They're only level 1, they've only done 1 combat, but it seems like the direction I'm aiming for is noticed. These are FF14 enjoyers so they've played some MMO in their time.

Yo, #ttrpg designers. How many of you kept the D&D stats. All 6. STR DEX INT WIS CHA CON style, even if by another name? I kept the 6, but that's because I've used a lot of hexagons in the sheet design and it just fit.

I've started already compiling a bunch of additional classes or class specs for base classes that I don't know what to do with them at this point and I'm scared. Do I bump up the base classes to... 15? Each with minimum 2 class specs? That'd be 37 specs to play with 15 base variations to toy with..

Spent a lot of my night automating a spreadsheet so that it can kick out mostly complete sheets. Still have a little bit of cleanup to do and I want to add more to the automator, but what's really neat is that it's mostly easy to export the sheet and import it to Tabletop Simulator.

Group 2 has been slower to get rolling, but as of today there are enough character sheets built that gameplay can begin next time we convene! In... Two weeks! Group 3's feedback so far has been "really excited for next session"

Me: I wrote a game that core involves aliens abducting part of earth, but I want to keep this game functional in all settings with some tweaking; a good core that can be adapted to fantasy and sci-fi. Also me: What if I spend way too long learning about warp drive physics for accuracy for the hook?

Group 2 got some numbers written down and character ideas Group 3 got everything done and got to actually do a bit of a playthrough of the introduction hook for my little adventure module. Definitely found some things to clarify and correct, and fixed all that this morning. Feeling positive!

Playtest group 1 has had one session Playtest group 2 starts tomorrow Playtest group 3 starts the day after Playtest group 4 unknown potential but keeping space for Playtest group 5 tapped for a one/two shot in a few months (intentionally short lived due to fitting into a friend's busy life)

One of the new people picked up chose a class that has yet to be worked on, so I spent a chunk of my week brainstorming, finished off the Trickshot today, a ranged single target damage dealer, with the ability to heal and enhanced their friends... By shooting them! Think Ana from Overwatch.

I think I worked out at least a mildly more interesting adjustment to travel. It does put a sort of layer of antagonism as the GM instead of just as a story teller, but I also want to inspire more "gamey" mechanics to what already exists in the space. Padding the boring parts with more gameplay.

Work trip meant grabbing three more players, finishing 90% of another playtest class just in case anyone wants it, and giving some rough idea of expectations I want out of a first time RPG player. The info has been handed to the new folks, here's hoping they like what they see.

Work trip and conference means afterwards I get to probably just sit and write and read and maybe finish the rest of the classes no one has picked for playtest so far, and maybe get a start on expanding the rulebook or making handy reference material. The firmament is the limit!

Complete and functional for all the math parts of the game. You don't have to refer to the book to get values, you don't need to remember what you've trained in. Pick your class, your background, and any skills you train along the way, and it'll automatically update and populate.

I could have made breakfast this morning. Instead I spent all my time automating the number side of the game to make character creation a breeze. On the front it looks very familiar to popular game systems, the depth is in the class choice. Roll dice, green values used, class+background pulls value

I don't share many ideas because I have things under lock and key as I'm still building, but here's a tease: Snapback Corpse. 20 (+30)HP As it shambles forward, the skeleton and sinew rips from its body while the flesh tries to keep up and reform it to be made whole.

Spending a bit of my work day exploring enemy designs with unique mechanics. I want to make little ones before making a big one, like how video games tee up how to defeat the big boss by sprinkling around combat ideas in the monsters you encounter in the area just before it.

I'm at this point now where I can't really work on anything big until I get some playtest stuff back. I kinda know the route I wanna take, and I think I'm going to make some class packages/cards for players to make it easier for them to get into what they can do, but overall it's just play and fix.

Playtest the first in the bag and a lot was learned real fast from it. First off, NPC adjustments. Cutting all HP values in half, and doubling their output on damage. Not enough damage going out to justify dedicated healers or making things feel like a threat. Some jabs got in, but not enough imo.

Iron Fist, Class 8, is now playable. WAY more pared-down compared to The Shaman. Baseline every class has 14 abilities, and this one is one such case. In fact, the last two classes should also have 14 abilities total unless I get another bout of inspiration. 139/167 abilities for playtest

I think I know what I want to do for an art style, but my goodness I'm going to have to bust out all my non-art chops to get something as a proof of concept for an actual artist.

Playtest material for this weekend has been fully prepped. The rulebook somehow lost a piece of a page and as such everything past the classes is all jankity janked and skewed, but it's still legible so we go regardless. Runs on D10 and D6's, hence the amount of D6s, and everyone gets ABILITY CARDS

7th class finally in a playable state. It's definitely the largest class, despite being only to level 5. Most classes only have 2 paths to go: Damage and either Support, Healing or Tank. The Shaman has 2 Melee Damage, 1 Ranged Damage, Tank, AND Heal tree you can focus into. The scope shifted a bit.

99 unique abilities, 99 cards written for only 6 of the 10 base classes. I'm still working on the others, I'm expecting another 50+ cards (Shaman ended up blowing up in scope in a positive way). So about 150 unique abilities each catered to multiple different playstyles.

I have finished playing catch up for next weekend's playtest to start. Each ability is getting a card to go with it to help players not only keep track of everything easier rather than writing a spell list, it gives them something to share when helping friends. This, for example, is a Dome of Earth

We should have the ability to track how many words we've deleted in addition to how many words we've written so we can look back and see how much we had to sacrifice to get to finding that right combination that makes us happy.

Spending my entire day reworking my entire stat/skill/ability/save numbers to accommodate my dumpster fire of a brain.

That rework I was reworking on has become a rework of the rework, and now I'm re-addressing almost everything I've already written with regards to dice rolling. Help.

I sometimes forget I was working on a Pokemon D&D with a few people back when I worked in a warehouse. That's where Stolen World also started. Turns out that place wasn't intellectually stimulating and I needed a brain project to keep myself alive through those years.

I've been poking at my first module for playtest purposes and have only made it a third of the way through notable locations on my map. Today one of my players asked me if her character idea was good, and she doesn't know I wrote an entire city devoted to her character's backstory in 5 min flat.

I got home from a movie and just... brain blasted both initiative and stats and now I need to rewrite a ton of things but I think I like it a lot more and I just wanted to watch something dumb, go read and pass out. And NOW!?

Starting a group to playtest while at work, and I did a bunch of writeups trying to explain it to people. Oops my job deletes old messages so I spent a while doing a writeup for nothing Which obviously means making a Discord for all my Playtests to have their own little hubs and a place to discuss

Going through the most tedious part of this design process: Drawing up the pre-alpha ability cards. The game has all your abilities outside of class passives written out on cards. If you look on the earlier sheet you can see little divots where cards fan out from your sheet.

Excited to start excited to start excited to start. I've got 2 groups confirmed, one group is my usual suspects plus another, but I convinced a few people I worked with for a smaller group during some lunch hours. That part is actually one I'm more intrigued in as 2 people have never played a ttrpg

Working hook: Aliens! We heard about the size of their ship for weeks. We weren't prepared. An ominous report every hour of it closing in on us as it swept past planets devoid of life. We hoped it was friendly. We didn't expect it was hungry. Society start collapsing long before it even reached us.

One thing I've also had a lot of fun writing is MMO style encounters. Each elite character has abilities that will test your party's ability to adapt. Some create combat timers for an all out slug fest, some create hazards they have to navigate around, or brace themselves to not be swept out to sea.

BONUS for getting to a point I'm happy, an iteration of my Character Sheet with obviously a big stamp on it. There's been a few changes since this in the name of cleanup and adjustment of systems (Rsrcflnss is now Stamina for instance) but I ended up really liking how the main page looks.

Stolen World is a faster paced TTRPG that imbues gameplay elements of MMOs (Party Composition, Skill Trees, Class Specializations) and Warhammer (Many D6s and their manipulation) into a familiar shell of Pen and Paper you would expect from the past 40 years.

Made this to offset the main accounts RPG talk, so feel free to mute this account if you're following me on @jekkus.bsky.social and don't want to hear the blatherings on.