Tales From the Tavern Interview With Varun From Tabletop Mirror
NOTE: the opinions expressed in interviews are those of the guests, not necessarily those of shadomain.com
Today we talk with Varun Singh, creator of https://tabletopmirror.com/
Let's hear what they have to say!
How did you get started in RPGs?
I found D&D 3.5E through some friends back in high school. Following that, I met another group of people in college who brought me into Pathfinder -- that' when I fell in love with Gamemastering. And down the rabbit hole I went -- ultimately creating my own system!
What's your favorite RPG?
I like Pathfinder and Call of Cthulu. Fairly mainstream, but they really nail some important feelings; that is, the idea of power differentials (a strong difference between low and high level play), as well as the importance of genres being supported by gameplay mechanics. I think some other systems don't do this part as well.
Do you prefer to be a GM or player?
I'm a Gamemaster first. While playing the occasional game is a good time as well, running my own world and seeing my players stumble through the unknown and emerge victorious is a big joy of mine.
Could you describe Tabletop Mirror for those who haven't checked it out yet?
Tabletop Mirror is a new tool meant for homebrewers and worldbuilders. It's about giving you everything you need to build new mechanics, rework existing ones, and run entire worlds from one site -- for free. Really, it's about spreading the horizons of TTRPGs by making it more creatively accessible.
What was the inspiration to create Tabletop Mirror?
I built TTM for my world and games first. I basically wrote my own system. While you can still see the Pathfinder inspirations, it's got entirely new mechanics. That also means over 300 new spells, 100+ feats, and countless items. I built TTM to be a place for all of that content to live and for my players to be able to look that information up as easy as they looked up SRD content.
How big is the team that works on Tabletop Mirror?
The official team is 1 person; that's me. But we have a new UX designer that we're working with and I like to involve our community in our development. Our features are driven by our community first and foremost -- no matter who you are.
What are the next steps in the beta?
We have two big focuses right now: VTT functionalities and Community Feedback. For the first one, we want to have a fully online VTT experience by mid March, ideally sooner. This won't include things like voice and video streams, but we will have Discord integration to run digital games. For the latter, we are constantly adding features from our community. Some of the recent new additions as syncing sharing settings across all your content, collaborative teams, and dice step systems. It's been great finding new use cases from our community and we are going to keep at it! Somewhere on the way, we're also going to run a Kickstarter to make sure that TTM can keep running for 1+ years guaranteed.
What are some big reach goals you hope to see for the project in the future?
I have a long term vision for something I've been calling "Living Rulesets". If you play some of the older systems, you're probably used to finding some weird wording and having to look up the best way to interpret the rules. I think that we can definitely solve this problem. I want to create a platform to encourage this idea of rule systems that are highly collaborative and growing -- talking with the creators of your favorite content, getting rulings written into your work, and creating a living ecosystem of TTRPG content is the long-term vision. Long gone should be the day of archaic texts written by unknown creators; we welcome a world where content grows with its community.
Where can people find the project and join the community?
Anyone can sign up TODAY, FOR FREE at https://tabletopmirror.com, and dive right into creating systems or homebrew. If you want to influence our future direction, we have a few platforms on our homepage and we are very active on them all, so come say hello!
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