Hello Groundhoggoth, glad we meet again, and for a happy event, such as the restoration of this precious work.
It was available in french for some time thanks to Gulix, but then who was I to bring it back to its mother tongue, i thought. At some point I found these scrupules cumbersome. To do it, do it, I thought. And here we are.
Can you help me link it to its greater ancestry? period? design scene?
This and other games (Cheat Your Own Adventure, Witch: the Road to Lindisfarne) come out of the Pompey Crew, an English RPG club that became a strong part of the British indie RPG scene at the end of the Noughties, around 2010, give or take a year.
Attending conventions in the South Coast of England and also making appearances at the London Indie RPG Meet-Up administrated by The Magus (another luminary in the indie RPG scene at the time), members of the Pompey Crew did a lot to promote the new wave of RPG creativity that had hit in that era, reflected in the online presence of things like the Story-Games Forums and the revelation that was Apocalypse World. The London Indie Meet still exists, though in these pandemic times, it takes place online most months, hosted by the Indie RPGs server on Discord.
'Vicar' arose out of a trend for creating 'game poems,' short, punchy story-game experiences that were hyper-focused on a particular story and mood; it was often used as an ice-breaker for getting to know a new group or as a warm-up before the main event at any of the gatherings mentioned above.
I was fortunate to play most of these games with their creators, because the Indie RPG scene in Britain seems ridiculously small looking back now, with designers such as Malcom Craig and Gregor Hutton coming down from Scotland to attend these gatherings in England. It was a fantastic time for the great indie breakout and lead to the creation of Indiecon, an annual, residential convention dedicated to playing games from outside of the mainstream.
Thanks for your help and precision, both invaluable. I recognize my tradition in it, and it enables me to dig further. Btw, this tradition is most ancient. If you’re interested in storygames history, check Enfantin’s Petit savant de société. It goes back to 1800, so probably much earlier in oral form.
