Fascinating academic paper on how to translate an IP into a TTRPG

[Eyes of Nine]

In another space I am in, @Jocher symbolic systems shared their masters thesis. It's about how to take an existing IP and translate the original aesthetic experience into a TTRPG rule system. I'm about 20% through, and it's already confirmed a bunch of things I had thought but never articulated; and also raised other questions. While it's an academic paper, it's actually more accessible than I had expected - ie I can actually understand it. Author Johan took care to add real-world examples to explicate many of the concepts in the paper. For example, reading the term semiotics would normally cause an eye roll at least; but Johan related it to how we jump when playing Super Mario and now I understand it enough to get on with the paper.

Here's the abstract:

By examining the results of an iterative design process, specifically a tabletop roleplaying game, Oceania 2084, this thesis aims to formulate a generalizable design process applicable when translating a work of fiction into a ruleset. The object that was translated into a ruleset was the book Nineteen Eighty-Four written by George Orwell in 1949. The iterative game development process spanned over 2.5 years and the author provides documents from 2 phases of playtesting and discusses how the playtest results influenced design choices. In addition to the analysis of the effects of playtest results, the author also explores various game design decisions by means of auto-ethnographic analysis, and semiotic analysis.
The main takeaway is a proposed 5 tiered design process referred to as delome design. It is a systemic approach to game design.

Would recommend giving it a look...

Recreating the aesthetic experience of Orwell’s book nineteen eighty four as a Tabletop roleplaying rule set: A systemic perspective on rules as the aesthetic space in Oceania 2084

uu.diva-portal.org