TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
A couple friends and I started to create one in college, with "realistic combat options." Two hours into the first playtest we all agreed "this sucks" and shut it down.
Have you ever written a standalone set of RPG rules?
i pretty heavily houserule just about every system i use but I've only written one complete from scratch. It was for a very specific campaign I'd had in mind for a while that was set in a colonial era and focused on the dangers of fairy tales and other folklore being real but in a generally real world. Magic wasnt something for humans, meddling with it was very dangerous, generally forbidden and at best only resulted in simple charms. Studying the power though could result in being able to channel into effects on the users own physical form, some permanent and deliberate, others temporary or accidental.
Nothing I found on the market really matched the feel I wanted or those ideas so I wrote my own. Never tried to publish it though.
Nothing I found on the market really matched the feel I wanted or those ideas so I wrote my own. Never tried to publish it though.
Nytmare
David Jose
I have, over the last 20ish years probably written an easy dozen stand alone rpgs. The majority of them were done as one shot adventures built around either a Twilight Zone-ish story I had in my head, or pieced together around a mechanic I thought was fun. In college these were done as beginning and end of the year 'welcome back' and 'bon voyage' kinds of games, though I'd run them again for other groups over the course of the year. Later, they were done as games I'd run for friends and family when I went back home for the holidays.
I had had plans on compiling them into a book and getting them published, though I never chased after that at all. I'd want to overhaul most of them quite a bit if I were to run any of them again. My philosophies of design have changed quite drastically over the last decade or so.
There are also probably about an equal number of half started ideas in the box with all the unfinished board and card games I've made.
I had had plans on compiling them into a book and getting them published, though I never chased after that at all. I'd want to overhaul most of them quite a bit if I were to run any of them again. My philosophies of design have changed quite drastically over the last decade or so.
There are also probably about an equal number of half started ideas in the box with all the unfinished board and card games I've made.
I've designed a couple and self-published.
The first, Abstract Dungeon, was very much because I had an idea that I didn't see existing anywhere else. I wanted something that could handle conflicts fast to keep fights from bogging down the story, and I ended up using a resource spending mechanics. It makes the game very fast, flexible, and naritive driven, but sacrfices thigns like tactical combat and rules granularity.
The second, Magical Kitties Save the Day, I originally self published, but it's now been taken over by Atlas Games. That I made because I wanted to make something that kids could easily grasp, but that would be fun for all ages. Also it has cats with magic powers that fight evil.
This is why forum polls should not be trusted as representing the general population. I be that most people who have not designed a game just ignored this thread.
The first, Abstract Dungeon, was very much because I had an idea that I didn't see existing anywhere else. I wanted something that could handle conflicts fast to keep fights from bogging down the story, and I ended up using a resource spending mechanics. It makes the game very fast, flexible, and naritive driven, but sacrfices thigns like tactical combat and rules granularity.
The second, Magical Kitties Save the Day, I originally self published, but it's now been taken over by Atlas Games. That I made because I wanted to make something that kids could easily grasp, but that would be fun for all ages. Also it has cats with magic powers that fight evil.
This is why forum polls should not be trusted as representing the general population. I be that most people who have not designed a game just ignored this thread.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
I would bet that this thread is fairly representative of this forum, but that the forum population is naturally skewed toward designers rather than the general population.
Henry
Autoexreginated
Yeah, it’s like going to a forum devoted to classic roadsters and asking how many people have tried to restore one.
jdmcdonnell
First Post
The reason I create games - which is not in your list - is for the challenge of doing so.
The pencil, paper, dice rpg is basically a design challenge. You have very limited resources and yet a lofty goal: create a game which is better than D&D - faster, more realistic, and more engaging - without simply recreating D&D. It's a bit like playing Jenga where each rule is a block you add to the stack and then to slim the system down you remove what you can, all hopefully without causing the system to crash.
It's also a good way to get inside the mechanics of a game, to understand why one system would do initiative one way while another system does it in a completely different way. Unfortunately, there is that necessary slimness that a game needs to have which doesn't allow for the designer to stick in notes about why things are the way they are. If you can't just ask them directly then the best way to get to these answers is to take the game apart, largely by building something similar to it.
I am one of the "Yes, but only for my own use" types. I have built and trashed at least a dozen systems since 1993, having never done anything but some meager playtesting with a close group of friends who really would have rather been playing something else (but hey - favors). The reason I've never ventured past that point are all the other reasons mentioned in the post. The frosting of images and layout costs money which will probably not be returned by sales. The fame that comes from being a game designer is dubious in certain circles. And - on top of it all - you have to contend with the herd mentality which only wants to play what everyone else is playing, which right now is D&D.
To sum it all up. This may sound strange but I do it for fun and while I will not give away my fun work for free, the fun generally stops at the point where designing a game becomes a business. There are better businesses one can be involved in.
The pencil, paper, dice rpg is basically a design challenge. You have very limited resources and yet a lofty goal: create a game which is better than D&D - faster, more realistic, and more engaging - without simply recreating D&D. It's a bit like playing Jenga where each rule is a block you add to the stack and then to slim the system down you remove what you can, all hopefully without causing the system to crash.
It's also a good way to get inside the mechanics of a game, to understand why one system would do initiative one way while another system does it in a completely different way. Unfortunately, there is that necessary slimness that a game needs to have which doesn't allow for the designer to stick in notes about why things are the way they are. If you can't just ask them directly then the best way to get to these answers is to take the game apart, largely by building something similar to it.
I am one of the "Yes, but only for my own use" types. I have built and trashed at least a dozen systems since 1993, having never done anything but some meager playtesting with a close group of friends who really would have rather been playing something else (but hey - favors). The reason I've never ventured past that point are all the other reasons mentioned in the post. The frosting of images and layout costs money which will probably not be returned by sales. The fame that comes from being a game designer is dubious in certain circles. And - on top of it all - you have to contend with the herd mentality which only wants to play what everyone else is playing, which right now is D&D.
To sum it all up. This may sound strange but I do it for fun and while I will not give away my fun work for free, the fun generally stops at the point where designing a game becomes a business. There are better businesses one can be involved in.
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Henry
Autoexreginated
When I was younger, I tried to make my own, a post-apocalyptic RPG in the tradition of Mad Max (this was in the 80s and well pre-Fallout influence.) I did not get very far past ability scores and basic combat before I realized I was re-creating D&D and stopped. I have kit-bashed the hell out of everything from combat sub-systems, new classes, new ability scores, new magic systems, etc. to the volume of creating a new RPG, just with subsystems rather than an all-new work. To be honest by this point in my life there already exists an RPG for my every need, it’s a waste of my and my friends’ time for me to get that involved with a whole-cloth effort.
I have kit-bashed the hell out of everything from combat sub-systems, new classes, new ability scores, new magic systems, etc. to the volume of creating a new RPG, just with subsystems rather than an all-new work. To be honest by this point in my life there already exists an RPG for my every need, it’s a waste of my and my friends’ time for me to get that involved with a whole-cloth effort.Similar Threads
