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Make Your
Worlds Matter.

Narrative design is the practice of applying game design and design thinking techniques to real-world problems.

Every scene needs three elements
to be able to tell a story:

What can a person do here?

Why does that choice matter?

What happens because of it?

Narrative is always about choice, and its design defies medium: whether we’re talking about a game system, a physical manuscript, a website, or a digital tool, “what we can do here” and “why it matters” shape the story our systems can tell.

Traditional storytelling concerns itself with what happens. But a large part of what makes an event meaningful is our understanding of what could have happened instead. In narrative design, we’re doing more than just arranging events: we’re establishing a space of possibilities, determining which actions are conceivable, which are permitted, and which produce meaningful differences. A system communicates through the behaviors it enables, rewards, discourages, or prohibits.

  • To find the story at the center of your idea: turn to 12.
  • To strengthen the narrative before you start polishing: turn to 87.
  • To see what happens when people interact with your world: turn to 203.
  • To build tools that make your game easier to play: turn to 314.

Creative Consulting

My main tool is empathy, and asking the right questions.

Creative consulting is about uncovering the narrative logic that undergirds a project and using that logic to move forward when we get stuck. I help indie game designers, individual authors, visual artists, and everyday business owners re-contextualize their “why,” so they can continue to create the work that matters.

Whether that means worldbuilding that’s leading you astray, branding that feels inauthentic, or writing that isn’t quite there yet, we identify the narrative the work is trying to communicate and the constraints that are holding you back, in order to encourage new possibilities to emerge. Drawing on my professional and academic background in design, traditional publishing, and live storytelling, I employ design thinking exercises to help clients regain their creative momentum.

Artifacts:

  • Writing Exercises
  • Worldbuilding Bibles
  • Mind Maps
  • Audience Personas

Developmental Editing

Strengthen the foundations of your work with a red pen.

In an age of instant gratification and automated cognition, we often don’t have time to roll up our sleeves and dig into the writing, let alone reconsider our priors.

But solid writing always undergoes an (oftentimes painful) process of revision and reinvention. Rooted in my academic background in writing and publishing, this work looks at what a piece is trying to do, who it’s for, and whether its form actually supports those intentions. While this practice originates in traditional manuscript editing, my multidisciplinary training in digital art, English literature, contemporary poetry, and professional book and magazine publishing makes it possible for me to apply its techniques to film, game design, visual art, product design, and other creative media.

Artifacts:

  • Copyediting
  • Character Profiles
  • Storyboards
  • Reader Reports
  1. Setup Tension 2 of 10
  2. Catalyst Tension 4 of 10
  3. Midpoint Tension 6 of 10
  4. All is Lost Tension 8 of 10
  5. Climax Tension 10 of 10
  6. Resolution Tension 3 of 10

Momentum builds with each beat, then we break into three for the finale.

Your Project’s Character Sheet

Moss & Mortar Module

Medium
An RPG adventure module
Tone
Cozy adventure
Problem
The rules fight the fiction
Quirk
Its villain is more fun than its hero

Ability Scores

  1. Premise 15 +2
  2. World 16 +3
  3. Structure 9 −1
  4. Theme 8 −1
  5. Play 13 +1
  6. Character 11 +0

Weakest: Theme (8). Developmental Editing helps discover and exploit the themes of your work.

Your Game Master

  • MA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing (Emerson College); BA in English Literature (Stetson University).
  • Co-host of That RPG Podcast, where my cohosts and I create adventures on the fly from listener prompts.
  • Creator of Advanced Old School Revival (OSR+), a tabletop roleplaying game

Play is a form of discovery. Roleplaying games teach us how to discover creativity by embracing the unknown.

By applying narrative design principles from across a multidisciplinary spectrum, I help individuals and organizations translate abstract ideas into immersive experiences that survive the constraints of technology and distance.

Class features · What I bring to the table

Play 203

Immersion Workshops.

Immersion workshops use play, creative facilitation, and game structures to help groups think and work together differently.

Sessions take the form of a TTRPG for private groups, a custom-designed narrative exercise, or a structured creative discussion in a corporate context. Whether the goal is purely entertainment, team bonding, or working through a conceptual impasse, the workshop is designed around collaboration rather than presentation.

Each workshop uses randomized prompts, game mechanics, and design-thinking principles to keep participants oriented toward a shared outcome. The real magic of immersion comes from randomly juxtaposing unlike ideas, so we’re forced to grapple with them.

My role is part facilitator, part designer: I shape a narrative space for you to create in, then help participants articulate ideas they often feel but can’t put into words.

Visit That RPG Podcast

Tools 314

Bespoke Game Utilities.

Bespoke game utilities are small, purpose-built digital tools that support play without the overhead of implementing a full web platform.

I make web-based microtools for indie designers and game companies, either as standalone microsites or integrated directly into existing websites. These can include character builders like D&D Beyond, Lancer’s CompCon, or Mothership’s Companion and illustrated or randomization tools such as Mork Borg’s SCVMBIRTHER or DNGNDEN that formalize a game’s rules in an interactive format.

This work sits at the intersection of narrative design, game mechanics, and web development. Each tool is developed in close collaboration with you, following digital agency standards, to ensure that its functionality reinforces the aesthetic and play experience of the game itself.

The Advanced Old School Revival (OSR+) Character Creator enables players to create character sheets for their heroes that they can use during play.

Visit OSR+

It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.

When creative work loses its way, the problem isn’t always the writing, the design, or the execution. Sometimes we’ve lost sight of the story we’re trying to tell. By returning to the intentions that brought your project into being, we can reconsider the choices that will carry it forward.

Discuss Your Project

Get a free video consultation.

A continuous loop of ideation for the entirety of the engagement, built for the agentic era.

One accountable lead and a decentralized team of independent specialists, driven by empathy, decades of intuition, and on-the-ground research.

In a quick consultation, we can discuss how I can assemble a team tailored for your work. And it’s free.

Get in Touch
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