I'm making an rpg

[Wiseblood]

What do you want the game to do? Is it only a more granular chargen process on a d20 system? Is there a style you are aiming for like gritty, S&S, High Fantasy and/or something else?

 

[pemerton]

Here is a link to a free downloadable "lite" RPG - Cthulhu Dark.

I've run a couple of sessions of this system. PC Gen takes five minutes - name, description, occupation (in the real-world sense, not a game-defined list of classes). It can be done while pouring drinks and pulling dice bags out of backpacks.

Action resolution is simple and quick - dice pool based, with an easy but consequence-laden system for rerolls.

Although it's designed for use with published CoC adventures, in the sessions I've run I've found it very easy to use for improv Cthulhu-esque gaming.

Given that you main familiarity with RPGs seems to be D&D 5e/d20, and given your reference to "classes" in the OP, I'm guessing that you are intending to write a game more mechanically complicated than Cthulhu Dark. But given what can be done with a light system like that, at every point where you system is more complex I'd ask myself What am I adding to the play experience by including this extra bit of system?

 

[GMMichael]

@John Out West nailed it, from my point of view, anyway. Start simple and build up. Every new rule you add should either work seamlessly with your existing rules, or operate in a separate space. Here's how I set mine up - the rules are sequential, generally to agree with all previous rules, and they were more or less written that way as well.

Rules Catalog | Modos RPG | Obsidian Portal

Here are the five standard rules modules that make up Modos RPG. These modules are free to use and replicate under a Creative Commons license (read here) when y

modos-rpg.obsidianportal.com

I am currently starting from a d20 system, in that the d20 will be the primary form of resolving attempts at things. I don't know exactly how much I'll be changing from there yet. . . Character creation and adding complexity and flexibility to classes is another major point of mine, as I have long been slightly unhappy with what D&D gives me in design space.

The d20 System is a complete, fully-developed ruleset. Rolling a d20 to resolve attempts is one rule. From which are you starting? Starting from the former can potentially involve breaking the entire system and then spending large amounts of time trying to fix it, or worse, breaking it and not realizing you've done so until it's too late.

If you're looking to roll a d20 to resolve things and add complexity, you can use the rules catalog (above) as your foundation. It's Creative Commons shareware, and designed to be hacked. You might also look at WOIN, if d6s are cool with you. I believe it also has an open license.

 

[Ulfgeir]

My 0.02 SEK, as a long-time gamer (since mid 80's, and having tried a lot of different games throughout the years), and also someone who has proofread around 20 different role-playing products.

1: Make sure you have a clear vision of what it is you want to do.

2: Check if someone else has already made the game you want. You do not want to spend lots of time and effort in recreating something that already exists.

3: Find the USP (Unique Selling Point) of your game.

4: Start small. Make sure you break up the project in small manageable parts. Especially important that you define in advance WHEN you will be finished (not date-wise but scope-wise), and what is good enough quality.

5: Play-test with many different persons. Especially involve people that will try to abuse the system 9 ways to Hell. Take note of how the system handles it. Adapt accordingly. Accept critique here (expect a lot, for things that are broken or ambigously written).

6: Write. Write. Re-Write... Go back to step 5.

7: Have other people proofread it vigorously.. Accept critique, and reflect on their suggestions. Adapt them when needed.

That said. Good luck.

 

[Blue]

One thing I touched on briefly but want to reiterate - removing rules can often make a better game. If you find things are playing slow, or requiring a lot of time looking up rules, or whatever - there may be rules that do what you want them to do but are not worth their weight.

When writing, there's a saying "Don't be afraid to kill your darlings". Sometimes you can have fives great rules that come into play during a common type of situation, and anything more then three just makes it drag. Streamline, look for foundational issues causing delays, speed it up as you can, but when it gets down to it, sometimes even great rules need to go because it's too many for actual play.

 

[Lanliss]

@John Out West nailed it, from my point of view, anyway. Start simple and build up. Every new rule you add should either work seamlessly with your existing rules, or operate in a separate space. Here's how I set mine up - the rules are sequential, generally to agree with all previous rules, and they were more or less written that way as well.

Rules Catalog | Modos RPG | Obsidian Portal

Here are the five standard rules modules that make up Modos RPG. These modules are free to use and replicate under a Creative Commons license (read here) when y

modos-rpg.obsidianportal.com

The d20 System is a complete, fully-developed ruleset. Rolling a d20 to resolve attempts is one rule. From which are you starting? Starting from the former can potentially involve breaking the entire system and then spending large amounts of time trying to fix it, or worse, breaking it and not realizing you've done so until it's too late.

If you're looking to roll a d20 to resolve things and add complexity, you can use the rules catalog (above) as your foundation. It's Creative Commons shareware, and designed to be hacked. You might also look at WOIN, if d6s are cool with you. I believe it also has an open license.

In my case it would be the latter then, I intend to use d20 as the primary form of resolution. I should say that, as I'm most familiar with D&D 5E, that is my starting/comparison point. I won't be rebuilding that entire system in my own way, I just expect that it's inspiration may be obvious in the product since it will be the largest inspiration. A lot of what I have so far, and expect to have going forward, will be my own solutions and systems.

My 0.02 SEK, as a long-time gamer (since mid 80's, and having tried a lot of different games throughout the years), and also someone who has proofread around 20 different role-playing products.

1: Make sure you have a clear vision of what it is you want to do.

2: Check if someone else has already made the game you want. You do not want to spend lots of time and effort in recreating something that already exists.

3: Find the USP (Unique Selling Point) of your game.

4: Start small. Make sure you break up the project in small manageable parts. Especially important that you define in advance WHEN you will be finished (not date-wise but scope-wise), and what is good enough quality.

5: Play-test with many different persons. Especially involve people that will try to abuse the system 9 ways to Hell. Take note of how the system handles it. Adapt accordingly. Accept critique here (expect a lot, for things that are broken or ambigously written).

6: Write. Write. Re-Write... Go back to step 5.

7: Have other people proofread it vigorously.. Accept critique, and reflect on their suggestions. Adapt them when needed.

That said. Good luck.

1: I don't quite have a clear vision of where I'm going, so much as I have a few key items I intend to focus on.

2: I don't believe anyone has yet. I intend to have a fairly open and flexible class system, with a few bounds to prevent cherrypicking for a god character. I'd also like a framework for crafting items that I've barely started on, as well as information on how to craft magical items as that is a thing in the world.

3: My USP (I think) will be the class system. I hope to make it flexible enough to build just about any character one could want, from scratch or to imitate a character from media, but still keep it restrained and balanced to prevent being the best at everything. The power sets of the character classes will be a big chunk of the work, but also very modular and adaptable so that I can tweak them individually once I get them to a working point.

I don't know how vague/open I should be this early on in the process, but If people think it would help I could give more specifics about what I'm planning and hope to accomplish.

 

[ccs]

In my case it would be the latter then, I intend to use d20 as the primary form of resolution. I should say that, as I'm most familiar with D&D 5E, that is my starting/comparison point. I won't be rebuilding that entire system in my own way, I just expect that it's inspiration may be obvious in the product since it will be the largest inspiration. A lot of what I have so far, and expect to have going forward, will be my own solutions and systems.



1: I don't quite have a clear vision of where I'm going, so much as I have a few key items I intend to focus on.

2: I don't believe anyone has yet. I intend to have a fairly open and flexible class system, with a few bounds to prevent cherrypicking for a god character. I'd also like a framework for crafting items that I've barely started on, as well as information on how to craft magical items as that is a thing in the world.

3: My USP (I think) will be the class system. I hope to make it flexible enough to build just about any character one could want, from scratch or to imitate a character from media, but still keep it restrained and balanced to prevent being the best at everything. The power sets of the character classes will be a big chunk of the work, but also very modular and adaptable so that I can tweak them individually once I get them to a working point.

So you're trying to invent a 5e-ish, d20 version of Hero System. Or maybe GURPS (Generic Universal Role Play System).

I don't know how vague/open I should be this early on in the process, but If people think it would help I could give more specifics about what I'm planning and hope to accomplish.

Bear in mind that how vague/open you are will affect the usefulness of replies you get.

 

[Blue]

2: I don't believe anyone has yet. I intend to have a fairly open and flexible class system, with a few bounds to prevent cherrypicking for a god character. I'd also like a framework for crafting items that I've barely started on, as well as information on how to craft magical items as that is a thing in the world.

3: My USP (I think) will be the class system. I hope to make it flexible enough to build just about any character one could want, from scratch or to imitate a character from media, but still keep it restrained and balanced to prevent being the best at everything. The power sets of the character classes will be a big chunk of the work, but also very modular and adaptable so that I can tweak them individually once I get them to a working point.

Classless (and sometimes level-less) D&D-type RPGs is actually one of the common Fantasy Heartbreaker tropes. There is a lot of prior work there to inspire you or perhaps just steal^H^H^H^H^H adopt. Though if you enjoy futzing with a system as it's own hobby, that may not be for you. (That doesn't describe me. Nope, nope, not at all.)

BTW, I use the term "Fantasy Heartbreaker" in a loving way. I've made them myself, though never played outside me personally running. If you haven't heard the term before it's basically "I want to make D&D - but BETTER". Or "I'm going to FIX all the things I don't like about D&D". In other words, it's aiming for telling the same type of stories with much of the same design aesthetic (combat-focus, ability scores, skill lists, races, etc.) but tailored to what you want to see at the table. They are immensely fun because they scratch your own itch in just the right spot.

But if you want to publish, 5e is already doing quite well in it's niche, and there are plenty of games from blockbusters like PF (and it's new edition) to retro-clones to more narrative d20 games like 13th Age (a Fantasy Heartbreaker that was a recent commercial success) or Blue Rose. So to publish successfully you need to find a different fantasy niche.

But that may be at odds with making the game YOU (and your group hopefully) want to play.

So figure out up front if you want to try to publish and then take a hard turn away from all of those games with their already staked-out market niches. Or if you want to make the game that fits you personally like a glove - but may be too close to an already saturated market area to become more than a "pay what you want" on DriveThruRPG.

This isn't to discourage you. Both paths can be rewarding. It's that they aren't always the same path, and which direction to head is an early decision in design.

 

[Lanliss]

Classless (and sometimes level-less) D&D-type RPGs is actually one of the common Fantasy Heartbreaker tropes. There is a lot of prior work there to inspire you or perhaps just steal^H^H^H^H^H adopt. Though if you enjoy futzing with a system as it's own hobby, that may not be for you. (That doesn't describe me. Nope, nope, not at all.)

BTW, I use the term "Fantasy Heartbreaker" in a loving way. I've made them myself, though never played outside me personally running. If you haven't heard the term before it's basically "I want to make D&D - but BETTER". Or "I'm going to FIX all the things I don't like about D&D". In other words, it's aiming for telling the same type of stories with much of the same design aesthetic (combat-focus, ability scores, skill lists, races, etc.) but tailored to what you want to see at the table. They are immensely fun because they scratch your own itch in just the right spot.

But if you want to publish, 5e is already doing quite well in it's niche, and there are plenty of games from blockbusters like PF (and it's new edition) to retro-clones to more narrative d20 games like 13th Age (a Fantasy Heartbreaker that was a recent commercial success) or Blue Rose. So to publish successfully you need to find a different fantasy niche.

But that may be at odds with making the game YOU (and your group hopefully) want to play.

So figure out up front if you want to try to publish and then take a hard turn away from all of those games with their already staked-out market niches. Or if you want to make the game that fits you personally like a glove - but may be too close to an already saturated market area to become more than a "pay what you want" on DriveThruRPG.

This isn't to discourage you. Both paths can be rewarding. It's that they aren't always the same path, and which direction to head is an early decision in design.

These are great tips, thanks very much. I only ever thought about a "pay what you want" site, I don't know where I'd begin to get actual physical books published...

As for the game and world, I think it's a unique niche. Fantasy world that had an apocalypse, and isn't rebuilt yet. So there will be much more in the way of survival and exploring, finding old monuments in deserted lands, and refinding the edges of the known world. There will also be plenty of combat as the players face creatures mutated by the apocalypse that happened.

 

[Lanliss]

So you're trying to invent a 5e-ish, d20 version of Hero System. Or maybe GURPS (Generic Universal Role Play System).



Bear in mind that how vague/open you are will affect the usefulness of replies you get.

I don't know? I haven't done enough research to know. To clarify, I plan for my class system to be based on a perk point system. When you gain a level, you get X perk points, and can distribute them to level up certain abilities, unlocking new attacks, spells, abilities etc.

This way, I will have various generic abilities for classes, such as several melee classes having access to something like a "Vulnerable strike" ability, but some would also have specializations that lean harder into that ability. For example, a rogue type character can invest in the vulnerable strike ability, and later access some assassin based abilities to deal extra damage, or could choose to invest the rest of their time into becoming more scoutlike. Given the number of abilities I'd like to have for people to pick from, it would be more rare for many people to play the same exact type of rogue. some would have invested more heavily in sneaking, while others might have leaned on investigation to get by.

On top of this, I intend to have (limited) multiclassing, meaning that someone would be able to have two classes to pick abilities from, giving more ways to fine tune their build, but not be able to perk into 12 different classes to cherry pick all the best abilities. This means a person could mix some brute fighter abilities into their rogue to get a street gang thug type, or mix some Shadow abilities to become more of a magical assassin type.