Welcome to congas.blog!

My name is Tim and I design conversation games (or "congas"), which are more cumbersomely known as table-top role-playing games (TTRPGs). I am probably best known for Ruins & Rogues and for moderating the NSR Cauldron community on Discord.

Why "congas.blog"?

It was a dumb joke at first. "TTRPGs is a bad name. We should call them congas." But then I kept thinking about it, and it kept making me laugh, and I started to think, "Is this just stupid enough to stick?"

"Congas" is a silly word. Everyone knows a conga is a drum. People will think you're joking if you say a conga is a game you play by having a conversation.

I think that's why I like it. The term "role-playing game" was coined to lend an air of respectability to the young hobby. But personally, I think I could use a term to remind me not to take these games too seriously.

Why not keep using your old blog?

I think I'm at something of a transition point in my "career" in the hobby. I spent a few years getting my own variant of Dungeons & Dragons out of my system (as all new designers must) and now I'm ready to move on to other things.

The majority of posts on my old blog either don't reflect my current views or have to do with some precursor to Ruins & Rogues that I won't be releasing anymore, so it feels like it's time for a change. But I want to bring some of the best ideas from the old blog forward in the form of new and updated posts.

Why do you design games?

The capacity to be in authority is a significant but too often underdeveloped side of the human personality. How many people in the world today are allowed to be in charge of anything important? Billions are not.

Games put the player in charge and develop that side of the player's personality. I love introducing people to games and watching a hidden side of them unfold.

Games show us that everyone has the potential to be in charge or have a say in something important, and in doing that, I think games have a way of revealing the potential that exists for a better world.

Why do you design conversation games?

As a designer and a referee, congas make creativity cheap, accessible, and best of all, collaborative. As a player, the freedom to do anything that I can imagine is a potent form of uncertainty and, therefore, of surprise, laughter, and joy.

Why move on from D&D-like games?

I've started to realize that the fantasy genre is more or less diametrically opposed to both my political views and what I want my art to be about.

Fantasy and genre fiction pose the following formula: "Where civilization rises, people are less free and nature is less beautiful. Where civilization falls, people are more free and nature is more beautiful."

But I think that, in the modern world, "people are less free and nature is less beautiful" for precisely the opposite reason: under capitalism, civilization is headed for nuclear war and catastrophic collapse.

I think a new flowering of civilization under socialism is precisely what is necessary to expand human freedom and protect our natural environment. I want my art to reflect that and reveal the potential for that development.

So what are you going to make next?

I'm not sure! I'm looking into a few new things.

  1. Matrix games seem like a good way to get players involved in realistic and dynamic social and political situations.
  2. Mystery congas like Call of Cthulhu seem to be more compatible with realistic settings, and realistic settings may be more compatible with the art I want to make. (Jubensha and social deduction games are also interesting along these lines.)
  3. Solo games, journaling games, and drawing games might be better media for challenging themes that you wouldn't necessarily want to explore with a group of friends.

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