Think Like A Game Designer - Bruno Faidutti — Merging Game Mechanics, Simplifying Design, The Art of Drafting, and Unraveling the Myth of Unicorns (#27)

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Bruno Faidutti is the legendary creator of Citadel and Knightmare, two games that have inspired me throughout the years along with 40+ additional published games. In addition to game design, Bruno has studied law, economics, and history, and knows an awful lot about unicorns. This episode is full of lessons on design fundamentals, rules creation, and drafting games, in particular. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. Welcome to season three of Think Like a Game Designer. I'm very excited to continue to bring you more amazing guests, design lessons, and tips about the gaming industry. But I also want to share something new and exciting that I'm launching this year. In addition to the podcast and the book for Think Like a Game Designer, I'm also launching a master class for those that really want to go deep into game design and work with an incredible group of people to take your projects to the next

level. We've already had an incredible beta group go through the course last year. It includes video lessons for me, access to an exclusive Discord group, monthly masterminds where we can dive deep into the actual problems that you have. with your own designs and really walk you through everything that it takes to go from initial idea, whether you have a project you really want to work on, or you have no idea where to start, all the way through to getting your game published, whether that's launching it via Kickstarter, launching your own company, selling it to a publisher, or whatever you want to do to make your game design dreams come true. If you think you might be the right fit for this

course, go to think like a game designer.com to learn more. In today's episode, I speak with Bruno by Duty. Bruno is one of the OGs of game design, releasing his first game in 1984. He's published over 40 board games and card games, including some of the ones that have personally influenced me the most. I remember playing nightmare chess back in the 90s where he was able to take the basic game of chess and add a bunch of cards to really mix things up. And I have played more Citadel's than I could possibly count. We talk about the inspiration behind Citadel's and how he came up with the concepts and tested it. We talk about his lazy method of design and how powerful it is and how he's taken dozens of years to be able to perfect it. We talk about how his background in history and being the

world's foremost experts in unicorns affects his designs. We talk about collaborative design. Bruno is actually famous for making a lot of really great, really well-known designs and collaborating with a lot of other very well-known designers. And we even talk maybe about getting a collaboration going ourselves. And we talk about how his designs have actually inspired some of my own work, including my upcoming game Night of the Ninja, which is a combination game that I originally was inspired by Citadels and Werewolf, which is a fun thing I can't wait to talk more about. And we talk about what the importance of good and clear rules and how to be good at writing rules. What's important? What makes for good rules or bad rules and why so many rules out there

are bad for tabletop game. So there's a ton of great lessons in here. Bruno is one of the best of the best, one of the originals that really had to kind of forge the lessons that we now take for granted as designers. And so it was a real honor to get to talk to him, share those lessons with you, archive them as part of this podcast. So without further ado, here is Bruno Fiduti. Hello and welcome. I'm here with Bruno Fiduti. Bruno, it is wonderful to have you here. Nice to have you as well. So, you know, I got to say it's a real honor to get to speak with you. I have been playing your games my entire life.

And they have been an inspiration for several of my games, some of which are actually coming out soon. And so I'm just going to leave that as a teaser to talk about how your games inspired me and the problems that I encountered and curious about how you dealt with them. But I want to start because you, I want to start by hearing about your origin story, because I was doing some research and your background is, you know, both a historian and sociologist. And you have, you've been designing games almost as long as I've been alive.

And so I'd love to hear about what cut you started And how did this background come to life? Okay. You know, I started designing game when I was still a student at university, studying economics. Well, just I think I was in a family where we didn't play that many games. You know, my parents were very very very. very political, Marxist, and games are not something very serious.

They're not really useful, and you have to do things which are useful. So we played a bit, but we were not that much in games. So as a kid, I had a few games. I played a few games of Monopoly like everyone, but I think not as much as most people. And, well, then as a teenager, I really discovered games.

And I started to play a lot, first to play chess in the 70s. I think I was quite good at it. Not now. I've forgotten everything because, you know, it's also where you have to know stuff. Now the machines beat us anyway. So it was more fun back then. You could be the best. Okay.

So, and then I happened when studying to stumble and to friends who were more or less first people to bring role-playing games in France. So we started to play, you know, what was there was at this time. It was Dungeons and Dragons and Tuners and trolls. And then a few more stuff came out. And at the same time, with the same friends, we started to play a lot of poker before it was really this big poker craze. And also the first big American games, you know, game from Avalon here arrived at this time also, I think, and the first civilization and all that stuff. and then Cosmic Encounter and the first German-style games, Her and Tortoise and Scotland Yard and all that stuff.

So I started to play a bit of everything. I liked it a lot. And I was there, I think, just by sheer luck when a few people decided that maybe it's time to try to do games in France. and we were not that many who knew more as everything about what had been done here and there. I think there was this small group in Montpellier. So they just asked us, can you do something for us? And so we tried.

And I made my first game, which was Baston, with kind of a barbedo simulation, which was something really, really heavy. And then nightmare chess, with a good friend of mine who's dead. now, Pierre Cricker. Yeah, I want to pause you there for a second. So when you say some of us decided to start publishing games in a world where that was never done in France at all, like, break that down for me. Tell me the story of what happened there.

Like, was it some friends that were really into the publishing side and they're like, you're the economist, you can make the game for us? Is it, how did this, how did the roles come about and how did it come to life? I don't know exactly because, you know, it went mostly through Pierre Cricker, because I think he was contacted by the games, people who were creating, you know, Je Descartes and Jeanne, which doesn't exist anymore now.

And I was a friend of him, whose name I've forgotten, who was also a sociologist, who was more or less into games. And I think maybe they asked him if he knew someone. I don't remember the details. It was in the early 80s. But well, in fact, Pierre and I started designing a game knowing that it will be published, in fact.

Right. That's very unusual to be able to have that situation. It worked quite well. And then at a toy fair, I happened to meet the people from another small publisher who was, beginning at this time it was riddle delir was making full metal planet and super gang and they played nightmare chess and they wanted to do it and that's how it all started but you but you know in those times there was it was a very very very very you know maybe there were 50 people in france in the rule of france who were in two games that's fewer than there is now

in my street and the two are joining one in Paris. So it was very, very easy, I think. So Nightmare Chess is actually where I first discovered you. I played a ton of nightmare chess. I love the game. It was one of those things that just felt like this, it turned chess, which was something I enjoyed into now a game that I actually loved. And we would play a lot. It helped with players of different skill levels. It helped to create some uncertainty in variance. a lot of people would think that doing something like just taking chess and adding cards to it would not be either successful or not be something that they would start with.

What was the inspiration behind that and what was the design process there? I think the inspiration was a cosmic encounter. We had just discovered cosmic encounter and we liked it a lot. And Pierre and I were good chess players. and it started with the idea that maybe we could mix the two together. Right, right. So this is the kind of thing I always talk about to new designers, this idea of just like take two things you love and combine them together.

And magically, you know, and that's just a fun of awesome starting point for most of my games. It's very often works, that's true. You know, when you're trying to make a game out of only one, usually it's just either it's or it's not as good as the original. But when you start to make a game

out of two or three, I think that's how you often make new game because sometimes you can make one out of nothing but it doesn't happen that often. Mostly it's, you know, taking inspiration here and there. What you like in a game, what you like in another and just putting it together.

Yeah, and very often the right answer is to combine the two things. And I think a new player instinct that's very common is to take the two things you love, put them together, and then add stuff to it. Whereas very often the better answer is put two things you love together and then cut stuff away from it, right? Like clean up some of the things that you remove the stuff that gets in the way and just highlight that new interaction. I think that's something that you've done very well. I mean, the simplicity of nightmare chess, what I think of cosmic engagement. encounter, you very much just like, okay, what's important here? Okay, we have different starting powers and we leverage those into a baseline game

that people already understand. Yeah, you know, I think when I started designing games, maybe for the 10 or 20 first years, it was mostly starting complex within lots of things and then cutting things out and making it simple. And I think I needed maybe 20 years to learn to make it simple from the beginning. Right. Now, maybe my games are not as crazy as they were. Maybe they feel a bit more constrained.

Maybe it's because of this changing method, because my new method is, I think, much lazier, in fact, because, you know, I don't have to do those as work, but now I can do it. So maybe that's because I changed my way of designing games, that my games feel a bit different and less original, maybe it's just because I'm getting old. But it's much more efficient. But I really needed much, much, much time before I was really able to do it simple from the beginning. So I want to dig into this because I know the lazy method of game design.

This is actually one of the things that I teach very often is like, you know, keep it simple, keep it stupid. Like start as easily as you can, make your prototypes as basic as you can, just to get like iteration going and get the process starting. So how would you describe if you could for someone that was trying to emulate you and maybe not having to spend 20 years learning to be lazy? What is the lazy game design process that you use now? I think the lazy game design process is, yeah, it's making it simple. And if you make, the way to be sure that you're making, that you are making it simple, is to have everything written down and be very short. You know, even my really, really big games,

I'm now working on this, yeah, now working on this 12 fest here. it's a big, big game. There is a large board. There is a large board. There are hundreds of cards. Hundreds of cards, lots of tokens, hundreds of tokens for everything with dragon and people and everything. And it's, you know, you are managing a rock band in a fantasy universe

and moving from city to city and et cetera, et cetera. But all the rules are on one page. And I think when now, what I try to start with the rules, which I didn't always do at the beginning, I start with the rules. And I must have all my rules on one sheet of paper. And so it's a way to be sure that everything is perfectly clear. I don't have to improvise when playing it. Okay, go is to do this and we will see, no, it doesn't work this. way. You have to know from the beginning what will happen and how. Right. Yeah. So let me,

let me break that apart a little bit more because I love this and there's a lot of parallels to my process. So, so you'll start with, with an inspiration of some kind, right, whether it's the combining two things like chess and cosmic encounters or whatever the things are. And then you'll, you'll quickly move from that to a kind of rule sheet. I assume there's some kind of brainstorming process in between as you're sort of figuring out those rules. Or what is that, what is that? What does a process look like when you go from inspiration to the rules sheet? It really depends. I think, because sometimes I start from a small mechanism,

sometimes I start from, you know, trying to create some interaction between the player or trying to tell some kind of story. So there is no rule for what exactly I start. but I always try to start with something extremely plain, obvious symbol. This is the goal of the game and this is how it works. Yeah. And also, in the same way, my prototype are extremely basic.

I'm very bad at graphic design. I'm very bad at drawing. I cannot do any of the things. And I don't really use it. You know, I take two or three creeparts and that's all. And I print on cardboard and I cut. But everything is extremely basic because it's also always that if the game works with no art, with nothing, with something which is just plain and almost ugly,

it means that it will work better when it will be really nice. If it works this way, it's good. Also, if it's when your prototype is simple and basic, when your rules are short and very clear, it's very easy to change something. Very easy to say, okay, let's change this. If you have something, you know, big and complex,

lots of elements and you ask the friend to draw you a nice board, et cetera, et cetera, you don't want to change everything. and you sometimes are blocked when you realize that something is not what you need. Yeah, that's the real counterintuitive and powerful principle that the bad, the ugly prototype actually helps you because you're not as resistant to changing it. If it looks nice, you don't want to write on the car or you don't want to tear up a board. And so it's actually, I think it's actually a downside for a lot of people who do have skills in graphic design. They always want to make it pretty.

I actually have some people in my course I'm teaching on game design now that are like that. And I've had to train them to be like, no, show me something ugly. I'm not going to play. Start ugly. Then you can make it pretty later. There's plenty of time for that. So that's great. And just to reiterate this whole process, because I think it's so powerful.

You have been doing this for so long. You have over 40 published games and there's such a diverse series of them. Like you talk, going through your history of games, there's so many different genres, as so many different core mechanics and interactions and player counts and that idea that you start from somewhere where it's simple, right? Whether it's the story, the player interaction, the mechanic, you turn that into something that you can keep right down the rules and keep it on one page and have a prototype that's as simple and ugly as you could make it and then start the iteration and testing process from there. It's just like it's just such a great fundamentals that,

again, you said it takes 20 years to learn to do something that sounds so, it sounds so easy. But it takes a very long time. Nobody starts there. So I think it's really wonderful. There are people who start there. I think now some people start there because now there is kind of a culture of game design, which there was not 40 years ago. So it's possible to see more people, to discuss with people, to see what they are doing.

Yes. So it's possible to go much faster. Yes, 100%. I mean, that's where, yeah, I think I could. I think young game designer don't have to. discover everything by themselves, like more as they do. And even there were, you know, before me there was, you know, Alex Randolph and Sid Saxon.

So we already had this one to look at. But now young game designers, they have hundreds of people to look at, and they don't have to discover that much by themselves. Yes, yes, I wish I had that stuff when I was starting, and I already had all of you and the whole other generation of game designers to lean on when I was getting started. So what advice while we're on the topic, what advice would you give to aspiring game designers, people who have that passion and love games and want to get started in design, other than

following this process, which is, I think, absolute gold. What other things might you say? One of the challenges I hear a lot is that, yes, there's a lot of information on design, but it's also so crowded. It's very hard to get started or intimidating to get discovered or get involved in the industry. What would advice would you give to them? Well, I think the first advice is to keep a day job. Sure.

No, but it's also important because, you know, I think it's like with literature. I have a few friends who are writing novels and a few friends who are designing games. And I think we face the same problems is that when it really becomes our own. job, we have to do it, and we want to do it in the way that sells, that we find a publisher, etc, et cetera. And in a way, it can help because it can direct us in the right direction and avoid to lose time, et cetera, et cetera, but it's also constraining. And for me, there was a period, I think, where it, the time when it was the most difficult for me to design games was when it started to be really my main job. Because when it wasn't, okay, I was designing

gamers on the side and if it worked, if it sold, made some money, okay, that was good. And if not, it's not important, I have a day job. Now, if my new games don't sell, it's not important. It's not important because the old games are enough. So I'm back more or less to the same situation. But in between, there was a time where I was thinking that, okay, I have to sign three or four game to publishers every year. And in a way, it was making, working on them more difficult. Yeah.

You know, always trying to think what will please. them and not, et cetera, et cetera. So my advice to aspiring game designer, not necessarily young, you can aspire to do it even when you're old. I'm trying to start writing now at 60, so why not starting designing games when you're old? So my advice to aspiring game designer is trying not to take it too seriously, trying to be right about it. Not to be, you know, because when you start to say, okay, I have to do it, I have to do it,

and you are looking at your sheet of paper, your computer screen thing, I have to find something, I have to find something. It's the best way not to find anything. So try to take it very, very rightly. and the best way to do this is to be sure that you get some money from something else. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting.

I think that's my instinct is that's very much coming on to individual psychology of people, right? I think there are some people for whom I do agree that you shouldn't quit your day job before you've got sufficient income already coming in from games. So I support that. You know, you want to play smart. I mean, I quit law school to become a game designer, but that was because I had a job offer at a company to design games, right? So I knew I was going to have a salary. So I took a risk, but I also had an income.

And then I'm still part-time teacher. Yeah, yeah. I never completely quit. That's amazing. I still teach 10 hours a week. Oh, that's wonderful. So, and you mentioned, I think I heard you just say, you're you're starting. writing as a profession as well?

Yeah, I'm writing a very, you know, I went back to my old PhD and I tried to update it and make something much, much lighter and mainstream out of it. So I love when there's, you know, a lot of people who are kind of polymast, right, who are interested in a variety of different, a variety of different fields and how that influences design. James Ernest comes to mind to someone who has such an incredible background with so many different things that have then informed his design. How would you say your, your PhD, as a historian and economist and sociologists and all that and teaching? How has that informed if it has at all your game design and sort of cross-pollinated there? I don't know because

I tend to think that I cannot see exactly. exactly where it informed it. Because my games are not about economics. They are not about history. I even didn't, you know, there are games about unicorns, but I didn't make one. So I'm supposed to be the word specialist on unicorns. And so I don't think it informed them directly,

but the fact that the fact, fact that I am a great reader, I read a lot of novels. The fact that I'm much interested in foreign languages, even when I'm not always that good at them. The fact that I'm not bad at Matt, even when I never really studied it. I think the fact that all this comes together. I think also a problem with games,

that games which are pure mat are boring. And games which are made by people who don't know anything about Matt are broken. So it has to be something in between. It has to be a bit of it, but not too much. That's great. That is great. You're 100% right. And I think maybe that what makes me a relatively good game designer is that I have, you know,

it's kind of you said kind of a polymath something different approaches half literary half scientific and well in trying it helps me make things relatively consistent and not completely straightforward yeah no I think that's I think that's great I love that games that are all math are boring games that are no math are broken is I'm going to definitely use that that line So I learned about this as I was researching and preparing actually for this podcast, but maybe a lot of people don't know. You kind of drop the line that you are supposed to be the foremost world expert on unicorns. Can you explain a little bit to our audience what you mean by that and why you're such an expert in unicorns?

Well, I wrote my PhD about how people mostly physically. and scientists in the 16th and 17th century found out that after all there were no unicorns. So, well, and I wrote 600 pages about unicorns. And this meant that to write this, I had to move back to what people were stopped thinking about unicorns in the Renaissance, and so move back to the medieval bestiaries, et cetera, et cetera. and so I've studied, you know, I think I've read everything about unicorns. I have a few hundreds of books, including stuff in Latin and everything. So I'm the specialist.

But you've never made a unicorn game, not once. You've been designing games for like 40 years and you're the number one expert on unicorns And you never thought, maybe people would like a unicorn game. That is surprising to me. Okay, well, maybe that's a topic we can dive into because one of the things I want to talk about is your collaboration experience. So let's jump to that then. You are pretty well known for having a lot of collaborative designs

and partnering up with other well-known designers who are not in the same location as you. and working remotely. And this has been going on for, you know, nowadays, working remotely is, you know, everybody is, right? It's cliche. But you were the OG of working remotely. And potentially working with people who are, you know,

when you're working with other great designers who maybe they have egos or, you know, you're only able to kind of parse and communicate, you know, sporadically. I'd love to learn a little bit about what about that process. How does that work for you? What draws you to that kind of collaborative design? and maybe we can kind of riff on that for a little while. Well, I think it works for me because, you know,

the paradox about board game design is that board games are social activity. And many board game designers are solitary guys who are working, you know, just by themselves. And it's a solitary work, unless, unlike, you know, video games, for example, which are always work of a team or almost always. And I'm also a solitary guy, but I'm also a bit crazy, and I'm often, often I feel blocked with something.

And I think the point in collaborative design with board gaming is when I'm stuck somewhere, I don't know what to do with this. I know there is an idea somewhere, but I don't know exactly what to do with it. I say, okay, who can be the right guy to do this with? Who can have the idea to unblock this? And on the other hand,

I think now that almost everybody in the board game business knows that I'm doing that kind of collaboration, and with lots of different people, I also got offers to do this. And people who know that I work more as that way. So I very often have offers from friends, sometimes from people I've never heard about, who tell me, okay, I want to do this kind of game,

this game, I have this idea. I don't really know what to do with it, or I'm locked here. And if it looks interesting, I say, okay, I answer, and let's try to make. make something together. But what made collaborative board game design

for me relatively easy, even you know, 20, 30 years ago when there was always no internet and no video and all that stuff is that very often, in fact, it's not really completely collaborative design, which means that, of course,

there can be meetings, But very often it's not working together. It's working one after the other. One is doing something more respirators. It doesn't worry. I don't know what to do with this. Then sending the stuff, sending the file to the other one, then kind of a relay, you know, one and then the other and then the other.

And always taking back where the other designers is blocked. Yeah. And it's a way also to go fast when designing board games, you know, with, you know, one idea, the other, and jumping back and forth. So it's more back and forth and really together. Yeah, kind of a relay race, if you will, of passing off the baton. That's fascinating. And do you usually have, so one of the great things you already mentioned is you write down your rules and you're very clear in that communication. helps with a handoff. Do you, typically when you hand off, you mentioned you'd say,

okay, I've got this to here, I'm not happy with this, I don't know what to do here, and then you'll hand it off to the other person. Are there usually like deadlines or expectations around, okay, you know, you'll have a month and then hand it off again, or is it pretty loose? No, it's very loose. There's no, really no rule. And it's also easy because I say that I write to right rules, you know, every publisher will tell me that even when they don't, publish my games, even when they don't think that my games are the best ones, they are always ready to look at them because they know that I write good and clear roles. They just have to read the rules and they understand it.

I don't know why, but it happens that I'm good at writing roles. Probably much better than at designing games, but it helps designing games a lot. And the fact that I'm good at writing rules, it also makes me good at collaborating, I can send the rules to the other, and he immediately sees the point, see where there is a brokerage, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So rules are, I almost, I'm tempted to kind of divert into that

because that is an area where so many people fall down. I mean, so many games have the worst written rules. It's so trouble. Even the published versions of games are just so hard to get through. And you know that you're lucky because you're reading rules in English. Yes. And writing rules in English is so much easier than in French. Really?

And so English rules are so much better than French ones. Interesting. What is it about the language that makes it harder? I think the two languages worked a bit differently. And English is shorter, is more direct. I guess ambiguity is it's considered, it's not considered as improper as in French to repeat the same words over and over, which is very useful in rules. Yes. You know, lots of small grammar systems which I think make English a better language to write rules, really.

Yeah. So let's talk then maybe about a couple of principles that would work for people that are trying to. trying to write their own rules. So I think there's two I've heard from you already, right? One is start early, right? Write the rules at the beginning, write them down and make sure that they, ideally you can fit them on a page, right? And again, in the final rule book, there'll be more, but, you know, the quick bullet points and getting the information out there early, fit it on a page. You've also mentioned that it's useful sometimes to repeat important information multiple times so that people can get it. Not that much, you know, most important is to, if it's very short,

you don't have to repeat. Right. When I talk about repeating, just, you know, repeating words. In French, you must not repeat the same word twice in a sentence. It's not correct. It's bad French. Huh. Even if the word is prayer, it's token, it's money, you must not use the same word twice in the same sentence.

And it makes complicated to write words. In English, it's not a problem. You don't care. Okay, all right, well, so let's assume that people are writing in English, because that's, you know, most of my audience that's listening to this, I'm going to guess it's in English. Actually, I write, you know, for all you foreign languages out there, I write my rules in English because it's easier.

What would you say makes a good rule book or what would help someone to write a good book? I think things will be very direct. clearly organized organization is not always the same it can depend on the game but you must have you know part you know this part about you know turn order this part about what happens

during the player's turn and this part about you know the scoring and everything must be you know very clearly organized and short sentence which says the thing's directory if you make burns, let them a bitter side,

so it's clear that they are not really in the game or they must help the game. Also, you know, the setting of a game can be a way to help explaining the rules. Sometimes you choose the setting because, you know, there are concepts, there are concepts which fit with the game. You know, that's a game about where you take care

from your opponent, so it will be something where you can steal and you use the word steel, et cetera, et cetera. So try to have a vocabulary which makes things simple and direct. You know, when writing rules, for example, I often use different corals, one coral for what happened at the end of the game,

one coral for what happens during a player's turn, one coroll for the setup, you know. This kind of thing. Things must be very, very clear. I actually put very few examples in my rules, even when I know there will be examples in the final rules, because except in very specific situation where you need an example to make things clear,

I think that if things are clear enough, they don't need an example. If they need an example, it's that they are too complex. I always try to explain things in general, or Azur Wu, not with example. That's fascinating. Afterwards. Yeah, I like, I like, I mean, obviously, you know, clear organization, short sentences,

be very clear to the point. And I love that. I mean, I do think examples are very helpful, but the idea of if you need one, that means you're too complicated, you need to go back and refresh. I like that a lot. Even if it's not a hard and fast rule, as a forcing function to make you make your rule simpler,

I really like that. I like that principle. Okay. I'm going to need to start talking about Citadel's because I don't know how long that will take me because it is like one of my favorite games of all time. I have played, I don't know how many hours with my friends. It is incredible and I want to dig in. And I'm also going to spend some time picking apart some things because I think it's the thing I can deep dive on the most and I've always wanted to ask you about. So talk to me a little bit about the origin and inspiration.

for Citadel's and how that kind of game came to life. Okay. I think Citadles came in part from the idea that I wanted to make something about city building. I like the idea of city building, of cars representing buildings. And I was toying with this in my head for a few weeks or months. I don't remember exactly. and then I played a small game which has been largely forgotten now which was Ferretter, the traitor by...

Ferretter? Ferretter. Okay. It's a German. Yeah. And it's a game by Andre Casas... Marcel Andre Casasola Merkel. And it was a strict only four-player game.

And there was in this game, character selection system which is more or less the one in Citadel. Not exactly, but you know, there was this idea of, you know, I think one card more than player and gouting around and one of the player was a trade game because it was a team game

and one of the players can trade or which is more or less what made, gave the idea of the assassin in Citadales. He was able to move from one team to the other. And I took this character selection system from this game.

because I thought, oh, it really fits well with everything else I had in my head, but I didn't know exactly how to choose these characters and use these different worlds. Because the abilities of the characters in Citadex, it's more as it also comes from the aliens in cosmic encounter, except that they are changing all the time, which was something new at this time. Now, there are lots of games with characters who are changing. you don't have always the same one, but it was new at this time. And so it was a mix between my idea of making a city-building game with, you know, the card in front of you who are becoming your cities,

using strong character effects similar to the aliens in cosmic encounter, and selecting this every round with this selection system from Ferretter. And so I mixed all this and it happened to work quite well quite soon. And also a fun idea because, you know, also at this time we were talking about collaboration. We had a discussion, I think, by phone,

with Serge Rage. And we decided more or less to start working on this, you know, card game about city building together. And then we spent, oh, maybe something or one month on his side, one month on mine. And we ended up with two completely different games. Mine was Citadel's. And his game was not completely finished. In fact, I took it over with him. and it became Castle.

Huh. But they both started from the same idea, and at the beginning, we were thinking that we were designing one game, but it ended with two completely different ones. And it's... So that's why I'm glad that's... Castle is coming back next year,

and I'm glad because it's kind of the twin brother of Citadel's. Yeah, I love those kinds of stories where, you know, you kind of start, you're working on the same project, and then the divergence creates two, you know, different but great games. I think about San Juan and Race for the Galaxy as to these kinds of tablood building card games that were worked on together and then became just so, so divergent in what they ended up being. And I love both, you know, they're really, they both bring a lot of interesting things to the table. So Citadel's, I want to dig into this, this, the core kind of player,

selection mechanic, which is, you know, the draft, the player draft, right? That to me is, you know, as, you know, you sort of, I didn't know its origin story from the other game, but that's sort of the heart of what's going on in there. And that what the, I've spent a lot of time drafting. I mean, in many ways, Ascension for me was a combination of the deck building of dominion and the drafting from magic, you know, where you're selecting cards from a changing row of things. So similarly sort of inspired. And, uh, and I've worked on a lot of games in this space. and I have a game called Dungeon Draft where all you're doing is drafting every turn.

And so I want to talk a little bit about what makes drafting games good. What about it? And I think there's several brilliant things that were done in Citadel's and interesting interactions there. So I'll start off a little open-ended for you and then I'm going to prod with some specifics

that I think that hopefully come up in the discussion. So what do you think when you're trying to make a character selection game or drafting game, what makes those good? What kinds of principles do you? use when you're working on projects like that? You know, I think a really nice thing with drafting games,

be it character or other types of cards, is that they are a game which balances themselves. You don't have to make a balanced game. Because, you know, if there is a better card, okay, it will be taken more often. In Citadel's, characters don't have to be balanced. first because it's not always the same player who chooses first.

And also because if a character is, if people think that a character is better, if it will be killed or stolen from more often than the other, and the whole system is self-balancing. Right. Well, very specifically, it's not just that drafting is balanced on its own, but you put in characters like the assassin and the thief, right?

I think Senadels doesn't work without the assassin and thief, at least. You have to have that ability to say, okay, I think this is the best character. that means that person's going to pick it. That means I need to kill them. And now they went from best to worst instantaneously. And that's so powerful.

The whole game hinges on it. So it becomes a very... I've used something, in fact, very similar in a small card game. Mechanically, it's completely different, but there is the same idea in a small card game which just came out, which I don't know if you've seen it, which is vintage. And vintage, it's a set correction game. But some cards are much better than other.

But the problem is if you want to put a card in your correction, you first have to put it face up in front of you. On your turn, you put a card face up in front of you. You steal a face-up card from another player. Now, first you score a card from the card in front of you. Then you steal a card from another player, and then you put a face-up card in front of you. So the problem is that you cannot directly score your cards.

You have to put them in front of you, and then the other player all have the possibility to steal them before you score. And so you don't want to play weak cards because it means that you will only score weak cards, but you know that if you play two good cards, they will be stolen. So you have to... And it's the same kind of system than in Citadel's where... okay, this is the one I must choose,

but it's so obvious that I will be killed. And it's, in a completely different setting and system, there is the same idea that something preventing you from making what is really good and obvious and powerful. Yes, that's wonderful. And actually, this principle applies so broadly to all games. Even as I'm making, I've been working on the, with Richard Garfield on the new version of SoulForge,

we're doing a SoulForge Fusion card game. One of the things that everybody gets these sort of unique algorithmically printed half decks that you then get to play together. And one of the things about it is, you can end up with things that are definitely not balanced, right? That there are, you know, because of the way that the algorithms are working,

some decks are going to be better than others. So we're seeding a lot of what I call silver bullets into the file, where if I know that a certain type of card or a certain deck combination is too good, then I can play with certain other ones that are going to be very targeted to destroy that particular strategy. And so even in a large card pool kind of game, you can still build in tools that let players do the balancing for you, right? That let them attack stuff that gets out a lot. You know, you do your best to balance things, but in reality, you know you're going to miss and you want to miss to some degree.

You want there to be different power levels because that's fun in the process of discovery and the excitement of, oh, my God, I got the super powerful card. And so giving players the ability to balance your game for you. And many ways that show is a wonderful sort of trick and frame to be thinking about as you're making your game. And it creates that fun, beautiful psychological tension that's so present in Citadel's. And I hadn't heard of vintage. I'm definitely picking it up now because that sounds perfect for my playgroup. And I really enjoy that. So that's fantastic.

So another principle of drafting games that I'll prompt you, with because I think another thing, it's a thing that Citadel's does very well also is, you know, over time, you need to create building differential incentives for the different drafting cards, right? So in Citadel's, the buildings that you have have different colors. Many of the cards that you draft have references for those colors. So I know that a card is going to be better for me if I have a bunch of green cards in play versus as red cards, and thus I know you know that. And so that differential power level per player,

that card means a lot more to me than it does to you, I think is also really critical for drafting games to become interesting and excitement. Maybe you can speak a little bit about that or other ways that you think about making sure that the players will value things differently to make interesting tradeoffs, or do I defensively take a card away from you because I know it's so good for you, or do I try to take the card that's best for me? Maybe you can speak a little bit about that.

I think that it's true that it's one of the things that makes Citadel's work because there is not one move that is good. You know, when you are playing chess, you know that both players am always aiming at the same thing at the beginning. They are in the same position. And later in the game, in his position, he must play this way. In my position, I both play this way. And in Citadel, it's even stronger.

it's really that, you know, depending on the cards you have, depending on what's happening with you, okay, he will probably, I should do this for me, but I should do this against him. I think he should, he will do this, et cetera, et cetera. I will once more talk about one of my upcoming games. You're a good marketer as well as a game designer.

I respect that very much. Go on. I have a game going out with, I think, at the end of the year, with Portal. The game will be dreadful circus. And there is an auction system in this game, which I look a lot, which I like a lot, and which is very the same idea that, depending on the card in front of the players, you more or less know who wants what and what is good for which player. And then it's an auction game, which means that on your turn,

you auction a card that can be bought by the other players. And you know that it's more valuable for him than for him, et cetera, et cetera. But it's not an open auction. You are making secret offers that you look, you choose the order in which you look at these offers. But when you decline an offer, you cannot come back to it. Ah, I love it. So maybe some card is really good for you.

but you say, okay, he will look at my offer last. I will make a very small offer because we will first look at the other and then it comes to mine, okay, you get it. Or maybe we look at me first and I have to make a better offer, et cetera, et cetera. And so the really exquisiteing moment for the player is, okay, do I look at this offer or this one first?

because I know that the two players are in completely different situation. He really wants it. He doesn't really want it. And you can also play with different kind of stuff, not just with money. So offers can be a bit complex. And all right. So it all comes from this difference of situation.

But there was this in always come back to cosmic encounter because it was really my favorite game as a real. nature. And there was this in cosmic encounter, because depending on the alien you are playing, you are playing in a completely different way. You want to do this, he wants to do this, he wants to do this, and so you have to play your game

and against the games of other players, which are not the same. Yeah. Yeah, so there's a couple of threads I want to pull out of this because this is great stuff. So tell me the name of the game again. I want to make sure because I didn't hear it. dreadful circus.

Dreadful circus. Okay, I love it. I think it will be out by the end of the year. Okay, great. Yeah. So the, one, the fact that you keep coming back to cosmic encounter, right? One of the things that I've seen, I've noticed from designers is that there tends to be, Richard Garfield called it the radioactive spider bite, right?

The thing that gets you to become a game designer, the thing that you like love and that inspires you, that then largely informs every design you've ever done. So for Richard, it was Dungeons and Dragons. For you, it sounds like cosmic encounter. For me, it was magic the gathering, right? These things that, like, there's something that just unlocks. And you're like, okay, there's a core, there's a heart of this that I want to, like, build upon and create a world around.

I think that's always fascinating. It's good to be conscious of what's, what's driving you there. And then I also, you mentioned the word excruciating in your description. And I think that's a great word because a lot of people, you know, games are fun. But the reason why games are fun in many cases is because there's this core tension, right? There's a thing. And I actually notice this theme now, the more I think about it, from your games are particularly excruciating. I have a – and so maybe we could talk a little bit about player pain and those agonizing choices,

because they are so the heart, giving people that tension and that I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm not sure what to do. And then the release of that tension by revealing either it worked or it didn't or. the game resolved in some way, is really at the heart of design in many ways. So maybe you could speak about how you build that excruciation, that excretiating moment in your games. Well, I don't know. You know, I think it's, you know, the etymology of excruciating.

It's putting a martyr on the cross. Ah, really? Really. I think, and you know, and Martyrs in a way, they liked it, and they wanted it. Right, right, that's true. That makes sense. And I think, yeah, but I try to build in my games, indeed moments where a player has to think of what he will do.

and when thinking on what he must do, must think of what all the other player are thinking about. What's happening in all the other player's mind, and what do they think I am doing? And that's why, you know, it's kind of permanent prisoners dilemma, in fact. Because, you know, you are always thinking about what you are doing and what the other players are thinking, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, that's great. I think that's true in Citadel. When choosing a character, it's always as much about your game as a bit about the other players' games, but mostly about what other players think that you are doing. Yes. Have you seen the movie The Princess Bride? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think about that scene, that scene with the wine. So, like, clearly you cannot choose the wine in front of you, because you are, but you would know that I would know that. So I clearly cannot choose the one in front of me. And so you have infinite regression. In games, you can, I try to do things like this, maybe a bit more complex with more elements so that it's not, and with unbalanced element, because, you know, in Princess Bride,

what makes that it's fun in Princess Bride is that both sides are the same situation. which means that there is no possible answer but if the situation is a bit more complex and something is better, etc, etc. It's like when playing work paper scissors.

Right. The first one is, first round is boring. And then it becomes interesting because you are thinking, okay, he made this, what he will do, what he will do, and because you know that you cannot be really random,

So it's when it becomes interesting. Right. Yeah. And this is advice I give when it comes to not just, so at the design, right, thinking it's great just to underscore what you said, that to think about putting players in a position

where their decision has to hinge on then what other people are thinking and what they're going to think of what I'm thinking and that creating a core tension is just wonderful space. And then when it comes to even the development and balance for a game, like we've talked about earlier, that creating that rock paper, scissors dynamic where if I know what you're going to play, it doesn't matter how powerful it is.

Rock could be more powerful than everything else. But if I know you're going to play it, then I'm going to play paper, and it's not going to matter that your rock was more powerful. And so creating those unbalanced games that still have the kind of rock, paper, scissors, dynamic that players can adapt to the strategy is just wonderful fertile ground for design and clearly something that you've exploited very well. So I'm going to be a little self-indulgent now, if that's okay, because I want to talk about my game.

I've talked about mine. You can talk about yours. So I have a game that's also coming out later this year called Night of the Ninja, and I will tell you that the playtest name for that game was Werewolves in the Citadel. It was my homage to taking the fun of drafting from Citadel's and the character selection with the social deduction game genre. And it was very, so to give the kind of brief overview, players, each round players get split into even teams.

And you only know who you are, but other people don't. And each member of your team has a rank. One is the best rank all the way down to five if you're playing with 10 players. And then you draft your action cards that let you do things in the round, and those go through in a specific order. And then you go through either gathering information, getting to see who's who, or killing players and trying to finish them off before.

And the team with the highest rank surviving member, everyone on that team wins, whether you personally were alive or dead. And so the ability to use this player psychology and this information exchange with the idea of drafting and picking the cards ended up becoming a really, really fun experience because now I don't know,

I might want to take the most powerful cards, which is like the assassin or killing a guy or whatever, but if I know that you have that, then I get to act earlier and kill your guy. And so we created a lot of those same dynamics. So A, I want to thank you for the inspiration. But B, I wanted to talk about something because one of the things that we all try to do when we build on previous designs that we love is we also try to address the challenges. So when I first started working on the game, I did it exactly the way you did, where it was one hand of, you know, however many cards, eight or nine cards.

I'd pick one pass, pick one pass. but there was so much downtime, right? And this is true in Citadel's, but it's a shorter, you know. It's a problem in Citadel's. Yeah. And so I ended up building it so that every player shrunk it down. So every player gets three cards and passes and drafts, and you end up drafting two cards.

So you don't get the same effect of passing around the table, but things move faster. And so I wanted to use that as a jumping off point. So, you know, as one of the challenges in Citadel's, was there a point where you ever thought about changing the way the draft worked and making it so that it didn't have that downtime? or was it just sort of I'm taking this on and I'm going to leverage it for as much as I can?

You know, I think when Citadel was published, which is long ago, downtime was not that much a problem. Players didn't want games to be as fast as they want it now. Now people want their game both very dense and fast. Yes. And I think that in the 90s, it was not the case.

People were there was no problem with playing an hour or an hour and a half in a game with a game like Citadel. So it was not a problem. Maybe it would even have been considered too short with system like the one you suggested. So it was not a problem. And then, you know, the game is out and now it plays that way.

So it makes the, doesn't really make sense to change it. Actually, I think they will put on an extension, an expansion. I don't know when. And among with the rules I've suggested for it, there is two-player rule, which uses more or less the same system as yours,

which means only with two-player was, you know, both players play two characters, but they both start with half of the deck, choose one, pass to the other player. So it's, Oh, that's wonderful. It's something similar. Even if that game doesn't come out that way, I want to try it that way.

I'm going to play. I'm going to bring out my copy and play some players. It sounds great. But actually, I don't think Citadel is a good two-player games, I think. Yeah. The two-player version of Citadels, it didn't sell. I think it's greedy kingdoms. I don't know if you played it.

Yeah. Yeah, I play Gritty Kingdom. It's actually the two-player games. Yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, and that's where it's so funny you talk about it in terms of, like, player expectations and speed. Like, that was one of my big driving forces for Night of the Ninja was to make things as fast as possible.

Like, each round takes five minutes. And then you play multiple rounds in the session to win the game. But it's like that speed and expectation of taking things people love and then just delivering it in a quick punch is something that I think that, yeah, the market really wants right now. And it's fun to play in that space. You know, that's why I think two or three years ago, we changed the rules in Citadels. I don't know if you've noticed. I think it was eight districts and now it's seven. Yeah.

It's just because, okay, now people want their game a bit shorter. And it was the simplest way to make the game a bit shorter. Yeah, that's wonderful. Seven districts, when the game was first published, it would probably have been too short. Right. Yeah, that's really interesting to think about in terms of how the market has changed so much. I saw you wrote an article on your website about how games, you know, how games, you know, sort of older games performing very well.

But then, you know, with the pandemic, maybe new games not getting as much traction. And so it's sort of interesting to see that dynamic of people wanting to go and play the games that they love, but that new games in order to break through have such a higher burden. And they have to be so kind of snappy and quick and get people right away because otherwise they're just going to go back to the kind of games they know and love. Yeah, it's also this that, you know, it was not a problem 20 or 30 years ago to have a game where you have to play two or three or four times to really get the hang of it and then it becomes really good, which in a way is the case with Citadex,

because it's the first play which are very slow when you are looking at all the characters. once you know the game, it can be quite fast. But now publishing a game where you have to play two, three, four times before it becomes fast enough, it doesn't work. It has to be fast enough from the beginning. Yeah, that's actually a great point also when you're sort of talking about drafting games in particular. It's one of the biggest challenges that drafting games have, right?

A game that's asking you to make these choices from a variety of different selections that requires you to kind of understand what the downstream effects are of this first choice and what the pool of cards is like and what are the possible things that could happen. That whole psychological game is just not accessible your first time playing.

And so it's a real dilemma. I'm actually facing this with another game that I'm working on now. It's like a worker placement game, but you have a draft of cards at the beginning. And it makes it a lot of fun, but for new players, I have to just say, don't do that.

Like, just here, here's your cards to start and then play this lazy. That's how terraforming mouse plays. I think the first games, you don't draft because it makes no sense. You don't know the game. And once you've played the game two or three times, you draft. Yeah. So that's one of the things that I think is a good tool for people that want to have those depth of games. But in the modern era, you know, you've got to onboard people more quickly.

so you give them a lighter kind of starting point that lets them understand what's happening and then introduce them slowly to the bigger things. It's one of the things I love about when I work. I mean, most of my work is in tabletop games, but when I do work on digital games, the ability to have a tutorial and actually only give you part of the rules at a time as you move through,

lets you do so much more for players. Have you worked on any digital projects outside of your ports? No, nothing like that. Do you have any interest in something like that? I actually almost never play on computer. and with, you know, very, very right games. But I'm not a very digital guy, in fact. When I'm just myself, I prefer to read novels and to play on the computer.

I play when I am with friends, and so I play board games. Yeah. Well, it's been, it's a wonderful time. You know, once I saw, you know, kind of the iPhone and the iPad and those things come out, I predicted that like tabletop gaming would be dead. Right? I mean, why would people play tabletop games?

They have all of this technology and they can do all these things. And boy, am I glad I was wrong. I mean, boy, am I glad that we also get to hang out and play tabletop games. You know, it has been wonderful to talk with you.

I know we're getting close to the end on time. I want to, what other things would you, would you be interested in sharing maybe with our audience or people that, where they can find you and your games and learn more? You have so many great games that you've already. I've already teased. How do I have people that want to come and find you and find your stuff? Where do they go? What do they do?

Well, that's my website, even when I don't update it as often as I did a few years ago, but I still try to post something from time to time. So if you go on my website, it's fight duty.com, you will see what's happening with my games, my new games coming out. Great. I think I will have many games coming out, probably theoretically next year, if this year,

if everything goes as it's supposed to be, you never know. Right. And I think that's the easiest way. I'm easily accessible on Facebook, but just follow me. Don't ask me as a friend because, you know, there is this 5,000 limit,

and I'm always nearing it and removing people. Yeah, I understand the challenge. I'm also on Twitter, but not that much. I never understood how Instagram works. There's too many platforms. Now they're like, you've got to be on Clubhouse and you got to be on this and that. I'm like, you know what?

That's right. Let me just stick to a couple, Facebook and Twitter, definitely the ones for me as well. So I hear that. So that's great. And it's been awesome. I want to just sort of underscore your website too because, you know, digging through it,

there's a lot of really great articles and talking, you know, you're very direct about what's going on in the industry and your thoughts on different mechanics and things that are going on. I think it's wonderful that you share that stuff. So I do encourage people to check that out. And I got to be honest, I, you know, I'm really, I love your games and your game design philosophy so much. It has brought me so many hours of joy over my life. I can't even count.

and now is inspiring even games that I'm working on to this very day. So I want to thank you for that and thank you for being here for this podcast. I thank you for receiving me. It was very nice. Sure. And so maybe we can find a way to collaborate together at some point and have you back on to talk about a new project. You know how to do it. You have worked with something.

Just email me and I will tell you if I'm excited by it or not. Great. I'm definitely taking you up on that offer. All right, Bruno. Thank you so much. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening.

I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platform, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listen to reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews along with my 20 years of experience. experience in the game industry and compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast, Think Like a Game Designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at think like a game designer.com or wherever find books are sold.