Listener, about two weeks ago I knocked a bowl off my kitchen counter onto the floor, where it shattered. I swore a little, and then set about sweeping up the pieces and safely disposing of them to prevent future injuries.

About a week ago, I saw something in the bedroom, stark white against the rug. It was a piece of porcelain, a jagged little blade about the size of a fingernail. I have no idea how it got there.

When things break, there is no telling where the pieces will end up.

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!

This week on Cat’s Cradle, we talk about levels, gear, abilities, mechanics, and other ways that characters change in a long-term roleplaying game!

What does it mean to level up? When should abilities be given, and what kinds of abilities should be gated behind levels? What different ways to players have to expand their play options as a game goes on?

How many M&Ms can Nick eat?

Join our Discord!

Music by Kathleen!

(Content warning: Trauma, trauma responses, claustrophobia)
One hundred million years ago, there was a river. Most people can’t conceive of one million, let alone one hundred of them, but it’s true. Back when the mountains of the Coral Coast were proud, jagged peaks and the Cloudcombs weren’t even born yet, there was a river. It wound out of the proud mountains down over the lush plains to the sea, as many rivers seem to like to do. Over the course of its lifetime it flooded and ebbed and changed course countless times, until it settled into the shape of a broad, placid river with a wide flood plain, the kind humans would love if they existed yet.

And on this flood plain there dwelled a god. Not a Deilith – not yet – but a living and moving deity. A god who laughed and danced and played the first music the river had ever seen.

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!

The thing about organic life is that, while it can be broken, wounded and damaged, it cannot be repaired. We are not bridges, or knives, or clocks. We are not doors or garments or wheels.

We can’t be mended, we can only heal, and even then, we hold on to scar tissue both literal and metaphorical as a record of that healing. Like a tree growing over and around a deep gash in its body, we hold on to our wounds. Our bones remember every break.

We are books, carrying our own history.

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!

In our chaotic world, everything is changing.

Things change in dramatic, explosive, powerful ways. They change in subtle, invisible ways. Every action changes the world, and the world in turn changes us, and makes us look at the world with new eyes and see it changed again.

Moment to moment, the world is being reborn.

In light of that, what is the purpose of looking back?

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!

Yes, this episode goes live on Saturday. Humor me.

What are your favorite dice? What are your favorite ways to use them? How can you use random outcome mechanics deliberately and mindfully?

Join our Discord!

Music by Kathleen!

Listener, let’s start at the end this time.

When the action is done with, and the story is told, and what sense can be made of things has been, what remains is memories. Memories are the final product of our mind’s alchemical process, the gold we make of leaden everyday events.

Memories aren’t the end. They remain with us, guideposts to our mind and our identity, and so many beginnings are formed by following them. We build new memories among them, again and again, as time filters through our minds.

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!

This week, Cat, Nick, and Kathleen talk about crunch, fashion in game design, and reasons you might want to make a very crunchy game!

Join our Discord!

Music by Kathleen!

It can be comforting to think that everything has an assigned place in the world, and that, like a well-ordered kitchen, things will make sense when everything is in its proper place. It can sometimes feel like we are a dish left on the counter, waiting to be put in our assigned space so that the world will make sense.

Of course, the cold fact of the matter is that there is no such order in the world, and, luckily for us, we can choose where we belong.

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!

Everything is tied together. Amylte is chained to its past, and its future will be chained to its present, by the horrors. The Noble Demons are chained to their obsessions, imprisoned by desires they barely comprehend, and the Lesser Daemons are chained to their bound masters.

Rangers are tied to their gods, and to the people of the world they are trying to protect. And those people are tied to each other, through bonds of love and hate and envy and fear and desire and every other ribbon in the skein of human emotion.

Welcome to Sword of Symphonies.

Original music by Kathleen~!

You can find the Heroic Discord here!