I have written my fair share of fan fiction,
and none of you will ever see it
because I published it under an anonymous username
to preserve my squeaky clean public image.
Or I don't know, maybe you have read it
and just don't know it was me.
Let that haunt you for a while.
Today, we're gonna talk about
a two-player romantic tabletop RPG called Star Crossed.
The best way I can describe it
is that if you enjoy reading or writing fan fiction,
this game lets you play fan fiction.
DriveThruRPG sponsored this video,
which means they paid me to choose a title from the site
and share it with you.
DriveThruRPG is the largest online marketplace
for RPG materials.
They have over 10,000 titles,
both from big name publishers
and from indie creators like Bully Pulpit Games,
the publisher that created Star Crossed.
This is a great time to go check out DriveThruRPG,
because you can use my code
to get a discount on your purchase,
whether or not that purchase includes Star Crossed.
This game isn't so much about role playing romance
as it is about role playing romantic tension.
It's about forbidden love.
Your characters have caught feelings
for someone that they really,
really shouldn't catch feelings for.
I tested it out with the help of my husband, Josh.
- Lighting, check.
Sound, check.
Rolling,
and action!
- Great.
You can play any kind of story you want with this game,
you can use characters you already have,
or characters from media that you love,
or make up new ones just for this.
You can set it in any universe, any genre, any context.
We decided to play using a character
you guys would already know from watching my channel.
- Me as Edith the matchmaker, and you as...
Do you wanna be a noble or do you wanna be a prince?
- I wanna be a prince.
- Okay, so you're a prince.
- Prince Bastion.
- Okay.
The premise we settled on
is that the King has hired Edith
to find his son a fitting royal match.
But instead, Edith and the Prince fall in love.
You start by filling out your character sheets.
They're short, with just five questions to answer,
and then a series of moves
that you can choose from while playing.
There are two roles that the two characters need to fill.
The way this game is played,
one person is the lead and one person is the follow.
The lead takes the first move each round
and the follow ends the round.
Neither person is in control.
It's just a role.
It's just which role you're following.
Can you guys settle down?
The main difference between the two roles
is that the lead almost always acts with intention,
and the follow almost always acts by accident.
So while the lead might,
say, choose to share something personal,
the follow is more likely to let something personal slip.
You do get to choose what is your most attractive feature.
- Okay, what is my most attractive feature?
- And this could be physical or this could be emotional.
It could be like, "Oh, I have a great smile."
Or it could be like, "I am really generous."
- I have great forearms.
- Okay, you have great forearms.
- There's a fun little character building mechanic
where each player chooses their own character's
most attractive feature,
but then they also choose two attractive features
for the other character.
- What are two things about me I don't realize are attractive?
We pick these for each other.
He has a silly laugh.
- (truly ridiculous laugh)
- Bastion's just really into her accent.
- Okay, her accent.
And of course, you have to identify what's stopping them
from acting on their feelings.
If there are no consequences for getting together,
then there's no tension.
- My father wants me to marry into royalty.
- If she acts on her feelings, she fails her job.
Once you have your sheets filled out,
you're almost ready to play.
The last things you need are the tower and the scene cards.
Instead of relying on dice,
this game relies on a Jenga tower,
a concept that originated with the horror game Dread.
But instead of dying when the tower falls,
your character acts on their feelings,
triggering the epilogue and ending the game.
This means that, like any good slow-burn romance,
the majority of the story
lives in that feeling of unfulfilled longing.
Before the game starts, each player draws three bricks,
so you start off with a tower
that's already a little unstable.
And finally, there are scene cards.
So there are eight scenes which are on these cards,
and we will play through each scene.
Either the game ends when we finish the final scene
or it ends when the tower falls.
I hand wrote ours on index cards
because our printer is on the fritz,
but there are printable cards included with the PDF.
Each has a short phrase that's used to prompt the scene.
How you interpret that phrase is completely up to you.
- Next scene.
A little embarrassment.
When you pull the first scene card,
that's when the gameplay starts.
You and your partner can discuss each scene out of character
as much as you like.
In fact, a lot of the game
will probably be this kind of conversation.
It's collaborative brainstorming,
much like you would if you were co-writing a story.
You're setting the stage
for the interaction you're about to have.
- Maybe he couldn't come earlier in the day
because he had royal duties,
so he had to come really late at night this time,
and everyone else in the temple was already-
- But he is bringing Turkish coffee, so-
- Well, but yeah, 'cause it's a late night meeting
and they need energy. - Oh.
You can do this kind of backstage communication
at any time during the game.
But when you're describing your characters
actually doing stuff,
that's when the moves section
of the character sheet comes in.
Some of the moves are unlimited
and don't relate to the Jenga tower.
For example, you can describe your character's movements
as much as you want.
However, once you start either touching the other character
or revealing personal information,
mechanics come into play.
Lead and follow have the same set of moves
available to them,
but in different quantities.
For my first move, I'm going to intentionally touch you
because she's gonna shake your hand,
so I have to pull a block for that.
Since Edith is the lead,
she gets to intentionally touch Bastion
as often as twice per scene.
However, she can only unintentionally touch him once
in the whole game.
For Bastion, the follow, these moves are reversed.
He can unintentionally touch Edith up to twice per scene,
but can only touch her intentionally once per game.
Touching the other character
and revealing personal information,
whether intentional or unintentional,
also requires that you pull a block from the tower.
Every time you make one of these pull-required moves,
you fill in an attraction star on your character sheet.
- Seems like this could fall pretty-
- Any moment? - Pretty early in the game.
- Yeah.
Also, your character can speak on your turn,
but your hand must be touching the tower
the whole time you're speaking in character.
This lends some weight and pressure to direct dialogue,
especially as the tower gets less stable.
- I hope you- - You gotta touch it
the whole time and you can't rest your hand on the table!
If the tower falls,
that means the last person to touch the tower
has acted on their feelings, despite the consequences.
This can mean different things in different stories.
Maybe one of them kisses the other,
or confesses their feelings.
(Jenga blocks clattering)
- Edith, when you asked me the kind of woman
that I was looking for,
I was really speaking about you.
It's also a legal move to knock the tower down on purpose.
However, once the tower falls, the game is nearly over.
Tally up all the attraction stars
that have been filled in across both character sheets.
- I have filled out one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
- And I've filled out one, two, three, four, five, six.
The total attraction score gives you a prompt
for your epilogue.
If the tower falls early,
the relationship might blow up or fizzle out.
If you were able to build a high attraction score,
maybe true love prevails.
It's up to you to collaboratively decide how the story ends,
relinquishing the roles of lead and follow
and just working together to agree on a conclusion.
Of course, if the tower never falls,
then your characters never act on their feelings.
The players still create an epilogue together,
but in it, your characters can never be together,
and they never share their feelings with each other.
Maybe that's tragic, or maybe it's not.
It's entirely up to you.
- (Ginny laughs)
Good game.
All right, let's clean up.
Obviously, this game is not going to be for everyone.
The mechanics are lightweight
and really lean on the players
being able to commit to role play.
In my opinion, this game will work best
for people who write or read romance,
be that in the form of fan fiction
or romance as a published genre.
Also, even though the game utilizes the X card
as a safety tool
to allow either player to indicate discomfort,
I think it could be a little awkward
to play with someone that you don't know very well.
There's a certain level of vulnerability
associated with even fictional intimacy
played out between two people.
If you're the kind of person
who has co-written fan fiction with friends
or done one-on-one romantic text-based role play,
this game is probably gonna be your jam.
Josh would be the first one to admit
that this isn't really his kind of game.
Our session had a bit of a silly tone,
which can be fun, too,
but I think can also prevent you
from getting real emotional depth out of a story like this.
This isn't part of the rules or anything,
but while I was reading through this game,
it occurred to me that this could also be
a really useful system of prompts for writing romance.
I don't know if any of you have been deep enough
in the fan fiction community
to remember those LiveJournals
where shipping communities would provide prompts
and host challenges to inspire writers,
but I think you could treat this a lot like that.
Playing this game solo
could be a fun way to create an arc for a writing project.
What do you think, would you play this game?
Let me know in the comments,
and if you want to pick up this or other RPG titles,
remember to use my code
to get a discount on your DriveThruRPG purchase.
All the information is in the description.
Also, if you watched this all the way through,
please do me the honor of describing the worst
or weirdest fan fiction you've ever read in the comments.
I'll start.
Fellow millennials, do you remember Pottersues?
It was a LiveJournal community that just collected
and highlighted all the worst "Harry Potter" fan fictions.
There was one where Snape was secretly a merman
and Harry fell in love with him?
Just, levels upon levels of yikes with that.