Beyond Solitaire Podcast 224: Jason Morningstar on The Blue Way
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Transcript
It's adbreak time. I'm proud to announce the Beyond Solitire podcast is sponsored by Central Michigan University's Center for Learning through Games and Simulations. I'm personally very excited because CLGS has a springtime crowdfunding project on the way. They'll be publishing a revised edition of Jason Morning Stars The Blue Way, which you will hear about in this very episode. So, let's get on with the show. Hey gamers, this is Liz Davidson from Beyond Solitire. This week on the podcast, I'm super happy to have a very special guest. This is Jason Morning Star of Bully Pulpit Games. Uh, and he's a returning guest, so I'm extra happy to have you back. How you doing, Jason?
I'm great. How are you, Liz?
I'm doing all right. Um, so I am very ready to talk about um an upcoming, I guess, republication of your game, The Blue Way. Um, so just to get things started, what is the blue way for people who have never heard of it? Uh, so we can then get down to brass tax.
Yeah. So the blue way is a tabletop role playing game about uh the impacts of colonialism and assimilation. So, uh, in the blue way, you play people who have, uh, been overrun by a different culture. And through the course of the game, you have to make really difficult decisions about where you're going to, uh, stand your grounds related to how you do things and where you're going to bend to the new way of, the blue way of doing things. Uh, and, uh, the the real drama and tension of the game is making those difficult decisions. Yes. So, for those of you who have never seen the game, those decisions are very, very physical because you have a character sheet with a story from your culture and on the other side are traits about you that you have to sacrifice if you don't want to give in to the demands of your new leaders. Um, so just out of curiosity, where did that idea come from and how did it develop? Because I think it's just a really it's really cool.
Oh, thanks. Yeah. Um, I don't know exactly. The idea of sort of uh having a tactile object that you deface or change in the course of play is one that I think is in conversation with lots of other um weird little tabletop games that I' I'd seen. So, uh, I knew that that was a possibility. And the idea that you're giving up pieces of your own culture or your own identity just seemed a very natural fit for this. And um I yeah I guess at the time I was thinking well if you have a two-sided document then one you know you can be focused on one side while you're destroying things on the other side and then at the end you flip it over and are surprised by what you've lost and that seemed very appropriate for the for the subject matter of the game. That's kind of where that came from.
Excellent. So the other thing I kind of want to get out there immediately is that we're going to have a campaign for the blue way. Uh, but it's already been published through Bully Pulpit before. So, um, how did we kind of get to those circumstances? And then I'll ask about differences between the editions.
Yeah, I was approached by um, CMU uh, because they're really focused on promoting games uh, for teaching and learning, games that have points of view that could be used in a classroom. Uh, and the blue way is a game that fits those kinds of affordances very well. Um, it it opens a conversation about colonialism. Uh, you can play it in a in an hour. It's very easy to instantiate in the classroom. Uh, it's got a very memorable sort of uh, tactile mechanic to it that really drives home the points that the game is trying to make. And so I think they saw the possibilities as an educational game in it right away. and also they have the resources to make it into something that's um a little more dynamic than a a print andplay PDF, which is the way that we've been able to offer it. So, the CMU Press version is gonna um it's going to come in a box.
It's going to have uh cards and tear away sheets and a lot of really um really elegant pieces to it that we just didn't have the means to to create. Uh so, I'm excited about that for sure.
Yeah, me too. Um, so kind of in our leadup chat, I I would like to get down to this. You know, when I when you look at the current components for the Blue Way, it's got kind of like a European vibe to the stories and to like the names of people who are involved. Um, but that's not actually the historical context that inspired you to make the game in the first place. So,
yeah.
Let's can we talk about the context that that made this game appear to you?
100%. So, so, uh, first of all, uh, when I'm making a game that's inflected or inspired in some way by history, I have to think really carefully about how people are going to approach that and uh, how much I want to either honor ground truth or I I want to abstract it. So in a game like Night Witches, I felt like I needed to honor ground truth. And I wanted that game to be not necessarily realistic, but to to reflect the realities of the time and place. So there's no abstraction or very very little abstraction in a game like Night Witches. In a game like The Blue Way, there's a lot of abstraction. Uh there are two fictional cultures. It's essentially a fantasy uh setup. uh but it's a setup that is very common in history and as you can see repeated over and over again. So you could look at this and and place it within the Norman conquest for example um which which is a somewhat approachable story for a western audience, right? Um by abstracting it to a fantasy setting, I think it makes it even more approachable and it still allows you to to have the experience and then have a conversation where you can map that to um real life. In my case, this game was very much influenced by a lot of reading I've done about the history of Meso America and what happened when the Spanish met the uh Triple Alliance, the Aztecs and the Aztec flexan war uh that
destroyed their empire. Um and what happened afterward when the Spanish became ascendant and uh the people, you know, the Nahwa people were forced to assimilate um and had to make these kinds of difficult choices. So that's really what I was thinking about. Um but I knew that if I made a game about that, it would be harder for people to approach and harder for them to engage with and there would be history panic that people would worry about doing it wrong. Um, and so I abstracted it a little bit to make it easier to approach.
Okay. History panic. This is I've never heard this term before, but I think you've hit on something I've thought about. I want I want to hear more. Okay. So,
yeah. Yeah.
When you talk about like people worried about doing something wrong um especially in an RPG, is it what are some I guess settings or things you can write into games that you actively don't do in order to avoid that? Because I feel like RPGs are already so vulnerable. Um, it's really hard to like do it and also do like a role playing in front of other people. Um, you know, I guess what other considerations am I not thinking about in addition to history that people feel like they're doing something wrong and you have to work around?
Well, so imagine that this is a game where you're playing the mashika or nah people that have been that are the boot of the Spanish. Well, you're playing indigenous Native American peoples. Um, and that's going to make people uncomfortable because they want to respect that. I I would hope they would want to respect that culture or those cultures. They would not want to get it wrong. Um, and so that they're already going to be sort of on on edge about that. Um, and you know, you can see that played out in a lot of different ways, but it's that that's one thing. The other one is that if you don't know anything about the Spanish conquest of Meso America, you know, you have no historical background and you you might be worried about introducing things that are ahistorical or or you know, just sort of incorrect. Um, and whether or not that's going to hurt the experience, whether you're going to be embarrassed, whether someone's going to correct you.
Um, so there's all kinds of things that can go into history panic, which is a term that I use because I make a lot of historical or historically influenced games and I try I try really hard to uh create some boundaries or guard rails that make it easier to do that. Um, and one one of those is abstracting it. if I feel like the the, you know, the core material is going to just be very stressful for people and they're going to get in their own heads about it or they're going to make um very safe timid choices based on it because they don't want to do something quote unquote wrong.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. No, it really does actually. Um uh the other kind of thought I was having about this is you know John Truit is um a scholar who is an expert on Meso America. Um were there any conversations about retheing or providing versions of that game that would work in his classroom?
Yeah, we absolutely talked about it. Um and uh he he uh also brought uh some things to my attention that I wasn't aware of because he's just got a more scholarly nuanced view of this topic. So the we've made some changes to the game based on his knowledge. Um for sure the idea of of retheing this completely, we talked about it, but it would be a really big project. Um and uh I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think there's going to be a purely historical version of the Blue Way.
I mean, it makes sense. Um, the other thing I noticed as I was looking through the Blue Way, um, was I guess a strong emphasis on safety safety materials and what can be included or not in the game. So, could you talk about like the current I guess structure of
you know what safety looks like in a game like this and um you know material that made it in or out based on some of those choices or that could
Yeah. Well, we're we're really talking about safe replay. You can't make a game safe. Um, but you can you can set some guard rails to to alert people to the material that they're going to be engaging with and then um giving them tools to handle that um in in a sensible and maybe sensitive way. Excuse me. So, and the blue way is awful. Like awful things happen to your characters and your community. Uh and in many cases you're letting them happen because the alternative would be worse. And by awful I mean like there's all kinds of violence. There's a spectrum of violence uh that is just genuinely terrible. Um and the uh the game lets you know that.
So and this is a this is sort of a point of contention for classroom use because there's some expectation that if you're in a class then you're you're sort of obligated you're required to engage with the material. So, it's kind of up to an instructor to figure to sort of thread that needle because it's I think it's very possible that you could get a student who'd be like, I don't want to engage with this material. This is traumatic to me and I don't want to do it. And I think that, you know, there are solutions to that. You can give alternate assignments or whatever. But you want to be very clear about what the expectations are with the material. And with the blue way, it's tough. like it's you're making difficult choices uh amidst um cultural violence, against amidst personal violence on a variety of levels and some of it's very mild and some of it's you know extraordinarily harsh uh and everything in between. And so uh the game as written gives you some guidelines uh for handling that material. Um, it suggests tools to use, uh, if in play you want to disengage or you want to sort of lead the content in a way that's going to make it easier to to deal with. And then it encourages a debrief at the end where you would discuss it. Um, so that people who did feel that it was a traumatic experience had a chance to sort of share that um, get some validation for those feelings, maybe work through them after play. It's also possible that a group could play this game and have none of
those things happen. And I've certainly experienced all all the versions of that. I played this game with people who they knew in every case they knew what they were getting into uh and and some of those groups had no trouble with it um and enjoyed the experience and accepted it for what it was. And sometimes there were people who really needed that debrief, you know, or really needed to engage with those safety tools. And I respect that. I wanted to make sure that those were there for the ones who do do need them. Uh and I think the game provides some flexible but um clear boundaries for for the activity.
Okay. So, you know, we talked about the safety tools and about kind of like some of the difficult content of the game. Um, can you talk about I think the stakes of pushing back for players in this game um in terms of their story and like the kind of history and culture that they're creating, what's left behind.
So, so the so the back of so what you're looking at when you play on your character sheet are about eight things uh that are important to you that you can surrender that you give up and you give them up by physically cutting them off your character sheet. And they're things like my name, my faith, my language, my tradition. Um, and some of them are more important to you than others, but as a player, you're really making decisions about how much you value them, and whether you're willing to surrender them. So, if you give up your name, you're literally giving up your character's name, and they're going to call you something new. Uh, and you've you've assimilated that much more into this new society. Give up your faith, right? And take the new faith on. Um, and you don't have to do these things, but uh, the opt the alternative is usually very very bad. Um, and so it's a game of constantly giving you hard choices to make and also in the context of a community. So, everyone else at the table is looking at you when it's your turn to make this decision.
And it can be a very difficult uh uh choice because you're getting some peer pressure from the other players as well to surrender something because they don't want this awful thing to happen.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. No, it really does. Um and also like you made I I like that you brought up people looking at the person who's making the decision because rather than talk about it, you're really asking people to embody submission or rejection. Um, so can we talk through that and then like I guess how that part of the game developed and like why you made the choices that you made?
Oh, well I I I wanted to um I wanted to model assimilation a little bit. So um I I felt that um gradually surrendering these pieces of uh things that you hold dear, which is a kind of a that's a through line in my work. If you look at a game like Gray Ranks, there's literally things called the things you hold dear and you you you give them up uh to get competitive advantage in the game uh and and typically end the game without any of the stuff that you care about left in the world, which you know is kind of accurate for the Warsaw Uprising.
Yeah.
So, same kind of deal with this. You're you're giving these things up and at at a certain point you have fewer and fewer of them. So, like maybe uh I'm looking at a character sheet right now, and one of the things this character has to give up is um they have an axe, right? And they're not supposed to have an axe. It's not something that they're allowed to have anymore, a weapon of war. Uh so, like, do you want to hold on to that? Uh you don't want to bury it in the yard and keep it or do you want to give it up? And uh that maybe that's an easy choice to make early in the game. Well, that once that's gone, the next thing is maybe your faith or, you know, your specific tradition. Uh, and maybe those are harder to give up. And in the end, if you've only got if you've given up all the stuff, you're a member of this new culture. You got a new name, a new religion, and a new language. Um, and uh that uh that's a powerful moment because what happens in play is that some people will stand their ground and they'd rather die than give those things up and other people are willing to make those compromises.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I guess one thing that always fascinates me about games like this is that because it's a game, like how do you get people to attach enough to their characters where they don't just keep giving things up? Like how do you get somebody so emotionally involved that they just can't bear to give things up even if they're fake, even if it's just a piece of paper?
It's uh I mean I I don't want to pat myself on the back, but it's the the things in the game that are being prompted. So like if they're if they're poignant enough or difficult enough, then it's going to make people second guessess their choices. And in this game, you know, it's like they're awful, right? The things that that that you're if you're not giving something up, you're accepting something that is absolutely horrendous most of the time. And sometimes
sometimes they're more innocuous. And so the game gives you some breathing room. Like there's one where the the new uh lady of the manor says, "Nobody can wear blue anymore because you're not worthy to wear the color of the faith." and everybody has to give up the blue clothing
and like, okay, you know, nobody's going to sacrifice their faith to to resist that.
But others are like, you know, somebody's going to get murdered or uh there's going to be some kind of atrocious violence that happens. Yeah.
We're all going to starve this winter if you don't give something up.
And and it's pretty easy at that point for for players to get very invested.
Yeah. So, this kind of leads me to a difficult question. We talked about safety and I know that in the original instructions you can remove the cards that involve brutality and you can remove the cards that involve sort of like sexual violence. Um, because you know if you have a horrible oppressive culture like things can happen that are that bad and they exist in the game. But I guess if you pull out everything that is unsafe in the game, are there still choices left that are so bad that people are willing to die?
Yeah, it's a good there's a there's definitely a a line at which you should be playing a different game.
Um if you if you're uh if you're editing out too much of that stuff, then it's it's a good indication that it's just you're not in the right group to play and you should try something different. Um you have to want to experience a little bit of that. um uneasiness, discomfort, um brutality,
and and if you're not, and that's fine, then there are lots of games that won't force that on you. This game absolutely will. Um and you can tune the deck, you can edit it a little bit. Um for example, if you were just in a group where it was just a hard pass on sexual violence, there's I think there are two cards that imply that you just take them out. The game will work fine,
and I encourage you to do that. Uh, but if you if you're in a group that is uncomfortable with death writ large, well, there's going to be some death in this game and it it's not going to work if you're unwilling to accept that.
Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. Um, I also noticed that this game is technically playable solo. Um,
yeah.
How uh I mean, have you soloed it yourself? And how do you find that that works without, I guess, like the peer pressure of having to submit or agitate in front of other people? Uh how does that experience change?
Yeah, it's definitely a different experience. Um I uh I don't know. I've done it plenty of times myself because it's uh you know in the play test process that's an easy way to iterate. But uh I think that I would encourage you to play with other people. I think it's a better game when there's other people involved. The game itself is presenting these difficult choices. It's a GMless game. you don't need other people to do to provide adversity for you, but the discussions that you get into are really valuable uh around the choices that you're making um the decisions that you're making. So, I think it's better with more people, but you can certainly play uh solo.
Nice. All right. So, um, I feel like we've talked a lot about the blue way, but you're also an expert on just RPG design in general, and I just want to take advantage of the fact that you're here. So,
yeah, let's
So, I have discovered that the most money I've been spending at shows recently is on solo RPGs um, at basically indie publisher booths. And I did not really expect that to happen to me. And I feel like I'm not the only one. So, do you think that there has been, I guess, an increase in interest in indie RPGs in general and then maybe things that solo in particular over the last few years?
I do um I I don't know the the phrase indie RPG doesn't mean a lot to me, so I don't I don't really know whether that's become more prevalent or more popular. I kind of feel like it has. small press games
uh are getting more attention and I'm glad of it. Um and certainly solo games have taken off. I think there was a real perfect storm of interest in them during the pandemic that uh has has helped and they've gotten more traction because of that. But also because uh just demographics, you know, like it's more difficult to put a group together. lots of people are interested and now there's tons of really good games that uh that you can play all by yourself. So yeah, I I do think that it's become more popular and I think it'll continue to become more popular. Yeah. Um the other trend I kind of want to just kind of start by asking you about is so the last time I was really trying to do an RPG, I was in a large D and D campaign that just went on week after week and it was great at first that it kind of started to drag. And one thing I've noticed is that um I mean obviously there will always be groups that play for a long time, but it seems like a lot of RPGs that I see from smaller presses are shorter and more compact experiences. So what does the overall market for RPGs look like right now in terms of commitment versus like novelty of trying different games?
Yeah, there. Well, um I think that there's a for a lot of people there's a dawning realization that you can with a well-designed game, you can have the sort of gripping, you know, campaign ending experience that you're really looking for this the dragon that you're chasing in a short amount of time. Um even a single session, even an hour, you know, depending on what you're after. and that um the traditional model of the endless game like Dungeons and Dragons which has no end point. You're going to keep playing as long as you want to until things just sort of organically fall apart, I guess. But there there's no it's you're not telling a constrained tale. You're just playing the game every week. Uh and that that model just doesn't work for people. It's not as successful anymore. uh just there's a realization that there are other ways to do it and that some of those might be better. Maybe uh you don't have as much time. Maybe you don't have as much continuity. Maybe you want to tell a story that's bounded uh and that is going to have a beginning, a middle, and an end by default. Um maybe you want you don't have people to play with. Maybe you need to, you know, play with only one other person. All of these are different models of play that that traditional games don't really support that well. Uh so there's lots of there's lots of games that that do support that well and I think people are being drawn to those when they realize that uh some of those affordances make more sense to
them. Yeah, for sure. So and I and I hope to see more of it and I hope that bigger publishers uh get on that train because I think it's a good I think it's just for the good. I just I can't imagine playing an endless campaign anymore. I just there's so many cool games in the world, so many interesting things I want to try. Even with the same games, you know, to play them again, uh it just is it excites me more than the idea of an endless boundless uh you can do anything anywhere kind of game for sure.
Yeah. So, as someone with a press bully pulpit, uh are you finding I guess changes in buying patterns for people who are picking up RPGs? Uh, I feel like, yeah, as we were just talking about, like they kind of used to be perceived as lifestyle games, but are you seeing like repeat customers trying to pick up different experiences from y'all? Yeah, for sure. Um,
uh, so, so we have a we benefit from a a real longtail effect with with our products because people who like what we do tend to buy what we make, you know, and uh, it I think we've always been square with our customers and they know what they're getting and they know the quality of it. They know the intensity with which we test and uh, refine our games. So they know they're going to get something that's playable, that's fun within a certain, you know, aesthetic set of parameters from Bully Pumpet. And so we really benefit from that and I'm very grateful for that. You know, that there are people out there who are like, well, if it's a game that they made, I know it's going to be good and I want it. Uh so so um in terms of like changing buying patterns, it's a little difficult for me to say because we have the benefit of many of those people supporting us. Uh, and it means I can take some weird risks because I know that those those folks will they're along for the ride. They they like the idea that I'm doing interesting creative work um and they want to support them.
So, I'm I'm probably the wrong guy to to ask about overall trends or industry trends related to buying patterns. For sure.
Yeah.
I wish I was, but I'm not.
That's all right. You've seen enough of Go Violet. The perspective is always interesting. Um, I guess the other question I had for you, so let's see. I picked this one up from you. Uh, Desperation. I haven't played it yet. It's been on the shelf.
You play it yet?
No. It's like it's like on my to-do list. It's right over there. I'm excited.
You're gonna love it, Liz. You should really You should try it. It's um It does some really interesting things that you I know that you will appreciate. Um Oh, hell yeah.
So, like like you need to get into it and give it a shot. I will do it. Um, so the one thing I've noticed is, you know, I keep seeing things like from you and from others that include like options for one person or for low player counts. And I feel like that's hot right now, but it might just be that I'm tuned to pay attention to things that solo. Um, when you are designing for lower player counts and RPGs, like other than kind of making them GM list, which I think is important, um, what are some, I guess, changes in the formats of those games that make them work better for fewer people as opposed to more?
Yeah, that's a really good question. And again, I don't know that I'm the expert on this topic, but I'm very aware of it now. I'm aware that if I'm designing something, I should be thinking about the solo experience. And not everything that I do is gonna work that way, but if I can make it work that way, I want it to. So, Desperation definitely does. The game that will be coming out soon, Jen's Wonder Tales, definitely does. Um, and I feel like as a designer, um, a solo game is always going to be a different experience. uh it's always going to be a little bit different. Um and that you need to be thoughtful of that. I think that um the interplay of other people's creative input makes games better uh in my opinion. So uh when we say like u you can play desperation by as as a solo player, you absolutely can. all the inputs are the same and the output the creative outputs will be the same because you get to make them all. Um what you're not getting is that um those surprising choices made by other people.
Yeah.
So like in desperation, you know, you're you're refining a set of characters over time and you can absolutely do that by yourself and they'll still become interesting and fully realized characters. But if you and I are playing Liz, you're going to make choices that really are out of left field from my point of view and that surprise me that I think that's delightful and makes the game uh a little bit more dynamic. Um, so you're kind of you're just missing that piece of it if you play it solo. Uh, but I was in the design process, I was very thoughtful about making sure that nothing was in there that was going to rely on another player giving you input so that you could always you could play it solo if that were your choice.
Yeah. One of the things that's been interesting to me as somebody who's like exploring solo RPGs a bit more in the last year, two years, um, is how much of the work you have to do in terms of suspension of disbelief and like making yourself go to places imaginatively without prompting from other people. Um, it's a it's a good experience, but I also noticed that it does require like a lot of juice like from me to make sure that I'm making it a good experience for myself.
For sure. Yeah.
Um, and yeah, like that has been a fascinating process. Um, so I guess like when you were playing, I mean, I know that you test some of your stuff solo. Uh, what are you finding that you need to give yourself like enough grit to kind of power it on your own? Yeah, that's it's funny the um for me it's it's all about intentionality, right? You have to be like, I'm going to do this and give myself the coolest experience that I can. In the same way that if you and I were playing, I'd be like, I want I want Liz to have the best time of her life playing this game with me. Um and hope that you feel the same way that you know that you're looking out for me and making sure that I'm having a good time and giving me cool stuff to react to and to play with. uh as you know a creative contribution to to the experience and so uh you know you got to do that for yourself the game's going to help you by giving you interesting choices to make but like you know in the end you got to want it and uh so when I play a solo game or when I play testing in solo mode that's really it's an attitude thing I I have to be very intentional about it and be like okay I'm playing this game and I need to be 100% engaged Uh, and if I'm not, then I need to just take a break and do something else.
Yeah, for sure.
No, it makes a lot of sense. Actually, uh, this leads to a question I was thinking about asking, which is, so I've been, it's weird to say this for me because I still don't process it, but like I've been actually actively designing games and like working on games for some time now. Um, and you know, play testing is such an interesting part of the process, but with board games, you can get data. You can kind of like see end states and start states. Like there's a lot of things that aren't just word of mouth from the players that are happening that you can use to kind of assess how well things are working or what's going on. But what does play test data look like for an RPG? Like how do you collect it and how do you sift through it and assess it for what you need?
Yeah, that's a that's a great question and it is it's much more qualitative. uh that just kind of has to be um one of the things that so there are a lot of things I can say about this a pearl of wisdom that I've received that I I always uh try to listen to and this is I'm sure true for board games as well is that if there's a problem or if there's friction in the game that's valuable input
how to fix it is not um I'm not interested in your solution to my problem but I'm interested in the problem as to experience. And so, uh, I'm always looking for for, um, places where the game isn't doing what I want it to do, places where it's doing things I don't want it to do actively or where players are making assumptions. Um, some of that is, uh, clarity in, you know, instructions. um making the game uh tell you what to do and how to do it and when to do it in a way that's both clear and for role playing games also evocative. It needs to it needs to model the kind of behavior you want to see at the table in the in the rule set I think. Um so like you're you're basically making a manual for repairing a carburetor. It needs to be that clear.
Yeah. But but also it needs to make someone want to play the game and be excited about what that means. Um so it's it's really complicated. Usually when I'm asking people to play tests externally, I do internal play tests too with a local group that um are just dear friends of mine. Uh, so, so that's a whole different process because we know each other really well and I kind of know what their expectations and boundaries are going to be and the way that they're going to react to or bounce off the material and I get honest feedback from them. Whereas with external testing, it may not be honest feedback necessarily. It might not be informed feedback. So what I what I the questions I ask and the things that I ask them to pay attention to are more qualitative. Um if there are specific things that I know are going to be challenges, uh like if a game has a complicated dice mechanic or something, I I might ask them to really focus on that and and to just do to play with that in isolation. Tell me what they think of that, uh what their experience with it is. But more often, much more often in my case, uh it'll be things like, was this relationship map clear to you?
Did you know what to do?
Um what what were the outcomes in your case? What were the points of of pain in understanding these rules? What were the points of friction in implementing them? Um and you know, that stuff's so soft. It's really very qualitative. And um I'm not looking for numbers necessarily. Over time things will aggregate like um many of my games have specific end states. Like in Genya's Wonder Tales, you're telling a folk tale, right? You're telling a fairy story.
Yeah.
And uh it's not telling you how that story is going to end, but there's, you know, there's only a few ways that that's likely to end. And so when I hear back from players, I always ask, well, what what happened? give me the narrative of what happened. Uh because it's it's punchy, it's contained, it's a game you play in about an hour. And so they can say, well, you know, at the end the owls and the ravens had a big fight. And if I hear that enough, that's that's starts to get a little more quant quantitative. Right.
Right.
Then then I'm like, okay, well, everybody's having the owls and the ravens fight at the end. Maybe that's not the optimal outcome. I don't want it to be the same every time. maybe there needs to be a little more ambid, you know, whatever. And then I can change things.
Um, so, uh, so that's about as close to quantitative data as I get,
uh, is looking at outcomes and looking for patterns.
Yeah.
Yeah. Um, so you mentioned also paying attention to specific kind of mechanisms within a game. Like what how mechanically complex do you think an RPG can be and still be good? Like as a table like as a board gamer, I feel like I lean on it a lot to simulate things and create friction where my players need it, but I think it plays a different role in the kind of work that that you're doing.
It does. And um uh there's no there's no right answer to that. Obviously, the game should be as complicated as the game asks you to make it, right? you're you're in dialogue with this idea and if if the idea demands some complexity then there should be some complexity. Um, my the more that I make games, the less interested in the less in randomness. I get I'm less and less interested in randomness the more I I design to the point where now anytime there's uncertainty in the game, I have to ask myself, and this is a a very clear question I ask myself, is it more important than the flip of a coin? What happens here? And if not,
flip a coin, you know, like I don't care. Um, if it needs if it needs to be more nuanced than that, the game will tell me and then it will become more complex. But if it doesn't need that, I don't want it. I don't want that's not where I want my complexity to be. I want it to be social complexity. I want it to be um, you know, interplayer, interc character complexity, which doesn't necessarily need any randomness at all. Uh, so that's kind of where I'm at. I've played plenty of games and enjoyed plenty of games that are ludicrously complex. Um, and that's fine. And if and there are people who enjoy that and really want system mastery
on a on a mechanical level. Uh, and games that give them that are great. Uh, and people who want to play those kinds of games are great. It's just not a direction that I'm moving anymore. I'm not that's not where my interests lie.
Interesting. You also talk about sort of being in dialogue with an idea. One thing I I feel like RPG players and designers are also storytellers and there's a lot of like evocativeness that goes into the design and sometimes some lore and sometimes some setup. As somebody who is like using your games to tell stories and set the scene for players, how how far do you go with your own, I guess, ideas and storytelling versus like how do you know when to hand it off to players so that you've given them enough but like not too much because they also have to be able to contribute to your story.
Yeah. Yeah. And story is you know a fraught word. People will argue about whether you are telling stories either as a designer or as a a player.
Yeah.
Um and I don't know the answer to that. I don't honestly I don't really care how you parse the experience for yourself and your friends.
Um but uh my my impulse is always to give less, you know, give as little as I possibly can and and let the players discover and create and co-create on their own.
Yeah. That's not always that's not always the case. Again, you look at a game like Night Witches, it's really important that as a player, you have some grounding in the time and place. There's a little there's an on-ramp to that game where you need to sort of understand the big picture of the Second World War in the East um and what was going on in the Soviet Union in the Stalinist era. Like that stuff is important. You kind of have to have it. And so I give it to you. And that's lore, right? that's, you know, that's backstory that you need. Um, but, uh, I think it's a really good question to ask if you're, if you're making a game, how much of that is helpful? How much of that do people crave but don't really need, and how much of it is completely unnecessary? I think there's a kind of player who loves it and wants as much as they can get, and they they enjoy reading it, consuming it, and knowing it, and and bringing it into play.
Yeah. And uh you know that's fun and there's nothing wrong with that. There's and there are games that reward that you know. Um but again it's just not I don't know that that's where I want to be. Like I'm I'm really interested in specific moments and uh giving you everything you need to explore that moment uh and maybe leaving the the edges undefined.
Yeah. How do you How do you know when a game is done?
That's such a mean question. And you know
I know a mean person. You knew this.
Oh, I don't think they're never done. Like it's done when somebody it somebody buys it, you know, when it's at somebody else's table that you don't know. Um they're I look at games that I've published and I see things, you know, as I grow as a designer.
Yeah. um things that I did that I regret that I wish I had done differently that I wish I could improve. Um and I'm not going to go back and do that. Um but I can certainly see that as a you know as a a canvas that was never quite perfectly finished. No game is perfect. Um which means no game is ever really done
in terms of like when when when do I have to
pick up my pen and stop working on a game? That's a very different question. uh and that is um I have the luxury of deciding that often for myself. I know that uh that that decision is sometimes made by a publisher or it's made by uh you know some kind of person who's managing a project just saying it's since 12th of June you've got to be done. Um and I don't necessarily have those pressures. I mean, I do a little bit, but not as much because and you know, I co-own my company and yeah, my partner wants me to be making the best things I can. So, I get a little leeway in the design process there, which not everybody has the luxury of.
So, I won't ask about specifics because that would be too mean, even for me. Uh but in terms of your design sensibilities over time, um what do you are there any like general things that you think have changed um in terms of what you do differently now that you wouldn't have thought of or that you feel like you're correcting from earlier in your career?
Yeah, nothing that I'm really correcting from. I think we're we're always learning, right? It's a it's a skill like game design is a skill that I'm getting better at. I think I'm a journeyman game designer now. uh and I'm I'm very happy to to get better at it. Um things that have changed, I mentioned uh earlier some of the things that I I feel differently about now like uh uncertainty and how you address uncertainty. Just super important. It's an important particularly in role playing games. You want to be surprised. You want things to happen that you didn't anticipate. And there's lots of ways to generate those. And one of them is to create uncertainty that you know you're going to roll the d20 to see if you hit the monster. Um and I over time have gotten less interested in making those moments particularly clever or complicated. Um so that's a thing that's that's changing. I'm always interrogating that as I make new games.
Like what needs to what needs to where do we put uncertainty? Who decides what that means and how is it resolved? uh in my most recent tabletop game um the the things that are really interesting there are there's a role there's a facilitation role that decides it and I specifically say if if this is your what you're doing if if this is your job right now to be the facilitator who just who recognizes and results in certainty you get to do it however you want
you can you can just decide you can flip a coin you can ask the players to draw cards You can roll dice, whatever you feel will be interesting, fun, and evocative in the moment. That's what you get to do. And nobody can tell you otherwise because that's your job. Um, and by offloading that onto a particular role, uh, it opens up some, I think, interesting freedom for having fun with that. Um, but it also means that there aren't any rules about how it gets done. Just it has to get done, right?
And I really like that. And uh it's been fun to see how people uh really bite into that and make it make it really fun for their friends at the table.
That's awesome. All right, so now I've tortured you for almost an hour. You get softy questions. I don't know if they're softy. Uh but um what uh what I always ask because I always want to know, what have you been playing recently that uh brings you joy or really excites you? Oh man, I just got a copy of Magical Athlete. Magical
racing game. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And we have just been loving that. We've been having such a good time playing that. Um it's just a delight. It's a ridiculous low stakes big fun game. So, Magical Athletes, two thumbs up. Um, my home group is playing sort of a weird homebrew using the rules for a game called Archipelago 3 by Matias Halter, which is one of our favorite games. It's like a flatbed pickup truck of a game. You can do all kinds of things with it. And so, we're playing a fantasy game that of our sort of own creation set uh using uh using those rules and that's been lots of fun. Uh, I would say those are the two that have really taken off around here. How about you? What do you miss playing?
Um, okay. This is so goofy. I just can't get enough of Jungo. It's just like a little card game. It's like um it's from uh Happy Camper and I we just end up playing a game night all the time. It's just like um it's like if Scout and Linko had a baby. So basically, you're trying to one up somebody's hand, but you can't rearrange your hand. You can only pick up cards that you can beat and put them to try to create like really good combos of cards. That sounds very fun.
It's just so simple. You can teach it to anybody. You can just play a few rounds at the end of the night. And that's something I really appreciate right now because I've just been working so hard and play testing so many games that are for work that it feels great to just be able to play something light.
Yep.
Um and then I've been solo journal RPGing because I feel like that's a fun way to spend my time. And uh I just played Letters to Sandra. I don't know that game at all. Never heard of it.
Okay, probably I need to make like an actual video about this. Uh, for those of you who are listening, I'm showing it on screen, but basically it's a game where you are somebody that this girl who's kind of the breakout star of your town knows and she's gone off to college and you're communicating with her about what's going on back home and maybe trying not to stress her out and tell her too much. Um, and she also tells you things and you can decide if you're going to read other people's letters to try to get more information about what limited information you have.
Um, agree. Yeah, it's like uh this is by See, this is one of the things I get weirded out about with RPGs. It's hard to tell because it just says part of the 2023 Wonder Cabinet Invitational, a collection of unique tabletop games made by a curated group of designers.
Okay.
Okay.
You should put your name on your game, whoever you are.
Yeah. Put your name.
Gem Room Games. Gem Room Games is Kaylee Li and Dan Fipps. Okay.
Okay. Uh name on the cover, guys.
This I agree. So, two thing things I would change about a lot of RPGs. Name on the cover, please. I care who you are. This one did it for me because it said solo letterw writing game, but sometimes I'll see an RPG I think looks sick and I'll pick it up. It'll be like three to six players. I'm like, put it down.
That's too bad. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you.
So, got to warn me, guys. Um, but those have been really fun and of course I need to play Desperation. Uh, so I'm very excited about it.
I cannot I cannot express how much you're going to like Desperation. It's I'm confident that you'll you'll it's it does an interesting thing that uh is I don't know. I think you'll you'll really like it and you can play it solo. You absolutely can.
I know. That's why I bought it. Um, and uh, if people want to follow your work, where do you like to be found online?
So, uh, bullypubgames.com is my company and there are links there to to get in touch. Uh, and I, yeah, I'm I'm not super active. We have a Discord as well, Bulletpames Discord. You can come say hi there. Uh, and a Patreon.
Fantastic. Those are the those are the places. Yeah. Not I don't have a really wide social media presence. That's honestly probably a lot healthier. Uh I am terminally online and can be found anywhere. It's beyond solitire. Those of you who are out there, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been such a delight talk to you.
Yeah, I always love talking to you, Liz. Anytime.
All right. Uh those of you out there, first of all, look out for the blue way coming out again from um CLGS CMU Center for Learning for through Games and Simulations. And uh don't forget to you know like, comment, subscribe, ask questions, and most of all, happy gaming.