Concept and Design

Back in 2015, I began creating what would become the Clattr tabletop system to both speed up gaming with my friends who had little time to game and to create an easy way for newcomers to get into to tabletop roleplay.

Clattr originated from a system called BAMF. It was a very simple system. A player’s ‘character sheet’ fit on an index card and was just a collection of five or six attributes that players could prioritize. It suited its purpose well. We played quick stories over the course of hours instead of days, and the super simplistic mechanics were a terrific boon to introduce gaming to our friends, spouses, and children.

I still played one of the more popular roleplaying systems, but as time went on I began to become disillusioned with the system. Three major factors became distinct to me as to why I was becoming frustrated and needed my custom system to be something better.

First, the system I was playing was purposed solely for the fantasy genre. If we wanted to play in a different world we would have to learn, and usually purchase, a new system that accommodated our chosen genre.

Secondly, combat was far too long for my taste. I was becoming spoiled with my quick system and did not want to wait 10, sometimes 20 minutes for my turn to come back around. Fighting inconsequential combat encounters for multiple hours was becoming cumbersome.

Finally, I felt that the mechanics were holding me back from playing characters I truly wanted to play. Some of the classes seemed very interesting at first, but they could not be reasonably built to how I enjoyed playing. Some characters would need such a diverse array of stats that they were not sufficient at any one thing. Others were not very skilled, and while they did fine in combat, I felt useless in social and information gathering situations.

This lead to the expansion of my custom system and the birth of Clattr. Over the years I've slowly built up more features and alterations that lead to what I believe to be a nuanced system, that is easy to use and build upon.