Playing Nature’s Year (7/26/2024)

Facilitator: Harry Lee
Players: Andy Munich, Megan, Sean Nittner, Brendan Jercich
System: Playing Natures Year

When I saw the Go Play NW games schedule (https://goplaynw.org/events/) I saw a bunch of games that I wanted to play in…and then realized they were all being run by Harry Lee. It felt unfair to book into ALL of them, so I just booked into two!

Playing Nature’s Year (from the Kickstarter description) is a series of eight short seasonal games you can play with anybody, set within the wheel of the natural year. You can find it here (https://payhip.com/b/g01A)

We played three seasonal games starting with summer (since it’s summer now), then fall and winter. We might have been able to squeeze in a 4th game and complete the year but we all preferred to wonder at what spring might have been and give our selves time to acclimate to the con (this was the first con slot).

Nearby there was a game of Avatar going on and I could hear the GM explaining the rules to the players. Even though the GM was doing an exemplary job, it still made me very grateful that the first game of the con had instructions like “roll 1d6, if you get odd your turn left, even turn right, travel a shorter or longer distance based on the die roll.” That felt like a very approachable way to start the con!

Summer – Ramble in the New-mown Hay

Our game started as a meandering walk that turned intentional and portentous. We opted for sitting in the shade and drawing our map rather than walking around because it was very sunny we all wanted to rest in the shade. The game instructs you to find a unit of measurement (steps, miles, hours, etc). We decided that distance was measured in friendly looking trees.

At each location the game instructs you to answer:

  • What is ripe here?
  • What is familiar?
  • What is unexpected?

At thoughtful intervals the game also instructs you to drink water, take snack breaks, get up and move around, and at the end, leaving a die as a present for a future gamer to find. Delightful. Harry brought cherries and a mixed nuts for the table which was very kind.

Our walk started a bit aimlessly, then eventually turned nostalgic as we found an old grove that we played in as kids, and finally ended melancholy as we arrived at the gravesite of one of our childhood friends. There was someone else there but we never found out who they were, just someone familiar. There was a childhood love story that also was also unanswered. Did we love the fallen friend? The other visitor who came to their grave? We weren’t sure.

Here’s the amazing map we created. Props to Megan for the paper folding (and eventual tearing) that allowed us to keeping turning right off the page.

I hope that someone finds the purple d6 we hid for them an that it brings them joy.

Autumn – The Bending of the Bow

The Autumn game chronicled a traveler on a journey. For us, this was a trip for Taro. A young adult; curious, snarky, and wearing a vintage trenchcoat.

The Autumn game has some fun dice mechanics that guide you to show scenes of the traveler preparing, getting advice, and then describing the journey it self.

Taro got some good and some bad advice. Told by an aunt “Just put your thumb out”. Given cash by a sibling “just in case”.

Their trip proper started on a train (an overnight sleeper, because several of our friends had taken the train to get to Go Play) and then moved to a bus when there was trouble on the tracks. Stuck next to someone who wouldn’t stop talking and wouldn’t let them rest. Finally exerting their boundaries and asking to be left alone. The light above clicks off. Finding a stray dog and then finding the stray tags and calling the owner. A text later on the trip with the two of them reunited.

Most of the prompts were about the traveler, but a few were directed to us as players. I shared that I love exploring buildings that are under construction. Doorways with no doors. Walls pocked holes for outlet boxes, looking out to a city that can’t see you became the building is incomplete and therefor invisible.

Taro made it to the arms of their loved ones. Journey successful.

Winter – The Holly and the Ivy

In The Holly and the Ivy you vie to be the one to catch the White Stag of Dawn – if you win the game, you get your heart’s wish.

Again the dice mechanic guided us to first describe the environment (children ice skating and shouting playfully at each other, tree tops laden with snow, a gathering of deer in a clearing before the chase), then details about the hunters (giving up on an ex-lover who disappointed one too many times, watching the stag from a rooftop with a spyglass, Manuel and Ifa, young hunters giving chase together) and the stag (tearing through the village, then watching to wait while the hunters caught up, narrowly dodging the blast from a rifle that exploded into a tree, destroying half of two lovers initials carved into it).

Finally, one of our hunters matched her own dice, reached out to touch the flank of the stag before it ran off, and sent her wish into the world.

What a lovely day to play games with friends.

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