For any who do not know who I am, my name is Scott Harshbarger and I have been a working freelance artist and illustrator since 2002. Most of my work has been published in tabletop game industry products, but I've done a lot of other stuff too. I got my start in The Bestiary of Krynn (a D&D 3.x Dragonlance source book) back in 2002. I only did a couple monsters, but it was a place to start. From there I did several interior illustrations for several different companies, worked on a few covers here and there, and eventually met a couple dudes in 2005 who shared my vision of starting a company. Harsh Realities was born. Several long road trips from Indiana to Missouri and seven long years later, we finally produced Sixcess Core. We released it at GenCon 2012 to some meager fanfare, and made a bit of a splash running too many events for sanity or health to remain intact. It was a rough working week/weekend for all of us, but we felt we did something worth noting.
Shortly after we initiated a Kickstarter for Promised Sands (a reboot of the 2003 Promised Sands from Bbrack Productions), and another for ElfWood (our first in-house setting). Both funded, but we over-extended ourselves from the very beginning. Rookie mistakes and overconfidence in hindsight. That's about the time both my partner's lives fell apart. The one who is still with me part-time had some pretty serious health issues. Thankfully he recovered, moved to Florida, and is doing well today. He doesn't have as much time as he used to, but we're still in regular contact. The other partner's life imploded entirely. All the Kickstarter money went with it. All the promises to produce anything for HR went with it as well. He was our project manager and head writer/editor. I had some decisions to make.
By late 2014/early 2015, now in Texas, I had decided Harsh Realities and the products I had poured myself into was worth saving. I took over the company and started trying to figure out how to revive it. As I dug into the first Kickstarter to put together the Promised Sands book, I was also getting feedback from players who liked Sixcess, but had issues with some of it. Those suggested changes plus what I was seeing Promised Sands would need convinced me the first thing I needed to do was make Sixcess 2nd Edition. I hadn't written anything seriously since college - about 15 years.
Writing and editing the book were difficult processes for me, but I dedicated myself to it. I had to work on the side - nights and weekends - because I still needed to pay the rent, and I never received a penny from either Kickstarter. I did my level best to whip it into shape, and found a couple skilled editors to help me bring it home. Layout was something I knew well enough, but I balked at the heavy graphics needed for some charts at a time when my workload was pushing 70-100 hours a week. I stepped away to focus on getting my workload queue cleared. It ate at me daily that I had so much on my shoulders, and it felt like nothing was getting done.
Time passed. I worked when I could, but I was stuck juggling projects for over a year as finances pinched us and deadlines choked me. Harsh Realities needed a shot in the arm if I was going to relaunch the company and update the product catalog as planned. I decided to double down in late 2017/early 2018 and make 2018 the year that things got published - one way or another.
I used Inktober and Drawlloween (two annual art challenges in the month of October) to motivate myself. Every piece created for both of them in 2017 is being utilized on some HR product. I stepped up my graphic design game, and figured out the last of the issues causing snags in layout. And I rebranded everything from the ground up to prepare for the relaunch.
I'm nearly finished with layout on Sixcess 2nd Edition now, and plan to have it available soon. Working almost entirely solo on these projects is not advisable. If you are interested in creating tabletop products, I would highly advise developing a team of reliable experts to help you do so. I'm currently the designer, writer, in-house editor, project manager, administrator, production manager, illustrator, graphic designer, layout artist, quality control, marketing director, and CEO of Harsh Realities. And I may have overlooked a thing or two there. Point is, it's a LOT of hats to wear for one person. Too many. I'll make it, and I'm not complaining - I made this bed after all, so I can sleep in it - but I am offering a cautionary tale. Too many tabletop start-ups start and fail because they are not properly prepared for what lies ahead of them. Having an idea is the easy part.
Ok. I've got work to do so that I can come back on here some day soon and tell you all that it's finished!
Thanks for reading. Cheers!
Harsh