Musings from Fanterland

Today we are cooking something quite delicious; a scrumptious indie tabletop RPG to delight your friends. Put on your best apron and join me as we sizzle some stats!  Ingredients A pantry stuffed with inspiring games to raid.  When you do, always give credit where credit is due and respect copyrights. A pinch of a unique idea.  Get inspired by playing games and engage with their wonderful communities. A group of eager tasters.  Friends, or friendly folk from your favourite game community work best. A trusty set of gaming utensils. Index cards, pencils, dice, playing cards and poker chips let you test almost any idea.  Got your ingredients lined up? If not, get out there and come back when you do...  Ok. Let's cook! Instructions Pitch your unique idea. Get your eager tasters excited for your magnificent meal. Write a Quick Reference with gaps. Raid your pantry for rules that fit your idea. Nothing in your pantry that fits? Play more games! Leave any ga...

A short one this week. I've had many failed attempts at developing a game until I finally did. So I recently jotted down some habits that got me over the finish line. If they can get my cluttered brain there, they can definitely help you.  Play games. Whatever else you do, never grow detached from the pure joy of playing a game. Be a fan of the community. If you ever felt like you could be getting more out of a game, there's probably an entire community of other players like you, with all sorts of community projects ready and waiting for you. Fill the gap yourself. Once you've hung around a community, you'll get a feel of what's out there, like community hacks, modules, creator tools etc. But better yet, you'll get a feel of the things you'd like to have that don't exist. Why wait for someone else to fill that gap? Just give it a go yourself. You don't have to be the best person to do it. You just have to do it. Ideas must first survive contact with ...