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Monthly jams, critique, theory, and resources for rpg designers.
I opened this month with 10 thoughts too small for full blog posts. Thoughts like: The path to greatness is paved in cringe. Kill Luke Skywalker as soon as possible. Let Frontier airlines test your book. For the love of god, stop using Scriptina. Good ideas are obvious later.
The design inspiration is the same as always—really good. RPG designers were eating good in June. I listed my favorites.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Identity, packaging, and game design for Magenta, a unique card game publisher developed by CMYK. The brief calls for creating a pack system that generates both identity and sense of collection, while allowing the individual expressiveness of each game.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/234296721/Magenta
https://junkfoodgames.itch.io/moon-rings
Moon Rings is a solo journaling game based on the Carta and Aspire SRDs. You are a witch who wishes to end the reign of the cursed Blood Moon. Venture into the labyrinth, find the Moon Rings, and cast the ritual to change the moon! The labyrinth is deadly and the Blood Moon is watching, so you’ll need your strength of will, magick, and good fortune to make it to the end!
Monthly design jams, critique, theory, and inspiration for tabletop rpg designers by rpg designers. Vetted. Looted. Curated.
My monthly newsletter full of tabletop rpg design links is live this month with a genuinely jam-packed (pun intended) issue. This is a good resource if you want to read, watch, and listen to other rpg designers from across the industry.
If you don't have a name, you don't have an idea.
When I was studying design and copywriting, I was taught that ideas need names. If you can't name the idea, the idea isn't finished.
I'm somewhat convinced the same might be true for game design and naming rules. If you can't name it—or the name feels wrong—maybe the rule isn't baked yet.
This probably lacks some context, so let me ground it a little.
If you're a designer or copywriter, your goal is to create something that spreads. You want your writing or your designed thing to "click" with people. If an idea's name and form doesn't feel intuitive—if it needs explanation—it's not going to find immediate adoption and advocacy when you're not there to explain it.
A thing with a good name stands on that name.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Don't be afraid to do the obvious thing. Sometimes it feels obvious because it's natural, and sometimes—in an attempt to be obvious—you end up being clever, or even better, original.
After a decade of design writing, I can honestly say this is the hardest lesson to actually learn and live by. Doing the obvious thing feels lazy, hackneyed, and wasteful. Then I actually do it and realize it's some of my best work.
Fun fact about me:
Currently developing a some stuff for Daggerheart that'll help play a fun Hollow Knight campaign
Most of the work is setting/story based actually the mechanical side of things is smoothed out a tonne cause I think the Ikonis from the Motherboard campaign frame can be changed a small bit and then it perfectly reskins to provide a mix of the Charm notches from OG Hollow Knight and a little bit of the Crest stuff from Silksong. Conceptually its coming together really well
Oh and the Campaign is called
Hollow Knight:
Avarice
In tabletop rpg design, sometimes it's not about the mechanics we add, but the ones we omit.
https://www.explorersdesign.com/dominant-mechanics/
