This one’s two week’s worth of stuff. 1 We’re thinking about the complicated cultural impact of a program that sings the words of god, about simulating the passing of time in our elfgames, ancient wild rice, storytelling frameworks- and a new heartbreaker named Trespasser that I’ve taken to. Learn a little layout while you’re here, and consider your opinion on ‘flawed art.’ With a little aside about the Diadochi Wars, as one does. I’m doing a little writing.
Want to know more? Scroll down.
TropeTrainer
“…the software wasn’t just a study aid — it was a deep archive of sacred text and music, comprising dozens of different traditions, made easily searchable and infinitely customizable.”
“At one synagogue in East Windsor, New Jersey, there was only a single computer still running an old enough version of Windows to support TropeTrainer; the assistant rabbi there, Matt Nover, set up a way to remotely access it from their other, more up-to-date machines.”
From this article. Deeply researched and long explanation of the man who created it, its context within greater society, and then, suddenly, the creator’s death.
Off-Screen Events
Always keep track of time and make things move along without the players’ direct input. That’s how the real world works- why would it not be how your game works?
Exploring Layout
An excellent primer to layout and design. From this twitter thread. Lots and lots of examples.
Thorough! I used this to format my own Shadows in the Gloomwoods, which- well, say what you will about the content, I think you can tell that I am attempting to learn from guides like these.
The Five Beats of Successful Storytelling
From the article:
Beat 1: The introduction. Where you set the scene and tell your readers everything they need to know to understand why what you’re about to say is important.
Beat 2: The inciting incident. The question that your story is asking OR when the protagonist (you or your company) is faced with a challenge. This is a great place to show vulnerability; people are often wary of doing this in professional scenarios, but it makes a big impact when it’s done well.
Beat 3: Raising the stakes. A series of moments that give weight and context to the inciting incident. This is a great place to get specific and provide details that will make your story more memorable. People glaze over when you focus too much on broad strokes; details give your story a local habitation and a name.
Beat 4: The main event. This is where we see the inciting incident come to a head (aka the climax)... the protagonist solves his or her dilemma -; a pivot or a change (even if it’s just a shift in attitude) should occur.
Beat 5: The resolution. In the fifth beat, you have an opportunity to highlight what makes the story unique. If you’ve just described a failure or challenge, this would be the time to reflect on what you learned. This is also where you could try to sell something -; if you’re using storytelling as part of a pitch -; or recap your competency if applying for a job.
Tell better stories by understanding basic building blocks, as told by experts in their craft. Broad brushstrokes require you to provide the ‘content-’ but that should be easy, right? ;)
The True Story of Wild Rice
North America’s Most Misunderstood Grain
The Ojibwe people of northern Minnesota are sustained by the real wild rice, which they harvest by hand and dry over fire…
Some people there referred to the grain we were harvesting—a foundation of Ojibwe culture and ceremony—as manoomin, “the food that grows on water.” No one called it “wild.” Mostly, everyone just called it rice.
When’s the last time you thought about rice? When’s the last time you harvested your own food?
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How Walter Scott almost invented RPGs 200 years early
Perhaps a stretch… but fascinating nonetheless.
I don’t have sources but I believe it’s commonly accepted that TTRPGs come from a (surprisingly direct) tradition dating back to the ‘Kriegsspiel’ of 19th century Prussia which is contemporaneous with Mr. Scott- but his game is much closer to our modern conception of the thing. One wonders…
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Werner’s Nomenclature of Colors
A contemplation of color itself. Beautiful in its own right.
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An Overview of the Tabletop Roleplaying Games Market
Read up on current trends about who’s playing what and why and what their experience level is.
(It’s all about what you’d expect, but it’s nice to have the numbers)
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“I love when art has flaws.”
I read this thread when I was putting off uploading my latest itch project because I didn’t like it enough:
I love when art has flaws. It means it is subject to material conditions, it is not static and is involved in discourses and you can see what artists valued and what they were willing to sacrifice and their own personal art history and what they do next.
My soul healed a little bit. I don’t know. I make games because I like making them- and I found that in the process of opening myself up and creating the sort of thing I wanted to see, I had changed. What do you think?
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A Babylonian tablet recording Alexander the Great’s death // Trespasser First Look
More information (jstor link): The Time of Death of Alexander the Great: 11 June 323 B.C. (–322), ca. 4:00–5:00 PM
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Reading up on dying empires as I decide whether or not to try and run Trespasser, a cool indie heartbreaker that has gotten my attention in the last couple of days. The game’s suggested setting contains ‘The Doom.’ It suggests:
The party’s starting circumstances are never good- they are peasants who have been displaced from their homes and have little food or water. Ask yourself, in the broadest possible sense, how this came to be.
Alexander the Great’s Macedonian Empire is a fascinating real-life tale of a warrior-king who led a united Greek peoples to conquer mighty Persia and, within his lifetime, expand into the most powerful empire in the world. He founded over 20 cities, his military tactics are still taught today- you know who Alexander is.
His unexpected death stopped his conquests. His generals, the Diadochi, were now independent and refused to bow to one another. They were greedy and ambitious men who were used to taking orders and conquering cities. They split his empire into fragments fought each other for 40 years. Two generations of conflict left three much reduced kingdoms in its wake, in a wary peace and with a lot of dead to bury.
An Overlord, in Trespasser’s terms, is one of about 3-5 people in power in a region. They are the party’s primary antagonists, and start out significantly more powerful than the party- who, again, are a band of ragged peasants far from home. The Diadochi are not Overlords- they are completely outside the scale of the game. 2
But they are distant, violent warlords whose army bring both ruin and vast sums of stolen wealth- almost a force of nature. The Diadochi are The Doom. To use Trespasser’s terms.
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I think, regardless of whether the system holds up to actual play, that the designer’s set of worldbuilding steps and advice is super solid. If you go through and figure out your Doom, write up 3-5 adversaries with clocks counting down to their dire deeds- well, take that and a dungeon generator and you’ve got a campaign in the box, ready to go. 3 Most of this stuff is system-neutral, and it actually takes pains to specify throughout that this is just advice and very intentionally only implied. It actively invites you to make up a world for your game (and doesn’t even have a default setting / world map / deities / factions). Maybe this is because the game is still in playtesting - but it feels like an intentional design choice.
There’s a lot to like about the system, as well4; it takes the more dynamic parts of 4e and jettisons the rest. Combine Dungeon Crawl Classics and 13th Age- start with a bundle of disposable peasants and funnel them into one actual adventurer each. You pick a class, almost a playbook, and pick your features from it. Each class starts with the ability to pick of a handful of ‘themes,’ which determine your combat abilities. Martial classes have things like ‘leadership’ and ‘prowess’ and spellcasters get ‘storms’ and ‘fire.’ All classes have their own unique powers, as well. You pick couple combat powers from your class/theme and miscellaneous powers from your class and off you go. Most powers cost Effort, and repeating a power costs extra Effort. Effort recovers during a Long Rest of 8 hours (and also recovers your recovery dice, and hit points, and lets you repair armor.) A Short Rest only recovers armor and lets you make a recovery.
I could go on. It seems quite nice. The more I write about it, the more I think I might be interested in running a game, perhaps on Owlbear Rodeo. 5
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As always, thanks for reading. You know, I hear a lot of horror stories about the TTRPG community being this and that negative thing- but that hasn’t been my experience at all. I’ve found a wide community of thoughtful, interesting people who happen to share the same hobby but come at it from a thousand different angles and perspectives. I consider myself fortunate to be able to be some small part of it.
Stay safe out there.
‘When practicing is like pulling teeth, ask yourself if you should be pulling!” paraphrased from this reddit post that I think about from time to time.
I love a game with a strictly defined focus. It’s not a game about improving the world, being generals, or fielding armies.
If you wanted to drill deeper, perhaps Grasping Nettles? The Quiet Year?
It feels like the author and I read a lot of the same design articles about running 3e and 4e, etc
Interested? DM me on twitter or something.