Artifacts of Play

A brief discussion of what we hope to do here...

Throwing our dice into the void

How This Began

I had noticed a topic coming up on Twitter over and over among designers. There is not a centralized home for design theory. More so, with the collapse of G+, it was becoming even more dispersed with many active G+ communities creating their own message boards in the wake of the closure. In a multitude of ensuing conversations, the idea for this website began to take shape.

What This Will Be

This site will attempt to serve as an archive of conversations on the theory of tabletop role-playing game design. At the outset, I want to say that I have no illusion that I will ever be able to pull together every article, podcast, message board conversation, and Twitter thread about game design. However, I'd like this to be a start.

What you will find here is not my, or any other contributors, opinions on game design. You will find many, many posts that are simply links to various media about game design, with a brief description of what you will find by following the links. In addition, each post will be extensively tagged so that you can easily bring up all the articles on a given topic, system, mechanic, e tc.

I have learned that the indie game design scene is an incredibly welcoming and friendly community. However, there are decades of conversations that have already happened that can serve as a barrier to entry for newer members. I hope this site serves as a way to better gain a common language and deeper connection to theory and critique for new designers and designers who have been doing this for years.

Important Notes (important to me at least)

A few things I want to go on the record with now. If you ever see me drifting from these principles please call me out immediately!

1. No part of this site will ever be put behind a paywall or be made exclusive to a particular group of people. All content here will start and always be free for everyone to access.

2. There will be no preference given to any particular design style, system, or designer. I play and design games and I have plenty of preferences when it comes to the games I play and write. That will not influence the content that appears on this site. I will strive to give equal voice to all styles of play and design.

3. As I start compiling entries for this site, I will be casting my net wide, initially, instead of deep. Instead of cataloging all of the design content of a single creator, I will be trying to find as many voices as possible. I want to highlight as many designers as possible. The only caveat to this is that designers that have shown themselves to be toxic to the community will not be included. Future revelations of this may result in articles being taken down. I am always available for questions regarding this, but it is important to me that while I want to give a voice to as many as possible, the health of the community is of the utmost importance to me.

4. If this site becomes monetized in any way, in the future, it will not be for my personal gain and it will be done responsibly. I won't ever put ads on the site (there may be some initially until I get all of the services paid for) and, again, will never put anything behind a paywall. Any monetization that does happen (more on this below) will be used to cover costs of the site and to improve the site. This is a labor of love for me, not an attempt to make money.

What the Future May Bring

The initial site, like I said, is going to be a collection of links to articles, podcast episodes, videos, Twitter threads, and message board conversations about game design. However, I do have some thoughts for the future that I'd like to put into words while they are fresh.

1. While this site initially will focus on specifically game design, I could see a future where we begin to bring in theory regarding GMing and playing games. I think that these sorts of articles could be valuable a) because most of us play games in addition to writing them, and b) because thinking about how people run and play games is helpful for designers. In the early stages of this site, that is too much content to worry about, but as we move forward it could be included.

2. If this site were ever to become monetized, most likely through a Patreon and merch sales, the primary use of that income would be to create exclusive content for the site. Not that it would require anything special to access, but that it would be written specifically for Artifacts of Play. I would love to be able to pay designers to write articles on particular topics for the site. Ensuring that these content providers are paid a good wage for their content would be the primary use of any funds raised. The other use would be:

3. User created curation. Something that came up in conversation about this site was the ability to provide curated sets of articles, tentatively called Syllabi. This would be a set of articles a particular user recommends for a particular design practice. I really love this idea and will do my best to implement it manually out of the gate. This would likely involve a user sending me an email with their list and me posting it. In the future, I would love to have a system in place to allow users to create public and private Syllabi on their own. This would require coding at a level I do not have. So this and other improvements to the site would be another use of any funds raised in monetization.

Why Me?

This is going on longer than I anticipated. I have a lot of thoughts about this site, but before I close this initial post, I want to talk briefly about who I am and why I am undertaking this project.

My name is Blaine Martin (@esmereldapod on Twitter). I have been playing tabletop RPGs for about 25 years and I host two actual play podcasts, Refugees of Esmerelda and You Are Not Alone. About two years ago I started designing games more seriously. My game Born of Brier and Blood was a finalist in the 2018 200 Word RPG Contest and is featured in Gauntlet Codex: Hunger (May 2019). This is one of the last times you'll hear my name or hear me talk about my games on this site. I just wanted you to know who I am.

The primary reason I am the person behind this site is because I have time. I really love this community and wanted to find a way to give back. I have always believed in paying things forward. So many amazing designers have helped me along the way and this is a way to help others who are entering this space.

Beyond that, though, I have been an active community organizer for years. From hosting punk shows in high school and college, to years of helping run food pantries and community dinners, to my present role as Community Coordinator at an Episcopal Church in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I have a good deal of experience in organize things and connecting people within a community. Additionally, I have 10 years of experience in the field of QA and Technical Documentation. Both of these skill sets definitely help with the task at hand and I hope that I don't let you down!

I want to end by saying this is a project undertaken with love and a desire to do good for this community. If I ever slip up, and I'm sure I will, please call me out on it. I want to be as transparent as possible and will always answer your questions with honesty (and probably too many words). Please let me know when I fail to live up to the standards I have set or if you think of ways to make this site better.