Jason Morningstar is an American

indie role-playing game An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the control of the creator, or that the game ...

designer, publishing mostly through

Bully Pulpit Games Bully Pulpit Games, based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is a small publisher of indie role-playing games. History Their games include ''Fiasco'' and '' Star Crossed''. The publisher is named for a phrase coined by Theodore Roosevelt. The si ...

. Morningstar's games often lack a

Game Master A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...

and are often set in situations that quickly go unfortunately for the

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

s. Grey Ranks (2007), for example, is about doomed child soldiers in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and ''

Fiasco Fiasco may refer to: * a failure or humiliating situation * Fiasco (bottle), a traditional Italian straw-covered wine bottle often associated with Chianti wine Media * ''Fiasco'' (novel), a 1987 science-fiction novel by Stanisław Lem * ''F ...

'' (2009) is about impulsive crooks pulling heists that are sure to go terribly wrong. With these two games, Morningstar became the only named person to have won the

Diana Jones award The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for "excellence in gaming". The original award was made from a burned book encased in lucite. The award is unusual in two ways: first, it is not an award for a specific class of thing, but can be awarded t ...

twice as of 2013.Diana Jones Award 2008
/ref>
/ref> Morningstar also works with academia and industry, consulting on using games for teaching and learning in education, with a focus on health sciences.

Games

Jason Morningstar's

tabletop role-playing games A tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participan ...

tend to be GM-less and about things going badly, and published as

. He has also contributed to supplements for

GURPS The ''Generic Universal RolePlaying System'', or ''GURPS'', is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting. It was created by Steve Jackson Games and first published in 1986 at a time when most such systems ...

and

Trail of Cthulhu ''Trail of Cthulhu'' is an investigative horror role-playing game published by Pelgrane Press in 2008 in which the players' characters investigate mysterious events related to the Cthulhu Mythos. The game is a licensed product based on the horror ...

, a nano-game to ''#Feminism'', and several games about healthcare.

The Shab-al-Hiri Roach

The game is a GM-less black comedy lampooning academia, and designed for single-session play at the end of which a winner is determined. It is set among the internal politics of a buttoned-down New England college campus in 1919, with the titular roach being a soul-eating telepathic insect bent on destroying human civilization. Characters under the control of the roach succeed at tasks more easily, but can not win if they are still under the control of the roach at the game's end. The game was originally released in the 2005 Game Chef competition, where It placed in the "Inner Circle." It was then published in 2006.

Drowning and Falling

Drowning and Falling is a game about dying by drowning and falling, and proceeds from the sale go to

ORBIS International Orbis International is an international non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to saving sight worldwide. Its programs focus on the prevention of blindness and the treatment of blinding eye diseases in developing countries throug ...

. It was published in 2006.

Grey Ranks

Grey Ranks is a GM-less game about playing

child soldiers Children (defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child as people under the age of 18) have been recruited for participation in military operations and campaigns throughout history and in many cultures. Children in the military, inclu ...

in the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

of 1944. The game uses state-of-the art narrativist design to evoke the horrors of war. It was published in 2007 and won the 2008

. Grey Ranks has been published in Italian and Polish.

Fiasco

Fiasco is a GM-less game for 3-5 players about creating a heist gone wrong. Its focus is on characters as crooks with poor impulse control, inspired by movies such as ''Fargo.'' With this game, Morningstar achieves a "dream" in roleplaying design: a satisfying storytelling experience played in a few hours with practically no preparation. Unlike his previous Grey Ranks, Fiasco is readily playable in a variety of settings. It was published in 2009 and won the 2011

. Fiasco has been published in Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, and German.

Durance

Durance is a GM-less game for 3-5 players and designed to be played in the spirit of

The Prisoner ''The Prisoner'' is a 1967 British television series about an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village, where his captors designate him as Number Six and try to find out why he abruptl ...

. It was entered into Game Chef in 2011, and published via Kickstarter in 2012. Durance has been published in Russian.

The Climb

The Climb is a game about ascending a virgin peak in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over ...

for six players, and comes with a 91-minute soundtrack the game is played to. It was published in 2013.

Night Witches

Night Witches "Night Witches" (german: die Nachthexen; russian: Ночные ведьмы, ) was a World War II German nickname for the all-female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, known later as the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviati ...

is a game using the

Powered by the Apocalypse Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is a tabletop role playing game design framework developed by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker for the 2010 game '' Apocalypse World'' and later used for '' Dungeon World'', ''Monsterhearts'' and numerous other RP ...

engine about Soviet Airwomen in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Night Witches unites contemporary gender issues with world war two drama. It was successfully backed on kickstarter in 2014, and delivered in early 2015.

Writing about games

Jason Morningstar also writes about role-playing games.

Beyond the Game Master

The article ''Beyond the Game Master'' was published in the Solmukohta book of 2012, ''States of Play: Nordic Larp Around the World''. Solmukohta is a conference where designers talk about Nordic Larp,

Live action role-playing game A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters.(Tychsen et al. 2006:255) "LARPs can be viewed as forming a distinct category of RPG because of two unique feature ...

(Larp) in Nordic countries. Nordic Larp is not the same as the larps ''played'' in the Nordic countries. Indeed, most Nordic larps are not part of the Nordic Larp design movement. The article ''Beyond the Game Master'' discusses various role-playing games ''without'' a

Gamemaster A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...

and their commonalities: Lexicon, Breaking the Ice,

Polaris Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris ( Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude that ...

, Archipelago II, Shock: Social Science Fiction, Geiger Counter,

, Kagematsu, various roleplaying poems and Microscope.

Visual Design as Metaphor

The article ''Visual Design as Metaphor: The Evolution of A Character Sheet'' talks about the design of the

Character sheet A character sheet is a record of a player character in a role-playing game, including whatever details, notes, game statistics, and background information a player would need during a play session. Character sheets can be found in use in both tr ...

for Jason Morningstar's game about

, the female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces.

Gaming community activities

Jason Morningstar organized and judged the Golden Cobra competition, publishing 49 new freeform games, many from new authors. He has also been a Special Guest at

Lucca Comics & Games Lucca Comics & Games is an annual Comic book convention, comic book and gaming convention in Lucca, Italy, traditionally held at the end of October, in conjunction with All Saints' Day. It is the largest comics festival in Europe, and the second ...

Dragoncon Dragon Con (previously Dragon*Con and sometimes DragonCon) is a North American multigenre convention, founded in 1987, which takes place annually over the Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. , the convention draws attendance of over 80,000, f ...

,Dragoncon past guests list
/ref> and VikingCon. He has been a guest at Pyrkon, Ropecon, Wyrdcon and was an industry insider Guest of Honor at Gen Con. as well as many regional events.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morningstar, Jason American game designers Indie role-playing game designers Living people Role-playing game designers Year of birth missing (living people)