# RPG Marketing for Novitiates 101 - The Ad Copy tags: #thoughts/marketing Frankly, I absolutely love it when people have me blocked on **[X](https://x.com/squidlord)**, especially people who can really use my help. I'm sure it's because I'm friends with one of the wrong people somewhere, though not that I don't have the full capacity to piss people off directly and forget that they even exist. However we got here, I spent too much time writing a composed response not to get some use out of it, so here we are. Look, when you are promoting your game on social media, there are some things that you need to remember. [When you're writing the ad copy for the description on your DriveThruRPG game](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519933/blood-junkies), there are some things that you need to remember. Many of these things are the same thing. Let's get into that. ---  Look, I'm going to just put this out there to be helpful because making proper ad copy for a TTRPG is a challenge and an art. When we can improve it, we do so. Firstly, *don't make overblown claims about the game in the pitch*. In this case, I mean literally in the X post in which you drop your link. "The vampire game with mechanics fast enough for 100% in-character roleplay" is reasonably unjustifiable on multiple levels. For one, it implies it's the *only* one, which is kind of silly. Whatever someone's favorite vampire RPG is, they will immediately turn around and tell you their mechanics are fast enough for 100% in-character roleplay—and the cynic who's been around for a while will tell you that *all* mechanics are enough for 100% in-character roleplay because roleplay doesn't require mechanics. So you've already opened up in a way that raises the hackles for a portion of your potentially targeted audience. Not a good move. Then we get over to the **[Blood Junkies](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519933/blood-junkies)** page itself, and the first thing I see, because I'm an aficionado of the genre and I've been on the platform, is that it uses BRP. Now, *I* know that BRP is a percentile-based system with enough clunk in the skill system that it is not straightforward and fast by any modern measure. You're already starting in the hole with me. BRP has been around long enough that there are a lot of people who have some experience with it, largely through **[[Call of Cthulhu]]**, and we know that's not quite how it works. We'll get back to that. Avoid phrasing like "never been so straightforward" because people who like vampire and horror RPGs have already had good experiences with games, and you want to play to memories of how good they've had it and not simply spit in their face and tell them they were playing something substandard. You are wrestling with their good memories. You want to put yourself alongside them. You don't want to belittle them. "A clear morality system based around death" isn't a phrase that tells me anything as a player. You've got plenty of ad copy space here in the description of the game. Use it. *Tell me* about that morality system, and indirectly explain to me how it differs from the Humanity system in **[[Vampire - the Masquerade|Vampire: the Masquerade]]**, which is the 500-pound gorilla in the room. This is your opportunity, and you're just throwing it away with some foggy hand-waving. "No ancient blood gods, end-time scenarios, or ironclad hierarchy. The horror in this game is about you and your Humanity." Again, a hard sideways swipe at the 500-pound gorilla in the room, which already has an audience and whose fans might otherwise be interested in playing your game or at least adding it to their collection, but here you are telling them that what they already enjoy is inferior while reminding them of a game they already like that they could be playing instead of yours. Also, they already own it. Reaching over and grabbing the capitalized Humanity term after that last sentence again to just remind them of the possibly better game they could be playing that they already like is not a good move. "Detailed psychology helps guide your roleplay." How? Moreover, why is this better than what I might otherwise be doing? What kind of detailed psychology? Where does it apply? What are you actually communicating? Again, you have plenty of room for ad copy here in the description that you could be talking about your own game, but you're not. Then you drop three bullet points, which might be kind of interesting, except for the fact that you don't talk about what they mean—and by that, I mean all of them. You need to back that up with some examples. "Immersive play" is a phrase that has lost all meaning. I get what you're going for—you’re trying to reiterate that the mechanics are so simple that you don't have to think about them to play the game and avoid being dragged out of character immersion. But you've already tried to make that point, so either you need to provide a situation in which it's meaningful or don't bring it up again. One percentile roll telling you success and damage? Well, sure, but wouldn't it be better to actually put an example of how that works right here in the text so that someone can say, "Hey, that's actually kind of cool and creative?" I'm not sure that hit locations and realistic consequences for injury is a great pitch to put alongside, "Hey, you play an undead bloodsucking vampire." On the one hand, it can add some interesting detail, but on the other, it doesn't seem strictly necessary as a hook to get people who want to play a game about brutal vampires on board. It also directly conflicts with the bit that you just talked about regarding one roll resolving the success of a hit and the damage that it does. When does the location come in on that? Does it come in afterwards? It seems like it should probably come in between those two things in a narrative resolution rather than mechanical resolution sort of way. Is that a little bit confused? It seems like it might be. I'm not saying it doesn't need to be in the game, but I am saying that maybe it doesn't need to be in the ad copy. Overall here, the problem is there's a lot of tell, don't show, and that doesn't make for very compelling interest generation for your product. - Don't tell me about what it does. *Show* me what it does. - Don't remind me of something better that I could be doing instead of buying and playing your game. - If you're going to make a claim, back it up with an example that at least shows how you achieve what it is that you're doing. This is some basic stuff that I see a lot of TTRPG people make a dog's breakfast of on a regular basis, since the beginning of the hobby. It's an old problem, but being an old problem, we know how to do better.