041: Beyond D&D - What else is out there for Tabletop & Board Gamers? With David Masnato - Claim to Game

Episode Transcript
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>> David Maznado (00:00):
Some folks feel like D20 & D is the
only option out there. It's the only system they can jump
into. I think I would challenge anyone listening to
this to use that as an opportunity
to be curious. Ask about what else is
out there. Always ask yourself questions
and be curious.

>> Clint Scheirer (00:19):
There's an expansive world of tabletop and board
gaming outside of the familiar realm
of Dungeons and Dragons. David
Maznado is a season creator, community
manager and board game designer. He has experience
in both the mainstream and
indie board game communities.
And so what that means is hes super swanky. His

(00:40):
swankiness gives him a very unique
perspective and vantage point in the gaming community. If
you also are really swanky and want to share your stuff on the pod, feel
free to click on the link in the show notes so that you can sign up to
be my guest.
Till that time, its time for you to make your claim to
Game

(01:26):
M. Where did you get into game design? How
did the story, unfold for you?

Yeah, I mean I like,
I think there are things about my game design journey
that are unique. But
the thing that is the same for most game
designers is that it all begins with the
like I've been designing games for as long as
I can remember. Like I think most game designers, you talk to

(01:54):
them and they re, they, they say that same thing right
away. and
it's true for me
on an informal level, like
I've always been like coming up with things
like to play with friends or family,
but like the

(02:15):
on a more intentional and hobbyist
designer level. I started making my
first games
I think in around 2017,
2018. I
was playing a lot of games at the time
that I felt like when I would invite

(02:36):
friends over for game nights, we'd set the thing up
and then I'd have to like preface
every rules explanation with an apology
for all of the things that were about to
happen. Whether it was like themes that hadn't aged
well or like opening a box that
was like mostly beige and shades of brown with

(02:56):
like a scowling man on the COVID like pushing coins
across the table. Like when your friends come
over for like a fun time and you're like, yeah, we're going to be
like German aristocrats building bridges
and trying to impress kings.
Like it doesn't exactly scream
like let's have fun.

Who, doesn't want to be Ebenezer.

Scrooge for every s game
nighteah.
So I
just found myself like craving
games where I didn't have to open the night with an
apology or an explanation of why we were doing
this. and around that

(03:38):
time,
one of the games that came out that at this
point I feel like everybody knows about it. But when
Wingspan was released,
that was kind of a major,
moment for the hobbyist game space that
like, it was possible to have
wildly popular

(04:00):
tabletop, board game
that lived
in a theme and a world that wasn't
as familiar to the
traditional gaming audience.
If you were listening to this and you don't know about Wingspan, it's
wonderful.

It's a beautiful bt. Beautiful art.

Beautiful art. it's a sort of
Euro style M M board game
where you are building out an
aviary, and you're kind of
acquiring these bird cards that all. They're all unique,
they all have unique art, they all have unique abilities and
actions and things associated with them. It's a

(04:42):
wonderful game. I pretty much would recommend it
to anybody who's like, looking for something to
jump into hobbyist, games.
and there were obviously
designers who were doing things like this before
Elizabeth, design Wingspan. but
Wingspan was a pretty big moment for the hobby

(05:02):
that proved that these kinds of things could exist
and there was an audience for them. It almost felt like,
like permission was being granted to like,
do the thing and like make the thing you want to see
exist. so that's when I started working on
my first game. and I've been
working on versions of that game pretty much since

(05:23):
then. it's, it is feeling like it's close to the
finish line. That game, in
2022, won what's called the
Cardboard Edison Award. It's for
unpublished games. at the time the
game was called Roommates. it had a brief
moment where it was with a publisher looking like

(05:43):
it was going to get signed. that is
no longer the case. They ended up not moving
forward with the game. but that opened up a
whole new journey for the game
where I
realized I was maybe trying to chase a
specific need or want of

(06:03):
the like, hobbyist game market. and
it got me thinking about, well, like, what if I
tried something totally different with this
and maybe brought it back to the
roots of why I'm making these types of games
and like, what brought me into this in the first
place, try to make it less of like
a thing that a publisher might

(06:26):
traditionally gravitate towards and like, maybe take some big
swing risks. Which I think kind of
brings us back to the, like, you know, how you sort
of teed this all up with, like, are there
Places where RPGs and board games could kind
of intersect and, mingle m a little more than they
traditionally have.

Yeah. I would love to play your game someday.
It's not still called Roommates, is it?

It's evolved. No. So some things are
happening, with a. I've
been working on a reteme.
so right now the theme is,
up until recently, the players,
were witches, going
out on a retreat to

(07:10):
learn spells and, learn magic
from a bunch of elder witches in the woods. but they
all kind of shared this like, lived
space that they're occupying together.
and the game is just kind of about
a week in the lives of these people living together,
like learning and
cohabitating.

It's like my worst nightmare.

Yeah.

College was so hard with a roommate. if my roommate's listening,
I'm sorry, but I'm not a shared space kind of person.

Can we turn out beds in the bunk beds? Yes. I mean,
this is kind of my thing.
I make games that on paper, like. Oh,
that's. This sort of sounds a little
bit like my personal hell. And yes,
like, that's what I made. I made a
thing. I like making games that are

(07:59):
experiences where people have to sort of bounce off of each other and
interact in ways that aren't violent
or combative, but are
like familiar
human interactions. Like
the practice of cohabitating with someone
is a complicated and nuanced

(08:21):
relationship and dynamic. And I interested
in that, how that translates
to like, game mechanics and like game
relationships.

Yeah. So that, that hits on a really
interesting point and maybe I'm gonna hop around a little
bit. you know, the whole idea
here is that most people, at least from
the tabletop side of things, have gone
into the hobby because they played Dungeons and Dragons.
Like Dungeons and Dragons, especially 5th edition, is
like the gateway drug into the

(08:55):
tabletop universe.
And there's so many different games that can be,
available. And sometimes I believe
when somebody thinks of playing D20 & D. you said like
nonviolent interions. Right. So like they think
of the fighter hitting the goblin with
the sword. Right. Lord of the Ring style. Which there's
definitely, an interest. Right. There's a little bit of

(09:16):
nostalgia there because of people's pop culture and what they
like to read and the tropes of a fantasy
epic. Epic fantasy. but what
are some of the things
that you believe that we can learn
from games like yours where we're just
taking normal Human interactions. How can that
also be seen in a tabletop? I know some

(09:39):
tabletop games that already do that. There was one that
came out where you were retired
adventurers basically in D20 & D. I think it was called
Stew Pot or something like that.

I'm not familiar with that one.

Yeah, you're retired adventurers and your basically
creating meals in an inn. So instead of going out and
adventuring, you're providing the food for all of them and there's
mechanics for making meals and stuff. So I'm going
to go back to the original question I meant to say is what can we
learn about going beyond
just the fighting
and bringing in normal human interactions?

So much of why
people play games, and I know why I play games,
I suspect why you play games
are the people. and I love
a good solo game.
Whether it's a video game or a tabletop game. I love
a solo experience. Like a nice like thinky thing. I make

(10:36):
myself a cup of coffee and set up a game and just
move some bits around on the table and just have like a nice
like meditative reflective experience with
myself. But so much of what I associate about
playing games, the people.
So it's always felt a little weird to me
when games

(10:56):
are like
building these experiences around the stuff on
the table and it's like, look how
clever the stuff on the table is. But it's
not engaging with the most interesting thing that's at
the table, which is the people.
I want to, I want to talk to people I to
like, I want

(11:19):
to explore this thing, like
this weird system that we've all agreed
to engage with for the next hour or
two. I want to know how you feel about
it. and like if it's eliciting
any emotional reactions in you or
like memories or like things that reminds you of
like I don't want to just push wood around

(11:41):
with people for two hours. and I think that's
one of the things that
board games are still kind of learning
how to do. But RPGs have done better
for a longer time. and I say that like,
you know, there's some
generalization there. Of course there's board games that have

(12:02):
explored this for, that have been around for a while.
But it's becoming a
newer thing for the board game side
to say, hey,
let's worry less about the points
and the systems and more about
the interactions and the way

(12:22):
people are talking to each other, the things we're saying to
each other, the questions we're asking each
other. Board games have Sort of lived in a weird
binary for a while where they're either
strictly competitive or strictly
cooperative. And I think
that's kind of framed how

(12:44):
board game players interact with each other in
games. They sit down and they're like, okay,
one person is going to win.
And that is going to guide all of our
interactions over the course of this. Like,
in the end there can be only one.
And I just don't think that's

(13:06):
how we actually behave in the
world. I don't think it's a very good simulation
of how people actually are. If you think
of the things in your day
to day life where
you are the single
victor,
it's like sports and applying for

(13:29):
jobs are like the only things I can think of where like
you are the one true winner
in a situation. There just aren't a lot of things where
like one person is
the best. And I think that's something
that RPGs
have been doing better for a long time is

(13:49):
like really digging more into the
ways, exploring the, the,
the dynamics and stories and
relationships of players more
than outcomes.
You can't really win D20 & D.
Yes, we're all winners.

There are those who try. Yeah, but
like there are those that try. You've made
a very good point though, like the collaborative
storytelling. And I think this is where people
can, for my audience, for the listener listening
right now, who wants to be
a gm, who fosters that kind of
interaction, it is about

(14:30):
making sure that the people at the table, you're really a
facilitator of those conversations.
and I think, I think some of the good games that have
come out in the past five to 10 years have
made it very easy to facilitate those
kinds of conversations as the gm.
And it takes the load off of the gm, I would

(14:50):
say, and puts it onto the players,
to be the owners of their destiny or the
owners of the story that everybody wins if they tell it
well.

Exploring relationships and player dynamics and things
like outside of combat. If,
if your entry point to all of this is something
like D20 & D, I haven't watched it yet,
but Dimension 20, it's
on Dropout. If you're listening to this and you
have not subscribed to Dropout yet,

(15:20):
I can't recommend it enough. I think it's like 60 bucks
a year. It's just great. It's one
of like low key, like one of the best streaming services
out there right now. but one of the shows on dropout
is dimension 20. They do
tabletop RPGs,
mostly use homebrew

(15:41):
D20 & D systemsasly. I think they've
done a little bit of blades. Right. I think they've
done some blades, I think they've done a few. I think they've done
some kids on bikes adjacent stuff.

Yeah. Brendan Lee Mulligan. Most of their
stuff is on. Some of their earlier
seasons are on YouTube.

Yes.

And I think that's another gateway drug to try
to, oh, hey, come listen to all the other really awesome
stuff as we've developed our craft. So I agree
it's pretty cool.

but there. One of The Seasons
of Dimension 20
uses D20 & D as the
core system. but instead of doing like
physical combat, all of the
quotequote combat interactions are
conversations. They're like fighting,

(16:33):
they're like bickering or they're like
trying to navigate like a
tricky like,
sort of political intrigue type conversation.
Like I have, I haven't watched the season, so if you are listening
to this and you have watched it and I'm totally missing the mark on
it, I don't know the name of the season, but I do know

(16:55):
that like a lot of the
what would typically be a combat
scenario in a regular D20 & D campaign
and this campaign is not physical
combat. It's like
you re like your ability to navigate a
conversation, whether you could like win
or manipulate a conversation in

(17:18):
a way that gives you the outcome that works well for
your party or you as an individual.
and I think stuff like that is so cool. That's
so exciting to me. Like thinking about
language and
conversation as a tool in
a game. And I'm not even necessarily opposed to like a

(17:38):
good like, you know, swords and
shields, dungeon crawler, beat them up. Like,
I have nothing against it.
I just think there's so much more opportunity when
you. Opportunity for storytelling,
when you pivot the focus a little bit.

And that's the misconception, right, that we're
knocking out here because it's not all about
fighting. Even though, you know, one of my absolute
favorite conversations I've ever had is with
Robin D. Laws, who is a game
designer. wonderful conversation I had with him
back on episode 16. And he, he
really talked about

(18:18):
how in his books he talks
about what people are looking for when they're coming to play a game.

Yeah.

And you have some people who are butt kickers and they just want a kick
butt. Like that's why they're there. But you also have people that
really enjoy that social interaction.

Yeah, totally.

and you have the person that just wants to eat your snacks while there's they're
sitting at your house. So yeah, yeah, the casual
gamer, the snack eater.

Goie
num num.

What are some lesser known games?
Tabletop games? maybe a
combination of tabletop and board game. Cause you
mentioned that there is crossover and has started to be crossover
more and more that you feel
have profoundly influenced you or may
influence others. Just for having them hear this on this podcast,

(19:09):
they'd be like, oh my gosh, I got toa go play that. What are games that
you feel are.

That if you are trying to find a
way to enter this world and you want to
start with some like weird, cool,
fun, interesting things.
Chris, who runs a.
I can never remember how to pronounce his last name. His first name
is Chris. He publishes games as junk

(19:35):
food games. he's a wonderful
person. and he makes really
interesting tabletop games. But he
also like board games. But he also does a lot of
really experimental
RPG type things. So a lot of like
solo writing and journaling type
things. one page,

(19:56):
RPGs,
things that are like played on like a handful of
cards. a lot of his stuff is on itch.
ah, h. IO. You can get him on
there. but I
think he's
exploring a really exciting

(20:18):
place in the RPG space
where he's coming at things from like a board
game and RPG background. but all of his stuff
feels very approachable and it's not locked
into any specific systems. He's like building these things
off himself and it's all
designed for people who

(20:38):
have never done this before. Like, you don't need to be
really familiar with how these things work to enjoy
one of Chrri's games.

I love games like that.

They're just cool. So I'm in
his discord right now looking at some of the stuff he's working
on. there's a game that
he just. I think he
just got the test prints for them. Oh no,
he's like got them. I think he might be selling it now.
it's called Moon Rings-esque. This is his brand.

(21:10):
Chris, I'm giving you free promo, buddy.

going in the show notes.

Let's do it. Moon Rings-esque.
this looked really cool to me. It comes in like a little
spiral bound book.
the cursed blood moon hangs over this land always. You're a witch and
cannot abide by its raign any longer. You've used your magics
to find A hidden labyrinth, set to hide, rings
which contain power to control the moon.

(21:36):
I'm looking at this book right now. Like, it's
just, it's just like a cool little
book that you work your way through. So he
just like does stuff like this. Like it's not quite a
board game, not quite an rpg. It's just this
like really unique
experience that you have that's like a storytelling thing that

(21:56):
hopefully you have like a meaningful moment
with and you could take it, maybe pass
it on to someone else when you're done with it. But
there's so many people doing things like this. Yeah,
I would say someone who has like directly
impacted me,
is Zoe Allred. Zoe is a

(22:18):
designer who.
A lot of Zoe's work has been in the space
of something that like is so new
to Tabletop and board games
that like, there hasn't really been like a term for
it yet or like a genre named.
So like Zoe and a few other folks, myself

(22:38):
included, have had to like kind of come up with
like what we're actually going to even call these types of
games. so we're calling
them things like Victorless games,
unranked games,
multi vector games. These are games that
are pretty specifically like board
games. But they interrupt

(23:01):
that binary that I was talking about earlier where like
these are not strictly single victor
competitive games or co op games. They're
just, they're games that are more
simulate like what human interactions
actually look like where multiple people could
win. As long as their objectives are

(23:23):
all fulfilled or
maybe even there are no wind
conditions. No one wins. The game just sort of
ends and you,
the end state is talking about the
experience you all shared. Seeing the work that Zoe
has been doing on these types of games,

(23:43):
has been really inspiring to me. Zoe, another friend
of mine, Matthew Hawker, have started a publishing company
called Lunar Punk Games. and this is their whole
thing. Like they've kind of pledged that
like all of the games they're going to put out
are going to be games like this that like play around
with.
Deconstructing the like co

(24:06):
op, single victor binary
that Tabletop Games have lived in. Just like doing weird
interesting things with like, what does a game mean when
it ends? What does winning mean?
What, what does victory look like?
How are we defining these things? Are we like, are
we even using points? Why are we using points?

(24:26):
What do points mean in a board game? Usually
nothing. So like it's, they're just
doing wild stuff with this and that has
Been incredibly inspiring to
me as I've sort
of reinvented what Roommates was into
this new game that it's becoming
like the game that it is

(24:48):
now pretty cleanly lands in this
like, multi victor, unranked
structure. U. it's. It's cool.
It's cool and exciting. It's also like, tough to talk about
because the language doesn't really exist yet.

I can tell you're trying, like, really. But you're
doing a very good job. Honestly. What I was thinking of. There's an
episode of Seinfeld and I'm not. I'm not
super Seinfeld. Y but I do remember this. They
were stuck in a parking garage and they couldn't get
out and they just kept wandering around the garage and
they were bumping into all these weird people. I think there was a goldfish

(25:23):
that died.

Where's the car? Wow.

I thought it was here. You don't know where we parked
for you Seinfeld people out there. I'm sorry if I got it all wrong,
but that would be a scenario where they're like, what
you won by getting out of a parking garage that a normal human being
should be able to do in like five minutes.

Like.

Ah, but that experience of being lost
and not knowing where, to me, that
would be an interesting concept for a game. Yeah, that's a.
A game. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah. I think that. I mean, that's it. right. That's the
whole thing. Zoe has a really good
video called the Emperor's High
Score. So it's like a 30 minute video
essay that sort of explains this entire thing
of like, what if games just
didn't have points? What if it was just

(26:10):
like the things you were
doing were the
thing that had meaning. The interactions you were having
with other players were the thing that have meaning.
And that video that Zoe
made, combined with some video essays by another
designer and Bell Holland. her video essays
are wonderful. If you're looking for really good,

(26:33):
thoughtful considerations of
the ways games communicate to us,
highly recommend Amabelle's work. The two
of them have
really dug around in this
space and made some really interesting games.
but also put together some really

(26:54):
compelling arguments for how board games
could learn a lot from
RPGs,
and just be a little more flexible with how they're
structured and tell stories.

Yeah, that when you were. When you were
talking about. There are certain
tabletop games that come to mind where it's about the
journey, not necessarily the destination,
but there also is that de escalation
period at the end of the game. I was just
talking with another creator, a Guy
Milner. He has a blog called, Burn After

(27:29):
Running, which is all about one shot
games. How do you run a game at a convention? How do you run a
game that's only meant to be run once? And a lot of these
characters that are pulled out of
these games, you never play them again.
Yeah, right. They're just for that session. And so one of
the ways that Guy suggested being able to make that a well
rounded experience with the full story arc is you

(27:52):
have that de escalation period. Well, what did they do after
ye, you know, that vignette at the very end? Like, what does that
look like for the rest of their life that we may never get to
know?

Totally.

So that's where I'm seeing the crossover here in some of these
games where it may not be a winner,
but you get to finish the story.

It would be a dream for me, if
this game that I'm working on,
if after players
finished it,
they took the characters that they were
over the course of this game and then just plugged
them into their favorite RPG system. Like

(28:32):
they just continued the story. Like what
happened after this week? Like, what did we
do afterwards? The board game is really like, it is
very strictly like 10 turns
that take place over the course of five days in that
week. You will learn
about how you all interact with each
other, what all of your personal goals

(28:54):
are. I think there's
enough content
that will happen organically in that game
for you to define a player or
like define a character for yourself. so I would
love if people took that
and just ran with it and like really owned and

(29:15):
lived in this person that they've made. that would
be so exciting to me if that was the outcome of this
game. Even though it is like
a board game and I am not an
RPG designer,
I just think we should be doing more stuff like that.

Well, cross compatible. I think that there's a
big opportunity there to say here's a game that
can help create your tabletop. Role playing
characters. Dungeon Crawl Classics,
dcc. they have. You start out as
basically, I think in the game, video
game world. They're called MOOCs. They're just like
the people that you kill a level up.

Sure. Yeah.

Basically you start out as one of them. You're usually a
peasant or somebody super low level, real
squishy.

Sure.

You know, anybody can take you out and you're going through
a Funnel of danger.
And when you get to the other side, a lot of
times people would and will take the characters
out of those very low level situations and then move them
on into an actual campaign of let's
say D&D5E. So like, I think the cross
compatibility is a really cool concept that I haven't

(30:24):
seen yet.

There is a, there's a board game,
called Role Player
that I think in theory
it is like what if the
character creation was the game?

Oh, that's cool.

I think that's kind of the pitch for it.

so my eyes just need to be open. There are games that
exist like this.

Yeah, these things do exist. And I've
played Role Player. They do exist. They
do exist.

He does exist.

They do exist. It'roleay is a cool
game. It works really well as a standalone
experience. I don't know enough about
RPG systems. I think it like the character
that comes out the other end of it. I
think you could probably really only
feasibly use that character in something like

(31:19):
a traditional D20 & D or maybe
Pathfinder 2E campaign. It's like pretty
like Dungeon Crawler and it's
like tone and presentation.

So when you were talking about
how your game is played, how Roommates is played
or you know, as it's, it was
called, games are not made in a
box. Well they end up in a
box, but they are, they are made through
playtesting and people test your, your
games and give you feedback and you make iterations

(31:52):
and just like any feedback, you have to decide
what feedback is worth changing the game
over and what is not. Can
you talk a little bit about your game testing
process with your personal game?

In college my major was studio art.
and one of my mentors in
college, was a professor named Claudia
Esslinger. and one of the
things that she taught me
was that good art should be
compelling, surprising and sustaining. What

(32:26):
is the thing that brings you into it? What is
the thing that keeps you engaging with the art?
And then what is the thing that like when you walk away from
it, you feel like you
sort of caught you off guard or subverted
your expectations or
has you thinking about it afterwards?

(32:47):
and when I'm designing a game,
I think I have started like if I went in
my Google Drive folder of all
the game ideas I've had, I think I have
started about 15 or
16 different games.
I have

(33:07):
playtested
five of those with people. Those are the
only games I've even like described to people. Like, I don't
even tell my friends about the things
I'm working on until I feel
confident that the game
or the idea even can respond to the

(33:28):
prompt of what about this is
compelling, what about it is sustaining
and what about it is surprising. If it can't
answer all three of those questions, I stop
working on the game. and I
big caveat to this. Like if you're listening to
this and you're thinking about getting into game design, I

(33:49):
wouldn't necessarily encourage you to
start designing games this way or even like
use this as a part of your process because
it can really hinder
the amount of output you have. Like if everything is going
through that level of like self scrutiny before you're even
getting things in front of people. I'm lucky enough to

(34:10):
be in a position where I don't rely on game design as a full
time career and source of income. M so I don't
need to be prolific. I can work really
slowly and intentionally.
but I don't, I don't
like putting things in front of people
until I feel confident that

(34:31):
even though the game isn't done
there's something really special there
that like the core concept is really
strong and is going to
be provide an impactful
experience for people. so like that's the
starting point and then from there

(34:52):
it's just lots and lots of testing. I've got a handful
of communities and events and things that I go
to to playtest games. I do a lot of
playtesting online
specifically in
two different Discord servers. I'm in one of them is
break my game. the other is
protospbiel Online.

(35:13):
M Protospbiel is
convention, purchase be Online specifically is
online based tabletop playtesting
convention. Happens three times a year.
it is great. I used to help I used to
be involved in helping run
it. I've taken a step back recently to focus

(35:34):
on some big life things that are happening over the next few
weeks. but I hope to jump back in and be a part
of that soon. but those
two communities are so
cool and supportive. M
and because it's online and everything's digital
you can do a lot of really rapid
iterating and feedback. Get

(35:57):
feedback really fast from lots of people
far outside of your local group. I get a good amount
of playtesting done in there. and then in terms of the
in person stuff I rely pretty heavily
on the UMPub network which
is they do a major
in person convention, outside of Baltimore every

(36:18):
year. but then they also have kind of
pop up,
areas in most of the major
conventions in the US that
have a tabletop presence. So like they're definitely
a PAX unplugged. they're at ah,
Origins. I think they also

(36:38):
do packs east and west. There's a
few other ones they go to. You could find all of them
on the On Pub website. but that is like
an awesome, awesome group of people. A lot of
the, you know, we mentioned Wingspan earlier.
Wingspan was a game that came out of the UNUB
network. Like Elizabeth brought that game to UNP Pub
events for a few

(37:01):
years and then eventually got picked up and now it is what it
is. I was actually at the UNP
Pub and one of my playtest blocks for the
game I'm working on, like I happened to be like seated next
to Elizabeth's table where she was trying out like
playtesting her new thing that she's working on. So like
all of these people who make your games, like,

(37:22):
we're all just, we all know each other, we're all like working on each
other's stuff. We're all helping each other out. It's a very
tight, small
community of really supportive, good
people. And that kind of brings me
back to like, question of like these
things. One or two designers names
will get put on the box at the end of the

(37:44):
day, but that's like,
that's a fraction of the people who were involved in making
these things real. Like it's, there's
so many people. Games are not made
by a single person.
if you were
not listening to people when you
are running your playtests,

(38:07):
you're not really designing,
you're making something. But like, who's it for
if it's just for you? it goes back
to the thing we were saying earlier where like you play games
with people. Like games are for people. So if
you're not designing with people in mind,
I'm not really sure I understand what the point is.

(38:30):
you're just making really
elaborate math problems,
which is cool. That's cool. But like,
I just don't really see what the point is if you're not going to get
people involved. that's the joy of it

(38:51):
to me is sharing that experience with other people
and building something together.
There's no way
any of my games would be where they are now if
I didn't have all the people in my life who'given
me feedback and supported
these Projects and playtested and,

(39:14):
you know, pulled up a chair at a
convention when I was like, just like doodling something on a
notepad and they came up and they were re like, yeah, I was thinking about that thing we were
talking about. Let's. Do you have, like, 10 minutes to just like, jam on
that a little bit? And like, none of that's just how
this stuff happens. And, you know, you asked,
like, how do you know when to. What to
listen to, what to not listen to.

(39:39):
You learn. You know,
I think it's important to
know what your goalposts are,
know what you're trying to accomplish. And then
when you get a piece of feedback that you're not really sure
how to interact with, or maybe
doesn't feel good to hear, or it's just

(40:01):
like a challenging piece
of feedback, you can always go back to those
goalosts and say, like, how does this fit into
what I've defined for myself as the objective of
this game? I like to design games
around feelings and
moments and not themes and mechanics.

(40:22):
so I really wanted to design a game where
people felt compelled to say
thank you. So I
created systems and mechanics and
themes that supported people
saying thank you to each other over the course of the
game.

Built in gratitude. That's kind of nice.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
And I think, like, that any time where I got a piece of
feedback that felt
like it was butting heads
with that goal,
I would sit and think about it for a little bit. But if it really
felt like it would prevent that goal

(41:03):
from happening or get in the way of
that, then it probably just
wasn't a,
note that I could or would want to
pursue. I thing designers
share with each other, like a little sort of piece of wisdom
is like, playtesters are often

(41:23):
right about how they feel about a
game, but they're not right about how to
fix it. they'll be able to tell you
about what's wrong, like, what didn't
work. But when they offer
suggestions, the
suggestion maybe isn't the right way to solve the
problem. sometimes it is, but it

(41:46):
often isn't because what they're offering is how they would solve
the problem and that it's not really a playtester's
job to fix your game.
It's their job to tell you how they responded to it.
so I try to. When I'm listening to feedback
and interpreting what I want to use and what I don't want
to use, I try to keep that in mind of like,

(42:09):
what are they telling me about their experience, not what are
they telling me that they want to see as a solution.

That is super cool.

Sorry, that was like a very long.

No, I'm go goingna take that in my own life.

Like, that's.

I need to, I need to use this as like parenting
advice sometimes, like with my kids. This is
great. You know, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna backtrack to a question that I skipped over because I think
you brought it up right.
A lot of these communities are online. Yeah, A lot
of these communities that you've been able to do these rapid
fire, test sessions with our

(42:45):
online communities. And you know, for tabletop,
that's roll 20, that's foundry
VTT. For the actual virtual tabletops,
it's Discord, it's Zoom. It's using all
of these different things to interact for board games,
you know, I know a few, but I don't know all of them. You
know, I had friends that tried to get me on Board Game Arena,

(43:05):
a tabletop simulator, which I think I bought for 20 bucks
and never went back on.

Yeah, sure.

For different reasons. I shouldn't say obvious reasons. Some people
probably love it. how do you envision,
like the role of these digital tools and
platforms merging into what was once
only a physical experience, sitting around
an actual table with other people?

Yeah.
There's two ways I can answer this question, and
I'll try to keep both of them as brief as possible,
but ##n'on
your mind. If you haven't picked up on it yet, brevity is like
sometimes a problem for me.
as a designer,

(43:48):
the digital platforms are
huge. A huge,
barrier lift on
getting people making
games and getting feedback.
before these types of tools existed,
you had to pay for the tools

(44:09):
and equipment, like physical objects. You had to have a
printer, you had to have, you know,
paper and cardstock, and you had to have
some way to get to a playtesting event. And a lot of
these events happen at convention.
So surprise. Now you've got to have a
couple hundred bucks and you've got to have a hotel room,
which. Okay, so now, now we're looking at

(44:31):
an $800 weekend to play my game that may
never become a reality. And even if it does
become a reality, guess how much I'm making
on royalties on that game. Not enough to
justify going to every single convention in the US
Doing this. So it's
a prohibitively expensive thing to
get into. It's really, really hard to

(44:54):
get into doing this if you are just
doing the physical thing. and that's
not even getting into
accessibility stuff. Like, if I
am someone who uses a wheelchair or
I have mobility needs, or
I am deaf or hard of hearing

(45:14):
or have vision needs, like
things that can be assisted with, like screen readers
and hearing aids. spaces
that, like folks who use
wheelchairs. Like, conventions are getting better about
it. But, like, it's
really hard to move around a convention center

(45:34):
in a wheelchair. It's really.

It's hard enough when you don't have a wheelchair.

Yeah, it's like it. So
there physical. There are
limitations to what the physical
playtesting and game
spaces are able to offer. And
with moving things online or
the addition of things going online, it

(45:59):
has opened up a massive slew
of designers and players and voices
that were not really getting a seat at
the table. and that is so exciting.
Some folks maybe spend a little too much
time designing
exclusively digitally. they aren't

(46:20):
getting their game to
a physical format soon enough.
so people will design games that play
really well digitally, but they're
not thinking about, like, if they want this to be a physical thing
that someone plays on their table.
How is this going toa work? Like, are these

(46:41):
cards gonna be readable? How much is this
gonna cost to manufacture? Like, you've got
a hundred dice in this game. You
can't sell that for the price point that you want
to make this game at. Like, all of that
kind of stuff. Like, I have to put a certain
number of tokens on a card. Well, that might
work really well digitally because I can create

(47:04):
a nice neat and tidy stack with
a snap point that they all jump ono. But like,
what's thatnna look like on a table where these are
now all loose components that are just like falling over
each other? and I think some
people maybe
overplay the extent to which games

(47:24):
are existing now that have been poorly
playtested in physical space. I've seen
some people kind of get like really up in arms about
this, that there's this like, wild influx of
games that like, they just never even bothered to test this
on a real table. I don't think that's
true, but there are some games

(47:44):
that, like, I've played in the last few
years that I've thought
you didn't test this physically as much as
you should have. And if you intend for
something to exist as a physical product,
you do need to test it physically. So I think that's
like, really, to me, one of the only major

(48:06):
downsides of pivoting
the design world into the
physical space is like some folks just aren't
leveraging that in.
They may be relying on it too much. it's
also challenging as a designer. Like
you lose a lot of context if things are digital.

(48:26):
Like most of the playtests I'm in, maybe we'll be
on camera at the beginning
but then we all turn our cameras off like while we're playing
because we're like focusing on the screen. So
now I can't see your body language. I
can't see all of the
visual cues that I would get
from someone. Like while I'm watching them during a

(48:49):
playtest, I'm making notes about like how
often are they lifting up reference cards to like re
remind themselves of rules? How often are
they looking bored or like they're checking out
or are they looking at their phones? Are they having
side conversations with people
about the game? Are they whispering plans to each

(49:09):
other? You can't do that really
digitally. so you
lose some of that. But generally speaking I think as
a designer, the
digital platforms have opened up
more opportunities for folks wanting to get
into this and more opportunities
for connections

(49:32):
and enjoying games
with people.

What do you think about as a player? I. From the
tabletop perspective? A lot
of the things that you were talking about as an
obstacle.
With the physical pieces.
Tabletop games don't always have that
obstacle. I mean there are minis. Right. And that's
a whole thing that people can get into depending on

(49:56):
the level of physicality you want with your tabletop game.
You know dungeon. I can't remember the name
of the company that makes the beautiful like dungeon
pieces and But
for the most part most games for
Tabletop can be just done theater of the mind.

Right.

And that then you know, I do think we
do share the obstacle of not being able to
see each other when people turn off their screens. I was a part
of a really cool Starfinder 2nd
Edition playtest at the beginning of the
end of 2024 and I jumped on
the game and I had my camera on and I was super

(50:33):
ready. my buddy Jonathan has ran the game friend
of the pod and I was. So nobody
had their camera one and they were like Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, you can have your
camera on if you want but we usually turn off the camera and I'm like o
okay. And it was still a blast.

Yeah.

But I could see how for somebody designing the game looking for
those interactions and emotions that would be difficult.

It's tricky it can be tricky, and you get used to
it. And the digital
playtests are really good for stress testing
systems. Like does this just work on a
mechanical level? Is
the math right? if your game has a lot of math,
like that kind of stuff, it can be good for
testing iconography and language. Player

(51:16):
feel can be a trickier thing.
I think as a player
I really like Board Game Arena.
I like that I can run an
asynchronous game with my friends
back in Chicago and we can just
have that running for over the course of the week and know

(51:37):
I get an email saying it's your turn and then I take my turn and
then nothing happens until I
get another email with your email to their
email. I really like that. I like that
it means I can always be playing a game and always
have something running in the background. And
that's really fun to me. I like that boardame

(51:58):
arena does a lot of the admin for you
so you don't have to worry about
the physics engine thing of like
a Tabletop simulator or Tabletop Playground or
Tabletopia, like where you've got
to physically move things around
in a 3D space. I don't particularly like

(52:19):
playing games that way. They can be useful tools
for designing games because
they give you a lot of flexibility as a designer.
but I don't really like playing games in
those 3D platforms.
my favorite platform for
designing and playing

(52:40):
if it is going to be in the sort of like
freeform, like
isn't enforcing rules type thing because that's the
other thing like bga, enforces the rules
for you. Boardgame arena does like it enforces all the rules
for you. It does all of the admin for you.
It's great. Tabletop Simulator, Tabletop
Playground, Tabletopia. They do

(53:03):
not. It is like it is as if
you set up a game on your table in your living
room. Hopefully you know what to do with it.
Like it's just there and it's in a 3D environment.
Tabletop Playground is my favorite of those three. I think it's
like pretty cool and it's underrated. Of the
three if you have to design or play a game

(53:23):
that like needs a 3D
environment because some games do that like verticality
and things like that can be important in some games.
Tabletop Playground is my favorite of those three.
But if I'm going to play or
design in a platform
that is the sort of like

(53:43):
it's set up on the table and you need to know how to
engage with it. The one I use is Screen top.
it's 2D. It runs in your
browser. it is free for your first
like three games.
I love screenop. I
do pay for it. Like I, because I use it enough that I'm

(54:04):
like, yeah, I'll pay. I got in at like an early
bird rate. I paid like $5 a month for it.
It's easily, easily worth it for
me. But it doesn't cost you anything as a player. So
if you know your friend designed a game and they put
it on screenop, they just send you the link and you
could jump in on whatever, anything that can run a web
browser, you can play their game on Screen Top. It's

(54:27):
awesome. I love it. It's not my
preferred way to play board games.
Like I would much rather play them physically or
on Board Game Arena. but Board Game arena
is really only for published games. The assumption is that
the game is done. You're not, you're not putting like
a prototype on there. It's too much work to like

(54:49):
iterate a prototype on there. You have to do all the coding and
everything and it, it just doesn't happen.
We're in a really interesting and scary time
for the industry right now with the
ongoing tariff conversations.
we're already seeing a lot
of publishers
closeoth, greater than games, who make

(55:11):
a game called Spirit island, one of the
most popular and successful board games
of the last few years. They closed last
week. They, they cannot afford to
make their games anymore. so
I know, I know a handful of designer friends
who have had contracts pulled because
the publishers can't guarantee that their

(55:34):
games will be made. So they've just cancelld them.
I know lots of people who have lost their jobs. The
physical gaming
world,
whether these tariffs continue or
not has already been
irreversibly impacted. And a thing that I
could see coming from this

(55:57):
is games going
direct to these digital platforms
until things either
settle down a bit or
there's some like certainty about a release plan,
I think we're gonna see more of that like games.
Just like this is a board game.

(56:17):
It was intended to be a board game,
but we can't make it anymore. So this is what you're gon toa get for
now.

Yeah. There's been a mass exodus I think to
the PDF for tabletop role playing
games.

Yeah.

And I, man, I love a good book.
Like I have my, Craig Shipman, who I
interviewed on the Pod we talk about our. Our wall
of shame.

Yeah.

I have like a desk of shame underneath here. It's just all my
tabletop books that I, I love and I'll never play them with
anybody, but I love looking at the art.

Yeah, yeah.

Holding it in my hand.

It's a. It's.
I mean it's like, it's like if you have a vinyl collection, like,
so much of the experience is like holding that thing
and like looking at it and
experiencing a physical object. I
don't think games as physical objects are ever
going to go away. They've existed for
thousands of years. We're not going to stop doing

(57:12):
that as a species. it
is already too difficult to
make these things exist. We do not have the
means to manufacture them in the United States.
There are like two or three manufacturers who can do
it. And they can make things out of card
and cardtock and cardboard. All of

(57:33):
those like plastic mini miniatures and
things that's injection plastic
molding. Like, you can't. We just don't
have. There is nowhere that can do
it. It's not, it's like, not a. Like.
Well, go find it. Like, no, it
does not exist. I hate to like, think
of the situation through the framework

(57:55):
of like, a silver lining. Because I don't think silver linings
exist in situations where people are
losing their jobs or having
projects they were financially relying on having
the rug pulled out from underneath them.
I don't think that there's
nothing good about that. U. but I

(58:15):
think an outcome that we are going to see
is that this challenge is
going to force
people to be creative about how games
exist. And that
creativity is
going to rely on digital platforms, I

(58:35):
think, and digital
distribution, more print and play stuff. I think
we're going toa be seeing a lot more print and play. We're going toa see a lot more
things that rely on you owning games
in your collection already and maybe
scavenging parts from those other games and
then downloading rulebooks. I know a few
people who are working on things like that.

This sounds like a game in itself.

Yeah.

One of our human experience games that we can make.

Yeah.

We could call it tariffs.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean it's. It. But it's.
It's forcing.
It's forcing some creativity and pivots
in ways that no one wants.
But people rely on this
as their job, so
they need to come up with a plan. There's a lot

(59:26):
of strengths that I see in the digital platforms, but I
think in the next few years,
especially the next few months, we'ren toa see people
really relying on them. a major form of
distribution. My day job is in
community. I'm in game
design communities. We've talked already about how

(59:47):
community is what built the games I work
on and the games that my friends are working
on. So much of what makes a good community, a
good community is compassion and
empathy. I think those are the things
that drive
the game experiences that I make as well.
and I think they're the things that

(01:00:11):
help tell the most
interesting stories in RPGs. Because
when we're empathetic and
compassionate, that's when we're like, really
hearing and like, seeing each other and
listening and
navigating relationships either,

(01:00:31):
like, in our lives or on, the table.
So the, the ten word experience or ten word,

>> Clint Scheirer (01:00:37):
Oh, it'll be an experience.

>> David Maznado (01:00:38):
Yeah, my ten word experience. my ten word
phrase was, be a curious and
compassionate ambassador for impactful gaming
experiences.

Staying curious is.
It opens a lot of doors.
This podcast happened, because I
was curious about all the people
who love this hobby and
what they have to say. And there's a lot of
really cool people, like, you're an excellent human being. I

(01:01:11):
never would have gotten to talk to you in this
way had I not allowed that
curiosity to unfolds. So, yeah, can you say it
just one more time for everybody so that we can
remember?

be a curious and compassionate about
ambassador for impactful
gaming experiences.

Let that simmer.
What else? Is there anything else that we've
missed that you feel like it would be a shame if you
didn't say it.

Board games have been so locked into
tradition, And I think RPGs have
been a little bit too. Like, some folks
feel like D20 & D is the only option out
there. It's the only system they can jump into. I
think I would challenge anyone listening to this

(01:02:00):
to use that as an opportunity to be curious.
That's what I'm trying to say with this phrase is like,
ask about
what else is out there.
why do you feel like it's that way, that D20 & D
is the only thing? What are the

(01:02:21):
things that led to that being your
assumption? There's reasons, there
are reasons why D20 & D is the thing
that everyone knows about. not all of those reasons
are good. Same thing with board games. There's a lot of reasons
why board games have
traditionally a single victor structure.

(01:02:41):
Zoe says it way better than I will in
the video I mentioned earlier. So if you're interested in
the history and sort of theory of why games are
like that, I think so. He brings up some
really compelling arguments. Videos like that
and videos like what Amabelle has written and
these conversations we've had, they come out of

(01:03:02):
curiosity, why is this like this?
And why could things be different? Could things
be better? Could I make things different
or better? Could I design a game? Could
I show my friends a new
experience? Always ask yourself questions
and be curious. I think that's when the most
exciting and meaningful moments

(01:03:25):
can happen. aside from
that, I don't know if there's anything I. I
think you hit it on that. Did I do it?

Yeah, you did it. You did the thing like, you did the
thing. It was awesome. last thing.
Where can people find you?
They. Where can they connect with you if they
loved what they heardnna see what you're
doingnn, stay curious about
what you have and what you're about.

Yeah. I. On social
media. The only social media I'm using these days,
has been Blue Sky. so you can find me on blue
sky@davidmoznado.com do
the cool thing about Blue sky is you can verify
yourself with your domain name. So that's also my
website. So if you want to go to my website, it's

(01:04:12):
davidmoznado.com. a little outdated,
admittedly. I need to get some new stuff on there.
the game I've been talking about with the witches
is like, still on there as roommates. So
sorry. If you go check out my website, it's a little
outdated. I've also got some other games that I haven't put
on there. But u. a. That's a place you can find me if you want to

(01:04:33):
try some of my stuff. and we're not in the
same place physically.
check out, hang out in Break My Game, the
Break My Game Discord or, Protosp Spiel Online.
those are the two places where I play things on the
Internet. and then if you're ever, ah, at
a convention, ah, I
will almost definitely be at PAX

(01:04:56):
Unplugged in I think it's
November this year. They moved it from December to
November.

21St or the 23rd. My heart is set
on also potentially being there.

S y It is awesome. It's so much
fun. so I'm hoping to be
there. I also am at,
I go to the UNP Pub event
in, outside of Baltimore every year.
but like if there is an unpub room at a
convention you're at and I am there,

(01:05:28):
I will be in the unpub room for most of the conventions. So that's
a good place to find me and play my stuff. And if you're
not sure if I'm there or not, ask one of the members of the
unpub staff because they will know. but I'm.
I'm usually packs unplugged in
and the main on pub
festival are like my two main in person

(01:05:48):
things. Yeah, that's where you can find me.

Well, I hope to see you there. I'm sure some of our people
who are listening right now, maybe the listener who's listening right
now. We'll see you there.

I hope so. Yeah, come, come. If you see
me, I'm often wearing like
a bright yellow beanie. I was about to like find it
and lift it up, but then I remembered that this is a podcast and you're not going
to see what it looks like. But it'it's on my
profile photo, on my social media stuff. It's like
I wear a yellow beanie around at most of

(01:06:18):
the conventions.

it's way easy to find a yellow bean, Ma.

It's pretty easy to find. Although there is like one
other bearded white guy who has
started walking around with a beanie and is it yellow?
It's. Yeah, it's yellow and it's a problem.

we need to have a talk.

I know. I like, I. Someone came up to me
at the last packs and they were like, there's another one and the two
of you need to figure out who it's gonna be.
So it's. Yeah, but
like I spend most of my
time, in the upub room. So like if you
see someone in the upub room wearing a yellow

(01:06:57):
beanie, come over and say hi.

But it could be David or it could be the other guy.

Could be me. Could be the other guy. Say hi, tell
me where you're coming from. Don'like.
That's helpful too. In a lot of places on
the Internet and there have been situations where people
come up to me and they're like, hey, I know you. And I'm like, I don't know
you. Can I get like a little. What do you know me
from? Can I get a little more context?

(01:07:21):
but yeah, I'm. I love meeting new
people. So please say hello.

Well, David, thanks for being on. Hope to.

Yeah, thank you.

You very soon. And we'll have to have you on
again. Thanks again.

Yeah, for sure. Thanks so much.

It is a big wide world out there with so
many games other than just Dungeons and Dragons. So if you
heard a game that caught your fancy as David and I were
talking, feel free to check out the show notes. Every game
that's mentioned is down there for you to click, go
and play. Please hit like or subscribe if you
enjoyed what you heard today. Maybe dole out some of those stars if you listen
on Apple podcasts or Spotify. And may you keep

(01:07:59):
having fun as you have a great time with friends and experience
amazing stories through tabletop role playing games.

All Episodes

041: Beyond D&D - What else is out there for Tabletop & Board Gamers? With David Masnato

Episode Transcript

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