THAT’S MY COVER! TO AN IDEA THAT STARTED IN MY HEAD! THIS IS AMAZING!
This is the cover to After The War, the tabletop RPG I’ve been developing with Jason Pitre for the last couple of years. Jason, who runs Genesis of Legend, is a phenomenal designer who has an incredible, instinctive grasp of the exact spot where rules and plot collide. Given that I’m Captain Plot, that means the partnership works like a charm. I come up with stuff, Jason shows me how to make it better and develops intuitive rules systems to help tell the story and play the game.
So what’s it about? I imagine you asking?
After The War is set in a future where humanity has spread out into the stars, made contact with several other sentient races and settled other worlds. It’s a complex world, the sort of sleeves rolled up utopia that would make Starfleet Captains nod approvingly.
And in the space of under a month, a catastrophic First Contact event with an ancient, sentient piece of alien music almost wipes every single intelligent being in the galaxy out.
The survivors gather on Polvo, a colony world with a mysterious past and begin rebuilding their lives. But the Song, the colossal sentient piece of music that almost wiped them out, is rising again. And other interests want Polvo to themselves too…
The original pitch document was ‘The Third Man meets Goodbye To All That, Killjoys, Soldier and Bravestarr‘ so that should give you an idea of what to expect. It’s a game about survival, communities, conspiracy, the aftermath of war and what happens when you realize home can be where you make it. It contains several of my favorite ever RPG creations and every time Jason and I have batted the draft between us it’s only got better.
After the War is the oddest, longest, most personal tabletop RPG work I’ve ever done and I’m vastly honored to be working with Jason on it. It should be out this year and I’ll have more information for you soon.
Oh and here are my other RPG projects to date. I’ve done a lot in this field but this is the first time I’ve worked on something original and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Thanks, Jason. Much more on this as we near the release date too.
(This piece originally appeared in my newsletter, The Full Lid. Check out the archive over here, and subscribe for a weekly dose of pop culture, enthusiasm and my work)