Meant to do this yesterday, but then got busy doin' stuff, as Dib would say.
The Game: Wanderhome
The Publisher: Possum Creek Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: None
I know "cozy game" is usually applied to video games, but it kinda fits here. Wanderhome is about a journey that anthropomorphic animals are taking to...doesn't much matter, actually. The game can be played with a GM (rather, "guide", and the job of said guide is pretty different than a GM in a trad game), but it feels like it wants to be played like a Belonging Without Belonging sort of arrangement. It's even diceless but works on token management.
Much like Possum Creek's other game Sleepaway, I like it, but I think if I was gonna run it or play it I'd first want to look up an AP. There's an example of play, and that's nice, but it's almost like that example is meant to illustrate how the players should behave in terms of throwing out or rejecting ideas (also I find one of the example players utterly insufferable, which I acknowledge is 100% my issue).
But with all of that said, there are brilliant bits in this game and I do find it really compelling. I think if I had it to do over again, I'd use this game to play through the journeys we had in Cairn and then flip back to the more traditional system during the actual adventuring bits in towns.
Well, anyway, let's make a character, 'cause if I start blathering I'm gonna talk myself right into a depression spiral (my birthday was yesterday and I'm not coping well). So how do we start?
We start with a playbook, naturally! I think I will pick the Dancer, just because dance is something I really can't stand in real life (that sounds more hostile than I want, though - I just mean I'm terrible at dancing and trying makes me feel really self-conscious and humiliated) and it'd be interesting to be able to express that skill by description.
First thing the game wants us to do is pick a name and pronouns. I think I may do that later.
Right, so the real first thing we're doing is picking an animal form. I want something graceful and kinda thin, I think. How about a greyhound? It's not on the list, but you could squeeze it into "Lively Animal" (and the list is just guidelines, anyway).
Next we choose two personality traits that we are and two we wish we were better at being. Let's say my greyhound is Focused and Beautiful, but wishes he were Upbeat and Charismatic. (It occurs to me that I'm drawing on Elena from Spiritfarer as inspiration in some ways.)
Look! (That's the next step, it wasn't a command.) I can pick three or four off this list. I shall choose "outrageously long scarf," "loose-fitting pants," and "bandage-wrapped feet."
Now I pick three dances off a list that I will gladly dance, and one I will never dance again.
Hmm. Well, I think my greyhound will gladly dance a dance you dance with the water and waves, to bring calm and tranquility. I want something with more practical use, I guess, so I'll take a dance you dance with an unfamiliar place, to listen and befriend. And finally I'll take a dance you dance with the broken and crumbling, to remind it what was and what could be.
But what is the dance I'll never do again? I think it's a dance you dance with your friends, to celebrate life and all that it gives us. That hits a little close to home, but fuck it.
Moving along, I get to pick one musical thingie off a list that I'll teach to anyone who wants to learn, and one I only dance to along. And I need to tell the table about them. My table is empty presently (well, of people, it's got a lot of junk I need to clean off before Sunday), but that's fine. You can be my table, echoing void.
My greyhound will teach a rhythmic work song, a tradition from a life you have no desire to return to. We were workers in the hardscrabble lands near the mountain, and spent our days turning over rocks for roots and whatever else might be edible. The work song was not only to keep us on task, but to make sure no one got too far away (and fell off a cliff or whatever). I'll teach it to anyone, whatever, it's catchy and useful.
The thing I dance to alone is a lovely whistled tune, the last song your mother ever sang. That's mine. You can't have that.
Next would be questions to the left and right, but there's no one to my left and my dog Sandy was on my right, and she just says "LICK", so that's no help.
Some things I can always do:
No choices to make, there.
And other than the name, that's it! My greyhound's name is Arfur (I know that's a character in Baldur's Gate 3, I don't care). Arfur, as mentioned, is from a mountainous region and left after his mother died (he never knew his father). His feet are sensitive - too many years walking and dancing on hard stone - but he bandages them and dances anyway, because he can't not. He doesn't need music, and in fact sometimes prefers it quiet when he dances. There's always a song in his head or heart, after all.
Arfur is a grey dog with long limbs and a narrow torso, a long snoot and small ears. He wears a simple shirt, loose-fitting green pants (they were his mother's), and a dull brown scarf that he can wrap around himself like a mummy's bandages.
And that'll do it!
