Who Designs the Game?

About this episode

The episode explores the dynamics of game design and the distribution of control among players, GMs, and designers.

Who designs the game? Is it the players, who make decisions in real time at the table? The GM, who’s at the ready to suggest ideas or dole out consequences? Or the designers, who… well… make the game? In this episode, we talk about when and how to distribute control of the experience between the players, the GM, ourselves as designers, and random rolls of the dice. Links: Join the Turtlebun Discord: https://discord.gg/ApNfNvUk Support our work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/turtlebun⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our games: https://turtlebun.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Credits: Design Doc intro/outro theme by ipaghost: https://www.ipaghost.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Episode edited by Rob Abrazado: https://robabrazado.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: Designdocpod (at) gmail (dot) com Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/turtleandbun⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/turtlebun.com⁠

People in this episode

Hosts: Hannah Shaffer, Evan Rowland

Topics covered

• game design
• player agency
• game master role
• designers
• control distribution
• dice mechanics

Keywords

• game design
• players
• game master
• designers
• control
• dice
• role-playing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Turtlebun, Patreon, Discord

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