At Tabletop Scotland this year, I bumped into Hive Mind Games, put on my RPG news blogger hat and pestered them about upcoming projects.
I heard about Ritual, a solo horror RPG in which the player actually enacts a ritual. Imagine my delight! Normally, and understandably, publishers are not up for flirting with dramatic headlines, but Hive Mind Games are braver. Surely a roleplaying game that seems to invoke (evoke?) occult practices might just attract some attention?
So, here we are with an interview with Josh, Hive Mind Games’ co-founder in an interview that discusses how Ritual draws on real schools of magick and will get players interested in the occult.
A Ritual interview with Hive Mind Games’ Josh
Hive Mind Games is based in Manchester and believes publishing ethically created tabletop games is possible.
What’s Ritual, and when does the campaign go live?
Ritual is an experimental solo horror RPG in which you, the player, must undertake physical rituals to play the game! The Kickstarter goes live Oct 19th and will have you chanting verse, reciting spells, lighting candles, drawing sigils whilst immersed in an intensely creepy atmosphere to fend-off the ancient and unimaginably evil; KING
Do you think there’s been an increase in people interested in solo RPGs, and why might that be?
I’ve a feeling it’s because it’s easier to get a game going than a group RPG!
That and I think they’re a great test bed for experimental ideas – you can make smaller, self-contained and weird games because a player can just sit down and play for an hour on their own terms. Can’t really do that when it comes to getting a group together in person or on-line. You’d spend more time organising the game than playing!
Is Ritual designed to get people interested in the occult?
It definitely will do that but it wasn’t the intent! Ritual started off as a set of musings about making a properly scary TTRPG; physicalising the ritual of the game is a way to immerse the player very deeply in a creepy atmosphere – you really feel the horror reciting spells by candlelight! However, the rituals in the game are close enough to real ones that if you enjoy them, you’d definitely get something out of the real deal.
The pitch for Ritual is that the player actually enacts a ritual but is it a real ritual, something based on a real ritual or entirely a work of fiction?
Hah, well! That depends on what type of magick you subscribe to!
I wrote the rituals in the game from scratch but I did a lot of reading and drew heavily from real schools of magick. Folks who practice will recognise elements of the rituals contained within, particularly parts like methods of “charging” magical items and specific ritual elements that I’ve reworked into a larger whole. However, I was very careful to ensure that they were “obsolete” in the context of the game; I didn’t want players firing off anything unintentionally whilst playing!
Magick is as real as you believe it is though, so I did bookend the game with two real rituals to contain anything released during play! One is recited when you open the game, and the second when you’re done playing and close it again.
Are you expecting any backlash?
It’d be a nice problem to have! I didn’t think we’d get the reach to be noticed by them but ay, it could be fun? The game is definitely an occult work though; every aspect of preparing, playing and winning or losing is built upon overtly occult foundations so they’d definitely find something to backlash about!
Are tabletop RPGs like D&D somewhat connected to the occult, or might it make it more compelling or approachable to gamers?
Other than drawing inspiration for enemies, I don’t think D&D has much to do with real occultism. Very few concepts of practising occultism made it into D&D in a recognisable state, or at least in a way that might be useful. Sure concepts like astral projection are in D&D, but are they going to help you work out how to master such a feat with real magick? Unlikely.
I feel it’s probably that the same nerds playing D&D are also likely to get into magick and occultism – both involve a lot of reading!
Do you think, in hindsight, the Satanic Panic helped make D&D more popular in the end?
Absolutely. Tell teenagers not to do a thing and they’re gonna want to do it more – I think it made D&D look far, far cooler! Was that worth the very real hurt the Satanic Panic caused? Probably not.
Are people inappropriately scared of the occult?
Tricky to answer! Is occultism going to rip open a portal to hell and summon a daemon? I suspect not. But, you can definitely give yourself a real bad time misusing the occult. Cursing yourself or accidentally unleashing an entity upon your own head is disastrous, and easy to do if you’re careless. Take it seriously and be cautious certainly, but I do not think people should be fearful of it.
Are people inappropriately scared of religious hardliners?
Now this one is straight forward; no, I don’t think being scared of religious hardliners is inappropriate at all! History is full of religious driven bloodshed. The last executions of witches were the 18th century; not all that long ago! More recently you’ve had the Satanic panic of the 70s and 80s, in which people were falsely accused of crimes and imprisoned for decades; lives were ruined over obviously fallacious and ridiculous evidence. More dangerous still are the modern evangelical right; you can draw a straight line from the satanic panic to Q Anon and pizza gate. Lets not forget that’s a group known for being heavily armed and extremely reactionary.
I believe religious hardliners can be very, very dangerous.
Does “KING” in Ritual, the enemy or opponent we face, have a real-life occult mirror? Asmodeus? Astaroth? Baphomet?
KING is an amalgamation of many different evil deities, daemons, entities and miscreants, though is written to be chief of all them all despite HIS lack of desire to rule. I didn’t want to be too constrained by the existing lore of any real entity and rewriting one felt like a quick way to get a barrage of corrections!
KING comes from before: upon enacting creation, God found KING fully formed and active and remains ignorant of KING’s origins still. Like rising-damp and black mould, KING’s evil seeps into mortal affairs, corrupting and poisoning them to enact great carnage and bloodshed. HE is referred to in written record only very rarely, and delights in the near complete secrecy that surrounds HIS atrocities.
The ten crowns of the beast of revelations belong to KING.
How likely are players to save their souls from eternal damnation if they complete Ritual?
The most clever and quick witted have a chance at besting KING; you’d have to be clever to beat the guy the devil is afraid of!
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