Even business failure does this (as I learned in a failed psychotherapy practice in the late 90's.) Personally it wasn't what I imagined it would be but I can safely say it is part of my own self actualization. There are down sides - but there are down sides to everything. I ask you - if you don't do this what will you do with your free time?

You can opt out of the business model. There is a middle way. You mentioned PDF sales. That is a good start. People who buy PDFs will give you lots of feedback on all the mistakes in the book. Try as you might there are ALWAYS errors. Once spotted, you can change them. A shakedown cruise will greatly improve the end product. It will also be a learning experience in which you can detach from the love of your book and begin to see it objectively. This is one of the down sides of selling books - you have to be savage with your own words. Slash them, edit the hell out of them, let other people rip them up if it makes the book better. Ego destruction is part of the process. All the while you can get POD versions of your book (so your ego doesn't die.) Don't get may copies at once. 20 will do fine for a convention season where you run your game and show the book to the players. The books will be costly but when bought in small numbers they won't be that much and won't take up all the space under you dinning room table. As you learn more, and develop contacts in the publishing community you can try larger projects.

The book you have now is just your first. More will come if you are willing to work for it. Be patient and persistent.

That's my calm, encouraging feedback. I give myself this pep talk frequently. I hope it is useful to you.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[slade the sniper]

Ah, business.  If I had the time to devote to making games, I would love to do this as a full time job, but I am simply gone far too much to really jump into this venture right now.  I am in the military and I am on the 1 year deployed, 1 year at home schedule and thus don't have the time to play writer, developer, businessman right now.  My professional life lies along a different path, and I pursue this hobby as an escape and a creative outlet, and as much as I would like to be a convention regular, the Army is not the most understanding boss of sidebar interests.

Therefore, I am pleased as punch to have finally "printed" my book off my home computer.  I would like very much to have this book on the shelves of B Dalton, Books a Million and Barnes and Noble, and maybe one day it will be, but right now, I just want some orginal art, some nice glossy paper, a good clean layout, hard bound and take about 100 of these books to whatever Con I happen to be near sometime in 2007 when I am home for that year.

Granted, that may not happen, but because I am not feeding the fam with the cash that this book makes or loses, I am free to set my own schedule and my own margins of profit or loss.

One thing that does interest me is why draws people to make indie games.  Is it the new settings or the new mechanics.  For years I was a mechanics tinkerer, now I have settled on a core system, and am much more involved with creation of deep, immersive settings with differing layers of interaction depending on character concept.

Thanks for all the input, it is greatly appreciated.

-STS

[Luke]

Slade,

I think it's worth noting that none of us here do this full time. We all have other lives and other jobs. And that much of this site is devoted to precisely the goals you described: being a part time game designer and producing a nice looking game in book format containing nice art and cutting edge mechanics. My point in posting those numbers was to hopefully get you to amend your expectations and go with a product more in your means: specifically, worrying less about art and the printing process. Using POD technology, you could have 100 copies of your game in your hand (hard bound) in two weeks. But it's of a lesser print quality and higher per unit cost.

-L

[MatrixGamer]

Since you're on deployment in some dry dusty place - I have a brother in law and nephew in similar locals - use your time to participate in the forum. It is an educational experience. You won't be in a position to move the project forward in other ways for a while anyway.

BTW your goal of selling to the chain book stores involves a lot of learning. I'm here in the US in a day job and don't have the time to pursue that learning and contact building. It would be even harder if your were not here. Right now you are no where near that goal. This is good because clearly you love your game - a bookseller will only look at it as a commodity. If they could sell slaves down the river they would - but since they can't they sell books (I know I was one of them once).

That pretty well taps out my experience - is there anything else you want? (if so it should probably new a new thread.)

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games