Superkalleider, Gutter-Crunch or Glory to the Heistspace!
This is part review, part rambling about our relationship with rules and I urge you to view it as neither of the two. Already confused?
Perfect! Then let's go!
I'm currently without a job. Hence I have some time to be spend in the days. And when I'm not waiting for another hiking tourist to get caught up in one of my cobwebs, I use said time to read RPGs. Lots and lots of RPGs. Some that I've bought, way more that I found for free in the Internet and just a few that I'd stolen, when the RPG zeppelin crashed in germany, back in 1813.
Mind you that this isn't even close to representative for the unbelievable huge number of TTRPGs that are out there. But still, I've read a lot and I'm planning on reading even more. Especially in this hard to define space of independend games my eight eyes have locked on some pages. Hard to define, because it ranges from:
"Copy this stuff for free from my blog page" over "Here is my itch page, but pay what you want" to "Here, our game breaks away from the mainstream in layout and system, but we still want you to pay for it"
And I think it is especially here, that a lot of creators try to communicate a special ... what do we call it, philosophy? ... yeah, a special philosophy with their games. For lack of a better term, I will call it "punk". Or to say it with a phrase:
"Here is the game! Now go ahead and do whatever you want, with the system or setting! Even if that means you're going to change it!"
In my opinion this is a very constructive mindset, because it is the anti-thesis to the license, money-grab nightmare that is the mainstream TTRPG scene. Especially Paywalls & Pinkertons or whatever the name of this game was. Ergo, taking systems apart and rearanging them to new forms of gaming is an important part of the independent, the "punk" scene. Not only in games, but also in other forms of art or the daily life in general.
Deep down we all feel that and most of us strive to do it (or at least I hope so), but we aren't sure yet how to do it. And this question of "How?" still echoes through the indie roleplaying scene. Answers to this yet have to be found. I fear that, if you just say "take my game apart, please", then a lot of people won't do it, because they won't know where to start.
It's the same with revolutions: Ask me if I want to fuck up capitalism and I'll scream "Yeah, gurl!" with the volume of an exploding microwave. But without a starting point of change, without an idea of where to begin, I will just sit in front of the system, that seems like one massive problem in itself, and I will be overwhelmed with helplessness.
Revelution, punk, avantgarde or whatever are not single big changes, but cascades of small interconnected changes that have to be learned, tested, adapted and communicated.
And we are still missing out on that point. If you really want me to change your game then help me do it. If you want me to change your setting, give me spark-tables. If you want me to create new game elements, show me how you have created yours. If you want me to break the rules, to fuck the system ... well, go ahead and break them as well.
Enter Superkalleider
Three days ago I stumbled across a game that actually does that. It was purely by accident, therefor it fully took me by suprise and I was deeply touched by it. Superkalleider in fact motivated me to finally start this whole blog thingy. So thanks, Griffin!
Sadly the kickstarter for the printed, completed version didn't reach it's goal. The curse of doing something different, I guess. But the basic version is still on itch for pay what you want. I urge you to check it out and drop them some coins, if you like it.
But what is this spider hyping about here, you ask. Well follow me and let me show you! In Superkalleider you play as a bunch of loosers that spend their days in a skyscraper-office hellhole called shitland. They're trapped in an everyday nightmare between workspace cubicles, smartphone screens and utter, fundamental boredom.
Let's face it: We play ourselves. Our real selves. We that we always have to stop playing our little make-belief games to go back to ... shudders ... work. Shitland is reality, folks. Our existence in a neoliberal nightmare that has no interest in our feelings and desires and yet wants us to carry on every fucking day. Learned purposelessness, learned helplessness.
This. Hits. Close. To Home.
But Superkalleider is a game. Per definition the killer of boredom. And this games weapon is the heistspace. Glory to the random gods, for there is the heistspace!
It is an acid-trip, a fever dream, an ADHD tidal wave and the artistic trashfilm you were watching with this one friend you always had a weird crush on. The heistspace is hyperreality. It is the antithesis to monotony. Where shitland is ourselves going to work, heistspace is ourselves playing roleplaying games. I've never seen a better metaphor for this two counterparts in a game before. So without a doubt we need to go there. And we will, kids. Oh yes, we will.
Mayor part of the game is entering heistspace and going on ... well, a heist. The posttemporal Giga-gods will drop you into this colorful madness, ask you to perform a special task and then you'll embrace what will come for you.
But what about breaking the rules? Yes, the rules. At character creation all the players get the same character sheets, called the candid. This represents your existence in shitland and is of course utter shit. One special thing you can do for example is to breath. The other thing is to drown. What a start, hm? Now, there are other classes, of course. Weird classes. They represent the hyperreality of heistspace. But you don't pick those classes. This is not a game about moving from one system into another. This is a game about deconstructing systems. Therefore the players will start to pick those classes apart. They will take rules from the classes and use them to replace their own candit rules. At the beginning you can replace 3 of your 6 candit rules and your replacements can be from any of the classes. This will result in every player having a unique set of rules for what they can do in heistspace.
Effectively this creates very different gaming experiences for the players. Which is already cool on itself, but to take this even further: Character creation, the first step in the game, already shows the players and the GM how to break the game. And I mean this in the best way possible. The game shows us it's' baseline actions in a clear separated overview. Then it tells us to replace this actions to explore different forms of gaming. It provides us with different templates of alternative rules to try out and evaluate, which are all kept simple enough to be understood fairly easy, yet different enough to create unique combinations. This will inevitably result in us creating new rules, templates or classes over time.
Modularity is one of the keys to human creativity. Take things apart, rearange them, reflect on the outcome. This is it. Here we have it. Already presented in a practical approach. Without a doubt this method can be aplied to other systems too. Identify the baseline rules of the game, think of alternatives and replace them one by one. This strikes the same tone as two other examples that realy resonated with me some time ago:
Ms. Screwhead has posted about giving every player there own form of HP or form of attack. And The Bottomless Sarcophagus has posted some classes that are ... hm, like handcrafted artpieces. Look for yourself it is like attending a weird exhibition at some forgotten gallery. Very unique.
And now we have Superkalleider as our first entry to something that I will hereby call the new wave of gutter-crunch.
The philosophy of teaching each other how to take things apart and build new experiences. If there ever will be an occult form of playing with lego blocks then I think it started right here in this hyperflux called heistspace.
Alright, I could go on for hours and haven't even started with the game mechanics, it's' gorgeous aesthetic or the Transistor-esque names of the enemies. But I'm writing these posts on paper first, and my hand already hurts. And let's be honest, this wasn't a real review to begin with. I'd say that you go ahead and check out Superkalleider. Fuck around and break the rules, sweet crickets.
Monotony is death.
Glory to the heistspace!
You will be 10 years old again.