Observations of the Fox

Sometimes you find a file for a game that you thought was really cool at the time, but it never really got anywhere. Presenting The Boddhisatva's Smile I really liked this game, but I couldn't find anyone will to give it a try. One day...

Here's the Narrator's guide I've been working on... Download Link ...but it probably doesn't make much sense without the other 'zines. So here's the player's guide And the sample cards I'm actually starting to get some interesting feedback on these... just not here on the blog. While I'm at it... here's the two new versions of the Vulpinoid Studios logo

  Just finished the Narrator's Guide to  "Bustle in your Hedgerow". I'll sleep on it, and take another look over it tomorrow before making a final round of edits (unless I'm happy enough that I release it as is)... I still want to write up a setting booklet as an example of the kind of location where scarecrow stories might take place. However, we'll see how that goes. 

I'm more than halfway through the Narrator's Guide, and it's tough culling what I want from what I want to put in because I think it's cool.  I'm still on track to finish this bit of the prject by the end of NaGaDeMon 2024, and might even manage to get another booklet sorted out. If so, I'll manage to get a full starter kit ready for the game... something that will be print and play, with everything necessary for a session beyond the deck of cards, pencils and tokens. It's also nice to see my Bluesky account has picked up a bit in recent days with an influx of new members on the X-odus from other platforms. If you're interested in following me there, I'm at  https://bsky.app/profile/vulpinoid.bsky.social

Both "Bustle in your Hedgerow" and "Walkabout" are games about stories, and about the mythlore underlying reality versus the impact of individuals. Sort of...  ...it's actually a fairly common theme through a lot of my games. So naturally when this came across my feed, it got my attention. The first volume of the Grimms’ “Children’s and Household Tales” was published in December of 1812. It contained 86 stories, including classics like “Rapunzel,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Briar Rose,” and “Little Red Riding Hood,” along with extensive footnotes. Critics weren’t sure what to make of a collection of “children’s tales” that came with scholarly addenda and sexual innuendos. For the Grimms, what mattered was to be authentic, not appropriate, and fairy tales, across many literary traditions, weren’t always intended for children. Then, there was the matter of the Grimms’ language—sparse, hectic, visceral, unfiltered. In the preface, the br...

 I'm a rambler... I struggle with condensing words and limiting text to a page count. I clarify with extra words, extra pictures, more examples, richer context. This whole idea of a Narrator's Guide is spilling into a guide for facilitating play, an antagonists guide, a setting booklet... more to write... and then maybe alternate guides for different settings and booklets to define them. On another side, real life work is getting in the way again.