Broke Wizards - Beyond Five Minutes Transcript

A thumbnail image for Broke Wizards from Sabrina Hawthorne.

Transcript

DANIEL COPPER: Welcome to Beyond Five Minutes, where we delve a little deeper into the games discussed in Five Minutes, Not 5e. My name is Daniel [Copper], otherwise known as The Copper Compendium, and I’ll be your host. On this episode, we’re expanding on my chat with Sabrina Hawthorne about Broke Wizards.

For the first question, then: this game puts player characters on the back foot from the start, reenforcing this position through the wealth mechanics and which components can cause magic to backfire. Could you talk a little about those mechanics, and how you went about building a game with such a strong through-theme?

SABRINA HAWTHORNE: Broke Wizards began a little unusually for me, as far as games go. My original idea was sort of a joke – what if the debate that happens when a player wants to stretch the definition of a character ability was actually a game mechanic that had consequences. From there, the setting, tone and mechanics of the game came backwards; the kind of wizard who argues with magic is probably not a good one – they’re not a good wizard because they don’t have very good spell ingredients, and so on. I found that building the game around the mechanic seems to lend itself to an increased ludonarrative harmony. This is probably my most coherent game, through the text and through the gameplay as well.

DANIEL: Reading through the game, I really appreciated how it leans into the natural conversation and discussion structure TTRPGs [tabletop role-playing games] often tend towards. How have you found new players approach the challenge?

SABRINA: I feel like I struck gold with Broke Wizards. The argumentation mechanic works exactly as I first imagined it and I have yet to run or play a session that didn’t have the table laughing and joking and having a great time by the end. I tend to run for inexperienced players as well, which makes me extra proud – even shy players, who don’t have a good idea of who their character is or how to play them, tend to open up once they realise that the game rewards them not for engaging with the system directly but for engaging with the other people at the table.

DANIEL: I love an evocative pick-list and the one provided in the game for “worthless” starting items is a perfect example, with items like a tacky necklace and a crusty bottle of nail polish. What’s your favourite use you’ve seen in play for one of the components on the list?

SABRINA: It’s hard to pick just one! I’ve had players use the butt of a cigarette to smoke out monsters and put them to sleep, I’ve had players use the nail polish to paint themselves invisible. I think though that my favourite clever use of magic was when a wizard used a puff of cotton from an old couch to convince a giant couch-mimic that he was a couch and avoid being consumed and lost between the cushions forever.

DANIEL: Statistically, this game is punishing; you only succeed on a seven or higher on a ten-sided die, and you need a minimum of two successes for the easiest check, which is the minimum number of dice you can roll at a time. You even comment on how difficult it is in the rules. Why did you choose this approach?

SABRINA: That was a mistake. [Laughs] I wish I could say that there was some clever intention behind it but the fact is that I didn’t do the dice math correctly and set the standard difficulty ratings too high. I’m proud of Broke Wizards but it isn’t perfect and this is something I will be fixing in future editions. When I play at home, for those listening, I tend to use ratings of two, three and four, instead of the standard, I believe, two, four and six, in order to even the odds a bit more in the players’ favour. Sorry to all the wizards out there who got punished by my bad math.

DANIEL: Thank you again, Sabrina, for chatting with me about Broke Wizards. Where can people find you and your games?

SABRINA: You can find my work at sabrinahawthorne.itch.io. If you’d like updates on what I’m working on and the occasional blog post about design philosophy, you can follow me on Tumblr at tumblr.com/sabrinahawthorne.

DANIEL: You can find those links, as well as links to the transcript of this episode and links to the game, in the video description [below, here]. If you want to find games with similar themes or gameplay to this one, there will also be links to relevant playlists.

And that brings us to the end of the expanded interview! Beyond Five Minutes is an expansion of Five Minutes, Not 5e, so if you’ve not heard my previous discussion with Sabrina about the game, you can find it linked in the end screen and description.

Thank you for listening, until next time!

[End of transcript.]

Links

The Game and its Designer

Get the game (digital copy): https://sabrinahawthorne.itch.io/broke-wizards

Check out Sabrina's games on itch.io: https://sabrinahawthorne.itch.io/

Follow Sabrina on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/sabrinahawthorne

Relevant (YouTube) Links

Broke Wizards - Five Minutes, Not 5e: https://youtu.be/PaYewPJTJc4

Broke Wizards - Five Minutes, Not 5e Transcript: https://thecoppercompendium.co.uk/broke-wizards-five-minutes-not-5e-transcript

Fantasy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CB5da-uZlVR0f30SLGm7OIB

Single session: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CCvMCwKjot2cwDzU1vDw35U