[7:31 PM]Leighton: I’m Leighton Connor, and with me are my children Blu (13) and Jackson (10). We collaborated on the RPG Magic Moth Island. The kids did all the artwork (except for the map, which they planned) and a bunch of the writing. I used my decades of RPG experience to help them figure out what they were doing and write the boring text they didn’t want to write. But they were heavily involved in every step of making the game. We started work on it in late 2019 and finished it two weeks ago.
[7:32 PM]Leighton: BUT, you ask, what’s the game about? It’s about a magic island, obviously, where there are lots of moths, but also other animals like snails, frogs, turtles, and so on. There are two factions on the island, those who worship the giant moth Mothator and those who worship the giant butterfly Flittarion. These two groups are rivals, but they still work together most of the time and live in harmony on the island. The problem is when human invaders come to steal the island’s resources, which is when the animals must band together to defeat the humans and defend their home.
[7:32 PM]Leighton: Magic Moth Island uses the Caltrop Core system, based on 4 sided dice. We finished the game just in time for Caltrop Jam 3, a game jam on itch.io, which is where the game is currently available. https://leightonconnor.itch.io/magic-moth-island
[7:32 PM]Leighton: (done)
[7:33 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Thanks, @Leighton! The floor is open to questions!
[7:33 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Are the intelligent creatures all normal-sized for their species, or are they larger?
[7:34 PM]Leighton: They are, the children say, “ever-so-slightly larger.” There are only two giant, kaiju-sized creatures, though. Most of them are much closer to normal size.
[7:34 PM]Leighton: Players can roll on a table to determine what kind of animal they are.
[7:35 PM]Leighton: Different animals have different powers and special skills.
[7:35 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Can you give some examples of these abilities?
[7:36 PM]Leighton: I sure can . . . Fly Fast Heal Slime Trail Lasers Jump High Strong Beak Track By Eating Dirt Heal With Meditation
[7:37 PM]Leighton: Moths shoot lasers, BTW
[7:37 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Of course they do.
[7:38 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What do the butterflies do?
[7:39 PM]Leighton: Butterflies have the power “Blind Enemy with Fluorescent Wings” and the skill “Fly Fast.” There are descriptions of what these powers and skills entail.
[7:40 PM]Leighton: Moths are followers of the giant moth Mothator, of course, and butterflies worship Flittarion, the giant butterfly. At the beginning of the game, neither of them have hatched, and the two factions both want their side to rule the island.
[7:40 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What other creatures are playable?
[7:41 PM]Leighton: Okay, at the beginning of the game you decide if you want to play a follower of Mothator or Flittarion. If it’s Mothator, your options are:
[7:41 PM]Leighton: Frog, Turtle, Slug, Moth
[7:41 PM]Leighton: If it’s Flittarion, your options are: Toad, Tortoise, Snail, Butterfly
[7:41 PM]Leighton: Like I said, there are random tables you can roll on. It’s all a d4, so that’s why there are 4 options for each.
[7:42 PM]Dan the GMshoe: I like how the two factions mirror each other.
[7:42 PM]Leighton: Blu would like you to know that that was all her.
[7:42 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Well done, Blu! 1
[7:43 PM]Leighton: And Jackson wants me to point out that the humans are bad guys.
[7:43 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Yes, about them… What era are the humans from?
[7:44 PM]Leighton: They are modern to near-future. As written, it doesn’t go into much detail and leaves that to the GM. In the playtest we did the other day, which Jackson ran, the humans had laser guns. And they had a nuclear syringe, which is pretty high-tech.
[7:45 PM]Leighton: Jackson drew this illustration of an evil human scientist with a ray gun.1
[7:45 PM]Leighton: And a flask.
[7:45 PM]Leighton: And, I am now told, a nuclear watch.
[7:46 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What are the humans after?
[7:47 PM]Leighton: There’s a special liquid on the island called Xlo-Mariam, which gives the animals long lives. The humans are after it to use as a power source. For weapons. Those humans, always trying to make weapons!
[7:48 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Aside from the intelligent animals and their abilities, what other forms does magic take?
[7:50 PM]Leighton: There is not really spellcasting or anything like that. The animals have absorbed magic so they can talk and have powers and stuff. Most of the magic is scattered around the island, making things sparkly, and creating various effects. There are monsters, and mystery, and danger across the island . . . for instance there’s a Lake of Wonder, and a Pit of Despair. I’ve got a map . . .
[7:51 PM]Leighton: The Lake of Wonder, for instance, you can see your greatest desire, and how you might end up with it.
[7:51 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What kinds of monsters are on the island?
[7:53 PM]Leighton: We have a bunch of monsters. The ones that are given in the book are: Archelon, a carnivorous turtle Avsocka, a cute tiny germ that happens to be a mammal Garnen, a big bear Karangkis, a very small, very poisonous bug Phoosyklomlolob, a giant velociraptor Termistelertik, a big python Termistel, a baby of a Termistelertik Torto, a giant bat Uvclotoklo, a tiny tiger Yaglaphoo, a big tree that can walk
[7:54 PM]Leighton: Obviously the kids made these up, because if I had, the names would have been a lot more boring.1
[7:54 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Those are great names, yes.
[7:55 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Are the monsters individuals with those names, or are these entire species?
[7:55 PM]Leighton: Those are species. In the playtest session, we fought multiple Yaglaphoos. In Yaglaphoo Forest, of course.
[7:56 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What was your beef with the trees?
[7:56 PM]Leighton: They attacked us! They’re vicious!
[7:56 PM]Leighton: They wanted our blood.
[7:56 PM]Dan the GMshoe: They bushwhacked you?
[7:56 PM]Leighton: LOL
[7:57 PM]Leighton: Here’s Jackson running the playtest session1
[7:57 PM]Leighton: Preparing to run it, rather
[7:58 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Do you have any idea of what the world beyond the island is like?
[7:58 PM]Leighton: “Earth,” Jackson says helpfully.
[7:59 PM]Leighton: The book doesn’t specify. It’s basically left up to the GM.
[7:59 PM]Leighton: When we first started talking about the game, I assumed the players would play humans who come to the island. It was the kids who dismissed that and decided that the PCs were animals. Which was a more interesting choice.
[8:00 PM]Leighton: We just saw the trailer for the new Avatar movie and it’s the same vibe, the evil humans with their machines come to the beautiful paradise to ruin everything.
[8:01 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Do the humans have any supernatural resources, or is it all science?
[8:02 PM]Leighton: All science! The kids are wanting to contrast the humans’ Enlightenment values with the island’s . . . No, they’re complaining that they don’t know what I’m talking about, just kidding.
[8:02 PM]Leighton: The evil humans have science, the heroic animals protect the magic island. Science vs. Magic!
[8:04 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Are all of the monsters antagonists as well?
[8:06 PM]Leighton: The kids are saying they’re neutral. The Yaglaphoos, Blu says, are like roses . . . carnivorous plants. But they can move. But the monsters are part of the island’s eco-system. They’re not inherently evil, just dangerous. They could potentially be reasoned with. In theory, one could try to recruit them to help fight the humans.
[8:08 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Speaking of which, are there many opportunities for roleplaying?
[8:09 PM]Leighton: Jackson says, “It’s a role-playing game, so I feel like there’s going to be a lot of that.”
[8:10 PM]Leighton: I would add that there are three phases of the game. In the first phase, the PCs are going on some kind of mission or errand, and there are chances to interact and make choices and deal with monsters. In this phase, Blu and I enjoyed playing our very, very dumb characters and making bad choices.
[8:11 PM]Leighton: In the second phase, there is a race between the Mothator worshippers and the Flittarion worshippers. Both sides are racing to get their leader’s egg to the mountain in the middle of the island. Whichever egg hatches there, that’s the new ruler of the island.
[8:11 PM]Leighton: So in the first phase, the PCs are working together. In the second phase, they are split into factions. Will they turn on one another? Is their friendship stsronger than their loyalty? That’s up to the players.
[8:12 PM]Leighton: In the third phase, the humans invade the island. The PCs who were competing must now, presumably, put their differences aside and work together. Though of course it’s up to the players how they want to respond.
[8:17 PM]Leighton: This is a picture of a moth shooting lasers at a human
[8:18 PM]Leighton: The human is an invader, and totally had it coming.
[8:23 PM]Leighton: I saw you were typing something a minute ago but I don’t see any questions, is there a technical issue?
[8:29 PM]Dan the GMshoe: There was. I got it fixed.
[8:29 PM]Leighton: Hurray!
[8:29 PM]Dan the GMshoe:
[8:29 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Do you have a character sheet that we can see?
[8:31 PM]Leighton: We actually don’t have a character sheet in the current version of the game, that’s something to think about adding (we are going to add a few things for the print version). But a sample character looks like this: Samantha the Wise (Snail) Speed: 2 Smarts: 4 Strength: 3 Agility: 2 Luck: 1 Charm: 5 Power: Protection from damage (3) Special Skill: Heal by retreating into their shells (4) Hearts: 7
[8:32 PM]Dan the GMshoe: NIce hat!
[8:32 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (brb)
[8:34 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (back)
[8:34 PM]Leighton: Welcome back
[8:34 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Thanks!
[8:35 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What is the task resolution mechanic?
[8:36 PM]Leighton: So it uses Caltrop Core, which is a system that uses d4s. The number for each stat tells how many d4s you roll. Then you take your highest roll and compare it to a table to see how well you did. A 1 is a total failure, a 4 is a big success, etc.
[8:37 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Great name for the system!
[8:37 PM]Dan the GMshoe: How is difficulty rated, and how are opposed actions handled?
[8:38 PM]Leighton: Yeah, it’s from Titanomachy, I learned about it on Twitter https://titanomachyrpg.itch.io/itch.iotitanomachyRPG
[8:40 PM]Leighton: The main kind of opposed actions that come up are combat. We talked this over, and the kids have more of a background in D&D than anything, so they wanted a combat system that worked like that. So you use your Speed stat to roll for initiative, then what kind of attack you make determines what stat you roll to hit.
[8:41 PM]Leighton: I was talking to them about Into the Odd, where you don’t roll to hit and you just roll damage, and Jackson liked the idea of doing the opposite–you roll to hit, but then you do a set amount of damage. So we went with that. There’s a table in the book you use to figure out your damage, based on your to-hit roll.
[8:42 PM]Leighton: That’s for combat. If you’re trying to Charm an NPC, you would just roll to see if you succeed. They’re just an NPC and, in this version, they don’t get a chance to resist.
[8:43 PM]Leighton: The main way the GM reflects different situations–like if an NPC should be harder to Charm–is by applying penalties. If you get a penalty, it means you drop your highest die roll.
[8:43 PM]Leighton: I was willing to let the kids do weird things, but my rule for them was that it had to be playable.
[8:45 PM]Dan the GMshoe: I’m still unclear as to how opposed rolls work, though.
[8:47 PM]Leighton: It would be a matter of who has the higher success. Granted you have a limited range of numbers, 1-4, so it might take a few rolls to determine.
[8:49 PM]Dan the GMshoe: I see… Does degree of success affect damage?
[8:50 PM]Leighton: Indeed it does! The better the success, the more damage. Like I said, the different attacks have pre-determined amounts of damage they do, and it depends on your level of success.
[8:52 PM]Dan the GMshoe: How does armor work?
[8:54 PM]Leighton: Most of the animals don’t have armor. The snail has a shell, which functions as armor. It’s written as a power, and lets them take less damage.
[8:55 PM]Leighton: 1d4 less damage! It’s all d4s, as I said.
[8:58 PM]Leighton: We’re planning on expanding the text, and adding some more pictures, for the print version. When we do that we’ll update the PDF on itch.io.
[8:59 PM]Leighton: Jackson is now in bed. He thanks you for your interest, he was very excited to be involved in this interview.
[9:21 PM]Leighton: Blu is now also in bed. She said she had fun.
[9:31 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Good! I’m glad. (Sorry — IRL distraction there.)
[9:31 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Where can folks get the game?
[9:42 PM]Leighton: The PDF is on sale now at https://leightonconnor.itch.io/magic-moth-islanditch.ioMagic Moth Island by LeightonConnorAnimals on a magical island must defend their home from human invaders!
[9:42 PM]Leighton: As I said, we’re revising and expanding for the print edition, and when we do that we will update the PDF at itch.io, so there’s no need to worry about being left behind.
[9:43 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Great!
[9:43 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Thanks very much for joining us, @Leighton and family!
[9:43 PM]Leighton: Thank you for having us!
[9:43 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Usual reminder: If you’ve enjoyed this Q&A and would like to treat me to a coffee or two, you can do so at https://www.ko-fi.com/gmshoe. Anything’s appreciated! Ko-fiBuy Dan Davenport a Coffee. ko-fi.com/gmshoeBecome a supporter of Dan Davenport today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
[9:44 PM]Dan the GMshoe: If you’ll give me a sec, I’ll get the log posted and link you!