A Roll and Write Experience

July 12, 2017July 12, 20173 Comments

Frustration. For weeks that was the predominant emotion. Maybe weeks is a bit too long, but for sure it was frustration. You see, I’d decided to enter the GenCan’t Roll and Write contest. A game design contest that with a one month deadline, that needed to involve standard dice (the roll bit), that involved writing on paper (eh…the write part), and that MUST include a solo mode. All three things made me uncomfortable as a designer. Generally I don’t like dice. I’ve very little experience with roll and write games. I’ve more experience with solo games, but have never designed one, and any ambitions I’ve had to design one usually end with exasperation as I try to find the balance between replayability (generally through random events, unpredictable outcomes etc.) and making the game about skill, not luck (generally though reducing randomness, avoiding hugely unpredictable outcomes). Continue reading →

The Crafty Podcast – Episode 10: Rampunctious!

March 23, 2017Leave a comment

The Crafty Podcast Episode 10 is now online! In this very special episode Paddy talks to Irish game designer Jen Carey and artist Basil Lim about their new game Rampunctious: The Game of Terrible Puns. Be warned: we commit some seriously bad puns in our liveplay of Rampunctious!

Rampunctious is live on Kickstarter right now and is over 80% funded! Head over the the Kickstarter page here to back it and support a great new game.

Also available on iTunes & Stitcher! Be sure to rate and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!

Secret Voldemort

February 22, 2017August 28, 201760 Comments

On Episode 7 of the podcast we discussed Secret Hitler. While I did enjoy the game, we touched on the idea that the inclusion of Hitler and Nazis might immediately create a situation where some people wouldn’t want to play it. Hell, excluding the presence of Hitler in the game, it sort of sounds dull – play a political party member, vote for the president, and pass political policies.

To me, on the surface, that sounds unappealing. But the game is fun damn it! It was a game I wanted more people to play, specifically my partner Marie. So spurned on by our discussion on the podcast of re-theming the game I set about creating Secret Voldemort!

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Designer Diary: Agency

February 15, 2017Leave a comment

This week I’m going to continue my designer diary. Previously I introduced Agency, a game I started (but moved beyond) with the restrictions for our Build A Board Game event, which we ran in August last year. Agency is a game about marketing; the player represents an advertising agency, looking to fulfil contracts in the market to earn cash. The player with the most cash at the end of the game, is the most successful. Just like real life cash is how we measure success, cash and victory points. Continue reading →

Design Diary: Introduction

January 18, 20175 Comments

A successful playtest meet up

One of our ambitions for 2017 here at the Crafty Players is to put out more higher quality articles. If you read our post about our new year’s gaming resolutions, you would have read that I have set myself the goal of having three games ready to submit to the Cardboard Edison Award in January 2018. To help facilitate both of these goals, I’ve decided I’m going to write about my experiences of trying to design board games. From the early steps of idea to early prototype, to playtesting and how I modify the game based on those playtests. Continue reading →

Adventures in Design

November 30, 2016November 30, 20161 Comment

The reasons myself and Paddy chose the name “The Crafty Players” may be obvious: we enjoy craft beer and like playing board games. But part of the reason behind the name was to reflect that both myself and Paddy like to make things. He’s mentioned before in blog posts and podcasts that he enjoys making board games and that he has a few prototypes in the works (one of which almost made one of our friends cry, so it’s gotta be good!), and while I also have notes for my board game opus scrawled across dozens of pages, at the moment the “crafty” side of me is focused on creating and writing adventures for Dungeons & Dragons. The first of these, titled The Graveyard Shift, is free on DriveThruRPG now! With that in mind, this week I’d like to talk about how I approach writing adventures and I’m going to use my current work-in-progress adventure as an example. So strap in because we’re venturing deep into the depths of my DM-Brain!

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