“IS WHAT I’M MAKING EVEN GOOD?” I ask myself,
“WHERE CAN I GET UNBIASED FEEDBACK?” I continue,
“HOW DO I GET BETTER?” I finish.
Dungeons. Dungeons, dungeons, dungeons. I can read dozens of articles on dungeon design. I can take courses, and watch videos. I can look at what I think are good dungeons, and I can tell when something is a bad dungeon… but how do I know if my work, my dungeons, are actually. getting better? Why even make dungeons at all? Why dungeons?
The first part of the answer is “make more dungeons” (and compare the old ones to the new ones), but I only manage to make a couple per year, and they’re not always that thoughtful. I barely even have experience being inside dungeons as a player! I’m a baby! I’ve only played TTRPGs since late 2017, and I’ve only been running them for the last two years… I feel like I’m in a metaphysical crisis, a philosophical despair about the dungeon here.
But dungeons are just an example vehicle for general discussion here – all this is a result of my trying to put one together over the last week. The real point is, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels about game mastery and game design these days. I could run sessions 5 times a week, or write up a dozen scenario hooks, and it would probably lead to some improvement, but it’s not directed practice – my energy isn’t primarily being spent on being a better game master. Rather, I’m just going through the motions. Instead of practicing the metaphorical guitar, I’m just strumming the strings for twenty minutes – it all feels so aimless. What do I need to do, how do I focus on something specific to improve upon? How can I best bridge that gap between theory and praxis?
Even theory is tough – I used to feel quite smart during my university days. I was truly picking up knowledge and figuring out how to apply it… but lately, I can read through game design books and it’s like “what am I even picking up, here?” or “how do I actually study this?”! I’ve nearly forgotten decades of school and how to learn things! Applying it is worse – how do I know when I’ve succeeded? “Your players had fun” is an extremely low bar for me (a good one to strive for with the casual games master, but not really what I’m talking about here). I’m aiming for the intentional application of good gaming. Some sessions will just not work out – they won’t be fun. But that’s never necessarily the game master’s fault alone – it’s a myriad of factors. What I want is to figure out how to parse out those factors – and know that even if things weren’t fun, what did I do right anyway?
It isn’t exactly a self-confidence thing – I think my Cult in the Empire of Decadence was a good module. I even think the Fools’ Day dungeon I’m working on is going to be up to a decent standard. I’m still happy to run things and post my work online (when I manage the time to do the work anyway). But as a “professional” game designer (one that’s making a profit) I don’t want to put out work that’s not worth the price. I probably spent a few hundred dollars on making Cult and maybe 60-80 hours of work on it – how much is my time worth? A lot! I need to pay myself a living wage, after all. It’s not fair to pay myself less. But also – how can you expect consumers to buy something awful? I tried to price Cult fairly – it’s a good piece of work, and I’m proud of it. But I don’t want to be Wizards of the Coast charging $80 for a slim hot mess of a module that needs major re-working, that you then have to pay another $40 extra to get the digital edition of. There are fair wages, and then there’s… that.
That said, maybe the bar for good design is lower than I think it is…
Slice of Beef 