Greetings!
Here's your late September missive from Far Horizons CoOp. Outside it's getting cooler, or warmer; the days are getting longer, or shorter. All around the world, animals and humans are getting ready for annual migrations.
As the seasons change, I asked the coop what their favourite ways to represent weather and climate have been in games. The answers were interesting: the season mechanics in Wanderhome came up, as did the incredible season diagram and subsystem in Under Hollow Hills. Mouse Guard too has interesting weather narratives, because you're just a tiny mouse and raindrops as big as your head aren't unheard of. Lastly, someone mused on the Doom Dice in modules like Slumbering Ursine Dunes by The Hydra Collective; perhaps the right kind of game could use this kind of long-term tension mechanic to represent worsening weather, or rising flood water.
News
Here at Far Horizons CoOp we're getting ready for new ventures, too. We've been having lengthy discussions about the future of the coop. This newsletter was borne of those discussions, but there's other fruit to harvest too.
AI Art Moratorium
Firstly, we had a long debate about procedurally or algorithmically generated images, which are being dubbed AI art. This is a hot topic in the space right now, and as it has the potential to deny artists work, we felt it was essential that we discuss its impacts, and whether or not we should use it. The verdict was almost unanimously that we should not, and we've announced a moratorium to that effect, but there's nuance there that's worth bringing out.
For starters, it's not just about stealing jobs, it's also about outright stealing the products of labour: scraping images mechanically from the web is very different to the very human act of being inspired, and we believe that this is tantamount to theft. There are arguments against this, but to so brazenly be able to copy another artist's style without their consent or even knowledge doesn't feel like a positive step.
Equally, lots of the arguments in favour of AI art tend to feel dehumanising for the artists, and that's a real concern in TTRPGs: are we not here to make real, meaningful human connections through what we do?
We concede that sometimes we might need an art niche filling that we don't have an artist or public domain asset to fulfill. But personally, given the moral and philosophical arguments against the use of this new technology, I think it's better to leave a gap in a book than to take livelihoods. And given the support in the coop for the moratorium (23 in favour to 3 against), I think we’re almost all in agreement on this.
The question opens up a lot of tangential questions, too: why is it that we need so much art in TTRPG books? As a coop, we have striven to provide games in a simple and approachable format: good layout and meaningful image choice is always going to be more important to us than filling every glossy page with oil paintings of warriors in banana hammocks slaying dragons and gorgons. It's a trend that perhaps we can examine, not only as a coop, but in the space of creators and consumers as a whole.
We Dig Giant Robots
Fresh from her success with the astounding Friendship, Effort, Victory!, FHC writer and designer Kamala Kara A is at it again with two new anime-inspired games in the works. The one we’re definitely at liberty to talk about is We Dig Giant Robots, a “beer ‘n’ pretzels”-style micro-RPG about, well, giant robots. It’s inspired by Megas XLR, and I have to say, it sounds like a lot of fun.
We’re expecting this in February or March 2023, and if you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you’ll be getting updates for this awesome project right here.
A Thousand Burning Stars series
To paraphrase television hosts everywhere in recent days: The anthology is dead, long live the anthology. We’ve loved creating and running digests and anthologies over the last few years, but recently we’ve seen it increasingly hard to get these noticed in a loud marketplace. Instead, we want to focus on what those collections do best: make the ideas from creators shine as well as we damn well can.
That’s where the new series, A Thousand Burning Stars, comes in. Every month (or at least, when they’re ready), we’ll be publishing a small game from one of our incredible authors and designers, fully edited and laid out with illustrations to suit. It’s designed to showcase our talent, and to really make these books stand out, so keep your eyes out for these new zine-style publications.
Oh—and once every six months or so, we’ll be inviting someone from outside the coop to come in and pitch us a game. We’re hoping to get some incredible names in this creator-in-residence role. If you’ve got an idea, too, feel free to pitch it to us @FarHorizonsCoOp on Twitter; we’d love dearly to hear from you.
We’ll be working on a two to three month production cycle, so you’ll get updates here about upcoming titles and progress, and hopefully some images too.
Project Updates
Currently, the only project in the works is Far Horizons Guide to Cults. Progress is pretty good: 15 out of the 18 cults and essays have been written up. Of these, one is being illustrated, one is in final layout, and six are sitting with the editors.
We don’t have any artwork to share with you this time, but hopefully next time our wonderful resident artist Carly A-F will have rounded out one of her evocative sketches to show you.
Production is still on track to be with you as planned!
That’s all we’ve got for you this time. Until next month: make cool games. wage class war.
Best Wishes,
F.H.C.