Ben Robbins
When I was a kid watching movies with my Dad, he would sometimes frown and say, “they left out the reaction shot”. What he meant was the movie showed some important moment like the bad guy getting defeated or some tragic setback, but it didn’t show the characters’ reaction. The hero’s relief as...
Ben Robbins
I’ve talked about how This Means War strives to simulate a believable (but surprising) war. But now I want to talk about the other half of the game: the character-side. The idea all along was that this was a war-game that wasn’t really about war, it was about the people living through the war. All...
Ben Robbins
The war between Wyverdown and Irontree continues! I know I said I was writing this to demonstrate the rules of This Means War, and that mission is pretty much accomplished, but I am having too much fun to stop. So let’s just do a fewwww more seasons… Season 3, Spring of Year 2 The snows have...
Ben Robbins
or, how this weird new game relates to a session of West Marches from over twenty years ago After three wars and 15 sessions, we had our first character death in This Means War. I mean a death caused by the rules, where the Waracle requires you to roll for Fate and then looks you square in the eye...
Ben Robbins
We’ve got our nations and we’re ready for war. You’re welcome to download the playtest rules and follow along at home. And if you’re asking “wait, what nations, what war?” you should probably go back and read the first post. Season 1 Starts It’s Fall, the first season of the game, and time to...
Ben Robbins
You know what This Means War is missing? Examples. There are not nearly enough examples. I was hyper focused on making sure all the rules clicked before I handed you the playtest, but now that it’s out, I’ve got time to demonstrate exactly what playing a war is like. And (spoiler) you’re reading...
Ben Robbins
What does This Means War look like on your table? A little something like this: That intimidating beast is the Battlemap. But don’t be afraid, it is here to help. The Battlemap makes your game flow more smoothly by showing the state of each nation, the territory, the current action, and a brief...
Ben Robbins
Want to start some trouble? The playtest of This Means War is ready to download and play, right now. Be warned, it is very… different… from my other games. We’ve played it a bunch and had some pretty fantastic experiences, but it is still very much a summerlab experiment: We’re going to sit down...
Ben Robbins
The playtest of This Means War is chugging along, alarming civilians and crushing dreams. Dreams of the characters, that is — the players love it. After 10 games I can confidently say that this weird experiment actually works. We’ve got two wars going, ancient Baat Kazir and futuristic Novaterra,...
Ben Robbins
or, “omfg Ul-Massara offered peace!!! What the fuck is going on” Second session of Ul-Massara vs Baat Kazir, playtesting This Means War. It’s winter, the third season of our war, and we just introduced characters and started to explore their lives. We finish the season… and both sides agree to...
Ben Robbins
Another playtest of This Means War: When colonists first came to this world, they were united under a single government, working together to survive. Generation after generation slowly built the sprawling mega-city that shields them from the deadly atmosphere and makes life here possible. (Yeah we...
Ben Robbins
“Naming things is hard” -some gaming guru on a mountain top, hundreds of years ago, probably Coming up with names for things is hard, particularly when (like us) you play collaborative creative games where you make the setting together. A GM just has to pick a name they like, but if you’re a...
Ben Robbins
If you look at the games I’ve made over the years, there a few things that are true for all of them: no built-in violence no dice deciding outcomes the players control what’s true in the world Sure, you can choose to make a Microscope history that’s all about war and fighting (for example), but...