if you want to write a ttrpg, here's my advice
- figure out what big one you want to write
- shelve that, write a small one instead
- find someone who's written a few small games to chat with about your big game
- find someone who's burnt out before releasing 3 games to chat with about your big game
- find someone who's released a game to chat with about your big game
- find someone who you perceive as big on twitter without any evidence to chat with about your small game, intimate that you have a big game in the works and be shy about it.
with all of that covered, what I actually recommend is get involved with a ttrpg community that is in the throes of playtesting. You want to meet people who are playing ttrpgs because you're going to find people who will match your freak. find a group that vibes good etc.
Figure out that one big ttrpg you wanna write
Work on it for 10 years in secret
Put it out for public playtesting
Find your freaks
- Figure out that big TTRPG you want to write.
- Work on it for like 2 years (it helps to have a major pandemic start during this timeframe, write that down). Really go to town on it.
- Try making a little thing right before you finish with some new-fangled little indie system.
- Realize you made a better game in a month than you had in the past 2 years...
- ...buuuuuuut, by doing this, you'll have gotten extremely good at churning out a ton of content in a fairly short period of time, which will come in handy when you're on the hook for like 3-4 hundred pages of content.
ok for real thought, I do think that people who get started on their dream projects are getting useful experience by learning the design languages they want to explore the medium with in one central piece. I have soooooo many folders on google drive that are like, half a page ideas of me trying to articulate something in the language of game writing that just does not shake out.
Nobody walks the same path. A lot of ttrpg design can actually be scope management. But every shuttered project is still taught you something.
