The relationship game I’ve been working on for the past year and a half with my partner Casey O’Donnell, Fellowship of Fools, is finally finished and available for purchase through The Game Crafter! We’ve been in crunch mode since April trying to get the game finished and ready to submit to MSU’s Meaningful Play Game Conference, and we made our deadline! That is the primary reason I have been lapsing on writing blog posts here and making YouTube videos. But the crunch is finally over and we have the game available for sale, links for the game’s Game Crafter Storefront are at the end of this posy. For my readers who don’t know of The Game Crafter, they are a really great company that makes it possible for game designers to make and print on demand their own board games, card games, playing cards, and tarot decks through their web-to-print publishing system.
The Journey:
The game we are publishing through The Game Crafter, called Fellowship of Fools, started out as a rather different game concept, and really evolved over time. It’s evolution and my own story of becoming a game developer is something I’d like to write a creative non-fiction essay about, but that story hasn’t finished unfolding yet.
Originally the game had absolutely nothing to do with the Tarot. We wanted to make a dating roleplaying game, a game that helped people learn consent, discuss boundaries, navigate challenging situations together through roleplay before they had to encounter them in real life, and explore their yes’s, no’s, and maybe’s. But, we were struggling to find a unifying theme and artwork for the concept, and neither of us are graphic designers.
Months before, I’d introduced Casey to the Tarot and bought him the Wildwood Tarot and while we were out in San Francisco at the Game Developer’s Conference in March, the idea popped into my head to use the Tarot as a model. This happened after going to GDC Feet, a leisurely day of game devs walking around the San Francisco shoreline and unwinding from the conference. At the end of the walk, our fearless leader Rich LeMarchand gave out playing cards as substitute Tarot cards. The card was to tell us of the coming year’s challenges, developments and insights.
As we walked the streets of San Francisco that night, talking about the cards we’d pulled and our thoughts on them, the possibility of building our game off the Tarot burbled up into my head and I voiced it. At first the idea of using the Tarot as a model for building relationships seemed to have too many drawbacks to be useful. There is a cultural bias, at least in the United States, against the Tarot and Tarot readers, as New Age, hippy dippy, unscientific malarkey. Yada yada, blah blah, woof woof.
An Aside:
I’m not going to respond to those uncritical assumptions and assertations here, except to say that those who think that generally haven’t looked into it enough to have an opinion worth listening to. For those looking for some of the scientific studies and papers written about the Tarot, I highly suggest the book Wheel of Tarot, with essays written by neurologists, physicists, therapists and more; this book gives a varied and unique look at the Tarot that many are missing.
But back to the game.
We played with the thought of using the Tarot, talked about the pros and cons, and then tried to reconstruct our game within the Tarot’s system. And, it worked. It worked surprisingly well. And it had so much potential beyond the gameplay we’d envisioned. You can check out our ideas for other ways to play here and submit your own ideas as well.
The Tarot offered us a way to play with different situations and how to interact in those situations and get to know each other, for, after all, shared situational experiences is a big bonding and interpersonal learning opportunity. We had many ideas of our own for situation and topic prompts, but basing the game on the Tarot gave us a guide to find new situations and topics we might have missed or overlooked. While we wanted the game to focus on dating, especially dating as someone who is nonmonogamous with all the extra challenges that can make, we decided it would be better to take a step back and focus on a more integral way of relating first: friendship. As Relationship Anarchists too, this fit our personal philosophy as well of not prioritizing romantic and sexually focused relationships over friendships and community.
Now, this is our BETA version of the game, we are looking for player feedback and suggestions for alternate Situation Prompts and Topic Prompts, especially those based off your personal knowledge of the Tarot. You can submit your alternate Prompt ideas here. This is just the beginning for Fellowship of Fools, we have goals to make the game available as an app, and to develop expansion decks for romance, sexuality, community and kink relationships.
Friendship is a relationship, and we feel it is the backbone for exploring other types of relationships and ways of relating. We are all Fools on our journeys through this world. It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this game with you.
The Game:
We are all Fools on our journeys through this world. It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this game with you. Fellowship of Fools (FoF) is a game about relationships. Making friends takes time, communication and honesty. For many, making friends and forging new connections can be difficult or even feel impossible. FoF is a game that gives you an opportunity to get to know people through conversation, vulnerability and finding common ground. It is also a game about saying, yes, no and maybe.
This game is intended to help guide you through developing a friendship with someone new, or deepening an existing relationship. With prompts for situations to role play together, you must choose what are the best topics to explore in that given situation. Some things may be too personal to ask too early in getting to know someone, or not appropriate for the situation at hand. Together we will navigate these possibilities and share feedback on how we choose to play and respond. The more you play the more experience you build at conversing and building friendships. The more you play with the same players, the deeper your relationships become.
Track your progress with other players with our Character Sheets, with separate boxes to keep track of Yes points, Maybe points, and No points, as well as the Total Experience. Unlike traditional roleplaying games, in Fellowship of Fools you make Character Sheets for the other players rather than yourself, fill in the other person’s attributes, abilities, interests, and background as you get to know them through playing FoF.
Fellowship of Fools is based on the Tarot, in use since the 14th century for games and since the 17th century for divination (that we know). The Tarot art for Fellowship of Fools dates back to 1761 to its use in France, and is called the Tarot de Marseilles, made by Nicolas Conver of Marseilles. Today, Tarot cards are used primarily for inner reflection and personal development; Fellowship of Fools aims to turn that reflection and development outward, to help build the skills of relating and building intimacy.
We’ve split the Tarot deck into its two parts—-the Major Arcana for Situations and the Minor Arcana for Topics. On each card there will be two different prompts—-Situation Prompts and Topic Prompts–with numbers to indicate their difficulty, the number of Topic Prompts that can be played for that Situation Prompt, and the number of points you can gain, or lose, based on how you play. You can earn points or lose points for how you play a Situation, asking an appropriate Topic that they will feel comfortable answering at this point in your relationship, and for how well you answer the Topic you asked of them and they ask of you.
How to Play:
You can read our gameplay rules here and our suggestions for alternate ways to play here. Our gameplay focuses on developing the skills of giving and receiving feedback and establishing and communicating your boundaries and preferences as you roleplay situations together. So, in many ways, this is a game about teaching consent.
How to Purchase:
We are publishing our BETA version through The Game Crafter. You can purchase the full version of the game here, this includes:
- Sturdy outer box
- 40 Character Sheets
- 22 Situation Cards (Major Arcana)
- 56 Topic Cards (Minor Arcana)
- Small Tarot Box
- Full color Rules and About Booklet
We are also making available a more affordable version of the game here, this includes:
- 22 Situation Cards (Major Arcana)
- 56 Topic Cards (Minor Arcana)
- Small Tarot Box
- pdf file of Character Sheet
- Full color Rules and About Booklet
You can follow the game on social media to get updates, give feedback, see the artwork and prompts we chose and give us your suggestions!
