Decuma: Card Gaming Before Role Playing (Interview with Kimi Hughes)

One thing I’d like to start doing on this blog is interviewing various people in the tabletop gaming communities (board games, RPGs, etc.). I used to do this back when I did the Boards & Swords podcast solo, and I miss talking with new people and finding out about cool new projects in the works. At the time that I realized this, I also came across a brand new Kickstarter called “Decuma” from first time Kickstarter company Golden Lasso Games. 

Golden Lasso Games is the brainchild of Kimi Hughes, one of the hosts of the Happy Jacks RPG podcast. I’ve talked about Happy Jacks before in my video last year highlighting women in RPGs. I also follow a few cosplayers, and Kimi is very active in that community as well (her company name stems off the fact that she is a big fan of Wonder Woman).

Decuma, which has already 3 times the original 10K funding goal as of me writing this, is described as the “R&D for your RPG”. Using a deck of tarot cards that is split into three different sections, one for character connections, location building, and world dynamics, the players and GM will draw cards and use them to develop the world in which they will be playing in. The artwork is beautiful and I immediately backed this Kickstarter, but I wanted to talk to Kimi and get some insight into what led towards this design:

(Images taken from the Decuma Kickstarter, with permission)

Chris: How did you come up with the name "Decuma"? Is there a specific meaning behind the name?

Kimi: “Decuma” is one of the Roman Fates, goddesses who ruled over the events and length of a mortal's life. While her sisters wove and cut the threads of life, Decuma was in charge of measuring and allotting the thread. It seemed like a great name for a game that is all about creating a world and the events in the PC’s lives. Also, it sounds like “deck” and my game is a deck of cards. That makes my nerdy heart smile.

Chris: How long has this project been in the works/how did you come up with the idea?

Kimi: Decuma has been in the works for over a year. I started off in late 2018 running a few tests of the idea and got a lot of great feedback. As the idea developed, I kept revamping the design and the questions on the cards to make it work with any setting or system. Eventually, Decuma was ready for beta testing and we spent about 6 months gathering feedback from people all over the world to make the game better. 

The idea evolved from my experience GMing. I really loved having my players invest in my campaigns by collaborating with me on world building and creating backstory connections before the game even started. I was using bits and pieces of many games to achieve this, like the character connections from PBTA hacks, Microscope or The Quiet Year for world building, but nothing was really designed to work together or with ANY TTRPG system. I decided to create something to fill a gap that I saw in my GM toolkit. 

Chris: Based on the Kickstarter page, it seems like this is something that you would use at a "Session 0" of a new RPG campaign. Is that correct?

Kimi: Yes, Decuma is designed to be a “game before your game’ that you play before you start your campaign. It is a great thing to do as part of a session 0, and includes steps where the group agrees on the tone of the campaign, it introduces the X-card mechanic, and more that can then be normalized and continued throughout the campaign. 

Chris: FYI, if you want more information on the X-card and why it is such an important tool, click here.

Getting back to the Kickstarter, is Decuma designed to be used for more long form campaigns? Would there be any benefit to using it in one shot games?

Kimi: Decuma is highly adaptable, so there are variations that can be played to prepare to prepare for any style game. There is a shorter version that you can play to lay the groundwork for a one-shot, which I find very beneficial when I run games at conventions. By spending a few minutes on Decuma collaboration, the group is able to save a ton of the precious one-shot game time getting to know each other’s characters and the game world. A full 40-90 minute version of Decuma gives a more in-depth collaboration which is ideal for a long-form campaign. You can even customize Decuma to work with pre-written adventures that already include a lot of details.

Chris: When you say a “few minutes”, about how long are we talking about? Considering that most convention one-shots are only 4 hours long.

Kimi: It’s really up to the GM. If you only have every player do a single character connection card, it could take 5-10 minutes. You’d still have a bit of backstory between characters. This is especially helpful at conventions when you are usually working with pre-generated characters. Doing a few Decuma cards lets the players customize things a bit. Or, if you want a bit more world-building, deal one card of each type (character connection, location and world-dynamics) and get a fuller experience in about 20-30 minutes. Obviously, if you have a very talkative group it might take a bit longer, but with good facilitating, it can go very quickly. 

Chris: There are a lot of games and tools that people can use to help develop their campaigns, what makes Decuma so different?

Kimi: Decuma creates connections between the PCs, details about the game’s location (including physical features, NPCs and cultural aspects), and world dynamics that define the adventuring party’s history together. It is specifically designed to set up for tabletop RPG games. There are a lot of other games that GMs use for world building, but most of them are not designed to add all of these elements specifically to use for that purpose. Microscope and The Quiet Year are amazing games that I already mentioned, but they are designed to be narrative experiences unto themselves. They can be shoehorned into session 0 tools, but you'd have to stitch together elements from multiple games to start approaching Decuma’s thoroughness. 

Chris: I will admit, the idea of having just one tool to do all of that is very appealing, which is why I was easily convinced to back the project. Now, you've already surpassed your funding goal by a long shot, but what kinds of stretch goals are you now hoping to unlock?

Kimi: We are currently working on our last planned stretch goals, which unlock gold leaf detailing on the cards. These gold details will be Kickstarter exclusives and won’t be in future printings of the game. I don’t know if we will be adding more official stretch goals. We want to focus on delivering what we’ve already promised at the highest possible quality, but we will be giving our artist a raise! We have been delighted and more than a little surprised that Decuma funded in less than a day and has rocketed past our planned goals so quickly! (Note, between when Kimi sent me this and the article getting published, this goal has been met!)

Thanks again to Kimi for talking with me about Decuma. I highly suggest that everyone go take a look at their Kickstarter page to see all the great stuff included with Decuma. Even if you aren’t a RPG player or don’t have the ability to back, chances are that you know someone who could benefit from this game, so send them the link to this article to check out! If you have any follow up questions, you can email Golden Lasso Games at info@goldenlassogames.com, or you can find Kimi on Twitter @goldenlassogirl.

Who would you like me to talk to next? Let me know in the comments, or message me on Facebook (facebook.com/boardsandswordspod) and Twitter (twitter.com/christheprof).