Review: ‘Threadbare’

Across August 2020, I am trying to work my way through some of the huge stack of zines and short RPGs I’ve acquired over the years, loosely sticking to the themes of RPGaDay to decide which ones to focus on every day.

For the theme of ‘Thread’, I’m going to talk about Threadbare, a Stitchpunk RPG by Stephanie Bryant. Please note that this is a read review: I have not played or run this game.

Threadbare is a table top RPG where you play a living toy in a world where humans do not exist. Toys have their own society and challenges, with different classifications of toy based on their material. Based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system, Threadbare aims to tell stories of friendship and adventure in an eerie but brightly-coloured post-apocalyptic world.

Review: ‘Magical Fury’

Across August 2020, I am trying to work my way through some of the huge stack of zines and short RPGs I’ve acquired over the years, loosely sticking to the themes of RPGaDay to decide which ones to focus on every day.

For the theme of ‘Change’, I’m going to talk about Magical Fury: A Magical Girl RPG by Ewen Cluney, along with its associated supplements and expansions. (Yes, this is technically yesterday’s, but I’m a Chaotic alignment so expecting consistency from me is a fool’s game.)

Magical Fury is an RPG set in a world where girls who are powerful forces for good are reborn countless times. The player characters are girls on the cusp of discovering their own magical natures and their manifold histories as a threat rises in their town or city that they must fight – or risk losing everything they love.

Review: ‘Session Zero’

Across August 2020, I am trying to work my way through some of the huge stack of zines and short RPGs I’ve acquired over the years, loosely sticking to the themes of RPGaDay to decide which ones to focus on every day.

For the theme of ‘Beginning’, I’m going to talk about a set of system-agnostic tools for character and world creation called Session Zero. Well, it’s more like character and world fleshing out than complete creation, but Session Zero aims to ask questions that give characters and settings life beyond their stats.

Review: ‘Hunger’ & ‘Thirst’

CW: Power dynamics in relationships

Hunger and Thirst (both by Christina Stone-Bush a.k.a. HyveMynd) are solo journalling RPGs, where the rules fit on the back of a business card. Hunger is about playing a vampire feeding on their human lover and Thirst is about playing a human being fed on by a vampire lover. Their mechanics are extremely simple, essentially gambling against yourself, but also reflect the narrative tension of the vampire feeding scene. The games encourage the player to build the details of the story themselves with questions and prompts, reflecting at length on the experience of being, or being fed upon, by a vampire.

These are both very short RPGs with relatively simple rules, so I’ve had to describe the rules a fair amount as part of my analysis. I’ve deliberately tried to keep to a bare bones description to ensure I’m not reproducing too much. If these games sound interesting, go buy them and support a cool indie creator!

Review: ‘Strings’

CW: Discussion of death, brief references to suicide and abuse.

I’ve recently been going through my Kickstarter backlog to make sure I’ve downloaded all my rewards, etc. and I’ve come to the realisation that I have *checks* roughly seventy thousand zines, independent games and weird little RPG hacks. So many zines. I may have a problem.

Strings is an RPG supplement by Barack Blackburn and Ellie Hills with Egg Embry and Jack Berkenstock Jr., from zine-focused RPG publisher Density Media. Strings is summarised as ‘A TTRPG supplement and zine about death, life, and the fallacy of memory’ and hoo boy does it deliver on that. This brief but beautifully-formed pamphlet is filled with quotes about death and by those on the brink of death as well as some lightweight rules designed to give gamers a tool to explore character death in RPGs.

Review: ‘Variations On Your Body’

I’ve been tussling with a review of Monsterhearts 2 that has been sitting in my drafts folder for months. It’s not because I don’t like the game – I love it, I’ve loved playing it in a campaign and analysing my reactions to it. I’ve enjoyed the resistance to change that has broken in play to reveal secret genius and the resistance that’s grown more stubborn and pushed me to hack moves for myself. But I have too many thoughts and too many feelings about it, far more than would be interesting or engaging to read unless you want a paragraph on every core mechanic and move in the game. (Looks at the length of this post. Gives a hollow laugh.)

So, while I wrestle with my love of one Avery Alder game, I’m going to write a review of another. Or rather, it’s a review of four games: the newly-collected Variations On Your Body: Four Pervasive Games. I guess this is less of a review and more a self-reflective piece on my reaction to it. That seems appropriate for such an intensely personal, intimate work.

Review: ‘Shadow of the Century’

Disclaimer: This post is based on an advance review copy of ‘Shadow of the Century’ I received from Evil Hat. I receive no money from Evil Hat and they have not influenced the content of this review.

Shadow of the Century is Evil Hat’s much-anticipated new Fate setting, originally seeded as a stretch goal during the massive Fate Core Kickstarter in 2012 and now hitting both virtual and physical shelves. Shadow of the Century is a neon-soaked leg-warmer-wearing extrapolation of Evil Hat’s classic Spirit of the Century setting that recasts the pulp adventure of the original as an 80’s action film in a dark future where the Centurions have been forced underground and shadowy conspiracies rule the world.

Review: ‘Improv for Gamers’

Disclaimer: I applied to Evil Hat to receive copies of some products for review and they sent me ‘Improv for Gamers’. I receive no money from Evil Hat and they have not influenced the content of this review beyond providing some links to their resources (included at the end).

Improv and gaming have a lot of crossover, and using the shorthand of improv is one of the easiest ways to explain gaming, especially live gaming, to the uninitiated. However, improv, like gaming, has its own vocabulary and etiquette, which can be intimidating for those of us who are more comfortable throwing dice on a table than hurling imaginary objects around a circle of friends. At the same time, Improv for Gamers proves that gamers can learn a lot from a form that has always prided itself on innovation and exploration. These techniques can be a valuable way of breaking down anxiety barriers, but you might have to cross those barriers yourself first.

Review: Lasers and Feelings

Wow, it’s been a very long time since I did a review. Admittedly, I’ve been immersed in running and playing games I’d already reviewed. However, my D&D 4e/Secrets of Cats group has had a few gaps recently where one player hasn’t been able to make it. I usually default to not running when a member of the group can’t attend (it’s just how I’ve always done things – I don’t want any member of the group to feel like they’re missing out) but this time, after checking that the group is OK with it, I’ve been experimenting with one-shots of different games.

On the Radar: ‘Spire’

Bias disclaimer: The people who write and produce Spire are personal friends and therefore there is likely to be bias in this post. I also took a look over Blood and Dust before the Kickstarter to suggest minor edits for accessibility to new GMs. However, the creators of Spire have not asked me to promote it and I do not benefit monetarily from writing this.

From the team (Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor) that brought you Goblin Quest, Unbound and the Hearty Dice Friends podcast comes Spire, a game of oppression, survival and resistance. Turning the standard narrative of ‘evil Drow, except that one guy’ on its head, the drow of this setting have been enslaved by the aelfir, or high elves, and forced to live deep in the lowest reaches of a towering city called Spire, far from the sun that burns their skin. Your characters are part of the Ministry, a religious sect that also forms one of the resistance movements of the city. This post primarily concerns the backer-only quickstart rules and starter adventure, Blood and Dust, as Spire itself is still in the writing stages.