Today on approachable theory we’re talking about meta accessibility tools, and we’re going to start by breaking down what I mean by that term. Read more!
Today on approachable theory we’re talking about meta accessibility tools, and we’re going to start by breaking down what I mean by that term.
Continue reading “approachable theory: Meta Accessibility Tools”A game for two players where they tell stories and play out scenes about the unusual The Man who stays in their cabin in the woods and alone… except for The Stag from the copse who wants to influence the world of man with magic. Whether this connection leads to a revelation or condemnation does truly depend on the cards. Crowdfund ends March 15, 2021!
My goal is $1000 by March 15, 2021 and with the following goals, I’ll provide more content! There’s also a number of rewards on the itch page to help me reach my goal!
I have added a number of rewards that I think suit the project, including one-on-one games and portrait illustrations, but also community copies!
Campaign ends March 15, 2021 at end of day Eastern time!
Continue reading “The Man and The Stag on itchio!”Devlog on Itchio: https://briebeau.itch.io/script-change/devlog/209532/script-change-update-2021
Hey all!
I’m excited to announce that Script Change has experienced a significant update with three more tools and a new layout! You can find the new free text version at briebeau.com/scriptchange and the PDF plus the handouts are still free with option to donate at briebeau.itch.io/script-change. I have raised the suggested donation to $5 because of the sheer amount of time and effort I have put into Script Change over the years, and the continued creation of new content. I hope that’s okay!
In 2021, I’ve added Bloopers & Outtakes, a formal wrap meeting structure, the Editor’s Notes with picks, squicks, and icks to help guide content and response, and Two Thumbs Up to help with quiet check-ins and for less verbal players. These changes have been developing for a while, and I’m so excited to release them for you all!
Note: For the time being, please use the previous revision’s handout to put out descriptions on the table for reference, as I need more time to do the layout work and nothing’s changed on it. Also, in the new Bloopers & Outtakes section, I managed to only write “bloopers” on each Reel listing, but I’ll fix this soon if I can. I apologize for missing it!
Thank you so much for your continued support!
The following is an essay by John W. Sheldon, someone you may know as the art director for Turn, or as the creator of Roar of Alliance, playtested at Big Bad Con and elsewhere.
My name is John W. Sheldon, and I’ve been working on a tabletop game called Roar of Alliance for a few years (I used to call it Armored Reckoning). The game is about crewing an Allied tank in an alt-history World War Two and fighting through waves Nazis to set things right. What could be more anti-fascist than that? Lots of stuff, it turns out. The problem is that Nazis aren’t the only fascists, and my game does some things that potentially support fascist ways of thinking. In the political climate of the United States in 2019, it is especially important that we be aware of these things and work to mitigate them as much as possible. I’m writing about my process here in the hopes that others might find a useful example in the steps I’ve taken, and so that people with more experience can point out ways I can further improve.
How does a game about destroying Nazi tanks and blowing up their infantry risk supporting fascist modes of thought? One cornerstone of fascist ideology is that they (the fascists) are oppressed by an enemy that is numerous, pervasive, powerful, and simultaneously inferior (stupid, incompetent, or morally weak). Another cornerstone is that the only appropriate way to deal with that enemy is by force.
The rules of my game do specifically these things:
The enemies you face in Roar of Alliance are numerous (outnumbering the players in just about every engagement), dangerous (their vehicles are often more advanced and better armed), and lack intelligence (their actions are automated by simple if/then statements that they never deviate from). The only way players ever interact with these foes is via deadly force. You will lose the game if you do not destroy their vehicles and disperse their infantry.
So, in these ways at least, my game actually promotes a core set of fascist ideologies. Some of this is hard to avoid, given that the game doesn’t have anyone in a central directorial role to moderate portrayals of the enemy or to restrict player behaviors in direct contact with the enemy outside combat, therefore no character in the game is ever confronted by a Nazi outside the specific circumstance of combat. This is a conscious choice to make sure nobody at the table is ever tasked with portraying a Nazi, and it keeps torture* and certain other types of violent fantasy outside the scope of the game as written. Players also have some leeway in narrating the effects of their actions on the enemy: when enemy infantry are removed from the field, players can choose to narrate the enemy’s retreat or death, and players do the same for surviving crew of disabled enemy vehicles.
Since violence and a portrayal of the enemy as numerous and unintelligent are essential to the way the game functions, and I don’t want to scrap the whole thing and start over, how do I make sure the rest of the game refutes fascism?
I start with something nationalists and fascists hate: I make sure that every other aspect of the game supports and emphasizes diversity and demonstrates how it creates strength. This paragraph kicks off the rulebook:
This game is set during the 2nd World War in Europe, a time when even the historical victors were rife with bigoted beliefs and policies. You should not let those real world bigotries limit the characters you choose to portray and accept. People of all races and genders from six continents and countless backgrounds fought against fascism and Nazism in Europe, and your characters should reflect some of that diversity.
Moreover, players are asked to identify their character’s country of origin, to help emphasize the diversity of geographic origin of the people who challenge fascism. Some of these choices are informed at a basic level by the themes of the character archetypes the game offers. In particular, the Partisan archetype was a resident of Nazi-occupied territory and a resistance fighter before joining up with the crew, the Collateral is a member of a population oppressed by the Allies and nevertheless pressed into service against the Nazis (e.g., Black Americans or colonial subjects of the British Empire), and the Duty was someone who volunteered for the fight because they new defeating fascism and Nazism was the right thing to do.
For actually producing the game, I’m doing what I’d never recommend: I’m doing the rules writing, layout, and illustrations all myself. What this does mean is that I can make sure that all of the art upholds my stated dedication to multiple axes of diversity. The art within the rules documents already portrays people of multiple genders, races, and body types as members of the player tank crew. Additional art I’m working on will include crew members with visible disabilities, crew wearing items of non-European traditional dress, and different cultural grooming standards.
Part of my plan for taking the game to crowdfunding is to offer backers the opportunity to have their portraits included as the card back art for some of the character archetypes, and as the face cards in the crew deck. Since I believe the audience for my game (one about Tanks in World War Two) skews significantly male, white, able-bodied, and cis, simply offering all of these art opportunities on a first-come, first-served basis would further skew the art for my game towards a monolithic default. To maintain my dedication to diversity, I need to give up potential sources of revenue and pre-stack the art with diverse portraits. I’ll won’t be offering backer levels for the Jacks in the Crew Deck, or for half of the character archetypes. Instead, I’ll be creating those portraits before the crowdfunding campaign begins. The portraits for the Jacks will be portraits of non-binary volunteers, and those for the first half of the character archetypes will be of volunteers who are one or more of non-white, queer, or visibly disabled.
Most fascism thrives on mythologizing heroes as paragons of strength, capable of facing great hardship alone and without aid. The heroes of fascism also contain within them a paradox: the enemy they face is terrifying, but they never actually feel fear. Roar of Alliance refutes these mythologized ideas of heroism idea on multiple fronts. The very nature of combat in my game requires players to rely on one another at all times (no person can operate a tank single-handedly). The player characters also begin the game by admitting fear: one of the first tasks of the first session is to identify a fear your character has about the fighting to come.
During the game, player characters will take Stress (the game’s unified resource representing both physical toughness and mental resilience). Characters who max out their Stress during an engagement play out a Last Stand for significant effect, then leave the Crew (the player decides whether they have died or simply become unable for whatever reason to continue on as a tank crew member). While the characters have a limited set of resources called Motivations that the players can expend to avoid stress, the only way to actually recover Stress relies on spending time with the other characters between battles. Only by working together, by comforting one another, and by acknowledging their own dependence on others can characters reduce their Stress and gain new Motivations to help them engage in future battles.
Every archetype has scene prompts that show them needing help, and the whole game requires players to rely extensively on one another. Even the player’s Crew is supported by a company of non-Crew characters that players will occasionally be called on to portray between battles. No lone strong hero, or even small group of heroes, can accomplish the monumental task the players are facing.
Fascism dehumanizes its enemies, making it easier for its adherents to attack, belittle, and eventually exterminate those that oppose it. You can see this in language comparing enemies to animals, assigning them undesirable traits as a group, in racist and anti-Semitic propaganda images that exaggerate enemy features to cartoonish extremes, or even in recent online language where some members of right-leaning web forums call people who oppose them “NPCs” – implying that there is no real individual personhood in those that disagree with their fascist ideology.
In my quest to make the game as hostile as possible to fascist ideologies, I must design the game to humanize the enemies that players face. Everyone should be reminded that the Nazis and members of the Wehrmacht were not inhuman monsters – they were regular people who became willing to commit evil acts because of an abhorrent philosophy. Reminding players of this is important because dehumanizing even Nazis creates an easy defense for modern fascists and authoritarians to mount, in the form of a “but I do these good things over here, I’m not a complete monster” defense. Reminding people that Nazis were regular people, even while they did terrible things, reminds us that we must examine ourselves for the kinds of behavior they exhibited.
Is there more my game can do? Almost certainly. In fact, I’m extremely open to suggestions for additional ways to improve. You can get in touch with me on Twitter, Pluspora, or Mastodon if you want to give me some feedback.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in ways to make your own game hostile to fascist ideologies, check out these two essays that helped inform my own process.
*Despite everything pop culture tells us, torture does not work. It is immoral and wrong in every circumstance, and this would still be true even if it worked – which it categorically does not.
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Today I’m highlighting a product that’s currently on Kickstarter called Taco Ninja Adventure!
Taco Ninja Adventure is a card & dice game for 2-6 players, and it’s team based! It works for ages 10 and up, and has a bunch of fun art of various Taco Ninjas.
When I asked the creators at Turn Sideways Games to tell me about the product, this is what they shared:
In November of 2016, my little brother William asked me for help with a board game he was working on. He called it “Taco Ninja Adventure” and it’s based on a comic book series that he and his friends wrote. William and I have been developing Taco Ninja Adventure together over the past 2 years and it’s been a lot of fun and great bonding experience. The little man has a knack for coming up with taco and ninja based puns. We’re so excited that the Kickstarter is finally live and we want to share what we’ve been working on!
Taco Ninja Adventure is a team based, card and dice game that takes 15-20min for 2-6 players. It’s definitely inspired by King of Tokyo and Magic the Gathering, and designed to be a light weight game that is approachable for kids and fun for adults. We also put a lot of time and effort into finding an artist that fit the style of the game. Sol Azpiroz (@azpimar) has created some really amazing Taco Ninja artwork and we’re so lucky to be working with her. We’d love for you to check out our Kickstarter page to see it for yourselves!
Rusty, who contacted me about the game, has created a game that appears pretty simple, and the theme is silly and fun. On the Kickstarter, the cards and materials all look really nice and they included a clear How to Play section right on the page, plus gif and video options for the rules. The rules are even available in Italian!
Some of the upcoming stretch goals include an embroidered carrying bag and wooden trackers, and there are social media goals for higher production values (like writing haikus!). It looks like this project is on the right track for success, now that it’s funded, but reaching higher production values as stretch goals is always awesome, and it looks like a fun product for a reasonable price!
If you think playing taco-headed ninjas with a team of other players sounds like a fun time, check out the Kickstarter today!
P.S. – The creators of Taco Ninja Adventure have shared social media posts promoting Turn in thanks for my posting this Behold, Products! This post will not be charged for on Patreon.
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Hey all, today I have an interview with Matt Shoemaker on Bee Lives: We Will Only Know Summer, a board game that’s currently on Kickstarter! I learned some fun stuff about the game in Matt’s responses – check them out below!
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Tell me a little about Bee Lives: We Will Only Know Summer. What excites you about it?
There are several things that excite me about this game. The first is how much I hope this will introduce people to the world of bees. I really wanted to design the game in a way that made people think like a hive does. The victory point conditions are set up to reward actions and behaviors that do well for the survival of your own hive. Some of them, particularly swarming, creates challenges for you as well. You can’t just think about points, you have to also think about getting through the winter in order to win.
I’m also just really excited about this whole process of creating and publishing a game. It’s great seeing the community response to the project and the positive energy that a lot of people are responding to the game with. I also loved bringing Helen and Alina onto the project and working with them. Alina captured the style I tasked her with through my art direction just how I was hoping. Helen has really helped tie the art and the game mechanics together with her graphic design. The graphic design in particular is so important for a game’s user experience and I’m pleased with how it’s all come together so far.
Once you’ve decided how you want to spend your workers you take turns with your opponents, be it real players or the AI driven wild hives, taking those actions. This can of course throw you off of what you were originally planning. Raiding can leave you with less honey than you need forcing you to compensate elsewhere. Someone can block you from accessing a specific tile you wanted to forage from, forcing you to forage elsewhere with extra workers you were not planning. Then there is the main puzzle of managing the space in your comb so you can balance having enough food for all the bees while leaving enough space for new workers to hatch out of, and also keeping some water on hand in case you need to cool down your hive. There is a good amount of planning you need to do each turn, and then hope it doesn’t fall apart when it comes time to feed your bees and hatch out new workers in the upkeep phase between the 9 turns of the game.
Helen and I worked pretty closely on this. We wanted everything to be attractive but functional and serve the player from a user experience perspective first. The graphics for visual aid are intended to be intuitive, and allow you to figure out what you need to do without having to look it up in the rule book each time. I also want to make the game language independent if we can.
Bee Lives sounds like a really great experience! How did you make those decisions in what to include, what to design into the game to interact with? That must have been challenging! What was most important to you?
This is where my experience creating games as a librarian really came into play. It can be really tempting to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into a game. When you do that, though, you end up with a complicated simulation that makes sense to no one but the designer. You need to know what to trim and where to really emulate the real world experiences you want the players to experience through play.
When I did this for Bee Lives, I looked at what was important to understand about bees and what was needed mechanically to make the game enjoyable, competitive and balanced. I needed people to experience the difficulty bees go through in managing disease and resource gathering, so I made sure those were aspects that were included. I needed to balance those things with mechanics that would make the game challenging, which is where the main focus of resource management came from. Navigating these two pieces is a lot of what game design is, for me. It’s a way to let people experiment with a system they otherwise have no real way of interacting with, and I think that is a special thing.
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Thanks so much to Matt for the interview! I hope you all liked it and that you’ll check out Bee Lives: We Will Only Know Summer on Kickstarter today!
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Hi all! Today I have an interview with Thomassie Mangiok on Nunami, which Thomassie describes as “the first Inuit designed board game where a player can win by leading a balanced cohabitation with another player.” Nunami is currently on Kickstarter and I’d love you all to check it out, so here’s what Thomassie had to say!
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| Here is an example of board layout. |
Tell me a little about Nunami. What excites you about it?
What excites me about the game is introduction of its concept and gameplay, it is most likely unique and new within a huge library of existing games.
I grew up having a difficult relationship with probabilities because as much as I loved it, it isn’t possible to master it since there are always factors while trying to set a path.
Our culture evolved with small groups of people, so we grew up with open and supportive practices. These are slowly being replaced with what consumerism and capitalism demand, but they are important and should continue to be practiced so we can at least moderate our capitalistic characteristics.
Star Trek series set goals and dreams for me, I just imagine how we can be in the future. So I mean to do my small part towards the future in which I’d like to live in.
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| The designs on the game pieces are so cute! |
Has the inspiration from Star Trek influenced what players do in Nunami, and if so, how?
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| I like the simplicity of the design and how it isn’t quite like anything I’ve personally interacted with. |
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Jay Iles has a cool new game on Kickstarter right now called Harder They Fall, with a nifty mechanic: dominoes! I asked Jay a few questions about it – check it out!
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What is Harder They Fall, both as a product and as your vision?
How did you come up with the idea of using dominos, and how did you playtest them to ensure it has the impact (literally) that you’d like?
This is all based on the setup in D. Vincent Baker’s Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, which goes all-in with Vincent’s trademark lists of specific questions. That’s where this most strongly ties into the mechanics: when you draw a low-value domino (i.e. totalling 8 or less) you’ll be forced to ask a question with bad implications for your fighter if you play it to boost their efforts. You can escape that by playing it in one of your opponent’s chains, but that both boosts them mechanically and lets them define more of your character’s doubts, fears and conflicted loyalties. What I really love about this is that players who are mechanically minded and play to win, and players who are there to tell a good story, tend to end up engaging with the system equally and telling a great story as a result.
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| The towering dominoes over this city is such a fun image 🙂 |
Thanks so much to Jay for the interview! I hope you’ll all check out Harder They Fall in its last few days on Kickstarter!
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| I love the colorful cover by Nathalie Fourdraine! |
Spell: The RPG is a little bit of everything I love about making games. At it’s most simple, it’s a tabletop roleplaying game that uses a handful of six-sided dice and letter tiles; players can resolve actions with simple rolls or they can create magic by spelling out what they want to cast with the letters. So, it has a neat gameplay gimmick—and I’ve loved gimmicks since Mouse Trap and the Jumanji board game’s red filter reader—and it’s easy to teach and learn…and its name is a pun. It was really important for me to encourage creativity in play for Spell and I think that’s what I’m most proud of.
What’s really been exciting about Spell: The RPG for me is its potential, both for players and myself. I’m so happy to say that Spell has been quite a few people’s first ever tabletop game and has changed a few minds about the hobby. I’m also regularly very pleasantly surprised by things I’ve seen players do with the system, either in their interpretation of the rules or when they hack and mod it for their own play groups. And then there’s the potential of what it represents for me, as a product: I’m publishing Spellbook Vol. 1 alongside Spell: The RPG, which contains five campaigns written by me and illustrated by five fantastic artists; Spellbook Vol. 2 will have another set of campaigns, but written by other creators. I’m so excited to see creators I personally admire telling stories with Spell that I never could’ve told.
The way these pieces work are complementary: basic tasks are accomplished with the twelve Impulses, which are motivation-oriented stats; players roll a number of six-sided dice equal to the Impulse they’d like to act on to accomplish a goal (to get through a locked door, maybe use Daring to burst in spells blazing, Force to break the door down, Reason to think through how the door might be dismantled, Style to make the best entrance, or Calm to just knock) and the results are compared against a difficulty.
To cast a spell, the player states their goal, rolls an Impulse, sums the results, and then draws that many random letter tiles. As the player tries to spell a word with the tiles, the character is sifting through glyphs of the universal language to rearrange reality. If a word is spelled (and adequately justified) the spell is successfully cast. If the spell is in conflict with someone else, like a baddie, they get a chance to defend, so there’s a fairness of rolled stats vs rolled stats with modifiers for how fitting the spell is for the situation. Players can spend Potential points in the moment to save spells they like and then reuse them later without having to spell them over again. There’s no “mana” or “slots,” so characters always have access to new, strange magic, as well as their own repertoire of custom spells they build over time.
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| A collection of the tiles used for “casting” in Spell! |
Spell: The RPG is functionally “setting neutral,” meaning it can be played in any world in any era, so I’ve also included Spellbook Vol. 1, which is a collection of five campaign supplements. I tried to represent a variety of options for how play could look and invited players to hack and modify the game as they’d like for their own games. For example, Magic Moon Warrior is a monster-fighting magic girl adventure to the moon and includes some modified rules for transformation spells; Wakeful in Reverie has rules for only being able to use spells while lucid dreaming, as the story straddles the line of waking and sleep; Godqueen, which can be played as a GM-all/any campaign, has the players in the role of a pantheon guiding a civilization throughout history. Spell can support a serious ongoing campaign with longterm character growth and story progression or provide the minimum necessary structure for an absolutely wacky one-shot.
I believe in players’ ability to invent and create, so instead of providing a definitive lore, I wanted to make tools players could build their own world and stories with. Spell is written with goals of creativity and potential in mind, so even during the most daunting campaigns, there is agency in the ability for players to create their own magic. There’s also always an element of physical play involved—the actual rearranging of letters—which I think helps players feel collaborative and imaginative. The name of the game is literally a pun, so humor is absolutely welcome. Maybe a player wants a powerful spell to extinguish a raging inferno and while looking at their letters, they realize they can spell “cats.” The group can share a laugh, maybe a welcome reprieve from the intense situation, as they imagine a horde of kitty firefighters; they could even discuss this option in character! Maybe they go with that one or they spell something else, diving back into the action, but that moment of silliness and play still happens.
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| The characters on this cover already gained my interest! |
Impulses are goal-oriented stats that both provide the math for rolls to be made, as well as help shape the character’s personality and methodology. The twelve Impulses are: Calm, Daring, Feeling, Focus, Force, Grit, Hope, Reason, Renown, Scheme, Style, and Trust. The player assigns twelve points between them at character creation; some will likely start at zero, but that doesn’t mean the character doesn’t experience that Impulse, they just can’t rely on it to inspire action. For example, a character with zero Calm is still capable of being calm, they just can’t pull on that part of themselves enough to effectively diffuse a chaotic situation, but maybe they use Grit to weather it. Characters gain Potential points, which are like experience, but you get them at the start of a session and you can spend them in the moment; these points are used to both keep spells and to increase Impulses.
Impulses are important to me, especially in trying to make them intuitive. While a player is assigning points to their character sheet, they have to think both about what the character can do, but also what the character is like, how they view the world, and how they meet their challenges. By using more common words, the idea is that a player could say something like, “My character just really hopes this is going to work out,” so that means they’re using Hope. Impulses also represent fields of knowledge from their past experiences related to that Impulse. For another example, if a character is Daring and skydiving is their main outlet for it, they’ll have the skills and experience associated with skydiving; if their thrill is on the stage, they’d have skills and experience related to their performances. The goal is, after filling in Impulses, the player has a holistic character with a lot of potential for inferred experiences and abilities.
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| These characters in this illustration by Christina Gardner look so fun! |
I describe Spell: The RPG, in the book, as “light-hearted” and encourage players to use a setting that’s supportive and thinks magic is neat, though there are notes about more grimdark interpretations—with disclaimers about consent for those themes ahead of time. With that setting as a backdrop, it’s been my experience that the collaborative, creative, and just a bit silly process of rearranging letters, especially physical tiles, really helps the game feel like “play.” The party works together, but so too do the players in a very tactile way; it creates an environment of everyone wanting everyone else to succeed, not just be the best or coolest individual.
In addition to regular comments throughout the rules and settings, like “this can be heavy, so make sure to talk about it first,” the Game Moderator section (I’m using “moderator” instead of “master” because I believe a GM is a facilitator and a player, not a tyrant in a gross power dynamic) includes steps for conflict resolution, a summary of the lines and veils system, and a summary of your own Script Change system. These tools are super important to me and I’ve been using them in my own games. While Spell: The RPG is outwardly positive, it’s perfectly capable of including many, very different themes and content. Even simply the opportunity to spell swear words or slurs from random letters can disrupt the game for players, so guidance on these elements is also included. The rules also make specific mention that characters, as adventurers, are not at all limited in their gender, ethnicity, or background. Additionally, there’s a note on disabilities:
There are no mechanical “flaws” designed for Spell: The RPG. Impulses represent a character’s motivation, so no disability will make them less capable of adventure. The respectful inclusion of physical and mental disabilities as roleplaying cues or context for actions is certainly encouraged, but there are no one-size-fits-all modifiers to apply.
This intention is also reflected in the cover art (by Nathalie Fourdraine), which prominently features a variety of body types, gender and cultural representation, and the inclusion of a character with a hearing aid and a character with an athletic prosthetic leg. For the all the interior art of Spellbook Vol. 1, finding Own Voices illustrators was key and an open discussion of diversity in the characters was vital. My hope is to have Spell create a comfortable and inclusive foundation that players can play within—whatever those games may be—and feel like that foundation supports them, their identity, and their goals for play.
As a final note, I’d like to include that I love hearing from players, their experiences, and their feedback. I try to stay as open and accessible as possible myself. My contact info is included in the books, so both positive and negative comments will be heard.
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| I love the cute characters here by Leigh Luna! |
Thank you so much, Taylor, for the great interview! I hope you all enjoyed learning about Spell: the RPG and will check out the newly released materials when they come out! In the meantime, check out Taylor’s new work on Drip!
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Hi all, today I have an interview with Terri Cohlene and her son, Ross Cowman, designers of BFF! BFF! is currently on Kickstarter and is a game about girlhood, friendship, and adventure – it looks like such a fantastic time, and I hope you love hearing what Terri and Ross have to say about it!
FYI: This game is nearing the end of its Kickstarter and could super use some support – please share and consider backing an interesting new project that has a diverse cast of characters to play!
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Tell me a little about BFF. What excites you about it?
Terri: Finally! After all this time, it’s getting out into the world! BFF! is a role playing game about friendship, girlhood, and adventure. Originally I wanted to create a game about friendship that girls would love. Turns out, lots of people (young, old and of different genders) are having fun getting into that mindset.
The art is fantastic and provides a backdrop for all kinds of great adventures, from school to sleepovers to summer camp to road trips to just hanging out at the mall.
Ross: Yes, all of those things. And it is really cool to be be working with my Mom, and all of the other folks on the team. BFF has so many people’s wonderful ideas in it!
As a design nerd: I’m excited to be using boardgame techniques to make a role playing game. I think this design space has a ton of potential to bring story gaming to a new audience that maybe didn’t feel like they had access before.
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| BFF! really does look like a combination of a board game and a roleplaying game, and I think that’s awesome! |
BFF! seems to be almost a board game + story game hybrid. How did this design come about?
T: Maybe that happened because I didn’t know what I was doing. I started the ball rolling and, because my expertise is “story,” that’s where I began. I was thinking about what was important to ‘tween girls, and, Bingo! Friendship, of course. Then I shared my idea with Ross and he fine-tuned the game design, plus we brainstormed A LOT to get the results we have now. The landscapes were kind of obvious, except the fabulous details we ended up with were totally inspired by the artists and everyone else on the team.
R: When my mom brought me her idea my first thought was to hack Fall of Magic somehow to make this work. We eventually added some unique mechanics like charm bracelets and friendship cards to specifically support the friendship theme.
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| Speaking of friends, look at all these awesome friends! |
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| The art for BFF! is really adorable, done by artist Veta Bahktina. |
R: The charms are the biggest mechanical deviation from Fall of Magic and really crucial to getting players into the friendship mentality at the start of the game. At the start of the game we each take turns selecting a charm for ourselves and talking about how that charm represents something we like about our character. Then we go around a second time and each give a charm to another character and say something we like about them. Between each hangout each do another charm scene which functions as a kind of mini-debrief in the middle of the game.
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| The BFF! box art is so pretty and colorful. I love seeing all of the characters on the cover! |
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| The gorgeous map/game board in BFF! is colorful and compelling! |
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Wow! Thank you so much to Terri and Ross for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading and that you’ll skip on over to the BFF! Kickstarter page to check it out, and share this article with your friends! There’s a few days left to make BFF a reality, and I think it’s totally worth it.
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