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Every adventure's puzzle should have multiple solutions. In this article, we figure out how to give all of our metaphorical locks a ring of keys.

_**You're in a design delve,** an exploration into the creative work of a book, zine, or pamphlet. Our goal? The same as always: to discover the new, strange, and novel, to hone our design blades, and fill our pockets with glittering insights._ # The quick pitch and play. This system agnostic one-shot is free and available right now on Itch. It's designer and publisher, The Department of Unusual Observations, has a couple of one-shots and micro rpgs around the same length (just 4 pages!). They're longer than a bifold but shorter than a zine. It's an adventure length we don't get enough of, and it's going to be a big topic of conversation later in this design delve. But before we get to that, let's skulk into today's design delve with some opening text. > In a shadowed corner of a noisy tavern, a weathered figure leans in close, his voice a raspy whisper. “Are you in?” He slides a rolled-up set of plans onto the table. “The Royal Art Gallery,” he adds with a grin... Talk about a familiar trope! A mysterious figure in a tavern? Call it played out if you want, but one thing is certain—it's efficient. Not only that, it's still visual. The real question is: what comes next? The cover of The Royal Art Gallery Heist The entirety of The Royal Art Gallery Heist adventure (clockwise, starting from top-left); the intro page, adventure proper, diegetic map, and roll tables. ## Delving into The Royal Art Gallery Heist What comes after the intro page is your classic one-page adventure with a map in the center and room descriptions squeezing into whatever's left. Royal does this well—though it's still plagued with tiny type like most adventures in this format. Where it excels is in its overall visual design, which is clean, orderly, and approachable. Not one page feels overwhelming or overstuffed. The real challenge is the overall design of the adventure itself. It's a one-shot with a lot of narrative decisions that are either serving that end or _relying_ on it. For example, there's explicitly only one entrance to this museum, a fairly linear path through it, and—perhaps most shockingly—canned scenes at the start and end of this adventure. It's a different approach from the high-agency games I've grown used to. But is it bad? I'm not so sure. One-shots demand a certain amount of forcefulness to keep moving. What makes this adventure work is context. The fact it's a one-shot and _short_ means a lot of the more prescriptive, canned, and railroad-y aspects can be chalked up as play support by way of example. If this linear adventure with its assumptions and prescribed solutions were several pages longer, it would be more work to dismantle and ignore. Thus, I'm reminded of the subtle importance of page-count. Never mind the physical considerations, like binding, developmental editing, and layout. Short works meet different expectations. The more pages we add, the more expectations we rush to meet. Had this adventure been longer, I would be more critical, but at the end of the day—what can 1 page do wrong that I can't fix immediately? Not much. In particularly short adventures, I don't expect a lot of support. I don't even get them for that. I want ideas and a tiny play set to put them in. This does that well. It's brevity is its strength. Examples of the more prominent typefaces used in The Royal Art Gallery Heist. ## Design Lore **Type and layout.** A lot of Department's work uses Helvetica Neue and Futura—both famous and popular type families nearly everyone (including you) are familiar with. Helvetica is a grotesk typeface. It has clean unadorned strokes in similar mono-widths from one letter to the next. It's clean, sterile, and "simple." Similarly, Futura is a geometric typeface—which means the letterforms draw on standard shapes. Both of these typefaces are a double-edged sword in this adventure. They're a perfect choice for a system and setting agnostic adventure, but The Royal Art Gallery Heist is only one of these things. It's system agnostic but setting intentional. Fantasy with the serial numbers filed off. This works against the adventure's overall type and layout choices which are innately modern. In the text, the gallery reads like Versailles but the type is modern like MOMA. Sometimes a juxtaposition or dissonance like this creates new meaning, but in Royal's case it feels like a mismatch. There is another typeface used sparingly within the document called Seraphic, which more closely evokes the setting with its serifs and raw uneven strokes, but it's relegated to the intro prose and player handout. In the bulk of the work, it's overshadowed by the more modernist design system. Despite those misgivings, there is a beneficial edge to this sword, and it's the functionality. The more modern typefaces are easy to read at small sizes, draw the eyes, and contrast when appropriate. Like I've written before in Typography 101, a typeface is defined by its context and function. Despite the context clashing with the overall work, these typefaces were designed to be legible and hyper functional in more pragmatic use cases. This adventure can be interpreted as one. ## Design Loot * **Not every page has to be the adventure proper.** Royal uses just one page for the core text. The remaining pages are an intro, random tables, and a handout. These additions flesh out the work by providing easy pacing into the work, like with the intro, or by putting general purpose gameability on the bones, like with the roll tables. * **Don't repeat things when space is scarce.** The diegetic map, in addition to being a good handout, obviates the need for overly technical writing in some of the adventure. For example, guards are described in the adventure proper, but the handout actually shows their exact position and routes. In a longer adventure format, this could cause problems by separating pertinent information from each other, but in this tiny adventure it works great. * **Accent colors go a long way.** There's only one color in the entire adventure that isn't black or white—it's sepia and I think it does a great job of tying the overall work together from the archival photo to the parchment-like intro page. It's one of those economical creative decisions that makes a big impact overall. * **Writing your first adventure? Start small.** Not only does a short adventure have greater odds of being completed, you get more leeway for certain design decisions. This is not Department's first adventure, but it's a great example of how adventure format sets expectations. # Final Thoughts Overall, I think this could be a good one-shot. I'd add quite a bit to it, and change how the one interactive npc works, but I could do it minutes before a session. This adventure is a great case study in the power of brevity. The less you ask from the audience, and the more you do to help them, the more grace you get. I didn't even mention there's a twist at the end of this adventure. It's a pretty good one that could use a little more telegraphing. I won't spoil it here, but the adventure does suggest something is amiss, but in order for the environmental storytelling to work, a narrative has to emerge—as it stands, the telegraphing mostly sets a tone. It needs a little more than spooky paintings and mean statues to make the players investigate further. You can find The Royal Art Gallery heist on Itch. It's free and worth a look. Especially if you're looking for inspiration into density and organization. Until next time, I'll keep exploring. The Royal Art Gallery Heist by The Department of Unusual ObservationsA one-shot heist for your favorite dungeon game.itch.io * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._

Every morning, I wake up, and I mourn that I can't give my dwarves a Scottish accent, my elves a Swedish accent, or anything a Boston accent. That would be my third genie wish: the perfect Boston accent, one so wicked and loud, native Bostonians could guess my street address just from the way I drop my Rs (then put them where they don't belong). That's my dream. But it's not my reality. In the real world, I can't do an accent besides my own—a midwestern shrug. It's great for ordering beer and debating the price of corn, but it's not particularly evocative at the table during play. So, in order to play and inhabit evocative characters, I have to rely on other techniques. Thankfully, you don't need to do accent work to make characters work. In fact, accents are just one tool in the toolbox. Maybe the coolest and splashiest—but just one tool. There are others. This limited list is what I have shuffling around in _my_ toolbox... * * * # Roleplay with voice and tone. ### **The high and low approach.** Some characters talk with their voices right at the end of their mouth, like they're cutting words with their front teeth. These characters tend to talk fast with quick clicky voices. They're the exact opposite of the low voice speakers who have to flow their words around their Adam's apple. * **_Prim and Proper (High):_** A snooty bookseller in a Call of Cthulhu scenario. * **_Drawling (Low):_** The. Slowest. Clerical. Worker. In. The. Triangle Agency. * **Overly Fastidious (High):** Literally just C-3PO complaining about flying. * **Deep Drawling (Low):** A rural farmer in Liminal Horror giving directions. ### The loose and tight approach. You might be thinking these are the same as high and low—but try pairing high and loose together. Loose voices tremble, gravel, and let words crash into each other. Tight voices keep thing neat and clipped, from chipper to brutish. * **_Gravely voice (Loose):_ **A low-level goon with a club in Blades in the Dark. * **_Reedy voice (Loose):_ **The wheezy hippy dodging questions in Delta Green. * **_Brutish voice (Tight):_ **My Thwomp-like Cairn troll who likes to eat sheep. * **_Chipper voice (Tight):_ **Your little robot mascot and buddy in CBR + PNK. ### The breathy and stifled approach. Exhale when you talk. Do it like you're blowing out candles then try it like you're sighing with relief. Let it shake your vocal chords. It can sound exasperated, manipulative, calm, or even sensual. Now do the opposite, breathe in or stop breathing when you talk. You probably don't sound natural. * **_Husky voice:_ **Your boss in Scum and Villainy who is _definitely_ not evil. * **_Raspy voice:_ **The sweaty overworked warp drive engineer in Mothership. * **_Gasping voice:_** A zombie raised from the dead by some Mörk Borg heretic. * **_Hissy voice:_** The lizardfolk who talkssss like thissssss. * * * # Roleplaying with personality. ### Roleplaying a one-mood character. One of my oldest friends uses this technique all the time. The character who is perpetually angry, happy, or silly. It has more range than you think and gives you the chance to break character later for maximum impact. * **_Always smiling:_ **Your lord in Pendragon who won't take no for an answer. * **_Always angry:_** The J. Jonah Jameson editor who hates your fucking guts. * **_Always nervous:_** The newbie space marine who stutters and whines a lot. * **_Always bored:_** The retired adventurer tending bar and rolling his eyes. ### Roleplaying a character motivation. Some NPCs want something so bad everything they do and say is tainted by it. These are your archetypes who wear their motives on their sleeves and like to angle every line, stare, and question toward's their inevitable aim. A good rule when roleplaying motivated characters is to filter everything through that motivation—if it doesn't serve the motivation, they don't do it. * **_Wants to manipulate:_** The whispering, prodding, giggling Knave wizard. * **_Wants the spotlight:_** The OSE king, arms wide, talking in 3rd person. * **_Wants to have a good time:_** The Pirate Borg pirate who laughs too much. * **_Wants to eat:_** An Apocalypse World cannibal who licks their lips a lot. ### Roleplaying the cartoonishly obsessive. This is the cartoon approach to roleplay. Pick an object, activity, or person and mutate the character around it. The animated movie, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, does this really well, with characters who are obsessed with dirt or explosives. * **_Object obsession:_** The mole-loving lurk that moves and acts like one. * **_Activity obsession:_** The gun-nut who looks and handles everything like one. * **_Person obsession:_** An OSE hireling who looks and acts like a PC but poorly. * **_Fear obsession:_** A dwarf who talks quiet and stays low in fear of cave-ins. * * * # Roleplaying with physicality. ### Using posture to roleplay. The way you sit in your seat, stand over the gaming table, or pace has this amazing ability to change everything else. It's especially powerful in person, where players can't help but notice a change your physicality. * **_Leaning back in your chair:_ **The devil may care mech pilot in Lancer. * **_Looming above. Shoulders raised:_** The dragon-like eagle in Mausritter. * **_Straight back. Chin up:_** Your no-nonsense corporate contact in CY_BORG. * **Limp and rolling:** A corpse animated by the D&D spell Speaks with Dead. ### Roleplaying with your hands. This is about 50% of some accents. Using your hands to talk, command attention, or convey a mood. Some characters do it on purpose, while others do it unknowingly. Sometimes hand work can even tease a profession or backstory. * **_Handwaving and cig-flicking:_** The classic mobster in Call of Cthulhu. * **_Fidgeting with hair:_** A punk kid being questioned by City of Mist detectives. * **_Clenched fists:_** A blue-collar teamster with callused hands and no bullshit. * **Hands in claws. Elbows tucked:** An Electrum Archive insectoid merchant. ### Using movement to roleplay. Sometimes an entire character can be the speed at which they move, or how they move that makes them stick in the player's minds. I'm reminded of the James Cagney technique for looking tough: Raise your head to whoever's talking _and then_ raise your eyes to meet them. It'll make you look threatening. * **_Moving too fast too often:_** The wastelander on too much Jet in Fallout. * **_Slow delayed movement:_** A giant who doesn't have to move fast for anyone. * **_Avoids eye contact:_** The not-innocent businessman in Brindlewood Bay. * **_Constantly looking around:_ **A Delta Green contact with valuable info. ### Making faces to roleplay. This technique works well in remote games where you're limited to just your head and voice. Make an exaggerated face, then hold it. If you let your head go slack and jaw hang open, you're a skeleton. If you stare at everyone past your brow, you're an imp. This technique is great for playing monsters. * **Making a stank face:** The NPC who (correctly) thinks the adventurers reek. * **Eyes-wide, lips pursed:** The DCC paladin whose head is now a chicken's. * **Mouth hanging open:** A lich's not-so-bright henchman from Into the Odd. * **Blank face:** Your Android companion in Alien telling you to remain calm. * * * # Roleplaying with worldbuilding. ### Acting out cultural behaviors. I love this roleplaying technique because it works overtime. Invent an overt cultural behavior and then show that cultural behavior in a character. It'll tell players something about the world and how that character relates to it. * **_Language dipping:_** A monk in Pendragon who mixes in latin curses. * **_Formal phrases:_** The frog who goes "Ribbit!" when she's done speaking. * **_Intense eye contact:_** The Mörk Borg town where everyone is just German. * **_Salutes to everyone:_** A nervous cadet who is trying to memorize the ranks. ### Acting out fantasy characteristics. How do you roleplay an ooze creature? What does a ship's computer sound like in Mothership? I've found verbal tics and reflexes to be really powerful in this instance, even when they're really silly and simple. Matt Colville's impression of a dragonborn comes to mind, where he talks with a strained, broken syntax to show how dragonborn don't have vocal chords or lips like the other humanoids. * **_Saying "blub!" between words:_** The sentient ooze in Eco Mofos!! * **_Skipping every 5th word:_** The scientist on the radio in Mothership. * **_Dropping non-sequiturs:_** An android that used to be a jukebox. * **_Whispers everything:_** A Mausritter mole used to talking underground. ### Let the meta do the roleplay. Sometimes the best way to convey a character is to get meta with it. Break the fourth wall, describe how a character says a line, or trigger mechanics and procedures around certain characters. * **_Say there's an accent:_** Sometimes the players have a better version of the voice in their head and they'll act off the direction without actually hearing it. * **_Only talk to one player:_** Whenever the character talks, talk just to one player. You can even make it explicit, "He looks at you and says ________." * **_Talks in Not-Voice:_** If a character talks through telepathy, I might write down what they say and pass it to the table or even show them pictures. * **_Trigger the rules:_** This won't work for some games, but it can be powerful. In my Star Wars hack of Scum and Villainy, players discovered Vader could only be hurt or swayed with the help of devil's bargains and perks. * * * # Final thoughts Part of my game prep is figuring out how to depict characters. Remembering to do just one thing. That's enough to make a character stick the landing. As you can tell, this list is just a start. So, I'm asking to look into your tool box. What kind of stock characters and techniques do you have? Let me know in the comments or tag me on BlueSky. Until then, I'll keep exploring. * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._

# The blogclave is upon us. Today's article is part of the Blogclave. A casual blogging event sparked by the real-life Catholic conclave. There will likely be new cleric subclasses, essays on rpg religions, and a whole lot more. One thing is certain: you now have exactly 36 things to discover under the new pope's hat. This is a weird one for Explorers Design. For future design writing, reviews, and more... Subscribe ## What's under the pope's hat? Roll 2d6. Treat each result as one of the two decimal places. 1. A smaller, cuter rat pope pulling at the Human Pope's tonsure like Ratatouille. 2. One of three foxes operating a rope-and-pulley pope disguise. 3. A pompadour to rival that of Johnny Bravo. Perfectly shaped. Hyehh! 4. A serial number. P0PE 268. (Curiously 1 more popes than expected.) 5. Another face. This one is really, really fucking angry. 6. His mitre-shaped head. Wait, he's a squid? DEX save to avoid ink. * * * 1. A smaller mitre housing a mitre-housing mitre. It's hats all the way down. 2. The massive blinking eye you weren't meant to see. It's bloodshot. 3. His brain. You just tore off the top of his head, you barbaric infidel. 4. The crumbling husk of the previous pope. Whoever has the hat has the church. 5. A third hand pointing the Holy 1911 Handgun of Cheboygan at you. 6. The glass dome to a small war room housing 4 praying mantis cardinals. * * * 1. Two knobs like the kind on an amp: morality and violence. 2. The pope's scaly head with a bright retractable frill to scare predators. 3. A mourning dove wearing a mitre. It takes flight. 4. The pope's thrall. He blinks awake, "Wh-wh-wht?" The hat screams. 5. A flaming sword's hilt. Once used to protect the Garden of Eden. 6. Another mouth with some rude, frankly undignified, things to say. * * * 1. A big blinking antennae. The cardinals go into attack mode upon its reveal. 2. The fabled tattoo map to buried Vatican treasure. Just as your dad predicted. 3. A birthmark that suspiciously resembles Mikhail Gorbachev's. 4. A stashed pack of Rotten Apple Cigarettes. "Take a bite of this poisoned apple!" 5. The cymbal-bashing wind-up Jesus discontinued in 1973. 6. Something off-screen that bathes you in gold light. You pause to take it in. * * * 1. Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses. Rudely stapled to the scalp. 2. A stupid looking toupee. Genuinely one of the worst you've ever seen. 3. Hair with the curlers still in. You thought it was natural? 4. A computer terminal operated by a tiny roach in a NASA shirt and tie. 5. Snakes that turn you to stone. WIS save to resist petrification. 6. A barbed wire tattoo. Roll for initiative. You're about to fight this pope. * * * 1. A factory reset switch. Installed by God. Just in case. 2. A crumpled note. _If you're reading this. I'm dead. It's now up to you..._ 3. An old man. No really. Have you noticed how old the pope is? 4. Multiple eyes. Oh god. He _is_ divine. He's not human. He's one of _them_. Run. 5. An old photo of some dudes on a fishing trip. Back when we believed in things. 6. With mild disappointment: a boring pair of devil horns. * * * ## Who is this pope anyway? Roll 1d6 to decide what kind of pope we have under the hat. 1. **_Dead pope._** Who said they had to be alive to run the church? 2. **_War pope._** A bandolier is like a rosary if you really think about it. 3. **_Young pope._** This pope listens to The Beastie Boys and packs Zyn. 4. **_Antipope._** The Pepsi of papal candidates. A contrarian. Ripe for division. 5. **_Pope Max._** Catholic as hell. The tiara is back. The organs are piping. 6. **_Doomsday pope._** Enough with the bullshit. Warhammer 40k meets Mörk Borg. # Concluding Rites That's it for this week. Did you find something under the pope's hat? Let me know in the comments or repost this article on Bluesky with your own additon to the table. Just imagine the d666 possibilities. Peace be with you, fellow rpg designers. * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._

_**You're in a design delve,** an exploration of a book, zine, or pamphlet. Our goal? To discover the new, strange, and novel in tabletop games, to hone our creative blades, and fill our pockets with design lore. Find more in __critique_ _._ # A journey through riso printing. The Rumored Lands zines are my favorite kind of zine. Riso-printed, on colored stock, at just 16 pages a piece. They're fun to ogle at, easy to schlep, and an absolute breeze to read. On the credits page, I see two names I've not seen before, Kris Mukai and Arlin Ortiz—illustrators, writers, and talented designers. Along with those credits, and a special thank you to Ramie and Adalberto Ortiz, we get our first taste of the work's voice and tone. > Whispers of a distant frontier riddle your mind. This text holds only fragments of what awaits you in this rumored land. Simple and concise with no gilding the lily. It's a good and simple intro that wastes no time getting into the dirt and sky of these rumored lands. Let's delve deeper. Covers (from left to right); The Anchor Coast, The Ashlands, and The Spoiled River. Cartography (left to right); The Anchor Coast, The Ashlands, and The Spoiled River. Interior pages (left to right); The Anchor Coast, The Ashlands, and The Spoiled River. (Text blurred by me.) ## Delving into Rumored Lands These zines are essentially location-based rumor tables that have been polished to a degree most zines are not. It's why I picked them up. I'll skip ahead and say right now, "I want to see adventures made by Mukai and Ortiz. The the Rumored Lands will require some work before they get to the table, but like any good rumor in a full-fledged adventure, they've got their hooks in me. So, let's start with what I love. These three zines are compact little nesting dolls of cool ideas. Looking from the top down, each land is defined by a conceptual idea that warps its locations, creatures, and denizens. The Spoiled River, for example, isn't polluted by just anything, but magic crystals that mutate the landscape. The Ashlands are gathered around a glassy crater with a massive eye floating over it. The Anchor Coast is named for its giant anchor and chain which links the depths of its oceans with an unseen flying ship belonging to sky giants. What makes these ideas good is how they domino into the resulting pages. Mukai and Arlin have done a good job of using the top-level conceptual ideas to formulate the smaller, more intimate creatures and scenarios at the player level. My favorite example is probably in The Spoiled River zine where spawning mosquitos on the aforementioned river's muddy shores have mutated into horse-sized monstrosities. Monstrosities that the setting's npcs have no problem using as pack animals in a city that now literally hums with industry. This work isn't without its limitations, though. The Rumored Lands is not immediately gameable. There are no stats, dungeons, or any of the smaller details that fill out the beats of an average rpg session. Just a paragraph description and 6 to 12 rumors that (as far as I can tell) are all true. For some locations, this works out fine because the locations are small—like a hut. The real challenge is when the locations get big. Some GMs might be able to run a a night of city adventuring on one paragraph and 6 fun facts—I'm not that GM. I need all the help I can get. But let's go back to those rumors. They don't feel like rumors in the traditional rpg sense. There's no conflicting information, ambiguity demanding interpretation, or even tension. They read like facts about the setting, person, or thing. Sometimes sequentially like a timeline. They're still compelling. Trees that explode will always compel me, and that was one "rumor" among a list of 6. But they don't have a stickiness for the players. There's not really any implied call to action, or a secret being divulged, it's mostly just detail that sets the stage. For those reasons, these rumors feel like they're written for the GM and not the players. In fact, Rumored Lands feels less like three adventuring locations and more like three lite campaign settings with thought starters. Picture of riso prints and printer via Risotto Studio. ## Design Lore Rumored Lands' physical edition was made with riso printing. The digital editions are either direct scans of that end product or they're well made digital facsimiles. Both versions look fantastic. But what is riso printing? It's like if traditional photocopiers and screen printing had a baby. Paper goes in and colors are added one layer at a time by metal rollers. First goes the "bottom" stencil forms inks, then layer by layer, we get spot colors applied, with a little overlap here and there. What is Risograph Printing? | RISOTTO StudioRISO prints are made with a Risograph printer. It looks like a photocopier, but works as a screenprinter; using rich spot colours and stencils to create tactile and vibrant prints, affordably and with little impact to our environment. Free getting started guides avilable.RISOTTO Check out this explainer for some visual aids. It's a beautiful physical process that creates tiny imperfections with every page, often the result of variations in the paper's pulp, saturation in the ink, or the metal rollers which skip and trundle across the page. What's magic about these imperfections is that they draw the senses to the stuff people are starved for in our digital age—paper, ink that creates depth of color in the light, and small indentations on the page that only our fingers can feel. Rumored Lands shows off these details really well. It's clear both designers have experience and mastery over this process. Their art is bold, geometric, and symbolic—a perfect fit for the stencil and color construction of riso. Another thing that is particularly powerful about riso, which we don't see as much here in Rumored Land's one-color execution, is that it's range of colors are famously limited. This might sound like a weakness or limitation for creativity, but it's secretly its strength. In order to achieve a wider range of colors, the spot colors of a riso project are layered on top of each other. The result is a new color made from layers of bright inks just 2 to 4 microns thick, stacked on top of each other, like stained glass windows. This is why risograph prints are so rich and textured. When you see one in person, you are are seeing light penetrate and ricochet between the imperfect layers of specially formatted inks. Inks that are inherently brighter and more volatile than the stock consumer-grade stuff that goes into an inkjet. A brief note on typography (which looks perfectly weathered but legible in this work): Recently Adobe updated their PDF viewer with overly confident AI, which means I can't be 100% certain what fonts were used in these zines because I can't turn it off. The AI says this book is set in Trebuchet, Times New Roman, and Arial. Maybe those fonts are somewhere in here, but if this isn't Futura, I'll be damned to hell. Feed me to the horse-sized mosquitos. ## Design Loot * **Consider using colored paper.** A lot of printers, especially specialty ones, have paper with colors and textures you can't recreate with ink (or do so cheaply and reliably). These zines use colored pages for their covers with black ink. * **Give your illustration a bit of caricature.** The more I see it in rpgs, the more I love it. For example, if your adventure has owls with big eyes, give them stupid-big eyes in the art. GMs have to transmit these details to players and conveying these details through exaggeration isn't heavy-handed, it's using every tool in the toolbox. Some GMs might show the art to the players. Either way, a bit of caricature makes the images indelible on the collective imagination. * **Create a layout that plays well with your format.** Rumored Lands uses a fairly narrow page size, something narrower that US Half Letter or Crown Octavio. That means horizontal space is scarce. Any additional columns would squeeze the type into short, choppy lines. Their use of the one-column manuscript grid is the correct one. They even use Futura (I swear they do) which is a little wider than most type, which in this case fills out the space just right. Lines have just the right amount of characters. # Final Thoughts The Rumored Lands was my first dive into the work of Kris Mukai and Arlin Ortiz. After reading these zines, and writing my thoughts, I had to dig deeper. Not surprisingly, I saw a note that Ortiz is making maps for Dolmenwood (which is a combination that feels inevitable.) I also learned, after writing and scheduling this design delve, that they _did_ release an adventure set in The Spoiled River setting. I'm looking at the preview images and I can feel my hand reaching for my wallet like it's a sidearm. I'll have to grab that adventure, _Trouble in the Gladden Brook Reservoir_, along with _Rumored Blades_, and Ortiz's _Monster Pamphlets_. Thanks for reading, let me know if you've picked up these zines. Did you get the physical edition? Have you played the adventure? Drop a note in the comments or tag me on BlueSky. Until then, I'll keep exploring. Rumored Lands Digital Edition by AoSmilesThree illustrated zines! Each a rumored fantasy land.itch.io * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._

## 90% of good design is good writing. I like to repeat this often. I know it sounds dismissive or even reductive, but hear me out. You can put a game in a beautiful typeface, on a beautiful page, with beautiful colors, but it won't matter if the writing—the idea, the prose, the rules—don't matter. And that's the obvious argument. The less obvious argument is that, as much as "The medium is the message" the inverse is true. The message decides, shapes, and limits the medium. Writing _is_ design. And design _is_ writing. The end result of the two is one. And while players and audiences can forcibly (some might say "easily") ignore part of that finished work, it isn't in the spirit of the thing, but in spite of it. Good design is in dialogue with the writing, creating harmony and tension like a flowing narrative. Bad design fights with the writing, ignores it, or tries to distract the audience from it—like a movie with great effects and no plot or ideas to speak of. And just like I said earlier, the inverse is true. Long purple prose with no sharp ideas or evocative things to imagine, is difficult to design around. It's hard to fit on a page, to pair with good colors, or depict with an illustration. And that's before we even consider mechanics. The bigger and more hard coded the writing, the smaller and more prescribed the design. There's a reason why Pathfinder's design favors big pages and clean tables—how else do you fit the writing on it? 90% of good design is good writing. The jury is still out on the opposite... Until then, on to last month's discoveries. ### Quest Givers This section shares any game jams, contests, and collaborations. If you want to share a community event, jam, or project message me on Bluesky. * **Meatheads Jam Part II.****** Nothing is better than a big ole' blockhead with muscles. Why make something about spells or songs, when it can be about punching something really, really (really) hard? Jam ends May 15th. * **The Maple Jam.****** Celebrate Canadian creators and spotlight Canadian art, history, and culture by making an rpg, supplement, or some other rpg related thing. I can't wait to see what comes out of this. Jam ends July 1st. * **Spring Supplies and Shots Jam.****** Make one-shots and random tables for Frontier Scum, the rules-lite acid Western roleplaying game. It's a great acid-infused take on Spaghetti Westerns. Jam ends July 11th. * **Fun with Fäng Jam.** This one's all about creating adventures for Fängelsehåla (lovingly referred to as Fäng). It's a family-friendly, rules-lite game out of Sweden with a horde of resources and prizes. Jam ends Sept 11th. * **Desert Dwellings Jam.****** An Explorateur exclusive (or rather, a jam shared with me in advance). Make a game or adventure using**** Odds & Ents' Desert Dwellings art pack (it's free when the jam starts). Jam starts June 1st. * **Enter the Zungeon.** People keep making awesome adventures for this, so I'm going to keep sharing it. Check out the Zungeon Manifesto and make your own Zungeon before the year is up. ### Reviews & Exhibits Critique and examinations of tabletop rpgs, adventures, and more. I try to share exhibits with something to say other than the usual, "Is this worth buying?" * **Playing the Chaplains Game******_by Skeleton Code Machine._ Spoiler warning: If a solo game about war and paranoia sounds interesting, you should play _Mechs into Plowshares_. Otherwise, you might read this and wish you had. * **The White Horse of Lowvale******_by Widdershins Wanderings._ Tania Herrero's previous adventure, Crown of Salt, is one of the rare Mörk Borg adventures that stands toe to toe with Johan visual design. Is this a repeat but for folk horror? * **High Number Too Good!******_by Hendrik Biweekly._ Cthulhu Dark squeezes a lot of narrative juice out of its die rolls. Its a rare game whose mechanics perfectly encapsulate the genre _and_ create great dramatic pacing. * **Mothership is Good Enough******_by The Indie Game Reading Club._ I'm a confesssed Mosh fan, but I agree with Paul here that the beauty of the game has always been the culture and community around it. The rules are good enough. * **Dialect (Why You Should Try It!)** _by Tomas Gimenez Rioja._ Dialect is one of my favorite rpgs of all time. If you somehow haven't heard of it (or forgot how good it is), this review over on Gnome Stew gives a great overview. ### Rumors & Bestiary The never-sponsored section of the newsletter. These links are the treasures I found while wandering the internet wilderness. * **Knock! Issue #5 is crowdfunding!******_by The Merry Mushmen._ If you read this newsletter, odds are you know about adventure gaming's infamous bric-a-brac of old school magnificence. But if you haven't... hand over your wallet! * **Blogs on Tape Season 6 Has Begun******_by Nick LS Whelan.__Podcast_ _._ If you prefer your blog posts delivered via dulcet tones, I'm afraid this is the only option. The good news: the quality and curation is immaculate. * **Ship of the Dead's "State of the OSR"******_by Limithron. Podcast/__Video_ _._ Ignore the title if it gives you hives. This panel is actually a blast with thoughts, stories, and ideas from great creators like Brad Kerr, Kelsey Dionne, Matt Finch, Yochai Gal, and Luke of Pirate Borg fame. * **How Jennell Jaquays Evolved Dungeon Design P.1******_by Nickoten._ If you're reading this newsletter, you probably already know Jaquays' influence on the hobby, but if you somehow haven't, this is shaping up to be a great history and guide to "Jaquaysing the Dungeon." * **D &D 2024 Ignored One of 5th Edition's Original Goals******_by DM David._ Before creating 5th edition, the Wizards team gave themselves specific design goals. This article looks back at what we lost when those goals changed. * **The Witches of Bizharr******_by Bruno Prosaiko._ A PWYW comic full of fearless adventurers in a strange (very strange) science-fantasy world? By one of the most prolific and successful illustrators working in rpgs today? Say no more. * **It's All a Great Big Mess...******_by Zakary Ellis._ The mess in question is Zak's work on Peasantry, a beer and pretzels game about dirty grubby peasants. To be clear: design is supposed to be messy, so I found this post very comforting. ### Theory & Advice Any ideas, guidance, and tools that make playing and creating in the tabletop space more engaging, meaningful, and rewarding. This is the catch-all section. * **When Is the Cake Baked?******_by Idle Cartulary._ Nova reviews somewhere between 2–3 modules a week, and many of them, frankly, feel only half-finished. Which begs the question: how do you know when it's fully baked? * **Graphic Design Tips for Print & Play******_by Revivify Games._ The tariffs have officially arrived (booo!) which means at-home printing is back (yay!). But before you export those files and press publish, check out these solid tips. * **Don't Ask These Playtesting Questions!******_by Skeleton Code Machine._ Playtesters always know how your game feels, and _never_ how to fix it. This list has 10 questions to ask at your next playtest (and 3 to run from). * **Typst for Tabletop RPG Design** _by WindowDump_. Every year markup-based typsetting systems get bigger and better. This thread on The Cauldron explains how to use maybe the most popular option: Typst (w/ examples). * **Practical Examples and Analysis of TTRPG Layouts******_by Matthew Andre._ Pulling apart layouts is a fun exercise. This two-part series features many examples, showing not just their differences, but Matthew's ideal layout. * **Writing RPG Adventures: NPCs******_by Joseph R Lewis. Video._ Another week, another video. This time with practical advice about NPCs, their design, and why it might not be ideal naming your NPC "X'arxis Dœ'Böaç." * **Better Social Stats in Fantasy RPGs******_by Drolleries._ This article interrogates D&D's discrepant social mechanics by showing what we lose when it's divorced from the narrative and overly reliant on charisma-takes-all. ### Design Lore Design inspiration from beyond tabletop rpgs. I share them when I find them. * **Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director******_by Goodsniff._**** I'm always entranced by the work of cartoonists. This dive into the nuts and bolts of Bluey's design is clever, insightful, and deeper than you think. * **Typographic Posters Archive.****** Over 11,000 posters from 44 different countries. It's an overwhelming torrent of color that might just shake a cover or convention flyer idea out of you—so get to it. * **A Look Into the Rise of Design-led Board Games******_by Chappell Ellison._ Maybe it's the tariffs endangering everything I love, but sometimes I like to look at pretty board games and get all teary eyed. These are works of art. * **Item Zero's Design Words from A to Z.****** Item Zero makes gorgeous books and fonts that demystify the design process. Unfortunately, they cost an arm and a leg, so I'll settle for their online glossary of terms which are fun to read. * **Studio Showcase: The Young Jerks.****** I'm going to start sharing the occasional design agency and their work, because what's more inspiring than seeing graphic designers do what they do best? This studio is funky. * **Artist Showcase: Jake Foreman.****** The vibes are giving**** 60s/70s psychedelia fed through a printer. The day my money tree bears fruit, I'm comissioning King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's artist to make an Eco Mofos!! cover. ### Design Archive Sometimes I miss something or want to bring it back from the dead. * **Form and Structure: The DNA of Adventure Modules******_by Loot the Room._ This article is one I wish I wrote. It looks at how different systems, businesses, and play cultures structure, build, and unravel adventures. * **Enough Dweeb Adventures******_by Knight at the Opera._ This review and exploration of different adventures never ceases to make me laugh and smile at how it perfectly defines why some adventures just don't grab me. * * * ### Missed the last issue? Read it here. The Explorateur: Issue #6Monthly design discoveries for tabletop rpg designers including jams, critique, theory, and tools. Vetted. Looted. Curated.Explorers DesignClayton Notestine * * * _This newsletter uses rare affiliate links to support Explorers Design. If you notice any broken links, mistakes, or bad actors in this newsletter, please let me know._ * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this issue, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing._

It's a defining trait of mine, that if you tell me what's happening in your campaign—I struggle to pay attention, but if you tell me the _house rules_ you made for that campaign, suddenly I'm all ears. Feeling inspired by Sly Flourish's article in the same vein, Shadowdark House Rules, I've decided to share mine for Mausritter. House rules, or "homebrews" (I don't distinguish between the two), are the humblest of hacks. They're the proverbial mods on a car for joyriding with friends. Often honest, practical, and approachable, house rules usually reflect whatever's going on at that particular homebrewer's table. Sly's rules are mostly tweaks to give his players more time in the sun before Shadowdark plunges them into darkness. He also—in good taste—keeps the torch rules and supercharges them with tiny tweaks that ensure they always go out when the players least expect. My house rules for Mausritter are incredibly niche. Whatever itch I've got, the game's core rules and 3rd party modules can't seem to scratch it. So I've been in the garage, fine-tuning a Mausritter de-make that's perfect for me. It even has a working title called _Whisker Kings_ , which I teased in my end of the year article. ## The cheese behind the rulings. In my opinion, dramatic irony is what makes Mausritter special—their world is our world, but the mice don’t know that. To them, a pocket knife can be an ancient sword, a rusted car can be an alien temple, and mundane animals like catfish, crows, and cats are just as fearsome and formidable as any shark, sphynx, or dragon. Like the game says in its principles, it's all about scale. Mausritter's world is mysterious and magical through its change in perspective. I like to think my house rules double down on that core conceit while stripping out anything that gets in the way. For example, as fun as traditional fantasy elements are, I don't think skeletons, spells, or castles belong anywhere near a Mausritter adventure. The core rules even have a magic system similar to something in Knave or Cairn. Now there's nothing wrong with any of that, but for me that's a trap that keeps us from getting the cheese. Fairies, magic, and monsters don't make Mausritter a fantasy world—the mice do. Mausritter is more than a reskin. It's high-concept, perspective-bending fantasy. If I can replace mice with regular humans and the adventure looks almost exactly like an Into the Odd adventures, to me, that's a sign the best parts of Mausritter have gone un-nibbled. ## Mausritter Setting Changes My on-again off-again campaign of Mausritter has some changes I think heighten the innate magic of the setting. For the sake of this article, I'll call them the laws of the Whisker Kings (the name of that campaign). 1. **The new world is salvaged from the old.** The critters of Mausritter don't build or make anything that can be salvaged or repurposed from something else. They might carve spears or knit clothes, but they don't build castles and thatched houses in a world surrounded by trees, rocks, and abandoned wrecks. 2. **There is no magic except the unknown.** The world cannot be explained. The trash humans left behind are relics to the mice. Even something as mundane as a brass button is impossible to recreate with their technology. Instead of magic tablets, our critters collect human artifacts: zippo lighters, fishing line, batteries, and more. 3. **The humans are gone.** And they've been gone for awhile. There are no cars speeding down highways or cats lapping at bowls of milk—the world belongs to the animals now. For whatever reason, "the creators" picked up their things, lit fires in the bellies of their machines, and left the world behind. My players have no idea they're playing in an evacuation zone. Or that the year is 1936. ## Mouse-sized rule changes. **_Obsidian tablets have been replaced by artifacts._ **They still do "magic" things, have usage rules, and require rituals to "charge" them, but they're not magic. They're human objects. Clumsier and more grounded than spells, but with purposes and methods so unfathomable they might as well be magic. Most know this trope best from science-fantasy. A battery that heats metal. A tuning fork that deafens all who hear it. Pomade that makes whiskers hydrophobic (creating a bubble of air around their heads). You get the idea. _**The attributes are now body, heart, and mind.**_ The original attributes are very Into the Odd (which I love), but for my table, _strength_ and _dexterity_ were narrative mismatches for the world's themes. After all, how big and believable are the differences between the strongest and weakest mouse anyway? To a cat, a mouse trap, or a rock—its nothing. I'd rather the dice be tied to other narrative themes, which is why strength and dexterity become body, will becomes mind, and heart reflects empathy, intuition, and charisma. (My game has a lot of social encounters that need something to risk). **_More items take up more space._** I love the logistical challenges of Mausritter. I like it so much I give mice another row of inventory slots, just so I can fill them with weird shaped objects and tools. Half of the fun is imagining mice trying to roll a wheel of cheese out of a downcellar or schlep a dead chicken across a field. ## Cat-sized rule changes. **Time is now reflected in three watches.** I'm not a "strict time records should be kept" kind of GM. The sun and moon moves at the pace of narrative tension. When the players roll poorly, time's arrow flies at them. This is a fairly large change because it has cascading consequences for items, rations, and adventure locations. I hand wave most of it, but it requires high-trust. **We don't just play mice.** This is a big change I've slowly introduced over multiple games. As the mice explore, they make friends, form alliances, and "unlock" new playable critters. The options when we last played were mouse, mole, rat, frog, toad, and—as a joke—hamster (they get one extra inventory slot in their cheeks). **The game is played in seasons.** Spring, Summer, and Fall are the adventuring season. The mice usually fit one adventure into every season before Winter has them dashing back to their warren for shelter. I've not had enough time playtesting this newest rule—but the impact is huge. Locations change with the seasons. Players feel the time crunch. And the mice grow old. **Critters grow old and retire or die.** The average lifespan of a field mouse is about two years. In Whisker Kings, they probably live a little longer because they know how to wield a sewing needle, but once the 3rd winter comes, the players have to start rolling. Does the mouse live to adventure another year? They might not. One of their friends might take their place, or one of their offspring, either way, someone has to go out there and find more food and loot—that damn cat Balthazar has tribute owed to them. **Critters are tied to their warren.** They go on adventures for food, supplies, and treasure. Every winter, the food stores dwindle, factions demand tribute, and the world gets more dangerous. Players have to pick and choose their adventures from the rumors—some promise food like acorns and dried fish, others weapons and powerful artifacts, and some allies and improvements for the settlement. # Final thoughts As you can tell, I'm already in the "Are you even playing Mausritter?" territory. The answer is yes, but in the same way a lot of us play the big tentpole games. This campaign is also the first where I really started to explore the 1 HP Dragon framework for combat—which is an experiment so complicated, I excised it from today's article. That house rule quickly spiraled out of control, which I'll get to expand on in later installments. Until then, I'll keep exploring. * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._

# Let's reject the either-or fallacy. Today's article is a short one and can be summarized in four words: "You can do both." I'm lurking in discords, watching videos, and reading blogs (so, so, so many blogs). A lot of debates or dilemmas in tabletop rpgs are presented as binary decisions, when in reality, many choices exist. Here are just a few of the industry's favorite mutually exclusive fallacies... ## "Is your game hyper-usable or fun to read?" Well-written games can be fun to read _and_ be usable. I think this false dilemma emerges naturally as a result of porting expectations from other mediums. If we're judging an rpg's writing and flow by how much it feels like reading a novel, we're forced to ignore the things novels don't do and tolerate what RPGs can do. However, if we expand that definition of enjoyable reading to other formats like poetry, the spoken word, screenwriting, or even chewy technical writing (it exists), suddenly the functional form of an rpg and its creative merits are not mutually exclusive. It can be both. ### Examples that defy the false dilemma: Reach of the Roach God by Munkao and Zedeck Siew. Layout by hrftype. **_Reach of the Roach God._** Airy, pithy, and not afraid to use technical elements, and yet every bullet point, mechanic, and morsel drips with potential energy. Zedeck Siew writes pictures with words. > Clinky, jingly — covered in bead loops and bangles. No indoor voice. Musun refuses to leave any merchandise in her boat. Two nights ago she found a bat monster hunched on the bow, rifling through the boxes... Fiasco by Jason Morningstar. Layout by Patrick Murphy and Jason Morningstar. **Fiasco.****** The majority of Fiasco's creative writing is contained exclusively in the roll tables of its playsets, and yet once you know how the game works, the fun is in the potential of every noun when it's combined with another at the table. The head brims with possibilities when you roll the dice and see the collection. > Characters: Weird distant relatives, separated spouses, and a local church group. Objects: A broken police ankle monitor, a pedigreed champion dog, and a Klingon sword. Winter's Daughter by Gavin Norman. **Winter's Daughter.****** Likely the most pragmatic-seeming of the three examples, Winter's Daughter is orderly, extensively keyed, and filled with formatting, and yet it's still full of mythological imagery and lore. It's fantasy by way of Hemmingway or Ian Fleming instead of Tolkien. Concrete, almost factual in style, but compelling in our collective imaginations. > 2 Floating Skeletons. Dancing arm in arm, slowly waltz in mid-air above the fissure in the floor. Slick with moisture (covered with slime vapour). One wears a pearl necklace, the other a gold medallion, worth 500 gp each. ## "Do you fill empty space with art or text?" It doesn't have to be filled with anything. Sometimes the emptiness is the point. And sometimes the solution is a matter of evolution, not additon. If a page with only text is boring, that instance of text is boring. Spot art is just one solution. Filling empty spaces with prose or spot art is a common practice in certain design traditions, including D&D, Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and others. In reality, the aversion to white space is likely due to several factors, including adoption of the US letter paper size (which is quite large), a rigorous assembly line workflow (components made separately then combined last), large art budgets, and a social tradition of verbose high-crunch, high-prose writing. With those factors, the easiest solution for composing spreads—the solution those teams are good at—is to fill them. Revising the copy, art, layout, paper size, or planning for whitespace, by comparison, isn't just hard—it's risk averse. ### Examples that defy this false dilemma: Dialect by Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalioglu. Layout by Brennen Reece. **Dialect.****** In Dialect, the**** chapters often have empty space on the opposite page of its art, but the book never feels empty. This is for several reasons. First, the type scales in size from big titles to delicate type to give the text shape and form. Indentations make the prose less heavy and plodding, which makes the whitespace less stark in the text's absence. Meanwhile, the markers and delicate line at the bottom of the page ensures there's still a visual frame and anchor to the overall spread that balances the asymmetrical distribution of ink. In The Light of a Faded World by Derek Kinsman. Fiction by Zedeck Siew. **In The Light of a Faded World.****** This game has an entire page with just prose that doesn't fill the page, but the prose is treated like prose and given all the classic typesetting considerations as a result. The text is positioned on its own, on black, in centered justification. It's deliberately isolated, and in this restrained instance, the empty space makes it dramatic. Deathmatch Island by Tim Denee **Deathmatch Island.****** This beauty of a book is defined by its use of white space, especially in the inner margins and sidebars. It's style, sometimes called The Swiss Style, is defined by asymmetry, sans serifs, and clean (often sterile) grids. Without the white space, Deathmatch Island's layout would feel more organic, dense, and balanced—and not what the game is about—corporate cruelty, bureaucracy, and the horrors of modernism. ## "Is your game rules-lite or rules-heavy?" This is a moving target. Or rather, multiple moving targets in multiple players heads. What is a rule and what makes it "crunchy" is too subjective to measure. Some think the fewer the mechanics, the lighter the game, while others find the lack of scaffolding and the resulting void taxing to roleplay and adjudicate—ie "heavy." Then there's the other question of _when?_ Most games are not homogenous in their design. The much more interesting question is, "In what ways is your game rules-lite or rules-heavy?" Or even just, "What does your game's design feel like?" Or, "What is your game designed for?" The answers to all of these is far more informative, compelling, and specific to the game in question. Still, this is mostly a harmless, if somewhat loaded, question. If it doesn't break out of containment and stays in just one target audience (ie: dungeon-crawling elf games,) all that's lost is an opportunity to be more specific. The worse questions are the distantly related cousins: * Is your game good for campaign play or easy to pick up and play? * Is your game for sandbox-style play or railroad-style play? The answer to these questions depends on the designer's imagination and quality of work, because most of the really good games do a little bit of both... ### Examples that defy this false dilemma: Fall of Magic by Ross Cowman. **Fall of Magic.****** Ross Cowman's Fall of Magic is maybe the poster child of games described as "rules-lite" and "one-shot" that get stretched into months-long campaigns. (I still remember when this game was described as exclusively a short affair, now I see campaign play on the packaging.) Undoubtably, if you ask most designers, they'll call this game rules-lite. Its mechanics mostly ask questions and leave the players to form collaborative answers, but it's in that empty space that some players find depth and ever-changing dynamics at play. Cairn 2E by Yochai Gal. Art by Bruno Prosaiko. **Cairn 2E.****** Like other games descended from Into the Odd, Cairn 2E is just a handful of rules that can fit on an index card. The rest of the game is optional—invisible until needed—which makes it an excellent pick-up game. But that doesn't mean it can't support campaign play. Most OSR/NSR games like Into the Odd, B/X, Knave, and Mausritter even have massive campaign books and supplements. So despite the implication that it has to be one or the other, the answer is still, "It can be both." Dungeons & Dragons 5e by Wizards of the Coast. Art by Tyler Jacobson. **D &D 5E. **I'm not going to suggest 5E is rules-lite. It definitely isn't. But if we want an example of a game's crunch not being uniform, I struggle to think of a more famous example. D&D is mechanically heavy but its core mechanic—the skill check—decidedly isn't. Entire sessions sometimes run on skill checks. It's arguably the spine of Actual Play's best moments. It's only when doing something else (or mostly everything else) like character creation, combat, or spellcasting that D&D is rules-heavy. ## Final Thoughts on False Dilemmas Most binaries aren't real. Insisting otherwise is a failure of imagination, or refusing to glance at a bookshelf. Most of the either-or fallacies are just individual tastes masquerading as advice, or social conformity disguised as best practices. The discourse in a nutshell. Fun but limiting. (DCC is a novel, by the way.) * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._

I've never met a designer with the same process. You'll see lineages—where they worked, who they worked for, and what work inspired them. I learned by watching and mimicking Aaron Draplin—a big, bearded guy who lives in the Pacific Northwest—Paul Rand (the guy who made the IBM logo), and my old mentor Sean O'Brien, a guy who knows the best kind of design is the kind that pays you enough to buy good coffee and fund fly fishing trips. My process steals from all of them. Which got me thinking, maybe I can give some insight into my process? Adobe Illustrator is open on another window, the project should be nice and easy-ish, and I'm feeling like I can write as I go. I'll take pictures and tell you what I'm doing. But first, some working music... * * * It's not brand strategy without an easel. Probably. Source: Detroiters. # #1 Research and strategize. Today, I'm designing a quick and dirty logo for _Carouse, Carouse!_ a collaborative newsletter with a raucous number of RPG articles and ideas from across the internet. I'm a collaborator—so I'm doing this for the love of the game(s). ### Form a rough strategy. What is the idea of the thing? I have to figure out what I'm designing for, and articulate the essence of the game, book, or project through rose-colored glasses. What is _Carouse, Carouse!_ at its coolest, most interesting, and most relevant? In branding, they call this part "the strategy." What is the brand in abstract? How does this new identity make the brand speak to its audience yet stand out from the other brands trying to do the same thing? This is the rough two-handed goal of any design project: * _**Find (or make) an audience.**_ My current job calls this "relevancy." Who cares about this thing? What do they get from _Carouse, Carouse!_ physically or emotionally? This is the underrated part of the strategy. It's liberating because no brand is for everyone (not even the one you're thinking of)**—** so you have full permission to make something idiosyncratic. A brand doesn't need a lot of people to be successful—just some zealots—they'll convert and draw in the rest, ala Mörk Borg, Mothership, or ShadowDark. * **_Stand out from everyone else._** How does this thing stand apart from other newsletters (including my design one, The Explorateur)? What makes it feel unique, fresh, and (dare I say) original? If you pick a fun, hyper-specific audience, this becomes much easier, but even without the audience, there's still plenty of research to find that differentiation. 📙 ****Bonus Lesson:**** Don't design for what it is. Design for what it should be. Something that makes the world less boring or ugly is a good start. If the idea is boring—the result will be boring. ### Build the brand personality with attributes. I sent a Google Doc to the rest of the _Carouse, Carouse!_ crew. Normally I'd try to get on a call, or send them an interactive quiz, but we have one too many cooks in one too many timezones. And I'm in-between projects. A Google Doc will do... and now I'm realizing I should have been more specific with my wording. "If Carouse, Carouse! were a person what would we be like? What are words that describe us that are **unusual or interesting**? **Feel free to exercise a thesaurus.** " That's what I should have written (I normally say that on calls). Still, we have some good words here from the crew... "uninhibited, scrappy, DIY, and loose." The best words for the research phrase are evocative. The worst ones feel corporate, generic, or overly business-y. Fun isn't bad, but it doesn't imply _in what way_ we're fun. Specificity and originality is always best. It's funny. The rules for good brand strategy are the same as good room descriptions in adventure design. We don't want _casual,_ we want loose. We don't want _indie_ , we want scrappy. The goal is to conjure images in everyone's head and start tickling the senses. What does the brand look, sound, and feel like? What does the grouping of words imply beyond their individual definitions? 📙 ****Bonus Lesson:**** The ideal attribute list is between 3 and 4 adjectives. The weirder the combinations, the more interesting the brand. For inspiration, I like to combine characters from movies and books. ### Write a brand positioning statement. Maybe it's because I'm a writer _and_ a graphic designer, but I like to think of brands in a metaphorical sense. I like to ask: how can I separate this brand from others by thinking of it as something other than what it literally is? If you've worked in branding, you know what a positioning statement is. It's a one-line description that declares how the brand is different. My approach is to say something unexpected right away. Don't bother with the, "Carouse is an indie newsletter packed with fun ideas and gameable material." That's not differentiating (even if it says it is). I want an analogy or counter intuitive statement that defies expectations. Something that will continue to differentiate even when other newsletters are "packed with fun ideas." Remember: Clear and evocative strategy leads to clear and evocative design. What is _Carouse, Carouse?_ I have a vague image in my head... It's a greeting. A fantasy tavern full of Star Wars-looking characters. It's familiar, but not too familiar. There's an orc behind the bar and maybe a dwarf arm-wrestling an elf, but it also has cyborgs, vampires, and an espresso machine. It sounds corny, but I'm literally thinking of the old show _Cheers!_ Here's what I'm going to write down... > _Carouse, Carouse!_ is the tavern where every rpg world and player meets. I'm writing this down along with "scrappy, loose, raucous, and eclectic." 🖼️ ****Design Example:**** When I think of Explorers Design, I imagine a guild hall. It's a league of explorers with layout and pencils swapped out for maps and sextants. It has a membership roster, brass plaques, and designs mounted on the wall like trophies. * * * Pinterest is still one of the better programs out there. Source: My Pinterest. # #2 Create inspirational mood boards. This is my favorite part of the process. No pressure. No clients. All I have to do is find and collect sources of inspiration. I do this with Pinterest, my Dropmark account, visiting the library, and surfing the internet. For those who don't know, a "mood board" is just a collection of images and samples of things that feel like they can inform the design. In the old days, the mood board was a literal cork board full of images. Today, it's mostly digital. At this stage, the strategy (the positioning statement and attributes) are like a compass. They don't limit what I'm collecting or getting inspired by, but they do point to what's promising. I have quite a few periodicals and art magazines from college—I'll put those on my desk for inspiration. They feel eclectic just like _Carouse._ Normally I try to avoid looking at other brands, but I think the newsletter is niche enough that any similar brands are probably not what I'm going for. If I borrow elements from a pizza brand or a beer label, it'll end up original by the time I'm done porting them over. Huh. I'm getting weirdly inspired by Italian packaging on this project. Something about the big chunky letters on a tomato can speaks to me. It does feel a little raucous with its bright colors. 📚 ****Additional Reading:**** Paying members to this newsletter get access to my Dropmark folders with hundreds of agencies, brand guidelines, and layout inspiration. The rest of you can check out my Pinterest. * * * When I say rough sketches. I mean bad. Source: Detroiters. # #3 Sketch rough ideas on paper. Once I've collected some inspiration and filled my head with vague ideas, I start thinking of the positioning statement and start listing objects, characters, and concepts—wine cups, bar stools, tankards, a fireplace, etc. None of these stand out (one of the goals of the design project). The problem is that they're too well trod. Every RPG forum, blog, and store has modeled themselves after a medieval tavern. This is where I wonder if I should go back to strategy... No. No, I still think there's a lot of cool opportunity here that other websites haven't mined yet. I'm looking at the attributes again... Scrappy, loose, raucous, and eclectic. It sounds loud, chatty, and maybe a little rowdy. Things that match that description in our imagined tavern-between-worlds: * An electric lute playing music * Two dissimilar cups clinking together * A bard singing a song * Talking, laughing, and yelling "NORM!" * The sound of a old pub door swinging open Music won't work. It'll make _Carouse, Carouse!_ look like a tabletop music brand or a new flirty bard supplement... The world has enough of those already. I don't really know how to make a wine cup and a tankard clinking together look good... Alright, looking back at my list, I'm intrigued by the chatty visuals. It's simple. If a little abstract. I think if I can find good type, that'll give me something more literal to play with. I'll make a note of this and come back to the symbol/logomark later. 📝 ****Reminder:**** It's okay to say no to ideas because of your skillset. Especially if you don't have time to learn. I try to learn or practice at least one technique while designing. Today's won't be illustration. * * * Type explorations (clockwise from top left), BN Nickerson Studio, Floodfont's Ferryman, House Industries, and Mans Grebäck. # #4 Experiment on the computer. Alright. Time to move the work to the computer, because I need to do the tedious part—finding good typefaces. Usually I leave this part for later. In my experience, having a symbol makes it easier to find type because you're trying to pair it with something. Trying to find type without anything else is hell. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, _Carouse, Carouse!_ is a newsletter with an unusual name. I'm going to write down what I need on my typography "shopping list." I suspect the needs will make this search mercifully narrow. * The name is long. I need type that looks good stacked on top of itself. * There's punctuation. I need type with a good comma and exclamation mark. * The type needs to be scrappy, loose, raucous, and eclectic. * I want something kind of familiar—inviting. Not too strange. * I also want something that doesn't feel too old or fantasy oriented. * The font should be free. Or rather, not cost me or the crew anything. [Insert an hour of looking at typefaces online.] Alright. I have two new ideas forming from looking at typefaces. One, I can lean into the eclectic and combine _multiple_ fonts together. I saw that done for a tech company in my research phase. Or, two, I could use this chunky, modern blackletter typeface I found called _Ferryman_. I found it on Adobe. Since I'm paying for Adobe, I might as well use it, right? 📚 ****Additional Reading:**** Finding type is easier when you know what you're looking at. For a crash course on typography, check out my type primer or list of free fonts. * * * Logo iterations (clockwis from top left): Carouse in Nickerson fonts, Carouse Blackletter, Bubbles and "C" gatherings, Comma and Exclamation pairings. # #5 Iterate on the computer. This is where I get into my flow state. I have everything I need: strategy, ideas, and disparate design elements. Now I need to combine them, refine them, tweak them, and repeat until I'm sick of it. For the Carouse crew, I'm going to try and show them two rough concepts. Rough in this instance means finished-looking but imperfect—colors, kerning, and all of the fine details will be off. The point of the concepts is to convey the overall idea. Some designers insist on only sharing one concept. Others insist on sharing 3 or more. My advice? Never show more than 3. Never. Put that 4th runner up in your back pocket for a rainy day. Unless you're showing clients a dozen rough sketches, you should never be designing 4 or more finished-looking logos for anyone—even if they're good people like my buddies on Carouse. Here's what I do when I'm iterating on my computer: * **Make lots of copies.** Did you move something 1 pixel to the left? Duplicate it. Your workspace should be rows and rows of the same logo slowly evolving, devolving, dying off, and being restarted. * **Work in black and white.** Colors are a variable that can distract from the other elements. At this stage, you don't want to waste time finding the right shade of blue or red. Focus on the shape, balance, and more. * **Be wary of "destructive" changes.** Destructive changes are ones that can't be reversed, like rasterizing an image or turning type into outlines. Always duplicate your work with the editable elements before you make a destructive change. * **Organize your file as you go.** Future you needs all the help they can get. Keep your iterations in neat rows. Add arrows to show your progression. Sometimes it helps to even add a note or two. * **But keep things messy.** Speed is more important than accuracy. If your goal is to see how an idea looks, you can see most of that idea without messing with more complex tools. 📚 ****Additional reading:**** Logo design is all about mastering basic design principles. My article, Graphic Design 101, covers a lot of them. You can also print off a cheatsheet from my store. * * * Here are the two directions all that iterating landed on. The website pictures are just images pasted on a screenshot. # #6 Put those logos onto slides. Okay, I have two concepts I like enough to share. A lot can still change—that's okay. The goal right now is to share them with the crew and find out which one is the crowd favorite, then I can focus on that one. ### Start exploring and building color palettes. On some projects color gets its own exploration and slides. Since we're still deciding on a logomark and wordmark, I'm trying to keep things top-level. This can be risky—a lot of people with throw out an entire idea just because they hate the color yellow—so I'm putting a lot of trust into the Carouse crew. When building a color palette: * **Consider the technical specifications.** Where will the logo and brand be used? When I made the logo for Good Luck Press—I was concerned about the colors looking great in print. For Carouse, I need these colors to work on a webpage with an off-white background. My primary color space will be sRGB. * **Consider the competition.** I always forget this one. What else is already out there? We want to make sure we don't have the same colors as our neighbors. So, no Wyrd Science, no Explorateur, and no Rascal News color palettes. We can play with the same primary color families (after all, there aren't that many), but we need to be mindful how much they resemble each other. * **Maybe think about color theory. (Maybe.)** My controversial opinion is that color theory, the psychological study and categorization of color, is so dependent on the culture and context that building your work on color theory is silly. What's more important is knowing if your client cares about color theory. In my experience, most don't. * **Leverage color associations.** Think about the context, culture, and people behind the brand. Their color associations are more important than any universal theory of color. ### Show the logo and its scalable alternatives. No logo works in all contexts. Some logos are better suited for headers, others for favicons, some for book spines, and others for profile pictures. My usual trick is to take elements from the "primary" logo and recycle them into new forms. The most important logos for Carouse are the masthead and favicon. The rest is optional. As you might have noticed, the type did end up giving me quite a few ideas about what the symbol or "logomark" could be. In direction 1, I realized the comma and exclamation park in the name were remarkable enough to be an actual mark. In the second direction, I decided the revelry could be represented by a speech bubble. In this case, the speech bubble is made using the same geometry and angles as the wordmark! Some tips for building your scalable, responsive logo suite: * **Take things for a test run.** This is one of those weird projects where I get to actually execute the logos' implementation, so if something doesn't quite work, I can always tweak it later. However, that doesn't mean I won't make these logos super small to see if they're still legible. * **Showcase common brand elements.** People should be able to recognize the brand even when parts of its logo are missing. The most famous example is probably McDonalds. In the right context, you can recognize the McDonalds brand just from a sliver of the arch or the McDonald's yellow. * **Prioritize what the brand needs.** A "primary logo" is technically a symbol or brandmark paired with a brand name in custom type, but in reality the "primary" logo is whatever gets used the most. Pour your energy into that. In my case, that's the logo that goes up at the top of the website. 📝 ****Reminder:**** Every version of the logo is for specific usecases. If the brandmark you're using for a favicon looks great but not as a profile picture, that doesn't mean it's a bad favicon. * * * "I'm done. Pull the plug. I'll kill you." # #7 Present the work. Feel nothing. Emphasis on that last part. Remember: It's just a silly logo. It's not cancer research (even if it's a logo for a cancer research center). There will always be changes after the first round of presenting. That's normal. Normally, I share logos on a Zoom call. It makes addressing concerns and getting good feedback easier (re: possible). In this case, however, I'm going to keep things fast and loose by sharing the logos on Discord. Once the majority of the group has weighed in, I'll make invisible tweaks that only me—a sicko—will notice, and then share a ton of different color combinations. Some quick tips if you're presenting the work: * **Keep things fun and light.** Design is supposed to be fun! Clients and collaborators that laugh, smile, or get pumped up by the work are more likely to trust you with the creative idea. * **Never downplay or undermine the work.** Don't undersell the work. It might seem like you're being humble and practical, but in reality it makes you sound like you don't like it—so why should they? Instead of saying, "If they're total crap, I can do it all over..." Try saying, "I'm excited to keep working on one of these. It's been a fun challenge." (I might have failed this on Carouse...) * **Ask for feelings. Not solutions.** "How is this feeling? What do we like? What don't we not like? Is there anything you're excited by?" People are never wrong when they share their feelings, but they're seldom right when sharing a solution. The reason is really simple: they didn't make a hundred iterations and try every idea like you did. Just nod, say thank you, and ask how they feel. * **Return to the strategy and research.** When you ask for feedback, remember to relate the questions and answers to the strategy. If they say they don't like a concept, ask them, "It seems like it's not right for Carouse, then. Why do you think that is?" 📙 ****Bonus Lesson:**** You don't have to be regular old you when you present work. If being a designer makes you uncomfortable, create an alternative version of yourself and roleplay that character. * * * And there it is. The final logo with the newsletter's art and color scheme. Art: John Bilodeau # #8 Make revisions. Make mistakes. We're nearing the end of this project. The other Carouse folks are pretty excited by where we're headed (and I am too). I landed on a warm plum color, chunky type, and a fun little speech bubble for a secondary logo. Now I need to package things out correctly, put them into UI, and fix every silly mistake I made. The silly little mistakes I made: * Once again, I've exported visuals as a JPG and the colors came out modified. I'll have to increase the file size and make sure the color profile is sRGB (digital color profile for the internet). Always compare side by side. * The favicon was looking weirdly squished. It turns out my artboard with the speech bubble wasn't perfectly square, so the browser was warping the image. * The preview image for the website's home page was empty. That simply won't do. The good news is that we have John Bilodeau as a collaborator and artist, so all I have to do is grab one of his illustrations from the newsletter and combine it with the new logo and color palette. * I had to make 10 different favicons. All of them looked good small, but I didn't consider how the browser tabs would make them look... silly. Fixed? * * * # Final Thoughts A fun and painless little passion project! My collaboration was a lot different here, so don't mirror this exact process if you're doing paid work. In that kind of setup, I would work to a scope and project timeline. This was with friends, so I was willing to be inefficient and just bumble through it. Here's the final result with a nice little preview image... Carouse, Carouse!A raucous revel of RPG writing and ideas.Carouse, Carouse! * * * _Explorers Design_ _is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing. Members who pay $5/month also get access to additional tools, templates, and inspiration._