#90: Aotearoa!
I. Dear Reader,
(Due to some technical issues, this is one day late!) We continue the Games From Around The World series this week with a trip to Aotearoa or New Zealand courtesy Jack Blair. Jack is the designer of Sea Legs, Space Legs, and A Game That Will Force You to Stop Procrastinating Your Gender Crisis.
This post coincides with the launch of Kēmu Whakatau o Aotearo or KiwiRPG, a community of Kiwi game designers hosting a week-long celebration of their scene. After the success of initiatives like RPGSEA and RPGLatAm, it’s nice to see other communities launch their own hashtags and create spaces for themselves online.
5 Games from Aotearoa that You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Aotearoa, New Zealand, is a little country all the way down at the bottom of the world. South of Australia. The only country that gets closer to Antarctica than us is the very tippy tail of Argentina. We’re the country that produced hits like Taika Waititi, bungee jumping, and hokey pokey ice cream. You may know one or two things about us, or have come here on holiday once. But with a population of only about 5 million, it’s honestly a wonder you’ve heard of us at all. So you almost certainly haven’t heard of our ttrpgs. Or, well, that’s not quite true, actually. You’ve probably heard of a couple of them, like Monster of the Week, or The Sprawl, but here’s 5 games you haven’t heard of, by 5 designers that you may or may not already be familiar with.
High School Princess by Jamie Sands: High School Princess is a PbtA game about being the worst version of yourself. I am desperate to try this game, it is so far up my alley. Just listen to this, from the game’s Itch page - “Think Heathers, Clueless, Mean Girls and Easy A where the violence isn't in the actual exchange of blows, it's in words, especially the ones spoken behind someone's back.” What more is there to say? Girlboss, Gaslight, Gatekeep, am I right?
Soth by Steve Hickey: Soth is a game about being cultists trying to raise the elder gods without your family and job finding out. A very low prep game that reviews say both isn’t being played for laughs, and is a lot like Fiasco, so do with that what you will. I personally am thinking about running this for this year’s Halloween special…
Getting Obliterated by God in a Fist Fight by Hexavexagon: This is a party game for you and a few hundred of your friends who will all take a turn rolling a d6 to attack god. It’s like spin the bottle, but instead of kissing you get to either punch God or be punched by them. Honestly, what a way to spend a night. You will die, if you play this game, but probably not in real life.
Mayfly by Malcolm Dale: Mayfly takes a run at the kayfabe of role playing games and says hey what if your character REALLY only exists while you’re playing them? How does a person like that make decisions, and what do they think about the consequences? It’s a head scratcher alright.
Paranormal Wellington by Morgan Davie: This one is hot off the presses, and definitely another one to keep in mind as the season gets spookier (it’s already Autumn in Aotearoa, after all). If you like mockumentaries, supernatural hijinks and want to get to know our capital city by wandering its streets and uncovering its secrets, this is the game for you.
(You can check out Jack Blair’s other games on their itch page. A big thank you to him for contributing this round-up!)
II. Media of the Week
A video introduction to Monster Care Squad from a channel that mainly does Lancer content. It’s really great to see this game with no combat in it crossing into other spaces!
On Daydreaming about Dragons, Judd talks about a really fun topic - how to channel all that excited energy that is buzzing through you after a great session.
III. Links of the Week
A New World For Whom is an original Latin American fantasy setting that does many things including gods in exciting, new ways. I shared a link to an the original version when it came out but now it’s expanded and fleshed out. It’s PWYW but contribute if you can!
On the Indie Game Reading Club, Paul Beakley talks about a really tantalizing idea: “If you want to clarify to yourself the things you love about roleplaying games, play a session of your minimum viable game. Start with as blank a slate as you can manage and feel for the missing pieces.”
A review of the underdiscussed Hillfolk by Robin D Laws: “Dramatic conflict has not exactly disappeared from RPGs (especially indie games), and yet other, more recent games which feed on it, notably some PbtA games like Masks and Monsterhearts, seem to ignore Hillfolk entirely. Why is that?”
A round-up of letter writing or epistolary games in Dicebreaker.
Rae Nedjadi writes about why you should give a game at least three sessions before you make your mind up about it.
Evil Hat have released about a tenth of their new Improv for Gamers 2e as a free download so it’s no-brainer if you’re looking for a read on improv and games.
Alexi of Cloven Pine Games replied to my post about stats in his latest newsletter. It’s a good read so if you want a defense of stats or an articulation of how they can be fun, I recommend it.
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.
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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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Wow, I really want to try High School Princess! It is completely up my alley.