Interviewing Rori

By Alex White

- 3 minutes read - 531 words
A game like a paranormal TV show, guided by cards and scrabble tiles? Tell me more!

Please tell me a bit about yourself

I go by Rori (my favourite nickname for Victoria) and I’m a 40-something y/o white woman who uses she/her pronouns. My background is in particle accelerator physics, and even though I left the field several years ago I feel like that background lingers on in the way I design and structure my games. I’m also a musician (I play cello & piano), and I love to draw and paint.

logo for Montford Tales. A white floofy cat and behind is an orange circle with red outlines and the text 'more than fluff'

What do you like best about designing games?

The absolute best bit comes after the initial idea. Finding a mechanical representation of that initial thought, then fine-tuning it and seeing what it becomes, is incredibly interesting.

What are you working on at the moment, and what excites you about it?

I’m working on two things at the moment: Asher’s Ridge and a campaign expansion for my previous two games. The campaign is exciting because it makes me look at those last two games in a different way, which is quite nice after all the time spent making them. Asher’s Ridge has been a brilliant design journey for me. It began as two separate concepts that ‘clicked’ together one day. I’ve refined it quite a bit from the initial “ah-ha” moment, but I can still see the original ideas in there. I’m particularly enthusiastic about Asher’s Ridge because I find great satisfaction in creating a story from the restricted-but-freeform prompts that letter tiles and playing cards give. It is very much a game for me I hope other people might enjoy.

Can you tell me more about those prompts?

I love restricted-but-freeform prompts. It’s a topic to “think within”, which means I don’t spiral off in too many directions. Sometimes they’re open questions and part of the question is that restriction, e.g. “Why does X, Y, or Z frighten you?” compared to “Why are you frightened?” (I much prefer the former). Yet the prompts are still freeform in the sense that there is no right, wrong, or obvious answer; only an answer that moves the story forward. In Asher’s Ridge, this comes from the combination of threads (words drawn from letter tiles) and locations (places where things happen) and finding the story that happens in that space.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players? Where do they find the fun in your game?

I’m unsure if I’m aiming for a specific experience for players, but I am aiming for a specific experience for me when I play it. I enjoy the buzz of possibilities that happen when playing; like Schrödinger’s Cat where all sorts of possibilities are in the box but you don’t know what will actually happen until you get that narrative prompt and watch it all resolve. I hope my games pass the same feeling on.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

I’m running a Kickstarter campaign right now for Asher’s Ridge: A 1-4 player game about paranormal drama television in a Twin Peaks meets X-Files setting. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montfordtales/ashers-ridge?ref=16m84q

A collage showing the book cover with the title, a map, string, polaroid photographs and scrabble tiles spelling out the subtitle 'A paranormal drama'

Where should people go to follow you, and to find your products?

Folks can find me and my work on