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Session Zero University - Creating Your Own One-Page TTRPG with Skyler Gorsett · Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling

0:00
Skylar: Foreign.
0:15
Skylar: Welcome students, to Session Zero University. My
0:20
name is Professor Rainier, one of the many
0:22
teachers here at the university. But for right
0:24
now, I am your orientation representative. Here at
0:28
scu, you will find a variety of professors well
0:31
versed in the realms of tabletop role playing
0:34
games, offering you their insight on every facet
0:38
of TTRPGs. Perhaps you'd like to take a home
0:42
brewing class with our potions professor or join
0:45
in on a role playing class put on by our theater
0:48
department. Be sure to take all your required
0:51
general education classes like Character Creation
0:54
101, Intro to World Building, and NPC Voices for
0:58
Beginners to help round out your education. There
1:02
are also plenty of electives and intramural
1:04
opportunities to add some fun and diversity into
1:07
your everyday schedule. So get out there and
1:10
learn. Whether you're hoping to graduate with a
1:12
degree in DMing or playing, it matters not. There
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is always room to grow at Session Zero University.
1:24
Skylar: Welcome students, to another episode of Session
1:26
Zero University. Today I am your professor, Skyler
1:30
Gorsett, the creator and creative director over at
1:34
Session Zero Heroes. And today I'm going to be
1:38
sharing with you guys A rundown on one page
1:41
TTRPGs. Why they exist, why you should try them
1:46
out, and how to make one. So first of all, what is
1:50
a one page ttrpg? So the premise behind it, and
1:53
I'm going to be referring to them as one pagers.
1:55
moving forward, just so I don't have to say the
1:58
whole thing every single time. but essentially
2:00
what you're looking at here is a, an entire TTRPG
2:05
system. Basically everything a person needs to
2:08
play or run that TTRPG all within one page. Now
2:13
what I say one page. And I'll get more into this
2:15
later. The size of the page can vary pretty
2:18
drastically, as well as the fact that you can use
2:21
either just one side of the page or both sides of
2:24
the page. both are typically pretty well,
2:26
accepted. Unless you're doing some kind of like a
2:29
contest or something that specifies otherwise.
2:31
Usually everybody's fine with the idea of using
2:33
both sides of the page because it's all one page,
2:36
right? And in my opinion, why waste the, the, the
2:39
back page, Fill it in, put, put stuff on there if
2:42
someone's printing it. Anyways, whatever the case,
2:44
as far as my experience goes, just to kind of give
2:46
you guys a little bit of background, we've
2:48
obviously in session zero heroes done a lot of
2:50
larger sized RPGs. but we have also, both in the
2:54
show and out of the show dabbled in a couple of
2:57
one pagers as well. and I myself have actually
3:00
worked on creating some one pagers. So the, the
3:04
first one pager that I created was actually this
3:06
year. it was more a challenge to myself, but it
3:09
was part of a, one page TTRPG jam on Itch IO and I
3:14
wanted to see if I could even create one. Right.
3:18
It's one thing to create sort of a big overarching
3:21
campaign using another RPG system, or even just
3:24
like a full sized RPG PDF or whatever the case.
3:29
You know, creating that is one thing. Obviously
3:32
you can kind of like just brain dump, and then
3:34
fill in the little details and then bada bing,
3:37
bada boom, you're good to go. One page TTRPGs are
3:41
a whole different monster where you have a very
3:43
limited amount of space and to, to relay the
3:47
information for your game onto. And so I wanted to
3:52
see if I could do that because I notoriously have
3:54
the problem of overwriting. Right. Right. I create
3:57
too much. I brain dump too much. And then by the
4:00
time that I'm done, assuming I ever get to that
4:03
point, I've created, you know, a dozen or so pages
4:06
and nobody really wants to dive into it because
4:08
it's just a little bit too much and too
4:10
complicated. So I wanted to challenge myself to
4:13
see if I could actually pull off creating one of
4:16
these. One page all encompassed TTRPGs. And I'm
4:21
really excited because I was able to do that and
4:23
it was a lot of fun and it pushed me to do it
4:25
again. And, and now I'm working on like a whole
4:28
series of one page TTRPGs. but currently, let's go
4:32
to what I've actually created and published. So
4:34
first off, there was Spice Mages, which was for a
4:37
TTRPG jam that had specific words that you had to
4:42
sort of base your theme off of. And I believe one
4:45
of the words was spice and one of the words was
4:48
magic. So I took the two together and I created
4:50
what was called Spice Mages, which is a bit more
4:52
of a narrative, one page ttrpg. You can play it
4:56
with players. In theory, you could solo play it.
4:58
although there's not really a mechanic to like do
5:01
that. You'd really just be making up a story. It
5:03
works better as a collaborative storytelling
5:05
situation. And the basic premise of it was that
5:09
you are a spice. Right. Whatever form that takes,
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you know, you've got like cinnamon, which is a
5:14
bark that kind of curls usually. so you know, you
5:17
have bark type or a Bark tribe, rather of, of
5:22
spices versus, you know, you could literally just
5:25
be a jar of sort of a powdered like chili powder
5:28
or something like that. Right? And the thing that
5:30
made this really unique was, in the character
5:33
creation section of this one page ttrpg, there's
5:37
this giant table. It took up most of the page,
5:40
which, was a little bit scary. All the rest of the
5:42
mechanics pretty much had to go on one page. And
5:44
then the second, the back page was literally just
5:47
character creation and almost entirely just this
5:49
T. And so the table had obviously your column and
5:54
your rows. So the columns, were each different
5:58
flavor types or smell types or whatever the case
6:02
for these spices. And that kind of represented
6:06
your training within magic or kind of your
6:09
personality that flowed through into your magic.
6:12
Whereas on the rose side you, you have all these
6:16
different tribes that you come from and that sort
6:19
of creates your type of spice, your physical,
6:23
form, you could say. So as I mentioned before,
6:25
you've got like bark type, which is like cinnamon.
6:29
You've got leaves, right? Leaves that are turned
6:31
into spices. You've got bulbs, you know, like
6:35
garlic or onion even, and all of these, these
6:38
different tribes of spices that exist in this
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world that I sort of allude to, which is referred
6:44
to as the fridge, right? To kind of keep this
6:45
cooking them, as part of it, whatever the case.
6:49
that was the first one that I created. It was a
6:51
lot of fun. It wasn't a contest that we submitted
6:54
this to. It was just more for fun to show that we
6:56
could do it and to give something to the
6:57
community. So again, all of these that I'm
7:00
mentioning here are all available to download over
7:03
at our Itch IO page. just kind of a soft shout out
7:06
promo, there. If you want to go check them out,
7:08
you're more than welcome to, and you can kind of
7:11
see how this stuff kind of came into play as well.
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So, the second one that I did again for another
7:15
RPG jam, this one was totally open thematically. I
7:19
think they gave a prompt that you could choose to
7:21
do but weren't required to. And so this one was
7:24
kind of left open. And I, and I have to preface
7:27
this, I had the idea to create a simple, simple
7:35
rule system that anyone could obviously pick up
7:38
pretty quickly and play, which is a lot of the
7:40
purpose of one page ttrpgs and I'll get more into
7:42
that in a moment. but I wanted to make something
7:44
that surrounded the theme of you are playing a,
7:48
skeletons who used to be just your generic
7:53
Skeletal army, members of, like, some evil
7:56
overlord. Well, the Overlord has been defeated.
8:00
And although his magic was what brought you back
8:04
from the dead as a, as a skeleton in his army or
8:07
her army or their army, you're now freed from
8:10
that. You're still alive. The magic that they
8:13
infused within you is still pulsating and keeping
8:17
you moving. But you're no longer tethered to that
8:20
evil overlord's will. And so now you're kind of
8:23
free to do whatever you want. And I, I wanted to
8:25
preface that I actually wrote this entire one page
8:29
ttrpg, all the rules. I published it, yada, yada,
8:31
yada, totally before I realized that somebody
8:34
before me had actually created, what is known as
8:36
adventure Skeletons, I believe is what it's
8:38
called. And it's actually a pretty popular one
8:40
pager, that's out there already now. My mechanics,
8:44
totally different than theirs, or at least fairly
8:46
different than theirs. They, both center around
8:48
rolling dice, but mine involves, each number on
8:51
the dice representing a different part of the
8:54
skeletal body. So 1 is head, 2 is body, 3 is arms
8:59
and hands, 4 is legs and feet. 5 is sort of their
9:05
magic, right? It's that thing that stems from the
9:07
necrotic energy that's keeping them moving. So it
9:10
allows them to cast spells and things along those
9:12
lines. And then six is wild. And so whenever you
9:15
would go to do an action in the game, you'll roll
9:18
3D6 and you're aiming for whatever body part is
9:22
related to that. So if you're trying to punch
9:24
something, right, you're rolling for, threes,
9:27
which is your arms and hands. And for every three,
9:30
or of course, six and six is wild, that you get
9:33
that that's considered a success. And it will go
9:36
towards whatever number of successes that you need
9:39
in order to do whatever it is that you were
9:41
setting out to do. And of course, if you're shy of
9:45
that, but, you still succeed, you know, you might
9:47
get a partial success or you might fail entirely
9:50
if you get nothing, so on and so forth. If you get
9:53
more successes than you need, there might be a
9:55
special benefit that the GM will put together.
9:57
Whatever the case meant to be kind of this fun,
10:01
potentially pretty goofy adventure of skeletons,
10:05
you know, going out and doing things, you know,
10:08
doing whatever the adventure kind of entails that
10:10
the GM put together. And so those were the two
10:15
main ones. Those are the two that I've created and
10:17
actually published so far. There's actually
10:19
another one that I'm currently working on right
10:21
now that's a whole series. So I don't want to
10:24
release anything until I have most, if not all of
10:27
this. The series that kind of goes along with this
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one page TTRPG completed. So just be aware of
10:33
that. it's being worked on and once it releases
10:35
you'll be like, oh, this must be what he was
10:37
talking about. So, just four, I've probably gotten
10:40
four I think of this series, completed, which I'm
10:44
really excited about. It's going to be a lot of
10:45
fun. we've actually had a chance at Session Zero
10:48
Heroes to play test it once so far and it was a
10:51
really great time. So excited to be able to throw
10:53
that your way once it's done. But just a little
10:55
bit of background on my involvement with one page
10:58
TTRPGs. So with that being said, I want to dive
11:01
into why, why even make, why have one page TTRPGs?
11:07
Why not go find a larger system that's able to
11:10
encompass a rule set that's a little bit more
11:13
dynamic and detailed and broken down in such a way
11:18
that can really handle large style campaigns?
11:20
Well, it's for that reason that we have one page
11:24
TTRPGs in part, we don't always have the time to
11:29
go learn an entire new RPG or to teach players a
11:34
larger RPG. Right. Obviously, you know, DND 5th
11:39
Edition has become incredibly popular. if you find
11:42
people that are, have delved into TTRPGs pretty
11:44
much at all, they've probably played it. Most
11:47
people are familiar with it. There's, you know,
11:49
Pathfinder is a pretty big one. You got things
11:51
like Vampire, the Masquerade, which is pretty big.
11:53
But there's still like a ton of other large RPGs
11:57
out there that are less known. And therefore when
12:00
you sit down at a table and you decide, you know,
12:03
we're kind of tired of the high fantasy D and D or
12:06
whatever the case, we want something new, but we
12:10
want something that's not super heavy. We want to
12:13
be able to just, you know, jump into it really
12:15
quick and just have a good time. And that's one of
12:18
the beautiful things about One Page ttrpgs is that
12:21
they can really work with that. Right? So it's
12:24
easy to learn, it's easy to just pick up and play
12:27
it. Honestly, all the one page TTRPGs that we've
12:30
run at Session Zero Heroes, it truly was. Hey
12:33
guys, so and so can't make it tonight. We can't
12:36
record the main campaign. What's something else
12:38
that we could play that we can throw together
12:40
really quick or have an adventure for really
12:42
quick. And it's a one page TTRPG every single time
12:45
because it's just so easy to just jump into it and
12:49
have an adventure. So if you're looking for that
12:53
or if you just need something for a one shot,
12:56
maybe you want to intentionally take a break. It's
12:58
not so much because somebody's missing and you
13:01
want something that can last for, you know, one to
13:04
five sessions. Maybe one page TTRPGs are great for
13:08
that, right? I, again, I can create a short story.
13:12
The mechanics aren't something that are going to
13:14
last me a super long time necessarily, but we can
13:17
have fun in the moment and we can create some fun,
13:20
exciting adventure in the meantime for this one
13:23
shot. So if you're looking for something to create
13:25
a one shot with one page TTRPGs are great. They're
13:30
just great. And the beauty of it too, from a GM
13:32
perspective is I don't have to put a huge amount
13:34
of work into it to play according to the mechanics
13:38
of whatever RPG that I'm doing, because the
13:41
mechanics are usually incredibly simple in one
13:43
page TTRPGs. And that's another thing that really,
13:46
it they have going for them. So let's talk about
13:50
now that we know why we should have one page
13:52
ttrpgs. And let me tell you, there are a ton out
13:56
there. You go to itch IO and you search for one
13:59
page ttrpgs, you'll find someone like drive,
14:02
drivethrurpg has some on there. You can probably
14:05
find 101 discord servers that kind of are centered
14:09
around one pagers, subreddits. Of course, you'll
14:13
find a ton of them there. There's no shortage of
14:16
them. There's no shortage of concepts that are out
14:19
there. With that being said, there's also plenty
14:22
of opportunity to create your own concepts.
14:24
Because with a one page RPG you have to get
14:27
somewhat narrow or broad with kind of a narrow
14:31
element to it, if that makes any sense. I'll try
14:34
to explain it. So for example, you might get super
14:37
narrow. For example, there is a one page TTRPG
14:42
that is titled Cracker Barrel Has Fallen. And it's
14:44
one that I've been really looking at because I
14:46
really want to run it with our, for our podcast.
14:50
And the premise of it is that you are people that
14:54
are at Waffle House and in the United States. For
14:59
those of you that are listening from outside of
15:01
the United States, or maybe you're in the US and
15:03
you're not familiar with this, the United States
15:05
actually uses a sort of emergency determinant,
15:10
system to decide how bad an emergency is based on
15:15
the status of a. The Waffle Houses in that area.
15:19
Waffle House being a sort of diner restaurant. If
15:23
they are open and fully functioning, then the
15:27
disaster must not be that bad. But if they're
15:30
limited on staff and the things that they can
15:32
cook, obviously you're getting a little bit more
15:35
into an intense, more intense disaster. And if the
15:37
Waffle Houses are closed, we're in DEFCON red or
15:41
black or whatever's worse. things are bad. It's a
15:45
wild concept to think about for sure. And so the
15:47
premise of this, this ttrpg, Cracker Barrel is
15:51
fallen, which is, again, two sides to the paper.
15:54
The premise behind it is you guys are people that
15:58
are at Waffle House. Some of you are probably
16:00
employees. There might be a couple of people that
16:02
are customers. The players are all just people at
16:05
this Waffle House. And there's a zombie apocalypse
16:09
happening. How bad is the zombie apocalypse? Well,
16:12
that's really determined through the game as you
16:15
play that. That same index that I had talked about
16:18
before is moving from a green zone, which means
16:21
things are pretty fine. Honestly, it's not that
16:23
big of a deal. All the way through yellow, which
16:25
means things are getting pretty bad. The Waffle
16:28
House is starting to be unable to cook some
16:30
things. Maybe their menu is shortening or their
16:32
equipment is going out and then down to red where
16:35
it's like, this is bad. Waffle House is on the
16:37
brink of Clos or is closed, in which case the game
16:40
is over. And so that's a very narrow scope.
16:42
Skylar: Right?
16:43
Skylar: You have specific things, very specific elements.
16:47
You have the zombie apocalypse, which kind of
16:49
focuses, the theme. And then you have the
16:51
specifics of your. All like people at this Waffle
16:54
House, specifically. Right. there's another rpg
16:57
and this one's actually not as narrow, it's a bit
17:00
more wide. And it's under the premise that you
17:02
guys are a bunch. Sorry, I say you guys. I'm so
17:05
used to talking to my players. the players are all
17:08
a bunch of just generic townsfolk in a fantasy
17:13
village. They're just farmers, they're local
17:16
business people, whatever the case. And a monster
17:20
attacks, some sort of horror or villain or
17:23
something along those lines, attacks their
17:25
village. And they're the. There are no heroes.
17:27
They're the only ones that, that can go out and
17:30
fight this thing. So that one's got a bit more of
17:32
a broad, wide premise to it. with a Narrow element
17:36
of you're all these town folk that have very
17:41
limited resources for fighting monsters, right?
17:44
You might go grab your torch and pitchfork. But
17:48
time and time again, you know, watching some of
17:49
the movies and shows that we watch, it's usually
17:52
not as effective as, you know, the hero that comes
17:55
in with a sword and a shield and he's got some
17:57
sort of magical blessing given to him by some
17:59
deity to fight this specific monster, what, what,
18:02
whatever it may be. So it's again taking that
18:07
theme that you want to have and either narrowing
18:10
it down or making it super broad. and a good
18:13
example, a couple good examples for a very broad
18:15
theme. there's a very famous one page TTRPG titled
18:20
Honey Heist. And you've probably, if you're a fan
18:23
of like critical role, you've probably seen them
18:25
play it. There's plenty of other actual plays that
18:27
have done Honey Heist as well. And the premise of
18:31
Honey Heist is that you're all playing bears,
18:33
different kinds of bears. there's tables to roll
18:37
on it and then you get sort of benefits and things
18:39
along those lines based on which bear that you
18:41
have and your personality. And you are bears
18:44
trying to pull off a heist. So it's a heist game,
18:47
right? You're going to be robbing somebody of
18:49
something or breaking into a facility and trying
18:53
to get some asset or resource where whatever the
18:56
case, it's very broad because that's kind of where
18:59
the theme of it all stops. They're not giving you
19:02
an end game. They're not even telling you what the
19:04
heist will be. That's for the GM and for the
19:07
players to kind of decide. And so that's a very
19:10
broad concept. You're really just creating a
19:13
mechanic for the game. You're creating a mechanic
19:15
for the character creation and then you're kind of
19:17
saying go wild. And for the most part a lot of
19:20
these one TRPGs will, will do that. It's really
19:23
about how much you want to focus that in on,
19:25
right? So with the Cracker Barrel is fallen,
19:28
right? It's kind of just keep the restaurant open.
19:31
I believe it's for like six hours is what they
19:33
specify in the rules is kind of the goal. And
19:36
that's like a pre established goal that you go
19:39
into it knowing now obviously the GM can
19:41
definitely adjust it or change it, whatever the
19:44
case. but that's kind of the recommendation from
19:46
the game creators. With Honey Heist there really
19:48
is no end goal outside of whatever you as the GM
19:52
or your Players or whatever the case decide. So
19:55
another good example of that, I, actually just ran
19:58
a game with a one page titled Goose. And the
20:02
premise is, is that the players are all a gaggle
20:05
of geese, each specializing in something
20:08
different. So very similar to Honey, Heist, where
20:11
everybody's a different bear that specializes in
20:13
different things. There's obviously a dice roll
20:16
system to determine if you succeed or fail at
20:18
things. And all they say is like, your goal is to
20:22
cause havoc and mayhem amongst the humans. You
20:25
know, you're aggressive geese. And it kind of has
20:28
sort of a military vibe to it where, like you have
20:30
guns and stuff. It's pretty wild. but what I'll
20:33
say is that there really is no end goal outside of
20:36
whatever. Again, the GM and the players decide. So
20:39
you take your theme and your theme can have that
20:42
end goal. You can kind of pre establish that if
20:44
it's a very specific rpg or you can leave it wide
20:48
and kind of keep things open as far as what the
20:51
story will be. Now, obviously some people like, to
20:54
just pick up an RPG and have that goal as a GM and
20:58
just have that goal already written out so that I
21:00
can just kind of jump right into the game with my
21:02
players and it makes it a lot easier. Some people
21:04
like to do a little bit m more customization and
21:07
theme planning themselves as the gm, and so they
21:10
want to pick up something that doesn't have an
21:11
ending to it. solo RPGs are going to be really
21:14
interesting with that because obviously the GM per
21:17
se is also the player to an extent. or the page
21:22
itself has to offer enough to it to create a
21:25
system where you don't need a GM whatsoever. You
21:28
just get to be the player. And so that's also kind
21:31
of a big thing that we can get into as well is
21:33
what kind of RPG are you trying to design?
21:36
Obviously, if it's a group collaborative rpg, we
21:38
see those the most. Right. no different than D and
21:41
D or Pathfinder or whatever else. You have
21:44
somebody running the game, but everybody's kind of
21:46
contributing to the story. Sometimes you might
21:48
have systems where there is no GM and the players
21:52
as a whole kind of all contribute to the story,
21:54
which is. That's a very fun way to do it as well.
21:58
You have solo RPGs, oftentimes kind of a
22:02
journaling type game. a friend of mine sent me a
22:07
one page TTRPG that sort of made a dungeon as you
22:11
go, and then within that dungeon you would fight
22:14
things. And so you'd be rolling to see what the
22:16
next chunk of the dungeon is, but you'd still have
22:18
your character who would be battling whatever it
22:22
is that you ended up rolling. And it was kind of
22:23
like a fun. It almost felt like a video game
22:26
because you're trying to see how far you can go
22:29
before you inevitably die. And I also, I want to
22:32
say it was kind of roguelike, that you could play
22:34
again. Maybe, maybe I'm making that up. I don't
22:36
know that for sure. But again, it's kind of this
22:39
idea that there is no GM M, but there's a mechanic
22:42
setup so that it, the game itself is generating
22:46
things for the person to do. And that's kind of
22:48
really cool and exciting. kind of going along with
22:50
that. You've got a lot of map making RPGs out
22:53
there which are really neat. You have the dungeon
22:55
one that I just mentioned. obviously there's
22:57
Cartograph which has sort of a simplified version
23:01
of it that you can, I think can fit on one page so
23:04
you don't have to have the whole booklet. Or maybe
23:06
I just put that together for something. if you go
23:08
back and listen to our Session Zero University
23:10
episode about map making, with Chip, he, he and I
23:14
actually sat down and played sort of a simplified
23:18
version of Cartograph. And so there's a lot of
23:21
other ones out there, these map making ones that
23:24
have mechanics built in to help you sort of build
23:27
a map and tell a story as you do, which is really
23:30
cool. So all of this, let's take all of this that
23:33
we've talked about so far. We're talking about
23:35
theme, right? So you're going to create a theme
23:38
and usually this is a place that everybody starts
23:41
at. Right. I want to make a one page TTRPG that
23:44
fits a story that I kind of have in my head, but
23:47
keeps things open so that obviously anyone can
23:49
tell their own version of this story. And so
23:53
that's kind of a really great starting point.
23:56
What's your theme? For me it was magical, spice
24:00
characters running around a world where everything
24:03
is sort of like food related. one of my favorite
24:05
anime to watch is Toriko. So I'm very inspired by
24:08
that. Where everything is just food and
24:10
everybody's trying to turn things into interesting
24:13
foods and stuff like that. But there's also kind
24:15
of a combative adventure mechanic to it as well.
24:20
so that you can explore the world and fight
24:22
things. there's maybe like a big overarching enemy
24:25
that's trying to take over. Which in mind was Sort
24:27
of this concept of lacking flavor. this sort of
24:32
force of nature that just absorbs flavor, takes it
24:36
away, leaving things bland and gross. And it's
24:39
trying to take over this world. Right. And so that
24:41
was the theme with Bones in human clothing. The
24:45
theme is you are a group of skeletons that have
24:47
been separated from the control of your overlord,
24:50
and now you have free will. So again, there's an
24:52
adventuring element to it. you can go out and do
24:54
whatever you want. One of my favorite things to
24:57
add into any rpg, one page or larger, regardless,
25:03
is creating sort of a secret goal for the players
25:08
or for the player characters. What is that
25:11
character trying to achieve that maybe they don't
25:15
want to share with the other players? That might
25:18
maybe stand in the way of the other players. Might
25:21
be something embarrassing they don't want to
25:22
share. Whatever the case, it's a secret goal that
25:24
they don't tell everybody else. It might come up
25:27
eventually, and it probably should. But the key
25:31
thing is that nobody knows what each other's
25:34
secret goals are, and those might step on the toes
25:37
of the other players. And that creates a little
25:39
bit of drama, that creates a little bit of,
25:41
tension between the different player characters.
25:45
And I think that helps to integrate them into the
25:49
story so that it's not just me, the gm, kind of
25:51
railroading anything or whatever the case. Right.
25:53
They can kind of help contribute to the story
25:55
because they have things that they desperately
25:58
want to seek out before you guys get to the end of
26:01
the one shot or the end of the campaign, whatever
26:03
the case. So anyway, all of that kind of goes into
26:08
theme. And again, theme should be usually pretty
26:11
easy, I think, maybe. Very rarely do people come
26:15
up with the mechanic of the game before they come
26:17
up with a theme. I always find that the mechanic
26:20
part is actually m. The bigger challenge. Theme is
26:23
usually where people start. I have this kind of
26:25
general idea of a world I want to create, and I
26:28
want to build a system that fits it. And that's.
26:31
That's great. That's great. So that's a good place
26:33
to start. Now, as far as, like, my style of
26:38
writing, everybody's style writing is going to be
26:40
different as far as advice goes for writing out
26:44
the theme and kind of the one page TTRPG in and of
26:47
itself. But I'll go theme to kind of help out is
26:51
don't worry too much about organization, but just
26:56
enough to ensure that you don't just vomit onto
27:02
the page. A lot of people say just vomit onto the
27:05
page right off the bat. To an extent, yes. But I
27:08
don't fully disagree with that for this reason.
27:11
You don't want to get lost in your own. You don't
27:16
want to get lost in your own vomit. This is true.
27:18
You don't want to get lost in everything that
27:20
you've just sort of gushed out onto the page. You
27:24
don't want to lose bits and pieces, because I've
27:26
definitely had that happen before. Try to keep
27:28
things organized. Use multiple pages for now.
27:31
Okay? This isn't where we're stopping at when we
27:34
first dump everything onto the page. We're gonna
27:36
adjust this, we're gonna clean it up, we're gonna
27:38
organize it even better by the end of this. But
27:41
for the time being, when you first get started,
27:43
get everything out onto paper, but try to keep it
27:45
organized into chunks. If you use something like
27:49
Google, Docs is really good for this, where you
27:51
can have different pages and you can one of those
27:54
pages and have obviously different information on
27:57
each one. So you might open up a page. When I do,
28:00
like any RPG, I might have one page that's like
28:02
key NPCs. I'll have a page that's locations. I'll
28:07
have a page that's just general ideas that I
28:09
haven't really labeled or decided where they go
28:12
yet. I'm going to have a section for side quests.
28:14
I'm going to have a section for the main quest and
28:17
the plot line and the story and all this other
28:18
stuff. So feel free to do something along those
28:20
lines. Use different tabs or different pages or
28:25
whatever the case. Wherever you're formatting all
28:28
of this on, unload all of your ideas on there, but
28:31
do it in a way that you can quickly find and re
28:34
reference the information. Because the last thing
28:36
you want to do is get lost in your own information
28:39
and then lose motivation and then be done with the
28:41
project. You also don't want to over organize
28:44
because again, we're going to go back and we're
28:46
going to do all of this in a nice clean fashion by
28:49
the end. But we've got time to get there. So don't
28:54
over organize to the point where again, you lose
28:57
motivation, you lose steam, and some of those
29:00
ideas that are already in your head that need to
29:03
just get spat out onto the page, get lost because
29:05
you're overthinking through some of the details,
29:07
right? It's best to just get everything out as
29:10
quickly and efficiently as you can before getting
29:14
too detail oriented. So all of that kind of
29:18
encompasses theme and sort of the starting point
29:20
of Creating this one page ttrpg, now we can move
29:24
into mechanics. Now this is what I said before was
29:27
kind of one of the most challenging elements. You
29:29
might think to yourself, well, easy, I'll just,
29:31
you know, do something somebody else has done. And
29:33
there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to
29:35
use somebody else's idea of you roll three D six
29:39
and a, five or a six is a success. And then you
29:43
count the number of successes against however many
29:45
the GM said that you need. That's a pretty
29:47
standard system for a one page ttrpg. It's easy,
29:50
it's effective, it gets the job done. And there's
29:53
nothing wrong with that. But one thing that I
29:55
would encourage you to do is really think through
29:59
your theme and create mechanics that work nicely
30:03
with that. There are so many, and I cannot
30:09
emphasize this, so many incredibly creative ideas
30:12
that people have come up with for their one page
30:14
TTRPGs. And sure, other RPGs do some unique things
30:17
as well, but one page TTRPGs, the, the sort of
30:21
ease of write and access and posting of them have
30:24
created just an absolute wealth of just really
30:27
incredible creative ideas out there for how you
30:30
can create mechanics within your game, how you can
30:33
determine success or failure as the players are
30:36
trying to progress or whatever it is that you're
30:38
trying to do. Right? Character creation, again,
30:41
jumping back to spice mages, because that was
30:43
probably a more unique one than bones in human
30:45
clothing had a whole table. And I, I'd forgotten
30:50
to mention this, but once you choose, you know,
30:51
your flavor profile and once you choose what tribe
30:54
that you would come from, the two points on this
30:58
massive table would meet and it would actually
31:01
show you, I think, three to four words that become
31:05
your magic spells or become a portion of your
31:08
magic spells. They're usually descriptive words
31:11
or, you know, something that kind of alludes to a
31:14
concept. You have the freedom to slap another word
31:18
or two onto it to like actually create the full
31:20
spell. But you might get a word like spicy and
31:25
then you could add something to it. So you could
31:27
say spicy meatball and a, giant hot meatball comes
31:31
shooting out of your wand, right? And so the
31:33
mechanic to that was the character creation
31:36
actually directly goes into your magical casting.
31:40
And the words that you'll use for that are all
31:42
words that would fit for a spice that would be
31:45
typed as, you know, a hot bark type spice mage.
31:53
Right. Spicy comes out of that. And that's one of
31:56
the words that you get to use. Mechanics can vary
32:18
pretty massively. You know, everything from
32:21
something that's very narrative focused. Like
32:23
spice mages was, right? It wasn't any kind of,
32:25
like, super technical stuff. I cast a spell using
32:28
these words. It works, right? There's not really a
32:32
lot to it. It's just how the GM then responds from
32:36
there. And then you go back and forth as players
32:38
casting spells, and the GM presenting more
32:41
problems or challenging whatever it is that you
32:44
just cast in some way, shape or form to create
32:46
kind of a fun narrative, collaborative
32:48
storytelling. On the other hand, you got a very
32:52
classic approach, like we mentioned before, with
32:54
the dice. Now you might think, okay, well, you did
32:56
that for bones in human clothing. but I would. I
32:59
would argue otherwise, right? So each number on
33:02
the dice represented a part of your body. So it's
33:06
not so straightforward that 5 and 6 is a success.
33:09
Everything else is a failure. I wanted to give it
33:12
a little bit more life than that, right? So when I
33:15
roll to use my eyes to. To look around and try to
33:19
perceive if there's an enemy hidden within the
33:21
darkness, I'm not just rolling for fives and
33:23
sixes. I'm rolling for ones which represent your
33:27
head, and I'm rolling for sixes. And then I
33:30
furthered that mechanic to tie in with the
33:32
skeletal element by saying, when you fail in a
33:36
situation that would cause you harm or cause you
33:39
damage or maybe you're fighting something and you
33:42
would take damage. Whatever the case, when you
33:44
take this proverbial damage, you take pieces of
33:47
masking tape and you cover up portions of your
33:51
dice. And because those portions of your dice
33:55
represent your body parts, it alludes to the idea
33:58
that you, as a skeleton, your parts are getting
34:01
damaged, right? So if I go into combat and I take
34:07
a swing at some guy and I fail, and he comes back
34:10
at me and he. He whacks me really good with his
34:13
warhammer, and I take two damage, I have to take
34:16
two pieces of masking tape, and I have to look at
34:18
my D6s and decide where I want to put that piece
34:22
of masking tape. Meaning if I put one over my
34:25
number one on one dice, that means his hammer
34:29
probably cracked my skull a bit. And if I put the
34:32
other. The other piece of masking tape on my four,
34:37
as it whacked me over the head, it also came down
34:40
and crushed one of my feet. And so now my foot is
34:44
also damaged. I've got broken toe bones. And so I
34:49
thought that that felt really thematic, right? Is
34:52
parts of my bony body are breaking due to the
34:56
damage. And therefore, when I roll those later, if
34:58
the face up value on the dice is covered by
35:02
masking tape. It doesn't count as anything. So
35:05
it's not helping me at all. So if I wanted to, in
35:08
theory, I could cover up say both ones on my dice.
35:13
And what does that mean? I lost my head. I don't
35:17
have a head anymore. He whacked me so hard, my
35:19
head is gone. Who knows where it, went. And so the
35:22
DM might present an opportunity later on for me to
35:25
either get a new head or maybe I, only cracked it
35:29
horribly and so it could be re pieced together. Or
35:32
maybe he whacked it and it sent it flying and I
35:34
have to go find my head now if I want to get those
35:37
ones back on my dice. So kind of opens up that it
35:40
takes that skeletal theme and it opens up some
35:43
story elements as well. I was very proud of how
35:45
that turned out. I was very excited with how that
35:47
turned out. so again, highly recommend going and
35:49
checking it out because I think it's worth a try.
35:51
Now you might have some more variable approaches,
35:54
something that I've seen here and there, but I
35:57
haven't. It's not as common as dice, which I
36:00
probably would argue are the most common mechanic,
36:05
asset to any RPG, but definitely one page TTRPGs.
36:11
So variable mechanics could include things like
36:16
playing cards or I've seen tarot cards, even
36:21
something that makes sense that it fits with a
36:24
game. I've even seen people use other. Oh yeah,
36:27
one of the most famous, examples of this would be
36:29
Jenga Tower in the game Dread, which is like a
36:32
horror game. And the mechanic worked really well
36:35
with that because as you're pulling those bricks
36:38
off of the Jenga Tower, your heart rate is going
36:41
to increase because you're, you're nervous, you're
36:44
maybe even scared that you might knock over the
36:46
whole tower and bad things are going to happen.
36:49
And so you'll have these variable approaches to
36:54
mechanics like that, that kind of create. Again,
36:57
it's people thinking to themselves, I want to make
36:59
something that fits the ma. If you're doing a game
37:02
that's very mystical, that's maybe uses witches or
37:07
wizards or something along those lines, Tarot
37:09
cards could be a really cool way to do that. Now
37:13
how you do it with tarot cards is going to be
37:15
tricky because there's so many with, with playing
37:18
cards, you know, you have four suits and you have
37:21
the numbers and you have the face cards. So
37:23
there's only so much you really have to plot out
37:25
for tarot cards, there's a lot there, so you might
37:28
be tempted to go a little bit more narrative with
37:31
it. Something that leaves it open to the GM
37:34
interpreting what the card means and how the story
37:36
progresses from there. With the tarot cards. So
37:39
those kind of embody variable approaches as I
37:42
would call them. something that's just not super
37:45
traditional but still kind of logically makes
37:47
sense as a, as a mechanic. Now with that being
37:50
said, you also have the unique approach, the
37:52
unique mechanics. This is an infinite possibility.
37:58
Infinite possibility. I have seen one page TTRPGs
38:03
that go off of the premise of taking a piece of
38:07
paper, usually a small piece, and writing a word
38:10
on it. And as you would take an action that might
38:14
succeed or fail, right? That would usually prompt
38:17
you to use whatever the mechanic of the game is to
38:19
determine if you succeed or fail to. You have to
38:22
tear off a portion of that word and when you would
38:26
separate the last like chunk into those last two
38:30
pieces so that you only have like one letter left,
38:33
your character dies. But usually you get like one
38:36
final action to do something really cool or
38:38
heroic, right? And so again, extremely unique,
38:43
very unexpected. Something that's non traditional
38:46
from the furthest concept of gaming. And so
38:51
there's plenty of ways that you could do this. You
38:54
could have something very nature oriented and you
38:57
start out by like bringing flowers to the table
39:00
for each of your players. And whenever they want
39:02
to do something in order to achieve it, they would
39:04
have to pull petals off of the flower, based on,
39:09
you know, however much that the DM requires. So
39:13
the GM says, well if you want to do that, you're
39:15
going to need to pull three petals because that's
39:17
a pretty big action. So you lose three petals, you
39:19
succeed. You could choose to fail and then not
39:22
have to pull any petals. and of course at some
39:25
point you're going to hit a point where you don't
39:27
have any petals left or you only have one petal
39:30
left and then you know your character's done or
39:33
just can't do anything. I don't know, whatever
39:35
that this is just an idea, this is a hypothetical.
39:37
But again it's using a non traditional item to
39:41
create the mechanic of your game. And you want to
39:43
do that to ensure that you fit the theme. Dice is
39:48
not a bad idea. Okay? Dice ensures randomness.
39:51
Dice, has limitations, which is nice. It's easier
39:56
to work within those limitations. But what I would
39:58
caution you to is always think back to your theme,
40:03
create the game based off your theme, create the
40:05
mechanics based off your theme, because that's
40:07
creating a better experience. For everybody. And
40:11
it's going to really throw the players and even
40:14
the GM into that story, even more intensely.
40:17
Right? They're going to be able to picture it,
40:19
visualize it, all that good stuff. So, with
40:22
mechanics, you also have characters. How are the
40:24
characters being created? I've already kind of
40:26
gone over how Spice Mages is created, which, is a
40:29
little bit more of an interesting mechanic versus
40:33
bones in human clothing, which uses a very
40:35
standard tell me about your character. What's
40:38
their personality? What's their secret goal? Yada
40:41
yada yada. It's all narrative focused. And then on
40:43
the other hand, you're going to have something
40:45
that's a little bit more stats oriented, right?
40:48
You're going to have specific stats that are
40:50
defined and you as the player will have maybe a
40:54
pool of number, a number that represents your pool
40:58
that you can distribute into those stats. So you
41:03
want your character to be extra strong, you'll put
41:04
stats into strength. If you want your character to
41:07
be extra dexterous, you'll put them into
41:09
dexterity, so on and so forth. And then those
41:12
stats will be defined by the theme. So again, if
41:15
you're kind of doing a sort of simplified DND high
41:18
fantasy, you might do strength and dexterity and
41:21
charisma or whatever. You might do something else
41:23
entirely that is way out of this world. You might
41:29
do something that's entirely based on the premise
41:31
that everybody is playing an alchemist and so
41:34
they're not all that interested in doing feats of
41:37
strength or they have potions or mechanisms or
41:41
whatever the case, magical things that will give
41:44
them strength. So they're not worried about
41:45
strength and charisma and dexterity and
41:48
constitution. They're more interested in different
41:51
elements of intelligence. So you might have a
41:54
mechanical stat. I'm an alchemist that focuses on
41:57
creating gizmos and gadgets that can help me in
42:00
things. You might have something that's more
42:02
potion oriented, you might have something that's a
42:05
bit more spell casting oriented, as far as the
42:08
stats go. And so of course players are going to
42:11
input numbers based on what kind of alchemist or
42:16
what kind of magic caster that they want to do.
42:18
And it's going to be specific to whatever they
42:20
really push those stats with. Character creation
42:24
can be absolutely massive just as much as any of
42:27
the other mechanics. Right? How you create your
42:29
character, what your character represents. Some1
42:33
page TTRPGs really don't even delve into
42:35
characters. Right. A lot of those map making ones
42:37
is kind of more I'm controlling a world and so
42:41
it's not one singular character that I'm creating.
42:43
I'm just sort of a, third person, maybe a God of
42:47
some kind that's sort of overseeing this world and
42:51
moving things around in order to create stories.
42:54
So there might not even be a character creation
42:56
depending on your theme. So think about that when
42:59
you're going in. Again, it's all based on the
43:01
theme. It always kind of goes back to that, what's
43:03
the theme and how do I best create to make
43:07
somebody really feel like they're within that
43:09
theme? Next up, we're going to talk about creating
43:12
the design and layout of the ttrpg. And this is
43:16
kind of where the more technical aspect comes in.
43:18
So you've written the premise of the one page
43:22
ttrpg, you've come up with the mechanics, you
43:25
pretty much have all the details here. For the
43:28
most part. A person could theoretically pick up
43:31
this set of word documents that you've written at
43:33
this point and they could play the game. But how
43:36
do you make it look nice, how do you make it look
43:38
good and how do you make it look professional?
43:40
Something that will catch people's eyes and make
43:43
them want to play your game. So first of all, are
43:45
you doing this on digital or are you doing a hand
43:48
drawn? when Honey Heist came out, it was all
43:51
handwritten, which is really cool. And it's been
43:54
digitalized of course since so that everybody can
43:56
play it. But it was originally like, you can see
43:58
it's handwritten, hand drawn. and there's nothing
44:01
wrong with that. If you have good handwriting,
44:03
awesome, go for it. You don't need to have any
44:06
fancy skills when it comes to drawing. If you look
44:09
at the artwork for Hunting Heist, it's very
44:11
simple, it's very basic, but it feels, feels
44:13
right, right. It feels good for this. And I'll get
44:16
more into artwork here in a minute. But when we're
44:19
talking about designing this, obviously you want
44:22
to keep a few things in mind. First of all is the
44:24
software that you're going to use when you
44:26
inevitably digitalize it. Now, of course, if you
44:28
hand draw it, you're going to want to scan it in,
44:30
maybe throw it through Photoshop or something like
44:32
that. But that's pretty straightforward. If you're
44:36
happy with the way that it looks from a hand drawn
44:38
perspective, you're good to go. You're good to go.
44:40
And you can cut down to talking about publishing
44:42
or things like that. On the other hand, if you
44:44
want to do this all digitally, like I typically
44:46
do, you're going to want to pick a software to
44:48
work within. It could be anything from one of the
44:50
Adobe softwares, pretty much whatever you're
44:52
comfortable with. if you're like me, I love Adobe
44:55
Illustrator. I do pretty much everything when it
44:57
comes to designing stuff in Adobe Illustrator
44:59
because I love it that much. InDesign is also a
45:03
fantastic software if you want to do sort of page
45:06
layouts. It's like literally what it's designed
45:08
for. Photoshop that can also be an option if
45:12
you're a Photoshop wiz. That's probably a good go
45:14
to. If you don't have the Adobe software is never
45:17
fear. You can use something like Microsoft Word,
45:20
or something similar. Google Docs again is a free
45:22
option that you could take. you could use Canva if
45:25
you want to really like design it, make it look
45:27
super nice. that's the kind of the downside of the
45:29
word processing softwares like Google Docs or Word
45:33
is that you're pretty limited on design per se.
45:37
Yes, you can bring assets in and things like that.
45:39
but it can be a little bit tricky to navigate
45:41
through. What is the size that you're going for
45:46
for this one page ttrpg because page, the word
45:49
page can envelop a lot of different things. This
45:51
I've seen one page TTRPGs that are as small as a
45:55
note card and as big as a tabloid sheet. Tabloid
45:59
being 11 by 17 in case that term doesn't translate
46:03
for whatever reason. So you can really delve
46:06
within anything, any sort. There's people that
46:09
have talked about doing it even smaller than note
46:12
cards. as far as size goes, you might be kind of
46:15
pushing it if it's not something that people can
46:17
easily print. you're starting to get into a gray
46:20
area where maybe you should tone back. Maybe m you
46:23
should look more at some more traditional sizes.
46:26
Right. Because people want to be able to access
46:28
this. You want to be able to share this with the
46:30
world and see other people play it. If you're
46:32
making this for yourself, you can do whatever you
46:34
want. Obviously I m everything that I'm going to
46:37
talk about today is more from the idea of doing it
46:41
for the world, doing it for anybody that plays
46:43
TTRPGs that wants to jump into it. So you're going
46:45
to want to do something that someone can easily
46:47
print out or copy down or whatever the case. And
46:50
that's why most of these sizes work. I typically
46:53
will always do mine on letter sized paper since
46:56
it's the most common. That's an 8 and a half by 11
46:58
sheet of paper front and back. Typically, again,
47:02
you're more than welcome to do just front or
47:04
whatever it is that you want to do. when it comes
47:06
to a lot of the design elements, there's a lot of
47:11
sort of key rules that designers will follow.
47:14
Skylar: Right?
47:15
Skylar: One of the big ones is font size. Now, you can,
47:17
you're limited on space, so that's a big
47:21
challenge. You don't want to make your fonts too
47:24
small. If you're going down to like 8 point font
47:29
or smaller, it's going to be super, super hard to
47:32
read. And people are not going to like that. If I
47:34
have to bust out a magnifying glass to see what it
47:37
is that you said or to sort of get the information
47:40
off the page, this is going to be a challenge and
47:44
people are going to be turned off by that. you're
47:46
probably safest going maybe 10, 11 point font, if
47:50
you can fit it, 12 point font, go for it. But
47:53
obviously you're fitting a lot on the page and
47:55
that's going to take its toll. One of the big
47:57
things that I've seen a lot of designers say is
48:00
remove words or paraphrase things before you start
48:05
shrinking the font. So if you're getting pretty
48:09
close to filling up the page, you might want to go
48:12
back through and maybe cut a few words that are
48:15
unnecessary, maybe summarize things a little bit
48:18
more quickly and simply. And that's actually going
48:22
to help a lot for people to understand it.
48:24
Remember, we're creating an rpg. We're not
48:26
creating an actual story here. We're creating a
48:30
way for people to tell stories so we don't need to
48:33
over explain every single thing, every single
48:36
detail. They'll figure it out or they'll fill in
48:39
the blanks. A lot of times, of course, font
48:42
styles, like the actual style of the font is going
48:46
to be a big element as well. This is going to tie
48:49
into your theme. You want something that feels
48:52
like the theme of your TTRPG so that when people
48:56
read it, they really kind of can, can better
49:00
imagine all of this. With that being said, I do
49:05
want to emphasize, oftentimes use this font style
49:10
more for headers and titles and things along those
49:13
lines. Don't overuse it, especially if it's, a
49:16
difficult to read font style. You don't want to
49:19
fill out entire paragraph sections of your one
49:22
page TTRPG with this style. It'll become difficult
49:26
to read and again, it'll turn people off. If I
49:28
don't know what it says, I'm not going to keep
49:29
trying to read it or whatever the case. Use a font
49:32
that's easy to read for the big chunks of text.
49:37
Speaking of big chunks of text, avoid those. Avoid
49:41
too much. Make sure to break things out in some
49:44
way, shape or form so that people have room to
49:47
sort of pause for a moment to rest their eyes on
49:51
some white space. Separate, paragraphs. You can
49:54
put things into different columns. Whatever it is,
49:58
don't do just a big block of text. Oftentimes you
50:02
don't even want to use sort of like one column.
50:04
You want to kind of split information up to give
50:07
people that center point to know that they can
50:09
kind of rest their eyes. Of course, when it comes
50:14
to page formatting, make sure you don't forget
50:17
that printers most of the time will not print to
50:20
the edge of the page. So you don't want to overdo
50:25
it, with putting your information too close to the
50:28
edges because it'll either get cut off or what the
50:31
printer will do is shrink the whole page down to
50:34
fit within the margins. And then your font is
50:37
super small, so keep that in mind. Usually, you
50:40
know, softwares like Word or things like that will
50:42
do that for you. but other softwares that give you
50:45
more openness with the page, you might have to
50:47
clarify those margins before you get started. And
50:50
that's always a good thing to have there. Before
50:52
you jump too far. there's other things to keep
50:56
note of between, you know, CMYK versus RGB and
51:00
like print versus digital things along those
51:02
lines. I'm not going to get too deep into those.
51:04
Those are something that probably somebody else
51:06
out there can explain a lot better than I can as
51:09
far as how you should design things for those
51:12
different uses and like, you know, what
51:15
resolutions and things along those lines to be
51:17
keeping in mind. but again, somebody else can
51:19
probably explain those a lot better than I can.
51:22
You should usually be pretty fine. For the most
51:24
part. It's one page. It's not the end of the
51:26
world, obviously. Print things out, check that
51:29
they look nice before you go publishing them,
51:33
wherever it is that you're going to put them, just
51:35
so that you know that everything looks the way
51:37
that it's supposed to. One other thing that I will
51:40
add, and this will kind of, this applies a little
51:43
bit more to publishing, is are you going to do a
51:46
color version or a black and white version or
51:49
both? Personally, I recommend doing both. if I'm
51:53
somebody that's printing from a printer that I
51:56
have to pay like per print, I might be a little
51:59
bit less inclined to print it if the only version
52:01
that exists out there is a color version and
52:04
that's going to cost me extra. Or maybe I don't
52:07
have a color printer, I just have a black and
52:09
white printer and it's going to look all, all
52:11
crazy funky when I try to convert it or let the
52:14
system convert it and it's going to come out
52:16
looking weird. And so I highly recommend doing a
52:19
display version which is one that a GM could
52:23
reference or the players could reference on their
52:25
computer or on their phone. And then there's a
52:29
print version, more print friendly version that's
52:31
in black and white. or maybe you've just cut back
52:34
a lot of the color and that allows people to have
52:38
a little bit more access on printing it as well.
52:41
So just something that I personally like to do,
52:44
I'd also like to mention, and this is kind of a
52:46
side thing as well, is that usually, I mean, if
52:50
you're doing this for a contest, they're going to
52:52
have specifications on what can be in the one page
52:56
and shouldn't be in the one page a lot of times.
53:00
And if you're not doing this for a contest, then a
53:02
lot of this doesn't really matter anyways. But a
53:04
lot of times you can. They expect you to put all
53:07
of the actual rule set and everything like that on
53:11
one single page, front and back. As we mentioned
53:13
before, you can do other things for the one page
53:17
TTRPG as like supplemental, as long as they're not
53:21
immediately required in order for a person to play
53:24
the game. Then you can have them as separate
53:28
documents. For example, bones and human clothing.
53:32
I have created character sheets for. It's actually
53:36
three separate sort of 1/3 page character sheet.
53:40
So you print out one of these pages, you cut out
53:43
the three things and hand them to each of the
53:45
players. It has the little diagram to show the
53:47
different portions of the skeleton and what number
53:50
on the dice it relates to so that they could
53:52
quickly reference that. Otherwise it just has some
53:54
space on there for details about their character.
53:57
And those are supplemental, those are extras. They
53:59
aren't necessary to play the game. All of this is
54:01
stuff that a player could easily just jot down on
54:04
a piece of notebook paper or on their phone or
54:07
whatever the case to reference or. But I like to
54:10
create sort of these little supplementals that I
54:12
can upload on the side. So this is just kind of a
54:14
bonus point, I guess you could say. and, and
54:17
that's just kind of a fun thing. That you can add.
54:19
It could be anything, right? For bones in human
54:20
clothing. Another thing that we added, and we
54:22
didn't do this on any kind of paper. Although
54:24
maybe I should. there's actually a topic at the
54:27
bottom of the Itch IO page that's just a huge list
54:30
of all the spells. So if you're going to play a
54:32
magical based skeleton, what are the spells that
54:35
you're even casting? How do they work? And so we
54:37
actually created a whole bunch of spells, for
54:40
people to kind of quickly reference if that's the
54:42
direction they want to go. Is it necessary for the
54:45
player to play a mage? No, you can make stuff up
54:48
as you go and you and your, your GM are going to
54:51
work on those rules yourself. But it's not
54:54
something that's immediately necessary for people
54:57
to just pick up and play the game. So we didn't
54:59
add it to the main document and really we didn't
55:01
have any space to add it to the main document, if
55:03
I'm being honest. next up we're going to talk
55:06
about art, where you can get art doing your art.
55:08
Whatever the case. Okay, going back to the point I
55:11
made earlier about needing space to breathe. Art
55:16
is a really good way to sort of break up different
55:19
sections of your one page TTRPG or just kind of
55:23
adding more to that theme. Right? Giving a little
55:26
bit of inspiration here and there with visuals. I
55:29
highly, highly encourage it. And the beauty of it
55:32
is you might be thinking, I'm not an artist.
55:34
That's okay, you don't have to be an artist and
55:36
you certainly don't need to go and get a bunch of
55:39
AI generated art at all. there's plenty of stock
55:42
art out there, non AI generated that you can
55:47
absolutely use free of charge for commercial or
55:51
non commercial purposes and made by again real
55:56
artists that, that exist out there that have just
55:58
kind of put these pieces of work out for, for free
56:00
use. There are sites like Pixabay or Pexel I think
56:04
is another one. There's, I mean any number of
56:07
sites you can usually find just by searching like
56:10
royalty free art or commercial use free art or
56:13
things along those lines. And you'll find things
56:15
out there of course. Highly encourage you to, if
56:19
you, if you feel any level of confidence within
56:22
art skills, feel free to draw it yourself.
56:24
Nobody's looking for anything overly professional.
56:26
We all recognize one page TTRPGS as its own style
56:31
and that style really lends itself to indie art or
56:34
maybe non professional styles of art. If going
56:38
back to my example earlier Of Honey Heist. We're
56:41
not talking about these incredibly intricate,
56:43
highly detailed drawings of bears. These are like
56:46
someone took a pen and kind of sort of drew out an
56:50
outline of a bear, filled in a couple of little
56:53
minor details and called it good. And they look
56:55
great. They fit the theme of the ttrpg. They fit
56:58
the feel of it. So I highly recommend if, if you
57:01
feel confident. I personally don't. I do all my
57:04
work digitally and I'm not by any means a
57:07
character artist or anything like that. But if you
57:09
do lean into that at all, I highly recommend doing
57:12
it. Go for it, have fun with it, make it yours.
57:15
you don't need to go grab art from, from places on
57:18
the Internet. You, you've got those skills. And
57:21
don't, don't feel awkward, don't feel bad about
57:23
it. have fun with it and have confidence. And then
57:26
the last thing that I want to talk about is
57:28
obviously publishing your one page ttrpg. Now,
57:31
again, some people might be listening to this and
57:33
say, whoa there, Skyler. I, I don't want to
57:36
publish. And that's okay. That's totally okay if
57:38
you just want to make something for you and your
57:40
friends. Nothing wrong with that at all. I had
57:44
mentioned earlier the one page TTRPG Goose that we
57:48
ran recently with our players over at sessions of
57:50
your heroes. It wasn't something we were going to
57:52
record. It, was just kind of a fun thing because
57:54
one of our players couldn't make it that night and
57:57
we wanted to as kind of a humorous thing. And for
58:01
those of you that have seen the show Arthur, the
58:04
animated kids show from pbs, Arthur, there was an
58:09
episode where in the game all the kids, Arthur and
58:12
his friends play a game called Best of the Nest.
58:15
And it's sort of this goofy trivia based, game
58:20
where you play as a different type of goose and
58:23
you get met with a scenario and you have to make
58:26
one of three choices in this sort of survival
58:29
scenario. So, for example, one of the geese gets,
58:33
to the edge of a heavily flowing river and has to
58:36
decide do you want to try to swim through it, do
58:38
you want to try to fly over it, or do you want to
58:41
do the Hokey Pokey? And that's a whole joke in and
58:43
of itself. And the character chooses wrong and a
58:46
shark jumps out and eats his goose. And then
58:48
that's the end of the game for him. And so we
58:51
wanted to do something inspired by that Best of
58:54
the Nest game. And so we actually took Goose, the
58:59
one page TTRPG and we adjusted a handful of the
59:02
elements of it. I think we kept the dice rolls,
59:05
mechanic that they had in play. But otherwise we
59:07
adjusted a lot of the other stuff to fit with Best
59:10
of the Nest. And it's not anything that we were
59:14
ever going to publish. We just wanted to have fun
59:16
that night, so we threw it together. And it was a
59:19
lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And so if that's
59:22
kind of the goal for you, feel free to go for it.
59:25
You know, there's nothing wrong with it. You and
59:27
your friends are gonna have a great time. And
59:28
that's what matters at the end of the day. For
59:31
those that do want to publish their work, for
59:33
those that want to enter contests or join in with
59:36
RPG jams and things along those lines, a couple of
59:39
key things. first of all, obviously self
59:41
publishing, if you're somebody that runs an actual
59:44
play or some kind of like side company or
59:47
something along those lines, that creates things
59:50
of their own for profit or whatever the case, you
59:53
might have your own Patreon where you can publish
59:56
it at. You might publish it through your own
59:59
website or whatever kind of sort of forum profile
1:00:02
it is that you have. Obviously social media, some
1:00:05
of them will support PDF documents and you can
1:00:08
publish it through there. but one of the big, big
1:00:11
names in one page TTRPG publishing is Itch IO,
1:00:14
which is a website that sort of centers around
1:00:16
indie game creations of different kinds and indie
1:00:20
sort of resources. Indie created resources. That's
1:00:24
where we've published our one page TTRPGs. So the
1:00:27
aforementioned spice mages and bugs of human
1:00:30
clothing. So if that's something that you want to
1:00:31
check out, that's where you can do it at is Itch
1:00:33
IO and again I highly recommend it. It's super
1:00:36
easy. You set up a whole page for it. You can
1:00:38
upload the different documents. So you can say
1:00:41
this is the, the display rule sets for your
1:00:44
computer. This is the black and white one. If you
1:00:46
want to print it out, here's a character sheet,
1:00:48
here's whatever other supplementals people can
1:00:51
comment, if they have questions about your system
1:00:54
or can create entire topics where you have a whole
1:00:57
forum based around your one page TTRPG to give
1:01:01
people an opportunity to chat about what they've
1:01:03
done with it, if they've played how it went,
1:01:05
things along those lines, ideas, they can leave
1:01:08
ratings. And of course if it's something that you
1:01:11
are interested in, you can obviously sell your
1:01:13
content as well or even just post it as you know,
1:01:16
if anybody out there wants to donate to me, feel
1:01:18
free. And then, you know, that's an option that
1:01:20
they have. A lot of those same things kind of
1:01:23
translate over to Drive Thru RPG as well. so it's
1:01:26
another place where a lot of people are going for
1:01:28
RPGs. You're more than welcome to go to
1:01:31
DriveThruRPG and post your onepage, there as well.
1:01:35
And then of course there's just forums, right? You
1:01:36
got things like Discord or you got Reddit or
1:01:39
things along those lines, those social media
1:01:41
forums where people love to see and, and share
1:01:45
their one page TTRPG creation. So of course those
1:01:47
are options as well. With all that being said,
1:01:52
that's my big giant Overview on why one page
1:01:56
TTRPGs, how one page TTRPGs, right, how to create
1:02:00
them. some of the steps that I've taken, some of
1:02:03
the methods that I've used, some of the tips that
1:02:04
I can offer and then like where to go with it once
1:02:08
you're done, where to publish it, how to, how to
1:02:11
use it, things along those lines. So hopefully
1:02:12
this was helpful to all of you. Hopefully it gives
1:02:15
you some ideas, gives you some inspiration. And of
1:02:18
course if you've created a one page TTRPG or you
1:02:21
found one that you absolutely love and you want
1:02:23
everybody to know about it, please, please let us
1:02:26
know in the comments. We want to see what you've
1:02:28
come up with, we want to see what you've fallen in
1:02:30
love with and hopefully we can have a chance to
1:02:33
play it ourselves. I love one page ttrpgs. I think
1:02:37
it offers so much opportunity, so much creativity,
1:02:40
whether you're creating or playing one that
1:02:42
somebody else created. And so I always love to see
1:02:45
what people have come up with and I love to see
1:02:47
those crazy mechanics people have come up with as
1:02:49
well. That is just always manages to blow my mind,
1:02:52
the creativity there. So again, if you have one,
1:02:55
that you've made or been inspired by, please let
1:02:57
us know in the comments which one it is. We'd love
1:02:59
to hear about it. And once again, thank you all
1:03:01
for coming and learning at Session Zero
1:03:04
University. We'll see you guys next time.
1:03:10
Skylar: Thank you so much for joining us for today's
1:03:12
class. We hope you gained some new knowledge and
1:03:14
ideas from our incredibly knowledgeable professors
1:03:17
which you can take with you to your table and
1:03:20
implement into your games and sessions. If you
1:03:23
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1:03:25
University, then be sure to check out our lessons
1:03:27
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