Great post by Johnstone Metzger about Space Wurm vs Moonicorn, inspired by Tyler Lominack’s recent run of it.
Originally shared by Johnstone Metzger
I can’t find it now but I seem to remember at the end of one of these episodes of Space Wurm vs Moonicorn, Tyler (the GM) says something like “I don’t know if that was the proper way to play it, but that was OUR Space Wurm vs Moonicorn.”
At the risk of pulling back the curtain too much, I want to tell you why that comment made me happy, because that is exactly a feeling I wanted people to have after playing the game.
SWvsM doesn’t have a detailed setting. It has archetypes and issues that every campaign chooses from, then players fill in the rest using questionnaires and rules processes. Different campaigns of it only need to have two things in common: Space Wurm and Moonicorn. But even the eponymous feud is just there to get you started, because you always need to start somewhere. The game is really just an excuse to explore adventure, romance, and politics through the medium of science fantasy.
But that science fantasy medium is really important, because the game is also about being weird. I deliberately push the boundaries of weirdness so that players feel encouraged to say things they think are weird, own them, and make the game specific to them.
This is the game where I explain the 2008 financial crisis so you can have a villain use the same scam to deliberately destabilize a planet’s economy. Where if you choose the “no aliens” option, I say you can still have hallucinations from another dimension invade reality.
This is the game where one character’s polyamory is a superpower on par with another character owning 2/5ths of the galaxy, and they still aren’t as “out-there” as the character from another dimension.
Speculative fiction is about realizing there’s more things possible than just what exists now. When you imagine something impossible is true, then imagine what else has to be possible to make it true, you inevitably find things that actually aren’t impossible.
Look, you can see all the tech shit that was invented because people saw it in sci-fi and wanted it to be real. Lots of things people want are impossible, but also: lots of things aren’t, even though some people say they are.
I threw away several conclusions to this, because I’ve been trained to reach for feel-good, aspirational messages at the end and I actually hate that, so anyway, listen: weird shit is good, use your imagination, challenge yourself.
