Check out Episode 6 of Designer & Devourer (click the title of the blog post!)! I’ll be talking recent posts, upcoming stuff, and then unsolicited game design. The recipe this week will be zucchini bread. J Designer & Devourer Episode 6 on Patreon! I’m gonna try to catch all of the recent posts here after the recipe, but first, upcoming is an interview with Keith Stetson on Seco Creek Vigilance Committee, currently on Kickstarter. I also am working on an interview with Jack Berberette about his project for a Braille printer for gamers, currently on GoFundMe.
Posts recently done that are relevant to this podcast episode:
1.Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 (8×4-inch) loaf pans or 1 (9×5-inch) loaf pan with shortening or cooking spray.
2.In large bowl, stir zucchini, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs until well mixed. Stir in remaining ingredients except nuts and raisins. Stir in nuts and raisins. Divide batter evenly between 8-inch pans or pour into 9-inch pan.
3.Bake 8-inch loaves 50 to 60 minutes, 9-inch loaf 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on cooling rack 10 minutes.
4.Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on cooling rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.
Posts since Episode 5:
Just Say No (content note: brief mentions of rape and sexual assault, violations of consent.)
I did a quick poll today on my G+ (a public post) about what gender your GM for your local/regular group is. The results were… ouch. I posted it around 2:00pm on 12/18 (today) and this is the current result:
I am kind of gobsmacked. I like to think my followers on G+ are pretty diverse, and many of them are! But it unfortunately seems like we still have a lot of men running games in comparison to women. There were a few clarifications in the comments (we have multiple GMs, but most are men, etc.), but for the most part: GMs are more often men. By a lot.
I will add a picture of the final results to this post after the poll ends (I think tomorrow). I just wanted to share it for awareness. There will be follow up post to this with more questions, and hopefully some ideas from my own perspective about this issue.
Do you think this is something we should keep working to change? (Note: Some groups like Contessa have already been making strides for con games run by women, which is great!)
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
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.
——————————– 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.
If you are making a thing about people who are not like you, you should talk to people who are like that.
I can’t count how many game ideas or fiction ideas I’ve dropped completely because I couldn’t do the research, didn’t have the time to interview, or couldn’t read accurate accounts. People’s stories matter so much. We should not fly off the cuff. We should not make assumptions based on media.
If you’re working on something about people other than you that those people could be emotionally affected by,* pause and
Consider whether you should do it at all.
If you’re still determined to do it,look for the people you are writing about or people similar to them. Ask them if they will share their experience.If they will not,
Consider whether you should continue.
If you’re still determined to do it,look for accurate and complete personal accounts. If you can’t find them, or they seem unreliable, or they are confirmed to be inaccurate,
Consider whether you should keep going. If you’re still determined to do it, review the available media regarding those people or their experiences. If you can’t find them, or they seem unreliable, or they are confirmed to be inaccurate,
Stop. That’s right. Stop. Take a break, return to it later. Think about why you want to tell these stories.
Ask yourself:
Are you willing to tell stories without people’s permission?
Are you willing to tell stories without accurate information?
Are you willing to tell stories that could be inaccurate or misleading?
Are you willing to tell stories that could damage reputations, risk people’s jobs, or their lives?
Are you willing to tell stories that ignore people’s identities, stereotype them, or marginalize them?
Are you willing to lie?
If you answer yes to those questions, I say to you: Look at your life. Look at your choices. Walk away.
*Sex, wars, religion, gender, queerness, identities, trauma, politics, etc. – all of these are important. Imagine if someone wrote a story about something you consider personal and emotional, like about your life personally, and told it wrong, and maybe even lied or misrepresented you in a way that stereotyped you or made you seem dangerous, evil, or just simply wrong. If it’s a topic like that? Think about it.
Note: When you consult people, compensate them fairly for their time and experience.
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!
As mentioned in my previous post a friend picked me up a copy of Shadowrun: Anarchy, Prototype at Gen Con. The book is not long, but features a lot of basic rules and information. I was pretty happy with it, honestly! I started out in more traditional games, but now often fall into games based on basic rules and simple mechanics.
I love Shadowrun, but getting my friends (when I can ever get them together!) to sit and build characters for as long as Shadowrun takes and then play through? Not as easy as I’d like it to be. When I was at Origins earlier this year, I had a brief discussion with someone about the possibility of a rules-light Shadowrun coming out, and since I’m pretty out of the loop, I was surprised and interested. There was little to be found online, and my attempts at contacting Catalyst directly were denied by their email system (though I doubt getting through would have made any difference, even if I was offering promo). Anyway, I had given up on seeing it when Adam Koebel took a picture of the cover and posted it to Twitter, and I lost my shit, so he kindly sent me a copy.
I have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS, so be warned. With a few notes, though: I have only played 3e Shadowrun, while I’ve read the 5th and 4th sourcebooks, I haven’t played (time investment & lack of interest in a priority character build, not many people to play with, etc.). Nonetheless, I’m a fan of the setting, I loved playing 3e possibly too much, and I actually enjoy a lot of the mechanics. I get so excited when I get to roll a handful of D6s (I think I hit 30 once, playing a drugged up elf archer… I don’t know, he was based on Iggy Pop) that the idea of doing it again really got me amped.
Note: This post will discuss the book and rules presented, but will also include some of my general feelings on Shadowrun, cyberpunk, and how the rules matter. I won’t be evaluating it through what’s already available in 5e, as I don’t feel like lugging books and comparing page by page. My bad. Please excuse the cell phone pics, my energy wasn’t here for a photoshoot right now, I’m so sorry.
Everything has a price. That’s a sexy phrase to kick off with. And it’s true – it’s super appropriate to Shadowrun, because the reality of the setting is that money does run the world. Corps run wild with access to power that sounds scary even in the fucked up modern world, and governments are a hot mess. One of the things I always like to note about SR3e is that it does actually address class. Really! Like, class imbalance is something rarely given genuine attention in RPGs, and in SR3 (and I believe other editions of SR) there are costs of living – essentially, whether you pay money for your livelihood or not matters, from luxe high level apartments to literally squatting. It is something I think is often missed, tbh, and something I miss being a vivid element in Shadowrun. I’m wondering if we’ll see that.
I love cyberware and bioware. In spite of being someone who cringed at doing basic math for D&D, I have spent hours building characters in Shadowrun, trying to get that Essence score as close to 0 as possible without becoming just a chassis. It’s good to see this recognized in the text even in this smaller book, because this book could be someone’s first book and that’s a core element that needs to be recognized – that your body is not promised to be whole just because you can get replacement parts.
This is a shitty cell phone picture, but deal with it. This is here in part because I just wanted to point out how great and dynamic the art in here is. I always LOVE Shadowrun’s artwork, but for such a small piece (though they may have reused art) I thought it was pretty great.
Speaking of art… as you all know, I’m big on representation in art. As I mentioned in my previous post about this, I was pretty happy about the art representation! Three of the 6 offered characters are women, and I enjoyed all of the badass art in the rest of it as well, especially this. Ork ladies are amaaaazing and totally underrated. One thing I’ll note is that pretty much all of them have cleavage showing, but I’m not super bothered. Considering there is not one identifiable woman listed on the entire credits list I’m not surprised, either.
I’m being forgiving in part because of those abs, though.
Here’s where we dig into the actual meat of things. The first things the book notes is that the GM doesn’t have sole responsibility for story elements or narrative, and this is considered to be different. That’s actually pretty cool, as someone who prefers to contribute to the story, and I think that the new functionality of the gameplay supports it. In the book, they detail new scene play – which is after some of the basic rules and character build instructions, which can be confusing, but hooray! games with lots of stuff to cover have organization issues! – based on turns and narrations, within scenes. Simplified: Each Contract Brief (basically, campaign or scenario, multiple of which are included in this prototype) includes a number ofScenes. The scenes have varying levels of detail and I think that is a little wobbly, but a GM could probably make good decisions based on the material there.
Turns are called Narrations, which are basically player actions. Every turn starts with the GM, then rotates moving to their left until everyone has the chance to take a turn, then a new turn starts. Basically, the GM starts, and they move around the table to address actions. This may sound terrible to a lot of freeform and indie gamers, but I actually love this. One of the problems with games like Shadowrun for me is thatso many players are so into it,which is great! Unless you want to get a word in edgewise without shouting. It directly gives the GM control of the scene, but ensures everyone gets a move in, and it also, from what I can tell, removes the complications of combat initiative entirely.
They further discuss things like plot points (points you earn and can use to alter other players’ rolls, your own rolls, situational modifiers, etc.), etc., and cues.
Cues are a part of character generation and also used in Contract Briefs. They’re basically short phrases or quotes to give players or the GM information that can help them push the story along through Narrations and plot. I like the concept – they’re similar in some ways to Fate’s aspects, but not quite. There are also Tags, which are basically markers for what your character is (hacker, elf, etc.) and Qualities which seem to me to be the equivalent of 3e’s Edges and Flaws (one of my favorite things), and I was so excited to see them included in this, I can’t even tell you.
Character Creation includes your standard stuff: the aforementioned Cues, Tags, and Qualities, as well as Attributes (Strength, Agility, Willpower, Logic, Charisma, Essence, and Edge), Skills, and Shadow Amps, which is the catch-all for spells, talismans, cyber and bodywear, adept powers, critter powers, cyberdecks, programs, etc. There seems to be a lot of flexibility for these Amps and what they do, which increased my enthusiasm, but watch me go and be wrong. There are also still Weapons (addressed later in the book, including details on carry limits, no ammo counting, and similar stuff), Armor (which functions, from what I can tell, kind of like damage absorption and gets wiped off before you start taking hits), and Gear. Gear has no stats. I KNOW RIGHT? I think the way they frame gear in general in the text is pretty cool, as they function very narratively, and this is the one area where the GM might have to apply some pressure to keep it somewhat realistic, as much as that matters in Shadowrun. It also includes Contacts under Gear.
Teamwork tests seem pretty cool! I like teamwork mechanics a lot, and in a game with such high capacity for PvP style behavior and play (which I have seen a lot of), it’s awesome to see this kind of mechanic. They actually function hilariously similar to a mechanic John and I were using for Blockbuster, which is you choose the leader who does the main work, then others roll the skill tests, and their successes are added as additional dice to the roll for the original player. It’s a good mechanic, in my experience.
There are also glitch dice which, honestly, when I read about them in 5e I cringed and kind of moved along. However, written here, they sound better. I don’t know if it’s a matter of who wrote it, how they wrote it, or changed context, but I’m more favorable towards them here than I expected.
I’d like to note that around here in the text (page 26), they have a section called “Troubleshooting” where they discuss how to deal with situations where players are struggling with the narrative-focused play and who are new to improv, and it’s good advice and I liked it a lot. Super glad to see it.
Just in case you thought it was sounding too simple for Shadowrun, here’s the “basic dice-rolling mechanic for all combat,” which, as you can see, is like four different things against four different things. It’s pretty awesome. I mean, it’s really just a bunch of D6’s? Which I probably will never complain about. It’s still your standard 5s and 6s are successes, unless you have an Edge die, which can make 4s eligible, or you can reroll those failed dice if you spend the Edge after the roll.
This might sound silly, but the note in the Attack Limits section about what counts as an attack action: “Want to debate the meaning of Attack action beyond that? Have fun, and we’ll be here for you when you’re ready to play!” just made my goddamn night. This is totally a huge discussion had at many a game table, and their specific note that an attack action is “An action that intentionally and directly damages another living being…” sums it up pretty clearly. Nice.
I like the option here for making the game more or less lethal. While most times I want to go and drag myself through the mud to kick some ass, it’s occasionally nice to have a way more chill session or two when things are busy and I just want to feel like a hero. I actually discussed with Morgan Ellis and a few others today on Twitter why Fate doesn’t work for me for cyberpunk and specifically Shadowrun, and that’s because it’s too heroic, too successful! This option here gives people who waver in preference, or just lean one way or the other, the choice! And that’s super great.
There are quite a few more details I didn’t cover. Like, there’s a section on character death that was interesting. The Spells, Spirits, and Astral Combat section was pretty cool, talking about using your Sorcery test (based on your Skills) with the Shadow Amp spell effect to do your thing. Most of this stuff seems pretty standard issue in regards to damage, etc., from what I have read in previous books. The Condition Monitor section is a little confusing and could definitely use some rewording, and I think they need to clarify their +1/-1 etc. modifier wording, as I – someone coming from 3e and used to using target number modifierswas super confused at first, after having read 5e previously.
I mean, I still miss my exploding D6s, but I suppose I can settle for my handfuls of dice. My general thoughts? I’m in. I’m planning on picking up whatever official, final book Catalyst releases for Shadowrun: Anarchy, and I actually might bug some friends (PAUL STEFKO) to play with me. HOWEVER I was really disappointed by one specific part of the book. What’s this becoming a legend nonsense? I know that a lot of the Shadowrun canon and surrounding media make a big deal out of being The Coolest HaXX0r, and that getting nuyen is awesome, but man, that’s not at fucking all what I’d be promoting in a Shadowrun book – especially one called Anarchy – right now. Extralegal individuals who are dangerous, powerful, and able to pit Corps against each other should be doing a lot more than getting excited over some expensive junk and sitting in hell beside The Smiling Bandit. Making it about notoriety, in my opinion, takes the “punk” out of the pulp. At heart, for me, Shadowrun has always represented people who have nothing taking something,changing the narrative,and resisting the system. Honestly, in the world we currently live in, I can’t imagine taking a look at the world of Shadowrun and saying that these characters would just give up their bodies for a cool name & some money, when instead they could be dismantling corrupt systems of power while on their payroll. That aside, I just want to share below my two favorites of the six offered characters, and I hope you like them too! This is Ms. Myth who is a fucking TROLL FACE which is one of my favorite combos EVER and should ALWAYS HAPPEN. You’re welcome. Also, Strider, who is a Dwarf Parkour Adept, which is fucking aces. Her outfit gives me liiiiiiiiiiiiiife. Enjoy!
Got the Shadowrun: Anarchy preview book, shipped from Gen Con for me by the wonderful Adam Koebel!
Highlights:
1) This is the first game text in a damn long time I’ve sat down and read in a night, even including super short ones. I realize this is in part because I am a sucker for Shadowrun, but it also was easier reading than many have been, which is awesome.
2) I am guaranteed to pick this up in full form. I think it’s doing some interesting stuff to encourage character-focused play while still maintaining some of the more dice-heavy mechanics I personally really enjoy.
3) 50/50 for gender representation in sample characters, and not all of them are white. I did note that the majority of the women characters featured in the art have cleavage, but it didn’t bug me, tbh, because they weren’t posed sexy or anything, really. I have always, always loved Shadowrun’s art, and it’s often been far more inclusive than people seem to realize. I really value visual representation, so this is super important to me.
4) There are some things missing! There is no indication about how many boxes there are in condition rows, number one. I might note some more stuff later.
5) There are literally zero women, from what I can tell, on the cover credits. This is, imo, a huge problem. I want to see more Shadowrun products with women working on them, and while I know there have been some (including Monica Valentinelli’s work on Court of Shadows), seeing none on here really disappointed me. Get to work, Catalyst.
I’m planning on taking the tons and tons of pictures I took while reading tonight and doing into detail on my thoughts soon, but figured I’d share a first look. 🙂
Today’s Women with Initiative feature is with J Li! J is a designer primarily in larp, and her recent work has been really fascinating! Her work on emotional immersion in larp has been a significant focus, specifically looking at formats and design elements that capture the experience of Chinese action/fantasy films and anime where there is intense emotional, situation-reaction content. Many of her games are parlor style larps, and her current projects Mermaid and Keymaster use structure and design to encourage specific behavior and emotional involvement. She also has some really cool work on Pattern Language for Larp Design. I asked J a few questions and her responses are below!
What inspired you to start working on Larp Pattern Language and what uses do you think it will have? This question is actually more like, what inspired me to stop not working on it? 🙂
I’ve always broken down my games in design patterns. For many years, when people would ask me for design advice, I would rattle off numbers and shapes– make sure this person has that many subplots, arrange your room this way, this thing won’t work unless you add more complexity to balance, etc. I think it just came from writing and running a ton of games (I got started making secrets & powers games at Stanford, and there were a lot of them), just common trends that came up. I could visualize it all in my head.
A few years ago, I realized that most people don’t necessarily visualize things the same way, and also that if I wrote about them it might be useful shortcuts for other people. I knew that Jason Morningstar had a similar design philosophy, so I approached him about giving a panel on it. Once we started planning, it became pretty clear that there’s actually a lot of content there.
Since then, we’ve gotten a lot of requests to expand it to tabletop– which actually makes a lot of sense, because it’s really just about human-to-human live interaction design. If you look at visual design, it’s a very advanced field with a lot of key patterns that people use all the time, like grid layout, color theory, typographic principles, etc. And of course architecture is where it started.
My dream is, as larp becomes rapidly more mainstream, for the patterns that we’re surfacing now to form the groundwork of fundamental design theory for live human narrative/creative/social interaction. Someday, live interaction design 101 can cover topics like group size and player energy management, that would be awesome.
Your collection of parlor larps is stunning! Where do you find ideas for larps and how have you developed the concepts? Thank you! I’m actually not sure how to answer this question because ideas are not really the scarcity for me, but I’ll give the literal answer:
For me, the fire and fuel behind all larp comes from the human drive to feel significant. The desire to be valued, impactful, great in some sense– not necessarily larger than life, but deeper than life? I’m really sensitive to this feeling. So when I look around me, you can see it latent in the way people behave, the stories we tell, the things we do and don’t mention…
The desire to make high-stakes decisions or pass judgments. The desire to be beautiful or hideous. The desire to let go of responsiblity, to be destroyed, to be in the spotlight, to hide, to give up, to try something ludicrous… I pick one that seems to be scarce lately, and make a game about getting to experience that.
Keymaster is about raw desire to be important and dramatic. Mermaid is about making moments of harsh passion while not having many options. Argentin is about getting to interpret your own identity without having a future.
So more specifically:
1. I have this deep-experience component mentioned above 2. I combine it with a strict structural element to elicit it unnaturally strongly (like “you can’t move” or “you’re going to die”) 3. I add an atmosphere that I would love to write or play in, like the ruins of a historical desert empire (Fires of Emsi) or the nature/civilization tension between a raw ocean, the people who survive beside it, and decadent inlanders (Mermaid).
What are your favorite parts of developing larps and examining their elements?
I love the patterns, and I love the part that’s just directly creating beauty– making the atmosphere happen and wrapping it in a unique way around each character. Giving the character a “taste”. And also setting a balance between that and making the character inhabitable by player interpretation.
Thanks so much to J Li for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading this and like checking out J’s work.
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!
Today’s Women with Initiative feature is with Kira Magrann. I met Kira years ago through Gaming as Women, where we both were bloggers. She is well-known for her involvement in Indie Games on Demand as an organizer, as well as for her own design work, art, and her work to create a more inclusive, diverse gaming community. Her games have a lot of feminist and queer concepts in action, and she also has a knack for creating sexy, intimate games that really engage players. I asked her a few questions about her work, and she provided some great answers!
How did you get your start in gaming, and how does it intertwine with your other hobbies and interests, such as art?
I got started in gaming when I bought my first Vampire the Masquerade book at a hobby shop. I took it home and tried to run it for four of my girlfriends and it was a hilarious disaster. BUT my mom then encouraged me to go to Origins (back when it was in Philly) ’cause she thought it would get me off those darn computer games. It worked! I fell in love with vampire larps and all the ridiculous people I met there, who were also spearheading the goth music and club scene in the late 90s in Philly. So that lead to me going to goth clubs and playing Vampire on the dance floor and, well, now I’m the ridiculous human I am now. So I guess to answer your question, there was a lot of crossover with Vampire larps, goth clubs, and kink culture when I was a teen getting into roleplaying. There definitely still is, but, less in the goth arena since Vampire larps aren’t such a cultural sensation anymore.
I think the place where art intersects with my gaming is that it makes me want to make stuff for games! I’m a maker, so creating and designing games has become a thing I really enjoy. I can’t really be a passive game player, I need to get involved and get everyone else involved too. Designing games is so much more complex than a lot of art making (and metalwork and jewelry ain’t simple, lost wax casting involves so much math I can’t even sometimes!). There are a lot of moving pieces in games, and its interactive. I think that challenge really gets my creative artistic side going. I also really like creating interactive art, which is why I enjoy making jewelry more than gallery work or illustration. The ability to make something that someone will wear and interact with is very personal and embodied in a way that is much more satisfying to me than other mediums.
[Interviewer note: I actually own multiple pieces of jewelry created by Kira, specifically my octopus earrings and necklace that I wear constantly. It’s beautiful, and very meaningful, and it really is something that gives me a special connection.]
Your games all have an underlayer of intimacy, whether between individuals or with oneself. What helps you determine the right mechanic to use, or instructions to give, to encourage players to live out this intimacy in game?
Oh, hey, that’s an interesting observation I hadn’t thought of before! Intimacy in all my games!
For mechanics, I usually think about what I would like to do if I were playing this game I’m writing. What actions would I like to take as a player? Additionally, I think its really really important to edit mechanics to the most important ones, like maybe the top two or three, that people might be using. I want to highlight the things that are most important to the themes and characters in the game and create mechanics that support those. So I guess I think of theme and character first, then think of game mechanics that already exist in the tabletop or larp worlds, and then I try to piece them together until something works!
Specifically designing for intimacy though, I kinda cheat and use my sex ed, kink salesperson, kink community, queer community, and feminist theory expertise! I have a huge interest in how humans relate intimately in different settings, and like, how we communicate these things. For my game Strict Machine, which is a kinky power dynamic game where people play tanks that have to describe their body parts in sexy ways, the mechanic is based off of Dan Savage’s rules to talking dirty: say what you’re going to do, say what you’re doing, say what you just did. So I get a lot of inspiration from things like that in creating intimacy mechanics for my games.
I think the best way to get players to interact with intimate mechanics is to get them over their initial discomfort or awkwardness. That first time might be a little silly or uncomfortable, because culture tells us intimacy and sex are that way, but keep pushing through that bias and see where it gets you. Consensually, of course!
You probably saw this coming, but I would really love to know: What did you use for inspiration for Selfie, and what prompted you to make a game about selfies in the first place?
Hahaha! Yes you love selfies! Geez, I do too.
Selfies are like this giant intersection of: new media, new technology, the female gaze, self care, and art making. So like, in the art world, there’s been selfie exhibits and photographers I know haaaaaaaaaaaate them because they don’t consider them art. And in the social media world, selfies skew very feminine and young in our cultural consciousness, but in reality they’re actually very diverse in gender and race! What I love about selfies is that people have control over their own image, and especially feminine presenting people. Often the camera is controlled by cis men! It’s like the first time I looked at a Frida Kahlo painting, or an Annie Liebovitz photograph, and thought YES THAT THAT’S HOW I SEE LADIES. So it’s powerful to create your own image of yourself, right. It’s like the first time I drew a self portrait and was like, oh wow, I’m kind of uncomfortable with analyzing myself that much, but whoa, that’s how I look, and there’s an intimacy in drawing every curve of my nostril and shadow of my cheekbone and line around my eyes. I actually used to be really shy about being in front of the camera, looking at myself, I had very low self esteem because I had bad acne when I was younger and thought I was ugly. Art and photography kinda helped me with that, and I feel like the Selfie self care phenomenon is really similar to that experience except more mainstream, and that everyone should experience it.
The technology aspect is super cool. Basically, our smartphones make us cyborgs, we carry around this technology that is an extension of our bodies and personalities and relationships. So talking about that in a game, and how we are using this tech to examine ourselves and our emotions, is really, really neat. Some ladies in Spain got together and played the game, and then posted their selfies to their blog, and I feel like that’s the perfect example of how cool our level of global technological interactivity is.
Thank you so much to Kira for allowing me to interview and feature her here on Thoughty! It is awesome to share her work with my readers. Below is Kira’s brief bio and some links to her contact information and work. Thank you for reading!
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Kira Magrann creates jewelry at Anima Metals, organizes Indie Games on Demand, and creates sexy, feminist, queer and cyberpunk games. Some games she’s recently designed are Strict Machine, Mobilize, RESISTOR, and Game of Thrones: Play the Cards. Follow her on G+ or twitter @kiranansi. Also on Tumblr as @kiramagrann.
