The Business: Making a Not-Crap RPG: Part Four: You Have Mail

If you managed to make a not-crap game, document it in a competent manner, target the right audience, and shill it to them properly then you will get attention that converts to sales- and sales that convert to an audience of users that want to give you more money.

This is where you implement the last part of that building plan: the customer feedback funnel.

For many designers and publishers, this means (a) having a place that someone else controls (e.g. Reddit) that you frequent or--preferably--(b) a place that you control where you can be reached directly. In the old days, this meant a forum like The RPG Site, but today it can mean a Discord server, the Community Page on your YouTube channel, or even--God forbid--a Facebook page.

Whatever it is, it is your point of contact with your audience. I'm just going to call it a forum out of convenience.

Like it or not, you need to set up some basic moderation functions and a set of house rules for users to abide by. In addition to things like bans on doxing, illegality (which you better have to cover liability), and so on there is one that I would like you to consider: a strict topic focus on your game (and any associated setting, supplements, etc.).

Rare is the forum that can have off-topic discussion without it coming to dominate it entirely; for every successful management (The RPG Site) there is no less than one glaring failure (RPG Net, Board Game Geek, etc.).

The reason is very simple: your forum is there to faciliate your business; off-topic discussion DOES NOT DO THIS.

Some of your users will have political, religious, cultural, etc. positions vastly different to your own. Needless friction gets in the way of doing business; avoid it.

There is another I would have you consider: restrict access to those that bought your game. No, I don't have a pat explanation on how to do this, other than you can make it a function of an in-house online storefront, but I can explain why this is desirable: showing proof of purchase means that they have some skin in the game, which reduces--not eliminates--the odds of a shit-stirrer coming in to cause trouble.

This also means that you should not be shy about using the banhammer on trouble-makers, paid or not, and make this clear when they come onboard that you reserve this right.

The purpose of the forum is to cultivate your audience, make them your chief advertisers, and have them help you spread your game around to your target audience. You may, at your discretion, use it to aid in supplementary product development; that's a subject for another post.

Do you really want to handle this yourself? Probably not. But you must retain full power over your forum because it is neither unlikely nor unheard of for forum moderators to exploit the Agent-Principle Problem to hijack the business. (Just look at Reddit.) Is this worth doing at all? That's on you to decide, but most people do and the benefit has outweighed the cost to this point.

And that's it. That's what I have for you. Good luck.