Tag: accessibility

Shadowrun: Anarchy Review

My very, very long Shadowrun: Anarchy Review is HERE!

Shadowrun: Anarchy
First things first

I won’t be commenting very much on the fiction in the book because I don’t typically read it and I’d rather focus on the game, but I will be looking at flavor text in character descriptions and so on. I haven’t yet played the game for logistics reasons, so this is purely a review of the mechanics, art, and characters. I intend to eventually read the Seattle background but I have set it aside for this review to get the things out that people will see first and most often.

I have only played Shadowrun 3e, and only built characters for 3e and 5e. I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs since I was 15, text-based since 11, and my first TTRPG that I recall playing was Shadowrun. I’ve played indie and story games since around 2011, and I’ve been writing on Thoughty about games, doing interviews, and occasionally writing reviews for like, 4 years I think. Maybe longer? I bounced blog names a couple times. I’ve GM’d and played, and I’ve worked on some tabletop games which you can read about here on my work page.

With that out of the way…

Shadowrun: Anarchy on first glance is a true family member to 5e, having beautiful art, lots of graphics, and fiction first. The art fits just fine! The graphics we’ll get to. The fiction… let me explain here that I don’t like fiction on RPGs, for the most part. I like fiction within RPGs – specifically, if you look back to like, Shadowun 3e where the interactions between The Smiling Bandit and Harlequin were interspersed in the rules and flavor text, that kind of thing I like. Unreliable narrators having interactions between bits of important information just really felt like the game to me.

That is, unfortunately, not the dealio in Shadowrun: Anarchy. I am sure the fiction is fun and great – but I don’t really have interest in it. I hope you do! But the fiction does you no good if you don’t like the rest. Covering art, then layout, then mechanics, then flavor text. Basically what you see first, whether you can even read it, what’s inside, and how it’s dressed up. (click thru)

The Art

I’m not doing a full numbers breakdown of the art in SR:A because 1) I don’t think it’s as valuable as it seems and 2) I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. The art in the book is still majority men or masculine, but there are a greater number of women or femmes than I expected to see. There are a number of androgynous people, but I was incredibly disappointed to see zero androgynous or nonbinary styled characters in the pregens. Getting close to gender binary parity is great, but this issue is in the forefront for me of late and I still can’t fathom why – I never have been able to – we don’t see more androgynous characters, especially in identity as opposed to simply presentation, in Shadowrun. I mean, y’all. Y’all.

Also, most of the time we get this:

But then we got this:

But let me be clear, my problems with the second piece here are mostly that it seems somewhat disjointed (kind of literally, but if it had a caption talking about an articulated spine, I’d be cool) and I was just kind of bummed out by how it felt in comparison to the other (frankly badass) art. This is the only piece that really stood out, but I wouldn’t be a cranky critiquing feminist if I didn’t point it out.

The Layout

The layout overall has a couple of hinky bits. Foremost, shaded boxes. Shaded boxes are not something I’m a fan of, and everyone who has talked about layout with me probably knows that. One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard thus far, that I agree with, is that the shaded boxes on the character sheets are bad news bears.

There is also shading/coloring on sidebars and callout boxes that could be done away with for readability and to make it possible to print. I’ll say this one time: If I cannot print a character sheet, it is functionally useless to me. Bonus note: If you make it a fillable form downloadable as well with the game that can also be printed and legible, I’ll love you forever.

Most of the rest of the book is bog standard Shadowrun/80s-90s-esque layout, from what I can tell. There are some more rounded edges, but that’s not too different. Standard two-column, as following.

There are also, of course, tables. I personally love tables, but the tables in SR:A leave me wanting because they don’t have any dividing lines. Some people like them without, they flow more easily. For me, they’re less readable, and I also just don’t really dig the look. Gimme something that looks directly ripped out of Excel and I’ll be cool. Example of current tables follows!

Also, the text is super, super small. Like, I have to zoom in to read it clearly a lot of the time, and I have no issues with reading up close most of the time. Perhaps it’s better in print? But we should be designing for digital too. I also don’t know if it works well with screen readers, as I couldn’t figure mine out. That’s something that should be clear!

Aside from those things? I’m sure someone with more graphics and layout experience could nail down further problems. Those are the ones that hit me. Moving on!

The Mechanics

First, a quick note on the way the game works in Shadowrun: Anarchy. Anarchy is not a game with a GM running the show and the players taking on roles within that show. Anarchy is about collaborative narrative storytelling (it’s a thing!) and there are things that they’ve done great about this, and things that may be confusing for people who haven’t done it before. I may be translating the rules incorrectly, but if you like what I’m saying, just play it that way, it’s just a damn book.

SR:A institutes turns, effectively letting each player take a turn playing their part of the scene. From what I can tell, there are no rules preventing other players from acting within that scene, but they would most likely need some input from the lead player in those scenes. From there, we can see each player narrates within their turn their actions and their interpretation of the situation. Cool! Now, I’ve seen some people get stuck on Talk Time. Admittedly, I kind of hate the term, and would prefer something like “free play,” but that’s just being a jerk about semantics.

Talk Time itself makes sense. When things are going down or it’s too hectic, let’s stop with turns for a minute and get shit done, right? However, from the comments on the Prototype review and the forums I’d seen it interpreted that you can’t interact freely at all outside of Talk Time, and regardless of how it was originally intended in the text, I read it otherwise, and it has been clarified since then in the text under Turns and Narrations. Specifically, it says that “Other players may have things to say during a narration–their characters may react somehow, or players may offer commentary, ideas, or observations–but the primary thrust of the Narration should be directed by the player whose turn it is.” Which, I mean, yeah? That’s just being polite. However, I see why they had to write it out. Hooray, rules to help solve social play problems!

For framing of the next mechanical bits, you use six-sided dice (d6s) in dice pools, scored individually – 5 or 6 on the die is a success.

Character generation is not complicated, in my opinion. There are definitely a crapton of characters to select from if you want to just quick start, as the section for pregenerated characters is massive (but I have some thoughts later). The game suggests you select a contract brief (scenarios for quick play), but if you want to build characters first or play without a contract brief, I’d just go to it. For a new GM or a new group, you might find the briefs useful, at the very least to learn useful structure for a general shadowrun.

Characters use some stuff that seem kind of “eh, maybe,” while others seem absolutely essential. The perceived essentials are: Personal Data, Attributes, Skills, Shadow Amps, Karma, Qualities, Weapons, Armor, Gear, and calculating your condition monitor. That’s a lot of words, not as hard as it sounds. The things I’ve noted as seeming optional are Dispositions and Cues. These don’t have a lot of mechanical impact, and I can guarantee for a lot of people they’ll be dismissed. However, you’re playing a narrative game here. That makes a difference.

If you look at the character sheet for Ms. Myth (one of my favorites), you can see how these things might be useful for 1) new players, 2) players new to narrative games, 3) players with a new character, 4) players who are unfamiliar with Shadowrun’s world, and/or 5) players who are just plain tired and need some good ideas on a slow day.

This is a moment where I remind people that just because you don’t need a thing, does not mean no one needs a thing, or would benefit from it.

Character creation goes through these items, however, pretty smoothly. Don’t be fooled by the early character creation section like I was at first, go straight to page 61.

To create a character, you:

  • Choose what type of character you want to play, name them, and create a character “theme” (basic description)
  • Optionally create “tags” (helping define your character)
  • Choose a game level (this is how many points you’ll get based on how hard or advanced a game you want, and should be chosen as a group)
  • Choose a metatype (Are you a little troll? Yes. Yes you are.)
  • Determine whether you’re Awakened or Emerged (you can be one, the other, or neither, and they basically mean you can do magic, you can do matrix junk with your mind, or neither)
  • Assign attributes (Strength, Agility, Willpower, Logic, Charisma, Essence, and Edge – I still kind of hate Edge, I miss when Karma was able to be spent for some of the purposes Edge is used)
  • Choose skills (general and specialized, the latter of which gives you bonus dice in appropriate situations)
  • Select Shadow Amps (encompassing all augmentations and magic, including technomancers and casting spells – there’s a list with some examples but there is a lot of freedom to define them. Also, there is essence loss! If your augment has essence loss, you get a penalty on your dice pool for magic- and healing-related tests.)
  • Figure out Karma (This functions as experience points, so you can obtain both points in attributes, skills, get Amps, change qualities, and get gear, weapons, and armor once earned)
  • Define some qualities and their effects (like edges and flaws for 3e, which I was super happy to see, though kind of took a bit to understand the differences between them and edge)
  • Choose your weapons (weapons have various ranges and impacts)
  • Choose your armor (armor is basically an add-on to your condition monitor, and gets marked off before you get hurt)
  • Sort out your condition monitor (has both stun and physical damage)
  • Get some gear (including Contacts)
  • Create cues (basically little phrases to help inspire your play, from the Cue System, which I haven’t bothered to read up, sorry)
  • Make a character background (personal data like size and gender – which they call “sex” in here and it made me really annoyed – the history of your character and how they behave, and dispositions that you can use to flag your actions in-game)

It sounds like a lot, but the individual actions don’t take very long themselves. There’s characters to choose from, and there’s not a lot of trouble in making your character, but this is way more than a lot of indie and story/narrative games. You will need to set aside more time for this game than you would, say, a Powered by the Apocalypse game – by a significant margin. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good game. Just different.

Combat in SR:A seems to be appropriately dice-heavy, which y’all know I love.

This isn’t actually that complicated, even though it looks it. It’s all simple numbers you’ll be adding, most single digits, versus similar numbers for the opponent. I like this combo, as I’m sure I’d learn it pretty quickly, which is a really good sign.

There is information on close combat damage, carry limits, unarmed combat, and lots of other stuff – one of my favorite bits is no more counting ammo! Handwaving ammo counts is awesome in my book (ha, my book). It also talks about custom mods of weapons (like knockbacks), which is awesome! There’s a note that I appreciated on making the game more or less lethal. Variety is good.

There are rules on taking and recovering damage, and repairing armor, which brings me to an important point: There are no nuyen in Anarchy. To me this is amusing on a conceptual level (of course there’s no monetary system! It’s anarchy!) but also I think it’s cool on a fiction level, in that everything has a cost – and more often than not, that cost is you.

Initiative advantages like wired reflexes now give you plot points, which are functionally shortcuts or cheats. They give you rerolls or change turn order, or add Glitch Dice (which I will say straight up I don’t understand, but the general idea is that if you roll a one on a glitch die, all goes to hell, if a 5 or 6, you get an exploit and things go well. This may sound fun and exciting to people who like adding additional chance into their game, but it’s not really something I love.), and so on.

Gear is mentioned in this same section (page 47) and is super duper basic. Gear has no specific mechanics, but can narratively help with problems, like med kits and tool sets. Very, very basic.

I don’t have much interest in hacking or cybercombat, but I’ll bet at least one of you do.

There is both AR & VR, where in AR you generally interact like software and icons and stuff, and in VR, you’re living all Second Life. AR doesn’t give any bonuses to hacking, but VR gives a +1 to hacking. With VR you can’t do anything non-virtual, and cybercombat kicks your ass. Hacking is basically a skill test, and cybercombat comes with a fun little dice pool calculation too.

There are additional matrix rules you can dive into on your own.

Spells and spirits and stuff have their own section. One of the most notable things is that there are no longer spell effect limits beyond those narratively defined, except in the case of combat spells, which only last for the time their damage is applied. GMs can apply a negative modifier if someone wants to maintain a spell for a long period of time. Not unreasonable, in my opinion, if you don’t have a jerk GM (if you do, try to find another GM! Look on the internet! Run, little chummer, run!).

There’s information on astral projection (no test needed) and astral combat (use the Astral Combat skill and have a standard combat experience, take stun damage).

Vehicle and drone combat addresses AR vs. VR in regards to how you use the equipment, and there’s info on vehicle movement, just basic stuff, but I’m sure gearheads will be happy to know they’ve been recognized.

There are also additional rules about breathing, environments, and mind control, in case you were wondering. There’s an important note about what an NPC can’t make someone do under mind control:

I mean, if you like doing that stuff, you do you. I’m glad they pointed it out though.

For those not a fan of sharing their GM hat, there are rules about giving GMs more control via plot points and who interprets perception tests. In standard SR:A the player doing the narration has freedom to define a lot of what is seen with a perception test, but with the adjusted version, the control is given solely to the GM and controlled by how many successes are rolled. I really have to say, though, give shared narrative a shot if you’ve got the time and energy. It can be really fun for everyone.

The GM section is a lot of detail that I’d not normally read since I’m traditionally a player. I wanted to highlight two pages that I think are absolutely important.

This page shouldn’t be necessary. But, it is. Just… yeah. Be cool, kids.

If you all thought that someone could put a section in a book called “Asking Good Questions” and I wouldn’t pull it out, you were sorely mistaken. As people know from games like Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts, as well as about 80 other indie games, asking good questions is an amazing GM tool – hell, amazing for players, too (“Do you really want to kill that guy? Why? Oh, he killed your uncle? Shit. Let’s do that.”). I like seeing it hard coded into a game, though, because I love questions, sooo much, and for narrative games they are the soymeat in the sausage.

The pregenerated characters are pretty fucking cool on the start, I’ll be honest. I love cool character art, many of them are really interesting. I’ll try to keep this brief.

The Native characters are very cool on the surface, but the conflation of Pacific Northwestern tribes and the Plains tribes in their backgrounds, plus having one of them taking artifacts and putting them in a museum (with jokes about angry locals, even), and Coydog wearing an eagle feather headdress that’s most likely inappropriate for her background are problems! I’m intending to do an extended feature on Natives in RPGs and specifically in Shadowrun with a consultant I’ve been corresponding with, where I’ll explore this, but for now: Chrome Bison is _really, really cool_ but we need to think harder and ask more questions and remember whose stories we’re telling. I know Natives are a huge, huge part of Shadowrun, and I don’t want people to stop making them part of it – but we need to do it right.

Chrome Bison, following, is cool – but cool doesn’t erase responsibility. Chrome Bison would be very disappointed in cultural appropriation, I think.

There may also be other issues of cultural appropriation or misrepresentation here. It’s important to remember that while Shadowrun is an alternate-fantasy-history, the cultures that it’s pulling from are real and existing in the majority of these cases. I am disappointed when I see misrepresentation and negative stereotypes in fiction, and I am doubly so in games where players are supposed to take on these identities.

That being said, there are a ton of characters I love, starting with Ms. Myth.

LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE TROLL FACES. LET ME. No wait, that is way too much enthusiasm for this, I’ll never finish. But yes, she seems amazing. Borderline is incredibly cool, too cool for me. As mentioned, Chrome Bison, as a troll street samurai, is freaking amazing. Fourth is cool but I wish she’d been nonbinary or androgynous, as the art brought it pretty close to it.

Jinn is an elf brute force decker who is from Istanbul, and his jam is fashion, and I’d love some input from people on his presentation and cultural representation in the art and text at some point. There are TONS of really fascinating characters of so many different backgrounds. I still wish for nonbinaries because I’m a pain in the ass (and because we should be represented in such a world!), but the last one I want to shine a light on is Rose Red.

Rose Red has a fascinating background. I really love the concept, but it is a difficult one. The general idea (for those who can’t see the image or don’t feel like reading the teeny text), she was trafficked as a sex worker, then she awakened, and overtook her boss and became a trafficker herself. It leads to her trafficking her own sister, and then finding salvation through a neo-anarchist group. I have so many mixed feelings about the representation of sex workers here, because it’s good to see them represented, and there is a specific note about how the neo-anarchists welcomed her with no shaming, but it is still a hard line to walk. I’d love to hear the input of any sex workers on this topic, as I can’t speak from experience.

FINAL VERDICT

I really, really want to play this game. There are some issues, yes. And I’m not happy with all of the flavor text. But, I have to be honest: what I have read in Shadowrun: Anarchy feels more like Shadowrun to me than 5e ever did. Maybe it’s because it’s simpler in writing, I’m not sure. But, it’s simpler in mechanics, too, and way simpler than 3e. Shadowrun is my favorite fictional world and while it always could be improved, so could a lot of other games.

Shadowrun: Anarchy could use some better layout choices in regards to accessibility and print use. It could use more attention to nonbinary gender representation, and representation of cultures and races that are unfamiliar (or only stereotypically familiar) to the average white gamer. The mechanics are far more lightweight in comparison to all other Shadowrun editions, and in my opinion mix a lot of the good mechanical bits with a lot of my favorite narrative things. The fiction is supported in some ways by the mechanics with the damage, the complexity of combat and spell casting, and the impact of metahuman races, and the pregenerated characters are many and varied.

I would suggest that, if you have played Shadowrun and you like narrative games, you give this a shot. If you like narrative games but know nothing about Shadowrun or really any trad games, consider trying it out for a one-shot with pregenerated characters. If you’ve only played trad games and you like Shadowrun, consider trying this out – the worst that will happen is that you’ll decide it’s too simple, and that’s not much of a loss.

In general, I think it sounds really fun. I’m trying to find time to get a friend to run for me, and in the meantime, I’m going to continue enjoying the beautiful art and maybe build some characters if I have some free time.

Good luck, chummers!

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This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Women with Initiative: Elsa Sjunneson-Henry

Hi all! Today’s Women with Initiative feature is with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, a well-known writer, designer, editor, and creator, as well as a accessibility coordinator and consultant for conventions. She is a huge advocate for disability accommodation, representation, and accessibility in gaming and fiction arenas, and has started doing educational programs like the Writing the Other Master Class, Writing Deaf and Blind Characters coming up September 10th (spots are still open!). 
Elsa blogs regularly on Feminist Sonar, talking about everything from feminism on screen to her personal experiences and how they impact her and the world around her. She’s worked on a number of fiction and RPG products including writing Elizabeth Bathory for Dracula Dossier, and her current game DEAD SCARE, a tabletop RPG of zombies and 1950s housewives that Kickstarted last year. I asked Elsa a few questions about her work on DEAD SCARE.

What were the most important things you found you had to focus on while designing DEAD SCARE in terms of inclusivity, accessibility, and staying true to the fictional goals you had for the game?

I wanted to write a game about zombies that wasn’t actually about the zombies. At its core, DEAD SCARE is about communities, and how they react under pressure. In order to do that, I needed to pay attention to how women differentiate themselves from each other, while still making sure that each and every single playbook could be played by a woman of any race, class, ability or age. It was important to me that racism not play a part in the way in which the game read to players.

DEAD SCARE can include some very scary and intense situations. How do you design the game to help GMs and players navigate you, and do you have an example of an experience at the table where you thought your efforts in that regard showed fruitful results?

DEAD SCARE has a section on what I call the tone dial. Essentially, you can play DEAD SCARE any number of ways, from it being a LEAVE IT TO BEAVER episode where zombies just happen to show up and ruin the church bazaar, to a game where everyone engages with the social and political struggles of the 1950s. It’s a game where you opt in to the difficulties, not a game where you force players to engage with them. I like to run Dead Scare as a story about community, but some players want it to be a dungeon crawl through suburbia.

What lessons have you brought from your work on Dead Scare as you move forward with more RPG products, and what projects are on the horizon for you?

DEAD SCARE taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid of mechanics, which is something that I have brought forward to my work on the FATE ACCESSIBILITY TOOLKIT. In the next few months, though, I am focusing on teaching writers and how to write disabled characters. I’ll be teaching a course with Writing the Other on writing D/deaf and Blind Characters. I’m currently working on a book which I’ll be querying to agents hopefully this fall, and many short stories. I’m working to diversify what I write, moving to do more fiction, because I love it.

Thank you so much to Elsa for allowing me to interview her for this month’s feature! Make sure to follow her blog posts at Feminist Sonar and her words on Twitter @snarkbat, and you might still be able to grab a spot in her Writing the Other Master Class on Writing Deaf and Blind Characters by registering here! 

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

I AM Mental

A slight diversion from our normal content, here. It’s semi-political, if my mental health is political. 

Content/Trigger Notice: mental health, depression, bipolar, and similar illnesses are all discussed/specific mentions of binge drinking, suicide, and self-destructive behavior. 

I was going to write about Are You Mental? and its Kickstarter when I got home today. I don’t need to, because there’s this excellent post by Kate Bullock, who is wonderful. I’m going to say shit anyway.

I know I do problematic things in relation to mental health and representation, I totally do, but I’m also extremely aware of how my literal crazy is heavily misrepresented by media and fiction crazy. See, here’s the thing. I live my crazy in public. I don’t think there has ever been a day when someone has asked me about my mental health and I’ve denied them an answer. I joke about it, occasionally, but not often. Often, I’m too busy with it. 

For reference, I have bipolar disorder, anxiety (generalized and social), mild obsessive/compulsive behaviors, issues with seasonal depression, a history of emotional abuse, and have many panic attacks.

Somewhere around 2013ish, I’m not sure when, I started a spiral into an incredibly tragic and damaging mixed/manic episode in which I destroyed friendships, professional relationships, had abusive relationships and may have been abusive myself, wasted more money than is reasonable, experienced massive physical health issues in part because of the irresponsible and self-destructive behavior, and I did a lot of wrong things, including some things that other people would never admit to.

If you ask me? I will try to tell you honestly what happened. There are some times I don’t really know. The funny thing about being so crazy is that you don’t always remember the worst things. Or the best things. Like, I remember drinking an entire bottle of vodka after my then-partner screamed and shook the dinner table for half the meal and tried to hit me. That was not my crazy, nope, but there it was, nestled in the situation my crazy put me in. I don’t remember seeing some of my best friends at conventions where I was so manic, so close to breaking, that I didn’t really sleep for almost 72 hours, and barely ate, and talked so fast I don’t even remember how I managed to talk. I crave those moments. Those moments, at a gaming con, as a gamer, where I was crazy.

I am well medicated, doing therapy, and thankfully with access to good healthcare to keep those things. (No worries, potential employers!) Not everyone has that. Even having it doesn’t mean you’re safe. Everyone who watches me on social media sees these ups and downs of my moods, my bleak moments of depression, my hypomania. Lithium is great, but it does not cure me.

If you sit down and play a game, and you play a mad character, a crazy character, oh, it’s so exciting, isn’t it? To be crazy? To be INSANE? You can do whatever you want! No matter what you do, it’s okay, you’re crazy! Hahaha OMG NOT REALLY.

My freelance career is mostly in tatters. I couldn’t do the work. I couldn’t’ focus. I got nothing done. I have some work – thanks to some very, very generous people – but I’m not a professional. I burned that flag to ashes and dust. I was not a nice person. I wasn’t respectful. Hell, I honestly feel like I lost tons of social relationships alone on this, in part because everyone thought I made someone cheat on their wife,* because that’s totally something I want on my resume.

I am very honest about my mental illnesses so that people can see, in reality, what crazy is. It is not laughing enthusiastically because things are so, so funny, it’s laughing because you actually can’t stop and you don’t know what’s wrong and if you stop you might die. It’s not feeling morose and sad, sitting at a windowsill dripping with raindrops, it’s sitting on your kitchen floor crying because you almost killed yourself, again, you might do it again, you might die. It’s not being nervous around new people you’ve never met before, it’s being afraid to go to your best friend’s house and if they see how much of a goddamn mess you are, you might die. Some of these are figurative. Some of them are extremely not.

Are You Mental? may be super fun and exciting and make a lot of people very happy. All I can say is that I am, actually, mental, and games like that make me feel like I should fucking die.

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Small addendum: 1) I am not asking for this to be paid via Patreon. That feels weird. 2) I did do consulting on the essays for mental health representation in the Lovecraftesque game by Becky Annison and Joshua Fox, and I’m available to do that for other games. Just comment and tag me and we’ll go from there.

*I literally have no desire to deal with people’s defenses of this or justifications. Just leave it alone, it’s better off dead.

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

Jay Sylvano, Game Chef, and Making Simple Games

Y’all know I love me some simple games.

I make games that are hella simple a lot of the time – little written games, question games, lonely games, those kinds of things. So I love hearing about people making games that are simple, but do more. Ask bigger questions. Challenge assumptions. Push harder.

Jay Sylvano has done that.

I met Jay at a podcast recording for the IGDN (Indie Game Developer Network) in November 2015, for Metatopia 2015. She was a recipient of the Metatopia Designer Scholarship. Her work thus far has been really interesting, and I’m always excited to see more.

Her 2016 Game Chef submission is an examination of a dystopian authoritarian high school, where questions of mind control and propaganda. It’s a live-action game, which is really cool, and I think that it has a lot of possibilities for play that are thoroughly fascinating. 

I’ve put together some of Jay’s words on her project further on, but here’s some background from her:

I’m from South Africa and have been living in Portland, OR for the past 4 years. I’m a full time graphic designer by day and an analog game designer by night, with a specific focus on story games and freeform larps.

I’ve created a number of games now including Shame, a freeform game about “honor” violence and patriarchal killings, Into The Gale, a tabletop story game about differently abled animals coming together to solve mythical problems, and The Illustrious Magnolia Hotel & Spa, a roleplaying game about a group of highly incompetent hotel staff trying to keep their crumbling establishment afloat.

I’m also on the board of the Portland-based nonprofit Games to Gather that focuses on inclusivity and social consciousness through play. My pride and joy is my main monthly gaming event “Ready, Set, Game: Womyn’s Night” that is all about womyn coming together in a safe space to play games, talk about game design and offer support and advice about participating in the typically misogynistic universe that is analog gaming.
This year I also launched the analog game design challenge Vernal Star, which encourages new designers to make games about obscure topics and research the lived experiences of others. The results of this year’s challenge will be announced at the end of July.

Jay obviously has a really nice set of qualifications, and the depth of thought put into her Game Chef submission is pretty great. Game Chef, for a little more context, is a game competition with simple elements that has a very brief turnaround for submission. I’ve tried it, and I was awful at it, but there have been some amazing games submitted, and some have even progressed to full development. Totally worth trying if you’re into it!

When I first asked Jay about her submission, she said:

The ingredients for this year’s contest were Sun, Dance, Alarm and Sketch, and the overall theme was Technology, with particular interest in how technology can influence and be used in analog games.

I was so excited about this theme and immediately wanted to create a game that would combine the isolation we associate with using technology with the in-person interaction and teamwork usually seen in larps. I’ve also been itching to create a game in a dystopian setting.

My final submission is called Intellectual Property. A game that deals with an authoritarian panopticon in a near future dictatorship. It is a freeform game that can take up to fifty players and engages with the trend of dystopian coming of age narratives found in stories like The Hunger Games while using the omnipresent technology on our bodies (and in our smart phones) to create a space for engagement.

Essentially, players take on the roles of high school students going through their first day of government training to protect their minds from terrorist attacks, during recess. The game requires players to make no overt attempts at communication and relies on audio and recorded propaganda to keep players distracted, occupied and frustrated, while still trying to be teenagers and connect with each other. The game was designed to explore the subject of government propaganda and subliminal messages and the effects these have on the ideas, creativity, relationships and sense of safety of the young citizens of a county.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Jay’s integration of technology into analog design with the propaganda being played is something that really piqued my interest. I love technology, so much, and I love the idea of literally influencing thought while playing a game. That’s really freaking awesome, and I wanted to know more about Jay’s concepts and purposes for the game.

I was particularly intrigued with Game Chef’s theme this year because of conversations I’ve been having in my own game groups about incorporating technology into analog games as a way for further conveying a message or reaching a desired goal. There is so much room right now to expand what an analog game is and how it works, and with American freeform being such a new and largely unexplored form of interactive, in-person gaming, I think we’re barely scratching the surface of play as an engaging art form and I can’t wait to see where it will go from here.

The ingredients, sunlight, alarm, dance and sketch were also something that caught my eye and struck me as “happy” words. I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the value in creating a sense of shared joy or euphoria in a group of players – especially considering the trend of freeform games that are considered to provide impactful play experiences being dark, brooding and designed with the intent of evoking sorrow. There’s a sort of in-joke in my Portland freeform community about “waiting to die” games and how every freeform we play is secretly just that. I hope to see more games exploring a spectrum of emotions and themes, and these ingredients looked like something I could utilize to make one that does.

The term “‘waiting to die’ games” is hilarious and terrible and I love it. What kind of experiences do you have designing a Game Chef game? Well…

I’m a notorious procrastinator with a full time job who’s also co-directing a positive action gaming non-profit with 9 monthly events, so as much as I wanted to enter this challenge I was 98% sure I’d fail. It came down to one sleepless night of writing it all, creating an hour long audio track, mapping out the layout and designing a decent cover. I managed to submit it a few hours before the deadline and I was pretty thrilled to have just managed that. It’s not quite the grand vision I had started off with, but Game Chef encourages participants to go back and polish their entries, and Intellectual Property is getting a lot of finishes touches right now. I’m actually hoping I’ll get to run the final product at Metatopia 2016 in November.

What’s the game really about, though? 

The game itself, when it’s really boiled down, is a weird attempt on my part to convey what it’s like to have your voice silenced and your thoughts and sense of identity policed, and then to have to move through the world and interact with others with a smile plastered across your face and no outward signs of rebellion – something women come to accept as the norm from a very young age. This game is an extreme and warped scenario of what patriarchy does to us and the ways we adapt and learn to rebel, often quietly. The constant assurances from the audio track that these measures are in place to protect you, that violating the rules will hurt not only you but those you attempt to enlist in your rebellion, that you aught to be policing others and punishing them for stepping out of line, all of this is a very focused, exaggerated example of what living within a patriarchy is like. Coupled with the highly sexist, exuberant radio commercials that bombard players at intervals, I hope the game will manage to convey this message subtly in the guise of control of the people by the state.

Most of my games are overtly feminist and tend to drive home a very specific point about oppression without metaphors or veiled mechanics. They’re very “on the nose” I guess you could say. While I want to use game design as a platform to raise awareness about things that matter to me, theses games look like serious business to the average consumer and can be pretty intimidating to jump into. I’m generally all about not pulling punches in that sense. This time, I wanted to make something that could convey this message more subtly. I wanted it to be fun and weird and open to interpretation in the hopes that people wouldn’t be terrified of playing it and hopefully didn’t have to fear for their emotional well-being. Men often have trouble in my games with feeling like they have a right to fully participate when themes are so overtly feminist and about the lived experiences of women. That or they avoid the game entirely thinking it’s not “for them”. Hopefully a scenario that’s more subtle and open to interpretation will dispel some of that hesitation and enable everyone to participate freely.

When Jay talked about what she wanted people to take out of the game, I was really happy with her answer:

I hope people will come away from playing Intellectual Property with a sense of camaraderie, since its core mechanic is forming emotional bonds with others in a world where you’re not supposed to. I also hope it will stir up thoughts about how our government and media shape the people we become and how we regard and treat others. If people can walk away from something fun and uplifting and still retain those ideas, I’ll have contributed in a tiny way to making the world a happier, more inclusive, respectful place.

This is excellent. The game itself is a simple concept: kids in high school in a dystopia, with propaganda playing. The questions? There are so many, so many good questions. And the intentions outlined by Jay, to form “emotional bonds… where you’re not supposed to,” and questioning the media and government? I love it. 

Thanks so much to Jay for the interview, and I really hope you all enjoyed reading!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

How Interactive is Your Game?

As a roleplayer, I have played in a number of different situations. Most people have played home games – at your place, or the home of a friend, in a closed environment. Some people have played at local events, or even large cons like GenCon. With larping, people play in all types of environments – small house events, large outdoor weekend events, convention hall rooms, and so on. Our environments often shape our play – how loud we talk, whether we move around, and our props or costumes.

Today I’m thinking very deeply about interactivity. This is not just “does your game involve you and do you do a thing,” but instead “how much does the player emotionally and physically interact with a game?” I wasn’t able to find a lot about interactivity in relation to tabletop and live-action roleplaying games. If I’m missing something, obviously feel free to share them in comments, but please avoid diluting my points.

I’m proposing some concepts on how to evaluate interactivity in tabletop and larp, and these are key for accessibility and player choice. 

Ask these questions:

  • Will players sit at the table, stand, or move around, or a combination of those?
  • Will players speak in character, use distancing (third-person), or alternate as comfortable?
  • Will players “perform” their character – changing from sitting at the table to standing, entering into other players’ personal space, raising their voice, moving hands more than just standard “talky” movement?
  • Will players be required to do these things, encouraged to do them, or have the option to do them?
  • Is there an opt out option for any of these things, or is the only option not to play?(1) 
  • Will players be in separate spaces, or in one space?
  • Will players need to move from space to space?
  • Will players have assistance moving from space to space if needed?
  • Will players have character sheets, index cards, name tags, props, or other materials to represent characters, powers, abilities, or resources?
  • Will these materials be available in alternate formats, or is there a standard?
  • Is it possible for players to have access to materials in advance?

There are probably more questions to be asked! This is a really complex subject, and it’s come to me from a very specific place: my own fears. Most people who know me are aware that I operate with pretty clear awareness of my fears because without that I can’t make it past them. This comes through in games! I ask for use of X-cards or Script Change or pre-game discussion on boundaries because I can decide then what I’m really comfortable with, and with who. However, the one thing that none of these cover by default or even in some extrapolation is interactivity. 

We rarely discuss at the table “Hey, are we going to talk in-character for this session?” or “Can I stand up if my character wants me to?” or “Can I sit while others are standing in this session?” or “Can I just write these character stats on an index card for while we move around?” However, these questions are incredibly important! Not just from an accommodations point of view for mental or physical disabilities, but also from the perspective of safety and comfort. I’ll give a brief example.

I was playing a local home game with some people I was mostly familiar with. It was an emotional game, for sure, and the situations were pretty intense at times, but after a few sessions, we had still only used descriptions of raised voices or physical action, and that had been okay. However, the GM at this point brought forth a very (for me) scary and intense situation. In playing the NPC character, they stood up, walked over to me, and screamed at me. Repeatedly. As someone with some history involving abuse and raised voices, the combination of the yelling and interference with my personal space completely terrified me. At that point my mental options were to 1) react violently (which I didn’t), or 2) freeze up. I haven’t spoken to the person about it,(2) but that’s partially because I still feel anxious around them.

I can’t be the only person who has experienced this. If I had known that these kind of actions would have occurred in game, I might not have ever played. Did I have good times? Yes. Was it worth that panicked experience? No.

Upon hearing recently that some people at Games on Demand were playing with more intense interactivity (characters were arguing, so players raised their voices and were physically acting), it brought this idea to the forefront. I’m really frustrated that I haven’t seen a lot of discussion about this, actually, because yes, we’re all playing games and having fun. But, not everyone has fun in the same way, and not setting these expectations can ruin someone’s time.

This is normally when people come in with the “if they don’t like it, they don’t have to play!” or “we aren’t writing/running games for people who won’t do improv/aren’t willing to be physical/can’t handle intense situations!” and you know what? Fuck you. I’m actually really tired of it. Games are not just for one specific class and type of people. You can design games and run games in any way you want to, but if you aren’t willing to tell people up front what to expect, you are doing it wrong.

There is no reason I should be unable to play games because I am afraid someone will shout at me at the table. There is no reason I should be unable to play games because I can’t stand for four hours. I might not be able to play all games, but I should be able to play some games, and if someone tells me the situation and expectations, I can determine whether I can meet those expectations of that game. 

If you are designing games and/or running/facilitating games, please take these things into consideration. It may take time! It may even take effort! But if we want people to enjoy our games, why wouldn’t we take time and effort? People have spent decades designing entire adventures with the minutiae of what potions are available in a chest in the sixteenth room of a 25 room dungeon, so I think we could take a half hour to ask ourselves how interactive our games will be, regardless of their type, to ensure that everyone involved has a good time and can contribute to the game comfortably.

Thank you for reading!

(1) The second is not condemnation, it’s just important to note.
(2) If you see yourself here, this is not the time to talk about it. If I ever want to talk to you about it, I’ll come to you.

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

We Need to Talk About Disabilities and Gaming

Talking with John (husband) about disability literacy for the able, how literacy is a weird term, & how to handle being unable to write at a game table.

Virtually every RPG requires the ability to read and write. This is an issue for bringing games to illiterate individuals (who exist!), which is another huge thing that I don’t even know how to address. However, something I can address is my own situation.

I have hand tremors that have grown relatively significant and some minor muscle spasms. I can’t handwrite really at all anymore. I risk tearing paper or very far stray lines, and it’s also really stressful to try to write because it’s embarrassing and difficult (and sometimes painful because of the muscle strain to avoid shaking). The issue here is that almost every single game involves writing at least something on a character sheet and I have no real objection to that. I like customizing characters. However, these days I need a second set of hands to do those things.

When I go to a table and have to ask someone to fill out my sheet, it’s awkward and embarrassing. Most of the time it is eased because I’ll go to tables with friends (this is part of why I seek out friendly, familiar tables). However, I sometimes want to game with new people! I can’t always rely on people I know to help me write down my stats and stuff, and I want to emphasize that having friends at a table will always make this easier, but it is not enough.

There is a huge lack of literacy in regards to disability in the world in general, but I’m surprised at how significant it can be in the gaming world. I realize that it’s hard to achieve this, as schools don’t really address it, workplaces do their best to avoid it, and honestly, disabled individuals can easily be alienated socially too. But it’s really not okay.

If I ask for help at a strange table, I get stared at, awkward mumbles, and eventually someone will help but it’s very hard to feel comfortable at that point. I’ve outed myself. I have to give an explanation. It takes time away from the game, I delay the other players, and I know it’s an inconvenience, and it also puts me in a weird place socially. Now I’m kind of the invalid, I’m a weight on other players. They treat me differently, and it makes me feel really sad.

The issue, in reality, is not that I can’t get help. Most people will (even if begrudgingly) help me. Some are even happy to do it. At friendly tables, it’s awesome because my friends are so supportive. At a stranger’s table, it’s harder. People don’t know enough about disabled people to know how to react when a disabled person needs help. They don’t know that it’s just a simple need, so sometimes they treat me like a child. They don’t know how extensive it is, so sometimes they get annoyed.

I’m writing this massive blargh of text to say this: We need to talk about disabilities and gaming. There are some great people talking about it already (Elsa S. Henry and Shoshana Kessock to name a couple, and I think Matt Weber as well, and I know there are more of you out there!!), which is awesome, but more than a few people need to be talking. We need to ask for accommodation at conventions and events. We need to talk to players and GMs about how to help disabled players at their tables. We need to be willing to help, and to not judge people for needing help.

I’m asking now, as a gamer and designer and player and everything else, for your help in teaching others how to be an ally for disabled gamers, in working with businesses and organizations in gaming to make things approachable for disabled gamers, and in making spaces more accessible.

Here’s the thing. I’m here to support you in this effort, but in part because I _have_ disabilities, I need more legwork from those who have the energy. Speak to disabled gamers to get their feedback, do research online, and be aware of situations that might put disabled gamers at a disadvantage or keep them from participating. This week, I spoke to John Ward at GAMA about Origins, and we discussed some work they’re doing to improve registration next year to make it more accessible. All it took was a polite and well-worded email and a willingness to discuss options, and I think that next year’s registration might be a lot easier for me and players like me. It’s worth the effort.


I hope you’ll join me in this. I know we have a lot of causes and inclusivity movements to keep up with, but if you can take just a little time – even if it just means helping a player out at a con table you share and treating them like a person when you do it – it can really make a difference.


Thank you to my friends who have supported me while I’ve dealt with my illnesses. You’re the best!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

Women with Initiative: Kathryn Hymes

Hello all! Today we’re featuring Kathryn Hymes, our Woman with Initiative for April!

Kathryn is one half of the indie design studio, Thorny Games. In the past year, the studio’s silent live action game Sign received an Honorable Mention from the Golden Cobra Challenge. Sign is a game following the journey of deaf children in 1970s Nicaragua. It’s received great reception at multiple events, including Metatopia and Dreamation, and will be featured at the upcoming Living Games conference. It’s always exciting to see designers approaching difficult topics and examining agency and experiences through the lens of gaming.

Kathryn’s current project is Dialect, which in her own words is

“…a game about language and how it dies. It’s a world-building game that follows the story of a community in isolation as seen through their language. We’ve run very successful playtests at Metatopia and Dreamation as well as with many local groups throughout the SF area.  My design partner and I have put a lot of time and heart into this game. Looking forward to Kickstarting in the late summer!”

She is also working on Xenolanguage, which is an introspective game based on one of her favorite sci-fi stories by Ted Chiang. In Xenolanguage, Kathryn explains

“…it’s five minutes in the future and we’ve just made first contact. You are a linguist tasked with deciphering an alien language. As you gain fluency, you begin to see the world differently.”

This in particular made me think of Magicians, a language learning RPG that teaches Korean. Using RPGs to help people learn and understand unfamiliar languages and cultural language coding is fascinating!

I had the opportunity to ask Kathryn some questions about her work and process. Check them out!

Why did you choose language as a focus for your current games?

Oh, man — language is so my jam. I read grammar books for fun as a kid (I was a fun kid). I studied math and language in school. It was a natural muse for game design. Language is a powerful and relatively-uncharted topic in gaming that is fundamental to so much — identity, culture and just being human.

Given it’s a passion, the ideas around it come very naturally. Dialect, a project I’m co-designing with Hakan Seyalioglu, started off as an idea about telling a story through building a language. In the past I’ve struggled with finishing projects just for the sake of it. Feeling compelled to make something because I really care about it gets me through the design slumps.

Language won’t be the focus forever, but for now I’m happy dancing in the space between a game-designer- linguist.

Could you talk a little about Sign and the research you did for the game?


Yes! Sign is a game about being understood. It’s a silent larp for 4-6 players in under 2 hours. It centers on deafness, play, and an emergent language that came from the hands of children. In Sign, players follow a small piece of the true story behind Nicaraguan Sign Language, which started life as an emergent language of deaf school children, and later became the official sign language of an entire country. In the game, players share the frustration and loneliness of not having a language and develop the tools to overcome it. Over the course of the game, they build their own form of communication through structure and freeform play. As a linguist, I’ve been moved by this story for a long time. I hope this game will help it spread!

My design partner and I have taken great care to make the game accessible, respectful, and fun to play. We’ve solicited and incorporated feedback from both the Deaf community and linguists specializing in sign language. This has meaningfully shaped the game. We believe Sign is an experience in empathy: It gives players a brief glimpse at how life changes when barriers to communication are raised, and what that means for people emotionally. The hope is that in addition to being a game, it can see a second life as an educational tool, spreading the word of what is one of the most remarkable linguistic phenomena of modern times.

How do you make games about language more engaging when they include elements like being unable to speak or having different languages without the game seeming forced?

Our brains are hard-wired for language – it’s something that makes us fundamentally human. This help it be naturally engaging. For example, what’s most unique about playing Sign is the arc of understanding. Players’ interactions during the first stages of the game are stilted and full of compromise. They don’t have language: they can’t be understood and it stings. Throughout the game, players define the words they need to communicate during recess and class time, and by the end, it’s incredible how much they can get across. We’ve also seen players hold onto their in-game language long after the game ends and use it with others to recall play. Words are just so sticky.

Thank you so much to Kathryn for answering questions and giving her time for this feature! You can reach Kathryn via the links and social media below if you’re interested in talking more about Sign, Dialect, or Xenolanguage, or whatever else caught your eye during the interview. Thanks for reading, and please remember to check out my Patreon if you’re interested in helping support more blog posts, interviews, and features on Thoughty blog!
—
Kathryn Hymes Contact
Thorny Games Website
 

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

Five or So Questions with Kira Magrann on RESISTOR

I interviewed Kira Magrann about her upcoming zine, RESISTOR, which is being co-created with Elissa Leach. It sounds like a fantastic project, and you can check it out on Kickstarter now!

Tell me a little about RESISTOR. What excites you about it?
Elissa and I have been wanting to collaborate on a project for awhile, and we just weren’t sure what themes we wanted it to have. The second she said “let’s do something cyberwitchy” I jumped out of the chair I was sitting in and nearly spilled the bourbon I was drinking. YES. CYBERWITCHES.

The cool thing about this project is that it’s remixing a bunch of ideas, communities, and people in one place. That’s a very cyberpunk thing in and of itself. It’s featuring games, art, and fiction, in a zine format, which is very popular in current queer and social justice circles. We wanted a diverse set of creators so we’ve got trans, non-binary, women, and POC working on it. And we wanted it to have that gritty feel, like something you could find next to some fliers at a punk bar. I’m excited about the aesthetic, and the stories we’re telling!

Zines have a long history with social justice, queer culture, and a lot of divergent subcultures. What are you bringing that’s new to the format, and what inspirations did you have for the types of materials you brought together?
Elissa and I kinda wanted to remix a bunch of ideas, communities, and people in one place. It’s a super cyberpunk idea, taking the old “zine tech” of rough edges, collaboration, personal politics, and making it new. It’s featuring games, art, and fiction, in a zine format. We wanted a diverse set of creators so we’ve got trans, non-binary, women, and POC working on it. And we wanted it to have that gritty feel, like something you could find next to some fliers at a punk bar. So like, easy to pick up, engage with, and get sucked into our world with no prior knowledge of the themes or how to play these games.

What are a few of the challenges you’ve encountered creating a niche project like RESISTOR, and what good things surprised you?
I think the biggest challenges so far have just been logistics, really! This is my first Kickstarter, and Elissa’s second, so figuring out how all that works and how to coordinate with a partner on a project like this has just been a little trial and error. Mostly we just hung around with Elissa’s cats, listened to some records, and like, made headers and bios for the kickstarter page.

We’re both visual artists, so creating images and finding collaborators on that end wasn’t too hard. I’ve been really inspired while this kickstarter is running, it’s hitting the reward centers of my brain and motivating me to create new stuff! I think that sometimes its easy to see creating things and making Kickstarters as difficult, stressful obstacles, but I’ve really enjoyed organizing everything, and coming up with ideas that are cyber-witchy to write about. Working with these amazing people has been really maybe the best part. Banana Chan’s game is gorgeous, Elissa’s art is phenomenal, my game ritual has been super inspiring, it’s really easy to get into the setting and thinking of this zine and create a whole lot of things for it, because its basically everything that I love. Funny how that works out, making things I love is easy!

Cyberpunk and social justice are two things I absolutely love. Coming in from that angle, what are the two things that you would say to someone with my interests to get me to invest in the project?
I like to think of RESISTOR as a kind of tool to inspire people to think more about these ideas. Not really a manifesto, but something that someone can pick up and read and say, yea, I wanna go talk about this class issue, or this neat ritual way of thinking, or apply this to my every day life. We want it to be accessible to a bunch of different communities, so not just the queer, punk, music, comic communities where zines are popular now, but also gaming communities and fiction communities. My black heart would grow three sizes if women and trans and non-binary and POC people in comics started playing roleplaying games by picking up this zine. It’s also hella styish and woke af. Cyberpunk often is about awesome chrome cyborgs and fighting the corporations in this real rebellious uplifting way, and we kinda want it to be like that but, less guns and simple binaries, more witchy rituals and complex cultural nuances.


Finally, if I were a cyberpunk dystopia, and you were a witch, if you took out our hearts, what would they be in RESISTOR?

I mean, we’re already living in that dystopia. So basically, they’d be right where they are, but like, connected by deep black ghost tunes of all the other hearts around us trying to make this world a little better with our glitched-rituals, metallic hymnals resonating in tiny screens that sit next to us every day. Our hearts are all connected even outside of our bodies in machines where we make them vulnerable.

I don’t know about you, but those black ghost tunes are throbbing in my heart right now. RESISTOR sounds like an awesome product and I’d love to see it out and available. Check it out on Kickstarter and consider becoming a backer!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings: They Are Not What You Think

Content Warning: I’m going to talk about trigger warnings here, so if you don’t like hearing about that, click away now.

Hey humans! 

I want to talk about what content and trigger warnings are, and why they are important. Let’s first establish what these things are:

Trigger Warnings:

Trigger warnings are related to psychological triggers, like those from abuse and trauma. Triggers are things like sights, scents, sounds, and sensations that can produce flashbacks, painful memories, or anxiety/panic reactions in people who have experienced abuse and/or trauma.

For example: I have been sexually assaulted. When I watch movies, play games, or read books that have sexual assault in them, I can become panicked, stressed, and uncomfortable. This feeling can last anywhere from a minute or so to days or weeks. Some people I know are triggered by scents like smoke, sounds like yelling, or sights like specific violence in media or even something like being on snowy roads in winter.

Triggers are not something of cowardice. They are a psychological reaction to traumatic experiences of someone’s past. No one can define the severity of someone else’s trauma. Even when it comes to professionals, they can’t read someone’s mind. When someone is triggered, they can have complex and extreme reactions, or just some stress and a desire to remove themselves from the situation.

Content Warnings:

Content warnings have some things in common with trigger warnings, but they are not the same. We see content warnings all the time – at the movies (Rated R for language, violence, and sex!), on TV (This presentation may contain material that could upset viewers – just like Law and Order), and on video games (Rated M for content). They are not new, and anyone who is surprised by them may have been living under a rock.

Content warnings are not in regards to people’s mental health or put together to avoid panic attacks or flashbacks. Content warnings are there so people can prepare, or decide what they should let their kids see. They are not censorship, and they are not any restriction on media. They are there to guide consumers to media they want, or away from media they don’t want.

Common Objections:

“Trigger warnings and content warnings are for cowards/babies/wusses/immature people!”
Nope! Trigger warnings are there to prevent people with past trauma from experiencing further trauma. Believe it or not, a lot of people suffer from trauma, and it is not something that you can just “tough it out” most of the time. Soldiers who return from war with PTSD (diagnosed or not) can have trouble because of triggers. People who were abused as children can have triggers. Not just soldiers have PTSD, and people of all ages have experienced trauma in their life. This is why trigger warnings are valuable. When you expose someone to a trigger, it has a psychological impact. In some ways, it is like an allergy. If someone were allergic to peanuts, would you tell them to eat peanuts anyway, because their allergy is just “all in their head”?

“Trigger warnings and content warnings are censorship!”
Nope! Slapping a rating or a simplified list of the content of media on the package doesn’t censor anything. The media is still produced, and available for consumption. It might be limited by age, but parents can buy for their kids, so that isn’t a significant issue. People who are triggered by the content might be upset that the product exists – and that’s okay! They can talk to other people about it and say, “hey, if you don’t like this stuff, don’t buy this thing!” and maybe other people won’t buy it. Maybe they still will. People can make choices!

“If people see trigger or content warnings that have stuff they don’t like in them, they won’t buy it or consume it!”
Not necessarily true! While everyone, regardless of their issues with triggers, might decide not to consume a product, there are plenty of people who still will. People can, and often will, still consume media that has objectionable material in it, and that has triggers for them. Seeing a trigger warning isn’t always “That’s not for me!” It might be “I can watch this when I am having a good day” or “Maybe I will save this until when I am not in a depression” or “If I get a friend to watch this with me, I’ll be great” or even “Maybe if someone tells me what part to skip, I can enjoy the rest of the thing!” Also, we are not in the business of forcing people to buy things. No one has to buy what you are selling. It’s not like creators walk beside people in the store just putting things in their cart and telling them that it’s something they should watch, even if they don’t like it. That’s like forcing people who like action movies to watch Oscar bait.

“People will abuse them to get out of work/school/responsibilities!”
Totally! And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay because those people will be few. It’s okay because people use excuses to get out of work/school/responsibilities already. It’s okay because the people who use trigger warnings and content warnings for their own wellbeing and awareness will, a lot of the time, still take the classes or go to work or fulfill their responsibilities. People abusing systems is nothing new, and we shouldn’t put other people through difficult and often dangerous situations just because some people are jerks.

ETA: “You can’t possibly list all of the triggers, how am I supposed to know what they are?”
Well, for one, you can’t list all of them. That’s okay. You don’t have to list them all, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t list any. Part of the point of trigger warnings is demonstrating that you are aware of your audience and willing to listen to them. You can try to focus on the common ones: graphic violence, sexual assault and abuse, domestic/child abuse, and rape. From that, most people can get an idea of whether it’s their kind of media. Trigger and content warnings are not an all or nothing tool. You can talk to your audiences or potential audiences, you can check around in forums and on social media to see what your potential audiences might have issues with. Even if you don’t do that, you can still be considerate even with limited information.


Why are these things important?

A lot of reasons, actually! I have covered a lot of them already, but I’ll summarize.

  • Many people have been affected by trauma in their lives, and it is important to provide support for them to feel safe and still able to enjoy their lives in any way we can.
  • A lot of people prefer to consume different types of media for many different reasons. Some have kids, some like to compartmentalize their media, and some people just don’t enjoy all types of content.
  • We should respect psychological issues just like we do physical issues. They are valid, and denying people the ability to avoid things that hurt them is, honestly, just rude.
  • Everyone should have choices in their media! Everyone is different, and we shouldn’t force everyone to enjoy one thing just because the majority enjoys it, or because not liking it makes them seem judgmental. 

How can this be applied?

In school, it’s simple. Put a note on your syllabus about what kind of content will be discussed in class, what materials you’ll be using, and how to contact instructors to either change classes, consider alternate materials or assignments, or help to figure out a good way to go through the classes without putting students in a position where they don’t feel safe in class.

In media, it’s pretty easy. Create what you want, but put a note on it. It can be simple: “This film includes rape, sexual assault, and sexualized violence.” It can also be more complex: “This game has mechanics that allow for PC mind control, which are not optional and central to the game’s premise.” Either of these options are great, and importantly, they are way better than nothing. If you are planning a convention game, you can put notes in your description, or let the players know when they arrive at the table, and offer them the opportunity to step out.
What about in games where we aren’t using a script? What if something happens in game that wasn’t planned?
This is more difficult! The cool thing is that it’s not impossible! One of the first things you can do is establish boundaries with your players so that if there is something completely off the table, you know in advance and can avoid that material. Another thing is that you can provide tools like Script Change and the X Card. These tools give you either the option to skip content altogether, or to back up and go through a scene again with new content, fade to black, or pause for a moment to evaluate players’ comfort with moving forward. It gives players more control of the content, as well as helping them to feel comfortable. It is awesome because sometimes it makes players even more likely to try adventurous content they may not have otherwise tried.
I want to emphasize: You can still create whatever you want to create. The key is to allow those who aren’t interested in your content to safely avoid it, and give those who want to enjoy your content an easy way to navigate. People have more fun doing the things that they enjoy, and when they are stuck doing things they don’t want to, it drags everyone down. Trigger warnings and content warnings help people find content that they can enjoy, and can encourage them to try new things.
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In the end, trigger warnings and content warnings are a great way to support other people in trying new things, expanding their boundaries, and exploring, without leaving them with no safety net, and without ignoring the importance of their mental and emotional health. Some people might not care about this at all, and that’s okay. However, I think that kind of attitude definitely shines a light on who is likely to consume their media, and whether they are the kind of person those who have experienced trauma are willing to trust. For me, there’s no question: I want everyone to have fun – not just the people who don’t care.


This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

What is Accessibility?

Lately I have been working on a project called Discovery. It’s a teenage superheroes game. It’s pretty simple, system-wise and concept-wise. The dilemma for me is my intentions for the game.

I want the whole game to be able to be explained in a less-than-10-minute video and be supported by a single-page character sheet. I mean, so far, not so hard, right? If it’s super simple, someone can explain a game in 10 minutes (Archipelago, The Quiet Year, etc. – good examples of super low social footprint games with easy explanations – even Apocalypse World is pretty easy to explain in a few minutes). However, I have a combination of problems I’m working on.

It has to be a video with sound. Why? Because some people can’t see. The video has to have subtitles. Like, absolutely has to. Why? Because some people can’t hear well or process audio well. There has to be an accessible transcript so that people can translate it easily. These are all things I can easily manage with the help of my in-house video editor.

The character sheet has to be available in an easily-downloadable format. This is not an issue. However, the BIGGEST problem I have is the character sheet itself. It’s purely visual. It requires someone to explain it. It can’t be used by someone who can’t see. I have no means of getting around this roadblock. I was tasked with finding a way around colorblindness, and I figured that letting people use their own color markers would work. However, I have not found a way around having a visual character sheet for a game that is about making a visual presentation of skills and emotions. Is it even possible? Is this a way I will fail in making my game accessible? Is it even failure?

One of the keys of this project is also for it to be free. This means that I can’t do anything with it if I don’t have +John Sheldon able to work on the video, which means I have to work around his schedule. It means I need to make sure to have a place to host it where downloading it for free is not an issue, where you don’t have to sign up for membership.

So, I guess, my question is: where do we stop on accessibility? How much responsibility does a designer have to their consumers? How can we make games more accessible, and what does accessible really mean? There are boundaries that some people cannot cross due to accessibility issues, including comprehension issues, physical disability, and even financial limitations. How do I make my games meet those expectations?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on G+. I look forward to hearing them!