Want to break into freelance game design, but don’t know where to start? Have you already had a crack at pitching a project and failed? If so, this is the book for you! Inside, Creighton Broadhurst publisher at Raging Swan Press and an ENnie Award winning game designer reveals his hints, tips and strategies for a successful career in freelance game design.

This book covers such subjects as:

• What's The Point of this Book?

• Why You Should Take My Advice

• Eight Reasons To Freelance

• Twelve Reasons Not To Freelance

• Golden Rules

• Project Management

• Great Books

• Be Productive

• Be More Productive

• Project Outlining

• How To Level Up

• Why You Should Have A Website

• How To Kill Your Career

• Pitching a Project

• Designing Dungeons

• Designing Dungeon Ecology

• Designing Unoccupied Rooms

• Designing Encounters

• Designing Treasure

• Designing Settlements

• Designing NPCs

• Designing A Villain’s Motivation

What’s The Point Of This Book?

If you've always wanted to have a go at freelancing, but didn't know where to start, this book is for you! Within these pages, I've distilled my 14 years of experience in the gaming industry. I don't explain the esoteric, maddening mysteries of grammar, the hidden truths of sentence construction or the terrifying secrets of crafting a compelling story. I don’t talk about game design. You can get that all elsewhere. Instead I give you practical advice on how to work professionally, pitch to publishers and secure reoccurring work.

I've endeavoured to keep the advice herein as system neutral as possible. While my writing experience is exclusively with Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the principles, tips and tactics within this book work with any game system.

Why You Should Take My Advice

In short, I've been around the block.

I've been on both sides of the designer/publisher fence. In 1999, I started out as a hungry, wildly inexperienced and tremendously naive freelancer. Now, I'm a grizzled (nay veteran) publisher and editor who has written, edited and developed well in excess of 1,000,000 words of gaming content. I've written for big and small publishers alike and won an ENnie for Madness at Gardmore Abbey (2012 [Silver], Best Adventure). A partial list of my design credits includes: Wizards of the Coast (Monster Manual V, Exemplars of Evil, Madness at Gardmore Abbey), Paizo Publishing (Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine), Expeditious Retreat Press (Legacy of Darkness, Plague), Kobold Press (Deep Magic), Rite Pubishing (Pathways magazine, Adventure Quarterly) and Raging Swan Press (Retribution, Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands, The Sunken Pyramid).

During my early freelance days I was very lucky to have a mentor of sorts. Stephen Radney-MacFarland at the time was the RPGA's Big Cheese and my Living Greyhawk boss. During the course of the campaign, he gave me countless pointers and pieces of advice on how to commission, edit and develop modules. He gave me tremendous insights into the design process both in the campaign and at Wizards of the Coasts. (Luckily, he also didn't strangle me despite serious provocation on several occasion). During my time on the campaign I worked on over 100 modules and wrote another 20 or so myself. I had a lot of time to practise his suggestions.

In 2010, I founded Raging Swan Press and have built it into one of the most successful, prolific and recognised publishers of Pathfinder compatible products in the multiverse. I've worked closely with dozens of freelancers and to date (November 2013), have released over 160 supplements, adventures and player aids.

I want to share with you the insights and advice I've received over the years. I was lucky enough to have a mentor, but you might not.