by Shadomain Staff
NOTE: the opinions expressed in interviews are those of the guests, not necessarily those of shadomain.com.
Today we talk to Jeff Baker of When Suddenly! Games.
You can find him here:
https://bsky.app/profile/whensuddenly.games
https://whensuddenly.games/ website
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whensuddenlygames/the-crypt-has-opened Kickstarter pre-launch
Let’s hear from Jeff!
Hi Jeff, thanks for talking to us. Let’s start with the newest-latest. Your company, When Suddenly! Games, has a crowdfunding campaign coming up for a new TTRPG called The Crypt Has Opened. It’s described as a TTRPG of campy horror. Can tell us more about it?
Absolutely! The Crypt Has Opened is essentially Tales From the Crypt meets Steven King’s The Stand meets Lockwood and Company. So a lot of influences are poured into a game where the players take on the roles of magical practitioners fighting back cryptids and malevolent spirits to reclaim the Dead Spaces of the world. Players gets to design a town together and deal with all the fun horrific things that the Crypt Keeper and throw at them.
Can you tell us a bit about When Suddenly! Games? Who’s involved? When did you decide to start it, and what made you want to make games?
When Suddenly! Games is just me and technically started back in 2020 as Happy Jak Games, but unfortunately the name was too close to Happy Jacks RPG Network so a few years ago I rebranded, focusing on the campfire feel of spooky stories we tell each other around a warm campfire. I do want to say that The Crypt Has Opened however I’ve pulled in my friends Andrew Beauman for Layout and Chaotic for Copy Editing. Even self published work requires a team, hahaha! I’ve always been interested in game design and loved making my own monsters for D&D 3.5. It was during the pandemic when I got on tick tock and met other game designers that I really threw myself whole hog into game design. My first game released (under Happy Jak Games) is WYRD Dungeon, a GM-less procedurally generated dungeon game. The book contains 11 d66 tables to help make a dungeon on the fly. In the end I find myself enjoying being an entertainer, I did a lot of musical theater in high school. Being able to make games feels like an extension of that pursuit.
The Crypt Has Opened mixes cryptids with horror, all with a campy feel. What were some of your inspirations for the game?
As mentioned earlier, Tales From the Crypt is probably my biggest inspiration. More so the comics from the 50s (anything illustrated by Jack Davis is incredible) than the show. I love the gruesome imagery juxtaposed against silly premises. What makes campy horror fun, to me, is that we the audience can laugh at the absurdity while the characters within the narrative take it very seriously. I hope to capture that within this game. And I use Steven King’s The Stand specifically because the premise of the game is a world in which takes place after a world ending event called The Night of the Open Grave, in which literal Crypt Doors opened all over the world and nearly wiped everyone out. Thankfully with magic we’re able to fight back but also are now attempting to recover and rebuild on the corpse of our last civilization.
The Crypt Has Opened uses mechanics called The Imposition Dice system. Can you tell us about the system?
What made you decide to create your own system instead of adapting an existing “open” TTRPG system? The Imposition Dice System is inspired by games like Cypher System and Blades in the Dark where all rolls are player facing. I absolutely love games like that in which the outcome is essentially in the player’s hands. Whenever a player attempts to cast a spell, they describe it to the Crypt Keeper (the GM). From their description the CK will choose a level of Imposition that takes the form of a die ranging from d4 to d12. The player combines their die pool of two dice and the Imposition Die and rolls. Their goal is to have the individual values of their dice be higher than the Imposition. If it is, success! However, if the Imposition Die is EQUAL to or greater than one of their two die then it’s a success with consequences. They get what they want but at a cost. If the Imposition Die is equal to or greater than both of their dice then it’s a failure and the Crypt Keeper gets the fun of describing the horrors of the outcome. But all is not lost, as failure gives the player experience in return! That’s the very basic overview.
Why did I go with my own system? Well I wanted to design a system to simulate two wizards dueling each other. I wanted to capture that back-and-forth of spells and counter spells. So I sat in my living room just rolling dice and finding a fun and engaging dice mechanic. Then the story and premise evolved out from there! Did I make a system for wizard duels? Nope. But I think I found something better.
The Crypt Has Opened doesn’t divide characters by classes, but it’s not exactly a traditional skill based game either – I’m thinking of the use of multiple “paths” for each character. What do you see as the major advantages of this type of character system?
Good eye. Every character is built on a magical Tradition and Trope. The first is how they were brought up to understand magic’s place in the world and the later is how they use magic on the day-to-day. Because every character is a magical practitioner I wanted them to all have access to the same magic no matter what. What separates one from another is the Aptitude with the 5 magical paths and their related Aspects. Essentially everyone can cast “Fireball.” But a Nu-Wizard Hex Monger is going to be much better at it than a Magic School Conduit.
Will there be adventures or settings published for The Crypt Has Opened? Oh and while we’re at it, maybe you could describe the town creation system that lets players and the Keeper create a setting together?
You do your research! Yes! We plan on releasing 4 comic style adventures for Crypt Keepers to use to get their games started. The first few pages are like a cold open of a TV show in comic form to show the players. Past that is all the information on running the adventure. We plan to call these As for Lore, all of that will be published in the main book that sets the stage for the current events of the world with spooky organizations and entirely new countries having clawed their way out of the burial mud left behind by The Crypt. I’m very proud of the Town Mechanics. It essentially works just like a shared character sheet. It follows the exact same mechanics as a character but the players and Crypt Keeper design it together by answering a series of prompts and placing Die Levels within the areas they want to focus on. For example, I ran a one-shot in which the players were rum runners who had “election day” every day by challenging the current mayor to a fist fight. So they put the majority of their points into Indulgences!
The system gives the Crypt Keeper a great way to generate story beats by having outside influences interact with the town’s stats. Based on the rolls will spur plot hooks. Such as a game where in Jersey Devils were attacking the coal carts the player’s town relied on for energy. So the players sent some NPCs to deal with it. They rolled their Offensive Dice and were successful! This meant the NPCs came back with Jersey Devil pelts which then a player turned into a coat of protection for another player. Of course had the roll failed, the outcome would have been even more interesting….for me! Muahahaha
This isn’t your first game by a long shot. Maybe you could tell us a bit about some of the other games that When Suddenly! Games has created.
As I mentioned previously our other big game is WYRD Dungeon. It’s an OSR style dungeon crawler meant to be played quickly and easily without the need for a GM. You could basically play it like a Rogue Light. See how far you can get your character through as many levels in a single session! The other game, created during a Game Jam where the rule was make a game in 4 pages with only a single die is The Color of Everything. This game is inspired by my career as an animator and illustrator.
The players each pick an artistic medium (illustration, animation, sculpting, etc) and fight against Discordant and his Desats within the city of Chromia. The Desats each have powers to drain you of your color or life. It’s very simple and something I really want to come back to and expand on. Believe me, I have ideas.
Do you also play video, card or board games? Which is your favorite? When you’re playing TTRPGs, would you rather be the Game Master or a Player?
I play it all! For video games I’m a Fromsoftware girlie but my current obsession is Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 and Cyberpunk 2077. For board games I like ‘em simple but deep like Carcassonne or Dominion. And recently I’ve been getting into W40k (Sisters of battle because I love weaponized Catholic guilt) and Skaven for Age of Sigmar.
For TTRPGs I’ve found myself as the forever GM which I’ve been enjoying as I love learning all kinds of systems and picking them apart for what they can teach me. In fact, there is some Daggerheart language I plan to adopt for TCHO. My game has never had initiative but Daggerheart has shown me a great way to help introduce that concept to players. But I definitely have a hankering to be a player recently. I’ve got a Galapa Witch named He Who Walks Between I’m dying to play.
What other games have you been inspired by?
Let’s get the list! Cypher System, Blades in the Dark, Ironsworn, Brindlewood Bay, and Apocalypse World are what comes to mind first.
What else haven’t we asked you that you’d like our readers to know?
We just want everyone to know that When Suddenly! Games’ mission statement is to create an inclusive and open gaming table. Everyone is welcome to the campfire to sit down and join us in telling a spooky story with a hot drink in their hand. Intolerance is the only thing I don’t tolerate. On top of that, you’ll never find AI in our work. All the artwork has been illustrated by me or I’ve had my friend Andrew Beauman help with graphical layout.
Thanks, Jeff!
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