Socio- is a major step towards the kinds of games I want to play.
My name is Grant and I have been a gamer since my earliest memories of Duck Hunt in my Grandpa Ernie's living room. I would jump when Mario jumped. They have pictures of me with my tongue sticking out while I played. I would get THAT focused.
Socio- is a Tabletop Roleplaying System (TTRPG). TTRPGs changed my understanding of what can and can't be done in games. Video games often lack back-up plans for players wanting to do something the programmers didn't program into the game:
If there is a character you desperately want to talk to but they are just a fill character with generic lines...
Or, if there are fireworks on the street you want to light but they're just decoration in a very detailed game...
And if the ending is truly bad, and there are no other endings are programmed, you can play the game over-and-over and see the same terrible scene over-and-over.
I wanted a game that cut through those limitations, and found that TTRPGs scratch that itch. What they don't do, however, is handle things they weren't designed for very well.
Take DND, for instance: DND is a great game, designed from war games scaled down to the individual character. It was designed to see if the attacks hit and how the damage goes. It is little wonder, then, that those stories devolve toward violence so often. It is the nature of the game.
Socio- is about the people. The people at the table and the characters they make and the stories they share. It uses a roll-to-determine-success mechanic as well, but it heavily features a social stance system—overlaying actions and reactions with intent and tone.
Players take on stances like sympathetic, insightful, or commanding in a scene, and those stances shape how their words and choices land. That layer gives conversations mechanical teeth—and gives players a reason to stay engaged beyond initiative rolls and damage dice.
It means players are participants throughout the game—not just drifting through cutscenes of story and exposition and gaining agency only when initiative begins. Instead, players maintain agency throughout the story.
If I had to explain Socio- in a word, it would be anthropological rather than sociological. Because the players participate at that kind of scale, but the system is built to model all the rest for them, so they can focus on the things their characters would be focused on.
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Why Socio- Started
The first time I saw him, he was vomiting in the street.
His face was crusted with smoke and dirt, his clothing worn to non-existence. He had no shoes. He walked with a strange gait—his feet blistered, calloused, rougher than any twenty-something’s should be. Still, his soul was joyful. Never mind the grime and the wrenching pain; when he stood and saw me for the first time, he smiled.
Why does he smile?
I’m trained to analyze people. And he was a quick study. He couldn’t contain himself—his identity spilled out, unashamed, like a child unaware of the wounds that make adults wear masks and guard their truths. Maybe it was a performance. But what could he gain from it?
I asked questions—he answered without hesitation. He looked at me, curious:
Who are you? Why are you still talking to me? What can you possibly offer?
“I’ll help you find housing,” I told him.
That was part of the work.
He didn’t believe me.
“You find a house for me tonight?”
I never said that. I won’t promise what I can’t deliver.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He really didn’t believe me.
He couldn’t help himself while we spoke. He picked at his nose, consumed the result. Passersby gave us peculiar looks. They saw we were different—and gave him the same distasteful distance they offer to all the homeless. They wondered why I stood there. I kept standing.
We tried for shelter, but found none. Night crept in, and I had to return to my own home, to my own sons.
He saw I was leaving. He didn’t know I would return.
Not yet. Not tomorrow. But again.
He looked at me—and in his eyes, I saw fear. I saw confusion. I saw someone’s child. Maybe my own. The way a child looks for their parent after the scary thing happens.
He wanted reassurance. But I could not take him home.
My house was full. He was drunk. My wife and kids would not be able to handle it.
And besides—he was one of thousands.
I cannot weep for them all.
I cannot house them all.
But I returned. We found him again. And again. And again. Until one day, we found him shelter. It took months. It took care.
Then one day I was told he was dead.
And so he is.
And so soon, will we all be.
I wonder about his final days.
Was there comfort in what we gave him?
Did he find any safety?
Did it prevent even one of his tears?
I think about him. About the others.
About us all.
What are our days like, really, on this planet?
Are we meant to crawl our way through life from paycheck to paycheck?
Is that all we deserve? Can we not have a better way?
And that's the story of why I wrote the Bread Standard. Socio- is another attempt to make thinking about better systems and futures more possible.
Anyway, I live in California because I met the love of my life here. Two boys, two cats, two guinea pigs. My name is Grant and I like games.