And so I found myself this morning with a recommendation from Red about a new game that's come out, combining my twin passions of writing and roleplaying, and so I sought it out.
Quill is a game where you (alone) are writing a letter to someone else regarding a particular circumstance, your character has the skills of Penmanship, Language, and Heart, and these determine how well they write the letter and with what words. On the face of it, it's a number of dice rolls to determine if you scored high, and you can do this without ever actually playing the game...
But where's the fun in that...?
So I chose the alter ego of Sir Robin, a bold knight responding to the unfortunate demise of his old friends son close to his premises, and rather than write the letter according to how I rolled each paragraph as it was scored, I chose to generate the entire score for the letter and then write it to suit the result.
You have to write five paragraphs in each letter, each contains a word from the ink pot which is a collection of words from that particular scenario, but your language skill determines whether you use the inferior or superior word from the ink pot. Before you choose the word, you can endeavour to flourish the word with an adverb (spit) or an adjective using your heart skill, and when you have finished the paragraph, you roll on your penmanship to determine if the paragraph was well written.
I scored a total of six points, managed to get a flourish on an inferior word which actually lowers your score, which leads me to believe that the person who wrote the game has a love of language because putting adverbs on a poorly chosen word is indeed a sin, and so got the result that while my old friend did not appreciate the manner in which I relayed the tale, he understood that it was not my fault.
The result is the letter included at the top of this review...
Good fun this, especially for those of us who enjoy writing and like to have a slight diversion now and again to flex creative muscles. I think it needs more scenarios, but given that it's on a pay what you want basis, it's well worth a look and I'll be keeping an eye on Trollish Delver from this point forwards.
Available from Drivethru at http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170400/Quill-A-LetterWriting-Roleplaying-Game-for-a-Single-Player
