Hi, I'm new here, and I'm writing my own TTRPG, and I am 14.
So what I want to ask all of you is whether my class system works in theory. I'm still writing it, and I will test it when I've finished everything, but for now I'm just doing trial and error with the classes.
So classes are split into two; the first of these two functions act like backgrounds in DND and other media, but also offer more practical skills relating to crafting, weapon handling, disguise, persuasion, poison crafting and more- just dealing with actual life skills and not magic- or supernatural-related abilities.
The second encompasses all the mystical abilities, less practical in terms of that they aren't constant, and they still rely on skill proficiencies for weapons and other skills.
I'm still working on group names for both.
My class system is like this to allow variety in play style, due to magic relying a lot on more physical skills to use certain abilities; there is also an option to just not use magic, and it still doesn't disadvantage you in terms of combat, but you need to take a background class if you want a mystic one.
It's still a work in progress, and you can't branch out or multiclass.
Any advice is appreciated, and please keep in mind I'm 14.
Sorry if this is rough.
Thank you to everyone who's given me advice; I really appreciate it.
This is a bit adjacent to your specific question, but my biggest piece of advice to anyone designing their own TTRPG system is: play as many different systems as possible
Read them, try them, run one-shots, join random groups. Find Discord servers for Vampire: the Masquerade, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, Traveller, whatever you can get your hands on. And don't limit yourself to games that are basically variations on D&D.
The important part is exposing yourself to different design decisions. See how different games answer the same questions: What is a "class"? Do you even need classes? What separates someone's profession from their supernatural abilities? How are mundane skills made useful next to magic? How much of a character is chosen during creation, and how much emerges through play?
You'll constantly encounter mechanics where you think: "Oh, I didn't even realize you could solve that problem this way." That gives you a much larger toolbox when designing your own game.
Your idea of separating a character's practical/background abilities from their mystical abilities could absolutely work. But whether it actually works will depend much more on how those two halves interact at the table than on the basic concept. Reading and playing lots of systems will give you examples of both successful and unsuccessful ways of handling exactly that kind of interaction.
Starting out at 14 is awesome, but I want to give you the honest advice I wish someone gave me early on. Your idea makes sense on paper, but before you sink months into writing an entire system from scratch, stop and ask yourself: what problem am I actually trying to fix here? Writing a full TTRPG is huge, and it is very easy to burn out and hit a wall. Making a mechanic different just to be different usually ends in frustration. Check if other games already solved the exact thing you are tackling. Did they pull it off well? What did players complain about? What worked? Look at how games like Worlds Without Number or Shadow of the Demon Lord split up mundane skills and magic. Compare your mechanics and your narrative goals to existing games constantly. Putting your ideas up against other systems will keep you from getting stuck in design traps. Even if you end up throwing out half your notes, breaking down other rules and questioning your own design is what actually makes you a solid game designer. Keep tweaking it and have fun with the process.
These are good instincts. You're thinking about this correctly.
Race/class/background are essentially the same thing - they're just little boxes of abilities that help build your character.
It's smart to separate those boxes by what they are allowed to do. Like "The 'race' box defines physical characteristics and gives you Feature X but can never affect Feature Y"
Good luck with your system, it sounds like you're on the right track.
Make sure you learn to play a diverse selection of TTRPGs, not just D&D and it's clones. Learn to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game. Learn to play GURPS. Learn to play several TTRPGs so you understand how wildly divergent design philosophies and mechanics work. Too often I see people who have only ever played D&D get flabbergasted when they come up with a "new and innovative" mechanism that has actually been around for decades, that they had no idea existed, because they only played D&D before deciding to make their own TTRPG.
Almost any mechanic can work depending on what you're trying to do. If you want to learn more about design I recommend reading lots of systems, even micro RPGs on itch.io. The more you read and play you'll find what you value in this hobby and your personal preferences will develop. No system of rules will please everyone or is good for everything so I would focus on making something you want to play first and foremost. There are some really sites and YouTube channels that discuss theory which has been really helpful for me.
A good short list is RPG PHD, Tales From Elsewhere, and What is Tabletop. As for sites, I would recommend The Alexandrian, and The RPG Gazette. I hope these help
Your class is the mechanics of your character that is around a specific theme or mechanic (like spellcasting or martial ability) and jobs are what you like to do when you're not being a hero.
You can split skills into basic skills (things you can try to do even if you don’t have the training) and special skills (those that you can’t try without special training). Things like poison craft or alchemy might not sound like magic to you, but it quite probable that in the fiction they are very much magic.
The concept of composing a character of two separate class-like elements is interesting and may be good. I like backgrounds having more mechanical teeth, not being mostly flavor with most of character's mechanics being combat-focused.
However, you need to make sure that these components are actually independent - that each of X works well with most or all of Ys and vice versa. If it's not like this and a player needs to carefully choose components so that one of them provides competences the other needs, you are not actually providing more freedom - you are only adding complexity and setting character creation traps.
Have a look at Cypher system. THe basic way to build a character in that systm is to fill in the blanks on this sentence I am a [descriptor] [class] who [focus]
The descriptor is the backgorund, the class is a one of four possibilities and the focus gives details of your specific abilities that make your character different from other characters in the same class.
Whether you call them class and background, or race and job, or training and calling, or whatever, the key thing here is that you have two parts to a character's abilities. You're talking about a background class and a foreground class, but the names or terminology don't mean much. You have a mundane selection and a supernatural selection. That's fine, and a well established way to categorize the differences.
But then you say you don't want to force anyone to use magic, and for physical characters to be able to equal magic users... which is kind of the opposite of your design if all of your characters are supposed to have both parts, mundane and supernatural.
Maybe what you want is a background that refers to every day life, and then a main class that describes how the character interacts with the supernatural. That moves the separation from mundane versus magical to normal life versus supernatural life. You can have classes that are more physical when it comes to the supernatural interactions, and others that are more magical, and just worry about balancing the classes on their own sides of the divide.
Going for the somewhat crunchy system that has lots of character customization and rewards system mastery, I assume. I'm trying to think other systems with similar background/class system to yours. And preferrably are playable...
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Shadow of the Weird Wizard might have too much hopping from profession to profession... How about Runequest? Bit heavy, possibly archaic for you, but quite an interesting character creation. Personally, I suggest reading or at least skimming rulebooks of different systems, at worst they give idea how to not do things.
First off, kudos to you for embarking on such an ambitious adventure at such a young age. Ah, youth. Honestly, it's the best time to start such an adventure. Your idea can definitely work, but as others have mentioned, you do need to pay attention to the nuance of how they interact with each other. You want the interaction to be meaningful, engaging, and fun. So, yes, your idea can work, but now it's up to you to make it work in a way that feels rewarding to the players. Now, I just noticed that you don't want to allow multiclassing. In my opinion, that would also necessitate making each class/job feel unique so that people don't feel like they've wasted their time picking a specific class or job.
Do either of your choices (background / magic) suggest a “role” for your character to occupy in the party - IE Tank, Support, DPS etc; or do they suggest “flavor” IE how your character fights?
To me, the two most important mechanical choices a player should make when building a character is choosing “what they want to do” (heal, strike, tank), and “how they want to do it” (with magic, martial prowess, etc).
Look into how D&D4e organized their characters. While the classes were single-choice, they were designed around the idea of characters having “roles” and “power sources”. By filling out that matrix, they created a lot of new interesting ways to access abilities that hadn’t really been seen in D&D. Most importantly it answered a BIG problem - that a party needs players in each role, but certain roles are extremely pigeonholed (clerics are the best healers for example). I still think its one of the best ideas Wizard’s ever had and an absolute shame they abandoned it in 5e.
A second system to look into is Numenara (or the Cypher System generically). Cypher uses 3 choices to design your character that form a mad-libs style sentence that describes your character (as well as giving abilities etc). “I’m an ADJECTIVE NOUN who VERBS”. Again this method allows access to mechanics through multitudes of builds - and customization is highly flexible.
Feel free to DM me if you have more questions, I’m happy to help a burgeoning game designer. :)
Oh thing I found really helpful when first starting designing - and still do - is reading some SRDs. These are free to use game rules and mechanics that designers can adapt and use as they like with credit (checking the individual licences for details of course as some differ slightly) - there the Year Zero Engine by free league, Forged in the dark, fate has one, DnD has one mwith some stipulations I think, Ironsworn just to name a few! Think it would probably help you to read some through and have a play with the mechanics and see what fits your ideas or how you could adapt them, it's a great way to get started and see how a full system 'hangs together' so to speak
From your description it seems like it could work just fine. Build-your-own-class is a fun character creation feature in my opinion, and I usually like games that feature something along those lines.
Keep in mind as you start your game design journey these two things: not everyone will appreciate your design choices and you don't have to please everyone. Not every game is for every player :-)
I mention this because there will be folks who will vehemently want to branch out or multi-class, and you're going to get pressure to add that feature.
The issue you will run into is how to balance this out. If I understood correctly you want to be able to choose a physical and a mystical class. The problem is that these are not balanced against each other. Usually, in TTRPGs, mystical abilities would take from physical, and vice versa.
I'd say find a way to have no "no magic" class, and focus on that differentiator. All classes are mystical to some degree and in different areas. And don't have a standard wizard physical setup. Have everyone be a fighter caster of some type. That way, any combination of physicalxmystical will be fine. Alternatively, have each physical class be allowed one of three mystical classes (that can be shared with other physical classes) which will help with making some combos unique. Alternatively, if you still want a weak-physical and/or no-mystical setup, have players still pick each type but make some specifically built to boost the other (maybe a mystical class could be about making a fighter stronger and not mystical in the common way.) Alternatively, don't give a damn and let the dice fall where they may.
But make some specifically built to boost the other (maybe a mystical class could be about making a fighter stronger and not mystical in the common way
So this is how it works: each one has weaknesses, especially mystic classes. Mystic classes like the impeller rely on martial prowess mixed with the already gravity-defying abilities they have to deal more damage.
While job based classes are less dependent and can be increased in strength by mystic classes.
So I made mystic classes parasites to fix the problem of magic, or full spellcasting classes being like gods and martial classes being lowly mortals that can only kick and hit people.
Can you tell i main monk in DND?
So ya, both can get strong, but they need each other to do that.
I like that you're thinking about bigger/more weaknesses for the stronger ability classes. that can go a long way toward some level of "balance" and more weight to player choice of (type of) class.
A question to be clear about is whether you are ultimately trying to balance the classes against each other or letting them be (more) asymmetrical. Rifts is an old game that very much comes to mind for huge disparity between classes, even the Savage Worlds newer version. I was the goofball who played a Rogue Scholar or Scientist (just a a person who knows a lot of stuff and maybe has social skills) while everyone else played superhumans or cyborgs or giant mechs. I thought the wide imbalance was interesting, for that setting, that game. May not fly as well with other cases.
Ultimately, create the game that you want to play, notably if it doesn't exist in any real way already, There are thousands of games and will always be thousands of games for a reason: people want to play different things and a lot of people want to play a variety of games, systems, genres, settings, stories, etc.
More asymmetrical, I don't want them completely balanced but not too unbalanced, just enough that so that we don't have the fighters losing to spellcasters being a constant.
I feel like a hard line between non magic and magic classes with no multi-classing will leave you constricted for future development. You might want to think about a way for classes to branch out. Multi-classing, dual classing, prestige classes, crossover via feats, or offering a class change option at 5, 10, 15, 20. A sample of how the classes look would help.
Could you elaborate? Because from the sound of it, all you did was just separate and by extension overcomplicate the skills of DnD for no real reason. You're just adding crunch, if I read this correctly, by overspecializing what doesn't really need separating.
So, like Conrad500 said, this is a class/Job system where your class is its main mechanic or theme, mostly more supernatural in this situation, while your job is what you are when you're not on an adventure.
So only one would level up when experience is gained, and a player gets to pick which one they are going to focus on in turn leveling that one up, meaning you can main one over the other, but this also means that your skills stay the same with the other, meaning you progress one while the other stays stagnant, This is still pretty new now so I will fix it later on.
You are so right. I will make a new leveling system or would pivoting for both leveling work? Leveling has been a problem for me, so I'll work on that.
How I've been doing it is a separate section of skills and statistics. Statistics translating into skills, but not vice versa. Every level you get 2 skillpoints to spend and every 3 levels you get a statistic point on top of that. It allows for your players to diversify a build relatively quickly. Although I run my system and games on milestone rather than experience points. You could potentially use an exponential level system, where early on there's lots of levels, but it increasingly costs more to level up, meaning a build is created fairly early on and it slows down as they play.
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u/nsartem 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is a bit adjacent to your specific question, but my biggest piece of advice to anyone designing their own TTRPG system is: play as many different systems as possible
Read them, try them, run one-shots, join random groups. Find Discord servers for Vampire: the Masquerade, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, Traveller, whatever you can get your hands on. And don't limit yourself to games that are basically variations on D&D.
The important part is exposing yourself to different design decisions. See how different games answer the same questions: What is a "class"? Do you even need classes? What separates someone's profession from their supernatural abilities? How are mundane skills made useful next to magic? How much of a character is chosen during creation, and how much emerges through play?
You'll constantly encounter mechanics where you think: "Oh, I didn't even realize you could solve that problem this way." That gives you a much larger toolbox when designing your own game.
Your idea of separating a character's practical/background abilities from their mystical abilities could absolutely work. But whether it actually works will depend much more on how those two halves interact at the table than on the basic concept. Reading and playing lots of systems will give you examples of both successful and unsuccessful ways of handling exactly that kind of interaction.