Kobold Press CEO and Kobold-in-Chief, Wolfgang Baur, is here to give you some insight on the state of the industry!

One of the less obvious elements of the official Kobold Press company goals is the encouragement of new talent. I’m always eager to find people who need that first rung on the ladder.

Sometimes that leads to getting one great idea published. Sometimes it starts a whole career. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to find the best writers and editors.

Why then, does it seem so hard to break into the field, especially with print publication?

Designer Goals, Company Goals

When trying to break into the professional tabletop field, the first step is often the hardest. This is because cultivating talent takes time and effort, both by the designer and by game companies. Some designers turn out great game material, but completely fail at communicating with their editor, or fail to make deadlines, or their prose takes a sudden nose dive into unpublishable dreck. Other designers are just good enough to contract and pay, they listen closely to the audience, they improve their craft, and they keep meeting deadlines. Guess which writer will be around in 5 years.

A new designer can write great systems, great lore, great narrative designs, great villains, or magic items all day long for their own entertainment or for their friends and family. And that is absolutely as far as it goes for most people. To share your work more widely, find a publisher who can put rocket fuel into your career: bigger audiences, print publication, paid work, and wider recognition.

Every time a game company takes a chance on a new designer, that’s the implicit bargain: We’ll advance your career if you deliver great work to spec. But game companies have to invest time, money, and sweat into new designers, so (surprise!) they don’t take a chance on just anyone.

Small publishers serve a valuable function for the industry as a whole, because they provide a proving ground for the middle step of breaking into game design. But game companies are understandably reluctant to take that step very often.

Publication is Step 3

Let’s back up a minute here. How is getting published by a small press game company the middle step? What’s the first step? Isn’t a small press exactly the right place for an aspiring designer to start?

Well, no. The place to start is with learning to craft rules and playable story points, then learning how to craft prose that conveys those rules or story elements, and then learning how to scope and manage a small scale project to reach your intended audience. After all that, it is time to either choose the path of self-publishing or to reach out via playtesting, open calls, design challenges, entry-level channels, or convention contacts to write for publication.

I’m not going to talk about the art or craft of design here (I’ve already said plenty in the Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design, 2nd Edition). Instead, I’m going to talk about how to get a publisher’s attention.

I’ll Write Anything! (Please, No)

There’s a couple of wrong ways to go about this. I get occasional offers from people who say they’ll “write anything” or “write for free.” This is nonsense. You need to bring a frankly amazing set of ideas and sharp understanding of genre, audience, mechanics, and flavor to any project. Saying you’ll “write anything” is saying you are a hack with no good ideas and no interest in presenting your own best skills. It’s a little pathetic.

Let me unpack this a little bit. One of the things you’re offering as a game designer is a treasure trove of good ideas that can be adapted to a variety of projects or audiences. If a publisher says to you “I need something for Call of Cthulhu, for a Victorian London concept”, that’s part of a project plan. As a designer, you need to show you’ve got a powerful imagination, solid game mechanical chops, an understanding of the intended audience, and a laundry list of good ideas, ready to execute and playtest as part of that plan.

Asking for more detail than the project concept or scope means you are giving up the opportunity to show that you have that treasure trove of story, rules, and audience—and that you have the skill to adapt them to the current publishing needs.

Take the chance to make a strong pitch that respects the company’s request and makes it more wonderful still. It’s a bit like the text equivalent of an artist or cartographer taking a concept and making it into an amazing sketch. You’re looking for a way to build on and reinforce what the company asked for.

(Note that some game companies are absolutely going to give you an outline or synopsis of plot points. These are generated by in-house game designers and editors who have a particularly large and complex project in mind. We’re talking about entry-level calling cards, and the ability to generate those kinds of outlines yourself.)

As for writing for free . . . don’t undervalue your skill. Lots of people can type words in an email. Not that many can generate workable game rules, thrilling adventure prose, or clear technical language. If you have these skills, you should value them. Editors and gamers certainly do.

Get That Gig: 4 Roads

So, that’s some don’ts. What do you do to get the first gig? Where to start?

First, the easiest option is to volunteer to playtest for a company that has public playtests. You’ll learn what they’re working on, and if your critique is sharp and your reports are well written, you may be invited to other playtests, asked to expand on your comments, or simply be noted as someone with a good eye for rules, story, game logic, or setting details.

It’s good to be noticed even before you submit your own work. For Kobold Press, these playtests run through the Kobold Press Discord server, and it pays to be active on company forums and discussion sites.

Second, I highly recommend participating in open calls, design challenges, and similar projects, which can be an amazing shortcut directly to the editorial inbox and paid publication. These are either public (like a slush pile or contest) or semi-private (such as the ones Kobold Press has done with Kickstarter campaigns, where backers can submit a creature, spell, or similar item for consideration).

In the KP cases, these are optional perks of a crowdfunding effort or a subscription service. No one is ever required to participate, but a designer looking to break into a wider audience should at least be aware of them as a channel. They work! Several Kobold Press designers and freelancers did their first work for the company in response to an open call.

Furthermore, I’ll leave this right here: we’re doing an open call for monster designs to Discord subscribers right now.

Third, look at a company’s reviews, open content, blog, and submission guidelines (if they offer any online). Many companies have a community content program or compatibility license for their core rules or setting (see DMs Guild, Cypher System, and ToV Compatibility license to name three). Any of these are small ways to put content out that leverages a company’s rules or setting without requiring you to jump over any particular bar other than doing the design work and finding a way to make that design into a fixed form. While Kobold Press no longer has a public submission form, we offer a ToV Compatibility License for anyone who wants to publish their own Black Flag material.

There’s also the blog (right here!), where newer writers (and some regulars) deliver something that isn’t necessarily aimed at a hardcover. It’s a place to show off some current design idea more generally. You’ll need to find the editor and pitch them on something sharp, but it’s by far the easiest way to get your name on a Kobold Press contract and in front of the Kobold Press audience.

Finally, and most hit or miss, if you can travel to a convention or attend an online show (like KoboldCon), it’s a way to make a personal connection with an editor or deisgner and possibly hear about upcoming work.

Be polite and be direct (“I’d like to write for Company X”), and realize that conventions are a networking opportunity that only works if you follow up. Write that follow-up email to remind the editor or publisher you exist, and to put yourself ahead of the 8 out of 10 who talk to someone at a show, and then never use that contact to jump into pro work.

It Ain’t Easy

Professional game design is a relatively small field, though big enough now to see people jump through careers at a half-dozen companies just in tabletop (and even larger for video games). So to a certain degree it’s about being prepared (that’s steps 1 and 2) and then being persistent (follow up!), and then being very LUCKY. Prepared and persistent are absolutely important, but the power of luck can’t be overstated. (Ahem. Just look at the ToV Player’s Guide, page 204).

As every game designer knows, the easiest way to be get the result you want is to optimize your odds, take the maximum number of shots at the target . . . and then wait for that natural 20 to show up.

I look forward to hearing from about 10% of the people who read this. Good luck!