I’ve spent a lot of time fantasizing about making my own TTRPG systems, collecting a lot of books, reading blogs, and watching YouTube videos. I joined my first TTRPG game jam because I wanted to make something instead of just theory-crafting.

Here's what I made.

I wanted to make a good one-page TTRPG, but what makes one good? I thought, something like this:

- Role-play Appeal

- Good Layout

- Appropriate Gameplay

My favorite games have these things, so I tested myself to see how well I could make a coherent game with these goals in mind.

So, how would I grade myself?

Appeal/Fantasy

The appeal is very niche. I was inspired by the Voight-Kampff test in Blade Runner. In the movie it’s an esoteric and obtuse test that is supposed to be able to determine how “human” you are. It blurs the line between something that can differentiate a Homo Sapien from a robot, but also between person vs non-person as a category of ethical weight. Those muddy waters felt like the perfect space for role-playing. I wanted players to grapple with questions like: are your subjects really human? Do they deserve to be treated as people anyway? Do all humans deserve to be treated as people? I think grappling with those questions is more interesting than asking them, at least in the context of playing a TTRPG.

Being in the role of moral arbiter is an appealing fantasy to me, both as a power fantasy and for its implied challenges. I tried to capture that in the gameplay and presentation and, to be honest, I feel like I didn’t quite accomplish that. I think the game needed more explicit mechanics to allow the subjects to do things beyond responding to questions, and be more proactive; it would have made them feel more human. I also feel like it would have benefited from a table or two to generate a name for characters. I think that’s an issue with the format: a single-sided, one page TTRPG. If the jam allowed me to utilize the back side I probably would have. I chose the wrong fantasy to emulate given the practical constraints.

Layout

This was frustrating, it was my second time ever trying Affinity Publisher, and I was only barely following Skeleton Code Machine’s one-page TTRPG layout guidelines to help me gauge if I was making something passable. I basically ended up making black text on white paper but with weird spacing issues. It’s fine, but I think it needed some artwork to make it feel less clinical. A sketch of some kind would have added so much. I ignored my instinct to add one; I justified that by comparing my layout to the mystery sheets for Public Access (which are essentially just text.) But in that case, the text-only sheets are supported by the rulebook which is bleeding with beautiful artwork; not the same thing. It’s probably important for one-page TTRPG to have something. I tried to compensate for this by making the landing page on itch.io to have visuals that convey the intended vibe. I used an experimental photo fromDasha Yukhymyuk which did all the heavy lifting.

On the plus side, the page is printer friendly and I like the fonts.

Gameplay

One crucial error was keeping playtesting to myself. I know the mechanics worked for me, but I’m not sure if the mechanics work for you. In retrospect, I can’t make a thorough mechanical analysis, because I don’t know how the systems play in someone else’s hands. But I’ll give it my best shot.

Well, the game itself is very simple. It’s essentially a micro oracle, built specifically for the narrow context of an interrogation with an NPC. Most of the game is content rather than mechanism. I think it worked well because the content helped me get immersed as a character.

As far as the gameplay loops are concerned, the smallest loop is essentially:

Ask question ⇾ get answer (through the dice rolls) ⇾ interpret answers ⇾ ask another question

Which itself is nested in the larger loop of:

get new suspect (rolling the case file) ⇾ interrogate suspect ⇾ decide on suspect’s fate ⇾ get new suspect

And that is nested in the arc of:

All ten interrogations ⇾ autopsy report

The overall loop feels pretty tight given the small number of individual elements. It relies heavily on the player to get inside the head of their character and their subject. I felt okay doing this because as a solo game, I doubt any audience this game would attract would be deficient in imagination.