Crafting a Pitch

Hey everyone! I'm back after... 2 months? That's a long time!. I'll keep this post short, it's really just a brain dump as I work out pitches for my personal campaigns. In the next week or two I'll put something more substantial on y'all's plates, once I get back into the swing of things.

Anyways, today we're going to talk about making a pitch - what, why, and how.

The What and Why

A pitch is a short bite of information that describes what your game's about. Here I'm using game to mean anything from an RPG system (Mork Borg is a game) to a personal campaign or adventure (someone's playthrough of Honey in the Rafters is a game).

Pitches should be short, really short in my opinion. They ought to be just enough to get the players an idea of what the campaign is about, who their characters might be, and what tropes or genre conventions might exist. Essentially, a pitch calibrates the players' expectations.

 

Pitches also direct the players. They tell them what kind of motivations their characters ought to have and what their expected behavior should be like. Are they mercenaries completing missions for gold? Are they knights investigating myths around the kingdom? These directions tell the players that this is a game about x, so don't create a character who's all about doing y.

All in all, pitches inform genre/trope expectations, give initial direction to the players, and bring everybody into a common understanding of what the game is about.

The How

I made a formula to write a pitch just now, and I'm going to test it out. Replace the words in brackets:

[characters] [what they're doing] in a [tone] [setting]. Like [relevant media]. Expect [player expectations]

 

For my personal Mausritter campaign, that might look like "mice investigating rumors in a magical animal world. Like the Tale of Despereaux, but more magical. Expect nonviolent problem solving."

 

Not only does this pitch tell us who the characters must be (brave mice interested in investigation), but also informs some tonal elements (the game is not grim animal fiction, but more upbeat) and provides initial direction (there'll be rumors to investigate from the start).

Let's try it for a rules system then, perhaps Dungeons and Dragons 5e: "heroes saving the day together in a upbeat high fantasy world. Like Honor Among Thieves (it was low hanging fruit). Expect emotionally messy character drama."

 

These two games are quite different, and their pitches reflect that.

 

Lastly, a pitch for my system, Jangli: "Nobles and courtiers scheming for the crown in a grim fictional Konkan. Like Bajirao Mastani if there was more interwoven mythology. Expect scratch paper maps, trading clues, and well earned triumph."

A Final Pitch for Pitches

In writing that pitch for Jangli, I realized how poorly crafted the game's original premise was. It was trying to be too many things - a mythic fantasy adventure game, a Game of Thrones-like period drama, and even a Thugs of Hindostan style swashbuckling adventure. Writing the pitch solidified what the system was and what it wasn't.

If you're prepping a game, consider a pitch! Turn your fluid puddle of inspirations into a concrete base to build upon.