This blog outlines our plan to create a Knights of the Braille Community Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG) and how you can get involved by sharing ideas, voting or volunteering to be a writer. This may be a little longer than blogs we typically share. We appreciate you taking the time to read it.

Creating a Knights of the Braille Community TTRPG will be a group effort, in which your ideas will be used in the design. The project will need someone coordinating this community’s ideas to ensure consistency and put it all together. That’s where I come in. My name is Jim, I started Knights of the Braille 5 years ago, and I intend to lead the creation of our Knights of the Braille Community TTRPG.

In order to begin design, I want to use this first blog to set our intentions for the final product. This will help us to share the same approach regarding discussions and decisions. This blog will speak to you as someone who understands the basic mechanics of how TTRPGs work. If you are new to TTRPGs, this blog may be a little confusing, but don’t worry–we are counting on you to help us playtest the community’s game.

Project Intent

“Why are you creating this game?” is a great question, as the TTRPG market is saturated. Our main motivation is ensured accessibility. We can promote various games which are accessible, but we cannot guarantee their continued accessibility. As some of you well know, Drive Thru RPG negates the accessibility of many PDF’s, which has been quite frustrating. Creating something ourselves, which we can promise is accessible in all formats and provide for free, is something we would feel better about advertising.

Welcoming new players and Game Masters is another motivation. Many folks join Knights of the Braille looking to join a game of Dungeons & Dragons. I have run many beginner games of D&D, so I can assure you that it is not always the easiest game to jump into. We would like to provide something which is accessible, free and easy for new players and aspiring Game Masters to jump right into, by lowering the barrier of entry.

Knights of the Braille are exploring the idea of producing more TTRPGs and content for us to enjoy as a community. Creating this simple and free TTRPG is us testing those waters, to learn how to approach creating content and deciding if it is achievable.

Product Design

Taking on our first TTRPG design project we want to keep the scope manageable. This means that not only should the system mechanics provide simplicity, but the scope of the final product should be kept manageable.

Designing the product will be a community effort, where we encourage you all to present ideas for the game’s setting or mechanics. Currently, we have no set ideas for setting or mechanics, as we want to provide a blank slate for everyone to propose ideas. We ask that all community members make clear cases as to why they are nominating a setting idea or system mechanic. We will all have preferences based on what we enjoy, but how do our suggestions benefit the accessible, free and simple game we intend to create?

Discussion of setting and mechanics will commence in the Knights of the Braille Discord server. If we find that multiple ideas are nominated by community members, we will call for a vote on which to use. Voting will be conducted using a Google Form, which will be shared in our Discord server.

Setting

We want you to make suggestions as to what the setting may be. This game doesn’t need to be related to Knights of the Braille, or even visual impairment, it can be anything. We are choosing not to first vote on themes or genres for the setting and instead we are presenting an entirely blank canvas, to see what folks come up with.

The setting will of course influence the roles players take on, the motivations that drive them and the challenges they’ll face. Our game’s setting will be incredibly important in influencing which mechanics will work best and how we write the content for our TTRPG.

We would like to avoid using existing settings. Though the use of an existing setting would mean less writing and editing, the use of an Open Game License (OGL) or Creative Commons (CC) to access an existing setting, means we are directly associated with future changes to that game’s setting, which may be out of our control. We can acknowledge influences from existing settings, but we would discourage direct usage.

Mechanics

We invite you to share TTRPG mechanics you believe would fit our plan for a simple game. Please share your favorite mechanics, where they come from and why you believe they would be a great fit. We are also open to creating and building a new system with simple mechanics. It is likely that our finished product will borrow from several other games or follow the rules of an existing system directly. We would like to acknowledge influences and credit any use of a System Reference Document (SRD) in our final product. System Reference Documents are typically available under an Open Game License or Creative Commons.

Creative Commons provide free content, which can often be used or built upon. If we use mechanics from a game under Creative Commons, we would like to credit the original source. A list of Creative Commons TTRPGs may be found here.

An Open Game License primarily protects ‘product identity’ and some system specific mechanics. While we will be avoiding mimicking existing settings (the product identity), we would like to include an Open Game License if we take heavily from a system which provides an Systtem Reference Document under an Open Game License.

Project Plan

I have bulleted the steps for working on this project below. I have included the setting and mechanics together, as they are a chicken-and-the-egg situation, in that either can be discussed upfront. This project plan is subject to change, as this is our first project and this list is an estimation. Please let us know if you feel any steps are missing.

• Discussion – Mechanics/Setting Ideas: Share and propose settings or system mechanics.
• Vote – Mechanics/Setting Selection: If the community are undecided on proposed settings or mechanics, we will call for a vote to make a final decision.
• Discussion – Chosen Mechanics/Setting: Community discussion on further developing the mechanics and setting we have chosen.
• Vote – Mechanics/Setting Development: Votes may be called for during further discussions to make decisions on additional ideas for our chosen setting and system mechanics.
• Development – Product Outline: A detailed structure of our TTRPGs book will be created, to assist in organizing and directing writers.
• Development – First Draft: The final mechanics and setting will be put together into a first draft of the game.
• Vote – First Draft: The first draft will be made available to the community for review. At which point votes will be made for any further changes.
• Development – Second Draft: The changes from the first draft of the game will be made.
• Development – Playtesting: The second draft will be provided to the community, with a link for a feedback form.
• Vote – Playtest Feedback: If any feedback from the playestesting is contested, we will issue additional votes.
• Development – Third Draft: With feedback from playtesting and potentially more voting, the third draft will be created.
• Publish: The final product will be published.

Discussion

Community discussion will occur in our Discord server. A channel titled #game-design will contain all discussion. During discussions please be respectful of other people’s ideas and be ready to have your own ideas challenged. Everyone is engaging in discussion for the development of this TTRPG and is there to support one another.

Please be prepared to elaborate on your reasoning for suggesting ideas. While many of us make suggestions based on personal preferences, we ask that you then expand beyond that and help us to understand why your idea benefits this game game.

Contributors will be privately messaged via Discord to ask how they would like to be credited in the final product. Contributors may opt to use their real name, a nickname, a username or to be left off our thanks in the final product.

Voting

During the design process we will vote on any major decisions which cannot be collectively agreed upon. When a vote is called for we will use Google Forms to collect responses, so that participants may vote or leave feedback anonymously. Voting is optional, but the outcome is final.

Volunteers

If you would like to volunteer to assist with development, we welcome anyone able to commit to writing. Once the project has a setting and system, we will be creating an outline for the final product. Volunteers who have emailed us will be presented the outline and asked if any components suit their interests.

If you are interested in volunteering, please email us. In your email, please indicate if you are interested in technical writing or creative writing and include a writing sample. Email us at knightsofthebraille@gmail.com

Next Steps

Discussion of setting and mechanics begins in the #game-design channel on the Knights of the Braille Discord server now. Don’t hesitate to share your ideas, ask questions and have fun.