#tiny table

Yeah a bunch. Each one of these could basically be its own post, but here are the condensed versions.

Social Media

You need social media. No one will ever hear of your game without a strong social media presence. And as much as it sucks, your best bet is probably tumblr. It’s the only populated social media site that allows your posts to be widely circulated without you having to pay, and also long form enough to actually include information. I dedicate one day a week entirely to social media and that’s just about the only reason we make any money at all.

Also, when using tumblr, the first five tags you put on a post are the most important, those are the tags that make it show up on people’s dashboards. The first twenty tags are the ones that make it show up in search results. Don’t put the name of your game in the first five tags generally, because if no one has heard of it yet, no one is following those tags.

Don’t Paywall Your Game

You deserve to be paid for your work if you indeed did any work at all (we’ll get to that), but that just isn’t the world we live in. Unless you have an advertising budget to essentially trick people into buying a game that might end up being crap, you need something to prove that your game is worth spending money on. Without an advertising budget, that proof has to be your game. Setting your game to pay-what-you-want, or providing “community copies,” lets people try your game before they buy. Plenty of people will buy up-front when given the option, and others who can’t afford it at that moment will download it for free then come back and pay later. Some people will never pay, but what that means for you is that they either never experience your game, or they pirate it. People experiencing your game, showing it to their friends, and talking about it is one of the most valuable pieces of advertisement you can ever have. It will ultimately lead to more people who are willing and able to pay learning about your game.

Start Small but Not Too Small

Do not make a one-page game for your first game. Do not be like us and make a 700-page game for your first game. Try to aim for something between 20 and 200 pages, especially if you’re one person or a small team.

Play and Read a lot of RPGs or Your Game Will Suck

Would you watch a movie by a director who had only ever watched one movie? Would you read a book by an author who had only ever read one book? Hell no, those would suck.

Read many rpg rulebooks, from many different genres and decades, play as many of them as you can (by the rules) to understand how the rules work and why they’re there. This will give you the creative tools you need to make something that isn’t just a weaker version of the last RPG you played. No, listening to "actual plays" does not count.

Most actual plays stray significantly from presenting a regular gameplay experience in favor of an experience that is entertaining for an audience. If you want to learn martial arts, you should be watching martial arts tournaments, not WWE.

If you want an actual play podcast that has my “actually mostly presents a real gameplay experience” approval, try Tiny Table.

If you say you don’t have time to read rulebooks, then you don’t have time to design a good game. Studying is part of the process of creating. If you don't, you won't even know about gleeblor.

This will let you know whether your "innovation" is more like "Cars don't need to run on gasoline!" or "Cars don't need crumple zones and airbags!"

The Rules Matter, So Design with Intent

The rules matter the rules fucking matter holy shit what you actually write down on the page matters I can’t believe this is actually the seemingly most needed piece of advice on this list. The. rules. matter.

Design your game to be played in the way you designed it. The rules affect the tone and genre of your game, they affect the type of people PCs can be and the kind of stories that will result from gameplay. Bonuses encourage PC behaviors, penalties discourage PC behaviors.

Do not fall for the trap of “oh well people will just play it their own way based on vibes anyway so it doesn’t matter what I write the rules to be.” Write that you wrote this game to be played by the rules and that significant changes to the rules mean that players are no-longer playing the game you made. Write like you deserve for your art to be acknowledged by its audience. If you don’t, then there is no point in anyone playing the game you made, because if the person who wrote it doesn’t even care what the rules say, why should anyone? The people whose “playing” of TTRPGs consists of never opening the rulebook and improving based on “vibes” will still do that no matter what, but the people who would have actually tried to engage with your game will find that it sucks if you don’t even care what the rules are yourself.

Playtest

You need to playtest your game if you want it to work as intended. You need multiple sets of eyes on it. If you don’t have the opportunity personally to do so, just release your game anyway with the acknowledgement that it’s unfinished. Call it an alpha or a beta version, and ask for people that do play it to give feedback, then update and fix the game based on that feedback.

Ignore Feedback

Most people do not have any game design credibility, perhaps least of all TTRPG players. You do not, in fact, have to listen to everything people say about your game. Once you ask for feedback, people will come to you with the most deranged, asinine, bad-faith “feedback” you can imagine, and then get really mad at you when you don’t fall to your knees and kiss their feet about it. You do not need to take this feedback at face value, instead you need to learn to read between the lines and find out which parts of the rules text are being misinterpreted by players, and which incorrect assumptions players are making about your game. Then, you update and improve the game by clearing those up. Only like 30% of “feedback” you receive will actually be a directly helpful suggestion in its own right at face value.

You can’t please everyone, and shouldn’t, so appeal to the people who actually like your game for being what it is, not the people who don’t.

Read Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Yeah this one sounds self-serving but hear me out. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is as much a treatise on TTRPG game design as it is a game itself. When it presents mechanics and rules, it tells you what they are, why they are, how they are, and what you’re intended to do with them. This makes it an excellent example to read for anyone wanting to get serious about game design and learn how TTRPGs tick under the hood, and an excellent example of a TTRPG that expects players to play it the way it was written to be played, and why that is a good thing. Also you can download it for free.

Hi, we are Tiny Table! We play new tabletop role playing games every month. Our format consists of a rules breakdown episode, 3-4 actual play episodes, a post mortem episode where we talk about what did and did not work for us, and finally, an interview with the creator of the game!

And we want to play your game! Yes, your game! Send your ttrpg games to [email protected] and we will review it. If we think it's a good fit, we will add it to our community poll here on tumblr!

Excited to read your creations :)

It is now coming up on two years I've been writing and editing this game. And I am immensely proud of the work I've put into this. This is now the third playtest I've released to the public. Since releasing the Second Alpha, it has been nominated and ran in the @anim-ttrpgs book club and is now being featured in an actual play by @tinytablepodcast.

Clutch is an exploration survival game with lite tactical elements that focuses heavily on character customization. It about exploring the ruins of the United States 50 years after a Rift in reality collapsed society and brought forth magic and psionics into our world.

Player characters in Clutch have no preset class or abilities, as this game focuses on high customization. You wanna make a giant woman who becomes a gianter woman? You can do that. You want to play a werewolf mage, you can probably do that to. Using a combination of Edges, Spells, Psionic Talents, and Bonds.

Enemies or Threats as they are called, have been completely reworked and follow a similar philosophy having 5 basic statblocks that have traits that can be layered on top of them.

Within the new update are rules for settlements and social class. New pieces of art. Special ammunition like Boxing Glove Arrows and Dragon's Breath Shotgun Shells. New diseases. And drugs. Because this is a game heavily inspired by Fallout.

Additionally the Mojave Jumpstart Module has been updated to include the new rules.

If you wish to support me you can find the game here:

You can also support me on Patreon here:

I also recommend checking out the Tiny Table Podcast's playthrough of Clutch here:

The Vesta Clinic thank you for showing how treatment doesn't have to demeaning. As a person with Conditions(tm) I don't like hospitals much. But listening to The Vesta Clinic is soothing to a certain degree. All the characters had very satisfying arcs this season, especially dr Adra and overall I really loved how there were more personal moments. And all the cases were super interesting/touching/amusing! Can't wait for the season 3!

Two Thousand And Late. Thank you for being angry. No, thank you for being ANGRY. I think we all feel that way right now, no matter where we are in the world. This show is wonderfully done and the dynamic between two main characters is excellent. Sometimes you even forget they're voiced by one person. Some moments hit a little too close to home, but not necessarily in a bad way but in a way you feel seen. That there IS something horribly wrong and it's worth fixing. Also we just need more messy lesbians who can't seem to be able to fix their lives in media.

Hearthbound. Thank you for the journey. This show definitely was a suprise for me since I hadn't expected it to be that genuine or done with such care. The songs are absolutely amazing and you can't help but root for Odessa.

Woodbine. Thank you for telling a story that centers women! Who doesn't like vampires! And women! And women vampires! And they're gay??? Like it's such an easy sell. But Woodbine also has a compelling narrative, wonderful characters and some cases were soooo good (I still relisten some episodes). Not to mention, Woodbine has an antagonist that you just want to rip apart with your teeth and that makes it better too.

I also listen to quite a lot of actual plays, so here are some I've discovered in 2025.

Tiny Table. They play different systems and it's just such an easy show to listen to. They also explain rules, I like it that it's a diverse group and their table dynamic is not too much and not too little.

Context: My brother and I make an indie TTRPG called The Magical Land of Yeld. Okay, so a few months ago my friend and constant ally and booster Emma Void (who is one of the two producers of our excellent YeldPlay actual play podcast) put me in touch with the people from Tiny Table, who do their own excellent actual play podcast. In the kind of magical way that these things sometimes happen, they were interested in playing and recording a Yeld game. Which I was very excited for! They asked me to write up a basic adventure for them to use, which I did (and which we'll publish later), and then they disappeared for a few months to do their own thing. A few weeks ago we got together again for an interview. The Tiny Table people are very nice and very funny, and had lot of smart questions and insights about our game. Which is rare, you know? If you play TTRPGs, you know that taking on and learning a new game can be a challenge, and it takes awhile to get up to speed. But it was clear that not only did they have a handle on the rules, but also really understood the themes Yeld gets into. We had a great conversation (which they recorded, so you'll be able to hear it soon), but they were quiet about the actual game they had recorded. Nick and I would have to wait to listen to it to find out what they got up to.

You almost certainly knew that already - but after all this time, the first episode is out!

I'm beyond excited to finally get to listen to the wonderful cast of @tinytablepodcast argue, debate, and otherwise interlocute their way into some petty cash with this system.