Today I have five-or-so questions with Thomas Deeny on the vs. KICKSTARTER, a collection of three games that’s currently on Kickstarter! Check out what Thomas had to say below.
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Tell me a little about vs. KICKSTARTER. What excites you about it?
vs. KICKSTARTER began as three small roleplaying games based on Phil Reed’s vs. Monsters. More accurately, they are inspired by his vs. Outlaws, a pared-down Wild West-themed version of his original game. That game was produced on both sides of a multi-panel screen that folds down to a 5-1/2″ square.
A bit over a decade ago, Phil opened the vsM Engine up for others to use. At that time, I had worked a bit on three games based on vsM, but I wound up focusing on completing a BFA and plans for development were pushed back. A few months ago, there was a discussion on twitter about one of the settings I had developed as a vsM-powered game. I looked back at the old files and while that particular game needed a lot of work, I saw that vs. MARS was nearly done. So much so, that a bit of trimming and it would fit on that folded screen template. From there, the other two initial games featured in the campaign followed.
vs. MARS is a game about an alien invasion in a small town. I’ve always been a fan of survival fiction — things like zombie movies where the focus and threat is about the other survivors but there is some external threat pressuring the survivors. vs. MARS really slots into that role. The unlocked expansion opens the game up to leading a resistance on occupied Earth.
vs. MIRRORSHADES is a fast-playing cyberpunk game. I love the cyberpunk genre and my hope is this game falls a bit more into the social change/punk part of cyberpunk rather than the chrome fetishization side. An unlocked two-panel expansion to this adds fantasy races and magic to the MegaCity — it’s the most-requested addition to any cyberpunk game.
vs. PIRATES is a game in the golden age of piracy from our childhood memories. The already-unlocked expansion came first: I’ve always wanted to play a game that was a mashup of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and The Pirates of the Caribbean. Without the expansion, you’re playing more of a Treasure Island or Black Sails game. With the expansion, you’ve got undead pirates, the kraken, and cursed treasure.
We’ve recently unlocked vs. EMPIRE, a game that isn’t so much “Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off” as it is “Star Wars with the serial numbers filled in Play-Doh”.
Initially, I thought the campaign would need $400 to fund and would probably top out at $600 or about 40 or 45 backers. I am excited about the response to the campaign so far! As I write this, the campaign is 500% funded and we are nearing 100 backers — that’s twice the number of backers and nearly twice the amount pledged past a point in my initial spreadsheet where I wrote “we’re probably dreaming at this point”. That these small games are inspiring people I don’t even know to come on board and help make them a reality is just something that surprised me — it really impressed me.
Great! What about this particular mechanical system appealed to you to use in such a variety of settings, and what have you changed to suit them?
When I started designing my initial vs. game, I was interested in survival fiction. Rather than being the proactive monster hunters of vs. Monsters where your characters decide to hunt down monsters, having a setting where you are forced to take on that role appealed to me. You’re a regular person and then something happens: how do you react to that?
I had two different main games I was developing which had the same underlying elements: normality is interrupted by an invasion; you are simultaneously being hunted and take on the role of the hunters. One game was somewhat campy, the other somewhat serious. They combined and the theme of vs. MARS wound up engulfing the other.
Since my initial designs, my preferred game style has changed from one where we’re just players reacting to the twists and turns of the GM’s story to more of a style where there is player collaboration in they way the story is shaped. In vs. MARS, there are rules for scene framing where a player answers two questions: “What is this scene about?” and “Where does it take place?” Adding an element like this helps to emulate the type of fiction vs. MARS emulates — in a setting like an alien invasion, one major element is isolation or separation. By adding scene framing, our protagonists don’t have to be in a small clump of adventuring heroes all the time.
When there is damage involved, conflict resolution now incorporates the suits of cards drawn to speed up determining damage taken. The cyberpunk game, vs. MIRRORSHADES, has a Metal stat that is used whenever cyberware augmentations are used. To reflect the setting’s concept that cyberware is an improvement, using Metal makes the highest card revealed a suit that trumps all others. It effectively guarantees that you’re going to have some effect on the scene if you use these augments.
You know I love small towns, so I’m curious, what do you do to make the town small and still feel worth being in for vs. MARS?
During character creation, one of the things you would choose for your survivor is their concept: something about what they did before the invasion and what they want. This desire is something that should tie them into the town. The current example character is Tabitha Masters, a French major at ETU who wants to get home to make sure her family is safe.
Stock locations are listed for a few things found in and around the town that convey the theme of isolation.
What have you done to make fantasy character types exciting and respectful for cyberpunk, mechanically or setting-wise?
To get to that, I have to work through the constraints of the project. Whenever I see a new game come out the first question I always see asked is: “Can I play Star Wars with it?” (Which is where vs. EMPIRE comes from.) The second question is: “Can I play Shadowrun with it?” When developing the cyberpunk vs. game, it seemed that a straight cyberpunk game with an option to add on the fantasy elements would fit the limited space I had available.
With vs. MAGICSHADES, a player chooses their character’s heritage, which adds a simple one-use bonus to the character. Some implied setting material, such as the elf nation of Tir nAill claiming all elves as citizens, start to bring in some classic tropes of pseudo-Shadowrun.
How are your pirates and their world different from and the same as those we most commonly see in media?
The tagline for vs. PIRATES says the setting is based on the way we remember tales of pirates from our childhood. I feel it is more cartoonish than serious. Even though you could play something straight like the Black Sails television show, I anticipate the default play style would be more like The Pirates of the Caribbean if one stripped out all the supernatural aspects.
The way vs. PIRATES works is we establish the approach one will take to a situation. Our stats in the game are Swashbuckling and Parley. Basically if you’re fighting, your approach uses Swashbuckling. If you’re not, it’s Parley. An antagonist also has approaches, but they are based on their role. So a pirate antagonist would be drawing more cards if they were doing something piratey and fewer if they were doing something outside their role.
Going back to that default play style, adding in the vs. DAVY JONES expansion bumps the game towards that Buffy + Pirates of the Caribbean game, so we can add some more supernatural elements to the antagonists and their goals.
What more do you have in store both for those already-achieved stretch goals and anything else to come?
I really don’t want to overextend myself on this, which is the first Kickstarter campaign I’ve handling myself. While I have been collaborating and working on over a dozen others, I’ve seen a few easy ways how a successful campaign can be twisted into become a financial nightmare.
I’ve spoken to a few other campaign creators when it looked like we were close to unlocking the vs. EMPIRE stretch goal. Nearly every one told me to not add anything else that I don’t feel comfortable with. At this point, the project is funded and will be delivered — with the planning I’ve done for the campaign, it’s all good. I don’t want to take on additional costs that could disrupt fulfillment of the project.
So right now, the last stretch goal was “I’ll add a second topping to a celebratory pizza when this is all over.”
However, I have plans for further developing some of those earlier vsM games into this format, including one game designed to be a 1-on-1 one-shot. I’ll see how fulfillment goes for this campaign first!
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Thanks so much to Thomas for the interview! I hope you enjoyed it and that you check out the vs. KICKSTARTER on Kickstarter today!