How hard is it to make a tabletop game? (by yourself)

So right now im experemting with diffrent hobyy, i wante dto make a video game but im putting it to th eside for a while. i just thought making some other game might be easier like a table top game, i would play one but i have a hard time finding any that i like, cheap/free, and i dont have anyone irl to play with which is annoying.

how hard is it to make a tabletop game and how do i learn/start, any advice you would like to share by chance becasue im kinda lost.

Mummelpuffin,
@Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org avatar

I'm going to list off some free games (or at least System Resource Documents) you can check out, because the key to being a good TTRPG designer is recognizing just how broad the idea of a TTRPG is, and that a lot of your ideas have probably been done before-- maybe you just need to mash them together in a new way.

I'll say also, though, that some of the more radical ideas around unfortunately aren't free and it'd still be good to check some of them out eventually.

I'll also talk a little about different "categories" of RPGs that people use and some terminology because it could probably help map what's out there. Note that these aren't exclusive labels and many could apply to one game.

  • Crunch:
    A game is "crunchy" when it has a lot of rules for specific things or the rules it does have inevitably involve some math. D&D 5e is generally considered a mid-crunch game that somehow manages to be more complex than most other mid-crunch games.
  • "Traditional" / trad games:
    D&D 5e is more or less a "trad" game, but D&D 3.5e is, like, the trad game. Trad games are those that hew close to the conventions that D&D set, more or less.
  • Simulationist / Gameist / Narriativist:
    This is an old trinity that's fallen out of favor now, but it's still a helpful idea sometimes. As usual, not exclusive categories.
    "Simulationist" games are those that try their best to closely simulate reality, or at least the reality the game is presenting. The mechanics exist to make sure that whatever happens makes sense within that world, and these games typically reject vague, "meta" mechanics like 5e's Inspiration.
    "Gameist" games are those that focus a whole lot on "being a game rather than just a story". It's a vague idea but they're typically concerned with balance between characters, and giving players interesting mechanical choices regardless of whether they really makes sense in the story you're telling. D&D 5e is a very "gameist" sort of game.
    "Narriativist" games are sort of a new-school idea. They're typically less concerned with mechanics that describe specific actions you're taking, and more concerned with pushing the story you're telling in an interesting direction, rather than relying on the GM to do that. You could say that this is the rulebook and the GM swapping roles, with the rulebook helping to set the pace, the tone, what characters are like, while the GM has more say in ruling exactly what players can do.
  • OSR / NuSR:
    OSR stands for "Old School Rennisance" or Revival, depending on who you ask. In it's purest form, it's what it says on the tin. People wanted to bring back the attitude and, to some extent, the mechanics of early RPGs, typically the D&D edition we call B/X (Basic & Expert, essentially 1st Edition.) Most games that consider themselves "OSR" are actually compatible with content written for B/X D&D, a couple OSR games like Old School Essentials are literally rewrites of the B/X rulebooks. In short, OSR games are typically focused on player ingenuity over character stats, would rather put players in challenging situations than give them a power fantasy (sometimes falling into outright survival horror, although others are very whimsical), and try to keep their rulebooks relatively short and concise.
    "NuSR" is an acknowledgement that there's a new wave of games which definitely came out of the OSR scene, but have little to no resemblance to what the OSR was initially about. This is the realm of quirky Itch.IO RPGs about racoon pirates or reflections on what it's like to be transgender.
  • Generic:
    In the context of TTRPGs, a "generic" game is one that strives to be setting-agnostic. A game you could use for your typical Tolkien fantasy thing, a cyberpunk dystopia, or courthouse drama all in one package. These games are super diverse, but they still tend to focus on a specific style of story or play. A lot of these games are considered "toolboxes" that give game masters the tools to basically build their own setting-specific system. I'm a big fan of generic games and I think a lot of people looking to make a ruleset could get a lot of mileage with the right generic RPG.
  • Free Kriegspiel Revival:
    Kind of a small one, but basically Kriegspiel was one of the first games with a game master rolling dice, and a good "referee" was one who sometimes ignored the dice entirely because dice are stupid. FKR games are the most minimalist things you'll see in your life and it's surprising that there's even room for more than one.
  • Game families:
    OK, I just made this up now, but there's a lot of "families" of TTRPGs. D&D and all of the games obviously based off of it are the biggest, but there's also probably a hundred Basic Role Playing (BRP)-based games, hundreds of Powered By The Apocalypse (PbtA) / Forged in the Dark (FitD) games, FUDGE / FATE have quite a few games built off of them, almost certainly others I'm not thinking of right now.

Free stuff:

Ironsworn (Ironsworn's core rulebook is free. It's designed to be played solo, so you should probably check this one out!)
Forge Engine, a seemingly underrated generic game.
Roll for Shoes (A teeny-tiny Free Kriegspiel Revival game)
Worlds Without Number (Somewhere between a trad game and nuSR, famous for having really helpful tools for GMs.)
Stars Without Number, it's sci-fi system game.
Rowan, Rook & Deckard's one-page games (When people say NuSR this is what they mean.)
FATE SRD (FATE is the narriativist system, once described as the best game people rightfully don't play. The rules aren't too complex but somehow confusing.)
Basic Role Playing SRD (BRP is a generic system built off of one of D&D's first rivals, RuneQuest, the game Call of Cthulhu is also based on it. It's generally considered simulationist.)
Mythras: Imperative (Mythras is another game built off of BRP, but it's generic like BRP is, and really more like an evolution of it. Mythras is my favorite RPG of all time. This free version is alright but a little confusing because of missing rules.)
Delta Green: Need to Know (ALSO BRP-based, it's Call of Cthulhu set a century later.)
Risus: The Anything RPG (This one's a lot of fun for very goofy games.)
Basic Fantasy (One of the original OSR games. Totally open-source. I'm making an EPUB of the current rulebook!)
Apocalypse World (The game that started the label "Powered by the Apocalypse". The other the narriativist system, if you can really call PbtA a "system" rather than a grab-bag of philosophical ideas about RPGs.)
Blades in the Dark SRD (Kind of a "powered by the apocalypse" game, but Blades in the Dark did enough cool stuff to get it's own label for games based off of it, "Forged in the Dark".)
Gumshoe SRD And the official version here. (A game built entirely for mystery-solving. Very good at it's job.)
Quest (Quest is sort of like if you took D&D 5e, made it extremely cozy, and took all the math out. I love it, personally.)
Archive of Nethys' Pathfinder 2e site (pretty much lets you learn how to play PF2E for completely free, not that you'd probably want to.)
Cairn (A great example of the more minimalist, modern OSR scene.)
Zafir (Bids itself as a "tactical RPG", so lots of combat like 5e and Pathfinder.)
Lightmaster, (A free sci-fantasy clone of the legendary, famously crunchy Rollmaster.)
The Void (Apparently a "Lovecraftian hard sci-fi horror setting" which I haven't seen much in the TTRPG world. Pretty cool.)
Stardrifter (Scroll to the bottom. Dude wrote a bunch of stories and made a space opera RPG based off of them!)

GrumblingGM,

Depends on what you want/expect and what your experience is with the hobby.

If you already play tabletop games, and have an idea what kind of rules work and what don't, and you're just making a game for your own group, it can be pretty easy.

If you wanna make a commercially viable product, it's going to be harder of course since a lot of extra factors come into play like who is making the art, the layout, the editing (NEVER EDIT YOUR OWN BOOKS! Always get a second pair of eyes to do the editing.), how you're gonna handling marketing, distribution, etcetera. And even systems-wise some things will become important that aren't important with a personal game, like system licenses (OGL, CC, All Rights Reserved, ...) and game balance becomes a lot more important as well in a product you're exploiting commercially.

If you've never (or only rarely) played games before and want to make something to play with friends, it's going to be rough, but I'm sure you can make that work. It's what people in the past did and while the very first designs of tabletop games were rough, there's still people 50 years later who swear by them, so they can't be all bad.

But if you wanna make a commercially viable product while having no clue of what works and what doesn't, honestly, I don't like to step on dreams, but I'd recommend to play games online for a few years and then try again. If you don't got friends who like to play then visit LFG forums or whatever fits.

RonniesaurusHex,
RonniesaurusHex avatar

I'm one of the co-creators of Goslings and we made the game in an hour. https://www.tinstargames.com/rpgs-in-an-hour.html

QuietStorm,

how in the world did you make a good game in a an hour, honestly thats impressive...

sudo,

What's your goal in making a game? You mention you haven't got many people to play with irl, so are you considering making a single player game?

Are you just trying to save money so you don't need to pay for other games? (If it's this one, I've got some bad news for you as making games is extremely time intensive. It may be relatively cheap but you'd be better off working part time for a week and buying the game you want rather than spending hundreds or thousands of hours creating something new.)

Another thing to consider, even if you are making a single player game, is you're going to need to test your game. A lot. And while testing on your own, hundreds of times, is going to be necessary, you're also going to need to get feedback from other players - some who will struggle through your rules to learn how to play, helping you improve that aspect. Others who will try to break the game, helping you balance the game. Others will simply play it and just give you feedback to tell you whether or not it's fun, but if you want other people to be and to enjoy your game (and not everyone will, no matter how good it is) you'll need other people to test it and give a perspective you simply can't have developing it entirely on your own.

You said you don't have access to a lot of games already, but having experience playing a wide variety of different games of different genres will be important to help you figure out what your game needs to make it fun and balanced.

I'd suggest putting some time into researching game design theory to help you understand what kinds of things are going on under the hood in game development.

Most importantly, make sure you're having fun doing it. Game development can be a slog but if you're passionate about what you're doing it's worth it enjoying your game and seeing others enjoy your game in the end.

Star,
@Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

As hard as you want! From Lasers & Feelings to Pathfinder 2nd ed. It's really about how complex and comprehensive you want it to be. Making a hack if an existing Powered by the Apocalypse game is where I started, and I definitely recommend it as a way to dip your toe in.

QuietStorm,

ive heard of hacks but what actatly are they ar ethey like mods for video games ar ethey kinda like that? im pretty new to this world i havent even playe dive just reserched a bunch into dnd and printed a bunch of games out and then i relised i had no-one to play with. so how do i start and whats a good framwork to start from and what do i do when im done with it,

sorry for all my dumb questions...

paragade,
@paragade@lemmy.ca avatar

A "hack" is basically when you take the rules for a game and add/change stuff to make it a new thing.

QuietStorm,

is there a game you would suggest i try to make a hack of or something?... i only have escpenience with dnd but also not really, do you know any free solo games i can attempt to play and maybe hack to se eif i liek this thing before paying for one.

paragade,
@paragade@lemmy.ca avatar

I would recommend learning more about games in general and the process of designing them before diving into making your own.

nromdotcom,

I'd recommend you play some games before you dive into designing. That way you can get a feel for themes and mechanics and what works and what you like.

The good news is that you don't need anyone to play with. There are plenty of TTRPG systems designed for solo, or you can always play more traditional systems solo using a GM emulator or similar.

Solo TTRPGs tend to come in a couple of general flavors - journaling games, and more "traditional" RPGs. And each of those come in various complexity levels.

Here are a few of various flavors that can help get you started. Check em out to get a feel for what's out there, what other folks are doing, and what works for you. Lots of folks with start with tweaks, extensions, or hacks of existing games.

5too, (edited )

I came in to say this! In addition, if you still have the bug to hack/mod whatever system you're playing, you don't have to explain the new rules to anyone else; you can change rules on the fly, or even rerun a scene a few different ways to see how things shake out. You can do this for a multiplayer game too (running everyone yourself); but in a solo game, you can try it as soon as you think of it!

Also, to expand slightly on GM Emulators - Mythic is the big one I know of, and they just released a second edition that's supposed to be rather good!

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