The Path of MOST Resistance
As we enter 2026 and prepare for the arrival of Fists & Fiends books, dice, maps, boxes, and dice bags, a moment arises where I can set pen to page and provide a few thoughts after the past couple of months of development. You will likely find it either utterly boring, or illuminating and insightful since you’ve been on this journey with me.
Since the Punchstarter wrapped in October, I’ve been in full-on work mode to get the game from dream to reality. As mentioned in some of the email updates and Discord posts, the books were ‘done’ before I launched the Kickstarter back in September. Or so I thought. Having things ‘done’ for digital release turned out to be very different than print versions. And while the books had been edited they were not scrutinized by a printer, where a bunch of minuscule details matter right down to a misaligned page number, to the CMYK of the black text, etc, etc, etc. E-books, or digital, can be quickly changed, but physical books are permanent, and the quality of your books matters a great deal to me so these things all had to be addressed before the first editions go out.
This process, tweaks-proofs-tweaks-proofs-approvals-tweaks-proofs-approvals, takes time. I was quick on my end to get the necessary changes made, but I am not the only customer on their side. We ended the year with the unboxing video showing the samples that arrived. A true ‘Pinocchio moment’ where he becomes a ‘real boy’. This made all the effort worth it. Holding Fists & Fiends in my hands after 5 years of development, words cannot express the magnificence and grandeur of the moment.
SACRIFICE AND REWARDS
Simultaneous to the pre-print production during Q4 of last year, were several key decisions I had to make. 1) Where are the Fists & Fiends books, screens, boxes going to go? 2) Where is Fists & Fiends going to be sold?
The issue of storage became a gargantuan problem to be solved. I had been in contact with warehouse/fulfillment houses prior to the Kickstarter/Punchstarter, but had to table the conversations while managing the crowdfunding campaign. Once I was able to focus more mental acumen on the logistics it quickly became apparent that the storage of Fists & Fiends at one of these companies was not a viable option for two main reasons:
First, the expenses. While the amazing support of our backers helped fund the production of Fists & Fiends, in order to meet the costs of all the books, starter kits, dice, etc., a significant contribution had to be made by me to get it over the line. The fact is, a martial arts survival horror TTRPG is a rather niche game; never mind an unknown, or new entry into a growing market of really cool games. That’s perfectly ok, and being a new game I know it will take time to build an audience and awareness.
Back to the warehousing: the cost of storing pallets of books became significant. For example, $50/month per pallet. While I don’t know specifically how many pallets we will have, I can garner it will be 4 to 8 pallets of books/boxes at the start, and possibly more. That is $200 to $400 per month, or $2400 to $4800 per year in storage fees. In context, the sale of 80 hardcover books a year would go just to paying the storage fees alone. Then, the fulfillment house takes a cut of each shipped product they do on your behalf. What about bringing books to conventions, and getting them on the shelves of local game stores? What if I run out of my own books and need more from the warehouse? Now I’m paying to ship my own product to myself (again). In the words of the not so great Vizzini, “INCONCEIVABLE!!!”.
WHAT’S YOURS IS NOT YOURS
Concurrently, a fiasco erupted in the game dev community last summer that made the decision to create my own warehouse a no-brainer. A major distributor of tabletop games and comics went bankrupt. Many small to medium game companies, and indie developers had all of their inventory stored with this distributor (think consignment). The distributor had connections with major retailers, to local game stores, so it was beneficial to do business with them and they had been around for decades.
What’s the big deal you ask? Companies go bankrupt all the time… The issue is, all of the inventory was kept by said company and was being used to pay off their debtors. Not returned to the owners of the property. Can everyone say - lawsuits…
One mid-size game company had their entire inventory stored with this company. They had to use GoFundMe to pay for lawyers to try and get their product back, or risk going bankrupt themselves. Smaller, or independent game developers had to hire lawyers as well, or accept the loss all of their product. Imagine going to crowdfunding to make your product a reality, only to have all of your inventory taken by someone and ending up with nothing.
So off to building my own warehouse in the midnight hour I went.
THE CAPITALIST CONUNDRUM
The modern marketplace is a mobius strip lined with razor blades guised as tools to help you the business owner - marketing, sales channels, and distribution. Each cut by itself may be tiny, but when you get a thousand of them each lap around the track, they will bleed you dry, especially when starting out. Every choice, matters and here’s why:
Online retailers get your product out there, or at least they used to. A growing problem with companies like Amazon, B&N, and DriveThruRPG is now, how do people find your game, book, or anything else you are selling in a giant ocean of salmagundi? The markets are flooded. Just go back to the last time you tried to find something to watch on Netflix, and instead ended up doom scrolling for two hours only to shut off the TV and go to bed. Now magnify that 1000x when trying to find a brand new, never heard of, niche tabletop role-playing game.
One cannot argue with the opportunity to gain visibility on one of these platforms. If you are found, you can get thousands of sales and exposure that you might not otherwise tap into. Growing product awareness and market share is the promise; like the monk teaching enlightenment on the mountain of 10,000 stairs. Only on this mountain, it is more likely that you climbed the stairs to find no monk, and the enlightenment is hypoxia (which is kinda better in my experience).A site like DriveThruRPG take 30% of digital sales in order to host your game. I don’t know what their print-on-demand pricing is, but when I looked at B&N Press two years ago a $60 book of lower quality (that’s print-on-demand), was going make $12 profit. That is strictly taking into account the book sale, not the work that went into it, web hosting, marketing, art, future development, etc.
The benefit is, they have access to likely millions of customers. Are you going to rise above the storm and find an audience? Or just disappear beneath the sea, only to drown. Luckily, if you have questions about such things you can find ample cries of carnage on forums, blogs, podcasts, etc., where developers/creators/authors share openly the results of their first year on one of these platforms. A common trope in these realms - “There is no money is writing a book. You don’t do it to make money.”Publishers, distributors, online storefronts, all are waiting for our creations, and our hubris. Our product is ‘the one’. Our game is going to make it big. Our dreams of success, of having thousands, and thousands of people enjoy our creation, to have it positively benefit their lives…is going to happen! These wishes drive us to cut ourselves off at the waste and drown in the silt fields before us. So while having exposure and access to online retail sites seems smart, and a good business decision, it comes with a price.
If we produce a game or product and are going to sell it, we are now a business owner. Delusions of grandeur and swinging for the home run on the first pitch, is a surefire way to strike out. Small businesses start small and grow from there. In my experience running a business for the last 21 years, word of mouth is still king of the jungle.
So if you want to know where Fists & Fiends books and starter sets will be available for purchase as they arrive in the near future, you can order them on this website alone, or find them at select local game stores. One in Ayer, Massachusetts and one in Boulder, Colorado to start.
You can also rest assured that the creator is the one watching over and defending the treasure at night when the fiends come crawling. And that I am the one who will ensure your product lands on your book shelf in the best possible state I can make it. There you have it, each book that arrives on your doorstep, will be shipped by me. Each one you pick up in a game store, was shipped by me. Old school.
Additionally, we will also have booths at select game conventions. This will strictly be in the New England area for now. You can drop into games we run at local game club gatherings and libraries to share Fists & Fiends with new audiences; those RPG enthusiasts looking for exhilarating combat and bitter challenges with even sweeter rewards.
Thanks again for joining me on this adventure. I look forward to sending you your copies of Fists & Fiends in the very near future.
Randy
