No Dice Unrolled has never hidden the interest in the production of Brancalonia, the spaghetti fantasy RPG. After the announcement, we wanted to ask Mauro Longo, one of the game’s authors, some questions about the project.
The time has finally come to start the Kickstarter campaign. How do you feel? You are ready?
Long the way, but great the goal! And on the other hand, we were conceived ready …
Did you expect such a warm welcome?
Day after day countless rogues are coming to our hideout from the four corners of the Kingdom, to join the banners of the Gallows Company! We can only rejoice … soon we will have the numbers not only to tempt the Kickstarter but also to oust the Catozzi scions from the throne room and conquer the left-boot nation!
When very often it is difficult to find new ideas for settings and games, Brancalonia is the demonstration that a good idea is always a winner. How did the spark ignite?
The foolish and buffoonish spirit has always animated us … the real question is how it happened that nobody before us has ever thought of doing such an obvious thing (of course apart from Kata Kumbas and some other historical title)? We are always imitating the American fantasy, what the British, the Northern Europeans, the Germans do … No one has focused on the tradition of Italian fantasy, one of the richest, oldest, most composite and deepest ever! You tell me: how come nobody else got the spark before?
While showing itself as a buffoonish work, already in the initial news there is a large number of references to many literary and cinematographic works. Was the creation of the text long and fraught with obstacles?
Indeed it is so: in Brancalonia many different souls coexist; from the “cultured” fantasy of Italian origin to the plebeian film of the 70s, from regional folklore to the immense local fairy tale tradition. Irony and citations, but also war and misery, tragic and comic, sacred and profane. Without forgetting that there are many contemporary literary components merged into the project; the tales of Zappa e Spada, the novel of Ignoranza Eroica, quotations from the works of Guerri, Calvino, Pederiali, De Feo and many others … If all these contributions fill us with quintals of exceptional material, the real challenge is to merge all together to have a worthy and coherent game world … after all we are here to play role-playing, not to make literary criticism!
Should we all be ready the first few days of the campaign to get early birds? Will there be discounts for the swiftest?
There are no discounts, but exclusive gifts for the fastest!
Will the Stretch Goals be just adventures and pages added to the manual or have your minds also thought of tangible rewards such as dice, bags and other trinkets?
Our fervent mind never turns away from the trinkets: in the rascal saddlebag you will see that there will be every treasure!
What did you have the most fun in thinking about Brancalonia and which instead harassed your brains to turn it into a game?
Building the world, its characters, its stories and adventures is the funniest part, and perhaps the easiest for many of us; Acheron Books teems with writers and storytellers. Many of us are also game authors or players, but the main vocation of all of us is certainly linked to plots, world-building, storytelling, intrigues, quotes, level design and twists. More complex, but certainly stimulating, the phase in which all these aspects are brought into the game system, to create the perfect adaptation for the 5th Edition. Perhaps the most difficult and boring question is marketing; we are all creatives, artists, storytellers and authors, and having to manage the most practical aspects of these projects (I speak for myself) is the thing I like least!
Will you not dare to avoid the task of writing new volumes in the near future which will follow the first book of Brancalonia?
It would certainly not be a problem: Brancalonia lends itself to a thousand expansions, a thousand insights, a thousand thousand ideas and found … of course, the key point is to see how the campaign for the Basic Manual will go … everything will depend on it … one thing, however, we are certain: we will always remain in the bad peninsula and in the surrounding seas and islands. We are not interested in delving into other kingdoms other than reverse Italy of Brancalonia.
How much do you laugh playing Brancalonia with a group of fans?
If we weren’t having fun first, we wouldn’t be here. Brancalonia is exactly the project we have been dreaming of for years!
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