Photo courtesy of Jason Crayton
Childhood friends Jason Crayton (left) and Peter Ferry (right) will be launching a crowdfunding campaign for their tabletop fantasy game Factions: Battlegrounds.
Childhood friends Peter Ferry (who now works as a fundraiser for non-profits) and Jason Crayton (a teacher) first became friends when they were four years old. They bonded at Mount Calvary Lutheran School over video games and Magic: The Gathering and dreamed of someday creating their own fantasy world.
Factions: Battlegrounds is the result of their shared vision, a tabletop role-playing game where players battle with a coalition of characters. But instead of your typical all white cast of wizards and warriors, Ferry and Clayton’s game incorporates African, Hispanic, and Native American lore (in addition to classic European characters) to appeal to a diverse range of players. Ferry and Crayton are launching a crowdfunding campaign to put Factions: Battlegrounds into production.
1 of 4
Photo courtesy of Jason Crayton
2 of 4
Photo courtesy of Jason Crayton
Game art from Factions Battlegrounds
3 of 4
Photo courtesy of Jason Crayton
Game art from Factions Battlegrounds
4 of 4
Photo courtesy of Jason Crayton
Game art from Factions Battlegrounds
Tell us how this game idea developed.
Jason Crayton: When we were in grade school we had an interest in fantasy games, so we actually made a grade school version of this game at that point, which we kept in a Goosebumps folder. We came up with illustrations and concepts and we found this again as adults three or four years ago, that’s when Peter came up with the idea to make an official version of the game where you can actually play it and the rules make sense.
Peter Ferry: We started going to conventions to get back into the gaming world. We noticed there were primarily white guys like me that are playing a lot of games. Jason and I thought we had potential to maybe diversify the genre. We want to gear our game toward introducing a new population to gaming. I think the gaming world is welcoming to new people and ideas, so we thought it might be a great fit.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
How is the game different from your typical fantasy game?
Jason Crayton: One of the key aspects of it is that we pull from cultures you don’t see in traditional fantasy games where a lot of it is traditional European culture, and of course a Tolkien influence they’re illustrated by. We wanted to incorporate cultures and folklore you traditionally don’t see. So whether that’s African, Polynesian, South American, Mexican, Native American—these elements, we want to put them on a pedestal so people can see that ‘oh the folklore from this culture is engaging and interesting’ and do it in a way that incorporates our game, our brand.
One of our goals is to bring this to urban environments and communities especially in the metro Milwaukee area where you might not see that as much. But to see kids be able to engage in that—something we did—it’s cool to bring that to those students.
You can find more info, including social media links for Factions: Battlegrounds at factionsbattlegrounds.com.
