Hi all! Today I have an interview with Kevin Petker about the game Princess World, which is currently on Kickstarter! The game has some fun beginnings – read all about it in the responses below!
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Tell me a little about Princess World. What excites you about it?
Princess World, “A Game of Girls who Rule” is a Powered by the Apocalypse role-playing game about playing diverse Princesses from varied realms who are trying to work together, despite their differences, to address problems in their world. The most exciting thing about the game is that it was inspired by my daughter, she literally pitched it to me when she was three-and-a-half (She’s six now) and she’s been a great help in generating ideas and concepts for the game. Princess World is designed to be accessible and engaging to new players, particularly younger ones, and deals a lot with the power and meanings of words, and how phrases can be reinterpreted in different ways. Every character in the game is defined by four essential Truths, which are short narrative phrases; when players start to grasp how to use these Truths to expand the narrative power of their characters in the game, using them as springboards for their imagination. Seeing a player’s eyes light up when they think of a new way to use a Truth makes the whole game worthwhile for me.
I’m super curious about the Truths! What are the four Truths and how are they presented to players?
Truths are probably my favorite part of Princess World! Truths are the “powers and abilities” of each Princess, like if you’d list four special things a character in a story or book are good at or known for. Each archetype/playbook has a unique list of four Truths that the player must express about their character. Some are extrinsic to the character, like equipment or things and some are intrinsic to the character, like experiences or legacies, and some purposely blur the line, so that the player can decide.
These Truths are narrative statements, not just descriptive, that give the character options and abilities others probably don’t have access to. For example, a Fairy Princess’s player wouldn’t just say, “I have green hair.” There’s not much they can do with that in a story; it’s mainly just description. If, instead, they said, “My hair consists of the intertwined flowers of Spring.”, then we can think about all the various narrative ideas and options we can unpack from that. Maybe they can use the scent of their hair to calm others, or maybe they can cause other plants to thrive, or maybe they can call on powers of growth and renewal. We’d play to find out the creative options the player could come up with, based on that Truth.
Truths are usually written in the character’s favorite color, unless they’ve been deemed to be Unpleasant, in which case, they’re usually written in black. Before a player writes down a Truth, they express it to the table of players first, and the other players judge the Pleasantness or Unpleasantness of that Truth, before the player writes it down. Being Unpleasant, just means that the other players can immediately see how said Truth has the potential to cause problems for the character, though they could be bad or dangerous as well, but the player can still call on them!
If a Truth is judged to be Unpleasant, the player has the option to accept that trouble or to rephrase the Truth in a way to address any concerns. Most players seem to enjoy having potential trouble brewing for their characters as it can lead to interesting stories.
The Truths can be as direct or as flowery as the player desires, but they’re usually a single sentence. For example, there was a Skateboard Princess who expressed this: “I can’t digest normal food, I eat batteries.” and the table of players was astonished and intrigued. The player went on to explain, “I’m a robot!” Now, they could’ve just expressed the Truth as “I’m a robot.”, but the whole “I eat batteries.” was thought of something more in line with what one would read in a story about a robotic Skateboard Princesses!
As a nonbinary creator, I’d be lax if I didn’t think of kiddos like me – is there space for nonbinary or masculine players or characters in this world, or is it strictly about embracing the feminine “girl” power and identity? How are you framing gender identity for the princesses, with this answer in mind? By this I mean, are there princesses with different body types and presentations like in She-Ra?
I think it’s going to be very tough to overcome the assumption that “princess means girl” in Western culture, but that is not an assumption I make in Princess World; we say “Anyone can be a Princess.” I lean more towards my daughter’s interpretation of princess which is “Someone who is capable and competent, and also pretty cool.” Some of the playbooks lean towards the feminine side, for certain values of feminine, such as the Proper or Fairy Princess, but the player of such characters is not bound by that at all! There are self-defining Skateboard Princeses, rough and tumble Warrior Princesses, and characters that are free to blur the lines in any way the players wish, like the Shadow or Pauper Princess. In the actual text I tend to lean towards female (she/her) or gender inclusive (they/them) pronouns unless I’m talking about a specific character or person who has specified their pronouns.
For the player, if the gender of their character is important to them, they can work to include it in the Truths about their character; if it less of a factor in their interest in the character, it can be included in their descriptive details. In actual play, their have been girl, boy, neither, amalgamated, changing, and artificially gendered Princesses. It’s my goal that players can make character that reflect their desires and interests in what is cool or exciting. Variations in age, body shape, gender, orientation, and even species have all occurred in actual play of Princess World. For me, it’s really exciting to see the fantastic directions players take their character creation in, thinking both inside and outside the box of the archetype they’ve picked. The new She-Ra cartoon has definitely been a touch stone.
With all that being said, there is, in very early development, a playbook that is specifically called the Boy Princess; my daughter wanted that included (she generated the seed ideas for fourteen of the sixteen playbooks we’re working on) and I’m excited to see how players will interpret and expand on that concept!
Awesome! The Boy Princess sounds my style. Speaking of style, I see that you’re using a system Powered by the Apocalypse. What led you to choose this system, and how have you modified it to suit your unique needs?
Well, I really fell in love with Apocalypse World when I was first introduced to it; it really mapped to my style of facilitating games and gave me words and structures to actually explain what I was doing. Also, it allowed for a very low level of pre-game preparation, something I’m really liking as I have less time to game. I feel that the PbtA approach worked really well for being a Weaver, what we call the “game master” in Princess World, as we stress that they are there to help the other players tell a story about their characters, not a story the Weaver makes up to put the princesses through; that collaboration between all the players, collectively creating the fiction of the narrative is what I find most satisfying in playing PbtA games.
For Princess World, I narrowed things down to four basic moves; all of which are ways of dealing with obstacles or problems that the characters face. Essentially: order things to do what you want, try to change their minds, evade things, fight things; they seem to cover all the ground I want for the players to explore when making choices for their characters. There’s a single auxiliary move that is dependent on how connected a Princess is to another Princess, using a currency we call Threads, which are statements about the characters’ relationships, written down on strips of paper and handed out to other players. As well, every Princess has a special knowledge move that reflect their unique perspective on Princess World, though other Princesses can use their Threads to tap into another Princess’s way of looking at things.
Apocalypse World, and many PbtA games, tend to be pretty loose on framing and pacing scenes; I’ve put a little more structure for that in Princess World, specifically using number of scenes to measure the difficulty or challenge of a situation; the more difficult a challenge is, the more scenes will be required to overcome or resolve it. I’m hoping this will make pacing of the story and sharing spotlight time easier for newer players to grasp and use.
There’s no lists of equipment or gear in Princess World, basically, if it makes sense for a Princess to have access to something, the Weaver is encouraged to say “Yes!”, especially if it’s something the player can narratively unpack from one of their Truths! Encouraging creativity and experimenting with ideas is strongly encouraged!
As a parent, being able to create a world for your kids to play in has got to be amazing. I can see some of this in the Truths, but what are the values and principles you’ve considered in design, and the emotional experiences, that you have made an effort to ensure come across in play?
Yes, it’s been amazing both from a design perspective and from a playing one. Sebastian, my son, has already played Princess World; he created the first Dragon Princess and did an amazing job with her, creating a monstrous Princess who was both scary and kind! Freya hasn’t played yet, but has done some basic role-playing with her cousins. All seem to have really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to more games with them.
One of the core experiences I wanted to have in Princess World was for the players to have to grapple with the question of “What is important to my character?”, with the subtext asking, “What is important to me?” Many moves and options revolve around choosing to help yourself, to help others, or to help the greater world around you and that, often, you won’t have enough to do all three at once so you’ll need to make hard choices. I interviewed a lot of kids, aged 9-13, during the early development process and I wanted the game to reflect what that age group wanted in a game: that their characters had agency, that they could make important choices, and that their choices mattered; I’m really hoping that Princess World will provide that for players, both new and experienced. So far, it seems to be working.
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Thanks so much to Kevin for the interview and to the Weaver Princess, Freya, for being such an inspiration! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Princess World on Kickstarter today!