Vale of the Failed and the Fallen, a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG, is written by Robert Turk of Wicked Clever Books & Games. The player characters are adults who, as children, traveled to a fantasy world and failed to defeat the Great Evil. Their friend died in the battle. Now they have returned to fight the Great Evil one last time. Robert was kind enough to talk to us about his newest RPG.
Charles Dunwoody (CD): Thanks for talking with us, Robert. Adults returning to a failed fight and the loss of a childhood friend is a powerful concept for an RPG. How did the concept and setting for Vale of the Failed and Fallen develop over playtesting and reach its final form?
Robert Turk (RT): Hey Charles! Thanks for having me on. I am so excited to talk more about Vale of the Failed and the Fallen with you. As far as the concept, I have always loved escapist childhood fantasy literature and films, like Alice in Wonderland, the Oz books, Labyrinth, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Neverending Story, etc. And then as an adult, the Magicians books and TV series by Lev Grosman helped recapture some of that nostalgia with a grown-up twist. And I really, really wish I could say the whole idea spun out of that love. But it didn’t. It was actually two Facebook memes, of all things, that got this journey started. The first was a post that asked “Why is it always kids sent to save the world? Why not a no-nonsense grandma who has seen everything?” And the second was a Halloween costume meme with someone wearing a shirt that simply said ‘Gifted’ and being asked “What are you supposed to be?” Their reply, “I was supposed to be a lot of things.” That really got me thinking about my own kids, both teenagers, and my particularly circuitous path to adulthood after being labeled as one of those gifted kids in the 80s. Could my kids save a fantasy world? Could their friends? Heck no! Could I have done it, then or now? Highly doubtful! I am not a fan of camping, for starters. These memes led to much musing on why in the heck kids would be the chosen ones? Why would the inexperience youth be handed the salvation of an entire world? My jaded answer: because they want to help, don’t know any better, and are more easily manipulated by powerful grown-ups. And would they actually have any chance of succeeding in their task, even with powerful magic on their side? At least for this game, the answer is no. But what would that failure do to a kid? What would happen if they were told they could achieve greatness, were saddled with expectations but little support, and ultimately failed to live up to their potential. That ‘former-gifted-kid’ question has been the conceptual thru line for the entire project. Though when I started, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a novel or a game. The first round of playtesting, very early on in the process, was to determine if this idea was going to fun to explore as a player. Thankfully, it was! The loss of a childhood friend came in pretty early on, if not right at the beginning, once I was sure this idea was going forward as a full game. I wanted the inciting incident to be as high stakes as it could possibly be and give an immediate sense of investment to the players and their characters. Anchoring the original journey and the return to the realm to that tragic event helped Vale evolve into something more than just another generic fantasy game. Now it had some very concrete consequences.
As for the setting, I had planned to create a unique fantasy world from my imagination but drawing on all the tropes that I had loved over the years. I very much did not want it to feel like D&D, so classic monsters like goblins and orcs were out. And I knew this setting need a sense of whimsy common to the genre of children’s fantasy, even though the characters were ultimately going to be adults. So, the first few drafts of the game had players in a more static version of Eidylorn that included half a dozen kingdoms based around the froglins, snail-folk, and other talking-animal denizens. But one thing I hate in RPGs is having to do homework, and the realm was different enough that players weren’t embracing the setting particulars unless I gave them a bunch to read. Most defaulted back to what they knew, which was slightly different for everyone, but mostly they veered towards Tolkien and D&D. So, then I tried the reverse, and let the players attempt to build the realm with a very open-ended questions about what they wanted from a game. That didn’t really work either, because it put them on the spot and gave them the stress of needing to make a communal setting that would actually work. That’s a game designer or author’s job. After a few different session zeros, I found the sweet spot in the middle: I gave folks the standard races of Eidylorn and important landmarks in the realm, and they describe (through guided questions) which of those things were important on their first journey as kids. So now it is a collaborative world-building with game-designer guidance, but no need for any pre-game homework.
CD: Vale of the Failed and the Fallen is Powered by the Apocalypse. What made you choose this ruleset and how does it fit the themes of the setting?
RT: That’s a great question! Usually, when designing a game, I start with the story I want the players to tell and build a new set of rules that supports that story and table feel. For example, in Goblonia, I wanted it to feel like players were seedy, desperate goblins gambling with their fate and thus the mechanics are based on poker cards. For Vale, I wanted the more traditional storytelling of the players to take center stage, and thus the mechanics needed to support that style of gaming, but otherwise stay mostly out of the way. I didn’t really need to create a new system for this game. There are multiple ones out there that already do what I wanted really well, No Dice No Masters and PtBA being two of the best, in my opinion. Having been a longtime fan of Masks and Blades in the Dark, and having already embraced the idea of playbooks for Goblonia, I decided to explore other PtBA games and really see what I could do in that framework. I bought and read sooo many PtBA games and read a whole bunch of articles from Maguey and Vincent Baker regarding the design goals of PtBA before deciding that this was the right way to go with Vale. I already favor more open-ended mechanics for my games, and strive to make sure everything builds off one central core rule. I don’t want to make games that have one set of rules for magic, one set of rules for combat, and an entirely different set of rules for grappling. I also really like the fact that everyone using set moves, even the GM, provides a solid balance between structure and possibilities for the narrative, which in turn makes the system very new-player friendly. If you want to do something to change the story, pick the move that makes sense and see how well you manage to do it. I had to make sure that the rules for Vale followed my own design philosophies and made sense for the story I was enabling folks to tell, though.
Once I was sure I could start with the basic framework and gameplay flow from PtBA but give it my own twist, I was sold. Convincing my playtesters took a little more work! Part of this was the choice to limit battles to a maximum of three rounds. Agon does something similar in its mechanics and I admire how they are able to capture the action and drama without descending into “I roll to hit. The monster takes seven points of damage. Rinse and repeat until something dies.” So, I really tried to embrace a long lens, cinematic view point of a battle, mostly to keep the story rolling and all the players engaged. I also wanted to make sure that the set of basic moves was tight but universal, so that any outcome a player aimed for could be easily covered. There are some points in the game that we do break from PtBA convention, like rolling dice at the end of each session to see how the greater world changes. I had originally planned for this to be more narrative and move based in nature, but I found that such an approach just took too long and lessened the sense of excitement at the end of a game. Now, the players’ mechanical choices (how many hope to spend during the game or how much threat to give to the GM) has a quick but impactful effect on the overall downtime and helps make the realm feel dynamic and alive.
CD: Players choose playbooks based on magical artifacts like Blade and Mask. What inspired these playbooks and how do they inspire roleplaying in game?
RT: These were very much inspired by the old D&D cartoon where the kids hop on a carnival ride and end up as heroes in another dimension. Each of them gets an artifact, that in some cases doesn’t fit their personality at all. If I remember correctly, the barbarian was a little kid with a club of giant strength, the paladin was a coward with a magical shield, and the wizard was rather hopeless all around but he gets a magic hat. I really wanted to separate who the characters are from the gifts they are given, and play up that disconnect between the expectations others have of them and what they are actually capable of doing. For instance, in Vale, the Heart playbook is granted a healing amulet, so their magic is that they can heal. But they don’t have to play a typical healer/cleric trope here. It’s not like they went to school to be a doctor or first responder (though they could have), they aren’t dedicating to a life of service to a special god, they don’t take vows or oaths, they just get a soul-bonded amulet that gives the ability to keep their friends going. They are probably expected to fill a support role via that artifact, and the player chooses that role by picking the Heart, but there is nothing stopping the character/player from also being a leader, or sneak, or even a front line fighter. Throughout design and playtesting, we worked very hard to make sure every playbook could handle multiple player styles and character backgrounds, and that they were all fun and interesting. This is probably what we spent the most time on, simply asking “Is this ability fun? Is this playbook working for you? Can you play the character you want to play?” And using those answers to continually tweak the game. I will also note, that through the four internal playtest campaigns we ran, as well as multiple outside playtest groups and many convention games, I never saw any two players use a playbook exactly the same way. Which hopefully means it works exactly like I wanted it to.
CD: Do you have any interesting anecdotes or stories from playtesting Vale of the Failed and the Fallen?
RT: Oh boy… Yeah. Those damned horsipedes. Something I have had to learn as a game designer who starts playtesting his games very early in the process (to really try stuff out and break the game at the table before I get locked into anything), is that you have to stay focused on what you are testing but keep it open and fun for the players. Which for me means that they can come up with some really crazy, off the wall, ruin your plot ideas—but as long as I learn something about the game from it, breaking the story doesn’t actually matter. Most of the time, the players don’t really know what I am paying attention to, what my own notes say, and what I need to work out for myself. I tell them all at the beginning of every game, “You don’t have to have any design answers at all. That’s my job. All you need are the questions: Does this make sense to me? And am I having fun with it?” Now, I will often ask “What do you think of this?” Or, “This bugs me right now because of X, how about if we did Y instead?” And the ever popular, “I know this is a big change, but I really need you to try it this way so I can see how it fails in play.” But really, I just let them play, and come up with all sorts of insane ideas to try and frustrate the lifelong storyteller in me. I actually use this example in the core book, and it is still my favorite, as it led me to the fact that players should have an equal part in building the world of Eidylorn, and that as a GM, all you actually have to do is be a good listener.
I think it was the first session of the second or third playtest campaign when the issue of beasts of burden came up. It was right after I had introduced the idea of players building the world together in session zero, and one of the players asked how they would get from one part of the realm to another. Horses is the easy answer, of course, but I was tempted to start describing something fantastical like small, domesticated dragon or bound elemental blimps or whatever. However, I stopped myself and asked instead, “What do you think it should be?” Another player at the table immediately shouted, “Horsipedes!” And before I could say no, the group started laughing and talking among themselves about how many legs it took to make a horsipede, and how fast they would move, and how many people could ride one. I just sat there shaking my head in amazement and dismay. In their world, the standard mode of transportation was a horsipede. A move or two later, they had captured one, fashioned a set of saddles for it, and were racing across the hills on thousands of legs. Later in the story, the emotional bond they had with this horrible creature became a pain point. They had to choose whether or not leave it behind in dangerous circumstances to proceed through a dark magical portal, or to take a much longer, safer route but lose the advantage of surprise. That moment in the story had so much more weight because this was an element of the narrative they had added, not something I had given them as a pre-existing facet of the world. From that point on, I knew the key to being a good GM for Vale meant listening to the players, encouraging them to aid in the world building, and asking them “What do you think it should be?” whenever I could.
CD: In Vale of the Failed and the Fallen, the PCs both build a stronghold and recruit denizens of the fantasy realm to fight the Great Evil. How did this unique combination of rules, roleplaying, and world building develop into this final form?
RT: This major part finally all came together towards the very end of the playtesting cycle, since it mostly deals with the end-game and when you are running a campaign, you don’t get to test that as often as everything else. In fact, for our last internal play test group, we ran the final showdown several different ways, one week apart, so we could all see which one worked better for us. But I knew from the beginning that this wasn’t a game about adults saving the realm simply by being stronger or more powerful this time around. They have to approach the problem of saving the world from a grown-up perspective. They have to learn from past mistakes, right their past wrongs, and deal with their baggage. And that means sharing the responsibility of being a hero, setting the denizens of the realm up to fight for themselves, and being strategic about the milestones they were doing along the way. Instead of just being a group of kids on their own with magical artifacts, having allies had to be crucial to their success. And there needed to be a rally point for those allies to gather and plan. But, I also wanted the campaign to have a set ending.
I admire folks whose campaigns have lasted years on end, but I think those campaigns last because they have made good friends and enjoy spending time together. They could tell any stories in any system, and I think the outcome would be the same. To me, a good story has to have an ending. And ultimately, Vale is supposed to be a journey to that ending. For that ending, all of your allies get to take part in the final battle against all the armies of the Vassal of Darkness. So, the more allies you have, or the more enemies you can take off the board before this point, the better it will go for you. The heroes’ first journey ended with a deadly, isolated confrontation. I wanted the second journey to culminate in one final, massive battle. The heroes face off against the big bad once more, but this time they are literally surrounded by their supporters and friends. I was really thinking about the final moments of the movie Willow, or even Lord of the Rings. You have these great sweeping battles of huge armies, before you get that final face off. Importantly though, the final battle needed to follow the same rules and use the same mechanics of everything else in the game. There are some new modifiers, specifically for the end game, and some of the more narrative special moves work differently, but you don’t have an entirely new set of rules to handle this once-in-a-game situation. The biggest challenge was making sure all those allies and enemies felt like they actually mattered. And I think the flow we settled on ensures that they really do.
CD: For GMs used to running D&D or Pathfinder, what would you say to encourage them to run a campaign using Vale of the Failed and the Fallen?
RT: First off, D&D and Pathfinder are great games. I have played and loved many sessions of D&D over the years. Even as an indie game designer, I fully acknowledge that I would not have a career at all without D&D, TSR, and Wizards of the Coast doing what they have done basically created this hobby. So, no shade on anyone who prefers to stick with either of those games. At the end of the day though, despite the absolute wealth of material out there for both of them, D&D and Pathfinder are really good at enabling a certain kind of play through a particular style of story. They are great for tactical, dungeon crawling adventures. But there are way more stories out there to tell, and a lot of other great games that are frankly much better at telling those different kinds of story. Vale was designed to tell a different kind of story. And one of the earliest questions I had to ask, and answer, for myself and my players was “Why not just do this as a D&D campaign setting?” And the answer is that this story doesn’t work as well with those rule sets. This isn’t a game about tactical combat, leveling up, and fighting countless monsters—all of which are great things in the right story! This is a game that focuses in tighter on the journey and emotional growth of the characters, not their external skill growth. And, like I said above, it is a journey that ends.
I don’t want or expect players to replace their long running campaign with Vale. I want them to have a memorable story about regret and redemption and then move on to explore other games and other stories. To me, gaming is kinda like eating out, we all have our favorite restaurants with familiar foods that we absolutely love and will return to time and again. But if we ate there for every single meal, it would get kinda boring. We should all be open to experiencing and trying new things. And, from a purely economical point of view, you only need one copy of the book, in whatever medium you prefer, to play Vale. Your players just need the playbook character sheets, and those are free on our website along with a bunch of other play aids. So, the risk is very low here. When I run Vale at conventions, I only do session zero and the return to the realm scenario. Since world and character creation is a group activity that tells a story, that alone is enough of a journey to be a satisfactory and fulfilling gaming experience. So, if the premise interests you, go ahead and give it a try. At the very worst, you will get new ideas to bring back to your own favorite system. But I am pretty confident you will have a great time playing, and you don’t even have to plan a campaign or do any outside world building!
CD: Thanks for talking with EN World, Robert, about Vale of the Failed and the Fallen. Any final thoughts about RPGs you’d like to share?
RT: Thank you, Charles! And thank you to my players, fans, friends, and supporters who have enabled me to engage in these shenanigans for almost a decade now. People often ask why I moved from traditional fiction to writing games, and I think the main reason is that games bring people together. A book you can read on your own, and that’s a wonderful thing. But a ttRPG is better with friends! Humans are social creatures, and playing an RPG strengthens our ability to communicate, think critically, and work together. I know most of us past a certain age have so many other responsibilities in our day to day lives. It takes a lot of effort to plan a game and actually get together. But it is worth it! As I told my eldest child who is away at college right now and seeking a tribe to fit in with, “Find an open table, lay down a game book, toss some dice on a table, and start making a character. Your people will come. I promise.”
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