My first experience with Josh Roby’s games came at Gen Con 2007 when I watched several friends playing this sort of odd role playing card game ... thing. It was obvious everyone was having a good time. They were laughing and throwing down cards and role playing.

But that’s where things got weird.

See, the players were taking on the role of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, but George Washington was setting limpet mines, wearing power armor, and smashing British forces in the face. At the same time, I am pretty sure Paul Revere was riding a clockwork horse. And Betsy Ross was leading a rebellion! So when given the chance to play the game, which I learned was called Sons of Liberty, how could I say no?

And thus was my entrance into Josh’s games, an exploration that was not to stop until it encompassed his other works: Full Light, Full Steam, a game of space adventure in an alternate historical age, and the forthcoming Agora, a game where you take on the role of leaders in a complex mix of Civilization-style gaming and role playing.

I chatted with Josh about his games, starting with my kibitzing of Sons of Liberty and the games I eventually got to play. After we had a good laugh, he admitted “It [Sons of Liberty] blows your mind a little bit. You have to let it go and let it happen. It is not a game you can take seriously and enjoy.”

Still, Josh feels that it’s not exactly the best starter games for his body of work. It’s not that Sons of Liberty isn’t fun, it’s just that the card mechanics take some getting used to as does the way the game is structured. There is no GM and every game is one-shot. It makes sense after you play, but it can take a while to get used to the game.

On the other hand, Full Light, Full Steam is much closer to the more common role playing game. There is a GM and a more structured style of play. Still, the game is anything but common for a couple of reasons. First, is the continuity with Josh’s other games. Though it was written first, this game takes place several hundred years later in the same timeline as Sons of Liberty, so the same organizations you find in one game, you will find in the other.

More important, though, is how you play the game. Full Light, Full Steam uses “thematic batteries,” sort of like defining traits, in an attempt to get everyone involved in a scene. Play normally continues until each character has had their thematic battery mentioned in one scene. Each mention leads to spoils which convert into XP. Therefore, players end up being rewarded for having interesting characters. Don’t worry, it makes more sense when you read it.

Lastly, there’s Agora, which may very well be Josh’s magnum opus. We talked a little about the game, which is still in design, and what it tries to do. Obviously, Agora is epic in scope as it follows the lives of not just individual characters, but whole civilizations as they crashland on a new planet and try to rebuild themselves and their ideology in a new place.

It is, as Josh puts it, a “giant behemoth of interlocking parts”, but one that lends itself to epic, long term, even generational play, as the colonizers of the world fight to create the society they believe is the most perfect.

Thematically, the game works well with the type of themes that interest Josh the most. His games tend to focus on “social structure, politics, and people working together to build nations and keep nations working.” However, they all deal with these themes differently. In Sons of Liberty, you play the Colonies trying to create a new world. In Full Light, Full Steam, you defend the world that was created, and in doing so, help to reshape and fine tune it. Then with Agora you get the chance to start over from scratch.

In the end, sometimes with Josh’s games you get King George Washington the undisputed ruler of the world. Other times you get Benjamin Franklin bringing martial arts to the US and writing love letters to the Queen of England. Then again, sometimes Josh’s games make chivalry or youth or vengeance a way to earn spoils. Then there are the moments his games let us see through the eyes of a tribal chief on the eve of the most important battle of her life or into the mind of a brand new leader as he calls to order a brand new government he built on the bodies of his foes.

It’s hard to say which one is my favorite. Each is brilliant in its own way so I leave the choice to you. Secretly, though, I think I lean towards the founding fathers in clockwork power armor. But that’s just me.

Josh’s games can be found at indiepressrevolution.com or at his imprint Kallisti Press. He has also created a new site called rooksbridge.com where you can check out some of his amazing fiction.