Welcome to ScaleCo: The Capitalist Dungeon Crawler
A narrative-drive tabletop Dungeons & Dragons campaign built with DungeonDraft & Foundry VTT that explores the darkly comedic world of office politics, corporate bureaucracy, and player agency- all through a UX designer’s lens.
Technology Used: DungeonDraft, Foundry VTT, Notion, Canva
Skills Applied: UX writing & narrative design, player behavior research, information architecture, systems thinking, puzzle design & chaos management
I set out to create an experience that:
Rewarded curiosity while managing user cognitive load
Encourage decision-making with consequences (good and bad)
Parody office culture just enough while maintaining user buy-in
Balance player agency with structure to ensure users make it to the final boss.
How do you design a high-stakes, Dungeons & Dragons one-shot that doesn’t feel like a railroad, but still guides players through increasingly complex goals? What if it’s all set in a soul-crushing corporate office?
The Question:
Rather than creating an expansive open world or locking the party in a strict path, I created a flow that mimicked the illusion of choice found in many real-world bureaucracies.
In other words: you can do it your own way… as long as you fill out Form 42-C and a signature from the HR department.
My Approach:
I treated the campaign arc like a user workflow, balancing:
Structure: As you would typically find in an office, each room connects and has a general flow. This keeps users in the workflow and lowered abandonment risk due to an overwhelming number choices.
Player Agency: I maintained several solutions to each progression puzzle and paths to reach the final boss.
Environmental cues: I created visual storytelling elements through flyers & interactive bulletin boards for world-building and providing hints for players to progress in the story.
Players are tasked with investigating the newest ScaleCo branch. Profits are off the charts and players need to know why — and see how they can take a piece of the profits for themselves.
The Player Experience: User Flow in Fantasy Form
Act 1: “You’ll need at least three signatures”
Objective: Gain access to the executive assistant’s office. They control the CEO’s schedule after all.
UX Note: Players could earn access by solving puzzles, roleplaying interactions, or using in-world trivia knowledge. I worked to ensure they felt clever no matter which approach they took.
Shown here: Office cubicles filled with busy workers or procrastination experts.
Shown here: Department Head desks and managerial offices.
Objective: Work with (or against) the executive assistants’ policy to secure a meeting with the CEO.
UX Note: This portion tested how well players were picking up on cues and tools I’d laid out in Act 1 (flyers, NPC dialogue, forms).
Mechanics: Players could choose to follow the policy directly or cleverly workaround the system to proceed.
Act 2: Get on the calendar!
Shown here: The executive assistant’s office — Ms. Lucinda Goldleaf
Shown Here: A regular conference room whose chairs definitely “won’t” kill you.
Plot Twist: The CEO isn’t really in charge…
Decision Point: Players must align with him, fight him, or bypass him. Either way, they have to find out who is really in charge.
Act 3: Meet the “Boss”
Shown here: The CEO’s private chambers.
Shown here: A ledger players can find before (or after) dealing with the CEO.
Objective: Survive meeting the real boss - The Chairman of the Board.
UX Note: This delayed reveal of the true “villain” rewards players for remaining in the workflow and still retains player agency as they choose their next move based on their particular playstyle.
Act 4: The Reveal
Shown here: The chairman’s chair. built on the bones of former employees.
Shown here: The shareholder sword - Wield the sword, wield the profits.
UX Design in Disguise
At first glance, this may look like a tabletop roleplaying campaign—but underneath the fantasy is a fully designed user experience. From onboarding mechanics to environmental storytelling, I applied UX principles to guide players through a complex, interactive world. Every puzzle, flyer, and form was crafted with the user in mind.
System Usability: Form Verifications & Signatures
Each locked doors required a specific number of completed and/or signed forms.
Forms could be “signed” at the cost of a task or damage or bypassed by passing a particular skill check.
This allowed players to choose friction — speed vs. strategy.
Example of skill checks required for a department head signature.
Example of an NPC office-cubicle encounter. Players who choose this interaction may be rewarded with a hint to assist further in the campaign.
Onboarding: The Tutorial Receptionist
As this was done on a digital platform there is a learning curve when connecting players to the actions they can take in the platform. Players were introduced to Foundry’s interactive elements through the first NPC encounter, the ScaleCo receptionist.
“Oh! Be sure to check the flyers on the table — they are very important. Especially the one about your first day on the job” — Tracy Goldleaf (ScaleCo’s Receptionist)
Foundry allows players to interact with the digital world around them.
When the icons are clicked a memo, flyer, or other campaign text will open.
Engagement: Parody with an Ounce of Truth
Flyers, tasks, and NPC dialogue were all written to mimic actual corporate comms, but with a darker twist. By exaggerating the language of “wellness” and “productivity” I kept players paying attention, and giggling along the way.
Sample flyer:
“Skip Breaks for Efficiency!”
Time is precious! Minimize breaks throughout the day to maintain focus and momentum. Every minute counts toward meeting deadlines and exceeding expectations.
Example of a employee bulletin board notice.
In addition to world flavor the flyers also provide hints on directions players can take to progress: Access to the executive wing may lie with the Assistant to the General Manager.
UX Parallels & Professional Takeaways
This project not only stretched my design-thinking skills but also showed me that good UX matters and must be considered when aiming for an amazing user experience.
User Behavior Matters: I respected what players responded to, and adjusted the environment accordingly. Inserting tutorial cues can lead to excitement in delight as users inspect the rest of the interactive interface.
Information architecture is storytelling: The flyers, room layouts, form text weren’t just flavor — they reinforced the world’s logic and kept players immersed.
If you can make people care about fake office politics, you can design for anything: This project reminded me that storytelling, interactivity, and emotional payoff are, at their core, elements of usability.