Making a Tabletop RPG
When I first dove into ttrpgs back in 2019, I was interested in the space it created. It seemed like a great tool for therapy, education, recreation, and safe exploration (which is probably why its used for all of those things). I had read articles about using ttrpgs to make educational LARPS (like Nordic Larps, which are often used in education and reenactments) and wanted to see if I could be a part of that.
My intended contribution was to be the ChangeMakers RPG - a table top rpg that would teach history and civics to middle school classrooms. I going to use the history of Redmond, WA (where my alma mater is located) as an example story to showcase what ChangeMakers could do. This article is a story of what kind of work went into this project and some of the lessons learned through the experience.
Design
Before I named it ChangeMakers, this system was called State of Affairs and it was meant to be a Model UN analog that fit a closer narrative. It had alignments, a promise system, projects they could work on... players were basically politicians working on large scale issues. That was fine, but it was hard to grasp the scale of issues or build stories around what the players were doing. In short, I was just making a more complicated Model UN (and teachers won't buy that).
While I was trying to find a story to better sell my game (due to other people having trouble understanding how to tell a story in this game), I came across a bit of Redmond's history. I learned that there was a bit of a fight by the residents (after the fact) about the naming of the town. The Perrigo family were huge contributors to the development of the town, but people only remembered the Redmond family because the original Luke McRedmond filed with the state to have the town named Redmond. If the Perrigos had kept their fame, this town would be named Melrose instead. I thought fueling a political fire of this scale was a good start for players to understand how to "make change" in their communities (and ultimately led to the name ChangeMakers).
This version had a dice system that I actually really love. It involved betting and "money management" that I thought would be helpful for elementary school and up. It was a tactile system, lots of tokens, but also included an explosive dice mechanic that made players feel powerful, like they were getting stuff done.
Playtesting
Playtest NW Logo.
Playtesting for a ttrpg is hard. In order to test as a ttrpg, you need a good referee, new players, and a venue for every new run-through of your 4-hour game. Its hard to get all of those at once. As such, I often had to compromise.
Finding the referee was okay... The reason I couldn't referee myself is because...
- I made the game. Not good for reading rules and executing them as written.
- Unfortunately, ttrpgs are not very accessible for me, a hard of hearing person. I need to be able to listen.
The hard part was finding players. I tried a couple of times with some friends, but that resource quickly ran out (harder to teach them a second time than it is to just find new players). Following that, I found a group called Playtest NW, a non-profit that provides a venue for players and boardgame designers to meet and playtest some games. Sadly, for me, it was specific to board games and I would only have an hour to play my game (though they were happy to let me test it with them).
So I adjusted my game to be a board game. Each turn, someone would be the referee and everyone else would use my super cool dice mechanic to play the game. Their character sheet fit on a standard 3x5 in notecard (as did all the tokens they would need) coupled with a 1-sided sheet of paper. In this playtest, each player was in charge of a town and they needed to survive a year together. It worked great for seeing how they understood the rules and what they were having fun with. It was not a good way to see how the referees worked.
Then, Playtest NW introduced me to the GeekGirlScouts. These guys were a godsend. They're a group that lets girl scouts play boardgames (typically girl scouts in the late elementary to middle school ages). They were in my age group. They usually ran for 4 hours so they could play D&D and Pathfinder, and they understood. It was perfect for what I needed. Unfortunately, Covid hit and they haven't met since. (Which is good. They shouldn't be meeting up during a pandemic.)
If you're making board games in the Seattle area, Playtest NW is a great resource. You can find them here. I am not being endorsed by them. I just really loved their support and want to support them back.
Dying Down
As Covid hit, I stopped being able to do live playtests for the game. In addition, there were some glaring issues with some of the narrative mechanics and I was finding more and more that I didn't necessarily have the narrative skills to write a compelling and informative module for this game. After about 3 months of fighting it, I settled on putting the game aside and working on my skills.
I intend to come back to it eventually. That dice mechanic is too fun to just leave alone in my head. (It should be shared! For the masses to enjoy!)That being said, it should be in a state where it can be easily accessible - not enjoyed in obscurity until I die and then someone decides to take a gander. It will be back, just not right now.