Tag: diversity

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.

Five or So Questions with James Mendez Hodes on Ironclaw: The Book of Horn & Ivory

I got the chance to interview James Mendez Hodes about his game currently on Kickstarter, Ironclaw: The Book of Horn & Ivory. We talk research and appropriation, and learn a little about the game mechanics. Enjoy, and don’t forget to check out Ironclaw’s Kickstarter page!

Tell me a little about Ironclaw. What excites you about it?

Ironclaw is a tabletop role-playing game set in a fantasy world populated by anthropomorphic animals like in Disney’s Robin Hood or Zootopia. It has published settings inspired by sixteenth-century Europe and sixth-century China; my project, the Book of Horn & Ivory, adds a new continent to the game world inspired by Africa and the Near East in the 1500s. While Ironclaw is a much more traditional RPG than I usually play—it has an elaborately detailed setting and a complex combat system—I find the process of creating and developing a player character really evocative and satisfying. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved to learn about weird animals, so I relish the opportunity to play as a centipede boxer or a snake businesswoman or a bat janissary in a world where species differences matter. Ironclaw’s setting also features nations and religions clearly inspired by real-world analogues, so I get to geek out about history even in a fantasy setting where the other players don’t need to memorize realistic details.

What kind of research have you done to build the worlds in the game?

This book introduces four new regions, each representing a real-world country in Africa or the Near East. The Anatolian Caliphate is our Ottoman Empire, the Deltan Sulṭānate is our Egypt, the Pirate States are our Barbary Coast, and the Ọ̀yọ́ Union is our Yorùbáland. My undergraduate studies in African religion laid a lot of the groundwork for the religious traditions of these regions, especially Ọ̀yọ́’s. Before the rough draft went in last October, I read a great deal about Ottoman military history, so you can look forward to janissaries, giant cannons, galley warfare, expanded cavalry rules, and Ottoman rivals such as the Knights Hospitaller and Vlad the Impaler. I also found a fascinating book about Ottoman medicine, which you’ll see reflected in Anatolia’s cutting-edge hospitals. My next research subject will be jurisprudence, marriage, and inheritance law—the Game of Thrones stuff (except it will actually come out this year).

How are you approaching and represent cultural markers and inspiration without being appropriative?

Ironclaw has always upheld the principle that fantasy analogues of real-world things should be presented with the same respect and care you would afford to an academic paper or news article about that subject. For example, Horn & Ivory introduces a religion called Malachism which shares many signifiers with Islam, such as a caliph who combines spiritual and imperial authority, an emphasis on science and medicine, official tolerance of other religions within its territory, and some semi-formal prohibitions on practices the rest of the setting considers benign. The fact that we’ve made some changes, even large changes, doesn’t excuse stereotype, intentional or inadvertent; and as I’ve mentioned in the “how to play this game without being racist or Islamophobic” appendix to the book, the stakes tied to those kinds of negative stereotypes are frankly high for Muslims in the English-speaking world in general and the role-playing hobby in particular.

I’ve carried on the approach I’ve used for my other projects heavy with cultural signifiers such as AfroFuture, Thousand Arrows, and Scion. I start out by identifying the negative stereotypes that pose the most clear and present danger to the material with which I’m working and then designing “perpendicular” to those stereotypes. Because presenting the exact opposite of a given stereotype sometimes winds up reinforcing that stereotype (looking at you, Wakanda), I try to emphasize aspects of religions or cultures that haven’t appeared often in popular media. Signifiers with strong associations have to come from clearly written and sourced reading materials about the history or legendary of the culture, region, or religion I’m discussing. Finally, if I don’t come from a certain culture, I don’t get to decide whether my representation is appropriation or not; so the final product has to pass muster with a friend from that culture before it reaches the public. Ironclaw’s made mistakes in the past and I fully expect to get some of this book wrong, but I’m counting on the community to help point out my errors so I can learn from them, improve on them, and create something we can all be proud of.

What kind of mechanics do you use to model the non-human roles in Ironclaw?

Ironclaw characters have six fundamental traits, each of which gets a die size in character creation: Body, Speed, Mind, Will, Species, and Career. For some characters, Species is mostly a cosmetic or social choice, but I personally like to save a high die for Species because you get to roll it in your pool when you use your species’s strongest senses, when you’re in your species’s natural habitat, when you attack with your natural weapons, and when you use the three skills your species is best at.

For example, Lücius the gangster centipede gets his shiny d8 when he relies on his senses of sight or smell; when he grapples enemies or jabs them with his venomous forcipules; or uses the Climbing, Craft, or Tactics skills. Each species also starts the game with three Gifts, which are little packages of abilities; so Lucius has an Extra Two Hands, Prehensile Feet, and Venom. If you want to emphasize your species’s natural abilities further, you can learn atavistic Gifts as your character advances: so your otter character could hold their breath for an impossibly long time, or your mouse could burrow at incredible speeds.

Species also have distinct social positions, though: there are noble houses, dynasties, clans, and even religions associated with specific species. So if your social engineer countess plans to collect Gifts which give her bonuses with other nobles, she’s probably attached to her species’s Great House. Horn & Ivory also introduces a necromantic secret society whose ranks come mostly from scavenger species such as vultures and hyenas.

What experiences do you hope that players will get out of Ironclaw?

I hope this Ironclaw setting helps players who’ve been scared to engage with cultures outside their comfort zone do exactly that, the way Steal Away Jordan taught me I could have just as much fun in a game about American slavery and as I do in any other RPG. Moreover, I hope we can inspire other designers to represent cultures outside of the industry norms. This might be one of the first RPG books about these places and times, but I pray it won’t be the last.

Thanks to James for the interview! It was cool to learn about the new product James is bringing forward. Check Ironclaw: The Book of Horn & Ivory out on Kickstarter if you can!

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

Interview with Whitney Beltrán – Tinker Kickstarter

I interviewed Whitney Beltrán about her upcoming work on Tinker, a steampunk web series production currently Kickstarting with a few days left. 

Tell me a little about Tinker – what’s it about? 

Tinker is a steampunk adventure themed web series show. It is about a father-daughter duo, Sho and Kimi Tinker, who are savvy inventors in Victorian era alternate history San Fransico. Sho has built a reputation for himself as an incredibly clever engineer, and Kimi is a sort of genius tomboy. Together, they are swept up into a world of intrigue and turn of the century Machiavellian power struggles as old empire and emergent capitalistic entities fight over resources and technology.   
Their adventures range all over, from their native San Fransico to Hong Kong to the British mainland. There are air ships and giant robot fights and organized brothel gangs, spies, assassination attempts (and successes!), romance, action, and needless to say, a lot of danger. There is never a dull moment in Tinker.

What do you think is the most interesting part of Tinker?
I’m biased. I will always go gaga over the costuming on a project like this. Our costume designer is extremely talented and is currently putting the finishing touches on a hand tooled leather corset that is to die for. I basically want to run away with it. However, in reality, probably one of most interesting things about Tinker is its exploration of morality in the face of Western expansion and globalization. Tinker does not take itself too seriously. It’s more of a romp than a thinker, but the undertones are there. 

How did you get involved in Tinker?

Well, I tend to have my fingers in a lot of cookie jars. I was NPCing for a LARP that was going on as part of a fundraiser benefit that an education non-profit, Seekers Unlimited, was putting on in L.A. I made friends with one of the other NPCs, who happened to have a role onTinker. At the time they were looking to fill a number of roles, so she arranged for me to visit the studio. I read some sides for the producer, and I landed the role of Elmira Perkins, who happens to be one of the nefarious spies!  

Do you enjoy working on indie productions? If so, why?
Absolutely. I do a lot of script work and setting development as well as acting, and big Hollywood is awful about crushing creative sovereignty. At the major production houses pretty much everything is decided by a committee of business school graduates. It’s very frustrating. Working with smaller studios is more like working with a family, and negotiating with creative ideas becomes a lot more enriching.    

Do you think the diversity of Tinker is important? Do you think it was a conscious choice?
The racial diversity of the cast of Tinker is off the charts. It’s one of the things that makes me most proud of being a part of this production. I am of biracial Mexican-American heritage. I often struggle to find roles. It is common that the roles I am suited for call for white women. I constantly have to think to myself, “Am I white enough to get away with this?” Sometimes I am, and sometimes I’m not. Being on the set ofTinker is a breath of fresh air. I don’t have to worry about the color of my skin and whether or not I stand out.
It’s also really significant to me that the main characters are Asian and not white. It is the norm in Hollywood that racial minorities are relegated to supporting roles. This is especially significant because this is a steampunk production, which necessarily carries strong elements of imperialism and colonialism. It would have been really easy to stick with a homogenous cast. Instead, our executive producer, Micheal Taglianetti, insisted on a racially diverse cast. So yes, it was a conscious choice. 

What are you looking forward to most in the project?


I don’t know if I should tell you this! There is going to be an episode that involves live zebras. I am really looking forward to hanging out with zebras. I’ve never gotten closer than being at the zoo before. I just hope they don’t bite. 


Thanks, Whitney, for your interview and time! Go check out Tinker’s Kickstarter if you want to learn more!




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