5 Years of Tabletop RPG creation (Part 1)
A Bit of (Probably Boring) Context
Five years ago, when the pandemic was already happening for a few months, I released my first Tabletop RPG work with my partner. I didn't have a job, bored, and a friend recommended us to join a Tabletop RPG writer workshop. We took the classes, worked on our module, and ended up with a D&D 5e Cosmic Horror adventure module. My first published work, four years after I first picked up the hobby.
At the time, I just wanted something to do. I did not expect that the process and the result would have a huge impact on me. Fast forward to 2025, that experience opened the door to the Indonesian video game industry. Now, I'm a Game Writer and Narrative Designer, and we've made a few more Tabletop RPG works (two more D&D 5e adventures, and two Pathfinder 2e works).
Now, five years after the release of our first work, my partner and I have released a new one. An old-school style 4-page adventure module, The Knight Errant, that I made as part of the Appendix N Jam on itch. It is our first old school Tabletop RPG creation, made using Mark of the Odd (Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland, Mythic Bastionland, Cairn, etc.) as reference.
Quick disclaimer before I go any further: what follows isn’t an attack on anyone’s playstyle or the culture around Tabletop RPGs. These are just my own thoughts and experiences. I’m saying that up front because, well… this is the internet. IYKYK.
The rest of this post is about why I decided to make an old‑school module in the first place, what I’ve learned so far about making games, and maybe the hobby as a whole. (Spoiler Alert: I still need to learn more!)
How Did I Go "Old School"?
What made me decide to make The Knight Errant is my newfound love for old-school style Tabletop RPG. I have been playing OSR/NSR games for about a year by this point, and the experience has been amazing. It has opened my mind to new things, which makes me a better player, a better game master, and a better designer.
Before 2024, I mainly play trad games (I stopped playing D&D 5e right after like Pathfinder 2e, Call of Cthulhu 7e, Vampire: The Masquerade 5e, and Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) & Forged in the Dark (FitD) games. I have heard about the OSR before, but it did not really attract me. I have played OSR games in the past, yet I didn't know that they were part of the style.
I know creators like Zedeck Siew and Harbowo Putra, fellow Southeast Asians, are OSR designers. But the reason why I was interested in their works were mainly because the shared cultural aspect, instead of the style.
Then last year I tried running and playing OSR games. I started with Shadowdark. At first, it didn't click. The D&D 5e style seeped in from time to time, despite the fact that I haven't run that game since the OGL mess. But practice (and research) makes perfect. I read a bunch of primer documents, articles, blogposts, threads, watch YouTube videos about the OSR.
So I gave it a go again. It was liberating. From there, I checked games like Old-School Essentials, Mothership, Cairn, Mausritter, Electric Bastionland, and Mythic Bastionland being the latest. With the experience, the courage, and the support (through the power of friendship), I decided to make my first old school style adventure module.
So... What Have I Learned as a Tabletop RPG Creator These Past 5 Years?
There will be a lot of comparison between my first module and my latest module. It makes an easy example, even though the former is a trad module and the latest is an old school module. The comparison may not be apple to apple, but what I'm trying to compare is the design, the mindset, and what I have learned.
My First Module
My first adventure module? A Cosmic Horror D&D 5e module for five level 5 player characters, with one creepy manor and a missing writer.
The PCs start in a village outside the manor where they find out from the locals that the manor is now taken over by a religious order (secretly a cult). The order's leader even invited them to pay them a visit to see what the fuss is all about. They can reject the offer and infiltrate the manor or find another way (both options being dangerous).
If they accept the invitation, they will undergo the processing (inspired by a scene from Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master). If they pass, they they get front‑row seats to the initiation ritual: sacrificing the writer chained up in the basement.
If they refuse and infiltrate the manor, it’s all sneaking through hallways, avoiding cultists, or following a rumor to a pond infested by a hulking eldritch monstrosity that hides a sewer which leads to the basement.
The ending is either they die, become mad (I didn't use the 5e Madness rules because it's bad, and hacked another one from a 3rd party module with the permission of the creator, and used my knowledge of Call of Cthulhu to make it better), sacrifice the writer and release an eldritch entity, or release the writer (who still has the eldritch entity inside him).
A trad module through and through. I want the players to have different options and (a sense of) agency, but still leads them to the same place, while evoking different vibes of the cosmic horror theme.
From making this module, I learn that encounter balance is a pain and I try not to care too much about it. Besides, it's a Cosmic Horror module. I wanted the players to feel that the odds are against them. For example, the pond encounter is a CR 10 enemy, way out of five level 5 PCs' league.
I understand that I'm better in hitting the theme rather than designing encounters. Hence why when I create Dihyang for Pathfinder 2e, I let the game designers work out the encounter and the creature stats.
And what about my latest module? I'll save it for Part 2 because my partner said this blogpost is getting too long lol!