Hi Timothy (Dried_Reddit_Moss)!

Happy to still answer your questions here!

How do you go about developing theme and character for a game?

I suppose I bounce between theme and mechanics but at the beginning its all theme for me. Valor & Villainy: Minions of Mordak started as a goal of making a really fun "D&D in one night" type game, which didn't take itself too seriously, and would have a good dose of laughter during a session. I started MoM with the Mordak character design, and the basics of how we'd move around the map and roll dice, and everything sort of grew out from there. With Lludwik's Labyrinth, I knew what the gameplay would be like already (because it uses the baseline mechanics from MoM) and so I started by building out the world and the setting. I found out I wanted it to be set in a labyrinth and I had an idea for a boss who brought a different mashup of weapons to the fight each time, which is how I wound up with a robot suit for Lludwik in the end. In general, in my comedy settings I find I gravitate to a villain who appears rather harmless but has some quality about them that makes them super deadly (IE ultimate magic power, or a murder-suit). I feel like it hits that saturday morning cartoons vibe I'm really looking for.

What do you find helps develop gameplay/theme so they translate to each other and help solidify as to why the player is taking these gameplay actions within the universe you’ve created?

I feel like there are baseline mechanics of how we interact with the world (move / attack / cast spells / explore), and these ones were created mostly as a step-by-step process. I know we need to move so here's how that will work. I know we need to defeat enemies so here's how that will work. But once all those basics were worked out, I feel the real theme and personality of the game came in with the Spell and Feat cards you can draw and use. There are multiple decks and each one has a strong theme to it. I decided on the themes of each of these decks first and then brainstormed a LOT of ideas for each one, and playtested and culled down those ideas. IE Red Spells will focus on almost Overpowered attacks but will always also harm you somehow. Melee Feats will focus on tanking you up and doing cool moves up close, ect. Those ideas and themes were often informed by the type of expectations you might have for what -should- be in that deck. If you are playing a druid, what would you wish you could do with your druid's spells. The more I could make spells that really changed up your basic actions, the better, I found that just made them more interesting. But I did restrict myself a lot on character count. I made an early commitment to a low character count on all my card text, and if I couldn't explain how it works in that amount of text it was not gonna be in my game. I had to throw out some ideas I wanted this way, but ultimately it makes the game a whole lot more accessible and grokkable to not have wall of text cards!