(The following is a guest post from Philippe-Antoine Menard, the Chatty DM. Phil is a good friend who I had the pleasure of meeting in person at Gen Con this year. Like many of my other readers, Phil aspires to make his living writing. He’s got some great ideas about his niche, roleplaying games, as well as writing in general. Enjoy! – Bob)
I’m a Writer, because I blog or write Standard Operating Procedures for a Living.
I’m a Writer, because I’m a Dungeon Master and write adventures for my friends.
Late last summer, at the Gen Con gaming convention (One of the biggest in North America), I’ve met many awesome people from the Role Playing Game (RPG) industry (and others like myself, sitting at the edge of
it) and many of them are Writers.
I don’t know why they are Writers, but I’m a Writer because, given the opportunity to write about the things I love, I would do it 12 hours a day. Hell, I’d rather write than sleep!
Along with spending time with my family and gaming with my friends, writing makes me satisfied and happy. It brings me in the Flow: Time just stops existing while I spew stuff my mind makes up on the spot, my fingers flying on the keyboard at a speed that nearly matches my excited geek diatribes.
I’m a Writer, and I post my stuff on the Internet because I chose to ignore my doubts and stopped listening to my Inner Demons. I knew I had talent and I’ve managed to get a lot better since I started blogging 1 year ago.
I would like to become a published author of RPG material. I’d love to write the sequel to Robin Laws’
Rules of Game Mastering. I’d go absolutely geek-crazy to see my name on a Dungeon/Dragon/Kobolds Quarterly (RPG magazines) article.
If there was a way to make a decent living out of it, I’d quit my job in 5 minutes and never look back.
Thing is, in the RPG industry, gamers won’t pay 400$ for a printed game system. While some would spend it for getting a graphics cards just to play this One computer Game, you won’t see this happening in the
RPG industry.
Writers are paid like crap and amateur writer/fans often give out their work for free.
That’s not freaking fair but that’s life. I understand why it’s like that and thank god that the people in the industry are so nice. Quite often, just having a quick chat (or better yet a game) with a designer you admire makes up for all the work you poured into that adventure you wrote to run for their company at a game convention.
I don’t have the courage to leave my current job and jeopardize my family’s security to pursue that dream. I do it in my free time and I make plans, dark, sinister plans.
You Writers deserve better.
That’s why I bought a new copy of Mutants and Masterminds, that’s why I bought a Harley Stroh (a young rising Adventure Writer) D&D adventure at Gen Con . That’s why I gave Wolfgang Baur money to write a D&D adventure and why I bought his Kobold Guide to Game Design.
Guys, you may be paid peanuts, but you deserve all the support you can get.
Same thing goes for the talented, gutsy bloggers out there. You deserve more recognition for the awesome RPG stuff you’ve been writing these last few years.
My latest crazy idea is be to find a way for RPG bloggers to get access to better ad revenues and explore ways to be paid for the good material they put out. So far, things are promising.
Guys, look at what Joss Whedon (Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Wolfgang Baur are doing and find something to break the current system.
Therein lies the solution, or so I would like to believe.
Toying with perceptions, making truth out of lies and unmaking the impossible, isn’t what being a Writer is all about?
17 comments ↓
Great read. Phil, all I hope is that you don’t hate your job. Writing SOPs is probably boring, but it pays well and helps crystalize your ability to use language clearly. I hope you write that gaming book you’ve always dreamed off. Maybe you can write articles about blogging and RPGs?
@ Allan: Thanks. I actually became a published author since I wrote this as the Seminar booklet on helping game masters has been published on most RPG PDF stores. It’s available for free. See Text to be displayedhere (sorry for the shameless self-promotion).
I also opened a RPG studios website an am working on my first teaser project to get people interested in my skills.
Bob helped me get the courage and the motivation to jump down my first cliff. I’m sure there will be others.
Thanks again!
Oh and I do like my job… not the SOP writing so much, but the building of quality system and getting the buy-in of people.
[...] He was kind enough to post it here. [...]
Dramatic tension and then closure . . . all within one hour. That’s great to hear! Congrats on your success.
That is indeed what being a writer is all about. Well said.
You are truly an inspiring person, Phil.
Bartoneuss last blog post..Review: “Mistborn”
Step 1 – Sift through RPGBloggers contributions
Step 2 – Sort wheat from Chaff
Step 3 – Contact author, request additional info & purchase rights to reproduce content.
Step 4 – Edit, compile, and .PDFify for a buck or three, and produce print version on quarterly basis. Annual volumes even.
As long as everyone wants to play ball, no problem. Of course there is more to it than that, but I’ve been doing a little research on what it would take to do it…have your people call my people – we’ll do lunch
Donny_the_DMs last blog post..RPG CARNIVAL #2 An abbreviated wrapup.
Thanks…hadn’t heard “kobold’ for a while – nice reminiscipackage.
Mantecanauts last blog post..A Matter of Life and Death and The Shipping Forecast.
Thanks for the inspirational post. I would rather write than sleep, too. In fact, it’s W A Y past my bedtime now!
Jamie Simmermans last blog post..Pick the Brains of Top Bloggers!
Great post Phil.
I like what you said at the end about Joss Whedon (and Wolfgang Baur, although I don’t know of him, just clicked the link, heh).
There are ways to go forward, just might need a little thinking sideways.
Stu Andrewss last blog post..What They’ve Drawn, Kid #1
@Allan: Yeah, I’m going through the ‘writing fiction’ part of Writing for Dummies and it works!
@Writer dad: Thanks!
@Bartoneous: I really like writing, and the more I do it, the easier and more rewarding it gets. I think it applies to all artistic crafts. Hint hint…
@Donny the DM: This is quite a possibility. Although with 460 posts on my blog alone, I will definitively think of doing it with my ‘wheat’ first as it requires less negociations.
@Mantecanaut: You’re welcome. Kobolds are among my favorite RPG monsters. Small Dog-faced Lizard men!
@Stu: It’s my favorite Australian Stalker! Thanks man!
You’ve inspired me to write about why I’m writer, too. Thanks!
Jamie Simmermans last blog post..Pick the Brains of Top Bloggers!
Geez, you’re like a virus, ain’t you Phil?
Good post, as ever.
The great thing about earning a living from writing is that it’s one of the few professions where you don’t give away what you sell. Your stock of words is an infinite resource that you can use and abuse repeatedly. The trick is to line the words up in an order that’s appealing to your customer base.
And there, as they say, is the rub
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@Jamie: Happy to have inspired you. Thanks for sharing this, makes my heart aglow.
@Greywulf: You got me here man, I’m the first Viral Human!
Just so you know, since this was posted, I submitted 2 ideas to 2 RPG publishers and I got a positive response from one.
I’ll get a contract soon and may very well be a published dead-tree author during the next year!
Thanks for writing this.
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