To avoid my bad habit of burying the lead, I’ll start out by declaring that I am designing a tabletop roleplaying game!
I actually have been since February 2025, and now six months in and a few informal playtests later, I have something that I can tell my friends and the public about without shrivelling up inside from imposter syndrome.
Ket Set Go! (KSG) is a tabletop roleplaying and racing game where players race on giant cats (known as Kets) across a fictional Ancient Egypt inspired world known as Lux. It was born from the question “Are there any good roleplaying games surrounding racing?”. While of course there are (I’ll explore a list of racing and sports themed games in another post), none of which fully embodied the game and world that I desired to one day run and play in.
Here are some considerations and challenges I faced thus far while designing KSG:
Why Fight when You can Run?
Perhaps owing to its roots in wargaming and the trappings of the fantasy genre, many popular TTRPGs spend considerable effort on developing combat subsystems. With that design intention, these games tend towards combat as the climax point of most gaming sessions. With KSG, I intend to replace the focus on combat with a subsystem that simulates racing, to capture the excitement and drama of fantastical sports media such as A Knight’s Tale, Speed Racer and Real Steel. It might be an additional bonus that the racing mechanics of KSG might eventually be light and modular enough to hack into other existing RPGs that people already prefer to play.
 (Photo Credit: Warner Brothers, and taken from brightwalldarkroom.com) |
| Speed Racer (2008) is probably not a good movie by any regard and I hesitate rewatching it today as an adult. I was completely enamoured as a 15 year-old that I shelled out money to watch it a second time. Did the Wachowskis know the sheer power that Christina Ricci wielded with her classic bob haircut?! |
Roleplaying and not just Playing
To capture the spirit of these sports movies, I didn't want the focus of KSG to just be on satisfying racing mechanics. There are many great boardgames out there that do a fantastic job. I want Ket to be a game that facilitates meaningful roleplaying and storytelling opportunities, to better fulfil the RP portion of the TTRPG.
To push that aspect, I’m currently designing mechanics which have players build their character based on archetypes (Much like playbooks in many Powered by the Apocalypse RPGs), and incentivise them mechanically to participate in situations and stories that flesh out and develop their characters’ journey. That portion of my design is still very much a work in progress, and for now I’m keeping it pretty loose as I test it.
Fostering Healthy Competition
One obstacle I encountered while designing a TTRPG about competitive racing, is that the narrative environment and framing fosters competition, while most TTRPGs rely on a collaborative and cooperative mindset to thrive. I’m also still juggling that in relation to the mechanical design, but for now I tend to remind my playtesters that the intent of the game is to tell a good story, and that winning the race might not always be the only main objective or most satisfying part of playing KSG.
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| I've read that the Paranoia (1984), originally published by West End Games is a great example of an RPG thats both collaborative and adversarial in nature. Also has great retro futuristic dystopian vibes that I'm all for. Will have to check it our sometime (Photo Credit: Meeple Mountain) |
Starting with Small Steps
Earlier in the year, I was inspired by a friend who shared her experience boothing and selling her D&D inspired illustrations and merch at a local convention. I decided to challenge myself and asked if I could share a booth with her for this years Tablecon Quest, a local tabletop convention happening in late August. My goal was to produce a quick rules zine of KSG, that I could sell at the convention.
I soon learnt that game designing while holding a full time job is a lot more arduous and slower than anticipated. I was less than two months away from the con with only a few paltry pages of written material, and I was about apologise to my booth partner and throw in the towel.
Thankfully my resourceful and ever resolute fiancée advised me to pivot rather than cancel, and suggested for me to run short demonstrations of what I had developed so far. While I wouldn’t be selling anything, I could still gain a lot of experience and have a great time sharing with interested people the fruit of what has been mostly an isolated and cerebral mental exercise. I gratefully kissed my partner thankful for that paradigm shift, and got to work on covering the essentials.
My current ruleset for KSG is not finished for a satisfying full session, and so I’ve decided to run a mini version of the game instead, by paring down the rules to its most essential parts, allowing me to be able to run a 15 mins taster! I was also drawn to the idea of keeping things compact, and was inspired by many indie creators on itch.io who design small games that could fit in a wallet. and so I designed two different character sheets that fit on a little folded business card, that visitors could keep after trying out the demo! It was abit of a rush to layout and do some illustrations for the character cards but it turned out well and I’m so proud to be able to pull them out anytime to show them to people who are interested in hearing and trying out the game!
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| Presenting Mini Ket Set Go! Featuring two premade character sheets condensed into little foldable cards. Thank you Sushiro for partially inspiring me with your loyalty card (and your pretty decent sushi). |
Im hoping attendees would be interested enough to follow along with my design journey as I continue to build a full and robust ruleset. But for now I’d be so grateful for the privilege of anyone taking 15 mins of their day to consider the most barest bones of the game I've been thinking up.
Stoked to bring Mini Ket Set Go to players at Tablecon Quest 2025, and regardless of the outcome, I could say I set my inadequacies aside and just got to creating and gaming!
TableCon Quest 2025 is happening 23-24 August 2025 at Suntec Convention Centre Hall 403 (Singapore) . You can find me at Creator Zone booth CA-9.
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