Interview with the CEO

Q: Good morning, would you please introduce yourself for our audience?

A: My name is Christopher LaHaise, CEO of Fool's Moon Entertainment; and incidentally the lead writer for most of the projects there.

 

Q: How did you get started with Fool's Moon?

A: A friend was interested in one of my game worlds, and helped start the company to see that game get published. Funny enough, it never did -- the project was just too big, so I wound up writing other projects instead. I still want to get back to it though, just need to break it down into smaller chunks.

 

Q: What was the first game you got published?

A: Technically, my first game to ever sell was a wrestling game I wrote in the 1980s and sold off to a friend for $10. I've considered writing a third edition of it some time, maybe when I stop trying to write every other game under the sun. However, my first actual published game was Fox Magic in the early 00s.

 

Q: Tell us about Fox Magic, and what inspired you.

A: Fox Magic is a game where you play kitsune - Japanese fox spirits - that are protecting their domain from supernatural and mortal threats. There are eight breeds of kitsune, each with their own internal sense of duty and 'purpose', and you work around that as the foxes work together to keep their domain safe.

 

I was inspired by all the TTRPGs out there that have kitsune, but 'nerf' them -- stepping away from their divine aspects, their supernatural powers, and the fact they're kami, so I wondered 'well, what would an RPG be like that didn't nerf them, but still let them be usable with other characters?', and that inspired me to write the Story Point System, the precursor to the ASPS engine we've published. The problem was I was inspired at 1 in the morning, and finished the first draft around 8 in the morning.

 

Q: So you play fox-people?

A: Not initially. Shape-shifting isn't automatic, though it's something all of them can learn. You can just be ... magical foxes, and never learn to shapeshift, or you may use illusions to pretend to be human when in fact you aren't. There's a lot of different ways to play.

 

Q: You've said that Fox Magic led to the creation of the Advanced Story Point System (ASPS). Elaborate?

A: Well, the game engine for Fox Magic lent itself well to other genres. I started writing a spy game using the same engine and realized one could cross over into the other really well. So, rather than write a variant of the same engine for every RPG I was going to make, I built the engine to stand alone, and flex to whatever game the game master wanted to make. So, if you want a spy game, you build it and plug it into the engine. Space? Same thing. Super hero? Sure.

 

And the way it's written, you could take a character from any TTRPG, and just plug it in. The character sheet could even look 100% the same, and still be cross-compatible with any other TTRPG that's plugged into ASPS. Want to use your d20 character? Sure. The attributes would be smaller (probably take the attribute divided by 3), but it'd still fit.

 

Q: What led to you making a game engine that adapts to other games?

A: At one point I was talking to another game designer (John Wick), and asked him what would be a good game engine to use for my game worlds. He told me it's better to make a game engine that fits your concept, rather than force your concept into a game engine that's not suited for it. I took those words to heart and started building my own engines.

 

And ironically, I made a game engine for other people to 'write into', but instead of going 'this engine doesn't do X', the game engine is more 'so you want to do X? Sure, okay', and it flexes and bends to do whatever it is you wanted. Sanity mechanics? Sure. Giant robots? Okay. Super powers? Yeah. Intrigue? Of course. Since the game master decides what's important for the game, and how it functions, there's no need to go 'well, the game doesn't do X, so I have to make a cludge or ignore it'. That's just not needed. 

Q: So tell me about some of your other games and what they're about.

A: Well, my second game was Widdershins (the expanded edition, Keepsakes is coming out or is out now). In Keepsakes you play a toy that's been lost by someone who cared about it very much. Think like The Velveteen Rabbit, maybe. Anyway, the toy awakens, becoming alive in a sense, and remembers how cared for it was, so it dedicates itself to protecting humanity from the Things in the Dark. And there's a lot of things in the dark. For instance, there's awakened toys that are soulless, called 'Hollow Ones', who are hell-bent on killing people or worse.

 

Q: So you've got killer dolls.

A: Yeah. And they follow the slasher trope. Sure, you can kill one. It'll just keep coming back. And we've got living mannequins that can look like people, we've got tiny shadow folk called inklings who like to trade goods with Widdershin (the living toys), and there's even tiny human like people who you never actually see, but can still interact with. Then you've got the bigger, scarier stuff out there in the forests -- old school Sidhe and old gods, and that's not even talking about the other realms that the toys can find themselves in like 'Underbed' or 'Behind the Closet Door', or even the realm of Nightmares.

 

Q: Anything else?

A: Well, there's First Contact. I was supposed to write a ten-page space RPG, so I made First Contact. It uses a scaling dice system which allows you to play as red shirts, your regular command crew, or the ships themselves for ship-on-ship battle. Same mechanic, just the bigger the scale, the larger the dice you use. And for this game you exchange 'sets' with the game master.

 

Q: Explain?

A:  Well, you and the game master roll dice. Then, you take turns 'capturing' your opponent's dice, trying to limit their actions. Each capture is a round of combat / action, where the player's captures are 'I succeed at doing this', and the game master's captures are 'yes, but here's a complication'. And the game mechanics allow you to cross-scale. A starship strafing a space knight, and the space knight deflecting shots with her laser sword would be fully allowed. The game itself is genre-neutral though, so you can choose what kind of science fiction game you want to play.

 

Q: Your new game is Troubleseekers. Tell us about that.

A: Troubleseekers. You play people chosen by the Goddess of Luck in one of her many guises, to hunt down people called the Oligarchs. The Oligarchs have the ability to steal luck from other people, and this stolen luck is used to make them rich and powerful, while the people they stole it from become destitute and without the means to recover. So, you're gunning for the rich and powerful to steal that luck back and give it to the people who need it most. Because you're dealing with the people pulling the strings in society, you can't be blatant about it, so must adventures should read like a heist film. Sneak in, bypass security, get the Oligarch alone, rip all the luck out of him, and get out.

 

Q: Isn't that a bit on the nose for the current day?

A: Serendipity -- totally unexpected. I wrote this about a year or two ago, as a game about giving power to the powerless, and ... well, life decided to show what that looks like, I guess. I've got another 'give power to the powerless' game in the wings called Checkmate, but that one looks at how power can corrupt, and what price you might pay to attain your dreams. It's a lot darker than Troubleseekers, which someone described as 'hopepunk'. I like that.

 

Q: So what's Troubleseeker's mechanics like?

A: I was told to make an RPG that used card mechanics, so I decided to run with blackjack. The thing is, I was knee deep into writing when I found out the game was supposed to be one page long. I ... can't do that. Not easily, and I was already like 8-10 pages in. So I said 'hell with it', and just kept going. An action is resolved with a quick round of blackjack. And the player and GM shouldn't really think too much about it -- you drop the cards and go... a round should only be maybe 10, 15 seconds at the most. Since there's no money at stake, you know, no need to stress, especially if you fail.

 

Q: Anything else we should be looking forward to?

A: Ah. Heroes of the Spectrum. A game where you become super powered in the modern age, and humanity has to figure out what to do about it. Super heroes never existed before, and now you have people who can alter the course of nations ... so what do these nations do? How does this impact politics? Religion? Culture? Super heroes don't keep the status quo here, they shake it down to its roots.

 

Another game I'm working on is In the End. It's a game that starts you at the beginning of the end of the world, and I've got like ten different scenarios in it, each being its own apocalypse. You've got werewolves, vampires, ghosts, fungal infection, hive-minded psychic kids, rogue AI, and addiction-causing magic. There's also rules for crossing these over, so you can have more than one apocalypse at the same time.

 

Q: Alright. So, I think we've covered a lot of ground, anything else you want to add?

A: Fool's Moon Entertainment's goal is to give voice to the marginalized. If you have a game you want to publish, we're interested in hearing what you have to offer. Especially if it addresses inequality, or brings a new voice to the roleplaying community. Our ASPS engine is designed for people to make their own worlds, and if you do make an ASPS setting, let us know, and we'll do our best to support it and get it out there for you. There's been some push against allowing minorities and the marginalized to be heard on their own terms in gaming, and we want to change that.

 

Q: Thank you for your time. And good luck on your future projects!

A: Thank you!

 

Troubleseekers is on Backerkit for the next 13 days, and you can find Fool's Moon's games for sale at ComposeDream Games online.