Blog

Posted on

What a Fiasco!

Achievement Unlocked: Getting the opportunity to write a playset for Fiasco with some astonishingly talented co-creators.

It was a match made on Twitter. A few comments bouncing back and forth about how cool it would be if there was a Hong Kong Gangster-themed playset for Fiasco, Bully Pulpit Games’ brilliant story-telling game “about ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control.” It seemed a perfect fit.

As fast as you can say “Google Docs”, Corey Reid (creator of the Creative-Commons-Licensed collaborative setting Dino-Pirates of Ninja Island), John Rogers (co-creator and showrunner of Leverage on TNT) and I were hammering out the details of the playset.

(If you for some reason are not familiar with Fiasco, the game’s website will get you started, or you can watch an excellent episode of Tabletop, where Wil Wheaton plays the game with Bonnie Burton, Alison Haislip and the aforementioned John Rogers.)

I’m really pleased with what we came up with. If you like films like The Killer, Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow I & II, Infernal Affairs, Election, Full Contact, City On Fire, Bullet in the Head, Fulltime Killer, Triangle, Fallen Angels, etc. — this is the playset for you.

The playset can be downloaded for free from the Fiasco Playset of the Month page on the Bully Pulpit Games website, available via this link or by clicking the cover image above.
 
 

Posted on

Insurgent Creative: Never Pay For Kickstarter Consulting

We’re witnessing the growth of a new market, drawn by the media attention given to high-profile crowdfunding success stories. With even non-tech Kickstarters (like plastic miniatures for tabletop gaming, for example) drawing several million dollars in funding, the inevitable gold rush has begun. Not the expected gold rush of prospective creators looking to get their idea funded — that’s been happening already. No, the secondary gold rush of “consultants”, coming in to offer their expertise to prospective creators — promising assistance in achieving crowdfunding success… in return for a fee, of course.

I cannot be more blunt: Never pay for Kickstarter consulting.

Don’t pay a flat fee; don’t pay a percentage of your funding if successful (which some consultants proudly tout as if it’s somehow a virtue); don’t pay a goddamn thing. Period.

Insurgent CreativeFirst of all, you don’t need to. There is tons of advice out there, freely available. One excellent source, constantly updated with new advice, is the Kickstarter blog itself. Here are some others (including some specific gems from the Kickstarter blog):

…and that’s just scratching the surface of what’s out there. A depressingly large number of the Kickstarter “consultants” shilling their wares out there are, in fact, doing nothing more than re-packaging the freely-available data and advice.

Here’s another thing: Many of us who have had successful projects are more than willing to offer advice and answer questions when we have the time. We sit on seminar panels at conferences and conventions, and are also easily reachable via Twitter or email. The “trick”, if it can be called one, is to be polite when asking, and understanding of our time constraints. Sometimes we have the time for detail, sometimes we don’t. But, personally speaking, I’m never going to charge you for simply asking. If I can help, I will — it’s no hardship for me to answer a few questions if I have the time. Many of us (based on the responses I’ve heard from folks in recent discussions on Twitter and Google+) feel the same way. We recognize that the key to crowdfunding is the crowd, not the funding. We were successful ourselves because of that community, whether it was from other project creators offering direct advice or only the opportunity to observe their experiences. The successful funding came from the community as well. We are part of that community, and the desire to “pay it forward” is a factor of that community.

The second reason to avoid Kickstarter consultants is more forward-looking. It is my opinion that the use of professional business and marketing consultants on crowdfunding projects not only goes against the community-driven model of the phenomenon, but also contributes to the growing commodification of crowdfunding. It pushes crowdfunding further along the line away from individual creators with ideas, approaching a community for backing, and more towards a world in which sites like Kickstarter are dominated by companies who have paid professional marketers to “sell” their funding project.

Ask yourself: Is that what you want? A world where Kickstarter is an arms race between projects that have the better/more professional marketing plans?

I worry that world may be inevitable. The attention paid to the site’s big-number success stories make it hard to see it going in any other direction. Like gold rushes of the past, the allure of big money will draw large numbers of folks looking for their big break, and if those folks feel as though paying a consultant is a ticket to that success, they’ll do it.

So maybe I’m shouting into the wind here, trying to let folks know that the advice is already available for free. That doesn’t mean that it’s not worth shouting, in any case.

 
 

Posted on

GenCon 2012

I’d intended to post this earlier in the week, but (big surprise) things got away from me.

I returned on Monday from Indianapolis, having attended GenCon 2012 as both an “Industry Insider” Guest of Honor, and an Exhibitor (with Cubicle 7 Entertainment, whom I work for as a consultant and a freelance writer, in addition to partnering with them on Adamant’s print releases in the games industry). The picture above is a shot of our booth in the exhibit hall — the reason it’s clearly visible is because the picture was taken before the hall officially opened. Once open, the aisles were constantly filled with a teeming mass of gamers, and we were only able to be found by the Daleks which rose majestically above our arrayed products.

So yeah — busy. I spoke with GenCon owner Peter Adkison on Saturday, and he said that he believes that attendance passed 40,000 this year — he was fairly certain that last year’s attendance was surpassed either late Friday or early Saturday. The convention was noticeably busier, and every peer I spoke with talked about big crowds and big sales.

A joke was going around that the new GenCon greeting should’ve been “How’s your Kickstarter going?” The crowdfunding revolution has clearly made its mark — I saw dozens of games that had begun life as a Kickstarter project, and the two separate Kickstarter seminars that I was asked to participate in were both packed with attendees. I don’t see that trend slowing down any time soon.

Attending as a Guest of Honor was amazing. Yes, it meant that I was doing six hours of extra work on top of my traditionally-packed schedule, but occasionally I would take the time to note where I was, the company that I was counted among, and what that meant. In a field where the rewards are few and far between, it was absolutely a career milestone — a genuine honor.

One of the interesting effects of attending as a Guest of Honor was the increased visibility, from appearing in the convention program book. I had many people track me down just to tell me that my work had meant something to them — which was the greatest honor of all. One of them introduced himself as one of my first customers, having bought a copy of PERIPHERY from me at GenCon 1994 — my first commercial RPG design, only 500 or so copies of which were printed.

Others praised UnderWorld, which was released at GenCon 2000. In a related blast from the past, the Jaffe brothers (late of Synister Creative Systems, the company that published UnderWorld) made their return to GenCon for the first time in 11 years, with a new company, Eschaton Media Productions, and a new game, Dystopia Rising. Here’s a shot of Sean Jaffe with Jurgen Meyer, holding a copy of the 2001 Synister release, The Last Exodus, a few copies of which were available at the Eschaton booth.

The ENnie Awards on Friday night ended with the expected result — Tales of the Far West did not win (and barely rated mention as a nominee, thanks to a presenter who, it appeared, had engaged in some “celebration” before the show). When we saw the strength of our fellow nominees, we assumed at best a third-place finish, although we were pleasantly surprised to have gotten the order of winners wrong — The Lords of Waterdeep boardgame won Silver, while the Kobold Guide to Game Design took a well-deserved Gold. Thanks to everyone who lent us your support and your votes, they were much appreciated. The old cliché of “it’s an honor just to be nominated” is actually true for these awards, but some day we’re going to get one of those medals!

On a personal note, I was extremely proud of my wife, Laura, who not only worked as the business manager for Cubicle 7’s booth, but managed to put together an absolutely amazing costume on Saturday, appearing as Idris, the TARDIS made flesh, in the Neil Gaiman-scriped Doctor Who episode, “The Doctor’s Wife.” The pic at left was snapped by Ed Healy of Gamerati — I snapped a shot earlier, and posted it to twitter, where Neil Gaiman called it brilliant, leading to a very happy wife for the entire day.

The only drawback of the show was actually a function of its usual benefit: Spending days surrounded by my brilliantly creative peers usually leads to inspiration for dozens of projects that I want to work on immediately. Unfortunately, my plate is so full right now with things which already demand my attention, I have no time to launch anything new. Alas.

I suppose it’s a good problem to have, but it is frustrating.

It’s a strange business we’re in, where four 18-hour work days can actually recharge our batteries, rather than draining them completely, but there ya go. GenCon 2013 is set for August 15th through 18th. I’ll see ya there.
 
 

Proudly powered by WordPress