{"id":1107,"date":"2019-04-10T14:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2021-11-16T00:39:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T05:39:03","slug":"five-or-so-questions-on-sundown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2019\/04\/five-or-so-questions-on-sundown\/","title":{"rendered":"Five or So Questions on Sundown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have an interview today with L A Wilga and James Lader on the new roleplaying game Sundown<\/a>, which is currently on Kickstarter<\/a>! It sounds like a really interesting new game and I’m excited for it. Check out the interview below, and the Kickstarter too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustration
Sundown’s cover art by Mayara Sampaio.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tell me a little about Sundown. What excites you about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L A:<\/strong> So, Sundown is a rules light tabletop roleplaying game. It\u2019s set in a pre-industrial frontier where, instead of magic, we have \u201cscience.\u201d Science is the intersection of two things. Wonders: inventions that just make everyone\u2019s life easier, and changing: the art of taking someone and reshaping their flesh. In fewer words, engineering and biology<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two main facets to the game: surviving the wild, with fauna just as changed and dangerous as the folk, and surviving the politics, with a power struggle in every town and a populace that needs you but doesn\u2019t want you.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I certainly get excited to face down giant winged frogs and angry murderbirds, my pink undershave flowing in the wind, but I find catharsis in the politics. You have to navigate finding work, getting paid, finding a place to stay, making friends, and avoiding the authorities as someone disdained by most of society. It\u2019s an experience I think most in our queer rpg community will recognize.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s kind of like a cyberpunk game with the punk aesthetic, the politics, and the transhumanism, but if you took away its technology and sent it to the West Marches.

J L:<\/strong> I\u2019m really excited about how much control you have over your body in Sundown. Changes are probably my favorite part of our game, because as a trans man, being able to reshape your body on a whim is the ultimate fantasy. And I\u2019m sure other people think that\u2019s super cool too.

The other thing I\u2019m excited about is intentionally including politics in the premise. Social strife is the lifeblood of this game, where more of the people are monsters than the fiends. I really like that the direction of your career can be toppling the ruling class in Cragsmouth, or becoming a thief-assassin who saves themselves at all costs. You make your way through Sundown by surviving how best you can, and it really mirrors to me how to navigate a world where a lot of the power isn\u2019t yours.\f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

You talk about the Changing. How does Changing work, and are there any special benefits or consequences from it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L A:<\/strong> This is a good question, because people tend to assume that you just drink a potion and seconds later you have claws or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changes are made by a scientist specialized in changing, and in a laboratory devoted to changing. You get stuffed into an egg-like pod with the changing agents and a medium called lungwater that keeps you alive for the weeks or months your changes take. Breaking down flesh and building it back up takes a lot of time and energy. When you break out of your egg, you\u2019re ravenously hungry, everything is too bright, and you just want to go back to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing agents are derived from plants and animals out in the wild that have already been observed to do… something to people. Indigoji turns your skin purple, for instance. Modern changes were discovered by blending random assortments together and logging the resulting effect on humans, not all of them consenting test subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J L: <\/strong>Changing is arduous. It really does mirror the transition process in the real world, but it\u2019s less limited. It\u2019s expensive to get access to changes. Special equipment and making sure you don\u2019t die in stasis isn\u2019t cheap. The time cost, too, matters. And some changes can stress your body. It\u2019s not a perfect science, and you can end up with additional things that identify you as a changeling, like black nails when you asked for super strength. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also did name the pods where Changes happen eggs. That\u2019s not a very subtle metaphor I think. If people know you\u2019re a changeling, too, they\u2019ll treat you very different. The best reaction you can expect in most of Sundown is mild disdain, which is very real. So if people know you\u2019re a changeling, that alone is a consequence.\f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustration
This was labeled frogbeast, which I think is such a fun name!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How do your identities as queer and trans (or queer\/trans identities in general) reflect in the broader world beyond the Changing? Do they relate to Wonders, or even to the politics?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L A:<\/strong> We didn\u2019t really use wonders to say anything about queerness or transness, they\u2019re kinda just neat things, like goggles that let you see at night. We definitely do intend, though, for guns to be a symbol of the class war. Did we mention there\u2019s guns? They\u2019re more like railguns than gunpowder guns. They use a fictional material called floatstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is this wonder called pitch, though. It\u2019s a black syrup thing that\u2019s injected, and it knits your body back together after some nasty injuries. The catch, though, is if you use too much, you run the risk of becoming a pitchblood. Basically, your blood is replaced with pitch. You lose twenty years off your life, but you\u2019re near invincible. I think some folk can sympathize with that sort of deal-with-the-devil transformation?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beau’s Note: This specific one reminds me of my own experiences with lithium as someone with bipolar disorder, to be honest.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L A, continued:<\/strong> The politics is really where our queerness comes through. For one, if you have any sort of visible change, which includes things like colored hair, over half of the people in Sundown won\u2019t really want anything to do with you. Not to mention you\u2019re already othered because of your profession. The isolationists of Sundown really don\u2019t like outsiders doing their work for them. Too bad they need drifters like you for things like translation, bounty hunting, and trailblazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J L:<\/strong> Definitely. The otherism experienced in Sundown based on being a drifter is pretty much a direct metaphor for how it feels to be disdained and desired. Very much as a queer person it\u2019s easy to feel consumed and discarded at the earliest opportunity, and since you\u2019re a travelling contractor, it\u2019s even more direct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think, honestly, the other parts of the system also show some of the good parts of being queer, too. When you create your character, for example, your character is rooted in the people at your table. One of the traits that embodies who you are is defined by your relationship to another character at the table. Drifters often are building an intentional community, a network of people who know where the good work is, who you should work with on what jobs, where it\u2019s safe to travel, and sharing stories of your best exploits. I think that really reflects how queer and trans folx band together to keep each other safe and loved in a world that is otherwise hostile to them.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
James Lader.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How are things like changing and wonders, and those politics you discuss, mechanized or formalized in the game?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

J L:<\/strong> So all of these things involve infamy, which is the currency we use in Sundown. Infamy isn\u2019t coin, though, it\u2019s a representation of your influence in the area, and how well people know you. The more infamy you have garnered, the more leverage you have. Political action that earns infamy takes place during heats, the jobs drifters take on every month. You might slay fiends, debate a public official, steal from a guild, or lead an uprising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting wonders and changes requires you to spend your infamy to obtain them. Some wonders are special and rare enough to use your downtime between heats as well as your infamy to obtain them. Changes always take downtime, and usually cost infamy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the neat things about infamy is that you only have so much influence you can gain, and once you use that leverage, it\u2019s gone. You have to think carefully about what you want to achieve and use that influence wisely.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L A:<\/strong> Ok so James mentioned heats. That\u2019s basically an adventure, and downtime is the time between them. We intend for downtime to be played kind of like play-by-post between sessions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you make improvements to your character that involve big investments of time, like learning a new skill or rebuilding your fleshy prison, you do that during your downtime. Spending your infamy on changes is just one of the things you can spend your downtime on.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J L:<\/strong>Downtime is when most of your character improvements can happen, so you have to choose really carefully what you want to spend your time on between jobs. Sundown is a hard place to be and choosing to better your traits or gain cat ears can be life or death. It\u2019s really tricky because you can also only get so many things before not having any more infamy to gain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have you done with the game to support players in exploring these relatively serious subjects, including consent and safety mechanics and other aspects of your design?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

J L:<\/strong> One of the first sections of the book is a consent tool we developed based on our stress mechanic. Stress is sort of a measure of your character\u2019s health, and it worked really well to measure how safe a topic was for the players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also reinforce throughout the book to be mindful of others at the table, to use additional safety and consent tools you might be more familiar with, and to check in with your fellow players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are really hard topics and not everyone wants certain themes in the game, and we went out of our way to remind people to check in, and check often.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L A:<\/strong> Regarding serious subjects, I wrote from my own experience as a poor queer person, and I think the queerphobia and classism and Sundown really reflect that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the experiences I haven\u2019t lived, we took on two non-white sensitivity editors. Their input was invaluable for fleshing out the cultures that have made their way to Sundown in a respectful manner.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I\u2019m disabled too, James has far more lived experience in that regard. The section on disabled drifters in the intro section is entirely his doing.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time there\u2019s a \u201cmake sure you check in with your fellow players\u201d regarding a marginalized identity, all four of us had a hand in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awesome! Thank you to L A and James for the interview! I hope that you enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Sundown on Kickstarter today<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have an interview today with L A Wilga and James Lader on the new roleplaying game Sundown, which is currently on Kickstarter! It sounds like a really interesting new game and I’m excited for it. Check out the interview below, and the Kickstarter too! — Tell me a little about Sundown. What excites you … Continue reading “Five or So Questions on Sundown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[390],"tags":[20,10,4,17,25,46,8,15,12,33,26,23,18],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","tag-five-or-so","tag-game-design","tag-games","tag-gaming","tag-interviews","tag-queer","tag-roleplaying-games","tag-rpg","tag-rpgs","tag-social-justice","tag-story-games","tag-tabletop-games","tag-tabletop-rpgs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/sundown-cover-art_Mayara-Sampaio-1.jpg?fit=3544%2C5108&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paHOcG-hR","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2018\/06\/five-or-so-questions-on-champions-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":1107,"position":0},"title":"Five or So Questions on Champions Now","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"June 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi all!I did an interview with Ron Edwards on his Kickstarter project, Champions Now! Ron prepared our audio recordings and edited everything into a video, so you get to hear the interview on the following video. I hope you enjoy it and that you'll check out Champions Now on Kickstarter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":200,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2017\/02\/thoughty-talking-companions-tale-with-laura-simpson\/","url_meta":{"origin":1107,"position":1},"title":"Thoughty: Talking Companions Tale with Laura Simpson","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"February 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Check out my interview with Laura Simpson on Companions' Tale, currently on Kickstarter!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.","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":251,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2016\/10\/city-of-mist-loot\/","url_meta":{"origin":1107,"position":2},"title":"City of Mist Loot!","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"October 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm posting an interview on Monday with Amit Moshe about his upcoming game City of Mist, a superhero noir game hitting Kickstarter this month. Amit sent me some of the incredibly beautiful character playbooks in the mail, and combined with those and the free downloadable starter set, I'm pretty amped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-5P6TClR5gJI\/WAV--NWkUZI\/AAAAAAAAzZg\/zq9BNb2YVlU1PvGpwWJJPSYzHyAS-lteACLcB\/s320\/BrieIMG_20161017_213802.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2018\/10\/turn-on-kickstarter\/","url_meta":{"origin":1107,"position":3},"title":"Turn on Kickstarter!","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"October 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Turn is now LIVE on Kickstarter!https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/briecs\/turn-a-tabletop-roleplaying-gameThoughty 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.","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2016\/02\/upcoming-tavern-tales-interview\/","url_meta":{"origin":1107,"position":4},"title":"Upcoming Tavern Tales Interview!","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"February 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey everyone!Monday morning I'll have a blog post coming out about Tavern Tales, which is currently on Kickstarter!Tavern Tales is the game that I played that brought about Stories Here in Maelstrom Paramour (my G+ collection), and it is a really fun, customizable system. Dabney Bailey, the creator, is really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-ASAFSGjHMGQ\/VrZRklYnz7I\/AAAAAAAAWjA\/GnteDYgE76g\/s400\/Alchemy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2018\/05\/five-or-so-questions-on-yarnia\/","url_meta":{"origin":1107,"position":5},"title":"Five or So Questions on Yarnia","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"May 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi all! Today I have an interview with Tania Richter about Yarnia - A Yarn Quest Knitting RPG, Tania's roleplaying game using knitting that's currently on Kickstarter!--A lovely dragonfly patterned shawl.Tell me a little about Yarnia. What excites you about it? Yarnia is a quiet little land that has a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"a person facing a snow covered scene, spreading their arms out to show a green and black shawl patterned like a dragonfly.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-zyK-IKa8nLU\/WwIxUoQAX9I\/AAAAAAAB6gE\/ULSR_DSKiAEpteEeUfzfcIzuC3kzgpbMgCLcBGAs\/s400\/Dragonfly1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}