Pub Crusade
This, like LEXICUTIONERS, is a game set entirely within Spire. Spire is a much larger game I wrote with Chris Taylor about six years ago, but you don't need it to play Pub Crusade, but don't let that stop you from buying it just in case.
It was a tricky one this month - I experimented with a few novel systems (including something interesting with assigning dice to power slots that you can expend, which I'm sure will see the light of day somewhere down the line) but, while I was having a smoke and watching an actual play of Spire, one of the players described their Knight character as a pub-crawling paladin and I was struck with inspiration.
(So: I took someone's idea. But then again, they used MY idea that I wrote six years ago. So really I'm just stealing my own ideas, which is somehow worse.)
If it isn't broke it oughtn't be fixed, so I've mashed together LASERS AND FEELINGS and ALL OUTTA BUBBLEGUM to make a game about going on a pub-crawl in a fantasy city to prove your worth. Should be a laugh.
Best part is the pub names, which - as is tradition in Spire - are all ham-fisted sexual innuendos. I think THE TURGID HOG is probably my favourite.
FUN FACT: I was the pub-crawl officer of the Games Society back when I was at uni, and you'll be pleased to hear that we had one pub-crawl every goddamn month and we had variety in them and there was always at least one place on the route that did food and I guided us safely to the Waterfront club, or at very least The Mischief, every time without fail.
I took this role far, far more seriously than my previous ones of Secretary (too easily bribed) and President (turned up to meetings stoned and made no firm decisions either way for a year) and it was a genuine point of pride for me.
I hear now that the kids at UEA Gamessoc are no longer doing pub-crawls, which is probably for the best - they're expensive, time-consuming, difficult to manage and establish a sort of Mandatory Drinking Culture which is the sort of thing that Gen Z have cleverly started to move away from. I believe they're doing card game evenings instead. Good for them.
(Can't write a bloody game about them though can you)
I'm off to GenCon tomorrow (AGH) so if you're in Indianapolis next weekend, swing by the booth and say hi.
Big love,
G-Unit