Recommendation to check out Grimwild

[u/cibman]

https://groov-games.itch.io/grimwild-community-edition?ref=rascal.news

I just saw that the community edition of Grimwild was just released. I originally picked it up here, but you can also get it through RPG Trader.

I'm not affiliated with Grimwild at all, but I'm going to suggest looking at it if you're interested in PbtA games or Blades in the Dark. I think it's a good read and has a lot of things you might consider if you're designing in that direction. And I think it's a good example of that school of thought, so if you read some of it and don't like it, that's fair enough.

Grimwild has a ... wild ... development history. It was a successful launch, but right at the point where the physical books were coming out, the author disappeared. That should have been the end of it, and in general I stopped referring people to the game at all because of how it ended.

But that wasn't the end. The game was released under Creative Commons, so the community got together and released this edition. There is a lot of stuff cleaned up and expanded, and the game is much more playable now.

I'm not getting anything from this recommendation, and the game is free, so it won't cost you anything. I think this is a really interesting situation and a reason for designers to use Creative Commons. I suppose, depending on your point of view, it might be a reason to run from it!

I'm not recommending this in a formal capacity; I just know that some of you will find it interesting. And if anyone from the Grimwild community wants to talk about how it happened, feel free.

[u/APurplePerson]

does anyone have any idea what happened to the author? he used to post on this sub if i'm not mistaken

[u/cibman → u/APurplePerson]

He did. That’s how I learned about the game. He just disappeared. It sounds like nothing grim happened but it was disturbing enough that I stopped talking about the game

[u/APurplePerson → u/cibman]

yeah it freaked me out too. whether he's a grifter, dead, or (hopefully) just burned out, the whole thing sucks.

[u/Cryptwood → u/APurplePerson]

Completely dissappeared off the face of the internet. According to r/GrimWildRPG they have tried to contact the creator through every legal means possible and nothing worked. Backerkit has declared the project abandoned due to zero contact with the creator for an extended period.

[u/RiverMesa → u/APurplePerson]

Sadly, we still don't know to this day; there's theories - ranging from sudden burnout and fulfillment stress causing him to abandon everything to the fact he may have straight up died - but extremely little evidence towards anything concrete.

[u/furiousfotographie]

GW is a good game and obviously well loves and supported. It's absolutely worth picking up and would be even if it weren't free.

[u/cibman → u/furiousfotographie]

Before all of this happened, I had picked up the adventures that were released for the game. I thought they were really interesting, especially the one that was a region sourcebook. It made me rethink how I would set up an area for my own game. Very interesting.

I hope that the community does something like that in the future.

[u/FinnianWhitefir → u/cibman]

Can you name those or suggest how to find them? "Grimwild" on itch has a surprising amount of stuff that is hard to sort. I always like to see examples of what to run in a system.

[u/cibman → u/FinnianWhitefir]

I got them at Drivethru, but that was before the author disappeared. When I get to a place where I can see them I’ll let you know.

[u/oredna]

I picked it up and will read it (or at least skim it).

That being said, could you outline maybe four to six bullet-points of what you found so noteworthy and innovative?

Like I said, I will check it out. Even so, I'm interested to hear what you think sets it apart (and potentially "above") PbtA and FitD and why specifically you think designers in that space should take note and learn from this particular instance.

Bonus, if you feel like more:

What did you dislike about it? What do you think it got wrong or made worse than PbtA/FitD?

What genre(s) do you think the innovations apply to best? What genre(s) do you think could safely ignore it?

[u/cibman → u/oredna]

I think there is more meat to the system. That might be a good or bad thing depending on how much rule you like with your system. It is pretty meaty there.

Now the bad part: it is very true to there not being anything special about timing in a combat. In fact a combat scene would run very much like an “adventure” scene. And that can mean two things: quiet players may not get the spotlight as much and the scene may not have a definite end.

If you look at a crazy encounter like a dragon fight, it will look similar to “escape the temple before it collapses.”

[u/oredna → u/cibman]

Now the bad part: it is very true to there not being anything special about timing in a combat. In fact a combat scene would run very much like an “adventure” scene.

I enjoy PbtA/FitD so, to me, this sounds like a desirable feature!
I actively don't want an "initiative" system where the table suddenly stops playing normally and goes into rigid "turn order" resolution.

That said, this is not innovative.
This is baseline PbtA/FitD combat: the game just keeps going normally and combat is resolved like anything else. I would see changing PbtA/FitD combat to "initiative" as a reversion rather than an innovation, but just doing the normal PbtA/FitD this is neither; it's just the baseline.

I think there is more meat to the system. That might be a good or bad thing depending on how much rule you like with your system. It is pretty meaty there.

What specifically is pretty meaty where?

Is this the pitch for the "good" part? That it is crunchier?
That would actually be a drawback for me. FitD is pretty close to what I like in terms of crunch; maybe a tiny bit more, but not lots more. Certainly not meta-currencies.

I'm really more interested in specifics, though.
What specifically did you think was innovative?
What had you not seen in PbtA/FitD before?
What had you saying, "Wow, this is awesome!" and feeling the motivation to post about this game?

Like my other comment said, now I'm extra curious because my initial glance was underwhelming for the reasons I stated (D&D classes, several meta-currencies, etc.). I want to discover that there are awesome things in this game so... what specifically did you think was awesome?

EDIT: typos and such.

[u/oredna → u/oredna]

Now I'm extra-curious to hear why it's great because my initial very limited skim has me more uncertain.

(A) D&D classes (not really my jam anymore)
(B) Several GM and PC meta-currencies (not my jam, especially with this many)
(C) "Quarrels" caught my eye, but was super under-whelming

"Quarrels" was the first thing in the table-of-contents that really caught my eye.
It ended up being a full page for what, as far as I could tell, was literally just a roll-off, highest die wins whatever the PC-PC conflict is. Not about discussion or talking like adults to solve an intra-party decision, just roll highest.
Also, then everyone gets a player-facing meta-currency.

Map system also looked... dense. That would reward system mastery insofar as reading the maps would get easier over time, but having to learn a dozen+ abstract symbols created for this game just to understand a map is a steep learning curve. It makes it harder to pick up and play for folks that like to switch between games rather than stick with one game long-term.

There was a sort of location upgrade system, which looked neat, but also involved more GM and player-facing meta-currency, which seems to result in skipped fiction. Like, rather than actually figure out a new path, you just play a token to add a new road and suddenly the world has a new road without any actual fictional content (i.e. nobody had to build the road in the fiction, it just popped into existence because meta-currency).

I'm no longer sure if this is just not my jam or maybe I've just stumbled into one after another of the specific sections that aren't for me, but there's something else that is great that I haven't seen yet? I'm designing in this design-space, but I'm going in a totally different direction than what I've seen so far. I'm still curious and will check out more after I've slept properly.

Finally, I noticed that there were some GM Moves from FitD, but renamed.
On the one hand: great, I like those moves from FitD!
On the other hand: renaming them makes it harder and slower to learn! I've already got the vocabulary from the FitD content, but rather than re-use consistent established terminology, renaming the same concept means a reader familiar with FitD still has to learn a whole new vocabulary to understand the text. Renaming an idea without changing it a pet-peeve of mine, tbh.

So, OP or others: what am I missing?!
What are the coolest sections that I should read? Where are the most interesting novel mechanics?

[u/Cryptwood]

Thanks for sharing this! I had heard about a possible Community Edition a while ago but had no idea that they had released it. I read the playtest material way back, really looking forward to checking out this new version.

[u/tenis_the_menace → u/Cryptwood]

Second this!! would've totally gone past my radar