I’ve been honored to be a part of the Ultimate Micro-RPG Book, edited by James D’Amato, which is currently on PREORDER! Preorders are a great way to support the product and the idea if you like it, because it lets big box stores know that there’s demand, so they’ll order more AND it lets the publisher know there’s a market for these kind of badass products! Check it out!
I would love if my readers who love my games would pre-order this awesome book filled with games by myself and other designers we know well like Alex Roberts and Jason Morningstar but also newer designers on the scene like Ben Chong, Jay Dragon, and Jeeyon Shim, and some rad entries from people like the popular Dread Singles/Hottest Singles writer Jordan Shiveley! I’m ecstatic for this collection!
My entry is a game about werewolves and is a mostly-solo (with option to interview others as part of the game!) game called Lycantree – here’s the blurb:
In Lycantree, you play the youngest member of your werewolf pack who is exploring the history of your Lycantree—the events that created your family. Your pack is a biological family that collectively raises young, and are very long-lived. You can trace over lifetimes the individual stories and the pack’s legacy by interviewing family and reading their journals. By doing this, you will find your own path through the visions of the Lycantree!
What is The Watching Book, both as a product and as your vision?
The
Watching Book is a diegetic setting zine told as the journal of oracles. It
presents the religion, culture, and rituals of a fictional people through the
eyes of the women who guide them. Accompanying the zine is a short paperless,
gm-less rpg. In this, players take on the roll of children to enjoy a game of
mystery-solving and oral storytelling. Both the game and the zine are in-world
artifacts that can be used to enhance a campaign setting or be given directly
to players as found items during a game.
This zine is the second foray into the world of Soothsayer, my boardgame from 2019. The project started as a gift for my wife, and consequently the world is built around centering the lives and accomplishments of lgbt characters. By using different viewpoint characters throughout, I also get the chance to examine the ways in which the same ritual can take on different meaning to different people, even within the same group. I really wanted the world built by these games to explore real faith in fantasy by leaving some questions unanswered.
This sounds very cool! What are some of the ways you set boundaries and encourage creativity, either mechanically or otherwise, for players in The Watching Book?
The
Watching Book is more of a setting than a game in and of itself. But carrying
through from Soothsayer one of my design goals was to make sure to avoid
encouraging a “dark” look at the world. The problems faced within the
text are natural disasters, disagreements, or mysteries rather than acts of
intentional violence or hate. I primed the world to be not a utopia, but a
relatively peaceable sort of place where brutal content is very clearly
out of place and inappropriate. There are a lot of games and settings where
those topics can be explored, but this is not one of them.
As for
creativity, I stay away from explicitly answering any of the religious and
spiritual questions that exist about the world. Are the spirits actually real?
Are they real, but different than how most people interpret them? Readers and
players in the setting have room to develop their own opinions and explore
beliefs without being handed a yes or no answer within the text.
It’s lovely that this was inspired by your wife. In what other ways than the people is The Watching Book a queer game and product?
I made
sure that at every step of the way I tried to include people of different
outlooks and communities. Ezra, the artist, describes themself as a Queer
Jewitch Farmer. That’s a material way I’m using my work to give back; hiring
other LGBT people to work with me.
Additionally
I am happy to adopt a policy that’s gaining traction in the ttrpg community; as
part of the campaign I have included Community Copies of the zine. These are
donated copies from generous people that are available to anyone, no questions
asked. In this way I can make my zine a little more accessible to those having
a hard time.
Today’s post is by me, Beau, and my husband and business partner, John W. Sheldon. We’re discussing the game Sleepaway by Jay Dragon, and the experiences we had during character creation with the gender options.
All photos in this post are by John W. Sheldon, copyright 2019. I hope you enjoy it!
Beau, on Nice Boys
It is no secret that exploring gender in roleplaying games is kind ofa thingI do, This is part of how I got the courage to come out as nonbinary masculine, it’s part of how I discovered I was queer and what kind of queer I am, and it’s helped me develop my perception of self.
That’s not always been easy, though. In the heyday of online text-based roleplay, I could be whatever gender I want – and in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fandoms, androgynous characters weren’t as often rejected as they were in other spaces. When I moved to playing face-to-face tabletop RPGs, I do think I encountered some friction with me playing masculine characters or what I now understand were nonbinary (I didn’t have the word at the time), it wasn’t much more than I got for playing pretty or sexy characters or queer characters. But, none of it ever felt… right?
In most of my own designs, I’ve tried to let people write in their own genders, not be restricted by the words and definitions other people are giving them and use to control and oppress them. I mean, it’s not like being “genderfluid nonbinary masculine” like me is actually a thing to anyone else, either, but it’s the closest I’ve got (though I do use “nonbinary boy” as a shortcut these days). But, this isn’t perfect – sometimes people won’t explore without a little help, a little guidance, something to escort them along their way.
When Dream Askew originally was released, I heard about the alternate gender options, and I was so excited! But when I tried to play the game, it was like a square block in a triangle hole – nothing fit, and it was sharply clear. I couldn’t make sense of it – even if I could kind of conceive the genders in my head, I couldn’t make myself want to play those characters.
But when I tried to play [Dream Askew], it was like a square block in a triangle hole – nothing fit, and it was sharply clear. …Enter Sleepaway.
-Beau
Enter Sleepaway by Jay Dragon. This game has been in my to-play for a bit, and my game group – made up of myself (gendered as noted above), my husband John (agender, presents mostly masculine), and my two cis men friends Ed and TJ who are varying levels of into exploring gender and sexuality (no judgement! some of us are just comfortable where we are!). TJ is the one who actually brought the game to the table and is facilitating.
The setup is fun in general – I honestly need to make a strong note to Jay that the writing is just phenomenal, evocative, and powerful in this game. I did a lot of summer camps as a kid, both as camper and counselor, and had some very important and scary experiences while there. The game captures all of it so beautifully and richly that I feel like I could play it a thousand times and have a unique experience every time, and learn something new about myself and my characters each time, as well. It’s also respectful in regards to First Nations and indigenous people’s rights, specifically in how you name your camp and respect the land!
And that comes into the character creation with the gender options, and where this post came from. I was skimming over them originally, until I reached The Lifeguard playbook. The top option for gender is “Nice Boy.” Anyone who knows me knows that my primary character type is something approximate to the “himbo” – a hot masculine person who is considered to be not the smartest, but is generally nice and well-intentioned even if it doesn’t always work out. I like nice boys, and specifically the gender of “boy” (not meaning a child) is one I identify with. The more I read the specific list, the more I was hooked. I knew what it meant to be a Lighthouse in the Darkness, or to be Relatable. I felt so seen by these options – and I could see other people I know in it too.
The Lifeguard gender options.
During and after character build, the table talked extensively about the gender options, especially me and John. John rarely talks about gender – as an agender person, he’s often said it just never clicks with him! I asked him if he could write a little about his perspective, so he has below.
John, on Rusted Swords
I’ve mostly ignored gender in games. I recognize that as a
supremely privileged thing to be able to do, but as a male,
masculine-presenting person, nobody made it an issue for me if I didn’t make it
one for myself. As an agender person, I never really had strong feelings about
gender presentation in games either – I honestly never thought of gender until
other people brought it up.
Playing classic games like D&D and Shadowrun growing up,
gender was usually just a single letter on a character sheet, something I
jotted down and almost immediately resumed ignoring. It didn’t mean anything
to me, and at the time I didn’t understand that it could to anyone else. After
all, it didn’t change any of the rules for my character, or restrict any of
their actions. I won’t pretend that I and my play groups weren’t steeped in
misogyny as a teen, but even if I put the “F” on my character sheet,
I still got treated well because I was, as a player, perceived as a man.
Then I grew up a bit. I realized that, in contrast to my own
experience, other people did have an internal experience of gender.
Their internal gender experiences meant a lot to them, even. I struggle to
apply a useful simile to the situation, but slowly realizing that I was agender
was a bit like a person slowly coming to understand that they were colorblind:
people were experiencing things and making a lot of decisions based on
information that was absent for me.
Then I discovered a wave of independent tabletop RPGs that
dared to fuck with gender. They made it something other than a binary toggle,
and didn’t pretend it was necessarily tied to biological sex. Gender was
queried as a way to ask about look and presentation, and there were lots of
options! I was glad that other people had selections they could use to
represent themselves, but I went right along basically ignoring the whole
category of experience. I dutifully picked an option during character
generation, usually just as a creative choice to help define the look of the
character, then went on ignoring it in play as I always did.
I dutifully picked an option during character generation, usually just as a creative choice to help define the look of the character, then went on ignoring it in play as I always did.
-John
I even tried an early version of Avery Alder’s Dream Askew.
Unlike the other indie titles I’d read which focused on presentation, Dream
Askew gave pick lists for actual gender, but eschewed the standard selections
in favor of evocative phrases. For me, this was actually a problem. With no
internal experience or sense by which to judge these phrases, and no ready
external indicators to associate with them, they just looked like a list of
nonsense words. To me, they might as well have been an actual list of
randomly-selected words. It took me out of the game and made the whole thing
more difficult for me to engage with.
Then, last night, I played Sleepaway. Like Dream Askew, each
character archetype has a list of options for gender, but there was something
different about these. These were written with deep ties to a genre I knew.
More than that: their names resonated with attitudes and behaviors I knew and
recognized in myself. Instead of a list of words that meant nothing to me, I
found myself using these signifiers to imagine different ways of being for
these characters – they were presentation, behavior, and identity all in one.
They were gender in a way I’d never understood or experienced it
for myself.
I found myself using these signifiers to imagine different ways of being for these characters – they were presentation, behavior, and identity all in one. They were gender in a way I’d never understood or experienced it for myself.
-John
Is Jay Dragon a genius because they wrote “Rusted Sword” as an option for a character’s gender? Yes. I’m saying absolutely, definitely yes.
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Thank you so much John for sharing your perspective on this! I think this has been so valuable to experience for me, and I think it’s a gorgeous piece of design. You can find Sleepaway here and if all goes well, I’ll update with our adventures at Camp Why-I-Otter!
Tell me a little about Doikayt. What excites you about it?
Doikayt is a Jewish Tabletop Role Playing Game anthology. The word Doikayt itself is Yiddish, and roughly translates to “hereness”. It is this idea that I am most intrigued and excited by, truthfully. Judaism is a religion and a tradition that isn’t monolithic. It’s founded on the principles of conversation and argument, conflict and interpretation. Riley and I were lucky enough to get pitches and submissions from people that claim vastly different backgrounds and experiences, and subsequently have different ideas of what constitutes Judaism.
I can’t wait to see how everyone’s work comes together, how their worlds influence their ideas and words. For me, the moment I’m most looking forward to is seeing the games complete and spending the time thinking about how my Judaism is a product of my upbringing, and how the themes explored by each designer help to paint a picture of them and their Jewishness.
JR Goldberg and Riley Rethal, the project leads.
Awesome! What about tabletop RPGs do you think makes them a good medium for expressing the different experiences and perspectives of Judaism?
There are a few reasons. First and foremost, the Jewish tradition is steeped in things that could be generally classified as a LARP or a TTRPG. A lot of Jewish traditions, especially ones surrounding the holidays, have been gamified in some way. So I think for many Jews, expressing something that speaks to them about Judaism through a game is something that is perhaps not innate, but at the very least is experiential.
Additionally, Judaism is a tradition and religion that isn’t based on dogmatism. Discussion of everything is encouraged, and learning and discussion of the tenets of faith is encouraged with a partner or in a group. Other perspectives are necessary. I think this is helpful and true for design and for play, as well. My best game experiences and memories have been times when the group coalesced and built something together that would have been impossible to do by myself. While I don’t necessarily think that Jews have a monopoly on that sort of thing, I do think that having it be such a part of the culture will make for some interesting angles with regards to play and design.
What are some of the challenges and benefits of running a project like this for a group of people with such different, but still related, stories they want to tell?
Riley and I were lucky in that none of the pitches we gravitated toward felt too similar. I can only think of maybe one instance where we felt as though we had to choose between two games that were too thematically close to both be included. I think that speaks to the amount of stuff that can be covered, and the amount of stuff that people think of when prompted to make a “Jewish Game”. That being said, we did have to be conscious not to just represent one Jewish tradition.
When we realized that the majority of the perspectives that we got through the submissions were Ashkenazi, one of the first things we decided to do as a stretch goal was to add essays that would be representative of the rich histories that Sephardic, Ethiopian and Mizrahi Jewry have completely separate from Ashkenazi Judaism. We felt like getting context from community members themselves would be the best option, as we certainly did not want to be appropriative in any way.
What are some examples of the kind of games, concepts, and artistic presentations we’ll be seeing from Doikayt and its designers?
Gosh, I think we have some really varied and interesting stuff in the anthology. One thing that we did semi-consciously is try and make games that have original systems in some way. Because we anticipated have a readership that may not know exactly what PbtA or BoB is, having a book full of hacks of existing games might’ve been alienating for some, in that there is an inevitable shorthand used that less experienced players would’ve had a hard time with. But beyond that, we have games that run the gamut.
While we have many designers working on the book, we do have one unifying force: all interior art is being done by Never Angeline North. You can see Never’s first piece for Doikayt on the kickstarter page. She is a recent convert to Judaism, and I think that is a super interesting perspective that will be present throughout.
How does a Jewish approach to games and game design differ from the more mainstream work we’re used to seeing, and what do you most want people to take away from this project?
I’m honestly not sure if I can that question at this point in the process! I know, speaking for myself, I don’t think I can help but have my Judaism permeate all my design work, even the stuff that isn’t expressly Jewish. How that manifests exactly is something that I’m not sure I’m introspective enough to really answer. That being said, I think once we have the book in our hands, we will be able to see the start of something.
My hope is that it is something that defies simple classification, but I can already tell from what we have looked at thus far, it will contain the humor, vulnerability and contemplation that is present throughout most Jewish texts. I suppose that is also what I to leave people with: my Jewish experience was probably different from yours because my life was different than yours. You may not even be Jewish, just a fan of TTRPG and a curious soul. But rather than focusing on the differences or setting up hurdles, through these games, we will be able to find human similarities.
I recently attended Big Bad Con 2019 at the grace of many generous purchasers of a bundle that funded my attendance. Big Bad Con is my favorite con, and I’ve talked about it in the past on Thoughty with a lot of passion and enthusiasm, as well as interviewed the staff. It is a con that I truly feel has a caring ethic to their design, and I love being there a lot.
The Big Bad Con welcome pamplet’s Community Standards.
A brief personal note
This year I was traveling in the midst of some personal crises – at home, I found out mid-con my kitchen was mildly flooding, and the following week, I had a mild-but-anxiety-inducing medical procedure that had basically blocked my mind from functioning. On my flight in, I sustained a mild back injury that made my participation in the con limited. It was really frustrating, stressful, and I feel like I let a lot of people down by letting stress get to me and by not being able to keep my body going.
I am super grateful to everyone who supported me by helping me get medication and supplies to get through the pain I was in (shout out especially to Jeremy Tidwell, Lucian Kahn, and Vivian Paul!). I apologize that this con report isn’t Super Exciting and Full of Games! I was simply limited by my own realities, and it is a dreadful thing, to be sure.
Also big thanks to Anders Smith who managed to get me a gift when he wasn’t even here.
What I did
I arrived a day early on Wednesday and spent most of that day meeting new people and getting into my accommodations. We initially feared a power outage, which sent me into a tizzy, but it never happened. I still tried to be prepared, and in doing so, I spent a lot of time around the lobby keeping an ear out and seeing who arrived.
Some of the amazing people I had the chance to meet were Sangjun Park, creator of moonflower; Luke Wildwood; Sidney Icarus (who I hope to someday have guest write on Thoughty for approachable theory!); and after that it starts to get real busy. See, Big Bad Con this year did some amazing things – one of the biggest things is that, combining scholarships and the very vital Babble On Equity Project, they had guests from all around the world, including Australia, Korea, and Malaysia, and even had a guest from Trinidad, Brandon O’Brien, who I got to meet later that day. Brandon said some very kind things about Turn, especially about A.J.’s poetry. It made me so glad!
Later in the week, Big Bad Con also hosted the PoC (People of Color) dinner and meet & greet, focusing on supporting and connecting people of color in the gaming community. It was really awesome to see! I was lucky enough to meet a lot of amazing designers of color from outside of the U.S. and from inside the U.S. too. It was incredible to see such a presence at the con, to see so many people there who deserve to be heard and given opportunities, as well as allowed space to show the amazing work they do!
EVERYONE who got a scholarship, attended the PoC events as a person of color, or was supported by the Babble On Equity Project at Big Bad Con is rad as hell and their work is worth investing in.
HELP THEM THRIVE. Do not fail this whole class of designers and creators by dismissing them or ignoring them. Look them up, research them, hire them, pay them, buy their games and art, interview them, promote them, and when you do those things? Respect their identity and their backgrounds with care and generosity and do NOT let them down.
On Thursday, I co-hosted the Soda Pop Social with Meguey Baker and it was a great success! We had a really good turnout and lots of people were super enthusiastic for the sodas we’d selected. I again had a lot of comments from people grateful for a welcoming space for non-alcoholic networking that was still fun and had recognizable people to meet and get to know, so that was great! I love the social, even though it keeps me moving for a couple hours without significant breaks, because I get to kind of be one of the first faces to welcome people and to share something fun and lighthearted with them!
So many sodas! This wasn’t even the ones in the fridge!
I also did my first Ranger shift! I volunteered at the con this year to cover my badge and my shifts were both at the Tell Me About Your Character Booth, which is really cool! I got to listen to people talk about their cool characters they’ve played and see the resident artist at the booth draw a portrait for the guest, and donations for the booth went to Doctors without Borders! It was really great. I did provide feedback to the con about improving the accessibility for those of us who have to be seated for our shifts, and for guests who need to sit. We worked out some more comfortable arrangements on my shift the next day, too, so it was good overall! I’m hoping if I volunteer again I get to do the booth and, if I’m lucky, do the booth with one of my artist partners so I can listen and they can draw!
Friday, I did the Terror in Design panel with Meguey Baker, Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Misha Bushyager, and James Mendez Hodes, moderated by Rachel Bell. It was a fantastic panel, and some notes were taken by a guest and can be found here. We discussed a lot of things, especially consent, boundaries, how consent and boundaries can make horror more interesting, creating ambiance through design, where we find horror, and so so much more. It was a really interesting panel!
I actually really dig horror and I don’t talk about it as much as I’d like to because I’m also incredibly picky about horror, and have a lot of triggers, squicks, and general issues to watch out for. For example, on the flight home I watched the Hulu In The Dark film New Year, New You and got through the film with few issues because it’s altogether not too trauma-heavy for me, except for the references to suicide. But I watched In The Tall Grass on Netflix tonight and had to look away or distract myself multiple times because there was a pregnancy as a major focus of the fiction and horror. As I have tokophobia, that’s a no-no. It’s tricky, that lizard brain.
Big Bad Con actually has Script Change as one of their recommended safety tools!
I also did a second shift at the Tell Me About Your Character Booth on Friday, a little more successful this time around. 🙂
By the time Saturday ran around, I was 100% burnt out. I’d been dealing with a lot of emotional stress, so after a lot of weaseling around I elected to drop out of two games I’d been dying to play – Lucian Kahn’s Visigoths vs Mall Goths and Kieron Gillan’s DIE. But, I was in no state to play. So I just visited people most of the day, getting to hang out with a ton of people and talk about games and the industry!
The only actual game I played over the course of the weekend was a portion of a game in progress by LiteralSoup, who is great. It’s a mech game, and gave me the mech name of Challenging Hope, which sounds about right! I thought it was super cool, and I really enjoyed hearing of other people’s mech names – if you played Soup’s game, please tell me your mech name! I want to know! We need to cancel the apocalypse together! <3
All throughout the weekend people were stopping to have me sign Turn or Script Change for them, which was amazing! I loved that so much – I loved being able to sign books for the first time really and it meant so so much to me. I really appreciated everyone’s enthusiasm for the book and for Script Change! I’ve worked hard on my projects and it means a lot to see people show love for them. <3
Did I mention I got a copy of Undying from Paul Riddle and DIDN’T have him sign it? *headdesk*
Late in the night I went to the Big Queer Dance Party hosted by Jackson Tegu, which was super fantastic! While I don’t dance much anymore, I really enjoy attending the dance party and listening to music. I was hugely impressed by the workshopping on consent, communication, and care that Jackson (assisted by Anne Ratchat) provided to help people ask each other to dance, accept rejection, provide rejection, and be comfortable in the space. It was so amazing, and I love that Big Bad Con allows space for events like these!
Many people who attend USian gaming conventions might not have had the kind of access to places to dance and be comfortable in their body that people from other subcultures or even just cultures in general might have had, and there’s also a huge number of queer people at the con who are given a space to express themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of games or mechanics were thought up just in those flashing lights on the dance floor as we all listened to music. Goodness knows I thought of some!
I stayed up ungodly late talking to a fantastic person (Soup) then got up earlier than I wanted and flew home on Sunday.
Not before I grabbed a copy of Vivian Paul’s Elder Song…and also forgot to have her sign it.
Some thoughts
I’ve been reflecting on Twitter about a lot of things since then, including a thread about how I learned to “hold court” at cons and how it keeps me from spending the whole con sitting by myself. I really enjoyed the con, but as I told many people there, I have a lot of challenges with conventions. They’re quite expensive, it’s hard for me to travel alone, if I get injured or ill it’s a whole mess, and I struggle to keep up with everything – plus I often feel out of place or alone.
I’m putting these facts out to the world because I want to be honest, and also so others don’t feel alone if they feel the same way. These things we do as professionals or as hobbyists to be connected with our community and our industry can be very challenging for us in a lot of ways, and flying thousands of miles to feel left out and discouraged and not good enough is hard. It’s scary and makes you feel like the world is ending. And like, there’s no real good fix for it!
I keep trying to remember the good moments of the con, like this, even though my finishing move makes no sense because I don’t know grammar terms apparently.
I want to say something that fixes it. I want to say that I will wake up in a few hours (as it’s already 4am) and feel refreshed, and like going to Big Bad Con was a wonderful, flawless experience. But it wasn’t. There’s weird industry baggage – I’ve been working long enough to have that. There’s annoying health stuff – I’m old enough and disabled enough to have that. There’s stressful home stuff – I’m old enough and low class enough to have that. There were challenges at the con with accessibility (some solved, some not), and challenges with travel with accessibility.
There were so many things I loved about the con! But I do wish I had gotten to play more games so I had more to report to you, my readers, and I wish I had more to say to you than this: there are so many amazing games on the horizon and already HERE that I can’t even handle it, and I also do not know what my capacity truly is for the situation I am in. I want to be bring you the interviews and theory you want, I want to design you games you enjoy. But I may not always be as speedy as I once was, and Big Bad Con this year showed me that.
You could say, really, that… this con hit me a little differently.
I have an interview today with AdamD from Game to Grow about Critical Core, which is currently in preorder! It sounded like such a fascinating project focused on helping autistic gamers! Check out Adam’s responses below!
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Tell
me about Critical Core. What excites you about it?
Critical
Core is a starter set for therapeutic tabletop role-playing games. We’ve been
using games to help kids and teens build social skills for around 8 years now,
and have always wanted to reach a larger audience of people than we can reach
directly in the greater Seattle Area. At Game to Grow we’ve been saying for
years that we think the world would be a better place if everyone played more
games together. This is our opportunity to get a game into more homes,
hospitals, schools, clinics and libraries around the world.
What are the backgrounds like for
the various people working on Game To Grow? What motivated you to apply it to
games?
Adam Johns is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I (Adam Davis) have a masters in education with a specialization in Drama Therapy. We met in grad school at Antioch University Seattle and started working together running drop in groups using Dungeons and Dragons with socially isolated youth. As we ran the groups we realized the potential that the game has as an intentional intervention for building social competence. We created Wheelhouse Workshop, a for-profit company, in 2013 dedicated to using RPGs to build social skills. After several years of running groups and serving the local community, they formed Game to Grow in 2017 to continue to expand on the use of games to help people learn, grow, and change.
Game to Grow was formed as a nonprofit to reach a larger audience to help with a wider range of challenges. Another member of the development team is Virginia Spielmann, who is a British-trained Occupational Therapist with more than 20 years experience working in pediatrics. Virginia is a specialist in the DIR Floortime™ framework of developmental intervention. Virginia approached us with the Critical Core project as a collaboration with the ad agency Mcgarrybowen Hong Kong, who sought to use their creative talent in design and project management to serve the autistic community in Hong Kong with an innovative idea. Critical Core was born from this international collaboration.
How does the starter kit work and
what is included in it?
The starter kit contains three main
components: the rules and materials for a simplified and easy-to-play
role-playing game, a facilitator’s guide with the best-practices we have
developed over the near decade of experience we have running groups and using
this method to help clients, and adventure modules in which the in-game
scenarios are targeted developmentally to real-world areas of social growth.
The goal is for new game masters to be able to pick up the starter set and learn a simple game they can use to help and connect with their family, students, clients, or community. They can use the modules and facilitator’s guide to improve the outcomes of their game and provide some support for kids, whether they’re on the autism spectrum or not. Experienced game masters will be able to apply the wisdom in the facilitator’s guide and adventure modules to other game systems and use the games they already know and love to help their community. Trained therapists, educators, and other community support will have a new tool in their repertoire to help their community in a way that is, fun, safe, and enriching.
How do you approach accessibility for
those with disabilities like blindness, or who have mobility issues?
Our approach to accessibility is that, as our colleague
Mike Fields said during a presentation: ”An impairment is only a disability
when there is no accommodation.”
We also recognize that every individual is different
and may need a different level of modification or accommodation for them to
fully participate. The key element to
accessibility is open dialogue around what a participant needs and how we can
help. There
are obvious ways we can improve accessibility, i.e., by making sure paths are
clear for wheelchairs and walkers, or by providing braille dice, though it is
impossible to be 100% prepared for everything so we must be open to
conversation about how we can make sure our table has a place for everyone.
How do these starter kits work for people who aren’t
experienced professionals, based on your testing?
We’re still developing the kit to make it the best it can be to professionals with less experience using RPGs to help. Our “official” beta-testing with Critical Core kits hasn’t begun, though in the trainings we’ve conducted over the years using the wisdom and best practices that will go into the facilitators guide, we’ve seen the largest area of growth is making sure that the professionals new to facilitating RPGs for growth remember that they are also a player, and that SO MUCH of the power in the work comes from relationships and play. So we’ll make sure that the kits have a clear outline of the game structure, but also explain in depth how to use the game to maximum impact. Not just the what, but the why and the how. Much of that will be in the facilitator’s guide included in the Critical Core box.
Hi all! Today I have an interview with Nora Blake on Dust Wardens, which is currently on Kickstarter! It sounds awesome and promotes a lot of values I appreciate, so I hope you like the responses below!
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Tell me a little about Dust Wardens. What excites you about it?
This is a game I’ve been working on in one form or another for almost
two years; it’s technically a hack of a game that doesn’t exist
(anymore). I think the most pressing influence is Vonnegut’s Cat’s
Cradle and the way it talks about bonds between people and places and
things (words like karass, wampeter, and granfalloon do not appear in
this book, but honestly they might as well!). Those themes have stuck
with me for a long time and are really important to me, especially as
someone with almost no ties to, for example, blood family. It’s nice to
think about my connections to the world and which connections are really
mine.
The game focuses a lot on relationships, and this is mechanized in Vows. How do Vows work and what do they mean to the players?
Essentially, Vows are promises; specifically, they should be “I will”
statements that drive you toward action. I’ve seen them end up as
anything from things like “when the time comes I will give you my
moonlight” to “I’ll always hold the pieces together when you feel
broken”. They help to define your relationships through a lens of action
and devotion, which are very important to me. I’m the type of girl to
make big romantic promises with an inside context only the two of us
know.
Polyamory and queerness feature heavily in Dust Wardens. I’d really love to hear more about this! How did you prioritize including it, and how do these elements affect the gameplay?
I talk at length about polyamory and queerness in the text itself,
and how pivotal these things are to it. The world of dust wardens is a
dangerous one, and humanity exists on the fringes of life on the planet.
There is no bastion of “civilization” or state controlling their lives
or coming to save them. On a more somber note this is how it can feel
sometimes to be a queer trans person in the world doing my best to build
my own pockets of community in a wider, more dangerous world. I won’t
call it a metaphor, but it’s an applicable framework.
Why did you elect not to use playbooks, and how does this enrich the game for players of different backgrounds?
To be honest I thought about using playbooks a few times in the
course of development but I never found any that really felt right. I
have no idea how I would sort dust wardens into categories. It’s
something I might revisit someday, but as it stands I like that things
are more freeform. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be able to make
yourself in this game and play the game with someone on a date.
Dust Wardens cover art by Anna Landin.
The choice of using cards as a mechanic is really cool! How do the card mechanics differ from traditional PbtA type mechanics, and how do they better support Dust Wardens as a game?
The tools we use in play have an immense impact on tone and impression. I think about the Quiet Year a lot and how the map is such an integral piece of its tone. Originally this game used playing cards, and had a much stronger Americana theming, but as time went on I began to want something better than America. I’m sure part of that is from thinking about hope a lot more these days. A better tomorrow is out there, even if it’s on the other side of an apocalypse. The world of dust wardens isn’t there yet, but it’s on its way.
Content Warning: Since this article was posted, multiple individuals have come forward with statements credibly addressing Swordsfall a.k.a. Brandon Dixon’s abuse of power and violation of consent. With respect to their shared experiences, I am putting a note on this article to ensure that their voices are heard and future readers are aware. Many statements are not public so I’ve only linked to the public statement. Please do not direct any harassment to the survivors who have raised these concerns.
What is Swordsfall’s Tikor, both as a product and as your vision?
Swordsfall is almost like a platform. It encompasses the setting book, “Welcome to Tikor”, a RPG, a comic book and even novels. So it’s truly a world that I can use to do all sorts of creative projects with. As fans start to find favorite characters and place, I want to be able to go to those things and do EVEN more. The setting book is my way of opening the door to that world.
How do you consider Swordsfall and Tikor to be special in their content and design?
Well, no one else is
really doing Afrofuturism like I am. It’s why I’m saying its part of the
Afropunk sub-genre. It has it’s own style. That punk style. But instead of
being anti-capitalism, it’s anti-colonialism. Or really, a world re-imagined
where that was never a factor. Then you have the art. T’umo Mere has a style of
his own. His art is bold, striking and dripping in real African lore. He’s from
Botswana so he’s been happy to dig into his own culture and the ones around him
for source material.
What were some choices you made in the art and presentation of Swordsfall and Tikor to show the values and style of the setting?
A couple of big things we’re focusing on are color and patterns. African cultures have almost used color to tell a story. You’re never going to a picture where everyone is draped in black. Those colors and what they mean are important, and we’re making sure they’re in Swordsfall. The other big thing in African cultures are patterns. Different cultures had their own symbols and patterns, but almost all had them. And they meant something. It could be mundane, it could be a call to a spirit. But the combination of colors and patterns often told a story. And Tikor will have that as well.
The following is an essay by John W. Sheldon, someone you may know as the art director for Turn, or as the creator of Roar of Alliance, playtested at Big Bad Con and elsewhere.
The Roar of Alliance playmat, photo by John W. Sheldon.
My name is John W. Sheldon, and I’ve been working on a tabletop game called Roar of Alliance for a few years (I used to call it Armored Reckoning). The game is about crewing an Allied tank in an alt-history World War Two and fighting through waves Nazis to set things right. What could be more anti-fascist than that? Lots of stuff, it turns out. The problem is that Nazis aren’t the only fascists, and my game does some things that potentially support fascist ways of thinking. In the political climate of the United States in 2019, it is especially important that we be aware of these things and work to mitigate them as much as possible. I’m writing about my process here in the hopes that others might find a useful example in the steps I’ve taken, and so that people with more experience can point out ways I can further improve.
What My Game Does Wrong
How does a game about destroying Nazi tanks and blowing up their infantry risk supporting fascist modes of thought? One cornerstone of fascist ideology is that they (the fascists) are oppressed by an enemy that is numerous, pervasive, powerful, and simultaneously inferior (stupid, incompetent, or morally weak). Another cornerstone is that the only appropriate way to deal with that enemy is by force.
The rules of my game do specifically these things:
The enemies you face in Roar of Alliance are numerous (outnumbering the players in just about every engagement), dangerous (their vehicles are often more advanced and better armed), and lack intelligence (their actions are automated by simple if/then statements that they never deviate from). The only way players ever interact with these foes is via deadly force. You will lose the game if you do not destroy their vehicles and disperse their infantry.
So, in these ways at least, my game actually promotes a core set of fascist ideologies. Some of this is hard to avoid, given that the game doesn’t have anyone in a central directorial role to moderate portrayals of the enemy or to restrict player behaviors in direct contact with the enemy outside combat, therefore no character in the game is ever confronted by a Nazi outside the specific circumstance of combat. This is a conscious choice to make sure nobody at the table is ever tasked with portraying a Nazi, and it keeps torture* and certain other types of violent fantasy outside the scope of the game as written. Players also have some leeway in narrating the effects of their actions on the enemy: when enemy infantry are removed from the field, players can choose to narrate the enemy’s retreat or death, and players do the same for surviving crew of disabled enemy vehicles.
Since violence and a portrayal of the enemy as numerous and unintelligent are essential to the way the game functions, and I don’t want to scrap the whole thing and start over, how do I make sure the rest of the game refutes fascism?
Focusing on Diversity
by John W. Sheldon
I start with something nationalists and fascists hate: I make sure that every other aspect of the game supports and emphasizes diversity and demonstrates how it creates strength. This paragraph kicks off the rulebook:
This game is set during the 2nd World War in Europe, a time when even the historical victors were rife with bigoted beliefs and policies. You should not let those real world bigotries limit the characters you choose to portray and accept. People of all races and genders from six continents and countless backgrounds fought against fascism and Nazism in Europe, and your characters should reflect some of that diversity.
Moreover, players are asked to identify their character’s country of origin, to help emphasize the diversity of geographic origin of the people who challenge fascism. Some of these choices are informed at a basic level by the themes of the character archetypes the game offers. In particular, the Partisan archetype was a resident of Nazi-occupied territory and a resistance fighter before joining up with the crew, the Collateral is a member of a population oppressed by the Allies and nevertheless pressed into service against the Nazis (e.g., Black Americans or colonial subjects of the British Empire), and the Duty was someone who volunteered for the fight because they new defeating fascism and Nazism was the right thing to do.
For actually producing the game, I’m doing what I’d never recommend: I’m doing the rules writing, layout, and illustrations all myself. What this does mean is that I can make sure that all of the art upholds my stated dedication to multiple axes of diversity. The art within the rules documents already portrays people of multiple genders, races, and body types as members of the player tank crew. Additional art I’m working on will include crew members with visible disabilities, crew wearing items of non-European traditional dress, and different cultural grooming standards.
by John W. Sheldon
Part of my plan for taking the game to crowdfunding is to offer backers the opportunity to have their portraits included as the card back art for some of the character archetypes, and as the face cards in the crew deck. Since I believe the audience for my game (one about Tanks in World War Two) skews significantly male, white, able-bodied, and cis, simply offering all of these art opportunities on a first-come, first-served basis would further skew the art for my game towards a monolithic default. To maintain my dedication to diversity, I need to give up potential sources of revenue and pre-stack the art with diverse portraits. I’ll won’t be offering backer levels for the Jacks in the Crew Deck, or for half of the character archetypes. Instead, I’ll be creating those portraits before the crowdfunding campaign begins. The portraits for the Jacks will be portraits of non-binary volunteers, and those for the first half of the character archetypes will be of volunteers who are one or more of non-white, queer, or visibly disabled.
Heroes that Need Help
Most fascism thrives on mythologizing heroes as paragons of strength, capable of facing great hardship alone and without aid. The heroes of fascism also contain within them a paradox: the enemy they face is terrifying, but they never actually feel fear. Roar of Alliance refutes these mythologized ideas of heroism idea on multiple fronts. The very nature of combat in my game requires players to rely on one another at all times (no person can operate a tank single-handedly). The player characters also begin the game by admitting fear: one of the first tasks of the first session is to identify a fear your character has about the fighting to come.
During the game, player characters will take Stress (the game’s unified resource representing both physical toughness and mental resilience). Characters who max out their Stress during an engagement play out a Last Stand for significant effect, then leave the Crew (the player decides whether they have died or simply become unable for whatever reason to continue on as a tank crew member). While the characters have a limited set of resources called Motivations that the players can expend to avoid stress, the only way to actually recover Stress relies on spending time with the other characters between battles. Only by working together, by comforting one another, and by acknowledging their own dependence on others can characters reduce their Stress and gain new Motivations to help them engage in future battles.
by John W. Sheldon.
Every archetype has scene prompts that show them needing help, and the whole game requires players to rely extensively on one another. Even the player’s Crew is supported by a company of non-Crew characters that players will occasionally be called on to portray between battles. No lone strong hero, or even small group of heroes, can accomplish the monumental task the players are facing.
Humanizing the Enemy
Fascism dehumanizes its enemies, making it easier for its adherents to attack, belittle, and eventually exterminate those that oppose it. You can see this in language comparing enemies to animals, assigning them undesirable traits as a group, in racist and anti-Semitic propaganda images that exaggerate enemy features to cartoonish extremes, or even in recent online language where some members of right-leaning web forums call people who oppose them “NPCs” – implying that there is no real individual personhood in those that disagree with their fascist ideology.
In my quest to make the game as hostile as possible to fascist ideologies, I must design the game to humanize the enemies that players face. Everyone should be reminded that the Nazis and members of the Wehrmacht were not inhuman monsters – they were regular people who became willing to commit evil acts because of an abhorrent philosophy. Reminding players of this is important because dehumanizing even Nazis creates an easy defense for modern fascists and authoritarians to mount, in the form of a “but I do these good things over here, I’m not a complete monster” defense. Reminding people that Nazis were regular people, even while they did terrible things, reminds us that we must examine ourselves for the kinds of behavior they exhibited.
Next Steps
Is there more my game can do? Almost certainly. In fact, I’m extremely open to suggestions for additional ways to improve. You can get in touch with me on Twitter, Pluspora, or Mastodon if you want to give me some feedback.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in ways to make your own game hostile to fascist ideologies, check out these twoessays that helped inform my own process.
*Despite everything pop culture tells us, torture does not work. It is immoral and wrong in every circumstance, and this would still be true even if it worked – which it categorically does not.
