Sinjin! A PDF (so far) adventure-game by M Diaz and Jackson Smith. Art by Scrap Princess, Julie de Graag, Jackson Smith, Katie Vasquez, and Alfred Stieglitz.
Available here; https://thehexculture.itch.io/sinjin
Some nerds in late-Victorian Fantasy Florida accidentally
killed Death and took their (her?) stuff leaving the netherworld bollocked up
and bleeding through in a Florida swamp.
Now YOU must wander about finding stuff and not getting killed in a magic swamp that’s a bit (but not very) different every time you go back, with the very general aim of making things better, or at least not making them worse, and maybe even FIXING DEATH.
(Note, criticisms or analysis are intended to have a neutral
tone. I am not claiming I could do better (I haven’t), OBVIOUSLY this is the
opinion of one man. I should not have to explicitly state something so fucking
obvious and banal but the west has fallen so here we are.)
The Grand Concept
Sinjin is an Indy game. Looked at from a D&D perspective, it’s an adventure with some decision processes attached, looked at from a storygame or AW-like perspective its .. perhaps the best description would be an object-and-location based game with an internal clock and some simple arrangements for resolving conflicts.
It’s in the blurry boundary between a more hard-edged
D&D adventure, a soft Gauntlet-style ‘scene’ based game and an actual story
game. This might be a cognitive space that is actually quite hard to design
for. When I come to things I would probably question about Sinjin, many of them
seem to have roots in its vague and curious origins. It’s a gypsy child in a
noble House!
The Sinking Swamp
The adventure space is made up from the combination of
two main concepts; the geographic shape of the Swamp in which you are wandering
around, and ‘Depth’ a kind of transformation of the play area rooted, in the
paracosm itself; in the slowly deepening and decaying power of the supernatural
as the swamp is sucked into the netherverse, and in game design terms; in
dungeon levels and things like Emmy Allens Stygian Library.
The Swamp
We have causeways, a river system and swamps in between,
with a small number of specifically-mapped distinct areas called ‘Landmarks’
and a variety of smaller less-specific minor landmarks.
With each new expedition the arrangement of the major Landmarks
changes somewhat, but some aspects of the nature of the linkages between
them remain, and the total number of major Landmarks doesn’t change and the
details of their particular individual geography don’t change.
So for each adventure you have a rough idea of what places can be found, and of how to get there, but to fulfil your mission and get to, for instance, the abandoned sugar-mill, you will still need to wander around investigating etc.
“The Territory is
unfriendly and unpredictable, but the goal is for navigation to be challenging,
rather than impossible. To this end, clearly communicate to players that the
general locations of major landmarks don’t change relative to the primary river
channel and causeways (e.g. the Fish Camp, Great Vine Barren, and Ritual
Wellspring are all linked by the primary channel; the Old Stone Fort, Fish
Camp, and Sugar Mill are connected to each other with a triangle of
causeways).”
(One of the notable ways that the particular nature of
the place, the environment, and surrounding and historic culture work their way
into the game is how deeply and richly embedded they are into every aspect,
from the locations themselves, to objects, abilities, characters, monsters
etc.)
“Depth”
The Swamp is either sinking into the Netherworld, or the Netherworld is merging with the Swamp and expanding. In game terms, ‘depth’ makes reality more phantasmorgic, surreal, dreamlike and dangerous;
“Depth
0
Sweltering days and balmy nights. You
sweat, and the air hangs thick and damp around you. The land smells of orange
blossom, wet grass, and, beneath the surface, the sickly sweet scent of decay.”
Quiet as the grave. By day, the Sun is dim and brassy; by night
the Moon is actinic and painfully bright; you can see clouds pass behind both,
and the sky feels claustrophobically low. Vast figures pace the horizon. Hair,
fabric, and flora waft and wave as if buoyed by an invisible tide. “
“A
great blue heron lies rotting near the reeds, one glaucous eye toward the sky.
It whispers out to the first person who gets near it. It wants mullet from the
Fish Camp. Each time it gets some, it’s flesh reknits a little more. After
three times it will rise up– its neck still broken and slack, and will offer a
Ghost Contract as a silent stalker.“
You can also dive out of your depth and back up to your original. Depth also re-sets if you leave the adventure area and take a rest – you just come back in at whatever the current minimum depth is.
Some buildings and locations only exist at certain depths. To
fulfil some missions or solve some problems you will need to ‘dive’ to
particular depths and once there, find a specific familiar location, now
presumably with much stranger and more dangerous things in it.
The land is slowly ‘sinking’ into deeper depths. Humans
dying immediately increases minimum depth and leaving without completing goals
also increases minimum depth. So the more adventures you have in the swamp, the
‘deeper’ everything gets. You can also bring Depth back up by achieving some
goals or defeating some major foes. There is an end-point to all this – if
Depth hits 13 then the curse escapes the area and spreads across the world. The
game is built around this ‘ticking clock’.
While ‘Depth’ in Sinjin it has some relation to Dungeon
Levels, Emmy Allens ‘depth’ in Stygian Library and Stygian Garden, Vandermeers
‘Annihilation’ and the Ballard and Stugatsky stories that prefigures it, and
possibly some forms of madness in Call of Cthulhu, I don’t think I have seen or
conceived of anything quite like this before. If you are into game design you
are probably reading specifically for the combination of ‘depth’ and the
semi-shifting geography.
I found the particularities and details of Sinjin as, or
more, interesting but less scaleable since their deep interrelationship with
this specific environment and situation is part of the appeal.
So. You are investigating a shifting version of the same
place again and again. In effect, going back in to the ‘same dungeon’ again and
again. While the ‘rooms’ shift around there are always the same rooms and
growing contextual knowledge should help you both navigate between places and,
in particular, make classic D&D style tactical use of the geographic
particulars of each location, which never change.
But how would it feel to investigate the same ‘places’ over and over again, with them becoming ever more hallucinogenic and strange and populated by ever stranger and less comprehensible forms of the dead and undead?
“The Territory is
different every time players enter it. There are a handful of key constants,
but players can never quite count on things being the way that they remember
them.”
This puts Sinjin in a complex relationship with the classic
D&D-alike game actions of exploration and investigation.
Of course this is not D&D, nor intended to be so. It’s
clearly a more drama-oriented ‘Gauntlety’ game. But many of these games that
present themselves as ghost stories, soap-operas or interpersonal dramas, still
have a lot of exploration, investigation and combat, and the interpersonal
drama happens around those props. AW is built for the Soap Opera element in all
of its parts but few of the ruleslights that draw from it are.
Would it be interesting or frustrating? Would the concept of
‘depth’ add depth or feel repetitious? There are enough supernatural etc
connections and possible intrigues that might create a layered feel as you
explore again, for different reasons, knowing where you will find but not what.
Diaz-Objects in Game Design
When I talk about a Diaz-esque ‘elegant’ piece of game/world
design, what I often mean is the use of natural language concepts and clear
comprehensible idea structures in ways that allow complex gameplay without a
lot of arguing or difficulties over how many points or whatever you have.
(I am of course assuming that most of these came from Diaz
based on some familiarity with his previous work, though he is not the only
author.)
Some Examples;
Deaths Whetstone is a good call
The main factions of Sinjin are guilds of Necromancers, each
of which is based around some item or tool they took from Death when Death died;
a whetstone, inkwell and loom. Each of these is a creative tool that produces
items with certain limited magical effects; sharpened blades, documents and
cloth.
They are tools which create or alter other objects, and the
originals are presumably eternal or don’t decay or wear but the objects they create
do wear and can easily lose those qualities. To whit – sharp blades being
blunted (it’s that particular sharpness and not the blade itself that has the
magic), paper being burnt, lost or, in a swamp, rotting or the ink washing out,
and clothes tearing and being worn. Presumably the main objects could be stolen
or lost, and their creative capacity is focused into one useful and tangible
modality.
Basing the factions around items, specifically around tools
which create other items, themselves limited in both effect and in the numbers
created, is a nice neat piece of game design. It unifies faction play with a
neat in-game economy of access to magical items with highly specific uses which
will themselves naturally degrade, and links that to the overarching theme or
story of the game in a way that feels natural, functional, intuitive and right.
As a counter example imagine a faction with a portal,
another with a magic book and another with say a non-creative tool like a
spoon. In each case the effects produced are vague, hard to intuit, they don’t
necessarily produce objects unless the game tells you, in which case another
layer of abstraction is required to describe exactly what the guilds can
do, (‘death points’ or something) and probably direct control of the tool is
required to produce those effects, which then cannot be traded, lost, stolen or
carried. (Unless you specifically describe that in the text; “you lose ten
death points” etc.)
Necromancy in Sinjin
To put it very crudely, Necromancy in Sinjin is kind
of ghost-Pokémon, or the indenture of specific incorporeal servants with specific
skill and identity-locked abilities.
You can grab certain ghosts in certain situations and
command them, but only in ways limited by their core nature or their prime or
central function in life. There is also a material cost if you want to achieve
material ends. So necromancy doesn’t create something for nothing, but instead
is a transformer of one kind of generalised resource (ritual, sacrifice) into
something more specific. It’s a Bank Account, or like having a clade of
invisible servants with specific skills who can be called on to do things
relating to those specific skills. You can re-interpret what those skills might
mean or how they might be used but you don’t need to argue with someone over
whether you have +5 to your Necromancy roll or whatever.
You can also grab animal souls or murderers souls, and even
a flock of crows.
Key Diaz-esque aspects of this are that;
-
It’s all in natural language, no numbers.
-
It uses directly comprehensible real-life
concepts (the soul of a Blacksmith, the soul of a flock of crows) with
inherently obvious and clear limitations and abilities etc.
-
It directly embodies all of this in the
paracosm; i.e. you have to take an hour to burn herbs at sunset rather than
spending +10 Death points for a death surge.
-
Its relatively self-limiting and encourages
thinking of new uses for the ‘tools’, (souls) you have and different
interactions between them and the environment.
Expeditions, Treasure and Rewards
You start each game with a mission (taken from one of three
generated by the DM), for one of the Guilds, for which they will offer a
specific treasure, all of which are magical tools, often with limited uses,
which will help you doing stuff in the swamp.
The possible expeditions are; Establish, Scout, Rescue,
Recover, Collect and Hunt. Only one of the six core mission concepts involves
necessary violence, the others involve investigating and getting, or in some
cases schlepping big heavy things to places.
The rewards or treasure you get for these have a nice American Arcana feel;
“Bragging Coat. A coat embroidered with boasts and depictions of great deads. Once per expedition, you can attempt a single act of superhuman strength or aptitude (jumping a great distance, kicking down a barn wall, picking a lock with a pine needle, telling a joke that makes a corpse laugh).”
They feel like elements from a ‘Silver John’ story, though I
don’t know if those tales were an influence, probably any independent
investigation of American folklore would produce things ‘a bit like’ Silver
John.
Having specific missions is a good idea because quite
frankly, Players are basic as shit and unless you actively point them at a
thing they a specifically meant to do, they will just wander blather and get
lost in decision fatigue. Being able to pick from three different missions of
different difficulty and lethality from three different factions is neat, as is
starting the game in media-res with the PCs already in-country.
Hopefully the combinations of missions will play a part in
adding depth and texture to the repeated missions; if the Guild of Scriveners
paid you to set up a camp in one mission or grab a hostage then the results of
that should still be in play organically in future sessions.
As well as the core reward for completing each mission there is a ‘Wandering Devil Merchant’ who wants to sell you various trinkets, and treasure, or ‘salvage’ which can be discovered in places you are likely to find it according to DM judgement. This is mildly sketchy, and somewhat gamic, with a touch of ‘Death Points’, but the actual Salvage are all in-world self-limiting Diaz-Objects;
“Black Heron Spyglass. Once per expedition, you can look through this spyglass to see yourself at the location you’re observing. When you remove the spyglass from your eye, you will find yourself in that location.”
So there is that gypsy child again.
Monsters and Encounters
The creatures are universally interesting. Broken up into
‘The Living’ ‘Lesser Dead’, and the ‘Greater Dead, which are mindbending ‘final
horror’ semi-inexplicable nightmares. There are some stand-outs. The Sabal
Sphinx, one of the ‘Lesser Dead’ has some very good ‘D&D-esque’ rules;
“62 Sabal
Sphinx
A human and panther
corpse twisted and crushed together. One of its human hands holds a palm frond
before its doubled face, and its four unmatched eyes peer out between the
pinnate leaves. Its ruff erupts into palmetto, mimicking the leaves of its
namesake. The killer and the killed, the eater and the eaten, existing in
delightful amity forever and ever and ever.
Statistics
Traits: wise, strong, large, fast,
resistant to mundane weaponry
Weakness: lazy, gluttonous, harmed by
salt, silver, and holy water
Tactics
Disappear into and emerge from any two
palm fronds in the Territory.
A Sphinx sequentially reveals its eyes
to anyone who can see in the order that is most advantageous to it. Once it’s
full face is revealed it may use any of its abilities at will.Reveal right
human eye: Charms a person it can see into fighting for it
Reveal left human eye: makes a person
bleed from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth
Reveal the right panther eye: Terrifies
a person it can see into fleeing
Reveal the left panther eye: Paralyzes a
person it can see
Full face revealed: Anyone who sees it
is gouged with invisible force as if with panther claws.!”
The Living are less modernist monsters: alligators,
cutthroats, packs of wild dogs and rival exorcists, honestly you could go a
long way with just these, especially the cutthroats and rivals, and if a party
is small or wounded, the wild dogs.
The modernism and abstraction of some of the monsters and
Greater Dead makes them excellent art pieces and good elements for a fancy
horror movie, or for a written narrative, but perhaps a bit challenging to
actually run.
Is this going to be another game/adventure where the flavour
text promises encounters with impossible entities but the most fun you have is
trying to escape a pack of angry dogs? Nothing wrong with that if it’s the case
but…
Dissonance
There is a curious dissonance between the items, fictional
structures, the imagined idea-space of the game, which is solid in conception
and simple to relate, clear and interesting, and the decision-forming process
of the rules of the game itself, which are very ‘Gauntlet-ey’ with lots of
‘just discuss it with your players’ and ‘the DM will inform you if you are in
immediate danger of death’ which isn’t quite the same as a player choosing to
do anything at all if they have only one HP left
Auto find soft salvage just for burning time looking in
appropriate areas; not sure about this one.
Is this just another adaptation of the basic decision
concept of Apocalypse World? Basically a quite soft conversational system. Same
with Harm & death, very McDowallian, big on simple roles and clear
communication of risk.
A foldable coracle in opening equipment, but we don’t know
how hard or difficult travel will be (yet), but the ‘Car Problem’ from Urban
RPGs might be a thing.
No list of names or likely surnames and no PC-relation chart
instead you just talk about it. Honestly random PC connection stuff is
something I like from Bakerish or McDowallian games.
This is probably because Sinjin itself is a synthesis of rules and concepts from the two main creators with a chunk of the ‘engine’ taken from here;
“The
rules on pg 4-5, the For GM note on pg 10, and the Advancement rules on pg 14
are adapted from from 24XX CC BY Jason Tocci.”
Art!
Its competent. Not my preferred style. Moody black and white
photography. Pen and ink drawings. The individual art is good taken on its own
terms! Just not my preference. (Obviously I like Scraps stuff).
‘Sinjin in colour’ would be a good call, especially
considering the hallucinatory nature of reality as ‘depth’ increases .. and of
course, Florida should be bright! More Florida Man energy! More Jorodowski less
Ansel Adams!
The maps are competent and useful.
My Judgement
I like all of the parts of this and I find its elegance of
conception and arrangement very pleasing.
I like the environment, which, in its details and processes
seems drawn from life.
I like the worldbuilding through factions, items, foes and
greater organisations which are honed to the point of interaction.
There are mild elements I would not disapprove of but
perhaps question;
“There are many details
we have elided or only gestured at, most significantly the precise nature of
the disaster that created the Territory and the way to mend the damage it has
caused. This can be an unresolvable mystery or the primary goal of the
players.”
Hhnnn the disembodied spirit of Jason Cordova rises in the
shadows cackling mysteriously. “Why the players decide!”
No! Get they behind me thou serpent!
If there is a chance the game could be an investigative one
about a big central mystery then the policy of feeding off the players improv
& feeding it back to them is one I don’t really like. Its ok in a soap
opera like AW but fake investigations only really work if people can all intuit
they are fake investigating to tell the story of the investigation and this is
not fun for me. If a big mystery is part of the game there should be an Actual
Truth and clues and layers of shit to finding out what it is.)
The Gypsy child feels slightly awkward to me. Wil they
fulfil their destiny & save the manor with their honest heart or end up
baked and syphilitic in an opium den? YOU decide of course! By purchasing and
playing Sinjin! Available HERE!!!!
