Sources of Indie Publishing Advice?

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm finally at the "put out a playtest packet that people who've never met me can use to play my game" phase of developing my TTRPG, Quest for Chevar. I have a solid character sheet, a decent list of things I need more feedback to decide on or further iterate, the CharGen and How To Play bits of a quickstart document, and the basic idea of an adventure and pregen characters.

But, I haven't published a game before, and my DnD stuff has always been friend group and extended friend circle level only, because I've never bothered cleaning any of it up enough totry and publish more broadly. (I'm changing that, which is why I've had so many homebrew threads the last few months). I don't actually know the publisher side of copyright and trademark, in terms of protecting one's IP. I know a decent amount of American IP law, and norms, and problems with the system, but not the work a creator needs to do before publishing, so much.

So, what resources do y'all use? Anyone know any guides to this stuff?

Related, what do you personally need to see in a playtest packet, in order to consider grabbing it and running some games?

 

[dragoner]

Open a publishers account on dtrpg, then look at their publishers database.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Open a publishers account on dtrpg, then look at their publishers database.

I’ve heard they have good resources for publishing on dtrpg, but the conversation has always centered on DMsGuild, so I forget that the rest of the site is basically the same thing but non-D&D . Thanks for the reminder and tip!

 

[thirdkingdom]

There's also a pretty active Drivethru publishers group of Discord, with both publishers and employees answering questions and giving advice.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There's also a pretty active Drivethru publishers group of Discord, with both publishers and employees answering questions and giving advice.

Rad! Thank you!

 

[dragoner]

Here is a thread that is somewhat helpful:
One can follow on twitter a lot of creatives and gleam some decent info. The dtrpg discord is ok (I was just posting there) though I am ever leery of recommending discord (or reddit) because of the toxicity of the communities.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Here is a thread that is somewhat helpful:
One can follow on twitter a lot of creatives and gleam some decent info. The dtrpg discord is ok (I was just posting there) though I am ever leery of recommending discord (or reddit) because of the toxicity of the communities.

I am very picky about using either site, yeah. Discord I haven’t had a lot of toxic interactions but I have been annoyed enough to leave a couple servers. Reddit…oof.

That twitter thread is very useful, thank you?

I need to research the details of DMsGuild vs OGL stuff for 5e. I want the classes I’m working on to use a custom setting that speaks to the more mystical/esoteric/occult nature of the classes, and some other setting elements, but I know it’s easier to get noticed and get people looking for your work on DMsGuild, which requires using an approved setting or keeping it setting neutral.

I think that I can scrub anything from my current builds that isn’t allowed in OGL without much hassle, though, and I’ve got some variants features and stuff like that which would be best off on DMsGuild. I think.

I wonder if there are any good YouTube video series going over the particulars of those two branches of 5e 3pp?

 

[dragoner]

I would also recommend following whatever the hottest indy stuff you like, and see what they have done. I mean for example in sci-fi, there is Mothership, which recently ran a kickstarter and posted the largest amount for a non-licensed IP, and the follow up, Hull Breach, by a 3PP, also did very well.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would also recommend following whatever the hottest indy stuff you like, and see what they have done. I mean for example in sci-fi, there is Mothership, which recently ran a kickstarter and posted the largest amount for a non-licensed IP, and the follow up, Hull Breach, by a 3PP, also did very well.

That makes sense. Just made my publisher’s account and damn you weren’t lyin, there is a ton of information on the site.