Think Like A Game Designer - Satine Phoenix — Mastering the Art of Storytelling, Building Gaming Communities, The Power of Streaming in Game Design, and The Journey from Passion to Profession in the World of Role-Playing (#14)

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

Satine Phoenix is the first non-game designer on our podcast, but she is an icon in the gaming industry. Satine is a professional Dungeon Master and storytelling coach who supports people in regards to writing games, RPG adventures, screenplays, and novels. What’s even wilder is that she travels the world playing role-playing games and bringing gaming communities together. I can’t wait to dig into this episode. 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. In today's episode, I speak with Satine Phoenix. Satine is actually the first non-game designer that I've had on the podcast, and it's a trend that I'm hoping to expand on in the future because I think we have a lot to learn from Satin and tons of other people throughout the industry. Satin has a lot of experience in the gaming industry, both as a professional dungeon master and storytelling coach, as a former community manager for Dungeons and Dragons,

as well as a popular online streamer, influencer, and an incredibly vibrant personality. You're going to see this come through in our podcast. Honestly, this is probably the most fun that I've actually had doing one of these interviews. Her energy is super infectious, and I get pretty excited throughout the conversation, as she clearly is. So it's really a lot of fun. And there's a lot of great lessons in here. Satin really drives home the importance of a sense of belonging and community and being able to provide a model for people that can join into the gaming community, into role-playing and into our world more generally. She clearly has a passion for charity and talks about her Celebrity Charity D20 program. And we deep dive into psychology quite a

a bit. We talk about nonviolent communication and how communication strategies can help you be a better storyteller and thus where games can bring out the principles of stories. We talk about how we can use role-playing to create more of a ecosystem and a full-blown story for games beyond just the individual experience itself when streaming for audiences globally crafting systems that can really help build those communities together. And we talk about how she got into the industry and how, you know, once again reinforcing the importance of doing things that you're passionate about and finding that community and adding value to the community long before you figure out how you're going to get paid for it. So this is a really fun conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. So without further ado,

I give you Satine Phoenix. Hello and welcome. I am here with Satine Phoenix. Satin, it's great to have you here. Thanks, man. It's good to be here. You know, I, so I've been wanting to do this podcast ever since we met at San Diego Comic-Con. We were on that state of the tabletop industry panel. And I love, well, first of all, I love your energy and enthusiasm is infectious. It was like the highlight of the panel for me. And you provide a perspective that's very different than a lot of the things that I, a lot of the ones I get on this podcast.

You're actually the first non-game designer that I've had on the show, but you are so immersed in the gaming world and you have such a unique perspective on it. I really wanted to share it with my audience. And I just wanted to deep dive myself and learn more about you. So if you don't mind, you know, maybe start with describing, you know, what you do or how you, what you see your role as in the industry. And then we'll dig into a little bit about how you got here. Sure. So currently, I'm a storytelling consultant and a storytelling coach. I coach people from game design for their Dungeons and Dragons games all the way to their comics or screenwriting.

So really I'm a storyteller, and I embrace welcoming all the storytellers across the globe into the storytelling world. And also I'm a professional dungeon master. I dungeon master about seven games a month minimum, not including people flying me to their events to run games like VIP games for private events, birthday parties, conventions.

But also I try. travel the world bringing the community for gaming communities together in different countries. So I go to a location, like I went on a European tour last year, did Milan, Barcelona, Paris, London, and basically provide an experience so that people in that community know that there is a place for them. And then I let them go and meet each other and start that conversation. So yeah, I don't know what I do. I'm just professional. professionally Satin Phoenix. Yeah.

Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, and I actually, there's so many things I want to dig into there, and we will through the course of the conversation. But one of the things I like to highlight for our audience is, most of the people that listen to this podcast are, you know, they love games, they want to be in the industry, but they don't necessarily know how to get there or they don't know where their place is. And I love that, you know, you've a professional, you know, storyteller and storytelling coach

and Dungeon Master, like, who knew that was even a possibility? 10 years ago, I'm not sure if it was, but that you can find something that's unique to you and your strengths and the things that you can bring and add value to the community and is pretty amazing. And I think that other people can see like, oh, I love dungeon mastering. I love telling stories. Maybe that's something I could do. So I really like, you know, being able to highlight that. And now I've got to ask, how did you get into this? Well, I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for 32 years.

And actually, I'm... 32 years. I'm a comic book artist. I went to art school and I'm an illustrator and I did some stop motion, some sculpting, and I just a storyteller artistically. So about 12 years ago, my friends and I had a web series at Dungeons and Dragons web series. And it was really fun. And that moved on to me running the D&D community at Meltdown Comics called D&D Melt.

And I did that twice a week for years, like six or seven years. And was that was that was that how did you how did you get to that to that was that a paid job? Was it a volunteer thing? I put so much money into that hobby. Yeah. Yeah. Because I would do like pancake breakfast. I just really love bringing people together.

And that was cool because, you know, 10 years ago, it was not a woman's world. It was not an equal world. Back then it was a man's world. And because we had this all girl, most all girl web series, they, we did a bunch of articles. It was in Maxim. It was in time. It was in I-09. And they were like, Meltdown was like, hey, you're cool. You want to do this with us? And I'm like, sure. So people would pay to play like five bucks. And we had multiple tables. And it was just a really nice community. But what I found out was there were a lot of people in the entertainment industry who game together or people that wanted to but didn't know where to go. So about 12 years ago, 13 years ago, I saw. was in Australia and I wanted to make new friends. I didn't know anybody. So my ex and I went on meetup.com and we were like, oh, cool, Dungeons and Dragons. And then when I came back to America, I started the LA Tabletop gamers meetup group. Now we've got almost 2,000 people, if not more,

I don't know. It's kind of taken a life of its own over the last however many years. And what was really cool was women came out and were like, thank you for providing a space for us. And I didn't realize what representation really was. And all these professionals that are like, I'm a professional in the 3D animation world or I'm a compositor or I'm a video editor. And I really just want to play on the weekends or on Thursday nights or whatever. So I provided that space and people were finally accepted for the hobbies that they loved that were they were ridiculed for back in the 2000s or the 90s. or even the 80s. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's been one of the most wonderful things that, honestly, I mean, I could have never predicted. I mean, I grew up, you know, nerdy gamer from, you know, the moment I could start rolling dice. And I never realized that now it would be this sort of mainstream, acceptable thing. And it's been awesome to see that community grow and in so many different ways. And you're really a beacon for building that great community. And I always like to underscore sort of universal principles here.

that people can apply for themselves. And this is there exactly the things that you did that I found in a lot of the designers who became successful, you build communities, you add value to those communities, you find your tribe, and then over time, you don't necessarily know that it's going to be a career or exactly where you're going to make money or where it's going to go. But if you just find, you know, like-minded people, add value, provide opportunities for them to connect. In a thing you're passionate about, it's amazing how many doors open to you.

Yeah, I mean, think about it. Ten years ago, I started something called Celebrity. Celebrity Charity 20. And it's a charity where celebrities play Dungeons and Dragons to raise money for a childhood literacy foundation called Reach Out and Read. And the reason why I did that was because I grew up in the Masonic fraternity family, the Freemason family. So I have been doing charity since I was 11 years old. And of course, in your 20s, you kind of move on and do other things. But I'm like, 30 years old, I really missed what is missing out of my life. Charity. So I love Dungeons and Dragons. I love charity and I was like, okay, we have all these celebrities. How do we reach the most people?

I have this crazy idea. Why don't? We put, we record these sessions and then we put it on a web page and stream it live. And it was this wacky idea. And we had four tables in the same back room and we had really bad webcams. And we had no idea what bandwidth was back then because it wasn't something that we needed to know. And it was the silliest. most chaotic thing I've ever done. And it turned out terribly. We raised $500, which was awesome at that time because we didn't know what we were doing. And then over, so I did that annually. And over, you know, the next year we did it again, tried to refine it. The next year became like one game after another after another. I started it with Keith Baker because I love Eberon. And yeah, no,

I'm actually going to be having a conversation with him later. It'll be on the next podcast. Yay. Oh, he's amazing. Yeah. So we. started this crazy idea, which was live streaming back in 2010. And at the same time, I believe Justin TV was out of Meltdown Comics as well. And Nerdist was out of Meltdown Comics. It was kind of this really interesting hub of creativity and, you know, experimenting. And then, you know, a few years later, Geek and Sundry started with a critical role. And now you've got all these people who are doing podcasts or doing now live streaming. And it's really astounding. And there's no way, no way we could have ever expected it to be the way it is now. Yeah, so two threats here.

One, if people want to follow, contribute, or, you know, see the next version of the charity that you're doing, how would they find that? Celebritycharity.com. The hashtag is CCD20 on the socials. Okay. Awesome. I love promoting things like that. That's amazing. The other thread I want to pick up on here is, you know, you talked about streaming, and that the online community has become this incredibly powerful force that honestly did exactly the opposite of what I thought technology would do. I thought when you started to have smartphones and tablets and constant streaming, that tabletop gaming was going to die or become just a small little nerdy thing, right? Because why would I do that?

I could always be playing online and connecting with people online. And in fact, the opposite effect has been like, no, no, no. and now I can stream my game across the world and I can connect with people and really have this better experience. What do you think it is about streaming and specifically with the games that you play or gaming in general that ties them together and makes that such a powerful thing? Well, you have to think about what gaming or Dungeons and Dragons or role playing games are. It is another medium for storytelling. It's just another thing. We write books.

We play games, but it's all based on storytelling. So when you live stream something or you podcast something, it suddenly becomes accessible. Podcasts are fun to listen to, but it lacks that visual representation. Suddenly, you have, like, I have a show called Sirens, and it started on the D&D Network, and now I'm doing other really awesome things with it. But it's a bunch of girls who are bards and their ally, Jason Charles Miller, and they are a band of bards. and they are women and men of all different ethnicities.

And what was really cool is that suddenly people came out and are like, I'm Filipino and I want to play Dungeons and Dragons and you're Filipino and you play and that's amazing or whatever they identify with. Having people that people can identify with that are public about their hobbies that maybe they were shunned about is just the most powerful thing I've ever seen in the world. It is so beautiful. People write from Singapore, from China, from Russia. I'm dubbed.

I do a series called GM Tips on Geek and Sundry, and they dubbed it in Russian. Like, it's so amazing to me. That is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So I think accessibility has transformed things. People who've been playing for decades like I have suddenly are able to see other ways that people are playing these games.

And it's like, oh, I had no idea. I could do that. And you've got forums. You've got like D&D Beyond. You have things like Role 20 where there's different platforms now. So a lot of my games have people from all over the world playing. So we've got a woman from Poland. There's a woman in Perth and all the different time zones. And we use Role 20 so they can visually see the maps, their characters, and we do it over Zoom. Like it's really fascinating. You can do it for hours or you can do it for I'm streamlining games now down to 45 minutes. Like it's the range of possibilities are amazing and now you can see it.

You can listen to it. You can absorb it and you can and it just evolves, you know, because so many people are doing it in so many different ways. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I think so my designer brain is turning on here and I want to see when I'm trying to build games or people in our audience are trying to build games for streaming or that can take advantage. of these unique opportunities on streaming, what kinds of things do you think

really make a game more appropriate or less appropriate for streaming? Or how can we thinking about how it's going in the future? Like one thing I want to, as a thread there, is, you know, you mentioned, well, I can play for hours, which that's what I remember is, you know, I used to play a lot more D&D than I knew now, but it was always, you know, we'd play for hours and hours every week.

And, you know, now people's attention spans are much shorter. So those kinds of bite-sized experiences that are maybe 45 minutes to an hour seem like they might be compelling and easier to watch. It's like people watching, you know, television instead of watching an episode of television, I'm going to watch cool people playing a game and community storytelling. Yeah, I'm not a game designer, but I design games all the time. And what I like to think about is it's a product. So everything I do is a product of some sort. I'm doing a three-hour game. What am I trying to sell to the audience? I'm a selling a you're at the table with me experience.

sometimes I know that the audience requires a one-hour game because of what I'm trying to sell them. So I have to actually design the game to not just the audience, but also to the players so that they can be as fast and responsive as I am. So I do a lot of, it's a lot to think about. It's a lot to think about. I actually, yeah, well, no, I think this is a great thing too because, you know, yeah, I really like the way you said it. It's like, I'm not a game designer, but I do design games. I think everybody that's a GM that is building campaigns, that's building experiences, is designing a game.

You're designing experience, whether it's for your players at the table, for an audience that's watching you play, you're trying to craft those emotional experiences for that audience. And that's exactly what a game designer does. You know, there's maybe some different tools here and there. But I think, you know, when you're thinking about those sorts of things, like maybe there's other things besides length of play. Let's say if you were trying to, you know you're going to be streaming and it's going to be broadcast live and it's going to actually be on television, a bunch of people who've never seen gaming before. It's after the Super Bowl. You guys are now it's going to be instead of the mass singer, it's the mass D&D players. And you and what would you think about?

All right, good. Yeah. So just just to give some context. Like if there was a, what would you start thinking about? what kind of game would you think about creating? What first comes to mind when I present that concept for? I'm an emotional DM, and I'm also a writer. So what I'm trying, my first object is to figure out what I want everyone to feel.

Do I want you to experience a comedy? Do I want you to experience a horror film? And then I kind of design it based on that. I do a lot of one-hour convention games. So we're in a theater and we're playing this. And I know that the audience is going to need to have some time to clap and respond. And so I'm going to need to pace things a little differently. And I know that there's going to be a delay because of the people around me.

So I am not just designing the game experience. So it's like there's these general roles for Dungeons and Dragons. but every output requires a very specific set of alterations. So if I'm doing a theater game, I have to edit the way things run. The games have less rules. It's more about role playing. If I'm doing a mini-series, I have to stick to a time frame. So it's like, okay, everything's done.

Actually, that's kind of how I design my games. It's mostly on a script, kind of like the way I do my comic books, except for it's a scripted timeline. So I kind of let people roleplay and then I kind of add in things and music. It's really strange to say it out loud actually. It sounds cool. I mean, I think a lot of people don't appreciate how much goes into it. I mean, you really are.

You're writing a movie script that has to be reactive to what your actors are doing and change plot along the way in various ways. That's like no small piece. So the two things that I've been studying in order to, I guess to say manipulate my players and the audience because you're you are the game master is playing to multiple things you know that things are going to need to be edited down for clips for marketing the audience is going to have a very short attention span you're going to need to be able to have the it has to feed multiple animals at the same time so I've been studying a lot of

psychology, how to communicate, how to get what I need out of different players, how to be observant, how to listen. And also how to... Do you have any specific tips that come to mind, things that stuck with you? There's a book called Nonviolent Communication, and it is the best. I love that book. I love that book. It teaches you how to listen.

And the other thing that I've been really, really careful of is people being able to twist the things that we say into the negative. So I try to keep things positive because my brand is very compassionate and positivity and I don't want things to kind of get worse. I don't try to be very specific with what I say and when I put out into the universe. And to do that over a three-hour session or a two-hour session or a 45-minute session is very, very specific. So I've been studying shame and shame avoidance.

and I'm kind of a psychology hobbyist, but it really helps as a game master and to understand what compassion really means because all these people who are, when you're live streaming, you're playing a game where people are at their most vulnerable because not only are they playing the game, their postures up,

they have to make sure they know blocking. There is so much that goes into live streaming that people do not realize. The session zero that I do before we do our streams is like 10 minutes long. You know, like everyone make eye contact, keep your elbows off the table, keep your posture up, don't talk over each other, all these little tiny things that nobody sees so that it's crafted. I also did a lot of stage theater in high school, so that helps. But that's just one of the thing, like psychology is one of the things that I've been studying

to become a better dungeon master. The other thing I'm trying to learn is game experience via VR. So I'm kind of just studying this. I'm absorbing all VR books right now just to like understand what you're doing to people and how to craft the direction you want people to go in

without making them feel like they're being railroaded for streams. You know, because if you're playing a game at home, you're playing at open world usually. But when I'm running a game, it's very much like you have an objective, you have a couple hours, we need to get you to the end. So the audience can experience a story and you can experience a story,

but nobody feels like I just shoved you down a hallway. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love this. I've talked to Liz Spain and on the podcast as well and a couple of other people separately about doing alternate reality game design. And the key with that is as in role playing game design and creation is that yeah, you need to get people from point A to point B to point C to point D, but it needs to feel like it's their choice and it's their, you know, free flow. And so there's a little bit of wiggle room, but, you know, you do have a story you want to tell. So are there any other, any cool little tips and tricks along those lines that you would say that for people that really want to help organically move someone along a narrative that like

a little behind the scenes, insider GM tip on that sort of. Yeah. So everything that I do is modular. timeline based. I, okay, first five minutes is introduction and then there's two minutes of this and then 10 minutes of this and then 20 minutes of role play and then I add this in at this time and then this in at this time. And if they go right and I, the item is on the is to the left, I move the item from the left to the right because what's more important, they have the choice and they, they feel like it. So there's that, but there's also, I recommend reading a lot of choose your own adventure books and then kind of dissecting what it feels like, you know, and like the different

trees that you could develop for your game because, and this is very much specific to live streaming, but when I play home games, I use these elements and the players start to feel that they are a part of a story versus, you know, all of a sudden we've been sitting here for six hours and we didn't do anything. And that's not fun because people, you know, if you think about it, everybody's volunteering their time, whether it's a live stream and they're getting paid for it or you're at home and this is the one day that you have free. Everyone's volunteering their time to collaborate and cooperate and go on these adventures. And I like to be very caring of other people's time. So I try to keep pace. Sometimes I even put things on a like, if you don't finish this,

in three hours, you will disintegrate. You know. So, yeah, I think a lot. That's awesome. No, it's, I mean, obviously, you know, yeah, there's so much that goes into this. And I just, I really like just kind of unearthing, you know, the surface here of like how much and how deep this rabbit hole goes. I want to transition a little bit into, you mentioned, I think a really a lot of astute observation. about how you build your personal brand and the way that you think about the presenting to the world.

And I think personal branding is a really interesting subject that a lot of people kind of don't have a good understanding of. They think that's something that, you know, big CEOs and actors do, but is it something that, you know, what is it, how do you think about personal branding? When did you first start kind of crafting the person you are today? What do you think for for people out there who may or may not know what a brand is? What do you think of, can you talk a little bit about that? Well, I think it's maybe easier for other people, but for me, it was just hard because I am mixed race and I'm very tall and I live in Los Angeles and that's really hard as an entertainer. So I really had to develop who I am and what I am so that the world can understand it, even though I still don't really know how to explain myself. But I think I don't really know how it all happened honestly.

I think it just kind of all happened. And then I just started focusing in. Like I just was, you know, there was the gaming. There was a web series. There was a charity. It was all my hobbies. And then D&D was like, hey, we noticed that you're doing all these things. And I was like, well, I guess I'm just going to keep going down the D&D rabbit hole.

And then it was like D&D and like, oh, okay, you're providing a space for people. I'm like, yeah, I want you all to feel like you're accepted. And then it was compassion. And it was like, okay, I guess we're building communities now. And this is what I do. And it's all about compassion and acceptance and diversity. And that's just kind of how my brand evolved. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm a woman who's turning 40 this year.

So now it's acceptance, diversity, opportunity, and becoming the person that you are and accepting yourself and it just kind of happened. I just happened, but yeah. I just happened. I just got here. Now, 40 years later. Actually, you and I think have a birthday a couple weeks apart. I'm May night. I turned 40 on May 22nd. Yeah. So I'm a little, I'm a little older and wiser than you. But no, but so the universal things I would pull out of that, which are really, you know, you found stuff that, you know, your passions and hobbies and things. that you were excited about. Your challenges, right? You had, you know, trying to sort of define yourself and being mixed race, being in a challenge, you know, in a community in a field that wasn't necessarily accepting. And then the things that made you come alive, that what things you

loved and felt passionate about, having compassion for others, building communities, and then just sort of following the threads of those things and then finding a way to weave them together. And that's, I think, the better way for people, people think about personal branding. It's, For any of them, it's like a dirty word. It's like, oh, you're just pretending, right? You're just like, you're putting out a persona and it's like, you know, I'm trying to sell me something. And it's not that.

It's about finding those authentic threads of yourself and weaving them together and choosing a path that shows that person. And I think you've done really just an incredible job about that. I mean, even again, I mean, I knew of you, but I didn't know a lot about you when we first met, but it exuded from you every minute that you were together. So it's really cool to see. Thanks. It's really interesting because,

I think that people like me, very bohemian Renaissance people, have a problem where we are capable of too many things. So, you know, as I got older, I realized what I'm capable of. I was like, well, I actually need to focus my energies because I can do too many things. So it was really hard to stop doing a lot of things like making comic books and painting and, you know, trying to be an actress and do. doing all these things. I'm like, well, I'm now live streaming and I'm running games and now I'm going to companies and teaching running workshops and kind of like becoming a teacher as my brand and a community leader as my brand. It's hard. It's hard not to be like, I'm running off to the woods now and I'm going to build a sculpture. Right. Yeah, I like to, I like to say,

you know, you can do anything you want, just not all at once. You have to be able to pick and choose a focus. Yeah. And so there's tons of things. I actually keep a list of all the cool stuff I really want to do. You know, I'm passionate about music. And I, you know, it was I want to be able to travel around the world. And I want to be able to do all these things that are like, well, yeah, those are important, but they're going to wait. And now I'm focused on building my company or, you know, building games.

Or now I've been, these past two years have really been a lot for me about teaching and helping others where I wrote my book and do this podcast. and working on a variety of other things to help other people kind of follow this path. I remember what it was like for me trying to learn how to be a game designer and how to get into this field and do the things. And it was very hard and there was no real guideposts out there. And let alone for, you know, obviously someone who is like you as a minority and a woman in a field that was not like that, I think being able to provide examples and give people guideposts and show them a light at the end of the tunnel can help them through. It's not going to make it easy. It's never easy. You've got to find your own path,

though. But I think I'm really passionate about trying to help build this community in that sense, like build the next community leaders, the next people who are going to do what you do. Yeah, I think that is the most common thread between a lot of people who are quote, unquote, successful, is there's the thing that you have to do because you are a creative, which is writing your book or making the game or whatever that is. The other thing that makes, that is the same between a lot of my friends who are successful, is the giving back and the teaching. I mentor Fenway Jones, who does the Jasper's Game Day.

I've been mentoring her for three years. She's 17 as a couple days ago. And it is amazing. I do a lot of coaching. And there's like something about giving, giving, just, offering that information and not hoarding it. That's so powerful. And this year, I decided quite a few things. So every year is an evolution of whatever brand I had from last year. You know, last year was traveling and just being decadent and amazing and, you know, just being wild and finding out

what I was capable of. This year, I'm writing my book on how D&D saved me from PTSD. I'm traveling the world, bringing more communities together, doing more retreats and big events so that more people have a place to centralize and doing a couple more shows that are a little bit different and a little and a continuation of some of the shows that have already been doing. But amongst all of that, I have to give. I can't hoard. Yes. So I've been playing around with this thing. I have the five Cs of fulfillment. It's cultivate, which is, you know, learn and grow and try to become the best version of you that you can. Connect, which is to find tribes and build with people and family and friends and build,

put people together. Create. We all have a drive to create. I don't care who you are or what you're doing now. Everybody wants to create something. And that being able to express yourself in that way is key. Contribute, which is that adding value to the world like we talked about. And then my fifth one is just is chuckle.

You got to be able to laugh and have a good time while you're doing it all. Yes, all the seas. Yeah, that's great. I knew you were fun. I think that there's a lot. There's so many threads I want to pull on here. I think you mentioned something that you're now doing corporate storytelling consulting. Yeah. Does I hear that right?

What is that like? Because I actually have a similar thread in that I do consulting now on creativity and innovation in corporations. I work with a professor at the. the Wharton School of Business and we take game principles and we actually help people innovate and come up with new ideas at big companies. And it's been such a crazy change in the type of audience I have and the way I have to speak to them. I'm curious what it's like for you. So I basically use writing techniques and storytelling techniques. But I teach people about story structure and the hero's journey and I kind of weave it into Dungeons and Dragons. And then we as a workshop,

basically workshop a module together based on all of the storytelling, like, how to write. You know, and then it shows them, basically what I'm trying to get them to learn is that everything, every product you make, every piece of the product that's being developed, everyone needs to understand what the story is when you're selling, like you basically, it's basically marketing, right? So it's like every piece of the product, everyone needs to know what the story is so that when it gets out into the world, world, it's understood what you're trying to sell and why you need to, how to connect with the audience through storytelling. And then even further, like, I do team building for corporations

too, using Dungeons and Dragons and storytelling techniques. Gotcha. So, just because I do love to get practical tips, whatever possible here. So what would you advise somebody out there who's, whether they're building their own game, their own product, their own company, maybe some key tips for how they should think about storytelling or how they can tell a better story with their product to really be able to resonate with people. I love process. It's my favorite thing. And so one of the things that I try to get the group to do is to start with one idea and then a purpose and like a theme. And that is one of the hardest things for groups to do because everyone has so many ideas. And what my entire workshop does is it shows

you, you know, one idea, two words, a breakdown act one act, two, act three, and then an outline and how to do these things and watching these groups digress and then come back together because I dungeon master the storytelling structure. And it's real wild. It's so strange. But getting them to experience creating a story from one point all the way down to the finished product in a couple hours and realize that they don't have to use all the ideas. They can all come to a consensus. They can all work together is really cool, actually. And I see that... Can you give me like an example? Because the act one, act two, act three for a product. What does that what does that look like so this is more like um getting them to understand what a story is so

we'll go to an ad right so say you're trying to sell a perfume right and you know that your audience needs to feel something within two seconds of turning a page like suddenly like oh there's this romantic perfume and like you need to know that the audience eyes are going to need to move across the page in a very specific way within a couple seconds for you to sell your idea. And it's like, okay, well, what is the story that you were trying to sell this? Like, what is the product? What is the story you're trying to portray so that the audience can connect with it? And really being purposeful in that matter. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It's funny because, I mean, I, I, I, I, one of the biggest things

for me over the last probably two or three years. It's been longer, but really focusing on the last two years is just how important storytelling is to just our own psychology and everything that we do. And I think about it in terms of like for our games, right, I've always been a very mechanics first person, right? I'm just think in that sort of way. And it's always like make this awesome game and then figure out a cool story that fits with it. And I realize that we've left a lot on the table when it comes to really putting story first and really putting that out in front of play. Yeah, I think it's more communication, right? So it's like, what are you trying to communicate? And then what is a story that goes, that makes that happen? Right, right. And I think that that's,

it, it applies on every level of a company and a human being. Yeah. Right. What are we other than stories we're telling ourselves, right? Like the, the, the, the, the setein that exists through time is this story that, okay, here's, here's what I'm about, here's what I was, here's where I'm going, right? And people, when they have a good story for their own lives, where they can see a thread from their past to a future, they're happy and fulfilled. Yeah. And if they don't have that story, when the story breaks up, which, by the way, for everybody listening, it inevitably does at various points when you suddenly have a new thing happening

and whatever, then that's where depression can set in it. And that's where people feel law. Yeah. And the same is true for, you know, my company, I've been really trying to make sure. like telling stories that like this is what we do right we work with awesome people we make awesome games we you know we connect people inspire and connect and you know delight and and that those things and having those stories and touchstones are what give everybody in the company it doesn't matter if you're you know five people or 500 people they can know that those are touchstones that we're

going to go through and that we're going to be a part of and that's how I orient myself and within a game same thing right like you said whether it's I'm going to be telling this humor story or this horror story or there's this narrative that goes through it, even if the specifics are going to change constantly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so being a great storyteller is not easy. And that's where, you know, one of the things I really want to emphasize for, you know, the people that are listening who maybe, you know, maybe they don't play D&D and maybe they think, you know, I'm a game designer. I'm not a storyteller. No, you are a storyteller. You have to be a storyteller. You are a storyteller. Yeah. It's so important for dungeon masters to study storytelling. There's a book by Robert McKee called Story, and it is one of my favorite books, and it talks about the purpose of being in any scene. Like, well, that's one of my favorite parts of the book. And so I think about that when I have my players in an encounter, or just basically in anything, you know, you've got your NPCs, you have your players, and how you have your players, and how.

how they interact and how they respond to one another is important to the story. It's important to the mechanics of the game. So even like there's more to a game than the player's role playing. There's more to a game than the mechanics. It's like this, it is an ecosystem of to create an actual like full blown story. Yeah. No, and I've, I've, I read that book also and loved it. And I think there was, you know, a lot of interesting insights I took away from it.

even the idea of when you're crafting a scene, that whatever, you know, you have certain core values at stake and they should always start the scene in one place and it has to end the scene somewhere else. The point of the scene is to take the core values and move them from one place to another and that's what gives it to charge. And I'd never thought of things that way before reading that book. I was really powerful. And the same is true for events in a game and events and, you know, as you're building stuff together, I think it's a really great way to think about things. Yeah, especially like, you know, you've got your role-playing game and there's a big monster that comes in and the big monster needs something and your players need something else and

then you've got conflict. I like watching things like down to nabby where you can see how subtle conflict can be and how satisfying it can see it is when you can see the resolution of, we lost the button off the shirt. Oh my God, what is the cost of this? And I think it's important for game masters to understand the subtlety of moments like that because you can weave that in and out of the game that you're making. So because, you know, it's one thing to just go battle, battle, battle, social encounter, exploration and on and on and out.

But there's movement, there's pacing, there's emotional, awareness, you know, like what happened? There's a little bit of BDSM that I put into my games, which is, you know, like the crescendo and the aftercare and they need to rest before you bring them back up. And like there is, I basically take everything, everything that I experience. And I, from conversations that I have with people through TED talks that I watch, through movies and books and I put it all together and I use every, like all of the elements of every kind of art in my gaming sessions. Yeah, that's fantastic. I think that is, that's one of the lessons I talk about my book too is, you know, one is, you know, ABE, always be exploring, right? Everything in your world,

everything that you encounter can become a lesson, can become fodder for the next creative thing that you want to do. And that the culmination of all these things that you have together are why you have a unique voice that only you can make a game or a story or in a campaign that only you could make because you have this full circle of things that are there and you learn so much from you know just being curious about the world and then bringing that in and then playing with it right I mean it's it's actually this is an interesting kind of connection because I think games like the reason we play games as a species is because it gives us a safe way to explore and try things out right we can kind of play and if I lose in a game it's okay I you know maybe

I'm not happy about it, but it's fine, and I can try something else and learn new things. And I think storytelling and specifically role playing is a similar type of power. In fact, in many ways more powerful. And when a role playing, you know, I talked about, in my book, I talk about the different sort of motivations and why people play games. And this idea of expression is one of them. And I use role playing as a subset of expression, which some people thought was weird because it's like, well, you're not expressing yourself. You're playing something else. So it's like, no, that's the way that you can safely express art to yourself.

You may not be comfortable embodying. And I think that's something that you know, I think you've talked about that explicitly before. It's, you know, where does that come in for you where you, you know, you see that. You see people either yourself or others kind of come alive. It's, okay. So I don't know why that brought up this memory. I used to teach a life drawing class and I went to art school for five years. and the coolest thing about life drawing is you're not learning like the anatomy of a person.

What you're learning is how to look and how to interpret what you're seeing. And if you have one minute to draw or five minutes, you know that you have a very limited amount of time to communicate this item. And what are you trying to communicate? You're trying to communicate lines to express the feeling of what you're, you know, what you're seeing. So maybe you draw the eyes and the lips, but you don't draw the nose because that's the most captivating thing to you. I use a lot of the life drawing skills of looking and interpreting for game mastering and paying attention to all the players. And so the players are, you know, they're trying, they're best to remember all the rules and doing all this stuff. And my job is to make sure that they're satisfied and that they all get a chance to express themselves.

And my job is also to pepper them with information that's concise and allows them to want to explore the world even more. I'm not going to, you know, give them 100% of what the room looks like. I'm going to allow them to like, oh, well, does that, if the coffee table's like this, is there, is this on the coffee table? Can I, can I grab that? Of course it is because you put it there, because you're helping me develop this world. And I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what I thought of when you said all that. No, it's great. I love, I love the stories and seeing, you know, there's this, this idea, what came up for me as I'm hearing that story, is this idea of the only, I'm trying to remember this quote.

but what matters as an artist is what's in frame and what's out of frame, right? Like the things, there's an infinite amount of detail that you could describe in any given scene. There's an infinite amount of mechanics you could put in any given game. And most games are trying to be these sort of distilled versions of something you're trying to represent, some emotional things, some, you know, I'm trying to distill a warrior battling a dragon. Well, okay, there's a million things that would have to go into that. But I'm going to roll, you know, I'm going to boil that down to you roll a, D20 right now.

Yeah. You know, what's the part that's important? Is it the fact that you are going to have a battle roar as you're coming in and we're going to focus on the role play and the emotion of your like, you know, berserker rage? Are we going to focus in on the tactics of a tabletop board where I'm going to be trying to position and get an extra plus two that I really want? You know, and different communities, different games are going to ask for different things. And what you choose to focus on and what you choose to ignore is really the heart of the creative

or finding process. Yeah, and the other thing I recommend to Game Masters is learn screenwriting. So my graphic novels were like 70 pages long. I had a lot of story to tell. And it's really important to hone down your ideas. And I think that is another like another skill that helps with what you were just saying. Because, you know, if you, have you ever done any screenwriting? I have written, I've written, I've written, uh,

a couple, not like screenwriting scripts fully. I've done, you know, I've written some, you know, narratives, but not, not a screenwriting stuff. So, and you basically, you have to communicate everything in the most concise, efficient way possible. You have one sentence or two sentences, and then you have dialogue, and then you have another sentence to express what is happening. So you have to, it teaches you how to develop a world and how to communicate it in the most finite way possible. So, either learn screenwriting or read a bunch of scripts because it shows you how to communicate what is important. This is a great sort of tip.

So as a game designer, I always advise people like, you know, it's more about what you cut than what you leave in, right? There is so much that is the number one problem I see with new designers is they try to throw in everything they can think of and they can't cut any of their mechanics because they're all their babies and they're all super important and they're all great. And not to say that your babies are ugly, but some of them got to go. Yeah. But also, you want people to ask you about them.

Like make that short thing so interesting that they're like, but what about the mountain? What does the mountain look like? Right. What's around the corner? Can you tell what? So what is the history of this place? Yeah. Have your players ask and then you give them the information because that's going to be more

captivating for everybody. Yeah. What I like to do, what I call it is leaving hooks, right? You put little hooks out there all over the place. And I do this in my games too, where you never know exactly what your audience is going to resonate with. But if you put a lot of interesting little hooks out there, eventually you're going to catch a fish, right? Somebody's going to hook on with something. And then once you catch them, you're like, okay, cool.

Now I'm going to give you a little more rope. Now I'm going to show you this path. Yeah, exactly. And I think that is, it's a little manipulative. But it's really good for players. I think it's really good for players to get your players out of their character sheets. Yeah. And into the game.

Yep. And that is something that I'm really actively this year trying to get better at because I just am so tired of, it sounds like a complaint. But I'm so tired of repeating myself because players are so worried about doing the wrong thing and memorizing their character sheets. I do a lot of one shots for people that I've never met before. So it's like these are my issues that I'm talking about. Sure. But I think it is good for a game master to understand that to be able to communicate the mechanics and also have the story flourish so that the players are moving easily in and out of it

without worrying about doing something wrong. Yeah. Because they also won't take the risks that they need to. you know, if they're worried. Yeah, that was always, it actually was a challenge that I had as a player. Because I, you know, I'm sort of super competitive by nature. You know, I used to play in the Magic Pro Tour. And like, I would always be like, all right, how do I win this game?

And, you know, playing Dungeons and Dragons, like, that's not the right attitude, man. Like, yeah. And so I would, I would do the things for my characters and like min-max my characters and be like, all right, well, I'm not going to make that move because that's stupid. I don't get my plus two. Whereas, like, that would be the coolest thing. like, yeah, of course I'm going to swing across this cavern and try to get behind the dragon. You know, like to tell her story is the real goal.

And it took me a while to break out of that and ended up having a lot more fun afterwards. So it's sometimes you have to, as a game master, you have to coax people into doing that. And the same is true in the games that, you know, I make. Even in the card games, it's like there are some players who will just choose the best play because they want to win. And my job is to make sure that those people, that the best play is also the most fun thing to do. You know, I think the game Frogger taught a lot of us how to maneuver in the world. It sounds really silly. If anyone out there hasn't played Frogger, I recommend it. Basically, it's about, you know, it's not about moving across as fast as you can. It's about watching the environment,

looking around you, understanding that sometimes you move forward once and then you have to move right and then you have to move back to in order to move right again to go forward three. So it's like sometimes it's good to pull back and really like be okay failing and kind of taking one for the team so that you can get the advantage point and then, you know, and then win or, you know, win that encounter for your group with your group. I had no idea of Frogger was so deep. This is awesome. It is so deep and I use it for driving too. And that's why I don't have as much road rage as I used to. That's amazing.

I really like that analogy. That's going to be my marketing clip from this episode. So I want to, one of the things I always make sure to do because, you know, getting into the gaming industry is hard, becoming a, you know, professional storyteller and dungeon master can't be easy. You've already given some really great tips, especially some ones that I don't think people, would normally think of like, you know, reading scripts and getting practice, a daily practice of writing scripts to really try to show, you know, write concisely and tell key points of stories. You talked about being, you know, and practicing modularity and being able to build, you know, sort of chunks that can be moved around and used to different stories.

What other tips would you give for people that are, say, you know, they like Dungeons and Dragons or they like gaming, but they don't really know how to get started or they want to get a career? How would you advise somebody starting out today? Okay, so read long-form novels that are multiple, you know, like the Blade itself or a King Killer series or any of these. Also read poetry and read short stories and one-pagers. That way you can see what it looks like when things are epic and, how to communicate when you only have a short time frame to communicate a lot of information. And to get into the gaming industry, if you're playing Dungeons and Dragons,

I recommend going to the DMs Guild and reading other people's adventures, start there, kind of like get your feet wet, practice, practice, practice, just do, do, do. Start small and work your way big. You know, maybe you're just going to write a subclass or you're going to write, you know, an encounter for people to play or you're just going to design a dungeon and then get feedback and I'll learn creative criticism that's one thing that art school taught us was how to take people's critiques and actually ignore some of them and use some of them and actually kind of like hone in your style because that's another thing is like I would recommend to people to find your style

You know, are you writing horror? Are you writing pop adventure? Are you writing comedy? Whatever that is, make it yours. And I guess this is going into branding, right? So be careful of doing too many things, like too many styles. hone in your style and then explore that and get better at that by doing it over and over. I'm interested in thinking a little more into what you're talking about with feedback. How do you know which feedback to take and which feedback to let go of? I would say there's opinions. You know, like when you're a dungeon master and you're playing in someone else's game and you're like, well, I would do it like this. Well, that's an opinion. And then there's the, oh, well, my experience of this is my experience of your game is this. And then you're like, well, actually, I was trying to get my experience to be this.

So I'm communicating wrong. So I'm going to go ahead and alter it and then try it again and see if that is communicating what I'm trying to get across. Or somebody's like, I try to run this adventure and it ended up being six hours and like, okay, well, why is that? And then kind of looking into that. Some people just don't like it. And that's okay, too. it's not for everybody but you have to hear why they don't like it and really nonviolent communication is really good because you know you can hear what they're saying and then what is in between

the words that they're saying and what they're not saying and maybe they're they just had a bad day and they played a game like this before and now they're projecting so it's like it's it's really complex yeah no and that's why that's why I asked because I know I know that the answer is not easy so So I think, you know, I do recommend for anybody out there that is interested, reading nonviolent communication, I think actually saved my relationship, let alone my, you know, communication skills in other areas, that being able to hear what is behind the words that people say. A lot of times people complaining is just a more complex form of, and you sometimes, you're going to let people go there.

but but I think you know for other principles that I found work that maybe maybe it'll resonate it's you know know who your target audience is and the experience you're trying to create which is kind of what you were saying and be make sure that you divorce your ego from the outcome right that if it's this is my baby and this is my story and of course it's perfect then you can't even hear criticism right then you're going to be the one that's not able to communicate in that sense you've got to be able to step aside and almost treat it as though it's not even yours when you're when you're getting that criticism to be able to look at it more objectively yeah and don't be defensive that's really important it's like okay let us sit with you for a day and listen to it right yeah and that

anybody that's giving you feedback they're doing you a favor you know whether you like it or don't like it say thank you appreciate that you don't have to follow it and and the other guidepost I always use as Neil Gaiman's one of my favorite author and and he has this quote I absolutely love, which is, you know, when your reader tells you that something's wrong, they're almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're almost always wrong. Exactly. Exactly that. That's 100% true. That's where the skill of being a designer or storyteller or Game Master is that being able to figure out how to get at that emotional core. But your audience is the one that is the final

arbiter of whether you hit it or not, right? If they're not experiencing the emotion, you're trying to get them to experience, then you know, you've got more work to do. Yeah, and I noticed that a lot of game designers and writers, they want to go directly to breaking the rules. But you have to learn the rules and you have to repeat them over and over and over and get the experience to understand why they're there in order to break them and make it make sense.

So I think that is something that I would tell people as well as like, do the thing, the way it's supposed to be done over and over and over and then, you know, and then throw it away. Yeah. Learn the skills. Learn the basic principles. Like that's, and that's the thing I've loved about these kinds of conversations that I've been able to have, you know, not just with game designers, but storytellers, artists, people from all different fields.

The creative principles are universal. They're not, it doesn't matter what your art field is. There's this basic kind of overlying process of iteration, of listening, of being able to take a variety of inputs and then be able to sort of express your, you know, the authentic self that you have and stumbling on your way to do that. And then cycling through that process over and over, it's hard. It's hard work. It's emotionally hard work. But once people learn how to do that, then you could start veering off different tracks and doing weird things, but really learning the form. And it's sort of like learning a language, right? Once you have it in your bones, now you can

start writing poetry. But if you start, you know, you want to be E. Cummings and you don't know English yet. It's probably not a good idea. You know, you've got to kind of work your way there. Yeah, and I think I really want people to understand, like, I'm Satine Phoenix. Everyone knows who I am based on the last couple years. What they don't know is I put thousands of dollars into my hobby, you know, for the last, from 2010 until 2018, when Dungeons and Dragons came to me and said, we want you to be a community manager. And until that point, I did not get paid for this. Maybe I got paid a little bit, like, you know, $100 here, a couple hundred there, but not like a living. And so it wasn't until I was 38. And I really want people to understand that, you know,

a, you can start late. But also that like it's not handed to me. Nothing was handed over. I work really hard. My graphic novels, I worked on those 16 hours a day for four years. And like, all of this is very hard work. It doesn't just happen. And a lot of the stuff we're talking about is now second nature because I've been making stories since I was, you know, I went to art school in 1998. So I've been training for today for over 20 years. So it's, all of this is, accumulated stuff. But I hope that these things will help other people speed up their process. Yeah, yeah. That's sort of the whole point of this podcast. And it's great. I really appreciate that you echoed that message because it's a lot of times people get very frustrated. They do something for a

year or two. They don't see any traction and they give up. And, you know, I'm sorry. Two and a half years. Yeah. It's for me, like I've been doing this for, what, 20 years more that I've been in this more than that now that I've been in this industry. And it was a long time before I figured out what my place was. And it's true for everybody out there. So if it's something you're passionate about, you know, also not only, you know, keep going and work hard, but also make sure you're enjoying the ride. Because exactly. You know, maybe they come. Maybe they don't. They're a few and far between sometimes. But you're doing something you're passionate about. You're doing something you love. Then you can enjoy

that process even if you're, you don't quote unquote, aren't successful yet. Yeah. If you are live streaming, it'll take you a about two and a half years to develop your community so that you'll actually start profiting from it. Have a day job. Have all the actors I know in Los Angeles. They have multiple gigs. You know, they'll work one big movie, but they have a bunch of other stuff. And a lot of times they have real estate.

You know, so it's nothing is as it seems. There's always much more to the success that you see. Two and a half years to build your community. And that's consistently. You have to be consistent at it. And unless you have $80,000 to start with, the second thing I would say is you are not an island. We are all better because we hold each other's hands

and rise the tide together. So I see it a lot. It's been coming back in the community and I'm really starting to irk me a bit that people are kind of like, we're better than so-and-so. It's like, nope, we are all good because we are diverse. Our gaming party is more powerful because there's a rogue, there's a barbarian, there's a wizard, there's a paladin and a cleric.

Like, even with my all-barred band, they're still multi-class. So the idea is that we are more powerful and stronger because we are diverse. So remember that, people, and work with each other. That's beautiful. Yeah, I find there's these weird things that'll come up where like some designer will come up to me and be like, oh, well, I've got this really great idea. And I'm like, okay, cool, what is it? And they won't share it. They won't talk about anything.

And they're like, well, if you're too afraid to share your ideas with anybody, you're never going to develop them. And I guarantee you 100% of the time those people, do they don't finish their projects, right? You have to be able to reach out and find those communities because that's how we learn and grow. That's the thing that makes us still come alive. of the thing that makes it, you know, you being able to contribute and help other people and share what you have will, when you need help, other people are going to want to share with you. And that, like, that, especially in the gaming industry, I mean, it's one of the most, like, fun, welcoming places that I found, like, you know, we're a band of misfits, right?

Yeah. And it's, it's been great to just, you know, I have lifelong friends that I've had since, you know, I was 16 years old and traveling around the world playing magic, you know, and it's really a it's a great opportunity and it's a blessing that we all have. But yeah, if you feel like you're, you know, better than other people there or, you know, like, you know, I give this, I do this podcast to help teach people, but I learn from every episode. Like, I'm still constantly learning. I'm constantly trying to get better.

And there's all kinds of incredible designers that are up and coming out there that I, you know, I love, I love having these kinds of conversations and hearing different perspectives, like your perspective is, you know, coming from a very different place in mine. But just from this, you know, we've been able to see how much overlap. we have and how many cool things where these things connect. Absolutely. It's in GM tips. So Matt Mercer had GM tips the first season and then I took over the next one and I love his advice. He's a genius. And I know that I'm not like I only know what I know. And so the season two is me interviewing other people and having a dialogue. And I just really hope that other people can value that these

dialogues. Yeah, I think it's one of the things actually, a thread from way back here that I wanted to make sure to pick up on ties into this diversity and different perspectives. You know, you've had this unique opportunity to travel all around the world and play games with people and build local communities. And you mentioned briefly that there's some very different ways that people play in different areas. Would you mind, you know, talking about or maybe telling a story or two of like the ways that people are different or the same in these different communities around the world? Yeah, I mean, you think about the different cultures that go with each country, right? I find that when I went to Paris, everybody's very cerebral and very thoughtful.

So it's less about the monster coming in and you fighting the monster. It's more like the psychology of why the dragon is there and how to figure out how to defeat the monster within and the monster. without, you know, so that's really fun. And then going to Milan, that was an experience. And I just, I couldn't understand what they were saying, but the way they all, I would sit and watch a game and I don't speak Italian. So I'm watching it. And it was very exciting. It was like watching soccer. And I'm like, yeah, that's obviously a troll coming in and they're like blasting it. And it's like this this hyper adventure that they're on, you know, and just, it's really beautiful to see a culture amplified through their games that they create. And that's, I know there's, I know there's

more than Dungeons and Dragons. I just haven't played very many, but it was very apparent in France how their culture is mimicked in their games and like in the art in their games and the mechanics of their games and the focus. So yeah, it's really fascinating to me. And even across America, you know, you've got different states that are kind of complete, like we are our own little countries. Honestly, now that I travel so much, it's pretty fascinating to see based on the weather, based on, you know, the hardships that people go through and like the good times. And it's, the world is a beautiful place. That is awesome.

That is probably a wonderful place to start wrapping it up. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I mean, I knew I was going to, but I really enjoyed this conversation. For people that are listening that want to find out more about you, follow you online, see the cool stuff you're up to, what are the best options for them? Well, they can find me on all the social medias at Satine Phoenix, S-A-T-I-N-E-H-O-E-N-I-X. My production company is called Gilding Light, and it's all about the art of storytelling via fantasy. And CelebrityChairity20.com is the charity. This year, it'll be in August.

And, yeah, that's me in a nutshell. That is awesome. I am so excited we got to talk, and I really hope we actually get to play a game together. It's been too long since I've played an RPG. It sounds from everything you've said, it will be pretty amazing. So hopefully that happens soon. I'm in. All right.

Thanks so much. Thank you. 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 platforms, 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 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.