Creator Spotlight: Dave Panfilo

Game Designer Series

Give us a quick overview of what you make!

I’m a tabletop games writer and designer working independently out of Brooklyn, New York! I’ve written four successful products for the DMs Guild, the most well known of which is Wild Magic for Every Class, which doesn’t require much explanation, haha. My latest is the Monster Menu, a collection of over 100 unique “monster meals” that players can make out of slain creatures. It’s got that old school Roguelike sense of discovering something useful yet dangerous, as every entry has both delicious upsides and treacherous downsides to consider. Plus, the book has a bunch of original artwork inspired by Delicious In Dungeon and similar illustrations! I also have a background in board game writing and voice over acting, plus I directed the artwork for all of my D&D releases so far.

How did you get started in gaming?

Technically my first TTRPG experience was at a Summer camp where the councilor’s magitech-grenade-fisted DMPC hilariously overshadowed the party of kids. But luckily, my time with D&D proper started with a 3.5E campaign run at Sarah Lawrence College by my great friend (and future co-art-director on the Monster Menu), Jonathan Ying. I also dove into Vampire the Masquerade around that time, and have played 4E D&D, 5E D&D, Blades In The Dark, Night Witches (PBTA), Symbaroum, and a handful of other games since. My first real D&D character was a human cleric of death and travel named Erasmus. Alas, his death god died. Bummer!

What inspired you to create your own publications?

A push and pull of several competing things! I have a strong bias towards novelty, yet I’m often driven by the impulse that “I could do this better” when I see a less thought out piece of content. That “Chef” feat in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything was so underwhelming to me, given the vast array of ingredients an adventuring party has at their fingertips. I also have fond memories of eating slain monsters in NetHack as a kid and finding out whether I was going to suddenly gain telepathy or be near-mortally poisoned. Of course, modern D&D has a (rightfully) less all-or-nothing approach to balance, so I started working on the Monster Menu with that dichotomy in mind.

My first product back in 2018 came out of watching a youtube roundtable where famous DMs complained about the letdown of anticlimactic player character death. Hence Last Stand: A Worthy Death. Each of my supplements actually includes some form of postmortem at the end, so folks who are interested in reading a literal essay of design guidelines on each of my products can find one at the back of each PDF! I love talking shop. But stepping back from my specific releases, the RPG space lets me flex my liberal-artsy-poetry-flavor-texty muscles at the same time as my analytic-crunchy-philosophy-editing muscles. And when I run into something that feels like a problem or a gap in the core design, the concept of homebrew means no one gives me any weird looks when I try to fix it.

What is your next big goal for gaming-related work?

As I close in on 3000 total sales on the DMs Guild, I’m building a no-spam mailing list of followers to help me decide just what it is I do next. Ideally, I would move to Patreon and/or Kickstarter, and anyone interested in voting on what product I make next should absolutely sign up. The Monster Menu was actually voted over a few other possibilities earlier this year! And to sweeten the deal, everyone on the mailing list gets a free copy of Last Stand, that OG DMs Guild product I mentioned before. It’s all about “epicness insurance” for player character permadeath. But the door’s always open for collaborations with other creators in D&D and elsewhere, just hit me up at dave.panfilo@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter!

What's one fun fact people should know about you?

I wrote about one third of the questions for the official Game of Thrones trivia board game, published by Fantasy Flight Games! I’ve had a very weird career.

Follow Dave on Twitter and sign up for his mailing list to get insights into what he’s working on and advanced notice of all the fun things he’s putting out!

Twitter: @davepanfilo 

Mailing List: Dave’s Mailing List!

Email Dave directly for any business inquiries: dave.panfilo@gmail.com