The Beast, Closure

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Closure.

(Debrief post soon to come.)

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

The Beast, Day 20

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 20 is now posted!

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

The Beast, Day 19

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 19 is now posted!

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

The Beast, Day 18

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 18 is now posted!

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

What Makes a Good Player? with Ariana Ramos

Hello all!

In this new feature, What Makes a Good Player?, I’ll be covering the experience and practices of good players nominated by their fellows and GMs. All of the players were asked the same questions, but it’s interesting to see where those vary. 

The first interviewee is Ariana Ramos!


—

What do you try to do most often while playing games to enhance your experience and the experience of others?

This varies from game to game and also the frequency of how much I’ve played it. If it’s a brand new game, I will go with a class/skin I am excited for after maybe figuring out the setting the GM is aiming for and trying to get a feel for the players. A lot of times when new players come into play I will play more of the aggressive player or the one who tries to push others by taking the lead or prodding them into action, and this is more or less to let them know it’s okay to jump up with ideas. Other times I tend to like playing the outsiders, the characters that for some reason don’t belong but at the end don’t seem to care and continue with the challenge despite all odds stacked up against them. I also like making sure that the relationships/bonds characters have with do mean something beyond what is written and explore them as much as possible.

Do you use any specific play techniques (narrative tools, improv tools, etc.) in your play sessions?
A lot of improv, I try to use ‘yes and’ as much as possible in the game to give a good flow between players. My significant other and I listen to a lot of improv comedy, so that’s been a huge inspiration in where it’s okay to let games become silly or strange. I also do listen to music and secretly have themes for characters or try to shape their backgrounds in my head. Say the GM will make an item of great importance to my character I will ask myself why beyond just it being a thing of power, what sentimental value does it hold? All characters should have a drive, a reason to be there no matter how silly or small it may seem to someone who isn’t them it’s something that motivates them to continue.

How often do you like to game, and what is most comfortable for you to maintain good energy in games?
It depends on what’s going on in my real life. I’ve got two to three games per weekend or spread out during the month. I’ve had one game every other week or now I have a game every weekend, it’s knowing I am gaming with good people, and I can ultimately be myself. I only did Con gaming last year, and so far I was relatively lucky that I didn’t feel uncomfortable during my two visits to Origins. I have had uncomfortable situations over hangouts with people arguing over rules, forcing relationships or just being rude in general. You have to know when to cut your loses because gaming is supposed to be fun although it can be used as a learning and therapy tool. I never force myself to game with people I feel uncomfortable with, and I’ve learned to listen to myself in case feelings do come up and approach it calmly as possible. I also make sure that if by chance we’re touching hard themes that do come up that the other players are fine because although the X-card does exist when you have a personal relationship with someone, the automatic response is to laugh off any awkwardness that could harbor into bigger feelings. Just make sure people are okay, give it time and be open to conversations.

Also play games you’re excited for. Try new things!

What kind of games do you feel you are most comfortable with and enjoy the most?
I feel like every game is a good game with a good GM and good people. I don’t enjoy games that are solid combat, but I also am not a fan of games that are pure emotion. I do play a lot of Apocalypse World hacks because it’s the quickest system I can get into but there have been games I thought ‘no, thank you’ but have surprised me because the GM had an amazing way of sucking me in. I love world building with the players at hand; I love the feel of something being ours and it’s something we’re all exploring together.

Can you share a special experience in a game where you felt like you did a good job playing your part in the overall story and game?
There are so many. From my Flame Princess mourning the loss of her Dead Knight and in that pure platonic love and not romantic. I think my favorite was we were playing FATE in a joky horror setting with kids going to camp. This was my second time playing ‘Heather Sweets aka Sweets’ who is still one of my favorite characters and the GM had said someone had intercepted her care packages from her parents, and so she was out of candy. In a complete meltdown, I had my character laying on the floor claiming her parents didn’t love her anymore as I was trying not to laugh it made me sound like I was sobbing as I was asking for just one piece of candy. In the game, the monster is Big Foot, after having stolen some candy and shared it with a camper my character needs sugar to run fast to get away and so I reach for my friend’s hand and LICK IT to get some sugar off of it.

—


Thanks so much to Ariana for agreeing to the interview and for sharing her experiences! I hope all of my readers find the interview enjoyable and useful, and hope you like those that come along soon!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

The Beast, Day 17

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 17 is now posted!

(content warning: gender-related body issues (dysphoria?) within. gross related to menstruation.)

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

The Beast, Day 16

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 16 is now posted!

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Five or So Questions with Nathanael Cole on Gattaibushido!

Today’s interview is with Nathanael Cole about his new game Gattaibushido, which is a story-driven mecha-pilots game! It’s currently on Kickstarter and sounds like a great time. Check out the interview, and then click-thru to the Kickstarter if you’re interested!.

Full disclosure: My volunteered voicework is included in the Kickstarter video for Gattaibushido.

—

Tell me a little about your project. What excites you about it?

Gattaibushido is my personal RPG love letter to a number of old cartoons and animes that own permanent crash space in my heart. I grew up watching shows like Voltron and the Power Rangers, but honestly the biggest inspirations came from two anime series called Gunbuster and Vandread. When I first saw those series, I immediately wanted to game in those worlds. Once I realized that I had a good foundation for teamwork games with Motobushido, I got ridiculously excited about finally getting to write my own person Gunbuster game using those mechanics.


What mechanical inspirations did you have for Gattaibushido?

From the very beginning, I wanted a way to involve Colors in every aspect of play. The first obvious step was basing the team roles off of the classic color roles in Super Sentai shows. But beyond that, I wanted more of a focus on colors than just numerical stats all over the place. Turns out this was already easy enough to do. Motobushido had a heavy focus on threes and sevens as part of its thematic core, and porting that over to a “Roy G Biv” color scale was a cinch. By this point in the design process, almost the entire system has some aspect of the rainbow scale within it, and I’m pretty happy with the way that part has turned out.

However, probably the biggest of the more recent inspirations came from a video game called Chroma Squad. For weeks and weeks I had tried to nail down the Final Form Fight mechanics, and went through dozens of iterations. I kept working the “natural extension to the core fight mechanics” angle, but nothing was working, nothing felt right. Finally I took a long break to chill out and play some video games, one of which was Chroma Squad. I don’t want to spoil that game (it’s amazing!), so I’ll just say that when the first “season” of its story ended, there was a sudden change in mechanics that came out of nowhere, a whole new kind of battle sequence that had not even been hinted at before. And then suddenly it all made sense: if I really wanted to showcase the difference in scale netween the normal battles and the final form battles, I needed a whole new approach, something totally different than the core mechanic. Two design jam session later and the current “Rumble” mechanic was born.


How did you come up with flavor of the game including themes and associated mechanics?
The basic “combining robos vs space monsters” originally came to this project as just a nifty idea for a spin-off “hack” of the core Motobushido rules. Once I started re-immersing myself in the source genre, I grew more and more inspired, and likewise the hacked text grew more and more complicated. Eventually I realized that it needed its own spotlight, and decided to make it an entirely new stand-alone game.
But specifically, two animes deeply inspired the core themes of teamwork. The first was Gunbuster, which was in fact the original kickstart my brain needed to get moving with this project in the first place. The team relationships within that show were so intense and conflicted and _real_ that I felt that those characters could very well have been created using the previous Motobushido rules, just needing a few tweaks to fit the material. Later on I was introduced to a newer series called Majestic Prince. While not actually a “gattai” show, it might as well have been for all the ways that the themes of teamwork and intra-team conflict guided every aspect of that show. I wanted my game to play just like that and I think I’ve done a good job so far bringing out that team dynamic in the playtests.


Coming from your inspirations, what choices did you make to ensure the game is approachable for all ages, genders, etc.?
Specifically, in order to deal with certain old sexist tropes inherent in the classic super sentai genre character roles, I’ve tweaked the colors a bit to make them more versatile. This has had a positive effect with my current test groups, and although a handful of people were expecting more traditional SS color roles, they adapted to the alterations pretty easily enough.

Additionally, I made a few conscious-but-not-overt design choices very early on in the art and writing process. I chose to show only women and girls in the vast majority of the artwork and text (there is one, singular character exception, and it is a bit of an homage to Gunbuster). There’re no outright statements in the book saying “you have to play women,” but if you follow the artwork and the text, it’s pretty much assumed. Additionally, I specifically requested that the majority of the girls in the art be non-Caucasian, and of a variety of body types. I have been pretty pleased with the stuff Juan’s done so far, and I hope my readers will be too.

As for ages? Ah, this might not be a good game for kids, as the themes can be pretty violent and I don’t really hold back with some bits of language here and there.



What do you think are the core elements of Gattaibushido that you want players to see when playing the game, and how do you think the mechanics and flavor help make that happen?
Hands down, teamwork is the absolute number one core element that I want to be ever-present throughout the entirety of play. Everyone has a “Harmony” track, which keeps them in sync with the team spirit. It’s front and center in the gaming space, and integrated into almost every action and component. The characters can of course function on their own, but they truly excel the most when working in synch with the rest of the team. The core fight mechanics heavily involve teamwork combos, including an “Uno” like rotation and reversal mechanic that encourages the players to strategize and synch their abilities together. And of course, the Final Form Rumble fights are pretty much impossible without a well-synched team. =)
—

Thanks so much to Nathanael for the interview. I hope you all get the chance to check out Gattaibushido on Kickstarter now!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

The Beast, Day 15

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 15 is now posted!

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

The Beast, Day 14

I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 14 is now posted!

These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts. 

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.