TTRPG Retirement Plans, or Lack Thereof (Expanded Post) (Patreon)

This is an "Expanded Post," a Patreon-exclusive version of a blog post available to the general public. I appreciate the support you all give me, and a weekly Expanded Post is a new way I'm trying to show you my appreciation.

There are, as far as I know, only six realistic retirement plans for full-time, ttRPG professionals in the United States--and calling them "realistic" is debatable. This is not a happy or upbeat list of options, and it doesn't come with any problem-solving or brilliant insights on my part. This is just the state of the industry, as I know it.

You can think of this as an unusually long #RealGameIndustry entry.

I'll note that a lot of the these options boil down to "Make it big, beat the odds, gain a huge fanbase." It's difficult to do, and there's no sure path of success, but if you an get 1,000 or so diehard fans to support you with everything you do on a monthly-or-so basis, it's much easier for things like passive income and even just still working past retirement age to support you.

Company Retirement Account

A few of the biggest ttRPG-producing companies have things like 401k programs, a few with some degree of matching funds. It can be tough to put much away in these, as in most cases pay barely covers living expenses, but if you can, and you manage to work at the same company for 30 years or so (which is also extremely rare), it may build up a big enough account to cover you in retirement.

Personal Retirement Account

You can, of course, create your own retirement account and put money in it, with or without some period of time when you have corporate matching funds. This is the "best" option for most full-time freelancers... who on average make even less money (and thanks to paying for their own health insurance and paying self-employment tax often have higher expenses), which makes it even harder to put anything away for the future. And, of course, no matching funds.

Build A Passive Income

Though royalty deals, maintaining ownership or partial ownership of the products you create, starting your own company, or some similar plan, you can try to set up passive income -- that is, money you work for once that then keeps coming in. I have profit-share deals with more than 500 products sold as pdfs. Most older files sell only a few copies a year now, but that IS an income that keeps coming in even when I don't do much or any work on maintaining it. I myself haven't even gotten this near a level of retirement income, but that doesn't mean it can't be done, or at least be part of a retirement plan.

Have a Spouse With A Real Retirement

Yep, this sounds like I am being glib, but I have had multiple ttRPG professionals tell me they only believe they have any hope of retirement because they have a spouse with a solid corporate retirement plan or the spare income to invest in their own retirement account. It would be dishonest not to include this as among the common plans within the industry.

Depend on State Benefits

Be that Medicare, Social Security, Disability, or some other program, I know many ttRPG professionals who just assume at some point they'll only have whatever the government gives them, and will have to survive on whatever that allows. Most are not optimistic about the quality of life this will allow, and many have tried to make other arrangements, only to have them fall through.

Don't

This is honestly the most common "retirement plan" ttRPG professionals have talked to me about - Don't Retire. Work until they die. Assume that there will never be a time when we don't have to put in 40-80 hours a week to earn enough to maintain an at-least marginal existence.

I personally call this the "Die at the keyboard" plan.

Seventh Option -- Leave the Industry

While it's not exactly an option "within the ttRPG industry," there is a seventh common solution to the retirement conundrum taken by ttRPG professionals -- they leave the industry. A very small number manage to transition from ttRPG writing to (at least marginally) more lucrative creative work, including novel writing, computer games, comic writing, and management positions in non-game companies.

But even more common is for creatives to just give up and walk away from creating fiction/game content entirely. A huge chunk of the people I worked with in the Wizards of the Coast RPG R&D department 21 years ago simply don't work within the industry, or any related industry, anymore. Some are ad agency grunts, others work in food service or as typical office drones. We're talking about people who were employed in the biggest ttRPG game department that existed at the time, during the launch of one of the most successful games it's ever produced, and not only are many of them not even in creative industries at all anymore, an even bigger percentage aren't working in the ttRPG field anymore.

These are all people who arguable made it to the very top of the ttRPG industry, and found it could not sustain them even for day-to-day lives, much less retirement.

Speaking of Making a Living

There is an extended version of this article on my Patreon, available only to patrons. You can join for as little as the cost of a cup of coffee a month, and it's one of my primary forms of support to put out my essays, letters, background,  context, and of course game content in an effort to make the ttRPG industry a better place.