The design of role-playing games is very complex, and involves an intricate interweaving of narrative, quest design, and level design. This project aims to better understand RPG design through an analysis of design patterns in existing RPGs. These patterns identify common design practices at many different levels of granularity: from small-scale design decisions such as available actions and level elements to broader considerations such as game-wide quest structure and level organization. An important goal of the project is to uncover common threads that tie level and quest design to each other.

This website is a repository of all of the quest and level design patterns we have identified so far, as well as a set of thorough worked examples that show how the patterns are used in existing games.