RPG Design Panelcast

Episode 381: Law and Governance in Games

Recorded at Metatopia 2024

Presented by Jason Pitre

Law, like game design, is fundamentally about guiding human behavior. If you don't want people to resolve their problems with axes, you create a rule saying axe-murder is not acceptable or find a way to prevent people from having axes. In this panel, we will discuss how games treat law, governance, and society and what lessons those real world subjects can hold for designers.

Episode 380 : Level Up Your Sexy Game

Recorded at Metatopia 2024

Presented by Samphire Savage & Meguey Baker

Sexy role play has likely existed as long as we have been getting it on. So what makes a game a sex game, and why write them? We willl explore common themes and design concepts in existing sex/sexy games, common pitfalls and risks in sex game design, and ways sex themes can support or derail design goals.

Episode 379: How to Work With an Editor

Presented at Metatopia 2024

Hosted by Amanda Valentine, Lisa Padol

You’ve probably heard that you should hire an editor for your game project, but why? What can an editor do for you? How do you hire one and how do you work with one? Bring all of your questions to this AMA and our experts will be happy to talk with you.

Episode 378: Anti-Hustle Game Design

Recorded at Metatopia 2024

Hosted by Jim Dagg, Misha Bushyager, Whitney Delaglio & Amanda Valentine

Game design is art. And play. And craft. So what about when you just want to hone your craft and find joy in something, but don't want to make it a second-job? In an industry where success is defined by quitting your day job or running a $1M crowdfunding campaign, HOW do you shake the hustle vibe and let yourself enjoy design as a hobby?

Episode 377: Avoiding Lonely Content

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Hosted by Whitney Delaglio

Hand-Holdy content means it has the support of the content its holding hands with to help inform the reader on how to play and avoids lonely content that doesn't add to the gameplay as much as it could. It also makes it easier for the designer to create a game that tells the story/does what the designer wants it to.

Episode 376: Eye for Design

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Sean Jaffe, Joshua Jaffe, Casey Edison, and Jason Pitre

The brothers behind Rememorex, Commandroids, and other titles talk about the ins-and -outs of layout. Making a TTRPG is a challenge to a layout artist, who must juggle aesthetics and theme with readability and ease of use. A valuable resource for anyone just starting out.

Episode 375: Packaging Design

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Taylor Hubler and Nicholas Ambrose

Join our experts for a conversation looking at how to physically design, package, and ship games. We want to make sure that every copy that is printed makes it into the hands of a player, but games can get damaged in transit, or be passed up by game stores due to a physical design misstep. Part one will be going over physical design, layout considerations, and what retailers like to see in a product on their shelves. Part two will be going over why product gets damaged in transit, best packaging practices for distribution, and how avant garde physical design can make shipping difficult. Q and A, as well as workshop elements will be present in this panel.

Episode 374: Designing for Retail

Recorded at Metatopia 2024

Presented by Avonelle Wing and Nicholas Ambrose

So, what is "the three-tier system"? What's a consolidator? Hobby? Mass-market? Specialty? Once you have a design that seems viable, there are a lot of steps between here and retail success. Bring your questions, and we'll try to answer them after a brief overview of possible paths forward.

Episode 373: That's Great Advice, Don't Follow It

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Avonelle Wing, Curt Covert, and Alex Cutler

You've read game design blogs and Facebook groups. You've delved into conventional wisdom. You did your homework. A game should be replayable. You should set your funding goal as 1/5 of your overall costs to fund fast. A prototype should be a single sheet of paper and some markers. A prototype needs to be full production value. Publish it yourself and sell it out of your bedroom; order fulfillment is easy. All of these things might be true, and they could still be the thing that sinks your ship. Our experts talk about the ways accurate advice can still be wrong for you.

Episode 372: Powered by the Apocalypse

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Meguey Baker, Vincent Baker

An introduction to PbtA from a designer's point of view. How and why Apocalypse World works the way it does, what your game can take from it, and how and why your own game should work differently. Highlighting PbtA's conversation model, with an emphasis on consent and communication, and PbtA's model of fiction, with an emphasis on adapting it to your own game's needs.

Episode 371: Adapting Someone Else's Sandbox

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Cam Banks and Amanda Valentine

Licensed RPGs are a minefield of conflicting interests, stakeholders, and opinions. With the assumption that you've done the hardest part of securing a license, actually designing, developing, and producing the game is often much harder than expected. We'll talk about the process of faithfully adapting someone else's work to a new game project.

Episode 370: Ten Things Wrong With Your Game

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Sydney Engelstein and Geoffrey Engelstein

Sydney has taken close to a thousand pitches for Indie Game Studios. Geoff has taught game design and helped designers improve their prototypes for over a decade. Between them they see the same issues with designs over and over again, particularly with newer designers. In this seminar, they will share with you the top things that are wrong with your game, based on this hard won experience. They guess there's a slight chance you've avoided a few of these issues, but probably not. And let's face it - you won't know unless you attend.

 

NOTE: An insufficiently edited version of this panel was posted earlier, but this is the corrected version for your enjoyment.

Episode 369: Indie Publishing for the Long Haul

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker

We've been creating and publishing our own games for almost 25 years. How, why, and what does it take? Why self-publish instead of shopping your work around? How do you plot your own course, build your own audience, and measure your own success? This is about being you, the designer, making your games, owning the fruits of your labor, and keeping both your drive and your passion while holding down your day job and maintaining your relationships.

Episode 368: Printing Your RPG

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Jason Pitre

Producing books is a challenge at the best of times, and the printing landscape has changed radically since the pandemic. The panel speakers will explain the process for finding companies to work with you, choosing your print specifications, and other secrets of the trade.

Episode 367: Staying In

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Cam Banks and Amanda Valentine

You've had a successful Kickstarter, you've been hired by a game publisher, you've released your work on Itch or DriveThru. You've done it! But now what? We're here to discuss the aftermath, the fallout, and how to survive that and stay doing what you love to do.

Episode 366: Teaching How to GM

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Bill White and Avery Rosen

This panel discusses the theoretical, pedagogical, and practical implications of trying to teach people to run tabletop RPGs as GMs. We're interested in understanding the best practices, the pitfalls, and the contexts in which "teaching people to GM" in any kind of formal way is even possible. We survey the role-playing landscape in order to understand how the technological and cultural shifts of recent years have affected the way people learn to run games.

Episode 365: Narrative Voice in RPGs

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Jay Dragon and Amanda Valentine

Every game has a voice, from the biggest trad book to an indie zine, and this narrative voice helps a game teach itself and stand on its own. In this round table held by award-winning game designer Jay Dragon we'll talk through a number of examples of games that utilize narrative voice to articulate their game-worlds, and rewrite our own mechanics in ways that emphasize how different perspectives can change the nature of the game on a deep level.

Episode 364: Why you Should Join the IGDN

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Tristan Zimmerman, Meghan Jaffe,  Sean Jaffe

The Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN) is an all-volunteer trade association for tabletop publishers, designers, and freelancers. We offer booth space at conventions, share knowledge, and work to improve the industry. Come ask questions and learn whether the IGDN might be right for you!

Episode 363: Budgeting for Art

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Jack Parra, Lissane Lake, Nicole Amato

Getting high-quality art is key to making a product look professional. Our panel makes with the tips and tricks to controlling costs and Funding the Project.

Episode 362: How to Work with Artists

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Jack Parra and Lissane Lake

The panelists will touch on the process of how to find and approach artists, negotiate the contract, and then successfully work together. It's important that publishers get an artist's-eye-view of things so they can better understand what we do, the process, and the time involved and plan projects accordingly.

Episode 361: Crowdfunding in 2023

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Nicole Amato

Join Kickstarter's Games Outreach Lead, Nicole Amato, as they discuss best practices for running a crowdfunding campaign. There will also be plenty of time for a Q&A for any questions you might have.

Episode 360: How to Run a Great Playtest

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Melissa Lewis-Gentry and Curt Covert.

Receiving feedback is hard. Running a successful playtest is even more complicated. Our experts will share their tools for getting the most out of a playtesting table.

Episode 359: How to be a Great Playtester

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Kat Millar and Curt Covert

Giving good feedback is a skill. Come learn more about how to provide feedback to game designers in useful, productive ways.

Episode 358: Ethical AI Usage?

Presented by Jason Pitre, Ash Kreider, Vivian Young, Eric Whalen, Tristan Zimmerman

AI is a hot topic. Authors are suing over their content being used to "train" AI without their consent. Platforms and publishers are taking hard anti-AI positions. Or coming out publicly to declare that they are using AI and nobody can stop them. People who want to use AI for idea generation or to simplify and automate boring tasks are at odds with peers who maintain that there is no ethical way to use AI. We're going to start by defining "AI" and then we'll have a respectful, thoughtful conversation on the topic.

Episode 357: Spinning Relationship Webs

Recorded at Metatopia 2023

Presented by Jason Pitre, Jenn Adcock, Brennan Taylor, Olivia Montoya

Larpwrights and tabletop game designers have long relied on the power of complex relationship webs to drive dramatic play. Crafting effective characters and their interconnections allows for a living, breathing, and often conflicted world. The panel speakers will share best practices and techniques for designing these webs.