Why TTGDA is Advocating for Naming Designers instead of Publishers

Game design is a unique space that often doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, according to the leading advocacy organization in the space.

Whenever a new game is published or recognized, it’s often a common practice to name the publisher. For example, Cipher is designed by Monte Cook Games, not by the team who spent hundreds of hours writing it. Daggerheart is made by Darrington Press, not Spencer Starke and Rowan Hall.

It’s a simple error to make, but some argue it has outstanding consequences.

TTRPG Insider spoke with Sen-Foong Lim, board game designer and secretary of the Tabletop Game Designers Association, about how to do this better. The organization has slowly advocated for stores like Barnes and Noble, Drivethru RPG, and other places to ensure they list the creators’ names alongside the rest of the product. It’s been a slow process but has improved overall recognition within the space.

The interview was edited lightly for clarity.

1. To ask the obvious, why is naming publishers and not developers an unacceptable practice?

Sen-Foong Lim: While the publisher is producing the game as a product and bringing it to market, they are typically do not provide the initial creative spark or the guiding vision for the intention of the game. Would it be acceptable if book publishers omitted authors whose words you’re reading or record labels didn’t list the recording artists whose voices you’re hearing? People should know that games are dreamt up, designed, and brought to fruition by someone who is as much a creative as a musician or a writer.

2. How do you approach this question, particularly when a game might have multiple authors or game developers attached to a project?

Sen-Foong Lim: Like other creative endeavors that have larger numbers of people involved, credit them all! Attribution is important. Name recognition has value. 

While many publishers now include the games’ primary designer and, often, the illustrator (if the whole game was illustrated by the same person), roles like graphic designer and developer are often relegated to the rule book and/or back of the box.

Given that it’s awards season, listing an award-winning team can take up a lot of space on a slide, for example. Creative use of the power of the internet can honor everyone involved! It’s al most trivially easy to link the game’s name a larger list of the creatives involved.

A little research never hurts. There have been recent embarrassing incidents where, for example, the award for Best Solo Game was given to the wrong member of the team - the solo mode was solely designed by a team member, not the game’s primary designer.

Whether you’re a designer, content creator or just the biggest fan at your table, TTRPG Insider delivers in-depth reporting, original interviews and regular roundups of the news that you will not find anywhere else. Let us help you become the best designer, player or dungeon master at your table.

Subscribe now and get the advantage you require to excel in this exceptional hobby and industry.

How to Handle Attribution for TTRPGs

3. Are there any particular distinctions when it comes to design and naming game devs in the TTRPG space versus the board game space?

While It typically takes a huge team to do both, sometimes a designer can do almost all of the heavy lifting themselves. When they don’t, attributing each creative properly is the only fair way to do it. Yes, some people will get “top billing” but it’s usually not a question of why that happens.

While some smaller RPGs don’t suffer from having a laundry lists of creatives to name, a magnum opus like Avatar Legends or the Cosmere RPG is a different story. It would be difficult to list every writer in a single Twitter post, but each of those publishers highlighted each individual writer, designer, and illustrator heavily during the lead up to their product launch using their company websites, social media channels, and more. 

The difference will usually be not who is named in the rules or website - that should be everybody - but whose names get top billing on the cover. I’ll just put it plainly: without the designer, the game in question would not exist in any form. That is ample reason to give them top billing.

 4. What are simple ways that retailers, creators and others can help better adopt these practices?

Ask people how their names are pronounced if you’re afraid of butchering it on a podcast, a TikTok video, or when handing out an award. I’m a professor and every semester we have a graduation ceremony for our faculty. We ensure the names get said right by asking the students to record a pronunciation, which then gets used to produce the ceremony.

Please tag the creatives if you know their social media handles. Some creatives have more followers than the small publishers that brought the game in question to the shelf. Most, if not all, creatives will like and share anything about the games they worked on if a content creator tags them in it. It’s incredibly mutually beneficial for such a small amount of effort.

Retailers can highlight games by one designer for a given month. This may seem a bit “inside baseball,” but it’s how we build a culture of gamers vs just having people who play games.

One really simple way to have an impact is to use intentional wording. You might choose to always say a game is CREATED BY a designer but FROM or BROUGHT TO YOU BY a publisher. Words have power.

Always use full names when possible. “By the creative team behind Game X” is admittedly somewhat punchier copy than “by A and B, the creative team behind Game C,” but using the names sets a good precedent and again builds a stronger culture.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].