Grief, Loss, and Making TTRPGs

Struggle to Make Art in an Emotional Post-Apocalypse

I’m afraid this blog starts in sort of a whimsical way and then becomes terribly serious, and I apologise for that. This may well be too personal to post, but the whole point of this publishing house has been, to me, to really blur the line between the personal and the professional in the most positive ways. A trigger warning may be appropriate, I suppose, for the loss of the author’s child, my child.

I make TTRPGs for the people who won’t ever possibly read them. It’s interesting to me how wonderfully selfish of a medium this is, at least in how I treat it—how non-commercial I have chosen to be, and how indulgent of subject matter, but—on the other extreme, equally true—I notice I've always made things that were for others. Every one of my games has been a letter to others who were never going to read it, anyway. This is perhaps indulgent and selfish in its own way.

Last year I made a series of shorter games. My son, William, was obsessed with Godzilla, and still is. His creativity fuelled me to make Kaiji Kontrol, about controlling giant kaiju, in something like the power fantasy he enjoyed. There was never an intention that he should play it. It’s weirdo and indie and too complicated for a little boy who was, at the time, five or six. But I could understand how much he wanted to stomp on buildings.

Also last year I made The Psychic Danger Society, more or less for my mother, inspired by growing up in a small town, by her love of murder mysteries, and a lot of what I associate with her. She does not know what a role-playing game is, and at this stage in her life and brain she is unlikely to take up the hobby.

I made Bettin’ Bullets for my dying father, now passed. It was a straight-faced western game, just like the movies we used to watch together. There wasn’t going to be a moment when he would read it, understand it, and be proud of me. But what Bettin’ Bullets would do is create the kind of moments, at tables where I’m running it, and at tables where I’m not, that are the same kind of moments I had with him watching westerns.

Fight to Survive came about entrenched in my personal experiences, but it also has strong ties to my teenage best friend and what we endured together, growing up in a rough little town.

Finally, my passion project for this year, a little monster collecting game called Pooka, probably came out of—don’t tell her, now—my partner’s love of monster-collecting video games. She likes video games so much more than I do. We played these games together, she and I, and I had many special moments with her over them. And yet, I know that if she ever saw Pooka she would not understand that connection. She’d say it’s weird and it's strange and a little sinister, and what has that got to do with her?

Well, fair point. I start creative projects, it seems, with a moment that I shared with someone that I want to remember, I want to preserve, I even want to perversely recreate. But the publishing process is long and what keeps me through it is giving something of myself. Pooka might have started as a moment I shared with her, but the game moved in its exploration through my own feelings of childhood, about the wonder and the fear of exploring woodlands, and the terror and excitement of imagination. It had to pull from many inspirations to be complete in the end.

I don’t know where ideas start for other people, but this has been the way I can’t help but create, the pattern I’ve noticed in me, and what will likely carry me forward until I am done.

I’m thinking of all this now because I notice I tend to make games to deal with my emotions, and I know that I am going through a difficult time. A few days ago my twins were born, and one of them, Dashiell—Dash, survived only a few days until he slipped away in my arms during a very long and tender hug. I shared a lot with him, although I don’t know quite what. In the spiral of this trauma, I’m trying to make sense of it, to deal with it, and I find I can’t wholly divorce the emotional events of my life from my primary mode of expression, making TTRPGs.

I can’t help but wonder what trauma-filled art will come from my child dying. That, or I give it up entirely and forever. Dealing with loss by slinging art around is common. Paint a painful painting, write a tragic novel. Games are the way I express myself. Art through grief being done well or poorly is a big swing. If it’s a poor product, the whole thing was an embarrassing mess and you should have kept your feelings to yourself. If it is done well, it’s the best of stuff. Prestigious or terrible, I don’t think I can help but pour my feelings out into my creative projects, regardless. Art is an involuntary expression, at least it is for me.

But for several reasons, I am fearful. I don’t want to exploit the moment. I just don’t want to lose it. Embellishment drifts reality. I don't want to fictionalise my child. Please let him be real without exaggeration. Please let me find a way to deal with this, the way I’ve dealt with losing, or just holding onto, so many other personal connections in my life.

Pooka was supposed to come out this October. It makes me wonder if, given its themes, it shouldn’t really be about my lost son, instead. I have mixed feelings about child death and endangerment, central themes to Pooka, now that I’ve lived the moment so intimately. Or maybe the relationship makes more sense now, trying to capture the exploration and wonder, even with danger, that my son, Dashiell Kerr, will now never know. The childhood I remember, that he will not have.

Pooka will come out soon, in what format though I'm not sure. My eldest child, my daughter, Boudica, is still owed a game, even if she does not know it. Our surviving twin, my champion little boy Ashley, will also get his in time when he pulls through. If he pulls through. I sit at a NICU bed now, more than a month in the hospital already, by his side, reading to him, writing this, and daydreaming game mechanics. I don’t know where ideas begin and end for other people but my process keeps me, carrying me on. I keep on making because I don’t know what else to do.

James Kerr

Radio James Games