Relatively new, looking for opportunties

[Arathen]

My name is Dane Pitchford, and I'm a college student looking to opportunities to work in game design. My skills lie in concept work and story, and as far as rules knowledge goes my focus has been 3.5, though I'm not adverse to working with 4th edition rules, or another game system if need be. It's my hope to do work to get myself out there and build a portfolio.

[Charke]

Just some tidbits.

Build a website and include some writing samples.

Don't start your letters with "my name is" because only the new writers do that. It's a minor thing but a number of new writers have appeared here and on rpgnet lately.

Answer some of the open calls around here and on rpgnet. Goodman Games has a big one right now.

Your post should be a little longer. You want to tell us what you're good at, what you want to do and something funny about yourself so we remember you. You don't want to write an essay but a little more is needed.

Create a signature with more information. It could be a witty expression but your website link is a good start.

When I started I found a list of publishers and applied to all 75. I got one negative responce and some odd 5 job offers which was pretty good.

It might sound a little more professional to not mention systems, unless you are particually skilled at one. Most of the jobs are d20 so you're set anyway. Generally everyone is generally willing to work on any system, except a handful of people who decided d20 is the source of all evil and I can only wonder what they think of 4th edition.

I have a writing resources page on my website - which should be back up in the next couple of weeks - grumble.

Knock on doors and say hi to people.

Mark Charke

[BLACKDIRGE]

Good advice, Charke. There have been a lot of these posts lately, and the thing that strikes me most is, as you said, they really don't tell a publisher much.

Dane, in this business it’s about showing, not telling. I can tell a publisher that I'm a good RPG designer, but it's just hot air until he sees my work, which leads me to my next bit of advice. Post some of your work on this messageboard; it's a great way to get noticed (it worked for me).

Also, as Charke said, respond to open calls, get your work out there. One vague post in this forum is not going to net you anything but a bunch of repetitive advice from working freelancers. =]

One other piece of advice: learn 4E, and learn it well. Don't listen to all the negative stuff, there's going to be a lot of work for 4E designers (there already is, actually) in the coming months.

BD

[Arathen]

Thank you for the advice. Heh. I suppose I'll withdraw for the moment then and try to work on a better post for the future. Of course, I have a few things I'm working on, myself...but nothing's quite ready to put up to be looked at just yet.

I have the 4th edition stuff, sure, and I intend on learning it, and once some ideas come to me I'll submit some things to those that are asking for them...open calls and such. Like I've said elsewhere, I can't exactly afford to be picky, lol.