Category: Theory

Respecting Player Interest in Roleplaying Game Design (1/3): Themes and Concepts

One thing that I constantly struggle with as a tabletop role-playing game designer is making sure that my designs match the interests of the players who will play my games. This requires a process, there’s no magic “players will like this because…” formula that you can plug into game design. The first step of this process is…
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MOPED Lessons: Introduction

Last post I mentioned something called ‘my MOPED design principles’, and I intend for this article to be a brief overview and introduction to each of them. I’ll be doing a full article on each of the five principles, going in detail and with examples from games I’ve played or have worked on. Talking about…
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Better gameplay: skill resolution

With this article, I’m starting an entirely new series on tacking problems in RPGs that aims to explore the ways we can speed up play and make it a smoother user experience by reducing the lag that happens when interpreting roleplay through mechanics. This streamlining process can be applied to everything, both during the session…
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A Complex Conundrum

Welcome back to our little slice of the Internet. By now, we’ve covered the bare basics of what design is, the core things you need to start working on a game, and which issues you should try to avoid during the process. Now I want to tackle a subject that is useful to both beginners…
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Sidequest: Harsh Truths

Howdy! Welcome to another Sidequest, where we have another topic, but the same kind of semi-coherent ranting, raving, and rambling, courtesy of yours truly. So, I wrote this article thing regarding beginner mistakes, but the original idea was to write about the harsh truths of game design. Y’know, the shit no one tells noobs because…
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The Trials of Error (2/2)

Pictured: 4 versions of the same card from one of my games, none of which was final.A whole lot of valuable lessons learned, though.(Disclaimer: Art’s not mine and is just used for prototype purposes) To continue directly where we left off from Part 1, we resume the list of common beginner mistakes in no particular…
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The Trials of Error (1/2)

Pictured: Cards from 4 prototypes of the same game, all of which were scrapped eventually.A whole lot of valuable lessons learned, though. mAking mistkaes Where we last left off (So, you want to make a game…), we discussed the core aspects of design as a process and some simple steps one can follow in order…
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Candle in the dark

Hello. My name is Nickolay Krumov, also known as Hegemon on the internet. But feel free to call me Nick. I am one of the writers for TDA and with my articles I am mostly going to focus on three main types of content: Theory: Highly conceptual pieces that mostly lay the ground work for…
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So, you want to make a game…

A brave new world Welcome to game design! Whether you’re completely new to the craft, or an already-experienced designer/developer, it never hurts to take a look at the basics and see things from a new perspective. In this post, I will attempt to shed some light on the process of starting a new game, as…
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Boredom, inverted.

Hi, I’m InvertedVertex, one of the writers for the TDA blog. I’m a hobbyist game designer, and I’ve been actively working on games for about 3-4 years now. I like making games that are simple to learn and setup, while keeping them highly interactive and engaging. On here, I would write 2 types of posts:…
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