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I'm an rpg designer with a full time job. In 2024 I ran a Kickstarter that netted $6k, and was able to produce a game that got an Ennie nomination. It's a small black-and-white softcover but the art is beautiful and fitting, and I went to the extra expense of printing with recycled paper.

If you're doing small runs, publishing your own RPG in print costs less than travel and hotel for a convention. It costs less than wargamers spend on their model armies and way less than sports fans pay for arena tickets. If you're publishing online, it's free.

The closest thing I have to a self-employed job at the moment is my TTRPG research and writing (giant thanks to my wife for letting me work on it for this many years/be the stay at home parent). Yet, I'd argue that folks like me can't count until we're within arms reach of officially publishing.

If "publishing on DM's Guild more than once" counts, then you get a ridiculous mass of extremely casual workers. If it doesn't count, then does the count represent what's going on?

Yeah, I am not convinced that having made about £50 overall on my published LARPs really means I'm "working in the LARP industry" and there's more people like me on Drivethru than people making minimum wage.

This is @brkeogh.bsky.social THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY DOES NOT EXIST (and I need to stop tagging him this morning but it’s a very relevant book)

I used to work in the book publishing industry. Most people who write a novel get a one-off payment and then, one hopes, royalties thereafter. To be a full-time professional writer you need multiple books in print at the same time and all selling well. If any RPG guy out there is feeling poor, I

guarantee, every author will sympathise. Selling a single RPG supplement/adventure will get you a one-off payment. If you're a /publisher/ you have hundreds or thousands of books in your catalog, most of which basically break even, and a handful that sell well (a couple of bestsellers, one hopes),

Anecdotally, I reckon I could name 30 people in the UK who do full time games work without spousal support or day job. Even easier in the US. Crowdfunding has made us a real industry.

Added complication. Are we including LARP as part of the overall sector? Because off the top of my head I'm pretty sure I can think of at least 3 that are profit making businesses in the UK. (Profound Decisions, Labyrinthe, Curious Pastimes).

This kind of thing was one of the challenges of the Actual Play book, where I surveyed creators to ask how many of them considered AP a meaningful part of their income (defined as they wished — I didn’t ask numbers).

Your reading for today (free!): @brkeogh.bsky.social THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY DOES NOT EXIST (2023)

[nods sagely] yes, the actual play industry does not exist

I think that for Australia, I could count folks who make the majority of their noney from "Professional Full Time TTRPG" work on one hand...

I can confirm you will need more than one hand even for designers! Definitely a few hands if you include support roles as well. But yes it's still very small and we're not very visible. With us for example people often think we are from the US until they meet us and hear our horrendous accents.

I just scratched together this somewhat suspect semiotic square comparing "full time day job" and "full time game job". I don't think it's very productive and it certainly wasn't made with any sort of data-based input.

that's ME!

I acknowledge your post without hitting the little 'heart' icon because that doesn't feel right.

I love you scratching.

I’m very curious what “omnipresent” people means, especially as distinct from people with lots of free time 👀

I don't quite get semiotic squares in spite of my perverse enthusiasm for them, so humor me if I'm getting this wrong: "Omnipresent people" is me trying to describe the folks who are seemingly at all the game events/online discussions/etc but who aren't game makers.

Tell me how to make this better.

The upper right, bottom two entries show a point where the question breaks down. I know a handful of designers who live in poverty on game-derived incomes and I know other designers who make enough in games to live on but still work full time.

bad news: it is apparently a cube within a cube, not a square within a square

Oh this is always fun. Do people with eg logistics roles working for tabletop game companies count as “working in TTRPGs”? Does a company that makes board games or war games as well as TTRPGs count? (insert “TTRPG” purist / rebel vs “working full-time” purist / rebel chart here)

I KNOW RIGHT

I think that question about wargames/board games is particularly interesting. Do I work in TTRPGs? I make them, I've published a bunch, I have a full time job at a company that makes them. But I spend more than half my time making different kinds of games.

and I think for most people that would be a "yes", but possibly a partial one? similarly, if you work for a TTRPG company but only do backroom office work, does that count? what's the cut-off