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There's many ways to decide who has authority over what in an RPG. Traditional games have a bunch of players with one PC each and a GM responsible for everything else, while Dreams Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Ben Rosenbaum takes a very different approach: divide that "everything else" up into flavorful pieces, like "gossip & reputation" and "the wild forest" and give everyone a piece. That choice has become one of the backbones of Belonging Outside Belonging games (hacks of Dream Askew / Dream Apart), and today I'm joined by my good friend Kodi Gonzaga, a designer making just such a game, to break down exactly how it works at the table.
Kodi's game Extra Ordinary is on Kickstarter now. Check it out!
Further Reading
Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum
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Kodi on Bluesky.
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Credits
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
Transcript
Sam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop mechanic and ask whether there's a piece from this puzzle that fell on the floor or something. My name is Sam Dewald and my co-host today is Kodi Gonzaga. one of the main ways I've been playing RPGs the past few years is had a Monday night meetup at Geeky Teas in Sunny Burbank, California.
A couple dozen people show up at the local game store. So people pitch games, they wanna run, and then everyone splits up into groups for a night of one shots. It's such a great setup. There's so many advantages. I see this having over more traditional home games, Even as there's some flaws also, but one of the big advantages is the community building case in point, Kodi, one of the mainstays of this group and a great young designer.
I have loved playing games with Kodi over the past few years, including a lot of games I've talked about on this show. And now Kodi's got their own game coming out on Kickstarter right now. Extra Ordinary is a belonging, outside belonging game about kids with extraordinary powers on the run in an ordinary world.
it's like Animorphs or Percy Jackson, that kind of thing.
And so this felt like a great time to have Kodi on the show. so today we're talking about one of the tent pole mechanics from belonging, outside belonging games at large, setting elements Where you take the traditional game master role, divide it up into different flavorful pieces and hand one piece to everyone at the table. We'll talk about more what that means in detail In the episode. We start with the way this worked in the original belonging, outside belonging games, dream askew and dream apart.
Then we move forward into how Kodi approached adapting them to extraordinary. I love breaking down that iteration and adaptation process in detail.
So let's get into it. Here is Kodi Gonzaga with setting elements from Dream Askew and Dream Apart.
Kodi Gonzaga. Welcome to Dice Exploder.
Kodi: Hi, it's me.
Sam: What a pleasure to have you on a day that's not a Monday at dps.
Kodi: I know. It's crazy to see you on a day That isn't our biweekly game night. That,
Sam: yeah. Yeah.
You know how like sometimes you meet people online and, or sometimes you go online, uh, and you have friends, then you meet them in real life and you're like, you're only supposed to exist from the shoulders up. In my mind, you're only supposed to exist in person and having you on the internet here is very strange experience for me.
Kodi: That's fair. You know? That's fair.
Sam: What, uh, what are we talking about today?
Kodi: We are talking about setting elements in belonging, outside belonging slash no dice, no masters games.
Sam: Yeah. So this. Is a format of game. A lineage of game that started with Dream Askew slash Dream Apart. Published in 2018, designed by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum.
Avery Alder did Dream Askew, which is a like post apocalyptic, like Apocalypse World hack, but specifically for like living in a queer commune kind of thing. And Benjamin Rosenbaum, uh, made Dream apart, which is about living in a maybe slightly magical Jewish shuttle from the, I wanna say 18th century kind of vibes.
Kodi: Yeah.
Sam: And I find these games great. They're, I mean, they're huge. They like, people probably have heard of these games. The defining sort of feature of these games is what we're kind of here to talk about today, which is setting elements. And the big thing here was that Avery. Has told this story on many interviews.
Mm-hmm. Was regularly running Apocalypse World at a one shots meetup at like a coffee shop.
Kodi: Hard to do.
Sam: Yeah. Hard to do. Apocalypse World is a hard game to run a one shot of, especially in sort of like a busy environment where people are like getting up and running around doing their thing. And Avery was like, I would like a version of this that I can run in this, uh, geeky tee style setup.
Kodi: Mm-hmm.
Sam: And. The setting elements mechanic was one part of the solution she came up with. And what this is, is basically you take the standard dungeon master game master kind of role, and you divide it up amongst everyone at the table. And the way that you divide it up is by. Sections of flavor. So one setting elements that we are gonna look at today from Dream apart is called Gossip and Reputation.
So if something happens in the game and someone kind of needs a gm and the thing at stake is gossip and reputation.
Kodi: Yeah. The thing that people wanna deal with is gossip and reputation. Like, I have a great idea. Can I interject? That's that I love. I love it when players do that.
Sam: Yeah, so physically, the way this looks right is you take these, they're like character sheets for the gm, for the setting, almost, right?
There's six of them. So for Dream apart, they are the market, the unseen world, the goyish world, text and traditions, gossip and reputation, and the wild forest. And those are all like printed out on eight and a half by 11 pieces of paper. They're sitting in the middle of the table. And when you are playing as the gossip and reputation, you pick up the gossip and reputation sheet, you hold it in front of you.
It gives you a little bit of advice, but then that's also just a signal to everyone else at the table. Like I'm the gossip and reputation now, like I'm doing the thing.
Kodi: I am the momentary gm. Fear my power. Gosh, I also, you say gossip and reputation, and I'm not Jewish, but I am half Filipino, and so my first thought is always, oh, the aunties.
Anyway.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm not Jewish either. Uh, but I did grow up in the Midwest. Right. Like, but
Kodi: yeah, it's a very, it's a common theme in small towns, small group settings. Ooh.
Sam: Yeah, I do. I, yeah. There's a reason we're focusing on Dream Apart instead of Dream Askew here today, because Dream Askew is a very specific game that I've played more than dream apart, and I think it is also a game that not everyone feels sort of.
Culturally accessible because of how queer it is. You know, I've played it with mm-hmm. Very straight friends who are kind of like, I don't think I should be here.
Kodi: One of the only games I've ever played of Dream Skew was it was me, very visibly queer person. Yeah. And then like three very straight men, like who were in the, their thirties and forties, and there were like.
Is this okay? And I said, blanket, it's fine. Go Ham. And none of them did anything bad. It was great.
Sam: Yeah. I, I think like Dream though, matches up much more to the indie role playing game audience because that audience is so queer.
Kodi: Yes, a hundred percent.
Sam: And so like you end up, like in the situation, you are describing a lot more frequently with Dream Skew, whereas with Dream Apart, I think.
I've just never seen people talk about dream apart or play it in the same way. Yeah, I think 'cause there are fewer Jewish people than queer people in this scene, and so you, you don't have the Jewish person like bringing the game and I think dream apart, I have gotten to play it. I got to play at Big Bad Con in like 2019 and it's just as cool and fun and interesting and the, the game itself.
Has the, the game text itself has a very inviting section on how to approach these games if you are not a part of the sorts of communities that they're trying to represent or something adjacent. And because none of us have lived in an 17th century shuttle, you know, or a post-apocalyptic queer Cowell, maybe some of us have lived in a post-apocalyptic queer commune, but probably not a psychic one.
Kodi: I probably, probably, there might be a few immortals,
Sam: but you know, I, I think that setting elements also are this. Interesting way of inviting you in of like the, the flags of something that is important to the Jewish dead is gossip and reputation. Something that's important is texts and traditions.
Something that's important is mm-hmm. The unseen world, that that's a, an invitation to, you don't know about this, but I'm telling you the things that are important and that you can think about and here are some guidelines on how to think about it.
Kodi: Yeah. No, it's a great way to invite people in who, who aren't part of those communities, and also might feel worried that they're going to misrepresent those communities or be offensive or some, or in some way and, and like, yeah, you could be, but like just learn and grow from that.
That's it. That's all
Sam: you, you seem like maybe you had something you wanna say in there, but
Kodi: I think the thing I was gonna say is that in both dream and dream apart there is, I don't know if it's categorized as a setting element. Yeah. 'cause there're. In both of them, the community itself, which you define more clearly at the table and is like unique to each mm-hmm.
Set of players, each table. But for, for Dream Askew, it's the enclave for dream apart, it's the ettl. And yeah, I, I mean, I don't know if you'd classify those as setting elements.
Sam: Yeah, that's a really interesting point that that's almost like the fruitful void is the community itself, right? Yeah. We're defining all of these.
Pressure points on the community itself. Mm-hmm. Through the setting elements. This is something I really like about the setting elements as a thing. We're getting a little bit ahead past, like describing how these things work, but like something I really like about them is they're big flags planted in the ground by the game, saying like, this is the thing that's gonna matter.
Like these are the pressures on your little community, and then
Kodi: these are the themes of the story you're telling.
Sam: Yeah. And then the community is much more defined by the playbooks. Right. So in addition to the setting elements, right? In dream apart, you have the scholar or the kleer, the midwife, like other classic playbooks that you were gonna pick up and have one of those characters in front of you.
And those. Have on them, not just like a bunch of stuff that defines your role as a, a traditional playbook or a character class kind of does, but they also have a lot of like, relationship kinds of things or like how you interact with the community and you get a lot more like defining of the community on, on that end of things.
Kodi: No, for sure. I, it's interesting because the Schl and the enclave, they are kind of character sheets for, for the setting at large, but the, the setting elements. They're setting elements, but I always like to think of them as themes. Yeah. Because also it depends on the game, but you may have all of the setting elements available to you when you're playing, but you're not necessarily going to use or feature all six of them.
Yeah. In a major way. And so like whichever ones you feature, define, and. The story you're telling in that period of time, which I think is so fun.
Sam: I, I find something really compelling about this actually. It like, I think we're gonna immediately get into like galaxy brain level, like design theory, but like, good,
Kodi: that's what I'm here for.
Sam: I think like designers, one of the like things that a designer is doing when they're designing a game is they're basically shaping the like, playground, right? That, yeah. You're gonna then, as players run around on. And then the players show up and they might be like locked into that kind of playground if they've agreed to play this game.
But they, they're not gonna use all the equipment on the playground necessarily. Right? Yeah. You know, when you sit down to play D&D, like, yeah, everyone loves playing a wizard, so maybe there's a wizard in the party, but like, not every party has a wizard that's like a piece of playground equipment that's like never getting picked up and used and so on and so forth for like every rule.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. At the table and. That feels very much true of the setting elements here. Like, uh, it's like, here's a bucket of the things that a game of dream apart could be about, and then you and your table get to decide, okay, we're going to keep designing, right? We're gonna keep narrowing down. Like what?
Does our game of dream apart look like, not just any game of dream apart?
Kodi: Yeah. It's very much a buffet of choices. I love it.
Sam: Yeah. Buffet is a great way to think about it. Well, let's, let's take a look at one of these sheets. We've got the gossip and reputation sheet here in front of us. I want to just walk through one of these sheets and what, what's the, the heck is on here.
Do you wanna like, take us through it?
Kodi: Kodi? It's got this wonderful title that says you also play gossip and reputation, and it has a little, has two little blurbs under here. Sage just taught that gossip Slays three, the speaker, the listener, and the one discussed that the tongue is a sharpened arrow that kills not merely at 40 or 50 cubits, but throughout the heavens and the earth.
The shuttle has a genius for gossip. Our neighbor's doings are as tasty as borscht. How else will we know who is up and who is down? Who is wise and who is a fool? Who is to be envied? Who is to be pitied? Are we not also commanded not only to love, but also to rebuke, rebuke, rebuke our neighbors without gossip?
How will we know who to rebuke?
Sam: Great tone setting immediately.
Kodi: I love it.
Sam: Yeah.
Kodi: Creative. The, the creative writing person in me is just the, the brain's going. Bur, yeah. Right now. We've got circle two desires and there's a bunch of, a list of desires, destruction, compassion, judgment, et cetera.
Sam: Yeah,
Kodi: there's tips, which are like tips on how to portray the gossip and reputation.
Sam: Let's read a couple of the tips.
Kodi: Explore the potential tension secrets, disappointments and dissatisfactions in every relationship. Make sure reputation matters profoundly in the shuttle. Ask compelling questions and build on the answers that others give. And I think that one is in every single one. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Kodi: And then they have a pickup when and trade away sections.
Sam: Mm-hmm. So that's like when you should be holding the sheet, right?
Kodi: Yes. And when you should give away the sheet if you want your character to interact with said sheet.
Sam: Yeah. 'cause that's, that's like a pretty important part of these, right? It's like the game very much takes the stance.
And I think this is pretty common. So there's the chuga rule back from the forge days. That was like the same person should not be doing what? Their character is doing and the consequences of those doings. Yeah. And, mm-hmm. So the, the idea here is. If you are holding the gossip and reputation sheet, but then your character comes into conflict with gossip and reputation, you should be trading away the sheet to someone else.
Yeah. And taking their setting element. Um, but the, the pick up when section is also, I think, really nice because sometimes, you know, if you have six people playing this game, then it's like a busy table and everyone has a setting element and that's great. Mm-hmm. But much more common is you have like three or four people playing the game.
Which means you have a couple of the setting elements sitting dormant in the middle of the table and having specific call outs for like, mm-hmm. Hey, like these are the kinds of things someone might do that warrants stabbing them in the knife with some gossip. Yeah. Like that. That's a nice thing to have on the sheet.
It's
Kodi: beautiful. It's a great way to indicate to others, Hey, you should have consequences for these actions, which. I find it's, it's sometimes hard in games that don't have a set GM for people to like actually stick to it and give consequences to other people on at the table. They feel like it's mean and it's like, no, no, no, no, no.
We're not here. We're not here for just a walk in the park. We're
Sam: we're here for a juicy time, not for a long time. And we got one more thing on this sheet here.
Kodi: Yeah. We have the moves. Moves. The moves are. Offer someone an opportunity to condemn, forgive, rebuke, redeem, or exclude. Put two people alone together.
Introduce a scandal that others must decide whether to reveal or cover up. After every move, ask what do you do?
Sam: Yeah, the the moves are great and the moves are very much like, Hey, when you know you are supposed to do your duty as gossip and reputation, pick one of these things and then
Kodi: do it. Yeah. Commit to.
The bit and the bit is not humor in this case, or it could be, it could be. It's putting
Sam: two people alone in a room together, like,
Kodi: yep. Ugh, God,
Sam: that's not good. Yeah.
Kodi: I, I also just, there's some, all of these have amazing sources, like both Dream mystery, dream Apart, have like this. Sources list of quotes on one side, and they only fill up half a page.
And the sources are great to just read through and get the vibes of everything, and it's just, I love it.
Sam: Yeah, I love the mix of the sources, like the ones on gossip and reputation. We have like literal quotes from the Talmud, but we also have some like novels in here. Right. We have a historical text, you know, it's a nice popery.
Kodi: Yeah. No, one of my favorite quotes is, I think it's for the Scarcities or something in Dream Askew, and it's from Station 11, which is just,
Sam: yeah, I know. I almost called that one out too. 'cause I love Station 11 so much
Kodi: I need to read and watch and everything. Station 11 it's, anyway.
Sam: So what do you like about setting elements at large?
Why did you wanna bring this on?
Kodi: I think something that 'cause GM list games, GM list games, GM full games, whatever you wanna call 'em. They are so good at narrowing the scope into something that is fruitful to play in. And they do that through setting elements. And like, I feel like when people come to a table for a GM list game, they expect to only have to care about their character.
And it's like, oh, a game we're, none of us have to be the gm. And it's like, no, no, no. All of us with the GM and all of us have the responsibility, nay the privilege of taking up setting elements and directing and pushing the story in fun, in interesting and conflict filled ways. And like, it depends on the table, but I found that setting elements, especially having them on individual sheets, is such a good way to help people get used to being the momentary GM because you know, it'd be nice to just have a free.
Form play table where everyone's kind of, everyone kind of knows each beat immediately and can do it, but that's, that's, that's a one in a million table.
Sam: Yeah.
Kodi: And so like these setting elements, picking them up and putting them down, putting your character sheet down so you could pick up an element, a setting element, and then like having all this beautiful, rich, like, what do you call it, rich?
Storytelling grist on it is just a great way to get people to break outta their shell and have fun giving other people consequences.
Sam: I think that there's a really lovely thing here where like a lot of times the fear of GM ing is, that's really intimidating.
Kodi: Yeah.
Sam: I don't want that much responsibility, you know, and I don't know how to do it.
And these are, as you say, like giving people a good framework for this is how you do it, right. Here are the moves that you can make. And here you don't have to think about everything. You just have to think about this little bit.
Kodi: Yeah. It breaks it up into bite-sized pieces.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. And like, I think the, the real.
Win here is you don't have to do it all yourself.
Kodi: Amen.
Sam: Right? Mm-hmm. If gossip and reputation actually doesn't turn out to be important and like you are holding onto this sheet at your six player table, but the thing we really end up caring about is the wild forest and whoever has that sheet is like more comfortable g ming and we're really like high on the wild forest.
Then like, great, you chime in like once or twice with the gossip and reputation stuff or never. Mm-hmm. And like that's totally fine. The game holds up, but it's there. It's an invitation for you if you want it.
Kodi: It can be intimidating, especially at first, but it can also be a really fun like exchange around the table.
I've had games of like various BOB games where someone has been like, oh God, I really want, like, I really want my character to come into the scene and someone's like, gimme the sheet, give it a sheet. And it's just, I love it when that happens at a table. It just feels so like it's collaborative. In the most heartwarming way where people are like, I want to take responsibility now 'cause I have good ideas and I'm confident about them.
Also, I wanna fuck your character up a little bit. 'cause who doesn't? That's why we're here.
Sam: I really love the, the visual and the like physical, tactile indicator of picking up the sheet as a thing that says like, I am taking point now I have an idea I would like to speak. And in a way where you don't have to even interrupt other people, right?
Mm-hmm. You could just sort of like, put on a devilish smile and like pick up gossip and reputation from the of the table. Then, you know, wait for your turn, you know?
Kodi: Mm-hmm.
Sam: I wanna talk a little bit about the history of the games here. I got into this a little bit, but I'd long wondered if the setting elements in these games was a mechanic directly descended from Archipelago three, which is a game by Matthias Holter.
I hope I'm saying his name right. But is this game, which is like. Imagine setting elements, but they're not defined, right? You sit down to play, you dunno what's going on, and you're like, Hey, we're gonna play like Star Wars using the Archipelago three mm-hmm. Kind of engine. What setting elements do we think should be in Star Wars?
And so you do the rebels and you do the empire and you do like tattoo or spa and the force, right? And then like you write those on little note cards and you hand 'em out to people and you use them in the same way. And I think that. Archipelago three is an, that's an interesting way of doing this. You lose so much of that great specificity that I think comes from dream mosquito, dream apart style setting elements.
Mm-hmm. And I think that specificity is really what makes this. Go. But in exchange you get the flexibility of being able to kind of bring in whatever game you want. But anyway, so I, I had wondered for a long time if the setting elements were descended from this game. So I just asked Avery before we started recording, um, and what she said was there was like a, a whole movement of like, how do you take the GM role and divided up, like what are other ways of dividing authority at the table?
And she definitely played Archipelago three, but it wasn't like specifically taking that mechanic. And repurposing it here, maybe unconsciously, but like here we are. I find it interesting that we were sort of coming out of a movement here of people all thinking about how to redistribute authority at the table.
Kodi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sam: There's this term GM less, which people throw around a lot and which is its own thing. And then people have this term GM full to describe like the difference between a game where you were all sitting down to play and you're just kind of like focused on your thing or whatever. Versus a game that is specifically setting element style, taking that GM role and splitting up the, the authority of it amongst people in whatever way it's going to.
I've heard you use the terms GM list and GM full a lot, especially in like describing these games. I'm curious like what your opinions are about those.
Kodi: I've got a lot of opinions about GM List versus GM full specifically. 'cause I designed what I call a GM full game. Mm-hmm. And I started calling it GM List because that's what the, that's what the language was when I first started designing it.
And still is honestly. And but the more I pitched it at our game night, the more I pitched it to people. The more I realized that people came to the table with an expectation that. Oh, it's GM list. That means none of us have to take responsibility for the story beats.
Sam: Yeah.
Kodi: And that is not what's what's happening in my game or any of any of these belong outside belonging games.
And so I started using the term GM full and saying, it's all of us are going to take responsibility for the GM role at one point or another. And just kind of merging GM full with that sort of definition at when I pitched my game or any other BOB game. And I got tables that were a lot more down to clown when it came to picking up and using setting elements.
Interesting. And, and so like, I, can I do anything with this knowledge? I don't know, but like it's, it's changed how I define GM list versus GM full. Another Baker's thing, the Firebrands framework. I actually define the Firebrands framework as one of the few truly GM list. TT RPG systems out there, because like for me, GM list means I don't really have to think about.
World at large. I just have to think about my character and because firebrand is so tight and it has such specific questions and such specific moments and scenes and beats that you have to stick to,
Sam: it's really like the Bakers are g Ming for you.
Kodi: Yes, a hundred percent. The the GM is, it's like, it's like a board game.
Mm-hmm. Where the game itself is the GM as opposed to everyone at the table is sharing that GM role, and so that's why I've. Started trying to call games where people share that GM role with GM full and games where you truly are being guided and directed by the game itself as GM List.
Sam: My take on GM list versus GM full is like, I find it annoying that we like lead with this terminology in the first place that.
I wish we lived in a world where it was like, yeah, you just play role playing games and you sit down and then it's like, oh, one person kind of like runs the world in this game. That's kind of interesting. Cool. Let's do that thing. Or like, oh, we're all playing our own characters, but we have to like, set scenes like in fiasco.
Okay. Like, I, I know how to do that. And like, you're
Kodi: the tragedy of D&D being the most prolific TT RPG out there.
Sam: I mean, it's. The, the way we are at, in the culture of it, I think like you do the, these terms are useful, but I find I'm always thinking about like, okay, what, how can I break out of. The culture that I am in.
Yeah. Like what assumptions is the culture around me making about how design and gameplay works and like how can I question those and find something new in there? And I think that there's just so many different ways of distributing all kinds of narrative authority at the table. And uh, setting elements are just such a fabulous example of that.
And I'd love to see more like that.
Kodi: Yeah, it's hard 'cause. All of us who are more entrenched in the TT RPG space, we all are like, yeah, we wanna break molds and think outside the box in terms of all these ways we can play, ways we can engage with authority, ways we can tell stories, and yet. Every single time I go to the Monday night game night, you're not getting people who are blank slates.
You're always getting people with preconceived notions. And so like for me, using that terminology and also making sure to follow up that terminology with the definition afterwards, I think there, there is a benefit to having an, but it shouldn't be used in an exclusionary way. Yeah. It should be used to help bring people in.
And I think. But one thing for me is like, it's, it would be great if we lived in a society where everyone was a blank slate coming into tTGs. But we don't, we live in our world, in our reality, where most people, if they've heard of tTGs, have heard of Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah. And they're gonna come in with those preconceived notions.
And I think as much as it'd be nice. I am always a realist when it comes to introducing people to games in general. Yeah. You're gonna run up against those preconceived notions whether you want to or not.
Sam: It is interesting. Every time I show up at Giggy Tees and there are people there who literally have never played RPGs before.
Yeah. Who have just found the meetup on like meetup.com or whatever and have showed up.
Kodi: It's so wonderful. I love those people
Sam: and, and those people, like this is the thing that I think is really interesting is often in that context you end up with. One or two of those people at your like five player table where the other three or four people
Kodi: mm-hmm
Sam: have had this debate about what GM Plus versus GM full means before, like are really deep in it and like how do you.
Invite those people in and explain to those people what's going on. And it just to bring it back to setting elements, I love how clear it is. Like it's just so it explains the concept so intuitively, just through the like, existence of the mechanic. You know, it what a what a beautiful setup.
Kodi: No, for sure.
Belonging, outside belonging. A just genius level, TT RPG design, and I love it so much.
Sam: I wanna talk a little bit about, like more explicitly like the benefits of having a GM in your game or having like that role versus like a GM list kind of situation. Like in my mind the, the reason you have a GM in the game is so that individual players can like focus on one character and also so that like we know.
Who the authority is. Right. We know like who to turn to. Mm-hmm. And in a lot of GM list games, we've kind of talked about this like obliquely, but like in a lot of GM list games, it's not clear who you are supposed to turn to at a certain point. And like that means that sometimes people do become more passive.
Right. People make the assumption, I don't need to be the person who's stepping up right now and. Um, the setting elements like are a great solution to that problem by virtue of saying, no, no, no. Is it about gossip and reputation then it is your job to step up, up right now or to find someone who will, it's a very loud mechanic in terms of assigning authority, right?
Like, and being clear about who has authority over.
Kodi: I've also seen it be seen it be used as like, it just kind of becomes a GM's game.
Sam: Mm, yeah, totally.
Kodi: Where one person ends up, they take on the GM role, they don't get to play the character they made, and they're instead managing all these GM sheet, these like these setting elements because they're the only one who's willing to pick up and play, portray those setting elements.
And like, I think it's also like. It's such a, just having the sheets is such a vivid explanation of why you shouldn't be doing that. You are overloading yourself with sheets. You don't get to hold your own character sheet. You are being selfless and in that you are, the other players are being selfish in a bad way.
Sam: You're taking on a lot.
Kodi: Yeah, and and I think it's such a great way to showcase like. No, no, no. This is not a game. This is a game where authority over the story is distributed amongst everybody, or it can be distributed in an uneven way, but if it is, why is it? Is that intentional? Why is that?
Sam: Yeah, it's clear about the, the visual thing you're talking about of that.
Making it clear how much work it is to take up all those sheets is very compelling.
Kodi: Yeah.
Sam: But also like I, the game like super survives that
Kodi: it does.
Sam: Right? Like if someone does just want to do that, like I, I would challenge you a little bit that that's like necessarily a bad thing to do. Like I think I agree with you that the bad thing to do,
Kodi: it's not always
Sam: right.
Yeah. The bad thing to do is to do it without realizing it. Right.
Kodi: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: And without everyone at the table sort of being upfront and clear about it. Yeah. But, um, I mean, this is something Wanderhome talks about in the way it talks about playing with a guide or without a guide that you can play without a guide.
And everyone is sort of like sharing responsibilities in the way that we were talking about with setting elements, even though that game sort of has locations instead of setting elements.
Kodi: Yeah.
Sam: But, but also like, if you wanna play with a guide, here's maybe what they're up to. Maybe they're, they've got all the locations.
Like, here's how you would divide up the authority that way. I, I really like the. The flexibility there. Mm-hmm. Um, and it, this also like, lets you be really open about, okay, cool, we've got six people at the table. Like maybe the thing we want to do is because like Sam and Kodi are the experienced role players here, and we've got four newbies.
Maybe I'll take three of the setting elements. You can take three of the setting elements. We can like share the load there a little bit and everyone else can just take their character sheet and like, and go from there.
Kodi: I mean, it just forces the table to be conscious mm-hmm. About that narrative. Weight and narrative load.
Yeah. On different players at the table. Yeah, and that's something I really love about just the game design in general, but especially setting elements.
Sam: The one real problem I have with setting elements is that when I look at these sheets, boys, there are a lot of text on there.
Kodi: Yeah.
Sam: There's a lot of text on there and a lot of it is flavor text.
Right. You get these big, beefy like two paragraphs of introduction. You get all these sources, quotes that we talked about loving, but like they take up a lot of space and on the one hand, that's fine. I think the graphic design does a pretty good job of being, like the sources are over here and largely you can ignore them, but like if you're daydreaming at the table, read a little transcript from station 11, who cares?
The, but also like when I pick up gossip and reputation and it's time for me to play as gossip and reputation. It's like, where am I looking again? Like there's just a lot here. Like I, I feel like I need to hold it all in my head and really I don't need to do that. I just kind of need to hold in my head the moves.
Right. Or just maybe the tips, you know?
Kodi: Yeah. Tips and moves are definitely the like key parts. I do think one thing I always try to do when I'm running these kinds of games is I try to like read aloud.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Kodi: Mm-hmm. Those that blurb at the beginning of each sheet. Because it kind of gives everybody, here's what this sheet's about.
And so, and you know, it depends on how much time you have. 'cause you might not have time for that. And so,
Sam: yeah, it's exactly, it's a lot of work to like read through not just like six character introductions, but six setting elements and like, you know, do, do all of that. I mean, that part is, I think all that part is fun.
It is just sort of like, do we have a four and a half hour long session today? Like, I don't know, like, what, how, how long do we wanna spend on that stuff? I would love to move on to talking about your belonging, outside belonging.
Kodi: Oh Lord.
Sam: It's called extraordinary. Give me the pitch for it.
Kodi: So extraordinary.
It is a game about kids with extraordinary powers on the run from danger in the ordinary world. So it's. Heavily inspired by Maximum Ride,
Sam: I've never heard of Maximum Ride
Kodi: It is a James Patterson series about kids who were raised as experiments in an evil lab and have bird wings.
It's like a found family, but they're also messy teenagers. It is so poorly written.
Sam: Yeah. . I mean the, your, uh, your pitch for this has also included analyst.
Yes. Which as a millennial myself is my version of that. but so you got like kids on the run, which I think is like a great framework for this kind of game. You have your little ingroup, you have a bunch of out groups.
I wanna like walk through one of these setting elements and like. Compare it to the dream of part one, the gossip and reputation, because you made some changes and I'm just curious to hear you talk about like why these changes.
So. I wanna look at the system. The system is like cops, school, social services, that kind of thing. One of the things you ask people to do is choose aesthetic options for the system. And there was one on here, fake smiles and painted nails, where I was like, yes, I get you. This is the Karen playbook.
Like I I, this is the a
Kodi: hundred percent
Sam: that setting element, right? But yeah, why don't we go through, uh, beat by beat. You start with a little introduction paragraph, just like gossip and reputation. Then the first thing on here is choose three to five aesthetic options.
So this seems like similar to circle two desires from gossip and reputation, but it's different, right? Like we're not doing desires, we're doing like little tidbits of flavor. Why that?
Kodi: I remember I was designing these and I realized that what I wanted to be the same throughout what were the desires?
Because the desires are what change depending on the table. At a game of dream screw, dream part, but whatever is being portrayed by the system in the game is probably gonna have the same desires. And so I was like, I don't want those to be up for grabs. I want the aesthetics. And what specifically the like the kids are gonna be interacting with.
Is it gonna be cops? Is it gonna be PTA moms? Is it social workers that are very determined? And so it was like, how do you want to flavor this?
Sam: Mm, sure.
Kodi: In terms of like, not just aesthetics, but like is the system gonna fill a more of a humor part of your story?
Is it gonna be more of a serious part? Is it gonna be a big part, a small part?
Sam: I find it really interesting that, the more specific you are in terms of the setting, the more flexible you can be with like what is the story gonna be? And the more specific you are with the story, the more flexible you you can be with the setting.
Kodi: Yes.
Sam: Like in dream apart, there is way more specificity in the setting of that than the story. Like it's gonna be a story about a community and a community that is like living inside a pressure cooker of like, you know, oppressors around it and, and all of that.
But like. I don't know. Are you gonna tell a love story in there? Are you gonna tell a family drama? Like there's a lot more room? So it, it feels very smart to me to lock in the desires of these things. So, next up we have create one to three hooks. And hooks are like another mechanic you've kind of added to the game that are like. Little mini setting elements. Right? So these are like individual NPCs or problems or like I think when we played, uh, I had a windbreaker that my dead mom had given me. Right? That's like one little hook. What's the, the thinking hind hooks, because I like this idea of adding in little. Additional setting elements, but also like, you know, then you have like more clutter on the table and like why isn't the windbreaker just like represented by the ordinary world or, or whatever.
Kodi: I've gone back and forth on this design choice. 'cause the problem that I have come across so many times is that once people get comfortable in the game of extraordinary. They kind of stop looking at the setting elements and only use the hooks.
Oh yeah, the hooks. They're another way for people to define very specifically the kinds of MPCs and the kinds of story beats they want. And so like I remember I'm like, I want an FBI agent that's chasing us down. And so the setting elements end up kind of just being suggestions. They're honestly, a lot of the time they're just there for world building. And then once you get into the game, the hooks are really what drive the external forces of the story . I love the thing that you started with there about.
Sam: People almost graduate from using the aspects to just playing the hooks. Like as a campaign goes on. That feels like a really desirable and good thing to me. That you like gradually make the game your own and you focus in on like what are the thing. It's so much more effective when you're like bringing back something that like already existed rather than like inventing a new person.
Like being able to sort of narrow in on like, these are the specific named things that like our game cares about. That feels. Great. And like this feels like a a trying to jumpstart that in a way.
Kodi: Yeah. I love the setting elements, but they're like training wheels. Yeah.
Sam: Okay. World building questions. You have some world building questions in here that are like much more thorough than what's on the, dream askew. Dream apart style setting elements. And that's probably because your world is much less defined.
Kodi: Yeah. I mean, the world building questions mostly arose. 'cause when I was play testing, I found myself asking the same questions over and over, and then I was like,
Sam: write 'em down.
Kodi: I need to write these down so that the game runs when I'm not there. Yeah. Which is always the hardest part of designing a game.
So the world building questions are mostly there to get people cooking and thinking about what do they want their world to be?
What do they want to focus on? Is the system something they really want to focus on? And if so, here are the questions you should answer.
Sam: So then you also, you have double sided, uh, sheets here. There's a ton of blank space on both sides. So these are, are kind of barely double sided.
Kodi: They're mostly double sided. 'cause I wanted a big space. For world building stuff in case people got really into it.
Sam: Yeah. So you get potential scene starters.
I mean, that seems really self-explanatory and, and great to have here. I love having usable stuff like that. Tips for play, Do you have other like changes that you wanna call out or other things that you think are exciting about what you've evolved here?
Kodi: The thing that I'm kind of looking at, so at the end of each Tips for Play section on every single aspect I have, if your game features. X, Y, Z characters. Make sure to interact with them.
Sam: That's interesting.
Kodi: The reason I have 15 playbooks like an insane person, is because each playbook is meant to be the conjunction of two aspects, and I have six aspects.
Sam: Yeah.
Kodi: I don't know why I decided to design like that. I think originally I had 10 and then I added the design, and then I was like, well, now I have to add six more playbooks.
One for. Each interaction the design has with the other aspect. And like, they're not, it's not a requirement, but it's a good way to like help people who aren't as familiar with the tropes or who like, are kind of feeling lost.
It's a way for them to be like, oh, uh, the system is bolded on my sheets and you're holding the system. Why don't we do something? And so like. That was something intentional in design. Although, I don't know, intentional in intention. Um, I have no idea why I did it, but I did it and now it's baked into the design.
Oops.
Sam: I love additional little flags like that, like being able to, just like when you're playing a role playing game, in my opinion, default is we're talking and we're hanging out and we're like making up a story, and then like when the, the thing that we want is like. When we don't know what to do, we can look down at the sheet and be like, well, what does the sheet think we should do?
Kodi: Yeah.
Sam: Or occasionally when we want the sheet or the game or whatever to interrupt us and say, actually now you have to engage with me. And like, that's a dice rolls are like fun for that and that kind of thing. I think this is a game that's much more about, um, the blowing outside belonging system at large is much more about being a game that is here when you don't know what to say next, rather than a game that is trying to interrupt you.
We're coming up on the end here. Do you have any last things you wanna say about like, setting elements at large?
Kodi: Creative writing is my passion in life and belonging. Outside. Belonging slash No Dice, no Masters it's one of those games where the creative writing elements of the game are so vital and so important, and so I just love seeing games that leverage the English language to the best of their ability to like convey these emotions, convey these implications, and I love it. Ah, it's so good.
Sam: It's one of those things that's really foregrounding, like game design is poetry.
Kodi, thanks so much for coming on Dicey Splitter.
Kodi: Thank you for having me.
Sam: Thanks again to Kodi for being here. You can find extraordinary on Kickstarter right now. Google it or there's a link of the show notes and you can follow Kodi on Blue Sky at Jazz dis, J-A-Z-T-I-C-E. Thanks to everyone who Sports Dice exploiter on Patreon. As always, you can find me on.
Blue sky at Dice Exploder, or on the dice Exploder Discord. And you can find my games at s dunwell. Do it, do io. Our logo is designed by Sporgory. Our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Gray. And our ad music is Lily Pads Bumba Boy, Travis Teper. This episode was edited by Emma Acosta. Thanks m and thanks to you for listening.
I'll see ya next time.