60 Second Interview: Sasha Sienna and Jonny Sims
MacGuffin & Co. make smart games for cool weirdos. They specialise in narrative tabletop roleplaying games as well as board games, card games, social games and all sorts of analogue storytelling and play games. Run by Sasha Sienna and Jonny Sims, they create games that tell stories.
Sasha's a sucker for compelling characters, playing with genre and strong narrative structure. She especially loves investigative and collaborative games. Alongside gaming, she is also a talented writer (credits include Dr. Who: Redacted on BBC Sounds, Of That Colossal Wreck with Rusty Quill, Himbo Treasure Hunt with Rowan, Rook and Decard and much much more). Sasha is also known for her podcasting performances including being a co-host on Jane Austintatious and voicing Georgie Barker in The Magnus Archives.
Jonny loves horror, tropes and procedural games and has a passion for monster design. He's particularly fond of any game that lets him put on a silly voice. A writer, voice actor and musician (look up The Mechanisms), Jonny is the creator of The Magnus Archives, author of Thirteen Storeys and Family Business as well as a games designer.
Between them, they've been playing and running role-playing and board games for more than 30 years and designing them for about half of that. We thought it was about time we found out what makes them tick.
Was there a specific game or type of game that inspired you to get into game creation?
Sasha: The first time I played an RPG campaign, something clicked into place in my soul. I can’t think of any other medium with such a porous line between consumer and creator: the minute you sit down to play, you’re an active participant in creating the world and the story. It’s impossible to run a game without engaging in some scenario design: crafting NPCs, setting challenges, improvising entire new plot threads when your players go completely off-the-rails. Creating new RPG adventures, settings and systems has always felt like a completely organic extension of playing and running them.
Jonny: When I was a kid in the 90s, I went with my dad to the Salute miniatures convention a couple of times. There were so many really fun games and scenarios there with the rules just written longhand on flashcards it made me realise that “hang on, you can just make up a game!”
What’s the thing you love most about being a game designer?
Sasha: So many things! I love meeting people who enjoy our games and hearing about their campaigns, especially when they’ve gone way beyond anything we’ve written. I love how collaborative and encouraging the UK indie TTRPG scene is – there’s a joke that we’re all just passing the same £20 around, but that’s because we’re all genuinely fans of each other’s work and want to see each other succeed! I love that I get to do all the most fun bits of making up stories – putting down all the problems and tangles and questions – and then get to be surprised by what other people do with them. And I honestly love the stuff we make! They’re good games and I’m really glad they exist!
Jonny: When two mechanics lock together in your head like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Feels good.
What has been your most challenging project and why?
Sasha: The first game I ever designed start to finish, was a 2-player heist board game, with one player controlling a team of crack bank robbers and the other controlling the bank’s security. Designing the mechanics was a lot more fun than I expected, but the project had a lot riding on it because I was making it for a very specific reason: I’d found a LEGO ringbox for the vault and hidden an engagement ring inside it! A few friends helped me playtest it thoroughly to make sure it was (a) a believably fun board game design and (b) the robbers would always win, before I put it in front of Jonny and asked him to help me playtest it. Most of my projects since have been a lot more complex but none of them have had quite the same stakes!
Jonny: Honestly, the business side of trying to run a TTRPG publisher. The creative stuff comes easy, the company stuff? Not so much.
If you could have been responsible for any game, what would it have been?
Sasha: Good Society by Storybrewers. It has a very clearly defined goal – get the players to tell a Jane Austen story, but with an ensemble cast and more diversity – and it nails it 100%. It’s an absolute blast to run. Plus, I’m a bit of a Jane Austen nerd so it’s right up my street.
Jonny: At the moment, probably Cy_Borg - it’s an absolutely great time that precisely matches up with my bleak sense of humour.
Are there any upcoming or new releases that you are excited about?
Sasha: I’m most excited about Hollows from Rowan, Rook and Decard. I think it’s gonna be something special – I joined a playtest session of it last year and it was so much fun, I spent the whole 4 hours with a big smile on my face! I’m currently writing a hollow for the game with Helen Gould and the approach to boss fights feels really meaty (which is like crunchy, but wetter and more visceral).
Jonny: We’ve finally released our 2-player fantasy RPG Pitcrawler after years of development, so it’s super exciting to see people playing it at last!
What snack should always be by the gaming table?
Sasha: I like to match my refreshments to the game. With The One Ring, we usually have tea and biscuits, with Cy_Borg, I tend towards diet coke and E-numbers. I run a Friday evening game of Good Society every year at Contingency and always get a bottle of rosé wine for the table (and soft drinks for non-drinkers). I like drinks and snacks that set the tone!
Jonny: A bag of some sort of crispy chocolate pseudo-sphere (M&Ms, Maltesers, Minstrels, Munchies, etc.)
Are you a Dungeon Crawler, Resource Hoarder or a Deck Builder?
Sasha: I want to be a Dungeon Crawler, because I love exploring and finding hidden delights, but I’m definitely a Resource Hoarder. I just love to loot!
Jonny: I was born to crawl, baby!
What was your favourite game growing up?
Sasha: As a child, I was always playing make believe, but I’d come up with really elaborate plots and rules for our make believe, which my sister and friends just went along with most of the time! I didn’t really have any awareness of tabletop games outside of Monopoly and Scrabble until I got to university but, when I was a teen, my family had one copy of the 2000 Lord of the Rings board game, which we loved (at least, I thought we all loved it, but my parents have since told me it’s what they pulled out to tempt me out of my room!)
Jonny: Probably Deadlands: Hell on Earth - it was everything young me thought was cool all bundled into one post-apocalyptic package.
Which game brings out your competitiveness the most?
Sasha: Twilight Imperium. A group of us co-own a copy of the game and play it whenever we can all get together for a full day’s board game (rarely, since we all live in different cities). After 8 hours of gaming, you really care about the win. I always come so close and I’ve never actually clinched it. Next time, maybe?
Jonny: Years ago we had a big session of the Game of Thrones boardgame with a bunch of our closest friends. Nobody spoke to each other for a good two hours afterwards, everyone was so salty about it.
If you got stuck on a desert island with a few friends, what’s the one game you’d love to wash up on shore?
Sasha: Amber Diceless Roleplaying, because I think that’s the only situation where I’d actually get a game of it together. I’ve no idea if it’s any good but, if not, we can always create new games instead!
Jonny: Honestly, just wash me up with a blank notebook, a pen and maybe some dice and I’m happy. Playing any specific game gets old after a while, making a new one never does.
Sasha and Jonny, aka MacGuffin & Co., Twitch stream every Sunday at 8pm British time. They play an array of new and weird boardgames, as well as RPGs and their own games, you can tune in to their streams here.