Diving into DMs Guild and Pathfinder Infinite with Elise Cretel
DMs Guild, Pathfinder Infinite, and the future of a TTRPG creator in an unsteady landscape
This year has been shaky for those who work in Tabletop RPGs. Starting from the very beginning of the year, the leading company of the industry, Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), decided they wanted to change their Open Game License (OGL). This brought a massive pushback from creators and hobbyists alike. Thankfully, WOTC backed down.
Then came the downfall of Twitter, thanks to the terrible decisions made by their new owner. Reddit then followed suit. Both of the platforms had massive TTRPG communities, that are now scrambling to find a new home.
With all of the instability in the industry, I wanted to chat with someone who I knew from long before all of this happened and see how some creators are paving their way forward. Elise Cretel is one of the first people I worked with when I first started out. I was the Cartography Lead on the first Through the Veil, Feywild Series book, and Elise was the Project Lead. Since then, Through the Veil Book Series have garnered thousands of sales on DMs Guild, earning the titles of Platinum, Gold, and Copper Best Sellers.
Domille (D): Tell us a bit about yourself. How and why did you get into TTRPG publishing?
Elise Cretel (E): Hey everyone! I am a TTRPG game designer and project lead. I have created content for the DM’s Guild and Drive Thru RPG for over four and a half years and I recently started publishing content on Pathfinder Infinite. I have freelanced for Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) am one of the founding member of Chuck Palahniuk’s Plot Spoiler, and have published in productions from HitRecord. I occasionally stream in TTRPG spaces such as Penny for a Tale.
I got started in the DM’s Guild by being involved with the TTRPG community. I used to be into streaming in the D&D community and after an interview with some folks who created DM’s Guild content, Micah Watt (Pyromaniac Press) asked me to create content for his Undermountain the Lost: Chambers project. Their team showed me the ropes and I have been creating content ever since. I am a lifelong gamer and wanted to do game design since high school. I also really enjoy writing, so TTRPG game design has been a good fit for me.
(D): What are some of the titles you are most known for?
(E): The Through the Veil, Feywild series are probably my most popular titles. Sea Shanties a Bardic Guide and Tartarus: Journey into the Underworld are some other projects I lead. Peculiar Potions is my first release on Pathfinder Infinite. This was part of the #JuneJamfinder project.
(D): What was your experience with DMs Guild?
(E): For now, Monsters of the Feywild will be my last release on the guild due to the OGL thing, but the experience with the DM’s Guild has been a good one. The staff is super friendly and helpful. They always respond to any email questions I have. I know some folks in the community are not a huge fan of the percentage of royalties taken by these sites, but I think it is worth it in regards to access to the IP and the perks that come along with publishing on the DM’s Guild and similar sites. They handle a lot of the print on demand stuff so I don’t have a garage full of books. Their site divvies out all the royalties once I plug in creator info so I don’t have to math every month and send out royalty checks. The site does all that work for me. They also run seasonal promotionals and it has been pretty exciting to be a part of the Roll20 conversions. There is a great team of folks working over on the DM’s Guild!
(D): What do you think were some of the most important aspects that contributed to the success of your titles on DMs Guild?
(E): Working with a large team of talented folks I think is one of the biggest contributors. When I was part of the HitRecord community, they always pushed the idea that we make better stuff when we make things together. I got used to being a part of huge teams on projects during that time and I think a lot of how we did things over there carried over into my DM’s Guild work as a project lead. I feel comfortable having teams of 50 or 60 folks on the big books and I make sure every creator gets a cut of the pie through royalties, just like we did over on HitRecord.
I also have additional stages in my production that are peer oriented. Writers and artists have a chance to both give and receive feedback. Writers go through the peer review process before editorial and artists post their progress in our Discord and comment on each other's work. Folks on my creative teams are good at cheering one another on, but still giving constructive feedback so we can all grow together. It makes for longer production times, but I think it adds to the quality to the product and we have all improved with time. It really shows in each release. I couldn’t ask to work with a better group of folks. I have a kind, professional, and talented team. There is no way I could have done any of this solo.
(D): Why did you switch to Pathfinder Infinite?
(E): I had been interested in trying Pathfinder since 2018. I used to go to the Poe Museum Unhappy Hour events and chat with TTRPG folks in the community. One time someone was talking about Pathfinder and how gritty the rules were and all the cool wizard spells. The dice roles really mattered in games. Ever since then, I have been looking for a Pathfinder game.
When the OGL thing happened, it really hurt people in the TTRPG community, folks on my creative teams, and myself. It was a roller coaster ride emotionally. I had planned to create content for the DM’s Guild for some time and was ramping up another trilogy to start production. It felt like the TTRPG third party game designers were D&D’s biggest cheerleaders. We built content for not a lot of money as side gigs while we worked normal full time jobs. We ran games at conventions. We all loved the game. It was our life. When the “new” OGL was announced, I felt like third party creators were a box of baby displacer beasts that got dumped off in some dark alley in Waterdeep. Production schedules for us project leads were wrecked. Productions went to a screeching halt across the community. I also felt bad for all the WoTC staff and creators. They are talented and you know they love the game just as much as we do. There were rumors about folks worried about their jobs. They too were at the mercy of the upper echelon who answered to the shareholders and made company decisions from some corporate office in Phyrexia. As a project lead, it didn’t feel safe creating content for D&D5e any more. I felt like I would always have to worry about the Dark Brotherhood showing up with a dagger to tell us that third party D&D is no more. For me, it was time to move on to other TTRPGs.
While the OGL crisis was in full spiral, I felt like the heroes for us third party content creators were Kobold Press and Paizo announcing new open game licenses for folks to use. It gave me a huge sense of relief. I felt like I had somewhere to go as a creator. Paizo has now completed their final draft of their OGL, the ORC license, and we definitely have it on our creative radar. While the OGL drama unfolded, I was buying Pathfinder 2e books and looking for a group to play with. (I got lucky and snagged mine before they all sold out during the D&D5e exodus.) I now play a goblin wizard named Spark in a weekly Pathfinder 2e game.
Folks began leaving the DM’s Guild in droves to seek safer creative shores, and I noticed a fellow creator, Alan Tucker releasing content on Pathfinder Infinite. I was really liking Pathfinder 2e, so I checked it out and it ended up being the DM’s Guild of the Pathfinder and Starfinder world. I was pretty excited about this, so I started looking for creator groups that make content for Pathfinder Infinite and stumbled into the Infinite Possibilities Discord. The folks there are super welcoming and helpful. Helen and Tony run the Discord, a newsletter, and a youtube channel, We’re Strong Together that reviews Pathfinder Infinite content. The folks there are super welcoming and helpful. The folks in the Discord encourage each other and helped me with all my newb questions. They also let me join in the #JuneJamfinder project! Alan Tucker also started a Pathfinder 2e side quest project on his Indie Games Cooperative Discord server. I ended up contributing to both projects. Peculiar Potions was my first release over on Pathfinder Infinite and I am currently creating more content.
(D): What are some differences between DMs Guild and Pathfinder Infinite?
(E): Pathfinder Infinite still has that nice small town feel the DM’s Guild had when I started over there, a long time ago. Back then the only DM’s Guild group for a while was the Facebook group of tight knit creators like Micah Watt, Phil Beckwith, Alan Tucker, Iam Pace, Joe Raso, Jeff Stevens, and others. Everyone was really welcoming and helpful toward the newcomers. Later the DM’s Guild got big like level 10 gug. Your titles no longer stayed on the new release bar all week. Titles got buried under a waterfall of releases as the popularity of publishing content grew fast. As a project lead, I had to start reaching out to reviewers and content creators after each release so projects didn’t get buried. New groups of creators were popping up everywhere. The DM’s guild really hit its golden age before the OGL crisis hit. Quality of some of the books was high and there were a lot of options as a GM and a player for the game we all loved.
Pathfinder Infinite is a smaller space, and your releases stay on the new release bar for a little while, which is nice. What is exciting is that there are a lot of gaps to fill content wise. It is a new frontier for me; I now have a chance to create things I never got to make over on the DM’s Guild because there was already a ton of content available. My creativity has been through the roof lately because there is so much that I want to make. I pretty much started making mini supplements for consumables, which is kind of funny, since I started out making huge books, and now I am making the small stuff. Once I get some smaller projects done on Pathfinder Infinite, I will start getting more group projects going with my creative teams. Like most of my medium and large projects, there will also be calls for creators. I make an effort to get new creators onboard of all my medium or larger projects. Keep an eye on my social media and my Discord for calls for creators. (Send me a DM if you would like an invite to my Red Knight Inn Discord server.)
(D): Are there any differences to the approach of publishing on either platform that contribute to a success of any given title?
(E): Right now I am releasing small stuff on Pathfinder Infinite to try it out, but I will go back to my usual medium and large TTRPG productions in the future. It is hard to judge what titles will be successful. I usually don’t create stuff based on what's popular or what books the industry is launching. I create stuff because I think it is interesting and there is a gap that needs to be filled. In Plot Spoiler, Chuck always encourages us to write what we want to write instead of chasing what is mainstream or will sell. “Don’t write to be liked” as he puts it. I am a big believer in that approach to creativity.
To be honest I didn’t expect any of my early projects to do well. Through the Veil: Tales of the Feywild was supposed to be a small project with a handful of writers and some stock art. It was a conversation in a Discord server and I never expected to create a trilogy when planning my first DM’s Guild project. Since it was my first project, I thought it would fall off the new release bar and disappear into howling depths of Pandemonium. A lot of people were interested in contributing when I did calls for creators and the creative team wanted to make more books, so I said yes, let’s do it! The creative team’s enthusiasm is a big reason why we did three books. We were pretty passionate about the setting and it really shows in everyone’s contributions. I also did not expect WoTC to put out a Feywild book. I was really excited about the Witchlight release and I think that really helped to send some attention to our Feywild series. Everyone was excited to create Feywild content once WoTC’s Feywild campaign was released, but since The Feywild gap was now filled in, I felt ready to move to another plane creativity wise.
(D): Do you have any final advice for those who want to publish either on DMs Guild or Pathfinder Infinite?
(E): If you are interested in creating any form of TTRPG content, check out what publication options are available. Community content options such as Drive Thru RPG, Pathfinder Infinite, and their sister sites are great places to start. There are communities built around publishing in these spaces, and working on group projects, lead by folks in the communities, is a great way to learn the ins and outs of game design and publishing. It is a great stepping stone toward other publication options such as doing a Kickstarter or submitting a book to the big publishers who release in the book stores once you have several years under your belt. Never be afraid to level up your publishing game by trying more than one publication option. I know I put all my dragon eggs in the DM’s Guild basket and I was scrambling a bit to figure out where to move my productions once the OGL news initially struck the creative community. If you are in a rut from the OGL thing, look at other games and creative communities out there. Work on something small to get started. We can all keep publishing and creating games we love. We all have hit those creative slumps and switching gears can really help pull us out of those tough spots. Breaks are ok too.
Once you know what game you want to create content for, study the system. Look at the books, forums, third party content and streams out there. Pay attention to what the community is excited about in games as well as constructive feedback for the system. These can be great inspiration for building solid new content.
Pick up any style guides or templates available. You will thank yourself later if you land an industry gig for one of your favorite games. The DM’s Guild has a free style guide as well as templates for sale for popular software platforms such as Affinity Publisher and Indesign. Pathfinder Infinite also has templates for sale, but they don’t have a style guide quite yet. I tried emailing Paizo to ask for a style guide and they said they did not have one available to community creators yet. Hopefully that changes in the future. (I volunteer myself as tribute to help make one if Paizo ever needs community help to get one out there on Pathfinder Infinite.) I think style guides are a really important tool for making sharp and consistent looking content. Readers like content that looks similar to the industry books they have purchased so they can easily navigate content, while still having the creative flair that community layout designers offer.
Always keep a writing notebook with you. It can be a plain spiral notebook or one of those cool investigator pads. It will get you writing more and you won’t forget ideas while you are out and about. I personally like the hardcover blank books sold at the bookstores as they seem to stay together a little better after getting lugged all over the place. You can always type your stuff in the word processor later.
If you are a women, disabled, part of the LGBTQIA+ community, a person of color, a veteran, or other minority group, please respond to those calls for creators and apply for the jobs postings in the industry. Don’t be afraid to lead community projects. We need your diverse voices to be heard!
Participate in gaming conventions! Donate signed books for their raffles and run your content for the community. Play in other people’s games. Go to panels and listen to other creators. Gaming conventions are a blast and a great way to meet other creators.
If folks around you try to discourage you when you talk about publishing content, ignore them and publish content anyway. Find game design spaces or forums for support. It is ok if your first adventure is not an Ed Greenwood, Amanda Hamon, or Chris Perkins level masterpiece. We all have to start at the beginning and we all keep getting better if we work at it. I used to sit at the art table in high school and talk about how I wanted to do game design. Folks would roll their eyes and say, yeah sure you will. I will hit my 5 year anniversary creating published TTRPG content this November.
Keep your social media presence professional! Your social media is public. The industry as well as us third party game designers look at social media as part of our hiring or onboarding processes for community projects. Make sure you are treating others with respect online as well as on projects as a participant.
Share other people’s content on social media. Engage with the community. This will keep your social media spaces more interesting for others. Folks will keep on scrolling by if a page is nothing but the same promotional posts and nothing else. I like that Rising Tide promotes us all rising together and supporting one another. I think that is a really important element for a strong creative community. We are not here to compete with one another. We are here to help each other grow.
Whether you are new to TTRPG game design, or a long time veteran, taking time to join writer’s workshops is some of the most important advice I can give. Not just workshops in game design, but writing workshops for storytellers. If you have joined a writers guild or workshop and it was not a good fit, try another one! For me, reading Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything was Different. (content warning, Chuck is a horror author so his work is very HBO. He is infamous for making people faint during his short story readings.) and joining Plot Spoiler pulled me out of a major TTRPG writer’s block. I felt like I could not get my dungeon design to the next level, and studying storytelling from one of my favorite authors got me writing again. Plot Spoiler has writing lessons, writing prompts, breakdowns of story elements, analysis of other people’s writing and explanations regarding why things worked or didn’t work. I have been in the program for over a year now and I feel like it has already had a positive impact on my writing and my motivation to create. This was a good fit for me after trying a few different spaces. Find a workshop or writers group that is a good fit for you. Go into game design and writing with the mindset that there is always something new you can learn to improve your creative game.
Exploring game design resources is also helpful. Youtube has game design lectures as well as storytelling lectures which I have found useful. Kobold Press also has a great line of books on game design worth exploring.
(D): Any additional final thoughts.
(E): The Pathfinder creator space is a small pond compared to D&D. There are some great Pathfinder 2e streamers and content creators, but not as many as there are for D&D. If you are passionate about Pathfinder 2e and excited to make content such as lore videos, rules analysis, GM tips, live plays, Pathfinder infinite and third party content reviews, this is a great space to get started! Get out there and start making content! I am excited about Pathfinder 2e like when I switched to D&D5e after 4e, and I know I would like to see more Pathfinder themed content. Many new players are headed to Pathfinder 2e, so if you are well versed in the game, this is a great opportunity to make content and share your knowledge to others. There are a lot of folks excited about videos and podcasts in the Pathfinder space, and there are already a lot of Pathfinder Infinite creators interested in sending free content to folks interested in doing reviews for third party content. So if you are interested in doing reviews, this is a great space to get started! The Sly Strategist is a great example of new reviewers out there making great content!
If you have questions about creating content, writing, or leading productions, my DMs are always open on all social media channels and Discord. I enjoy helping new creators get involved in TTRPG game design.
Written by:
Elise Cretel
TTRPG Game Designer, Author, and Project Lead
🦋 Twitter | https://twitter.com/DNDElise
🐘 Mastodon | https://mstdn.social/@DNDElise
✨ DM's Guild | https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Elise%20Cretel
👾 Itch.io | https://dndelise.itch.io/
Edited by: Simon Wonser (Indoor Adventurer)
Image Credits: Joshua Meehan, Birdee Blake, Laura Galli, Olivia Hintz
