Recommendations for New RPG Designers
A roundup of recs from members of the Dice Exploder Discord
Here’s a question: if someone new to RPG design comes to you and asks what they should read, watch, and play to get up to speed, what do you recommend?
This has happened to me a few times in the past year, and I find it to be a terrible position to be in. There’s so much good stuff out there about design, and our community is so fragmented into isolated silos. How do you offer a reasonably comprehensive yet manageable reading list when you yourself are unlikely to know half of what’s out there?
Yadda yadda, call to action about how we should do a better job as a community centralizing and keeping a historical record of our collective conversations. There should be more books about the history of the hobby, and I wish we had good spaces that were more public than Discords.
But in the meantime, myself and others on the Dice Exploder Discord were trying to put together a list of recommendations we could have on hand for newcomers, and the task quickly became silly to me. Even just focusing on our little corner, I got up to about 150 blog posts before I was like “what am I doing? Who is this going to be useful for?”
Instead of trying to make something comprehensive, I thought maybe we could make something personal. I invited anyone on the server to write a short blog post targeted at people new to RPGs excited to dive into the deep end of design that included:
3 posts/podcasts/episodes/pieces of media to consume
1 game to play
Explanations for your choices
A paragraph or so of your own advice
I promised to compile those when they were done. And now, today, here I am compiling them. It’s the Dice Exploder “intro to RPG design” blog carnival.
Before we dive in, I want to underscore a piece of advice that I got first from a film professor telling me how to get good at making movies, and then again from Jason Morningstar on the server as we were discussing all this: “go live in the world and learn things.” Read about everything, fall in love, navigate your relationship with your family, take walks, work in a completely unrelated industry, and so on and so forth. You need things in your life to make art about.
(For reference: when I use quotations in the rest of this list, I’m quoting the Dice Exploder Discord member whose recommendations I’m in the middle of, not the author of any other blogpost. I highly encourage you to check out all these posts in full!)
Now. With all that out of the way:
Merrilee Bufkin
Kicking things off, we have an author who’s new to all this herself. If you’re new as well, I think talking with your peers is an underrated place to start. It’s good practice to beat around the basics.
Merrilee also starts off her recs with the #1 and #2 most recommended series of blog posts from people on the Dice Exploder Discord:
Media 1: Powered by the Apocalypse, a series by Vincent Baker explaining the thought processes and philosophy behind the design of Apocalypse World and the Powered by the Apocalypse movement at large. “Great piece for thinking about your own philosophy and how you approach not just design, but play and facilitation.”
Media 2: A Dozen Fragments On Playground Theory by Jay Dragon, a poetic post that (among many other things) encourages you to think about games the way kids think. “Great for getting an understanding of the basis of all play.”
Media 3: Slow Larp Manifesto by Sara Kannasvuo, Ruska Kevätkoski, and Elli Leppä. “Great for learning about LARPs and, in particular, the power of slower stories and games.”
Game: Paranoia. “A very fun introduction to the idea that all elements of a game are part of the game itself and effect play… Play careful attention to the power dynamics, the tone of the game, and particularly, the tone of the writing and the voice that it assumes.”
Advice: “My number one piece of advice is to go out and make stuff... For me personally, I don’t care about polish when it comes to my early works. I just care about making things and asking people what they think and seeing if its fun to play.”
“In between all that writing, consume. But don’t just limit yourself to consuming things about games. Consume anything and everything you can get your hands on, and do it thoughtfully. What can that book you read about architecture tell you about the way people view the world, how they interact with it? What does your newest TV obsession use to draw you in? How do you play in the world around you?”
Gigantic Spider, AKA Nico MacDougall
Next up is Nico MacDougall, friend to this author and organizer for The Awards in 2023 and into the future. (Check out this week’s winners, announced last week, as broken down in the The Indie RPG Newsletter.)
Nico’s full post: https://ttrpg-spider.blogspot.com/2023/11/a-beginners-manifesto-for-ttrpgs.html
I love the big swings in these recommendations. Everyone should always read more Ursula K. LeGuin.
Media 1: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. LeGuin, who “proposes a fundamental restructuring of how we see narrative, story, Heroes, heroism - one that is long overdue in literature at large but especially here in an artform still so strongly influenced by wargaming. How might TTRPGs look different if we acknowledge them as carrier bags, places where we store things we find interesting, tragic, tasty, worth sharing?”
Media 2: Real Enough: The Reality Our Games Make, a blog post by Lucrécia Ludovico Alves. “The argument boiled down, as I see it, challenges how we see characters in TTRPGs and how we see ourselves. Essentially it asks, "Oh you think you're more real than your character? Prove it." And the thing is? You can't.”
Media 3: Ritual In Game Design, a blog post by Meguey Baker. This is among my personal favorites, and I think applicable to events and gatherings of all kinds, not just games. “I would be hard pressed to think of a better description of TTRPGs than as "intentional contained conscious creative action." By reading this essay, you'll be better equipped to schedule, run, play, and write games.”
Game: .dungeon by Snow, remastered or otherwise. “Not only are they gorgeous and simple to learn, they blur the lines between in-game and away-from-game, gameplay and secondary storytelling (to borrow a term from Alves' piece above), the character and the player. Masquerading as just another fantasy TTRPG, snow's metagame of playing players playing characters in an MMO opens up incredible opportunities for joy, humor, connection, and art.”
Advice: “(Un)Fortunately, the best way for you to get into TTRPGs is to do it, and no one can tell you the 'right' or 'wrong' path to it. Just, y'know don't get sucked into endless cyclical discourse, don't give bigots your money, and for god's sake don't let big companies create walled gardens to enclose what is otherwise a hugely freeing experience that defies boundaries.”
Lady Tabletop
Media 1: Systems of Relation, another Jay Dragon blog post in the same realm as Merrilee’s recommendation. “I've been playing my whole life, and ttrpgs are just another piece of that. I think it's crucial to break out of the framework of people trying to define play and games into neat little categories.”
Media 2: Axes of Game Design by Thomas Manuel, a blog post that tries to describe the full scope of RPGs across a number of different axes. “Now that I've told you to stop trying to categorize games, we have an article about trying to categorize games… I think as designers it's important to figure out the things the game is trying to do and communicate, so that we can make sure it does those things well.”
Media 3: The OSR, Lonely Fun, and why I believe many D&D alternatives entirely miss the point of why people will never leave 5th Edition, a reddit thread by JacktheDM. “This thread was key for me in terms of considering that no game is for everyone, and it shouldn't try to be, and also helped contextualize the enjoyment I get from the occasional high-prep game.”
Game: Balikbayan: Returning Home by Rae Nedjadi. “I'm not going to say it's the most elegant or tight of Rae's work, but it's the one with the most heart for me. The story this game wants you to tell is so clear, and as an introduction to "Belonging Outside Belonging" as a system/concept/design philosophy”
Advice: “1. When in doubt, simplify or make it silly. 2. The two cakes theory is your best friend - game design is not a competition. 3. Not everything has to be finished. Not every part of the creative process is fun. Find the balance between these two truths (you're going to have to do that every day).”
Dregntael
Media 1: Violence Is The Loudest Person at the Party, a podcast interview with Jay Dragon on the queeRPG podcast about violence in RPGs.
Media 2: Player’s Principals and Agenda, an episode of the +1 Forward podcast about being a player. “It demonstrates beautifully how you can use your agency as a player to not just improve your own enjoyment but that of everyone at the table.”
Media 3: Using TTRPGs to change the narratives around Autism by Peter Jung M.Ed. on the Roll For Kindness blog with a self-explanatory title. “As highly imaginative and structured social activities, TTRPGs tend to attract many people on the Autism spectrum. Whether you are one of them or not, it is worth learning a bit about how we experience the world differently.”
Game: Tales From the Loop, published by Free League. “The book has beautiful art, elegant rules that are easy to learn, and plenty of mysteries that are ready for you to jump into. It was the game that really opened my eyes to the full spectrum of ttrpgs.”
Advice: “[Don’t] be afraid of trying out different ways of playing. Try playing a character who's completely different from you, or play yourself transported into a fantasy world… Try a storygame with barely any mechanics, or a wargame with barely any story. Try adding a house rule, or try playing the game completely as written. Try playing a solo RPG, or try playing a game with 20 players and five GMs… It’s up to you.”
Alex Marinkovich-Josey
Media 1: Designing the Game, a video from Matt Colville’s YouTube channel. “Matt’s Running The Game videos helped me understand how to be a better Game Master.”
Media 2: Questions as Mechanics, an episode of the RPG Design Panelcast.
Media 3: Playing With Mortality, yet another post from Lumpley Games by Meguey Baker.
Game: Lasers and Feelings by John Harper. “When you take a look at this game, consider how it finds the core fantasy it wants to replicate, what it gives all the players to use, and what experiences players might have when sitting down to play it.”
Advice: “There’s lots of advice online about how to start. Start small, start in a system you know, don’t make a whole system. I say, start with what excites you! Follow that creativity to where ever it takes you, or as Morgan Davie said on the first episode of Wait, Roll That Again!, ‘find the rainbow and chase it!’”
I’ll note that Alex’s podcast Wait, Roll That Again is also a great place to start if you’re just getting into RPG design. It walks through his process designing his first game.
My picks:
Media 1: A Worksheet Manifesto (Rough Draft) by Aaron King. I love a good manifesto. The big thing to me here is that you shouldn’t be afraid to put stuff out there that doesn’t “live up” to the quality of all the amazing stuff that’s probably inspired you. It’s okay to just print out a few pieces of paper and bring them to your local table and have that be enough.
Media 2: Apocalypse World: Custom Advancement by, yes, Vincent Baker. One of my RPG hobby horses is encouraging people to design for existing games. I mean that as both “make custom content for Apocalypse World and put it out there,” but also “make custom content that will only work at your table for whatever nonsense your group is getting up to.” I think this is great practice and leads to really cool, specific stuff that you can often adapt to a wider audience later. This post may not contain that exact call to arms, but it’s a great walkthrough on how you might think about following through on it.
Media 3: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michael Gondry. This is my favorite movie, and I think RPGs should have more romance in them, so maybe if you watch this you’ll feel inspired. (This is a proxy for my original advice: go consume great non-game things.)
Game: For The Queen by Alex Roberts. A game so simple it teaches you how to play it. I think there is so much power in the power of a single, intuitive mechanic like “draw a card and answer its question.” You can do a lot with a little, and it’s often easier to start there than trying to design something as sweeping as D&D. Take a look at how Alex does it.
Advice:
A piece of practical advice lost in all the above: playtest. As much as I love and respect and encourage the sentiment of “just get something out there” that’s become common in my corner of the hobby, playtesting can and will reveal so much about your games. Not only how to make them better, but how they tick in the first place, how players actually approach rules and procedures and play, and how you might be a better player at large. Playtest playtest playtest!
A big picture thought: there are a thousand easier ways to make a living than RPG design. The happiest designers I know are the people with easy day jobs who do this for fun on the side. You, too, will likely be happiest if you’re doing this for fun more than profit, and your art will be better for it, too.
Surround yourself with good people, design for them, and be satisfied when they love your shit.
Make art because you love to make art. Make stuff that makes you feel. Make it weird, make it your own, make it because you have to.
Loved reading everyone's recommendations, and finding a bunch more cool people to follow in the design space! Thanks for hosting this Sam!
The link to Ursula K Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory is a bit broken, might need to be edited down to just the later part of the link?