Game Design Hour

James Raggi IV (designer of Lamentations of the Flame Princess) posted this on Google+ a few days ago (this is just the middle part): I ask you: When did innovation and pissing off the establishment become something that smelly old farts did? Seriously. I think about the history of heavy metal, and how the groundbreaking acts, … Continue reading »

Once you’ve completed play test, you’ll have all sorts of suggestions and advice gathered from play testers. Some of it wil be helpful; some of it won’t. However, how much of your play test feedback will actually improve your game? In other words, play testers sometimes give the wrong advice. So how do you sort that … Continue reading »

Playtesting your game is thrilling. You’ve finally gotten your baby game in front of other players, you’re seeing what works and doesn’t work. And then the session comes to a close. You say, “Okay, do you have any feedback?” and stare at your playtesters, waiting for them to fall over each other to give you a wealth of … Continue reading »

This is part of a multi-post series about the practicalities of designing a game. Today I’m going to look at the practical actions you need to take while actually running a playtest. First, choose a classic scenario. Avoid the temptation to test an unusual setting for your system, like a James Bond action scenario using … Continue reading »

So you’re writing a tabletop RPG, and you’re going to run a playtest with a couple of friends. What do your playtest materials need to look like? I’ve already covered the three phases of prototyping, so let’s look at those recommendations and dig deeper. At this point, I replace the low-quality materials with something better, but … Continue reading »

Let me introduce you to Sonja. Sonja wrote a cool little tabletop RPG. She wants to playtest it, running it with a few people to get a feel for the game, but her attempts to scheduled a game have so far met with failure. She came up with a two-pronged, systematic approach. First, she identified … Continue reading »

This is part of a series of blog posts where I confront issues relating to tabletop RPG game design. First off, you may be asking: Do I need play testers? Can’t I play my game with a few friends, then just post it online? Of course, yes, you can just publish it. And if you’ve got a … Continue reading »

This is an ongoing series of posts where I look at tabletop RPG design pretty darned exhaustively. Let’s say you’ve got an idea for an RPG, and you’ve written down some notes and rules. Let’s further say that you want to release this to the public. Before you do, you’ll want to show it to at … Continue reading »

This post covers public websites with features useful for the game designer during design. In other words, this isn’t about publishing your game (that’s another post). Often, you’ll need to share game materials with other players, or you want to work on your rules from multiple places. Some folks forget the utility of Google Drive. You can create … Continue reading »

This post continues a series of blog posts in which I provide recommendations about tabletop game design. This won’t necessarily teach you how to design a game, but it will help you along as you build it. In this post, I’m going to talk about the prototyping. The Crappy First Prototype When I get an idea … Continue reading »