Who writes The Player Character?
The Player Character is written by CF1, the in-play character of a human by the name of James Bernard Frost, who lives in Portland, Oregon and develops games. I’m currently an alpha Tier 1 Level 3 Rogue. I received a few experience points for writing this, which my party will promptly use to destroy the monster in our path.
What is it?
The Player Character chronicles my journey to a Kickstarter campaign for my card-based system for gamifying climate action, 10 for Tomorrow. It also digresses into the significant events of our time, which are making meaningful progress on carbon reduction increasingly impossible. (All of which is why we need heroes.)
Who should subscribe?
Anyone interested in the process of creating card or board games
Anyone who feels like the human race has lost touch with reality, and is ignoring the fact that it’s destroying its home
Anyone who feels like the games humans play should be changed
Anyone interested in new, more collaborative, societal structures and valuation systems
Anyone with the courage to disengage from a failing system, speak out, and take action
Why are you making this game?
The abject failure of governments, corporations, religion, scientific and educational institutions, and the media to put a stop to the human activities that have caused our world to become increasingly uninhabitable is painfully clear. But what isn’t clear is why humans haven’t seen all those societal structures for what they are—games.
And games that can be replaced.
Societal institutions are really just fictional human constructs composed of players and rules. If everyone were to abandon the government, it would no longer exist. If every worker quit, corporations would cease to be. If no one went to church, there would be no religion.
None of these game constructs have proven useful for tackling the most pressing issue humankind has ever faced, and so it is time to replace them with a new set of players with a new set of rules playing a new game designed to tackle it.
When do you plan to publish?
The Player Character publishes 2X a week, in two different sections. You can subscribe to both, or just one.
On Tuesdays, I publish Climate Hero, a newsletter that chronicles the trials and tribulations of a game designer working on a card-based system for taking climate action.
On Thursdays, I publish Climate Monsters, which looks at the evil forces at work that are making carbon reduction goals impossible to meet.
What do I get with a paid subscription?
Paid subscribers receive exclusive access to the beta season of 10 for Tomorrow. They can choose to form a group with other subscribers and can play the game virtually through TableTop Simulator and Discord, or they can receive a physical, prototype copy of the game to play with a group of friends. Beta season will start when we hit a critical mass of subscribers to form ten playtesting groups.
