Off-Script Episode 7 - with Jay Dragon!
Hi everyone! Work on the next video is going well! It's been filmed and editing is Underway! In the meantime, I was fortunate enough to have an awesome conversation with Jay Dragon! Jay is the editorial director at Possum Creek Games, designer of Wanderhome, Sleepaway, and Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, not to mention the mind behind the upcoming maximalist wizard game Seven Part Pact. We talk about designing a game where it's always easier to go with the flow (and what that says about patriarchy as a self-perpetuating machine), why the appeal of a game is often the ways it obstructs you, stories as something you carve out of play afterward rather than the goal of play itself, the INTENSE intimacy of two-player games, and where TTRPGs and kink stop being distinguishable from each other. She is a brilliant designer and I felt so lucky to get to hear her thoughts on games. I hope you enjoy this talk as much as we did!
Comments (2)
Really loved listening to this conversation. I recently started playing a TTRPG after doing LARP for a couple of years and I feel like it hasn't been scratching that itch of roleplaying because I'm used to something more immersive and visceral and so hearing about Jay having a similar experience and how that developed for her with time was super interesting. Also the stuff about the overlap with BDSM. When I first got into larping I had already been in the BDSM scene for a while and was surprised how much overlap there is even in non sexual larps. Like scene negotiations and safe words and immersive play with power dynamics and intentionally putting yourself in a position to let someone else make you cry. I've actually done two kink LARPs now and loved them and I hope to find more. And I think I'm going to check out a bunch of the games mentioned. As someone who enjoys being weird and intense a lot of what she mentioned sounds super interesting.
oh this is so cool! I still remember T&T Wanderhome episodes, excited to listen!