Apathy Games

Defining Who We Are

As the New Year is upon us we take time to establish goals and make resolutions, but before you can decide what to change you first need to define who you are.

Apathy Games is game company and as we’ve said before we love Savage Worlds and are pursuing a license to sell our games. Now the simple act of this makes us game designers, but what does that mean? I struggled with how to define Apathy Games to my family over Christmas. None of them play Dungeons and Dragons, nor have they even heard of Savage Worlds, and the closest they come to a board game is the occasional game of Pictionary. So during the drive up to my Mother’s I thought about how best to describe myself, my colleagues and my community.

Focus on the social aspects

One of the biggest things about our community and our games I hear is that they are social games. Most table top games cannot be played by one person alone, they require other people. If I am going to play a game with someone I’m more apt to choose a board game, or card game to play over a video game. The reason is that I can interact with them more with a board game then I can during a video game. The distinction is important in it directs where your attention is focused. Instead of on the screen and what your avatar is doing you’re focused on the other person.

I decided to share with them a story about playing a game of Gloom in which the object of the game is to spin a terrible story about your family and ultimately usher them to their untimely death. What was great about the game was the spinning of the story and collaborating together in making these things happen. This collaborative storytelling and social interaction is fundamental to what we do.

It’s like acting on a stage

I tend to describe roleplaying as a group of actors on a stage that are improvising their lines. The GM is the director, set designer, and miscellaneous characters. He helps drive the plot forward and settles disputes as they become necessary. As the play is being made up as the players are playing it can result in anything from Whose Line is it Anyway? To Grey’s Anatomy, with slightly less drama, depending on your players. The goals of the game vary depending on the game and what you’re trying to do during it, but the play tends to look the same. A bunch of people gather around a table with dice and paper and talk like they are having grand old time (which the secret is, they are).

Our part in the grand scheme

After explaining all of this I simply add that we help the GM’s to create the world by giving them ideas and the tools to do it.  As we’re using the Savage Worlds rule system the heavy lifting is done for us and we can focus on creating a story and characters to populate it.  We focus on turnkey games allowing anyone who has never played before to pick up and have all the tools to run the game.  We provide everything we can to make sure the game runs smoothly in as much time as it takes to read through the adventure.  As adults and GM’s we understand that there is little time to prep some weeks or at all.  We try to assist this by making it as easy as possible for anyone to play without compromising the game.  So while we are not creating a game for the XBOX (a common misconception) we are creating a game for people to play.  It just requires more thought, more people, and a bit more prep to play.

What have I missed in describing games and game designing?