🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
game therapy
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Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Have some fizzy water. It's so hot outside. A neighbor gave me a bouquet of zinnias—they're in a jam jar on the table. Do you ever check out—dissociate—when you should be concentrating? Time you urgently need tickscdcr5t by and by. And then you realize you're doing it, and you feel like you're falling into quicksand? No? Just me? Then have you ever felt the opposite? You suddenly find yourself dialed in, not just mentally but emotionally? And something unlooked-for unlocks in you? Role-playing games do that for me sometimes. Do they ever do that for you? Tangentially related: One of my absolute heroes in tabletop RPGs is Alex Roberts. In May, Dicebreaker interviewed Roberts. Turns out she’s a trained therapist. She talked about how games can be profound, therapeutic experiences, sometimes especially because they’re not officially “therapy.” I love those meaningful gaming experiences. Ones that couldn’t've come out any other way. But—as Roberts says in the interview—they don’t have to be therapy. Maybe you didn’t sit down at the table tonight to process you trauma via an elf persona, or to help your friend process theirs. Trusting your fellow players is key. Roberts' most recent game that allows for those experiences is a new edition of her groundbreaking game For the Queen. Darrington Press gave it new, full-color portraits of queens, in a box with a magnetic closure. Luxe. Roberts also redesigned some questions to draw you in more. You can tell everyone worked hard to make an already great game worth a re-do. Not related at all: I have box sets of Raccoon Sky Pirates to sell again! Q Workshop shipped the dice to me way ahead of schedule. So now we're in the final gallop to the end of this game's run. After that, I'll let it go, so I can work on the new design. Make it worth a re-do. Cheers, P.S. A cool game resource is crowdfunding right now: How to GM Romance. It looks like it has a lot of good tools and ideas. Things about consent, for instance. Since Defy the Gods offers a lot of romance, I'm backing it. P.P.S. Raccoon Sky Pirates box sets are available! I'm restocking Indie Press Revolution, Amazon, and my own site. Get one while you still can! |
Everlasting, Neverending Game Night
🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
Hi Reader, What began as a silent shaking in the earth has grown to thunderous, resounding hoofbeats. The armies of Doom approach. Time to draw steel. That is—the Defy the Gods Kickstarter ends on Thursday! If you haven't read my emails for the last year, or I just didn't tell you, Defy the Gods is a queer sword & sorcery tabletop role-playing game set in fantasy ancient Mesopotamia—a game full of daring adventure, messy romance, and cursed power. It's a game where a single sword stroke or...
Hi Reader, It's good to see you. Please, have a seat. Have some iced tea. On the table is a little succulent called, I shit you not, goblin fingers. Other name, for real: Gollum jade. It's the most tabletop role-playing game plant I've ever met. The Defy the Gods Kickstarter ends on Thursday. It's been a roller coaster. In these last four days, I need to tell as many people as possible about it. Expect a few more emails from me this week. If you don't want to get them, you can opt out here....
Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Sit down. We've got some cold fizzy water and some pizza from this place up the road. On the table and chairs there's an oiled bronze sword, a boiled leather shield, a skeleton key mottled in verdigris ... let me get all that out of the way. There. As you can tell by all the detritus—We're just a week and a half away from the end of the Defy the Gods Kickstarter! So far, we've unlocked an embroidered patch, a spot-gloss upgrade for the standard edition, a...