Today is the second part of Mike Evans’ Hubris setting book review! See the first part here.
We’ll continue with the chapter on the Wizard’s Spellbook (spells and Patrons). It has tables for spellbook constructions, options for Patrons from both DCC and Hubris (including the Charred Maiden, Floating Island of Terror, Spider Goddess, and Twisted One), and then spells.
The Summon from the Void spell is pretty… uh. Yikes. There’s some really cool stuff going on but wow, it’s mega gross, and reminds me why I am not a magic user.
There are unique spells for the various Patrons, which come with every level of creepy and gross and twisted nature that the others have, some going even farther like those of Charred Maiden that involve the Patron who is known for eating children and the spells that bring the twisted corrupted spirits of the children to life.
The following chapters include the gods of Hubris. I admit, and this is just personal preference, I wasn’t super enthused about this section. I think it’s because I don’t typically play or enjoy the narrative of clerics. There are plenty of useful things I think a lot of people would enjoy – various cleric invokations, information about the god’s alignment, holy symbols, and weapons, which are cool. The gods have names like “The Corpulent One,” “Yelsa, Goddess of Sex and Violence,” and “The Heathen Below.” I’m sure a lot of people would enjoy this if they’re into kind of twisted morbid deities, but it’s not really my jam, primarily because it’s focused on clerics.
In the following chapter on GM Tools and Tables, I think that the Demigod creation charts are really cool. You roll for the demigod form, holiday, altar, blessing/curse, followers, temple, cult leader, and what they are a god of. There are things like “God of the Never-Ending Kaleidoscope Nightmare” and the bodies include things like “twitching fingers for nipples” and “eyes are mouths and mouth is an eye” and some things that are way more unsettling. A couple of these did genuinely make me uncomfortable and upset (like some of the altars that included harm to animals and stuff), so I’m not including many details here.
There is a nifty table on “Bandits, Brigands, and Rapscallions” that has gangs, encounters, and bandit leaders. I like the City District Generator, too, which has some fun plot hooks and I think would be a great kickoff for anyone trying to get a game started quickly or pick up a game that’s slowed down.
Hive Mind
The Diseases of Hubris are so, super gross. Blighted Eyes is so gross and cringey, involving yucky things happening to your eyes. The Ghost Pox is very haunting (pun intended), but Hive Mind (bees take rest in your head) is so vile and probably going to give me nightmares just from reading it. Also, the Whistler’s Lament is terrible – and possibly could annoy the entire table completely.
There’s a brief table for grave digging, which I think would be pretty useful in some campaigns. Another table – probably more widely useful – is the NPC generator. It has a lot of variety, and a lot of unique qualities for NPCs. I really like random tables for NPCs, in part because it can make life way easier for GMs.
This section in general is loaded with cool tables – planes of Hubris, what happens when you make camp (like waking up with fungus growing on you), herbs you might find (like ones that let you climb on walls), taverns and inns (one has a pickled rat brain eating contest), vials (you could grow a beard! Or barbed skin!), villages (including one that’s built on mummified bird legs!), ruins (featuring living statues and demons of lies, strange black obelisks and pink spider webs), and a way to label years.
The section on Magic Items has a fancy table for random stuff but also has a list of other items both attached to gods and otherwise. I almost talked about what some of them do, but I think that would be almost too spoilery, for lack of a better term! Some of the named items are: The Armor of the Horned Blood Crab, The Six Sinister Skull Bracelets of Facious the Cruel, and The Despicable Clay Jug of the Maggot. Yes, that last one is just as gross as it sounds!
Demon Contamination
The Monsters section is pretty fun. There’s a table on contamination from demon possession, which has some gross stuff and some interesting stuff, and includes a table called What’s on Their Festering Dead Body? And it is obviously ridiculous (in a good way). One of the options is a “Convulsing Sphincter Muscle of an Ox,” and another is a “Bladder of a Badger” that you can drink from (ew). I’m annoyed that the Face of a Scorned Lover is gendered, because, come on. There’s also “Ulcerated Stomach of the Three Pronged Goat,” which is for carrying items, so, gross. Fun grossness.
The monsters include such fun things as barghests (one of my favorites), dinosaurs, fae (with some random tables), malfactorum (anthropomorphic beetles), carnivorous mermaids (YES), skeletons what use guns, and wooly mammoths. They all sound really cool and I’d love to see some of these in play (especially the mermaids!).
Mermaids!
I am not covering the Adventures section because that’s something I prefer to leave for GMs and players to discover on their own, so you’ll have to pick it up to see!
Overall, I think that Hubris is pretty fascinating! If you’re looking for a setting book with lots of material that will give plenty of substance to a twisted, gross campaign with plenty of vile monstrosities, Hubris is a good option! There are plenty of new environments, magical effects, story hooks, and choices for character building that I think give a lot of leads for both short play and longer campaigns.
I hope you liked reading about it! Check out Hubris here if it seems like your kind of thing. 🙂
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(This is part 1 of two, part 2 will be released on Monday, January 9, 2017.)
The introduction to Mike Evans’ Hubris is a vivid, almost technicolor cover that reminds me of the covers of old, used paperback sci-fi and sword and sorcery novels I saw in my childhood, covered in dust, wiped with an 80s brush. This is a good thing.
Gorgeous cover!
Inside the pages I find similar evidence of the weird nostalgia of gritty dark adventure, like the monsters of Beastmaster and from those stories I shouldn’t have read in the back of the bookstore. These days I typically stick to lighter materials in my gameplay, but fuck knows that in the back of my mind those things still creep. What makes Hubris appealing? The visceral nature of it, for sure.
Hubris uses Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) as its main mechanical structure, so I had to wiggle my brain a little since I’m not super familiar with the system. Thankfully, it’s relatively simple and nothing interfered with my ability to examine the game’s setting and structure. There are lots of random tables, which I looove.
The art of the book is black and white or grayscale, and not only is it great to look at it but it’s well suited to the content of the text and theme of the book. I enjoyed just scrolling through looking at the images – the artists (Alex Mayo, David Lewis Johnson, Jeremy Duncan, Angie Groves, Doug Kovacs, Jason Sholtis, and Wayne Snyder) did an excellent job capturing the “feel” of Hubris from my reading. There are a few spots where I (as an editor and proofreader) might have changed a few things textually, and some layout hiccups, but they’re minor and don’t disrupt reading, I don’t think. Overall the book is really well put together and easy to read!
The setting summary and flavor text of Hubris includes a lot of “appealing” concepts (by which I mean, oh, god, no, please! (wait, yes!)). A few bits from the setting summary itself:
“Legend states that Hubris was created from the fetid corpse of a long-dead god.”
“The Black Queen rules the citizens of the Floating Island of Terror from her throne of bones and dreams terrible machinations for Hubris.” (*swoon*)
“There are no easily recognizable heroes in the world.”
“Your epic tale will be forgotten in days as the dangerous world continues on without you…”
Yep. Yep.
Lovely world map!
The maps in Hubris are really nice! They have the kind of tight feeling that I enjoy in this Tolkien-esque kind of map, but it’s clearly readable. They also immediately draw in my interest with the small icons of the locations. You know, places like “Ruins of the Deranged Elephant Emperor” and “Lake of the Flayed” and “Bleeding Mountain that Pierced the Sky.” The kind of places you really wanna go, but kind of wish you’d never heard of.
In character creation, Hubris includes no elves, dwarves, or halflings. I was kind of surprised by that as I’m so used to them being standard in a lot of settings, but it was cool to see. There is a list of occupations with weapons and goods, and I admit I laughed when I read that the chimney sweep child has a broom (as a club) as their weapon. There’s also gems like the heathen carrying a bucket of dung, a nosey neighbor with a rake (as a club) and a rooster, and a rabid raven fanatic. (There’s also later a “disgusting torturer’s kit.”)
(Note: I am fully aware that Hubris contains some terms and subjects that are or may be problematic (g*psy, prostitute), so please don’t think I’m ignoring them. This is my note that they do exist and I’m aware of them.)
There are also additional races with specific occupations available: Avarians, Ekrasks, Half Demons, Murder Machines, and Mutants. The phrase “Murder Machine” as a race does amuse me, especially considering one of the available occupations is “Tinkerer.” These are also doubled as classes, along with the additional human-only occupations of Alchemist, Blood Witch, Druid, and Shadowdancer, as add-ons to the base DCC classes. I am not commenting on everything – just stuff that sticks out.
Blood Witch
I admit I nearly shit myself while reading the Blood Witch class because of the Blood Walk ability:
“A blood witch can play a dangerous game and jump through a living creature that is the same size or larger than herself, traveling through their blood and can emerge from another living creature on the same plane of existence.”
Like. Fuck. Yes. This is totally my kind of ability, and it’s so gross. To be honest, I said to John (husband) that it is one of the coolest abilities I’ve ever seen. A+. (Oh, and the Familiar ability is really cool and gross, too. You’ll have to see the book to find out why!)
One of the interesting things about the Druid class that I liked a lot was the Animal Shape manifestations, corruptions, and misfires. They include things like worms burrowing out of the druid’s skin and reshaping the druid to the new form, the druid’s head turning permanently into the chosen animal, and a tree growing out of the top of the druid’s head, respectively. Nice.
Druid
I will note my one big complaint is the general nonconsensual nature of the Half Demon race. This is such a stupid stickler for me, I know it pisses people off, but I’ll always dislike it (and I’ve written articles about the use of this in half-orc backgrounds). However, I know a lot of people dig it and it doesn’t bug everyone, and I get that it’s evil demons, and not just women getting raped (but rape is legit bad for anyone, regardless of gender, so). But, consider this my registered gripe. Aside from that, the race is pretty cool.
Murder Machines are just… like, dude. I can’t even register how cool and fucked up they are. They’re basically humans melded into armor and made into… murder machines. They also have something called a “Swiss-Army Hand.”
So the Mutant has this thing… It’s a cosmetic mutation, and I’m just gonna… share it:
“Your teeth fall out and in their place grows: 1) fingernails; 2) worms; 3) open sores; 4) small gasping mouths; 5) small writhing tentacles; 6) tiny, infant-like fingers.”
You’re welcome (from Mike, probably).
The Mutant powers are so disgusting I am still just kind of grossed out but they’re so inventive and brilliant I’m amazed. I laughed and gagged. Amazing. (Stomach maggots. Worm infested skin. Plague skin. Acidic belch. Ooze-like body. Ant colony. Boneless.)
As we move along through the gear and services things, it’s pretty standard and useful (including a great Quick Start Gear option!), but I have to make a vote that we stop with the “prostitution” tables in games… or at least not make them about how likely you are to get an STD. It’s just kind of a bummer and negative. I love having sex workers in games! But I like them to be done respectfully. This is not exclusively judging Hubris either, this shit is everywhere, but it’s in my read while I’m here, so pointing it out. Other people might like it! Not my jam.
Next up we hit the Territories section. I love that Mike specifically talks about how the Void of Hubris (kind of the post-life plane) has a lot of room to explore whatever the Judge (the GM) wants to explore. Pretty cool! I like that, and I also like that in the basic “Lay of the Land” options it’s a chart (d100) that works with a d100 chart of encounters and descriptions of locations.
The Territories section is a really good read and has a ton of material that could support a really significant campaign without ever risking boredom or repetition. I’m just going to cherry pick some of my favorite bits of the flavor text for the settings and items from their d100 lists here for you all!
“Devastating sandstorms, raging gigantic beasts, harsh environments, and a psychotic empire is all that stands in the way between an adventurer and unimagined riches from a long forgotten age.” (The Blighted Sands)
“Grove of weeping willows, used by a sect of extremist druids as their outpost. They are preparing for war against the heathens that destroy nature.” (d100 table, Bogwood Swamp)
Note: There is a list of what the mushrooms of the Bogwood Swamp do that is suuuper cool, but I think it would ruin a player experience to learn about all of them in advance!
“The petrified remains and shell of the gargantuan turtle, Slathereth the Destroyer, rises out of the Bogwood like a jagged mountain.” (Locations, Slathereth, Bogwood Swamp)
“The constant gathering and release of energy has caused the veil of reality to become weak in the forest and it is not uncommon for those in it to have strange visions, become warped or monstrous, or even be transported to another area of Hubris, or teleported to another reality entirely.” (Locations, Wrath, the Crystal Forest, Canyons of the Howling Red Rock)
“Vineyard with grapes that have the faces of humans, young or old. The grapes scream when they are squeezed.” (d100 table, Great Plains of Unbidden Sorrow)
FYI THERE IS AN ENTIRE TOWN THAT IS BUILT ON THE BACK OF A GIANT METAL DOGGIE THAT BREATHES FIRE. It’s called The Roving Nibbleton.
The Roving Nibbleton
“Strange mechanical ruins that stagger the imagination, gigantic reptiles and insects, altars of blood, druidic cults, moss-covered zombies, ancient stone temples of complex design, and plants that feed off living creatures’ life-force await all who are brave or foolish enough to enter the Unsettled Expanse.” (The Unsettled Expanse)
“A Tyrannosaurus Rex with a head-mounted laser cannon rumbles through the forest.” (d100 Encounters table, The Unsettled Expanse)
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On Monday, January 9, 2017, the review will be continued! Keep an eye out. 🙂
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Today I have an interview with Chris Birch, the publishing director at Modiphius, about the new Star Trek Adventures game. When I heard about the game (a little behind schedule compared to most, I think), I wanted to know more right away. Check out what Chris had to say about Star Trek Adventures below!
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Tell me a little about the Star Trek Project. What excites you about it?
I still remember avidly watching every episode of Star Trek as a kid with Captain Kirk. Long before Star Wars fueled my love for galactic empires, I was enthralled by the idea of captaining a ship on an epic voyage. Since then the waves of series and movies has kept the flame alive and so when we got to create a new roleplaying game I realised we could make it that personal journey that everyone who loved Star Trek since they were young has yearned for.
What approach did you take for mechanics in the game? Why did you choose the 2d20 system, and how will it mesh with the “feel” of Star Trek?
2d20 is our house system first developed for Mutant Chronicles, then Conan, John Carter of Mars and Infinity. It’s a cinematic, system that is rebuilt from the ground up for each new version of the game to ensure it can accurately portray how that universe should ‘feel’. For example we’re working on ensuring phasers replicate how they’re used the shows and films – but note that’s different to how they actually would work. Federation personnel rarely use phasers on kill, instead mostly stun, and when heroes get hit it’s usually a short term thing, not life threatening. You don’t see people running about killing with phasers all over the place. There’s an emphasis on values for characters – as personal beliefs or values are often a vital part of the shows story.
What experiences in the game are you making priority – interpersonal interaction, combat, ship combat, exploration, etc. – and why?
Right now it’s making sure the basic nuts and bots feel right, but soon we’ll see starship combat, utilising the crew as ‘secondary characters’ (so you’re alwayx involved in the story), character creation and so on.
What specific parts of Star Trek media (including specific episodes, concepts from the shows, character interactions) are the primary sources for your inspiration for the game, its fiction, and how the players will live in the game?
These new books won’t just replicate all the usual ‘this is Starfleet’ content we’ve seen before but instead give more personal views from Vulcan Ambassadors, Romulan agents, Klingon captains on key events, starfleet regulations or make up etc. We want to get inside the heads of the different races to ‘feel’ how they see the universe more, and by linking these short excerpts to actual episodes we’re going to create loads of great plot seeds to inspire GM’s.
In particular one episode Yesterday’s Enterprise became an inspiration for our living playlest, leading to the creation of Narendra Station and a major plot being developed by New York Times Best Selling Author Dayton Ward so throughout what we’re doing we’re drawing on inspiring moments that we all know and love, but in new ways.
How have you approached getting diverse creators (artists, designers, writers) involved in the development and creation of the Star Trek game, and how do you see their inclusion positively impacting the product?
The foundations of this includes a diverse team in the office who are involved in reviewing all the submissions, the financial management, art direction and community management to ensure a balanced approach. Beyond this we reached out to a diverse mix of writers, artists and editors – including many we met at GenCon and after. We’ve since hired an amazing team – people who’ve written and edited the previous editions of the Star Trek roleplaying game as well as other big titles from across the industry. We have the likes of Janice Sellers – Four time Origin Award winning editor for Call of Cthulhu, 7th Sea, Cyberpunk 2020 and Star Trek alongside Dayton Ward, New York Times Best Selling Star Trek author and many many more with most of the creative team still to be announced.
Do you think that the new game will allow exploration of the progressive ideals that Gene Roddenberry promoted in the original series, and if so (or if not!), how?
Yes we do plan to build this in to the storylines, but also encourage the use values and believes that characters have as they contend with moral dilemmas, problem solving and conflict of all sorts. Often Star Trek played out these ideals through the eyes of an alien races storyline and we’d like to see new challenges facing humanity also developing through the wide ranging missions we’ll be offering.
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Thanks so much to Chris for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading and that you’ll take a glance at what’s coming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG!
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Hi all! Today I have an interview with Chris Spivey on his new Cthulhu RPG Sourcebook, Harlem Unbound. It’s currently on Kickstarter and sounds really amazing, so I wanted to share his thoughts about the game with you. Make sure to check out the Kickstarter and see his answers to my questions below!
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Tell me a little about Harlem Unbound. What excites you about it?
Harlem Unbound is a RPG sourcebook that takes players into the world of the Harlem Renaissance at its height, to face terrifying horrors from the Lovecraftian Mythos. The book is everything that I, as a gamer of color, wanted to see in my Cthulhu games. It places minorities into the roles of protagonists, and doesn’t turn away from the history of racism or the struggle that people of color face.
Instead, Harlem Unbound tries to honor that struggle, and shines a light on all of those corners of humanity’s evil, rather than try to hide them. All the while, the Mythos is seething around the edges and corrupting what it doesn’t destroy. I think it’s important to differentiate that at no point should racism be considered something caused by the Mythos; rather the Mythos may use our own evil against us.
With your intentions, what made you choose to make the game compatible with both Gumshoe and Call of Cthulhu?
I grew up a black kid loving Lovecraft and picked up my first CoC book around age 14. After I ran Dead Man’s Stomp, I knew Cthulhu was for me. I wanted both Gumshoe and CoC because I figured there would be a good cross section of people who play either one or both, and they could choose whichever one they prefer.
Can you talk a little about the mechanical adjustments and additions you’ve made to support Harlem Unbound in those systems?
I have introduced a Racial Tension modifier for both systems. Racism is a very sensitive topic and to properly run a game that integrates this reality, the Keeper needs to have very defined guidelines. I find that employing a mechanic everyone can reference helps. Within a lot of games, some people like to pretend racism doesn’t exist. Harlem Unbound, by its very nature, cannot steer away from the racist norms of 1920s NYC. I wanted to create a mechanical tool that guides everyone involved, and the tool works slightly differently for each system.
What are the classes you’ve made available for Harlem Unbound? What elements of them do you think really highlight what is important to you about the game?
One of the classes is the Patron that was just unlocked as a stretch goal on our Kickstarter. Each class will focus on the concept of what it represents. For instance, the Patron will have an easier time with resources and contacts than, say, fighting or warbling on the stage. That is not to say they couldn’t do it, but they wouldn’t be on par with a Hellfighter back from World War I or a legendary performer.
You offer guidance for Keepers running “a game steeped in the history of racism, horror, and the celebration of life.” What are some really important concepts you highlight in that section?
The most important element I have tried to convey is how important it is for a Keeper to talk to their gaming group before playing. Harlem Unbound, in many ways, is unlike many RPGs that are currently on the market. We don’t shy away from the reality of life, particularly that of African Americans. And the players must be aware that living in America in the early 1900s as a person of color will have an impact on how you navigate the world. And let’s be real, there is still an impact today. It’s important that everyone understands the type of game you’re running and the history involved in it.
Lastly, in as much detail as you’d like, what about the worldbuilding and history used in Harlem Unbound are meaningful to you as a creator, and what do you hope they bring to those who play the game and hear the stories?
The Harlem Renaissance was a great time of art changing the world. And there are many who know very little about the movement. African Americans escaping the harsh reality of the South rebelled by pouring themselves into art, music, dance, and the written word. That speaks to me on every level, even more so given the recent political climate. They say that times of great stress and duress produce the biggest explosions of art. I have no doubt we will see a similar result in the next decade.
I did a quick poll today on my G+ (a public post) about what gender your GM for your local/regular group is. The results were… ouch. I posted it around 2:00pm on 12/18 (today) and this is the current result:
I am kind of gobsmacked. I like to think my followers on G+ are pretty diverse, and many of them are! But it unfortunately seems like we still have a lot of men running games in comparison to women. There were a few clarifications in the comments (we have multiple GMs, but most are men, etc.), but for the most part: GMs are more often men. By a lot.
I will add a picture of the final results to this post after the poll ends (I think tomorrow). I just wanted to share it for awareness. There will be follow up post to this with more questions, and hopefully some ideas from my own perspective about this issue.
Do you think this is something we should keep working to change? (Note: Some groups like Contessa have already been making strides for con games run by women, which is great!)
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I was lucky enough to chat with Epidiah Ravachol about his yearly event, Epimas! Epimas is really an amazing event and involves much of the indie gaming community, and Epidiah wanted to share the story behind it and how to participate with my readers. Check out our discussion below! –
What exactly is Epimas?
To begin with, Epimas is December 24th. My birthday.
It is also a long standing holiday tradition of giving and receiving gaming PDFs.
According to the stats on the original Epimas site, it’s been up since 2009. And that’s about as close to gospel as I can get, so I’m going to say that Epimas is a 7-year old holiday tradition. I remember walking with Nathan D. Paoletta and a bunch of other folks in NYC. I had just released Time & Temp that summer at GenCon and was just dipping my toes into my first ever PDF sales around that time. Digital books were still kind of an untested thing, even as recent as that. The first iPad hadn’t even hit the shelves yet. So selling PDFs was selling the experience of sitting at your desk and reading a book on your computer monitor. For this indie publisher, it was an exciting time. If people bought PDFs, then all sorts of barriers and costs associated with printing, warehousing and shipping would melt away. Where I was with the budget I had at the time, I needed those costs to melt away. So on that walk, Nathan and I hatched a plan to make it easier for folks to give the gift of gaming PDFs over the holidays.
How the plan is executed changes from year to year, because I don’t always remember how it works and I keep trying new gimmicks, but at its core, the Epimas sale where…
…as the customer:
You have from now until Dec. 23rd to buy game PDFs as gifts to be delivered to your friend, family member or assorted loved one on Dec. 24th.
You immediately receive copies of the game PDFs for free so you can read them over and be prepared to play them with your friend, family member or assorted loved one on Dec. 24th.
…as participating publishers:
We all contribute some game PDFs to the cause.
Everyone gets an equal share of the profits, regardless of the number or size of the games they contributed or of how well they sold.
That last bit was a lesson learned from Design Matters—a group of game designers and publishers assembled by Nathan and Kevin Allen, Jr. to sell at GenCon. The equal shares invest everyone in everyone else’s success.
I’ve grown overly fond of Epimas over the years. It can be a bit of a chore sometimes. It’s never been tremendously lucrative. And I regularly caution people against turning their own birthdays into deadlines. But it’s fun to see folks looking forward to it, sending gifts to friends, loved ones, and sometimes strangers they only know from the internet. And I personally like seeing the new games that pop up each time. It’s like a retrospective of cutting edge game design at the end of the year.
Why focus on PDFs? What benefit is there to focusing entirely on digital products?
They are cheap to warehouse, easy to deliver, and can be made on a moment’s notice. All these things make Epiclaus’s holiday so much smoother. They just make the logistics manageable.
Why did you choose for people to get a copy of the games they buy for someone else?
There’s two answers to this: the reason and the justification. I think both are a bit valid, though one may be a bit more valid than the other.
The reason is that folks are not used to buying PDFs for other folks as gifts. We want to cast a wide enough net to capture those who are buying primarily for themselves along with those buying for others. Because, let’s face it, indie roleplaying is a niche within a niche within a niche. Sears can sell tools by touting them as a gift for the handyperson on your list, and they’re going to reach an audience who are relieved because they know very little about tools but they have a handyperson on their list and won’t someone please sell them something to give that handyperson as a gift. We’re not going to be able to reach those audiences. We can say, “Gifts for the indie tabletop roleplayers on your list.” But if you’ve heard of Epimas at all, odds are you’re the indie tabletop roleplayer on someone else’s list.
But the justification is important, too! We justify it by saying you’ll need to read up on the games so you can be ready to play them with whoever got your gift on Epimas day. As per tradition. Just like you play Swords Without Master every Sunday morning, you’re going to play games on Epimas day. So you might as well come prepared.
How do you find people to provide games? Do you only do open calls, or do you seek people out? Are there any things you don’t intend to include in the collections?
There’s an open call every year somewhere around the end of November, beginning of December. I basically broadcast it on my most active social media accounts. These days, that’s G+ (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+EpidiahRavachol) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/Epidiah). If time is tight for me, which it typically is, the launch window can get fairly small. So keep your eyes peeled. I welcome all comers as long as they are cool with the equal profit sharing.
What is the most important thing about Epimas to you?
Honestly and truly, it’s just that people have fun with it. There’s a lot of things that I’d love for Epimas to be, but in the end, I’m all about folks having fun.
Today I had the opportunity to interview Fraser Simons about his new game, Young at Heart, available on DriveThruRPG. It sounds like really fascinating game about baseball narratives, and I think you’ll enjoy this quick interview with Fraser!
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Tell me a little about Young at Heart. What excites you about it?
The most exciting thing about Young at Heart for me, is the reflection in the mechanics of that primal duality between the pitcher and the batter in a baseball game, and how subjective the two main resources are that reinforce that throughout play. Everyone always interprets pride and heart differently, sometimes radically. And during the course of play, you’re using your scenes to vie for your particular resource as well as narrative control. You really get to know each other as players when you’re doing this because when I control the pitcher and I act in such a way that I’d generate heart or pride, I’m displaying to the other player(s) what I think that is. I’ve heard people think that the duality there was acting like an adult or a child, I’ve had people think it was toxic masculinity vs healthy reactions to the problems posed. Lots and lots of interesting stuff, and I really love learning about the other players at the table so it’s really exciting.
Can you tell me a little about the mechanics used in Young at Heart?
The primary mechanics of the game reflect what I would call the “spirit” of the baseball while completely side stepping actually simulating a game of it. Players are opposed to one another in that they each pick either Heart or Pride to go after during the course of play and are constantly vying for narrative control over one character, the pitcher. During the course of the game though, both teams need to spend resources in order to continue and get what they want – the procedures in place are the primary mechanics. They’re used to simulate both a specific kind of dramatic narrative based on the novel it was inspired by, as well as the pacing and emergent subjective commentary that the game is driving at.
Where did your inspirations come from for the game?
My inspiration was specifically from a book I’ve re-read many many times in my life, For Love of the Game. In fact, the “pre-loaded scenario” for the game could be used to specifically re-create the story if you wanted. But It was important to me that the game be about discovering more about the players at an individual level if the players wanted that kind of bleed in it. I also wanted people to be able to play any kind of sports narrative type story they would like easily. Things like Bull Durham, The Natural, and, with a few tweaks, even things like Remember the Titans or Coach Carter. It’s a very simple game so could be re-skinned for a lot of different things, in fact someone recently said they could use it for a Whiplash type of story, that’s been on my brain ever since!
What commonalities do you see in games like Young at Heart that are focused on sports (such as World Wide Wrestling), and more traditional RPGs that focus on fantasy or cyberpunk, etc.?
I had to take some time to think about this and I am a pretty new designer, so I may just not be as familiar with as many games and the mechanics behind them as others – but I can’t really find any commonalities. It’s play to find out what happens and it uses six-sided dice, other than that it’s doing it’s own thing, so far as I know or can think of. I’m sure there’s things out there that I’m not aware of that are similar, though!
The narrative in sports is often a legacy that spans generations. Do you think that Young at Heart touches on this, or possibly predicts a story that could go on?
You could definitely use the game to do this, in fact I give advice on making it episodic. Like, if you watch the newer show on Fox called Pitch, for example. You could do a game where the pitcher is like Ginny Baker, essentially playing each game as an episode of the show with the trials and tribulations and unique issues she goes through as the first woman to play in the MLB. I think that would be super interesting to play, as well as each session being a generational thing. — Thanks so much to Fraser for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you get the chance to check out Young at Heart on DriveThruRPG!
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Hey all, this took a little while to put together, but I have an interview with three of the freelancers from Shadowrun: Anarchy! Russell “Rusty” Zimmerman, O.C. Presley (“Opti”), and Patrick Goodman all took some time with me, which is super great. I wanted to learn a little more about the work that they did to put together the game, so I bugged them off and on for a while to get some fun stuff for you all to read! Enjoy!
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Tell me a little about you and your background, and your work on the project. What has your experience with games and design been thus far, and how did you end up working on Shadowrun: Anarchy? Within the project, what parts of the game did you work on – mechanics, flavor, etc.?
Patrick: I was born and raised in Texas. I’ve been gaming since I was fourteen, so 36 years and change now. Been playing Shadowrun since 1989, been writing for SR since 1999.
I wound up working on SR:Anarchy because, at about the time the very first noises of a rules-lighter version of SR was being talked about in the upper-management discussions at CGL, I was thinking, “I really wish we had a version of SR I could play with my kids.” They’d flipped through some of my SR books and kinda liked some of what they saw, but the rules were too much and the presentation really wasn’t kid-friendly.
So I talked with a few of the other freelancers, and we put together a pitch for a product we called Shadowrun Jr. Stripped Down, bare-basics rules, a kid’s view of the setting. Quick character generation, fast task resolution, and a path to grow into the bigger version of the game if they were interested.
When I sent the project presentation to Jason Hardy, the line developer, he wrote back and said, “You know, Loren Coleman wants to do a rules-light version of Shadowrun, This might be a good companion for that. How’d you like to be involved?” And I said, “I’m in.”
Still want to do Junior one of these days, but Anarchy is a much easier, much more kid-friendly engine, so I’m not in as quite a big a hurry as I was.
[on what he worked on] Flavor, mostly. Jason and Philip Lee did the rules drafts, but I did a lot of kibitzing on the side, along with Rusty and Opti. Rules would show up, we’d all say, “This doesn’t work” or “This rocks on toast” and helped push things so that they felt like Shadowrun within the new rules. I wrote two or three of the Contract Briefs, and ten of the sample characters (Bit-Bucket, Daktari, Fourth, Hawk, Raider, Razzle Dazzle, Strider, Thunder, Vector, and Wheezer). And now I’m working on the errata to fix the boo-boos.
Rusty: I’m Russell Zimmerman, and the short-form of my background is that I’ve been a Shadowrun freelancer since Attitude and Way of the Adept. Lately I’ve been leaning over to the fiction side of the fence, with stuff like Neat and Shaken (and that ongoing novel trilogy), and those recent anthologies.
On Anarchy, most of what we freelancers tackled were the sample characters and the scenarios/plot-hooks, officially, but we were also full of suggestions and comments when it came to stuff like chargen, partially because we also ran some playtests, but also specifically as a result of us, uh, genning all those chars (thirty of the buggers!). So officially we weren’t assigned any rules, but there are lots of little and not-so-little changes that were made because of us, which is always cool.
Personally, I tackled 10 of the pre-genned characters*, and 11 of the included scenarios**. I’m also the guy who handled the intro fic for the book, Synchronicity (which features several of those pre-gens). Oh! Plus I added the Cinematic Initiative option, which is how my buddies and I handle init in narrative games, so I was glad to see it added as an optional system here. I guess that counts as a contribution.
*(Coydog, Gentry, Hardpoint, Ms. Myth, Sledge, Kix, Ninetails, Shades, Tommy Q, and Wagon)
**(Food Fight, Snatch and Grab, Nerps Run, Data/Steel, Puyallup Problems, Urban Brawl, Assassin’s Greed, Cleaning House, Street Sweeper, Triad Take-Out, and Trucking With The Fae)
Opti: My writing name is O.C. Presley, and I live with my wife and 2 kids in Fort Worth, TX. Most of my work history previous has been in education and public speaking. My relevant background is that I started a Shadowrun podcast a few years ago called the Neo-Anarchist Podcast. It is an in-character telling of SR history, and I play the narrator, Opti.
I began writing for Shadowrun earlier this year, and my first published work was the Redmond Barrens chapter of the Seattle Sprawl box set, but I just had a short story published in the Shadowrun: Drawing Destiny Anthology. Anarchy marks the first time I have had any meaningful input on a game’s design, although my input was much more on the balance and fluff side than the core mechanics. Although I do have the honor of being the one to name it “Anarchy.” 🙂
I ended up working on Anarchy largely thanks to Patrick Goodman. He and I had been talking for some time about a kid-friendly version of Shadowrun, and our original pitch was for something along those lines. But as it turns out, Anarchy was already in the works, and Patrick let Jason Hardy, our line developer, know I was interested, and I got added onto the group.
Within Anarchy, along with Rusty and Patrick, I was responsible for about a third of the characters and a little over a third of the Mission Briefs. We all sort of chipped in on the other stuff, too, but only in a voluntary way. I think we all wanted Anarchy to be its best, so ideas were flowing around all the time. To Jason’s credit, a lot of our ideas were given consideration even though they were in areas we were not technically working on.
What kind of challenges did you encounter building a game to work alongside the core 5th edition material? How did you figure out what to change, and what to keep?
Patrick: The big trick, to me, was making sure that the experience felt like Shadowrun even though the system was clearly something completely different. That took some doing, especially since that’s so subjective. One person’s “feels like Shadowrun” can be very different from another person’s.
There’s a lot of guesswork and trial-and-error involved, especially in the beginning stages. Once you get the foundation working the way you think is right, the rest is just honing things to make sure they’re all in line with one another. You hit on something, and you try it out, and you get some other people to try it out, and see what happens.
Rusty: We wanted to walk the tightrope between streamlining/efficiency and Shadowrun/familiarity. That meant keeping the core mechanic of skill plus attribute, for instance, but narrowing down the number of attributes to try and make things simpler. Likewise, we leveraged SR5’s “Skill Groups” pretty hard as a way of slimming down the skill list while keeping some familiar Shadowrun sentiments in place.
I, personally, think we could have folded Plot Points into Edge as another way of simplifying gameplay while retaining a familiar name for something, but the third part of our tricksy-like-hobbitses balancing act was also that we were making a Cue System game, so that meant keeping some of those touchstones, that core narrative-game-engine that CGL has had such great prior success with, with Plot Points, cues, dispositions, and those type of things. So it wasn’t just a balancing act between trying to keep the Shadowrun feel while creating a narrative game, it was trying to do so while creating a Cue narrative game, rather than building something brand new from the ground up.
Opti:Well, much of that was out of my hands. However, when brainstorming early on, we all decided that it should feel like Shadowrun, and yet be easy to wrap your head around. One of the easiest ways to do that was to keep the D6 “hits” system in place for rolls. Also, no matter what Anarchy became, we knew it had to reflect the lore in the same way that the SR5 system did, just with different mechanics.
When creating content for the game, what did you use as guidance – previous Shadowrun fiction, reflections on current events, inspirations for mechanics from other games, and/or other sources?
Patrick: My biggest guide was, “What’s gone before? How do I make sure that this reflects this new ruleset we’re making, but also reflects the very rich and expansive game world we’ve been developing for the past 27 years?”
So, very much, previous SR fiction, including my own. Two of the pregen characters I submitted, Thunder and Wheezer, were from a story I did called “Thunderstruck.” I conferred with Rusty Zimmerman when I was working on Strider’s background, and she developed into a courier for his characters Jimmy Kincaid and Ms. Myth.
I think we all looked at current events as we worked, which I think really shows up in the diversity of the characters. That was one of Opti’s biggest pushes, and I think it reflects well on the game. We’ve got gender parity, metaracial parity, different ethnicities, and different sexual orientations.
And I’m way off on a tangent and a whole other discussion, so I’ll stop at “previous fiction” and “current events.”
Rusty: For me, I’d call it a 70/30 split between existing Shadowrun lore (which is something that’s always at the forefront of my decision-making process, respect for the existing material), and inspiration from game experiences (either with SR, or with narrative games). Shadowrun’s a game that’s just madly in love with crunch, and many Shadowrun fans are, too. Selling a narrative, rules-light (or rather, rules-medium, I’d say) game to those types of fans, you’ve got to really knock it out of the ballpark, and you’ve got to really sell them on it. Hopefully we did that, and folks are already having a good time with it, just in these last few weeks.
I tend to leave my current-events-reflections for longer pieces where I have a little more room to stretch out and make my own statement, like in some fiction or a stand-alone product (like some of the politicians in the Land of Promise e-book about Tir Tairngire); I can “fly under the radar” a little more in solo work, but also it feels like fans maybe accept a little more real-world stuff seeping into a book specifically about politics, or more intensely personal stuff like a novel, than they accept it in a rulebook. There’s more room to write about serious real-world stuff in projects where I’m not worrying about making sure 10 pre-genned characters are following the rules (while we’re constantly changing the rules). Mostly, my adventure hooks in here reference existing SR stuff — contacts these canon characters have had since the Beginner Box, characters from novels, that sort of thing — instead of real-life issues.
All that said, I did do most of my Anarchy work while traveling cross-country to take care of my mother during a sudden hospital stay. Her ICU nurse–in Corvalis Oregon, aka Tir Tairngire–was a great gal named Birdsong, who I totally stole for a friendly NPC. That Oregon trip totally got mined for one of my scenarios, so I did sneak in SOME real-life inspiration, I guess.
Opti: This one is huge for me. As a long time SR fan, I can’t help but use all of the existing lore as backdrop for new characters and adventures. The lore is, from my perspective, the strongest thing about Shadowrun. And yet, on the other hand, cyberpunk for me is best when it addresses, to varying degrees of directness, the culture we find ourselves in. And of course to fill in the spaces between, there isn’t any off-limits inspiration. Often, good writers are just people who can recycle some version the same stories that have been told for thousands of years.
Why use the Cue system? What made it “Shadowrun”? Patrick:Well, we had this ENnie-award-nominated, simple, narrative game system sitting around…seemed a shame to let it go to waste.
And what made it “Shadowrun” was a great deal of work. It had to be modified quite a bit from its origins in Cosmic Patrol and later implementation in Vanguard Universe.
Rusty:It wasn’t particularly Shadowrun to begin with, and we made some pretty big changes to make it Shadowrunnier ™, but the “why” for using it was pretty simple; it’s already CGL’s, it’s already an award-winning system, and it’s already well-received by fans for simpler, narrative, gameplay. So we already had this basic code or basic game engine, why not use it (but tweak it to make it suit us better), why would you want to start from the ground up, instead? The decision came from well above our pay-grade, but using Cue as a core system, starting with it and building from there, isn’t something I minded at all.
Opti: The decision to use the Cue system was another decision above my pay grade. Catalyst had found success in using the Cue system for other narrative games like Cosmic Patrol and Valiant, so when deciding to convert SR to a narrative mechanic, the Cue system was likely too inviting to pass up compared to creating an entirely new system. Having said that, the Cue system in Anarchy is a much different thing than either the Cosmic Patrol or Valiant version. It may be helpful to think of Cosmic Patrol as Cue 1.0, Valiant as Cue 1.5, and Anarchy as Cue 2.0. Or something.
How did you maintain the feeling and application of the different metahumans while using the streamlined system? Patrick:Again, a lot of work, though most of it was relatively simple. There was a lot of discussion about how to make sure trolls felt trolly and elves felt elfy. Rusty:Quite a lot of that comes down to the basic keywords associated with a character, not just the modified attributes that come into it directly or mechanically. Just like in a regular Shadowrun game, there’s more to being an elf than having a few stat modifiers, right? More to being an ork or a troll or a dwarf than the above average Strength or Body, isn’t there? There’s the role-playing opportunities, the various attitudes you’ll get from different factions in the setting, the background differences between a Tir-born elf and a Puyallup-brat, or a Tir-born human versus a round-eared Barrens-brat, for that matter, right? So yeah, a lot of it comes down to that metaracial tag right there at the top of the archetype or the character sheet; the weight that those three little letters ‘e-l-f’ have comes down to the stories being told, the flavor of the campaign, and all that — to me, at least — much more than it’s based on the spare attribute point or two you might have. Opti:We argued about it a lot. We went around and around internally about how to get this right, and to Jason Hardy’s credit, he listened a lot to Patrick, Rusty, and myself. We wanted it to be just right, and so we tested out many many different ways to represent the differences between the metas. In the end, I think we did ok, but as always, Trolls were the biggest pain.
Tell me a little about one of your favorite characters, locations, or elements of the game and why it is important to you as a creator.
Patrick:My favorite part of the game is the system itself. It’s quick and pretty clean, and dirt-simple to learn and to teach. My two oldest kids have been interested in SR for a while, but we’ve never been able to play because of the complexity and the adult language. Anarchy, though, is a Shadowrun that I can play with my children. We made a conscious effort to tone the language back, and as has been noted, the rules are short, quick, and easy.
Rusty: The easy answer for me is always Tir Tairngire, because it encapsulates — elves in Shadowrun, in totality, encapsulate — so much of what makes this fantasy-cyberpunk hybrid setting so…Shadowrun. On the one hand you’ve got narrative room for all this really unrealistic, highly stylized, fantasy stuff, with Princes and Paladins, fancy pseudo-plate-mail armor, swords and magic, this flowery neo-Celtic elven language, and these fantastic names right out of a fantasy novel. Right? You can stop there if you want, just scratch the surface, and play a character, perfectly in keeping with the setting, that drinks that Kool-Aid and buys into all that bullshit, and lives a perfectly happy life (by Shadowrun standards), and is basically, y’know, Straight Outta Westeros. It all fits the setting just fine, fits the canon just fine, and it’s a valid character, if you want to lean on that fantasy side.
But then if you dig a little deeper, you get the, I dunno, the chocolate core beneath the candy shell, or whatever, with this dystopic cyberpunk layer just beneath that top layer. And you can play an elf from a ghetto, for pete’s sake, how perfect is that? Or a human who’s well aware that the Tir’s Disney FantasyLand veneer is such bullshit, or an elf who bought into it all until they got some terrible order to mistreat an ork or a human, and they have this heel-face turn when they give up on that fascist — because it really is a flavor of fascism, no bones about it — Tir crap and realize how silly ducal ranks and royal blood and stuff are, in real life. Or you can ignore all of it, and just be some dude who happens to be an elf, some grease-under-his-nails mechanic or a burger-flipping high school kid who just happens to have great skin, pointy ears, and night-vision, who doesn’t buy into any of it, and doesn’t see what the big deal is, and maybe has this kind of super-metaracial-privilege working for him and doesn’t even think about it.
Elves in Shadowrun, and kind of their uber-personification with the Tirs, holds so much good and bad and in-between and real-life to me, man, I totally dig ’em. They can show you everything that’s great about the setting, and everything that’s terrible about the setting, and everything in between, sometimes even all in just one character.
Opti: In general, my favorite aspect of Shadowrun is the anarchist flavor to it. The idea that the powers that be in society are so corrupt that rebellion against them or flagrant breaking of their laws is actually good? That appeals to me. As a result, I wrote in a number of anarchist characters, and brought back the anarchist group Black Star in one of the adventures at the end. As I said earlier, this is one of those areas in which Shadowrun goes beyond simple escapism and offers a chance to explore being an outcast for standing against the corrupt system that “normal” people don’t see as corrupt.
As far as locations, beyond Seattle, I am really getting into thinking about the Confederated American States. For a long time, they have gotten a bad rep as racist, backwards people, and I think that is a little unfair to half of the US. I had some CAS stuff that didn’t make it into the final product, but I’d like to see the CAS come into focus sooner or later.
As far as characters, I’ve always loved shamans, the Unseelie Court, and Harlequin. So far, I’ve only been able to write one of those, but we’ll see how things go once I get some more stuff under my belt. Jason keeps a pretty tight lid on Harly, lol.
What do you think, going forward, are the important things from Anarchy that you want to see grow, develop, and expand?
Patrick: I think the thing that stands out to me is that you can have adventures in the Sixth World without having to have a degree in advanced math to understand the rules. You can have fun without wasting most of the night trying to figure out the rules. I’d love to see that go on, and attract more people to the game.
Rusty: If I had my druthers, like five years from now or whatever when 6th edition gets worked on, if it was DruthersRun and it was all exactly what some freelancer named Russell wanted? One thing I’d absolutely love to keep from Anarchy would be some of the simplification. The abbreviated line of attributes, the streamlined list of broader skills. The simplicity of it, of just changing those options away from being so nit-picky and specialized. Getting away from this huge list of skills like SR5 has, where even just the list of skill groups is like a whole page, and where we’ve got a nitty-gritty specific skill for being this one type of mechanic, and one skill for jumping versus another skill for landing, and on and on and on. I’m becoming something of a minimalist in my grouchy almost-forty years, where I hate it any time a game system’s skill list gets longer, gets more specific, ever. Ever. I adore it when “I want to be the fighty guy” means picking like two or three skills, and being able to handle your job, instead of having to pick out five or six, and then also get two or three “every criminal needs these” skills, and then having to dive into gear and start off with all this must-have stuff, and on and on and on. If half of making your character is already handled by the core mechanic’s traps and must-have items, why not avoid and ignore all that, officially start everyone off with that stuff, and call it a day? Why complicate it, and leave all these pitfalls for new players?
So, yeah. I’m a total advocate of the simpler skills, the broader skills, this sort of…broad competence that basically every Anarchy character kind of ends up with. I dig it. Make it faster and easier to just jump in and start telling stories and slinging dice, and I’m a happy dude.
Opti: Well, a lot of that depends on how Anarchy is received. As of now, we are thinking Anarchy will be a one-off, and its system is so flexible that any sourcebook from SR past or present will be able to function as an Anarchy sourcebook as well. Having said that, if people begin demanding further Anarchy products, letting Jason Hardy at Catalyst know your feelings is the quickest way to make that happen!
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Wow, thank you so much to Patrick, Opti, and Rusty so much for the interview! Special kudos to Rusty for helping me coordinate with all of these busy schedules. It was really awesome to hear more about the project and what Anarchy means to the team and Shadowrun in general. I hope everyone enjoyed reading! I, for one, am REALLY hoping for more Shadowrun material, especially for a narrative based game like Anarchy! Speaking of which, here’s the DriveThruRPG link!
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Of late, there have been a lot of people making efforts to design table techniques and safety techniques. This is great and I’m happy to see design work and attention to communication and safety at the table! …however, I have some thoughts.
I’m going to be judgy. I know, what do I know? Nothing more than what I know, which is my experience, emotions, and background.
I think the Support Flower is interesting and has good intent. However, the design is an issue. With the arrangement of the flower, if I (someone with relatively short arms) tried to reach across the table to tap or point to the red center, what if I could only reach the green petals, or someone thought I was just pointing at the slow down petals? Maybe I’d have to move it closer to me, moving it farther from other players and also setting up an implication that I would control the content, as well as possibly distracting from the game.
As well, the slow down or gentle option can be confusing. Without discussing what content is troubling, how do you be gentle with it? Isn’t it just as much of a disruption of the game to pause to clarify because “hey I’m uncomfortable with or nervous about this content” is very vague and can be an issue? (I have seen this with the X-card, too, and complained about it.) These are things that worry me.
For Edgewise, it has two issues. One, the introduction of the card comes across as an admission that there is no trust for basic respect at the table and no attempt at gaining or giving it. It says “None of you will let me talk, so here is a tool that I’m going to have to use to work around you.” This is different than safety cards because we can all assume people want to talk, but knowing what will trigger someone or bother them requires a deeper discussion.
It also, secondly, completely disrupts norms of communication. It says “I am not listening to what you are saying, I’m just waiting my turn to speak.” It gives no respect to people who might just be making their point and not steamrolling if the person who wants to use it is just barely holding back at talking over that person and ignoring their point. I also know it can be used as a means to take control of the discussions at the table.
We have a tendency as gamers to avoid communication. We may not ask each other about how things make us feel. We can be afraid to share the things that make us uncomfortable because people might judge us. We can be afraid to say “Hey, stop, I don’t want to see this.” But we can learn. We can step up as players and designers and GMs to say “Ask people what is okay for them. Give people space to express *openly and explicitly* what’s not comfortable for them.” And if people judge others for being uncomfortable with certain content? The uncomfortable people should be the ones who get to stay at a safe table.
We may excuse misbehavior as social awkwardness. We may say that someone is too awkward to know when it’s okay to speak, or that some people have trouble using social cues. And for some people, these things are true. For autistic individuals and people with anxiety, I can see a lot of these troubles and accommodation is important. But this is not all of us. We can’t excuse everyone because of some people’s genuine needs. We can learn and grow and get better at talking to each other and learning body cues. Hell, even people with anxiety typically have the capacity to learn these things.
If those of us who can learn these things and can design for these things and support these things don’t make those efforts, we don’t give space for the people who really need support and space. We can learn how we can act and be open and honest about our feelings and perspectives so that people who can’t feel safer and if they can, someday might be able to do the same thing.
I see the meaning and intention here, and I know no tool is perfect. This is just where I am seeing flaws and why I wouldn’t like these tools at my table.
ETA: I was talking with John about some of the user design issues here and we noted the issues of visual impairment and colorblindness, as well as ability to physically access the tools. (I have in Script Change that you can vocalise the tools, but I haven’t seen this as an option in many other tools.) Accessible tools matter!
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Hi All! I recently contacted Avery Alder about doing an interview for Monsterhearts 2, the second edition of Monsterhearts that is currently on Kickstarter, and she accepted! The original flavor of Monsterhearts is one of my favorite games and was one of my first steps into the story gaming culture and gaming style, and I’ve written about my experiences while playing it a little bit in the past. I hope you enjoy reading this interview with Avery!
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Tell me a little about Monsterhearts 2. What excites you about it?
Monsterhearts 2 is a game about the messy lives of teenage monsters, exploring what it means to have a body and desires that are changing without your permission. It’s written with a queer lens for understanding desire, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that every character you play is going to be queer. I think the project is really exciting for me personally because it’s an opportunity to focus on refining something I was already proud of. I published the first edition of Monsterhearts in 2012, and since then people have often told me how lucid and inspiring the text and design are. And looking back at it, I agree that it’s solid. But I also see all these ways that it could be tighter, that I could better contextualize the mechanics, that rough edges could be smoothed down. And so it’s exciting to have a chance to do that work.
I’ve played Monsterhearts quite a few times and the issue of attraction and asexuality has come up a lot. I saw in your new sneak-peek of the game you address this. Could you talk a little more about how you’re addressing it and the motivations behind it, for the readers who haven’t delved into the material yet?
Definitely! Monsterhearts explores what it means to have shifting, confusing desires. There are rules about turning people on and gaining power over them. The way those rules are designed intentionally challenges some of the dominant narratives that our culture has about how sexuality works – that it is fixed, that it is predictable, and that it is binary. I think challenging those narratives works out really well in play, too. It means that every session is surprising and feral.
But there was this other dynamic that the first edition introduced, of unwittingly reinforcing another set of dominant narratives about sexuality – that everyone is sexual, and that everyone is equally available for sex. And I think that in designing the game the way that I did, I did a disservice to asexuals and to survivors of sexual trauma. I aligned myself with dominant narratives that erased and hurt them. Since 2012, I’ve had people bring that to my attention and I’ve sat with their criticism. I knew that the core of the game should stay the way it was, but that I needed to create space for these other stories as well. I’m still figuring out how to introduce these new mechanics into the game gracefully!
A subject near and dear to my heart is boundaries and safe experiences in games. You’ve written about it in Safe Hearts, and I’m interested to know more – what are your goals with your new chapter on the subject? How do you personally, as a creator, approach tough subjects while still allowing for the inherent mistakes in social interactions that are so common for teens?
Part of my approach in writing Safe Hearts (an essay from 2014 that’s being adapted into a chapter in the new book) was to establish priorities. It’s easy to over-simplify questions like “How do we take care of each other’s emotions while doing something emotionally vulnerable together?” It’s also easy to over-think them until you feel anxious and immobilized! And so my approach was to suggest a list of priorities: focus on this first, then focus on this if you have the capacity, and then finally this. The three concentric circles of priorities that the essay outlines are: first to ourselves, then to others at the table, then to the characters we’re portraying.
The text I wrote in that essay isn’t being revised very much as it makes its way into the new book. I feel like what I wrote on the subject in 2014 remains solid. Most of the revisions are just adjusting the way it flows to make it fit better as a chapter in a larger text.
Strings are a really interesting in-game currency. Can you tell me a little about what new you’re introducing for them and how you hope it will impact gameplay?
Strings are at the core of Monsterhearts. They tell a story about how power is unevenly and intimately distributed between characters. They represent the way that leverage is gained and used. The biggest change to Strings in the new edition is that they’ve been streamlined. This was really important, because in the first edition people would work to acquire Strings, but then they’d just sit there idle on the character sheet. The mechanics for actually spending Strings were a little too cumbersome for new players to grapple with, so they would get ignored. And other bits of the game (like the Manipulate an NPC move) directed players away from figuring out how to use the Strings economy. In the new version, the mechanics for spending Strings are more simple and more visible.
What do you hope to personally take away from your experience working on Monsterhearts 2, beyond satisfaction in a job well done?
I published the first edition of Monsterhearts while I was still figuring out where my place in queerness was. A year later I started coming to terms with being trans. And throughout that time, I started to gain recognition from wider audiences. Returning to write Monsterhearts 2 is exciting because I’m in a different place now personally. I’m a queer trans woman, I know my own politics better, and I’m excited to bring new voice and perspective to bear on this text.
Another thing I’m excited to take away from my experience working on Monsterhearts 2 is a better understanding of how to synthesize community feedback and incorporate it into a revision process. I’m holding four years of feedback in my brain. I put out a survey to learn more about people’s experiences and it garnered 766 responses. But at the same time, I’m the person most intimately acquainted with the game’s goals and pitfalls. How do you make sense of all that data, honour all that feedback, while still remaining confident in your own instincts and vision? I’m learning new skills.
For a game about queerness, Monsterhearts & Monsterhearts 2 could seem hard to approach for someone out of the queer community, and I’ve seen your work raise a lot of awareness for people like that. What do you think straight, cis people can gain by playing a game like Monsterhearts – or what would you hope they do?
I think that everyone has confusing, complicated memories about what it was like to be a teenager. And a huge part of Monsterhearts 2 is telling those sorts of stories, exploring those sorts of feelings. While queerness adds an important dimension, I think that everyone is able to bring their own life experiences to the table. And I hope that straight, cis people feel invited to engage with these themes and be challenged by them.
or like, I hope everyone plays Monsterhearts 2 and I hope it makes them gay.
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Thanks so much to Avery for the great interview! I really enjoyed talking with her and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Check out Monsterhearts 2 on Kickstarter now, if it sounds like your kind of game!
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