a|state and cities in gaming

Morgan Davie, a|state second edition co-creator writes:

I love @chaibypost’s Indie RPG newsletter, it’s an instant-read for me when it lands in the inbox, and I was excited to see his comments on a|state.

I thought long and hard about how to communicate the depth of the setting without the long essays that one can easily land on.

A lot of setting info is integrated into the procedures for creating characters and your own corner of The City, but this can only go so far. A huge part of the promise & pleasure of a|state is getting to visit this specific fictional location, and that means we have to drop some serious paragraphs of information.

The solution we landed on is to keep the essays tight and accompany them with grabby, appealing ‘how to use this thing when you play’ sections. We also leveraged the small-community lens built into the new edition, with prompt-type questions focused on how this City-wide thing appears in your specific corner. Really pleased Thomas called out how we mixed up our approach in his description here! Anyway, do subscribe to his newsletter if you’re at all interested in indie RPGs, it’s good!