How to break into the RPG Writing Market

One would think these sexy jobs would land in the laps of geeks everywhere but that fact is pen and paper games are slowly being outshined by the immersive and quality of MMORPGs and technology is replacing dice and paper. However, there still is a small select market for written and not CGI and programming RPGs. The ways to get the developer and writing jobs in generally to sneak in through the back door. If you want to write for a particular gaming system, join that gaming studio's boards and forums and discuss intellgently and never get involved in expertise dick-waving and such. Show your knowledge of the game, provide game settings and such to th eplayers and the company overseeing it will possibly take enough notice to offer you some freelance work.

However, it is a dying market if you are a RPG writer. My own experience was that I met the Minds Eye Theatre developer of White Wolf at a coffeehouse and she knew I was a writer and my husband knew her for several years and introduced us and it turned our she needed stuff written and asked for a writing sample. It was a matter of knowing the right people. I wish it were a more honorable story as to how I got to write for two White Wolf Gaming Studio lines.

Another avenue to take is to freelance generic game settings and propose articles to the few remaining gaming magazines such as Polymancer out of Canada. The pay will not be great, but your name will get out there and writing credit will be able to go on the resume. Get the writing guidelines from magazines and such that cater you your interests and the games you enjoy the most and make the content happen and you get paid sometimes even:)

Volunteer for playtesting to to run playtests. Be aware you will have to sign the infamous NDA or Non-Disclosure Agreement, which prevents you from discussing anything about the game for two years, although once the book is out and everyone is talking about it, the NDA is null and void. You just should not discuss what changes were made from the playtested version to the final produced and printed gaming book.

You can also create your own game, or already have and want to profit from it and place it on the web and host forums to let people know about your gaming system and have it self published via lulu.com or another book publishing company for small presses. Just be sure to have not used any of the game mechanics from any other system that uses a unique dice or card system that may be owned by another pulishing house. It is a sure way to be sued. So if it's all original, self-publish at lulu.com! Create a website for it, sell it at lulu and host IRC and forums for your game. It's a great deal of work, but you wanted to be a Ferengi and profit, yes? That means work, tons of it and commitment, and if you cannot do such alone, assemble a team to keep each other on track and divide the labor of writing and get a damn fine editor to smooth each section out so the game stories, background, charcter creation, rules, and mechanics flow and aren't obviously written by a collective.

The RPG market has changed and if you are still tied to dice and paper, you face new hoops to jumps through and such, but often experts are needed, especially by Steve Jackson games, they hire experts in some fields to simply tap their brain for knowledge. The brain trust work isn't easy to get but it is out there if you have an area of absolute genius and creativity in. So look around and submit samples and ask for writer guidelines. The jobs are there, they are just hiding and much much harder to get in a market that is drying up and more competitive than others with gaming studio mergers and buyouts of late.