So I have several ideas for new tabletop roleplaying games I’d like to write, but every time I try to put words to paper (in a digital sense), I just lose focus. The words won’t come, or my thoughts on the system to use, no matter how simple or solid, get muddled and unworkable.
In short, I suck at this.
First I was trying to write a gothic horror game to release next October. That has come to a grinding halt. Then I tried to work on a simple space exploration game, using the “Lasers & Feelings” core rules. That has not gone anywhere, even though it should have been extremely simple to write. Then there was the fantasy/horror game I’ve wanted to upgrade from the original text I wrote for it back in the 1990’s. I got to caught up in the details, lost focus, and went back to staring at the blank screen.
Now I do know how to deal with Writer’s Block. I read that Stephen King makes himself sit at his desk and write for eight hours every day. I assume that’s only five days a week, because otherwise… that’s asking a lot. But still, I can see where he’s coming from.
He just writes whatever comes to mind. It could be work on his current novel, or ideas that will be used for a future book, or just stuff that gets set aside and never used at all. But regardless, he writes, even if he has no clear focus on one specific project.
I have tried to do this, and frankly, I suck at it. I can see the purpose of it, and how it can get the creative juices flowing, and more importantly keep those creative juices flowing. But for me, I sit at the keyboard, and nothing comes out.
No story. No rules. Nothing at all. And the long I sit there, staring at a blank screen, the more my anxiety rises, because by Gawd I should be writing!
Back in the 90’s, I used to hand-write my games into notebooks, and later (when we got our first real PC), I transcribed them into it. I could just sit on the couch for hours, jotting down game ideas, rules, everything I needed for these games.
It was easy. Now… not so much.
I have even taken “Simple World”, which is not so much of a TTRPG, but a framework/walkthrough on how to write your own ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ TTRPG, and tried to create a game using that. This is a pretty simple (no pun intended) project, or at least it should have been, and yet I fall flat with even that huge of a crutch!
There is a part of me that just wants to walk away from TTRPG development entirely, but at the same time, I want to create. I have all of these ideas bouncing around in my skull, and I want to get them onto paper. To be something I can throw together as a PDF and give away to other TTRPG fans. Something I can get printed into book form, if only for myself to put on my shelf.
But then there is streaming on Twitch, content creation for YouTube, writing blogs on this website. All of that takes time, and scratches that content creation itch in one way or another. But none of it is the same as writing a TTRPG. Playing a game while other people watch, writing a blog for others to read, that’s all well and good, but it isn’t the same as making a game yourself.
Something that may be on one else will ever play, but I will, if only as a solo adventure. Nothing major, certainly nothing that makes a profit at all, but it would be mine. Something I wrote. Something I created. Something from my imagination, placed onto the page for others to enjoy.
I really need to break through this writer’s block. I just can’t seem to do it.
