Friday 21 May 2010

Do what I did - go away and create

We're all excellent consumers. I tip words into my eyes from blogs, I drip lovely audio spoo into my ears by a plethora of podcasts and scrape delicious tweets off the web. Chances are, your habits aren't too different to mine. We (do excuse my assumption that you, dear reader, are actually part of my consciousness and we are all essentially part of the Unclebear Borg Collective) read a fair number of roleplaying games.

All this consumption is very well and good and might just make you a better roleplayer/gamesmaster/creator but nothing, and I mean nothing, can replace the actual act of creation. Go away and make something. Create, upload, share and improve through feedback. Stop reading this and make something, when you've made something come back and tell us all what it is.

Go on.

Welcome back


While patting out my Guide to Writing a Free RPG (which is turning into a monolithic series coming soon), I have also been working on my other monolith: Icar - doing my best to deal with all of its misgivings. As such, it's approaching a very raw alpha, which I will tentatively proffer to those poor sods who were infected by the filth that is the current version.

I have a smorgasbord of blog posts about to arrive but the best advice I've only recently realised is go and make something, there is no substitute. I took an unscheduled pause, which is now clicked off and my advice to you is Go and create!

8 comments:

Mark Cunningham said...

I look forward to your guide. Currently referencing the current drop of it on my own RPG setting game. I have all the text written, but I seem to be procrastinating about formatting it.

Rob Lang said...

Hi Mark - I am glad the organisation guide is handy still. The new guide will incorporate it and go much, much further.

Lost Heroes looks brilliant! If you find that you're creating in the dark and want some feedback or a forum to chat about it, then please do come into the epicly-friendly 1km1kt: http://www.1km1kt.net

Miguel de Luis said...

I'm curious, is there any difference between a for-profit game and free game?

Other than the illustrations and typesetting, I mean.

Rob Lang said...

@Miguel, for me there are two main differences beyond the two you mentioned:

1. I have no idea how to write a commercial RPG because I've never done it.
2. With a free one, you don't have to worry about people buying it and being disappointed. Thus, you can unleash the full power of your creative splurt. You want to write a game about Ninja Donkeys solving the world economic downturn - no problem! You're not trying to feed yourself from it. :-)

artikid said...

I've always been more devoted to creating things than to talking about them.
You can check my latest game (a gauntlet-like browser game) here:
http://artikid.altervista.org/deadly_dungeons

It's -as usual- for free and does not require any plug-ins.
Enjoy
:)

Aldo Ojeda said...

I hope to see soon the new version of Icar. Meanwhile, I'm also starting to do a free science fiction RPG.

Jacob Gardner said...

Rob Lang:
"You want to write a game about Ninja Donkeys solving the world economic downturn - no problem!"

I'd totally play that!

Misterecho said...

Ahh, Mr Dr The Lang. You've returned! The messiah has returned... oh wait you're not the messiah you're a...

sorry wondering off topic. Good to see you back old chap. I hope to hit a creative "streak" this summer, during my temporary reprieve from academia.

ICAR will be your Magnum Opus. Nevermind those theses on cybernetics, artificial intelligence and soil science. In addition to the mighty ICAR, your guide to RPG creation will be a hit i'm sure!

We need to find another title to add to your name