Kiva Games site launch

Kiva Games has a new web site, surprisingly enough at KivaGames.com.

So far there’s not much there, but we do have discussion forums (Vanilla makes those very easy to set up!) and links to the Bone White, Blood Red blog.

At the moment, we’re looking for people who are interested in playtesting Descanso Highway, in a play-by-post environment. It’s a story game about death, life, roadside memorials, questions, and answers, and it uses scrapbooking as a game mechanic.

If that sounds interesting, register at the Sipapu forums application form and post a message on the DH thread.

We’ll be putting more on the site as we have more to put up there; in particular, look for an announcement of a BWBR playtest program (with free beads!) and a game design contest with an actual prize. Oh, and sometime I’ll put up a nicer site design.

Great Comet

Just a quick note to self. According to Wikipedia’s 1680 page, there was a Great Comet that year on November 23.

Alternate character types

One of the sections I had to cut from the original outline/table of contents was about playing alternate types of characters, other than just Pueblo people.

I make note in the text, briefly, that you can play a mixed-blood character: Spanish/Pueblo, or Black/Pueblo.

There was going to be another section about playing “the other side” — being Spanish. Or Black. (You could also be Spanish/Black, Spanish/Pueblo, Black/Pueblo, and so on.)

Real History: The first person to *cough* “discover” the Rio Grande Pueblos was a Black man named Esteban, a former slave. He was part of an expedition which was shipwrecked in Florida, and he walked across North America through Nuevo Mexico, all the way to Mexico City. He went back up north on more expeditions, but was killed at Zuni when he apparently committed some gaffe.

Also, you could probably play other types of people. One somewhat fanciful theory has China discovering the Americas in 1421; despite the accuracy of such a claim, it could make for an interesting character type. Or a wandering, lost European of some kind, say a Dutchman who’s gotten lost.

Here are the Wikipedia links to 1680 and the 1670s and 1680s.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of Native American peoples who are not Pueblo to deal with also.

Finally, the Pueblo worldview is one which does not draw a hard and fast line at humans being the only “people.” Native myths of the Southwest are full of Coyotes and Bears and Badgers and Spiders and Snakes and Dogs and Ants and Eagles and other animals who can talk and act just like the rest of us. Why not play a curious, talkative Wren? There’s no reason that such characters couldn’t work in BWBR, although they may need to refrain from talking to some Spaniards. (Generally speaking, anyone with a Bone White or Sky Blue anathema bead wouldn’t be able to communicate with animals.)

Other settings for BWBR?

A discussion on Story Games leads to the question of what sort of other settings the BWBR system/style of play could be used for.

Does this game need to be about Pueblo peoples and Spaniards?

Could it be Ivory Horn, Coral Red, and based in eastern Africa? Pearl White, Cinnibar Crimson in imperial China? Rose Red, Rose White during the War of the Roses in England? White Sox, Red Sox? Red Giant, White Dwarf in outer space?

At what point can the system be separated from the setting? Is there anything about stringing and unstringing beads on cords that’s inherently Native American, especially given that jewelry and beads are found throughout the world?

New bead-drawing mechanic

This was first discussed at Spin. You can read more about it in use at the Actual Play report.

Playtesting at Ides of Gaming

Here’s a link to the first Actual Play report on Bone White, Blood Red. It’s long, but hey, it’s informative for ME at least, and has a lot of neat ideas and events that I wanted to get down in text before I forget about them.

Download Bone White, Blood Red

Bone White, Blood Red (1.3M download)

This is the Game Chef ’07 version of the game. There will be a newer version sometime.