appendix ndp #1: Meta 
 [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the first episode of appendix ndp. My name is Nathan Paoletta. I am a game designer, independent publisher, and graphic artist. This is episode one: Meta. 
 [00:00:27] I imagine that if you're listening to the first episode of a new show I'm doing, you're probably already familiar with me or my work in some way. But of course, I don't want to assume that this is true for everyone forever. So I'm going to talk a little bit about myself and my work as a sneaky way to give this first episode a topic. 
 [00:00:42] But first let's talk about what this show actually is, or at least what I intend it to be. appendix ndp is an appendix to my ongoing work as a designer, publisher, and observer of the things I'm interested in. I'm not quite sure how to say that last thing better because of course, why would I observe things that I'm not interested in? But there's a number of fields and, and scenes that I find compelling, interesting, intriguing, something cool is going on, but it's not really, like, my thing. Like, I pay a certain amount of attention to what's happening in the world of, like, technology and gadgets and stuff like that. But I'm not really a gadget person. 
 [00:01:24] And I'm not interested in like a career or something like that to do- like, I don't want to end up working in technology necessarily or anything like that, but it's just like, I think that stuff's interesting and relevant, um, relevant to the world, obviously, and, uh, relevant to other things that are kind of adjacent to it. Right? Like technology, uh, writ large right now is all about platforms. And as a independent producer, I need to use platforms to get things out into the world. And so what tech companies, um, are doing in the space of providing platforms and providing services is actually pretty relevant. So again, I don't really have a great better way to say: I pay attention to things that I'm interested in. I suppose that's fairly tautological, but that's all a little bit of a diversion, uh, from where I'm trying to go here. 
 [00:02:13] And so right away, we've encountered a little detour, uh, the kind of thing that I'm actually trying to give myself some space to do with the show. 
 [00:02:21] Each episode will be loosely built around a topic, or a set of related topics. For example, this is the meta episode where I talk about what the show is. My overall high concept for the podcast is that these topics will be the seeds of exploration. So I'm not here to give definitive answers or perfect advice, but as a creator and a person who spent a lot of time thinking about my own work and what excites and motivates me, I've discovered a consistency over the last couple of years in that sharing my experience is, is very rewarding. It's what I'm getting a lot of. 
 [00:02:52] So selfishly, I want to continue doing work that I find meaningful and as it so happens, exploring topics that I know a little something about such that others, hopefully you listeners also find this, these explorations useful it's right in that lane. I say exploration because I'm intentionally keeping the format and, and specific content for these episodes fairly open. 
 [00:03:15] A lot of them will be me talking just like this. Some might be made up of quotes or some kind of Socratic questioning, positioning me against myself. I have some ideas for narrative thematic soundscapes, and maybe the occasional interview or guest appearance. The job that I've given myself here is to find something that I find engaging that at the same time, shares my thoughts and experiences, hopefully in a way that you find helpful as well. Uh, thoughts and experiences on what, you may be asking. 
 [00:03:41] My ultimate goal is to have a kind of dialogue with listeners. I want to know what you want to know about, and I want to use those questions to guide the topics I pick and how I approach exploring them in each episode. So if you have a question for me, please ask! 
 [00:03:53] You can ask me a question by the submission form at ndpdesign.com/podcasts. Or find me on Twitter or Instagram @ndpaoletta, at N D P A O L E T T A. Finally this whole project, as well as my other work is directly supported by my Patreon over at patreon.com/ndpaoletta. 
 [00:04:13] Patrons have a special place in my heart. And so patrons and only patrons can pose me more of a comment than a question. So if you have something that you want me to ruminate on, or you want to challenge me on something that I've said, Patreon is where to do that. Otherwise I'm just taking questions. Okay. So that's the promo bit right there. And I'll mention those links again at the end of the episode, 
 [00:04:39] appendix ndp is an appendix to my ongoing work as a designer, publisher, and observer of the things I'm interested in. Who am I? Well, my byline is Nathan D. Paoletta. I do that to create some consistency with my ndpdesign imprint, uh, and also because I think it looks better on a book cover. I organize my work under the aforementioned imprint ndpdesign. So that covers both my publishing and also my freelance work, where I do mostly graphic design and layout work, um, as well as writing and consulting and all the other things that I do for, uh, for other folks, most of whom are other indie game designers. 
 [00:05:15] I've been making games since the turn of the century, which is pretty wild when you put it like that. And I got more serious about publishing them independently, after I found out that you could do that by finding the website, The Forge in the early 2000s. After many twists and turns and a career making things with my hands in various fields, I ended up dedicating myself to full-time self-employment in games and graphic design in 2014. 
 [00:05:38] And I've been making games specifically for about 20 years, which sounds unreal. But it's what happens when you look back at, you know, the dates of when things happened. Over the 2010s, I got more into visual design and zines, and as you hear now, podcasts. 
 [00:05:54] I co-hosted a game design podcast called Design Games with friend and fellow game designer Will Hindmarch. That ended in 2015, but it is still up and available and people still find it and get use out of it to this day. Shout out to Design Games at designgames.simplecast.com. I've been co-hosting a fan podcast about the seventies television detective show The Rockford Files with friend and fellow game designer Epidiah Ravishol since late 2016. And we're still going strong on that one. That can be found over at twohundredaday.fireside.fm. Having a co-host is great, but I'm also interested in exploring the solo show as its own thing that's a little more uniquely mine. And so, here we are! 
 [00:06:34] The way I've been thinking about this show is actually drawing a lot from how I thought about my year-long zine project. Zine2018, which was in 2018. Each month of that year, I produced a, uh, I think between 12 and 24, one might've been a little longer, I don't remember now- but a zine a month, each one containing writing and graphic art and (in) each issue a game. Most of them were role-playing games. Some were kind of dice and card games. One was a board game. One was kind of an experiential, kind of a larp, but something you do during another activity, but each one had a game. 
 [00:07:09] Each issue was organized around an intersection of recurring themes and the seasonality of the month in which that issue was, was done. And I used this, uh, I used this project primarily to talk about my creative process, and the challenges I felt like I was facing at the time and to process my emotional state as I was transitioning between some large projects, it was also a great excuse to go to zine fests, which is, you know, if you can do it, you should do it. Zinefests are great. Uh, and it was a ton of work! And I burned out on writing that much in that limited amount of time. Um, and I'm not sure that it ever really found the audience that I wanted it to, but sometimes that's how things go and I'm glad I did it. 
 [00:07:51] I bring it up now because as I've been composing the first couple- I was about to say issues- as I've been composing the first couple of scripts, I suppose, um, for this podcast it's been tapping that same section of my brain has been starting to feel like the same kind of thought process that I had for the zine. Um, and so in a way, I've been organizing the show, almost like an audio zine. Um, hopefully, you know, it's a little less bounded in time, has more interaction with the audience, but the process of breaking down themes in my work and life into approachable chunks and using those chunks as launching points for consideration, that's the same kind of creative space that that zine project came from. So as I've come to that, that thought, that realization, um, I feel like the relationship between podcasts and zines might be a good topic for a future episode. So I'm going to go ahead and write that down. 
 [00:08:50] appendix ndp is an appendix to my ongoing work as a designer, publisher, and observer of things I'm interested in. So let's be real. You're probably listening to this because of my games. 
 [00:09:00] Uh, the big one, the world champion of my work, if you will, is the World Wide Wrestling Roleplaying Game. My last big project was the second edition of that game. And I'm eternally grateful that there are enough folks at the intersection of tabletop games and pro-wrestling, uh, pro-wrestling fandom for lack of a better term, that it continues to get out into people's hands and hit your tables. That is, continues to be, surprising and, and, and fantastic. But I have made a lot of other games as well. 
 [00:09:28] And once you have a body of work, each individual piece starts to resonate with a certain vibe, or at least each of my pieces resonates with me with a certain vibe. And that vibe changes over time as you continue doing more work. Sometimes I'm asked what my favorite game that I've done is, or which one is my best. Uh, and I, I tend to have, I think this is fairly common for, uh, you know, most people who put stuff out into the world. Uh, there's a short answer and a long answer. So the short answer capture something kind of the central, but loses a lot of nuance, but I'll go ahead and give that one to you now. 
 [00:10:00] So right now, as I record this today, I think the best game that I've done is Imp of the Perverse, but I'm most satisfied with, or happiest with World Wide Wrestling. There you go. Now, you know my answer, but I do in fact, have a longer answer as well. And thinking about this longer answer really turned into a pretty, uh, a pretty fruitful exercise for me in really mindfully thinking about my catalog and how I've changed in my interests and my skills over time. So, uh, hopefully this will be a little interesting for you. It was, it was very good for me to sit down and do it as something that I just haven't really done before. So here we go. Here's that longer answer. 
 [00:10:43] My most successful game is World Wide Wrestling. And the fact that it's successful means that I spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking and talking about it. So it's kind of my most comfortable game. It's the one that I've spent the most time with, right. Um, so I know it more than my other games. Um, it is extremely familiar to me. That doesn't mean that it's perfect. In fact, I feel like it means that I see all of its flaws and little nuances and little weirdnesses, and I forgive them because they're part of what makes it, what it is. Uh, and it means that I am able to answer people when they have questions that come up in, like, edge cases and stuff like that. Cause it's like, I generally either have had the question before, or I know the principles upon which I made the original decision and whether I communicated them well or not, that is always up for debate, but I usually can go back to those principles and be like, oh, here's what that should be like, even if it's not spelled out in the, in the rules text, right. Um, and so those flaws and weirdnesses are as essential to what makes that game what it is as the standout features and all the stuff that works. 
 [00:11:54] I'm most proud of Imp of the Perverse. 
 [00:11:57] That game most truly captures my quirks and interests, not only in its theme and its topic, but the rules design as well. I poured the most of myself into that game. It used the most muscles I developed for other things to create, and it continues to delight me when someone connects with it. When someone comes across it, has a good experience, lets me know about that, that is one of the best things. However, it's, it's birth into the world was fairly traumatic in some ways. Um, and that process, not the work itself, but the process of getting it done and getting it out, that does continue to kind of haunt me. It's a bit of a pall over the whole thing. And so that's kind of thematically perfect to that game, honestly, uh, but was not intended, and as a creator is not a comfortable relationship to have. I'm very proud of it, but it's, it's complicated. 
 [00:12:57] My most fun game is Masks of the Mummy Kings. 
 [00:13:00] That was made expressly to do the things I like to do in adventure gaming. It was built on Swords Without Master (which can be found in issue three of Worlds Without Master), and in a way filters- er, not filters, but, um, condenses what I love so much about Epi's Swords Without Master down into like a really specific thing that is the thing I most like. It has, it doesn't have anything extraneous in it. It hits the bullseye of what I actively enjoy in that kind of game every time. Um, it sidesteps a lot of the issues that sometimes I have with, with the, like, let's go into the dungeon kinds of games. It doesn't overstay its welcome. And it brings a smile to my face when it hits someone else just right. It has a narrow focus of what it does, but it has a wide application of how you can approach it in the moment. So it's actually fairly flexible in terms of how other people find fun with it. And so that's a nice combo because it means I can play with lots of different kinds of people, and they can have fun and I can have fun. So, so that gets my award for most fun. 
 [00:14:04] My game that stands the test of time the best, appropriately enough, I suppose, uh, is Annalise. 
 [00:14:11] It was kind of my second big title. It was released in a couple of different formats over a couple years from the late 2000s to the early, early '10s. And people still find the game to this day and, I presume, get something out of it, but it's still, you know, it still sells and it still has a place in certain conversations. Um, it's my most discursive game in that it takes on design challenges of its era, uh, and directly addresses them as just part of what I was trying to do at that time- and, I think, in a successful manner. Uh, it's abstract enough that it can accommodate changing aesthetics and play cultures over time. But there's kind of a hard mechanical backbone that will pull you to where you need to go to fulfill the promise that it makes to you upfront of making these stories of, of, uh, horror and loss and redemption. It's also where I worked out my approach to the GM role in games and where I found a framework that I use to this day to decide on why and how a GM- you know, DM, master of ceremonies, et cetera- how that role deserves to be in a game. So I learned the most from doing that game, both rules wise and production wise. And those lessons continue to bear fruit for me. 
 [00:15:25] I think I mentioned that my relationship with Imp of the Perverse was complicated, but my most complicated (cough) relationship is with carry. a game about war. 
 [00:15:35] This is a Vietnam war stories game, and it's my game that first got real attention from my peers in the indie publishing space. And it's a pure expression of what I was interested in at that time, which is kind of the mid 2000s, primarily mechanically, but also in its topic and its theme. And as I've changed and grown, I'm not sure how strongly I feel about it anymore. I question whether it's responsible to continue making it available. Um, am I the right person to offer a platform for these stories? What value does this play experience actually bring? I haven't answered these questions to my satisfaction as of yet, so it remains available, but I haven't reprinted it since it's printing sold out a couple of years ago. What it does it does well, and there's a commitment to what I find really satisfying in mechanic design and in rules design, and how the rules engage and are kind of wheels within wheels and pull you into a new space by engaging with them. And I'm not sure I can always satisfy that with my current aesthetic priorities for game design. So, yeah, it's complicated. It's a tent pole that's quietly fading into history and maybe that's okay. 
 [00:16:48] My most slept on game is One More Thing, which is the two player detective game modeled on Columbo, uh, that I had a creative partner on for, um, Stephen Winchell, who's the artist and also, you know, helped develop, um, a lot of the rules and scenarios. 
 [00:17:04] The timing on its release wasn't great. Uh, 2020, wasn't a great year for putting out niche genre games, at least for me, but it's, it's unique in my lineup. Um, the collaboration with Stephen really (pushes) it into a better space than it would have been if I had just continued doing it on my own. Um, and I had a really great experience working with him as a creative partner and not, uh, solely as a commissioned artist. And designing and producing the box game format was a big learning experience. I get that it's a niche genre game, but I also think there's a lot of subtlety in the design and the presentation that's only seen if you actually give it a shot. And, you know, if you're into Columbo, you might like it. I don't mean for this to be ads for my games, but, uh, that's what I kinda mean by most slept on. I feel like there's people who would like it, that I'm not quite sure how to connect it to. 
 [00:17:54] I would say that my most important game is Timestream. 
 [00:17:58] The time travel game. That was the first game that I completed and put out into the world and other people picked it up and I was able to talk to other people about it after its release and, you know, putting it out into the world taught me that I could do that. I would say that the game itself hasn't aged well- uh, no pun intended. I guess I would just say that you got to start somewhere. But you know, everyone has to start somewhere and there's some aspects of it that continue to, to interest me. We all have a bunch of notes about things we might do in the future. I have notes about maybe doing a new version of it that would be just taking the name and completely redoing it for an experience that I find more interesting now. But be that as it may, I don't recommend that you pick it up, but it is my most important game. 
 [00:18:43] And then I'll just finish this by saying that the games where I'm most aggressively pushed for innovation for its own sake are my micro games and my poster games. 
 [00:18:51] Uh, the definition of a micro game has really moved on since, uh, the early 2010s. Um, so they're not very micro by today's standards. Witness the Murder of Your Father and Be Ashamed, Young Prince is 12 pages, I think. And Vesna Thaw is 16, um, in magazine format, but they have a tightly targeted play goal and a very specific social and time footprint that I think is part of what makes them micro, their micro-ness. And they're mechanically just kind of swinging for the fences, uh, in terms of, of getting to where I wanted to go with those. And then I have two poster games, The Death of the Gilded Age and The Birth of the Resistance Age, which are format experiments in using a decorative poster as a playmat. So there's a decorative side that you can hang that you can display, and then the other side you can put on a table and you play with a deck of cards, and it has rules on it. So designing those involve combining graphic and game design in a really kind of pure way that that really gave me a lot of reps on doing that on, on both condensing game design to fit into a certain format and using graphic design to express the game and to guide how the game itself works. Uh, yeah. So, so that whole kind of collection of games, I feel like are my most innovative? Experimental? Weird? I don't know. And so they kind of all sit in the same mental space for me. 
 [00:20:11] And I do have some other games I could talk about, but I think we're, we're probably good for now. If you know me by my games, it's probably by at least one of those, I'd assume roughly in that order, uh, depending on when exactly you became aware of my stuff and what you picked up first. And yeah, so there's my long answer about what my favorite of my games is. And if you have checked any of them out, Uh, thank you. And if you've played any of them, thank you for playing. That's always extremely gratifying to, to know that there's someone out there who picks up your work and it resonates with them and they decide to check it out. 
 [00:20:47] appendix ndp is an appendix to my ongoing work as a designer, publisher, and observer of the things I'm interested in. I'm not totally sure what you can expect since we're just getting started. In the short term, I have a list of topics that I'm building episodes around, much like this one. They will be variable in length and probably in style. 
 [00:21:04] One principle I'm keeping front and center is to allow the inspiration to drive the form, when and if it hits. I'm sure you've heard here things that sound slightly more scripted and things that sound a little more extemporaneous. Um, that's intentional, I'm working from a script, but I'm also giving myself the space and the permission to go off a little bit if something strikes me as being important to say, or if I have an addition or clarification. So hopefully that's all worked. We'll see in the edit, I suppose. So maybe this is the format. Maybe more scripted will be better, maybe less scripted. In addition to all the other audio possibilities that may become relevant for a certain theme or topic. 
 [00:21:43] So, this is still the exciting part of a new project. When the concept is strong, there's a direction to go, but the execution hasn't really found the groove. There's a spread of possibilities that feels fairly endless and, and invigorating to just, to consider all the ways that this could go, all the, all the things that could work. 
 [00:22:01] And as I stumble through these first few episodes, that possibility space is going to start to narrow and I'll find out where the show wants to naturally flow. Things are going to change. They're not all going to sound like this first episode. I think that's a truism in podcasting, is that the first episode, very rarely, you know, is exactly the sound of once it- once the show hits its stride. So I'm kind of embracing that. That's, that's going to happen and that's fine. That's okay. Once there's a rhythm, once we hit a stride, then it gets hard again, because then you have to kind of keep on going. Once the gig becomes regular, sometimes you have to find more juice to keep going. And I'm really hoping that the dialogue with the audience and getting your input will help with that. But again, we'll see how it goes. It's all part of the process. 
 [00:22:47] And speaking of process, here's where I tell you again how you can be involved with this show. If you have questions for me to take on, you can ask them through the website at ndpdesign.com/podcasts. There's a form there. It just asks for your name and the question. No other info. I don't sign you up for anything. You can just hit me with whatever. Uh, you can also send me a message or a DM on Instagram or Twitter @ndpaoletta, P A O L E T T A or of course, join my Patreon at Patreon.com/ndpaoletta. 
 [00:23:19] The Patreon supports all my ongoing design work, as well as this podcast. And it also gives access to my back catalog of PDFs and other works in progress. I'm thinking about trying to clean that up so it's a little clearer, but right now, as soon as you become a patron, you can click back through tags and find PDFs of all of my games that I've released since I started it five years ago, maybe? I've had it for awhile. 
 [00:23:42] One other benefit of my Patreon is that I do another podcast. So I suppose a third podcast, I'm just starting to get lost in the podcast mines here. Um, so I have the main Two Hundred a Day podcast with Epi, and then we also do a Plus Expenses podcast, which is a supplement that only goes out to patrons of that show and my patrons. On our main show, we talk about The Rockford Files, but on Plus Expenses, we talk about games, we talk about media that we're enjoying, we talk about our lives, we talk about what's been going on on the internet recently. You know, it's, it's kind of just chatting. And I think that might be more interesting to folks on my Patreon. So long and short of it is that in your Patreon feed that you get from my page, you will get both this show, any extras I decide to do for this show that are Patreon exclusive, and the Plus Expenses show. 
 [00:24:32] Only my patrons can come up to the proverbial mic and have more of a comment than a question. So if you have a topic or something that you want to just throw out at me and have me, have me talk about that's how to do it. 
 [00:24:45] And finally, supporting me by picking up any of my games is always appreciated. And if you want to basically make a one-time donation, essentially, uh, try picking up a game of mine that you haven't checked out before. You can find all of my available titles in PDF and print at my website, ndpdesign.com with links to all the other websites where you can get them, uh, including links to pay what you want versions of some titles. So that website again is ndpdesign.com. This podcast again is appendix ndp. 
 [00:25:14] And, uh, I think that's about what I have to say for now. So thank you so much for listening. I hope you come back for the next episode. Until then may all of your thoughts on your own work be fruitful. 
 [00:25:33] appendix ndp is written and produced by me, Nathan Paoletta. 
 [00:25:40] Music is by Will Jobst. 
 [00:26:09] Be seeing you.