Over/Autopsy
Ingredients:
What’s the secret sauce in Over/Under? It seems like it shouldn’t/can’t be replicated, but maybe identifying some of its pieces could lead to making a new thing that captures some of the flavor and is worthy of pointing at O/U for its inspiration.
It tapped already established and motivated communities with an over representation of certain skills. Many people found and joined O/U because of Mothership Month 2025. There were a lot of Wardens (game masters) playing because most people paying attention to MM25 play and run Mothership. Indie RPG sickos also buy/play/run a billion other games.
Within that group, many were already familiar with the specific setting Prospero’s Dream and have skills that help when running games for friends and strangers. I’m thinking about flexibility, improvisation, and communication specifically.
The abundance of creatives both TTRPG scene connected and otherwise was hugely impactful. Artists of all kinds were running around the station creating things. This set off a feedback loop with demand for art, followed by further exploration and play within the shared space.
It was like a group of children gleefully running through an astral plane mansion, flinging doors open, claiming their rooms, and decorating them. The setting was big enough so there wasn’t any real limitation or competition for new space.
The simulated space wasn’t strict or defined enough to create obstacles between locations. Some people did physically ‘travel’ between locations (channels/threads) but there was no real shared map or game mechanics that kept us from teleporting all over the place to roleplay different scenes. I’m sure people stretched and bent the timeline by roleplaying in multiple places simultaneously while also engaged in simulated electronic communication.
I believe having a more gameified virtual space would have helped make the pacing more manageable/digestible. I like games where travel between locations is an impactful decision with consequences. It takes time, planning, and resources to move, and you might miss something by doing so. The upside to removing all these artificial barriers, was minimal motivation for players to dip outside the server to get around those limitations.
Outlanders I’m going to define as anyone coming into O/U by other weird circumstances. People that haven’t ever played a TTRPG, or stumbled into the game by virtue of some weird path of referral from friends. It caused problems in some cases, but for the most part, having this wildcard derailed some preconceived notions about the setting/tone/spirit of the game.
Organizers! Either by virtue of their real world jobs or facility with online spaces, these people were doing some amazing things with herding cats. Maybe one of them can speak to what that was like, cause it sure as hell wasn’t me. The OP-CAL thread system and organization during the Chokespawn incident I described as like walking into a NASA command center. The logistics of creating huge and complex spreadsheets to track and pay players, strategize the war game, predict votes, and find spies was pretty insane.
The buy-in during the Chokespawn incident was so intense because people thought character lives were on the line, and if they failed those players were out of the game we were all so invested in. Like an amusement park ride or good horror movie, there is room to explore some very intense feelings like fear in a relatively safe environment.
Death:
To me, the stakes being very high for ‘dying’ in the game is a net positive. For many others it very much isn’t. I don’t think there’s an wrong answer to this spectrum so long as you’re not at one hyper extreme of the discussion.
My character died about three weeks into the monthlong game. When I got down to the Choke, I got to chat with people OOC (and pseudo IC) who my character strongly advocated for assassinating. I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me re-evaluate my feelings on having very high stakes.
Capese was whacked off day two or three I think? He was down there roleplaying up a storm mostly by himself, stuck in some sort of strange purgatory that didn’t line up with Prospero’s Dream at all because of the limitations of the game. It must have been weird for him to get snippets of information without context coming down every now and again from de-oxed or assassinated players. It was kind of messed up to be honest.
I think the trade-offs of potential meta-gaming (intentional or unintentional) by letting people make new characters is incredibly hard to predict. When OPSEC and the war game are still relevant, I don’t think you can let people back into the game proper even as new characters. I have low confidence in this opinion because I haven’t done these discord based PBP war games before.
It fucked me up to get to know more about Jenny Calabrese the character and chat with the player Dusk Witch, who had an amazing arc and played very well. I know 1000% that Dusk Witch could have easily made a new character, dived back into the game, and had a killer time enjoying the rest of O/U without meta-gaming.
The problem is that I don’t believe that’s the case with all the other players that might find themselves in a similar situation. It only takes one asshole to ruin many other peoples’ hard work by blasting critical meta-info back into the game as a new character. It feels bad man.
Whatever new PBP things people make after being inspired by O/U, I suggest they make them shorter than 30 days long. That should dampen the sting of character perma-death (KEEP DEATH AS A POTENTIAL OUTCOME). Better yet, figure out some other creative way that dead players can still participate in the game from a new angle.
In my West Marches style campaign, at one session I passed out character cards for CEOs of various corporations within our game. I told the players they were going to simulate a meeting between these NPC characters in order to decide how to react to the events their PCs were currently embroiled in. Each card had some public and private/secret motivations to guide them.
It turned out to be the best 20 minutes of that particular 9 session arc in my opinion. They got WAY into it and impacted the rest of their game. They didn’t give a shit if it affected their characters or their cherished NPCs in a negative way. I think something similar could be done with dead players in games like O/U.
Conclusion:
Other indie TTRPGs would be silly not to try something similar with one of their campaign settings as a promo for a crowdfunding event. There are a ton of passionate people that were deeply involved in O/U to bring on or get help from (especially people that played the boss roles).
Game good.