Hey every, thanks for stopping by. We've recently seen a ton of new projects added to itch.io under the "Physical games" category. I'm really excited to see all these new people using itch.io. Although we've traditionally been used for digital games, I'm excited to continue to add functionality to support other kinds of creators. 

If you haven't already seen, I created a topic asking for help building a new taxonomy for classifying and discovering TT and other real world games on itch.io. You can participate here: https://itch.io/t/384953/physical-games-classification-project

I haven't had a chance to update our taxonomy yet, but it should be coming in the near future!

We also did an editorial piece on our blog highlighting some of our favorites: https://itch.io/blog/68369/analog-games-are-on-itchio-here-are-some-of-our-favor... We want to do more of this so look forward to more posts. Please do talk about interesting projects on itch.io here since it helps us discover things to cover.

Help build this community

As you may have noticed, this community currently only has one subcategory: General discussion. I'd like to expand it but I need your help coming up with more subcategories. So if yo have any ideas tell me.

Additionally, we'd love to bring on some community moderators. itch.io admins will be reviewing things to make sure nothing bad is going on, but having someone who is closer to the TTG community keeping on eye on things would help the community grow. If you have any suggestions get in touch with me on Twitter or Discord.

Thanks

A tip for all the new people who have joined: I highly recommend clicking "Subscribe to new topics" on the categories you're interested in. (Or the highest level one, since it applies to all subcategories as well).

It's very easy for new communities to lose traction because people forget to come back and check for new posts! Subscribing will make you get email notifications of new topics, which will remind you that there's stuff going on and people worth responding to. (Note that you can also subscribe to individual topics to see new posts in them)

hey, this is amazing. thank you <3

It also might be nice to have a tabletop specific "Recommend a Game", and "Help Wanted/ Offered"; along with the category "GMless/GMfull."

Solo games and duet games seem popular on Itch.io and I know people often want to discuss those specifically, but I'm not sure if they should have their own category. Same with microgames.

There's also a lot of design work going into designing safety tools  to use at and around the table and community initiatives. A subcategory to house discussions on these kinds of meta-design topics would also be great.

Play by post?

I've got a few ideas, though this list is far from exhaustive and a few topics are probably obvious.

Introductions (for ... introductions)
Table Talk (discussion from a player / enthusiast / GM perspective)

- Recommendations
- Looking for groups / players
- Questions / Advice
- Rules Discussions

Design Discussion (discussion for people making / hacking / designing games)

- General theory discussion
- Advice and critique
- Shameless Self Promotion
-  Hacking discussion (for hacks of other systems: PBTA, Forged in the Dark, etc.)
- Cons and such (I hear cons are important ... I never get to go to them, but I guess people should have a space to talk and maybe plan meetups)
- Playtesting (looking for playtesters, best practices, playtest notes, etc.)
- Shop talk (for discussion of marketing, sales, boring and awful business crap)
- Opportunities (tips on PAID work for people with game design and game design adjacent skillsets).

Art and Stuff

Again, these are just a few ideas. Honestly, I am not sure if this many topics would be necessary to start off. When the community is still small and new, spreading things out too much may not be the best idea? But I do think general discussion, player discussion, and designer discussion sub-forums may be a good place to start.

Others have touched on it but it feels like a lot of what's nice about tabletop games on itch, v other spaces is the amount of experimental/weird/short games (for want of a better term). A place on here to share, find and talk about those sorts of games would be fantastic. 

I'd like to see a subcategory for the physical production of games, from prototyping and graphic design to where/how to get it printed or do it yourself.

Happy to share my knowledge in these areas or help out in any way possible.

We hella forgot LARP. 

LARPs definitely need their own subcategory. 

I will also put my name up for mod duty.

This is exciting! I can't wait to see what the community does with this space.

The list of categories that have been put forth so far have great suggestions but I feel like there's a more elegant way to lay it out. PBTA and FITD are popular but there are a lot of people designing for Fate, D&D, and other popular systems too. A general "Hacks" category feels inadequate to fit all of those, but individual sections for every game would be a cluttered mess.  I'm not sure what the answer is.

Glad to see the physical games getting expanded on here. They may be obvious but having a subtopic for the top couple of popular systems designers make stuff in - D&D, Fate, etc - is probably a good idea, in addition to the others suggested.

I'd also be happy to put myself forward as a mod.

Thanks Leaf!!

One other thought - it'd be nice to have a physical games section on the itch Discord.

this is gonna be lit

thanks a bunch!

Looking forward to watching this grow and it looks like we have some great mods selected!

I'm excited!

Oh, dang. It's a new space. Time to uplift the hobby together. 

Came here just to suggest a design forum, because mostly all I do these days is design my own games, I don't have time to read anybody elses :0

I would also like to volunteer as a moderator. I produce the K Band Radio podcast. I have just recently put out a ttrpg on itch, but i have been a fan of the site and the community for some time.

Rather start with my personal mental map of "gaming" I thought it might be useful to look out at what RPG communities people joined in Google+,  both because I think the self sorting gives interesting insights, and because G+ has been  very important to the RPG space., and it is going away, leaving a gap.  Here's a list of most of the communities over an  arbitrary 2000 count.  (I stopped bothering  for the last maybe a dozen D&D groups I encountered) 

name,   subscribers 
G+ Tabletop Roleplaying Games 28688
Roleplaying Games 17040
Dungeons and Dragons 15458
RPG 12167
Dungeon World Tavern 11262
Fate Core 11207
Game Master Tip 8730
Pathfinder RPG 8378
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition 7435
D&D 5th edition 6614
Dungeons and Dragons -DND Fans 6399
OSR 5466
Powered by the Apocalypse 4848
Pen and Paper RPG Bloggers 4577
Gaming on the Cheap 4577
Chaosium Inc 4123
DCCCRPG 4058
Library of Gaming Maps 4044
RGP Session Prep 3971
Numernera Fans 3363
Call of Cthulu RPG 3122
Tabletop Podcasts 3100
Star Wars D6 Roleplaying Game 3100
Fate Accelerated 2906
Shadow of the Demon Lord 2761
13th Age 2592
Sine Nomine RPGs 2560
AD&D 2398
Monster of the Week Roadhouse 2216
The Black Hack 2092
Lamentations of the Flame Princess 2086
Pelgrane Press RPGs 2080
The Gauntlet 2058
Glorantha 2049
Lone Wolf Roleplaying 2012

My read on this is that people rally around games systems and publishers, but that there are probably a few topics that could be a productive seeds for  "system neutral"  discussions like "Game Master/Tips and Prep" or Tabletop Podcasts and Actual Plays. 

It seems clear that we need spaces for a Fate, Power by the Apocalypse, and OSR both based  on the popularity of their G+ communities, and because lots of indie creators build these game around these three categories.   For example, I have a Fate based game here, and importantly, Evil Hat, the creators of Fate, are selling their games here.  Have any other major indie publishers done that?

It might be useful to have a D&D forum,  even if Wizards nevers sells here,  so that the 80% market share gorilla plays nicely by itself, and doesn't accidently stifle other conversations accidently.

It probably worth considering what the big three "generic RPG" communities had as categories.  At the the very least, that way of breaking things up didn't harm there success.

If someone had expertise on the LARP or  boardgame side, it might be nice to undertake a similar stab at the data from those communities.

Not data driven, but conjectural based uniques nature of itch, it probably makes sense to have

•  an RPG Kickstarter category, so those people can find that content, and so it doesn't spread everywhere.  (Being in other, relevant places is fine, to I'd want to read about a new Powered by the Apocalypse game in a place with people hung out talking about PbtA)
• I'd personally value a space to highlight and talk about games by/about people not traditionally centered in tabletop RPGs (probably relevant to board games and LARPs too) This would be discussion in addition all the other relevant spaces. 
• dedicated new release sections for tabletop RPG, Board Games, and LARPs.

I'd be willing to help out with moderation, if you need more people to pitch in.  I professionally managed a 2000 member forum as part of my job responsibilities for 5 years.  (Of course, the community consisted of mostly middle aged women who lead small community based healthcare programs, who were fierce and focused, but in a different way than many gamers, so I'm sure there would  be plenty of things to learn by doing,)  Beyond playing and designing  and discussing) TT RPGs, I play a fair bit of boards games (but don't hand out on board game online spaces and have play some LARPs, even they are a huge hobby focus.

Mark

Everyone, thanks for the input and excitement! We're going to lock this thread for now since the forums are up and running. Please continue to give your input in the Feedback and Questions thread.

We are keeping this thread here and visible so we can continue to refer to it moving forward.