Claim to Game Podcast
041: Beyond D&D - What else is out there for Tabletop & Board Gamers? With David Masnato
Claim to GameJune 05, 2025
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041: Beyond D&D - What else is out there for Tabletop & Board Gamers? With David Masnato

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#41 - There is an expansive world of tabletop and board gaming outside the familiar realms of Dungeons & Dragons. In this episode, Clint speaks with David Masnato, a seasoned creator, community manager, and board game designer whose experience to both the mainstream and indie communities have given him a unique vantage point on the gaming industry. Let's talk about what else there is to play!

Episodes Mentioned:

Games Mentioned During the Episode:

Resources Mentioned:

Virtual Tabletops:

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00:00:00
>> David Maznado: Some folks feel like D20 & D is the

00:00:03
only option out there. It's the only system they can jump

00:00:06
into. I think I would challenge anyone listening to

00:00:08
this to use that as an opportunity

00:00:11
to be curious. Ask about what else is

00:00:14
out there. Always ask yourself questions

00:00:17
and be curious.

00:00:19
>> Clint Scheirer: There's an expansive world of tabletop and board

00:00:21
gaming outside of the familiar realm

00:00:24
of Dungeons and Dragons. David

00:00:27
Maznado is a season creator, community

00:00:29
manager and board game designer. He has experience

00:00:32
in both the mainstream and

00:00:35
indie board game communities.

00:00:37
And so what that means is hes super swanky. His

00:00:40
swankiness gives him a very unique

00:00:43
perspective and vantage point in the gaming community. If

00:00:46
you also are really swanky and want to share your stuff on the pod, feel

00:00:49
free to click on the link in the show notes so that you can sign up to

00:00:52
be my guest.

00:00:52
Till that time, its time for you to make your claim to

00:00:55
Game

00:01:26
M. Where did you get into game design? How

00:01:29
did the story, unfold for you?

00:01:31
>> David Maznado: Yeah, I mean I like,

00:01:35
I think there are things about my game design journey

00:01:39
that are unique. But

00:01:42
the thing that is the same for most game

00:01:45
designers is that it all begins with the

00:01:48
like I've been designing games for as long as

00:01:51
I can remember. Like I think most game designers, you talk to

00:01:54
them and they re, they, they say that same thing right

00:01:57
away. and

00:01:59
it's true for me

00:02:03
on an informal level, like

00:02:06
I've always been like coming up with things

00:02:08
like to play with friends or family,

00:02:11
but like the

00:02:15
on a more intentional and hobbyist

00:02:17
designer level. I started making my

00:02:20
first games

00:02:23
I think in around 2017,

00:02:26
2018. I

00:02:31
was playing a lot of games at the time

00:02:33
that I felt like when I would invite

00:02:36
friends over for game nights, we'd set the thing up

00:02:39
and then I'd have to like preface

00:02:41
every rules explanation with an apology

00:02:44
for all of the things that were about to

00:02:47
happen. Whether it was like themes that hadn't aged

00:02:50
well or like opening a box that

00:02:53
was like mostly beige and shades of brown with

00:02:56
like a scowling man on the COVID like pushing coins

00:02:59
across the table. Like when your friends come

00:03:02
over for like a fun time and you're like, yeah, we're going to be

00:03:05
like German aristocrats building bridges

00:03:08
and trying to impress kings.

00:03:10
Like it doesn't exactly scream

00:03:13
like let's have fun.

00:03:15
>> Clint Scheirer: Who, doesn't want to be Ebenezer.

00:03:16
>> David Maznado: Scrooge for every s game

00:03:17
nighteah.

00:03:25
So I

00:03:27
just found myself like craving

00:03:30
games where I didn't have to open the night with an

00:03:33
apology or an explanation of why we were doing

00:03:36
this. and around that

00:03:38
time,

00:03:41
one of the games that came out that at this

00:03:44
point I feel like everybody knows about it. But when

00:03:47
Wingspan was released,

00:03:50
that was kind of a major,

00:03:53
moment for the hobbyist game space that

00:03:55
like, it was possible to have

00:03:58
wildly popular

00:04:00
tabletop, board game

00:04:04
that lived

00:04:07
in a theme and a world that wasn't

00:04:10
as familiar to the

00:04:12
traditional gaming audience.

00:04:15
If you were listening to this and you don't know about Wingspan, it's

00:04:18
wonderful.

00:04:18
>> Clint Scheirer: It's a beautiful bt. Beautiful art.

00:04:21
>> David Maznado: Beautiful art. it's a sort of

00:04:25
Euro style M M board game

00:04:28
where you are building out an

00:04:31
aviary, and you're kind of

00:04:33
acquiring these bird cards that all. They're all unique,

00:04:36
they all have unique art, they all have unique abilities and

00:04:39
actions and things associated with them. It's a

00:04:42
wonderful game. I pretty much would recommend it

00:04:44
to anybody who's like, looking for something to

00:04:47
jump into hobbyist, games.

00:04:50
and there were obviously

00:04:53
designers who were doing things like this before

00:04:56
Elizabeth, design Wingspan. but

00:04:59
Wingspan was a pretty big moment for the hobby

00:05:02
that proved that these kinds of things could exist

00:05:05
and there was an audience for them. It almost felt like,

00:05:08
like permission was being granted to like,

00:05:11
do the thing and like make the thing you want to see

00:05:14
exist. so that's when I started working on

00:05:17
my first game. and I've been

00:05:20
working on versions of that game pretty much since

00:05:23
then. it's, it is feeling like it's close to the

00:05:26
finish line. That game, in

00:05:29
2022, won what's called the

00:05:32
Cardboard Edison Award. It's for

00:05:34
unpublished games. at the time the

00:05:37
game was called Roommates. it had a brief

00:05:40
moment where it was with a publisher looking like

00:05:43
it was going to get signed. that is

00:05:46
no longer the case. They ended up not moving

00:05:49
forward with the game. but that opened up a

00:05:52
whole new journey for the game

00:05:55
where I

00:05:58
realized I was maybe trying to chase a

00:06:00
specific need or want of

00:06:03
the like, hobbyist game market. and

00:06:06
it got me thinking about, well, like, what if I

00:06:09
tried something totally different with this

00:06:11
and maybe brought it back to the

00:06:14
roots of why I'm making these types of games

00:06:17
and like, what brought me into this in the first

00:06:20
place, try to make it less of like

00:06:23
a thing that a publisher might

00:06:26
traditionally gravitate towards and like, maybe take some big

00:06:29
swing risks. Which I think kind of

00:06:31
brings us back to the, like, you know, how you sort

00:06:34
of teed this all up with, like, are there

00:06:37
Places where RPGs and board games could kind

00:06:40
of intersect and, mingle m a little more than they

00:06:43
traditionally have.

00:06:45
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. I would love to play your game someday.

00:06:48
It's not still called Roommates, is it?

00:06:50
>> David Maznado: It's evolved. No. So some things are

00:06:53
happening, with a. I've

00:06:55
been working on a reteme.

00:06:59
so right now the theme is,

00:07:02
up until recently, the players,

00:07:05
were witches, going

00:07:08
out on a retreat to

00:07:10
learn spells and, learn magic

00:07:13
from a bunch of elder witches in the woods. but they

00:07:16
all kind of shared this like, lived

00:07:19
space that they're occupying together.

00:07:21
and the game is just kind of about

00:07:24
a week in the lives of these people living together,

00:07:27
like learning and

00:07:29
cohabitating.

00:07:30
>> Clint Scheirer: It's like my worst nightmare.

00:07:32
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:07:33
>> Clint Scheirer: College was so hard with a roommate. if my roommate's listening,

00:07:36
I'm sorry, but I'm not a shared space kind of person.

00:07:39
>> David Maznado: Can we turn out beds in the bunk beds? Yes. I mean,

00:07:42
this is kind of my thing.

00:07:45
I make games that on paper, like. Oh,

00:07:48
that's. This sort of sounds a little

00:07:51
bit like my personal hell. And yes,

00:07:53
like, that's what I made. I made a

00:07:56
thing. I like making games that are

00:07:59
experiences where people have to sort of bounce off of each other and

00:08:02
interact in ways that aren't violent

00:08:05
or combative, but are

00:08:08
like familiar

00:08:10
human interactions. Like

00:08:15
the practice of cohabitating with someone

00:08:18
is a complicated and nuanced

00:08:21
relationship and dynamic. And I interested

00:08:24
in that, how that translates

00:08:27
to like, game mechanics and like game

00:08:30
relationships.

00:08:32
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. So that, that hits on a really

00:08:35
interesting point and maybe I'm gonna hop around a little

00:08:37
bit. you know, the whole idea

00:08:40
here is that most people, at least from

00:08:43
the tabletop side of things, have gone

00:08:46
into the hobby because they played Dungeons and Dragons.

00:08:49
Like Dungeons and Dragons, especially 5th edition, is

00:08:52
like the gateway drug into the

00:08:55
tabletop universe.

00:08:56
>> Clint Scheirer: And there's so many different games that can be,

00:08:59
available. And sometimes I believe

00:09:02
when somebody thinks of playing D20 & D. you said like

00:09:05
nonviolent interions. Right. So like they think

00:09:08
of the fighter hitting the goblin with

00:09:11
the sword. Right. Lord of the Ring style. Which there's

00:09:14
definitely, an interest. Right. There's a little bit of

00:09:16
nostalgia there because of people's pop culture and what they

00:09:19
like to read and the tropes of a fantasy

00:09:22
epic. Epic fantasy. but what

00:09:25
are some of the things

00:09:28
that you believe that we can learn

00:09:30
from games like yours where we're just

00:09:33
taking normal Human interactions. How can that

00:09:36
also be seen in a tabletop? I know some

00:09:39
tabletop games that already do that. There was one that

00:09:42
came out where you were retired

00:09:44
adventurers basically in D20 & D. I think it was called

00:09:47
Stew Pot or something like that.

00:09:50
>> David Maznado: I'm not familiar with that one.

00:09:51
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah, you're retired adventurers and your basically

00:09:54
creating meals in an inn. So instead of going out and

00:09:57
adventuring, you're providing the food for all of them and there's

00:10:00
mechanics for making meals and stuff. So I'm going

00:10:03
to go back to the original question I meant to say is what can we

00:10:05
learn about going beyond

00:10:08
just the fighting

00:10:11
and bringing in normal human interactions?

00:10:14
>> David Maznado: So much of why

00:10:18
people play games, and I know why I play games,

00:10:21
I suspect why you play games

00:10:24
are the people. and I love

00:10:27
a good solo game.

00:10:30
Whether it's a video game or a tabletop game. I love

00:10:33
a solo experience. Like a nice like thinky thing. I make

00:10:36
myself a cup of coffee and set up a game and just

00:10:39
move some bits around on the table and just have like a nice

00:10:41
like meditative reflective experience with

00:10:44
myself. But so much of what I associate about

00:10:47
playing games, the people.

00:10:50
So it's always felt a little weird to me

00:10:53
when games

00:10:56
are like

00:10:59
building these experiences around the stuff on

00:11:01
the table and it's like, look how

00:11:04
clever the stuff on the table is. But it's

00:11:07
not engaging with the most interesting thing that's at

00:11:10
the table, which is the people.

00:11:13
I want to, I want to talk to people I to

00:11:16
like, I want

00:11:19
to explore this thing, like

00:11:21
this weird system that we've all agreed

00:11:24
to engage with for the next hour or

00:11:27
two. I want to know how you feel about

00:11:29
it. and like if it's eliciting

00:11:32
any emotional reactions in you or

00:11:35
like memories or like things that reminds you of

00:11:38
like I don't want to just push wood around

00:11:41
with people for two hours. and I think that's

00:11:44
one of the things that

00:11:47
board games are still kind of learning

00:11:50
how to do. But RPGs have done better

00:11:53
for a longer time. and I say that like,

00:11:56
you know, there's some

00:11:59
generalization there. Of course there's board games that have

00:12:02
explored this for, that have been around for a while.

00:12:05
But it's becoming a

00:12:08
newer thing for the board game side

00:12:10
to say, hey,

00:12:13
let's worry less about the points

00:12:16
and the systems and more about

00:12:19
the interactions and the way

00:12:22
people are talking to each other, the things we're saying to

00:12:25
each other, the questions we're asking each

00:12:28
other. Board games have Sort of lived in a weird

00:12:31
binary for a while where they're either

00:12:35
strictly competitive or strictly

00:12:38
cooperative. And I think

00:12:41
that's kind of framed how

00:12:44
board game players interact with each other in

00:12:47
games. They sit down and they're like, okay,

00:12:49
one person is going to win.

00:12:52
And that is going to guide all of our

00:12:55
interactions over the course of this. Like,

00:12:59
in the end there can be only one.

00:13:04
And I just don't think that's

00:13:06
how we actually behave in the

00:13:09
world. I don't think it's a very good simulation

00:13:12
of how people actually are. If you think

00:13:15
of the things in your day

00:13:18
to day life where

00:13:21
you are the single

00:13:23
victor,

00:13:26
it's like sports and applying for

00:13:29
jobs are like the only things I can think of where like

00:13:32
you are the one true winner

00:13:35
in a situation. There just aren't a lot of things where

00:13:38
like one person is

00:13:41
the best. And I think that's something

00:13:44
that RPGs

00:13:46
have been doing better for a long time is

00:13:49
like really digging more into the

00:13:52
ways, exploring the, the,

00:13:55
the dynamics and stories and

00:13:58
relationships of players more

00:14:00
than outcomes.

00:14:03
You can't really win D20 & D.

00:14:06
Yes, we're all winners.

00:14:08
>> Clint Scheirer: There are those who try. Yeah, but

00:14:10
like there are those that try. You've made

00:14:13
a very good point though, like the collaborative

00:14:16
storytelling. And I think this is where people

00:14:18
can, for my audience, for the listener listening

00:14:21
right now, who wants to be

00:14:25
a gm, who fosters that kind of

00:14:27
interaction, it is about

00:14:30
making sure that the people at the table, you're really a

00:14:32
facilitator of those conversations.

00:14:36
and I think, I think some of the good games that have

00:14:39
come out in the past five to 10 years have

00:14:42
made it very easy to facilitate those

00:14:45
kinds of conversations as the gm.

00:14:47
And it takes the load off of the gm, I would

00:14:50
say, and puts it onto the players,

00:14:53
to be the owners of their destiny or the

00:14:56
owners of the story that everybody wins if they tell it

00:14:59
well.

00:15:00
>> David Maznado: Exploring relationships and player dynamics and things

00:15:02
like outside of combat. If,

00:15:05
if your entry point to all of this is something

00:15:08
like D20 & D, I haven't watched it yet,

00:15:11
but Dimension 20, it's

00:15:14
on Dropout. If you're listening to this and you

00:15:17
have not subscribed to Dropout yet,

00:15:20
I can't recommend it enough. I think it's like 60 bucks

00:15:23
a year. It's just great. It's one

00:15:26
of like low key, like one of the best streaming services

00:15:29
out there right now. but one of the shows on dropout

00:15:32
is dimension 20. They do

00:15:35
tabletop RPGs,

00:15:37
mostly use homebrew

00:15:41
D20 & D systemsasly. I think they've

00:15:44
done a little bit of blades. Right. I think they've

00:15:47
done some blades, I think they've done a few. I think they've done

00:15:50
some kids on bikes adjacent stuff.

00:15:52
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. Brendan Lee Mulligan. Most of their

00:15:55
stuff is on. Some of their earlier

00:15:58
seasons are on YouTube.

00:15:59
>> David Maznado: Yes.

00:16:00
>> Clint Scheirer: And I think that's another gateway drug to try

00:16:03
to, oh, hey, come listen to all the other really awesome

00:16:06
stuff as we've developed our craft. So I agree

00:16:09
it's pretty cool.

00:16:10
>> David Maznado: but there. One of The Seasons

00:16:12
of Dimension 20

00:16:16
uses D20 & D as the

00:16:19
core system. but instead of doing like

00:16:22
physical combat, all of the

00:16:26
quotequote combat interactions are

00:16:30
conversations. They're like fighting,

00:16:33
they're like bickering or they're like

00:16:36
trying to navigate like a

00:16:38
tricky like,

00:16:43
sort of political intrigue type conversation.

00:16:46
Like I have, I haven't watched the season, so if you are listening

00:16:49
to this and you have watched it and I'm totally missing the mark on

00:16:52
it, I don't know the name of the season, but I do know

00:16:55
that like a lot of the

00:16:58
what would typically be a combat

00:17:00
scenario in a regular D20 & D campaign

00:17:03
and this campaign is not physical

00:17:06
combat. It's like

00:17:09
you re like your ability to navigate a

00:17:12
conversation, whether you could like win

00:17:15
or manipulate a conversation in

00:17:18
a way that gives you the outcome that works well for

00:17:20
your party or you as an individual.

00:17:24
and I think stuff like that is so cool. That's

00:17:27
so exciting to me. Like thinking about

00:17:30
language and

00:17:32
conversation as a tool in

00:17:35
a game. And I'm not even necessarily opposed to like a

00:17:38
good like, you know, swords and

00:17:41
shields, dungeon crawler, beat them up. Like,

00:17:44
I have nothing against it.

00:17:47
I just think there's so much more opportunity when

00:17:50
you. Opportunity for storytelling,

00:17:53
when you pivot the focus a little bit.

00:17:57
>> Clint Scheirer: And that's the misconception, right, that we're

00:18:00
knocking out here because it's not all about

00:18:02
fighting. Even though, you know, one of my absolute

00:18:05
favorite conversations I've ever had is with

00:18:08
Robin D. Laws, who is a game

00:18:10
designer. wonderful conversation I had with him

00:18:13
back on episode 16. And he, he

00:18:16
really talked about

00:18:18
how in his books he talks

00:18:21
about what people are looking for when they're coming to play a game.

00:18:24
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:18:24
>> Clint Scheirer: And you have some people who are butt kickers and they just want a kick

00:18:27
butt. Like that's why they're there. But you also have people that

00:18:30
really enjoy that social interaction.

00:18:32
>> David Maznado: Yeah, totally.

00:18:33
>> Clint Scheirer: and you have the person that just wants to eat your snacks while there's they're

00:18:36
sitting at your house. So yeah, yeah, the casual

00:18:39
gamer, the snack eater.

00:18:41
>> David Maznado: Goie

00:18:45
num num.

00:18:49
>> Clint Scheirer: What are some lesser known games?

00:18:52
Tabletop games? maybe a

00:18:55
combination of tabletop and board game. Cause you

00:18:58
mentioned that there is crossover and has started to be crossover

00:19:01
more and more that you feel

00:19:03
have profoundly influenced you or may

00:19:06
influence others. Just for having them hear this on this podcast,

00:19:09
they'd be like, oh my gosh, I got toa go play that. What are games that

00:19:12
you feel are.

00:19:13
>> David Maznado: That if you are trying to find a

00:19:16
way to enter this world and you want to

00:19:19
start with some like weird, cool,

00:19:22
fun, interesting things.

00:19:27
Chris, who runs a.

00:19:29
I can never remember how to pronounce his last name. His first name

00:19:32
is Chris. He publishes games as junk

00:19:35
food games. he's a wonderful

00:19:38
person. and he makes really

00:19:41
interesting tabletop games. But he

00:19:43
also like board games. But he also does a lot of

00:19:46
really experimental

00:19:49
RPG type things. So a lot of like

00:19:51
solo writing and journaling type

00:19:54
things. one page,

00:19:56
RPGs,

00:20:00
things that are like played on like a handful of

00:20:02
cards. a lot of his stuff is on itch.

00:20:06
ah, h. IO. You can get him on

00:20:08
there. but I

00:20:11
think he's

00:20:14
exploring a really exciting

00:20:18
place in the RPG space

00:20:21
where he's coming at things from like a board

00:20:24
game and RPG background. but all of his stuff

00:20:27
feels very approachable and it's not locked

00:20:30
into any specific systems. He's like building these things

00:20:32
off himself and it's all

00:20:35
designed for people who

00:20:38
have never done this before. Like, you don't need to be

00:20:41
really familiar with how these things work to enjoy

00:20:44
one of Chrri's games.

00:20:46
>> Clint Scheirer: I love games like that.

00:20:48
>> David Maznado: They're just cool. So I'm in

00:20:51
his discord right now looking at some of the stuff he's working

00:20:54
on. there's a game that

00:20:57
he just. I think he

00:21:00
just got the test prints for them. Oh no,

00:21:02
he's like got them. I think he might be selling it now.

00:21:07
it's called Moon Rings-esque. This is his brand.

00:21:10
Chris, I'm giving you free promo, buddy.

00:21:12
>> Clint Scheirer: going in the show notes.

00:21:14
>> David Maznado: Let's do it. Moon Rings-esque.

00:21:17
this looked really cool to me. It comes in like a little

00:21:19
spiral bound book.

00:21:24
the cursed blood moon hangs over this land always. You're a witch and

00:21:27
cannot abide by its raign any longer. You've used your magics

00:21:30
to find A hidden labyrinth, set to hide, rings

00:21:33
which contain power to control the moon.

00:21:36
I'm looking at this book right now. Like, it's

00:21:38
just, it's just like a cool little

00:21:41
book that you work your way through. So he

00:21:44
just like does stuff like this. Like it's not quite a

00:21:47
board game, not quite an rpg. It's just this

00:21:50
like really unique

00:21:53
experience that you have that's like a storytelling thing that

00:21:56
hopefully you have like a meaningful moment

00:21:59
with and you could take it, maybe pass

00:22:02
it on to someone else when you're done with it. But

00:22:06
there's so many people doing things like this. Yeah,

00:22:10
I would say someone who has like directly

00:22:13
impacted me,

00:22:16
is Zoe Allred. Zoe is a

00:22:18
designer who.

00:22:21
A lot of Zoe's work has been in the space

00:22:24
of something that like is so new

00:22:27
to Tabletop and board games

00:22:30
that like, there hasn't really been like a term for

00:22:33
it yet or like a genre named.

00:22:35
So like Zoe and a few other folks, myself

00:22:38
included, have had to like kind of come up with

00:22:41
like what we're actually going to even call these types of

00:22:44
games. so we're calling

00:22:47
them things like Victorless games,

00:22:49
unranked games,

00:22:52
multi vector games. These are games that

00:22:56
are pretty specifically like board

00:22:58
games. But they interrupt

00:23:01
that binary that I was talking about earlier where like

00:23:04
these are not strictly single victor

00:23:09
competitive games or co op games. They're

00:23:12
just, they're games that are more

00:23:15
simulate like what human interactions

00:23:17
actually look like where multiple people could

00:23:20
win. As long as their objectives are

00:23:23
all fulfilled or

00:23:26
maybe even there are no wind

00:23:29
conditions. No one wins. The game just sort of

00:23:32
ends and you,

00:23:35
the end state is talking about the

00:23:38
experience you all shared. Seeing the work that Zoe

00:23:40
has been doing on these types of games,

00:23:43
has been really inspiring to me. Zoe, another friend

00:23:46
of mine, Matthew Hawker, have started a publishing company

00:23:49
called Lunar Punk Games. and this is their whole

00:23:52
thing. Like they've kind of pledged that

00:23:55
like all of the games they're going to put out

00:23:58
are going to be games like this that like play around

00:24:01
with.

00:24:03
Deconstructing the like co

00:24:06
op, single victor binary

00:24:09
that Tabletop Games have lived in. Just like doing weird

00:24:12
interesting things with like, what does a game mean when

00:24:15
it ends? What does winning mean?

00:24:17
What, what does victory look like?

00:24:20
How are we defining these things? Are we like, are

00:24:23
we even using points? Why are we using points?

00:24:26
What do points mean in a board game? Usually

00:24:29
nothing. So like it's, they're just

00:24:32
doing wild stuff with this and that has

00:24:34
Been incredibly inspiring to

00:24:37
me as I've sort

00:24:40
of reinvented what Roommates was into

00:24:43
this new game that it's becoming

00:24:45
like the game that it is

00:24:48
now pretty cleanly lands in this

00:24:51
like, multi victor, unranked

00:24:54
structure. U. it's. It's cool.

00:24:57
It's cool and exciting. It's also like, tough to talk about

00:25:00
because the language doesn't really exist yet.

00:25:03
>> Clint Scheirer: I can tell you're trying, like, really. But you're

00:25:05
doing a very good job. Honestly. What I was thinking of. There's an

00:25:08
episode of Seinfeld and I'm not. I'm not

00:25:11
super Seinfeld. Y but I do remember this. They

00:25:14
were stuck in a parking garage and they couldn't get

00:25:17
out and they just kept wandering around the garage and

00:25:20
they were bumping into all these weird people. I think there was a goldfish

00:25:23
that died.

00:25:23
>> David Maznado: Where's the car? Wow.

00:25:25
>> Clint Scheirer: I thought it was here. You don't know where we parked

00:25:28
for you Seinfeld people out there. I'm sorry if I got it all wrong,

00:25:31
but that would be a scenario where they're like, what

00:25:34
you won by getting out of a parking garage that a normal human being

00:25:37
should be able to do in like five minutes.

00:25:39
>> David Maznado: Like.

00:25:39
>> Clint Scheirer: Ah, but that experience of being lost

00:25:42
and not knowing where, to me, that

00:25:45
would be an interesting concept for a game. Yeah, that's a.

00:25:48
A game. Yeah. For sure.

00:25:50
>> David Maznado: Yeah. I think that. I mean, that's it. right. That's the

00:25:53
whole thing. Zoe has a really good

00:25:56
video called the Emperor's High

00:25:58
Score. So it's like a 30 minute video

00:26:01
essay that sort of explains this entire thing

00:26:04
of like, what if games just

00:26:07
didn't have points? What if it was just

00:26:10
like the things you were

00:26:13
doing were the

00:26:15
thing that had meaning. The interactions you were having

00:26:18
with other players were the thing that have meaning.

00:26:21
And that video that Zoe

00:26:24
made, combined with some video essays by another

00:26:27
designer and Bell Holland. her video essays

00:26:30
are wonderful. If you're looking for really good,

00:26:33
thoughtful considerations of

00:26:36
the ways games communicate to us,

00:26:40
highly recommend Amabelle's work. The two

00:26:42
of them have

00:26:45
really dug around in this

00:26:48
space and made some really interesting games.

00:26:51
but also put together some really

00:26:54
compelling arguments for how board games

00:26:57
could learn a lot from

00:26:59
RPGs,

00:27:02
and just be a little more flexible with how they're

00:27:05
structured and tell stories.

00:27:07
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah, that when you were. When you were

00:27:10
talking about. There are certain

00:27:13
tabletop games that come to mind where it's about the

00:27:15
journey, not necessarily the destination,

00:27:18
but there also is that de escalation

00:27:21
period at the end of the game. I was just

00:27:24
talking with another creator, a Guy

00:27:27
Milner. He has a blog called, Burn After

00:27:29
Running, which is all about one shot

00:27:32
games. How do you run a game at a convention? How do you run a

00:27:35
game that's only meant to be run once? And a lot of these

00:27:38
characters that are pulled out of

00:27:41
these games, you never play them again.

00:27:43
Yeah, right. They're just for that session. And so one of

00:27:46
the ways that Guy suggested being able to make that a well

00:27:49
rounded experience with the full story arc is you

00:27:52
have that de escalation period. Well, what did they do after

00:27:55
ye, you know, that vignette at the very end? Like, what does that

00:27:58
look like for the rest of their life that we may never get to

00:28:01
know?

00:28:01
>> David Maznado: Totally.

00:28:02
>> Clint Scheirer: So that's where I'm seeing the crossover here in some of these

00:28:05
games where it may not be a winner,

00:28:08
but you get to finish the story.

00:28:10
>> David Maznado: It would be a dream for me, if

00:28:13
this game that I'm working on,

00:28:18
if after players

00:28:21
finished it,

00:28:24
they took the characters that they were

00:28:27
over the course of this game and then just plugged

00:28:30
them into their favorite RPG system. Like

00:28:32
they just continued the story. Like what

00:28:35
happened after this week? Like, what did we

00:28:38
do afterwards? The board game is really like, it is

00:28:41
very strictly like 10 turns

00:28:44
that take place over the course of five days in that

00:28:46
week. You will learn

00:28:49
about how you all interact with each

00:28:51
other, what all of your personal goals

00:28:54
are. I think there's

00:28:57
enough content

00:29:00
that will happen organically in that game

00:29:03
for you to define a player or

00:29:06
like define a character for yourself. so I would

00:29:09
love if people took that

00:29:12
and just ran with it and like really owned and

00:29:15
lived in this person that they've made. that would

00:29:18
be so exciting to me if that was the outcome of this

00:29:21
game. Even though it is like

00:29:24
a board game and I am not an

00:29:27
RPG designer,

00:29:29
I just think we should be doing more stuff like that.

00:29:32
>> Clint Scheirer: Well, cross compatible. I think that there's a

00:29:35
big opportunity there to say here's a game that

00:29:38
can help create your tabletop. Role playing

00:29:41
characters. Dungeon Crawl Classics,

00:29:43
dcc. they have. You start out as

00:29:46
basically, I think in the game, video

00:29:49
game world. They're called MOOCs. They're just like

00:29:52
the people that you kill a level up.

00:29:54
>> David Maznado: Sure. Yeah.

00:29:54
>> Clint Scheirer: Basically you start out as one of them. You're usually a

00:29:57
peasant or somebody super low level, real

00:30:00
squishy.

00:30:01
>> David Maznado: Sure.

00:30:01
>> Clint Scheirer: You know, anybody can take you out and you're going through

00:30:04
a Funnel of danger.

00:30:07
And when you get to the other side, a lot of

00:30:10
times people would and will take the characters

00:30:13
out of those very low level situations and then move them

00:30:15
on into an actual campaign of let's

00:30:18
say D&D5E. So like, I think the cross

00:30:21
compatibility is a really cool concept that I haven't

00:30:24
seen yet.

00:30:25
>> David Maznado: There is a, there's a board game,

00:30:29
called Role Player

00:30:33
that I think in theory

00:30:37
it is like what if the

00:30:40
character creation was the game?

00:30:42
>> Clint Scheirer: Oh, that's cool.

00:30:43
>> David Maznado: I think that's kind of the pitch for it.

00:30:46
>> Clint Scheirer: so my eyes just need to be open. There are games that

00:30:49
exist like this.

00:30:50
>> David Maznado: Yeah, these things do exist. And I've

00:30:52
played Role Player. They do exist. They

00:30:55
do exist.

00:30:56
>> Clint Scheirer: He does exist.

00:30:57
>> David Maznado: They do exist. It'roleay is a cool

00:31:00
game. It works really well as a standalone

00:31:03
experience. I don't know enough about

00:31:07
RPG systems. I think it like the character

00:31:10
that comes out the other end of it. I

00:31:13
think you could probably really only

00:31:16
feasibly use that character in something like

00:31:19
a traditional D20 & D or maybe

00:31:22
Pathfinder 2E campaign. It's like pretty

00:31:25
like Dungeon Crawler and it's

00:31:27
like tone and presentation.

00:31:29
>> Clint Scheirer: So when you were talking about

00:31:32
how your game is played, how Roommates is played

00:31:35
or you know, as it's, it was

00:31:38
called, games are not made in a

00:31:40
box. Well they end up in a

00:31:43
box, but they are, they are made through

00:31:46
playtesting and people test your, your

00:31:49
games and give you feedback and you make iterations

00:31:52
and just like any feedback, you have to decide

00:31:55
what feedback is worth changing the game

00:31:57
over and what is not. Can

00:32:00
you talk a little bit about your game testing

00:32:03
process with your personal game?

00:32:05
>> David Maznado: In college my major was studio art.

00:32:08
and one of my mentors in

00:32:11
college, was a professor named Claudia

00:32:14
Esslinger. and one of the

00:32:17
things that she taught me

00:32:20
was that good art should be

00:32:23
compelling, surprising and sustaining. What

00:32:26
is the thing that brings you into it? What is

00:32:29
the thing that keeps you engaging with the art?

00:32:31
And then what is the thing that like when you walk away from

00:32:34
it, you feel like you

00:32:38
sort of caught you off guard or subverted

00:32:41
your expectations or

00:32:44
has you thinking about it afterwards?

00:32:47
and when I'm designing a game,

00:32:51
I think I have started like if I went in

00:32:54
my Google Drive folder of all

00:32:57
the game ideas I've had, I think I have

00:33:00
started about 15 or

00:33:03
16 different games.

00:33:05
I have

00:33:07
playtested

00:33:11
five of those with people. Those are the

00:33:14
only games I've even like described to people. Like, I don't

00:33:17
even tell my friends about the things

00:33:20
I'm working on until I feel

00:33:23
confident that the game

00:33:25
or the idea even can respond to the

00:33:28
prompt of what about this is

00:33:31
compelling, what about it is sustaining

00:33:34
and what about it is surprising. If it can't

00:33:36
answer all three of those questions, I stop

00:33:39
working on the game. and I

00:33:43
big caveat to this. Like if you're listening to

00:33:46
this and you're thinking about getting into game design, I

00:33:49
wouldn't necessarily encourage you to

00:33:52
start designing games this way or even like

00:33:55
use this as a part of your process because

00:33:59
it can really hinder

00:34:02
the amount of output you have. Like if everything is going

00:34:05
through that level of like self scrutiny before you're even

00:34:07
getting things in front of people. I'm lucky enough to

00:34:10
be in a position where I don't rely on game design as a full

00:34:13
time career and source of income. M so I don't

00:34:16
need to be prolific. I can work really

00:34:19
slowly and intentionally.

00:34:23
but I don't, I don't

00:34:25
like putting things in front of people

00:34:28
until I feel confident that

00:34:31
even though the game isn't done

00:34:34
there's something really special there

00:34:36
that like the core concept is really

00:34:39
strong and is going to

00:34:43
be provide an impactful

00:34:46
experience for people. so like that's the

00:34:48
starting point and then from there

00:34:52
it's just lots and lots of testing. I've got a handful

00:34:55
of communities and events and things that I go

00:34:58
to to playtest games. I do a lot of

00:35:00
playtesting online

00:35:02
specifically in

00:35:05
two different Discord servers. I'm in one of them is

00:35:08
break my game. the other is

00:35:11
protospbiel Online.

00:35:13
M Protospbiel is

00:35:17
convention, purchase be Online specifically is

00:35:20
online based tabletop playtesting

00:35:22
convention. Happens three times a year.

00:35:25
it is great. I used to help I used to

00:35:28
be involved in helping run

00:35:31
it. I've taken a step back recently to focus

00:35:34
on some big life things that are happening over the next few

00:35:37
weeks. but I hope to jump back in and be a part

00:35:40
of that soon. but those

00:35:43
two communities are so

00:35:46
cool and supportive. M

00:35:49
and because it's online and everything's digital

00:35:52
you can do a lot of really rapid

00:35:54
iterating and feedback. Get

00:35:57
feedback really fast from lots of people

00:36:01
far outside of your local group. I get a good amount

00:36:04
of playtesting done in there. and then in terms of the

00:36:07
in person stuff I rely pretty heavily

00:36:10
on the UMPub network which

00:36:12
is they do a major

00:36:15
in person convention, outside of Baltimore every

00:36:18
year. but then they also have kind of

00:36:21
pop up,

00:36:24
areas in most of the major

00:36:27
conventions in the US that

00:36:30
have a tabletop presence. So like they're definitely

00:36:33
a PAX unplugged. they're at ah,

00:36:35
Origins. I think they also

00:36:38
do packs east and west. There's a

00:36:41
few other ones they go to. You could find all of them

00:36:44
on the On Pub website. but that is like

00:36:47
an awesome, awesome group of people. A lot of

00:36:49
the, you know, we mentioned Wingspan earlier.

00:36:52
Wingspan was a game that came out of the UNUB

00:36:55
network. Like Elizabeth brought that game to UNP Pub

00:36:58
events for a few

00:37:01
years and then eventually got picked up and now it is what it

00:37:04
is. I was actually at the UNP

00:37:07
Pub and one of my playtest blocks for the

00:37:10
game I'm working on, like I happened to be like seated next

00:37:13
to Elizabeth's table where she was trying out like

00:37:16
playtesting her new thing that she's working on. So like

00:37:19
all of these people who make your games, like,

00:37:22
we're all just, we all know each other, we're all like working on each

00:37:25
other's stuff. We're all helping each other out. It's a very

00:37:28
tight, small

00:37:31
community of really supportive, good

00:37:33
people. And that kind of brings me

00:37:36
back to like, question of like these

00:37:39
things. One or two designers names

00:37:42
will get put on the box at the end of the

00:37:44
day, but that's like,

00:37:47
that's a fraction of the people who were involved in making

00:37:50
these things real. Like it's, there's

00:37:53
so many people. Games are not made

00:37:56
by a single person.

00:37:59
if you were

00:38:02
not listening to people when you

00:38:04
are running your playtests,

00:38:07
you're not really designing,

00:38:11
you're making something. But like, who's it for

00:38:14
if it's just for you? it goes back

00:38:17
to the thing we were saying earlier where like you play games

00:38:20
with people. Like games are for people. So if

00:38:23
you're not designing with people in mind,

00:38:26
I'm not really sure I understand what the point is.

00:38:30
you're just making really

00:38:33
elaborate math problems,

00:38:41
which is cool. That's cool. But like,

00:38:45
I just don't really see what the point is if you're not going to get

00:38:48
people involved. that's the joy of it

00:38:51
to me is sharing that experience with other people

00:38:54
and building something together.

00:38:57
There's no way

00:39:00
any of my games would be where they are now if

00:39:03
I didn't have all the people in my life who'given

00:39:06
me feedback and supported

00:39:09
these Projects and playtested and,

00:39:14
you know, pulled up a chair at a

00:39:16
convention when I was like, just like doodling something on a

00:39:19
notepad and they came up and they were re like, yeah, I was thinking about that thing we were

00:39:22
talking about. Let's. Do you have, like, 10 minutes to just like, jam on

00:39:25
that a little bit? And like, none of that's just how

00:39:28
this stuff happens. And, you know, you asked,

00:39:30
like, how do you know when to. What to

00:39:33
listen to, what to not listen to.

00:39:39
You learn. You know,

00:39:42
I think it's important to

00:39:46
know what your goalposts are,

00:39:49
know what you're trying to accomplish. And then

00:39:52
when you get a piece of feedback that you're not really sure

00:39:55
how to interact with, or maybe

00:39:58
doesn't feel good to hear, or it's just

00:40:01
like a challenging piece

00:40:04
of feedback, you can always go back to those

00:40:06
goalosts and say, like, how does this fit into

00:40:09
what I've defined for myself as the objective of

00:40:12
this game? I like to design games

00:40:16
around feelings and

00:40:18
moments and not themes and mechanics.

00:40:22
so I really wanted to design a game where

00:40:25
people felt compelled to say

00:40:28
thank you. So I

00:40:30
created systems and mechanics and

00:40:33
themes that supported people

00:40:36
saying thank you to each other over the course of the

00:40:39
game.

00:40:40
>> Clint Scheirer: Built in gratitude. That's kind of nice.

00:40:42
>> David Maznado: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.

00:40:45
And I think, like, that any time where I got a piece of

00:40:48
feedback that felt

00:40:51
like it was butting heads

00:40:54
with that goal,

00:40:57
I would sit and think about it for a little bit. But if it really

00:41:00
felt like it would prevent that goal

00:41:03
from happening or get in the way of

00:41:05
that, then it probably just

00:41:08
wasn't a,

00:41:10
note that I could or would want to

00:41:13
pursue. I thing designers

00:41:18
share with each other, like a little sort of piece of wisdom

00:41:20
is like, playtesters are often

00:41:23
right about how they feel about a

00:41:26
game, but they're not right about how to

00:41:29
fix it. they'll be able to tell you

00:41:32
about what's wrong, like, what didn't

00:41:35
work. But when they offer

00:41:37
suggestions, the

00:41:40
suggestion maybe isn't the right way to solve the

00:41:43
problem. sometimes it is, but it

00:41:46
often isn't because what they're offering is how they would solve

00:41:49
the problem and that it's not really a playtester's

00:41:52
job to fix your game.

00:41:55
It's their job to tell you how they responded to it.

00:41:58
so I try to. When I'm listening to feedback

00:42:02
and interpreting what I want to use and what I don't want

00:42:05
to use, I try to keep that in mind of like,

00:42:09
what are they telling me about their experience, not what are

00:42:12
they telling me that they want to see as a solution.

00:42:16
>> Clint Scheirer: That is super cool.

00:42:17
>> David Maznado: Sorry, that was like a very long.

00:42:20
>> Clint Scheirer: No, I'm go goingna take that in my own life.

00:42:22
>> David Maznado: Like, that's.

00:42:23
>> Clint Scheirer: I need to, I need to use this as like parenting

00:42:26
advice sometimes, like with my kids. This is

00:42:29
great. You know, I'm gonna, I'm

00:42:32
gonna backtrack to a question that I skipped over because I think

00:42:35
you brought it up right.

00:42:36
A lot of these communities are online. Yeah, A lot

00:42:39
of these communities that you've been able to do these rapid

00:42:42
fire, test sessions with our

00:42:45
online communities. And you know, for tabletop,

00:42:48
that's roll 20, that's foundry

00:42:50
VTT. For the actual virtual tabletops,

00:42:53
it's Discord, it's Zoom. It's using all

00:42:56
of these different things to interact for board games,

00:42:59
you know, I know a few, but I don't know all of them. You

00:43:02
know, I had friends that tried to get me on Board Game Arena,

00:43:05
a tabletop simulator, which I think I bought for 20 bucks

00:43:08
and never went back on.

00:43:09
>> David Maznado: Yeah, sure.

00:43:10
>> Clint Scheirer: For different reasons. I shouldn't say obvious reasons. Some people

00:43:13
probably love it. how do you envision,

00:43:16
like the role of these digital tools and

00:43:18
platforms merging into what was once

00:43:21
only a physical experience, sitting around

00:43:24
an actual table with other people?

00:43:26
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:43:29
There's two ways I can answer this question, and

00:43:32
I'll try to keep both of them as brief as possible,

00:43:35
but ##n'on

00:43:38
your mind. If you haven't picked up on it yet, brevity is like

00:43:41
sometimes a problem for me.

00:43:44
as a designer,

00:43:48
the digital platforms are

00:43:51
huge. A huge,

00:43:55
barrier lift on

00:43:57
getting people making

00:44:00
games and getting feedback.

00:44:02
before these types of tools existed,

00:44:06
you had to pay for the tools

00:44:09
and equipment, like physical objects. You had to have a

00:44:12
printer, you had to have, you know,

00:44:15
paper and cardstock, and you had to have

00:44:18
some way to get to a playtesting event. And a lot of

00:44:20
these events happen at convention.

00:44:23
So surprise. Now you've got to have a

00:44:26
couple hundred bucks and you've got to have a hotel room,

00:44:28
which. Okay, so now, now we're looking at

00:44:31
an $800 weekend to play my game that may

00:44:34
never become a reality. And even if it does

00:44:37
become a reality, guess how much I'm making

00:44:40
on royalties on that game. Not enough to

00:44:42
justify going to every single convention in the US

00:44:45
Doing this. So it's

00:44:48
a prohibitively expensive thing to

00:44:51
get into. It's really, really hard to

00:44:54
get into doing this if you are just

00:44:56
doing the physical thing. and that's

00:44:59
not even getting into

00:45:02
accessibility stuff. Like, if I

00:45:05
am someone who uses a wheelchair or

00:45:08
I have mobility needs, or

00:45:11
I am deaf or hard of hearing

00:45:14
or have vision needs, like

00:45:17
things that can be assisted with, like screen readers

00:45:20
and hearing aids. spaces

00:45:23
that, like folks who use

00:45:26
wheelchairs. Like, conventions are getting better about

00:45:28
it. But, like, it's

00:45:31
really hard to move around a convention center

00:45:34
in a wheelchair. It's really.

00:45:36
>> Clint Scheirer: It's hard enough when you don't have a wheelchair.

00:45:38
>> David Maznado: Yeah, it's like it. So

00:45:43
there physical. There are

00:45:46
limitations to what the physical

00:45:48
playtesting and game

00:45:51
spaces are able to offer. And

00:45:54
with moving things online or

00:45:57
the addition of things going online, it

00:45:59
has opened up a massive slew

00:46:02
of designers and players and voices

00:46:05
that were not really getting a seat at

00:46:08
the table. and that is so exciting.

00:46:12
Some folks maybe spend a little too much

00:46:14
time designing

00:46:17
exclusively digitally. they aren't

00:46:20
getting their game to

00:46:23
a physical format soon enough.

00:46:26
so people will design games that play

00:46:28
really well digitally, but they're

00:46:31
not thinking about, like, if they want this to be a physical thing

00:46:34
that someone plays on their table.

00:46:38
How is this going toa work? Like, are these

00:46:41
cards gonna be readable? How much is this

00:46:44
gonna cost to manufacture? Like, you've got

00:46:47
a hundred dice in this game. You

00:46:50
can't sell that for the price point that you want

00:46:53
to make this game at. Like, all of that

00:46:55
kind of stuff. Like, I have to put a certain

00:46:58
number of tokens on a card. Well, that might

00:47:01
work really well digitally because I can create

00:47:04
a nice neat and tidy stack with

00:47:07
a snap point that they all jump ono. But like,

00:47:10
what's thatnna look like on a table where these are

00:47:13
now all loose components that are just like falling over

00:47:15
each other? and I think some

00:47:18
people maybe

00:47:21
overplay the extent to which games

00:47:24
are existing now that have been poorly

00:47:27
playtested in physical space. I've seen

00:47:30
some people kind of get like really up in arms about

00:47:33
this, that there's this like, wild influx of

00:47:36
games that like, they just never even bothered to test this

00:47:39
on a real table. I don't think that's

00:47:42
true, but there are some games

00:47:44
that, like, I've played in the last few

00:47:47
years that I've thought

00:47:51
you didn't test this physically as much as

00:47:54
you should have. And if you intend for

00:47:57
something to exist as a physical product,

00:48:00
you do need to test it physically. So I think that's

00:48:03
like, really, to me, one of the only major

00:48:06
downsides of pivoting

00:48:08
the design world into the

00:48:11
physical space is like some folks just aren't

00:48:14
leveraging that in.

00:48:17
They may be relying on it too much. it's

00:48:20
also challenging as a designer. Like

00:48:23
you lose a lot of context if things are digital.

00:48:26
Like most of the playtests I'm in, maybe we'll be

00:48:29
on camera at the beginning

00:48:32
but then we all turn our cameras off like while we're playing

00:48:35
because we're like focusing on the screen. So

00:48:38
now I can't see your body language. I

00:48:41
can't see all of the

00:48:43
visual cues that I would get

00:48:46
from someone. Like while I'm watching them during a

00:48:49
playtest, I'm making notes about like how

00:48:52
often are they lifting up reference cards to like re

00:48:54
remind themselves of rules? How often are

00:48:57
they looking bored or like they're checking out

00:49:00
or are they looking at their phones? Are they having

00:49:03
side conversations with people

00:49:06
about the game? Are they whispering plans to each

00:49:09
other? You can't do that really

00:49:12
digitally. so you

00:49:14
lose some of that. But generally speaking I think as

00:49:17
a designer, the

00:49:20
digital platforms have opened up

00:49:23
more opportunities for folks wanting to get

00:49:26
into this and more opportunities

00:49:29
for connections

00:49:32
and enjoying games

00:49:34
with people.

00:49:35
>> Clint Scheirer: What do you think about as a player? I. From the

00:49:38
tabletop perspective? A lot

00:49:40
of the things that you were talking about as an

00:49:43
obstacle.

00:49:44
>> Clint Scheirer: With the physical pieces.

00:49:47
Tabletop games don't always have that

00:49:50
obstacle. I mean there are minis. Right. And that's

00:49:53
a whole thing that people can get into depending on

00:49:56
the level of physicality you want with your tabletop game.

00:49:59
You know dungeon. I can't remember the name

00:50:02
of the company that makes the beautiful like dungeon

00:50:04
pieces and But

00:50:07
for the most part most games for

00:50:10
Tabletop can be just done theater of the mind.

00:50:12
>> David Maznado: Right.

00:50:13
>> Clint Scheirer: And that then you know, I do think we

00:50:16
do share the obstacle of not being able to

00:50:19
see each other when people turn off their screens. I was a part

00:50:22
of a really cool Starfinder 2nd

00:50:25
Edition playtest at the beginning of the

00:50:28
end of 2024 and I jumped on

00:50:31
the game and I had my camera on and I was super

00:50:33
ready. my buddy Jonathan has ran the game friend

00:50:36
of the pod and I was. So nobody

00:50:39
had their camera one and they were like Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, you can have your

00:50:42
camera on if you want but we usually turn off the camera and I'm like o

00:50:45
okay. And it was still a blast.

00:50:47
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:50:48
>> Clint Scheirer: But I could see how for somebody designing the game looking for

00:50:51
those interactions and emotions that would be difficult.

00:50:53
>> David Maznado: It's tricky it can be tricky, and you get used to

00:50:56
it. And the digital

00:50:59
playtests are really good for stress testing

00:51:01
systems. Like does this just work on a

00:51:04
mechanical level? Is

00:51:07
the math right? if your game has a lot of math,

00:51:10
like that kind of stuff, it can be good for

00:51:13
testing iconography and language. Player

00:51:16
feel can be a trickier thing.

00:51:18
I think as a player

00:51:23
I really like Board Game Arena.

00:51:26
I like that I can run an

00:51:28
asynchronous game with my friends

00:51:31
back in Chicago and we can just

00:51:34
have that running for over the course of the week and know

00:51:37
I get an email saying it's your turn and then I take my turn and

00:51:40
then nothing happens until I

00:51:43
get another email with your email to their

00:51:46
email. I really like that. I like that

00:51:49
it means I can always be playing a game and always

00:51:52
have something running in the background. And

00:51:55
that's really fun to me. I like that boardame

00:51:58
arena does a lot of the admin for you

00:52:01
so you don't have to worry about

00:52:04
the physics engine thing of like

00:52:07
a Tabletop simulator or Tabletop Playground or

00:52:10
Tabletopia, like where you've got

00:52:13
to physically move things around

00:52:16
in a 3D space. I don't particularly like

00:52:19
playing games that way. They can be useful tools

00:52:22
for designing games because

00:52:25
they give you a lot of flexibility as a designer.

00:52:29
but I don't really like playing games in

00:52:32
those 3D platforms.

00:52:35
my favorite platform for

00:52:37
designing and playing

00:52:40
if it is going to be in the sort of like

00:52:43
freeform, like

00:52:45
isn't enforcing rules type thing because that's the

00:52:48
other thing like bga, enforces the rules

00:52:51
for you. Boardgame arena does like it enforces all the rules

00:52:54
for you. It does all of the admin for you.

00:52:57
It's great. Tabletop Simulator, Tabletop

00:53:00
Playground, Tabletopia. They do

00:53:03
not. It is like it is as if

00:53:06
you set up a game on your table in your living

00:53:08
room. Hopefully you know what to do with it.

00:53:11
Like it's just there and it's in a 3D environment.

00:53:14
Tabletop Playground is my favorite of those three. I think it's

00:53:17
like pretty cool and it's underrated. Of the

00:53:20
three if you have to design or play a game

00:53:23
that like needs a 3D

00:53:26
environment because some games do that like verticality

00:53:29
and things like that can be important in some games.

00:53:32
Tabletop Playground is my favorite of those three.

00:53:35
But if I'm going to play or

00:53:37
design in a platform

00:53:40
that is the sort of like

00:53:43
it's set up on the table and you need to know how to

00:53:46
engage with it. The one I use is Screen top.

00:53:50
it's 2D. It runs in your

00:53:52
browser. it is free for your first

00:53:56
like three games.

00:53:58
I love screenop. I

00:54:01
do pay for it. Like I, because I use it enough that I'm

00:54:04
like, yeah, I'll pay. I got in at like an early

00:54:07
bird rate. I paid like $5 a month for it.

00:54:10
It's easily, easily worth it for

00:54:13
me. But it doesn't cost you anything as a player. So

00:54:15
if you know your friend designed a game and they put

00:54:18
it on screenop, they just send you the link and you

00:54:21
could jump in on whatever, anything that can run a web

00:54:24
browser, you can play their game on Screen Top. It's

00:54:27
awesome. I love it. It's not my

00:54:31
preferred way to play board games.

00:54:34
Like I would much rather play them physically or

00:54:37
on Board Game Arena. but Board Game arena

00:54:40
is really only for published games. The assumption is that

00:54:43
the game is done. You're not, you're not putting like

00:54:46
a prototype on there. It's too much work to like

00:54:49
iterate a prototype on there. You have to do all the coding and

00:54:52
everything and it, it just doesn't happen.

00:54:55
We're in a really interesting and scary time

00:54:58
for the industry right now with the

00:55:00
ongoing tariff conversations.

00:55:03
we're already seeing a lot

00:55:06
of publishers

00:55:09
closeoth, greater than games, who make

00:55:11
a game called Spirit island, one of the

00:55:14
most popular and successful board games

00:55:17
of the last few years. They closed last

00:55:20
week. They, they cannot afford to

00:55:23
make their games anymore. so

00:55:25
I know, I know a handful of designer friends

00:55:28
who have had contracts pulled because

00:55:31
the publishers can't guarantee that their

00:55:34
games will be made. So they've just cancelld them.

00:55:37
I know lots of people who have lost their jobs. The

00:55:40
physical gaming

00:55:43
world,

00:55:45
whether these tariffs continue or

00:55:48
not has already been

00:55:51
irreversibly impacted. And a thing that I

00:55:53
could see coming from this

00:55:57
is games going

00:56:00
direct to these digital platforms

00:56:02
until things either

00:56:06
settle down a bit or

00:56:09
there's some like certainty about a release plan,

00:56:12
I think we're gonna see more of that like games.

00:56:14
Just like this is a board game.

00:56:17
It was intended to be a board game,

00:56:21
but we can't make it anymore. So this is what you're gon toa get for

00:56:24
now.

00:56:24
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. There's been a mass exodus I think to

00:56:27
the PDF for tabletop role playing

00:56:30
games.

00:56:31
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:56:31
>> Clint Scheirer: And I, man, I love a good book.

00:56:34
Like I have my, Craig Shipman, who I

00:56:37
interviewed on the Pod we talk about our. Our wall

00:56:40
of shame.

00:56:41
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:56:42
>> Clint Scheirer: I have like a desk of shame underneath here. It's just all my

00:56:45
tabletop books that I, I love and I'll never play them with

00:56:47
anybody, but I love looking at the art.

00:56:49
>> David Maznado: Yeah, yeah.

00:56:50
>> Clint Scheirer: Holding it in my hand.

00:56:52
>> David Maznado: It's a. It's.

00:56:52
I mean it's like, it's like if you have a vinyl collection, like,

00:56:55
so much of the experience is like holding that thing

00:56:58
and like looking at it and

00:57:01
experiencing a physical object. I

00:57:04
don't think games as physical objects are ever

00:57:07
going to go away. They've existed for

00:57:10
thousands of years. We're not going to stop doing

00:57:12
that as a species. it

00:57:15
is already too difficult to

00:57:18
make these things exist. We do not have the

00:57:21
means to manufacture them in the United States.

00:57:25
There are like two or three manufacturers who can do

00:57:27
it. And they can make things out of card

00:57:30
and cardtock and cardboard. All of

00:57:33
those like plastic mini miniatures and

00:57:36
things that's injection plastic

00:57:38
molding. Like, you can't. We just don't

00:57:41
have. There is nowhere that can do

00:57:43
it. It's not, it's like, not a. Like.

00:57:46
Well, go find it. Like, no, it

00:57:49
does not exist. I hate to like, think

00:57:52
of the situation through the framework

00:57:55
of like, a silver lining. Because I don't think silver linings

00:57:57
exist in situations where people are

00:58:00
losing their jobs or having

00:58:03
projects they were financially relying on having

00:58:06
the rug pulled out from underneath them.

00:58:09
I don't think that there's

00:58:12
nothing good about that. U. but I

00:58:15
think an outcome that we are going to see

00:58:18
is that this challenge is

00:58:21
going to force

00:58:24
people to be creative about how games

00:58:27
exist. And that

00:58:30
creativity is

00:58:32
going to rely on digital platforms, I

00:58:35
think, and digital

00:58:38
distribution, more print and play stuff. I think

00:58:41
we're going toa be seeing a lot more print and play. We're going toa see a lot more

00:58:44
things that rely on you owning games

00:58:47
in your collection already and maybe

00:58:49
scavenging parts from those other games and

00:58:52
then downloading rulebooks. I know a few

00:58:55
people who are working on things like that.

00:58:57
>> Clint Scheirer: This sounds like a game in itself.

00:58:58
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:58:59
>> Clint Scheirer: One of our human experience games that we can make.

00:59:01
>> David Maznado: Yeah.

00:59:02
>> Clint Scheirer: We could call it tariffs.

00:59:06
>> David Maznado: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean it's. It. But it's.

00:59:09
It's forcing.

00:59:12
It's forcing some creativity and pivots

00:59:15
in ways that no one wants.

00:59:18
But people rely on this

00:59:20
as their job, so

00:59:23
they need to come up with a plan. There's a lot

00:59:26
of strengths that I see in the digital platforms, but I

00:59:29
think in the next few years,

00:59:32
especially the next few months, we'ren toa see people

00:59:35
really relying on them. a major form of

00:59:38
distribution. My day job is in

00:59:41
community. I'm in game

00:59:44
design communities. We've talked already about how

00:59:47
community is what built the games I work

00:59:50
on and the games that my friends are working

00:59:53
on. So much of what makes a good community, a

00:59:55
good community is compassion and

00:59:58
empathy. I think those are the things

01:00:01
that drive

01:00:04
the game experiences that I make as well.

01:00:07
and I think they're the things that

01:00:11
help tell the most

01:00:14
interesting stories in RPGs. Because

01:00:16
when we're empathetic and

01:00:19
compassionate, that's when we're like, really

01:00:22
hearing and like, seeing each other and

01:00:25
listening and

01:00:28
navigating relationships either,

01:00:31
like, in our lives or on, the table.

01:00:34
So the, the ten word experience or ten word,

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

01:00:38
>> David Maznado: Yeah, my ten word experience. my ten word

01:00:41
phrase was, be a curious and

01:00:44
compassionate ambassador for impactful gaming

01:00:47
experiences.

01:00:50
>> Clint Scheirer: Staying curious is.

01:00:54
It opens a lot of doors.

01:00:57
This podcast happened, because I

01:01:00
was curious about all the people

01:01:03
who love this hobby and

01:01:06
what they have to say. And there's a lot of

01:01:08
really cool people, like, you're an excellent human being. I

01:01:11
never would have gotten to talk to you in this

01:01:14
way had I not allowed that

01:01:17
curiosity to unfolds. So, yeah, can you say it

01:01:20
just one more time for everybody so that we can

01:01:22
remember?

01:01:23
>> David Maznado: be a curious and compassionate about

01:01:26
ambassador for impactful

01:01:29
gaming experiences.

01:01:32
>> Clint Scheirer: Let that simmer.

01:01:33
What else? Is there anything else that we've

01:01:36
missed that you feel like it would be a shame if you

01:01:39
didn't say it.

01:01:40
>> David Maznado: Board games have been so locked into

01:01:44
tradition, And I think RPGs have

01:01:47
been a little bit too. Like, some folks

01:01:49
feel like D20 & D is the only option out

01:01:52
there. It's the only system they can jump into. I

01:01:55
think I would challenge anyone listening to this

01:02:00
to use that as an opportunity to be curious.

01:02:03
That's what I'm trying to say with this phrase is like,

01:02:07
ask about

01:02:10
what else is out there.

01:02:15
why do you feel like it's that way, that D20 & D

01:02:18
is the only thing? What are the

01:02:21
things that led to that being your

01:02:23
assumption? There's reasons, there

01:02:26
are reasons why D20 & D is the thing

01:02:29
that everyone knows about. not all of those reasons

01:02:32
are good. Same thing with board games. There's a lot of reasons

01:02:35
why board games have

01:02:37
traditionally a single victor structure.

01:02:41
Zoe says it way better than I will in

01:02:44
the video I mentioned earlier. So if you're interested in

01:02:47
the history and sort of theory of why games are

01:02:50
like that, I think so. He brings up some

01:02:53
really compelling arguments. Videos like that

01:02:56
and videos like what Amabelle has written and

01:02:59
these conversations we've had, they come out of

01:03:02
curiosity, why is this like this?

01:03:05
And why could things be different? Could things

01:03:08
be better? Could I make things different

01:03:10
or better? Could I design a game? Could

01:03:13
I show my friends a new

01:03:16
experience? Always ask yourself questions

01:03:19
and be curious. I think that's when the most

01:03:21
exciting and meaningful moments

01:03:25
can happen. aside from

01:03:28
that, I don't know if there's anything I. I

01:03:31
think you hit it on that. Did I do it?

01:03:33
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah, you did it. You did the thing like, you did the

01:03:36
thing. It was awesome. last thing.

01:03:39
Where can people find you?

01:03:42
They. Where can they connect with you if they

01:03:45
loved what they heardnna see what you're

01:03:47
doingnn, stay curious about

01:03:50
what you have and what you're about.

01:03:52
>> David Maznado: Yeah. I. On social

01:03:55
media. The only social media I'm using these days,

01:03:58
has been Blue Sky. so you can find me on blue

01:04:00
sky@davidmoznado.com do

01:04:04
the cool thing about Blue sky is you can verify

01:04:06
yourself with your domain name. So that's also my

01:04:09
website. So if you want to go to my website, it's

01:04:12
davidmoznado.com. a little outdated,

01:04:15
admittedly. I need to get some new stuff on there.

01:04:18
the game I've been talking about with the witches

01:04:21
is like, still on there as roommates. So

01:04:25
sorry. If you go check out my website, it's a little

01:04:27
outdated. I've also got some other games that I haven't put

01:04:30
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

01:04:36
same place physically.

01:04:39
check out, hang out in Break My Game, the

01:04:42
Break My Game Discord or, Protosp Spiel Online.

01:04:45
those are the two places where I play things on the

01:04:48
Internet. and then if you're ever, ah, at

01:04:50
a convention, ah, I

01:04:53
will almost definitely be at PAX

01:04:56
Unplugged in I think it's

01:04:58
November this year. They moved it from December to

01:05:01
November.

01:05:02
>> Clint Scheirer: 21St or the 23rd. My heart is set

01:05:05
on also potentially being there.

01:05:06
>> David Maznado: S y It is awesome. It's so much

01:05:09
fun. so I'm hoping to be

01:05:12
there. I also am at,

01:05:15
I go to the UNP Pub event

01:05:18
in, outside of Baltimore every year.

01:05:21
but like if there is an unpub room at a

01:05:24
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

01:05:30
a good place to find me and play my stuff. And if you're

01:05:33
not sure if I'm there or not, ask one of the members of the

01:05:36
unpub staff because they will know. but I'm.

01:05:39
I'm usually packs unplugged in

01:05:42
and the main on pub

01:05:45
festival are like my two main in person

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

01:05:51
>> Clint Scheirer: Well, I hope to see you there. I'm sure some of our people

01:05:54
who are listening right now, maybe the listener who's listening right

01:05:57
now. We'll see you there.

01:05:58
>> David Maznado: I hope so. Yeah, come, come. If you see

01:06:01
me, I'm often wearing like

01:06:04
a bright yellow beanie. I was about to like find it

01:06:06
and lift it up, but then I remembered that this is a podcast and you're not going

01:06:09
to see what it looks like. But it'it's on my

01:06:12
profile photo, on my social media stuff. It's like

01:06:15
I wear a yellow beanie around at most of

01:06:18
the conventions.

01:06:20
>> Clint Scheirer: it's way easy to find a yellow bean, Ma.

01:06:22
>> David Maznado: It's pretty easy to find. Although there is like one

01:06:25
other bearded white guy who has

01:06:28
started walking around with a beanie and is it yellow?

01:06:31
It's. Yeah, it's yellow and it's a problem.

01:06:35
>> Clint Scheirer: we need to have a talk.

01:06:36
>> David Maznado: I know. I like, I. Someone came up to me

01:06:39
at the last packs and they were like, there's another one and the two

01:06:42
of you need to figure out who it's gonna be.

01:06:46
So it's. Yeah, but

01:06:48
like I spend most of my

01:06:51
time, in the upub room. So like if you

01:06:54
see someone in the upub room wearing a yellow

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

01:06:59
>> Clint Scheirer: But it could be David or it could be the other guy.

01:07:01
>> David Maznado: Could be me. Could be the other guy. Say hi, tell

01:07:03
me where you're coming from. Don'like.

01:07:06
That's helpful too. In a lot of places on

01:07:09
the Internet and there have been situations where people

01:07:12
come up to me and they're like, hey, I know you. And I'm like, I don't know

01:07:15
you. Can I get like a little. What do you know me

01:07:18
from? Can I get a little more context?

01:07:21
but yeah, I'm. I love meeting new

01:07:23
people. So please say hello.

01:07:26
>> Clint Scheirer: Well, David, thanks for being on. Hope to.

01:07:29
>> David Maznado: Yeah, thank you.

01:07:30
>> Clint Scheirer: You very soon. And we'll have to have you on

01:07:33
again. Thanks again.

01:07:34
>> David Maznado: Yeah, for sure. Thanks so much.

01:07:36
>> Clint Scheirer: It is a big wide world out there with so

01:07:39
many games other than just Dungeons and Dragons. So if you

01:07:42
heard a game that caught your fancy as David and I were

01:07:44
talking, feel free to check out the show notes. Every game

01:07:47
that's mentioned is down there for you to click, go

01:07:50
and play. Please hit like or subscribe if you

01:07:53
enjoyed what you heard today. Maybe dole out some of those stars if you listen

01:07:56
on Apple podcasts or Spotify. And may you keep

01:07:59
having fun as you have a great time with friends and experience

01:08:01
amazing stories through tabletop role playing games.