How "Twelve Pages, Infinite Options" Became Twenty-seven Pages
Design Reflections of "The Several Lives of M. Slice" TTRPG Framework
For the past ten months, I’ve had a “side bet” going on with myself. Side bets are a classification of project that I work on as a curiosity, an exploration of a thing that is not the main thing I am working on at any given time, but something I wanted to allow some energy for when the time permits. The idea of a side bet came up in undergrad during April’s 30/30 exercises, where I wanted to write one poem a day but some days I wanted to write *multiple* poems, but I didn’t want to “work ahead” so to speak. If you manage to rummage through the archaic Facebook archives and find my Notes, you’ll find them somewhere I swear.
But the 2024 side bet was titled “Twelve Pages, Infinite Options” because in 2023, I became enamored with one page RPGs and there was a tipping point at the (St. Louis Independent Comics Expo) SLICE last year where I saw Cassi Mothwin talk about the process, and it was fascinating. And as someone who consumes more than the create, also know that it’s important to create to understand consumption. There is an appreciation from getting your hands dirty.
So, I set up the simplest rules (and this is pulled straight from the Twelve Pages, Infinite Option doc I’m cultivating for a full PDF release at the end of the year).
It has to fit on a page. (If it is more than a page, it’s not simple enough)
It has to be genre-agnostic (Tropes are universal in nature, and having to be flexible with flavor is key)
It has to unrestrictive (The goal is to give players as much leeway as possible)
It has to be asymmetrical (This is more of a personal thing that I think would be interesting)
With this in mind, I made several RPGs. Some, I think very well constructed. Some, I know are badly executed. All, worth doing for different reasons.
Now during this exercise, I have been doing work with SLICE and one of those involved an event that I pitched called “Wizardcrafting: A SLICE TTRPG Arts & Crafts Event.” And when we were talking to marketing, one of the designers went:
To which I replied.
So I have technically cheated insofar that I have been working on October’s TTRPG since July and also one page became sixteen, but also all rules are arbitrary and I got to work with an illustrator on a cool thing, so fuck it.
The design doc started with the inspirations. The base idea Alain pitched was simple: how do we make an RPG around a cute little guy. It helps that the marketing already indicated that Mr. Slice was all powerful, capable of literally wearing many hats and wielding all artistic tools. My mind went to paper dolls, and then Paper Mario, and then the Final Fantasy V job system, so it all sort of clicked. Dress up Mr. Slice (M. Slice because in the multiverse of Slice, surely there is a Ms. Slice or a Mrs. Slice or a Mx. Slice), have the gear respresent stats, and then have a silly little time.
Because D&D has such a strong zeitgeist, it made sense to model the stats off of the classic STR/DEX/CON/INT/CHA/WIS and translate into a sort of “profession” based system. But because I wanted to have it be as simple to pick up and play as possible, I took inspiration from the Storyteller System used in World of Darkness. A simple success system. Pool dice based on skills and have at it.
A couple months later, Alain and I met up at Blueprint coffee and blocked things out on some loose graph paper. And then life happened, so we didn’t really get a chance to continue conversations until October, at which point Slicey 2024 Winner Alain came through by doing the layout and illustrations for our little project culminating in a 2 set Player/Game Master duo that we got to sell for $5 at SLICE. The board loved it. People bought some copies. It was a success.
And now, what was a misunderstanding is now an ongoing collaborative project that’s gonna have a follow up in 2025.
This was the first time I collabed with an illustrator and it was a really cool process. As someone who predominantly writes, and someone who writes in such a way that sometimes things get lost from my head to the page, and having someone else look at words is a good way to smooth things out.
We iterated on Canva, which was also a first for me, and it was really fun going from text layout to sketches to full on illustrations. Alain was a lot of fun to work with (and as much as time as I spent working on the words, they very much did the lion’s share of the work), and I’m glad the confluence of factors that led to this collaboration happened.
And it speaks to a deeper truth about creating that you’ll find inspiration in strange places and you go farther with other folks. I don’t know if I’m going to keep trying to make one page RPGs, but I do think I got a few more Several Lives of M. Slice in me, and I already pitched Alain the 2025 edition. And that’s pretty cool.
This does however mean folks have asked to play this silly game, which means I’m going to have to do playtesting for the 2nd edition.
But that’s par the course. As my old writing mentor once told “writing is a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie.”
It’s a good thing I’m hungry.