Today, I’m kicking off a 24 hour challenge where I develop a entire RPG, starting now (noon) and ending tomorrow at noon (EST). The rules of the challenge:
- Must complete within 24 hours
- All work must be done by me
- No pre-work, but can be based on pre-existing ideas
So, while I cannot help but to have thought about what I want to explore, I have yet to write anything down. The rules I want to create will be suitable for roleplaying in the historical Old West, but easily expanded to include elements of Fantasy, Horror, and Weird. If I have time, I’ll explore those concepts as part of the challenge, but they are not necessary for my goal.
I want to try a bottom up approach, where I create a core system skeleton upon which I add fiddly bit that hopefully enable the themes of the game. Since I’ve had a particular style of system burning a hole in my mind, I’m going to use those ideas to get the ball rolling.
I don’t expect this project to be groundbreaking or revolutionary, but there are some dice mechanics such as normal distribution and use of exploding dice that I would like to explore. So this challenge will be more of a cathartic experience where I test these ideas and purge them from my system so I can move on to other ideas.
If this endeavor is successful, I might expand and revise the rules or even do another 24 Hour RPG where I approach the design from a different angle, possibly top-down, where I think of the Old West as a character and explore creating a system that supports that concept.
Design Goals
Before I begin diving into the writing of this game, I want to put some goals down to sort of form an outline of where I want to go. Hopefully, this outline will give me direction and keep focused on the prize so I can actually complete the challenge.
- Modular
- Skill/Ability based (classless)
- Buck the rules light trend (mild complexity)
- Attempt to integrate free-form RP mechanics
- Normal distribution (3 or dice for resolution)
- Things are improbable, but not impossible
- Reward failure
- Different but familiar
With those high level design goals in place, I think I’ll go ahead and post this and start on part 2!
Wild West Weeks
- Welcome to Wild West Weeks
- Wild West RPG Database
- Into the Far West
- Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
- Deadlands Reloaded
- Red Dead Redemption
- 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
- 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
- 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
- 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
- 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
- Wild West Minis Database
Wow. Sounds like a huge challenge to do a decent RPG system in a 24-hour timespan. Keep us updated on how well you do. I think this is a brilliant idea, and good luck pulling it off! I can’t wait to see how this ends up.
Yeah, the biggest challenge is being able to playtest things in your head. I imagine this will be more of a mental exercise for me and I’ll eventually revise it if it’s worth salvaging.