Hello! My name is Seth Wolfshorndl, and I am a freelance illustrator, art educator, and comic book creator. I am your guest writer for this newsletter while my friend Elton takes a well-deserved week off. I appreciate him giving me a chance to chat with you all again!
Elton usually explores different aspects of story here, so I’ve been thinking how stories are related to one of my main obsessions right now… board games. Now, if the first examples you think of when you read those two words are games such as Monopoly or Uno, then you might be wondering how there could be much story in such things. In case you didn’t know, modern board games have grown past some of those classic games we all grew up playing and have exploded in diversity and popularity in the last 20 years or so. You can now find a game that matches whatever player count, complexity, and genre you are looking for. Seriously… there are games on topics ranging from making cheese to bird watching to betting on a zany mascot race… to so many more.
Many of these modern games definitely include a strong sense of storytelling in them. Sometimes it is directly part of the gameplay such as in party games like Awkward Storyteller, Someone Had Died, or Super Fight, where players have to improvise reasons they should inherit a fortune or argue why they would win a ridiculous fight against a Godzilla-sized Chuck Norris. More often, the sense of story comes from the shared quest of the players, as they together save a village from classic Universal monsters in Horrified or become a legendary bandit or marshal in Western Legends or recruit Greek gods, monsters, and heroes to help them conquer the islands of Cyclades.
Many cooperative games have a strong sense of story, as the players are actively working together towards a goal. One great example of this would be Freelancers. It is a cooperative game that is mostly like a Dungeons and Dragons one shot combined with a Choose Your Own Adventure (with a dash of Mad Libs). The game is enhanced by a companion app that acts as the dungeon master running the adventure, complete with amazing voiceover work that adds to the humor of every encounter. By the end of the game, players will have woven their character into an epic tale worth remembering.
Another great example is the newer game Vantage. In this game, players are part of a crew aboard a spacecraft that has to crash land on an unknown world. The players each jump in separate escape pods and are jettisoned to different areas of the planet. Each player is presented with many choices and much freedom as they decide which way to go and what to do at every step. When you combine these multitude of choices with the thousands of unique cards in the game, it’s easy to feel like you are carving a unique path in this strange world. And it is wild how different the experience can be between players. The first time I played with Elton, he spent most of the game dancing in grassy fields with friendly insect people, while I landed in the water and within a few turns found myself in a life-or-death struggle with a kraken! We still laugh about this.
And this brings me to possibly the strongest stories in board games… even outside of game mechanics, the story of our shared experience with other players is what really sticks with us over time. Remembering the close calls and epic comebacks is really meaningful (along with the funny moments of petty “take that”). I will never let my nephew forget the time when we were playing Outrun the Bear and he had reached the safety of the car only to turn and yell at the bear which prompted it to speed up and almost kill my wife and I who were still on the trail. Anyone who has played these types of games can probably provide you with many more examples of these moments which become legendary amongst groups of friends. If you haven’t tried a modern board game recently, I recommend finding a board game café in your area or some like-minded friends and trying some out. Who knows what adventurous tales await you all?
If you are interested in checking out more of my work, the best route is subscribing to my NEWSLETTER. This guarantees that you will see everything I create each month in your mailbox. In addition to comics, contests, and other art, I also like to include other fun sections in the email, including a monthly curated music playlist, recommendations of great things to check out (including some great board games), and a spotlight on other independent creators making awesome stuff! As a bonus, every new subscriber gets a free digital copy of my Evil Ain’t Easy comic (about the world’s most frustrated would-be conqueror). I hope you join us there!
Question of the Week
I love telling stories, but storytelling is by its nature collaborative. A book requires a reader to fulfil its purpose. But often getting readers is the hardest part for an author. These giveaways allow you to read the work of people who have poured their heart into these works, so please give them a chance. I know they will appreciate you giving them a chance.
Free Sci-fi, Fantasy and Paranormal
A game may be as integral to a culture, as true an object of human aesthetic appreciation, as admirable a product of creativity as a folk art or a style of music; and, as such, it is quite as worthy of study.
Michael Dummett
I am writing this at the end of the first day of my week off. I am doing my best to enjoy it. Having someone I trust write the newsletter is a big help. So I want to thank Seth one more time and strongly encourage all of you to check out his comics.
Elton Gahr
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