A version of this article first appeared on neuronphaser.com. It has been moved here and updated with new content, insights, and links!

DeScriptors: Anything Goes PWYW Version was just released on DriveThruRPG and there are already plans to publish a bigger Definitive Edition in the coming weeks. But what is DeScriptors? And why is the gonzo Anything Goes setting the first release?

Read on and find out where DeScriptors came from, where it’s going, and check out several episodes of the popular Worldbuilder’s Anvil podcast, where host Jeffery Ingram ran DeScriptors to help troubleshoot his fantasy campaign setting!

DeScriptors, A Word Game Micro RPG was created by Matthew Bannock and originally debuted at Wayne Con 2015 and was published in its initial form in the second issue of the Dungeon Lord magazine by Death Machine Press. Matthew has run the game several times with long-time collaborator Jeffery Ingram, the creator and host of the Worldbuilder’s Anvil, a popular podcast that teaches the fine art of detailed, immersive world building for fantasy and sci-fi novels, tabletop roleplaying games, video games, and other mediums. Jeffery, in turn, used DeScriptors as a tool for “testing his worldbuilding”: he had a player interact with the characters, situations, and locations within a town that he was building for his fantasy world of Gardul to see if these elements were interesting and helped drive home themes, mood, and story that he was going to be telling in his second novel set within that world.

Seeking to bring DeScriptors to a wider audience, Matthew reached out to me (Tim, his cousin) to help create DeScriptors: Definitive Edition. Matthew had already created new worlds for his players to explore, and with that came new optional and variant rules for the DeScriptor rules mechanics. Additionally, providing a guide to help gamemasters create their own worlds and run the surprisingly tightly-packed narrative rules of the game would be a huge added value in making the system truly sing, as well as adding significant value to a “definitive” release of the game. While the setting included in the PWYW version — Anything Goes! A.K.A. While you were gone— is a sort of “RIFTS as played for laughs,” the power of the narrative, player-and-GM back-and-forth mechanics allows the game to really fit any sort of mood simply by tailoring the adjectives and character concepts that make up a the character and the environment. The Definitive Edition showcases some radically different settings, a few of which are defined much more narrowly and focused than Anything Goes, while others are equally as wide-ranging and gonzo.

Ultimately, DeScriptors: Definitive Edition includes:

  • Anything Goes: Just as its found in the PWYW version of the game.
  • Ethanol Pop: A campaign setting about “slice of life” scenarios in an idyllic, Renaissance-fantasy world.
  • Hunters Guild of the Ancient Lands: A fantasy world of larger-than-life monsters and bizarre realms where players can choose to hunt down monsters or collect ’em all and train them!
  • SUPERMAX! A superhero setting that appears to be a utopia following the defeat of an alien invading force, but is in fact a dystopia where prison systems are flooded with superpowered antagonists and the aliens have a nasty surprise for Earth’s defenders!
  • A “replay” style retelling of one player’s adventures in the Anything Goes campaign setting.
  • A storyteller’s guide in the form of a FAQ where the questions were answered by DeScriptors creator Matthew Bannock and Worldbuilder’s Anvil host/creator Jeffery Ingram!
  • Update 2019! We’ve also added a new setting — The Philosopher’s Stone, a sort of Cthulhu-esque setting — and an appendix of variant and add-on rules that will be continuously updated as we release additional supplements and adventures such as the recently released dungeon-fantasy campaign scenario, The Darkness Beneath Dalentown.

If you’re interested in listening to the game as it’s played, here are all the episodes of Worldbuilder’s Anvil using the DeScriptors game!

Resources

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