Explore the fundamentals of RPG design in this concise 4-hour course, covering essential game design concepts and the business side of tabletop RPGs.
This mini course, lasting just 4.5 hours, is your stepping stone into the world of RPG design. It covers the essentials you need to kickstart your journey in game design and prepares you for the harsh reality of making money in this field. Spoiler: it’s tough!
A brief (4 hour) course to introduce you to RPG design. A section of "need to knows" about game design is included.
This brief (4.5 hour) course introduces you to RPG design. (No course of this length can pretend to be comprehensive, of course.) The goal is for you to understand the fundamentals of RPG design (which is a subset of game design). For example, what are you really doing when you "design an RPG?" There are at least three parts to that.
The three main sections are an introduction to game design (mainly "Need to Knows"), an introduction to RPG design, and a discussion of the business of RPG design. The primary purpose of the last is to help you understand why RPG design, especially tabletop, is very unlikely to earn you a living.
Understand the fundamentals of RPG design (which is a subset of game design)
Recognize that RPG design, especially tabletop, is very unlikely to earn you a living
3 Lectures
11 Lectures
15 Lectures
6 Lectures
6 Lectures
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher (Wikipedia: "Lewis Pulsipher"; "Britannia (board game)"; "Archomental" ) is the designer of approaching a dozen commercially published boardgames. His game "Britannia" is described in an Armchair General review "as one of the great titles in the world of games." Britannia was also one of the 100 games highlighted in the book "Hobby Games: the 100 Best". He...
I enjoyed the course! Dr Pulsipher knows his stuff, and I like how he presents his experience in this class. I'd love to see the course updated to today and have more of his thoughts on the current OGL and TTRPG Kickstarters in 2023.
From the title, I expected a focus on table-top games, but discussion kept veering into video games; if the course is on general game design, just call it game design and be done. Very repetitive, sometimes re-using the exact script from one section to another. And while there is value for a final section in which the presenter points out other books/articles/courses, having multiple plugs for them throughout the course was needlessly distracting.
The instructor focuses quite a bit on the "Not making any money" aspect of RPG / Game design. Yes this is a part of it, but that trend is changing. Similarly he states that TTRPGs are hard to get published. Traditional means, yes this is true. Independent publishing has grown a LOT over the past few years to make it quite easy to self publish. Decent content, could be updated to reflect newer trends in the tabletop RPG world.
I really like how informational this course was.
The course material matched my own thoughts on game design.
So far
I expected a brand new example, specifically for this course, made by the lecturer and to be followed on this course rather than general advices.
Slow to start and somewhat repetitive.
A very thorough presentation by Dr. Lewis Pulsipher. Even when
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Amin O. T.
I couldn't find the information anywhere else