We're counting down the hours for Deathmatch Island: 10 stretch goals funded, with a new Island, more digital assets, and an expanded Survival Kit on the horizon.
If you haven't taken a look at the play aids in the Survival Kit or Production Bundle tiers, now is the best time to check out the limited run set of booklets, handouts, cards, and more which we're printing just for this campaign and make (or upgrade) your pledge.
As we near the final leg of the crowdfunding effort, we turn this Update back over to designer Tim Denee for his thoughts on endings: Should a TTRPG have an ending? What does the End Game phase of Deathmatch Island try to do? When is an ending NOT an ending? What does the end of this campaign mean?
We think you'll find this design diary from Tim both insightful and poignant.
I’m a completionist, so I appreciate it when a tabletop roleplaying game thinks about how a campaign might end. Whether it’s the hard-framed campaign structure of Band of Blades to the more gestural approach of retirement and stash in Blades in the Dark, I want some guidance as to what happens when we decide to stop. I like endings.
Thanks to its premise Deathmatch Island was always going to have a concrete ending; it’s a game-within-a-game, and in battle royale media the fictional game always has a looming final confrontation. As they say in Australian Survivor, it’s the pointy end; it’s where things really get spicy.
The End Game is the pivot around which all of Deathmatch Island spins, from the player characters’ initial motivations to their later flashbacks, and everything that happens on the islands in-between. It’s all charged with meaning because you know that in the end, you have a big decision to make. Why are you really here? What kind of person are you? Will you play to win?
The End Game is the answer to all these questions.
The reason the End Game is structured as a Prisoner’s Dilemma is to drive a wedge into the table-consensus that quickly develops amongst any team of PCs. The End Game dilemma forces each player to consider who their character is and make their own decision in private, fraught with the knowledge they might be betrayed.
The irony is that the End Game isn’t really the end, of course. It’s the end of one season, but Deathmatch Island is designed to be played through multiple seasons with different casts of characters. Over time, like a good soap opera, a dense web of relationships will develop with shocking twists and surprise returns.
New Game+ exists to encourage you to play multiple seasons, and to have fun with the format. Once you’ve played at least once and got a handle on the basics, you can go again and really get wild.
Speaking of endings, I just wanted to take this opportunity before the campaign ends to thank you all for supporting Deathmatch Island so enthusiastically.
I’ve been making TTRPG material for some years, in the form of various maps and supplements, but I never quite got around to trying my hand at a full game.
Then in 2019, my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer and died a few short months after. He was a dedicated life-long folk musician, but recorded almost nothing - so now we have very little to remember his creative talents.
When he died suddenly like that, I resolved that I would finally finish a game. Not as some bucket list thing, but just because, well, life really is short. So having this game out in the world, and having people play it, means a lot to me.
One final note: Deathmatch Island benefited from a lot of thoughtful input from the AGON discord community. There’s a dedicated Deathmatch Island channel over there now, and I encourage you to join if you want to discuss the game or ask questions.
