How the designers behind the Cosmere RPG soulcast a literary universe into roleplay gold
Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy empire is not so easily bound to dice.
More details and links to the slashed subscription rates available on our Pledge Drive page!
As of time of writing, 10,000 people have pledged over $3 million towards actualizing a tabletop RPG based on the mega-popular novels of your nerdy brother’s favorite author, Brandon Sanderson. What we thought was a game based on his magnum opus, the multi-book Stormlight Archive, is now instead the Cosmere Roleplaying Game and will eventually span the prolific storyteller’s every world and magic system, from Stormlight Archive’s Roshar to Mistborn’s Scadrial and beyond.
Say what you will about the substance of Sanderson’s high fantasy series, but people love them with a dedication and fervor normally reserved for Taylor Swift and professional football leagues. That means the team of designers, writers and artists at Brotherwise Games tasked with transmuting thousands and thousands of pages into something meant to facilitate collaborative storytelling have a monumental plate to devour. How do you digest the Cosmere’s two dozen books, plus short stories and novellas? According to the leads, one bite at a time.
Rascal sat down with project lead Lyla Fujiwara, lead designer Andrew Fischer, lead writer Lydia Suen, and lead editor Laura Hirsbrunner to discuss their relationship with Sanderson’s publishing company Dragonsteel Books, pleasing both book fans and RPG players, and the drawbacks of leaning too much on familiar systems. There’s also mention of a full-sized adventure supplement, Stonewalkers, written by Sanderson and fellow author and Dragonsteel VP of narrative Dan Wells. This interview took place well before the massive Kickstarter campaign launched, so we’ve edited the official name of the RPG to match the secret everyone held tight to their chest throughout the entirety of Gen Con.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
