How I would get started in the TTRPG industry in 2024
August last year, I started to seriously dive into the tabletop industry and found myself mostly at a loss of where to go and what to do. One year later, I wanted to put together a list of the best resources I’ve found over the last year. This isn’t an exhaustive list of everything out there but hopefully this list gives you a jumping off point to the resources, opportunities, and communities available to you.
Online Communities
RPG Writers Workshop - Community focused on getting started in writing tabletop games, community is extremely beginner friendly also offers support for the Storytelling Collective’s writing courses.
TTRPG Rising Tides Discord - Community of focused on ttrpg professionals, full of insightful people who are doing the work and extremely open to giving feedback, great repository for information and opportunities.
TTRPG Collective - Smaller community of ttrpg enthusists (professional or otherwise) focused on growing and supporting each other. Extremely friendly place to meet people and make friends.
Roll20 / DrivethruRPG Discord - Company discord focusing on supporting Roll20 and DrivethruRPG. A lot of practical information from people going through the process of selling their ttrpg and professional opportunities.
Break My Game - Board Game development focused community that holds multiple open playtests each week. Also great resource for feedback on developing and publish tabletop games.
Playtest Zero - Closed discord community managed Aaron Lim with a focus on bringing professional tabletop designers/developers. Offers weekly online playtests and a great place to “talk shop” about design.
Conventions
Gencon / Pax Unplugged - Largest “player focused” tabletop convention in the US. Attended by a large number of companies and massive waves of attendees. Panels and opportunities can be hit or miss and partially relies on knowing where to go/who to talk to.
Big Bad Con - Small sized convention focused on bringing together industry professionals and creating opportunities for under represented groups. The quality of both panels and conversations with attendees is extreme. G
Origins Game Fair - Industry focused convention. Mid-sized convention with a high density of industry veterans as well as dedicated industry panels and events for those with a GAMA membership.
GAMA Expo - professional tradeshow for GAMA members
Metatopia - Design and publisher tabletop convention focused on playtesting. Great spot if you’re later into production for a tabletop game and are looking to iron out the rough edges, build a following, or find a publisher.
Protospiel - Regional series of conventions focused on prototyping and playtesting tabletop games. Conventions are held all across the US and online.
Check these lists from Board Game Geek and Tabletop.events for more
Professional Organizations
Adventure Writers Academy - Accountability group hosted by the Storytelling Collective, provides more dedicated feedback for individuals going through their Adventure Writing courses, goal setting support, monthly industry talks, and organized peer feedback.
GAMA - Game Manufactures Association, probably most established professional group with a strong network of publishers, developers, and distributors. Membership buys access to their seminars, business services, career opportunities, and access to programming at Origins Game Fair and a free badge to GAMA Expo.
SFWA - Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Association, mostly focused on traditional writing but tabletop writing projects can actually qualify, have to do a number of qualified projects to get in but a way you can actually get health coverage.
IGDN - Indie Game Developer Network, international trade association for tabletop games. Requires membership but also gives access to their professional network with dedicated options for mentorship and peer coaching. They also host dedicated spaces for members at conventions.
TTGDA - Tabletop Game Designers Association, focused on education and support for tabletop game designers. Provides access to educational resources, webinars, and publisher finding support.
IGDA - International Game Developer Association, largest professional organization for games (mostly digital), most major cities have a chapter that you can meet up for local meetings and networking, Membership gives access to their network and career resources.
Opportunities
GAMA Horizons Fellowship - Scholarship for underrepresented groups that provides GAMA membership, grant for new publishers or retailers, and travel coverage to Origins Game Fair.
Storytelling Collective Creative Laurette - Grant fund for sponsoring designers doing creative work across disciplines (including tabletop, digital, and fine arts). The program provides financial support to a project as well assistance with bringing it to life over the following year.
IGDN Diversity Sponsorship - Awarded to IGDN members, the program seeks to uplift marginalized creators giving them a scholarship fund to be used at their discretion or to attend Metatoplis for free. Additionally, recipients receive 1-on-1 industry mentorship and networking.
Big Bad Con Scholarship Fun - A fund for helping woman and marginalized group attend Big Bad Con by covering travel and convention expenses. Attendees and sponsors are able to contribute to sponsor more recipients.
Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award - A award given to a designer early in their career with a focus on marginalized communities, nominees get a paid trip to Gencon to attend the award show as well as dedicated space in the convention hall to showcase their game.
Ennies - Basically the Oscars of the tabletop industry, the award show happens yearly at Gencon and awards games determined to be the best from those released in the past year over categories from layout, to product design, to rules.
Crit Awards - Award show with mission to recognize talent and achievement across the entire tabletop industry, covers awards for actual play and media productions across the space.
Zine Quest / Zine Month / Pocketopia - Annual crowdfunding events focused on publishing small projects on Kickstarter, Backerkit, or other platforms. A great first and lower risk step to getting to crowd funding and self publish by creating a small game or supplement.
Itch.io Game Jams - Periodic community organized “jams” to create and publish a game based on a theme or system within a set period of time, sometimes sponsored or organized by larger creators, great opportunity for people who want a hard deadline or want to get more eyeballs on their work.
Where to learn
RPG Writer’s Workshop - One-time purchase online courses that take you through the process for creating and publishing your first adventure for a number of popular systems. A farm-to-table experience written by industry veterans and great for beginners.
Dungeons and Dollars - Podcast and newsletter focused on the business of tabletop games from the pro-gm, freelancer, and publisher perspective. Interviews are extremely informative about how to do all the professional things outside just writing. Run by Friday, a fulltime pro-gm and publisher.
Jar of Eyes Games Gazette - Newsletter focused on cordinating and organizing mid-sized projects for tabletop rpgs, extremely practical with examples and templates, a great step into collaborating with others.
Stonemaier Games - Blog and youtube channel produced by Jamey Stonemaier, the owner of a successful board game publisher, extremely informative if you want to learn into how to scope and produce larger tabletop projects (board game or otherwise)
Cardboard Edison - Newsletter and website full of insightful information about the tabletop industry (board game focused), Also maintains a publisher database accessible on their patreon.
Farir RPGS - Solo-dev publisher run by René-Pier, personally think they are using the tools of crowd funding, game jams, and itch to build a brand and deliver rpgs of an insane quality as a one man show. Although he publishes some educational content on his YouTube and blog, I would more so focus on how promotes and showcases his games online.
Jon Peterson - If you want a history crash course on tabletop rpgs, you will do no better than Jon Peterson’s books. Although dense reads, Jon gives an extremely detailed breakdown of all the influences that converged to create ttrpgs and the hobbies beginnings.
Rascal News - Community funded journalism for the tabletop community, started by journalist who both know their craft and love the hobby, Rascal delivers great analysis and updates on the industry.
Explorer Design - Blog with fantastic analysis on layout and informational design in ttrpgs, if you want to start digging deep into thinking about layout design, I would definitely read.
TTRPG Kids - Resources and blog focused on using and designing games for education. The website includes ways to integrate tabletop games into the class room as well as a list with age rankings.
Alphastream - Blog by Teos Abadía, a well published writer in the space, his blog is full of insightful articles about his experience as a working professional as well as analysis on the industry as a whole.
Talk of the Table - Fantastic interview podcast hosted by Elliot Davis and Brian Flaherty talking with a wide range of tabletop creators from designers to actual players.
Tabletop Talk - Another interview show with a large backlog of industry professionals hosted by Craig.
The Game Design Round Table - Another interview show hosted by Dirk Knemeyer and David Heron that conducts interviews with designers of both digital and tabletop games. A really cool blend where you get to look at games from both perspectives.
What to write for
The “big dogs”
D&D 5e / D&D Next - the most popular ttrpg in the world, using the creative commons and open gaming licenses you can publish and sell third-party D&D. content as long as you keep to what is provided in the license or make your own.
Pathfinder 2e - D&D’s “little brother” also with it’s own srd and community. Smaller but still a large amount support.
Call of Cthulhu - Classic Eldritch horror rpg with it’s own massive fan base.
Powered by the Apocalypse / Forged in the Dark - indie system that has ballooned to include a large number of successful/well known games, decent community following. Fair amount of mid-sized publisher support as well.
The “new kids”
Mork (or other) Borg - dark horror and fantasy system (or whatever you can turn it into) know for its bold layout/graphics and creating dark/weird games. Great community.
Candela Obscura/Illuminated Worlds System - Call of cthlulu-esque occult and investigation game published by Darington Press, supported by the Critical Role community, one of the largest in the space.
Mothership - Space horror system, strong but devoted community.
The “D&D killers”
Tales of the Valiant - Alternative fantasy system similar in style by a large third-party D&D publisher, Kobold Press
Draw Steel - More tactical heavy but also with its own distinct flavor/options/fiction alternative to D&D by a large third-party D&D publisher. Strong community/following from D&D youtuber Matt Colville.
Daggerheart - THIRD PARTY CONTENT CURRENTLY NOT ALLOWED (but odds are there will be some type of guidelines in the next year). Card-based fantasy system in-development by Darington Press currently set to be released in 2025. Power of the Critical Role community + better overlap with their background as D&D players.
Dragonbane - D&D alternative released by another large publisher, Free League Press. More classic/fantasy swords and sorcery vibes.
Shadowdark - Old school remix of D&D 5e recently released, extremely well received and has a bunch of hype/interest right now.
The “itch.io darlings”
Charge / Breathless / Songs of Sagas - srds published by Farir Rpgs
Lumen 2.0 - srd published by Spencer Campbell
Caltrop Core -srd published by titanomachyRPG
What to write with
GMBinder / The Homebrewery - free, in browser editor for creating D&D style content, easy to use with templates and a way to start.
Canva - free graphics design software available in browser, great bank of fonts and images to simple but pleasing graphics and layout, even better if you go deep and get good.
Affinity Suite - one-time purchase verisons of Adobe Indesign, Photoshop, and light room, everything you need to create professional looking layouts and graphics.
Microsoft Word/ Google Docs - basic but versatile create basic layouts or use templates
Scribus - open source layout software, minimalistic but free
Tabletop Simulator - digital tabletop platform, requires some technical skills to implement/build but gives you the ability to share and test your game online.
Where to publish
Unearthed Arcana Subreddit - hobbyist focused forum publishing 5e content, great feedback and a great/low stakes place to start, no monetization
Itch.io - digital and tabletop marketplace, great community for indie tabletop creators
DriveThruRPG - more “professional” marketplace for selling tabletop games, good tie-ins for selling physical products,
DMsGuild / Pathfinder Infinite / Miskatonic Repository / Storyteller’s Vault - DriveThruRPG “reskins” for popular systems, lets you publish third-party products with a better license agreement but publishers take a cut
Sorry I ran out of length so I can’t add more descriptions but the stuff below is still good stuff!
Where to sell
Resources
D&D Templates for Microsoft World, Affinity, and InDesign
A wealth of actionable advice, thank you!
Extremely helpful!