The game is called Heartbreak & Heroines and you can find it's Kickstarter page here, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caoimhe/heartbreak-and-heroines-rpg
Now my first reaction to this game was one of excitement. This sounds like a great game and it fills a needed place in the RPG community. My later reaction, after reading some of the other hype about this game, was we couldn't get this game fast enough.
Here is something about the game from the site.
Heartbreak & Heroines is a fantasy roleplaying game about adventurous women who go and have awesome adventures -- saving the world, falling in love, building community, defeating evil. It's a game about relationships and romance, about fairy tales and feminism.
You play a fantasy heroine (or hero, if you prefer) whose heart has been broken. She's experienced some loss so great that she's taken up her sword, her tome, her staff, or her wand and walked away from her place in society -- by becoming one of its defenders, fighting back the darkness that endangers everyone.
Heartbreak & Heroines is first and foremost a fantasy adventure game. It's not preachy and it isn't a textbook about feminism, but it's written from a feminist point of view. It challenges some of our assumptions about the role of gender in gaming but at the heart of H&H, it's about being a heroine (or hero) and finding your way to happiness in a dangerous world. I hope to produce something that Dwayne (McDuffie) would have enjoyed reading.
And the art looks good too. Here is a sample of the cover.
I have to admit it reminded me of this:
The author, Caoimhe Ora Snow, is unknown to me, but she has a blog or two or three, and a couple of threads over at RPG.Net one of system notes and another that is a FAQ. This of course has lead to the predictable thread denouncing the game (a game none of the posters have read mind you) on RPG.Net as well. Though the one thing, the one fact really, that stands out is this game made it's goal and then some in 48 hours. I have known some Kickstarter games that can't do the same in 48 DAYS.
The system is the same as found in Wandering Monster High School, which is here, http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/wandering-monster-high-school and may just a little related thematically to another game the author has done, Awesome Women Kicking Ass, http://boldpueblo.com/downloads/awka/awesome-women-kicking-ass-1.0.pdf
It is also beginning to make some noise on the various blogs. But it should not surprise anyone that these are generally more positive.
http://nitessine.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/delicious-flamewars-heartbreak-and-heroines/
http://errantgame.blogspot.com/2011/07/heartbreak-heroines.html
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5800
http://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/from-the-mailbag-heartbreak-heroines-win-mtg-wtf/
http://gmskarka.com/2011/07/19/inclusion-in-rpgs/
I think the idea is an interesting one and I am glad to throw some support behind it.
6 comments:
reading that RPG.net thread is painful.
The stupid...
It burns....
Interesting premise. Thanks for the shout out. I need to take a look at this.
@Greg, yeah, but that thread generated a ton of support for the game. Granted I gave before I read the thread, but was tempted to give more after reading it.
I don't think this is really an adventure game per se, the rules I have read in the authors post seem more Indy to me.
I don't especially care since what the players of this game want likely won't mesh with what my players need anyway.
And while gaming isn't especially inclusive, its not exclusive either . Being more inclusive at the cost of diluting what I prefer is no gain to me. YMMV
Good luck to the author though.
If the anonymous poster wishes to repost what they posted non-anonymously then I will retain it. But it is far too easy to play a game of "I heard this..." behind a veil of anonymity.
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