Publishing Guide 2025
Who are we?
As the creator of the best selling tabletop RPG morgalad fantasy as well as a handful of other bestselling RPG supplements adventures and accessories John McNabb has spent the past decade working in the board game industry in one way shape or form John McNabb also owns Mcnabb Games LLC which is a Brick and Mortar game store that includes an indie Publishing House.
Tools of the Trade
Seize and Own the Means of Creation
Begin your publishing journey by making sure you have the longevity to create for years to come.
Operating Systems: Ubuntu LTS or Win 10
Publishing software: Affinity / Libre Office
Image and Photo editing: Gimp and/or Photopea.com
3D Print File Creation: Inkscape and BlenderBuild
Brand Identity
Logos: Come up with a logo or brand identifier to help customers identify your works.
Color Palette: Come up with a color palette for your brand or logo that has no more than 4 colors.
Typography: Select what fonts will be used in your products and for what purposes.
Find your voice: Come up with a mission statement of sorts that will dictate the voice of your brand it will help guide interactions with customers and help maintain consistency between products.
Create Templates for Each Product Type
Modules
Supplements
Comic books
Campaigns
Novels
Collaborative Tools
Create a Multi-User Synchronized Workflow
Scheduling Releases: Use Google Calendar to schedule out releases up to a year in advance.
Sprint Planning: Use Trello to Create a Sprint Board
Automations: Use Zapier to create items in Trello Sprint Board when new events are created in Google Calendar.
Agile File Development:Use Google Drive to synch encrypted files only.
Legal Protections
Purchasing ISBNs: Bowker.com
Trademarks and Copyrights: USCopyright Office
Taxes and Licensure
Contact your secretary of state and city and county to research local, state, and federal occupational licenses, taxes, and requirements for online only business.
Creating Adventures: Adventure Types
The three basic types of quests are: Discover, Defeat & Fetch
Discovery Quest – The players solve a mystery through communication and gathering clues, or Discover knowledge or Lore that can only be learned through a journey or series of encounters.
Defeat Quests – The players must go kill something, or possibly defeat obstacles impeding on the completion of some archaic ritual or activating a magickal artifact.
Fetch Quests – Include obtaining a missing item, Escorting an NPC safely, or Delivery of an Object somewhere safe.
Creating Adventures: Encounters
1) Skill Encounters: Give players a chance to use non combat skills to progress.
2) Pure Combats: Use players Difficulty/Challenge Ratings to craft balanced combat encounters.
3) Magical Challenges: Allow magic users some spotlight
4) Divine Challenge: Allow healers some spotlight
5) Puzzle or Trap: Include a brainteaser or two
6) Roleplaying Encounters: Use this to impart additional information about the quest
7) Easy Encounter: Mass combat or cake walk encounters against significantly weaker foes. Burn through consumables and make the players feel a sense of pride
8) Safezone: Allow players a safe protected area to rest and recover some much needed resources.
9) Improbable Combat: An encounter that is highly unlikely to survive, isolated players would stumble inadvertently into this area. Encounter should be 2-3 Difficulty Ratings above recommended, while possible to be resolved it adds a real threat of a Total Party Wipe-out.
10) BBEG Finale: The resolution against the BBEG where the players finally complete the task at hand.Include at least 1 of each encounter type.
For skill encounters allow a way for players to fail forward should they lack the skills. Failing forward allows the to progress the story without unlocking any benefits the skill challenge would reveal.
Expand Your Knowledge
Play Games: Learn what makes a game fun and what you like in a tabletop game by playing many different systems
Game Jams: Participate in Game Jams like PocketQuest to spur creativity and learn from fellow creators
Develop Multiple Skill Sets: Creating content in this industry is a good supplement but to keep from loosing the joy of creation make sure you have other skillsets that would help you maintain revenue while building your portfolioMarketing & Promotions
Learn your marketplaces
Itch.io: Learn how to analyze your analytic data and begin building a direct client list.
DrivethruRPG / CCPs / OBS: Browse all the integrated sites that are part of the OBS brand family. This will help you learn what type of content is in high demand and popular at a given time by review the home page of each site.
VTTs- Not everyone has a Local Game Store LGS, so learn how to get your content onto Virtual Tabletop Platforms to increase exposure in growing markets.