The Shadow of Yesterday

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Shadow of Yesterday

Designer(s)	Clinton R. Nixon
Publisher(s)	CRN Games
Publication date	2004
Genre(s)	postapocalyptic fantasy
System	Solar System

The Shadow of Yesterday (also TSoY) is a fantasy narrativist indie role-playing game, designed by Clinton R. Nixon and published by CRN Games. It is notable due to large portion of the game content and its core mechanics, the Solar System [1], being released under a Creative Commons license, as well as being published using only Open Source tools. TSoY won Best Free Game of the Year at the 2004 Indie RPG Awards, and was a runner-up for the 2004 Indie Game of the Year.

[edit] Setting

The Shadow of Yesterday takes place on the world of Near, a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy world where civilization has been destroyed one hundred years ago and is presently undergoing a rebirth. Because of this, the races in TSOY (elves, goblins, and ratkin) are not seen as genetically separate races at all, but rather an evolution/devolution from humans, and each of them can inclusively become "human" if they give up what makes them different.

[edit] History

As of 2006, the game has been through two revisions. The second edition has different cover art and more game detail, but its primary observable difference is Nixon's move to using FUDGE dice.