A newsletter and podcast focused on Friday Strout's fiction and tabletop roleplaying games. Featuring top industry contributors from both the professional Game Master scene, game designers, writers, artists, and more!
I’ve been running pro GM workshops for the past 2 years and have helped hundreds of pro GMs make a living wage. Bad news first: I am unable to continue doing so for free. The good news? It’s $25 a month to enjoy great up-to-date advice on from me on everything pro GMing via Patreon. I will record the workshops and upload them for patrons in the $25 tier.
If you want to enjoy a catered and professional help on your listings or your pro GMing business – this is the tier for you. Just $25/mo for the workshop attendee tier. If you want individual and focused help, there is always the $125/mo tier where I get on a call with you for an hour every month to do check-ins and shape your biz.
In order to support this model and not completely burn myself out at work, I need a certain number of patrons per month to compensate me for my time. You’re going to get more for your money the more patrons are present, so there is a great incentive to encourage other pro GMs to support me, as well. I’ve set the price as low as I think is feasible.
This tier also grants you access to a private category in my Discord with other business-oriented pro GMs who help one another regularly. If you’re not convinced I can help – check out my reviews on my SPG profile.
If you’d like to hear more ramblings from me this week: I guested on a podcast to discuss villains, RPG project leadership, and pro GMing! Check it out here:
"Freelance Writing For TTRPGs" | Ep 43 – Basheer Ghouse (he/him)
Dollars & Dragons Podcast
We have Basheer Ghouse (he/him) on the podcast to chat about freelance writing and game design! We also chat about project management, how to get started in the industry, writing routine, and much more. Basheer has credits with Critical Role, Kobold Press, and has recently funded his personal project Guns Blazing!
If you’re here for how to manage a project, this is not the blog post for you. I do management as a project lead (Director) but if you want great advice about management, I suggest you check out Lyla’s blog series on it. We brought Lyla onto the Vineyard Project around the Kickstarter campaign timeframe to clean up our act and boy DID SHE. Highly recommend her for work and if you’re trying to be successful as an indie publisher – you need to read her articles.
Why Being A TTRPG Publisher Fucking Sucks
Vineyard RPG is a passion project. It doesn’t make me money, yet. (Until I’ve sold about 500 more copies.) I’m okay with that, in theory. Ultimately, I’d prefer to not be bankrupted over this but that’s always a possibility. Like most Americans, I’m one medical emergency away from bankruptcy. Due to my life situation with divorce and being a queer, if I didn’t have the support structure I do have – I’d be homeless.
Most of my monetary issues (read: being poor) stem from a decision that I naively made two years ago. I made that silly first publisher mistake. What was I thinking trying to pack in all of my favorite things to one book? Simply put: scope creep can and will kill your project. It has almost killed mine.
I was thinking initially that our campaign would hit $100,000 in funding. It barely scratched $58,000. The scope (content) I had promised is way more expensive than $58,000 to create. So who is making up the difference? Me.
My advice? Don’t do this on your first project. I wish I had been more diligent with this – I definitely had great advice from others to keep scope small. I ignored them at my own peril. Sticking to a small scope and building from there would have saved me a lot of issues. Let big companies take on the risk of a large publishing project.
I could have kept the book to just the villains, cut locations, cut extra stuff – and delivered a great product. That is, if I had initially planned that scope in my pitch to accept peoples’ money. However since I did what I did, I promised what I promised – I am planning to deliver.
Then there is the feeling of not wanting to deliver a terrible product. It horrifies me to think of what would happen if we deliver a low quality book. Not that I’m afraid of 1 star reviews (okay, I am) or mean comments on Twitter (not as much anymore). I have wanted to do something like this my entire life. Finally, after 20 years of dreaming of a moment in time like this, I have the opportunity to really do it.
Don’t I have to do it right? Don’t I have to be perfect? I have to pay people well and do things as ethically as possible. All of those things are expensive.
But that’s my job as the publisher. I have to find the money.
And that’s enough for me. I’m content. I have a beautiful work life where I run games for money and make games for fun. Nowadays I’m doing my best to forget about the financial stress and just enjoy the creation process. I don’t need to make a ton of money, I just want to make enough, you know? I think the only major expenditure in my future is fem surgery, but I live frugally.
Do I think I’m fucked?
Nah. I’ll be fine. It’ll just take me longer to make the book because I need to pay people back in as tight a timeline as I can muster after they turn in work. As the investor, I need to hold myself accountable to the real people who are spending their hours to work on my product.
I’ve dropped the ball on some payments and will be pausing future contractor work so I can catch up before I continue on Vineyard RPG. I’m estimating with my outstanding requests and soon-to-be-invoiced, I’m looking at leveling out in May. I’ll just be working off the invoices I have in the meantime with my other freelancing work.
Do I think I’m returning to 12-15 games a week on Start Playing Games? God, I hope not. I’m very comfortable only running 8-10 games a week, now. I don’t ever want to have to grind like that running games. It was terrible for my mental health.
Still, my income will be supplemented by my freelancing writing and other work for different publishers. I’m thankful for the opportunities, honestly.
In truth: I’ve known about this problem since the campaign funded last year. I knew right away that I was in trouble because of my poor scope decision. I guess now I’m just saying it out loud and in public. Maybe I was in denial?
I think back to when I was running the Kickstarter and we had our terrible start. I was working 6 hours a day that month just on trying to figure out ways to promote it. My eternal thanks to our backers who helped us pull out a victory and fund.
Thank you
I’m a humble small-time publisher and grateful for the opportunity to do this. I won’t let you down.
"Metal Weave Games & Owlbears" | Ep 42 – Andreas Walters (he/him)
Dollars & Dragons Podcast
This episode I chatted with Andreas Walters (he/him) about how he got started as a game designer and a lot more. Topics include: Kickstarters, running projects, Metal Weave Games products, manufacturing and distribution.
Show note: This discussion was in the summer of 2023, before education about generative AI was more widespread.
This is not a sponsored newsletter. Lyla is a former collaborator of mine and the game is dope – check it out! For online or in person play.
Be Dramatic. Belt out your karaoke favorites. You’re the star in this TTRPG homage to musicals of the stage and screen.
Jukebox: The Karaoke Musical Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a rules-lite, no-game-master required, roleplaying game for 3-4 players. Over three acts and four hours, you and your friends sing karaoke and create a musical story full of drama, passion, and spectacular showstoppers!
Jukebox is all about:
Singing big, dramatic karaoke songs, and for those songs to be pivotal moments in a musical story.
Creating a character-driven narrative where everyone gets complete, meaningful narrative arcs.
Collaborative storytelling where all players shine, regardless of singing ability or familiarity with roleplaying games.
What is Jukebox?
Jukebox: The Karaoke Musical Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a rules-lite, no game-master, no preparation roleplaying game for 3 to 4 players. Over three acts and three to four hours, you and your friends sing karaoke and create a musical story full of drama, passion, and spectacular showstoppers! All you need to play are pencils, index cards, playing cards and a computer or TV connected to the internet.
Jukebox is the result of three years of game development, starting as a D&D 5e module and eventually morphing into its story-game final form. You can read the full story of Jukebox’s development by checking out the Jukebox Journal devlog. The Kickstarter for the first print run of Jukebox will go live January at go.jarofeyes.com/jukebox.
Jukebox Features:
GM-less with no lengthy preparation to host.
Everything you need to play can be found at home: index cards, pencils, playing cards, and a computer or TV with an internet connection.
A beautifully Broadway inspired zine with gorgeous cover art by Chiara Adele Papalia.
Create a playbill keepsake during play with your cast and musical numbers
4 quickstart playbills that provide plot, karaoke playlist, and character prompts to help jump into genre specific stories, such as Disney fairytales or sword and sorcery inspired by power metal.
9 stretch goal quickstart playbills from new and veteran voices in the TTRPG space.
Professional editing and consultation by award winning designers: Jacky Leung (Modiphius Entertainment, Paizo, Evil Hat Productions, MCDM Productions) and Jenn Martin (Bully Pulpit Games, Hunters Entertainment, Simon & Schuster, Thorny Games)
You’re missing 2 of your regulars to your [insert day] game. Do you cancel? No. You are a pro GM hard up for money in this hellscape economy. You have one shots available for such an occasion and you’ve already told your players. You’ve prepped and uploaded whatever assets you need and you’re just waiting for this to happen.
Here are my favorites (in no particular order). Buying these through my links helps support me (affiliate link), so that’s cool of you.
Without further ado:
The best fucking one/few shots ever made and/or just what Friday has played and thinks is good
One Night Strahd is a labor of love between my friends Jake & Adam who developed this to be played in one 12-16 hour sitting, sometimes between 1 or 2 parties. This is a short campaign and might be better suited to run your group for holidays or extended periods between longer campaigns. It is meant to be highly replayable, however, as the two major paths vary the experience by a lot! Did I mention its twice the size of the original module?
The writing is fantastic and the visuals are captivating. It’s worth the $18 and it’s laid out in such a fabulous manner that it’s no wonder that it won an ENNIE for best e-book.
“Precise and messy as a vampire bite, One Night Strahd (ONS) delivers the spectacle and catastrophe of gothic horror as a consistent and fast-paced short campaign for D&D 5e. It condenses and remixes the 200+ hour campaign of Curse of Strahd into a replayable adventure weighing in at 525 pages with 150+ illustrations, 12 maps, 16 encounters, 27 new magic items, and 60+ quick-play charts. With careful attention to the design of exploration, combat, and role-playing opportunities, our goal has been to make something for every DM and every table. After three years of extensive testing, we’re proud to share this explosive adventure with you.” – DMs Guild description
Uncaged: Goddesses is perhaps the prettiest and most unique anthology book I’ve ever purchased. I love my physical copy and the digital copy is great for making running an online game easy.
Most of these Tier 4 adventures are great for theater of the mind games. I especially like the Theros themed adventure involved Pharika and have run it many times to great effect. What’s more? Players love playing one shots in Tier 4 just to try busted combos. Let them.
“Each adventure in this massive 297-page book centers around an evil- or neutral-aligned goddess from the Faerûnian pantheon in Dungeons & Dragons, as well as the Fury (Eberron), Mother Night (Barovia), and Pharika (Theros). Many of these goddesses have been featured in past D&D publications, but rarely do these stories explore the goddesses’ histories, conflicts, and goals. In Uncaged: Goddesses, the goddesses finally get to shine.” – DMs Guild description
Shore of Dreams is a fantastic Tier 2 adventure featuring fun elemental adversaries and themes. It has a wonderful puzzle, too. The combat can be brutal, so be aware of that! But it’s just a fun one shot, aint it? Well – it might be a two-shot for many tables, there’s a lot in here.
Especially good for campaigns set in Forgotten Realms that want to veer off the coast from Chult. It has hooks to include elements of Princes of the Apocalypse if that’s your jam. I ran this for stream with my friends BethTheBard, Legal Kimchi, Sebastian Yūe, and my pro GM friend Katie!
Do you love space? Do you love horror? You’re going to get a lot of mileage out of Coriolis.
Last Voyage of the Ghazali is a fantastic introduction to the system. If you’re unfamiliar with Free League games, they’re D6 oriented with some mechanics around stress, etc. They’re great! Feed that space itch for some of your players when you have a short table. If the table loves it, there’s enough in here to fill 3-4 play sessions but you can run it on a shorter timetable if that suits you better. Bonus points: This directly feeds into the long-term campaign Mercy of the Icons as a prequel, too.
That’s all for now! Let me know if you enjoy these type of newsletter send-outs and I’ll build more lists like this in the future.
"Tabletop Town" | Ep 41 – Kelly DeWindt (she/her)
Dollars & Dragons Podcast
This time I talk to someone more on the business side of tabletop with Kelly DeWindt, the CEO of Tabletop Town. We discuss marketing, copywriting, what a C Corp is, and her company!
Sorry for the delay in posting this – I’m waaaay behind.
Vineyard RPG: SMUT is an adventure campaign book providing Game Masters as well as curious players with thrilling, safe, and fun intimate encounters. Included are adventures, encounters, and stunning art of our Vineyard RPG villains, plus exciting new monsters. This book can be used in duet games with a GM (1-on-1), solo play (read, roll dice, and see the results!), or play by post (text play).
If you’re horny or a monster fucker – Please fill out this survey if you are interested in Vineyard RPG: SMUT. An anthology of adventures featuring Vineyard villains and/or other monsters. I’ll be writing our demo for the anthology book this coming year.
As we are building our team to tackle this challenging venture, I want to share some of our preliminary details:
We have recruited some of the most skilled and popular porn artists in the world.
Our leadership and tentative contributing team all have experience with sex work or creating inclusive porn.
Our goal is to develop content that can be enjoyed separate from your campaign or incorporated into it so that a relationship (or situationship) is formed between your PC and the NPC.
Options for presentation include solo play or play by post because a GM may not be comfortable running a duet game but still want their player to enjoy the content.
The book can be enjoyed even if you are not in a campaign or playing in a Vineyard game.
We will have a demo adventure for you to enjoy in 2024, then crowdfunding in 2025.
Please fill out the form if this interests you. I greatly appreciate your feedback!
"How To Run (and write) Tier 4 Adventures" | Ep 40 – Jessica Marcrum (she/her)
Dollars & Dragons Podcast
Jessica Marcrum (she/her) is an ENNIE awarded writing director and game designer. We talk about high level adventures and boy does she have the chops to deliver wisdom on how to create as a neurodivergent person. You can find her work in the Uncaged series, Arcadia, Flee! Mortals, and many more places.
