This jam is now over. It ran from 2021-04-06 16:00:00 to 2021-05-04 16:00:00. View 33 entries

Artists have art packs. Graphic designers have texture packs. Game designers? We have tech packs.

What’s Tech?
Tech: a mechanic, a rule, a piece of game. A cool dice mechanic. Pieces of a progression system. Rules for holding hands. 

What’s a Tech Pack?
Tech packs are a resource for game designers, made by game designers. The goal of Tech Jam is to establish tech packs as something like an artist's sketchbook, to provide insight into the designer's process, to inspire others, or to make concrete what might just live on Twitter. 

Not every mechanic makes it into a game. Some rules shine in isolation. 

A tech pack must contain one or more pieces of tech and a creative commons license. We suggest you use a CC BY license, which “lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.” We suggest adding a text file of your tech pack as a downloadable file. 

No matter your medium: lyric, old school, story, board, card, digital, playground, drop your tech pack.

A tech pack could contain

  • an example of play
  • designer commentary 
  • sketches of the mechanic
  • photos of your notebook
  • the tech in action 
  • tasting notes
  • shout outs

Pricing
We recommend you sell your tech packs for money, especially if you make the tech available for other designers to use in games. However, if want to provide tech for free, consider a pay-what-you-want option so designers can still tip you for your cool ideas. Pricing is a personal decision and we’re cool with whatever approach you choose to take here!

If you read something you like and decide to make a game that integrates the tech, be sure to come back and tip the creative behind it.

Tagging
We want to make sure tech packs are searchable on itch.io! Please tag your tech pack with #techpack. We also suggest adding tags from the following categories: what does this need (2d6, tarot cards, custom hex map) and what does this do (social combat, metacurrency, nuanced resolution). Additionally, use whatever tags you feel are most appropriate for your tech. 

More tech jams? 
If the response is positive, I’ll run a monthly jam with themes revolving around particular tools (d4s, cards, sand timers), particular themes (being alone in a space station), or metamechanics (passion, careers). Tech jams will have a separate area for designers to post games made using tech packs. 

Made a game using a piece of tech from a Tech Pack?
Rad! If this takes off, we’ll hold jams for games using pieces of tech from tech packs!

Where’d this come from? 
We (Adam Vass and Will Jobst) came up with the Tech Pack jam on the April 6th episode of the Brain Trust podcast. Check it out here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brain-trust/id1473715893?i=1000515985261

Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst.

Thanks to Kristen Dabney and Taylor Skelton Smith for metadata advice and help with tags.

Submissions(33)

All submissions

No submissions match your filter

how much information can we extract from a single roll
A simple and engaging alternate initiative method for tabletop RPGs
A piece of tech to track a character's resource points
Assorted Mechanics and Procedures from Bad Quail Games
A system-agnostic supplement for creating NPCs that represent something larger
A new way to track your emotional or physical well-being. A piece of game tech.
A system-agnostic supplement for creating character relationships and campaign issues.
A Tabletop Sport Creation Framework
Tabletop Game Enhancer - Bring Cheat Codes To Your Table
Legacy-style mechanics for OSR and *DREAM-style RPGs.
A system of doing conflicts that works for anything from combats to conversations
a silly game where you share stories & get excited
Short storytelling game about miscommunication, in space
Outlines basic mechanics to make Roleplay meaningful in games that don't reward roleplay mechanically.
For when you've got a Storygame and you want Tactical Combat
A liberating alternative XP method for tabletop RPGs
Instructions and templates for creating your own hacks of the game Premise
an intimacy tool for roleplay
Role Playing
A minimalist system for resolving challenges in any setting.
A Revisiting Mechanics Tech Pack for TTRPGs
This is a mechanic for generating a solar system on the fly
An essay on nonsovereignty and games
A look at different ways to use decks of prompts in your storytelling games