I lost a game of Kingmaker when plague struck Calais and I've been thinking about it ever since. Exploring thematic vs. abstract and random vs. low-luck games and the idea of zero-luck TTRPGs.
Fascinating and great article :D generally, i think i agree, that thematic with some nice randomness is really great :) that said, i still voted for Thematic x Low-luck, and that is because one of the most memorable games i've played is a zero-luck TTRPG: Wanderhome by jay dragon. It is built on the "Belonging Outside Belonging" system, which started with Dream Apart/Dream Askew (by Benjamin Rosenbaum/Avery Alder), which in turn started as "Powered by the Apocalypse" (PbtA) games, but removed dice rolls (and all randomness). You still have playbooks, but instead of moves/stats and such per se, you have a bunch of extremely evocative "picklists" which give a lot of flavour – and, they generally use some kind of "token" system. Essentially, you can gain tokens by doing something that is broadly defined "disadvantageous"/complicates things for you, and spend them to do "beneficial"/solving things. There are also often some kind of playbooks for the setting as well, and anyone can pick those up – the games are often described as either GM-less or GM-full, as everyone kinda shares the responsibility of a classical GM role, being able to judge exact outcomes and such ^^ also, playbooks generally have a list of things they can "always do", that don't feed into the token economy, but provide great suggestions for roleplaying!
Wanderhome is the only Belonging Outside Belonging game i have played, though i've also read Extra Ordinary by Kodi Gonzaga; and not that much either, but, the memories i have from those few sessions, or even just character creation, are so vivid and amazing. i can highly recommend giving them a chance (haha), and i myself would love to play more games using the framework (as well as more of the one i have) :)
Oh, wonderful :D i highly recommend reading the Annotated version (if you have it, which you should, at least if bought digitally), it has a lot of lovely background information, design thoughts, little secrets and more :) i personally really loved simply reading the text of the game, so beautifully written!
What really is a zero-luck game? First-player victory proved and I go first? Is that still a game or just solving the Rubik’s cube?
What if my opponent — rather than dice — is a source of randomness? Do we ever know that not to be the case?
If there were an abstract game version of plague in Calais — on some squares, under some conditions, my stone might change colour — would that detract from the experience of playing the game, or would it just make it harder or less compelling to tell stories about ‘that time when …’ later?
Fascinating and great article :D generally, i think i agree, that thematic with some nice randomness is really great :) that said, i still voted for Thematic x Low-luck, and that is because one of the most memorable games i've played is a zero-luck TTRPG: Wanderhome by jay dragon. It is built on the "Belonging Outside Belonging" system, which started with Dream Apart/Dream Askew (by Benjamin Rosenbaum/Avery Alder), which in turn started as "Powered by the Apocalypse" (PbtA) games, but removed dice rolls (and all randomness). You still have playbooks, but instead of moves/stats and such per se, you have a bunch of extremely evocative "picklists" which give a lot of flavour – and, they generally use some kind of "token" system. Essentially, you can gain tokens by doing something that is broadly defined "disadvantageous"/complicates things for you, and spend them to do "beneficial"/solving things. There are also often some kind of playbooks for the setting as well, and anyone can pick those up – the games are often described as either GM-less or GM-full, as everyone kinda shares the responsibility of a classical GM role, being able to judge exact outcomes and such ^^ also, playbooks generally have a list of things they can "always do", that don't feed into the token economy, but provide great suggestions for roleplaying!
Wanderhome is the only Belonging Outside Belonging game i have played, though i've also read Extra Ordinary by Kodi Gonzaga; and not that much either, but, the memories i have from those few sessions, or even just character creation, are so vivid and amazing. i can highly recommend giving them a chance (haha), and i myself would love to play more games using the framework (as well as more of the one i have) :)
Thanks for this comment!
I actually picked up a copy of Wanderhome not too long ago but have yet to really read and understand it. I’ll check it out!
Oh, wonderful :D i highly recommend reading the Annotated version (if you have it, which you should, at least if bought digitally), it has a lot of lovely background information, design thoughts, little secrets and more :) i personally really loved simply reading the text of the game, so beautifully written!
What really is a zero-luck game? First-player victory proved and I go first? Is that still a game or just solving the Rubik’s cube?
What if my opponent — rather than dice — is a source of randomness? Do we ever know that not to be the case?
If there were an abstract game version of plague in Calais — on some squares, under some conditions, my stone might change colour — would that detract from the experience of playing the game, or would it just make it harder or less compelling to tell stories about ‘that time when …’ later?