A little while back Jen invited her old DM from back in the day to come up and join us. He was curious to see what all these newfangled storygames were all about, so we decided to run the con scenario for Burning Empires: Fires Over Omac.  Kevin was GM, and the players were Jen, Brandon, and Brian. Pardon us if we sound a bit preachy, we were trying pretty hard to show Brian how different these games were, from the design to the philosophy behind the design. We may come off as frothing evangelists from time to time. I (Kevin) had tried to run Fires Over Omac a couple times before with varied degrees of success, but this time I think I did pretty well.  Our original plan was simply to record this for personal reference later, but upon further listening it came out as a pretty strong example of Burning Empires play. Because of this, our noise discipline was not as good as it usually is, so please excuse the background clutter.

Relevant Links

• Burning Empires
• Fires Over Omac
• Space Elevators
• Iron Empires

Crunchy Bits

• Intro music from Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts
• Outro music from

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In early April Jen and I took a road trip up to Forge Midwest 2009 in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. We played a lot of games and met a lot of cool people, expect a fair amount of content related to that in the upcoming weeks. One of the high points was a chance to play Hero’s Banner with it’s creator Tim Koppang. After running it for myself and two others (Edward “Sabe” Jones and a dude named Tim who’s contact info I didn’t get) I grabbed Tim (Koppang, not the player) and did a short interview with him. We discuss his inspirations for the game, the term “Storygames” (he’s not a fan), his gaming history, and whether free will actually exists or not. It was a real pleasure to meet and interview him.

Relevant Links:

• Hero’s Banner Homepage
• Song of Ice and Fire
• Bill Mudron (Cover Art for Hero’s Banner)
• Keith Senkowski
• The Forge
• The Gaming Outpost
• GURPS
• Deadlands
• Shadowrun
• Story Engine
• Dust Devils
• Storygames Forum

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro Music Provided by

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Things kick off for 3:16: Carnage Amongst The Stars by Gregor Hutton with an attack on the Terran Asteroid Belt. The 3rd Army of the 16th Brigade sprung into action and quickly purged the mysterious alien virus from the computer core. In fact, pretty much everything was purged in a 5,000 mile radius. The whole crew enjoyed the setting aside from a few minor grumbles (“Mining robots? Really?” -Jen) and energy was high; everyone walked away with considerable excitement for next session.

Roles:

• Kevin was GM

• Jen played Tucker
• Rank: Trooper Rep: Seen the face of God FA: 7 NFA: 3

• Brandon played Miller
• Rank: Sergeant Rep: First time out. FA: 3 NFA: 7

• Dan Played Murphy
• Rank: Corporal Rep: Lawbringer (as in, Murphy’s Law) FA: 8 NFA: 2

• CJ Played Carson
• Rank: Trooper Rep: Easily Spooked FA: 6 NFA: 4

Relevant Links

• Mandelbrot
• “Mars” Asteroid Belt
• Johnny 5
• Deadspace
• Spooky Outhouse Survey

Crunchy Bits!

• Music by Mark Morgan from the soundtrack to Planescape: Torment

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Keeping with our format of play, discuss and interview, Kevin and Jen Interview Clyde Rhoer the creator of Silence Keeps Me a Victim.

Crunchy Bits

• Music by

Relevant Links

• Theory from the Closet, Clyde Rhoer’s Website
• Sam Weber
• Cover of Silence Keeps Me a Victim
• Painting of Little Girl Carried Away by Monster
• 3:16 by Gregor Hutton
• Clyde’s thoughts on 3:16 & Storygames “baggage” (with commentary/corrections from Gregor)
• Fred Hicks and Evil Hat Productions
• Don’t Rest Your Head
• Mike Holmes
• Thor Olavsrud
• Lacuna Part 1: The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City (second attempt) by Jared Sorensen
• Paul Czege
• Amber Diceless
• Ralph Maza
• Ron Edwards
• Luke Crane
• Nobilis by R. Sean Borgstrom
• Grey Ranks by Jason Morningstar
• Misspent Youth by Robert Bohl
• In a Wicked Age by Vincent Baker
• Spooky Outhouse Productions
• Monte Cook

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After playing Silence Keeps Me a Victim, Kevin and Jen have a somewhat heated conversation about the game and the topics is deals with.

Crunchy Bits!

• Music by

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Kevin and Jen play Silence Keeps me a Victim by Theory from the Closet‘s Clyde Rhoer. It’s a pretty intense two person game designed by Clyde as a way to work through a history of childhood molestation. In the game the players assume the roles of “Advocate” and “Guide” for the child in the story; the Guide designs surreal landscapes that are often dark and disturbing (I likened them to Alice in Wonderland or ), through which the child travels to discover their voice, remove their mask and retrieve their heart.

This game is designed to allow for the players to speak in some voice about trauma felt deeply but otherwise unexpressed due to social restrictions. What drew me to this game is not the subject matter specifically but the reactions that I see in society to it. One does not have to be a victim of abuse to play this game, I stress this because several asked me just that. The fact is, I like digging into the human psyche and this game is the closest I’ve seen one come to allowing for that view into the mind.

I really enjoyed play testing Silence Keeps Me a Victim and am looking forward to Clyde putting together a finished copy some day soon.

If you or anyone you know is being abused please seek help, HelpGuide.org has resources available that may help.

Crunchy Bits!

Bumpers and Promos

• The Independent Insurgency

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