Tag: five or so

Five or So Questions with Meg McGinley on Pack the Pack

I interviewed Meg McGinley of Games By Playdate about her award-winning game, Pack the Pack! The game is Kickstarting currently – Check it out!


Tell me a little bit about Pack the Pack. What has you excited about it?
Pack the Pack is a real-time tile laying game that is about what happens AFTER the adventurers slay the dragon. They are standing around the loot pile and have to figure out how to shove all of that beautiful booty into their packs and get back to town before the rest of the party to be crowed the true victor… the hero that the town tells stories about. It has me excited because it’s exactly the type of game that I like to play- a quick game that you can play multiple times so you can build strategy over the course of an evening, not the course of a year, and has you laughing with and yelling at the people you are playing with. The mechanics are completely generic in that I could play this with my mom, but nerdy enough that it’s the perfect game to play before (or after) a night of role playing. When I first started designing it, I thought it would be a super small, super niche game but the more and more I really worked on it, the more I saw that it really could have a broad appeal and that’s pretty exciting.

I’m also excited that it was chosen out of 500 entries to be one of Cards Against Humanity’s Tabletop Deathmatch finalists. That’s crazy to be pulled out of a pool like that. This was the first game that I really put myself into and it’s a really odd feeling to have that sort of public scrutiny but also that validation too. Games, almost by definition, are a hobby, and to have it be a “professional” thing is a really weird and exhilarating feeling. It’s also probably the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt. Games are such a passion, such a part of ME that to get critiqued is much more personal than feedback at work. So that feeling, as weird feeling as it is, also has me feeling alive and that’s pretty damn exciting.

What inspired Pack the Pack?

I was inspired to make a game in general. That nugget was floating around in my brain for a long time. I really just wanted to make a game that my group of friends could play because I think we’re a pretty typical group of nerds, I mean gamers. We need a game that will get us ready for a night of game play- space wise, brain wise and just overall physically pumped and so I started to look for that game. At the same time, I’ve always just been one for the underdog. That idea of inventory tetris, which so many people roll their eyes at, I KNOW can be fun and I want to show people it CAN be fun, dammit!

What was it like to compete in Tabletop Deathmatch?

Stressful. And I don’t really get stressed. I speak in front of people a lot. I do trainings as part of my day job. I just had a full film crew in my crappy, tiny house judging me as a parent for a video that is going to be put up for all to see and that was NOTHING compared to this. I really think it goes back to that idea that the judges were people who I really, actually cared what they think. So many times I don’t let myself get stressed about a situation because I recite the whole idea of “sticks and stones” to myself… well, these judges know their shit inside and out and know it way better than I do, so that was almost intimidating to go up in front of them, raw and vulnerable and open myself up.

And then to have it put on youtube for all to watch? I’ll take the film crew judging me as a mom any day.

Tell me more about your mechanics of Pack the Pack. How do they work?

Pack the Pack is a real time, tile laying inventory management game. What that means is that 3-6 players have tiles in a big pile in the middle of the table. They each draw five tiles, face down and when everyone is ready, someone yells, “PACK!” and everyone flips and starts packing their pack- the playmat in front of them. You pack by matching the gems (circles) on the tiles that you’ve flipped to make complete circles of a matching color. Everyone is drawing new tiles to fit as much loot (represented by the tiles) into their pack as efficiently as they can. If you draw something you don’t like, you can declare that it’s “Junk!” and toss it back, but it goes back in face up so everyone else can see it and get the advantage from it and now you have to take two tiles. When you think your pack is packed, yell, “To Town!” and you are done. Everyone else keeps on packing and stuffing. The game is over when it’s down to two players and one of them yells, “To Town!”.

In the basic version, you count how many complete circles of a single color you have made, extra points for three or four tiles (using quarter circle pieces). In the advanced version, you instead are scoring the loot items on the tile but they only count if the tile was part of a complete circle. This version, on the back side of the playmat, is much more strategic and for the more serious gamer. In both versions, you get extra points for going to town first because you got the best prices at the market and more time to schmooze with the townsfolk.

What do you hope to see happen with Pack the Pack in the future?

Well, of course I want to see the kickstarter super successful and the game take off and be on every game store shelf in America with expansions and a spin off Role-Playing game! But that’s dreaming big. I’d settle for it just to have a wildly successful kickstarter 😉

Five or So Questions with Jürgen Mayer on Shinobi Clans

I interviewed Jürgen Mayer about Shinobi Clans and he provided me with some images from the game, including some exclusive pieces that you’ll see later in the article!
The Shinobi Clans box.

Tell me a little about Shinobi Clans. What’s exciting about it?

You’re the master of a ninja clan! You recruit the most skilled ninjas, arm them with the deadliest weapons and send them on secret missions! Will you try to assassinate the shogun? Will you allow the daimyo to hire your clan to protect him? But most importantly, will you manage to keep your plans hidden from the other ninja masters and see through theirs?

This is the ninja game I’ve always wanted. A couple of years ago, when I started designing the game, the ninja-themed board gaming landscape looked rather bleak, and that’s what made me develop my own game. I wanted a strong theme with integrated game mechanics, not just an abstract game with a ninja theme tacked on. I wanted lots of secret moves and uncovering hidden agendas and thrilling assassinations, because that’s what ninjas are all about. And epic ninja battles, of course.

The Poison Maker card. Exclusive!
In addition, the game looks fucking gorgeous! With over fifty illustrations by NEN, in a beautiful watercolor style, and a full bleed on the cards to make the artwork really stand out. I’m very excited about her work and collaboration. The game is a real eyecatcher. It also plays well. *ahem*

What kind of mechanics do you use to emulate the ninjas actions?

There’s a lot of hidden information in the game. In addition to the secret missions mentioned before, which each player selects at the beginning of a round and doesn’t reveal until the final battles, there is secret unit deployment. That’s a fancy way to say you play your ninja cards face down. ^^ These cards form stacks on the various targets, and the physical position of a card in a stack determines its tactical position in battle.

The only information you get from your rival clans is to which targets the ninjas are assigned. But you can use spies to reveal ninjas or scouts to force other players to play cards face up, and that can help you to figure out their plans.

Silent Killer card.

Besides these spying abilities happening during deployment and the combat stuff that comes into play in the battle phase at the end of the round, there are more specialized ninja occupations, like for example poison makers. These specialists manipulate the card stacks themselves. The poison maker kills the card on top of it before that ninja is able to enter combat. Remember that ninjas are played face down, so you won’t be able to tell a poisoner apart from a standard ninja – if you don’t use your spies effectively.

How do epic ninja battles work in your game?

Once everyone has played all of their cards or passed, the stacks of ninjas on the various targets are resolved, by turning them over and placing them into battle slots to the left and right of the target (guardians go left, assassins right); the first card on each side gets the innermost slot, and subsequent cards get the next slots going outwards.

If the ninjas are lucky, they’ll find a weapon waiting for them in their battle slot. Unlike ninjas, weapon cards can be used for both assassination and guarding, and are played into the respective battle slots on the side the player chooses.

Fukiya card.

When all ninjas are in place, all their special abilities and those of their weapons are resolved, which often affect the ninjas in the same battle slot on the other side. So the Jutte might disarm the opposing ninja or the Silent Killer might outright kill her opponent on the other side.

Finally, simply count up all power symbols on both sides and compare them. If the assassins have more power than the guardians, the target is killed, otherwise it survives. Players then get rewards for their successful contracts.

What kind of art guidance did you give to NEN to help find the designs you wanted?

I gave her my basic ideas of the quasi-historic Japanese setting I had in mind. Also, the color schemes for the various card types, which she worked directly into the background of all illustrations. And then a short description of each card, including suggestions for appropriate weapons that a ninja of that type should be carrying.

Here’s an example, for the Old Ninja Master card: “Basically an old Japanese guy that doesn’t look like it but could kill you in a heartbeat. His expression is probably nonchalant, because he fears nobody. He should not wear a ninja outfit, just simple feudal era clothes of common folk. If he carries a weapon, it is most likely hidden (maybe a kusari-fundo hidden in a fist) or a not very dangerous looking thing like a bokuto (katana shaped wooden training sword) or even a cane.”

Old Ninja Master card. Exclusive!
NEN would then send me a sketch and then often make some changes after getting my feedback. If you ask her, I’m sure she will tell you that I pestered her a lot with requests to make changes to the weapons and how the ninjas should wield them (“a real fighter would never angle the wrist like that and here’s why”).

You know, that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine, artwork or photos of supposed expert fighters that don’t know how to properly hold their weapons. I’ve been doing traditional Japanese martial arts for some time, and have had at least basic training with almost all weapons depicted in the game (I think with the exception of the fukiya), and I was very picky in that regard (sometimes even taking reference photos of myself with the weapon to get my point across). I’m sorry, NEN!

That said, NEN brought a lot of her own concepts into the illustrations, and came up with a lot of great ideas. For example, for one of the cards, a more powerful version of the poison maker, she had the idea to draw two sisters, and I eventually changed the card name to Poison Twins to reflect that. It became one of my favorite cards.

What’s up next for you after Shinobi Clans?

I currently have ideas for four different board and card games, all in very early stages (some pages of notes here, a sketch of a board there), and non of them even in a playable prototype stage. I don’t know if I will ever develop them to a publishable state. I guess that also depends on how well Shinobi Clans is received and if any gamers want more stuff from me. Until then, I’m happy to assassinate some hapless Ronin whenever someone challenges me at my debut game.
Grandmaster card.

Five or So Questions with Andrew Medieros on Urban Shadows

Tell me a little about Urban Shadows. What excites you about it?
Urban Shadows is an urban fantasy roleplaying game in the vein of The Dresden Files novels and the television series’ Angel and Supernatural. Players take on the roles of serious power players in their city’s political structure and play classic archetypes like vampires, ghosts, half-demons and much more. It’s powered by the Apocalypse World engine which allows us to cram in as much drama, action and tension as we can with minimal rules that still pack a punch.

The two most exciting things about Urban Shadows are our new Corruption mechanic and our choice to address and challenge race and gender in an urban setting.

Corruption is gained when your protagonists crosses a line they shouldn’t (such as taking a life) and rewards you for these choices with new and very potent powers. But this new power comes at a cost, keep it up and you’ll find yourself becoming more and more a slave to your inner darkness.

When you create a character in Urban Shadows you choose your Look: how the city sees you. Ambiguous, female, male or transgressing? Asian, black, caucasian, hispanic, mixed, or other? These choices are purely descriptive and inform the kind of stories you wish to tell in the game.

Tell me more about the Corruption mechanic. Is it just a toggle on-off to monstrousness?
Corruption is the dark mirror to our experience system, except instead of gaining standard advances, you gain access to some really powerful and potent Moves. You mark a point of corruption whenever your character takes a life, breaks a rule set by their archetype, or when they MC offers it to them and you accept: Gain corruption five times and you get a new Corruption Move.

These moves give your character access to some game breaking abilities, but there’s a couple catches: Firstly, each of them generate further corruption when used and secondly, you can only select a maximum of four of them. If you reach the point where you need to select a fifth, you lose your character to the MC, who can choose bring them back into the story as a Threat (which is usually really bad news for the city).

You can buy off corruption moves through advances but that’s an expensive path, it’s far easier to just avoid it altogether. However, temptation calls on us all, and it’s a hard thing to resist.

Tell me a little about Debts. How do they work?
Debts are how we track favours in Urban Shadows. When you do something worthy of note for someone, or vice versa, a Debt is given (unless of course that action was to pay off a previous debt). They let you influence both player characters and non-player characters with no risk, just the cost of the Debt. Non-player characters can just as easily gain Debts on player characters, which lets the MC use those Debts to make hard moves against them. Owing favours to powerful people is a dangerous prospect.

What made you decide to put race front and center?
This was something we feel really passionate about: we wanted stories told within cities to be representative of the cultures and races in that city, so we made it part of character creation. By asking players to choose their character’s race, we ended up seeing casts of really diverse protagonists and that was exactly what we wanted. It’s been great to see how it’s changed the game and it’s now become a central theme for our project. It’s important to note that your choice of race has no mechanical implications for your character but it is an important part of who they are.

Tell me how factions work. What do they influence in the game?
Factions are how we divide the city’s populace into not-so-neat categories. They are arenas of conflict that represent rough communities of mortal and supernatural creatures: The Factions are Mortality, Power, Night and Wild. Mortality are the vanilla mortals, Power are humans with supernatural gifts, Night are people who have been turned into monsters, and Wild are beings who originate from outside our world.

Protagonists have a stat that correlates to each of the four factions: the higher the stat, the better understanding they have of that world and their members. For example, the Night faction includes vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Having a low Night score means you don’t really understand how these people operate and don’t know many of them personally. A higher score in Night means you have a solid grasp of how they work and you know many of them fairly well. So it’s one part understanding and one part relationship.

Factions power a lot of the moves in the game: when you seek info from your contacts, look for resources to help you get things done, or when messing around in other players’ business in the hopes of influencing their dice rolls, you roll Faction to see how that plays out. The scores change through play, they’re not static by any means.

What’s up next for you after Urban Shadows?
I think maybe I’ll go outside and take a long walk. Then I have plans for a couple of other games, one of which is also powered by the apocalypse. I can’t say too much here but it includes fighter pilots and drama! Lots and lots of drama!

Five or So Questions with Joel Sparks on Call of Catthulhu

Check out Call of Catthulhu at http://catthulhu.com/ and Book 1 available here.

Tell me a little about Call of Catthulhu. What excites you about it?

I never play RPGs any more. That’s a big deal for me, because I’ve been in this hobby for ages. Yet when it comes time to crack open a big thick book, fill out a lot of fiddly bits and math on a character sheet, and spend several hours arguing about rules with my closest friends, somehow I can’t muster the energy. With “Call of Catthulhu,” I set out to make a game that honestly appeals to the most lazy, fun-loving, commitment-averse part of my mind. To my cat brain, if you will. It takes about five minutes to make a “catventurer,” and it doesn’t use any numbers, because cats don’t do math. You just describe your cat according to a few guidelines, and then you get to fight the secret plots of Lovecraftian Chaos cults led by other animals. The Cat Herder sets up a series of Challenges, and the players meet them by acting like cats. Everything depends on player cleverness and a bit of luck. You never know what will happen, and a session wraps up in a just a couple of hours. That’s the game I get excited to play.

How do Challenges work in Call of Catthulhu?

Very simply! Most of the time, cats can do what they like without any rolling. They’re cats: They jump up on things or dodge out of sight or walk on a fence, no problem. But bouncing dice is fun too, so we have special Cat Dice. Each one has four Happy Cat faces and two Sad Cats; you could use regular six-siders instead. When the Cat Herder wants to randomize a little, she calls for a roll of two Cat Dice. They can only come up three ways: Two Sad Cats, two Happy Cats, or one of each, and the odds are weighted toward the positive outcomes. The Herder declares results based on the dice roll and play moves on. She could also declare a Difficult Challenge, which requires both dice to come up Happy Cats to succeed. The game offers a few optional wrinkles, like what happens on Snake Eyes, but that’s basically it. Oh, and each cat has a Treat or two; you can trade in one of those to try again if you don’t like the roll. In the Boxed Set we provide little wooden fish tokens for the Treats.

Tell me a little about the ashcan model you used at Gen Con, and the subsequent Kickstarter. What experience did you have with those?

First of all, I would warn anyone against going from game designer to game manufacturer in a few short months without a lot of good help. I had experience in publishing before, yet I had no idea how complicated the logistics would get! But I learned a ton and my next Kickstarter will run a lot more smoothly.

The ashcan was a way to kind of test the waters. I had this crazy idea about ordinary cats in a world of cosmic conspiracies, where all the animals except humans understood that civilization was the cats’ idea and that it’s incredibly fragile and vulnerable to disruption. I wanted to combine that with my ideas about game design, finding a new sweet spot between purely narrative storytelling games and the logistical farragoes of the big-book systems. But would anyone else want to play it? So in about a month I wrote the first version of “Call of Catthulhu” and had a real short run printed up for Gencon 2013. I knew that I’d want to do a lot more with it if people were interested, so I sold the 24-pager for five bucks and collected email addresses. Well, the thing took off, totally out of my control. I was running the con around getting photocopies just to be able to hand people something. For the next printing, I put the Kickstarter address in the back of the book. I took those to a couple of local conventions around DC and then to Spiel Essen in Germany, the world’s biggest game convention. I was fortunate to get some press and video interviews there and collected a lot of names. Still, the response to the Kickstarter staggered me, with far more backers than I had anticipated. Since then it’s been non-stop, ordering game pieces from all over the world, getting custom sketches and painted minis done, staying in touch with hundreds of backers, and trying to find time to actually write the game!

What kind of cats can you play in Call of Catthulhu? How did you make sure there was enough variety to keep people interested?

This is trickier than it sounds, because cats shouldn’t be all the same, yet I did not want to create a whole mess of character classes or skill trees or spell lists. There’s nothing wrong with those things, but people who want to play a game that complex have plenty of choices already. And not everyone wants to. So I came up with a different solution. First off, everything about your cat is descriptive. It’s all words; it’s against the rules to even use any numbers on the character sheet. But the description isn’t totally freeform. That would make game mastering either purely arbitrary or else impossible. Instead, the book walks you through a few choices. You pick one of five archetypal Roles for the cat, like the Scrapper or the Two-Footologist. You decide whether the cat is a Mixed Breed or a Purebred—doesn’t matter what breed—and then whether her background is Feral, Housecat, or Show Cat. Cross those five Roles with the two types of breed and the three backgrounds, and you get 30 different Stories to use as the jumping-off place for describing the cat’s life so far. Start there, customize the details, and add as much physical description as desired, and you’ve got a unique cat, described in just a few sentences, ready to play.

The complementary part is the simple mechanic called Right Cat for the Job. Whenever a Challenge comes along, the player can use anything in the cat’s background and description to claim that she’s got what it takes to handle this particular task. If the Cat Herder agrees, then the cat gets better results on the Challenge roll, including counting one of the dice as an automatic success. The RCFTJ can also attempt Dire Challenges, the really scary stuff that a less appropriate cat just shouldn’t even try.

What’s up next for Call of Catthulhu and you?

I’m still in the middle of it! I’ve got the two new books to bring to Origins, and the super-fancy Boxed Set with Cat Dice and mini figures and lots of bonus bits, and some special Rewards still shipping to some very patient Kickstarter folks. It’s been crazy. But there’s definitely more in the works. One of our great stretch goals was to get a bunch of the best indie RPG authors to write their own take on a setting for Catthulhu, and those will be compiled into a third volume called “Whirls of Catthulhu.” You should be able to get your paws on that, and maybe some other secret stuff, no later than Gencon 2014, which brings the whole game full circle. Quite a year.

Five or So Questions with John Sheldon on (un)Common Adventure Gallery

Tell me about the (un)Common Adventures Gallery. What has you excited about it?

The (un)Common Adventure Gallery is a collection of free-to-publish* genre illustrations I’ve started with funding through Patreon. Right now I’m doing all the illustrations, but I hope to reach a level where I’m making enough on each of my pieces that I can afford to hire other illustrators to add more variety and subject matter to the gallery. I’m really excited to have an ongoing project that helps me focus on my illustration efforts, that allows me to get direct input from my supporters on what they want to see from me, and that will eventually let me hire some of my favorite illustrators from the indie RPG scene.

*Using the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

What do you think makes you uniquely suited to this project, especially hiring other artists as well as doing illustration?

I love a broad variety of genres in illustration, and I love experimenting with different media and different styles of illustration (though I have certain sensibilities that always manage to bleed through). My time as the senior editor and producer of a daily TV newscast gave me a lot of experience working with other creative people and helping to integrate their work into a cohesive final product. Basically, I want this project to be a place where I can exercise many aspects of my own creativity, a place where I can help showcase the great work other people are doing, and a place where both happen in a coordinated way.

What motivated you to go Creative Commons?

I felt that releasing the art with a Creative Commons license would be a better deal for me and for the people in the communities I engage. Tons of people from game designers to authors and publishers find that they need art for their projects, and lots of the people I interact with don’t have much of a budget for their total project (let alone to pay an illustrator to make custom pieces for everything they want). So, using the most permissive Creative Commons license lets them grab something to use as a placeholder, and if they can’t find something better or can’t afford something custom, they can still go to press or do a commercial release with the work they’ve designed around.

The Creative Commons Attribution license works for me on two levels. First, I happen to have a job that pays my bills. I’m not relying on the illustration work to keep the lights on or to put food in my belly, so I don’t currently have to worry about what I could charge in the future for licensing these works. I’d be drawing anyway, and since what I’m drawing comes strictly from my own imagination I have little expectation of a financial return on it. The CC-A license lets a lot more people use it and feel comfortable sharing it, and means that I can show off the full size, high resolution versions of my art without distracting watermarks and without worrying that someone will steal it.

The second way the CC-A license works for me is related to that last point and feeds back into the reason I chose Patreon for this project. The more people that can see my work (in they way I intend it to be seen), the greater the size of my potential audience. As the audience grows, the number of people who might pitch in to fund my work grows. So, the CC-A license also works as a marketing tool for me by letting the full illustrations be my ads (which, of course, only works because I don’t need the money to feed myself).

How do you think the Patreon model will help you meet your goals?

Patreon helps keep me motivated to do some good, fun art in the absence of other specific motivations. I find that without a school project or a paying contract, I end up with a whole lot of half-finished illustrations and semi-complete drawings. With just a little bit of money on the line, like enough to go see a movie or get a nice meal, I suddenly have a lot more motivation to work on those personal projects. Patreon also lets me interact with the people who back me so I can be sure to work on stuff that interests them, too. The payment model is also great because it is results-oriented. If I don’t put out an illustration, nobody gets charged. If I put something out and nobody likes it, they can withdraw their pledges before getting charged.

Beyond that, the ‘stretch goal’ features of Patreon let people know what they’ll get when each of the works I produce nets more money. For this project, a lot of those goals involve hiring other illustrators to create CC-A licensed art for the gallery.

What are you looking for when it comes to hiring future artists?

I’ll be looking for three things when it comes time to commission work from other artists. First, I have to like their work. Luckily, this isn’t too much of a limiting factor as I have broad taste in illustration. Second, their art style should be different from mine. One of the primary goals of commissioning other illustrators is to get a larger variety of work in the gallery, and the creative briefs I develop for the commissions (with help from my Patrons) will help me aim for different content and styles than I have been able to produce. Finally, I will be looking for people from different backgrounds than mine.

The reason that last part is important to me is in part because I am so tremendously privileged that I don’t have to rely on this work to put food on my table. If I can put money in the hands of an artist who really needs it (and pay them a full, professional rate rather than the bargain rates they might otherwise bid just to get any work at all), it will be making a bigger difference than it would if it went to another illustrator in shoes like mine (comfortable ones that I could replace if I needed to).

What’s the next project for your Patreon, as of this interview (early May)?

I showed some concepts to my backers on Patreon, and the community-level Patrons have selected an illustration tentatively titled Cherry Blossom Knight. I’ve already shot the photo reference for it (which some of the Patrons can see), and I’m headed to media testing now (picking what media to work in, e.g., colored pencil or watercolor). From there I’ll proceed to different drawing and rendering steps, all of which I’ll be documenting for my supporters with photos, time-lapse videos, and scans. I hope to have the final illustration done in early June.

Five or So Questions with Benjamin Woerner on A World of Dew

Check out the Kickstarter for A World of Dew!

Tell me a little about A World of Dew. What excites you about it?

Ever since I was a kid and saw my first samurai film I’ve LOVED Japanese history and cinema. I played Legend of the Five Rings when it first came out and am literally still playing it now. I’ve read and watched a ton of Japanese history and media and played hundreds of hours of games like Shogun 2: Total War.

But there was something missing. In a lot of Japanese Chambara films the heroes are not the Samurai, they’re all the other people: the geisha, the ronin, the sumo, the peasant, etc. There wasn’t a game where you play those characters. At least, there was a modern story driven game that does that. I wanted to play Sanjuro, Zatoichi, Sayuri from Memoirs of a Geisha, and Bob from The Last Samurai. I wanted to play the snow fight in Sword of Doom, and solve the murders like Sano Ichiro in did in the Laura Joh Rowland novels. My friend John Wick had written Blood & Honor in 2010. It’s a brilliant game, but you play Clan Samurai in a Clan. I wanted everyone else. So I wrote it.

Instead of Clan Samurai you play all the other characters: Doctors, Gaijin, Yakuza, and all the other characters I mentioned before. And instead of building a Clan and playing in the Clan you build a City. John’s game is set during the Sengoku Jidai (The 15th to 17th centuries) when Japan was fighting constant wars internally to unify itself as one true nation. My game is set after that during the Tokugawa Era (1600-1850s). Japan was united politically, but it was being torn apart by the rise of modernism and the merchant class culminating in the Boshin War and the restoration of the Meiji Emperor as ruler of Japan. Cities, not Clans became important. Important trade hubs like Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Hiroshima begin to grow like crazy with the influx of gaijin (foreign) merchants from all over the world. It’s also when most of the great Chambara films take place.

And because John’s game was so well designed for a Japanese setting I was able to port over the core mechanics, create all the new character rolls, new advantages, aspects, and create the City Creation System. The players and Narrators build a City by spending Build Points to create important Locations, Faces, and Threats in their City. The Locations all have built in mechanics to drive the campaign’s story forward and help the Narrator decide where to go. It makes the work of Narrating Samurai Noir stories easy and exciting. 🙂

What influences did you use in your art direction?

I had a kind of atypical childhood growing up. Not to get into it too much but I knew more about Tchaikovsky at 14 than I did about Nirvana (yeah I’m old). My mom was a High School teacher of French, English, and Humanities. Every year she’d take her students on a bunch of cultural field trips, and I went on all of them along with my dad and sister usually. 🙂 Some people think that’s weird, but I learned a lot about art, music, and theatre fairly young. And don’t worry, when I got to high school and college I had friends who taught me about Nirvana, Queen, and most importantly Daft Punk.

The point being was that when I was a young teenager I already knew about Hiroshige and Hokusai and all the other great Japanese woodblock painters. One I spent a year of college in the UK I was very lucky to see a temporary exhibit at the British Museum that had hundreds of original Japanese woodblock prints, plus a bunch of other cool Japanese stuff like swords, armor, and a full sized Teahouse. I split my entire Fall break between that and a Battletech video arcade in Piccadilly Circus.

I knew going into this project that I wanted to share all these beautiful prints with everyone who read my game. When John was developing Blood & Honor I was helping him and Jessica Kauspedas, my Art Director for this project as well, with art selection. I found a print on the Library of Congress, and then Jessica found this huge archive of scanned original copies of all these Masters. The Great Wave of Kanagawa is there, as is Kanbara Village in Winter, which was chosen by Weezer as cover art for one of their albums.

One of the major ideas in my game is the conflict between old and new, and I wanted to show that. Traditional prints of modern subjects: trains, people in modern dress, cars, steam ships, etc. So you’ll see that in there. Finally, I wanted art that showed some of the Giri (Duty/job) players can choose in the book.

So three things really, different professions in Japan, my favorite art from the Masters, and old versus new. 🙂

The Sound of Water is your stretch goal collection. How did you choose authors and artists, and how did you pair them together?

It was a bit of a scramble to be honest. Months ago I’d asked six artists and six authors to consider doing a Stretch Goal that would a chapter and chapter header art for The Sound of Water. Most of my artists agreed, several were busy, but were tentatively yes, and three of my authors agreed, two said maybe. As you know, the Kickstarter was delayed from February to May because I was incredibly sick for nearly two months (all better now). This caused some confusion with both groups. A few thought things had happened, others were available now, and some were not. So right before the Kickstarter launched I confirmed who was in, all six artists and three of the authors, and then put out a call for more authors. I got almost enough responses as I was launching the Kickstarter and then the Kickstarter exploded.

Not only did the Kickstarter Kick, but we broke the first and second Stretch Goals, and I got a ton of offers for writing and art. I picked authors and artists I knew and who’s work I both trusted and enjoyed.

When it came to pairing them together I made a couple of choices. I wanted first, people who were familiar with each other. You, Brie Sheldon, and Marissa Kelly ended up being the only two of the final twelve that knew each other, and I was certain you’d make a great team. You two were the easiest to pair. You are also my only all female team with Jolene Houser being my only other woman working on The Sound of Water. Two of my original authors who couldn’t write for the project because of conflicts were also female, and no other female authors stepped forward when I put out the call besides you, for which I am eternally grateful. I’m a bit bummed that we don’t have more women providing their talent to the book, but I am incredibly pleased with all the other authors and artists.

The next consideration was experience and exposure in the Industry. Don’t get me wrong. I think all of the authors and artists are amazing, but some of them have been around the Industry longer than others, and some of them have more name recognition and a bigger draw. John Wick and my massively awesome still secret Eisner nominated artist. They are both big names and I wanted to pair them together as a big draw to hopefully boost pledges.

Finally, I wanted to pair styles of artist with the subject matter that the authors were working on. Fabien produces some truly haunting art and Tobie’s A World of Shadows will be brought to life by Fabien’s art. Josh and Jolene both produce great content and Josh wanted Jolene to take the lead and decide, so that was a cool way to create a chapter and it worked great! Steve is working on Ninja and Caleb has a long history in the gaming industry creating some excellent character art (see his work in Realms of Sorcery the Black Industries sourcebook for the Green Ronin edition of Warhammer Fantasy). I knew that would be a success. Finally, Stan and John Kennedy are working on a chapter together, the subject hasn’t been revealed on the Kickstarter at the time of this writing. Rest assured that Stan’s style will pair beautifully with John’s subject matter. I can’t wait!

Is combat common in A World of Dew? If so, how does it work?

I was working on final edits tonight for the Violence Chapter – Between Two Breaths for A World of Dew. Violence happens, but it’s not like your typical hack n’ slash. This isn’t a game about minutiae, counting Hit Points, and proper Feats. Violence is quick and deadly like in Chambara films. The most basic violence in the game is called the Strike! One player calls Strike! and points at another player or the Narrator. They gather their dice, make their wagers and roll. The winner then spend their wagers to describe what happened even the death of the other character immediately. Like I said, quick and deadly.

Healing is just the opposite, and the Doctor Giri is an important part of keeping characters alive.

While it isn’t always Violent the Sumo wrestlers, Sumo Tournaments, and Sumo Schools are all in the Violence chapter. Sumo characters have detailed rules about taking part in a tournament and bringing great Glory to themselves and their School!

What kind of play experience do you want people to get from A World of Dew?

A fun one! Hopefully, a samurai noir type experience. Being able to tell dark, gritty stories about ronin, geisha, gaijin, and more around their table is what I hope they’re going to get out of it. The ability to bring that experience of watching Yojimbo, Zatoichi, or Princess Mononoke from their TV onto their table.

The City Locations are designed to help drive the plot forward via the expenditure of Honor and Ninjo points. Ninjo points are also something that didn’t exist in John’s Blood & Honor. Ninjo is Japanese for Desire, and it serves a similar but more selfish role as Honor points. It helps turn the stories you tell into the noir tales we’re trying to experience. The quick and deadly violence, the Giri, and the Virtue Flaws are all designed to build on that dark noir story. The deep dive into Japanese culture that the rest of the game represents helps make it samurai. 🙂

What’s up next for you after this?

Oh boy, a lot. Getting the books printed before GenCon and out to the backers. Then getting The Sound of Water finished and out to backers before Christmas. Going to GenCon, Phoenix ComicCon, RinCon, and all the other cons.

Then writing another game. This time a hack of a popular new system setting it in a place it’s never been before. The most I’ll say right now is it’ll not be fantasy. There’s another BIG game design project I’m slowly chipping away at. Or more correctly, I’m slowly working towards getting the rights to design the game. It’s a massive IP that has no RPG developed for it, and a huge fan following that crosses over into the Gaming Industry. If I can get it I’ll be over the moon. I tinkered with the idea awhile back with a partner, but that didn’t lead anywhere. I’ve now got the bare bones for a new system and moving forward with that.

During all that I’ll continue to go to my daughter’s soccer games, play Lego: Marvel Superheroes with my three year old, and snuggle with my lovely wife while our corgi tries to snuggle under our feet. 🙂

Five or So Questions with Marissa Kelly on Epyllion

Marissa told me about her upcoming project, Epyllion, soon to be seen at Gen Con!

Tell me about Epyllion. What’s got you excited about it?

Sure! First, the word Epyllion means mini epic. It is a “comparatively short narrative poem that shows formal affinities with epics,” like the Iliad. I felt like the word literally captured the epic nature that a game about baby dragons should have… And yes! Epyllion is a Powered by the Apocalypse game in which you play baby dragons who must help each-other change, grow, and save Dragonia from the Darkness that has crept back into the land and threatens to corrupt all it touches.

I am excited to combine some awesome genres that I love, like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Lord of the Rings, under my all-time favorite system to play out an adventure of epic proportions.


What are you pulling from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Lord of the Rings to make Epyllion… well,epic?

When you first create your characters in Epyllion the game can seem very cutesy, but the threat of an ancient Darkness creeping back into the world tips the scales [pun intended] back to epic storytelling. Like in MLP or LotR the players are tested by this impending threat and are motivated to save the world they love.

I am a huge fan of both MLP and LotR so, as a designer, combining them and adding dragons into the mix has been nothing but fun. I wanted to make starting out as baby dragons feel like a hobbit being swept off on an adventure. I also wanted to make the friendships you develop with other PCs mean something, so like MLP’s friendship = magic, PCs can spend Friendship Gems to call upon the moons and perform magical feats.


What does using the Apocalypse system bring to the table for Epyllion?

The AW engine has helped me design a game in which every mechanic supports the fiction that the table can create, from the playbooks to the Dragon Master moves. All of the AW-hacks have been built on such a sturdy framework of easy, no-prep, “play to find out what happens” gameplay that Epyllion fit in flawlessly.


Is this a kids game, a grown ups game, or both? What do you want players to get out of it?

Both! The great part about “play to find out what happens” is that it is shaped by the DM (Dragon Master) and their players. The game has mechanics that enforce a “feel good game,” but the tone can be dark or light depending on who is running/playing it.


When can we expect to see Epyllion out in the wild, and what is up next for you?

I am planning to release the Epyllion: Drake Edition as an ashcan for GenCon this year. It will have all the rules you need to play the game and 6 playbook archetypes. Magpie will then run a kickstarter after that has some time to circulate.

As for what is next, I have a lot of fun ideas burning in my brain that I would love to get rolling on, but I am trying not to get ahead of myself.

New Patreon is Up!

I’ve started a Patreon campaign to support the blog.

There are a lot of reasons for it. The primary reason? I want to keep supporting indie creators by putting their names and info on my blog and promoting their work.

It’s also because I really hope to do more with the blog. Thoughty has been around for a while now in different incarnations, and it would mean a lot to me for it to keep going and growing. I think the big thing is that I want to be able to produce varied content – vlogs, audio, Five or So, design posts, and fiction posts. The Patreon will make that a little bit easier on me.

As a writer, I’m trying to teach myself to put real value in my own words, and I think that this is an essential part of it. I won’t be counting every blog post for the Patreon, and no blog posts will be locked behind a paywall. I’m hoping that I can just produce more content with more variety, better research, and a wider audience.

Check out the Patreon if you get the chance!

Best,

Brie

Five or So Questions with Whitney Delaglio on Prism

I interviewed Whitney Delaglio about her game, Prism!

Tell me a little about Prism. What has you excited about it?
Prism is a paper & pencil RPG that uses a d10 system. Its world is based on a web comic series I have been working on called Prism the Miracle. There are six realms, each with their own God or Goddess. The Red Realm, and its Goddess that represents blood, and emotion. The Orange Realm, and its Goddess that represents the sun, and storms. The Yellow Realm, and its God that represents life, and light. The Green Realm, and its Goddess that represents the forest, and earth. The Blue Realm, and its God that represents the sea, and procreation. The Violent Realm, and its God that represents shadows, the moon, and death.

There are also seven available classes (Assassin, Brawler, Captain, Healer, Hunter, Knight, and Mage) and seven races (Barbed Fish, Chameleon, Humanoid, Mammal, Plant, Shark, and Weed).

I am a huge fan of aquatic creatures, so I am excited about bringing their neat characteristics to the game, as the world is primarily water-based. I also put in an element system. I always liked that feature in JRPGs. Prism also has a ‘Loyalty’ system where depending on who your character is devoted to, they will be rewarded, or punished for their actions. I put this in the game to encourage roleplaying. The populace of each realm behave in a particular manor, and each realm has its own dos and don’ts. Along with religion, there is also a royalty system if players would rather go into politics. Of course, there’s also opportunities for adventuring, battles, and warfare.

What sort of research did you do or development did you do for the different realms?
When I developed the realms, I kept their elements in mind for their geological appearance. For instance, the orange realm represents fire and storms, so I imaged the realm surrounded by volcanoes. I also wanted each realm to have certain mannerisms. So I developed how a civilian of each realm would behave according to their realm’s code of ethics. Developing classes actually helped me to do this. For instance, I imagined knights to be rustic, and friendly. A good amount of the orange realm’s funds come from weaponry and taverns. So, it made sense to make the realm’s populace earnest in nature and hospitable to others.

How do the classes and races interact mechanically?
I didn’t want any one race to sound less interesting than the rest or only be suitable for one class. So, I made sure each race had fun qualities that would make more than one class selection appealing. For instance, sea mammals have a quality that make then look extra adorable. Any class could use to feint being harmless.

Could you explain your element system?
There are nine elements: blood, fire, shock, holy, plant, rock, aqua, frost, and dark. Every element is either strong against, or negates each of the other seven (ex: fire is strong against plant but does nothing to aqua), save for blood. Mages use eight of them (save for blood) to cast spells. Healers use all nine to heal, buff, or debuff others. Chameleons use the elements around then to change their body type to give them an edge in combat. The blood element is used to manipulate the bodies of others. In this world, the inhabitants of the realms are not aware of the brain, so they believe that the heart is the center of all thoughts and emotions.

What experience do you want players to get out of Prism?
I want them to above all have a fun roleplaying experience. A player having fun playing the game is the most important thing to me. I want them to enjoy immersing themselves, and their characters in the world of Prism. As I said, I wanted this game to be very roleplay heavy, so as I complete the game, I want to give the players the opportunity to do so, even in combat.

Five or So Questions with Jason Cox

I interviewed Jason Cox about his PhD!

Tell me a little about what you are doing. What has you excited about it?
I am working on my PhD in Arts Education at The Ohio State University, where I am just about to finish my second year. During my time here I have begun to realize the potential to unite a lot of areas I feel very passionately about, namely art, education, and role-playing games. Currently I am designing the proposal I am going to submit for my dissertation, which focuses on using American freeform as the Media of Inquiry for collaborative arts-based research. The general idea is to use the media with arts educators to consider alternative viewpoints within an educational community, such as those held by administrators, students, parents, and other teachers, and to consider how they believe the discourse of power operates in such a setting. Leading up to that I have built several pilot studies into my coursework to experiment with techniques and concepts that might be of particular use to me. My research is a bit of an odd duck, which is slightly terrifying as well as exciting, but I believe it has the potential to do real good in the world and could open up some tools to academia that many artist-researchers have not yet become aware of.

Why American freeform?
The short version is that American Freeform is remarkably accessible, is typically structured in a format that feels in alignment with that of arts-education, and has an assortment of different meta-techniques that can be used to explore conceptual and emotional states. Let me go into a bit more detail though…

By access I mean a few things. Firstly that the narratives American Freeform games normally use as settings are within the realm of understanding of most players, either in terms of emotions experienced or contexts explored, as opposed to the more epic flavor of fantasy larps. The generally minimal rule systems mean that players do not have to be heavily invested in learning complex systems, and because costumes and props are de-emphasized a game can be played with relatively little in the way of expenses or additional planning. All these traits also mean that anyone within the community of play could alter the form with ease, which is important to me because of the the goals I have regarding collaboration.
The format of most American Freeform is to begin a game with workshops that teach techniques that players might use, encourage familiarity between players, and establish an atmosphere that feels safe enough for the players to take a few risks. The games themselves are often intense for individuals, though it is impossible to know what is going on inside and between every character, and the collaborative nature of the media comes back into play. After the game is a period of reflection, often in a form of group discussion, that allows players to discuss their interactions during the game, make meaning of the event, and remind each other that whoever they were in the game they are once again themselves. This parallels a common format for education which goes along the lines of having a pre-assessment, introducing a new concept, working with the concept through a media, and reflecting on the experience. The reflection is where we believe a lot of the education really occurs, because it is the analysis of the experience that allows a student to look for what their next steps might be.
The meta-techniques get past the straight diegetic layer of any given game and explore things like inter-relationships, interior states, and the nature of time. To me they really open up larp as an art form and allow players access to unique states of exploration that are difficult to find in any other art form. They can affect the tone of the game, or create affordances for how different states are shared or explored, or offer opportunities to enrich the collaborative effort that just do not exist otherwise. Because they are so contextually specific they have a fluid nature that is dependent not only on the framework of the game, but on the players who are playing it… returning again to the collaborative focus I am trying to maintain.

Can you tell me about your pilot studies?
Sure! The first one I did was a game meant to examine the works of Michel Foucault I called “What to do About Michael?” Foucault’s ideas focus on the relations between power, knowledge, and authority, and I found that while most people (including myself) could understand that the systems he identified existed they had a harder time admitting to the idea that they themselves might be a part of such a system. So for this game I had players take on the role of different teachers and administrators at an imaginary school where a young male student was running into some difficulties. Each player selected whatever contextual details they wished in terms of age, gender, subject they taught, and their attitude about the school. Leading up to the game they were sent readings by Foucault as well as short narratives I had written about different events “Michael” was involved in. Each event was actually based on events that had really happened to Foucault, including the last one wherein another student was attacked. The actual game took place as a faculty meeting that was specifically discussing the student’s actions and what an appropriate response may be. In the reflection after the game players realized the positions they had taken to defend the institution, interpret Michael’s actions, or interact with one another were all bound up in the systems of power they operated within.

The second and third studies I actually did concurrently. I used the experience of gathering players to play J. Tuomas Haarvianen’s The Tribunal as an exploration for Action Research and to explore different narrative theories, specifically those of David Herman which are tied to cognitive science. Action Research is communally based research wherein problems, methods, and solutions are all identified and explored by the community itself, and I wanted to see if my goals for creating a community of play that was also a community of inquiry were viable. The narrative theory aspect was an examination of how players created and used their characters to support the rhetorical, synthetic, or thematic aspects of the game. In general my conclusion was that for the systems to work as I wanted them to it requires several different games, both in terms of forging a community through shared experience and so they players get to know and trust the people behind the characters. I also realized my own tendency to make assumptions about what players do or do not need, which I suspect is a bad habit I carried over from my time as a classroom teacher.
Most recently I have been doing an independent study and interviewing different people who work with a lot of ideas about role-playing. This is very much a reaction to the realization that there were things about the form that I simply did not know as well as a way to round out my ideas for what I want from the work I will be doing in my dissertation. The very fact that I can talk about any of this with any confidence is due to the kind people who have helped me out with this.

I’d like to hear a little more about the meta-techniques. Which ones do you find most valuable, and why?
My two favorite are probably monologuing and bird-in-the-ear, both of which give a view of a co-created reality that is concurrent with the one the characters are portraying. The general idea behind monologuing is that when a player is either asked to or chooses to monologue (depending on the game) they give a description of thoughts or events that inform on their current experience. I saw a beautiful example of this at a workshop in the Living Games conference where the other players took on roles described in the monologue, which in that case was a grieving parent discussing an experience that might have happened had they not lost their child. Bird-in-the-ear is kind of like having another player act as a “Jiminy Cricket” and whisper thoughts your character is having to you during a scene. It can color your perceptions and inform your actions, though it doesn’t really control them. In a game of Previous Occupants I was in this was used very effectively to keep the tension high and the story moving. In both cases the techniques employ a lot of (surprise!) collaboration, but they also give a peek at the non-diegetic world I referenced earlier and tap into some very strong emotions.

Finally, what do you expect to see going forward from your research? Do you want to continue on with more game research?

In the near term I would like to work with a wider range of people. Right now I am really just planning on working with art educators, but I would like to open it up to other stakeholders (such as parents or administrators) in educational communities fairly soon. I also would like to apply the techniques in other sorts of institutional communities like hospitals, because I think there is a value in the multiple lenses of role-playing that really has not been explored outside of creating simulations. It’s my hope that eventually other people in arts-education will take the media and run with it, do things I have not even begun to imagine yet, and then work with me to create yet more new things.

My answer probably makes my interest in continuing games-based research pretty clear, though when I started my program I never imagined that this is what I would be doing. I am absolutely thrilled by it because it is a place where so many of my interests come together and it is a place where I feel like I can make a real difference. The only thing I find more amazing than being a researcher into what that difference might be is how many people have supported me in my efforts trying to find out.
Thanks Jason!