In a little over a month’s time, I’m crowdfunding a table-top roleplaying game called Triangle Agency. Recently, I’ve realized many people close to me aren’t quite sure what that means! If you’re one of those people, this post is for you. Feel free to scroll to the questions most relevant to you.
How Can I Help?
If you aren’t too worried about the details and just want to support me (hi fam) or you mostly understand but aren’t sure how to participate (hi friends) the basics are these.
Share this post, or our website, with others who might be interested.
Pledge support on the Kickstarter when it launches in June!
Any one of the above helps, and doing all of them really helps. But what, exactly, are you helping with?
What is a Table-Top Roleplaying Game?
You’ve probably heard of Dungeons & Dragons. In that game, you and a group of friends gather around a table(-top) and pretend to be people in a medieval fantasy world. D&D is the most popular table-top roleplaying game, but there are lots of them! And they aren’t limited to fantasy—you can find these games in all genres and settings, from modern comedy to sci-fi horror.
Unlike traditional “playing pretend” or theatrical improvisation, table-top roleplaying games (TTRPGs) use elements from board games to add rules and strategy on top of the story. You’re often rolling dice, keeping track of your character’s health and skills, and trying to overcome violent conflicts or challenging social situations cooperatively with your friends.
Most commonly, games have someone who creates the story world (called the Dungeon Master, Game Master, Facilitator, or a similar name) and then a group of people playing characters who live in the world and react to it.
Why are TTRPGs Fun?
It’s a little different for everybody, but for me, it’s this: for a couple hours at a time, you get to pretend to be a character in an interesting world. Unlike board games, where you’re trying to win, roleplaying games are about telling a good story together.
Some games lean into the board game elements to keep the focus on strategy and combat; others remove board game elements almost entirely and keep everyone inside the story as much as possible. There are so many games now that you can find the exact kind of world you want to be in really easily.
What Does a TTRPG Look Like? What Do I Get When I Buy One?
You usually need two things for a TTRPG: A rulebook, and some dice. The book is a detailed manual for how to play the game you’re purchasing, and the dice are usually how you play it.
The inside of the book explains how to play, but also establishes the tone and setting like an approachable encyclopedia for a very specific subject. Sometimes, like in our Triangle Agency book, it also uses the rules to tell a story and get you in the mood to play.
Sometimes the game has you print out other things, like forms that keep track of your character information. Sometimes they come with other pieces, like cards that help tell the story or miniatures that represent your character.
These games can be small, the size of a few pages stapled together, or they can be big. Triangle Agency is one of the bigger, fully-illustrated ones. Because these rulebooks are an entire game for you to play—and give you the tools for possibly hundreds of hours of entertainment—they’re typically more expensive than a novel. Even if you don’t play, though, you get something like a coffee-table book full of images to enjoy and world details to read.
So What is Triangle Agency?
Triangle Agency is a TTRPG in a modern setting, with a twist: people’s thoughts and feelings can become surreal, sometimes horrifying monsters called Anomalies. Players become Agents working for a corporation called Triangle Agency which is dedicated to capturing those Anomalies and studying them.
Agents have superpowers (they can control a specific Anomaly), but they also have to keep up with their modern life. To make things more complicated, the Triangle Agency isn’t necessarily a “good” place, and characters will have to decide how they feel about working for a giant, powerful corporation.
Playing the game is sort of like being a superhero solving a mystery. The GM (in our game we call them General Managers, which is a joke about how they’re usually called Game Masters) creates a story about an Anomaly that’s causing problems in the world. Then the Agents follow that story, try to find the Anomaly, and decide whether to capture or destroy it.
The game is meant to be emotional, funny, sometimes scary, and also a commentary on the struggles modern life. When you play, you get to experience this very heightened struggle of “work-life balance.” You’re a superhero, but you’re just a cog in a big corporate machine. You have this interesting job protecting the world, but it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily paid very well. We call it “corporate horror” because this giant organization you’re working for is even more powerful than you, and the way it functions is difficult to understand.
My favorite part is that everybody plays multiple characters, which is unusual for TTRPGs! Other than just your “Agent,” you play the normal people in the lives of the other Agents at the table (like their parents, or their siblings, or their spouses.) If you like superhero shows like Arrow or Flash (hi dad) or paranormal investigation shows like X-Files or Fringe, the structure of the game is similar. Your table, by playing the game, creates an episodic show following a main cast and several recurring side characters.
What are YOU doing, Caleb?
I am Lead Designer on this game, which means I have final say on the world, game mechanics, and words in the book. Because we’re a small team, I’m doing some of everything: book design, page layout, art direction (now thankfully taken over by my friend Ryan Kingdom), marketing, publicity, even a bit of audio editing!
My co-designer, Sean Ireland, has worked with me on developing Triangle Agency for two years now. We’ve also set up a company called Haunted Table which is co-owned by the two of us. That company will hopefully also be the publisher of more games in the future! But…it means I’ve been learning a lot about business and paying contracted artists, writers, musicians, and performers.
How is it Going?
It’s actually going really, really well. Surprisingly well. The TTRPG audience is smaller than fiction books or board games, and there are a lot of creators. We’ve worked very hard to make something polished and professional, and people seem to love it!
Lots of people have played our demo version, and that has helped us build an audience.
What Do Other People Like About It?
A lot of people have been drawn to it because it’s obviously inspired by a video game called Control. It’s common for table-top roleplaying games to be built around existing genres or other media, because players love the idea that a TTRPG will let them be a hero in a kind of story they like.
We also have a really amazing art team, and according to reviews of the demo people really like our writing style! Part of the fun of our game, too, is that it really starts when you start reading. The entire game is in-universe, and it manipulates the fourth wall in a way that we hope feels fresh even to those who have read a bunch of TTRPG rulebooks.
So…What Is A Kickstarter? Why Are You Using It?
Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform where people can pledge money to help you finish a project. Often, it works kind of like a pre-order campaign—with some special opportunities exclusive to the campaign itself. If enough people pre-order the game, we’re able to manufacture it and send it out to people. If we don’t have enough interest, nobody pays anything and the book doesn’t get published.
Books get cheaper to manufacture the more you order, so we’re hoping to get a lot of people signed up to help us order a lot of books at once! Sean & I have been paying people out-of-pocket to help finish this project, so making money back on the books will help us start our business for real, get paid for our work, and fund our next game in a healthier way.
Our Kickstarter Page will appear at that link once we launch in early June. On it, you’ll be able to watch a video about the game, read about the game, see art and mockups of the products, and pledge to support it! The campaign will run for 1 month.
What’s Going to Be In Your Campaign?
The Triangle Agency Rulebook
In physical and digital editions.
Special Triangle Agency Dice
Included with the physical edition of the Rulebook.
The Vault, a Triangle Agency Mission Book
If making your own mysteries and Anomalies is intimidating for you, or you want to see some amazing stories, these 12 missions by 12 guest writers will give you everything you need to play for months with very little preparation.
Book Upgrades!
The more people pledge, the more we can add to the final book: more writing, more art, fancier book covers, even a fully-designed box!
SECRETS!
This isn’t a complete list of everything that will be available. We’re saving some secrets for later.
What Are You Hoping Will Happen?
If we get enough money on the campaign, Sean & I will be able to jump directly into making another game! I’m hoping this can help me establish a career publishing games, and that Haunted Table can become a game design company that people know about.
What we’re really doing is creating a publishing company. We’re designing, writing, and distributing books to customers and retailers. Getting this game supports the game, and the team working on that game, but it also supports the creation of my new publishing company! Even if Triangle Agency isn’t your exact thing, if you want to see me make more games in different genres and styles, supporting this one is the best way to do that.
Is This Going To Make You Rich So I Can Finally Be Proud Of You?
No. But you’re welcome to be proud of me any time.
I Want To Play!
Awesome!! Read the demo version and find some friends to play. If you want me to run the game for you, there will be a Kickstarter pledge level where you can support the company a little more than normal and I’ll play it with you as a thank you!
What If I Have More Questions?
Reach out to me any time! I’m happy to talk about this game, and your interest means a lot. This project is ambitious, I’m super proud of it, and it’s a little weird how disconnected it feels from so many people in my life! I want to help you see why it’s cool, and I want to get more people into TTRPGs generally. Let’s talk any time!
Thanks for reading,
Caleb