I love tabletop rpg's, both as a player and but even more as a designer. I actually gave a talk at a game dev event about how good it is to write your own ttrpg's.
The points I gave are really the highlights for what I love about the medium.
There's infinite ways to represent fictionalized actions.
Like how pulling from a Jenga tower is physically more stressful than a dice roll. Some games do better without that direct translation, but it's so satisfying to engage with the discussion of how to represent that.
Actually, you know how most xbox games use a basically standardized control scheme? It's a solved game to represent certain actions. Nobody uses Left Trigger to switch to parkour mode. It's the same as having every important result in a ttrpg be solved with a dice roll.
Actually I
would give it to D&D for the variety of damage dice configurations (4d6 fireball vs 2d8 sword swing). There's just no equivalent for social skills so it feels flat.
My point is actually that the decision to use a dice tower or other off-standard mechanic is so so fun to play around with. What is the sweet spot for physical engagement?
Like playing chess with edible pieces has an extra kick when you take a player's piece! Actually, that's one
aspect of why beer pong is eternal.
This is something you do with smaller games: the more specific your concept, the more it will rattle around the reader's brain.
I still talk about Oh Dang! Bigfoot Stole My Car with My Friend's Birthday Present Inside because it's so concise an experience from the title alone.
Sure there's dozens of generic systems, but y2ou want the equivalent of a short story - one snapshot of time where only the most interesting thing is captured.
The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good. - Andrei Tarkovsky
It's not for everyone, but to read a ttrpg and have your body shake as the experience hits you is such an honor.
I've learned about ttrpg's through The Crit Show, The Unexplored Places, and The Adventure Zone. There are a handful of podcasts that are about playing new games so you can get the vibe but they're more practical than fun.
Consider game design subreddits and itch.io game jam submissions
Also consider playing games I've made, as listed on its index page.
Also for your consideration: open source ttrpg resources
Here's a collection of tabletop rpg's i feel are statistically meaningful. Some are critical for my design reference for my own games.
Dungeons & Dragons/Pathfinder are not listed. I reference them in general, but I also just assume y'all are familiar and are looking for good games.
To add: Paranoia, Vampire the masquerade, all out of bubblegum,
I love urban fantasy shit. I love the harm stacking. I fell in love with this rpg because of a podcast but so much of it clicks with me design-wise. Especially harm levels and luck, and it's completely changed how i watch x-files and buffy and everything.
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I have been referencing this one extensively. I like the design direction of shifting labels, influence, and general playbook design.
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everyone knows this one. I'm obsessed with how clean the 4 stat system layout is. Hot and Cold. Volatile and Dark. There's no way to change it to put it in a different environment. Teen drama is of course ruled by attraction and fallout, and the only way to DnD port it is literally the same system but you're all knights.
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It's fine. It's really cool for making Spout Lore and using ammo pips for ranged weapons but dice stepping is stupid.
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The end of days is coming to your planet. Your Blades trauma is a hellstone mutation, you roll Delving Too Deep when you go in a mineshaft, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse are soon to show. What a vibe.
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Yet to play, but very fun sounding
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Only read through the rules but the cleanup to Blades rules is soooo good. Harm tiers are Ouch or Super Ouch. You resist for +2 stress, no roll. You get 5 playbook moves, and it gives you a list of possible story beats you buy with Stress and XP. Obviously being teenaged skateboards in wacky sci-fi worlds is dope (self explanatory).
Seemed complex initially but I just really get it now. Super dope between clocks, stress, resistences, positioning, the whole shebang. I really want to make a Forgotten Realms setting using Blades. I started putting one together with a half flooded city but I just haven't finished it
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One shared jenga tower. You're in a highly dangerous and tense environment and you have to pull blocks to survive. A benchmark of good design.
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So this is like a self-run Dread. I read through Wretched and Alone: Echoes which is pretty directly a ttrpg version of silent hill. Really cool system to journal how you resolve a challenge, which many also requiring dread's tower pull, with some card stacking for specific bad ends.
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So i've only looked at this one via Ride For... as it seems like a straightforward dice version of Wretched and Alone
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So this one's Belonging Outside Belonging. You're superhero college alumni. I really like the environment playbooks which is probably a staple, but like Drama Within, your old Headmaster, the ghosts of the Phantom Wind, the one for other heroes or the cops. It's conceptually I learned about it from The Unexplored Places podcast.
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On the one hand, attributes are like THE way to indicate something about a character/situation is resolution relevant. Where systems will be like well, the character sheet does say strong so I guess you can lift a heavy item - Fate will be like "SUPER MUSCLES - 3 USES". It uses the -1, 0, +1 dice for an extreme bell curve that I don't care for.
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This one i've never been able to sit people down to play. There's a prompt set for like every movie ever, you roll to see if your beloved character learns absolutely nothing or perhaps experiences a fate worse than death. I made like a hack of it here for ease of use, and the use of dice as tokens still rattles around my brain for design.
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It's like THE lasers & feelings hack in my mind. Played by McElroys and Unexplored Places pod
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You play as superheroes trying to disguise themselves. Low rolls are good, but use more D6's when you're trying to do something subtle.
I think they played this on Dungeons and Daddies but whatever. Be cute. Reference memes. Bork.
Play as weak familiars trying to revive your witch. Also i think on D and Daddies
You solve a mystery by rolling a d6 and if you get a 6 you're a vampire (secretly). I played once when i was less than sober.
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You roll light and dark dice to resolve, but dark dice increase your Ruin, and if your Ruin maxes you get possessed by the malevolent location you're graverobbing.
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dice are used together to match opposing dice values. Number of dice used is how good the outcome goes
Rock Paper Scissors dueling game. Used in the Unexplored Places podcast.
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A solo journaling game about regaining your memory. Used in the Unexplored Places podcast.
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It was the second 36 word ttrpg that I ever read. And then I got what you could do with the medium.
I was looking at the 36 word jam, and the description mentioned a 12 word jam. The previous art was good. One of the promo pics is a list of content warnings. I read it without formatting. I read it again with formatting. I read the follow up author's note. And the whole emotional weight of the game hits. I thought about the one game I wrote while sobbing, and could see that in those 12 words.