If you had the time, skill, and resources, what kind of RPG book would you create?

[Yora]

These days everyone can make a book without any business experience or publishing connections and there's a good number of people who have made and released their own RPG books over the last decade. Of course, most of them are not very good. But occasionally there are a few books created by someone who was previously a complete nobody and that ended up being regarded as even better than what is being released by the big old established companies.

From my own experience, these tend to be books that are very much not mainstream. Perhaps not a surprise, as they target niches in which there is no competition by professional businesses. It could also be that the more unusual your taste is, the more you feel the need that someone needs to write books that cater to those interests. If you can buy the books you'd want to have for your game, why create your own?

But let's suppose you'd be feeling confident enough in your skills as a writer and GM and could easily fit it into your schedule: What ideas do you have that you think would make a great RPG book that should exist?

I am really curious what kinds of books we could get if more people would feel confident that they can make their own?

[Mastikator]

There's no need to assume for me because I already am all of those things and I'm not doing it because of those reasons

A sci-fi RPG that comes as a easily available freely downloadable PDF. I don't know how to put books in shelves in stores, I wouldn't go through the hassle even if I had infinite time and money.

I'd publish it under a "everybody can use, modify and even commercially sell their own version but not this version" license.

It would probably be a short book. Maybe 5 pages that tell you how to build characters (both PCs and NPCs, I'm not gonna make 2 systems, one system for everything). Probably 50 pages that explain all the rules, as few optional rules as possible. The rules involve all the skills/everything you can do.

Maybe another 100 pages of world building with guidelines for the DM to expand on the world building. It would contain the human worlds and the various (few) aliens. The aliens will be VERY different.

I've already done some of this work actually, but I don't have access to people that want to play as often as I do, and I have a full time job so it's not like I have infinite time either.

[Yora]

There's no need to assume for me because I already am all of those things and I'm not doing it because of those reasons

Well, I think most people do. But if I'd just ask what books people want to make, most would say "I can't do that". It's a ruse.

I might have mentioned once or twice that I've been working on a campaign setting that has basically elves, neanderthals, and beastmen in a prehistoric forest world populated by giant reptiles, insects, and nature spirits, with a strangeness infuenced by Planescape, Dark Sun, and Morrowind.

Of all the many independent and off the mainstream releases of RPG books I think there's a real lack of campaign settings that don't go the common late medieval elf-dwarf-orc path. There's some really great world in videogames, but nobody seems to be doing serious pulpy settings in RPGs. There is only silly parody pulpy.

[Cluedrew]

How to make a role-playing game.

I am actually trying to make my "perfect" system all ready (it is going slowly) so maybe I should say that, but this is the impossible but it would be cool option.

Anyways, a whole book on how to make a role-playing game. Everything from selecting how you want approach it (rules-lite, rules-heavy, narrativist, simulationist) & how to structure the rules to examining different types of rolling mechanics with the balance and feel implications of them. And examples, enough examples that you can put together the examples to get a working system, with enough advice to than expand and refine it to get exactly what you want.

Why this, because I think a specialized system will always handle the game it was meant for better than a generic system applied to that game. So it is a tool for creating systems that fits the exact game you want. It would be nearly impossible to create but man, if I could.

[Mr.Sandman]

I currently have ideas for a Domestic Sitcom RPG, just for the fun of playing wacky families like Malcom in the Middle, or ones with added supernatural elements like Alf. Probably everybody would play a family, with both family and group goals, try to get the best spot in the neighborhood to sell a fundraiser, the oldest kid brings their new SO home, that sort of thing.

[Quertus]

How to make a role-playing game.

I am actually trying to make my "perfect" system all ready (it is going slowly) so maybe I should say that, but this is the impossible but it would be cool option.

Anyways, a whole book on how to make a role-playing game. Everything from selecting how you want approach it (rules-lite, rules-heavy, narrativist, simulationist) & how to structure the rules to examining different types of rolling mechanics with the balance and feel implications of them. And examples, enough examples that you can put together the examples to get a working system, with enough advice to than expand and refine it to get exactly what you want.

Why this, because I think a specialized system will always handle the game it was meant for better than a generic system applied to that game. So it is a tool for creating systems that fits the exact game you want. It would be nearly impossible to create but man, if I could.

Huh. I was going to give a "joke" answer that would have 90% the same content as your answer. I was going to suggest writing a book on how to discuss and debug your RPG. A book on how to evaluate play styles, and what facets of RPGs cater to or are antithetical to those styles. A book on how to understand what makes the game fun.

I was then going to give a more serious answer of Rifts, but, you know, good.

But, after reading your post, I... I'm not so sure which is the joke, and which is the real answer any more.

[Lord Raziere]

......hmm....

I would make books for my setting:

Shattered Rassiteh:
A fantasy world of magitech where humans rebelled against tyrannical gods a few centuries ago then broke the rest of existence free from the the god-made prison, thus rapidly expanding the world from one planet into an entire universe of new species, new magic systems, shattering the original planet of Rassiteh in the process and now the descendants of humans travel across the universe one of Rassiteh's shards as a powerful magitech city known as Rassiteh city, with races they come across joining them in Rassiteh City for trade, learning, new homes. Rassiteh champions science, the progress of magitech and helping others. But many cultures out in this universe have their own ideas about how magic should be used as well as their own opinions upon the gods.

[Honest Tiefling]

Personally, I'd make a setting or adventure paths. Always wanted to make one of the latter.

[Cluedrew]

But, after reading your post, I... I'm not so sure which is the joke, and which is the real answer any more.

I spent a long time trying to think of something significant to say, but still the best I got is: I confused Quertus, Achievement Get?

I could elaborate more, but I think I made all the general points in my original post.

[hymer]

I am really curious what kinds of books we could get if more people would feel confident that they can make their own?

I'd write up my current sandbox campaign. Mostly people could use the ideas, maps, NPCs, and so forth, as it would be pretty packed with the stuff it takes some time, effort and wringing of one's creative mind to create. But if someone wanted to run it as a straight campaign, it should suffice for that, too.

Edit: Come to think of it, it should be a website, with links to make it easy to get to the information you need. And then I could add some commentary on why I did this or that, dropping some anecdotes from the playing of the campaign, etc.

[Knaight]

Assuming I could get meaningfully organized, and ignoring the various short stuff that I've already released (two full but short games, a couple of articles), there are a few ideas I've been bouncing around. The notable ones:

• A two player + GM game focused on a master and apprentice and designed to go through generations, with each player playing an apprentice, then that apprentice as a master, then a different apprentice cyclically (and offset by one, obviously).
• A setting compendium. I bounce between settings, and a book about 300 pages long with 10 settings or so in it, detailed but not overly so could be fun. Maybe arrange them from straightforward to gonzo, with my low fantasy port city setting on one end and my demons vs. humans search for Eldorado setting on the other. Maybe I arrange them from least to most bleak, with the ultimately fairly uplifting discovery of magic setting on one end, my emergence of AI in a near cyberpunk dystopia in the middle, and the tour of bleak depression that is Galactic Fruit at the other. I already have more than ten settings, familiarity with a few generic rules sets that work across them (by which I mean I'd use Fudge), and even a small established fanbase beyond just my local group for some of them.

Plus, if skill and resources can be assumed to include either the capacity to do basic artwork competently plus some layout skills there's a reasonable length that can be achieved. I already have a 40 page setting document (from highschool, though the underlying idea of a colony ship crashing into a planet low on metals and some of the ideas for how the next few thousand years turn out are still solid), a more readable font kicks it up to 60, art gets it to 80 or so easily enough.

[Quertus]

I confused Quertus, Achievement Get?

I'm not familiar with the reference, but would, "you can has achievement" be an appropriate response?

[Psyren]

Handbooks, handbooks, handbooks. There are never enough hours in the day!

[Max_Killjoy]

If I were able to take the time to do nothing but work on an RPG, it would be the one I'm working on (off and on) in the "4th century BCE" thread I started.

I'm resigned to the fact that I'd need to create my own system, either in general or for this in particular.

HERO 4th/5th is kinda sorta close, but just doesn't scale down well (or as well as advocates claim) to anything below "most ridiculous action movie hero" -- for anything below that the scope of variation is just too compressed (the grand total of variation of a Characteristic or base Skill roll between average and normal max is 11 or less to 13 or less on 3d6).

I tend to get a lot of recommendations when I go over what I want, but I find that in almost every instance, these recommendations are about what I actually posted, but rather about the fact that the person making the recommendation really likes that system.


So here's my wishlist of "do and don't" that would form the basis of a system I was designing, made specific to the setting I'm most focused on right now.

* Dice system would be "curved", resulting in somewhat more predictable results with the average more likely than the extremes. That is, 3d6 or 2d12 or whatever curve works -- as opposed to 1d20 or d100 linear, or many of the dice pool systems that can result in anything from 0 to X "successes" on a wildly variable pool of dice. What I'm coming to dislike the most because of the huge and swingy variation in results is "additive pool" dice such as L5R 4th, with a number of dice rolled and added together -- and exploding dice will never be part of any system I design.

* Rolls and resolution are based on tasks, challenges, maybe goals -- not "conflicts". That is, when a character is attempting to climb a wall, the roll in some way represents the attempt to climb the wall, and is modified by the conditions of the climb, and success indicates that the wall was climbed. Alternatively, the result of the roll can indicate the time taken to climb the wall or some other variation, if the climbing is a matter of degrees and not pass/fail. I'm not insisting on a repeated series of checks against every single guard or for every 10' of the climb, and I am not insisting that every roll have a chance of absolute failure; resolution can be adaptable to the situation. What I do totally reject is the Edwardian notion that the attempt to climb the wall or the attempt to sneak past the guards somehow represents an abstract "conflict" with the "lord of the castle".

* Resolution is relatively quick

~ limited mathematics during resolution -- character creation and maintenance are the home for most of the formulas, not "in play"
~ limited interpretation and debate, both before the roll and after the roll -- so nothing like some of the narrative systems out there
~ without needing to look up a couple dozen of special "talents" or "feats" or whatnot

* Both characteristics and skills matter in resolution attempts

~ example: when a roll is made to determine whether a character knows something, their "memory characteristic" and their "knowledge of this subject skill" both matter in determining the odds of success

* Conventional characteristics and skills

~ Characteristics (attributes, whatever) as broad qualities of the character that are at least in part innate
~ Skills as fairly discreet trained / learned abilities

* Game scales well -- avoids the issues some games have of the attack/defense/damage/soak relationships radically changing as characters advance.

* No levels (or level-like mechanisms, where the game claims it has no levels, then bases skill limits or whatever around "grade" or "progression rating" or "rank")

* No classes (or class-like mechanisms, where the game claims it has no classes, then gives unique, locked-off abilities, bonuses, and/or discounts to "careers" or "archetypes" or "schools")

* Light on "feats" (D&D style) or "talents", especially avoiding stacked or complex talents; NO "talent trees" (FFG Star Wars)

* Combat is smooth, but not highly abstract -- mechanical actions model character actions, not some undefined unit of abstract stuff (see "no conflict resolution" above)

* Active defenses are modeled with character actions, not passive abstractions -- shield use, for example, is an actively-rolled skill

* Magic
~ can be set up as subtle, slow, and/or costly (without being onerously so)
~ can be available without overwhelming other ways of doing things.
~ resource-based rather than slot-based magic -- NO "Vancian casting"

[Knaight]

I tend to get a lot of recommendations when I go over what I want, but I find that in almost every instance, these recommendations are about what I actually posted, but rather about the fact that the person making the recommendation really likes that system.

Either that or it's just underspecified - as listed that looks exactly like GURPS.

[dps]

One that would sell a lot and make me tons of money.

[Max_Killjoy]

Either that or it's just underspecified - as listed that looks exactly like GURPS.

Trust me, it's not GURPS.

I have used copies of a couple editions of GURPS, and this isn't GURPS. Later tonight I'll post specific examples of why, once I'm at home and can dig them up from the books.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Skimming through a lot of "recommend me a system" lists, there seems to be a missing link between extremely rules-light games like Risus (where the "rules" are basically nonexistent) and rules-medium games like Savage Worlds (where the rules a straightforward and the lists of options are reasonable, but still require some amount of effort and mastery). What games do exist tend, like Fate, to be structured more narratively than mechanically, with emphasis on story-logic, DM-fiat, abstraction, metagame currency, and so on. Which aren't bad things in and of themselves, but... if I were to sit down and write a game, it would be a rules-and-fiat light system, I think.

I'd like a game where the mechanics are simple enough, and easy enough to handle through GM-coaching, that you can get a player comfortable enough with them in minutes. One where characters are simple enough that you can build one very quickly, but have enough depth that you can continue to play and improve them for a full campaign. I'd like a game that makes the GM's job as easy as it makes the players, where they don't have to memorize extra rules and can create NPCs on the fly. I'd like a game that can easily zoom in and out, so that a challenge can be handled as a single check, a short challenge, a back-and-forth conflict type dynamic, or a full-blown adventure as best fits the situation. I'd like a game that can handle multiple power levels-- sometimes even at the same time-- without the underlying math breaking down.

...which is why I wrote that game, I guess. Just need to find the skill and/or resources for art, and maybe a professional editing pass.

-------

I'd also kind of like a system with flexible-but-well-defined magic rules, somewhere between D&D spells and M&M power stunts, that allows and emphasizes using your powers in creative ways without getting too abstract and/or losing definition between different characters.

Or a really good mad scientist system, one that lets you create bizarre inventions, steal resources, build armies of monsters and robots, and challenge other lunatics for world domination. Something sandbox-focused, such that designing and building your technology spurs as many adventures as trying to use it.

[souridealist]

I know the one I keep wanting is a book of tables and supplementary information for mundane details in 3.5 / Pathfinder. (I have a weird thing about rolling on tables. I don't know why, I just really like doing it.) The GMG has tables for things like bar and distinguishing features, city decorations, et cetera, and all of them delight me. Especially the names, because names are the kind of detail I love to include but hate thinking up.

You could have tables upon tables of interesting magic items that are of no conceivable use to adventurers - I mean, if they're going to sell loot, it might as well be an enchanted plow that increases the harvest yield as a set of plate armor that none of them can use. Stuff like that.

Also, I'll be honest - every time I get a philandering PC, I start wishing for a source of interfertility tables that isn't the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

[2D8HP]

...What ideas do you have that you think would make a great RPG book that should exist?...

With so many "Fantasy Heartbreaker", and "Retro-clones", I'd actually be surprised if something close to what I'd want wasn't already made.

...but nobody seems to be doing serious pulpy settings in RPGs. There is only silly parody pulpy.

They did make it.

And I recommended it to you before, Yora, .

It's out of print now.

By Arioch you should've stolen ideas been inspired by it already!

Skimming through a lot of "recommend me a system" lists, there seems to be a missing link .

Since so much of Grod's idea's match any sane lover of playing FRP's wishlist, I'm very intrigued.

Most definitely serious but not pulpy, was the RPG that has most impressed over the decades, 1985's (The same year that the cursed Unearthed Arcana for AD&D came out) Pendragon.

...Like the 1st and 3rd, the 5th edition of Pendragon has rules for Knight (including women Knights), Lady, and Squire PC's, but only the 4th edition had rules for PC Spell Casters, though IIRC correctly the 1st and 3rd editions had the possibility of some "Lady" PC's being able to brew a magic potion (I never saw a "second edition" and I don't think it was ever published).

But really if you want to play a Spell-caster Pendragon probably isn't for you, I would look into Ars Magica instead....

I went as far as to find Greg Stafford (the author), and tell him just how impressed I was with it.

Sadly, when I tried to convince those I played D&D with (some of whom wanted to convince me to play Ars Magica), there were no takers (one said "Britain in the Dark Ages just isn't fun", and he never gave me back my copy of Katharine Briggs "Dictionary of Fairies". It was a loan not a gift , it's been nearly 30 years, give it back dammit! ).

As sublime as Pendragon looked to be, I don't think that it would be as fun to play as the mix of D&D, AD&D, Arduin, and All the World's Monster's that I played in the very late 1970's and early 80's was (I don't think anything will be, fun was just more fun as a near teenager).

Now back to quoting myself:

....Some of my favorite setting genre's are:

1) Swords and Sorcery
2) Swashbuckling
3) Arthurian
4) Gaslamp Fantasy
5) Planetary Romance
6) Steampunk
7) Raygun Gothic
8) Viking

My least favorite genres are:

1) Modern-day anything
2) Dystopian Near Future
3) Dystopian Far Future

Any FATE setting books I'd like?

Also, except for rules based on TSR D&D, and Chaosium's BRP system (Runequest and it's descendents) which were imprinted on my mind decades ago, I prefer rules to be very light.

Chaosium's old Stormbringer! game had a "magic system" based on summoning and attempting to control demons and elementals. It was completely BADASS! and I thought it was truer to Swords and Sorcery than D&D.
The main flaw as a game was that it's random character typically generated made PC's with very wide power-levels (more so than D&D) so you'd wind up with a party of one mighty sorcerer and four drooling begger "sidekicks".

I believe that Chaosium's latest version of
Basic Roleplaying
has a point buy option that you can drop in.

If I'm ever forced to DM/GM again going that route would be in my top three picks.

Come to think of it, if I could somehow combine '70's rules D&D, 5e D&D, Pendragon, and Stormbringer! it would be ONE GAME TO RULE THEM ALL!

While I barely know the "crunch" of the rules at all (why bother studying them if the only games available to actually play are 5e D&D, and Pathfinder?), the settings of Castle Falkenstein, Flashing Blades, 7th Sea, and Space 1889, impress me.

So what would I want to make?

1) Character creation that has compellimg classes and is quick and easy like B/X D&D, with some of the innovations of 5e D&D, combined with options for creating custom PC's ala BRP, HERO, and GURPS, and they're all balanced (no min-max terrors).

2) Rich settings that involve PC"s from interesting times, going into and exploring worlds of Fairie, Romance, and Sorcery.

And by Crom I will publish it AS SOON AS THAT JERK GIVES ME BACK MY BOOK!

[Grod_The_Giant]

Since so much of Grod's idea's match any sane lover of playing FRP's wishlist, I'm very intrigued.

I can send you an advance copy of STaRS, if you'd like.

[Morty]

I have a feeling that if I had the skill and know-how, I'd realize that all my ideas are a waste of time and effort. But assuming an ideal world there my half-baked ideas have some merit...

I used to cobble together a low-fantasy, gritty system, along with a setting. But I've lost interest in it when I realized that there's plenty of systems out there that can accomplish its goals.

My other idea is a game that accomplishes the "dungeon fantasy" genre D&D kickstarted without the many traps I think those games fall into. Fairly crunchy, but with a lot of narrative-driven effects like in Dungeon World. The resolution method would probably be 2d10 or 2d6, since I've grown to prefer a curved result. It'd have a far less crazy power curve, though - beginning at "competent and heroic" and ending at "larger than life". But without reality-warping magicians and low-key superheroes. What I'd be after is a game where you an play a hero in a kitchen-sink fantasy world, and feel like you're making waves without breaking it. With systems to facilitate it and focus on moving the story forward when players use their characters' abilities.

I don't know if it'd have classes. I waffle back and forth between their advantages and disadvantages. No levels, though, for certain. There's a good reason no system except D&D and its imitations still uses them. Regardless, freedom of character creation would be a priority.

I have some ideas for a detailed, dynamic combat model. Vague ones, of course. They're rooted in combat pools of Riddle of Steel/Song of Swords and the initiative model of Exalted 3e. I think they're much better at modelling the shifting back-and-forth of battle than chipping away at hit points, or missing a lot until you finally hit.

My ideas for non-combat resolutions are likewise vague. I don't think I've ever run into one that I was quite satisfied with, but Dungeon World comes close. Or Exalted 3e, except with less "glorious Solar awesomeness hooray". But letting skilful characters say "okay, this happens" is, to me, more valuable than big numbers on checks.

I have little clue about magic. Never been my strong suit. I feel like I'd strart with dividing it into "learned magic" (Wizards), "innate magic", (D&D-style sorcerers, savants) and "granted magic" (priests, warlocks). Beyond that, it could go anywhere.

It's really nothing but a haphazard collection of vague ideas that's probably as viable as a high schooler's attempt at writing the next Lord of the Rings. But hey. It's mine. I also feel like I should delve into more systems to hunt for ideas that fit my general line of thought. But I'm not sure which ones they'd be.

[druid91]

I've had the idea of making a system based on .Hack and other sorts of "Mysterious things happen in an MMO!" where the characters avatars are of just as much importance as their IRL skills.

[Crisis21]

The Ultimate Homebrew Guide, showcasing guidelines and suggestions for creating original balanced races, classes, monsters, spells, magic items, the works.


Well, maybe less what I'd create and more what I'd like to see.

[Martin Greywolf]

Well, there are two I would go for.

First one would be system-independent advice for GMs and players on how to make adventures and stories and how to play through them. There are many, many DM sections out there, and almost none of them does it well. Not even Planet Mercenary, which I was somewhat disappointed with, but I suppose there's just a lot of stuff do deal with there.

It would go into stuff like how we tell movies and books and what we can and can't use from them, three act structure, Hero's journey etc, and then go into specific advice.

Second dream book would be about how to properly make a medieval setting that is also playable in, discussing stuff like what society do you need to make rapiers exist.

[chainer1216]

Post-apocalyptic urban sci-fantasy.

I want a game where an elven wizard teaming up with a cyborg ninja to defeat a Triad run by a dragon is the norm, just another tuesday.

[Knaight]

Post-apocalyptic urban sci-fantasy.

I want a game where an elven wizard teaming up with a cyborg ninja to defeat a Triad run by a dragon is the norm, just another tuesday.

Sounds like RIFTS, which has recently had it's setting exported to a system that's actually functional.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Post-apocalyptic urban sci-fantasy.

I want a game where an elven wizard teaming up with a cyborg ninja to defeat a Triad run by a dragon is the norm, just another tuesday.

Shadowrun? I've only played the recent cRPGs, not the pen-and-paper version, but that sure sounds like Shadowrun.

[Florian]

I had a good time gm´ing a long-running L5R political/intrigue themed campaign. I´d like to go back to my notes and rewrite it as a more coherent campaign and make it available.

[2D8HP]

I can send you an advance copy of STaRS, if you'd like.

Cool!

I'd gladly mail a check for a printout.

PM price and address please.

Or I could pay you in publicity!

I could re-tweet (I don't do Twitter)

Post on Facebook (I don't have an account)

Review on my blog (I don't have that either)

Okay.... I could walk over to my FLGS and say, "When this comes out, you should sell it".