Mausritter has been one of my favorite games in recent years. However, just like everyone else, my table's version of Mausritter deviates from the main text—or makes conclusions fitting my own tastes.

Here's the Explorers' Edition of Mausritter 🐭🧵👇 1. Humans don't make an appearance.

I find human beings far more interesting when they're absent. Sometimes that absence is its own mystery in a world filled with machines and old buildings that should have people in them. However...

After 50 years of RPGs, we've only scratched the surface of what a mystery or investigation game can be.

We have our part-time fantasy mystery, the classic Cthulhu, and the streetwise Gumshoe, but I think Brindlewood Bay is the smartest one yet for one reason. But first... The game is not the mystery. The story is the mystery.

This is going to be controversial. Bear with me. If your players' main source of confusion or challenge isn't from inside the story—they're not solving the mystery—they're trying to solve the game.

The practice of teaching RPGs is still developing in our community. One shortcut I've used is how I label the activity.

"Roleplaying game" sinks too much time and energy into explaining away assumptions. It forces me to undo a relationship instead of creating one from scratch. When I teach an outsider the word "roleplaying game," I'm giving them an alternative, sometimes incoherent definition from what they know.

No, this roleplaying game isn't a video game. No, it's not sexual. No, you don't have to do voices, you don't have to dress up, etc.

ZiMo Design Wishlist 📄

If you're making a zine or similar product for zine month, I'd love to see these little visual design rules observed or obliterated in the name of art. 1. Maps. If you're going to rotate a map 90° on a page, please put its subordinate information like the key or room summaries at the same angle on the following page of the spread, that way I'm not turning the book back and forth like I'm the wheelman for The Italian Job.

Mausritter by Isaac Williams. It's textural and filling like one of Redwall's feasts.
This homespun little game set my brain ablaze when I read it.

Let's talk about it's visual design. What it does well, what it doesn't, and why that makes this game a unique experience. Mausritter is very different from my other design delves. You will not find massive art budgets or advanced grid compositions.

It has the bones of Knave and Into the Odd. Games I always thought were really charming in a cobbler-like way.
Mausritter turns that dial to 11.

If you're a glutton for design knowledge, like me, odds are you're probably in the market for a good book.

Here's my baseline reading list for anyone who's interested in design. It's nowhere near comprehensive or cutting edge (I'll save those for later), but it's a great start. The best book for budding game designers and layout artists?

Surprise, it's a book on writing—the secret sauce to good design. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is an infamously terse and authoritative booklet. A great place to start. There's even an illustrated edition.

Basic design principles. Not every book has the same ones. Some explain them differently.

I'm going to show you mine. Think of it like a language.
It takes the abstract ideas and instincts of design and makes it more technical, so you can point and talk about it.

Let's go! Contrast.

Contrast is the difference between elements that makes them stand out from each other. It’s the first thing that tells a story. It can be created by changing the size, weight, shape, color, and countless other elements in your game design.

The #1 mistake I see from rpg designers (specifically rpg visual designers) is the lack of a "why" behind the elements they add to the overall design.

For that I suggest observing the concept, "Unity of Effect," the thing Edgar Allan Poe described in his Theory of Composition🧵 Unity of Effect is the feeling/message/idea the audience receives when they take in the entirety of a composition.

In writing, this means picking every word, meter, and syntax deliberately to tell a specific story and emotion.

But for visual design it's a little different.

TTRPG Visual Inspiration Thread 📁📂

Are you familiar with brand style guides? In essence, they're design manuals for institutions. I think they're a great place to draw inspiration.

Every time I look at one, I think about roleplaying games—my favorites and sources below.👇 Most brands (Apple, Bushmills, The Atlantic, Twitch, the New York Subway System) have a style guide.

Just type in style guide/bible/manual into a search bar and there's a chance you'll find it.

You can also find them on websites like this: brandingstyleguides.com/guide/

Let's analyze the visual game design of Momatoes' solo RPG, "The Magus," a game where you embody the iconic wizard of fiction— in their tower—reminiscing about their past.

This game casts some serious visual design magic. So, let's start with its components. (Thread 🧵🧙‍♂️) Exhibit A: The Format

The Magus is a digital-native product with a 16:9 aspect ratio. In other words, it's measured in pixels instead of traditional print formats like A4 or US Letter.

It's not a print product translated for the screen; it's designed *for* the screen.

Let's review the ambitious labyrinthian design of Mothership's Gradient Descent, a 64-page mega-dungeon with a half-letter (5.5 × 8.5'') format.

This is gonna be a long one, so I'll experiment and break this review into multiple threads. This one will be about graphic design. Mothership is a lived-in universe. No matter the particular brand of sci-fi you bring to your table, the books imply a grimy, sweat-soaked space made of pig iron and leaky hoses.

Of all the Mothership products, Gradient Descent is the truest expression of that.

"Sunken: An RPG of Nautical Horror." Layout review.

Another Rooted in Trophy RPG. Fresh from the post, and it's getting an "A" grade for layout, user design, and art. Immediate takeaways: crisp, airy spreads with legible, evocative typography, and well-deployed public art. Exhibit A: Page Balance

The digest format (5.5'' x 8.5'') uses a mixed grid of one and two-column pages with a seaman's knack for balance. Lots of space in the margins, gutters, and baseline without bloating the page count.

Each page is about one thing. Context doesn't leak.

After months of intermittent writing, I've finished a less-than-brief guide to #TTRPG layout and "the grid."

Layout design is game design. Anyone can learn it. It's fun, rewarding, and not that hard if you know the basics. Grab your torches... 1/x

theexplorersco.com/home/2019/7/20… While others start with the final product: layout, my Aspergers brain is very particular about the process, more specifically, the esoteric lore of "the grid."

It's user-friendly, makes complicated layouts easy, and acts like a haste spell on your workflow.