How I overcame my RPG writers block

And a sneak peak at 11 Minutes, an upcoming solo RPG

Hey readers…

For the last few months, I’ve been struggling to make any true progress in my RPG design work. Yeah, it hasn’t been fun. I’d have this burst of energy and creativity but then it would fall flat and progress would stop. (See Designing Through Play below. Progress stalled out soon after I hit ‘Publish’).

Why am I struggling so hard to make progress? Hard to say. Life has been busy but that is normal. The Lone Toad Newsletter demands attention but no more than usual, plus I like writing it.

So instead of, you know, attempting to diagnose the underlying issues (who needs awareness?) I was just kind of listlessly jumping from one soon-to-be-abandoned idea to the next. Maybe the NEXT one would be the big idea that would propel my RPG design into the hall of the greats and they would utter my mine in the same breath as Gygax, Arneson, Harper, and the Bakers.

You may be shocked to hear that I did not come up with an epic RPG design idea, otherwise, I’d be writing about that and preparing my ENNIE acceptance speech (“The word Hero gets thrown around a lot these days…”)

Definition of Insantiy

I hate that whole ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results blah blah’. Overused. Einstein didn’t say it. But in this case, maybe it’s correct. What I was doing wasn’t working. I was getting frustrated and complaining about it a lot.

I didn’t go looking for advice on how to beat Writer’s Block but it just kind of appeared in some social media feed somewhere. I can’t remember where I saw it or who wrote it. I can’t even remember all the advice. But one thing stuck out.

Go to your Work in Progress and your drafts.

Read through them.

Maybe something there is worth picking back up.

That idea kicked around in my head for a few weeks. My WIPs and drafts, of which there are many, were dropped for a reason. They didn’t pan out. I got bored of them. Stuff like that. I always thought, ‘If these were good ideas, I would have finished them. And not relegated them to the limbo of my draft folder.’

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

So with a heavy heavy sigh (so heavy) I opened my Drafts folder and had a look. The first file was titled 11 Minutes. I struggled to remember what that was. I opened it and it was maybe half a page of hastily typed notes.

But dear readers. Holy shit, it was actually a good idea!

11 Minutes (I promise to finish this game)

I’ve even made a mock cover. Which means I’m serious! Because I’ve never made a mock cover and then stopped working on a game (Don’t check that).

Have you seen that one Battlestar Galactica episode? The first one after the mini-series, named 33? Well in that episode the surviving fleet is being pursued by the Cylons and every 33 minutes they appear and the fleet has to jump away. If a ship can’t make the jump it’s left to the mercy of their foes.

It all comes to a head when the leaders of the fleet make the hard call to destroy a ship suspected of being the reason the Cylons can follow the fleet every 33 minutes.

It is an awesome episode, probably the best in my opinion and my summary can’t do it justice.

Can you just tell us about 11 Minutes already?

Yes! I’m getting to that. Here is the blurb:

The Servus came and burnt your planet to cinders. You escaped in one of the last ships, only for it to be found and obliterated. You rushed into a lone escape pod and jumped into the unknown. 

You've locked onto a mysterious signal and must keep it open by transmitting. It provides snippets of coordinates that could lead you to mythical Tellus, the cradle of humanity. But the Servus are also following the signal and appear every 11 minutes without fail.

Now it's a deadly race. Can you keep the transmission open, keep your ship running, and continue navigating to Tellus? Or will you end up as another victim of the Servus?

In summary, 11 Minutes works like this:

• Start your real-life timer for 11 Minutes. If it ever reaches 0:00, The Servus show up and blow your ship up.

• Transmit to keep the signal open - Roll for a random prompt and write or record whatever comes to mind. Prompts are The Past, Who The Servus Are, Who You Are, and What is Tellus.

• Complete Operations by conducting Computations - Using a deck of cards and Black Jack mechanics do things like repair your ship, survey the area, and plot coordinates.

• Jump before your timer reaches 0:00

• Restart your timer.

The game can end in a few ways:

• The timer reaches 0:00. You’ve been found and are dead.

• Your ship falls apart. Jumping is strenuous on your ship. Every time you jump you burn some cards from your deck and if you cannot Compute another Jump, you are dead.

• Find Tellus. By plotting coordinates received by the transmission, you can find Mythical Tellus!

I’ve play-tested it and it is a pretty intense and fun experience. Flipping those cards when your deck is low and you need just ONE MORE computation is exciting.

A very early playtest prototype. I don’t apologise for my horrible hand writing.

So can we play it?

Not yet! Hopefully soon. I have the mechanics down, all the writing prompts are done for the most part. But this game really needs to be balanced.

• If I have you burning too many cards after each jump, you won’t be able to win.

• If I have too many stars to plot coordinates, the game will last too long.

• If some Operations are too hard, you’ll struggle to compute them.

• If, if, if, if.

You get the picture.

It needs to be play-tested internally a few times before I start putting it into a form that you can all play and let me know how it works.

As for the look, I’m going for an Apollo Technical Manual sort of vibe by using images from actual NASA technical manuals and then editing them a tad.

An early design with some images.

Transmit, Compute, Jump

That’s 11 Minutes. I’d love to hear if this sounds interesting. Look for more updates as I continue to work on it.

Do you BlueSky? It’s the flavour of the month for TTRPG chatter. I’m there and I talk about random stuff.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a froggy day.

- Croaker