5MW Rokaner Report #5, with M. Allen Hall
RR#5, Diadem Empire: Sapphire
Hello starfolk,
May has been a busy month for 5MW Press. The big news is that physical distribution of Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones is soon underway! Between setting up fulfillment, teaching a new intensive Master’s course, and France’s four bank holidays this month (plus bonus “bridge” day off), my lil ol’ self hasn’t had time for much else.
I did still make the time to have a chat and worldbuilding session with game designer
, the swell fella who posted his two-part playthrough of Graveyard of Armored Hearts in March (If you missed it: part 1, part 2).Allen is currently Kickstarting Foul, an aberration-driven funnel adventure for MÖRK BORG. He was kind enough to send me an advance copy so we could speak about it for this month’s creator interview.
Interview with M. Allen Hall
Chris: Thanks for joining me on the Rokaner Report, Allen! We’ve frequently chatted on The Lost Bay discord, and it’s great to share this space with a creator from an online community I care so much about.
For the folks out there who might not be familiar with your work, can you tell us about yourself, your games and what excites you as a designer?
Allen: Oh, yeah, that question sort of covers everything. Briefly, I’m a lifelong nerd that only found TTRPGs about 5 years ago. I got my start in creating by writing a 5-book LitRPG series set in a game of D&D. From there I spread to writing MÖRK BORG modules and eventually my own complete games, like Sprinkles is Missing! and more recently Godspark.
One thing I really like about the indie TTRPG scene is the collaboration. Write a module for D&D, and sure, you might sell a few copies, but Hasbro is never going to notice you. Write a module for another designer’s game, and you can create relationships that really bring joy to the work we do. I’ve been doing a lot of writing for The Lost Bay with my modules Elevator Game (made for the Urban Legend Jam), Moe’s House of Meat (a solo module), and Diesel Service (part of the TLB Kickstarter), and it’s been great bouncing ideas off of Iko and expanding on the world he built. The same goes for the BORG universe; I got to be part of a convention crawl at PAX Unplugged this year with a bunch of other game designers, and those interactions were my favorite part of the con.
Chris: I def feel you on the community inclusion. I think I’m similar in that this camaraderie drives my writing. Even still, it’s amazing to me how prolific and innovative your games are. For example, the interactivity of included diegetic music club mini-zines with Elevator Game really brings the adventure to a whole new level.
It seems to me that each of your recent projects bring in different mechanical shifts from the repertoire of ttrpg design. Sprinkles is Missing! is aimed at kids, Elevator Game brings in-universe documents, Godspark sends folk on a solo quest, and now Foul takes on an OSR classic, the funnel.
Tell us about Foul, and what drove you to tackle the funnel for MÖRK BORG.
Allen: Yes, the funnel. That came about mostly because I don’t think there was one. At least none that I could find in the ex libris library. And I would see Reddit posts asking for a funnel, and people would recommend Rotblack Sludge, which is an awesome introductory module, but certainly not lethal enough to be considered a funnel. I wanted to make a real funnel, with the character mob built in from the start, and hopefully it is one that people will go to when they want DCC’s Sailors on the Starless Sea but for MB.
Chris: Wow, I hadn’t realized there were no MB funnels, that’s wild. But of course Foul isn’t only a funnel to take a swath of classless “Level Zero” PCs to make a single MÖRK BORG PC, it has a twist: Foul Aberrations.
Obviously, having written Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones, I was immediately excited by your take on the idea of providing an adventure that gives players the opportunity to end up with a mutated PC with strange abilities. Where do you think this impulse originates for you?
Allen: That mutation aspect came out during the writing. I started with character creation and the backstory that gets the characters into the sewer/dungeon, but I needed this to be more than just a dungeon.
First, it was just a binary condition; you were Fouled or you weren’t, and made some places where being Fouled was bad. But I couldn’t find enough places that it mattered for the condition to feel meaningful. That’s when I added the aberrations. They act sort of like a clock or timer on each character; the first time you get Fouled, you get a mutation that’s probably bad for your character. But the more Fouled you become, you get cooler and cooler things that actually make you stronger. Until you get too much, and that’s the end of that character.
Chris: Haha, yes, too monstrous for their own good. It’s an exciting design to add to the funnel. My mind lights with all sorts of possibilities just reading Foul. MB fans are in for a treat with this one, especially if they go for the physical risograph cover!
Lastly, I love the ending possibilities. I won’t spoil anything, but it feels like it’d be a disastrously delightful/devilish addition to the apocalyptic shitstorm of the MÖRK BORG setting.
Allen: Yes, the ending. When doing adventure design, writing endings is a challenge. I can’t know what happened during the play, so I can’t know all of the loose ends to account for. While I will be the first to say that you don’t have to (and maybe shouldn’t!) use the ending I offer, I feel a certain level of obligation to the GM to write out some possible conclusions to the story. I wanted the module to function as both a starting point for a campaign as well as a game that could be played at a convention, and I think I covered both of those possibilities with the ending.
Chris: As a starting point for a campaign in a world driving towards apocalypse, I think there’s a wonderful set up for intrigue and disaster. And like, if it’s a one-off too, the epilogue of what your PCs have wrought is also a great ending note, haha.
A bit vague and mysterious, but the readers still have a few days to back Foul on Kickstarter! and see what it’s all about.
5MW Form: The Visards
For the collaborative worldbuilding exercise, I asked Allen which Form he was most interested in, and he opted to explore what a Visard ecumenopolis might look like.
The Visards–from visor, or this creepy medieval mask–are cyber operatives and augmented reality wizards. Physically, they’re humanoid but different from baseline Trads. Their backs are sloped, with visibly larger vertebrae and much wider hips and glutes. For the Visards body physiology, I was inspired by this Scientific American article I read in high school:
There’s significant additional weirdness: they’re marsupial, for one. Their heads are larger, and their jaws and mouth especially so. They always wear a hi-tech helmet from their nose to the back of their skull (imagine a mix between Judge Dredd and General Grievous). This casque plugs into a brain stem cybernetics socket, and also covers their forehead reproductive organs (of which there are five types). Removing the mask outside of intimate occasions is a taboo across most Visard cultures. That means what they see through their mask can be different from what others see, which brings us to the Diadem Empire’s former crown jewel, Sapphire.
8pg Zine! Diadem Empire: Sapphire
Allen was inspired by Wool and the Silo series to start this take on a Visard city-planet. If Visards are always seeing the world through an augmented reality lens, what might the Diadem Council hide behind its algorithmic AR veneer?
Over the Ansible, the Diadem Council has asked for help restoring order in the wake of massive riots on Sapphire. What will your Avatars do when they arrive on world?
Click here to download Diadem Empire: Sapphire! The zip contains a pdf, printer-friendly. Check out the 5MW RPG itch page for character sheets.
Have fun on Sapphire, and see you after the solstice!
Signing off,
Chris Airiau
Really enjoy the indie seen as well. But I do want to point out that WoTC has added stuff by the Dungeon Dudes, MCDM and Grim Hallow into DnD Beyond. So they’re starting to open up