Took some degree of notes while I listened: Di is on a boat Making a TTRPG is hard Reasons why it's so hard 1. Know what your die system (or other CRM) is - What kind of dice you want, what do you want them to do? - Examples: d20, d6, d10 pools, d12, 7d4, 2d8, d100 (percentile) - Play different games to figure out how different dice systems work (People keep creating d20 DnD-likes because it's all they play) - Dice aren't the only CRM (Conflict Resolution Mechanic) - Examples: Cards, Tarot, Jenga towers, Resource Management (games where you don't roll anything, just spend points). 2. What is this game trying to do, trying to be, trying to emulate? - Focus on the experience you want the game to provide - The Content of your game gives the dice mechanics or CRM flavor. - Mechanics make up the game's identity - What numbers are the players excited for? - If you don't add mechanics that emulate the experience you want for your game, you end up with an 'engine'. 3. Scope bloat - If you start adding support mechanics, where does it end? - If you have a gun, do you add a misfire mechanic, and a repair system on top of that? repair tools, professions? At which point does this completely derail the game experience you set out to create? - One small change might end up adding a bunch of supporting things that will never get use. - When you want to emulate more and more of the world, you invariably invent mechanics most people might never actually use. - The decisiveness to cut content is extremely difficult Addendum: Most of these also apply to video games! One benefit over Video games: TTRPG can grow over time, every single game has a GM that can add or remove rules as it fits their game. Do not set out to create the perfect TTRPG (not something that can exist), but what you can make is a game that works and that feels the way you want it to feel. Trust the others to fill in the gaps as they see fit.
I wrote over 200 pages of D&D 5e homebrew. My next step is to scrap everything and try again, due to unnecessary system bloat. Didn't even have to worry about what kind of CRMs, and it still is a major challenge. Luckily got some friends willing to try my crazy systems, and let me know which worked and which didn't. Thank you for the boat. It earned my subscription.
Currently making about 6 games, and your nigh incoherent ramblings are simultaneously so relatable and so illuminating that they’ve done me a great service. Much obliged, my games may now have multiple unique dice rolling systems
Hahahaha perfect! I wanted to come from a very sympathetic angle. Very "I'm doing my best" but also if you listen you can find some real gems if you sift enough. Thanks for watching!
I clicked for Di on a boat and thoroughly enjoyed the game design talk. CRMs and the anlogy to video games was really well done, would love more of those boat talks
Honestly I would really love to see a video exploring different CRMs or how to go about choosing a CRM! Any time I think about them the only metric I have for competing them is "riskynes"
I do some in depth stuffs in excel normally where I calculate the chance of different outcomes for different difficulties/skill combinations (or whatever the game I'm working on currently uses). You can replicate a similar effect by examping chances of different outcomes for some likely and/or edge case senerios. Like, take the best someone can be at something after character creation and compare that against your average challenge and see how they stack up, then do it for the worst, try the hard challenges and the easy ones, etc. Once you do the full map of 9 possibilities or like the 4 extremes plus the average case you should have a good idea of how your game will work in practice ie: if your success ranges from 3% (worst character hardest challenge) to 95% chance to succeed (for the best character at something on the easiest challenge) that creates a different play experiance than if anything outside of the 40-60% range is unusual. Also, you can change things with levels of success or not even use dice. Maybe you draw cards or can spend resources to bypass/complicate challenges. Lots of fun options but the end goal should be creating something that fits your fantasy. If you're trying to build a game about super heros maybe their skills vary wildly between the speedster and hulk character but if instead your game is about cosmic horror maybe you should include a mechanic so the DM can cut the chances of sucess by 5x to really sell the idea of tampering with forces beyond mortal control.
Back in 1988 my supervisor, Sgt Jesse Blankenship, and I worked on our own RPG, but after 6 months we decided that it wasn't better than other games available so we quit. I still have everything we did.
Really appreciate the timing of this video. We've been working on three different ttrpg systems over the past calendar year, just need to find a playgroup willing to playtest, and now I want to make one based on rowing a boat. The ADHD is real!
Great video, Di! A little scattered but we come to expect that from you. I've been working on a few TRPG ideas that come to me, little things that matter to me that I'd like to get down on paper, but you are right that it's really tough and that tiny changes to the mechanics can have layers of effects on the end result. I think the two things I'd most want to highlight in this video are the importance of staying focused and the importance of knowing how to cut content. You don't want a bloated game that does everything badly, you want a sleek game that does its thing exactly as efficiently as possible, even if you're trying to make a generic system (I LOVE generic systems, I collect them like Infinity Stones). Even in a generic system, the more things you want to represent, the more abstract you have to get, otherwise your book becomes just a list of things to consult. A lot of superhero games want to have a list of powers to choose from with defined features, but Sentinel Comics gives you powers with the assumption that you will use them creatively, so they can be more abstract. A game with defined powers might have a fire blast that deals 4d8 damage, but if the player wants to use their fire blast in a more nuanced way, it can be a struggle to figure that out, but because Sentinels is abstract, you simply have "Fire Control" as a power and thus can use its associated die so long as you can narratively use it to solve the problem. A details game might not anticipate you using a blast of fire as a super jump, but in Sentinels that's exactly the same roll as blasting a goon with your fire, but with a different outcome. And when it comes to cutting content from your game, always _always_ save that, just have a little Notepad file of cut content that didn't work in Game A, because you can always make Game B and maybe the mechanic will work _there._ And if it does, you've already done the work in advance trying to fit it into Game A, so you can easily try it out in Game B as a result. Always remember: You can make _another game._ This is connected back to the idea of "don't make a game that does everything"; if you do everything in one game, you won't feel encouraged to make another new game, and it's just good to always have another direction to go with your creativity. Nothing goes to waste, there's just a square hole out there for your square block you haven't found yet, because you've been making circle hole games for a while.
@@dicequeenDi It can be, but I'm more trying to push against the common assumption of "if I cut a mechanic I'll never see it used, I wasted the time I spent coming up with it". There's a bit of sunk cost fallacy when you're looking to cut a mechanic you thought was going to be a big deal only for it to not be. The important thing to know is that there isn't any sunk cost, you just invested your time into the future.
I've designed several RPGs and your advice was solid. Well done! Most important to emphasize is your assertion that if you want to design then you should design. None of these challenges stop you from creating your own homebrew systems and running them with your crew. We are a DIY hobby so go out there and Do It Yourself! If it matters to any of you, it generally takes me anywhere between 6 months and 2 years to completely create something I'm willing to call finished. And that's not including all the ones I started but abandoned for one reason or another.
i mean absolutely legit. i should work on just putting down the pen sometimes. but half the time i'm scribbling and crossing out so much stuff cause i keep find it's not *good* enough, y'know?
@@dicequeenDi The irony is that you never really know if it will ever take shape until AFTER all that scribbling and crossing out and adding and then scratching that out and then scribbling again and then...
I adore how enthusiastic you are to discuss game design :D I understand how passionate you are about this subject. Outstanding video! You just got a new subscriber!
have spent over 15+ years researching, playing, discecting & designing TTRPG systems. its true. "making a TTRPG is hard." especially if one of your dev goals is a system that speciffically isnt "just another d20 system". certainly proud of my struggles, reitterations and countless playtesting and probability number crunching to be finally entering the most realized beta dev playtest versions of the TTRPG system i've been wanting for nearly two decades.
The thing I've found the hardest with making TTRPGS, frankly, is editing your system into a concise, readable, and engaging manual that encourages people to play it... not to mention find rules for easy reference.
I've been developing a ttrpg on and off for the past like 2 years and have noticed the hardest part at least for me is finding mechanics that both feel good from a "Make big numbers head go brr perspective" you get from having a +12 in perception but also adding enough creativity to be able to build what you want without having to make 500 races 1000 feats and 20,000 spells. I haven't released mine and probably won't for a few years if ever but thank you for making a video explaining the pain of making a ttrpg
I've made multiple games, all public domain. Never tried to publish anything yet. Mostly because I find it wasier to write my own rather than learn someone elses. There's a lot to be said about being able to give an accurate interpretation of the rules as the DM due to having written the game yourself. It's a really fun untapped side of the hobby that people overcomplicate in their heads before taking a real swing at.
i was recently talking about cdda, it has an absurb ammount of items and features and despite being pretty large and being a kitchen sink of content, it does remove and cut content every now an then, keeping everything isn't always the way to go.
Been slowly building our own TRPG to go with a world building project we’ve been working on even longer, because existing systems just didn’t fit the world we were making and wanted to run games in.
She spitting fax Honestly tho, rapid prototyping with a bunch of different conResMech systems is the best way to avoid the "rewrite everything" trap. Vertical slices are much, much easier to handle on the tabletop (where you can fall back on GM fiat) than on bideo james.
I'm working on a multi-media project which includes TTRPG material and I think you've nailed it. I've been studying this for a while and I agree w all points made. It is difficult but I think what you said about not making the perfect game resonated. My only additional thought is in a saturated market, it's important to find or fill a niche. This is why I decided to go w a multi-media approach.
@@dicequeenDi I'm writing novels, developing the table top, and designing a video game using RPG Maker. I feel w a foundational approach across multiple medias, I can possibly reach different groups. I've learned a lot in the process and that has been invaluable. Not to promote but I'm currently developing the system on World Anvil.
I will not lie when the OGL 2022 situation started up, i just didn't want to do anything with D&D. So to fill that TTRPG hole until Fabula Ultima came along (you're the first person on my feed talking about it thank you i could kiss you) my attempt with documentation online with rules was a game called Hakorz, pronounced hackers. The world took place mostly in cyberspace where your hacker avatar was a mix of fantasy classes ranging from high fantasy to science fiction theme. Did so much work, and i told my folks "im part of a hakorz" group with the assumed context we're talking about ttrpgs, i got a strange look, and got turned off of the concept and haven't returned to it due to how talking about it made me feel after mentioning it. Back on subject, i agree developing your own ttrpg is hard and takes a lot of your time & dedication.
Honestly the response to this video has been surprisingly positive! I tried to come at this at a more sympathetic "there there, I'm feeling the same, buddy" cause I don't think there's enough of that energy
Every time I look at a crunchy system, I think, "This complicated subsystem could have been a dice roll". A certain base level of simulationism is necessary to avoid the game becoming too abstracted. But you can also go too far in trying to make granular what doesn't really matter. For a lot of stuff, keeping the game moving is more important that getting everything exactly right. If you already have a system for resolving uncertainty, find a way to use that tool for accomplishing more goals. That's not just kind game design for the end user, it's efficiency of labor for you the designer.
Does the process come with challenges? Yes. Is it fulfilling/super fun? double yes! I am almost finished making a core rulebook. It has been amazing to watch how many elements have changed. If anyone are interested in making TTRPG, I say go for it and trust the process.
@@dicequeenDi I understand what you mean. In the video, you recommended understanding the goal of the project. Once the feature/content aligns with the goal, you have done well enough. Could it be refined? Possibly but more importantly you have something sufficient on the page. We should aim for progress rather than perfection. If we later find faults in our work, we can update it or take that lesson into the next project
I was worried that designing a TTRPG would be hard but now that she's on a boat, it's ok But for real, i have had one in the back of my head as a thought experiment but hardly have the spare time to play in a game, let alone develop one that I still wouldn't have time to play
Rants/rambling??? I feel people are very informative but I wanted to come at the topic from an angle of sympathy/empathy-as someone that's gone through it all and understands the average person's struggles
There's the 3d6 "HERO system" with at least 6 editions. But that "game" is more of a framework that can be adjusted for other settings, complete with suggestions for renaming skills from a modern sense to a fantasy one. Also, the "Car does the most damage now" and "ship mechanics not being used because it's all on land" is something I feel running Pathfinder 1E for my group, since charm person to make them trust you to teleport them away from danger, then teleporting them into space does more damage than any fireball. Or the idea of building their own ship that's too big for a kraken to squeeze. I have gone on record by saying "The most valuable resource to give players is time", which is proven true time and again. While I could just move up the time tables, I think it's better to have the players interrupt the BBEG prepwork if they moved fast enough, or run into additional obstacles if they move too slowly. But that's more style than game. There was this ONE time where my group actually used UNO to resolve an encounter with a devil. That was... interesting.
@@dicequeenDi Shadow Scar is R Talsorian Games new IP where it's a D6 Dice Pool System that counts a roll of 4+ as a Success and the setting is about a secret war between Yokai and Ninjas.
Designing the core system of a TTPRG is easy, you simply have to be competent with math, probability, and logic. I've already made one TTRPG and am working on another one. My first one is a mechanics-light system reliant on improvisation. It also doesn't hurt to borrow from already existing systems for inspiration. It's the busy work that's hard. I'm currently procrastinating on my character creation engine because it's a lot of work requiring a lot of executive decisions. Publishing is probably hard. I don't have any experience with that.
Looking at the species I think it's hardwired in humans to be barely competent in probability, let alone logic and math xD And yeah character creation is fairly involved. A game will live and die on the ease of character creation, often more than the CRM itself
The funny thing about dice is that you don't need to use them! Jay Dragon is doing some really awesome things with Seven Part Pact (Patreon only currently), Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, and Wanderhome without dice. Dread is a really fun horror oneshot system that uses a Jenga tower for action resolution. There's a diceless STALKER ttrpg that does a pretty good job of replicating the feeling of the Tarkovsky movie. I also likely have undiagnosed ADHD (working on getting a diagnoses as we speak), and I have the same issues. I've been working on a system for 2 years now, and it's no closer to being done than the day I started. I've changed the entire system mechanics 3-4 times. I think it'd be really cool if you made a one-page rpg and published it, just to have something published. An Anime Girl on a Boat in the Canals of Venice Accidentally Solves a Crime by Talking to Passerbyes. Make a little Oracle table, steal some of Brindlewood's mystery mechanics, and boom: a published game!
There's a handful of games that do it without dice, and Dread is a perfect example of that. That said, for the rest of the games, I don't vibe with em at all *because* of the lack of dice. I feel subjecting ourselves to fate is fairly critical to keep the game aspect of the TRPG format. Also! I have made a handful of games. Just most of them don't see the light of day. dicequeen.itch.io/ They're all free! Definitely check out the one about groundhog day time loops using lofi hip-hop playlists
You know, I'm actually making an ttrpg right now. It's a generic system based around exerting your character for greater effect. It has a cool mechanic in which you have 3 health pools and you spend these health pools to increase die size and number. I plan on using this system to help make a couple other ttrpg ideas I have too.
@@dicequeenDi it's only 3 and I keep the numbers small, but I get what you are saying. I'm currently playtesting it and so far the health pools haven't been an issue. (Other than changing how much health people have.) it's been more about balancing defence roles and healing. Also I get it could be annoying to track all that on paper but this is being made with electronic assistance in mind. The character sheet does a lot of the math for you, so you only have to worry about putting numbers in the right place when making or adding to your character.
@@dicequeenDi I don't think I explained it very well. I call them hp pools but they are more like mental and physical stamina and when you take actual damage, it lowers you stamina max until you heal it off. It might be a bit crunchy but it's supposed to simulate pushing yourself or pacing yourself while also using injuries to effect your capabilities. The goal is to keep it as simple as possible while keeping those simulations in mind.
Once upon a time, I had made the outer shell for a Kaijus-and-Mechs type game using the Forged in the Dark framework. I had that exact issue of scope bloat very early on, even with something as relatively simple to deploy as FitD. How much mech, kaiju, and human interactions should be reflected in stats was something that was driving me up a wall. At the end of the day, a playtest may be the best thing for a game to go through, in order to see what actions people are likely to take in the biome you make. Worst case scenario is that the game moves away from a section of rules that have been given detail, and maybe those rules get used for a different project. Would have been interesting if Gygax had been inclined to make a standalone naval battle game (Seas and Serpents?) rather than those rules be left to fall away.
I’ve been getting into ttrpg design recently, and I really get the scope bloat problem. I made a Skyrim ttrpg which started as a 5e hack that has sort of become its own thing. I was making it while running a campaign for 5e, so I had a lot of time to work on it before the next campaign started. I kind of got addicted to it, like I wouldn’t do anything else in my free time. I think it’s my adhd hyper focus, I get the same way with any project, or playing a video game (like Skyrim lol). But I got to a certain point where everything that needed to be done was done so I was doing shit like making clothes. You know you’re in too deep when you’re writing the description for the clothes section. Anyways I made a fallout ttrpg also and I made a video about it on my channel if anyone wants to check it out.
Thanks for posting; really appreciate the advice! (Tinkering with an unholy kitbash of HERO, Fate, Numenera, all because I want to see if I can make a Genshin Impact RPG).
Summary: 1. Dice Queen Di wants to know: "What da dice doin'?", "Which dice doin'?", and "When do dice?". 2. Remember that a game about "anything" is about NOTHING, and NO ONE IN PARTICULAR will be drawn to it as a result. 3. Only YOU can prevent game feature fires. Like Gunpla, TTRPG is freedom; forgetting that and getting more specific than necessary misses the point of the format.
I am working on a table top battle system and am having trouble with a few weapons and wondering if I should add entirely new mechanics just for these, one is a Net & Trident… when using this weapon in real life you use the net to entangle your foe, I’m just wondering how to handle entanglement losing a turn is too powerful and would make the Net & Trident entirely too overpowered and the other is the black egg, it’s an egg full of glass and sand you throw at someone’s eyes, how should blinding effect a foe… here losing a turn might be okay since the black egg does no damage, but that would make the egg worthless because you spend your whole turn on it and a low roll could cause it to fail… perhaps give the ninja a free follow-up attack?
faaaaaaaaam, losing a turn will always feel bad. if you use it on the players = damn. if the players use it on you = it's abuseable. its one of those "wow this can really just make everything worse" if not cared for. personally, i think there's more interesting things you can do with a net than a flash bang.
I’m curious what you mean when you say that mechanics give the game identity. I don’t have an intuitive sense for how games run, since I’m new to TTRPGs and I’m not on a boat. Is it the balance between roleplaying and math?
I think the idea of it is that the things your game mechanics focus on are the things your players will take away from your game. For instance, a game who's book is half dedicated to a massive chapter on tactical combat and diagrams of battle maps will have a different feel from a game who's combat mechanic is "Roll Fight, whoever rolls higher wins the fight". In the first game, combat will be the most memorable and important part of your game while in the second, it's barebones because you want your players to focus on other things. Di also brings up Evangelion and a stress mechanic; if you want your players to feel the stress and tension of a setting like that, it's important to have mechanics that put that thing front and center. If there isn't, your players will likely take away their own assumptions, but if you have a mechanic that straight up says "this is how the characters feel", it communicates that ideal and emotion. DnD is a heroic fantasy game where you feel like a badass, so stress isn't really an important thing, but in a more grounded game about emotions and interactions, stress might take you out of the game way more than getting stabbed by a goblin.
@@StarkMaximum Interesting, I always just freestyle when I want my players to feel something, which definitely has its limits. I think I understand how the mechanics and players are two sides of the same coin, now, rather than opposing forces
There was a tiny example as well with how the wrong mechanics can make a game funky. "If your game is about murder Mysteries why can you firebend like its avatar?" Creativity is bound both by freedoms and limitations. The wrong mechanics can encourage the wrong kind of gameplay loop or solutions or roleplay. A good game limits that, while emphasizes certain aspects over another. Give Dread a read sometime.
@@dicequeenDi That’s very interesting! I find that fear is sorely missing from a lot of DnD tables. I guess psychology opens another avenue of creation. I’ll give the book a look
In the very early process of trying to make my own and it's is definately a long tough process. Scope is something I am trying to manage atm. I don't want to do deal with bloat, but I also don't want it to be to feature light.
"Most games go completely unheard" well I put out a ttrpg on itch called You Are a Rock where you play as a rock. It's very funny and stupid. There, now you've heard of it. Boom.
I'm making my own ttrpg, well 2 currently, I had one before, BUT ditched it because I didn't know what I really wanted at the time and found what I wanted in the second one I'm making. Its hard and time consuming, but I'm just doing it for an autism dump. If I'm lucky, I may publish, but I doubt it.
Tried making my own game, Era of Legends, thought I had a pretty good system worked out and enough of the system to run single classes up to level 3. I ran a playtest with some friends and now Im rethinking the ENTIRE rules system. I was trying to keep it too simple and d6 only and now I feel like its so limiting that its very easy to unbalance.
D6 can work but you have to ask what you want to do with your CRM. It's the hardest fucking step but also the one you'll constantly smash your face against over and over cause you'll come back to it over and over ad nauseum. You can get some wildly complex d6 setups depending on how you look at it. Pools? Additive? Reductive? Etc etc
Look, I'm going to make a whole Persona system for a campaign set in New York City and I WILL NOT BE DISSUADED! But, just for the sake of argument, best CRM for a P6 homebrew?
Clearly the answer is 7d4 lmao But honestly, consider looking at Agon. It uses a very interesting epithet system that adds different sized dice based on titles, or perhaps Personas?
I actually finished my own game. It took a lot of statistics. Honestly, if you have a clear goal for how you want your game to feel in comparison to others, I could design an optimal dice system for you.
@@dicequeenDi How would you design the conflict resolution mechanics for a game about running a restaurant during the vampire apocalypse? I have a few methods if you can't think of any.
I dunno, use Jenga blocks ala dread, but use a simplified resource tracker for crafting? Wood/Fuel/Ingredients/Gum set to depletive dice sizes so you can "reuse" materials until its just not your day. Sounds like an alright place to start
@dicequeenDi I would go with time as your base resource and use a spinner. Landing on a slice is a success, but each success at a certain task that day takes away a slice. The more time spent allows for more spins. That way you combo resource management with building tension.
Textbook satisficer, here. Came here for the game design. Left when I realized the title wasn't clickbait, no game design advice is offered, no solutions given nor even the problem-space sufficiently explored. It's just 7 minutes of saying things that make game design hard. But don't worry. I got you, fam.❤Here are some actionable, measurable ways you can make game design easier: - Play lots and lots of different systems to get a feel for especially how different CRMs and dice work. (Sounds like you've already done this, but maybe got a bit overwhelmed?) - What is the coolest thing is that the players can do in the game? Write that down. This is going to be your bread & butter for all other design decisions. - What are some character archetypes from fiction and/or combat/social roles that make sense in a setting with your Cool Thing? (Don't think about quirky characters that break the mold, right now. First you have to create the mold.) - Start with a really simple, lightweight, thematically flexible system like FAST or GURPS. Then simplify it further, stripping out all the special-case content, until it's just the CRM and the basic stat-building progression mechanic. - Roll up some dummy characters. One per archetype. Totally average stats. Give them each a core ability that makes sense for that archetype. Run a little mock session where they try to resolve a series of conflicts. Does it "work?" - Min-max their stats. (If you're maxxing the same stat for each character, change what their core ability uses, so each one requires different tweaks from the baseline to min-max.) - Run the mock session again. Is it better than before? Higher highs and just barely survivable lows? If not, what made it worse? Change that thing to something else, and try again. Iterate. - If there's a problem with RNG, you'll notice it pretty quickly. This is where it starts to make sense to try swapping out the CRM and seeing if it works better or worse. Don't forget to test it with Average Stat Spread characters and Min-Maxed characters after each change. If Average characters can still Do Stuff and Min-Maxed characters still need to work for it, you're probably on the right track. Anything in-between will at least be playable. (If some player makes a 0 Int Wizard, or whatever, that's a player Skill Issue.) - When you're pretty sure it works, mechanically, start sketching the barebones society and a long-term local optima that could encourage all those different archetypes to emerge and do what they do. - Assuming you can improv as a GM, and already know your players' foibles, you might just be ready for your first play test. They'll give you all kinds of feedback and suggestions. But they don't really know what they want, and they can't see the big picture of the whole system, so they are probably asking for specific things that won't work in the long term. Focus on understanding what doesn't work for them, and apply your years of experience in order to choose the actual fix. You'll know the best tweaks to the system to give them whatever it is they feel is missing (power, depth, intrigue, etc) while still keeping the core of the system solid. - Conversely, absolutely do "Yes, And" most of the things your players ask for or suggest about the world, society, culture, etc. (as long as they don't break your vision for the Cool Thing and a fun world) at least for this one session. Especially if they have thoughts about where their class comes from. (Wizard's Academy, Barbarian Tribes, that sort of thing.) These don't need to be the final word on that class, but they could be one faction that produces that class in the world. - Long story short, it sounds like you're bogged down in maths and world-building.That can be pretty overwhelming if you're trying to build your entire tabletop game whole-cloth in your head from scratch. Instead, start with a simple system, where most of the choices have already been made for you, and only change those defaults when you notice a good reason to do so. Slowly add things to it as they're needed. And always keep coming back to your Cool Thing as the point of the game. Worst case scenario, at least you know you'll end up with something playable! - Unless you or your players break it. In which case, if you broke it, roll back one version to undo the break, and try something else. If they broke it, add new rules or constraints or in-universe justifications that help you patch out the possibility of breaking it in that way. In extreme cases, add or substitute mechanics, or declare certain game states to be a win condition or failure state for most campaigns. If they're very extreme corner cases, you may not even need to patch them, but all of these things should be a last resort. Not something that you think about when you sit down with a blank piece of paper. That's all I got. I can't tell if I'm over-simplifying or you're catastrophizing, but this design process should at least get you to a mid RPG that you can just add art to and publish. Making it truly great requires the kind of deep thought and playtesting you're waxing about in this video, and making it commercially successful after the actual game is good is a different process entirely, but I hope this at least gets you over the hump if you're struggling creatively, and helps other viewers like me, who came here looking for actionable advice. Good luck with your games. :)
Oh thanks for all the advice but I'm just rambling and ranting in this video. I've released a handful of games but have countless more I just keep all locked up. I'm certain other folks here will find this advice useful!
I made two for friends but am trying to make it understadable to others One is a d6 system everything relies on it from stat rolling to attack/defense rolling
@@dicequeenDi Dice overload for example there is a defending mechanic where you use a stat and roll to defend against the attack. it goes the attackers d6s vs defenders d6s it results in alot of dice
The Stat sheets go for every level in a catagory you get a d6 for that stat ive been trying to find a way to rework it without removing the aspect that some things your characters just cant do or make some stuff completly out of reach from anyone
Making TTRPGS is easy, it's just taking the worst ideas you can make, spin them so that it's funny to watch your players contend with them, and then write it down on paper.
A tactics rpg tens to be a bit more focused on the RPS elements so that doesn't really matter too much concerning dice rolls/crm. All that is just computer math which dice simulate
D6 is objectively the superior dice. all the probability nuances in the world mean nothing compared to the fact that everyone has some D6 lying around and you can buy like 10 D6 for a couple bucks. TTRPGs are easy games to make all things considered, you just need to remember that tabletops must use minimal math and decide what your game ISN'T from the start. from there things fall into place by themselves and you just apply K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Aite but what about making games that don't bother with math? Dread uses Jenga blocks and don't use math, but instead skill based checks to progress a horror game where that reaaaaally matters. Or what about Tokyo Nova where the CRM is Tarot cards and interpreting them?
@@dicequeenDi bluff and callout is a better approach IMO, something akin to liar's dice as a resolution mechanic. dread's jenga tower is a great gimmick but it's still a gimmick at the end of the day, there isn't much to it past the novelty factor. plus you need a jenga tower to play.
@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz I disagree concerning Dread. I think there's *something* there in that space for something innovative, but it takes people willing to play around with it. Also concerning d6s, the supremecy of its ubiquity was maybe relevant when we didn't have lgs' literally everywhere and a day but that was 1970s Japan
@@dicequeenDi D6 being everywhere is still massively relevant, just having to buy dice (which includes finding where to buy dice for the uninitiated) is a massive barrier of entry compared to every random normie already having D6 lying around somewhere. and everyone seems to love lowering those pesky barriers nowadays.
@@dicequeenDi I almost agree. With GURPS I choose which rules, advantages, disadvantages, skills and equipment will be in my games. I make my own games, I just don’t waste time reinventing the wheel.
Are you scared of the water or something, why are you exasperated throughout the whole video? You either are at gun point or just ran a marathon but you’re stressing me out with how absolutely out of breath you are making it hard to focus on the genuinely good advice you’re giving.
It's a combination of asthma and vocal damage from 7 bouts with covid! Hence the thinness in the voice and the air leaking in my words My breath control is literally garbage.
Comments are good for the youtube algorithm. And like seeing you creating content as i have seen you from calli M analisys vids to now growing. I may start D&D by you inspiring me, and a few friends nagging me into it Good luck.
Took some degree of notes while I listened:
Di is on a boat
Making a TTRPG is hard
Reasons why it's so hard
1. Know what your die system (or other CRM) is
- What kind of dice you want, what do you want them to do?
- Examples: d20, d6, d10 pools, d12, 7d4, 2d8, d100 (percentile)
- Play different games to figure out how different dice systems work (People keep creating d20 DnD-likes because it's all they play)
- Dice aren't the only CRM (Conflict Resolution Mechanic)
- Examples: Cards, Tarot, Jenga towers, Resource Management (games where you don't roll anything, just spend points).
2. What is this game trying to do, trying to be, trying to emulate?
- Focus on the experience you want the game to provide
- The Content of your game gives the dice mechanics or CRM flavor.
- Mechanics make up the game's identity
- What numbers are the players excited for?
- If you don't add mechanics that emulate the experience you want for your game, you end up with an 'engine'.
3. Scope bloat
- If you start adding support mechanics, where does it end?
- If you have a gun, do you add a misfire mechanic, and a repair system on top of that? repair tools, professions? At which point does this completely derail the game experience you set out to create?
- One small change might end up adding a bunch of supporting things that will never get use.
- When you want to emulate more and more of the world, you invariably invent mechanics most people might never actually use.
- The decisiveness to cut content is extremely difficult
Addendum: Most of these also apply to video games!
One benefit over Video games: TTRPG can grow over time, every single game has a GM that can add or remove rules as it fits their game.
Do not set out to create the perfect TTRPG (not something that can exist), but what you can make is a game that works and that feels the way you want it to feel. Trust the others to fill in the gaps as they see fit.
Holy shit these are definitely more notes than I wrote for this! (None). Damn! Fantastic job!!
also, hella pinned
Clicked for the game design, stayed for the boat
Mood
I like the part where she said "it's boating time" and boated on those guys
What about the Part where she turned into a boat
When you're lost at sea and start to hallucinate an anime girl talking about TRPGs
This is Venice!!! It's not under the sea yet!!
TRPG=Tactical Roleplaying Game
TTRPG= Tabletop Roleplaying Game
@@ViviBuchlaw Pffft, okay nerd /lh ;)
I wrote over 200 pages of D&D 5e homebrew. My next step is to scrap everything and try again, due to unnecessary system bloat.
Didn't even have to worry about what kind of CRMs, and it still is a major challenge. Luckily got some friends willing to try my crazy systems, and let me know which worked and which didn't.
Thank you for the boat. It earned my subscription.
Prolly one of my fav comments here xD lemme know if there's any more topics you'd like me to cover (on a boat)
MA! THE TRPG NERD IS COOKING AGAIN!
It's Mac and cheese. Or linguine. I think I'm in Italy??
Di couldnt touch grass so she touched wood instead
Great vid also btq
Did you notice I added a seagull soundtrack
Currently making about 6 games, and your nigh incoherent ramblings are simultaneously so relatable and so illuminating that they’ve done me a great service. Much obliged, my games may now have multiple unique dice rolling systems
Hahahaha perfect! I wanted to come from a very sympathetic angle. Very "I'm doing my best" but also if you listen you can find some real gems if you sift enough. Thanks for watching!
I clicked for Di on a boat and thoroughly enjoyed the game design talk.
CRMs and the anlogy to video games was really well done, would love more of those boat talks
Boat talks sounds fantastic xD might actually try to do this more
@@dicequeenDi please do 🙏
You know Elf on a Shelf, but do you know Anecdote on a boat? (I tried.)
The queer at the pier
@@dicequeenDi fuck thats good
Di on a Dinghy
Honestly I would really love to see a video exploring different CRMs or how to go about choosing a CRM!
Any time I think about them the only metric I have for competing them is "riskynes"
Probability is 90% of it tbh
I do some in depth stuffs in excel normally where I calculate the chance of different outcomes for different difficulties/skill combinations (or whatever the game I'm working on currently uses).
You can replicate a similar effect by examping chances of different outcomes for some likely and/or edge case senerios. Like, take the best someone can be at something after character creation and compare that against your average challenge and see how they stack up, then do it for the worst, try the hard challenges and the easy ones, etc. Once you do the full map of 9 possibilities or like the 4 extremes plus the average case you should have a good idea of how your game will work in practice ie: if your success ranges from 3% (worst character hardest challenge) to 95% chance to succeed (for the best character at something on the easiest challenge) that creates a different play experiance than if anything outside of the 40-60% range is unusual. Also, you can change things with levels of success or not even use dice. Maybe you draw cards or can spend resources to bypass/complicate challenges. Lots of fun options but the end goal should be creating something that fits your fantasy. If you're trying to build a game about super heros maybe their skills vary wildly between the speedster and hulk character but if instead your game is about cosmic horror maybe you should include a mechanic so the DM can cut the chances of sucess by 5x to really sell the idea of tampering with forces beyond mortal control.
I saw this and my first and most immediate thought is: IM ON A BOAT! by The Lonely Island (featuring T-Pain).
This is the acoustic version
they never talk about the best dice rolls the double 6's, can never go wrong with double 6's
good old 1/36! it works 100% of the time! xD
I played around with a system where you took the difference of the two dice, the closer the better, but I haven't really done much with it.
Back in 1988 my supervisor, Sgt Jesse Blankenship, and I worked on our own RPG, but after 6 months we decided that it wasn't better than other games available so we quit. I still have everything we did.
Yeahhhhhhhh it's a tough endeavor
I gave up trying to make games and just roll with Dungeon Crawl Classics and their funky dice. Yeah, gotta love those D24s.
DCC players scare me. Also they're probably masochsists xD
Really appreciate the timing of this video. We've been working on three different ttrpg systems over the past calendar year, just need to find a playgroup willing to playtest, and now I want to make one based on rowing a boat.
The ADHD is real!
FAM A BOAT RPG WOULD BE GREAT
Great video, Di! A little scattered but we come to expect that from you. I've been working on a few TRPG ideas that come to me, little things that matter to me that I'd like to get down on paper, but you are right that it's really tough and that tiny changes to the mechanics can have layers of effects on the end result.
I think the two things I'd most want to highlight in this video are the importance of staying focused and the importance of knowing how to cut content. You don't want a bloated game that does everything badly, you want a sleek game that does its thing exactly as efficiently as possible, even if you're trying to make a generic system (I LOVE generic systems, I collect them like Infinity Stones). Even in a generic system, the more things you want to represent, the more abstract you have to get, otherwise your book becomes just a list of things to consult. A lot of superhero games want to have a list of powers to choose from with defined features, but Sentinel Comics gives you powers with the assumption that you will use them creatively, so they can be more abstract. A game with defined powers might have a fire blast that deals 4d8 damage, but if the player wants to use their fire blast in a more nuanced way, it can be a struggle to figure that out, but because Sentinels is abstract, you simply have "Fire Control" as a power and thus can use its associated die so long as you can narratively use it to solve the problem. A details game might not anticipate you using a blast of fire as a super jump, but in Sentinels that's exactly the same roll as blasting a goon with your fire, but with a different outcome.
And when it comes to cutting content from your game, always _always_ save that, just have a little Notepad file of cut content that didn't work in Game A, because you can always make Game B and maybe the mechanic will work _there._ And if it does, you've already done the work in advance trying to fit it into Game A, so you can easily try it out in Game B as a result. Always remember: You can make _another game._ This is connected back to the idea of "don't make a game that does everything"; if you do everything in one game, you won't feel encouraged to make another new game, and it's just good to always have another direction to go with your creativity. Nothing goes to waste, there's just a square hole out there for your square block you haven't found yet, because you've been making circle hole games for a while.
Yeah but I cut a lot of content constantly and when you have bits and pieces everywhere it can turn into kind of a mess trying to be cohesive
@@dicequeenDi It can be, but I'm more trying to push against the common assumption of "if I cut a mechanic I'll never see it used, I wasted the time I spent coming up with it". There's a bit of sunk cost fallacy when you're looking to cut a mechanic you thought was going to be a big deal only for it to not be. The important thing to know is that there isn't any sunk cost, you just invested your time into the future.
I've designed several RPGs and your advice was solid. Well done!
Most important to emphasize is your assertion that if you want to design then you should design. None of these challenges stop you from creating your own homebrew systems and running them with your crew. We are a DIY hobby so go out there and Do It Yourself!
If it matters to any of you, it generally takes me anywhere between 6 months and 2 years to completely create something I'm willing to call finished. And that's not including all the ones I started but abandoned for one reason or another.
i mean absolutely legit. i should work on just putting down the pen sometimes. but half the time i'm scribbling and crossing out so much stuff cause i keep find it's not *good* enough, y'know?
@@dicequeenDi The irony is that you never really know if it will ever take shape until AFTER all that scribbling and crossing out and adding and then scratching that out and then scribbling again and then...
I adore how enthusiastic you are to discuss game design :D I understand how passionate you are about this subject. Outstanding video! You just got a new subscriber!
Glad you enjoy it! My videos are majorly ranty, nothing particularly clear. But there's hopefully something to learn in the notes somewhere
As a ttrpg writer myself the problem i have being actually writting it all out qwq Autism be damned
orz adhd be damned
That's a nice boat
Everyone's here for the boat
Comments are good for the youtube algorithm.
have spent over 15+ years researching, playing, discecting & designing TTRPG systems. its true. "making a TTRPG is hard." especially if one of your dev goals is a system that speciffically isnt "just another d20 system". certainly proud of my struggles, reitterations and countless playtesting and probability number crunching to be finally entering the most realized beta dev playtest versions of the TTRPG system i've been wanting for nearly two decades.
It's a big journey! Especially since you're not another d20 person. ; × ;
The thing I've found the hardest with making TTRPGS, frankly, is editing your system into a concise, readable, and engaging manual that encourages people to play it... not to mention find rules for easy reference.
I've been developing a ttrpg on and off for the past like 2 years and have noticed the hardest part at least for me is finding mechanics that both feel good from a "Make big numbers head go brr perspective" you get from having a +12 in perception but also adding enough creativity to be able to build what you want without having to make 500 races 1000 feats and 20,000 spells. I haven't released mine and probably won't for a few years if ever but thank you for making a video explaining the pain of making a ttrpg
As a rule of thumb I try not to include more than 8 races. It's a toughie for sure
@@dicequeenDi my solution was the fabula ultima way "No races if you wanna be an elf its cosmetic"
I've made multiple games, all public domain.
Never tried to publish anything yet.
Mostly because I find it wasier to write my own rather than learn someone elses.
There's a lot to be said about being able to give an accurate interpretation of the rules as the DM due to having written the game yourself.
It's a really fun untapped side of the hobby that people overcomplicate in their heads before taking a real swing at.
i just mostly wanted to cover a handful of design pitfalls for folks that have difficulty making their own games = w =
Notepadanon has a great series on TTRPG design called "So You Wanna Make a TTRPG?". I highly recommend it.
he's got good ideas, but i've mostly explored em all xD hopefully they can help other folks here
i was recently talking about cdda, it has an absurb ammount of items and features and despite being pretty large and being a kitchen sink of content, it does remove and cut content every now an then, keeping everything isn't always the way to go.
CDDA?
@@dicequeenDi cataclysm: dark days ahead
Been slowly building our own TRPG to go with a world building project we’ve been working on even longer, because existing systems just didn’t fit the world we were making and wanted to run games in.
How long yall been doin it?
@@dicequeenDi Couple of years now, part of it is a modular magic system that lets you custom build spells.
She spitting fax
Honestly tho, rapid prototyping with a bunch of different conResMech systems is the best way to avoid the "rewrite everything" trap. Vertical slices are much, much easier to handle on the tabletop (where you can fall back on GM fiat) than on bideo james.
Lmao ngl I've never seen CRMs been referred to as cosresmech! I like it.
"You have to decide tour dice mechanic! D20, d100, d6, 2d6..."
ADnD: You guys choose one dice mechanic?
Roll above and roll under aren't separate enough lmao
@@dicequeenDi Lol, I'm talking about how it uses all of those systems, and more lol
@ViviBuchlaw *stares at 7d4 and 2d6 swap 4*
I'm working on a multi-media project which includes TTRPG material and I think you've nailed it. I've been studying this for a while and I agree w all points made. It is difficult but I think what you said about not making the perfect game resonated. My only additional thought is in a saturated market, it's important to find or fill a niche. This is why I decided to go w a multi-media approach.
What exactly do you mean by multimedia approach,
@@dicequeenDi I'm writing novels, developing the table top, and designing a video game using RPG Maker. I feel w a foundational approach across multiple medias, I can possibly reach different groups. I've learned a lot in the process and that has been invaluable. Not to promote but I'm currently developing the system on World Anvil.
I will not lie when the OGL 2022 situation started up, i just didn't want to do anything with D&D. So to fill that TTRPG hole until Fabula Ultima came along (you're the first person on my feed talking about it thank you i could kiss you) my attempt with documentation online with rules was a game called Hakorz, pronounced hackers. The world took place mostly in cyberspace where your hacker avatar was a mix of fantasy classes ranging from high fantasy to science fiction theme. Did so much work, and i told my folks "im part of a hakorz" group with the assumed context we're talking about ttrpgs, i got a strange look, and got turned off of the concept and haven't returned to it due to how talking about it made me feel after mentioning it. Back on subject, i agree developing your own ttrpg is hard and takes a lot of your time & dedication.
there's a certain magic in being a creator is that you can just rename your game xD if you feel you've got something you should work with it!
Truer word's have never been spoken, may sound weird but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one going insane making ttrpgs.
Honestly the response to this video has been surprisingly positive! I tried to come at this at a more sympathetic "there there, I'm feeling the same, buddy" cause I don't think there's enough of that energy
Clicked for the boat, stayed for the game design.
I'll be back on some other boat!!!
Every time I look at a crunchy system, I think, "This complicated subsystem could have been a dice roll".
A certain base level of simulationism is necessary to avoid the game becoming too abstracted. But you can also go too far in trying to make granular what doesn't really matter. For a lot of stuff, keeping the game moving is more important that getting everything exactly right. If you already have a system for resolving uncertainty, find a way to use that tool for accomplishing more goals. That's not just kind game design for the end user, it's efficiency of labor for you the designer.
Ahhhh the hubris of overcomplicated design. I believe people need to chill because a lot of innovation, I feel, is loaded in the CRM itself
Good video
Glad you enjoyed it!!
Does the process come with challenges? Yes. Is it fulfilling/super fun? double yes!
I am almost finished making a core rulebook. It has been amazing to watch how many elements have changed. If anyone are interested in making TTRPG, I say go for it and trust the process.
Trusting the process is fine. Trusting your own design sense feels impossible!
@@dicequeenDi I understand what you mean. In the video, you recommended understanding the goal of the project.
Once the feature/content aligns with the goal, you have done well enough. Could it be refined? Possibly but more importantly you have something sufficient on the page.
We should aim for progress rather than perfection. If we later find faults in our work, we can update it or take that lesson into the next project
I was worried that designing a TTRPG would be hard but now that she's on a boat, it's ok
But for real, i have had one in the back of my head as a thought experiment but hardly have the spare time to play in a game, let alone develop one that I still wouldn't have time to play
What a real feeling. And the older you get the less time overall to do any of that
Also earned a sub, I'd love to see more of these kind of vids because there aren't many out there for ttrpg's
Rants/rambling??? I feel people are very informative but I wanted to come at the topic from an angle of sympathy/empathy-as someone that's gone through it all and understands the average person's struggles
@@dicequeenDi you'd be surprised how little I've actually found on RUclips. Trust me I've tried XD
There's the 3d6 "HERO system" with at least 6 editions. But that "game" is more of a framework that can be adjusted for other settings, complete with suggestions for renaming skills from a modern sense to a fantasy one.
Also, the "Car does the most damage now" and "ship mechanics not being used because it's all on land" is something I feel running Pathfinder 1E for my group, since charm person to make them trust you to teleport them away from danger, then teleporting them into space does more damage than any fireball. Or the idea of building their own ship that's too big for a kraken to squeeze. I have gone on record by saying "The most valuable resource to give players is time", which is proven true time and again. While I could just move up the time tables, I think it's better to have the players interrupt the BBEG prepwork if they moved fast enough, or run into additional obstacles if they move too slowly. But that's more style than game.
There was this ONE time where my group actually used UNO to resolve an encounter with a devil. That was... interesting.
When does "boat design is hard (but I'm in a trpg so it's okay now" come out?
that's a stupid fucking idea
(writes it down)
Designing systems is hard, yes! I have tried several times, and never gotten far.
I can do a vid about where to start!
Di, have played or looked into Shadow Scar?
I haven't heard! What up?
@@dicequeenDi Shadow Scar is R Talsorian Games new IP where it's a D6 Dice Pool System that counts a roll of 4+ as a Success and the setting is about a secret war between Yokai and Ninjas.
R Talsorian not doing a d10 system????? What??????
@@dicequeenDi You're surprised about that, Castle Falkenstein is a card based TRPG that also isn't a D10 system.
Designing the core system of a TTPRG is easy, you simply have to be competent with math, probability, and logic. I've already made one TTRPG and am working on another one. My first one is a mechanics-light system reliant on improvisation. It also doesn't hurt to borrow from already existing systems for inspiration. It's the busy work that's hard. I'm currently procrastinating on my character creation engine because it's a lot of work requiring a lot of executive decisions.
Publishing is probably hard. I don't have any experience with that.
Looking at the species I think it's hardwired in humans to be barely competent in probability, let alone logic and math xD
And yeah character creation is fairly involved. A game will live and die on the ease of character creation, often more than the CRM itself
🎶I'm on a boat 🎶
Fuck no get your own boat xD
The funny thing about dice is that you don't need to use them! Jay Dragon is doing some really awesome things with Seven Part Pact (Patreon only currently), Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, and Wanderhome without dice. Dread is a really fun horror oneshot system that uses a Jenga tower for action resolution. There's a diceless STALKER ttrpg that does a pretty good job of replicating the feeling of the Tarkovsky movie.
I also likely have undiagnosed ADHD (working on getting a diagnoses as we speak), and I have the same issues. I've been working on a system for 2 years now, and it's no closer to being done than the day I started. I've changed the entire system mechanics 3-4 times.
I think it'd be really cool if you made a one-page rpg and published it, just to have something published. An Anime Girl on a Boat in the Canals of Venice Accidentally Solves a Crime by Talking to Passerbyes. Make a little Oracle table, steal some of Brindlewood's mystery mechanics, and boom: a published game!
There's a handful of games that do it without dice, and Dread is a perfect example of that. That said, for the rest of the games, I don't vibe with em at all *because* of the lack of dice. I feel subjecting ourselves to fate is fairly critical to keep the game aspect of the TRPG format.
Also! I have made a handful of games. Just most of them don't see the light of day. dicequeen.itch.io/
They're all free! Definitely check out the one about groundhog day time loops using lofi hip-hop playlists
You know, I'm actually making an ttrpg right now. It's a generic system based around exerting your character for greater effect. It has a cool mechanic in which you have 3 health pools and you spend these health pools to increase die size and number. I plan on using this system to help make a couple other ttrpg ideas I have too.
I feel tracking a lot of health pools might be a problem...
@@dicequeenDi it's only 3 and I keep the numbers small, but I get what you are saying. I'm currently playtesting it and so far the health pools haven't been an issue. (Other than changing how much health people have.) it's been more about balancing defence roles and healing. Also I get it could be annoying to track all that on paper but this is being made with electronic assistance in mind. The character sheet does a lot of the math for you, so you only have to worry about putting numbers in the right place when making or adding to your character.
@@dicequeenDi I don't think I explained it very well. I call them hp pools but they are more like mental and physical stamina and when you take actual damage, it lowers you stamina max until you heal it off. It might be a bit crunchy but it's supposed to simulate pushing yourself or pacing yourself while also using injuries to effect your capabilities. The goal is to keep it as simple as possible while keeping those simulations in mind.
Once upon a time, I had made the outer shell for a Kaijus-and-Mechs type game using the Forged in the Dark framework. I had that exact issue of scope bloat very early on, even with something as relatively simple to deploy as FitD. How much mech, kaiju, and human interactions should be reflected in stats was something that was driving me up a wall. At the end of the day, a playtest may be the best thing for a game to go through, in order to see what actions people are likely to take in the biome you make. Worst case scenario is that the game moves away from a section of rules that have been given detail, and maybe those rules get used for a different project.
Would have been interesting if Gygax had been inclined to make a standalone naval battle game (Seas and Serpents?) rather than those rules be left to fall away.
Lmaooo it mightve been integrated to 2nd and onwards??? I'm not all that tied in with dnd history
🤔 should this advice been out earlier for a certain Game Designer? 🧐🤔
Wait for whomst xD
I’ve been getting into ttrpg design recently, and I really get the scope bloat problem. I made a Skyrim ttrpg which started as a 5e hack that has sort of become its own thing.
I was making it while running a campaign for 5e, so I had a lot of time to work on it before the next campaign started. I kind of got addicted to it, like I wouldn’t do anything else in my free time.
I think it’s my adhd hyper focus, I get the same way with any project, or playing a video game (like Skyrim lol). But I got to a certain point where everything that needed to be done was done so I was doing shit like making clothes. You know you’re in too deep when you’re writing the description for the clothes section.
Anyways I made a fallout ttrpg also and I made a video about it on my channel if anyone wants to check it out.
Hey with skyrim I think scope bloat is part of the equation xD
Thanks for posting; really appreciate the advice!
(Tinkering with an unholy kitbash of HERO, Fate, Numenera, all because I want to see if I can make a Genshin Impact RPG).
If you ever want a non-genshin mascot on the front lemme know! My new design kinda screams it
Summary:
1. Dice Queen Di wants to know: "What da dice doin'?", "Which dice doin'?", and "When do dice?".
2. Remember that a game about "anything" is about NOTHING, and NO ONE IN PARTICULAR will be drawn to it as a result.
3. Only YOU can prevent game feature fires. Like Gunpla, TTRPG is freedom; forgetting that and getting more specific than necessary misses the point of the format.
Surprisingly great summary xD I'm glad to see people can sift through my nonsense into the gold
Comments are good for the youtube algorithm
I am working on a table top battle system and am having trouble with a few weapons and wondering if I should add entirely new mechanics just for these, one is a Net & Trident… when using this weapon in real life you use the net to entangle your foe, I’m just wondering how to handle entanglement losing a turn is too powerful and would make the Net & Trident entirely too overpowered and the other is the black egg, it’s an egg full of glass and sand you throw at someone’s eyes, how should blinding effect a foe… here losing a turn might be okay since the black egg does no damage, but that would make the egg worthless because you spend your whole turn on it and a low roll could cause it to fail… perhaps give the ninja a free follow-up attack?
faaaaaaaaam, losing a turn will always feel bad. if you use it on the players = damn. if the players use it on you = it's abuseable. its one of those "wow this can really just make everything worse" if not cared for. personally, i think there's more interesting things you can do with a net than a flash bang.
I’m curious what you mean when you say that mechanics give the game identity.
I don’t have an intuitive sense for how games run, since I’m new to TTRPGs and I’m not on a boat.
Is it the balance between roleplaying and math?
I think the idea of it is that the things your game mechanics focus on are the things your players will take away from your game. For instance, a game who's book is half dedicated to a massive chapter on tactical combat and diagrams of battle maps will have a different feel from a game who's combat mechanic is "Roll Fight, whoever rolls higher wins the fight". In the first game, combat will be the most memorable and important part of your game while in the second, it's barebones because you want your players to focus on other things.
Di also brings up Evangelion and a stress mechanic; if you want your players to feel the stress and tension of a setting like that, it's important to have mechanics that put that thing front and center. If there isn't, your players will likely take away their own assumptions, but if you have a mechanic that straight up says "this is how the characters feel", it communicates that ideal and emotion. DnD is a heroic fantasy game where you feel like a badass, so stress isn't really an important thing, but in a more grounded game about emotions and interactions, stress might take you out of the game way more than getting stabbed by a goblin.
Stark gots it
@@StarkMaximum Interesting, I always just freestyle when I want my players to feel something, which definitely has its limits.
I think I understand how the mechanics and players are two sides of the same coin, now, rather than opposing forces
There was a tiny example as well with how the wrong mechanics can make a game funky. "If your game is about murder Mysteries why can you firebend like its avatar?"
Creativity is bound both by freedoms and limitations. The wrong mechanics can encourage the wrong kind of gameplay loop or solutions or roleplay. A good game limits that, while emphasizes certain aspects over another.
Give Dread a read sometime.
@@dicequeenDi That’s very interesting! I find that fear is sorely missing from a lot of DnD tables. I guess psychology opens another avenue of creation.
I’ll give the book a look
In the very early process of trying to make my own and it's is definately a long tough process.
Scope is something I am trying to manage atm. I don't want to do deal with bloat, but I also don't want it to be to feature light.
You need *some* amount of mechanics else it's just a dice roll-a-thon. Just keep the scale reasonable and you should be gucci
I love my boat ttrpg ranting vtubers
...there can't be a lot of us right??
Seagull noises!
I had to add them in! Hope it wasn't annoying
YOUR AVATAR'S OUTFIT IS SO CUTE!
THANK YOU BUT MY NEXT OUTFIT IS EVEN BETTER
The Wildsea is a fun one to get into
orz no one else i know plays it
Now that she's talked about TTRG design in a boat, when will she talk about boat design in a TTRPG??
Ugh I'm wriiiiiting itttt
2:30 Genuinely I want an Eva system so bad yet there are non that meet my standards
Hmmmmm. There's Tears of a Machine? It uses FATE so it's good-ish?
I have made 2 ttrpgs, and I have not play tested either of them, lol. Now I got the bug and am working on a third one.
Lmaaaaao honestly same. Most of my games weren't played by me xD
Hell yeah boats and also TTRPGs
I HAVE BOTH THOSE THINGS
"Most games go completely unheard" well I put out a ttrpg on itch called You Are a Rock where you play as a rock. It's very funny and stupid. There, now you've heard of it. Boom.
I respect that, vaguely Intimidating rock person.
I'm making my own ttrpg, well 2 currently, I had one before, BUT ditched it because I didn't know what I really wanted at the time and found what I wanted in the second one I'm making. Its hard and time consuming, but I'm just doing it for an autism dump. If I'm lucky, I may publish, but I doubt it.
Honestly there's always this relief when I actually publish. Even if it's garbage, finally putting something out there is always amazing
Came for the anime girl.
Stayed for the DM.
I'm the full package baby
@@dicequeenDi Emphasis on package!
Joking
Tried making my own game, Era of Legends, thought I had a pretty good system worked out and enough of the system to run single classes up to level 3. I ran a playtest with some friends and now Im rethinking the ENTIRE rules system. I was trying to keep it too simple and d6 only and now I feel like its so limiting that its very easy to unbalance.
D6 can work but you have to ask what you want to do with your CRM. It's the hardest fucking step but also the one you'll constantly smash your face against over and over cause you'll come back to it over and over ad nauseum. You can get some wildly complex d6 setups depending on how you look at it. Pools? Additive? Reductive? Etc etc
I liked the boat part
boats are pretty good
I was worried since last video you weren't on a boat.
Life's only going up on boats baby
Look, I'm going to make a whole Persona system for a campaign set in New York City and I WILL NOT BE DISSUADED!
But, just for the sake of argument, best CRM for a P6 homebrew?
Clearly the answer is 7d4 lmao
But honestly, consider looking at Agon. It uses a very interesting epithet system that adds different sized dice based on titles, or perhaps Personas?
@@dicequeenDi Bet, thanks Di!
I actually finished my own game. It took a lot of statistics. Honestly, if you have a clear goal for how you want your game to feel in comparison to others, I could design an optimal dice system for you.
All I think about are CRMs. Tbh the hardest part is everything else lmao
@@dicequeenDiart, editing, and marketing are so much harder than the game itself.
@@dicequeenDi How would you design the conflict resolution mechanics for a game about running a restaurant during the vampire apocalypse? I have a few methods if you can't think of any.
I dunno, use Jenga blocks ala dread, but use a simplified resource tracker for crafting? Wood/Fuel/Ingredients/Gum set to depletive dice sizes so you can "reuse" materials until its just not your day. Sounds like an alright place to start
@dicequeenDi I would go with time as your base resource and use a spinner. Landing on a slice is a success, but each success at a certain task that day takes away a slice. The more time spent allows for more spins. That way you combo resource management with building tension.
I made a card game in tabletop simulator but I have no friends to play test it with so i couldn’t finish it
That's rough fam ; - ;
Textbook satisficer, here. Came here for the game design. Left when I realized the title wasn't clickbait, no game design advice is offered, no solutions given nor even the problem-space sufficiently explored. It's just 7 minutes of saying things that make game design hard. But don't worry. I got you, fam.❤Here are some actionable, measurable ways you can make game design easier:
- Play lots and lots of different systems to get a feel for especially how different CRMs and dice work. (Sounds like you've already done this, but maybe got a bit overwhelmed?)
- What is the coolest thing is that the players can do in the game? Write that down. This is going to be your bread & butter for all other design decisions.
- What are some character archetypes from fiction and/or combat/social roles that make sense in a setting with your Cool Thing? (Don't think about quirky characters that break the mold, right now. First you have to create the mold.)
- Start with a really simple, lightweight, thematically flexible system like FAST or GURPS. Then simplify it further, stripping out all the special-case content, until it's just the CRM and the basic stat-building progression mechanic.
- Roll up some dummy characters. One per archetype. Totally average stats. Give them each a core ability that makes sense for that archetype. Run a little mock session where they try to resolve a series of conflicts. Does it "work?"
- Min-max their stats. (If you're maxxing the same stat for each character, change what their core ability uses, so each one requires different tweaks from the baseline to min-max.)
- Run the mock session again. Is it better than before? Higher highs and just barely survivable lows? If not, what made it worse? Change that thing to something else, and try again. Iterate.
- If there's a problem with RNG, you'll notice it pretty quickly. This is where it starts to make sense to try swapping out the CRM and seeing if it works better or worse. Don't forget to test it with Average Stat Spread characters and Min-Maxed characters after each change. If Average characters can still Do Stuff and Min-Maxed characters still need to work for it, you're probably on the right track. Anything in-between will at least be playable. (If some player makes a 0 Int Wizard, or whatever, that's a player Skill Issue.)
- When you're pretty sure it works, mechanically, start sketching the barebones society and a long-term local optima that could encourage all those different archetypes to emerge and do what they do.
- Assuming you can improv as a GM, and already know your players' foibles, you might just be ready for your first play test. They'll give you all kinds of feedback and suggestions. But they don't really know what they want, and they can't see the big picture of the whole system, so they are probably asking for specific things that won't work in the long term. Focus on understanding what doesn't work for them, and apply your years of experience in order to choose the actual fix. You'll know the best tweaks to the system to give them whatever it is they feel is missing (power, depth, intrigue, etc) while still keeping the core of the system solid.
- Conversely, absolutely do "Yes, And" most of the things your players ask for or suggest about the world, society, culture, etc. (as long as they don't break your vision for the Cool Thing and a fun world) at least for this one session. Especially if they have thoughts about where their class comes from. (Wizard's Academy, Barbarian Tribes, that sort of thing.) These don't need to be the final word on that class, but they could be one faction that produces that class in the world.
- Long story short, it sounds like you're bogged down in maths and world-building.That can be pretty overwhelming if you're trying to build your entire tabletop game whole-cloth in your head from scratch. Instead, start with a simple system, where most of the choices have already been made for you, and only change those defaults when you notice a good reason to do so. Slowly add things to it as they're needed. And always keep coming back to your Cool Thing as the point of the game. Worst case scenario, at least you know you'll end up with something playable!
- Unless you or your players break it. In which case, if you broke it, roll back one version to undo the break, and try something else. If they broke it, add new rules or constraints or in-universe justifications that help you patch out the possibility of breaking it in that way. In extreme cases, add or substitute mechanics, or declare certain game states to be a win condition or failure state for most campaigns. If they're very extreme corner cases, you may not even need to patch them, but all of these things should be a last resort. Not something that you think about when you sit down with a blank piece of paper.
That's all I got. I can't tell if I'm over-simplifying or you're catastrophizing, but this design process should at least get you to a mid RPG that you can just add art to and publish. Making it truly great requires the kind of deep thought and playtesting you're waxing about in this video, and making it commercially successful after the actual game is good is a different process entirely, but I hope this at least gets you over the hump if you're struggling creatively, and helps other viewers like me, who came here looking for actionable advice.
Good luck with your games. :)
Oh thanks for all the advice but I'm just rambling and ranting in this video. I've released a handful of games but have countless more I just keep all locked up. I'm certain other folks here will find this advice useful!
@@dicequeenDi That's cool. What's a game concept you were never really able to make "work?"
I liked the part you became a boat.
.......well that did happen
I made two for friends but am trying to make it understadable to others
One is a d6 system everything relies on it from stat rolling to attack/defense rolling
D6 tends to be straightforward. What problems are you having with it?
@@dicequeenDi Dice overload for example there is a defending mechanic where you use a stat and roll to defend against the attack.
it goes the attackers d6s vs defenders d6s it results in alot of dice
The Stat sheets go for every level in a catagory you get a d6 for that stat ive been trying to find a way to rework it without removing the aspect that some things your characters just cant do or make some stuff completly out of reach from anyone
boat
Toab
Making TTRPGS is easy, it's just taking the worst ideas you can make, spin them so that it's funny to watch your players contend with them, and then write it down on paper.
You might be confusing making a trpg with making an adventure xD
As someone whos making a ttrpg it is quite hard
You feel me
What if boat RPG?
Roll 1d6
2-6 you get on the boat and succeed
1 you get off the boat
A: weed
What's the bright green shape behind her, that's sus 🤔
Holy shit that shrub looks like a dick
like
Like
oh. Tabletop rpg, not tactics rpg.
a lot of tabletops are pretty good at the tactics element :3
@@dicequeenDi But the dice rolls and CRM can get VERY different
A tactics rpg tens to be a bit more focused on the RPS elements so that doesn't really matter too much concerning dice rolls/crm. All that is just computer math which dice simulate
I'd love to talk game design sometime! #PostDnd
AYO #POSTDND. i'm honestly so glad people still use this xD
It is hard TwT
Let alone making a good game, making one you're satisfied with feels impossible
percentile dice systems are stinky.
I dunnnooooo Troubleshooters is pretty good
But I don’t like chaaaaaaaaaaaange it’s to harrrrrrrrrrrrd
Go sit on a boat. That'll fix things
Me like boat
you like boat!? ME LIKE BOAT
D6 is objectively the superior dice. all the probability nuances in the world mean nothing compared to the fact that everyone has some D6 lying around and you can buy like 10 D6 for a couple bucks.
TTRPGs are easy games to make all things considered, you just need to remember that tabletops must use minimal math and decide what your game ISN'T from the start.
from there things fall into place by themselves and you just apply K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Aite but what about making games that don't bother with math? Dread uses Jenga blocks and don't use math, but instead skill based checks to progress a horror game where that reaaaaally matters. Or what about Tokyo Nova where the CRM is Tarot cards and interpreting them?
@@dicequeenDi bluff and callout is a better approach IMO, something akin to liar's dice as a resolution mechanic.
dread's jenga tower is a great gimmick but it's still a gimmick at the end of the day, there isn't much to it past the novelty factor. plus you need a jenga tower to play.
@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz I disagree concerning Dread. I think there's *something* there in that space for something innovative, but it takes people willing to play around with it.
Also concerning d6s, the supremecy of its ubiquity was maybe relevant when we didn't have lgs' literally everywhere and a day but that was 1970s Japan
@@dicequeenDi D6 being everywhere is still massively relevant, just having to buy dice (which includes finding where to buy dice for the uninitiated) is a massive barrier of entry compared to every random normie already having D6 lying around somewhere.
and everyone seems to love lowering those pesky barriers nowadays.
It's not that hard. Prowlers and paragons has no flaws.
Yeah but look how long it took for something like that to pop up in the last 50 years of tabletops xS
@@dicequeenDi Not long at all, and it's certainly not the only game that's far superior to D&D in every way.
Boat
BOAT!
Did you even breathe when doing this video?
I have to remind myself lmao considering how fast I speak ; w ;
And this is why I run games using GURPS.
Yeah but that's running games and not making your own. Making games is hard and scary @ - @
@@dicequeenDi I almost agree. With GURPS I choose which rules, advantages, disadvantages, skills and equipment will be in my games. I make my own games, I just don’t waste time reinventing the wheel.
First mistake of TRPG design?
Overthinking it.
Yeah but that's how we get the slew of bad games that exist xD
Are you scared of the water or something, why are you exasperated throughout the whole video? You either are at gun point or just ran a marathon but you’re stressing me out with how absolutely out of breath you are making it hard to focus on the genuinely good advice you’re giving.
It's a combination of asthma and vocal damage from 7 bouts with covid! Hence the thinness in the voice and the air leaking in my words
My breath control is literally garbage.
Comments are good for the youtube algorithm. And like seeing you creating content as i have seen you from calli M analisys vids to now growing. I may start D&D by you inspiring me, and a few friends nagging me into it Good luck.
I appreciate that! I need to make more vids bit I feel so lazy lmao
Comments are good for the youtube algorithm.
Comments are good for the youtube algorithm.