The majority of any tabletop roleplaying game happens on the inside. Inside the mind of each player. It’s where fictional worlds take shape. It’s where a character’s choices are weighed and chosen. It’s where their histories come alive (and not just because getting a game together is the most common barrier for TTRPG players). If acting is reacting, then roleplaying is reliving. And the human brain is amazing at it. Or, at least it enjoys it. We love putting our feet in the proverbial shoes of little guys, thinking about what we’d do in their situations, and making choices based on all that fiction (think about all the TV shows you could solve if only the character did what you would have done).
For the amount of time spent writing game books, thinking about the writing of game books, the placement and use of words, the role of the book in a game, there isn’t as much time spent talking about this interiority and what inspires it. To me the best game books inspire that interiority (kill puppies for satan). They demand thinking space (Fungi of the Far Realm). They move into your brain and set up shop whether you sit down to play them or not (WTF).
Tunnel Goons is all but a handful of words but the way it uses those words is entirely focused on this act of roleplaying. Of creating an interior life. The stats are evocative (brute, skulker, erudite). The art is perfectly goonful. The rules don’t meander. And the character creation is three rolls of a d6 that give you an entire life to think about as you adventure.
I rolled now and got: desert urchin, library guide, and fled (from the war). These determine my stats and my unique piece of gear, so whenever I roll dice to save my little goon’s life, I’m thinking about my life. How living in the desert as a child made me good at sneaking. How working in the library (which I imagine is made of literary-filled canyons, where books are piled from floor to ceiling) taught me to not only read but remember the important details.
And anytime I pull out my compass to help us find the path, I feel the regret of running away.
Find Tunnel Goons here: https://natetreme.itch.io/tunnelgoons
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