Designing A Table-Top RPG: The Why

Why would you make your own?

Feb 08, 2025

a group of cards — Photo by Carlos Felipe Ramírez Mesa on Unsplash

I’m deciding to do something quite different from my usual Actual Play posts. Considering I’ve written a TTRPG, I wanted to take readers through my process, especially as a beginner. Those who have yet to dip their toe, or maybe a toe but no more, into the game design space, may find it interesting and helpful.

I don’t pretend to be an expert. There are those out there who’ve designed many, fantastic games, with articles about how to do so. Very useful and knowledgeable.

But I also find it helpful when learning a new skill, is seeing how a fellow beginner got started. What decisions did they make and why?

The first question you need to answer, if you’re going to design is a game, is WHY?

There are so many games out there, systems, settings and tools. You have to decide WHY you are going to make your own instead of using one that’s already out there. Keep in mind, making your own is exhausting, time-consuming, and extremely unlikely to provide any real compensation, so your WHY needs to matter. If you don’t want to spend hours and hours of your time, thinking, changing, adjusting, editing, etc, see whats already out there. There might be just the game you want, already made, or something close that you can easily adapt for your own purposes.

My Why

I’ve had the idea of Niv Lova in my head for probably a decade (although I’d always called it “The Zones” or “Zone Zero” before). It started as an idea for a novel, started and restarted many times over the years. It lived in my mind, clear as day, for a long, long time.

I started this Substack with the idea of writing out my solo actual plays, never thinking I would actually create a game of my own.

Then, one-page RPG jam came along last year and I had this weird idea in my head, a jumble of Cthulhu Dark with a werewolf theme, and I made you are a werewolf.

I adapted Cthulhu Dark’s ‘insanity’ die to a ‘hunger die’ and gave the player the option to give into the hunger in order to lower it before losing their mind to the beast completely, but also ending up killing anybody around. I think it’s a pretty cool idea that could use some more fleshing out. I’ve played around with expanding the one-page RPG into a pamphlet in order to expand some of those ideas. In making this, I made a bunch of d6 tables to generate the setting, characters, scenes and made my first d66 table of “smells” which I also think is a cool idea for a werewolf game. It definitely could use some work but I like it as a first attempt at something interesting.

Then, Castle Grief made Kal Arath, and I dove into using it solo.

It felt like a breath of fresh air. This guy just took some inspiration from his favorite games, threw them together, made his own minimalist swords and sorcery setting and put it out there. It was encouraging and inspiring. After playing it a few times solo, I realized it felt like a survival game, a struggle against the weather, enemies, the environment and hunger. This type of struggle to survive felt like a perfect fit for the idea of “Zone Zero” and I wondered, could I take those fairly minimal systems and transpose them into a new setting? What would need to be changed, added or removed? Could this idea that had lived in my head for so long be made with a TTRPG instead of a novel?

Why not?

I decided to just go for it. Just start writing, using Kal Arath as a reference. What was going to become a novel became a TTRPG instead. What was going to be one epic story became a system and setting for players to tell their own.

So that was my why. A culmination of a long-gestating idea transformed through a few inspiring experiences to create a system and setting. An exploration of a world I’d envisioned over and over, and that I didn’t see out there.

Your Why

So if you’re going to make a game, you need to figure out your why. Why make something new? Maybe it’s as simple as my answer turned out to be. Why not? Why not make your own thing? Just start. Give it a go. Ignore those negative questions in your head, “Is anyone going to read this? Is anything going to purchase this? Is it ever going to get finished? Is it ever going to work? How am I going to do this?” Those questions plagued me for a long time at first.

Just ignore them! Who cares! Creating something is fun!

You know the phrase, “shoot first, ask questions later”? The reason I write under the name “Write Firster” (a dumb name), is because I try to follow the philosophy of Write First, Ask Questions Later. I once had a blog under the same name. When you first try to create something, questions can hold you back, stop you in your tracks before you even get going. “How do I make this good? How are people going to receive it? How are the mechanics going to work? Will it be any good?” These can sap your motivation so your pen doesn’t even touch the paper. The answer? Who cares! You’ll find out! Just do the thing first, you can always address questions later.

As long as you have an answer to “Why?” (which can be as simple as “because I want to”), you’re ready to go! Start writing. Or drawing or creating whatever the thing in your head is.

I apologize if this was a bit of a ramble, work was incredibly difficult this week. Happy I got this out before the week ended, though, keeping my current weekly streak!

Playing With Myself

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