Tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer and Call of Cthulu are as much forms of interactive and collaborative storytelling as they are amusing diversions.

Players create a character and send them into a highly complex, wildly unpredictable narrative structure created by another player, dubbed a gamemaster. At their best, the games feel like immersive theater.

Designing one of these games is not unlike writing a long novel with infinite outcomes. In other words, not easy.

Santa Cruz native James Lacombe, 28, is lead designer on Song of Swords, a tabletop role-playing game that just raised more than $35,000 on Kickstarter. They were shooting for $12,000.

He and two childhood friends — Zachary Irwin, 26, and Taylor Davis, 27 — have spent the last five years developing the game, which Lacombe calls “gritty, dark low-fantasy.”

Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, which focuses on monsters, mazes and treasure, Song of Swords is a game of tactical combat that utilizes an exhaustively researched armory of weapons and armor inspired by actual world history.

“Historical modern arts and warfare have always been kind of an interest in our little group. It dawned us that there wasn’t really a game like this on the market,” Lacombe said.

Lacombe, Irwin and Davis met in the sixth grade of Santa Cruz Waldorf on Empire Grade and the trio began playing Dungeons & Dragons at Waldorf High. By the time they reached college, they began designing their own games and Opaque Industries was born.

After a dry run with a science fiction-themed game in 2009, Lacombe and company started working on Song of Swords in 2012.

“If you play games enough and run games enough, you understand how they work. It was still very much a learning experience. There’s no place you can go to school for this,” Lacombe said.

Lacombe said designing a role-playing game first requires the development of a theme, “the element of gaming that it will fulfill.”

Next, the designers must create a system of gaming mechanics that serve that theme’s end.

“This is really the reason you play a game. We wanted our mechanics to reflect realistic swordplay,” Lacombe said.

The game mechanics of Song of Swords is unique in that it uses a “combat pool” of dice, rather than the traditional single di for attacks.

“The pool results in a back-and-forth, give-and-take, attack-and-parry dynamic. There are more mind games. You can choose where to attack, disable weapons, knock away your opponent’s shield. It gives you more agency as a player and feels more realistic,” Lacombe said.

Once a framework is established, the testing process begins. That requires finding people unfamiliar with the game who are willing to provide feedback and criticism.

“From there, it’s basically an iterative process until you have something you can produce,” Lacombe said.

Now that Song of Swords has raised 300 percent of its capital, Opaque Industries must finish this process and produce the game, Lacombe said. That mostly entails additional writing and art production. They expect Song of Swords will be ready to ship by February 2018.

The odds, however, may be against them. A vast majority of tabletop roleplaying games, especially of this scope, are produced by one of three companies — Wizards of the Coast, White Wolf and Chaosisun.

“As an independent, we are effectively an outlier,” said Lacombe. “But our timing is good. People are really interested in swordsmanship; in part, we think, because of the Game of Thrones phenomenon.”

For a detailed description of Song of Swords, visit kickstarter.com/projects/2006613790/song-of-swords-tabletop-roleplaying-game.

Article plucked from: www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20170326/NEWS/170329777