This week, Sam talks with his middle school buddy David Block about We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG, other lyric games, and experimental art at large.
Some topics discussed include:
Art
Games
Poetry
Lists
The best place to find David is on the Dice Exploder Discord.
But No More: A One Letter Supplement for We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG
You can find Sam on Bluesky, Twitter, dice.camp, and itch @sdunnewold.
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Transcript
Sam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop RPG mechanic, stick it on a fishing line, and see what we can catch. My name is Sam Dunnewold, and my co-host this week is David Block.
David's not like a guy out there in the community. He's a guy from one of my weekly games. He's smart as hell and we go all the way back to middle school.
And like I have been enjoying using this podcast to put a spotlight on people I think deserve to be heard more, but sometimes I just have a topic that I must talk about, and I seek out the person I most want to talk about it with. Such was the case with the game We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG by Riverhouse Games.
I think this game is unironically the best RPG ever made. It is such a galaxy brain. What is a game? What can a game be? Is a joke a game? Why do we care about definitions in the first place? We Are But Worms looks at those questions ascends to a higher brain exploding level, gazes down upon them, and says "l o l." It is the highest of art and the lowest of brows. It is beauty distilled. It is the greatest work of minimalism I have ever seen.
And I believe David agrees with me. In fact, the only game he's ever published is a hack of it. A supplement rather: But No More: A One Letter Supplement For We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG. So I asked him on the show.
But as we were planning, I realized we weren't going to be able to stop with We Are But Worms. If we were going to engage with all those questions I just rattled off, we were gonna have to cover the Lyric Games movement at large. And also the very concept of art and whether it can be good or bad. And I believe the result is among the best episodes of this show yet.
So heads up that we will be spoiling the word very early on in our discussion. If you're tickled by the idea of a one word RPG and have not read this one yet, I highly recommend going out and checking it out on its own terms. It's free. You can just Google it and then come back and listen.
Okay, buckle up. Here is David Block with the complete game text of We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG.
David, thanks for being here.
David: Hello. Yes. Happy to be here.
Sam: What are we talking about on this beautiful morning?
David: Today we are talking about We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG. And before we get to the word I gotta gotta paint a little bit of a mind picture here, because that's what we do in RPGs.
So the cover of this book is it's text on an image. The image is a kind of a closeup of those like two tone gummy worms. Like, they're like red and green and blue and red... Just like a sea of those. And on top of it are big, chunky white letters with little bit of a drop shadow that says We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG. And then the next page much smaller text directly in the center, says "writhe." And it.
That's the whole game. it does everything it sets out to. It's evocative and clean and indicative of the form of lyric game.
Sam: Yeah. Which is, which is our real topic today. So I unironically think this is the greatest RPG ever made. I'm just in love with this thing. Like If you've been listening to this show for a while, you probably know by this point that I'm like obsessed with minimalism. And I like that sort of very small, very clean, like polished to a sheen kind of mechanic. And this game, like you can't do it more than this. Like, you get down to a single word.
And you know, I, I in a lot of ways don't care whether anyone goes and plays this game, although you certainly could, like,
David: I, I would say, but we, we gave you everything you need to play this game right now. You just, you can keep your headphones on and just writhe a little bit.
Sam: But the aesthetics of it are just so perfect and beautiful. It's so provocative. We're gonna get into all of that, but I, I wanted to hear you also talk about what in particular it is that you like so much about this game?
David: I mean, like, it, it might be a little bit silly to say about a one word RPG, but word choice. It's like if you pick just the right word, you only need the one.
Sam: yeah.
David: I don't know, like it's I don't know if I would say it's the best RPG ever made, because people make a lot of RPGs. Some people might be toiling away in obscurity that have also great great words. But I think this one is just like, charming and a little bit shit posty and like a little bit, you know, existential despair
Sam: I, I do I did feel for a minute there, like the cops might burst in the door and arrest me for us taking this long to get to the word shitpost in our conversation here. Cuz it, it's clearly also that it's a meme, it's a shitpost.
But one of the things that makes it beautiful to me and also such a good shitpost, is the fact that it is on top of that a playable RPG and a statement about game design and a cute little gummy worm package, you know?
David: Yeah. it just does, like I said, I'm a big fan of things that can do sort of exactly what they set out to do in like a very kind of clean, effective fashion. And I think this is, this is a really good example of that.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really good.
David: Yeah. And, and you mentioned before like our kind of actual topic, like, not that we couldn't get a solid, you know, 45 minutes out of talking about writhe but it is just kind of lyric games in general.
Sam: Yeah. So, let's put this game in the context of lyric games at large. We should start probably with what are lyric games. So I pulled a lot of this from a couple of articles by Linda Codega. They wrote one both on Medium a while ago, and now they write for Dicebreaker and have written really interesting pieces in both of those places.
But lyric games, I think are described often as sort of being like game poems. They're really small and like lyrical. Like the comparison to lyric poetry is where the term came from originally. And Linda Codega has sort of three indicators for what makes something a lyric game.
David: The first of which is a removal of distance between the player and the character.
Like, in a lyric game, like it's less about playing a character and more about kind of seeing the world in a different way for the span of the game in a way that other RPGs don't quite hit.
Sam: Yeah, so like, I really love this lyric game called My Brain is a Stick of Butter, which is about trying to convey to the player what it is like to live with adhd.
And it's essentially a bunch of rules that Have you writing tasks on a whiteboard and then rolling dice and spinning a spinner and flipping coins to determine which of the tasks you're gonna do next. And then sometimes you erase stuff from the whiteboard and you're moving all over the place. And it's this complicated, overwhelming set of strictures on how your brain should be working to move you from tasks to task that are, are, I don't have adhd, but I think convey the, the feeling of it quite well, is my understanding.
And in it, you know, you're playing as yourself, or you know, maybe a version of yourself that has adhd. And so unlike in Dungeons and Dragons, you're not creating like a hobbit avatar or a big wizard to go do a fantasy with. You are taking a set of rules and imagining your own experience inside of those sets of rules.
David: Yeah, exactly. There's like, there's no playbook that is, ah, I'm, I'm, oh, there's one playbook in the game. And the playbook is person with adhd and one kind of like key thing about the game is like, the tasks that you're switching between are not like... there's not really like a difficulty associated with the tasks. The complication comes in the sort of constant switching and remembering them and sort of trying to maintain context on all these tasks and bouncing around in ways that you just sort of can't handle.
Like the metaphor that the game uses is that your brain's a stick of butter sliding from task to task, but you cannot control.
Sam: It's a good Metaphor.
David: Yeah, like I, I also don't have adhd, but I do have like occasional executive dysfunction and I, I read this game and I was like, oh, I, I can see exactly how some of this would go. Especially in the sense of like, I need to sort of remember the things that I'm supposed to be doing, even though I just can't do them right now, for whatever reason, like for whatever mysterious made up brain reason is happening.
Sam: It's weird.
David: Yeah.
Sam: And that's like what the game's about, you know? It's a, it's a cool game in that way.
It is both a rule book and it's something that you could play, but maybe you wouldn't actually play it. Maybe just reading it and thinking about it is the intended experience, even if it is a functional object also.
And that, that's another thing, that's not even in Linda Codega's, you know, three signposts of lyric games. But that is something that comes up a lot when you talk with people about lyric games, is the idea that reading is a form of play.
And the way I've always imagined interpreting that is you don't have to play My Brain as a Stick of Butter to get a ton of the content out of it, to, to get the intended purpose of it. Just sort of reading and imagining the thing that it is trying to do is sufficient, if not the entire intended experience.
David: Yeah, like you said, you could play it, but if you do play it, you might not get much more out of the experience other than like, yeah, that is kind of I signed up for. This, this makes it seem like it's really difficult to, you know, do this kind of task in context switching all the time. And maybe you walk away from it with a new understanding of some of the difficulties of living with adhd. And that's great, but you could also do that simply by reading the book too.
And, and it also, I think, touches nicely on Linda's next point, which is the gamification of everyday experiences.
Sam: Yeah. it just does it perfectly. Honestly, we've kind of already talked about the manner in which it does that. Like, it, it's gamifying doing your chores.
David: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it, it's, it, it is not like fantastical. Lyric games are often, grounded in, reality in a way that seems like it might be strange for poetry. But it, similar to, you know, poetry and things like that, they're based on like, here is the world around me. Here is how I see it, how I understand it. And I'm going to present it to you in the form of, of a game or something that is that some people would describe as kind of game adjacent, at least.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. So Another example that I like in the gamification of everyday experiences kind of thing. So I haven't actually read this game. I've only read Linda's description of it In their article. But the game is Until Next Time by Legendary Vermin which is a game about smoking in which you get together with some other smokers, you buy a pack of cigarettes and then you take turns smoking the cigarettes and answering some of the questions from the game that are like what is the worst weather you've ever smoked in? Or what's the weirdest place you've ever smoked? Just stuff like that. Talking about your smoking history.
And then when you're done with the final cigarette, everyone says "until next time," and exchanges phone numbers, and then they leave. And the next time anyone smokes, they have to text everyone we lost. And that's the entire game.
I, I love it's, it's just another beautiful little poem. Like, is anyone gonna play this game? I bet this game has been played. Yeah. But also it's so provocative just by reading of it. Like you get so much out of just thinking about the questions as you read them, imagining yourself there with other people, like talking about your history of smoking and then feeling that weight of someone losing and texting all of you. And the, the pathos that comes with that.
And all of that is out of putting game on top of an everyday experience: smoking and, you know, failing to quit smoking.
The last of Linda's indicators here is the reversal of assumptions to impact play, which I think is pretty vague.
It like, like, defining lyric games is pretty hard. I was already thinking about the, like, "I know it when I see it," porno quote, but then Linda also uses that in one of their pieces, right. And, and the reversal assumptions to impact play feels the most sort of like okay. Whatever. Like, probably.
David: Yeah. It, it, it's,
that one's like less about like, here's sort of the mechanics or whatever, and more like, here's kind of the vibe. Like this is like gonna be at least a little contrarian, a little like looking to surprise and maybe delight and maybe, just make you think a little bit
about,
people or the world.
Sam: Yeah. So the last thing I wanna say about lyric games as we've kind of set them up here is that we were talking about these before we started recording, and you said this great thing about how one of the things about Lyric games is if anyone did try to define them, someone inside the movement would come and prove that taxonomy wrong. Would like, like push against that and find something else to make that's a lyric game that does not fit in those bounds. And I think a lot of lyric games, as we kind of said earlier, like are only hitting some of these things.
Another one that I love here is collectible trading moon game, which is this, this, game where essentially it's like whenever you see a moon, you have to collect that moon by writing it down, write a poem about it, put do something with it to collect it. And then when you encounter other people with moon collections, you can moon duel them. And then there are all these rules for like playing moons against each other and doing battle.
But it's, it's this loving parody of Magic: the Gathering or collectible card games while also being this weird, strange absurdist version of a game like that.
David: Yeah, like it, it has little like lines and bits that are kind of like Blaseball or Welcome to Nightvale style like, hey, there, there's like potentially some dreadful happenings also going on, but you don't need to worry about it too much. Nothing is wildly defined. It is operating on vibes to some extent. Yeah.
Sam: So this game I bring up, because technically there's removal of the distance between the player and the character here because you're, it's, it's more like a pastiche of a board game than it is of a role playing game.
But it is also, is it the gamification of everyday experiences? Sort of. you're gaming, the experience of looking at the moon or talking to people about memories, I guess, but
it's, that's not the primary thing.
David: Yeah, I mean, to to bring up like the sort of reversal of assumptions or like flipping things on its head, it's more about the everyday-ification of a game experience. Like like the game experience of like sitting down and playing Magic with someone is a very specific and vivid thing to a lot of people, like both of us included. And this is sort of saying like, hey, that collection of cards that you've spent money and time acquiring what if that was memories of like the moon on a clear night?
Sam: Yeah.
David: is, is that not just as precious and just as important as, you know, your tarmagoyf or whatever?
Sam: And the other thing that I love about this game is how level one is what you just described, but level two is each one of your cards in Magic: the Gathering collections is like that too. Like you remember opening your holographic Charizard,
David: Yeah.
Sam: you, know, like you.
David: Like I still have a playset of Priest of Titania that I have had since I was in fourth grade.
Sam: Yeah. I got my goblins deck in there. My Goblin Lackeys baby yeah.
David: Yeah, those are equally precious. like I could sit down and play a bunch of elves and tell someone a story like, oh, like I won a game with this, or I figured out I could cast this card on turn three, and that was revelatory for little like 10 year old me.
Sam: Yeah. So this is an overview of what the two of us think about lyric games, I think. There very much is this vibe of "you know it when you see it." And I, I wanna pause also and talk then a little bit more about the, the sort of history of lyric games and like where they were coming from and when they were happening.
So Lyric games started being made I think really in the early 2010s where the first, like game poems were starting to come out, but the lyric game movement specifically, which I would describe as coming out of the story game world and being particularly queer and particularly anti cap, was like 2018, 2017?
And then certainly in 2019 when John R harness coined the term lyric games based on lyric poetry in a Twitter thread.
And I think there's been a little bit less activity in the lyric game movement as of late, but I still see the occasional lyric game that comes out. I don't think this movement really has gone away. Even if the flurry of activity around it was sort of 2018, 2019, 2020.
David: I think also very reasonable to assume and see how lyric games can also like, turn back around and influence games that are coming out in terms of games that are especially focused on like, vignettes or small series of, of scenes.
Sam: Yeah. I actually have some thoughts on examples there.
David: Yeah.
Sam: I, think another aspect of lyric games has been a big emphasis on the layout. Like often people were making like really kind of just like throw it up there, like messy "I made this in MS paint" or Affinity or whatever in like 20 minutes kind of design and throwing that into the wind and that brought this sort of graffiti, down to earth, I'm just throwing this poem out there kind of vibe to everything that like, that kind of graphic design I really think influenced games like Mork Borg and everything that has come after that. Like this messy graphic design that is really conveying a mood. Lyric games seem to be so much about mood.
And on a text level, one of my favorite publications of the past couple of years is this thing called Volume Two Monsters Ampersand which is essentially a monster manual with very, very minimal stats and beautiful tiny poems instead of monster descriptions. And each one feels like. The OSR equivalent of a lyric game.
Like here's a, a small bite of content that you could definitely use at your table in your fantasy campaign presented in like two sentences. So let me, let me give an example here.
David: Yeah, I was gonna say, I, I have not read this, but this sounds really cool because it is about kind of creating and, and setting like a tone in a lot of ways. And so like, the thing that you're adapting out of this monster manual isn't the specific stats of the monster. It is, hey, here's the vibe. and we're gonna trust you to know whatever system you're putting this monster in to to be able to create the vibe within that system.
Sam: Yeah.
David: But, here's the vibe, here's here's the tone poem.
Sam: So here we go. We got
Bandits HD 1. AC as armor. Damage as weapon. 1d6 relatives to grieve, close enough to know who did it.
That's it. That's the thing. Like that's a lyric game right there, right? Like this whole thing is, it's an OSR supplement, but it, I don't know how you get to this without the lyric game movement.
David: Yeah, definitely.
Sam: And on the other side of things, I think people have been pushing back further in history too, to see where other people have been making this kind of art for a long time.
like, I saw this incredible Twitter thread a couple of weeks ago about Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, which is this art installation with essentially a bunch of lyric games written on index cards and next to art in like a place where people can go read 'em in a gallery. you gotta like, look at these fucking things like You wanna read Snow Piece?
David: Snow piece. Think that snow is falling. Think that snow is falling everywhere all the time. When you talk with a person, think that snow is falling between you and I'm the person. Stop conversing when you think the person is covered by snow. That's Yoko Ono. And that was, written or published in 1963. So this is not, This, this is not like, you a new thing the sort of tone and poem inviting you to imagine
Sam: yeah.
David: a specific thing and maybe behave in a way based on that, but also maybe not, maybe just think about it and that's fine.
Sam: Yeah.
So with lyric games fully and comprehensively introduced. I'm sure we didn't leave anything out and we perfectly circumscribed this entire movement, do you think these things are games? Are these games?
David: I mean I feel the question you want me to ask is, well, what is a game?
Sam: No, I want, what I want you to say is yes, obviously. Why are you being gatekeepy? like
David: [laughter]
Sam: yeah, like I, a thing that I think comes up in conversation a lot here is like, what is a game? And as you're saying and are these games, and on the one hand I just, before we engage with that question, cuz I do think it's fun to engage with that question, to crawl up the ass of philosophy 101 students and like try to do that thing.
I also just think it's stupid. It, it's like, not a good question. It's like they're cool, I don't care. Like why does it matter if they're games? Why can't we just love and appreciate these things? So often when people ask that question, is this really a game? They're trying to find a way to look down on it. And I want to engage with that question, but first I want to say these things rock. love them.
David: Yeah. Yeah. Like a hundred percent. I was gonna say, as far as like, "is this even a game" is a question that matters, it does matter because people have a preconception of like, oh, is this art? Is this a game? Like, how am I supposed to think about this in terms of is this worthy of my time and attention?
like, when you're asking is this a game, you're asking is this worthy of my time and attention. And,
Sam: Do I need to care about this?
David: Yeah. Because the people who are asking if is, is this a game, they don't have a comprehensive, clear taxonomy on what they consider a game and not a game. They have just sort of vibes, like, eh, games kind of do this, or games kind of are like this.
And lyric games are built to say, well no, games are other things also.
Sam: Yeah. I love the comparison here to provocative form pushing art in other mediums.
Like, is Fountain, the famous urinal like displayed in a museum as a piece of art, like is Fountain high art or is it money laundering? Like, or is it both?
Or
David: is it to bring it back bit a shitpost?
Sam: Is it a shit post? Yeah, it's probably all three of those things. And I think Fountain is an incredibly successful piece of art because it is so provocative and makes people so mad in that way.
And you know, bring it to music like 4:33 by John Cage this famous song that is four minutes and 33 seconds of quote unquote silence. Like, is that a song? It made a lot of people really mad. Like it was this very provocative piece of art that is encouraging you to listen to the room you are experiencing it in, to hear the sounds of the concert hall and the still piano and to consider the act of performance and the idea of performance and the bounds of it.
And I think a lot of lyric games are operating at that same level, like with that same level of beauty and, intelligence and form pushingness that 4:33 and Fountain have.
David: Yeah.
Sam: That's what We Are But Worms is to me.
David: Yeah. To kinda put a bit of a point on the the 4:33 thing my partner and I went to a chamber orchestra performance last night, and while we were there like someone, you know, a couple rows back and a little ways over, like got a tickle in their throat and they were coughing for a little bit. And I was like, yep, this is a concert. This is what it means to go to a classical music concert. You have you have someone coughing a few rows back and yeah, it's like you know, quote unquote disruptive, but it's also just, that's a part of it. That's a part of being in a shared space with people in that way.
Sam: And it's it's beautiful when a piece like 4:33 just by its very existence, even without being performed, can like bring perspective to you and your experience watching a chamber orchestra playing other things.
David: Yeah, like, like that's, that's really sort of what it's saying is like, it's making you think about specifically like not the music, the absence of the music in sort of the concert going music experience. And that's, I think is really cool.
Sam: Yeah.
David: I mean, I don't know if I'd be super gungho about spending money and buying tickets to go see a performance of it
Sam: Well, listen, I would hope it's not the only song that was played,
David: Yeah, I would say there's also like Beethoven and stuff which there was Beethoven last night. But yeah, the moment that I heard the coughing and thought like, oh yeah, this is, this is it, this is classical music.
And like, you can listen to it on, you know, NPR or whatever, but there's something special about kinda like going to a movie in a theater.
Sam: Yeah, totally.
David: there's enough stuff that happens around it. Like, not just the ritual, but the idea that you're in this with other people, you're in it together. And, to be reminded of that, even if it's, unquote, like detracting from the performance is it's worth considering that that is, special and that's an important part of it.
Sam: There's magic to it. So, speaking of magic, let's take this question seriously of what is a game and are Lyric Games games and to do that, speaking of magic, I want to talk about Mark Rosewater's take on this.
So Mark Rosewater has been the lead designer of Magic: the Gathering for a long time now. I think if you are interested in game design, and if you're here at this podcast you probably are, his writing and podcasts are really, really useful even if you are not familiar with Magic. So I, I recommend seeking those out. Maybe we'll have some recommendations in the show notes or something where to get started.
But he wrote an article on June 4th, 2018 called What Is a Game in which he lays out his taxonomy and definition.
So, Mark's definition of a game is a game is a thing with a goal, restrictions, agency, and a lack of real world relevance. And he also walks through definitions for what happens if you're missing any one of those things.
So if you're missing a goal, then he says That's a toy. So like Lego or Minecraft have those other three things, but not a goal.
If you're missing restrictions, then that's like an activity, like jogging or hiking.
If you're missing agency, that's an event like you know your concert David, or like gonna the movies or whatever.
And if you're missing a lack of real world relevance, then that's just living your life, which is full of goals and restrictions and agency.
And the thing I love about this definition is that it's not judgemental, right? Like he loves Legos. He loves jogging and going to the movies, but he's defining them as distinct from games. He's really just focusing on breaking down the vocabulary here so we can have better conversations about all these things.
So I really like this definition. I think this is a really good definition. And I think lyric games fuck around with this definition still, right? Like lyric games are intentionally pushing at that boundary of real world relevance all the time in a way, ways we've already discussed.
They're pushing at agency a lot of the time. Like in My Brain Is a Stick of Butter, your agency is being extremely reduced. There are ways in which you are not being allowed to act in the way that you want. I mean, we're talking about restrictions right now too.
And then goals, like most of these lyric games do have goals. Like Collectible Trading Moon Game has this goal of like, you know, winning a duel against your, your partners in playing the game. But it is a goal that is not really accomplishable because you can't... Like, what are we doing? Like you can't, you can't like go out there and duel someone with your moons and, and win. What does that mean?
And I, I it's so wonderful how lyric games are in conversation with the definition of what is a game. They are intentionally being provocative in this way of what are we doing here when we play?
David: Yeah. And, and that's, you know, to bring it back to We Are But Worms, I think that like if ever a game is asking the question of what are we doing here? It's that one.
Sam: We're writhing baby.
David: Yeah. Like, I don't think when you're playing a game you're really that far removed from writhe. Like like I've played games of Magic where writhe was basically my only option. I've played RPGs where it's like, we played games where the whole table stops for a few minutes as someone makes a difficult decision. And what I'm doing in that time? Like, I'm, I'm laughing along and I'm writhing. I'm there.
But yeah, it's, it's I, do think, like you said, Mark's definition is, is very good. It's pretty, it's fairly comprehensive, but it's also not perfect. I also don't think there's value in having a perfect definition.
Sam: Well, yeah, and the value of... cuz no definition's ever gonna be perfect. Like the value of having a conversation about definitions is to have the kind of conversation we are having right now to talk about this stuff and, push at the edges of art and push at the borders of our brains. And like, like that's what good art is about. And I think that's what good conversation around good art is about.
David: Yeah. A hundred percent. It is there is one quote by some game designer. If I forget and I'm maybe to look the name up in a minute. But it is the goal of a game is to win, but it's, it's not the winning that's important. It's the goal. and, and like in a conversation like this, like, you know, the goal might be to sort of come up with a definition for what is a game, what is play, like, how do we value these things?
But making the perfect definition is a fool's errand. Like a, a perfect taxonomy is not really feasible. I pull from a lot of like, scientific names for bugs and cactuses and whatever else. When I'm like trying to name RPG characters. And if there's one thing that I've learned, from like diving into Wikipedia and clicking around on like, bug taxonomies, it's just scientists are doing their best, but, it's, it's hard. It's not being able to say like, ah, yes, this insect is definitely a part of this family because of blah blah blah, it's like, we're pretty sure, but also like there's a lot of bugs out there and there's a lot of weird bugs out there, so we're just doing our best. And like
if scientists are just doing their best with all the bugs, trying to do something like what is art?
Sam: Yeah.
David: Forget about it. Like, yeah. Good luck.
Sam: Putting things into categories can be useful. I mean, the idea that we can have a conversation about lyric games at large is cool. And also it's a fool's errand to put things into categories. Like just different. Things different.
David: Yeah.
Sam: That's how it works.
David: Yeah. Exactly. Like, once scientists have figured out bugs, then we can maybe work on art. Yeah.
Sam: So, okay, while we're on the, the subject of defining like what is a game I wanna talk about like what is play also because we mentioned this a little bit earlier, but a refrain that comes up in conversations around lyric games a lot is this idea that reading is an act of play. That doing that imagining of how the game might go is itself an act of playing the game. Or if not playing the game, then like play in some sort of abstract notion of what play is. Does that feel right to you?
David: Oh, like a hundred percent. Like I I've spent an order of magnitude, maybe several orders of magnitude more time thinking about playing Magic or playing RPGs that actually playing them. And time spent building a character ahead of time. Time spent. Thinking about that, you know, ahead of like a session zero, like how could that not be equally valuable Play. Like, if you sit down and you do some world building, you come up with some cool factions, you come up with some like whatever you want, whatever you need for your RPG for your game that's play that that I, I, I couldn't even imagine what else it would be really.
Sam: Yeah. If it's not play... Look, I, I think this is one of those places where you could come in and you could make an argument that strictly defines play as something that happens at the table. And Okay, cool. Who cares? Like that, it's, it's another one of those things where there's clearly so much value in the making of the character, like you're saying.
And, and I, I like the way lyric games push at the idea of how broad is play as an idea. Like is designing games play? I think so. A lot of the time, yeah. I mean like prepping as a GM feels like play in the same way you're describing, like prepping a character before session zero and prepping as a GM is often essentially design work.
And is criticism play? Like is taking these lyric games where imagining them and engaging with the text feels like play and then talking about them on this podcast? Like, are we playing a game right now? Have we played several games here? Like maybe sort of.
David: Yeah.
Sam: Who cares? Like we've engaged with the game on the game's terms in a fun and interesting way. I love the way the lyric game movement at large underlines the value in doing all those things.
David: Yeah, definitely. And like it's interesting to me because there are like some games that I've read where I just, there are certain circumstances in my life that I'm just going to think about those games forever in. Like, the next time I look up and see the moon on a clear night, I'm going to think about the Collectible Trading Moon Game because that's, it's, it's in my brain now. It's gonna be there forever.
Sam: I collected a moon the other night. I did it. I could sing the song for you right now of the moon that I saw that was weird and red and low to the horizon right after I walked out of the new Spider-verse fucking amped outta my mind.
David: Yeah, like that, that's great. Like I, you know, on the drive home from the concert of the night, I, I didn't see a moon and that's okay. Maybe, maybe I'll get the next one.
Sam: Yeah, yeah.
David: But yeah, it is, it's cool the way that these games gamify everyday experiences. A side note, not a big fan of the word gamify, but in this specific instance, I think it's okay because we're making the argument that these are games and my everyday experiences, at least a subset of them is now being filtered through the lens of these games.
We touched on Until Next Time, the smoking game. I don't smoke, but, I have friends who smoke. I've worked in restaurants I've been around enough smokers to see the truth of that game and that if I ever hear someone say, can I bum a cigarette? I'm going to think of that game and, and the questions it asks, and the way that it creates this sort of empathy for the experience of a smoker, even for me like someone who doesn't.
Sam: Yeah, absolutely.
David: We made the comparison to poetry earlier, and it is like a good lyric game will kind of stick with you in that same way that reading a poem can, where it's like, oh, I, I read this poem and something about it just hit for me. And I'm going to remember maybe not the whole thing, but at least like particular lines that will just, they're just gonna be with me forever now.
Sam: Or sometimes not even the thing itself. Like you'll, you'll just remember the feeling of the thing.
David: Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's we talked about the common commonality among their games of like having strong vibes and having a strong mood. And there are games where you read it and you experience the mood and you think that's a good mood.
That's an interesting mood. And then it, and it might happen again a few six months later, and you're like, oh yeah, this reminds me of, that game that I read, that poem that I read.
I dunno. It's, it's, they're just cool. They're cool.
Sam: Yeah. Why do you hate the term gamify?
David: so I don't like the term gamify because it has been slightly co-opted by, I don't, I dunno if it's co-opted or originates from a sort of putting a bright face on occasionally like negative or very capitalistic things. Maybe it was, my initial exposure to gamify as a word was very much around what Amazon tries to do at like their warehouse and with their employees there, where they, they create this like, kind of fun pastiche of oh hey, if you, you pick this much stuff from shelves, it translates to some amount of meaningless points that does not improve your quality of life, but maybe makes your brain chemistry ping in a way that makes working here more palatable.
And I've heard it just often enough in the context of big companies, sort of tech bro, whatever stuff like, ah, gamification of society will make doing shitty stuff less shitty and
Sam: get get us all addicted us all addicted
David: Yeah,
Yeah. And it's like, are better ways to make,
shitty things, less shitty, starting with, you know, paying people better But the whole term has been somewhat tainted in that way.
Sam: Yeah, that makes sense.
So most Lyric games are written in the form of an instruction manual, basically, but they're also not necessarily meant to be played, as we've already discussed. They're sort of meant to be read as experiences, which kind of puts them more in the genre of literature than game, even if they're sort of pretending to be games. Again I love all these things. Who cares what they actually are? But you follow the, the thing.
But some some lyric games really are pushing back against even that. People are publishing them as games on itch, but you open up, like I Eat Mantras for Breakfast, and it's like a bunch of album covers with beat poetry that is not instructional in any way that's yelling at you. And lyric games, they're clearly lyric games in the sense that they are coming out of the same movement, the same community, the same people and philosophies, but they're also completely losing the pretense that what you are doing is engaging with a game, except also they're sort of still calling themselves games?
So, I don't know. I, I, I just think that there's something really interesting in breaking the form of a game that far to take something that really is just like, "Yeah, fuck bitch. The one you send out into outer space, the one that ripples to every reality in lifetime. The one that touches the very fabric of aspected, multi-dimensional hoopla. The one that recognizes your DNA and nabbing fate's thread by the neck. Define lol, bitch. When?"
Okay, so that's one of the pages from this game. Like, that's, that's kind of interesting. Like it's, the layout is interesting, like it's a great piece of art still. Even if this kind of art is not exactly to my style, but it is, it's still calling itself a game. That's so, like, that's so, I What do you do with that?
David: Yeah, I, I, I mean it it is, like, instructive. Not in the sense that it's like, oh, you need to, read these words and do these things, but it is sort of a like, there's kind of an unwritten instruction of, Hey, feel this. Like, take a second and feel this. connect with me about what I'm, what I'm writing.
Think about it for a bit. And in some way that's kind of like, you know, the unwritten instruction in all of art. But I think framing it as like, Hey, here's a lyric game is maybe making that a bit more... not explicit, just, intended and recognizable, I think.
And also to be fair, on the very first page of this, I Eat Mantras for Breakfast, it does note fucking bullshit by yours, truly. Maria Mason.
Sam: Not a game. It's a bullshit.
David: Yeah. don't like it, you do not need to like it. Congratulations. There you go. But I, I I also read this because again, like you said, it's not necessarily my particular style of art that I would normally engage with, but it was still interesting and I do feel like there's a specific cadence to it in terms of here's a bright colorful page with affirmations and like one of 'em is like, "Yes, hi. I like my body and I'm so fucking carnal in here. And it's so damn nice that my body continues to breathe even when I sometimes don't want to anymore." And it's very up and positive.
And then the pages that have sort of instructions on them are just white text on a black background. And it feels like, deliberately evoking, like a sort of manic depressive like, Hey, when you're up, this is how up you are. This is how it feels. And when you're down, here's some small instructions to maybe make it a little less difficult to be down.
Sam: yeah.
David: and like I I don't know if that's, at all deliberate the artist page at the end just says, "hi, I'm Maria. I like yelling recently. And I think games and it's weird intersection, artistic, experiential creation, collaboration is rad af" and that's like, like that, that's really what it's about. If you're looking for sort of a statement on, hey, here's, this is, it is a game and the intersection of games and artistic, experiential creation, collaboration, compassion.
And this is, I dunno, it's, it's,
Sam: It's rad af.
David: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it's, it's fundamentally, someone wanted to make a thing and they made a thing.
Sam: I love anything that knows exactly what it is and leans so hard into being exactly that thing. And none of these lyric games know what they are better than I Eat Mantras for Breakfast.
David: Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's... it, it leans all the way in. And like, we kind of prefaced it's not, a hundred percent our jam, but I think there's still obviously value from checking it out and engaging with it as a, Hey, take a second and see what this makes you think. See what it makes you feel.
And that really is like more art than game, but also, a game in, in what we've kind of covered is, hey, here's a, piece of media that is going to be at least a little bit instructional in how you engage with it.
And I think that's, what this is. There we go.
Sam: Alright, I, I have a couple of sort of quick hit questions for us to wrap up on.
David: I'm
ready.
Sam: So I'm just looking at my notes. These aren't questions. The first couple I have here games can be shit posts and shit posts can be beautiful, which I think is a really great mantra for my opinion of lyric games.
David: Yeah. And like, it's a chance for anyone to really kind experience a little bit of that like, slightly unhinged joy of creation,
Sam: Yeah.
David: where you're gonna make a thing. It doesn't need to be perfect, but you can do it. And I think one of the really nice things about itch as a platform is it lets you put things out there really easily.
Sam: You can release some, art like this and, you know, be like a digital busker as you have described it in the past.
David: Yeah. Yeah. Cause cause that's really like, considering that so many of these are like free or a dollar or have 500 community copies available. Like, it really is like, Hey, if you like what I did, gimme a dollar? If you don't, well maybe I'll get you next time. Have a good day.
Sam: Yeah. Oh, this is, this is a bigger question, but why do you think we care so much about taxonomies? Like, why are we so excited to spend a bunch of time talking about what is a game and are lyric games games, or are they literature, or are they poetry or what are they, why do we care?
David: I think that that the key thing is that these categorizations and taxonomies do have, sort of a moral weight that we assign to them in terms of like art. Like if you describe something as art, that carries some like, inherent, like this is worth discussing and worth thinking about and worth talking about. And so when you describe something as not art, you, you cleave all of that off and it's it's very belittling essentially toward something someone created.
And I think like people, can create stuff that is arisen to art all the time. I think it's, anytime you're looking at something that someone has created and put out to say, Hey, I'm expressing myself a little bit with this, this is a little bit a reflection of me. I think it's, you want to engage in that with good faith and also perhaps a little like, like charitably. You know, if someone puts something out and it's not something that is to your taste, it's not something that you would engage with and spend a bunch of your time with, the worst thing you should do, not the worst thing you could do, there are way worse things you could do, but as bad as you should be about it is just, just move on. Just be like, Nope, not for me, walking away. Cuz that's fine and acceptable. Anything more than that is, maybe like actively a little shitty.
Sam: Yeah.
Do you think self-expression is inherently valuable?
David: Yeah, like yes. Categorically yes. Like before I get into any nuances, gotta get that out there. I do think that self-expression is, is valuable if you're not someone who, creates things and puts them out there for an audience it might be valuable to you on a personal level.
Like, Hey, I'm going to learn where some of my comfort zones are or why some of this might be, exciting or scary for the people who do this on a very regular basis. It might be a chance to experiences that I have that are like, that I want to keep to myself. Like, like choosing what you don't sort of express can be just as important and meaningful.
And I think that that so obviously there are people who have like shitty, negative, hurtful opinions, and I think that those people can express those opinions and then promptly get yelled at and shut down. I think that that is kind of the value in those opinions sort of being expressed is if someone says something shitty that's bad but then like then it becomes up to the people around them to say, Hey, like, don't be that guy.
Sam: Yeah. Some people are expressing opinions that are trying to shut down the self-expression of other people especially. Like I, I think self-expression is inherently valuable, and a more interesting question is like, Who is it inherently valuable to? Because I think being understood is an incredibly important quality of being human. I think it is really, really important. Or, or even if it's not important, like I personally have such a strong desire to be understood by other people that expressing myself, trying to communicate my experience of the world to someone else and succeeding hopefully, is really, really valuable because it brings us closer together. Like it, it gives both of us a wider understanding of the world.
And and that, you know, creates empathy and, and hopefully goodness in the world.
And, like every form of self-expression is not 100% valuable for that reason. As you're saying, some self-expression is harmful or trying to shut down other people's self-expression. Or Or messy. or something that you fail at. But I do think the, act of trying to express yourself is important.
David: Yeah, I, I mean that's really true. And then a lot of the things that people create in like, like a lyric game or a very independent space is, it's like a little bit of like a sort of trust fall in the sense of like, Hey, I'm, I'm putting this out. it might be intensely personal.
It might be, oh, more shit posty, but I am sort of trusting the community and the people around me to pick it up and engage with it in with at least the same level of sincerity with which it's presented.
Sam: In good faith.
David: Yeah. Yeah. And like in good faith could mean very different things for different kinds of creations like We Are But Worms, like the way to engage with that and good faith is to writhe and to tell the people around you to writhe. And yeah, that's a, that's a little goofy. That's shit posty. It's kind of dumb. But it is the way to engage with that work in good faith.
And it's, that's very different from My Brain's a Stick of Butter, where the way to engage with that in good faith is to come at it with the sort of anticipation that you're going to learn a bit about a person's very personal struggles, and to kind of create empathy there and carry that with you.
And so I think that like the lyric game movement is very much built on this sort of good faith engagement with things. And I think that that's worth caring toward not just other media, but other people you see and interact with in the world.
Sam: I wanna return slightly to the topic about why do we care so much about taxonomies and categories. Because I think it's a really similar conversation to why do dudes like us at least really enjoy ranking things. Why is ranking things so popular?
So first there's the problems with ranking games, right? Putting things in a hierarchy is not useful. Like it's, it's, like a form of violence if you want to be really dramatic about it, right? Like saying one person's self-expression is better than another person's self-expression is not something I love because you can't directly compare the two. Like one might be more successful in a lot of ways than the other. I've certainly read some screenplays that are not effective for this reader in my lifetime. You know what I mean?
But it, but it is also the case that everything is trying to accomplish something different. Everything is trying to do something different and to hold them all to the same standard is kind of silly and put things in a hierarchy that way.
But on the other hand, ranking things and the, the structure, the game of ranking things is so useful for comparing and contrasting and just talking about the things that you're ranking. Like talking about what are your top five favorite action movies lets you have a framework by which to compare or to start a conversation about the differences between action movies and what you like and what you don't and what other people like and don't, and, and just how you are going to communicate with each other about the art in question.
And I think that the, conversation around categories and taxonomies is really similar. Where there is this element of violence, again, to be dramatic that you really, I think, described well of putting things into buckets often means that we're saying this bucket good, that back bad. That bucket is a waste of my time. Lyric games are something we can look down on. And that's bad.
But on the other hand, I really like the ability to talk about what is a game, and if these are games, what does that mean about games at large? And if these aren't games, what does that mean about these things and games at large and everything else?
And, and, and any conversation about hierarchy and category has the potential to do harm and has the potential to be a baseline for having conversations you couldn't otherwise have.
David: Yeah, I think that's, it's very true cause uh, just about every discussion of, hey, we're gonna rank like, top five board games or whatever, it very quickly devolves into a sort of like, well top five by what measure? Top five for who?
I'm sure that if you were to rank, okay, what are my top five action movies? that list is gonna be subtly different than what do I consider the top five most essential action movies? Like it, like if you're someone who's never seen an action movie in your life, what five do you need to go for? Like, an interesting and kind of thorny issue specifically because you said it creating a hierarchy of other people's self-expression is, is, hard.
it becomes a little bit softer with something like a movie where, you know, there's, a huge, massive crew that worked on it under a specific set of constraints. And, and it's easier to say, oh, well, like, this movie is really good, but I think that they just didn't have the budget for what they were trying to achieve in certain ways. Or this, this movie was like hampered by some really unfortunate CGI choices or dated language that I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend it anymore. And like, like that.
Whereas something as like intense, like a top 10 best poems list? Impossible. Which again, as soon as we say, oh, this is some way in which something is impossible, people are going to gleefully prove that wrong. I think that's great. But I'm, I'm not really interested in a poems list beyond here are 10 poems I like.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
David: The
Sam: Yeah Yeah.
Yeah.
David: That's the value that I want and that I would get out.
Sam: yeah. Yeah.
So there are any other, like examples you wanted to make sure we hit here?
David: Yeah. One more that I had was actually another one from Riverhouse Games called The Treasure At the End of this Dungeon Is an Escape From this Dungeon and We Will Never Escape From this Dungeon.
And this one is kind of like a deconstruction of kind of the dungeon crawler as an experience. It splits the difference between kind of a, you know, more traditional game and a lyric game in that there are still, there are still character classes and playbooks, and you could sit down and run this game as a one shot or potentially an infinity shot because you will, as the title says, you, you'll never escape from this dungeon.
But it is just kind of an interesting meditation breakdown of like what makes a dungeon crawler tick in certain ways. That there are a series of rooms that are the puzzle, the trick room, the battle, and the treasurer at the end of this dungeon. And each room you engage with has certain rules for when you enter the room, do some stuff, and then answer some questions.
And a bit that I wanted to hit is like slight spoilers, but when you make it to the room that is the treasurer at the end of this dungeon, one of the questions is, what made you think you could escape from this dungeon? And what do you feel when you realize you're back at the start of this dungeon?
Like there are certain properties that I think, people talk about like, oh, this would make a great RPG. And people are really passionate about Dark Souls, but I don't think Dark Souls is one of them normally. Specifically because the game has such a focus on dying and retrying. And I guess sort of you eventually overcome the challenges in that game.
But this is not that game. This is a game where you have a character and then they will die, and then another character will show up, and you don't worry about it too much. It is just that's how the dungeon works. you're in it, you're not escaping.
But every, every room and every class in here has some interesting stuff. I think the, the thief might be my favorite class. Which I, I don't even know how much I, I wanna spoil out of it.
Sam: It reminds me of another kind of lyrical dungeon crawler called .dungeon, which is very much a game that is intended to be played. It is very much not in the, spirit of lyric games in that regard, but it is like an OSR-y kind of game. So you can play any module with it, but the character classes are like the bard who gets mechanical benefits for curating the session playlist. And there's some class that gets mechanical benefits for making character art of everyone and
David: that's cool.
Sam: And so it's, this meditation on. Like the framing of it is that you are all your real life selves playing an MMO together. And the MMO is the like fiction RPG that you're playing. And all of these classes, some are very much in the world of the MMO and are more commentary on an MMO. Like one of the classes allows you to like, be a hacker and like cheat at the game essentially.
And some of them are more a meditation on you as a player and what you are contributing to the game outside the traditional realm of contributions like the bard and the, the artist I was describing.
And that feels like it's sort of a quarter of the way to lyric game experience and maybe the You Will Never Escape From This Dungeon is like three quarters of the way.
And then something like I Eat Mantras for Breakfast is like at the 100 level, you
David: Yeah. Yeah. Like I Eat Mantras for Breakfast is like, like at 150%.
Wanna say, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this one because like I said, it is a very cool, very playable meta meditation on RPGs and Dungeon Crawl kind of vibes.
Sam: Yeah.
David: Okay. I wanna ask you about one word RPGs as a medium, because I know, I know you've written one. This Is What the End of the World Sounds Like also on itch.
So here's my question about one word, RPGs. Do you think that word needs to be a verb?
Sam: I'm trying to write one right now. Like, I thought, like what if the word is like what does that do?
David: I've got it. Here's the one word RPG, where the word is not a verb: the word is "mules" with credit to Ogden Nash.
Sam: Ogden Nash famous weird little poet guy with the poem the World of Mules, which goes "in the world of mules, there are no rules."
David: Yeah. He's a, a very famous poet slash shit poster.
Sam: Much like a lot of these lyric game authors.
David: Yeah, I was, I was gonna say, if you've, if you've ever seen like a, a photo of like a shit poster in black and white can Google Ogden Nash. If you've gotten to this point in the episode, I'm sure that Ogden Nash has something that you'll enjoy.
Sam: All right. All right. So, okay. I wanna get to our couple of contributions to the lyric game genre. You mentioned I wrote this game This Is What the End of the World Sounds Like. I wrote this during the height of 2020 lockdown, and the word is "listen," which I consider to probably be the best poem I've ever written and a game that I play far too often while falling asleep at night. But,
David: I say, I think it's fair. I mean, I, downloaded it and read it cuz that's what I do for most of the stuff you write because we're friends. And because I think you do good work. And that is another one where sometimes I'll be, taking a walk or I think the last time I played it I was sitting in a clinic waiting room.
Sam: Hmm.
David: Which, that was, that was, that was a place for it. So.
Sam: Those beeping IVs, that is what the end of the world sounds like. Anyway God, sometimes my own art astounds me at how good it is.
You also have made what I consider to be revolutionary contribution to the lyric game genre with a supplement for We Are But Worms.
David: Yeah. This is like you said, my contribution to the world of lyric games. And it is, But No More: A One Letter Supplement for We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG. My, my one letter supplement is T.
Sam: Where do you put the T
David: Oh. You put the T after "but" in We Are But Worms.
Sam: So it becomes We Are Butt Worms.
David: A One Word RPG.
The rules of the game remain the same. I think it is um, transformative
Sam: yeah.
David: while still retaining kind of the, the elegance and replayability of the original.
Sam: Yeah.
Is there anything else you wanted to tell me about here, David?
David: So I was thinking like, one thing that I would want to sign out of this episode with, if I could leave like one bit of energy, it is read more poetry and don't let anyone tell you what is or isn't poetry. So,
Sam: That's a great place to end.
David: Yeah.
Sam: All right. I have one last question for you.
David: Okay.
Sam: Have you ever just sat down and played We Are But Worms?
David: I have not just sat down and played it. I, I have not sat and really properly writhed.
Sam: David, do you wanna join me in Dice Exploder's first ever actual play?
David: Yeah. Do I need to mute my mic for this?
Sam: No, no, no. I think we'll keep the mics open.
David: Okay. I'm, I'm gonna make sure I don't have any especially fragile objects. Or maybe I will, maybe some will just break.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. All right.
David: I think I'm gonna get arms above head.
Sam: Yeah. Great. Great. Here we go. You ready?
David: Oh, I'm doing it.
Sam: All right, great. Here we go.
David: Oh. I I feel like it's against the spirit of worms to think that something was good for your back and your bones and your spine and anything, but, you know, whatever worms used to move around and give your body structure, but
Sam: Yeah, yeah,
David: that actually felt nice.
Sam: We Are But Worms: number one, it's an exercise routine, people. That's, that's what it is.
David: The health craze sweeping the nation.
Sam: right. Uh
Thanks so much again to David for coming on. You can't find him online because he's much smarter than most of us, but you can find But No More: A One Letter Supplement For We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG on itch or in the show notes.
And you can come talk with both of us about all things art and games in the Dice Exploder Discord.
You can find me and all my games on Itch at sdunnewold or on Twitter, Blue Sky and dice.camp.
Our logo was designed by sporgory and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Gray.
And thanks as always to you for listening. See you next time.
[redacted word] (We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG) with David Block