The Gap in TTRPG Culture
TTRPG Design has a Broken Feedback Loop, But You Can Fix It
When I worked on Magic: the Gathering, it was wild to experience a dramatic shift in how I consumed podcasts and YouTube videos around the game compared to TTRPGs.
With TTRPGs, most content focuses on techniques (or industry gossip and news, but that’s universal for any hobby).
So, I might watch a video that talks about an adventure like Keep on the Borderlands. It breaks down the maps, talks about how it works as a sandbox, and so on. I might come away with some ideas on how to run it, but consider what implementing those ideas might look like. Let’s say that the video rolled out the greatest idea ever for running the minotaur cave. Labyrinths are tricky to make fun, but this creator cracked it. Let’s go!
First, I need to get a group together to play through it. That might take weeks.
Then, we need to start playing. Luckily the video had some great ideas on how to run the minotaur cave. We’re only six weeks away from running that piece. Assuming we play regularly.
So my time from video to using the video is about two months. If I’m lucky and everything bounces just right.
Let’s contrast that with Magic.
When March of the Machine released I was excited. It was one of the first sets I worked on, so I wanted to dive in. I listened to podcasts to and from work about the set, focusing on draft, my favorite Magic format.
I could drive home from work, listen to a podcast about a five color draft strategy, and then use those ideas about four hours later, after my daughter was in bed and I had some time to log in to Arena (Magic’s online version) and hop into a draft.
Even better, I might do that again a day or so later. And again. And again.
That example sticks out to me because I had a lot of fun trying to draft five colors in March of the Machine. I even managed to draft one deck with two copies of Invasion of Alara. Even better, learning how to make five colors worked really improved my overall Magic skills. When Tales of Middle-earth released that summer, I hit my highest competitive ranking by far. I was better at the game!
Magic, and games like Elden Ring, have tight, compelling improvement loops. You play, get better, and keep playing. That lure of improvement keeps the game fresh. It forces game designers to stay one step ahead of the audience. As your players skill up, you need to find more ways to challenge them. My experience is that the best Magic sets are puzzles. Unraveling them to find viable strategies lights up all sorts of positive feedback loops in my brain.
With TTRPGs we have a broken feedback loop. The games are slow by nature, with content ambling along in increments measured in months or years, rather than hours. The distance between advice and implementation is vast. The actual chain of causation - I did this so then that was better - is murky and inevitably colored by the performative element of being a DM. Maybe my dragon mechanics suck, but I had the dragon speak like Donald Duck while swearing up a storm, so we had fun.
This all goes back to my initial statement. In Magic and Elden Ring, we have clear feedback in play. Did you win? Then the advice probably worked, or you’re getting better. Congrats! Did you lose? You either need to get better or find another guru. It’s immediate, clear feedback.
From a design perspective, that enables a clear context for creation. Compare the reaction between a good or bad Magic set, and you’ll see trends emerge. Were there multiple viable deck archetypes? Were players finding new approaches as the set aged? Which cards performed as predicted, and which ones were surprising hits and misses? Good sets evolve and give you fresh challenges. Stale ones feel like the same old thing.
That conversation provides a framework for design. It enables a give and take between players and designers, both in terms of sales and within the culture around the game.
So what is the actual design conversation between DM, players, and designers?
Since we don’t have winning and losing, there isn’t a universal one. Instead, you get to pick. Your answer to that question determines your approach to design. It sets out your goals and gives you a measuring stick to use.
Every TTRPG designer needs to ask themselves the following:
What does success look like for my design?
Why would someone care about that?
Why do I care about that?
We don’t have winning and losing as an easy flag to mark when it’s time to assess success or failure. Instead, TTRPG designers need to craft their own scorecard. Without that scorecard, you’ll never know where you are, where you’ve been, and where you could go.
While I appreciate the Gap in the feedback loop, I think the premise is wrong.
In Magic, there is a direct relationship between the Designer and the Player. And Magic is very much a game of Systems Mastery. There are visceral benefits Players may have from the Art and the Storyline. But in general, those are not the main reason people play Magic. This means the feedback loop is both direct and very focused. There is a simplicity to the process.
Computer Games, whether Solitary or Multiplayer, usually sit somewhere in the range between Magic and TTRPGs. There may be a wider variety of Reasons To Play, with Cozy Games, for instance, focusing on Ambient and Rhythmic experiences. But you are still going Direct from Designer to Player. Computer Games do have more breadth in the feedback loop due to the wider range of Player Goals. And doing UX and Playtesting for them is often more involved. But they are still generally not as complicated to test as TTRPGs.
TTRPGs are Indirect to the majority of Players (unless they are played Solo or GM-less). Like Theatre, they are Designed to be interpreted. The GM as Intermediary for the rest of the Players creates a huge Gap in the feedback loop. That structure also, essentially, bifurcates the feedback loop. You have 2 qualitatively different kinds of Players, and one kind mediates for the other, introducing distance between the Designer and the majority of the Players (the PC Players).
Additionally, TTRPGs have wildly broad value propositions. Anything from Miniatures collecting and painting to LARP. Within the same Table, the elements the various PC Players value can be diverse and often in conflict. That doesn't even factor in what the GM Player is getting out of the process.
Some Games, Pathfinder comes to mind, are very focused on Systems Mastery through Pre-game Optimisation. But even there, a Table may have PC Players for whom System Mastery brings no real value.
When you Test TTRPGs, as well as when you Product Design, you are having to understand these 2 audiences. Getting feedback from PC Players is going to be colored by the impact of the GM Player. And realistically, the PC Players will also impact the experiences the GM Player has of running the Game.
If we are to build a tighter feedback loop, then, we might need to look at other systems that have a similar structure, rather than Computer Games or Card Games.
What comes to mind, though it is not in the Gaming arena, is Instructional Content. Media is created for Teachers and Students, as separate, but interrelated audiences. I am not familiar with the Testing process used in this field, but it might hold some valuable learning which could be borrowed for TTRPG testing.
I know you were talking partly about the Social Media aspect of feedback, not just Testing. I wonder how Learning Materials fare in Social Media?
And, Theatre might be another place to look for ideas, as they too are an Interpreted Medium, with Actors ... and Audiences (3+ Groups for the feedback loop; Stage Crew and Theatre Managers also come to mind as additional Stakeholders in the product). For TTRPGs, Liveplays adds in the question about how to Test/Get Feedback for a non-Player Audience as well.
Provocative Post you wrote! It got me thinking about a question I never previously conceived of. Effective writing on your part. Apologies if my response is just stating things you are well aware of.
I’ve been working for a while on a post focusing on anti-patterns and negative feedback loops.
I’ll take the ball in the opposite direction on the conclusion and say, for very many people that play D&D, there are a great many negative feedback loops, and the desired outcomes not being met can be observed, measured, and design of systems which is beyond “how much damage does my fighter do” can fix. I’m of the opinion that social systems and table arrangements can fix many of these problems, and that the mere closed systems of the text are less important than the cybernetic ones, how they are applied, and the culture around them.
Some observable negative feedback loops of traditional D&D:
- Very few people have the flexibility to participate. It is a hobby for people with consistent schedules, times and places.
- Campaigns struggle to last beyond 3 months of play and don’t go to higher levels of play, despite desire by the participants to see long campaigns and higher levels
- Conflict is common. It’s so common that about half of all advice for D&D is how to handle conflict.
We’ve discovered that a resolution to these and other problems is a clubhouse approach to playing D&D. On that basis, the extremely busy single Mom is a valued player, right along with the disabled person that cannot leave their house. Play can easily continue indefinitely and reach higher levels. By relying on more open and common social arrangements, those social conflicts which grew in basement play have not been observed.
By challenging more foundational issues beyond the linear math of fighters and wizards, real design solutions are possible.