I have a confession to make: I had NEVER played a tabletop game before being invited to play Nefertiti Overdrive at the Capital Gaming Expo last month. I’d never so much as watched a single round of Dungeons and Dragons. I know I know, and I call myself a nerd! They just never appealed to me; I tend to get bored with board games and always preferred online video games to ones requiring another person to be physically beside me. I’m social like that. Naturally, I had no intention of taking part in any tabletop gaming at the convention, but my trepidation melted away when Fraser Ronald, Nefertiti Overdrive’s creator, and the other players introduced themselves and told me what the game was all about. I took out my notepad and pen and got down to my first, hard-hitting question: what does “roll for initiative” mean?
Being Canada’s capital, Ottawa may have a lot of stuffy public sector jobs but according to Fraser, Ottawa is also an amazing place to live and work if you’re a game designer. Two Ottawa based designers have taken home “Ennie Awards” at the world’s largest RPG convention, Gen Con, and the local community is large and active.
Despite my ignorance to all things tabletop, Fraser and the others took the time to patiently answer all my questions without any disdain or sarcasm. Nefertiti Overdrive is loosely set in ancient Egypt and features playable characters from great African civilizations like Carthage and Numidia. The game is ahistorical and doesn’t necessarily require a knowledge of history, just an imagination. There’s also a lot less to worry about on a turn by turn basis than in many other tabletop games. Fraser tells me Game Masters (GMs) are often adversarial in other games, and the players are inundated with rules and constraints that heavily impact each turn. Tired of these features, Fraser designed his game to enable more cooperation between the GM and the players, as well as more freedom in dealing with each turn’s scenario. Much like a screenwriter or a director in an action movie, the GM in Nefertiti Overdrive crafts scenes in which the characters shine and overcome challenges in exciting and cinematic ways. I muddled my way through a few turns and really enjoyed myself.
Fraser has been playing tabletop RPG’s since high school and helped found Swords Edge Publishing (SEP) in 2004 with artist Dean Martin. Based in Ottawa, SEP started out publishing supplements for d20, an open source version of Dungeons and Dragons. Fraser has since published four of his own titles, including Nefertiti Overdrive. The game books for these can be found at DriveThruRPG’s online store. Fraser also writes fantasy novels, which are available via DriveThruRPG.
As if he weren’t busy enough, Fraser also maintains a blog on the SEP website. It’s here where audiences can find some insight into the genuine nature of his game-making process, including posts about the genesis of Nefertiti Overdrive. In one particular post, he outlines how another game developer questioned his decision to include characters from most of the ancient world, but not Africa itself, a troubling feature for a game based in Egypt. Instead of blindly defending the original design, Fraser proved receptive to the feedback of his peer, expanding the backgrounds of his characters to include African cultures and enriching the gameplay without making major changes to the game itself. It was refreshing to see somebody acknowledge the merit of a new suggestion and incorporate constructive feedback without abandoning their original concept. The new character portraits have been commissioned, and we can look forward to seeing them in August or September!
Meeting Fraser and playing Nefertiti Overdrive really sparked an interest in tabletop gaming for me. Since meeting him I’ve looked into gaming groups in Ottawa and have a newfound appreciation for the work that goes into designing and creating the worlds of these tabletop systems.
NOTE: The drawings in this article are not the property of TNITW but were taken from Sword’s Edge Publishing’s website.
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