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[illunispress]

How To Play The Revolution

So: I do not like the idea of TTRPGs making formal mechanics designed to incentivise ethical play.

But, to be honest, I do not like the idea of any single game pushing any particular formal mechanics about ethical play at all.

So here I am, trying to think through the reasons why, and proposing a solution. (Sort of. A procedure, really.)

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Assumptions:

1.

Some genres of game resist ethical play. A grand strategy game dehumanises people into census data. The fun of a shooter is violence. This is truest in videogames, but applies to tabletop games also.

Games can question their own ethics, to an extent. Terra Nil is an anti-city-builder. But it is a management game at heart, so may elide critiques of "efficiency = virtue".

Not all games should try to design for ethical play. I believe games that incentivise "bad" behaviour have a lot to teach us about those behaviours, if you approach them with eyes open.

2.

The systems that currently govern our real lives are terrible: oligarchy, profit motive; patriarchy, nation-states, ethno-centrisms. They fuel our problems: class and sectarian strife, destruction of climate and people, spiritual desertification.

They are so total that the aspiration to ethical behaviour is subsumed by their logics. See: social enterprise; corpos and occupying forces flying rainbow flags; etc.

Nowadays, when I hear "ethical", I don't hear "we remember to be decent". I hear "we must work to be better". Good ethics is radical transformation.

3.

If a videogame shooter crosses a line for you, your only real response is to stop playing. This is true for other mechanically-bounded games, like CCGs or boardgames.

In TTRPGs, players have the innate capability to act as their own referees. (even in GM-ed games adjudications are / should be by consensus.) If you don't like certain aspects of a game, you could avoid it---but also you could change it.

Only in TTRPGs can you ditch basic rules of the game and keep playing.

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So:

D&D's rules are an engine for accumulation: more levels, more power, more stuff, more numbers going up.

If you build a subsystem in D&D for egalitarian action, but have to quantify it in ways legible to the game's other mechanical parts---what does that mean? Is your radical aspiration feeding into / providing cover for the game's underlying logics of accumulation?

At the very least it feels unsatisfactory---"non-representative of what critique / revolution entails as a rupture," to quote Marcia, in conversations we've been having around this subject, over on Discord.

How do we imagine and represent rupture, to the extent that the word "revolution" evokes?

My proposal: we rupture the game.

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How To Play The Revolution

Over the course of play, your player-characters have decided to begin a revolution:

An armed struggle against an invader; overturning a feudal hierarchy; a community-wide decision to abandon the silver standard.

So:

Toss out your rule book and sheets.

And then:

Keep playing.

You already know who your characters are: how they prefer to act; what they are capable of; how well they might do at certain tasks; what their context is. You and your group are quite capable of improv-ing what happens next.

Of course, this might be unsatisfactory; you are here to play a TTRPG, after all. Structures are fun. Therefore:

Decide what the rules of your game will be, going forward.

Which rules you want to keep. Which you want to discard. Jury-rig different bits from different games. Shoe-horn a tarot deck into a map-making game---play that. Be as comprehensive or as freeform as you like. Patchwork and house-rule the mechanics of your new reality.

The god designer will not lead you to the revolution. You broke the tyranny of their design. You will lead yourself. You, as a group, together. The revolution is DIY.

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Notes:

This is mostly a thought experiment into a personal obsession. I am genuinely tempted to write a ruleset just so I can stick the above bit into it as a codified procedure.

I am tickled to imagine how the way this works may mirror the ways revolutions have played out in history.

A group might already have alternative ruleset in mind, that they want to replace the old ruleset with wholesale. A vanguard for their preferred system.

Things could happen piecemeal, progressively. Abandon fiat currency and a game's equipment price list. Adopt pacifism and replace the combat system with an alternative resolution mechanic. As contradictions pile up, do you continue, or revert?

Discover that the shift is too uncomfortable, too unpredictable, and default back to more familiar rules. The old order reacting, reasserting itself.

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I keep returning to this damn idea, of players crossing thresholds between rulesets through the course of play. The Revolution is a rupture of ethical reality like Faerie or the Zone is a rupture in geography.

But writing all this down is primarily spurred by this post from Sofinho talking about his game PARIAH and the idea that "switching games/systems mid-session" is an opportunity to explore different lives and ethics:

Granted this is not an original conceit (I'm not claiming to have done anything not already explored by Plato or Zhuangzi) but I think it's a fun possibility to present to your players: dropping into a parallel nightmare realm where their characters can lead different lives and chase different goals.

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Jay Dragon tells me she is already exploring this idea in a new game, Seven Part Pact:

"the game mechanics are downright oppressive but also present the capacity to sunder them utterly, so the only way to behave ethically is to reject the rules of the game and build something new."

VINDICATION! If other designers are also thinking along these lines this means the idea isn't dumb and I'm not alone!

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( Images:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-23-fronts-and-generals.1497106/

https://www.thestranger.com/race/2017/04/05/25059127/if-you-give-a-cop-a-pepsi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

https://nobonzo.com/

https://pangroksulap.com/about/ )

[illunispress]

Thank you so much!!

I’m working on figuring out pricing and shipping for selling them online right now - so once that’s ready I can send them to your funeral lol

A very tiny adventure game

I finally finished my tiny ttrpg that fits in a little box!

I’m really proud of how this turned out. It’s basically a hack of Cairn, distilled into its most essential mechanics. It comes with a simple hexcrawl adventure about searching for the missing residents of a small town.

Keep reading

[illunispress]

Zylierie Starspark, Archdruid of the Circle of Stars

digital collage using photos and public domain art

[illunispress]

Liadri Amanon, the Sword of Justice

digital collage using public domain art and photos

[illunispress]

Liadri Amanon, the Sword of Justice

digital collage using public domain art and photos

[illunispress]

Ye olde space art

French novelist Jules Verne was born #onthisday in 1828. His fantastic tales of voyage and adventure have lent themselves to many wonderful illustrations but perhaps none so captivating as those by Émile-Antoine Bayard for Around the Moon (1870) — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/emile-antoine-bayard-s-illustrations-for-around-the-moon-by-jules-verne-1870 #otd

[illunispress]

A kinder fate would be to let the river take you

Work in progress on a Hadestown / Over the garden wall / Dark Souls inspired adventure.

Washing up on the strange shores of an endless river, your memories are foggy, and only two things are clear: The tracks of others who came before you, out of the river, and the carved letters in the boulder in front of you that read “RUN.”

[illunispress]

A kinder fate would be to let the river take you

Work in progress on a Hadestown / Over the garden wall / Dark Souls inspired adventure.

Washing up on the strange shores of an endless river, your memories are foggy, and only two things are clear: The tracks of others who came before you, out of the river, and the carved letters in the boulder in front of you that read “RUN.”

[illunispress]

Behind the Collage: Transformation

The wondrous magic of transformation is something most mortals can tap into. However, some cut themselves off from this power simply by viewing it with fear and contempt.

I created three collages for the initial release of The Magic Earth. I'm starting a series breaking down the source images and how to make your own.

The woman in the image is collaged from two images from the stock footage studio cottonbro, who release a lot of their assets for free on pexels.com

I modified the images in photoshop by adding some color layers set to “hard mix” blending mode. I've found this can produce some effective high-contrast poster effects.

Beyond the photo, I wanted to represent the magic in each collage as old woodcut black and white prints. I combed through oldbookillustrations.com and found the following images:

Bertalda: Arthur Rackham, Undine, 1909

Instead of a charming figure: Edouard de Beaumont, Le diable amoureax, 1871

Buer: Loius Breton, Dictionnaire infernal, 1863

Devils Fighting: Tony Johannot, 1840

I was very inspired by images of old demons and devils. As a trans person, I think it's fitting that my shapeshifter pulls and reappropriates monstrous forms from old Christian myths.

There's power in being the monster.

[illunispress]

Street Wolves, the ttrpg setting I've been working on for two (plus) years is finally out! It's been a passion project of mine and I hope you dig it. It's for Savage Worlds, which is a great platform for the type of adventures that you can play in Street Wolves. Street Wolves is a synthwave and neo-noir inspired, retro-future setting. The players fight the rot just under the surface of a neon lit late 1980s. There's new edges, hinderances, a Drive system for agents on the edge, tables to flavor chases, thematic powers, mission generators, an included adventure, a free Player's guide and TONs more. It's available on:

The Table Cat Games store

Itch.io

Coming soon to Drive Thru RPG

If you'd like to save some cash, then join the mailing list for a 20% off discount. Discount ends 2/14. Mail list link

[illunispress]

Okay so playing RPGs is extremely good and fun and I love it and play should always be the thing, but having said that I also feel that just reading and talking and posting about RPGs you've acquired online is also a perfectly valid way of engaging with games, and I'm not just saying that because I've got more money than sense and have acquired a not insignificant amount of RPGs I haven't gotten to play yet

[illunispress]

TTRPGs Are In A Weird Spot Right Now

D&D is most people's introduction to the medium. It's popular, it's nostalgic, there's rules so you don't have to worry about playing pretend, there's also playing pretend so you don't have to worry about the rules.

There's detailed procedures for combat, but sometimes combat doesn't happen, and you're just there in the story, living.

And it's a lot of fun, and D&D is so big that it's clearly the best game in the scene, and anyway it's the first so it must've gotten the formula right.

So then...why are there so many other TTRPGs?

Fifteen years ago, there wasn't really this partition between D&D and other TTRPGs. It was all Stuff That Got You Put In A Locker If You Talked About It, so what did it matter if you played D&D or Shadowrun or World Of Darkness or Seventh Sea. Which games you liked was something you could chat with friends about, but it was ultimately a matter of taste.

This meant that people would typically try the game with the biggest market presence (D&D,) and then branch out towards whatever else looked interesting. If you liked scifi, you'd try Shadowrun and Traveller and Battletech. If you wanted your OCs to smooch, it is very very likely you tried World Of Darkness.

D&D was, and still is, one of the most difficult TTRPGs to learn. So whichever other games you picked up, getting into them was quick.

This all sort of changed with the 5e wave. Various factors (favorable media spots on popular programs, nostalgia from 80s gamers, the emergence of podcasting) all combined to bring a bunch of new people into the hobby all at once. This triggered a massive boom in third party 5e publishing, which significantly expanded the 5e umbrella, which in turn created a situation where third party presses could either write 5e material or miss out on a gigantic and entirely new audience that only knew 5e.

For me personally, I don't mind 5e. But there is an absolutely wild ecosystem of games that are not 5e, and that are being slept on. And these games offer the same core elements as D&D:

-Make a weird guy

-Become them

-Go on adventures with your friends

-Maybe kiss?

There's Star Wars roleplaying games and you're-a-mouse-at-Redwall-abbey roleplaying games and cybertech gothic church choir roleplaying games and so, so many big chunky fantasy combat heroics roleplaying games.

And they're all different!

Hate reading? There's TTRPGs for you.

Hate acting? There's TTRPGs for you.

Hate combat? There's TTRPGs for you.

No hacking. No suturing. There's games that do non-D&D stuff elegantly.

And so many of them are learnable in a night, or in fifteen minutes, or you can play them with no prep just YOLOing some dudes who didn't exist seconds ago into the maw of dire adventure.

I didn't expect this post to get long-winded, but if you feel I'm wrong about any of this, you have my full permission to yell at me in the comments or the reblogs.

I totally understand wanting a game system that's familiar and comfortable. This is an era where pretty much everyone is craving comfortable. I just think that what's familiar and comfortable about 5e isn't in 5e specifically. It's in roleplaying games in general.

[illunispress]

Behind the Collage: Transformation

The wondrous magic of transformation is something most mortals can tap into. However, some cut themselves off from this power simply by viewing it with fear and contempt.

I created three collages for the initial release of The Magic Earth. I'm starting a series breaking down the source images and how to make your own.

The woman in the image is collaged from two images from the stock footage studio cottonbro, who release a lot of their assets for free on pexels.com

I modified the images in photoshop by adding some color layers set to “hard mix” blending mode. I've found this can produce some effective high-contrast poster effects.

Beyond the photo, I wanted to represent the magic in each collage as old woodcut black and white prints. I combed through oldbookillustrations.com and found the following images:

Bertalda: Arthur Rackham, Undine, 1909

Instead of a charming figure: Edouard de Beaumont, Le diable amoureax, 1871

Buer: Loius Breton, Dictionnaire infernal, 1863

Devils Fighting: Tony Johannot, 1840

I was very inspired by images of old demons and devils. As a trans person, I think it's fitting that my shapeshifter pulls and reappropriates monstrous forms from old Christian myths.

There's power in being the monster.

[illunispress]

Everything about this looks incredible and I can't wait to try it out!

I ran an adventure a few years back about revolutionaries fighting against an empire during the industrial revolution. This game seems absolutely perfect to revisit it.

Red Rook Revolt - an Indie RPG about comaderie and shooting Imperialists. Free community copies available!

Do you like TTRPGs? Do you like stories where you man the barricades and shoot fascists? Then Red Rook Revolt is the game for you!

Red Rook Revolt is an unabashedly leftist TTRPG about fighting a revolution against oppressive imperialist forces, about support and love from your friends pulling you through impossible odds, and about balancing the corrupting power of your demonic weapons with the need to defeat your enemies and win liberty for your people.

The setting and the system are both custom-built to focus on the struggle against fascist empires and emphasize the importance of camaraderie and community. In Red Rook Revolt, violence is a dangerous force, but not one that makes you 'as bad as the fascists' or dooms the revolution to failure. There is a brighter day on the horizon, as long as you hold strong with your comrades, fight the invaders fiercely, and man the barricades!

The fighting in RRR is fast, fierce, and lethal. Melee attacks are powerful but dangerous, requiring no attack rolls but inviting counterattacks, and empower your ranged attacks with Dark Power. It's inspired originally by Hyperlight Drifter, and resolves quickly even as you cleave and shoot your way though imperialists come to take your community away in chains.

The setting is the Imperium Alarum, a setting where all acts of community are magic, and goetic demons are bound to swords, revolvers, and shotguns. In the empire, the communities are the noble "great houses" and the legions, and the magic is sewn into their uniforms and rebounds in their songs as they march off to plunder and to pillage. But in the Red Rook Commune, the hero's community, they remember also the magic in sharing stews, in telling stories on cold nights, and in the songs the workers sing in the factory.

If any of this sounds interesting, you can find Red Rook Revolt HERE. Don't worry if your budget is tight - there are 15 free community copies available, and I'll refill them when they're all claimed.

[illunispress]

Under Secret Sands: a desert point-crawl

I went to a zine party the other night and it was so much fun collaging and writing and not caring at all about perfection.

I made an adventure zine collaged from the random magazines we had lying around. (my handwriting is messy, so I've also transcribed the pages below)

UNDER SECRET SANDS - ILLUNIS PRESS - JOSEPHINE JAYE

The Bramble Wall. A wall of dead black thorns protects the Valley of the Old City. Offerings of blood may allow passage.

The Coyote Run. An area of the valley relatively safe with small game. Rabid wolfcreatures rules this section at night. But friendly ones aren't roo hard to find and bribe,

The Deep Bramble. Clearing and cutting the living mesquite brambles draws the ire of angry fairies. A hidden crawlspace under the trees teleports respectful travelers to the Under City.

Ox Blood Valley. The Ghosts of oxen and bison roam this valley, taking vengeance on all creatures who would hunt them. [image of an ox skull]

The Old City. Still half-buried, guardian statues come to life when trespassers take treasures for their own. The city's riches are surrounded by the bones of those who learned this.

The Under City. The old city denizens still dwell beneath the earth. A functioning society with alien values awaits. Will trade information for access to their teleporter to the homeworld.

I'm not sure how playable or fun it would actually be, but I'm learning to get more comfortable putting stuff out into the world that isn't "ready." I was planning on doing Dungeon23 in January, but my desire for perfection and planning kept interfering with actually getting words down on the page. I'm setting a goal to start my own Dungeon23 in February, and this time, it feels more doable.

I'd also love to know what others think of my zine. I'm particularly proud of the Ox Blood Valley. And I'm also really itching to make another adventure map in this collaged style.

[illunispress]

I think this is beautifully put. We make each game our own at the table. Hearing people come up with stories I never could have imagined out of adventures and games I made is just so incredibly flattering.

What is an RPG? or, defining a quasi-text.

This was written recently for the new edition of .dungeon, but I wanna share it with y’all.

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Cameron Burger (@camcamburger) coined the term “Quasi-lore” to talk about the worldbuilding of Minecraft. Quasi means “almost” or “resembling,” so, quasi-lore is not-quite-lore, just hints and clues that motivate an audience to come to their own conclusions about a fictional world. 

I want to go a step further and say that an RPG book is not a Text in the sense that it gives you the proper and complete instructions, rules, and information. An RPG book is, by design, a quasi-text, giving hints, clues, and advice about play that motivates the players to then produce play between each other.

I like to think of it this way because there is no way for an RPG book to hold every possible challenge, and every possible solution to every possible challenge. It can’t hold the answers to every possible question. It can’t account for every possible person who might want to play. And that is not a downside, it is a benefit.

Part of the beauty of role playing games is that there are no limits to the things that can happen. There is no computer with a set amount of power or a planned series of events with a predetermined solution to its contrived problems. It’s a collaborative effort in a way most other mediums aren’t, limited only by the people who are playing together at the time. 

A lot of words have been written about this. Crack open any RPG book and it will most definitely have a “what is an RPG” section. But the main thing this phenomenon has led me to believe, is that our language alone isn’t enough to convey or define the totality of collaborative storytelling or playing. And because of this, a very important part of an RPG cannot exist inside of a Text. It can only be created and sustained while playing.

A quasi-text doesn’t force people to see it or think of it a certain way. It’s quasi-nature allows it to be used to tell a million different stories, by allowing the players to discover or create connections between the incomplete ideas and rules presented by the text. You, the reader, or your fellow players, can peruse the book and use what’s there to think of new concepts that fit nicely inside the book’s themes, while still leaving enough, or even creating more, quasi-lore for everyone to build on.

This is what makes rpgs so collaborative. It’s in the limitations of language and definition. It’s in the limitations of the individual to cover all possible avenues. As a game designer, I can only ever hope to create a quasi-text that inspires people to Play. .dungeon is my attempt at that. There are rules and lore that this book cannot give you. There are things purposefully left open or nebulous, and not “because of vibes,” but because I simply cannot know. 

“Connection” is the biggest example and one I got a lot of questions about when people read the first edition of .dungeon. This book will not tell you how long a campaign of .dungeon should last, or how much Connection you should lose every session. Each group that sits down to play will have a unique experience with Connection . Some campaigns will end quickly, others will go for much, much longer. 

That is intended. 

You won’t know when you’ll get a “game over.” You can’t know what random encounter or boss battle will be your last. Which adventure you’ll go on last. You won’t know how many people you’ll meet, or who will be important to you in the end. The text of the book knows how to measure this and can tell you what happens when it’s gone. But what it can’t tell you is how it will happen or when. 

Your duty as an RPG player is to meet these unknowns with confidence, because your answer will be unique to you and the other players. It will be unique to this particular moment of your life. By design, there are no wrong answers between the gaps of a quasi-text. There are only your answers.

[illunispress]

So back in 2021 I released a little game called Wild Duelist. It's a medieval action game, Illuminated by LUMEN, about honour and violence. It concerns animalfolk warriors travelling to arranged duels along dangerous paths.

I'm working on two supplements for the game at the moment. The first , The Ballad of the Bastard and the Tinkerer, is a quickstart adventure for three players. The second, Bloody Hands Dig Shallow Graves, is a longer campaign-length adventure.

I started working in some art for the quickstart today.

(the style is a digital collage of medieval public domain illustrations with animal photos)