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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I love the art <3
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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!
Hi all! Today I have an interview with Tracy Barnett on Iron Edda Accelerated, which is currently on Kickstarter! I hope you enjoy hearing what they have to say about the project and that you’ll give the Kickstarter a look.
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Tell me a little about Iron Edda Accelerated. What excites you about it?
Ragnarok occurred in the form of 50 foot-tall, metal dwarven destroyers rising out of the ground. Humanity cried out to the gods for help, and Loki responded. “Here, take this thing (which I totally didn’t steal from the dwarves) and use it to bond the spirits of your bravest warriors to the bones of dead giants and y’all can make like Pacific Rim.” That’s the pitch I’ve used for Iron Edda since it first came out a few years ago. This new version uses the Fate framework found in Dresden Files Accelerated, meaning that every character is represented by a Destiny, a set of conditions and stunts which define what you can do in the world. It’s different than the previous version, and I’m thrilled with the design.
Iron Edda Accelerated represents a huge second chance for me. I Kickstarted the original Iron Edda game (War of Metal and Bone) about four years ago and I was never able to give it the time and attention it deserved. I mean that both as a game, and as a product. Last year around this time, I thought about what I could do to change the future of Iron Edda. I approached Encoded Designs, gave them the full rundown of the issues I’d had getting a marketing push for the original game, and pitched them the idea of a new version. They accepted and we started development. I got a chance to re-do things in a better way, with support from a publisher, rather than doing it all on my own.
Mechanically, this is the version of Iron Edda I’ve wanted to see all along. It’s funny, I was talking with a publishing friend at Origins last week and he was talking about how his games all have a five-year development cycle. I’ve unintentionally done that with Iron Edda Accelerated. The original draft which became this game was something I started five years ago for someone else’s Kickstarter. Now, five years on, I’ve learned enough about the world and I’ve improved as a designer to the point where I could make the game what I wanted it to be. That’s a lesson I’m going to keep with me.
What’s happening mechanically in Iron Edda Accelerated? What are the new fiddly bits?
The fiddly bits are legion with this design change. Fate Core is, in a lot of ways, an open template. You can make a lot of things happen by making new Extras and Stunts, which is what I did in the original Iron Edda. In the framework provided by Dresden Files Accelerated, everything is codified. Your core abilities are described by Conditions. Every condition has a finite number of uses before you have to undertake an action to recover them.
In mechanical terms, that means that you can’t, say, summon the bones of the dead giant who is bonded to your soul unless you mark a box of your Summon the Bones condition. In the original Iron Edda, there wasn’t anything like that. You called up the giant bones whenever you wanted. In Iron Edda Accelerated, you can do that five times (each time lasting a scene) before you have to indulge in your dead giant’s Worldly Desire to be able to recover boxes on your summoning condition track. If you want to push it, you can, but you then mark a condition called Abomination. You get the giant’s bones for a scene, then the giant takes over, using your body as it sees fit.
I guess the best way to say it is that everything has teeth now. There’s no use of power without a balancing influence or cost which you, as the player, have to be concerned with. Aside from making things mechanically more interesting, this also makes the fiction more interesting. Bonebonded have to content with their giants, Runescrbed with the power that will ultimately consume them, Seers with fate itself. There’s a push and pull for every destiny in Iron Edda Accelerated, and that’s so much more compelling to play.
That ties directly into your [next] question.
How has your path as a designer influenced the game in big ways – what are some places you can look at this new project and see the changes in you and the design?
When I wrote the first Iron Edda, there was a lot of stuff that I put in the game because it seemed to fit and because it seemed cool. Fate Core includes the idea of success at a cost, so I just left it in the hands of the players and GMs in the world to provide the negative sides of the fiction so playing a Bonebonded or a Seer would be interesting. As the years went by, I began trying to push for more of those complications in the games I ran because I thought it made for interesting fiction at the table.
When I read Dresden Files Accelerated it was around the same time I pitched a new version of Iron Edda to Encoded Designs. Something inside was telling me that the setup of conditions and linked stunts would be a great fit for Iron Edda and every time I’ve run or played it, that has borne out. I guess that speaks to the other side of experience as a game designer. There’s never a point where you need to stop learning. There is, however, a point at which I think it’s really valuable to begin to trust your design experience. I won’t ever claim I’m the best Fate designer or any BS like that. But I’ve got over fives years of experience working on Fate designs, and there are some designs that I know will work as I write them, playtest or no. That’s a huge thing to realize. So much of design work is fraught with insecurity. It feels really good to have moments where I see something work exactly as I intended it when I wrote it.
As a quick aside, one moment where I knew I’d gotten the flavor of the Seer right was during an online game a few months ago. The player who chose the Seer asked if they could summon a host of the dishonored dead to help them in a fight. There’s a stunt written for the Seer which does just that, but the player hadn’t seen it. Having someone new to the game and new to the rules ask to do a thing I’d already written was absolutely amazing. That’s what I call leveling up.
What was playtesting like with Iron Edda Accelerated? What were some of your better, and more challenging, experiences?
It’s funny; I think in a lot of ways I’ve been playtesting Iron Edda Accelerated ever since I made the first Iron Edda. By that I mean that I learned so much about how the game is supposed to run and how the world is supposed to be reflected from all of the sessions of War of Metal and Bone that I ran over the years. Iron Edda Accelerated is my best effort expression of that.
However, when I ran my first two sessions of the new system at Big Bad Con in 2017, they were near-disastrous. I was jet-lagged and sick, so when I got to the table, working with characters I’d written up on the flight out, everything just seemed off to me. It was like getting into a car you’re super familiar with and finding that someone has changed the location of all the controls. I tried to turn on the wipers and the headlights kicked on, y’know? But, those two sessions were necessary for me to learn the new layout and arrangement of things. A couple of months later at Acadecon I ran two of the best sessions of any Iron Edda game I’d ever run. I’d settled into the changes and everything worked the way I expected it to. Some of the mechanics needed tweaking, of course, but the game was what I wanted it to be. That felt good.
When you look at the work you’ve done, what are some of your favorite pieces of design, fiction, or even just experience had that you want to share with aspiring designers to show how good it can be?
Probably the best experience I’ve had in regards to gaming, especially running my own game, was at Origins in 2014. I was running the original Iron Edda at Games on Demand and I made the mistake I often made back then: I stayed up way too late, drank too much, and was hungover for my morning slot. I get there, and end up with a group of eight players. Six of them knew each other well and seemed to have good chemistry, so I just decided to roll with it. I explained to them how I was feeling and asked them to really bring it for that session. They did. It was a good, solid session with a lot of political intrigue and an honor duel to determine who the next Jarl would be. End of story, I thought at the time.
The next night, Saturday, I get to Games on Demand and the person organizing the tables asked me if I was okay with seven players. I looked at the table and the same group of six were sitting there, along with a friend of mine. I sat down with them and told them I was happy to see them. They asked me something I’ve not heard since at a convention: they wanted to keep playing the session from the previous day. They had their character sheets, I had all the notes I’d written, and my friend was happy to make a character to fit the continuing situation.
It was so gratifying to have an entire group of people want to come back and continue the story we’d begun the day before. I’ve had some amazing game sessions of Iron Edda since then, but nothing has topped that. Yet. I’m open to there being something even more gratifying in the future.
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 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.
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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!
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An August tradition, I suppose, is to respond to the prompts for RPGaDAY, and the 2018 prompts have a lot going on. I figured something I could do today is use one of them as a prompt for a blog post, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about, too.
Today’s prompt is How can players make a world seem real?
Character sheets from a game of Turn I’m currently playing.
I think this can be a bit of a personal thing, but one way to do it for me is to give everything reasoning and give everything a story. NPCs, events in game, etc. all should have some flavor to their existence. It ties directly into collaborative worldbuildimg. This has been really growing for me while working on Turn, a game where everyone has loads of narrative control, and while playing D&D with my partner Dillon.
I’ll talk about Dillon first, because it’s super exciting to me. I’m not naturally a huge D&D fan – honestly, it’s a big game and a lot of the fiction bums me out. But, in the game I’m playing with Dillon, we’ve been rewriting a lot of it. The mechanics mostly remain the same, tho were using house rules and I’m playing cosmic horror investigation type fiction instead of the average adventure. But the fiction!
Dillon let me be a part of the world building for the main setting. This is something I once did in a game run by my husband John, where I got to make up dieties and religions and contribute to the fiction for the different species. Dillon is letting me do much the same thing! Collaborative worldbuilding means I get to see things I’m interested in integrated into the world I’m playing in, which inherently makes it more real to me.
For example, we were building up my character’s family and Kelt, my PC, is half tiefling, half half-orc, and I was talking about Kelt’s dad being a cleric. I said how it felt to me, due to some of the other background stuff we’ve done for the game, that tieflings aren’t demonic, they’re more druidic, nature based.
You know, more mountain goat than Black Phillip. Photo by Brie Sheldon.
Dillon and I discussed it, and he liked the idea, so we changed the way teiflings work in the game to have them even physically be more based in nature with antlers and ram horns rather than demonic horns, and it suited their culture that we’d developed, too. Now I have more knowledge about my PC’s dad’s history, the world around him, and I have a personal touchstone because I got to be a part of it!
And it reflects in that “everything has a reasoning, everything has a story” too – my character takes public transportation as we’re set in a near-industrial world, so Dillon had a newspaper I could read and gossip I could listen in on, but also he does something that’s important: when I suggest a frivolous detail for the scene, NPCs, etc., he considers it and often accepts it!
Like if I were to pass by someone and they rudely bump into me and I say,
“I bet they’re rushing off to a meeting with their mistress!”
Dillon runs with it, something like “actually, it’s his boyfriend and it’s their anniversary!”
I may never encounter that NPC again, but it feels real.
This is likewise with how Dillon’s treating Kelt’s dog, Orion, who is his familiar and tied to the Void (Kelt’s patron). It’s awesome when I play knowing that I’ll get to have my character deal with stuff like making sure Orion gets enough play time, or that his leash works in spite of his magical ability to phase through objects (lead lining helps!). Things like how Orion always wakes up to bark at the window-knocker and trolley actually make my in-game experience feel real!
So as a player, I engage back with these things, bring them up, ask questions, offer input. Making the world mine is part of the experience!
And this is all relevant to Turn. In Turn, I’ve tried to design some of this in. The worldbuilding you do with the town creation gives players deep engagement to the roots of the town and all its trappings, letting you understand the relationships and founding and themes before you start play, and you can add to it.
A town map from Turn.
You also have vignettes each session with NPCs and the town dealing with real life needs that can be stressful and risk exposure of your shifter identity, even if it’s just going to pick up milk at the farmer’s market or trying to have coffee with your cousin. When players are engaging with Turn, I’m hoping they’ll ask questions of the town and NPCs too, and give reason to things that might seem otherwise random.
As a player in Turn, I’ve been lucky enough to have all of these experiences. John is often my GM in games and in Turn he does a spectacular job executing these ideals I have for a “real” world. He is the source for my researching the Storyteller section of Turn, and will be consulting heavily on it.
I’m so lucky to have two partners who are such amazing GMs and who let me make the world real from the role of a player!
Hope you enjoyed the post today and that you find it useful!
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Hi all! Today I have an interview with Bebarce El-Tayib on Power Outage, a superhero game for kids that’s currently on Kickstarter! Bebarce has given some excellent answers to my questions, so please check it out below!
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This is a logo that was announced post-launch!
Tell me a little about Power Outage v 1.4. What excites you about it?
Power Outage 1.4 is a large leap in a series I’ve been developing for the past 4 years. It’s a Super Hero themed tabletop roleplaying game designed to be played by kids and GMed by adults. This would be the first attempt at making the book something I’m comfortable with being available in Print.
It’s exciting to me for a ton of reasons aside from the fact that it’s probably the largest and longest running creative endeavor that I’ve ever taken on. But I would have to say that the biggest excitement comes from the scope of change between 1.3 to 1.4. It’s a monumental shift. There is a completely revised mechanic system, much greater resources for crafting your own adventures, and the biggest thing of all is the expansion of guidance to not only include differentiation, but also a focus on creating more accessible gaming tables. Plus its just the inherent potential of creating something that introduces a new generation to a hobby that I and many others love.
An example of the result of the Kickstarter funding on the character sheet.
When making games for kids, your point about a accessibility is super important. How do are you designing and developing Power Outage to be accessible, and why does it matter to you?
My work in Public Education as a technologist has me dealing with data often. Part of that involves creating considerations for Special Education, and managing Special Education Data. So when it comes to creating accomodations I realize the monumental task in front of me. As soon as I started I realized there was no end, so I’m tackling it from two fronts. In the book I have a section dedicated to Accessibility guidance. I broke the sections into 5 specific domains outside of general guidance. Physical, Communicative / Receptive, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Emotional. What I’m essentially doing is tackling the topic from a symptomatic approach, rather than a cause approach. Tthat limits me to an extent from the specificity inherent with conditions, but allows for the broadest spectrum of guidance. I have 2 directors of special education I’ve worked with helping to ensure that the information I’m providing is safe, sound, and that the terminology is effective.
Seperate from that I created a wiki called www.accessible-rpg.com It is currently under developed, and tailored primarily to children, but eventually I’d like it to become a free resource to people developing games or running tables, to create a more accessible gaming table. It’s a larger goal than Power Outage itself, and its only going to be successful with community involvement. That’s why it’s built in the wiki format. It has to be populated with information from the people who are directly effected. It has to be live, and continually changing. I plan on jumping right back into it once I’m done with the kickstarter, and pulling in as much guidance as I can get.
As to why it’s important to me, I could try to relate to work, or family members, or some forms of tangible relationships to be people I know that have disabilities, but in all honesty, it is something that we should ALL be working toward. Roleplaying games allow all of us to not only break free of the limitations we find in our every day lives, but express our real selves through our avatars. We bring our strengths and our perceived weaknesses and allow them to shape a world we actively create. The absolute NEED to make that process available to everyone is imperative. We need to be accessible. We need to be inclusive. We need to bring everyone to the table, and if we can’t, then we need to drag that table over to them.
What are the mechanics like in Power Outage? How do you encounter and overcome challenges?
So we’re working with kids. That takes “expectations” and throws them into the waste bin. So the idea behind Power Outage’s mechanics is in compartmentalizing game play so that kids can be playing their own individualized game while still contributing to the greater narrative. It’s taking the concept of differentiation from the classroom and applying it the gaming sphere.
What it boils down to is the idea that the game is more a guide then a hard set dogmatic codex that must be followed. GMs provided guidance to players based off of their capabilities, and to do this effectively, the mechanics have been made so that it’s easily accessible to everyone involved.
Characters have 4 attributes. IMPACT – which effects basic human characteristics POWER – which effects their super heroic capabilities OHMER – which is the stat that IMPACT and POWER compare againsts and YP – Yield Points – which is the point pool that Heroes have before deciding them must Yield or regroup. There is no death in Power Outage.
The 4 attributes covers a lot of types of conditions, but is a reduced amount of record keeping so that not only are kids able to focus more on roleplay and story elements, but so that GMs can more easily manage groups of kids who for instance may not be able to read yet, or add large sums.
In order to allow creative freedom for kids to make the heroes they want, Power tables are provided with effects are provided and grouped to Combat, Support, and Utlity. Kids work with the GM to determine what their heroes can do, and the GM helps match the power to an effect on the table. So if you’re doing 1d4 damage from up to 20 spaces away, it doesn’t matter if that effect comes from a flame torch, or a snow ball, or lightning bolt or psychic shock. In short, Power Outage provides the effect, and the hero provides the flavor.
One last thing I’ll mention is the CAPE system (Combat, Alternative, Puzzle, and Exploration) It’s a way to compartmentalize adventures so that you can cherry pick what you want for your play sessions. In the prewritten adventures (to be released, although one is included with the core book) it becomes a choose your own adventure mechanic. Do you prefer to not have violence in your session, Alternative Components match up to every Combat Component. Are puzzles too difficult? Move around them directly to exploration. It allows GMs to build adventures that pertain to the needs of their group.
All of this comes from the game kids want to play, rather than the game kids are forced to play. And it happens at all levels. From something as simple as the character sheets “Character image” section being enlarged because kids want more room to drawing their characters, to color/symbol coding Attributes so that a GM can easily say “Tell me the red number” or “Tell me the number with the boot symbol”
The five regions for playing in sound really fun! What are they like to play in? What exciting elements do they have in store?
So not only are the 5 regions different stylistic settings, the settings themselves allow for potentially uniquely suited playstyles as well.
The Atomnyy Zavod is a always night gothic soviet atomic punk city. It’s gritty, and confusing, and the some of the starker elements are only highlighted by the oddity of it’s semi-futuristic elements. You’ll see old-timey vehicles driving under nuclear battery powered street green glowing street lights. But this is the perfect setting for gritty noir mysteries. You’ll use Exploration and Puzzle solving components just as often if not more often then Combat/Alternative.
Shorai City is it’s opposite in many ways, with it’s soaring Neo-Japanese inspired towers, flying cars, and robotic servants. This city has become a gathering point for many big heroes and villains, and often becomes the setting for large confrontations. This setting is great for large Beat Em Up style baddies that hearken back to the Golden Era comic days. Villains include Mrs. Roboto and The Tempuritan.
The Overgrowth is by far the most expansive region of Outage. The product of Outages once barren but strange landscape, had tests done on it in the early stages of American involvement causing the worlds largest forrest to grow. That forrest however was both invasive, aggressive, and sentient. Still outpost seem to coexist within the Overgrowth. A musical troll city, a city of Outcast Powers (the name for people with Powers in Outage), and a School for Sandwich Magic are just a few examples of what is discovered, but certainly more mysteries lie within under the canopy. This setting is great for all sorts of Campy Adventures or Mythical Fantasy type games. One area might hold dragons, and the other might hold dinosaurs. Ancient civilizations come to light or scientific outposts. Villains include Treestache and Swagneto.
The sink is a geological anomoly. It is a peninsula on the south eastern coast of Outage. One end appears to be sinking steadily in the ocean while the other side of it emerges from the ground far inland, seemingly with intact ancient structures. At it’s tip, the sink features a floating shanty city of disreputable individuals known as The Scum. Under the ocean as the sink delves further into it’s depths lie ancient cities under the water, sealed off from the ocean that surrounds it (for now). This is a great city for acting a bit rebellious enjoying some not so squeaky mission, confronting morale dilemmas, or just outright exploration. Whether you’re in the muddy bayou, exploring submerged catacombs or getting into naval battles with or against pirates, it’s usually a nonstop adventure. Villains of note include The Boat Rocker and InstaGator.
Finally, Seward’s Refuge is central to the island continent. It is an American run scientific and military facility, that serves often as a waystation between regions, a central government, a barrier to the Overgrowth, and it’s Space Elevator even provides access to the stars. This region is great for multi-region adventures, political intrigue, science gone wrong, or incursion/spy missions. Villains of note include Agent Orangutan and General Specific.
Each region has areas that aren’t directly drawn out leaving exploration up to the imagination and creation of the GM. There is also a section in the book detailing potential other locations including Dimensional and Temporal options. It’s a huge sandbox that kids and adults can play in. You can build just about any game you want to in the world.
With all of the efforts that you have put in, do you have any hopes moving forward for Power Outage and even other games to become more accessible for kids?
Yes, I think you’ll see a lot more of this cropping up. There is a positive shift in the culture of gaming that not only lends to more voices being heard, but a general awareness of the roles we play in inclusiveness, accessibility, and security. A lot of people grew up with these games, and are looking to share it with their kids. In he end, getting families around the table and talking and gaming with each other was the seed that my game grew out of. And as we learn more and more how games effect the ability to understand and retain knowledge, to become flexible and willing to learn new things. It’s becoming an imperative.
What a nifty cover!
—
Thank you so much to Bebarce for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Power Outage on Kickstarter today!
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
Hi all! Today I have an interview with John Scott Tynes on Delta Green: The Labyrinth, which is currently on Kickstarter! I pushed John on a few things I’m curious about with the game so I’m excited to share the answers below!
Notes: Mental illness and its handling in horror and cosmic horror media, including Lovecraft, is discussed in this article, as well as the general topic of inclusivity in this type of horror media. Also, John uses the term “savages” in quotation marks in this, referring to the stereotype of “savage” people in historical media. This use does not intend to validate any racist perspective, but is used in context of the fiction being discussed. —
Tell me a little about Delta Green: The Labyrinth. What excites you about it?
I love building new worlds and new mythologies. When we took twenty years of Delta Green sourcebooks and fiction and brought them all forward into the present with Delta Green: The RPG, we wrapped up and killed off nearly all of our old enemies. Villainous groups like the Fate, the Karotechia, and Majestic-12 really defined the classic era of Delta Green, but it was time to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. The Labyrinth is where I’m rolling out a whole new set of enemies that will define a lot of Delta Green campaigns for the next decade, and that’s incredibly exciting.
The new enemies I’m designing aren’t just targets in a shooting gallery. They’re in it for the long haul and they have their own story arcs to work through as your campaign continues. Each group has three specific stages of growth or change they go through in response to the actions of Delta Green.
Just as an example, and I’m going to avoid spoilers here by not using any names, there is a nefarious group I’ve designed who on the surface don’t seem too terrible. They have horrible origins, and long term they’re a huge problem for humanity, but they’re not trying to blow up the White House or whatever. Yet as Delta Green begins to tangle with them, the group reacts. First they start securing everything they’re doing to avoid detection. Then they start hiring muscle to defend themselves and even proactively try to assassinate the Agents. Finally, if Delta Green is still hitting them around the world, they launch a crash program to train large numbers of their members as sorcerers and dramatically escalate their supernatural power.
In other words: because Delta Green attacked them, they actually become more villainous and more powerful than if they’d been left alone. But if you leave them alone, then long term they’re a huge problem for humanity.
That’s the approach I’m taking as a game designer. When the players try to solve these problems, they will generally make the problems worse before they can make them better. I think that’s a much more interesting and dynamic way to think of enemy organizations and one that really lends itself to campaign play. It also ties directly into some of DG:RPG’s key mechanics, where the more time you spend as an Agent, the more your own connections to life, family, and home corrode and fall away.
And the book isn’t just enemies. I’m also designing a bunch of groups who can be allies. But as with the enemies, the allies also go through three stages the more they interact with the Agents. So a character who starts out really helpful may eventually turn on you, or let their life fall apart because they buy into your crusade, or they may endanger themselves and others because you haven’t actually told them the truth about the dangers they’re facing. Over time, you’ll see these allies rise, suffer, and fall — or even become your worst enemies.
And finally, I’m excited that The Labyrinth is all about America. Delta Green has always resonated with the mythic American themes of sheriff and outlaw, the civilized East and the wild West, and the power of the government versus the freedom of the individual. But today we’re seeing more schisms, more oppression, more prejudice in this country than I’ve seen in my lifetime. It feels like we’re tearing at the seams. And it’s those conflicts and those tensions that are driving my thinking with this book. I want to capture what this country feels like in 2018 and transmute it into inspiration for a new generation of tabletop storytellers to shape in their own directions.
When you talk about capturing this country in 2018, how are you approaching that? The US in 2018 is volatile, and hard for a lot of people. Fundamentally, Delta Green is in the horror genre. That means that for any avenue I explore, I end up looking for a particularly horrific version of it. That doesn’t always mean monsters and cultists, however. In some cases it’s the horror of a good person who starts falling apart. In other cases it’s a completely non-supernatural situation that is nonetheless genuinely awful.
Horror is by its nature triggering. What I work to avoid is being exploitative. As much as I love the horror genre in principle, in practice I have little interest in most horror media. So much of it repeats the same tropes over and over and often in ways that feel deliberately, even leeringly exploitative. There’s a thread of horror creators who seem to take joy in the depiction of suffering or degradation, who cross a line between shining a light on the dark corners versus snuffing out that light to entrap and even victimize the audience.
I’m writing some horrific material, but I really work to come at it from a perspective of humanity. I want the reader to be not simply triggered, but moved. Fear is a powerful emotion, but at the end of the day I can do a better job of scaring you if you’re emotionally engaged by what you’re experiencing.
As for America in 2018: the news regularly outdoes my best efforts as a horror writer. I could never outdo the wretched things humans actually do to each other every day. What I want to accomplish with this book is to take some of those situations and agendas and put them into a fictional framework that challenges the players. I want to give them hard problems, even human problems, and see how they respond. I want them to question the society they live in and even the narrative structure they’re playing in: because as much as Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos is presented as corrosive to those who encounter it, the same can very much be said for Delta Green itself. As a creator, my own creation has things to answer for.
What themes are you engaging with, and how are you addressing your own potential blind spots?
My work is largely intuitive rather than planned. I get the kernel of an idea, I start drafting, and I usually can see just far enough ahead to steer in the right direction. This means themes tend to emerge organically. To some degree I learn what I was writing about in the rear-view mirror and then it’s in the revision process that I flesh out what has emerged and shape it into coherency.
At this point in the project I’d say that an emerging theme is embodied in the ancient Roman question, “Who benefits?” When you look at any conflict in American society and study the actors involved, that question can illuminate their motivations. Who benefits when women are bullied? Who benefits when the right to vote is eroded? Who benefits when nascent social norms are opposed and rolled back?
The question of blind spots is a good one. I’m a middle-aged cis male caucasian and I surely have them. Life experience is part of the answer. I have made my own journey — bumpy at times — into greater understanding and awareness of how multifaceted humanity is and that happened because of many different people and moments in my life.
When I create characters for this book, I take time to think about each one: where they’re from, their family’s culture, their perceived race and gender. I’m not trying to tick boxes on a checklist but when the fictional context coincides with a particular character trait and some kind of frisson occurs, I go with it.
In college I got my degree in journalism and my first step with nearly any idea is simple: do the research. For my 1999 novel Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement I interviewed several people including a staffer at the Ft. Leavenworth military prison and a random guy I found online who’d recently taken a vacation to Vieques Island. I think the most fundamental trait any writer needs is curiosity. The more you want to know about the world, the richer and more diverse your writing can be and the likelier you are to fill in your own blind spots. And we live in a golden age for satisfying our curiosity.
In the current chapter, I have a female character whose parents moved here from India before she was born. I wanted her to grow up in a mid-sized American city and Tulsa, Oklahoma, came to mind. So then I wondered what life was like for Indian immigrants there and an internet search led me to the India Association of Greater Tulsa. My conception for her character blossomed the more I learned and curiosity is what drove me.
In what ways do the enemies and allies in The Labyrinth differ from earlier Delta Green work, narratively and in inspiration?
Delta Green’s original antagonists were great but also fairly straightforward. I mean we literally had Nazis you could go punch! Plus sinister government conspirators and evil occultists, all straight out of the villain playbook. We did great things with them and we brought a lot of historical context and creative juxtaposition to the table, but that was twenty years ago.
When I look at the world now, I have to see the Cthulhu Mythos not as an end but as a means. Why would someone start worshipping a tentacle god? “Because they went insane!” is just not a good enough answer for me anymore. Everyone wants something — who benefits? — so when I look at the supernatural in Delta Green I ask how people would exploit it, not just worship it.
Even so, those kinds of rational motivations only help you understand how people start exploiting the Mythos; on a long enough timeline, they really do go insane and howl at the moon because that’s Lovecraft’s universe. But these days I’m much more interested in that early phase, when they have one foot in the unnatural and one foot in the mundane and you can still see the terrified human behind the mask of insanity as the door of reason closes on them forever.
The concept of insanity is one I often get curious about with games, as a person with bipolar disorder and PTSD, both of which often get made into a mockery. How do you write about these kinds of cosmic “insanities” – minds overwhelmed by some supernatural force – without sounding hackneyed, and without repeating previous work you’ve done for the game?
Unlike a novel, in game writing we mostly deal with externalities. We don’t typically get into inner monologues or thoughts or even much dialogue, so the usual ways writers depict mental issues in fiction don’t come up. Instead we rely on actions, agendas, and backstory to communicate character and that is where, in Lovecraftian gaming, we express our ideas about the mental states caused by exposure to the supernatural.
Fundamentally, the mental issues Lovecraft described were what “normal people” experience when their rational minds encounter the supernatural and experience an existential crisis that challenges their religious faith, their sense of the natural order, their belief in humanity’s primacy, and their logic and reason. At the climax of “The Rats in the Walls,” for example, the narrator’s discovery of his family’s ancestral secrets causes him to regress to a wild, primitive, and cannibalistic state.
But it’s noteworthy that Lovecraft does not necessarily treat his cultists this way. Wilbur Whateley in “The Dunwich Horror,” for example, is a half-human child of an Outer God and a human cultist mother, but he has no serious problems checking out library books or navigating human society. Herbert West, while not exactly a cultist, is a classical mad scientist but is fully functional and even rational in his extreme experiments. The unnamed cultists around the world in “Call of Cthulhu” are presented as typical “savages” — dancing around bonfires, conducting sacrifices, that sort of thing — and are probably the closest to the RPG’s conception of madness in this sense. But I believe their behavior is presented more as a cultural phenomenon, the result of their secluded upbringing and indoctrination, rather than madness per se.
I think where Lovecraft was coming from was that ordinary people who experience this kind of crisis may break down, but those who have accepted the truth of reality can live their lives even if they’re unusual ones. The Whateleys are doing just fine. And even some ordinary people, such as Doctor Armitage, can challenge the supernatural and emerge intact through force of will.
When Chaosium first created the Call of Cthulhu RPG, they took Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu makes you crazy” idea and applied fifty years of psychology to present a diverse array of game-able mental problems that went far beyond the general hysteria or depression Lovecraft evoked. Of course, they were generally neurotypical designers writing for a hypothetically neurotypical audience and weren’t necessarily considering the reaction of people who fall outside that range.
Our Delta Green RPG’s focus on Bonds is, I think, a more productive approach for the future. You can stay away from the cliches of diagnoses but still demonstrate the trade-offs our characters make in this fictional context between home and work, family and obsession, socializing and isolation. We didn’t jettison the old Sanity approach by any means, but Bonds are a narrative way of expressing the fundamental corrosion and I think a more frequent and meaningful tool at the table.
With The Labyrinth, I’m not concerned with specific labels or diagnoses. When I write of a character who is slipping into obsession and madness, my interest lies in how this impacts their life and what it means for the Agents who have to deal with the consequences. From a narrative perspective, that’s much more useful and interesting than declaring that a given character has Borderline Personality Disorder, for example.
I’m really interested in the stretch goal with props! How do you plan to create those props and interesting bits and pieces? How do they integrate with the sourcebook? The Labyrinth is a sourcebook, not a set of adventures, so it’s somewhat unusual to create handouts for it. But my hope is that for many Handlers, the Labyrinth will infect their campaign and even hijack it. The characters you meet from the book have their own agendas and arcs, and even when the Agents aren’t thinking about them, they’re thinking about the Agents. And every organization in the book has connections to several other organizations, so once you enter you can really go in all kinds of directions.
Our hope is that the handouts will transform the Labyrinth’s organizations into an organic, dynamic campaign that just goes even if the Handler isn’t using a prewritten scenario for a given session. They will provide clues and connections that can lead from one group to another, introducing more characters, opportunities, and challenges.
Ultimately, I’d love for a gaming group to have a corkboard covered in Labyrinth handouts with push pins and strings connecting them together so that their friends and family wonder: are they totally losing it?
— Thank you so much John for such a fun and informative interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Delta Green: The Labyrinth today on Kickstarter!
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
Bastion, one of the GallantVerse Iconics! Art by Nicolás Giacondino
Tell me a little about Tiny Supers! What excites you about it?
Oh, that’s hard to answer. I grew up loving Superheroes. I’ve struggled with mental illness for a very large part of my life, and comics were a big part of that recovery and healing process for me. I’m a person who needs a goal and aspiration, and superheroes provide that to me. Tiny Supers and the GallantVerse are my love letter to one of the most formative parts of my life.
How do the narrative bangs and pows of Supers integrate with the mechanics of TinyD6? What have you done to create the heroic “feel”?
Well, Narratively, the powers in Tiny Supers aren’t focused on “ranks” or who is stronger. It’s focused on the needs of the narrative. Much like comic powers vary based on the writer, Tiny Supers has some “flex” inside it’s system, due to it’s nature of a minimalist game line. We’ve worked extensively to make sure powers are flexible, interesting, and dynamic.
Ryker Swift, aka Velocity! One of the Iconic GallantVerse Heroes. Art by Nicolás Giacondino
What is the GallantVerse like? Who are some of the major players and what’s at stake?
Well, the GallantVerse is a fledging supers universe. Most of the supers are under 5 years of tenure. A majority of the lead-in stakes revolve around heroes learning the limits of what being a hero means in the eyes of the public and their own conscience. It focuses on hope, optimisim, and being a beacon. There’s a lot that can feel oppressive, cynical and bitter, and while we shouldn’t avoid confronting the harsh and hard things in life, having a place to escape where it’s a little easier to be a hero can be fantastic. That’s the Goal of the GallantVerse. We have a slew of Iconic Heroes like Gallant (our Paragon), Velocity (a Speedster), Bastion (the leader of our teen hero team The Bulwarks), and so much more.
What does a typical Super look like in Tiny Supers, mechanically?
TinyD6 functions on a simple system of 1, 2, or 3 six-sided dice. Heroes will roll a number indicated by their abilities/powers and if any dice results in a 5 or 6, they’re successful. Power Traits often will increase chances of success, either by granting the third d6, giving a better range of success, or allowing a unique set of actions. Heroes will have an Archetype that gives them a special Trait, and then they’ll select 3-6 Traits/Power Traits. That’s it! It’s very easy to make a character.
What makes a Tiny Super look the most different from a character in another Tiny d6 game?
The Power Traits, and Nicolas Giacondino’s fantastic art! Our book is so beautifully illustrated because Nic does such great work.
The Iconic Hero and paragon of the GallantVerse, Gallant! Art by Nicolas Giacondino
What is Atisi, both as a product and as your vision?
Atisi is a work of love and research — I’ve put a good effort in mixing the various cultures depicted in the book with something a game designer should never forget: playability. The best reference book would be meaningless in a gaming table if the material there is not able to make the players excited about it and eager to play. In other words, I’ve hit the books about sub-Saharan people, sought real life for inspiration, but I’ve also considered what fiction tells about all those, directly and indirectly. So, if one wants a simple answer, Atisi could be compared to Conan in Stygia, but it’s (a lot) more than that.
Consider this point: people in Atisi are not the Caucasian Eurocentric types. This, for once, is a change of paradigm when compared to standard sword & sorcery. The original book (Atisi was published in Portuguese powered by Barbarians of Lemuria system) was even used as a tool for teaching children about ethnics/racial diversity, so I believe I transcended the original goal — I wanted a fun campaign setting to play, but I’ve also got a kind of bridge able to bring people together. So, as a campaign setting for Dungeon World, Atisi is a book that goals beyond describing the world: it gives the Game Master tools to create her own setting, as the multitude of questions (each point of interest on the map — big enough to include lots of blanks to be filled later — has its own set of questions, for example) will help the gaming table make it unique. This means the playbooks, the moves, the magic items, the monsters, the people, and the landscape add together to make this an exquisite sword & sorcery campaign setting. And as Atisi (one of the insular realms of the setting, and focus to this book) is inspired by a fantastic Egypt, you’ll surely find a lot of adventure inside the mysterious pyramids that dot the place.
It’s 280-pages full of wonders for the Game Master and the players, and we have 70% of the basic goal funded already (at the time of writing this). I’m pretty sure we’ll fund this crowdfunding project soon and aim toward the first stretch goal.
I’d love to hear about your research. What are some of the things you’ve researched that you’re really enjoying putting forward in the text? Did anything surprise you?
At first it’s difficult to leave the castles and crusades behind, the knights in shining armor, the dragons… As we are all the fruit of our past experiences — and we are usually surrounded by Medievalish and Eurocentric settings — I had to approach everything with a clean mind. A blank canvas, to be honest. I was already familiar with the writings of Robert Ervin Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Jessica Amanda Salmonson (to name a few), so my sword & sorcery background was sound. What I needed was to focus on the people and their mythology.
What we call mythology, however, is another people’s religion — and I’ve learned a lot about Kemetism (a revival of Ancient Egyptian religion) and African religion (there’s a shamanic vibe in those, but it’s a lot more than that) — and I needed to respect that. This led me to many monsters of legend particular to Sub-Saharan Africa and I’ve tried the best to convey their spirit (even if I used different names).
Learning about the people, the culture, was also delightful. There’s such a vast amount of details that, together, creates a wonderful tapestry. There’s honor. There’s mutual respect. There’s a constant fight for survival. And those reflect today, as those values were never lost.
Yet I’m no Historian. So I grabbed some of my research and talked to some scholars (I dare to call them such, as this makes my writing journey a little more epic, don’t you agree?) to give me a better perspective of everything I was learning at the time: History and Sociology professionals were my best friends during those research phases of my work.
And I’m glad I’ve learned so much. It gave me a better notion of who I am, as I believe we only know about us when we learn about others.
Sample image by Brazilian artist Paloma Diniz.
How do you envision the material you’ve researched and developed will integrate with Dungeon World? How will it work together mechanically?
Not everything was “translated” into rules. After all, Ancient Worlds: Atisi is a game, not a treaty on those cultures. And another important thing: this is a fantasy world, not an exact replica of the reality (albeit real world sometimes is more fantastic than we can conceive at first, there are limits on what is “gameable”). So the heroes, the Player Characters, are larger than life, with abilities that mimic the legends, not the ordinary people (and, as a side note, I need to thank David Guyll and Melissa Fisher for the help in designing the playbooks — they were fantastic people to work with). Monsters of ancient tales are part of the landscape, old stories are forged once again and are transformed in tidbits of the lore of the places of the kingdoms of the land…
This means magical items and monsters, while inspired by Egyptian mythology, have their own tags and moves, becoming familiar to those used to Dungeon World. Even each point of interest becomes an adventure in itself (like a proto-dungeon starter), but none are set on stone as the related questions the GM may ask are able to turn Atisi into a unique setting for each gaming table.
Of course, everything is already written and playtested: I’ve started this crowdfunding campaign with a set goal in mind and the backers are already receiving an “alpha” version of the book, so they can start playing right now, even before the campaign ends. This way, all mechanics are already interwoven with the setting, as one reinforces the other.
Tell me a little about Gather: Children of the Evertree. What excites you about it?
Gather: Children of the Evertree is a worldbuilding game built around a freeform/LARP style of play. I call it a “roundtable LARP” because while you’ll be immersed and in-character from start to finish you’re still sitting around a table with friends while you play. In Gather, you take on the role of Speakers – each of you an elected representative chosen by your respective Kinship or community – that have crossed the vastness of the Evertree to attend an annual meeting known as the Gather. In theory, the Gather is a great idea. Every year the Kinships of the Evertree may send a Speaker to go the Gather and discuss the previous year, talk about shifts and changes, discuss the affairs of the world, and so on. However, the Gather is a meeting so saturated with laws and customs that trying to conduct this meeting is often frustrating, limited, and feels almost alien and otherworldly (to the players) in its execution. The rules that govern the Gather don’t only limit what you can talk about, but how you can talk about it.
Practically, the game is played out with a deck of cards. The game is GM-less, zero prep, you just draw the first card and dive right in. The cards explain how to play, provide a little bit of information about the world in which you live, and then present the heart of the game – a number of Question cards. You’ll draw a card, ask the question to the group, and then the answers to these questions form the “discussion” of the Gather. What’s exciting about this is that every question and answer helps to shape the world around this meeting. Not just in abstract ways, but in how the world relates to the Kinships gathered at the meeting. We see the world through their eyes, and that’s what shapes it. A few small pieces of setting at the start, along with the questions, provide the edges of the world, but you fill in the rest of it as you play – what’s going on in this world, how do these Kinships interact, what threats are out there, what has happened, what is going to happen. It’s all hashed out as you play, and presented as it relates to the people who live within the world. In that way, the world is built less by images on a map, and more by the relationships and connections that fill it, which means that the parts of the world that you’re going to really dig into and flesh out are the ones that you’re interested in, and that you want to see more of.
How did you write the question cards and keep them from being boring or repetitive?
Every time you play, you’re playing with twenty question cards. Twenty-one if you count “By what name is your Kinship called?” which is always the introductory example question given near the start of each session to get players accustomed to how questions are asked and answered. Of the twenty remaining questions, five are set. Essentially, how large is your Kinship, what do you have a lot of, what do you have a shortage of, how many have joined your Kinship this past year, and how many have left or died. Thematically, these five questions were the ones asked at the very first Gather ever to be held, and so they have been asked at every Gather since. Conveniently, these also help players setup the boundaries and pillars of the world and Kinships so we can see the stakes we’re working with.
Beyond these, there are fifteen additional question cards. There are pulled, at random, from a deck of fifty when you’re setting up for your session. Thematically, these are questions that have been asked at other Gathers that have come and gone in previous years, since each time the Gather meets a new question is added to the collection (more on that in a bit). This provides you with a lot of variation when you play. Every time you sit down for a session you could choose to revisit a Kinship you’ve played before, or make one entirely new, and this may change how you play and the interactions you have with others. However, changing what the questions are from session to session and, just as importantly, changing the order in which they’re asked will drastically alter how players approach the game, and the themes that are present at your table.
After these twenty question cards have been gone through, every player has a chance to ask one question of their own design to the group. Once these have all been asked and answered, a vote is held, and a single player-generated question is added permanently to the game for a chance to be asked at all future Gathers.
Tell me more about the Kinships. How are they made up? What meaning do they have?
Your Kinship is the community, family, guild, nation, or assembly that you have come to the Gather on behalf of. It’s your job to represent your Kinship as their Speaker. Every player takes the role of a Speaker, each of them from a different far-flung Kinship scattered across the Evertree. To take up the role of Speaker is a heavy responsibility because within the Gather you don’t even speak as an individual. Every word you speak carries the weight of your entire Kinship behind it, so it is tradition to hear Speakers use words like “we”, “us”, and “our” rather than “I” and “me”.
Kinships start as nothing more than a name. While you’re learning how to play the game players are given an introductory example question which is: “By what name is your Kinship called?” Everyone then has the opportunity to name their Kinship. You know a little bit about the world at that point, about the Evertree in which you reside, but beyond that the name of your Kinship is entirely up to you. You’ll announce it, and then write it down on a notecard for all to see. Maybe you’re The Branch Tenders. Maybe you’re The Forgotten. Maybe you’re the Astral Cardinals. Maybe you’re Those Whom The Rot Found. Whatever you’d like. After the Kinships are named however, and you start into the first few questions of the Gather, magic happens and these communities that didn’t even have a name fifteen minutes ago suddenly come to life. All of the Gathers questions relate back to these Kinships, how they’re doing, what they need, and what they have to offer, so every time someone answers a question you learn a little bit more about what that Kinship is, who they are, and how their little corner of the world works.
Video by Galactic Network talking with Stephen about Gather.
How does player interfacing with the layers of tradition and rules at the Gather influence storytelling?
To really explain this, let’s delve a bit into the mechanics behind the Gather, because how the “laws” of the Gather force you to engage in this meeting directly influence how storytelling takes shape. Once players have gotten past the setting cards and the “how to play” cards they’re left with the core of the game – the question cards. When a Speaker flips a question card they read it aloud. As an example, the question might be “Has war been brought upon you by another this past year, whether by words, stones, powder, or hex?” All of the Speakers then consider their answer to this question, and at the moment the Speaker who read the question discards the card all of the Speakers answer the question on behalf of their Kinship in unison. This unified answering is a critical component of the laws that govern the Gather as a sign of respect to all Kinships. No one Kinship’s voice is more important than another. Every Speaker begins the game with three tokens, and after this cacophonous answer is given to a question, Speakers may offer their tokens to their fellow Speakers, offering them to anyone they’d like to hear more from. This could be if you heard someone give an intriguing answer through the din, or for any number of other reasons. Once all of these tokens have been handed out, if you’ve been granted such a token (and have accepted it) you have the opportunity to state your answer once more. This time, you’ll say it by yourself, and may elaborate on it if you’d like.
For example, if you heard me say something about hexes amid the united answer, you might offer me a token to hear more because hey, hexes are cool. If accepted I would repeat my answer and elaborate on it. For instance, I might say “Yes, a war of hexes. We believe the Rotchildren have laid a hex upon our crops. They do not grow, they only crumble and spoil in the fields.” Maybe I’ve just called out another one of the Kinships at the table, or maybe I’ve invented a new one. Now that I’ve given my answer, any Speaker may offer me another token to speak further, but these must be paired with a question. If I accept the token I must answer the question. So, you might ask me: “Believe? Do you have any proof that it was the Rotchildren?” If I accept your token, I’ll respond. “Technically, no. But we know the ways of the Rotchildren. This is how they work. Everywhere they travel in the Evertree they bring destruction with them. They have always looked on our lands with envy.” Again, any Speaker might offer me a token with a new question, and this will continue until either all questions have been asked and answered or until I refuse to answer a question. Perhaps the Speaker for the Rotchildren offers me a token and asks “And who exactly did that land of yours belong to before you stole it away?” If I hold up my hand and refuse to answer (sometimes a far more dramatic choice than answering) my time to speak is done and we move on to the next Speaker who was given one of the initial tokens.
While everything outside of the question cards and the initial setting information is entirely improvised and created by the players during play, this playstyle of questions and answers creates built-in prompts for storytelling to build off of. You’re never presented with a blank canvas and told to “go!” instead you’re guided more easily into collaborative storytelling by building off of each other’s prompts, questions, and answers.
What themes and setting elements do you think Gather does best, and what unusual possibilities are there to explore in the worldbuilding?
The structure of Gather’s gameplay is very similar to the Evertree itself. A good way to think about the game is to think about the question cards and the answers given in unison as the trunk of the tree. These are the solid foundation of the world. A question tells us things about the world, and the answers tell us things about the Kinships. From there, players have the ability to go down these tangents of questions and answers, literally off-shooting from the trunk like branches. These branching paths of answers, questions, more answers, and more questions allow you to follow these paths of story and worldbuilding as far as you’d like, letting players focus in on what is cool to them and really digging into the threads that excite everyone, before coming back to the trunk and shooting off onto the next branch. Finally, when all the branches you want to explore have been explored, we move up the tree to the next piece of the trunk.
I know that freeform, live action, or improv-heavy games can be intimidating to more traditional tabletop groups, but as with many of my games I have endeavored to make Gather a more guided experience. It’s like an improv with a safety net. Even if you’re not quick on your feet with creating answers that doesn’t matter as much because you can just speak quietly and let you half-answer get lost in the din. Not interested in exploring your thread further? You can always reject tokens. There are a lot of options here even for people who may not be as comfortable spinning worlds off the top of their heads.
What’s especially fun to explore in the worldbuilding is that there are very few boundaries. This world can truly be what you’d like it to be. And even if you play the same Kinship session after session, that doesn’t mean that anything about the world or the Kinships within it will stay the same. Are there societies and cities in the Evertree’s branches? Are you human? Are you a nest of birds? Nearly anything is possible, so the possibilities from session to session are endless. I anticipate that this is a game that will fuel fantastic, terrifying, and beautiful concepts for Kinships that will keep you wanting to come back to the table with it to try out your next great idea.
Lovely image of the Gather: Children of the Evertree title.
