For the Queen (game)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Stephanie Böhm, Constance Bouckaert, Klaudia Bulantová, Elisa Cella, Lauren Covarrubias, Arlei Dormiendo, Caleb Hosalla, Denise Jones, Shel Kahn, Joyce Maureira, Maegan Penley, Alena Zhukova
- Arlei Dormiendo, Arthur Riel Cabezas, Brady Evans, Caitlyn Kurilich, Céline Vu, Cheseely Li, Chelsea Ortega, Constance Bouckaert, Denis Freitas, Eleonor Piteira, Esther Tejano, G.C. Houle, Hamahmeyo, Jeong Kim, Kelsey Eng, Lemonjuiceday, LABillustration, Lara Georgia Carson, Lauren Covarrubias, Malia Ewart, Maxine Vee, Nicole Gustafsson, Karina Pavlova, Silly Chaotic, Tasia M S[1]
- Evil Hat Productions (1st Edition)
- Darrington Press (2nd Edition)
 Cover art for the second edition | |
| Designers | Alex Roberts |
|---|---|
| Illustrators | 1st Edition
2nd Edition
|
| Publishers |
|
| Publication | 2019 |
| Genres | |
| Players | 2–6[2] |
| Setup time | 10 minutes[3] |
| Playing time | 30–120 minutes[2] |
| Age range | 13+[2] |
| Skills | Role-playing, improvisation |
| Materials required | Narrative prompt cards[1] |
| Website | https://forthequeengame.com/ |
For the Queen is a tabletop role-playing game by Alex Roberts about the dangerous journey of a queen's servants. The first edition was published by Evil Hat Productions in 2019, and the second edition was published by Darrington Press in 2024.[4] The game features themes of power, authority, femininity, love, loyalty, and betrayal.[5][6] For the Queen has inspired indie role-playing games with similar game mechanics.[7]
As a group, the players will choose a queen from the dedicated queen card deck. Players take turns drawing cards from a central deck and respond to textual prompts with spoken narration. Storytelling is collaborative.[6][8] The game ends when the card with the final prompt is drawn;[4] this prompt asks the players if they will defend their queen as the queen is attacked.[8] Academic Brittany Arde highlighted that For the Queen is similar to The Quiet Year (2013) as it "uses the same loaded questions mechanic, focusing within the bounds of a tight narrative introduction".[8] For the Queen also includes the X-Card safety tool.[1][8] Arde noted that "three types of uncertainty are prevalent in For the Queen: randomness, player uncertainty and narrative anticipation" and that the game "primes the narrative anticipation through the instruction phase by introducing the player in medias res (a retinue with the Queen) and telling the player how the story will end ('The Queen is under attack'), making the player question how the story will progress from point B to point C".[8]
Publication history
For the Queen was created by Alex Roberts and published by Evil Hat Productions in 2019.[4][2] It also had a digital edition released on Roll20.[9] Additionally, Roberts released a system reference document for the game under a Creative Commons license which allows "other creators the right to make their own structurally similar RPGs under the label Descended From the Queen".[7]
The game's first edition was discontinued in October 2023.[10][9] Roberts explained For the Queen was "the last boxed game" released by Evil Hat as the publisher shifted to exclusively releasing books and that originally, the game was "almost on the chopping block" as it was "80% done" when the publisher made their change.[7] She commented that while "there was a lot of love for the game internally" at Evil Hat, "it was just not really in-line with where they put their efforts" and For the Queen was "in a weird section of their website" as it is "kind of a role-playing game, but it's also kind of not"; the game was also not released "broadly" and instead limited to "specialty game shops".[7] Lin Codega of Rascal commented that "while it was never out of stock during its four-year run at Evil Hat, after For the Queen was featured on Shut Up, Sit Down, it became exceptionally hard to find at physical distributors, according to a spokesperson from Evil Hat".[11]
In 2022, Roberts worked on Till the Last Gasp (2023) by Darrington Press and following that, the imprint's marketing manager reached out to Roberts to see if she was interested in working with them again. Roberts suggested a second edition of For the Queen as she was looking for a new publisher.[7] The second edition was then released by Darrington Press in May 2024.[2][12] With the second edition, Roberts highlighted that it was mostly "about expanding" as she "wanted to write more cards" and "write new prompts" along with clarifying some of the rules.[7] Darrington Press wanted to expand the number of queen card illustrations so the second edition has 25 queen cards.[7] Codega highlighted that For the Queen is the first licensed game Darrington Press has released.[11]
