tabletop rpgs – Page 13

Five or So Questions on Scherzando!

Today I have an interview with Elizabeth and Amber Autumn on Scherzando! (skert. ‘san.do), which is currently on Kickstarter. In this fascinating game you play both the characters…and the soundtrack! Check out Elizabeth & Amber’s responses below for more.

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A diverse group of people around a table with instruments, paper, and tokens.

Tell me a little about Scherzando! What excites you about it?

Scherzando! is a diceless, gm-less story game in which you play characters with big dreams and strong feelings, plus the soundtrack of their world. It’s often been described as “Fiasco, but with music,” but we like to think that Scherzando! is less about grand ambitions causing tragedy and more about grand emotions bringing people together.

It’s exciting for all the obvious reasons—creating a game with a soundtrack as you go is really cool! It’s fun and dynamic, and people laugh a lot. But we’re equally excited about the less obvious features of the game. We love that the game lets players have a physical, embodied experience; that it’s an experience built around collaboration and communication; and, most of all, that it creates a space where players can feel comfortable creating music regardless of their previous musical experience. In response to our game concept, we get “but I don’t know anything about music” all the time, so it was a real goal of ours to create something that helped people feel that they didn’t need to know everything in order to make something or communicate something, and to create a safe space in the game for that to happen. Every time a player picks up an instrument and starts feeling out some sounds during the game, it feels like a victory for us, and every time they manage to successfully communicate an emotion with it, it feels like a victory for them. That’s a dynamic we’re exceptionally proud of.

We’re also excited about it because it’s our first game at this scale! It’s mind-blowing to have a book with all this art and all this support and to have this Kickstarter start off so well—it really does feel like being invited to sit at the grown-up table. But it feels good to know that our investments in time, effort, and money are paying off. The game has been in development for over a year and a half (or over two years depending on how you want to talk about it); no blood comes to mind, but there’ve certainly been sweat and tears, so finally getting to print it will be incredible.

What kind of music do people experience in the game? Where did you take inspiration from for the tunes?

Since players make their own music, there’s no specific style or genre that Scherzando! works best with. We encourage players to take inspiration from whatever they like in their own life, up to and including just copying pieces they like if they think it’ll get their point across. So what the music actually sounds like in a game depends on who’s playing, what kinds of music they spend most time with, and what kind of mood they’re in as they sit down to play.

One effect of this is that it turns music into a creative expression unique to the people sitting at your table. People bring in the music, styles, sounds, and methods of experimentation that make sense to them, that they would use outside the game, and that’s a way of bringing a part of their personality into the creative text in a direct, meaningful, and mechanically significant way. Having each player bring their own inspiration and style makes the session’s music a direct creative expression of who the players are.

Two femme-appearing people playing instruments on a porch surrounded by greenery.

How did you design the game, considering that it’s diceless and GMless AND uses music as a part of the game?

The game actually began neither diceless nor GMless—both of those got iterated out in the design process! The dice were adding needless complications, causing too much swing in the resolution mechanics, and making it significantly less accessible to anyone who didn’t already own a ton of dice. We dropped them at the recommendation of the incredible Avery Alder, who wrote Monsterhearts and Ribbon Drive (one of the only other music games on the market), and who was kind enough to give us some sage advice early on.

The GM role (which we called the “conductor,” because we thought it was cute) would rotate around the table to maintain the sense of a democratic story where everyone contributed, but we found pretty quickly that the conductor didn’t have much to do. The scene setup generally implied itself, and players turned out to be quite good at arbitrating how the NPCs and the universe would react to their actions in the most interesting way. Plus, the game includes an interjection mechanic which allows players to temporarily gain narration powers for either a bonus (if they’re adding a complication) or a penalty (if they’re adding a boon) at the end of the scene. The ability and incentive to add elements to a scene made the conductor role almost entirely obsolete.

Development began in its very early phases maybe two years ago, with a lot of research on historical music games and current music education techniques. We spent a lot of time working through the logistics of who was on the team for the project and who would be doing what, and trying to lay out a plan. Once we knew who was working on it, how we would do it, and that what we wanted to do hadn’t been done before, the next step was more research. We read books, played games, emailed musicians and educators, and eventually started throwing around ideas for how a system would work. We wrote up a list of core values that we wanted our game to embody, some of which have changed and shifted over the course of development, but some of which are still core to the game today! Then we designed a game around those values.

That game was completely broken and did not work at all.

The bulk of the process at that point was holding playtests, dozens of playtests, at cons and game stores and especially with our friends, with a different group of people every time. We took notes, and at the end of each test we discussed which items functioned and which needed to be changed or dropped, and adjusted the rulebook accordingly. Eventually we ended up with a system we felt good about, give or take minor details, and somewhere approaching that point we started doing the logistical work of commissioning art, reaching out to podcasts, and all the other publishing prep work necessary for a Kickstarter. From there, the actual changes to the game itself have mostly been tweaking numbers, revising stock setting choices, and other minor changes, most of which still require playtests to happen.

A person in armor playing drums and a person playing a keytar in a whirlwind.

This piece of art is mindblowing!

What resources do players need to participate in Sherzando, and what kind of skills are useful?

We like to bring a lot of small, cheap instruments to playtests, but they’re not a requirement—the game works just as well when players hum and tap on the table. The only physical items players need, besides the rules, are a) notecards and something to write with; b) six differently-colored/otherwise distinguishable tokens per player; and c) an opaque container per player that is capable of hiding the tokens within it. As far as skillsets are concerned, we maintain that musical experience really isn’t necessary (although it is fun to play with a group of musicians!); we find that the game runs most smoothly when players aren’t self-conscious about their musical or roleplaying “talent.” Earnestness and willingness to engage with a ridiculous story are probably the most important tools in the game.

Two people in period dress with white curly wig with music sheets scattered around them while they argue.

How do you hope players experience the game and what do you want people to take forward? What have you already seen taken forward in playtests?

One of the most exciting pieces of feedback we’ve ever received was really recently, when someone who had listened to our actual play on One Shot tweeted at us to say that she could see the players gradually learning to express themselves through music over the course of the game.

In addition to the “yes, you too can make music” lesson we’ve been harping on this whole time, we also hope players experience the game as an exciting way of adding meaning and tone to their stories in a way you can’t find anywhere else. There are all these connections between narrative and emotions and semiotics that we wanted to explore and link together, and we think being able to play through those links in a really direct way is new and refreshing and cool. We also hope players have fun! Not every game needs to be fun, but Scherzando! is, and we love seeing people get really animated during gameplay.

There are plenty of things we’ve seen people take forward from this: confidence, communication skills, and even sometimes a better understanding of a musical instrument. But we also hope that people take home a really good memory about a fun story they told with their friends, not only in words but in music.

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Thank you so much to Elizabeth and Amber for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Scherzando! on Kickstarter today!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/thoughty. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

Five or So Questions on Return to the Stars

Today I have an interview with Mark Sabalauskas on Return to the Stars, which is currently on Kickstarter! I’m contributing a solarpunk scenario for the game, but I’m really interviewing Mark because it’s a hopepunk game in a world that could really use some hope. So check it out, and see what Mark had to say below!

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A group of people in varying styles and costumes, all of different genders, sizes, and races.

Tell me a little about Return to the Stars. What excites you about it?

Return to the Stars is an optimistic science fiction role playing game, powered by Fate.

I am excited to share a game with people where they can imagine having cool adventures in better future.

The direct inspiration was the sense of community that came from being surrounded by diverse, smart, and curious people at a Sci-Fi convention I attended. Hanging out with enthusiastic pop culture geeks was a real respite from much of the darkness in world. It occurred to me that the original Star Trek may have resonated because it provided a similar respite in the 60s, a very turbulent time.

So I created a game that combines the best parts of gamer and geek culture with science fiction exploration. Imagine if Chiana from Farscape was a genetically enhanced cosplayer, or Scotty was someone who loved hacking things to take to a Maker Faire.

The basic premise is that in a post-scarcity future hyperspace travel gave easy access to countless worlds, and humanity sorted itself into like-minded communities. One such society was the Convention Authority, founded to celebrate the now classical arts of science fiction, fantasy, and gaming.

One day, without warning, the stellar beacon that illuminated hyperspace went silent rendering galactic travel impossible. The systems of the Convention Authority stayed connected thanks to a replica fleet of early starships. Now, after more than a century of effort, a long-range exploration craft has been built. Its purpose: to return to the stars and reconnect the lost civilizations of humanity.

You play as one of a new generation of geeks — makers, genetically enhanced cosplayers, scientists, and pop culture enthusiasts setting out on an adventure of exploration and discovery.

What are some of the challenges of making a hopepunk type game, and how have you approached them?

Hopepunk is a subgenre centered around the idea that in the face of oppression and cynicism caring about things is an act of resistance. It is about being kind and also fighting against injustice.

One challenge was to balance hopepunk with other themes in the game. I addressed this by having a setting where long isolated civilizations are reconnecting. Around the table, this means the world being rediscovered “this week” can tell a unique story, giving you a chance to dive deeply into its themes.

Also, player characters come from a fairly utopian society. They could simply chose to stay in their post-scarcity paradise, complacent, sitting around a pool discussing seven centuries of anime and arguing if the 78th edition of D&D was the best, while robots serve them pina coladas. During character creation you have to create an aspect that explains why your character wants to leave this privilege behind. Why they are willing to put their comfort aside and risk their lives to explore and help the rest of humanity.

To encompass the full scope of hopepunk, Return‘s skill system had to players plenty of non-combat options–play can revolve around making and learning and sharing what you’ve learned, not just combat. Also, the mechanics for competitions and down-time tinkering give players ways to show off the the things their characters care about.

A dark skinned person in futuristic clothing demonstrating something on a floating touch screen to a pale-skinned person in different futuristic clothing with a metal arm.

Tell me a little more about the world. What kind of people are there? What sort of technology do they have access to?

Return to the Stars is set in the early 27th century, 600 years from now. During that time humanity spread through the Galaxy thanks to origami drives that fold hyperspace. 125 years ago, Stellar Beacon that illuminated hyperspace suddenly went silent, rendering galactic travel impossible. Now a limited form of interstellar travel has been discovered. Communication is limited to the speed of space travel, so players need to act on their own initiative, they can’t phone home for instructions.

You’ll travel from world to world, encountering a diverse array of human societies. There are no intelligent aliens in the setting, and digital life can’t travel through hyperspace. Stories exist to help people understand humanity, these choices are very intentional. Of course, you still have the option spinning a tale about a runaway AI on a particular planet.

Probably the most unique tech in the game is cosplay, which in the 27th century is the aptitude for self-presentation using costuming, genetic modification, posture, and movement. Because cosplay involves granular genetic control of your body it is a skill you can use to recover from physical consequences.

A pale skinned person and a dark skinned person are in a tech-heavy environment with glowing lights and other figures standing nearby. There is a glowing globe with hovering text "LOCATION SECTOR 68" and locations and pathways lit up on the globe's surface.

What’s the mechanical system like in Return to the Stars? How do players interact with the world?

Return to the Stars is powered by Fate, which is a proven indie game system that has been popular over the past decade. It is great for telling stories that are centered on who your character is and what they care about as opposed to what stuff they carry.

You characters have skills and stunts that let them bend the rules. But the heart of the system are aspects, short phrases that describe who your character is. You start a session with 3 Fate points, when you need a boost, and it makes sense, you can spend a Fate point to get a skill check bonus. On the other hand, if you chose, your aspects can complicate you life, earning a Fate point, so you can be awesome later. So if your character is a very curious science officer, they might tempted to wander off to investigate a strange screech, earning a Fate point, or they might spend a Fate point to be awesomely effective at solving a scientific mystery. In this way the game emulates the up and down beats of a story.

Return to the Stars comes with an adventure specially designed to teach the core concepts of the game. In playtests at many different conventions, new players have been up and running and having a good time after ten minutes of explanation.

My goal: if you love anime or games or science fiction or cosplay, and have thought about trying roleplaying games, you can get Return to the Stars, read it, and play.

If you already love games powered by Fate, I’ve added fun new subsystems: character arcs, props, downtime tinkering, and competitions. You can learn more about them on the Kickstarter. And, of course, there is a dedicated set of sci-fi skills and over 100 new stunts to mix things up!

At the center of it, what kind of stories do players tell in the game, and what do you wish to see the most?

Return to the Stars is designed to help players tell stories of sci-fi exploration and adventure. I hope players players take advantage of a game that can be as much about making, learning, and communicating as it is about punching space fascists.

Ultimately, of course, the great thing about a tabletop role playing game is that people can bring their own interest and passions into the game, adding theme to the themes in the game: optimism, space opera, pop culture, and hopepunk.

Two people inside a spaceship flying through an asteroid belt

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Thank you so much to Mark for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading Mark’s responses and that you’ll check out Return to the Stars on Kickstarter today!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/thoughty. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

Five or So Questions on Rodent Rangers

Hi all! Today I’ve got a great interview with Jacob Kellogg and Joseph Kellogg, creators of Rodent Rangers, a nifty roleplaying game currrently on Kickstarter! The project could really use some attention and it seems like a fun game, so please check it out, and see what they have to say about it in the responses below!

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A mouse in a glasses, a sweater vest, and a button down with dark pants and a red messenger bag, holding an armful of papers and running off to chase after some that have blown away

Tell me a little about Rodent Rangers. What excites you about it?

Jacob: Rodent Rangers puts players in the role of anthropomorphic mice who go on missions under the feet of modern humans to help those in need. In addition to the nostalgia of old animated films like The Rescuers or The Great Mouse Detective, what’s exciting about this game is the light-hearted, joyful purity of it. Especially with the real world being as dark as it is right now, the idea of sending your tiny persona into a big world and nonetheless making a difference—all without the constant violence or mechanical complexity that comes with other games—just feels really appealing. Be a cute mouse and go help somebody. Let everything be okay for a while.

Joseph: What excites me most is the ability to tell stories that let kids get creative and solve problems. Instead of trying to sanitize other systems that rely on violence, Rodent Rangers focuses on using wit and a pure heart to deal with villains, while allowing for daring feats and narrow escapes.

What do the players do to play the game mechanically – how do they take action and tell stories?

Jacob: Mechanically, Rodent Rangers starts with a familiar premise: shared narration, with dice to resolve uncertain or risky actions. It’s a very lightweight system, with no hard rules for action types or explicitly-defined special abilities like you have in games like D&D. Instead, activities are descriptive, with the dice determining success or failure. The dice system is pretty sleek as well, with no bonuses or penalties being added to die rolls. Instead, your attributes tell you how many dice to roll and your skills tell you which size those dice should be, then you roll a batch of them and see how many “hits” (dice that show a 4 or higher) you got. If you meet a minimum threshold of hits (depending on the difficulty of the task) you succeed.

Joseph: Rodent Rangers is a skill-based RPG, with a dice system specially designed to be as math-light as possible. When players want to try something, like befriending a stranger or finding a clue, they pick a type of die based on their skill level, and get a number of them based on basic attributes (like Strong or Clever). When they roll, they just have to count the dice that came up as 4 or more.

A mouse with piercings and a choker in casual clothes and a backpack with their foot resting on a compass

What do the characters do in the narrative? Are they rescuers? What kind of adventures do they have?

Jacob: Narratively, the Rodent Rangers are an in-world organization that spans the globe, and sends teams of field agents out on missions to help their fellow critters (or even humans sometimes). You might recover a museum’s stolen relic, help to evacuate mice from a flooding sewer city, or even help guide a lost human child back to their parents. There’s an emphasis on being part of a team and working together, as well as being noble and wanting to help people (after all, that’s why you became an agent of the Rodent Rangers).

Joseph: Characters in Rodent Rangers are agents of the titular organization, a worldwide network or do-gooders and adventurers. They get sent on missions to help other animals or people in danger, and hopefully make friends along the way. In the sample adventure, players will be asked to track down a researcher who was kidnapped by sinister treasure hunters. To rescue him, they’ll need to look for clues, get past a devious snake, make new friends, and maybe even get into a high-speed car chase!

Potentially even encounter villains such as this!

What kind of character becomes a Rodent Ranger, and how do they fit into the larger world? Do these characters stand out?

Jacob: There are really only three key aspects of a person who becomes a ranger: they’re part of animal society rather than human society, they have some kind of skill or ability to contribute, and they want to help. Beyond that, a character could be anyone, which I think is something I really like about this game. You don’t have to be born into the right circumstance, be the chosen one, be part of the dominant forces of society, or whatever else. If you want to do good in the world in your own unique way, then there’s a spot for you on the team that no one else can fill.

Joseph: A Rodent Ranger is someone who loves adventure and helping people. Many mice are content to live peaceful lives, and shun danger. Rodent Rangers are often the best at what they do, and driven to put their talents to good use in the wider world.

How is Rodent Rangers special to you in it’s design and concept?

Jacob: Aside from some of the conceptual elements that I’ve already talked about liking, I’m really into how straightforward and “essentials only” the mechanics are. Games can sometimes get a bit overwrought, trying too hard to make sure every element of the experience has its own mechanic instead of just giving you the tools you need and leaving room for imagination. For example, as much as I like D&D, I would probably like it even better if you dropped the entire “spells” chapter in favor of a more “here’s the general idea, do what makes sense” approach. That’s what Rodent Rangers does: it gives you enough to show you what the game’s about and enable you to play, then gets out of the way.

Joseph: Rodent Rangers is special because it reflects many of the cartoons of my childhood, in which a pure heart and brave soul were all that were needed to save the day.

A mouse in a green shirt and brown pants holding a notepad and pencil.

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Thanks so much Jacob and Joseph for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading and that you’ll check out Rodent Rangers on Kickstarter today!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

Five or So Questions on Impulse Drive

Today I’ve got an interview with Adrian Thoen, who is excited to tell us about Impulse Drive, a Powered by the Apocalypse space opera hack about misfits and spaceships that’s currently on Kickstarter. I hope you enjoy the interview below!

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The Impulse Drive banner with silver text on a blue and purple starry background, reading Impulse Drive: A roleplaying game about misfits and spaceships, Powered by the Apocalypse

Tell me a little about Impulse Drive. What excites you about it?

I’m a huge fan of all sorts of space opera books, movies, games, and shows. From the late Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels & Mike Resnicks Santiago: a myth of the far future to shows like Killjoys, Farscape, Andromeda, and Dark Matter, and games like Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. Space Opera combines commentary on society and the myths we tell ourselves with pulpy romance, melodrama, and action in delightfully weird settings.

Impulse Drive is an expression of my joy for these melodramatic, heartfelt stories about volatile but endearing misfits.

a dark-skinned person with curly hair angrily working with a piece of tech

What do players (and characters) typically do in play in Impulse Drive? What “drives” the game?

It’s the players job to create and play an interesting, active character by taking risks and embracing the consequences. Players describe their character, what they think, say, and do. Players look for when Moves apply to the situation the group is describing, and when their characters Hooks affect the situation or bring fraught relationships to the fore. Players are directed to think cinematically, like the game is a pulpy space opera movie or TV show.

Characters are misfits with simple motivations, but live in a world that complicates things. The characters have tense, fraught moments with each other and take dangerous jobs or missions that lead them into conflict and adventure. Lots of flying too fast, indulging too much, pissing off the wrong people, and getting into fights & shootouts.

A robotic character sprawled on the floor, injured, in a room full of crates

What are the characters like in the game, and how do they function mechanically?

Characters are volatile and bombastic. They’re competent badasses with a lot of luck on their side – until that luck runs out. They rely on their unique strengths, skills, and gear to get them out of sticky situations. But their character flaws and complicated pasts & relationships mean there’s always more trouble around the corner.

Mechanically, the core function of a character revolves around their Approaches (5 modifiers ranging from a score of -1 to +2 at the start.) and their Moves, discrete chunks of rules made up of a trigger (usually fictional) a process (usually rolling 2D6 and adding a modifier) and an outcome (usually fictional). Impulse Drive is Powered by the Apocalypse, so it’s mechanics are very similar to games like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, and Masks to name a few.

The five approaches (Volatile, Calculating, Slick, Stalwart, and Alien) describe behaviors more than they describe physical or mental prowess. I wanted the names for the Approaches to be flexible and evocative. Slick means being kinda charming in an unreliable, slimy way, but it also describes pulling off a fancy maneuver. Slick is being quick, responsive, and hard to pin down. Volatile is about passion, but also unpredictability and violence. Calculating is being logical but also cold, you can’t be thoughtful or empathetic with Calculating. Alien is being weird and touching forces beyond your ken. All of the Approaches have a mildly negative connotation – except Stalwart, which is for being resistant, solid, but also reliable and dependable.

Orbiting Approaches and Moves, characters are made up of the Gear they can use, the Harm & Stress they can take, and two elements that complicate their lives; Hooks and Calamities.

Hooks are an opportunity to define their character through flaws and fraught relationships. There are some default Hooks on each Playbook that players fill in mad-lib style, but they’re an opportunity for players to describe the challenges and struggles us want to watch their character. Hooks give you an opportunity for interesting roleplaying but also earning more XP by increasing the chance of failure. Hooks are always activated at the Player’s discretion, so they can choose when they want a higher chance for complication and XP, or a higher chance for success.

Calamities are a finite list of mechanical changes and fictional events that happen to the character if they take 5 Stress. The last Calamity in each list is an exit for the character from the main stage – they’ll either retire to safety or go out in a blaze of glory. It’s always fun to see which players try to manage their Stress frugally, and which players jump in and aim for certain Calamities because they think they’re cool. I’ve never seen a Warhorse who can resist an opportunity for a great victory, at the cost of a part of their body.

What’s it like in the world of Impulse Drive? Where do characters live, and how does that influence the tone of play?

The “World” of Impulse Drive is an array of space stations, ships, and worlds that the PCs visit in their ship. The Galactic Community is made up of societies and civilizations with populations that count in the billions. Technology ranges in sophistication and style between these civilizations, but most are on par with the crew of PCs. The particulars of the societies that the PCs come into contact with is determined by the group, led by the Space Master. This ensures that the themes the group is interested in exploring will be embodied by the societies they are on the fringes of.

The parts of the galactic community that we generally see in Impulse Drive are the fringes, less settled areas where conflict, corruption, and crime are commonplace. Law and corporate interests encroach on these spaces and culture varies greatly from society to society, but the status quo teeters on a knife-s edge, waiting for the crew to come along and disrupt it.

The Space Master uses Strains, similar to Fronts & Threats from Apocalypse World to track and advance these volatile situations towards a climax.

How does being a misfit really impact one’s place in this space opera world?

Being a misfit is all about how you don’t conform to the status quo for society, how you disrupt and challenge what the majority sees as ‘normal’. It’s about being different, and having society at large be passively or actively suspicious and hostile to you.

PCs in most RPGs do this by the very nature of the rules of the games, but also how players generally embody characters who do this by default – whether that is desirable or not. The PCs have lots of mechanical tools that irrevocably change a situation once they interact with it – for better or worse.

Along with this, the game tracks how certain important groups or NPCs relate to the crew of PCs using Disposition. There are 5 states of disposition that describe how someone is likely to react to the PCs within the fiction, but also has a modifier attached to interact with certain Moves that deal in broader social or transnational situations. While the galaxy in general may not even register this one little ship and its crew in the fiction, in terms of the game we relate to NPCs by their relationship to the crew members.

This is open information. The players know how the various interests in their corner of space feel about them and what to expect when they dock at a station in a hostile faction’s territory. Even the positive dispositions Friendly and bonded come with strings attached or caveats.
The PCs being misfits is mechanically encouraged by one of the XP triggers in the end of session Move. Your PCs earn XP if the crew made a new enemy, or thwarted an existing one. This encourages the characters to find organizations and societies that deny their individuality and stand against them in a way that gains their animosity.

A group of characters with varying body types, races, species, and gender, all looking a little out of place together

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Thanks so much to Adrian for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Impulse Drive on Kickstarter today!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

Five or So Questions on Entromancy

Hi all, today I have an interview with M.S. Farzan about Entromancy: A Cyberpunk Fantasy RPG, which is currently on Kickstarter! I hope you’ll find something interesting in the responses below!

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An illustrated masculine appearing person with facial hair holding a gun

Tell me a little about Entromancy. What excites you about it?

I am super excited about Entromancy because it represents the realization of a dream: participating in a shared cyberpunk fantasy world with other fans of d20 tabletop games. When I wrote the first novel in the Entromancy series a couple of years ago, I was inspired by my experience playing and GMing for tabletop RPGs, and it’s been an amazing process translating that enthusiasm from the novel back into a game that we can all play.

How did you translate the novel into a mechanical structure like a game without sacrificing the narrative or overcomplicating things?

Great question! Building the world for the novel was a four-year process of scribbling notes, creating characters, and revising systems, in much the same way that one would approach making a game. It was important to me to have, for example, a magic system that was not only internally consistent, but that would also be plausible within the framework of a roleplaying game. Creating the RPG from the novel hasn’t exactly been “easy,” but a lot of things have translated well into mechanics because of that early structural decision. The core concept of magic, for instance, still draws from the same resource, a renewable element called “ceridium,” as in the book, but we’ve had to reconfigure most of the iconic spells that appear in the book (while building out a ton more) so that they make sense in a balanced, TTRPG imagining of the world.

character archetypes from the game in sketched illustration with bright colors overlaid

I love the idea of the Terramancer. What are they like in play? How do they function?

The Terramancer is based on Alina Hadzic, one of the main characters of the novel series and an all-around all-star. She’s a former baseball relief pitcher with powerful earth magic to boot, and represents another area in which we’ve had to work to build mechanics that make sense for a game, rather than just a book.

Like all other character classes in Entromancy, the Terramancer has two archetypes to choose from, which are specific advancement paths for their talents or spells. When you play as a Terramancer, you can choose to be either an Arcane Pitcher or a Nature’s Harbinger, and can add spells from your chosen archetype to suit your play style. The Arcane Pitcher is formidable at range and has spells to empower its returning projectile weapon, the ceridium orb, while the Nature’s Harbinger can support the group with buff spells, healing, and the ability to summon beasts. Both archetypes benefit from a shared Terramancer feat list that allows you to further enhance your character’s abilities and combat prowess.

a character dressed in heavy gear, carrying and reading a gadget shaped like a handheld system

What’s magic like in the narrative, and how do you make it happen mechanically? Is either particularly explosive, or can it be sly?

In the 2020s, green researchers discovered the ability to synthesize ceridium, a renewable energy source that, over time, was found to also power burgeoning schools of magic. These schools are collectively known as “mancy,” and ceridium, while stable, has been proven to expose a genetic mutation among certain populations. This mutation – the “underrace gene” – results in phenotypic variation among carriers of the gene, giving rise to new races of people known colloquially as “underraces” or “aurics.”

It’s posited that ceridium is a synthesization of “blue orichalcum,” a once naturally-occurring element that was depleted by humankind centuries ago. The connection between ceridium and blue orichalcum is unproven, but would explain why most civilizations have a cultural memory of things like magic, spellcasting, and fantastic races and creatures.

In Entromancy, most spells are dependent upon the availability and use of ceridium, and range from the infiltration-focused shadowmancy of the NIGHT Agent to the utility-enhancing spells of the Technomancer.

a character dressed in a cowboy hat and longcoat

What does a d20 system bring to the table to make this specific setting and playstyle flourish?

We love 5th Edition, and find it to be a wonderful springboard for the type of game that we want to share with everyone. We’ve done a lot to streamline the game systems to place an emphasis on meaningful action and storytelling, while building out other systems to support a cyberpunk world that incorporates intrigue, espionage, hacking, and cybernetics. So anyone who’s familiar with 5th Edition or other d20 systems will be instantly familiar with how the core mechanic works, and will also notice the areas in which Entromancy is different, in terms of character creation and progression, spellcasting, equipment, and more.

There are a lot of great game systems out there, and in fact, the first few iterations of Entromancy were based on a proprietary game system that we were developing. Early in the game’s development, we decided instead to utilize 5th Edition as a framework as it felt a natural fit for the game that we wanted to make. Over time, Entromancy grew into the d20 core mechanic and, through development and playtesting, we have been able to identify more and more areas where we’ve been able to streamline, make adjustments, and create our own game that feels authentic to the original fiction.

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Thank you to M.S. Farzan for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Entromancy: A Cyberpunk Fantasy RPG on Kickstarter today!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

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Turn, Bigness, Mental Health, and “Different”

First off, I’m going to make a damn #TurnRPG hashtag, then we’re gonna talk about this precious gift of a game I have been working on since December 2013. And have I got some WORDS for you this evening, my friends, about Turn, and about large design projects, mental health, & “different.”

a yellow bird on a branch with its beak open with a bunch of As in the background like yelling

Turn is a slice-of-life supernatural roleplaying game about shapeshifters in small, rural towns who must find balance in their shifter identity and community with their fellows. I’m planning to Kickstart it at the end of October. tinyurl.com/turn-rpg-beta-2018

I’ve been really digging into it and I’m in the expand and explain part – I think the mechanics are solid, but trying to ensure people understand the mechanics is hard. I’ve been struggling through recovering from a brain injury, & until recently, sometimes my work was nonsense.

So a lot of this is revisiting old text, making sure it makes sense, revising it, and adding as much as I can to make it approachable to people who aren’t me. John helps with this – he’s my dev editor – but he can only do so much when I’m struggling personally with the work.

Turn is the biggest thing I’ve made and a large part of me *needs* it to succeed, to be appreciated. So I want everything to be perfect! Like, everything has to be exactly how it’s supposed to be written in my head. And that’s a pain in the ass, and doesn’t guarantee perfection.

A picture of Diana as a child in Wonder Woman with a tumblr post posted over it that says "me, logically: it's never gonna happen. the tiny hopeful goblin in my brain: but what if it did"

So like today I’ve been asking for help figuring out a new title for the facilitator role because facilitator sounds boring and what I was using, Storyteller, is too associated with White Wolf (not why I was using it, but no one cares) and also doesn’t describe the role well.

Now I’m trying out Meddler, because I tried a whole bunch in text and it’s the only one I like next to Busybody but is slightly more teasing than mean like Busybody tends to be. And I listened to a bunch of people’s input, too, and felt kind of “eh yeah?” and like COME ON.

See, one thing that I need to really tell you here is that the longer your project, the more likely you are to hit a wall of mental health issues, new or old. They will fuck you UP. I love this game. I love it SO much. And I find myself poking at it all like “I should trash it.”

I’m working on this big, meaningful project and I’m getting engagement with input from people and all my big stupid brain can say is “Well I dunno, people haven’t said it’s visionary or anything, and these other people aren’t interested, so maybe it’s just awful.” This project!

Keegan Key saying "I mean, I spent the majority of it in a deep fog, in a profound depression."

And part of it is because it’s a big project, a lot of time and energy with (to date) little to no returns. Most of my projects seem futile because I don’t exactly swim in recognition, reviews, or funds as a result of them. But I still do them, and I’m still doing this. I’m especially still doing this.

If I was working on something smaller I could be done and stop torturing myself with the maybes and the whys. But it’s big. It matters. And mental illness just wants to dig in its claws and remind me that I’m not doing good enough. But I also know it’s because Turn is different.

Jaylah from Star Trek Beyond yelling in preparation of a fight.

I said it, I mean it. When I play Turn, it always feels different than other games. When I’ve been designing it, it feels different than other games. I haven’t played all games, and I’m not fucking gonna, but I do know that compared to the games I have played, Turn is different.

Maybe it’s because of the angle? Or because it’s quiet drama? Maybe it’s because I took away failure, and focused on consequences? Maybe it’s because this game isn’t designed to play like an adventure, but instead like everyday life that gets hard and troublesome but also loving?

Mad Max pointing towards one of the bikers in recognition.

And like, the biggest thing I struggle with while designing this game is that I want to maintain that “different.” Some people have looked at the mechanics without playing the game and said it was just copied from a bunch of places, but it’s not. It’s different. So it’s rough!

How do I keep my snowflake of a game from melting or getting mushed together and ruined? How do I present it to people in a way that highlights the difference? Worst of all, what if I AM wrong and my game’s actually just a boring facsimile of other games I don’t want it to be?

It’s a lot. I just want this game to be good and succeed and I want this weird experience I have when I play it to be replicable for people. I want to do a Kickstarter and not have it fail because I want people to be interested in it and excited for it. But I’m also very tired.

If it was smaller, maybe I’d care less. I didn’t have a mental illness, maybe I’d struggle less. If it felt samey, maybe it would matter less. But none of those things are so. It’s a mattering struggling caring mess. I’m mulling over every design decision like it’s life & death.

My final real point, I suppose, is that all of these things: bigness, mental health, difference, they are important to the game and the design process I’m experiencing, and I have to overcome the challenges. I love Turn so much, and I can’t let it fade away, I can’t risk that.

So if I kind of sound like a pain in the ass a lot right now, & for the foreseeable future, I want you to know that it’s only because I’m trying my best. I want to do my best. I want the game that I put out to be one you can pick up & have an amazing experience with. I’m trying.

Andy Samberg as Jake Peralta on Brooklyn 99, in workout clothes. Someone asks " Are you crying?" and he responds "No. That's eyeball sweat."

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Five or So Questions on Your Best Game Ever

Hi all, today I have an interview with Monte Cook Games on Your Best Game Ever, a new project on Kickstarter that’s brought together a variety of consultants to develop guides for the best tabletop game experience. I asked questions about Your Best Game Ever of Monte Cook, Darcy Ross, Sean Reynolds, Tammie Webb Ryan, and Bear Weiter, and I’m sharing their answers with you!

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Tell me a little about Your Best Game Ever. What excites you about it?

Monte: This is a book that is for everyone, no matter what game you play. It’s a book that basically celebrates tabletop roleplaying. It talks about every aspect of the hobby, from hosting a game to finding a group to building characters and worlds for fun (and your friends’ fun).

Darcy: I’m thrilled that it will be a resource for literally anyone who is interested in RPGs. New folks just learning about RPGs, experienced players wanting to stream their game for the first time! One of my favorite things about RPGs is how many avenues of skills it brings together–there’s always room to become a better player, GM, and storyteller. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start, however, so this book will make it easier by giving people hands-on tools and techniques to try out.

Tammie: As a relatively new GM, I’m excited about the concrete examples and recommendations that Your Best Game Ever will contain, which will help me–and all GMs, no matter their skill levels–be better at all aspects of creating and running a game.

Bear: As someone who gamed a lot during the 80s and early 90s, only to then step away from tabletop gaming for almost twenty years, I feel like there’s a big hole for me to fill to be where I should be as both a GM and player. And as the art director for Monte Cook Games, I’m extra-excited to work on this book and make it a beautiful item that people are proud to have on their bookshelves, coffee tables, and game tables.

An image with the Your Best Game Ever and Monte Cook Game logos that includes a list of all topics for players, GMs, everyone, and game designers

So many topics!

What are some of the awesome things we’ll see inside Your Best Game Ever? How is the book structured?

Monte: Basically, it’s divided into sections pertaining to everyone (picking the right game, finding a group, hosting games in-person and online, solving problems that can arise), players (creating an interesting character, working within the group structure, dealing with other players), GMs (building a world, creating an adventure, managing rules, running games) and aspiring game designers (making your own game, playtesting, marketplaces, selling and marketing your creation).

Darcy: A recent stretch goal just funded an accompanying video series, too, which will begin in early 2019! Multimedia goodness.

Check out this video that will be a part of the video series stretch goal of Your Best Game Ever!

What are some qualities and bits of experience each of you are bringing to the project?

Darcy: I’m excited to bring to this project my experiences of being a relatively new gamer, a brand-new Twitch streamer, and my role as someone who works to welcome new people into the hobby. I’ve run 30-minute demos of Numenera for dozens of people who had never heard of an RPG before at a planetarium, and I’ve also brought acquaintances over for dinner parties to try it out. I can’t wait to make it easier for people to grow their local gaming community!

Monte: Well, I’m not exactly new to this. I’ve been writing rpgs for 30 years, and gaming for 40. I’ve written a lot of this kind of material, although most of it has been aimed at GMs, so I’m even more excited about the player-focused material, particularly because I feel like a lot of things that have traditionally been put on the GM, like dealing with player problems or conflicts. I think in actual fact such things are everyone’s responsibility.

Tammie: As I mentioned, I’m relatively new to GMing, so for the material dealing with running games, I bring a newcomers perspective.

Sean: I’m a few years behind Monte—gaming for almost 40 years, writing for about 25. I’ve played and run in many games with friends and strangers, at home and conventions and organized play, been the steamrolled player and done a little steamrolling, seen some great games and train wrecks, run games with published adventures and a ton of prep and completely off the cuff, and I’ve brought too many snacks and eaten the last of someone else’s favorite snack.

Bear: I can’t compete with most of my co-workers gaming experience in years, but I am a writer, and I know how to craft and pace stories. I’m also cognizant of some of my own bad habits, which I believe is important to look at and work on. And of course I’m bringing thirty-plus years of graphic design to the table to make sure the book is both beautiful and usable.

The Stay Alive! cover with the white silhouette of a person waving a torch in front of a large, multi-limbed dark and inhuman figure, and the text Stay Alive!, and the whole cover bordered by white silhouetted hands reaching in.

I couldn’t choose between the Stay Alive! and The Stars Are Fire covers for which one is the best looking, so we’ll have to see which ends up the most useful!

What looks to be your personal favorite bit of the project, where you get to dig in and really see something you love about gaming shine?

Darcy: CHARACTER ARCS. Okay, deep breaths. One of my absolute favorite parts about running Invisible Sun has been the way it empowers, and in fact requires, my players to bring narrative to the table. One of the ways it does that is by linking character progression to Character Arcs that the player chooses, like Justice, Solve a Mystery, Romance, Finish a Great Work, or even Fall From Grace. As the character progresses along those arcs (whether successfully or unsuccessfully, for ultimate good or for ill), the player is rewarded with advancement currency for their character. I love that players come to the table with lots of ideas and momentum. Your Best Game Ever will include how to use this Character Arc system in any game system you might be playing!

Monte: I’m excited about a lot of it. I think the thing I’m most excited about it just approaching this from the point of view that rpgs are a group experience and so all the various issues and problems that might arise are for the group to deal with, not just the GM. Likewise, the understanding that a great player can have as much positive effect on the game as a great GM, and offering ideas and suggestions on how to be that great player.

Bear: The depth of the offering. This will be a significant book.

Significant books it looks like! There are now five books included when you back the I Want It All! level. If you have the funds, it’s a pretty impressive collection!

What are some of the challenges and some of the bonuses of working with other consultants on a project that might bring to light differing opinions?

Darcy: There’s no one right way to game, and Your Best Game Ever embraces that, leading you to a host of advice, ideas, and tools to curate for your specific best gaming experience. Even so, the text is going to be one cohesive piece, but we wanted to make sure we’re not stamping out the unique voices of our experts either! To balance this, each consulting expert will weigh in on the text as a whole, and will have a short section all their own.

Monte: I’m the main author, but I’m just one person. I try to look at games from different directions and different expectations and perspectives (that’s just part of being a good game designer), but if we really want this book to be for everyone–and we do–we want to ensure that we have as many different experiences and points of view represented as possible. I’m thrilled that not only do I have the whole MCG team helping with this, but that we’ve assembled a great team of consulting experts who all bring their own perspectives and backgrounds to the project. Everyone involved is incredibly intelligent and talented, and I’m positive that each person will make this a better book.

Sean: I love hearing different perspectives on gaming. I’m lucky in that my regular gaming group is people I’ve known for years and like very much, but other people don’t have that luxury and may be sharing a table with a stranger or someone they don’t associate with outside of gaming. Hearing from the consulting experts is like sitting at a table with a bunch of skilled gamers I don’t personally know, like at a convention game—there’s an anticipation and excitement to see how the individuals mesh together into a group.

Even if I disagree with another person’s playing philosophy, I like to understand what they’re thinking and how they got there. It’s quite possible they might change my mind about how I want to play or run games, or they’d at least give me some perspective about how to interact with another player who thinks like they do. The trick to incorporating their ideas is to present it as either a complementary or contrasting point of view to the other material in the book.

—

Thank you so much to the interviewees for answering my questions! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and you’ll check out Your Best Game Ever on Kickstarter today!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

Five or So Questions on Prism

Prism is now on Kickstarter!

Hi all! Today I’ve got Whitney Delaglio back to talk about Prism, a project we discussed a long time ago that’s now coming up on Kickstarter! To keep up on what’s coming up while the project’s counting down to crowdfunding, follow Whitney on G+ and mind the Little Wish Productions site. I hope you enjoy hearing what Whitney’s got to say about this awesome project!

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The colorful Prism Kickstarter cover with symbols decorating the sides, a rainbow of colors at the top, and two figures handfasted together in the center

Tell me a little about Prism. What excites you about it?

Prism is a roleplaying game about relationships and conflict resolution set in an aquatic world. Instead of using dice, players will rely on predetermined levels of expertise to solve narrative conflicts, and interact with others. The rules rely less on crunch, and more on negotiations between players and the GM. I’m excited about it because in most games, characters are stuck on land, so it’s difficult to play characters that thrive in the water. I’m also excited about this project because it encourages sensuality and social combat.

What makes the aquatic environment different for characters, mechanically and narratively?

I am a huge fan of sealife, so it was important to integrate an underwater environment to Prism. I designed the game to give players an opportunity to play as merfolk, or humanoids that turn into tiny sea creatures. Since all six humanoids in the game are amphibious, it also means there can be unhindered underwater exploration. It also gave me the opportunity to draw plant folk with the attributes of a water lily, and merfolk with the qualities of a shark, wearing their own teeth as a necklace.

How do the negotiations work between players and the GM? What kind of power does each player hold at the table to influence the results of a conflict?

I’m not a huge fan of rolling dice with the exception being Lady Blackbird. I didn’t like how you could dump all your points into something you really want to excel at, roll poorly, and not get the results you want. So instead if a character doesn’t have enough expertise, the player can either agree to have their character succeed at a cost, or make a case that it takes more than one skill to resolve the conflict.

For example, a Chameleon (has the ability to cast cantrips) wants to impress someone with a lavish meal, but doesn’t have enough expertise to do so. They could make argument that a fire cantrip (which requires the use of another skill) could help them cook the food more evenly.

What techniques did you use for the art in Prism, and how did you conceptualize the designs – did you do drafts of the illustrations, get inspirations from playtests, etc.?

Most of the artwork in the book are pinups. My goal was to draw sexy people and not sexy objects. The rest is either revamped artwork from back when Prism was a video game concept, or inspired by the comic that preceded the game (such as the symbols that represent the six realms). The artwork in the game either started out as a pencil sketches, a sketch on my phone (S Note), or were started from scratch using Adobe Animate.

What’s the most challenging (but promising!) part of putting Prism out there for the public, and how do you feel about the final product? What parts of it stick out to you as your favorite?

I wanted to make a game about relationships emotional intimacy, but that presented me with the challenge of making a game where a player can feel safe being vulnerable. I’ve mentioned elsewhere how consent is sometimes conveyed as a rigid negotiation. Where you add and remove filling from the sandwich, until it’s a sandwich no one involved wants to eat anymore. I tried to make Prism a game where you discuss consent from the beginning, and it remains a fluid conversation that continues during play. So, the sandwich starts off on the table, and anyone at any given time can say…you know, I usually really like this to be in my sandwich, but today I don’t have the appetite for it…or, my friend and I really want to add this to the sandwich, but we can change our mind if either of us want to.

I think the final product looks gorgeous. My favorite part is the Tea Party (character generation). It really takes you gently by the hand and walks you through the process.

a merfolk couple, one darker skinned with dark hair and wearing a shark necklace, and one lighter skinned with red hair and biting the other's neck playfully

I love the art <3

—

Thanks so much to Whitney for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading about Prism and that you’ll check it out when it’s live on Kickstarter!

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

Five or So Questions on Reign

Hey all! Today I have an interview with Greg Stolze on Reign, which is currently on Kickstarter! I asked Greg some challenging questions about the role of a game like Reign in modern day, which I hope you enjoy reading!

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The Reign Kickstarter banner showing the two book covers (labeled "funded!") and the text "funding now on Kickstarter."

Tell me a little about Reign. What excites you about it?

REIGN really was kinda my baby. UNKNOWN ARMIES was great, but that was me and Tynes, so REIGN was really the first thing I did that was all Stolze all the time. Also, it’s high fantasy sword ’n’ sorcery, which I love, and which I don’t get to do as much — somehow, between UA and all my WoD work and DELTA GREEN, I sort of got pigeonholed as a horror guy which is… not inapt. But REIGN is close to my heart.

On a less squishy emotional level, I liked the idea that REIGN took events that had always been matters of “Oh, the GM will hand-wave what’s happening on the wide-scope political scale” and bolted them to dice and stats so that the players can have a new arena in which to go nuts and wreak havoc. I remember in old D&D where, if… fighters, I think?… got to a high enough level they got a keep and I really thought that was interesting! But it didn’t give you any options to liberate peasants or go to war against your neighbors or any of the dramatic stuff of governance. I hadn’t played PENDRAGON or BIRTHRIGHT or gotten into the covenant stuff in ARS MAGICA, but maybe that’s just as well. Having not seen the way anyone else handled it, I built it myself from scratch. I just knew I wanted the collective your characters lead to be as important to the game as any individual PC.

And, well, I had this nifty set of rules I’d built for GODLIKE that seemed like they’d work just as well for castles and crossbows as they did for superheroes in WWI, so I built out from that. I think it worked pretty well.

What are some ways has Reign grown and changed between 2007 and today? What is new, what’s been refined?

In those intervening years, I released a LOT of supplements online, after getting them collectively crowdfunded. Sixteen of them, in fact. Rather than burn all that to the ground and rebuild on the foundation, I thought what the game needed more than anything else was (1) better art in the supplements — that’s kind of the dark side of my “one man show” approach, (2) organization so that you can find what you want to use in a tangle fo optional systems and rules tweaks and (3) a nicer print version, since the hardbacks have been unavailable for some time.

It’s not a big reinvention, and the first two books don’t have a lot of new material, because I honestly didn’t think it needed a ton of work. I’m going through and making the language clearer, finding those decades-old typos and homonym errors, but mostly it’s taking this mess of parts and putting them in an order to be more useful. REIGN was written with the expectation that a lot of people would be using it to toolkit their own settings, and that hasn’t changed.

One change, though, is my willingness to let other people play with the toys. One reason I didn’t write anything for UNKNOWN ARMIES for a while was, quite simply, I didn’t have an idea I thought was really top notch, and I didn’t want to write something just to dump it on the market. Partly, that’s a matter of pride, but it’s also a matter of greed. I don’t want to serve lukewarm stuff because I don’t think that’s how you keep an audience. But when I got a bunch of new writers working on UA3, their new perspectives and experiences and approaches really pushed me to keep up. So I’ve gotten a bunch of fresh new voices and salty old wordsmiths to give me their takes for stretch goals.

How do you replicate leadership in Reign? What do players do when they’re leading? What is leading?

OK, these are three very different questions.

Leadership in REIGN is replicated with die rolls, the same way that mighty sorcery and deeds of martial renown are. One of the big pleasures of playing a game (as distinct from running one) is the opportunity to imagine myself as someone with very different skills and behaviors. Someone who’s not shy, for example, or someone who doesn’t get embarrased and uncomfortable with confrontation. Or, y’know, a ninja.

To take the third question second, leading seems, to me, to be a lot of listening to people and understanding them. Good leaders — and I’m thinking certain editors and developers here — inspire a sort of loyalty. You want to give them your best. It’s not just a paycheck. Good leaders draw the best out of you. They see you, not just as the role into which you’ve been thrust, but as the individual adapting to that roll. Good leaders know the strengths and weaknesses of their people, and put them where the strengths are leveraged, and where their weaknesses do the least damage. In real life, I’m a terrible leader. Not the world’s greatest listener, surprisingly dense about people’s feelings sometimes, something of a hermit. But the idea of playing someone who’s listened to and who can organize people into a greater whole… yeah, that’s my fantasy. One of ‘em.

What players do when they’re leading is that sort of organization, understanding and inspiration. Only instead of having to really get through to people with charisma, you can create a character who has that sort of compelling presentation. Your characters can be the kinds of people who make the St. Crispin’s Day speech, even if you yourself are plagued by podium paralysis.

I mean who hasn’t, at some point, fantasized about being listened to and obeyed? That’s the wish-fulfillment REIGN offers.

a blue book and a red book, both with a gold-foil stamped and embossed art of a warrior with a spear and armor, and what appears to be braided hair

The special edition covers are really beautiful!

I asked Greg two sets of questions and then I got a collective response:

Sixteen supplements is a lot! How do you keep all of these things connected and consistent – the fictional themes, the mechanical structures – when there is so much information? Does that amount of stuff end up paralleling to bookkeeping in game?

AND

You discuss modularity on the Kickstarter page, basically explaining options for different ways of playing. Tell me more about this! How does it work?

Hah, the answer to these questions is really the same thing… the modularity from the KS is the solution to having the giant pile of supplemental rules and setting material. It’s like when you have a bunch of different LEGO sets, and you build them, and that’s fine, but eventually (if you’re like me) you take them apart and wind up with a giant bin of undifferentiated components. So then you sort them so you can make something new.

In this metaphor, the original supplements are like individual LEGO sets. You can get the sort of… pre-planned experience. The chaotic pile is where the material, as a whole, is now. The organization is what we’re going after with the KS, cross-referencing different stuff so that you can find the thing you were thinking of. Just as importantly, perhaps, we can also help you figure out what to exclude. Not every group needs every rule, so getting that clarified is a pretty high priority.

Why do you think a game about leadership and strategy like Reign has an important place in play in the modern era, during a time that’s so tumultuous for so many people?

Hoooo boy…

OK, I’ll start with something from Lynda Barry — I read her book WHAT IT IS, although it feels more like I should say I “witnessed” or “experienced” it? It’s this deep-dive art book about creativity and her intense personal history with it, and it’s very strong medicine. One thing she touched on was the idea of art as “escapism,” and she said she doesn’t think we create or engage with art in order to escape from reality, but to change our experience of it. She didn’t draw to get away from the sharp edges of her childhood, but to survive them.

So we’re in a tumultuous time and I’m writing a tumultuous elfgame. Am I just a little white ball on a golf tee, waiting for a driver labeled “accusations of frivolity” to come slamming down on me for a power drive? Eh, well maybe. Maybe for some people, playing a game where they’re the powerful bosses can be a distraction from doing the gloomy, necessary, unmeasurable work in the real world. But maybe, for some people, playing that game could let them (or help them) believe that change is possible, that individuals do influence these looming power gangs.

Or, maybe it’s OK to just have fun playing the game.

But our creations are always mirrors of our concerns. If roleplaying isn’t INEXTRICABLY creative, you have to work really hard to do it without any aspect of acting, or authorship, or imaginitive innovation. So your feelings about the villainies of modern politics are just about certain to make their way into REIGN, whether you do it deliberately or not. Maybe that’s also OK. Maybe the satisfaction of decapitating an imaginary evil king is just the catharsis you need to avoid screaming at a co-worker about politics until both of you cry.

I’ve thought a lot about why we engage unpleasant themes, intense stories, fictions of tragedy… After all, now more than any time in history, we can access genuine tragedy all the time. Why horror stories? Why make up more of it? Maybe it’s the relief of knowing that THIS awful thing isn’t real. Or maybe when an issue is painful to handle, putting a layer of fiction around it allows the mind to contemplate it more coolly. Consider the game RED MARKETS — it’s about zombies, but it’s REALLY about poverty. John Carpenter’s movie THE THING is about a gnarly space alien, but it’s REALLY about the dangers of trust and mistrust in a cold and uncaring universe. A lot of media that’s about X is REALLY about Y, and REIGN can certainly do that. This clash between the trade guilds of Uldholm while the Dindavarans sharpen their swords can be about how liberals persecute radicals while white-power revanchists snicker up their sleeves.

I don’t know. Maybe creativity shouldn’t teach lessons, but I think it almost always does. Maybe in an intensely political reality, an intensely political game can offer a framework for disentangling complicated feelings. Or, maybe it just promises some kind of paradoxical relief.

the blue book cover with full color art of a diverse cast of characters and the red cover with the same warrior, a dark skinned person in red and blue

—

Thanks so much Greg for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Reign on Kickstarter today!

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Five or So Questions on Over the Edge

Hi all, today I have an interview with Jonathan Tweet on Over the Edge, an RPG currently on Kickstarter! I hope you learn something fun about Over the Edge from Jonathan’s responses below!

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Tell me a little about Over the Edge. What excites you about it?

Of all the RPGs I’ve designed, Over the Edge is the one that means the most to me personally. It started as a pet project of mine, not meant for publication, so it’s weirder than anything I would have conceived for a broad audience. The rules are also free-form and story-driven. That was a rarity in 1992 when the original released, but it’s more common these days. It’s exciting to be able to reboot this game and update it so that it’s ahead of the curve again like it was 25 years ago.

The team I’m working with is also really good. Atlas Games published the original, and they’re doing the new version, too. The producer, Cam Banks, is a big fan from way back, and so is Chris Lites, who contributed a lot of creative material.

What have you had to do to make Over the Edge modern, both in consideration of real life issues and what we conceive as paranormal or “weird” in the modern era?

In terms of real life, I had to ramp up the stakes. The setting is now set up with the expectation that a final reckoning is on the horizon. The world of 1992 was relatively peaceful, when the Soviet Union was defunct, Francis Fukuyama was touting the end of history, and Samuel Huntington’s so-called “Clash of Civilizations” was a new idea. These days, things are worse. Teenage girls who revere the Peacock Angel are burned to death in cages for refusing to be sex slaves in the army of the “Caliphate”. Carbon is heating the planet and killing the coral. Russia annexed territory by conquest, which no other country had done since 1975. Inequality has skyrocketed. Nationalism and racism are in fashion from one democracy to another. To compete with all this nightmarish stuff, the setting had to become more menacing.

The original game debuted just before the worldwide web, so the online aspect of modern life was missing. Interacting with the online world in Al Amarja usually means logging into the corrupt, State-run social network called Reba Online. Yes, the State is logging all your activity, but how else are you going to find a coffeeshop that has soy milk?

The paranormal elements of the game hardly needed updating. Paranormal beliefs reflect consistent human biases, such as magical thinking, so 25 years later you’ll still find ESP, interdimensional visitors, past lives, subliminal messaging, curses, etc. One new thing to add is epigenetics. Lay people tend not to understand what epigenetic changes really amount to, so you can sort of invent all sorts of weird abilities and say that they’re epigenetic.

The Over the Edge cover with a woman in a head covering and face paint, a television showing an image of a man holding a knife behind his back, a morphed skull, a baboon, a person covering their face all but their eyes, and a plane flying off into the distance.

The Over the Edge cover is quite nice!

How does paranormality affect the average person in Over the Edge, from a narrative perspective and from a mechanical perspective?

The paranormal of Over the Edge is the sort of paranormal that fits right into everyday modern life. It’s like the paranormal that people actually believe in: prayer circles, horoscopes, alien contact, mind-control chemicals in the drinking supply, a parasitical skin disease from outer space, chakras, past lives, energy vampirism, subliminal mind control messages, chem trails, exorcism, reiki, rebirthing, or even child slavery on Mars. These sorts of paranormal elements are the sorts of things you find in Over the Edge, only in the game they’re weirder and more powerful.

The island of Al Amarja is a paranormal power center and a weak point in the reality manifestation matrix, so there’s more crazy paranormal events going on beneath the surface there than anywhere else. The people take it for granted that the government’s propaganda posters are some sort of mind control program, that messages are hidden in television broadcasts, and that the Internet is haunted. The most public face of the supernatural is Sister Cheryl, the leader of the Temple of the Divine Experience. Seekers who turn to Sister Cheryl can find all manner of shrines, disciplines, rituals, penances, psychoactives, prayers, book clubs, and animal sacrifices to help them progress along the spiritual path.

For players, the paranormal opens up a degree of freedom when they invent their characters’ traits. A player in my campaign, for example, invented a Christian Necromancer with a YouTube following. The game is set in the modern day, so players can bring in references to anything happening in the real world, and including references to the paranormal, such as necromancy. An important point is that the game doesn’t have mechanical subsystems. It doesn’t have a combat system or a magic system. It has a system for determining success and failure, along with possible good and bad surprises. That system works for psychic powers, street fighting, counterintelligence, and Christian necromancy.

What does the resolution mechanic feel like in play when supporting this rich fiction – is it punchy, does it leave a mark? What are any differences from previous versions?

From now on, that’s my new tagline for the dice mechanics in Over the Edge: a dice mechanic that leaves a mark! In the new system, players throw dice only when the results are consequential. With every throw, in addition to succeeding or failing, the player might get a “good twist” or a “bad twist”, which are surprising results that are outside the binary succeed/fail dichotomy.

Every throw of the dice matters. Fights, skullduggery, and paranormal efforts that would have taken several dice rolls in the original version are handled now with a single throw. A player’s dice throw determines how the conflict turns out, so a failure for the player is a success for the enemy. That’s a trick I learned from Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World. So every dice throw matters. For most throws, everyone at the table stops and watches. Each throw is that important.

Mechanically, a conflict is resolved by the player rolling two dice. If the player-character has a big advantage, the player can reroll a die once or twice. If the PC is at a serious disadvantage, the GM can force the player to reroll a die once or twice. After all the rerolls, the total on the dice indicates success (high roll) or failure (low roll). In addition, if a die shows a 3, that’s a bad twist, and if a die shows a 4, that’s a good twist. Good twists are more common with a higher roll, but you can fail the roll but still get a good twist, as when you throw a 4 and a 1 for a total of 5. Likewise, you often get a bad twist even with a success. The twists add a new dimension to the resolution system, a discontinuous result that can take the action in a new direction. The old system was serviceable, but it didn’t “leave a mark” like the new one does.

What are you doing in narrative and mechanical design to support a more inclusive, respectful play environment, considering the content you have in the game?

My roleplaying games have been marked for the way they have promoted women and people of color, especially Everway from 1995. It’s been gratifying to see the rest of the RPG industry follow the lead of those of us where on the front lines 20 or 30 years ago. In the original 1992 game, I made the leaders of the island women. That was back when D&D had officially removed the pronoun “she” from their rules, and it felt great to push back against “the man”. Putting women in charge was one small step toward counteracting the preponderance of powerful men in RPG settings. The great news is that today it’s no big shock for there to be powerful women, such as our own President Clinton. In order to continue to challenge stereotypes, I changed the ruling family, the D’Aubainnes, from French to black African.

More generally, the Atlantic island where the action all takes place is a mish-mash of germ lines and cultures. Seekers, fugitives, and spies from all over the world converge here, and the local population includes genetic contributions for all sorts of ancestries, including Neanderthals and probably Homo erectus. (It’s a long story.)

If you’re asking about respect, however, you might be asking the wrong person. Have you looked at the manuscript? The whole island is a mess of exploitation, lies, mind control, personal excess, social neglect, narcissistic self-aggrandizement, mental dysfunction, and conspiracies. Respect is hard to find. Instead, I’m an equal-opportunity disrespecter. The most powerful public figures on the Island are two black sisters, and if they’re powerful, that pretty much makes them villains. That said, if any GamerGater thinks that this is the game for him because the most prominent villains are black women, I hope he buys the game so he can be harshly disappointed. In Al Amarja, all sorts of people are terrible.

—

Thanks so much to Jonathan for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Over the Edge on Kickstarter today! Remember to share the interview with your friends, too!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

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

Tag: tabletop rpgs

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