Max:
One question I've been meaning to ask you for a while: You originally wrote the Meandering Banter (MB) blog, which, at least to my mind, was quite popular and successful in what it set out to do. Then, from my memory, you were silent for a while, until you came back with the Slight Adjustments (SA) blog. It does appear to me that there is a philosophical distinction between the content of the two blogs, but it is difficult for me to identify what exactly that difference is. Can you elaborate on why you decided to make a new blog? Is there in fact a philosophical difference between the two blogs, and if so, how do you see those differences? Do you see yourself ever going back to MB?
Spwack:
Meandering Banter was my first blog, which I also started out just as I was beginning to create GLOG classes. Looking back, the posts on MB aren't particularly "refined". I found myself posting for the sake of posting quite a bit, and while it was a standard blog, it wasn't something that I could use as easily.
Enter Slight Adjustments, which has had far fewer posts in the same amount of time. My goal for SA is to strictly only include table-useful materials in each and every post. GLOG classes are fun and easy to write, and mini-essays are enjoyable in their own way, but they aren't as "table-useful" as an entire hack in one place. While I might go back and write more as stand-alone pages (rather than blog posts), I'm endeavoring to keep SA as lean and mean as possible. Plus, I just prefer the new name. I think MB is a complete work at this point. It'll stay as its own structure from here, but I might be plucking a few choice morsels across to SA.
Max:
It's interesting, because that does make sense, but I can't think of anyone else who has done that before. Maybe it's gauche to ask, but were you at all worried that moving to a new blog could affect readership?
Spwack:
The only reader that I am interested in is me, and I'm reading my own blog a lot more now, so no!
The only reader that I am interested in is me, and I'm reading my own blog a lot more now, so no!
Max:
Lol fair enough. I've noticed on SA, perhaps more so than MB, that many of the games are not strictly speaking OSR e.g. GLOG, retroclone, or in that vein. Can you talk about the thought process on some of your new systems? You know, for instance, how intrigued I am by Batteries Not Included.
Lol fair enough. I've noticed on SA, perhaps more so than MB, that many of the games are not strictly speaking OSR e.g. GLOG, retroclone, or in that vein. Can you talk about the thought process on some of your new systems? You know, for instance, how intrigued I am by Batteries Not Included.
Spwack:
Well, firstly I'm of a mind that any game that has even the slightest influence from GLOG is magically transmuted into a GLOGalike, hence both versions of Finders Keepers fall into that category. Finders Keepers can definitely trace its lineage through Owlbear Stew and Die Trying. GLOG and GLOGalikes are wonderful things, and a truly excellent way for any RPG designer to start. GLOG v -1.0 is a little like something called an "orchestra minus one" which is a recording of an orchestra playing every part except the lead. Turning GLOG v -1.0 into your own GLOGhack means standing atop an almost, but not quite finished product, and tweaking it to make it your own. Once you've finished a project, any project, the next one is so much easier and more achievable. It exemplifies what I think is best about the OSR scene/genre/whatever, the DIY aspect, rather than the retroclone aspect.
Well, firstly I'm of a mind that any game that has even the slightest influence from GLOG is magically transmuted into a GLOGalike, hence both versions of Finders Keepers fall into that category. Finders Keepers can definitely trace its lineage through Owlbear Stew and Die Trying. GLOG and GLOGalikes are wonderful things, and a truly excellent way for any RPG designer to start. GLOG v -1.0 is a little like something called an "orchestra minus one" which is a recording of an orchestra playing every part except the lead. Turning GLOG v -1.0 into your own GLOGhack means standing atop an almost, but not quite finished product, and tweaking it to make it your own. Once you've finished a project, any project, the next one is so much easier and more achievable. It exemplifies what I think is best about the OSR scene/genre/whatever, the DIY aspect, rather than the retroclone aspect.
That "next one" for me was Die Trying, and I feel like the links are pretty clear. DT is OS chopped into pieces and sprinkled across a more involved character creation process, with the usual leveling process stripped out. The "X" system has been talked about quite a lot by yourself and others, and I'm pretty proud of it. However, I think Finders Keepers will be the system I use by default for... well, the foreseeable future! It can absorb an unlimited amount of tinkering and content that I scrounge from the blogs, it comes with generators built-in, and is completely class and level free. The amount of games I run that only last a single session is a little depressing, but why try and hide away all the goodness in a theoretical future time? FK and FK in Space covereth a multitude of sins.
Batteries Not Included has been my biggest divergence so far, and requires the most "hardware" (ha ha). There are some obvious links to MTG but an especial focus on tactile character creation. One original source was a hardcopy rendition of Die Trying, with each “package” of traits and items coming on a card. This eventually transmuted into BNI, and I think the modularity of the cards and the tenuous construction of scrappy improvised robots come across quite well. My girlfriend recently arranged a prototype printing of my initial truly haphazard cards, and I’m hoping to do a redraw and re-run of the cards after some more playtesting.
Once More* (the name of which took the most effort and I'm still not happy with) is a move in a different direction. I sometimes talk about there being several different games that we play: the "Make a Character" game, the "Explore the Dungeon" game, and the "Fight the Thing" game. The 3.X era leaned incredibly hard on the "Make a Character" game, and hell, even I got in on it a bit. Theorycrafting and builds can be fun, as horrifying as it is to think or say that. The only issue is when half the table is here to play "Fight the Thing" and the other half just want to show off their shiny new creation. OSR games are usually built around the "Explore the Dungeon" and the world in general side of things, and I'd say FK falls into this category as well. OM, however, is all about Fighting! Flashy moves! Weird combinations of subclasses! There are things that look like builds, but are in fact randomly generated. It's got mana and combo moves and big shiny buttons to press, rather than focusing as much on the world beyond the character sheet. Life is cheap, death is easy, and characters don't come with names (by default, at least).
* (Max) For my thoughts on Once More, check out this OSR Pit discussion
You Don't Make Friends With Magnets (the name of which I'm hugely happy with because my girlfriend came up with it) is an experiment in minimal / non-design. It's nothing but a character generator and a 1d6-only system. Everything else is left as an Exercise For The Reader. Unlike the rest of my creations, it's not exactly feasible to make a character "by-hand", and it relies on using the blogpost as a jumping-off point. The lack of complete rules and only a vague gesture towards a setting makes it... a little... like GLOG in a way.
Max:
I really appreciate these analyses. This is exactly the kind of discussion I want to be having with these interviews, and I have so many thoughts.
One thing I notice across many of these games, perhaps as you say more so with SA, but I believe this to be true also of your games on MB, is that there is a degree of "jigsaw completeness", for lack of a better term. They are decidedly incomplete, giving you just enough information to fill in the rest for yourself. It's a style that lends itself well to DIY design and play, I think.
I forget who said this, I think it may have been on the Bastionland podcast, but they said something to the effect of, paraphrasing, "the best way to learn how to design games is to take a game with missing pieces and figure out how to make it work", and that feels very true of your games, especially something like You Don't Make Friends With Magnets.
I think that generator-based or other programmatically-assisted games fall into this category of "jigsaw completeness". It allows you to take out much of the minutia of character creation, and also bake implicit worldbuilding, game styles, and even game mechanics, into the character creation process itself, and it's something that I would say you and Saker Tarsos excel at more than anyone else in the OSR/DIY scene that I can think of. There are other games that do "jigsaw completeness" as well, I suppose Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, as I alluded to before, being good examples, but I do think that a game designed from the ground-up to be programmatic can really take that general design pattern of "jigsaw completeness" in a novel direction.
You're welcome to come up with a better term than "jigsaw completeness", or reject this framing entirely, but do you have any thoughts on this style of game design, and if/how programmatically-designed games can facilitate it?
Spwack:
I think that jigsaw completeness is an excellent term! It's definitely something that has come from my initial experiences with GLOG, which has colored the rest of my interaction with the OSR/DIY scene. YDMFWM perhaps goes a little too far in this direction, but I still call it a successful proto-game, since it has a lot of the world-building built-in without being laborious to modify. Since, you know, there isn't much there to modify!
It's interesting, my initial goals with generator-assisted games have changed the way I look at RPG design in general. This is because a really well-designed system with a tight layout and good readability is really easy to turn into a generator! So since I've started games with the assumption that I am going to turn them into a generator, I've had to cut down on unnecessary fluff, make things accessible, and that sort of thing, solely for my own benefit. I still think my early goal of "whatever can be done using the generator should be able to be done by hand" is a good one, even though I've let it… slip a little.
While it’s less relevant in today's semi-apocalyptic society my early in-person games really cemented my attitude towards phones at the table. They are almost a huge drain on attention span and focus whenever they come out. This might seem odd since I use so much online content, however, this was a concerted choice: since I've lost so much efficiency to the screens, I figure I'll try and reclaim it by speeding up character creation. Plus, if a player is using their phone for their character, they can't use it for anything else!
Max:
That idea, of thinking in terms of generators as a way to build a tight game, is not unlike the principles of modularity and unit testing in software engineering, I really like that way of thinking about it. I don't necessarily agree that all games need to be generator-izable, but I think it's an interesting heuristic for good design.
And I actually strongly disagree with the idea of "whatever can be done using the generator should be able to be done by hand"! I am very intrigued by the idea of what kinds of TTRPGs can be made when we remove those kinds of limits. Again, I do think Saker Tarsos is a good example of that sort of thing, but I would have described some of your work in that way as well if not for you just now arguing the opposite. I can certainly see the logic behind that approach as well- I think it just comes down to intentionality and understanding the implications of what it would mean to design a generator-based game that is not contingent on being something which could feasibly be done by hand.
I also agree about the phones thing. It can be a big distraction, but also, if you leverage it for the game, at least it's productive. And especially right now when hopefully everyone is playing digitally anyway, barring unique circumstances, you need to be able to make these kinds of concessions.
Up to now, most of my questions have been more on the game design and technical side of things, but what about creative influences? Are there any particular genres or works that most resonate with you? Any particular ways you think about genre or worldbuilding which you would like to discuss?
Spwack:
Well I'll swing a question at you first, how come you disagree with that statement, that by-handed-ness should be sacrificed at the altar of the generator? To be fair, I'm intrigued by that idea as well. And for sure, a lot of my work is heading on a screaming trajectory towards intractable complexity, but I'm still trying to make it possible, see? Otherwise, I'll get pulled all the way into overwhelming simulationism for the sake of it.
And yes, the point about phones makes a lot more sense pre-COVID. If everyone is at the table, and half are on phones, it's not great, but I gotta say that online play has been a godsend in these troubled times!
I'd say that my first major inspiration was Arnold K of Goblin Punch for introducing me to GLOG and the OSR in general. For the life of me, I can't remember how I ran into the blog, but it was an experience. Going from a vague and unexplainable dissatisfaction with 5E, to suddenly understanding that I could make something? That was good. My players definitely suffered through a lot of early GLOGerry but it ended up well! (I think!)
My second would be Patrick Stuart of False Machine. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be insulted if I described him as the Insane Byronic Author of the OSR sphere. Just the sheer outpouring of content that was unlike anything else. I would say that Veins of the Earth was the first big product that really caught my eye.
Thirdly would be Skerples, for teaching all of us about history, inbred monarchs, death-taxes and what finishing things actually looks like. I'd say there's a scale that goes from "useful" on one end of the scale, to "art" on the other, and Skerples is definitely on the opposite side to Patrick Stuart! I've got and love Magical Industrial Revolution, but I'd say that my single most explicitly referenced "product" from Skerples would be the Drow Conspiracy, because hooo boy that really got my players absolutely freaked.
And of course my girlfriend for helping me start drawing again, because god knows I haven't been brave enough to do that for a very long time.
I'm also going to say a random selection of things, in no particular order, from no particular time of my life: Incunabuli. Kill Six Billion Demons. North of Reality. Trilemma. Last Gasp Grimoire. Ultraviolet Grasslands. Joesky the Dungeon Brawler. QNTM. Unsong. This: http://blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/index.php. Dwarf Fortress. Fallen London. Kingdom of Loathing. Don't Starve. Hollow Knight. Uprooted and Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Name of the Wind by Patrick "Where Is My Third Book" Rothfuss. Toby Alone by Timothée de Fombelle.
Max:
Well, "by-handed-ness should be sacrificed at the altar of the generator" may be a bit of a loaded way of asking lol. I can see the argument for intentionally placing this limitation, either because you want the thing to be usable under any context, or because it could be a useful creative constraint. However, I think removing this constraint could also open up possibilities that are simply not possible to do by hand, but that could still be a lot of fun.
I also don't agree that the inevitable outcome of an unconstrained generation-based game need be simulationism. You could imagine a character generator / jigsaw complete game like YDMFWM, that has so many character options, with so many complex dependencies (if you roll 1 on table a, go to table b, if 2, go to table c, etc.; if you roll 1 on table b, go to table aa, if you roll 2 on table b, go to table ab, etc.), that it is either too complex and not fun to do by hand, or even if it is still fun, is very time consuming and a process unto itself. Whereas an autogenerated version is trivial, and may even be fun to just keep mashing the button and see what pops out. All for a game that is still at its core rather simple. Although I could also imagine a game where the core mechanics themselves are computationally-assisted, and still not necessarily just simulationist.
Even though I never quite got into GLOG, I do get what you mean, that was my thought when I started getting into the OSR as well. Actually, I got that feeling at first with Numenera, but OSR was where I first not just had the idea for myself, but saw a whole community built around the idea of weirdness and openness to creation.
I'm obviously a big fan of both Patrick and Skerples as well. Patrick's works are some of the most imaginative and well written, I would argue not just in TTRPG, but in fantasy more generally. Many of his works really defy genre as I typically think of it, in a way I deeply respect. And while Skerples works are somewhat more within the realm of preconceived genres, they are also brilliant and intricate. I really loved the whole concept of pre-apocalypse, and Innovations, in Magical Industrial Revolution.
Pivoting a bit, but are there any games, settings, bloggers, game mechanics, etc.; literally anything TTRPG-related, that you think is under-rated?
Spwack:
I guess I'll just do one of each of those?
Game: The Wizard's Grimoire by Lumpley / Vincent
Setting: Mythos
Blogger: You!!! (this answer should either be interpreted as you, the reader whether you are currently blogging or not, OR as you, Maxcan7, depending on how you are feeling)
Game mechanic: Anything that involves one of the players ascending and taking over as DM, whether it's temporary or not. Also, anything that involves players swapping character sheets, or otherwise having to do something that concretely changes what they are doing at the table.
Max:
lol thanks. I haven't heard of Wizard's Grimoire nor Mythos so those are good picks, I'll have to check those out! I've also played around with that idea of players swapping character sheets and meta-mechanics like that, but haven't done the GM swap.
I've really enjoyed this conversation. I really like getting into the weeds on game design, worldbuilding, and speculation with interesting, intelligent people who are doing interesting things and have also spent a lot of time thinking critically about these topics, so these interviews have been a lot of fun and I hope everyone is enjoying them as much as I am. Any final comments you want to make before we wrap this up?
Spwack:
I really feel like the DIY aspect of the OSR scene has blossomed recently, and I wholeheartedly support it. In a time of certain monolithic companies dominating the RPG scene and the hassles and scandals that come with that, it's refreshing to see new talent and new creations push their way a little bit into the mainstream. I just have to find the time to play them all!
Max:
I really appreciate these analyses. This is exactly the kind of discussion I want to be having with these interviews, and I have so many thoughts.
One thing I notice across many of these games, perhaps as you say more so with SA, but I believe this to be true also of your games on MB, is that there is a degree of "jigsaw completeness", for lack of a better term. They are decidedly incomplete, giving you just enough information to fill in the rest for yourself. It's a style that lends itself well to DIY design and play, I think.
I forget who said this, I think it may have been on the Bastionland podcast, but they said something to the effect of, paraphrasing, "the best way to learn how to design games is to take a game with missing pieces and figure out how to make it work", and that feels very true of your games, especially something like You Don't Make Friends With Magnets.
I think that generator-based or other programmatically-assisted games fall into this category of "jigsaw completeness". It allows you to take out much of the minutia of character creation, and also bake implicit worldbuilding, game styles, and even game mechanics, into the character creation process itself, and it's something that I would say you and Saker Tarsos excel at more than anyone else in the OSR/DIY scene that I can think of. There are other games that do "jigsaw completeness" as well, I suppose Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, as I alluded to before, being good examples, but I do think that a game designed from the ground-up to be programmatic can really take that general design pattern of "jigsaw completeness" in a novel direction.
You're welcome to come up with a better term than "jigsaw completeness", or reject this framing entirely, but do you have any thoughts on this style of game design, and if/how programmatically-designed games can facilitate it?
Spwack:
I think that jigsaw completeness is an excellent term! It's definitely something that has come from my initial experiences with GLOG, which has colored the rest of my interaction with the OSR/DIY scene. YDMFWM perhaps goes a little too far in this direction, but I still call it a successful proto-game, since it has a lot of the world-building built-in without being laborious to modify. Since, you know, there isn't much there to modify!
It's interesting, my initial goals with generator-assisted games have changed the way I look at RPG design in general. This is because a really well-designed system with a tight layout and good readability is really easy to turn into a generator! So since I've started games with the assumption that I am going to turn them into a generator, I've had to cut down on unnecessary fluff, make things accessible, and that sort of thing, solely for my own benefit. I still think my early goal of "whatever can be done using the generator should be able to be done by hand" is a good one, even though I've let it… slip a little.
While it’s less relevant in today's semi-apocalyptic society my early in-person games really cemented my attitude towards phones at the table. They are almost a huge drain on attention span and focus whenever they come out. This might seem odd since I use so much online content, however, this was a concerted choice: since I've lost so much efficiency to the screens, I figure I'll try and reclaim it by speeding up character creation. Plus, if a player is using their phone for their character, they can't use it for anything else!
Max:
That idea, of thinking in terms of generators as a way to build a tight game, is not unlike the principles of modularity and unit testing in software engineering, I really like that way of thinking about it. I don't necessarily agree that all games need to be generator-izable, but I think it's an interesting heuristic for good design.
And I actually strongly disagree with the idea of "whatever can be done using the generator should be able to be done by hand"! I am very intrigued by the idea of what kinds of TTRPGs can be made when we remove those kinds of limits. Again, I do think Saker Tarsos is a good example of that sort of thing, but I would have described some of your work in that way as well if not for you just now arguing the opposite. I can certainly see the logic behind that approach as well- I think it just comes down to intentionality and understanding the implications of what it would mean to design a generator-based game that is not contingent on being something which could feasibly be done by hand.
I also agree about the phones thing. It can be a big distraction, but also, if you leverage it for the game, at least it's productive. And especially right now when hopefully everyone is playing digitally anyway, barring unique circumstances, you need to be able to make these kinds of concessions.
Up to now, most of my questions have been more on the game design and technical side of things, but what about creative influences? Are there any particular genres or works that most resonate with you? Any particular ways you think about genre or worldbuilding which you would like to discuss?
Spwack:
Well I'll swing a question at you first, how come you disagree with that statement, that by-handed-ness should be sacrificed at the altar of the generator? To be fair, I'm intrigued by that idea as well. And for sure, a lot of my work is heading on a screaming trajectory towards intractable complexity, but I'm still trying to make it possible, see? Otherwise, I'll get pulled all the way into overwhelming simulationism for the sake of it.
And yes, the point about phones makes a lot more sense pre-COVID. If everyone is at the table, and half are on phones, it's not great, but I gotta say that online play has been a godsend in these troubled times!
I'd say that my first major inspiration was Arnold K of Goblin Punch for introducing me to GLOG and the OSR in general. For the life of me, I can't remember how I ran into the blog, but it was an experience. Going from a vague and unexplainable dissatisfaction with 5E, to suddenly understanding that I could make something? That was good. My players definitely suffered through a lot of early GLOGerry but it ended up well! (I think!)
My second would be Patrick Stuart of False Machine. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be insulted if I described him as the Insane Byronic Author of the OSR sphere. Just the sheer outpouring of content that was unlike anything else. I would say that Veins of the Earth was the first big product that really caught my eye.
Thirdly would be Skerples, for teaching all of us about history, inbred monarchs, death-taxes and what finishing things actually looks like. I'd say there's a scale that goes from "useful" on one end of the scale, to "art" on the other, and Skerples is definitely on the opposite side to Patrick Stuart! I've got and love Magical Industrial Revolution, but I'd say that my single most explicitly referenced "product" from Skerples would be the Drow Conspiracy, because hooo boy that really got my players absolutely freaked.
And of course my girlfriend for helping me start drawing again, because god knows I haven't been brave enough to do that for a very long time.
I'm also going to say a random selection of things, in no particular order, from no particular time of my life: Incunabuli. Kill Six Billion Demons. North of Reality. Trilemma. Last Gasp Grimoire. Ultraviolet Grasslands. Joesky the Dungeon Brawler. QNTM. Unsong. This: http://blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/index.php. Dwarf Fortress. Fallen London. Kingdom of Loathing. Don't Starve. Hollow Knight. Uprooted and Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Name of the Wind by Patrick "Where Is My Third Book" Rothfuss. Toby Alone by Timothée de Fombelle.
Max:
Well, "by-handed-ness should be sacrificed at the altar of the generator" may be a bit of a loaded way of asking lol. I can see the argument for intentionally placing this limitation, either because you want the thing to be usable under any context, or because it could be a useful creative constraint. However, I think removing this constraint could also open up possibilities that are simply not possible to do by hand, but that could still be a lot of fun.
I also don't agree that the inevitable outcome of an unconstrained generation-based game need be simulationism. You could imagine a character generator / jigsaw complete game like YDMFWM, that has so many character options, with so many complex dependencies (if you roll 1 on table a, go to table b, if 2, go to table c, etc.; if you roll 1 on table b, go to table aa, if you roll 2 on table b, go to table ab, etc.), that it is either too complex and not fun to do by hand, or even if it is still fun, is very time consuming and a process unto itself. Whereas an autogenerated version is trivial, and may even be fun to just keep mashing the button and see what pops out. All for a game that is still at its core rather simple. Although I could also imagine a game where the core mechanics themselves are computationally-assisted, and still not necessarily just simulationist.
Even though I never quite got into GLOG, I do get what you mean, that was my thought when I started getting into the OSR as well. Actually, I got that feeling at first with Numenera, but OSR was where I first not just had the idea for myself, but saw a whole community built around the idea of weirdness and openness to creation.
I'm obviously a big fan of both Patrick and Skerples as well. Patrick's works are some of the most imaginative and well written, I would argue not just in TTRPG, but in fantasy more generally. Many of his works really defy genre as I typically think of it, in a way I deeply respect. And while Skerples works are somewhat more within the realm of preconceived genres, they are also brilliant and intricate. I really loved the whole concept of pre-apocalypse, and Innovations, in Magical Industrial Revolution.
Pivoting a bit, but are there any games, settings, bloggers, game mechanics, etc.; literally anything TTRPG-related, that you think is under-rated?
Spwack:
I guess I'll just do one of each of those?
Game: The Wizard's Grimoire by Lumpley / Vincent
Setting: Mythos
Blogger: You!!! (this answer should either be interpreted as you, the reader whether you are currently blogging or not, OR as you, Maxcan7, depending on how you are feeling)
Game mechanic: Anything that involves one of the players ascending and taking over as DM, whether it's temporary or not. Also, anything that involves players swapping character sheets, or otherwise having to do something that concretely changes what they are doing at the table.
Max:
lol thanks. I haven't heard of Wizard's Grimoire nor Mythos so those are good picks, I'll have to check those out! I've also played around with that idea of players swapping character sheets and meta-mechanics like that, but haven't done the GM swap.
I've really enjoyed this conversation. I really like getting into the weeds on game design, worldbuilding, and speculation with interesting, intelligent people who are doing interesting things and have also spent a lot of time thinking critically about these topics, so these interviews have been a lot of fun and I hope everyone is enjoying them as much as I am. Any final comments you want to make before we wrap this up?
Spwack:
I really feel like the DIY aspect of the OSR scene has blossomed recently, and I wholeheartedly support it. In a time of certain monolithic companies dominating the RPG scene and the hassles and scandals that come with that, it's refreshing to see new talent and new creations push their way a little bit into the mainstream. I just have to find the time to play them all!
