Learn about the kinds of decisions to avoid while designing games, and which decisions you should focus on more.
Description:
Decisions your players make in a game are the most vital part of game design. Without decisions, you have no game. But which decisions are good and which are bad? In this session we'll review all the different types of decisions and when to use them. You'll walk away with the ability to discern the difference between all types of decisions in game design.
Join us to discuss Delta Green, Black Company, and Arc Dream. Caleb Stokes (God’s Teeth), Ross Payton (RPPR), and Kenneth Hite (Delta Green RPG) answer questions from the crowd.
Description:
The panel covers a variety of Arc Dream Publishing products, including what’s coming next for Delta Green and the upcoming Black Company RPG. The Q&A will also cover running Delta Green and The Black Company RPG, the games’ histories, and other topics of interest to Arc Dream fans. Join us if you’re a fan of conspiracy, cosmic horror, dark swords & sorcery, or pontificating TTRPG writers.
Learn how to run and create with the Delta Green RPG from the game’s most active creators. Caleb Stokes (God’s Teeth), Ross Payton (RPPR), and Kenneth Hite (Delta Green RPG) offer advice.
Description:
After thirty years in print, Delta Green continues to seduce new players with its maddening revelations. Advice will be geared towards beginners and focused on creating tense, terrifying stories in play. The panel’s experts can also recommend scenarios from the decades of official and fan-created publications, as well as provide tips for running any published campaigns. Experienced DGRPG Handlers are encouraged to attend, give their own advice, ask their own questions, and meet the next generation of Agents.
Designing for Belonging: Bringing Tabletop Games to Under-Resourced Communities
Summary:
How tabletop games can create access, belonging, and leadership in under-resourced communities, using real-world experience and community-centered design practices.
Description:
Tabletop games are powerful tools for imagination, collaboration, and storytelling, yet many communities never experience them due to cost, access, or lack of representation. This session draws from community-based practice to explore how games can be introduced in under-resourced spaces in intentional and sustainable ways.
Using the development of Battle of Concha Corner as a case study, this talk examines designing and facilitating games with real people, real neighborhoods, and real stakes in mind. Attendees will hear lessons learned from bringing games into community centers and youth programs, including what works, what fails, and what often gets overlooked.
The session emphasizes leading with passion while staying grounded in responsibility, listening, and collaboration, offering practical insights for expanding tabletop gaming beyond traditional hobby spaces.
The highly extensible Grit System offers natural dice ranges and player-driven moves. Find out how this improves TTRPG design, and then jump into a quick group game design session! No exp. necessary.
Description:
The Grit System (1e) that powers Stillfleet, Blister Critters, Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying, and many other indie TTRPGs now offers a free system reference document (SRD). Join the creator of the Grit System to learn why it’s being widely adopted and how it can provide a solid foundation for your games.
We'll walk through the system's flexible approach to epic powers that move stories forward ("hard moves," to quote Aaron King) as well as its intuitive boosting mechanic that gives players critical but finite agency over their successes and failures.
Then, we'll design a new set of powers using the Grit System as a group, focused on one genre/setting of the audience's choice.
This seminar is open to anyone who has played a TTRPG and has an interest in game design. You don't need to be an expert or have any familiarity with the Grit System.
Save time and money by designing with manufacturing in mind! The Panda team will show you how to consider manufacturing throughout the game design process to make it more profitable.
Description:
Save time and money by designing with manufacturing in mind! As a game designer, whether you plan to self-fund, crowd-fund, or license your game to a publisher, it needs to be profitable to be successful. The team at Panda Game Manufacturing will show you how to consider manufacturing throughout the game design process, from initial concept to balancing and final tweaks.
Developing Community Partnerships to Sustain Your Career
Summary:
Interested in embedding your creative career where you live? Join us as we discuss how to work with local institutions, foundations, and libraries to support your career.
Description:
Featuring: Maurice Broaddus, Indy Type Shop, Learning Tree, Ray Bradbury Center
What makes a good dexterity game? Discuss theory, variety, componentry, and production, along with a Q&A to come up with practical ways to implement your concepts in prototypes.
Description:
What makes a good dexterity game? An analysis of ones that succeed and the pitfalls of medium. Come join an open forum where we discuss theory, variety, componentry, and production. This will include a Q&A where we can help as a group to iron out your ideas and come up with practical ways to implement your concepts in prototypes.
We have doing the chi-square test wrong. Come get the actual 95% values of chi-square statistic that you should be using.
Description:
The chi-square statistic is only asymptotically chi-square distributed. The exact 95% values of the statistic are a function of the number of dice test rolls. The values approach the chi-square distribution values only slowly (1/N). This seminar will provide the exact 95% values of the statistic for up to 3000 rolls.
Dice Throne: Translating a Physical Game to Digital Without Losing the Table Feel
Summary:
Explore the creative and technical decisions involved in adapting a beloved tabletop game for digital platforms while maintaining its feel and core player experience.
Description:
Join Nate Chatellier, cofounder and lead game designer of Dice Throne and CEO of Nerd Ninjas, for a behind-the-scenes look at the process of adapting a tabletop game for digital platforms. This seminar explores the design and development choices behind Dice Throne Digital, the upcoming digital adaptation of the tabletop game Dice Throne, from core systems and rules implementation to interface design and platform-specific considerations. Nate will share challenges encountered, lessons learned, and the team’s approach to building a faithful digital experience across iOS, Android, Steam, and Meta Quest 3/3s (mixed reality). Attendees will learn the practical realities of translating physical games into digital form while preserving the feel and core player experience.