Game design from beyond the grave
WKS24ND263835
Jared Sorensen (Play, Inspectres) and Luke Crane (Burning Wheel) command you to design a roleplaying game in too little time with too many constraints. It's fun, frustrating and maybe educational.
Timing:
Thu 4:00 PM - Thu 5:30 PM
Location:
Crowne Plaza / Conrail
Organizing Group:
GM Names:
Event Type:
Age Required:
Teen (13+)
PLAY ▶️ was featured at GdR in Prima Serata in Genova, Italy — and the reviews were excellent!. They also posted a highly illegal picture of their viewing session (which I will not repost).
I’ll be at Pax Unplugged in Philadelphia, PA Dec 1-3 with limited editions of the Super Format, which contains:
Owner’s manual
Event deck
Viewing record sheet pad
Remote control
Forensic evidence bag
23 minutes of ambient horror by Gasoline Invertebrate and Amalgamated Cadaver.
For use with PLAY ▶️ the game of analog horror.
You are not safe.
John and Mary's Wedding, 1982
Grand Canyon Vacation, 1985
Grandma's 80th Birthday, 1988
First Christmas with Baby Sarah, 1990
Fourth of July Fireworks, 1992
H.S. Drama Club, 1993
Sparky Comes Home, 1994
GenCon has come and gone and we’re sold out of the Super Format of PLAY ▶️
Books and PDFs are still available.
More to come for Pax Unplugged in December! We’ll be selling additional Super Formats with remote controls, cases and a whole new card set.
One more thing: you can get the soundtrack for free or visit Bandcamp and pay just $1 or more to the artists to add it to your collection.
I’ll be in Indy with BWHQ at their booth #2523. I’m selling copies of InSpectres, the Lacuna set and Parsely, as well as a brand-new game called PLAY ▶️ (in a super- and standard-format edition) and showing off a demo copy of the HUMAN trilogy in print…well, just because.
Be sure to check the con schedule as my pal Luke Crane is doing some panels.
Book One in the Human Trilogy
A sci-fi comedy game inspired by Solar Opposites, My Favorite Martian, Third Rock from the Sun, ALF, Mork and Mindy and The Coneheads. Comes with character sheets for 6 alien family members and 2 humans.
Book Two in the Human Trilogy
ALMOST HUMAN is an RPG about evolutionarily uplifted animals living in a near-future dystopia. They work for the corporation that created them, one that will loans them out to corporate and government allies in exchange for money or political favors. Their work is illegal, unethical and violent. They have no names, only numbers. They have no rights. They are property. They are Things.
Book Three in the Human Trilogy
NO MORE HUMAN is an experimental game about an experiment in artificial intelligence. This game requires four people to play (or four people plus a facilitator).
Designer’s Note: I play-tested this game in August ‘23 and … it doesn’t really work. I have updated the document to v1.5 which corrects a glaring error that prevents anyone from actually finishing it. Consider is a failed experiment that taught me some important things.
Download: Test Matrices a/b
Burning Wheel #2523
I’ll have Lacuna, InSpectres, Parsely and (✊ 🪵) PLAY ▶️
The Order are spiritual emissaries of the One, an obscure Immortal whose ascension went largely ignored or unnoticed.
The clerics of Order are referred to as Voices. Their mission is to proselytize, convert and indoctrinate. They tend to travel in pairs for safety, companionship and to keep one another accountable and on the straight and narrow path.
When in dangerous territory, their companions are holy warriors called Hands—the Order's shock troops, tasked with dispensing truth and justice at the end of their swords.
Here’s the cleric from Torchbearer 1st edition, converted to 2nd edition and with a whole new angle: they’re not the good guys.
The Order are spiritual emissaries of the One, an obscure Immortal whose ascension went largely ignored or unnoticed.
The clerics of Order are referred to as Voices. Their mission is to proselytize, convert and indoctrinate. They tend to travel in pairs for safety, companionship and to keep one another accountable and on the straight and narrow path.
When in dangerous territory, their companions are holy warriors called Hands—the Order's shock troops, tasked with dispensing truth and justice at the end of their swords.
Here’s the paladin class from Torchbearer 1st edition, converted to 2nd edition and with a whole new angle: they’re not the good guys.
The Order are spiritual emissaries of the One, an obscure Immortal whose ascension went largely ignored or unnoticed. Dressed in black hooded robes and masks, the nameless, faceless Eyes of the One are seldom seen outside the halls of the religious bastions where they live and work — the emotionless, compassionless, merciless servants of a similarly nameless, faceless god.
This the Eye, an NPC for use with alongside the Hand and Voice classes. To make the Eye into a character class, I recommend cribbing from the Magician or Summoner classes’ level benefits and the Eyes’ descriptors, skills, traits and wises.
Sometimes the forces of good…aren’t.
Book Two in the Human Trilogy
ALMOST HUMAN is an RPG about evolutionarily uplifted animals living in a near-future dystopia. They work for the corporation that created them, one that will loans them out to corporate and government allies in exchange for money or political favors. Their work is illegal, unethical and violent. They have no names, only numbers. They have no rights. They are property. They are Things.
Inspired by The Mandalorian, here’s my take on a paladin class for Torchbearer 2nd edition. For a more sinister version, check out His Hand.
I will not be attending the convention in person, but Pandemonium Books and Games will have Parsely at booth TT62 at PAX East 2023 March 23-26 in Boston, MA.
In the early-mid 2000’a I created The Three Questions. They are:
What is your game about?
How does your game go about this?
What behaviors does it reward or encourage?
To this list I’m adding a fourth question:
Can the players master this game — and if so, how?
Note: Purchase includes FreeMarket Instruction Manual and bonus content: the prequel fiction compilation “The CHOIRS Project Blog” and all four “Generations” stories.
A transhumanist science fiction game set aboard a space settlement in the Saturnian system. Several generations are living on FreeMarket Station: the sons, daughters and grandchildren of the Originals; immigrant travelers from elsewhere in our solar system; and designed-to-order humans fabricated in 3d matter printers. It’s a world without death, without poverty, without sickness and without any need for laws.
You could spend your days in blissful torpor browsing a universe of entertainment via your neural interface, oblivious to pain and hardship. But you’re not one of those baseliners, are you? You have hopes, dreams, fears, needs and passions. What will you do with forever?
Start a cult? Create new technologies or living creatures? Express yourself through art or violence? Make friends or Make enemies? Be human or become something else? You have more than a lifetime to discover who you really are.
The FreeMarket Instruction Manual contains the entire FreeMarket system in a landscape-oriented PDF. The original game was an elaborate, limited-edition boxed set.
Please note: you need at least two challenge decks, one technology deck and a bunch of tokens to play. The templates for these materials is not included in this PDF — you must create your own.
Note: Purchase includes FreeMarket Instruction Manual and bonus content: the prequel fiction compilation “The CHOIRS Project Blog” and all four “Generations” stories.
A transhumanist science fiction game set aboard a space settlement in the Saturnian system. Several generations are living on FreeMarket Station: the sons, daughters and grandchildren of the Originals; immigrant travelers from elsewhere in our solar system; and designed-to-order humans fabricated in 3d matter printers. It’s a world without death, without poverty, without sickness and without any need for laws.
You could spend your days in blissful torpor browsing a universe of entertainment via your neural interface, oblivious to pain and hardship. But you’re not one of those baseliners, are you? You have hopes, dreams, fears, needs and passions. What will you do with forever?
Start a cult? Create new technologies or living creatures? Express yourself through art or violence? Make friends or Make enemies? Be human or become something else? You have more than a lifetime to discover who you really are.
The FreeMarket Instruction Manual contains the entire FreeMarket system in a landscape-oriented PDF. The original game was an elaborate, limited-edition boxed set.
Please note: you need at least two challenge decks, one technology deck and a bunch of tokens to play. The templates for these materials is not included in this PDF — you must create your own.
Edward Hall and Jared Sorensen have a chat, October, 3 2022.
https://cardboardconjecture.podbean.com/e/wbpw-88%C2%A0-whatcha-been-playing-wednesday/
Review starts at 25::15 but listen to the whole show!
