Oops, I became an (aspiring) designer
“The Wizard Who Formerly Owned Merlin’s Book of Magic” (1898), illustration by George Wooliscroft Rhead and Louis Rhead. Public domain.
I was going to preface this post by saying I’ve been thinking about TTRPG design for close to two years, but it turns out it’s actually closer to one. It’s incredible to me that in only a year, I’ve managed to draft several concepts and hacks, kickstarting my design journey by simply... writing. I pretty much started by jotting down cool ideas and seeing if I could turn them into playable games.
If anything, this past year - even though most of my designs haven't seen the light of day - has taught me a lot about intention, mechanics, worldbuilding, and even GMing. I’m thankful to Max of Oddity Press and Luke of Murkmail for being the first to encourage me to take on this endeavor, and it has given the hobby a completely new dimension for me.
My hope for this blog is to capture my design process going forward and the lessons I learn along the way. In fact, my next post will likely be about "design traditions" and how I view them as an aspiring designer. It was overwhelming at first, especially seeing how the tabletop community rarely agrees on terminology, but I suppose that’s part of the charm.
Surely, no one asked me, but I think the first step to becoming a designer is simply to start working on something... anything! Even a mere draft.
- It doesn’t have to become a fully fledged, crowdfunded project.
- It doesn’t have to reach the playtesting stage.
- It just needs to start somewhere.
Once that first draft exists, the creative juices keep flowing.
I wonder if anyone has ever managed to "come back" from being a designer after feeding those writing desires.
One must imagine designers happy.