Episode 80 - Conversations in Design

Hi, and welcome back to the show! This episode sparked from a twitter conversation between Luke Crane and I about design intentions. To hack or not to hack, Conversations in Design. Luke had thoughts. An hour of thoughts. Check em out! Note: This is an explicit episode. Host: Sean Nittner Guests: Luke Crane Length: 1:08:21 [00:28] Intro to the show – Interview with Luke Crane. [01:16] Luke prepared for an interview and to say things he probably shouldn't. [03:03] Design process. Different when you're working on a game and when people are playing it. [03:35] Luke's History of Hacking. [07:40] Part of the hacking culture is the belief that games don't work as written. [08:01] Difference between expansibility (developing products for a game) hacking (changing the rules) [09:35] Design intent for Burning Wheel – Make the system shoulder the work. [14:37] "If the game can do the heavy lifting, it should." [15:04] The anatomy of Burning Wheel – See diagram below: [16:27] Burning Wheel Refined – A very compact and tight game. "If you find a place in Burning Wheel where you're fighting with the game…you're playing it wrong." [18:08] It's very difficult to have a conversation with Burning Wheel. [21:05] Nobody has thought about Burning Wheel as much as Luke has. Three people made sudden insights that helped the system: Ralph Mazza, Kenneth Hite, and Thor Olavsrud. And those prompted the change form Classic to Revised. [26:16] Burning Wheel path to expansibility – Trait votes! [27:57] Burning Wheel is a heavy brick of game design… Apocalypse World was designed to be hackable! Fate has the same ethos. Designing for the culture! [30:15] But... they have captured the audience so well that it stymies design. [31:52] People are still making D&D clones… so making a product that is hacked isn't anything new. [32:30] Apocalypse World and Fate Core raising the bar for fledging game designers, but also creating a paper ceiling. [38:20] Vincent Baker designed all those game. [39:39] Discussion about the playability and enjoy-ability and good that has come out of Apocalypse Engine and Fate games. Not about whether it is fun to play or not. [41:28] The state of RPG design in the aftermath of Apocalypse World and Fate in 10-15 years. Right now were playing with the new bounty we have. [42:47] Frustration of developing in the shadow of Vincent [and Fate]. [44:18] The games have given Luke a new perspective on Burning Wheel and a new appreciation for it. BWHQ manifesto includes that we'll never make a popular game and that's okay. [46:40] Fate*World . Yep, it exists. Ryan Macklin posted it. [47:30] What is Luke looking for in the future from other designers? [49:54] The secret history of why this podcast is named Narrative Control. [50:19] Value of expansibility content. New adventures, settings, new systems for specific uses. A plug for my own development of Stone Dragon Mountain [55:05] A gift for Vincent from Luke. Two soaring birds. [55:12] Board gamers are very good at articulating the components of their games. RPGs aren't distilled down that quickly. [57:17] The political discussion about games is counter-productive. [58:08] RPGs are hard to talk about. They are on the cutting edge of "what is a game"? The conversation continues... Here No, actually the conversation continues on G+ here , here , here , and here . Also possibly here .

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Episode 80 - Conversations in Design is an episode from Narrative Control by Sean Nittner.

This episode is 01:02:09 long.

This episode was published on Jan 5, 2015.

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