Hey everyone,

Have been playing since 94' and this I have to admit is my first forum post on any rpg site!

Kicked grade school's ass, destroyed college and now in true nerd fashion work for one of heavy hitters in tech today.

I definitely think it is time to bust out my entrepreneurial skills and start a rpg company. Not in it for the fame, glory, and definitely NOT the cash, lol. It's not the mid 80's anymore.

I am planning to run a kickstarter campaign soon for publishing but ultimately want to do this right.

Obviously I am looking for some help and am all about collaboration, suggestions, and synergy.

I am looking for help in the following areas

2 - rules developers (story developers, yes I have my ideas but guess what? I'm not pompous.... I want your Ideas and input also!!! They may be better than mine

2 - accessory/sourcebook/campaign developers

1 - chief editor

1 - marketing/pr/media placement

2 - graphic designers

Compensation? Well.... It's an rpg.... Maybe if we are lucky and actually do this right from top to bottom, not fall of the beaten path and not do this half assed.... It could be the start of a great publishing company.

I can sit here and sound like I am talking out my ass aboutnpen and paper rpg's not being dead, but guess what? WotC is doing something semi right.... Green Ronin has got it going on...etc.

e-mail me if you are interested. Planning to have a Skype video chat this weekend with everyone who is interested. Those numbers above are just the beginning also. If I have 3 artists interested? So be it. The more the merrier.

- Joey O.

jorganisciak@gmail.com

Hi Joey,

In terms of finding collaborators, you might want to repeat your pitch over at story-games.com/forums.

I'd recommend giving a short pitch about your game, too - to attract people who'd be interested in working on your idea. There's a little bit of precedent for this: check out this thread - The Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge.

Hi Joey,

This may or may not be a topic for the Forge, depending on some details. At least from the way you're presented your project so far, it seems to be a company-first, team-based approach, which doesn't correspond to the independent context which the Forge is based on. This may simply be a matter of communication and first-post clarification, though.

Toward that end, do you have a role-playing game partly, mostly, or completely designed, at this point?

Also, exactly what do you mean by "do this right"?

Best, Ron

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I guess looking at my post and what not this was probably not the best place to post this.

I will "pitch" this in another forum. I still love everything including the resources Forge has.

Team based approach? yes, Company focused?..... maybe a little, ha. That probably comes from me working at a high energy and extremely collaborative based culture at my current job.

"Doing it right" I was actually part of a few teams as a rules creator/campaign designer. Every time someone gets high on their heels and loves to just ends up trying to do everything on their own and never either finishes the project or just doesn't do anything at all.

Thanks again though for the comments and the resources!

- Joey O.

Though I havent really got a lot of experience in the field, I think the better approach is to start from the bottom, so to say. First make a game. Have a nice idea, perhaps with a friend, write it, playtest it, discuss your design process on forums (like this one), get feedback on your design etc. Then, when you approach a stage when there's a finished product in your hands, start making a company around it. Hire designers, do marketing etc - around an actual, specific product. If the game is good, it'll become at least modestly popular, and then there'll be a reason to have a company around it.
Thing is, there's an awful lot of games out there. There are even quite many games who are more or less professionally published, have designers and marketers and whatever. And yet nobody really knows anything about them.
Let's look at a relatively new company - Evil Hat Games. It started out as a few guys with an idea for a game. Initially, it was just a game. People knew about Fate, nobody knew about Evil Hat Games. Then there were Don't Rest Your Head and Spirit of the Century, ans still, Evil Hat Games were mostly "oh, it's what the guys who made Spirit of the Century call themselves". It was still, in essence, a couple of guys writing games on their own, with Evil Hat Games not a lot more than a name they call themselves. They only really reached a stage where it's actually a company somewhere on the level of Green Ronin and folks at the stage of Dresden Files.

So, IMHO, starting with "I want to make a company with people responsible for this and that and such" is not the best approach. You might end up with a very professional product that nobody will care about.
Not to mention that most games don't sell nearly enough to warrant supplements and accessories. (And not all games need those either.)