''How We Came To Live Here'' is an independently published role-playing game written by

Brennan Taylor Brennan Taylor is an American role-playing games author and publisher. Career Brennan Taylor co-founded Indie Press Revolution with Ed Cha of Open World Press in 2004 and was its first CEO. When Taylor hired Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Games as a ...

and published by

Galileo Games Galileo Games is a role-playing games publisher, best known for its games ''Bulldogs!'', ''Mortal Coil'', and '' How We Came To Live Here''. It is the publishing imprint of Brennan Taylor, who is also the CEO of Indie Press Revolution. See also * ...

Development

began work on a role-playing game based on the legends of the ancestral Puebloans in 2005, but had then set it aside to instead finish ''Mortal Coil''. He began work again in fall 2006, calling it "The Fifth World", but had to change the name because of the impending publication of a post-apocalyptic RPG called ''The Fifth World'' (2006). Taylor publicly asked for comments on a number of alternative names including "Twin Souls," "Up from the Fourth World," "So That This World Will Not Be Destroyed," "Into the Light," and "How We Came to Live Here"; Taylor would eventually settle on the last, because it evoked the mythic feeling of the game. The game that would become ''How We Came to Live Here'' originally used the mechanics of Clinton Nixon's '' The Shadow of Yesterday'', but Taylor found this confining, and it soon progressed from being a clone of ''The Shadow of Yesterday'' to being a game influenced by ''The Shadow of Yesterday''. ''How We Came to Live Here'' was previewed as an online ashcan in July 2008, and then released in a final edition in March 2010.

Setting

''How We Came to Live Here'' has what Shannon Appelcline describes as "an evocative southwestern setting — something that was near to Taylor's heart due to his youth spent growing up in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

. There's lots of background on the culture and life of the

Pueblo People The Puebloans or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Currently 100 pueblos are actively inhabited, among which Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Z ...

; Taylor builds on that by including myths in the rules text itself." The game is inspired by the legends and folkways of the pre-Columbian southwest.

System

According to Shannon Appelcline, Appelcline also described two elements of the game that he found particularly notable: The game is predicated on a rich relationship map that defines both individuals and potential sources of trouble within a village. ''How We Came To Live Here'' uses

Fudge dice ''Fudge'' is a generic role-playing game system for use in freeform role-playing games. The name "''FUDGE''" was once an acronym for ''Freeform Universal Donated'' (later, ''Do-it-yourself'') ''Gaming Engine'' and, though the acronym has since b ...

for resolution - pools of dice with positive, null, or negative results.

References

{{reflist

External links

* Galileo Games' home page fo
''How We Came To Live Here''
Fantasy role-playing games Indie role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 2010