#111: Apocalypse Keys
#111: Apocalypse Keys
Should've been Issue 666 but hey, what can you do.
I. Dear Reader,
Turns out if you playtest a lot of games, you can write about them when they go on Kickstarter! It’s pretty neat!
Okay, so Apocalypse Keys is the new PbtA game about monsters fighting the apocalypse, designed by Rae Nedjadi and published by Evil Hat.
This is a game that wants you to feel powerful. The characters are all super-powered monsters. You start the game with potentially earth-shattering abilities. Want to open a door to the spider queen from another dimension? Sure, here’s the move for that. What are you going to do with it?
This is a game about consequences. There are no stats in this game. Instead you bet 1-3 tokens on every move. If you bet 1 token, you get a +1 — and so on. You don’t want to roll too high though. On a 11+, you’ll still succeed but you might succeed too well and cause collateral damage. Shattering the earth is bad and you know it deep in your heart!
This is a game about feelings. You’re monsters and you have a dark side. A dark side that whispers “hey maybe the apocalypse is good actually” in your ear. You get tokens when you lean into playbook-specific monstrous prompts and you need those tokens to succeed on your moves. And that will involve being dramatic and having big damn feelings.
This is game about mysteries. You race against a doom clock to figure out who’s behind all the weird stuff happening. This is done via the mystery system in Brindlewood Bay. It’s cool because you solve the mystery and then punch the solution in the face. Before it can open the door to the spider dimension or whatever (a different door from the one you have, you’re totally the good guy, don’t worry about it!)
If you like Hell Boy (or anything I’ve said so far), check out the game on Kickstarter.
If you want to know more, this is a good podcast interview with Rae and this is a fun podcast AP of this game.
Good day, don’t let the world end.
Yours apocalyptically,
Thomas
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II. Listen of the Week
The ever-insightful Alex Roberts talks about designing For The Queen and more: “Questions tend to move a conversation in the direction of the asker's curiosity. They can be very generative, to the point where you have to use them judiciously. [...] Questions have power.”
On the Fine Blueprints podcast (which replaces the Hacked in the Dark podcast), an interview with the creator of Idiot Teenagers with a Deathwish, a free Animorphs-inspired Forged in the Dark game, and an earlier one about Intergalactic Kammerjager, a Futurama-inspired comedy space game.
Also, Role Play Public Radio talks about designing monsters for RPGs.
III. Links of the Week
If you’re a listener of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast, here is a database of every episode, tagged and transcribed.
Some advice for those going to conventions: how to table and how to run games.
Cyberpunk: Red has a free quickstart that they’re calling Easy Mode.
Brandon Sanderson’s hit series, the Stormlight Archives, are getting their own tabletop RPG via Brotherwise Games.
Lowell Francis, designer of Hearts of Wulin, has relaunched his Age of Ravens blog with a full backlog of his articles, including this new one about how to draw maps collaboratively at the table.
Aaron Marks writes about RPG pricing over at Cannibal Halfling Gaming. “The trouble with pricing is that people not trained in economics think it’s a science. I, however, am the Level One Wonk, with over five years of real actual economics experience and actual professional industrial economics training. All economics aligns to a popular aphorism by George Box: “All models are wrong, but some are useful”.”
IV. Small Ads
All links in the newsletter are completely based on my own interest. But to help support my work, this section contains sponsored links and advertisements. If you’d like your products to appear here, read the submission form.
THE ZONE RPG is a surreal horror inspired by Annihilation & Stalker. Mutate your friends and play-to-lose in the dark! Get notified when it launches THIS TUESDAY! (Sep 27th)
This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.
Big, new PbtA bundle this week. Last Fleet, Pigsmoke, Hearts of Wulin, Bite Marks, Voidheart Symphony, The Between, and more!
Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.
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