Not everyone who sets out to design a game actually wants to design a system. Doing so is a tremendous amount of work with testing and balancing, figuring out advancement etc. Sometimes you have an idea for a game and are excited by the world, by the genre and so forth and are willing to adapt mechanics but not design them from the ground up.
Which is where a System Resource Document is helpful. Generally speaking an SRD covers the underlying mechanics of a system devoid of setting material (and other things that could be considered Intellectual Property. It’s not a complete game, though some are more playable than others but similar to a technical manual for the system.
What am I up to?
A while ago (a long while ago…2022 from the look of things) I had the idea that I could take a game setting that I like (Shadowrun) that has never had a good system and bring it into a system I do like, in this case the 2d20 system from Modiphius. Unfortunately my thumb drive with a bunch of work died, which I took to be a sign. Also a reminder to always back up your work
Earlier this year though the bug hit again but this time I wanted to fill a void. I’m a big fan of the Conan 2d20 game and was hopeful for a 2nd edition to take advantage of the newer iterations of the system. Unfortunately Modiphius no longer has the license so that won’t happen. It does, however, incentivize me to work on a 2d20 fantasy game that clings closer to sword and sorcery than to heroic fantasy.
So that’s what I’m working on a side project. I’ve been working on it now for about 6 months and a first draft is nearing completion. In these posts I’m going to go over how I approached it, what decisions I made to respect genre tone, changes I made to core 2d20 mechanics etc.
And at some point have a fully functional low fantasy 2d20 game.
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