Although it is a three day event, I just went along on the Saturday. I’ve not got a table, nor have I booked into any games. I just wanted to visit, see the lie of the land, maybe spend a bit of money, maybe try some small demo games.

I've heard that over the weekend they had 87,837 attendees, with 51,196 unique ticket holders. It didn't feel as crowded as when I visited two years ago; that may have been because it was stretched across more halls, or they allowed wider corridors between stands. Probably a bit of both.

It was delightful to see a few cosplayers wandering around with marvellously crafted outfits. Lots of families with small children enjoying the event too. Painting tables where people of all ages were studiously working on miniatures painting. It was very noisy but there was an extraordinarily joyful atmosphere.

This is what my day looked like:

10:30 arrived at the hall (90 minute drive, 15 minute queuing to get to parking, 25 minute walk from car park to halls). Badge queue was relatively short at that time, so I then wandered around to try to get a sense of place, and to find out where two stalls were that I was going to help on a little. First I tracked down Compose Dream, the Canadian and UK distributor who carry some of my games and wanted a little extra stock. I dropped off some additional copies of The Long Road Home, Love & Barbed Wire, Tail-End Charlie and new to them A Cool and Lonely Courage. Then I said hello to folks at the UK TIN stand (who are pictured in the banner looking happy) on my way to find Patchwork Fez. The convention is huge, and even with a map and their helpful ‘street labelling’ it was still extraordinarily difficult to find people!

11:30 met up with some old friends who had been touring the halls in the morning before gaming in the afternoon. Really nice to see them again, was surprised when one guy I didn't recognise said “Hi Alex!” He looked like a film star and I drew a total blank. Turns out I hadn’t seen him since he was 15 or so, and a lot can change in another 15 years!

12 noon I went to Patchwork Fez and helped out on their stand for a couple of hours. Sarah Cole (the writer of Terminus and other fine system-neutral horror adventures) had kindly agreed to host some other publishers, and she was carrying Expect Three Visitors and The Long Road Home for me. I enjoyed talking to customers about the games on display - there were about nine guest publications and several of them I knew fairly well, enabling me to explain them nearly as well as I could explain my own. See more about Patchwork Fez Games.

2pm I wandered the halls again. Had a bite to eat at rip-off prices (small chips and four tiny strips of chicken for £15?). Much better was finding some people I knew on stands. I had some chats with Gar at Pelgrane Press about the upcoming Merryshire Detective Club game, Nick Bate at the Black Armada stand about my renewed progress on Born to the Purple, and many others.

3pm joined the Compose Dream team and helped on their stand for over an hour. They sell a great range of games from lots of publishers, and had organised them into historical games, solo games, adventures and other kinds of categories. See more about games stocked by Compose Dream. And of course their Canadian Marketplace if you are on the other side of the pond.

4.30pm went to visit Big Table and had an interesting time listening to James Wallis talk to a number of people about the plans for Big Table (as a UK and Ireland industry body). Amongst the topics discussed were the difficulty businesses face when jumping from micro-business to the next tier and so on. Also great talking to Colm Lundberg, director of the Museum of Games Ireland who was there with him.

Then it was 6pm and the halls closed. There probably would have been an opportunity for socialising at the Hilton later, but I didn’t know where that was and it was going to take me over 2 hours to get home so I called it a day.

I also didn’t play any games, and my time ended up quite fragmented so I didn’t spend as much time perusing games as I might have done.

Turns out I didn’t buy any new games. There were some that caught my eye, but I’ve got too many unread games on my desk at the moment. I couldn’t in good conscience add to that pile!

What I learned

Firstly, this convention is so big that you really must plan what you are going to do in order to make the best of your time. Even if just coming as a visitor, I should have got a map of all the halls first, and made sure that I knew where all the stands I wanted to visit were, and plotted my way around them.

Secondly, I have to decide whether I would want to have a stand there next year (I'm thinking probably not just at the moment)

Thirdly, I ought to sign up to run some games next time. I enjoy running games anyway, and it's a great chance to do late stage playtesting with people that I don't know!

There are playbooks themed after flowers, each of which has a distinct set of characteristics and goals. It is a narrative story game and special tokens are used as mechanics in the game to take a bit of narrative authority - changing a reputation, making progress towards a goal, build ties of friendship and so forth.

The playtest version is currently available on itch here, and is well worth picking up. https://jen-adcock15.itch.io/before-the-season-ends-playtest

These excellent notes of Session 0 and Session 1 of a short playtest Campaign are courtesy of note-taker extraordinary, Camilla Zamboni (Seriously, her notebooks are amazing). Published her with her permission and with grateful thanks.

Characters

The Ivy - Margaret Wells - Camilla

Margaret Wells, 21. Older brother: Jonathan Wells, who know about her column writing

She is lithe, talkative, thoughtful to the point of being oblivious to her surroundings, at times sarcastic, and very well-read. She is a writer and is fascinated by poetry and Romanticism.

She is publishing under her initials, M.W. - advice columns in her town, and now dabbling in fiction (banking on Mary Wollstonecraft’s fame and ambiguity). She longs to be part of a literary salon.

Letter token: Jonathan tells Margaret to make sure that in her new experience and acquaintances, the words she gives and receives are always true. Margaret thinks this is good advice.

The Rose - Julia Talbot - Alex

Julia Talbot, 20. Demure, blonde-haired, blushing, dreamy-eyed.

Only child, no siblings; has grown up without much interaction, but reading lots of romance books. She has a very literary idea of friendship and love, and is a bit naive.

Comb token: Her governess told her that she’s lived a sheltered life, and she might offend someone accidentally. If that happens, she recommends that she be quick to apologize. Julia thinks this is good advice.

The Violet - Emmeline Crane - Colin

Emmeline Crane, 18, steady and self-assured. Believes herself to be the most observant person in the room. She went to etiquette school, and she is excellent at it. She is very polished, and wants everyone to see it. Very steady and self-assured. She has not interrogated who she is as a person.

Purse token: Emmeline’s family is new to money. They tell her that despite her education and properness, she might find that it is not enough - and what will overcome that is the power of the pound. Emmeline thinks this is good advice, but is worried about it.

The Matron / hostess and guide for the Season

Mrs. Mary Drake - a married woman of means and class who is able to chaperone girls during a Season in London. Staying in London is very expensive, and she offers to help. She is known to our families and a trusted person.

A middle-aged widow; her only child is already an adult off on his own, managing affairs away from London. She likes to guide girls for the Season, because she is a bit of a social butterfly herself and she misses the enthusiasm and excitement of the Season.

Living Arrangements

There are two rooms, and two of us will have to share a room. We have a small table, a bed, and a wardrobe

• Julia is excited to share a room! She runs in and spreads out wide in the room.
• Emmeline would love to not share a room with anybody, but out of courtesy lets Margaret take her own room. She is tidy and almost military in her packing.
• Margaret is worried about her habit of staying up late to write, so she asks and obtains to have her own room

We are staying in Mayfair, a fashionable place to stay. Carriages go by often, there is a wonderful large park in the neighborhood. Our house does not have a big garden, but there are other houses on the outskirts of town where there are green spaces and they throw garden parties.

04/12/2026 - Session 1 Mrs. Fitzroy’s Garden Party!

Beginning

We have been at Mrs. Drake’s house for a bit to rest after the carriage ride that took us into London. She tells us tomorrow will be our first outing in society and our first event for the Season. Every year she hosts a party in her wonderful garden, an event that is not quite as formal as a regular ball.

How do we get ready for the party?

• Emmeline studies the types of flowers that Londoners grow and gets herself ready to mingle thoughtfully and is ready to go before anyone else
• Margaret picks a green dress to blend in and prepares a notebook and charcoal
• Julia goes to comb Margaret’s hair and hums a child’s song, which the two chat about Miss Crane being very nervous and helping her out then they chat about the novel Emma, which they both like! They become friends and share their first names! They both gain a friendship petal.

Middle - The Main Event

Mrs. Drake has a lovely carriage, we all get into it and go to the garden party! It is at the outskirts of Mayfair. It is a gorgeous sunny day, not too cool nor hot.

At the gate we meet our hosts, two women:

• Mrs. Honoria Fitzroy - an older woman of wealth and status
• Miss Cecilia Fitzroy - a debutante at the Season, her granddaughter who looks distracted

Emmeline displays perfect etiquette in greeting the hosts, and gains immediate reputation. Mrs. Fitzroy is impressed and tells Mrs. Drake that finally she has brought not just country girls to the Season.

We get into the garden.

• To the left are charming pavilion tents to rest in the shade; all pink and white, with a few people having refreshments and chatting.
• Ahead of that, there is a setup for pall mall with mallets and balls and gates - with some gentlemen idly playing around.
• There is a greenhouse (rare) with some people around it, chatting.
• There is a hedge maze, with a young woman kind of looking like she wants to go in…

Julia wants to go play pall mall, and drags the others with her. There we are introduced to three gentlemen:

• Mr. Charles Green - kind, enthusiastic
• Mr. James Reed - tanned, athletic
• Mr. Oliver Lovell - pale, a bit uncomfortable

They ask us to play. Mr. Lovell admits he is more about studying and is attending Oxford currently. Margeret lights up and shares that she is from Oxford herself!

Margaret and Oliver chat while she helps him with learning the game, and he mentions that he enjoys poetry and reading more than sports. Margaret is charmed, but also notices that Oliver is quite awkward in interactions.

Charles and James appear to have set up a wager about our games, and Oliver lets it slip when talking to Margaret. Charles has bet that the gentlemen will win; James has bet that the ladies will win.

Julia talks with James and reacts playfully at their wager; he loves that she is a good sport about it and her reputation with him grows.

Meanwhile, Emmeline is talking to Charles and scolding him about betting on a game between sexes and at a proper event. She does so by creating a parable about doing so, and making it clear about the moral lesson… Charles does not like that, and her reputation with him decreases.

Toward the end of the game, Emmeline and Margaret decide to win the game. Margaret shows her actual expertise and hits a masterful stroke, winning the game. All cheer (except Charles), and Margaret proposes to go get refreshments at the tent.

We split up:

Margaret goes to the tents with Oliver Lovell and James Reed and asks them about their interests. Lovell says that he will become a clergyman, who should not write and engage too much with poetry. Margaret is a bit bored by this. But he also says he knows many people in London and goes to literary salons, and invites Margaret to join while she is here for the Season. She happily agrees.

Emmeline goes over to the greenhouse, where she sees plants that she had not prepared for! there are even orange trees and tropical plants! She meets Mr. Thomas Fittzroy and his wife Lucy Fitzroy on the door of the greenhouse. She knows that while he is technically the head of household, Grandma Fitzroy is still firmly in charge. He seems very taken with the greenhouse and its treasures, while Lucy seems more interested in talking about anything else. Emmeline talks to her and learns that their marriage was more an advantageous match than a love connection.

Julia decides to go to the hedge maze, where she sees a young and restless woman with a parasol. She is Miss Isabelle Porter, Mrs. Fitzroy's sister. They chat about being in London for the Season, and Julia compliments Isabelle. Julia shares that Margaret and Emmeline are both very smart: Emmeline knows everything, and Margaret is really clever!

They talk about women supporting each other, and not being nasty. Then they decide to go into the maze and chat about love. Isabelle has grand romantic ideas, and there is a special gentleman she really fancies and gushes about. Julia tells her to follow her heart, and Isabelle reveals that a loveless marriage has already happened

Julia and Isabelle start talking to one another with first names, and become friends.

Later the girls get back together at the garden party and share what they have learned. Margaret shares about Lovell and wanting to go to literary salons; Emmeline shares about the loveless marriage between Mr. Fitzroy, more interested in the plants than his wife, and Mrs. Fitzroy, who is wilting away. Julia shares about her chat with Isabelle Porter.

Julia asks Margaret and Emmeline to be sisters and friends. Emmeline says that in time that will happen but doesn't open up right away - a little cold-hearted…

Then we hear some commotion coming from the glasshouse. Mr Green flings the door open, comes rushing out, and says to bring something cold because Miss Cecilia Fitzroy has fainted inside from the heat!

Two women react quickly inside the tent: Lady Dolores Patterson and Mrs. Sophia Richmond comment on the situation - and Mrs. Richmon has smelling salts. Margaret grabs them and runs to Cecilia FItzroy. In the meantime, Julia runs in with some water, and calls on Mr. Reed to help her. He comes in with Mr. Green and they carry her out to the tents. Margaret arrives with the smelling salts and revives Cecilia Fitzroy, who blushes heavily for being ashamed.

Emmeline comes in with a sandwich and the girls bring her away from the crowd - they move her toward her grandmother, Mrs. Fitzroy, who takes her inside.

Julia goes up to Mr. Reed and touches him lightly on the bicep, thanking him. He smiles back.

Margaret hands back to Mrs. Richmond the smelling salts vial, thanking her and commenting on the beautiful engraving, which she has seen in France. Lady Patterson chimes in, showing an appreciation for art and chatting up with Margaret. Margaret is intrigued with the lady, who seems to know quite a bit about the arts.

Mrs. Drake joins us and tells us that the main event of the garden party is the archery contest!

Margaret and Emmeline go sit among the audience, deciding to keep track of the men’s skills. They sit next to Lady Patterson and Mrs. Richmond, and Margaret introduces Emmeline.

Julia decides to participate in the contest, even though it’s her first time with archery.

At some point, a gentleman arrives really late! Mrs. Drake looks alarmed, stands up, and goes to talk to him. Lady Patterson says that he is Mr. William Drake, son of Mrs. Drake, and she spills the tea about Mr. William Drake: he is unmarried, and he lives off in the countryside, not much is known about him.

After a little while, Mrs. Drake introduces him properly and says she did not expect to see him here. He is charming, with a lovely smile, and is excited about the archery contest.

Emmeline tells him he should make up for being late, verging on rude, and Miss Julia tries to apologize and mend the tense interaction.

Eventually, Mrs. Fitzroy and Cecilia come back from the house and join the party. Cecilia still looks a bit ashamed, but she sits by us. Margaret asks her about her proximity with Mr. Green, and Cecilia blushes again!

The archery contest starts!

Contestants: Mr. Charles Green, Mr. James Reed, Mr. William Drake, Mrs. Honoria Fitzroy as hostess, Miss Julia Talbot, Ser Horace Thrup

Mrs. Fitzroy does ok, Ser Horace Thrup does very badly and hits the hedge, Mr. Green does well and seems to be looking at Miss Cecilia Fitzroy especially, then Miss Julia gets the bow and Mr. Drake helps her touching her hand and all!, Miss Julia hits the target, then Mr. Reed and almost hits the center, finally Mr. Drake shoots very close to Mr. Reed.

When Mr. Drake is standing behind Miss Julia, she smells gin on his breath! Oh my, a rake! But then when he loses to Mr. Reed he is a good loser, and Mr. Reed is a graceful winner.

The party starts to slow down, and we take our leave.

Ending - In the carriage

We all have a scene together, sharing impressions.

Miss Julia Talbot is very excited about the event and about being close to men; she shares about Mr. Drake’s breath, and about James Reed’s good looks and athletic performance.

Miss Emmeline admits she enjoyed herself today, also because of us; she says she can be distant, but it takes time for her. She looks forward to more high-stakes events coming up.

Miss Margaret enjoyed the company of Emmeline and the comments, and feels that this was a great start and setup for a fruitful Season of contacts and artistic company.

We share the gossip of the day, our impressions, and make our way home. We record a memory into our scrapbooks.

The Basics

It isn’t a mere football game simulator, but focusses on individual footballers in a club during a league season. I’m not a football fan, but I really enjoyed playing the game, both on the pitch and off the pitch.

We created our club (AS Obispo, The Bishops) and agreed what kind of archetype our club was following. As our players included Americans, Italians and Brits, we decided it would be a French club. We had the “Fallen Champs” archetype: we used to be great, but have fallen on hard times since our star player left. Our fans are disillusioned, and our hope for the season is to place above our great rivals, Loup-garous Var (the werewolves). They are sponsored by tech-bros and are rolling in money.

We then each picked a footballer archetype. I was “the controversial”, other players were “the dependable backup” (Jen), “the young upstart” (Camilla) and “the past is behind them” (Ariele). Each archetype gives us certain talents, milestones, and relationships with other people. We then picked a position for our character which gives another skill that can be used in the game.

The basic flow of the game is alternating between matches and off-pitch relationships.

A match involves rolling dice each 15 minute period to see how we are doing against the opposition, and making choices like whether to pay to use a special ability, whether to commit a foul of some kind, how long we want to stay on for and whether we will take the risk of injury.

Between the matches are narrative scenes which develop the lives of our characters and serve as a focus for introducing (or handling) stress in their lives. These help us care about all the players as people.

Playing the Game

We alternate playing matches and then doing off-pitch scenes.

Matches

A match is played in six 15 minute periods, with a half time. Each player rolls 1d20 for their contribution during that period, with modifiers if special abilities come into play. The Bishops are a strength 3 club, so we have three people rolling for us. Your total is matched against the opposing club who roll a number of d20 according to their strength (typically between 2 and 4).

Compare the totals, and that tells us how closely we are matched, and gives us another table to roll on that tells us whether goals are scored that period and by whom.

As the match continues, there is an ebb and flow, sometimes with dramatic turn arounds!

Each player has conditioning which is used up by staying on the pitch and by using your special abilities. You can spend yourself into the negatives, but pushing yourself increases the chance of injury. If you are carrying stress (physical, emotional, or financial) you might find at half time that it will cause you problems. If you are carrying emotional states (Angry, Jealous, Demoralised, etc) then it reduces your effectiveness, giving a penalty die to subtract from your d20.

At the end of the match we use a simplified system to see how other matches in the league went that week, and update the overall league table.

Off-pitch

Players can request scenes or other players can suggest scenes for them (you get xp for suggesting scenes for other people, which helps us spend time thinking about what would be fun for the other players and not just focussing on yourself). There are a wide range of constituents outlined that you can interact with - coaches, media, family, physios, supporters, executives, and more. There are plenty of hints and tips about how to get the most out of them.

Most of these off-pitch scenes will introduce stress or problems of one kind or another!

Why I like this game

I love the alternation of match and off pitch scenes. I think the mechanics of the players, especially the archetypes with related skills and talents really draw me into the game. While I don't watch much football at all. this game really drew me into it on both a club and player level.

I like the match mechanics, with the die rolls, the comparison tables and results tables. They retain enough swinginess that the results are never a sure thing, and sometimes there are real underdog turn-arounds.

We've played four sessions and I would happily play to the end of the season to find out what happens in Tony's complicated life, and to see whether the Bishops beat their hated rivals - or even end up top of the league!

Normally I would have said I didn't have any interest in a sporting ttrpg. I was happy to be involved in playtests for Colin because I like to help out friends... but the passion and skill that he has brought into this game have converted me!

I would absolutely commend this game to you, whether you like football (soccer) or not. I think everyone who plays it will have an amazing time, and I can't wait for it to be finally released.

Where can you find the game

I think an ashcan is due to arrive on itch here, so follow Colin for notifications!

https://sociable-turtle-games.itch.io/

Would you like to see a story?

With many thanks to Colin, who captured most of these details in a thread on bluesky

AS Obispo start their season with a friendly visit from English club Northbrampton FC, before starting their season wearing their home green and purple kit against Lumière. Our players are:

• Julien Saunier (Jen), a Dependable Backup Attacking Midfielder, who acts as a reliably if understated facilitator when brought on during matches. He hopes to be able to support his teammates from the bench, while also seeking to engineer an opportunity for more playing time.
• Tony Cooper (me), our Controversial Striker. He's a poacher, often in the right place at the right time, but when he's not, it looks like he's doing nothing at all. He runs his mouth on and off the pitch to any and all comers, & has even had his relationship issues in the paper.
• Connor Williams, a Young Upstart who's finding his niche as a Box-to-Box Midfielder. Under a spotlight from a young age, he's earned to protect himself first and foremost. He is absolutely determined to become a star and get attention for the national team, but at what cost?
• Laurent Cournes (Ariele), a Wide Backer whose prime is behind him. Known for crunching tackles, he still has opportunities to start, but not as often as he used to. Despite what others say, he's convinced his decline is due to confidence and mindset, rather than physical capability.

Match against Northbrampton FC (friendly)

Our first match is a friendly with English club Northbrampton FC.

The Young Upstart Midfielder Connor Williams, had the best overall performance and was promoted from a Rotation to a First Team Player, whereas the Past Your Prime Wingback Laurent Cournes only increased the skepticism around him with a mixed performance.

Controversial Striker Tony Cooper got to do both of his favorite things: score winning goals (they won 2-1) and get attention while mocking someone else - providing the nickname for NPC Pierre "Derriere" LaCroix, an 18 year old Left Back who came on and scored an own goal in his first appearance.

Dependable Backup Julien Saunier is the emotional core of the team, as literally everyone has some kind of connection with him. Which is good, because he played badly!

Off Pitch

Julien Saunier, our Dependable Backup Midfielder, was called into the coaches office and told that, despite the poor preseason performance they're going to trust him & give him opportunities this season. It is unclear whether coach Gonzalez OR Julien himself truly believe in Saunier's abilities but he'll have a chance.

Tony Cooper the Controversial Striker learned via a tabloid journalist that his girlfriend is clubbing with Saudi princes & that the media knows he's paying to keep his ex hush hush.

Connor Williams the Young Upstart Midfielder, balked at the team's doctor suggesting he MAYBE tone it down to avoid straining himself, which he gets in his own head about.

As the team is training before the first match of the season, they learn the media has not only predicted they flounder, but their rivals will win the league. The air deflates from the grounds. Hopefully their first game against Lumiere shuts them up.

Julien spends his time preparing, and learns that their opposition are known to finish games strong and double team problem players. Connor comes to Julien for advice, and builds trust with him as they discuss strategy and tactics for the match ahead.

Tony then talks to Connor, telling him they need to work together and link up on the pitch if they're going to succeed; Connor admits he looks up to Tony, which Tony agrees is a smart thing to do.

AS Obispo plans to come out of the blocks sprinting to avoid their opponent's late game strength.

Match against Lumiere

The starting 11 is announced, and no one is surprised to see Tony and Connor, but the fan pages EXPLODE upon seeing Julien start; what are they thinking?? He was terrible in the preseason! If this doesn't go well, we'll know who to blame.

The game kicks off: beautiful plays by all 3 PCs lead to not one, but two goals within the first 15 minutes of play! The fans are ecstatic by what they're seeing, even though Tony's hip thrusts were not taken well by the traveling Lumiere fans. Connor's TikTok dance with his teammates was charming!

The next period is shambolic, as if Obispo had fallen asleep; Lumiere successfully double teams Julien, and dominate the next 15 minutes... except they leave their back line vulnerable, and despite it feeling undeserved, the Bishops go up 3-0, as Connor has a breakaway against a flailing keeper.

The rest of the half is close and tense, with both sides having chances; Tony pings a shot off the crossbar just as the whistle for halftime blows. In the locker room, Connor feels a slight tug in his hamstring, but chooses to ignore it and play on.

The start of the second half has Lumiere playing well, but unable to capitalize on their performance. Julien subs off, and with only 30 minutes left in the match, they try to tap into their Finisher style, and....concede an own goal off of a corner. 4-0 to AS Obispo.

With the game truly in hand, Coach Gonzalez takes off both Connor and Tony, & both teams relax until the final whistle blows, for a big 4-0 win to open up the season.

Following the match, Julien starts second guessing his performance and the double teaming; was it because he was good...or bad?

Meanwhile, as he was heading off the pitch, Tony sees a woman in the stands who looks like his girlfriend, and she's all he can think about now.

The results from around the league are as follows:

• Olympique Rococo 1-1 AS Barbebleue
• Le Petit Prince FC 0-0 Biopouvoir FC
• Michelin AC 2-1 AS Nocturnes
• And finally, their rivals, Loup-garous Var 1-1 Olympique Darc

This puts the Bishops in first on goal difference, and already 2 points ahead of those hated wolves! We ended the session calculating experience and doing feedback.

Off Pitch

Julien do a media interview, which starts off strong, with Marie Dubois of Football Today giving some softballs. Jaques Blanco, a tabloid journalist however, poses leading questions suggesting there's growing animosity between him and Tony, which rattles the midfielder and causes the coach to pointedly shut it down.

Connor Williams is having a one-on-one training with hardass coach Schmidt, who tells him that the way for him to reach his goals is to push himself harder & further. We watch as he trains. And trains. He grabs the back of his knee after each rep. At home, Connor gets a visit from his father, who tells him he's proud of him. He also tells him he should call his mother more. And that rent is tough. And that his mom is getting older with health issues. Connor, overwhelmed, agrees to do what he can, and watches his account numbers dwindling.

Hot shot striker Tony meets girlfriend Sharon at a swanky hotel, who has the room set with mood lighting & a VERY expensive (revealing) dress. After some play, their conversation escalates; Tony calls her a "tart" after she admits she has "admirers", and she accuses him of wanting a homemaker. Tony's ex was indeed a loyal, stay-at-home kind of gal. His usual confidence is shaken as he storms out into the hallway.

Later in training, Tony sees Julien crushed and struggling. Thinking of how AS Barbebleue could ruin him in their next match, he provides some words of encouragement. Julien pays it forward with Connor, as they vent and have an emotional moment...while avoiding too much vulnerability, staring at the wall while they pump some iron.

Connor studies the tape, and learns the upcoming match is against a team of exhausting, rough and tough bastards.

Match against the Bluebeards

As the boys sit in their lockers, mentally preparing for kickoff, all of their phones light up. BREAKING: Sources close to the club suggest Julien Saunier has been using performance enhancing substances. The vibe in the room sinks like a stone.

Before heading out of the tunnel, Tony reminds Julien he's got his back, in an attempt to stave off the guilt he has from dropping the media tip.

As predicted, the Bluebeards play tough, and bring the Bishops down to their level. Fouling, stoppages, and tackles abound.

Julien gets baited into retaliating & while he gets away with it, his thrown shoulder isn't enough to prevent the Bluebeards from taking a 0-1 lead. Tony gets in on the action a few minutes later & gets given a yellow card for taking another player's legs out (barely avoiding the team mascot).

Tony's foul leads to a scuffle, which Connor uses as a distraction to quickly get past and behind the other team, and level it right before halftime! Despite decidedly being the worse team, AS Obispo are still in it, which Coach Gonzalez reminds everyone of.

The Bishops push through the (literal & metaphorical) noise around them & come out flying. AS Barbebleue cannot get out of their own way (despite rolling 4d20 each period they don't roll higher than a 29 the entire second half) but the Bishops struggle to capitalize on their advantage.

Not long after Julien is subbed off, Tony overexterts & injures himself. Infuriated, he shoves the team mascot into a railing as he heads into the tunnel for evaluation. Rolls later told us that Tony avoided anything long term, whereas the poor mascot was going to be in the hospital for a while. (Tony hit his milestone 'badly injure team mascot'!)

In the final 15 minutes, Connor feels the pressure on him. He follows in his teammates footsteps, copying the fouling technique Julien showcased in the first half, not only getting away with it, but scoring an 82 minute goal to take the lead! Connor rips off his shirt as the stadium rocks.

The Bishops have a few minutes left to finish the upset; the Bluebeards push to tie it, & are punished for it, as Connor plays a sweet pass to substitute Anton James, putting it away at 3-1. AS Obispo have officially announced themselves, retaining ownership of first place with two matches played.

Off Pitch

Our final moment saw Connor get a call from a "Phillipe" from Hype Media & Marketing; they want to connect him with some clients & opportunities following his man of the match performance. Connor is stunned, smiling to himself after hanging up the phone.

There is a statement from Julien regarding the allegations of performance enhancing substance use; he does have an asthma inhaler under a prescription, without such would OTHERWISE be unacceptable. The media tries to bait him into blaming his teammate Tony Cooper, or suggesting that Julien is dating Tony's girlfriend Sharon, which Julien bats away. The meeting ends shortly after another journalist suggests that Julien can't stay on the pitch consistently because of his asthma.

Later, Pierre "Derrière" approaches Connor for some mentorship, in awe of how he's performed at his relative young age, and wonders how he does it? The answer is through training: they workout the next morning at 5am sharp, & Connor spends some money he doesn't have buying the kid some equipment.

After training, we see Coach "Emotional Intelligence" Gonzalez call Tony into his office, suspicious of who (likely) leaked the story floating around the team. He can't prove it, but tells Tony he has an open door, & stuff like this affects the whole squad. Tony plays dumb & gets defensive, saying he hasn't felt supported since Connor & Julien have gotten the spotlight.

Tony then visits his girlfriend Sharon at her place, as she has gotten dinner ready for him, and has a heart to heart with him, building trust as he opens up to her. As he's telling her about how he's upset about Connor's attention, or thinks Julien's girly, or how appreciates Sharon's exact color of eyeshadow, he doesn't realize the entire conversation is being recorded. While there's no specific plan, Sharon thinks having a backup plan is always good.

Before their upcoming game against the underdog Le Petit Prince FC, Tony builds Trust with Connor as he warns him of the danger of the media and getting PR wrong after Connor confides in him his knee strain issues.

Julien blows off some steam by being Toxic(tm) while playing football online.

Match against The Little Princes

As they're getting ready for the game, Connor checks in with Julien, and tells him about the conversation he had with Tony, feeling the timing was odd given the reports out there in the media. He doesn't go as far as saying watch your back, but something's in the air.

As the match gets underway at The Chessboard (their home pitch), after a droll start the Bishops kick it into high gear and....fail to capitalize. Shots ping off the post on both ends of the pitch, and it's 0-0 at halftime despite AS Obispo clearly being the better team.

After a halftime pep talk, the Bishops come out strong again, dominating the Little Princes. Unfortunately they let in an unbelievable goal, as their goalie comes way too far out, & are completely punished for it.

Down 0-1, Connor (who has been unbelievable today despite the team around him) wills his team to an equalizer, after Tony leaves a ball for him on the edge of the box, planting a postage stamp in the top left corner. Tie game with 15 minutes to go.

The Little Princes sense the opportunity here, and go all out in the final 15 minutes, taking control of the game for the first time all afternoon. The Bishops get cynical, fouling repeatedly until they've successfully killed the game off in a disappointing 1-1 draw. The visiting fans love it.

The session ends with the players leaving the pitch in disappointment, as Connor checks his phone to notifications of overdraft fees from his bank. He's going to ask for some favors to get out of this one.

But now I found myself with a harder task. What about creating double-sided documents, where the data merge is populating fields on both the front and the back of a set of cards? This is clearly very useful, and equally quite difficult to work out how to do.

Happily I've worked my way through to an answer. It might not be the answer, and if there are better ways of handling it I'd love to hear - come talk to me on Bluesky here https://bsky.app/profile/planesailinggames.com

I want to take you through the following steps.

1. Set up master pages
2. Set up the data merge
3. Make sure that data merge direction is correct
4. Structure your CSV in the right way

Set up master pages

I always like to use master pages, and I set up a double page spread to use for my cards in this occasion. On the left hand page I put the outline of nine cards (I set these up to be 2.5" x 3.5", one of the standard card sizes). On the right hand side I have the same nine cards but I don't put an outline on them.

An outline on both front and back is asking for trouble when it comes to cutting out the cards (yes, I learned this the hard way). Just put the outlines on one side and you'll be fine.

Set up the data merge

You want to find the data merge tool on the left hand tool bar (see the arrow below). When you have this selected you can drag out a data merge area on your left hand page. Be default it has 2 rows and 2 columns, I changed it to 3 rows and 3 columns.

Add text fields to your first card as normal, and see them replicate across the rows and columns. Assign field names to each of these for the merge to take place. There are other videos which give more details on this that I'll link to later.

You can now see that with 'show record order' checked, the data merge cards on the left hand side show the starting position and the order in which the cards are populated with the record information - top three, then middle three, then bottom three, left to right in each case.

Make sure that data merge direction is correct

Now we click on the data merge for the right hand page, which is the back of my cards. In this case we click on the second of the Record origin icons to start it in top right, and we click on the layout order in order to give us the order indicated - right to left in the top row, then right to left in the middle row, and finally right to left in the bottom row. I've added some big red arrows because the image placeholders make the actual pale blue arrows difficult to read.

This is important because when printing double sided the page is reversed, and we want the related information on the front and back of cards to line up correctly.

Structure your CSV in the right way

I confess that this is the hacky part of the process.

The CSV file (which is easiest to create via a spreadsheet) needs to have two rows (records) for each of the cards which you are producing. Because I have nine cards on a page, I have nine rows with a set of data for the front of the card, then another nine rows for information for the back of the card.

I could have completely duplicated the information, but I found it easier to leave fields blank if they are not being used on the front or back respectively.

The Final Article

Here is a screenshot of the generated document with all data merged in from the CSV. As you can see there are seven people and two locations. I've used temporary dummy photos for illustrative purposes here.

You can see that the page imposition is going to work correctly when you look at the first row and see that "Francis Powell" has a picture that will match up with his description when the page is printed double sided.

I hope you found this useful, please share if you do!

A video which goes through the basics of data merge on the current version of Affinity can be found here:

The Basics

This is a two player game using a chessboard (either in person or using a free online chessboard which we did).

Each of the chess pieces represent someone attending the masquerade ball. The pawns are unnamed servants and entertainers, while the pieces all represent named characters. Juliet is the white king, Romeo is the black king. Some of the pieces are generic people who are named when used (the miser, the braggart, the potential lover). Everything moves according to the rules of chess, and when anything is moved the player narrates something about what is going on. When a piece captures another, you can choose to use one of the 'firebrand' style minigames to play out the process by which the captured piece leaves the board.

Playing the Game

We play according to the rules of chess (with a couple of exceptions for the king and the queen pieces, to limit their activity in the early part of the game).

It is important to remember that we are not actually playing chess! We are using a chessboard and related mechanics to tell a story! To that end, during our game we both made some moves which would not make sense at all in a proper game of chess but which worked really nicely to tell our story together. The players are not competing to win, they are collaborating to tell a compelling story inspired by Shakespear's tale!

The minigames include An Accusation, A Dance, An Exchange of Blows, Flirtatious Play, A Lecture, A Reminiscence, A Party Foul, A Private Audience, and An Unwelcome Departure. Each tells you how it starts, how it continues and how to end it, with lots of helpful and atmospheric prompts.

The game ends either when one side checkmates the other, or when the two kings end up adjacent and kiss (the only exception to the rule). In the latter case the story matches that which Shakespear told, in the former case Juliet or Romeo are kept apart and never meet their true destiny.

Why I like this game

I love the way that the rules of chess and the developing position on the board give opportunities and challenges as you navigate your characters around the ballroom. Sometimes you really want to move a particular piece to engage with a particular character, but you find you cannot because of other pieces on the board. This is especially true of Romeo and Juliet, who move slowly and have to be particularly circumspect.

Our game was over in two hours because we moved quickly and were happy to throw pieces away in order to move the story forward and try out lots of the minigames. I could imagine a game which was played much more cautiously (like a normal game of chess) drawing out much longer, with an ebb and flow of characters moving to and fro on the board. I enjoyed the pace at which we played though.

Each of the pieces is given three bullet points for their motivation, and it was great to be able to use these when we captured other pieces with our own, or when someone captures one of yours in line with that characters own motivation. The characterisation was also helpful as we thought about how we wanted our characters to interact.

It's worth mentioning that the bishops, knights, and rooks are distinct characters - my black knight on G8 was Mercutio, while by black knight on B8 was "a braggart" who I named when I used. In a longer online game it might be tricky to keep track of which is which!

Where can you find the game

The playtest document is available on itch here: https://backwards-tabletop.itch.io/violent-delights

Follow Asa Donald on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/backwardsttrpg.bsky.social

Would you like to see a story?

At the start of the game four pawns from each side are moved forward and we narrated the servants setting up tables, the entertainers starting to juggle and play music and so forth.

bC4: The black kings bishop, a miser, moves to C4 putting Juliet in check and pontificating about Juliet's appearance.

AxC4: A white pawn, a servant, captures the miser and escorting the ranting miser out of the ballroom!

ExD4: In the centre of the hall, a black pawn (entertainer) accuses a white pawn (servant) of stealing from him. We play "Accusation" and the servant hurries out of the ballroom.

rA3: Juliet's father moves more into the hall and asks for civility and merriment.

kA6: A braggart named Julio moves forward and declares himeself the best dancer and best lover in all Verona.

kH3: Rosa, a boastful Capulet strides forth and declares herself and equal dancer to any of the guests.

kxB4: Julio grabs up one of the dancing girls and swirls around dancing with her. He is a bit handsy and is also not very good at dancing either, and she slips over and injures herself and has to retire away from the ball.

rA4: Lord Capulet advances next to Julio, he has seen what was going on. He draws himself up to his impressive height, and without raising his voice looks at Julio and says "we don't want these delights to turn violent tonight"

kD3: Julio winks at Lord Capulet and moves across to a position which demands the attention of both Juliet and her nurse, letting his eye rove over both of them. (the knight has forked both the king and the bishop)

kD2: Juliet advances towards Julio to call his bluff. She is dressed impeccably but unlike most of the other ladies at the party her dress doesn't look suggestive. She looks like a picture of innocence. She looks at him with seemingly naive but witty eyes and says "you are surely a welcome guest at our house", taking him back.

kE7: Romeo is rather taken by the quiet drama of this exchange, and steps forward into the hall, his eyes on Juliet and thinking "Who is this masked girl?"

ExD3: One of the servants comes forward and leads away the stunned Julio, escorting him out of the hall.

bxH3: Benvolio dashes across to Rosa and starts lecturing here about her medical condition which he is sure exists by looking at the way she is standing. She eventually limps off, beaten down by his monologue (we played the Lecture minigame)

rxH3: Antonio, an eligible lover, surges forward to Benvolio with a furious face. incensed at his behaviour. Benvolio throws the first punch as Antonio approaches, a ferocious punch with all his weight behind it. Antonio gives ground readily, but returns with a fierce blow which clips Benvolio's cheek. Benvolio feels a chill. Antonio follows it up with another blow that knocks Benvolio's mask off, revealing his identity. Antonio cries out "Let it be known that anyone who dares to belittle or shame one of the ladies of this house will be swiftly dealt with" and Benvolio, full of shame and with blood trickling from his nose, scurries out. (This was An Exchange of Blows)

kE6: Romeo, undistracted by that furore, advances a step further into the hall. His eyes on Juliet's face.

KE2: Juliet steps to the side putting herself directly across the hall from the intriguing young man who seems dashing and somehow not horrifyingly rude. She notices that while most of the men here wear lion or eagle masks, he is wearing a butterfly. She thinks idly how apposite that she chose a mask which represents a beautiful sunny flower. She puts her head to one side as she gazes at him, and is there a little smile there?

kH6: Mercutio moves boldly onto the floor,

bE3: The Nurse can see Juliet advancing across the floor with her eyes locked on a young man and thinks enough is enough and scoots across and plants herself in front of Juliet, facing her, and saying "Everything OK my lady? Do you need a moment to freshen up?"

Dxe3: One of the entertainers is going to take the nurse out! It is an elderly lady who used to know Nurse and spent much time with her in younger days... "Are you surprised to see me?" she asks. "Oh Maria, how strange to see you here" Nurse replies. They smile, and talk about the moon and what might have been once long ago. Then nurse puts a gentle hand on Maria's shoulder, letting her know that they should meet and reaquaint each other. With a look over her shoulder, Nurse leaves the ballroom.

kxE3: Juliet moves forwards and gently ushers Maria after Nurse. Eyes still fixed on Romeo.

kG4: Mecurio moves forwards, eyes on Juliet himself and calls out to her.

kD2: Juliet retreats towards the safety of her cousin Tybalt.

kF2: Mercutio advances again, looking at both Tybalt and Antonio, threatening both of them and asking who thinks they are hard enough to take him.

QE2: Tybalt moves forwards, placing himself between Mercutio and Juliet, and staring down the hall towards Romeo who he divines might be a true threat.

kF5: Romeo moves forwards and hides behind one of the Capulet servants, taking himself away from Tybalt's baleful gaze.

QxF2: Tybalt moves towards Mercutio and mocks him, dropping his shoulders and suggesting that he should be the submissive partner to the Lord Capulet. Furious Mercutio bites his finger at him and they both respond with increasing aggression - pushing, shoving, and then drawing daggers, during which Tybalt fatally wounds Mercutio who staggers out bleeding! (This was A Party Foul)

rE8: Prince Escalus moves across to Paris (the black queen) and suggests to him that he might want to be careful pressing his suit with Juliet, as Tybalt is a bit out of control.

QD4: Tybalt advances towards Romeo, grabbing some juicy meat off a table and chomps into it while staring at Romeo.

DxC4: An entertainer who doesn't like being just in front of Tybalt who has drawn blood just now moves quickly out of the way and knocks some food onto another one of the servants, who has to leave to get themselves sorted out. This leaves Tybalt and Paris staring at one another (Is there going to be a queen swap!?!)

QxD8: Paris sees Tybalt advancing towards him with a choleric face and thunder in his eyes. We know he's got a temper, but Mercutio really riled him up. Paris throws a defensive punch but overreaches and Tybalt gives him a dirty jab. Tybalt then smacks him on the chin and their circle one another. Paris wants to know what his family are going to think about this brawl, but Tybalt claims that it is his family, his rules as he steps in for a knockout blow... then lets Paris retreat. Paris takes the opportunity and backs out. He's not here for this! (An Exchange of Blows again)

rxD8: Prince Escalus accuses Tybalt of ungentlemanly behaviour, of violently assaulting two guests. Acting in a manner unbecoming of his station, his family, and the occasion. This is the behaviour of the gutters, not the ballroom. Recognising the prince, Tybalt is contrite and apologises with excuses. The prince wants to know what he thinks his future is in Verona right now, and Tybalt realises that he is on thin ice and excuses himself to catch a breath of fresh air and calm down, continuing to apologise. (this is An Accusation)

kE3: While all eyes are on the altercation, Juliet is curious and picks her way out from behind a maid to get a closer look at the beautiful stranger in the butterfly mask, the stranger who also seems uninterested in all the fighting, uninterested in ingratiating himself with the prince. This is new and refreshing. She cautiously steps forward.

KE4: Romeo sees Juliet approaching and also steps forward. They meet and hold hands. Pulses racing. Eyes gazing. (We play The Kiss)

We read Romeo and Juliet's parts from sonnet (RJ 1.5.94-107)

(This was a very emotional end to the story)

Final Thoughts

This game is a lot of fun, and can be played online as well as in person. Look out for the kickstarter! The prelaunch page can be found here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/backwater/violent-delights

2025 was an exciting year - my first purpose designed solo game published, and my first time actually running a table at a convention (Dragonmeet) high among them. I’ve continued to develop some new games, and I thought that people might find it interesting to see what things are like for a small one-person publisher.

Sales Figures

I’ve seen a number of other small publishers put their sales figures out for the year, and I’ve decided that I’d like to do the same. As you can see, it is quite difficult to bring in money as a small publisher!

Total sales income all channels (outside of kickstarters): £2,073

However, there have been a lot of expenses in the year, especially reprinting, travel, and convention costs, so my actual profit at the end of the year is negative. I’ve made a loss of -£1,055, eating into the reserves. Now some of that loss is printing for distribution, and hopefully I’ll continue to recoup some of that in 2026 as sales are made by distributors (although there can be hiccups - IPR has decided that Expect Three Visitors isn’t moving, so they want to get rid of the last 25 copies they have, for instance)

New Games

Tail-End Charlie

My latest game was kickstarted in February during Zinequest, and delivered to customers by April. I’m selling the print edition to UK, US and AU from my website, but unfortunately cannot sell it directly into the EU because of the GSPR regulations.

A solo game about the tail-gunners of Bomber Command. You contrast finding love off-duty with the danger of night operations. Statistically Bomber Command was the most dangerous branch of service in WW2. Over 44% of the volunteers didn’t survive a tour of duty. Will you?

This is a solo journalling game. A deck of cards is used to provide journalling prompts for the operations and off-duty time. The probability of you surviving 10 significant operations in the game is roughly the same as the tail-gunners had of surviving a tour of duty.

You keep a debrief diary of the after-action report on each operation, and a personal diary of the highpoints of life and love on and around the base. During the game this builds a unique story of your character’s wartime experiences.

This is an immersive table top story game for 1 player. A game session can take 30-60 minutes or more, depending upon how much you want to write. All you need is a pack of playing cards, some paper and pens to create your wartime story.

You can read more about the game here https://planesailinggames.com/games/tail-end-charlie/

The White Rose Society

This is a free, solo, one-page RPG which I produced in time for Dragonmeet. I’m currently giving it away on itch, so you can find it over there.

Inspired by Sophie Scholl, her brother and friends who were a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany who ran a leaflet and graffiti campaign calling for active opposition to the Nazi regime.

Powered by draws from a deck of cards, can you spread your message of resistance to another university before you are betrayed and captured?

In the spirit of the leaflet campaign of the real White Rose, I would love it if those who print and play the game then pass it on, leaving it for someone else to find, read, and play.

https://planesailinggames.itch.io/the-white-rose-society

Conventions 😊

A Housecon

Once again I was able to visit my favourite housecon in the US again. I had successful playtests of Escape the Apocalypse and Road to Romance, each of which provided me with actionable insights to further the development of the games. More about them later.

Tabletop Scotland 2025

In September I found myself up in Scotland for family reasons, and my younger daughter and I were able to drop in to the Friday of Tabletop Scotland.

We enjoyed walking around the stands and talking to several of the vendors about their most recent games, seeing old friends and making new ones. There was a great seminar by Malcolm Craig about RPGs during the cold war, with some super Q&A. We didn’t playtest any RPGs, but did have fun with the little board game Deep Regrets.

There is a review of this convention here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2025-09-08-tabletop-scotland/

Metatopia 2025

This is a New Jersey convention dedicated to playtesting, and I was delighted to be able to attend it again. it is an opportunity to playtest other peoples new games and provide them helpful feedback, and to get really high quality feedback on your own games. I ran Escape the Apocalypse (Robot Uprising and an Alien Invasion scenario where the players decided to play characters inspired by their own retired dads!) and Road to Romance - a regency scenario where all the players were part of the same story.

I also played in many other exciting games, and you can read a full write-up of my experiences here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2025-11-12-metatopia-2025/

Dragonmeet 2025

Some big changes at Dragonmeet - firstly it has moved from the cosy hotel in Hammersmith to the huge Excel centre in East London. Secondly, it was the first time that I had a stand there, sharing a stand with Matt (Ursidice). He was a great partner for the stand, and our mix of games seemed to work well together. We met on Friday for the setup and then ran the stand together on Saturday (my wife also came along to give me moral support, as I was somewhat dreading it)

Financially I turned a small profit after figuring in transport, table costs and so forth. I gather that this is par for the course for small publishers who sometimes don’t even make a profit, but find that it is worth it for the opportunity to make contact with people.

It was a tiring day; there were some times which were very busy and others when there were lulls in the activity. I found that solo games and games with a solo mode were better sellers, and I didn’t sell any of my big A4 games that I’d brought along.

I wrote up a full report of my experience at dragonmeet here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2025-11-30-dragonmeet-2025/

Interviews 😊

I've been interviewed on the Perceptive Podcast by Game Wisdom about Tail-End Charlie in particular, and historical game design in general. The interview is in two parts

And

Game Design Work

I’ve been working on a number of games this year which are in various stages of development. Here is a quick run-down of them.

Escape the Apocalypse

Originally this was going to be a reskin of The Long Road Home for post-apocalyptic scenarios - some text tweaks, some new tables of prompts and that would be that. However, along the way it became clear that there was an opportunity to do something which engaged with the premise of post-apocalyptic adventures more closely. Engaging with the problems of resource management, and adding additional mechanics where threats have values and you need to try to overcome those threats with the approaches you have available to you, plus spending resources.

So this will be a GMless game for 1-5 players about escaping an apocalypse and finding their beacon - their source of hope...

You decide what kind of apocalypse from the following options

1. Zombie Plague
2. Alien Invasion
3. Robot Uprising
4. Nuclear B-Movie
5. Nuclear Holocaust
6. The Ice Age Cometh
7. Scorched Earth
8. Global Pandemic
9. Lovecraftian Horrors

You can also decide whether you want to play within the Young Adult, Heroic, Grim, or Horror genres - the escalation of horror gives more harrowing tropes to incorporate in the game, and makes bleaker endings more likely.

You play through three Acts, with three scenes in each Act. Playing cards are used to indicate the level of threat in each scene, and the capabilities which the player characters are able to bring to bear to attempt to overcome those threats.

Throughout the game you are collecting valuable resources - supplies, tools, weapons, and secrets. These can be used to bolster your capabilities when facing threats, but you have to be careful how you use them! If you run out of supplies or tools, then you will face trouble in the ranks as your supporting characters turn against you! If you don't have many secrets gathered by the end of the game, the future for humanity as a whole may look bleak!

Can you escape the apocalypse, find your loved ones and live happily ever after? Or will you die trying?

Playtests throughout the year have helped to focus the game on what is fun and streamline other elements of play. It has gone down well at convention playtests with friends and with strangers, so I’m very pleased with the point it has got to now.

You can read more about it here: https://planesailinggames.com/games/escape-the-apocalypse/

I plan to bring it to kickstarter in the first half of the year - if that sounds interesting you can sign up to find out when it launches here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/escape-to-utopia

The Road to Romance

Work on Road to Romance has been very up and down this year. The political situation with heavy US tariffs on card games made in China put a real damper on my plans for the game, so I’ve been vacillating between going ahead with my original plans or turning it into a more traditional RPG game book powered by playing cards (and with print-and-play or print-on-demand specialty decks available).

It’s frustrating, because I think it really can work best as a card game, so it has been on a bit of back burner during 2025. However, I have run a number of playtests which continue to create some rather lovely stories. You can find write-ups of these here:

1. A gothic romantic napoleonic thriller “Unexpected Strength”
2. A classic contemporary military romance “The Face from the Past”
3. A classic romantasy “The Faerie Princess’s Muse”
4. A sci-fi romantic thriller “Neon Nights”
5. A paranormal romantic thriller “The Chosen”

Normally a group of players will tell a collection of stories, each in different genres while they play the protagonist of their own story, the paramour of the person to their right and the trouble of the person to their left. At Metatopia I tried an alternative approach. We played in a regency ball, where each person played their own protagonist who happened to be a trouble for their friend on their left (using troubles like jealous, busybody, over-invested, an ex- etc). There was a central pool of paramours who could be picked up by other players as needed. It was a fun approach, and was a little more complicated to play but the additional interactions between the players was fun.

I hope that in 2026 I’ll get back to this, and I’m going to be seeking advice from someone who has been in the RPG industry a long time who thinks that a card based game might still be a good option for me.

Born to the Purple (working title)

Once again this Forged in the Dark game has taken a backseat to other game ideas which I’m bringing to the table. I hope that later this year I can get back to planning and designing something tightly focussed around space diplomats finding their way amidst changing agendas and policies. Making deals and compromises along the way while the galaxy might be collapsing around them (metaphorically).

The core of the game remains a combination of simplified Forged in the Dark, with some Fate sensibilities. You can see some of my earlier design diaries on the site here, and I’ll be adding additional ones this year as I’m thinking about how to represent interstellar politics in the game in a fun way. https://planesailinggames.com/tags/born-to-the-purple/

Conclusion

Much of the world is in upheaval, and hope you can find places of happiness within it. Playing games is one of those places for me, and I rejoice in the opportunity to play with friends and create games that people enjoy.

Cover photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels

Characters

The players decided that they wanted to play in a grim genre, as befitting a lovecraftian scenario. The also decided that they would be a group of supermarket employees and patrons.

• Vivian (played by Lee Martini) is security guard in her mid twenties. Wanting to really set herself up in this career. Mostly deals with accidental shoplifting. Trope: Feels guilty.
• Betty (played by Nikki) is a cashier, single mother of two (Sophie, 7; Jeremy, 3). Plump, with a worn smile. Struggles to make ends meet. Trope: fragile.
• Simon (played by Mathew Day) is a fishmonger, bald and with a big beard. He keeps an eye out for Betty and often keeps some fish aside for her at the end of the day. Trope: Betrayal.
• Callum (played by Phil Cook) is a regular shopper. He is in his 30’s but dresses like a student. Bit of a drifter. Trope: Flawed (he shoplifts).

Beacons

• Vivian wants a legacy of helping people.
• Betty wants to find her children, Sophie (7) and Jeremy (3).
• Simon wants to find his girlfriend, Sophie.
• Callum wants refuge and a sense of belonging.

Harbingers of the apocalypse

1. With increasing frequency thunderstorms appear suddenly out of a clear sky. It becomes suddenly very dark in a matter of seconds. Then after a few minutes it clears again.
2. TV channels from some countries start to drip out and be replaced by static
3. Simon starts seeing some really weird fish being brought in to his fishmonger’s slab. Like really weird. He doesn’t recognise them at all.

Act 1

As things are getting more and more weird worries have spread across social media like wildfire, and suddenly people are panicking.

Scene 1 - supermarket

Our first scene is in the supermarket since it is their workplace. The supermarket shelves are groaning with food and supplies. Looters are grabbing things off the shelves and into trolleys, but there isn’t room for all the trolleys and fights are breaking out. Staff and security guards are shouting and trying to keep order.

Apocalypse Threat - (Jack) Strange geometries

Something has changed in the texture of space. Some angles have become dangerous. Walk down the wrong aisle and people suddenly disappear. Panic breaks out, and our protagonists start doing what they can.

• Vivian (diamond) guides people away from most dangerous aisles, sending them towards safe routes.
• Betty (spade) notices a distortion in the air near dangerous angles and tells everyone about them.
• Callum (club) has the lowest card becomes a dead man walking. he pushed someone aside who vanished,and he was nearly caught too. But he didn’t get away scott-free. His chirality is reversed by a geometry. He is now left handed and can’t properly process food.
• Simon (diamond) leads them out the back way.

Scene 2 - university

As they leave the supermarket loading area and cross into the nearby university campus, they see students pouring out of lecture theatres, sports halls, and offices. People are screaming and running. A riderless bicycle careens across the pavements before them before crashing. Cars are piling up, engines running but empty of people.

Urban Threat - (3) blocked route

Simple for them all to identify the routes which are blocked by crashed vehicles or strange geometries, so they all succeed and gather more supplies.

Along the way Vivian picks up Rick, the university traffic cop. He seems a little lost and in need of direction, so she invites him to join up with them.

Scene 3 - alley market

Their escape route takes them to an urban alley where a number of people have gathered in what looks like an impromptu car-boot sale, desperately trading what they have for what they need. They engage in the street market, swapping some of their supplies for tools and weapons.

Apocalypse Threat - (8) colour consumed, things crumble.

In the dim shadows of the alley, colours start to be drained from things and people. It’s hard to notice at first because of the poor light, but then a couple of people become still and grey, then crumble to dust.

• Betty reaches out for a loaf of bread, but it alarmingly crumbles to dust as she touches it.
• Callum steals some supplies and keeps them just for himself.
• Simon reveals unsuspected lock-picking skills that enable them to find a safe way out of the alley.
• Vivian has been focussing on watching out for strange geometries and she didn’t notice that the colour of her uniform and her skin was being drained out, but Rick spots the problem and hurries her out of the alley.

Act 2 - it is several weeks later, in a rural area

The party have moved away from the hard angles of the urban environment which seems so dangerous and into a more rural area. In particular they want to get to the school where Betty’s children are.

Scene 1 - Faded Roadside Diner

They see a faded roadside diner. There's an open sign dangling by the door, and Inside there is a jukebox playing quietly - “Hey Jude”. It is empty apart from one person sitting in a booth at the far end of the diner. She looks up sadly, and says “Join me, I’ve had this music on to try and cheer me up, but I don’t think I’ve picked the right song”.

Betty recognises her as Tanya, a teacher from her children’s school and rushes over “my children, where are my children? Are they OK?”

“When I last saw them they were OK - the children all evacuated out to the summer camp site in the mountains” Tanya replied.

“Oh God, oh God” Betty gasps, “So they, they’re…”

“When I last saw them they were OK… We lost some of the teachers to the strange geometry, just vanishing in front of our eyes. They went out in front of the children. We lost half our staff getting the children out, but we got all the kids out”

Betty hugs Tanya desperately.

Tanya hugs her back and weeps tears of relief with her.

Rick the policeman wants to know whether we can get some sausages going, because they need to pick up food and bottled water. Some of the others join him in getting sausages frying, and they look for something a bit more upbeat on the jukebox, settling on “Staying Alive”

Rural Threat - (5) feral dogs

A pack of feral dogs lured by the noise and smell of sizzling sausages. They are hungry and aggressive and will try to bring down the weakest person here.

• Betty (plays a heart) realises that they could be distracted by food, and gets Tanya to give her a couple of sausages which she tosses out of the window towards the dogs which diverts them.
• Vivian (plays a diamond) thinks for a moment about the direction the dogs came from and ducks out the back, and moves some of the fencing to make it harder for the dogs to reach them.
• Simon (plays a club) is a bit of a metalhead, and he is used to screaming and thrashing, so he starts barking aggressively at the dogs which unnerves them.
• Callum (plays a heart) although he originally berated Betty for throwing them food, realises it is a good idea and sends more food in the dog’s direction, covering their escape. At the same time he is wondering what dogs taste like, and is concerned about how long their supplies of food are going to last them…

Together with Rick and Tanya, all four are successful in overcoming the threat of the feral dogs. They quickly scavenge some supplies and tools as they leave out the back way.

Scene 2 - School House

The old school house where Betty’s children would have been comes into view. It is battered and doors are hanging open. Venturing inside they find that desks have been overturned and made into little makeshift forts with blankets over the top. Exercise books and textbooks are scattered over the floor and children’s pictures are still pinned to the wall. Everything suggests that they left here in a hurry.

They recognise that where the children had moved the desks into forts they had created lots of angles; dangerous angles. In making things to protect themselves they had actually made things worse. The group are careful to walk down the middle of corridors, keeping away from corners and edges. When they have to turn corners they start taking some weird circular steps. They are not sure how effective it is but it makes them feel better.

They make their way to Sophie (the daughters) classroom. Betty’s son Jeremy was in childcare here, and Betty had always told Sophie to look out for him. Tanya says that Sophie had taken his hand with a serious look on her little face.

Vivian notices that there are lots of blank papers pinned to the wall, but closer examination shows that they were crayon pictures which have had all the colour drained from.

Simon draws attention to the strange sounds that they become aware of here too - the weird geometry is causing echoes from the past to be faintly heard, and while they listen it resolves into the screams of the children and the tense voice of the teachers at the time when the evacuation was happening! There are also the sounds of huge squelching footprints, but are those echoes from the past—or something happening right now?

Apocalypse Threat - (10) Unholy Spawn

Suddenly a huge black monstrosity starts squeezing through the doorway of the room they are in! An unearthly monstrosity of tentacles, ooze, and darkness. The tentacles reach out hungrily towards them all!

• Callum (plays a spade, uses assistance from Tanya) has been hanging around with Tanya the school teachers, and uses his cunning to keep her between himself and the monster.
• Vivian (plays a diamond) thinks she has to take charge here, and in her best security guard voice steps up with a raised hand and ineffectually bumbles out something about “halt, no, er, shoplifting”
• Betty (plays a spade) can hear her daughter Sophie’s voice in the screams that are echoing from the past and it galvanises her into action - she starts grabbing desks and dragging them into orientations to create dangerous angles, and it works. The monster shies away from her and the others, leaving them a route out.
• Simon takes the opportunity to grab Vivian and direct her away from danger and together they escape out the fire exit while the horror is momentarily delayed by the angles of the tables.

Looking around after the helter-skelter run for safety they realise that Rick the policeman isn’t with them anymore. Worse, he has betrayed them and run off with a lot of their spare food! Simon is particularly gutted that someone he had trusted has betrayed them. Callum is of the opinion that people they come across are going to be less and less trustworthy as the perils of the apocalypse continue to bite.

Betty wants to press on to the summer camp location, but first they want to get some additional supplies, so they head off to a nearby abandoned mine where they might find supplies.

Scene 3 - Abandoned Mine

The mines extend deep into the rock. They're still lit by flickering emergency lights and seem like a refuge from the danger outside. The pit props are creaking slightly under the weight but the sound is dwarfed by the echoes from the past here, which are from further back in time - people talking normally, sounding normal. It can’t have been that long ago, but it feels like an eternity.

Vivian is a bit concerned about all the sharp angles in the mines, but Callum reminds her that the miners follow the seams of valuable minerals, which makes it much more organic than she fears. Nonetheless they proceed carefully.

Rural Threat - (7) Maddened Livestock

They disturb a herd of maddened pigs which had been sheltering here, and the chunky beasts charge them in a frenzy. Vivian as a confirmed city dweller realises that her city life had not prepared her for the size of actual pigs.

• Simon (plays a diamond) and uses his skill to open the doors to an elevator cage, to give them protection.
• Callum (plays a spade) uses his cunning to attract them towards him, then pulls himself up on a beam so that they run underneath.
• Vivian (pays a weak heart) wants to do something to help the pigs but...
• Betty (plays a heart) grabs her in a hug and turns Vivian around to protect her as the pigs charge past. Tanya isn’t able to help anyone as she cowers in fear, and then the pigs are gone.

Together they manage to gather enough food to keep them together as they prepare to head out into the wilderness and the summer camp.

Elsewhere

• Now some weeks have passed, we see that some people have decided that you can sacrifice people to stop things, and cults are starting to spring up. Charismatic people leading these groups are starting to sacrifice those who are less helpful to the group. They should have been more loyal, more believing in the new world.
• There are people who have lost love ones seeking out places where the echoes of the past allows them to hear their voices once again.
• Nature is becoming more dangerous, even rabbits are attacking people.
• All of nature is rebelling against humanity, predator and prey collaborating together and going feral against humans.

Act 3 - a few months later, in the wilderness

It’s a trek towards the summer camp destination, and it is now more than a month since the incursion started.

Scene 1 - Observatory

This observatory is abandoned and has been clearly damaged by the apocalypse. There are bits of bones of people who used to work here — not gnawed by animals, but strangely bisected. Flesh has rotted off them, but there are signs that some of them may have been sacrificed by other humans, in a kind of ritual sense.

Inside, the huge telescope peers up through the open dome, and there is a computer that seems to still have some power. Tanya continues to cower behind them as they investigate further. Vivian investigates the computer, keen to see whether it is possible to find an uplink to a scientific community, and discover something about the research they have here. Callum is a bit concerned about revealing their presence to others though because of the way that people are turning on one another.

There is evidence that the children camped here for a while, but some packs have been left. Not all moved on. Betty starts desperately checking every single pack looking for something that relates to her children. She is muttering a little mantra to herself “they will be OK, they will be OK” as she tries to hang on to her fragile sanity.

Threats (K) Sky Tentacles and (4) Ticks

Suddenly the sky turns black with storm clouds and thunder, and then out of portals in the sky vast tentacles come reaching down, grasping and collecting things. They snake inside the observatory roof, trying to grab at the members of the group.

Vivian tries to use things they have learned before to create some protective angles to shelter them, but to no avail and she is thrashed aside. A tentacle wraps around the bag which Betty is holding and hauls her aloft as she is unwilling to release it! Callum opens fire with a shotgun they had found and although the shells don’t penetrate the tentacles skin it releases the bag, and then the tentacle retreats up to the sky. Betty crashes down, and becomes a dead man walking after that narrow escape.

Callum realises that being a mirror version of himself has affected his psychology too, as he is getting angrier and more authoritarian. He knows something is wrong. The difficulty he has in digesting things has made him more gaunt and he isn’t sleeping well either.

Scene 2 - Satellite Control Centre

Pressing on towards a valley, they come to the satellite control centre which had a school visitors centre next to it. Again the doors hang open and the roof has been ripped open by an earlier attack of sky tentacles. There is no evidence of people here at all though. Everybody had ben snatched. It’s like this place was deliberately chosen. Maybe they were working on something relevant here? Callum is muttering to himself about secrets.

They find Sophie’s bag. Vivian goes and touches Betty on the shoulder to find out what was wrong. Betty thinks that Sophie didn’t make it and just keeps repeating “she didn’t make it, she didn’t make it” Vivian comforts her, telling her that we know she got away from the school, and she could have just dumped her bag here. “Who knows what happened when the tentacles came down and the roof peeled open? They might have literally grabbed the children and ran for it. She might be OK. Jeremy too”. At the mention of Jeremy, Betty nods slightly, but is somewhat out of it.

Threats - (J) Deadly Geometry, and (8) Bear

The threats they encounter here are a bear and the deadly geometry again. They don’t have the cards to beat it, and things work out badly for everyone as the bear comes in. Callum tries to use Betty as a bit of a defence for himself, saying “Sophies gone, perhaps you ought to just stay here with her memory” being a properly horrible person. Vivian grabs Betty and wants to get her to safety while Betty flails ineffectually at the bear. Vivian gets them into the office, but in a thoughtless moment she puts her hand round a corner and loses most of her fingers on her left hand. Simon bravely charges the bear to try to knock it into some bad geometry and he is somewhat successful. The bear drops into three steaming pieces but the geometry does something to Simon. Suddenly he is ashen white, his beard and eyebrows fall out, and he looks gaunt as if he hasn’t eaten in a week. It’s almost as if it is a different version of him. Callum feels more kinship with him now.

Scene 3 - Hunting Lodge

This is on the outskirts of the summer camp and play park next to what was a luxury hunting lodge. But now the lodge is partially collapsed. Charred with fire, burnt journal pages and bodies. There are signs that this was a centre of some cult activity. Maybe it was a big ritual that went wrong - or that went right but didn’t spare them. There is writing on the wall that shifts slightly when you look away from it. Everything is written in a super cursive form. Nobody is writing in angular letter forms. The roof didn’t collapse, it was peeled open from above.

Threats - (K) Sky Tentacles and (8) Wolf pack

They can hear wolves howling in the distance, but the sky tentacles are back. Storm clouds gather out of a clear sky, lightning flashes and once more tentacles reach down, questing for people.

Callum steps up to it, less to fight it and more to welcome and worship it in an aggressive manner. Betty and Simon jointly have the lowest cards, and Simon decides that he is going to sacrifice himself to protect them all. He thrusts the photograph of his girlfriend Sophie to Betty and says “find her please” and then makes his move. He knows this lodge was used by a rock star he used to follow, and Freddies guitars are all here. As the others run he plugs in the amps and decides that he is going to be the noise that attracts the creatures. He is thrashing out “Run to the hills” as several tentacles grasp him, lift him into the air and tear him asunder while the others escape…

Arrival

They manage to find the summer camp. Vivian and Betty are going to have happy endings, Callum is going to have a sad ending.

Vivian wanted a legacy of helping people, and she has helped Betty and Tanya get here safely. But as they are being processed by the people in this community she is recognised by other people she has helped and given directions to over time. Clutching her security lanyard like a talisman, she is relieved that she has been able to save some people. As she moves off, a couple from the supermarket clasp her hand and say “thank you Viv, thank you. I’m here because you directed me away from that corridor”. As other people gather round Vivian to thank her, there are tears in her eyes.

Betty hears a little voice cry out “mummy!” And Sophie is there. She had dropped her bag, but escaped with her brother. Betty kneels in tears, hugging them desperately. She was so close to giving up but… they are safe. She then does find Simon’s Sophie, and tells her that Simon had given his life to save them, and to ensure the children still have their mother. Sophie gives her a fierce hug, and becomes part of their little family unit going forwards, so she is never alone. She says that people misjudged Simon, and never saw his heart.

Callum was looking for a place of refuge where he would belong, but finds that he doesn’t belong. He has lost his humanity and sees everyone around him as problems to get around or objects to use. He drifts off with the journals that he picks up and eventually dies as an attempted cult leader. He didn’t find what he was looking for. That one wrong turn in the supermarket ruined his life.

Finale

We count up the eight secrets they have left at the end, and shared between the three survivors this rounds to up to three on average. Because this is a Grim genre, it means that the ending for humanity is bleak. What does this look like?

• People realise that right angles are so dangerous people abandoned buildings built along those patterns. But even when people set papers and pens parallel to one another, patterns build up and more and more people are vanishing from the world and nobody can stop it.
• There is a cultural shift in the places where people are survivors. Buildings are circular, people hold hands in circles. Humans are not a common sight in the land any more, but you might see on a hilltop across the way a group of people holding hands in a circle, desperate to cling to life.
• Cities become more and more empty, and of the people that we do see there are more and more with that strange gaunt look as they have been transformed or reflected by the strange geometries. They don’t quite die but something weird is happening. Groups of those people come together driven by voices and echoes to try and pull other horrors through the dimensions.
• The points of light in the cursive society are shrinking among the dark angles. The echos of voices are from earlier and earlier in time. And things get darker.

Other news?

This is going to be coming to Kickstarter early next year - probably May. I'd love it if you would sign up for a notification of the launch on the preview page here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/escape-to-utopia

Hello! I'm Laurence, I'm a writer/designer/editor/uh artist I guess. I've been working in and around games, both video and tabletop, for about 9 years now. I got my break in TTRPGs writing a supplement called Primal Pathways for UFO Press (now part of Rowan Rook and Decard) and their post-post-apoc game Legacy: Life Among the Ruins. It was inspired by the videogame Spore, of all things.

I later wrote a campaign frame for Spire about disabled characters, and made some contributions to Hard Wired Island as well. Other than that, my career has mostly been in either video game media (until I got sick of writing press releases for billionaires), and then in game development itself, where I worked on Vampire Survivors for a couple of years. After leaving that job I wanted to make a go of publishing my own stuff. I'd had a project on the backburner for years about violent cinema, which stalled due to lack of funds for art. As I'd been teaching myself 3D sculpting for a while, I thought I'd just have a go at doing it myself. And here we are!

What do you like best about designing games?

I think TTRPGs are a really wonderful creative exercise, both to play and to write. I really enjoy how many facets there are to how one communicates themes, tone, and ideas. They're part mood piece, part game, part creative jumping off point, part art book. There's so many types of writing and types of design to get your teeth into

I think my personal favourite thing is systems design. I'm really not a balance and maths type designer. I really like games that evoke a theme and communicate ideas, games that you can't help but play exactly as they were intended to be played. I really liked the idea, for my current project, of trying to to design a game about niche films for people who have never seen said niche films. It's really gratifying when you get it right!

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

Currently I'm working on my aforementioned niche cinema game, Il Fantasma del Giallo. It's rather high concept, which was a definitely an ill-advised choice for a first big solo project purely from a marketing and communication perspective. People tend to come on board with you a bit more with stuff like this when you have a tally of prominent work under your belt. But I really can't work on things unless I'm really gung-ho about the ideas I'm interacting with, so I'll just have to do my best to sell it!

The basic pitch is that it's a magical realist game somewhat in the vein of reality-bending, metatextual media like The Twilight Zone or Inland Empire/Mulholland Drive. The players are actors who have lost their memories and become stuck in a strange european city, working for a strange european film studio, making a sequence of strange european thriller/horror films. For whatever reason they can't leave the city, and for whatever reason, whenever they start shooting a film, they're all drawn into the reality of that film. Into "The Yellow". The sets become real, their roles become part of their real identity, and the violence becomes quite real as well. The films they're acting in are inspired by the 60s and 70s ouvre of intense crime and murder thrillers/horrors. The design of the game is such that you don't need to know anything about those films, we've deliberately been playtesting almost entirely with people who have never seen any.

As characters go through films and roles - hurting themselves, hurting others, being hurt - they'll remember more and more about their lives before they got here. Few of these memories are going to be happy ones! Fundamentally this is a game about playing a person who's done bad things. So many bad things, in fact, that they're unlikely to be forgiven. If you're into angst, melodrama, and exploring shared humanity - whether or not its the lighter parts of that humanity - you'll dig this! It's also super collaborative, and plays around a lot with narrative fluidity and inconstancy. Things are only true as long as the narrative needs them to be true, reality bends with the whims of narrative and melodrama.

Also you'll dig it if you just want to make cheesy murder mystery films. It even has guidance for intensity level, vis-a-vis those themes.

Do you use new or established mechanics for "Il Fantasma del Giallo"?

New mechanics! To the extent that any mechanics are new. It takes some inspiration from D. Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard and RRD's Spire, as well as trick-taking games (new and old).

For conflict resolution, it's a playing card based system built around making bids and counterbids. A conflict is a back-and-forth process of bidding, with associated narrative descriptions. The "loser" of the conflict takes the whole pile of bids made so far in the conflict. It's a system based on pushing your luck, but in a way that incentivises risk. Taking on more "damage" is not a net negative, in fact it's often just as desirable as not doing so. That's part of how I'm driving player behaviour into living up to tropes they might not even be aware of.

For the film creating part of the game, the game uses a scene-based system, where players take it in turns to draft scenes with only very general parameters. Again, trying to set up loose guardrails. Gentle limitations that drive creativity. It also means that a lot of typical pre-prep is not really possible, or needed!

A major design question in the development was "how do we make a game where your character getting brutally murdered is A. Sustainable, and B. Desirable?" The answer ended up being through two metrics - firstly, depersonalisation, by separating out the core of the character from direct physical consequence while still providing a strong source of narrative consequence and by building a narrative possibility space in which players and GMs are encouraged to think outside of just their own characters. They don't just decide how they act, they decide how they're shot, what the lighting is like, what might be in the scene, the history they might have with NPCs. They even have greater control than in most RPGs over other player characters, especially within the Yellow. Truth is bendable! Nothing can be established about your character, by you or someone else, that can't be recontextualised by another.

The second way is by building that impermanence into the flow of the game. That's part of why we have this magical realist, entering films framework, but it also comes out in mechanics. The more horrible stuff happens to you, the more resources you have in the real world to develop your character narratively, to unlock new abilities, and also further the larger mysteries of why you're here (assuming you're playing more of a campaign). So after a couple of films under their belt, players are going to be actively trying to play into stuff, trying to get themselves killed or get revealed as the murderer! Because not even the GM knows who the murderer is in these films. It could be anyone, and we won't know until the big twist reveal at the end of the film (that, true to the genre, doesn't necessarily make perfect sense and requires a lot of twisted explanations - but that's the point).

A core part of the Giallo ouvre is that every single character has a motive, and that having an alibi is completely meaningless, because eye witness accounts are garbage! They're not really puzzle boxes, like an Agatha Christie tale or such, they're rollercoasters that use mystery and suspense as drivers for excitement, tension and horror

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I want players to feel like they're free to be creative, with just enough guard-rails and funnels to channel that creativity into something in keeping with this really cool genre. Something that's been really gratifying in playtesting is the moments when a player realises that they can just say what's going on here, they don't have to ask me. I don't need to tell them what's in the room, and where everyone's standing, and whether it's ok to say that this NPC or that NPC has this or that character detail - that's something I want them to do! If our dirtbag cop needs that investigative reporter to be an ex-cop washout who got booted for exposing his corruption, that's true now. Go for it. We're all making a film together, that's the joy of cinema and the joy of roleplaying.

I also want players to come away with a level of appreciation for the kind of themes and ideas that this genre of film explores, even if they never bother watching one later. Themes like anti-authoritarianism, humanism, anti-empiricism, the transformative nature of trauma... it's rich stuff, even if it is cheesy and vulgar a lot of the time.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Hell yes. The kickstarter prelaunch for Il Fantasma del Giallo is up right now, and set to launch as early in the spring as I can launch it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hardyroachgames/il-fantasma-del-giallo-an-rpg-of-violence-and-identity.

If you want updates as I go, and early access to the Quickstart that's going up in early February, please also sign up to the mailing list! https://hardyroachgames.co.uk/il-fantasma-del-giallo/

Also if you want to follow me on Bluesky, you can get my threads on Giallo films and game design stuff, along with a load of political posting that I probably shouldn't do on my main company channel, but f**k it, people who'll be turned away by me posting about how much Reform and ICE suck are probably not my main target regardless.

Where should people go to follow you?

I'm on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/hardyroachgames.bsky.social

My website is https://hardyroachgames.co.uk/

My big project is The Thunder Perfect Mind. It's an an occult action thriller where you play powerful undead revenants known as the Tethered Aeons. These characters powers were awakened by gaining Gnosis - ascendant mystical knowledge. However, upon death they've been bound to the world some combination of the toxic nostalgia for their past lives, the esoteric mysteries they find themselves in, and the deadly undead politics. A perfect game for anyone who loves a heady mix of breakneck action, interpersonal drama, and occult investigation.

That's an amazing title, what is the inspiration for it?

"The Thunder, Perfect Mind" is the title of an almost 2000 year old poem which was recovered in the Nag Hammadi library. My partner studied the ancient texts of the library as part of their work and suggested I read it. It talks in dualities, and through false dichotomy and self-contradiction I found it open up avenues of thought which felt relevant to current events. At the same time, my ttRPG-addled brain took the transcendent bubble I was in with this poem and debased it, immediately knowing not only that I was going to make this game, but exactly how it would work.

Going from the transcendent to the mundane, what mechanics does the game use?

The basic mechanics involve you stating your character's intentions before gathering a fistful of d10s, drawn from different sources on your character sheet. Decide how many from this pool you want to to put aside before rolling the rest. 7+ hits, 10s explode! Whoever has the most hits says who gets/fails their intent. The dice kept back are then used to add details to the outcomes, one detail/die, halved if you have no hits.

The diceheads reading this will realise that if they are gathering up a whole bunch of d10, getting at least one 7 isn't going to be hard. Heck, roll three and put the rest aside for more narrative input, right? Well, there's a few twists to consider.

First up, your highest stat is also the one which will lead you to doomed, tragic, or melancholic outcomes. You get more dice to play with, but at what price?

Next, the aspects you draw dice from come in pairs. Life & Death. War & Peace. Vision & Oblivion. You can only pick from one half of each balance, and doing so can have consequences. Gain monstrous supernatural tells. Be controlled by your darker impulses. Become further tethered by a false reality.

The final piece of the core mechanic is to pull dice from your aspects, or the banes of others, you need to spend points of Gnosis. This knowledge, this truth, is the lifeblood of the Tethered Aeons. It is what brought them back from death, and it can fuel them towards ascension. However, Gnosis is a limited resource, and it has uses beyond gathering dice. The most reliable way to gain more is to investigate the mysteries you come up against.

Dig deeper. Feel more. Be true to yourself.

This sounds really interesting - I always love it when mechanics are explictly supporting game outcomes like this!

Are there any playtest moments that stand out to you? Where there was a real sense that "yes, this game is hitting the mark"?

The very first playtest was done as part of the annual NaGaDeMon game jam. One of the folks playing was really vocal about loving the themes, however thought I should scale back the number of dice you can get in your pool. So I got him to talk about why. He talked about gathering dice. I asked how he felt when gathering up the dice. What followed was a lyrical description of how the dice made it feel like the events were escalating and escalating and almost slipping out of control. His voice was so full of passion! He was talking about how it invoked the way feelings take over when in your teens. Now, this was exactly what I wanted in an occult action thriller! It was a golden moment where I knew I was on the right path.

Is there anything else you would like to tell me about the game?

I have bigger plans than just the base game. Back in the nineties, the term splatbook was coined as an affectionate description for supplemental books which expanded or added to the core game. Given I'm riffing on a lot on that peak White Wolf vibe, I've got larp rules and faction books and the outline of a whole game line in the pipeline. Art and music were central to that scene, so along with the splatbooks, I'll commission new art from Strega Wolf van den Berg along with a soundtrack by Dublin-based musician and producer Molly Noise. Creating a game alongside such amazing artists is the absolute best!

Where should people go to find out more about The Thunder Perfect Mind?

You can follow the Kickstarter campaign right now for more details: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/floaker/the-thunder-perfect-mind

For all kinds of other links look on carrd here: https://floaker.carrd.co

See an earlier interview with Tanya here: https://planesailinggames.com/interviews/2025-01-14-tanyafloaker/

I'm a Nigerian/British Neurodivergent TTRPG player and writer, i've been playing for 8+ years and writing games since 2021. I write games to help people explore challenging themes, envision kinder worlds and radicalise people to enact change within their lives and their community.

What do you like best about designing games?

Designing games for me is about exploring parts of the human condition and looking at what we are missing, and trying to bring parts of those into a game, whilst also being a weird little gremlin with silly fun ideas in a way that can be combined together.

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

I'm always working on several projects but my main focus is The Wanderer's Bookshop, a solo journalling, bookshop simulator. Where you solve a mystery whilst reading books, junk journalling/ scrapbooking and connecting to the wider literary world. I'm really excited by the way the game interweaves making a keepsake through journalling, creating and scrapbooking with different ways to interact with our wider world and engage with reading.

Can you tell me more about the mechanics of "The Wanderer's Bookshop"?

The game encourages you to create, inspired by tarot card prompts and books in whatever way that suits you, be it through inspired journalling and drawing and/or collecting old material to incorporate in transformative (sometimes destructive) ways . Take influence from the books you read to expand your journal.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

The Wanderer's Bookshop is crowdfunding on Backerkit from Feb 2. 2026.

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

I can be found spouting nonsense, sharing yarn and game tidbits on bluesky @thirdvaultyarns.com with my games on https://johnson-ofair.itch.io/

Sure! My name is Anna Blackwell, I’m a game designer from Scotland and I’m the creator of Apothecaria, DELVE, and For Small Creatures Such As We, which was nominated for an IGDA and CRIT award. I’m also a writer and released my first novel last year, Wolf & Fang Detective Agency: The God Thief.

Outside of that, I’m a circus performer, I do parkour, kung fu, and love being out in nature.

What do you like best about designing games?

I love seeing a world come together. Getting to start out with this vague idea of what I want something to be and seeing it become real as I hammer away at the different bits of it. I always feel so excited seeing a project go from a couple of 12 point Arial words in Google Drive to a book full of art, worldbuilding, humour, and potential. I really love hearing people’s feedback at conventions and seeing their genuine enjoyment and excitement about the stories they’ve created with my games.

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

Right now I’m working on so many different things that it’s hard to keep track. My main focus is finishing up the Kickstarter stretch goals for my Becky Chambers inspired RPG, For Small Creatures Such As We. It’s a game all about travelling through space, visiting alien worlds, and trying to make ends meet while caring for and getting to know your alien crewmates. It’s a game about discovery and understanding and while the base game has been out for a while, I’m really excited to see how things will change once players have all of these expansions to play with as well.

The other big thing I’m working on is the sequel to my game DELVE which is a solo map drawing game where you make a dwarven stronghold and dig into the earth to find a rare gem. The sequel, DELVE: Reforged is going to be bigger and (hopefully) better with a lot of care taken to teaching new players the ropes and gently introducing them to all the new mechanics and content. I’m really excited by this project because the Youtuber Kruggsmash is providing all the art for it and it is his Dwarf Fortress videos that inspired DELVE in the first place!

Then of course, I’ve got my side projects which currently includes the mostly complete Shirefolk which is my cosy solo Hobbit-inspired RPG where you build your burrow, collect gossip, and explore the shire and surrounding lands. I’m really excited to clear my current projects so that I can get working on Shirefolk again. The last thing I did for it was add a competitive mode where players could play squabbling cousins fighting over their Grandmother’s silver cutlery set with each piece of cutlery having its own ridiculous unlock requirements and I can’t wait to flesh that out more.

Can you tell me more about the mechanics of "For Small Creatures Such As We"?

So, in the solo mode, you play as the Captain of the ship and generate up to 3 alien Crewmates. As you play, you get Events that prompt you to learn more about their culture, biology, personalities, and so on. So you could get an event that's like "You hear someone playing music from their homeworld. What does it sound like?" and that encourages players to think how that particular crewmate's species would handle music. Maybe they're an Immaterial Aquatic species, sort of like ghostly jellyfish people. How do they make music? As you play, you develop these characters and their relationships to each other through the Events you face and the story you write.

In the co-op mode, you are encouraged to each play as alien crewmates instead. That way whenever an Event provides a scene prompt, one of you can volunteer (or demand in some cases) the spotlight if it inspired you. You would then roleplay the scene with anyone else who wanted to be in that scene and reveal / improvise this part of your character's story. NPCs are handled by whoever wants to control them in that scene or by whoever they "belong to", it depends on the group. Some people have a captain while other choose to have a more democratic ship.

I've also ran one competitive game where we had 8 players in a gaming cafe in Glasgow. They split into two separate crews and ended up creating very similar goals and crew makeups that I gave them the chance to compete. Their starting mission was a Bounty Hunt where they had to get from the shipbreaking world of Grave to the in-progress terraforming world of Progress to capture a drug dealer. One crew ended up making it there first which prompted the other crew to invite them onboard to celebrate and ended up with the winning crew getting kidnapped. It was a fun time but very chaotic.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I’ve ended up quite firmly in the Solo RPG niche and I’m happy there because I’m trying to give players an experience that feels unique and personal to them. All of my games are designed to be a collaboration between the game and the player and to foster their creativity. Whether that be getting them to create a story in games like Apothecaria or For Small Creatures Such As We; getting them to be creative with their journal materials like in Death Road Services which forbids the usage of notepads and instructs players to use actual rubbish instead; letting them free their artistic nature in DELVE; or to think creatively about the objects in their house like in Mistorical Museum.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

We’re just about to go to print on 3 expansions for For Small Creatures Such As We which include Love & Lust, A Guide To Fauna, and War! Each expansion introduces a number of new Planets, Events, Ship Systems, Skills and Traits for your Captain and Crewmates as well as new Mission types and mechanics around each expansion’s core theme.

We also recently released a Mad Max: Fury Road inspired solo RPG called Death Road Services which I think slipped under the radar for a lot of people as I suck at marketing! It’s a black comedy journalling RPG without the journal. You are tasked with rebuilding and running the Death Road Service Station and serving the awful Road Masters and their gangs of colourful weirdos. All the while you’re secretly plotting to kill the Road Masters in order to build the God Car which will let you take over the wasteland.

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

I put out a newsletter every two weeks or so over at https://blackwellgames.substack.com/ and I give behind the scenes previews, discounts, and other Patron specific content at https://www.patreon.com/c/AnnaBlackwell

My games can be bought at https://blackwellwriter.itch.io or https://blackwellwriter.com and we give free UK shipping!

I can be found on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/annablackwell.bsky.social

The Basics

At the outset you agree together the very high level basics of the story you want to tell. You can also set a ‘palette’ of concepts that you would like to see included or that you would like to ban from the game entirely. This helps provide unique twists to each game.

The core of the game uses index cards to represent Periods, Events, and Scenes. These are zooming in to more and more detailed views of the story (I think of this being the ‘microscope’ of the title. Looking with increasing magnification). These are nested within one another, so Periods are the highest level, reflecting major events on the timeline. Within a Period you can have any number of Events, which are significant things that are happening within that period. Within each Event you can have one or more scenes, which is where the roleplaying happens as you step into characters who are part of those formative moments.

Each of the cards is given a ‘tone’ which can be either light or dark. This gives everyone an idea of what that little bit of history is like for those living through it.

The other basic thing is that you don’t have to move through time telling a linear story... you can freely jump back and forth, in and out along the timeline to discover more about what you find interesting.

Playing the Game

You start by agreeing what the Periods at the start and end of your game are going to be, jot these down on vertical cards and place them at the left and right sides of your play space.

You then play a number of rounds. In each round a different person takes on the role of the ‘lens’. This person gets to define a focus for the round so that all the actions taken are thematically linked--say to a place, an organisation, or a person. The ‘lens’ starts by creating a couple of linked things (a Period and then an Event within it, or an Event and a Scene within it), and then everyone else follows suit. You don’t need to follow within the same period... even if the focus is a particular individual you can zoom into the past to see what led to them, or the future to see how people remember them!

Events are index cards which are placed landscape under a period, and Scenes are index cards which are placed portrait and nested under an event.

As you play, you can move the cards around as you insert new elements into the timeline.

There is no fixed end to the game - you can just stop whenever you feel that you’ve told enough of a story. If you run out of time in one session you can just gather the cards up in timeline order and lay them out again the next time you play, which is neat.

Why I like this game

I like this game because of it’s breathtaking scope. You could tell literally any kind of story from fantasy to sci-fi. It would be easy to take in horror stories along the way. The flexibility that it affords is remarkable.

Mechanically the use of index cards placed in portrait or landscape format are such a clever and simple way of laying out history while keeping track of everything.

While collaborative, I appreciate that the rules mean that on any individual’s turn what happens is entirely up to them. Nobody is allowed to give them suggestions (even if they ask for it!) This seems strict, but it does give plenty of space for quieter people to explore what interests them even in the face of wildly creative or expressive fellow players!

Where can you find the game

Look it up on the Lame Mage website here: https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/

Follow Ben Robbins on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/lamemage.com

Would you like to see a story?

We decided that we wanted to tell a story that starts with 'cavepeople' at the dawn of a second civilisation on the earth. Our starting period is We bombed ourselves back to the stone age (dark) and our ending period was Mankind makes it to the stars (light).

Our palette of things we wanted to include was Archaeology, Peril from hubris, Old names used for new animals.

Our palette of things we wanted to exclude was influenced a little by thinking about what weird twist might Ursula K LeGuin use, so as well as ruling out Aliens, we also ruled out Writing(!)

As part of our setup there is a new Period which is "frenzied exploration of ruins to find ancient artefact" (light), a Period further in the future where "telepathic communion is achieved", and an event under that where "A mule-like figure arises who attempts to exploit the communion"

For our first round the lens is "exploration and discussion of what to do with artefacts from the past"

We have an event under our exploration period which is "Discovery of large underground rooms full of machinery", and then a scene under that with the question "Do groups work together to explore, or do they divide into groups?"

The scene revolves around a discussion between Pitaa, keeper of secrets, and Griselda, queen of the stones. Also present is Mako, leader of the 'rats' who do the deepest delving. Pitaa loves secrets and the power they bring and argues strongly that the groups that she and Griselda represent should work separately to explore, and share useful knowledge as and when it is significant. Pritha is particularly interested in delving into the machines that go Whaaang, and the WHOMP technology. Griselda is opposed to the idea but eventually agrees as long as the Rats keep lines of communication open.

We then had another dark event, as "Hundreds die in the underground fights between Secreters and Stoners". There is a scene which marks the end of that event where Lord Rupert of the Stoners agrees to bring Scientist Rockus of the secreters to crown princess Griselda, the third of her line. Providing the WHOMP technology to her enables her to overthrow her mother, install herself as Queen Griselda III and start a new dynasty. The WHOMP technology escapes into the general population.

A new Period is added, "Queen Griselda III's reign of terror. Unity is achieved under a ruthless leader".

For our second round the lens is "The Mule"

A new Period is added "The bloody telepathic revolution topples the Griselda dynasty" (dark) and under that a (light) event "telepathic capability increases exponentially in families"

An event is added back under Queen Griselda III's reign "The Rats experiment with WHOMP and telepathy" (light)

An event is added after the Mule has arisen "The Mule and the Council come to blows over the fate of humanity" (dark)

Back under the increase of telepathic capability event we added a new (dark) event "non-telepath families lean harder into dangerous WHOMP technology" and we have a scene which answers the question "Does increased use of WHOMP tech for non-telepaths make people unstable?" There is a three way conversation between the now elderly Rockus; a young telepath who is oblivious to his privileges, and a non-telepath who is showing signs of addiction and who wants more and more power from the machines that Rockus controls to give him and his family a future in the future telepathic hegemony. In the end Rockus refuses because the man cannot offer him vast payment, and gets shot for his troubles!

Back with the Mule, we zoom into a (dark) scene with "the Mule and Trent, the leader of the Council, arguing for the future". A small boy, Worm, wanders into the confrontation. The Mule wants to take control of the communion and Trent is fighting against him. Behind him more and more of the council start nodding aliong with the Mule as their minds get captured. Worm somehow wanders in, a little boy with a head empty of thoughts apart from food and toilet humour. His contributions to the debate, such as they are, confuse Trent and the Mule wins the conflict. The question "how many people is the Mule willing to kill to get his way" is answered - thousands. The Mule's consciouness extends out into the telepathic communion, extinguishing minds and taking their place. He is everywhere now.

A new (dark) period is added "The Era of the Returning Emperor" as each time the Mule's current body dies, there is a re-integration from all his fragmented consciousnesses.

Another little dark event is added to the earlier period of the Mule - "despite the odds, one of the parts of the Mule's mind becomes intertwined with the Worm - whose mind was so empty that it coexisted in the background".

For our third round. the lens is "spaceflight"

Within the era of the returning emperor there are several (light) events. "The Rats erect a statue of Mako, their spiritual founder, and that becomes a symbol of resistance to the emperor". Also "The Rats experiment with spaceflight to escape". The final event in that period is "Replication fade happens with the Mule's continual reintegration, which means that his personality disappears into the empty mind of the worm".

A final light event under mankind makes it to the stars is this: "Other civilisations spring up, guaranteeing a single tyrant can no longer oppress all of humanity".

A final dark event is added under the very first part of the timeline "we bombed ourselves back to the Stone Age". This event reveals that "It was the WHOMP technology which had actually been responsible for the destruction of the previous civilisation".

Other notes

Some things that came up in discussion or in scenes that I've not recorded above are nice little details such as without writing information is passed down in oral histories and ballads, before the telepathic gestalt arose.

Horses had feathers and two legs, lions were nice meaty food animals, and so on. Tristan was great at introducing bizarre new creatures which had old names applied to them!

We quite like how the Rats, an apparent underclass, had actually been agents for change and progress throughout this history.

We stopped where we did because we ran out of time and we had each had a go as the lens. Although I don't feel the need to revisit this particular Microscope again, I'd definitely play the game again!

Unlike previous years, I ran no games, played no games, bought no games, attended no seminars, browsed no stands. Well, what was I doing there then? I'm glad you asked! I was running a stand for the first time, jointly with Matt of Ursidice.

Back in the summer Matt asked on Bluesky whether anyone was interested in sharing a table with him. I'd been thinking about running a table and remembering the advice from the seminar last year about the value of running a table with someone else I thought I'd put my hand up and join him.

Dragonmeet had outgrown the Novotel in Hammersmith where it has been for about a decade, and was moving to the ExCel centre in the East of London. A much bigger venue, and with new challenges in wrangling everything for the organisers. I discovered a discord where useful information was being shared, but for this year they were not really set up for two people sharing a table which caused some regrettable friction with the organisers. As a result I didn't end up listed as one of the vendors, and my shiny icon didn't appear on the website. I think they are going to look into how they could better support that (not uncommon) scenario next year, which would be great.

Costs

Because of where we live, there was no overnight stay, so no hotel charges.

Total costs £152.8

Sales

*zine bundle was Inner Circle plus Tail End Charlie for £20

After card charges, this came to £245.63

Total profit = £92.83

So a small profit overall.

Setup

We could start set up from 2 pm on Friday so I came down by train and got there at 3 pm on Friday afternoon. I met Matt (he’d been there from two) and had already set up his stock on the table. I put up my banner, we walked around, and then went and had a bit of a drink and something to eat at the Fox pub nearby. I hadn’t realised that hi-vis vests were needed, but Matt happily had some spare.

I had planned to attend Muppetmeet but after the first session (the write up of which you can see below) I was feeling really tired and so went home.

My wife and I got up 5.30am on the Saturday morning packed the car with all my products and drove down. Took about an hour to get to Excel but fairly trouble free. Parked in the underground car park and found our way up to The Hall where we got things set up quite quickly.

The day itself

It’s a long day to be standing and talking with people, but it was much more practical with more than one person than it would be otherwise because it allowed us to take breaks, go to the loo etc.

The aisles seemed much more spacious than they had been at Novotel and although the traffic was quite slow until about 10 o’clock, it picked up quite a lot after that.

I really enjoyed being able to talk to customers about games which I had made and share my excitement about them. Some of the visitors already had one of my games and it was really nice to hear about that too. Some of them shared experiences related to Tail-End Charlie, where their grandfathers had worked on Lancaster‘s or flown in them. One person who had played the game ended up doing a deep dive into researching the planes and the aircrew who flew in them. If I’m honest that is something I really hope for in my historical games - that people might end up enthused with that part of history.

Our location was a bit out on a limb. We had an artist next to us and painting tables opposite us, so we were not really in the midst of RPG stuff. It’s difficult to tell off that impacted us at all.

At the end of the day I sliced off for a few minutes to talk to some of the other vendors whom I knew, but only a few. It would have been nice to talk more in the evening but I couldn’t hang around and other get-togethers were all happening off site.

I don’t know how general this is but we found that in the morning people came and bought. In the afternoon they came and looked and said “I’ll be back later” (but not in the cool terminator voice). I didn’t expect much but was pleased when three people did actually come back later to buy.

Gave away all thirty copies of The White Rose Society that I’d brought along. Some people knew about that bit of history, others were fascinated to hear it.

Lessons learned

• my big hardbacks didn’t sell at all. I don’t think I’ll bring them along in the future. They are probably a better bet for retailers.
• I did specific themed bundles, but only one of those was picked up. In the future I’d like to try some more generic bundles (eg 10% off if you buy two, 20% off if you buy three).
• Free stickers are a good idea and something I’ll do next year. It is a cheap way of giving engagement.
• It is good to have some things at a lower price point, to support impulse purchases. I ought to make a few little one page games, or sell ashcans (I have one ashcan on itch at the moment and I didn’t think of bringing it along)
• Solo games still have a lot of appeal, and having a clear solo mode makes any game more sellable.
• I need to have clearer pitches for each of my games! Don’t go into mechanics, but tell people where the fun is!
• More little labels explaining the games.
• I ought to have a newsletter signup QR code (and some little freebies as encouragement for doing so)
• If I’m promoting a Kickstarter I ought to think about how I can get people interested (or identify the people who are interested) and make it easy for them to follow.

Muppetmeet

A joint venture by Soulmuppet and Dragonmeet, this time it was a Friday evening event of seminars and networking for the RPG creative industry.

Marketing

By Mol of Soulmuppet

Marketing is about identifying your audience, knowing what they like and engaging with them.

It is important to build interest early. Find out where your people hang out and what they like. Ashcans can help understand what people like, what keywords are important to them.

It is also about selling yourself and building trust. Give people a way to follow you. Give them a reason to remember you and a way to follow up and follow you.

Brand Identity

Your brand is not your product. The brand is the experience someone has with your business and products.
Building trust is a big part of it. Doubt is a big reason why people don’t buy (or don’t buy from you)

Social Media

Consider where your audience is and figure out what you want to use it for. If you only post links to your products people will get tired of that. Content marketing is about stimulating interest and providing context. It helps you be seen as a person in the industry and not just trying to “shill”. This can be how-tos, or about your business process, all kinds of thing.

When you are posting, know who your audience is. Expressions like PbtA and Dice Pool mean different things to different audiences. There are some standard copywriting techniques that can be handy but not everything works for TTRPS. Don’t get stuck on a phrase you think is good if the audience doesn’t like it or get it.

Promoting your crowdfunding campaign

It is good to talk with other creatives and see what has worked for them. Be an art gallery (that benefits from being around others) rather than a hot dog stand (that guards it’s territory jealously).

Build your audience first. A day 1 push is very important .

Paid Ads

If it is your first crowdfunding campaign there are advantages to working with Backerkit. They have experience in doing ads and can pay from them out of the fulfilment at the end of the campaign. They help with ad copy and assets too.

• https://www.backerkit.com/crowdfunding-ads

“Projects we love” on kickstarter are not selected by some secret process. Email them! Use the link on their site and ask them to love your project. They will look at it and may give you the magic star. Don’t be afraid to ask.

• https://help.kickstarter.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005135214-How-can-my-project-get-featured-or-selected-as-a-Project-We-Love

Working with the creatives

It’s great if you can work with people for stretch goals. It is a good thing for everybody, but from a marketing perspective it is a boost as it means there are additional people talking about it to their own audiences.

Influencers, Actual Play, etc

There are many reasons why you might want to work with them, but research them first! It isn’t just about the number of followers they have. Smaller community niches can be better.

What are your spend goals? Some want to make it a two-way street. It can be very difficult to calculate RoI for working with content creators. Attribution of sales is tricky!

Q&A

Question - is Kickstarter oversaturated?

The best time to use kickstarter was five year ago! But today what do people want? Is it a PDF on itch? Is it an ashcan that you can build on?

Question - which ad platforms are best?

Almost certainly facebook. It reaches the people with the disposable income. Be prepared to turn off comments or manage/block them though. You might get some horrible comments!

Question - when you say “find your audience” what does that mean?

The industry is largely D&D and then everything else, and anything else in the grand scheme of things is not big at all. Find those 10 people who like what you are making and reach out to them.

Conventions can help you understand what people find interesting.

Question - How do you find your niche?

Someone was working on a letter writing game and found writing groups and pitched to them. But how do you find them, how do you pitch to them?

Improve theatre groups might be an interesting group to reach out to.

Question - how do you market a game inspired by a property you don’t have rights to?

Orbital Blues is sad space cowboys (certainly not Cowboy Bebop or Firefly, oh no!) Find out what the core of your game is. You might say ‘inspired by’ but try not to compare yourself to other things, especially other RPGs.

Question - how do you get a media list to mail?

(I think the question was misheard, as the answer didn't really match)
Don’t just send a press release to 60 people. Reach out to individuals.

Question - budgeting and approach for influencers?

It can get very expensive, especially for professional AP people. Remember they are more about marketing their own brand rather than your product.

I didn't get to any of the other talks - too tired - if I'm able to catch up on recordings I'll add them in here.

There are a number of changes that I'm introducing as a result of those playtests. These are the changes and the reason for them.

Finale should come after Arrival

During both playtests the players felt that having 'Arrival' after the 'Finale' didn't make sense thematically. They preferred to find out what was happening in their personal quests (Arrival) before understand what was happening in the wider world (Finale). Happily this is a simple change to implement!

Less Maths for Threats

Strictly speaking this is a change which I made before Metatopia and which I was testing out there - the test was really positive, and so I'm baking it in.

Originally, the way that the game scaled was that you take the threat card and then multiply it by the number of player characters in the game. If you have a face card you have to mentally turn it into a number before multiplying. So if you have a four player game and drew a Jack, then the threat total would be 4x11 for 44. Then the players have to add their cards to attempt to beat that total. If a total was exceeded, then bonus resources were gained depending upon how well it was beaten. This was almost impossible to smoothly scale for different numbers of players, and wasn't balanced in terms of extra resources at all.

My solution was this. A threat card is drawn, and then everyone has to play a card to beat that threat. Those that beat the threat will gain one extra resource each. If more than half of the group beat the threat, then the threat is overcome safely. If you don't meet that threshold then either one of the supporting characters must die or one of the player characters will become a dead man walking. No multiplication, simple comparison and a little bit of counting. Much better!

This scales perfectly whether playing a solo game or with up to four players (the recommended maximum).

Remove 'Approaches' from character sheet

At the start of each Act, each player gets a new set of three playing cards which are their approaches for that Act. There was a place on the character sheet to record that, so a character might be 'compassionate, skillful, and cunning' in Act 1; 'very skillful and aggressive' in Act 2, and 'extremely compassionate' in Act 3. The 'very' prefix indicates two cards of that type, 'extremely' represents all three cards are the same type.

However, the players felt that recording on their character sheets felt like busy-work. It didn't add anything to their understanding of their character. Moreover, the change in approaches which the character has in the second and third Acts comes over just fine in the nature of the cards which they play.

So I've removed the lines on the character sheet where someone would record their approaches.

Change the keepsake mechanic

At the start of these adventures, having your keepsake at the end of the game gave you a better 'Arrival' result. However, there was no real impetus to lose that keepsake, and it just meant that everyone had a better than expected result!

So the mechanical change that I made is this - if you are given someone elses keepsake to look after, then you get a bonus to your arrival score. If you have given away your keepsake you get a detriment. So why might someone give away their keepsake? The main reason is that if you are a Dead Man Walking and you sacrifice yourself to overcome a threat, you can have a flashback to giving your keepsake away to someone, so that there is a chance of closure for the loved ones, even though the character has sacrificed themselves. It also gives the potential for someone to lean into a worse outcome for themselves for story reasons, and to boost someone else whom they think has had a rough ride of things.

Review tropes

It became clear that some of the tropes were very easy to incorporate into the game while others were not clearly enough defined. In the Alien Invasion horror game, someone had 'Body Horror' and was able to narrate the continual growth of alien fungus over their body throughout the game. Someone else had Eroding Friendships, and their relationship with a supporting character got steadily worse until in the end he pushed them in front of the alien war machines in order to get away! On the other hand, the players with 'Survival Horror' and 'Psychological Horror' didn't have anything they could clearly mark to show they had hit their trope.

As a result, I'm going through all 52 tropes to make sure that all of them have actionable impacts in the game. This bit isn't finished yet, as I've got to re-think some of the tropes. Essentially each of the tropes is going to have something which can affect a supporting character relationship, the finding of resources, the use of resources, or the playing of a particular card suit when facing threats.

When to play cards

I'm recording this as a bit of inconclusive feedback! In the first game, when a threat is revealed, everyone plays their card and then the result is narrated from highest to lowest (if you don't overcome the threat) or lowest to highest (if you do). By the time it got to the third Act, the players said that they would prefer to narrate their actions as they played their card, which they did and liked much better.

So in the second game, I had the players narrate their actions as they played their cards. By the time it got to the third Act, these players said that they would prefer to all lay their cards down and then narrate in order once they saw what had been played, and they liked that much better!

The end result is that I don't think we have a clear outcome here, so I'm going to stick with one approach in the main body of the rules, and highlight the other approach in my variant rules section.

When to have character vignettes

By default we would have character vignettes - short roleplaying scenes or narratives - at the conclusion of each scene. Because of the short run-time of a metatopia playtest (only 2 hours) we only did these at the end of each Act.

In the future, my recommendation is that we have the vignettes in the middle of each Scene - after revealing the location, but before the threat is revealed. This gives more opportunities to bring depth to the location as well as the character stories.

Other news?

This is going to be coming to Kickstarter next year - probably May. I'd love it if you would sign up for a notification of the launch on the preview page here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/escape-to-utopia

By Jen Adcock Beta Test

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jenkatwrites.bsky.social

A historical story game about Rome’s Vestal Virgins, a heavily restricted but also heavily privileged class of priestesses, whose personal sanctity was tied to the well-being of Rome itself. Through play, the characters find themselves under scrutiny as scapegoats for various political crises that will impact the city - after all, if Rome is under threat, surely a Vestal must have broken a vow. They must balance what political sway they have as priestesses, as well as managing their own personal goals and secrets, as events beyond their control place them in the path of tragedy.

This game involves managing a series of escalating clocks with prompt-driven GMless scenes of play. Content warning: historical mentions of slavery, animal sacrifice, and forced marriage, all of which are veiled.

This game was delightful. I’m always on the lookout for interesting political simulations, and this game scratches several itches.

Setup

As you can see from my photo, there are eight areas of potential concern facing the city, arranged in a clock face of their own. They each have clocks whose segments can be filled (or emptied) as the game progresses. The number of segments gives an indication of how likely that area is to become problematic. A particularly great touch is that adjacent clocks are related and if one clock fills, excess problems can spill one onto adjacent clocks, providing cascading failures! If a clock is filled and not resolved in that turn it flips over to a worse clock - the situation has got narratively worse and mechanically more fragile.

As players, you all take the role of a vestal virgin. Your character has an age, a few adjectives, a terrible secret that must not get out, and a couple of relationship questions. Below is an example of the relationship map we ended up with.

You also choose an area of focus for your vestal. This is a sheet of actions you can take which represent you using your social or political capital to reduce the strain in one key area and to a lesser extent the two related areas. All of them can help with duty too, which is really necessary as it fills up quickly and there are always problems there!

The final thing your character has is a clock which represents (I think) the amount of evidence which is out there about your secret. This is important because if something goes so badly wrong in the city that they decide to put one of the vestals on trial for breaking their vows (because that MUST be why there are problems, right?) the person they choose is the one whose secret is most exposed.

Core game loop

We go round the table and everyone rolls a d8 and a d4. The d8 tells you which area is under stress, the d4 tells you how many segments of the clock to fill in. In our game we had bad luck with the dice rolls with lots of 4’s, so by turn 3 it was all a nightmare! (I think that Jen may may adjusted this in the next playtest)

Then we go round the table again and each of the players decides what ‘move’ they want to make, has a little narrative scene about it (often involving another vestal IIRC) and then they erase one clock segment. Of course, they can choose to ignore the problems in the city and cover their own back by reducing their secret liability if they choose!

Finally we see if any clocks are full, and if so switch those clocks to the “worse version” of the problem.

Play continues until one of the “worse” clocks is filled and not fixed, at which point a trial starts.

The trial

This puts a trial clock in the appropriate place, resets some of the other clocks, and unlocks some more powerful moves on the character sheets. Broadly play continues with the new moves unlocked until the accused is exonerated or executed (!)

My thoughts

I loved playing this game. It engaged me with the premise and the mechanics felt like the city was in peril and we had real choices about fixing the problems or protecting our own backs.

Some of the relationship questions were weaker than others, but those would be easy things to tweak.

Eventually I’d like to see a little more help in understanding what ‘emptying your secret/vulnerability clock’ means in the game. I knew what i was doing mechanically, but I wasn’t super clear what was happening narratively there and would benefit from a little more hand holding.

In a four hour session rather than a two hour session there might be more time for role playing scenes which would be nice. I didn’t feel that I had the chance to inhabit my character much, but I suspect that was mostly the constraint of time.

Mechanically this game felt really ready for prime time. I look forward to the point where it is ready for release, because it’s a game I’d love to support and play in its final form.

The Mountain Dream

Aaron A Reed
Beta Test

The Mountain Dream is a GMless roleplaying and worldbuilding game about escaping into fantasies, and what fantastical worlds are good for when the real one’s on fire. Excavate the forgotten city of Zenith, whose residents once had the power to dream new worlds into being, and find out whether you’re doomed to relive its downfall or can envision a better future. Pull words from random books to shape your story and power your dreams, and explore to unlock new story moves that further your exploration of Zenith and its dreams.

This game had a really interesting premise (what are fantastical worlds good for when the world is on fire) especially as a meta-commentary on gaming itself. For me it didn’t quite reach that premise in the game as we played it at this point.

Setup

We each had a character and for the purpose of this test I think they had been set up with a certain amount of ‘inspiration’ (a spendable resource) and 1, 2, or 3 dots by certain characteristics. One player had three dots in ‘create’, one had it most in ‘connection’ and one had it in ‘settle’. This reflected something which was especially important to the character. There was a brief description of who they were as a person (in my case a retired teacher in their 50’s who loved birdwatching and skiing). You each pick a book and generate three words randomly from it to put in a pool in the table. I had electricity, riverside, and meaning.

There was a sheet that showed us things that had already been discovered - three quite evocative dreamworlds, two districts on zenith (monastery and warehouse areas) and a few other things, including needs for the city, including food and education.

Core game loop

We took it in turn to take an action. There are a number of actions which are available at the start of the game, and completing some actions opens up additional future actions on a rather nice network of opportunities which are shown in a diagram. Rules page numbers were in actions we could take, others were blank but hinted at future opportunities.

Each of the actions is like its own independent mini-game, with a distinct set of rules and definitions in the rulebook.

The actions we each took were led by the initiating player and provided opportunities for collaborative input from the other players.

A journal is passed round the table, following the acting player. So if you had players 1, 2, 3, when player 1 was taking an action, player 3 would record in the journal what happened. When player 2 took an action, player 1 would be journalling. You are encouraged to try a range of different journalling styles. Some might write prose, some might record lists and one of our players journaled the home building via annotated doodles and pictures. So together you are building up a picture of your game world.

Details

The first player created a dreamworld. This involved reading through several pages of the rulebook, working out what some of the things mean, and there were five elements which would be true of a dreamworld (including safety, usefulness, imagination and a couple of others). The rules allowed us to use one of our words to pick one of those, but it wasn’t clear to us how the others meshed in - nor how much was the responsibility of the person instigating the action and how much was expected to be collaborative.

We ended up with a world in perpetual autumnal decay - beautiful, but dangerous as spending too much time there would cause us to decay as well. We were tiny, the leaves and trees were gigantic, and there were gigantic beings there who could help us (in some way). We didn’t get to the point of exploring a dream world.

Then the second player took an action to create a home for us, and I as the third player took an action to start building a community resource - a an education centre. In each case we had some quite detailed procedural rules to follow in order to flesh things out, sometimes using words from our pool of words, at other times just choosing to describe things.

The community resource was a small challenge so we had two tasks each of which had three steps to complete, but as long as we had made some progress on each of the tasks we could use the randomiser to see if we had succeeded early. In our case we did, and our education centre opened successfully although we had quite finished gathering resources or publicising it (our two tasks!)

My thoughts

I may have misread the game description, but I had expected that we would have more to do creating wonderful dream worlds and then using them to influence the real world, while the meat of the game as we played it was doing some relatively mundane community building stuff which didn’t engage with any of the existing dream worlds or the one we had just created.

I would love to have seen more of a conversation between the imaginative dreams and the real community, with a particular emphasis on the former rather than the latter.

I liked the idea of using books as both an oracle (in the terms of supplying words which we could use when defining things) and a randomiser. Out of curiosity I asked whether the designer had chosen the letters for simple, ordinary or complex tasks simply by their position in the alphabet or by looking at actual letter distribution in the English language, and I was delighted to learn that they had done a lot of research into letter frequency. Hurrah!

The journalling part of the game was really nice, and it reminded me a little of my experiences playing Myst back in the 90’s. A game which creates an artefact during play always attracts my attention!

There is a lot to like in the premise of this game, and as it develops further I would love to see more of an emphasis on the dream and its integration with a problem solving for the real world. Worth keeping an eye on.

The Light over the Tracks

By Heather Albano
Alpha Test

A module being written for the upcoming Trail of Cthulhu 2.0 (forthcoming from Pelgrane Press). The year is 1931; the place Gurdon, Arkansas. A ghost-hunting friend of the Investigators reports a bobbing light over the tracks of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad as they twist into a darkling wood. Is it the ghost of a murdered brakeman... or something much much worse?

I’m not going to be talking rules because those are not under test here, and since it is a horror investigation adventure, there is a limit to how much I can safely say! I will do my best though.

Bottom line - I like this adventure and would happily run it for people when it is published.

The adventure is presented in a way which is sensitive to the timing and location (1931 Arkansas) which I think most people will appreciate.

All of the investigator pregen characters were appealing, and I really liked the one that I chose - a clerical assistant from Miskatonic University who had grown up in the shadow of strange things and was driven by her desire to understand them. More capable than her job title suggested!

The town of Gurdon is nicely presented, and has no redundant detail. Everything we heard and saw was useful if you thought it through! There is good historical information to be dug up too which all adds depth to the investigation and new leads to follow.

About halfway through there was one bit of information we were told that was genuinely creepy, and made a smooth transition from what seemed like a ghost story to a real lovecraftian horror story. It also tacitly posed the question of how much we might be prepared to give up in order to prevent such a great evil.

Some nice further scenes as we gathered some more information to oppose the threat, and engaged with various people in the town.

We didn’t have time to play through to the conclusion in our 2 hour playtest, but we had got most of the clues together and I know the designer decided to put more of an emphasis on some elements that we thought were just colour for the later playtests, which went even better.

My thoughts

A really nice, self-contained adventure for Trail of Cthulhu. You can make sensible progress, and careful observation and thinking is rewarded. The final scene will be memorable in lots of ways.

There are a lot of really interesting tie-ins to real world history and literature, both in America and further afield. All respectfully done.

I would certainly purchase and play this adventure when it comes out.

Desperation - Zombie Horror Survival

By Tim Hutchins
Alpha Test

• contact: https://thousandyearoldvampire.com

We whittle a large group of survivors down through the first night, the first week, and the first year of a zombie apocalypse. This is a scenario for Jason Morningstar’s Desperation system which means misery, death, and and an unusual take on shared characters. Content warnings: Everything you’d find in a zombie movie. Designer might switch this out for Desperation: Salt and Glass (described elsewhere in this game list).

Desperation is a great game with innovative mechanics - the original game of Desperation has two scenarios - an isolated town and a desperate sailing vessel, and a group of people get whittled down. This is a set of cards which Tim has produced to enable a typical zombie movie situation to be played through using those rules.

The neat thing about the Desperation game is that events which are drawn can be attached to any of characters on the table, and while doing so you give some details from that persons perspective about what is going on (“speaking their truth”). As Tim put it, a card which says “I burn the church down because it is full of hypocrites” hits differently depending on whether you put it on the town drunk or the town preacher.

Desperation can be found here https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/desperation

Core game loop

The players take it in turns to draw cards from the deck. The first ten or so are characters waking up to the reality of a zombie apocalypse happening - perhaps they hear police radio chatter, perhaps they see zombies in their back garden, perhaps someone is grabbed out of the car they are in… This puts them in play on the table.

The next set of events cover people escaping zombies (and over-zealous military) in their town, and starting to pair up with other characters, and in some cases die to the zombies.

Then we transition to chapter 2 which divides the characters into two groups, reflecting two sets of people trying to reach safety in the mountains. The chapter 2 events are more brutal, people start dieing or being abandoned by their peers and ending up on a dead person pool, and there is some conflict between the two groups.

Finally we transition to the last chapter (“55 seconds in Walmart”) which is full of people murdering each other accidentally, being snagged by zombies and so forth, until at last a card is drawn which ends the game and any survivors make it away.

My thoughts

The game was fun and hit the genre tropes really nicely - the Desperation mechanics lent themselves to this well. We had some interesting discussion about implied or assumed gender of various characters, and we had found that some characters seemed a more natural home for many cards than others did. One person struggled with a bit of narrative mismatch between the person who had been on a roof, but for the next event was in a building and people burned in floors above (but everyone else was in cars by that point). It was important for us to realise that time could pass between events for a given character!

I particularly liked the ‘foreshadowing’ events, where someone has been bitten but is hiding it, or someone has some zombie blood splashed in their eye but they think they wiped it away in time.

It’s a neat playset for Desperation!

Dead Internet Theory

By Che Pieper Alpha Test

• Contact: https://www.patreon.com/s_che

Dead Internet Theory is a (roughly) PBTA game about time travel, digital simulacra, and the end of the world. It features an asymmetrical/GM-full player structure, mad-libs based character creation, high-concept time-travel abilities, and a deck of cards which we will explore, modify, duplicate, and deface over the course of play.

I love the premise, although we got bogged down in the details sometimes. I think the core game loop is the strongest part.

Setup

We each created a character mad-libs style. I had to give an adjective, a job, an age, a subject area, another subject area and a negative reaction. So it turns out that I was playing a pretty accountant, 27, who loves zoology but is continually forced to encounter pop music which disgusts her. Of course, once the first character is created everyone else can see the structure, so there is less of a surprise element in what you are doing with your creation!

There are a couple of questions which you are asked which gives you an emotional alignment of either Victorious, Violence, Romantic or Actualisation, and these give a checklist of some very directive things to do, the accomplishing of which will give you greater and greater powers. I was a Romantic and took an opportunity to “resolve a problem with open hearted honesty”. Someone else was Violence and could “push someone to hurt themselves when they don’t need to”(!)

We then agreed what our starting ‘world’ was like, and we decided it was near future, with zero privacy and advertising was being continually beamed into our brains. It is impossible to avoid noise and hard to make connection with people. This world was called ‘iLive’ and seems pretty dystopian, but it was going to get much worse.

Core game loop

The main (and most intriguing for me) part of the game is that you start laying a line of playing cards down from your starting point in your world. Each card placed is looked up in an oracle and provides a scene or scenario for you to play out. Some of them are innocuous and interesting, but some of them are omens of the ‘large evil’ which threatens all the worlds. The omens are where things get bad (or worse) and pose problems to overcome. After three omens Large Evil arrives. We define a few things about its powers, and then it starts consuming the timeline behind us by removing cards. That’s worrying!

However, each of the characters can quite quickly gain a special power which is called a doctorate. If you have a doctorate in English which includes speculative fiction you can create brand new timelines and move yourself there. I got that and created a new timeline where the world was green and pleasant, populated with elves who have a law of hospitality, live in plenty and have no computers. It was called “The Last Homely Place”. That got me safe from Large Evil for now. If someone chooses a doctorate in History, they can add a timeline before the start of your world, creating prior events in the world. There is another doctorate someone chose which allows them to bifurcate a timeline. They used it when they opened an electrical junction box and masses of Camel Spiders (Solifugids) jumped out at them. Unfortunately their bifurcated world was one where Large Evil exploded out of the junction box and destroyed them! Luckily they still existed in the other trouser leg of time, so their game would continue.

This creation of a timeline with prompts, creating new timelines or splitting existing timelines was brilliant. My favourite part of the game by a long way.

Details

There are a whole bunch of actions, many of which are minigames and these were much more uneven. Sometimes it is ‘take an action’ which was one roll and that was it. Or it might be ‘browse the web’ and I ended up creating a diagram of a wiki with subordinate pages, that was creating additional fiction for about 10 minutes while the other players watched. Not so much fun for them. Another action was ‘create fan art’ and the player was given crayons and paper and left to do something with that.

We didn’t do many of those, but it seems that the main purpose was to introduce additional fictional elements which could turn up in a future timeline, or to create ‘junk’ in your inventory which could be used in the future to help you do things, including overcoming Large Evil.

My thoughts

I loved the core game loop very, very much. I think I would have started things in the present day though, because the framing of this all starting as an internet game narratively suggests that you need to. It would also help the weirdness if your starting point is more normal IMO.

The minigames were unevenly balanced in terms of time, and for me distracted from the meat of the game in the core loop. I’d happily see them hugely simplified. Part of me wouldn’t miss them if they were not there, but as I mentioned earlier they do eventually create things which impact the game.

I’m not sure why the ultimate enemy is called ‘Large Evil’ because it seems such an anodyne word for a reality-consuming horror! I hope that is just a placeholder name.

I recognise that this is an alpha test, and quite a long way from the final form. I think that the core game loop is very solid, and I’m sure that the designer will refine those things which are just a little clunky at the moment.

Kill Your Darling

Jolyne Alpha Test

In this dark existential romance for two players, you play two halves of a whole split apart which come violently back together. Using Tarot cards as prompts, you will tell the story of your reunion. Whether it ends in happiness or in tragedy is up to you.

There were just two of us in this game, playing avatars of two concepts which were wrestling with our relationship. Were we going to come together in harmony or destroy one another?

Setup

First we decided that our pairing was going to be the geology and biology of Earth. My partner played geology and I played biology. We decided why we needed each other and how we harmed each other. I needed geology because they give me stability. They need biology because I change them. However, my tendency to proliferate can exhaust geology. And the scale of geology’s movements can harm me.

We also created a third party which could cause complications sometimes, and we decided that would be entropy, which caused decay of biology and erosion of geology.

We had a limited tarot deck placed between us, with a pair of major arcana cards at the end of the first act, a pair at the second act, and then a final card. Our deck only include the Cups and Swords and those five major arcana.

Core game loop

We took turns to draw a card, check what the normal interpretative guidelines would be for that card, and then describe what we do, then ask our partner a question about what we have just done and wait for their answer.

Generally speaking the Cups have quite nice interpretations and the Swords have quite aggressive ones. However any Queen or King meant that we killed something of the other partners avatar. A Page or Knight means that our third party Decay would push us apart in some way. An Ace was particularly positive.

An added complication was that if a card was ‘inverted’ we had to harm our partner, if it wasn’t inverted then we had to be kind to them.

The first pair of major arcana cards that appear are assigned to one another to reflect something about how we are. The second pair of major arcana cards that appear are assigned to each other to reflect what we think of the other one. The final card which ends the game tells us something about the final state of the game.

Details

Just a few highlights of the game - there was the time when geology woke from an ice age and flooded some of its plains and destroyed my forests. I requested they seek consent before such major moves.

Later in the game (after a whole series of bad cards had upped the narrative ante) I decided that humans had evolved now, and they were rapaciously extracting coal and other minerals from geology - digging deep and carelessly. I then had the gall to ask geology how they liked being my ‘subject’. They were righteously angry with me!

My thoughts

The biggest problem that we experienced in the game came from the use of the inverted cards. Narratively it was very hard to do something positive with Swords and even harder to do something negative with Cups! In addition, there wasn’t an even distribution of inverted and non-inverted cards in the deck, and I ended up with aggression after aggression in the later part of the game!

Both of the players felt that the game would probably have flowed a little better if we had just used the Card suits and values as prompts and ignored the inverted/not inverted thing.

Acting the roles of abstract entities was pretty hard, and we wondered whether the designer might consider including an ‘easy mode’ while learning the game by having something like two families, whether montagues and capulets, or possibly two mafia families seeking to come back together. That would give plenty of human level intrigue and at the family level killing off members of a family (but not the whole family) might be conceptually easier to grasp.

A Place to be Apart

By Tim Hutchins
Alpha Test

• Contact: https://thousandyearoldvampire.com

Players will answer Prompts on cards to generate a small community that is related to but isolated from a larger community, then they will use characters to explore that community. This is a hopeful game about people finding contentment within constrained settings. Content Warnings: Player generated content with x-card safety tools, incarceration or controlled environments.

This game was extending an existing game which is good at creating cosy communities by introducing power disparities with a larger community which could put constraints on that smaller community.

Setup

We had a think about the community that we wanted to play. After some discussion we settled on the idea of a seagoing community of fishers known as ‘navigators’ along with an island community called ‘landbound’.

There are a set of cards, each with three questions on. Some of the cards are about cosy themes like clothing, food and so forth. Some of the cards are about specific individuals in the community. Some of the cards (marked with black) are about directive rules and regulations.

There is also a sheet of additional rules depending upon whether either of the cards you pick up has one, two, three, or four ticks on it; they represent the number of times the card has been used.

Core game loop

At the start of each turn everyone draws two cards. You think about something which answers the questions (or is inspired by the questions) on both the first and the second card and answer both of those questions. You then add a tick to both of the cards and return them to the pile. If one of the cards is a person, you may narrate a scene involving that character and their engagement with the other question.

In second and subsequent turns you may be answering the second or third question on one of the cards. When doing so, the answers should take into account earlier questions and answers on the card, not just in a thematic way but in a specific way.

If at least one of the cards has a tick on it, you should also introduce a problem. If at least one has two ticks there should be a solution proposed which people disagree on. If at least one has three ticks, there should be a solution which makes the problem worse. If at least one card has four ticks, you should provide a solution which resolves the problem, cross out the card and discard it.

My thoughts

We ran into a series of problems when playing this game. First of all we didn’t realise that the answers should be from the context of the smaller community (the landbound), not the more powerful community (the navigators). I found this was a little frustrating because it was the seagoing navigators that were more interesting, they were where my heart wanted to be! So as part of the setup it is important to make sure that you agree which smaller community you wanted to play.

Secondly, we didn’t realise that the second questions were supposed to tie in directly to the first question on the cards, rather than just be thematically related. Of course we didn’t find out that this was a problem until the third time those cards came up,

Thirdly, problems were introduced as part of an answer to the two questions across a pair of cards - but then that pair of cards didn’t come up again, as after shuffling there were new pairs! So we were not necessarily developing the problems, as creating lots of little new problems, some of which were created in a state of disarray because of the tick situation.

Fourthly, in the situation where something arises with four ticks on it, there is no guarantee that the core question to be answered was actually part of that card which gets crossed out and discarded (and there was no space to write an answer on that card, because with four ticks it has already had its three questions answered).

As we bumped into each of these problems, there was much confusion! Unlike a game of Dialect where at the end we have a really good sense of the community that has been created, I don’t think we had any sense about this community at all, and were just confused. We did end up with a criminal justice system, a rites of passage, and a set of farming, celebration and healing practices.

Only one character actually ended up being used to explore the setting (several of the cards, including characters, were removed from the deck after the first couple of rounds to speed things up for the 2 hour slot, and that meant that two of the three characters went, which was a shame in retrospect)

As I write here, I wonder if the game would have run more smoothly if instead of trying to provide one answer across the combination of questions on two cards, we just gave two answers on each turn - one for card one and one for card two? That would have made it much more straightforward to have three questions on each card that build on one another, with increasing problems and amenable to a solution. As we played the cognitive load of trying to answer a pair of prompts in a way which was congruent with the previous answers on both cards and the increasing problem situation was huge and we often had to ask the other players to help us out with ideas.

Now this was labelled as an alpha test, and as such it was a bit experimental. It felt like the most alpha of all the games I played.

The World’s Problems

By Emily Care Boss
Beta Test

• website: http://www.blackgreengames.com
• Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/keirgreeneyes

A game of espionage and bureaucracy. Play highly skilled field intelligence agents, called Wreckers, on dangerous missions, and the water-cooler corner machinations which put them into play. An original system influenced by the Powered by the Apocalypse engine. Character focused, multi-role, GM-ful play.

This is a 1970’s set game of espionage very much in the LeCarré mode rather than the James Bond mode. There was a delightful level of period and character detail that drew me into the game and left me wanting to play more (much more!)

In a two hour session we didn’t have time to do much more than character generation and a couple of initial scenes relating to the office, so there is lots I can’t comment on yet, but plenty to enjoy nonetheless.

Setup

We each play two principal characters - a wrecker and a member of the support staff, an analyst. These two roles have two very distinct character sheets, with different sets of information and rules. I’ll talk about the wrecker first, and then the analyst.

We also have political situations, missions which are in the offing, various allied and enemy ambassadors, various political department heads… lots of juicy details that I’ll touch on.

The wreckers all have a ‘capacity for violence’ and have on the front some basic elements of their background, and interesting sets of checkboxes that hint about their personal physical condition and the state of their cover identity (which can include suspected, compromised, blown etc). The reverse of the character sheet has a big list of skills, and you have some marked from profession, some from basic training and so forth. We never got around to using these as we didn’t do any missions. There are also some great relationship bits I’ll talk about later in detail.

The support staff have a different character sheet with different things on them. There were different roles available including administrator, devices guy, and cipher clerk. I played the cipher clerk. They have a long list of moves on their sheet. Many of these moves are ones that can be used during missions, and there is a mission ‘clock’ on the character sheet - as you get further on in the missions, additional moves become available. Judith, my code breaker, has moves which can bring advantages to problems or aid the wrecker’s skills through intercepting transmissions and breaking codes.

As well as this, we had three friendly ambassadors, three enemy ambassadors, and a whole list of heads of departs (e.g. secretary of defence, secretary of education, secretary of health and others). They each have names, other heads they like or dislike, things they want and so forth. Missions require sign-offs from various department heads, so understanding what they want and dislike is important!

The political situation is Africa in 1977. Idi Amin is the brutal ruler of Uganda, and he considers all British people spies, so we are going to have to land people in Kenya and cross the border to get them out safely. In addition the head of station in Vienna has started a relationship with the wife of an ex-KGB general. Is she a honeytrap, or is it an opportunity for us to turn her?

Core game loop

We didn’t get to the point of playing through this, but I think I’m right in saying that we have a negotiation phase at home in the office, where the wreckers are relating to their boss, to the various analysts, the heads of departments and diplomats. Then we switch and they go on missions, supported by the analysts.

Honestly both elements of this sound like lots of fun.

Details

I’d just like to highlight the great relationships which a wrecker has. We each picked two - one for a relationship with an analyst, and one for a relationship with someone else. These relationships are assumed to be mutual. I particularly like that we express what characterises the relationship. E.g.

• Friendly with / shared activity
• Rivalry with / compete over
• Flirting with / wants to ask
• Angry with / petty wish

For instance, one of the other wreckers was “Angry with the French Ambassador, who had made fun of her command of French. As a result she hoped that the Ambassadors plans for labour relation improvements failed”

My wrecker was angry with another one of the Analysts, Kevin, because his gambling addiction makes him unreliable. My petty wish is that he loses big. My wrecker was also flirting with Ms Pritchard, head of department for external affairs and my bosses boss.

A couple of scenes we had before we closed: in the first, the number one wrecker stopped at a patisserie and arrived early for the morning briefing with a delicious pastry for the administrative analyst who controls the planner. With a bit of flirty shared banter and pastry the wrecker got some inside information about the missions coming up that day.

The other scene was early in the morning before the briefing in a posh hotel room in Park Lane. My wrecker has just finished getting dressed and he then helps the lady he spent the night with to zip up her dress. We see it is Ms Pritchard, his bosses boss. He massages her shoulders and mentions to her that the Vienna job would be much better aligned for his jewel thief skills, while another one of the wreckers with cross country experience would be much better suited for the Ugandan job. They share a deep kiss, and Pritchard agrees, moving him from the Uganda to the Vienna mission.

My thoughts

I loved every part of this game. The somewhat grubby scenarios we found ourselves in. The cleverly drawn analysts who are fun to play and also will be contributing to missions. The complex possibilities of a negotiation phase with all those political moving parts. I can’t wait to play it again in more detail.

I have a natural suspicion of long skill lists like the wrecker has, and in my own games always keep an eye out for the possibilities of collapsing some skills together (especially when some are rarely used). However, I’ll withhold judgement here until I see missions playing out! it is very interesting that the wrecker and the analyst have such different character sheets to reflect their different modes of play.

Testing My Games

I also had some very successful playtests of two of my games - the forthcoming Escape the Apocalypse, and the slightly further away Road to Romance. I'll cover those playtests in more detail in a subsequent post.

Conclusion

As always Metatopia has been an absolute delight. It is wonderful meeting old and new friends, enthusiastic designers and playtesters, both around the game tables and in the many conversations during the day and late into the night. I'm repeating myself from earlier reports, but smart people, talking passionately about the subjects they love is very invigorating!

All credit to Avonelle, Vinney and their friends at Double Exposure who make it all possible. Find out more about what they do here: https://dexposure.com/home.html

My name is Andy, I'm an illustrator and indie RPG designer from Glasgow, Scotland. I've designed 5 games at this point and provided artwork for a few others.

What do you like best about designing games?

Seeing them come together. The moment after maybe the first few play tests where mechanics start to click together or evolve to flow the way you want it to give a solid foundation to build on.

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

I recently successfully kickstarted my newest game Skies Above, so I'll be working on doing the final writing, layout and art for it over the next few months after already working on it solidly the last year and a half and on and off over four and a half years. It's a JRPG inspired game that means a lot to me as early final fantasy titles, games like Dragon Quest, Grandia and Legend of Zelda where my first steps into gaming.

Can you tell me more about Skies Above?

Skies Above was the game I actually started working on when I first went freelance as an artist and was developing it on the side. At various points I hit some walls mechanically and artistically with the direction I wanted to go in with it and put it aside to work on other smaller projects and one not so small project. The whole while I was tinkering away at bits and pieces of it in the background based on what I learned from these other projects.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

With my games I really try and capture the tone and vibe of the game from the lore and settings right down to the mechanics and I try to connect the mechanics to elements of the lore of the games themselves. This is hopefully obvious to players and not even that subtle with the number 8 being important in the world of Skies Above and so the game uses a D8 for its resolution with the number 8 exploding and providing critical levels, or Abbadon's lore having 13 demon lords and 13 seals while a card deck has 13 cards in a suit.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Late pledges are still open for Skies Above over on Kickstarter and will be until December or possible January.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/losthaven/skies-above/

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

People can find me on pretty much all social media platforms as lost haven art or they can find my website at https://www.losthavenart.com

• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/losthavenart.bsky.social
• instagram https://www.instagram.com/losthavenart
• Linktree https://linktr.ee/LostHavenArt

Please tell me a bit about yourself

Hi! I'm Ramona (she/her) a.k.a Alderdoodle. The elevator pitch would be that I'm a lettering artist and illustrator helping wonderful indie games look their best with intricate page decor, character sheets and ornate illustrations.

The slightly longer version would be that I've been doodling since I could hold a pen, I started learning calligraphy and lettering in 2017 and when I discovered the world of TTRPGs a few years later, the worlds collided and now here we are.

What do you like best about designing art for games?

Getting to connect with so many people and stories all while being paid for doing what I love. When I first started doing calligraphy, I very quickly decided that weddings was not my favoured terrain, so to be able to find this space where I can combine drawing and playing has been incredible. I don't design game systems or write adventures and I don't really want to, but sneaking my page decor bits into as many of those games as I can? That I do want to. Watch out games designer. I'm coming for your game too.

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

I would say that usually my home genre to work in is fantasy, but looking at my current/recent commission list you wouldn't know because sure there's your usual high-fantasy, but also medieval horror, 80s cartoons and a street-level psychic RPG thrown in the mix too and I love it all. There is so much variety, not just in genres, but stories and settings too, created by people from all over the world and I get to be a part of that?! No one pinch me. This is amazing. Much love to all the creators who looked at all my fantasy themed stuff and said - nah, I bet she can do this other thing too. Eternally grateful.

Can you tell me more about your process when doing your illustrations?

If it's layout decor, cover or logo commissions, it usually starts with 3 or 4 concept sketches, one gets picked (or we mix and match elements from the different sketches to come up with the final concept) and then it gets refined into the final piece.

For personal pieces, I'm my own art director and already know what the vibe is that I'm after, so it's rare for many different sketches to appear in the process.

For character sheets, it's like playing themed tetris with shapes you create yourself. I love looking for pre-existing things that relate to the theme to get inspiration for character sheets. For example, when I drew a scary themed d&d sheet, I looked at shapes of old gravestones and cathedral windows. When I did an art nouveau one, I looked at that style gates and doors, because their shape lends itself well to that of text fields and then it's a just matter of adding pizzaz. Pizzaz hands It's like jazz hands, but holding a pencil.

What do you like to blog about? Any that you think more people should read?

I blog less than I should in terms of appeasing any SEO gods, but when I do it's mostly posts from the POV of an artist working in the ttrpg industry, who also happens to play the games. Oh and that one post where I wrote out a d&d Christmas one-shot I wrote and ran for my friends, where the narration was mostly done in rhyme. It was really fun.

I've also been asked to write a tutorial about how I'm creating page dividers, so stay tuned for that one if lovely little page decor details make your heart beat faster.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

My ko-fi freebie library! Roughly once a month or so, I add art bits to it that people can use in their projects (personal or commercial.) It can vary from book covers to character sheets to page dividers and more. I release everything as pay-what-you-want, so even if the budget is tight, hopefully you can still find something that suits for the low low price of free.

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

• For commission enquiries, portfolio and other such stuff you can find me on https://www.alderdoodle.co.uk/
• For daily musings, art drops, life happenings and other shenanigans follow me on Bsky https://bsky.app/profile/alderdoodle.bsky.social
• For my aforementioned freebie library, check out KoFi https://ko-fi.com/alderdoodle/shop

• The Faerie Princess's Muse
• Neon Nights (this one)
• Victorian Mischief
• One Day, One Knight

Safety Discussion

We wanted to test the boundaries of what we were comfortable with, and so elected to aim for sensual/steamy romances. We did a lot of check-in during the game to make sure that everyone was comfortable with where we were going.

“Neon Nights”

This is an enemies to lovers thriller in a science-fiction setting.

• Protagonist: William, an android replicant nearing his end date. Insecure, wants healing, Played by Alex
• Paramour: Sonya, a blade runner. Mysterious Depths. Played by Josh.
• Trouble: Running out of time. Played by Cris.

Introduction

It is River City in a poor area of town. The rain is pouring down outside. And the neon lights are flickering. Eternal dark and rain. And William's sitting there and he's looking at his hand. At first glance he looks young and fit, but the skin is kind of starting to peel by his fingers. It's kind of a bit gray. And he's thinking

“I don't know how much longer I've got. I don't know when my clock runs out, but my fingers weren't peeling before. Can I make a difference? Can there be... “

He pauses.

“There must be more to life than what they had me doing out on the ships. Maybe I can find somebody here who can make a difference for me?”

That's the opening scene to give an idea of him. You can see his insecurity, he's looking for healing. And time's running out.

Encounter

We are in a nightclub. The music is extremely loud, the beat pulsating and the lights are flashing from literally everywhere in the room. William is here, standing against the wall and watching everything. The life, the energy in all the people here.

And Sonia walks into the club. She is magnificent. Every time someone comes in some spotlights automatically turn and focus on the person entering and we can see the trench coat slick with rain, collar turned up. Bulky, there could be anything under there. Not dressed for the nightclub atmosphere at all. She hides her eyes for a moment from the glare. Despite this, she is absolutely glorious.

She walks in, scanning the room carefully, looking for something or someone. Spots William and heads over towards him. She leans on the wall next to him and says “Are you going to be here long?”

“Longer than I thought” he says “I don’t want there to be a scene”

“Well, we could get out of here…”

“I kind of feel quite safe here at the moment” he replies. He glances down, he glances up, and then looks down kind of in a more lingering way. “You’re not quite what I was expecting….”

Sonya is not used to this. She gets a lot of attention, but not from targets. They are normally already running. But this is kind of interesting, and she flushes a little. She stands a little bit awkwardly to try to absorb that information.

“Well, we're here. shall we get a drink?”

“Sure. And maybe a dance?” He replies

“Sure”

They are being really guarded. Neither wants to talk about the real issue, the elephant in the room. But the music slows, and they dance carefully, cautiously. If you were looking it might put you in mind of a male spider coming to mate with a female spider, but aware that any wrong move might be the end of him.

William is thinking “I don’t know what it is about her… but I really like her. I know she is probably sent here to kill me, but I really like her. Am I imagining it, or was there something in her eye other than that killer glint?” He is probably fooling himself, but there is some faint hope here. The dance goes on.

Complication

The night club went better than William expected. Sonya didn’t just shoot him outright, and for reasons not entirely clear to Sonya, she let William go that night.

William gets a letter. Completely anonymous, no idea where it has come from. Inside is a little origami crane, and a short note. It says this:

“You have less time than you think, experimental model.”

William crumples the paper. Then he opens it up again, reads it once more, then rips it in half.

“It’s not fair. I thought I had at least a year left. Maybe more”.

He slumps in his chair, distraught.

First Kiss

We see Sonia and William on a rooftop, the city stretching out beyond them. The rain is pouring down and cascading off them. Neon lights up the surrounding city, and reflects off the puddles around them. She is wearing her long trench coat again, and he is in jeans and a white t-shirt, which is clinging to his body in the rain. It shows the outlines of William’s muscles very clearly.

It’s several weeks on from their first meeting and they have seen each other a number of times, mostly in crowded places. Here in the rain they are alone. William slowly reaches out and touches Sonia’s hand.

“We’ve been dancing around this for a while now” he says. “We know our lives, we were never supposed to meet this way… if you were doing your job I’d have been retired by now”

He pauses for a while, then continues “I don’t know what it is that stayed your hand that first night that you saw me. But in the two years that I’ve been alive I’ve never known anything like the happiness of these last few weeks… I’ve never known a dance. I’ve never known laughter. I’ve never felt arms around my shoulders”

She nods.

William continues “I thought my life was short and brutal and that was all there was to it. I never dreamed…”

Sonia puts a finger on his lips. “I fell for a replicant once before, and I was forced to do my duty. I won’t do it again. By which I mean I intend to not do my duty”

William grasps her hand urgently “But what will they do to you?”

“I don’t care” she replies. And she undoes her trench coat and slips it off. She was wearing nothing beneath it.

William takes her in his arms and traces her shoulders and down her back. Rain is spraying off his hands, spraying down the body, strobing in the flickering neon lights. He starts to take off his clothes and she helps, and together they make passionate love in the thundering rain.

Catastrophe

We see a scene in a police captain’s office. Sonia’s superior. He is talking to another blade runner. He drops a folder onto the desk, with William’s name clearly on it. “OK Daniel. Sonia has become a problem” he growls. “Read this and deal with it”.

We see a dingy room in a decaying tenement building. The rain lashes against the window, and neon competes with lightning as it thunders outside. William is sitting on the bed and his skin is peeling badly on his arms and face now. The harsh lighting shows up the new wrinkles in his face and the looser skin on his arms — he looks quite elderly now.

The door is kicked open, and the new blade runner Daniel bursts in.

Sonia snatches up her pistol, and says “Daniel, what are you doing here?”

“Your time has run out” he says blankly. “You have not done your job here. The department has no use for blade runners that do not do their job. You must be removed”.

He turns his gun towards William. “But first…”

Comeuppance

Sonia shoves William out of the way and fires at Daniel - there is a dramatic gun battle with slow motion tracers going through pillows, the window getting blown out, bullets flying everywhere. One of the bullets hits the light fitting in the ceiling and it starts flickering madly, giving a strobe effect to the battle.

William is so unsteady he can’t contribute anything to the fight and watches helplessly as the Lino floor becomes slick with rain coming through the shattered window. In slow motion he watches Daniel’s pistol come round towards him again, and he can see the glowing rim of the muzzle.

Sonia launches herself across the floor and slides between Daniel’s legs and then nails him in the back of the head. Daniel collapses to his knees, then topples forward onto the floor in front of William.

There is a dramatic exit where they gather up their things and flee the scene.

As they are on an empty tube carriage, William brings out the crumpled letter he’d got, and passes it across to Sonia. “I really don’t know how much time I’ve got. I really think it is running out”

“It just says that you’re experimental” Sonia replies. “I’ve got a lot of contracts in underground research, and the fact that you’re experimental… maybe there is a switch we can flip?”

He shrugs, and leans tiredly against her shoulder. She ruffles his hair a little, and looks pensive.

Happily Ever After

We have two scenes here. The first one is at an unlicensed underground hospital. Sonia is helping William to limp in, and he’s clearly not doing well. She says to the doctor “I’m calling in that favour. What can you do?”

The doctor replies “It’s a replicant, and its time is up. I don’t think there is anything I can do”

She hands over the letter though, and the doctor says “Oh, that’s interesting” He goes to look up some references in his terminal and then turns back to her “I think there might be something I can reset…”

We cut to a scene outside the city. There is a little log cabin in a woodland clearing. The sun is shining. William and Sonia are sitting on a bench outside, enjoying the sun and drinking something steaming hot.

William says “I don’t know how you did this. For six months we have been here. Built this cabin. Built a new life. Out of the city, out of everything”

He continues “When I saw you come into that nightclub, I thought my life was going to end. Weirdly my own life has kind of ended. I don’t know how much time I’ve actually got left but I guess… whoever knows really?”

Sonya leans on William's shoulder and they're drinking together and looking out over the lake with the various little things flying by. And she says “You know, this is our time. That nightclub was the best choice I made in forever”

“I agree” he says quietly

And they snuggled up together. And who knows how long they have?

But for now, they have happy ever after for as long as it happens to be.

I had set up a playingcards.io room so that we could play remotely, and that worked quite well.

It is a YA tale of a global pandemic. Markus Fletcher and Ellen Myers are newly enlisted soldiers, just turned 18. He has short blonde hair and his fatigues are a bit large for him. He tends to squint and is highly focussed on rules and regulations. She has buzz-cut sides and a braid on top. Athletic and wiry, she scowls a lot, but laughs at Markus’ jokes.

Alex wants to see the ‘Enemies to Lovers’ trope for Markus. Camilla would like to see ‘Rebellion against Authority’ for Ellen.

How the Apocalypse Started

• Nobody realised at the time, but the first harbinger of the apocalypse was an amazing superfood created by a GMO mega-corporation called Sanmonto. It grew quickly and spread rapidly. Priced for early adoption it soon dominated crops worldwide.
• It was worrying to hear news out of India that there had been some kind of mutation which was causing the plant to create some kind of poisonous spores, and hundreds of people had started to succumb to it.
• More worrying when the deaths started spreading across Asia, Europe and America. There was reticence to call it a pandemic… nobody wanted to cause a panic.
• Markus and Ellen are stationed at a medical outpost when people suffering from the plant disease start becoming admitted. They are able to see first hand patients with tiny fibres sprouting from their eyes, nose and ears. It is worrying.
• Then one day, someone leaves the medical tent panicking and thrashing about. It is one of the medics, wearing the latest in PPE, but it hasn’t kept the infection out. In minutes he is dead. There is screaming from inside the tent and Markus and Ellen decide to escape to somewhere safer.

Beacons

Markus is hoping to find a place where he can settle into the rule of law again. Ellen is hoping to find her best friend Yan. They are going to try to escape the apocalypse.

Act 1 - in the urban area

Scene 1 - Overgrown City Square

Grass is breaking through the pavement; empty or stagnant fountains; old protest signs, abandoned food truck

• Threat - K - Infection Erupts (threat 26)
• Played - KS, KC (total 26)

All of the planters in this city square are filled with the Sanmonto plants, and they start erupting with pollen and spores. Ellen quickly gathered vital supplies and broke into the abandoned food truck. Markus knew how to Hotwire the van, and quickly got it going, off to the hospital to pick up more medicines.

Scene 2 - City Hospital

Signs of desperate actions to save people; power still on from the emergency generator; drugs and surgical tools scattered; old blood dried.

• Threat - 9 - Gangs Scavenging (threat 18)
• Played - 5C, 7H (total 12 +4 weapons, +2 food)

Looking for medical supplies in the hospital, they are surprised by a gang of youths who were also raiding. They fired first, but Markus returned fire accurately with his old M16, causing them to dive for cover. Ellen calls out to them and offers them a cessation of hostility and food. It turns out they are about 14 and starving… they are happy to take the food and retreat.

Markus hears a banging from a walk-in fridge, and opens the door releasing Sandra, a heavy-set ambulance driver who is furious - she wants to tear the children limb from limb but is talked down. She is invited to travel with them, but she balks at the idea of Markus continuing to drive — she considers him a young idiot who can’t be trusted, and he bristles at the accusation. She drives them off to a Mall, to collect some more tools.

Scene 3 - Mall with Shattered Glass Ceiling

Broken shop windows; vines creeping across mannequins; eerie muzak still playing

• Threat - Q - Infection takes hold (threat 24)
• Played - 5D, 6D +2 from Sandra (total 13)

Looking for good quality tools, Markus knocks something over onto a body hidden behind a county, and a huge spray of spores erupts up over him. Ellen quickly finds disinfectant and rubbing alcohol, and he tries to clean himself off, but he is worried that some spores might have got into an open wound on his arm.

The threat has not been beaten, Markus decides to take a ‘dead man walking’ token.

That evening Markus tosses and turns, suffering nightmares of a terrible infection.

Sandra tells Ellen how stupid and clumsy Markus had been. The next day Sandra drives them off into a rural area.

Act 2 - into rural areas

Scene 1 - Empty Gas Station on a Back Road

The pumps are bone-dry; the canopy is rusting; there is graffiti on the walls.

• Threat - 7 - Traps left by locals (threat 18)
• Played - 2C, 10C, +2 from Sandra, +4 weapons (total 14)

The pumps are dry and they are going to have to abandon their transport here. The graffiti on the walls is anti Sanmonto, and Ellen looks on approvingly. Inside the gas station Markus notices someone bound and gagged, with booby traps set up around them. Ellen uses the last of the gas to drive their van into a side wall, and Markus is able to haul the bound person free before explosions rock the building. They have rescued Rob, a kind-hearted medic from Sanmonto. Locals took an instant dislike to him because of his corporate logo on his uniform, and left him here as a trap.

Sandra is impressed by Markus’ prowess in rescuing Rob, and gives him a friendly punch on his arm. As Markus turns away rubbing his arm, we see him grin, and he is thinking new thoughts about the powerfully built woman in her late 20’s travelling with them.

Scene 2 - Faded Roadside Diner

Booths still set; an “OPEN” sign is dangling; maybe the jukebox is still working?

• Threat - 9 - Airborne virus (threat 22)
• Played - 7D, 8S, +4 from supporting characters, +3 tools (total 22)

Some way down the road they find a faded roadside diner, and to their delight find that the jukebox is still working. As the tunes blast out, they start dancing with one another, gathering a moment of relief amidst the horrors they have seen. Their fun is short lived though, as the dust that is kicked up by their gyrating contains some of the lethal pandemic spores! Thinking quickly, Ellen switches on some desk fans near the counter and moves everyone to the safe side of them. Markus uses a Tupperware container to collect some of the spores for future research.

Later we see two groups - on the one hand Sandra and Markus are sitting on crates, drinking beers and playing poker together, while ribbing each other mercilessly. On the other hand Ellen is upbraiding Rob on the evils of Sanmonto, demanding to know why he was working for such an evil corporation.

They decide that they need somewhere safe to start sifting through clues they have been gathering.

Scene 3 - Mine Workings

Deep and dark; an echo chamber of danger; old gear lying around

• Threat - 3 - Tangled Undergrowth (threat 10)
• Played - AC, QH, +4 from supporting characters (total 17)

They fight their way through some tangled undergrowth and into the mines where they find a lot of useful tools and materials which they add to their toolkits in preparation for journeying out into the wilderness. They discover someone hiding in the cave - Angie, who was an office worker who was out in these rural areas on holiday and has been stranded here since everything kicked off. She is glad to see other people who are sane, and quickly joins them.

Sandra and Markus continue to develop their friendship, while Ellen and Rob continue to bicker about authority structures.

Act 3 - into the wilderness

Scene 1 - Emergency Government Bunker

This place contains classified documents, emergency plans, government response triggers and so forth. It could be used to communicate with surviving government forces about important insights, or to arrange a rescue of some kind.

• Threat - zone A - lost, apocalypse 8 - frightened mob (threat 20)
• Played - 2C, 3C +6 from supporting characters (total 11)

After struggling through trackless wilderness, they come across an emergency government bunker. As they approach a frightened crowd of people burst out. They have been stuck here for weeks, cut off and with only a fraction of the supplies which they were supposed to have. In an ill-conceived plan, Markus sends Angie to talk with them, believing that as an office worker she might put them at their ease. He was dreadfully wrong, and the frightened mob maul Angie to death while the rest of the party run in horror.

Ellen was able to grab up some papers and disks as they were hurriedly leaving the site of the bunker, hoping that there are useful secrets in them. Rob says that she doesn’t have clearance for those documents, but she stands up to him and states in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t have the authority here.

That evening Sandra is comforting Markus, explaining that it wasn’t his fault, and sometimes tough decisions have to be made. It’s the first time they have lost someone close to them though, and comforting hands become comforting arms, and then a comforting kiss and we see them embracing, taking comfort where they may in a harsh and unforgiving world.

Scene 2 - Nuclear Power Facility

Behind wire fencing is a nuclear reactor, still running even though it has been abandoned. Before being abandoned it has been put into a low power mode, but there might be an opportunity to start it up again to produce power or to force a meltdown with an explosion of some kind or another.

• Threat - zone 2 - fatigued, apocalypse 4 - coughing and sneezing. (Threat 12)
• Played - 4H. 9S, +4 supporting characters (total 17)

As Markus has grown more fatigued, he starts coughing and sneezing badly, and small tendrils of plant life can be seen growing out of the wound on his arm. Rob suggests that exposing his body to radiation from the central chambers of the power station may cure him, but Ellen thinks that is just the kind of rubbish a Sanmonto medic would spout and forbids it.

That evening we see Markus lying shivering and coughing, and Sandra curled up round him as the big spoon, warming his chilled body with her own.

Scene 3 - Shortwave Radio Station

A small base with a working shortwave radio transmitter and receiver. It would be possible to pick up messages from other survivors, transmit messages to them, share information, and co-ordinate activity

• Threat - zone J - survivalist group, apocalypse Q - Infection takes hold (threat 28)
• Played - 10H, JS, +4 supporting characters, +3 secrets (total 28)

They find a shortwave radio station at the same time as a group of survivalist fanatics. Markus spots some Sanmonto fruiting pods nearby them, and shoots at them causing a spray of spores across the fanatics, who then run for safety. However, Markus is in a bad way and collapses. Ellen can see the progress of the disease in his arm, and thinks that they could stay the progress by amputating his arm. Sacrificing an arm to save himself is a decision he is willing to make. Ellen takes charge, ordering Rob to perform the surgery while Sandra holds Markus down. His lower left arm is removed and dressed.

Ellen uses the shortwave radio to communicate with others. She shares all the intel that they have collected and gathered, and picks up information about a place where they can find refuge - and perhaps the safety of utopia which they have been hoping for.

Finale

We check the number of secrets they have against the YA genre, and find that we have an optimistic future and an end of the apocalypse is in sight. Across the world we see refuges where people meet in safety. Elsewhere we see scientists pooling all the secrets which have been delivered to them and have created an airborne retrovirus which rewrites the Sanmonto plants DNA, removing their deadly spores. It will take time to manufacture, and even longer to distribute, but hope is on its way.

Arrival

Our battered party makes its way to the nearest refuge.

(Markus has a dead man walking token. He makes a personal sacrifice and donates to Ellen. This means that Markus has a sad ending, and Ellen has a brilliant ending).

The beacon for Markus is the rule of law, of democracy and civilisation. However this refuge is run by the military under martial law. It is harsh and unfair. He despairs, wondering what they have even been fighting for if it just comes down to ‘might makes right’ in the end. He lives an unsettled life with Sandra, comforting each other as much as they can.

The beacon for Ellen is her friend Yan, who she meets and who seems better than ever. They throw their arms around each other, laughing and crying. Yan has already received the retrovirus cure, and can safely go out on scouting missions to find and rescue other people. Much to her surprise, Ellen has found herself the face of salvation from the apocalypse. Her voice on the radio had been heard and repeated many times, and she starts to be associated with the cure. History books will label Ellen Myers as one of the key people in the turning of the tide against the pandemic.

Here is our PCIO layout at the close of the game

It’s worth noting that I’ve got a pile of about seven unread TTRPGs at home, so I had a strict rule - no buying anything new! It was very hard to keep to that rule though!

Delivering to Compose Dream

The first thing on my agenda was delivering a collection of my books to Compose Dream, a Canadian based distributor who have decided to take on three of my games - Love & Barbed Wire, The Long Road Home, and Tail-End Charlie. It was lovely to meet Joshua Kitz face to face, and look at the range of indie games they had for sale.

https://composedreamgames.com

West End Games

Had a great chat with the two folk here - one of them is at the same uni as my daughter, and was singing the praise of the RPG club there, which she will probably take a look at!

I asked if they would be interested in stocking some of my games, and I agreed to send them a copy of my catalogue after the event finishes. First time I’ve remembered to bring business cards with me, and I’m glad I did.

https://www.westendgames.co.uk

Playing in the Bomb’s Shadow - Seminar by Malcolm Craig

We were a couple of about ten people who attended the fascinating seminar by Malcolm about the study of the Cold War through the cultural medium of RPGs. He covered the broad sweep of the Cold War, and gave a lot of interesting detail about the period 1983/84 which historians now consider the most dangerous time in the 20th century if I recall his words correctly. He was an active and dynamic speaker, and his enthusiasm for the subject came over very clearly! It was fascinating to hear about arguments in the letters pages of White Dwarf magazine of the day between Brits and Americans about the ins and outs of post-apocalyptic gaming!

It was a shame we were not going to be around on Saturday to hear his seminar about the results of his ‘oral history’ interviewing of people about their memories of gaming during the Cold War.

Pelgrane Press

Great to have a chat with Cat again at Pelgrane press. I shared how excited I was about the agreement of Pelgrane to publish Ballad Hunters by Tristan Zimmerman (Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/moltensulfur.bsky.social) and her enthusiasm is infectious too. I’ve been involved in a couple of playtest adventures with Tristan, and I love the atmosphere he has managed to build into the game!

We also talked about Seven Wonders, which is one of my favourite games that Pelgrane publishes, and I’ll miss no opportunity to talk it up. Seven games by women TTRPG designers which include games about:

• how the children from Narnia coped back in the real world?
• what it’s like to voyage into a black hole?
• how dystopias are created, and destroyed?
• what you would sacrifice to protect your family?
• what heroes talk about on the eve of a life-altering battle?
• how to defend your village, when your heroes are away?
• who protects your home when you’re not looking?

Find out more about that here https://pelgranepress.com/product/seven-wonders/

Free League / Effekt Publishing

Another lovely conversation (I think it might be a benefit of the quieter Friday rather than the crush of the weekend?) I was chuffed beyond belief when the chap at the stand (Matthew) recognised me and wondered how Tail-End Charlie was going!

We spoke a bit about how much I’d enjoyed Alien and my daughter had a number of questions about The One Ring (such as ‘do you have to play the characters from the book, or are there other characters? When and where is it set?’) and we heard about the Hope mechanic which sounds interesting - a powerful resource which can gradually ebb away during the adventure.

We then spent a lot of time talking about the new “Tales of the Old West” game by Effekt Publishing which they are clearly excited about. Amazingly there are no zombies, tentacles or supernatural in there, it is ‘just’ about living in the Wild West. Inspired by Deadwood, it sounds as though there are some interesting mechanics to enable the players to shape the community they are living in, and watch it grow over time. Very cool.

https://www.effektpublishing.com

Deep Regrets

We spotted this early on, and came back after the seminar had finished and signed up for a 4pm slot. We were the only players, and it was the last game of the day so didn’t feel rushed. Our playtest game was started halfway through the game so we already had a number of tools and rods and reels in place, as well as a bucketfull of regrets!

The game was fun and lighthearted as we angled for fish both fair and foul. I cornered the market in jellyfish, and would have done better if it were not for the mountain of regrets I’d accumulated by the end of the game which cost me my best fish. Setting of an old sea-mine didn’t help either! My daughter managed to get the high score of the day though, which was satisfying.

Although the expansion didn’t really add much that appealed to me, the base game seems super and I’d definitely like to add it to my board game collection!

https://tettixgames.com/pages/deep-regrets

Blackwell Games

We had a long chat here, and my eye was quickly drawn to “For Small Creatures Such as We” about a human starship captain with an alien crew. It’s a solo /co-operative game with lots of creative tables, beautiful design and lovely art. It’s gone on my birthday wish-list (even despite my rule about no new games!)

https://www.blackwellwriter.com/products/for-small-creatures-such-as-we

My daughter’s eye was taken by Apothecaria - the example journal with lots of little bits of incidental art and things really appealed to her artistic side (and apparently a number of other games she had seen in other locations were actually produced by Blackwell games!)

The Old Kings Crown by Eerie Idol Games

I’m a sucker for big complicated, political board games, and this looks absolutely amazing. It was great to chat with the designers about their design and development process. One of them used to be an animator for games and it shows in the dynamism of some of the character artwork. The overall art theme reminded me very much of my favourite manga/Studio Ghibli film, Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind.

https://www.eerieidolgames.com

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.

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

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

Folks can find me and my work on

• Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/montfordtales.com)
• https://www.montfordtales.com/
• or https://montfordtales.itch.io/

I am Yanahn (or Kristen) and I am a Malaysian game designer based in the UK - I got into TTRPGs from a chance encounter with my university's tabletop society years ago, and enjoy making games & adventures with weird creatures and using the word 'eldritch' a lot. In my spare time, I also enjoy drawing and taking up new craft hobbies (like cosplay).

What do you like best about designing games?

A lot of my game design ideas start out as trying to capture a specific theme, vibe or experience and make it a sharable and interactable thing for people, and it's always a really interesting puzzle to solve, whether it's like finding the right mechanic to express an idea or figuring out how to embed context into a game in a fun and easy-to-pick-up way. Also, I see that sharing and interactable-ness to be a big part of TTRPGs - so a big source of joy is seeing how people find bits to engage with or resonate with in the game/adventure once it's out there in the world.

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

I have actually just finished writing Enter the Whalefall, a system agnostic underwater fantasy adventure zine about going into the oceanic abyss to stop a bunch of necromancers from reviving and controlling a whale god. It's been published online but I am now working on getting it ready for print. I was really excited during the making of it because I've always loved marine biology fun facts and how weird the deep oceanic ecosystems can get without sunlight as an energy source, and it's been fun working out how to incorporate that into a playable adventure experience. Also, I got to try my hand at drawing some of the dungeon maps in the zine, and it was fun to think about stuff like what would a dungeon set inside a beached whale corpse look like.

Can you tell me more about how ocean ecology has informed this adventure?

Yea, so one of things I was really keen on including is how the various oceanic ecosystems vary by depth, so I investigated lots of exploration mechanics and landed on depthcrawls, where you get a rollable table that is adjusted by how deep players are in the sea - with the tables for the coastal hexes and the abyssal locations having more seafloor or deep ocean things as you go deeper (so you find pelagic snails or jellyfish in the upper layers and buried stargazer fish and giant worms below) Also, I folded some marine critter behaviours into how encounters operate. I read a book on deep sea bioluminescence and how light is both a boon (for finding food, distracting predators) and a bane (it attracts predators) in the depths, and so for the abyssal encounters, a lot of them vary based on how much light the party chooses to use (being more aggro or less, being able to use light to bait in bigger monsters etc.).

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

I hope they can have a fun experience in a slightly out-there setting with lots of odd encounters and things to explore or run into. Moreover, perhaps they might find bits of the zine that provide ideas for any marine adventures they run in the future. Also, maybe a bonus bit of looking up some of the odd creatures mentioned in the zine and going oh that is a wacky looking prehistoric fish/jellyfish/etc. (please look up opabinia, it is weird)

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Yeap, so if you like quirky marine biology stuff in a fantasy adventure or just want to fight necromancers inside the regenerating corpse of a whale god, Enter the Whalefall is for you. and it can be found here https://yanahn.itch.io/enter-the-whalefall

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

I can be found on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/yanahn.bsky.social and my tabletop work is on itch.io via https://yanahn.itch.io/

• The Faerie Princess's Muse
• Neon Nights (this one)
• Victorian Mischief
• One Day, One Knight

Safety Discussion

We wanted to test the boundaries of what we were comfortable with, and so elected to aim for sensual/steamy romances. We did a lot of check-in during the game to make sure that everyone was comfortable with where we were going.

“Neon Nights”

An enemies-to-lovers Romantic Thriller in a sci-fi setting

We decided that it might be interesting to have an android who was looking for love, and that quickly brought us round to the idea of something in the Blade Runner universe, which is where we went.

• Protagonist: William, an android replicant nearing his end date. Insecure, wants healing, Played by Alex.
• Paramour: Sonya, a blade runner. Mysterious Depths. Played by Josh.
- Trouble: Running out of time. Played by Cris.

Running out of time as a trouble was randomly drawn, but it seemed so appropriate for our replicant/blade runner setting!

Introduction

It is River City in a poor area of town. The rain is pouring down outside. And the neon lights are flickering. Eternal dark and rain. 
And William's sitting there and he's looking at his hand. At first glance he looks young and fit, but the skin is kind of starting to peel by his fingers. It's kind of a bit gray. And he's thinking

“I don't know how much longer I've got. I don't know when my clock runs out, but the back of my hands weren't peeling before. Can I make a difference? Can there be... “

He pauses. 
“There must be more to life than what they had me doing out on the ships. Maybe I can find somebody here who can make a difference for me?” 
That's the opening scene to give an idea of him. You can see his insecurity, he's looking for healing. And time's running out.

Encounter

We are in a nightclub. The music is extremely loud, the beat pulsating and the lights are flashing from literally everywhere in the room. William is here, standing aaginst the wall and watching everything. The life, the energy in all the people here. 
And Sonya walks into the club. She is magnificent. Every time someone comes in some spotlights automatically turn and focus on the person entering and we can see the trench coat slick with rain, collar turned up. Bulky, there could be anything under there. Not dressed for the nightclub atmosphere at all. She hides her eyes for a moment from the glare. Despite this, she is absolutely glorious.

She walks in, scanning the room carefully, looking for something or someone. Spots William and heads over towards him. She leans on the wall next to him and says “Are you going to be here long?”
 “Longer than I thought” he says “I don’t want there to be a scene” 
“Well, we could get out of here…” 
“I kind of feel quite safe here at the moment” he replies. He glances down, he glances up, and then looks down kind of in a more lingering way. “You’re not quote what I was expecting….” 
Sonya is not used to this. She gets a lot of attention, but not from targets. They are normally already running. But this is kind of interesting, and she flushes a little. She stands a little bit awkwardly to try to absorb that information.

“Well, we're here. shall we get a drink?” 
“Sure. And maybe a dance?” He replies

“Sure” 
 They are being really guarded. Neither wants to talk about the real issue, the elephant in the room. But the music slows, and they dance carefully, cautiously. If you were looking it might put you in mind of a male spider coming to mate with a female spider, but aware that any wrong move might be the end of him.

William is thinking “I don’t know what it is about her… but I really like her. I know she is probably sent here to kill me, but I really like her. Am I imagining it, or was there something in her eye other than that killer glint?” He is probably fooling himself, but there is some faint hope here. 
The dance goes on.

Complication

The night club went better than William expected. Sonya didn’t just shoot him outright, and for reasons not entirely clear to Sonya, she let William go that night.

William gets a letter. Completely anonymous, no idea where it has come from. Inside is a little origami crane, and a short note. It says this:

“You have less time than you think, experimental model.”

William crumples the paper. Then he opens it up again, reads it once more, then tears it into shreds.

“It’s not fair. I thought I had at least a year left. Maybe more”.

He slumps in his chair, distraught.

First Kiss

We see Sonya and William on a rooftop, the city stretching out beyond them. The rain is pouring down and cascading off them. Neon lights up the surrounding city, and reflects off the puddles around them. She is wearing her long trench coat again, and he is in jeans and a white t-shirt, which is clinging to his body in the rain. It shows the outlines of William’s muscles very clearly.

It’s several weeks on from their first meeting and they have seen each other a number of times, mostly in crowded places. Here in the rain they are alone. William slowly reaches out and touches Sonya’s hand.

“We’ve been dancing around this for a while now” he says. “We know our lives, we were never supposed to meet this way… if you were doing your job I’d have been retired by now”

He pauses for a while, then continues “I don’t know what it is that stayed your hand that first night that you saw me. But in the two years that I’ve been alive I’ve never known anything like the happiness of these last few weeks… I’ve never known a dance. I’ve never known laughter. I’ve never felt arms around my shoulders”

She nods.

William continues “I thought my life was short and brutal and that was all there was to it. I never dreamed…”

Sonya puts a finger on his lips. “I fell for a replicant once before, and I was forced to do my duty. I won’t do it again. By which I mean I intend to not do my duty”

William grasps her hand urgently “But what will they do to you?”

“I don’t care” she replies. And she undoes her trench coat and slips it off. She was wearing nothing beneath it.

William takes her in his arms and traces her shoulders and down her back. Rain is spraying off his hands, spraying down the body, strobing in the flickering neon lights. He starts to take off his clothes and she helps, and together they make passionate love in the thundering rain.

Catastrophe

We see a scene in a police captain’s office. Sonya’s superior. He is talking to another blade runner. He drops a folder onto the desk, with William’s name clearly on it. “OK Daniel. Sonya has become a problem” he growls. “Read this and deal with it”.

We see a dingy room in a decaying tenement building. The rain lashes against the window, and neon competes with lightning as it thunders outside. William is sitting on the bed and his skin is peeling badly on his arms and face now. The harsh lighting shows up the new wrinkles in his face and the looser skin on his arms — he looks quite elderly now.

The door is kicked open, and the new blade runner Daniel bursts in.

Sonya snatches up her pistol, and says “Daniel, what are you doing here?”

“Your time has run out” he says blankly. “You have not done your job here. The department has no use for blade runners that do not do their job. You must be removed”.

He turns his gun towards William. “But first…”


Comeuppance

Sonya shoves William out of the way and fires at Daniel - there is a dramatic gun battle with slow motion tracers going through pillows, the window getting blown out, bullets flying everywhere. One of the bullets hits the light fitting in the ceiling and it starts flickering madly, giving a strobe effect to the battle.

William is so unsteady he can’t contribute anything to the fight and watches helplessly as the Lino floor becomes slick with rain coming through the shattered window. In slow motion he watches Daniel’s pistol come round towards him again, and he can see the glowing rim of the muzzle.

Sonya launches herself across the floor and slides between Daniel’s legs and then nails him in the back of the head. Daniel collapses to his knees, then topples forward onto the floor in front of William.

There is a dramatic exit where they gather up their things and flee the scene.

As they are on an empty tube carriage, William brings out the crumpled letter he’d got, and passes it across to Sonya. “I really don’t know how much time I’ve got. I really think it is running out”

“It just says that you’re experimental” Sonya replies. “I’ve got a lot of contracts in underground research, and the fact that you’re experimental… maybe there is a switch we can flip?”

He shrugs, and leans tiredly against her shoulder. She ruffles his hair a little, and looks pensive.

Happily Ever After

We have two scenes here. The first one is at an unlicensed underground hospital. Sonya is helping William to limp in, and he’s clearly not doing well. She says to the doctor “I’m calling in that favour. What can you do?”

The doctor replies “It’s a replicant, and its time is up. I don’t think there is anything I can do”

She hands over the letter though, and the doctor says “Oh, that’s interesting” He goes to look up some references in his terminal and then turns back to her “I think there might be something I can reset…”

We cut to a scene outside the city. There is a little log cabin in a woodland clearing. The sun is shining. William and Sonya are sitting on a bench outside, enjoying the sun and drinking something steaming hot.

William says “I don’t know how you did this. For six months we have been here. Built this cabin. Built a new life. Out of the city, out of everything”

He continues “When I saw you come into that nightclub, I thought my life was going to end. Weirdly my own life has kind of ended. I don’t know how much time I’ve actually got left but I guess… whoever knows really?” 
Sonya leans on William's shoulder and they're drinking together and looking out over the lake with the various little things flying by. And she says “You know, this is our time. That nightclub was the best choice I made in forever”

“I agree” he says quietly 
And they snuggled up together. And who knows how long they have? 
But for now, they have happy ever after for as long as it happens to be.

• The Faerie Princess's Muse (this one)
• Neon Nights
• Victorian Mischief
• One Day, One Knight

Safety Discussion

We wanted to test the boundaries of what we were comfortable with, and so elected to aim for sensual/steamy romances. We did a lot of check-in during the game to make sure that everyone was comfortable with where we were going.

“The Faerie Princess's Muse”

A Romantasy Classic Romance in the land of faerie

• Protagonist: Thomas, a human minstrel looking for passion, Played by Josh.
• Paramour: Princess Jewel Thorn, princess of the faeries, transgressive, charming and charismatic. Played by Marsha.
• Trouble: Prince Florian Thorn, prince of the faeries, pre-existing relationship (husband). Played by Alex.

Thomas was carried away to the land of faerie by Princess Jewel. She is an immortal who has often been taken by these mayfly humans, much to the chagrin of the faerie court.

Introduction

Thomas doesn’t know how long he has been here. He is a poetic soul at heart, and he came along following a princess and wants nothing more than to spend as much time with her as possible. He's been writing her ballads and poems and telling her stories.

He’s trying to win her heart, but one of the problems of being in faerie is that nobody can trust anything. Literally anything could happen here. The plants could be listening to what you say. The bunny rabbit over there could easily be spy. Anything you say could be reported to the Court.

So although he is enamoured with Jewel, he is aware that he could get a sword in his back for his troubles. Looking towards the thrones he can see Jewel sitting next to Florian, and the prince’s arm is possessively around her.

And here he is, tasked with painting a portrait of the two of them together.

Thomas is a creative chap though. Worked into the painting are innumerable little insults to Florian. Just in terms of imagery from the human world that Jewel would recognise and Florian, who never visits earth, would not.

After all, Florian is good royalty, who keeps himself to faerie; not like that transgressive princess who keeps going to the human world, coming back with pets and strays.

Encounter

We are at one of the many faerie garden parties. Thomas is there as the token mortal everyone wants to take a look at; including, of course, Princess Jewel. Prince Florian is around circulating separate from Jewel, and just at this moment he isn’t visible. Thomas takes a chance and says “Princess Jewel, I have a new poem for you”

“I so love your poems”

“Perhaps we could find a secluded bower in which we sit while I read it to you. Perhaps?”

She leads him to a slightly secluded place. Not hidden, but out of immediate sight of people. Thomas knows that nothing in this land can be trusted, and he is especially wary of a curse placed on mortals that prevents them from lying. Everybody knows this, and it is one of the things that makes mortals so entertaining for them. And fearful for him.

This curse does give his poetry additional power though. They have to be true in the sense that they have a tremendous amount of imagery. But when he says that something is beautiful, it's because it is. This means that the faerie folk very much value what he has to say.

Thomas reads her this poem, and it is absolutely full of all of her best characteristics. Jewel sparkles magnificently in his words. But because the poem must be true, it contains a tinge of sadness too. Even though it is full of admiration, love, and positive feelings, there is an element of sadness. While he reads, he is alert to her response. How is it being received? Can she sense his heart, and feel something in response, or does she just see him as a pet like all the others do?

As he is reading, Jewel leans in towards him more and more. When he started her attention was all over the place, but before long he has 100% of her attention. When he finishes, her breath catches, and a single tear rolls down her cheek.

“You know, Thomas” she breathes, “I have been married for 300 years, and my husband has never once even thought to do something so thoughtful and genuine for me as this poem. I am deeply moved by this.”

“Thank you. My lady”

“How... I would like to offer you some sort of token of gratitude. Is there anything that I might offer you?”

Thomas glances around quickly. They do seem to be secluded in this bower. Nobody is paying attention to them. So he leans in towards her, and requests a single kiss.

Jewel flushes prettily, and kisses him on the cheek.

“Will that suffice?” she asks.

“My lady, it is all I could have asked you for”

“Your poems are truly beautiful. How did you learn to write so well?”

“It is inspiration. And I'm most inspired!”

“I am deeply touched. Do any of the other fairies here inspire you, as well? There are so many lovely creatures here. Why have you written this poem for me?”

Jewel is wondering about this mortal that she has brought back here. He has a lot more to offer than she first thought. That depth of feeling, and honesty! She has never been paid attention in quite this deep a way before.

Complication

It could be a couple of weeks after the garden party. Could be a couple of hours. Difficult to tell.

We see Florian with Jewel, and he says “My spies tell me that you gave a kiss to a mortal”

“Well”, she replies haughtily, “he wrote a poem for me which, quite frankly, is something you have never thought to do. It was very touching and he wanted something in return as a favour. He asked for a simple kiss. How could I have said no?”

“If you see him again, I will slay him” Florian growls.

“You wouldn’t! He is under my protection and you can’t do such a thing”

“Try me”

A short while later we see Florian come up to Thomas who is working on a manuscript of some kind. Florian says “I hear it is said that you are cursed so you may only ever speak the truth”

“There are those who say that” Thomas carefully replies.

“My wife, Jewel, she’s very beautiful isn’t she?”

“You speak the truth my lord”

“If she comes to see you again, will you tell me about it?”

“If she comes to see me… I shall inform you, my Lord”

“If she comes to see you I will seek you out with my blade and I will slay you. And in a moment your mayfly life will be over and we shall continue on. Don’t worry. Be happy. Enjoy your poetry and your art. It entertains us so much. But leave my wife alone.”

Florian struts away.

Thomas taps his lip with his quill, thinking.

Clearly for any future interaction between himself and Jewel he must go to see her, and not vice versa. Even if she is standing outside his living quarters he will go out the back, come round the front and meet her coming in, so he is coming to see her…

Things are going to be a little more complicated, but they are very strict about their rules here, and Thomas thinks he can make that work for him…

First Kiss

Thomas hears that Florian is away on a hunting trip, to try to catch the white stag, and so the mortal decides that he is going to take a substantial chance. He knows that Jewel is going to be bathing down in the glade.

He doesn’t want to be disrespectful though, so he goes down to the glade with his lute and a new song which he has written for her. The springtime glade is glorious. There are flowers everywhere, garlands leading down into a bright lagoon where Princess Jewel is relaxing in the water alone, with her long hair playing around her in the water. Thomas walks backwards towards the water’s edge, sits on a rock at the edge, and plays.

Princess Jewel calls out “Such beautiful music! That could only be my Thomas. it is, it is!”

“How did you find me here?” She asked

“Oh, the wind brought me knowledge of you; your beauty floats on the air”

“I'm deeply touched by your words and your enchanting music. Nobody has paid me so much tribute before. I think, ever in my life, if you can believe it”

“You have lived long, lady”

“Thomas, I fear that you are not safe here. I know this is the most beautiful place one could possibly imagine, truly, but you are not safe. My husband is away for now, but if he hears about you coming to visit me, I'm afraid, deeply afraid that your life will be in danger. We need to get you back to your own realm, don't you think?”

“If this is what you wish, my lady, but I would want nothing more than to remain by your side”

“I don't want you to leave either. I don't. I want to keep spending time with you.”

She is coming up behind him as he sits on the rock, playing idly on the lute while they talk. He can hear the sound of her in the water, right behind him.

“I do freely come and go between the mortal world and the fairy world, as you know since you saw me in my carriage. I can visit you sometimes. but would that be enough?”

A thought crosses Thomas’s mind “Could you ever dream of becoming mortal with me?”

“Mortal? Well, goodness, you get sick and die and all of those terrible things” she pauses thoughtfully “Although I think I would look nice with some silver hair, you know, someday, but…”

“You would look magnificent, princess”

“Oh, thank you” she says, “Only, we must make a decision soon. I fear that you won't have long to live in this realm if you stay here, because my husband will shortly find out.. He's not a kind man, if you haven't noticed”

“I have noticed”

Thomas is not going able to restrain himself any longer with her right behind his ear, and he turns around and gives her a very passionate kiss. She melts right into the kiss and then pulls him into the lagoon. The lute tumbles onto the grass while they tumble together in the water.

Catastrophe

Minutes pass, then a white stag bounds past. The same that is often hunted. Then there is the sound of hoofbeats, and a sudden stop.

Florian’s voice shouts out “What in hell's name is is going on here?” He is looking at the two of them in the water.

The crystal clear water does not conceal the fact that neither of them are wearing anything under that water.

Jewel rallies. “Oh, you're back from your hunt, dear!”

“How time flies when you're enjoying yourself, apparently, my wife” he replies sarcastically.

“It's not what it looks like, dear. We just uh, we just…”

“You fell?”

“Yes. He was playing such enchanting music and I just I couldn't resist.. Please don't kill him Florian”

Florian address Thomas with deadly seriousness “Did you kiss my wife?”

“I did, my lord”

“Did you fondle her breasts?”

“Most excellently, my lord”

Jewel protests “Florian, this is really uncalled for!”

He replies sharply “Get out of the water. Display your nakedness and shame to the world”

“I will do no such thing!” She protests.

“If you do not, I shall slay him”

They both get out of the water, and Thomas quickly takes up his own cloak and covers Jewel with it; leaving himself uncovered.

Florian is still furious “So, I guess you think this is an honourable thing to do to cover up her nakedness in front of my hunt while you stand there having cuckolded me?”

Jewel speaks up “The only person who should be ashamed is you. You've never been kind to me for one single day in 300 years. And this man has been thoughtful, sweet, poetic. He cares for me”

Florian is haughty “You are the Jewel that adorns my crown, my signet ring. You are part of what makes me wonderful. You speak of your desires, your demands. What are you? What foolishness is this? Your forays into the mortal realm have turned your head. You forget who you are”

“Perhaps you forget the kind of husband that you should have been to me and never have been”

“You mean a husband like this mortal”

“Don't touch him!” She shouts as she gets between the two of them. “He's under my protection.”

“Ah, your protection? So much? What is your protection worth?”

“What is it worth? If you want to lay a single finger on him, if you dare to harm a single hair in his head, you will have to go through me first.”

“These terms are acceptable” Florian says heartlessly.

He draws his sword, thrusts it through Jewel and into Thomas’s heart!

They fall together, impaled on the sword, and Thomas’s blood spills out onto the green grass.

I really enjoyed playing Prince Florian as a self-centred, truly horrible person. Also, this was the first catastrophe scene which we did, and I wanted to demonstrate just how far you could go in tearing the lovers apart - in this land of magic I could kill Thomas and we would work out later how we get to 'Happily Ever After'!

Comeuppance

Florian is standing over them and has released the sword. Sneering.

He is a fan of pretty things, is now feeling repulsed by the fact that his wife is no longer intact and beautiful right now.

“The Jewel has lost his sparkle” he says. Then he mounts his horse and rides off.

Lying on the blood soaked grass, gasping for breath, Jewel uses her fairy magic to try to repair the wounds for both of them. As she's doing this, his mortal blood has mixed with her immortal blood and she can start to feel her immortality dilute more and more as the sword is withdrawn from his heart and comes out through her.

Thomas is taken aback. He should be dead, but the mingling with her faerie blood along with the magic has pushed a little bit of extra life into him. Making him a little bit immortal at the same time as it makes her a little bit mortal.

And Florian?

He had always referred to humans as mayflies because of their short lives, but he has a mayfly attention span. He rides out of their life without a second thought and never comes back. He thinks he's solved the problem. And he just goes off with the rest of his fairy life and never thinks back on it, it has slipped his mind forever.

Even if he did remember her, he would sense that there is a little bit of mortal about her now, making her less than perfect, and thus of no interest to him.

Happily Ever After

With the infusion of Jewel’s blood, two things have happened. Firstly, Thomas has become partly immortal. Secondly, the curse of honesty on him is broken. Even so, he swears a vow that he will forever be hers and that she need not fear that he would ever keep the truth from her.

They now both have a dual identity, and must spend one month in the mortal realm for every eleven months in the faerie realm. Both of them age, and Jewel gets a beautiful silver streak in her hair.

Thomas tells her every day that she is becoming yet more lovely, and they find a home in two worlds.

Hi! I’m Mol (aka Molomoot) I’m a queer & neurodiverse artist of weird monsters and writer of even weirder TTRPGs. I also work at SoulMuppet Publishing as their marketing and events manager so you’ll often see me at games conventions and launch parties (or posting on social media). I hail originally from Hackney, London but have been (unfortunately) living down south for several years now.

What do you like best about designing games?

It is probably a cliche but I love the creative expression that comes from designing TTRPGs. Exploring worlds, discovering new parts of ourselves and trying to show what is going on inside our own heads.

I also really love the kinda “old-school” vibe of creating print-at-home zines. To show others that you CAN do this, that art is for EVERYONE!!

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

I’m currently working on Serving Up Disaster - A TTRPG of kitchen nightmares. This has been a complete passion project for me stemming from my hyperfocus of TV show Kitchen Nightmares starring Gordon Ramsay - a show I have binged watched every episode several times and rewatch whenever I find myself spiraling into depression. Serving Up Disaster takes a unique twist on Brindlewood Bay, which is a game that completely changed the way I felt and thought about mystery games.

Can you tell me more about how Serving Up Disaster takes a twist on Brindlewood Bay that you think hasn’t been done before?

Serving Up Disaster takes a twist on Brindlewood Bay by emulating a different style of episodically-structured TV show. It twists finding “clues” instead into finding “Problems” within the restaurant and invites players to describe how these Problems have been solved at the end of the session to reach a successful Relaunch Night. A lot of Carved By Brindlewood games (games that are based on the rules of Brindlewood Bay) focus on creating mystery games in a different setting, but Serving Up Disaster leans into an entirely different style.

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

I want the GM to also feel like a player! Especially in Serving Up Disaster — where the GM plays as the character of Chef. Across my other games I want to encourage folks to find the joy in smaller games and to be inspired to go out and create their own. I try not to answer every question players might have in my rules or adventures, I want to encourage people to be inventive.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

To keep banging the drum, I’m launching Serving Up Disaster on Kickstarter in August! So please please come and check it out if it sounds like your kind of thing.

• https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/molomoot/serving-up-disaster

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

You can find me on most social media’s @molomoot , I post all my games on https://molomoot.itch.io. You can find Serving Up Disaster on Kickstarter right now!

The Basics

The game is for 4-6 players, and should have at least 2 knights and at least 2 faeries. There are nice prompts for both knights and faeries to help you think about what your character is like.

You then play through a series of mini-games. A mini-game might involve all the players, two players, or even just one player. You go round the circle, taking it in terms to introduce an event which is taking place in this dream world.

Some of the mini-games involve using a limited deck of cards (which is face cards and aces only), but most of them consist of lists of evocative prompts that help set up situations, and allow the players to discover things about their own character, and the potential for romance with other characters too.

This is all a dream - and unlike the movies you can die in a dream and then just appear in the next scene and keep on going!

Playing the Game

The object of the game is to fall in love. We play the games to find out who falls in love with whom and what we do about it.

The first round of the game people take it in turns to introduce one of the mini-games from this list:

• A Chance Meeting
• The Fairy Court
• A Feast
• A Hunt
• A Joust
• The Kissing Game
• A Masked Ball
• Meeting Sword to Sword
• Mischief
• The Ogre; or, a Perilous Quest
• Solitaire
• Stealing Time Together

After you have been round once, you continue playing but anyone can introduce this final game which draws the game of In Dreaming Avalon to a close:

• Waking: the End-Game

The prompts are often questions, or fill-in-the-blank sentences. As the game progresses we learn more about each other.

Why I like this game

The prompts and questions as written are very evocative. When you are in a masked ball, there are opportunities to find out something about someone’s feelings by asking a question such as “My hair has fallen in front of my ear. Do you touch my face?” Or “This moment in the dance allows me to step close to you and linger very near. Am I welcome?”.

However, if you are Meeting Sword to Sword you might ask questions like “You thrust perilously close to my face. Do you cut me? Where? “ or “I catch your wrist in my hand and draw you close to me. Do you let your sword drop, or do you shove me away and fight on?”. Even a sword fight might speak to romance!

Some of the mini-games last for just a few questions and responses, some of them are much longer (the Ogre is a multi-part adventure, with much death and dismemberment. But see the earlier note about death being more of an inconvenience)

A little note at the start of each game typically gives people permission to ask about the setting, the situation, or to notice details about things. We really enjoyed this opportunity to bring in fanciful dream-like settings and character details that showed how we were all changing in this dreaming world.

Would you like to see a game?

We had about 2.5 hours to play, we wish we had allowed longer!

Dramatis Personae

• Sir Rowan (he/him), a knight played by Camilla. Slender and tall, copper skin, bright green eyes, dark hair, young. He is cheerful, good-hearted, and impulsive. He wears burgundy armour, simple in form but richly decorated with leaf motifs.
• Sir Roland (he/him), a knight played by Alex. Tall, red hair, green eyes, and fair skin, probably with Celtic blood. He is past the first flush of youth, and has learned how to be both courteous and passionate. he has a shiny breastplate and a fine mail shirt, over which is a green tabard.
• Jason (he/him), a faerie played by Tristan. A dog-headed man with the body of a young man, like a Titian painting. He has very fair skin, and white cloth is draped over his shoulder. Centuries ago he was a Trojan shepherd who travelled as an old man with Brutus of Troy and fell asleep on landing in Britain. He was wed to a long-dead mortal woman, whom he has forgotten about. He is a mischief-maker but fundamentally easy-hearted, even though he has grown a little bitter about love.
• Milk Cap (she/her), a faerie played by Betsy. An ample young woman with mushroom horns and mycelial hair. She has flocked skin and a mottled, shimmering brown dress. She was originally a mushroom who had been in love with a chef. For her, time is slow and renewal is inevitable.

Scene 1: A Fairy Court (chosen by Alex)

The Fairy Court involves all the characters.

Some of the things that we notice as we gather at the court of Morgan Le Fay

• There is a little ladybird living on Milk Cap’s mushroom horns. He doffs his little top hat at anyone who notices him.
• As the court proceeds, Rolands hair becomes more and more red rather than its customary ginger colour.
• The branches and leaves on Rowan’s armour seem to represent real greenery more and more.
• Jason’s puppy ears really look like they are inviting little scritches.

Morgan Le Fay welcomes the knights, acknowledging Sir Roland as the captain of the knights. She issues a ruling that knights and faeries may marry, but it shall only be for a night, a day, and a night.

While the Queen of the Faeries is speaking, Sir Rowan asks Milk Cap what she would do with spices, and Sir Roland whispers to Sir Rowan about what bird she would have as a companion (A raven, as it happens).

Morgan calls out Sir Rowan on his whispering and demands that he speak it aloud to the whole court, which he hesitantly does.

Milk cap brings a petition to the court, for a festival to celebrate the ripening of berries. Morgan asks Sir Roland whether it should be granted. Sir Roland thinks it is a good idea; Morgan disagrees, but lets it stand and grants the petition.

Scene 2: A Feast  (chosen by Camilla) 

The feast involves all the characters.

Some of the things that we notice as we gather for a feast:

• It is a lovely summer sunset with bright golden light flooding through the trees and creating long shadows.
• We are in a garden, with a long table and chairs made of different types of wood and vines surrounding the table.
• There is a hillock to the side with a door in it. From there the foods of our feast will come forth.
• Sir Roland’s hair is now bright crimson, and is starting to stand up in peaks as if it were a crown.
• Milk Cap’s ladybird (who we now know is called Horace) is conspicuously absent.
• Sir Rowan’s leaf armour is an exact match for the leaves of this woodland.
• The transition between Jason’s dog head which was abrupt is becoming more smoothly blended. His white garment is becoming slightly translucent.  

We had a series of dishes:

1. Braised lamb with figs. It tastes insipid to those who have never experienced fear. Both knights and Jason declare it marvellous, but Milk Cap turns her nose up at its blandness.
2. Midsummers ripe berries pie with cinnamon. A faerie dish whose spice is overpowering to those whose heart might be won by boldness, tenderness or patience. Roland, Rowan, and Milk Cap can only bear one slice, but Jason declares it delicious and finishes off the pie dish himself.
3. Ripe golden poppy pods scented with amber and myrrh. A faerie dish which is intoxicating if one is wed to one not present. Jason quickly passes out drunk, and Roland laughs a little too loudly, as though he is slightly intoxicated.
4. Roasted wild turnips done over the coals. It tastes bright and fresh to those who have never prepared breakfast for a lover on a cold spring morning. Roland complains that it is just bland vegetables and wonders where the meat is.

At the conclusion of the feast they toast the chef of the hillock, with drinks which taste different for each of them. Milk Cap tastes berries and moss. Jason tastes forgotten memories. Sir Rowan tastes longing for something he has never had. Sir Roland tastes regret and hope mixed together.

Scene 3: A Joust (chosen by Tristan)

The joust is between Jason and Milk Caps, as part of mischief which Jason is engineering.

We notice

• Jason rides a giraffe
• Milk cap rides a ridiculously large badger
• The leaves on Rowan’s breastplate are real and growing all over his chest.
• Sir Roland’s green eyes are piercing like emeralds.
• Horace is back on Milk Cap’s horns, and is wearing a little suit of knights armour.

The joust is resolved by “The Quest Preposterous” where the challengers alternate with briskly providing a sentence about ridiculous quests. Among the boasts we heard

• I am on a quest to Burgundy, where I will boldly bludgeon the biggest badger!
• I am on a quest to England, where I will easily eat an electric eel! 
• I am on a quest to Queensland, where I will quickly quip a questionable quote.  

….and the X unseats poor Jason! He gets as far as questing to Xhosaland, then falls off his giraffe.

Scene 4: Mischief (chosen by Betsy)

Milk Cap visits Rowan in his dreams. 

MIlk cap asks whether Rowan would find it endearing or annoying if she rubbed cake crumbs into his armour. Rowan would remove the armour and laugh. 

Milk cap asks what acts would impress Rowan if she showed her feelings in a knightly fashion, by performing chivalrous acts. 

Milk Cap asks Rowan whether, in this dream of dream, they have any questions for her? Rowan says that she seems so self-assured and clever, what makes her blush?

Rowan wakes up the next morning sputtering with cinnamon in his mouth.  

Scene 5: A Masked Ball (chosen by Alex)

Everybody attends the ball, masked or fully transformed. 

The ball is held in a ruined temple at night - candlelit, with the open starry sky above us. 

• Jason has a sinister mask, sitting atop the snout and wraps around the side. It is black, with scales and spikes, and red glass panels over his eyes. 
• Rowan’s armour has become a full bush, with leaves everywhere. His face is covered by an elegant mask in the form of a flower with closed petals. 
• Roland’s mask is a fairy glamour, making him look less human: his eyes are brighter, his ears are deer-like and drooping down. He looks more like fairy than man. 
• Milk Cap’s mask is like a tree where different kinds of colorful mushrooms have grown on and over, some bold, some colourful, and some rather suggestive (like the common stinkhorn!) 

During the dance

• Jason loses his place in the dance and nearly stumbles, but Milk Cap helps him regain his proper place.
• Sir Rowan isn’t recognised by Jason, but they continue to dance.
• Milk Cap wonders why Sir Roland is laughing, and Roland points to Horace the ladybird who is mirroring Milk Cap’s dance moves on her horns.
• Roland has a lock of hair fall in front of his face. Milk Cap gently touches his face, tucking the hair away, and he rests his hand lightly on hers.
• Jason wonders why Rowan is laughing, and he says it is because of the beauty and magic of this ball.
• Rowan is nearly overwhelmed by everything that is going on, but he feels Roland’s hand reassuringly on his back.
• In the dance, Milk Cap finds Rolands mouth close to her ear, and wonders whether he will whisper anything. He says that he loves her bravery in the joust, her spirit in life, and asks her whether she will marry him for a night and a day and a night. She says yes. As the dance continues, Milk Cap places her hand on his waist and they clasp each other closely and whirl away to the break of dawn.

To be continued… 

• Unexpected Strength
• Bodyguard
• The Chosen
• Face from the Past (this one)

Safety Discussion

We wanted to push the boundaries of what we were comfortable with, and so elected to aim for sensual/steamy romances. We did a lot of check-in during the game to make sure that everyone was comfortable with where we were going.

“The Face from the Past”

A Contemporary Classic Romance on a Military Base

• Protagonist: Calliope (Callie), an older female officer in the air force. She longs for true love, and is held back by pride. Played by Diana.
• Paramour: Salvador (Sal), a lower-ranked officer who is transgressive and a wounded hero, having lost his right arm at the elbow. Played by Alex.
• Trouble: Francis Morgan (Fran), Callie’s pre-existing relationship with another officer. Played by Belton.

Introduction

It’s a Thursday morning in the hanger, and Calliope wipes heavy beads of sweat off her forehead. The dust is in her skin. It’s been hot working by these planes. The tarmac and the concrete is just baking. She looks around and sees all of the energetic young flight recruits, and just feels experience in her bones. And then at the edge of her hearing she notices the high pitched bravado, the absolutely obnoxious song of Sal’s voice coming through, and she just grits her teeth.

She remembers someone whose voice she liked a lot better in the past. Fran Morgan. She reaches for her locket which is where she always goes when she needs to slow down her mind. She rubs her thumb across the back, and it’s smooth, and she can feel Fran’s name there. And she knows that inside is the picture of his warm smile.

She remembers working with Fran in a hanger like this twenty five years ago, when they were much younger and it was cool and everything was going to work out. They were going to be good, they were going to get out and buy that house

“In Maine, like you wanted” he had said.

“Maine could work”

“It’ll be perfect”

Sal’s voice cuts through her reverie...

Encounter

Sal calls out her name “Callie, get your fat butt over here”

“For F**ks sake Sal”

“Language, in front of the trainees” he laughs.

“I am your superior”

“Maybe, but you didn’t really see action like I did, and you need to come over here so we can get these idiots sorted out!”

Callie is taking it far too seriously, not realising that Sal is being quite lighthearted about it. This level of insubordination was normal for him.

“Tell me what all that clatter was about” she demands.

“Well, as you know the trainees have been trying to strip and manage the M16s, but the calibre of the people, heh, calibre, joke, just isn’t really up to anything. You need to run this up past your superiors and let them know. We can’t have you slacking like this Callie”

“Pardon”

“Sorry, Ma’am”

“What is the next task at hand?”

“A perimeter run as punishment”

“I’d rather you get them up to speed on this stripping and cleaning. Go and get the cleaning supplies and give a class. I’d like to watch”

“Has it slipped your mind? That only having one arm makes it really difficult for me to do this?” Sal’s right arm ends at his elbow, which he waves around.

“Use. Your. Words. As an officer” and her cadence is really cutting in front of the recruits. “Demonstrate your leadership skills and cut the humour, sir”

“Yes Ma’am” and as she steps back he mutters under his breath “what a stuck-up bitch”

She notices the slight silver in Sal’s hair, and catches herself noticing it, before remembering that she is very upset with him. And can’t stand the sound of his voice.

Sal kind of turns back to his trainees and winks at them. “Okay, come on guys, get it together. Got to put on a good show for the boss here. She deserves a good show”

She thinks “he’s actually quite good with them. They are snapping to it, and he knows what he is talking about. He clearly is good with them. Why is he jerking my chain?”

Her parting shot “Why didn’t you shine your shoes today?”

“One arm! Remember!”

She remembers the time he put a toilet plunger in his sleeve, and various pranks over the years, and she walks away, her shoes clicking.

And Sal’s thinking to himself “I bet she is good in bed...”

Callie turns as she is across the hanger and sees his muscles through the back of his shirt, and a bit of sweat there. “Idiot” she says to herself.

Complication

It’s the same day after the training session, with all that back and forth.

She’s having a whisky in her office when there is a knock on the door.

“Come!” She calls out and the door opens.

It’s Francis Morgan. He died 25 years ago.

“Callie, so great to see you!” And he goes to give her a hug.

She is rigid. There’s tears brimming in her eyes. It’s like seeing a ghost.

“Maybe she doesn’t want me here?” he’s thinking. “Can you pour me one of those?” He asks.

“Fran...?”

“I was in town and I thought we could catch up?"

“You’re dead...”

“Oh, you didn’t know?”

And she reaches up to touch his face, and like, can’t believe it, and she just reaches in for a kiss and holds on for dear life.

They embrace and he can feel her tears streaming down his own face. She clutches to him.

“I’m OK Callie. They mixed up the records. “

She squeezes his hands

“I was in a coma for a month”

“Your hands look so much older” the veins are visible and she lovingly traces them. “Twenty five years... They said you were dead. I drove, I drove so fast, Oh I couldn’t. I couldn’t...”

“Come on” he says “Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you the whole story”

She grabs his old coat from the hook where she kept it and puts it on. It says ‘Morgan’ on it. She hooks her arm into his. Something is a little different, her body eventually softens against Frans. They walk out the door and Sal is in mid-step towards the office to ask her something.

He sees the two of them and thinks “Oh, now I’m screwed. Bastard”

First Kiss

This is a flashback. it's 25 years earlier. And Callie's been driving all night to the base. Hasn't slept. It's been a 17 hour drive. She gets back to the officers' barracks. She has a bag of things she had with her in the hospital. And she has Morgan’s coat. She feels utterly alone and so broken. She has no future. It's been ripped away. She couldn't hear the physician finish the sentence. She just ran.

And now she's at Sal's door. Knocking at his door.

“Hang on”. And then Sal opens the door. He smells of cigarettes. He stinks. He's been out. He's got a glass of whiskey in his hand. Does he have company? No.

“What do you want? Come, come in”. His arm, at this point, is freshly bandaged at the elbow.

And she stumbles in. “What have you got to drink?”

“Whiskey. I’ve been drowning my sorrows. But I've got enough for you”.

She's already started pouring. “Damn it, Callie. I did everything I could to save Fran. Everything I could”

“You're a f***ing coward!”

“That's …not the way I remember it“

“I'll never know the last thing he saw. I'll never know the last thing he thought. You took that away from me.”

“I was trying to save him… “

She drops the glass which smashes. “Because if you had the courage Sal, half the courage he had, you'd be in that bed and he'd be here.”

“He's. He's my brother. I gave my arm for him.”

She cuts her hand picking up shattered glass. He gently takes it.

“It's okay.” He says “There's glass in there. Let me get something so I can get that out. Don't want it to get septic”

She slaps him right across the face. And then she just collapses against him. “I don't know what to do” she cries.

“Hey. Look, we got to pull the pieces together“ he says.

Sal picks up a damp rag and uses it to mop away some of the blood. Callie notices that His hand is so soft. She reaches up to his wound tenderly.

“Blame me. If it helps you get us over this, blame me. If I'd have been quicker. Yeah, maybe if I'd got in front of the grenade with my whole body, I could have taken it. He'd be here with you and I wouldn't. I wasn't quick enough. I don’t know what I can say”.

“What was the last thing he said to you?”

“I mean, ‘get back it's a trap." I think it's what he said.

"I didn't get back. I could have held back. He could have saved my life, but I wanted to try and save his. To save him for your sake. I know you guys really loved each other”.

“Sal, what do we do without him?“

“We, we do what we can to support each other. We keep on going. I think it's what he’d have wanted, I think. “

“He's so handsome” she thinks, looking up at Sal. She's a couple of whiskeys deep.

“Hey, you” he says “We're in it together, right? One way or another” And puts the stump of his arm over her shoulder.

She reaches up tenderly.

Sal is a little nonplussed. “Uh, yeah, I don't like to, look. I'm kind of only half the man I was, but.. .”

She just tenderly touches the edge of the bandages... because it's a fresh wound. Yeah. And then she... traces Sal’s shoulders. and feels his ear.

“Callie, we can't. We can't do that”

“We can't?”

Sal is saying “We can’t” but he’s pulling her gently in to him. “If only I could do something to...”

“Let’s” she whispers.

Catastrophe

Back to the present day. It is still swelteringly hot. Francis Morgan lives. They are at an outdoor table at some kind of Tex-Mex place with the third pitcher of margaritas in front of them.

Fran is laughing. “Do you remember that time when we found out that Sal didn't know how to swim? And I threw him in the creek. He's floundering around, and then he figures out it's only two feet deep. That was awesome”.

Callie replied “And then the fishing trip. Right? He got on the boat and then realised that he was on the water, and he lost his mind.”

“Yes” Fran said, “he damn near did drown that time”

Callie continued “He got so sunburned on that trip. What a fool. What an absolute imbecile. You know, not packing the sunscreen, not preparing. You just think he's absolutely inexperienced. He doesn't understand anything about this world. Completely incompetent”

“But we all had a lot of good times together” Fran said.

Callie asks “What did you ever see in Sal? How did the two of you end up being so close?”

Fran looks thoughtful “He's got some rough edges, but you know, the man is loyal to a fault. If you're his friend, he will go to the end of the world for you. And he almost did, more than once”

Callie shakes her head “I disagree. His decisions took you away from me for 25 years”.

“Listen.. I know” Fran said quietly, “We've missed all those times that we were gonna have together”

She whispers “I never have…”

“No”, he continues, “But we can make new ones. We have today, we have now, we have… We can still have something like what we had before.”

Callie is upset and angry. “All the things we were planning, all of the dreams we had, were taken away. By Sal and his pathetic decision making skills.”

Fran taps the table. “We can make new plans. I'm back. We're here, you're still you, I'm still me.”

“We're not. We're old. I hurt”

“I don't care. We can still be together” and Fran puts something on the table between them. And it’s a ring. A ring.

“It's not the story we wanted” she says slowly.

“No, so we tell a new one”

“You're supposed to say something different.”

“I'm sorry. Calliope, will you marry me? “

“Yes”

AW: just have to include the table talk here!
EC: Oh. Oh, my God! No! How are they gonna get out of this?
BM: And I love that you're talking about Sal the whole time as I'm trying to lead up to the proposal. That was beautiful.
DG: I was so preoccupied with Sal. Yes. There's something in my subconscious. Sal is there. Sal's in my heart.
EC: Sal's the present, not the past.
DG: But I'm trying to fix what was taken. Right. what broke. Pride.
BM: And you think you can
DG: Thanks for proposing to me. I didn't know that scene was going to go there.
BM: That's fine. Oh, this was that went instantly into my head as soon as soon as we talked about the catastrophe. Of course he has to propose to her!

Comeuppance

Callie is wearing the engagement ring; she and Fran are a couple more jugs of margaritas in now on that same night.

“I want to know what the hell happened 25 years ago” Callie muses. “Why 25 years? Why didn’t I hear from you?”

“I don’t know what I expected at the end of that day. I couldn’t face him, after everything. I couldn’t” Morgan is deep in his cups.

“Well, he is the one that made a bad call that led to the accident, right? You sacrificed yourself, and he only lost this much of his arm” Callie gestures, “You don’t have anything to feel bad about”

“The bastard didn’t know when to get out of trouble. Never did know when to get out of trouble. I told him we had to pull back. He said that we had orders, that we would jeopardise the whole platoon if we did.” Morgan toys with his glass “We had to get out of there. Man’s loyal to a fault I tell you. He’s loyal to a fault”

Fran continues “The judge said the rest of the platoon would have died if it wasn’t for him”

“That’s not what he told me. In fact he said the opposite. Are you calling him a liar?”

“Oh he’s a liar, there’s no question about it. He just lies for his friends...”

“Anyway, I woke up from the coma, couldn’t face what had happened, and got on with my life. Married for a number of years but we recently divorced. I always wanted to come back to you. It took years to build up the courage”

“You’re saying that for 25 years you never came back to me... because you couldn’t tell the truth?”

“I wanted to Callie. Every day I wanted to”

“No, you didn’t. Because if I was what you wanted, you would have put all of that aside. How dare you?”

“But I do want us to be together. We can have it all back. We can make it new”

“Dammit no! 25 years! That life is gone. And why? Because of your pride? Your ego? Morgan, I don’t know you”

Morgan passes out on the table; Callie takes off the ring and puts it down in front of him, then leaves.

Happily Ever After

We're back at the office, and Callie's had a long night. But Callie's going to start this day this same as every other day, and suits up. And the jacket with Morgan’s name is packed away in a box.

And, she can hear Sal's voice echoing. In the hangar “Go on, you numpties! Get it together!”

“Heh, Sal, come on up to my office. Need a word”

“Okay” she shouts back. Then to the juniors “You, you and you. Three circuits. now. Get on it”.

“I said now!” Callie demands

“Yes ma’am”

Then he goes up stairs.

“Have a seat Sal”

“Formal, are we? Okay. ma'am”

Callie opens up. “You have a bit of explaining to do”

Sal replies guardedly “Look, I know that they got wet, and I had some marching longer than I should have done, but they were being jerks. They've been giving some lip, and they needed to know...”

She cuts him off. “Sal, 25 years of explaining, you need to tell me the truth. What happened on that mission?

“I can't really do that, Callie"

“Is that... Is that what really draws me to to you? Because, damn it, I can't figure it out”

“Look. It's not right to speak ill of the dead. Yeah? And, yeah, Fran was my friend, as well as your lover. But with him passed away, I would have no blame laid against his character. Would not be right”

“The Fran we knew did pass away that day. And yesterday, I saw a ghost”

“Don't believe in ghosts, ma'am”

“Sal, I have a ghost story for you. He's not dead”

“What?”

“Precisely what I said. He's not dead, and for 25 years, he has avoided us”

“But why would he. Why would he not be back for you?”

“He's a coward. I. I, um... “

“It's bloody stupid. How could anybody not come back for you?”

“Sal, you have been here. You have been here, right in front of me. And I. I absolutely love you”

“Ain’t that the funny thing” and Sal chuckles to himself.

“No, it's not funny”

“No, that's not, that's not what I'm laughing about”

“You know it too, right?”

“I've always loved you. 25 years. But I wouldn't tread on, you know, my mate Fran, or on his memory. I couldn't do that”

“He needs to explain himself to you. but I need you to know that Sal, I choose you”

“You gotta know what you're getting into if you choose me. I mean, I'm. I'm half a man” he waves his stump “and I've not got the airs and graces. I'll, I'll make mistakes. I'll call you names.”

“You'll piss me off royally, too”

“That I will"

“But, you know, Sal, I'll probably do the same. Can we just get around to calling this what it is?”

“What is it?”

“I think we're in love. And I'm ready to lay down my pride and really love you”

Sal looks pensive, then speaks slowly. “25 years ago Fran sent me into the building as a practical joke. He thought it was secure, it wasn't secure. He thought I'd fall on my face. He didn’t see the trip wire. The explosive. He was stupid, I didn't blame him. I didn't want to blame him. As far as I know, he died that day and I didn't want there to be shame on his memory, I didn't want there to be shame for his parents. I didn't want there to be shame for you. It wasn't my place to do something like that”

He continues with a distant look in his eyes “I've been put up for promotion several times, but it meant moving away, and to be honest, I didn't want to move away. From you”

“So that’s the truth of it, eh? Fran made the mistake, you did what was right, saved the platoon and lost your arm? And took the blame for him?”

“...Yeah”

Callie just looks at him for a while. Then says “Uh, what are you doing tonight?”

“Well, I was planning to get the whiskey out, to toast a dead friend again and drink myself stupid. But apparently that's not actually a valid thing to do anymore. Who knew?”

“There's a boat cruise we could take”, and she kind of winks at him. “Or, perhaps we could just go for a walk down by the marina”

“Yeah, water's not my favourite. Even now”

“Well, it's been 25 years and we're both pretty bad at this, so...”

“Look, how about how about we get a jeep out of the pool?” He suggests ”We can go up to Lover's Leap, we'll watch the stars come out and see where it goes”

Later, we see them together at Lover’s leap. Ugly hair. Dishevelled clothing. And the stars are out and they’re laughing and they're passing a cigarette back and forth.

Callie lost 25 years, but she landed with the right guy. She remembers that actually, there's been 25 years where Sal's been around, he's always been there. In her room we see pictures of awards and honours and personal moments on her wall and Sal is in every picture. Every shot. Always at her side.

I’m Wingshan Huntley, an artist, curator, and game designer based in Nottingham. My background is in visual arts and creative community-building, and I’ve spent years supporting artists across the UK. I’m also part of the family business Warp Miniatures, where my husband Alex sculpts fantastical miniatures for our game ArcWorlde and for digital platforms like Patreon and MyMiniFactory.

Twisted Spire is my own venture. It’s a space to explore the emotional, mythic, and magical side of tabletop games. I bring together worldbuilding, ritual, and narrative-led design with a strong sense of aesthetic and accessibility.

What do you like best about designing games?

I love how games can hold space for transformation. There’s something powerful about gathering with others to inhabit new roles, speak from unfamiliar places, and explore difficult or beautiful truths through play. Designing games lets me create those shared moments of meaning, connection, and sometimes catharsis, especially for players who might not have seen themselves in fantasy before.

As a practising witch and storyteller, I’m also drawn to rituals. Games, especially roleplaying games, can become modern rituals. They let us cast spells with words, make choices that echo, and imagine futures beyond what we know.

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

Right now I’m launching Sirens’ Oath: Tides Turning, the debut game from Twisted Spire. It’s a short-form roleplaying game for 3 to 5 players, where you play a coven of mermaid witches deciding the fate of a drowning city.

The game is built around conversation, emotion, and collective decision-making. There’s no Game Master, just rituals, rich prompts, and a single six-sided die to guide the tides. It’s supported by a set of beautiful miniatures sculpted by Alex, designed as talismans in your play. They’re visually striking but also beginner friendly for people new to painting.

What excites me most is that this game invites players to show up fully with imagination, tenderness, and rage. It’s intimate, transformative, and very different from what most people expect from a miniatures-based game.

Can you tell me more about Siren's Oath?

The heart of Sirens’ Oath is conversation. Players speak in turn, guided by ritual prompts, to shape their characters and the world they’re trying to change. Each playthrough is different. Depending on your choices, the city may be saved, reborn, or drowned entirely. Sirens in the game are vessels for fierce emotions… part memory, part myth, part magic. The game draws from ecofeminism, folklore, and lived experience. It was designed to centre narrative agency.

It’s rules-light but emotionally deep, with no prep needed. You can play in an evening with friends, at a retreat, or even solo with a journal and a candle. It’s a love letter to worldbuilding as a form of healing and rebellion.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I want players to feel a sense of power and possibility, like they’ve just performed a spell with friends. The fun comes from speaking your truth through character, making bold emotional choices, and watching a world shift around what you say.

There’s joy in painting your miniature, in stepping into your siren’s voice, and in choosing what to protect or let go. It’s a very different kind of fun, less about winning and more about weaving something together that feels meaningful.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Yes. Sirens’ Oath: Tides Turning is currently at preview stage on Gamefound. We will launch on the platform alongside My Mini Factory FronTiers around mid-August.

This is the first project from Twisted Spire and includes a full game zine, a set of sculpted miniatures, and stretch goals designed for narrative lovers, beginner painters, and witchy gamers alike.

If you love myth, rage, beauty, and storytelling, this is a game worth exploring.

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

You can follow me on Instagram at @twisted.spire or on Bluesky @twistedspiregames.bsky.social where I share behind-the-scenes updates.

Our miniatures and STLs are on MyMiniFactory, and the Sirens’ Oath campaign preview is live on Gamefound: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/twisted-spire/sirens-oath-tides-turning

Come join the coven.

The Driver for Change

The more I looked at post-apocalyptic settings, it became clear to me that resource scarcity was a big theme across many of those settings, and so resources felt like it ought to be important in Escape to Apocalypse too.

Touchstones become Beacons

Each characters touchstone becomes a Beacon for them. The hope that drives them onwards. The Beacon might be a family member, a friend, a lover; or it might be faith, government, or legacy. These are the stakes which you are gambling for as you head for Utopia. Will your beacon actually be there at the end?

Settings become Zones

Rather than use settings to distinguish how long it has been since the apocalypse took place, as I was thinking earlier, I am now using them for what I call 'Zones'.

The point of settings in the original game was to allow locations and threats which were distinct for a particular setting (fey, shadowed, sylvan etc). Post-apocalyptic games are typically happening on earth, somewhere around the present day. But the kind of threats and environmental challenges you meet will be different in urban, rural, industrial and wilderness zones... So I've decided that the game includes all those zones. You start off Act 1 in an Urban zone, and in Act 2 and Act 3 you have the opportunity to move to other zones, where there are different threats and opportunities.

In particular, some zones have a resource cost that has to be paid while you are in those zones. Industrial and Wilderness areas you have to spend some of your food resources. In Wilderness zones you also have to spend tool resources. In Urban and Rural areas you can find enough food to subsist on without digging in to your precious resources.

Different zones make it easier to pick up extra resources. Urban zones are good for food and medicines, Rural zones are good for weapons, Industrial zones are good for tools, and Wilderness zones are good for secrets.

Threats have Value

I'm still using playing cards to provide interesting threats - but what if I use the value of the card to provide a difficulty that the threat causes? Perhaps a 2 represents a single toddler zombie, while a King (value 13) represents being suddenly surrounded by a horde of mutant zombies? We can scale this nicely by multiplying the threat value by the number of players.

And players must use the cards which they have in their hand in order to meet or exceed the total value of threat. If they succeed, then they overcome the threat and gain some additional resources. If they fail, then they must either sacrifice one of their supporting characters or someone has to accept a 'Dead Man Walking' token...

Now, we've been collecting resources, haven't we? Well, resources can be spent on a 1 for 1 basis to add to your party attempting to overcome a threat. But to use medicines, you have to play a heart. To use tools, you have to play a diamond. To use weapons you have to play a club. To use secrets you have to play a spade. Choices, choices!

Allies and... Traitors?

Supporting Characters are valuable for the role-playing juice that they add to the game, and because they provide a contribution to overcoming threats (+2 per supporting character). However, things are not always rosy after the apocalypse. If you are in an industrial or wilderness zone and you cannot spend enough resources to keep everyone happy, there is Trouble in the Ranks. This means that all supporting characters withdraw their support against threats, and their negative personality trait comes to the fore in all interactions with them.

Homecoming becomes Arrival

As well as the discovery about your beacon, you will also discover at the end of the game whether the future for humanity as a whole seems bright, dim, or dire - based on the genre of game you are playing and how many unused secrets you have discovered along the way.

The likelihood of a happy ending with your beacon depends upon whether you have a Dead Man Walking token associated with you or not. Additionally someone who has a Dead Man Walking token may choose to sacrifice themselves, have a worse ending, to boost someone else's ending. Keep the drama going right to the very end!

Next Steps

Continue testing the mechanics at various number of players.

Refine the lists of threats, especially the apocalyptic threats. There are some placeholders that I'm not especially happy with at the moment. Then provide descriptive sentences to bring each entry to life a little bit.

So plenty to do!

I'm Theo from Devon but living in London now. I've been playing roleplaying games since the early 90s when I inherited my older brother's ADND collection. When I'm not writing or thinking about roleplaying I'm either making ice cream or playing Eating Robot with my kids.

What do you like best about designing games?

The best moments have been when I have sat back and watched a group of players bringing the world I've created to life. When I haven't said anything at all for several minutes whilst they have discussed in depth their characters and the world around then.

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

I'm playtesting Constantinople a TTRPG about hunting monsters in 7th century Byzantine Constantinople. What excites me most about it are the mechanics that encourage player driven narrative. If you have the burglar skill nefarius you can use it to create an underworld informant, the militus skill can be used to conjure a military veteran, armoury or parade ground. The setting also seems to be quite unique and inspiring. Slaves, eunuchs and sandals are quite unusual elements of most roleplaying games.

Can you tell me more about the player driven narrative idea?

The theory is that once the game is finished you will be able to pick up a monster sheet and jump straight into playing without any prep. The narrator sets the first screen, knows what the monster is and has a list of clues about the monster the players need to discover. How the players come by those clues and the trajectory of the narrative is mostly up to the players. They create places, people and scenes to interact with and gain clues from.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

The experience I'm trying to give is one of being given the creative freedom to invent the world and the story as you go along whilst also playing a slightly sinister but bad ass supernaturally empowered monster hunter. The fun is found in being inventive, descriptive and being able to do cool stuff but with a dark edge.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

The game is at a stage where I want to expand the playtest as much as possible so anyone who likes the idea feel free to contact me and I'll send you a pack of information to run the game yourself.

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

I'm mostly on WhatsApp https://chat.whatsapp.com/IlXHjXi848PClacdn2ai1V

You can see my website here https://sites.google.com/view/constantinople-ttrpg/home

• Unexpected Strength
• Bodyguard
• The Chosen (this one)
• Face from the Past

Safety Discussion

We wanted to push the boundaries of what we were comfortable with, and so elected to aim for sensual/steamy romances. We did a lot of check-in during the game to make sure that everyone was comfortable with where we were going.

“The Chosen”

A Paranormal Romantic Thriller

• Protagonist: Aurora, a strange young woman who is seeking healing, and is plagued by a sense of guilt or shame. Played by Belton.
• Paramour: Lorelei, a beautiful woman with ashen skin and auburn hair. A flirt and a tortured artist. Played by Diana.
• Trouble: Sapphire, a disapproving friend. On the surface, she is trying to get Aurora to a place of physical healing. In reality it is about keeping Aurora close to herself. Played by Eileen.

Introduction

The setting is sort of modern day, sort of our world. Two women are sitting on the slow train somewhere in Siberia, heading westward. One is almost insanely pale-skinned. Aurora’s friend Sapphire is sitting with her. Sapphire loves Aurora, but Aurora is pretty oblivious to that.

Aurora is wearing dark glasses that cover her eyes completely. They are dressed pretty well. Not luxuriously, but definitely better than other people on this train. They are in their 30’s.

Sapphire is trying to engage Aurora in conversation, but Aurora isn’t having any of it.

“But you have to talk about it” she says.

“No. I. Don’t” Aurora replies emphatically.

“I’m one of your dearest friends, I’m here and I’m in your corner”

Aurora recognises that, but needs to get somewhere where she isn’t known. She peeks over the top of her glasses a little bit and her eyes are all blue.

“It’s safer here” Sapphire says, “I want you to be safe. It scares me”

“Why should I care about safety? I don’t even know where we are going. What are we going to do when we get to Warsaw?”

“We’ll figure it out. With two of us it will be much easier to negotiate”

“Will there be doctors there? Doctors that can treat a chosen?”

Then the door to their carriage jerks open.

Encounter

A younger woman stands in the doorway. Mid-twenties perhaps? Ashen grey skin and deep auburn hair. She glances at Sapphire and then her eyes look at Aurora, then looks at all of her, leans in the doorway and bites her lip.

Aurora is still wearing her glasses, but you can see her raised eyebrows behind her glasses. She is so surprised.

“Hello, who are you exactly?” Aurora asks. She notices an almost overpowering scent of roses.

“I’m Lorelei. And who are you?...” She’s not looking at your eyes...she is searching Aurora’s clothes, and Sapphire hasn’t registered for her at all.

Lorelei takes off the mandolin which was slung on her back and just cascades onto the bench across from them.

“Where are you travelling to?” She asks.

Aurora pulls back

Lorelei says “Oh you poor thing, just a wounded bird” and she goes to reach for her cheek.

Aurora takes her glasses off, showing her blue, pure blue eyes and, just like that, they connect

“Oh, yes” Lorelei gasps.

“Why don’t you play?” Aurora quietly asks.

Lorelei breaks eye contact and knows just the song. She starts to play a song from childhood, a warm lullaby. And when she looks up to meet your eyes, her eyes are a little bit blue.

Aurora starts to put her glasses back on and then reconsiders and holds them in her lap.

“It’s a cuter look when you take those glasses off.. but you can save it for later...”

“People react” Sapphire snaps. “Badly”

Lorelei introduces herself to Sapphire briefly. Sapphire ignores the outstretched hand.

Complication

Sapphire is concerned that Aurora is risking herself by not wearing her glasses. “We’re out here, we have no idea who is on this train. And I don’t trust her”

“You think I do?” “Absolutely, given the connection you have”

“The powers of the Chosen are... unpredictable” Aurora said.

“That doesn’t make her trustworthy. She’s a little young for you too”

Aurora had been running away from a relationship with a man. Sapphire had thought that Aurora was unreachable because she was only attracted to men, but now she is starting to reevaluate what is going on.

“I’ve seen you go through too much recently, you don’t need a rebound like this”

“Maybe a rebound is exactly what I need”

“Certainly not! Not on a train with a bunch of strangers heading for Warsaw! I’m here to keep you safe.”

Aurora looks distant for a moment, as she thinks back. “I might have killed him you know”

“You can’t believe that, you’re a good person. The circumstances don’t change that”

“I’m glad you think you”

Aurora is engaging with Sapphire, but her eyes keep being drawn back towards Lorelei. Sapphire unbuttons a button.

They are distracted as a flyer is slipped under the door - a huge concert is taking place in Warsaw and Lorelei’s face is on it. She’s in the middle of a big tour

Sapphire grumbles “God, that’s just what we need. She’s famous. She’s famous”.

Neither of them had recognised her. Lorelei is some kind of indie darling.

Aurora looks again at her; Lorelei is wearing a revealing top and near her collarbone there is a bit of a tattoo visible - the edge of a triangle with a circle on the corner. It reminds Aurora of a rebellion chapter that is conscious of the Chosen and fights for their rights. She is not sure, but the symbol strikes a chord with her.

Sapphire is concerned that a relationship with someone this famous would complicate things. Straying from their path will put another person at risk. Again. “This Lorelei? She’s beautiful. But she’s not worth it.”

Aurora unfolds the glasses and puts them on. “Thank you for the show”

Sapphire is staring with laser intensity at Lorelei. “Out!”

First Kiss

Time has passed. Aurora is dressed completely differently. Now she is in sort of a bright short dress with kind of hose underneath and some boots. And she's standing at the side of a concert stage in Warsaw. She’s thinking “How in all the realms did I get myself into this?” Lorelei said she could come to her show. She would even give her passes. And at the end of the show they can speak a little. It's almost as if Lorelei knows exactly what Aurora needs; that she can't take the whole path, but one step at a time. Still in the back of Aurora’s mind is how annoyed Sapphire will be if she finds out that Aurora didn't actually go to bed early, but sneaked off to the concert.

The show ends and Lorelei's coming off stage, and she is charged. She just finished a show. She was rocking. And Aurora's right over there. “Aurora!!” She drawls. And charges over and plants a kiss right on her face. Soft lips. Flirty. For the first time we see Aurora smiling. She seems happier. Free. Unburdened. And then it comes back. “Will you come with me for the encore? Will you come on stage with me?” Lorelei is grabbing her hand. “Yeah. I can't. I can't.”

“Oh dear, you don’t have to. You don’t have to”

One of the roadies is wearing these kind of welding goggles to protect his eyes from the lightning effects. Aurora takes the goggles off his face and puts them on, so covering her very alienly blue eyes.

“All right, why not? She says.

Lorelei takes her out, and gives her a tambourine. Then she counts the band in. “One, two, three” And this really delightful dance number comes on in a language she’s never heard before. She cannot place what this language is. The audience starts to sing along, and there's this mesmerising effect. and it kind of creeps over her. And while this song is taking place, it's almost like a trance, it's uplifting, it's happy. On another level, you make eye contact with Lorelei, and you connect, you feel, “oh, this is a safe space”.

There's something weaving these people together. It feels strong, it feels protective. And Aurora feels like she’s heard this song, but it's not in the circle of the people that she knows. The music is somehow muted, if it sounds almost underwater. But she feels that the song knows her.

And then Aurora is pulled out of it by the thunderous applause that hits. The song is over. She’s feeling “oh holy s**t, I’m on stage! What in the realms am I doing?” And they are taking a bow together.

She follows Lorelei back to the dressing room, who takes a seat. In the flat lighting her she sits in her corset and leotard, sparkly fishnet stockings and painted toenails as she kicks off her shoes.

Aurora rips the goggles off her face and throws them down. She grabs both sides of Lorelei’s face. “What are you?” She asks

Lorelei holds onto her hands “I can be anything you need me to be. What's hurting you?”

“I may have killed someone. Someone I loved. I don't want to talk about that right now. I just want now. I want this.” She's inviting it.

Oh, yes, suddenly their clothes are going everywhere. Lorelei arches her back (of course she does) and grabs Aurora’s hair gently, and then looks at her and tugs a little harder and pulls her down. and their lips are connected. Yes. mouths are everywhere, and you can hear breaths in your ears and a gentle tug of teeth, in the neck and it's a thousand degrees. There's this little montage moment where we're together. There's the detritus all around us from their costumes and Aurora is smiling and in the moment when... Bang! Bang! Bang! There is a loud knock at the dressing room door.

Catastrophe

Moments have passed. The door's not locked. It opens and neither of them has a stitch of clothing on, and they're so intertwined that you probably can't even tell exactly who's who. “What is going on here?” Sapphire demands. It smells of sex in that room.

Sapphire's nostrils flare, her eyes are like icy laser beams. “We were gonna stay undercover. We're gonna find a doctor who's gonna make everything better, right? Right? That was the plan. You are in danger”.

“Well, maybe I need more than one kind of healing, okay?” Aurora responds.

“She's not here to heal you” and Sapphire pulls a gun out and points it. Lorelei puts herself in front in front of Aurora. “Aurora is in no danger. here. Slow down. Slow down. I am not the enemy”

“I love you too much. to see you put yourself in danger like this” Sapphire retorts, her voice breaking a little. “I need to do what needs to be done. You're trying to escape this. You're trying to get away from this”.

Aurora (to herself) “There's no escape for what I've done”

Lorelei jumps up, naked, and reaches for the gun and tries to wrestle it out of Sapphire’s hands. The gun goes off and it fires through the ceiling; it is tossed to the ground. You hear footsteps. The door bursts open, and there are security people here that were for the show. They see Aurora here, not just unclothed, but no glasses. Her eyes are easy to see.

The security team stop and bow and say “Chosen, you cannot be here”.

Sapphire is completely confused. is looking at Lorelei. “I'm going to borrow this” Aurora says, and she takes a robe that's hanging on a peg.

Sapphire picks up the dark glasses and is trying to help Aurora sort of like Rudolph with the soot on his nose. She wants to cover Aurora’s eyes, not understanding the significance.

We hear Lorelei’s voice, plaintive, “You don't have to go. I want you here. You, you don't have to follow those rules.

Aurora says quietly “That's who I am.” Sapphire butts in “You've done enough damage. We need to go now”.

Lorei grabs up the gun. Surprising everyone, she points it at the security guards “This is not how this world should work!”

As the guards go for their own guns, Aurora looks more sharply toward her. “Stop it”. She’s looking at Lorelei, but all of the guns start to glow; becoming too hot to hold, they are dropped to the floor

“Please don't do this” Lorelei says plaintively.

“I have to” Sapphire says more gently “Come with me. Let's go. Let's go” and she shoots an angry glance at Lorelei as she ushers Aurora draped in a robe out of the doors. She thinks to herself “I’ve won, for now” And Aurora's head turns partway, but she doesn't look all the way back. and then walks out.

DG: That's a dead end road for Lorei. I don't know how we're gonna fix that one. It's a rough one!
EC: I like the guns getting hot and falling to the ground.
DG: And the guilt and the shame. Sapphire trying to prevent another mistake,
BM: Reminding Aurora of her duty.
DG: And the contrast of perspective between art and safety.
BM: Aurora needs healing, but it’s not really about healing of her body.
EC: Sapphire isn’t recognising that.

Comeuppance

Sapphire just walked away with Lorelei’s love. Lorelei who can give Aurora the healing that she needs; the emotional healing that she didn’t know she needed until all this started. Sapphire is thinking “Aurora will love me in time. I’m her best friend...” with the crazy eyes.

Lorelei is somewhat plugged into the underground in an auxiliary way, in Warsaw where the chosen congregate. She's not allowed to go. This is a sacred thing, but she knows where they all meet, where they're all headed. The group believes that there is a lot of injustice done to the chosen, or blamed upon them, and there is not enough protection for them. Many people view the Chosen as oppressors, even if they are really not. They were Chosen, but they didn’t choose it.

Lorelei is young and God, is she in love. She leaves her tour. She drops several concerts Vienna, Paris, London - it makes news that she has called off those upcoming shows.

She's changed her appearance a little. She's started to wear a bit of makeup to get rid of the ashen gray complexion of her skin.. She's searching and talking to her contacts, and she thinks she has a pretty good idea that she can find Aurora in a speakeasy space behind a dining establishment. Where the chosen are known to connect. Quietly.

Lorelei is waiting near the bar, sort of concealing herself, and looking to see if Sapphire or Aurora are anywhere near. She has been waiting for several nights now. She doesn’t look flamboyant; she is in a hooded cloak and with her auburn hair tied back in a tail. Blending in to the scene.

Then she spots Sapphire across the bar, and Sapphire looks happy and at peace, very different from the Sapphire she met in the train. Sapphire feels a tap on her shoulder. “Sapphire?”

“You”

“No, no, no, no, don't. Could we just. Could we just talk?” Lorelei asks.

“What do we have to talk about?”

“I don't know yet, but we could talk it over something, and please, just one drink” and she points to a booth in the corner. “For old times' sake”

And they slide into this round red leather booth. Lorelei pulls back her cloak a little bit. “I see that you... are protective of Aurora”

“Very. You have no idea”

“What has made me the enemy?”

“I love her. I love her. I don't want you to take her away from me. She's the only thing I have, and I want to make her whole. You can't make her whole”

“What would make her whole?” Lorelei asks.

“To be healed. to find the right doctor, to be able to let go of some of the shame that she's carrying, to be able to choose a new path and a new life with someone who has her best interests at heart. She's dealt with too much pain. She doesn't need another one like you”

“Your love of Aurora is something I can't possibly know. It has a history, it has a deeper knowing. But you can't deny that Aurora craves some other things...

“And that's only gotten her hurt. I don't want you to hurt her” Sapphire snaps. “She's suffered too much”

“Can you see that we both want Aurora's happiness and healing and wholeness?”

“I don't disagree with that, but I don't think you're the right answer”

“I might not be... Sapphire, all of the things you're saying are what my friends and I believe in. We're part of the call and we stand for the Chosen, and all we want is for the Chosen to feel healed and protected and understood. And I feel like you would be such an asset if you were to join our cause”

“An asset?”

“Words are not my thing”

“Clearly not”

“Would you. Would you just join me for a meeting?”

“Sounds like a cult”

“We're doing things that are making a difference. Would you just come with me to one conversation? I think we have a lot to learn from your story with Aurora”

“If you promise to never see Aurora again. Can you do that?” Sapphire asks.

“Would a promise like that bring her happiness?”

“I think so”

“We may need more time to figure out our path forward, but for now, I'm coming to you, not Aurora. I need Sapphire on our side”

“I'll listen. But you need to leave Aurora alone”

They head off to the meeting and it's a group dressed in hooded cloaks, concealing their identities. When the time comes for people pull their hoods back, Sapphire's surprised to see dignitaries, politicians, important figures from society. She recognises some faces and is suddenly quite honoured to be in this room. and opening remarks are made, and Lorelei stands and says, "I'd like to introduce our very important guest today, Sapphire”

Sapphire is nonplussed.

As the people present share stories about the obstacles they have faced and the improvements they have made in the lives of the Chosen, Sapphire realises that she has been incredibly short-sighted. This secretive group have been moving in bigger ways than she had imagined. Of course, Sapphire has been lying all the time... her desires for Aurora are nothing to do with Aurora and all about what Sapphire wants for herself.

As the meeting proceeds, it becomes clear to Sapphire that Aurora needs emotional healing, and she is receiving that from Lorelei, and probably never will be able to be supported in that way by Sapphire herself. The realisation is devastating.

Sapphire goes back to the bar, and has too many drinks. We see her staggering out into the street, into the darkness. And behind her we see a hooded figure following her into the shadowed streets. We never see her again.

Happily Ever After

Lorelei is out searching for Aurora. We are on the street, that same night, and there's a crumpled form lying against a building. That's Aurora, but she's more dishevelled than she's been in every scene before this. She's falling apart. She's almost finished. And Lorelei enters the scene frantically because she’s been looking everywhere for her, and finally found her. “Aurora, sweet, is that you?”

“Who's there?”

“Aurora” Lorelei whispers. She straightens the glasses which are a little bit askew, and gently strokes Aurora’s hair. “I’ve found you. I've been looking everywhere”

“I thought I'd lost you. I walked away” Aurora says sadly. “Why did you come after me?”

“Because you need to heal”

“Yes, but I might hurt you”

“You can't hurt me. Not in ways that matter, in ways that truly hurt me. Aurora, you're afraid of things that could happen, but you're also afraid of all the wonderful things that you won't let happen”

Aurora is weak. Can barely stand without help.

“This is not okay” Lorelei worries

“I know” Aurora responds wearily. “Sapphire said there were two more doctors to try in Warsaw and then maybe Berlin. But I've only felt healthy once. And that was the crazy night at your concert.

“We're going to get you better”

“All right”, and Aurora takes Lorelei’s arm. “I'm going to choose. Yes, I'm going to choose” And where Aurora is grasping Lorelei’s arm, the greyish tint of her skin becomes much more healthy and normal looking, spreading over Lorelei. “Where do you want to go?”

Lorelei is feeling the Chosen's power over her right now. She flirtatiously tugs on Aurora’s hand, leading her back into a dark alley, where she knows these streets.

“I've toured this town”

“Tell me, at least there's a bed”

“Oh, there’s a bed”

“Then let's go!”

It starts to drizzle a bit. There are cobblestones in this older part of Warsaw town. They start to glisten a little bit, and the streets are slick and oily and shining, and resplendent with rainbow tones. And there is a halo around the street lights and they begin their foreplay in the street.

Lorelei takes her to an inn. There is music from inside, a mandolin. The door is open, and as they are about to go in Aurora takes off her glasses and they fall on the wet ground at the doorway, while Lorelei pulls her in.

The final scene is those just glasses lying there, with the rain still coming down.

DG: Yeah. I love that.! I'm so happy for them.
AW: That's nice. It all started on a train.
BM: Yep, it all started on a train. But I sort of feel like the whole thing is an adventure in a way. I wanted to go away from the train because I felt like. then it became her adventure daring to go to the concert to allow herselves to be led step by step away. She would not have gone normally.
AW: She's adventurous. Yes.
DG: She's kind of accepting death of self, her past self.
BM: She thinks, in a way, she's already dead. I think, at the beginning.
AW: I love that there's all the unspoken things in that setting that we don't really talk about, the chosen or the blue eyes...
EC: Yes. It existed without being explained, which I absolutely love.
BM: And we know there's something about Lorelai, too, but we don't really know what it is. And one of the things I liked at the end is the idea that Aurora can kind of heal Lorelei too...

• Unexpected Strength (this one)
• Bodyguard
• The Chosen
• Face from the Past

Safety Discussion

We wanted to push the boundaries of what we were comfortable with, and so elected to aim for sensual/steamy romances. We did a lot of check-in during the game to make sure that everyone was comfortable with where we were going.

“Unexpected Strength”

A Gothic Napoleonic Romantic Thriller

• Protagonist: Heathcliff, a British soldier in the napoleonic wars. He seeks a sense of belonging and is wounded by abandonment. Played by Alex.
• Paramour: Allegra, a French farmer who is independent and somewhat mysterious. A strong, statuesque woman. Played by Eileen.
• Trouble: Fabian, Heathcliff’s best friend and fellow soldier. They have been friends for ever, but Fabian is a busybody, always trying to fix Heathcliff up with someone. Played by Diana.

Introduction

We can see moorland somewhere in France. It is dusk, and it is bleak. There are two soldiers in somewhat tattered British uniforms. Heathcliff and his best friend Fabian. In the distance is the sound of musket fire and cannons. Their military unit had been decimated by the French, and the French army are hunting for these two guys. Heathcliff has always had a fear of abandonment and that is accentuated now he has lost the unit he served with. Heathcliff wonders what on earth they are going to do, but Fabian is a little more optimistic.

“For the sake of our Lord, would you just be grateful that we are alive? Here” he says, and tosses an apple to Heathcliff.

Heathcliff is still looking a little panicky .

“Do you feel your heart beating?” Says Fabian. “Do you feel the rise and fall of your chest?”

“Yeah, yeah I do”

“There is some reason we are here”

“Then let’s find some shelter” Heathcliff suggests. “That old farmyard over there might have somewhere that is safe for the night. Perhaps a bit of food? Maybe the oppressed peasants could help us out”

“Heathcliff, you’ve always got me. We’re best buds” and Fabian punches him really hard in his arm.

“Jerk. Last one to the farmhouse is a puffguts!”

Encounter

Allegra owns and runs the badly maintained farm. She is burly and powerful . Think of Luisa from Encanto. She is independent and slightly mysterious; it is very unusual that she runs her own farm -- the family farm which she had inherited.

Heathcliff sees her working from behind as he approaches and calls out “Excuse me sir?”

She turns, and wipes some dirt off of her face to expose a gorgeous pair of eyes.
“Sir?” she says, annoyed. “What are you doing here in my barn?”

Heathcliff is surprised that she can speak to him in English. Apparently her family gets around a bit, does business across the sea... and these men are clearly not from around here.

“Again I ask you, what are you doing in my barn?”

“I’m seeking safety” Heathcliff responds.

“Well, help me with these bales of hay and we’ll see about the safety part.

Heathcliff goes to help, he can’t take his eyes off of her. He thinks she is absolutely stunning. He has never seen eyes like that on someone. His heart is fluttering. He doesn’t know why it is fluttering. This is stupid. This is a war, it is dangerous, and he is bargaining for somewhere safe... but there is something in her eyes. Maybe he is just imagining it? But he doesn’t know where this is going to go. His heart is beating harder than it was when he was running over here, and he doesn’t know why.

Meanwhile she hopes that he doesn’t learn anything about the family’s business.

Complication

Fabian says “Did you see the figure on that beautiful tower of a woman?” He cups his hands as though weighing some big fruits.

“Well yeah, I mean, goodness me, she’s... magnificent. She’s probably married though”

Fabian is talking a little too loud “We almost died! You can’t worry about things like a husband. You could, you could... steal five minutes with her...?”

“Don’t...”

“Listen, I have a plan”

“Is it a stupid plan? All your plans are stupid plans”

“Just listen for once. Stack the hay, and we put flowers in it or something, and you can sing her a song”

“You’re bonkers”

“Let’s make a deal. One of us is going to get a shot with her. It’s gonna be you or me. Winner gets the lady”

They are talking too loud. Allegra is pretending to be oblivious to them, but she is thinking to herself “Oh, they are going to caught, what are they doing?” She picks up a barrel, flexing, placing it up on a shelf.

Fabian drops a milk jug in front of Heathcliff, stumbles, spilling it over his shirt. Heathcliff apologies for the mess, Allegra tells them off, to just stick with the hay. Heathcliff is apologising, Fabian is really messing up his chances here. Heathcliff is flaming scarlet. He’s made this stupid bet with Fabian, thinks she has heard, but she is a figure of a woman and a half.

First Kiss

Heathcliff has done a great job of stacking the bales and tidying up. Allegra has softened to him a bit. Fabian had a drink from his hip flask and went off to sleep, and Allegra and Heathcliff end up talking.

In that conversation they started to make a real connection. Heathcliff was clearly looking for something and clearly in Allegra there was something that he was interested in. To start with, despite the crude jokes that Fabian had made about Allegra’s breasts, they had a shared interest in poetry. They enjoyed that and talked, they laughed, and then she said “you know, come into the farmhouse. We’ll make a drink”

They continued the conversation over the drink. And at one point when she was handing a cup to him, his hand touched hers for a moment and there was a little bit of electricity between them.

“Oh, sorry” Heathcliff says

“No need to be sorry, we’re in France”

“What do the French do in these circumstances?”

“”Well, what would you like to do?

She leans towards him, he leans forward and lays his hand on her leg and starts to move his hand up her thigh. “People say, I hear the French do this a little...”

“You’re not wrong, but we do a little bit more than that. Have you ever kissed a Frenchwoman? No?”

She grabs him by the collar, pulls him towards her. They lock lips, and the suddenly he finds a tongue in his mouth! There’s a moment of shock. His eyebrows are raised up and she is owning the situation. She pulls him towards her and puts a leg over his thigh.

“That’s how French women kiss, Heathcliff”.

“Tell me more. I want to know... everything”

He reaches out and caresses her neck, then trails his fingers down her back as they continue kissing. He experiments with his tongue.

She pushes him towards the couch, because she’s used to being in charge. Very independent. So she straddles him, and she says “This is where we start, and this is probably where we are going to end”. She leans down and kisses him, and starts to run her hands through his hair and starts to drag her lips along his neck towards his collarbone. “I love this muscle on a soldier” she breathes. “So beautiful, so strong” and reaches over to kiss his shoulder.

He gasps, and then tries his best to copy what she’s doing, to her quiet amusement. Again his heart is racing, and there’s something, something encompassing about Allegra. She’s larger than he is, and she is much stronger than him. Somehow there is security in that, as she leads him into mysteries of love he has not experienced.

She smiles “I wish I didn’t ever have to let you go”

“Well, lets, let’s make the night last as long as we can”

“Absolutely”

Catastrophe

Early in the morning Fabian comes to find him “Okay. Heathcliff, we need to get going. We need to run. I know, I know. you've made this beautiful connection with Allegra, but the soldiers are coming, they're going to kill us. So tell her to pack up. We need to get going and…”

The sound of cannons is definitely closer.

“Listen, I can go tell her” Fabian says

“No, no, I will” Heathcliff responds ”Allegra. If they find me, they'll kill me”.

“It's true, it’s true“ Fabian interjects. “We have targets on our back and you can come with us. You can run with us.” “I'm not going anywhere” Allegra calmly responds

Fabian hurries on “We can find a cave. We'll find a forest, we’ll…” “And you don't need to go anywhere, either” Allegra interrupts.

“No, no, no, no, no. If you truly love him, if you want him to live, he needs to go” Fabian says. “We'll come back when we can!”

“I don't want to, I don't want to go, but... “ Heathcliff stutters

Fabian interrupts “Listen, Heathcliff, you and I have been through a lot together. We're best of friends. You can't leave me. You can't leave my side.” Heathcliff is torn “I've got to get him to safety. I've got to get him to... I'll try and come back”.

Fabian continues “You'll be fine. We'll come back.”

Allegra remains calm “Oh, I'll be fine, but I don't think either of you will be” Fabian is getting anxious “They're coming now.. .”

Heathcliff thinks he still has a few minutes. So he reaches out and grabs Allegra’s hand.

“You go,” she says, “I’ll see what I can do”

They have a last kiss, then Heathcliff says “I'll find you after Waterloo, after the war”.

“I hope it’s sooner than that” she responds. Fabian's been writing a hurried letter. While the two lovers are embracing, he slipped it into her garments. The letter is a break-up letter which Fabian has forged, pretending to be Heathcliff! It says ‘This has been wonderful. We need to part’ Fabian doesn’t want Allegra to chase after them and is attempting to protect his friend from heartbreak by causing her to stay put, causing her to believe that Heathcliff was no more than a one night stand. So Heathcliff runs off towards the battle, convinced that he is going to reunite with Allegra, while she finds the letter in the pocket and starts to wonder whether there was anything real there between them at all.

Comeuppance

Allegra’s family are profiting off the war. They are basically mobsters, running their smuggling operation off the farm. So behind those bales is gunpowder in those barrels and casks. Allegra puts up a special signal torch so that her family members know that the fighting has got really close to the farm. Her brothers Guy and François appear, and her father, and she’s thinking “Please, please dear God, I hope he approves. This inexperienced English soldier, I want him, Daddy. Please let me have the toy. He’s so much fun. I want to teach him things”

So Allegra shows up with her two burly brothers and her father and finds Heathcliff and Fabian surrounded by soldiers. They had been heading for the battle but were captured by scouts and are being held prisoner at gunpoint.

Fabian is ready to confess what he did with the letter, and he is crying and sobbing.

“Man up” Heathcliff says “Don’t show the French any cowardice”

“I wrote a letter” Fabian sobs “I, I just knew that the two of you wouldn't give each other up, and she would come after you, and I just thought... I just thought if I could break it off and… I told her that you didn't think you loved her, and I signed a letter from you”

Heathcliff, ignoring the French soldiers, starts shaking him! The French soldiers are kind of laughing. “I'm sorry.. The two of you just had something so lovely and... It's easier for her to walk away if she thinks you're're not serious about it, and I knew we could fix it later. It doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter now” Fabian said. “Fabian. You're a jerk. But you're still my friend”

At that moment, shadows rise up from the darkness, necks twist, soldiers are taken down with garrottes and knives.

And Allegra is there with three men even bigger than she is. And she turns to Heathcliff in fury, brandishing the note and says, “What were you thinking? First you tell me you're going to meet me after Waterloo and then this? “

“Wait” Heathcliff says, “This isn’t my writing”

“How am I supposed to know?” She retorts. “This is your writing, Fabian!”

“What? I wrote it well, I'm sorry. I know you're dedicated...” “Please don't kill him” Heathcliff says

“Daddy...”

“He means well” Heathcliff continues

Fabian interjects “You two are just so right for each other. I knew you'd never be torn apart. And so I thought...” “Right, so you wrote a letter?” Allegra asks.

Heathcliff tries to stick up for his friend “He didn’t want you to be hurt. First, he was trying to push us together. He wanted us to be together” Allegra is unimpressed “It was a contest. I heard you two by the hay bales and the barrels. That's right, I was a prize” “Could you find it in your heart to forgive him?” Heathcliff asks. “He's a stupid Yorkshireman” Allegra ponders “Well. Stupid, yes”

Heathcliff continues “And thank you for saving us from the French” “Of course. We are French, too. Look at who you're talking to” Allegra’s father growls.

Heathcliff asks “I guess we’re your prisoners now?“ “You are” Allegra drawls.

Happily Ever After

We are in a dimly lit location. And the war is somebody else’s problem. Heathcliff has become part of Allegra’s family band of ne’er do wells and she has brought him down to the catacombs where her family store all their contraband. They are lying on some of the fresh straw used for packing.

She is teaching him some French, starting with some really fun words.

And in the dim light we see them lying close together. He rests his head on her shoulder, and she shrugs him off, and they laugh, and he reaches out and traces the shape of the muscles on her arm.

“You’ve got good, strong arms, Allegra”

“Only to hold you with”

“I don’t know about you, but it seems a bit warm in here” And he reaches out and starts to unbutton the top of her blouse.

“Oh absolutely. And you’re wearing all those layers”

They start to unbutton each other, and as her blouse comes open he says “You are mightily endowed, Allegra”

“And you learn quickly”

“Well, I have a good teacher”

“I can’t deny that”

“Would you consider marrying a naive Englishman?”

“I’d consider it, as long as he can handle a strong-willed French family”

“Frankly, my hands are full with you Madame”

“Then yes, with all my heart, yes”

Heathcliff snuggles closer “Do you know, when I left my family and joined up for the war, I hadn’t been wanted. I was the runt of the litter, and all my life I’d been looking for the opportunity to belong, to be part of the family. You’re the complete package Allegra. You’re twice the woman that I’d ever dreamt of”

“I love that you accept us for who we are and that... I don’t know, I can show my softer side with you”

“You’re dark and mysterious. Not a flimsy flower of the field, but a dark and stormy night; you have depths which I’ll spend a lifetime plumbing if you’ll pardon the expression”

“I hope that you’ll continue to take care of me as I’m trying to take care of everything around us”

“Allegra, I think we both know that you don’t need anyone to take care of you. Your independence, your strength is what I admire”

“I’ll take care of you for the rest of our lives”

“C’mere love!”

The game is now available on itch here https://mumblemegs.itch.io/betwixt

The Basics

This is a journalling game, where you respond to prompts and either write down or record your personal logs. The rules are simple and are available in a tri-fold format. It is a body-horror game, and you, the intrepid explorer/horrible colonist are being transformed by an alien intelligence. Eventually you will cease to be you.

Playing the Game

You have five 'lives' at the start. Little tokens which represent your sense of self. Each turn you roll a d20, and respond to the prompt. If you roll a number that has already come up, lose one 'life' and roll again.

At first it seems that the game might take quite a long time, but when I played it started slow and then hit a tipping point and it all went alien-shaped quite quickly after that!

It's simple mechanics and eerie prompts make for a fun journalling game.

Would you like to see a game?

This is the last logs of Dominic Green; a wiry, young, tattooed explorer. I've used heart icons to indicate his remaining life, and parenthesis to indicate my die roll.

Log Entry 01 (6) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
As they probe within me, they don’t really understand how my liver works - the vital role it plays in cleaning my blood and keeping me from infection. I think this might mean it is progressing less quickly than I first feared.

Log Entry 02 (13) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
As their thoughts threaten to overwhelm me, I’m reminded of my overbearing father. He was always dominating me, belittling me, telling me I was a nothing.

Log Entry 03 (16) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
As I wrestle with the changes being wrought in me, I think I’m going to miss my sense of self as a human. My connection to my parents, my brother and sister. The connections I hoped to make with a lover. Those things are very human, and I fear I’m going to lose them all.

Log Entry 04 (2) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Crawling in the far corners of my mind has somehow dislodged an early memory — It is my first day at school. I’m surrounded by strange faces. Unfriendly faces. I’m scared.

Log Entry 05 (12) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I tried to remove my exosuit but after I undid the seals I couldn’t peel it down over my shoulders as I had expected. Digging my fingers in under my collar, it seems as though fibres have grown from the suit into me—or is it the other way around?

Log Entry 06 (20) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thinking back to my exposure incident, I can’t help wondering why the previous surveys here had not mentioned this. Surely someone must have noticed this happening before?

Log Entry 07 (11) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I want to scream but I cannot. I can hear my voice speaking, but it isn’t under my control. I can’t use the communicator to warn anyone.

Log Entry 08 (12) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
(I mark off a life ❤️ and re-roll)

Log Entry 09 (3) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
My body arches and spasms - unconsciously it is trying to reject this alien invader, but without success.

Log Entry 10 (2) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
(I mark off a life ❤️ and re-roll)

Log Entry 11 (9) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I’m starting to understand why they want to change me - I’m to be their spaceship for exploring a strange new world. A means for interacting with the human technology that brought me here.

Log Entry 12 (8) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I’m losing some of my old memories. I fight to retain the memories which my tats represent. One or two of them go before I realise what has happened. Why do have the string of hearts on one arm? I know that the butterfly represents the day I entered the academy. I manage to hang on to that.

Log Entry 13 (17) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I feel that I’m dwindling away. Becoming less of myself. Why didn’t I come on more strongly to Lt Delaware on the way in? I’m sure they liked me. They won’t like me now.

Log Entry 14 (1) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I have an urge to race back to the lander, to clasp Lt Delaware to me. I start staggering back in that direction.

Log Entry 15 (7) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
As I’m staggering along, my changed eyes are seeing many more colours. Infra red and ultra violet for sure, but there are another dozen colours I can’t put a name to in the sky, across the terrain, on my arm. It’s weirdly beautiful.

Log Entry 16 (14) ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
As my muscles spasm, I realise that I possess the new sense of snut. Being able to snut makes such a difference on this planet - i close my eyes so that I can snut with more detail.

Log Entry 17 (14) ❤️ ❤️
(I mark off a life ❤️ and re-roll)

Log Entry 18 (18) ❤️ ❤️
I/we realise that if I/we get back to the lander, my colleagues will have no chance to stop me/us from getting off this planet and infecting others. This scares/delights me.

Log Entry 18 (1) ❤️
(I mark off a life ❤️ and re-roll)

Log Entry 19 (13) 👽
I call out to Lt Delaware. I tell them that I’ve been wounded and need immediate medical assistance. They will let me onto the lander. They care for Dominic and that will give me the perfect opportunity to colonise them too.

Chase

I'm Chase Kurkowski! A photographer, software developer and game designer in Chicago who has spent the last few years digging into the world of TTRPGs. After initially cutting my teeth on D&D 5e, I quickly expanded my horizons with the OSR. Games like Shadowdark, Mothership and Mausritter pulled me in with their simple rules and exciting approaches to design. Soon after that I got involved with Storygames Chicago and had my first real introduction to narrative games.

This was my first time playing anything even remotely like this. My first game was actually GMed by Ryan - CBR-PNK by Emanoel Melo - and soon after I was exploring PSY*RUN and Spire. It's been a downhill slide into near addiction since then!

Ryan

I’m Ryan Zenith, a queer tabletop designer, teacher, and Chicago local. I’m a writer as well, I especially like writing short stories and poetry. I have been playing tabletop roleplaying games since high school, and I’ve always liked playing different genres. I’m always looking for a novel experience, whether that’s old ladies solving mysteries (Brindlewood Bay), village leaders making difficult choices (Villagesong), or the last people speaking a dying language (Dialect). Storygames Chicago has been a great way to be introduced to (and actually play!) unique games, through tabletop book clubs, campaigns, one-shots, and tabletop design workshops.

What do you like best about designing games?

Chase

There's a couple of different things that stand out as real draws towards game design for me personally.

Creating experiences that people enjoy. This ties into my love for some of my other hobbies as well. Cooking, software development, and photography are all things that I enjoy immensely. I find the most fulfillment in the ways that they impact the people I care about around me. The look on someone's face when they take that first bite of a meal you've made for them, or when they see the photos you took that they absolutely love - these are moments that drive me to make art of all kinds. It's the same feeling I get when I make games and watch others engage with them.

Making the games and mechanics I want to play. This motivation is less external than the previous one - a desire to see certain mechanics or ideas in the games I play that aren't being made. Sometimes this comes from playing a game and LOVING many elements from it but feeling that something is off or seeing ways it could be changed to fit a style of play I think would be fun. Other times it's the opposite - I play something that I really like but I am frustrated by the ways that it fumbles the great elements of its design. This is often a much stronger motivation for me.

Ryan

Theme / Big Concept. Often, an image or concept will call to me. For Vesta Mandate (our current project), it was an image of socialist revolutionaries fighting on a space station. I do think I’m often ideas first, and I have a lot of conceptual thoughts of how something should be. Chase is a more precise thinker, and he usually asks “I get the idea, but how do we mechanize it?” For this reason, I think our creative partnership works really well. It’s really rewarding for me to take concepts and ideas and find the best mechanics that suit them.

Playtesting. The first time I playtested a game, I felt incredibly nervous and uncomfortable. I did not think the game was ready for playtest at all. But even though the game wasn’t perfect, there were these special, rewarding moments when I saw the game I first envisioned. Playtesting early and often really helps you as a designer revise and iterate on something until it’s just what you want. I also think that playtesting is so much more fun and motivating than the solitary act of writing. Sometimes when you’ve been discussing mechanics on a theoretical level and fine tuning a sentence for a few hours, you begin to forget what makes tabletop games fun to begin with. Playtesting provides those moments when you can finally play that cool idea that’s been in your head.

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

We have been working on Vesta Mandate: the sci-fi political thriller TTRPG. It is a semi-competitive intrigue game set on the tense powderkeg of Vesta Station.

We’ve both played a lot of games with political themes. But we haven’t really found a game that has political intrigue, semi-competitive play, and the narrative elements we’re looking for. With media such as Andor, Mass Effect and A Memory Called Empire as touchstones, we both wanted deep character drama as well as an interconnected Station of peoples and Factions striving for power. These are elements that have constructed our pillars for our game and it's been a really exciting experience to work on something that feels fresh - both in designing it but also sitting down and playtesting it.

At the same time, building something with such unique and contrasting goals has created a lot of tensions that we've had to grapple with. Primarily the tension between competitive elements and the goal of creating cohesive narrative experiences. It's been exciting trying something that feels unique in a lot of ways. Something that we have felt really addresses a style of game that doesn't exist within TTRPGs.

Can you tell me more about the challenges of creating a TTRPG with competitive elements?

In the current era of narrative TTRPG design, most everything is cooperative. Rarely do you find games that are strictly competitive, and I think there is a pretty good reason for that. One of the defining principles of modern narrative games tends to be collaboratively building a story through the conversation and - by extension - play that happens at the table. This is something that we love, but in building Vesta Mandate we were looking for ways to create the kinds of tensions innate to political intrigue narratives.

What we ended up with is a hidden role game, similar to games such as Secret Hitler, Blood on the Clocktower and many more. This allows for players to have long term objectives that are at odds while working together as the Councillors - the executives of the station - to overcome short term problems that arise. Players will need to balance and compromise the needs of their secret Hidden Agenda with the needs of the people, their political party and the broader crises on the Station.

By moving the competitive elements into the background with Hidden Agendas we avoided a more directly competitive system. Players are incentivized to hide their goals and compete through subterfuge while also working together on problems that affect the whole station. It leads into the type of play that we are looking to facilitate and helps create an atmosphere of political tension. What happens when your hidden goals are at odds with another player? Can you be sneaky enough with your agendas? How will you manipulate the current crises to your benefit? At the same time, it leaves room for the dramatic narrative stories that can build through play.

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

In Vesta Mandate, players feel like competent, conniving politicians. Their characters are from a prestige TV show, with inner lives and drama. The Councillors need to be careful of what they’re about to say, knowing that their secrets are out there and could be weaponized at any moment.

The Station also feels alive. This is a dynamic setting where players’ actions meaningfully affect the Station at large, as well as the other players. Players get to see the way the Station and its many factions react and shift alongside the many decisions and actions they take as they wield their power to execute their Hidden Agendas.

As the Councillor’s explore the game they’ll make backroom deals and scrounge for hidden information as they try to always stay a step ahead of the political apparatus around them. Players will find themselves pulled into drama and debate with powerful leaders on station, all while balancing their personal lives at home. They must plan for the future and play it close to the chest to make sure they come out on top.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

The Vesta Mandate Quickstart has just been released, with enough content to run a one-shot of the game! Check it out here. You can also pre-order the pdf here and we will have hardcovers available later this year!

Follow us on socials below to find out about the handful of other projects we're working on!

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

You can find Storygames Chicago's website here: https://storygameschicago.com/ It has links to pre-order Vesta Mandate and buy City of Blood and Plaster - a small system agnostic, gothic horror zine set in the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 that we made last year.

You can also find us on Bluesky at:

• https://bsky.app/profile/storygameschicago.bsky.social
• https://bsky.app/profile/chkurk.bsky.social
• https://bsky.app/profile/ryanzenith.bsky.social
• https://bsky.app/profile/tonytranrpg.bsky.social

The Basics

This is a card game based on Desperation by Bully Pulpit Games. We played online using a PCIO setup with all the appropriate cards present. You don't each play a distinct character - rather you can all play all the characters who are present in the scenario. You draw cards which introduce the locations, the characters, and their obligations. Then you start drawing cards from a deck of seasons - Spring cards, Summer cards, and Fall (Autumn) cards. As you draw a card, you decide which person is involved, and whom the other person they might be involved is. Describing the scenario on the card, you can also give some insight into their secret heart.

Playing the Game

There is a single deck of cards. The first cards we draw are the locations, and we place them on the playing surface and read the description about them. The next cards are the dramatis personae, and then the obligations. Once those are all set up, we are in Spring and draw a number of spring cards, then summer cards, and finally fall (or Autumn as we might say over here!)

The person cards tell you something about them e.g. this one about Algernon which tells you a little bit about him, the problematic situation he finds himself in, and his interests. There is a two-word description of his character.

The phrase "speak his heart" means that you can take the opportunity to shine a light on his inner narrative.

Each of the 'season' cards has a title, and a description of an event, such as this one at the start of spring.

You can pick any of the characters to apply this card to, and once again "speak your heart" allows you to provide more inner monologue which reflects the character (and perhaps appearance) of the two characters, and what the primary character is thinking.

Why I like this game

As a starter, I love regency period games. The undercurrents of desire and the strictures of society, where small guestures can contain an ocean of meaning.

It is intriguing playing this where any player can play any of the characters. It makes them quite mercurial, as a character that I may think is going clearly in one direction suddenly gets taken in a very different direction by someone else.

I love the way that each of the characters are drawn, both artistically and in the text that describes them. They are very evocative of the time period, and it makes you want to play them!

Playtest observations

These reflect questions that came to me during play and reflecting on it afterwards.

Because the characters are wandering around town and to various great houses, I found it quite difficult to keep track of what who thought about whom by the time we were half-way through the game, and I was very glad that Camilla had been taking notes for each of the season cards to keep track of relationships. If I play again I might want to try keeping a little network diagram with lines between people for each of their interactions, so I can keep an idea in my head of which relationships are strongest.

I wonder whether you could play the game with a little more in-character dialog between characters during events, rather than always seeing them from point-of-view character? It would lengthen the game, of course!

The obligations didn't seem to figure in the play much. I can see from the design diary that there were added to give additional stakes and reasons for the characters to act against their own personal interests, but when we played they didn't really influence the game. Associated stakes were not super-clear to me, nor were the relative stations of the various characters. Some indication of the stations of the various characters would be very helpful (I don't know if it is nobility, gentleman, commoner, or where a vicar of soldier or artist might fit into that. I'm know too little of the setting to intuit what those social lines should be!)

Where can you find the game

The game is available from Jenn Martin here https://jennmartin.itch.io/aldsworth-1811 and I think the current playtest cards are freely available to use on PCIO.

Would you like to read a bit of a story?

1. Gloves - Rev Stewart is very taken by miss Catherine Montgomery
2. Out of Turn - Alexander Haddington likes Charlotte Carter for her lack of restraint at dinner, even though it did draw a rebuke from his father.
3. Feelings Unspoken - Farmer Oliver Fletcher has strong feelings for Catherine, but recognises that she is out of his league socially.
4. Bad Parting - miss Amelia Carter (the younger sister, pretty but naive) really didn't like the Rev. Stewart.
5. Uncouth Youth - Grace Fernside, the ward of the Haddingtons, really doesn't like Amelia's uncouth manners.
6. The Farmer - Catherine has Oliver around for dinner, and likes his attention, and him enquiring about her favourite flowers, which are of course peonies.
7. Songbird - Rev Stewart loves Grace's singing voice, and thinks she would be a real asset to the church.
8. My Hero - Amelia is swept off her feet by James Lambert, a retired soldier who is new in town. He sheltered her with his coat in the rain and she fantasied about his strong arms where the rain made his shirt cling tightly to the shape of his muscles.
9. An Artist Arrives - Catherine is taken aback by the passionate gaze of the artist Samuel St. Vincent, and blushes at his attention.
10. Captive Audience - Catherine is bored by Rev Stewart, who was only talking about himself.
11. Tea for Two - Grace meets Catherine for tea, and hears some gossip about the passionate artist Samuel.
12. Summer starts, A House Guest arrives at Sherbourne - Mr Matthew Lovell, who will inherit Sherbourne, is met by Grace who decides she rather likes him.
13. Accomplishment - Charlotte likes to see Catherine play the piano, and has even anonymously sent her some music which she plays.
14. Familiar Flowers - Catherine is delighted with Oliver when he brings her some pink peonies. Her favourite!
15. Assistance - Alexander gulps with emotion when he gives Grace a hand up into the carriage. There is something there he has never felt before.
16. Unreserved - When Alexander watches Charlotte laughing with someone else, he realises that although he was impressed by her, she never had the same level of feelings towards him.
17. Picnic - Amelia sat next to Matthew at a picnic, and enjoyed how close he sat, and how manly he seemed.
18. Floating - Charlotte is rather taken by Algernon as she is alone in the boat with him. Marvelling at his muscular arms as he sculls them along.
19. An Unwelcome Letter - Charlotte recieves a letter from a younger cousin who is betrothed, and immediately writes back that she is pretty much betrothed to Alexander!
20. Fireworks - Catherine is mesmerised by Amelia during the firework display.
21. Shared Carriage - Rev Stewart was sharing a carriage with Grace and Alexander. He thinks Grace's smiles and dancing eyes are for him, but they are actually for Alexander.
22. A Secret Engagement - Grace is delighted that Alexander has secretly asked for her hand in marriage!
23. Autumn starts. Silence - The Baronet Haddington has died suddenly, and Alexander is now the Baronet and head of the household. Amelia doesn't know about his secret engagement and wonders why he has not sought her out.
24. Autumn Stroll - Charlotte is now no longer in love with Alexander and avoids him.
25. Poetry - Catherine spends time with Samuel, and the artist reads passionate poetry to her. How can she choose between Olivers gentle strength and Samuels passionate heart?
26. Incorrect - ??? realises that they misjudged ??? and shouldn't think so harshly of them.
27. An Unveiling - Samuel reveals a portrait he has lovingly made of the farmer, Oliver. Trying to capture the glisten of sweat on his muscled arms, the tenderness in the crease of his smile.
28. Secret Keeping - Rev Stewart has learned of Grace's secret engagement, as she has spoken to him about wedding planning. He is gutted, but has to keep it to himself.
29. Impossible - Charlotte is mad with passion for the completely unsuitable Catherine. She knows it can never be.
30. Resignation - Charlotte can no longer swim against the family obligations, so she decides to marry someone and it might as well be Rev Stewart.
31. A Good Book - James had a discussion with Amelia about a book they had both recently read and enjoyed each other's company.
32. The End - Catherine has decided to speak out her love for Oliver, and it was accepted joyously.

At the end of the game, we have the following marriages

• Alexander Haddington and Grace Fernside
• Thomas Stewart and Charlotte Carter
• Catherine Montgomery and Oliver Fletcher

We suspect that a bad marriage might be on the cards for James Lambert and Amelia Carter.

Algernon Haddington, Matthew Lovell, and Samuel St. Vincent remain unmarried at this time.

This is a map of the relationships at the end of the game

At the moment I direct site visitors off to Indie Press Revolution, DriveThruRpg, or Itch to purchase my games. That’s OK, but each of them take a cut and it would be nice to allow customers to purchase directly from me.

1. Integration

My first criteria is that I want something that can integrate nicely with this existing website (which is a static website generated via Hugo). This rules out for me some of the all-in-one options which can provide e-commerce as well as everything else on the site. So no Wordpress, Squarespace, or Wix in my considerations. I ran a squarespace site for my wife for 8 years, so I know that it can do an acceptable job, but I found lots of limitations in formatting things. Plus I like having a basically static site - all my web pages are highly cacheable, which makes them very fast to load.

So I want an e-commerce solution which can either integrate directly with my web pages (best), or which is a simple link off to another place which handles the transactions (not so good, but still workable).

2. Cost

I’ve got to be honest, being a tiny RPG publisher doesn’t bring in much money for the company. So a low monthly cost is really important, otherwise it isn’t economically viable.

3. In-Person

Later this year I’m going to running my first in-person stand at a convention (Dragonmeet 2025 at the end of the year) and it would be really useful to have a way of accepting electronic payment for goods.

So ideally I want to find an e-commerce solution that supports in-person payment as well as online payment. Even more ideally it would be able to use the features in modern phones to accept payments without additional hardware being needed.

Options

1. Shopify Starter
2. Big Cartel
3. Square
4. Open Cart

Reviews

Shopify Starter

They can be found here https://www.shopify.com/uk/starter (sometimes I see Shopify Lite, I think that is properly used for POS Lite, their intro level POS system).

Integration

Integration is very straightforward. They provide an HTML snippet that can be included on pages to provide a ‘button’ and which works via JavaScript. It can be a small button, a picture with title and button, or an element with a whole product description. The buttons can add to bag or go straight to checkout.

On the face of it this looks like the cleanest integration available of the eCommerce solutions I’ve looked at.

Cost

The basic cost is £5 per month, which is affordable if I am able to make four or more sales in a year. At the moment I don’t know whether that is likely... I get more sales than that through the other channels, but they have more eyeballs.

The transaction cost is 5% if using the Shopify gateway. (plus an extra 2% if using ApplePay or GooglePay)

If I were to sell 12 products in a year, at an average of £20 each, my annual cost would be £60 (hosting) plus £12 (transaction fees)

In-Person

The Starter plan includes POS Lite, which is their basic POS solution. If you have the Shopify POS app on a smartphone you can accept payments with tap to pay on an iphone.

Features

The starter plan includes

• product pages, contact page, checkout
• Mobile POS
• Linkpop (link in bio tool)
• Order management
• Sell on social media
• Create discount codes

Bottom line

This looks like a really good option in terms of integration and in-person sales, and the cost is the lowest of the paid prices that I’ve seen.

Big Cartel

They can be found at bigcartel.com

Integration

From what I can see, you have to have your shop on their domain. At the free level I would link out to planesailinggames . bigcartel. com. Presumably at the more expensive level it is possible to use fancy DNS to make it appear to be part of your own site, but for my purposes that is moot.

Cost

They have a free offering, but it is limited to a maximum of 5 product listings and 1 image per product. If you want more than five products you have to graduate to their next level up which is $15/$12 per month (depending on whether you pay monthly or annually).

I suspect that the cost is going to put this out of viability, as I don’t expect my sales to cover that much to start with.

Transaction cost is typically about 2.9% +30 cents

In-Person

Not available on the free plan.

There is a “Big Cartel for iOS” app that can be used for in-person transactions at a convention. It accepts payments using cash or credit cards via stripe. Can search orders, view order details, add notes and print packing slips (most of that for online orders I imagine).

Features

• sell online
• Accept cards and paypal
• Mobile app
• Sales tax autopilot*
• Store templates
• Sales dashboard

Doesn’t include in free tier

• discounts and promos
• Shipment tracking
• Inventory tracking
• Bulk editing
• Ad support
• Custom domain

Bottom line

Free option doesn’t support enough products, and doesn’t allow in-person transactions; you have quite a high monthly cost to get those, so this one is out.

Square

They can be found at https://squareup.com/gb/en/online-store

Integration

They have integration with a lot of the ‘all in one’ providers, but if you want to integrate your own website with them it is necessary to contact their API department. That sounds like more work to set up and manage!

Cost

There is a free plan, and a paid plan at £20+ per month. (There is also a free Square POS plan). The paid plan adds website themes, more customisation, removal of square branding, QR code ordering, advanced item settings and a free domain for one year.

The free plan uses a website builder to build the website, and it can have a single ordering page or a multi-page affair (not sure what this means!)

Transaction cost is 1.4% +25p for UK based cards, 2.5% +30p for overseas cards.

In-Person

Integrates Square Online with Square POS so that you can manage online and in-person sales within the same system.

Accept contactless cards and digital wallets in person via your phone. Or purchase a Square Reader for £19+VAT.

Features

• offline payments are accepted
• Inventory management
• Shipping rules
• Sell on social media (e.g. integrates with shopping on Instagram or facebook)

Bottom line

This looks like a strong contender. Both online and POS sales are viable at the free plan level. The only apparent downside is that I can’t integrate with my own website, and I’ll have to link off to a square website for the sales. On the other hand it is completely free to run and I’d only pay transaction fees.

Open Cart

They can be found at https://www.opencart.com

It is an open-source, free eCommerce platform. Free downloads and updates, not monthly fees. The idea is that you can self-host yourself, in which case you need to reckon on your hosting costs and the cost in time to set up, manage and patch. Or you could go for their OpenCart Cloud fully hosted solution.

Integration

Any integration is entirely manual.

Cost

If I was to host it myself, there would be hosting costs I would need to cover. Their OpenCart Cloud has a starting level of just over $35 per month, or $135/year at their discounted rate.

In-Person

Doesn’t seem as if there is support for in-person shopping.

Features

• Administrator dashboard
• Product options
• Affiliates
• Discounts and coupons
• Unlimited categories and products
• Sell digital products
• Ratings and reviews
• Reward points
• Tonnes of other stuff

Doesn’t support

• Decent security
• In person payment
• Fraud protection

Bottom line

It would be expensive in money and time to run this, and it doesn’t meet my needs for in-person transactions and it doesn’t have good security out of the box, so this is a no for me.

Decision

At the moment it looks like my decision is between Shopify and Squarespace. The key difference is weighing up the cost of Shopify Starter vs the lack of integration which is possible with my website with Square. There may, of course, be additional devils in the details.

I need to do a little more research here to get to a point that I'm happy with.

My name is Phil Benson, and I’m an avid writer and gamer who has enjoyed fantasy literature and TTRPGs since childhood. I’d always wanted to develop my own TTRPG—since 2011, I’ve been writing, creating and playtesting Alpengard, which is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream! In January 2025, I launched the core rulebook, Alpengard: Tales and Adventurers, and it’s exciting to introduce Alpengard to the gaming world, including its dynamic new d30-based system.

By the way, in gaming circles I’m known as Secg—pronounced sedge, as “cg” is an Old English consonant diphthong that is equivalent to the Modern English “dg” found in words like hedge. Secg is an Old English word meaning man, warrior, hero or sword.

What do you like best about designing games?

TTRPGs are a brilliant way to capture the imagination and release creativity, and I thoroughly enjoy working through both the literary aspect, such as building fantasy worlds and characters, and the mathematical aspect, namely making sure the game works from a statistical power-balance standpoint. During the game-design journey, I was able to connect with other gamers who were invaluable during the development phase—getting feedback from both veteran and novice gamers was crucial in refining Alpengard. Watching players enjoy Alpengard is definitely the most rewarding part!

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

I’m actively promoting the core rulebook, Alpengard: Tales and Adventurers, and designing monsters for the future monsterbook, Alpengard: Creatures and Origins—for now, playable prototype monsters can be found on the Alpengard website’s “Foes” page: https://www.alpengard.com/foes. Part of marketing Alpengard involves the opportunity to join new gaming groups online, and it’s been great to get support and encouragement from the gaming community—it definitely keeps me motivated!

Can you tell me more about Alpengard?

Alpengard is a stark-fantasy TTRPG offering multiple unique elements, such as:

• A d30-based roll-high system where you can upgrade rolls to boost your odds of success.
• An energy pool called pneuma that will let you fuel your powers and enhance your rolls.
• Tailoring your roottraits (ability scores) and capabilities to match your character’s personality.
• All lifeskills play a role, not just sneaking and picking locks—you need solid nutrition to regain your lost pneuma each day, so it’s helpful to have a chef in the party! Ogre-kabobs, anyone?
• Entwine magic objects to your soul so they grow in power with you throughout your quests; your favorite sword, cloak or ring will not become obsolete during your career.

Alpengard: Tales and Adventurers also includes a well-developed campaign world along with an exciting introductory adventure!

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

My vision in creating Alpengard is ultimately to provide game-masters and players with an immersive storytelling experience that engages the heart and mind, relating fantasy to reality. There is real risk, and you must manage your resources well—lack of food and water will prevent you from recharging your pneuma each day, and climbing a high mountain is a difficult challenge (i.e. there are no bypass-all-the-obstacles teleport spells). The “fun factor” comes down to the enjoyable system, the customization options that allow you to really invest in your character, and the fact that no character is either overpowered or underpowered-the game shines in its balance!

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Absolutely! Alpengard: Tales and Adventurers is available on Amazon and DriveThruRPG:

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRNMYHPY
• https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DRNMYHPY
• https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/515822/Alpengard-Tales-and-Adventurers

It means a lot to me each time someone buys the game and shares it with friends.

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

Thanks for asking! ;) You can check out Alpengard at: www.alpengard.com, and more information is available here:

• www.facebook.com/alpengard
• www.instagram.com/alpengardttrpg/
• Alpengard - YouTube channel

The Alpengard YouTube channel includes Roll20 gameplay episodes with the friendly folks at the Talking Crit Discord channel!

I'm Josh Heath, Chief Operations Officer of High Level Games. I've done a myriad amount of work in the TTRPG industry, including writing, editing, layout, and development. My biggest claim to fame is winning an Ennie for Big Bad Booklets from Hit Point Press.

What do you like best about designing games?

I feel like I'm a natural storyteller and I love the ability to draw interesting stories out of various concepts. So designing games for me is about pulling out those interesting narrative concepts and giving them life.

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

In that vein, lately I've been developing the game May I Enter: A Vampire Game, which is due to hit Kickstarter in May... hopefully. Designer Alison Cybe did the main load of writing, based on my guidance and design approach. The thing that excites me about this game is the opportunity to dive into creating a hopepunk version of a vampire game. Our Vampires are bound by several magical principles, including May I Enter, and May I Feed. Which means they need to have active consent to feed on people or to use their vampiric powers. This makes our vampires a pretty small population in the world and they have to negotiate around building a better world while also exploring the ruins of ancient pre-human vampire societies.

Can you tell me more about these ruins and pre-human society and how that applies to the game world?

Yes. So vampires are at least as old as primates are, with one of our signature vampire NPCs being The Ancient, a vampire who happens to be an Australopithecus who was turned into a vampire millions of years ago. At some point, probably around 200,000-80,000 years ago there was an entire civilization run by vampires that collapsed before homo sapiens became the dominant hominid. This civilization evokes a sense of Castlevania and Vampire Hunter D for its ancient but future technology that players can recover from vaults around the world. It adds a bit of OSR dungeon crawl to the political and emotional elements of most vampire games about personal horror.

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

That ties into my previous response well. We want our players to practice skills around gaining active consent and thinking about ways to make a better world. But we want that to be a varied experience where some groups can lean into the personal horror elements or some groups can lean into the exploration and discover elements. In the end, all of these things are about exploring what it means to be human. What does it mean to have forever to exist? How do you balance that emotional load while also trying to create something new and interesting and good?

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Well May I Enter is the cool new book coming, but we also recently released Army Men: A Tactical TTRPG written by Neal Litherland that I developed that has you playing plastic Army toys as if they were people in a world of plastic people fighting against an invasion of dollar store toys.

Visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/highlevelgames/may-i-enter-a-vampire-game for more news about May I Enter and you can ‘follow’ the page to be notified when it launches.

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

Our website is at at https://www.highlevelgames.ca

My name is Emmet Byrne, I’m the founder of Old Oak Games. I’ve worked in the tabletop industry for over 6 years as a designer, producer, and creative director. I designed Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, and worked on dozens of books for Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Who, as well as creating and designing brand new games and settings.

What do you like best about designing games?

My favourite thing about designing games is that it feels like trying to solve a puzzle. Trying to design rules and systems that evoke the right emotions in people for the game they are playing — if it's super-heroic over-powered heroes, you should feel like that when you play; if it's survival horror, you should feel pushed to the brink.

Beyond that, getting a chance to meet and talk with people who have played your games, and hear the stories that they created with something you designed. It doesn’t get much better than that!

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

I just finished a Kickstarter for Beyond the Woods, an exploration and survival hexcrawl game for D&D 5e. It's set in a world inspired by Irish folklore and I can’t wait to share more of that with people. It offers a more authentic representation of Irish mythology than what you see out there — we’re far more than just leprechauns. There’s an entire pantheon of gods and monsters, an Otherworld filled with faeries, and tales of betrayal and horror that a lot of people never see.

Can you tell me more about Tír Nascath?

One of my favourite things about Beyond the Woods is that each group has a map of Tír Nascath — the land the game is set in. As they explore they can place stickers on key locations they discover, ancient ruins, dungeons, or even to mark sites where a character died. The GM has the freedom to place adventure sites wherever they want, which means everyone's map will be different.

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

There are endless D&D books out there, but few focus on the elements of survival, exploration, and mystery that you get from a hexcrawl style game. I want it to feel quite old school, and have players fear for their characters — I want there to be real peril. There’s no goodberry or raise dead in Beyond the Woods!

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

• Late pledges for Beyond the Woods are still open here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oldoakgames/beyond-the-woods-old-school-exploration-and-survival-for-5e
• We have an active Discord

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

Our linktree has everything you need! https://linktr.ee/oldoakgames

I’m Chris Bissette, an award-winning game designer from Manchester in the UK. I’m best known for my solo journalling game The Wretched, which launched the ‘Wretched & Alone’ engine that spawned over 150 new games, and for my adventures for Mörk Borg (and other systems). I’ve worked on games like Pathfinder 2 and Discworld, and my adventure for the Fallout RPG was nominated for an Origins award. Most recently I’ve been helping to design the new edition of Tunnels & Trolls.

In addition to my games work I’m also a musician. I’ve toured the world with my band and I’ve written soundtrack albums for games like Orbital Blues, scored films, and am currently working on the soundtrack for the official Mörk Borg video game Heresy Supreme.

What do you like best about designing games?

I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs for a little over 30 years at this point and they were one of my first real passions as a kid. There’s something really exciting about sitting down with friends ready for a game and having no idea what’s going to emerge out of that play. The challenge as a writer is to put things into the books that give players something concrete to engage with that they couldn’t come up with themselves, but also that contains enough of a blank space that they can start to fill it with their own creativity.

I find this particularly interested when working in solo games, because the book has to fill the role that the rest of the group would usually take up when you play with friends. There’s a magic to it when you get it right that’s unmatched in any other field of writing that I’ve worked in.

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

I’m just wrapping up a crowdfunder for my new Wretched & Alone game Blood In The Margins. This marks a return to solo games after a few years away, and it’s been really fun to play in that pool again. It’s been five years since The Wretched first came out and in that time I’ve had the opportunity to play a lot of the games that were based on it, and to watch other people play them, and I’ve learned a lot about what the system does well and also what I wish it could do better. Being able to bring that into the new game and update Wretched & Alone to come a bit closer to delivering the sort of experience I want it to deliver has been very rewarding.

Can you tell me more about Blood In The Margins?

Blood In The Margins is a solo journalling game of murder and its consequences. It’s rooted firmly in the “dark academia” genre, drawing inspiration from books like The Secret History, If We Were Villains, and The Cloisters, as well as the genre of “magic school” fiction like Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci books and Naomi Novik’s Scholomance.

You play the role of a student at an elite academy. You’ve killed somebody, and now you’re trying to move on from that act while the web of investigation tightens around you. As you play you’ll develop your character, the world that you exist in (is it just a fancy school, or is there magic involved? etc.), the people around you, and explore the crime you committed. Like all Wretched & Alone games there’s a ticking clock underpinning everything, and the tension grows with each prompt as you try to cover up what you did and evade capture.

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

I don’t think I’m ever trying to give players an experience, because once the book is in their hands you don’t have any control over how they interact with it. All you can do is hope that what you’ve written is evocative and inspiring enough that it makes them want to engage with it in whatever what provides them with the most enjoyment possible. I think of it as being similar to designing a LEGO set. I can put a picture on the front cover of what I think you should do with this thing, but once you get hold of it it’s yours to do with as you see fit.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

I’d obviously like it if people picked up Blood In The Margins, which will be rolling out to backers over the next couple of weeks with a view to being on general sale by the time UKGE comes along in June.

I also currently have another solo game as part of the Weird Hope Engines exhibition at Bonnington Gallery in Nottingham. If you’re in the area you should go down to the show, which runs until the 10th of May. As well as my game - Directive 97A, which I pitch as Fahrenheit 451 meets Papers, Please - there are games and installations by Zedeck Siew, Amanda Lee Franck, Laurie O’Connell, and loads of other cool people.

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

I’m all over the place on the internet, but the best place to find me is on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/loottheroom.bsky.social. You should also go and check out my games at https://loottheroom.itch.io. If you want to work with me on something, my portfolio website and contact information can be found at https://bissette.bearblog.dev/

Players

• Jen M - Valentine Demaris, The Undeniable; whose memory dates back to Roman times and dresses as male or female to suit their needs
• Diana - Paloma Carrión, The Mother; a scientist who is trying to create anew her dead lover, Winston.

(We only concluded one day session on this adventure)

Day

It is late breakfast, and the weekly arrival of specialist pies from Figg’s bakery—the best in North London—is delivered as usual.

Valentine takes one of the pies, bisects it sharply, and then picks her way through it, with a bit of a glazed look on her face. Paloma sees that Valentine is a little distracted and takes a pie for herself, starting to scoop out the crust on the top.

Partway through eating, Valentine finds a terrible bit of gristle or something - but when she spits it out into a handkerchief finds that it is the tip of a human pinky finger. She retreats to the WC, and when she returns has a big decanter of sherry, which she takes liberally.

Paloma investigates with all her scientific curiosity (not shared by Valentine) and determines that although this set of pies has human meat in all of them, it is the first time that this has occurred. Previous sets of pies which they have eaten are OK. She stores the finger tip in a little vial of gin as a preservative, and attempts to reconstruct what seems to be bits of a hand from pie contents.

Meanwhile Valentine investigates the box and discovers a hand written note which says ‘to my beloved Demaris, love Mr Figg’

“Dating must be weird for you” Paloma says.

Valentine replies “you have no idea…”

The get in touch with DI Pettigrew who goes to arrest Mr Figg. This is clearly a police case and they can sort it out.

Vanessa is out of town, so they decide to pursue investigation of the Whatley Camera.

One of the earlier clues was an orrery in the photograph which represented the seven celestial realms, and Valentine sends a note to her contact Brisbane to find out more information about them.

In preparation for visiting the Camera Obscura Society, Valentine decides to dress as his masculine personality, and he finds a dress for Paloma and helps her get her hair… well, interesting even if it isn’t very orderly. Smartly dressed, Paloma finds her posture changes a little automatically!

At the smart Kensington house where the society meet, the door is opened by the lady of the house, Portia Abernathy. She is wearing some kind of sheer black kaftan which shockingly leaves little to the imagination. Her hair is plaited and woven up around her head a little like a crown, and she has a small, tight mouth. Portia recognises Valentine immediately, and wants to talk in detail with him, and sends Paloma off with the houseboy to talk to her husband, Cyrus.

Portia speaks to Valentine, and is attempting to seduce him a little; flattering him, drawing his hand over to rest on her breast to feel how much her heart is beating, and so forth. Valentine is unmoved by her efforts, and walks around the room, speaking to her while she watches his firm derrière, and then approaching her, untwining some of her braids and then gently but firmly holding them to control her head.

Valentine removes her belt and suggests that he bind her, but she refuses, and counters with an offer that he returns in two days time at the new moon, so that they can together photograph his girlfriend and learn new truths. As a token of her intentions, she pulls a copy of Dante’s Inferno off the shelf and bids he read it before returning.

Meanwhile the houseboy has lead Paloma to see Cyrus Abernathy. He is seated in what looks like a laboratory of optics, and is wearing outlandish garb - a form-fitting white body suite, tight in all the right places, and with silver cords tied around his biceps, his thighs, and his neck. He is curious that Paloma is a doctor, and he describes his dissatisfaction about being rejected by the Royal Society so many times. He explains to her how he thinks photographs are like pocket dimensions, parallel worlds to ours. Paloma sees a monocle, magnifying glass, and telescope each with exactly the same form of cracks on them. Cyrus lets her look at one of his special photographs through them and rather than the chromatic fringing that she expected to see from the fractures there is strange fringing in silver, black, gold, and white.

Paloma asks whether he could create the cracks in her compact mirror, and emboldened by her flattery agrees to. He places three quartz rods in a triangle around the compact, and mutters in a strange language while carefully cracking the compact.

Paloma is watching him carefully, intently, and she suddenly remembers that terrible argument she had had with her Winston. She had been out at an underground circle who met in secret to dissect and discuss. It was a stimulating academic environment and the sun was rising when she returned home, to find Winston tired, cheated and enraged. He shouted, said that she loved her craft more than him, and walked out. That choice of his to leave her had been so lonely.

She is in the same kind of zone watching Cyrus, and spots exactly how and what he does, and memorises the weird pointless chant he is making.

And then it is done. Her compact can be used to see the strange fringing in the photographs. She doesn’t spot it anywhere else that she views through the mirror.

Cyrus suggests that she returns in a couple of days time, at the new moon. The houseboy then comes and brings Paloma back to Valentine, and shows them both out.

They discuss their findings as they leave. The moon phases, the cracking of the glasses, the strange distortion. Interesting that Portia didn’t want to be photographed herself.

When they return home, there is a message from Brisbane who says there are only six celestial realms! He knows nothing of a seventh.

Reading the copy of dantes inferno, it is different - it has an extra chapter that mentions a fragrant void, and is a of mixture Italian words from different centuries that seem out of place in a 16th century edition.

As Paloma reads out the chant sounds, Valentine realises that it is in the dead Babylonian language, and that the chant is of some strange mathematics.

Meanwhile DI Pettigrew returns. They have Mr Figgs, and he is banged up in the Bedlam asylum. They haven’t caught the rest of the family, and all Mr Figgs will say is some weird kind of nursery rhyme. They are welcome to go and visit if they think they can get more out of Figgs.

Sure thing! I'm Mikhail Malkin - I was born in Crimea, where the warm Black Sea caresses the shoreline, mountains are peaking through the beech and oak forests and caves, palaces and ancient ruins are calling you for adventure.

Like a veteran Team Fortress 2 player, I prefer to wear almost all the hats I can see. I'm an illustrator, game artist, narrative designer, voice actor and LARP game master. My flagship personal project is the Fishbone Archipelago - a swashbuckling campaign setting set in the fantasy world that survived two apocalyptic deluges

What do you like best about designing games?

I think what I like best is the perspective our players can have. Like, when I was designing the Ash Nocktem's Travelling Companions my plan was simple - make all the NPCs in the deck easy to use and fun to play with. But after showing this system-agnostic deck at my first convention I was surprised that a couple of folks told me that they're going to use cards as player character inspirations instead! Our products and games came alive in the hands of our players and I absolutely adore the synergy of creativity in this intersection!

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

At the moment I am in the middle of writing my second Fishbone Archipelago adventure about a prison break from the Tower of Dusk - an ancient prison-fort, controlled by the Iron Brotherhood - a religious faction of lawbringers. In this Solo RPG you will have the option to turn inmates to allies or enemies, obtain hidden items and plot your daring escape avoiding or facing your nemesis. And what's most important you will have to choose what awaits you beyond the prison walls and what drives you forward. Should be tons of fun and I hope to start crowdfunding it during 2025's ZineQuest.

How are you going to make this a solo RPG? It sounds like the kind of thing where you really need a GM!

At the start of your game you will be able to choose two playbooks: a Bane (person who put you behind the bars) and a Benefactor (someone who wants you out). Both narratively and mechanically they have different styles, different strengths and weaknesses. Instead of a GM we'll going to use a schedule of Bane's Obstacles on your way and Benefactor Actions needed to perform your escape plan. By changing playbooks you will get different experiences every playthrough. At the moment I have two Bane options and two Benefactor options, but if this crowdfunding will go as planned, we will have more cool playbooks for both Banes and Benefactors. Stay tuned!

What experiences are you trying to give to players?

Among core mechanics is a concept of personal virtues. Three qualities that keep our incarcerated protagonists motivated, humane and balanced. Main storyline will guide my players to assemble tools and allies to attempt a prison break. To succeed in the attempt they will need to use their Iron, Shadow and Blaze - a spectrum of qualities and traits without compromising their virtues. Choose who you can trust and outmaneuver your Nemesis to regain your lost freedom.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

For upcoming Kickstarter campaign, my page is: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sandstonedistrict/fishbone-archipelago-escape-from-the-tower-of-dusk

Please, join my daring attempt to break out of fantastical prison and TTRPG obscurity!

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

Oh, everywhere, really. I post sketches on my Instagram, I share artistic references form my travels on Threads, I have a growing library of free battlemaps on my Patreon, I am relatively active on Bluesky and Twitter and if you would like to see what I do every day as videogame artist or you would like to work with me - I also have a LinkedIn.

• Links to everything on Linktree https://linktr.ee/Ronamis
• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/ronamis.bsky.social

I'm Josh Fox, I'm a British TTRPG designer and podcaster, designer of Last Fleet, Flotsam: Adrift Amongst The Stars and (with Becky Annison) Lovecraftesque, as well as my forthcoming game Ex Tenebris. I've been playing TTRPGs about 35 years, and I've written about as many games in that time. Outside of work I enjoy mixed martial arts and bouldering, and I've got two cheeky children who I haven't yet turned into roleplayers. Emphasis on yet.

What do you like best about designing games?

I'm a system monkey, so really the best part for me is working out the best set of mechanics to deliver the experience I'm going for and then twiddling with them endlessly until I've got them just how I want them. I get a particular kick out of crafting a system where I can step back and see the different parts doing their thing, feeding into each other, like a well-oiled machine.

But also: hiring artists and seeing the amazing stuff they produce is a major perk of the job.

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

The current big design project is Ex Tenebris, which is a gothic space mystery/investigation game. You're working for Moira, a small and overlooked government agency who travel the galaxy through an extradimensional labyrinth, and who are charged with hunting down demons, dark technology, that sort of thing.

Basically I love investigation games, and I love space, so its a bit of a travesty that I've never yet written a space investigation game. To me space (and SF settings generally) are the most mysterious and exciting places of all for an investigative storyline, because on paper it's cold and sciency and dry, and then you find the monsters. I love to mix up that SF aesthetic with the occult, the demons, the gigeresque horrors.

Plus: I've got a bee in my bonnet about emergent mystery, this will be the first one I do that has a GM, and I'm excited to get into it.

Can you tell me more about how mysteries will work in Ex Tenebris?

Ex Tenebris is an emergent mystery game, which in a nutshell means the GM doesn't know what the truth is any more than the players do. The game's mechanics support the GM to create clues that feel like they belong in a coherent mystery, without actually needing to plan anything out in advance. There's a few cool things about this model: the GM gets to be surprised as much as the players by what happens; there's never any problems with failing to find clues, looking in the wrong place, or wildly misinterpreting what it all means (because there's no such thing as "the wrong place" or "the wrong interpretation"); and of course, every mystery is completely replayable, and will probably turn out differently every time it's played.

This will be familiar to folks who have played Lovecraftesque (and hacks thereof) or Brindlewood Bay (and hacks thereof).

But Ex Tenebris advances the emergent mystery genre by adding in all sorts of tweaks and improvements to make the mystery and the investigation feel more real. It's pretty hard to summarize how it does this - in fact I'm in the middle of writing an article series which pulls it apart in detail. But the real high-level view is, it makes the players' choices matter more, so that they're rewarded for thinking like investigators, looking in logical places and following the emerging trail of clues, while giving the mystery itself a life of its own and a greater logical coherence, so that it feels like the GM had planned it out in advance (even though they totally didn't).

I'm also really excited about how it's bringing Forged In The Dark DNA into the emergent mystery genre. I'm using the fictional positioning tools, downtime and team development options you get in FITD and applying them to an investigative campaign. I think people will really enjoy that feeling of operating, growing and improving as a team, that comes from the FITD elements.

What experiences are you trying to give to players?

Every game I write is unique and focused on a different experience, and a different kind of fun. Even within mystery games like Lovecraftesque and Ex Tenebris, there's big differences. Lovecraftesque is about creating a mysterious, spooky atmosphere and a (justified!) sense of inevitable doom, with the fun being from immersing yourself in that atmosphere and enjoying the surprises that the other players throw at you as you build your mystery together. Ex Tenebris is much more about engaging with the experience of being an investigator and treating the mystery you're investigating as if it was real - there's that same joy of being surprised and discovering stuff you didn't know about, but with a slightly more traditional TTRPG fun of being a player in a team, digging up evidence, making deductions, and ultimately confronting the baddy.

A thing I like to do in a lot of my games is create a personal experience, focusing in on who your character is, their personal points of drama, such as tense relationships with other characters and/or grappling with their own flaws. Ex Tenebris does that through the Shadow system: you spend Shadow to boost your rolls or do supernatural stuff, but if you let it accumulate then it will drag you down a path of personal corruption - not necessarily becoming a baddie, but becoming broken in some way that means you're no longer a viable investigator. A nice thing about Ex Tenebris is it gives you a choice where to put yourself on that path: you can play a heroic character who resists the Shadow and use the game mechanics to keep them largely in the light, or you can lean into the darkness and see where it takes you. Both paths are equally interesting and powerful.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Two things I want to mention: first, I've got the playtest for Ex Tenebris going on. If you like the sound of it then you can sign up using this form

• https://forms.gle/F6BjZkw44UHkc3bcA

The other thing I want to mention is that the second edition of Lovecraftesque just released. It's a really excellent eldritch horror mystery game, gives you a complete satisfying story in one session with zero prep, and quite frankly a gorgeous product, so if that sounds up your street then check it out at:

• https://blackarmada.com/lovecraftesque/

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

You can find out about me, and my fellow Black Armada designer Becky Annison, at https://blackarmada.com/ - there's loads on there: our blog, our store, links to our AP podcast, mailing list, discord and so forth.

I’m going to play Albert Green, a 19 year old cockney lad from London. He is joining the Lancaster L for London, which the crew have christened the “Lady Jane”

Crew

Downtime 1

Cards Drawn

Recreation: 2♦️, 7♦️, Q♦️, K♦️
Romance: Q❤️

I spent some of my time overseeing maintenance of the “Lady Jane”. Our first mission is coming up and it is important that I know how everything works - not just my turret at the back! I was doing this with our flight engineer, Patrice Delacroix. He’s a Frenchman, and a devil for the ladies with that accent of his. Glad to have him with us though - and he’s glad to be striking back at those who’ve taken over his country!

We all went to a great variety show put on by ENSA (Every Night Something Awful). We laughed like loons! Then we went out to the pub and got smashed. Harry got roaring drunk and I hope he clears his head before we set off. We don’t want a hung-over navigator!

I don’t mind admitting I’m a bit nervous, so I went to see padre Brown, our chaplain. They say that there are no atheists in a foxhole, and I’m pretty committed to a little foxhole at the tail-end of Lady Jane. I think I’ll be sending up a prayer or two.

Thinking about praying, I must mention my own little angel. I had a wonderful slow dance with a girl called Vera Jones. She was warm and witty and clever, and we swapped addresses at the end. I think we are officially dating now after that dance. Ma would be amazed!

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Tomorrow is the briefing and then tomorrow night the op. I hope it goes well.

Character changes: Albert now has a relationship status of 2 (dating Vera Jones)

Mission 1

Cards Drawn

Operation: 2♣️, 9♣️, K♣️
Danger: J♠️, K♠️

It’s clear weather for the op, and I thought that was a good thing both for Harry our navigator and for my role in spotting bandits. We were lucky to catch the target completely unwares, and there was barely any flak as we reached them. But as our bombs started landing all hell broke loose up here too. We were turning for home when our neighbouring bomber, S for Sugar was raked by cannon fire and exploded in a ball of flame. I was dreadfully shaken, and as the plane plummeted down I could see tiny flaming figures tumbling from the wreckage.

Blinking tears from my eyes, I was aware of several Messerschmitt 110’s closing fast. I caught one of them with my quad machine guns and he peeled off pouring smoke, but another raked our fuselage with cannon fire. There was confused shouting over the tannoy as the skipper threw the Lady Jane about to keep us safe. I was on automatic myself - see a plane, shoot a plane, see a plane shoot a plane. I was a deadly sting in our tail and downed three bandits before we escaped from them and headed home across the North Sea. I learned later that I would be mentioned in dispatches for my actions today.

My jubilation was short-lived, as I discovered what the tannoy chatter had been about. That cannon that hit our fuselage took out “Sparks”. I’d barely known him and now he was gone. I might have had an angel on my shoulder but poor old McCloud hadn’t. He was only 20. With that and the loss of S for Sugar with all hands I found my guts clenched with fear. I was going to have to do this all over again. This was just the start.

Character changes: Albert has been Mentioned in Dispatches, but he also now has a stress of 4 (Dread). He is close to being barred from flying.

This sounds great, when can I play it?

Well, it's coming to kickstarter on February 11th. You can find the 'coming soon' page with more details here:

It would be really helpful if you could sign up to be notified of it's launch, and spread the news about Tail-End Charlie.

If you think this sounds really exciting, and you'd like to participate in the alpha playtest, drop me a line on email (alex on this domain) or on Bluesky, and I'll sort you out with a copy of the playtest draft!

I've had a number of projects which have been on my mind for a year or more. One is about an elderly couple looking back nostalgically on their life. Another is about the White Rose Society of students attempting to resist the nazi's from within WW2 Germany.

But two weeks ago I visited the museum at Bletchley Park—home of the codebreakers—and on the way back I was thinking about the work of Bomber Command and the term "Tail-End Charlie" came to mind. It was the generic term used for the tail gunners of the bombers.

Flying in Bomber Command was a study in extreme contrasts. It was the deadliest branch of military service in WW2, with over 44% of the aircrew dying on operations. Five to eight hours in an unheated, unpressurised aircraft at -60ºC in the dark with faster, better armed aircraft trying to shoot you down. And then if you made it back, you might go to a country pub with your mates, go and meet girls at local dances, have mess hall parties, and enjoy the English countryside.

Then you climb back in your plane and do it all over again.

I like writing games that tackle historical subjects, and strong feelings, and I started to wonder whether I could do something to bring to life the lonely and dangerous war of the tail-end charlies.

Turning it into a game

I felt that continuing with playing cards for the underlying mechanic seemed like a natural step because they encapsulate a number of different dimensions in a single card draw. I wasn't going to use my Retrospective SRD though because I didn't want this to be the victors looking back on a successful war. I wanted there to be a sense of danger for the character and his crew.

The main flow of the game is a downtime → mission → downtime → mission loop.

A tour of duty was 30 missions, but I've shorted it to 15 missions for this game. Partly for playability, and partly to have a simple way of making the probability of survival being a close approximation for what they really experienced.

Your card pack is divided into two decks; red cards for downtime, and black cards for missions.

In downtime you are drawing five cards from the red deck. Diamonds (♦️) are general rest and recreation, and build your relationships with your crew. Diamond face cards can reduce the stress that might take you out of the war. Hearts (♥️) are romance cards, and indicate how you might find love and affection during downtime. Heart face cards indicate a growing relationship with one particular person.

On missions, you are drawing five cards from the black deck. Clubs (♣️) are success on the mission, and Club face cards may lead to you receiving decorations for extraordinary bravery. Spades (♠️) are danger as your plane's systems fail or you come under attack by flak and enemy fighters. Spade face cards increase your overall stress, and the total number of spades on an operation tell you whether you get home safely or are in danger of death during the mission. Do you make it home, or did you have to try to bale out?

A solo game

This will be my first purely solo game. It might be possible to create a game where people play each of the crew members, but I think the isolated nature of the tail-end charlie, alone in his turret at the back of the plane with only the voices of the others on the intercom lend itself to a solo game.

You will be keeping two journals (or write alternately in one journal if you want). One is a diary where you collect the stories of downtime, as every card has a different prompt associated with it. The other is your debrief operations log, where you collect the stories of each operation. Again, every card has a different prompt associated with it.

This sounds great, when can I play it?

Well, it's coming to kickstarter on February 11th. You can find the 'coming soon' page with more details here:

• https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/tail-end-charlie

It would be really helpful if you could sign up to be notified of it's launch, and spread the news about Tail-End Charlie.

If you think this sounds really exciting, and you'd like to participate in the alpha playtest, drop me a line on email (alex on this domain) or on Bluesky, and I'll sort you out with a copy of the playtest draft!

Sure thing! By day, I'm a 43 year old queer mum and pupil support assistant. By night, I design roleplay games, complete freelance writing and consultation jobs, and occasionally sleep (but never enough). I also try and make space for helping organise activities at my local games club, the Edinburgh Indie Gamers.

What do you like best about designing games?

The best thing, to my mind, is when I manage to catch lightning in a bottle and create a game which evokes the mood or emotion I was hoping for. Tabletop roleplay games are a place where we can suspend our daily lives and explore an emotional landscape of another perspective. I've found this a great tool for allowing myself to be open to forging empathic connections, both with others but also in respect to reflection on my own life. The moments where I've designed the game, it helps others to sit in that emotion, then open up vulnerable connection where it wasn't before... wow.

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

Well, there are a lot of things being working on at the moment - an occult action thriller inspired by ancient gnostic poetry, editing a club zine, reworking one of my previous games to run enturely on a deck of tarot-sized cards, the list goes on. However, the next project I plan to crowdfund and release is Mum Chums. I'm excited because every time I've playtested it, it hits the emotional mood that I was going for. You see, you all play adults who care for children who are roughly the same age as they start school. While the slice-of-life drama of it is based from my own view of parenting, I hope it can be cathartic and informative for parents and non-parents alike. All of the playtesting as been with people who don't have kids, and seeing how they have reacted and talking over how they felt while playing the game has been quite the experience.

I see that you are reworking an existing game to run entirely on a deck of cards; what benefits (and costs) do you anticipate from taking the card based approach?

The benefit is that every part of it will be better, top to bottom. The actual play experience is smoother. Getting a grasp of the rules is simpler. It looks better. I'm really hype for it. The cost is that is is a lot more money to make a deck of cards. I'm also concerned that, in the eyes of the law, a dech of cards moves me from making books into making toys & games, which comes with a bunch more admin and cost.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

As well as the Kickstarter for Mum Chums launching on Feb 1st, there is loads of amazing games coming out of Scotland right now. Wise Women has had a few supplements come out for this game of Slavic folklore and witches, with a winter-based expansion due soon. Wraithlands is a glorious blend of gaming traditions with a healthy dose of Scottish history and Iron Maiden thrown in to the mix. Handiwork Games are going to be reviving both Cold City and Hot War this year, so a return of some indie classics. Finally, for a more trad game but with a community created experience, Embers of Humanity looks like a good collective world for new writers to cut their teeth alongside some older hats.

• Mum Chums Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/floaker/mum-chums/

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

Follow my monthly mailing list. It will direct you to all my other endeavours!

• https://floaker.beehiiv.com

I'm Daniel, though I go by The Copper Compendium for my all my TTRPG work. I've been designing TTRPGs and supplements for existing games for about a year and a half at this point, at least on a "publishing what I make" level. Unpublished general design stuff? Much longer.

So far I've published a bunch of one-page games and supplements, submitted my work to several charity bundles and created 2 full games, one for solo play (Summit, a game about climbing a mountain while discovering the character you're playing as) and one for group play (The Curse Lingers, a post-apocalyptic dungeon crawler heavily inspired by nuclear semiotics).

What do you like best about designing games?

My favourite part about designing games is that moment when everything clicks together. I'm a big fan of satisfying mechanics that match the fiction of the game and I love making my games slot together such that the mechanics feed into one another. I've also discovered, since I started publishing my work, that I love formatting games. I have spent probably as many hours working out colour schemes, picking fonts and adjusting page graphics as I have designing my games. I have WAY too many fonts installed on my computer and I keep installing new ones. There is no end in sight.

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

I have several current projects (with a bunch more on the list and a few on hold for now).

Project 1, and the closest to completion of the bunch, is A Call To Compete, a tabletop game (I hesitate to say TTRPG as it has drifted more in the direction of board games) based on video game fighters like Mortal Kombat and Tekken. It's almost at the playtesting stage, with a starting roster of six fighters, a combo system and special moves unique to each fighter and stage.

Project 2 is more recent and is a result of a local charity TTRPG event I've attended for the past two years. Simply, GMs offer a selection of games to be played in slots over the 24 hour event, with ways to gain advantages or cause upsets within the games by donating money to charity. I love the idea, but wasn't aware of any game that intrisically accounted for play of that sort, so have been working on a game with that as a core part of the experience. The result is the very early draft of what I'm currently calling the Space Radio Game, with players taking on the roles of the crew of Space Freighter "Cardinal", recently evacuated after a catastrophic hull breach. Each member is in their own escape pod, with only a radio to communicate with the others, and little way to determine exactly who they're talking to.

Among my other projects that are in the early stages or on pause, we have a game about witches trying to escape town before the witchhunters arrive, a murder mystery tea party with playing card mechanics for gaining clues and a community-building game set in an eldritch space ocean.

Tell me more about that charity event - did it really go all through the night?

It absolutely does go through the night! This year I arrived a bit after midday and stayed until its conclusion at 7am the following morning!

It's run by a collaboration of university societies in aid of a local foodbank, so it's not just TTRPGs, either. If I remember correctly, the Boardgames, Creative Writing, Anime and Film societies were all participants this year (I'm sure there's others I'm missing). Each has their own ways of gathering money for the cause and once you've paid entry you're free to roam and join in!

I ran a game of Dread the previous year, as well as joining in a D&D MOBA game in the early hours. This year I didn't have time to organise a game, so went as a player, playing a game of Vaesen and one of Ten Candles. I also submitted a collection of every TTRPG and supplement I'd made to that point to the raffle.

It's a really great event, even if I (and others) got more and more delirious from lack of sleep as the morning crept in.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I don't think I have a set experience I'm trying to give players - it fluctuates between games. Some, like The Boulder, are deliberately unfriendly to play, while others, like Summit, are meant to be relaxing and completative experiences.

I guess the main things I aim to give players are novelty and approachability. Novelty in that each game and experience will have something that sets it apart in some way (or at least attempts to) and approachability in that you shouldn't need much (if any) prior knowledge to play, and need few-to-no additional resources than you have to hand (with a few exceptions).

My favourite games to build are those with lots of buttons to push and levers to pull when playing, not necessarily "crunchy" games but those with interesting mechanical interactions. I also like building risk into design: with Summit, you can stop at the first corner of the grid you reach, or risk going a little further for potential gain. Similarly, in The Curse Lingers, building up Mutation gives you powerful new abilities but brings you closer to death.

I may have slightly lost sight of the question, so... I think the fun in the games I build often comes from risk-reward, from mechanical interactions and from the novelty of setting, mechanics or playstyle.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

I just launched my own website! If you like my games and want to hear a little about the designing of them, want to see what I've got in the works, or want to hear my thoughts about TTRPGs, check it out!

I've also (hopefully) got a new game coming out in the next couple of months, the aforementioned Call To Compete, so keep an eye out for that!

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

Check out my website, https://thecoppercompendium.co.uk for the most in-detail look at what I'm up to/thinking.

• itch.io: https://thecoppercompendium.itch.io/
• DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/24250/The-Copper-Compendium?srs=TCCAWInterview?affiliate_id=3893123
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thecoppercompendium.co.uk
• Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thecoppercompendium
• YouTube (occasionally): https://www.youtube.com/@thecoppercompendium

I'm on other social media sites, though I use them infrequently to never. All links to those are on my website.

Hello! My name is Tejas Oza and I've been a video game designer for just under 15 years now. The rest of the Bludgeon team are Nilesh, Vivek, Jithin, and Panchami - All of us met and work in video games.

Vivek was our first GM and shortly afterwards, I took up those duties. I mean, we all know the history between tabletop and CRPG's, so it was only natural that we'd gravitate towards the hobby. But as gamedevs, we also started to design parts of what we played to suit what our playtstyles and how we thought things could be improved.

Some time over the pandemic, I realized that I had the makings of a full fledged game and have since been on the journey that most ttrpg indies are on!

What do you like best about designing games?

For me, its the simplicity of it. Design is about solving problems and I have a knack of noticing things that could be fixed or improved. After that, its just a matter of finding the easiest and most elegant way to get from point A to B - and that's where I get my design kicks from!

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

I'm working on a d20 system called Bludgeon. It was been built, unintentionally almost, over the last decade as a hobby for my home games. Now, my team and I are hoping to share what we loved playing with more people!

We're excited about Bludgeon because our internal sessions are all about marrying mechanics to theme. So, a lot of Bludgeon was built to make sure your actions, especially those in combat, made you feel like and intuitively play like you were a mage, or a rogue, or a warrior. Add to that our love for modular design and we have a game that let's you express yourself in tons of different ways.

Tell me more about how you marry mechanics to theme!

One of the ways we achieve that thematic feel for each character archetype is by having asynchronous mechanics. We've divided different classes into groupings we're calling: Arcane, Primal, Divine, Martial, and Chakra.

Each of these provides the player with different ways to approach combat and how they would want to play their character. Additionally, each category has its own subclasses that interact with its core mechanic in a unique way, ensuring that a Warlock and a Wizard don't play the same or approach problems the same way.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

Every player has a certain character in mind and that fantasy comes with certain expectations. With the way we use stats to our asynchronous combat mechanics - we want to empower as many different player fantasies as possible. We don't want anyone to have to change their roleplay to match a rule. I'd rather the rule support and even build upon roleplay moments... especially with combat. To that end, if you appreciate deep character customization, fun mechanical twists, and punchy, crunchy combat - Bludgeon is most definitely for you.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Honestly, just the game. We'd love for more people to give it a go. Hell, we love hearing back from you all about how your sessions went and if you have feedback about certain rulings!

So, get yourself a copy of Bludgeon and see how your group feels about it.

https://tacticsnchai.itch.io/bludgeon-the-ttrpg

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

• Itch https://tacticsnchai.itch.io/bludgeon-the-ttrpg
• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/tacticsnchai.bsky.social

I’m Craig Duffy and I’m a hobbyist designer currently based on the Wirral. In my day job I’m a bioinformatician working in the field of infection biology. Basically that means I spend most of my day analysing genomes on a computer.

I design and write across a range of genres but the two I’m most interested in are the Cold War and sci-fi. While I enjoy games that use the traditional formula of GM plus players I’m also keen to explore other approaches, especially duet RPGs and games that manipulate the written word.

As well as designing I'm also very open about the challenges of running a micro business as a hobby. I regular post convention and kickstarter roundups on my blog where I dive into all the costs and issues I've faced. I think it's really important that people understand these details and that you don't have to be making a lot of money to consider yourself a game designer.

What do you like best about designing games?

Two aspects really stand out. First and foremost is trying to find a way to tell a particular story. I'm never going to be a novelist but I am a storyteller. I get ideas for individual scenes or themes and find that the structure of a game helps with working out how the characters got there or where they might go next.

Connected to that are the mechanics. I think good mechanics influence how a game feels so I'm always trying to find approaches that do that. Whether that's Chris Bisette’s fantastic Wretched & Alone Jenga tower mechanics that I adapted for Rock Hoppers or embedding being able to see the future into every layer of Project Cassandra.

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

My current project is The Words We Leave Behind, a duet time travel game about opposing agents unleashing the butterfly effect to manipulate history in their favour. It’s inspired by the fantastic novella This is how you lose the time war that follows two characters as they fight against one another and slowly learn about their opposite number. The first ashcan adapted mechanics from my first duet game, Signal to Noise and stuck very closely to the structure of the novella. I’m currently streamlining it to remove the letter writing aspect and focus more on the butterfly effect.

Like Signal to Noise it’s a writing game, with each player taking it in turns to create an historical event that their character has been sent to change. That lets me use approaches that are not an option in live, face to face games. Signal to Noise used character substitutions to slowly render the text unreadable. In The Words We Leave Behind you manipulate the existing entries, slowly changing sentences as your actions ripple through time and change history. Of course your opponent is doing the same so the history you get is never exactly what you were aiming for.

Do you use cards in The Words We Leave Behind. Why is that?

Yes, Cards provide an interesting alternative to dice on a few fronts. They're a format most people are familiar with and will have a grasp of the basic odds. They also offer persistance in a way that dice don't. Once a card has been played it can't come up again unless you reset the deck, so are great for representing one off events or matching to unique prompts. Finally there's a visual element, you can see individual suits accumulate as you play and get a very clear feel for how the game is progressing.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I try to create games that focus on a single story or experience and that use the mechanics to enhance that focus. For The Words We Leave Behind the fun comes from getting to explore a nuance of time travel that is often overlooked or ignored. Even small changes in history have the potential to cascade and radically change the future.

At some point I'll shift towards a bigger, more open ended game but even then I hope that I'll be able to find a niche that it revolves around.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

The Words We Leave Behind is coming to Kickstarter in February as part of ZineQuest 2025 so please check that out. I’ve already commissioned a small selection of art from the brilliant Carly Draws but I’d love to be able to add more which will only be possible if the campaign is successful.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lunarshadow-designs/the-words-we-leave-behind?ref=do63xo

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

• Website Lunarshadow Designs https://lunarshadow.net/
• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/whodo.bsky.social
• DTRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/10032/lunarshadow-designs&affiliate_id%3D174853
• itch https://lunarshadow.itch.io/

Players

• Jen P - Vanessa Lythe, The Vessel; whom the dark entity ‘the Rowan Man’ has his eyes on.
• Jen M - Valentine Demaris, The Undeniable; whose memory dates back to Roman times and dresses as male or female to suit their needs
• Diana - Paloma Carrión, The Mother; a scientist who is trying to create anew her dead lover, Winston.

Day

At breakfast the group are idly leafing through the Illustrated Police Gazette when a story grabs their attention - It tells of a young maid, Ginny Hess who was found dead of shock at a home in St James’s Street. The lurid story claims that it is a ghost as they always do in these situations, but Vanessa notices a detail in the story that convinces her that there is a genuine ghost in play - the story mentions ice on some indoor mirrors. This needs investigation along with the Whateley Camera and Sally No-Face!

Preparing for the day, and in light of recent experiences, Valentine wants to acquire a bodyguard. They also want to resolve some of their conditions, and so asks Vanessa if she would like to join them in a flogging. Just as a voyeur, of course. Vanessa willingly agrees - she has heard of a means whereby one can use a sand table to collect messages from the other side as the psychic trauma of pain moves the tiny grains around, and would love to try it out in a controlled fashion. Valentine sends out a message to one of her worshippers, that they might come along for a quick flogging.

Meanwhile Paloma wants to spend some time self-medicating for the partial facial paralysis which she is suffering from. She has an idea that mouldy food might help in some way, so she is poking around the back of the cool box in the cellar when her eye is drawn to a small porcelain vessel which she doesn’t recognise. Taking it out and lifting the lid there is the acrid smell she recognises of fresh blood! Looking into the vessel she sees the blood steaming and warm, and for a moment it is a face different to hers that looks out from the reflection! Then that moment is gone. She shows it to Vanessa who finds it curious, but doesn’t have any additional insight. Vanessa helps her with application of the potions Paloma has concocted, and her facial paralysis is largely cured, and she can talk clearly again. Paloma then disappears off to her hidden laboratory… this blood in the porcelain jar might be a clue of some kind, but she isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth! She secretly infuses the blood into Winston’s new body in the crypt.

A gentleman arrives in a bowler hat for the flogging and is shown into the appropriate room. Valentine demeans him and flogs him, which he appears to enjoy. Vanessa sprinkles sand in time with the impact of the lash. Valentine tells him to confess his sins, and he admits that he has talked about her name to the Dapper Boy, and it was wrong, and he will now spread other messages, to take Valentine away from Sally’s attention. Meanwhile the sand table has shown patterns that suggested first coagulating blood, and then rouge - a transition which Vanessa thinks is an important clue.

The sore gentleman leaves, and starts spreading counter rumours which removes Valentines condition “known by Sally No-Face”

There is some speculation about Sally No Face as they start drawing their clues together. They decide that they don’t want to just find out Sally’s lair and attack her… they want to understand where she has come from, and what has driven her to this madness.

For the afternoon, Valentine scars their reflection to find a worshipper who will be a good bodyguard, and comes home with a confident young rake who is well practiced and deadly with his rapier. Somewhere the two melodies which weave together in Valentine’s song become mismatched, with one overriding the other at moments when they should be balanced.

Meanwhile Paloma and Vanessa want to gather some additional clues by visiting that Whitechapel townhouse, disguised as washwomen. In the bins at the back they find the remains of party food. steak tartare, vol-au-vents and the like. While there, they can hear from inside a quartet of musicians playing furiously. Paloma takes a risk by climbing up on a bin and looking through the window at the musicians. Inside she sees the quartet playing, dressed in formal clothes but all with their heads fully bandaged up, with blood seeping through the bandages! As she shifts on the rubbish bins there is a clatter and their heads snap round and stare at her at the window, without interrupting their playing.

The two of them decide to try their luck at the front door, and finding it unlocked they creep inside. The large hall has a room to the right with the musicians and a room to the left but they have cold feet and decide not to investigate future. Paloma notices a stack of the gold-embossed invites which suggests that this is the place people are invited to, and she takes one. It has written on it the name Dr Van Cleef and this address. As they are leaving they saw a portrait of a noblewoman on the wall, but with lines drawn on her face and neck as if planning for surgery.

When they return home, Vanessa gushes to Valentine about what an excellent role Paloma had played in the investigation, to the extent that Paloma gets a little bit embarrassed! When they describe the noblewoman Valentine realises that it is Dame Margaret Teasdale, who they had met after mass last week and was talking about her marvellous facelift. She is also intrigued by the string quartet, and asks Paloma to hum her the tune. Hearing it, Valentine’s face grows pale and she staggers back and falls heavily into a chair. The musicians had been playing her tune. HER song!

They start to draw the clues together. They know of a doctor who was struck off for untoward medical practices. They think he was now living two lives; one as a tailor in a high class dress shop, rubbing shoulders with the rich and wealthy, and the other as an academic with access to society who can invite wealthy older people for miraculous facelifts. Those rich patrons have no idea that their rouge is based on the blood of innocents, as the tailor uses the poison from his plant to paralyse young victims - fresh-faced men and women - so that he can steal their faces and use them to repair the damaged old rich ones. Furthermore Valentine realises she had been the inspiration for this doctor. He was obsessed with her tune, with her face, with her timeless beauty! Is this all an homage to Valentine Demaris?

The theory is correct - they also all use a mask to get a mastermind clue too.

Valentine uses the moss covered gate - falls back to a chair and sits. oh the disharmony! she blocks her hears, can’t bear the sound, all of the lives which have been scarred by her. Walking back through the years, she wonders at the impact of her life. Is this murderer, Sally No-Face the true face of her legacy? Staring at her? And she swoons.

Vanessa uses a mask of the past, remembering when she was introduced to The Coven. Her headmistress had said that it was time for her to join the faculty. She dressed in her most lovely clothing as requested, but when she got to the room there was a burning pit and smoke and not the interview she was expecting. She had to donate quite a lot of blood, and was told she would always be part of the Twilight Garden. Vanessa slips off part of her blouse and shows the scars on her back which mark the distinctive shape of the rowan tree.

Paloma remembers the happiest day she shared with Winston. He loved fishing at the grimy docks with a little rowboat. One day he fished out a small stuffed animal, which he donated to Paloma and put in a little crib as a love token. It was such a happy day filled with laughter!

Preparing to go out, Paloma is concerned that she is still wanted by the police. Valentine agrees to give her a makeover while Paloma is consoling herself with her medicinal tonics. They talk during the process and Paloma describes Winston, and their love they had for each other, and wonders how Valentine ever manages dealing with love. What would someone do for more time with their lover? Valentine responds by saying that her centuries wouldn’t measure up to what Paloma had had. Pinkness returns to Paloma’s cheeks as she says that she only wanted more time with Winston. Valentine feels it in a way unexpected and unusual to her.

Meanwhile in late afternoon Vanessa visits St James’ street after picking up some nice pastries along the way.

She is let in by a maid and led through to the drawing room. Shortly after, the mistress of the house arrives, Mrs Alice Beal. Mrs Beal apologises that she can’t send down to the cook for some tea, because she just hasn’t been able to employ a new maid since that awful newspaper report about the haunting.

Mrs Beale says that they have lived there for about a year there - they moved in with their son Roger (who is nine) and a few months ago little baby Mary Alice was born. At first they thought the troubles in the house was Roger breaking things out of jealousy and sibling rivalry, but when the glass tiger shattered while Roger was with them, it was clear that something else was up. She had sent Ginny (what a lovely girl, so good with Roger) to investigate, but Ginny hadn’t found anything. However, it was that evening when there was a ghastly scream from her room, and they found poor Ginny dead! Mr Beale had been particularly distraught.

Vanessa asks if she can see Ginny’s room, and Mrs Beale is happy to take her up. It is a small room in the eaves; a bed, a dressing table, a mirror. The mirror still shows some signs of the ice which had originally piqued Vanessas attention. She looks at it more closely and then suddenly in the mirror she sees a face wreathed in flames and a blast of heat as if someone has opened a blast furnace door. Then the mirror cracks, in a weird spiral pattern. Vanessa asks Mrs Beale a couple of things - can she take the mirror, and can she cast a spell of protection on the baby’s nursery. Mrs Beale is very happy with this, so before she left Vanessa does a ritual of barring around the nursery. The ghost may be tied to the house, but it won’t be able to disturb the baby in the nursery. As soon as the ritual is finished, the baby settled right away.

Returning back to Hargrave House, Vanessa recounts her experiences at St James’s Street. As she finishes, they all look at each other with the same realisation hitting them all at the same time. Who let her in to the house?

Dusk

The Conservatory

Hargrave House has a conservatory. It used to be the favourite room of one of the hunters from years gone by who turned out to be a serial killer. How do we know it was his favourite room?

• There was a group of trees that are difficult to grow without lots of organic fertiliser. There is a mound that settles a little more each year
• He had a terrible temper and you can see marks in the wooden moulding where he had thrown things across the room.
• One of the previous members enjoyed taxidermy. the animals are arranged around the conversatory. Roger had turned them round so he wouldn’t see their eyes.

Unscene

None of the 117 rooms at Brown’s Hotel on Albermarle Street are the same, though they each have housed some of the most fashionable people you’ll find in London or anywhere. A concierge, Teddy Miller, delights in spying on the hotel’s posh clientele.

Night

Unscene Act 1: Teddy puts his ear up against the door of a wealthy young bachelor. He hears the one-sided conversation of the man on the phone “no, no, tell me about the ruby one again? And the diamond one? Oh stop it, I’ll take both!”

The hunters have decided to meet with Vittorio Clemenza at his shop. Although it is closed for the day he lets them in after a second glance at Valentine, and realises who she is. He then locks the door behind them again.

Sitting down with them, Valentine tells him that she knows what he is doing, and she knows the cost of what he is doing in a way that he doesn’t yet understand himself. He talks excitedly about how he has been inspired by her example and wanted to make a lasting difference in the world and make a name for himself!

While he is talking he reaches into a pocket and draws out a wicked sharp scalpel, encrusted with rubies and diamonds. He gestures with it while speaking to them.

Unscene Act 2: Teddy rummages through the personal effects of an actress staying at the hotel while she is out. He finds a very fancy face powder, and it smells faintly of lillies. It is the same face powder that his mother would use in the evenings before going out. He feels a rush of boyhood love and admiration and is swept away for a moment.

Valentine decides to illustrate the problem facing him. She draws out a little flute, and starts playing her tune, which he recognises well. Then she starts playing again - the original version before it started to be scarred. It is so much more beautiful that a tear appears in Clemenza’s eye.

“You must understand” Valentine says, “There is a cost to what you are doing. My life has corrupted what started out as beautiful. You talk about your legacy but perhaps from now on every step you take will corrupt it”

Clemenza is taken aback by the thought. He glances over at the vase of lilies near him and says “maybe there has been too many deaths. Maybe I have done enough now?”

“I think you have” Valentine confides. “And if you give yourself in now…”

“Then my name will be in the papers!” Clemenza exults. “Everyone will know of my work and I’ll be remembered forever!”

The hunters look at each other, and lead him off to Scotland Yard, where DI Pettigrew is astonished to hear a full confession.

Unscene Act 3: Teddy returns to his tiny, dingy flat in East London. He has set up a shrine with discarded bits of makeup and stockings and costume jewelry. He likes to pull the curtains and dress up as one of the guests and speaks to his shadow in plummy tones.

Valentine has taken as a reminder of this threat the ruby and diamond encrusted scalpel of “Sally No-Face”

Vanessa has found the skin of Edward’s face, and buried it properly as she had promised so that Edward’s spirit can find rest.

Paloma was seriously considering whether there would be a body part that she could take for Winston, but then realised that the medicinal (ahem) uses of the paralytic Oleander plant could be useful, so she takes that.

Dawn

A question was answered, a threat resolved.

Vanessa gains experience and her Presence increases, perhaps becoming more confident in who she is internally is allowing her to come across to others with more purpose and direction.

Paloma takes the move “Beneath the Skin” allowing her to find out a lot more clues from dead bodies and crime scenes.

Valentine takes the move “Unquenchable Thirst” Their beauty is now aggressively eternal. Physical conditions will disappear at dawn (at a price) and they get advantage when using their physical attractiveness to accomplish something.

I’m Josh, but you can find me lurking about as Goblincow under most suspicious rocks. I’m an illustrator, graphic designer, writer & game designer from the Midlands in the UK.

I’ve been drawing and writing since I was a child and always knew I’d be an artist one way or another, but I think there are three main things that brought me to game design: I grew up observing systems of communication from my autistic perspective, so it’s always been a particular interest of mine; I understood disability as what I am systemically dis-abled of and denied access to, so I’ve always felt a responsibility to design better; I eventually trained in publishing design & visual communication on a course that produced a lot of packaging designers and advertisers, but I wanted to do something actually valuable – as far as I’m concerned the role of the artist is to produce culture and communicate ideas, and I think conversation games are a powerful medium for imagining and modelling new realities.

I take my arts practice quite seriously but part of what makes games such effective design tools is that the people who use them don’t have to do the same.

What do you like best about designing games?

I’m grateful to take part in such a supportive indie scene with a strong DIY tradition that encourages people to experiment and become designers just by having fun and honing our communication skills. That’s a genuinely radical process!

I also really enjoy writing games and adventures as a sort of liminal storytelling medium built on implication and negative space, where every reading and interpretation somehow ‘completes’ the game in play. I don’t have to provide answers, just ask compelling questions, which is both the fun part of writing and my primary tool as a designer. Every other design decision follows in support of that.

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

Back in 2020 I started writing & illustrating The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick, a post-dungeon micro-setting about shrinking to miniature size and adventuring inside a sapient pear tree to navigate an insectoid world that was never yours to delve.

But when I finally finished work on TPPAPPOP earlier this year I had to take some time to recover from burnout (it’s been a tough few years) and learn to work with my ADHD to spin several smaller plates at once, which currently includes:

NASTY BASTARDS: a Slapstick Horror Game for 3-5 Weird Little Freaks; a depraved playset of religious horror for Nasty Bastards called Wail of the Rot King in which players embody an ossuary of colourful skeletons; and a decidedly dungeonless conversation game for woodland walks called Litter, Detective! that I finished in November but am now looking forward to printing a small run of with homemade recycled junkmail paper!

Can you tell me more about that last game?

I actually wrote the first drafts for NASTY BASTARDS (as a one-page Mörk Borg hack) and Wail of the Rot King as part of Exeunt Press’ #Mörktober this autumn while writing a 12,000 word deep dive analysis of Mörk Borg. It was a busy month!

But Mörk Borg was much drier than I expected it to be, so I threw out my hack and decided to fully rebuild it as a push-your-luck game to bring out its comedy & horror extremities. I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of board game & gambling mechanics and taking notes on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia & What We Do In The Shadows for inspiration of the kind of farce I want to encourage, and I’m currently considering producing it as a scroll that can be rolled out on a tabletop while thinking about how the affordances of that form might steer my design.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

This is a good question! With TPPAPPOP I’m dropping players into difficult circumstances with existential consequences and a ticking clock forcing their hand to make them (and their characters) confront assumptions of adventure, dungeoneering & their position in a world shaped by colonial influence. But it’s also as whimsical as it is horrifying! Players will pull on the threads that interest them most to get out what they put in, which I find very compelling.

With a tiny game like Litter, Detective! the goal was to make a fun conversation game (arguably a kind of LARP) for people unfamiliar with the medium while thinking about our relationships to local environments & the other people who use them through our shared responsibility to these spaces: at the end of the game you’ll pick up all the trash you found.

There’s definitely a pattern there, even if both projects are very different. Ultimately I want to provide tools for thinking and acting, which is basically just what a roleplaying game is!

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

I just published a mobile-ready version of Litter, Detective! to itch.io and The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick is being published by the Melsonian Arts Council some time in 2025 – it’s going to be quite a learning experience but I’m looking forward to it and trying not to panic!

• https://goblincow.itch.io/litter-detective

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

• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/goblincow.bsky.social
• Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/goblincow
• Patreon https://www.patreon.com/Goblincow459 where I write a newsletter for longer form design writing (where I recently published my Mörk Borg deep dive).
• All links on carrd https://goblincow.carrd.co

Part of getting my head into the right space for these games means getting my feelings sorted out, and I'm a very visual kind of guy. That means that thinking about how things will look on the page is a valuable part of my process.

When it comes to typography, I think it is important that the body text is both legible and readable. I've seen some books with such fancy typefaces used for their body text that I could barely read them, and that's not right (unless you are wanting to win art awards or something!)

Title and heading fonts though - that is where I think there is room to be more adventurous and attempt to capture something of the atmosphere that is being intended for the game. I've been looking at three classes of typeface, and I thought it might be nice to show them here.

Distressed Writing

These are typefaces which look as though they have been worn away over time, and capture the sense of lack of maintenance and care. Things were once OK, but they have not been OK for a long while now.

I really like the stencil effect of this one with the strong black background. It feels like the text would stand out well even if superimposed on other pictures.

I’ve included this one because a lower case typeface is often easier to read, but I’m not sure that I can visualise where this would appear. What kind of signage gets distressed like this? Because I’m not sure, I think this one is for the ‘no’ pile.

This looks like the classic military stencil, and could fit in well with any of the post-apocalyptic scenarios as it is easy to imagine military forces getting involved and putting up signposts. It isn’t highly distressed though, and so it might have a focus on the military rather than the post apocalypse that I want to capture?

This typeface from Alamy looks highly distressed. Almost like someone has attempted to write with a sponge! It would be interesting to try out some of the titling with it, but I think it might end up being too black for my purposes.

Graffiti

These graffiti typefaces have the appearance of scrawled tags - informal signposts that might indicate of warnings ahead, or mark out territories of gangs in this forlorn future.

Urban Decay has a very spiky appearance, and maybe suggests danger or threat.

Sister Spray is a little more casual. Perhaps this is too relaxed for some hurried signs?

The random heights of the Misdemeanour font is appealing - rather than an official stencil it does feel like something that has been hurriedly applied by amateurs and that might work well for the kind of look I’m going for.

Dripping Paint

I quite like the idea of dripping paint - hastily scrawled warnings or notices. Not as stylised as graffiti, not as formal as military stencils. Someone leaving a message as best they can.

Probably my favourite of the dripping typefaces, A Dripping Marker has both upper and lower case which aids readability and has drips well spaced on both top and bottom of some of the letter forms.

Another quite nice example of dripping paint, although Take Warning is all upper case, which I prefer to avoid.

This one is too regular and stylised. It isn’t really leaning into the dripping paint idea, it just has a couple of decorative drips on initial letters.

I’m a newer game designer. I started by running horror games in college. Listening to actual play podcasts exposed me to a whole world of different TTRPGs. In the 2010s I ran and played in way too many online games, which gave me a chance to rack up a lot of hours playing with different types of RPG players and seeing how different people approach the hobby. I like to look at the ways people play in practice and then build mechanics that support or enhance what already comes naturally.

Recently I’ve been putting a lot of time into building a local community of RPG creators where I live. I heard a podcast where Meguey Baker said, “just get some other people who like to make games and have coffee or beers together every week.” I took her advice and I’ve been shocked at how many other RPG creators live within 40 minutes of me.

What do you like best about designing games?

There’s something incredibly modern about describing a world in percentages and probabilities, and there’s something incredibly timeless about sitting down with friends to play games and tell stories. I like combining the two. Whether it happens on the notepad or in playtesting, my favorite part of game design is the wonderful “Aha” moment when a piece of mechanics and a piece of theme click together to reinforce and amplify each other.

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

I’m in the middle of running my first Kickstarter, for the GMless Orc-building game Dawn of the Orcs. It’s been really encouraging to see something I made doing well in the wild. Once I get it shipped, I’m going to be splitting my time between a few projects.

I try to continuously improve Fear and Panic, my “best practices for horror” d100 horror game in the vein of Delta Green and Mothership. It’s not wildly different from any of the similar horror games, but I want to take the best lessons I can from 40+ years of people playing d100 horror RPGs and make the best expression of the genre I can.

I’m also working on the GM’s guide for The Lurking Fear, a stripped-down retroclone of Call of Cthulhu that I put on Itch for free a couple years ago.

The thing I’m most excited to be tinkering with right now is a yet to be titled near-future dystopian game that steals mechanics from the world of finance.

Can you tell me more about that last game?

There are a lot of RPGs that introduce themes of economic hardship by giving players depreciating assets to manage – equipment that loses value over time, because it costs resources to maintain, has a chance of breaking, or simply loses utility because it doesn’t keep pace with scaling difficulty.

Red Markets is a great example – a poverty simulator where maintaining your gear eats up the same wealth you need to use to feed your dependents. I want to see what happens when you turn things on their head and give the players a wealth simulator. They have assets that appreciate in value over time, but the catch is that they can’t just sell those assets; they depend on them, so their only way to get meaningful wealth is to borrow against the future growth of their assets, and then they have to match that growth with actual performance or face ruin.

My goal is to create situations where characters in combat need to make a tough choice between trying to finish off an enemy with a well-placed shot or taking a moment to trade futures while the have an information advantage about the outcome of the fight. I’ll probably throw in some other modern anxieties as well, like technofeudalism and energy diversification.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

My overarching philosophy as a GM and game designer is that players have fun if they feel like they’re making meaningful decisions and they can see the consequences of those decisions. It’s as important to spotlight those moments of decision as it is to create them; in TTRPGs as in real life, they can be all too easy to miss.

If there’s a common theme in my games, it’s the steady and predictable escalation of horror. It shows up in both Rotting Potential and Dawn of the Orcs – the players can guess where the story is going, just not the exact details, or how their characters will end up positioned.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

I recently wrote Dawn of the Orcs, a GMless dark fantasy worldbuilding and roleplaying game. You play as the magical technocrats who create the first Orcs as weapons of war and tell the story of how the Orcs become their own people. You can find it on Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lyme/dawn-of-the-orcs. The Kickstarter runs until December 19th!

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

• You can find my published games on itch.io at https://lymetime.itch.io/
• My Bluesky is at https://bsky.app/profile/lymerpg.bsky.social
• My blog is at https://brackish-draught.bearblog.dev/

Hello, I’m Kalum from The Rolistes. I’m a game designer from London. I was born and grew up in Wallonia (which is somewhat relevant to one of my games) but I identify as a Londoner. The capital is dear to me and I’m lucky to contribute to its evolution as part of my day job (I’ll keep it a mystery though).

My first TTRPG was the 2nd edition of Star Wars by West End Games published in French by Jeux Descartes. I must have been around 13 at the time. I had no clue what a TTRPG was. I just saw this publication mentioned in Spirou Magazine (might have been Journal de Mickey) and asked my father to get it for Christmas. I was already bad at reading TTRPGs and never managed to run a session on my own. It took me several years before finding a group to play with regularly.

It was in the window between the bankruptcy and WotC’s first. I think the time and place where I started playing shaped my 'polygamerous' (a term from Pandas Talking Games) TTRPG tastes.

What do you like best about designing games?

I enjoy hosting friends for dinner or a game, putting something together, and sharing it with them. I get a similar pleasure out of game design while engaging with people, anywhere and anytime, who I can’t hang out with. It’s really part of my design process to think of a person who will eventually read my game. As mentioned above, I’m bad at reading TTRPGs. This makes me careful to keep the amount of information reasonable and to convey it efficiently. I’m so proud and happy whenever someone posts pictures of themselves running my game (please do tag me). It’s also great to see my games click when I run them at conventions or on stream. It’s going full circle to game mastering in that case.

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

The short answer is “too many things but not enough”. I say “not enough” because I don’t work as much on my designs as I did when my employment was less stable. I’m privileged with my new day job but it means less time for game design, or podcasting, until further notice. The “too many” is because I have three live game projects running parallel. In increasing order of time, I currently dedicate to them, there’s Magic of Inventorying, Nameless Nightmares of Cthulhu, and a supplement for Rosewood Abbey.

Can you tell me more about these games you are working on?

Magic of Inventorying is the long-awaited improved edition of Paris Gondo - The Life-Saving Magic of Inventorying. The workload isn’t too heavy for me as its redesign, upcoming Kickstarter, and future fulfillment are led by the Italian publisher Grumpy Bear. They assembled a fantastic team that includes Bodie Hartley for the art. I’m very excited and can’t wait for the Kickstarter to go live in early 2025.

Nameless Nightmares of Cthulhu is still in its early draft stage. It’s an attempt at delivering a lean system, inspired by OSR/Borg games, compatible with Call of Cthulhu mysteries. I need to playtest it and write a first mystery for it. The latter is proving quite work-heavy compared to the mysteries I wrote for Rosewood Abbey.

This is a good segue into Codex Delictorum. Inspired by Brindlewood Bay’s Nephews in Danger, I’m writing a collection of new monastic mysteries for Rosewood Abbey. I have three mysteries in mind. Depending on how things go, I might involve fellow designers. I was especially happy with the one, Mocking Grotesquery, that Sean F. Smith wrote for Rosewood Abbey.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I don’t know. I guess I aim to give an original perspective, including things that are familiar otherwise: dungeon crawling, investigation… However, I don’t think very hard about the above. The initiative has always been a random idea for something I wanted to play and share. There’s an element of surprise players appear to enjoy in my designs. With Magic of Inventorying, many people told me they didn’t expect a comedy game to be so tightly designed. They’re surprised the game delivers complete story arcs despite the freedom, and chaotic nonsense.

For Rosewood Abbey, the surprise (spoiler alert) comes from the absence of any overarching conspiracy or antagonists. The Rumor Mill does the job of structuring an emergent crisis that has no mastermind. Locals just get caught up in their telltales, anxieties, and hopes.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Rosewood Abbey is available via The Rolistes Big Cartel store, Itchio, DrivethruRPG, IPR, and many fantastic FLGS in the UK and US.

Magic of Inventorying’s Kickstarter is around the corner. While supported by the seasoned Grumpy Bear team, it’s still my first Kickstarter campaign. I need everyone’s help. Please hit the “Notify Me On Launch” button on Kickstarter and sign up for our newsletter. Once the campaign is live, even a 1$ pledge will meaningfully help the campaign get noticed. If you pledge for the game, I guarantee you’ll find it to be high value for money both in terms of product quality and replayability.

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

• I have my website but it’s overdue a robust update to better showcase my games instead of my podcast. https://www.rolistespod.com
• For physical copies, head to The Rolistes Big Cartel store. https://therolistes.bigcartel.com/product/rosewood-abbey
• For devlog updates and digital copies, my Itchio is the place to check. https://rolistespod.itch.io/
• Meanwhile, Bluesky is the social media where I’m the most active. https://bsky.app/profile/rolistespod.itch.io
• My Instagram account is for board games and food. https://www.instagram.com/rolistespod/

I'm Kayla Dice, I'm a current full-time TTRPG writer/designer publishing and a former stand-up comedian and pro wrestler. My games (available at ratwave.uk) cover a range of genres and styles but usually explore the themes of alienation and connection.

I also host a weekly improv design podcast called Game Soup (with Chloe from Biscuit Fund Games) and a seasonal interview podcast called This is Your Lifepath. My most recent release was PSYCHODUNGEON, a fantasy workplace action drama, played with no dice and no masters.

What do you like best about designing games?

That's actually a hard question for me to answer. I think I find joy in different parts of design depending on the project. I think there's a noticeable enjoyment of writing in my work, like a clear level of fun I'm having with language.

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

I'm finishing off a crowdfunding campaigns for Transgender Deathmatch Legend II, a two player card based beat em up, and will be working on the layout and production for the book soon.

In terms of writing I've been working on a sci-fi film noir inspired game, set on a retro-future space station. I've been seeing this game almost as a bit of a puzzle. I know a lot about what I want the game to do, but to accomplish that I need to find what the game wants to be. If I can figure this game out I think it could really connect a lot of different strands from my previous work together in a way I'm excited about.

Sci-fi noir has long been one of my favourite combinations of genres. Do you have any film or book touchstones which have inspired you?

So I had a special interest in film noir when I was younger and so I've watched a lot of films. In terms of things I'm drawing on the Third Man is in there, the Big Sleep and Maltese Falcon too, and Kurosawa's Stray Dog informed decisions I made with the setting. There's much more though, especially drilling down into individual scenarios rather than the game as a whole. It draws more from the noir crime thriller strand rather than the melodramas (mainly in the interest of being a cohesive and focused game, I think Mildred Pierce is a great film but it's not really in the game).

For sci-fi elements the imagery of Blade Runner and Alien was definitely on my mind, though this setting doesn't have a focus on extraterrestrial life or mass produced androids. Two things that informed the space station setting was the video game Citizen Sleeper and the book Deep Wheel Orcadia.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

It changes depending on the project for me. The experience of Transgender Deathmatch Legend II is meant to be thrilling, aggressive and schlocky with lots of room for intuitive strategy. The fun comes from embracing the world of the game and letting the mechanics immerse you in that feeling. PSYCHODUNGEON is very different for instance, there is more focused on dramatic character moments. The noir game will focus a lot on feeling isolated and unsure of who can be trusted, the fun here is in creating a flawed character and seeing how they navigate the moral darkness they find themselves in.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

My latest release PSYCHODUNGEON is available now and for people who missed the Transgender Deathmatch Legend II campaign pre-orders are now up on BackerKit at https://gender.ratwave.uk

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

• I'm on BlueSky (ratwave.bsky.social)
• Tumblr (ratwavegamehouse)
• Instagram (Rat Wave Kayla).
• You can buy my books direct from me at https://ratwave.square.site
• subscribe to my mailing list at https://newsletter.ratwave.uk

I'm Sam. I'm a game designer from the UK who, like most game designers, realised that the work I was doing to run an RPG campaign was already game design and others might enjoy what I've written outside of my group. I tend to make small games that people can enjoy with as little work as possible.

What do you like best about designing games?

This is a cliché answer, but hearing stories about people enjoying my games. Very early on I was told someone used my dungeon generator to play D&D with his kids after school without having to do copious amounts of prep work, something he had absolutely no time for. This was the first time I was told something like that and it always feels great.

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

My current game is Tales From The Spectral Sea, A Swashbuckling Saga Of Sad Dead Sailors. You play as sailors who died at sea but couldn't "pass on" because of unresolved trauma or baggage. Instead you sail across the Spectral Sea, an afterlife for sailors, adventurers, and heroes which warps to fit the people there. This means its full of swashbuckling adventures, dangerous monsters, and folkloric magic. It also means that people there are always being pushed towards resolving their baggage so they can properly move on.

Can you tell me more about that?

That duality between over the top adventure and meaningful emotions is spread throughout every part of the game. I used the "Roll with questions" version of PBTA from Pasión de Las Pasiones to make sure that every time you roll the dice, you're being asked how you feel about what you're doing and being pushed to act like a hero from stories. Even levelling up has a bittersweet feel to it, every time you do you get one step closer to moving on so you might try to delay it to keep your character for as long as possible.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I don't want either half of the game to get in the way of the other. You will be having larger than life adventures and making friends with weird and outlandish NPCs. You'll also be having touching moments as you share the last words with NPCs and other players before they depart. In fact, going back and forth between each makes them more impactful.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Spectral Sea will be going on Kickstarter early next year. If you sign up to my mailing list you'll be the first to know when it goes out and I'll even add some freebies to your order.

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

• All kind of social and webstore links on https://armstronggames.carrd.co/
• Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/samarmstronggames.bsky.social

I'm Luke, half of the Murkdice whole. I'm the writer, designer, layout person, and sometimes illustrator!

Back in 2022 I left a career in software engineering to go travelling and ended up starting Murkdice shortly after with my partner in crime Lyndsay.

I make games for Murkdice and write for other publishers, but also run the MurkMail newsletter which is really gathering steam!

What do you like best about designing games?

I've always loved problem-solving, and game design feels the pinnacle of a fun exercise in that.

It applies whether I'm writing something from the ground up or putting together the modular hacks that go out in MurkMail. There's a joy in solving problems that in turn brings people fun at their gaming tables.

It's also a very responsive process. A short while back we had a series of articles in MurkMail on factions that received a lot of attention, so I've taken that and expanded it into a whole zine (which will be coming soon).

MurkMail is helpful in that sense, it allows us to test the basis of ideas and see if there is an appetite for a big dish so to speak!

I'm also big on GM centric design. My experience with a lot of games is that they are player first, GM second in nature. I tend to design the opposite way around, which is why MurkMail is very GM focused in what we put out, as are often my games. I want to give GMs better tools.

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

So I already mentioned the Factions Handbook, which may be out by the time this goes live! It's a 40-ish page system agnostic guide for generating and running faction conflicts.

Factions are one of my favourite parts of rpgs, so it was natural that I ended up making something for it.

I think the system is intuitive, yet deep. My goal with the design is to give you as much output information (detail) as possible for as little work as possible. And I think this faction system does pretty well at that.

The second thing I have cooking is my self-identified heartbreaker, the Murk Hack.

I think it was Luka Rejec who said that everyone needs to make a heartbreaker, and with the amount of hacks and modular rules I put out for MurkMail, I felt it was time for mine.

It's a 20 ish page OSR/NSR/FKR thing, with a leaning on dark fantasy. It's rooted in Into the Odd and its cousins, like Cairn, but draws from other inspiration like Symbaroum and some of my own quirks.

I'm going to be releasing it for free, and it may expand over time to come.

I love the idea of factions in games - will your system agnostic guide stretch into sci-fi and horror factions (among others)?

It's theme neutral! I wanted to make something that could be ported into pretty much anything. In that sense, the book is more focused on giving you the skeleton and muscles of faction conflicts (including a guide on how it all moves) but it's open for you to apply to any themes you like.

You bring your own flavour into it, it's like a workbench for you to craft a faction scenario that fits the game you are running.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

This is serving GMs first, but I think the Factions Handbook makes a game more engaging for players too! Factions enable players to think big. There's concise guidance in the handbook on how players engage in the faction dynamics and how they can affect it.

The Factions Handbook gives GMs the tools to craft a richer backdrop and a dynamic situation for players to enjoy.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

We put out a lot of stuff (including lots of FREE stuff!), so the best way to see what we do is go visit the blog/newsletter MurkMail. If you sign up you get a free pack of isometric pointcrawl maps and my own set of dark fantasy random tables (both of which people love).

We have some really nice hexcrawl notebooks, hexbooks, that I designed for GMs to prep hexcrawls and dungeons.

We've got a Mork Borg module, M1: Blood & Salt that came out recently (which is the first project I've done the art for).

Our sci-fi game, Void Above, which Kickstarted in the Spring is now available digitally worldwide too.

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

• You can find our other products (including FREE ones) on DriveThruRPG.

In what way did I take on too much?

I agreed to run two game sessions for iGoth (indie games on the hour), meet up with a friend, attend a seminar, and help on the London TIN booth for two hours. Let’s talk about each of these.

Indie Games on the Hour (iGoth)

I think this is a great part of Dragonmeet, as it’s an opportunity for people to come along and just try out indie games without booking ahead of time. There are lots of games on offer, and it is great for people who fancy trying something different, or who were not able to book into a scheduled game.

I had agreed to run two game slots, one from 10am-12, and the second from 12-2pm. Nobody turned up at 10am at all, but all was not lost - the other three GMs were interested in trying out my beta test of Road to Romance, and we had fun with it.

Road to Romance

We had three players, and I acted as a facilitator. We agreed to limit the stories to a ‘sweet’ level of romance and set our lines and veils. You can read more about Road to Romance. The stories were:

• A classic wartime romance of Barbara falling in love with the transgressive black market rogue ‘Flash’ Harry, which is opposed by her father.
• A classic regency romance of Mr Martin falling in love with the artist who came to do his portrait, opposed by his fiancée - not unreasonably, one might expect.
• A paranormal Wild West romance of Josephine the cowgirl falling in love with her friend Duke, the landowner. Dorry is a rival for Duke’s affections, and she is prettier and a better shot.

Air raid sirens sounded every night, which added to Barbara's feelings of insecurity. In addition to that, her father (a General) was a harsh taskmaster, and almost impossible to please. She had tripped at the train station and lost one of the pages of the secret documents she had been carrying. Searching for it later, she found it in the possession of the dashingly handsome ‘Flash’ Harry - nightclub owner and black marketeer. He had found it, and sold it back to her... for a kiss. She couldn’t get Harry out of her mind, but her father knew she had been to his club and forbade any further communication. They kept seeing each other, until one evening the military police raided the nightclub and dragged Harry away to military prison. It looked as though that was going to be the end, but it transpired that Harry and her father both answered to a higher authority - Harry was secretly with military intelligence. Her father’s objections vanished, and we last see Barbara and Harry climbing on board a train, surrounded by clouds of steam, and falling into each other’s arms as the train’s whistle blew.

It is 1812 and Mr Martin is engaged to be married to the formidable Catherine. He feels guilt and shame that he is completely under her thumb. He yearns for a sense of fun in his life, but can’t see any future that way. He is due to have a portrait painted by an up and coming young artist, but is shocked when the artist arrives and it is a young Yorkshire woman called Anna. She is light hearted and bantered with him while sketching and preparing the work. Catherine gets wind of the fact that the artist is a woman and furiously tells him to stop the commission. But when Mr Martin gets to her artists garret in London he is once again taken by her spirit. They end up fooling around and laughing, and some paint gets spilt on his top hat. Back in the country, Catherine has taken matters into her own hands, and arranged with her father for Anna to be given work up in Scotland, the other end of the country. Mr Martin rushes back to London to try to persuade Anna not to go, but she sees no choice, and is sadly packing. One of her pieces falls out of a packing tube and unrolls in front of them. It is a candid portrait that she was asked to do of the Duke of Wellington and his secret mistress. It is shocking that there is such a candid portrait. Even more shocking that the mistress is his fiancée, Catherine! It is the evidence he needs to get her to break off the engagement, and frees Mr Martin to start a relationship with Anna.

Josephine is drunk in a bar. She's a dam' good cowgirl, and enjoys working the land for her friend Duke, but why won't he see the woman as well as the worker? Why does he keep making eyes at that pretty little thing Dorry? Sure maybe Dorry is currently the best shot in the West, and pretty and all, but why her? Duke wants Josephine to help investigate the killing of some cattle on the high plains, and Josephine agrees as long as she is in charge. Duke doesn't mind, as long as Dorry is along for additional protection. As they ride out to investigate there is some bickering of the not good natured kind between the two women. It starts getting dark and Dorry suggests that they ought to be getting home, but Josephine pushes them on. and when Dorry suggests that they split up Josephine agrees grumpily, and sends Duke off with Dorry! The full moon rises, somewhere a wolf howls. Josephine hears Duke cry out from the ravine, and she finds him there with an injured leg. She goes to lift him up, but she stumbles and ends up falling on top of him. Face to face. In the moonlight. Then they go in for a kiss. In the bush behind them we see glowing red eyes, and a werewolf bursts out from the darkness - the tattered clothes it wears are Dorrys! Josephine is brushed off, Duke is slung over it's back and the werewolf leaps off while Josephine draws her colt-45 and shoots wildly - but she injures the werewolf's leg and Josephine is able to catch up. The werewolf charges here and she draws the derringer with its silver bullets she keeps for emergencies. "Down girl" she breathes and two bullets slam into the werewolf, killing it. Josephine looks Duke over, and sees that he has already started changing, his injured leg was infected by the werewolf back in the ravine! She isn't willing to put Duke down before he finally changes... and she chooses a different path - gashing her leg on the werewolfs teeth, she commits herself to this transformation - and by dawn there were two new howls on the high chapparal.

The Long Road Home

I had three players and myself for this GMless game. You can read more about this game of mine and see how it plays in this collection of Long Road Home posts.

This was a heroic story set in a sylvan land of high mountains, deep woods and rune magic. Our serene valley hidden in the mountains was under threat from an evil wizard who was spreading his reign over the land and wanted to conquer our hidden valley.

The valley was fertile, peaceful, and quiet - three runes created by the founder of the valley and which were reflected in life there. There was a rich earthy smell and a deep sense of serenity. Our heroes were part of a rag-tag band who had set out to foil the wizards plans by creating a gem that would entrap the evil one’s power.

The characters were

• Tom Hardy: son of the village elders, who had a rune of protection but tended to be too hasty, and whose story was going to include political intrigue
• Sid: an apprentice runesmith who was good with runes but lackadaisical with his work. His story was going to include redemption.
• Padraig: a blacksmith who was strong, but took offence quickly. His story was going to include personal sacrifice.
• Martin: an artist who was creative, but tended to be careless and slow. His story might have included being a pawn of prophecy.

Companions along the way were Ashen, the bookish tutor who came along to keep up Tom's studies, Astrid the fierce barbarian they met in the jungles and who enjoyed testing her strength against Padraig, and Valerian, the treacherous advisor who continually led them astray. For a short while they travelled with Orion, the relentless gladiator, but he soon separated for them, cursing them for their weakness.

In one battle Astrid was mortally wounded, and Sid attempted to use his healing runes to keep her alive, but failed because he had not studied hard enough. Padraig picked up a wasting disease in the jungles.

Tom against his better judgement was spending more time with Valerian, intrigued by the tales of political intrigue amongst the great houses.

At another cliff top battle against a small army, Orion would have killed Padraig, but Ashen bravely tackled the gladiator and both went over the edge to their deaths. Padraig couldn't believe that this man he considered weak had given his life to save him. Padraig had been expecting personal sacrifice to be an element in his tale, but hadn't expected it to be this travelling companion. Martin found a shield that protected from fire, and claimed it as his own.

At the bottom of that cliff Sid detected a flicker of life in Ashen, and this time redoubled his efforts on the rune of healing - and where he had failed Astrid, he did not fail Ashen.

In the final battle at the wizards tower on the dunes, we found the mighty wizard attempting to create a giant rune to bind everyone in the land to his will. Padraig fought him, Martin protected us against his fiery blasts with his shield, and Tom used the rune of protection to shield Sid... who crafted a new rune on a gem which would act as a circuit breaker for the giant rune! When the wizard attempted to cast his power into the giant rune, it was all sucked into the small gem and locked away, breaking his power.

At their homecoming, Sid was hailed as a hero of the valley, the creator of a new rune of industriousness and he set up a new runemasters teaching school. Padraig came back to his forge, but found that he was now too weak to use the forge he once called home. Martin found that his desire to create art had deserted him, and his flame-burnt fingers couldn't hold a brush without trembling. And Tom never got to be the new elder of the village. His heart was corrupted by Valerian, and he turned his back on the serene valley and followed Valerian off to the great city, to try to get involved in political intrigue.

The game was a success, ran to time, and the players said that they were surprised how quickly they had come to care for the supporting characters who joined them.

Seminar

Sadly I only had time for one seminar today between iGoth until 2pm and starting on the TIN stand at 4pm. I chose carefully, and attended

First product to first convention: The Creator Experience

Many of us dream of creating and releasing our own games or gaming related products, either as a hobby or to build an independent business. Join a panel of this year's exhibitors who have taken the jump for a discussion of their journey from first product to exhibiting at conventions and the reality of creative life. What do they wish they'd know at the start, what would they do differently and is there actually any money to be made from it?

The panellists were

• Craig Duffy of Lunar Shadow Games
• Anya La Lionne Publishing
• Rori of Mountford Tales

I didn’t take as many notes as I should have done. The first part of the seminar was about first product and concentrated on issues like printing. The second part which I was more interested in looked at being at a convention.

Craig was on his third year of Dragonmeet. It is an RPG focused convention, and he finds that it is more productive than the conventions which are more about Boardgames and also include RPGs.

Rori is an artist as well as a publisher, and she has exhibited at MCM as well as others. Although it isn’t as dedicated a convention, it does give the opportunity to reach additional audiences that might be interested and won’t normally come across your games.

Important tips

• wear comfortable shoes, because you are going to be doing a lot of standing!
• Don’t go solo - find someone to run the table with you. It allows you to take breaks (loo etc) and shares the load. That might be with your partner (like Rori) or with another designer who has complementary games (like Craig, who the last two years has run a table with Nick Bate)

London TIN booth

I helped staff the London TIN booth from 4pm to 6pm and then helped with some of the packing away at the end.

It was the first time I’ve stood on that side of a table, and I found it very stressful - a long way outside my comfort zone! It didn’t feel natural to me to invite people to look at games and purchase them, or to add additional purchases. It didn’t help that there was a huge range of games on the table, and there was no way for me to know enough about each game to tell people what they were good for.

Happily the Point of Sale app in use was foolproof, and I was able to take money three times from people - selling two copies of “Rosewood Abbey” and one copy of “Me, the Singularity”. So I didn’t feel like a complete fraud.

I think that one copy of one of my products was sold during the day (that covers my train fare down to Dragonmeet). I’ve got to work out how to do better than that! I’m convinced that they are good games, but a clearer and more compelling pitch would be helpful.

It was interesting watching Mikhail at work; I think he was looking after the stand all through the day, and seeing how he approached people and encouraged them to look at things they might be interested in was very instructive.

What did I miss?

So much!

I didn’t have a proper opportunity to look round the exhibitor stands, so I didn’t purchase anything, nor did I manage to talk with any of the people whom I’d hoped to catch up with that I knew from social media or the TIN discord. I had a brief conversation with Josh of Black Armada, but didn’t even see many others.

In a future year I think I would need to focus on either one thing or another, and not spread myself too thin.

Muppetmeet

A joint venture by Soulmuppet and Dragonmeet, this was a Sunday event of seminars and networking for the RPG creative industry.

It’s a great idea, my experience was hampered by travel problems (trains cancelled on the Mildmay line because of overrunning engineering works meant I had to travel round the houses by Tube to get there, taking MUCH longer than expected)

10am Networking

Unfortunately I missed this because of travel difficulties

11am Seminar - How To Be Good At Conventions

With Mol Joule (they/them) from SoulMuppet, Josh (he/they) from Hive Mind, and Rori Montford (she/her) Conventions are an exciting, often overwhelming and incredibly chaotic part of the TTRPG scene in the UK and abroad. SoulMuppet's head of marketing Mol Joule, Josh from : Hive Mind and Rori Montford have the inside track on how to succeed at conventions, i how to arrange your stands, and how to pitch your products to punters.

Unfortunately I missed this as well because of travel difficulties.

12 noon Seminar - Actual Play vs actual play

With Edward Spence (he/him) moderating, Liv Kennedy (she/her) from 3 Black Halflings, JC Darcy (they/them) from Euphoria APs, and Drakoniques (he/him) As Actual Play becomes increasingly prevalent in the TTRPG industry - and as its i parameters become ever more experimental - join award-nominated producer Drakoniques (Beyond the Brook), EUphoria's JC Darcy, and Liv Kennedy (co-creator of the award-winning 3 Black Halflings) in a discussion moderated by award-nominated Game Master Edward Spence, as they explore: does this medium present a true experience of tabletop gameplay? And is that its purpose?

I missed the first half of this, but the second half was interesting.

You can see a summary of the points that I took away from it and engage with me on Bluesky here

Actual Play can have many different aims, and those inform what is done and the way that you do it. For instance, is the main point entertainment? Promotion? Teaching the game? Each of those will lead to different focus. There are some great entertaining Actual Plays which would be useless for learning how to play the game, for instance.

Tech has changed a lot even in the short time that AP has been a thing. Both in terms of hardware, software and software as a service. Expectations are also higher. Audiences can be less forgiving of poor audio quality now.

The experience of listening is quite different to the experience of playing. This has been one of the drivers for more attention to sound and effects, to make it more experiential.

There was a thread on Bluesky which showed a 50/50 split between people who liked to hear well produced AP vs those who liked ones with messy table talk with might sound more ‘real’. I’ve not been able to track down that particular thread. I know that I personally prefer to listen to an AP which feels like I’m at the table rather than listening to a production. Shout out to Black Armada Tales for their podcast in that respect.

Streamers are very collaborative and helpful, and online communities typically very willing to help people out with advice on things.

2pm Seminar - Brick and Mortar: RPG Retailing in the UK

With Tom Mecredy (he/him), eCommerce Manager at SoulMuppet moderating, Casper from Orc’s Nest, James (he/him) from Leisure Games. Are you a creator looking to build a more sustainable business or get more eyes on your product? SoulMuppet's eCommerce manager Tom sits down with Casper from the Orc's Nest and James from Leisure Games to talk about the physical retail side of the TTRPG industry.

This alone would have made the day worthwhile for me. It was excellent.

I wrote a summary thread about it on Bluesky here if you’d like to discuss any of these things further: https://bsky.app/profile/planesailinggames.com/post/3lcbra2zxgk27

What does a physical store offer?

Access to the general public. People coming off the street, and exposing people to additional kinds of games like indie games. They can use their expertise to recommend new games to people.

Leisure games is in the suburbs and supports local clubs in their communities. They notice that back in the original heyday of D&D the ratio of D&D stuff to other games used to be 10 to 1. Now it is more like 100 to 1. James suspects that this might be because there are fewer sales made through physical stores than was the case back then.

What misconceptions are there?

Small publishers often don’t understand the volume of initial orders that shops will look for. Shops are most likely to take no more than 2-5 copies to begin with to test the market. If those sell quickly, then they will come back for more. They don’t want 20-40 copies if they don’t know they can sell it (and this can stumble some publishers, who want to send them higher “minimum quantities”).

What percentage of your shop is RPGs?

The shops sell lots of board games and both Leisure Games and Orcs Nest have been around 40yrs or more, so they have more RPGs than is typical for many games stores, at 25-25%. Volume of sales of RPGs is on par with other stuff, but it contributes less towards total sales because units are typically cheaper.

Thousand Year Old Vampire is definitely their top seller in the RPG market.

What is the space for indie creators? Any thoughts about price points?

leisure Games has leaned more into zines in recent years, and some of those have done very well - mork Borg and mothership for instance. They now have a whole zines section and people like browsing them.

Orcs Nest also find people like browsing through zines. Those that are priced at the £6-7 range are common impulse purchases for people. They also find customers coming and asking them about Mothership, Heart, Spire and the like.

Crowdfunding is a net benefit for the RPG market, but unfortunately a lot of people put all their marketing effort into the crowdfunding and not as much after the event. There can be a temptation to plough effort into the next crowdfunder rather than put effort into the longer tail of their product. This is a shame, because once the product has been produced the harder work has been done! What’s next is marketing the product that has been made and realising profit.

It can be helpful to bring new things in to an existing line, or to add products which are thematically a match (Eat the Reich has been a success for Rowan, Rook and Decard partly because it is such a good thematic match for Heart and Spire).

Working with Distributors is really important to build sustainably income within the tail of the release.

What do you think about building out product lines?

When the buyers look at a catalogue of products it is good to see a set of related things. However, customers often don’t go from expansions back to purchase core rules. Leisure Games said that establishing a brand is really useful, if people know what kind of games you produce and what you stand for.

What are key features of a good product

It must sit on the shelf. Good quality paper is really important too. The days of thin photocopier paper being good enough are long past. Use good quality printing and care about the product you are making.

Orcs Nest likes to look and see whether they have hired an illustrator, and don’t use AI. They like to see effort, a good cover, a readable title, good layout on the inside. It is also good if it can identify cultural touchstones (e.g. “Battle Royale” or for Brindlewood Bay “Murder She Wrote and Cthulhu”)

Knowing how to pitch it to the customer is also useful.

Leisure Games said that in an increasingly digital age, the physical product can be the ‘value-add’, not the default. So don’t make it an afterthought. TYOV is a fabulous art object in itself. This has all changed in the last decade. He was sorry that when Monsterhearts 2 came out it hadn’t really added new art or improved its appearance.

What can creators do to increase their chance of success?

Orcs Nest said have a clear title. Eye catching, people must want to pick it up. Stand out well from other covers. Describe on the book how many people, how long, what they need to play it.

Starter Sets?

Boxed starter sets can be very useful. Of course, they attract VAT (like cards and anything that are not books), which makes it difficult for the retailers to deal with publishers who are not themselves VAT registered, as it costs them extra.

I had a discussion with James afterwards because I’m thinking that Road to Romance would probably be best as a boxed card game like Fedora Noir or For The Queen. The Bottom line is either

1. Get yourself VAT registered (and accept all that goes with that)
2. Get a publisher who already produces card games and is already VAT registered to take on the publishing
3. Tout your game to the big publishing houses, because who knows?

Recommended distributors

• Peregrine Post Press (contact them at store@peregrinecoast.press)
• Compose Dream (Canadian, but have a UK depot) https://composedreamgames.com
• GMS (do more mainstream games) https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100064035134127

There were some which were not recommended, but I don’t feel comfortable reporting them here in case it gets the panellists into any trouble.

3pm Networking

I think this may have happened, but if it did I couldn’t find it! After looking around for 15 minutes I assumed that perhaps everyone had left and gone home, so I did the same. I’ve seen some comments since that it did take place; I guess I failed to make my ‘spot check’. I wonder what the DC was?

Hi, I'm Stoo Goff, a programmer, game designer, and musician originally from Norwich, now living in Glasgow. I make games, including Aegean and the Gaslight Club, as well as a bunch of supplements for other games. While I enjoy designing games myself, I'm also keen to see what other people can make so I've also published WILD by David F. Chapman and Action Potential and Show of Hands by Rhiannon Swann-Price.

When I'm not designing games I build tools to help with games, including a support app for WILD and an adversary tracker for the Star Wars RPG by FFG/Edge. I'm also the audio engineer and sound designer behind the Tales from the Alethian Society audio drama podcast.

What do you like best about designing games?

There's an immediacy to game design which really appeals. Which isn't to say finishing an RPG is a quick process — it's really not! Aegean took about eight years from concept to fulfilling the Kickstarter and WILD took a similar amount of time. Getting from a designed game to a finished product is a long and laborious process, but the design of the mechanics can be very quick.

Getting a basic system to the table and trying it out and iterating on it is fast. Plus it's interesting to see how something you thought up plays at the table — the mechanic you thought of isn't always the one you end up with and something which seemed cool could be disastrous! Plus there's the collaborative nature of a bringing a new mechanic or game (or setting or adventure) to the table and bringing any feedback back into it.

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

I've got a couple of things I'm working on at the moment. I'm still writing the final bits for the Isle of Pelops, a new supplement to Aegean. I'm also playing around with different game ideas using the Aegean system. I ran a campaign for one of my groups based on a Beowulf/Viking style setting. I was planning to develop that further but there are already a lot of games filling that niche. Instead I've been thinking about a Roman invasion of Britain, either from the Roman perspective or the Celtic perspective as I think Aegean's city management system could work well with that style of game. Or possibly something around Robin Hood with something like the vibe and mysticism of the 80s Robin of Sherwood TV series. Again, there's a potential base or gang building aspect to that which could be a lot of fun.

Could you tell me more about the city management system you mention, and how that might look for a Romans vs Celts game?

In Aegean all of the PCs come from the same city so they have a vested interest in working together. The city management rules cover things like getting elected to the city's council and building new features. The city has characteristics (Military, Culture, Produce, Trade, Resources) and a ruler with some skills who can make rolls for e.g. trading or going to war. PCs elected to the council take charge of one of the characteristics and can use their skills to roll for the city, e.g. a PC could roll Culture with their Vigour skill to host games to bring in more money. Usually the PC has better skills than the ruler so it makes sense to try and take charge.

There's also rules for stealing the city's funds and building statues to your own glory! This all feeds back to the characters as most of the careers need the city to have a feature before a PC can take it. So a PC can't become a soldier unless the city has a training ground, or become a merchant unless there's a marketplace.

For a Roman invasion game I could see the existing system working quite well but maybe with a focus at a larger scale — so not just city management, but a whole expanding or defending your region kind of minigame.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I like giving the players the option to succeed at a personal cost. Aegean is very much a balancing act for the players. You can choose to gain Risk — kind of like hit points — to succeed but gain enough Risk and you can seriously injure or even kill your character with an unlucky injury roll. But maybe in this situation it was worth it? It's up to the player to figure that part out.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Right now I've just finished running a Kickstarter for a supplement to the Aegean line. This is the Isle of Pelops, which will be a guide to the important people and places of the Peloponnese along with an accompanying adventure. Format will be 6" by 9" hardback and it will be around 180–200 pages. You can read about it here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoo-goff/aegean-the-isle-of-pelops

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

• You can follow me on Blue Sky which I post to semi-regularly.
• The we evolve website has information on the games and supplements I've published .
• There's also an Aegean Facebook group which gets occasional updates and some conversation around the game.

I'm Rich, the director of Hatchlings Games, consultant at Tattered Bear, and recently the founder of Hatched Games, a starter indie video game studio. After studying for an MA in creative writing, I established a roleplaying group for local teens called "The Hatchlings".

After running the group for a couple of years, the kids insisted that I design an RPG for myself. Inspired by my work for a Deaf charity, I worked with my friends in the community to develop Inspirisles, a groundbreaking ttrpg that teaches sign language as you play.

What do you like best about designing games?

For me, it's the collaborative nature of the work. I'm a natural extrovert, so getting to do something I'm passionate about with a group of like-minded creatives is kind of special. I tried novel writing straight out of college, but its solitary requirements just didn't suit me. With ttrpg design, I have the best of both worlds, and when I'm not managing a team, I'm working in social spaces, such as cafes and libraries.

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

I like to keep VERY busy, with my creative energy often cementing over whatever mental health struggles I'm experiencing. We've just concluded crowdfunds for BOW, a duet journaling card game, and Argo-0, a retro-futuristic odyssey of myth and mechs. Looking to next year, we have our first foray into folk horror with Preservation Tapes, an anthology and solo ruleset for recently published Cryptid Creeks, the final game in the sign language trilogy called Underisles, and Cryptid Cities, the sequel to Creeks set a decade later (think Stephen King's IT). Beyond next year, we're hoping to work on a couple of popular IPs, publish games by other creators, and establish a game design workshop for teens.

Can you tell me more about workshops for young creatives?

I've been wanting to establish a game design workshop for young creatives since The Hatchlings group disbanded during Covid. I plan to work with Cat McDonald of Peach Garden Games, using the Carta system to teach kids how to make a simple explorative journalling RPG. The system allows designers to place virtually any theme over the mechanics, so it should make for a really intuitive workshop.

What experiences are you trying to give to players?

I started making games in the first place because of The Hatchlings, and have been designing to accommodate them ever since. I don't think the next generation of roleplayers are considered enough, possibly because publishers don't feel there's enough money in games for all ages. I hope to prove them wrong, and to some degree I believe the Isles ttrpgs are doing just that!

I feel the fun in our RPGs stem from the core themes of freedom and camaraderie. Freedom to explore ideas and actions you couldn't in real life. Camaraderie in working together to achieve collective goals while still feeling that individual achievement.

Designing for younger players requires an economy of language and layout. For instance, with Cryptid Creeks we were careful to describe the mechanics in a straightforward way without ever restricting, or “dumbing down” the content. I feel this is a good principle for writing for any age, as it pushes you to make the most accessible ruleset possible. Accessibility can also be translated to the layout. We use using single columns, readable fonts, colour-coded page edges, and clearly defined text boxes. So when we talk about designing for all ages, we’re talking as much about accessibility.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

We have just published Cryptid Creeks, our Carved from Brindlewood RPG inspired by Gravity Falls. You can find the digital version on itch.io and order the hardcovers from our website. It’s proved a deeply personal project to design, and I believe that passion will come through in the final game.

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

• Website: https://www.hatchlingsgames.co.uk
• Itch.io: https://hatchlingdm.itch.io
• Discord: https://discord.gg/w3qfrWH9Gv
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hatchlingdm.bsky.social

I am an archetypal aging nerd: hetero-cis white man, mid-40s, beard, autistic traits but no diagnosis, too much weight around the middle. I like games of all kinds and real ale. My publishing company is Certain Death.

What do you like best about designing games?

I am driven to create games by a terrible compulsion. I can't stop. But I do also enjoy it -- I like making the sort of thing that I think ought to exist. Like part of the design of Bleak Spirit was the conviction that other Soulslike RPGs were missing the point by focusing on combat, or death-and-rebirth, that sort of thing. None of them captured the part of Dark Souls which spoke to me, which was the inherent mystery of the setting and the piecing together of what actually happened. So I made the game that was about that.

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

As usual, I'm working on a bunch of stuff at once. I'm still doing the writing for Threadcutters, which is a collaboration with the artist Galen Pejeau (who is the current hotness these days); we kickstarted it earlier this year so I do actually need to cross the i's and dot the t's on that one.

I'm writing Crucible, a solo game inspired by roguelikes in the Nethack/Stone Soup vein; I'm particularly pleased with the way it uses cards to bring back recurring elements and loaded questions to build information about the setting as you go. (In this way it inherits from See Issue X, which also uses those elements but in a less focused way.)

And I've just started writing some third-party content for Pitcrawler, a duet game by Macguffin and Co., since they're running a game jam for it starting next month. After doing some gloomy, violent, introspective games it's nice to do something fun, blending violence and silliness like 1980s gamebooks.

I am not employed by, affiliated with, or endorsed by Macguffin and Co. I have to say that or I'll get into trouble.

Can you tell me more about how you are using cards in Crucible?

Crucible starts with very little setting information. You have a deck of 40 blank index cards, an empty journal (or text file), and a couple of questions to get you started. You deal cards from the deck to randomise the layout of the floor you're exploring, roguelike style, so they function as a map. But also you write on each card as you explore the kind of thing that it is — a powerful enemy, a portal, a small treasure, etc. — and you keep the same deck between runs, so the more runs you do the more you fill out the kind of place the Crucible is, and the more information you'll create about what the Crucible is meant for, and what sort of world created a place like it.

This is an evolution of the system in See Issue X, where the constant recycling of cards is a parallel to the constant recycling of elements from a superhero's comics continuity. Here the recycling of cards creates an 'emergent vibe', so to speak.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I mean, it depends on the game. The compulsion that drives me to create also forbids creating the same thing twice, so every game I make is unlike all the others. (This makes marketing very difficult.) In Pigsmoke the fun is in playing out a sitcom: the moves and system are designed to create that vibe. In Attorneys at Jaw it's about trying to solve impossible problems with a very limited skill set. In Gravity it's about mounting tension and diminishing options.

I'm a very versatile designer.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

Right now I'd like to promote Gravity. It's my newest complete work (although it's not quite finished -- it still needs art and a few other odds and ends) and it's one of the best games I've ever designed. It uses a modified version of No Dice, No Masters to create a system where the tension keeps mounting and as it does so that characters' ability to deal with it is further and further constrained, culminating in a dramatic climax. It's good stuff.

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

I can be followed on Bluesky at @potatocubed.bsky.social, and my games can be purchased from https://potatocubed.itch.io.

I’m James Wallis and I was big in the 90s. I set up and ran Hogshead Publishing, the first successful UK RPG publisher since Games Workshop, re-releasing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as well as SLA Industries and Nobilis. I also designed and published the first modern ‘story game’, meaning a GM-less rules-light narrative-heavy single-session RPG or post-RPG: The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, in 1998, predating the Forge by a couple of years. I set up Dragonmeet (with friends) and chaired it for the first three years; I set up the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming and ran that for its first twenty years; I wrote the game-history books Board Games In 100 Moves (with Sir Ian Livingstone) and Everybody Wins. I co-host the RPG podcast Ludonarrative Dissidents. And more, but that’s enough for a start.

What do you like best about designing games?

Of all the artforms, games are the only one that’s interactive, where the observers of the art are also participants in its creation^(*). So being a game designer isn’t showing off, like painting or film-making or writing a book, you’re inviting people to come and collaborate with you. You’re building a piece of art that’s also a tool for the creation of more art. And that’s amazing.

(*) Okay, interactive theatre as well perhaps, but I’d argue that derives more from games than it does from theatre.

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

My main project for the last year isn’t a game at all, it’s a trade body for the UK and Irish tabletop games industry. It’s called it BIG TABLE (British & Irish Game Trade Association) and it’ll represent all elements of our industry in an increasingly competitive market. We’ve got so used to living with the gaping holes in our knowledge that we don’t even notice them any more. How big is the UK and Irish games industry? How many people does it employ? Is it growing or shrinking? What was the best-selling game in the UK and Ireland last year? I can’t tell you, I don’t know anyone who can tell you, and for an industry that turns over nine figures a year that’s a ridiculous situation.

We need to talk to each other more, we need to understand the challenges that face us (new EU regulations on product safety are coming in this month—do you know about them?) and we need to realise that we gain more from cooperating than from competing.

Big Table will launch in early 2025, and you can find out more about our aims, sign up for updates and fill out a short survey about what we can do for you at our website https://www.bigtable.games

Can you tell me more about who runs BIG TABLE?

It’ll be a non-profit run by a board that’s elected by the members. The plan is to include the whole UK&I games industry: all sectors and all tiers. So we’ll cover RPGs, board games, wargames and minis, mass market and more, and everyone from publishers and distributors to retailers, games cafes and conventions. It won’t have a specific RPG focus because RPGs are a small fraction of the industry, but they’re an important part of the mix and they punch well above their weight in terms of creativity and participation.

What experience(s) are you trying to give to players?

I’ve always gone for the meta, I’ve always been about taking a step back and asking how something works, how we can understand it better, and how it can be done differently. The first thing I published professionally in the games industry was the first journal about interactive story-making systems (Interactive Fantasy, now a free download from DriveThruRPG). Munchausen was an extension of that: why in 1998 were all RPGs still based on the paradigm that Gygax and Arneson created in 1974, and what happens if we moved away from that? With Big Table I’m doing the same thing again, only looking at the business of games rather than the creative end of it.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

I’m really proud of the work I’m doing with Greg Stolze and Ross Payton on Ludonarrative Dissidents, our RPG podcast. We’re all game designers, and each episode is a deep-dive on one particular RPG or supplement, taking it apart to see how it works from a design perspective, and putting it back together to understand how people play it. We’re about a third of the way through our third season now and I think we’ve really hit our stride.

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

• Big Table is https://www.bigtable.games
• Ludonarrative Dissidents is https://www.ludonarrativedissidents.com and also has a Discord server where I’m pretty active.
• Bluesky as @jameswallis.bsky.social
• My games are available on DriveThru and Itch, just search on ‘James Wallis’.

• Jonathan Bagelman
• Lilith White
• Anja Smith
• Robin Russell
• Brennan Taylor

Safety Discussion

We like to start with a safety discussion to make sure that we are all on the same page about elements which we would like to see (or would not like to see) in a game. Something which is new for this kind of game is the 'spiciness' level of a romance. We decided to cap the spiciness level at ‘sensual’. So our stories might be wholesome, sweet, or sensual, but not venture into ‘steamy’. In the event I don't think we ever progressed beyond 'sweet'.

The adventures take us through six chapters of our story plus an epilogue. My five players sat in a circle and each played the protagonist of their own story, the paramour of the player to their right and the trouble of the player to their left. While playing, we ran the introduction for each story, the encounter for each story and so forth. For the purposes of writing up the stories here I have collected each set of chapters together to make cohesive stories.

Stories

1. Wartime Thriller with wounded paramour under time pressure
2. Sci-Fi Thriller with a tortured artist paramour and misunderstandings
3. Medieval paranormal romance with a captivating paramour and a love rival
4. Victorian Rom-com with an independent paramour and a busybody
5. Adventure thriller romance with an astonishingly beautiful paramour and a dangerous ex

Shot Down by Love

A Wartime Thriller with time pressure

• Protagonist: Lt Tommy McIntyre, RAF pilot. His problem is pride, and he needs forgiveness. Played by Jonathan.
• Paramour: Carol, resistance fighter, a wounded hero. Played by Lilith.
• Trouble: Time pressure, played by Brennan.

Introduction

It is WW2, in the skies over France. Tommy McIntyre is an RAF fighter pilot escorting bombers. There is a desperate dogfight and he has to bale out over occupied France. Time is running out as the nazis try to catch him. His pride is wounded as he shouldn’t have been shot down. He needs forgiveness because the bomber he was protecting was shot down too and they were captured. Perhaps McIntyre can rescue them? We see a montage of the bomber crew being captured, McIntyre meeting up the resistance and starting to work with them on plans.

Encounter

We see Tommy in a basement used by the resistance to meet safely. He is preparing for a rescue mission to recover the bomber crew. He sees Carol, whose arm is wrapped in a sling. She waves off the medic and comes over to Tommy. She is concerned for his loss, and will do everything in her power to help. Tommy is encouraged by this offer. The sound of tank tracks rumble by outside.

Carol eyes him up and down and says “You’re very brave”

“You’re brave too”

“Not brave enough…”

Complications

We see them outside the prison, as Tommy and Carol are preparing to go in. They can see a division of troops are moving into the area, so they are going to need disguises.

They take out a couple of guards and steal their clothes, but she finds it hard to get her wounded arm into the clothes, and can’t hold her arm properly without the sling. Tommy thinks this is going to give them away, and tells her that she can’t come with him. She is a little resentful that Tommy has told her to stay behind.

First kiss

They return after successful scouting. They find themselves hiding in an enclosed space. Close to each other. Very close. Carol says “I’m sorry that I didn’t leave, but I remembered that my arm was injured because I went alone…”

“Dinna fash lass” Tommy replied “I was very appreciative of your company”

Carols eyes linger on his face, her good arm is brushing gently against his arm. “You’re going to get your people back. You’re going to be able to make amends for your mistakes”.

She squeezes his hand, and he pulls her in for a kiss. “For luck”.

Catastrophe

In the midst of the operation, they are sneaking the POWs out of the location on a truck and they reach a checkpoint and it all goes south. Tommy and Carol are both dragged out of the truck and taken off to be interrogated separately.

Happily ever after

The interrogation is interrupted by an RAF raid. The bombs rain down, the German guards run to the shelter and leave them to die, but one bomb blows out the side of the prison block. They are able to escape and recover their missing bomber crew too. We have a montage of them meeting up with the resistance again, travelling across France, over the Pyrenees, into Spain, following the well-worn escape trail. Tommy and Carol work together well, and they end the adventure arm in arm, and completely in love.

The Muse of Mars

A sci-fi Thriller with misunderstandings

• Protagonist: Sonya, a comms specialist who has control issues and wants security. Played by Lilith.
• Paramour: Crow, a tortured artist who is looking for a new muse. Played by Anya.
• Trouble: Misunderstandings. Played by Jonathan,

Introduction

We are on Mars. We can see a domed city and there is a sandstorm blowing outside. We zoom in on a person in an EVA suit walking out to a relay tower. There is a comms communication “Sonya, get back inside, it is too dangerous “

She replies “No, I can handle this, let me do my job”

After she repairs the array we see her get back, get chewed out by her boss and then retires to her apartment. On the face of it there is a cosy little space for her, but the bills are building up. That overtime work and hazard pay isn’t cutting it.

Encounter

Sonja goes to the Martian clubs to blow off steam. She is taller than average, which attracts attention but she is ambivalent about. Martian thump music is playing, red dust falls from the rafters. She is dancing, and then when she takes a break at the bar her phone pings. Someone has sent a digital sketch of herself on the dance floor. The angle is super flattering to her and accentuates her height beautifully, in a way that she hasn’t seen before.

Glancing around there is a figure dressed all in black, with a growing stack of glasses and a drawing tablet. She walks over “did you send me this?”

Crow looks up from his drawing and says “Oh good, it worked, can I get you a drink? My name is Crow. I’ve been stuck in a rut with no creativity for ages, then I saw you on the dance floor and I was inspired. Bartender? My tab - whatever she wants” he gestures wildly.

Sonya feels seen in a way that words haven’t got through before. The rendition of her is vibrant and feels more real than her image in the mirror. They fall into deep conversation.

Complications

It is some time later, and Crow has sent some insistent messages about his desire to draw her again. There is a misunderstanding with scrambled comm signals. Sonya thinks she has messaged Crow to say “you don’t get to tell me to do a damn thing. You don’t get to take priority”, but misdialed, and is actually sending that message to her boss when she writes those words!

Crow is sulking because he doesn’t get a reply and thinks he is being ghosted.

Sonya’s boss is furious with Sonya and she doesn’t really understand why, but she’s being put on extra duties with no overtime.

First kiss

Sonya is at the club again. It’s getting late. She’s upset because she was reprimanded over the message she accidentally sent to her boss. She is on probation now, and texted Crow for a meet and talk.

Crow is running late, and apologises. They know they’ve messed up, and takes on her tab from the bar tender. She says that Crow doesn’t have to do that, but Crow insists. Apparently he has just sold a major art exhibition to someone on Earth. It’s a LOT of money.

So money isn’t a problem. The problem is that he F-ed up with her, and he needs to fix that.

Sonya says she can’t spend all her time being his muse. She has bills to pay and needs her job.

“You don’t have to pay those bills. I’ve got them” Crow says.

“I can’t ask you to do that”

“You didn’t ask. I offered. I make art, and then it’s gone. But what is the point of art without the heart… The people on Earth will buy my art because they want exotic stuff from Mars. But that doesn’t matter. You matter”

Sonya leans in and kisses him.

Catastrophe

Crows art shipment doesn’t arrive at earth. There has been a mix-up and it has been sent out to the outer planets. As a result of this the advance Crow has had is cancelled, and Sonya’s bills remain unpaid.

She had trusted Crow and it has all gone wrong.

Happily ever after

The missing art shipment doesn’t arrive at Earth, but is found by an eccentric millionaire collector in the outer planets who loves it and meets the payments. Crow is able to make the payments for her bills just before she is evicted.

Sonya resolves the job issue by quitting, and taking control of her life by settling into her secure relationship with Crow, with whom she lives happily ever after.

We wonder whether she asks Crow “to draw her like one of his Venusian girls.”

Which Witch?

A paranormal medieval romance with a love rival

• Protagonist: Tara of Stonewall, who bears the shame of the times she failed. Played by Anja.
• Paramour: Lady Marie Albans, a woman of almost unearthly charisma. Played by Robin.
• Trouble: Sir Cedric, a rival for the affection of Lady Marie. Played by Lilith.

Introduction

Tara of Stonewall is seen in the dark woods. There is a child crying in the woods, with fey creatures bearing down on them - but Tara is there with pre-christian magic which fends them off and she rescues the child. Tara takes the child back to Stonewall, the free town of merchants and traders, and accepts her payment.

She returns to her house on the outskirts of town. There are herbs and plants all around. She is clearly exhausted. She feels guilt and shame for the times when she failed against the fey. She won’t give herself time to rest now. She needs some joy in her life because the fight is day in and day out.

Encounter

Tara lives outside the wall because she is persecuted by the church. She is appreciated by individuals but doesn’t have a welcome inside the town boundaries. At home she hears a very insistent knock at the door.

The Lady Marie Albans is standing outside. She has wild blonde hair, eccentric clothing and a frazzled look to her. She says in a Scottish accent “You’re the witch”. It’s a statement, not a question.

“And you’re standing outside a witch's door. What do you need?”

“I need a witch. Can I come in?” She swans in. “Here’s the deal. Someone has stolen something from me that I need to find. It’s the kind of thing that I can’t go to the watch about. It’s a magical charm of mine. So I need someone who can sense that magic. It’s been hidden from me (rude)”

“I don’t work for free…”

“What sort of payment do you want? I can pay in whatever you want”

Complications

Tara and Marie have gone out to start searching for the missing necklace when Cedric the noble shows up looking for Marie.

Cedric asks how she is, and Marie says in a too-hurried way “I’m fine, I’m just fine, nothing’s wrong, nothing’s ever wrong”

He asks to be introduced to Tara, and recognises her as a witch. He is being extremely polite to her.

Marie asks him whether he has seen the lapis necklace, and he hasn’t, but she accepts his offer of help in looking. He is after all polite, wealthy, well connected.

First kiss

A little later Tara and Marie are outside the village. While Cedric proceeds into the village, Tara decides to cut to the chase. “How’s your craft?”

“That is a complicated and dangerous question” Marie replies, “and we are complicated and dangerous people” magic sparks from her fingers. “I’ve got enough to keep me going for now, but without that necklace I’ve lost my connection to home, and that’s where my magic comes from. So I really, really need to find it”

Tara says “Your block will be a hard scry, as I don’t have a strong connection to it. But if it’s connected to you, there is a way I can get a stronger connection to you” Tara looks at her, and both of them know what she’s talking about.

Tara leans in for a kiss, Marie takes control of the moment by gripping her chin and pulling her in. “Right,” she says “Now let’s get to work”

Catastrophe

Cedric finds the missing necklace in Tara’s cottage, and brings the evidence to Marie - clearly Tara has stolen it and is trying to trap her! In that moment Marie looks betrayed.

Happily ever after

Tara chooses to use powerful magic to prove her innocence, calling upon invocations to enforce justice in this place; that the guilty might be consumed in flame and the innocent saved. A conflagration erupts, surrounding Tara and Cedric with fierce magic flames. As the magic fades, we see Cedric burned and dead, and Tara standing there scorched and somewhat surprised. She felt that the blood of children she had not been able to save in the past would require justice to be enacted on her too, but perhaps not?

Marie says “we are not defined by our failures, but by how we learn from them” and she pulls her towards her for a deep, loving kiss.

A Victorian Adventure

A Victorian rom-com with a busybody

• Protagonist: Sophia Bradwell. An insecure shopkeeper in London, out of place because of her yorkshire accent. Desperately wishes for a life of adventure. Played by Robin.
• Paramour: Anne, an adventuress. Played by Brennan.
• Trouble: Lady Rosamund, the owner of the shop and a busybody who wants to run Sophias life for her. Played by Anja.

Introduction

There is a charming little London shop front, as if from a children’s story. We follow a beautiful well-dressed woman going inside, and she dumps her bag in the arm of the shop assistant inside the door and sweeps inside. Meet Sophia Bradwell. We see a montage of the life of this poor shop assistant. People shoving dresses at her, complaining shrilly at her “No not that one, the other one”, dumping more stuff on her. Her face is getting longer as the day goes on.

As the day ends she sends the last customer off with her cheery Yorkshire accent. “Have a lovely night, thank you for coming” and leans back on the door and slides down to the floor with a look on her face that says “what have I done?”

There is a knock on the door and Lady Rosamund, the landlady peers in. “Are you open dear?”

“Oh yes, just wait a minute” and Sophia jumps up and opens up again. Lady Rosamund gives a whole spiel of gossip, and asks how Sophia is doing then completely ignores her and leaves. Sophia collapses again. Her life is busy and wretched. She is surrounded by the beautiful and well put together people and in contrast she feels like a nobody with nothing.

Encounter

A woman comes to the shop who isn’t dressed like most of the women who arrive here. She is dressed like an adventuress. Very practical clothes with a slightly masculine look but cut for a woman. She is looking through hats.

“Can I help you find anything?”

“I’m looking for a practical outdoor covering. Travelling overseas on a European tour”

“Well, this one will work well, I can take the bow off so it doesn’t clash with your ensemble”

Sophia is feeling quite flustered in the face of this self-assured woman who is going to be travelling the world. She runs into the back of the shop, looking for things to trim the bow.

The woman takes the hat, and invites Sophia for tea. Sophia thinks that would be wonderful. The woman turns the shop sign to ‘closed’ and says “Come with me”.

Complications

Sophia is coming back after the tea, and finds Lady Rosamund waiting. The happy look on Sophia’s face crashes off as sees her landlady by the closed shop door.

Lady Rosamund had heard gossip around town that Sophia has been having tea with the libertine. Sophia denies all knowledge, but Lady Rosamund continues with her earnest desire to look after Sophia and protect her. Doesn’t want people to get the wrong impression, the thought of hanging around with that sort. She has wild ideas. She is a suffragist for goodness sake.

Doubt has been sown in Sophia’s mind. Is it socially dangerous for her to be associated with this adventurous woman?

First kiss

It’s a while later. There has been a push and pull, a back and forth, and Sophia has been scared off a little. But right now they are in Kensington Palace Gardens. Anne is talking about Tibet and Sophia says “I wish I had your life”.

Anne looks at her and says “Well, I hate doing things by myself. Why don’t you come with me?”

“Do you really mean that?”

“I do”

“Just walk away from my shop and my landlady and traipse across the world with you?”

“Exactly”

“Why me?”

“Because you are delightful”

“You can’t possibly mean that. You are amazing, incredible, iconic. You are the most incredible person I’ve ever met!”

“I think you will be an amazing adventuress if we get you out of your shell”

“You can’t know how badly that’s what I’ve wanted. To see the world…”

Anne reaches out her hand to Sophia, and then pulls her in for a kiss.

Catastrophe

Lady Rosamund saw that kiss! She is the biggest gossip and busybody in town. Sophia arrives back at the shop and Lady Rosamund is very disappointed. She doesn’t know whether she can continue to let the shop to someone who is associating with such a radical person. She is also going to let the geographical society know about these improprieties. Sophia will have to return to Yorkshire.

It is all for Sophia’s own good.

Happily ever after

We see Anne, with her bags packed for her next trip going up the boarding ramp of a steamer. Off to her next destination.

Sophia comes flying up the pier behind her, bags and everything slung over her back.

She gasps out breathlessly “She threatened to throw me out and I told her where she could stick her lease! I want to come with you! I want everything! I want adventure and excitement and I want you. I want YOU. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my own life”

Sophia grabs Anne and this time it is Sophia that pulls Anne in for a kiss. Then they board the ship together.

Diplomat’s Dilemma

A contemporary thriller with an evil ex

• Protagonist: James, a diplomat assigned to Prague. He has unresolved anger, and wants recognition for his work. These two things may be connected. Played by Brennan.
• Paramour: Diana, an breathtakingly beautiful local woman. Played by Jonathan.
• Trouble: Anatoli, a russian mobster who is the ex- of Diana. From her point of view, not his! Played by Robin.

Introduction

James is a British diplomat in Prague. We see him meeting Anatoli, and paying him a large sum of money. Anatoli is dismissive and not threatened at all by James, who is paying off the Russian mob.

“Here is the final payment”

“Do you think this takes you off the hook?”

“I’m hoping”

“We never forget our contacts James. We will see you again”

We see James gritting his teeth with his unresolved anger, “OK, Anatoli” and after Anatoli leaves he punches the wall.

James wants recognition as a good diplomat, and he’s been overlooked in the past.

Encounter

It is a party at the embassy. Diana walks in and she is breathtaking. She has a little black dress and long black hair cascading halfway down her back. She walks right up to James.

“You are the diplomat I hear”

“Your outfit is amazing”

“It’s expensive but worth every penny. I like the best. Fine clothes, fine cars, fine… men - like you.”

James gets a little flustered, but then offers her a drink. She takes a martini, shaken not stirred. He tries to be charming, and she hangs on his every word.

Complications

Diana and James are deep in conversation when Anatoli materialises out of the crowd in a very sharp suit. He puts his arm possessively around Diana. “Good evening, Diana”, and she replies “Good evening, Anatoli. So good to see you again”

Anatoli turns to James “James, my friend, you show up in the strangest places, with interesting company. May I have a word with you in private?”

Anatoli guides him out of the main ballroom and out to the terrace, then puts his hand on James’ shoulder. “You don’t know what you are getting yourself into my friend. I suggest you don’t proceed any further along this path”

“What path might this be?”

“You don’t think I didn’t see how she was looking at you? She is the most beautiful woman in the room. But I look out for what is mine, and SHE… is mine”

First kiss

This is more clandestine scene. Diana and James are meeting in secret in a cheap apartment which James has rented. They have been exchanging sexy texts and it is getting dangerous for them, even though Diana has a burner phone.

“I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up” James says. “I’m really scared about Anatoli”

“Anatoli thinks he owns me, but nobody owns me” Diana says, her chin lifted proudly. “Maybe something needs to be done about him”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well, I can get close to him…”

“He’s a very dangerous man. You have a plan”

“Yes - you will need to distract him though.”

“What does a woman like you see in a man like me?”

“Anatoli has spoken of you and I was intrigued…”

James starts to feel the recognition that he is looking for. She puts her hand on his shoulder, he puts his hand on her waist and pulls her in for a long, lingering kiss.

Catastrophe

Anatoli takes James for a walk. Down by the canal. It isn’t a walk James can refuse to take. Anatoli has that “I warned you to walk away and you didn’t” conversation - and coshes James round the head and throws him off the bridge and into the canal!

Happily ever after

We see Anatoli and Diana face to face in a room. Anatoli is red-faced and shouting at her, telling her that he has murdered James.

Suddenly James bursts in, soaking wet. Anatoli turns and draws his gun; James grabs his arms and they wrestle with the gun which suddenly goes off. For a moment both bodies collapse and lie still, then James alone rises, shakily.

Diana flies into his arms. “We must flee the country, my love” and thats what they do, together.

Playtest Insight

The personified troubles were easier to work with than the abstract troubles.

Definitely like the idea of a ‘Comeuppance’ chapter where the trouble is resolved.

Sometimes we didn’t manage to lean into the theme as much as we expected. For instance the Muse of Mars was due to be a thriller, but it didn’t really have thriller elements brought into it. Perhaps a reminder at each chapter to lean into the theme of your story, and for the trouble to reflect the theme as well.

Hi! I’m David F Chapman. I’ve been playing RPGs for over 40 years, and writing and developing RPGs for nearly 25 (if you don’t count my earlier attempts). I’m probably best known as the line developer for Conspiracy X 2.0 for Eden Studios, and for developing and writing the Doctor Who RPG for Cubicle 7 Games, as well as creating the system (Vortex) that powers it. I’ve also worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Army of Darkness, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Star Trek Adventures, and ACE, as well as my own personal project - WILD: Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming - a game of dreamshare technology that was Kickstarted about four years ago. I’m currently a full time producer at Cubicle 7 Games.

I also started the #RPGaDAY initiative eleven years ago, a series of prompts every August to get people talking online in a positive way about our hobby and to bring people together.

What do you like best about designing games?

I get very twitchy if I’m not creating something, and designing games allows so many avenues of creativity, from developing a storyline and plots, to creating or elaborating upon a world, to working on rules systems to enhance the game. As a producer, I also get to help determine which products are being worked on, how they look, elements of the graphic design and commissioning art and writers who bring worlds and stories to life. Also, I’m a bit of a control freak, so I enjoy putting all the bits together, though I really just enjoy the writing most of all.

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

That’s a really tricky one as I can’t say what I’m actually working on at this very moment - NDAs and all, nor can I talk about what’s next.

Most recently I’ve been sorting out the final stages of The Laundry RPG based upon Charles Stross’ The Laundry Files novels. We Kickstarted it earlier this year, and we’re very close to getting the four main books into the hands of the backers. I hope they enjoy it, and particularly enjoy all the little gags and nods in the text that should bring a smile to fans of the series. It’s a really cool balance of horror, humour, spies, technology, and horrible bureaucracy!

Outside of Cubicle 7, I keep dreaming of more WILD books, but that’s so far off it feels like another life.

Can you tell me more about WILD

WILD has been my dream project which I’d been working on for nearly 10 years when Stoo Goff volunteered to help Kickstart it. I was inspired by the movie Inception, and a little frustrated that the dream worlds the characters went into were not more fantastic. WILD allows characters to use dreamshare technology and go into dreamscapes to gain information, help overcome problems, solve crimes, and more, but the dreamscapes can be mundane or… well, wilder! The game is powered by Tarot, and there’s a specially designed Tarot deck illustrated by Gareth Sleightholme that not only illustrates elements of the game but also chronicles the backstory of the world and how the technology was developed.

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

I really hope that players of WILD get to experience something different to mainstream roleplaying games. The worlds can be as weird and wild as you like, the only limit is the imagination of the person whose dreamscape you’re in. Go into the mind of someone with little imagination and start changing things and summoning dragons and so on, and they’ll realise they’re dreaming and wake. Also, there are weird archetypes, the sort that Jung talked about, who exist deeper in the dreams who hope to ride onieronauts back to the waking world.

Also, you get the additional fun of being able to play it solo, with the dreamscapes being formed through the draw of a Tarot card.

Is there anything you would like to promote right now?

You can find WILD on the dedicated website https://www.wildrpg.com, but Stoo Goff, who ran the Kickstarter for me and sorted printing also has other games - especially Aegean, his game of epic Greek mythology. We’ve played so many games of it, including in settings other than Ancient Greece, and it’s great. He’s got a Kickstarter running at the moment for a new supplement https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoo-goff/aegean-the-isle-of-pelops

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

You can find me on most social media platforms (except X) with the handle Autocratik, and I have a site at https://www.autocratik.com which is mostly my ranting, nostalgia trips, and continuing my obsession with The X-Files.

So what elements stay the same, and what will change?

Tropes

I still want to have a range of tropes, but in deference to the source material I’ve removed the children’s stories from the list of tropes. I’ve had a few discussions on Bluesky and elsewhere, but almost all of the books that involve children would be classed as Young Adult literature now, with protagonists in their early teens.

So I think I’ll have four trope types, and I’ll adjust some of the tropes within each of those if necessary to make them a better fit for post-apocalyptic survival stories.

• Young Adult
• Heroic
• Grim
• Horror

Home Becomes Utopia

In The Long Road Home, the players create together the home which the characters set out from at the beginning of their story, and to which they are returning at the end. The sights, sounds and smells of home.

By contrast, in the post-apocalyptic game the party of characters is not returning home after completing a quest. They are trying to reach a utopia... a land of peace and plenty, a respite from the world that they find themselves in. Examples that come to mind are the titular White Mountains from the first of the Tripod books by John Christopher, or the beautiful valley in Mad Max: Fury Road that Furiosa is hoping to find.

Touchstones will be things that they are hoping for in that future place - safety, food, comfort, love...

Settings

I think There should be a number of potential settings reflecting how recently the apocalypse took place and thus how much time there has been for society to rebuild. The further you progress along this line, the less contemporary technology is available and the more society has regressed too. Or perhaps societal breakdown is at it's peak in the first two, and technological breakdown is at it's peak in the second two?

1. It’s happening right now. Everyone is panicking and trying to get to safety.
2. It’s only just happened. Anarchy has broken loose, gangs have risen up in power.
3. It happened a while ago. Society is losing the ability to make new technology and is reverting to simpler things.
4. It happened a long while ago. Society has regressed to an agrarian subsistence level and much technology has been lost and forgotten.

It may be that as I proceed I can't see a good basis for having these distinct settings, providing a basis for locations, people-based threats, and treasures. I'm going to include them for the moment though.

Threats

We have a wider range of threats that we can call on. Threats are the source of the apocalypse, the reason why the world is so much less hospitable than it used to be. I offer these in decreasing order of likelihood (although I sincerely hope we won’t have to face any of them!)

1. Global Pandemic
2. Environmental Disaster
3. Nuclear Holocaust
4. Asteroid Impact
5. Zombie Plague
6. Robot Uprising
7. Alien Invasion

One of the questions that I’m weighing up at the moment is whether there is a significant difference between environmental disaster and asteroid impact - or if an asteroid impact might just be a proximate cause for one brand of environmental disaster. Similarly, do I want to distinguish between a freezing earth (because of climate change, nuclear winter, asteroid impact) and a searing earth (because of greenhouse effect on climate change).

Essentially these threats are there to provide genre-appropriate additional threats for the story.

Allies and... Traitors?

The Long Road Home has supporting characters that may be allies or enemies who work for the evil overlord. The latter doesn’t work so well for post apocalyptic settings. What does work well is the idea that some of the allies will crumble under pressure and turn traitor on the group. Stealing, fighting, abandoning, or betraying them when they finally lose their nerve.

So rather than simply going for an adjective, adjective, noun approach for the supporting characters, I'm going to choose a positive first adjective and a potentially troubling second adjective. This would drive home that any of the supporting characters could turn traitor given the right circumstances that trigger their motivation.

Homecoming becomes Arrival

In The Long Road Home, the characters are on their way back to their starting place, hoping to find it intact and their loved ones safe.

The Long Road to Utopia has a less hopeful approach. You are hoping that you are going to find your way to a Utopia, but you may not find all that you are hoping for. It might end in disaster, or it might be that you discover that you just have to make the utopia for yourself.

Next Steps

I've got to review a bunch of inspirational stories and films which touch on this subject area, and start fleshing out lists of locations, threats, and treasures. The ease or difficulty of populating those lists will give me an idea of which ones really want to stay in the book!

• Camilla Zamboni
  • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/czamboni.bsky.social
• Kevin Kulp
  • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kevinkulp.bsky.social
• Jen Adcock
  • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jenkatwrites.bsky.social
• Colin Mancini
  • Discord: @CoMoo

Safety Discussion

We like to start with a safety discussion to make sure that we are all on the same page about elements which we would like to see (or would not like to see) in a game. Something which is new for this kind of game is the 'spiciness' level of a romance. We decided to cap the spiciness level at ‘sensual’. So our stories might be wholesome, sweet, or sensual, but not venture into ‘steamy’.

The adventures take us through six chapters of our story plus an epilogue. My four players sat in a circle and each played the protagonist of their own story, the paramour of the player to their right and the trouble of the player to their left. While playing, we ran the introduction for each story, the encounter for each story and so forth. For the purposes of writing up the stories here I have collected each set of chapters together to make cohesive stories.

Stories

1. Frontier Thriller with a wounded paramour and misunderstandings
2. Adventure Thriller with a tortured artist paramour and an amazing ex-lover
3. Regency Thriller with a beautiful paramour and a rival who is better that you
4. Sci-fi Hallmark with a charming paramour and a busybody mother.

Broke back Canyon

Protagonist: Tex Willer. He is held back by his fear of commitment, and he really wants a sense of belonging. Played by Camilla

Paramour: Wounded hero. Played by Kevin

Trouble: misunderstandings. Played by Colin

Introduction

It is sunset on a dusty mesa. A lone figure in a large hat and practical clothing which has been in a lot of fights and never been washed. A musty, manly smell. There is a gorgeous sunset behind him as he approaches another small town where he won’t be welcome. People duck into the saloon as he passes.

He doesn’t realise it, but he looks exactly like a terrible outlaw, Harry the Kid. They always speak in general terms “You know what you did”.

As whispers grow, he lets out a manly sigh. “Just another town of small, petty people. Nobody appreciating things."

Encounter

There is a man sitting in the bar near him, with scars around his neck. Tumbleweed blows past the open saloon doors. The man says, with a strong Spanish accent “They are going to keep chasing you. You have that sort of face”. The scars indicate that he was lynched once, but it didn’t take. He introduces himself as Señor Harri El Niño. He pours a little more whiskey into Tex’s cup. They drink a little more together, then Tex pours a drink for him. They chat the night away.

Complications

Tex has set up camp by himself. As he is setting up he sees a horse walking towards him in the night, with someone barely holding himself upright. Tex is uncomfortable with the commitment of looking after someone, and walks to the injured person as they fall off their horse.

It is Harri and he has been shot.

“I don’t need any help” Harri gasps.

Tex pins him down, cleans his wound with the last of his water, and then treats the wound, extracting the bullet while Harri screams. A buzzard hops a bit further away.

Harri says “Turn me in and get the bounty on my head”

“I don’t do that. I’m going to leave you with some water here, and if we meet again you can repay me then.”

They wordlessly stare into each other’s eyes for a moment, then Harri watches Tex ride away. The buzzards hop closer.

First kiss

Tex feels terrible that he left Harri alone to recover. He doesn’t like this feeling and goes back but finds Harri missing, with all the gear. Heading towards the nearest town he is half-way there when he sees a solitary column of smoke. He approaches cautiously with his gun ready in case it is bandits who have taken Harri. He’ll go down guns blazing if he needs to, if they have killed Harri. Then he recognises the tent and hears Harri’s gruff voice. “I’ve got your tent”

Tex finds Harri’s ability to take care of himself while being a little bit vulnerable an… admirable… trait. They decide to settle down for the night, and in the chill air huddle up a bit against the cold. We draw a veil over the tent.

Catastrophe

Not long after they have been using the tent to its fully capacity, a posse turns up - and they are confused at seeing two Harry the Kid’s. “Harry the kid” they shout.

Tex looks at Harri - then turns back and realises that they are all pointing their guns at HIM. It is the first time he realises that they have been mistaking him for someone else!

Harri says “it is me that they want, not you” He turns to the sheriff “take me in, not him”

“Damn” says the sheriff. “They do look alike”

One of the posse says “perhaps we should hang them both to be sure?”

“Boy’s got a point” says the Sheriff.

Tex pointedly asks for separate cells.

They are both hogtied and bouncing on the back of the horses going into town. Grumbling to each other.

Happily ever after

They were both due to hang, but there was an attack on the small town and the sheriff’s cells burn down. In the smoke and flames they yell each other’s names. They are able to get out and make a run for it.

Harri El Niño says that he is at fault, and they should separate.

Tex disagrees. He thinks they belong together. Out on the prairie, where they can forget their ghosts.

It’s almost as if they lean in for a kiss - then they both mount their horses and as they are riding off, Harri draws his ‘Peacemaker’ and shoots at the church bell which goes ‘Dong’ and then collapses down into the church. The sound of the bell swells into an Ennio Morricone theme tune as the ride off into the sunset.

Mace Hunter, and the Underminers of Love

Protagonist: Mace Hunter, driven by loss and grief. Played by Kevin.

Paramour: Ariadne Crow, tortured artist seeking a new muse. Played by Jen.

Trouble: Selena Pray; ex-lover. Hot and she knows it, allergic to clothes, the new head of the explorers league. Played by Camilla.

Introduction

The arctic wind whips around them. Even so, Mace is still missing most of his shirt, muscles gleaming as he tries to keep his team safe from the polar bear. The snow is covered in blood, and his mentor, the father of the woman he once loved, is lying there ripped open. He says “I’ve got this” as he wades towards the bear, steely jaw and fists clenched.

Selena arrives on a snowmobile in short shorts and a fur bra. She is secretary of the explorers club and key to everything he wants. She has bright hair which flows freely.

“Oh, Mace, this was your last chance”

“You can still save his life”

She drop-kicks the polar bear and says “I’ don’t think I want to. I’m now in line to be head of the explorers league.

Mace crouches and holds the blood sodden body of his mentor. Slowly he says “I. Loved. You”

Encounter

Ariadne Crow is a cover artist who is being assigned to draw and paint Mace for a magazine feature. It isn’t supposed to be too dangerous, so she is with them on an adventure to the island of Madagascar, where Mace is searching for the lost eye of the temple of the emerald ape.

Mace says “This is no place for an artist, the jungle is deadly” and coolly grabs a snake from behind her neck and kills it.

“Clearly you can keep me safe”

“I’ll do my best, but I can’t make promises”

She finds this very compelling. It looks like she is about to say something, but then she draws that expression on his face “look at me” Mace reaches out one hand towards her face, then pulls a stinging insect out from her hair. Maintaining eye contact all the time.

Complications

We are at the League of Explorers in London. A list has been put out of missions that hopefuls can apply for, so that they could be inducted by the committee. Mace is standing looking up at the columns of the building, and the list on the door.

Selena comes out of the main doors. She is wearing a very tight black corset, long skirt slit right up the thigh.

“Mace, are you applying?”

“You know that I am”

She flaps back her skirt and puts one leg up with her high heels on a stone decoration

“I’ve just created this list as head of the Explorers League. If you want in, you have to satisfy me”. And in a breathy voice continues “and we both know that was not your forte”

Mace growls “I wouldn’t get back with you to save my life. Which co-incidentally is what you failed to do to save my mentor”

He looks at the list. As he picks a far-flung excavation she says

“Is that your assistant, who is going to take pictures of the investigation?”

“First of all, she’s an artist not a photographer. Second of all, she’s not my assistant. I’ve been saddled with her and haven’t enjoyed a single moment of it” - all the while keeping his eyes locked on Ariadne’s.

Selene stamps her foot on the ground, covers her leg and says

“Well, we’ll see who gets there first shall we?”

Mace turns to Ariadne. “You shouldn’t come along with me. I get people killed”

Selene butts in “A lot of people are already dead. I’ll see you among the corpses”

First kiss

They are underground in the salt mines below Krakow, Poland. Mace is holding a fiery torch in one hand and an ancient iron dagger in the other. The mines have been abandoned because of the mole people here, and there are bodies of men and mole people here. The dagger is from 5000BC, and is the oldest dagger there is, probably forged by the mole men.

They could escape up the rope, but Ariadne’s art supplies are behind the ranks of mole men.

Selene is ahead of them higher up in the caves.

Mace has his arm around Ariadne’s waist in that perfect poster moment.

“Keeping you safe has been the most important thing” Mace growls quietly.

He knows the art supplies are really important to Ariadne, so Mace leaps off the rope, guts one mole man with the knife, decks another with the torch and blinds them with its light. He grabs up the art supplies and completed pictures, runs back and leaps onto the rope again where Ariadne was dangling. “You should keep good care of these” he says.

Her eyes are big as saucers as they gaze intently at each other, then kiss fiercely. Then they start to climb.

Catastrophe

After kissing Ariadne, Mace continues climbing up the rope, just at the top it comes loose! He lunges and grabs the edge of the cliff ledge with one hand, while holding onto Ariadne and the dagger with the other!

And at the top we see Selena! She puts her foot on his fingers. “Oh, we are here again. Me, getting you out of trouble… if only you can let go of your baggage”

Mace looks up at her, and can see a lot of leg. “I’ve got in my hand the dagger that we both know can get me into the explorers society, and the woman I love” He pauses for thought. He goes to drop the dagger, but Selena stamps down on his fingers, and the shock causes him to drop Ariadne. Mace jumps up, getting into Selena’s face and screaming at her - and it turns into a passionate kiss returned with equal fierceness, and then passionate lovemaking!

Happily ever after

It’s an autumn day in the Explorers League. Selena is sitting there in her best F-You clothing (what there is of it), one leg draped over an arm of the chair; smugly thinking that this is the day that Mace will come along and accept from her a junior membership in the Explorers League. She has been talking up this moment and the club is full of people waiting to watch her victory.

The clock strikes midday… but there is no Mace

The camera cuts to the coach which was supposed to bring him to the club. But there is no Mace there.

The camera cuts to the apartment where Mace lives. The door is ajar, and the house is bare. Everything has gone, including the artwork made by Ariadne which he had hung in the living room.

The camera cuts to the caverns underneath the salt mines, where Ariadne sits on the throne, queen of the mole men, surrounded by blind supplicants. She hears a noise from a tunnel nearby and Mace strides out, carrying a torch and with his shirt raked by mole man claws. Across the cavern he meets her eyes and says “I’ve fought my way through these caverns to find you. I love you and never want to let you go”

Ariadne has been somewhat changed by her experiences and is bolder now. “Rule the underground with me. You must never leave me again” Mace unfurls an oil painting he was carrying “I made this painting of you” (it’s not very good) “I will never leave your side again”. He swoops his hand through the back of her hair and leans in as the mole people raise a cacophonous howl.

As a coda - it is now night in the Explorers League club. Everyone has left apart from Selena who is still sitting on the armchair, drumming her fingers. Then she slams her fist down. “How DARE you!”

Regency Risks

Protagonist: Miss Emma Harcourt; Abandonment and Redemption. Played by Jen.

Paramour: Sir Edmund DeWitt. Breathtaking but out of her league. Played by Colin.

Trouble: Lady Gloriana Templeton, a rival. Played by Kevin.

Introduction

Miss Emma Harcourt has been a big fish in a small pond. She grew up in a rural town but now she is in London at a coming out ball. She soon has a clear rival after they have both danced with the same gentleman. The rival is Lady Gloriana Templeton who is smarter, classier, better dressed… There is a lull in the refreshment and Emma makes some kind of snide remark about Gloriana, who overhears it. She turns, blue eyes like an alpine lake, blonde hair shimmering in the sun, cheekbones that you could shave with. She raises one flawless eyebrow and says “I wasn’t aware they were allowing the maids to wear such clothes”.

Emma is so aware that she is in over her head, and can’t just mess with this woman, but has to try. “They do say that some ladies use fashion to cover for their personalities”

“Well, that clearly isn’t what you’re doing”

Emma can’t handle this, and she can hear the titters of Gloriana’s coterie.

Encounter

At the ball there is a libertine rake, a terrible cad who takes advantage of young women. Emma doesn’t know about Mr Rakewell’s affairs, but Sir Edmund DeWitt knows all about him and is wants to protect Emma. They are all pairing up to play a game of Pall Mall (a precursor to Croquet). Sir Edmund emerges from the line of gallant men. His flowing blonde locks flowing in slow motion as he casually jumps the queue and speaks to Emma.

“It seems you don’t have a partner?”

Emma is close to losing it. The Edmund DeWitt is speaking to me?

Gloriana definitely notices. She was supposed to be playing with Edmund, but now she sees him assisting Emma. Her eyes narrow and lips compress. Mr Rakewell was due do play with Emma and stands disappointed. We see the shadow of his hat fall across his eyes.

Complications

The crystal chandelier is catching the light. The orchestra is playing, and the scent of flowers is in the air. Emma thinks she is winning with two people interested in her - Rakewell and DeWitt. Emma turns to look around and sees Gloriana with her friends. She has a smile of pure (fake) joy and says to Emma. “And so kind of you as well. There is a Mr Rakewell here who has been looking for you, and I hope you can spend time together”

“So friendly, so shockingly magnanimous of you” says Emma who goes to find Mr Rakewell. She looks over her shoulder and catches Gloriana giving her a super hard eye.

Edmund was half-listening and didn’t catch any of the undertones or verbal jabs. His face lights up to Gloriana. Emma now thinks that perhaps her reputation has been ruined. Gloriana looks as if she has triumphed over her rival.

First kiss

Time has passed and talk is getting out linking Emma to Mr Rakewell. Emma is started to become a social pariah. Even Mr Rakewell is pulling back a little with the whiff of scandal about her. This plays into her insecurities about abandonment.

It is another party, she is trying to approach groups of people to talk to them and they keep disappearing. She looks increasingly desolate. Gloriana is off yelling at one of her clique over some petty infraction and isn’t immediately in view. It is evening in the garden and there are cute lanterns around. She is looking at a flower bed and Edmund appears by her side.

“Miss Harcourt? The tulips are lovely around here”

She is immediately heartened that someone has come to talk to her.

He continues “I can’t help by notice that since your time with Mr Rakewell I don’t see you any more?”

“I’m afraid I’ve been grievously misled. For your own reputation you should stay away from me”

“Others might say that, but they don’t know what they are missing.” He offers his hand and takes her for a stroll in the garden. We see them kiss tenderly, silhouetted against the moon.

Catastrophe

Gloriana takes Mr Rakewell aside. “You know Edmund?”

“Yes?”

“Well, he is trying to take miss Emma Harcourt away from you. He has called you stupid and slovenly and rude."

“How dare he!”

“I love dear Emma, and it is shameful what Edmund is doing. If only someone could…”

“I certainly shall” said Rakewell “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I should have been keeping more of an eye on Miss Harcourt”.

“Take my gloves” Gloriana says.

Rakewell marches over to Edmund DeWitt, slaps him in the face with the gloves then throws them on the floor.

“I demand satisfaction, you blackguard!"

Edmund is confused, but responds appropriately “Sir Edmund DeWitt is no coward sir. Name your time”

“You are a coward sir. You went behind my back to steal my woman”

“Oh Edmund” Gloriana simpers

Rakewell continues: “Sunset tonight. My manhood is not at issue but yours Sir. People whisper it but I shall speak it. I will speak it upon your body sir.

“I look forward to hearing the last of your manhood”

Emma is firstly mortified - it is terrifying to have two men fight over you. Secondly she realises this makes her reputation much more talked about before. Plus Edmund wasn’t fighting for her honour, but his own. Excuse me?

Gloriana looks at Emma archly. “Either Mr Rakewell will lose and everybody will blame you for the duel, or the man you love will be killed and it’s all your fault”

The duel is vicious and Edmund gets stabbed and left for dead. Rakewell is a bastard who has been in many duels.

Rakewell glances over at Emma “I don’t want you either now. You’re used goods”

Blood is visible on Edmunds handkerchief. He’s going to need hospital at the very least.

Happily ever after

Emma nurses Edmund back to health after his grievous duelling injury in his country manor. They had to leave London for the remains of the season. Away from the noise and rumours and everything, they actually find love.

Come the next season they arrive arm in arm as Mr and Mrs DeWitt. Not abandoned but found, and with her honour redeemed.

Also in the next season, angry and unhappy, we see Mrs Gloriana Rakewell…

Desert Planet Domesticity

Protagonist: Jordan Zentarim; has trust issues, wants fun. Played by Colin.

Paramour: Ruby Stealheart, Charismatic singer, but has too many admirers. Played by Camilla.

Trouble: Ma Zenterim, a busybody. Played by Jen.

Introduction

Jordan lives on a single economy farming planet. It is stable and secure but boring as hell. He does lots of mechanic work on the farm, whether in the baking sun or underground with the tubes. There is a montage of him working in various environments. He is filthy, and then his ma comes along.

“Why don’t ever go into town and meet a nice girl. You work too hard, have some fun.”

Something bursts, he grabs a backup mask and hands it to her. “Mother, I don’t have time, this all needs constant work.”

“But you clean up so handsome though…” She wipes some muck off his cheek, and he smears it back on again.

“You’re not getting any younger dear” she says sadly.

“I love you TOO” and he slaps the button which closes the sliding door in front of her face and walks away.

Encounter

Jordan goes into a town to do some business and then goes to the dimly lit cantina. He was only going to stay for one drink but is suddenly captivated by the singer Ruby. She is the queen of the place. Men say that she soothes their pain. There is slow music on the guitar and her beautiful voice fills the air with a song lamenting the loss of love and the beauty of new relationships. Ruby Stealhearts is on a stage, wearing a simple dress. The passion she puts into the song is amazing. A group of men surround her sobbing. She is a ‘girl next door’ type. The song ends and there is a round of applause. Jordan asks who is singing, and asks the bartender to send her a drink. She takes the drink, and comes over to Jordan and introduces herself. She is touched by his mark of appreciation.

She likes men who are secure enough to show emotion. He tells her that he had to get away from home. He has another woman in his life who is… a presence. Ruby puts down her glass and says “I’m very good at listening. I’d be happy to hear more”. Jordan makes an excuse and leaves, playing a little hard to get. He has trust issues.

Complications

Ma is friends with the bartender and heard all about the conversation of Jordan with Ruby. She asks when he is going to bring Ruby around.

“Who?”

“The one from the bar”. Realisation dawns on his face.

“I bought one talented singer a drink. That’s all” He’s standing by the door.

“Well, I’ve got to think about my grandchildren”

“Ruby is a nobody. A background person in my life who I’ve met ONCE.”

He turns, and behind him is Ruby walking past in jeans, work clothes, big glasses. She heard everything and is in tears. “Oh, hi, I didn’t know” her voice trembles…

First kiss

Jordan seeks out Ruby, and knocks on the door of her house. She opens the door and sees a flower on the ground and a drink - the same glass and same drink that he had bought her at the bar. She smiles faintly and says “Come out”, and he pops out from round the corner. He apologises to her, and explains that the other woman he mentioned is his mother, who has been overbearing for a long time. It wasn’t about Ruby, he needs to let loose a little, and show that he isn’t just an ass.

Ruby had never met her mum, and thinks he is lucky and privileged to have one. Jordan says that she is probably right.

She grabs his hand and takes him for a walk. She wants him to know that she isn’t just a girl who sings in a bar. She doesn’t want to end up like that. They get to the little college and she tells him that she is studying to become a pilot, and she is going to explore the galaxy. She sings to make the money to learn and get free.

Suddenly he SEES her, he can SEE what she is hoping to do. He grabs her hand, and pulls her in for a kiss. She obliges after a pause when she says “You are never going to say those mean things again?”

“I promise”

It isn’t just a peck, they kiss intently on the sidewalk.

Catastrophe

Ruby has come round for meal with Jordan and his mother. Ma comes straight out with the question “I hope you don’t think less of me for asking, but how many children do you want?”

Ruby responds cautiously. “Mrs Zentarim, I don’t know yet, I think I want to travel first. I’m going to be a pioneer and explore space”

“Well, that doesn’t sound very good. Not a very stable career for a mother” says Ma.

As the conversation continues, Jordan sits helpless! He says nothing.

Ma can’t help but feel that this is too dangerous and reckless an approach for someone who is going to be a partner for her boy.

Ruby feels that Ma should be smarter about the ambitions and dreams of the young man sitting between them.

Ma can’t imagine what would give her such an idea

“Who wants desert?” Jordan tries to distract them from their increasingly barbed comments with eclairs, “With whipped cream!” He places them proudly on the table.

“That’s not what Jordan tells me” says Ruby

“He doesn’t tell you a lot of things” says Ma

“Oh, he tells me lots of things, Mrs Zendarim, after we make love…”

Ruby stands up “But if my desires to leave this hell hole are so unwelcome, perhaps I should show myself out”

“Perhaps you should”

Jordan panics and freezes. Ruby storms out. His mother storms out. Jordan is left standing with the eclairs. He takes one, and eats it sadly.

Happily ever after

Jordan moves out and surprises Ruby with an apartment of their own near the campus.

Ruby is returning from class, and they haven’t spoken in a while. Jordan bumps into her, and as she is picking up her stuff, there is velvety bag amongst it. Inside that is the key to an apartment.

“Ruby, you deserve so much better. I think we should move in together. I have my money from the farm. This is closer to the university for you. Once you’ve completed school we can fly away together. What do you say?”

There is a long pause

“You’re cooking tonight” she retorts with a smile.

Then they make out in the middle of the walkway; we see a spaceship launch in the background behind them.

A metaphor.

Playtest Insight

It seemed that there was an abrupt jump between Catastrophe and Happily Ever After. In addition, the players wanted to see the trouble get their come-uppance. What was going to happen to Ma Zentarim? You can see that stingers were put in for Selena Pray and Gloria Rakewell neé Templeton, and that is because the players wanted to include something there.

So I'm going to add a chapter between Catastrophe and Happily Ever After which resolves the Trouble. If it is a bad person, they get their comeuppance. If it is an interfering friend or parent, they come round to the idea and eventually give their blessing. Misunderstandings (or the fruit of them) are resolved. This will tentatively be called Comeuppance until I come up with a better name.

• Whitney Delaglio
• Brigitte Winter of https://scryptidgames.com
• Dustin Patrick Winter of https://scryptidgames.com
• Alessia Caviglia

Safety Discussion

We like to start with a safety discussion to make sure that we are all on the same page about elements which we would like to see (or would not like to see) in a game. Something which is new for this kind of game is the 'spicyness' level of a romance. We decided to cap the spicyness level at ‘sensual’. So our stories might be wholesome, sweet, or sensual, but not venture into ‘steamy’.

The adventures take us through six chapters of our story plus an epilogue. My four players sat in a circle and each played the protagonist of their own story, the paramour of the player to their right and the trouble of the player to their left. While playing, we ran the introduction for each story, the encounter for each story and so forth. For the purposes of writing up the stories here I have collected each set of chapters together to make cohesive stories.

Stories

1. A Hallmark adventure love triangle
2. A paranormal wartime romance
3. A frontier comedy a belated love epiphany
4. A victorian classic romance

The Fiancées Choice

A Hallmark Adventure love triangle.

Christie is our protagonist. She is wounded by insecurity and wants security. Played by Whitney.

Xander is our main paramour, a wounded hero whose wounds sometimes overcome him. Played by Brigitte.

Bryce Dallas is an additional paramour, a charming and magnetic personality. Played by Alex

Our trouble is a pre-existing relationship. Christie is engaged to be married! Played by Alessia.

Introduction

They are snowed in at a temple in the Himalayas. Christie has been leading a pilgrimage for the first time and it is all going wrong. They are snowed in and she thinks that she had to get to the destination in time to get married. This feeds into her insecurity. The pilgrimage is like a bachelor party, and everyone on the trip knows her partner. It will actually be a marriage at the end of the trip!

Encounter

The snow is piled up outside and there is nowhere to hide. People are stuck here but are still irritated more than frightened. Xander is a wounded hero, trying to keep spirits up as best as he can. Then he excuses himself and sits in a corner and turns away from everyone, silently crying. There is a love triangle in play here. Christie sees this and is about to go over when Bryce Dallas intervenes! “Hey girl, you’re doing a fabulous job. You’re keeping us together, and leading the trip really well. If you weren’t going to be married I’d be proposing myself. You’re fabulous. I’m saying it because it’s true. I dream of you.

Xander lets out an echoing sob and then buries his face.

Bryce says he’ll get a sing-song going to cheer people up.

Complications

Another couple of days have passed. The snow is still coming down and it is getting worse. But some messengers arrive. They say “Your future husband has sent help for you. Follow us because the wedding must happen”. Christie isn’t keen to leave the people she is responsible for. She insecurely tells the messengers that she might be a wife soon, but she is a friend first. She tears up a little.

Xander approachers her and says that it is an opportunity for her to be safe, and she should take that. Christie wants them to be there.

Xander and Christie both tear up.

First kiss

It’s the night before the wedding. Christie sits closer to Xander, and puts a hand on his side and says. “I know why I’m crying, but how can I help you?”. Xander is more concerned about her though. “It’s your marriage and you’re crying”.

Christie responds, wondering whether this is yet another bad sign. "It’s all gone wrong".

“Not everything” Xander says, and then he hurriedly looks away.

“What do you mean?” Christie asks.

“I shouldn’t say it” says Xander.

They are close together at the moment. It feels good. Calming. Christie touches foreheads, crying, and Xander cries too and kisses the tears off her face.

Catastrophe

The betrothed steps in with all the fuss and sees them kissing. And he isn’t angry. He is sincerely hurt. He looks at Xander “You were my best man” and at Christie “was this ever real? Or were you just running away?”

Bryce annoyingly shouts out “hey honey, how is it going?”

Christie says “I’m sorry. It wasn’t what I wanted”

Xander says it is all his fault. He is sorry and it was all a mistake, he didn’t mean it.

Bryce agrees - it is all Xander’s fault because Christie prefers him!

Christie says “this is why you can’t marry me”

“But I know my best man, and he doesn’t deserve you. You have been mean to me and you mustn’t be mean to him too. He is family to me. Christie feels that she is a really bad person… Xander has run off crying, Bryce despises her.

Happily ever after

The wedding didn’t happen. A year later both Christie and Xander found themselves at what was going to be the final destination of the wedding pilgrimage. Independently they both had an unresolved feeling in their hearts. Independently they chose to visit the dormant volcano which was the last destination before what was to be the wedding.

They eyes meet.

“It didn’t feel finished” Xander says

“I can leave” Christie replies

“This was your trip, we can… both be here?” Xander starts crying again.

“Why do you cry so much around me?” Christie asks.

“You make me feel so much”

“Feel what?”

“What do you think is happening with this volcano? It is cold up here, but there is a lot happening underneath.

Christie thinks it is like a mountain that got tired of waiting and gave up, and she doesn’t want it to be her story. “You deserve better than that, whether with me or anyone else. You are incredible - the most incredible person I’ve ever known… “ Xander trails off.

“Would you stay with me?” Christie asks.

“Yes” Xander grabs her hand and they look down into the volcano together. As they walk away we see a crack with a little bit of glow from the lava underneath.

The Last Patient

A WW2 Paranormal Romance

Protagonist: Susan. A nurse wounded by family scars, and in need of healing. Played by Brigitte.

Paramour: Captain Barbara Carol. Played by Dustin.

Trouble: Misunderstanding. Played by Whitney.

Introduction

The scene opens in a hospital room with an open window,. It is snowing outside and the hospital recently suffered an epidemic and everyone in the hospital has left. She has a background as someone who discovered her worth through caretaking. Her mother raised her alone, and Susan earned love by her care for their mother. She is caring for someone who is dead - but Susan thinks they are still alive. Captain Barbara Carol is the only one left and needs care. Susan is the only one that wasn’t affected by the contagion.

Encounter

It is morning and Captain Barbara Carol is lying on the hospital bed. Susan is there, and is the muse to the spirit of Barbara. As Susan comes in, like every day, there is a fresh, different painting on the easel And it's a picture of Susan.

Complications

Barbara doesn’t know she is deceased. Susan finds a painting this day of someone else. Someone she recognises. Another nurse. A family member. Her mother! A perfect painting of her mother as a young woman before the war, in her flower of youth. Smiling (Susan has never seen her smile). Without even thinking about Susan rips the painting off the easel and throws it into the snow. She shouts ‘how could you’ and storms out.

First kiss

Susan enters the hospital room carrying the damaged canvas. She has done her best to repair it. She sits on the edge of the bed. She sees that it is really beautiful and she had never seen her mother this way.

She hears a ghostly voice behind her which says “She had hoped that you would see her this way in time”.

Susan takes a breath, trying not to cry. Then realises the voice was behind her. There is a chill down her body that… and she kind of likes it. The spirit of Barbara drifts closer and the sensation intensifies.

Catastrophe

While the sexy shivers are going on, an enemy plane drops an incendiary bomb which crashes through the window. Fire climbs up the wall with the painting of Susan, blocks off the doorway and licks at the bed. Susan and Barbara are trapped in here. Desperate to save Barbara she drags her towards the window despite being small and Barbara is much taller than her. Choking on the smoke she hopes that despite the second floor window being high they will be able to get out. Then with a crash the ceiling comes down, she is pushed out the window and releases Barbara. She lands in the snow and sees the hospital burning down.

Happily ever after

Susan’s world is burning in front of her. Everything that she had been keeping together. She is somehow uninjured after falling two stories. She feels again the chill at the back of her neck which is now familiar. Turning round, Susan looks down and can see her body on the ground, and there is a moment of despair before looking up and she can see Barbara clearly.

Barbara is finally able to say all the things on her heart. They come bursting forth. The love and care which she experienced at Susan’s care. There is so much she wants to say and tell and show.

Susan is trying to process this when she realises that she can feel Barbara’s hand; the chill which she had felt is now heat, a full body heat. They look down at their hands clasped together.

Barbara says “I know this must be a shock, but I will walk with you and I’ll always hold your hand. We will figure out what happens next when we get there.”

Susan says “This is everything I want” and they start kissing.

Buddy Bronco

A Romantic Comedy on the Wild West Frontier

Protagonist: Buddy Bronco, wounded by unresolved anger and wanting recognition. Played by Dustin.

Paramour: Bonnie, a bandit leader and independent woman - perhaps too independent for Buddy. Played by Alessia.

Trouble: Buddy’s existing relationship with his horse (don’t ask). Played by Brigitte.

Introduction

We see a typical western town. The view zooms down the road to saloon with a horse tied up outside. The piano is dusty and sunlight streams in. There are a few people grumbling around in the bar. One man sits there doing shots of warm milk and honey. It is Buddy Bronco. He is 5ft 1” with a very large hat. He fancies himself a real rough gunslinger. He has been part of a few posse’s and thinks he knows what he is doing. His trouble is his horse - a talking horse - which leans around the door, gazes at buddy and reminds him that this place is too good for him.

Encounter

It is silent. Perhaps too silent. Then someone shouts “stop her” and a woman has stolen Buddy’s horse. Buddy dashes out and sees this. Because he’s a man of action he says "hey". His paramour Barbara is running off with his horse! She was a bandit who has known him for a while, and wanted him to join the gang… but he hasn’t been lured in. Watching her run away he realises that he is excited by the idea of someone stealing something from him.

Complications

Buddy is pursuing Bonnie on the stolen horse, when it comes to a sudden stop. “Gotta save myself, I guess” says the horse “although I’m tempted to just leave with her”. Buddy says “Do it. I’m calling your bluff”. Bonnie is very independent. Buddy’s anger bubbles to the surface. He doesn’t want the horse to saddle him with guilt. Bonnie gets back on, the horse takes one more look at Buddy and then gallops off. Buddy says “Hey…” again. “Why can’t you see me for who I truly am?”

First kiss

Jump forward in time. Buddy and Bonnie are sitting around a campfire on the prairie. There is a different horse in view. Buddy’s horse doesn’t like that! Buddy is having a frank conversation with Bonnie. he can see the fire inside of her and fears that he wants to douse it. But he doesn’t. He wants to chase after her.

Bonnie likes the chase. She says “The chase is only interesting if there is a chance that you might catch me. But you never do”.

“I’m here aren’t I?”

She stays put “but you are not catching me, not even now”

The horse snickers

“If that’s really how you feel about it, there is not much I can say. I’ll get on one of these horses and go” Buddy tips his hat, stumbles as he is getting up and falls on top of her - face to face.

Bonnie slightly smiles “It’s not that far now”

Buddy leans in for the kiss.

Catastrophe

In the middle of the kiss the horse loses his sassiness and says in a sorrowful voice “just be with her then” and runs off.

“Hey” says Buddy.

Looking over its shoulder the horse doesn’t see the cliff and runs over the edge.

“Horse!” shouts Buddy.

Without his Bronco, Buddy Bronco is only half a man. Running to the edge there is a precipitous drop to the raging river below. “Stupid horse, why would you do that? I only know the value of things that are ripped away from me”

Back at the campfire Bonnie is trying to decide whether the problem is not just the loss but that Buddy isn’t fighting for anything. She starts to regret the kiss. It isn’t his anger which is a problem (anger is a turn-on for her!) but it is the unresolved state of the anger. His inaction in the face of things is what she can’t stand.

We see Buddy throwing a tantrum because he doesn’t know what to do with his anger.

Bonnie meanwhile starts to take action, climbing down the cliff to see if she can find the horse, and fending off rocks that Buddy’s kicking is showing down on her.

Happily ever after

Down below they see horse - still alive - but heading towards a terrible waterfall. Buddy turns his anger to something productive and puts concerted efforts into toppling a dead tree which falls down and makes a barrier across the river. Buddy makes his way down and rescues horse from the tumult and for the first time the horse allows himself to be led and looks at Buddy with respect.

Bonnie had tried to get into the river to help the horse and is now in danger herself. Buddy hears her cry for help and says “I can do this all day” and tells the horse that he had been so concerned about people saw him that he had never been looking out to see what other people needed. He pushes several more logs into the river and saves Bonnie. She walks out soaked and angry “I could have saved myself!” - which is absolutely not true! Buddy just nods, then climbs up on his horse and extends a hand.

“Well, are you coming or not?”

Bonnie takes his hand and rides off with him.

An Unexpected Love

A Classic Victorian Romance

Protagonist: Florence, distraught at the loss of her love, hoping for true love. Played by Alessia.

Paramour: Xandira, a courtesan of remarkable beauty and poise. Played by Whitney.

Trouble: Florence’s mother, who is trying to control her life. Played by Dustin.

Introduction

Florence has been crying for days. She has just received news that her lover has died in the war, and she had refused his offer of marriage. She hadn’t been sure of her feelings, although her mother was keen on the marriage… but now he is dead and she feels guilty. He mother is far too invested in her relationship, a real busybody. Trying to control everything. She wants Florence to get married soon.

Encounter

Florence is walking down the street with her mother. Ahead there is a bustle of men around a fabulously elegant courtesan, Xandira. Every step she takes is walking on the clouds. Her head is held up high and there is glitter on her skin. Every man is gazing after her. She slowly turns her head towards Florence and smiles gently. Florence stops, looks at her for a long time, then turns to her mother and says in a low voice “I hate her. How am I supposed to marry if everyone is following her?” Mother says she will sort something out.

Complications

Mother expects Florence to be happy with the wonderful news she brings. An arranged marriage! Florence is still mourning though. Mother thinks she needs to get over him and he wasn’t any good. Now reason to be upset.

"But he died" says Florence.

Mother is glad that it happened which shocks Florence

Florence considers turning to the church, but mother wants her to see the men she has lined up. Florence acquiesces. Who should I marry?

Mother has employed Xandira the courtesan to help her understand how to talk to the men well.

First kiss

It is a couple of weeks later. Xandira has been tutoring her and they are getting tea in a tea shop. Florence lashes out “Why are you still here?!’ Xandira casually adds sugar to her tea. “My darling, don’t you know?” She replies.

“Don’t you have any kind of conscience in this? Why are you toying with my family in this way?”

“Toying is not the right word my darling. I’m trying to save you”

“Save me from what?”

“Your mother”

Florence stops. Looks at the closed door. “Why do you care?”

“Men are a leash and collar enough. We don’t need your mother doing that too”

Florence seems confused. She stays silent for a minute and then without announcing it steps in for a kiss. Xandira complies, the tables are knocked aside, cutlery goes flying…

Catastrophe

Later, Mother storms into Florence’s bedroom and finds them together “The wedding is planned. How could you! Out of this house!”

Florence is contrite. “I’m sorry mother. I’m sorry, you know best”

“I do” Mother had thought Florence was going to stand up to her, and is terrified of losing control of the situation. “I knew this would happen and Lord Dauntless is coming back and you WILL marry him”

“As you wish, mother”

As Florence is getting out of bed, Xandira grabs her wrist “You don’t have to wear the collar any more. You can stay”

“You do not understand” Florence replies. “You… are not noble”

Xandira lets go, crushed.

Happily ever after

A whole year has passed. Xandira never heard from Florence, but then in the middle of the night there is a furious knocking at the door, and she hears her name being screamed. Xandira opens the door in a stunning nightgown and holding a candelabra. She sees Florence covered in blood saying “I’ve killed her”

Xandira leans outside to make sure nobody heard and coaxes her inside. Draws her a nice hot bath. Florence is in shock, but keeps saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. She was a mean woman who destroyed my life, Henry’s life, she deserved it, but I don’t know what to do”.

Even a year on Florence still hasn’t been married because her mother kept changing her mind.

Xandira helps her bathe, and says “I’m proud of you for setting yourself free”

“I don’t just want to be free. I want to be with you”

“Well, this is your home now too” as Xandira kisses her on the nose. “But where is the body now?”

Playtest Insight

During this playtest we noticed that the tropes that the protagonists picked up at the start of the game didn't really influence the stories much. There wasn't someone who owned the trope cards and were driving them forwards.

It seemed that the game could be slightly simplified and improved by removing the trope cards and pushing the information into appropriate places - for instance, whether the paramour starts as a rival, an enemy, a friend or and ex-lover could belong to the paramour. Whether a scene is 'trapped in an elevator' could become a setting location and so forth.

by Jen Adcock Alpha test

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jenkatwrites.bsky.social

A game about young Regency-era debutantes coming of age in London as they navigate new social waters, make friends, and look for the means to make their own happiness. The game uses a system of flower-language-inspired tokens to represent the growing friendship and influence between the player characters, as the friends enable each other to find new ways within themselves to face challenges and achieve their goals. This session will include character creation, a brief excursion to a ball, and the memento-making debrief phase of the game.

This was probably my favourite new game that I played at the con.

I played the Rose, who had a focus on love - either love she was looking for herself, or matchmaking for others. The other players included (I think) the young and impetuous Lily, the Peony who was breaking away from parental control, an artistic one, and the daisy who was all about social networking.

We each had about five flower tokens of our own flower, and they represented the ability to do something special (which was different for each of us - for example, the Rose could use a rose token to shut down an annoying suitor. The Peony could use a peony token to brashly speak her mind.) We also each had a special token associated with our matron which we could use in certain circumstances - such as 'the key' which our artist friend used to exit an uncomfortable situation and find some pleasure in the peace of the garden, and where she made a new friend, bonding over art.

We had some scenes of our preparation for the ball, arriving at the ball and scoping out which men were likely prospects (or otherwise) and some dancing at the ball as we were invited to dance by our chosen beaus.

Jen had prepared a number of interesting supporting characters whom we interacted with.

At the end of the ball, everyone donated one of their tokens permanently to another player (this is done evenly so that nobody is left out!) Other flower tokens unlocked new capabilities which reflect your own core abilities and also something of the flower that the token came from. As the game would progress through "the season" our debutantes would become more adept at handling themselves and others as they have learned to trust each other more.

Their Fearful Teeth

By Mary Rose Valentine

Alpha test

• Bluesky: timeformars.bsky.social

In the long, storied history of vampire-centered roleplaying games, vampires have been many things. They are creatures of the night to be feared, or they are the eccentric nobles living in the castle on the hill that never seem to age. They are disgusting, predatory creatures, or they are alluring supernaturally-powered almost-humans. They represent inherited power and prestige, or they represent illness, disease, and depravity. Humans are companions at best, livestock at worst, but they are always prey. Vampires are known for getting what they want, through force, persuasion, manipulation, or fear.

Their Fearful Teeth wants to know: What if they just… asked?

Their Fearful Teeth is a two-player roleplaying game about a human and a vampire having a conversation. At some point during that conversation, the vampire will ask the human for permission to feed; the game ends when the human delivers or denies consent (or the vampire revokes the request).

It was interesting being able to revisit this game a year on from the last time that I saw it. The introductory questionnaires have been rationalised into a pair of character sheets - one for the vampire and one for the mortal. They had some private questions on one side, and public questions on the other.

We had six players, in three pairs. One pair played a contemporary vampire meeting a human over zoom, because this vampire knew that in person no human could refuse him, and having the conversation over zoom gave the human a genuine choice. Another pair was using a vampire from a very different tradition - somewhere in the far east, I think. This vampire appeared as an old lady and was travelling around with another old lady whom it wanted to turn for company.

I played with Robin Bennet. I was a victorian age vampire, Mr Lupine, who was having the "coming of age" talk with his 18 year old step daughter. They discussed her desire to study palaeontology, and make a name for herself, and he committed to pulling strings to get her into Oxford. They discussed the stories he had told her as a child, and she particularly liked the ones about Arthur and his knights. I had hoped that she had liked the roman tales, but she had found them too brutal.

We talked about the sudden loss of her nanny a few years ago, and I explained that it as a terrible accident and she had bled to death. My daughter pushed on the question though and I had to admit that I had, in fact, killed her and drunk her blood.

The daughter is horrified, as you might imagine.

She discovers that I need to do it again, and I vouchsafe that I need to take just enough, but not too much. And if she would allow me to dine on a mere pint of her blood, then I would be able to keep my baser urges in check out of my love for her. We bargain some more, and the daughter reveals her own secret - that she loves women, not men. I'm proud of the way I've raised her to make her own choices, and she then makes the choice to allow me to feed.

So - the game has developed somewhat and I think there are opportunities to provide additional helps to people who are starting out a game. Concrete suggestions on the page about types of vampires, types of relationship and so on would prove helpful.

The nicest addition was some cards that could be subtly passed to the other player in order to give suggestions for a direction of conversation without breaking the immersion of the conversation you are in. Examples include "Offer me something", "Slow down", "Disagree with me about something" and "Ask me why". The last of those was the one that I passed over to Robin when I had talked about the nanny's disappearance, which opened up a fun line of discussion in a natural way.

Sapiens: Uplifted Earth Animals Exploring Exoplanets

By Patrick Watson

Alpha test

• facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oatandnoodle/

Sapiens is a hard sci-fi, shared-GM TTRPG about uplifted earth animals exploring exoplanets.

For Millenia a great interstellar ark has sailed the western spiral arm of the Milky Way, accelerating to near the speed of light. Aboard the ship are four genetic lineages: orca, loxodon, corvid, and octopod. These species were uplifted by an extinct precursor primate species, and they're on a quest to understand the beauty and terror of their universe, and perhaps to find clues to their own cultural heritage.

A subversive and counter-colonial take on Star Trek inspired by worldbuilding games like Microscope, Sapiens unfolds over a single "season" of the "show." Mechanics emphasize collaborative map-making, opening secret envelopes, describing alien species and ecosystems, storyboarding action sequences, and roleplaying exciting, sometimes campy, scenes of space exploration as genetically engineered, cybernetically enhanced, animals.

Sapiens explores the tension between personal narratives and changes on a cosmic scale. Each "episode" examines the complexity of alien minds, bodies, and minds

This was very much an alpha test, and I don't think it matches up to the ambition as yet - but I have hope!

The concept as I understand it is that the game broadly progresses on two phases.

• The first phase is a one of writing and drawing artefacts of play. Alien species, geographical maps, clues to mysteries, crises. The latter is far and away the most significant for the game - if you think of each game session as an episode of a TV show, then each crisis is the main "A-plot" of that episode. Or at least it should be. As part of creating these artefacts, some blank cubes are put on them to represent that there are interesting things to be investigated.
• The second phase is one of role-playing investigation of the artefacts. The person who created a document is the person that answers questions or reveals additional information. Cubes on the document are transferred to another 'discovery' placeholder, and when there are three cubes on there a 'planetary secret' is revealed which might be new information or a new thing you can do. During the second phase you may change things about the world, and this causes entropy (which is marked on an entropy card) and which also affects you. During our game entropy changes were on the order of 2 or 5 points, but the scale apparently goes up to about 1000 to make big changes in the game. I'm not sure how that would be attained mechanically in the game!

We ran into a few problems in the game. An earlier playtest had created a whole set of documents and we were supposed to be 50 years later; but we didn't see their documents and have a chance to look at them until after we had created our own from blank pages. It would have been much better to have built on the previous groups work.

The game also lacked focus. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be GMless, but in the event we barely spent any time investigating the crisis before it had engulfed us. There were several points when all the players at the table looked at each other - nobody being sure what we should be doing at that point.

I think in normal use there is an expectation that the first phase happens offline via discord or some other mechanism, to set things up for the play sessions when they occur. Difficult to replicate that in a 2 hour con slot though!

It is an alpha test stage at the moment, so I'm sure the designers will be addressing these kind of points. It feels like it would benefit from quite a bit more structure and guidance - both about the structure of play and the implied setting of the game.

Darquehaven Manor

by Craig Hatler

Beta test

• Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tezraktheimpslayer

You have been retained by the owners of Darquehaven Manor to investigate strange occurrences that are turning away potential buyers. What's causing these occurrences, and can the cause be eliminated? The aim is to playtest chorus (aka the GM) resources to help balance prep and improv, in particular a "macro-level" mystery solving layer that takes cues as play unfolds.

We were playing what is essentially a new Call of Cthulhu module, but using Craig's system and tools.

Sadly the adventure ended up becoming a bit of an accidental railroad because a lot of attempts to use skills to find out information failed in one way or another (the problem "Gumshoe" identified). One of the reasons that this happened is that the GM had statted up the uber-villain behind the haunting, and used his powers to oppose us at each turn. That plus great rolls from the GM and rubbish roles from us translated into a level of 'learned helplessness' in the adventure. For example, when we couldn't remove a portrait from the wall, we couldn't lever it off with two of us and a plank, and bullets bounced off it, we didn't even bother interacting with a bust in another room and other similar situations. We made some of our own fun by roleplaying quirks of our characters and our interactions with one another, but I don't think it was the experience that was desired.

Discussing it afterwards, we suggested that it might have been beneficial to have created and used more of the GM resources to stat out minor threats in each of the rooms which we could have tackled, all the time making us more prepared for the main foe (or weakening him for the final confrontation).

We deduced some things ourselves, and were able to solve the haunting, but I'd venture to say that it was in spite of the system rather than because the system supported us in what we were trying to do.

Vileborn - Embrace your Darkness

presented by Camilla Zamboni; by Horrible Guild

Beta test

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/czamboni.bsky.social

A nobledark tabletop role playing game about young heroes exploring their corrupted heritage in a world shrouded in darkness and plagued by its creatures, the Reviled. Written by Claudio Pustorino and translated by Camilla Zamboni, the game thrusts players into a conflict between the Empire of Egas and the Luminarian Church. You play as young recruits of the ancient Order of Dusk, and as vileborn—half-human, half-Reviled—caught between these antagonizing factions. As you explore your heritage and investigate the world's fate, you'll decide where your allegiances lie. Featuring streamlined and accessible rules, an agile game system (d6, d8, d10, and d12), captivating character sheets, gorgeous art, and engrossing worldbuilding, Vileborn will appeal to lovers of dark fantasy, emotional journeys, coming-of-age stories, and YA literature. The playtest focuses on pushing characters to their limits—and seeing what happens when they succumb to their dark side.

The purpose of this playtest was to examine what happens when the player characters get to the end of their metaphorical tether. They are all connected to one aspect of the darkness or another. One is part vampire, one is part were-creature, one controls hungry shadows and one sees and hears ghosts all the time. They have special powers they can tap into by marking them. As the number of marks you carry increases, so the demands of your monstrous self upon you increase too. And the only way to rid yourself of the traumatic desires of the marks is to give into one of your urges and gain respite for a while through doing something horrible.

So all our characters are set up with 3 marks already checked off, putting everyone in a very tense state already. We were then investigating the possibility of a vampire on the loose within a noble court, perhaps associated with a countess.

Of course, being in a duke's palace, we need to do all this on the down low.

Of course, being teenagers plagued by aspects of the darkness it all goes horrible wrong, horribly quickly!

it was really interesting to see how the different character types were driven to different kinds of excess by the heritage. I was playing the Ghostwalker on this occasion, and the idea that the clamour of the voices of ghosts around her was growing and growing until in the end she just starts doing what they demand without thinking about it was chilling on the one hand, but excellent role-play fodder on the other.

The playtesting did raise a couple of questions to go back to the designers - specifically how much agency do the PCs have when they reach 4+ marks (are they forced to conform to their problem, should they have a means of resisting it, etc.) and also how do surprise attacks work, especially in a PVP situation.

This game is kickstarting as of the time of writing. I backed it as a result of this playtest, and it is worth your consideration if you enjoy dark fantasy and strong feelings! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/horribleguild/vileborn

Blades-Star Galactica: Ghost Fleet Offensive

by Sidney Icarus

Alpha test

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sidneyicarus.bsky.social

Command the Battlestar Valkyrie and the covert Ghost Fleet to turn the tide of the Cylon War. A Band of Blades 2nd wave hack attempting to capture more personal growth and connections amidst a covert war against extinction.

In this two hour slot we didn't do anything involving characters at all, but focussed on fleet combat and the process by which things were set up for the next game. As a result we didn't actually tackle any of the things which were mentioned in the blurb for this game!

For the space combat, the basic idea is that there is a list of six things that might be at stake in a conflict. From memory I think these are harm, time, information, gear, attention, (and one other). You placed one or two dice on each of these, indicating how much you were prepared to risk (two dice rather than one dice) and the areas you cared about. The dice are rolled, and a 1-3 is a failure, a 4-5 is a success and a 6 is a success plus roll an extra dice too. These are then placed on the areas of interest one at a time, so you can choose where you want your successes and where you want your failures to be.

We had little cards with what looked like check boxes beside things like guns, engines, emergency kit and so on. I thought these were to record damage against those areas, but that wasn't the case, and I'm not sure what they were there for!

Overall it felt like an interesting table top boardgame with some narrative elements of describing what was happening. I would like to have seen more character involvement in the actual dogfights, so that there was a sense that I was a PC in the cockpit who was making decisions and facing consequences. It was all a bit too abstract for my liking.

After the combat was resolved we each took a card (commander, CAG, Chaplain, Engineering) and undertook a series of decisions or operations. The commander chose the threat level, which affected how easily the CAG could manage repair and resupply of the ships, meanwhile engineering was identifying internal crises which were developing in the fleet and the chaplain was healing the wounded and setting prophetic guidance, while the commander then determined the parameters for the next mission. This worked well, and the decision making spotlight flowed nicely between the the different roles. Again though, it felt very much like a board game rather than a role-playing game at this point.

I hope that as this moves from alpha test to beta test that there will be opportunities to bring in more 'RP' to every aspect of the 'G' in RPG here. Perhaps hewing a little closer to the inspirational material, as Band of Blades the game seems a rather nice thematic fit with Battlestar Galactica

Overall

Once again Metatopia has been an absolute delight. It is wonderful meeting so many enthusiastic designers and playtesters, both around the game tables and in the many conversations during the day and late into the night. Smart people, talking passionately about the subjects they love is very invigorating!

All credit to Avonelle, Vinney and their friends at Double Exposure who make it all possible. Find out more about what they do here: https://dexposure.com/home.html

Players

Jen P - Vanessa Lythe, The Vessel, whom the dark entity ‘the Rowan Man’ has his eyes on. Jen M - Valentine Demaris, The Undeniable, whose memory dates back to Roman times and dresses as male or female to suit their needs Sally - “Six-Gun” Tom Larrabe, The American, who is struggling to keep the curse down.

Day

They read in the local rag about the Creature of Cremorn Gardens, and wondered whether or not it was a hoax.

Valentine dressed in his finest avant-garde clothes and attended a gentleman’s club, where he met the young man who had fought off the creature. They noticed fish-oil stains on his sleeves.

“Six-Gun” went to see his old employer, Thomas Simpson (while avoiding the daughter who had fired him when he lost important keys in a gambling game of Faro). He heard about an argument between the American painter James Whistler and an old dock hand. Tracking down the painter, the argument had arisen because the docker had wanted a painting of some incredible creature he had allegedly seen, and the painter wasn’t going to work for free, even if he did have some large scales which he said had come from the creature.

Vanessa (the Vessel) had made up a little picnic packet and gone to the gardens herself. She knew that often when small children died they hadn’t realised that they had passed away, and she set out her picnic rug with lovely sweets, and after a ritual successfully attracted a bevy of small ghost children who chatted with her, and who had seen something come out of the water and had made a little ghostly drawing of it.

Back together at Hargrove House, Vanessa does another ritual using the jacket Valentine brought back, and in another timeline the spirits would have been so annoyed that they would be screaming in her ears day and night. But in this world, she is able to find a supernatural affinity to the fish oils.

Looking at their clues, they decide that it must be a supernatural threat. But they roll really badly, and it is wrong! Not so fast. They all use a mask of the past, and in this reality it is true, but there is a consequence: Inspector Pettigrew turns up at their door and threatens them with police brutality if they turn up at Cremorne Gardens again, because he just doesn’t like the Hargrove House hunters. Valentine isn’t impressed by this AT ALL, and they storm up to the inspector, and tells the man in no uncertain terms that there is going to be a complaint to their VERY GOOD FRIEND the chief inspector, and that is going to ruin any chances for Pettigrew’s career. Pettigrew is cowed and withdraws his threats over their activities. Somewhere, where Valentine’s music is being performed, the horns slip into a minor key, and a part that was supposed to be victorious has become a little plaintive.

Dusk

Music Room

We think about the music room, where a few years ago a hunter had wrestled with an unclean spirit. Looking around, we can see the smearing of the wallpaper, the large harp which had been damaged by fire, and the crystal chandelier which still resonated with the sounds made by the harp in the battle, filling the room with an almost inaudible tinkling sound.

Six-Gun is wrestling with the curse this evening, and appears drained and sweaty with the effort.

They realise that they now need to answer the question of how to deal with the creature, and they must gather more clues…

Unscene

“The Baker’s Son” playing at the Grand Guignol theatre. As we see the stage we can see the fire of the bakers oven, the floured face of the young man who is the son, and the wealthy patrons.

Night

Vanessa plans to wander the night, reaching out with her mind to the threat as she has done before.

Valentine is going to dress as a high class lady of the evening and visit an old contact of theirs called Brisbon who is interested in the occult - at this time of evening he will be in an opium den.

Six-Gun is going to visit a dockside bar to speak to Abel Knox, the harbour worker.

Unscene Act 1 - the baker’s son Daniel rushes out of the shop to offer something to an older woman, but when she turns it is the beautiful Dahlia, and he is smitten. However, Dahlia’s father shoos off this lower class boy, and warns him against coming round.

As Vanessa opens her mind up, she hears the plaintive song of the creature, and she follows it through the gardens, listening closely as it draws clearer and clearer. She finds out through these words that the creature lives deep under the water and it is afraid of fire. But she finds herself at the edge of the harbour, and drawn towards the water… She realises that the water creature wants her to jump in, not to kill her but to mate with her in some horrible subterranean ceremony; her nature attracting more dark creatures towards her. With a wrench, she resists them and decides to run for home.

Valentine worries that she is going to be accosted by someone as she walks the night streets to the opium parlour, but the portly man who might have given her some trouble looks up and down at her composure (boosted by destroying the inspector) and decides that Valentine is out of his league, and she proceeds onwards.

Six-Gun finds the bar and is worried that he will be reviled as an obvious outsider, but he was welcomed by the clientele. However, he gets carried away in carousing and becomes very drunk.

Unscene Act 2 - Daniel has baked some marvellous petit fours and brought them round to the tradesman’s entrance where Dahlia lives. But the servants revile him as lower than them push him around and toss his pastries on the floor, crushing them.

Vanessa is running for home and tries to get past a group of young men but trips. They grab her and grope her, we draw a veil over their actions but hear their horrible laughter, and we later see her continuing home, distressed and having lost her outer coat and one shoe. It is reminiscent of the servants pushing around and harassing Daniel from the theatre scene.

Valentine reaches the opium parlour and the woman who runs it gives her a nod and she goes in to find her contact. Brisbon is quite deep into his opium pipe, and the smell reminds Valentine of a long-forgotten pleasure. In another world Valentine would have succumbed to the lure and become an opium addict again, but as we remember another aspect of her past she resists the lure - and Brisbon tells her about a book of sailors hymns which contains a tale of fish men who sought fishwives.

Six-Gun has a long conversation with Abel, who claims that he has seen the monster, and seen piles of empty women’s clothing. He is sure that the monster is after women for some reason.

Unscene Act 3 - Daniel returns to the wealthy home with a giant breadknife and blinded by rage at his humiliation proceeds to slaughter everyone in the house; servants and masters alike. The stage runs red with blood.

Desperate to reach the safety of Hargrove House, Vanessa in her hurry had forgotten to plan her route carefully, had forgotten how much grandmother birch wanted to punish her. And now she found herself amidst the small stand of birch trees! Luckily the presence of Mr Rowan was strong in her heart, and grandmother birch was held back by fear of the consequences should she harm the Rowan’s beloved.

Valentine is just about to leave the opium den when there is a terrible commotion as a rival triad gang invades the den, hacking and slashing with their machetes in a reflection of the slaughter in the play. She knows that if she is not careful she is going to be stabbed right through the back, bringing to an end her perfect life, so she pushes someone else towards the attackers, and breaks the hidden dagger in her jewelled hairbrush to open a secret door quickly and slip out in the nick of time.

The drunken six-gun is staggering towards the dock, listening to the siren song of the creature, and in serious danger of being drawn in and drowning - he rallies a bit and staggers back from the edge, and is then coshed unconscious by someone from the bar and his cards spray out of his pockets like the petit fours scattered across the ground. When he comes to there is a lump on the back of his head and his treasured trick decks of cards are missing, stolen.

Finally they meet together at Dawn, discussing their clues and problems.

The Between 4th August 2024

Players

Jen P - Vanessa Lythe, The Vessel, whom the dark entity ‘the Rowan Man’ has his eyes on. Jen M - Valentine Demaris, The Undeniable, whose memory dates back to Roman times and dresses as male or female to suit their needs Camilla - Lady Pandora, The Explorer who stands for Queen and Country against the Mastermind

Dawn

Requisite bookkeeping was done.

Day

Reading the Daily Telegraph at breakfast, they hear of the death of a young woman in Whitechapel, Clara Yarborough, whose face has been removed. Two other people have died in a similar mysterious manner in the last few weeks. People are already talking about the legend of Sally No-Face, who is said to steal the faces of other people. Lady Pandora raises an eyebrow, as she knew Clara very well. The underground women’s fight club which she belongs to is in Whitechapel, and Clara used to let her use her room to clean up after a fight.

It’s Sunday, so Vanessa goes to mass. Some think of it as an unusual vice, but the calming rituals and lovely music quieten the distress she had been carrying. Afterwards she decides to follow a hunch by going to a home for outcast women, and after purchasing some marbles and jacks from a toy shop, sets up in the alley nearby. She wants to talk to dead children to see if they remember any babies born who died straight away because they couldn’t breathe air properly. She is worried that the ghost children will become alarmed and there will be some localised damage, but they are entranced by the toys she brought along, and can remember one such baby. The ghost children wonder if Vanessa is their mummy. She then performs a ritual using her special tarot cards to enable the children to pass on from this realm safely, and each gives her a kiss on the cheek as they discorporate.

Valentine goes to the british library, to do some research into fisherman’s tales and fisherman’s songs. She finds not only confirmation of the stories from Brisbon, including stories about green woollen dresses made as bridal gowns for fishwives, but a ‘mastermind’ clue too… the shop that produces those green dresses is owned by Theodora Braithwaite. The very mastermind that Lady Pandora is often talking about. They feel extremely proud at their ability to cross-reference and chase down those details, because frankly, reason isn’t normally their strong suit.

Lady Pandora goes to Whitechapel and finds the tenement where Clara had lived. You can tell that money was invested in it at one time, because of the grand entrance, the once-rich but now stained carpet, and a statue in the courtyard (albeit with it’s face eroded off).

The beggars outside plead for money, and gives them a few pennies. One of them, Old Boot, says that he needs a few more pennies to feed the rest of his kids, and she agrees to give some more in exchange for information. he remembers seeing a middle-class couple around here, and provides their names. He also passes over to her a receipt for several bolts of high quality cloth that he had found on Clara’s body. It has an amount and a shop address on it.

At around this time we can see through the eyes of the Boy what it was like when Lady Pandora came to his village with her retinue. All pomp and circumstance, speaking a strange language and with huge confidence. Everyone thought that it must be something special, and that there would be a lasting change for them.

Lady Pandora then went to look in Clara’s room, and setting her little music box to play it’s tune while she searched around calmed her mind and allowed her to find another clue - a little gold-edged invitation to an event which included both medical and artistic aspects. Noting the address, she tucked that into her pocket.

Everyone gathered back at Hargrove house, and starting thinking about the clues they had discovered. They knew that the Creature of Cremorne Gardens was something supernatural, and they needed to think about what it wanted, and how they could lure it out and deal with it.

While preparing, they used some masks. The mask of Revelry from the Creature threat brought three things to mind. Valentine remembered the last day that they truly had fun was when they gave a young man a jolly good flogging, and he had enjoyed the shame of it as much as Valentine had enjoyed delivering it. Vanessa remembered attending a fete with a maypole, and sitting down and picnicking with real flesh and blood children who had rosy complexions and joyous laughter. Lady Pandora remembered an all-night drinking bout with commoners after a rare boxing loss, and how much more fun she had with them than clinking glasses with the upper class wets.

We know that the Boy assisted Lady Pandora when she visited his village, and she complimented the Boy. he exchanged knowledge, he then drank with them - especially this fiery drink which they had brought along called alcohol.

Vanessa remembers the time when she used her power selfishly. There had been a boy who pulled her pigtails and called her names. One day he chased her into the woods, and said he wouldn’t let her go until he’d given her a kiss. She had backed up against a Rowan tree, cut her palm and then smeared blood across the tree trunk. A deep voice spoke from behind her: “She is my bride to be, and her kisses shall be mine alone”. She ran off home. Never did see that boy again.

Together they solve the mystery of the Creature of Cremorne Gardens. It is a creature of the deep water, and it fears light and fire, but every hundred years it is drawn to the land to find a human wife who can bear it a child for reasons unknown. Women would be sent to meet the fish creature with kirtle hiked up and neckline plunging low, in dresses the colour of seaweed.

Dusk

Ballroom

Hargrave House once hosted a ball for a group of visitors from the fae realm. Even today there are subtle reminders of that night in this room. What are they?

• there is a muscians nook; if you sit in the musicians seats you can hear the melodies of that day being played.
• tucked between the glass and the frame of a mirror in the corner of the room there is a faded red rose; it is said that when people look in the mirror they see only the truth
• in one of the corners, behind one of the big curtains there is a small circle made of black translucent glass that might be an entrance to the fairy realm. Rumour is that to break the circle would bring a curse.

Lady Pandora calls upon one of her friends at the Explorers Club, Rear-admiral Alfred Bingley-Green. He used to be part of Hargrave House and lets them choose some of his special weapons to help out with the task ahead. Vanessa chooses the razor rosary, Valentine chooses the runic gauntlets, and Lady Pandora picks the exploding pocket watch.

Unscene

The Dinner Party. Eric Taylor has a good job as a clerk, and with his wife Abigail they form the very picture of the respectable new Victorian middle class. Behind the lace curtains of their terrace home, they are throwing a small dinner party for equally respectable friends, the Davenports. The Taylor’s daughter Maude plays piano passably in the parlour before dinner is served.

Night

Unscene act 1 - We see the Taylors dressed well, but the Davenports have come with new shoes too. The Taylors have half-glasses of wine, hoping to make the expensive bottle last the evening, but the Davenports have their glasses full to the brim as they are used to drinking what they fancy

Vanessa is going to the quayside to purchase netting, pitch, and oil lamps for a trap.

Valentine is going to purchase a woollen dress from the shop that has been making them.

Lady Pandora has more of a conversation with Rear Admiral Bingley-Green, before heading off to rendezvous with them all at Cremorne Gardens.

Unscene Act 2 - Mrs Taylor and Mrs Davenport hate each other. Mrs Davenport gives small compliments which are topped off with examples of how much better she cooks the dishes herself. Mrs Taylor wonders that she can obtain the fine things she wears what with the police clamping down on the smugglers nowadays. The snide bitching continues through the evening.

Vanessa is able to find the materials she needs, but after the previous nights’ experiences the sound of groups of young men make her very nervous, and she acquires the condition Jittery.

Valentine is able to purchase the dress, but in doing so she will draw the attention of Theodora Braithwaite who now knows about her. Taking a circuitous route to get to the gardens, she gets lost and is going to end up late at Cremorne Gardens.

Unscene Act 3 - Maud and Alexander, the children, chafe under their parents expectations. Maud rebels by wearing her neckline deliberately low to expose more décolletage than is gracious. Alexander rebels by wearing floppy shirts and quoting Oscar Wilde poetry. They play off each other to wind their parents up more.

Lady Pandora meets Vanessa at the Gardens and while they are wondering where Valentine has got to they are approached by DI Pettigrew, who is much bolder in Valentine’s absence. He is rude and abrasive and is telling them that he has his eye on them. Lady Pandora doesn’t like that and decides to throw her weight around, and Pettigrew is standing for none of that - summoning four policemen to arrest her and march her off to the cells! In some worlds, that is just what would have happened, but not in this one. Lady Pandora uses the Mask of the Dark Portal and we see a few nights ago in one of her illegal boxing matches she completely lost it during a fight - having beaten her opponent, she wouldn’t stop — punching, punching, punching and turning the other woman into a bloody mess. Some police were drawn to the commotion, but recognised Pandora as a friend of the Lady who owns Scotland Yard, and so they watch approvingly as Lady Pandora finishes beating the poor woman to a pulp, breaking her woman’s arm and enjoying her sense of power. When she finally stops her fists are red with the woman’s blood, and her face is spattered with the woman’s blood too. The policemen who are stepping up to arrest her now? They recognise her from the beat down the other day. They josh with her about her right hook, and how well she put the boot in when her opponent was down. She doesn’t get arrested after all, but this might harm Pandora’s reputation.

Valentine arrives, and Vanessa changes into the dress. As she adjusts the décolletage lower in line with the poetry, there is an echo of the night with the dinner party.

They head out to the quayside to set up the net and coat it with pitch, ready to trap the creature - but then it’s siren song swells out and Lady Pandora and Vanessa drop what is in their hands and move to the edge of a quay as if in a trance!

Unscene Act 4 - Mr Taylor and Mr Davenport retreat into the drawing room with port and cigars. Apart from everyone else and with the door closed they reveal their mutual vice. They set down their drinks and embrace closely, foreheads touching, and dance slowly around to the music in their heads.

The creature is going to reach up and grab Vanessa to pull her into the water. She throws herself backwards, hand stretched back to where she had set down the oil lantern, but cracks her head on the stones, dazing herself.

Valentine is going to reach out with the runic gauntlets and use their mystic power to turn on Lady Pandora’s music box - but she realises that if her magic attempt goes wrong it is going to push Pandora into the water, and so she hesitates.

Lady Pandora doesn’t hesitate, and drawing upon her sword-cane from her personal items she stabs the fish creature through the mouth and out the back of it’s skull, killing it instantly. She asks Valentine to help her haul it out of the water, because she intends to take it back to Hargrove House as a trophy!

Come dawn, a question is answered, a threat resolved and experience gained. Valentine now has the additional move ‘Giveth’, and Vanessa has increased her sensitivity.

The Between 27 October 2024

Players

Jen P - Vanessa Lythe, The Vessel, whom the dark entity ‘the Rowan Man’ has his eyes on. Jen M - Valentine Demaris, The Undeniable, whose memory dates back to Roman times and dresses as male or female to suit their needs Diana - Paloma Cariòn, The Mother, who longs to rebuild Winston, her lover.

Day

At breakfast there is an additional complication that arrives in the morning post. A letter from one Burt Broadswell. He pleads for them to help find his lover, Penelope Levy, who has gone missing at the Society Obscura. Ordinarily missing persons wouldn’t warrant the attention of Hargrove House, but Paloma notices some blue discolouration at the edge of the photograph, and Vanessa finds that the scene changes when she looks out of the corner of her eye - both symptoms of the famous Whatley Camera, long known in the research tomes of Hargrove House, and a grave danger indeed.

Valentine hasn’t got up for breakfast and doesn’t like to rise early, while Vanessa is keen to go to morning mass, to recover from her jitters. Paloma offers her own particular vice (‘tonic’ water), but since Vanessa wants the mass, Paloma accompanies her. Vanessa finds a place where the coloured light through the stained glass windows comforts her. As they are leaving they hear a discussion between some society ladies - that there is talk about a fountain of youth, or some means of getting back the face they once had. The hunters couldn’t follow them in the press of the crowd, but felt that Valentine should go to one of her society lunches to find out more.

They decide that they want to follow up on the receipt for cloths found with Cara’s body. it is from a high-end shop called “La Modiste”. Valentine meets them there, dressed in male attire. The shop has a wall of bolts of cloth, mannequins with elegant cloths and big vases of flowers. As the hunters enter, they ponder the lies that people tell each other there - from the woman who hopes that the fabrics will make her plain children attractive, to the people purchasing white for their wedding who have no right to it, and the fabric which has passed through the gut of a marsupial to make it soft and yet nobody believes that.

The head tailor there answers Vanessa’s questions about the receipt, and brings a bolt of the appropriate cloth — a lovely Chinese silk print. He happily gives them a sample, cutting it quickly and neatly with his razor sharp scissors. Valentine was watching him but their attention was drawn to a plant behind the counter - a highly toxic Oleander, which could be used to make poisons that paralyse.

Paloma is unkempt and the gallant tailor, Vittorio Clemenza, believes that she would benefit from some finer clothes than the cloak with trinkets on that she normally wears. She is taken by his strong and supple fingers, and asks to look at them. She spends long enough feeling them, checking the bone structure and so forth that Vittorio starts feeling a little uncomfortable. Why is she so interested in his hands?

Valentine collects a sample of the Oleander secretly, and they leave. The plan is that Paloma will check the Oleander poison against the silk. Vanessa wants to hold a seance to speak to dead Edward, and Valentine will attend with the ladies who lunch.

Paloma uses her lab to render down the Oleander poison and compare it to the silk. In another world her task was fruitless and she only hurt herself. In this world she remembers her dead lover Winston, with whom she had an instant attraction. Some gaseous poison escapes and partially paralyses her face. It looks like she has a partial stroke. But she can confirm that the silk itself wasn’t poisoned.

Vanessa takes some good whiskey to speak to Vera Hale, the prostitute. She catches Vera in a relatively good mood (the whiskey helps) and she remembers Edward with some fondness, as a young buck like him wouldn’t normally have given her the time of day, and Vera would have liked him as a regular. She assents to Vanessa’s desire for a seance which she doesn’t really believe in.

Vanessa summons up Edward and finds that he is a faceless ghost. He can’t see her, but she holds his spiritual hand for comfort. She learns that he was a newspaper reporter, investigating a doctor who was struck off for his untoward medical practices. The doctor isn’t named, but the letter about him is in the bottom of a draw in Edward’s old room. Edward was paralysed from behind, didn’t see his assailant, and is doomed to be a ghost until his face is recovered and buried. Vanessa tells him she will do her very best.

Valentine dresses in their avant-garde femme outfit and goes to the ladies luncheon. She meets Dame Margarate Teasedale whose face isn’t nearly as lined and saggy as a lady of her years might be expected. There is some mutual appreciation, and Teasedale wonders how Valentine keeps looking so young… but clearly wants to talk about her own experiences. Her face looks drum-tight, and a little waxy. She vouchsafes that the amazing work was done by none other than Sally No-Face themselves! She doesn’t know them in person, but her people made the arrangements via a lad known as The Dapper Boy. On the way out, Valentine scans the room for her worshippers and locks eyes with one of the valets. Somewhere that their music is being played it is scarred as a violin solo gets a little harsh, almost sounding like someone having skin peeled off. The valet is devoted, and longs to help. He hopes that if he performs well he might even get a little light whipping for his trouble. He agrees to meet Valentine and take her to meet the Dapper Boy that night.

Paloma wants to examine the photograph of the missing Penelope again, and looking at it carefully (and donning the mask of the cosmic passage) she can see that there is an orerry in the background which is in very different positions in the two views of the photograph. She shows Vanessa who agrees and reckons it is a supernatural effect, but Paloma rejects the idea, sure that it is merely science.

Vanessa then borrows the photograph, gets a dozen meat pies from the baker and goes out to find chimney sweep children. Bribing them with pies, she gets confirmation that the photograph is taken at a house in Kensington, used by the Society Obscura.

Valentine goes to meet Burt Broadswell in person. Finds that he and Penelope were both actors and very much in love. During a quiet time for work, Penelope started modelling for the Society Obscura. Burt dislikes them, considering them to be decadent, lecherous, elites. He doesn’t understand where Penelope has gone and wonders whether she has been taken by the white slave trade and breaks down in tears. Valentine puts her hand on his shoulder because she knows that is something that ordinary people do to comfort others, although she doesn’t really have the empathy to know why!

Dusk

Servants quarters

These rooms are mostly empty nowadays as, given the place's history, very few people want to work at Hargrave House. They have most frequently been used as a place for trysts between the house's residents. What here reminds you of that?

• one mattress gives out a floral perfume scent when you sit on it.
• The closet woodwork is covered with initials, carved in remembrance of the trysts.
• In the ceiling of one of the rooms there is a hook and in the corner there is pile of chains.

Unscene

Sitting across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster, St. Thomas’s Hospital is London’s newest hospital, purpose-built to the most modern standards of medicine. It consists of sprawling wings joined by covered walkways, allowing convalescent patients to take the air during the day. But at night, a skeleton crew struggle to save their charges from the illness, accidents, and violence that stalk the gloom.

Night

Vanessa is going to go to mass, and then use her powers to commune with the night.

Paloma is going to follow the tailor after he finishes work, to see where he goes.

Valentine is going to go with her worshipper to see the Dapper Boy.

Unscene Act 1 — A destitute woman is in the throes of a complicated birth, a porter holding her down while a surgeon prepares to operate. The woman is white as a sheet and is screaming “where is my baby, where is my baby” but it is clear that the sickness is going to take her before the baby arrives.

Vanessa goes to midnight mass, and it clears her mind. She loses the dazed condition.

Paloma follows Clemenza through the darkened streets. She keeps her composure even though it takes her down to the docklands, full of dangerous characters. Her face drains of colour as she realises what a dangerous place she has followed him to.

Valentine ensures that she takes her runic gloves, a riding whip, and a dog collar on a leash with her. When she meets the valet, she instructs him to kiss the leash and put it on, which he delights to do. “You are now my dog” she says. She is pleased to provide such an erotic experience for one of her grateful worshippers.

Unscene Act 2 — In the casualty waiting room, the experienced ward sister Mary O’Brien triages the sick and wounded. She sees a prostitute who has come open with a great gash on her face, from crown through cheek to chin. She is mutilated horribly, but O’Brien thinks she will pull through. Although maybe she would prefer not to.

Paloma sees Clemenza meet another man by the dark arches. Something is passed between them and she can just make out…

Valentine is led by the valet into Whitechapel, and to a townhouse which is surprisingly well lit. From an alleyway to the side comes a 13 year old boy in blazer, cricket cap, smart trousers and spats. He saunters over and asks what she is after. She suggests maybe a half-sovereign or two would provide some information. He looks at her carefully and asks whether she is Valentine Demaris…

After mass, Vanessa goes out into the graveyard and uses A Beacon in the Dark - her consciousness spreading out over London, seeking the nature of threats. Suddenly a pearly fog so thick that she can barely see the gravestone next to her envelops her and a chilling voice in her head asks “who are you?”

Unscene Act 3 — The young nurse Agnes Pell walks the TB ward, silent but for the laboured breathing and hacking coughs of her charges. Among the gaunt, pale patients is an elderly lady who has been a great benefactor to the poor of the city. She fed the hungry, she taught the children. She made a difference. But death respects neither age nor rank, and Agnes knows nothing of the woman’s life’s work.

Paloma can see that the unknown man passes a… finger? To Clemenza, and both of them then rush off. In the dark near to where they met she can see the dead body of an elderly, woman, whose face has been cut off.

The Dapper Boy is pleased that he has met THE Valentine Demaris, because Sally No-Face has been looking forward to gathering such a perfect visage for his collection. In another universe Valentine is stabbed from behind with a poisoned needle, and as she collapses she feels a sharp blade slice her face from crown through cheek to chin and blood gush forth. But in this world, she puts on the mask of the Gilded Door, becomes Most Beloved and the needle snags in her clothes and she pushes free…

Vanessa is surrounded by the pearly fog, and she speaks freely. “Hello my dear. Can you tell me where your lair is?”

The voice in her head replies “my lair is white and silver and gold and black”

“OK” says Vanessa, a bit unsure. “And what do you fear”

“I don’t understand your question” it replies. “Fear suggests powerlessness or danger, but that isn’t something that I know. I AM power. I can do what I want, when I want. All is subject to my will” Suddenly all remaining colour drains from Vanessa’s vision, as everything becomes sepia-toned. “I could burn you now” it continues “But I won’t. That would start a confrontation with Mr Rowan that I do not want to have. At this time”

“Where is Penelope” Vanessa cries out in an echo of the voice of the childbearing woman in the hospital. The chill voice responds “You have two questions, not three”

Then the fog is gone.

Paloma is kneeling by the faceless body, cutting out the heart which is going to be perfect for her ‘child’. But it’s a dangerous thing to be doing at night, and suddenly there is the piercing sound of police whistles and bobbies appear round the corner, grab her, and cuff her. “Hey, we’ve got Sally No-Face bang to rights, in the middle of her work”. That would be in another world. In this one Paloma remembers the time when she looked across the mortuary slab at Winston, her dear Winston, and it was love at first sight. She sprang up at the first sound of the whistles and escaped with the warm heart wrapped in her cape. But she has been spotted and now has the condition Wanted by the police.

Unscene Act 4 — As dawn begins to break, how do we see the staff dealing with the stress of the night before, knowing they will be back again soon?

• Sister O’Brien and Agnes go into a closet and fall into each others arms in a passionate embrace.
• The porter who had held down the woman who died in childbirth stops by an open church, puts some money in a box and lights some candles. When he gets home he peeks at his infant daughter sleeping and wipes tears from his eye.
• One of the emergency doctors takes off his operating gown and goes to the closet with the main medication. He discreetly takes several vials of morphine.

Vanessa makes her way back to Hargrove House avoiding both beeches and rowan trees.

Valentine hands the valet one of her possessions - the mirror that shows her true eye colour, and says “hold them off while I escape”. “I’ll die for you, mistress” he says, and he throws himself at the gang members, fighting ferociously while Valentine escapes back to Hargrove House. When there, she touches the whip fondly, and puts it back in its closet.

Paloma returns to Hargrove House and goes to her secret lab in the basement. Into the cold torso she tenderly wires up the new heart. “Here you are Winston” she whispers. “Another step closer to the day you can hold me in your strong arms again”.

Dawn

Although no questions have been answered or threats resolved, there have been many echoes in the night, and other personal questions have been answered. Vanessa increases her sensitivity once more.

On the other hand, I’ve come across a couple of games which are packaged as a deck of cards, and you use the cards to play the game. For the Queen is one good example of this. For my purposes the lesser known but more fascinating game is Fedora Noir (see my review).

As I look at the gaming scene, I can’t help but think about Fiasco by Bully Pulpit Games. That started off as a traditional rulebook in 2009 (now known as Fiasco Classic) and a decade later became available as a card game in a box. Their blog about the two editions explains that the card version of the game overcame some of the disadvantages of the earlier edition. Most significantly everything you need comes in the box, and it was much quicker to get started.

In discussions with people on Bluesky it seems that there are a number of considerations on the production and their use during play. I’d like to divide these up into the things which are good about a card format and the things which are problematic.

• As a player, with a card game everything has to be on the cards. Also there has to be good replay value.
• As a player, there is an expectation of higher production values (especially with respect to art). This along with the higher production costs may mean that a bigger print run is needed in order to make it affordable.
• Layout can be more difficult for cards, and there are fewer people with the skills who are used to it.
• A card based game can be less intimidating for new players. A box of cards on the table doesn’t seem as overwhelming as a giant book of rules.

What is good about a card format?

Portability

A box of cards is easy to throw in your luggage (or a pocket) for a trip, and it means you have a game which doesn’t require any additional material to play. No dice, no playing cards, nothing else.

I have been told anecdotally that sadly card-format games are more often stolen from convention stands, equally because of their pocketability.

Accessibility

A card-based game can be less intimidating for new players. A box of cards on the table doesn’t seem as daunting as a giant book of rules or complex character sheets. It may be particularly good for the kind of narrative-driven story games that I enjoy creating and playing at the moment.

Visual Appeal

Cards are a lovely tactile thing, and there is the opportunity for lovely graphical presentation which can enhance the experience at the table.

Structured introduction to play

One of the things that I find really appealing in card format games is that the ordered deck of cards can be used as an instructional tool to guide the players step-by-step through the sequence of play. Helping people to understand what they have to do at each step of the game.

What are problems with a card format?

Information Design

While a structured introduction to play is a great advantage of the card format, I anticipate that it is much more difficult to design the experience of the game. To ensure that enough is explained to make it easy for people to pick up and play. I often think of the quotation attributed to Mark Twain but apparently originally from Pascal:

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

It takes a lot more time and effort to encapsulate ideas in a concise form. A book gives more space, and room to expand on the concepts.

Layout

There are more restrictions on the layout, and you have far fewer words to explain things. There isn’t a luxury of expansive tables or the space on a page to lay things out clearly. You can’t rely on a table of contents or index for the players to orient themselves to the rule.

In addition, the flip side of the visual appeal is that you probably have to have a larger art budget in order to realise that visual appeal!

VAT liable

Books are zero-rated for VAT in the UK. Cards are not! This adds additional cost to the consumers and complexity in accounting for everything properly. This is clearly a big subject and one which I need to understand better and get professional advice on!

Production Cost

This is the big one. Producing cards is more costly. As a book, I might expect the cost per copy to be around £2.80 for the number of copies I’d print. For the same number of copies of cards in a nice box I’m looking at between £11.40 and £15.10 per copy depending upon the type of box at Printerstudio, or between £5.70 and £7.20 at Spingold, but that doesn’t take a box into account (and has a maximum of 78 cards)¹.

Conclusion

I think the big variable for me will be production cost. If it isn’t viable to produce and sell at the volumes I normally produce and sell, I don’t think that a card based format is going to be possible.

However, while I’m researching that, I also need to find out whether a card based format will actually work in play - so I’ve created a draft set of cards and I’m going to take them to Metatopia, the game designers conference. I’ll be running some playtests there to understand whether the card format works in play like I think it should.

I don’t think I’m at the stage where I’ll have a set of instruction cards to lead people through playing the game without my intervention — that will come later.

It will soon be available on Indie Press Revolution and itch.io too.

My working title at the time was "The Road to Romance".

Safety Discussion

We like to start with a safety discussion to make sure that we are all on the same page about elements which we would like to see (or would not like to see) in a game. Something which is new for this kind of game is the 'spicyness' level of a romance. We decided to cap the spicyness level at ‘sensual’. So our stories might be wholesome, sweet, or sensual, but not venture into ‘steamy’.

The adventures take us through six chapters of our story plus an epilogue. My four players sat in a circle and each played the protagonist of their own story, the paramour of the player to their right and the trouble of the player to their left. While playing, we ran the introduction for each story, the meet-cute for each story and so forth. For the purposes of writing up the stories here I have collected each set of chapters together to make cohesive stories.

Players

Rebecca - Contemporary young romance trapped in a location.

Mary - Classic Regency romance with forbidden love.

Laurel - Fantasy Romcom with a belated love epiphany.

Cindy - Paranormal Gothic Romance where rivals become lovers.

The Storm Lashed Cave

This is the contemporary young romance. Phoebe Phillips is 16 and a camp counsellor in training who wants passion in her life, but is held back by pride. She falls in love with Conrad Travis, a 17 year old eagle scout who wants healing, but is held back by control issues. Phoebe is troubled by a love rival, Tiffany Martin. Tiffany is 18, taller, prettier, more self-assured in every way.

Introduction

It is summer 2013. We cut in on pretty lake. There is a little dock with a short, freckly girl, with a baseball cap and a t-shirt. Her hair is pulled back into a pony tail. She is tying up some inner tubes by the dock. The t-shirt has amateurishly printed on it “camp screaming fun”. She is just 16 and there is so much she desperately wants in life. She has come to be a camp counsellor in training. She is going to find another person who wants everything she wants, it will be amazing and passionate (and fast! She has to get back to high school!) There have been problems with classmates coupling up and she finds it hard to accept that no one in the class is good enough for her.

Summer camp. It’s going to be great.

Tiffany approaches, a petite brunette with great shoes and clothes. She patronisingly talks about doing knots better and shows Phoebe how to do things. She is so confident and competent.

Meet-cute

It is upstate New York and rain happens. A lot. Phoebe and Tiffany are chatting as they walk up the hill towards camp when the rain starts pouring down - and lightning! Tiffany knows about a cave and they hurry off the track and duck inside. It’s dry and safe in the darkness.

A young man calls out from further in the cave “you don’t want to be in here” and at that moment there is a bobbing flashlight. There is a young man, 17 but looks older. Tall, sandy hair, really dark blue eyes. Overall and work shirt. “I don’t know what you are doing here - this cave is prone to...” and as he says that, lightning strikes and rocks rain down across the entrance... blocking them in!

Connor introduces himself. He is clearly a little frustrated at not being in control of the situation. He stutters a little as Tiffany shakes his hand, then Phoebe introduces herself. He had been looking for a lost camper in here. He decides to build a fire to keep them warm - he glances at Phoebe and she realises that she must look like a drowned rat. Her cheap t-shirt is now almost transparent and wetly clinging to her body in an embarrassing way. He removes his denim jacket and hands it to her, to keep her, er, warm until the fire is going. The jacket smells great. It’s been worn so much it is buttery soft.

A cosy conversation develops as they sit around the flickering fire.

Complications

The fire is crackling, the light is dancing and the rain is pounding down outside. Phoebe is warming up, and remembers that she used to go camping all the time. “My dad told me stories about serial killers and I’d freak out. But he also made shadow puppets which were fun” and she shows an example rabbit. Connor says “When my dad was alive he used to do that before the accident”. Connor then did a clever giraffe. Then he made a cats cradle and invited Phoebe to play, she leaned forward across the fire and was having fun for a while before Tiffany shouted at her “You’re on fire!”

Leaning forwards, the borrowed jacket smouldered and caught light. Phoebe quickly takes it off and Tiffany puts out the flames, but the denim jacket that originally came from Connor’s dad is now badly damaged!

There is a noise of some kind from deeper in the cave.

First Kiss

“What’s that sound?” Says Connor. Tiffany says that she will go and take care of it, while Connor decides to tend Phoebe’s burns. He makes a big thing of putting the burn cream on and her skin tingles as he touches her arm. She talks a lot of game, but has never had a boyfriend in her life.

That lingering feeling. She says “nobody has ever been that careful with me before”.

He seems a little out of his depth. They lean in together. He looks at her more closely than he had before. In the flickering light she holds her arm where he had touched it, and apologies again for the damage to the jacket. But he doesn’t mind. As they talk, she snuggles closer. He puts his arm around her and she asks about his father. Connor talks about his father in the war, and all the clever things he had been taught by him. She asks him more questions from the crook of his arm. “I think he would have liked you” Connor muses. “I think my dad would like you too” she replies. They have been leaning in closer, and before they realise it they are kissing.

Catastrophe

They are still by the fire. Phoebe is almost dozing when they realise that Tiffany has been gone a while. Connor is overcompensating for forgetting about her and jumps up to go and find Tiffany. Phoebe is super embarrassed and is stuttering, Connor tells her to stay by the fire while he goes to find Tiffany.

They can hear a voice faintly calling for help, and Connor runs, stumbling ahead. There is a place where the tunnel floor gave way because of the rain, and Tiffany is trapped in a hole. Connor wants to rescue her and thinks that he screwed up and that’s why she’s in this position. he climbs down to help, Tiffany puts her arm around his neck and gloms on. Phoebe walks up help out - but to her eyes it looks like they are kissing! Devastated, she turns around and runs weeping back to the edge of the cave.

Finale

We see Phoebe huddled by the fire, hugging her knees. Connor comes in helping the hobbling Tiffany who is clinging to him. Phoebe is facing away from the fire “I’m sorry about your ankle” and is tearing up. She has been calling for help and is tearing up. She curls in more on herself. She has lost all of her pride.

Connor knows something is going on, but doesn’t know how to handle it, so he goes into control mode. “Let’s look at your ankle” he says to Tiffany. As she sits down and lifts her leg, something clonks out of her jacket. It is a two-way radio! She could have called for help at any time!

Connor calls in help, asking the rescuers to come to the cave. He is done with Tiffany and goes to comfort Phoebe. He gives her the jacket “It looks better on you” he grunts. Then they wait in silence for the rescuers to come and help them. As the rocks are moved away from the entrance a shaft of late afternoon sunlight pierces through and shines on the two of them together.

Epilogue

It’s two weeks later, Phoebe has spent as much time as she can with Connor and the romance is passionate young love. As the camp draws to a close they share phone details and she sees that he has a picture of her on his phone. Phoebe’s father arrives to pick her up, and she brings Connor across to meet him. Maybe this isn’t just a summer romance after all.

The Love that could not be spoken

This is a classic regency romance involving forbidden love. Our protagonist is Winifred Lannis, the daughter of a vicar. She wants redemption (she has had a lifetime of being told that feelings like those she has are evil) but is held back by a commitment phobia. She is in love with the lower class maid, Phoebe Witton. Phoebe is seeking true love, but is held back by a sense of shame because the love she seeks is not approved in this day and age. The trouble that we see in this story is time pressure.

Introduction

Walking towards the folly we can see a tall woman with a plain countenance. She wears it as matter-of-fact, proud of her plainness. Her mind keeps returning to Phoebe, even though it is not something to be countenanced, not in this society. Perhaps if there could be a position as a companion though?

Mrs Hooper the housekeeper is bustling around at the folly, and reminds Winifred that her father is coming back in a few days and he is planning to find her a husband!

Meet-Cute

We see Winifred setting up the decorations for a church festival. She keeps doing activities that take her near Phoebe. It is summer, a robust time, and Phoebe looks wonderful. Phoebe asks for help in hanging the garlands. They greet each other formally “You look well”, “You also look well” and discuss her father still being away. Mrs Hooper wants Winifred to dress up a bit more to be more appealing to men, but Phoebe thinks she looks fine, wants to know what man wouldn’t love her rosy cheeks and bright eyes. “A smart one would” Phoebe says. “You are too kind” says Winifred, “A true friend”. “It’s just the truth” Phoebe responds.

Complications

Winifred explains to Phoebe that her father is planning to marry her off to some man, but she doesn’t want a nice man...

Suddenly the door slams open, and a man strides in that neither have seen before. He has a weak chin and watery eyes; with expensive clothes badly worn. Either his valet hates him or he doesn’t know how to dress. The neck is a little off, his shoulders are not quite square and there is a scuff mark on his shoe.

“Phoebe, what are you doing working here? When you are my wife you will not waste time decorating, you will spend all your time keeping our home as a wife should!”

“Who are you?” they wonder.

“My name is Simon Burns, and this lady shall be my fiancée once I’ve applied to her father”

Winifred says that she has never heard her friend mention his name. It turns out that Simon’s father is in shipping in London, which makes him an attractive match (he has five thousand pounds a year!)

Simon wants Phoebe to come with him right now but Winifred remonstrates that she is needed a little longer. He glances at an expensive jewelled watch, then snaps it shut and says “very well, I shall wait for you outside darling” and stalks back out the room, shutting the door rudely behind him.

Phoebe says that Mr Burns is a suitor, she wants to put him off, but her father wants it to happen.

Winifred wonders whether Phoebe's father has debt, but it is merely a good business partner for her father. What fathers want, fathers get.

Mr Burns hammers on the door and shouts “Darling” and Phoebe has to hurry out.

First Kiss

Winifred can’t find Phoebe in the village the next day. The next day she hears that Mr Burns is still staying at the house and is planning to marry her within the week!

When she finally meets up with Phoebe she suggests they take a turn in the garden, and they walk around arms linked. Phoebe is in tears about how horrible Mr Burns is. Mother tells her how important it is to press on for the good of the family, and it is a duty, the same as the duty that she herself performed with Phoebe’s father.

Winifred thinks that marriage should not be so unhappy that it is merely duty. Surely there is something that could be done? Winifred thinks that her father might be prepared to intervene so that a young woman like Phoebe shouldn’t be so indisposed.

Winifred takes Phoebe’s head in both her hands, tenderly wiping away tears with her thumbs. They lean in to each other and briefly touch foreheads.

Catastrophe

Winifred goes to talk to her father who has just arrived back today. She wants to talk about Miss Phoebe and her unwanted and unsuitable suitor. Can he do anything? She is terribly distraught.

“Oh yes” her father replies. “Don’t worry Winifred, I’ve got this sorted out. Phoebe isn’t going to marry Mr Burns. YOU ARE!”

“Oh father, I’ve met him, he is horrible and has no chin”

“But he has five thousand pounds, my dear. I’ve set the wedding for tomorrow. You can wear your mother’s wedding dress. We’ve saved it for this day"

“My mother was a tiny delicate woman, but I am... who I am”

“Oh you are plain Winifred. You won’t find your pick of the men, this is wonderful that I’ve found someone so wealthy for you. The wedding will be tomorrow at noon”

“I don’t want this father”

“It’s not your say. You are a well brought up girl and should do your duty”

“I shall, father”

Finale

At 1am in the morning Winifred is woken by a rap at the window. Phoebe is there, she tells Winifred that they can go, together, now. If they go to the convent over the way together, nobody can touch them there.

“But I don’t want to take holy orders” Winifred says.

“I’d take orders for you” says Phoebe. “We could be novices together”

“I could do that for you”

Winifred climbs down the trellis, and they run across the green hand in hand together, to a future where nobody cares if they share a room together.

Epilogue

(Didn’t quite catch this, wasn’t sure how it fitted in with the rest of the story)

Knights of the Summer Queen

This is a light romantic comedy in a fantasy world, where Talag Garz the half-orc paladin is a knight in shining armour, and she has a belated love epiphany. She wants true love, but is held back by guilt over her past. She falls in love with Sinnaboldo, a wizard who wants to leave a legacy, but who has trust issues (he has known too many broken promises in the past). The trouble in this story is Talag’s friend Esquivel the bard, who is a busybody.

Introduction

Picture the scene. It is a dark countryside, and we can just see a pool of light around a small village. There are the sounds of happy songs and dancing. The whole village is celebrating because the knights of the summer queen have saved them. Everyone is dancing. Tarag is a tall half-orc knight in armour. She is smiling and looking at everyone feeling happy, but she looks a little sad and has some loneliness in her heart.

Plastered out of his mind, absolutely blitzed, a familiar face is pushing his way through the crowd. The bard swings his lute over his shoulder and clocks a child on the head. He puts his arm around Tarag’s shoulder. “How are you doing buddy, how’s it going?” Tarag picks up the child, and says “Just fine Esquivel. I think you’ve had too much ale”.

The bard says he’s had a conversation with the ladies at the bar, and she had told him an interesting thing - that 90% of eligible batchelors don’t know what they want from life. No direction. Tarag isn’t sure where Esquivel is going with this, but she is his friend so she patiently listens. Esquivel says that the knights are the people who should be able to fix everything. Tarag takes him to the tavern for another ale. She wishes she could fix herself.

Meet-Cute

The music in this scene is grim battle music. The knights have bashed down the door to Bruno’s keep, and they are thundering through, battling his evil minions. They are going to arrest him in the name of the Summer Queen. Tarag bursts open the door to the main chamber and Bruno cowers behind his throne. Caught in the room with him is Sinnaboldo his scholar. Tarag pauses. Is that a henchman or prisoner of the overlord?

The two of them look at each other. Sinnaboldo carefully raises his hands.

“Are you going to be any trouble?” Tarag asks.

“I intend to give you no trouble at all” he replies.

As she reaches out an open hand the rest of the knights swarm in, grab Sinnaboldo, slap him in irons and then hand the chain to Tarag, who instantly feels a little guilty. She feels awful, like she has betrayed him. Sinnaboldo makes big eyes at her and helps her overcome her feeling of guilt. Tells her that he appreciates that she is doing her duty. Tarag is a bit surprised at how she is feeling right now.

Complications

A few hours later at home base, and Tarag is interrogating Sinnabaldo, to find out whether he was a prisoner or a willing henchman. She is feeling weird because of the attraction she feels towards him. She runs into Esquivel who always turns up at the wrong time. She explains what she is doing, and that she thinks there is good in Sinnaboldo.

Esquivel challenges her. “Are you really sure? No doubts? No doubts at all? Not even the smallest doubt?” He thinks there is a thing in her right eye that sometimes happens when she is feeling something. There was a prisoner 13 months ago that talked to you.

“He charmed me”.

“Yeah, but he was talking to you and got you all funny, and wanted to let him out”

“he charmed me”

“But I don’t want you to have even the tiniest seed of doubt Tarag. I think he might have been pulling the strings from behind the scenes. A plant using a bell-end of an overlord.”

Sinnaboldo wasn’t sure whether Tarag would come back. He didn’t think she was going to. Tarag is bound by rules that limit what she can do. Sinnaboldo admits that he wasn’t exactly a prisoner, but he wasn’t helping Bruno either. "That sounds incriminating. Not exactly a prisoner" Esquivel says “see, I told you. A wrong-un”.

Confused, Tarag says “I’ve got to go pray about this” and runs off sobbing.

First Kiss

Sinnaboldo is a natural sorcerer and he is getting impatient with how this is all going, so he pops the manacles, pops the door of his cell and casts a silence spell upon his feet. He starts creeping out through the twisting passages, but he hears a sobbing from a well lit hallway. Curiosity draws him down there, and he sees a small chapel with Tarag kneeling in full plate before the altar of the Invincible Sun. She is loudly praying for guidance. She doesn’t understand the feeling of love she is feeling, but Esquivel is convincing. Can she have a sign? How can she judge someone that she is sure isn’t evil?

Sinnaboldo speaks her name softly from behind.

Tarag gets a bit defensive “I was praying. It was private”. Her cheeks are flaming red with embarrassment. Sinnaboldo thinks they may have been sent to one another. Tarag looks at the altar accusingly!

Sinnaboldo has been watching Tarag too. The kind way that she acted, the kind things that she said. Sinnaboldo says he would never lie to her.

“Well”, Tarag says, “Will you swear to the Invincible Sun that you didn’t help Bruno kill anyone?”

Sinnaboldo swears the oath.

Tarag says “that you would swear this oath is all that I need” and she sweeps him up in her arms into a mighty kiss.

Catastrophe

Tarag wants to get her love safely out of here. She isn’t going to put her back in prison. She will talk to the queen and make it all right. They are sneaking out and Tarag removes a gauntlet and takes Sinnaboldo’s hand. She is sure the queen will understand that he has a pure heart.

As they are sneaking past the throne room area, Esquivel saunters out of the doors, looking satisfied, as if he has done a good job. Tarag explains that Sinnaboldo has a good heart, is going to get him somewhere safe, and then is going to talk to the queen.

“Oh, that’s unfortunate” Esquivel says. “I may have already taken care of that for you... he had confessed that he wasn’t a prisoner and made you cry”

This infuriates Tarag, and they start yelling at each other, and people around see them and start approaching. Suddenly they are surrounded by other knights.

“Oh look, there’s Gary” Esquivel says. “Hi Gary!”

The guards look stern. “You are both coming with us” and they drag them both off separately. Tarag wants to look over at Sinnaboldo but the guards holding her won’t let her.

“Don’t forget, she was charmed by a spell once before” they shout.

Tarag rolls her eyes.

Sinnaboldo calls out piteously “Tarag!” As they are dragged away.

Finale

We see a montage switching from cell to cell. Tarag in one, Sinnaboldo in the other. Clearly they are both miserable. They can’t talk properly, Sinnaboldo has had his magic blocked.

Then they are both dragged out into the courtyard. They intend to execute Sinnaboldo to free Tarag from the supposed charm spell! Tarag is struggling fiercely and it is taking several knights to hold her back! Then a commanding voice calls out:

“Hold!”

The Summer Queen herself is coming down the steps into the courtyard. All the knights kneel. She never shows herself in public!

“You have forgotten the first law of the Invincible Sun”. She places her hand on Sinnaboldo’s head. The clouds part, and sunlight streams down and bathes him in light. Everyone looks on in awe.

“There is no evil in this man. There is only room in his heart for love”. Everyone shuffles back and leaves a channel between Tarag and Sinnaboldo.

“Go” says the Summer Queen. “Go and be in love” and they turn and walk off as the clouds disperse and they are covered by sunlight. Esquivel follows them, strumming a love song on his lute.

Epilogue

We see the same village that we saw at the beginning, but in daytime. There are butterflies, children playing around, and a neat hut at the edge of the village. As we see inside there is a very shiny sword hanging over the fireplace. Sinnaboldo is in the kitchen with a baby bouncing on his hip.

“Darling, can you get the baby?” He says, and we see Tarag, no armour and looking somewhat older “Of course, darling”.

There is a knock at the door and they shoot each other a glance and Sinnaboldo hands her a cooking knife. She carefully opens the door, and beyond is Esquivel. “Smells great in here. What’s for dinner?”

The Mystery of Beckett’s Ghost

This is a paranormal gothic romance. Quin Cursweil is our heroine, a paranormal investigator in a story where enemies become lovers. She wants healing, and is held back by control issues. Can she give up control enough to allow someone in? She will see some character growth in the story, moving from serious to playful. Her rival is Raphael Ebonvale, another investigator. He needs redemption for past mistakes, and is held back by anxiety. The trouble that underlies this story is one or more misunderstandings.

Introduction

it is a dark and stormy night outside Canterbury cathedral. Quinn is there because something strange is happening around Thomas a Beckett’s grave site. She is tall and thin, with long black hair that has a white streak through it. She wears lacy red dresses and is well put together. She is feeling very frustrated because people keep coming and going and your can’t investigate if you can’t control the variables. Someone walking by, an older man, says “I don’t know what you think you can do here. This is a man’s job”. She has a flashback to an older romance with a man who tried to control her, and kept on saying that she didn’t matter. She is trying to decide whether killing him with the knife she has in her bag would make her feel better...

Little did she know, her words had wounded someone who might have quite liked her, sowing the seeds of a misunderstanding.

Meet-Cute

One of the clerics comes out from the cathedral, and says that there is another investigator already here. Quinn wasn’t expecting another investigator, and enters the side room to see her rival Raphael with his top hat and tails; quite the dapper gentleman.

“We felt that we needed a man on the job” said the priest. “He’s cheap because he has bodged up so many other investigations. There was the woman who Raphael sent to the gallows because he claimed she was a witch”

“She did seem witchy” Raphael said, twisting his hands together a little.

“She had a warty nose” said the priest. “We want Raphael for the authority and because he is cheap, and you Quinn to reign him in”

Quinn thinks that Raphael is using poor sources for his investigations. She says that he hasn’t read the ghostly references, but she is prepared to work with him to avoid looking bad herself.

Raphael wants to proceed with his own ideas, but he is warned by the priest that if he makes another mistake, he will be going down too. And his partner. I think Quinn is rolling her eyes at this point.

Complications

Quinn suggests meeting with Widow Wellsworth. She can’t believe that Raphael had previously accused someone of being a witch, but is going to take him to see a genuine one. Raphael admitted that he had had his arm twisted by a client that drove him further than he should have gone. Quinn is going to make sure he doesn’t make that kind of mistake again.

They arrive at the widow’s house with a gift of honey which they know she loves. Mrs Wellsworth opens the door and regards them with glowing blue eyes. After a bit of byplay, they ask her about Beckett’s grave, and she says “Not again” and asks them what has been done so far. Apparently praying incense and holy water but not blood. She says that makes it special. Unless they understand the need for blood, they won’t be able to solve things. Raphael realises he is completely out of his depth here. Quinn thinks he really is a useless jerk.

First Kiss

Quinn is worried by the widow’s glowing blue eyes, but wants to get a feel for what has agitated the ghost of Beckett. They plan to return together to the tomb and see if they can sense something. It is fenced off, but they cross that barrier. She holds hands with Raphael and asks him to open his mind and see what he can sense. Does he feel anger, frustration?

Raphael screws his eyes shut. A wierd noise makes them both jump for a moment. Then there’s some creaking and ghostly noises, then a sudden noise makes him jump forward into Quinns arms. He confesses that he had been fully convinced that witches and spiritual things were not real but now this is all new to him and he is in well over his head!

They sit closer. He thinks there is something missing, something not quite right. Quinn suggests that he tries to see with his ears, and hear with his elbows, to get him to think differently. She is also moving from being serious to being a bit playful with him.

“Maybe he is upset because he was unlucky in love?”

Raphael is feeling odd, and sits closer. Senses that someone wanted something and didn’t get it. That a circle needs to be closed or something. He is really confused!

“There is something else that might help” Quinn playfully leans in and they kiss, deeply.

Catastrophe

Their lingering kiss ends, and they wonder if Beckett is craving love. A cold wind springs up and Raphael goes rigid as he is possessed by Beckett.

He speaks with a ghostly voice. “I’m sorry, but how idiotic could you possibly be? You think that after all of this time, after everything I have been through, what I want is love?”

“You’re not Raphael are you?”

“After centuries of waiting for something that would rid me of the curse which attaches me to this very spot, where my life was ended, that you would think that love of all things would solve it? I am offended” his eyes begin to glow red. “I am horrified” his hair all starts to stand on end. “That you would make my life a mockery” and he contorts into a hulking beast looming over her.

“Free him in the same way that it freed me. Stab him through the heart and it will cure us both”

Quinn’s face contorts as she draws her knife and stabs Raphael in the heart. The red light fades from his eyes, his body returns to normal, and all we see is Raphael sitting there with a knife in the chest... “Why? What have I done? I loved you” and he collapses dead.

Finale

Quinn stands over Raphael’s dead body and decides that she won’t lose him to this. She takes the knife and slices her palm, then puts her hand over his heart so that their blood mingles. She is whispering almost like it’s a mantra over and over again “I’m not going to lose you, I’m not going to let you win” and a red glow suffuses the chamber.

She puts the mingled blood on the tombstone, then takes a deep breath and gives Raphael a deep kiss. His eyes flutter open and he takes a gasping breath against her! “Raphael, is that you?”

“Yes...?”

“We got Beckett. We solved the case”

“But I died?”

“Mostly dead isn’t completely dead” Quinn says and she grins.

Maybe he is a bit sensitive to the spirits after all, Quinn thinks. Maybe she does know how to take action, Raphael thinks.

“You know,” Quinn says, “I think we could make a pretty good team”. “Now, let’s go get our money” she says with a playful smile. They walk out hand in hand.

Epilogue

We see a living room, and there is a knock on the door. “Whose turn is it to get that ?” Comes a voice from the nearby four-poster bed. “I think it’s mine” says Raphael. The curtains on the bed part, and Raphael walks up to the door. “If it’s the awful priest tell him to **** himself” Quinn shouts.

At the door Raphael sees the neighbour of Widow Wellsworth. “I think there is something wrong with the widow, can you help?”

“OK, we’ll be there in a few minutes”

Quinn’s voice: “Not a few minutes... later today”

Raphael closes the door and heads back to the bedroom. A hand reaches through the curtain, grabs him and pulls him onto the bed...

At Metatopia 2023 read my review here I was delighted when one of the playtesters of The Long Road Home suggested collaborating on a variation of that game but with the objective of telling love stories. Specifically those covered by the range of romance novels which have a happy conclusion.

If you've played some of my other games, you know that I have a bit of a reputation for telling sad stories (and that's OK... I think it is good to delve into the tragic and explore those emotions). However, the opportunity to work with someone on a game which helps us tell happy, uplifting stories? That was too good an opportunity to miss.

The person in question is Amanda Valentine, who is an excellent editor who has edited a couple of my games as well as much bigger and well known productions. She has brought in another couple of people who like her have a lot of experience in this space.

I don't have much experience in romance novels myself, but I've had a lot of fun exploring all the websites out there which talk about how to write romance stories - and there are a lot of them!

The Basics

There are nine basic career archetypes you can choose from, each of which clearly represents a kind of character you will remember from the movie: Colonial Marine, Colonial Marshall, Company Rep, Kid, Medic, Officer, Pilot, Roughneck, or Scientist. Each of them comes with key skills, a choice of talents, gear, personal agendas and sentimental item.

Your character has four attributes (Strength, Agility, Wits, Empathy) and each of those has three skills associated with them. You have a certain number of points to put into the attributes, and a certain number to put into skills.

In order to attempt something challenging you roll a handful of d6’s - one for each attribute point, one for each skill point, and perhaps one or two for equipment. You are looking for sixes. One six is a success, every additional six after the first gives you a stunt. There are lists of stunts for the different skills as well as for combat. You also roll as many dice as you have stress. 6’s on the stress dice are just as good, because you benefit from the adrenaline of the stress. However, any 1’s on the stress dice mean that you have to check on the panic table, and that’s where things can get very hairy...

There are lots of ways you can get stress. Seeing shocking and horrific things. Firing an automatic weapon burst. People near you panicking. You can even up your stress yourself by pushing yourself, which allows you to re-roll any of your dice (as long as you’ve not had a panic check). Stress can rack up pretty quick though, and you might need to find a safe place to rest up and gather your wits. Perhaps enjoy a little banter with your mates.

Injury reduces your health, and when health reaches zero you are ‘broken’ and also roll on the ‘critical damage’ table - everything from broken nose and sprained ankle up to severed leg, disembowelled, or pierced skull. Fun for all the family.

Because it is a horror game, scarcity is another dial that can be turned to put up the pressure. Food, water, air, power can all be neatly tracked and cause you injury and stress if they run out.

Playing the Game

The rules have the funny conceit of the game being run by the ‘Game Mother’, because the ship computer in the original film was called ‘Mother’. It is worth getting together crib-lists of things which you will need to refer to frequently because some of the rules are scattered through the rules a bit, including some important ones (which I’ll mention later).

I ran the game with a map and ‘theatre of the mind’ for combat because that seemed a reasonable choice, and the combat rules don’t seem geared for delicate measurement. Ranges are engaged, short, long etc, where engaged is in hand to hand combat, short is basically in the same room, long is down a corridor from you and so on.

As I ran the game there were a few moments of stress racking up here and there as they came across bodies or similar weirdness. However, when they got into the armoury by hammering on the lock with a big wrench, that woke up a nearby alien and believe me, stress winds up quickly when fighting off the titular threat!

Initiative uses cards (and aliens get dealt two cards, so they get to go twice). The PCs can choose to swap cards between them, to agree the order they go in which gives some nice flexibility. Also there is a combat stunt which allows you to swap your initiative with that of your foe which gives an extra dynamic to the game.

I quite like that each of the xenomorphs has you roll a dice to decide what it basically does that round - from stare menacingly to piecing a skull with it’s jaws and a number of options in between. There are distinct charts for each of the lifecycle stages.

When the xenomorph fight kicked off it wasn’t long before characters were screaming, fleeing etc - all of which ratcheted up everyone else’s stress. The android character does have an advantage in that they don’t suffer from stress, but the disadvantage they they can’t push themselves either. It helps make the androids quite interesting to play.

It’s important for the players to recognise that they need to seek downtime in safe places in order to recover stress. If they don’t do that, then their tenure during the game is like to be pretty short once things really start going pear shaped.

Why I like this game

First of all the stress mechanic. Hopefully everyone who sits down to play this game is already bought in to the idea that their character agency may be taken out of their hands by the sheer horror of the situation. I love the way that stress creeps up, helps you pull off incredible things, but panic trips you (and other people up). All together it really pulls in the atmosphere of the films.

Secondly the agendas. If you are running a cinematic style one-shot, the varied agendas introduces some really fruitful inter-character tension to the game. The game rules reward you for playing up to your agenda, but most of the time it is just plain fun. The agendas do mean that you can see some PvP conflict, and the rules in place seem to handle that pretty well.

Thirdly, it is easy to tweak things to your liking. Personally, although I think Aliens is an incredible film and one of the best sequels I’ve ever seen all-round, I don’t like the queen alien they introduced. Making them like hive-insects in that respect made them at the same time less alien and less terrifying. The original film novelisation made it clear that the alien could capture people, cocoon them and start a process that turns them into the eggs. Thus if even one of them got onto a planet, it could spread and grow like a pandemic. That seems much more terrifying to me. So guess what - in my games of Alien, that’s going to be the way things work!

Fourthly, the character careers have bags of flavour. So much so that I could see the rules being used for a plain old gritty sci-fi game which didn’t actually have to involve the xenomorph at all! You could use these rules and have an enjoyable and gritty game of blue-collar space workers.

Where can you find the game

Probably easiest to visit https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/alien/

Would you like to see a story?

I ran the introductory scenario which is included in the back of the rulebook called “Hope’s Last Day”. It’s set in Hadley’s Hope in the colony after the main alien incursion, but before the colonial marines arrive with Ripley.

I decided to add a little bit of variety to the stock characters, so I separated their agendas out, and gave the agendas randomly (and secretly) to the player characters. Even I didn’t know who had which agenda, and it was great to see them gradually get revealed during play.

Note - I made ‘android’ into an agenda. The person who got that agenda was told that they couldn’t push themselves, and they could pretend to be stressed but didn’t have to reveal that they were an android until either they were wounded (white fluid rather than blood) or there was a situation where they exposed their greater than normal android abilities - permanently boosting two attributes by +3 - or didn’t suffer from stress or panic.

Characters:

McWhirr: Officer, Union Organiser. Secret agenda - she is an android that will sacrifice itself to save people.

Hirsch: ex-Marine, Janitor. Secret agenda - a religious fanatic who thinks these are demons he must destroy.

Singleton: Pilot, Tractor-driver, Secret agenda - take revenge on the corporates who are responsible for what has befallen your friends and family at Hadley’s Hope.

Sigg: Scientist, Lab Technician. Secret agenda - an agent for Weyland Yutani, make sure no information leaks out, kill people if necessary.

Holroyd: Roughneck, Mechanic. Secret Agenda - get a sample of the alien life-form off planet.

Act 1

They enter the base and hear an intercom alert, warning everyone to make their way down to the basement storeroom for a final stand. They decide to go down that way to investigate, creeped out by the steam and flickering emergency lighting. They nearly get to the location of the final stand of the colonists but get cold feet and decide not to proceed further down that route. The scenes of fighting worry them enough that they decide their first order of business is to make their way up to the armoury in the command centre.

They make their way up to the second floor, and creep through the corporate office on the way to the command centre. They see the corporate agent Reynolds sitting in a chair with her back to them. Investigating further she is dead (horribly so) and her keycard has been partially melted by some kind of acid. Her communicator is blinking, and they find messages on it from her scientist, Kominsky, who is apparently locked in the med lab.

The way there is through the command centre. Sigg runs a bypass but has to push herself to do it and picks up some more stress. The armoury door is locked and she fails to bypass the security on this, pushes herself and gets a mild panic attack, but nothing too bad. Hirsch decides to batter the lock off the door and picks up a heavy wrench. The noise reverberates around the room, but he gets it open. Silently a shape unfolds from the machinery behind them. They hand out the shotgun and magnum when the alien behind them strikes. Hirsch hides behind a cabinet when it looks at him, Singleton takes a shot at it, and it turns and jaws piston out and through Singleton’s skull, killing her instantly. The others unload with their magnum, shotgun and bolt gun, and acid is sprayed liberally over Singleton’s body as the alien goes down. Sigg deduces some pretty horrible things about this alien and they decide to keep a bit quieter as they move to the medlab.

Act 2

Into the medlab they find Kominsky locked into the quarantine room, alongside another body which has a facehugger attached. McWhirr decides that they are not letting Kominsky out until they are sure that things are safe. The decide to have a break to reduce some stress. Hirsch provides some welcome banter which helps them recover a little more quickly. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. They probably should have started moving but they decided to rest a little more - and it turned out to be a mistake. A facehugger scuttled into the room, causing them all to jump up in panic. Someone shoots at it and misses, so it lashes out with its tail and injures Siggs who panics and runs for it, down a corridor towards the upper casino level.

Holroyd attempts to pin it under an empty stasis flask, and is injured by a splash of acid blood before he got it sealed in the box. Secretly pleased, he was now planning how he might get this box off the planet.

Meanwhile Sigg had reached the casino, tugged a door open and was buried under a pile of bodies that tumbled on top of her. She screamed and burrowed her way out, then screamed again as she realised that one of the bodies was still conscious. “help me” the person whispered, and Sigg dragged them out and back into the medic bay. Her name is Maria, and she is in a bad way.

They decide that it is time to get Kominsky out of isolation. She is clearly suffering from PTSD or something similar, and is barely able to string words together with them. But she does have a precious security card key on a lanyard round her neck - their ticket out of here!

They are planning their route out of here when Maria screams and arches her back. Everyone clusters round her, looking for the medical equipment, and is startled when blood fountains out of her chest and a vicious chestburster tears out, hissing at them. Everyone makes a panic roll and Siggs and Kominsky literally flee as fast as they can, running out through the command centre.

McWhirr shoots at the horrible little thing and it returns the favour by slashing at her legs with its razor sharp metallic teeth. It wounds McWhirr badly. So badly that McWhirr starts leaking milky fluid and her leg servos give way, crashing to the ground!

Finding out that McWhirr was an android stresses people out, and a couple of others panic and drop what they were holding. Holroyd cowers, but Hirsch keeps his head and blasts the thing with his shotgun, killing it but spraying McWhirr with some more globs of acid which finish off her legs.

Act 3

Cut to Kominsky and Siggs, running in the direction of the shuttle landing pad. They pause for breath at the airlock, and Siggs readies a syringe to take out Kominsky as her personal agenda is that nobody gets out with information that would embarrass her bosses at Weland Yutani.

Just before she strikes, something else happens to Kominsky who screams and clutches her chest in pain. Siggs twigs what is going on and changes her plans, reaching out to grab the lanyard with the security pass from around her neck (we ran this as a grapple with +1 stunt in order to succeed). Success! She grabs the lanyard just as Kominsky falls to the floor in a shower of blood. A screeching chest burster emerges and sizing up the situation decides to deal with this human. It leaps at Siggs and tears at her neck, rupturing her jugular. It then flees as Siggs vainly attempts to staunch the flow of blood until help arrives.

Back in the medical bay there is a tense stand-off between Holroyd who wants to get away with the facehugger in a box and Hirsch who is determined to kill it. Weapons are drawn, Orders given, but Holroyd tries to run for it. Hirsch shoots him with the shotgun, destroying his foot, before taking out the creature in the box. McWhirr and Hirsch have long hated each other, and McWhirr is an android, but there is something in Hirsch that yearns for redemption. He hauls up McWhirr to his back where she clings, and tells her that they were both getting out of here.

Leaving the dying Holroyd on the floor of the medical centre, they follow the route towards the shuttle bay - and come across the dead Kominsky and Siggs. Siggs hadn’t been able to hold out long enough. They retrieve the security pass still gripped in Sigg's dead fingers, then proceed onwards.

Making their way across the tarmac, they attempted to move stealthily to avoid attracting alien attention - they succeed but at a cost... Hirsch panics and drops something - he drops McWhirr! McWhirr tells him to keep going and draws her magnum, determined to hold off the aliens to give him a chance.

Hirsch runs a bypass to disengage the security which is a close thing but he avoids further panic. Sitting in the pilot seat and powering up the engines he is unfamiliar with causes him to panic and he starts screaming; pulling back on the controls the shuttle launches up into the sky, Hirsch screaming as it does. Terror or relief, we don’t really know. As he calms down, he sets the controls for home, and wearily climbs into a sleep pod for the long journey. Nobody will ever believe him, but he has demons he must seek out and slay.

~ end ~

The Basics

This is an epistolary game for two players. One person is the Explorer, heading out to Tau Ceti on a generation space ship. The other person plays the person who remains on earth. Up front you decide who these people are, and what kind of relationship they have with one another, and you decide which one goes, and which one wishes they had gone but stays.

A deck of cards is divided into four stacks, one for each of it's suits. You start with four cards, one from each suit. Each time you play a card, the suit advances one of the story threads for either Earth or the Fleet. The value of the card gives both a personal detail to include in a communication and tells you what mangling of the letters you should start using from this time forth.

Playing the Game

Although the main summary of playing the game is given on p8, there are prequel letters that you are told to write on p15 (the Explorer) and p22 (the Earther) so don't miss those out! They are letters written in the clear which help set out information about the character and who they are and how they feel.

When you get into the game proper, you alternate writing between the Explorer and the Earther. You draw a card, look at the suit and see what story thread is advancing, and look at the value to see what personal thread there is. The red suits are threatening stories, the black suits are hopeful stories.

You write your communication based on responding to the previous communication(s), talking about the story events and the personal events which have come up. Then when necessary you use search and replace to provide any transmission garbling of the message. As the game progresses you will be doing search and replace more times, and the messages become progressively garbled.

When you have played a card, you draw two additional cards from the deck of that suit. This mechanic means that the stories which your start on are more likely to cascade forward to their ultimate end, for good or ill.

The game ends either when someone has their fifth card in a single suit, or when messages have become so garbled during transmission that they are no longer legible. At this point a single, final message is sent and the game ends.

We compressed the game into five minute writing turns, so that we could do the whole game in one evening. It is probably easier to play over a more extended period (although I've had examples in the past when extended epistolary games have dropped off people's radar and fade away when played over many days).

Why I like this game

The prompts for the story threads are great, and the fact that several threads may advance but there is very likely to be a skew once you get started gives a sense of dramatic progression in the game, and not just random story events popping up unrealated to one another.

I've written a number of games which use card suits, but not in this way where the suits accumulate towards a final total. It provides both a visual and narrative drive to the game. I also like that the value of cards comes into play too. The card value is used both to give a personal narrative nudge and to indicate what letter transformations should be applied. About half of the cards will cause a transformation the first time they are played, and half will cause a transformation the second time they come up. In the game we played I was quite lucky - although from the first transmission onwards I sounded like Elmer Fudd, it wasn't until the fifth transmission that I had an additional transformation.

There is a page which reminds you of the increasing transmission lag as the game progresses, and although there isn't any mechanical impact in the game we found it really helpful to consider the time-jumps in the later sessions of the game.

Another thing to like about this game, along with other epistolary games, is that you create an artefact as part of the play. Something you can look back at and think about. I enjoyed the characters which we created in the game, and frankly we put them through hell as you'll see in the write-up.

Where can you find the game

The game can be purchased on Etsy, DriveThruRpg, itch and at Indie Press Revolution. There are links to most of these places from the Lunar Shadows home page here https://lunarshadow.net

Would you like to see a story?

Characters:

• The Explorer (Alex) - Brad Armstrong, USA -- Young male in their 20s / brother / chosen for the Interstellar Generation Fleet / sociologist
• The Earther (Camilla) - Bella / Beau Armstrong, USA -- Young female in the 20s / sister / not chosen for the Interstellar Generation Fleet / mechanical engineer on Earth, around 2090

We are walking around the seafront near Cape Cod, near our family house. We are descendents of Neil Armstrong, first man on the Moon - and want to continue the family tradition. We have a sense of purpose and a drive to explore. Brad has found a girlfriend at a museum - Allison. She makes him laugh and he enjoys being with her. Bella talks about going to Sweden and exploring Scandinavia. She tells Brad that her application was rejected.

Brad Armstrong - first letter from the fleet

I’m on the ship called the Shakespear, which I’m super proud about. I know it could have been any artist or teacher or explorer, but the fact that we are on a poet ship seems, well, poetic!

I’m a social scientist on the trip, which is bang in line with my training. It’s good, because some people have been assigned to other stuff which is apparently necessary but not what they trained for. They recognise the importance of understanding how we tick out here though.

Thinking about how we tick, Alison wouldn’t speak to me before I left. I thought that she was going to be coming along too, but apparently she had misread her letter or something. Anyway, she was furious with me and wanted me to give up my position, but I couldn’t do that. This is the greatest adventure that mankind has ever had. I couldn’t give that up.

I’ve got a couple of trinkets I brought with me. I’ve got a locket with mum and dad on one side and you on the other Beau. Means a lot to me! Plus that little model spaceship I made as a kid. I know it’s silly, but it’s not every day your dreams come true.

I miss you already. I’m glad we can keep in touch this way.

Love you! Brad

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - first letter from Earth

Hello Brad, all is good under the light of Sol. Thank you for your message, it made me happy.

I am very sorry to hear that things did not work out with Allison, I was hoping that she would come with you. I guess we all have to deal with our own pain, and the consequences of what happened to us, whether we chose it or not.

I do think that the wonder of the new journey will make you happy and keep you busy. I know you’ll make friends with your colleagues, and perhaps find love again. I wish that for you, brother.

On my end, things are a bit difficult, I am not gonna lie. The disappointment of being still with my boots on the ground, in Earth’s gravity, stings a little. I wanted …. I guess I wanted to try to see something new, and make contact with whatever is waiting on Tau Ceti. You… are lucky, brother. And I am happy for you. I am getting ready to depart for Sweden, and I will let you know what I find there.

One final thing: thank you for bringing me, mom, and dad on this trip with you. Even through a small locket, I can hope to experience some of what you will see, through your words. Thank you for keeping me informed - it means so much to me. Yours, Beau

Brad Armstrong - second letter from the fleet

I’m late wwiting, but it has been SO busy wecently. Evew since we picked up a weak signal fwom an empty wegion of space it has been all hands to twying to wowk out what it might mean. Exciting stuff, and I’ve been doing some wetwaining as a semantic pwogwammew, twying to help ouw LLM undewstand what is going out thewe.

This is my fiwst day off that I’ve had in weeks (ow it seems like weeks). I spent my time in the agwi-dome, walking amidst the twees and listening to the wecowded biwdsong. I’d pwefew to have been walking by cape cod like we did those months ago, listening to the waves, but this ewsatz natuwe is good enough wight now.

I’m sowwy that it’s difficult fow you. I’m welying on youw to keep mum and dad’s spiwits up.

Thewe is a cutie that I’ve seen walking in this awea too. I might twy to get to know hew. You nevew know!

Gosh, times up, and back to the gwindstone. Keep well Beau!

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - second letter from Earth

Dear Brad, how are you?

It is so nice to hear from you. Your latest message was a bit disturbed, but I could understand what you wrote. I am so happy to hear that you can find some relief in nature, even though it might not compare to the woods and seashore that we so love here on Earth. I miss our walks and I miss talking to you and walking with you.

I am sorry that you’re so busy and it sounds like everybody is on edge. I hope the new signals you picked up are just more invitations to join these new … people? Out there. Always remember how excited we were when we first heard of this mission!

And let me know the name of this cute girl you saw. :)

On my end, things are much the same. The sky is big, full of light, the air is warm - even in Sweden. I hope your skies are even bigger. Darker. Newer and bolder.

I am keeping in touch with mom and dad while I am away. As you know, the usual caregiver, Linda, is helping them out, so I am sure they are in good hands.

While here in Europe, I actually got called into a meeting at the United Nations, as part of the team that worked on the construction of the Generation Fleet. Apparently there is widespread concern about the costs and risks of this journey. Many heads of state are talking about the future of humanity and its place in the larger universe, and some of it reeks of xenophobia, Brad. Some talk about the fact that getting in touch with a more advanced alien species could break humanity in two. It all sounds crazy to me, and this is the first I hear about it. We really don’t get much information in the USA, do we?

The larger world is… a bit scary, but interesting. I will keep you posted, and will do all I can to let them all know the wonderful people involved with this mission. Stay well, Beau.

Brad Armstrong - third letter from the fleet

Deaw Beau,

Well, I’ve spoken mowe with that cute giwl. Hew name is Eliza, and she is one of the engineews who wowk hawd to keep evewything wowking. She nowmally wowks out of the Awchimedes, but ciwculates amongst all the fleet ships in owdew to keep the biodomes wowking well. We’ve held hands and had a coffee and a kiss, but nothing mowe yet. You know me, I’m a slow movew!

I don’t like to wowwy you, but the safety that ouw beloved planet pwovides fow its inhabitants shouldn’t be undewestimated. We had a weally neaw miss just wecently. One of the umbwella ships that pwotects us at the head of the fleet was sewiously damaged. We don’t know what it was, the scannews should have picked up any thweats, but suddenly it was missing half of it’s shield! The science diwectowate thinks that it might be dawk mattew involved. That’s all that we need!

Send my love to mum and dad. Don’t tell them about the umbwella failuwe will you? I’m suwe it is just an isolated incident.

That UN stuff sounds a bit wowwying. Is it just the news media blowing things out of pwopowtion again? We wely on you guys holding it togethew back thewe you know!

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - third letter from Earth

Draw Bwad,

Thank you fow youw message! It made me happy to heaw fwom you, especially because the situation hewe on Eawth is degenewating wapidly. Appawently in just the space of a month the discussions at the UN I told you about have twansfowmed into political factions which gained incwedible suppowt in such little time.

I am wwiting to you on my day off. I am still in Euwope, because I have been called again and again in talks about the developing situation with the two factions that awe developing; they awe called Social Isolationists and Galactic Expansionists, and they both awe bad news. The stench of xenophobia has quickly tuwned into pwoto-Fascism, and I am honestly wowwied about what will happen if these factionsget to power in the next election cycles - perhaps it was not a good idea, aftew all, to cweate an Eawth Council that can ovewsee mattews with the Genewation Fleet. I will keep you posted if majow decisions awe taken.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have focused all ouw enewgies to study math and science. Perhaps, like youw ship’s namesake, we should have engaged in awt and litewatuwe, and ethics, and cultivated empathy… only time will tell.

I am so happy to heaw about Eliza! I hope things keep moving along, and you find some happiness. Engineews awe fantastic people, as you know fwom youw sistew ha ha!

I am not happy to heaw about the news miss. I weally hope it is not dawk matthew, that would be sewious. I won’t tell mom and dad, but please send anotehw message soon - I want to make suwe that you awe well!

With love, miss you bwothew! B

Brad Armstrong - fourth letter from the fleet

Deaw Beau

That’s tewwible news about the political situation. That kind of populist factionalisation is the vewy thing that I’m supposed to be keeping an eye out fow and stopping up hewe. I wish I could be back thewe helping out, but thewe is a gweat gulf between us now.

Which weminds me – something I must get off my chest. It was me that wipped up youw teddy beaw when you wewe little, not the dog. I’d got mad about something, and I shouldn’t have done. But I wanted you to know the twuth. Always the twuth between us Beau.

Eliza is gweat, she weminds me of you in many ways (not cweepy! Sowwy!) She can cewtainly beat me in a wwestling match, as she has pwoved a numbew of times now (nudge, wink!)

Do you wemembew that I’d been putting my sociology skills to good use in the LLM twaining? Well, it appeaws to be beawing fwuit! The AI models have been spitting out not just mathematics but also fowmulae and plans fow something and the fabwicatows have been building something fwom them. Compact and powewful. I think the diwectowate awe saying that this could be (could be) a kind of wowking FTL dwive. I kid you not.

All my love Beau. Keep safe, and knock some sense into heads down thewe.

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - fourth letter from Earth

My deawest Bwad,

I miss you! Weceiving youw message was such a welief and delight, after the latest events hewe in Eawth! Things keep getting stwangew and mowe unsettling hewe.

The Solaw Isolationist faction is now claiming to have discovewed evidence about a hidden warning concealed within the Signal, and they awe now attempting to convince the Eawth Councila nd the UN to send a wecall order to the Genewation Fleet. Wecall! What awe they even thinking… the Genewation Fleet was nevew meant to come back, but just to look ahead an move into the futuwe and into new unexplowed spaces. This all feels so backwawds and unsettling.

Isolationists awe also stawting to contwol infowmation and communications, especially between Eawth and the Fleet. I am sending you this message now so that I can be suwe that it won’t be changed, and I hope it comes to you cleaw and weadable. I am afwaid that some censowship might be implemented soon, aftew the upcoming Eawth Council elections. The Isolationists hold a weally gweat sway on the population now…

At least I could come back home, in Massachussetts. Mom and dad awe fine and they send theiw best wishes. They miss you, and I miss you, too. In fact, I truly wish you wewe hewe, we would need youw ewudition and social backgwound to countew these messages of hatwed and ignowance. I didn’t think we would have to deal with this… in 2090.

I thank you fow telling me about Mw. Paw the Teddy beaw. I fowgive you, fow what is wowth. I also want to tell you that I had a dweam about you. It was a beautiful dweam about you and youw ship finding a bettew place to live, finding a sunny, lovely spot with seas and natuwe on the way to Tau Ceti, and settling thewe. Maybe with this new exciting technology and the new FTL drive you will be able to cweate that and get to such a place. I hope that fow you.

Enjoy evewy minute with Eliza, she sounds like a keepew. I am happy fow you Bwad. On this end, I will keep fighting fow reason and logic to ovewcome this insane developments.

Mowe soon, A big hug, Beau.

Brad Armstrong - fifth letter from the fleet

My deaw Beau,

Hugs wight back to you. I think time is passing mowe quickly fow you than it is fow me, because of time dilation. I think you’we going to be the oldew sibling now!

I’ve been wepwimanded officially at wowk. A black mawk on my wecowd. I could appeal, but fwankly I don’t think that Eliza desewves it eithew, and I’m taking the blame because I took the lead. We’we officially a couple, and we’we going to have a kid! We wewe not on the pwocweation wostew, but we got cawwied away in the celebwations.. but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The FTL dwive wowks! Well, the fiwst few tuwned themselves inside out, and we’ve not wisked it with people yet, but we’ve got an expewimental vewsion wowking in an unmanned shuttle which can do about a light yeaw pew day!

So hang those idiots back home! If things keep going the way they awe at the moment, we might be able to come back and pick you up ouwselves! I don’t think the fleet is going to listen to any wecall owdews now. No siw.

Love you Beau.

By the way, we’ve decided what to call ouw little giwl. Eliza wants to call hew Belle – like my little/big sistew!

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - fifth letter from Earth

Deaw Kwad,

It’s so good to heaw fwom you! It’s keen so long, and so much has happened in-ketween, like it always happens hewe on Eawth. Thankfully the new developments awe not in the diwection of stwictew policies, kut towawd new… discovewies!

Just like you descwibed about youw FTL (I am so so happy that it wowks! Onwawd and upwawd!), we had a majow scientific kreakthwough hewe on Earth, which confiwmed a new kranch of high enewgy physics, called Distrikuted Field Theowy. Eawly expewiments with DFT computing demonstwated its potential to outperfowm quantum computing ky a factow of 10 ow more. Just incwedible stuff.

I am sowwy akout the wepwimand. Is that kecause of the pwegnancy? It seems silly that they would ke mad akout that, you’ll need all the population you can get! I am happy that I’ll ke an aunt, and that my niece ow nephew will ke called Kelle like me! We shall see if they will end up as Keau as well, ha ha.

I weally hope that among all these new discovewies we will get to see one anothew soon. I miss you. Mom and dad do too. They awe still well, thankfully.

Love, Bella

Brad Armstrong - sixth letter from the fleet

Deawest Bella,

I’m wwiting to you fwom a day of compassionate leave. It’s a black day fow all of us, but me especially.

We wan into anothew dawk mattew micwometeowoid showew again. Wowse this time. It took out one whole umbwella ship and ploughed thwough the Awchimedes.

The Awchimedes is gone. Fwagments in ouw wake. All of them awe dead. All of them awe gone.

Oh Bella. Eliza was on the Awchimedes.

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - sixth letter from Earth

Demw Kwmd,

I hope this messmge finds you, whewevew you mwe.

… I mm so sowwy. I don’t even know whmt to smy. When the news wemched us hewe in Mmssmchussets, they shook us mll so much. I cmnnot immgine the pmin, the sowwow, the hemwtkwemk… oh, Kwmd, I just wish I could ke thewe with you and hug you mnd hold you like we did when we wewe childwen, in ouw speciml spot mmde of found kwmches on the sem showe.

You did not desewve this, bwothew. My hemwt cwies with youws.

Youws in mourning, Bellm

P.s. New discovewies hewe: wesemwchews discovewed evidence of pwoto-digitml life fowms evolving mt m fmst wmce within DFT netwowks. We still don’t know if this is good ow kmd news. I will keep you posted.

Brad Armstrong - seventh letter from the fleet

Deaw Bella,

It’s been a yeaw and youw message is bweaking up mowe and mowe. I hope it isn’t those political factions intewfewing with the message and censowing things as you feawed. I hope my messages awe getting thwough to you OK. It’s a wowwy because we have lost communication between vessels in the fleet now. Dawk mattew showews have been scwaping off ouw communication antenna.

The bwight hope of the FTL dwive seems tantalisingly close, but still out of weach. We could do with some of those DFT netwowk intelligences which you folks have been developing I weckon.

My dweams have been all mixed up wecently. Sometimes I dweam of holding my little baby Belle, at othew times I dweam of us walking the beaches, shawing ouw hopes and wondewing what dweams might come. My dweams have too many nightmawes in them at the moment.

Think of us, out hewe in the dawk. Pway fow us, if you will. We need all the good thoughts and good luck we can get.

You might think it foolish, but I clutch my locket when I go to sleep at night. I feel it bwings us closew.

I can’t help thinking that the doow of chance in fwont of us could swing eithew way wight now.

All my love, Bwad

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - seventh letter from Earth

Demw Kwmd,

I hope this eessmge finds you, whewevew you mwe. Mll is still intmct undew the light of Sol - yet, ey hemwt is heavy ms I wwite you this eessmge.

2 yemws hmve pmssed mnd… Dmd got sick. We initimlly thought it wms a simple benign tueow, but the cmncew expmnded and took hie lmst eonth. It wms m slow decline, he hmd time to smy his good-kyes, mnd in the end, he wms sewene. He told ee to tell you thmt he loved you vewy euch, mnd thmt he hopes thmt you will find whmt you seek, whethew thmt is m new lmnd ow the new FLT dwive bwought to completion.

I mlso hope thmt fow you.

News fwom the plmnet Emwth: lmtely, we hmve hmd some unusumlly stwong semsons of stowes in both the Mtlmntic and Pmcific Ocemns, which hmve diswupted ateosphewic mnd ocemn cuwwents… soee smy it is becmuse of the new scientific discovewies, and wesemch on thmt hms hmlted fow now… I hope it will restmwt soon.

I miss you lots. I wish I could hug you. Kellm

Brad Armstrong - eighth letter from the fleet

Deawest Keau,

I’m weceiving youw message, although it is getting mowe gawkled. So sowwy to heaw akout dad, kut I’m suwe he enjoyed youw suppowt in his last yeaws, and you kept him fwom wowwying akout me, fow which I’m gwateful. So pleased that he had a sewene passing.

Doesn’t sound like all is sewene on planet eawth though – I’m welying on the sense of secuwity kack thewe, and those stowms sound kad. Awe you safe whewe you awe living?

Safety is something which is vewy much on ouw mind. Thewe has keen mowe damage to the umkwella ships, and with the loss of communication we have clustewed the whole flotilla kehind the last wemaining umkwella ship. All the eggs in one kasket so to speak.

Howevew, life goes on! In the last yeaw I’ve made a new fwiend – Valewia. In fact we’we getting mawwied latew today, so waise a glass of champaigne on ouw kehalf kack home my deaw! It’s not as sudden as it might sound, as thwee yeaws have passed since I lost Eliza and the little one, and with the dawkness outside we need all the comfowt we can give one anothew out hewe.

I accept youw hugs with gwatitude, and send kack my own. Kwad

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - eighth letter from Earth

Deew Kwed, H hope thhs eessege fhnds you well, whewevew you ewe. Thenk you fow youw lest eessege, H wes vewy heppy to wecehve ht. Ht elweys eekes ee heppy to heew fwoe you.

H ee gled you ewe fhndhng love whth Velewhe. You heve so euch to ghve, end you ewe whght, hn the dewk out thewe, you need soee weweth end coepeny. H hope thhs love whll lest end whll kwhng you joy.

5 yeews heve gone ky hewe. E lot hes heppened. H heve not found e coepenhon. H pwefew the solhtude of the see, the coepeny of ey dog, Ew. Pew #2, end e quhet lhfe on the coest of Eessechussetts.

Eoe hes dhed, too. She hed e few sewene lest yeews, end H heve keen whth hew unthl the end. She dhed hn fwont of the oceen, lhstenhng to the sound of the weves, whhch she loved.

News fwoe Plenet Eewth… The stowes heve eketed fow now, end weseewch on DFT hes phcked up egehn. We hed soee hntewesthng news: soee dhghtel enththes weshsthng whthhn the netwowks end wefewwhng to theeselves es Dhstwhkuted Quentue Hntellhgences eede contect! The genewel populethon hes coee to cell thee DQs, end we sthll don’t know whethew they ewe fwhendly ow eggwesshve.

H elso heve soee pewsonel news. H wes - wwongly - eccused of pesshng hnfoweethon to the US govewneent ky the Eewth Counchl, end H wes dhsehssed fwoe ey poshthon. H don’t know who ectuelly dhd ht ow whet heppened, kut H know thet H feel done whth thhs wowk. H know thhs whll dwhve us fuwthew epewt, kut H heve to teke cewe of ey own well-kehng.

H cweeted e lhttle netwowk et hoee, so H hope to ke ekle to keep sendhng you eesseges.

H ehss you lots, kwothew. H weelly hope you’ll fhnd hepphness.

Ke well, Kelle

Brad Armstrong - ninth letter from the fleet

Deaw Keau,

It makes me sad to think of you alone with youw dogs, although they awe such good companions. You have so much to give in youw intellect and empathy and good natuwe, it is a shame that othews awe wokked of the akility to enjoy so much of youw company. Kut such is life.

I know it will ke yeaws kefowe you see this, I hope the DQs tuwn out to ke fwiendly, and awe akle to save the planet fwom it’s politicians!

Up hewe, we awe having a celekwation. I want you to pictuwe it in youw mind’s eye. Thewe is me and Valewia with little Tina and kaky John sitting awound a “Chwistmas twee” made of cakles and papew. We even made little papew chains and a tiny 3D pwinted nativity. I can’t wememkew when we last celekwated Chwistmas, kut we weally have something to give thanks fow – the FTL dwive wowks! Some of ouw team have visited Lutyens and come kack safely! We can’t get to Tau Ceti fow some weason – the doow is klocked – kut pewhaps we will get out of this aftew all.

Joy to the wowld! All of us wejoice!

Health to you and youw pups. Keau!

Bella (Beau) Armstrong - ninth letter from Earth

Deew Kwed, So lovely to heew fwoe you. Youw eessege coees et such e gweet dhstence fwoe the lest one… you eust ke getthng weelly few. Ht’s gweet to heew thet you ewe elhve end well.

H ee so heppy to heew ekout the Chwhstees celekwethon! H cen hndeed phctuwe ht, whth the twee, the pwesents, the khds…ht weehnds ee of us, es khds, celekwethng whthout e wowwy hn the wowld. Thenk you fow thet pwechous eeeowy, H whll hold on to thet.

End the news ekout the FLT… so wondewful! H ee suwe ht hs just e eettew of thee kefowe you fhnd youw wey to Teu Ceth. :) H ee sedly not well eyself. H seee to ke suffewhng fwoe e wewe eutoheeune dhseese, end ht hs e slow decey, lhke Ded. Ht seees lhke you got the kest genes hn the feehly, end thenkfully so!

H whll dweee ekout youw keeuthful feehly, end H hope they whll weeeekew thehw Eewthew eunt Kelle.

Ey keeuthful dog Ew. Pew 2 keeps ee coepeny, end hn these letew yeews, es ey kody gets weekew, H elso found pwechous coepeny hn Devon, e lovely een fwoe Cepe Cod. He eoved hewe wecently, end we dechde to spend soee thee togethew, kefowe H go to ey etewnel west.

So we got eewwhed, end he whll ovewsee the house end ouw keloved seeshowe unthl you wetuwn.

H hope H sthll look good end young hn youw locket, deew kwothew.

H went you to weeeekew ee lhke thet.

H love you, Kelle

Brad Armstrong - tenth and final letter from the fleet

Dear Beau,

Are you drawing your pension yet, my dearest one? Take a seat before reading further!

The new FTL drives work beyond our wildest dreams!

The fleet has voted to abandon Tau Ceti, since the way there is blocked, but we are going to start exploring other habitable systems, because there seem to be very many of them. Elements of the fleet are going in all kinds of directions.

We won’t have the comms laser pointing to earth any more, because we are going all over the place. But I’ll be back to find you, dearest sister. Along with my family, who can’t wait to see you.

[Connection Lost]

The Basics

This is a game for 3-5 players. There were four of us so we decided to have four acts each season (fall, winter, spring, summer). The start of the game we chose a miner each and a supporting character each. The characters had some build in relationships, and each had two questions to answer which provided additional relationships amongst the characters. Camilla drew them out in a little node-and-lines map which was very helpful for keeping them straight.

Playing the Game

There are decks of cards for each season, and we drew four cards each sesaon. Each prompt card has a title, a situation and a question that has to be answered during the scene. After the scene was set, we role-played out the details until we came to a sensible conclusion.

Everyone has a couple of individual scene cards they can throw in at any time for a little scene that is just about them.

For fall, winter, and spring we had four scenes each. Summer is unusual because you draw cards and play scenes until the Ordinance card is drawn, which ends the game, and we narrate epilogs for each of our characters.

One of the things that I wasn't sure about was when we should actually be calling for the strike - maybe there was a card for that which we didn't ever draw, but I'd like to have had the moment where we all said "We strike!" but we didnt see where that should have happened.

Why I like this game

I love that this game is based around a real historical event. I kind of hate it too, because it is horrible to think that this was going on barely a century ago. The conditions for the miners was beyond awful (mining is a hard and dangerous enough job without all these extra problems).

The relationship set-up at the start of the game helped us get a sense of the characters, and a starting point for the relationships. It wasn't a straight-jacket though, as we found that we naturally evolved the relationships over time.

I freely admit that I'm a sucker for games that help you feel real feelings (it's the driving force behind many of my games), and this is a game which engages feelings in a big way. Like Ten Candles (and to a lesser extent my Cool and Lonely Courage) you know this isn't going to end well... but what do you discover about the characters along the way?

Where can you find the game

The Roll20 version for online play can be found here https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/gameaddon/16655/the-price-of-coal

PDF and Print-on-demand versions are available from DriveThruRpg here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/497461/the-price-of-coal

Would you like to see a story?

Alex played

• John Bailey (husband of Sarah and optimistic labour organiser)
  • I trust Sarah, because she has a good head on her shoulders
  • I persuade Simon Perry by feeding him stories for his newspaper
• George Baird (deputy sheriff for the company)
  • I amuse David because he actually knows how to use guns and I don’t.
  • I honour Nathaniel when he takes a stand

Camilla played

• Nathaniel Freeman (miner, faith, takes a stand, son of Eliza)
  • praises David because he was a veteran
  • Watches John Bailey because he wants to learn how to lead
• Simon Perry (newsman, secret lover of David)
  • admires Eliza
  • Shames George Baird

Betsy played

• David Burke (miner, ex soldier, lover of Simon)
  • protects Lester because he is reminded of his commander who died horribly
  • Bribes George with snippets of info obtained from Simon
• Sarah Bailey (wife of John and woman’s organiser)
  • tolerates Eliza - disagree on a lot but she knows how to handle adversity
  • Restrains John by threats of leaving him

Kevin played

• Lester Bairn (old, keeps his head down, brother of George)
  • Blames George because he has sold out
  • Teaches Sarah how to get away from John
• Eliza Freeman (mother of Nathaniel, survivor)
  • Avoid David because she has seen his violent side
  • Keeps Nathaniel safe. Will do literally anything to keep him safe.

Fall

Company Store

The air is crisp and clean in early fall. The leaves are starting to turn and there is a bit of a confrontation outside the company store. Eliza and Sarah are complaining about it to deputy sheriff George who is attempting to keep the peace. Simon the journalist asks awkward questions. George is ill at ease defending the closure of other stores and raising of prices in the company store.

Labour Day

It’s Labour Day and there is unrest in the bar as people complain that the company is still profiting from the miners on their own day. John Bailey points out that it is their day, for them, and they can make it their own day entirely - some people go out and hunt some local hogs, a fire pit is made up and moonshine spirited out from somewhere and the miners families have their own celebration without giving the company anything.

School Closed

The one room schoolhouse is closed as the teacher has left. John wants to leave for the city with their two kids, says that they should have a better life than him; but Sarah says this is their home and she ain’t gonna go. If he goes, he goes without her. Besides, she can teach the kids mostly. Simon the journalist will look out for other teachers that might be available in nearby towns.

Economics

A big town meeting in the church with all the new green incomers into the town, here to look for scarce mining jobs. Lester and Nathaniel want them to understand the threats that they face.

Winter

Christmas Day

Everyone is the church - miners and the mine operators too. Nathaniel leads prayers which makes Eliza proud. The operators provided really nice tea and biscuits, and promise a days holiday at new year too. The extra days holiday naturally doesn’t arrive. But for a day, there is harmony.

Strike in Ohio

John is excited by the news of a strike in Ohio, and persuades Simon to get the news out about it - distributing flyers and making it known that there is a strike taking place over there, in order to encourage the miners over here. Sarah decides that everyone needs to start storing up provisions if they are going to strike, and persuades all the other wives to do the same.

Interlude

We see Simon alone, passing leaflets in neighbouring towns, talking to pastors and miners whenever he can.

Influenza

John and Sarah’s children, 6yr old Isaac and 4yr old Jane come down with the influenza which is sweeping the mine camp. Hannah York, the midwife suggests that they should leave for the city, but Sarah won’t go and this time John backs her up on it. With fear for his children, John decides to get deeper in debt to the company to get the company doctor to look at his kids. He has no other choice.

Interlude

George and Lester have an argument that turns nasty. Lester starts it, George finishes it, and it ends with Lester on the ground and George has his gun drawn. The older brother Lester finds his attitude to George actually improving after this.

Mass Evictions

The company has started evicting families with no notice and no reason given. They huddle together in the church hall for as much as possible. Nobody knows how this is going to work out.

Interlude

Sarah tells John that she wants to take in some of the kids who are on their own after evictions, alongside their own. She thinks she can stretch the food a little longer.

Spring

New Coal Vein

There is a new coal vein, but the greenhorn miners haven’t set the pit props correctly. John, David, Nathaniel and Lester can see the problem and Lester berates the stupid greenhorns. They give him attitude back, so David decks him. Lester helps him up and then decks him too. Timbers creak and the more experienced miners shout ‘run!’. Crouched over in the narrow tunnels, lights dancing off the walls from their lamps, they run. David attempts to keep to the back to make sure nobody is lost but there are three novices behind him… when the tunnel collapses. Three men died that day.

Black Lung

They are at the bar, discussing the black lung. Lester is chain smoking to keep the black lung away, seeing as how it has affected so many people. George has spent some of his own money in order to get him some pills from the company doctor that should help

Mine Collapse

There is a mine collapse in shaft 4. The men want to help look for survivors, but the foreman says that if anyone doesn’t get down shaft 2 right now, they will be fired, their family evicted and worse. Simon is in the foreman’s face shouting about it, but the foreman isn’t moved. John tries reason and then loses his rag, but before he does something he’ll regret David steps up. He can recognise a draft dodger, and the foreman recognises the ice in his eyes. Thoroughly intimidated, the miners are allowed to search for survivors after all.

Anti-Union Legislation

John things that the new legislation is just words on paper and isn’t going to affect real people here like them. He wants the strike to happen now, supporting the brothers in Ohio and other places.

Summer

Stand Down

Things are clearly getting bad. David teaches John, Nathaniel, Lester and the others how to shoot. Apparently it is exactly like shooting game. Keep calm, breathe slowly, pull the trigger.

Interlude

John goes to say goodbye to Sarah. He suggests she takes all the children away to safety, and kisses her tenderly. She says ‘Teach me how to fight’ and after a moments pause he shows her how to hold the rifle, how to aim, how to fire. ‘Pull it in tight here, it will kick some’.

Ordinance

The army and air force are sent in. The bombs and the gas come.

A number of miners grab George, intent on lynching him as a mine operator representative. Lester isn’t going to let that happen, and kills three of them before he is shot, freeing George.

David takes up a position defending the newspaper office with his Simon inside. Every person in army uniform who comes close he shoots. Every. One. Until his ammunition runs out and he dies to army gunfire.

John can see the gas rolling towards the houses and runs home - thrusting blankets into the water butt, he goes inside with a makeshift gas mask for himself and all the children, to try to save them from the gas. Sarah joins him. The makeshift mask isn’t enough and the extended family die together, huddled under the damp blankets, the parents arms around them.

Eliza and Nathaniel collect survivors and Eliza leads them out through backways that she remembers from her childhood. They waited as long as they could for John and Sarah but realised they were not coming and had to leave along the old trails.

George escapes alive, but all respect for the law is gone. The pillar which he had dedicated his life to seems like a hollow mockery now, and he becomes an outlaw, robbing the wealthy.

Simon writes up what happens, what the miners stood for and the appalling treatment that they suffered. He was successful in bringing their stories to light and preventing the governments actions to be anonymised and glossed over. The stories of John, Sarah, Lester, Eliza, his beloved David and others would be told.

I don't mind telling you that there were some wet eyes and sad faces at the conclusion of this game. I would heartly recommend it.

You can find the author of the game, Jennifer Adcock, on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/jenkatwrites.bsky.social

Sales Figures

I’ve seen a number of other small publishers put their sales figures out for the year, and I’ve decided that I’d like to do the same. As you can see, it is quite difficult to bring in money as a small publisher!

DriveThruRpg £223

Indie Press Republic £183

Itch £95

The ‘Bundle’ column is the number of copies of a bundle which were sold containing that product. I got a proportion of the sale price of the bundle. PDF sales are direct sales of a PDF to a customer.

Total sales income all channels (outside of kickstarters): £501

New Games

Expect Three Visitors

My latest game was kickstarted in November, and delivered to customers by the first week in January. It is currently available as a PDF on itch and DriveThruRpg and now I know that print copies have reached kickstarter backers, I’ll put a print version up for sale too.

Expect Three Visitors is inspired by A Christmas Carol by Dickens, and in particular the character of Scrooge. After the suggestion from a friend a couple of years ago, I developed a game based on my Retrospective SRD, with playing cards used to help guide emotional content of scenes. Scrooge is a great example of someone whose greed affects him and numerous people around him. Greed is listed as one of the “seven deadly sins” so why not expand the game to allow investigation of any of the others too? Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Lust, Sloth and Wrath all seemed like fruitful avenues for exploration.

The game is for 3-5 players, and each person plays the spirit charged with attempting to redeem someone, and also they play the present day client to the player on their right. Each spirit will, in turn, set scenes in their clients past, present, and future, and the roles in those scenes are played out by the other players around the table - so everyone is engaged all the time.

I’m pleased that I was able to employ an editor who wants to break into editing as a career, and also a first-time artist for the internal artwork. Getting a foothold in any business is hard, and being able to help out others is important to me. She doesn't have an online portfolio at the moment, but if she does I'll include a link to it here.

You can read more about the game here https://planesailinggames.com/games/expect-three-visitors/

And there are several playtest write-ups here (which show what the game can look like in play) https://planesailinggames.com/tags/expect-three-visitors/

Conventions 😊

A Housecon

I was able to visit my favourite housecon in the US again. While playing other games I did a couple of playtests of The Long Road Home including the YA story of the Broken Angel which you can read here https://planesailinggames.com/post/long-road-home-playtest02/ and a playtest of the ongoing Born to the Purple design.

Metatopia 2023

It was fabulous to be able to attend the in-person Metatopia in New Jersey once more. A convention dedicated to playtesting, it is an opportunity to playtest other peoples new games and provide them helpful feedback, and to get really high quality feedback on your own games. I ran Expect Three Visitors and The Long Road Home and got very helpful feedback on both.

I also played in many other exciting games, and you can read a full write-up of my experiences here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2023-11-13-metatopia-2023/

I purchased two games that I’ve been wanting to get hold of for a while and look forward to playing them - Signal to Noise by Lunar Shadow Games and Pasión de las Pasiones by Magpie Games.

Dragonmeet 2023

For the first time in years I was able to get to Dragonmeet again (no covid, train strikes or illnesses to hold me back on this occasion). I wanted to be more than just a participant this time, so I signed up to help with the ‘Indie Games on the Hour’ programme, where you can run 2-hour sessions of indie games of your choice. I brought along Love & Barbed Wire and the playtest version of The Long Road Home, and both times I was GMing the people interested chose The Long Road Home. One of the players said that it was the first time he had ever played a story game, but I wouldn’t have known - he was so good at moving the stories forward and bringing a richer narrative to the whole game!

It was great walking around the stands and looking at the products on display and talking to stall-holders. Everyone I spoke to said that Dragonmeet was their favourite time to have a stall because of the people who come along (UK Games Expo is much bigger, but the people interested in RPGs is correspondingly diluted). I’m particularly inspired by Craig of Lunar Shadow Designs who writes up detailed blogs about the cost incurred in running a stand: https://lunarshadow.net/2023/12/10/dragonmeet-2023-retrospective-1-sales-money/

It was delightful to meet Russ of ENWorld in person for the first time ever. I've known him online for over 20 years, but this is the first time that we've met in the real world. He was a delight to talk to, and very encouraging.

I added to my pile of RPGs that I've not yet read by picking up Alien by Free League Publishing. I've heard a lot about it, and decided that this was the right time to pick it up. Hopefully I'll get to play it in 2024!

I had hoped to stay later for more conversations, but a train strike planned for Sunday meant that my trains were stopping running that evening. Even though I planned to get a 6pm train home the delays and cancellations meant that a 1hr journey turned into a 3 hour journey to get home in freezing weather!

Interviews 😊

I thoroughly enjoyed being interviewed by Mike on his Games Played Badly youtube channel. It was in the middle of kickstarter campaign for Expect Three Visitors, and it was great to be able to discuss the game and it’s inspirations with him.

I’m also happy to say that I’m due to be returning to the NotDND podcast/twitch interview In March 2024, where I’ll be talking about The Long Road Home. The Long Road Home will be hitting Kickstarter about then, and I’m looking forward to chatting with Jess again. There is a playlist of all the NotDND interviews that is worth a peruse… lots of great talks are on there. I bought some games on the strength of these interviews!

Game Design Work

I’ve been working on a number of games this year which are in various stages of development. Here is a quick run-down of them.

The Long Road Home

My next Retrospective game is inspired by the hobbits on their journey back to the Shire after all the events of their great adventures. It will use the flashback mechanism to allow a party of adventurers to think about the highs and lows, the successes and failures of their adventures. To remember the friends which they made and lost along the way. And finally, to see what happens at their journey’s end. I’ve been through several playtests and revisions in the game. Each change has strengthened the core experience and made it easier for people to get into the game, and to ensure that we are painting a richer view of the world of our story.

The most recent changes have been to put a little more weight behind the choice of genre at the start of the game. This is done by providing suggested example genre tropes for each of the genres on offer, and to modify the results of the homecoming by genre too. The genres you can choose from are Children’s tales, Young Adult, Heroic, Grim, and Horror. Children’s tales tend to be happier, while as you move towards Grim and Horror stories the tropes and outcomes become darker and more tragic.

The Long Road Home will be coming to Kickstarter in March 2024, and I will have playtest ashcan versions available on itch shortly

Born to the Purple (working title)

Although it has taken a backseat this year to Expect Three Visitors and The Long Road Home, I’ve continued planning and designing something tightly focussed around space diplomats finding their way amidst changing agendas and policies. Making deals and compromises along the way while the galaxy might be collapsing around them (metaphorically).

The core of the game is a combination of simplified Forged in the Dark, with some Fate sensibilities. You can see some of my earlier design diaries on the site here, and I’ll be adding additional ones this year as I’m thinking about how to represent interstellar politics in the game in a fun way. https://planesailinggames.com/tags/born-to-the-purple/

White Rose Society/Edelweiss Pirates

This has been on the back-burner this year, so I’m still in the early research phase for a game about the White Rose Society, a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany who ran a leaflet and graffiti campaign calling for active opposition to the Nazi regime. Not sure on the name for this yet.

Deeds not words (working title)

Another game that is still in the research phase (and has been for some years) this will be about the Suffragette movement in the UK. I’m particularly interested in asking the question “How much would you be prepared to sacrifice in order to gain the vote?” I think it is an interesting question to ask in these days when fewer and fewer people seem to be interested in exercising the franchise. It would be great to get this game out before the major elections in the UK and US in 2024, but unless I get some sudden inspiration that seems unlikely. You never know though!

I hope that 2023 is a happy and healthy year for all my readers, and that you are all able to enjoy a raft of fun games, new and old!

Cover photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels

First calculate how many melee rounds a monster would be expected to last against a single first level fighter attacking with a sword that does 1d8 damage. Then calculate the amount of damage that monster could dish out to an AC 2 fighter (this was in OD&D) before it dies. This was taken as a standard baseline. I learned that average damage of a die or set of dice was (min + max)/2. I learned about conditional probabilities because while orcs, goblins, and giants were very straightforward, other creatures could be more complex. The giant scorpion had two claws and a sting, but if both claws hit the sting automatically hits. Dragons might breath fire or might use a claw, claw, bite routine.

And in one of those flukes that just stick with you, I remember that the chance of rolling 7+ on 2d6 is 58.3% while the chance of 6 or less is 41.7% (because dragons would use their breath weapon on a 7+ in those days).

Anyhow, probability is really useful when designing RPGs because you want to have an idea of how effective something is, or how likely something is to come up. You can see a nod to this idea in 3rd edition D&D 'feats' where Improved Initiative which comes up once a combat gave a +4 bonus to a d20 roll, while Dodge gives a +1 bonus to AC because it could be used in every round of combat and Lightning Reflexes gives +2 to reflex saves because it could be useful several times in a combat, but was unlikely to be useful every round. The amount of benefit was loosely associated with how often you were likely to make a roll where it came up. Roll more frequently, and the bonus is smaller. Roll less frequently and the bonus is larger.

So, why do I want to talk about when probability fails you?

Because too often, people don’t take into account the randomness that applies if you have a small sample size. Probabilities for dice are more accurate the more times you roll. If you roll 1d8 fifty times you are very likely to get to an average result of 4.5. If you roll the dice once though, you are equally likely to get a 1 or an 8.

Now this might seem obvious, so I want to take the classic example that everyone learns with; two six sided dice often written 2d6.

These will give you a result from 2-12, with an average of 7. You are much more likely to get a 7 on the dice because there are six ways you can roll a seven. 1️⃣ + 6️⃣, 2️⃣ + 5️⃣, 3️⃣ + 4️⃣, 6️⃣ + 1️⃣, 5️⃣ + 2️⃣, 4️⃣ + 3️⃣

There is only one way you can roll a 2 which is 1️⃣ + 1️⃣

A Case Study in Catan

Do you play Settlers of Catan? I enjoy playing it, and obviously it makes sense to get settlements around hexes which have a 6 or an 8 on them, because they are much more likely to come up, aren’t they?

Here are the results of all the dice rolls in recent games of Catan I’ve played with my family. As you can see from the totals row, these games were of different lengths. But look at the number of rolls that we had of each value, and compare it with an idealised score over in the far right column!

As you can see we only had one game (game 4) where 7 was the most popular result on our dice, even though probability clearly tells us that this was the most likely result on 2d6. The rolls of 6 and 8 should then be the next most likely results, and evenly so — but the 6 and 8 rows are all over the place.

In game 3, both 2 and 12 appeared three times, while 3, 4, 10, and 11 appeared fewer times. Even though those numbers were 2-3 times more likely than a 2 or a 12 by probability.

Bottom line? If you have a relatively few number of times that you roll dice in a game session, then you shouldn’t rely too much on your knowledge of probability to make assumptions about any particular game. It will still be true for hundreds of games played across the world, but possibly not for this particular game.

I was thinking about this recently after playtesting a game where the designer had introduced some novel dice mechanics, but in play the results were often disappointing. The designer told me that they had worked out the probability of success as being about 60% which had felt right to them. However… we didn’t roll dice many times during the game. In the terms I’ve used above our sample size was very small. And like my demonstration with settlers of Catan - if sample sizes are small, all bets are off for any individual game.

Conclusion

I still love probability, and I still think it is well-worth game designers working through the probabilities for their game, whether you are using cards, one die, two dice, or multiple dice. I did talk about probability in one of my blog posts from 2022, and it still stands Cards As Randomisers.

I also think it is worth considering how many times the dice will be rolled in your game, and being aware that those edge cases might come up more frequently than you are expecting!

The Basics

This is a game for exactly four players. You take on the roles of the detective, the detective's hat, the partner and the flame. The detective states what the detective says and does, but never says what he is thinking. The hat is the noir narrative of what the detective is thinking - but he doesn't always follow his thoughts! The partner has a business relationship and the flame has a personal relationship. the players of those two roles take up the roles of any supporting characters which turn up in the scenes.

The game is a deck of special cards, and the cards step you through the process of setting the game up and choosing what you are going to do. I like the approach, and it is very neatly done.

Once you've assigned the characters and introduce them, you choose one of four basic missions

• Track down a missing person
• Retrieve a stolen item
• Exonerate someone who has been framed
• Find the killer after a murder

The Settings

There are a whole range of settings, each with a set of atmospheric locations and suggested supporting characters who would be appropriate. When I played we used the classic 1940's setting of New Hudson.

Other settings include the neon dystopia of Aftercity, the thriving modern city of Bridgewater, the remote 1800's island town of Grim Moor, the underwater domes of Atlantea City, the 1990's beach town of San Savio, the school of necromancy for homeless queer youth at Quietus College, early 2000's Suburbia, and finally the space settlement on one of the moons of Jupiter called Juno's Reach.

Phew! There are a lot to choose from, and I look forward to trying out other settings in future games!

Playing the Game

Each game has exactly 7 chapters and probably takes 2-3 hours to play. The themes in each chapter give you an idea of what is going to be happening, and there is a choice of quotes to steer the direction too. For instance, in Chapter 2, A New Case, the themes are:

• business as usual
• trust
• shared mistakes

and the quote is a choice from

• "This is your chance to redeem yourself"
• "Can you handle this case?"
• "You should let this case go"

The chapter card tells you who frames the scene, the scene comes to an end by mutual agreement.

After that, there are 'moments' - optional vignettees narrated by each of the players which flesh out their lives beyond the scene which has just played out. Sometimes responding to it, sometimes a flashback to something relevant, always adding depth and colour to their portrayal.

Why I like this game

I love the setup (I'm a sucker for noir style games) and giving one of the players the narrator role (as the detectives hat) is a stroke of genius. When I played, I took the role of the Detective, and Kevin took the role of the Hat, and his narration was so on-point. It gave me freedom to go with the direction of my inner thoughts, or sometimes to act contrary to what might seem to be my best interests, but it was all very much in the theme of a classic noir movie of the 1940's

The combination of the themes, prompts, setting locations and setting supporting characters suggests that there is a lot of potential replay value - and it could easily be extended if you wanted to create your own settings too.

Where can you find the game

I'd like to point you in the first instance to the publishers website. You can find the game here https://www.lessthanthreegames.com/fedora-noir.html

Would you like to see a story?

I took some rough notes during our game, and I've written them up as best as I can to give a feel for the game we played. It's all written from the point of view of Mike O'Shea, the detective; it misses out on the fabulous dialog in the game, but I hope it captures something of the feel of it.

Fedora Noir - “Robbing the Cradle”

• Alex - Mike O’Shea, the detective
• Kevin - the Hat
• Betsy - Bucky, the partner
• Camilla - Violet, the flame.

The Stolen Item

• a bassinet. it has been gone for two months
• the client - a femme fatale movie actress who is married to a leading man Rex Grayson. He is unaware so the client is the femme fatale, Scarlett Black.
• valuable because of the love letters within it which would ruin someones marriage
• who else is after the object. Tom Bennett, the Mayor of New Hudson (who was party to the affair). Sally Moore is after a scoop.

Mike O’Shea, the detective, is old and grey, wearing a shabby overcoat. He has nicotine stained fingers and alcohol on his breath. And a black fedora. He is looking to hand over the business to his junior partner after one more case.

Bucky, the junior partner and man-friday is short and stout, wears a suit two sizes two big, slicked back black hair. knows guys who know guys

Violet, the flame, is aging finely, like a good whiskey. She is a prosecutor, sister of Sally Moore the reporter. Tall, slender, always elegant and on point, looking put together. She has trouble relaxing and letting out, but secretly wishes to be more free and easy-going

Chapter 1- The Detectives Office

• I’m alone in my office. It’s the dead of night. I look out the window, but only my reflection stares back. Should I have taken this case? It’s too late for second guesses. If it was a mistake, I’ll find out soon enough. I need a drink...
• I empty the bottle into my glass, but I don’t touch it. I lean back into my chair and close my eyes. Do I trust the client? As much as I trust any of them. If I had to choose between having a client I trust and a paycheck... Well, money never hurts. I should try to get some sleep...
• Instead, I pull on my coat and head out into the night. I can’t stop thinking about someone from my past
• I walked up the street to the Uptown Heights where Violet lives. I looked at the doorman, wondering whether I should go in. Nothing ventured, nothing gained eh? I nod at him as I go in, and take the lift up to her floor.

Moments:

• the hat thinks coming here is a mistake
• the detective knocks and walks away
• inside we hear Violet arguing with her sister Sally about a case
• Buck is playing poker with 6 gangsters and Mayor bennett

Chapter 2 - A New Case

In the detectives office.

• I was chewing Bucky out for not chasing down leads and bringing in new business. If he wanted his name on the door when I retired he had to be better than this. Better than I had been. “Cases don’t just walk through the door, son”.
• A single knock and she slid through the open door in her crushed black velvet dress and with her trademark red hair and red umbrella. I could smell the dame before I heard her shoes clicking into the room.
• She had long legs that went right down to the floor. She took a seat and crossed her legs as I leaned over to make sure she landed square.
• Bucky was agog, seeing his matinee idol, Scarlet Black, in the flesh; and who could blame him? But when I heard her sultry tones I couldn’t help thinking of Violet. How I missed that woman. I had a good thing and I messed it up.
• I was recommended by someone up at the city hall. Apparently a bassinet has been stolen. Two weeks ago. No police involvement and she don’t got no children so I’m not sure what the fuss is about. Clearly more than just a cradle at stake. Something hidden in there?
• She is eager to pay. Too eager. Half up front plus expenses? I could retire on this job. Of course I’d take it. Bucky fussed over her with the details and I looked out through the rain on my darkened windows. Thinking about Violet.

Moments

• Hat: flipping through the cash, thinking about the humiliation of paying off debtors and there may be a single ray of sunlight
• Bucky is in his room, a small coffee pot and a single burner. watching with a film projector ‘follies of 1937’ starring Scarlet Black.
• Violet is at court, but distracted from the case. she looks at a scribbled note that says ‘talk to him’
• Mike pulls a crumpled letter out of his pocket that had arrived this morning and reads it again . “this is your chance to redeem yourself” It’s a letter from violet.

Chapter 3 Heart to Heart

At Andy’s Diner. The sky is even darker. Mike and Bucky are there for their usual after work. Joe and BLT for Bucky, Whiskey for Mike.

• I’m talking over the days case when Violet walks in. My heart quickens a little. “Andy, get the lady a highball” asking for her favourite drinks. “We’re just a diner here, Mike” he replies, but I tell him to cut the crap and get the drinks from under the counter.
• Bucky excuses himself - he needs to go to the gents. Violet slips into his seat, her thigh brushing lightly against mine. My heart skips a beat but I keep my voice steady.
• She asks me about last night, was I really at her door. I had been, but I left when I heard raised voices inside. Violet and her sister. Violet looks down, then reaches out to lay her hand on mine.
• She’s working on a big case. It could make her career after all these years of grind and work. It involved Mayor Bennett, the mob, and a theft from the well known actor Scarlet Black. She had sent Scarlet to me. Reckoned I was the one to help crack the case and join the dots. Maybe those years Violet and I had together meant something after all.
• She shared some more information with me, then left. Suggesting that I do more than just knock the next time I’m at Uptown Heights. Then she walked out the door.

Moments

• hat - realises what violet means!
• Mike makes his way to uptown heights to see Violet, knocks and waits.
• Violet is putting her makeup on, expecting a visitor. There is a knock at the door.
• Bucky hands a fiver to Andy “thanks for listening in” and gets an update on the conversation!

Chapter 4 - Working the Case

A back ally in skid city. Buck and the detective meet Kaspian Rogers

• I’m standing in the shadows, dragging on yet another cigarette. Where is Bucky? He was supposed to meet his contact and bring him straight out the back. Rogers is a known fence, and wants a meet with the Mayor, hence his interest in Bucky. And my interest in him.
• Kaspian is a short Italian guy. I lean on him a bit. “What’s a sprat like you trying to cosy up to the Mayor for” I ask. “Dunno what a sprat is” he replied. I explained that a sprat is a small fish that bigger fish like to feed on. I hate explaining vocabulary to low-lives, and I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I had no choice.
• He tells me that he’s seen a crib in the stolen goods storage point in the subway down by the docks, but it is too dangerous to go tonight. He’s not supposed to go for another couple of days but that would give too much time for… interested parties… to intervene. I tell him that we’ll go tonight. He’s worried that there may be some wise guys or made men around, but that’s the chance we’ll have to take. We’ve got a case to crack.

Moments

• the hat thinks that moments like this make him feel good about himself
• Mike has a flashback to fifteen years ago where he was beaten to a pulp by Sicilian thugs
• Bucky has a fantasy of punching out a giant mafioso.

Chapter 5 - Closing in

Much later that night, down at the dock warehouses - repurposed station areas.

• I’m walking down into inky blackness. just enough light to see the storage space. No goods piled up though, but large besuited men with guns. In front of them is Mayor Bennett. I’ve been set up.
• He joked about my age. I joked about the time I threw him down some stairs and broke his nose. Yes, we’ve got some history.
• Behind him I can see the bassinet amongst other rubbish. He wants me to just walk away and leave it here. I can’t do that. I’ve taken the case and I need to see it through. The Mayor seems surprisingly invested in this. On a hunch I take out the handkerchief that Scarlet left on my desk. Sniff it, and hold it out towards the Mayor.
• I’ll make him a deal. He can take this memento of his fling with Scarlet, and I’ll take the bassinet with the incriminating files. I’ll destroy them, everyone’s secret is safe. Discretion is assured all round. I can see him thinking about it.
• Then Violet’s voice rings out behind me. She’s got a gun, an attitude, an police on the way. Damn it, I nearly had this and she’s ruining it all!

Moments

• No moments, we moved quickly to Violet framing the next scene

Chapter 6 - The detectives choice

Still in the dark warehouses with a tense standoff.

• I step slightly to one side, to stand between Violet and the Mayor, shielding him from her gun. I told him that we could still end this peacefully. He takes the handkerchief, I take the bassinet.
• He tries to buy us off. Of course he does. Plumb jobs for Violet, a wedge of cash for us, no questions asked. I’m sorry Mr Mayor, but I must insist. Violet back there cares about the law, and she’s damn good at it. But I care about justice.
• The Mayor snatches the handkerchief from my hand. “With this I seem to have everything I want” he says. I didn’t think we’d get this close. I draw my revolver and shove it hard up under his chin. I promised my client discretion and that discretion is as good for you as it is for her. I’m not going to let any of this get public.
• Mayor Bennet tells me that I’m fool and I’ll never get out of this alive. I tell him two things. I’ve had a good innings and I don’t mind dying to protect Violet.
• Secondly, Bucky tells me that the joint poker games have shown that the Mayor is good at telling when someone is bluffing. Am I bluffing right now? I jam the pistol up a little bit for emphasis.
• The Mayor glances over towards Bucky who shakes his head nervously.
• Police sirens are getting closer.

Moments

• Violet thinks it’s hot that Mike was prepared to die for her

Chapter 7 - case closed?

The crib is in the side of the office.

• We’ve all seen the evidence which was inside of the bassinet. A whole series of love letters, intimate and pretty explicit.
• I hear the click-click of the clients shoes along the corridor and she comes into the room. She glances at the letters we are holding and her face darkens like thunder. She tells us we had no right to go prying in here, no right at all. She draws her derringer from her purse and points it at us.
• Well love, I say, it’s not really your letters either, are they? No names, but they are both written in a male hand.
• Out of the corner of my eye I see Violet’s eyes go wide as she realises at last. What a cute girl.
• This isn’t an affair between you and the Mayor, is it? It was between the Mayor and your husband, Rex. If that got out it would destroy three lives, and for what? How about you put your gun away, and we burn these together now? Ensuring discretion. The Law would lock them up, but I care about justice. Without looking across I reached out and laid my hand on Violet’s. After all, love across the tracks… everyone deserves a chance, eh?

Moments

• Violet is walking up into the courts of justice. Not wearing her old purple scarf but wearing one of Mike’s scarfs now. She sees the Mayor being dragged in protesting on a corruption charge. Not her case, not her business, but she smiles to herself as she continues on with her day.
• The hat takes pleasure in Kaspian Rogers getting his comeuppance. The dirty rat who set me up has apparently been found with a whole lot of evidence about handling stolen goods and is going down for a long while. And considering the Sicilian friends who have been compromised it might just be ‘life’ for him.
• Bucky is settling down in an expensive seat for the premier of Scarlet Blacks new film
• Mike is seen removing his name from his office door. He really hadn’t expected to come out of this alive, let alone happy. But here it is. This time, he’s going to get it right.

By Kevin Kulp.

Beta test

• Bluesky: @kevinkulp.bsky.social
• Twitter: @kevinkulp

A narrative, story-focused RPG about fantasy heists, accidental heroes, and stealing the things your evil overlord loves most. Includes group world-building (and world-breaking!) as part of core play.

This test had two main parts. The first was creating the world that we were going to play in, and the second was playing a couple of scenes as the player characters attempted to make life indirectly miserable for the villain of the story.

Character sheets are simple one-pagers with a six sided die for resolving actions. Roll 2d6 normally, but you can roll 1d6 to act quickly. We had a swashbuckler, a cultist, a revenant, an enchanter, and I was a warlock.

We built a world by the GM asking a series of questions and we came up with a cliff side port on temperate seas. The port down by the sea is where the wealthy people live, and their tented roofs are brilliant silks. Up on the top of the cliff there are walls to protect from the barbarians and the poorer people live and work, looking down on the glory that is below. Goods and people travel up the cliffs in huge lifts, powered by ‘porters’ who man the chains. Portering is a kind of national service, and everyone has done their time on the chains (and often have the missing fingers to prove it). Some of the wealthy buy their way out of it, but nobody minds because there is universal basic income for everyone who has done their time as a porter.

The city was ruled by three mercantile families, each associated with one of the aspects of the three-fold goddess of land, sea and air.

Then we broke the world.

Two of the families stopped having children, got ill and faded away. The other rose in power and took control of the city, increasing prices and the UBI became less and less practical.

Our characters couldn’t work against the family head directly - they were too powerful. So we identified three targets which we could tackle to weaken them. We could kidnap their senile father, steal her mother’s ashes, or destroy her beautiful mosaic ceiling. We chose to do the former and we had a few scene of investigation and fighting before we ended which was fun.

Overall we enjoyed the world building, although in this play test it introduced much more than we ever used, and the connection with the villain felt a little weak. I heard that in a later play test the villain was created first and then the city, which worked much better.

The action felt fast and furious and the characters felt distinct and I think everyone had some fun with what they could do.

It will be nice to see the next iteration of this.

Their Fearful Teeth

By Mary Rose Valentine

Alpha test

• Bluesky: timeformars.bsky.social

A new conversation-based RPG. A vampire and a human sit down to have a conversation; during the conversation, the vampire will ask if the human will give them blood. Negotiations commence, and the game ends when the human gives or denies definitive, informed consent.

Four of us played this game in two pairs, each pair being one human and one vampire. There was a joint questionnaire with a few prompts to help us think about vampirism in the world we played in which each pair discussed independently. Then we each had a public questionnaire and a private questionnaire to help us think about how we presented and what our real motivations were.

The game was then a conversation between the two parties with the vampire trying to get an enthusiastic consent from the human, and avoiding the human just saying no.

The other conversation was between a student and a postgrad at a faculty.

In my conversation I was a hundred year old vampire who was a shadowy fixer for the super wealthy. The human was a young, ruthless businessman who was looking for an edge, and had been given my name by a friend (or perhaps rival, the way things turned out). My vampire hated himself for feeding on humans and was filled with guilt - and had decided long ago that if he was going to be a parasite on human society he would at least feed on the worst members of that society - those that were parasites themselves.

I quickly established that he didn’t have any significant relatives (“only an ex-wife,haha”, “I bet she is bleeding you dry hahaha”), that he was morally reprehensible and prepared to fire people just to increase his stock options. I hooked him on the promise of a revolutionary anti aging drug (“is it patented?”, “no, we don’t want to get the blood-sucking lawyers involved haha”)

I said that I was on the drug, and he could get on the board, known as the apostles, via a hefty donation and getting on the programme himself. I just needed a blood sample. He said he had type 2 diabetes which wasn’t perfect as I didn’t want cavities, but I told him it shouldn’t be a problem. He nearly bailed when I said that’d need a pint of blood, but it was no more than a blood bank would take, and I’d got some restoratives right here... he was hooked on the idea of riches just within reach, and was prepared to do what was required so he willingly hooked up the machine and gave me enthusiastic consent.

And I Sucked. Him. Dry.

All credit to my partner in the game, who leaned in to the direction we were going, although he was a little surprised at his death in the end! We had an interesting discussion about whether enthusiastic consent is truly consent if you don’t really understand the stakes.

The game is alpha at the moment and has lots of promise. As it develops I’d like to see some stronger guidance at the start (perhaps suggesting interesting pairings that could be played out) and further refinement of the questionnaires so that they focus in on the elements which are core to the gameplay. Does the vampire want to feed and drain them dry? Does it want to feed enough to slake its thirst and create a bond for future feeding? Does it want to turn them into a familiar like Renfield? Does it want to turn them into a new vampire?

One to watch for sure.

Alien War

By Bill White

Beta test

• Website: https://sites.psu.edu/wjw11/alien-war/

Simultaneously an experiment in “Ouija-board GMing” and an homage to XCOM, a game about fighting off an alien invasion. In this game, you play members of an elite UN task force whose job is to defend the Earth. We start off none of us knowing what the aliens want—not even the GM. That’s the experimental part. This playtest will help find the sticking points of the system and test the play aids devised to make it work.

This game used a new system with a full range of polyhedral dice which represented the skill level and the power of weapons or facility of equipment.

The GM didn’t have a planned adventure, but wanted to build it through conversations with us, so our multinational team of rookies ended up dropped into the Congo to investigate an alien sighting near herds of forest elephants.

The game is full of military acronyms and concepts such as MIA, KIA, FFE, collateral (damage) and so forth. There was a home base diagram with tracks for admin, intel, ops, supply and liaison. They each started on 1d4 but increased during the game. Some of that was a little confusing to some of the players at the time (someone initially though collateral was a good thing...)

There was a patrolling flowchart where die rolls could get the scout into contact, the leader making decisions and the rest of the squad doing something, but we were not clear what it really meant, and felt it was probably more of a GM tool than a player facing one.

We found an elephant with a metal visor being ridden by an alien. Someone shot it, someone dropped a flashbang and someone climbed a tree. Guess which one caused 1d10 collateral? We suggested that collateral damage should only really be applied if using a weapon or explosive!

Conflict was quite complex, with typically three dice being rolled and one being used to reflect your safety (probability of harm), one being used for your precision (likelihood of collateral damage and a tradeoff of that with scale of damage) and the last one for your scale of damage. There were some interesting concepts and I wonder whether future iterations might clarify the language and the processes in order to help it run more smoothly and simply.

I wasn’t familiar with the X-Com game that inspired it. I’m not sure what the ultimate balance of the game is intended to be between the global investigation and the local military actions - in a 2hr play test there is not much time to explain and then get rolling some dice and do it.

Broken Orbits

By Jason Pitre

Alpha test

A GM-less, troupe-style role playing game of political space opera. This is testing the superstructure of the game including basic moves, how authority is distributed, and how the political system works. Can we design a game of galactic space opera politics without a GM? Let's find out.

I loved this game, even in its early stages. There is a small set of interconnected systems, with the connected ‘space lanes’ providing an interesting geography that avoids the “anything goes everywhere” problem.

‘Speakers’ are the rulers of systems and at the nodes in the network. The core world has three, the outer worlds have two and the fringes have one.

‘Voices’ are the agents who live on the edges of the network that join two system nodes.

I’m going off memory, but speakers have three ‘basic motivations’ some assets they can use, and varied abilities to resist turmoil in security, society and economy. Voices have priorities, some assets they can use and one last set of things that I don’t recall.

The fundamental driver for a session is a proposed bill which the collected speakers are going to vote on - and the game is about persuading speakers to vote in the direction you want. If you have a good argument for two out of a list of four, you can get them to agree with your agenda. Sometimes there are speakers who are going to be difficult to align and you can choose to use a Voice - perhaps to influence a population and break ties, or to use up one of their attributes to promote turmoil and distract a speaker from their senate responsibilities.

All of the speakers and voices have very distinct and evocative traits and resources, and find themselves aligned or in opposition on lots of interesting dimensions.

At the moment mechanically it would make a great board game in my opinion, and seems like a really interesting mechanical foundation onto which role-playing experiences can be built.

There are some rules at the moment to reflect ordinary people adding implications to a bill. Right now there was no incentive to spend precious actions on that, but I could imagine the opportunity to reflect the impact of things on the general population of a system could be very rich.

As it stands in this alpha test we had a feeling that we didn’t want to just pick up and put down speakers Willy-nilly in a full-on troupe play, but would prefer to stick with particular speakers for the duration of the bill in question, while restricting the troupe aspect to the rest of the speakers and voices.

It was a complex initial setup, and would benefit from a large table so that speakers and voices could be lad out in their proper spatial relationships.

I’ve struggled to create good political systems many times in the past, and this is better than anything I’ve done to date. Honestly, I wanted to put things in my bag and take it away and play with it right after the session. I’m really looking forward to the next stage of this one.

Oh Fortuna!

By Xeno Sean

Alpha Test

A game of magic and mechanism where the personal is political and the political is personal. In a world in the midst of a magical-industrial revolution many feel like a tiny cog in a vast machine. But even the smallest cog can turn a larger one, and that may move a larger gear in turn. Play a character driven by personal passions who wield their skills and influence to move organizations, whose resources can be leveraged to change the course of nations. Perhaps, the world.

Influenced by games including Blades in the Dark, Forbidden Lands, Reign, Apocalypse World, and Tales from the Loop; “O, Fortuna” uses a d6 Die Pool mechanic balancing ease of use with the fun of amassing huge die pools. Move “Gears” (Clocks in the terms of BitD/PbtA) to bring the resources of organizations to bear on your own goals.

The game as played in this alpha test was constructed to support a more traditional rpg experience rather than focussing on the political movement of organisations which the blurb about it suggested. The character sheets focussed on the individual (and ran to several pages) but I suspect that a future iteration of the game may refactor it to bring the desired core gameplay elements more front and centre.

Our scenario was a nice one - we were all senior members of an academic magical institution (I was dean of runes). The old headmaster had died so there was internal jockeying for the vacancy while at the same time the military and religious parties wanted to take this opportunity to expand their control of the institution. Some characters had built in conflicts of interest - one was a spy for the military, another wanted to support students but some of the students were seeking more religious control which the dean of students didn’t want. The designer had a fine eye for setting up interesting situations.

I think that the next iterations of this design may delve more into the game mechanics so that they better support the rich genre and scenarios which are desired. I like dice pools as much as the next person -- ever since the ritual of gathering handfuls of dice in champions -- but this system only counted sixes, and it was all too easy to roll 11 dice after a stirring speech and get one success - which translated into success at a terrible price (that wasn’t super appealing!). There are several different styles of dice pool mechanics and I hope the designer has the chance to look at some of the other ways of doing it to help them weigh up what they want for this particular setting.

I had fun, and the designer was very open to feedback. I hope that they were not discouraged because I think this has some interesting potential.

5th Conspiracy

By Stephen Koontz

Beta test

• Website: http://aedpublishing.com/

5th Conspiracy is a character driven tabletop roleplaying game where players explore the power of ideas in an urban fantasy setting. Original mechanical system and setting.

Join a conspiracy of ancient gods, angels, myths, and monsters who compete for control over the unsuspecting world's most precious resource, its attention. The more you’re worshiped, the more powerful you’ll become, even as the precious things that made you human slip away. Balance your need for veneration against the oratum’s number one rule: do not let mankind become aware of your true nature, lest they unleash the titan’s wrath back upon the earth, dooming our kind to extinction.

The 5th Conspiracy system introduces three revolutionary mechanics that strive to resolve some of the most pernicious problems tabletop groups have struggled with since the dawn of gaming; the misaligned expectations that derail your game, creating believable characters that make good protagonists to your story, and action scenes that are as fast paced and exciting to play as for the characters living them.

The first two mechanics were quite straightforward documents to make sure that all the players are on the same page when starting off a campaign and were creating characters in line with that. Because we had pregen characters I’ll jump to the third one - which is that when we got to combat we all had 30 seconds to write on our personal whiteboards what our objective for the round was, and how we wanted to do it (ability plus professional choice) fast and furious, it meant that people were often working at cross purposes, especially in a surprise situation.

The basic conceit of the game is that the supernatural is all around us and always has been. They thrive on worship but it has to be in secret because if they become too public then titans will appear and wipe them out. That doesn’t mean secret cults though... a bevvy of vampire movies makes people think about vampires and that strengthens the undead for instance.

In our game we had a fae mafia enforcer, a biker gang werewolf, a shape shifting witch and I was a dragon in human form.

Mechanically the characters have ability scores with a dice rating (eg 1d4, 1d6, 1d8) and they have relevant professions with dice ratings which can be used in any relevant way. My dragon had the professions “dragon of jet tower”, “ruthless businessman” and “high class socialite” which immediately told me quite a bit about how I wanted to play him, oh, and I could turn into a huge fire breathing dragon if I needed to!

To accomplish something I roll an ability die and a profession die and I want to beat 4. If I do it with one die it is a success, if I do it with both dice it is success with style (or some other boost), if I fail with both dice then it goes horribly wrong. Opposed rolls in a fight can be harder because the opponent rolls to give the target number to beat.

There are rules for collaborating and for disadvantage which all worked smoothly and quickly.

The characters also have a whole set of geases (I can’t remember the spelling) which are behaviours their nature, family etc. forces on them. The dragon has taboo breaking behaviour, winning isn’t enough, others must lose horribly too, and various other things. There is also a personal motivation which colours their choices. All very rich with role playing potential.

Our two hour slot spent a lot of time in talking and so we didn’t get much time to experience the game, but I think this was tightened up in subsequent sessions and I had very good reports from other extended periods of play.

It’s not often that you see a brand new system that works well, but I think this one does. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Courting Fairies

By Kat Miller

Alpha test

• Bluesky: @katmiller.bsky.social
• Discord: IGXQUEEN
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathryn.miller.5076

A game about the power struggles between Fairy Nobility, their desires and duties and limitations when dealing with a mortal world as Immortal beings.

I’d like to separate this into two halves. First there is the character generation which is super solid, full of flavour and really quite wonderful. Then there are the mechanics which had apparently been rewritten overnight after some earlier tests. As such I’d like to concentrate on intent rather than implementation.

There are three elements to character creation. I’m going to summarise them as

1. Pick a Season which represents the way that the fairy presents themselves.
2. Pick a Court, which represents their inner motivations. His could be Dawn, Day, Dusk, Night or court-less.
3. Pick an Title, which represents their degree of dedication to their court.

I played a spring fairy, called Daffodil. Flighty, puppyish, delighted in everything and always wanting to play. Daffodil was also a Majesty of the Dark court, and believed that Rules are made to be broken, Power is to be used, and that mortals are entertaining and tasty. It made for a compelling character to play!

Once the season, court and title have been chosen there is a relationship building phase, where you create a number of relationships with other fairies at the table - siblings, soulmates, rivals, lovers, and so forth.

The last phase is setting out things that you want (fairies have Big Needs) and who is blocking them. The fairy that is blocking you gets to say why they are blocking you. Gameplay is about getting what you want through negotiation and perhaps other means.

For example, Iola, a spring fairy loosely associated with the Day court wanted to bring the mortal Toby into Faerie, but Daffodil wasn’t letting here. The reason being that Daffodil decided that she wanted Toby too! Cranchar the court-less sun fairy wanted something from Earther, the wild fairy of the Dusk court, but she wouldn’t help him because he had let her tomato crop wither. Daffodil wants to eat a human, but the another fairy of the Dusk court was blocking that because he had an agreement with the moral realm about not killing any of them.

The aim of the mechanics of negotiation is to allow a fairy to say what they want, and the other fairy can accept the proposal, reject it and pay a price, or make a counter proposal. When a resolution is reached, if a proposal or counter proposal is agreed, then the agreement is written down on a card as a ‘promise’. In theory the counters with names on of fairies, courts, seasons and so forth could be used in the negotiations, but the ideas there were not fully formed.

We had fun with the game and our mercurial fairies. The character generation is rich, robust and lovely. It just needs some mechanics to match. I’ve suggested that it might be worth looking into Hillfolk - not necessarily to just lift those mechanics, but since it is a game which also deals with people granting or not granting petitions it might give some valuable insights into what directions Courting Fairies could go.

Torchship

By Erika Chappell

Alpha test

• Website: https://www.torchship.net/
• Twitter: @open_sketchbook

The crew of Shepard-17 have been called to an alien world by an automated observation post to witness a historic event; the planet's thriving industrial civilization is sending their first spacecraft to land on the local moon. All you have to do is record it, but things never go smoothly in Star Patrol.

Torchship is a crunchy and very political Star Trek-inspired roleplaying game about exploration and scarcity. It runs on a brand-new custom system which centres crew relationships, scientific study, and the limits of technology. This will be an early test of the core systems using a set of premade characters. Touchstones for the game would include Original Star Trek episodes “Devil in the Dark” and “Taste of Armageddon”, and Enterprise episodes “Fight or Flight” and “Damage”.

I played this game on the Sunday morning and the designer told us this was the ‘emergency rewrite edition’ because earlier playtests had not worked as well as had been hoped.

The general model of gameplay was intended to be a cycle of action and reflection. Action where things are being done, and reflection is like the bridge crew gathering in the ready room to discuss their findings, reset and move forward again. Beyond that action and reflection cycle there would also be the opportunity to branch beyond action into combat, or move from reflection into resupply. We were not testing those two concepts though.

The game is designed to be run from checklists, with sets of checklists for all kind of investigations and actions. Use skill rolls to fill in the checklists and when you’ve got them done, then the task is finished and you’ve got new information. Using skills in situations when things can go wrong causes strain, and the ‘reflection’ phase gets rid of strain - this is to provide a mechanism for that ‘action - reflection - action - reflection’ cycle. It seems that using skills basically succeeds and the dice roll element is there to avoid complications.

The scenario which we used (monitoring a young race’s attempt to do their first moon landing) wasn’t one that immediately opened itself up to dramatic possibilities and when we asked leading questions “do we think their tech is good enough to get their astronaut back?” Or “Is there any sign that the space race might trigger military action by other nations on that planet in their version of a space race?” It seemed that everything was A-OK. This was partly because the designer was hoping that that the game could be run from checklists and probably partly because they were tired from the emergency rewriting which had taken place.

At about this point we paused the scenario and talked through the game - the aims, the pros and cons and so forth. It was suggested that a GM checklist to help the GM remember all the things they wanted to do might be help (and reference was made to the excellent Checklist Manifesto book). We all liked the idea of the action - reflection cycle, and it seems like it would be a neat way of replicating the kind of pacing in the Star Trek (and other) shows we enjoyed. It felt like with some more thought on that, and scenarios with more obvious investigative hooks, this game could find its market.

Defy the Gods

By Chris Sellers

Beta Test

• Twitter: @hecticelectron

A sword & sorcery adventure with messy relationships. It's PbtA, borrowing the central mechanic from Apocalypse Keys and Libreté, with relationship mechanics from Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and party mechanics from Blades in the Dark.

I loved playing this game!

We didn’t tackle the ‘messy relationships’ side of the game, although there were tantalising relationships and actions on character sheets. With 2hr playtests the name of the game is focussing in on exactly the thing to be tested, and Chris wanted to test combat and wounds, so that was what we tested.

Our playbooks were pregenned, and included the Revenant (back from the dead and trying stuff out), the Sword (a stone cold killer with a sword as big as they are), the Sailor (an Odysseus style rogue who might be Teflon coated), a wolfling, a Vessel (containing the presence of a god) and a Sorcerer (with Atlantean chaos magic). The latter was the role that I played.

Your characters had ‘epithets’ - role playing hooks which earned you ‘flame tokens’. Flame tokens could be spent to improve your 2d6 roll. Get too many flame tokens stored up and your burn too brightly and might attract the wrath of the gods, so get spending!

Wounds were applied against ‘epithets’, impacting your ability to use them IIRC. You could also accumulate ‘curses’ through your risky mythical behaviour, and when that filled up you got an omen, a dark power added to your character.

There are evocative descriptions throughout, that cry out ‘play me’ as you read the playbooks.

One of the things that many games promised this weekend and this one did effortlessly was the integration of the wider outside world into the sorta Bronze Age mythology of this one. If you are willing to push yourself a bit you can beseech the gods (as our sailor did, invoke the power of old Atlantis to rob guards of their Charisma) or in my case accept a curse in order to tear open the gates to heaven and summon a seraphim to annihilate our opposition. Admittedly I didn’t really think through what happened next, but happily the Sword used the ‘name’ power of the game to ‘Defy the gods’ and was able to send the Seraph back into the seven heavens.

Sorcery was pretty wild magic. My first spell was a scrying spell but it backfired so badly that my characters left arm was turned into a snake. I took a ‘confused’ wound at that point, so for much of the game I was using my left arm as a sock puppet with some confusion as to whether my consciousness was in the snake or the ‘human’.

Some of the things I particularly liked

• non-supernatural characters who were on a par with supernatural characters in their ability to do things
• Some automatic powers available which were flavourful.
• Influence and accessibility of higher powers - whether in the cities politics or various kinds of supernatural.

In the game as we played it there was a bit of a ‘nova’ problem, but that’s mostly because everyone forgot the rule of a maximum of +3 to any die roll via flame tokens!

I would love to playtest some of these characters in their ‘messy relationships’ roles, and see how that goes!

Conclusion

Once again Metatopia has been an absolute delight. It is wonderful meeting so many enthusiastic designers and playtesters, both around the game tables and in the many conversations during the day and late into the night. Smart people, talking passionately about the subjects they love is very invigorating!

All credit to Avonelle, Vinney and their friends at Double Exposure who make it all possible. Find out more about what they do here: https://dexposure.com/m2023.html

• Kevin- Brad
• Alex - Carl
• Betsy - Clarissa
• Peggy - Donald

Brad - a home owners association chairman (Wrath: angry at people not like him)

Introduction

We see Brad shouting at someone at the swimming pool in the gated community. They claim they have every right as they live here. He says “Lying isn’t going to get you more swim time! I’m one of the people in charge of this area”. The lady replies that “You’re only saying this because we’re black”. Her name is Brenda Washington. She is black, her husband is white. They do live in this community.

The Spirit Appears

Brad is sitting in his Lay-z-boy watching big screen tv with a whisky, and also a CCTV feed. A misty figure appears on the neighbourhood. It’s at different places all over the neighbourhood. The figure turns, comes towards the cameras and then steps out of the TV! The spirit is vaguely ethnic looking. “You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come” it says, and it holds out its hand and leads him into the TV screen.

Vision of the past ♠️

Spade - he sees the fairly poor house that he was raised in. His mother was kind and generous, and gave to anyone who asked. We see her invite in some Jehovah’s Witnesses for lemonade and her special cookies, which she sends Brad to fetch. He always loved her cookies. He’s a good boy, so of course he got one as well. Then suddenly we see the next day. The policeman who arrived at the door and spoke to his dad. His mother was killed in a hit and run while helping some black folks carry their shopping over to their part of town. It was a pickup with a confederate flag. The people she was with tried to push her out of the way, but she still died. His father withdrew after that day, and left Brad with no emotional support.

Vision of the present ♣️

Club - we see Brenda Washington's house on the estate. He had put them on the watch list, but they hadn’t broken any rules. The daughter leaves her bike on the drive and her mom tells her to pick it up. We see the mom and daughter talking about what it feels like to be made to feel unwanted, and how they have to be careful all the time. She asks if she can bring her friend Jameel over to swim in the pool, and Brenda says “Of course she can, the rules allow that”. Brad turns to the spirit and says “Well, I guess it might be OK, perhaps”. The spirit just looks at him.

Vision of the future ♠️

Spade - ‘you remember that little girl who was going to bring her friend?’ It’s that same summer. There are flashing blue lights around the outside of the gated pool. There are police officers kneeling on the neck of an eight year old girl. Brad is standing there with the police whom he had called. Watching. Brad turns to the spirit, slack-jawed. He cannot say a word but his eyes speak volumes.

Carl - an associate vice president (Envy)

Introduction

Carl is an associate vice president in an investment bank. He is forty-ish, balding, and going slightly grey at the temples. He is in a group of people celebrating John’s promotion and acquisition of a corner office— the corner office that should belong to Carl. His congratulations are as insincere as his smile. That promotion should have been his. He has been here longer, he has worked more hours, he deserves it more than this Johnny-come-lately. When the others raise their glasses in a toast, he just gulps down his Bollinger.

The Spirit Appears

We see Carl sitting at his desk, working late into the night, bottle of whisky to hand. He is reading back through emails, grumbling about his insights which have been overlooked, or not responded to. A secretary he doesn’t know enters his office without knocking (to his annoyance). “You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come with me!” she says. She takes him by the hand and the office fades away into a shimmering grey mist all around him.

Vision of the past ♣️

Club - He sees a time in the past when he is moaning to his best buddy from high school. Before he went into banking he was a high school athlete on the soccer team with JJ. His buddy JJ is still back in the hometown managing an oil change place. JJ has found his calling. Launched an outreach programme and trains inner city kids. Carl is at dinner with JJ and Melissa. Carl tells Melissa that she missed out. JJ will never go anywhere but he, Carl, is going to make it. He’s going to be in the boardroom. JJ was incensed and calls him out, and eventually punches him on the nose. They never saw each other again.

Vision of the present ♦️

Diamond - We see JJ and Melissa in their house. JJ comes home from work, delighted. He says “you cannot believe what happened! McDonald & Clagger just gave a bunch of money to the downtown centre” JJ says. “Hey, you remember my former friend Carl? That’s where he works. I wonder if he’s behind it?”. Carl turns to the spirit. “It wasn’t me. It must be from that guy who was promoted above me just recently. If I’d got that promotion like I should’ve, then I’d have been making that gift. Probably.”

Vision of the future ♠️

Spade - We see JJ’s wake. A tearful Melissa being consoled. JJ had been killed in a hit and run. “But where am I? Carl asks the spirit. “Surely I would have come to JJ’s funeral?” Then we see Carl, years in the future, the same office, same title on the door, but he is grey and balding now. He pours himself a drink and goes to the car dealership. He says “I’m expecting a big promotion, and I need a car that’s appropriate”. He gets a Lamborghini. Tears off down the road back to the home town. Straight over a crosswalk and BANG a pedestrian is sent flying. A straight up hit and run and he doesn’t know what he’s done. He later passes out behind the wheel. Carl turns to the spirit aghast “Spirit! Tell me that isn’t what must happen! Please tell me this can be changed! Please!!”. The spirit nods and leads him away.

Clarissa - an instagram influencer (pride)

Introduction

We see her yelling at the boyfriend, Jeremy. He is holding the phone and trying to take the right photo. “You need to know the angles!” She shouts. They have been together for two weeks. The people from beautify.com won’t be happy if she isn’t showed off properly.

The Spirit Appears

Clarissa is looking through her instagram feed and noticed that in all of them there is the same person in the background, overexposed in the back of all her pictures. HER pictures. Then suddenly that some character is standing with her. “You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come” it says, and it holds out its hand and whisks her away.

Vision of the past ♦️

Diamond - She sees the time when she was a bridesmaid, aged about 11 or 12 when her father got remarried. She sees her father talking to her, telling her how pretty she was. He wants her to be in the centre of the picture but Clarissa humbly said that it was important that Dot, his new wife, was in the middle. She is pleased to be there, but beams to see her dad and Dot so happy together.

Vision of the present ♣️

Club - step into a picture frame and we are in the bedroom of a preteen girl, looking at Clarissas instagram feed and saying she is too fat. Then we are in a different girls bedroom who says she is too short, then another whose hair isn’t right. Then another. Then another. Clarissa smirks a bit “Well, they aren’t as good as me”. The spirit looks at her pityingly. “You make a difference, you ripple outwards, you affect others”.

Vision of the future ♠️

Spade - We see her funeral, she died of complications after plastic surgery at age 38. There is hardly anyone here. There is a bulletin board full of pictures of an older Clarissa, her face distorted with signs of filler and plastic surgery. There are not many people in the room. One of the few people there is Jeremy, chatting on his phone to someone about her. Dated for a couple of weeks, but now look at her. Near the front are her father and Dot, both distraught about what happened to their beautiful little daughter. “If only I’d never got that damn phone for her” her father cursed. Dot demurred “She would have found some other way. If only she realised how lovely she was just as herself”. Clarissa turns to the spirit, vaguely repulsed by the ugly person she sees on the bulletin board. “Take me away, spirit, I don’t want to see anything else”.

Donald - pensioner, ex-professional surgeon (gluttony, manifesting as a hoarder).

Introduction

We see Donald on his front porch. Not much space to get the door open. Everything else is stacked to the ceiling. Books, papers, clippings. He’s got a lot of other stuff. He is talking to the town safety officer because there have been complaints. Overgrown and attracting rats. The state might get him thrown out.

The Spirit Appears

Donald is tidying up some of the piles of newspaper clippings when they start rustling and moving by themselves. Then a spirit rises up out of the piles and says “You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come” and holds out its hand and leads him back into the past.

Vision of the past ♠️

Spade - he is in a hospital room, some years ago. He sees himself, a little younger, and his wife on her deathbed. He wants to leave but the spirit won’t let him. He hears their discussion. She wants him to let go and live a life. He doesn’t want to let go. She thinks they had a good run and he needs to move on. We see the older Donald go over and try to tuck a lock of hair back with his ghostly fingers. Then the spirit moves him on. It was after this that his hoarding started.

Vision of the present ❤️

Heart - We see his estranged daughter, Valerie, at the county hall. She is defending against the potential eviction, arguing that it isn’t fair and he needs more time. “Why is she doing this?” Donald wonders. Then he sees her open up her pocketbook and pay the immediate fines herself. “Wait a moment, that’s the money she needs for her medical education! She mustn’t do that? Why is she doing that, spirit?”. “It is love”, the spirit replies.

Vision of the future ❤️

Heart - We see his wake. It is packed with people. Valerie gives a moving speech and people come forward - those whose life he saved with his surgery, those who used to enjoy his company before he sealed himself off. Some remark that he didn’t even go to Valerie's med school graduation but overwhelmingly he was missed by people. He was loved by people. Donald turns to the spirit “I didn’t realise… I just didn’t understand”. The spirit nods and leads him away.

Council of Judgement

The spirits are now gathered, looking at one another. They have seen the lives of each others clients, and now each has to decide whether any deserve to be saved. They each have one vote they can cast for one of the clients apart from their own. Each secretly decides, then their votes are revealed.

Donald had 1 red card

Donald loses the house and much of his memories but he is rescued from gluttony and his need to hoard. He moves in with his daughter Valerie, and slowly rebuilds contact with some of his old friends from hospital. He has lost a lot, but he has a better future to build on.

Carl - no cards

Ultimately Carl doesn’t learn from the spirit’s visit and he is consumed by envy, finding oblivion in the bottle. He kills JJ in the hit and run as was foreseen, and ends his days in prison, blaming everyone who had a better life than him.

Clarissa - 1 red card

Clarissa realises that the path she is on will cause her followers to drop dramatically by the time she is in her 30’s and feels that she might be able to allow her ripples to make a difference. She focuses her influence on African poverty, meets someone doing relief work. They fall in love and move to work with refugees together. She thinks she doesn’t change much, but away from the internet she has lost her followers and her clout; but has at least stepped off the treadmill that was leading her to her doom.

Brad - two cards

Brad wakes up the next morning in his lazyboy in a cold sweat. He goes into the kitchen and pulls down a very old cookbook, full of annotations from his mother. He starts to make cookies. He is later knocking at the door of the Washington’s, and leaving the cookies. He walks away, but Brenda opens the door and asks what he is doing - he says “I’m sorry for the way I behaved, it is inexcusable. But it’s not about me. I just want to do something nice”. Brenda says “come in and have a cup of coffee”. He does come in, and it’s the first step towards the rest of his life, free at last from the wrath that used to consume him.

I hope to raise £1000 over the next 20 days to pay for professional editing and the purchase of commercial fonts for the project.

The main rules text is complete, I'm filling out examples of play while the campaign is ongoing.

The backer levels are named after six of the seven deadly sins - Sloth, Envy, Lust, Pride, Gluttony, and Greed; I think it adds a little fun to the proceedings!

All backers will receive access to a playtest version of the rules, and I'd love to hear from anyone who runs a game (or has queries about it).

You can find the kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/expect-three-visitors-rpg

The supporting characters are great, but it is too easy to forget them in the dynamics of each chapter.

In the next playtest I added an additional vignette at the end of each chapter, which focuses on each of the supporting characters. The vignette describes an interaction between the supporting characters and the protagonists.

This is like Boromir teaching the hobbits how to fight as they traveled south towards the gap of Rohan. Scenes which endear these characters to us, so that we care what happens to them.

This did the job and is now being written into the rules.

It would be nice to have something about enjoying the victory after the final battle

Great point. We don’t want a whole chapter there, so I tried a small change in the next playtest. After the final battle every player was able to give a little narrative vignette about their victory - whether the collapse of the villains power, freeing of captives, crowning of a king or whatever.

It’s the equivalent of the celebration at Gondor and the crowning of Aragorn before the hobbits started their journey home.

When do we find the McGuffin?

A special item is introduced in the set up, but we don’t specify when it appears. They playtesters thought that it would be helpful to give some indication about how it is introduced and used. So additional information that say it should be one of the wondrous items which is created will be added to the rules. In addition, guidance that if not already in hand by the penultimate chapter, then gaining it in the penultimate chapter should be arranged (even if it is gained at a terrible cost).

In the Sword of Shannara, Shea infiltrates the Warlock Lord's fortress in the Skull Mountain and finds the sword at the very end of the quest.

Chris - Khel: A 17 year old street performer, acrobat and sometime thief. He wears darker reds with patches of other colours. His strength is that he is a great acrobat, but his weakness is that sometimes he is too impetuous for his own good. His touchstone is his mother and sister. He gives them the money he earns, but he wants more for them. (Can’t remember what he likes about Sabo and what he wants from Georgie)

Alex - Georgie: An 18 year old young woman with mousey hair. A bit too skinny through malnourishment. She likes wearing yellow, but is self conscious of the scar across her right eye. Her strength is iron determination, her weakness is that she fiddles with things, and her touchstone is her sweetheart Brian Cooper, with whom she has had one chaste kiss. She likes Khel because he makes her laugh. She wants to learn the ways of romance from Waverley who sings about love so beautifully.

Patti - Waverley Stone: Only 15 years old, she is 5’6” with long brown hair and a slight build. She loves to play the lute and sings beautifully. Her strength is her unabashed hope, and her weakness is that she had lost her family and that can bring her down. Her touchstone is that she will have a new found family around her. (Can’t remember what she likes about Georgie and wants from Sabo)

Dorian - Sabo. A scrawny, wiry, nimble 17yr old. Short hair and lots of scars. His strength is that he is highly dexterous, a climber and explorer. His weakness is that he is reckless and overestimates his own ability (hence all the scars!). He likes wearing grey and isn’t an optimist. His touchstone is his younger siblings, his younger sister and younger brother. He wants to protect them from the broken angel. (Can’t remember what he likes about Waverley and wants from Khel)

Setting

They come from a small shanty town nestled against the ruined remains of a huge city. Nobody remembers exactly when the cities fell, but legend says that everything crumbled in one night. People wear bright colours - but not blue, which is the colour of the broken angel. The market squares are full of bustle and lively sound, but if you move into the old city the echoes quickly die away and are replaced with the drip of water and sound of your footsteps. There is a smell of mould and stagnant water as you move further from the inhabited areas.

Chapter 1 - on the journey

They remember how they started their journey in the dusty library, where they had played as children, deep in the ruined city. But now as older teens they came with more purpose in mind.

Georgie ❤️ had been first in through the door, and was taken aback by the sight of someone already in the room. A shaft of sunlight through a broken window illuminated his golden hair and shone off his knightly armour. It was Sir Robert, a stout and wise knight. Georgie chatted with him and found that he too was committed to undoing the evil of the broken angel, and would join them on their question.

Sabo ♣️ was sure that he knew just where the right book for them was, and he had swarmed up the bookshelves like a little monkey - but the old shelves were not as firmly fixed as he expected, and a whole set of shelves collapsed on him, spraining his ankle.

Waverley ♦️ had seen a small chest behind the ruined shelves. After retrieving it and opening it, she found a lovely necklace. Putting it on, she found it was a crystal of memories, and it allowed her to occasionally see a little bit of someone’s memories.

With Sir Roberts guidance and some help from the book that Sabo had retrieved at some cost they decide to press on. It was then that they met another fellow traveller that Khel ♠️ invited to join them - little did we know at the time that Roderick the fanatical sadistic swordsman was going to cause us much pain in the future.

Story Vignette: We see in other parts of the world city walls and buildings suddenly crumbling further into ruins, as the power of the broken Angel spreads further across the land.

Character Vignette: We remembered Georgie and Sir Robert walking side by side, and she was hanging on his every word and twirling a lock of her hair in her fingers.

Character Vignette: We remembered Roderick offering to train Khel in the use of the sword, but he is harsh and brutal. At one point Roderick stabs Khel in the upper arm, and while Khel cries out Roderick just tells him to “suck it up” because “He’ll experience worse in a real battle”

Chapter 2 - into the wilderness

Do you remember how we followed directions in the wilderness to the crumbling tower? We had heard that it was a key point on our journey. We could see that it was covered with huge webs, and as we crept through the front door we could see spiders as big as dogs on the walls.

Khel ♣️ with his characteristic impulsiveness had charged further in and fell down through a rotten floor. It turned out that the giant spiders we had seen were just the babies, and in the basement there were truly tremendous spiders! Mandibles gaping, they had charged at him!

Luckily Sabo ♦️ had seen something sparkling with a magical gleam and he grabbed up the stone of warding and despite his sprained ankle leapt down to protect Khel. Again and again the spiders venomous mandibles stabbed at them, but glanced off an invisible wall produced by the stone of protection.

While Sir Robert and Waverley♦️ lowed a rope down to help them escape, Georgie ❤️ was bitten on the shoulder by one of the large spiders in the entrance hall. She had shrieked and batted it off. Instantly Sir Robert was by her side. His strong hands tore down the shirt by her shoulder, and quickly and tenderly he sucked the venom from her wound.

Story Vignette: Elsewhere, we knew that cultists of the broken angel who had been displaced from their villages had started to band together and range across the land, looking for those they could capture and sacrifice to their insane master.

Character Vignette: Georgie remembered that evening, sitting with Sir Robert with a funny fluttering feeling in her tummy, and a tenderness in his eyes that she had hoped for days would be there. They held hands a little.

Character Vignette: We remembered that Roderick had been strangely absent in the battle with the spiders, and he closely questioned Sabo about the stone of warding. He had wanted to hold it, to have it, but Sabo had kept it safe.

Chapter 3 - secret paths

Aware of the roving bands of cultists across the lands, we had decided that we had to take a secret way from the tower, and that way took us through the flooded catacombs.

We had lit our torches, and Georgie ♦️ had led the way bravely - despite the dark, thigh-deep water. Malign whispers surrounded us all, speaking of doom, death, and decay, but she stayed firm. She said that Sir Robert couldn’t go first in his heavy armour in case of hidden depths, but she could lead the way.

Khel ❤️ remembered helping Sabo, who was still feeling a little unsure on his twisted ankle. At one point Sabo tripped and the stone of warding nearly came loose.

Waverley ♠️ said that was when she saw Roderick lunge forward and grab the stone - then lost his footing and fell sideways into deep water and fell into the dark depths, taking our precious stone with him!

Sabo ❤️ said I didn’t mind seeing the back of that rotten person, he was so untrustworthy. Not like the person we met the other side of the catacombs! Do you remember how we came out at the edge of a gorge, with water tumbling down into the depths? We wondered how we could get across when we had the great good fortune to spot Pierre the other side of the gorge. The fierce, compassionate, swashbuckler saw us and took pity - he soon rigged up a rope and swung across, and then transported us one by one across the gorge. Sir Robert had to take his armour off and send it across separately. Georgie thought that he looked great without his armour on.

Story Vignette: In our minds eye we could see the army of ordinary people who were making their way to the lair of the broken angel. Farmers, shepherds, carpenters, armed with their honest tools rather than the tools of war, but determined to rise up against their oppressor.

Character Vignette: Pierre was impressed with both Khel and Sabo - they were nimble and quick, and he told them that he saw a younger version of himself. He started to train them both in his swashbuckling style, and he was a better teacher than Roderick had been - and a much kinder one.

Chapter 4 - a welcome break

The next evening they found themselves in a withered formal garden, overgrown with weeds while most of the ornamental trees had withered and died. Pierre had shot a rabbit and Georgie ♣️ remembered that she was the one cooking the delicious rabbit stew - but also the one that ruined it! Curse her clumsiness! She had turned round, caught the pot with her sleeve and the rabbit stew tumbled out onto the dry dirt. They scrabbled around to gather it up, and made the best of the dirt encrusted morsels, but it didn’t make Georgie feel any less guilty.

As the evening wore on and the stars came out, Waverley ❤️ prepared her lute and sang them a lovely song that lifted all their hearts:

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose

Khel ♣️ (I can’t remember)

Sabo ♣️ (I can’t remember)

Story Vignette: Unfortunately the brave little army of farmers had been defeated by the growing number of cultists. When next we see them in our minds eye they are being herded into great cells, and guarded by supernatural creatures.

Character Vignette: Georgie snuggled up to Sir Robert while they listened to Waverley’s beautiful voice. Part of her mind was saying “No, think about Brian” but in truth she was thinking mostly about Sir Robert.

Chapter 5 - desperate times

At last we had found our way to the ancient battlefield, still littered with corpses from the previous attempt to unseat the broken angel, whenever that had been. We could see bands of cultists wandering across the battlefield looking for something, and awful flying gargoyles circling overhead.

Georgie remembered that lucky moment ♦️ when she stumbled across the case containing the mirror of truth. Looking in the darkened reflection in the mirror, there was one place where the mirror showed a shaft of moonlight shining down on the battlefield. Guiding them with the mirror, she was able to lead them to a mound of corpses.

That’s where I found the moon amulet Waverley cried ♦️- it was horrible digging through the pile or corpses, but we found both the amulet and the secret book that told us how it had to be used, how it had to be empowered and brought before the broken angel.

It was just as well that we had Pierre with us, Sabo remembered. He was as good with the bow as he was with the sword, and he shot down those winged gargoyles that came for us, while Sir Robert, Khel and I vanquished the cultists who came close.

I remember, Khel said ❤️, that as we passed the moon amulet amongst us I was thinking of my mother and daughter back home, and how much I loved them… and when the amulet was passed to me it burst into life with a pale glow like moonlight. It was empowered by my love! I decided to wear it and gird my loins for the final battle.

Story Vignette: We briefly imagine the serene face of the broken angel suddenly whipping round with anger and a touch of fear - he sensed that the moon amulet had been empowered!

Character Vignette: (I don’t remember)

Chapter 6 - the final battle

Our journey had ended at the base of the eroded colossus - a towering statue of an angel, two hundred feet high. There was a gate open at the bottom near its feet, and erosion had carried away one of its wings and left a gaping hole at it’s side. We knew that we had to make our way right up to the head in order to face the broken angel in his lair.

Waverley remembered how we started making our way up the spiral stairwell in the inside of the colossus, with Pierre in the lead and Sir Robert bringing up the rear to defend us from cultists below.

Sabo ♠️ said what a shock it was when we rounded a corner and saw Roderick standing there, grinning evilly! Pierre launched a spirited attack, but Roderick still had the stone of warding, now recharged again, and Pierres sword skittered off the invisible protective field while Roderick savagely advanced. Pierre glanced back at us, said “remember me” and threw his blade as a distraction before bull-rushing Roderick back, back - and then they both tumbled out of the side of the collapse. We heard Roderick laughing madly on the way down - but he didn’t realise that the stone of warding would be of no help here, and they both died in the field of rocks below.

Georgie ❤️ remembered how we burst into the chamber at the top, and we saw the broken angel looking fierce in his sky-blue robes, that hated, forbidden colour! He sent his gargoyles to attack us but Sir Robert bravely stood to beat them away, and I stood by his side, helping as much as I could to defend us.

Waverley ❤️ started singing, her young voice carrying clearly across the chamber, filling our hearts with hope.

That was when Khel ♦️stood forth, his heart swelling with the music and voice and the memory of his beloved family! The broken angel staggered away as the glow from the moon amulet grew! Then on one side Sabo grabs his hand, and Waverley grabs his. On the other side Georgie grasps his hand tightly and Sir Robert grasps hers. The love of our little family flowed into Khel and bolstered him even more - the glow of the amulet became too much to look at as it filled the room, captured the angel in it’s glare - and then was sucked into the amulet, taking the angel with it. It was locked in the amulet resting upon Khel’s chest.

Victory Vignette: We remembered the prison gates shattering and the brave farmers and others running free

Victory Vignette: We remembered the cultists, throwing down their robes of blue and horrible symbols, repenting of what they had done

Victory Vignette: We remembered the crumbled walls of our ruined cities which had fallen into desolation in a day reforming and becoming as their once where! A world restored!

( I can’t remember the fourth vignette)

Homecoming

For homecoming there was a point where people were deciding whether to keep or donate their last remaining card. Once decisions were made and cards donated all in one go, we found that Khel had one red card (much to his surprise, he was expecting a dreadful ending), Georgie had one black card, Waverley had two cards, and Sabo had no cards.

Georgie came back and rushed to see her touchstone, Brian Cooper… only to find him in bed with another wench! The bastard! She decided that she had no life here now with the likes of him, and asked Sir Robert if she could join him on his questing - a request which he gladly acceded to. She lost her touchstone, but did find happiness.

Khel had been feeling the Angel struggling to escape from the moon amulet all the long journey home, and he had come to peace with the idea that his life would be lost in guarding it. But to his surprise as his mother and sister rushed out and their love engulfed him, he felt the amulet strengthened even more, and the angel rendered powerless as long as he stayed with them. He returned to his touchstone, having saved them, and found that they in turn saved him.

Poor Sabo. He had set out on the quest to stop the broken angel to give a life of safety to his younger sister and brother. When he came home he asked after them here and there, but saw only sad faces. Then it dawned upon him. Hurrying to find the tents his family lived in, where they should be he could see only a monumental wall. Restored to its former glory, yes… but reappearing in an instant, it had entombed his beloved siblings within it. Lost forever.

Waverley wrote a ballad of the broken angel, immortalising their quest in words and music that stuck in the ear, but filled you with love. It was celebrated and remembered for centuries to come, and Waverley grew to become legendary among the people. Her touchstone was her team, and she made sure they would be remembered forever. Furthermore, the colour blue was redeemed, and her family name became not stone but bluestone once again.

• Max- Chester
• Jen - Ellen
• Rebecca - Zinnia
• Scaz - Jake
• Me - Jeff

Max - Chester; Pride (Instagram influencer)

Introduction

We are in the maternity unit in a hospital. In the background we can see Chester’s young wife, in the middle of giving birth to their first baby. In the foreground we see Chester, holding up his phone (in selfie mode, of course) and giving a running commentary on the number of likes and faves he is getting. Pretty sure that he is going to be one of the top streamers today!

The Spirit Appears

One of the midwives, whom he doesn’t really recognise, appears next to him. “Chester” she says, “You shouldn’t be thinking of yourself right now. You should be thinking of someone else”. She smartly whisks the phone out of his hand and as he turns round the room dims around him. She says “You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come with me”

Vision of the past ❤️

The mists clear and Chester can see himself sitting at the table, a younger version of himself across from his wife Annabeth. It was when they were students - he studying english literature and she was a film major. He wanted to go to the movies with her, and she had suggested some arty French film, but he was going to go anyway because he enjoyed her company so much.

“So,” said the spirit, “Can you remember how much she meant to you back then? I think at that time you were seeking approval from one person in front of you, not the invisible masses who you pander to right now. How did that feel?”

Chester looked without saying anything. Remembering

Vision of the present ♣️

The room darkens again, and Chester finds himself in the maternity unit again - right now! but he is floating with the spirit looking down into the room. He can see Annabeth crying with pain, and calling out to him, but his back is turned and his eyes are glued to his phone. The likes are racking up as he streams his face, and the sounds from behind him, but he doesn’t look round.

“Your wife needs you RIGHT NOW!” the midwife shouts, but Chester sees himself absorbed in the online likes, and deaf to the pleading of his wife.

The spirit looks at Chester glumly, and shakes his head. The scene fades.

Vision of the future ❤️

As the scene clears again, we are seeing a possible future. Not the future, but a possible future. It is eighteen years on, and he has a daughter - Bridgett. She has just opened an official looking letter and has been accepted into the college she had set her heart on!

Chester looks on as he sees the whole family jump up and hug, delighted at the news.

“Thank you, daddy” Bridgette says. “You’ve always been supporting me, and lifting me up. I couldn’t have done it without you right there beside me!”

Annabeth smiles and hugs him, and there is such a look of pride on Chester’s face. Not the pride he currently finds in his own achievements as an influencer, but pride in his family.

“This is a future which could be” says the spirit. “Soon we will find out what will be”.

Jen - Ellen Cheneweth-Whitebridge-Moye; Envy (serial weddings)

Introduction

We see Ellen with Celine, a woman friend who was about to buy a beautiful dress that she wanted, and there was only one left on the rack. While Celine was in the dressing room, Ellen contacted Celine's boyfriend, telling him that she was cheating on him. He immediately confronted Celine, and during the confusion, Ellen snuck in and stole the dress for herself.

"It looked much better on me anyway!"

The Spirit Appears

A florist appears at the door. “Ellen, You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come with me”

The fragrance from the flowers swirls out and everything fades into grey around them.

Vision of the past ♣️

Ellen is reminded of a major, public breakup she had back in high school. Her boyfriend at the time was absolutely crushed by their separation, and shortly afterward, disappeared and was not seen again. 

The ghost asks Ellen if she ever found out what happened; she absentmindedly mentions that she never bothered to find out. There were bigger and better fish to fry.

The ghost then hands Ellen a note, which she begins to read. It is a suicide letter, addressed to her. 

Led to believe that his worth was directly tied to her approval, the boy had hung himself in a nearby forest. The letter speaks directly to Ellen, wishing her all the best in her future, and hoping that she will eventually find happiness and satisfaction.

Ellen reads this, looking slightly troubled. Then, she rights herself, sniffs haughtily, and says something to the effect of "well, it wasn't my fault he made a decision like that."

Vision of the present ♣️

Ellen is at a restaurant, taking tea with her good friend Shelly Cheneweth.

“Oh Ellen , please help me with your clever advice. I fear that my husband’s wandering eye has got worse. What can I do to keep him?”

Ellen in the past smirks a little “Well, he is a very handsome man you know. You’ll have to expect him to play away from home occasionally”

Shelly puts her wine glass down “don’t SAY that Ellen!” She remonstrates. “You know my lifestyle, I DEPEND on my hubby”

“I’ve noticed how wealthy he is” Ellen in the past purrs. “Perhaps I can do something to get his attention in the right place”

The spirit gazed at Ellen Cheneweth-Whitebridge-Moye “You had already been doing a lot to get Mr Cheneweth’s attention, weren’t you Ellen?”

“Well, he was a much better fit for me!”

Vision of the future ♣️

Ellen sees herself in the corner office of her increasingly successful business, “Inspire”. Then with barely a knock a burly FBI agent enters.

“Mrs Cheneweth-Whitebridge-Moye - you need to come with me. There are… irregularities with some of your earlier marriages and you have questions to answer”

“Well I’m quite sure that I don’t” Ellen replies huffily.

“Ma’am, you can walk out of here under your own steam, or you can be marched out in handcuffs. I’m giving you the choice here, but one way or another you are coming with us”

She is very resistant, so true to his word he handcuffs her and marches her out through the front door of the office block. The street outside is crammed with reporters and the flash of cameras.

Even second hand Ellen feels the shame of it, and she turns to the spirit and complains that it all seems very unfair, her business was just helping people who needed it.

Rebecca - Zinnia Mayweather; Sloth (bored teen)

Introduction

We see a 17 year old, on her phone. Four year old Jimmy runs in from the kitchen “I think the brownies are burning!’ He cries. Zinnia grunts. “I’ll deal with it later” she says, listlessly. Jimmy knows the drill and turns the oven off himself. Zinnia continues on her phone until the parents return. “Thank you for babysitting, it’s so comforting to know you are looking after Jimmy”. “Sure” Zinnia says as she leaves and drives home.

The Spirit Appears

Zinnia’s parents are calling her down to dinner, but she can’t be bothered to go down despite their pleas. Then the room darkens and this spirit a bit like a skater dude appears next to her. “Hey, man, like, you need to listen up” it says. “No biggie, but you run the risk, like, that your soul is doomed man. Anyhow, you ought to like, take my hand and, uh, come with me”. Intrigued just a little bit, Zinnia stands up, takes their hand, and steps into the past.

Vision of the past ♠️

Zinnia can see her with her older sister Dahlia, ten years ago. She remembers the evening well - Dahlia was going to cook with her later, but first had promised to do her nails and hair. Zinnia remembered that she adored her older sister - but this was a horrible evening and she didn’t really want to watch it. However, the spirit wouldn’t let her turn away.

Dahlia’s boyfriend Roger arrived, and Dahlia jumped up and left against the protests of disappointed little Zinnia. “Laters” Dahlia called out over her shoulder. Then the spirit and Zinnia drifted out into the night and we hear the squeal of brakes, a terrible noise and Roger’s car crashes into a tree and we see flames.

Vision of the present ♠️

Suddenly Zinnia is in the present day. Her parents are excited and it is a day when Dahlia comes to visit - paralysed from the neck down for the last decade, present day Zinnia is angry that her older sister is getting all the love and attention and she is getting none. Dahlia is bitter about her life, Zinnia is bitter about the way she felt that she was overlooked by her parents. Her parents clearly desperately love both their daughters. “C’mon bumblebee” her dad pleads, “You know we love you both”

“I hate you!” Zinnia says to her sister and storms upstairs.

We then see the reason why Dahlia was visiting on this day - her ruined body was finally giving up, and she died with her father and mother next to her.

“Hey man, I don’t want to judge but hey, how are you feeling about this?” Asks the spirit. “I can’t believe that those were my last words to her” Zinnia replied. “What was I thinking? I hate this. I don’t want to see anything else, spirit”

“Well, if you want to give up it’s cool. But if you want to go on that’s cool too. I’m not going to push you, y’know, but we ought to see what might happen, right, if you don’t y’know, get straight, uh?”

Reluctantly, Zinnia pushes on to the last vision.

Vision of the future ♣️

Zinnia sees the near future. It’s dark and her mother is on the porch. There is genuine sadness in her eyes. Her father is calling up to her in her bedroom. “Bumblebee, come on down for supper! It’s ready on the table, and it would cheer your mother “

Zinnia hears her voice call back “I don’t want to. I’ll Uber a pizza or something and just eat up here”

“Please bumblebee, it would make such a difference to your mother and me… especially now. I’m no god in the kitchen but your mum is feeling so down”

But Zinnia has tuned him out and it’s absorbed in her phone again. And out on the porch her mother silently weeps.

Scaz - Jake R; Gluttony (alcoholic)

Introduction

Jake is at his usual spot at the bar. He has empty glasses in front of him. How many? It’s difficult to tell. His phone beeps - it’s a message from his wife, and he knows his son’s event is tonight. But there’s time for one more drink eh? One for the road?

The Spirit Appears

Jake orders another round, takes a swig, and stares down into his beer, blinking blearily. As his vision fuzzes in and out of focus, he swears he almost sees something like a face in the foam, and rubs his eyes. When he opens them again, there is clearly a face in the head of his beer.

He blinks at the face, which blinks up at him, and asks, "Jake, can you hear me?" "I. Uh. Um." "Jake, I need you to listen to me. You run the risk that your soul is doomed."

Jake chugs the entire beer in one go.

Slamming the glass triumphantly down on the bar, proud to have dealt with his issues, he is about to order another round when his vision swirls and he feels incredibly dizzy. He topples backward off his barstool, smacking his head into the floor, and everything goes black.

Standing in the void, Jake looks up at the same face from the beer foam. It sighs, resigned, then speaks.

"Alright, let's try this again. Jake, you run the risk that your soul is doomed. I need you to come with me."

"...Schlitz... Dude?"

"...Sure, I'm Schlitz Dude. That is my name. I need you to stay with me, here."

"Alright, Schlitz Dude!" Jake slurs. The face from the foam sighs again, and the entire void ripples like liquid into a scene from Jake's past.

Vision of the past ♣️

Jake is transported back and sees his sixteen year old self at a school party. He’s with his girlfriend but all eyes are on the beer glass in front of him and the chant from his friends…

“Chug! Chug! Chug!!” “Do it! DO IT!”

The younger Jake messily downs the pint, spilling some down his front. His friends cheer and put another glass in front of him. His girlfriend seems doubtful “that’s enough Jake, give it a rest” she says.

Jake is consumed with anger and grabs her blouse “you’re not my boss!” He shouts. She struggles to get free and he slaps her hard. She cries and runs off, while Jake struggles back to his next drink.

The spirit looks down at Jake. "This was the start of everything. Do you remember this?"

Jake shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't remember much of anything from that night, honestly."

"Are you proud of what you're seeing?"

"Would you be?"

“Let’s see your son this very night”

Vision of the present ♦️

Jake wakes up in bed alone, incredibly hungover on a Sunday afternoon. The clock reads 2PM, and through the fog of his pounding headache, Jake vaguely remembers that his ten year old son Timothy has a soccer game in half an hour.

Looking at the ceiling, he weighs the pros and cons of drinking off his hangover. Then, in an uncharacteristic turn, he rolls over, and walks out to the kitchen to make himself some coffee instead.

At Timothy's soccer game, things aren't going super well. Tim's gotten into a few scrapes, and has received enough warnings that one more will have him sitting on the sidelines. In the stands, his mother cheers resignedly for him, urging him to keep playing and do his best. She looks sadly at the empty seat next to her.

With his headache ringing in his ears, Jake arrives at the game and makes his way slowly to his seat. His wife looks up at him, shocked, then softly smiles. She fills him in on how everything's been going, and he looks out at his son on the field.

Tim looks angrily out at the crowd, but his expression changes when he sees his father sitting in the stands. He breaks into a grin, waving excitedly, and begins to play with renewed fervor. Jake watches him play, pondering just how much of his son's childhood he's missed.

Ultimately, Tim scores the winning goal, and beams out at his parents. His mother is cheering excitedly, and his father (grimacing through his pounding skull) is also clapping.

The spirit turns to Jake. "Do you see how much being here for him in this moment meant? You know how much he looks up to you, right?"

"It doesn't matter. He knows what his father is. One day is just a fluke."

"But knowing moments like this happen, doesn't it make you want to change? To be better?"

"It's not that easy. It doesn't matter. I can't change. I just can't."

Vision of the future ❤️

The scene swirls and Jake finds himself standing next to the giant smiley face made of bubbles at his son’s school. There is a party there tonight, and someone has just put a row of drinks in front of his son. The familiar chant rises up again.

“Chug! Chug! Chug!!” “Do it! DO IT!”

For a moment the son pauses, but then he stands up away from the table.

“No” he says firmly. “I’ve seen how much my dad struggles because of drink, and he wants to do better. And I know he struggles for me. So I’m not going down the path he took”

“See?” Says the spirit. “You despise yourself for messing up, but your son sees your struggles and it is helping him”

Alex - Jeff Archer; Greed (corporate raider)

Introduction

We see Jeff in his smartly tailored suit at the head of a boardroom table. He surveys the diverse group of people who have been running the hostels in the city.

“You’ve been doing an ok job, but frankly you are sitting on a mint. I’m closing down all the hotels and selling the prime real estate to developers who want to build a chemical factory”

“You can’t do that!” One of them says

“Oh, are you mistaking this for a discussion? I’m just telling you what is happening as a small courtesy” says Jeff. “Anyhow, it isn’t your concern any more. You’re all fired”

They look shocked

“Leave your phones and passes on the table, and collect your belongings on the way out”

The Spirit Appears

A happy Jeff strides to the lift and punched the down button. The executive lift isn’t supposed to stop for anyone but it does and a well dressed man gets on. Jeff noticed he has a fabulous watch.

“Excuse me, but can I buy that watch? Price no object!”

“Aha”, says the spirit “there is something more valuable at stake than a mere watch. “You run the risk that your soul is doomed. Come with me”

The lift door opens and they step through

Vision of the past ❤️

It is a room in the past. Jeff’s mother is there. It’s a happy day.

In this vision, Jeff's mother is making cupcakes in the kitchen. Little Jeff comes into the room with absolutely filthy hands.

"Oh Jeffery– were you out playing with the dog again? You silly boy." She smiles warmly down at him. Jeff sees the cupcakes on the counter, and makes grabby hands up at them. His mother chuckles, motioning to the sink. "You'll have to wash up before you can have any!"

Just then, the family dog, Cheddar, bounds into the kitchen. Absolutely covered in mud, he runs to Jeff's mother and jumps at her dress. She laughs, bending down to tend to him.

In that moment, something in little Jeff's expression changes ever so slightly. He sees the unattended plate of cupcakes on the counter, and sneaks a glance at his thoroughly distracted mother. Then, in one swift movement, he swipes the plate off the counter. He begins to shove an entire cupcake in his mouth as the spirit pauses the scene. 

“Well, spirit, thank you for showing me that happy time. I was really blessed to have such a start, wasn’t I?”

They step back into the lift

Vision of the present ❤️

The lift doors open and they step forth into Jeff’s favourite eating place. He can see himself seated at his favourite table, but the spirit draws his attention to a mother coming in with two small children. She leaves the children gazing at the cake display while she goes to try to arrange something. The children debate which cake they should ask mom for, knowing that nothing will be possible.

The Jeff at the table calls his waiter over and whispers something to him. When their mom returns she finds a waiter has arrived with a big box

The scene pauses

“Why did you do that?” Asks the spirit “doesn’t seem to be any profit in it”

“I guess I thought it might be a little treat” Jeff replied. “Hey, I’m a pretty great guy, aren’t I?”

The scene resumes and happy children devour the cake and Jeff in the room looks delighted with himself.

Jeff Archer with the spirit is equally delighted. “Thank you spirit - you have shown me so much to be pleased about - my life growing up, and little generosities now that have helped people”

Once more they return to the lift. “About that watch?”

“Wait” says the spirit.

Vision of the future ♠️

The door opens and they are in a decrepit building which smells of blood and sick. Harried and tired nurses bustle too and fro, while too few doctors try to help the desperately ill in this under funded establishment that is on its last legs. A woman in an oxygen mask gasps for breath and is hooked up to monitors.

The administrator seems vaguely familiar - is it the boy from the cake shop, now grown up?

“I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is” he says.

“But what are these poor people going to DO” shouts the nurse. “Without this facility these people have nothing, nowhere to go” she gestures around at the patients.

“Not my call” says the administrator. “Mr Archer is the boss, and he’s decided to close the site down and sell the land off”

The scene pauses. The spirit turns to Jeff Archer. “You never have concerned yourself with the people affected by your decisions, have you Jeff?”

The scene resumes. Some repo men arrive and start turning off the equipment in the hospital for the needy.

Jeff asks the spirit “so this is what you have brought me to see? That the boy I helped has become a kind of right hand man to me, and I’m supposed to be ashamed of that?”

“No,” said the spirit. “There is someone else you need to see here”

The woman in the oxygen mask appears stressed by everything that is going on. Her heart rate spikes violently, then flatlines. The nurses look for the crash cart but it is nowhere to be found. The woman dies.

As they remove the oxygen mask, Jeff suddenly recognises his own mother!

“This is what may happen, not what will happen. It all depends upon whether you can change”

“What, but…” Jeff’s voice is cut off by the closing lift doors.

The Council of Judgement

The spirits are now gathered, looking at one another. They have seen the lives of each others clients, and now each has to decide whether any deserve to be saved. They each have one vote they can cast for one of the clients apart from their own. Each secretly decides, then their votes are revealed.

Chester receives one vote - a Red card.

He is saved, but at a cost. He does give his wife and family the attention that they deserve, and they have a happy family life together. But he has moved the whole family out into the mountains, in a village with no internet service. He gave up his life as an influencer, along with all the other appealing things about using the internet. On his monthly supply run into the nearest town he sometimes looks with regret at the people walking around with their phones. But he knows what he has given up for his family, and they are enough.

Jake receives two votes!

He is saved, but at a cost. He signs up with Alcoholics Anonymous and joins their twelve step programme. He has good days, and he has bad days. He never becomes the perfect father he would like to be, but he does enough to help his son make better choices than he did, and that is enough.

Ellen received no votes!

Ellen decides that the best way to turn her life around is to reconnect with Shelly. She gets back in touch with her, takes her through the company process for self improvement, and it works! Shelly praises Ellen, calling her her best friend, and thanking her for everything Ellen did for her. 

But it's not enough. Ellen meets another woman she feels is in need of help. She builds her up, and receives the same praise. It's still not enough. So she finds another woman, and helps her, and is praised even more. But it's still not enough... and that date with the Feds is approaching.

Jeff received no votes!

Jeff determines that the only way to save his mother is to hire a local mafia. He pays them to take out all of the people who may provide competition and cause the hospital where she dies to have to pull the plug. This, of course, lands him directly in jail. 

Things go poorly for him from there. In a mugshot, he doesn't look nearly as sharp in an orange jumpsuit as in his snazzy work suit, haggard and worn, and without a watch to speak of.

Zinnia recieves three votes!

We see Zinnia in the kitchen, baking with her father. They are both a little inept but they are helping each other and having a wonderful time. Zinnia is smiling and fully engaged. As she pulls the piping hot brownies from the oven, perfectly cooked, he father calls out to her mom “Darling, bumblebee and I have got supper ready - are your coming?”

Her mum comes in from the porch, wipes a tear from her eye and says “Always” and gives them both the biggest hug.

And their family life was changed forever.

Huge thanks to the playtesters who brought the characters to life - whether playing as the despicable clients, the kindly spirits, or all the supporting characters in the visions of the past, present and future.

Two of the additions to the rulebook as a result of this particular playtest are

1. Encourage the spirits to take additional forms apart from the typical victorian figure. Having a skater dude talking to the slothly teenager, and a face made from bubbles in the head of a beer really brought the game to life.
2. Encourage a de-role-ing session at the end of the game, to give people the option of 'shaking off' some of the mean spiritness which they had been embodying.

• Literary Style
• Background
• Theme
• Enemy

You can also consider

• Purpose
• Magic Style

Literary Style

At the current time I'm suggesting four kinds of literary style in the rules. The players choice here will inform some of the concepts and threats they are going to deal with, and how grim and gritty they want their stories to be.

1. Child Friendly (like Narnia, the Hobbit, Redwall)
2. Young Adult/YA (like Percy Jackson, Shadow and Bone, Affair of Poisons)
3. Heroic (like The Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad, The Sword of Shannara)
4. Grim (like Game of Thrones, Rhenwars)

Background

What is the background for the characters in the story?

1. Innocents Drawn into a struggle beyond your ken (like Narnia, Three Hearts and Three Lions, the Hobbit)
2. Nobles Powerful people or the household of powerful people (like Game of Thrones, the Belgariad)
3. Rag-Tag Overlooked, poor, criminals or rebels (like the Lies of Locke Lamora)
4. Veterans You're too old for this kind of thing, but nobody else was available (like in Aching God, Kings of the Wyld)

Theme

I'm also suggesting four broad themes that can be used for the story (of course others are available, these are starting points)

1. Sylvan - deep woods, mighty mountains, verdant fields
2. Fey - highly magical and mysterious, associated with the realm of the fairies.
3. Faded - it was once glorious, but much has falled away and decayed. Remnants of great empires whose secrets have been forgotten.
4. Shadowed - a world that is already under the thumb of the great enemy, with darkness and evil round every corner.

Enemy

Who is the great enemy, the focus of the quest which you completed?

1. A Tyrant, the ruler of a nation who is conquering and subjugating others. A king or queen, witch or wizard, high priest or priestess perhaps.
2. A Dragon, a magical and monstrous creature of incredible power.
3. An Undead, an enemy from beyond the grave who commands the undead.
4. Otherworldly, some supernatural demonic or divine force. Perhaps attempting to break free or recover the lost item they desire.

Purpose

Agreeing on the underlying purpose of your quest can help give a unified direction that the stories move towards.

1. Free someone or something that was able to overthrow the enemy (The Neverending Story)
2. Weaken the enemy by destroying something that is important to them (The Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad)
3. Imprison the enemy or stop the enemy breaking free from their existing restraints. (The Wheel of Time, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)
4. Overthrow the enemy and break their power. (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Game of Thrones)

Magic

You don't need to agree up front what kind of magic will be used in your setting, but once again it can be helpful to make sure that you are all on the same page with what makes sense in a story.

1. Artefacts only - rare and infrequent magical armour and weapons, potions and amulets.
2. Magical spells which can be learned by anyone.
3. Innate power which is only available to those born with the power.
4. Sacrifical magic which requires blood, animals or even people to power the magic.

Once you have your setting, you need to choose some details of your mission and then create your home and your characters. That will be for a subsequent design diary.

Are there any literary styles, enemies, or themes which you'd love to see in the game and you think are not represented? Please let me know on twitter or mastodon and I'll see what we can do!

Betsy - Tombo, apprentice grain miller with an acute sense of justice. Up for a challenge, prone to believing conspiracy theories.

Rob - Caw, eldest of five kids, father died when he was young. Puts it upon himself to be the ‘man’ of the family. Prone to brooding, thinks of Thrace as a kid sister. Heart as big as the salt sea.

Jen - Thrace, youngest daughter of the butcher. She is practical and gets stuff done. Worries that Caw takes too much on himself.

Kristi - Tansy (21), Mouthy, picks fights, gets angry quickly and forgives instantly. Afraid of fire for no reason. Has a beloved cat called Cat.

Setting

Heroic, Shadowed, Evil Queen, Sacrifice magic. The green-eyed Queen who rules the land with an iron fist always has a daughter who is her first born, and by tradition, upon attaining her majority, the firstborn goes to the sacred temple and after a secret ceremony comes out with green eyes, and her mother the old queen dies.

The party are all young adults in the village of Ellith Springs.

The wise and powerful sage who goes by many names lives in the village. We call him Guillym, but he is known as Mabon in the old kingdom and the resistance calls him Isan the Whisperer. He says that the time of prophecy is here, and although the storm clouds approach it is time for the rain to end.

Friends along the way

Tombo (♣️) remembers having a bit of a run-in with Guillym, who was challenging him about his conspiracy theories and told Tombo that it was time to get up, and get out, and come with him to bring the fresh spring water from their village, in accordance with the prophecy. Guillym also charged a number of other people to come on the quest with him to dethrone the queen. Tombo agreed to come along, as does Stannis the elderly smith and tinker, and the butcher who is the father of young Thrace.

Caw is prepared to go along as well, and took with him the treasure he unearthed while ploughing the day before - his plough had turned up a rusty iron box, and inside the box was the hilt of a sword with a barely visible blade - a fabled ghost sword. (♦️)

Thrace wasn’t going to go, but with shock and surprise her father died just before the group were due to set off in a horrible accident. She felt obligated to travel in his stead. (♠️)

"Oh, I had such a horrible experience at the first inn we stopped at" said Tansy (♠️). "There we were sitting there, when they brought in Bella, and she was dead. Bella with the beautiful hair, Bella with the attitude that she was better at everything, Bella who all the boys chased after. Bella who I hated. She was covered in blood and her arm was hanging down the side and everyone ignored it, it was just hanging there and she was dead and I still didn’t like her but it was just hanging down and it wasn’t right and nobody cared. They just ignored her. Apart from you, Tombo. You took a bit of her yellow ribbon and cleaned it and put it in my hair. I didn’t know why you did it then. Not yet."

A Fraught Vision: shortly after they had left the village we see a troop of the queens soldiers march into the village, despoiling the spring, burning down houses and killing any who opposed them.

Into the Wilderness

It wasn’t long before their travels led them into a terrible swamp. They picked up Tomas, the prince of refugees along the way, as Guillym vouched for him.

Tansy (♠️) remembered how wet and miserable the swamp was. How the mud clung to their feet and dragged them down with an awful sucking at a moments notice. As the mists drew in she was acutely aware of Stanna struggling along at the back under her pots and pans. She whispered to the others that they ought to send Stanna back, because she wasn’t going to survive the swamp let alone the rest of the journey. Tomas overheard this and had said that he would handle it - he went off into the mist with Stanna and after a while came back alone. Nobody asked what he had said (or done) although we did cast a few glances back and forth between us.

"But then there was the village", Tombo said (♠️) - "wrecked and ruined by the queens soldiers, and with a barrier of flame across it that would make it impossible to follow our path. Somehow Guillym wasn’t going to be stopped though. Although those flames were hotter than the smith’s forge he walked into them, held out his arms - and parted the flames! We could see he was in pain so we all scurried under his arms and across to the other side. But the sacrifice of doing that magic was too great for him - he collapsed and the fires roared back and he was gone."

"Hey," said Caw (♣️), "that was when JoJo the villager joined us. I felt we ought to welcome him into our family and help him run away from the mess that was behind him. What a big hearted fool I was, just to accept him without question. We couldn’t have known how things were going to turn out though, could we?"

"My blood was boiling," Thrace recalled (♦️), "and the other side of the village we saw some of the queen’s guards resting and laughing. Furious we grabbed up stones and charged, pelting them. At first they ran, not knowing how many of us there were - but as they got half-way across the rope bridge the turned and saw it was just us. They started back but just then Caw drew his ghost sword and sliced through the rope bridge stays, and they went crashing down into the ravine. We picked our way down there, and stripped them for weapons and armour. We wouldn’t face them with stones next time."

A Fraught Vision: We see the queen walking and talking to her late-teens daughter, telling her that it wasn’t right for her to try to avoid the ceremony, the queen found it personally hurtful. The princess was ushered into a council chamber, and as we enter we can see in the flickering light that each of the chairs has a seated noble. “You must be sure to bring your faithful noble friends up to speed with our little chat my dear” as the queen directs the princess to a throne - and as the camera turns we can see that every one of the princesses noble friends are seated round the table, and every one of them are dead. “We’ll just have to move up the programme” the queen purred.

Secret Paths

Rumours had got to the fellowship that instead of a month to reach the palace, they now had less than a week. The only way to get there in time was to take a short-cut through the limestone caverns. Tomas decided to split up from them because the prince of refugees said that he had resistance fighters scattered through the caverns. He would gather them and meet at the other side.

"The dark was bad enough", Tombo recalled (♣️), "but do you remember the water? I said that my trews were getting wet and someone made a stupid joke about taking a wee earlier, but then our boots were getting wet too and we had to scramble up higher and higher in the caves as the water flooded in and around us. And yes, as I scrambled, I did have to drop our entire fresh water supply into the caverns below to be able to climb, but at least I didn’t drop the the mead, right?"

"Oh, don’t remind me about the water" Tansy sighed (♣️). "That was when I realised that I’d made a mistake back in the village and mixed up the skin with the special water from our beloved spring which was going to stop the queen with some ordinary water. I was half-afraid to let you know what had happened."

Thrace said (♣️) "I still remember the panic of the dark and the rising water and the knowledge that the queen's guards were still out there somewhere..."

"Ah, but then we were out", Caw said (♥️) "when we finally got to a spot we knew we were safe and could catch our breath, we built a fire to dry off our clothes and sat in a tight circle, sharing old songs, keeping close for warmth, and drinking the mead that Tombo had managed to hold on to."

Tombo placed his hand on Caw's shoulder. "That was my favourite moment of our adventure. It all seemed normal for a moment or two"

A Fraught Vision: We can see the palanquin bearing the princess to the temple for the ceremony, and as our view moves inside we see the princess not in her imagined splendour but bound in fine chains so she could not escape

The Final Battle

"Everything was a blur then," Thrace said - "Tomas and his refugees distracted the guards and we got round to the back of the temple. I remember that JoJo proved his value as he picked the lock and let us in the side door."

"Yes, but we were almost too late," Tombo said (♣️) "I jumped forward to set the princess free but suddenly the queens guards were all over me. Experienced thugs they beat me to the ground and kicked me and kicked me. I thought it was going to be the end of me."

"That’s when I reached for my sword, Caw remembers, and found it had gone (♣️) - JoJo had stolen it from me!"

"I ran up to the princess, in the confusion," said Thrace (♦️). "I told her we were here to help and I could see in her pitiful eyes that were turning bright green that there was only one kind of help I could give… I drew that sharp little knife that Caw had given me and she took it and drove it into her heart. My tears flowed freely, and as they splashed down on her upturned face I saw her eyes fade back to her natural brown as she died."

Caw said “That’s when I saw JoJo holding the ghost sword and screaming like it was burning him, but he wouldn’t let it go. I knocked him down and got on top of him and hit him again and again. I couldn’t stop myself, I don’t know why. Then I grabbed up the ghost sword and… I don’t want to remember anything about what happened next."

"I could tell you," Tombo said; "I think you saved my life."

"No," Caw demurred. "I never want to think of those lifeless bodies again."

"Well", said Tansy, "it seems that the magic of our home village sprang from our hearts and not from the ground after all. And it turns out that it wasn't the rain that was ending... but the reign!"

That’s where we drew the game to a close, we ran out of time for the Homecoming, and I was keen to get lots of advice written down to improve the game prior to the next playtest.

I really enjoyed seeing the quest unfold, especially as the players got into the rhythm of narrating the adventure that they had been on with interjections, foreshadowing and such.

Learning from this playtest

The main lessons that I took back to my rules thinking.

1. The basic structure for deciding what the setting of the story would be was evocative and gave players lots of choices which they enjoyed.
2. Providing more structure to help people set out their home base is important.
3. Introducing a setup phase where locations, treasures, threats and supporting characters could be prepared in advance will put less pressure on the players to come up with something dramatic in the moment.

Inner Circle

This is a new lightweight black comedy story game about terrible lieutenants serving a despotic leader. Loosely based on the card game Blackjack, the players push their luck while proposing plans to delight their deranged leader. The best plan keeps their credibility intact, those who fail lose credibility and eventually end up for the chop!

I’ve got a few design blogs posted last year about the concept, mechanics and playtest and it was successfully kickstarted last year.

I’m very excited that there is a youtube review of Inner Circle by “The Gaming Table” which you can watch here

Adventures in the Underbelly

This one has been a long time coming! When I launched my first RPG, Starguild: space opera noir, the most common questions I was asked were about cybernetic enhancements and psionic powers. My response was “Adventures in the Underbelly” which includes rules for both cybernetics and psionic powers, organisations to include in the campaign and six adventures — two sets of three linked adventures for new characters or one-shot use that highlight the new rules and engage PCs with important organisations in exciting and desperate ways.

It was published early in the year and is available in lovely colour from DriveThruRpg

Retrospective Game SRD

At the end of the year, in December, I launched my Retrospective Game SRD. This is an encapsulation of the rules behind my Ennie-nominated “A Cool and Lonely Courage” and the basis of two or three upcoming games which I’m working on. I’m publishing this System Reference Document here and on itch.io in pdf form to encourage other people to use them to tell richly imagined stories of people looking back on their life.

I hope to be able to encourage people to use these for a game jam in the near future (once I work out how to do that!)

Almost No Conventions 😳

Again this has been a year without conventions to bring games to for playtesting. This makes me sad. I would have liked to attend the UK Games Expo in the summer, but it didn’t seem quite safe enough at the time. Later in the year I was fully intending to attend Dragonmeet, but was struck down with illness which combined with a train strike made it inadvisable. Last thing I want to do is infect people with anything.

The house con in Boston that I love attending took place, and I ran valuable playtests of Inner Circle, Expect Three Visitors and Born to the Purple there. As always playtests are a lot of fun AND provide actionable intelligence. So good.

Fingers crossed for Metatopia in 2023.

A twitch/podcast interview 😊

On the plus side, I was able to take part in a fabulous twitch/podcast/youtube interview by EN Publishing’s Jessica Hancock. She invites the creators behind different role playing games that are “not DnD”! I find myself in the middle of some wonderful and well-known designers. It was the chance to talk about A Cool and Lonely Courage, Love & Barbed Wire as well as my journey into RPGs in general and publishing in particular.

There is a playlist of all the NotDND interviews that is worth a peruse… lots of great talks are on there. There are some games which I bought on the strength of these interviews.

Game Design Work

I’ve been working on a number of games this year which are in various stages of development. Here is a quick run-down of them.

White Rose Society/Edelweiss Pirates

I’m in the early research phase for a game about the White Rose Society, a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany who ran a leaflet and graffiti campaign calling for active opposition to the Nazi regime. Not sure on the name for this yet.

Deeds not words (working title)

I’m also in the early research phase for a game about the Suffragette movement in the UK. I’m particularly interested in asking the question “How much would you be prepared to sacrifice in order to gain the vote?” I think it is an interesting question to ask in these days when fewer and fewer people seem to be interested in exercising the franchise.

Expect Three Visitors

My story game inspired by the story of Scrooge which centres people struggling with any of the seven deadly sins, and the scenes from their past, present, and future which a spirit shows them to help them realise the impact their life has on others, for good and ill. It could also be played in a “It’s a wonderful life” mode to make for a game about nice people rather than flawed people. Hopefully playtesting will continue well and I’ll be able to launch it with a kickstarter this year.

Playtest reports of Expect Three Visitors are up on the site to get a flavour of how games can go.

The Long Road Home

My next Retrospective game is inspired by the hobbits on their journey back to the Shire after all the events of their great adventures. It will use the flashback mechanism to allow a party of adventurers to think about the highs and lows, the successes and failures of their adventures. To remember the friends which they made and lost along the way. And finally, to see what happens at their journey’s end. I plan to include fantasy, science fiction and zombie apocalypse settings for starters in the game. The Long Road Home

Born to the Purple (working title)

When I wrote a review of Blades in the Dark way back in December 2019, I mentioned that I was thinking about developing a ‘forged in the dark’ version of Starguild — taking what I loved about my setting and concepts and bringing it to a more modern ruleset.

I’ve continued planning and designing something tightly focussed around space diplomats finding their way amidst changing agendas and policies. Making deals and compromises along the way while the galaxy might be collapsing around them (metaphorically).

Last year I wrote design diaries about Facts, replacing money with favour, and Power brokers and attitudes to psionics. I plan to write up more in the coming months.

I hope that 2023 is a happy and healthy year for all my readers, and that you are all able to enjoy a raft of fun games, new and old!

Cover photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels

But I have published one game under the OGL 1.0a and when creating the Retrospective SRD (System Reference Document) just before this kicked off I was weighing up whether to use the well known OGL or the CC-BY license as used by Fate and Forged in the Dark, both by Evil Hat. I chose CC-BY and I’m very glad I did so.

What is the OGL?

It stands for Open Gaming License, and as I understand it was created with the idea that it would prevent D&D from disappearing if everything went pear shaped with WotC.

In 1997 TSR was in dire straights as documented in 2000 by Ryan Dancy here: https://www.enworld.org/threads/ryan-dancey-acquiring-tsr.661632/

Third edition D&D was a huge success, but that wasn’t guaranteed. What if a company bought the rights and buried it? Could anyone then publish anything around or for it? TSR had been notoriously litigious in its day if I recall correctly.

The OGL was inspired by and based on existing open source licenses to make the mechanics freely available while keeping some elements private to WotC. It would enable WotC to take great new ideas from other people and incorporate them, while everyone can build on the great ideas of everyone else.

I know that people look at it now and characterise it as an “evil license designed to lock people into the D&D ecosystem” but honestly at the time it was a breath of fresh air, and it kickstarted a number of companies which have since grown to become successful in their own right. I’m a tiny publisher, but it made me think that I could legitimately base a game on the elements of an existing property which I liked.

What’s the problem?

Intended to be a perpetual license, it turned out that they didn’t use the term ‘irrevocable’ and now Wizards/Hasbro lawyers have said that because it doesn’t use that word they are in their rights to revoke it so it doesn’t exist any more. (Open source licensing have included this term for many years but it wasn’t in play back when the OGL was drawn up).

In addition, the new ‘OGL’ license they were working on was leaked to Linda Codega who wrote about it in Gizmodo on 5th January, breaking the news about ruinous royalty payments for very successful games (25% on revenue not profits over 750k), assuming ownership of all IP and revoking the well known OGL 1.0 to stop people using it. https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

Can they do this? Lawyers have differing opinions, and it probably would need to go to court to find out for sure. Cory Doctorow has written an interesting assessment of the whole matter on Medium here: https://doctorow.medium.com/good-riddance-to-the-open-gaming-license-8902f4aa69d2

Of course, the TTRPG world has not been silent about this. There has been an uproar, and one that has cost the Hasbro bottom line too as people started cancelling their “D&D Beyond” subscriptions.

Wizards remained suspiciously silent for a long time, and then rowed back on some of their plans - but it doesn’t seem like all of them.

What comes next?

One way or another, it seems that they have demolished 22 years of goodwill, and a number of companies that used to use the OGL are now setting out to form their own equivalent Open RPG License led by Paizo https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7v?Paizo-Announces-SystemNeutral-Open-RPG-License

Many companies like Evil Hat seem to have settled on one of the Creative Commons licenses: https://www.faterpg.com/licensing/licensing-fate-cc-by/

In particular they are using the CC-BY license. As the Creative Commons says “This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.” You can read more about the licenses here: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/

Personally I like this as a license, and CC-BY is what I’m using for my Retrospective SRD and all future work. I’ll also see how I can retrofit it to Starguild.

Whatever else happens, it is interesting times for the TTRPG community, and a worrying one for those who have been producing a lot of D&D supporting material. My very best wishes go out to those folks, and I hope they can ride out the storm.

Cover photo from Pexels

Back in the 20th Century, my early stages of game design were done by scribbling notes in a notebook and thinking through ideas on paper. A couple of decades ago I moved to doing almost everything on computer rather than on paper, but lost something along the way... the rigidity of typing, the lack of an ability to easily incorporate sketches, indicate relationships, highlight odd phrases, that kind of thing.

Fast forward to the iPad Pro. I’ve loved tablet computers ever since I became an official PenPoint developer back in 1991 (the PenPoint operating system was amazing, built on some concepts which were twenty years ahead of their time — but I digress). As soon as the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil became available I purchased one (My 2017 iPad Pro is still going strong. My daughter used it as her main computing device all through university and has now written over a million words on it), and started looking for handwritten note taking applications which were perfect for my needs.

Some early apps I tried like Nebo, Penultimate and Microsoft OneNote all fell down on one thing or another - not enough tools, didn’t give me enough freedom when I was working, wasn’t good at organising the elements of my notebooks. In the end the shortlist that I came down to had two apps which I’ve used for an extended period of time

• Notability
• GoodNotes

Notability

This is the software which I’ve settled on and has nicely replaced paper notebooks both in my work life and my game design life. It has won out in terms of organisation of notes, tools available, and configurability. Sadly it has now become a subscription based application. Luckily I’ve been grandfathered in with my original purchase, but I couldn’t recommend it to people who are opposed to subscription apps for financial or other reasons

Organisation of notes

As you can see from this screenshot, I can create groups of notes called dividers (I have work projects and game design collections visible in the screenshot), and within those I can great subjects, and then within each subject I can have as many notes as I like. Each note can be many pages long.

There are three special virtual subjects at the top - “All Notes” which show everything as you might expect. “Recent notes” which shows the 10 most recent notes that you’ve interacted with - edited or looked at - and “Unfiled Notes” which have been created but don’t live inside any of the dividers which I’ve defined. I periodically take a look in that area and decide where they should be moved to.

It is possible to have a list view of the notes within a subject, but I like having the thumbnails - it helps with my visual memory.

Tools

One of the key things that I like is the ability to mark various pens and highlighters etc as ‘favourites’ and they appear on a little side toolbox. This makes it really easy to quickly switch between different colours or thicknesses of pen or highlighter with just one tap. It is one of the features which makes this a delight to use.

The pen and highlighter tools have a wide range of sizes and colours available. The eraser can be set in a partial erase mode, or erasing a whole stroke if the eraser touches even part of a line.

Most of my writing is done with a particular line thickness in black. I then use other colours when I go back and review something - perhaps red if I’ve decided against an idea, green if I’ve got a good expression of an idea, or blue when I’m adding additional thoughts at a later point.

Highlighters are also great to make particular points stand out which I want to review or come back to and expand.

There is a pages thumbnail view that is useful for quickly navigating through a long document as well as inserting or copying pages from one place to another.

Sharing

The notes can be stored in iCloud and accessible from any other device which is also on iCloud. The app is available separately on the Mac, and although I do most of my work on the iPad it is useful to be able to view and think about notes on my phone as well as view and add text to them on my laptop.

I also like the security blanket of knowing that even if my ipad is lost, stolen or broken, I’ve still got all my notes.

GoodNotes

Although I mostly use Notability, I still use GoodNotes for some things, and it is a better deal at the time of writing than Notability - one price gives you lifetime use of the application across iOS, iPadOs and MacOs.

A particularly nice feature is that you can set new pages to be an imported PDF and then every time it adds a new page it adds a clone of that PDF. Really helpful when creating planners (or character sheet collections).

Organisation of Notes

Folders may work well for some people, but I find that it is sadly too easy for work to end up hidden away inside one of many notebooks in many folders. I often have to do too much hunt-and-click to find the one I’m looking for.

On the other hand, it does have a search capability which works across handwritten notes as well as typed notes, so maybe I’m being a little too harsh on the app here.

Tools

The tools are where this is more lacking for me - they are much more coarse grained than notability. I have just three choices of line thickness, and a palette of three colours quickly to hand. You can choose from a wider set of colours, but having only three to hand is annoying when I like having four colours available!

Sharing

The sharing features are just as good for my purposes. Once again I can use iCloud to sync my documents across all my devices, which is great for convenience and ensuring that if a device is lost I haven’t lost all my work.

There is an export to PDF option which looks rather neat, although I’ve not used that to date.

Conclusion

I have found that using an Apple Pencil, iPad and one of these note taking apps has given me the ability to take notes and scribble down diagrams anywhere, never running out of paper, and being able to use search to find where I put things.

Check out more information about these apps here:

• https://notability.com
• https://www.goodnotes.com

I've enjoyed creating and playing story games such as A Cool and Lonely Courage and Love & Barbed Wire where playing cards are used as a mechanism for guiding the emotional content of the stories.

With A Cool and Lonely Courage I took the decision to start the game near the end of the story, and for all of the scenes to be told retrospectively. This means that each player character has a degree of script immunity in their own story, but the important thing is their relationships with other peoples which can be nurtured and grow, or be damaged and die.

There are two games I'm working on at the moment which are based on this basic approach:

• Expect Three Visitors which is inspired by Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, but allows the spirits of Past, Present and Future to attempt to redeem someone captured by any of the seven deadly sins.
• The Long Road Home which I've not written about publicly yet, but represents heroes who are on their way back from an astonishing adventure, and remembering the highs and the lows of their experiences. It's inspired by the idea of four hobbits returning towards the Shire, wondering about the adventures they had, and with one last challenge ahead of them.

As well as these, there are some other ideas that I'm researching for "Retrospective Games" - but I'm only one person. I think that there are lots of potential stories which could be told with this game approach. That's why I want to formally release a System Reference Document (or SRD) here and on itch.io, to encourage other people to take it up and create marvellous new games.

It turns out you can!

The game runs best with 3-5 players. Each player is primarily a spirit charged with giving someone the opportunity to find redemption. They also play the current 'client' of the spirit to their right. During the scenes with one spirit and their client, the other players take the roles of the client and other people who appear in the visits.

The client is living a life dominated by one of the seven deadly sins - wrath, sloth, gluttony, envy, pride, lust, or greed.

For each client, we see a present day scene indicating the horrible effect of their behaviour on people around them. Then we narrate how the spirit appears to them, and leads them into their past, present, and future.

Each Spirit is dealt a hand of four cards, and those are used to frame each of those past, present, and future scenes - giving them an emotional hook which must be used in the scene.

Once each of those visits has taken place for each of the clients, the spirits have an important decision before them. Who will they donate their remaining card to? Considering what they have learned about each client and their situation, which of the other clients to they want to see rescued?

Playtest Account

My first two playtests have gone well so far. This is an account of what happened in the most recent playtest:

Envy (Sally, playing Michela)

Intro

We see Michela with her daughter Arrow, who has just returned home after a school test. The daughter is proud of her grade B which she worked hard for, but Michela wants to know how her schoolmate Charisma did. Upon hearing that Charisma got an A grade, Michela castigated her daughter for not being as good as Charisma; suggesting that she arrange coaching sessions with Charisma or something. We can see trouble brewing here.

The Spirit Arrives

(I forgot to note this one down!)

Past (heart)

The spirit takes Michela to a hospital room. She sees herself sitting up in bed, holding a little baby. It is the day of Arrows birth. Her husband is delighted, and thinks this baby girl is the most wonderful thing he has ever seen. She has a few doubts though - is her skin colour quite right? Why is her head that shape? The spirit asks Michela to remember how she felt that day, and Michela grudgingly admits that she was happy, even with Arrows little flaws.

Present (spade)

Arrow is in a sports competition, Michela pushes her to go faster and faster, in order to catch Charisma. Arrow misses a hold, falls and dies. There is silence in the room.

Future (club)

We see a stark room. Her husband is here with his lawyer, because he is divorcing her. He blames Michela for Arrow’s death. If she hadn’t kept pushing Arrow, withdrawing her approval from Arrow, it would never have happened. Arrow loved her and would do anything for her mother, but could never win that approval. Her husband speaks with a mixture of anger and disappointment, and we can see Michela in this future upset and almost ready to fall to her knees to plead. She recognises her mistakes and desperately doesn’t want her husband to leave her. But he signs the papers and walks out the door.

Judgement

Michela receives no votes and is completely lost.

Epilogue

She never reconciles with her husband. She withdraws from all of her old friends, overcome with bitterness at how well everyone else children are doing, and she was robbed of that chance to be happy. As an old woman we see a kind of shrine in one corner off the room, filled with newspaper cuttings following the life of Charisma, with whom Michela always remains obsessed.

Greed (Marsha, playing Lisa)

Intro

Her greed is expressed in her love for cats. She is greedy for cats. All the cats. She has 17 and is dedicated to them. We see her pottering around feeding them, talking to them by name when she has a phone call from her mother. Calling from the care home, her mother wants to know why she hasn’t been to visit; her father is so ill now, and Lisa keeps on putting off visits that are planned. Lisa explains that her cats need her and cat sitters are so hard to find and promises that she will come to visit real soon now. Then has to hang up because one of the cats has done something.

The Spirit Arrives

Lisa is feeding her cats when something very unusual happens. A fluffy tom cat looks up at her - and speaks! “Lisa”, it says, “Your immortal soul is in danger. Come with me”. It holds out a paw which she takes, and then she is pulled into a series of visions.

Past (diamond)

Lisa is very young, out on a walk with her mother. They see a lost little kitten and her mom encourages Lisa to feed it something and care for it. It is important to be generous with our things and look after others, her mom says. The kitten was so fluffy. Little Lisa loved that kitten.

Present (spade)

We see Lisa and a visitor from the care home. Her father has died and she never went to see him. The care home administrator explains how much her mother needs support right now, but we see Lisa prevaricate, pointing again to her cats and her need to look after them. The administrator points out that the cats can look after themselves for a short while, but Lisa is unmoved. The spirit asks Lisa whether she regretted missing that last opportunity to see her father before he died, and what is she going to do with her mother.

Future (diamond)

We see a generous future. Lisa walking arm in arm with her elderly mother, supporting her as they come into Lisa’s house. She has given away some of her cats to other neighbours who would be comforted by them, and made space to have her mom at home with her. Lisa shows generosity of spirit to her mother, and receives a tender kiss in return.

Judgement

Lisa receives no votes and is completely lost.

Epilogue

The lovely future which was seen in the vision never comes to pass. Lisa’s mother dies in the home with a broken heart, and Lisa mourns a little in her own way, but never abandons her cats. She acquires more and more as she grows older. Then one day, unsteadily walking down the stairs she slips on a cat’s toy and tumbles down the stairs, breaking her neck. As she lies there, the cats come and feast on her body.

Gluttony (Cris, playing Tom)

Intro:

His wife is not happy with him because he is wasting so much money on storage units and the house is full of rubbish. He just doesn’t know when enough is enough, and he wants to keep so many of his memories. School books. Report cards. Comics. Magazines. Newspapers. Stuff.

The Spirit Arrives

(I forgot to note this one down too!)

Past (heart)

We see Tom and his wife as newly weds, outside their new house (this house) bright and clean. Making a fresh start. He has agreed to get rid of a lot of his stuff (there was not nearly as much in those days) but after some discussing asks if he can keep his old school cleats and his wife agrees. Arm in arm they walk into their new house and new life.

Present (club)

We see the impact on his son Paul. who has been abandoned by most of his friends because of his weird dad. Paul is talking with his last friend who wants to come and play at their house even though Paul is embarrassed himself because of his dad’s hoarding. Then the friend has a call from their mom, who tells the friend that he must stop seeing Paul because of his weird dad.

Future (heart)

A pile of old things tipped over, and Tom’s wife has found an old photo album of hers. She and Tom sit on the floor laughing at the old pictures of them meeting, going out, getting engaged and married. It has been lost under garbage and accidentally found. She recognises that some memories are worth keeping, he realises that his pile of things was hiding what was really important. Together they start to rebuild their love and relationship.

Judgement

Tom receives 3 votes and is saved.

Epilogue

Tom and his wife have cleared out masses of garbage. One of the rooms is now completely clear and has been made a games room for Paul. Along the way they found his old school cleats which turned out to be a perfect fit for Paul, who goes on to become successful in school sports and becomes popular again. Tom and his wife together decide what they keep and what they let go from their past, and their house becomes happy, light and airy. The happy future which he had seen comes to pass and more.

Wrath (Cindy, playing Sylvia)

Intro

We see a job interview for a new junior developer, who is excited to be working on Sylvia’s new game “Knights and the Mountain”. The young developer is enthused and has lots of ideas for how the series could go, and Sylvia and loses her rag at the thought of this young whippersnapper giving suggestions to her about her game.

The Spirit Arrives

She is called down to HR. When she arrives she is told to come in, but instead of the desk she is expecting there is a robed figure at the entrance to a tunnel. “Sylvia”, the spirit says, “Your immortal soul is in danger. Come with me”. Hand in hand they proceed down the tunnel.

Past (heart)

Sylvia sees a younger version of herself sitting at the table, struggling over an exercise book. Her brother is helping her with a math problem and encourages her, reminding her that ‘she can do it’, and not to believe all those idiots who say that math is too hard for girls. Her brother always had her back and always believed in her, even when others didn’t. And there were so many people who put her down.

Present (diamond)

Calls her brother, worried that she is going to be written up by HR. He calms her down and helps her see how she might be able to mend her ways.

Future (diamond)

it is late at night, a few weeks in the future. Sylvia is stuck on a problem and she can’t get her code delivered, but tonight is the deadline. The new hire that she was horrible to in her intro is there, and in desperation Sylvia asks him for some help, which he willingly gives. Her acceptance of his help gets her across the deadline just in time, and they smile at each other.

Judgement

Sylvia receives no votes and is completely lost

Epilogue

She leaves and forms her own games company which is successful for a while, but her angry tirades end up driving everyone away from her, and the company collapses. She never spoke to her brother on the phone again.

Pride (Alex, playing Rupert)

Intro

We see Rupert interviewing someone for a position at his stately home. He is condescending to them, snobbishly dismissing them because of their working class background and ‘comprehensive school’ education. They storm out and it is just what he snootily expected.

The Spirit Arrives

Rupert is in a drawing room, enjoying a nice class of high quality port, glancing up at the portrait of one of his forebears. Then suddenly the portrait animates and starts talking to him! “Rupert”, it says, “You are a disappointment to your ancestors and your immortal soul is in danger. Come with me”. The portrait holds out his hand which Rupert takes, and he is pulled into a series of visions.

Past (heart)

We see him as a young man, with his best friend Jake. Rupert is good at hunting, fishing and riding, but Jake teaches him to love reading and books. But Jake is the gardener’s son. Rupert's mother appears and throws Jake out, berating Rupert about mixing with the ‘lower orders’. She later has the gardener and his family dismissed.

Present (club)

Rupert is at a royal event, the prince and princess are just about to arrive when a shabbily dressed man jostles him from behind. “Thief, police, thief” he cries, and the bloke is swiftly arrested and carried away despite his protests of innocence. The spirit points out to Rupert that he hasn’t recognised his old friend Jake, now grown up and who was just trying to say hello. But Rupert’s pride wouldn’t let him admit his mistake and back down.

Future (spade)

Rupert is looking at a freshly dug grave. The headstone has Jake’s name on it. Beside the grave are Jakes grieving widow and daughters. Weeping, the children ask why daddy isn’t coming back, why did the police take him away? The spirit points out that Jake died in custody as a result of rough treatment by the police and other prisoners. Rupert is horrified; he had forgotten how good a friend Jake had been to him growing up, he didn’t recognise his friend and caused him to be arrested by the police and now this? He grieves for his lost friend and their family.

Judgement

Rupert receives 2 votes and is saved.

Epilogue

Rupert went to see the police and got all the charges against Jake dropped. They rekindled their friendship and Rupert learned about about the charity children’s work which Jake was engaged in. Rupert re-opens a closed wing of the ancestral home and gives it over to Jake’s work with the refugee children. Jake and his family come to live in the grounds, and Rupert humbly receives all who come to him.

Secondarily, does each regime treat psionic individuals equally? Or do they have distinctive attitudes to these ‘special’ people?

Power Brokers

Gateway Alliance

Unfettered capitalism is the order of the day within the Alliance, and some of the corporations and guilds have become very wealthy, very large and very powerful on the back of lax regulation by the system lords. It turns out that competing to attract businesses via a race to the bottom ends up giving more power than might have been expected to those corporations.

So whether it is the manufacturing entities such as Rose Industries or Sharn Inc, the mercenary guilds such as Wasp or Claw or the navigators guilds like Mercal and Transtar, deep pockets can fund many a diplomat in these systems for good or ill.

Holy Republic

Within the Holy Republic there is a single state religion, but within that religion there are a number of sects, each with slightly different versions of the fundamental beliefs in the republic. Some of them are more liberal minded, others are more fundamentalist while yet others are conservative or radicals.

The differences may seem opaque to outsiders, akin to the arguments of how many angels could dance on the head of the pin. Yet blood has been spilt for less in the past, and each of the sects have their favourite agendas... and politicians.

Keron Federation

The Federation is the oldest of the regimes and clings most closely to the old ways of the Davennan Empire which preceded them. Power is held by many of the old families, with inherited wealth and influence gathered over the centuries.

The Benotti, Tutti and other families may not be the ruling lords of systems, but their whispers in the courts of power are not to be ignored. They have been kingmakers in the past and may easily do so again.

League of Worlds

The League is small and weak, and many of the systems are interdicted and off-limits for contact, let alone exploitation. They don’t have any additional power brokers.

Martell Union

In the militaristic union, we look to the regiments for focal points of power. Generals may come and go, but the regiment marches on, exercising power from the sidelines.

I’m not saying that the regiments would ever attempt to overthrow the legitimate system lords, oh no. But I’m not saying that the cautious Lord wouldn’t make sure that they have the backing of more than one regiment, just in case.

Psionic Individuals

The following are general statements about the view of and treatment of psionic individuals in each of the regimes. As you can see, the majority of governments consider them to be important assets to be used in one way or another.

That's the naturally occuring psionics. All psionic research which might work out how to create psionic powers in an individual is forbidden under the guildlaws. However in almost all systems there is secret research going on. Sometimes under the aegis of organisations such as Provolution or Third Eye. At other times under the eye of system lords and barons who experiment with disposable assets - addicts created through science and drug dependency to serve their will, be used up and discarded.

Gateway Alliance

Naturally occurring psionic individuals are commercial assets who may be bought, sold and bartered by the giant corporations.

Holy Republic

Natural psionic individuals are considered blessed, and are supported and inducted into the priesthood. They are given considerable latitude in what they do and where they go.

Keron Federation

Natural psionic individuals are family assets, and are used by the families to support their plans.

Martell Union

The union has a corp which manages all aspect of the lives of psionic individuals from cradle to grave. This even includes breeding programmes to improve bloodlines.

League of Worlds

It is very rare to find natural psionic individuals in the League of Worlds, and there is no clear government pattern associated with them.

When coin is placed in Stash, your lifestyle improves. Should your character retire from the game your Stash indicates what their retirement looks like. You can get Coin out of Stash if you need it, but at a cost. You have to remove 2 from Stash for every 1 which you add to your available Coin.

Born to the Purple has the players taking the role of diplomats in space, negotiating with one another. As representatives of sprawling interstellar regimes I don’t want them to worry about Coin (or a sci-fi equivalent like Credits). I don’t care about charging them for their drinks, their fancy meals or even their gambling - because money isn’t the currency which they need in order to make things happen.

That would be favours.

Favour

So Favour is the form of liquid ‘currency’ in Born to the Purple. It is a generalisation of the wink and the nod, the greased palm at the right time. We don’t worry about keeping track of who owes exactly what to whom here, and the assumption is that favours can be passed around. A favour which is owed to you can be passed on to someone else and now the favour is owed to that third party. It is a vast informal network of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch his”. Part of the normal business of being a diplomat and wheeler-dealer in this far-future world.

You can then spend Favour during routine life on the diplomatic station to get better results from your research, to get better medical treatment or higher quality items. You can sometimes spend favour to make trouble go away, or to bring a minor bit of trouble to others.

Support Network

Favour is transitory, and the equivalent of Stash is your Support Network. You can invest favour in your Support Network on a one for one basis, and as your Support Network grows, so you lifestyle improves and you have access to nicer things.

When you invest Favour in your Support Network, you are formalising your relationships with unnamed people. Transitory favours become something more trusted, more dependable.

Of course, sometimes you might want to cash in some favours but find the well is try. If so you can burn some of your support network, turning it back into fungible Favour but at a cost... you have to lose 2 Support Network for every 1 Favour you extract from it.

What else?

I’m also noodling some thoughts around recording longer term debts or obligations. The idea that someone does something for you and that you now owe them, and they can call in a debt of honour at a future point, is a really strong one in stories. It’s the kind of thing that I think ought to play well in Born to the Purple too. Nothing like having debts hanging over you!

It seems likely that I’m going to lean into the rules I’m introducing for Facts (see previous blog post), as this kind of debt might be a Fact which is assigned to you that can be invoked by an OC (Other Character) at some future point.

Inspired by Babylon 5, I want the players to take the roles of staff working for the embassies of one or more regimes in the Starguild universe. Their routine life includes discussions, trade deals, indulging their vices, working on their long term career plans. But every so often there is a juncture, a significant moment when they find themselves at the eye of the storm for interstellar politics.

It might be because of orders they receive from their home regime, or because of events transpiring in one of the other regimes which like it or not, they are caught up in.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about Facts.

Facts

If you have read my review of Fate Core (you can go and take a quick look, I can wait) you will know that one of the things that I like best about Fate is their concept of Aspects, true statements which can be connected to player characters(PCs), other characters (OCs), situations, scenarios and campaigns. In Fate they can be invoked to gain an advantage, or compelled to cause problems. I want to use them in BttP. However, I want to rename them, to give them a little bit of distance from Fate because I’m not using them in exactly the same way.

So I call them Facts.

Character Facts

When you create your PC, you will state some Facts about them: The high concept, their trouble, their home-world and their heritage. They describe personality traits, important details about your past, relationships you have with others, important items or titles you possess, problems you’re dealing with or goals you’re working toward, or reputations and obligations you carry.

Examples: The luckiest gambler in town, a reputation for fighting dirty, a jungle fortune hunter from Anderson and One day my parents just didn’t return from the jungle.

Situation Facts

These Facts describe the surroundings or scenario where the action is taking place. They can be described by the GM when laying out the situation. They can be added, modified or negated by actions taken during the situation. They last as long as the situation lasts, but once it is past we don’t care about them.

Examples: Aflame, Torrential Rain, Slippery floor, Pitch Black, Very Crowded, Chandelier, Mirrors, Piles of Heavy Crates.

Consequences

These Facts are the lasting impact of misfortune. They may reflect physical injuries, emotional harm or social ostracisation. They stay with the character until overcome during routine time, and they reduce the number of dice when you attempt an action if they apply.

Examples: stabbed in gut, twisted ankle, terrified, falling-over-drunk, unwelcome, ostracised.

Campaign Facts

There are Facts associated with something permanent in the game. These are used to reinforce the tenor of the game and the overall atmosphere. The campaign facts can be used by anyone at any time when they seem appropriate.

The Born to the Purple setting generally has at least two facts which are always in play - “Everyone Has Secrets” and “Betrayal is Cheap”.

Regimes and the systems within them can have a number of facts, as can organisations. All these can be used to reinforce what is important about a setting, make all these elements distinctive.

Examples:
Newhome — Abandoned Minefields, The Cold Freezes Equipment.
Zared — Sand Gets Everywhere, The Locals Are Fanatics!
The Holy Republic — Pious, Arrogant, Exceptionalists.

Using Facts

During a juncture, when attempting to complete an action whose outcome is in doubt, you can invoke a fact to get +1d to your dice pool. Invoking a fact costs you 1 stress. This could be any of the facts associated with your character. It could also be any facts which are associated with the environment or situation where everyone is. It could be facts associated with the particular planet, right the way up to facts associated with the Born to the Purple campaign, such as “Everyone has secrets” or “Betrayal is Cheap”.

This replaces the rule for “pushing yourself” and the rule for “devil’s bargain” from the main FitD rules.

You can attempt to take advantage of as many Facts as you have available to you, as long as you are prepared to pay the stress costs for doing so.

Creating or Changing Facts

It is possible for PCs or OCs to take an action to create or change a situational Fact. This is how you can perform setup actions for other people and it replaces the original FitD setup action rules. Choose your attribute and take your action

A free invoke means that one (or more) persons can invoke the fact for free without paying any stress for doing so. A given fact can only be invoked once by a given PC for a single action.

Example: Charlene wants to throw dirt in her opponents face to blind them a little. She attempts a Finesse and rolls a 5 and the opponent has the fact ”Blinded by dirt” and there is one free invoke on that fact. Her friend Luke wants to take advantage of that fact and can do so for free gaining +1d on his Skirmish attack. If the foe is not taken out, they are still ”Blinded by dirt” but it will cost anyone else who wants to take advantage of it 1 stress.

Example: The warehouse is ”Ablaze” as a result of unfortunate earlier activity. Luke grabs up a fire extinguisher to Make a safe path, and rolls a critical! Although the warehouse is ”Ablaze” there is now also ”A safe route" and Charlene and then Luke can both take a free invoke to add +1d as they attempt to safely manoeuvre their way out of this desperate situation.

Hostile Use of Facts