GRASPING NETTLES

Grasping Nettles is a worldbuilding game for 1-6 players about a community and its story over the course of generations.

You take turns dictating various things about a world of your creation. On your turn, you move one of three faction pieces around a central game board called the Wheel and perform the action you land on. Actions include defining factions, describing locations, discovering issues, creating characters, starting projects, catching glimpses of other communities, and framing scenes.

Once all game pieces land on the Generation action space, you look at everything created so far and describe how it changes over time. You can then continue to play to explore the next generation’s effect on the world. By the end of the game, you have a whole history of a community brimming with factions, characters both living and dead, and locations where everything has happened.

Playing a generation in Grasping Nettles typically takes about 1-2 hours depending on your play style. You can string together multiple generations of play in one session, or even come back to your world for multi-session play.