Introduction

2021 was a busy year for the indie TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) scene. Itchfunding, TTRPG TikTok, and degreening from Kickstarter have all been exciting developments. Shoutout to Possum Creek Games for transitioning Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast to Indiegogo!

Of the many problems facing the indie TTRPG community, one that’s prominent to me is a lack of a proper marketplace for our indie TTRPGs. DriveThruRPG and Itch.io have been serviceable homes for awhile, but there are big issues. DriveThruRPG lacks a modern user interface and e-commerce features that should be standard in 2022. Itch.io has generally been unresponsive to our community, with many unanswered emails and the site not being well suited to distributing physical products.

Itch has had a positive impact on our community, especially by allowing us to host game jams and outsource payment processing.

But I believe we’ve outgrown Itch as an indie TTRPG industry. It’s now easier than ever to make a website with tools like Wordpress and Weebly. And with the growth of e-commerce tools like Shopify and Square, there are more options today to allow indie creators to make their own storefronts. The combination of these two forces creates an opportunity for indie designers to guide our own future and reduce our reliance on entities who don’t necessarily share our goals and hopes (I’ll note that we can’t be totally independent, but this is a step in the right direction).

But if the TTRPG industry leaves Itch, that leaves a void needing to be filled: an online community storefront and forum for users to find indie TTRPGs. If everyone moves to their own independent storefront, we lose the discoverability aspect of a marketplace like Itch. While Itch doesn’t receive stellar marks on the ability to easily find indie TTPRGs, the “search” function does work. However, developing our own new marketplace requires significant resources and is not easily accomplishable via democratic means.

So we must start small. Start somewhere and build from there. This blog post lays out one proposal to create a new platform to find indie TTRPGs that is controlled by indie TTRPGs: something we’ve never had before.

Disclaimer

Please keep in mind that this is only one proposal and was written with the intent to make positive change in our industry. There are many options out there and varieties similar to this proposal. Consider this a starting point for our community discussion. I realize this conversation is happening in many communities. I’m open to joining other groups who have also been discussing this since we need one effort to reach critical mass.

Problem Statement

1. Many designers are unhappy with Itch and want another option to advertise their games.
2. The community wants to have control over our future
3. Our community wants to interact in new ways that are not possible with our current platforms

Models to explore

Now that we have our problem statement, we can explore various models to create this new marketplace.

Option 1: Status quo

Pros:

• No additional work
• Maintains flexibility. Every creator/small TTRPG press/large TTRPG company all have different needs. The needs of me (smol designer) vs. an indie-grown TTRPG press (Possum Creek Games, Possible Worlds, Sandy Pug, Evil Hat) vs. the big ones (Hit Point Press, Free League, Magpie, Kobold Press, etc.). We all have different needs.

Cons:

• We remain beholden to companies who don’t necessarily share the indie community’s values.

Option 2: Build a whole new marketplace run by a democratically run co-op*

Pros:

• Full control of the platform
• Allows for lots of features
• Centralize indie TTRPG sales into one platform

Cons:

• Would need full-time support and significant funds to maintain a website like this.
• Co-op governance is not easy to build given the financial implications, especially for worldwide sales.

*: Co-ops can have the potential to give bad actors unilateral control over a platform. This proposed co-op would be democratically run and allow for removal of bad actors. See more in the Proposed Features section.

Option 3: Build a new showcase website

Description:

• Allow designers to create an account and display their games
• Designers would include links to where their games can be purchased
• Run by a co-op of the site users.

Pros:

• Lower level of effort compared to Option
• No transactions, so limits financial concerns with taxes, payment processor agreements, etc.
• Easier to implement with a new co-op governance model

Cons:

• Requires a designer to maintain a separate storefront and payment processor to sell their games.
• Democratic platforms tend to be slow, bureaucratic, and large voices/designers may have an overwhelming influence on decision-making.

Of the three options presented, Option 3 is the most appealing to me. It’s essentially a marketing platform that links to other sites for purchasing. Based on the variety of needs of the indie TTRPG community, this provides the most flexible approach to developing a platform and presents an opportunity for growth in the future if it’s successful. The rest of the article will assume Option 3 is the method used to implement the co-op.

Cooperative Governance Model

I firmly believe that an indie TTRPG community should be based on the principles of cooperative governance model. The community is fragmented into our sub-communities and Twitter being the only means to bring everyone together. It doesn’t make sense for us to create a new platform and then it be in the control of one person or one business. In particular with a business, a business’s values are not tied to the interests of the community. Creating a co-op governance model with core values is the best option to keep the platform democratic and responsive to the users’ needs.

So what goes into a cooperative governance model? Luckily, this has been done many times before. We can pull from what co-op grocery stores have done. In this paper, 4 core strategic pillars are presented:

1. Teaming — Successfully working together to achieve common purpose.
2. Democracy — Successfully empowering people while at the same time holding them accountable for the power granted.
3. Strategic Leadership — Successfully articulating the cooperative’s direction/purpose and setting up the organization for movement in this direction.
4. Accountable Empowerment — Successfully practicing, protecting, promoting, and perpetuating our healthy democracies

If we keep these principles in mind, I think we can develop a functional co-op to create this new forum.

“Within a co-op, no matter what the role, the expectation is that everyone is responsible for working together effectively, to be accountable and able to empower others, to be focused on purpose, and to participate in ensuring a healthy democracy.” — Marilyn Scholl and Art Sherwood

A New Marketplace

So what would we want in a new showcase website? Well we don’t have to recreate the wheel. BoardGameGeek (BGG) has been highly successful for the board game industry. I think we can follow a similar model.

Background — BoardGameGeek

From BoardGameGeek’s website:

“BoardGameGeek is an online resource and community that aims to be the definitive source for board game and card game content. The site is updated on a real-time basis by its large and still growing user base — more than two million registered users! — making the Geek the largest and most up-to-date place to get gaming information! You can become a registered member of BGG for free, although we welcome your contributions to the site in the form of ratings, reviews, and thoughts on games to the existing database!

BGG features reviews, ratings, images, play-aids, translations, and session reports from board game geeks around the world, as well as live discussion forums. In addition, every day nearly a hundred game trades pass through the hands of registered members, as well as transactions in the Geek Market. If you are new to the site and are wondering where to begin, you might start with the Guide to BoardGameGeek.”

At first glance, BGG meets many of the features of Option 3. Let’s look at BGG’s website:

BoardGameGeek does a lot of great things on their home page. The table below highlights some of the good things they do and how it can be translated to our own site.

Proposed Features

Based on the review of BGG’s website, the following features are proposed for Option 3:

1. Great front page like BoardGameGeek that highlights content such as articles, crowdfunding campaigns, and popular/new games.
2. A great Browse tool to search all TTRPGs listed on the site. This would include keyword search, filters for genres, categories, authors, creator region, and other author-created tags.
3. Author pages where designers can list their games, host forums, blog articles, etc.
4. Public reviews where anyone can rank and review games. Allow designers to “pin”/highlight reviews that they like.
5. “Hot lists” where users can create lists of their favorite TTRPGs in user-created categories.
6. Co-op governance model with the following general principles

• Democratically elected (non-FPTP, potentially a multi-winner Rank Choice Voting model) Board of Directors among registered users of the site (designers and non-designers). Board of Directors would create the mission statement, values, strategic plan, and yearly budget. Board of Directors would be bound by a charter that describes their duties and powers.
• Incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion into the Board’s charter. The Board needs to consider marginalized voices and people who have typically not been at the table. I’m thinking non-North America users and BIPOC users.
• One of the Board members would serve as the President, appointed by a majority vote of the Board of Directors.
• President would be in charge of leading the co-op and implementing the Board’s strategic plan, authorizing expenses consistent with the board-approved budget, and hiring help where needed.

This proposal is just a starting place and the co-op could be expanded to more uses (crowdfunding site, scholarships, journalism, etc.), but I encourage us to start small.

We need to recognize that any new platform will not be perfect. It will have issues to start. But we need to make progress in the right direction.

“Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction”.

Why not use RPG Geek?

RPG Geek is the RPG/TTRPG version of Board Game Geek, controlled by the same company (​​BoardGameGeek, LLC.). While RPG Geek has many of the features we’ve discussed here, it is still controlled by a private entity. The innovation with this proposal is to create a co-op that can create a new platform for us indie TTRPG designers. If the co-op is successful, it could expand its role to include storefronts to fully replace Itch, crowdfunding, and whatever we identify as priorities for our industry.

With a co-op model, we will finally get what many of us have been looking for: A way to democratically control our future as an indie TTRPG industry. We will limit our exposure to being beholden to anyone or anything, whether that be Itch, Kickstarter, the blockchain, bad actors in the TTRPG industry, etc. The major flaw with this model is democracy. Democracy is fragile, but it’s the best thing we got.

Web Architecture

While I’m no web architect, I think this site could be reasonably built with limited features. The site would share similar core functionality to BoardGameGeek and that site is already in existence! The web development team can pull inspiration from BGG.

In addition to a user-friendly interface, a database will be required to store all information like user accounts, game repository, reviews, etc. This may present cost and privacy concerns as well as general headache, but the Board of Directors would hire a web developer to build the site and the Board would retain a web manager to handle site management.

If you have any expertise in this area, please reach out to Max to help further map out the idea.

Future Options

Like I previously alluded to, this co-op could have a bigger role in the future if it’s successful. This could include creating a store (basically a full Itch.io replacement), facilitate community events like Zine Month, sponsor round-up articles, facilitate union organization and pay standards for TTRPG contributors, host TTRPG content on Twitch, etc. The options are limitless and the co-op would be responsive to the desires of membership.

Your Participation

Since I’m proposing a co-op model, your voice is vital to this conversation. What are your thoughts, concerns, and/or hopes? This proposal is a starting point to have a conversation on where our industry should go. My voice is just as valid as yours and it’s welcome in this space (assuming you are well intentioned and not a TERF or fascist).

Please consider filling out the survey linked here and posting your comments below.

Next Steps

I propose the following next steps as we continue exploring this possibility.

1. Participate in the survey below (linked here) and post your thoughts below in the comments.
2. Distribute the article more broadly and allow adequate time for feedback.
3. Consider community feedback.
4. Update the proposal based on community feedback.
5. Schedule community meetings. We can discuss platforms later, but I think Twitter Spaces or Youtube might be a good platform for hosting. Maybe even Twitch but I have no streaming capability!

Here is another link to the survey.

Thank you for your attention!

In solidarity,

Max Fefer

Twitter: HydroForge

hydroforgerpg@gmail.com

Resources on platform co-ops

“How to start a cooperative” written by Austin Robey, cofounder of Ampled, a cooperatively owned web platform that allows music artists to be directly supported by their community https://thecreativeindependent.com/guides/how-to-start-a-cooperative/

General Co-Op Resources: https://institute.coop/resource-guide

Introduction to Platform Co-Ops: https://stephenreid.net/blog/2020/11/22/an-introduction-to-platform-coops.html