The sweltering summer heat on the UK Games Expo floor this weekend did absolutely nothing to slow down the relentless queues of fans waiting to meet prolific, award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky. While mainstream fantasy readers know him for the sweeping scope of his fiction, and tabletop gamers are eagerly tracking his upcoming sci-fi collaboration Children of Time with Rowan, Rook and Decard, an exclusive on-the-floor discussion with Geek Native has revealed a fascinating deep-cut connection behind his other major upcoming roleplaying game project.
Speaking directly to Geek Native at the convention booth, Jon Hodgson, Managing Director of Handiwork Games, and designer Malcolm Craig peeled back the layers on how the upcoming tabletop adaptation of The Tyrant Philosophers came to be. It turns out the entire project hinges on an unexpected piece of tabletop fandom: Adrian Tchaikovsky is a fan of a|state, the dystopian, claustrophobic indie RPG originally released by Craig back in 2004. This deep, topical appreciation for Craig’s dark, atmospheric design ultimately led the Hugo-nominated author to partner with Handiwork Games to bring the complex realities of the Palleseen empire to our tables.
Rather than trying to capture the sweeping scale of Tchaikovsky’s fiction through traditional high-fantasy tropes, lead developer Morgan Davie, who previously co-wrote the second edition of a|state, is adapting the clever, psychological framework found in Malcolm Craig’s classic indie espionage titles, Cold City and Hot War. The system explicitly abandons the standard power-fantasy mechanics of modern RPGs, leaning instead into the tense, paranoid realities of communities navigating the bureaucratic genocide and grinding occupation of the novels City of Last Chances and House of Open Wounds.
We expect the game to scrutinise the specific military units characters encounter, but The Tyrant Philosophers TTRPG will be a narrative game. No doubt we’ll see how individual characters survive while trapped beneath the boot of institutional oppression. However, taking a sprawling, impressionistic literary world and formatting it into a rulebook with rigid system rules presents a distinct, high-pressure creative challenge for the design team.
Jon Hodgson discussed with Geek Native about that tension between codifying something for a game where it might only have been implied in the fiction before:
It is vital we keep the magic alive.”
This fan of The Tyrant Philosophers’ books agrees. I have mental images of many of the characters and come to conclusions on the ranks of the Palleseen Perfection.
To ensure this important balance of stats, facts, fiction and flavour works, Handiwork Games has recruited the heavy-hitting design duo of Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggie as system consultants. Best known for their industry-defining work on The One Ring roleplaying game, they bring extensive expertise in translating the nuances of complex literary lore into elegant tabletop systems, which will serve as a major anchor for the project.
By marrying the psychological mechanics of Cold City and Hot War with the meticulous lore translation for which Nepitello and Maggie are known, the project is positioning itself as far more than a simple licensed tie-in. Instead, it is shaping up to be a rigorous look at the friction between chaotic magic and cold, industrial bureaucracy, directly driven by a mutual respect between a world-class author and the indie creators who inspired him.
