The Designer's Drug

First off, I’m a loser game designer who went to college for game design. That means I have very expensive opinions and I am more at fault for the behavior I’m about to describe than others, so don’t yell at me. The Drug Game designers crave cleverness. They can’t get enough of it. Whether you’re a level designer, systems designer, adventure designer, or whatever, there’s a certain feeling you get when everything lines up in a perfect way. The design just sings. Tinkering with a design to try and get that feeling is like picking a lock in Skyrim—a little jittery at first, and you break a few tools trying to get something to bend, but when that oiled hinge whines and the design clicks “open” you feel immense satisfaction. My metaphor might be stretched, but if you sit around in an RPG discord long enough, you’ll observe this phenomena with dice systems. Folks will ecstatically discuss the ramifications of all player characters rolling 4d6 while all enemies roll 2d12. A newer designer…