At the end of 2024, Storygames Chicago went on a writer’s retreat. A cabin in the woods. Snow on the ground. A roaring fire in the fireplace. Our core goal: foster creative ideas we had been stewing on while also taking a small break from life.

Five games currently in development by different members of Storygames Chicago were birthed from that weekend. A mix of collaborative writing, extremely early playtesting and a creative environment where ideas were championed and allowed room to grow led to a sort of creative awakening.

Ryan initially playtested a hack of City of Winter, a fantastical family saga TTRPG. It was set on a space station, with mechanics around factions and generational consequences. After talking with Chase on a walk in the woods, we both decided to make a TTRPG that centered relationships. The process of iteration - writing, playtesting, and discussing projects - can snowball into something completely different.

One of the key takeaways that this playtest and all the others that weekend showed was how critically important getting a game to the table was. At least two games went into a playtest the same day they were written down. This gave ample room for experiencing the core ideas, finding what worked, and exploring alternatives for what didn’t.

Creating anything, in any medium leads to wonderfully intimate connections with your creations. One of the most important things that any designer will tell you is to find strategies for learning when something isn’t working. Often this is easiest when you have designers you are working with or people you trust who you can get opinions from. These people will often do a better job identifying your “darlings” than you ever will.

“Darlings” can be mechanics, ideas, or writing that you LOVE as a designer, but your game and your playtesters just don’t. These are things that contribute negatively to the overall experience of your game and removing them can greatly increase the fun had by players and the perceived polish.

As you go, it's important to remember to never get too attached to mechanics or ideas unless they are core pillars of your project. Defining these pillars as early as possible is an important step to identifying ideas that don’t support them. For example in Vesta Mandate our pillars include Relationships, Hidden Information, and Political Realism. Knowing when a mechanic stops supporting your pillars, and sometimes even weakens them, is important for knowing when to cut something.

Remember, “killing your darlings” doesn’t mean these ideas go into the void. Put those ideas into a different project. Write these ideas down in a notebook or “slush” document (as referred to by Lady Tabletop on the Dice Exploder Discord) and be sure to follow up on them. Cut ideas have become whole games for us in the past so be sure to ideate on your good ideas and see where else they may fit.

When our game had a successful playtest, it was like an immediate hit of dopamine. But we definitely had some bad sessions during playtesting, often when we had to kill our darlings or completely rework something. Even if those difficult sessions were really helpful for knowing what to cut and rework, it didn’t make it any less difficult emotionally! These bad sessions can make it easy to feel insecure. Like something is wrong with your game - or worse - your ideas as a whole.

We learned to talk about how we were feeling and give ourselves some grace. We also learned to expect feeling some amount of insecurity and vulnerability. These emotions are totally normal. It’s easy to feel insecure when something you worked really hard on doesn’t go the way you expected. Coupled with creative burnout and managing a Kickstarter, making a TTRPG can be stressful! Be sure to do other things: read a book, play a video game, do the things you know help you.

Taking a step away from your own project and playtesting someone else’s game is another great way to let yourself recharge. Not only is doing something allocentric good for you, but it’s helpful to see how playtesting can feel for someone else. Watching someone else feel the same emotions you went through can be helpful. It normalizes that this vulnerability is an expected part of the creative experience.

Stop reading this. Put it down for 5 minutes. You’ll come back after, it's fine. Go open that dusty Google Doc you’ve been messing with for weeks or maybe that “slush” txt file or graveyard where cool ideas go to die. Message three of your friends and playtest it right now. It doesn’t matter how “bad” it is. How new the idea might be. How much of a ripoff of the newest major system it currently feels like.

Playtest it.

Iterate on it.

Then playtest it again.

Remember, everything can change and you’re going to feel a lot! Have fun and go make great things!

Written By: Ryan Zenith & Chase Kurkowski

We're currently finishing up proofread and layout on the Quickstart and we'll be releasing it by the end of the month. Keep your eyes peeled for an update from us when it goes live!

We also have a couple other projects in the works - keep your eyes open for other updates and launches in the coming months!

Check out the pre-order page for Vesta Mandate on Itch if you missed the Kickstarter! We'll have the free quickstart out in the coming days! Keep your eyes peeled for the DriveThruRPG page in the coming months!

Follow us on our socials, check out our website for links to member socials and other games, and join our discord! We run games online and locally in the greater Chicago area.