Тема этого года: КНИГИ НЕ СУЩЕСТВУЕТ

Настольные ролевые игры долгое время были ограничены одним форматом – форматом книги правил. Но в последние годы этот стандарт начал меняться: стало больше коротких игр; игр, построенных на карточной механике или на основе небольших брошюр. В этом году в рамках Game Chef мы предлагаем вам развить эту тенденцию. Что, если у игры нет единых правил, нет одного базового текста? Как тогда игрок узнает правила игры? Можно ли создать настольную игру без единого свода правил? Может, игра приобретет новые формы? А может, появятся новые решения старых проблем?

Вдохновляйтесь этой темой, пусть она изменяет вашу игру в процессе работы. Интерпретируйте ее любым возможным способом. Вполне вероятно, что ваше вúдение будет значительно отличаться от вариантов, которые предложат другие участники. Мы дали теме некое объяснение, но вы вольны истолковать ее на свой лад.

Четыре ингредиента в этом году: поглощать, дикий, блеск, серп

На всякий случай, приводим пояснения Авери Макдальдно для организаторов:

THEME

The theme this year is «There is no book.» The description of the theme that’s currently on the announcement page says:

Roleplaying games have long been stuck in book formats. In recent years, we’ve seen that standard challenged – with shorter games, with card-based games, and with playbook-driven games. For this year’s Game Chef, we invite you to carry that challenge forward. If the teaching of a game doesn’t take place in a book or similar text, where does it take place? What would it mean to design an analog game without a core text? Do new game forms become possible? Do new solutions to old problems emerge?

Let the theme inspire you and shape your game as you work on it. You’re free to interpret the theme in any way you want, and to have a different interpretation than other competitors. While the theme has been explained, you’re also invited to wilfully misinterpret it in whatever way you’d like.
So, this year the goal is to challenge people to design games that don’t have a single core rules document. That can mean different things for different people! Some people might create multiple rules documents. Some people might put all their rules on the character sheet. Some people might have lots of evocative materials that don’t have any clear rules. Some people might submit their game as a giant flowchart.

However it is expressed, the theme of this year’s Game Chef is about getting rid of the «main book» or the «primary rules document.»

INGREDIENTS

This year I tried to pick ingredients that had single meanings, so that they could be translated more easily without losing their richness.

Absorb is a verb. It means to soak up, to take in. A sponge absorbs water. A giant blob monster absorbs cars and people. A community absorbs new ideas and even new people.

Wild is typically an adjective. It means roughly the same thing as feral, uncontrolled, undomesticated, free. A badger living in a forest is wild. A place in nature with no roads or houses is wild. Sometimes people say that a party where there is lots of drinking and debauchery and no rules has become wild.

Glitter is either a verb or a noun. As a verb it means to shimmer, to shine, to sparkle. As a noun, it means this stuff. In English the two meanings (the verb and the noun) are not very different. If you put glitter on your face, it will glitter.

Sickle is a noun. It is a tool that can also be used as a weapon, and it looks like this. It is used for cutting down crops. In English, there is also a disease called «sickle-cell disease» and it is called that because the affected cells deflate and end up looking like little sickles. This secondary meaning is not important for translation purposes.