Shortsword - the micro RPG that wrote itself

If you've known me personally in the last 6 months, you've heard me mention working on a "micro game" called Shortsword. As of right now, the original Shortsword sits in a file folder glutted with various editions, versions, edits, PNGs, PDFs, and notes. Grown to about 20 pages full of robust combat, exploration, and role-playing mechanics designed for a comprehensive and unique RPG experience for people who don't want to invest hundreds of hours and dollars in study and materials and gameplay preparation.

Nothing "short" about that sword.

So after a handful of playtests, I was faced with the tough reality that Shortsword, as it was then still called, was actually two games: a very small dungeon crawling mechanic, and an entirely self-contained RPG system replete with mechanics and lore in a universe which I've slowly been expanding over the last 15 years.

I had to perform a game-ectomy.

I loved my malformed, conjoined baby, and I wanted to do right by it. As I sat outside one day getting some air, my brain teetering on burnout, I thought about game dice. Not d6s, but game dice. The ones with pips (the little black dots on them) that you play Monopoly or something with. Those pips could probably look like something: a lone monster waiting in a room (the 1), the four pillars of a deserted temple (the 4), or a room lined with treasure chests (the 6).

I ran inside and wrote this game in about 4 hours.

Originally I was going to call it The Dungeon (hence the trusty weapon named Rusty, a tip of the cap to Rusty Rutherford who wrote arguably the first CRPG ever on the PLATO computer system at the University of Illinois in 1974, also called The Dungeon). But combined with a nagging insistence to try and make the E in The and G in Dungeon into a 3 and a 6 (idk why, just an intrusive impulse) and the fact that this game so perfectly encapsulated all I wanted a game called "Shortsword" to be, I went ahead and transferred the name over.

The game-ectomy was a success, in my opinion.

Now, my much larger and more promising baby is resting, nameless, and waiting until I can bring it up right. In the meantime, I've gotta say, I'm really proud of *this* Shortsword. The way the words and thoughts poured out of me, the excitement of honing it to 4 tight pages, and finally feeling, even if only slightly, that things are going pretty goddang well as my game design career chugs along.

Again, if you don't follow me here or on Instagram @level1hero, give it some thought. I'm forging full-steam ahead without stopping after years of trying to hang my hopes on video game development, and I finally feel like I've found my niche with tabletop games. I will be going back to video games, no doubt, but that's a distant bridge to cross with lots of hungry trolls underneath it. In the meantime, let's see what the hell else I can come up with.

Love ya.

- Nick