In our last blog post, we introduced detailed user personas to help us better understand the diverse needs and challenges faced by TTRPG players and game masters. These personas—Jamie, Alex, Taylor, and Casey—were crafted based on insights from our UX research questions and affinity map. We explored their goals, frustrations, and the contexts that shape their gaming experiences.

Today, we’re taking the next step in our empathize phase by diving into user stories and user journey maps. The user stories will outline the goals of our personas from their perspective, while the journey maps will outline the actions, tasks, emotions, and improvement opportunities for each persona's way of achieving their goal. By examining these journeys, we aim to uncover deeper insights into how we can enhance engagement for players and GMs alike. Here are the stories I ended up with for each persona:

Jamie - "As a busy professional who likes to game master online during my free time, I want to implement interactive and engaging tools, so that I can maximize player engagement and keep my players distraction-free and attentive."

Alex - "As an experienced tabletop roleplayer, I want to create scenarios where players' character contributions are vital to the story, so that I can encourage active participation and ensure dynamic gameplay.

Taylor - "As a game master playing in-person, I want to use readily available mixed media resources, so that I can immerse my players without spending excessive time preparing."

Casey - "As a game master who has a passion for creating oblique stories and homebrew, I want to set clear expectations and guidelines as early into the campaign as possible, so that my players feel confident enough to explore and roleplay."

Next, the goal of our user journey maps is to put ourselves in the shoes of our personas and try to step-by-step plan out how the user would navigate through the user stories we wrote in the last step. Then we'll be breaking down those actions into smaller tasks, empathizing with how the user feels while trying to perform these tasks, and based on the negative or positive emotions we will start brainstorming opportunities for improvement.

Exploring these user journeys has provided deeper insights into the specific needs and challenges faced by players and GMs. By understanding their actions, emotions, and improvement opportunities, we can develop more targeted solutions to enhance engagement. Each persona’s journey underscores the importance of preparation, tool utilization, emotional management, and continuous feedback in creating a captivating TTRPG experience.

As we move forward in our project, these user journeys will help us define the problem and our design goals for each user. I invite fellow TTRPG enthusiasts and designers to share their experiences and suggestions. Your input is invaluable as we work together to create more engaging and immersive gaming experiences. Follow my blog on Itch.io for updates and join the conversation!

Feel free to comment below with your thoughts or reach out directly if you’d like to collaborate or share your own findings. Let’s make TTRPGs more engaging for everyone!