Skirmish games and First Person.
Frostgrave + ICRP x Mythic= Roguelike Fiction Anthology!
Well, Hello Hello Hello! Welcome back to another installment of Ink n Bones. It has been a while. Thank you for your patience. My health is getting better, and treatment may cause installments to be a bit scattered, hopefully that isn’t the case. Either way I thank you for your continued support.
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I wanted to take a moment and pivot here to discuss what the thesis of this podletter is all about. If you read the description, you will see a roguelike fiction anthology. What is that? That is what goes through your mind.
Roguelike
A video game subgenre normally characterized by procedural dungeon crawls. This type of game play is something that is akin to the procedural television series. Some of my favorites, Leverage, Scorpion, NCIS, and Law and Order. All offer an episodic experience- a self-contained story experience.
Episodics
This self-contained story in each episode allows us to get to know each character over time in a formulaic process. Unlike a traditional serialized story with a clear beginning, middle and end. The episodic allows you to continue to come back to the characters as they have a specific job, or a specific location. This is like how Anthologies work.
Anthology
The anthology is a collection of stories centered around a theme. Sometimes a location or set of characters. This can be tied to the above in an interesting way for our purposes.
Enter Frostgrave
This Podletter has been an avenue to explore, build, and imagine. An exercise in worldbuilding and storytelling through solo tabletop gaming. In my time away I have stumbled across Frostgrave. A beautiful little system for skirmish tabletop gaming- which is somewhere between war gaming and rpg.
You play as a wizard fighting over treasure in a ruined frozen city of wonder. You have an apprentice and can build a warband to delve into these city ruins. The thing that I love about this system is how well it fits into the above definitions. You see in Frostgrave if your wizard dies you can promote your Apprentice to keep playing. Your warband is small enough to name all the characters as well. The goal is simple you are diving into the depths of a dungeon, and you must contend with the beast, other parties, traps, and countless hazards. All in the name of glory and coin. When warband members die you can hire new ones. These mechanics create a wonderful loop. Dare I say a roguelike or even episodic experience.
While our campaign Lament of Severance is fun. It does not fit inside of what I want this podletter to be.
The Pivot
That said we will be shifting gears and introducing a new set of characters, adventure, and rules. These will be the final set of big changes we make, as it offers a perfect scaffold for the experience I would like to impart.
Essentially allowing anyone to pick up an episode and get the gist of what is going on without having the need to read everything beforehand. However, as time progresses those that stick with us will get to know the characters well. This framework will allow us to step away from characters, introduce new warbands and wizards as rivals. In time fleshing out the world. Creating our collection in real time.
Narrative shift
We will still be using Mythic and ICRPG to supplement our game play and narrative. As a note we will be moving away from third person narrative heavy stories instead focusing on First person Narratives. This is hopefully to offer more insight into characters.
This and polls are going to be some other major changes to expect. As after each game we will have decisions to make. Your support is always appreciated, and I want to hear what you have to say. Talk to me, I talk back!
Inkyard Fellowship
As always Thank you again for being part of the Inkyard. I like to end things by giving you other people to check out when you need to scratch that tabletop itch.
What I'm currently consuming.
Hopefully you find something you really like and enjoy remember to share, share, share! Thanks again for your support! don't hesitate to drop a comment 👇👇👇👇
Was it a hard decision to pivot and stop working on your current campaign? As you know I did a similar thing. Really looking forward to how this new game type works out. Best of luck. I'll be reading.