A poster for an April 4 event at Pure Panic comics and games
Pure Panic Silver Spring. April 4. Form a Voltron with your friends or compete with them in a post apocalyptic cooking competition. @junkfoodgames.bsky.social docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
The ten-second pitch: Emissary is a sci-fi worldbuilding and exploration experience in the storygame style of Microscope, Fissco, or The Quiet Year.
Bringing it home! Pandemonium Games and @ipr.bsky.social are selling 🚀Emissary🚶♀️ at @officialpax.bsky.social in Boston, my childhood hometown, or the “There” to my “Here” in Emissary terms. March 26-29, booth 12109. Full game listing: www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/PAX-Ea...
Players around a table with papers and dice
Today at @awesomecon.bsky.social I’m playtesting @arcana-ttrpg.bsky.social. It’s on Kickstarter now! To give a taste, we dispatched a padlock by turning it into a raven and studied a time crystal by running laps with it.
Join me 3/14 in the TTRPG hall for my worldbuilder, Emissary!
So… is the thesis of my game wrong? Maybe. Is the game still fun? Yes! I feel like it spins out some pretty “complex” characters — for a one-shot — even though they’re layered on top of the world building. What’s the takeaway? Idk!
She reveals that her main character in The Dispossessed came to her as a face and a feeling before she ever dreamt of the worlds he inhabits. I wrote “Emissary” assuming she did it the other way around, and hoping to give players a glimpse into how.
But in “Mrs. Brown,” Le Guin sternly rejects the idea of characters as avatars or symbols. She calls for scifi authors to start from the tradition of the novelistic character, as Virginia Woolf illustrates in her essay “Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown.”
The conceit of Emissary is that your game group can tell a Le Guinian story by starting with a world’s building blocks, and then creating characters tied to those building blocks.
I just read Ursula Le Guin’s essay “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown” in her collection “The Language of the Night.” It made me wonder if she would hate the game I made about her work??!! 🧵
The original subtitle for Emissary was “or, Twitch Plays Ekumen.” The audience for the joke was too narrow. It works if you know millennial internet, Ursula K. Le Guin, and also the rules to my indie TTRPG. The audience was me.
Thank you for the wonderful compliment!
Sorry to hear the cart isn’t working. I will investigate. It’s available also here:
www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Emissa...
And here digitally:
samovargames.itch.io/emissary
Emissary is a contemplative group worldbuilding game inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle.
Made with love by a local designer in Maryland just down the street from the evil hat itself. 💜 💫 🚀
knaveofcups.com/product/emis...
I still want to play this! If any other DC-area public-service minded folks wanna get a game together, let me know!!
Are games art? When @playsamovar.bsky.social applied to get our games in Takoma ARTery's latest installation, I was dubious they'd say yes. The organization displays locally-made art in underused retail windows. But -- they said YES!
1/▶️
youtube.com/shorts/lvVYq...
I guess this does make me a Sticky Doodler. Maybe I can publish it under your imprint?
100%!
What should the rest of the rules be? You tell me.
I’m playtesting a new game. Core concept: draw rooms in a space station and then draw little crew members to go in them. Other rules mostly superfluous.
LGBTQ banner and "PAX Together" banner on display in front of Room 201C
Side Quest Books & Games table inside the Intersection Lounge with oodles of indie games!
Colorful games and greeting cards including "Hostile Architecture" by Grint
Display racks of zine games including Emissary by Samovar Games and The Bonsai Diary by Gene Koo (me!)
Before you get to the main expo hall, stop by the PAX Together Intersection Lounge in 201C - I spot some games Designed in the DMV here, from @greenintern.bsky.social, @playsamovar.bsky.social, and me!
Thank you @sidequestbooks.bsky.social for welcoming indie designers and games to the table!
Wow thank you Scott, that’s so kind! Dispossessed is one of my favorites and a big inspiration. Are you headed to PAX U?
238 games! at the @ipr.bsky.social table staffed by Pandemonium Games! at #PAXUnplugged! and one of them is Emissary, my GM-less story game inspired by the worlds and wanderers of Ursula K. Le Guin. Pay them a visit and grab your copy this weekend!
Emissary will be at @officialpax.bsky.social #PaxUnplugged in Philly next weekend! Drop by the @sidequestbooks.bsky.social table in the PTI Lounge to grab a copy while supplies last! I can't wait to hear what 🪐 worlds and 👣 wanderers you all cook up. #DesignedintheDMV #storygame
If you're going to #PAXU, check out @sidequestbooks.bsky.social's booth! They'll be selling a whole mess of great independent RPGs, including my own! I'm terribly grateful to them for the opportunity to get my stuff out there!
The cover of Emissary, A story game inspired by Ursula K Le Guin's Hainish Cycle. The cover is a colorful jungle-like environment with a single figure (taking the place of the "a" in "emissary") walking into the distance
An interior example from Emissary. The lefthand page is titled Phase III: Worlds In Motion and gives directions for the Emissary's visit to a place called Here. There are guidelines for the First Scene. The righthand page continues the directions and includes guides for Subsequent Scenes
Happy drop weekend! New in the shop: Emissary by @playsamovar.bsky.social
🫱🏽🫲🏼
A GMless multiplayer storytelling RPG inspired by The Hainish Cycle, Ursula K Le Guin's stories of Hain-seeded human(ish) worlds. Guide an Emissary from Here (their world) to There (a fantastic and mysterious new world)
They’re the best!! Where do you get them?
Omg the second coolest thing about being included in the @knaveofcups.com catalogue is getting to see your product against one of their impeccably selected backdrops 😍 🌌
So friggin cool! I think of the modder community around Wildermyth. People could add encounters/dilemmas. I would *love* to write some of those.
It’s looking great! One of my favorite parts of FTL are the little text-based non-combat encounters. They add so much flavor. I feel the potential for them in a more open world is huge if they are affected by some simple skill checks/crew attribute tags. Have you thought about anything like this?
I made digital download key bookmarks for physical copies of Emissary I’m selling locally. On the back I dropped 20 more Nonsense Words. That’s a 20% increase in nonsense words from base Emissary! Get yours this weekend at Game Kastle’s Goblin Market gamekastle.eventcalendarapp.com/u/46429/2o5l...
When can I try this in the DMV!!
Thanks @clovenpine.bsky.social @tomahawkbunny.bsky.social @bigpuffingames.bsky.social @hartlyllosa.bsky.social !!!