Old Men Running The World

Author: Kieron Gillen

  • A Bright Dark Future: Ex Tenebris Interview

    If you’re a British game designer, you work beneath a cloud – both literally and figuratively. For the former, it’s really cloudy here, For the latter, it’s a small country that homes a big company. Unless you come entirely outside the standard gaming ecosystem, Games Workshop likely have touched your life. It’s there. How can you deny it? How can you escape it?

    As such, when I heard about Ex Tenebris, I was intrigued.

    Josh Fox and Becky Annison’s Black Armada Games have a golden run of interesting games which take and then show real mechanical understanding of what’s at their core. To choose a few examples, Lovecraft-esque Lovecraftesque was ahead of the curve on the post-modern adventure format that’s the current big thing in mystery games. Bite Marks is the pack-centric werewolf game that really understands what it means to be Alpha and to be family. And now , with Ex Tenebris, they’re doing a grim far-future RPG about investigators digging into occult incursions and xeno-conspiracies which can destroy civilization…

    I would be less interested if it wasn’t them. As it is, I’m very interested.

    Yes, It’s very clearly influenced by the Inquisition in Warhammer 40k, as turned into an RPG in Dark Heresy… but look again. You can forget the modern, bespoke mechanics (but why would you?) but the specifics of the setting seems to make the point all too clear – specifically, it a game set after a grimdark empire has fallen, about a civilization trying to form itself in the aftermath of this star-addled fascistic fuck-up. That’s intriguing for me – it admits the interest and the formative influence, but also – in mechanics, text and subtext – speaks of the need to move past it.

    I’m also in the mood for games which assume fascism can fall, and we will then work out what to build in the ruins. That sounds like a useful theme to me.

    So I was interested. Interested enough to say “yes” when they asked me to write a scenario for it. And now, with the Ex Tenebris Kickstarter their most successful ever and into its final week, I thought it a good time to chat about everything that makes up Ex Tenebris, where they are and where they’re heading next.

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  • My 101 Favourite TTRPGS: 101

    Earlier this year, we saw John Harper on the socials having worked out how many TTRPGs he’s played. It was a big number. It made Jim and me sit back and do ours. My initial survey revealed I was just shy of 100. And, as a recovering pop culture critic, I knew what that number meant.

    A listicle to end all listicles.

    I’m starting it today. I turn 50, and wanted to do a long, playful look at my life and how it has intersected with an art form I’ve loved. This seems like it.

    (And, yes, when asked if there was any special treat I wanted for my birthday “Can I have time to start writing a listicle?” says a lot about my damage.)

    When I’d finished digging through everything, the list was over 100, so I made some choices to make it a significant number. I lost anything in the LARP space which felt closer to LARP than storygame – so I won’t be telling about the time I played Labyrinth with a bunch of other games journos on a press trip. Any game which involves acting a role but positions itself as a party game? That’s also out, so no Fellas, Is It Gay? or Jolene.

    When I played multiple editions of a game, I only include them if I can reliably remember the differences between the editions. So (say) Monsterhearts and Feng Shui will only pop up once.

    But we’re getting into spoilers. Let’s get in.

    You may note that I may not have defined what “favourite” means. That’s going to be part of the exercise. When arranging the list, I had to chew over what favourite means for me, in terms of my memories, experiences and joys with these games.

    Which also means, working out what my least favourites means.

    That was easy. I wasn’t sure of anything else in this list, but I knew what was at the bottom.

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  • The Skim: Teeth: False Kingdom

    It is this organ’s firm and unyielding belief that one cannot review an RPG from reading it. You can review a manual, certainly, but you’re not reviewing the game in any meaningful way.

    However you can skim and see what pops out.

    This is the Skim, and this is what we got from skimming False Kingdom.

    IN A SENTENCE:

    It’s Medieval1 Forged in the Dark2 Paranoia4.

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  • DIE RPG: When I roll A 1

    I’ve been meaning to put this here for a while, but as the DIE RPG quickstart has been lobbed on Drivethru and Itch, it seems a good time. This is a tweaked version of something I wrote over on my newsletter, when I finished my long playtest campaign of DIE RPG.

    I often think of this bit of Red Dwarf.

    It’s where Rimmer is describing his great victories in Risk, much to Lister’s annoyance. An endless string of “And then I rolled a 6!” The joke being, that no-one is interested in hearing about people’s gaming adventures.

    I spent fifteen years of my life trying to prove that wrong, and get people excited about that time I rolled a 6.

    Or a 1.

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  • One Dice Wife Vs No Wife? No Dice: Conan vs Seven Part Pact

    a 19th century line drawing of a wedding

    Seeing our last two stories back to back made me think of something. Namely, Jim and my time with Conan and my time with Seven Part Pact and how each game chooses to treat your companions.

    Let us talk about wives.

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  • The Seven Part Pact: the First Actual GM-Full Game

    I was asked if I wanted to be a wizard for a week. I said yes.

    It was a playtest of Jay Dragon’s the Seven Part Pact, where up-to-seven (we did six) players are all academic wizards in a fantasy realm (Think Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell) Each has a title, and an area of magic that’s their domain (think the Wizard of Earthsea). Each’s domain is also an area of responsibility, to ensure it doesn’t fall apart (think, Sandman). They form a found-family of arseholes, each a being of almost unimaginable power, pursuing their own desires and schemes and often butting heads (think Amber). Each also takes a dual role, taking the tasks often reserved to the GM in a specific area – so, for example, the Faustian as a character is about demonic magic and preventing satan from escaping… but is also plays as the The Keeper of the Chains, who is called upon to make the complications in the world.

    The Seven Part Pact is a GM-full game. I think it’s the only GM-full game.

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  • DIE RPG: That Horrorshow AI Emotion Wheel Emotion Knight Expansion

    A couple of days ago, an AI generated emotion wheel went viral on Bluesky which lead to a bunch of folks messaging me saying it should be a DIE RPG expansion, lol, etc.

    It is unwise to make jokes at me.

    You can download this 4-page expansion PDF here.

    It includes rules for playing Emotion Knights of any emotion on that wheel, including a stance for each emotion.

    DIE RPG is available from Rowan Rook & Decard. I now realise you could abstractly run this expansion with the free Quickstart too, but don’t do that to yourself.

  • The Skim: Mythic Bastionland

    It is this organ’s firm and unyielding belief that one cannot review an RPG from reading it. You can review a manual, certainly, but you’re not reviewing the game in any meaningful way.

    However you can skim and see what pops out.

    This is the Skim, and this is what we got from skimming Mythic Bastionland.

    IN A SENTENCE 

    Kieron: It’s OSR1 hexcrawl2 Pendragon3 in miniature4 (complimentary5). 

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  • Where I Review My Gencon 2024 Haul From A Photo As I Had My Luggage Stolen On The Way Home

    Reviewing role-playing games is a controversial business. There’s some people who believe you can make a meaningful judgment about a game by careful consideration of its manual, and there’s other people who understand that’s nonsense.

    You don’t need to read a game to review it. You can just look at its cover and make all the judgements you want. Of course, some people say you shouldn’t judge anything by its cover. Those people sound like the sort of people who didn’t have all their games stolen on the way home from Gencon on the train back to my home.

    That’s me, by the way. That person is me.

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  • Role-playing Games Are Either High Art or Fanfic

    Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who likely would have glanced out the side of his eye at this whole argument.

    I was probably making a cup of tea, as I usually am.

    I just stared into the middle distance and thought “all role-playing games are either High Art or Fanfic” with a force that made me know that it was fundamentally true – which meant, on some level, it must be fundamentally false.

    All dichotomies are false. You can never take this too seriously, as it’s a classic The Map Is Not The Territory trap.

    However, given a certain definition of Fanfic and High Art, I think it’s can be a useful map. When I say “a certain definition” I mean “Mine.”

    Or, at least, the ones I’ve stolen.

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