A little over three years ago, I was constantly switching between OSR/NSR systems for my home campaigns, and I realised that in spite of really enjoying many individual elements from different games, none of them truly felt like the game I wanted to run or play. And that’s when I pulled the trigger on designing my first full-fledged fantasy heartbreaker.
Back then, I was reading blog posts from the TTRPG space daily, and they were instrumental in giving me the knowledge and the verve to embark on my game design journey. So yeah, here’s a big shoutout to Fail Forward, Mindstorm, Prismatic Wasteland, Rise Up Comus and Dice Goblin, but also to Explorers Design, whose template got me into Affinity Publisher, and to Fari RPGs, whose tutorials for the aforementioned software helped me learn my way around it.
Three years later, however, I have yet to release a game, despite having started work on a whole bunch of ‘em. We're here to find out why, but also to examine the design process of every ONEZERO project that is currently on hold. Spoiler alert: a lot of it comes down to inexperience and insisting on being a solo developer.
THE WYVERN HACK
It’s right there in the name, really. TWH was my first serious attempt at making a bespoke NSR fantasy game, with all the baggage that brings. I had opinions on procedures, combat, class design and even on resolution rules, and those opinions found a home inside that game. It’s a weird little gremlin of a game, with a magic system that’s closer to Mage: The Ascension than B/X, a core resolution mechanic that is 50% resource management, 30% PbtA and 20% d20, procedures that attempt to streamline prep and a character creation process that relies way too much on random tables. I won’t call it cohesive, but it’s certainly quirky.
✦ The Process
To be completely frank, I don’t think there was much of a process to The Wyvern Hack. I knew what I wanted to design, yes, and I knew what my priorities should be, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. So I just wrote what I was most interested in at any given time, such as a few of the game’s classes, some of the core procedures and the complete magic system. I was having a lot of fun with the layout, which was built on top of the Classic Explorers Starter Template, so I started posting WIPs as a way of getting feedback and more eyes on the game. As it turns out, that wasn’t such a great idea after all.
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| I once described TWH's take on the Fighter as "as someone deeply damaged, carrying visible scars and having little else to offer other than violence, as it's all that remains of who they were". I've riffed on that archetype for at least two different games since then, but this isn't half bad for a first attempt. |
✦ The Setbacks
I wish I could blame TWH’s lack of progress on any one thing, but I can’t. This was my first serious project, so I was still finding my way around layout, scoping, game design and my own limits as a burgeoning game designer. I enjoyed the attention I got from every WIP I posted on Twitter (this was back in 2024, mind, and it wasn’t a total hellhole yet, mostly). I didn’t have the discipline to write consistently, nor the knowledge to avoid some common layout pitfalls (have I mentioned that, to this day, I insist on writing directly on layout?).
At some point, The Wyvern Hack’s afpub document got so messy that I was genuinely reluctant to add anything new or edit what was already written, because every time I did so, I somehow managed to break something else.
Eventually, my personal interests just shifted back to urban fantasy, and I started working on another game, taking the lessons learned from TWH’s development process and trying to avoid the same mistakes. Turns out I just traded them for brand new ones, lmao, but we’ll talk about that in due time.
✦ The Result
I’m proud of some of the things I achieved with The Wyvern Hack, even if I haven’t touched it in a long time. Even after all this time, the magic system keeps getting Saves and Likes on Twitter (or at least it did when I still used the platform), for instance, so people still stumble upon it and probably find it interesting enough to read the whole thing or Save it for later. The same goes for the build-your-own-heritages mechanic; I only ever posted a very early version of it on BlueSky, but it also gets a ping or two every once in a while.
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| This was only the first draft for TWH's heritage rules, and I eventually changed some elements to be even more modular, but it really seemed to resonate with the good folk from TTRPG twitter (RIP) |
The combat system is also fun, if a bit unwieldy (the Momentum Initiative rules I initially planned to use led to more micromanagement than I’m comfortable with), and the core procedures remain some of my best work, to this day.
So, the question is, will this Wyvern ever be roused from its lair, stronger, leaner and wiser than before? I’d like to think so. This game will always have a special place in my heart, and I haven’t stopped believing in its potential. It may not be my current priority, but I’m a mercurial creature. Who knows when the old school fantasy bug will bite me again?
SURVIVING MONSTERLAND
Listen, I know the name ain’t great, but I swear it fits the game’s themes of segregation, exploitation and othering of “Paranormal Citizens” (id est, vampires, werewolves, fae, ghosts and so on). It was intended both as a vehicle for my dissatisfaction with how society treats immigrants, queers, neurodivergent people and other minorities, and as a hyperviolent, NSR answer to the World of Darkness.
The central premise introduces a world in which urban fantasy “monsters” have been exposed by mankind, and the authorities have taken measures to contain most of them inside what amount to lawless enclaves where might makes right. The gameplay loop, then, revolves around surviving inside those spaces (the titular Monsterlands) and working dangerous gigs to increase your influence and earn enough money to potentially bribe your way out, while maintaining a low profile to avoid the administration’s cruel reprimands.
✦ The Process
Rather than learning to scale back my games, I somehow took The Wyvern Hack’s setbacks as a sign that I should switch to Börg-like maximalism, using the core rules of Mörk Börg and CY_BÖRG as the “skeleton” for Surviving Monsterland and focusing instead on making it as pretty as I possibly could. I know, I know, rookie mistake, but this was my second-ever serious project.
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| I love this character sheet with all my heart. |
✦ The Setbacks
I got burnt out on layout, and that’s that. My first attempts at making some Börg-like spreads were decent, I guess, but I just didn’t (and still don’t!) have the know-how or the artistic prowess to keep it up. By the time I got done making the fourth Paranormal Type’s “cover” (which was already a scaled-back version of what I originally intended), I was also done with the game itself.
✦ The Result
Well, I can’t say I hate the Paranormal Type “covers”, but I’m not a graphic designer, so I wouldn’t want to put graphic design front and center in a project ever again if I can help it. Recently, I’ve flirted with retooling Surviving Monsterland into a much less ambitious game, both visually and mechanically (I went way too big with the powers and weaknesses, since the core rules were already “done”), so we’ll see how that goes. I like this game’s concept way too much to just let it die.
PROJECT DAYBREAK
By this point, you’d think I would’ve learned my lesson already regarding scope, right? Hell, I thought so too, but oh boy, was I wrong. This one was initially called Vampire Hunting Weekly, and was meant to be a simple Cairn 1e hack for vampire hunters, designed for Halloween 2024. When I missed the deadline due to some serious IRL issues, I dropped all pretenses of making a simple game, and decided to turn this into the best damn vampire hunting game I could possibly make. And honestly? I got pretty close. Project Daybreak contains my cleanest writing and design work, and I really should get back to it.
✦ The Process
Structurally, this one was meticulously planned from the get-go, both in its original form and in the “expanded” version. In fact, most of the writing for it is pretty much done, and the layout is so functional that there isn’t much of a challenge in implementing what’s written. But the game hasn’t found its way into anyone’s hands, so something must’ve happened, right?
✦ The Setbacks
Shit did, indeed, happen. My health got progressively worse, and my life was all out of whack for several reasons that don’t actually matter here. Suffice to say that real life just got in the way, and by the time things cleared up, I no longer had the impetus to keep working on this one. I’ve been meaning to finish it ever since, but every time I open its afpub file, I just zone out, and I wish I knew why. Is my heart just not in it anymore? Am I just out of touch with what I was making way back then? I don’t know. I really don’t.
✦ The Result
I still regularly use the character creation tables I made for Project Daybreak whenever I run a modern-day game. I think they’re pretty cool. The game’s cover is one of my personal favourites, too, and I think the combat rules are so neat, and the special maneuvers will probably be the blueprint for any combat-heavy game I'll ever make. From a technical perspective, I cannot complain about this game at all. I want to finish it. I need to. I just don’t know when I’ll have the energy or motivation to do so.
WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED
I believe this brings us to the end of 2024, and since this is getting way too long, I’m going to split this thing into at least two parts (maybe three, who knows). For Part Two, we’re gonna discuss games like BREACH, Drakönis and The Dauntless & Destined. Stay tuned!
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