Meet the Publisher Followup: Ava Islam

Since I interviewed her in the spring Errant, her new game, has been released, and I had some follow-up questions I wanted to ask. You can buy Errant here, through the Third Kingdom Games webstore, as well as downloading a free, art-free pdf from Drivethru.

Question: What's your favorite part of Errant.

Answer: I think my favourite part of the game is the way downtime works (which I've gone into in depth on my blog); it slots really naturally into the flow of play and just opens up the game into a different level that honestly makes my life as a referee really easy in terms of just fleshing out the world and adventure opportunities, as the things my player's desire in concert with the way the systems are set up just seem to emergently and organically create goals and adventure hooks. In general, with the way the event die interlocks across different phases of play and allows for consequences to naturally cascade through them, I often really feel like the game just kind of drives itself, and I'm just along for the ride (though I'll take the wheel for an occasional detour), which is just a really freeing and liberating way to play. Though, the downtime mechanics I honestly can't take a lot of credit for, as they're mostly lifted wholesale from Ben L's blog (and now available as a zine). What do feel more like my own bespoke creations are the classes in Errant, which I'm also really proud of. I know that some aspects might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think in general, the class design in Errant strikes a really good balance between keeping things to a tight, core focus, while still being expansive and allowing for player creativity, and are all sufficiently differentiated from each other such that each class feels distinct to play.

Q: I've been seeing a lot of Errant actual plays in the wild, and I'm curious to know if folks are playing it the way you had envisioned it.

A: I haven't actually seen other folks play it, that's somehow slipped under my radar! I really enjoy this twitch stream I did of The Waking of Willowby Hall, just for the way that it let player creativity and wild antics take front and centre. I think its demonstrative of the fact that all the procedural play isn't meant to be rigid and constraining, but instead provides a framework that allows for player agency to be meaningful.

Q: So, what's next? A: The plans are still largely the same, just timelines have changed. Our Kickstarter for our first Errant adventure, Sanctimonious Slimes vs Expired Epicures, is slated for Zinequest 2023!