Fan Club “Blog” #16: Introducing... Play to Find Out

Season 2, Episode 1 of Quinns Quest drops in just six weeks! Let me tell you, the ends of my pencils are getting chewed to death as I fret over which game will win the coveted "Winner of Season 2" award.

But starting next week I've got something to tide you over! A new Actual Play podcast that is... well, it's very me.

Folks? I am very excited to introduce Quinns Quest: Play to Find Out.

Let me give you the sales pitch!

Play to Find Out is a series where I GM old TTRPGs. Joined by two players from my home games, Emily Johnson and Rob Morgan (who I have zero doubt you'll come to love), we'll be taking different games that were last relevant 30 or 40 years ago and returning them to the limelight.

Let's do a little fake Q&A!

Q: Quinns, glad you could join us.

So happy to be here.

Q: The TTRPG community is simply overrun with Actual Play shows. Why are you trying to shoulder your way into the crowd? 

Good question! So, while my players and I will be working very hard to keep up with the high standards set by the Actual Play community, the driving force behind the show isn't to make Actual Play. The motivation behind PTFO is to show off old, weird, fascinating games. If Quinns Quest (the main series) is about exploring and celebrating new designs, Quinns Quest (the Actual Play show) is about exploring and celebrating old designs. It's a side quest, if you will.

I love games, but one of the ways our community fails as compared to that of books or movies is that we have the cultural memory of a goldish. We're always staring forward at new games, new ideas, new marketing campaigns. It's terrible! Play is as old as human history, yet we think of our culture as something that began - at a push - maybe 60 years ago. To use an example that's specific to TTRPGs, we all love rolling dice to predict what happens in our roleplaying games, but most gamers are unaware that when we do that we're continuing a human tradition that's more than 3500 years old.

And I'm part of the problem! For 20 years I've been working as a journalist, getting people excited about new games. So PTFO is my little effort to improve games' institutional memory. I want to take these old games and not just blow the dust off them, I want to make them shine again.

Q: Wait, so you're playing with all of those old, bad, original rulesets?

Yes.

Q: But aren't those rulesets old and bad?

Well, here's the interesting thing. When we began putting PTFO together, we assumed that the games might be interesting but the rules would be intolerable, and listening to us suffer would be the main appeal of the show. And that is absolutely part of PTFO. You get to hear my players scream about their nonsensical character sheets, you get to hear me sweat as I search for rules clarifications, and you get to hear us all roll dice pools that make absolutely no sense.

But here's the thing- complaining is a smaller part of this project than we thought. Because actually, these old games we're playing for PTFO are frequently, unexpectedly amazing. The designers working on them in the 80s and 90s put exactly as much love into their games as designers today, and you can feel that love, and that love is all the more amazing for being a bit... wonky?

Q: Wow. So, what's the first game you're playing?

Our first game was always going to have to be a mission statement for the series, so there was only one choice. The notorious Skyrealms of Jorune. These days, if Skyrealms of Jorune is remembered at all, it's as a kind of punchline for how demented TTRPG design used to be.

This is a game where players don't ride horses. If they're lucky, they might ride the sluggish but noble Thombo. Behold!

Absurd, right? Except nobody was more delighted than me and my players when, after we sat down to play, we found that far from being laughable, the world of Jorune was something genuinely magical.

That's gonna be the throughline of the series, I expect. Three people sit down to play something ridiculous, and come away a little bit baffled, a little bit exhausted, but also a little bit awestruck.

Q: That sounds great though?

I know!!

Q: I'm sold. When does episode 1 of PTFO drop?

At some point on the week of 24th of March. Then if the folks on this Patreon enjoy it, we'll be very happy to record more seasons.

Q: Thanks so much for your time, Quinns.

Thank you.