Gates of Krystalia offers a controversial glimpse at the future of indie TTRPGs

3 weeks ago 17

Published Feb 20, 2026, 10:30 AM EST

Will AI tools transform everyone with a vision into a one-man game design team?

Image made by arnab das & suman lahiri for the gates of krystalia ttrpg

I came into an interview with the creators of Gates of Krystalia, an isekai-themed TTRPG, with a great deal of skepticism. The game incorporates AI-generated art as part of its workflow — something I unconditionally oppose — and the stereotypical anime art style does not fit my sensibilities. That said, having talked to co-creators Andrea Ruggeri and Alberto Dianin, my expectations were shattered. While I’m still convinced this game is not for me, it cannot be dismissed as just a commercial operation built on the exploitation of a specific fandom, produced cheaply and quickly to maximize profit. Like it or not, the fact that Gates of Krystalia even exists is impressive. It also showed me a window into the possible future of indie TTRPGs.

In Gates of Krystalia, you play as a hero thrust into a fantasy world, using a traditional 52-card deck instead of dice. The second book, Part Deux, establishes a multiverse of different worlds, and the third book, which recently began a Kickstarter campaign, focuses on the first main world of Lumina. Ruggeri described the game as the culmination of years spent as a fan of JRPGs, tabletop games, and anime, reinforced by his experience as a games store owner. He fully believes in what he’s selling, even if what he’s selling is a bit controversial.

Gates of Krystalia’s Core Rulebook has a section titled “Hero’s Harem,” which presents an array of female and male NPCs that the heroes can develop romantic relationships with. It’s a gallery of stereotypes: the characters are all tall, light-skinned, and attractive. The women have voluptuous curves, and the men are muscular. With a single exception (the Dark Elves race), the cast of characters depicted in the book feels whitewashed. Even the Dwarf woman has blue eyes, blonde hair, and no beard.

the Hero's harem page in the Gates of Krystalia TTRPG

When asked about the lack of diversity, Ruggeri pointed out that these are the stereotypes presented in anime, especially isekai, and that’s what he wanted to show in the book. “I take what Japan and its culture offer, and I bring it into the game,” he said. “When there is an isekai anime that fits Gates of Krystalia and is sensible towards these topics, I’ll put that in. Japan has a different approach. They label people and characters much more easily. They don’t worry about stereotypes, they simply make the product that they like.”

While this may be a generalization of Japanese culture, there’s some truth to these words when it comes to anime. The medium is vast, and you can find plenty of products that avoid or challenge stereotypes, but that doesn’t really apply to the specific genre that Gates of Krystalia wants to reproduce. Even excellent fantasy series such as Frieren or Delicious in Dungeon comply with a specific aesthetic.

Fan service, however, is more debatable. Some of the most successful isekai series (Reincarnated as a Slime, Re:Zero) have almost none of it, and when they do, it’s played for laughs. Gates of Krystalia, instead, goes all in.

A page from the Gates of Krystalia rulebook showing a girl's feet

When I pointed out a specific instance of suggestive fan service (featured above) in Part Deux — a book described on Kickstarter as "suitable for all ages" — Ruggeri made a comparison to Genshin Impact, a gacha game infamous for its fan service, which is rated 12+ by PEGI. The books also have a sassy fox girl named Nami as a narrator, and she often pokes fun at the reader. In this case, she suggests you're not a fan of anime if you don't like the image. He dismissed this as a mere joke, but the landscape of manga and anime consumers is far more nuanced than these books imply. Gates of Krystalia has a very specific tone that may not be for everyone, but for that narrow target audience, it works. In a sense, it seeks controversy for its marketing value.

Ruggeri did convince me that Gates of Krystalia’s romance system has some great depth and nuance to it, explaining that it’s more about how much an NPC likes you than love or sex. He referenced dynamics like that of Goku from Dragon Ball Z and Vegeta. The latter started out as a villain, but over time, they bonded through mutual respect until Vegeta became one of Goku's most valuable allies. Though Ruggeri admitted that in Gates of Krystalia, the romance options are presented as a “harem” because he knew that would attract attention.

That level of commitment and honesty is impressive, but not as much as the fact that Ruggeri created this product alone, making good use of his skills as a graphic designer and his knowledge of AI tools. He had no previous experience in game design, which he openly admitted. Through my questions about the game’s mechanics and development, it became clear that he wrote the rules on his own, with minimal to no playtesting, which happened while the rules were written over a period of five months (Ruggeri said that it takes him six to seven months to write an entire book). “The game is so simple in its mechanics, but complex in the details,” he said. “It doesn’t need a lot of testing. Also, it’s not a competitive game, so if one class is stronger than the other, it’s not a big deal.”

Most indie game designers will probably pass out reading those words, but the facts remain: Gates of Krystalia produced and funded three books over little more than a year, with two also being successfully distributed worldwide (the campaign for the third, Lumina, remains ongoing, but it has already collected over $100,000 in the first 24 hours). A good part of this success is due to Dianin’s experience in marketing and publishing (he owns two publishing houses), but I was more impressed by how quickly Ruggeri was able to transform his uncompromising vision into reality. Of course, this would never have been possible without the use of AI.

According to Dianin, one of the selling points of Gate of Krystalia is its “gamified” presentation, with the rules shown through infographics and an abundance of images. This should set it apart from other TTRPGs, which still rely on columns of text to convey information. That’s where Ruggeri’s experience as a graphic designer came into play, but he also produced all of the images using AI tools as well. This has created some controversy around the game that didn’t hinder its sales.

Ruggeri guarantees that he uses a local AI workflow based on Stable Diffusion (ComfyUI) that doesn’t pull images from the internet, and that he owns the rights to all the images used to build that workflow. For their third Kickstarter campaign, the team decided to be completely transparent about the process and uploaded a video that explains Ruggeri’s workflow, showing how he starts from a sketch he made himself. They also hired several artists for this book, which will be the first to include non-generative AI art. Of course, as they admitted during the interview, there’s no way to verify the ethical use of AI beyond doubt, but some transparency is better than no transparency at all.

Illustration by Jason Jin showing an anomaly in the world of Lumina in Gates of Krystalia

The fact remainds that these books can only be made and distributed so quickly because the team relies on AI tools. And it’s not just about not having to pay artists to work on it. Ruggeri stressed that not having a team makes the process much quicker. With no back-and-forths with artists, designers, or playtesters, all he had to do was turn his vision into a product that could be sold.

I don’t personally think the game benefits from this approach. The rules show an interesting tension between simple mechanics and detailed applications (the number of tables reminded me of the Old School Renaissance games), but the lack of playtesting and feedback is painfully clear. The lore of the worlds feels derivative, even if that’s by design. Ruggeri did say that he has now hired a game designer, so Lumina and future books should show improvements on that side. But the results are there: According to Dianin, Gates of Krystalia sold over 2,000 physical copies of its first two books, and judging from its Discord channel, there’s an active community playing this game.

Is this the future of indie TTRPG publishing? Will AI tools transform every gamer with ambitions into a one-person design team? Ultimately, customers will always be the deciding factor. Gates of Krystalia shows that there are enough people in the world willing to roleplay their cliché anime fantasies in a TTRPG who don’t care about AI use. Regardless of my opinion, I can’t help but be impressed by the process that brought this into existence. And, I admit, I’m also a bit scared of what other fantasies will come to life in the future.

Read Entire Article