After a long drought thanks to the pandemic & work, I've finally gotten the itch to write RPG material again. I think leaving my old job, and how my current job has been less stressful so far, has been a blessing. While I'm still adjusting to working different times (up real early in the AM now, as opposed to being up all night), I'm sleeping somewhat better than I did the past 9 months. My health is much better too, and I'm definitely doing better on both an emotional and mental level.
I've been checking out some games on itch.io, and that led me to a few SRD's for some systems. A few of those peaked my interest, and I've got a couple of ideas I hope to work on in the future. I also hope to get back to some projects I had started prior to the pandemic I never finished.
First off though, I'm taking up the challenge of writing an rpg for Drivethrurpg's PocketQuest. It's like the game design jams itch runs. The idea is to write a game (original or with a system you can use that isn't one of the major ones, like D&D, etc) with a page limit of 20 (not counting front/back covers, if those don't contain rules text).
The theme is Summer Camp, which is a challenge for me. My only exposure to Summer Camp is the movie Meatballs and various horror movies. So making a game to match this theme wasn't easy. I finally settled on an idea to go the route of kids investigating weird happenings at the lake/town where the camp they are attending is located. Once I got the idea, I needed a system. Enter Breathless. Breathless is a short, fairly narrative rpg from Fari RPG's. They have their SRD posted to the web here, or you can pick it up on itch here.
I also joined their Discord, where I've gotten a lot of help bringing my idea to life. The SRD is a little barebones, but that's not a bad thing. It gives people the chance to modify it to their liking, and each version can stand out a bit more with whatever the author adds to the base rules.
I've got my version of the rules done, which includes some "gasps", which are what specific rules add-ons that are available with attribution to use. Now to just write out some adventures, and stat our some creatures, etc, and I will be finished. I've got 2 adventure ideas fairly well fleshed out, and 2 more idea sparks to work on after that. It also helps that I have plenty of stock art to use. All those sales that Fat Goblin Games did were a godsend in terms of how much stock art I've acquired.
Anyway, back to work. I'll make another post linking to Drivethru once it is available.
In the meantime, here's a look at the cover I whipped up:
