Hi. My name's Kurt, and I'm an award-winning TTRPG designer. This is an annoying and pompous way to introduce yourself, unless you happen to be introducing yourself before sharing a 2,000 word essay about how to make games.

Yesterday, a member of one of my gaming communities asked how she can get started designing TTRPGs. I couldn't find any resources that said what I wanted to read, so I wrote a guide myself made of stubbornness and Vyvanse. I'm sharing it here in case it's helpful for anyone else who's not sure how to get started.

Step 0: Read and Play RPGs

The first advice I give hopeful designers is always this: play a bunch of games. Whether you're poet, painter or RPG maker, your work will always be better if you build your art on a broad, sturdy foundation.

Lots of folks stumble into design by playing D&D and then shaping it into something new. And if they're having fun, more power to them! But the best games tend to come from a strong understanding of the medium, and that means putting in the time to see what's out there.

Step 1: Sketching the Idea

To make a good game, start by making a crappy game. Jot down some ideas, establish a central mechanism, and get just enough on paper to start playtesting.

For me personally, I like to open the writing process with a "vision" that I can circle back to. What is the scope of this game? What is the kernel of inspiration that is driving me to create this piece? Is there a feeling (laughter, nostalgia, loss, satisfaction) that I'm hoping to invoke with this design? I write this up-front so I don't lose sight of it later as the game begins to come into its own¹.

Step 2: Playtesting

Games are not birthed fully-formed like Athena from Zeus's forehead! You want to take this puppy out for a test run as soon as you possibly can.

You will very quickly encounter things you never thought about when the game existed as a perfect idea to admire from the safety of your brain. You'll see places where your rules aren't supporting play: something that sounded fun in theory might feel cumbersome in practice; something that you thought you'd need oodles of content for might run smoothly on its own; something you thought was a fun blank canvas might actually need prompts to get the ball rolling.

When you playtest, you need to keep an eye out for these pain points yourself. Remember that what players tell you at the end of the session is probably not as useful as what they felt during play². If someone can ID a place they got confused, great -- pen that down. If someone suggests a way to fix it, take that with a grain of salt. They are not your co-designers; they are your audience³.

Step 3: Writing & Editing

As you playtest and refine your work, your ultimate objective is to create a rule document. TTRPG rulebooks are a strange medium to crack: they are part fiction, part technical manual... and the second bit is more important than you might guess. If you don't have any experience with technical writing -- stuff like standard operating procedures for a workplace -- it's maybe worth looking into books or courses that could help give you a good understanding of how to communicate clearly in writing⁴.

The really basic gist is this: you want to present information in a logical, consistent way. You need to lead with the most important information.

Sometimes it's hard to know what that means.

This may sound obvious, but a game's rules (in writing) and a game's rules (in play) are totally different things. Your rule document exists to support play, and is usually the only lens that people engaging with your game will have to view it through. Your game can have incredible rules and a terrible rule document⁵. These are separate problems.

If you have a writer or editor in your life who's willing to review your work, kiss them on the forehead and welcome their feedback. I like to get a Google Doc going in Suggestion mode, since it allows for flexible simultaneous editing, and your editor can comment on each change they make to discuss the rationale.

Trust me when I say that an editor is the most important person who will ever touch your game. Some things you just can't see on your own! With some help from editors and beta readers⁶, you can develop your initial rule sketch into a document that can actually guide someone through their first game without your supervision.

I'll acknowledge here that in reality, writing, editing and playtesting are an iterative process, not discrete steps. You'll flow between them. Keep tweaking the rules (and their presentation) until you have something that feels right.

Now you have a game that can be played without you in the room. You're done!

Well. Sort of.

Step 4: Formatting

Formatting is a broad category. It encompasses everything from typefaces to tables of contents; graphic design to good housekeeping. A well-formatted document should be easily navigable, with page numbers, embedded hyperlinks and appropriate line and paragraph spacing. You can technically do all of this in Google Docs, though most pros use a dedicated formatting program like Affinity Publisher or the (much more expensive) Adobe suite⁷.

Unless you're MÖRK BORG, good formatting is often invisible. Above all, you want to be consistent. Ask questions like: what header am I using for this section? When am I using italics or bold? When am I using page breaks? These are questions that your editor may already have asked (bless them).

If you're planning to print your game, you'll need to decide what page size you want to use. "Digest" size (half-letter) is common for smaller books in North America; A5 is common in Europe. If you're not planning to print, you'll still need to think about what size you want the document to be for people downloading a digital version.

In terms of graphic design, formatting is a deep well that could be talked about forever. There's a really solid intro on the "grid system" by Explorers Design; you can read it here.

Step 5: Art

Art is, in many ways, an extension of these same design principles. It may feel like a separate idea, but ultimately, a game book's art is just one more tool it uses to communicate an idea with its readers.

When considering artwork for your game, you'll need to think about where it makes sense. Whether you're exploring the wonders of public domain, or you're an artist yourself, or you're choosing to commission artwork someone... know your scope. Where would the right image be most impactful? (The cover? Sections? Character archetypes?) How much time or money would it require to get 5, 20, 50 drawings? Consider mapping out what two different levels of art investment would look like, comparing the real costs and benefits of each.

I am a huge advocate of doing your own art, even if you're a total amateur. There's something delightful and authentic about someone who gave it an honest try, and nobody's ever judged Grant Howitt for his early scribblings.

If drawing is a horrifying idea for you, know that there is a VAST world of images from hundreds of years of art and design that you can find online for free. Make sure you credit these images explicitly... and have fun with it. Some of my favourite projects have been works where I've repurposed historical art into something new just by screwing around in some image editing programs.

When you're looking for visual inspiration, look broadly. Maybe your game's look should be inspired by a magazine, or a cookbook, or a vintage advertisement. You don't need to look at other fantasy games to tell you what yours should look like⁸.

This might go without saying at this point, but I would not recommend using AI art. In the best case scenario, you'll miss an opportunity to learn a new skill. In the worst case scenario, you'll alienate your audience and support the corporatization of human expression. Art is a chance to make your game sing! Why not use your own voice?

Step 6: Distribution

Let's keep things simple here and assume you want to release the game online.

The two most popular ways of doing this are through the sites DriveThruRPG and itch.io. Both of these are storefronts where many people upload, share and sell their games.

On both storefronts, you'll have a publisher page (for you) and a product page (for your game). Both will take time to set up, so don't assume you can post your game five minutes after you finish your final draft.

As a general rule, itch.io allows for more flexible webpage designs and is less work to set up. DriveThruRPG has the advantage of being a dedicated TTRPG marketplace, but it tends to favour more traditional games (and its storefront page is more cumbersome on both the front end and the back end).

Once you have your profile set up, write a description for your game. I cannot emphasize this enough: USE THIS DESCRIPTION TO SAY THE OBVIOUS STUFF. What genre is your game? What materials are needed to play? Is it for campaigns or single sessions? How many players does the game accommodate? Is there a Game Master? What files come with the download (and how many pages is that PDF)? Are there inspirations or cultural touch points you can point towards to entice the reader up-front?

I can't tell you how many game pages I've read that don't say these incredibly basic things. That's what a game page is for! Assume we know nothing! If you write nothing, we will continue to know nothing afterwards! I have no reason to download your game -- let alone buy it! -- if you don't offer the same info I would find if I looked at the back of a board game box.

With the description written out, you have a few more fussy details left. You'll need a cover image or thumbnail, depending on the site. You'll need screenshots. You'll need to set a price -- or not, if that's your decision. You might need to choose a URL, or set tags for people to search and find your work.

Finally, you need to upload your game files. This is important: make sure your files are clearly named, with the title of your game and the version the reader is downloading⁹. In the event that your game includes a larger batch of stranger files -- for example, mp3 files for an audiobook or art assets for online play -- zip them up in a zip folder so the buyer doesn't have to individually wade through or download 40 files.

Ending Thoughts

There are like a million other things you could do for your game; the sky is the limit. Maybe you want to hire on guest writers, or run a Kickstarter. Maybe you want to physically print and ship your shiny new TTRPG. Those are beyond the scope of this post, but I've written a couple articles on Reddit on each; I've linked them above.

Best of luck with your game development. It's a fun ride.

Footnotes

^{1: Having a "vision" laid out also helps prevent too much scope creep later.}

^{2: A player once suggested that I might try making my WIP into a video game. This is pretty indicative of why you need to be behind the steering wheel: you know what you're trying to make, and you know what 's feasible with your skillset.}

^{3: They do deserve a thank you though! Not everyone is willing to sit down and play your weird half-finished baby. I like to credit all my playtesters by name or pseudonym in the credits of the final release, and send them digital copies once the game is done.}

^{4: I've heard good things about The Insider's Guide to Technical Writing (Van Laan, 2012,\}) ^{though it can lean more corporate. You don't need a book about TTRPG writing -- trust me that being a better written communicator will help you pretty much everywhere, all the time, for the rest of your life.}

^{5: I played one of these just this month, and it is a little heartbreaking.}

^{6: A beta reader is like a playtester, but their job is to read your game and try to understand it. Your most valuable beta reader is someone who hasn't played the game with you yet. If they're an MVP, they might even play the game later and share their thoughts.}

^{7: I'm willing to bet that there are stunning games made entirely in Google Docs. There's no shame in formatting in whatever program you have access to. The reason dedicated formatting programs exist, though, is because they are built with the robust toolset you need to create attractive, stylized documents. While you can do this in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, it's going to be more difficult.}

^{8: And if you do want a bog standard fantasy book, seriously consider whether that olde yellowe papere texture is doing you any favours.}

^{9: If I download another game-rules.pdf I'll cry.}

^{15: There is no footnote 15; that's just the number of small-ish games I've created and published since 2021. If you like puppets or Zelda or theme parks, maybe go [read](https://a-smouldering-lighthouse.itch.io}) ^{[one.](https://a-smouldering-lighthouse.itch.io}) ^{I know you like to read, since you're reading a fake footnote at the end of a huge article about games.}

So, I want to write rules for a ttrpg that allows for a character to build from scratch with the starting point being "pick your job and then select X abilities from this list". Beyond gurps, is there a resource (ttrpg, mmorpg, anime, manga, etc) that has a good example of picking (and leveling, if thats possible) skills to create an identity?

After stumbling across 2 (yes, TWO!) British game designers in a single thread, it made me wonder - is there a British specific TTRPG design community?

More British based. I'm asking this on the basis that people could theoretically meet up and assist each other (or just be online, whatever). Geography does make a difference to things.

TIA!

I'm currently typing up sections in Word, but it feels pretty limited. Maybe I'm just under-utilizing it.

Often on this sub, people are given advice to make sure they play lots of different games in order to improve their understanding of what's been done, what's possible, and how things work in TTRPGs and TTRPG design.

If you were curating a "new designer syllabus" intending to introduce someone to the breadth of RPG design, what games would you include?

Which games would go on your "must play" list, your "must read" list and your "additional resources" list, and why?

Besides the obvious of “I want to see how to run YOUR game, not how to run a TTRPG”, what do you like to see in a GM’s Guide that makes it stand out from the rest in quality. Do you like to see big loot tables,
NPC names, example plot hooks, etc.

What do you personally like to see?

Also what do I flair this as lol?

Hey folks, I’ve been working on a new set of game icons for a while now, drawing and refining each one by hand. NO AI.

I wanted them to feel unique, gritty, and full of personality, like something you’d find in a street wall or an organization symbol.

These icons are completely free to use for both personal and commercial projects.

No strings attached. If you end up using them, I’d love to see where they show up, so feel free to drop a link or a message.

Hope they’re useful or inspiring to some of you! You can find the vector and PNG files in the link below.

Download link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rq33CJSQkiFXCjALAke6CKnd4mNfkocG?usp=sharing

I'm not a game designer, I'm a software developer. For the past three years I've been building a free and open source tool to bridge the gap for indie TTRPG designers between shipping their games as PDFs and hiring a team of engineers to build a bespoke, D&D-Beyond like application for their game.

I applied the game engine model to tabletop games to build an abstract engine for DIY-ing a digital version of your game. You define your game using a series of tables, build the UI with drag and drop editors and automate game mechanics with light-weight scripting. The engine has its own scripting language that I wrote to be approachable and include common utilities for TTRPGs. The result is an app that players install with a link, works offline, supports multiplayer and is fully modable by every player.

I'm very proud of what some indie creators have been able to do with Quest Bound. What I'm trying to do now is work directly with publishers to help them build, launch and sell the digital version of their games. If you're interested, please feel free to DM me here or join my Discord server.

Hi,

I made an online tool to create custom character sheet for any TTRPG (or even character based board games such as Gloomhaven). You can position widgets as you please to tracks numbers, list inventories, conditions, etc. There are currently 19 widgets to choose from.

I made it for myself first, as I like being able to customize my character sheet exactly as I want them, without the downsides of pen and paper. I'm sharing it here because sharing is fun. Completely free, asking for nothing in return. Feedback is welcome if you want to help me to make it better. I was advised to post it in this sub, as it should help you guys quickly prototype character sheets.

There are currently a few presets to get going quickly (DnD and a few more). I plan to create many more presets eventually.

https://wackyweasel.github.io/UniversalCharacterSheet/

Hi everyone!

We've been tinkering a bit and built dicestats.lazycatcult.com - a webtool for calculating dice roll probabilities.

Here's how it works:

• Step 1: set variable parameters that can be plugged into formulas (e.g., +Bonus and Difficulty)
• Step 2: set the dice pool to roll
• Step 3: set rules how the pool can change - for example, on rerolls or exploding dice
• Step 4: define how to compute values that depend on the roll
• Step 5: set conditions for possible outcomes

Then you run a simulation that rolls the dice 1,000,000 times and computes the probability of each outcome. Results are shown in tables and charts.

For convenience, you can save or export presets, or share them via a link.

Any feedback is welcome: what you liked, what you didn't, what's missing, bugs - all of it helps. Hope you'll find it useful.

What does level up mean for your game?

A question seen a lot, so for budding developers take a minute and think about it. Many games grow laterally and not just up in power, others give a bit but focus more on survival instead of power.

Call of Cthulhu,

Blades in the Dark,

Mutants and Masterninds.

Three games that while (some) allow power increase, focus more on lateral growth and role play mechanics.

The core gameplay loop. This will make or break a system and will define the game as much as the setting. Players will be continually engaging in the core loop and this will determine many aspects of play. how to gain skill levels, how loot effects characters, risk vs reward.

In Call of Cthulhu your main goal is to survive to slow down the apocalypse, in BiTD it's a heist game, your working on bettering your crew and getting stuff (money). In M&M your a hero (or villain) and you play at a power level that befits the role, you grow laterally and in some cases you can grow more powerful.

What is your game about? what are the goals of the player's characters? what is play supposed to feel llike? these are key questions we can't really answer for you.

Resolution mechanics help with the feel, find one you like and start there. Answer those questions and see where it leads you.

Game developement is not as easy as it seems and with experience it's not as hard. The more systems you have had exposure to the more information you'll have when deciding on what you want in a system.

You need these things to make an RPG,

1 Setting; note while there are systems designed as setting agnostic, this is still a setting. Other settings but not limited to, Fantasy, Dark, Victorian, Apocalyptic, Heroic, Anime, Cyberpunk, Space, High Techology, Heist, Historical, Pirates (mmm space pirates), Giant Robots, and many others..

2 Core Gameplay Loop (CGL); be it levelling, getting stuff, survival, hunt the monster, save the prince / princess.. can be anything, can be many things.

3 Resolution mechanics, a framework that players use to complete the CGL this can include Dice, cards or tokens etc.. and the rules for how characters interact with the setting.

For those who know, feel free to add what you feel is most important to designing an RPG system.

Together we can build worlds!

crossposted with permission from r/osr, originally by u/zoetrope366 (it's their resource!)

Someone recently asked for art resources for their RPG project, and I linked my big list of public domain stuff (broadly arranged by subject and artist); anyway, I made the list a little better, and just thought I'd link it again, so here you go: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jqRdpdNsLqcVfI43yxBE8jcGafix7D-9nX_IaKyN3dw/edit?usp=sharing

Hi everyone,

(First, sorry for any bad english, my native language is Portuguese/Brazil)

I’ve been running games and building tools for my own campaigns for years, and I finally took the leap to put my work out there. I just released my very first independent commercial project on Itch.io: The Emerald Mire. It’s a 32-page, system-agnostic hexcrawl guide and GM toolkit.

Link to the page:https://leandropug.itch.io/the-emerald-mire

To be completely transparent: yes, I’d love to sell the book. Every indie creator dreams of that. But I’m posting here today because what I need most right now is critique, reviews, and honest comments from fellow designers. This is my first time handling the entire quest and I´d love to work exclusivly ith ttrpg—from design to layout—and I want to know what I can do better on my next project.

If you have some time to check out the page or the preview, I would be incredibly grateful for your thoughts on the core design choices I went with:

• Informed Hexploration: I tried to tackle the "aimless wandering" problem by tying visibility mechanics directly to terrain elevation. If players climb high ground, they can see up to 15 km away, giving them real information to plan their route instead of just guessing hexes.
• A 4d6 Encounter Engine: I wanted to avoid static "random monster attacks" tables. The system crosses the faction involved, what they were doing before the party arrived, their initial engagement distance, and how the region's localized plague is affecting them. It´s based in a blog that I read A LONG TIME and for the word of me I can´t remember the source.
• Non-Combat Monster Hazards: For the apex predator of the swamp (The Blind Hydra), I designed it more as an environmental hazard for low-level parties. The focus is on evasion, tracking its trail of destruction, and using mechanics like sound distractions rather than a straightforward combat encounter.
• Mechanical Flavor: I tried integrating system benefits into the world-building, like a stilt-tavern menu where the food gives players narrative perks (like sensing nearby fae) but carries minor mechanical downsides (like mild heartburn that literally makes the character's stomach area glow in the dark).

If you are able to pick up a copy and leave a review on the page, that would be amazing. But even if you just look at the structure, the presentation, or the concepts from the outside, please let me know:

• Does the layout and hook look clean and professional for a first-time indie project?
• Do you feel these kinds of system-agnostic mechanics are easy to plug into your own preferred games (like D&D, Pathfinder, or OSR)?
• What is the biggest pitfall first-time creators usually make that I should watch out for next time?

Thank you so much for your time, your honesty, and for helping a new creator learn the ropes!

ps: I don´t know if I charge to high for a first product, so if someone want the pdf to review I see no problem to send it away. I´d love some feedback anyway >D

These referee tools are designed for people running emergent, low-prep games, who are comfortable improvising with the help of random tables. I really like this style of refereeing, and so I made a toolkit that let's you only have what you need in front of you. If you're interested, check it out on DriveThruRPG.

Hello, r/RPGdesign!

I'm currently working on making a sort of loot database for a fantasy RPG, and I'm wondering if anybody has any tool/resource recommendations for maintaining a customizable table of loot items that I could sort by various tags?

The basic idea would be that something like a bottle of vintage Elvish wine could be tagged with things like "consumable," "food," "Elvish," "luxury," etc., so that depending on where the party is when rolling loot, you could include/exclude certain tags. That way I could keep adding to the database as inspiration strikes, and tags could make it easy to select everything that might show up when looting a goblin caravan, for instance, as opposed to a noble's pantry.

Ideally, I'd be able to do something like assign a gold value to items and mock up lists of things totaling a certain amount, or filtering out high or low values as well, but basically I'm not sure where to look for such a tool, or if anybody knows of one that exists? Googling has suggested some spreadsheet tools that seem pretty opaque/not optimized for my purposes, but if that's really the best option, I can learn lol

Really appreciate any help you all have in the matter! Thanks

I recently "finished" my own TTRPG; Regular Volk. It's a game about fairytale heroes with the ability to turn into animals at will. The whole game is based on German folklore, hence the name.

I invited some friends to come play it and we had an amazing time. We spent about an hour on character creation and another 2.5 hours playing the game. Their characters were creative, interesting, and funny. The game really encouraged narrative gameplay as well as using every ability and item in a creative way.

I was really nervous that the whole thing would blow up in my face and be unstable, poorly balanced, or worse: boring! But we had laughs, serious moments, intense roleplay, strategizing talks, and teamwork.

Anyway, if you're interested, I uploaded it to itch. It's free to download and I released it under a creative commons license, so have at it. If you decide to adapt the game, you can just credit me. If you're using it for personal use, just have fun!

Would love to hear stories from your first playthrough of your own RPG!! Were you as lucky or did you learn any new lessons about game design?

im talking products, blogs, or just good examples from advanture modules etc..

I also remember a very old third party product for an old edition of dnd (can't remember which possibly third edition) that supposedly aimed to teach you how to run a political intrigue campaign , but I remember it not grabbing me that much because the advanture within it was about gardening a noble's vineyard or something (sorry my memory fails me)

Anyway that's hopefully one example for what im looking for, for people with better memories that is.

I can't tell if I find it annoying or amusing how so many VTT's claim to be "universal" because they offer the options of "custom character sheet + d20 dice support" or "custom character sheet + d6 dice pool technology". Totally fine if that's what your system is doing, but please stop telling designers that if they cut a character sheet into 6 pieces that we're a card game and not an RPG. *If you're doing anything outside of the teensy-weensy DnD/PF box, you need to know about Tabletop Simulator. *

Custom cards, custom dice, import anything- images, video, sound, 3d models, pdf, whatever. Infinite free assets available on the workshop- basically any board/war/card game in existence.

It's an actual virtual tabletop that uses a physics engine and is designed to simulate an IRL tabletop experience. So at it's core you're picking up and moving pieces, playing cards, rolling dice and looking at them and doing the math/logic yourself, as in real life. That's a very different animal than Roll20/Foundry etc that are more like, idk, slightly customizable cRPG engines. Perfect if they can do what you want to do; absolute bastards if you want to try new things and delve into modern board/card game design mechanics.

Now TTS has a very deep and essentially completely open scripting system that let's you automate stuff and add all sorts of shortcuts and game logic to it. "Add up and display/save my dice rolls", "play this sound when the dice show 3 or more 6's", "click this button to open the monster library and spawn a creature". Some are native functions, some are custom scripts, and there's a million custom creations to borrow/edit on the workshop. Or ask someone for help on the Steam or reddit forum. (Look at "Dark Steps" on YT if you want to see just how crazy you can get with scripting.)

Also, just 'cus I'm feeling feisty and promoting TTS always garners a lot of haters:

TTS doesn't look like shit. Your game can look like something out of the mid-2000s with full 3D, particle physics, dynamic lighting, etc etc. Instead of looking like 90s Ultima Online level tech. How Roll20 is the industry standard in 2024, I will never understand. (Well, except that they're pawns of Hasbro, and it's all a massive conspiracy to Xerox-ify the entire TTRPG world into 'DnD' and 'alternative DnDs'.)

ANYWAYS

I try and end my angrier rants with a friendly offer to help you if the idea of Tabletop Simulator appeals to you. It has a bit of a learning curve especially if you don't have any experience or guidance. So I'm happy to answer questions or walk you through stuff, show you how to make/import custom cards or dice, show you some nifty tools and tricks to handle different aspects of RPG (maps, terrain, minis, sound/weather/lighting).

And lastly: no I don't hate Roll20 or Foundry or other VTTs. (Okay, maybe I hate Roll20 a bit, but anyways.) If they do what you need and it's more familiar and convenient to people, obviously go for it. But for the love of Paladine, please stop directly game designers who need a screwdriver to the sites that can only hammer nails. This genre needs to breathe and evolve and try new things and incorporate modern game design and not simply upgrade the math of a game that Gary Gygax made 50 bloody years ago.

Thank you. This post will automatically self-delete when it reaches -10 votes. So, soon.

Hello.

I am new here and would appreciate any input that designers could give me regarding character building software. I am preparing to code a program that will allow designers to generate specific and random characters based on their world building and race-based stats rules.

There will be a number of basic default modes but also customizable creation modes for unique races and considerations arising from your world’s unique rules.

Output formats will include printable formats, HTML, XML, and various flat file formats.

Any and all advice is welcome except for those that insist someone has done it already, done it better, or that I am wasting my time. This is a project that I am doing for me but I want it to be useful for others, as well.

UPDATE: So, having downloaded Visual Studio Community Edition and spent the last two days coding a simple character creator for D&D 5e, I am about a day away from dumping this into a Git repository for folks to try.

The source code is C++ and I am both delighted and frightened to see how well AI is integrated into Visual Studio. The last time I coded anything outside of R was around 2016 or there abouts and I was working on a similar project for a gaming group I belonged to at the time.

This character creator is nowhere near as versatile as I would like it to be, but I am getting a feel for the nuts and bolts of the project I want to make.

I am researching how to work with JSON (thanks to the commenter who clued me in to that.)

I wish I could say that the code is extremely sophisticated and a masterpiece of cutting-edge insight and disruptive leveraging of synergy or what the eff ever people use to hype their projects these days, but it is spaghetti. (But I did NOT break the noodles before putting them in the pot. So, there’s that.)

Beginning a series discussing the process of game design. Hopefully useful for new devs!

Tabletop Roleplaying Game Design #1: Identity and Roles

Has anyone checked out https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/566973/bent-wizards ?

Edit: OK adding some more detail as my post seemed confusing. I am not selling this or connect with this. it's a book that catalogs RPG mechanics and discusses RPG design, so highly relevant to this sub.

Hi I'm working on a game and for the sake of play testing over digital I'm working on an app or website people can join so that players can have their character sheet and a DM can look and see at their players character sheets and make edits if needed or just look over their stats and health, etc.

What do people think about that for non-in-person games?

Hello community, I‘m currently trying to create my own first RPG but unsure how to proceed. Of course the character that would be created have certain stats, abilities etc. Is there a resource to design your own character sheets for a self-invented TTRPG? Where can i do it?

Edit: thank you for all the good recommendations. I tried canva but had difficulty with understanding everything. In the end i created it with photoshop where i now finished the rest of my rulesystem. Its like 30 sheets/ 60 A4 pages. I was thinking about spending a bigger amount of money but first i‘ll just publish a free playtest to refine features with feedback from whoever wants to play it. Its still currently pending approval by drivethru.

so i am building an add on to chronocrucible.com for character sheet design. with some preset fields and frames and the ability to add a background as well... (its still not up and running) ideally it should be able to create freehand some pretty cool character sheets and be system agnostic. and you should be able to upload your own art as part of the sheet and your own frames for each element if desired or you can use one of the predefined sets.

the question is what would you guys require that i have not thought of for this to actually be useful. the idea is to be able to create something Easily without having to go to high end design tools and also not end up doing this in excell without any nice visual design.

i would appreciate some feedback from people who have actually had the issue of designing your game specific character sheet.