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Tom's Oath Journey: SU&SD Newsletter #59 (January 2022)
🕑 Added 2022-06-22 18:52:02 +0000 UTCTom: Hello! Fancy seeing you here, in a place like this; in times like these! Welcome to the first newsletter of 2022, ‘Episode One’ of the verbal (?) TV show we like to call ‘writing’. Let these sentences paint a beautiful picture in your mind! Or, if you’re less charitable/more realistic about my writing ability; a macaroni sculpture.
There’s only one thing that I really want to talk about this month, and it’s Oath. I remember saying somewhere that I wanted to make a ‘Year Since Oath’ kind of video, where I talk about my relationship to the game once the hype of it being a real thing in my hands had somewhat subsided. Now, that doesn’t seem a particularly viable feature to make - there’s a bunch of stuff that deserves coverage before we think about going back to such a recent game; (including other products from Leder Games 👀) but the newsletter presents a unique opportunity to talk about something that’s uniquely affecting us at the moment - and oh boy, is Oath affecting me.
I had maybe four games of Oath on an actual table, and about 10 digitally before writing its review. Here’s the thing; the online games missed the tactile tabletop aspects but showed off the legacy stuff neatly, whereas the physical games had me actually sitting down to touch the components… and entirely missing the legacy aspects! So the review is something of an amalgam between two half-lived experiences of a theoretical product; containing leaps, assumptions, and flights of fancy based on how the game ought to play out on the table. A lot of time pre-and-post video release was spent fretting if my criticism was 'correct' due to my funhouse-mirror testing of the game.
I’ve just about played two games of Oath every week for the past two months. It does work, exactly as I thought it would. I can breathe easily.
In our most recent games, a three-session-long alliance of Chancellor and Citizen led to a great ‘abolishment of beasts’ after a conspirator was found recovering the secrets of magical fire from a ruined city; it's great walls swatting away a siege tasked with recovering a most precious relic. We’ve had that land crumble and slide into the ocean - its once-great ruler forgotten and a new face brought into the land. We’ve had a roving terror demolishing every quarter of the board before being promptly forgotten - and a dictatorial state where an omnipresent Chancellor quashed rebellions left right and center. Every game has been magical, and it’s upsetting to me that I’m probably going to have to start playing other games soon.
I’ve also been playing back through the Souls series in anticipation for Elden Ring, and whilst wallowing in my Souls-Swamp I’ve been watching a bunch of videos about the series; most importantly Hbomberguy’s In Defence of Dark Souls II video, where a slice of time is spent chatting about ‘play conditioning’ - a nifty phrase for the as-yet-unnamed way a game teaches you the desired and 'authorial' way to play through its mechanics. And I think it applies here.
I think lots of people played a little bit of Oath and then bounced off it a.) because it was hard to play anything social in a safe way at the time of its release and b.) because a lot of games media doesn’t have the time to sit with something; to let it gestate, breathe and stretch out. That’s fine! Most games don’t really demand that kind of time because their pattern of play is understandable immediately - the rhythms and goals natural and intuitive to anyone who has touched a meeple, placed a bid or rolled a die… and the only reason we have time to really sit on stuff is because of you! (Thank you! :) )
Here’s my pitch; Oath has “play conditioning” built in. Granted, it takes a little time before you get plugged into its particular brand of game on a rules level, but even longer to reach the second level of roleplay, of empires strung between games - victory delivered to another player. Vassals and citizens - victory for your ‘suit’ as opposed to the player. The way that the game is balanced and the motions of play are poised to deliver a game that’s fundamentally unsatisfying if played typically - prompting either a lack of desire to play it again… or the feeling that you might be missing something. I think that’s something I wished I’d have dwelled on longer in both the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ section of that video, on how Oath is truly revolutionary both mechanically and socially; taking a good bit of getting used to before you engage with it on its terms and unlock that next level of enjoyment. But that feeling is perhaps assuaged by the excitement for what Cole and Leder are going to do next - how they’re going to change assumptions about victory and narrative that maybe won’t resonate with everyone now… but will eventually, over time.
Anyway, play Oath. It’s a blast. Well, it’s a blast for everyone except the one guy in my group who has just missed out on the win in every game so far. Sorry Cal.
Oh! If you’re a new donor, HELLO! Thank you so much for your support, it means the absolute world to us. You’ll get a newsletter like this every month, though undoubtedly at a different time each month as schedules get tangled and videos take just-a-bit-longer than they might normally.
What are we roleplaying!🧙
Quinns: On the subject of Tom’s epic return to “an actual tabletop”, this week will be the first session of my new RPG campaign. I’m not yet ready to announce what game we’ll be playing, but I will say that after two years of pandemic I’m taking an absolutely fetishistic approach to setting the table.
For starters, when my players come in they’re going to see not one, but two enormous paper maps. There’s gonna be a whole side table of booze and snacks. Did one of them forget to bring a pencil? Not a problem, take one from this entire pot of sharpened pencils.
The subject of dice required lengthy consideration- not regarding what dice to provide, but where to encourage players to roll them. I’ve long been of the opinion that you want a central receptacle so that everyone can watch each dice roll. But do I want to put out my velvet-lined dice tray (advantage: small footprint on the table), or remove some of the planks from my gaming table to give players a long channel to toss dice into, like a craps table?
I’ve just this second had another idea. Incense! Ooh- there’s only 48 hours to go until the session. I’ll have to stop by the shop tomorrow morning...
What are we video games! 🎮
Tom: This past month-and-a-bit, I have played through Dark Souls, Sekiro and Bloodborne… again. I just started Dark Souls 3. I can’t be stopped. I literally can’t be stopped. Someone stop me.
My definitive and completely accurate ranking at the moment stands as Bloodborne > Dark Souls 3 > Sekiro > Dark Souls > Dark Souls 2. I also think Dark Souls 2 is a really, really great game so putting at the bottom means very little. It’s better than Dark Souls in a bunch of ways! It's just tonally a bit whack.
Matt: Tons I didn’t love about it, but gosh - that bit where you could hang about in a cave of traps causing strangers grief? Pure magic. I’ve been bad for new games this month - I just keep diving back into Slay The Spire, which is increasingly just too hard for me to play now that I’ve gotten three of the characters up to level 15, or something?
What are we reading? 📖
Quinns: I’m reading The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter at the moment, mostly because her opus Nights at the Circus is one of my favourite novels ever, but the book I want to talk about here is the one I just finished reading- Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze.
On the off chance you’re watching the new Sexy in the City reboot, Carrie was pictured reading it? Which is hilarious because this is an intensely gritty, semi-autobiographical novel about growing up into a life of crime in some of the toughest streets in London, and almost every page features mention of either a knife or a zoot. Which isn’t to say that this is one of those aimless books that’s only printed to feed the neverending demand for stories of “real” crime and “real” gangs- what Krauze has created is something like a holy monument to the criminals that society first creates, and then stops at nothing to destroy.
It all comes to a head in a final chapter that I found deeply moving. I think it permanently changed how I see my home city.
What are we music! 🎵
Matt: After really enjoying the latest album by The Coral - a strangely dreamy visit to a seaside town that’s past its best, I’ve been diving back into a bunch of their old albums that I never even visited, in addition to going back to their fabulous first album. Butterfly House remains the best of the middle-bunch, for any other lapsed fans dipping back in!
Tom: William Aura’s Half Moon Bay has really gotten me through a lot of stressed-out evenings recently - a weirdo little synthesiser record that’s a little kitsch and saccharine but buoyant as heck. Well worth a listen, even if just for how much that first track will lift your spirits. Prins Emmanuel’s Arbete/Fritid has been my go-to cooking music recently - all locked, driving grooves and staccato percussion - and Portico Quartet’s Monument is great writing music if you need something with a little edge, but not too much. I’m instrumental this month!
Ava: Ooh, have Portico Quartet got good again? They made three lush records, and gave me a couple of my top ten gigs of all time and then a bit later dropped the quartet and played one of the worst gigs I’ve ever seen because they’d turned from a jazz quartet into a not great indie band? The lovely little faun man who plays double bass like a beast didn’t even have a double bass, it was just a single bass! An electric one! What’s the point!
Anyway, I’ve been distracted by another twitter tournament of pop tracks, this one digging into the best tracks of 2021 and making me realise I’ve stopped listening to new music! Worrying! I’ll eat my hat if Montero doesn’t win because I just think it’s incredible, but I made a lot of good discoveries, including BUFFALO by Sunwoojunga and a host of others. It pops and I love it.
What are we watching? 📺
Matt: This last month I’ve chewed through pretty much all of Doom Patrol - as someone who’s rarely a fan of comic book TV adaptations, I’ve been really impressed by just how much fun this is. It doesn’t have the same style of weirdness, but it still reminds me quite a lot of the excellent Legion from a few years ago - both punch well above their weight in terms of what they’re going for, and continually seem able to surprise and delight.
Tom: Line Goes Up and Fear Of Cold are two masterclasses in different styles of the new wave of excellent video essay content on YouTube and I’m continually struck by how both of their creators seemingly never miss. The pressure must be unbearable. I’d say to go take a peek; but you probably have already!
Ava: Oh my word I just watched Line Goes Up and it was ludicrously informative. I’ve been reading stuff about the financial crisis, the blockchain and NFTs since each of them started existing, and I have never found a work that summarised them so clearly and succinctly and then showed me a load of stuff I hadn’t even registered. I guess I should probably check out Fear of Cold.
My tellywatch of lately has mostly been Euphoria, which was so deeply not what I expected. And then not what I thought it was after I’d had those expectations upturned either? I’m probably going to have to rewatch the whole thing, because I was only half watching for a while, until a string of scenes made me realise this might be…unlike anything I’ve ever seen? After one particular point I woke up the next day with the feeling of dissociated under the skinness I only normally get from David Lynch at his best. I’m not saying it’s like that, and I’m probably over-egging something. But there’s more power than I had any expectation of. It is NOT easy watching, so be careful with yourself, especially if you have experience of marginalisation, addiction or abuse.
