Role-playing games are highly complex things. Even within the RPG genre, there is a diverse range of games with wildly different mechanics and controls.
Before even a single line of code is written, it's important to figure out what kind of RPG you want to make, how the game is played, whether the game should be turn-based or real-time, and what stats the player will have to concern themselves with.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics which show how to design an RPG before you begin making it:
Tools for game design
The design and concept phase
Describing the game's features and mechanics
Tropes in existing RPGs
RPG design overview