Moriah (Part 1)
Moriah is a game published by Urania Games. Game material and content is reproduced here for review purposes and is owned by Urania Games. We have received a press kit and review copy.
1. Every Individual Component Is The Best
In our analysis, we consider every individual artistic element of a game the best; we do not find “bad “or “good “useful. So, the Split/Party framework assumes it is the best art, best layout, best writing, best design. This is an acknowledgement that nobody makes “bad” art on purpose; any given element is the best art that could have been produced at that point, restricted by its material conditions and constraints of time and effort. This is also because saying something is good/bad art is the most useless criticism that can be given. In practical term, this section is for things we will not touch on the review but merit acknowledgement.
LudoMoriah is a gorgeous game presented in soft, cold hues. It is meant to be read at the table and it excels at that. It creates a somber atmosphere, evocative of the liminal twilight of a dying world — the calmer hours of the apocalypse, when anger and silence exist in tension.
Moriah is the first games we bring to you a critic of that has eschewed traditional crowdfunding, instead, seeking support through Itchfunding. This serious material constraint makes its achievements and where it succeeds as art-form and tool remarkable.
BradMoriah is a fantastic table side companion to the game inside. It, evokes the sad greys and blues of a postapocalyptic film, without feeling desperate or over the top.
2. Meet The Game At The Level It Is At
Each game comes with certain expectations and tone. To properly breakdown, we have to meet the game at the level it is: not lament its choice of premise and wish it was something else, nor resent for not conforming with our politics, not letting “missed opportunities” stand in our way of applying the critical framework relentlessly. It also includes not working with the game as marketed or how it exists in our desires, but as it is.
LucréciaThe game engages with themes of brutality, body horror, betrayal, anger, memory loss and other personal apocalyptica. Characters are a communal creation and resources, so expect to play with a character that has been created with input from the entire table.
The game expects you to go with it as you, reading as you play. The rules are not the easier to understand the first time, so it requires a bit of trust; going along is probably the best way to do it and learn the game. If one seeks to get system mastery before play, they are going to have a frustrating time with the game.
It is meant to be a shared experience of read/play; Moriah seems to have all players fit traditional play-functions — what one would call GMless or GMful, — however that is not the case.
Moriah has a de facto GM role, which is activated as soon as the game beings. It is, in fact, better if one player goes there prepared to be the GM or guide player-type of another game. Not only that, as the game goes on, more players will take that function. Expect to have to assume functions of play more akin to popular game-mastering when playing the game.
The book can be hard to read at the table, which is an issue considering its purpose. It is quite difficult to find what you want in the book due to its rule density; there are few rules, but they are very important and it is important to get them. Some players may find they could benefit from a schematic representation of the two main procedures and/or an experienced player assuming the role of facilitator.
BradMoriah is a game that any would-be facilitator should read twice. I read it twice before bringing it to the table and it helped me immensely come to terms with what the game is about. I also do agree with Lucrécia that it is immensely helpful to breakdown the operating procedures into some sort of handout.
The book has some opening prose that I was pretty fond of, and an important warning that should be brought up when discussing topics to skip.
3. Identify What The Game Says It Is About
Games are about things. Usually. Mostly. That is often the same thing they market themselves as. This often means to establish the relationship of the game with systems, mechanical frameworks, genre, etc. This is how games establish exceptions about the nature of play and creates a common space for creation.
LudoMoriah is pretty clear about it being about sacrifice, and what it means to the world through the lens of a small village and the heroes venturing from it.
The world of Moriah is a world beyond doom, beyond apocalypse. It is about if something can be allowed to exist beyond the raging gods or whatever remains will too be torn asunder.
Hope lives in the village at the base of the divine Mount Moriah. Players create pilgrims, villagers that must climb the Mountain, face the trials and judgements of the gods. They must sacrifice for nobody else will do it — nobody else can do it. They have to give all they can for reconciliation to be maybe possible, for there to be anything that can be considered Mankind left.
Each game the pilgrims sacrifice their way to the top of the mountain, giving up or enduring the final judgement from their pilgrimage reflection upon the state of Mankind and the World.
BradMoriah wears its theme of faith and sacrifice as a bloody badge of honor and it has every right to do that. The game is about a world that dying, the judgment passed upon it by gods that most men can only claim to interpret the most basic desires of, and the game is about you, the brave pilgrims from the village at the base of the eponymous holy Mount Moriah.
The Pilgrims choose to ascend the mountain, in the hopes that maybe they can stave off the wrath of the gods. These Pilgrims know that every single thing they are and bring with them is at risk of being sacrificed to the gods of Mount Moriah, and yet, they tell us why they are making the journey and make it anyway.
4. Uncover What The Game Is REALLY About
What the game says it is about is not always what the game is about. This is where we look at all the weird interactions, examining the system that game creates, how the way mechanics interact with the text and art, how it exists on a given context, how well parts flow together or get in the way. This creates a much richer environment that the original design could ever imagine once a game hits the table.
LucréciaMoriah is about values are used to define justice and equality, and how one values effort and sacrifice. What do you get from all this? How is the world a better place? How does this can be used to make peace between Humanity and the Gods?
We all want a fair world, right? But fairness is not essential; fairness is gonna depend on what we value.
The world we live in, is a Fair place. After all, it rewards people based on what they contribute: the more you bring to the table, the more you get. It is only Fair, right? If you bring a billion dollars worth of resources and assets, you contribute more than anyone else. As long as nobody asks how you got all those assets.
So, it is a bit of kleptocracy where what is valued — capacity to muster previously stolen wealth — is the sole thing we value and reward. It is Fair, but… does not seem right to value one based on what you Own. In fact, this attitude is killing the world. So it did in Moriah; and what you are able to marshal and contribute is irrelevant to the pilgrimage. You will not be rewarded for it; that is not how Moriah defines Fairness.
After all, thinking like that angered the Gods into ending the world. A world that can be Owned is a world that does not deserve to exist.
Alright, how about individual contributions? Forget the stolen wealth of the World, what about what you do? On the grounds of what you are able to Produce? That seems Fair, right? Well, it does, until one thinks a bit about it. Wait a minute, what really makes one person more productive than another? Material conditions, one may say; but which material conditions? It seems to be exclusively things outside of one’s control: the genetic lottery, the available of equipment and resources at one’s disposal, the opportunity to acquire skills, etc. The Fairness of Production is the fairness of luck; randomness and divine arbitrary whims.
Moriah plays with the Fairness of Production, but ultimately rejects it. You may be blessed with Occupations, Names, Wishes, Relationships and Memories, but they have happened to you through the decisions of your peers; they are much yours as they are the village’s. You can use them to continue, but for it to work you must acknowledge this was something that you did not hoard, but that you were the temporary steward off; by relinquishing a Memory or Relationship you return a bit of harmony back into the world.
Right, okay, you are starting to recognize a pattern. We both get what is the problem here, how much these take: how about giving? You know, to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities? Certainly, one cannot content that there is a greater Fairness than the Fairness of Solidarity.
About that.
Perhaps so, in another world; but the world of Moriah is still dying from being Owned. Humanity has still not find Redemption; they are still not able to go back to the harmony with each other in the Gods — they must find their way back through compassion. If the pilgrimage is successful, they may descend from the mountain to find Fair Solidarity awaiting for them.
So, what is Fair? Well, that’s what the game is about: effort and sacrifice. But wait Lu, is no that the Fairness of Production? What you do? Not quite. Fairness in Effort rewards the sole factor that affects any outcome that one can control. No matter the luck, environment, biological determined talent and aptitude, availability and ability to engage in training, one can only make a call on one thing:
The sacrifices, danger, efforts and loss of opportunities that one shoulders in order to do something. That’s Unfair in Production but Fair in Effort.
Moriah? Is quite Fair about Sacrifice.
BradMoriah is a game about sacrifice and, more specifically, willing sacrifice. The Gods of Mount Moriah make no demands of blood and memory, they are not bloodthirsty, demanding a never-ending fountain of misery into the Holy Mountain. They don’t even trap the pilgrims who ascend the paths. At any point your character can end their journey and return home. If you want to see the gods if you want to save the world if you want answers for what you face, you must trade blood, flesh and even your very essence to gain the power to do so, it is a grim choice and a brutally unfair one.
But therein I think, lies the second theme, You have the opportunity to make it fair. You know that at the outset of your journey up the mountain that if you should do the impossible if you should reach the top of the mountain you will change things and if you can sacrifice enough to make the world fair for others shouldn’t you do just that?
Moriah is also about how an encounter with anything can change you, how you carry your experiences and they carry you. You bring one person up Mount Moriah, and if they come down at all they are so different they may not even belong to the community anymore. In my test game, one of the players ended up choosing to live in a respite on the grounds of “I am content to watch the tangle of their lives, rather than be confused by being in it.”