Why Fantasy Unhinged : A Deep Dive

What has made made you such a die hard fantasy nerd?

Oh gods, I've been playing this nerdy-ass tabletop hobby since I was 11 years old. I grew up playing the 1990's Baldur's Gate games and reading Harry Potter, Dragonlance, Stormlight Archive - over and over again sometimes. Fantasy stories have always been a world I understood and felt at home in. It was an escape from my everyday struggles as a queer, obese, anxious fine arts kid. My environment told me I didn't measure up in the right ways, and so like many nerds out there, I coped by visiting these imaginary worlds. It was like a breath of fresh air. I think a lot of storytellers, readers, and artists use fiction to explore a part of themselves that feels untouched, unloved even. I know it's why I love to perform and write music, plays, and narratives.

Did any of these stories inspire parts of Fantasy Unhinged?

Oh for sure! Dragonlance in particular was my favorite. There is a character named Raistlin Majere, who was your stereotypically edgy character. A loner wizard who waded through a gray morality throughout the series. His backstory is contained in a novel called Soulforge by Margaret Weis. I've probably read it twenty or so times. When he was young, he was bullied for his gangly appearance, lack social skills, and his intelligence. He was outcasted by almost everyone in his fantasy redneck village, and ostracized by other students of the arcane. Yet, he found his own power, through being clever, resourceful, and working hard.

Fantasy Unhinged draws from this ostracization in a couple different ways, the most obvious and prevalent mechanic is the Nature. Your nature is a manifestation of volatile energy specific to your character. As a result, you're more powerful AND more destructive to yourself and those around you. Natures were inspired by monstrous archetypes from mythology like vampires, werewolves, and archfey. We also were inspired by more modern stories like the Avatar in Avatar: the last airbender and Frankinstein.

There are also themes of appearance-conscious narratives embeded in the Skin, Genetic Traits, and Label mechanics. The game is full of a lot more sociologically driven narratives that we tried to streamline without losing too much depth.

Did your personal story affect how you wrote Fantasy Unhinged?

Oh absolutely. I heard a lot of really harmful rhetoric through the church I grew up in, and was extremely brainwashed. As a 13 year old, I wanted to be the poster child for ex-gays (a christian term referring to "reformed" homosexual people), and was looking up ways to give myself electroshock therapy to cure my queerness. I didn't actually make peace with my sexuality until I was 23, and I'm still kind of figuring out my gender to be honest. I would say a lot of how I wrote the system has to do with my queer identities, but also just my experiences not fitting nicely into groups as a kid. Too artsy for the fantasy nerds, too nerdy for the arts kids, and too goody goody for either of those groups. Church was wierd, because I often felt like people connected with me because my father was the pastor.

I've always been intense - the kind of person to hyperfixate for ten hours writing music or a story, and the kind of person that dropped absolutely everything for a friend's slightest need. I think it's because I've been around a lot of death, mostly through supporting close friends and family through their grief. It took me a long time to realize that sort of intensity is scary for some people.

This sort of intensity and what I call "abomination" narrative, is embedded into Fantasy Unhinged. It's is intended to spark emotionally evocative stories. Even from its early conception, I wanted to make sure that there were plenty of tools to navigate crafting more dynamic narratives with a focus on intrapersonal and interpersonal connections. So yes, Fantasy Uhinged is absoolutely affected by my personal story, for better or worse.

Okay, so what sparked the beginning of Fantasy Unhinged?

Well, it honestly starts with my crew on House Roles. Just before the pandemic hit, I started recording and streaming a Dungeons and Dragons Game. After playing DnD with these newfound friends for two weeks, I found the courage to come out of the closet as a gay man, and later down the line, it was those people I first came out to as Gender Fluid/Nonbinary. Tabletop RPG's gave me a more active roll in exploring myself than a book.

After a couple years playing Dungeons and Dragons for so long, I began to realize that the game didn't have a lot of guidance for making those more emotionally intense narratives. DnD is great, but ultimately it comes from a war gaming background. Meanwhile, I wanted to focus on a much more personal game.

I started creating Fantasy Unhinged (then called Fantasy100), to ultimately make my job easier to navigate the emotional and character-driven narratives that my players and I were craving. Today, I'd say the Fantasy Unhinged system lends itself to those who want to tell stories about overcoming both internal and external obstacles, and going through dramatic character evolutions.

When did you start bringing other people into the project?

It was November of 2023 actually! McCandlys (Caine) had participated in a playtest group, and actually helped put that crew toogether. It was maybe the third playtest session and it came up to me saying "Hey I made a Nature." You can actually see this Nature, the "Jank" in the first release of the game! Since then, Caine has been amazing to work with (even when we bicker). I can't tell you how many times we got caught up in pedantic conversations about the name of a single mechanic. Too often, one of us liked something the other was so-so on. By the time Caine joined, the framework was developed, but Fantasy Unhinged (then called Fantasy100) was seriouosly lacking in definition, specificity, and even instruction. I'm pretty good at building ideas and ensuring through-lines, but McCandlys has been instrumental in making the game actually playable. I can't think of a better person to have argued and toiled over this for the past year.

Ciara was actually a member on House Roles before joining this project in June 2024. Caine and I were getting a lot of work done, but at this point I knew we needed another voice to weigh in on the system, and help us refine our language. Enter Ciara, a brilliant literary mind with some time on her hand. I can't sing enough praises of Ciara. She is not only an excellent writer, but an absolute pleasure play and work with. Ciara's insights have been intrumental in helping develop the brand behind Fantasy Unhinged, and she's been something of a personal inspiration to me.

What is your current vision for Fantasy Unhinged?

Well, first, we have to release the game, but you can expect a discord server in the near future. I'm really interested to see some feedback on the system, and see what sort of evolution it may undergo after releasing. I really care about how people will experience the game. In the tagline, we talk about "Living Unhinged" and that simply means living intentionally and fully, regardless of the wierd stares and the internet trolls. I hope that through my story, and my friends' stories, someone out there will feel encouraged to face their own struggles.

At the end of the day, I want to help people tell more meaningful stories to themselves, and live their life without limits - dare I say, a Fantasy Unhinged.