#ttrpg development

you can get a lot of inspiration in terms of the kinds of characters, genres and stories you want your game to engage with through just consuming a lot of media, even if it isn't gaming related! i also quite like finding specific things i like in a show or a book, and then trying to figure out how i'd convert it to a tabletop medium.

board games are a bit less story-focused, of course, but have the added benefit of providing you with potential tabletop friendly mechanics. things that come to mind are dread using a jenga tower and a number of TTRPGs that take inspiration from card games like poker. you can play games for free on sites like boardgamearena, and there are solo options & tutorials available for many of those.

and of course, finally there are TTRPGs! i assume you already play multiplayer games in some capacity, but reading rulebooks and playing solo games can also both be very valuable. you can find what other people in your genre are doing, get ideas for mechanics and a whole bunch of other useful things. to find TTRPGs without breaking the bank, i'd suggest checking out the free physical games page on itch.io, and blogs like @theresattrpgforthat and @indie-ttrpg-of-the-week. you can also get a lot from charity bundles & game jams.

2: Don't be afraid of SRDs.

i don't know how much you know about RPGs or making them, so for the reference of anyone who doesn't know: SRDs are system reference documents, provided by game designers so that other creators can use their systems to create games & hacks of their own. these come with licenses that explain how you can use the game -- some are commercial and others won't be. as with games themelves, quality and clarity of SRDs can vary, and some have a lot of rules attached!

but basically, i cannot recommend researching SRDs enough. creating an entire system from scratch as a new TTRPG designer is incredibly daunting & can be a lot of work. particularly if you're writing for multiplayer games. finding an SRD that fits any mechanic or tone ideas you have gives you a basis to work on, which you can then alter or expand to fit your specific needs. most of my games use SRDs!

i've used the buddy system for multiplayer games before, as well as creating some hacks of lasers & feelings (not strictly an SRD but very simple and popular to adapt). off the top of my head, there's also: caltrop core, EMERGE8, honey heist, and the horseshoe system. many of these were taken from the one page rpg jam's resource list!

i'll also mention the second guess and wretched & alone single player SRDs, as i'm not sure if you're writing for single or multiplayer! but both of these lists are obviously just a starting point.

3: Start small and get something finished.

many of my first games are no longer available on itch.io, but you can see that the earlier ones on there are mostly one page, solo and/or lyric games. like with most creative stuff, just getting something done at all is often a big concern with TTRPGs! especially when my own longest project ('til it kills us) is 50 pages, and it's still far from the longest TTRPGs you'll be able to find out in the wild.

if you can make this project you'll be working on be short -- ideally between 1 and 10 pages or so, imo -- then do that.

if not, consider trying something else small out as you're also working on this big project. join a game jam like the eternal ttrpg jam or, when it comes around again, the 200 word RPGs jam that runs on tumblr. or hack one of the solo games i mention to do something silly with friends. it doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be published or even played, and you probably won't like it that much. but i find there's nothing that makes the big projects easier than finishing a small one to prove that you can write a TTRPG after all.

4: Follow cool people to keep learning!

i already mentioned a few great blogs to follow here on tumblr, but i learn a lot about game design from the blogs i follow on here and the channels i watch on youtube. i won't do too many recommendations as i don't want to spam people with notifications but here's a few.

tumblr: @psychhound, @anim-ttrpgs, @indierpgnewsletter, @indiepressrevolution, @crackerjackalopegames

youtube: Five Minutes, Not 5e & A.A. Voigt

discord: i'm a lurker in the TTRPG Collective & Chimera Hearts

i'm also gonna mention TheQueerXP actual play podcast, simply bc those guys are really awesome and deserve all the love & attention!

4: Have fun?

idk this one is cheesy but i write TTRPGs bc i do genuinely love every part of the design and gameplay process (except formatting 😭) so i just wanted to say that, like. if you enjoy making games and love what you're making please keep making and sharing them, because people will find them and love them. and don't feel bad if you don't enjoy it, and you find yourself wanting to take a break from your project, or even stop. it's a very different experience to playing or running TTRPGs! and the game will be better if you don't end up hating it.

Conclusion

I think an RPG, or whether or not a game counts as one, is more about how you can affect it's world or environment beyond just winning or losing.

Like, Skyrim and space Skyrim, for example,are not RPGs. They are a very shoddily made, medieval & sci-fi themed amusement parks.

But neither are any Final Fantasy games, Legend of Zelda games, Shadow of Mordor, the Assassin's Creed series, Genshin Impact, God of War (any of them, even the new ones), Kingdom Hearts (any of them), Diablo, Transistor, or any Pokemon games. These are lovingly crafted roller coasters with various themes, with different additional genres of games therein, unlike most Bethesda games, but not roleplaying games. They're gripping movies, comics, art exhibits, and dioramas with well done and utilitarian world-building.

Or visual novels. And that's not me disparaging these games, just hopefully pushing our evolving language for discussing games in a better direction?

I guess the next question is probably- "What is an RPG by your call then?"

I'd say games like the original Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, Fallout 1&2, Undertale, Pathologic, literally every single Animal Crossing game, Pathfinder/DnD (if your DM has a stable sleep schedule), and Shadow the Hedgehog.

The difference between these two groups is:

group A: Interactive media (games) that are stories, or Games(under the cut), with worlds that only exist to tell their stories or for the player's convenience.

group B: Interactive media that is a world the player is encouraged to interact with as a consistent Character within, or where the player's avatar & actions exists as a character within the world and not just an artifice of design or play.

There is nothing you can do on Final Fantasy VII's Gaea that will impact any part of the rest of the world, besides succeed at a given challenge or die and have another go. Nor in X, IX, or VIII. Locking a world's keyhole in Kingdom Hearts 1 doesn't change the game's state it's the next part of the story and the success state that follows defeating most level's final bosses (or after figuring out a clever puzzle in Traverse Town). Riku can't fail to save Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts II, you fail to rescue Riku's man, and the game lets you try again until you catch up with canon. Transistor does not care whether you collect certain programs/citizens, the Process [REDACTED] no matter what. Zelda can't not be rescued in any of the series' games where she appears; there are no ways to save the land of Termina except by assisting its citizens in a very specific order. In Pokemon, Team Rocket cannot successfully kidnapp someone's Pokemon on screen, and Team Aqua cannot successfully flood the world.

But in Shadow the Hedgehog; the president can be spared and his life determines how the rest of the game's story plays out; you can steadily work to destroy the world with the Black Arms and feel the progress of the invasion as you complete more of their missions. In Pathologic, failing to cure a patient doesn't send you to a game over screen, the patient just dies. Sometimes your patient is important to you and their death will have disastrous consequences, sometimes not. In ACNH, everything you can do changes the game's state in a meaningful way, there are almost literally no meaningless actions you can take in that game (or any animal crossing game). In a solid Pathfinder/DnD game, unless your party fights and dies to the last man, failing to kill the Lich or Evil king means that they get to take over that town or city. Some tables don't even run TPKs back, that specific world just gets worse and you either abandon it to its fate or have to make new avatars to re-enter a world that's likely grown more hostile because of the failure. In the original Fallouts, the only real "game over" fail state in those games is dying. Everything else is simply a choice to make, or a consequence to avoid. Likewise in the original Deus Ex, JC Denton's actions decide whether the [REDACTED it's old but go play the game] play out as planned, whether [seriously go play it] live or if the [please, you won't regret it] get their way. Each potential reality in these games, doesn't meaning you just lose, but that you now have to account for new circumstances in the world of your own making.

I don't think a game doesn't become an RPG because it has stats, or levels. Those are just conventions of the media of games as a whole. A game is more or less of an RPG based on how internally consistent and independent of the player its world is. I think our language should reflect that that too, but considering that this genre of game comes from the original pen and paper RPGs, I don't like giving the most faithful successors to their heritage a name that doesn't include the words RPG in it. I'd rather call the first group of games "Immersive Movies" and give the term "RPG" back to the second group. But if we must call both groups kinds of RPGs, I want to suggest replacing WRPG vs JRPG, with RPGs vs "VRPGs" or Virtual Ride Playing Games (or Vibe Role Playing Games), seeing as the first group is more akin to a book/movie/play/amusement park ride that you read or ride through than they are games where you meaningfully play the role of a character.

If that makes sense? Replies/rb as are welcome as comments, I had the thought on stream and I've spent all day working to make it more coherent than the babbling that usually rattles around in my brain, but I couldn't make it any shorter than this. So idk, let me know what you think. I'm eager to hear from other devs, or just players for that matter.