Facilitation Insights

The Confession That Changes Everything “I didn’t buy Avel because I wanted to play it. I bought it because I wanted my family to want what comes after it.” That sentence sat in my head for weeks before I said it out loud, and when I did, it felt less like a board game review … Read more

We had our kickoff call today — a serious game design cohort — for The Arena 🙂 Here are my notes for the session: My Tasks For Next Week Quest 001 However, Play a board game or video game like a detective. As you play, observe how you feel. What do you like? What do … Read more

As part of The Arena, I recommend that you keep a design journal. It's a place for you to record your entries and ideas that would be useful in your journey. When you're making entries into your design journal, I recommend using the mnemonic GOLD. Here's what it looks like, expanded: Here's how it looks … Read more

We had our first checkin call after two weeks – and for the first few minutes, it was just me and two AI note-takers. Thankfully, others joined and we got under way. 🙂 We started by exploring a few Arena members' (we need a name!) Design Journal entries and got an idea of what they … Read more

Call Recording: https://fathom.video/share/A1T_DAoW5arz-dh-1yvs2Q42NZ2icJDB We started the call with a discussion of the Wheel of Time series – absolutely epic fantasy if you've not read it yet! And then, we dove into the process behind how each of approached the design of our games. The mental model of hanging a bicycle chain up on a wall … Read more

Yo yo yo! Man… this session was a lot of fun! We started off on time and we spent the whole session filling out a mini game design document. Honestly, I'm gonna stop talking so much and get people to do stuff! By the end of the session, we all had made good progress on … Read more

Heya! We had our first Sunday checkin call today – and it went super well! Today, we focused on a very important concept – affordances – to help us create new and novel ways for players to interact with our games. We explored the affordances of: Click here to see the recording. Our Quest One … Read more

"It is not the players versus the Dungeon Master." That single correction reset how I design learning. When I stop acting like a warden and start running the world, people stop performing compliance and start choosing with consequence.

I coordinated 18 game masters and 200 players without a playbook. The lesson wasn't about control – it was about building systems that make focus scale and environments that invite people in.

I ranked 25 board game mechanics by emotional impact – then told facilitators why the ranking doesn't matter. Because having the right wrench doesn't make you a plumber, and your toolbox is not your philosophy.