🎙️ L.N. Hunter — An interview with the author of Religion, the Board Game (Second Edition)
Would it be safe to say you have opinions on religion?
Absolutely, but I try not to be overly vocal about it. Religions and belief systems are fascinating, but I struggle to understand them—or rather, to understand how people choose to behave within their structures.
My intention here was to poke some good-natured fun at both religion and board gaming, and I hope I’m not offending anyone in either camp.
Based purely on the rules you’ve established above, which religion do you think would have the greatest odds to win?
I think current world events suggest that a combination of Technology and Narcissism will come out on top, but might not actually achieve victory before destroying the world.
Are you a big board game player?
Yes, to the degree that it’s cutting into my writing time, though I’m making a small attempt to combine both in blog posts for Zatu (a large UK game store). If anyone’s interested in reading. My current favourite game is the absolutely brilliant Ark Nova.
Are there any specific board games that inspired this idea?
Not really; it was more about how badly written some rulebooks are! Taking Ark Nova as an example, though it’s by no means a poor rulebook, gameplay information is distributed in what feels like a haphazard fashion across a couple of books, both of which are very terse. The situation isn’t helped by the game’s German origin, in that there are a few terms which don’t have the best English translation. I’m pretty sure that mere mortals wouldn’t be able to learn the game solely from the in-box rules, but thank goodness for the availability of gameplay videos and online tutorials.
I don’t mean to pick on that game; really good rulebooks are the exception rather than the norm. On that note, I was delighted to see a recent episode of Chris George’s Room and Board podcast, in which he outlines what makes a rulebook great. I could ramble on for ages about how writing rulebooks, instruction manuals, or user guides requires a different skillset than designing a game or appliance, but the basic message, which Chris touches on, is: put yourself in the reader’s shoes and think about they need, not just about the details of the game/appliance.
On the religion side, the ‘rules’ there seem as thoroughly arbitrary, complicated and inconsistent as the best (or worst?) of board games, and somehow, treating all that as a game seemed the most logical thing for me to do!
I will note that there are a couple of recent games that definitely weren’t inspirations, as I wrote this quite some time before they made a public appearance. Almighty, the Godliest God Game and Gods & Mortals look like a lot of fun to play, and might be the closest this bit of writing could be as a viable game (though in those games you play as gods, not religions—a subtle distinction). Maybe there was some cosmic religions/games proto-idea floating around the universe a few months ago, and it pinged in several minds at once :-) (The Aliens religion at work, perhaps.)
How do you think Narcissism and Ur would end up affecting the gameplay and strategy of the game for players?
This is where I cheated a bit: I think Narcissism already exists in the minds of some ‘players’ :-o
How many times has this story been rejected by other markets?
This was the very first submission! It’s difficult to find humour markets, at least the sort of humour I tend to write, but Foofaraw’s been nice to me a few times.
What book are you reading right now?
I’m currently working through Mary Roach’s Replaceable You. It’s fascinating and gruesome in equal measure.
Do you have anything else you’d like to share?
I’d love to point people at my novel, The Feather and the Lamp, an example of my humour that took a long time to find a publisher. The first few chapters are available as a preview on Amazon, and reviews/ratings are absolutely welcome.