It’s time for another substack newsletter thing! First, announcements. You can get the Tombpunk ashcan on www.tombpunk.games! It’s a living document as we work towards 2.0, so expect it to change, but it’s currently free, so grab it!

Osprey announced my Heirs to Heresy expansion: FAITH & FEAR! Pretty excited about this one.

Quick note, cuz it’ll come up. I’m not gonna touch on the OGL stuff on this or any future newsletters for the time being. I’ve said my piece previously and until I see final documentation on anything, I’m not interested in adding more to the conversation.

Intent in Design

One of the threads I’ve been harping on in my design discussions with my regular creative circles has been intentional design.

Intentional design is a bit of an extension of Dieter Rams’ ten principles of good design. I’m a longtime Rams acolyte. I consider him my guiding polestar for my design ethos, especially if we don’t include anyone in the industry). Intentional design is a natural place for me to continue exploring my design space.

Intentional Design is the concept of keeping each touchpoint in your game considerate of the final user (the reader/player/GM). This means instilling a deliberate design ethos in your product that is designed to facilitate five major goals.

Obviously this is my view on one design philosophy, and how it applies to gaming. This doesn’t work for everyone and I don’t expect it would. But it works for me.

1.) Radical Simplification

In my eyes, this is keeping the product as simple as possible, while still providing the full experience. “Less, but Better”, as Dieter Rams would say.

Does a rule/text/art enhance the experience the game is intended to provide? If no, it needs to go.

This also applies to how I’ve started approaching our crowdfundings. Things like bags, dice, etc. can often over complicate the experience, instead of enhancing it, and I’m trying to make more deliberate choices in what we include as accessories. These tactile bits can be really useful and enhance a game (I buy enough of these sorta things to really love them and understand their value), but they can also detract if poorly handled (or if they delay a product).

2.) Deep Understanding

What does this mean? For me and how I view games, this goes back to Rams’ fourth rule of good design: “make a product understandable”. The end goal is for the game to clearly communicate, portray, and be easily understandable on how it is intended to be used.

As an example, let’s consider hex crawls and setting books. Sometimes I’ll crack a city book and not really know what I’m supposed to do with it, but a hex-crawl is almost always very clear on how I’m intended to utilize that. Now that’s a drawback of the communication medium: it is easy for a hex-crawl to communicate how you’re supposed to use it, as how it is used is an implicitly understood element for many gamers.

So how do we make text heavy RPG products more understandable and useable?

This includes things like sidebars, clarifying text, and extends to things like form-factor (landscape versus portrait, text choices and more).

Some things I’ve done towards this in the past (some unintentionally of course. I’m always learning and growing):

Designer Commentary sidebars (Eorathril had this, and I’ve replicated similar features later on.)

Clear communication of the game and its goals in the text (Heirs to Heresy, Crescendo of Violence.)

Reader friendly font choices over more artistic ones for essential text.

This isn’t to condemn artistic choices for fonts. I love them, and use them myself when I’m doing layout. I just try to be conscious of the fact that essential text needs to be easy to parse and understand when reading it.

We’ve recently been exploring options for dyslexic friendly fonts, as well as other options.

3.) Extreme Focus

This is related to line one when it comes to game design. The game (in my opinion) should be very tightly focused on the core goal it is trying to fulfill. Pendragon does a great job of this. Every rule in that game is about being a knight. Nothing in that game is extra or outside of that core goal.

This one is really hard for me to hit. I often like adding bits and bobs that I think are cool and make the experience better, but recently I’ve been trying to hold myself back in those regards.

4.) Personal Connection

Games can often feel sterile, manual-like, or dry. With intentional design, we try to focus on connecting the artists behind the game with the end-user of the game. The writing should feel personal and passionate, the art should feel like it connects with the end-user and with the game.

This is a hard, subtle, unclear one, but it’s important to keep in mind.

5.) Direct Communication

Similar to 2, Direct Communication is about making the user feel confident, comfortable, and empowered to use the RPG product. People feel good when they feel like they can achieve the aims. Daunting or overwhelming products inhibit the user experience, and this is one place playtesting and reviews from opinions that differ from your own can help clear up the miasma of our own blind spots.

A great video on Intentional Design (courtesy of Apple and their developer conference)

I think when we include all five of these (in conjunction with Rams’ work), it can really improve our approach to game design. I know constantly reconsidering these elements has made me a far better publisher and mechanical designer than I used to be, and as I revisit them, I grow excited for my future as a game publisher and designer.

Current Inspirations

What am I reading? I just finished rereading The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, and I’ve got a long list of other philosophy texts to dig into, but first I’m gonna finish reading the new Elric novel.

What am I listening to? Lots of science fiction soundtracks, mostly video games (Destiny, Anthem, etc.) Lots of ambient stuff, as well as some synth Robert Denton turned me onto.

What am I playing? In RPGs, Shadows of Esteren, playtest games, some solo RPGs (Sacrifice, a few of my own), and a few card games (Flesh & Blood, Supershow).

What am I watching? Been on a Swords & Sandals kick, with the classic Harryhausen Sinbads and Jason and the Argonauts. Probably what inspired Swords of Meropis after all.