Given recent developments in the TTRPG space, specifically surrounding the OGL, it seems that a statement needs to be made.

For as long as Trapped Chest has been in business, work has been done on a genre neutral TTRPG, which began due to frustration with some existing games, for what I perceived as unreasonable complexity. The work has continued slowly, but steadily, leading to book that as of this posting is sitting at 319 pages (pre-artwork) and using the classic placeholder name “Working Title”.

To say Covid was a kick in the teeth is an understatement. Everyone’s lives fell apart and the community that I had spent many years trying to build crumbled. In losing the community, I also lost my primary means of play testing. Trapped Chest was originally founded to build all manner of tabletop games, including board games, miniatures war games and RPGs. My situation has caused RPGs to take the lead, with the viability of other types of games being unknown.

While it is a bad thing that has happened with the OGL, the silver lining is that many people will be more open to playing other systems, and this means that I need to get moving and my TRRPG absolutely must launch next year. This means that I need to finish writing, get more play testing done, find an artist, deal with the legal side of things and figure out how I want to print it. Here is what I know for sure.

–The game will have some form of open gaming document. I will look at what Paizo has purposed, but if it’s too restrictive I will make my own document. It needs to be very open.

–It will have a print version available, though I am not sure if it will be offset or PoD.

–The digital versions will have a free option. Players and communities come first. Profits come second.

–I will attempt to bring it to VTTs, though I am not a programmer, so this may take some time.

I thank everyone who took the time to read this. Being an indie developer can be fun, but is also very stressful. It does get a little easier to cope with when you know that there is a community interested in your work.