Nouns vs. Verbs
It's January!
You probably noticed. Around here that means it's busy - January is typically when I break out of my seasonal fall/winter funk and start working for fun again, and sure enough that's what's happening now. It's not lost on me that most of my major releases are in the Spring, you know?
Here's what's going on.
On The Docket
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First and most pressing is the new solo game, No-Tell Motel. In it, you play the clerk at a seedy rent-by-the-hour motel where a murder takes place. With a deck of cards, a d6, a collection of dossiers and your hotel ledger, you'll track the activities of your guests night after night to deduce who did the deed. Build a good case before you point the finger, because you can absolutely be wrong - and wreck not just an innocent person's life, but your own.
Hey, that's the first time I've typed out an elevator pitch! Not bad. The thing I'm toying with here is how so many prompt-based solo games are built on projection: they ask a question, you interpret it and inevitably make the story your own. We do this all the time in everyday life, too, constantly reading into people and situations just so we can navigate the day. And while this usually doesn't have high stakes, it can be dangerous. That's the territory I want to cover: projection, gossip, half-truths, innuendo, inferences, and all the other ways we try to cross the chasm between ourselves and others.
As you read this a playtest kit should be ready to go (so drop me a line if you want to try it out and give some feedback!) and cover work (peep Shawn McGuan's work above!), interior art and layouts are in progress. If all goes according to plan this'll be crowdfunding in mid- to late February during Crowdfundr's Tabletop Nonstop event.
I'll let you know when that page goes live!
- After that is SCAVS, a playing card-based mini-game built to be dropped into your ongoing campaign. You know how old-school Final Fantasy games will have you explore the overmap with random encounters? It's a bit like that, but modeled after the Deathlands in Blades in the Dark - surreal, nightmarish, bursting with mystery. Terrain is randomized with playing cards, and the players and GM build competing poker hands as they go. Players rack up strange treasures and terrible debts to carry back into the larger campaign. That'll be available soon for $5, and you fine folks will get a promo code to download it for free.
- Further down the docket are Saint of Blades, the Forged-like supernatural noir, and Street Sweeper, a fast-paced mech battling game meant to solve the issue of "ship to ship combat is super boring" welded onto the trope-y dramatic scenes of Once More Into The Void. Saint of Blades exists as a scattered collection of documents and concept art and Street Sweeper basically just exists in my head. But I'll get there.
On My Mind
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I enjoyed this tweet advancing the interconnected trinity of TREASURES, REALMS and GUYS as the framework upon which to design ttrpgs. I had this - epiphany? That this post and rubric is quite literally defining nouns: people, places, things. I like it! It's a nifty spin on the fundamentals, and the poster makes note that this should work hand-in-hand with more narrative-based gaming.
It's also still not quite the framework that compels me. If that's the noun approach, the one I favor might be called the verb approach. One of my favorite comic book writers, Steven Grant, once described his plotting as "setting characters in decaying orbit around each other and documenting what happens." That is generally what I try to emulate, and what I respond to: assigning wants and fears, desires and frailties. You could make a good argument I'm just talking about a Guys-forward approach, but I think there's something here that suggests things in motion at start of play vs. a static play set.
Basically: if the noun approach is a framework, the verb approach is an engine. Details about the nouns will come from play, so they more or less take care of themselves (though far be it from me to deny the pleasures of a juicy Factions chapter). But as a player and GM I need to know why anyone should do anything.
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It's come up a lot lately: the tendency, when writing your game, to hedge and caveat and speak to potential abuses of your rules at the game table. The problem is that hypotheticals have no bottom, so it's all too easy to second-guess yourself into a spiral. If you work in any creative field or indeed exist in any capacity on social media, this relentless vetting of self-expression probably sounds familiar.
One more time for the creator in the back: You cannot rules-write an asshole out of being an asshole. When your work leaves your hands, it is not yours anymore; you are a game designer, not a table cop. Put another way, “you cannot shape your work on the opinions of those determined to misunderstand you.”
The corollary to that: spend less time (and word count) justifying why anyone should care about your thing - why they should pick it up, engage with it, play with it on its terms - and more time fine-tuning what that thing is. We all have too little time to spend it convincing others to sincerely engage with something they elected to spend time with. Make your thing true to the best of your abilities. That's the limit of what you can control.
For Your Consideration
Here's some stuff I'm into right now.
- Letters to Sandra is a solo game that's still kicking around my dome several weeks after I played it. I blurbed it! Because I liked it that much.
- Slugblaster: Kick Flip Over A Quantum Centipede is one of those little miracles that is so tonally distinct and clear it feels like it was effortlessly birthed whole. You and I know that isn't how anything works, so we know how impressive a magic trick that is.
- Intentional Cross Join is pal Dave Lartigue's newsletter, also hosted on buttondown. Precisely one issue has dropped and it's cozy, honest, vulnerable, and a pleasure to read.
- Put Some Pig In Your TTRPG looks at the rules of common dice games, explains a little how they work, and offers ideas on how those mechanics might be rolled (ha ha) into RPGs. I am absolutely going to find some use for Midnight and Ship, Captain, and Crew.
- You should look at Elvis Costello Dog
- It is absolutely out of control how catchy Chappell Roan's "Red Wine Supernova" is.
That's it.
See you next time.
Where to find me:
- All my games are on itch.io
- They're also on DriveThruRPG if that's your thing
- Physical copies are distributed by IPR
- Tune in to VOID 1680 AM Affiliate broadcasts
