Game Pitches for 2021

Games
7

A few thoughts.

I’ll bow gracefully out of anything FitD. My reaction to it goes a lot deeper than the engagement roll, and none of it’s good. Please don’t let that stop anyone.

(Context for next comment: While listening to gaming podcasts in the car, I’ve recently had to explain the concepts of “light” and “crunchy” game mechanics to my two youngest kids, which forced me to articulate this stuff and parse it out more.)

I don’t personally think rules fiddliness is a problem, provided it’s the right kind of fiddliness. Rich options in character creation and progression could scratch deep itches for some people, for example, and really being ‘into’ your character’s “stuff” makes it a lot easier to remember (for example) your assets and what they do in something like Ironsworn.

On the reverse: A different resolution system for six distinct things that have to happen in most sessions? That’s the bad kind of crunch.

As to Mike’s suggestions:
I’m down for a tour of Genesys by someone who groks it, and will quietly take a breather from FitD options.

For Cyberpunk (if people are really jazzed about that), I’d suggest The Veil as an option. Has anyone taken a look at it? It’s a PbtA-based cyberpunk thing which has a lot of good press and word of mouth, and bases its actions on your character’s current emotional state, with rules around ‘blocking’ or ‘jamming’ up stats as damage/consequences of actions, so you don’t have people just doing everything “Angrily” because that’s their best stat.

I haven’t had the spoons to get through the rules, which are hefty and aren’t in a genre I love, but the play-reports I’ve followed really seem evocative. YMMV.

Starforged (sci-fi, space, exploration, possibly gm-less)
System: Ironsworn

I don’t personally find the game’s rules fiddley. I’m running a campaign with my kids, and the seven year old figured it out after a couple die rolls. It’s pretty clear when the assets apply.

I like my gaming hard, so the Ironsworn quests sometimes resulting in “You get nothing, good day to you, sir!” doesn’t bother me, but the tweak to XP Mike mentioned seems like a good change for the vast majority of gamers who aren’t ridiculous.

Alice is Missing 1 (event-based, mystery, gm-less)

110% down for a one-shot of this, if only to sate my curiosity.

City of Mists (urban fantasy, pulp mystery)

This is fiddley, I guess, but I will say roll20 seemed to handle most of that in a good way. I did less than my due diligence for the demo game we ran, and had a really good time with it. I was EXTREMELY leery of Fate+PbtA in concept, but it honestly seemed to work nicely in this. I don’t know if I’m a rabid fan, but I really understand how and why rabid fans exist. It’s proper fun, and really what other point does a game have?

Urban Shadows: Second Edition 1 (urban fantasy, community, monsters)

I love the faction/community stuff in this, even as iterated in the first edition. Magpie games makes good stuff, so there’s a lot of trust there.

I have no personal suggestions to add, and to be very honest I don’t want to influence the decision at all. (I’m 100% okay if folks decide on FitD and I duck out for a bit, frex.)

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8

I’m happy to facilitate Genesys, the Veil, or other systems where anyone else doesn’t have the time or resources to deep dive into the rules. I’ve got the Veil books and it’s a system I’ve wanted a reason to get into.

I used the engagement roll from FITD not as the entire problem of the system, but just as one example. Systems with a prescribed play style feel vulnerable to having that style taken off the rails.

I’m pretty okay with games that lean into high difficulty, but not games that feel malicious about it. If the game says “well a bittersweet ending to this plot is what you get”, that’s fine. “The dice say TPK” or “the dice say no advancement for you” is another thing. A video game example is Dark Souls or Hades. Yeah, you died, but you learned from it and get to go back and try again.

9

From my perspective, a lot of this depends on how it’s handled (well, duh). Lack of success, or even explicit failure, aren’t (on occasion) game-ruiners. If it fits a narrative I can see and appreciate, coolio. If it feels arbitrary or jarring or an authorial slap in the face or just something deriving from a random die roll with no way to influence … less so.

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10

Curating some of the stuff from the game lists:

  • Post-apoc: it sounded like James was the big holdout here. If that’s the case, this seems like the time to pitch a game like this. This would include AW, Legacy, and some other pitches
  • AGE: including The Expanse, Blue Rose, and some other stuff
  • Asian Action: Hearts of Wulin, Henshin, any of the other anime/tokusatsu/wuxia games people are excited about
  • Quest: the current darling of post-D&D streamers, lightweight fantasy fun
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11

I still think Henshin might be fun as a short thing.

Hearts of Wulin owes a lot of inspiration to The Veil, which I mention only because of the Veil discussion.

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13

Are there other games that people want me to do a read-through on?

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14

I added a spreadsheet showing the votes so far (as I understood them) along with a score (+1 for each Yes, -1 for each No).

15

I’m also down for City of Mist, Apoc. World (though I’d rather do the Burned In version with this group), Legacy (probably more than AW), and Hearts of Wulin (which gives me an excuse to binge watch k-dramas on netflix).

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16

More detailed answers to the games on Bill’s list that I don’t currently have answers for.

Henshin: Yeah, but I doubt it would be more than a short novelty (which might be the best thing in this situation?). Definitely needs buy-in to work.

Apoc World: Same as Doyce, probably more of a Burned Over or whatever that playset is called rather than classic Apocalypse World. (Though I’m not feeling particularly apocalypse-y at the moment… is there like a hopepunk version of the apocalyse?)

Legacy: I’ll do it, but the same as above.

The Expanse: Would be down for the drama (I have not read the books or watched the tv show, but I understand political drama and fear of the unknown are two of the big draws) but for some reason hard science space stuff has never piqued my interest unless it’s like the Martian and as I understand it the hard science aspects are somewhat important to overall feel of that setting. Not sure why those things never piqued my interest? I think it’s because I know enough of the science to know “yeah, if one of a thousand different things go wrong, everyone dies horribly and quickly” and if that’s not the whole issue my brain just goes “okay, but why that setting then?” but that’s just guessing.

Blue Rose: I know enough about the setting to be interested. Not sure if the system will work with this group and our constraints, but that’s just supposition.

Hearts of Wulin: Had completely forgotten about this, so checked the KS updates and realized why I had forgotten about it (the updates have been fairly slow and boring for the last few months, not unexpected given where they are in the process, but still forgettable). I would also be down for this.

In general, I suppose what I’ve been poking at mentally is “what game is going to get me excited for Wednesday” and it’s slowly dawned on me the answer is “no game is inherently going to do that, the games are usually an excuse to hang out with everyone once a week.” Being excited about the game’s story is certainly a bonus, but I think we could probably manage that with a Jenga tower as a resolution system (difficult but not impossible in social distant mode [also I am well aware of games that use that system, I’ve met one of Dread’s co-creators a couple of times while playing his other game, Swords Without Master]).

The biggest issue is having enough (story) building blocks to get folks interested and let things run without fighting the mechanical system. And probably the only way to figure that out is to play some games not knowing if we’re going to like them or not until we do. Which I guess is a drawn out way of saying “I’ll play/run whatever so long as the basic premise doesn’t cause me revulsion.” (Though this attitude too might be unhelpful, in that “I’ll eat at any restaurant, just someone else make the decision” way.)

17

So right now the front runners are: Alice is Missing (one-shot), Apocalypse World (Burned Over), Hearts of Wulin, Henshin (expected to be a short run), and Starforged.

It feels like the strongest candidates are HoW and Starforged, with a couple short-run games woven in.

18

For me, it’s a question of “which game is going to make the most of the time I spend with this group?” That’s a different game for the different gaming groups I’m in, but there’s some that work better and some that work worse, or not at all. So I get excited by games that I think will do it really well.

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19

:point_up: :point_up: :point_up: :point_up: :point_up:

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20

By the way Dave, any input from Margie on any of these (or anything else that looks interesting to her)?

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21

I pinged her about it for the first time today (it was kind of a crazy weekend), once the survey came out. I wouldn’t expect any focus on it until tonight at the earliest.

22

There’s a survey? Are you talking about Bill’s spreadsheet or is there something else I missed?

23

Yes.

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24

“You [me] and Doyce should know me well enough to predict what kind of game I’d enjoy.”

and

“I want to have fun and not kill each other.” Which is akin to:

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25

Someone I know shared this stream of Session Zero of Henshin, if people are curious

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26

Good to see that other groups are as idiosyncratic and digressive … :crazy_face:

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