We've been gone from this site for quite a while, because we've decided to make a tabletop, pen and paper RPG and we haven't worked on a video game in quite a while. Jeremy suggested we could still turn to this community, in addition to ones more dedicated to tabletop RPGs (I've sort of made us not welcome on a few of them, though in my defence they will not be missed), if we needed any help (and with a setting this size, we could always use a least a little somewhere). I have my doubts, but I figured I'd ask here anyway. Is this site friendly to tabletop game design? If we need a little help here and there, can we find it here?

3 hours ago, JLW said:

Is this site friendly to tabletop game design?

Yes. Moving this to the Game Design forum.

13 hours ago, JLW said:

Is this site friendly to tabletop game design? If we need a little help here and there

Yes, this site is friendly to all kinds of games. I believe many of us are active board game players.

Also check: The Dice Tower on Youtube, they have fantastic videos where they talk strategy and design of board games.

Keep us updated on the game.

Well, most of our issue comes down to time. I have a full-time job (and I find the shadow of overtime is upon me). Jeremy has... Whatever it is that keeps him busy for 6-8 hours each day. We want to get the game done by the end of the year, but we have to do all the skills, five more classes (we've already done five), fourteen more races (we've done six) and five spell lists, enough creatures and cultures to fill four continents, a bunch of islands and some less locational but still highly setting specific stuff, all the consumables of course, and I'm sure there's things I'm forgetting.* Oh, and we have to find time to playtest all of this.

*EDIT: Like religions, specifically the abilities and restrictions of clerics of each deity. We've done exactly one deity so far, thankfully that religion is monotheistic but that leaves us with four polytheistic religions' worth of deity listings. One of those has exactly four, but we don't know how many will be in the other three and we're guessing that leaves us with a total of about thirty deities. And... Yeah, we're going to be there a while.

We will need help, and while we do have a third friend who gives some feedback and has promised to help with the playtesting, it really is just the two of us actually making everything. I'll submit the core mechanics once all our notes are compiled and annotated, and then we'll see what we need help with. Probably skills first, because there's a huge, pressing question as to how we're going to get a decent number of useful skills to be modified by the faith stat. Because, you know, last time I checked faith wasn't super useful for most skill-based tasks.

5 hours ago, JLW said:

we have to do all the skills, five more classes (we've already done five), fourteen more races (we've done six) and five spell lists, enough creatures and cultures to fill four continents, a bunch of islands and some less locational but still highly setting specific stuff, all the consumables of course, and I'm sure there's things I'm forgetting.* Oh, and we have to find time to playtest all of this.

Have you considered scaling back the scope of the first edition at all? Like releasing a smaller starter-campaign to guage interest, and then releasing the full content as a series of expansions.

5 hours ago, JLW said:

We will need help

Feel free to make a post in the "Hobby Project Classifieds" forum for that purpose. 

30 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

Have you considered scaling back the scope of the first edition at all? Like releasing a smaller starter-campaign to guage interest, and then releasing the full content as a series of expansions.

Those are (hopelessly optimistic) goals for the year, not the first release. To clarify, I won't consider it done until the whole setting is available, but it will be playable before then.

1 hour ago, JLW said:

I won't consider it done until the whole setting is available, but it will be playable before then.

This is good but remember a game grows, it's not a loading bar that progresses linear. Some projects are 90% complete then suddenly the last 10% ends up as much work as the first 90%.

It helps to just focus on the basics only, make the player and say 1 race and 1 spell then do combat tests. Then use the little you have to get feedback on forums and other places to help refine. Rinse and repeat.

7 hours ago, JLW said:

Well, most of our issue comes down to time. I have a full-time job

Make the most of it, take a pen and paper with you and write things down while working. Allow your mind to wonder on the game as you do your work.

But what ever you don't quit your job unless the game some how already makes enough money for you to live. I have seen many times what happens to people who quit there jobs to work on a game; it's not pretty.

One thing that helps is asking for help. People on forums are willing to contribute a small amount, a lot of these little things can build into huge things.

On 3/3/2018 at 11:02 AM, Scouting Ninja said:

It helps to just focus on the basics only, make the player and say 1 race and 1 spell then do combat tests. Then use the little you have to get feedback on forums and other places to help refine. Rinse and repeat.

Make the most of it, take a pen and paper with you and write things down while working. Allow your mind to wonder on the game as you do your work.

But what ever you don't quit your job unless the game some how already makes enough money for you to live. I have seen many times what happens to people who quit there jobs to work on a game; it's not pretty.

 

One thing that helps is asking for help. People on forums are willing to contribute a small amount, a lot of these little things can build into huge things.

We're far, far past that being a thing. This isn't a project that started last week with an idea, we're a couple months in and we already have the core mechanics done, and a lot of content.

I also do work on this stuff when I can at work, but that's not that often. I'm a bartender, I'm busy. I'm also not stupid, I'm not quitting my job.

And all of this response could have been properly formatted, with the actual line I'm responding to quoted above each response, if it was still possible to break quotes in this thing. What happened to that?

9 minutes ago, JLW said:

all of this response could have been properly formatted, with the actual line I'm responding to quoted above each response, if it was still possible to break quotes in this thing. What happened to that?

That changed with the redesign. Let's not derail the conversation about tabletop games.

5 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

That changed with the redesign. Let's not derail the conversation about tabletop games.

I'm sorry sir, I'm not trying to derail the conversation, I'm just complaining.