- rules systems, scenarios, victory conditions, level design
- play balancing, play value, replayability
- player psychology, rewards, pacing, dramatic structure
- high concept, design docs, production, management, and scheduling
- very high level UI, AI, network, and other technical design
- multiplayer, lobbying, social, and persistent community issues
- business, marketing, and legal issues
- big publishers vs. budget publishers vs. indies vs. hobbyists
- resumes and job postings for any game industry job (not just Game Designers)
- ads for products of general, justifiable interest to Game Designers

This is not a low-level technical forum. Gory details of algorithms, code, APIs, OSes, etc. are off-topic.

This list is co-moderated and all subscriptions and posts are subject to moderator approval. Anyone with any level of expertise may participate on this list. Somewhat off-topic posts will be tolerated; grossly off-topic posts will be rejected. Rules of debate:

- The argument must remain intellectually productive.
- Inflammatory remarks can be intellectually productive, but often aren't.
- Two people talking past each other is not intellectually productive.
- You are entitled to debate ideas, not people.
- Personal attacks are never allowed, ever. No excuses.
- Debators are expected to voluntarily de-escalate a conflict when it gets out of hand.

If the co-moderators do not feel that these debating rules are being adhered to, then they will issue warnings, end a topic, reject posts, and/or ban debators from the forum as they see fit.