#tiny table

[anim-ttrpgs]

If any of y'all had tips for aspiring TTRPG creators, what would they be? I'm hosting a "How to Make your own TTRPG" panel at a con this weekend, and anything to show folks from a fellow indie studio would be great!

Yeah a bunch. Each one of these could basically be its own post, but here are the condensed versions.

Social Media

You need social media. No one will ever hear of your game without a strong social media presence. And as much as it sucks, your best bet is probably tumblr. It’s the only populated social media site that allows your posts to be widely circulated without you having to pay, and also long form enough to actually include information. I dedicate one day a week entirely to social media and that’s just about the only reason we make any money at all.

Also, when using tumblr, the first five tags you put on a post are the most important, those are the tags that make it show up on people’s dashboards. The first twenty tags are the ones that make it show up in search results. Don’t put the name of your game in the first five tags generally, because if no one has heard of it yet, no one is following those tags.

Don’t Paywall Your Game

You deserve to be paid for your work if you indeed did any work at all (we’ll get to that), but that just isn’t the world we live in. Unless you have an advertising budget to essentially trick people into buying a game that might end up being crap, you need something to prove that your game is worth spending money on. Without an advertising budget, that proof has to be your game. Setting your game to pay-what-you-want, or providing “community copies,” lets people try your game before they buy. Plenty of people will buy up-front when given the option, and others who can’t afford it at that moment will download it for free then come back and pay later. Some people will never pay, but what that means for you is that they either never experience your game, or they pirate it. People experiencing your game, showing it to their friends, and talking about it is one of the most valuable pieces of advertisement you can ever have. It will ultimately lead to more people who are willing and able to pay learning about your game.

Start Small but Not Too Small

Do not make a one-page game for your first game. Do not be like us and make a 700-page game for your first game. Try to aim for something between 20 and 200 pages, especially if you’re one person or a small team.

Play and Read a lot of RPGs or Your Game Will Suck

Would you watch a movie by a director who had only ever watched one movie? Would you read a book by an author who had only ever read one book? Hell no, those would suck.

Read many rpg rulebooks, from many different genres and decades, play as many of them as you can (by the rules) to understand how the rules work and why they’re there. This will give you the creative tools you need to make something that isn’t just a weaker version of the last RPG you played. No, listening to "actual plays" does not count.

Most actual plays stray significantly from presenting a regular gameplay experience in favor of an experience that is entertaining for an audience. If you want to learn martial arts, you should be watching martial arts tournaments, not WWE.

If you want an actual play podcast that has my “actually mostly presents a real gameplay experience” approval, try Tiny Table.

If you say you don’t have time to read rulebooks, then you don’t have time to design a good game. Studying is part of the process of creating. If you don't, you won't even know about gleeblor.

This will let you know whether your "innovation" is more like "Cars don't need to run on gasoline!" or "Cars don't need crumple zones and airbags!"

The Rules Matter, So Design with Intent

The rules matter the rules fucking matter holy shit what you actually write down on the page matters I can’t believe this is actually the seemingly most needed piece of advice on this list. The. rules. matter.

Design your game to be played in the way you designed it. The rules affect the tone and genre of your game, they affect the type of people PCs can be and the kind of stories that will result from gameplay. Bonuses encourage PC behaviors, penalties discourage PC behaviors.

Do not fall for the trap of “oh well people will just play it their own way based on vibes anyway so it doesn’t matter what I write the rules to be.” Write that you wrote this game to be played by the rules and that significant changes to the rules mean that players are no-longer playing the game you made. Write like you deserve for your art to be acknowledged by its audience. If you don’t, then there is no point in anyone playing the game you made, because if the person who wrote it doesn’t even care what the rules say, why should anyone? The people whose “playing” of TTRPGs consists of never opening the rulebook and improving based on “vibes” will still do that no matter what, but the people who would have actually tried to engage with your game will find that it sucks if you don’t even care what the rules are yourself.

Playtest

You need to playtest your game if you want it to work as intended. You need multiple sets of eyes on it. If you don’t have the opportunity personally to do so, just release your game anyway with the acknowledgement that it’s unfinished. Call it an alpha or a beta version, and ask for people that do play it to give feedback, then update and fix the game based on that feedback.

Ignore Feedback

Most people do not have any game design credibility, perhaps least of all TTRPG players. You do not, in fact, have to listen to everything people say about your game. Once you ask for feedback, people will come to you with the most deranged, asinine, bad-faith “feedback” you can imagine, and then get really mad at you when you don’t fall to your knees and kiss their feet about it. You do not need to take this feedback at face value, instead you need to learn to read between the lines and find out which parts of the rules text are being misinterpreted by players, and which incorrect assumptions players are making about your game. Then, you update and improve the game by clearing those up. Only like 30% of “feedback” you receive will actually be a directly helpful suggestion in its own right at face value.

You can’t please everyone, and shouldn’t, so appeal to the people who actually like your game for being what it is, not the people who don’t.

Read Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Yeah this one sounds self-serving but hear me out. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is as much a treatise on TTRPG game design as it is a game itself. When it presents mechanics and rules, it tells you what they are, why they are, how they are, and what you’re intended to do with them. This makes it an excellent example to read for anyone wanting to get serious about game design and learn how TTRPGs tick under the hood, and an excellent example of a TTRPG that expects players to play it the way it was written to be played, and why that is a good thing. Also you can download it for free.

[tinytablepodcast]

Calling all Indie TTRPG Makers

Hi! We are always looking for new games to play! We do a rules explanation episode, 3-4 episodes actual play, and then a review episode (and hopefully an interview with the developers). Please email us at tinytablebusiness@gmail.com if you want us to play your game! We hope to hear from you!

[j-richmond]

Context: My brother and I make an indie TTRPG called The Magical Land of Yeld. Okay, so a few months ago my friend and constant ally and booster Emma Void (who is one of the two producers of our excellent YeldPlay actual play podcast) put me in touch with the people from Tiny Table, who do their own excellent actual play podcast. In the kind of magical way that these things sometimes happen, they were interested in playing and recording a Yeld game. Which I was very excited for! They asked me to write up a basic adventure for them to use, which I did (and which we'll publish later), and then they disappeared for a few months to do their own thing. A few weeks ago we got together again for an interview. The Tiny Table people are very nice and very funny, and had lot of smart questions and insights about our game. Which is rare, you know? If you play TTRPGs, you know that taking on and learning a new game can be a challenge, and it takes awhile to get up to speed. But it was clear that not only did they have a handle on the rules, but also really understood the themes Yeld gets into. We had a great conversation (which they recorded, so you'll be able to hear it soon), but they were quiet about the actual game they had recorded. Nick and I would have to wait to listen to it to find out what they got up to.

And I'm SO excited to find out! I just listened to their first Yeld episode, which is an incredibly concise rules overview by Julian. In less than 20 minutes they explain everything you need to know about Yeld, and I 100% couldn't have said it better myself. Something I noticed in both our interview and our brief conversations is that the entire Tiny Table group is very well put together and has a fantastic audio presence. You can hear this in Julian's rules overview, and it makes me even more excited to hear the first episode of their adventure (which I believe is coming next week)! I'm so excited to listen to them discover Yeld! Listen to Tiny Table here, and make sure to support their Patreon here! You can get the hardcover Yeld rule book and PDF from the Yeld site, IPR or Tabletop Bookshelf. The PDF is also available from DrivethruRPG and Itch.

[sabrinahawthorne]

Tiny Table Played Broke Wizards!

You almost certainly knew that already - but after all this time, the first episode is out!

I'm beyond excited to finally get to listen to the wonderful cast of @tinytablepodcast argue, debate, and otherwise interlocute their way into some petty cash with this system.

If you would be so kind, please show the folks over at TT some love by giving their Broke Wizards Rules Breakdown a listen, and come back over the next few weeks to hear about their magical misadventures.

[pathetic-gamer]

listening to @tinytablepodcast play daggerheart. i will carry good ol corn on the cob's advice on getting damsels for the rest of my life

"First off, you gotta beg for it. Out in the rain, silk shirt preferable." so fucking true king, thank you for your wisdom

[von-hauerland]

This is a dismantled micro table device holder I designed. It's flat shipping concept. You put it together by shelfing the parts together, they hold together by friction. It was sold first time this week. Celebrate with me!

[tinytablepodcast]

This reminds me of a certain slightly green raccoon.....

pssst....you should totally listen to his adventures here

i am something of a scientist

[anim-ttrpgs]

"When we were doing that interview with the Eureka developers and they made this allusion to the idea that the best system to run Call of Cthuhlu adventures in is Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, uh, I agree with them now! And that's a bad sign when comparing a game which is seven editions deep into its design versus a game that is still in its public beta. Really, I think the core failure here is Call of Cthuhlu is a game that wants its adventures to be investigations into the supernatural and there is no systemic support for investigating." -@tinytablepodcast

[tinytablepodcast]

Help Us Choose Our Next Game!

We received so many wonderful submissions from the indie ttrpg community of games to play next on Tiny Table. We need your help to narrow them down! We will be taking the top 3 games to Patreon for our patrons in the Mini and Micro tier to vote on.

Reactors and Romance: Reactors and Romance is a rules-light RPG about flirting while piloting a giant robot. You only have one stat, and that is your HEAT 🔥. Your HEAT measures how hot your mech's reactor is getting, and how hot of a pilot you are 😉 Will you fight or flirt your way through battle? Can you keep your mech from overheating? What will it be hotshot?

To Infinity...: Inspired by Alien and The Thing, "To Infinity..." is a tabletop social deduction game where up to 4 players and 1 GM need to escape on a spaceship from an alien monster who killed the rest of the crew. What none of the survivors know is that this isn't just a monster, the alien could be any one of them...

Hellborn Descended: Hellborn Descended is an infernal TTRPG set in a modern Hell, inspired by comics and shows such as Hellboy and Helluva Boss. In Hellborn, players take on the role of sinners, demons, and fallen angels, working together as mercenaries to attain wealth, fame, and power, or gloriously die trying. Check out their kickstarter!

Darkest Hour: Darkest Hour is a horror tabletop game inspired by horror movies of all kinds, featuring a group of monster hunters attempting to put a stop to a malicious supernatural entity in a single night. Over the course of six rounds, known as the Hours, the hunters must use their abilities to establish benefits that will aid them even as the haunt grows in strength and the hunters become less effective. As Blackest Night envelops them, the haunt feels insurmountable -- will the hunters find the haunt's true weakness and destroy it for good, or be whittled down until only a Final Girl remains? Featuring six haunts, six locations ripe for the haunting, and six unique hunter archetypes, Darkest Hour is perfect for one-shots for 2-5 players, and can either be run by a GM, or communally without a GM.

Dawn of the Orcs: Dawn of the Orcs is a GMless dark fantasy worldbuilding and roleplaying game. Play the magical technocrats who create the first orcs as living weapons and tell the story of how the Orcs become their own people. It can be played seriously as a fantasy transhumanist Dr. Strangelove, or as a wacky game of Saruman by committee.

The Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People: The Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People is a tabletop RPG where players take on the roles of a train crew in a fictional 1930s totalitarian state. Your mission is simple: get yourselves and your unique train from point A to point B though things are never that easy on the tracks of the Glorious Republic. The game requires only d6s, pen, paper, and, above all, your loyalty to the party.

Paratype: Paratype takes place in the aftermath of an apocalypse where giant bugs have reclaimed the earth. For humans survival is a challenge-one helped by the invention of a device that grants strange new buggy abilities. Paratype is a game about survival, humanity and so, so many bugs.

Broke Wizards: Broke Wizards is a light, silly game about working class sorcery. Play as students of the prestigious Audment's Academy of the Arcane who must go delving for treasure in order to pay tuition. To cast magic, wizards must use items found around their dormitory as makeshift spell ingredients - and then use their real-life argumentative skills to convince the living force of magic that yes, actually, a dirty shot glass is a great ingredient for casting a spell of water breathing, thank you very much.

RiskTaker: RiskTaker is a GM-less system built around players making big moves with big risks. Each sessions revolves around "The Scene," a climactic event like an episode's final battle in a superhero TV show, or the aftermath of a heist gone wrong. Players take turns either doing exposition scenes to give context to The Scene and built character relationships, or Influencing The Scene, which means they take a decisive action and decide how effective that action will be. But watch out - the more impactful your action, the more things can go wrong, and the more likely it is that they will. But what's a good story without a few Risks?

'til it kills us: in ‘til it kills us, you play as a group of young, reckless queer activists fighting to make a difference in the world. you’re angry, and you’re scared, and rightfully so. not to mention, you’re all a little bit fucked up. whether you’re dealing with issues at home, struggling with mental illness, or just learning to stand on your own two feet, life isn’t easy. but you’re also in love with the world, and with each other, so you keep fighting anyway. it’s the only thing you can do. the only problem is your magic. sure, it protects you. sure, it helps you fight. but you can feel it – feeding on the most unpleasant parts of you. and the longer you have this magic, the more you fear by those feelings. you worry it might be powering but you keep fighting. what else is there? remember what you always said: we’re going to keep on fighting ‘til it kills us.

If you submitted a game to us and don't see it on the list, don't fret! We will be hosting many polls like this and your game is still in consideration. If you game is on here and isn't chosen to move on to our next poll, also don't fret! We may add it on to the next poll again.

[j-richmond]

Tiny Table has wrapped up their Yeld game, and honestly it was great. I want to talk about it a little. To start with, you should go listen to the whole thing! They did 5 episodes, which includes a rules breakdown, a 3 part adventure and today's post mortem (above). If you're interested in Yeld or want a fun adventure to listen to, check it out! And show them some support by leaving a comments, review or checking out their Patreon!

If you don't know, Yeld is MY game. The Magical Land of Yeld is a TTRPG that I designed with my brother Nick Smith. It is a game about children who discover a magical land on the other side of a secret door, and then get trapped there when the door shuts. It is a game about growing up. Textually, its a game about exploration, team work, tactical combat and character building. Sub-textually its a game about choosing your family, facing the terror of becoming a teenager and discovering who you are (in a queer way). We've seen a lot of people play Yeld since we released the first playtest rules way back in... 2010 (so long ago). I've sat in on so many games. I've read so many recaps and reports. I've sifted through so many forum and discord posts. I've heard more than a few actual play groups take a stab at it. And, of course, I've ran the game for hundreds of people. Not everyone gets Yeld. Tiny Table gets Yeld. They get it so well. Its obvious from the first 10 minutes of the first episode that the group has a handle on playing kids (and a Dog), which is inherently fun and funny. But Yeld also requires you to take playing kids (and a Dog) seriously. Its not a bit. Its not a meme. Its a role that is as important to the setting and premise of the game as being an Elf or Dwarf in D&D (and really, maybe more so). The Tiny Table cast sinks into their role and gets the most out of it. Of course, they're entertaining performers and they put on a great show, but they also flex both the premise of the game and the rules. This adventure is a showcase for Yeld.

Genevieve (played by Holly) is the Rival (I think? I should have kept notes. She feels like a Rival). Energetic. Physical. Looking for adventure. She's a gamer, and wants to get lost in a fantasy world. She's so damn excited to explore Yeld, and recognizes it immediately for exactly what it is. She doesn't want to go home, and gets upset when her friends try to ruin her fun. Later in the Adventure she becomes a Soul Thief, and revels in her ability to launch into combat and sink her daggers into her enemies!

Dolores (played by Skyler) is the Big Sister. She radiates Big Sister energy, worried about her younger brother and much more cautious and realistic about exploring Yeld than her friend. She's not interested in Genevieve's gamer stuff, and doesn't have those video game points of comparison that her friend does. Instead, her approach to Yeld is practical, but still curious! When later her little brother is kidnapped, Dolores puts aside that practicality to try to rush to his rescue. At this point n the adventure Dolores' Brave dice had been reduced to 0, and Skyler does a fantastic job portraying this. Dolores is afraid, but not for herself. She'll throw herself against the horrible monster known as the Dollyhook in order to save her brother. Dolores chooses the Oathbreaker Job in order to protect her friends.

Princess the Dog (played by Neo) is the matronly family caretaker. She sees the kids as her charges, and its her duty to keep them safe and happy. Where the rest of the characters are kids, Princess is an adult. Princess is cautious, patient and indulgent. Her job is to take care of the kids, and she considers herself to be an integral part of the family. When Princess first passes through the door into Yeld and discovers she can talk, she's absolutely delighted! Finally, she can communicate with the kids in her care! Later, when she meets other talking animals in Yeld she's so very disappointed by their lack of care and responsibility. Princess becomes the group's White Mage, but quickly is more interested in summoning other animals than healing the kids! (BTW, all the art here is by Neo. As the person who has done every bit of official Yeld art, seeing someone else do cool Yeld illustrations is always a treat!) I think a big part of what made Tiny Table's adventure so much fun for me is how willing the entire group was to accept the premise of the game, and even revel in it! Dolores is willing to trade her prized possession, her new Jordans, as an offering to a ghost in order to gain the power to save her brother. Skyler becomes the assassin thief of her fantasies and immediately stylizes her look based on Princees Mononoke and Assassin's Creed. When finding that an entire town of children had been left without adults, princess immediately interrogates every animal in the town, demanding to know why they hadn't taken responsibility! Equally, the Tiny Table team had a very solid grasp on the rules (not always common for a first game) and were excited to use them! Dolores was eager to wade into the dangerous Water Hazards in the boss fight, confident that her high strength would allow her to much through. And when the evil ghost called the Dolly Hook tried to gain the initiative, Dolores was ready to point out that her Oathbreaker Oath made her immune to interruptions. Later, she broke that Oath to gain back some of her Core dice, restoring her bravery at the peak of the fight where it really mattered! Neo mentioned that they were worried they might have made a mistake choosing White Mage as Princess's Job, since the Dog didn't have hands to hold a spellbook! But very quickly Princess was casting spells to call Monsters into fights, and Neo described each monster through Princess' perspective. A wiggling Silverfish. A bright white furry Squirrel, eager to shake its but at enormous Howligator it was trying to distract. Holly seized on the lethality of Oathbreaker, charging into fights with a dagger in each hand. She quickly realized that Genevieve's enhanced Brave dice let her streak across the Action Board, and made her nearly impossible to interrupt. I could hear the excitement in her voice as she described how delivering a killing blow to a monster let her Bank and Action, and explained all the cool things she could do with that! Julian is the Game Master, and she brought all of it together. She had asked me to write an outline for them to use, and I put together what I think of as a basic "welcome to Yeld" adventure. Julian brought it to life, elaborating on the parts that felt important to the players and making sure each character had a distinct voice. Both figuratively and literally! Her voices for Rolo the Fairy and the incredibly creepy Dolly Hook were amazing! Julian gave her players plenty of room to explore their characters, but also kept the story going in what ended up being a very tight adventure. As the game's creator, the whole thing was a joy to listen to. I think you'll agree with me that the only real complaint is that we won't be seeing their ongoing Yeld adventures! If you're new to Yeld, I think this is a great introduction. And if you're a Yeld fan already, you'll probably agree with everything I said here. Thank you so much Julian, Neo, Skyler and Holly! I'm glad you had fun in Yeld. - J

Get the Stuff: Listen to Tiny Table's Yeld adventure here. Support Tiny Table on Patreon! Get the hardcover Yeld rule book and PDF from the Yeld site, IPR or Tabletop Bookshelf. The PDF is also available from DrivethruRPG and Itch. Support Yeld on Patreon here.

[tinytablepodcast]

shit you'd find in moneypenny's diary i'm SURE

bleeding out in the snow must feel good as hell if you're a detective

[von-hauerland]

Cell-pod. Microdesk for cellphone or wallet.

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Kickstarter for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is Live!!

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is our team’s debut TTRPG, over three years in the making! The campaign will run from April 10th to May 10th!

How far would you go to learn the truth?

Play amateur detectives caught up in things they barely understand, and explore how the lives of your characters unravel as they push themselves to dig deeper into the unknown!

Tense investigations!

Delve into an investigation-focused mystery and horror system that lets players take initiative and use their characters’ unique strengths to find clues and deduce conclusions themselves. A few bad rolls won’t get the party hopelessly stuck, but at the same time Eureka respects their intellect and lets them take charge of solving the mystery!

Character-driven gameplay!

Stats and abilities are based on who your character is as a person. Freeform character creation allows you to build a totally unique little guy, and have a totally unique gameplay experience with him! This is supported by the backbone of the Composure mechanic. Stress, fear, fatigue, and hunger will wear your investigators down as they trudge deeper into the unknown. Food, sleep, and connections with their fellow investigators are the only way to keep them going!

Secrets inside and out! 

Any investigator could be a monster, helping their friends while trying not to reveal their true natures. The party will learn to trust and rely on each other, or explode into a tangled net of drama!

Intense, tactical combat! 

Hits are devastating, and misses are unpredictable–firing a gun will always change the situation somehow, for better or for worse!

Now in Technicolor!

Evocative artwork from talented femme-fatales @chaospyromancy and @qsycomplainsalot and the mysterious @theblackwarden paint a gorgeously-realized portrait of a world with shadows lurking in every corner.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. We are almost at the end, we just need some financial support to put the finishing touches on it and make the final push to get it ready for official release!

With every stretch goal we meet, the game gets better and better. Tons of beautiful new artwork, new options for gameplay, and even two entirely new playable Monsters could be added to the book, so visit the Kickstarter and secure your copy today!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[tinytablepodcast]

The Broad Barrage

Art from our Call of Cthulhu campaign. Do you like butches and cryptic ass women dealing with cosmic horrors and institutions (maybe an even bigger evil...)? You miiiiiight just like this campaign then.

[tinytablepodcast]

And sometimes it's kind of both at the same time #Foriva ....

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

[j-richmond]

After their fantastic Yeld adventure, the Tiny Table team invited Nick and I to talk about our game and our approach to world building and design. It was a really fun interview! You can listen to part 1 here, and part 2 on the Tiny Table Patreon!