#77: Unrealpolitik 4
I. Dear Reader,
Quick example today of what we’ve been talking about these past few weeks and then I’ll take a break from the series and talk about other stuff, I promise. So basically, worldbuilding different societies is a process of linking societies together and giving them reasons to be different from their neighbours.
My game, The Spider and the City, is a game about a city that has liberated itself through rebellion - but an army already marches to recapture it. It’s a solo, dice-y, journalling game. But the worldbuilding is what I want to talk about. Each quarter of the city is governed by one faction, sketched out in a couple paragraphs. There’s the Loyalists - people who want the Emperor to take over again. But forget them, they’re boring. The remaining four (there are five quarters obviously!) are some anarchists, some socialists who disagree with the anarchists on how to govern the city and win the war, some socialists who broke off from the other socialists for personal rather than political reasons, and some socialists who are made of mostly refugees who don’t feel safe with the other factions.
So I started with the anarchists and then I changed one big, political detail to make the socialists. And then with these two in mind, I made a third and fourth faction that were variations. My third faction is exactly the same as my second faction but the leaders don’t see eye to eye personally - so they broke off (how’s that for realism, ha). My fourth faction broke away too but not for petty reasons - their reasons are complicated and potentially justified.
I’m reminded about how jay dragon talked about playbook design - about how the first establishes a starting place, the second sets a kind of outer boundary, and the next few are variations in the middle. You can basically use this method to design anything where you want a slew of options - societies, people, whatever!
Hoping that helps,
Thomas
PS. This is obviously my touchstone for realism:
(Alt-text: A GIF from Monty Python where a character says, “Judean People’s Front, ha! We’re the People’s Front of Judea!”)
II. Watch of the Week
John Battle has a big video out this week that talks about the presence of Alt-Right actors in the tabletop RPG scene. Most people who have been active on RPG social media probably recognise these names - RPGPundit (John Tarnowski), GrimJim (James Desborough), Venger Satanis, Varg Vikernes. But if you don’t, Battle explains why they’re bad news. The whole thing needs a content warning - every single bad Alt-Right opinion comes up.
III. Links of the Week
Articles
The Indie Game Reading Club blog is back up and running. I really enjoyed this article about the importance of “telling, not showing” in RPGs. I regularly do this as well - speak in character and then explicitly point out what they’re feeling or what their intention is.
Dicebreakers lists out 8 games to play after you’re done watching The Expanse.
Reviews
Aaron Marks reviews The One Ring 2e for Cannibal Halfling
Pod of Blunders reviews the solo, dexterity-based game about a cleric wandering through wastelands, Lay on Hands
Dice Stew has a video review of worldbuilding game, Grasping Nettles, in ASL
Misc
StorySynth and Big Bad Con are giving 100 grants of 300$ each to designers who want to make games on the StorySynth platform. These are mostly games that run on narrative prompts like For the Queen. Seems really cool!
Want a free 400+ page book on LARP design with contributions by over 60 different larpwrights?
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.
ANNA-X66: REDUX mixes together 80s-90s sci-fi films, comics, and novels using the Mark of the Odd system of Into the Odd. It’s on Kickstarter the first week of February.
HULL BREACH is a 200+ page hardcover anthology for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. Dozens of all new scenarios, bestiaries, GM toolkits and more from 20 independent authors.
"You're (Not) A Wizard" is preparing to launch: Congratulations! You've been accepted to a prestigious magic school... by mistake. Now you must bluff you're way through to avoid getting caught.
The Twilight War, an espionage themed supplement to the 80s alt history horror game, Party First is coming to Kickstarter February 2022.
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