Chris: How did you come up with the name "Decuma"? Is there a specific meaning behind the name?

Kimi: “Decuma” is one of the Roman Fates, goddesses who ruled over the events and length of a mortal's life. While her sisters wove and cut the threads of life, Decuma was in charge of measuring and allotting the thread. It seemed like a great name for a game that is all about creating a world and the events in the PC’s lives. Also, it sounds like “deck” and my game is a deck of cards. That makes my nerdy heart smile.

Chris: How long has this project been in the works/how did you come up with the idea?

Kimi: Decuma has been in the works for over a year. I started off in late 2018 running a few tests of the idea and got a lot of great feedback. As the idea developed, I kept revamping the design and the questions on the cards to make it work with any setting or system. Eventually, Decuma was ready for beta testing and we spent about 6 months gathering feedback from people all over the world to make the game better.

The idea evolved from my experience GMing. I really loved having my players invest in my campaigns by collaborating with me on world building and creating backstory connections before the game even started. I was using bits and pieces of many games to achieve this, like the character connections from PBTA hacks, Microscope or The Quiet Year for world building, but nothing was really designed to work together or with ANY TTRPG system. I decided to create something to fill a gap that I saw in my GM toolkit.

Chris: Based on the Kickstarter page, it seems like this is something that you would use at a "Session 0" of a new RPG campaign. Is that correct?

Kimi: Yes, Decuma is designed to be a “game before your game’ that you play before you start your campaign. It is a great thing to do as part of a session 0, and includes steps where the group agrees on the tone of the campaign, it introduces the X-card mechanic, and more that can then be normalized and continued throughout the campaign.

Chris: FYI, if you want more information on the X-card and why it is such an important tool, click here.

Getting back to the Kickstarter, is Decuma designed to be used for more long form campaigns? Would there be any benefit to using it in one shot games?

Kimi: Decuma is highly adaptable, so there are variations that can be played to prepare to prepare for any style game. There is a shorter version that you can play to lay the groundwork for a one-shot, which I find very beneficial when I run games at conventions. By spending a few minutes on Decuma collaboration, the group is able to save a ton of the precious one-shot game time getting to know each other’s characters and the game world. A full 40-90 minute version of Decuma gives a more in-depth collaboration which is ideal for a long-form campaign. You can even customize Decuma to work with pre-written adventures that already include a lot of details.