#thecoppercompendium reblogs

[thecoppercompendium]

Didn't expect to be adding more so soon, but here's two very handy fonts for representing dice and other gaming symbols:

So, you want to make a TTRPG…

Image from Pexels.

I made a post a long while back about what advice you would give to new designers. My opinions have changed somewhat on what I think beginners should start with (I originally talked about probability) but I thought it might be useful to provide some resources for designers, new and established, that I've come across or been told about. Any additions to these in reblogs are much appreciated!

This is going to be a long post, so I'll continue beneath the cut.

SRDs

So, you have an idea for a type of game you want to play, and you've decided you want to make it yourself. Fantastic! The problem is, you're not sure where to start. That's where System Reference Documents (SRDs) can come in handy. There are a lot of games out there, and a lot of mechanical systems designed for those games. Using one of these as a basis can massively accelerate and smooth the process of designing your game. I came across a database of a bunch of SRDs (including the licenses you should adhere to when using them) a while back, I think from someone mentioning it on Tumblr or Discord.

SRDs Database

Probability

So, you have a basic system but want to tweak it to work better with the vision you have for the game. If you're using dice, this is where you might want to consider probability. Not every game needs this step, but it's worth checking that the numbers tell the story you're trying to tell with your game. For this, I'll link the site I did in that first post, AnyDice. It allows you to do a lot of mathematical calculations using dice, and see the probability distribution that results for each. There's documentation that explains how to use it, though it does take practice.

AnyDice

Playtesting

So you've written the rules of your game and want to playtest it but can't convince any of your friends to give it a try. Enter Quest Check. Quest Check is a website created by Trekiros for connecting potential playtesters to designers. I can't speak to how effective it is (I've yet to use it myself) but it's great that a resource like it exists. There's a video he made about the site, and the site can be found here:

Quest Check

Graphic Design and Art

Game is written and tested? You can publish it as-is, or you can make it look cool with graphics and design. This is by no means an essential step, but is useful if you want to get eyes on it. I've got a few links for this. First off, design principles:

Design Cheatsheet

Secondly, art. I would encourage budding designers to avoid AI imagery. You'll be surprised how good you can make your game look with only shapes and lines, even if you aren't confident in your own artistic ability. As another option, public domain art is plentiful, and is fairly easy to find! I've compiled a few links to compilations of public domain art sources here (be sure to check the filters to ensure it's public domain):

Public Domain Sources 1

Public Domain Sources 2

You can also make use of free stock image sites like Pexels or Pixabay (Pixabay can filter by vector graphics, but has recently become much more clogged with AI imagery, though you can filter out most of it, providing it's tagged correctly).

Pexels

Pixabay

Fonts

Turns out I've collected a lot of resources. When publishing, it's important to bear in mind what you use has to be licensed for commercial use if you plan to sell your game. One place this can slip through is fonts. Enter, my saviour (and eternal time sink), Google Fonts. The Open Font License (OFL) has minimal restrictions for what you can do with it, and most fonts here are available under it:

Google Fonts

Publishing

So, game is designed, written, and formatted. Publishing time! There are two places that I go to to publish my work: itch.io and DriveThruRPG. For beginners I would recommend itch - there's less hoops to jump through and you take a much better cut of what you sell your games for, but DriveThruRPG has its own merits (@theresattrpgforthat made great posts here and here for discovering games on each). Itch in particular has regular game jams to take part in to inspire new games. I'll link both sites:

itch.io

DriveThruRPG

Finally, a bunch of other links I wasn't sure where to put, along with a very brief summary of what they are.

Affinity Suite, the programs I use for all my layout and designing. Has an up-front cost to buy but no subscriptions, and has a month-long free trial for each.

Affinity Suite

A database of designers to be inspired by or work with. Bear in mind that people should be paid for their work and their time should be respected.

Designer Directory

An absolute behemoth list of resources for TTRPG creators:

Massive Resources List

A site to make mockups of products, should you decide to go that route:

Mockup Selection

A guide to making published documents accessible to those with visual impairments:

Visual Impairment Guidelines

A post from @theresattrpgforthat about newsletters:

Newsletter Post

Rascal News, a great place to hear about what's going on in the wider TTRPG world:

Rascal News

Lastly, two UK-specific links for those based here, like me:

A list of conventions in the UK & Ireland:

Convention List

A link to the UK Tabletop Industry Network (@uktabletopindustrynetwork) Discord where you can chat with fellow UK-based designers:

TIN Discord

That's all I've got! Feel free to reblog if you have more stuff people might find useful (I almost certainly will be)!

[thecoppercompendium]

Adding a clickable link to make access that little bit easier!

The Road is the Enemy is out!

Our project for National Game Design Month is complete! You can learn more about it and get it here! https://fivepointsgames.itch.io/the-road-is-the-enemy

[thecoppercompendium]

I've got a game for that kind of adventure time...

Love how this implies that after the downfall of humankind that doge is the species to supercede us

[thecoppercompendium]

Which boulder is this? Definitely harder to push.

i miss the old boulder. todays boulder is unsightly and horrible to push. nothing like back in the day

[thecoppercompendium]

Consider this me throwing a boulder at you:

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

[thecoppercompendium]

Just released a formatted version of this on itch!

200 Word RPGs 2024

Each November, some people try to write a novel. Others would prefer to do as little writing as possible. For those who wish to challenge their ability to not write, we offer this alternative: producing a complete, playable roleplaying game in two hundred words or fewer.

This is the submission thread for the 2024 event, running from November 1st, 2024 through November 30th, 2024. Submission guidelines can be found in this blog's pinned post, here.

[thecoppercompendium]

As I just released a 100-word game, I went back and had a look at BREAKTHROUGH!

...And naturally I decided to completely reformat it and its itch page.

So, if you've not seen it before, check out the fancy new formatting of BREAKTHROUGH here:

Tumblr 200-Word RPGs 2023

Last November, we did an informal game jam for folks who wanted to write something for Writing Month, but would prefer to write fewer than fifty thousand words of it. You can find the complete list of participants for that event in this post here. There's also an off-Tumblr archive of entries whose authors gave permission for them to be preserved here, if any of those links turn out to be broken.

Last year's collaboration went over well enough that I thought we might dust it off again this year. To be clear, this is just for fun – it's not a curated jam, and nobody's judging winners or handing out prizes..

If you'd like to throw your hat in, just follow these steps:

Step 1: If you're unfamiliar with 200-word RPGs, read a bunch of last year's entries (linked above) or browse the 200 Word RPG Challege archives at https://200wordrpg.github.io/ to get your brain-meats properly configured.

Step 2: Write your own 200-word RPG. If you're not sure whether you have 200 words or not (and with RPGs it can genuinely be difficult to tell!), you can use the word counter at https://200wordrpg.github.io/wordcount to check.

Step 3: Reblog this post and append your 200-word RPG.

Step 4 (optional): Please indicate in your post whether you're okay with having your 200-word RPG archived off-site for posterity – if you don't say anything one way or the other, I'll assume the answer is "no".

(As before, as a courtesy to anyone who's creeping the notes, please restrict non-200-word-RPG commentary to replies and tags until November 2023 is over – let's make the actual games easy to find!)

[thecoppercompendium]

I'll throw what solo TTRPGs I've written into the ring!

First off, we have my only longer-play solo TTRPG, Summit, a game about climbing a mountain and learning about your character as you climb. Not everyone makes it to the top, but everyone certainly has a journey worth making.

For a very different feel we have The Boulder, my 100-word TTRPG. As you can imagine for a game this length, it's very simple. In it, you take on the role of Sisyphus, endlessly rolling your boulder up the hill. How close to the top can you make it?

Lastly we have I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE, a game about the days the world conspires to prevent you getting where you're trying to go. It's another short one (a onepage game, though not 100 words like the boulder).

If you want the true solo TTRPG experience, Summit definitely caters more in that direction, but do give the other two a look! Both The Boulder and I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE are pay-what-you-want!

(On the topic of solo games, I have to second the recommendation of RUNE, I love that game. I also own OUTLIERS and Dead Air, though I've yet to find a chance to play either. I also recently picked up Apothecaria and cannot wait to play. My final recommendation is Colostle, which I have had a chance to play and thoroughly enjoyed.)

So you're looking for a system other than D&D...

Have you tried solo RPGs? Because it's not just "how can I play D&D alone" there's a whole world of cool stuff out there….And I want to tell you about it.

(I'm quite sick today so please forgive any incoherence or typos.)

First off, it's totally fine if you're more of a party person over a solo person. I just know a lot of people aren't aware of solo games, how they work, or the breadth of diversity you find among them.

If you ask about solo games, the first one mentioned is almost always Ironsworn. It's freeeee and comes with a lot of resources. The PDF is over 200 pages, so I understand if you don't want to dive in with Ironsworn quite yet.

Ironsworn has a large community, including support for Foundry and Roll20, along with many derivative works. It offers a gritty default fantasy setting, but encourages you to ignore that if you prefer another world… maybe one from another RPG you enjoy the lore from…?

BUT maybe you want something that isn't as much of a commitment (and maybe a little sad)?

Many Wretched and Alone games use a tumbling block tower to simulate a random ticking clock. It might represent your failing mental health, the barricade crumbling, the ship sinking…

One of the creators of the system has a great thread highlighting their favorite games. Just search Wretched an Alone on Itch.io to find even more.

And if you don't want to go buy a Jenga tower, there are some great random simulators out there. I've been able to play W&A games on road trips, using a deck simulator, a dice simulator, and a tumbling tower simulator. Here's tower replacement I like. It replicates the odds of a tumbling tower falling without being too complicated.

Carta is another cool system where you use a standard deck of playing cards to create a map that you explore. As you explore, you usually have to manage resourses to avoid something bad, but not always.

Here's a collection of several games made using Carta.

Dead Belt takes this concept and RUNS with it. You have a few things to track as you explore abandoned randomized ship decks, searching for a good payload. Upgrade your gear and do it again.

Does the thought of managing your character sound exciting? Do you enjoy soulslike games, like Elden Ring and Bloodborne?

Rune is a fresh release with a lot of third-party support already. It's pretty easy to pick up and play too.

Apothecaria and Apawthecaria have you making potions for the local village. Go out exploring, collect ingredients, and see if you can solve the greater mysteries of the land.

Interested in horror, but want a more narrative-driven experience? In Dwelling, you'll spend the night sleepless and alone in a haunted house. This is a very neat game.

Songs of the City is a delightful tarot game that you play once a day for a week. It's another narrative-driven game where you draw cards and cast magic to see small neat changes in the city you reside in.

Anamnesis, Anamnesis, Anamnesis. I talk about this game a lot because it's magical in its simplicity. There's nothing to track and it's an incredible way to generate character ideas or tell a story.

And now there are more Anamnesis games coming out (including mine) You don't need the original games to play any of the games you see here.

There are so many more games I want to talk about, but alas, this cold is making me stop there.

If you've written a solo game, streamed one, reviewed one, or have one you really like, I invite you to share it!

[thecoppercompendium]

The Curse Lingers has classes for Crazy Cat Lady, Fanatical Astronomer, Religious But In A "Becoming Insubstantial" Way and I Got Gardening Badly Wrong.

Make weird classes for your TTRPG. You won't regret it.

one of the fun things about making your own ttrpg system is that you can make up bullshit classes. in mine you can be a rock thrower a bone grinder or a jpop idol

[thecoppercompendium]

Is this a place of honor? How would you like to get irradiated? These questions and more you may find yourself asking in The Curse Lingers, a game based on Caltrop Core in which you delve into the temples of the Old Gods in search of their relics.

In doing so you'll find yourself in strange fragments of the old world, our world, and race time before your curses catch up to you...

Secondly we have Summit, a solo game about climbing a mountain and learning who you are as you climb. Designed to be a relaxed experience, you'll use a deck of playing cards to generate a completely unique route to the summit. Not everyone can make it to the top, but the journey is reward in itself.

Summit could be easily used to develop a character for another game, giving prompts as you climb to develop their past and personality. Or you could just play it for it's own sake!

If you purchased the TTRPGs for Palestine bundle you probably already own the game!

Okay, I'm doing that thing again where I ask many indie ttrpg creators to post their stuffs down below this post for people to see and maybe I might even make videos on some of them!

I'm mostly doing this right now because, ya know, stupid Elon shit, but whatever.

Anyway, go post them now!

[thecoppercompendium]

I'll have my first fully original TTRPG, Summit, releasing in the next week or so (on both itch.io and DriveThruRPG)! It's a solo TTRPG about climbing a mountain and discovering a character as you climb!

Here's the cover! It'll be releasing at the same time as (or shortly before) my next video!

First post- hello!

I noticed that tumblr has surprisingly little in the way of a solo ttrpg community, despite that seeming like exactly the type of hobby that this site lends itself toward?

I kept thinking how nice it would be if there were some sort of “hub” blog where people could share cool stuff from their solo game, find tips and resources, and otherwise explore the solo ttrpg hobby. Eventually I realized that I’d I wanted this blog to exist so much, I ought to make it myself.

Things here are still a work in progress, but I can’t wait to hear about your game! Any solo (or solo-curious) adventurer is welcome to join the guild.

Submissions: The Solo Adventurer's Guild welcomes submissions! If you would like to share a story from your solo game, a character or location that you are excited about, or really anything about your game at all; all I ask is that you include what game you're playing, and that you keep the submission PG-13.

[thecoppercompendium]

Still adding to this pack, and there's still plenty of room!

As Bluesky gains momentum and popularity, I'm starting to use it more, but I'd love more people to follow.

If you're an indie ttrpg designer and also have a Bluesky account, chuck it in the reblogs or replies!

(I don't plan on leaving Tumblr for Bluesky or anything - I'm still not a fan of how restrictive the character limit on posts there is. If you want to follow me there, I'm @cucompendium over there.)

[thecoppercompendium]

A link is always useful, so here we go for those wanting to give it a go!

Need a TTRPG for tonight that requires absolutely no preparation (nope, you don't even have to read the rules ahead of time!)?

How about a storytelling game about a monster hunt, the good of the monster, and the monstrosity of the hunters?

In Against the Monster, your characters, your monster, and your setting develop through your answers to 52 possible, randomly drawn questions.

From wervolves on a space station to tentacle monsters at sea to flesh-eating plants in the desert, anything goes if you can imagine it together!

[thecoppercompendium]

Right, I've got a small list of tabletop blogs to add! In no particular order, you should follow:

@thydungeongal @damsels-n-dice @incaseofgrace @rathayibacter @prokopetz @hendrik-ten-napel

Your Favorite Tabletop Gaming Tumblrs

Of all the tumblrs that are (almost) entirely devoted to tabletop gaming (any system is fine) that you follow, which tumblrs are your favorites?

[thecoppercompendium]

I should really have included a link to both the video I was working on when I asked about this, as well as the list I had been compiling, so here's both:

On the off chance real people see this, what ttrpgs have you seen use a deck of 52 playing cards? Totally just asking for a friend.

(The friend is me.)

[thecoppercompendium]

Time remaining on each of the jams, at time of writing:

Troika Dungeon Jam: 1 month, 17 days, 22 hours

Tiny Library Jam #6: 17 days, 1 hour

Minimalist TTRPG Jam #3: 23 days, 11 hours

The Adventure Calendar - 2024: Starts in 17 days, 10 hours

Winter Horrorland TTRPG Jam: Starts in 5 days, 4 hours

Shitpost TTRPG Jam: Starts in 8 days, 16 hours

Go make some games!

TTRPG GAME JAMS

in my "find and join every obviously ttrpg-focused game jam on itch.io" era this week, so i figured i'd share the jams that i have joined which are either ongoing or coming up soon! so that any of my fellow creators or TTRPG fans can check out what ends up in them 👀

Troika Dungeon Jam!

will eventually become a free collection of dungeon encounters for Troika! it's not a game i know a lot about but it looks cool, and i enjoy both dungeons in TTRPGs and setting myself unrealistic workloads.

Tiny Library Jam #6

also on the list of things i happen to enjoy: making up settings with no other context, and things that are tiny! this jam does come with a licensing agreement and such, though, so be warned of that ig.

Minimalist TTRPG Jam #3

one day i will participate in a minimalist TTRPG jam. i swear. a great way to release a game if you don't have the time or talents to add fancy formatting & art into the game design. (see: yours truly).

The Adventure Calendar - 2024

the goal to release something TTRPG-related every day of december will... probably be too much for me, but a man can dream. this will definitely be a fun motivator for creativity, though!

Winter Horrorland TTRPG Jam

a jam by a creator whose previous jam, the Queertober jam, created one of my best games! massive shout out to them for that. plus i love writing horror, and i don't do it enough, so... christmas horror game?

Shitpost TTRPG Jam

it's a game for shitpost-inspired TTRPGs, what more can i say?