1:39 #1: What's your goal? 5:56 #2: Choose your genre. 7:28 #3: How are outcomes determined? 12:42 #4: Mechanics (an overview). 16:11 #5: Test your system. 20:37 #6: Test your system with real players. 22:48 #7: Flesh out the rules. Enjoy!

A wagon maker is called a wainwright.

I've been running in my own world for about 10 years, and starting making my own system for it about two years ago, as I felt that the current systems that were available didn't really fit in with the lore. It's nearing completion, and I wish I had this when I started!

I have only one thing to add. #8 *Don’t try to make things perfect. Only try to make it fun to play.* This video talks about so many things I had to find out myself. I had tons of playtesters and only one didn’t like it. But they were all really positive and constructive.

I would ABSOLUTELY be interested in more in depth videos on making my own TTRPG

Rule 1: Realism vs Playability: Always err on the side of playability Rule 2: Simpler is almost always better

You got a thumbs up on this for the topic alone.

I think a yes or no system sounds like a mostly narrative system. Combat would likely be a narrative exchange where each participant performs one action going in narrative order, which would leave damage up to the GM. The question becomes" is this guy hurt enough to die?" and if the GM says "he's got six arrows in him but he's ten feet tall and very tough" then he'll be alive, but if the GM says "he's just been disemboweled and he needs those organs to live" then he dies

Build a community around your system before you try to sell it.

Definitely would appreciate more videos on this subject, including one on how to get your TTRPG out there.

This was a big help. I've been working on a system to play with my kids for about a year. Trying to simplify dnd rules and creating a genre my kids will enjoy. I want it to be simple, but have some depth. One mechanic I've built was leveling up. You only gain XP when you use a skill. If you use a sword gain XP and become better at it, never use a sword you will always be a novice. Great way to specialize in certain skills.

I've been writing my own ttrpg system for about a year-and-a-half so anything you can provide extra would be fantastic!

Yep, do more. I'm starting a web novel and I've been toying with the idea of basing a ttrpg on that, and this video gave me a lot to think about.

One interesting system a friend and I worked on for a bit was a bargaining system where we used poker chips and would try to out bid the gm for successes. Another one I that I was thinking of going back to is a dice less system that used a stamina bar instead. Depending on stat builds certain abilities would drain the stamina bar at different rates. Players would have to sit out for a time to regain stamina.

This was just the best video to come home from work to watch. Imagine my surprise when a coworker mentions they're a ttrpg player, and we talk about ttrpgs all day while working and then find this on my recommended feed.

These need to become more common for us mechanics.

Glad you’re creating videos on this topic, because I’m creating my own system for my group and have got most of the main rules done. The reason I’ve created my own system is because we play in my own version of Terry Pratchetts discworld and regular DnD rules don’t quite fit, so I made my own. Currently on your table of steps I’m on part 7, fleshing out the rules for equipment and magic and stuff. I’m thinking of making some videos on this system so I can get some feedback

I would be in interested in more on this topic.

As someone currently in the process of designing their own TTRPG, I'd love to see a series about this subject. I'd be curious to see the following subjects addressed: Editing Publishing My most concerned worry for the future: Maintaining Secure Ownership of your intellectual property. so that a playtester, or other person can't just take your idea and claim it is theirs during mid-production. Such as, how wide or narrow should a creator scope out playtesters. Should contracts be involved, or what mechanisms does a creator have to protect their system to be associated with them until release. Or should someone heavily advertise their system during production, or not advertise at all until a certain point of completion.

Me and my friends are making a system where Roleplay and your characters mental state is a HUGE part of combat, and there’s a legitimate difference between Villain enemies and Monster enemies. It’s really interesting to see how we were accidentally following these steps the whole time! 😁

MORE OF THIS PLEASE Been making a homebrew d10 system for the last year or so and I'm doing my second playtest campaign in it rn before I write the rule book. Love hearing other perspectives on system making

I’d love to have more videos scout making or hacking TTRPGs

A quick idea for your yes/no combat dilemma: each combatant has to declare who or what they're focusing on each turn. If Player X is focusing on fighting target A then they can hit target A. Target B can then backstab Player X because their shield was blocking target A's attacks. If two people are focusing on each other neither can land a hit because there is no gradation so everybody is equal given equal circumstances, so somebody will have to do something creative to end the stalemate

I know this a 2 year old video, but it really helps a lot! I have been writing my own system to be a retro clone. But not of the old TTRPG days of AD&D and the likes. No, instead, a retro clone of D&D 3.5/Pathfinder first edition with some slightly edited D&D 5e mechanics to simplify things. Its a fantasy TTRPG which main thing is that it allows you to play as the monsters! Of course with some classic fantasy races like Elf and Dwarf mixed in in case the table doesn't want literally Large or Tiny sized creatures or even elementals with them. And this video has been a big help for when I felt stuck or discouraged!

I would absolutely love more episodes about making your own TTRPG! In particular, I would like something on formatting the rules. I want to create a world where combat feels more realistic, thus extremely tense and high risk high reward, but to compensate has extensive non-combat options for players to talk or maneuver their way out of having to fight in the first place (again, since combat is a far higher risk activity than in most TTRPGs where you simply count down your HP and decide when it is getting risky). I know what I want the mechanics to look like, but how to format a rulebook so it is clean and legible is where I get stuck.

I'm making a tabletop rpg as well. It's called cards and cobolds. What inspired me from this video is taking something that already exists, and making it into a cards and cobolds hardcover book. It may be a little low budget, but I'm sure it will manage.

Reaaaally want more videos on that topic! :D Great job in this one, very clear, easy to understand information!

When my friends and I set up to start making our system, it was originally for an Avatar The Last Airbender system. The goal was to create a system which enabled as much freedom as possible, while still providing some guidance so that not everything is on the GM like most of the freeform RPGs I've seen. We kindof went through the same process as this video without knowing we were doing it. But, when it came to testing, the playtest was actually intended to come up with the mechanics we needed to focus on. Initially, we started with the most bare bones thing. We didn't even define the skill list at first, we just let the players name the skills as they went along. Second playtest group was confused by this, so the design group got together and defined a skill list based on what everyone else chose the first time. We decided on a D6 system, where you roll a variable number of d6, keep 3, and then add your modifiers. Determining how many you roll out of combat is based on your skill rank, modifier is attribute + the skill's rank bonus. Though out of combat, if not doing anything terribly difficult, and not in a stressful situation, success is assumed without a roll. During testing, when a situation came up that we hadn't defined, we would make a quick rule in the middle of the scenario to get through it, and then the design group got together afterward, brainstormed on it, wrote down a "finalized" version of the new mechanic, and then ran it through the same scenario, tweaking it until it felt right. It has been a lot of fun, though we're still not done yet, and we've expanded far beyond the original scope of "We want an Avatar system" to "This could work for any fantasy setting if we changed Bending to Magic." So we're still working with the Avatar setting, but also considering how to convert to standard fantasy if we ever get tired of what we're currently doing.

So based on the first 30 min it sounds like you are going to have to start a third set guy How to be a great gm How to be a great player How to build a game But I've been on this road for 5+ years and to everyone out there doing the same worldbuilding is a massive project even if your good at writing and don't worry about lore or a fully flushed out world because they will mever know muhahahaha

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As someone who is two weeks into making his own system this couldn’t come at a better time. Great advice, I would enjoy more insights if you would please, thank you as always. 😄

Your video got me thinking about how an RPG that only has success or not success as its resolution. My basic idea (only had a few hours thought on this so not in anyway complete, but might inspire others as you did for me 😁). Keywords. If a character has an ability with a matching keyword, they succeed, otherwise they must deal with the consequences (note: consequences does not always mean failure). The character has a series of abilities each ability can have a hierarchy of specialisation. Each of these abilities and specialisations has a set of key words associated with it. When a player need to make a check, they check if they have an ability that has a matching keyword, if they do, they succeed, otherwise they have to deal with a consequence. This consequence can be failure, or it might require another check. As an example: Climbing a cliff. To climb the cliff the player need to make a climb check. If they succeed they successfully climb the cliff. If they don't have an ability with the climb keyword, then they must make an athletics and a reflex check. Failure of those results in a fall. Abilities are the base level of a specialisation tree. So to get the climb specialisation, a character would first need to have the base ability (eg strength), and then have a specialisation (athletics) and then have the climb specialisation. Abilities and specialisations are collectively called Skills. Each Skill has 3 different states it can be in: Available, Unavailable and Damaged. Some Skills can be taken multiple times and so if they become Unavailable or Damaged, they will sill have copies of that Skill that are Available. If a character has a specialisation under a Skill they have multiple copies of, then those specialisations are still able to be used so long as they have at least a single copy of the parent Skill. If a Skill is available, then the player can use that to match keywords in a check. But note, that one or more Skills can be used to match all the keywords in a check. Some checks have a cost, this cost is usually to change the Skills used to match the keywords as being marked as Unavailable. But some might require the Skill to be Damaged. Applying a cost always comes after a Skill's effects have been applied (therefore recovery Skills can not be used to recover themselves). Unavailable skills can not be used to match keywords, so even if the character has that Skill, they can't use it to match the keywords needed for a check. When a player uses a Breather keyword, they can recover a single Unavailable Skill to Available. This will also cause the Skill with the Breather keyword to become Unavailable. Damaged Skills are also not able to be used to match keywords, but they are harder to recover and can have certain other effects when in this state. A Damaged Skill can only be recovered by a Rest keyword. Rest also recovers all Unavailable skills to Available. Damage is handled by skills with the Health keyword. Stun damage requires the character to Disable a skill with the heath keyword. If no skill with the health keyword is Available, they must change one of them to Damaged. Lethal Damage requires the player to change a Skill with the health keyword to Damaged (as the player can choose which one, they can choose a health Skill that is Disabled first if they want). If all health Skills are Damaged, then the character is disabled and can take no other action except Rests. If a character has not Health Skills and take further damage, the character dies. Character creation: Each character starts with two Breather Skills, one Rest Skill and two Health Skills. This way the character can take damage and recover. The character then gets a number of Skills to assign, but the number of skills and the set of skills to choose from would take a lot more time and space to detail. This was my first pass at making a no roll, no math, success / fail only RPG system. Have fun with it and see if you can expand it 😎

More videos on this would be great!

I would love more of these videos! I have just recently wanted to take on the task of building my own TTRPG and not really knowing how to go would make these videos invaluable to me.

Would love a whole series on ttrpg design. I've been designing a system on-off for 3 years but rather than finish it, I kept spawning new ttrpg's. So now I have 3 to complete

Actually this channel inspired to convince my friend into building our own TTRPG. We finished with the rule design but now need to write the actual text. So excited to see you making a video on this topic

This was actually unbelievably helpful. I was actually stuck, trying to figure out how to test and develop mechanics would you believe. The 'how does a player climb a cliff' really kick started the whole process. Much appreciated.

It is interesting that you release this video at this time. I've been thinking for the last month of writing my own game.

This year I been developing my own ttrpg, your insights has been help full I would like to see more. An mabey a low ball example of what one would ttrpg will look like.

Big lotr fan. The systems out there didn't actually envelope the world quite right for me, especially the magical aspect.. So I began making my own lotr TTPRG (rule frame is based on The Dark Eye) four years ago. Comissioned some pictures. Read the books while taking a metric ton of notes. Revamped the alchemy. Created the cultures of ME, based on the stuff mentioned about them in the books. I'm in my last steps these days to finish it. ^^ And you're making some interessting points. Especially testing (and not being afraid to change existing things along the way) your game seems crucial to me.

well.... I'm already 2.5 years deep into making my own system. its almost done but heck to it I'm still going to take your advice!

I've actually been working on my own game with a friend for quite some time. I'd be more than happy to see more videos on the subject.

I'm just getting into ttrpgs and trying my hand in creating campaigns and your videos are really a great help for me!!!

Thanks for the advice Guy. I have been thinking about making my own system for a while and didn't know where to start. This helped a great deal.

This is a super helpful spring board for formulating the skeleton of the TTRPG that's been percolating in the back of my mind for a hot minute. Planning on watching your "I made a TTRPG & so can you" video soon! Thanks for all the great advice!

Pretty nice video, I'm the guy who started a system just because. A Yes or No system probably won't fair well with contested encounters. Wish you good luck making it! An idea to solve contests could be trivia, ask them a yes or no question maybe and let them succeed on a correct answer.

This was great thank you!!! And yes if you were up for making more videos about building custom RPGs and rules, I’d love that!

Hello there! just wanted to tell you guys: i love you and your videos. in the past 4 days I've created my very first campaign and last night i played it online with my friends. they loved it. thank you for everything, you are really helping me developing as a young person.

More videos in this series please! I’m making up a few of my own ttrpgs and this is helpful!

This is something I've been thinking about for quite a while. I'd love to see more videos on this.

I'm currently making my own, for my friends to play and me to run, starting completely from scratch. My influences are from d&d, blades in the dark and fire emblem and the deeper I'm getting in it, the more daunting the task seems and its overwhelming me. I've taken a month break from it to recharge and get more ideas, and I think I'm nearly back to writing it again. I've got my story down, but the magic and character progression systems are just spiraling uncontrollably

YOU made the trifi system?!!! I had watched so many of your videos and I had no idea you had made that system, which I used and homebrewed (and translated) to introduce new players to TTRPG!

Welcome to my brand spanking new TTRPG system. There is no math involved at all. Let's roll up our new characters everybody. The first character stat that we are going to roll is strength. Everybody roll 27D2...

Yes please! A whole series on this! What creative and fascinating topic!

I started building out a Fallout/SPECIAL inspired system on a caffeine bender and this has been a wonderful tool in both focusing my work and also exploring different ideas for things like combat and actions

I don't watch a video of you since 2019 i think and i have to say, what a good clean look you have now. Thanks for the video, very useful.

Absolutely amazing advice! Probably one of the greatest videos you've ever made, dude! ❤️

Fantasy Archer: Do you want gnomes? Because that's how you get gnomes!

I would love to see a series on this... Maybe over the course of 2021, you could do one a month? So people wanting to try themselves have something to keep up with and gives them something to focus on for the next month... So in each video you take an aspect of development giving people a task for the month. Then by the end of 2021 had you been keeping up, you have a product thats at least in playtest stage... Just a thought, something I would definitely be interested in, as it's a goal of mine for next year... so perfect timing :D

Started making my system years ago and picked it up again a few months ago when a friend mentioned wanting to play it. Running the final pre-alpha game today with one other person!! then starting the alpha with a full table! It's so wild, I cant wait to copyright and release the pdf, but i'm so hype. It feels incredible making a world of my own into something others can play. Especially having it be like properly fun? It's a super proud feeling.

Absolutely love the video, just started 2 weeks ago or so. I've decided on the genre and the outcome system.

I was waiting for something like this, i've been plyaing my own rpg for like 1 month now and it it's going really well

You got an audiobook voice man. Even slipped in some German and made it sound pleasant as hell.

Sacred Gods, this is gold channel that i've happened to run into, you help me in writting my own world so much! Thank you for your work and awesome experience sharing! All the love from The Lyria World ^v^b

Yes make more of these, i too have an original system that is almost at play testing phase. Been a labour of love in my spare time and have continued to evolve over years as well.

Needed this, was making an Undertale TTRPG, and your advice illuminated something in my mind :D

This video is especially relevant for me as I've been designing my own TTRPG for a few years now. Anything more you have to say on the subject, I would greatly appreciate hearing!

Just started making one when this video pops up. Also it would be nice to see more of these!

Howd you know ive been putting off developing my game system!? I love how videos like this come out at the most opportune moments.

I'd be super interested for more on this topic. My brother and I are in the very very early stages of making a game, so this could be really helpful.

Another Fantastic video. You have a wonderful perspective.

Y/n is less complicated then monopoly and slightly more then Hungry Hippos - possible but still never going to be but so satisfying. Where is how you do it. Write down the number of descriptors you want (say 4 - suck, capable , professional, genus). Now assign a color to them (in this example Green, blue, yellow and Red best to worst). Now get chips (following the above 4 green and one less for each other color ending in 1 red) and put them in a bag. Lastly, everyone puts a name on a piece of paper and can choose for things about there character to write down and give one color/description to each. (Everyone has to agree to what they are). Put 4 circles on the bottom of the sheet. Tell your story. Anytime you don’t know if you are good enough pull a chip and check your chart. If you succeed you say yes if not no. You want to make a no into a yes cross out a circle ⭕️. If you get hurt cross out a circle. Once you are out is circles you are out. You can refresh circles as the main story teller says (ideally at the end of every scene). Easily done but would anyone want to play that TTRPG .. I don’t know. But sure you can do it. (Oh by the way you can do it any type of story but I love this for a Scooby Doo style of mystery story where you can bonk, scare or attack characters out of the scene and see if you have the Storyteller’s villain say “I would have gotten away with it too if not for you rotten kids)

This is actually really helpful! I thought of making a custom ttrpg that is based off of the percy jackson series bc me and some friends are huge fans and my mom knows as much as the series and i thought it would be fun. I just have to make it now but i have some ideas so thanks for helping me figure out the how

I've been building a TTRPG from scratch on and off for about 5 years, and I now know that I have been building it backwards from the very beginning! No wonder I have been struggling to fit mechanics together when I haven't been taking into account the way my scenarios should be determined!

I have been making a ttrp with my dad and this helped. Thanks!

Great that this comes up in my suggestions just as I'm working on my one-page-rpg. 😊

Wonderfully done. You are an excellent teacher. Thank you.

I always love you videos but this one is super relevant, because I'm designing a homebrew D10 system a'la L5R and White Wolf. Your guide here has been a really useful checklist and it's safe to say I'd love more of this homebrew design content.

Very great advices. Indeed all things I had to go trough with my own project. Hopefully this dream of mine, as crazy as it seem, will come to life one day. Your last advice is without a doubt, your best advice. But also the hardest to follow.

Yes! More of this series, please! Aspiring game dev here and I need to learn everything I can. :D

Loved the video. I am working on a my own micro RPG and this helped put things into perspective. I have my first real beta test scheduled for tomorrow. It is D20 with a twist! It is a game about young children just coming into their magic, so they have trouble controlling it. When you cast a spell you roll a d20 to see how powerful the spell is not how well you cast it. I would love to see more videos about giving advice on how to make RPGs.

I would love to see a series on this!

Definitely more of this. I have a book series I want to make a TTRPG for so people can play in my world.

I love this idea I been working on my on ttrpg for months and I think this has help me even if it was a just a little. I would love to hear more on this topic

My first exposure to TTRPGs in general was a custom built thing which a friend ran, the issue is it had to be restarted with drastically different mechanics due to an incident which happened early on... The plotline involved this world-endingly strong super bad guy who we had to fight and he was intended to throw a few supposed-to-lose fights at us before eventually maybe a few months and several dungeon grinds down the line we'd have leveled up enough to finally start to beat him. The bad guy had 4 times the health of the entire party combined, an attack stat higher than the entire party combined, he could spam poisons and debilitating debuffs, drain our stamina, lock us out of using our moves, was immune to all debuffs and stuns himself and his attacks were all epic *_multi-hit_* barrages of fireballs capable of leveling entire cities! .... The issue is the mechanics of the system he designed involved a characters defense lowering all damage they take by a flat amount, and the armor values had only been tested against single hits... If you take a hit of 30 damage and reduce it by 2 with your light armor or 5-6 with heavy armor then that seems fair enough those stats seem fine and balanced. .... Meanwhile all the guy had was multi-hits of 2 or 3 damage hitting 20 times per attack... Which commonly got reduced to 0 damage against anyone with even light armor, and 3 of us were resistant to poison. The big evil god dude had just finished his "You are Powerless!" speech before we just crowded around him and slapped him to death with the equivalent of pool noodles.

This is nice. More, please! One challenge I see with a Yes/No system is the possibility of complex situations getting bogged down with a long string of yes-no deliberations. On the plus side, the character sheet could be written in binary!

when i hear systems without numbers just yes or no outcomes i think of two that come to mind. the fantasy flight star wars and Sparks of Light the magical girl RPG. I've said this before in another video but one of them i like and the other makes me want to get an icepick lobotomy so i will not be upset from how complex it is. There was a guy who was trying to make an RPG i remember. And I agreed to help him with play testing. acording to him alot of wording how to be redone because of me. Not because i was abusing mechanics but how they were worded and me kind of just questioning them giving stupid things i could do as options. He eventually released it and put my name as a playtester. I bought a book. Sadly i couldn't generate enough interest when he left for the system and sadly now it is nothing but a memory. I know some people would say but you still have the book. Sadly where it was stored there was exposure to the elements and when i fixed it i found that there was both ice and mold on the book.

You always have something I need. Thank you.

"Don't give up." Well, I'm writing mine TTRPG system for like 3 years. Looking forward to next video on this topic. :)

i set out to recreate the pokemon mystery dungeon games as a ttrpg, and honestly... its going perfect, but i have you to thank for that, i've watched like every single one of your videos, and they made me the GM that i am today.

Mine I'm starting from never doing a campaign but learning while setting up the system. I'm doing it with simplicity in mind. My players are loving the system and giving me tips to be better as a game master at the same time. What they really like is combat functions through a flow chart and they like how the flow chart of what they can do on their turn just makes it simple in a fun way.

Quite informative! Thank you! I, for one, would like more on this subject.

I have an idea for how you could do a game without math. Have a small deck of cards, and each card has a word on it. "And, But, Instead, Huge, Little, Very," etc. Ordinarily, the game is RP heavy between a player and DM. The player will go through some sort of adventure, and face obstacles between them and their goal. Whenever the player arrives at an obstacle, they must explain how they'll overcome it, with the DM deciding if that plan works with YES or NO. A player can draw a card from the deck whenever they've successfully swayed the DM through RP. These cards come into play whenever a DM makes a ruling. They may play cards to change the result, or alter the scenario, to make it easier to overcome. Seems like it would make for short and decent one-shots.

Would love to see more on this subject. As I watch this I'm working on the 2nd edition of my system started about 2 years ago specifically to power low-fantasy campaigns. Make realism interesting and intuitive and not just D&D with all the magic and races scribbled out to where it no longer functions.

A wheelwright is a craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright", (which comes from the Old English word "wryhta", meaning a worker or shaper of wood) as in shipwright and arkwright. This occupational name became the English surname Wright. from Google

love your content and as I just finish the first drafts of my own ttrpg system (scifi themed) I'm really interested in what you could come up with on this specific topic.

Guy some suggested mechanics to consider for your Yes/No RPG For basic challenges and minion combat. Have 4 cards uniform on 1 side, 2 yes 2 no cards. Shuffle into a stack. When the PC describes an ability, skill, or item that aids their them in the challenge it removes 1 of the “no” cards from the stack. If they determine a 2nd thing to aid them then the 2nd “no” card is removed and they auto succeed. Example A: I need to climb that wall... I packed a rope. (1st “no” canceled) I am considered an athlete. (2nd “no” canceled) Resolved, the player succeeds and climbs the wall without incident. Example B: A jealous patron comes up to you with the intend to knock the daylights out of you... Does he have a weapon? Do a perception perhaps to see? I have keen sight. With keen sight you notice he has a hidden knife. (1st no canceled) I was trained in the military during the war. (2nd no canceled). Resolution success. You go for his knife before he can react and shove him to the ground and warn him he is out of his league and to not try anything. The patron looks sullen, clearly outclassed and leaves. Extended challenges Add more No’s to the challenge stack. Where you need to creativity "cancel" out so many no's to succeed at a task. You are in a duel to the death. (4 “No”s) I am skilled with my blade and have been practicing (1st no canceled). I am charismatic and asked around about this person I am fighting (2nd no canceled). I am sneaky and spied on him while he trained to practice his sword play (3rd no canceled). During the fight I use by athletics to outlast him with good footwork (4th no canceled). Resolution is a success. You two testing eachother with light jabs. You heard and seen some of his tells and notice he telegraphs when he commits to a strike. You counter his advances and he becomes winded to your superior footwork and wear him down. He gets sloppy and you best him as the victor!

I would love to see more of these videos since I'm building a system myself.

Been tinkering with my own system for a month now and I'm slowly starting to get the pre-alpha ready for playtests with my friends. Can't wait to see how all my ideas crush and burn during the first test, but that's the fun of game design ^^

Great tips! Very insightful to bring up goals right away; I've tried getting others interested in designing tabletop miniature games, but never with any luck. The yes/no game system is intriguing, for sure; it immediately struck me as a survival game, in the vein of Walking Dead or Alone in the Dark. Different combinations of character traits and gear determine Yes or No; as you said, very puzzle-y and intellectual.