Design Games
50 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 7 years ago - ★★★★★ - 17 ratingsWe talk about game design, especially tabletop roleplaying and story games. We're professional designers ND Paoletta and Will Hindmarch. We're glad you're here.
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Episodes
Endings
November 01, 2016 14:27 - 46 minutes - 43 MBThis is it. Our fiftieth episode marks the end of our long conversation about designing tabletop RPGs (and everything else we spilled over into). This episode addresses audience questions, the past, and the future. What do you do when you're done and the thing you've been working on leaves the workshop? Let's talk about it. Thank you for joining us on this journey, for reals. It means a lot to us. But we're not done! New miniseries under the Design Games banner are on the way. So ...
Funding Production
October 25, 2016 16:31 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MBYou need funding. You might give your game away for free, but you didn't make it for free. Your time and work have value. How does that translate to cost and how does your product help fund itself and the next thing you want to make? Nathan is sharing a living document about all this, too: "Notes on Independent Publishing." Get in there and share your questions on this topic, if you like. We're also seeking some final questions and topics to explore as we wind down the show's run....
Production Tools
October 06, 2016 19:55 - 32 minutes - 30 MBLet's talk about some of the software that we—Nathan and Will—use for production purposes like layout and graphic design. More importantly, let's talk about how that impacts our game designs and workflow across the board. We're also seeking new questions and topics to explore as we wind down the show's run. Got questions? Weigh in on the show, share your own work, and let us know what you want us to talk about next, by visiting our G+ Community or writing in via Nathan's website. ...
Spheres of Production
August 25, 2016 18:02 - 40 minutes - 36.8 MBAs you're proceeding into production of your game, ask yourself: What can I do myself? When should I ask for help? What would I say to externalize my vision to a hire? What you do yourself, what you expand your skills to accomplish, and when you hire experts — these are parts of the spheres of production. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work,...
Form Factors
August 18, 2016 16:11 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBWhat form does your RPG take? Is it a book? A deck of cards? A poster or mousepad or business card? Are you sure? Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0...
Cards
August 11, 2016 18:51 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBLet's talk about another means of delivering random results and packaging information for players in your tabletop roleplaying and story games: cards. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under...
Reflections 2
July 13, 2016 13:34 - 23 minutes - 22 MBLook around. Get your bearings. Take a look back at what's working and what you've learned, then move forward with the knowledge. That's what we're doing, this time. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ...
Early Writing
July 06, 2016 16:43 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MBYou've got a lot of notes, you've got rules and systems, maybe you've been writing for yourself. How do you start writing all of that out for other people in addition to yourself? Let's talk. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin ...
Iteration
June 06, 2016 16:41 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBSay a thing. Say it again. A design isn’t right the first time, so we revise and restate and iterate. Let’s talk about that. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attr...
Game Chef
June 06, 2016 16:39 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBDo you know about the Game Chef design competition? This time we talk about our experiences with Game Chef and what we know of its history and influence on games and designers. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incomp...
Playtesting, Part Two
June 06, 2016 16:38 - 34 minutes - 32 MBEpisode forty?! Ye gads. Here we explore more notions on the topic of your early playtests, and how to get information out of them, make sense of some of it, and prepare for revisions to your design. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” ...
Playtesting, Part One
June 06, 2016 16:36 - 39 minutes - 36.5 MBWe’ve reach that time. Let’s talk about playtesting your design—specifically, how to prep and participate in the early playtests of your RPG. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative...
Universality and Hacking
May 06, 2016 16:35 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBWe set out to talk about designing games to be ready for hacking and remixing by the end user, but first a stopover at a discussion of universal systems, too. Let it go, Will. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompe...
Affordances
May 06, 2016 16:33 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MBLet’s talk about how a game moves, functions, and adapts. Let’s talk about affordances. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.o...
On Visual Design
May 06, 2016 16:31 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBSome game designs are highly visual. When does that work happen? How early is too early to think about art and a visual arrangement of ideas? We talk it out. This episode references Nathan’s design-process illustration, by the way. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Communit...
Risk and Challenge
April 06, 2016 16:30 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBThis time, we tackle a great listener-submitted topic about how to makes risk and challenges feel dramatic and satisfying in your RPG designs — and how to help players think about risk and challenge in play. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and ...
Player Alignment
April 06, 2016 16:28 - 46 minutes - 42.8 MBAnother great listener topic, another episode wrestling with said topic. This time: we talk about designs involving Player vs Player and PvE mechanics and, y'know, some of what that means. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin Mac...
On Purpose
April 06, 2016 16:26 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBHere we attempt to tackle another great question from the G+ community. This one’s about designing with purpose and how purpose can align with (or away from) content, context, vision, and more. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevi...
Bring It Together
March 06, 2016 17:25 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBWe’ve talked a lot already about design steps and techniques, thoughts and approaches. You’ve got vision and notes and notions. Now let’s talk about bringing it all together. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompet...
Playstorming
March 06, 2016 17:23 - 24 minutes - 22.9 MBWhat even is a playstorm? We think we know and we dive into the answer in this episode, to consider what makes playstorming different from playtesting, what it’s for, and when we do it. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeo...
Success and Failure
March 06, 2016 17:22 - 47 minutes - 43.8 MBWhat is “a success” in play? What is failure? When do players’ and characters’ victories align? When do they diverge? And how do we talk about it all? Tune in and hear. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.co...
Color
March 06, 2016 17:20 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBWhen we talk about “color” in RPG design, we’re often talking about texture and tangibility and how they interact with and express your game and what it is about. We think. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetec...
Emergence
February 06, 2016 17:19 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBWhat do we mean when we talk about emergence? What’s emergent by design and what emerges anyway? We wrestle with the issue this time — and maybe not for the last time! Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com...
Space
February 06, 2016 17:17 - 40 minutes - 36.9 MBSpace, in many games (and especially RPGs), is abstracted and metaphorical, letting the idea of space mingle with other ideas in exciting ways. What is “narrative mass” and how do relationship maps suggest or defy a space? Let’s talk! Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Commun...
Time
February 06, 2016 17:12 - 34 minutes - 32 MBIt’s time to talk about time. This time, we make time to discuss real-time play, abstractions, and dramatic units of time in RPGs and other games, which takes us into territory about focus, abstraction, and player agency once again. Expand the episode with these links: Caitlynn Belle’s Message is a text game you play in an hour. The Beast (Fair warning: contains adult content) Black Sun Deathcrawl Also, re: Continuum — There are 5 Levels of Span (time travel ability, basically)...
Situation
February 06, 2016 17:10 - 40 minutes - 37 MBWhat’s the situation in your game? How do you flag, support, and inspire situations in play? RPG play can be as small as a single dramatic situation or as vast worlds teeming with volatile circumstances … but it’s for naught if the players don’t know how to interact with that situation. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want ...
Setting, Part Two
January 06, 2016 17:09 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBLet’s talk more about settings and worlds for gameplay, including designing and recognizing links between your world and your game! Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: ...
Setting, Part One
January 06, 2016 17:05 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBHow does your game’s setting interact with its design? How do you begin to design a setting? How does your setting suit your game — and why? We talk about this rich and vast topic, not for the last time. Look around the old site for more info from this episode! Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by...
Mindfulness and Inspiration
January 06, 2016 17:04 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBLet’s talk about influences on our designs and how we converse with them and with our own game’s vision and voice. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3....
Return to Beginnings
January 06, 2016 17:02 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBWhat are some early exercises and tactics for starting a new design? Formalize your inspiration and vision. Make some notes on what is exciting you about this game. Visually sketch out a scene in your head or write it out as lines of dialogue. Other techniques include: mockup a possible cover for an eventual book; sketch a character sheet; make art-direction notes Try analog mind-mapping: sketching, making lists, arranging reference material on a table, post-it notes and notecards...
Reflections
December 06, 2015 17:00 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBThis time, we look back at the show and reflect on 20 episodes of conversations. What are we happy with and what do we still want to attempt? What course corrections might we attempt for the show next? This approximates the kind of reflection we do as designers, midway through a design, and helps us identify what’s next for the show in 2016. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think?...
Antagonism
December 06, 2015 16:58 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBWhat is antagonism in play — we talk about the problems inherent in the term, what it means in play, and how you can think about it in your design. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Cr...
Player/Designer Communication
December 06, 2015 16:56 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBThis time, we talk about communications between a game’s designer and its players—especially the GM—both implicit and explicit. We also refer again to our previous questions, written by Nathan and refined/revised through our conversations, about (but not just about) GM tasks, authority, and responsibility: What need to be created (or established)? Why does it matter who does it? Who does the buck “stop with” in terms of content? Who maintains authority over it once play begins?...
Game Master Influences
November 06, 2015 16:55 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBThis time we’re dropping names and game titles all over the place, focusing on just a few of the games that we’re feeling influenced by lately or over time — especially when it comes to GMing. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin...
Game Master Authority
November 06, 2015 16:52 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MBThis time we’re talking about designing for GM authorities and responsibilities in tabletop RPGs — a rich topic that we’ll explore more in the future. Here’s a version of the questions that we considered on the show, useful for considering in your own designs, too, we hope: Questions about, but not just about, “GM” tasks, authority and responsibility: What need to be created (or established)? Why does it matter who does it? Who does the buck “stop with” in terms of content? Wh...
The Roles of the Game Master
November 06, 2015 16:50 - 34 minutes - 31.8 MBIn this episode, we discuss the roles, responsibilities, and authority of the GM in tabletop RPGs and story games. It’s a role with a lot of permutations for designers to think about, plan for, and react to. What do you think? Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Mu...
Listener Questions, Part Two
November 06, 2015 16:46 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBWe’re tackling a few more listener questions this time — and it’s a bit of a challenge. These are great questions! Of course, it was only after we recorded that we remembered a great example of a game with character-leading-to-class mechanisms: Mortal Coil! Galileo Games’s worlds of magic and magical systems builds up the rules of magic during play in a really fun way! This episode experienced some audio issues, too, as we wrestled with strange, new equipment. We’re getting it wor...
Listener Questions
October 06, 2015 15:44 - 22 minutes - 20.6 MBFor our not-spooky 13th episode, we address a few listener questions we’ve received. Still, things get a little spooky. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. What do you think? Weigh in on the show, your own work, and what you want us to talk about next, by searching for our G+ Community. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attributi...
Resolution
October 06, 2015 15:41 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBListen in as we discuss resolution mechanisms in RPGs, including musings about scope and scale and fictional time. How do you know when a thing has happened in your game? How do you know when to check to see if a thing has happened? By listening to this episode, maybe! Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Comm...
Systems
October 06, 2015 15:39 - 22 minutes - 21.1 MBThis time, we have a quick talk about the difference between a system and its rules. How does that affect your design and can a design change systems already in place? Let’s talk. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Reward Systems, Part Two
October 06, 2015 15:34 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBWe had more to say about reward cycles, systems, and mechanisms in theory and in practice, so this episode is about more of that. As proof that the podcast is doing its job (for us, at least): we have thoughts beyond what we were able to squeeze into this longer episode. (Will had something of an epiphany a couple of days after we recorded.) Here’s a quick rundown of additional thoughts from Nathan, starting with some mechanical forms that rewards take in-game: Currencies, pools o...
Reward Systems, Part One
September 06, 2015 15:32 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBIn this doozy (doozy!) of an episode, we talk about reward cycles in design and play, from their core dynamics and philosophies to how they can befit or bemuse different players differently. (See also, flow as understood in psychology.) Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://c...
Jargon
September 06, 2015 15:30 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBLet’s talk about the terminology of our games and how that influences the patois at the table. What lingo do you use in your game and what sobriquets develop over time? As ever: decisions, decisions. Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. Music is “Dances and Dames” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ...
Character Monogamy
September 06, 2015 15:27 - 40 minutes - 37.4 MBWhat is character monogamy in an RPG and what does it do in your design? Let’s talk about it! This time we reference games like Ars Magica, The Adventures of Indiana Jones, Dark Sun, Amazing Engine, Monsterhearts, Circle of Hands, and more (also salmon) while talking about what happens when players play just one character apiece… or not! Design Games is made possible by our supporters at Patreon, where you can back NDP and Will right now. Every dollar helps. Music is “Dances and ...
Experience Points
September 06, 2015 15:23 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBHere we look at the gist of experience points (XP) and character development, especially in tabletop RPGs, and how character progression can reward, reflect, and influence the play of your design. Once again, we’ve dipped into a deep topic, so we may well dig into this again down the road. This episode is the result of several different techniques to the audio recording, so bear with us please through these audio developments? We talked a bit about Remember Tomorrow and Night’s Bl...
Characters
September 06, 2015 15:17 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBThis time, we talk about characters in theory, in practice, in play, and in design, with examples focusing on tabletop RPGs and some references to video games. This is a big topic worthy of more talk later on, when we have more instruments on the table, but this is a good start. Will references Robin D. Laws’ manner of iconic characters in this episode, which Laws once summarized like this: “A dramatic hero follows a character arc in which he is changed by his experience of the w...
Recurring Questions
August 06, 2015 15:13 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MBListen in as we reveal some of the questions and ideas that we consider and reconsider near the beginning of various game designs, like “Why is this a game?” and “How does it start?” Identifying what we design and how we design when we design games is important. This episode looks at some of the ways that we do that. Not everything we do is the best way to do it, sure, but here we see some of what we think about when we design games. Design Games is made possible by our supporters...
Dice
July 06, 2015 14:59 - 1 hour - 63.1 MBHere’s a big one. We spend an hour talking about dice, uncertainty, and information in analog game design and we still only manage to put grooves in the surface of the topic. This was a wonderful talk, though. We could probably do another hour about this stuff if there’s time for that someday. We drop some jargon and some names in this one, so take in these links if you just can’t get enough: Pascal’s triangle is a probability matrix about coin flips (or dice with 50/50 odds of s...
The Big Three Questions
July 06, 2015 14:48 - 28 minutes - 26 MBLet’s talk about how we talk about game designs. Let’s talk about how a game does its thing and how a design achieves (or doesn’t) its selected goals. What is your game about and how is it about it? Let’s do that by talking about variations on the “Big Three” questions of RPG design. The audio in this early episode is, uh, unpolished. Thankfully, writer, interviewer, and friend of the show, Brie Sheldon, stepped up to transcribe this episode, so you can read that transcript now, to...
Ideas!
July 05, 2015 16:52 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBWe, Nathan D Paoletta and Will Hindmarch, design games. Also, we talk about designing games. Sometimes that means talking about design outside of games and games outside of their designs, but always it comes back to how we make games—especially in the style of analog roleplaying and story games, as is our fashion. This first official episode is about ideas as the earliest parts of design. Get out your notebooks and jot down what you’re thinking about for your games while you hear u...