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Just had a wonderful playtest of #Wanderhome today, as we complete a season and choose advancements, and it got me really thinking about why I never say you& #39;re telling a story once, in all of Wanderhome. So here& #39;s a thread about it!
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To start, you can check out the free playkit on Itch at the link below, and follow that link to subscribe to the Kickstarter!
2/? http://jdragsky.itch.io/wanderhome ">https://jdragsky.itch.io/wanderhom...
2/? http://jdragsky.itch.io/wanderhome ">https://jdragsky.itch.io/wanderhom...
So, as I start this thread, I was to talk about "story" in a VERY specific definition of the term (I& #39;ve learned my lesson!) Story here means specifically the kind of narrative plot arcs traditional story games (like PBTA) and story game players find themselves doing.
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Some examples of this are:
- PCs are more important than everyone else
- Figuring out preemptively where you want the scene or your character to go (playing to lose, etc.)
- Centering failure and victory
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- PCs are more important than everyone else
- Figuring out preemptively where you want the scene or your character to go (playing to lose, etc.)
- Centering failure and victory
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Wanderhome actively rejects all of that. One of my biggest design goals is to create a game that decenters the player characters from the universe. They& #39;re not the most important - in fact, they& #39;re rarely equipped to solve big problems in the world.
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Additionally, Wanderhome doesn& #39;t believe failure is a useful way to talk about things. Failure doesn& #39;t exist in real life, and talking about success or failure is often a really unhealthy mindset. So how else can we talk about the things we do?
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Additionally, there& #39;s a lot of story games about traveling to places & fixing their problems. Some even in the same loose genre as Wanderhome! But random guests rarely know how to solve systemic problems in places they& #39;re only in for a brief moment.
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There& #39;s an adage I catch myself saying in playtests a lot (and I gotta work into the rules) which is that "If you know where you& #39;re going already, the game is less good" - because if you& #39;re playing a scene and know how it ends, then that& #39;s not a journey - that& #39;s an errand.
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There& #39;s some other bits and bobs in the way this philosophy infuses Wanderhome, but I wanted to highlight those spots. Wanderhome is a weird game! It& #39;s really me trying to articulate some things in ways a lot of people haven& #39;t quite done so.
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Wanderhome can be a bit of a paradigm shift to play. It& #39;s taken me a little bit to get used to it! That& #39;s not to say it& #39;s not fun before then, just that once your brain clicks it& #39;s like learning how to see a brand-new color.
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My favorite game of Wanderhome was with @ForkTwenty for his podcast, where we went for a walk, pet a bug, sat by a fire, and got some sleep. Like, in a lot of games that might feel unsatisfying, but in Wanderhome it feels freeing.
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This is kinda a weird thread to make, because I know there might be some people who read this and go "Oh, eww, I don& #39;t want this game anymore" but like, I hope it can also get y& #39;all to understand why folks are saying this game is revolutionary.
12/FIN http://tinyurl.com/wanderhomerpg ">https://tinyurl.com/wanderhom...
12/FIN http://tinyurl.com/wanderhomerpg ">https://tinyurl.com/wanderhom...
