Jordan (For the Dungeon!, Arcana Academy) Palmer has a new project on Kickstarter, Perilous Roleplaying Game. This GM-optional dungeon crawler includes contributions from Spenser (Alice is Missing, Kids on Brooms, Icarus) Starke. Between Spenser’s work, my love of Arcana Academy (read about my campaign here), the system for Perilous, and Jordan’s new print-on-demand company, Make RPGs, I learned a lot in our discussion.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thank you for taking the time to create games and talk to me about those games. What is the Perilous Roleplaying Game?
JORDAN PALMER (JORDAN): Perilous is basically a game where I wanted to really ground the adventurers. The game assumes tight-knit communities that have taken to living inside dungeons instead of creating cities because dungeons create all kinds of magical anomalies that can be taken advantage of and make people’s lives better. Adventurers are those who explore the dungeons looking for all kinds of ancient magic they can bring back to help their community thrive.
EGG: This RPG uses a d20 and tags. Can you share how the system’s mechanics work?
JORDAN: Tags are basically the short phrases the group creates to call attention to the important details in a scene. So, if the ground was coated in ice the tag “slippery floor” might be added to the scene to signal that it’s not just a story detail, but a piece of the game that can be interacted with and has rules that go along with it.
There are three different kinds of tags in the game. Aspects are the tags characters have such as the magic spells they know or their signature weapon and give bonuses to rolls whenever using them would be helpful.
Openings are the tags in a scene that can be used by any of the adventurers to their advantage. Because the players can create new openings at any time it allows for some really cool teamwork plays by setting up openings that everyone can use.
The last kind of tag is Challenges. These are the obstacles and enemies that are keeping you from what you want. Instead of enemies having health, there’s a collection of tags you have to deal with before you can defeat them. This shifts the focus of the game from swinging swords turn after turn to creative problem solving since each tag has to be dealt with differently.
EGG: How would you pitch this RPG to a D&D-or-Die RPGer? How do you position this RPG to those individuals that feel D&D is perfect and no other RPG is necessary?
JORDAN: The biggest thing this game has going for it is that it gives mechanical support for all of the wild plans the characters want to try. Because everything uses tags and they can be created on the fly it lets the players get really creative and try all kinds of things that might not be as mechanically rewarding in D&D. Basically it’s all of the same swords and sorcery dungeon-delving, but the rules are designed with creative problem solving and allowing the players to decide what they do instead of choosing from a list of actions.
The other thing is that because the game can be run without a GM there’s no need for anyone to prep and everybody gets to be an adventurer. It’s really fun when everyone gets to adventure together and nobody knows where things will end up. You’re exploring it together.
EGG: Spenser Starke, who I spoke to at EN World and d20 Radio about Alice is Missing and at EN World about Kids on Brooms, is providing a deck of cards for the game, correct? What will the cards add?
JORDAN: Yes! Spenser and I are working together to create a really cool deck of cards that let’s the game be played entirely without a GM. Basically, the cards help the group come up with all kinds of unique adventures and encounters that no single person in the group could have seen coming.
The scene starts by drawing one of the cards that asks a specific question about the obstacles you’re facing that has to be answered by using one of the images on a player’s card as inspiration. Then that card has it’s own question on it that a different player will answer with one of their cards. Everyone will continue to answer questions and add more details to the scene until everyone has played a card. After this, there is a small list of tags on each card and the group gets to decide which one’s fit and try and overcome them like normal.
EGG: With his résumé, I’m sure Spenser is an in-demand designer. How did you connect with him?
JORDAN: Spenser actually got in touch with me when I put out a post on twitter looking for people who could help me design a GMless experience for Perilous. That being said, working with him has been such an incredible experience. It’s very clear that he absolutely loves game design and that passion has pushed this project well beyond any of my expectations. All of the people I’ve been working with have made this game something I couldn’t have made on my own.
EGG: You’re past your initial goal and that’s let you open up a hardship tier. Can you talk about that and how it benefits the gaming community?
JORDAN: Times are really tough right now. It’s been forever since I’ve been able to back a kickstarter beyond chipping in a dollar to show my support; so I opened up a tier of the kickstarter where anyone who doesn’t have a lot of disposable income can still pick up the game for just $1. I really want to make Perilous a special game and opening it up to everyone and not just those who can afford it will hopefully help with that. It’s good for the community because not only will it allow those who are struggling financially to pick up the game, it will also mean that there are just more people in general who know what Perilous is and make it easier to find groups to play with.
EGG: You did For the Dungeon! Why head back into the labyrinth for another RPG that uses a similar setting (though from a very different POV)?
JORDAN: For the Dungeon! is, by and far, one of my most well-regarded games. I still get people reaching out to me two years later to tell me how much fun their group is having playing minions getting into all kinds of trouble. Initially, I wanted to create something similar but the mechanics and themes didn’t mesh as well and the rules for Perilous evolved into what they are today. But the biggest reason is that I just love fantasy as a genre. It’s what I came back to because it’s my favorite.
EGG: At d20 Radio, I wrote about one of your Powered by the Apocalypse RPGs, Arcana Academy. Can you share what that RPG is about?
JORDAN: Sure! Arcana Academy is magic school mystery game in the same vein as Harry Potter. The game revolves entirely around solving mysteries and making friends and enemies at a magical school. Because mystery is at the core of the game, there are a lot of tools for asking questions and learning more about the world, but there’s also a question the GM can’t answer so it’s this really fun experience of getting to explore and ask questions that lead you to answers rather than asking questions that give answers.
EGG: As a publisher, you ran into a stumbling block on the print run for Arcana Academy. How did you turn lemons to lemonade?
JORDAN: Yeah, after I’d sent in a corrected file of the game to the printer I accidentally deleted the first page which shifted the entire book layout and I had to do an entirely new print run. This meant that I had several hundred books that were misprinted in my garage. What I’ve been doing is offering these books at steep discounts to anyone who wants to have a physical copy and doesn’t mind the layout being a bit off. So far I’ve had over 100 people take me up on this offer and it was a huge help in recovering some of the lost costs in making the second print run.
EGG: Beyond designing games, you also work on Make RPGs. What is that service?
JORDAN: Make RPGs is a new alternative to people who want to make games, but don’t want to handle the fulfillment or actual printing of anything. In essence, instead of using a print-on-demand site like DriveThru you can print several copies that we’ll store and ship for you. But we also have a print-on-demand partner in Europe that can help reduce the shipping cost for games sent all over the world. The intention is mainly to work with people who are planning Kickstarters, though we’re hoping to expand the functionality soon!
EGG: Does Make RPGs have an online storefront for publishers like Lulu or DriveThruRPG?
JORDAN: This is currently in the works, but isn’t implemented yet. As we build up a catalog of games that we’re storing we’ll eventually have a storefront for anyone who’s printed with us that people interested in RPGs can look through. I expect it will be a little easier to look through and find games that interest you since we’ll have a smaller catalog of games that are already printed.
EGG: Thanks for talking with me. Where can fans follow you and your work?
JORDAN: Thanks for the chance to talk! I’m on Twitter or Facebook @tabletopcrow or you can find a lot of my games over on itch.
Perilous Roleplaying Game from Murder Publishing
End Date: Thu, November 19 2020 9:00 PM EST.
“A GM-optional dungeon crawling RPG that uses artwork and prompts to generate completely unique adventures without the need for prep.”
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