Last time SDR Games Studio visited the What If? Blog, Laurie, Rhi, and Rob gave us a refreshingly honest look at learning from creative setbacks. Today they’re back with exciting news—their solarpunk RPG “Why We Fight” has launched. What’s wonderous about SDR is how they blend game design with genuine passion for building a better world. In this conversation with Laurie, we explore the journey from climate anxiety to creative hope, how games can help us imagine alternative futures, and the challenges of designing a GMless RPG that empowers players to envision change. Let’s dive in!
Joe: Hey team SDR, welcome back to the What If? Blog. There’ll be readers who’ve not met you before, so can you start with an intro, who are you and what do you do?
Laurie: Hey Joe! SDR Games, short for Stop Drop & Roll, is a three person team creating games designed to be inclusive, conscientious, and immersive. I’m Laurie Blake, the project lead and main game designer for the company, but I’d not be able to do what I do without Rhi and Rob, the other thirds of our triumvirate!
Our past big game was Earth Rising, a co-operative board game about transforming our world from our unsustainable present into a sustainable future, and we’re on the cusp of releasing our solarpunk TTRPG, Why We Fight!
Joe: Let’s talk a little bit about Why We Fight. I’m always keen on understanding where ideas come from – can you remember the moment that Why We Fight came into existence and where did it come from?
Laurie: Yeah, honestly Why We Fight was somewhat a culmination of several sources. After Earth Rising, I’d just spent three-ish years researching, learning from charities, sustainability scientists and activism networks about what was necessary to stop, and indeed prevent the recurrence of, climate change. The more I learnt, the more I became aware of about our society and how intrinsically damaging it is, and how most of it isn’t intentional! We just didn’t really know what we were doing, implementing all these cool new things without recognising the implications and, when we did, assuming some future solution would come up. Except now we’re past the point of solutions being needed, and society hasn’t changed, and the root of that is capitalism. My favourite quote about it is “unlimited growth within a finite system? In biological cases, we call that cancer.”
Joe: That’s a powerful quote. So was this realisation a big part of what drove you to create Why We Fight?
Laurie: Yeah. The trouble with knowledge is that it’s only as useful as your power to actually act on it. Individually we can only do so much. Earth Rising was my effort to inform, to educate that change can happen, we already have everything we need, we just need the will to implement it. Well, again, time has gone on. We have the will. We have the knowledge. What people lack is the power. Instead of this global movement leveraging our political structures to enact change, we’ve watched as many of those structures actively worked to limit our ability to change them. It’s made a lot of people, myself included, feel powerless.
Joe: It sounds like you’ve experienced that same cycle of hope and despair that many climate activists talk about. How did that feeling translate into game design?
Laurie: So, game design is my escape, you know? When I saw the documentary 2040 in 2019 it changed my world view, from “climate change is unbeatable” to “we have what we need we just need the understanding and the will”. That was so freeing, I felt empowered again, and that feeling gave me the drive to make change. Now I found myself back in this state of despair, so again, I looked forward. Why We Fight became my outlet, my way of imagining a post-post-apocalypse. The Solarpunk movement pictures this post-capitalist world where everyone has what they need, nobody holds the reins, we decide our own future. As people, as a community. Games have this amazing ability to take you past imagination and into actualisation, by doing the thing, it becomes that much more real to you. Why We Fight is a game about creating that world, but not just in a “smash the state” pyrrhic victory, but in a forward-focused, true long-term change way.
“Why We Fight became my outlet, my way of imagining a post-post-apocalypse. The Solarpunk movement pictures this post-capitalist world where everyone has what they need, nobody holds the reins, we decide our own future.”
Joe: That’s an incredible journey that has got you to this point. I love the idea that you describe of games allowing us to imagine and explore those worlds and possibilities. What’s exciting for me about Why We Fight is that exploration of the journey. Many games and stories will explore the end goal but not the path.
You’ve chosen a role playing game for the vehicle of this exploration – is this a new genre to you in terms of design and why this method?
Laurie: So, like many forever-GMs, I’ve dabbled in home brewing systems I love into versions that suit my style, and I’ve been running and adapting games for over 20 years. But Why We Fight is its own system, originally designed to be a solo RPG, and then expanded out to become multiplayer too. Unlike my remixes, it was always made with eventual release in mind, but despite most of my design projects being board game related, I immediately knew that this was an RPG.
Joe: That’s fascinating that it started as a solo experience. What made you feel that the RPG format was the right vehicle for this particular story?
Laurie: Board games, on the whole, are less emotionally charged than RPGs. You’ll have the joy of victory and the frustrations of setbacks, the inter-player rivalries or co-operations, but it’s always a pulled back perspective. You know your goal, you understand the parameters of what may or may not happen. RPGs are far more open, and much more emotionally driven. People connect with their characters, they see things from their perspective, they become invested in their futures and proud of their accomplishments. Why We Fight was named because the primary way you enhance your roll when you need to is by drawing on the character traits you discover along the way. Because they’re discovered in response to the Situations you face, they mean something to the player, and even though it’s four characters rather than one, people connect with them incredibly quickly. The things that drive their characters are vital to success.
Laurie: This is something you just cannot do in a board game. Everything is pre-set, only a player’s choices of action are available. Even then, any impact you make is preordained. You’re supposed to be doing that, it’s controlled in that way. With RPGs players are creating ALL the time, even with a GM. And really, that’s so crucial to any game where a sense of empowerment is central. You want your players to feel like they’re able to take the actions they want to take, to have the impact they dream of having, and with characters they are rooting for!
But, from a design perspective it’s a hell of a challenge to balance! Really early versions of the game successfully hit that emotional note, but not the hope. It made one tester cry! A lot has changed since then, but recognising that need for balance and the impact a game can have is so important.
“With RPGs players are creating ALL the time, even with a GM. And really, that’s so crucial to any game where a sense of empowerment is central.” – Laurie Blake, SDR Games
Joe: It feels like a really powerful tool for telling stories, and stories that create such deep connections. I see that across a lot of the tabletop space, but can see how that must be amplified when it comes to an RPG, especially one that’s well told.
Could we explore that sense of balance a little? Why We Fight as an RPG doesn’t have a GM (or perhaps you are the GM via the book?). How do you work out your transfer of your expertise from one craft into this written genre?
Laurie: So, my background started, many years ago, in the written word. I’m an educational fiction author published with DK books, so my wheelhouse very much used to be writing stories that transform complex subjects into informative but still entertaining fiction. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that swapping to RPGs and writing in that way was actually easier than for board games! That isn’t really the question you’re asking, but I promise, it’ll be relevant!
Joe: That actually makes a lot of sense – your experience with educational storytelling seems like a perfect foundation. How did that help with the specific challenges of a GMless system?
Laurie: Writing a GMless game was completely new to me, and in many ways the decision to make Why We Fight GMless was largely based on its origins as a solo game. I wanted it to be multiplayer, to address the paradox of a community-focused setting in a solo game. Still, it was quite a daunting decision as I’d not even played a GMless game before, let alone made one! Thankfully I’m not having to reinvent the wheel here, there are some fantastic GMless games out there I learnt from, such as Wanderhome, Microscope, and Ironsworn. All three are quite different to Why We Fight, but their cores are established around a tight gameplay loop that is simple enough to learn but have the capacity to create an engaging narrative.
Joe: It sounds like you’ve been really thoughtful about learning from other successful GMless systems. What was your biggest design challenge?
Laurie: In a way, GMless games have a sort of skeleton framework that everything else, the setting or narrative or whatever, happens around. And it’s what’s around it that makes the game great. But if the skeleton is too weak, you don’t go anywhere interesting, and if it’s too complex you’re too busy focusing on making it work to be able to enjoy the narrative. And at first I struggled with that, because RPGs are so open that it can be tempting to have something really concrete that covers all your bases. “What if players want to do X?” becomes the bane of your life!
In the end of it I had to go full circle and return to things I learnt from board game design to be able to make something properly effective. With board games you need to know exactly what your loop is, and exactly what players can or can’t do, and how each of those benefit or progress the game state. You know HOW people are interacting, and need to refine it until it’s seamless. With RPGs you need to know your setting and motivators, WHY are people wanting to interact with your world? Why do they care? Normally a GM sets this up, so you need to have this really up front and implicit.
Joe: That’s a brilliant insight about the difference between HOW and WHY in across the two genres. How did your background in education help bring it all together?
Laurie: It was my background in educational fiction that really helped me solidify it. With education you need to be able to embed complex information into digestible formats, and understand how much is too much, and the language needed. With Why We Fight I put a lot of focus on readability and cognitive load, trying to structure the game in such a way that you don’t have to know the system inside out to understand what you’re doing at any one time. I felt this was essential to a GMless game because most people rely on a GM to know the system, and to have no-one to turn to, it intimidates a lot of people! I really hope we’ve managed to prevent that, and make a game that’s relatively effortless to play, you feel like you only get the fun bit.
Joe: Your passion for this project really shines through, and I love how you’ve drawn from your varied background to create something that’s so dedicated to providing a brilliant play experience for players.
As someone who’s relatively new to RPGs myself, I’m curious – was Why We Fight designed with newcomers in mind? And for those of us just starting to explore tabletop RPGs, would this be a good entry point or are there other games you’d recommend trying first to get comfortable with the format?
Laurie: We’ve done everything we can to make the game easy to start with, and we’ve had playtests specifically with people who’ve never played a GMless game or only played D&D before, or even never tried RPGs at all, and putting together a ruleset and layout that accommodates them based on the kind of confusion that comes up. There’s no rulebook that can be perfect for all people, but we’re extremely committed as a company to accessibility, and one thing we’ve learned from the board game world is that an accessible game actually tends to make it easier for everyone else too. Visual clarity, creating demonstrative images of particularly complex parts, dyslexia-friendly text, you’d be amazed how much difference it makes for unhindered folks too, it really cuts down the cognitive load!
“An accessible game actually tends to make it easier for everyone else too. Visual clarity, creating demonstrative images of particularly complex parts, dyslexia-friendly text—you’d be amazed how much difference it makes for unhindered folks too.”
Joe: I love that approach to accessibility as something that benefits everyone. What specific challenges did you face when creating the solo version?
Laurie: But, honestly, Why We Fight did something different than just our usual accessibility focus, and it was largely due to my own experiences when I first got into the solo RPG scene. Solo is quite a different beast to classic RPGs, you don’t have anyone to bounce off of, you don’t necessarily even know whether what you’re doing is right, there’s no other players to turn to or a GM to check with. So, for me, when I started getting into it I found that rulebooks would give you steps to follow, but they wouldn’t necessarily tell you how to approach it visually. You’d have ‘Step 1, write this. Step 2, write that.’ etc and sometimes I’d end up with a few jotted notes and other times I absolutely did not leave enough space for what I was supposed to do. But there were very few examples! So with Why We Fight I made absolutely sure to have those, and the difference we saw in playtests was huge. Don’t get me wrong, people miss stuff, they make mistakes, but having clear “this should end up looking like this” as an example just cuts out so much confusion.
Joe: Those visual examples sound like they’d be incredibly helpful. Did you apply similar techniques to make the more complex game elements accessible?
Laurie: This was particularly important with combat where you’re adding multiple types of enemies, their objectives and descriptors of your surroundings you can use. We did our best to make something a little different, meatier than your usual solo combat affair but designed around speed and co-operation. But the tough part about creating something new is you need to be extra clear, nobody is going to have experience with it. Those visuals give context to the explanations, and make sure you know that what you’re doing is correct, and hopefully cuts out time spent second-guessing yourself.
Of course, there are so many great games out there, and I think recommendations for first-timers would really be best based on what you’re looking for! In my mind, the best place to start is with something that excites you, and to get talking with your local communities. Don’t be afraid to try stuff! Most modern systems are designed with new players in mind, and there’s such a wealth of different settings and systems, the saddest thing is when players never leave the game they were introduced to. The RPG world is so kind and welcoming to all types of folks, jump in, get talking, and find the games that you love!
Joe: I think that’s what I’m going to do when you launch – jump right in and back the project!
Thank you for your time and insight Laurie, as always I appreciate the honesty that comes with a conversation from anyone at Stop, Drop and Roll. To finish (if you want), can you tell us how we can support you and your games?
Laurie: Of course, and thank you! The biggest barrier for indie projects of all walks is trying to get ourselves noticed, and projects like Why We Fight are all the more important to get in front of folks who appreciate its message! The simplest way to help us out is to share any of our posts or our page across social media, as it makes a huge impact to have people help spread the word. You can find us most often on Bluesky (@sdrgames.bsky.social) and Instagram, so please do jump over and follow!
Getting the word out is so important to us that we’ve decided on a special little incentive for the campaign. On the launch day itself, we’ll be putting out some promotional posts and we’ll be setting up social goals where for every Like and Repost we’ll purchase a tree from Treesisters, an amazingly solarpunk charity that funds community and indigenous-led planting projects focusing on providing work and empowerment for women. We really love what they do, and this gives us a great opportunity to get the help we need while giving something back that’s actually helpful to the real world! Good feels all round!
Otherwise, we just love it when folks get in touch! Swing by our Discord, say hi in our campaign or launch party, or drop us a message telling us what you think, we’d love to hear from you. We’re big community fans, so the more the merrier!
With all that said, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to talk about our games, it’s been a pleasure to talk in more depth about our work and origins, and we’re really excited to finally get all this out and into people’s hands. I hope we can keep in touch going forward!
Joe: Laurie, it was my pleasure!
I want to extend my thanks to Laurie for this enlightening conversation. It’s been fascinating to hear how SDR are using tabletop experiences to help us imagine more sustainable, equitable futures—not just as wishful thinking, but as tangible possibilities we can explore through play.
If you’re as inspired by this approach as I am, please do follow SDR Games on their social channels and consider backing “Why We Fight.” The world needs more creative minds working at this intersection of gaming, sustainability, and community empowerment.
And if you’ve enjoyed this conversation, don’t forget to subscribe to the What If? Blog, where we continue to explore how creative folks are reimagining our world through games. You can follow the blog and get it straight to your emails by signing up below.
