How to Win My L’il Pile of Indie Tabletop Games
I do not have enough life left or wind in my lungs to play and talk about the inspired indie design work that crosses my feed every day. Especially from small designers who put a high level of verve or craft in their work.
I can’t play ‘em all. But nothing’s stopping me from just buyin’ the fuckin’ things whenever I’ve got a spare $20 or so — and celebrating their makers as I’m able.
In the last few months I’ve acquired a small pile of worthy indie creations and I’m giving ‘em away. Listen to Episode 110’s Game of the Week segment to hear descriptions of these games and learn how to win.
Here’s what’s up for grabs:
The Seahorse and The Hummingbird’s Book of Wandering
Written by Jason Katzwinkel and edited by David Kessler
This is a magic book whose spell only works if you surrender control of the artifact.
Did you ever hear the story of HitchBOT, the wandering robot whose simple instructions let it hitchhike, getting passed from person to person? ‘Round about 2015 HitchBOT made it across parts of Europe and Canada. The U.S. leg of its tour proved fatal. I think it used up its luck getting through Boston, because Philly was the end of that poor little motherfucker.
The Book of Wandering applies the same concept in a lower-risk vehicle: A handsome bound booklet whose simple directive is to fill a page with something that gives you joy, then pass it along. You can opt to give it a one-way ticket or put your return address on the back cover in hopes of peering into the hearts of people to whom it stuck, however briefly.
This is how I started one of my Books of Wandering. It probably wandered straight to some lameass who threw it in a drawer.
I’ve released two of these books into the wild. The feeling of trying to imagine whose hands it would pass through, what they would feel, what they would write, opened up underutilized circuits in my mind and heart.
Read the intro text as the book speaks to you, announcing your temporary bond. Tell me you don’t feel a bit of parasocial electricity, tell me you don’t start mapping imagined pinpoints in the world. It’s simple, but effective, wizardry via shared semi-collaborative, quasi-randomized journaling.
This power I will hand to the winner of this contest.
Grumpy Spider Games’ Rucksack
I bought a copy of Rucksack because I’ve always been impressed by the shelf-ready gleam that David David and his collaborators achieve with these games. In Episode 73, I featured Grumpy Spider’s Pocket Book Adventures, a ringbound solo dungeoncrawler with a nifty pencil dexterity skill check.
David told me he designed Rucksack just for the casuals in your life who would enjoy games in the vein of Balderdash, Funemployed, Snake Oil or Apples to Apples.
In Rucksack, players are thrown into survival scenarios with random collections of items that may or may not be useful. You must ingeniously pitch your fellow players about why these items will help you endure, with a voting system determining who’s the best pretend survivalist. Into the prize bag it goes.
Long Tail Games’ Tiny Tome 2
Many years ago I got exceedingly curious about how vibrant and experimental the indie tabletop roleplaying scene had become. That curiosity led me to buy Long Tail Games’ Tiny Tome 1, which had 50 playable RPGs, all on standard poker cards and curated by Long Tail from designers across the world.
The range of concepts on these things was extremely broad, and that was its strength. I used to fan through them and read them at night, just savoring the tingle of standing at all those thresholds: mini dungeon crawlers, wry social games, conceptual journaling stuff, games where the card itself becomes the “dice” that got you to explore your surroundings.
Now there’s Tiny Tome 2. And I have it. Except this time it’s a book where each submission — compiled by Long Tail’s Ash Hauenschild — has its own spread so the creators could include more detail.
Let’s flip to a couple pages here…
• Yap by Frances Diederich
You’re going to trace a character’s journey only as glimpsed through their online reviews and snapshot their travails and triumphs as you’re sent place to place.
• Compact by Levi Kornelson
Players of compact — and their Guide — will tease out the tough particulars of how a specialized social order sorts out against the backdrop of the characters’ backstories and the purpose of the group, which can be a brigade, a cadre, a caravan, a crew, a college, a society, or a troupe of performers. Fictional conditions from the Guide will help the players imagine the historical or regional forces at work as they try to achieve unity.
• Koriolan by Alexander Nachaj
This is billed as Cassette Futurism Sci-Fi Horror. All these words are arousing to me.
These are just three of the 47 games or supplements in this book. You could spend the rest of your life flipping around in this toybox.
Ada Press: D6 Things This Dog Will Tell You, Othership, and The Taming of the Slugiraffe
These is virtually on the pile: Christopher John Eggett and his pressmate Mary McGroary make, in their words, “stupid little games.” Our winner gets an Itch.io key that unlocks all three. Let’s take a look at each:
1. D6 Things This Dog Will Tell You
The first is as advertised. You can treat it as a lark or a cool mission/backstory generator. Roll a D6. The pictured dog says something. Run with the animal’s scene-setting chops if that’s what you’re feeling.
2. Othership
A forlorn space hulk sci-fi horror affair where you’re raiding alien vessels for loot, which first appeared in Wyrd Science Magazine. As the FAQ puts it when asked if this is a purposeful truncation of the Mothership game, and I quote:
A: Exactly! Mothership is famous for how complicated it is. So I thought I would simplify it for fun and to save paper (this is an approximately 99% optimization on Mothership). Additionally, we're using less dice with smaller numbers, which I am led to believe is good for the environment.
There you go. Compact, dangerous, and wry.
Othership: One of three Ada Press works you can get in this contest.
3. Taming of the Slugiraffe
You, a Giblet, must venture into a yawning pit in quest of the titular beast, which once used to ferry your insignificant folk around. I guess Giblets are sort of the punching bags of the game’s world, so finding the Slugiraffe is going to get you major props and help the other Giblets tremendously. If you survive.
That’s what’s on the prize pile so far.
How to Win These Charmers: Rules and Conditions
1. I’ve buried a secret word in the Track of the Week segment of Episode 110. When you hear it, put it in the subject line of an email to: chief [DOT] rocka[AT]BreakupGamingSociety.com. Bam. You’re entered.
2. On April 1, I draw a winner from people who followed the rules in Step 1.
None of these creators had any hand in this promotion, nor have I received any compensation for featuring their work. If there’s one thing they did wrong, it was making something interesting in the line of sight of a derelict with a microphone and an extra 10 bucks in his pocket.
Again, keep an ear out for that secret word in Track of the Week.