How does tabletop journalism function today?
Khee Hoon asks a gazillion questions about their job and the industry.
Hey there, anklebiters! You might have realized, perhaps serendipitously, that unlike the rest of the Rascals, I’ve yet to post any sort of personal reflections at the end of last year, despite joining the site as the resident news writer back in September. Frankly there, are largely two reasons for this: the first is because I’m generally not too disposed towards self-introductions; instead, I would rather direct you to reading some of my pieces (while I’m at it, perhaps consider reading one of my favorite pieces — on Vampire: the Masquerade’s Kuei Jin — for Rascal?). The second reason is probably a bit more candid: I’m a relative fledgling to tabletop media — although I’ve done a few pieces here and there on the digital side of games journalism. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right?
But some Rascals have come to realize that this also offers an excellent opportunity for a bit of inside baseball: I ask questions, they answer them! For instance, we could share a little about the inner workings of tabletop journalism, and how this differs from the much more established video games journalism scene. We could discuss the quirks of this industry, and how tabletop media has transformed (or not!), ever since Rascal has leaped into the scene. We could talk about commonly used jargons and terms that can be confusing for the casual tabletop player. We could talk about how someone can get into tabletop journalism — like myself. In other words, this is about me pelting the rest with burning questions I have about my job and the industry, but was too embarrassed to ask. Plus, I get to meet my articles quota for the week. A win-win situation, really.
A good place to start this conversation is perhaps with myself. To cut a very long story short, I began writing about video games as a freelance journalist in 2016, all while juggling a full-time job. At first this was mostly for independent sites like Unwinnable, and eventually for mainstream sites like The Verge and Dicebreaker (shockingly, this year marks a full decade since I embarked on this career). While this is by no means the only way to becoming a games journalist, it’s by far the most straightforward one to get a foothold into the industry: write good pitches, get in touch with editors, and build a rapport with them. Rinse and repeat. This, coincidentally, is how I got in touch with Rascal as a freelancer a little more than a year ago: I pitched them a story, and they liked it. Whew! Meanwhile, other folks get in through securing a full-time job as a reporter, or starting out as a developer and pivoting to journalism (this is, admittedly, quite rare these days; the reverse is more likely to happen).
This is the barebones of the video game media industry, but I suspect that the tabletop media scene is a little different. With this in mind, I’m curious about what Chase and Thomas have to say about tabletop games journalism. How different is this media industry versus that of video games? How do tabletop games get covered — and why? What trends do you notice that are unique to the tabletop scene? And why does the industry love acronyms like PbtA, OSR and SRD so much?
Reverently,Khee Hoon
