Ewen Cluney [pronounced Aaron Cluney] has worked on many notable games; he translated Maid RPG and Golden Sky Stories, wrote the Ghostbusters retroclone Spooktacular, and has created original games such as Kagegami High, Angel Project, and Pix. Cannibal Halfling contributor Sabrina TVBand sat down with Cluney after writing about Maid RPG and Spooktacular to ask him about his work.

And by “sat down” we mean “wrote a few emails”.

Sabrina TVBand: On your website you’ve posted about a lot of games that you’re working on; Magical Burst, Slime Story, Zaptacular, I Hate You: A Cartoon Game, Pix, and Dragon World. How’s progress on all of these games? Are some of them very close to completion? Have any of them been abandoned?

Ewen Cluney: The pandemic and general getting older stuff have made it hard to get friends together to play games, which makes it really hard to do playtesting. That’s stalled a lot of my game design stuff, which frustrated me to no end.

• Dragon World is playable but I have some ideas for how to substantially improve some aspects of it that I want to implement and playtest before I try to publish it.
• I Hate You is one of those games that changes so much from how TTRPGs are typically designed that it takes a lot of thought while requiring relatively little text. I have an idea of where I want to go with it (notably, by adding a track that players advance on that affects scenes and eventually signals the end of the game), but I haven’t gotten far with implementing it.
• For Pix I have a beta version for sale on itch.io, but it’s the kind of game that needs pretty extensive playtesting to really come to fruition.
• For Zaptacular I just set myself a big task for filling out the setting stuff I came up with. It doesn’t change the Sixtacular rules all that much, so I could stand to just save some of the setting info and alternate settings (like a whole Star Trek parody sub-setting) for supplements.
• For Slime Story I started on a new PbtA version that looks fairly promising, but I never got it to be a complete game. Someone recommended checking out Roadside Picnic/Stalker for ideas, and I’m still trying to digest them.
• For Magical Burst, I set myself the task of creating a tactical combat system, which is a big ask and a major challenge I’m not entirely sure I’m up for.

I haven’t totally abandoned any of them, but I’ve always had a habit of coming up with more ideas than I could really realize. You asked me about some of the more notable ones, but there are kind of a lot of others in varying degrees of incompleteness. I got started on Against the Whole Damn World, a Scott Pilgrim-esque game about sorta-adult losers in a video game influenced world, with the default setting being “San Francisco 64.”

Sabrina TVBand: An indie game designer has to take on a lot of responsibilities when making and releasing a game. What are the hardest and easiest parts of the process for you?

Ewen Cluney: I think it depends on the particular game, but designing rules that work well that crafting guidance so players can use those rules well is generally the most challenging part for me. I can often lean on an existing system to some extent, but for some game concepts that’s not viable.

Commissioning artwork is generally one of the most expensive parts of publishing an RPG, but once you get the hang of working with artists, it’s one of the easiest and most enjoyable aspects of the process.

Sabrina TVBand: Are there any common mistakes you think people make when self-publishing RPGs?

Ewen Cluney: The biggest pitfall I see for new designers is just when they show a lack of experience with different systems. The whole “fantasy heartbreaker” concept exists because there have been so many people whose TTRPG experience is limited to D&D, so they come to game design trying to solve issues they have with D&D that people have already been working on in different ways for decades. Just as an author should read a lot of different books, a game designer should play a lot of different games.

Sabrina TVBand: A lot of anime-inspired games take a more rules-lite approach to design. Do you think there’s something about anime that inspires simpler systems?

Ewen Cluney: Anime varies a lot, and there are definitely some titles that are better served by more complex game rules. Mekton is to some extent Gundam with the serial numbers filed off, and the complexity it has—particularly with the expanded mecha creation rules—serve its goals in a way it wouldn’t for many other genres. A lot of anime is more character-driven and in my opinion better-suited to simpler TTRPG rules, but that’s true of a lot of media we might want to adapt in general. That anime-inspired RPGs tend to be simpler I think is more because (with a few exceptions like Mike Pondsmith) the old guard of the industry that favors more complex rules is from a generation and subculture that tends to not understand or like anime.

Sabrina TVBand: I discovered recently that you’d worked on a generic anime system in 2010 called Open Anime; what were your specific goals and objectives with Open Anime? What were you trying to do relative to other generic anime systems like BESM and OVA? [Note for readers: Cluney wrote Open Anime with Christopher Helton and Jonathan M. Thompson, who previously had written a different generic system called Open Core.]

Ewen Cluney: Open Anime came about essentially because Jonathan had his Open Core system (which was based on combining the now obscure Action! System with the Anime d20 SRD from Guardians of Order) and wanted to make an anime book for it. He and Chris recruited me, at the time one of the relatively few people doing TTRPG design who were also into anime. On my end it was kind of rushed, and the main thing I like about it is the weird campaign settings I came up with. The idea to do something like that came from Tinker’s Damn, another obscure anime-inspired TTRPG which sported three pre-made campaign settings.

Sabrina TVBand: Are there any Japanese TTRPGs that haven’t been translated into English that you’re excited about?

Ewen Cluney: I’ve fallen a bit behind on the Japanese TTRPG scene to be honest. The big one that I hope to see some day is Meikyuu Kingdom. For anyone not familiar, it takes place in a fantasy world where there was an event called the “Dungeon Hazard” that resulted in the entire world being covered in dungeons. Your party is the monarch and core retainers of a tiny kingdom, and as you play you conquer dungeon rooms and expand your kingdom. It has a fascinating design ethos that brings in board game elements, and a unique aesthetic where you can end up fighting a sapient cup ramen along with more standard dungeon fantasy fare.

I was acquainted with the guys who were trying to do an English release, but it never quite happened. The folks at Adventure Planning Service are cool (I got to meet them at Gen Con in 2008), but they’re ridiculously busy already and don’t have a lot of time for licensees.

Sabrina TVBand: In Kagegami High you changed action resolution to use a Ghostbusters-style dicepool instead of the 1d6 X Attribute resolution used in Maid RPG. Do you wish Maid RPG also used a dicepool mechanic, or do you feel the swingier results suit the comedic tone of the game?

Ewen Cluney: The dice pool mechanic going into Kagegami High is more about the Weird Die, that game’s take on the Ghost Die from Ghostbusters. Kagegami High has a pervasive weirdness to it, so it felt right to make it so that 1 out of every 6 rolls will trigger something strange happening. Swingy dice can make a game more comedic as it lends itself to wider disparities between what you expect and what the dice give you (it’s why D&D’s skill system often creates unintentional comedy), but Kagegami High’s vibe is a bit different, and less conducive to luck, at least the kind of luck that gives PCs wildly unexpected success or failure. Most of what I would actually change if I were to revise Maid RPG would be more in terms of better localization and assembling a simple-yet-complete core rulebook rather than changing the core rules.

Sabrina TVBand: What were the experiences that made you feel a Ghostbusters retroclone needed to be made? Do you have any memorable stories from playing and/or GMing Ghostbusters/Spooktacular you’d like to share?

Ewen Cluney: The thing that got me thinking about the ideas that would eventually become Spooktacular was seeing a fan-made character sheet for Holtzmann from the 2016 movie. That movie got a lot of hate, and while it does have legitimate flaws, it also had surprisingly thoughtful lore drawing on real-life ghost stories. There was a tie-in book, presented as a new edition of the book that the characters self-published in the movie [Ghosts From Our Past, Both Literally and Figuratively], which was well-written and had a clearer idea about what ghosts are and what they can do. I was a huge fan of Ghostbusters as a kid, but I liked it the way kids sometimes do, which is to say uncritically and out of a sort of instinct. Coming at it as an adult, I liked the franchise more for how it undercuts the seriousness of ghost stories, turning ghost hunting into something a guy can do with the casualness of an exterminator spraying for roaches. The 2016 movie also made skepticism a major theme, something that the characters had been dealing with their whole lives.

The movie also just introduced a bunch of neat toys for the characters to use in the finale. It was easy to see some new ghost-hunting gear going into the game, and who wouldn’t want to be able to punch a ghost?

When I played Ghostbusters with some friends, the PCs included a guy who was a war veteran, and the most memorable line from that was when he said, “I can fly,” and another PC shouted, “Don’t listen to him! That was in a jeep!” One of my friends played a single mother whose son would hang around HQ because she couldn’t afford daycare on a Ghostbuster’s salary, which was a wonderfully grounded character that I put into Spooktacular for the character creation example and cover art. When playtesting Spooktacular I did a lot of stuff with more contemporary elements, so the Wraithzappers did things like investigate a haunting in the apartment of a Twitch streamer and stop the ghost that emerged from an old VHS fansub at an anime convention.

Sabrina TVBand: Who are your five favorite Ghostbusters? You don’t have to put them into an order, but it would be nice if you did.

Ewen Cluney: Holtzmann from the 2016 movie is still my overall favorite Ghostbuster. After her I pretty much have to go with the original four, even if Venkman is a creep. (Did you ever notice that he said he gave Dana 300ccs of Thorazine? That was probably an oversight by the writers, but it effectively meant that he took a syringe and a soda can worth of psychiatric drugs on a date.)

Sabrina TVBand: In the past you described the WEG Ghostbuters RPG as being “a forgotten gem of 1980s RPG design”. What are some other games that you think are forgotten and overlooked? They don’t have to be from the 80s.

Ewen Cluney: I can’t think of anything that goes to quite the level of WEG Ghostbusters, since as far as I know its designers essentially invented die pools and had the first or at least some of the earliest examples of some other innovations. White Wolf’s Street Fighter game had some problems, but I loved what they were trying to do at least. One that came out of the Forge’s early days that I particularly liked was Timothy Kleinert’s The Mountain Witch, which fosters a tale of trust and betrayal as a group of ronin ascend a mountain to confront an evil sorcerer. (Unfortunately the Kickstarter he did for a new edition stopped updating in 2019, though the PDF of the original version is still available.)

Sabrina TVBand: Have you thought about re-releasing the Sixtacular SRD under a non-OGL license?

Ewen Cluney: There hasn’t been a ton of interest in Sixtacular—one guy messaged me about how he was working on a game he described as being like if Mel Brooks made a Lord of the Rings parody—so I haven’t done much of anything with it aside from working a bit on Zaptacular. I am definitely not opposed to re-releasing it under a different license, especially if it might create some interest in the system.

Sabrina TVBand: You’ve mentioned being inspired by D6, PDQ, Risus, and FATE in the past. These systems share a lot of similarities, but also have things that make them very distinct from one another. What speaks to you about these systems?

Ewen Cluney: RPGs have traditionally been more on the “physics engine” end of things, even when the physics they’re modeling aren’t always realistic. Games like Risus and FATE center the characters in narrative terms, and particularly around the time when those games were coming out, that was something of a revelation for me. I’d always wanted RPGs to produce cool stories, and they were another step towards better understanding how to do that.

Sabrina TVBand: If you read the Maid RPG piece, is there anything you’d like to add? Any corrections, comments, or observations, about the article or Maid RPG in general?

Ewen Cluney: Your idea about splitting Special Qualities into two categories¹ is actually something I’m planning to do with Kagegami High, with separate tables for “Quirks” and “Aberrations.” While the rules don’t make them matter mechanically per se, it still doesn’t feel great when another player rolled a Cyborg Angel and your character’s most notable features are Freckles and Glasses.

Sabrina TVBand: What other future plans do you have for Kagegami High?

Ewen Cluney: Kagegami High was a turning point for me in that it got me interested in conspiracy theories, fringe culture, and surrealism, albeit as a skeptical observer. Because of that I’ve learned a lot more about the kinds of things that went into the Kagegami High setting, so I have a lot of ideas for both things to add to the setting and ways to help the game better foster the kinds of narratives you get in titles like the Illuminatus! trilogy, Inside Job, and Two Flat Earthers Kidnap a Freemason, where strange but powerful organizations and pathetic weirdos are caught up in a chaotic mess of conflicts. I started on a supplement called Kageshima Declassified, but it wound up being so expansive that I decided to outright try to do a Second Edition instead. New stuff I’m working on includes:

• Rules for “handouts” in the style of some Japanese TRPGs that give each PC a bit of backstory specific to the current scenario.
• Refined rules for Stress Explosions where instead of acting out your SE for X minutes, the player can opt to have Outbursts to reduce Stress, and carrying too many points has penalties.
• Powers, similar to in Maid RPG.
• PCs get connections to various groups/organizations that they can leverage.
• More locations, rogue school clubs, more characters, and strange gods like Equestor the Horse God of Vengeance, Ayane the AllSchoolGirl, and Manos.
• Even more tables, of course.

Sabrina TVBand: Is there anything you’d like to plug? And is there anything you’ve made that you feel is very slept on?

Ewen Cluney: Of my original games, Melancholy Kaiju is probably my overall favorite. It’s a simple shared-narration thing about kaiju experiencing urban ennui, kind of in the vein of Saint Young Men. The idea came simply from seeing soft vinyl toys at the Super 7 shop in San Francisco, and it took a long time to figure out what kind of game I could possibly make to fit the name I’d jotted down.

My biggest endeavor right now is mechanical keyboards, which was one of the things I latched onto to stay sane during the pandemic. I now run an Etsy shop (weirdlittlekeebs.com) where I sell hand-built keyboards, PCBs, and other related stuff. Keyboards can be weird, small, and personal, much like TTRPGs. I’m currently in the process of designing a keyboard I’m calling the Lexicon, which is optimized for writing prose. I’m taking a slow and careful approach with it, so if that sounds interesting to you, please keep an eye out on my social media or Etsy.

Likewise, I’m getting close to publishing the first volume of my isekai novel series Memes of the Prophets, which has a mixture of silliness, high fantasy, worldbuilding, and exploring big ideas.

Sabrina TVBand: Any final words for our readers?

Ewen Cluney: Lately I’ve been listening to Ed Zitron’s podcast Better Offline and his appearances on some other podcasts. He’s a fierce critic of the tech industry and what he calls the “Rot Economy,” the self-destructive Growth at All Costs mentality that’s depressingly common in business and especially tech. I’ve realized that part of the appeal of things like DIY keyboards and independent TTRPGs is that they can be an oasis, a place away from the carnage of venture capital where we can make and enjoy things that people find entertaining and even useful.

Ewen Cluney’s games can be found at DriveThruRPG and itch.io.

1. The quote Ewen is referring to from the Maid RPG piece: If a revised edition is ever released I’d love it if the random Special Qualities tables were divided into “deep” and “cosmetic” categories; a player who rolls an amnesiac fairy necromancer will have a lot more to work with than someone who rolled a character with freckles, black leather gloves, and curly hair. I always tell my players to roll characters with two “deep” qualities and one “cosmetic” quality. ↩︎