Insights & Illuminations
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 06:39:06 AM
First the down-and-dirty stuff. We're 2/3 of the way to the next stretch goal, The Curse of Whiskey Springs PDF Adventure! Hopefully, we'll hit that soon. I'm not going to do updates every day, but you can expect to hear from me every few days and when we hit new stretch goals. With each update , I'm going to take the opportunity to tell you a little about Nevermore.
I called this entry Insights & Illuminations because I wanted to tell you a little about where Nevermore came from and where I took inspiration. I've wanted to create and publish my own ttRPG for quite some time. In fact, when I dove back into the ttRPG industry about 6 years ago it was with the intent of eventually making my own game. But to make?
We're in sort of a Rennaissance of ttRPGs right now and it seems that just about every subject has been covered. Something to do with the faerie realms seemed natural at first, but then I thought it better to maybe do something new rather than derivative of what I have done before. (Don't worry, I suspect I will revisit the faerie realms again.)
After lots of contemplation, I kept coming back to horror. Anyone who has played at my table knows that I eventually manage to work Call of Cthulhu into just about anything I run. Mi-Go in Traveller, strange cults in Shadowrun, other-dimensional entities in Star Trek, and any number of horrors in D&D games. So, horror.... but what brand of horror?
I don't recall the exact moment, but I do remember the sudden revelation that there are very few if any Gothic Horror games sent in America. It seems just about every game has a "by Gaslight" supplement and there are quite a few Victorian-era games but these are all set in Europe of the UK. Call of Cthulhu is definitely the closest, but it's primarily focused on the 20s and 30s which is a very different feel than the late 19th century. Eureka! I had it!
After hitting up the setting it came naturally that Baltimore would be the core setting and I was surprised that it hadn't occurred to me before. After all, I grew up in Baltimore city, surrounded by the myth and legend of Edgar Allen Poe. For a time I lived but a few blocks from where he was found unconscious before he died and often did odd jobs for the owner of The Horse You Came in on Saloon, the establishment that is believed to be where he had his last drink.
I have always enjoyed the American Gothic writers and spent many a summer afternoon or winter night immersed in their stories of the macabre and horror. In grade school when we received an assignment to recite a poem from memory, I chose The Raven (a formidable undertaking for a 5th grader).
Any honest game designer (or writer) will tell you that no one invents anything from whole cloth. We are all influenced by our experiences and that includes other games we have played and read. I can name quite a few that influenced Nevermore and there are probably others that I don't even remember.
Castle Falkenstein was a favorite of mine back in the 90s. I loved the fact that it used cards for skill checks and conflict resolution. It felt so appropriate for Nevermore a game that takes place during the Gilded Age, lending a bit of the feel of sitting around the parlor playing games of Whist or Hearts. So using playing cards was always on the table, but that is a story for another time.
Of course, Call of Cthulhu had some influence but mostly in seeking to differentiate from that system and setting. Nevermore has its own form of madness represented as Sanity loss in CoC, but I wanted something a little more personal and so Weaknesses were born. As a protagonist becomes more unsettled by the strangeness they encounter, they begin to succumb to their personal weaknesses. Also, unlike CoC the more a protagonist experiences a particular type of shock and terror the more resistant they become, but this comes with its own problems. Becoming inured to encountering horror and violence is not exactly healthy.
The One Ring's method of dealing with Shadow and The Expanse RPGs Churn tracker also lingered in my thoughts and provided inspiration for aspects of Nevermore. And I'm sure there were many other influences which I can't recall.
My apologies for the length, but I hope this has given you a little insight into the creation of this game that has consumed my life over the past 2+ years. Hopefully, we'll hit that new stretch goal soon and I'll get to reveal more about the behind-the-scenes creation of Nevermore and explore some of its rules and setting.
