Interview on Coyote & Crow

Today I have an interview with Connor Alexander about Coyote & Crow, which is currently on Kickstarter! This game sounds so incredible and is something I have hoped to see in games – a sci-fi fantasy game that’s about an America that was never colonized by white settlers. I feel like this is a really major project and I hope you enjoy learning about it, like I did!

Today I have an interview with Connor Alexander about Coyote & Crow, which is currently on Kickstarter! This game sounds so incredible and is something I have hoped to see in games – a sci-fi fantasy game that’s about an America that was never colonized by white settlers. I feel like this is a really major project and I hope you enjoy learning about it, like I did!

I’m excited for the opportunity to interview you about Coyote & Crow! It has been very successful on Kickstarter thus far, but I’d love to know more about you and the project. Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you came to work on the game?

Hi Beau! Really excited to chat with you. Thanks for taking the time. I’ve been a gamer my whole life, but I only started working in the hobby game industry in 2014. Pretty quickly I began to notice the representation gap in both presentation and in creative teams. The gap in the game industry seemed to mirror most of the rest of media and pop culture, which surprised me a little at first. Doing something about it didn’t occur to me until I was chatting with a Native representation consultant and they said something to the effect of, ‘even when they do representation accurately, it’s almost always through a colonial lens’. That really stuck with me. Then I saw the trailer for the video game Greedfall and I knew I had to take some kind of action.

I feel so very privileged that I have a steady job in the game industry and had access to many experienced voices who were willing to give me advice. I’m just a working stiff so it was really tempting to create a proposal and try to just sell the idea off to another publisher and let them run with it. In the end though, I felt that there were too many ways that the project could lose integrity along the way. Once I decided to tackle it myself, it became about team building. And that’s where the game began to become something much bigger and more important.

A promotional image for Coyote & Crow featuring sci-fi styled structures embedded in hilly landscape.

It’s pretty clear there’s a lot that makes this game unique and intriguing. How would you approach a new player to pitch the idea of the game to them, and are there any things players should know starting out?

That’s actually been one of our biggest hurdles. There’s almost no comparative media out there. When you talk about classic fantasy, even non-gamer audiences know Game of Thrones and Lord of the RIngs. Traditional sci-fi and cyberpunk also calls up a dozen properties and tropes. That cultural shorthand is embedded deeply in our collective conscience. On the one hand, you have to battle all of the negative stereotypes and assumptions non-Natives have. On the other, you have to create a world that’s both exciting and challenging to Natives, but also speaks to an incredibly broad array of Native cultures and traditions in a way that’s inclusive while not appropriative. It’s an extremely narrow ledge.

So to answer your question, when speaking to someone about it for the first time, I try to put them in the mindset of when they first read about Wakanda in the Marvel Universe or when they first played Horizon Zero Dawn. Not the cultural specifics of those worlds, but the idea of shifting your perspective of what could be. Once they’re in that headspace, I usually ask folks to picture what our continent would look like if Europeans or any other colonial forces had ever set foot here. And not at the point of contact 500 years ago, but in the future. From there, I usually can start filling their heads with all of the little details that make this world feel lived in. And while our game has a speculative future with fantasy elements to it, we made it a point to build a world that has a lot of potential grounded in reality.

As for things players should know starting out, there’s a big one that many folks have mentioned. I’ve heard so many variations on ‘I want to play but I’m worried I’ll do or say something insensitive’. I love that so many have asked that. It means there’s progress being made. But we are designing the game so that non-Natives can jump into this and play without worry. There’s a section at the beginning on how to approach the book and what to avoid. And throughout the book we give explanations for words and phrases and additional context for certain concepts or rules. On the flip side, we have specific things we call out where we indicate that Natives can add on or tweak a rule to help it fit their tribal specific customs or context.

A promotional image for Coyote & Crow featuring  a figure in purple and black with face paint, a staff, and a hood in a beautiful landscape.

That’s all really useful to know! You have a great team with a lot of varied experiences. What is the process like for deciding which ideas for mechanics or content goes into the final product? How do you ensure the most voices are heard?

That’s actually one of the most rewarding portions of development for me. I created the broad parameters of the game and set the stage. Once we had an initial draft, I invited everyone on the team to comment on it and if they felt strongly about a section or a concept, invited them to have a chat with me about either doing edits or re-writes. Nothing in the book is so sacred it can’t be changed. If someone on the team has a brilliant idea, I want it in. As long as the idea doesn’t derail the core concepts or conceits of the game or cause internal inconsistencies, I’m on board. It’s led to some really vibrant discussions and concepts I never would have thought of on my own.

We’re certainly in the ‘kill your darlings’ stage of development and with that comes the pain of seeing some of your initial ideas break in play testing. From a personal standpoint that stings, of course. As the game development progresses, it’s like I built the framework of a house and I’m seeing people add walls and paint and windows. The more work they do, the more mine becomes invisible. But that’s fine. I never wanted this game to be some sort of statement about me personally. From the start I knew this project would be better thematically and mechanically if we had a chorus of voices.

You’ve shared a lot of cool stuff on the Kickstarter page, but I would love to know more! What are some of the exciting things we can expect from the game, the kind of things that really make you want to share with others? 

For me, it’s the little details that make a world feel lived in. A perfect example is the underground transit system of Cahokia. It was built originally as a system of tunnels to keep people warm and safe during the brutal winters. As we thought about it practically, we saw flaws. How would this be lit? Keeping fires going in enclosed tunnels would be difficult for so many reasons. Our answer was one that I think is equal parts inspired and reasonable. The people of this world eventually grew their light sources through cultivation of bioluminescent fungi along the walls and ceiling of the tunnels. The effect is that in this future the interior ceilings and walls of these tunnels and the magnetic levitation rail transit system all glow green and blue and purple. While having a living ceiling as a light source is a cool image, I like to also think that it represents a different way of problem solving. We’re working hard to fit as many of those kinds of thoughtful ideas as we can into the book.

We’ve also got bigger ideas that we at least want to set up. I’ve always been a fan of storylines in games that involve shadowy organizations or grand conspiracies. Mystery in TTRPGs is one of my favorite hooks. So we have lots of story prompts and adversaries that are based around those kinds of adventures. It also leaves lots of room for Story Guides to build out around their own concepts.

A promotional image for Coyote & Crow featuring a stylized illustration of a person with a bow and arrow fighting against a large purple and black creature.

What led to the decision to make this a game that focused on sci-fi fantasy vibes and encourage the specific style of play (which seems unique) that you did?

That’s a great question. I don’t think there’s a way to answer that without addressing my own personal tastes, so I hope I don’t come off as self-absorbed. I grew up on original Star Trek, Star Wars and authors like Ray Bradbury. Stories that were full of forward thinking and hope. In contrast, my Native heritage always felt grounded in now, in today. It was a very personal and not always a happy part of my relationship with my father and our family.

But in the last decade, we’ve seen some media that has started to meet somewhere in the middle of those two points. It’s not all utopia and hope or escapist fantasy, but it’s also not grim and dirty reality. Shows like the Expanse, newer Star Trek, video games like Horizon Zero Dawn and tabletop games like Android Netrunner were all able to put fresh spins and new perspectives on some of those old concepts, while also highlighting diversity and representation in a way that didn’t feel obligatory.

When I knew I wanted that kind of feeling for Coyote and Crow, it just became a process of elimination. I didn’t want just fantasy because too often non-Natives exoticize Native Americans and that setting is just too ripe for them to abuse, even if it was told well. And pure science fiction doesn’t leave as much room for the subjective and the immaterial that I wanted to make sure spoke to so many Native beliefs across tribes.

I wanted it set in the future because I wanted Natives to see this as a hopeful view of what could have been and maybe some things that might still be, but it had to be built on  a different past because I wanted it very clear to everyone that this was a world that colonists and specifically Europeans, had no part in building.

It was also important that the core mechanics offer combat as an option and not the default. Most fantasy games are geared toward going somewhere unfamiliar, killing everything there and then measuring your success based on how much you looted. That sort of storytelling is really limited. For me, the best stories are about building bridges, righting wrongs, finding equilibrium in the middle of chaos and optimizing your gifts in ways that benefit as many as possible, not just yourself. I’m really hoping that Coyote and Crow becomes the launching pad for those kinds of stories.

A promotional image for Coyote & Crow featuring an older Indigenous person in a high collar with split tones over their face of red and blue, lighting their eyes with those colors.

Amazing! So much good stuff here. I just have one last question to finish this off. As you’ve worked on the design and playtesting for Coyote & Crow, what are some experiences that stand out and excite you for the game and for players to enjoy? What lasting impact do you hope for?

That’s actually a long list. The first time we did a playtest and one of the players got to experience the exploding dice mechanic and they were so thrilled. I knew I was on to something when I saw that look of joy and excitement. Another great moment was when my Native group of playtesters got to meet the supernatural entity that we were using in our adventure (and appears in the one shot that’s in the book). That feeling like we were all playing something that was “ours” was palpable and deeply gratifying.

Since I’ve passed along some of the play testing to our team, I’ve heard some incredible stories from our Story Guide. They said one group just decided to completely cozy up and become friends with a group we’d originally written as sort of adversarial. That was great! As much as I love writing stories and being a Story Guide, having players take it down their own path is always such a treat. Most of my own personal favorite RPG stories over the years usually involve some amount of deviating from the gamemasters plans.

Which leads me to the second part of your question. The lasting impact that I’m hoping for is that people, Native and otherwise, find themselves exploring the world we’ve built and feel inspired to tell new stories and new kinds of stories. I’m a firm believer in storytelling and the power of it. It has the power to unify, to heal, to inspire. My greatest wish is that Coyote & Crow does what all of the best science fiction does, which is to bring some hope to our real lives by giving us a thought provoking world to temporarily escape to. If I can do that for some folks, especially my Native cousins out there, then I’ve succeeded.

A promotional image for Coyote & Crow featuring two characters in gorgeous Indigenous outfits surrounded by colorful patterns, with what appears to be a flying robot overhead.

Thank you so much for the interview, Connor! Coyote & Crow sounds like a really amazing game and I’m excited to see all that comes from it. Check it out on Kickstarter today!

Interview on Tomorrow on Revelation III

Today I have an interview with Dominique Dickey about their project, Tomorrow on Revelation III, which is currently on Kickstarter! This project seems really amazing and explores a lot of complex themes, so I hope you enjoy hearing about it! Check it out!

Today I have an interview with Dominique Dickey about their project, Tomorrow on Revelation III, which is currently on Kickstarter! This project seems really amazing and explores a lot of complex themes, so I hope you enjoy hearing about it! Check it out!


I’m excited for the opportunity to interview you about Tomorrow on Revelation III, which you’re launching on Kickstarter. It sounds fascinating! Before we talk in detail about the game, can you tell me a little about yourself and how you came to be designing this project? 

DD: I’m Dominique Dickey! I’m a writer, editor, and consultant. I’ve previously worked as a freelancer on projects such as Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Sea of Legends, Lost Roads, and Pathfinder Lost Omens. You can also find my rpg TRIAL on itch.io: it’s a narrative game that explores race and the criminal justice system via the story of a murder trial, and was my first foray into games as a mechanism of social change.

Last summer, I had the idea for a game about farmers avoiding becoming obsolete on a space station. I was interested in themes of capitalism and finding meaning outside of labor. I also wanted to design a game about community-driven social change, and find a way to represent that change through game mechanics.

I spoke to my dear friend Charles Linton and realized that my initial premise was more suited for a one-shot than a campaign, as resolving the problem (making sure the space farmers had rights and protections) would break the game (by obliterating a core aspect of the setting). I also didn’t want it to become a game about making oneself necessary to the capitalist machine: what if the farmers’ profession actually does become obsolete, but they find value outside of their labor? The way I initially envisioned the game would not allow players to answer that question, or others like it.

From those discussions with Charlie, the game shifted to be about a group of people on a heavily stratified space station, all with different backgrounds and levels of privilege, working together to improve their collective circumstances. I was really excited by the idea of developing the eponymous station and its stratifications—this was my first time writing a game with a super concrete setting, and I wanted to create a rich and generative sandbox for players and GMs to enjoy.

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#33in28 – Week 4 Reviews

This week is the final installment of my #33in28 series of solo roleplaying game reviews that I wanted to do for my birthday month. This post is a little late, but the final reviews took me longer than intended in the wake of some trauma and grief. I think that there are a lot of great games in this bunch though, so check them out!

This week is the final installment of my #33in28 series of solo roleplaying game reviews that I wanted to do for my birthday month. This post is a little late, but the final reviews took me longer than intended in the wake of some trauma and grief. I think that there are a lot of great games in this bunch though, so check them out!


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#33in28 – Lay On Hands

Right now on Kickstarter for #ZineQuest3, there is a solo dexterity based role-playing game funding called LAY ON HANDS. It doesn’t have many days left to go, but I was fortunate enough to get a copy of an early draft to preview on Thoughty. This game is smart and looks great already; the idea of having to draw in a maze as a way to test your character’s skills and trying to rack up as many points as possible until the coin stops spinning is just something that I have never seen before.

Today we have a guest review by Thomas Novosel for #33in28 about Lay On Hands, which is currently on Kickstarter! Check out the review and Kickstarter for a dexterity based good time – only so much time to go!

The General Idea

Genre Tags: solo, lonely, journaling, post-apocalyptic, coins, drawing, art
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? None yet available
Length: Short to Medium, (Journaling Optional)

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#33in28 – The Gardener is Dead Review

The Gardener is Dead is a ghostly storytelling game by Ginger (@inkyginge). The game is currently on Kickstarter and doing well, and I think it deserves a little extra attention! I reviewed a draft version of the game provided to me by Ginger, so there is a chance something will change by the final version. That being said, this game uses at least 1 six-sided die, a deck of playing cards, paper, pencils, and tokens (pieces of paper or index cards will do). It’s intended for anywhere from one to four players, but I’m looking at it as a journaling game.

Hi all! Another #33in28 review coming at you – this time one that’s actively on Kickstarter! Check out The Gardener is Dead in my review below and on Kickstarter before time runs out!

The Gardener is Dead

By Ginger (@inkyginge)

The General Idea

Genre Tags: solo, multi-player, lonely, journaling, death, loss, nature, cards, dice, plants
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? Many examples in text
Length: Short, 2-3 hours, Journaling (At your own pace)


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#33in28 Week 3 Reviews

Hi all! This is the week three set of my #33in28 reviews! The final post will go up on Sunday of next week. This week I’m covering a lot of self-care and meta type games like Ego and soulQUEST, but don’t worry, there’s still time to get Lost in the Deep. Enjoy!

Hi all! This is the week three set of my #33in28 reviews! The final post will go up on Sunday of next week. This week I’m covering a lot of self-care and meta type games like Ego and soulQUEST, but don’t worry, there’s still time to get Lost in the Deep. Enjoy!


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#33in28 Precious Little Animal Review

Hi all! This is my review for the third week of #33in28 where I focus on a single game. This week’s game is Alex Roberts’ Precious Little Animal! It seemed really cute and positive, which I think is something all of us could benefit from this week. Precious Little Animal is a journaling game where you tell positive things to an animal friend and is currently on Kickstarter!

Hi all! This is my review for the third week of #33in28 where I focus on a single game. This week’s game is Alex Roberts’ Precious Little Animal! It seemed really cute and positive, which I think is something all of us could benefit from this week. Precious Little Animal is a journaling game where you tell positive things to an animal friend and is currently on Kickstarter!

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#33in28 Week 2 Reviews

This is the second week’s installment of #33in28, my birthday celebration reviewing 33 solo games in 28 days! Today I’m featuring Bear, Morning Phase, Operation Cat Chat, and more! Check out these awesome games through my reviews and make sure to click through on their itchio links to find out more and buy your favorites! I want to point out with this post that every single one of these games could be priced far more and still be more than worth it, so *please consider tipping if you buy!*

Hi all! This is the second week’s installment of #33in28, my birthday celebration reviewing 33 solo games in 28 days! Today I’m featuring Bear, Morning Phase, Operation Cat Chat, and more! Check out these awesome games through my reviews and make sure to click through on their itchio links to find out more and buy your favorites! I want to point out with this post that every single one of these games could be priced far more and still be more than worth it, so *please consider tipping if you buy!*

Continue reading “#33in28 Week 2 Reviews”

A New Masculinity: The Men of Wolfenstein: The New Order

I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry).

This is part of a series on masculinity and the game Wolfenstein: A New Order. The series focuses exclusively on Wolfenstein: A New Order and the characters within it, though it does reference the backstories of characters that may not be revealed until later games in that series. Much of the specific details here were sourced in the Wolfenstein Wiki.

Content warning: Nazis, hate crimes, domestic abuse (parent-child, spousal), violence, homophobia, racism, ableism, eugenics, torture, suicide, animal cruelty

SPOILERS for Wolfenstein: The New Order and elements of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.


I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry). I also played the Wyatt timeline, one of the most vital decisions in the game, so I won’t address Fergus or his timeline much (playing thru again hasn’t been possible with my cognitive issues). I’ll likely address characters like Caroline, Frau Engel, and Anya in a separate article, because that’s a very different matter. 

Note: I may not discuss Sigrun, Frau Engel’s daughter, from The New Colossus in detail due to how her experiences are related to my own trauma, and since she is from a later game. We’ll see!

First up, we’ll address the Resistance. Note that I don’t think that these characters are without flaws, but I want to appreciate their good characteristics. 

Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a large white man with a visible brain injury in suspenders and a thermal shirt, sitting on a bed. Image from user joumur on Steam.
Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user joumur on Steam.

I want to talk about Max Hass with a desperation. Max is a pacifist, and was born with a brain injury and abandoned as a child. I love Max for a lot of reasons, but I will note that he experiences the stereotype of many mentally disabled folks in that he is physically minimally vulnerable, very strong, and speaks simplistically – only saying his name. This portrayal is obviously from a challenging perspective and can be harmful. However, the character is well-loved, heroic, shown to be mostly capable except for his own traumatic responses, and while he is shown to be childlike, he is distinctly masculine in his presentation. 

Max is flawed in his presentation in regards to ability, though he is definitely fitting a trope. But he’s portrayed as a masculine character in a youthful way, which is something we rarely see in war games. Childlike natures are often presented as juvenile, rather than something understandable that people respect and support, like when B.J. helps recover Max’s lost toys as part of an achievement and story thread. Max Hass is an example of a character that could have been done better, but to me his inclusion was valuable – it’s okay to be disabled, to perhaps be childlike, regardless of the reasons behind those things. You can still be loved, still be a boy at heart. These are things we often strip from disabled masculine people, so it mattered to me.

Next to Max, we don’t go so far to find Klaus Kreutz, who is the one who recovered Max from behind a dumpster after losing his own disabled child to the Nazis eugenics. He was originally a Nazi soldier, and after losing his son and his wife in a tragic encounter, grew to deeply hate the Nazis and their ideology. He turned against the Nazis and became a member of the Resistance, and while he encountered initial conflict with B.J., they eventually become colleagues that respect each other. This encounter is shown in The New Order, and is important because in many instances, we frame Nazis or fascists as not real men or even men who change sides as not real men because they’re disloyal or because Real Men don’t do violence, and this is a flawed and messed up concept. In the game, they don’t portray the situation as such, instead focusing on the Nazi atrocities and whether Klaus might harbor any Nazi beliefs. 

Klaus is shown as caring, and loving towards Max. He is without a doubt portrayed as a masculine character with a past of violence, but now he instead cares for Max as if he was his own child, and doesn’t question giving his life for the resistance. He embodies heroic qualities and paternal qualities we associate with adoptive fathers. Doing this to someone who left Nazi service and showing that people can change is a vital element of the storytelling in The New Order.

Wyatt from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a white man in fatigues in a black and white closeup. Image from user Joey Stick on Steam.
Wyatt from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user Joey Stick on Steam.

The flip of the coin is Probst Wyatt II, a dedicated and initially idealistic soldier who served alongside B.J. and in one timeline of the game, he is the character saved from the terrifying Deathshead, a villain who tortures the characters quite horrifically. Wyatt experiences post-traumatic stress disorder from the war and depression after the suicide of his mother. He is one of the few genuine portrayals of mental illness in a masculine character I’ve seen in AAA games where the illness is recognized and respected. Wyatt is given space to struggle through his illnesses and not forced to participate in further war, and granted space within the Resistance compound to recover and rest. 

I cannot describe how much Wyatt’s story impacted me. I am so very used to seeing symptoms of mental illness hidden in games, washed over or described as supernatural or unreal. They’re often shamed, or dismissed as unmanly or unmasculine and masculine people who struggle with mental illness are emasculated and lose their agency. They’re shamed if they take space to deal with or struggle with their trauma. How many moments ask you to “Man Up”? Doesn’t Wolfenstein itself use a frankly shitty difficulty level imagery with B.J. in baby clothes if you choose the easier difficulty? (Don’t think I’ve forgotten it, I think about it every day.) Wyatt’s struggle is vital and important, and the way the rest of the characters treat it is even more important for any type of character, but definitely a masculine one.

Note: From what I know, Wyatt copes with addiction in an attempt to help his illness in The New Colossus, but does recover after some challenges. I think this is also an important story, and hope to play through it someday.

J, one of my favorite characters, is one of the few Black characters featured in The New Order (aside from Bombate, who I adore) and is the survivor of a hate crime by United States white supremacists. He is a guitarist and initially, as mentioned in the previous article, finds conflict with B.J. because he tells B.J. that in the U.S., white people (and implicitly, I think, the military) were the Nazis. J is so important to the story that it disappoints me not all players might fully engage with his story and his scenes, since they aren’t mandatory, but he opens B.J.’s mind literally and figuratively by playing music and giving B.J. drugs that cause him to hallucinate, but also reflect on his thoughts about Black Americans and about the role of white U.S. citizens in the oppression of Black people. It’s a beautiful scene.

J from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a black man playing a guitar. Image from user eg0rikTM on Steam.
J from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user eg0rikTM on Steam.

J himself is portrayed in many ways like Jimi Hendrix, who he appears to be based on – natural hair, colorful clothing styled like 60s and 70s funk fashion (as much as can be managed in the war). He does not fit the white concept of masculinity, and that’s important. He could be seen by some to be flamboyant, but instead he is presented as expressing himself. He could have been presented as hyper masculine and robust in a racist stereotype, but instead he is thin, scarred, but still resilient. I could say a lot more about J, but I would want to hear more from Black players on his masculine portrayal, and on that of Bombate. 

Bombate is a Resistance fighter and I know that in The New Colossus he is portrayed somewhat as a womanizer, cheating on one character with another. However, in The New Order, he’s steadfast and tells stories of his experiences at the hands of the Nazis. Bombate traveled north from his home in Southwest Africa (Namibia) to face the Nazis head on, and after two years was put into a forced labor camp. He has been through immense trauma, but it never once is designed in The New Order for you to feel any disrespect for him for the way he processes that trauma or to see him as anything other than heroic. 

He is framed as masculine, and is not dismissed as a threat to the Nazis. Bombate is an immediate powerful ally for the player as B.J., respected and trusted. It is refreshing to see a character presented so simply as someone just and who did the right thing, even if they suffered, and not have the whole story be how they are now weak because of their trauma (but not presenting them as unrealistically powerful, either). Especially for masculine characters, I feel like this is underrepresented.

This video on Whiteness and Judaism in Wolfenstein does a much better job than I could discussing the subject.

The final Resistance character I want to address is Set Roth. Set is one of the only Jewish characters we interact with, aside from B.J., and the highest profile masculine Jewish character whose identity is relevant. While there are absolutely concerns about the portrayal of Judaism in Wolfenstein, I was happy to see a Jewish character at all since past games kind of blurred over that beyond the main character (whose identity wasn’t really addressed). As far as masculinity goes, Set is presented as an elderly man, but still virile, still brilliant, and would by many be stereotyped as a wise old man (never failing to lose that vibe of men-are-smarter-than-women). However, he works alongside Caroline as an equal, and never once places value on masculinity of himself or others over that of the mission or the women in the game. 

Set is unusual in that his gender and presentation is not so overt and this may be a case of how we tend to de-gender or minimalize the genders or presentation of people who aren’t the standard issue white person, but it also may be related to the fact that he is older and we desexualize and de-gender the elderly in a similar way we do some young children. However, as I have limited exposure to masculine Jewish culture, I could also be witnessing my own bias in action – and this is something I would love to hear more Jewish perspectives on. I am far from an expert, I’m just sharing what I experience and witness. 


And now, a note on the other side of the conflict. We won’t dwell long on them, for obvious reasons. Note that none of my allowances for the possibilities of characters having trauma or reasons for their actions means that I excuse their actions or that I think anything they do is okay. Just for clarity! There are absolutely more masculine characters in the Nazi side, but I don’t want to give too much attention to them – they are mostly hypermasculine, toxic, and cruel characters.

B.J. Blazkowicz from Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a white man saying "Breathe in, count to four. Breathe out, count to four." Image from user joumur on Steam.
We’re not sharing pictures of Nazis here. Take a breath, let’s get through this together. Image from user joumur on Steam.

Hans “Bubi” Winkle is the 15+ years junior companion of Frau Engel. His presentation is harder to address, because at first you might think that he was effeminate as a way to mock the unmanliness of Nazis or frame them as subservient to women, making women the enemy. But this… did not play out for me in the end. Hans (I refer to him by his name, not what he’s called by Engel) is absolutely a villain. He is absolutely a masculine character, but frankly he’s not the kind of masculine United States citizens are used to. German masculinity, from what I’ve witnessed being there and knowing a number of Germans, is not the same as U.S. masculinity. Hans is still within the range of masculinity in his dress, many of his mannerisms, and even his toxic masculinity of killing for the woman he loves. Engel is his “everything,” and for that, he wells with cruelty and indulges her atrocious acts.

It is important not to forget the masculine characters who are not what we stereotype as masculine. It’s important to address toxicity and the cultural context of the characters we see in media, regardless of whether it sounds good. The relationship between Frau Engel and Hans is toxic, especially when you factor in her abusive nature to her own family, and Frau Engel’s own favoring of time-typical masculine behaviors and dress, and masculine people over feminine people in her life. You note in the game that Hans plays up his ditzy boytoy attitude when around Engel, but becomes more brutal and masculine when apart from her. Hans stays in his position of power by following her rule, which is his failing as a human as much as it is clearly a method of survival. He is the passionately loyal lover and companion – willing to do anything to maintain his status, especially since his past life as an unsuccessful prison guard would never be worth going back to in comparison. 

Wilhelm Strasse, a.k.a. Deathshead, the initial villain of the game, is a polar opposite of Hans. He’s immensely powerful, and while he does fall in the end thanks to B.J., he’s held up as the epitome of Nazi brilliance and cruelty. However, it becomes very obvious throughout play that his eugenics and white supremacy (and male supremacy, if his cadre is any indication) is flawed. The dog brains he puts in robots still maintain habits of regular dogs, his creations suffer in pain, and his pride is what leads to his fall. 

He is absolutely portrayed as a masculine character in the same way that other Nazi generals and authorities have been portrayed in propaganda, like the doctors who performed atrocities. Their maleness, their masculine nature, is supposed to be what makes them so brilliant, so dispassionate and willing to be cruel and cold in the pursuit of science. It is a vile concept, but it is clear in the game that the Resistance and those opposing the obviously villainous Nazis don’t buy it. He is a villain in part because of this perverted toxic ideal of pristine and perfect masculinity. Instead, the characters embrace the imperfect masculinity of characters like Max, J, and B.J.

The Wolfenstein title card with B.J. swimming through water shirtless. Image from Moby Games database.
Image from Moby Games database.

That’s part two of this detailed series on how masculinity is designed in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Design includes how characters are written, how they interact, and how they are presented, beyond the mechanics or rules in the game. I hope to explore more of this topic in future installations of this series, and I appreciate your time as I pick apart my feelings on the game. Please consider supporting me occasionally or monthly on ko-fi.com/thoughty as I do more posts like this!

#33in28 – Thousand Year Old Vampire

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a multi-award winning game by Tim Hutchings currently available on itchio and in print at DriveThruRPG. It uses journaling and dice mechanics to guide the player through a solo roleplaying game about the subject – a Thousand Year Old Vampire (TYOV). The game has been widely popular, but I have a lot of thoughts to share!

Thousand Year Old Vampire

By Tim Hutchings

The General Idea

Genre Tags: solo, lonely, dice, journaling, roleplaying game
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? Examples included
Length: Short or Long, Journaling (At your own pace)

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a multi-award winning game by Tim Hutchings currently available on itchio and in print at DriveThruRPG. It uses journaling and dice mechanics to guide the player through a solo roleplaying game about the subject – a Thousand Year Old Vampire (TYOV). The game has been widely popular, but I have a lot of thoughts to share! 

As someone who initially interviewed Tim about the game, I’ve been fascinated with it from the start. I love games about characters who have superpowers like immortality or who are living over centuries, and media like that in general. This game explores that full tilt, including some really challenging topics.

The text includes warnings that you will encounter:

“themes of death, selfishness, and predation. Your character may be injured, victimized, trapped, or killed. Your character will murder and victimize people of all sorts, possibly including children, animals, loved ones, marginalized people, or themselves. You might find yourself exploring themes of imperialism, colonialism, or oppression. Characters might engage in self-harm or drug abuse. Illness, debilitation, and body horror may come into play. Your character may have their memories altered, they will certainly forget important things. 

Some of this will emerge from the Prompts, some will emerge from the choices you make as a player.

This is a personal, challenging game for mature adults. Please play hard, but stay aware of yourself and your feelings. Some good thoughts about safety in solo games can be found in Appendix Three.”
– Thousand Year Old Vampire

I love Thousand Year Old Vampire. Right now, I can’t play it.

The book is one of the most beautiful artifacts I’ve ever owned. The hardcover has gold riddling the marbled cover, and the interior is packed with images and a stunning, original layout that draws attention to the nature of this book as a well-used immortal’s journal, complete with the impression of things tucked into pages, taped into place, or scribbled into the margins. I love every time I open it, finding new gorgeous, character-building bits and pieces I missed the first four or five times I looked through. It’s sturdy, and while you can write in the book as you play, it may take some bravery to embellish the pages with your own scribbles of isolation and loneliness.

The cover of Thousand Year Old Vampire with the title taped on and the styling being of an old hardcover journal with blue and white patterning and gold inlay.

The mechanics are simple, using a d10 and d6 to select and narrow prompts and affect resolution, and the narrative mechanics of Memories and Experiences – the former the bucket for the latter, where multiple short written Experiences make up an arc of a Memory, of which you only have five total at a time. When you gain new Experiences, you lose Memories if you don’t have a space for them.

This mechanic makes so much sense to me when you consider the sheer number of prompts included to put a character through years of triumph and trauma, love and regret, camaraderie and loneliness. Imagine the number of experiences – real moments of eternal living – that a vampire would have in their endless life, how they might imagine ways of ending waking loneliness and sleeping suffering without their loved ones, regretting their deeds, wishing they could do greater ones! It is something that could be played equally passionately and dispassionately, engaging in the powerful prompts with the keen eye of a monster who only has more lives to take or instead with the weary heart of someone who has lived too long and only has longer to live. The possibilities! They are as endless as the days your vampire will sleep through and as engaging as the nights they hunt through.

I want to play this game so badly! It’s so well-written and executed, and the mechanics make so much sense for this immortal being who lives through hundreds of years of life and loss. But, as someone who struggles with memory loss, and during this time of isolation that has been very hard on me, I elected not to play it – right now. Thousand Year Old Vampire will remain on my to-play list until I get the courage to delve into its stunning pages and pen my own story of immortality, but if you want to dive in right now, don’t miss out! 

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a lonely journaling vampire game by Tim Hutchings currently available on itchio and in print at DriveThruRPG. It is one of my favorite games I’m reviewing this month and I hope you’ll check it out soon!