#ttrpg industry

[taylorannnx]

Too Many Hats! The Burden of Indie TTRPG Design

The beauty of being in a world where making games is so accessible is that you can do it all by yourself! No need to pay others for their labour (because we don't have money but our friends/colleagues deserve to be paid!)

Just do it yourself.

Sure, the hat you wear is game designer, but layout templates range from free to cheap, so put on that layout artist hat and try your best!

Oh, but you need art, and none of the resource packs you've bought have exactly what you want, so time to make something minimalist using photos on your camera roll and photoshop I guess? Don that artist hat. You can draw some playing cards! It's easy!

Now it's time to put the game online. You've read it through and made changes, putting on the editor hat in the process. Now it's time to make a summary and all the other chores the publisher hat you just put on requires.

But who will know you've put out the game? Time for the marketing hat to go on. People do prefer infographics to threads though, so on goes a graphic design hat too.

Don't forget, you're wearing the project lead/manager hat under all those other hats!

...

It's too many hats. Games are supposed to be collaborative. Why am I wearing all of these myself?

I wish I could give these to my friends.

[sprintingowl]

I definitely understand not doing ttrpgs for financial reasons! Survive first, and you can always make art later.

If you want to get back into making ttrpgs as a passion project on the side, I'd suggest making what you're enthusiastic about, keeping production costs low, and not worrying about marketability. If a game doesn't have to do well commercially, you can focus on making it good.

It's also worth finding a group that'll play the game with you! Being part of a playtest for a friend's system and thus being part of the alchemy that goes into making that game is---for me at least---a lot of fun as a player.

Also TTRPG design kind of infamously forces people to wear a million hats, so experiment with doing layout and art and see if you can make all the pieces of the game on your own. I still can't---I draw stick figures at best---but designers who can make every part of their game are powerhouses in the indie.

Also, I was saving this for last, but I have a bit of advice that cuts against the grain of what everyone's been saying so far: make your game as big and weird and clunky and maximized as you want. You can always trim it down later.

The reason to write rpgs is that it feels fun. Don't sweat over mechanical precision or balance or that sort of thing until your game is in testing. And maybe not even then.

Done is better than perfect, and fun is better than perfect, and my best advice is to not worry too much, do what you can, and make a thing that you like.

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?

[vintagerpg]

Flip the switch to the UHF dial! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with the one, the only, Joey Royale about Weird Heroes of Public Access, coming soon in hardcover to BackerKit. Unearth strange mysteries, save your community and get it done in time to tape the next episode of your show. This is your chance to get into one of the best, coolest, most heartfelt RPGs of the decade!

[handwrittenhello]

another character from my tabletop group! (i'm really loving this DE-style portrait thing i've got going on tbh)

this is elodie, she was maximum Baby before we all Saw Some Shit

[gammaknights]

Are you into Gamma World and post-apocalyptic fantasy? Join our Tumblr Community!

[devsgames]

Hasbro laid off 1100 people, include large numbers from Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons teams.

Most of the DnD folks who Larian collaborated with on Baldur's Gate 3 were fired by Hasbro and are no longer working at the company. You know, Baldur's Gate 3? The game that won GOTY at The Game Awards and was so unbelievably profitable that it caught everyone, even those making it, off-guard?

If you can make an unexpected smash hit that blows expectations out of the water and you're still not safe, then who is?

Anyway, start organizing your workplace.

[stupidsexymecha]

IMI Squamish

Boasting the title of being the second-most advanced frame in the Modern Industrial lineup after the Zephyros, the Squamish was developed in joint between, primarily, the JANUS Company and Quinn Research, with CK-I Power and the Harrier Tech Conglomerate heavily involved in the fringes of its design. While much, much more grounded than its sister frame, its utilization of abandoned “printer” technologies that Harrison left on Ilea after the first invasion give it a previously unheard of level of freedom from logistical lines, outside of pure raw material for it to process. While combat trials did not initially favor the design, its competitors faced endless setbacks after unforeseen complications with their built-in printer schema; this, combined with improvements to the Squamish’s design that overcame its initial difficulties, allowed it to glide nearly uncontested into the seat it now has in the Modern Industrial program’s arsenal.

@asdfjasklfjdkla

[othernaut]

Character Creation Challenge 2025, Day 6: Lancer

"Hey, Temp, can you get that fucking Everest out of the launch bay? We've got the pattern saved if you really need to -"

"Hey, Shred. Hey. Back off, she's drunk. Not okay kind of drunk."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You remember that data bundle we pulled? The dropship?"

"Oh."

"Wound up with a full profile on Serapis, including what happened to the Cause after she went offworld."

"... Oh. Oh, shit. Do you need me to -"

"Nah, it's all right. Just give it time. She's a tough old girl. She'll pull through."

"Okay. Yeah, sure. Hey, do you want to... get a... thing? That isn't here?"

"Sure, Shred. Let's go do that."

And then the doors hissed closed, the low light faded, and Harriet was left alone with her misery and nostalgia.

//ailure of the Unified Body of Serapis to come to a resolution on the issue of Central Nations independence, a stalling action was performed in UB caucus. During that time, several failed assassination attempts at Central leading figures escalated the internal violence to an all-out war that swiftly spilled across the borders. The Dominion of Regis, for purposes of professed morality, pulled out of the discussions, and no further resol//

Fuckheads. The UB lasted five years, enough time for everyone to get comfortable with the idea of a moderated world government - enough time for it to sting when the rug was pulled. People are going to act like people, no matter how noble or responsible they profess to be. They fall to infighting for no reason and then it's the communities, the little people, her, her friends - they're the ones with their water cut off, with no medical supplies inbound, with nothing but the bare matter of the world and themselves.

Idiots. Everyone. Her especially. She scrolled quickly past the political lead-up; the memories it evoked weren't ones she wanted to relive. Another pull of clear brandy. It didn't burn anymore. Probably a good thing.

There we are. Port Harrow. Dockside steel ramping into the black bay. Old stone-brick buildings encased in scaffolds of exostructure. Orange sodium lights in long lines in the sky, making every season into autumn. Kids chasing fluffy gulls along the Char River outlet. Four bad bars within a two-block walking distance of each other along the Hyde Park strip, so if you got kicked out of one you could stumble to another before your buzz even dreamt of wearing off. A stiff bed and a paycheck and a night full of people arguing outside.

//racturing of communities in Regis as the supply shortages continued, leading to tacitly independent, anarchist city-states as it became clear the people had no one to rely on but each other. In Port Harrow, the history of heavy industry in the city led to a wealth of industrial equipment that could be repurposed for war, agriculture, reconstruction, and mobile community support. As the government shutdown entered its third year, Port Harrow was one of the more successful of these communes, successfully managing both a mass agriculture and self-defense project by retrofitting industrial frames into multipurpose, proto-mech units//

The years coming in like a flood, dulled by both alcohol and time to a prosaic wash of color. She'd been in an agbot at first, but even the agbots needed some self-defense capability, as the raiders neither cared about growing seasons nor common sense; they just took whatever was to hand and fuck everyone else. At time went on, the attacks ramped up - but the people back home in the factories managed even more inventive fuckery in response. God, the thump of the rivet gun, how it'd hiss on a miss in the wet dirt of the fields. Petrochaff'd fuck up the old-school oil bikes they were using, leave them baking on the asphalt with the smell of a spilled deep fryer. The damn things came with caution paint on the legs, but the kids still climbed her anyway. They liked to sit on her head as she scanned the hills.

Then she read a name and it all soured instantly. More brandy. A wretched turn in her stomach.

//Union Far-Field Teams arrived just after the burning of Concord Square, when it became clear that the remnants of Unified Body governance could no longer hold even a suggestion of power. Crisis management NHPs were deployed in places of deepest anarchy to prepare the ground for reclamation and reconnection squadrons, which arrived later that year. Even deeply independent-city states, like Rouge Mountain and Port Harrow, capitulated after a brief exchange, bringing an end to the crisis before the next yea//

I mean, how could they resist? They had agbots and heavy industrial frames; Union had fucking mechs. They had rivet launchers and digging tools and junk-data ewar modules taped together from pornbots and netmail viruses; Union had AIs, for fuck's sake. Even if they blew a mech with a lucky shot, fuckers just printed another that same night. It was unwinnable. That beautiful thing they made, that open garden where everyone was for everyone else, where everyone had enough and the only thing you answered to was your neighbors...

It was unwinnable.

//sequent years saw a formal capitulation by autonomous zones, a return to Union-led Unified Body governance and entry into the embrace of galactic civilization. Reconstruction efforts began immedia//

They had pictures. She couldn't even recognize the streets.

//iolent holdouts retired to on-world educational facilities and, for the more extreme ideologies and antisocial dispositions, off-world contain//

What the fuck's so extreme about it? Help out your neighbor, you don't need anything else.

//ishment of permanently stationed Serapis Coordination Force to track down and pacify remaining violent bands and promote the ideology of unifica//

They held a gun to her head and asked her what she believed. Of course she lied.

//dless, a managed diaspora in subsequent years//

And no matter how you love something, there's a time, always a time, when it's not worth it anymore.

Harriet leaned back. Her head swam. The hangar blurred in front of her eyes, more than usual - she didn't fucking need glasses, not yet, she wasn't that old. Upside down, the team's mechs hung like rainbow stalactites, a row of independence splashed in bright colors and bristling weapons and anime boobie-girl decals. Why shouldn't she leave a place that didn't need her anymore? Fuck, she had enough experience for any lancer squadron. Anyone. Best of the bunch, this, and yet. It was like the carnival sideshow version of home, some punk-fuck pageantry of the anarchy she fucking lived for years, for years -

But it was better than what was left for her on a home now staffed with strangers.

Lurched forward. Stomach definitely did a thing there. Maybe call it a night. Finger wiggling to the little red X.

//spite media management discouraging public displays supporting 'non-standard political philosophies', shows of support for community leaders and organizers during the crisis remain standing in areas most strongly affected by the supply disruption, including Steeltown, Port Harrow, Perrbroke, Rou//

She squinted into the blown-up, artifacted image. Unfamiliar street, but that was a fucking agbot. Held up, scaffolded in steel. Sodium lighting. Big rock in front of it, sanded down, pocked with names. No laser etching, all hand-carved. Blurry, but she thought she could recognize some of them. That smear of shadow might have been a friend, a lover, a co-worker. Might've been her.

Stomach lurched like a sick generator. One little tear, big as a lost world, tracked its way down her cheek and died in the collar of her jumpsuit.

Yeah. Time to call it a night.

*****

Harriet Spall Callsign: Temperance Background: Worker (heavy machine operator) License Level: 3 Licenses: Nelson III Grit: +2

Pilot Skill Triggers: +2 Assault, +2 Hack or Fix, +2 Invent or Create, +4 Read a Situation, +4 Take Control Pilot Stats: Size 1/2, 10 Evasion, 10 E-Defense, Speed 4, HP 6 Mech Skills: Agility 2, Engineering 3 Core Bonuses: IPS-Northstar (Sloped Plating)

Talents: Juggernaut: Momentum (when I Boost, the next Ram I make gains +1 Accuracy and knocks the target back an additional 2 spaces), Kinetic Mass Transfer (when I ram a target into another target, the other must save Hull or be knocked prone; when I ram a target into an object or structure, they take 1d6 kinetic damage), Unstoppable Force (1/round and for 1d3+3 heat, I can supercharge a Boost to ram through people and objects). Nuclear Cavalier: Aggressive Heat Bleed (first attack I make on my turn in the Danger Zone deals +2 additional Heat), Fusion Hemmorhage (first attack I make on my turn in the Danger Zone is Energy damage and deals +1d6), Here, Catch! (gain the Fuel Rod Gun integrated weapon).

Mech: Goodbye Paradise Frame: IPS-Northstar Nelson Frame Traits: Momentum (1/round, when I Boost, gain +1d6 bonus damage next melee hit), Skirmisher (may move 1 space after attacking, ignoring engagement and not provoking). Frame Core System: Perpetual Motion Drive (Active - for the rest of the scene, Skirmisher allows me to move 4 spaces instead of 1)

Mech Attributes: Size: 1 Structure: 4; HP: 12, Armor: 1 Stress: 4, Heat Cap: 9, Repair Cap: 5 Attack Bonus: +2, Tech Attack: +0, Limited System Bonus: +1 Speed: 6, Evasion: 13, E-Defense: 7, Sensor Range: 5, Save Target: 12

Equipment Loadout: Main/Aux Mount: Tactical Melee Hammer (Threat 1, 1d6+2 kinetic +1d6 explosive damage), Mod: Thermal Charge (Limited 4, expend a charge to activate its detonator, dealing +1d6 explosive damage) Main/Aux Mount: Pistol (Range 5, Threat 3, 1d3 kinetic damage) Flex Mount: Power Knuckles x2 (Threat 1, 1d3+1 explosive damage, knocks prone opponents on a crit if they fail a Hull save) Integrated Mount: Fuel Rod Gun (Limited 4, Range 3, Threat 3, 1d3+2 energy damage, clears 4 heat)

Systems: Thermal Charge Mod (included in Tactical Melee Hammer attack) Ramjet (activate as a protocol, apply 2 heat, until the start of my next turn gain move +2 spaces when I Boost in a straight line with melee attacks gaining Knockback 2) Armor-Lock Plating (can Brace while Grappling, applying 2 Heat and ending the grapple; until the end of my next turn, attacks against me receive +1 difficulty, I can't fail contested Agility or Hull saves, and I'm immune to Knockback, Grapple, Prone, or being moved by any external force smaller than Size 5) Personalizations (+2 HP: safety signs and up-to-date hazardous materials notices) Custom Paint Job (when taking structure damage, roll 1d6, ignoring damage and returning to 1HP on a 6: caution yellow-black patterning)

*****

I got lucky. This isn't my first brush with Lancer, nor my second. Like a lot of the games I'm making characters for this year, I got Lancer some time ago and bounced off of it for reasons I couldn't really articulate. I think, at the time, it was a clash between expectations and reality. I had been pitched Lancer as a system where you could tell any of a variety of mech stories, a wide universe where conflicts could take any shape and theme and, at the time, I had a real taste for scrungy, scavenger-ass mechs scrapped together out of car batteries and nuclear paperclips. Lancer, apparently, doesn't tell that kind of mech story, and with the system's native complexity and its major favoritism for tactical combat over personal stories and gritty campaign play, I bounced.

But I got lucky. Later, during a lull in my weekly role-playing, a friend offered to run a one-shot, two-person session of Lancer with pre-built mechs, and it was a god damn hoot. Having someone there to walk me through how the systems interacted, through the joy in building complex machinery and then bashing it against one another - that very much helped. Any system, no matter how much it might not appeal to me specifically, is improved with the spice of enthusiasm. I went home and immediately, badly tried to put together a Kidd dronebot before learning of this challenge and saving my enthusiasm. And now here I am, and here's my machine. It wants to run into your shins and hit you with an exploding hammer.

Lancer's one of the few systems I've run into on this journey to which I can't really say, "It's good, but." Lancer does precisely what it intends to do, and if that's a thing you also want to do, then you're going to have a fantastic time. It doesn't fully stay in its lane - there's enough storygame swerving to allow a full Shinji Evangelion arc, if that's the thing that floats your artillery platform - but it puts a hell of a polish on the thing it wants to do well. Each little bit is comprehensible at first glance and clicks together satisfyingly. The machine it creates is beautiful and deadly, though you have to want it in order to run it at peak efficiency. Also, shoutout to COMP/CON, the free online character-building tool, for being way more organized than me hanging out with an open notepad file and a PDF.

Next up: The laughter of thirsting gods.

[swtechspecs]

Ghtroc Industries Class 720 Light Freighter

Source: Starships of the Galaxy, Saga Edition (Wizards of the Coast, 2007)

[mutantlord]

Industrial Android

Considered as little more than human shaped forklifts, dumb brutes, and expendable machines of the factory floor, these laborers were however built tough. Besides their strength, robustness and compulsion to work hard, many unique specimens feature one or more useful traits and skills. Besides the fore mentioned attributes, these bulky, typically metal boned humanoid machines are rugged enough to hold their own in a post-apocalyptic world. They normally appear as males but both genderless and female specimens are also found.

Hand drawn ink art from page 39, from The Mutant Epoch RPG Expansion Rules book See it here: https://www.outlandarts.com/expansionrules.htm or here https://www.amazon.com/dp/0994923791

[gridshock]

The QuickStart for Terminal State, our corporate dystopia #cyberpunk #ttrpg using Free League's Year Zero Engine, is available now on itch and DriveThruRPG.

https://vx2games.itch.io/terminal-state-quickstart

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/457568

[taylorannnx]

Chefs de Partie

It's here! It's here! It's finally here!

Chefs de Partie is such a personal project for me and a career milestone. As someone who loves cooking with others, I wanted to make a minigame for RPG campaigns that's quick and fun.

This is the first project I've been the creative lead on with more than 1 other person on the team and I was very brave asking friends and individuals whose work I admire to work with me on this. We have layout by Nala J. Wu, editing by Marielle Ko, and recipes from Austin Taylor, Basil Wright, Danny Quach, DT 'Honey' Saint, Erin Roberts, and Poorna M. (aka my Dream Team!)

This one page game is 10% legalese & credits, 30% rules, and 60% examples of how you can integrate it into D&D 5e, Blades in the Dark, Lasers & Feelings, and Fate Core. Zero prep is required, just 15-30 minutes of game time.

Please consider grabbing a copy for $4.95 today (with options for 50% and 100% off in the product description) here.

[the-ampersand]

About sandbox campaigns

Let me tell you a story.

Last year I went to a big sci-fi/fantasy con in my country. I had been planning to go for years because there is a big emphasis in talks with authors and there were many relating to ttrpg topics. There was one about sandbox campaigns! I was excited!

But sadly, I left many of the talks very disappointed. The one that hurt me the most was, precisely, the one about sandboxes. In it, a national expert in the ttrpg industry explained how there are two (2) kinds of sandbox campaigns, either open world or "social". Maybe three if you also count urban campaigns as sandboxes.

"Ok," I thought "I completely disagree, but let's see where this goes".

Then, the speaker proceeded to explain her prep process. In a social campaign she firts creates the factions. She likes Legend of the Five Rings a lot, so she usually uses the five usual clans of the settings.

"Alright. That's reasonable".

Then, she proceeds to populate their factions with about seven to ten NPCs per faction.

I left at that very instant absolutely astounded.

In my personal opinion, sandbox campaigns don't need to be an exercise of immense prep from the GM. They can be and if it works for some people I am glad for them and I hope they have fun with that prep. But I don't think that's a really reasonable way to manage this kind of campaign for the majority of GMs and even less so for the majority of tables. (And giving a talk about it without properly disclaiming it can set up an impossible standard that might discourage many novice GMs that would consider sandbox campaigns as too labor intensive).

I believe sandbox campaigns should play with the interest of the players. As a GM one should set up an interesting backdrop to explore and interact with, with a varying degree of prep according to one's own interests. And then the players are the ones that will guide the prep needed for the next session by stating their intentions. I have seen several people here clamouring for the many benefits of asking one's players "So what's your plan for the next session, then?". And I think those benefits double when playing a sandbox campaign!

It allows for a true feeling of discovery, not only for the players, but for the GM as well! The GM doesn't need to know everything from the beginning, they can discover it in a fractal way, following the interests of the table (which includes the GM themselves, let's not forget that).

Let me give you an example.

I am currently starting a sandbox campaign based on Skerples' Magical Industrial Revolution. I am mashing it into my DIE campaign, but that's not important. This setting revolves around technology and the grave danger it poses when left unatended to the whims of idealistic inventors and shrewd investors looking to make a fortune. I did as much prep as I wanted:

Being a urban setting, I made small sheets for different neighborhoods and points of interest of the city. I also got the help of my players to do this with a small session of i'm sorry did you say street magic by Caro Asercion.

I set up small scenes to present to the players the different pre-apocalyptic inventions that will destroy the city if left unchecked. (And I added a ninth invention for DIE reasons even though that breaks the number 8 theme in the module)

And that's that! We are already three sessions in and we had an impromptu heist into the university, spent a day selling turnips in the market and met a guy who knows he is inside a narrative (DIE stuff). Next time we are going to attend to a flying machines engineering duel because that's what one of the players asked!

Admittedly, a lot of the prep in this campaign is already done by Skerples, shared with me through the module. But I could have gone with a vibe, a list of cool places to visit, a list of things loosely going on on the setting and a list of names to invoke when a new NPC appears. And you could probably do without any of those things!

What you need to set up a sandbox campaign is not a huge load of prep. Is just enough to present an engaging premise and to answer confidently enough to whatever shenanigans your players throw themselves into.

I have yet to write a single faction sheet. Or a NPC background. I possibly will. But that will be whenever I consider it fun enough.

[vintagerpg]

This is SLA Industries (1993). That’s pronounced “slay,” incidentally, a fact that should give you some insight into the overall temperament of the game.

Let’s see if I can do this in the character limit. The titular company is run by Mr. Slayer, a pumpkin-headed supervillain, and it sits at the center of a horrible, violent universe. The company headquarters is surrounded by post-apocalyptic city ruins called Cannibal Sectors that are filled with all manner of mutants, monsters and serial murderers. Players are freelancers (of COURSE, why would there be paid benefits in a dystopia) who hunt monsters and take part in office politics.

There is a laundry list of super obvious influences. The goth and industrial music scenes are big one — lots of Siouxsie’s with big guns (and top hats) in the art. 40K is another, both in some of the art and in the waist-deep approach to lore. It being a product of Scotland, I expect 2000AD is in the mix, though not as front and center as I would have guessed. There’s some cyberpunk elements (the megacorp, for one), but SLA’s prime science fiction is more in line with the schlocky dystopias of Death Race 2000 and The Running Man, especially in the game’s notion that the players are probably on-camera through most of their exploits, an eerie (if likely entirely accidental) anticipation of reality TV. All of this is filtered, to varying degrees, through the aesthetics and sensibilities of early 90s manga and anime. The result is a big old stew pot of the likes of Rifts and Battlelords, but slathered in nihilism rather than bombast.

System? Oh god, there’s a system under all this? Oh, yea, there it is, on page 110. There is so much lore in this book that even when I am staring right at the system, I can’t really parse it, because I am still reeling from all the factions and history. It looks complicated and embedded in too many words.

[handwrittenhello]

this is ursula, my most recent tabletop character! she’s like if your older sister decided she also needed to be your personal trainer despite nobody asking. don’t ask her where she got her sword or why it makes her fly into a homicidal rage when she uses it 🤫

[alphachromeyayo]

Cyberpunk 2077 got me making heavy music for smashing ice and installing daemons 🤘💾🌐❄️

(with some help from a ludicrously '90s Shadowrun commercial)