MEGACORP: The Evil Mothership Campaign

You are the man. You are the law. You are the invisible hand of the market. You are the lord who giveth and who taketh away.

You are the Company.

Behold and quake with trepidation: a new way to play everyone's favorite sci-fi horror RPG, Mothership, with a dark corporate twist. In this initial public offering, I'll extend extensive mechanics, tools and advice for players to assume the roles of high-powered Company insiders.

This is Anti-Mothership: Players trade in their traditional victims of economic horror for corporate agents of moral horror, vested with political and narrative authority so potent it extends into the ludo-structure* (and even outside the game!?). Suck players in with fun, silly and surreal LARP-inspired gimmicks; as they sink deeper into Company culture and privilege, will they find it within themselves to crawl out?

*Even the Warden is beholden to the Company.

Definitions

• MEGACORP: It's what I'm calling the thing you're reading right now! A blurred line between Mothership campaign framework and Panic Engine system-hack.
• Operators: Player-characters in MEGACORP (used both individually and collectively). Elite corporate fixers deployed to the field. Equivalent to Mothership's "Crew."
• The Company: The corporation employing your Operators. May refer either to the parent megacorporation at the heart of Mothership's corporate world or the specific subsidiary on the Operators' paycheck.
• Moral Horror: When players take morally disquieting actions; complicity. ALSO: The situations from which said actions arise, ramifications of said actions, a broader context of ethics under capitalism. Tough choices and moral dilemmas, lesser or greater evils.
• LARP: Live-action roleplaying. It happens when tabletop roleplayers stand up.

Credits

• Writing: Ian Yusem (me)
• Patch Designs and Graphics (not the terrible looking ones): Will Jobst
• Brainstorming Internship: Emily Weiss

Table of Contents

[HYPERLINKS TO BE ADDED SOON!]

• Moral Horror and Buy-In
• Safety Tools
• Secure, Silence, Satiate: Demand EVERYTHING
• Mechanics Wanted (No Experience Necessary)
• Workplace Stressors
• Class Concerns
• !! NEW SKILL UNLOCKED !!
• Corporate Onboarding: Your Place in the Office
• Corporate-Approved Patches!
• Company Slogan
• Terms of Your Employment
• Executive Perks: Company Assets
• Allocated Materiel
• Mission-Adaptive Surgeries
• You've Been Promoted to Chief Narrative Officer!
• Paradigm Shift
• The Loyalty Card
• LARP LARP LARP LARP LARP
• [Ad]venture Capital
• Now Hiring: Useful Modules
• Adapting and Prepping Adventures
• The Office
• Office Locations
• Everyone's Favorite Coworkers
• Workspace Intrigue
• WHO IS THE CEO!?
• Exit Interview

Author's Aside: This is a toolkit! Pick the resources you like, cut the ones you don't; build your own MEGACORP campaign. I intentionally overburdened this post with more materials and ideas than feasibly usable by any one Warden.

MEGACORP Bare Essentials

If you're going to use any mechanics or resources from this guide for your home game, choose these (the thematic core):

• Workplace Stressors
• Company Slogan
• Corporate Materiel
• Paradigm Shift

Moral Horror and Buy-In

WHY MORAL HORROR?

As a deeply political game, Mothership often flirts with morality as a component of its horror — where corporate jobs make players complicit in the Company's violence, and the choice to save NPCs from nightmarish predicaments is always optional.

This corporate campaign framework leans all the way into these moral choices and offers players the opportunity to explore the other side of Mothership's proverbial socioeconomic coin: unencumbered by financial hardships, blessed with tactical supremacy. Come scratch an itch you probably shouldn’t; revel in the filth of your own depravity.

THE WARDEN'S ROLE

Unlike your typical Mothership experience, our evil-campaign Warden does not wield the corporation against players (it's their Company). Nor should the Warden push players toward evil; that is the players' own right, privilege and pleasure. Let them explore (im)morality at their own pace.

CONFRONTING MORAL HORROR (THE PATH TO GOOD)

When is it too late to go back? What does it look like to try?

In standard Mothership, PCs struggle to survive against all odds; here, corpos mired in status and comfort grasp at faint remnants of their moral compass. Fledging their gilded cages means abandoning all corporate privileges, mechanical and fictional, and resuming normal (miserable) life.

Would you like to know more? See: The Loyalty Card.

MEGACORP PLAYER QUALIFICATIONS

Players must be highly self-directed, as impetus for moving play forward falls to the empowered. Play leans more toward narrative gaming in the grand Forge* tradition, however: don't sweat it if players have little "storygaming" experience. Your OSR*/NSR*/WhateverSR-heads will abuse the narrative tools like cheat codes, and that's good too!

The idea of playing scumbag corpos may lodge firmly in the moral craw of many players (and good on them). So don't even consider playing this if anyone in your crew seems hesitant — "but the bleed-heavy LARP mechanics are a systematic metaphor for corporate oppression" will resonate only with deeply jaded horror sickos.

*If these words mean nothing to you, keep it that way.

Safety Tools

Speaking of dubious moral content: 

ALWAYS PLAY MEGACORP WITH SAFETY TOOLS!!!

Moreso than standard horror games (which already definitely need them), safety tools like Lines and Veils* and the X-Card* are desperately required here — not to mention content warnings.

Others have advocated for use of safety tools far better than I can, but here's my elevator pitch: Safety tools enable roleplayers to navigate dark and uncomfortable topics by giving all players agency over content included at the table. Through mutual trust and informed consent, we probe deeper into the black void that is the human condition.

As the Warden: be proactive to work safety tools into the natural flow of play. Judiciously deploy the tools yourself to break the barrier of entry for your players. MEGACORP is more than a little close to home, keep an eye out for each other.

*Look these terms up if you're unfamiliar, they and many other great safety resources besides abide on the world wide web.

Secure, Silence, Satiate: Demand EVERYTHING

Like Mothership's classic Survive/Solve/Save triumvirate, we have our own villainous maxims:

• Secure: Protect the company's interests.
• Silence: Prevent the incident from leaking.
• Satiate: Pursue self-interest and gratification.

We omit Survival intentionally because it is assumed (by the Operators). They are inevitable, invaluable, non-expendable… right?

Players Should…

• Strive to achieve all three S's in every mission: anything less may reflect poorly on your quarterly evaluation.
• Be bad! Seize any and all opportunities to make others' lives worse for corporate gain.
• Be human. Demonstrate flaws, idiosyncrasies, vices, and your personal agenda for all the table to see.
• Use every asset at your disposal, then push the Warden for more. You are the Company.
• Bind NPCs with obligations: debts, favors, blackmail, corporeal litigation.
• Dare to flirt with hubris.

Hostile entities and inexplicable phenomena are merely assets to be seized and studied; the true problem, your worst nightmare, is the labor getting in your way.

Mechanics Wanted (No Experience Necessary)

Additions and deviations from standardized Mothership regulations: concerning Stress, Classes and Skills.

Workplace Stressors

All Mothership Stress and Panic rules remain in play. However, we do have a few… mandatory addendums.

Corporate Trauma Response*: Gain no Stress when witnessing human suffering or otherwise experiencing empathy.

*In addition to, not instead of, your class's Trauma Response.

GAIN STRESS WHEN…

• You suffer a professional setback: personal embarrassments, checked power, loose ends.
• You take damage: you weren't prepared to dirty your hands or consider your own mortality.
• You fail to indulge your vice(s) regularly.

PANIC WHEN…

• A core mission objective slips irrevocably out of reach.
• Confronted with the Company's ultimate fallibility.

Class Concerns

There's only one unbreakable rule in MEGACORP: THE TEAMSTER CLASS IS BANNED!

As tragic working class hero, card carrying unionizer, and everyone's favorite girl Friday, Teamsters are of course enemy #1. With this no-good troublemaker out, who can we find to fill the position?

When using core classes, consider what role they play in an elite corporate context:

• Marine: More officer than grunt, politically connected Company marines may command a personal squad of stim-popping killers (~3 NPC followers). Marines liaise with other Company military assets, like fleet bombardments and extraction teams.
• Android: Even among insiders, the Android's connections run deepest. You may have a personal relationship with or be a fork of whatever fell sentience lies at the heart of the Company. You probably know everything there is to know.
• Scientist: You invented something so critical to the Company's operations, they may actually need you more than you need them. The scientific world is your oyster.

While there's nothing wrong with limiting class options to the terrible three (see above), suitable products are available to round out your evil lineup:

• Agent: Found in the eponymous pamphlet publication by Anodyne Printware, this corporate espionage specialist acts as the team's hands-on fixer. Practical, expendable.
• Lawyer: Likewise published by Anodyne (me), Breach of Contract contains a corporate attorney class. While BoC postures Lawyers as fallen angels, suitable for slotting into a low-life Mothership crew, ours are loyal corporate commissars: equipped to treat with external parties and entities.
• Executive: Tuesday Knight Games previously teased their upcoming 5th official class with some new, appropriately corporate skills (like "Management" and "Sales"). You can find it in the official Mothership Discord server by searching "WIP executive class" (look for someone named "seanmccoy"). Hopefully for you future readers, this already exists in final form.

So you don't have to buy an entire book just to see what the Lawyer Class is about, here are its pertinent mechanical stipulations:

BONUS LIST: D&D Class Comparison Chart

• Half-Elf: Executive
• Dwarf: Lawyer
• Orc: Marine
• Night Elf: Android
• Goblin: Agent
• Wizard: Scientist

!! NEW SKILL UNLOCKED !!

All corporate PCs gain access to Corewise when allocating bonus Skills. In practice, Corewise allows players to dictate shifts in elitist culture — with potentially drastic setting consequences.

Corewise (Expert Skill):

Prerequisites: Art/Theology/Athletics. Advancements: Command/Xenoesotericism.

Capacity to present one's self as a practitioner of taste and authority; familiarity with Corespace trends and politics.

Breach of Contract addendum: The Lawyer may choose Corewise in lieu of Rimwise (must choose Prerequisite Trained Skill as bonus).

Corporate Onboarding: Your Place in the Office

Session zero tools and prompts for situating your characters in the corporate world.

Corporate-Approved Patches!

1. "Sleep Is For The Cryofrozen"
2. "COMPANY PROPERTY // DO NOT DISTRIBUTE"
3. "Executive Toy" (Kissy Lips)
4. "CEO In Training" (Larva)
5. "MANDATORY UNIFORM EMBELLISHMENT"
6. (Anthropomorphic Scissors, Red Tape)
7. "Who Will Stop Us? / Executive Retreat XX25" (Palm Tree)
8. "This Is My Capitalist Face" (Anime Girl)
9. "Not Just You / Everyone You Know"
10. "I Love My / CORPORATE WIFE / Who I Met / ON THE JOB / Where We / FORCE MULTIPLY / And / SHIFT THE PARADIGM"

Company Slogan

Create a Company slogan or memetic touchstone with your party before the session; a catchy office saying that you just can't help repeating and repeating and repeating….

1. "That's not appropriate workplace conduct."
2. "A win is a win."
3. "Let's keep things apolitical."
4. "Thought leaders don't cry."
5. "I'm just looking out for the shareholders."
6. "There's always voluntary redundancy!"
7. "Could we be thinking bigger?"
8. "Have you heard the good news?"
9. "Yes, this is ethical."
10. "You are like a [father/mother/parent] to me."

After players create or select their slogan, count down to your inaugural group cheer. Then do it again, "I can't hear you!"

In an ideal world, players will perpetuate the slogan as a running gag throughout your session(s) — vying against each other for best comedic timing. If players don't pick up the phrase naturally, repeat group countdowns as needed.

Terms of Your Employment

!! BONUS CONTRACT !! BONUS CONTRACT !! BONUS CONTRACT !!

IT'S IN A GOOGLE DOC! LINK HERE!!!

What's this? An employment contract written by actual attorney Emily Weiss of Picket Line Tango and Breach of Contract fame? …am I dreaming?

Like with the BoC originals, this document serves dual purposes:

1. A fun little handout prop to immerse your players in the world of corporate bureacracy. In other words, support the LARP.
2. A reference sheet of professional perks and employment conditions. Of the latter, Wardens should note Section II: requiring Team members take initiative to bring in new business (IP and subsidiaries) quarterly. Players shall be left to manage their own perks.

If you're brave, consider allowing players to write-in an additional perk or two before signing (within reason and tone). Premium management demands the best from their compensation package, after all.

Executive Perks: Company Assets

The players are agents of change, not desperate survivors or victims of fate. Equip them appropriately.

Allocated Materiel

Before each deployment, players roll, choose or invent up to three (3) substantive widgets to use at their discretion. Materiel should feel "overpowered" — game-breaking, world-shaking. This is not your Mother's loadout.

1. 500mcr incidentals fund.
2. Jump-3 executive transport ship fully loaded with all means of sin.
3. Key NPC's family member, as prisoner.
4. Programming override code for relevant android or AI.
5. Backup sleeves hibernating on site (1/PC), receiving constant memory upload.
6. Terraforming pylon. Controls weather on continent scale, planets habitable in 25 years.
7. 20 networked baboon soldiers, understand basic commands [C:20 Dorsal Mortar 3d10 DMG I:15 W:1].
8. SCUD program ordinance (sentient nuclear payload, perfect tracking).
9. Unthinkable airborne virus (sealed) and 6 doses antidote.
10. Gun®. Kills what it shoots.

If players request additional corporate assistance mid-mission, if feasible, the answer should be yes. Reward creativity — they have the resources of a megacorporation at their backs. Such supplementary assets take 1d100 [+] days to reach the Team unless already established as in-system.

Mission-Adaptive Surgeries

"Congratulations! You aren't required to consent!"

1. Doppelganger facelift (as key NPC).
2. Fatty compound internally cooks limb for emergency rations (tingles pleasantly).
3. Auto-cryosleep (mucous cocoon).
4. Pre-coagulated blood.
5. Total organ replacement from preternaturally lucky donors.
6. Pain receptors neutralized.
7. Four-legged ambulation.
8. Sleep-inducing functions cauterized.
9. Photosynthetic graft.
10. Advanced++ metastatic cancer. You have 72 hours to live (your given notice).

You've Been Promoted to Chief Narrative Officer!

The #1 most important thing to remember while playing: this isn't a roleplaying game, it's a LARP. The further you can push things away from usual roleplaying dynamics (and even into the real world), the better. Needless to say, MEGACORP works best for in-person play.

Paradigm Shift

Narrative superpowers up players' sleeves — mechanical representations of their characters' political status. The rich play a different game than you and I.

Each player starts the campaign with 1 available Paradigm Shift, refresh when you…

• Crush a soul utterly under the Company boot.
• Burn a $20 bill in real life.
• [insert your own refresh condition here!]

PARADIGM SHIFT EFFECTS:

1. This here NPC is a Company plant (cannot be a primary mission target).
2. Advance time up to 24 hours. The Warden summarizes elapsed events.
3. Change a word in a contract or other document.
4. Induce a faction to act decisively, according to their current ambitions.
5. Summon a friendly dropship, no matter how improbable.
6. Restrict the Warden from saying a word of your choice (for 15 minutes).
7. Confirm a pre-existing conspiracy or rumor, birthed into reality.
8. Set a timer for 30 seconds. You may look at the module until the timer is up.
9. A dwindling or scarce resource immediately runs out (e.g. air, food).
10. OFFICE PARTY!!! Session pauses for 10 minutes. In real life, dance or play a party game.

Pluck more ideas from player brains between sessions.

The Loyalty Card

Using this optional tool, we represent PCs' internal moral compass with a simple physical chit (one for each player):

• On one side: "LOYALTY"
• The other: "DOUBT"

All cards begin showing LOYALTY. Flip your card to DOUBT when you no longer feel absolute loyalty to the corporation. This signals to the remaining players that you've gone a bridge too far — you can't keep doing this.

If everyone flips their card to DOUBT: the Team resigns from the corporation. You are excommunicated, cut off from all assets and perks, and potentially in grave danger (see Employment Contract). You're a normal Mothership Crew now.

CEDE ALL NARRATIVE AUTHORITY TO THE WARDEN! 

ONCE MORE INTO THE ECONOMIC HORROR BREACH!

Fellow corporate operators smell disloyalty on you like stale sweat: the first to flip their Loyalty Card immediately exposes themselves to liability (everyone else in the party is still LOYAL):

• They could exploit you: keep tabs, manipulate, blackmail.
• They could betray you, severing the liability.
• Perhaps most terrifying, they could join you.

BONUS LARP SUGGESTION: Fuck around with your Loyalty Card! Mar, tear or burn the card to hint at your Operator's inner turmoil without resorting to the irretractable flip. Record notable ethical [mis]deeds on the LOYALTY face for posterity — like an extension of your character sheet. Express trust by lending your cards to other players. Go nuts with it!

LARP LARP LARP LARP LARP

I can't reasonably flesh out every deranged LARP idea I had for this blog post without driving myself to monetization, so I'm leaving you some half-baked nuggets. Use them if you dare!

DISCLAIMER: I know that LARPing and ~Story Gaming~ are not the same thing, I'm intentionally conflating them for comedic effect. Don't @ me! P.S. I play and enjoy both.

Tangible LARPing Accoutrement

• Get up and move around! Concoct secret plans with fellow players, negotiate privately with the Warden for personal gain, arbitrate outcomes with tests of strength, dexterity and wit instead of dice.
• Dress up! Wear formal business attire for your sessions. Use character nametags.
• Play muzak! For extra fun, roll intermittent ads (turn off your adblocker and/or log out of Spotify).
• Adopt real-life corporate jobs!
• HR: Bring snacks and drinks.
• Secretary: Record the minutes.
• Freelance Artist: Fashion handy props during the game. Don't forget your crafts supplies!
• Treasurer: Pay out actual currency (small change) to fellow players as reward for cool plays.
• Middle Manager: Enforce slogan/catchphrase usage.
• COO: Maintain the horror atmosphere: jump-scare fellow players when they least expect it.
• Intern: Play nude, exposed to raw corporate greed [JOKE ALERT! NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMTPTION!]
• …other stuff!
• Fuck shit up, nerds! Get freaky in this thing!

Put More Story in Thar

Worldbuilding prompts!?

To help players feel more ownership of and responsibility for the Company, you may wish to host a structured, prompt-based worldbuilding jam before (and/or between) sessions.

Who is the Company? What's their aesthetic? What evil might they do in the world (and what good)?

Intra-party conflict!?

In true corporate fashion, players could violently jockey against one another for fiscal position rather than working together as one big happy capitalist family.

You might best accomplish this via establishing venemous character bonds before play, rolling out conflicting secret objectives, and/or designing some sort of mechanical PvP subsystem (involving Stress?). See Who Am I (Corporate Gossip Edition!) below for a silly tool in this vein.

Narrative overhaul!?

The Paradigm Shift idea only barely scratches the surface of player-driven narrative authority (as political metaphor). If you want more, I'd start by looking at the give-and-take Move mechanics and location/concept-based "character" sheets from Belonging Outside Belonging games. Imagine the players taking actions as "Company HQ" or "The Subjugated Masses." Wow!

The issue lies in marrying these narrative systems harmoniously with Mothership's core rules, and retaining some of that NSR problem solving we want from Evil Mothership gameplay. It's tricky, but conceivable.

Maybe I'll tackle this conundrum as a PRODUCT someday.

Who Am I? (Corporate Gossip Edition!)

Stick an index card on every player's forehead (or elsewhere on their person, where'er they can't see). The card lists personal gossip about their character, as conceived by another player. All other players act as if it is true, and you heal 5 Stress if you guess yours during the game. Example ideas follow:

• Mole
• Pacifist
• Incompetent
• Toupee
• C-suite's child
• Smothers doves
• Contagious
• Secret android
• Secret reptilian
• Bad kisser

IMPORTANT NOTE: The above is the least serious, silliest, most impractical idea in this post. Don’t use it, probably.

[Ad]venture Capital

The above stuff is cool and all, but of course we need good old-fashioned Mothership adventures to make it all work. Let's explore together which kinds of adventures work best, and how to adapt them for MEGACORP-style play.

Now Hiring: Useful Modules

Unlike Mothership's wily, minute-to-minute scramble for survival, MEGACORP gaming encompasses a broader perspective and more ambitious scope. When players might level a planet on a whim; claustrophobic ship/facility dungeon crawls are far too small a pond to play in. Look for these qualities when selecting adventures:

• Substantial setting size: stations, colonies, whole planets or systems. NPC populations in the hundreds to millions.
• Emphasis on social conflict and intrigue. Avoid solitary creature features, except perhaps as a twist or change of pace for unprepared and unsupported Operators.
• Big problems, well beyond the reach of a standard Mothership crew: alien invasions, war, pandemics, religious schisms. Things that might be contextual backdrops or forgone timeline calamities in Mothership become achievable objectives in MEGACORP.
• Of interest to the Company: opposition to be quelled, revelatory technology to be harnessed.

Sample Adventure Recommendations

• A Pound of Flesh: Muscle in on Golyanovo II Bratva. Usurp Yandee. Stabilize the Dream.
• Gradient Descent: Bring Monarch to heel. Re-open Cloudbank for business.
• Owe My Soul to the Company Store: Infiltrate Isotelus, pocket the winning faction.
• Picket Line Tango: Break the blockade. Acquire and pacify the colony, useful assets.
• Hull Breach Vol. 1: Pick a lowly Publico subsidiary as your Company and climb the pyramid OR wage war on Publico as an outside competitor. Manipulate Publico's internal politics (see Company Pyramid) and sector crises to your advantage. Leverage of individual articles might entail…
• Siesta-3 Autonomous Zone: Stoke labor resistance using the rogue station as kindling.
• WNDRLND / Residue Processing / Road Work: Seize or sabotage key competitor holdings.
• Manhunt / Bones and Videotape / Hellkites / Parasite Portfolio: Weaponize and deploy xenofauna against hostile targets.

Author's Aside: Of these, I'd recommend Owe My Soul by Archon's Court Games highest as a manageably open-ended introductory adventure for this style of play (minimal adaptation needed). A Pound of Flesh and its upcoming expanded campaign resources are your best option as the main focus of longer-term play.

Supplements to Raid

• Breach of Contract: Expansive legal horror toolkit — invaluable for peeling back the hood on corporate infrastructure. Contracts as Operator ordinance.
• Agent Class: Stylishly evil spy archetype with a mini-corporate espionage toolkit to boot.
• Corpocrat Dogs (Hull Breach Vol. 1): Corporate handler NPC generation tables, must-have for expanding the Company's freakish hoard of employees and/or embodying competitor organizations in rival operators.
• WNDRLND (Hull Breach Vol. 1): An extravagant S-Class station, potentially the Operators' home. Even more corporate NPCs and ideas to steal.

Adapting and Prepping Adventures

Most adventures will need a little elbow grease to accommodate such elite corporate Operators. Use these precepts as a starting point.

Hooks as opportunities for faction intrigue:

• Why are they sending you to deal with this, rather than disposable contractors?
• Why does this matter: Whose neck is on the line? How does this fit into broader corporate machinations? What happens to the Company should you fail?

Corporate objectives; more ambitious, more sinister:

• Where a normal Mothership crew would surely founder.
• Emphasis on open-ended, player-directed play.
• Implying ample possibilities for moral horror.

Plan for the long-term. Missions in MEGACORP might span weeks, months or years, with loftier player ambitions resolved via time-skipping abstractions (e.g. terraform a planet, seed a conspiracy, siege a colony):

• What will this place look like a month from now? A year from now? 10 years?
• What countermeasures might a rival corporation deploy against lingering Operators?
• Which supply and logistics problems could impact player efforts? Where is the nearest help?

Briefing Operators:

• Offer players insider knowledge. Maps, key NPCs, anticipated threats. The Company's eye sees much, but not all.
• Players choose Materiel, undergo Adaptive Surgeries, consult with corporate contacts (see The Office below).
• Encourage players to concoct a plan of action, but be mindful of session pacing. Set a hard time-limit (e.g. 5 minutes) for strategizing while you prep possible responses.

Example Objective Archetypes

Don't be afraid to turn an adventure on its head, using typical disaster scenarios as mere staging grounds for deeper, stranger corporate aims. Leave leeway for player interpretation and execution.

• Render the location suitable for colonization.
• Capture and extract the horror.
• False flag atrocity.
• Broker acquisition of/install new leadership in local organization.
• Profitably harness rogue/alien technology.
• Manage a safe and exotic corporate retreat (50+ guests).
• Open a warp gate in the manner of our custom.
• Shift a universal paradigm.
• Identify the new CEO, prophesized to be in the vicinity.
• Establish formal relations with non-human culture.
• Trial and convict relevant undesirable(s).
• Increase productivity by any means necessary.

The Office

What is a corporation without its office? Your workplace serves as a campaign hub, replete with definitely-normal coworkers, water coolers and other workplace locales, and random events to disrupt the industry status quo.

Yes, this is the office.

Office Locations

• Reception. Verdant garden of exotic xeno-flora, dangerous specimines cordoned off and labelled. A short zero-G leap across the threshhold betrays the entire office is air-gapped, suspended by powerful magnets. Couriers constantly ferry drive-borne data in and out. Given the faintest whiff of intruders, the front desk unfolds into an armored anti-personnel drone capable of slaughtering a small army [C:90 Seeker Missiles (5) 5d10 DMG I:75 AP:20 W:5(30)].
• Cubicle Pastures: AI-integrated, automatically organizing cubicle walls reshuffle constantly for "maximum worker synergy." Increasingly idiosyncratic and favoritism-prone: strands messy eaters in convoluted labyrinths, shyly abuts budding romances. Pray it favors you come an emergency.
• Water Cooler. Inside the tank — the office mascot, a striped eel, contorts to form single-word conversation starters. It's fine. People still drink the water (carefully). It tastes… ok.

Eel Words:

1. Divorce
2. Fluids
3. Value
4. Content
5. Movies
6. Dinner
7. Aging
8. Jokes
9. Confidence
10. Revenge

• Your Personal Office!: High-tech office chair featuring deep tissue massage, electromagnetic brain pulses, subliminal affirmations. Sitting in it feels better than anything you ever have or will experience. Heals 1d10 Stress between missions. Coveted by all.
• Truth Zone. An airtight, soundproof conference room rigged with foolproof ambient lie-detectors. The air feels chokingly close, silence buzzing angrily in your ears. Original portraiture of shareholders glower from the walls.
• Showroom. New and prototype Company products available for employee trials and appreciation. Foods, inscrutable but satisfyingly fidgety widgets, live weaponry, substances. Lovingly maintained by gentle robot arms that descend from the ceiling.
• Office of Family Planning. Agents secretly manage employees' loved ones to achieve domestic harmony. Complicit employee clients gain pacified children, attentive spouses, prompt friends — life made seamless. Killer candy bowl.
• Executive Stables. Every team member recieves their very own newborn Foal when they join the Company. Its health and prowess is representative of your career. You have a sense your Horse will be killed if you ever leave. Race track, dressage court included; gambling facilitated.
• Ethics Training Suite*. A veritable bowling alley of trolleys and bridges, crisscrossing like a board game. The trolleys are occupied.

Ethics Props:

1. Men
2. Your Horse
3. Your office chair
4. Puppies
5. Women
6. Androids
7. Child version of you
8. Credsticks ("DO NOT STEAL")
9. Company IP (floppy disc)
10. Cure for advanced++ cancer

*For added fun: Call a real-life parent during the game and ask for their trolley decision; this becomes the Company's objective moral truth. Gain Stress if you failed.

Where in the World is Your Office? You might be located at corporate HQ, an insulated cell in a buzzing hive of departments just like yours. Or you might be on your own in the commercial frontier, built like a burrowing parasite into a non-Company station (e.g. Prospero's Dream). Stick your office someplace interesting!

Everyone's Favorite Coworkers

1. Hoyt Herringbone (Receptionist). Each and every day is "exceptional" or "special" and "don't you just look fantastic in that little number?" Brings "pet" feral hog Pennsylvania into work. A pretty face with zero combat training.
2. Bob Cobb (Acquisitions). Supreme nasality, squeezed into latex several sizes too small. Constant and embarrassing martial arts practitioner. Procures and briefs Team on Materiel usage.
3. Helga Blum (Foreign Relations). Velvet gown with train, terrible fake accent (Warden's worst). Degenerate bloodsports gambler, in debt to everyone. Android. Refers Team to mission-critical contacts.
4. Jai Hooper (Fleet Manager). Tattooed to all hell. Dangerously optimistic ladder climber: "Don't you think we could run this place better ourselves? Let's pull a coup!" Supervises ship maintenance and dispatch.
5. Vic the Tick (Licensed Corporate Jester). Unthinkably filthy, unsettling dead-eyed stare. Serial arsonist. Beloved by unknown exec, untouchable.
6. Uther Necropolis (In-House Surgeon). Several extra eyes, jumpy. Mutters insults in Pig Latin, as if no one else understands. Prefers replacing worn bodies with fresh sleeves.
7. Aramis de la Vega (Hyperspace Oracle). Disease-proof bubble helmet, shyly flirtatious. Sees ghosts, is very relaxed about it. Replaces need for warp gates; prophesizes Jump malfunctions.
8. Citrine Tanaka (Human Resources). Hairless, downcast eyes (at first). Pathological copycat. Follows you everywhere, adopts your mannerisms, attempts to replace you. Manages mercenaries and prisoners.
9. Tiffany Le (Internal Affairs). It's pronounced "luh." Trying incredibly hard to be your work mom. Probes for weakness, always listening. Knows what you did. Armed.
10. Byrd ("Branch Specialist"). Metallic eyes, loud affair with the Keurig coffee machine. Painfully sincere and likeable. Infiltrator android from another corporation. Mission: Collect CEO DNA.

Workspace Intrigue

Commit these random events to your office battlefield; enriching between-mission downtime with on-brand content and corporate drama.

1. Rumored merger with fiercest rival, delegate visits the office (your nemesis).
2. Report: Operator-championed product induces [agony] in 30% of customers. Recall!?
3. Agonizingly awkward cubicle orgy.
4. NEW POLICY! Bring your children to work.
5. NEW POLICY! Less lethal methods only.
6. NEW POLICY! Assigned a Work Wife (gender non-specific).
7. Experiment loose in the office [as Xeiram, Hull Breach Vol. 1 OR your favorite monster].
8. Product brainstorming session. Best idea wins single-seat racing ship.
9. Mysterious pizza delivery.
10. !!! DOWNSIZING !!! Lowest PC earner at risk in 1 month (track new acquisitions). :(

WHO IS THE CEO!?

Isn't that just the question? Someone could make a whole zine outta that idea! That someone could be me, if the appropriate incentives are in place…

SHADOW CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN RUNNING NOW!!!

• Goal: $2000
• Here's my PayPal: http://paypal.me/anodyneprintware
• In your payment, include the message "MEGACORP" so I know what it's for.

!! DISCLAIMER !! Sending money via the above link constitutes a one-time, non-refundable, non-tax-deductible donation and DOES NOT entitle the payer to any goods or services.

Crowdfunding Q&A:

• How do we know what the total amount raised is? You don't.
• When does the crowdfunding period end? That would be telling.
• Is this a joke? Pay me and find out.

Exit Interview

Blah blah conclusory sentences blah blah restated thesis blah blah. I'm tired. In my traditional fashion, I may have gone a little overboard with this post. I hope you like it.

Though it may shock you, I intend to design EVEN MORE content for MEGACORP in my next newsletter post. In that upcoming post, I'll also be extrapolating immediately applicable Warden tools and advice for using moral horror in traditional Mothership campaigns.

Want more moral horror in your life? 

Sign up for the Anodyne Direct newsletter here!

Patches!?!?

Yeah, Will did a pretty fucking sick job right? I bet you would like to OBTAIN PRIVATE OWNERSHIP of one or more of them, you capitalist dog you.

I do intend to print these up as ACTUAL IRON-ON PATCHES someday soon. Want to know when? Well I'll just have to direct you again to my newsletter :).

 

Actual(ly) Play(ing)?

If someone out there gets this thing to their home table, I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT! A great place to share MEGACORP experiences would be the Anodyne Printware guestbook :)

ALSO: I hereby encourage all fair game designers of the land to expand support for corporate-aligned Mothership crews in their own blog posts! If you dare take up my challenge, I offer you this advice: the corporation is FUCKED UP and WEIRD, yo! Don't write boring companies.

Further Reading

I was heavily inspired to write this by my favorite convention, Metatopia, and all the rad narrative games and LARPs I get to play there each year. Particular credit goes to Papers: A Surreal Office Larp which has been kicking around in my brain since late 2024.

To quote Papers: 

"This is totally normal. It's just something you do at the office."

A Nest of Vipers: Navigating TTRPG Contracts and Partnerships

Back in 2022, I along with 30 collaborators and contributors ran a Kickstarter campaign (Hull Breach Vol. 1) which raised nearly half a million dollars. In 2023, I successfully fulfilled that project to backers and launched the newly printed books for retail sale. In 2024, I agonizingly extracted myself from several tumultuous business relationships accumulated over the course of said project—costing me thousands of dollars and years off my life.

In this blog post, I hope to share everything I learned from my misfortunes and triumphs in forming and breaking TTRPG industry partnerships—equipping you (the intrepid indie designer or curious hobbyist) with a foundation of protective business acumen. 

I will cover everything from scouting for red flags, to evaluating and modifying contracts, to resolving malfeasance if things go south. While I am not a lawyer, I'll examine real-world situations, real contracts, and real corporations.

In other words: I got screwed so you don't have to.

While some concepts in this resource may incidentally apply to creative partnerships, it's primarily geared toward logistics, administrative, and other business-y relationships—the fly-by-night startups, aspiring entrepreneurs and towering megacorporations of the TTRPG industrial world. 

If you're considering signing up with a new retail partner, fulfillment center, marketing firm or the like: this blog post is for you.

Table of Contents

• Amuse Bouche: The Confounding Case of GamesQuest
• The Risk Survival Onion (Business Edition)
• Learning to Fear the TTRPG "Industry"
• On Contract Law
• Real Example Clauses
• Direct Link Worldwide: A Tale of Two Contracts
• Consider War, or: So You've Been Breached
• Review and Roundup (Yeehaw)

Disclaimers and Warnings

A NOTE FOR IMPATIENT READERS:

If you're disinterested to hear the context of my tales of woe, I would recommend skipping below to the "Risk Survival Onion" section. There begins the meat of applicable advice and takeaways.

A NOTE FOR NON-LAWYERS (AND LAWYERS UP TO NO GOOD):

I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. I am not giving and can not give you legal advice.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EVERYONE:

This post is NOT a name-and-shame takedown piece. The primary goal is a purely constructive one, to educate and protect readers from potential bad deals (or at least set expectations for real-world mediocrity). 

While specific companies (some upstanding and some otherwise) will be named in this piece for the exclusive sake of context and authenticity, others will be anonymized, and some details may be obfuscated to protect identities and privileged information. Sincerely, please do not speculate on who might be who and under no circumstances start any witch hunts.

I am not asserting any wrongdoing (criminal or otherwise) on the part of any company named or unnamed in this post.

Amuse Bouche: The Confounding Case of GamesQuest

In late 2021/early 2022 as I prepared to launch the most ambitious, costly and risky endeavor of my life (Hull Breach Vol. 1), I was panicking about European distribution. EU and UK tax rules had recently changed to a much higher and more complex standard for foreign businesses, and the ensuing bureaucratic hellstorm threatened to topple the precarious house of cards that was my professional life.

In my desperation, I searched for a company that could provide an easier and cheaper solution than registering for VAT collection in potentially dozens of European countries. Frenzied weeks of searching produced only dubious, conflicting online articles, arcane bureaucratic documents and more distress.

At last, a savior appeared. During my search for potential distribution partners who could handle EU and UK fulfillment, I had a virtual sit-down meeting with Nigel Matthews, the CEO of UK-based and self-identified games oriented logistics company GamesQuest (aka ShipQuest). Nigel revealed that GamesQuest could handle VAT payments and guidance on my behalf, no registration necessary. Their pricing seemed reasonable, and Nigel spoke very highly of his company. 

Finally, a simple solution. I signed on.

A CRITICAL ASIDE:

If you're a backer or potential backer of a project being fulfilled by GamesQuest, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES read this section and then go bother creators running that project. My issues with GamesQuest did not ultimately affect backers (at least from their perspective), and I'm sure things will go fine for you under the watchful eyes of your project's creators.

Trouble in Paradise

The first red flag which I noted, but ignored out of hope and desperation, occurred during the very first meeting with Nigel. Nigel, unprompted, made reference to GamesQuest's evidently somewhat tarnished reputation, and (as best I recall) proceeded to defend their honor by blaming both prior customers' (publishers') communication skills and backer expectations for the hubbub. I found this odd and slightly troubling, but let it slide. Major mistake on my part.

Over the next two years, the following situations and patterns developed:

LACK OF DIRECTION

GamesQuest took over a year to assign me a proper customer service contact and put me through an onboarding process, having previously bounced my questions between seemingly random and often confused employees.  

When I ultimately confronted their CEO with these issues, he explained that I had originally been assigned to an employee who left the company, and they had forgotten to reassign me a contact in the mix-up. Whoops.

THE RUG PULL

During one call with their CEO to address unrelated issues, I was shocked to be informed that their Germany-based warehouse was no longer a viable option for EU fulfillment. Nearly one thousand books had already been delivered to that warehouse, with thousands more due in weeks. Though the VAT-related change had evidently gone into effect months earlier, no one at GamesQuest had thought to inform me.

This forced a total redesign of my fulfillment plans, and added significant administrative overhead to an already frantic period. To CEO Nigel's credit, he did arrange to have my inventory already in Germany transported to their UK warehouse at GamesQuest's expense—though this easily could have been avoided through basic communication.

LABYRINTHINE PROCESSES

Straight answers and clear directives were often nowhere to be found. I was frequently forced to research solutions on my own, or spend dozens of emails extracting single kernels of information.

I received inapplicable and out-of-date forms required to arrange freight, often leaving me guessing at which convoluted hoops I should actually jump through. 

It took GamesQuest 9 months to send me the correct form for their VAT agency services, resisting VAT-related questions and treating me as if I would handle VAT myself all the while. 

I spent dozens if not hundreds of hours formatting and reformatting backer data exports with little support to meet GamesQuest's bespoke requirements for spreadsheet construction. Common export functions from the industry-standard pledge manager (Backerkit) evidently did not mesh with their system, including the one labeled "for GamesQuest."

PACKAGING PROBLEMS

Shortly before fulfillment, I arranged for test boxes to be shipped to my home. The first package from GamesQuest arrived in a wafer-thin box which had (inevitably) taken a significant beating. Despite their insistence that this is standard packaging and not a problem, I proceeded of my own volition to pay, out of pocket, for several iterations of new tests shipments—along with exacting packaging instructions formulated by me. 

GamesQuest's second recommended box was far too large, resulting in books being free to slide perilously inside the box. Another was a custom box manufactured to the wrong dimensions (by another company). I ended up paying for all shipments to be double-boxed, to prevent any possible damage. 

This arduous process spanned weeks, delayed fulfillment and added unnecessary costs.

DEFLECTION OF BLAME

When things went wrong, GamesQuest ardently refused to accept responsibility (with one exception, see The Rug Pull). At one point during production, several backers expressed concern that GamesQuest would be fulfilling the project in Europe—citing issues allegedly caused by GamesQuest on a different and high-profile Kickstarter.

When I brought these concerns to GamesQuest's CEO and asked what they were doing to make sure nothing like that happened on my project, he answered to the effect of: nothing; you are the difference; your diligence will ensure it doesn't happen to you. In other words, it seemed GamesQuest expected me to catch and fix their mistakes myself.

GamesQuest ultimately blamed the other project's publishers for the publicized issues, though I was told by people familiar with the situation that this could not be further from the truth. I have no evidence to support either claim and make no assertions here.

CLOSEOUT NIGHTMARE

When fulfillment was all said and done, I arranged for GamesQuest's remaining inventory to be shipped back to my retail warehouse in the states. I filled out some forms, following my GamesQuest contact's guidance on customs matters, and tried to ease back into a deadline-free life. I even paid extra to have my shipment insured, to cover all my bases.

Then the problems began. My receiving warehouse notified me of some concerning customs messages, which I forwarded on to GamesQuest. I was told I'd need to pay a whopping $750 fee to clear customs—which GamesQuest had told me would not be the case, and was twice the cost to ship and insure the package. Weeks and many frenzied email exchanges later, I found out that GamesQuest had been unable to resolve the issue and that my package was returned to the UK (thankfully at no cost to me).

I was then forced to pay more to ship the package across the Atlantic for the third time. Of course, a significant portion of the shipment arrived damaged from (presumably) all the unnecessary handling, and GamesQuest was only able to recoup a small fraction of the value that I had insured. All told, I was out around $2000 between the repeat shipping fees and value of damaged books.

And who did GamesQuest blame this escapade for? Me, of course. 

They blamed me for treating their advice that no customs fee would be due as reliable.

What Did I Learn From GamesQuest?

And for that matter, why should you care about this story? I write this all in such depth not to warn about GamesQuest specifically, but as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong with any fulfillment partnership. This isn't about revenge, it's about knowledge.

Perhaps more than anything else, I learned about risk. I learned the give and take of commitment, and in hindsight see all the opportunities where I might have made other choices. Until a final service is rendered or a bill is paid, you're almost never in too deep, and things can always get worse.

Well then, how do you make sure a saga like the above never happens to you? I'll tell you, in 5 parts:

The Risk Survival Onion (Business Edition)

Any time you enter into a business partnership, you expose yourself to risk. You could be ripped off. You could be ghosted. You could be screwed over a thousand different ways, from incompetence to maliciousness to mere bad luck.

Unfortunately, you need to take on some risk to get anything done.

I introduce to you: a model for understanding and navigating risk in business partnerships, styled after a surreal, onion-based, but evidently real power point slide from a US military-industrial presentation.

Why do we crave the onion? What does it all mean?

What it doesn't mean is to isolate yourself from all human beings and call it good. Each layer is not necessarily an end to be avoided at all costs, but rather a turning point at which you should evaluate the benefits and risk of proceeding further into a potentially tear-provoking core.

Let's peel back these layers then, shall we?

LAYER 1, Don't Rely on People:

Sometimes whether or not to seek help with a given aspect of your TTRPG work, be it printing, shipping, sales, or otherwise, is a meaningful choice. Sometimes it isn't. If you have the time and physical ability, you might be able to hand ship 100 zines for your crowdfunding project. You probably can't ship 100,000.

The crux of this layer is: I want you to look beyond the cost/benefit analysis of merely expenses for services rendered. If the worst that could go wrong, does go wrong, would you still want to pay someone to do the thing? Could you overcome your own anxieties over figuring out how to do the thing on your own? In my experience, the fear of going it alone is often worse than the process of actually doing it.

Again, you probably will and should work with people! I do. Retail partners will reach customer bases you couldn't otherwise, warehouses will expand your inventory capacity beyond your living room, marketing people can sometimes be tolerated (for brief periods). 

Just try to factor in the risk of what comes next, that's all.

Additional resources for Layer 1 (some of my past posts on getting started as an RPG professional):

• A Year in RPG Self-Publishing: Year 1
• A Year in RPG Self-Publishing: Year 2
• Zine Quest 3 Post-Mortem: The Drain
• Kickstarter Fulfillment 101: Pledge Management
• Kickstarter Fulfillment 101: Shipping Costs

LAYER 2, Don't Deal with Shady Entities:

When I say "shady," I don't mean just unreliable, but also unfamiliar or unvetted—shaded by uncertainty. Before you sign anything, get to know these companies like you would a prospective new home. Inspect the water pressure, the crown molding, the online reputation. You'll be living with these people for potentially years.

This is the time to hunt for red flags. Read the contract. Read it again. Make them jump through hoops for you, see how far they'll leap. Schedule meetings with every boss and employees you might ever deal with directly. 

GET AT LEAST THREE GOLD-PLATED, ZERO-HESITATION, UNADULTERATED VOUCHES FROM OTHER CREATORS! 

Any vouch must come from someone who has worked with these people throughout an entire project (or two years if not applicable). A single bad reference is a deal breaker, and "I just started working with them but it's going fine so far" is not a vouch. Ask for details, anecdotes, trends. Be certain.

Additional resources for Layer 2 (from this article):

• Pros and Cons: Corporations Large and Small
• Vibe Detection
• On Contract Law
• Real Example Clauses
• Red Flag Recap

LAYER 3, Don't Get Caught Without a Backup Plan:

You're tangled in the throes of a project, juggling 60 tasks at once, and you surrender to riding out a bad partnership because you're too stressed to find someone else to do it. An all too common crisis. The time to prepare plans B, C and D was at the beginning of your project, not the end.

You'll want at least two thoroughly vetted and priced-out backups for any critical infrastructure needed to complete your project (a printer, a warehouse, etc.). Court those companies as far as they'll let you without actually signing a contract. Keep in touch and up-to-date with periodical quotes, be prepared to pull the trigger for a switch within weeks (assuming your prior contract allows). 

At least one of your backups should be a large, established company who isn't likely to go under any time soon. Ask me how I learned.

Additional article resources for Layer 3 (from this article):

• See Layer 2

LAYER 4, Don't Be Ripped Off:

The toughest layer of them all. Getting scammed or merely screwed over isn't on you, but you can take steps to protect yourself from incompetence and bad intent.

Stay vigilant for red flags long after signing. Periodically google and ask around about your partner. Question your partner with the how's, the why's, the when's.

Stay on top of everything. Even when things are going well, bend over backwards to know what's going on with your project at all times. Keep records, track dates, measure promises against reality. Overexplain every request as if they don't know how to do their jobs (but don't be rude about it).

Additional article resources for Layer 4 (from this article):

• What is a Contract?
• Red Flag Recap

LAYER 5, Don't Let Them Get Away With It:

Eventually, something is probably going to go wrong with your project (however minor). Whether it's enough to escalate or let slide is a major decision which can impact the rest of your project. You could damage your relationship with your partner. You could get sued. Tread carefully at this step. Is it worth it?

Before anything goes wrong, and even more so afterward, take proactive measures to prepare for (defensive) war. Get everything in writing, make them make commitments, choose your own words carefully.

On the precipice of escalation, give yourself at least a day to reflect if possible. Let the frustration or panic subside.

If you do pull the trigger, start with the least explosive options first. Obviously, ask them to fix it before anything else. Then consider an email to upper management. Then upper-upper management. Is a public service announcement in order? Exhaust all other options before going nuclear—the dreaded lawsuit.

Additional article resources for Layer 5 (from this article):

• On Contract Law
• Consider War, or: So You've Been Breached

The Horse is Determined.

LAYER 6 (BONUS LAYER), Don't Lose Hope:

This is the one and only mandatory step. Getting screwed over hurts, bad. You might be living with the burden of a soured relationship and unpaid debts for months or years. But you can't let it get you down, that's how they win.

Unfortunately, I don't have amazing advice here. I've found myself particularly susceptible to emotional distress from others' failings and injustices. I take it personally, but you shouldn't. I'm writing this article in part as closure to years burdened by anger and worry from bad partnerships. I'm not sure if 10,000 word blog posts work for everybody, but you should try to take something constructive away from things—even if it's just the determination to warn 1 other potential victim away from a bad situation.

___

Does that all sound overwhelming? Impossible, maybe? It probably is. You can't protect yourself from all risk, you can't be perfectly proactive all the time. 

Each layer (beside the last) is optional. How much effort to expend on any given means of defense is up to you.

Learning to Fear the TTRPG "Industry"

What I've said so far probably sounds like it could apply to any field, and it might. But it comes from a place of experience with the uniquely unprofessional TTRPG profession.

TTRPGs are what a suit might call a "nascent industry." Despite its origins in the 70s, it feels to me that the hobby only began to mature into a profession in recent years—with artistic theory, production values and institutional expertise trickling into published works over the last decade or two. Now, you don't need to agree with that assessment, and I only state it to emphasize this fact:

(Almost) no one knows what they're doing in the TTRPG world.

Therein, the catch. You want to help support fellow hobbyists-turned-jobbyists, but you must also be wary of them.

Pros and Cons: Corporations Large and Small

Now we turn to the alternative: the monolithic, implacable Amazon dot coms of the wider retail world. I'm talking hundreds of employees and up. Surely these people know how to do their jobs. Right?

A few example companies you may have heard of (many of which I've had only positive experiences with) for sizing context:

• Kickstarter with its broad scope and billions in crowdfunding raised feels facelessly Large, while Backerkit's more approachable team and up-and-coming crowdfunding effort leans Small. Both are on the cusp, but at the moment Backerkit certainly cares more about catering to individual creators.
• DriveThruRPG, the de facto RPG marketplace for PDFs and Print on Demand, is likewise a Small business reaching upward.
• Exalted Funeral, the largest(?) indie-focused RPG retailer has only a few employees to my knowledge. Small.
• GamesQuest? Small, but with aspirationally corporate airs.
• Direct Link, an international subsidiary of the Swedish and Danish national postal services—like DHL to Germany. Large.

NOTE: The following characteristics are BROAD GENERALITIES! You'll find hapless international conglomerates and sharkishly sharp solo operators. Read and apply with discretion.

The Corporations

PROS (non-TTRPG specific):

• More experienced: more efficient procedures, better training, more institutional knowledge.
• More resources, humans included, and often broader services.
• Predictabl(y corporate).
• Less likely to implode.
• Economies of scale. Cheaper.

CONS (non-TTRPG specific):

• Will do what you pay them for. Nothing more, sometimes a bit less.
• Less willing to cut deals and bend rules (modify contracts).
• Less succeptible to legal or PR pressure.
• More litigious. Much more litigious. Don't press your luck.

The "Little Guys"

PROS (TTRPG industry):

• More contractual flexibility, often less airtight contracts to begin with (sometimes a double-edged sword).
• Familiarity with TTRPGs. Depending upon the service, this is probably less valuable than you think.
• Concerned about their reputation in the hobby. Vulnerable to public blowback.
• Opportunities to establish meaningful relationships. "Networking" as some might say.
• More likely to go above and beyond for you.

CONS (TTRPG industry):

• More prone to scummy-owner-syndrome. Expect mild to heavy fits of incompetency and enhanced daring when screwing you over.
• Wild unpredictability. One person gets sick, you may be in the lurch for a week. Also, see previous bullet point.
• May declare bankruptcy at any moment.
• Often more expensive services, but not always.

Vibe Detection

Trust your gut when evaluating a potential partner. Intangibles like communication style and tone hint at eventual displays of character and competence. Is a company operating out of a basement unironically using words like "synergy?" That might inspire some concern.

Treat the pre-contract vetting process as a job interview, for the other party. Meet with every person or persons you'll be interacting with on a regular basis, whether the owner-operator or customer reps. Their whims and personality are the gate to your project's needs. Ask as many questions as they'll tolerate, gauging their responses:

• Are your contact(s) blunt or placating? Confident or full of reservations?
• Are they patient? If you send them multiple questions, do they address each one (and in full)?
• How long do they take to respond?

If something feels off to you, it probably is.

On Contract Law

(This is Legal Advice) [Just Kidding] {Unless?}

DISCLAIMER: The above is a joke. Again: I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. I am not giving and can not give you legal advice.

In this section, I will attempt to relay the lay savvy I've acquired through contractual headaches and disputes—the red flags, the wiggle room, the sometimes shockingly unbalanced standards. A lawyer would provide better, more reliable legal insights, but I can at least tell you which contractual clauses have actually come up for me.

CAVEAT: Some of the following contractual terms came from totally fine companies that I've had only good dealings with. Some contracts I signed, some I didn't. Certain clauses are here for illustrative purposes, not all are red flags.

What is a Contract?

The contract doesn't begin and end at the formal, signed contract, it spills out into your emails, meetings and other communications. In other words, a contract is anything anyone agrees to do for you, or vice versa. But you have to be able to prove it.

Get any and all commitments in writing (email), avoid audio conversations when possible. Tape your audio conversations if able, conforming to local legalities around consent to record. If you do attend an audio or in-person meeting, be sure to confirm everything said during that meeting in writing afterward. 

These records will not only help with a distantly hypothetical legal case, but more relevantly serve as leverage in private (or public) disputes and aid your future efforts to reconstruct what happened when. 

The Trap of Good Faith

Contractual law predicates itself upon the assumption of good faith. The conundrum is, some degree of bad faith almost inevitably enters into the mix during any contractual dispute. Over an issue catalyzed by a genuine mistake (or rank incompetence), Small companies may exacerbate things bad-faithedly over pride or fear—while Large companies will knowingly twist the legal knife to eliminate repercussions.

All that to say, you should read contracts in the harshest light possible. How could a bad-faith operator weaponize this against me? What's the worst case scenario?

Evaluating Contracts

Formal contracts are typically organized into discrete, numbered clauses. When facing an imposing new document, take things a single clause at a time—give each due consideration. Sometimes very relevant details can be buried under seemingly innocuous jargon.

Use this rubric as a starting point for evaluating each contractual clause:

1. Why is this clause in the contract?
2. When specifically might this clause come up in practice?
3. What language seems open to interpretation?
4. How could this clause be used against me?
5. What details and obligations (costs, deadlines, etc.) does this clause FAIL to cover?
6. Does this contract accurately reflect agreements previously made with the other party?*
7. Does this seem legit (within reasonable industry norms)?

*Be aware that the contract you sign may supersede any past discussions you may have had with a business partner. If they've previously committed to provide some service or benefit not covered by the contract, make sure it gets in there.

When using the rubric, keep your mind open for any other questions that crop up. Puzzling over a new hypothetical? Add it to the rubric.

BONUS NOTE!!!: Having multiple backup plans (see Risk Onion, Layer 3) pulls double duty here. Receiving multiple contracts for like services provides handy points of comparison, particularly for evaluating industry standards. Sometimes unfavorable terms are what they are industry-wide, sometimes a concerning clause is a true outlier. It's good to know either way.

Modifying Contracts

Good news! You can modify contracts. By printer and pen or your PDF editor of choice, you're free to strike through terms, add new ones, and send back your proposal. Whether the other party accepts those terms is another matter.

By and large, Small companies are much more likely to compromise on contractual modifications. Large companies rarely permit any modification of terms, but you can still try. In any case, you shouldn't go off and revise every clause to suit your needs: identify key issues of most concern and pick your battles in negotiation. 

Be prepared to present reasonable and innocuous cause for any changes. 

I typically (attempt to) modify 1-2 terms on most contracts I sign, though recent experience tells me I should bump those numbers up a bit.

What kind of terms might you look for to change?:

1. Confusing or Vague Language

The big one. Often, whether intentionally or by lack of foresight, clauses cast an overly broad semantic net (examples to follow). If the worst case interpretation concerns you, it's worth tightening up the language.

2. Lack of Clear Service Obligations

Contracts provided by a business are usually concerned primarily with what they want from you, the client. They'll cover terms of payment, fees and penalties for going outside those terms, and as maximally mitigated legal liabilities as they can get away with (or more). 

What they don't always cover is what they're actually supposed to do for you! In an ideal world, you want their obligations, and penalties for not meeting them, spelled out just as thoroughly as yours. You might not (and probably will not) get that, but try to bridge the gap as much as you can.

3. Unfavorable Terms 

Sometimes, clauses present simply bad terms. They might require payment within too tight a timeframe, payouts in too long a timeframe, worse-than-usual revenue splits, etc. Negotiations of this manner extend beyond mere tweaking of legal technicalities and necessarily modify the main points of the agreement, and are consequentially a matter of bargaining power more than savvy/caution. 

If you find these terms both untenable and immutable, you may need to take your business elsewhere.

4. Irrelevant Terms

Sometimes you'll come across clauses in a contract that clearly don't apply to your situation—in which case, your contract may be clumsily adopted from some other purpose. Cut these terms where possible to avoid future confusion and headache.

___

It's worth thinking through proposed changes even if you're confident the other party will reject them, so you have an eye toward points of vulnerability.

Real Example Clauses

Let's move from the hypothetical into the applied. Here I'll present several example clauses pulled from actual contracts I've come across in my 4-ish years working in TTRPGs.

CLAUSE 1, DANGEROUSLY VAGUE LANGUAGE:

3. Non-Solicitation. CUSTOMER agrees to not solicit or act in a way that would cause current customers, employees or contractors of AGENT to end or alter their relationship with AGENT. This includes not soliciting them for work outside the scope of AGENT projects or other activities that would not be in the best interest of AGENT. CUSTOMER agrees that this Non-Solicitation covenant shall survive termination of this Agreement for a period of twelve (12) months.

The Context: 

A sales agreement with a retailer/distributor (the "AGENT").

The Problem: 

Do you spot the problem? Well...

This could mean absolutely anything and everything! 

The fact that I (as publisher), too advertise and sell my own books, could mean that I'd be soliciting customers to act against the best interest of the Distributor (i.e. buy directly from me instead of them). 

If I ever criticized this company publicly, that also might cause customers to end or alter their relationship with the Distributor. In that sense, this sneakily acts as a very broad NDA.

Another problem is the proviso for employees, and moreso contractors. The indie TTRPG world is a small and incestuous one: there are only so many editors, graphic designers, etc. to go around. Why would I want to sign an agreement that limits my ability to hire people for future projects? What does any of this have to do with retail sales?

The Solution:

I did not in fact want to sign such an agreement. I cut the "customers" and "contractors" portion of this clause to mitigate my risk, a fact which I became very thankful for during a later dispute.

Stalwart, like a Bison.

CLAUSE 2, LACK OF CLEAR OBLIGATIONS:

6. Cancelation. CUSTOMER or AGENT may cancel this Agreement for any reason with ninety (90 day) notice. Upon cancelation, CUSTOMER shall be provided with an invoice for return shipping of their Products. CUSTOMER agrees to pre-pay the invoice in full prior to AGENT initiating return delivery of the Products. Any Products for which return shipping is not paid after fourteen (14) days, shall become the sole property of AGENT who shall be free to sell any remaining Products without compensation to CUSTOMER.

The Context: 

A sales agreement with a retailer/distributor (the "AGENT").

The Problem: 

At first glance, this may seem fairly reasonable. Advance notice for contract termination, closeout invoices billed upfront, and even right to seize property for unpaid debts are all fairly standard. The provision for seizing property within 14 days is both tightly timed and needlessly aggressive (given no actual service has gone unpaid for beyond nominal warehousing costs), but that's not the real problem.

The real problem is that this clause (and the rest of the contract) fails to cover the Distributor's obligations and limits in returning goods. 

How quickly do they need to provide an invoice upon cancelation? How quickly do they need to ship the products upon invoice payment? At what rates will I be charged, and exactly which services are covered (e.g. handling, etc.) by that quote for "return shipping?" What happens to the Distributor if they fail to meet those obligations?

The Solution: 

To my later dismay, I missed this one.

It was my understanding, and I think it would be any other reasonable person's understanding, that "return shipping" would comprise mere shipping fees (that is, actual costs charged by shipping carriers). Perhaps packaging at cost or other minor expenses could sneak in there, but these aren't significant factors at the volumes applicable.

Much to my surprise, the return shipping invoice I received was mysteriously about SIX times the cost by weight of shipping the products to them in the first place. And that math includes packaging and handling!

When I requested an itemized invoice and quotes/receipts from carriers, my requests were rejected. Who knows what they charged me for. Never put yourself in this position. 

Of all the terms you want ironclad and upfront, it's the escape clause!

CLAUSE 3, JUST PLAIN BAD TERMS:

15. Payment. AGENT agrees to pay CUSTOMER the commission payment on a quarterly basis where any sales from January 1 to March 30 shall be paid on or before June 30 of the current year and any sales from April 1 to June 30 shall be paid on or before September 30 of the current year and any sales from July 1 to September 30 shall be paid on or before December 31 of the current year and any sales from October 1 to December 31 shall be paid on or before March 30 of the following year.

The Context: 

A sales agreement with a retailer/distributor (the "AGENT").

The Problem:

These are terrible terms for consignment sales payouts. Without delving too deep into the nature of consignment deals, let me explain a couple basics:

In consignment, the distributor takes temporary possession of the publisher's books, and periodically pays out a cut any sales they make from that inventory. They may pay out on the demand of the publisher, or more typically once per month or financial quarter. Almost all consignment deals give the distributor some wiggle room after the designated sales period to actually pay—typically a week or two.

No consignment business I have ever encountered, other than these people, offer payouts NINETY DAYS after a quarter ends. It's beyond absurd.

The Solution:

I was dumb and fell into the trap of good faith. "On or before," right? Surely they won't pay even later than that, every single time. Surely I won't have to wait over 6 months from a given sale to see profit. Right?

Wrong. I accepted this as a quirk of what would be an otherwise fruitful relationship. It was not and I should not have. Familiarize yourself with and stick to industry norms. 

An Aside: Corporations are Evil!

To a layperson unfamiliar with contracts, business terms can seem outrageously unfair for a small business client. And they are. Unfortunately, some of these unfair terms are totally standard and completely unavoidable—the cost of doing business.

Fundamentally, corporations are unwilling to accept any liability for their own actions. Their contracts are written, and indeed standard commercial law is written, to shield corporations from the consequences of their actions. This means they might be able to get away with catastrophic fulfillment errors that ruin you financially.

Likewise, corporations want complete latitude to charge whatever they want and do whatever they want. They'll pass every cost, even ones they failed to warn you about, onto you. They'll exercise their authority at their convenience and to your detriment whenever possible.

Corporations, particularly when it comes to logistics, view you a problem—not a customer.

This brings us to...

Clause[s] 4, LEGAL TERROR MEDLEY:

31. Cost Updates. The price agreed in the Confirmation Of Order form shall be based upon information available to the Agent at the date of the Order. If between that date and the Service is performed and/or the Deliverables are delivered there shall be an increase either directly or indirectly to the cost of the Service the Agent shall have the right to increase the agreed price to take into account the increased costs and the Customer must pay the increased price in full as if it were the price agreed in the Order or Confirmation of Order.

___

20. Limitations of liability.

(a) Exclusions. Neither party shall under any circumstances whatever be liable to the other, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, for:

(i) any loss of profit, sales, revenue, or business;

(ii) loss of anticipated savings;

(iii) loss of or damage to goodwill;

(iv) loss of agreements or contacts;

(v) loss of use or corruption of software, data or information; or

(vi) any loss arising out of the lawful termination of this agreement or any decision not to renew its term;

___

8. Agent Discretion. The Agent reserves the right to reject any shipment(s), at any time, in its sole discretion.

The Context: 

Myriad fulfillment/logistics contracts.

The Problem:

The first clause effectively says that the fulfillment partner can change their rates whenever they want for practically any reason they choose, and you'll have to pay any increases without warning and even retroactively. Does the CEO want to give themselves a raise and pass the costs onto you? According to this, they probably can. This is insane, it's also how these businesses typically operate.

The second clause covers all the ways in which the fulfillment partner sheds responsibility for the consequences of their actions. They can screw you over pretty much any way they want without legal consequence (barring perhaps the mere value of product), should you sign.

The third clause is a joke. Why would they need to reject your packages? When might this come up? Who knows, go fuck yourself.

The Solution: 

Given no company is likely to remove terms such as these from any contract, the best you can do is familiarize yourself with contractual norms. Get yourself in the right frame of mind to deal with the corporate world.

CLAUSE 5, LEGAL FEES:

5.3. Should any legal action, arbitration or proceeding be instituted to recover unpaid fees, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its actual legal fees and cost, and any collection agency costs.

The Context: 

A fulfillment/logistics contract.

The Problem: 

Almost every contract deals with the matter of legal fees should someone sue in one of two ways.

1. Both parties pay their own respective legal fees, no matter the outcome of a suit.
2. The losing party pays the winning party's legal fees.

The first option is VASTLY more desirable as a small business, as you get to do the math against potential winnings and choose just how much you might be willing to spend on a given lawsuit.

The second option (chosen by this particular contract) is a thinly veiled corporate threat. It says: "we have the resources to win whatever suit you bring against us, and when we do, you will go bankrupt paying our legal department's exorbitant fees." You never know what's going to happen in court, no matter how apparently strong your case may be. No indie RPG developer I've ever met has the resources to risk a potential 6 or 7-figure bill for legal fees.

The Solution: 

In short, either avoid working with any company with a clause like this one, or accept that you'll never be able to realistically sue them. If you choose the latter and abandon legal recourse, you lose substantial bargaining power and operate at the whims of your partner.

___

Are you scared? Are you perhaps put off the entire idea of ever doing business with anyone? 

Keep in mind I'm fresh off the completion and retail launch of a large, complex and intensely stressful project—during which I developed contractual disputes with entities wielding far greater resources than me. I am presently of the mind to be more cautious than when I started.

Allow me to recount a dispute with one such entity:

Direct Link Worldwide: A Tale of Two Contracts

In 2022, on behalf of my TTRPG publishing company Anodyne Printware LLC, I contracted with Direct Link Worldwide to fulfill my Kickstarter project Hull Breach Vol. 1 in the US and non-European international regions. The contract I signed covered primarily my consent to a credit check and basic terms of payment to Direct Link.

In late 2023, during fulfillment of said project, a Direct Link employee notified me in writing that that due to their own clerical mistake, several dozen books in their care had been shipped erroneously.

Seeking Reimbursement

When I sought reimbursement for the loss of my products, another Direct Link employee claimed in writing that my claim was not made in a timely manner (even though my claim was made within hours of my being informed of the loss), and that in any event the loss was somehow an "act of god" for which Direct Link was not responsible. 

I was informed in the same communication that in addition, a contract I had allegedly agreed to prevented recovery of my claim in the amount requested.

The Second Contract

After I asked Direct Link to explain the factual basis for its defenses to paying my loss, Direct Link representatives were unable to produce a signed copy of or any evidence to support their claim that I had agreed to this newly-surfaced contract. 

I had in fact never agreed to the terms in the document, or been presented with it, or been in any way made aware of its existence, prior to Direct Link's late 2023 assertions that I was bound by its terms (after my claim).

Management Response

In discussion with a senior manager in Direct Link's finance department, Direct Link proposed that I was entitled to the costs of remanufacturing the lost goods. In an attempt to resolve the dispute, I consented to accept remanufacturing costs as a basis for reimbursement, and provided a quote for those costs. I received no response to my quote. 

When I followed up about receiving compensation for my losses, a Direct Link manager informed me that they would be charging me interest on bill(s) that I had already paid in full and on time.

I later met with Direct Link's managing director of Americas, who informed me that he would be looking into these issues, and additionally agreed that Direct Link had proposed to pay remanufacturing costs. Beyond a single email to inform me that he was traveling and unable to address this manner within the timeframe he had originally proposed, I never heard from this manager again despite repeated attempts to contact him.

(Lack of) Resolution

To date, I have not been paid or in any way compensated for the loss of my product which was the explicitly admitted fault of a Direct Link employee.

Consider War, or: So You've Been Breached

When a company refuses to pay a debt, provide paid-for services or otherwise fulfill contractual obligations, you're left with two options: do you escalate, or do you eat the loss?

Each means of escalation comes with some risk, and any will very possibly damage if not destroy your relationship with the other party. Consider whether you ever want to work with these people again.

If you do escalate, be prepared for the other party to shift into war footing. If they weren't already, they will start treating you as a nuisance or threat. It's best to hold off any escalation until the last possible moment, ensuring as many assets as possible are out of the other party's reach. If you're up against a financial wall, waiting may of course not be an option.

BEFORE ESCALATION, RE-READ YOUR CONTRACT!

A contract is an angle of attack, for both sides. When the situation threatens to get rough, double-check your contract for hazards and vulnerabilities. Play openings to your advantage, beware potential traps—particularly when considering making threats or accusations.

ESCALATION PLANS A-Z

Plan A (Pre-Escalation), Talk to Them:

Before anything else, try requesting resolution with your usual contacts in a calm and cordial manner. In other words, be a normal person. The rest of this section assumes that you've already brought all issues to the other party's attention and they've refused or failed to provide adequate restitution in a timely manner.

Plan B, Call the Manager: 

Going above the heads of your direct contacts to their managers (and failing that, the most senior corporate officers you can find) will not endear you to anyone and is generally not a very cool move. But it may provoke some response if your project/account is otherwise floundering.

Plan C, Go Public: 

!!! This post is NOT LEGAL ADVICE! If you're concerned about exposure to lawsuits, contact an attorney. !!!

Even if a company never rights their wrongs regardless of what you say or do, you can at least warn others so they can avoid the same fate. You may not directly benefit from a public service announcement, but at least you can extract something constructive from your situation. A sense of justice and closure can be almost as meaningful as financial recompense.

Make no bones about it, this is a big step. Public statements or accusations even when completely true and accurate could draw you into the crosshairs of your partner's legal department. On the other hand, a public statement may be your only recourse for catharsis if a lawsuit isn't a viable option.

SEE DEDICATED "Strategies for Going Public" SECTION BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS!

Plan D, Get a Lawyer: 

It is what it says on the tin. Only a lawyer can best inform and guide you along the least painful and most fruitful path forward. Depending upon your case, it may be safest to bump this up to Plan C. You may even be able to find a free consultation within the appropriate jurisdiction.

Of note, a letter from a contracted lawyer may be enough to get the wheels of a deal moving even without a full-on lawsuit—particularly when facing the less legally savvy.

Plan Z, File a Lawsuit: 

Unless you're a C-level executive at Wizards of the Coast or another TTRPG corporate giant, it's uncommon that you'll be disputing sums which justify a lawyer's fees—but not impossible. I have little to say on this matter besides "see plan D." God(s) be with you.

Why is this plan Z? Because it's a huge pain in the ass and incredibly expensive to sue someone. It's a last resort.

Now, if you somehow have the time and means to travel to the relevant jurisdiction for an extended period, you could always pursue a civil case pro-se (that is, without a lawyer). This would save a lot of money, and there is, as I understand it, some leeway for under-professionality in pro-se litigants within the US. This won't be a good option for almost anyone, but if you:

• Happen to live within or very near the jurisdiction indicated by your contract;
• Have more time than money, and;
• Are a particularly spiteful and determined asshole,

…this could be a consideration.

!!! This post is NOT LEGAL ADVICE! If you're concerned about exposure to lawsuits, contact an attorney. !!!

Strategies for Going Public

Before even considering going public, triple-check your contract(s). Is a non-disclosure clause (NDA) buried in there? If so, you may be contractually bound to keep your mouth shut about dealings with the other party—on pain of suit. No-go.

consider your next move

Defamation

Besides a possible NDA, the primary hazard in public statements would be defamation (libel or slander). At least in the United States, speech is fairly protected, and libel cases are hypothetically difficult to successfully litigate. Truth is an "absolute defense" to defamation, so as long as you're purely factual and not conclusory in your language, you should hypothetically be protected.

While certain conclusory statements may also be legally protected as a matter of opinion, it's best to be safe if operating without consultation of a lawyer.

Example 1. Less risky, factual statement: 

"Company A billed me $100 to ship 10 books, when Companies B, C, and D all charge me only $50 to ship 20 books the same distance."

Example 2. More risky, conclusory statement: 

"Company A scammed me with overpriced shipping and stole the proceeds."

In particular, you want to avoid implication of criminal activity in any public statement. Very few contractual breaches are criminal in nature, and people will absolutely come after you for asserting criminality. 

Additionally, DO NOT threaten to take your issues public. Such threats could be construed or prosecuted as blackmail. If you do want to go public, just do it. Don't warn them first.

All that said, an entity can always proceed with a baseless defamation claim to threaten and drain you of resources. Be cautious.

Threats Large and Small

When deciding whether to go public and how to approach the tone of your statements, consider the nature and resources of the [allegedly] delinquent party. 

It is my (perhaps misled) assumption that a Small, games-focused company would be less likely to pursue legal action over online comments—both due to lack of resources/legal sophistication, and for the terrible optics of using a lawsuit to silence another business operating in the same industry. This can also be a double-edged sword maneuvered to cut against your tender indie flesh.

Approaching (the Masses) with Caution

Should you find that the TTRPG community would benefit from hearing about your experiences with the [allegedly] delinquent party, here are some strategies for crafting your statement:

1. Workshop your concerns in private: 

Bad business dealings can be enormously stressful and feel deeply personal as a freelancer or solo operator. It's good to get an outside perspective on the situation for clarity, not to mention compassion. Who knows, you might find allies going through the same thing (perhaps even regarding the same company!) to lean on and strategize with. 

Just, you know, be careful about who you talk to. Don't dish to narcs.

2. Write your posts as public service announcements:

You are first and foremost informing others about your experiences with a company so they can make educated decisions when navigating the TTRPG industry. 

You are not inciting people to take any specific actions relating to that company, barring perhaps the factual details of the contractual dispute, e.g. "these people are selling my books without a license, so please buy my stuff elsewhere."

3. Don't draw conclusions, let readers do so themselves:

Never say things like "…so you shouldn't work with these people" in your statements (this could get you into legal trouble—see "tortious interference" in common law). If the facts of the dispute merited going public, the mere facts should be sufficient to convince people.

4. Explain the consequences of the other party's actions:

You're an indie developer, presumably barely eking out a living through a niche artform. People generally agree that life is hard enough without corporations ripping you off or otherwise wronging you. 

5. Know your audience.

Public statements will most likely be well received if you're very specifically operating and posting in a worker-friendly indie RPG space. 

Reddit for example might not care about your industry grievances. Certain Twitter/Bluesky/etc. subcultures may likewise be less likely to share your posts (use your judgment). Best practices for general social media posting apply. 

The more eyes on your posts, the more people you'll help with your PSA.

Public Statement Outcomes

It’s possible that warning or informing the community about someone else’s unjust actions could indirectly benefit you—if the offending party cares enough about the mood of the community (the part who comprise their existing or potential customers), said offending party may propose to finally give you what you were entitled to in the first place. I don’t think you can or should expect that result, but who knows. It could happen. 

For example, consider a post on Yelp (ah, Yelp) that describes a poor experience at a restaurant:

Readers of the post benefit by having been forewarned about said experience at the restaurant. In most cases, the only benefit to the poster is to purge their own residual frustration from the bad experience.

Occasionally (rarely), a restaurant with capable management responds to a critical post by acknowledging the legitimacy of the criticism and offering the diner a re-do at the restaurant’s expense, thus demonstrating to the community the restaurant's commitment to improve and thereby protect its good will.

All that would be nice and all, but all you can reasonably hope for with a PSA is closure and community betterment. It's something ☺.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not advocating for Yelp grousing.

☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺

Review and Roundup (Yeehaw)

For the few of you who read all of that nonsense, you've made it (almost) to the end. Here's a last few hopefully useful tidbits. The consolidated red flag checklist thing is probably one of the more practical things on my blog but I didn't know where to put it so here it is, enjoy.

Red Flag Recap

You might want to consider going with a different business partner if you find many "yes" answers in the following list:

• Do they take long to respond to emails?
• Can you find online reports of negative experiences with them?
• Do they respond defensively to criticism or unfavorable allegations?
• Do they badmouth previous clients?
• Do they have high employee turnover (are you passed around to different reps frequently)?
• Do they deflect responsibility for services previously offered?
• Do they try to sell you services that seem to/should be already covered by the original agreement?
• Do they (not) resolve concerns in a timely manner?
• Does their contract have vague or confusing terms?
• Does their contract seem improvised—perhaps not written by a lawyer?
• Does their contract fail to cover their obligations toward you?
• Does their contract contain terms out of proportion with industry norms?
• Are they strictly unwilling to negotiate and modify contractual terms?
• Do they (not) pay on time?
• Do they use corpo-speak, particularly if a Small company?
• Are they "hip" and "with it"? Are they down with the youth? Reaction gifs aplenty?
• Do you experience nausea and/or vomiting after speaking with them?
• Does their website suck to use and behold?
• Do they seem to (not) know what they're doing?

More Than What You Pay For

If you take just 1 lesson away from this post, be it this: 

You're not paying a retailer or logistics partner for mere services, you're paying them to make your life easier.

Everything that comes in between the selling of books and paying of invoices is the stuff that you'll actually be living with on a daily basis as a [self-]publisher: the research, the emails, the bookkeeping. 

Some retailers may waste so much of your time, even without any actual screw-ups, that you'll lose out overall (financially and mentally). Sometimes its worth paying more for fulfillment services even if you're just a tiny bit more confident in the professionalism and efficiency of a given outfit.

Put in the time to vet your partners. Talk to people. Don't hope for the best.

On Not Losing Hope

Let's chat about that 6th (BONUS) layer of our risk assessment onion. It's real. It's real tough. It's a tear jerker.

I've spent, I don't know, weeks? Months? Of my life just stressing over fulfillment and retail problems. Not working it out, not smoothing things over, just worrying.

You shouldn't do that. Don't let them win.

Something to keep in mind: the tone of this post is more pessimistic, colder, and more cynical than you almost certainly should be in reality. It's not even how I view the world (most of the time). This post is the devil on your shoulder encouraging you to consider the evil in everything. 

The angel says "Have a good time! Make fun games! People are nice and cool!"

Solutions and Community

I am fortunate to know many wonderful people in the indie TTRPG world who I can consult with privately for advice and to tap into the diasporic RPG hive consciousness (recommended blog posts, second- or thirdhand knowledge, etc). 

Many indie devs, particularly those just getting a foot in the door, may not have those connections to fall back on.

This is just musing, but there's a real need for a centralized source of RPG sausage-making information—particularly when it comes to topics like those discussed in this post. Our second layer of the onion (which you may recall involves vetting potential retail and distro partners), is both the most relevant step in risk mitigation and hypothetically least painful. But there's an accessibility problem. 

Someone please do something about it.

___

IMAGE CREDITS: All images other than the Risk Onion taken from Cameron's World, a cool website. Original olde-internet sources (if present) are linked there.