Austin Sky Leavitt

Online Nickname: SupernalClarity

Introduction 

Dreamer of dreams. Mover and shaker. World-loser & world-forsaker.
I play games + playtest games + write games + write about games. I’ve been doing some of that for a decade-and-a-half, at least.
Like many of us, I started with D&D. Today, I am still exploring the horizons.

I engage with RPGs from a background in poetry & literary analysis. For me, games are capable of the whole range—the simple pleasures, the depths of emotion, the transformative impact—that any other artform can carry into our lives. For that reason, games deserve the same critical engagement, too.

Why do you play/run RPGs?

The reasons have evolved & sharpened over the years. Continue to evolve.

I run these games today because I love people. I love the people we invent, the ones we conjure from thin air invested with our hopes & fears. I love the people across the table, who so often doubt their own cleverness, their own brilliance, their own beauty, their own strength. I love when they can embody their secret selves in another world we share; I love when their doubts are proven wrong.

I play these games today because they open up our lives. For one hour, we can face challenges we might struggle to rise to on our own. For an afternoon, we can try on new ways of being, play with new ways of presenting ourselves, discover new ways of imagining ourselves. Week after week, we can bend to the task of building something the world might otherwise convince us is impossible. Maybe afterwards, we can return to our lives lighter—less encumbered; illuminated.

The ENNIES requires a major commitment of time and energy. What resources do you have that will help you discharge these responsibilities? Will your gaming group or other individuals be assisting you? Does your family support you?

I am fortunate to have a partner of many years who supports my passion for RPGs. Plus, I have access to some pretty great players besides.

The world does not feel stable for anyone these days, but all told—in work, in life—my footing is the surest its ever been. If I can turn that stability toward the benefit of other players & creators, that sounds lovely.

Judging requires a great deal of critical thinking skills, communication with other judges, deadline management, organization, and storage space for the product received. What interests, experience, and skills do you bring that will make you a more effective judge?

I won’t belabor my RPG pedigree. I’m sure we all read & play a wide range of games, else we wouldn’t be here.

I studied English language & literature at university. So, I’ve been exposed to all kinds of texts & practiced to meet them each on critical terms. How confident is the writing? How economical? How artful? Does it seek clarity? Does it obscure or misdirect with purpose? Whose voice is speaking through the text? What does it want me to understand? What does it want me to believe? What does it leave unsaid?—It is second nature to think in these terms. Each new text is a unique challenge with its own set of needs, intentions, limitations, and choices. I find the task of untangling & examining all that to be deeply rewarding.

More prosaically: I have worked in local government for the better part of my adult life. The boring work of managing & organizing & helping people to communicate clearly is my literal day job, and one I get high praise for. There’s nothing glamorous to say about it, but I’ve always taken it seriously, since it makes a tangible difference in the lives of my neighbors. I wouldn’t take the work of judging these games any less seriously.

What styles and genres of RPGs do you enjoy most? Are there any styles or genres that you do not enjoy? Which games best exemplify what you like? Do you consider yourself a fan of a particular system, publisher, or genre?

Genre doesn’t factor into it; I seriously will play anything. It’s more challenging to name what does draw me into an RPG, but here goes:

I am excited when the page alone immediately begins to evoke an experience I never knew that I needed. I appreciate clear, useable GM support. I respect confidence, when it’s earned. I am often won over by a unique voice, a clever voice, or a thoughtful voice. I am attracted to systems & structures that encourage earnest engagement with characters & deep engagement with a world. I am inspired by rules that hum with potential energy. I am enlivened by games that feel unbound by convention: games with vision, games with purpose. I am a sucker for games that will keep me up at night, pacing, overcome with the need to talk about them. I cherish a game that feels human.

A game needn’t be or do any particular one of these things. It very likely won’t do all of them—many great games don’t! Then again, a game just might, too.

Apocalypse World, for me, is the game that does it all. I wouldn’t call myself a PbtA “fan,” though—however many games in that space are inspiring & pushing the boundaries of RPG design, even more leave me feeling lukewarm at best. Each has to stand on its own merits!

List (up to 5) games you’ve played in the last 2 years. What drew you to playing them? Which did you like best and why?

Seven Part Pact
Lancer
City of Winter
Koriko: A Magical Year
The Ground Itself

Each of these games shines with promise in some unique way: a stand-out art style, maybe; a curious & unusual presentation; inspiring prose, most likely. But I stuck with each game for widely varied reasons. Lancer delivered the joy of system mastery—a promise so often made & so rarely made good on in RPGs. The Ground Itself opened new worlds & fooled me (gladly, tragically) into falling in love with them. Seven Part Pact challenged my understanding of RPGs: how they’re shaped, what they can ask of you, what they might do to you.

If I had to name a personal favorite, right this moment, it would be City of Winter. This game has cut effortlessly right to the heart of the kind of play I love. It has made me laugh, made me celebrate—it has caught my breath, left me shaken. It has let me yearn & let me hope. It has been so incredibly rich. AND it is such a physical thing, a tangible reminder of the stupid, beautiful world that birthed it, the human hands that brought it to life. In this day & age, it feels like an object of rare & special vitality.

Have you been a game master in the past 2 years? If yes, what games have you run? What made you decide to run those games?

Apocalypse World: Burned Over
Under Hollow Hills
Electric Bastionland
The Between

My playtest games of Apocalypse World’s upcoming 3rd edition have been the focus of my recent GMing. It has been a uniquely satisfying experience to watch a system I love grow & transform before my eyes—even as it sheds old skin, even as it takes on new colors.

But, broadly speaking, I am always on the lookout for games that carry within them a magic spell. You know that feeling: when you’re leafing through a book & already a foreign place is beginning to take shape around you, already you are becoming its inhabitants, already feelings its dangers & its mysteries to be a part of your own life. At what point do you realize you’ve been reading the words of power without knowing you were reading them? At the point where it’s too late—where the spell demands completion?

When I stumble into a book like this, I carve out space in my life for it eventually, simple as.

Summarize the criteria you would use to determine if a game deserves to be nominated for Best Game.

A candidate for Best Game, to earn my nomination, would be bold, surprising, and compelling. The Best Game would defy convention. The Best Game would expand the boundaries of genres & systems as we thought we knew them. The Best Game would be tempting; it would beg to be played; it would leap off the page. The Best Game might not be the easiest, the most obvious, even the most accessible. The Best Game would reward engagement on its own terms.

How will you judge supplements or adventures for game systems whose core rules you are unfamiliar with or you believe are badly designed?

There are so many other vectors that SHOULD be considered in judging an adventure or supplement, beyond rules fidelity. Are the ideas within compelling? Do they surprise, challenge, or excite? Are they laid out in a useable fashion? Communicated in clear or evocative language? Would I be inspired to riff off, remix, or shameless steal bits, even for another game? Do the separate pieces represent a coherent whole? Strong writing & thoughtful design could convey any or all of these answers without any particular need for the mechanics to be 100% legible.

How would you like to see the ENNIEs change? What should remain inviolate?

I always see it as a positive that the ENNIES have expanded beyond their d20 roots. My own RPG experience grew from a similar place & has since spread to wide-reaching branches. I sometimes feel the nominations are still affected by the gravity of a particular kind of game, though—to the exclusion, perhaps, of the sheer diversity of the hobby. I think even the best of the nominees we see today could be enriched by being made part of a broader dialogue.