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Problem #1: How to Begin
246 Plays1 month ago
In this first episode of Designing Problems, we talk about who we are, what we've done, and what the Designing Problems podcast is all about. We also touch on some of the challenges of the creative and production process, especially in the RPG space.
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Transcript
Introduction to Designing Problems Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano. And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this debacle. And this week, we're going to talk about problem number one, where to begin.
Christian's Podcast Journey
00:00:48
Speaker
So why don't we kind of explain a little bit? Sure. About who we are, what we're doing, and what this is all about, I guess. it's you see that my The first thing is, like I've podcasted before, some people have heard the Savage Interludes podcast, I'm sure, and I was with a partner casting partner named Ron Blessing and Veronica Blessing, and Ron was the designated beautiful voice. yes Now I have a new designated beautiful voice. That's not the only criteria, but it certainly doesn't hurt.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. And, and the problem with that podcast, the reason why it ended was because it was just too much awesomeness. that there was Yeah. They just, you guys just had to shut it down. I mean, it was just, it was just too much. Couldn't do the awesome anymore. Nailing it too many times on each episode. So yeah. Yeah. So welcome Christian.
00:01:40
Speaker
Hi. Well, thanks, Tracy. Welcome. Welcome to you as well. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I guess I can start. Yes. My name is Christian Serrano. I'm one half of the immaterial plane. My partner, Jen, is Sutcliffe, is the other half. And I've done all sorts of stuff, I guess. The most popular one I think people know me for is Eberron for Savage Worlds.
00:02:03
Speaker
um We've also put out a couple of swag products on Savage Worlds Adventures Guild. and And I also have a couple of our four ah Foundry VTT modules that are licensed for backstory cards by Galileo Games. um And yeah, we're working on new material, new new settings, new supplements for for Savage Worlds. And um you know kind of part of what this journey here is about that journey in a lot of ways.
00:02:30
Speaker
so And you've also created like some of your own original Foundry modules, right? For Savage Worlds? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a lot of functional modules. I also do have a Savage everyone content module. um But yeah, like a ton of, not a ton, but a lot of.
00:02:46
Speaker
ah functional sort of foundry modules. And I do have a Patreon for one called Suede Item Tables. um You can find that on on the internets. It's pretty easy to find. so Well, I'm sure we'll talk about that at some point. Yeah. yeah item The item tables, they they you know it sounds like item tables. What is that? But it actually is super functional and super useful.
00:03:08
Speaker
Thank you. yeah yeah it was I made it because I needed it and you know I was like, okay, there's something here. This is cool. yeah and But yeah, we'll probably talk about that at some point. I'm sure.
Tracy's RPG Ventures
00:03:18
Speaker
So I am Tracy Sizemore. I am the sole proprietor and force behind Eid Soul Games, which is how it's pronounced. It's spelled E-D-E-S-O-L.
00:03:32
Speaker
There's a story behind that, but maybe we'll get to it at some point. um But ah that company, Eat Soul Games, is the producer of the HON cluster, which is already in jumpstart form on DriveThru RPG and will be crowdfunding early next year in March. That's the plan.
00:03:53
Speaker
A lot of people have already heard of it, I hope, and I've run it for years. It's been in development for about a decade now, and it is now coming to fruition where I've got the book written. I'm working on all the little extra stuff, the millions of extra things that you need to do for a backer kit crowdfunding campaign, and that, again, we will certainly be talking about on the podcast.
00:04:20
Speaker
yeah so That's who I am. i'm also I've also ah ah worked for Pinnacle itself, so I've written a lot of adventures. I was the developer of the Holler setting, and the other half, the developers for the Holler setting. Tim Early wrote it. I helped develop it for Savage Worlds, and I was also a developer on Pine Box Middle School. so I've done a lot of stuff for Pinnacle.
00:04:44
Speaker
um and ah some stuff for other systems. In fact, I've written for Torg as well, Torg eternity.
Podcast Purpose & Structure
00:04:51
Speaker
So I've done lots of stuff, not like you know huge 30 year veteran type stuff, but I've done plenty of stuff that it makes me at least kind of know what I'm talking about in certain certain ways. So anyway, why are we here, Christian?
00:05:10
Speaker
Well, I think it's why we're here is you kind of touched on it and like we're we're both sort of, you know, just entering this space of RPG content creation, right? Like, you know, publishing and, you know, design development and, you know, trying to get it out there to the world.
00:05:26
Speaker
And, and of course there's a lot of things that we've done that we've had to our successes. And there's a lot of things where we're just kind of trying to figure it out as we go along. And, you know, so at one point we jokingly called this, you know, what was it? It was a, doing our RPG design the hard way. Yes. RPG design the hard way is what I was originally thinking, but this is a way better title. that Way better title. Yeah. Thank you.
00:05:52
Speaker
It's catchy. you Yeah, it is. A lot of this is going to be about um us talking through the design and development processes. like you know For example, if we're working on a setting, you know how do we start? Where do we go? ah and and It can run ah you know cover everything from that all the way to you know getting art orders and getting print copies. and you know all those all those logistical things that we try to do, or even kickstarters. Chris is planning to do, I think, a backer kit at some point for a Han cluster. That's the plan. yeah Yeah, so that's the plan. um and And as of this moment, we're looking at doing this as sort of like a mini-series, kind of, um but we'll see we'll see where things go.
00:06:38
Speaker
miniseries in this in in the sense of limited run. So we we don't want to commit to a perpetual all the time podcast at this point because podcasting is work and we want to make sure that we're passionate about it while we're
Navigating Creative Processes
00:06:54
Speaker
doing it. And when we lose the passion, we will stop. And that's kind of the way that that works. And um so, yeah, that's, I mean,
00:07:04
Speaker
I'm keen to talk about the entire process and not just production, not just um like the nitty gritty of it, but also the creative process, adventure design. I love talking adventure design because it's very difficult to do and it's something that's worth talking about over and over again because you're kind of reinventing the wheel every time you do it.
00:07:31
Speaker
and um setting design, making rules that fit with the setting, settings that fit with the rules, all those kinds of aspects that you kind of have to bring together to make an RPG playable and fun for players to to inhabit. I'm all about talking about all these things, and so that's why I'm excited about this this this podcast, and that's why it's named what it's named, right? Designing problems. and You're designing problems for players to solve. You're designing problems for the GM to present. You're designing problems that you don't realize you're designing because every time, every time we're going to go over this,
00:08:15
Speaker
It happens regularly. There's a sine wave, the curve that happens with creative work, where you're at high and you're thinking, oh, this is great. I'm doing a great job. This is awesome. I'm very excited. And then you'll get to the low where everything is terrible. If this all sucks. I have no idea how I'm going to solve these problems. No one's going to buy this. No one's going to buy this. No one's going to care. I've sunk all my money into a pit. You go through this on a regular basis. I mean, back me up, Christian.
00:08:48
Speaker
No, no. yeah Sometimes I wonder if it's actually a healthy endeavor. But yeah, but yeah I think, you know, the question of of why do it, right? Like why why do we do this? and i And I think it's simply because by our nature, we are creative people.
00:09:07
Speaker
We want to create things that you know other people can enjoy. you We want to put it out there for other people to enjoy. And and I think that's actually kind of the priority. At least I i think you and I have talked about this. like The priority for us is doing it because we enjoy doing it, you not for the riches because we all know that.
00:09:25
Speaker
That's not a thing in the RPG industry. um And and you know like like Jen and I are working on our setting because we're like, we want to play in that setting and we think there's something here and we want to produce it and we want to put it out there for others to enjoy.
Industry Realities & Passion
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think the saying goes, if you want to make a million dollars in the RPG industry, start with $2 million. Start it up. So it's a fascinating conundrum because you're sitting there, this is part of the design process. You're sitting there going, well, who cares? Why am I doing this? What's the reward? What is the end result here? And like Christian alluded to,
00:10:09
Speaker
I've been given the advice, and it's very good advice, to enjoy the process. Because no matter what happens at the end of all this, when you have a product, when you're done, when you've when you're, quote unquote, done,
00:10:25
Speaker
um There's going to be aspects of it that you're disappointed with. you're just It's just the way it's going to be. There's going to be some aspect of disappointment there. So enjoy working on it. Enjoy the the process of creating it because if you don't,
00:10:42
Speaker
There really is no reason to do it. yeah There really is. No, right. like Because it's just suffering and pain after that. It is. I mean, if you get lucky and make a million dollars, fantastic. Great. Good on you. but you're going to yeah it's it's It seems to me that you need to get a little lucky.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe somebody's got it figured out like, cool, many are not who can just run a Kickstarter for a million dollars every time. Right. Right. I mean, seemingly, but they're they're a big company now. They've got a following. They do their things and they did them well. Right. Right. Yeah. And that might be, that might be a topic, and a problem, uh, unto itself. We'll, we'll address and, uh, yeah.
Exploring 'Explorer' RPG Setting
00:11:26
Speaker
So, um,
00:11:27
Speaker
So, yeah more about what I'm working on, right? And what we're working on. and and I imagine there will be people who come to this podcast who know about HonCluster who want to hear more about it, and they will.
00:11:44
Speaker
because ah this is it's i want I don't want to say it's a vehicle for me to talk about HonCluster, but I do want to say like I'm working on HonCluster, and part of the ups and downs of the creative process are going to be addressed through that lens.
00:12:00
Speaker
right And that's just the way it's going to be. So I'm going to share my excitement. I'm going to share my woes. I'm going to share my misgivings, my worries, my um enthusiasm for all that I've tried to create and why I tried to create it.
00:12:21
Speaker
and some of the specifics about what I'm trying to do with it. Because it is it is in my soul. It's not just a game I'm trying to release to make money with. This is part of my soul I am putting out there and hopefully, like it or not, it's going to become my legacy.
00:12:41
Speaker
It just is. Wow. that's a good That's a great way to think of it. Whether or not it sells, doesn't matter. It's still going to be my legacy. So it's important to me. It's in my it's in deep in my heart. And so part of part of exploring this topic is going to be exploring that topic. And I think that's what I want to hear in a podcast is that vulnerability, in addition to getting good, solid information about how to do some of these things. So what are you working on, Christian?
00:13:10
Speaker
So Jen and I are working on a setting that we've sort of codenamed Explorer for right now. We haven't we don't have an actual um you know final title for it yet. And the concept of it is it's it's going to be a plot point campaign.
00:13:25
Speaker
The core of it was that we we both had elements of a setting that we wanted to you know create in a setting, um and we kind of fused it all together into what this is going to be. um But some of the main themes are that you know a lot of settings are very much about like, um I'm going to use you know literary terms here from when I was growing up. I don't know if these terms have changed, but you know man versus man, yeah you know where you know you one one group of people are fighting and killing another group of people. And you know that's kind of what 90% of RPGs are doing. Yes.
00:14:05
Speaker
And we wanted to get away from that, we but we also, I wanted to have a setting where you can explore things, you know, that that whole like, you know, exploring exploring ancient ruins and, you know, discovering new things, whether it's about yourself or about, you know, the environment or about, you know, some culture or whatever it might be.
00:14:24
Speaker
And so this setting encompasses that. Literally in this setting, your whole job is to go out and explore this literal new world, ah you know discover all the flora and fauna, and you know you're going to come across ancient ruins that are uninhabited, and you know you're going to discover what they're all about and what connection you may or may not have um with whatever history was here.
00:14:52
Speaker
um And and a lot of the other themes that we we want to explore are you know magic being inherent to the world. And so these flora and fauna, for example, that you discover, um they have inherent magical properties that you can you can harvest you know and and use. and and you know create tools and and so on. In fact, our our swag supplement, Herbal Alchemy, came out of this. And the idea was that we wanted a way for somebody to you know harvest things in the wild and create small little concoctions and such using those those core those base ingredients. And so that's that's a little little taste of of what we're exploring here. So how far have you gotten?
00:15:36
Speaker
So we have ah we have a ah location, a base location kind of defined with NPCs and and things like that. Like a town? Yeah. And it's kind of, we call it hearth and it's basically where where the the party and their neighbors kind of start and it's that's it's isolated, right? It's sort of like, and it started as like an encampment and then grew into like a little village kind of a thing.
00:16:02
Speaker
And the exploration kind of goes out from there. And it's it's open sandbox. You can go anywhere anywhere you want. And um we built in features within it, within the plot point campaign, where you as a player or the GM can kind of design the actual environment of this world.
00:16:23
Speaker
as you go along. You can place things wherever you want. We think of it in terms of like geographical or climate type locations rather than physical locations. So if you want it far on the West Coast, you know you'll be able to do that if you want you know depending on on what story you want to create or how you want to design it for yourself. um We got the plot point is pretty much done.
00:16:47
Speaker
We do need to kind of read through it again, play through it, make sure it makes sense, make sure that any changes we're making still make sense within those those story beats. And that it's fun, you know that ah that it's going to be something that's going to hold players' attention, that the GM's going to be interested in it you know going forward and so on, and and then want to continue that that campaign. i've I've run campaigns ah not plot point campaigns, but other campaigns where it's like, as a GM, I'm reading through it and I'm like, this is a slog and it's not interesting anymore. and But I'm like, I need to complete this campaign and it feels like torture. and it you know I don't want it to be that. So that's that's one of those things that you know I get fearful of. Is this gonna be fun? yeah yeah Am I just wasting my time? um
00:17:38
Speaker
And ah so so for me, this podcast, i'm I'm looking forward to doing this podcast with you because you have done a lot of adventure design. And so you know getting some of that knowledge from you, I'm i'm hoping maybe it'll it'll help us. but So so yeah here's here's a question. yeah have you have you played like Have you played it with somebody beyond you and Jen?
00:18:02
Speaker
Not yet, not yet. We are literally in the, you know, conception phase as far as, you know, like the plot point is really more like, it's like outline structure. We have, you know, prose written within those, you know, within each of those plot points, but, you know, it's still sort of like we're piecing it all together. We do plan to play through it for that reason. Like we want to make sure that,
00:18:31
Speaker
you know It's working the way we think it's supposed to work, that for players, it's working the way that we think it's supposed to work, you know that the experience is what we're trying. we We achieve the experience we're trying to design for.
00:18:45
Speaker
you um But right now, it's yeah it's still kind of early early stages, I guess, yeah of that development. And like one of the things I'm planning on doing for that that sort of village where they start, I want to use backstory cards, actually, to develop the connections among the NPCs and so and try to create some rich and you know interaction opportunities for the players.
00:19:10
Speaker
So you want to do that on a, um, like for the GM to do that, or you want to use them as designers to say, these are the permanent connections. These are the latter. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. And, uh, cause I think that'll, that's a great tool, uh, for as a writer to, you know, foster, you know, ideas, connections and things like that. So yeah so like yeah in contrast to yeah how It seems you're doing your work, right?
Player Involvement & Iterative Design
00:19:42
Speaker
HanCluster started about 10 years ago now.
00:19:47
Speaker
ah and in First of all, it started in the system of fate rather than Savage Worlds. That's the first thing. and The other thing I want to say about this podcast is it's not a Savage Worlds podcast per se. right This is a design, sort of like RPG design podcast. it could It could reference any rule system. right um But we're going to talk about Savage Worlds because that's what we That's what we know best. That's what we write for mostly, right? But anyway, so Han cluster started in fate. And i I only started with a couple of paragraphs about a couple of planets and the general idea that we're 300 years in the future or whatever I was thinking at the time, because it's it's morphed into much, much more now.
00:20:36
Speaker
but When I started, I wrote a couple of paragraphs. I went to IHOP with my friend Darrell and my friend Dave and my some of my other friends at the time. And Darrell was very encouraging about like, well, let's get this to the table ASAP. nice And I was like, okay, i i have all I have is a couple of paragraphs. He's like, no, no, get it to the table now. And he was, ah for me at least, for the way I work, he was absolutely right.
00:21:06
Speaker
in the sense that it wasn't a couple few weeks later that I got up the courage to run the HAN cluster ah for the first time. And it was just, all I had was a small area, a very small area to say, okay, well, here's, here's the idea. Here's the, here's the sort of sense of what's happened in the last 300 years. And here's where you are. Here's where you're starting and now go, let's go.
00:21:36
Speaker
And part of that is me allowing myself to have the outline to say, here's the general idea of this adventure. And then allowing that imperfection to be part of the game and allowing the players to interact with that so that that helps me create more.
00:21:58
Speaker
Nice, yeah. And I think it's very valuable because you'll get players in right away. And part of that is because it's so easy to fall into a trap of I'm gonna design, design, design the world, design, design, design the world. And the more you stick with it, the more you do stuff without inviting players to be a part of it, to characters to interact with it, you start closing things off. Right. Things start things start like becoming closed loops And there's no room for any any player characters to interact anymore. All of a sudden you've solved all the magic problems. Like it's all fixed. You've solved all this problem and that problem and this problem. Or you've created NPCs that have no real hooks for the for the PCs to be part So that's why I sort of advocate. i don't I never will say, this is the right way, always do this, right? if People who know Savage Inelutes know that that's a cornerstone philosophy of mine. But at the same time, I do advocate for bringing in players as soon as you can and then letting them interact and then taking away and going, ah, well, that was super interesting. That's not what I expected. Now I'm going to adjust and now I'm going to
00:23:16
Speaker
run something else and let yeah players interact again. And all of a sudden the world is gets built, not by they're saying you should do this or you should do this because that really doesn't help. What really helps is just them interacting with your ideas and then realizing, wow, that's a terrible idea. I should not have done that. yeah Or that's a really great idea. I didn't even think of that.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, you know yeah it's it's it's essentially usability testing. right like like you know I think of a web designer by day and um you know it's literally you're putting the user, the player in front of the content, in front of the design and just standing back and watching. right yes and and you And yeah, there's some things you know that you're going to be you know you can't be you You have to be willing to kill the darlings yeah because there's going to be some things that you're invested in and you're going to look at and you're going to be like, well, they're just dumb. They're not interacting with it the right way. But but the um honest answer is that they are. They are interacting with the right way because that's just what a player is going to do.
00:24:20
Speaker
right And it's up to us to then take that as as feedback and you know reflect on it and consider it and say, okay, well, this is actually an opportunity to provide something that you know um facilitates the thing they were trying to do. Yes. Right.
00:24:40
Speaker
um you know like like Like in web design, you know you think about like, okay, this label on this menu didn't make sense to them. They didn't understand what was behind that menu. right So let me revisit that. Let me rethink you know how I can better present that so they know what to expect out of that. um And I think the same thing, when you when you put an environment of of NPCs and story and so on in front of players,
00:25:05
Speaker
You need to have those clear signals, those obvious labels of what is the player supposed to do here? What are their their opportunities with interacting with this? Right. I think so. And I also think like the more you do that, the more you learn what players are going to do. The more you can predictably like like say, OK, I'm going to present this situation.
00:25:31
Speaker
80% of players are going to do this. 10% are going to do this. 1% will do this. I don't really care about that 1%. That 1% is dead to me. I don't care. Not to say any of our fans are dead to us.
Flexibility in RPG Design
00:25:49
Speaker
but but But it's true though, because you get to the point where like, well, yeah, they could.
00:25:54
Speaker
kill the the like the important NPC that you've brought in to be friends with them and all that stuff. They could do that. They could be murder hobos about this, but you have to you have to at some point say, well, then they're not playing the game that you've designed. They're not playing the game that you've created. They're playing a different game and they really shouldn't be playing this one. And at that point, don't be hurt.
00:26:17
Speaker
because they're not they're really not playing your game. yeah So it's just like, oh, okay, you're playing something else, that's fine. But um yeah you know but also i think I think there's something to having a setting that is flexible enough where when something like that happens, there are still consequences.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yep. Oh yeah. know there's still that It's a living, breathing world yep that's going to react what the players are doing. Right. And that's that's like the 20%, right? So you'll you'll say, okay, 70% of the players are probably going to do this. The 20% who don't, well, I've got to have a contingency for them.
00:26:54
Speaker
Because that's a completely valid choice. or Or something available for the GM to run with, whether it's something concrete or just an idea. yeah um like yeah in that and like Like I say, that's kind of reinventing the wheel when you're designing adventures. Because you're just like, well, do I make this a sidebar? Is this big enough to make a whole different section for? Or do we just say, well, GM, good luck.
00:27:18
Speaker
right Most of the time you don't want to do that. But there are occasions where you're just like, yeah, this is so far off the track that we're not going to address that. You're going to have to deal with that. Right. Like we said, you're really playing a different game at this point. Yeah, at that point your players are not buying in. Right.
00:27:40
Speaker
yeah yeah just what What are you going to do? Moving on, right. but anyway so yeah my My point is, I think, like I'm a big advocate for bringing players in as soon as possible yeah because you'll see how they interact and you'll find ways to allow them to interact.
00:27:57
Speaker
um Without closing those loops because I've met people who've been working on their setting for 30 years And I've asked have you ever run it and they say no not yet. It's not ready yet. Oh, yeah, no Well, yeah, and and that's the thing we're we're eager to put it in front of players. um We just want to have something that's um coherent enough that we know what we're doing when we run it. yeah you know and and so there's There's still things that are um you know they're they're mostly defined, but again, I don't know how to explain it. we We basically just want to make sure that there's um, there's strong connections from one thing to the next, you know, yeah and that when you get to say plot point nine, yeah you're not like, wait a minute, you know, that wait, what happened? But, but we did this over here. Why didn't this, you know, this doesn't make sense. You know, we don't, it's so Yeah.
Creative Momentum & Support
00:28:56
Speaker
Hard. So you, you know, you, you said something like, you know, people you've been working on Han cluster for 10 years, people who've been working on something for 30 years or whatever. And,
00:29:08
Speaker
you know, we've, we talked about that Ebb and flow, right? That sine wave yeah of ups and downs. How do you maintain that? How do you, how do you stick to it? and Not just one day say, you know what, I'm kind of tired of this. I'm going to move on to something else that, that I'm interested in. Well, that's part of why Hong cluster took 10 years is There's a reason why it took 10 years. it's I think it took as long as it needed to take. I don't think I've been sitting on it forever, not like like feeling like it's just stagnated and done nothing. yeah I feel like I needed that 10 years. Number one, I got in with Pinnacle. I started writing adventures for them. I started doing production or development stuff for them, and I learned a ton.
00:29:53
Speaker
about how to do this, right? If I tried to put out HongCluster five years ago, it would be the shadow of what it is now. it would be it would be It wouldn't be anywhere near what it is. And yet, it has to get out at some point. right I can't just sit on it forever. And now I'm to the point where, okay, March 4th, crowdfunding. The book is finished. We're we're ready to go. you know But it did take a long time and part of that part of that development period came with those sine wave curves of, wow, this is really exciting. People really like this. I think this is going to work. And then to the low points of, wow, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. There's like Swiss cheese holes in this thing. And anybody who looks at it will be able to tell that it's just a complete mess, right? yeah That neither of those is true.
00:30:49
Speaker
Like somewhere in the middle is where it's where the reality is. Right? Yeah, we're not going to fool ourselves into thinking this is genius content, right? let's write right but Well, I mean, sometimes you will. And that's that's great. You need that. You need that period of of motivation and inspiration to keep going. oh yeah But at the same time, it's never as bad as you think it is either. Right. But but I think.
00:31:12
Speaker
My way of through it, I mean, Darrell is a rock yeah and ah people out there who know who Darrell Hayhurst is, I've known him since the first or third first or third grade, somewhere in there. yeah like I've known him since I was a little, little kid. wow He's always been the way he is.
00:31:32
Speaker
which means he's he can be um very inspirational. He can be very animated and very, ah he's he's just excited to do things. Yeah. And and he will, he is your if you're his friend, if you really get in with him, and I was grandfathered in because I knew him at, you know, I don't know, six years old, um he will support you to the end of the earth.
00:32:01
Speaker
That's awesome. And, and when I first started talking about Hong cluster, I was just like, well, you know, I don't write for RPGs. I don't think I could do it. And he's like, no, you don't do it yet. You don't. Yeah, that's, that's what he would tell me. And, and solid it finally ended up so sticking. And the thing is, I, I mean, I've got 53 years, you know, under me,
00:32:27
Speaker
And a lot of that time was spent writing and going to theater school and becoming a learned person and how to do a lot of different things. So I learned how to do this over my entire life. But it was just at that point when Darryl came along at the right time to say, you should do this.
00:32:46
Speaker
Like you want to do it, this is what you want to do, just do it. And that's that's awesome because I don't think we, you know, creators, whether it's us or anyone else, sometimes we don't realize what skills we already have that contribute to this kind of design. Oh yeah.
00:33:02
Speaker
you know We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Yeah. But it's like, you know once you get into it, then you're like, you don't realize it, but you start pulling from those experiences, from those skills, from you know all of that. And you know and it kind of kind of helps to kickstart things really. And I'm sure like having a partner helps you keep the sine wave a little bit. Yeah. Yes. There's been times where I'm like you know i'm talking to Jen, I'm like, I don't know. you know like is this Does this make sense? like And she's just like,
00:33:29
Speaker
I want to do this. Like, okay, we're doing this. All right. yeah it's it's It's an immovable force at that point. I guess doing this. yeah So it's a freight train. I can't stop it now. Yeah. Yeah. she And she's really good about, she is somebody who, um, when she's got her mind on something, she's gonna, she's gonna get it. It's gonna happen. So.
00:33:54
Speaker
Well, so this was sort of a so a stream of... There was another thing we were talking about calling this podcast, a stream of consciousness. And that's kind of what this is. yeah And so this was our first episode. we We do have planned topics. We do plan to bring on some people ah to talk with us about some of this stuff. And um and yeah, so if you if you like us, then keep listening. That's what I say. yeah Anything else, Christian?
00:34:23
Speaker
No, I think that's pretty good advice. Just keep keep listening. cause you know If anything, if if if you're you know just entering into into the RPG design development space, hopefully hearing us talking about the struggles we have and and the victories we have,
00:34:43
Speaker
you know, that'll that'll inspire you. And lessons we've learned. Yeah, lessons we've learned, right. And um and honestly, you know, we're hoping through the community that ah we'll be able to get stuff back as well, you know, kind of see how other creators, you know, what they're learning and what they're, you know, overcoming in their processes. So, you know, I think it's, um I'm looking forward to where this goes. Me too. Wherever maybe I'm looking forward to it.
00:35:09
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community. So if you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs, your roadblocks, or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we have our own Discord server for you to join. Please come by, join the discussion and share some inspiration. Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few along the way.