#TTRPG Game Design

[thecartonizer]

Shouting out into the void for this one but: any tips for someone who legitimately gave up ttrpg game dev because of both stress over not being able to translate my ideas into the dice stuff and the realization i could not logically make a living out of it but now wants to get back at it with risus or a original system?

[bonusexperience]

*taps mic*

Is this thing on? Hello?

We’re back, blowing the dust off this old account since Twitter has become (more) of a trash fire. We’ll be putting all our episodes here, as we work on getting them onto YouTube.

In the meantime, enjoy the first episode of our current season.

Welcome to Season Six! Rai is retiring from permanent co-host duty so you're all stuck with me (Monica) and a rotating door of our friends. Fear not, Rai will still join us from time to time. And don't worry - we remain two queer people speaking with authority about games, and we absolutely will still swear (die mad about it). In today's episode D and Monica sit down to really get into the ins and outs of designing good resource management games. We talk about what you need to consider as a designer and break down how you can avoid common pitfalls. We also cite a handful of excellent games you can try that use their resources extremely well.

 In the Extended Cut:

Starting the work day, weird dreams, and a good sandwich

Behind the scenes of Scion 2e

The mysteries of PEMDAS

More fun rules from The Other Side

[creationcast]

Our 5-year anniversary celebration continues with a release from the Patreon vault: Undying Bonds Episode 1 is out on the public feed right now! In this series, @lordneptune-rb and @gingerreckoning are designing a magical girl/necromancer game based on Spencer Campbell's game, Nova!

If you like what you're hearing here, check out the rest of the episodes currently on our Patreon! Just sign up at the $5 level or higher and you'll unlock the remaining episodes along with a ton of other bonus content!

We still have a ways to go, we're $28 away from reaching our first goal. Can you help us get there and unlock a set of 3 custom C3 dice for all $5 and up patrons? Check out the episode today for more details in the cold open!

[smallredrobin13games]

Horse and Rider is now live!

Fancy a 2-player game about a horse and the person that’s trying to tame it? Well do I have the game for you!

Check it out here: https://crowdfundr.com/Horse-Rider

[thehomelybrewster]

Racial Ability Scores - Why even the physical ones are bad actually

Disclaimer: While in the headline and certain sections of the text I will use the term "race" and certain derivative words, I will mostly use the term "species" going forward, since that could be the term One D&D will use in the future.

So I was inspired by a video of D&D "hot takes" to write this, because one take presented in that video was that racial ability score bonuses represent reality, especially when looking at physical strength. The argument itself listed the tired example of orcs of course always being stronger than e.g. halflings, but let's examine this a bit further.

First of I'm not going to argue that mental ability score increases tied to species are a good idea. No species is wiser than others, or more charismatic, or whatever. Saying that a species should have a higher mental ability score than others by default is basically just phrenology. Mental capacity is predominantly based on nurture, with genetics playing only a marginal role. By creating a fictional system in which several species have predetermined differences in their baseline intelligence/wisdom/charisma can easily lead to that game mechanic reinforcing beliefs that similar things exist among human ethnic groups. End of story, there are many people smarter than me who have written or said more on this subject.

But the physical argument is also bad actually. For one excercise is a thing that exists, and while yes, certain physical characteristics which are based on genetics do allow for certain people to excel more in certain sports, applying that on a species-wide scale also can reinforce certain notions people have in real life about certain ethnic groups. This applies to all three physical ability scores.

While strength is the obvious one, making presumptions about dexterity and constitution is also bad, especially since the former is the most versatile physical ability score and is connected to two skills, sleight of hand and stealth, that have largely negative connotations.

However, in 5e's current state, there are no playable species that have negative modifiers anymore. Kobolds used to have a -2 in Strength, while orcs used to have a -2 to Intelligence. Otherwise, unless I am forgetting something, only NPC species listed in the DMG ever featured negative ability score modifiers and those basically were always intended as templates to build NPCs around anyway. Otherwise it was always clear that playable species seem to have at most bonuses in a stat. Elves and halflings were more dextrous, dwarves had high constitution, that sort of stuff. And honestly, while I get the argument that e.g. all goliaths should be stronger than gnomes... The game already has mechanics in place which give a more nuanced version of this.

The answer to that is size category and everything that entails! Size impacts the space you occupy, of course, but it also affects your carrying capacity, who you can grapple or shove, and what sorts of weapon you can use.

Grapples and shoves are limited to creatures at most one size category larger than yourself, so small species such as goblins can't grapple creatures larger than medium, aka most playable species. Meanwhile a human can wrestle larger foes, including stuff like horses. Given that one presumes that weight scales according to size, that makes sense and gives a certain degree of basic strength. Now the success chance is then based on the athletics skill, but already knowing that, rules as written, even a 20 strength gnome fighter with proficiency in athletics can't shove a horse says a lot. Mostly about the length of the limbs of the player character but still.

Carrying capacity and weapon usage are more clear-cut. Small and medium-sized creatures can carry a maximum of fifteen-times their strength score. Larger creatures can carry double that, tiny creatures half of that. Now obviously that system is very simple and designed to make players of smaller species not feel like they can carry far less than their medium-sized party members...

But there is a species feature that directly impacts this feature and creates a gradation: Powerful Build. Seen with half-orcs, goliaths, and a few others, it states that you count as one size larger in terms of calculating carrying capacity! Now to a certain extent this exists to also make species that border on being large-sized actually medium-sized while still conveying their actual size, but it also creates a three-tier system! Small creatures, if shrunk down one category, are now tiny and thus are easier to overencumber. Regular mediums can only carry more if enlarged one more size, while power build mediums are already at their peak performance and even if made tiny through intense magical effort they'd still have the carrying capacity of a small/medium creature!

The third aspect is weapon size. Small (and tiny) creatures already can't effectively use weapons that have the heavy property, like the maul, because they have disadvantage on the attacks with those weapons. Now weapons in 5e are presumed to be made for medium-sized creatures, but using the logic of the "Base the Damage on the Weapon" section in the DMG (p.277), if you create a monster using weapons, you increase the number of damage dice by one for each size category based on the original weapon. So a quarterstaff made to be used by a huge creature would deal 3d6/3d8 damage instead of the usual 1d6/1d8. Meanwhile most tiny weapons only deal a singular point of damage, as is evident with the sprite monster whose bow and sword only deal 1 damage each.

Now that means that if the players find a weapon made for a large creature, like an ogre, then I as the DM would probably rule that it is unusable for the small PCs, would only be usable with disadvantage for medium-sized PCs (and be unable to use it if it normally would have the heavy property), and PCs with powerful build could use it normally thanks to that species feature, though they'd be affected by the heavy property if the weapon has it normally. So that ogre's 2d6/2d8 quarterstaff would be a great price for any goliath or orc PC... Unless that poor bugger were dexterity-based!

All three of these aspects are based on mass and size but present different levels of potential and vulnerability. Still, given how versatile and powerful ability scores are in D&D, I'm glad that goblins and kobolds and the like don't have to work harder to hit hard in 5e than half-orcs or dragonborn have to, partially also because just because someone has longer arms or can carry heavier boxes doesn't translate to that person punching better (to me strength as an abiltiy score also always implies knowing how to use it better!). That's also why the many intelligence-based skills are necessary, because otherwise the net cast by these six numbers would be too widely cast if you don't try to add some nuance to that.

Anyway, the TL;DR is that the size category feature and the Powerful Build species feature are more than enough to replace physical ability score modifiers for species since just because someone the size of an adult can carry heavier boxes than someone the size of a kid, that doesn't mean they can always punch harder.

[hetrosjistin]

This is got me thinking of a more general bit of TTRPG game design advice, not entirely relevant to 'making a dnd clone' (which is honestly almost it's entire own school of game design thought at this point), but it's a bit of advice John Wick gave me when I sat at his table for a houses of the blooded game, and it stuck with me forever.

You need to ask why people should play your game instead of a properly curated GURPS game.

Even if it's an OSR clone.

Ask what narrative your mechanics tell better than GURPS, in it's infinite madness of attempting to create accurate rules for practically any narrative form.

It's often talked about that even if you're designing a Dungeons & Dragons clone, you should be broadly familiar with the indie scene in order to guard against the possibility that you're trying to reinvent the solution to a problem that some random indie RPG about gay catgirls talking about their feelings figured out in 2002.

What's less readily acknowledged but no less true is that even if you're designing an indie RPG about gay catgirls talking about their feelings, you should be broadly familiar with the OSR scene in order to mitigate the possibility that you're trying to reinvent the solution to a problem that some random Dungeons & Dragons clone figured out in 1978.

[legionofmyth]

Palladium Books: Are dated gameplay mechanics holding these games back?

Are Palladium Books' game mechanics stuck in the past? ⏳ In this video, we explore the debate on whether these classic RPG rules need a modern update. Join the conversation and see if it's time for Palladium Books to evolve with the times. Click to watch and weigh in! #PalladiumBooks #RPGDebate #TabletopRPG #TTRPG #RPGCommunity

Beyond the Supernatural 2E – PDF Dead Reign – [PDF]Palladium Fantasy RPG (2e) – [PDF] This video examines the game mechanics in Palladium Books that players argue are dated and in need of modernization. Ready to explore whether it’s time for Palladium Books to evolve? Dive in and watch the video! Palladium Books has been a staple in the tabletop RPG community for decades, but as the gaming world…

[quinnydoll]

being a GM is really fun because sometimes you can make your players go through some really traumatic Evangelion bullshit, but other times you can force them to go bowling for no reason

[hnnngggn]

Just had the idea for a game that’s like the movie Rat Race. I think I’ll probably write out some proper rules for it at some point and stick it on my itch.io because thinking about this it sounds really fun lol! Here’s what I’m thinking for it:

Basically the premise for it is (like the movie) you’ve got a whole bunch of characters all racing to get from point A to point B, first one there wins a big prize! I’m probably going to write it so it can fit into any setting.

It’s designed to be played with a big group in like a forum roleplay or on a discord server or something, just something that allows the different groups of people to roleplay separately.

It’ll probably work best with a group of gms who all act like the rich gamblers from the movie and who watch over the game. They should help gm for each of the groups but they should be non partial and not biased because it’s just more fun that way! I feel like it should be more focused on the players roleplay though and less of the gms telling them what to do. Like for example a player could say that they’re driving a bus down the road and one of the gms pop in to say that the bus has broken down and see where the player takes it from there!

That’s all I can think of for now but this sounds super fun and I’m excited to play with the idea some more!

[alphaori]

Being into indie ttrpgs on Tumblr is a very funny experience because while you're ambiently considering designing a little game about idk, gremlins growing cabbages or whatever there are people who built this hobby from the ground up with 15 award winning published games and three podcasts and a knighthood from a small European monarchy just doing their thing on the same platform. Imagine this was the case for any other hobby. You go to shoot some hoops behind your house and LeBron James is just there

[probablyday]

millennial nerd bertie wooster for some reason

[bonusexperience]

Hello Bonus Babies,

Today Monica invites her friend, Jacqueline Bryk, to join her and discuss something she considers a blank spot in her traditional game literacy: LARP. We discuss what makes a LARP, and general LARP design principles as Jax gives a detailed 101 crash course. We also kick around designing our own together, for a bit. Also discussed in the extended cut (https://www.patreon.com/posts/80223748):

- Jax at MAGFest and Monica's day job

- the implications of torture in games and the meddlesome Victorians

- headcanons for the Scarlet Empress and the Ebon Dragon

 - online RPG discourse

[bogleech]

At the link above is a 45 page condensed PDF sample of the upcoming 300+ page Mortasheen TTRPG Core Rulebook. This condensed sample contains just the following:

-The Biotypes (player races)

-The College of Genetics location and its Dean

-The Runoff, a sample adventure locale in Mortasheen City

-An explanation of the "Green Goo" that Mortasheen runs on

-24 monster pages, some of them still never before seen by anyone but the original Kickstarter backers, from a planned final count of 152 monsters.

No gameplay instructions, but monster pages retain their statblocks for you to look at.

All full color artwork in this sample is by myself or by @revretch, while pixel sprites are by hashtag_underscore, beachboogyman, myself, and Pokemon: Quarantine Crystal's @latenightagain !

Any money from this zine-sized digital preview will go partially into everyday survival and partially into improving the print quality of the final book. Its kickstarter print budget is still with me, but only covers a just-average quality for the book's first run! There are still better paper weights and color options to consider! After that print run finishes and ships out to all 2020 backers, that final book will go up for public purchase, maybe by the end of this year (2024) if everything works out.

Boost and spread this if you can; I've worked on Mortasheen as a personal world building project for over twenty years, and the coming RPG release is a project that took multiple people at least fifteen years.

FIND OUT WHAT KIND OF MONSTER IS CALLED "SHARKITECT"

[mikethinkstwice]

I'm bored of elemental giants. Use environmental giants instead.

Environmental Giants all start out the same, but their bodies take up the features of the place they live in. They become a reflection of their domain.

Giant takes up residence in the cliffs of dover? Not a stone giant. No, that's specifically The Giant of Dover. Its body is made of chalk. It can create dust clouds of chalk with its breath, its shoulders are padded with tufts of short grasses and blackberry bushes.

Giant takes up residence in the ruins of a highway during an apocalypse? That's the I-95 Giant. It has rebar spines along its back, skin of pavement and concrete, and wears wrecked cars as armor.

And to make this idea more dynamic, the giant's form changes as the ecosystem changes. A river gets diverted away from a Giant's domain? Then the Giant dries up along with its land. Now the Giant has an incentive to protect its dominion, and a weakness that its enemies can exploit.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Reblog to Save a Life

I have talked about it before, but independant artists, and by extension independant TTRPG designers like myself and my team, live and die by their social media presence. We can't afford a lot of advertising, if any, and so we rely not only on word-of-mouth advertisement, but also just the good will of our audience. Like another designer @cavegirlpoems put it, we're basically busking, putting our art out for everyone and hoping for voluntary donations, donations which I writing this am reliant on as a disabled designer who can't work a normal job.

If you can't pay, you can still have it for free, and something that can be just as helpful is reblogging the posts of artists like myself. I'll demonstrate with a screenshot from our itch.io page for the open beta for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.

(and on these days, it was only about 6 or 7 people who did the reblogging.)

As you can see, reblogs mean more people see our game, which means more downloads (and sometimes even payments), downloads mean more people play our game and more people see our game in the itch.io algorithm, which means more views, which means more downloads, which means more and so on and so on. But, it all starts with you reblogging our posts, and without that, we're stagnate. It doesn't matter if you have 1,000 followers or 10, your reblog means that our posts reach corners of tumblr that wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

Myself and others are reliant on a 2-second reblog to be able to support ourselves as artists, you and your 10 followers are where it starts.

[centwithlove]

No you don't. You don't have to. There is no requirement for ttrpgs that PCs and enemies must use the same rules.* And though I can't speak on Prokopetz's intentions, I wouldn't if I was making a superhero system with this mechanic, as the main draw of it would be PC's wanting to not kill people but have to make moral and tactical choices about doing so or not, and that just wouldn't make sense as something the villains should also do as often as the heroes. *This includes but is not limited to Dnd 5e, where PCs get death saves, while only the most important NPCs do. Other ttrps need not ever make the heroes at risk of their own death.

Sometimes you've gotta take received wisdom in tabletop RPG design and do the exact opposite on purpose, just to see what happens. I've got a vaguely superhero-adjacent RPG I'm working on right now that flips the whole "the player characters' actions should never result in an NPC's death unless that was their explicit intention" thing turnways and makes it literally impossible to engage in physical coercion of any kind toward another person without some non-zero likelihood of accidentally killing the target in the process, and let me tell you, it's resulted in some fun "okay, how are we going to do this" conversations.