🌀 Post the pitch for a game you’re working on
I have to cheat a little for this one because my games are currently either done or such vague ideas that I can't even pitch them properly.
But let's talk about Bunny, We Bought a Dungeon, which Jasmin Neitzel and me actually wrote first before we hacked it into Dolly, We Bought a Dream House.
Here's the pitch: You're a group of anthropomorphic bunnies who have bought a dungeon to move in there together. As you narrate the exploration and renovation of the dungeon, you draw a map of it together.
Mechanically, we're calling it a GM-less OSR story game. We're using OSR elements like dice drops, random roll tables, and of course a classic fantasy dungeon setting and combine them with GM-less story mechanics, action rolls inspired by Lasers & Feelings (but not exactly like L&F), and the idea that dungeons can also be homes.
We've already published it in German earlier this year and I've recently translated it into English and will release it tomorrow at the latest.
🌤️ Share your favorite mechanic from a game you’re working on
Same disclaimer as above. So let's talk about something I've already published! I'm still proud of my supplement Alternative Crowns of the Queen for Brindlewood Bay.
As in the original game, it's a set of narrative prompts that allow more insight into the characters' backstory and current life outside of investigating murders and supernatural conspiracies (you use them to bump up a roll one level). And as in the original game, they're meant to show the Murder Mavens "as a woman."
However, my Crowns of the Queen cover a lot more ground than the ones in the original because a senior woman's life of course contains many other relevant aspects than being a daughter, mother, or wife/romantic partner (which is what the original game focuses on). Therefore, my Crowns offer you prompts about bodies, aging, and health, female solidarity and friendship, professional successes and failures, and of course an option to tell a coming-out story.
(In case anyone reading along is wondering: Yes, I absolutely think asking questions/giving narrative prompts is a proper game mechanic just as much as rolling dice or drawing cards or ticking boxes on a sheet is.)
🌈 Share your favourite class/playbook from one of your games (name the game, or let me choose)
So far, I only have one game that has something resembling playbooks, so we're talking about my Firebrands game Miss Bernburg's Finishing School for Young Ladies here. It's set in an all-girl upper-class boarding school in the 1950s (located in Western Europe or North America).
It has three cliques to choose from, which function as character archetypes more than social circles: Homemakers, Bookworms, and Rebels (the latter may be renamed in the translation of the second edition I'm planning for sometime in the future). You get a short flavor text, a list of attractive characteristics to choose three from, and some name suggestions. There are further character questions to answer, such as items they've put on display or keep hidden in their dorm rooms (those are partly different in the first and second edition of the game).
I always enjoy playing a Homemaker (or seeing them played) because there's so much variety you can bring to this type of Young Lady. You can play her as a naive, down-to-earth person who just enjoys traditionally female activities and responsibilities. Or you can play her as a charmingly manipulative person who sees this role as the best opportunity to at least have some social and political influence in her life. Or you can play her as someone who aims to use a facade of respectability to create space for a relatively unbothered queer life on the side. Or maybe she's just waiting for someone to nudge her out of her conformist comfort zone and discover a curious or rebellious streak?
As always, we play to find out, and the Homemakers nearly always have some of the most interesting story arcs I've played and witnessed in this game. (Ask me again and I will tell you the same thing about the other two cliques, though!)
(Cover illustration by Christiane Ebrecht)
