#youve created a module with its entire own ruleset. which is fine but its not as broad an appeal as you think.

[wizardcowpoke]

the problem i have with a lot of indie ttrpgs (especially ones that are trying to Be The Next D&D) is that they do half the damn worldbuilding for you. its very very difficult to build a new game with as broad an appeal as dnd 5e, because conceptually and thematically, dnd is a very open system. so many indie ttrpgs are pretty restrictive in what kind of story they can tell because the genre or plot structure is so built into the ruleset.

this is not a bad thing per se. and it's hard to sell a new indie game without a strong conceptual hook. but when you build a role playing game with worldbuilding on the scale of a module or campaign, youre never going to have as broad a narrative reach as something like pathfinder or dnd 5e, whose rulesets are disconnected enough from the assumed default sword-and-sorcery setting that other genres can be used for flavor, and whose narrative concepts are broad strokes like "people have access to magic spells" and "monsters and elves exist, lord-of-the-rings-style."