“I read this in the bath and I leapt out immediately, Archimedes-like…you definitely owe it to yourself to pick up this book…it’s absolutely fantastic.“ Paul Tevis, Have Games Will Travel

Often, we treat roleplaying games like work. We buy shelves of thick books. We plan detailed adventures. We memorise rules.

In Play Unsafe, Graham Walmsley explores what happens when you throw the serious stuff away: when you stop working, stop planning and start playing.

This book explains how to:

• Make roleplaying less like work and more like play.
• Stop killing other players’ ideas: and build on them instead.
• Use status techniques to play your characters.
• Put stories at the heart of your game.

A Taste For Murder is a roleplaying game for four to six players. As you go through the game, your relationships with the other characters get more and more screwed up. By the end, someone’s relationships will give them a motive for murder.

128-page PDF.

“I read this in the bath and I leapt out immediately, Archimedes-like…you definitely owe it to yourself to pick up this book…it’s absolutely fantastic.“ Paul Tevis, Have Games Will Travel

Often, we treat roleplaying games like work. We buy shelves of thick books. We plan detailed adventures. We memorise rules.

In Play Unsafe, Graham Walmsley explores what happens when you throw the serious stuff away: when you stop working, stop planning and start playing.

This book explains how to:

• Make roleplaying less like work and more like play.
• Stop killing other players’ ideas: and build on them instead.
• Use status techniques to play your characters.
• Put stories at the heart of your game.

PDF file, 82 pages, 15.24 cm x 22.86 cm

This is a clue. You must investigate to discover it.

• In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.
• In Call of Cthulhu, make a skill roll.
• In Trail of Cthulhu, spend an ability point.
• In Nemesis, make a skill roll.

Decide for yourself which skill is appropriate. Alternatively, the Keeper may reveal the skill without a roll.

You must talk to someone to reveal this clue.

• In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.
• In Call of Cthulhu, make a skill roll.
• In Trail of Cthulhu, spend an ability point.
• In Nemesis, make a skill roll.

Again, decide which skill is appropriate or the Keeper may reveal the clue without a roll.

If a skill is needed, it will usually be social (e.g. Bargain) or academic (e.g. Architecture).

This may damage your character’s sanity.

Use the number of branches, on the symbol, as a guide to how bad the damage might be. (The symbol above has six branches).

• In Cthulhu Dark, make an Insanity roll.
• In Call of Cthulhu, make a SAN roll. The number of branches indicates the die size for SAN loss. For example, the symbol above indicates a D6 potential SAN loss.
• In Trail of Cthulhu, make a Stability Check. The number of branches indicates the potential Stability loss. For example, the symbol above shows a potential loss of 6 Stability points.
• In Nemesis, make a Sanity roll. Choose an appropriate gauge: usually Violence for gore, The Unnatural for weirdness. The number of branches indicates the Intensity. For example, the symbol to the left indicates 6 Intensity.

Check to see whether you notice this.

• In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.
• In Call of Cthulhu, roll Spot Hidden.
• In Trail of Cthulhu, roll Sense Trouble.
• In Nemesis, make an appropriate Sense roll.

Use a skill to do this.

• In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.
• In Call of Cthulhu, make a skill roll.
• In Trail of Cthulhu, spend a point.
• In Nemesis, make a skill roll.

You might fight this thing. In Cthulhu Dark, run or die. In other systems, use the combat rules, making stats up if you need to.

(Trail of Cthulhu is a trademark of Pelgrane Press Ltd. Trail of Cthulhu is published under an arrangement with Chaosium. Call of Cthulhu is registered trademark of Chaosium Inc., and is used with their permission. Chaosium Inc. is the Registered Trademark of Chaosium Inc.)

I am, of course, talking with the printer about this. Meanwhile, if you don’t mind an upside-down copy, I have 25 copies of Play Unsafe at the bargain price of $12 plus $3 shipping.

Sometimes, you want your character to attempt an action and fail.

Example: Graham is playing Mitch McCafferty, a librarian. He is trying to learn a ritual that banishes Ithaqua.

Mitch, the character, wants to succeed in learning the ritual. Graham, the player, thinks it’s much more fun if Mitch learns the ritual wrongly.

In situations like this, roll to fail, rather than rolling to succeed. The highest die shows how badly you fail.

On a 1, Mitch makes a minor error: Ithaqua is banished, but can find his way back, and Mitch knows it. On a 5, Mitch fails utterly: he believes he has banished Ithaqua, but has, in fact, only angered him. On a 6, Mitch fails utterly and glimpses beyond human understanding: he believes he has banished Ithaqua, but in fact, has fallen under Ithaqua’s control.

Use this sparingly. The default is: you advocate for your character and the dice tell you when you fail.

This rule is there for the specific circumstance when you think: I’m rolling, but I really don’t want to succeed. When you think that, roll to fail.

(Oh, I genuinely enjoyed all the games, by the way, so I’m going to gently criticise them as I discuss them. This is meant nicely, and besides, what the hell do I know.)

We started with A Motley Cruise, in which we formed teams of three and became ships. We were either merchants, who tried to ferry treasure across the ocean, or pirates, who tried to steal it. Fascinating stuff.

The movement rules were: pirates took seven steps, then could turn left or right by up to 90 degrees before moving again. Merchants took three steps, then had to turn at least 90 degrees or more, left or right, before their next move. (Thus, pirates moved faster and progressed generally forward. Merchants moved slower and moved in a zig-zag fashion, doubling back on themselves. I am not explaining this well. They moved in weird and different ways, basically.)

So, at the start, it seemed like a strategic game, almost a board game. When we played, though, it became physical, even athletic. You’d see a ship bearing down on you and move fast. A breakthrough moment, for us, was when we realised we could move our ship quickly if we coordinated: one-two-three-turn, one-two-three-turn. Wonderful, fascinating stuff and a great start to the day.

Next was Battle Of The Sea. There were two teams, each with five bibs numbered 1 to 25. When a number was called, someone from the team put on the appropriate bib and ran into the centre of the floor to grab a handkerchief.

It was great and intensely physical. It felt like a game you’d play in a PE lesson (I went to an all-boys school): it verged on getting seriously competitive. I hurt my knee and it still hurts a bit. There was a thing with a board, with squares numbered from 1 to 25, and you won if you got a line across the board. In practice, however, this didn’t quite matter, because you’d just try your hardest to grab the handkerchief when the number was called. Really good. Really intense.

Then came What’s The Point?. We found stars, hidden about the museum, each of which had an arrow pointing to the next star. This wasn’t always simple: often, the arrows sometimes pointed through walls. It was a change of pace and, again, interestingly physical. I’d find an arrow and start marching off in the direction it pointed, looking under things on the way. It was lovely.

The nicest thing, of course, was the potential to start the game simply by finding a star. You’d find a star, follow the arrow, and find the next star. So there’s a possibility of it becoming a fun little toy, that you’d pick up for a while, then abandon when you found something else. I love things like that. (My book, Stealing Cthulhu, has oddities like that hidden throughout the text.)

I took 45 minutes to sit quietly with a cup of tea. I think this should be mandatory.

Then we played Spin Your Partner, a country-dancing trading game. You had ribbons: red, blue, black and white. And you danced around, exchanging partners, and after a while you’d trade ribbons. The idea was to get as many red, blue, black and white sets as you could. It was all rather superb.

One thing I noticed was that many of the games were competitive. This was interesting: there was a happy, collaborative atmosphere, and I often wanted to collaborate rather than compete. I wondered how Spin Your Partner, especially, would work as a collaborative game.

It was a wonderful day. I am bloody knackered.

The Dance in the Blood also has an honourable mention for Best Adventure, but there’s not a picture for that.

First, a word on statistics. It’s probably true (I haven’t seen the figures) that Kickstarters with videos make more money. But that doesn’t mean that, if you add a video, you’ll raise more money. Correlation isn’t causation. Perhaps Kickstarters with videos are generally better planned, which makes them successful. Perhaps the vast majority of Kickstarter projects cover movies and music, which lend themselves well to videos, and skew the general statistics. I don’t know! But let’s not assume that videos make money.

Secondly, an example. Brennan Taylor’s recent Kickstarter for Bulldogs, which had a video, raised $13,430. My Stealing Cthulhu fundraiser, which didn’t, raised $13,001. I think they’re broadly comparable (and I’m happy Brennan was so successful). Perhaps a video would have pushed my total higher. Who knows? But the project was very successful without one.

Thirdly, a personal preference. I love well-made videos. Jeremy Keller’s TechNoir video is a joy. I find other videos less convincing. I think I stopped Brennan’s after 30 seconds, sorry Brennan, and, well, I won’t give more examples, but the good ones are rare. So I certainly believe that good videos sell games, but I don’t think any video is better than none.

Here is what I think. I think it’s not about the video. I think it’s about letting people know about your game. For my Stealing Cthulhu fundraiser, I gave people a big, extended preview, in PDF form. For this Delta Green Kickstarter, which is about to hit its $26,000 target without a video, there are previews of the fiction.

So, please, don’t think the video itself is the thing. Don’t necessarily think that, if you switch your webcam on and record, your Kickstarter will be better. Instead, think about how you can get people invested in your game. Think beyond the obvious (obvious things include “Show them the art”, “Describe the world” and “Tell them the characters they play”) and get them invested. (Read the Fiasco preview. It’s a huge chapter, released freely online. It doesn’t just get you interested in the premise. It makes you want to read more. And then you buy the book so you can.)

Above all: don’t rely on a video to sell your game. It is not a magic selling tool. If you’re selling a book, you want to get people interested in a book. I am guessing that the best way to do that is: show them the book.