You’ve been playing RPG’s for while now. Maybe you’ve been a Player, maybe you’re the forever GM. Maybe you play a GM-less system, or solo a game all by yourself. Perhaps you have a system you understand, maybe a setting you love. At the very least, an idea for an adventure, a subclass, a list of fantastic magical items, or horrifying monsters, that you keep thinking about often.

Whatever the case, once you decide that you’re ready to start designing for a tabletop RPG, there’s a number of questions you’ll want to be able to answer as it will inform a lot of where and how, you want to spend your efforts.

The first question I decided to answer was what system would I be designing for? Would I use an existing system, or be designing something completely new?

For me the answer was simple: D&D Fifth Edition (5E). I had been DMing for years and had played several different systems in that time (5E, 4E, Dragon AGE) but 5E was the system I knew the best and was currently running games for so it was a natural fit.

Designing for a system you know and are familiar with will make the actual mechanical elements of designing a lot simpler. The answer then is: Design for the system you know the best.

Leveraging your existing knowledge base can make designing RPG content a lot easier and more enjoyable overall. And of course, if you’re designing your own system from the ground up, the above rule still applies. No one will know your original game better than you!

Now, to be clear, this isn’t some hard and fast rule. If you’re really intrigued by a system you’ve read once and your head is buzzing with ideas, by all means, pull that thread. Just be aware you may need to spend extra time to ensure your designs comply with the rules and mechanics of that system.

Availability

If using an existing RPG system, an important consideration is how “open” the system is to third party designers. A lot of that discussion about open-ness and availability begins to crossover into discussions about licensing. We will cover licensing in future posts, but for today we’re just interested in aggregating and loosely classifying a bevy of availabile options.

To that end we’re going to define a few categories: Open via Commons, Open via License, Community Content, and Third Party Licenses.

• Open via Commons:
  • The mechanics of the game have been entered into the Creative Commons and are freely available to be used and modified, even commercially, with or without attribution.
• Open via License:
  • These games are available to be used by anyone as long as they abide by the stipulations provided in the Open License.
  • We will be looking at two Licenses for this discussion, the Open Game License (OGL), and the Open RPG Creative license (ORC).
• Community Content Program
  • One of the main online retailers of digital RPG products, Drivethru RPG, maintains a number of agreements with different publishers allowing third parties (you) to create content for their games.
  • The catch is that the products can ONLY be sold on Drivethru.
• Third Party License
  • Some publishers have created their own Third Party Licenses permitting which parts of their games contents you are allowed to use and design for and what stipulations are required of you to do so.
  • While there is some standardized language in these licenses, they can vary from publisher to publisher and system to system.

One last note before the list. None of the games below are using someone else’s intellectual property (IP). For example, the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG (now overseen by EDGE Studios) uses the Genesys system. The Genesys system is available for you to design for, but not specifically anything for Star Wars. That IP is owned by someone else (Disney) and they have their own licensing agreement with Asmodee/FFG/EDGE permitting them to use Star Wars content. You do not.

The list below is not a complete list of all TTRPGS that fit into these 4 categories, just some of the bigger ones in our opinion. If there’s one you think should be on here, please comment below and we will update this list! It is intended to be a living, growing reference.

Open via Commons:

• 5E – Can’t call it D&D (License – SRD)
• Powered by the Apocalypse (Policy)
• Fate (License – SRD)
• Gumshoe (License – SRD)
• Blades in the Dark (License – SRD)

Open via License:

• 5E – Can’t call it D&D (OGL – SRD)
  • Different than the CC license, slightly more restrictive, how 5E was originally opened up before being placed in CC.
• Pathfinder
  • 2E (OGL/ORC – SRD)
  • 1E (OGL – SRD)
• Starfinder (OGL – SRD)
• 3E / 3.5E (OGL – SRD)
• 13th Age (OGL – SRD)
• ORCUS [4E Retro Clone] (OGL – Rules)
• Fate (OGL – SRD)
• Old School Essentials (OGL – SRD)

Community Content Program – Overview:

• DMs Guild [5E – Can use some official D&D IP] (Details)
• AGE Creator’s Alliance [Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE] (Details)
• Free League Workshop [Coriolis, Forbidden Lands, Mutant Year Zero, Symbaroum, Tales from the Loop, Twilight: 2000,Vaesen] (Details)
• Cypher System Creator (Details)
• Genesys Foundry (Details)
• Disciples of the Demon Lord [Shadow of the Demon Lord] (Details)
• Travellers’ Aid Society [Traveller] (Details)
• Grim & Perilous Library [Zweihander] (Details)
• Miskatonic Repository [Call of Cthulhu] (Details)
• Hero Kids Creator’s Guild [Hero Kids] (Details)

Third Party Licenses

• Shadowdark (License)
• Dragonbane (License)
• Year Zero Engine (License – SRD)
• Outcast Silver Raiders (License)

Choosing the system you wish to design for, even if it’s one of your own creation, is an important first step on the road to creating your own products. Next time, we’ll take a look at some tools we can use to start planning and drafting our products.

Until then, good gaming!

– Mike