DEEP – Designer Experience Exchange at Pyrkon
Pyrkon is doing a conference for TTRPG designers! We’re putting together a single-day conference for the TTRPG designers community in Poznań a day before Pyrkon.
What is it, and why?
Designer Experience Exchange at Pyrkon (DEEP) is a one-day conference focused on TTRPG design and directed to people working within this field (or aspiring and looking to enter it). Pyrkon is our meeting place for all fantasy & scfi-fi fans, but over the years we noticed that it is rarely allowing our TTRPG guests to meet with each other for more than a quick coffee chat in passing in the Green Room. This is apparently a pretty standard experience for designers at most conventions.
Which is a great shame that people working daily on designing games for players to weave stories together, having wonderful experiences and stories thanks to those games, don’t have their own place and time to freely meet, discuss, exchange experiences, and find interesting new collaborations.
We’d like to make DEEP such a space where you can do that all among your peers, without this nagging feeling in the back of your mind, “I should probably sell my game right now to those people”. Let’s build together a place and time for the TTRPG designers community to come together and foster growth by exchanging experiences and ideas within.
We’d love to know if you’re interested in attending or participating actively in panels, so please fill out the application form. We’ll contact you as soon as possible to discuss the details of your participation in the panels, or we’ll redirect you to the ticket purchase page. You can only purchase tickets for the event after submitting your application (at the price of 94.99 PLN).
Conference tickets cost 94.99 PLN!
How will it work? (When and where)
Designer Experience Exchange at Pyrkon is, as the name suggests, connected to Pyrkon and will take place on a day prior (Thursday, 18th June 2026) to the convention in Poznań. We’ll meet at Słodownia, 1st floor, Stary Browar, 42 Półwiejska Street, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
This is not an open event for people just interested in TTRPG as a hobby. Our focus is on designers, so we expect topics and themes to run deeper than what a regular TTRPG player would find interesting. We’re looking at small, curated attendance..
We are interested in this being more of a discussion and actual exchange of ideas and experiences, so rather than simple talks, we’re looking to have ~2h discussion panels where you can see different viewpoints and approaches.
This year we’re aiming for 2-3 tracks covering 4-5 topics each, keeping in mind that in this case quality is definitely more important than quantity. To truly foster more collaboration and exchange of experiences, we are also making room in the schedule for an extended lunch break (who doesn’t like interesting discussions over a good meal?) and an evening mixer at the venue to keep talking over drinks.
The panels and topics
The current themes and topics we’re looking to discuss are below:
- Designing the Product
- Rulebooks as an Experience
- Designing games in the age of AI
- The Lifespan of a Game
- Designing the Game
- Evolution of Role-Players
- Role-Playing Genres
- Safety vs Comfort
All of these are subject to change if the community shows different interests and are not set in stone. If you’re interested in sharing your experience and insights on any of this topics in front of your peers – please let us know before buying tickets! We’ll contact you as soon as possible in terms of becoming one of the panelists.
Of course this list is not exhaustive, and if there is a topic that you’re interested in and looking forward to discussing with other TTRPG designers, please let us know at [email protected] , and we’ll see if there is enough interest for it and if we can make it into an actual discussion panel.
What we offer
For our DEEP panelists, we have some additional benefits, as we’re offering full 3-day passes to Pyrkon as a thank you for helping to grow the TTRPG designer community by sharing their own perspective, experience, and insights during DEEP panels.
Even if you won’t be a DEEP panelist, we invite you to stay for the weekend and visit Pyrkon! You can find tickets and details below.
Summary
Remember that you can only purchase tickets for the event after submitting your application form.
Conference tickets cost 94.99 PLN!
You are welcome to share this information with other TTRPG designers so they know about this event.
If you have any further questions, feel free to email us at [email protected]
Let’s dive in DEEP and see you in Poznań!