Thursday, March 17, 2016

Knights of the Thimble

There is a new free lightweight high fantasy tabletop RPG called Dungeons & Drapers added to the Games tab, whose rules may be very familiar to some of you. Other working titles: SkycrawlDevils & DwarvesDweomers & Drow, Danger & Derring-DoDragons & DungeonsDystopia & Dragons, Hunger & Dragons, Dungeons & Desist.

It is what it is & any comments are appreciated (especially feedback on overall balance), but the interesting bit would really come with the supplementary spellbook, if I ever get round to writing it. There is also a kind of structural joke or provocation to do with race and class; maybe class especially, since it often feels to me that the power that high fantasy RPGs invite players to imaginatively occupy is the power of aristocracy and bourgeois finance, whatever the actual background of the character you're playing. Elf is structurally toff, isn't it? So in Dungeons & Drapers there's an attempt at a nod to the artisanal power of the early modern middling sort. Basically what I'm saying is that it's cool because you're a tailor.

Or perhaps this is just a sign of what happens when you come into some creative practice and start off making wrong & interesting things & gradually start making proper & therefore boring things? *Googles "shrug emoji"; copy-pastes it here*

2 comments:

  1. I downloaded a copy of Dungeons & Drapers, and while the races left me scratching my head I was quite impressed with the social and magical ideas you have here Jo.

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  2. Oh thanks! V. encouraging :)

    Yes, I need to flesh them out a bit. Mechanics-wise they don't make any difference, so you could always revert to the old elf / dwarf / hobbit gang for now ...

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