Hey lemmings,
I'm an amateur game designer probably best known for creating one of the more popular Feywild setting books for D&D. I’m putting the finishing touches on my far-too-ambitious TTRPG and figured I’d post about it here before forcing myself to do an actual marketing push.
The game is designed for somewhat standard medieval fantasy, which I know isn’t exactly a novel concept. However, it does fill a niche which I personally haven’t been able to fill with any other system. Most fantasy systems seem to either be D&D-alikes with a heavy focus on combat and heroics, OSR games with a heavy focus on dungeon crawling, or PbtA games with a heavy focus on genre emulation. What I wanted (and ended up creating) was a game with a focus on improvisation and shared storytelling without being constrained by genre tropes.^*^
My other big issue with a lot of fantasy RPGs is the reliance on mechanics which have no real connection to the fictional world. Things like hit points, experience points, and meta-currencies put the focus on the game part of RPGs and not the roleplaying part. What I wanted was a game where everything a player does has a clear and direct link to the fictional game world.
The result is The World Ahead, a system I’ve been building and playtesting for far too long. It features simple and collaborative character creation rules, a flexible resolution system, and a hell of a lot of resources, tables, tips, and tricks to facilitate play at the table. Everything is in service of making the game run smoothly and making things as collaborative as possible. It tries to be open-ended when zoomed in and streamlined when zoomed out.
The game is currently available for free on Itch:
https://heavenly-spoon.itch.io/theworldahead
People who aren't looking for a new RPG may still find something useful to steal in there. Perhaps the streamlined travel system, the collaborative worldbuilding rules, the tables for making things such as factions, wonders, and strange creatures, the magic items which all have a clear and obvious effect within the fiction, or the unique weather system. While most things are fairly well integrated into the core system, you can definitely rip stuff out without too much damage.
~*~~I~ ~will~ ~give~ ~a~ ~shoutout~ ~to~ ~Ryuutama~ ~and~ ~The~ ~One~ ~Ring.~ ~While~ ~they~ ~didn’t~ ~scratch~ ~the~ ~itch~ ~for~ ~me,~ ~they~ ~both~ ~have~ ~some~ ~excellent~ ~mechanics~ ~and~ ~are~ ~more~ ~in~ ~line~ ~with~ ~what~ ~I~ ~wanted~ ~to~ ~achieve~ ~here.~
Ummm, actually… Based on the internal IDs, the Caterpie line was added all at once way after Venonat and later Venomoth. If there had been a readjustment or error, you’d expect these not to be in sequence (like with Wartortle losing its evolution and getting the first-design-phase Blastoise in its place). They may have decided to scrap Venonat, but then needed a prevo for Venomoth and kept it in despite the similarities to Butterfree, but having an evolutionary link between Metapod and Venomoth seems highly unlikely.