Katelyn Summers

 

Introduction 

Hey! I’m Katelyn Summers, a graphic designer that specializes in board games and tabletop roleplaying games. I’ve been playing RPGs since I was 13 years old and over the years I’ve accumulated a deep love and respect for independently published games. I have appeared on the Pocket Dragon Pub podcast to discuss a variety of indie games covering multiple genres and systems.

Why do you play/run RPGs?

There are two reasons I am so passionate about RPGs. First, they give both players and Game Masters the opportunity to tell stories outside of their perspective. Being able to step into the shoes of someone completely different from yourself helps build empathy and provides an experience you cannot find anywhere else. The second is that they are a form of social fun for all ages! I love that despite my age, I still get to play pretend with my friends every weekend. Making friends as an adult can be hard but RPGs bring both strangers and friends to the table for a common goal; to tell a story together.

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?

The greatest tools in my belt that will really come in handy for the ENNIES are my friends and time. I am lucky enough to have been in an RPG group with some of my college friends since 2015. These folks are just as passionate as me and I would love nothing more than to bring your game to the table for them to play. I work from home and am currently freelance which provides me with a flexible and adaptable schedule.

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?

There are few things I enjoy more than talking about gaming. Everyone comes at a piece of media from their own vantage and I find it fascinating to learn the differences in our experience. The best way to get a complete picture of something is through collaboration. On the practical end of things, I’ve worked within the gaming industry for around 5 years now. Almost all of my time has been freelance. It’s impossible to make a freelance career work without a strict adherence to deadlines and a love of organizing and creating checklists. And before you ask, yes, I am the spreadsheet friend who organizes all of our gatherings. I also curate the indie RPG section at my FLGS, Woodburn Games.

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?

My favorite types of RPGs also happen to be polar opposites. I’m a huge fan of horror RPGs. If it sounds spooky, I’m in. I’m also a big fan of the silly game; the game that exists just to make you and your friends have a good time. Some of my favorite memories are of the grand, sprawling stories my friends and I have woven, with all the drama, tears, and heartbreak you could want. But there’s something special about sitting down and doing something weird, like playing D&D with a jenga tower or using trash to dictate the story.

Two example of horror games I often point to are Whispers in the Walls and Monster of the Week. When I sat down to play Whispers, I did not expect a solo-journaling RPG to get under my skin as much as this one did. Monster of the Week is a very versatile game thanks to the Powered by the Apocalypse system but one of my all time favorite games I’ve ever run was a Twin Peaks themed MOTW mystery campaign. I created “found footage” audio logs and wrote letters to my players from characters in town.

I can generally find something I like about any game I engage with but I will not lie, I’m not a math person. Systems like Generic Universal Role Playing System and Shadowrun, require a lot of calculations generally lose me unless the narrative structure justifies the complexity.

My career as a gamer began with Pathfinder 1e and Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 I then moved to 4e, and I’ve now almost played through every single official 5e campaign with my groups. I love Dungeons and Dragons because it can be exactly what you want; a game with strict adherence to rules or a game where story choices drive actions and make for big, bombastic moments.

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?

Thousand Year Old Vampire – the alluring aesthetic of the game is undeniable and it made for a fantastic writing exercise.
13th Age – A unique twist on the usual fantasy roleplaying I’m used to.
Foundations – Needed some help fleshing out a world I was building and this game was PERFECT for that. It’s simple, streamlined, and makes for some very nice looking hand drawn maps.
Dialect – Walking out of that one shot session with a completely new way to communicate with my friends was incredible and something we still talk about to this day.
Yazaba’s Bed and Breakfast – This game was made for creative collaboration. I felt like every player was as involved in weaving the world and narrative as the GM.

Out of all of these, I usually think back to Dialect the most. It’s such a unique system and way to tell a story.

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?

This year in January, I completed my first ‘long term’ Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign as a DM after running it for over 3 years. I also had the pleasure of playing Decuma with some friends in order to make a mini-campaign and ran that as well. Over the course of the last two years, I’ve run multiple one-shots and indie gaming gatherings. I enjoy running games because I like sharing things that make me excited with the world. I also love seeing where my players take my ideas. What started as a horror campaign can become a “It’s Always Sunny” campaign. I love dropping something I think is cool in the laps of my players and seeing what they do with it.

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

#1 thing for me is engagement. How does this game engage its players? What about it makes people want to keep playing? Originality and design are the two other things I usually look for when discerning the quality of an RPG. What does this game do that other ones don’t?

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

As best as I can! Every entry will get a fair shake from me, even if I have trouble comprehending it. This is where my fellow judges can come in–with their outside insight, I might come to understand a game in a completely different way. I am also lucky enough to have several Game Masters in my life, all of which have run almost every major system you see on the shelf. Clarifying questions are extremely important when it comes to determining if something is successful in its intention.

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

I would love to see a category for accessibility (color blind friendly, dyslexia friendly, ways for disabled folks to play) and how a game implements its safety tools. Something that should not change is how the ENNIES showcase and celebrate all the nominees, not just the winners. Creating a game is a feat and those who do it deserve their roses.