The Watch is a tabletop roleplaying game set in a "light fantasy" setting known as The Clanlands. It takes place during a dark and horrific war between the now-united ten clans who live there and an invading force, known only as The Shadow.
The Shadow is a powerful and insidious enemy that is able to enter the minds of its opponents and slowly turn them to its side; twisting them into unnatural foes. For reasons unknown, The Shadow is able to more easily influence the minds of men, and has turned a great deal of the clan's soldiers against itself.
With most of its fighting force crippled or worse, the clans have joined together and begun enlisting new warriors to defend their homes. Women and non-binary femme people who seem better able to resist The Shadow's hold have been recruited, trained, promoted, and formed into a new order: The Watch.
In The Watch, you'll play a group of elite soldiers who are called upon time and time again to defend villages, attack The Shadow's forces at key locations, scout the enemy's lines, and much more. Each mission comes with its fair share of costs and compromises and you'll need to navigate them in order to be ready to heed the next call to action.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
New Stretch Goal
about 7 years ago
– Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 10:13:06 AM
Hello Backers!
Only 5 more days left! Woo hoo!
New Stretch Goal
It's a pleasure to announce our next stretch goal for the campaign: The Companion Deck which will fund at $23,500. If we reach this next stretch goal, we'll create a companion deck of approximately 30-50 cards that all backers can add-on to their pledge for $16 ($12 USD).
The deck will contain NPC portraits with quick bios to help MC's create on-the-spot characters (this ties in directly with our Watch Captain pledge level), mission role cards, and a slew of useful reference cards to enhance your experience at the table.
If we fund this at the last minute, don't worry, we'll be allowing convenient add-ons through backerkit after the campaign ends so you won't miss out.
Card Samples
Here's some mock-ups of what to expect in the deck:
NPC Card
Mission Setup Reference Card
Mission Role Card
Reinforcements Have Arrived!
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 09:08:16 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Video: Character creation walkthrough
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 02:52:11 AM
Good morning, folks! Squeezing in a quick update this morning before running The Watch at Breakout Con this weekend...
Yesterday, Drew made a video walk-through of character creation, using the Bear as an example. It's a great look at how character creation works, for anyone looking to run The Watch who hasn't played PBTA games before.
Have a happy Friday!
Now that we're funded, let's talk stretch goals!
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 09:33:34 AM
Hello, folks. I’m so excited to announce that we are FUNDED with TEN DAYS TO GO. Thank you all SO SO MUCH for your support! I'm absolutely humbled by all of the people who have put time and effort into boosting our campaign's success. This wouldn't have been possible without your hard work and support.
And of course, now that we’re funded, it’s time to talk about…
Stretch Goals!
First, after some discussion, we’ve decided to revise the amount of the first stretch goal somewhat. (Setting stretch goal amounts at the beginning of the campaign is always tricky, because it’s a shot in the dark based on how you think things will go.) We’re lowering the first stretch goal to $21,000 CAD - at which point the extended playbooks of the Eagle, Fox, and Raven will be added. And because more playbooks mean MORE ART, we’ve also added two more slots for the Marshall backer level, so you can purchase your very own playbook likeness, if you missed out earlier.
This is so that we can run stretch goal #1 and stretch goal #2 at the same time. Wacky!
So what is stretch goal #2? We want to make a deck of reference cards with NPC portraits, based on photographs that you send us! Those of you familiar with Claudia’s work might have seen the portraits she did for the Night Witches card deck, and we’d like to do something similar.
So here’s how it’s going to work:
We’ve added a new backer tier, called Watch Captain at $179 CAD ($125 USD). Backing at this level will get you a book, and you'll be able to send us a photo of a woman/non-binary/genderqueer person for our artist to transform into the image of a member of The Watch, which will be used as the art for one of the cards in the deck. (The subject's consent must be given to use their image.) If at least 20 people back at the Watch Captain level before the end of the campaign, we’ll make a deck of NPC and reference cards that will be available as an add-on during the campaign, through BackerKit, or for purchase after the campaign.
And if we don’t get 20 interested backers at that level, then we’ll still include the NPC portraits as an appendix in the main book, so that your NPC portrait will become part of the final game.
Lastly! We do have one final stretch goal in mind. It sure would be nice to be able to do hardcover! Of course, that will depend entirely on how funding goes over the next ten days, but we’ll keep an eye on things and let you know a number for when that would be feasible when that becomes a bit more clear.
Internet Buzz
We were lucky enough to be interviewed by Ben Mandall of the website Gaming Trend. You can read the article here.
Thanks again to all of you for being wonderful humans. Let’s keep making this better and better!
Smart people saying smart things about our game
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Mar 06, 2017 at 08:36:50 PM
First, thank you to everyone who has jumped on board in the last week! It's been very encouraging seeing the upswing of support during the awful middle doldrums of the campaign, and thanks to the surge in support we're now 86% funded! That means (as of the time of writing this post) we are a mere $1573 USD from meeting our goal!
We are so. Very. Close! So as always, sharing is caring, and thanks for your support.
With that out of the way, let's move on to the smart things by smart people!
Tony Lower-Basch on relationship mechanics and player agency
Something that has been incredibly gratifying has been seeing the excitement that has been generated around The Watch - both in people who have played the game and people looking forward to playing the game. And some were so on point that I wanted to share them here.
First, the inimitable Tony Lower-Basch - GM extraordinaire and veteran designer of awesome games like Misery Bubblegum and Capes - has posted part 2 of his Dreamation writeup - and it is absolutely worth reading even if you weren't a player in the game. Some game writeups are just story summaries, which can be boring to read if you weren't at the table or aren't otherwise invested in the stories being created. But Tony does an excellent job of talking about how the mechanics shaped play, and about the social implications of mechanics that model relationships and how important it is to preserve player agency, even when the end goal is something positive:
"I'm going to indulge in a quick tangent here about the rules: The Open Up to Someone rules, particularly, have a really neat little element ... you get some benefits (usually camaraderie) for opening up to someone, but they can get some benefits from being opened up to. That means that you're genuinely helping your friends when you go to them. The neat thing, though, is that their getting benefits is optional. They can decline to be influenced, depending on how they respond. That kind of firm agency is so important in rules. You might not think that being given good mechanical bennies could be an intrusive act, but when it's accompanied by a lack of control? No bueno. So it's really good that the rule says clearly "*If* you respond to their vulnerability with respect and compassion, then you benefit."
As you might guess, this comes up right now because Cal pretty consistenty took a hard pass on receiving those benefits. She was very much not the touchy-feely type, and her response to vulnerability was often disdain and disapproval. As I said previously, The Watch does a terrific job of letting people focus on either the tactical soldiering, or the emotional work, or both. Cal focused on the soldiering, and I think there was plenty of game for her ... and her focus only provided better drama and opportunities for the people whose focus was different. Seeing the different priorities cohabitate smoothly was such cool stuff!"
Wes Schneider on the importance of baking inclusion into world-building
At GenCon 2016, it was my very great honor and privilege to be an Industry Insider Featured Presenter, where I was part of an all-star panel on best practices for world-building alongside Wes Schneider, Kathryn Hymes, Ken Hite, and Ajit George. During the panel, I was grateful to Wes Schneider (the Editor-in-Chief and co-creator of Pathfinder) for the smart things he said about why inclusive world-building is crucial.
Well, this past weekend Wes posted a link to our KickStarter on his Tumblr and got challenged on the "necessity" of specifying women and/or nonbinary PCs - and his response was great and respectful and also super on-point:
"Certainly one of the features of tabletop RPGs is that one CAN make any character you want—but isn’t it nicer when you don’t have to shoehorn yourself into the narrative? Isn’t it better when the place for you and your experience is made for you by the game designers? Isn’t it preferable when the characters you want to play aren’t a homebrew mod or kit-bash? And doesn’t it say a lot about the value that designers place on your experience when they choose to include/prioritize it in their game? The default character variety here is distinctive, clever, even important, it also supports the story and world being explored, so it all seems like a natural choice."
and
"I’m not calling anyone out here—maybe everyone reading this has rich fantasy relationships. But consider the ramifications of Camelot ruled by two Guineveres, of a world-spanning church where the Ur-Pope must be genderless or all genders at once, or of a last martial stand against evil that features no male defenders (oops, that’s exactly The Watch’s gig). The ripples that unfold from these relatively basic alterations have effects on a world that are equal to (if not far greater than) the inclusion of gremlins or magic swords.
Considering these levers and how you might adjust them in your worldbuilding and storytelling does not mean that suddenly your game needs to be all about gender dynamics or sexy times. But, as soon as you start adjusting things, the world changes, assumptions get challenged, things become more interesting, and the potential for new stories that we haven’t all heard a thousand times before increases. This is merely one way to make that happen, but it’s a damn good one."
