My Creative Process

 

Here is an overview of my creative process when I make tabletop games. I hope this can help you in your own process if you have the urge, like I do, to create fun games for people to play at their table.

 

Read and/or play video games for inspiration: When I’m looking for inspiration, I go to my two favorite outlets, books and video games. I was inspired for Idlewater and Cozy Monster Heroes by playing cozy farming games like Rune Factory and Stardew Valley especially. I also tend to get inspired by games like Final Fantasy (story-wise). My other inspiration are books, both fiction for the vibe and other TTRPG books for mechanical systems and table ideas. I LOVE tables, and I love making them. I have a ton of table books that I flip through for inspiration sometimes. I also have books that I don’t intend to play ever because they aren’t a good fit for solo roleplaying, but the vibe of the book is interesting or it has a mechanic or two I can use as inspiration for my own ideas. I try to keep as many different genres of fiction books and tabletop game rulebooks as possible. Just reading them, even if I don’t intend to use anything from its system, is fun and reminds me of things that I tend to forget, like what good formatting looks like or appropriate sentence structure when describing your lore or mechanics.

Have an idea: This is the most uncertain of these steps, because there’s no guarantee that any inspiration or research will result in an idea. Or, conversely, if the idea you have will be worthwhile. You may need more than one idea to spark that next tabletop project. For me, though, it usually just takes that one idea that will grab hold of me and not let go until I write it down somewhere and analyze it.

Let the idea settle: Speaking of analyzing, that’s the next step. Letting the idea settle is an important part of my process. Even if I’m flooded with passion about an idea the moment in pops into my noggin, I still need to let the idea settle for a day or two to make sure it’s as great as I really think it is. It feels like the slowest part of my process, because at this point I have the idea but I’m not doing anything with it, except maybe writing it down for a little clarity. Then I just leave it and continue about my day, letting my brain develop the complete picture of the idea on its own.

Jot down rough notes: After a day or two of letting the idea percolate, I write down some pretty rough notes about it in a Google Doc dedicated to that single idea. At this point I start reading again, looking for more inspiration, but mostly I’m writing down things I think sound cool or that I want to try with this project. I’m also developing what I call the Point of the project, or its purpose. Why would you play this game? That’s the big question I have to answer at this step in the process.

Develop the notes: After I have all of my notes written down, I then develop them and write out what I would like them to sound like in an actual document or PDF. This is a tricky part of my project: Making all of those rough notes sound like a masterpiece and giving clear and concise instructions for my various ideas and systems. But I want it to be so clear that when I transfer it to another document, the Outline Document, that I hardly have to edit at all.

Transfer to an outline document: I then take all of my polished notes and transfer the information to another Google Doc that I name (Name of the Project) PDF. I write a short table of contents at the top of the document first of what will be in the final work and in what order, then I start transferring the notes and information into the document.

Proofread and edit the document: After that I proofread and edit like crazy. It doesn’t usually take more than a few read-throughs, though, because I already polished my notes before. I just want everything to look and sound nice and flow well. I also take this time to underline what needs to be underlined and bold words that need to be bolded.

Playtest the game extensively: After proofreading and editing is the fun part: The playtest! I get to play the project I’ve been putting my blood, sweat, tears, and passion into. I get to make my characters and roleplay as them in a world I created with systems I developed for this game. I may playtest for a week, for a month, or for several months. It all depends on the game.

Make appropriate changes/edits: After I playtest an appropriate amount of time I make changes based on my playthrough that either didn’t work when actually playing or needed tweaking. Things like enemy stats are the most common things I need to tweak at this point, but sometimes major issues pop up that I only would have caught in play.

Playtest the game some more: After that, I playtest some more! Now that I’ve made changes and tweaks, it’s time to test them out! I play for a few more weeks and refine the rules as I go along.

Make more appropriate changes/edits: After my final playtest, which could take a while, I make more edits, tweaks, and read-throughs of my project for proofreading purposes. When I’m satisfied I’ve made a complete game, and more importantly a fun game, I move on to the next step.

Create a Cover: At this point I create a cover for my project. I don’t really know how I come up with the cover ideas. I just sort of play around with pictures and fonts and frames until I find a combination I really like that evokes the overall aesthetic of the project. Then I save it to my computer.

Transfer edited outline to Microsoft Publisher: Now almost all of the creative work is done and the hard work begins, at least for me: Transferring all of my outline into a Microsoft Publisher document. I basically copy and paste everything into the document, organizing it and formatting it as I go along. This is the hardest part because while I consider myself a creative person, I am not a designer by any means. I try to make the document look nice and formatted appropriately, but it’s tricky sometimes. Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, it just doesn’t look the way I want it to. Eventually I may need to hire an editor for this part. Until then, though, it’s a learning process.

Make A Character Sheet if needed: At this point, I make an official character sheet for the game. Before, when I’m playtesting, I just use Google Docs to keep track of all relevant character information. Now I use what I’ve learned while tracking my character’s progress in the playtest to make a character sheet that covers everything you need detailed about your character to play my game.

Hit export: When I’m done with my character sheet, my project, and any maps I need to make for the project, I export all of these things as PDFs. I like to keep them separate. It’s just easier to print out exactly what you want that way, I think. At this point, I read over the PDFs just to make sure they look okay and I didn’t miss anything in the editing and proofreading stage. If I haven’t, I move on to the publishing phase. If I did, I go back to the Publisher document, fix it, and re-upload it as a PDF.

Write up a sizzling description for the store page: At this point is another tricky part of my process: Making the game sound good to prospective players. Just like I’m not a designer, I’m not a businesswoman or an advertiser either. But I do my best to make the game sound captivating by listing the features and giving a brief overview of what my game is about and what you’ll be doing in the game.

Publish to the store page: After I write an adequate description of the game, I can finally publish it on itchio or drivethrurpg. With itchio, it’s published immediately, but drivethru has a waiting time before your game is officially published on their site. So far, I’ve published seven core games and nine supplements using this method. When I create games, I create several at a time. I’m always working on something new! Some of my ideas for my games have been in my head for years. Others were inspiration that have popped up within the past few months. All of my games are works of passion, though, and I’m proud of each and every one of them. That’s why I want people to play them and enjoy them! And THAT’S why I have them as Pay What You Want, that way more people can afford to play my games.

 

Anyway, that’s my creative process. Hopefully this has given you a few ideas of your own. If you have an idea, jump on it, write it down, let it percolate, and then develop it! You might just have the next best tabletop roleplaying game!