Who am I?
Will Hindmarch, a professional game designer, writer, and event producer.

My fiction and essays appear in books like The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities and Wonderbook. In addition to developing tabletop roleplaying games, such as Vampire: The Requiem and Odyssey, I co-founded Gameplaywright Press with the stellar designer, Jeff Tidball. Together we publish books like Hamlet's Hit Points. I also serve as Assistant Director of the Shared Worlds creative-writing camp and co-produce the Design Games podcast with Nathan D. Paoletta.

Put another way, I'm a dramaturge and narratologist specializing in world-building, gameplay, and fictional spaces. So these creations are about magic circles as shared spaces for narrative play — how we make and manage them, share and protect them, define and defy them. It's about tabletop RPGs, story games, video games, board games, storytelling shows, and more.

Inside the magic circle, things are possible that we would doubt and deny outside the circle.

That's pretty showy talk. All I mean is that I'm looking for more ways to write and talk about make-believe worlds and how we work and play in them. We'll talk about creative pursuits, about creativity as work, about game design and narrative design, plus more.

Why this?
As a full-time writer, I find it difficult to make time for essays, letters, recordings, and adventures that don't help me make rent. Even with my schedule full enough to make ends meet, liquidity can be an issue as I sit on funds assigned to print cards and pay taxes, for example. I'd write more essays like those in my series, "No Clues Without Consequence," if I had the time. And I could justify the time if it helped keep me in coffee and journals.

Patreon helps me cut that knot.

What do you get?
Foremost, you get to read the essays, play the game adventures, and hear the podcasts that'll result from your assistance. Some of these will come to you, the supports, before they go out to the public. Sometimes these will go out into the world, for free or for sale, because you helped summon them into existence. Your participation here gets you early content, often at a bargain price, and a chance to weigh in that the general public doesn't always get.

For example, I've got my notes and materials from talks at Metatopia and PAX Dev to adapt and share with you. I've got one more post to add to that GUMSHOE series at Medium. Lots more coming in text, audio, and maps. Our episodes of Design Games are funded via Patreon, for example.

You also get some direct electronic correspondence from me in the form of messages for patrons only — because sometimes a letter beats a blog entry. (And because blogging sometimes feels like singing to an empty house.)

Also, I buy and write pretty terrific thank-you cards, if I do say so myself.

How Does This Work?
When I can, I produce a new thing — be it an essay, an adventure, a podcast — and when I share it, you and/or the public gets the thing. It might be a post someplace, a PDF, or an MP3, for example. If you're backing at an apt level to receive bonus rewards, you get those, too.

I aim to produce a new creation most months, but some months you'll get more material than others. I don't anticipate charging patrons more than twice per month and I'll warn you first. I can't fault any of you for not wanting to pay twice or thrice per month — I'm grateful for whatever you can spare to help me pay for these hours.

With your assistance, I can shake loose some new notions and help us explore wondrous, imaginary places.

Want to help?