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Episodes
The best panels and seminars about analog game design & publishing.
Episodes
Saturday Jan 13, 2018
Saturday Jan 13, 2018
Recorded at Metatopia 2017
Presented by Melissa Lewis-Gentry, Brian Dalrymple.
So you're planning crowdfunding for your game, and have heard that Retail is important. Maybe you did a retail tier in a previous Kickstarter and had no one buy it, or maybe you lost money by creating that tier. Regardless, the industry is changing faster than we can keep up. Learn from Retailers on what they want and what they won't back for 2018 Kickstarters & IndieGoGos. Learn from Expert Campaigners on the pitfalls of building tiers. Be sure to bring questions about your upcoming campaign, we want to hear them.
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Joshua Yearsley, John Adamus, Dr. Jessica Hammer.
Writing and editing rulebooks is still a black art, not an empirical science. In this panel, Dr. Jessica Hammer and professional editors John Adamus and Joshua Yearsley hash out the state of the rulebook. What works? What doesn't? Why do so many professionals (including us!) disagree about how to write good rulebooks? Why are so many rulebooks still bad, and what can we do about it? We won't have all the answers - maybe you'll help us find some. It is somewhere between a panel and a roundtable. We'll certainly have things to say and discuss with each other, but we absolutely welcome audience input to figure out what the world's thinking about.
Apologies for the poor sound quality.
Saturday Dec 30, 2017
Saturday Dec 30, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Jason Pitre, Jeff Tidball, Stephen Tasker, Darren Watts.
As a game master, you use NPCs to describe the setting, and to interact with the PCs. As a designer, you help shape the kinds of NPCs that fill those roles. This panel is all about different ways that designers can establish NPCs and relationships in their designs. Who do the PC's love, hate, defend, or overthrow?
Apologies for the poor sound quality.
Saturday Dec 23, 2017
Saturday Dec 23, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Fred Hicks and Chris Hanrahan.
Innovation and new ideas are fantastic in game design, but designers have borrowed, stolen, and adapted other people's ideas for as long as we've been making games. Let's talk about whose works have influenced us, how we can best credit and pay homage to that work, and what we might not understand about ourselves as designers based on the works we ourselves have created.
Note: This is a short episode with mediocre sound quality. The content is good though!
Saturday Dec 16, 2017
Saturday Dec 16, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Kenneth Hite, Bill White.
The principles of worldbuilding for games are not the principles of worldbuilding for novels (depth of field) and certainly not the principles of worldbuilding for physics (plate tectonics). What are they? How can you apply them to a pre-existing world, real or fictional?
Saturday Dec 09, 2017
Saturday Dec 09, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Emily Dresner, Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue.
You're a successful indie publisher! You did a great job wearing all the hats - game designer, writer, editor, artist, and graphic designer. Now, you want to create something bigger and more grand! You discover that, without years of time, you cannot carry out your vision yourself. You need other people... and that leads to new headaches. We'll talk about tools, techniques, schedules, planning, effective communication, using freelancers, and even a little Agile on how to turn yourself from a one man band into product making machine.
Saturday Dec 02, 2017
Saturday Dec 02, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Kenneth Hite, Jason Pitre, Marissa Kelly, Fred Hicks.
When designing a game, the temptation is to use another tested rules set: Fate, PbtA, HERO, BRP, OSR, or what have you. When shouldn't you do that? What demands special treatment, and when should you make it yourself?
Saturday Nov 25, 2017
Saturday Nov 25, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Christopher Badell, Zev Shlasinger.
Once you've designed the game, it's time to produce it. Our panelists have dozens of finished products between them and offer their expertise to make your process smoother.
Saturday Nov 18, 2017
Saturday Nov 18, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Matt Fantastic.
How many cards are on a typical printing sheet? Can half an inch really save you that much money? Is it possible to license a mold? These sorts of questions shouldn't be the first thing you think about when making your next amazing game, but they can play a huge part in how realistic it is to actually get into print. Join Matt Fantastic as he talks through a bunch of common mistakes, easy fixes, and ways to look at your design/project that will save a bunch of money when it comes time to actually make it.
Saturday Nov 11, 2017
Saturday Nov 11, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Darren Watts, Jeff Tidball, John Adamus.
Our panelists talk about how to be good testers. Learn how to hear the questions being asked and answer with useful feedback. We all want to give helpful criticism; learn more about how to do that.
Tuesday Nov 07, 2017
Tuesday Nov 07, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Jason Morningstar, Jay Sylvano, Benjamin Morrow.
Games can obviously be political and create empathy, but can they be journalism? Can they create change, spur activism, prompt meaningful dialog? What does it take to make a game with a contemporary theme or focused on an important issue - and what can go wrong?
Saturday Oct 28, 2017
Saturday Oct 28, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Kenneth Hite.
In this year's iteration of "Ken Rambles About Stuff", Ken argues for the 'Iceberg Method' of game research. He is also likely to touch on how (and how much) to do research for setting design purposes, and may even divagate into the how and why of researching other game mechanics.
Saturday Oct 21, 2017
Saturday Oct 21, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016.
Presented by Judeth Oden Choi, Jessica Hammer.
Presentation of our findings from a two-year long study of playtesting practices and education. As we build and refine our games, sometimes it's hard to hold onto those brilliant ideas and goals that first inspired us. Playtesting with a purpose is about articulating design and experience goals for your game and using playtests to help refine those goals and express them more fully in game play. We will invite participants to try out some of our methods and open up for discussion of playtesting practices.
Sunday Oct 15, 2017
Sunday Oct 15, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Melissa Lewis-Gentry, Cat Tobin, Matt Fantastic, Zev Shlasinger.
Have you ever played (or made!) a fantastic game, and then wonder why no one has it? Ever wonder why no one other than the Kickstarter backers bought a certain game? Ever make a game, then try to go through distribution and realize you'll lose money selling that way? Not all games are designed for retail sale! This panel will discuss the design choices that see success in a retail setting, and if retail is right for your game. Topics discuss will be graphic design choices and packaging, pricing and 3 tiered distribution, Organized Play and Demoing, and using retail sales as marketing.
Tuesday Oct 10, 2017
Tuesday Oct 10, 2017
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Christopher Badell, Jason Walters, Marie Poole.
Planning and running a Kickstarter campaign can be like designing and playing another game. Will you hack an existing formula or take a risk on an unusual approach? Will it include lots of fiddly mechanics and rewards or will you take a more artistic direction? When you're running the campaign, how do you play the roles of marketer, designer, publisher, business person, and artist? Join panelists as they talk about the design and management of Kickstarter campaigns themselves. In what ways have they evolved into established systems (stretch goals, etc.) and how are some creators breaking those conventions?
Saturday Sep 16, 2017
Saturday Sep 16, 2017
Historical Larp Design
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Moyra Turkington, Kimberley Lam, Shoshana Kessock, Elsa Henry, Rachel E.S. Walton, and moderated by Alex Roberts
This panel is all about re-evaluating the real diversity in historical settings, the difficulties of researching for historical non-western, non-white events and eras, especially those that feature women. It serves to discuss both larp design, and tabletop design, and is well worth a listen.
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Sunday Sep 03, 2017
Sunday Sep 03, 2017
Game Master Mechanics
Recorded at Metatopia 2016
Presented by Vincent Baker and and Jason Pitre.
Role playing games have a long history of providing detailed rules on how players may act in the fiction. Very few games provide explicit direction and purposefully designed tools to constrain GMs. Let’s talk about the various approaches, from Fronts, to Countdown Clocks, Doom Pools, and more. Where can GM mechanics change design?
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Saturday Jul 15, 2017
Saturday Jul 15, 2017
Powered by the Apocalypse: Using Apocalypse World to Outline and Draft Your Own RPG
Special episode, recorded online.
Presented by Meguey Baker, Vincent Baker, and Jason Pitre.
Apocalypse World offers a powerful, flexible framework you can use to outline, draft, and potentially finish your own role playing games. Dozens of creators, both experienced designers and first-timers, have used it with great success, and you can too. It’s not a game system, it’s an easy approach to game system design, a reliable way to get your creative vision quickly into a playable form. In this episode, we discuss apocalypse World’s philosophy and foundation, describe the fit and purpose of each of its systems, and point out fruitful ways to build on them, contradict them, repurpose them, subvert them, and go far beyond them.
A copy of the presentation that goes along with the episode is Available Here.
This panel was originally presented at Metatopia 2016, but technical problems at the audio meant that we had to re-record the discussion. It’s an excellent one though, where we discuss issues of the structure behind apocalypse, where the heavy design work needs to happen, the decision points on move construction, and how consent/power fit into the context of the framework.
Enjoy and share this episode freely!
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Saturday Jul 08, 2017
Saturday Jul 08, 2017
Breaking into Board Games
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Pam Walls, Tim Brown, Eric Lang, Sen-Foong Lim, and moderated by Daryl Andrews.
Want to design a board game? Have no idea how to get into the industry? Join our wonderful set of panelists to talk about how to enter the board game design world, do some playtesting, and get your game published.
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Episode118-Breaking_Into_Boardgames
Sunday Jul 02, 2017
Sunday Jul 02, 2017
What’s Up in Tabletop Games?
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Michelle Lyons-McFarland, Jonathan Gilmour, Robin D. Laws, Eric Lang, and moderator Jonathan Lavallee.
Bombard our panelists with questions about tabletop gaming and the many directions it’s headed in.
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Saturday Jun 24, 2017
Saturday Jun 24, 2017
Creating Horror in Games
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Michelle Lyons-McFarland, Jonathan Gilmour, and moderator Jacqueline Bryk,
Like ghosties, ghoulies, long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night? Join us for a panel on how to incorporate gothic horror tropes into your project or campaign!
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Saturday Jun 17, 2017
Saturday Jun 17, 2017
Sex in Games
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Moyra Turkington, Jacqueline Bryk, Alex Roberts, and moderator Emily Griggs.
From the Ramayana to Romeo and Juliet, love and passion are at the heart of some of the most timeless stories ever told. So, how do we explore these themes in roleplaying games? How do we as players and GMs help each other have fun and stay safe? What systems bring sex and romance to the forefront? What’s that thing larpers are doing with their hands? Your panelists will answer all these questions, and many more.
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Sunday Jun 04, 2017
Sunday Jun 04, 2017
GM Troubleshooting
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Robin Laws, Matt McFarland, Anna Kreider and moderator Fraser Ronald.
Solve your toughest GMing problems with the aid of our masterful panelists. Discussing the challenges of the game master’s life.
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Sunday May 14, 2017
Sunday May 14, 2017
Art in Games
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Rachel Kahn, Anna Kreider, Emily Griggs, and moderator Cory Reid
Demystifying the process of how art gets created for games — how to get commissions, how the process works, and what art can do for a game besides look great! The art that surrounds a game greatly influences how the game gets played, and inspires the players at the table. Join Anna Kreider, Rachel Kahn and Emily Griggs as they discuss the role of art in gaming.
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Saturday May 06, 2017
Saturday May 06, 2017
Getting Kids into Games
Recorded at Breakout Con 2017
Presented by Daniel Kwan, Rachel Kahn, Sean Munro and moderator Pieter van Hiel
We love role-playing games! Regardless of the game system, the storytelling, dice rolling, teamwork, and creative thinking involved in all tabletop RPGs have had a profound impact on our lives. But how do you introduce families and children to the imagination, storytelling, empowerment, and cooperation involved in gaming? Find out how to lay the groundwork for future, more complicated RPG sessions with your kids and family!
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