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Super interesting video. To quibble I'm not sure the assessment you make about cozy games not being centered on personal development is quite reasonable, as someone who hasn't played many but has read lots of cozy fantasy novels, the genre in literature feels like it centers personal development over plot 1000%. Found family is one of the biggest tags you'd see overlapping with cozy fantasy stories (the likes of Becky Chambers, Travis Baldree, TJ Klune).

I’ve been a big fan of this designer for years. delighted to see Zhu get the credit they deserve!!

"You do have to leave Eden. But you have to live with yourself too." is such a powerful point. It is really worth putting int context how much our characters deal with it the narratives we tell and how they usually just don't get a break from it. It is also worth looking at how Eden exists as a response to such a violent world. In a weird way, it shares an underlying narrative similar to Wanderhome. A world born from violence but the text explicitly states, no harm will come the character. Not sure if that connection was something you considered. (Also got to get aroudn to playing one of Emily Zhu's 朱保敬. games.)

Amazing! I'm gonna check this out. I wonder if it would pair with Mothership as a piece of slickware the crew can access at a port during shore leave?

A solution to premature completiation (It's happened to a friend of mine) is to adjust the challenge rank after the fact; turns out the quest was Troublesome, not Dangerous. The only mechanical effect is you gain that little less XP. But that's no big deal as ISworn doesn't really emphasize levelling and XP farming. It's more about character development than min/maxing your stats. But then there really is nothing like just rolling with it. The main problem for a solo paper&pen game is how do you keep the suspense going when you're the reader and the writer at the same time; what makes you want to turn to the next page? The unwanted Miss does. A Miss is the element that's outside you or your character's control, but it shouldn't be seen as just "You failed Your Vow." The best description of a Miss in ISworn I've taken aboard is that it's not necessarily that you didn't get what you want, it means that you get what you _didn't_ want. Put it this way: Strong Hit: You did it. Weak Hit: You just did it. Miss: You did it, but... You completed the vow, saved the day and rescued the princess, but it's not all cheers and medal ceremonies with John Williams music walking you down the aisle. For whatever reason things have become more complicated. Your heroics have made things worse in an unexpected way. A friend has become an enemy. The princess you rescued turns out to be a raging psychopath bent on world domination. Bottom line? The story gets more interesting in a way you didn't expect before you rolled Fulfill Your Vow. Fundamentally, the only negative effect game mechanic wise is you just didn't get the XP this time. But how does that new adversity change the character? How are they different now than they were when they Swore and Iron Vow? I really think it's one of the most important (and difficult at times) lessons to learn in Ironsworn/Starforge: learn to love the Miss.

Listening to this and realising i need to read everything Zhu's written immediately

i HAD to get a copy after watching this

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you have to live with yourself." -- MAN that goes so hard!

i’m absolutely enamored of this video, and especially how it’s the complete opposite response of what my Wanderhome playgroup did. during session zero, we decided that we would never, ever set in stone what exactly the last war was about. even the kith who fought in the rebellion relinquished the authority to determine (and set in our game’s canon) what the war was fought over or who ended it. wars are bigger than any one person or group of people and our game focuses on the immediate, the lives of people and places who live their lives on the ground. we can talk about how the war affected them, and even how they participated, but we won’t give the war respect by paying attention to it.

Love the video! When you said "Minos, but with fish" that of course made me think of a daemon called the Minnowtaur that I fear I must now incorporate into one of my Wanderhome games.

Thank you that was amazing!

Tack!

I'm so glad you actually went for the thumbnail hahaha

Awesome video! I have a copy of wanderhome from a charity bundle a while back, I read it and it looked cool but never ran it, I'm definitely gonna have to play it someday now when i have the opportunity

can't wait to learn how the Veteran is connected to Marika's lineage via her marriage to Godfrey

Hey, sorry if this isn't something you wanna say publicly, but your local game store wouldn't happen to be Atomic Empire would it? I run the rpg book club there, and that isn't a concept I've seen very often elsewhere, so I was curious if I maybe played at the same table with you!

What a great premise!

the REAL truth that Jay Dragon is hiding from you is that you can cut your way through the veil and through to the palace of the lightning bugs using a tonal wiseblade forged with true intention of ego-violence (Vascral told me this)

Thanks for this great video, it's even more inspiring for a project I'm working on involving a Star Wars game in a Folk Horror atmosphere!

AAAAAH WANDERHOME IS ONE OF MY FAV GAMES AND THIS VIDEO MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!! The way you create a framework of time and certain specific characters from the bits and pieces Jay Dragon has laid out thru the years, while still leaving room for interpretation is so cool! Honestly one of the coolest parts of the game for me as a GM is the wiggle room to create folklore (I made up some city now ruined by the war, that worshipped the so called Gods of the Rose Dawn) that has all the plausibility to have been real. Can I extend a request for you to post links to the sources of the video? (aside from the og book print)

Rise up Mörk Borg kult, Vehru speaks true.

I had this video on my watch later list for a while A.A Voight and you have not disappointed at all! Honestly this quote right here: “The Americans thought we were followers of Marx. No, you were wrong. We fought for this country, so that there would be no more bombing, no more war. There would be no more death, no more destruction.” hit me like a truck. As a leftist, I definitely came in with sympathy,but that contextualization really grounded this essay. Seriously this project must have been emotionally a lot, so its greatly appreciated the work you put into this.

WE FOUND HIM! HE'S THE ONLY IMAGINE DRAGONS FAN! JUMP HIS ASS!

I love when an analysis of art is so artfully done. Fantastic work

There is so much here! These games and video are an integral part of how to history…also a crucial part of and way of tabletop role playing and award nominee and ‘Best of/ Essential’ list type material. I’m reminded of some of Jason Morningstar’s history or contemporary issues in his designs as well.

This was a great video! It's criminally unfair that it doesn't have more views, you did a phenomenal job

This is an amazing piece. I have just recently discovered these games and a friend turned my own to your video. Heart breaking.

What a gut wrenching essay. Excellent work as always, Aaron. These games really speak to the power of ttrpgs and their ability to transport the player to the past and make them make the choices someone must have made back then. As a Spaniard I feel like these two games have a lot in common with another wartime game that puts the victims of the conflict as the protagonists: La Desbandá, by Pablo López, set in one of the most gruesome points of the Spanish Civil War. I still have to read that one. I am glad to live in a time when this kind of games are becoming a little bit more common. It is a really powerful way to leart about the nuances of the past. Thank you for this essay and the musings it has brought up.

Great essay as always. Reminds me of Viet Thanh Nguyen's _The Sympathiser_, a great spy novel that starts at the fall of Saigon. Have you read Dog Eat Dog? It's another TTRPG I heard a lot about, one which also puts the players in the roles of the colonised.

i love the fact that Nietzsche wrote all this because he was rejected by the girl he had a crush on

eyyyyy john

That was great fun, an interesting delve (fittingly)! I shared on the RRD server and a few other places. Have you read/played Luke Gearing's Mothership module *Gradient Descent*? Not entirely similar themes, but definite crossover with exploring a new environment and emerging... changed... crossover w Rocco's Basilisk in there, too!

I have a deep attachment to that era of the internet. Never used xenga specifically, but I absolutely would have _lived_ there if I'd heard about it. Mine were mostly deviantart and forum games where you'd roleplay as one of the two genders: vampire or fairy. I'm grateful to any and all projects that aim to at least try to show others that part of my history.

That reading around 3:10 truly made me cringe the hardest and sigh. Good job there. As someone who was heavily into roleplaying on tumblr in the 2010s, there is something lovely about re-reading the old cringy stuff you wrote. It can be admirable to look over the cringy stuff we wrote and did in our younger periods. So having a solo rpg that covers that is legit wonderful. I am curious, how many takes did it take for those lines?

This was a great and emotional essay for me. I am lucky that a lot of my early internet experience is saved in word docs on my computer, but I have already lost my earliest digital RPG experiences are long gone as a part of a dead Pern fan roleplay forum.

Another great video! Digital preservation and reconnecting to my teenage self have both been on my mind a lot recently. I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts.

Why are you making me nostalgic about my angsty xanga...? Oversharing, emo thoughts of a teen-to-early-20s me, set to the music of a band that hasn't made an album since 2004...

This video introduced me to City Planning Department. I brought it to the TTRPG night I run at a community center and it was a hit! It also started a great conversation about municipal politics. Thank you for the effort you put into your videos!

Great great essay. First video I find from you, looking forward into more.

Another great video, AA!

Adore "Invisible Cities." Always thought that would be a killer jumping-off point for TTRPG settings.

Was just thinking about this very topic. Another A.A. Voight banger

Thanks for the shout-out for Tales of a City! If anyone is interested, the same mechanics are also present in The Tutelary Society if you want it in a full game and Heliopolis if you prefer a sci-fi or post-apocalyptic version of it. A great video as always! They always inspire me to push my creative means in new ways. Now I want to do some revising to one of my games to include the community evolution aspect that I have been meaning to incorporate into it since before its original release! 😂

You hit it right on the nail! A city is more than its landmarks. A city reflects the people who live in it. One could even make the argument that a city reflects the interests of the powerful against the marginalized especially in the game: We, The City. As someone who studied cities and geography, place and space play an important part in how we create our games too. So city building games are extremely interesting to me! Hyped to see more games mentioned down the line. Thanks again for having me on your video. It definitely got me back into my world building mood!

awesome video as always, every day im finding reasons to play more city building games and also read italo calvinos invisible cities

This video rules! Can't believe I haven't caught this channel before now, it is so my jam. So cool to also hear my boi Blerdy on the mic, an absolutely lovely creator in the space too! I can't wait to check out the games from this list I haven't heard of and definitely can't encourage enough for folks to check out Ex Novo at the least! I played Ex Umbra (made by the same designer) earlier this year to build out a custom DCC Death Funnel and if Ex Novo is even half as interesting it is more than worth the purchase. I'm also pretty fond of _i'm sorry did you say street magic_ and have really wanted to do something with _Beak, Feather, & Bone_ lately. The latter of which I noticed you did a video on as well! :D

Great video 👍 and The Death and Life of Great American Cities is one of my favourite books! As a civil engineer and gamer, the planning of cities across the world, and how they subsequently grow through use by their residents, has always fascinated me

Another well-made vid! I just find it weird that you managed to avoid talking about the grandaddy of city builders, Sim City, and how it's the natural extension of the Sims and the simulation games in general. I still remember the pure bliss of managing an entire city for the first after being limited to a single Sim household.

for years i've been lurking in the darkness, just waiting for someone to finally make a kingdom hearts ttrpg MY TIME HAS COME!

This looks really cool, might snag it Working on a hack myself atm and stumbled across this - really like entitlement