So I'm tinkering with a homemade rpg, something I haven't done since high school. I'm not seriously considering trying to sell it or anything, it's more of a creative excersize. I really like most generic systems but was thinking about the inherent problems in them, including things like genre (GURPS tends towards realism, Savage Worlds tends towards pulp,etc.) and complexity (more of an introduction problem for new players I think, but if I were to ever show off my game I'd want it to at least seem friendly enough to pick up). I also wondered if there were any characters from fiction that would seem very hard to model in something that wasn't specifically designed for them (Amber comes to mind).

How many of you have made your own rpgs from the ground up? Did you do it for more control over your own personal play style, or for other reasons? How did other people react to it?

Quote from: Yevla;461887So I'm tinkering with a homemade rpg, something I haven't done since high school. I'm not seriously considering trying to sell it or anything, it's more of a creative excersize. I really like most generic systems but was thinking about the inherent problems in them, including things like genre (GURPS tends towards realism, Savage Worlds tends towards pulp,etc.) and complexity (more of an introduction problem for new players I think, but if I were to ever show off my game I'd want it to at least seem friendly enough to pick up). I also wondered if there were any characters from fiction that would seem very hard to model in something that wasn't specifically designed for them (Amber comes to mind).

How many of you have made your own rpgs from the ground up? Did you do it for more control over your own personal play style, or for other reasons? How did other people react to it?

I've made a few. And ended up publishing one of them (another is in a publishers pipeline somewhere and most of the others were for personal use). The first one I made was with three other players from my group, so everyone was on board. The one I published we run on a somwhat regular basis (though we general rotate systems).

If you are designing for personal use, the great thing is you can tailor it to the tastes and preferences of those involved. If those tastes are all over the map, I suppose you could end up with a bit of a monstrosity. But if people are generally on the same page, it should work fine. I would definitely ask yourself what you want the system to do prior to working on it.

2 of them.

Vreeg's first Rule of Setting Design,
"Make sure the ruleset you are using matches the setting and game you want to play, because the setting and game WILL eventually match the system."

Corrollary to Vreeg's First Rule.
"The amount of rules given to a certain dimension of an RPG partially dictate what kind of game the rules will create.  If 80% of the rulebook is written about thieves and the underworld, the game that is meant for is thieving.  If 80% of the mechanics are based on combat, the game will revolve around combat.  

Multiply this by 10 if the reward system is based in the same area as the propnerance of rules."

2nd Corrollary.
"Character growth is the greatest reinforcer.  The syntheses of pride in achievement with improvement in the character provides over 50% of the reinforcement in playing the game.  Rules that involve these factors are the most powerful in the game."

The first one happened pretty much by accident.  It was back in the early 80s when I created a few new concepts for a campaign world.  I was already using a heavily modified House version of 1e. And as I worked and playtested, I realized that the rules for combat and magic and the lack of social skills were not working.  After a year, I realized I was going to have to scrap one of the two.  
And that's when I started to realize that to some degree, no generic game system does a setting with any complexity justice.  
I don't want to say it isn't partially my style it suits; but it is mainly to create the feel I want in the setting, and to support the setting fluff and cosmology.

And while I will admit sometimes it causes a few problems (I have to learn a new game to play in your setting? Bleah...), 27 years in, I have 2 live groups (one with a big waiting list) and an online game that is on session 79.

I've never designed a game, but, IMO, not enough info to give you any solid advice.

Some questions that might be helpful to ask yourself:

What do you want your game to do?

Is there already a game or system framework that does something similar?

What about your game do you want to be the "schtick" -- the unique driving force behind pushing play forward?  What will the relative focus be and why will players be motivated to continue to play your game?

Quote from: Yevla;461887How many of you have made your own rpgs from the ground up? Did you do it for more control over your own personal play style, or for other reasons? How did other people react to it?

I experimented with my own systems in the past, yes. I think it's more about controlling all the aspects of the campaign to me, rather than using someone else's design.

Think of it this way: a RPG campaign is like cooking a dish. You can buy your meat at the butcher, get yourself some spices that are already mixed for rubs and the like, and have great experiences that way. Less risk, less work, yet some large amount of control in how the elements you use come together in the end (the dish). Alternately, you could kill the beast yourself, cut your meat from scratch, grow some herbs in your garden to make your own rub mixes and the like. The advantage is that it's an hands-on approach where you get familiar with every single element that comes into play when you're cooking. It's more intimate, with, for some people, more satisfaction out of the whole process in the end.

Well, making your game system from scratch is similar.

Some of my experimentations failed miserably (I have memories of a very loose fantasy game system I used in a homebrew that just did not take off the ground during its playtest - didn't do what I wanted it to do at all), others worked really well (A Ragnarok NWoD variant I built like you build a new game in the line some years ago for a one shot with friends which really worked well, using Wyrd as the supernatural 1-10 characteristic, a system of runes that combine to create effects, kinda like some mages' spheres, that kind of thing).

Right now, I'm not really into making a system from scratch. I'm more into using the game systems I already know as a set of tools to help me run each specific game I want to do, but there's always the possibility I'll want to make a tool from scratch for a specific job I'll have in mind the future, sure.

My advice would be don't be afraid to borrow provided...

1) It's Awesome
2) You can get away with it!

Done a few and board and card games. I would say that it has to be memorable if you want your mates to try it and keep playing it past one session. You can't just write another d20 clone because its unlikely that it will catch anything new. Also do you want to tie the game to a setting. This is an easy way to make it memorable as fluff is easier to make original than crunch. If you want something generic then its probably easier to aim for generic fantasy or modern than it is to get a working true generic system.

More important though than all of that you have to love it and you have to feel it gives you something unique.

Yeah I should have added a disclaimer.

I don't clone I Frankenstien

Mwhahahahahahahahahaha!

Think I did my first aged 11. I'd sold my Moldvay basic book to a friend so he could teach other kids how to play, then found myself without any means to get hold of another, so wrote 'Dragonsword'. Rip off of Basic D&D, but went up to level 99 and had something like 50 classes, a lot of which were just the same but with a name change. My group played it anyway, and it filled a gap until I got hold of a few other games (AD&D, red Box basic etc). Been writing games on and off ever since. Wrote one about Knights in armour, another based on the 'thundercats' cartoon, a supers game, space opera style, all in the early 80s before bigger, better game systems (Marvel, DC, Star Wars etc) came out.

Trick is actually being bothered to finish them. Get the mechanics down first. Combat out the way, spells, skills, then start on things like classes, equipment, game world and fluff. Once done, tidy it all up, read and re-read and hope it survives yet another re-read without you scrapping the whole thing and starting again

Best of luck with it! Do some brainstorming on here or other forums to see what people would like to see in it, or their favourite mechanic. Mine at the moment is allowing players to buy extra dice for games where multiple dice are used. E.g. if you roll 3D6 for a task, you can buy 1 or more extra D6 to roll, then pick which 3 dice to keep and drop the rest. uses Hero points, or fate points, or whatever, but the player gets a say in the important stuff for their character, as opposed to praying for good rolls.

At the moment I'm more into house ruling existing games - doing that with DC Heroes (MEGs game, ditched the table, tweaked the AP chart) and Golden Heroes (very antiquated early 80s Games Workshop effort that I run a long term play by post campaign with).

I've done it twice, and am working on one (again), as well as three, four, and seven.

1) Write what interests you. If you have passion for it, it will show, it will help you discard elements that might not work, and keep honing a game until it really does work for you.

2)  Don't try and sell a game to everyone. Even a "do all" generic game, won't work for every person. So don't try and do everything, for everyone. Just have the game do what it needs. See point one.


I wrote my games for a lot of reasons. Primarily, I got tired of picking up games that almost worked, but not quite. I got tired of games trying to do something they weren't built to do, or ones that I felt were just missing the point. One of the reasons my first game was Hearts & Souls, was I saw yet another superhero game treading the old ground. Sure it might be a little lighter, or a little different, but in the aim it was another "point build, and measure everything.." type of game.

I knew I could do better.

So I did.

As for how it was received, I got some negatives for the art, and one truly negative review. The rest have been quite good. There are a few things I plan to fix in 2E, things I genuinely missed and can see as a problem. Mostly explanations on how, and why things work, and how to use that for better play.

High Valor took a lot of years, it started by being inspired by the Silmarillion then moving to being more heftily inspired by Beowulf, Charlemagne, Norse, Celtic, and even Christian aspects blended into its own thing. It has had highly positive reviews as well.

In the end, I write what I want, because I think it will be fun for me, and might be fun for others. I can't wait to see what my next games will bring to the table.



Game One: Hearts & Souls
Game Three: Derelict Delvers
Game Four: Vast Frontiers
Game Seven: E.o.N

Thanks for all the replies. I know for certain I want my system to be able to model a great many types of characters, or at least have the potential to, but maybe to make it easier I should try to pick a genre first and expand from there? I already know I don't want to do a d20ish ripoff, I'm not a big fan of level/class systems.

I agree that it'd be hard to find a stable player base for a homebrew game unless it was spectacular. Heck, one of the reasons I tried Pathfinder is because it was a lot easier to find players with than GURPS. I'd just like little more flexibility in character creation. I'm thinking of perhaps giving in just a little on the level issue and perhaps using levels for skill progression and maybe bolt-on powers (magic, psi, etc.), and using the characters 'race' as a mostly unchanging variable. That would let me do different characters from different worlds but some consistency? Level systems are undeniably more popular, especially with videogames like WoW in the mainstream now.

I've also enjoyed tinkering with this idea because I was curious about how early rpgs got designed. I would have loved to sit in on a session of Gary Gygax's campaign where they perhaps argued over sword rules or something. How did levels get put into rpgs anyway? Did wargame units have levels?

Quote from: Yevla;461953Thanks for all the replies. I know for certain I want my system to be able to model a great many types of characters, or at least have the potential to, but maybe to make it easier I should try to pick a genre first and expand from there? I already know I don't want to do a d20ish ripoff, I'm not a big fan of level/class systems.

I agree that it'd be hard to find a stable player base for a homebrew game unless it was spectacular. Heck, one of the reasons I tried Pathfinder is because it was a lot easier to find players with than GURPS. I'd just like little more flexibility in character creation. I'm thinking of perhaps giving in just a little on the level issue and perhaps using levels for skill progression and maybe bolt-on powers (magic, psi, etc.), and using the characters 'race' as a mostly unchanging variable. That would let me do different characters from different worlds but some consistency? Level systems are undeniably more popular, especially with videogames like WoW in the mainstream now.

I've also enjoyed tinkering with this idea because I was curious about how early rpgs got designed. I would have loved to sit in on a session of Gary Gygax's campaign where they perhaps argued over sword rules or something. How did levels get put into rpgs anyway? Did wargame units have levels?

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7473/who-created-the-idea-of-experience-points/7489#7489

One answer...

Quote from: Yevla;461887So I'm tinkering with a homemade rpg, something I haven't done since high school. I'm not seriously considering trying to sell it or anything, it's more of a creative excersize. I really like most generic systems but was thinking about the inherent problems in them, including things like genre (GURPS tends towards realism, Savage Worlds tends towards pulp,etc.) and complexity (more of an introduction problem for new players I think, but if I were to ever show off my game I'd want it to at least seem friendly enough to pick up). I also wondered if there were any characters from fiction that would seem very hard to model in something that wasn't specifically designed for them (Amber comes to mind).

How many of you have made your own rpgs from the ground up? Did you do it for more control over your own personal play style, or for other reasons? How did other people react to it?

I'm always tinkering with something, just since its fun, but it usually ends up badly. The most success I've had in actual play was revamping things rather than building from scratch. I ran a couple of campaigns with a sort of T&T/skills and powers hybrid that was a lot of fun, but I've I did also once have a game system totally collapse halfway through a session, while someone else was trying to GM it  (he was good enough to freeform it from then on, though). More often I've ended up just redesigning things over and over - e.g. one I was working on for awhile, 'Unearthly Heroes', went through several versions, starting as a Marvel Super Heroes variant and going to a d6 roll and then a die-pool system. Most of my stuff doesn't see the light of day, though I wrote a couple of things commercially during the d20 glut era.

On the generic problem - the latest setting-vs-system thread made the point that the more generic rulesets often had variant rules that made them adjustable to different settings. Some things are inherently hard to adjust though like how competent overall PCs are (influenced by what your core mechanic i.e. linear rolls are more random than dice pools or 3d6 and so give characters unreliable skills) and how complex overall the system is? Likewise you can adjust lethality easily with rules patches to make a game 'grittier', but its probably hard to speed up character generation to make replacing lost characters less of a problem (though perhaps using archetypes could help).

I think on some level everyone who has ever tweaked a game to taste (and that's pretty much everyone) is a game designer. It's a powerful impulse and cool part of the hobby.

The advice to focus on things you are passionate about and really want to play yourself is excellent. I write my games to play with my friends, about things that I am excited about. I'm hugely influenced by the stuff I play, and borrow liberally and - I hope - graciously from others.

One thing to consider is defining a particular problem that you want to solve and making that a design parameter. For my last game, I started out to design something that required no prep and could be played to a satisfying conclusion in 2-3 hours, because as a busy adult that's what my friends and I needed. Turns out lots of other people are in the same boat and the game has done really well.

A "generic engine" rules set is not really quite a complete game. I recommend actually running a real game while developing the rules set.

Even if you mean ultimately to release a product like the GURPS or JAGS rules book, remember that people will want to use it in an actual play environment.

Starting with such an environment helps tremendously in deciding what rules to create in the first place, as well as in identifying rules that work poorly.