What’s the Frequency Rogue Games?
First, let me apologize. This one has a number of technical issues. From my key light going out and my video camera overcompensating to the point I look blown out to the pre-echo on Richard’s end of the conversation as well as his soft audio, this is far from the best episode I’ve ever filmed. But that’s what happens with small outfits with zero production budget or staff. Okay, that’s not entirely true, but Snowball (my dog and head of post-production) doesn’t have hands, so I’ll forgive her. I just hope you can forgive me for how rough this is around the edges.
This is a chat I’ve wanted to have for quite some time. I’ve been a fan of Richard Iorio’s Rogue Games since the company was founded in 2007. The company was a part of the independent reaction to the explosion of “d20 License” and Open Game License compatible games that were released in the wake of the publication of D&D 3rd Edition in 2000 and the accompanying Open Game License.
My Long Aside to Discuss Where Rogue Game Fits in Game Design History
In general, I am a fan of the Open Game License and many excellent games have been published as a result of Ryan Dancey’s efforts to have Wizards of the Coast go this route. One of the effects was the release of many wonderful products, but those products that tended to be in one of five categories.
Products that are expansions or continuations of the 3rd Edition D&D game like Pathfinder, which sought to continue 3rd Edition feel after Wizards of the Coast shifted to 4th Edition. These products were designed to appeal to an audience that felt abandoned.
Games that used the base mechanics of 3rd Edition while applying them to a new genres like Fantasy Flight’s (now Edge Studio) DragonStar and their Horizon Line that included Grimm, Redline, Spellslinger, or Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Deadlands d20 and Weird War Two d20: Blood on the Rhine. All of these had the intent of recruiting d20 and D&D players into trying new systems. They give you a taste of a genre outside of traditional Fantasy, using a familiar rules set, in the hopes that you’ll try their other games.
Games that morphed the d20 Mechanic into something recognizable, but in actuality completely different from D&D. One of the best examples of this is Green Ronin’s Mutants & Masterminds game system. It merged familiar D&D mechanics with elements of the very non-d20 DC Heroes Role Playing Game to create a masterpiece of design. A modern game that would fit into this category of 5e OGL games is Nimble 5e. Nimble is fantastic, and recognizable in concepts to 5e players, but it’s really an entirely new game.
Retro-Clones of earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons like OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord that gave new players an entry point to play older versions of the rules without paying an arm and a leg for physical books that could cost $100 or more. Wizards had briefly issued some old rules as pdfs, then took them down, before putting them back up again making OSR “unneeded” for that purpose, but still relevant if you don’t want to support Wizards of the Coast. There was also a Call of Cthulhu retroclone called GORETM.
Finally, there are the new games that had no mechanical similarities to D&D at all, but wanted to take advantage of the (or an) Open Gaming License which would allow a community of fans to create support materials that benefited the games. This category includes FUDGE, which predates the OGL, FATE, Gumshoe, and Dungeon World. Modern that would fit into this category tend to either use Creative Commons or a unique license like Free League’s licenses.
On the other end of the spectrum were a mountain of awful, redundant, and repetitive products that were quickly put together and unplaytested. The shear amount of waste produced in this period led to a mini-retraction of the growth in the hobby, but it also inspired a generation of designers to make new games using new systems. Some of those, mentioned above, did so while leveraging the OGL, but others rejected any licenses at all…even as they borrowed and “stole” mechanics from one another left and right. The moral rule I most often saw in stolen mechanics in this group was, “cite your damn references” and cite they did.
Games like Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer, Vincent Baker’s Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World (which Dungeon World is based on), Into the Odd, Burning Wheel, Inspectres!, Lacuna: Part I, My Life With Master, Blades in the Dark, Savage Worlds, and Colonial Gothic.
Some of these games stemmed from the Ron Edwards’ centered community on the indie-rpgs website and are focused on story gaming and role playing game design theory. Others, like Savage Worlds and Colonial Gothic were created to provide fun gaming experiences that weren’t buried in Huizinga, Sutton-Smith, and Caillois references. Savage Worlds came at gaming from a “Fast, Furious, and Fun” approach and Colonial Gothic approached its subject with attention to historical detail to find the playable moments.
Richard Iorio’s Colonial Gothic stands at the intersection of the tactical and story game design approaches. The early Colonial period in North America was a time rife with conflict, superstition, and mystery. Writers like James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and D.B. Jackson have written engaging fiction about the era and Brian McClellan’s secpmd Powder Mage series found inspriation in the era, even as he created a fantasy world for his own tales.
In this discussion, Richard and I chat about the new edition of Colonial Gothic and what waits on the horizon. We also chatted about how movies and fiction have touched on the era and I even did my semi-defense of The Patriot as a film. As history, it’s terrible (though too few critiques acknowledge the cruelty of Banastre Tarleton which inspired one of the events in the film and led to the very real battle cry of “Tarleton’s Quarter!”), but I find the film engaging. So if you like conversations about role playing games, American history, movies, and more, then this chat is for you.
While you are at it, take a moment to read Richard’s most recent post discussing Christmas in Revolutionary America. While the most American Christmas is still Washington’s Crossing, there’s a lot more to our celebrations.
