#indie ttrpg designer

[cassimothwin]

Look what arrived from Dicebreaker! Genuinely so honored and thankful for the recognition of "Rising Star Designer." It's been really tough to refer to myself as a game designer, but I'm finally feeling less like a pretender every day!

[krawkpaladin]

Hey, do you like GMless games for 4-6 people? Do you like things that are free? Do you want to escape from the failings of your country's legislative body in real life by roleplaying as a representative/MP that actually works towards their constituency's interests?

Check out the playtest for my ttrpg Winning the Peace on my Itch.io (did I mention it's free?)

It has full rules for creating a City, its Communities, and the Representatives working to navigate the city through a future free from the Dark Lord.

Play as one of 4 different Representative types, and balance your Community's needs against those of others!

Navigate 52 different Events using a deck of standard playing cards!

As my first full ttrpg, I'm really excited to share this with everyone and am looking forward to receiving feedback!

[alexyquest]

i feel like everyone is into chess these days so i made this 

i made 30 of the stupidest chess variants imaginable. i hope u enjoy.

download for free here.

distributed by @strongbranchpro​

[smallredrobin13games]

What would you do, if you discovered that your family had a secret? A secret that, more than anything, wants to be found, to be brought to life?

The pre-launch page for Buried Deep is now live (2/2/2024)! In five days the crowdfunding campaign will go live, please subscribe before then! The game is a hack of Stealing The Throne by Nick Bate and is about uncovering long-kept family secrets.

[damsels-n-dice]

have you ever wondered what you would do if you knew you were going to die today? what if everyone in the world was going through that same thing, in the same moment? anarchy, most likely. crime, perhaps. but also a chance to say the things you weren't brave enough to say, or do the things you didn't have time to do until now. a chance to change things.

this is the premise of my 200-word ttrpg, WHAT TIME WE HAVE LEFT. play in real time as people experiencing their last hours on earth, racing to find closure before the end. because, of course, knowing the apocalypse is coming doesn't necessarily mean you know exactly when. neither you or your character does. you can see the original version of the game on tumblr here, and the itch.io page here, but more importantly, it's now up on drivethrurpg!

[eliotbaum]

The Performer 🎭🎶 A character class for The Hidden Isle.

You can preorder the TTRPG here

[probablyday]

millennial nerd bertie wooster for some reason

[drakeanddice]

Haunted by a fantasy world where "adventurer" is handled in the same way as "assassin" in John Wick. An ifykyk secondary economy running on gold coins where everyone knows each other but no one acknowledges the elephant in the room because we have manners about our weird-ass line of deadly desperate dangerous work.

Rolling into town, looking immaculate. Checking into the Inn. Not an inn, or the coaching house, or the traveler's hostel. The Inn. The one that takes my ridiculous oversized coin and says that my room is ready, and will I need to visit the Smith today? Perhaps a meeting with the Vintner? Shall I send up the Gourmand?

"Good afternoon, Master Whicke," the Smith says, putting aside the barrel scraper he's been working on to flip a switch beside the forge. Racks of tenpenny nails and trowels and hammers fold back to reveal the glittering points and edges of a score of swords and axes and spearpoints lit with the flicker of finely-tuned enchantments. "Shall we tour what's new?"

"What sort of occasion are we hosting, Master Whicke?" The Vintner asks, pocketing the coin with a sigh. "A funeral," you say.

"Ah, well perhaps something light to start, then," she says selecting a straight-walled flask that glitters with contained starlight, proof against the touch of the undead. " And something for remembrance," she plucks a small crock of something evil-smelling and phosphorescent. "And then something to really bring down the house." She gingerly selects a double ampoule of energetic looking jellies.

The Gourmand carefully runs his knife through the salted flank of a cockatrice with a pursing of the lips. "So many neglect trail rations, Master Whicke, and it is their shame. Paired with goldenwheat pancakes and carrion honey, a mouthful of cockatrice--properly seasoned of course--will keep the mummy rot at bay, even post-exposure. I have been given to indicate by the Management that your current escapade may make such information useful to you. I will of course wrap your purchases exceedingly carefully. Rot will be your constant companion in the Black Pyramid."

There's something here.

[sahonithereadwolf]

I ended up ripping out my entire health system the other day to make a whole new one. This is the most last minute major system change completely on gut instinct but it was absolutely the right move.

So, the system I was using was very much taking it's cues from a lot of games that where descendants of FATE. But the health was still very much split into mental/physical. Take 4 boxes of damage, get an injury tag that gives you negatives until you're ko'ed.

But… Instead I tied them to the playbooks my game function off of. Each character is made tags made from themed open ended questions you pick to answer.

You have minor injuries still as those bars fill up. But when all the bars in a playbook are, you get a major injury that in some way gets in the way of using your playbook. You no longer get access to all your positive tags as long as it's an issue.

Sure you have a magic sword, but it's hard to use if you have a broken arm or lost confidence in your skill to protect others.

If you get three major injuries, meaning you can't use any of your playbooks, you become "in distress". You are no longer a main character who takes initiative, the daring pulp adventurer, but the "damsel in distress". You're a passive supporting character who can't drive things forward, but react

You might still help, but the spotlight and heroics are for others

Anyways, this was a roundabout way of explaining this screenshot from my notes

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Was talking about sandbox design in a ttrpg server, and though this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think these really are good things to consider when you approach sandbox design in a ttrpg (and elsewhere!)

[sprintingowl]

This Discord Has Ghosts In It

It doesn't get talked about enough, but This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a rad example of how you can adapt game design to your surroundings.

Basically, This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a digital larp. It's Phasmophobia played by chat. Your group creates a discord server to function as a haunted house, then you all explore it, building new 'rooms' out of channels as you go.

Some players take the roles of ghosts, and are muted but can affect the environment in the haunted house.

Other players take the roles of explorers, and can talk, but the ghosts are all listening.

Discord wasn't built to be gamified this way, but that doesn't matter.

As long as you can guarantee consistent behavior from a thing, you can build mechanics off of it.

Anything in your environment can be turned into a game.

And in this particular case, it's a really good one!

The mechanics lend themselves well to the kinds of pacing, limited communication, and untrustworthy setting that any good ghost story needs.

[cassimothwin]

Last Flight of the Pandora is a zero prep, single-session space horror RPG!

I picked up this game at Gen Con 2023, and I was blown away by how easy it is to get to the table. It's packed with content, simple to digest, and fast to pick up.

Check it out!

[krawkpaladin]

So it's been a bit over a week and just about 20 people have downloaded Winning the Peace from itch.io, which is quite exciting. (The exact number is 23, but rip to the 4 people who downloaded the first file with some pretty glaring errors. So 19 good downloads.)

While I know that nobody was probably running a playtest for an indie, gm-less ttrpg over the holiday weekend (for those that do and had the opportunity to celebrate), I'm glad that folks found it interesting.

As much as I am talking about my own game though, I'd like to also talk about some of the other cool entries to the Minimalist Game Jam.

Minimalist'Mon is a short (just about over 1 page) RPG about catching and battling mons using Rock Paper Scissors. The mechanic of choosing your mon's weaknesses (which of rock, paper, or scissors you can't choose in a given round) is clever. Creating and evolving your mons is a quick and easy process that encourages creativity.

Heroes of Repente has you in the role of magical storytellers that manifest the power of legends with the power of rhyme. It has you composing short poems to resolve actions, including combat actions. It's only a proof-of-concept as per the creator, but I think it's a very cool idea.

Hellhound Rancher is a solo resource management TTRPG where you run a hellhound ranch. I just think that this one is just really solidly built and doesn't leave a lot of "but how do I do that?" type of questions when reading it. I also just really enjoy the concept of a creature-breeding RPG.

Amnesiac Attorney is a solo or duet game that's heavily influenced by Disco Elysium, Ace Attorney, Brindlewood Bay, and a dash of Ironsworn. I don't know if I can really adequately describe this game, even though it only runs a tight 5 pages, so really check this one out on your own, even if this sort of game isn't normally your wheelhouse. One of my favorite things with this game is that it expressly discusses re-examining evidence in light of new information, which is something I don't see brought up in lots of RPGs with an investigative component, where you either succeed or fail the first time with no opportunity for followup.

You can find all the games at the links above, or also at the jam page here. I had a lot of fun participating in this, and am already working on another project for a different jam.

I hope everyone has a happy new year and that 2024 is as kind as you need it to be!

[theinstagrahame]

Announcing: Restful Actions

(It's here. You can go get it now!)

Restful Actions is a collection of 10 minigames for downtime periods in any TTRPG. They're designed to help players resolve character conflicts, complete goals, heal or explore, and take much shorter shopping trips. (You can, in fact, download the shopping trip minigame as a demo!)

For GMs, the goal is to give you a break, so you can start preparing the next Big Event. The minigames invite players to fill in some details of the world, creating shops, landmarks, even creatures.

You can pick up your copy here:

I've talked about this thing in more detail here:

[smallredrobin13games]

My new supporter-only lyric game, Eat Your Feelings, is out now! I'm pretty excited about this one, this is a pretty experimental game and it's the first time I've tried to write a lyric game

[damsels-n-dice]

as well as being on itch.io, my games are now all officially going up on drivethrurpg! for now you can only find This game is a message. over there, but i'm hoping to get other games up slowly over the next few weeks. here's a link to my account over there, for anyone who prefers that platform, or who just wants to be nosy: