Chad Ellis—Reality Gaming at Boda Borg, the Psychology of Negotiation, and Building Ego-Free Teams (#108)

About Chad Ellis

Chad Ellis is a game enthusiast, strategist, and designer with an incredible range of experience across competitive tabletop, corporate leadership, and live reality gaming. Chad started his game publishing career partnering with Rob Dougherty under the Your Move Games brand, releasing innovative designs like Battleground Fantasy Warfare: a clever system that compressed large-scale miniature wargaming down into card sets. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and has held executive leadership positions across a wide range of organizations, from small startups to global giants like Siemens. Today, Chad is the founder and operator of Boda Borg Boston, a massive 30,000-square-foot reality gaming center featuring 24 distinct, physical “Quests” that challenge teams mentally and physically. His tabletop roots run deep, from playing on the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour alongside the legendary Your Move Games testing group, to competitive chess, to running an epic D&D campaign for his kids. Chad also writes a political Substack titled Letters to my Uncles at happygeekchad.substack.com.

Ah-ha! Justin’s Takeaways

* Mutual Teacher/Student Relationships: The secret to building an elite playtesting group or an incredible business partnership is surrounding yourself with people where you are both a teacher and a student at the exact same time. Zero ego with a radical willingness to share and learn. When we were coming up in the Your Move Games house back in the day, nobody cared who had the higher Pro Tour finish, everyone listened, everyone pushed each other, and everyone grew together.

* Bad Clients Drive Out Good Clients: Bad clients will drive out good clients every single time if you let them. If you dilute your messaging trying to appeal to everyone, you end up captivating no one. Nobody gets to unilaterally decide who loves their game; it’s a designer’s job is to get out there, test with different groups, and discover who it actually resonates with.

* Test a Hypothesis, Don’t Just Test: Don’t just run blind playtests hoping to stumble on feedback, instead test a very specific hypothesis. You need to know exactly how every single test converts into actionable data, and more importantly, you have to possess the discipline to change when the the data proves you wrong.

* Frictionless Hook Points: Identify your game’s exact hook point, which is the precise moment where a player’s eyes light up and they go, “Oh wow, I get it”. Once you know where that moment lives, your entire design goal is to ruthlessly strip away every single ounce of friction between a person sitting down and experiencing that spark.

* Negotiation as a Co-op Game: Negotiation isn’t a zero-sum, competitive battle where one person wins and the other loses—it’s a co-op game. When you shift the conversation away from rigid positions and demands toward underlying interests, you stop fighting over slices and start expanding the size of the pie so everybody walks away winning.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe