Tag Archives: publishing
Creator Spotlight | An Interview with Brenda Cass of Skirmisher Publishing
In a world where gamers are always on the go, TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG) is the perfect game for those who want to enjoy a roleplaying experience without having to lug around a heavy rulebook or dice. Created by Brenda Cass of Skirmisher Publishing, TSRPG is a lightweight game that can be played anywhere, with just a few simple rules.
In this blog post, we interview Brenda Cass to learn more about TSRPG and her inspiration for creating it.
What inspired you to create TSRPG?
The very first draft of TSRPG was written, I think fittingly, on a hotel notepad while I was on vacation with some gamer friends. We ended up with plenty of downtime between activities that we’d normally occupy with gaming but, not having brought any of our usual tabletop stuff (dice, rules, characters, etc), that seemed unavailable to us. At the time I was participating in somewhat regular game-design challenges on d-Infinity.net, so I told my friends I’d design a game that could be played without any of that stuff. It began as a thought experiment and a fun little challenge but ended up working super well in play.
What are the key features of TSRPG that make it a travel-sized RPG?
The game’s original design constraints were that all the rules had to easily fit in your head, there couldn’t be any book keeping, and it couldn’t require any physical randomizers like dice, etc. As a consequence of those constraints TSRPG has simple mechanics that are solely concerned with creating and moving along a shared narrative. Character sheets, such that even they need to exist at all in TSRPG, fit onto a cocktail napkin, hotel notepad, or whatever small piece of paper is at hand. Randomizing outcomes involves guessing numbers, and most importantly the Storyteller has no stat blocks, hit points, ability points, or what have you to keep track of; their only job is facilitating the narrative and helping make sure everyone’s having a good time.
How does TSRPG differ from other tabletop RPGs?
TSRPG differs from other tabletop RPGs in a few ways. It is a high-trust, rules-light system, which makes it feel very different from a lot of the crunchy RPGs out there. It’s diceless, which is definitely a less common feature (don’t worry dice fans, there are optional rules for using them). TSRPG puts a lot of emphasis on crafting a shared narrative with other players in the pursuit of overcoming the story’s challenges as a party, which is a bit different from the mode many folks are used to that involves selecting one of their character’s abilities when their turn comes around in the initiative order.
What are some of the challenges of designing a game that can be played anywhere?
I have to assume that people playing TSRPG are going to be just as resource constrained as I was when I wrote the draft and played it for the first time. For a lot of designers the reflex with RPG design is to have a kind of “more is more” sort of mindset, but for a game like this any mechanic we add potentially puts it over the edge into something that can’t be played on the go. I’ve encouraged folks in the Skirmisher Game Development Group to go play TSRPG with family, friends, or strangers while they’re out traveling. This informed a lot of design decisions that we never had to consider before, PDFs of scenarios are probably being viewed on a cell phone rather than a laptop, new rules need to be highly modular so that they can be selectively added or ignored depending on how many rules folks are up for keeping in their heads, scenarios are more likely to be interrupted so encounters need to be easy to pick up and put down. We find ourselves having to adjust and adapt a lot of what we’ve been doing because TSRPG is so different from anything we’ve done before.
How have you seen TSRPG be used in different settings?
The nice thing about TSRPG being a rules-light system is that you don’t run into any mechanical conflicts with different settings. I’ve seen it used for post-apocalyptic, fantasy, sci-fi, modern day, fairytale, horror, you name it, and there’s already scenarios published for most of those genres.
What are your plans for the future of TSRPG?
The big plan right now is a self-standing game, with its own unique setting, that uses an adapted version of TSRPG that we’re calling “Aesopia”. Aesopia will feature animal people and lean toward humor, quirkiness, and absurdism; it’s the sort of game we wouldn’t want to pair with a more mechanics heavy system. It will have everything folks need to run their own scenarios in that setting and also several supporting scenarios written by us. Skirmisher also recently published a kind of “conversion kit” for playing old school adventure modules using TSRPG called “OS-TSRPG”. It makes it so you can bring your favorite module along with you in a suitcase or backpack and play it on the go with little to no prep. I’m excited to see similar tools for scenarios designed for other systems.
What advice would you give to someone who is interested in trying TSRPG?
Watch one of the samples of play on Youtube, then pick out one of the pre-written scenarios that sounds the most fun to you and give it a try. They’re cheap, they all have a copy of the core rules in them, and any scenario specific mechanics are called out inline. The core rules all fit on one page so learning them isn’t a big time commitment. I’d also say that because TSRPG is a high-trust game, don’t play with jerks because they can really ruin the experience, but I’d also give that advice for playing any other game.
What are some of the challenges of running TSRPG for a group of players who are not familiar with tabletop RPGs?
Fortunately TSRPG is very accessible to folks that are new to tabletop RPGs, and I’ve run many sessions where you’d never know the people at the table had never played an RPG before. The advice I give to new players is to think of their favorite media, books, tv, movies, set in that genre for inspiration on what characters like theirs might do to overcome challenges in the story.
How do you balance the need for simplicity with the need for depth in TSRPG?
TSRPG offers a modular set of optional rules that can be used to add mechanical depth to the game. Optional rules don’t rely on each other, so that leaves players free to cherry pick specifically the ones that are relevant or fun for their scenario without having to worry about breaking the game. A lot of folks will miss the tactical depth of a more rules heavy game, and that’s okay, TSRPG wasn’t designed to scratch that itch. I think that for a lot of people, while TSRPG wouldn’t be their primary system (though I do know several folks in Germany that play TSRPG exclusively now), it could be the second system they learn and turn to because of the flexibility it offers.
What are some of your favorite scenarios for TSRPG?
“A Midsummer Night’s Scheme” because playing a Shakespearean fairy is a hysterically fun time, “Temple of the Banished Suns” because we got to finally do a crossover with fantasy artist and friend Amanda Kahl’s “Age of Night” comic series (and now she can’t claim she isn’t a game designer anymore).
What are some of the things you have learned from the feedback that you have received from players of TSRPG?
TSRPG almost wasn’t published, I didn’t think folks would be very interested in the quirky little game I wrote on a trip many years ago, but was I ever wrong. Folks have hacked TSRPG to run it GM-less, sent in translations of the game and its scenarios for three different languages, used it in classrooms to help teach English, and so many more things that I never expected. Players have definitely shown me how vast and creative the tabletop RPG community is.
What’s the most creative thing you’ve seen a player or GM do with TSRPG?
This expands a bit on one of my answers to the last question. The most amazing thing I’ve seen done with TSRPG is using it to teach English to kids affected by the war in Ukraine. The same group of volunteers has also translated it into Ukrainian, and Skirmisher has partnered with them to distribute copies of the rules for free to Ukrainian people that are interested in them.
You can find Brenda on Twitter. Skirmisher Publishing is a small press publisher of tabletop role-playing games. They are known for their innovative and creative games, such as the award-winning TSRPG. Skirmisher Publishing is committed to providing high-quality games that are both affordable and accessible to gamers of all levels. They also offer a variety of free resources for gamers, such as character generators, rulebook errata, and adventure modules.
Creator Spotlight | An Interview with Author Lou Anders
This week, we’re talking to Lou Anders of the acclaimed Thrones & Bones series!
Fans of all things Viking should be particularly excited, because Anders’ world is an ode to the rich history of the Norse legends and traditions, with some personal tweaks of his own that make for a truly fantastical setting. Based on the titular book series set in the lands of Norrøngard, Anders has brought his world into the world of tabletop gaming (currently compatible with D&D 5E, but read on for a sneak peek on what else to expect), allowing fans of the books an immersive experience of gameplay, and a whole new audience chances to tell their own stories in this richly-detailed world.
He has a whole line of materials that flesh out the world with playable classes, monsters, and adventures all stemming from Norrøngard.
He offers us insight into how he created this series, what it was like to bring that world to a different format, and what else we can look forward to from him in the future!
What initially drew you to the Norse mythos as an inspiration for your world, and what was it like to adapt your research into the world of Norrøngard?
When you say “initially” we have to go back to 2010, because the world was born first in the pages of my children’s novel before it was an RPG. In 2010, I was an editor in science fiction & fantasy publishing, running the Pyr books line, but noted anthologist Jonathan Strahan and I teamed up to co-edit a sword & sorcery anthology for Simon & Schuster called Swords & Dark Magic. It featured new and old authors of gritty fantasy writing S&S, including Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Garth Nix, C.J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, others. During all this, I got inspired and tried to write my own short story (not for the anthology) about a “female Conan” who was half human, half frost giant. The story was, frankly, terrible. Really bad. But the character wouldn’t leave me. She stuck around, and then one day I realized that what was interesting about her was not her as an adult, but her childhood, what it was like to grow up half human in a village of giants. And that became my novel Frostborn. But I’m not a fan of monocultures. I never wanted to write “Viking Planet,” so from the start it was important to me that Norrøngard was just one country on the edge of a vast continent. Before I even started plotting, I had worked out their history across thousands of years and who they had interacted with in that time. I think I had twenty or so countries, many with their own gods and naming conventions and detailed history, before I ever wrote a line of prose. But as I started working out Norrøngard specifically, I looked at both history and mythology to build their culture. A lot of it was building out a backstory for a country the same way you’d build a backstory for a character. Figuring out where they came from, what they’d been through to get where they were, and who they were today. Also, it’s not 1:1 Norse myth. The Norrønir have their own creation myth, a different if analogous set of gods, a slightly different afterlife, and are at least a century passed their raiding period and living under an era with a Norrøngeld with their nearest neighbors (a “tax not to raid” that the king collects, inspired by the Danegeld of our world.)
What was the process like to shift this world from a set story into a world that people can play in?
A lot of hard work! In Frostborn, we start in a human farm and a small giant village, visit only one city briefly, and spend most of the book in the wilderness. For Thrones & Bones: Norrøngard, I not only detailed the city of Bense but nine other Norrønian cities, with maps, details of their histories, key locations, their jarl, etc… Just the lore itself went through a major expansion, which doesn’t even begin to talk about creating the mechanics of ancestries and subclasses and rune magic and a bestiary, and all of that! It was a massive project that took over a year of full time work.
What was it like having multiple groups playtesting these supplements, and were there any surprising insights you can share about the playtesting process in general?
The best advice I can give about play testing is sign up way more groups than you need because half of them will never get to it and the other half will decide to veer off the rails and go in a direction that doesn’t help you much!
Your work clearly respects the Norse tradition and practices and having an actual Norse language consultant proves your dedication to authenticity. What was it like to work with an actual translator, and how much of their input helped to mold the world outside of just spelling suggestions?
Trond-Atle Farestveit is wonderful. He didn’t just translate things for me from English to ancient Norse. He’d work with me to get at the heart of what I was trying to do and help me pull from the culture to make sure it made sense in those terms.
-You’ve got a seriously robust bestiary, and aside from the Linnorms, my personal favorite is a tie between the Butter Cat and the Iron Dwarf. What was it like to playtest all of these creatures?
Playing with something you created yourself is a blast. Hearing from other folks playing and enjoying it is even more so. I’m really proud of a lot of those creatures and how their traits and actions keeps to the heart of how they are portrayed in myth and folklore.
Will fans of the books be able to see any familiar faces in these guides?
I deliberately kept the principal characters out of the game. The timeline in the RPG picks up one year after events in the books, and while I haven’t settled exactly where Thianna Frostborn goes after her journey to Thica, I know for a fact she’s not in Norrøngard right now. Neither is the dark elf Desstra. Karn *may* be back on his farm, or he may have gotten sidetracked heading home. But I didn’t want to “stat them out” and make them NPCs. So Stolki’s Mead Hall is in Bense, and Helltoppr is still in his barrow, but other than that, the RPG is populated with new characters. That being said, there are illustrations of them in the books – so you can technically see them.
Personally, I’m a sucker for any type of in-world games and activities that players can play as their characters. What was it like to make Thrones & Bones, Knattleikr, and Flyting as playable in the game?
Thrones & Bones came first. It dates back to when I was writing the first novel, Frostborn. The Norse played a game called hnefatafl before they discovered chess. In the novel, my female protagonist, Thianna, is a skilled knattleikr player. When I realized I needed a male co-protagonist, I wanted to give him something to be good at and it couldn’t be sports. So Karn Korlundsson because a hnefatafl player. I realized early on that I needed to know the rules—and there aren’t any. Not that we know. The Norse never wrote them down. There are quite a few reconstructions based on what we do know or can infer, and the various games in the tafl family can differ from each other a lot, right down to how many squares on the board and whether dice are involved. The more I looked into it, the more it made sense to create my own original game in the taft family. I built a board. Then I cherry picked rules from several of the best hnefatafl reconstructions, mixed in some of my own rules, and then play tested. I was fortunate in that my two oldest nephews were both chess champions in our state at the time, so I took them to Starbucks and set the game down between them, and they played each other for hours. I actually had to pry it out of their hands! That’s when I knew I had something. When it came to translating the novel into the game, including the game-within-a-game was a no brainer. Knattleikr came next. The rules for the sport are the only bit of text in the core book I didn’t write entirely by myself. I’d written rules, but then I hired designer Brian Suskind to write an adventure for the companion book, Sagas of Norrøngard. Brian didn’t like my rules and rewrote them. He fixed some things, but then he had me thinking about it, so I took what he did and made some changes, and we passed it back and forth until we had something we both liked. Flyting was a late addition, but I realized I needed all three of these Norse pastimes in the setting guide. And then it ended up coming into play in the second starter adventure.
You offer a lot of unique ancestries and class options for players in the Player’s Guide, what guided you through that process of progression, and do you have a personal favorite character build to make?
With all the designs, I wanted to go to the actual Scandinavian myth and folklore, especially with monsters and subclasses. My favorite build, and one that’s proving popular with players, is the huldra völva. Originally, the huldra were just monsters. But they are the “hidden folk,” and they interact so often with humans, I realized there were probably a lot of huldra living among the Norrønir in secret, and if they are there, then you should be able to play as one! The völva was tricky. But mostly because I put myself into a corner and then had to see my way out. My neighboring country of Araland is a faux-Celtic setting, so in my mind Araland is where you get druids. I was thinking of the völva as another spellcasting class—the name translates as “carrier of the magic staff” so I was trying to make them wizards—and it was just so much trying to force them into a box they didn’t want to go in. Finally, I took a step back and looked at what the völva actually were – wandering seeresses who could shapeshift, see the future, and control the weather, and I went, “Doh! That’s a druid.”
To take a quote from the introduction to your setting guide, “A map is nothing without a viewer.”
What has your experience been like working with artists to bring the world of Qualth to life with visuals with world and battle maps?
Working with artists is tremendous. I was an art director in SF&F publishing for 10 years, so I come to game design with experience working alongside illustrators and a deep appreciate for their talent. I’ve always been a visual thinker, so when I was writing novels, I was commissioning artwork and maps as I wrote—not for publication (the art in the book falls under the purview of the publisher’s art director), but just to help me visualize the world as its being created. From the start, I commissioned a lot of art from Andrew Bosley and maps from Rob Lazzaretti, while Justin Gerard did a lot of work for the novels that he kindly let me reuse for the game. When it came time for battle maps, there was no question it would be Heroic Maps. They are hands down my favorite cartographers in that space. I’m fortunate to have several great artists for the game I’ve worked with more than once—folks like Ksenia Kozhevnikova, William O’Brien, Craig J. Spearing, and Bryan Syme. One of the fun things too has been to work with William on “aging up” my three protagonists Thianna, Karn, and Desstra (she joins in book two). They are around 13 years old in the novels, but the game isn’t targeted at the same age group as the books, so I wanted to include “what they look like now” illustrations of older versions of my heroes. Then Effincool Minis actually made a 3D printable sculpt of the older Thianna, which thrills me beyond words.
One of my favorite items you’ve made is the Brúsi Shield (found in Sagas of Norrongard), a special shield that can summon a spectral goat’s head to make ramming attacks a few times per day. What has it been like to make unique weapons and artifacts, and what was your process to playtest them?
So, the Brúsi Shield is a bit of an in-joke. “Brúsi” is the Old Norse word for “he-goat,” and the earliest version of the tale “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” we have comes from Scandinavia, De tre bukkene Bruse. It’s a small spoiler to say so, but the shield is found in the adventure “From Svartálfaheim, with Love,” right before you encounter a troll on a bridge… As to playtesting, that’s the best part isn’t it?
Your game materials cover far more of the world than Karn and Thianna are able to visit and see, was there any area in particular you were personally excited about getting to explore in more depth?
All of it. I really worked hard to make each of the new cities we explore its own unique place. So Herkeby is laid out like a giant Trelleborg (ring fortress), Sindholm sits above an enormous cavern in which longships dock, Umsborg is bisected by a lava flow, and so on. With the recent Kickstarter, Vengeance of the Valravn, which takes place in Sindholm, we have adventures that take you everywhere but Oslendhom and Umsborg (though the lore from these two locations is, of course, in the core book). There are still places I want to explore one day though!
What work might fans look forward to in the future from you?
There is so much in the pipeline, and the recent OGL kerfluffle has only upped the number of projects. With the usual caveats about the “best laid plans,” here’s a run-down. Vengeance of the Valravn is in copyedits now. I hope to have it out in March. Then I’ll immediately Kickstart the already-written Tales from Stolki’s Hall. After being out of the editor’s chair for seven years, I’ve put that hat back on and reached out to some of the best fiction writers I used to work with. Stolki’s Hall is an anthology of adult fantasy stories, written not by me, but by ten other authors, set in the land of Norrøngard. It’s fantastic, and I can’t wait for people to read it. I’ve also just signed contracts for two conversions of the campaign guide, Thrones & Bones: Norrøngard, to two other systems. I’ll probably turn to Kickstarter again for those, not for the budget (it’s a done deal with budget already set aside), but for the visibility. Beyond that I’ve got an idea for something “mythos related” in the world of Qualth that I want to do. I’ve already outlined and started commissioning and receiving art for the next Big Project, which is the first adventure set outside of Norrøngard. It starts off in Nelenia, a country that is in the middle of the continent of Katernia, about a thousand miles from Norrøngard, and modeled loosely on Switzerland. I’m really excited about this adventure, which I hope to announce by year’s end, but given the aforementioned list of projects, it might slide into 2024. When it does debut, it will most likely be multisystem, so they’ll be 5e, Pathfinder 2, and other versions. I think it only makes sense going forward not to put all the eggs in one basket, which means my tiny indie, Lazy Wolf Studios, is set to grow whether it wants to or not!
Lou Anders is the author of the novel Once Upon a Unicorn, as well as the Thrones & Bones trilogy of fantasy adventure novels (Frostborn, Nightborn, and Skyborn), and the novel Star Wars: Pirate’s Price. He has also done role playing game design for Kobold Press, River Horse, and 3D Printed Tabletop. In 2016, he was named a Thurber House Writer-in-Residence and spent a month in Columbus, Ohio teaching, writing, and living in a haunted house. When not writing, he enjoys playing role playing games, 3D printing, and watching movies. He lives with his wife, children, and two golden doodles in Birmingham, Alabama. You can visit Anders online at louanders.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter at @Louanders.
Cross-Classing to Game Publisher — Group Beta Games
Hail, fellow Obsidian Portal GM’s and Players! My name is Steve, also known as Jynx001, and for several years now I’ve been a Content Creator, Support Sorcerer, and Maker of Many Things here on OP. I’m very happy to announce that I’m taking my next level in the Game Publisher class as I begin the quest of launching “Group Beta Games!”
Haste! Monsters by Email, Year of Shadowrun, Numanera Video Game
[powerpress] | Episode 67 |
Announcements
Stay tuned to the blog for an upcoming caption contest! Now, on with the show!
