ars ludi

“When you’re sitting at the gaming table, it’s such a rare and sacred time…”

You know how you think you don’t have much to say about a topic but then once you get started you go on and on and on and then before you know it you’re jumping around waving your arms to emphasize your point even though there’s no one in the room to see it?

Well that’s exactly what happens when unsuspecting people invite me to talk about Kingdom on their podcasts:

• Self-Critical Hits with Miles Gaborit
• BAMF Podcast with Mike Lafferty

Good times! Thanks to Miles and Mike for having me on, respectively.

And in related news, at the sound of the bell the Kingdom kickstarter will have just moved into its last week. The final countdown begins…

A ways back I did a Share A Game thread about Microscope on RPGGeek. And despite the resulting lawsuits, civil unrest and stock market crashes, they’ve graciously allowed me to come back and talk about Kingdom. All those questions you’ve had about how Kingdom actually works? Now’s your chance to ask:

Share A Game: Kingdom

And if you’re one of the awesome people who playtested Kingdom and helped make it the game it is now, come on by and share your experiences.

How’s the Kingdom kickstarter going? Pretty swimmingly, I must admit. But there’s still a long way to go and there’s still a lot of people out there who haven’t even heard of Kingdom.

Back when I was getting ready to launch I debated what would make good stretch goals. I mean, yeah, I could make Kingdom-branded coffee mugs, but when you get right down to it all I care about is making sure you have a fantastic game when you sit down at the table. A commemorative coffee mug might be lovely but it isn’t going to improve your game (unless the mug is filled with coffee, of course).

But having played about a zillion different pickup games with total strangers, I know that what can improve your experience are tools that let you jump in and get playing faster and easier, when you need it. Brainstorming your Kingdom from scratch is a really fun part of the game, but just like the quickstart history seeds for Microscope, sometimes you need to be able to just sit down and get going quickly without a lot of discussion. Or maybe you need a little inspiration to come up with a good idea for your Kingdom, something you might not have thought of otherwise.

So that’s what I settled on: Kingdom playsets so you can start playing super-fast, when you need to.

What playsets, you ask? Check the latest Kingdom stretch goals and see for yourself. But rest assured that cowboys, muppets, alien invaders and dilettante 1920s mystics have already safely made the cut.

Future playsets are going to include a few Kingdoms inspired directly by some of our awesome playtest games, because I simply cannot resist sharing them.

Does that mean you can expect to see a Starfall playset? I sure hope so.

If you want a game where you make a community together, fight over what it’s for and then (perhaps) weep as it burns to the ground, this is your lucky day, because the Kingdom kickstarter is live:

If you like the game, or just like the idea of the game, spread the word. Tell your friends. Challenge your enemies. Warn them the day will soon come when you will meet them at the table-of-gaming and bring their reign of tyranny to an end.

Kingdom is a lot of fun and I want everyone in the world to play it. Everyone. It should be a law. Abolish mandatory military service, institute mandatory gaming. I’ll get some bumper stickers printed. Let’s do this thing.

“Hey, you haven’t talked about Kingdom in a while. What’s up with that?”

Good question, caller.

Imagine a cave. A dark cave. In a swamp. Lit only by the intermittent glow of fireflies.

Now in the cave put a figure. A figure facing a wall of rock. Solid rock. Rock from the heart of the world.

And in that figure’s hand put a chisel. A very sharp chisel. A chisel that *could* carve rock. Even really hard rock.

Now imagine that figure isn’t moving. Or lifting the chisel. Imagine that figure is bending his total will towards the rock and trying to carve it with the power of his mind!

That’s how Kingdom is going.

To be fair, that’s exactly how Microscope was in the homestretch too. It’s also how I wrote a paper about Oedipus Rex my freshman year in college. Apparently it’s just a thing I do but clearly I save it for the important stuff.

To translate that from drama into English, I’m scrutinizing every detail of the text with my piercing gaze, making sure it’s what I want it to be and that it’s doing what I want it to do. I’m looking back on all the very best Kingdom games I’ve played and making sure I am emphasizing the things that spawn games like that. And I’m looking back on all the very worst Kingdom games I’ve played (there have been a few) and putting procedural snipers on rooftops to prevent games like that from happening.

I’m rather pleased with how it’s going.

There will come a time soon(ish) when I will let slip the dogs of kickstarting. When that time comes I will dearly need your help to get the word out and make Kingdom happen. I’m not bad at designing games but I’m ass at marketing and self-promotion. I’ll seriously need your help.

I’m reading David Wright’s translation of Beowulf. I’ve read Beowulf before but one of the points Wright makes in his analysis is that it’s not just the events that happen in Beowulf but that the audience of dudes in horned helmets knew who the historical figures in the tale were and knew both their histories and what happens to them after the story of Beowulf is over.

The text is full of allusions to the future beyond the epic, things that have nothing to do with the current story. Warriors who are good friends now but who will one day murder each other. The peerless hall of Hrothgar which Beowulf saves from Grendel’s depredations but will itself be consumed in fire.

Tall and wide-gabled, the hall towered overhead; yet it was to endure terrible and leaping flames, when in the course of time a deadly feud between Hrothgar and his son-in-law should be kindled by an act of violence.

So the old skald telling the epic of Beowulf knows the audience knows all those things that are going to happen after the story. He’s counting on them knowing because that knowledge changes the entire meaning of the story.

Without that knowledge, Beowulf is a tale of heroism and monster-slaying. With it, it’s a reflection on the impermanence (and perhaps even futility) of man’s deeds and the material world.

Knowledge of the future changing your perception of the present? Yeah, it’s viking Microscope.