Building Bastionland - A Career Retrospective

And how to prepare your realm

This Week’s post looks back on things.

I’ve been making games professionally for long enough now that people sometimes ask me how I got here.

I don’t really know the answer, but I know these things are true:

• I’d be designing games anyway, even if nobody bought them.

• The popularity of each game has opened up opportunities for the next game.

• I keep the business simple, do everything possible by myself, and get my part done well before it’s due.

So I’m looking back over the forty years that led me to this point. Skip to chapter 2 to get to designing games, skip to chapter 3 to get to working full time.

CHAPTER 1 - PLAY

1985: I’m born. I grow up in rural Staffordshire in the Midlands of England.

1995: I get my first White Dwarf and begin the descent into tabletop games.

1996: I branch out from Warhammer Fantasy Battles into Warhammer Quest and Necromunda. These games are much more my kind of thing.

1997: I already played the Fighting Fantasy books, but now I’ve borrowed a copy of Out of the Pit from a friend. It’s a book of monsters, and I’m slightly confused how you’re supposed to use it. Maybe to write your own Fighting Fantasy books?

1999: I go to the Games Day convention and stumble upon Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the first RPG I've ever opened up. I buy it but feel a bit daunted by it, never getting it to the table. I love rolling characters and reading all the bonkers tables.

2000: I buy the brand new D&D 3e core books and starter set, getting my first set of polyhedral dice. I briefly play this with a friend but don’t get a group going. Around this point I stop playing Warhammer, teenage embarrassment finally catching up with me.

2003: I move away to university. I'm embarrassed about my nerdy hobbies. I hide my D&D books behind my guitar amp. I play Ultima Online in a roleplay guild and even a little 3e on forums.

2006: I'm spending a lot of time in RPG IRC channels and forums. Playing games there never quite feels satisfying. After finishing university I fail to qualify for teacher training. They give me some studying to do so that I can qualify next year.

CHAPTER 2 - DESIGN

2007: I’m working in a pub and after my shifts I start writing a fantasy setting for the free superhero game Powergame. I like the system, but change a few things here and there. I’m excited about the upcoming D&D 4th Edition, especially listening to the designers talk about the process. I branch out into writing other games like Blowing Stuff Up, a dumb action movie game. Later in the year I begin my teacher training.

2008: I’m reading game design blogs, including a few recognisable OSR blogs. I'm writing my wuxia game A Wanderer's Romance, my sort-of-board-game Teen Island, and an RPG called Robot World that never gets off the ground. They’re all just free google doc links, and I’m playing these over IRC and forum. It’s difficult to get much interest. 4th edition D&D has some cool ideas but by now I’ve drifted away from that level of crunch, and I find combat to be a slog. I fail my final term of teacher training, so I’ll be staying on for another term to complete the course.

2009: I start my blog as soogagames, now thoroughly immersed in the blogosphere of the time. My post “100 Interesting Magic Items” is still my most viewed of all time. I submit Teen Island to the 2009 d6 Design Contest and it gets released as a print on demand compilation of entries. It’s incredible to see something I designed in print. I write more games: Five Star Chef, Skullados, Invisible Eyes, and I even start work on The Adventurer’s Tale, my begrudging attempt at a fantasy RPG. I complete my teacher training and begin supply work while looking for a job. This can be pretty unpleasant.

2010: I write a sci-fi game called Xenofringe. I’m still working away at A Wanderer’s Romance and The Adventurer’s Tale. I’m teaching in special education now. While there are parts of the job I enjoy, some of the grim practicalities of the job are starting to wear me down.

2011: I know Michael Wolf through IRC and he says I should put A Wanderer’s Romance up on drivethrurpg. He lays it out and puts it up, and of course it’s free. I don’t see selling my stuff as a real possibility. Google+ launches and hangouts makes playing with video chat much more accessible. I buy a webcam and play some B/X hacks by OSR people. I love this style of play, but I still find D&D an uncomfortable fit. Around this time I play Searchers of the Unknown and become very inspired by the extremes of rules-lite. I start blogging about Project Odd which is my D&D hack with a sci-fi/horror twist. Teaching is truly grinding away at me now. I don’t think I want to do this until I retire. My blog gets 1,000 monthly views for the first time.

2012: I rename Xenofringe to Arkbound, still longing to write a sci-fi game. I keep working away on what’s now called Into the Odd. I lay it out in MS Word, add public domain art, and put the pdf out for free. Online play and collaboration are thriving on Google+. A small group of people are actually enjoying Into the Odd and it’s much easier to get players when I tell them it’s kind of a D&D hack. I move north to Manchester and I’m done with teaching, starting a career in wine retail, going to evening classes to get my knowledge up to scratch.

2013: Into the Odd testing and iteration continues. Working in retail means I have some antisocial hours, which at least lets me spend time writing while my partner is at work. At this time I’m still embarrassed around playing and writing games. Digging into why would be a much longer post, but after three years together I tell my partner that I’ve been making this stuff in my spare time. She’s a bit baffled about my feelings of shame, but she’s very encouraging. We play a game of Teen Island together.

2014: I’m messing around with a new take on my sci-fi idea, this time called DIE BONEHEAD DIE. Great name, but the game never really goes anywhere. I go to my first proper RPG convention, Dragonmeet, in London. I also start going to UK OSR Meetups arranged on Google+. Paolo from Lost Pages proposes a printed version of Into the Odd and we make it happen, selling it for actual money. I’m amazed when we sell 48 copies on the first day. It’s unbelievable to think of somebody having a book I wrote on their shelf. I’m now manager of a wine shop, so the antisocial hours continue.

2015: People are still buying Into the Odd and it’s a nice bit of pocket money when I get the sales report through. I’ve got a vague idea for an ITO companion, something to flesh out the world. Maybe a city book then a wilderness book. I mash DIE BONEHEAD DIE and Arkbound together into Hellspace and continue to fail to get a sci-fi game moving. I start a Patreon for the blog. For the next five years this will hover around enough to buy a modest lunch each month.

2016: The Into the Odd Supplement starts to take shape through blogposts. I figure I might as well include the original rules as they're so short. I joke about calling it Advanced Into the Odd. I’m working as Buying and Logistics Manager for the wine company now, so my hours are more standard 9-5. This makes writing more difficult, as it’s less appealing after a tiring day in the office. My blog gets 10,000 monthly views for the first time.

2017: Into the Odd has been out for two years now and has sold around 300 printed copies. I release a playtest packet for what I’m now calling Bastionland. The Electric part comes shortly after in the second playtest version. These are becoming more recognisable now, with failed careers, scars, spark tables, and a focus on procedure and bullet points. I’d love to make this a big hardback book with loads of art, so maybe one day I’ll take it to crowdfunding. Free League hire me to write a dungeon for Forbidden Lands and my contact, Nils, mentions he’s a fan of Into the Odd! The word rate is good, but it takes me much longer to write than I anticipated.

2018: My Patreon peeks just above £100 for a month, then drops back down to its typical amount. I’m still writing and testing Electric Bastionland. I begin to wonder if 100 Failed Careers was too many. Google Plus dies. I mostly move to Discord, but it’s definitely not the same. I try Twitter but even now the atmosphere is pretty awful. My day job is becoming more difficult. I’m making stupid mistakes and finding myself exhausted at the end of each day. It’s getting really hard to force myself to sit down to write game stuff in my spare time.

2019: I start planning a Kickstarter for Electric Bastionland. The writing is almost complete, and I’ll use the funds to pay for art and printing. I’ve met the Rowan Rook & Decard team a couple of times at cons now, so I hire them to consult on the process, helping me with amateur questions about printing and distributing a book. I set up a limited company in preparation for this. The Kickstarter for Electric Bastionland finishes just above £50,000. With my day job becoming increasingly untenable, I decide to try a year working full time on RPGs. There’s enough profit left to pay myself an okay salary for a year even if I only make minimal sales. If it doesn’t work out I can look for another job.

CHAPTER 3 - WORK

2020: Working from home, I keep supporting Electric Bastionland with blogposts, streams, and podcasts. Print copies ship in May, and general sales open up, with around 500 extra books sold before the end of the year. My Patreon grows up to around £350 per month, where it still sits today. I do some more external work writing for stretch goals but soon discover this isn’t a great fit for me, and try to focus on writing my own stuff instead. In lockdown fever I buy my first miniatures and paints since my teenage years. Inevitably I start working on a skirmish game, calling it Grimlite. I don’t see this as something I’d ever release, but it’s fun getting excited about miniatures like I’m ten years old again.

2021: I decide to release Into the Odd Remastered with luxury presentation and additional content through Free League. I ask Johan Nohr to do layout, thinking he’ll be too busy, but he’s excited by the game and finds time for it. The Kickstarter finishes just over £110,000, more than double what Electric Bastionland did. I speak with a couple of publishers about The Doomed, formerly known as Grimlite, and I decide to publish it with Osprey.

2022: Into the Odd Remastered and Electric Bastionland both continue to sell well, but a year without a big Kickstarter usually ends in at least a small loss after paying myself. I complete writing on The Doomed and hand it over to Osprey, who will release it next year. I start work on Primeval Bastionland and do some initial testing before renaming it Mythic Bastionland. I’m also working on a new mech miniature game called Titanic Bastionmechs, later renamed MAC Attack.

2023: After a few good years of business I decide to take the plunge and go to GenCon this year, probably as a “once in a lifetime” thing. I hope to drum up some good contacts for when it’s time to start marketing the Mythic Bastionland Kickstarter. It’s an expensive trip but a great time, and I meet people I would never have met in the UK. The Doomed is released by Osprey and sells around 4,000 print copies in the first six months, but even with that success the royalties are more like “here’s a good bonus” than “pay my salary”. The Mythic Bastionland Kickstarter finishes just under £270,000, more than double what Into the Odd Remastered did.

2024: After the success of Mythic Bastionland I decide on another trip to GenCon. Even though I’m a regular convention-goer I usually don’t have my own trade stand, instead finding somebody happy to stock Electric Bastionland on their space, as ITOR and The Doomed are both stocked by their respective publishers already. This means I mostly use conventions for networking, though it doesn’t come naturally to me. Mythic Bastionland faces a big art delay, meaning it won’t release this year. I keep backers informed, so they’re incredibly understanding, and luckily the sales were good enough to weather what would end up being a full year delay. My blog gets 100,000 monthly views for the first time.

2025: Mythic Bastionland is fulfilled and goes on general sale, and just two weeks later the Quinns’ Quest video review causes a surge in sales. Luckily, I’d been forewarned about this, so I’d ordered a truly colossal print run. The additional sales from this review were close to the initial Kickstarter sales. The book also wins three Ennies, and of course I’m at GenCon again so I get to collect them in person and meet Alec for the first time. I crowdfund MAC Attack on Backerkit, finishing on £24,000. While this is much lower than my RPGs, it’s higher than I’d expected for a niche miniature game.

Conclusions

This is more about providing context than identifying universal lessons. The following things stand out to me as I look back over things.

• I designed games semi-seriously for 7 years before I sold anything

• I sold games for 6 years before I went full-time as a designer

• I’ve worked for 5 years as a full-time game designer and I’m still a company of one person with just five releases

Of course there’s a way to read that as gatekeeping. I don’t think you need to “pay your dues”, and the environment of creating games feels different now to when I started out, but looking back at my own journey I'm glad I didn't move faster.

This slowness extends to release schedules too. Five years into my career I’ve averaged one book a year, and the company is really built on just three of those. I released a couple of tiny adventures as pdf only, pay what you want, but it’s telling that I don’t even mention them in my retrospective.

Slowly building an audience of people who like my stuff has made it possible for me to self publish the big art-filled hardbacks that pay the bills, and also indulge in my less profitable side projects. If I relied on royalties from other publishers I don’t think I could have made it work.

For all that my game design comes from a place of impatience, I appear to have taken the opposite approach with all this.

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Elsewhere

• The Dododecahedron looks at different ways to present evocative NPCs with examples from some of the best in the business.

• Prismatic Wasteland shows the power of combining two things to make something new.

• The Smiling Fox podcast continues with an episode focused on prepping for a Mythic Bastionland game.

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Coming Soon

Over on Patreon I have a big dirty page of new spark tables to flesh out your Mythic lands.

Expect the full reveal here and on the blog next week.

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