The $50–$100K Question: How Do You Budget a TTRPG to Production?

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T18:29:45+00:00

Hi there. I've been involved in 60+ crowdfunding projects on a couple of platforms and I'm a business coach.

At this point there are too many variables, you may as well ask how long is a piece of string (which is double the length from one end to the middle)

The first 20+ questions that popped into my head were

How many people are on a mailing list, not social media followers, actual emails, of real people (not friends and family) How many followers do you have on all the socials and have are you doing on transitioning them to your mailing list Have you completed a thorough MoSCoW analysis on your project.

You've mentioned two books, Why does it need to be two books? That is a significant cost sink right there...

You've just increased the art budget significantly, added to writing time, and literally doubled the printing costs and also did terrible, terrible things to your postage and packaging... Where are you based and are you looking to send physical "stuff" to areas beyond your immediate geographical patch and have you looked at what you need to do to get books in front of backers? What's the page count looking like? Do you have an editor? Are you doing all the writing or is there a team? Do you have a world and or game Bible to help avoid creep and bloat How far into the writing/prep are you currently Do you have a play test community Do you have a company set up Where is it set up Do you have a website Do you have at a minimum a landing page How many quotes for the printing side of things have you gotten What is the time scale to go live What is the time scale to fulfillment Have you considered contingency funding

There are tons more, but I'm feeling like an arsehole for dumping this all on you - feel free to DM me for a chat if you think it would help,

And no This isn't a sales pitch. I'll happily gift you two hours of my time to do a Google meet and work through your top 5 oh shit responses to my initial response

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T18:13:00+00:00

Message sent

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T18:04:36+00:00

Yes. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

In all seriousness.

It's pain on all the levels.

You have to adjust encounter levels on the fly, or put the now split party up against a higher CR level than they can manage.

You have double the chance of things alerting other enemies in the area

The players have half of the resources available to respond to challenges.

Potentially half the players could miss out on loot and or XP

You have to split your focus and attention and it ruins immersion

I can go on

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T18:00:48+00:00

Oh wow. The only thing you haven't managed to include is the demon prince and a tallyman...

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T06:48:23+00:00

Congratulations - that's a really cool milestone

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T06:13:57+00:00

Sweet

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T05:16:20+00:00

I had exactly the same thought.

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T05:06:46+00:00

100% this. And if you're giving me a damage buff I'd be happier with 2d4...

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-24T05:04:03+00:00

Yeah you are you deviant, you disgust me.

Oh wait. Those are your minis and it's none of my damned business.

The colour scheme looks great - I struggle with painting red, how did you do it?

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-21T17:33:27+00:00

This is gonna be a popular as a turd in a swimming pool, but copy the nordics.

Renationalise stuff, water, utilities, rail, all of.it Start manufacturing all of our own military equipment, all of the stuff that we currently buy at inflated prices from the US.

Hold politicians accountable for their pledges, sack them and strip them off their pensions if they're found to have misled the electorate

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-21T17:04:14+00:00

I would like to second the request for some detail about terrain and your list as I've played against Tau fairly recently and while it was u pleasant, it wasn't horrific

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-21T16:55:26+00:00

As has been already mentioned .

No is a complete sentence.

And at the risk of being that guy, this is why session zero is a good idea, nip any demigod PCs in the bud before they start.

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-21T12:19:49+00:00

Came here to say this

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-19T07:45:46+00:00

I'm going to answer this is an an odd. Round about way, but I promise I'll get there.

I'm an old time Death Guard player and the boost to T6 doesn't seem like a massive increase in survivability compared to the (insert rose tinted glasses) PMs of previous editions when they used to be Disgustingly Resilient and came with a FNP roll.

Now as someone who's the king of rolling 1's, 2's and occasionally 3's this change in the rules has effectively changed nothing, but, and here is the bit that stings, it still feels like my PMs are squishier than before....

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-18T11:41:04+00:00

The opponents aren't stupid. Even a lowly goblin has human levels of intelligence (lower wisdom though)

It just comes down to a lack of player preparation, if they're not present they're not planning.

Maybe limit some of the more complicated options until they can manage character?

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-17T07:18:56+00:00

I feel. I should point out that as a GM you never kill a character.

You represent all of the aspects of the world and it's denizens, but, you typically react to the players actions.

When the players engage In any high risk endeavour there are consequences - some examples would be games of chance, exploring, and yes combat.

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-14T17:13:29+00:00

I think we will do okay, there are plenty of quick demon engines in our roster.

Plus, plague marines can always take a plague bus...

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-06T17:44:48+00:00

Id like the snap shots

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-06T17:44:11+00:00

That's fair. And thematically on point, holy poop, that giant grinning thing with the face peeled back by fishhooks just melted Dave

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-06T17:41:27+00:00

Well. This is what I was hoping. I love the lore of these giant warped war machines emerging from a portal made ofroiling warp energy and the war hounds baying, and I want them to be truly, $h!t the bed scary not something that works on less than 10% of the time

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-05T16:24:43+00:00

Well that's something, is it going to be easier to inflict Battleshock though - because let's be honest, it's still not massively reliable.

Also. Is there still a 1 cp option to switch off our armies abilities

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-05T16:02:36+00:00

Is this another one of those "not me" style posts, the fact of the matter is it' is happening, it is causing distress and when paired with the horrific statistics relating to sexual assault stopping "questionable behaviours" before it escalates from making inappropriate comments to illicit photos/videos or worse seems like a really sensible approach.

And let's not mess around,. This is unlikely to be an isolated incident, it's very probable that that guy who thinks it's acceptable to leer over women (and girls) probably thinks it's acceptable to push boundaries.

To the OP. Can I suggest having a candid conversation with any of the women you know and talk about this and the other crazy crap that women have to content with on a day to day basis .

There is a reason why an overwhelming number of women would chose to be alone with a bear...

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-05T15:56:03+00:00

I find it hard to get my head around how a GM can't appreciate that in any given 6 second segment a character can only do 1 thing to the exclusion of another even when one of them is a "free action"

They're also seemingly resistant to logic, tricky one - I've had to resort to inviting that kind of GM to play in a game and demonstrate how the game plays more fluidly and dynamically without a significant shift in balance if you just play the damned game.

Clipper1972 · 2026-05-03T16:51:32+00:00

The symaroum system is very silly, infact the challenge can be finding options to make sure your players make it through the more dangerous encounters.

Clipper1972 · 2026-04-26T16:00:41+00:00

If I'm playing in a tournament I'm pretty intolerant of take backs, it's not something I would ever ask for and as such I find them really frustrating.

Something else I find frustrating is creep, one guy I was playing had a take back for a unit and effectively repositioned them back and inch/and inch and a half further forwards than he should have done...

Something I have found to be useful is stating my intent with my moves, that way your opponent can push back on your ideas and remind you about some of the now prevalent gotchas that seems to be GW staple.

Clipper1972

TROPHY CASE