Tales From The Spectral Sea - Five Minutes, Not 5e Transcript

A thumbnail image for Tales From The Spectral Sea by Sam Armstrong, with art by Amy Willis.

Transcript

DANIEL COPPER: Welcome back to Five Minutes, Not 5e, my name is Daniel, otherwise known as The Copper Compendium, and I’ll be your host! Here, I chat with the designers of lesser-known tabletop role-playing games about games they created, drilling down into the core of what makes their game tick. I’m joined today by Sam Armstrong. Would you like to introduce yourself, and the game we’ll be chatting about today?

SAM ARMSTRONG: Hi, I’m Sam from Armstrong Games, I mainly write smaller zine-sized RPGs [role-playing games] intended for one-shot play, but today we’re talking about my first foray into larger games: Tales From The Spectral Sea, a swashbuckling saga of sad dead sailors. In this game you play as a crew of sailors who died at sea but couldn’t pass on properly due to unresolved trauma or baggage. Now they sail the spectral sea, an afterlife full of adventure and folklore where they can help other lost souls pass on, and hopefully do so themselves.

DANIEL: What genre is the game, and what are some relevant cultural touchstones?

SAM: It’s a narrative-focused storytelling game, which means there’s a bigger emphasis on the characters and their actions, rather than problem-solving within an all-encompassing rules system. During the game you flip between swashbuckling adventure, like swinging on a chandelier while duelling a romantic rival, and deep emotional beats, like comforting your crewmates as they prepare to face your [their] past.

As for touchstones, it heavily draws on folklore to make up the world. The core concept and overall vibes however come from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, bonus points if listeners know exactly which book I’m- I’m referencing. Finally, a lot of the rest was inspired by the video game Spiritfarer, just with the chill vibes replaced with over-the-top adventure.

DANIEL: How many players is it for, and how long does it last?

SAM: One guiding player and as many players as they feel comfortable with! I’ve run games with as few as two players and- and up to five, but you can definitely do more. As for play time, a session is typically 2-4 hours, and a campaign goes on for as long as you like. Characters are designed to come and go, but you’ll likely play several over the course of a campaign.

DANIEL: What do you need to play and how quickly can you learn?

SAM: Just the book, some six-sided dice, and the playbooks available freely online. There are 12 playbooks in total which already gives you a lot of choice, but to make your character you actually combine two playbooks together to make one of 36 possible combinations. This means the game is very quick to get to table and the rules themselves are incredibly easy to pick up.

DANIEL: What might a typical session involve?

SAM: In a session, you’ll be sailing through the afterlife on swashbuckling adventures, helping other lost souls with whatever trauma is stopping them from moving on properly. The key mechanic is “roll with questions”, which means that whenever you roll dice, you’ll only add to them if you can answer “yes” to several thematic questions. This constantly nudges you into playing up the tropes of a swashbuckling hero but also keeps you thinking about how you feel at any given moment.

DANIEL: How have you made it accessible to beginners and people with specific needs?

SAM: So the system is already incredibly easy to pick up, and to help out new guides, about a third of the book is the- is the easy-to-use setting guide that gives a bunch of cool concepts to draw upon, rather than a single prescriptive world.

Another measure I took is the “how much of the book should I read” section at the start. I figured if people don’t have time to read the entire book, I could at least tell them which bits they should focus on.

DANIEL: Thanks, Sam, for chatting with me about Tales From The Spectral Sea! I hope this interview helped those of you listening get to grips with the game’s themings and play, and I look forward to hearing from those of you who check the game out. Where can people find you and your games, Sam?

SAM: The best place to go is armstronggames.carrd.co – carrd spelled with two Rs for some reason. From there you’ll find links to my socials, my itch store for PDFs, my ko-fi store for physical games and my free Patreon for regular updates on what I’m working on.

DANIEL: You can find those links, as well as links to the transcript of this entry, 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 rounds out this entry of Five Minutes, Not 5e! If you want to hear me chat further with Sam about Tales From The Spectral Sea, check out the Beyond Five Minutes episode where we’ll delve into the meshing of themes and mechanics and the unique character-building system.

Until then, thanks for listening! Until next time!

[End of transcript.]

Links

The Game and its Designer

Get the game (digital copy): https://sam-armstrong.itch.io/spectral-sea

Get the game (physical copy): https://ko-fi.com/s/531c7dfabc

Check out Sam's games on itch.io: https://sam-armstrong.itch.io/

Find all of Sam's links: https://armstronggames.carrd.co/

Follow Sam on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/samarmstronggames.bsky.social

Relevant (YouTube) Links

Tales From The Spectral Sea - Beyond Five Minutes: https://youtu.be/VBSWyHnpFro

Tales From The Spectral Sea - Beyond Five Minutes Transcript: https://thecoppercompendium.co.uk/tales-from-the-spectral-sea-beyond-five-minutes-transcript

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

Nautical: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CDwOGzlY2fNGjYTsyEnUznS