Hi all,

I’ve been running Laidback DM, my own Table Top Role Playing Game (TTRPG) content production business since 2019. It’s a job I love, possibly more than any other I’ve had throughout my long and hectic life. But every story comes to a close, and so too, does this one. Let me explain.

After working in customer service and management for almost 25 years, I left and decided to undertake university studies to plan for the next stage of my life. After an unwise turn in IT studies, I moved to Communications and completed my degree. During that time I returned to TTRPGs, my great childhood love, and I started running games regularly and eventually producing TTRPG-content on a part time basis, funding my endeavours via the crowd funding platform known as Kickstarter. As soon as I finished my Communications degree, I realised I could undertake and support myself financially on a full time basis. I had found my new career.

I worked hard, producing books, supplements, tools and maps funded via Kickstarter and sold online via DrivethruRPG, an American site specializing in TTRPG content. I had great success in the beginning, until a few years in (around 2022) I lost my mailing list. For those of you in the business, your mailing list is your most important resource: nothing advertises your online business better than your own mailing list, so losing it and having to start again was a major issue and it took me several years to build my business back up again. Even today I still don’t have a mailing list the equivalent of what I had back in the day, and it has shown in my sales and profit margins. Despite this setback, I continued doing what I loved, which was playing, running and making TTRPG content. I’ve been very lucky to be one of those who could make a full time career out of my hobby.

Of course, sometimes life gets in the way, and I found over time I was devoting more and more time to caring for my elderly parents. This impacted my ability to reliably run games and produce content. I’m now at the point where sacrifices need to be made, and the prospect of “retirement”, with a supporting superannuation pension from my previous career, beckons.

And so I’m announcing my retirement from full time TTRPG-content creation. What does this mean in practice? I’ll still be producing TTRPG products on a part time basis – they will be less frequent and won’t be launched through Kickstarters. Instead, I’ll release products straight to my DrivethruRPG store and notify my customers via my mailing list (so now’s a good time to sign up here if you haven’t already).

I’ve loved every minute of my time running a full time business devoted to cool TTRPG-content, most of which can be found on DrivethruRPG at my online store. I won’t be releasing products as often as I have in the past, and they won’t have the full-on Kickstarter release fanfare, but they will still be created with the love and commitment I’ve given all my products.

For those of you who have supported me over the years, I want to say thank you so much – I couldn’t have done it without you.

Here’s to the next stage of my career – retirement. I’ll still be producing TTRPG products, but on a less stringent schedule. Here’s to living, writing, travelling and caring for those I love. Heck, it ain’t over yet. I’ll see you all soon.

Cheers

Steve, Laidback DM

P.S. This site ain’t going nowhere! I’ll still be publishing free maps, the occasional book and/or product review, announcing new TTRPG products and sales, etc. I’d like to think I’m just getting started…