Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Cat Tobin, Will Sobel, JR Blackwell, Christopher McGlothlin, Maz Hamilton. You're an RPG designer now! That's great, but now how do you get your awesome game in front of players who will appreciate it? How do you position yourself for future projects? Basically, how do you get your name on a game to mean something? Our panelists grapple with this sticky problem!

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Emily Escovar, Anne Ratchat. You've got a great game and you're looking to sell it, or maybe you're looking to get a position working for somebody else making games. How do you present yourself and your game in their best lights? Pitching's a necessary skill regardless of your role in the industry. Learn how to do it here!

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Kathleen Mercury and Julie Ahern. Any adult who's worked closely with kids as a teacher, caretaker, or mentor has a cache of stories about times they learned true humility at the hands of a child. This late night panel presents the argument that the youngest generation is our greatest asset. Join panelists as they break down (through real life, hilariously humiliating examples) how every aspect of games, from design to execution, is bettered for the presence and involvement of kids, and what we can do to make our spaces more welcoming to young people. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Cat Tobin, Becky Annison, Sharang Biswas. How to Design !More! !Drama! into your RPG! Some of the most satisfying role playing experiences come from the dramatic outcomes of emotional connections between player characters. We look at ways for tabletop and LARP writers to design for deeper character relationships and dynamics, to provide a structure for GMs to bring more of the good kind of drama to their RPGs

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Kyle Ott & Riley Parks. This panel will focus on tips targeted to those who are beginning their design careers. The presentation will include advice on how to approach a publisher and conduct publisher research. Our panelists will give new designers advice on how to get unstuck and resources to help them with their first designs.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Whitney Delaglio, Camdon Wright, Avraham Yosef Baez. People are told to tell their own stories when making games, but biracial folk are often forced into an unreasonable process of justifying their marginalization regardless of their life experiences. We'll also talk about the racist foundation of not allowing designers to speak about living in, growing up around, and often excluded from more than one community. Also about how our backgrounds influence the games and artwork we design.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Roberta Taylor, Paul Saxberg, Kimberley Lam, Shoshana Kessock. How do you keep a creative spark alive when everything is coming to pieces around you? This panel will discuss some practical ways to nurture your creative self when you feel like you can't possibly make anything.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Sarah Shipp, Kathleen Mercury, Eric Slauson. How do designers get their themes to reverberate across the hobby? By adding depth, shape, and clarity to their themes. Let's talk about how to avoid muddy themes and create games that sing.

Recorded at Metatopia 2020 Presented by Misha Bushyager, Elsa Sjunneson, Kristen Roberts Explicitly feminist world-building will consider all the ways that traditionally domestic tasks and arts enrich your setting and shape your characters. From textiles to food, child-rearing to death rituals, considering the ways these details fit together will make for deeper, richer game experiences. These principles apply across all game forms

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Chance Feldstein, Erika Skirpan, Jessica Comstock, Jon Cole. Generally, "transformative" games teach skills, facilitate personal insights or shadow work, or otherwise have a significant impact on your non-gaming life. What makes a LARP game transformative without sacrificing fun and other important elements?

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Pitre, Fiona Geist, Darren Watts, Viditya Voleti. Indie game publishing is a strange craft and the design communities approach the process differently. In this panel, we will explore the similarities and divergences in publishing approaches from a Story Game, Sworddream, Trad and OSR perspectives. Let's share our knowledge and get weird.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Graham Walmsley, Christopher McGlothlin, Darren Watts, Lynne Hardy, Alex Helms. It's almost a truism that it's very hard to make RPG adventures, scenarios and modules that will sell unless you're talking about the very biggest games. Is that really true? Let's share some tricks and tips on this panel!

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Dr. Jessica Hammer, Christopher Hall. What does it mean to design games from a Jewish perspective? We have recently seen several games that center on the Jewish experience, like Rosenstrasse, Keeping The Candles Lit, Dream Apart and Mud. In this session, we'll look at key Jewish texts to see how themes and ideas from Jewish culture can inform your design. All texts will be provided in English; please come prepared for a vigorous conversation.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Charles Simon, Justin Ford, Pamela Punzalan, Erik Bernhardt, Nychelle Schneider. Forged in the Dark designers share their secrets! A diverse panel of up-and-coming indie designers inspired to create by Blades in the Dark who have variously playtested, engaged with fellow Forged in The Dark fans, and kickstarted projects comes together to discuss their inspirations, design challenges, and successes.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Tam Myaing, Doug Levandowski, Roberta Taylor, Jessica Creane.   As designers we strive to make games "fun", but they can also be a vehicle for other emotions, such as fear, sadness, disgust, shame, etc. From Brenda Romero's Train to Marc Gertz's Imperial, we will explore several games that intentionally or unintentionally make you feel bad

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Pitre, Rob Donoghue, Emily Dresner, Kenneth Hite The 100 GP Pearl: Economics and Trade as Design Elements. Economics and trade have long been foundational elements of game design, from the hyperinflation of dungeon pillaging to the free traders of Traveller. In this panel, we discuss how these aspects can be used as the foundation for game mechanics and procedures. Don't make me quote the rules of acquisition at you

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Russell Collins, Brennan Taylor, Meguey Baker, Greg Stolze. Was your game imperfect when it was released? Has it changed over time? Have you? We'll explore why (and how) you can update your game for the 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th, edition

Recorded at Metatopia 2020 Presented by Jason Pitre, Spencer Campbell, Sasha Moros, Ben Robbins, Caroline Hobbs. Role playing games have a long history of asymmetrical rules, beginning with the establishment of the Dungeon Master in the very beginning and continuing to games such as Kingdom. Role playing games have explored countless different ways of allocating authority, and modern asymmetrical boardgames (Root, Vast, etc) have showed some new approaches worth considering. In this panel, we will dig into potential ways to approach asymmetrical design.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Walters, Moe Poplar, Darren Watts, April Walsh, Jonathan Lavallee. Publishing your first RPG can be difficult, how do you know when enough play testing is enough? What feedback should you listen to? How do you get your game ready for print? All these questions, and more, will be answered in this comprehensive advice panel. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Curt Covert, Julie Ahern. Games Are Art: Designing Through An Artist's Lens. When you think of art, you think of music, theater, painting, sculpting, writing, film. And at the heart of each is an artist, who uses their talents, creativity, skill and intelligence to craft something that never existed before, with the intent of sharing a vision, a feeling, a message, a sense of discovery or connection. The games we create are no less an art form, and we designers no less than artists. What we craft brings people together for a shared experience and has the ability to do more than challenge us mentally, pass the time or entertain, but to connect emotionally with people. Let us view game design through an artistic lens, to look past the mathematical underpinnings, and dive into what makes games a uniquely human endeavor.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Eric Whalen, Rob Hebert, Steven Long, Debbie Moynihan. "Contract Literacy 101: Whereas & Therefore & Beyond" The majority of game designers will need to sign at least one contract prior to completing their game. This panel will improve your literacy and familiarity with the structure of contracts, as well as explain some of the standard contract terms you ought to be prepared to encounter. The information should be relevant to designers, artists, and publishers alike.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Morningstar, Jabari Weathers, Brennen Reece.  Art Direction: From Designer to Director to Artist. A game designer, an art director, and an artist who recently worked on a project together will talk about the project (Bully Pulpit Games' "Dead House") from each of their perspectives - how they collaborated and communicated and perceived both the brief and the final output. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Will Sobel, Beth Rimmels. For better or worse, traditional RPGs have a reputation for crunch and complication that can be scary for new players. How can designers and publishers make their games less imposing both in substance and appearance? 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Curt Covert, Melissa Lewis-Gentry, Jason Walters, Isaac Vega. How do you present a game to playtesters without biasing them, but getting what you want from the test? How do you present that same game to a publisher differently? How do you present the game to fans at a show to get them excited enough to buy it? Some things will be identical, others will be custom-tailored to the audience and what they care about (or what you want from it). And there are multiple versions of each.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Olivia Montoya, Donna Prior, Avonelle Wing.   Discord. Itch. Twitch. If you blinked and suddenly your peers sound like they’re talking about new horsemen of a very minor apocalypse, we’re here to help you catch up. There are a plethora of new(ash) platforms available to empower your gaming experiences. Avie’s here as our token dinosaur, while Donna and Olivia bring the knowledge

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Pamela Punzalan, Vince Smith, and Alastor Guzman.   Much of the dialogue relevant to the tabletop gaming industry and the communities that form around it is centered around the United States of America. Many know that creators from all around the world exist, but few understand just how different their contexts can be from the status quo. This panel seeks to bring multiple voices from beyond America together in order to discuss these differences, and provide some nuanced insight on how the America-centered industry informs their own contexts and communities.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by James Wallis, Cat Tobin, Kieron Gillen, Jacob Jaskov. We all know how certain games feel in play and how they make us feel, but as designers and critics we don't have a set of words to describe it. Do we need an experiential vocabulary of play, and what would one look like?

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jacob Segal, Justin Ford, Ian Hart. Systems like Forged in the Dark are designed with mechanics that deliberately support player agency. When paired with external safety tools, these agency-focused mechanics are intended to foster safer play culture and richer experiences. Our panelists will discuss what we mean by "player agency" and what these mechanics look like and how they work.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Pitre, Zedeck Siew, Sinta Posadas. Non-player characters are vital to tabletop and live action roleplaying games. They provide companionship, contrast, resources, information, and dramatic conflict with the players. They are the avatars of the setting, and the best tools that a GM has at their disposal. In this panel, we discuss how games can be designed using NPCs as a key mechanism of play. 

Recorded at Metatopia 2020 Online Presented by Kitty Stryker, Spider Perry, Avonelle Wing. We will talk about practical actions you can take to be better prepared the next time you have the chance to speak up. It might be addressing a micro-aggression at the game table or shutting down a bully who wants to make somebody feel small in an online setting, for example. These aren't easy things and the skills don't always come naturally. Our panelists will talk about practicing phrases and learning to overcome the social conditioning that perpetuates "isms

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Anne Ratchat, Spider Perry, Misha Bushyager, Mids Meinberg, Pamela Punzalan. For all the merits of the genre, it is not an exaggerated statement to say that horror is the least accessible genres in analog gaming. Between mechanics that require physical ability, the habitual use of monsters whose descriptions sound uncomfortably close to home, and the widespread misunderstanding of how mental health and mental illnesses work, a large swath of players are alienated before the game even begins. In this panel, we will use the recurrent inaccessible themes in horror to explore how one can build a more accessible game from the core mechanics out. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Heather O'Neill, Timothy Grant, Brian Quinones, Jack Berkenstock. This panel of game designers and therapists will discuss their journey to design RPGs for use in therapy as well as the overall benefit of using roleplaying games as a therapeutic tool. What games have they used in the past? What worked, what didn't? How did they modify games for therapy sessions? 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jeeyon Shim, Meguey Baker, Jason Morningstar.   Understanding the natural world as an active participant in games and design shifts our engagement with environmental justice and enriches every aspect of our work. Join this panel of game designers with backgrounds as adventure guides, outdoor educators, and naturalists as they discuss the various ways integrating the natural world positively impacts their design and community work in games. Attendees will learn tools to understand the more-than-human community around them in ways they can weave into their own participation in games, whether as players, designers, or organizers.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Gabriel de los Angeles, Sen-Foong Lim, Brian Quinones. Using concepts from education theory is a natural and obvious way to improve game design practices. Our panelists will talk about how to apply an understanding of how people learn and engage in play to your design process to create more immersive, satisfying designs.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Morningstar, Sungil Kim, Taka'aki Ayukata, Steve Segedy. Asian game markets are booming! Come meet two publishers who are actively licensing and translating English-language properties for their own countries and beyond. Join us for an informal conversation with and between publishers from Japan and Korea. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Alastor Guzman, Sergio Ake.   "How To Include Latin America In Your Kickstarter Fulfillment"  Latin American gamers are often excluded in Kickstarts due to.  high shipping prices, tax and unfamiliarity with the market. In this panel, we'll talk about how to include them in your fulfillment estimates and make it worthwhile for all involved.

Recorded at Metatopia 2020 Online Presented by Anne Ratchat, Sharang Biswas, Bronwyn Sperling, Kristen Roberts.   Food is fundamental to survival and yet serves as so much more, building communities and relationships, serving as an artistic expression, connecting us to ideals and memories. We will explore our diverse relationship with food, cooking, and eating and, in turn, show how such simple acts can be very powerful mechanics in games, most notably LARP.

Recorded at Metatopia 2020 Online Presented by Avraham Yosef Baez, Bronwyn Sperling, Emily Care Boss   Role-playing games that integrate tactile components and mechanics allow our other senses to engage in play. Although COVID put a pause on many games that offer tactile experiences, join our conversation about what we are excited to have in the future. This panel will discuss how these little touches (see what we did there?) help enhance the game experience, how could they hurt it, and what considerations should be thought of when designing a game with tactile components. Whether it is sewing, stacking, smelling, or sounds, come join us and sigh about what we long to get back to. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Rach Shelkey, Jacqueline Bryk, Sidney Icarus, Jen Dixon. Has the current global health crisis inspired a new game idea? Considering writing a game about healthcare workers? Join our panelists as they discuss what role playing games can learn from the field of medicine and how to thoughtfully address the medical profession in your designs. Questions encouraged!

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020  Presented by Richard Ruane, Brian Yaksha, Zedeck Siew, Amanda Franck, Pamela Punzalan.   Microsettings (settings that focus closely on a specific area, region, or location) can be a powerful touchstone for game design. By focusing their attention and concerns on a small region, city, or even places as focused as a bar, a school, or a shopping center, microsettings give the smaller, more particular stories a space to happen. In the panel, we'd like to discuss how designing and detailing of focused microsettings can evoke a location's multiplicity and diversity, make the world of the game more accessible and real, challenge characters to form relationships within the setting, and invoke curiosity about mundane aspects of setting life.   A thread of additional questions and answers have been prepared by Brian Yaksha, one of the panelists. https://twitter.com/goatmansgoblet/status/1324917649143435265      

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020   Presented by Ash Kreider, Jason Morningstar, Mike Czaplinski, Jeeyon Shim.   A panel about the limitations of imagination when it comes to how we see violence in tabletop games. With the entire range of human experience to draw from, why is designing games without violence still seen as having a "niche" audience? In this panel, we will discuss what it means to explore designing games that don't feature interpersonal violence as a resolution mechanic.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by J Li, Jessica Hammer Consulting 101: Selling Game Design As a Service for $5K - $250K: . Want to sell game design as a service to large institutions? This panel will walk you through the practical details of the consulting pitch and sales process. Topics include how to get started, finding clients, crafting proposals, asking for money, sales strategy, execution deliverables, and long-term business development. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Kalum, Pamela Punzalan, Diogo Nogueira, Allan Cudicio. "RPGs and English as Our Vehicular Language: Beyond the American Culture Online: The internet enables Tabletop RPG fans to come together globally. However, it is difficult for non-American communities to have their voices heard. This due to the use of English as our shared vehicular language combined with the disproportionate American demographics online. In this panel, we'll explore the experience of non-native English-speaking RPG luminaries within this reality. We'll talk through the lens of RPG about local identities and cross-border engagement. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Nicole Cutler, Avonelle Wing. It seems a little unpopular to tell new designers "don't kickstart your game"; Kickstarter is an invaluable tool. There are so many encouraging blogs and podcasts that talk optimistically about how accessible it is to crowdfund your own game. but there's not a lot that talk in depth about the logistics, liabilities and potential pitfalls. Before making the decision to launch a campaign, we want to give potential new creators a realistic look behind the curtain to see what they're diving into.

Recorded at Metatopia 2020 Online Presented by Scott Morris, Mike Paschal. Are you a designer and want to know how your game gets distributed? Are you self publishing and want to know more about Distribution? Are you crazy enough to actually ask a Distributor anything? Join us as Scott Morris from GTS and Mike Paschal from PHD discuss the U.S.'s 3-Tier system and answer questions. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Jason Pitre, Sen-Foong Lim, Nicole Winchester, Christoph Sapinsky. For Canadian game designers and pros, it's pretty common to get lumped in with U.S. designers. After all, it's all North America, right? The cultural differences between the two countries often gets lost, especially when discussing the elements that inform game design and aesthetics. Our panelists will talk about the specific parts of their Canadian experience that affect their game development work. 

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by Vee Hendro, Hayley Gordon. All RPGs engage our emotions, and some are made with feels first in mind. We discuss the ethics and how-to of emotional storytelling and RPG design. From buy-in to agency and safety, how can we make anguish and yearning an enjoyable experience? Brought to you by Storybrewers, Australia.

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020 Presented by A.C., Jay Dragon, and Viditya Voleti. Being a GM is hard; like, really hard. Having nobody willing to fill that role has been the downfall of many a game group. But there is an alternative! GM-less roleplaying games are getting more and more popular, and this panel is here to discuss why.