Thread by @ActionEconomy

My #sadmechjam entry has been released! 4 players, about an hour or so, freeform RPG. Uses mechs as a frame to discuss end-of-life decision making. It's a real feels train and so pretty! Catch it here:
sidneyicarus.itch.io/riderslastrites

@jakehouseholder

#RPGTheory time! I want to talk about Artifacts of Play and Rider's Last Rites, and this is literally one of my favourite parts of RPGs, so I hope I can help people to make more games that support them!

As always you can find Rider's here:
sidneyicarus.itch.io/riderslastrites

This is a photo of a few people who have just finished playing @shiftyginger's To Serve Her Wintery Hunger. In our hands (well, not mine. I ran that game) are snowflakes that we made as part of the mechanisms of that game, based on our success or failure.
cavalrygames.com/shop/to-serve-…

Which means each of those snowflakes tells an individual story. There's a memory in them. I still have mine from GauntletCon 2017. It's a beautiful reminder of an excellent game. These snowflakes are what I've been calling Artifacts of Play (a term I'm sure I stole from someone?)

Artifacts of Play are pieces of the game left over after we're done. Snowflakes, a map of The Quiet Year, a character sheet with scribbled changes even. These mean so much to me, and I love keeping them close to my heart.

We, as players, tend to generate artifacts of play quite casually. My roommate's D&D game has a player that draws in the margins of a notebook during play. That book becomes his artifact. But I'm really interested in games that help us to tell the story with our artifacts.

Side note at this point. I've talked before about @magicspacegirl's Laika. That game is monstrous about artifacts of play. You make a beautiful artifact, you spend time with it, you love it. Then eject it into the world. I still haven't forgiven her.
magicspacegirl.itch.io/laika

Which TBH makes it a great game for me because I love these kinds of physical artifacts, so having to leave mine at a park on a picnic table meant so much to me. Ugh. My feelings. Laika, I miss you. Come back, please.

I adore Dogs in the Vineyard. I think it's a beautiful game, but I also have nothing around from it. I can remember it, sure, but when I look at the snowflake I don't remember Wintery Hunger, I experience it. I want to have something on my wall from Dogs, to experience that churn

That's what the Order in Rider's Last Rites does. Print it out, write your order, sign it. Then take it home. Stick it to your fridge. Remember that you once held a woman's soul in your hand and striped it from her, because you thought it was the right thing to do.

Put it in your house. See it often. Literally live with your decision to put those pilots at risk for sentimentality. And that's why it was so important for the Order to be beautiful (bless @jakehouseholder, my sweet angel from above). To encourage people to keep/display it.

I think it is one thing to make a decision, to have an RPG experience where you do a thing. I can't tell you the amount of times I've decided whether or not to shoot Rolfball in his dumb face, but that decision doesn't hit me like taking a die in Wintery Hunger does.

Because (like we were talking yesterday), players respond to perceivable consequence. And sure Rolfball has consequence for my character or story, but that snowflake has consequences for ME! That mofo is going on my wall, and I want it to be a measure of my success and beauty.

And I think the Order in Rider's does that. Besides its mechanical weight (no decision is final until it's signed. Once it's signed, that's it, and the game ends), it is also the emotional artifact (this is what will be left, and you know what it means forever more).

There's a huge rise of D&D Greentext stories. There's a lot of people recording their games with no expectations of an audience. We are desperate to lend these games impact outside of the ludonarrative. We want artifacts. We want to have consequences in our real world.

So, maybe there's a way to design for that. Maybe we can sprinkle these little elements, these beautiful reminders of our experiences into some designs. I don't know what that would look like for every game, but I know what it looks like for mine.

And, again. It's gorgeous. Holy hell Jake. They are amazing. And I'm really proud of the way I wrote it as like just almost comprehensible but not really. It gives me the same alien feeling I always felt reading military forms. I think it carries a lot of the heart of Rider's.

But, what I think doesn't matter. Authorial intent is trash. It's about you and how you experience it. If you'd like to see how the Order generates an emotional artifact for you, you can get Rider's Last Rites at this link, then let me know how it goes.

sidneyicarus.itch.io/riderslastrites