This suggests underlying connections we can draw on between mechanics and aspects of the human experience. Sometimes this can be quite direct, but other times feel a bit like the bouba–kiki effect, when some mechanic just 'feels' right as a way of evoking something. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/k...

Any other Sydney folk interested in buying a few copies of SPINE collectively, to split the extortionate 'Down Under' shipping fee?

Could he also help by telling you about OTHER contemporaneous designers and what THEY designed?

Excellent! I look forward to playing it one day… though I have to admit, as someone who is more interested in the process of deciphering City of Six Moons than ‘playing’ the end product, I’m most fascinated with the possibility of the play involved in unraveling the story around the artefact :)

@amabel.bsky.social I was very curious about the 'discovering an old TTRPG' idea you mentioned, which felt like a kindred spirit to @liz-shrikestudio.bsky.social's 'You Will Die In This Place'. Are you still working on that idea? And if so, how are those games in dialogue?

Wonderful interview. Thank you for walking the line between fascinating insight and evil spoilers (from someone a couple of months in and still not done)!

Brilliantly affordable. Unfortunately those of us living in the distant Antipodes are cursed with a $25 shipping cost for a $10 book! But we're used to it, and I have asked my favourite Aussie micro-importer (rpgbookshelf.com.au) whether they might be keen to order a bunch...

Such a fascinatng conversation. The discussion about appropriate representation raised precisely all the gnarly questions I wrestled with, creating a classroom game exploring the impact of colonial first contact on Indigenous communities. (schoolhouse.games/terra-fabula/)

Facinating conversation! @tasharobinson.bsky.social, given the breadth of indie games you've seen, I'm curious whether you have come across play experiences that are about the player directly exploring their own identity and sense of self (rather than doing so through the mediation of a character)?

Not at all - I would be delighted if you find it useful!

I can imagine cookbooks coming with a handy reference 'GM screen', for a start!

Maybe that's the price of giving such a writerly text to the world. Say two people buy YWDITP. One of them reads it cover to cover but never tries to play it. The other skips the 'wordy stuff' and runs a dungeon-crawling adventure with their D&D crew. Would either of those outcomes disappoint you?

Posting this, I went to write 'fictional game at their heart', and realised that there's no such thing as a 'fictional game' if the rules are made clear enough to play - it's simply a game. What if the rules are too ambiguous to play, I wonder? Is Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game still an actual game?

Posting this, I wanted to write 'fictional game at their heart', and realised that (unlike other artistic forms) there's no such thing as a 'fictional game' if the rules are clear enough to play - it's just a game. What if the rules are ambiguous I wonder? Is Hesse's Glass Bead Game a real game?

True.. schools are also moving to e-textbooks. However, the dreaded worksheets are still very popular, as well as small 'teacher-printed workbooks'. Things like that could definitely be a lot more engaging gamified. Some of Marco Salogni's work springs to mind www.kickstarter.com/projects/mar...

I love Clayton's comment "I think the more interesting question, for me at least, is what part of rpgs is the 'play'." People have pointed out that the DM is just as much a player as everyone else, but I only recently realised that 'campaign design' has always been my favourite form of RPG 'play'.

"I'd love a ttrpg that is basically an activity book or workbook." This is a brilliant thought. Can you imagine how much more exciting that would be as something to put in front of a high school student than a 'typical workbook'. There's a thought that's going to keep me up nights...