Block: A Letter-Writing RPG

Phoebe Pan

Block is a letter-writing role-playing game (RPG) about moving through a creative block with tarot cards as your guide; think of it as a cross between a farm life simulator and an artist’s residency. A source of inspiration for the letter-writing system that I’m using is Tyler Crumrine’s Grandpa’s Farm.

This game can be many things to whoever plays it, but for whatever it’s worth, the reason I made Block was because I wanted to make a game for my faraway friends, a game that we could play together without needing to be together in the same space and time. It is intended to be a slow game, a long-distance game, a game about sharing your thoughts & dreams & failures with others through intimate spaces of communication.

🎲️ Note: below is the one-page version of Block. Rules are brief and open to interpretation. For a more robust version with additional resources and features, check out the expanded game on itch.io.

Block is an interstitial, playful, spooky, tender, sad, magic, zesty, maddening space where you are invited to work on a project that you’ve been trying to realize for some time: a story, a film, a song, a poem, a painting, a garden, a gadget, a bicycle, a dish, etc. Through a series of letters to a friend or close companion, you will move through your block and focus on the process rather than the end result of your journey.

To play Block, you’ll need:

• one or two players

• letter-writing implements

• a deck of tarot cards (per player)

Preparation:

Establish the setting of your game: a quiet residency, a haunted cabin, an intergalactic romp, etc. If playing as a pair, determine together if you will share the same setting or have individual settings. Separate the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana cards of your tarot deck, and place them in two piles. Shuffle each pile and place them face-down.

Turn:

1. Before starting a letter, draw one Major Arcana card. This card will frame the overall theme or atmosphere of your letter.

2. In addition to a Major Arcana card, draw two Minor Arcana cards. These will provide smaller prompts for everyday details that might fill out your letters: people you meet, events that happen, objects you encounter, etc.

3. Write a letter based on the three cards you selected. You can refer to the full version of this game for prompts, or refer to your preferred tarot guides.

4. Completing a letter is considered one turn. If you’re playing with someone else, you can either wait until you’ve received their letter to begin your turn, or agree upon a time when you will both share your turn’s letters simultaneously, or play at your own polyrhythmic paces.

5. After each turn, place the cards you used in a discard pile and redraw from the Major and Minor Arcana decks, repeating from step one. Based on the number of Major Arcana cards in a tarot deck, you should end up with a total of 22 letters. Have fun!