Advice from Big Bad Con 2023

Big Bad Con 2023 Wrap-Up (Part 1 of 2)

This post was co-authored by the amazing Taylor Navarro. Taylor (she/her) is a Hispanic-British freelance TTRPG writer, editor, project manager, and two-time Big Bad Con POC Scholar (‘22 & ‘23). Most recently she released a solo RPG, Family Album, and currently works as the producer on Tales from Sina Una.

TL;DR This post contains notes on the industry panels Taylor and I attended at Big Bad Con 2023. There are notes about marketing, pitching your games, and leading TTRPG projects.

My game and art haul from Big Bad 2023

I've always felt extremely lucky to be able to attend Big Bad Con, a yearly TTRPG-focused convention in San Francisco, CA. Gaming conventions are a key place where professional development and networking in the TTRPG space occur, a fact I learned last year when I got my first formalized mentorship in the space. Conventions also have a high barrier of entry: You need to have time to attend the convention, the physical ability to attend the convention, money to attend the convention, potentially a visa to attend the convention if you're coming from abroad…the list goes on. We can't properly share everything that is Big Bad Con, but Taylor and I came together to share our notes. 

Below are key takeaways from the six industry-focused panels that Taylor and I attended this year. We picked panels that were useful to us (we're both writing games and managing projects). They were:

1. Seeking Opportunities in TRPGs

2. TTRPG Freelancing at Ghostfire

3. X-Factor: Marketing Your Games

4. State of Social Media in TTRPGs

5. Leading TRPG Projects

6. Pitching Your Ideas

In addition, Big Bad Con has had an online version of the convention with recorded talks from the last three years, all of which you can watch on their YouTube channel. Many of these are industry-focused, for example Pitching YOU: Putting Your Best Foot Forward In Industry Meetings, is similar to a workshop presented at this year's Big Bad.

Podcast Version: What Happened At Big Bad Con 2023

Friday of Dollars and Dragons was gracious enough to have Taylor, Nala Jaedyn Wu, and me on for a Big Bad Con podcast debrief. We cover even more panels and our candid thoughts on networking. If you want more and/or you're a fan of podcasts, you can listen here:

Takeaways from Panels

The following are our panel notes, with the most actionable takeaways highlighted.

Seeking Opportunities in TTRPGs

Justice Arman, Whitney Beltrán, Ajit George, Anthony Joyce-Rivera, Ethan Yen (moderator)

This panel was about all the "unspoken" rules of the industry, how to find opportunities, and effectively hold the door open for peers.

Business cards are for follow-up: Business cards are very much used in TTRPG networking. Hand out business cards when there's an expectation or reason for follow-up, as opposed to handing out your card with every interaction. Bring a pen and note down why you need to follow up with the individual. 

How to approach people: "Don't pretend for 15 minutes that you like someone, only to lay a trap that the conversation was about getting hired". Seek genuine connection and talk about what excites you. It's great if you know the work of who you’re talking to and can truthfully mention a few specific details about what you liked or connected with.

Contextualize your work outside of TTRPGs: Folks routinely undersell their non-TTRPG experience, thinking it isn't relevant. It is relevant. If you have a day job or alternate career, spend some time thinking about how these experiences have prepared you for TTRPG work. For example, succeeding at most jobs gives tangible proof that you're reliable and can achieve complex tasks even if those experiences don't relate directly to games.

Be a turtle in the race: It can take time to get steady TTRPG work. One panelist emailed the same company once a month for a year before finally getting an opportunity to man a booth for them. Another spent years self-publishing before being hired freelance. Be patient, be positive, and when you get an opportunity, knock it out of the park.

How to use email: Follow up within 24 hours after an interview and note key points from the conversation to jog their memory. It's okay to send follow-up emails, just make sure to add additional information or context to the conversation. Wait a week or so in between emails.

Proactively ask for feedback: Your goal shouldn't be to not make mistakes, but rather to never make the same mistake twice. Whoever hired you is unlikely to give feedback unprompted, so politely and proactively ask for it.

Don't shoot your shot, plant a seed: Work with your peers, make teams, and support each other instead of solely focusing on "getting noticed". If you focus on your peers, if one person finds success, they can recommend you. If you can't take a job and you pass it to a peer you trust, they're more likely to return the favor.

You're never too old to be mentored.

Defining mentorship: Not everyone is a good mentor. The panelists also all handled mentorship differently. The biggest differences were:

• Who they sought out to mentor (like mentoring only femme folks).

• Some set very clear time or goal boundaries (this mentorship lasts 6 months and I will prepare you for interviews, this mentorship lasts through writing one adventure). Others had longer, more informal mentorships.

• It's okay and natural for mentorship to change, and sometimes stop being relevant, as your career changes.

Understanding sponsorship: Sponsorship is when you advocate for someone you know, potentially a mentee. Sponsors are mindful of who they sponsor, since it reflects on their judgment as a sponsor. If someone sponsors you, it's always nice to let them know how the connection or opportunity went. It's helpful for the person who sponsored you to know whether they made a good "match".

TTRPG Freelancing at Ghostfire

Joe Raso (moderator) Andrew Bishkinskyi, Anthony Joyce-Rivera, Erin Roberts, Ethan Yen

This was a conversation about freelancing at Ghostfire Gaming, using it as a case study for freelancing in general.

What's satisfying about freelancing?

• Working within constraints to be creative.

• Creating for a publisher with an audience and seeing people play my stuff!

The difficulties of collaboration when freelancing: Most projects haven't figured out how to do collaboration effectively. Everyone is given an assignment and then goes off to their own metaphorical "rooms" to work. The tight schedules and distributed and temporary nature of freelancing teams makes sharing tough. A panelist mentioned that working on Journeys through the Radiant Citadel was a more collaborative environment than most. Leadership required that writing be done earlier and that collaborators read each other's work.

Growing as a freelancer: As noted in a few other panels, ask clients for feedback. When advertising yourself for work, it's good to know what your strengths are as a writer (adventure writing, world-building, mechanics, etc) and to lean into those. You should also, though, find or make opportunities to bolster your writing weaknesses.

X-Factor: Marketing Your Games

Bianca Bickford (Moderator), Anthony Joyce-Rivera, Kari Jo "Kage" Freudigmann, Leon Barillaro

This panel was a mixture of TTRPG freelancers and the Roll20/DriveThruRPG marketing team discussing how to expand the marketing and reach for your games outside of social media.

Make time to market: Take time out of your work schedule to market your game. It only needs to be 5% of your working week, but some time is better than no time.

Add these to your website: Do you have a website? If you do, make sure it includes the following: 

• A portfolio with purchase links. If people like your work enough to find more of it, make it easy for them to buy it! Make sure you display your contributions for potential employers.

• Accessible material. Whether this is a writing sample, art pieces, or a video reel, make sure there is a recent example of your work that is downloadable from your website. Minimize the number of click-throughs required by potential employers and ensure that all samples of your work aren’t hidden behind a paywall. 

• A contact form. Ideally, this should be on your portfolio page (minimize those clicks!), giving easy access to contact you if someone likes your work.

Create a newsletter: Everyone has a Substack these days, and so should you! Whether you send them once a month or once a week, a newsletter is a way to consistently market your games and allow others to keep up with your professional career as microblogging websites like Twitter/X, BlueSky, Hive, Threads, etc. have either scattered your community to the winds or are suppressing your posts. When you are setting up a newsletter, consider offering a free copy of your game upon sign-up!

Want to start a newsletter but don’t know what to talk about? Consider answering the following questions in a post form once a month:

• Where am I?

• What have I done?

• What’s happening next? 

• What recommendations for games/actual plays do I have? (You can use this as a chance to promote others in your community!)

Sell on multiple platforms: Diversifying your portfolio by making work available on multiple platforms (e.g. through crowdfunding, itch.io, DriveThruRPG, Amazon) is a great way to get your games seen by more eyes. It’s much harder when work is made via Community Content programs* (e.g. DM’s Guild, Storyteller’s Vault, etc.) but many sites have non-exclusivity clauses for publishing games! (Check out Lyla's Money and Collaboration articles to learn more details ;) ) 

*Games published through some of the OneBookShelf Community Content programs (e.g. DMsGuild) can be converted and sold on Roll20. You can hire someone to do it for you for a royalty split, and sell your community content on two platforms instead of one!

Change what you sell: You don’t have to sell a complete game! Wait! Don’t skip past this part! For those unfamiliar, an ashcan is a version of your game where the rules are complete but it has minimal layout and no art (yet!) When you make your listing, say that it’s an ashcan. Then, any money you make from the sales can go towards “upgrading” the product: hire an artist (or two, or three) or a graphic designer. When a change is made, you can update the listing and anyone who has bought the game gets a copy of the changes (on most platforms). Think of it like investing in making a cool game pretty. 

Use OneBookShelf: If you sell games on DriveThruRPG, you have access to a series of marketing tools on your Publisher account (Community Content programs such as DMsGuild have a limited version of these tools). Through your DriveThruRPG Publisher account, you can email customers who have purchased your game, allowing you to notify them if Print on Demand becomes available or letting them know you’ve released a new game. 

Invest in a good cover: Often the cover is what sells the game. If you have any art budget at all, put it towards the cover. Good graphic design plus stock art will make your game stand out, but often people will buy a game based on the cover. 

Crowdfunding: It’s easier to sell the hype around crowdfunding than a completed project. 

Utilize social media: You can promote your games on Discord servers (which count as a type of social media). Good ones include your own community server, Zine Month, TTRPG Rising Tides, DriveThruRPG, and the Storytelling Collective. Alternatively, to quote a panelist, you can “don your hazmat suit and join a Facebook group” (promote your games there at your own peril). 

Remember reciprocity: Build a community/network. Don’t just ask others to promote your games, promote theirs too! By working together, we’ll get our games out there. 

Talk about it!: Whether it’s on your microblogging platform of choice (X/Twitter, BlueSky, Hive, etc.), Tumblr, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. talk about your game! Be excited! Not all of it will be marketing, but take what you can and let people know it exists. Some advice includes: 

1. Don’t talk about it straight away. Your mind will regard the game as “done” and it will kill all motivation. 

2. Minimum of 3. Our brains need to see something three times before we even consider buying something. The earlier you start, the less it feels like spamming.

3. You’re not spamming. If you think you’re posting too much? WRONG! POST AGAIN! Be aggressive with it. People scroll past things so often. To make the rule of three work you need to post often.

4. A-B testing. Alter the language, graphics, and pitch for your game across posts. See what gains the most engagement. Use that knowledge to help market your game. 

State of Social Media in TTRPGs

Danny Quach (moderator), Rue Dickey, Kat Alysha, Gnome Anne, Bee Zelda

This panel of TTRPG marketers and creators discussed how to make the most of different social media platforms in an ever-changing online landscape. 

Post consistently (if you can!): Certain platforms (namely Instagram and TikTok) push your content if you post consistently, which is good for discoverability. TikTok currently shows your content more if you post 3+ times a day, which is a lot! One panelist highlighted that consistency on this level isn’t realistic for disabled individuals, so if you can’t post consistently that’s okay too.

Schedule your posts: To help post consistently, you can schedule the release of your content. For Twitter/X, the website has a built-in scheduling feature. You can also use external apps like Later to schedule your posts (and to cross-post on different platforms). 

Look at creators and brands who understand their platforms: Look at the way others use various social media platforms. The panelists recommended Roll20, Ginny Di, Tabletop News, The Party (a webseries), and Connie Chang/Transplanar as having good knowledge of how to cater to their audiences in varying ways on different social media platforms. For example, Connie Chang has mastered driving views to their TTRPG Actual Play, Transplanar, using “edu-tainment” on TikTok—in this case, edu-tainment is suggesting how people can improve their DMing/players’ experience to the camera, and then showing an example of it in practice using a clip of their show.

Secure your brand: Even if you don’t plan to use the platform, make sure you get your/your brand’s username on all of the microblogging websites to secure your IP. 

Try everything: Try different social media platforms, but more importantly, don’t be afraid to drop anything that doesn’t work for you. Use external apps to help you cross-post to lighten your load (like Buffer or Canva). Remember that what works for one site may not work for another (“some things cannot be short form-ified”!)

Curate your online presence: “Your social media image doesn’t need to be all of you, all of the time”. Create boundaries, curate who can see you online and how you are seen (don’t be afraid to use that block button!) Post about the things important to you (whether that’s social justice issues, being neurodivergent, or something else) and “let the trash take themselves out”. 

Hesitancy around Threads: The panelists were wary of Threads because you can't delete your Threads account without also deleting your Meta account, which means deleting associated Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Twitch "Networking" via Raids: Discoverability on Twitch is hard, so "networking" on Twitch is all done via raids, where the viewers of channel A will all go over to channel B, once A's programming is done. This leads to a weird phenomenon where you're incentivized to befriend and network with creators in the timeslot before yours.

Long form begets short form: A few creators mentioned how when creating a 1+ hour stream, they are cognizant of when a "moment" on the stream might make a good 30-second clip. It's a skill to GM a game where, in addition to everything else, you're trying to create moments that can be condensed into a 30-second clip for platforms like TikTok.

Leading TRPG Projects

Justice Arman, Anthony Joyce-Rivera, Rowan Hall, Spenser Starke, Lyla Fujiwara (moderator)

This panel was led by senior game designers from Wizards of the Coast, Darrington Press, and a freelance project manager and discussed tips for leading written TTRPG projects.

Build a team you can trust: Whether it’s for the same company or different ones, you want to build a team of designers, editors, and artists you can trust. Having reliable people who hand in work on time and to specification is more important than having “the next great talent” on your team because, at the end of the day, everyone (including you as the lead) needs to meet the bottom line. Having team players is more important than individuals who think just about themselves. One panelist said that when hiring people, they look at the following: quality of work, delivering on time, and being a pleasure to work with. If someone meets two out of those three criteria, they’ll usually invite them back, but ideally, you want your team members to be all three. 

Work with new people: To build a good team, you’ll need to look outside of your own inner circle. You want to have a diverse team that fills niches and provides alternative perspectives to make a better product. A panelist spoke about looking for new people with a continuity of vision (“do they have something to say?”). Ways to build your team include: 

• Talking to previous leads/managers. Look at their website/portfolio and contact the leads of their previous projects about how it was like to work with them.

• Give them a “test” piece. Working on someone with a small assignment shows what they are like to work with and begins building a foundation of trust.

Set expectations early: Expectations cover employee behavior to work format, so it’s essential to establish these early on. 

• Deliver a code of conduct on day one of the project. You can have people sign this through a Google Form, or other means, to show that they understand how they should conduct themselves and interact with other team members. Here is a freely available code of conduct you can customize.

• Stress the importance of individual health. Allow your team to be open and communicate with you about their mental, physical, and emotional well-being. (“The sooner I know about an issue, the sooner I can accommodate for it [in the timeline]”) Most importantly follow through and be understanding when issues come up to build a climate of trust.

• Know the final form the work will take. Show this to your team with examples, references, and templates so that everyone’s work meets the standard required.

• Actively seek feedback. Allow your team to check in with you and give feedback on your leadership. If they’re not comfortable doing this face-to-face, provide an anonymous survey or something similar to hear what they think so you can adjust your leadership style (after all, no one is perfect!)

Make failure acceptable: When leading projects, panelists spoke of asking for a “shit draft” (just words on a page with the understanding it doesn’t “need to be good”) to build trust. When you’re giving feedback, remember to include positive feedback as well as constructive feedback (ideally, criticism is sandwiched between two positive things). 

Mistakes aren’t just limited to team members. Your worth as a lead comes from how you address mistakes, whether you or someone else made them. Leadership means you care for the people you lead. Sometimes that means leading in with a “this is going to be an awkward conversation” as you explain why you’re letting someone go from the team or giving critical feedback. Investing in people, even if you don’t necessarily hire them again, prevents freelancers from failing in the future. 

Keep team morale high: Your morale as the leader affects the team. There are different ways to raise morale depending on the situation: 

• Give your team control over how to solve a problem. Instead of coming up with a solution yourself, in some situations, it helps to give your team agency in fixing mistakes.

• Know your team as people. It helps to be regarded as more than just the work you do. 

• Find a team bonding activity unrelated to work. Whether it’s pausing work to swap funny YouTube videos, or taking a group outing to a museum, find something to do together.

• Publicly praise one thing about each submission. Whether it’s posting art in a work server channel so everyone can praise the piece, or reading every submission and highlighting to the team something you like about it, publicly acknowledge your team’s hard work!

Always. Build. More. Time.: When you’re constructing a project’s timeline, make sure to build in buffer time in case submissions are late. However much you think you need? ADD MORE.

Pitching Your Ideas

Michelle Nguyen Bradley, Aaron Catano-Saez, Banana Chan, Daniel Kwan, Jasper William Cartwright

This panel discussed how to create a pitch deck to receive financial backing, looking at examples for Actual Play funding, selling a board game or TTRPG, and for “self-pitching” for actors. 

Prepare your ammunition: Do the research ahead of time so you have everything you need to make your pitch deck. You need to be able to answer the “What? Where? When? Why? How? Who?” when pitching, so make sure you look up the following:

• Market Analysis. Learn who you’re submitting to (if a company already has five games exactly like yours, maybe take your game to a competitor with the knowledge that this type of game sells well). 

• Budget. How much is this endeavor going to cost (roughly)? Consider wages as well as production costs.

• Distribution. 

• Business Plan. Before presenting a business plan, consider what you want to do.  Personal reflection influences the scale of the project, and also allows you to emotionally adjust when pitching. 

• Audience. Who does the project serve? 

Put your research in a pretty package: Make your pitch deck look nice! The looks should fit the theme of your idea. Whether it’s a one-pager or a full pitch deck, include visuals to get a feel of the project. The very first image is the most important. It should represent your idea as closely as possible.

Keep it clear and simple: Make sure that you include tangible information. It was recommended to “explain like I’m 5” (don’t assume that whoever you're pitching to has the knowledge to understand your pitch). Use bullet points, not paragraphs, and don’t be afraid to remove words that aren’t strictly necessary to convey your idea. 

Use this structure for your pitch deck: The example pitch decks shown at this panel all followed the same structure:

1. Title Page

2. Concept Overview
   If it’s a game, how long does it take to play? What materials does it use?
   If it’s a TTRPG, what are the themes and the story? For party/board games, only pitch mechanics. Publishers often want to theme or ascribe it to a particular intellectual property. If it’s a show, how many episodes will it be? How long is each episode? 

3. Format

4. Audience/Market Analysis
   If you can, include screenshots of article headlines about related content.

5. Cast/Crew/Designers

6. Distribution

7. Contact Information

Prepare yourself to pitch: If you’re at the stage where you’re presenting your pitch deck, here are some tips to prepare for that meeting:

• Relax. If you’ve made it this far, they’re already interested so try not to stress about impressing them.

• Love your pitch! You should be the biggest fan of your pitch, and the best expert. Know what you want and be prepared to answer questions about it. 

• Get used to talking about money. If discussing money makes you uncomfortable, practice talking about it with people you trust. Finances are an important part of the pitching process, so the more confident you are asking for what you need, the better. Unless it is brought up, don’t discuss ownership rights as this is usually discussed after the pitch via email. 

Keep calm and carry on: When you’re actually pitching, stay calm and speak clearly. Be grateful and respectful of the opportunity and people in the room. Finally, make sure you guide people through the deck (don’t just read off the slides!)

Shout-Out to Big Bad Con Staff

Before we sign off, we'd be remiss in ending these notes without giving a huge shout-out to the Big Bad Con staff. Conventions do have barriers to entry, but Big Bad has continually shown its commitment to lessening those barriers and creating a truly magical space for hobbyists and creators alike. They have a Public Health Policy and Accessibility Policy and put people power and money to enforce both. They raised tens of thousands of dollars from industry sponsors to fund scholarships that allowed POC creators from all over the world to attend. This is on top of a general scholarship available for anyone with financial hardship seeking to attend the con. Lyla has volunteered with the Big Bad Rangers for the past couple of years and it is a rewarding and well-run experience. Big Bad is truly a labor of love and we have so much respect for the folks that make it happen.

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That's all for today. Expect another post soon about the games I, Lyla, played at Big Bad. You can be notified when that goes live by subscribing:

If you want more of both of us, check out the Dollars and Dragons podcast, and if you haven't already, give Taylor a follow!

Over and out,

-🫙 👁️ 👁️ and Taylor