Unwritten Earths Symposium

We kick off our new season by brainstorming bad ideas for games! Unwieldy mechanics, onerous requirements, obtuse premises; we cover a bunch of bad ideas because we know that inside every bad idea is a good idea waiting to be freed. Show Notes: Minimalist TTRPG Jam 5 Electric Football Games Mentioned: MonkeyDome Microscope (Second Edition now funding!) How to Host a Dungeon Still Life LARP Psi-Run...

Nathan and Eppy discuss transitioning out of the second season of the show. This is a meta episode where we talk about the show, and why it feels right to divide what we're doing in it into seasons. We toss around some ideas for homework for the next season, discuss how it'll line up with our game projects in progress, and go into the concept for the next Unwritten Earths title - the Adventure &am...

We welcome friend and fellow Tracy Barnett (the Other Tracy) to the show! We discuss his games ( Iron Edda , School Daze , and more), his trajectory as a game designer, changing practices for getting games out into the world, the many benefits of zines and low-fi creation, writing directly into layout, and more. Turns out, making things is good for the soul! Find Tracy's games at theothertracy.itc...

We welcome long-time friend and crackerjack game designer Gregor Hutton to the show! This far-ranging discussion includes his games ( 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars , Remember Tomorrow ), all the ways we work on games while not Working On A Game, keeping the joy alive, the evolving landscape for the kinds of games we make, maths and managing spotlight, and being a good actor in your local communit...

In this episode we get fancy and talk about the aesthetics of truly-true game mechanics. The same probabilistic outcomes and mechanical functions can be served by many different styles of rule. We talk about different ways to appreciate the form of a game mechanic as well as think about how the expression or description of rules can be a fruitful design space. Show Notes: Balanced Ternary (a base...

It's finally time for us to seriously address the elephant in the room for truly-true roleplaying games: fun. We talk about how hard it is to describe fun, what elements of gameplay (can) lead to or combine to create fun, and why "make it fun" isn't a very fruitful design goal. Look, we're game designers, we have to treat fun with the gravitas it deserves! Show Notes: Go Play NW Games Mentioned: N...

In this episode, we carefully consider our words in order discuss the different purposes served by creating abstractions with your game rules, and how word choices can both result from and drive game design. Remember, 90% of game design is naming things! Games Mentioned: Swords Without Master Mortal Skein Imp of the Perverse World Wide Wrestling And there's more: Unwritten Earths Symposium Our Pat...

In this episode, we talk about being at the top of the truly-true Design Ziggurat where small changes have big effects. Specifically, one of the signs that a game is close to done is when enough of the design is settled that an insight that leads to a significant change is just a small thing that doesn't require significant playtesting or changing of anything else. It's not a departure, it's a pro...

Plus Expenses is our bonus show for Patrons, dropping every other week between our regular episodes. This one is on the public feed for everyone, to round out our Origins Interviews episode with our reflections on the convention. Thanks so much for listening - if you dig this, you can get it for just $5 a month over at our Patreon! In this Plus Expenses, we talk about: The Origins interviews , how...

We went to Origins Game Fair! It was a great time, and we were lucky enough to catch up with old friends and chat with new ones for the show. This episode consists of 6 in-person interview/conversations with game designers, GMs and publishers about Origins, Games on Demand, boothing, and game design theory and practice. We felt extremely fortunate to have the chance to chat with all of these incre...

It's the summer, which means time for a sweaty, exciting episode about... distribution platforms! A new challenger has entered the arena, and we discuss the role of these digital marketplaces as part of actually getting games into peoples hands, the features and constraints they each have and how those can shape the design of your business, and what's exciting about this new option, rpg-trader.com...

We come back from a brief sabbatical to consider a bundle of topics from our Scholars. We talk about prompts in truly true roleplaying games (and reclaiming them from their AI-related meaning), things in our lives we've adopted from games and that we adapt into our game design, and different interpretations of the idea of a "standard" in game design. An assumption, yes, but what about a mode of ex...

Nathan and Eppy finally turn in their spring semester homework, discussing where they are at with The Marian and Robin Roleplaying Party Game (and spinners!), and Fair Winds and Following Seas (and music!), respectively. Informed by both formal exploration and input from Scholars over at our Discord, both of these games are starting to get somewhere. Show Notes: Two Hundred a Day "Live" Episode wi...

No, this isn't about games we don't like; following up on a question from our Wisdom Episode, we talk about the parts of making games that are not fun, from merely boring all the way to actively hate. This turns into a conversation about how we get through those periods, how the unique nature of truly true roleplaying games makes perfection impossible, and harnessing the hate that flows through yo...

As is tradition on this first day of April, we're going through some of the wisdom we've accumulated as self-publishers over the years, in hopes it'll help out those who are starting their game design journey. We try to address some of the basic questions that you might not know you should be asking, and talk about the core work of finding an audience, benefits and drawbacks of different kinds of...

In this episode, we visit the mailroom to field some listener questions! We discuss design rituals that we each have, the experience of having games or mechanics fall flat for us in play, and some potential homework for future episodes. The conversation includes digressions into spinner design, playtesting our way out of mechanics that don't work, and how we approach disappointing experiences as s...

In this episode, Nathan and Eppy report back about their "do this with that" homework assignment. Eppy debuts The Marion and Robin Party Roleplaying Game, and Nathan outlines how Remember Tomorrow reconfigures Fair Winds and Following Seas. Then, we reflect on how using other games as the basis of new work (hacks, if you will) can be a really helpful part of the game design process. Show Notes: Ep...

Nathan and Eppy assigned homework off-mic, to discuss some games that showcase thinking about games in a way we never would have, or that made such an impression on us that we've made them part of our toolkits. We discuss what we mean by our minds being blown, then go over our lists. Then, we assign homework for next episode: to sketch out what one of our works-in-progress would look like, if we u...

In this episode, Nathan and Eppy respond to listener feedback, talk about a recent play experience, and then go through some of the projects we're each working on or thinking about that are not the One Without Master. It's a high-level survey of where we're at, game-design-wise, going into 2026! Check out Soapbox Game Mechanics ! It's from All My Friends Are Stories (Patreon), they have some of th...

In this episode, we sit down with friend, artist, game designer and art director for Swords Without Master Shel Kahn to talk about... all of those things! We touch on the different roles of art in game design, working with abstract imagery, refining your taste as a chooser-of-images even if commissioning original art isn't realistic, and the ways artwork and visual design elements help out the gam...

In this episode, Eppy brings a discussion of "technological" creative constraints in game design. We talk about what this means in the context of tabletop, how constraints surface through the design, and how we handle them as designers. This builds on our recent episode about design surfaces, and is ultimately another part of a long-term conversation about, well, game design! We also do our final...

In this episode, Nathan and Eppy reflect on the first year of this podcast, talk about how things change in the doing, and discuss how creating a community is part of the overall endeavor. This leads into a survey of feedback tools and frameworks that can be used to reflect on your game sessions and playtests. Thanks so much for joining us! With one year of the show in the books, we're excited for...

In this episode, Nathan and Eppy report back on their recent work on PET CRIMES, centering on making digital tools for play. This leads into a discussion of the concept of designing the "surfaces" of your game - what are the things (physical, relational, temporal) that you need to design in order to enable someone to play? This is just the start of this conversation, but it feels like a useful fra...

In this all-homework episode, we each bring an initial sketch of the cards that could drive each of our card-based game concepts. Nathan's "Big Lore" game explores using card decks to reveal things about the game world and guide character progression, while Eppy's "Exploration Legacy" game uses cards to map out geography as well as encounter types for a game that becomes more unique the more its p...

We're moving into the next season of our podcast! In this one, Nathan and Eppy talk about how we're turning from the scholarly side of our project to the instructional side, and how our show homework is changing to match. What this means for our listeners is that you'll be hearing more about new game designs and works in progress, and less research and hunting out arcane gems from other games. Tha...