Surprising Finale - Deathmatch Island S1

Thursday night we wrapped up our first ever campaign (or season) of Deathmatch Island that we began back in April, and let me tell you what a pleasure it is to witness so many surprises as the gamemaster!

Despite being touted as a low-prep, narrative forward system (based on the PARAGON system used in AGON, a game of mythical Greek heroes), it was challenging for all of us to adapt to a game where the results are so random, and the bulk of the narrative is created after the dice rolls.

I don't think any of us have ever played a role-playing game where player-vs-player competition is such an expected result. Players initially collaborate and work as a team on the first two of the three islands, and characters build trust through questions they ask each other in between rounds, which can be spent to give additional dice or prevent injuries.

Even while collaborating there is pressure to win, however; the highest roll of each competition is the winner and gets the most 'followers', which work like experience points in other games. Competitions involve players building and then rolling pools of dice and then adding the highest two, trying to beat the roll of the Production Player (or game master - me) as well as each other. Failing to do so builds fatigue and occasionally injuries, but more followers can increase both the size (d6, d8, d10) and the number of dice you roll.

The real crux of the game comes when the team of players is split up on Island 3, and after they each overcome their individual challenges, they enter the Standoff. Here each player must secretly choose whether they want to Play to Win and win the Deathmatch Island competition, or to Break the Game and try to take the spectacle apart from the inside, but this only happens if all the players agree to it (without discussing it - a true Prisoner's Dilemma!).

Dexter "Crash" Knapp had become increasingly ruthless as the game progressed, leading players to think he was likely to 'play to win', and getting an advantage dice for being a backstabber. Some waffled but most of them gambled on Break the Game. One player, though, thought their best shot at escaping the island and returning to their family was to win it all alone.

(despite testing them beforehand I just could not get the cool Roll20 ballot cards to work, and the delays in trying really sucked the air out of the reveal in a lot of ways; thankfully the players were fine messaging me privately so I could reveal the results in our Discord chat).

The shock at the results was genuine for everyone else, including the Production Player, and was like nothing else I'd experienced in the medium I had enjoyed since I was 12.

The players (as well as two surviving NPCs) were put into two groups by the player whose character won the Scramble stage, but I had decided beforehand which one would Play to Win, and they ended up grouped with the game-breakers, so it turned into a melee. Strangest of all, the first cluster saw a conciliatory toy maker beat an overly intense martial arts instructor in a physical fight to the death.

Even the description of how this plays out is fascinating though, as the vanquished player has to consent to the ending described by the winner. Lyric's player rejected Harley dropping a Jumbotron on him, and then rejected her stabbing him through with a piece of wreckage, extracting the maximum pathos from the scene as he forced her to choke him out.

In the other pool, everyone expected Gus "Tough" Love to fall to Crash, who was not only less injured, but had achieved two additional tiers of followers. But in any game involving dice, surprising results can happen...

The players start the game as amnesiacs knowing nothing more than their pre-game occupation, then filling in the rest over the course of the game and during player-crafted flashback sequences between islands. In recent sessions, it had not only been revealed that Harley was a former member of Deathmatch Island's Production Team, but that Gus had been her guardian. (And the fact that the two players behind these characters are brothers in real life? (chef's kiss))

Despite being the only player able to use Trust in this final contest, Harley was unable to best Gus' amazing roll of 20 (the second of the night), making him our first ever victor of Deathmatch Island!

There is an epilogue that allows for a bit more group participation by all the players, and the potential to return to the same islands as different characters in "New Game +" mode, where the goal from the onset is to Break the Game. I am hoping we can come back and do this after a bit of a breather - this game is pretty intense.

And although the islands may be the same, the players and their new characters will be interacting with an entirely new cast, so there could be still more surprises in Season Two!

I stand by my assessment that Deathmatch Island is not a game for everyone - it is as much an exercise in shared storytelling as it is an RPG, and requires a certain degree of flexbility of all players (especially Production!). Once we wrapped our heads around the idea that the game unfolded in the 'Confessionals' that followed the dice rolls, and how much agency that gave the players, it became a lot of fun. 

And I cannot say enough good things about the Roll20 iteration of this game, from the quality maps, the brilliantly branded character sheets with easy inventory control and dramatic macros for dice-rolling, all the way through to the 14-track soundtrack, sound effects and even a video sting I could introduce each game session with. 

If you do remote gaming at all and are looking for a change-up, give Deathmatch Island due consideration. And remember: Play to Win™!

Formula 1 2025: Season's End

As we left the theatre after seeing the F1 movie on Canada Day, Glory commented, "you know, that movie was really well done, but I just can't see motorsports as being something I would be at all interested in."

Two weeks later, she opened a conversation with me by asking, "did you hear that Red Bull fired their team principal, Christian Horner? It is a huge deal!"

A week after that, as we were in the early hours of a multi-hour road trip to Burns Lake in BC, she broke the silence from the back seat by starting to tell us about some other F1 incident that had recently occurred. I asked her to pause a moment, turned to Audrey and said, "11:14 a.m. - you owe me $5," which made Glory laugh. "You guys, I am not obsessed, honest!" she protested.

But the hook had been set, and soon, I was also getting F1 factoids or news bits in my Instagram and Google Discover feed. I started watching highlights with her, and she would fill me in on the background she had learned from watching Drive to Survive on Netflix.

To her credit, bite-sized bits of real life like this probably helped her maintain her sanity during a grueling prep and study schedule for her nursing licensing exam. She looked at a subscription to F1TV but said she wouldn't consider it until after her NCLEX. 

The first race we watched was Singapore in early October, a street circuit. We stayed off the internet for spoilers and watched it with friends who are fans (which was a huge help to us because I still find the strategic elements completely baffling).

Watching the US and Mexico City races live (at a reasonable hour!) was wonderful, Brazil's wet race was terrifying in places, the night race in Las Vegas was a gorgeous spectacle, and I missed Qatar due to a packed Sunday. 

With two of the three leading contenders DQ'd in Vegas, today's race in Abu Dhabi meant any one of them could walk away with the big trophy.

Most interesting of all, neither of us had a strong favourite. We both like Lando Norris with McLaren gunning for his first title, but had to give mad respect to Red Bull's Max Verstappen for a comeback that saw him virtually erase a mid-season deficit of nearly 100 points. The other McLaren driver, Australia's Oscar Piastri, had been hobbled by poor outcomes during Verstappen's ascendancy, but was still in the running, and competing against a teammate - all very dramatic.

I think this illustrates how strange F1 is when compared to other sports. Most sports you cheer for a team, and this is true for many fans (especially the tifosi, the Ferrari supporters), but many others cheer for a specific driver they follow from team to team. And remember, there are only ten teams (well, eleven next year), with two drivers each, so you only have to remember about as many names as you would for a single NHL team for the entire 'league', as it were.

I'm there mostly to see how it all turns out, which for me is a very refreshing way to watch any sporting event. I like this Kimi Antonelli kid, a rookie who drives for Mercedes and turned 19 this year, so when he becomes a seasoned contender I will likely be pulling for him, but for right now, I am driven as much by curiosity as I am by fandom.

So I got up at 5 am so I could feed Canéla and make some English muffin eggwiches for Glory and I, and we were settled in to watch the race, live from Saudi Arabia, downstairs at 6am. 

Truth be told, it was not that exciting a race; Verstappen took the lead from pole and only relinquished it when he pitted, with Piastri close behind and Norris in third most of the race, which is all he would need in order to win the championship, even if Max took P1. 

There was a bit of a nailbiter when it looked like Lando might get penalized for driving out of bounds, the five-second penalty for which might well push him to P4, but it was determined the other driver had forced his hand by changing directions too many times. Mexico City was a far more exciting race that also had some of the best radio chatter I have heard thus far, and we may go back and rewatch it.

And while there was some tremendous passing in the backfield (and there are ponts to be gained for finishing in the top 10 each race), Verstappen proved impossible to catch in the end. His first place won him the day, but Norris' third place won him the season, and his genuine emotion at having won was a real treat to witness, actually. Brushing tears away from his eyes he told commentator David Coulthard "I look like a loser," to which the 13-time winner replied, "you look like a winner to me!"

Having enjoyed our quarter-season introduction, I think Glory and I will likely be back following and watching Formula 1 in 2026 as well, as a new team (and first American constructors), Cadillac, enters the fray. Honestly, it is kind of fun being taken along for a ride by her, after doing the same to her many times in her life.

Perhaps when the new season begins in March, I will have gotten tired of repeating her quote about not seeing herself ever being interested in motorsports...but probably not.