Welcome to KNZarts!
Storytelling and Game Design with Table Health and Culture
Hey there.
I’m Graham Gentz. I use he and they pronouns.
Over there waving is Ryan Khan, he/him. Hey, Ryan.
We’re game designers. And generally not video games. We like those, too. But in the same way that media has parts you like and parts you don’t. You don’t like all movies, probably. You may not think that “Tremors” is, arguably, the best movie ever made, like I do.
It’s all a matter of taste.
No, Ryan and I love tabletop game design. They used to be called pen-and-paper RPGs, often now they’re called tabletop roleplaying games, or the additionally clumsy “teetee-ar-pee-gee.” These days I usually just say RPG, or, Storytelling Game. As that’s the sub-sub-subculture that fascinates Ryan and me.
So we’re gonna make some together. And we’re gonna talk about running them and how they run and why they run, and maybe how and why, sometimes, they don’t. Ryan and I come from all sorts of different backgrounds and educations: American and Canadian, Philosophy and Performance, Public Education and Dark Web Anarchical Anticapitalism. All sorts. But there is so much more that we feel similarly about when it comes to big ideas, story, and play.
We care about what’s really positive in the design space. We are invigored by innovation and exploration. We prioritize table health and communication. We despise traditional hierarchies and systems of oppression. We adore games that build culture and are conscious of the people taking the time and space to discover with you.
In short, we love small, weird, experimental GMless games. And anything else with something to say and a way to say it.
We enjoy sharing and critique. We love listening and learning and teaching ourselves things. And that’s what this is about. We want to make things and share things and be moved by them.
We’re excited to see where this goes. We don’t quite know yet. But that alchemy is part of it. And we can’t wait to see it with you.
This is Khantz Artifice.
Be seeing you.
