I just wanted to do a brief post about Turn and identity, on this, our turning point to the second half of the Kickstarter. You can check out Turn’s Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/briecs/turn-a-tabletop-roleplaying-game. Content warning for discussion of mental health, depression, and mentions of binge drinking/alcoholism and suicidal ideation.
I want to talk about what it means to be two (or more) things in one person. I come at this from a couple of different axes, and some people have more. Mine are really tied to people’s perception for some of these, but others are truly just inherently who I am.
Let me try to separate them a little.
As far as perception, to many people, I’m a cis woman. In reality, I’m not. So I live with perceived-me as cis woman, and actual-me as not. As well, I’m not perceived as disabled, but in reality, I am. So I live as perceived-me and able, and actual-me as disabled. I also appear straight – I’m even in a perceived-straight relationship. But I’m not! I’m queer as hell. So, perceived-me and actual-me again at odds.
It goes deeper, I say, in a Morpheus voice.
I am actually both nonbinary and masculine. Simultaneously, most of the time, though in different amounts. This is big, and important. One of the biggest ones, though, is that I have bipolar disorder. Even when I am at the height of mania, my depression looms and can tug at me in moments when I’m sensitive, and vice versa. My mania (including hypomania) and depression, they’re a part of me, even when I’m incredibly well-medicated.
Around 2012, I entered into a mixed episode. (A slow slide.) This is when you’re kind of manic and depressed all at once! It is, shall we say, a bad time. It lasted years. Many of my readers knew me during this time period, through what I call The Dark Years, because I lost a lot of memories due to blackouts both from mania and from alcohol abuse. Not great.
However, I started working on Turn in 2013. This isn’t a coincidence. I don’t talk about this part of Turn very much because it’s still incredibly hard for me. I’ve been asked in a few interviews, and only went into it in detail relating to this specific subject on one, about why shapeshifters are great to tell stories about. There are tons of reasons – they’re fun, they can be used as a metaphor, they’re powerful and interesting. But shapeshifters – multiple identities in one body? I understand that, I live that.
From 2012 until a ways into 2015, I was what some people consider “crazy.” I was fighting with my mental illness, making tons of bad choices, but also continuing to grow my business, attending university, and so on. I was struggling between the intense, high, selfish, egotistical mania and the soul-sucking, exhausting, lonely, self-loathing depression. During all of this, I got to see that neither side – in me personally – existed without the other, that they fed into each other, interacted with each other, and that there were things I could do where both would work together, or where I could find a harmony. That eventual harmony did actually lead me to getting help, going on lithium, quitting binge drinking, and ending harmful relationships.
And there, you can see a burning light of hope.
I have always identified with shapeshifters, having a hidden identity of some kind with everyone most of my life. They are part of Turn, and are good to make stories about, because of what I said – they’re interesting, fun, powerful, and great metaphors for people to place upon themselves. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that the actual design of Turn wasn’t heavily influenced by my own conflicting identity.
I’ve had reason to think about it a lot over the Kickstarter, and while I personally struggle to find mental health support on Medicaid. The fear of falling back into those dark days is real, let me tell you. But, in thinking, I wanted to share that the design of shapeshifters in Turn, to have these different parts of their identity that they struggle between, that they must find balance within? That’s bred out of true hope.
Many people have different sides to them, and it’s hard to deal with it sometimes. When I think of when I was first conceiving the Struggles in Turn, the mechanics for how you resolve conflicts between your beast and human identities and their wants and needs when you take action, I thought of how every day when I was struggling with my mental health, I had to choose my consequences. Sometimes it meant I’d sacrifice face, sometimes I’d deal with physical fallout, and sometimes I’d have other worse consequences for whatever ridiculous shit I got up to that day. I couldn’t always predict them and sometimes I’d just end up with the whole mess (hello, 6-).
And it was also always about the drawbacks that my one part of me had pulling against the other. When I was more manic and just trying to slam down a conversation at a convention, my depressive side would push for me to say things that were self-deprecating. When I was a miserable mess and struggling from the edge of suicide, the mania would suggest self-destructive methods. It was kind of rough, honestly.
When I put these into Turn, though, I didn’t want all that bad shit coming with it. For me, I wanted shapeshifters to be something beautiful! I was okay with them having hard stuff they dealt with, but it wasn’t about either side of them being dark, or self-destructive, or harmful. They’re just both parts of the being with needs and wants that the shifters have to struggle to satisfy or meet, even if it’s hard, and the biggest aspect is that they’re just trying to show up the way everyone wants them to show up. That’s why exposure is a mechanic, because the real hard part of all of this is the world, not their identity. Shifters are good!
I want to talk more about shapeshifters being beautiful and good so I will soon, but this is getting a little long.
Basically, shapeshifters are whatever you want them to be in what they stand for or are a metaphor for. You can play them in a bunch of different ways! But the reason why their mechanics work the way they do is because I discovered through struggles with my bipolar disorder that these complex multi-faceted identities aren’t actually binary structures! Even my mania has some sadness, even my depression has some egotism. It’s not exactly a fun way to figure out how to design a game, but it’s a real one.
So the shapeshifters in Turn are complex. They are not all beast when they’re a beast, and they’re not all human when they’re a human. They’re a little bit of each, regardless of their form, in different amounts. And I thought about this intensely during throes of mania and depths of depression! So I can tell you with all honesty that there are no perfect metaphors. But I’ll tell you this: shapeshifters don’t have a special tweenie form like many shapeshifter versions do because I will never have a happy medium, and I had to find a way into the light without one. I think the story is stronger that way, and it’s a story I know how to tell.
If you liked reading about Turn and want to support it, the Kickstarter runs until November 30, so please consider backing it. If this resonated with you, please feel free to share your experiences with having a multi-faceted identity – you can even use the #turnrpg and #myturnID hashtags if you’d like. I know I’m not alone in being a person with many sides, and I appreciate the power of sharing our stories.
Until next time:
P.S. – If you’re a Patreon backer, let me know if you think I should charge for this post!
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Today I have an interview with Eric Mersmann and Jeffrey Dieterle about My Jam, a live action game currently on Kickstarter! It’s very musical, and a unique kind of empowering. Check out their responses below!
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This image, done by Lawrence Gullo, is so powerful!
Tell me a little about My Jam. What excites you about it?
My Jam is a one-shot 4-hour larp where you embody high school aged musarchs—people who gain magic power from their relationship to music—during the biggest dance of the year. During the dance, your song will come on and you’ll be the deity of the dance floor for its duration. A whole lot excites me about this game! We’ve been working on it for over a year (our first playtest was at Metatopia 2017) and people seem to get a real rush out of it! The most surprising thing to us was people coming up to us after playing who HATED high school dances and told us that this really gave them the experience they wished they had! It kinda empowers players over something that might not have been such a positive thing at the time. At the same time, folks who LOVED high school dances also said they enjoyed this game so yeah! Music! Magic! Drama! What’s not to be excited about!?!?!
What inspired My Jam, and what was the path like from inspiration to reality?
The original inspiration for My Jam is the comic series Phonogram written by Kieron Gillen & drawn by Jaime McKelvie, which is about “phonomancers” who get power from music. Jeff conceived of the idea for this game, and asked Eric if he wanted to collaborate (uh is it ok if we talk about ourselves in the third person? seems weird but let’s go with it…) in late summer 2017. We worked up a playtest for Metatopia 2017 just to see if people would be interested in larp dance parties and uh… they were!!! The game has changed a lot since then, thanks to playtests at Larp Shack down in Durham, Dreamation, and elsewhere. Mostly we refined the gameplay to focus on the “My Jam” moment and developed workshops to support play so everyone could have fun which segues nicely into…
How did you design the game to be approachable and fun for all the different types of players?
WORKSHOPS!!! We have about an hour of pre-game that’s intended to help people get into their characters and start moving around in response to music. Unfortunately, My Jam is not for everyone, but we’ve worked really hard to make sure it’s for as many people as possible and that the people who do play it are able to enjoy themselves. We’ve tried to take some of the worst parts of high school dances out while still keeping the drama and emotional intensity. And finally, we reinforce that the players are more important than the game and we give the players some tools to help and empower the palyers to mediate their experience.
How do you handle safety and consent when you have music playing? Do you find players are more free with their movement and action with an environment framed like this?
We use a number of “standard” larp calibration techniques that all focus on the idea that the players are more important than the game (stuff like door is always open, cut, slow down, check-in lmk if you want me to go more in-depth) and we have a few Jam Commandments that we developed specifically for issues that arise in this game:
1) touching only with consent – this is especially important for dancing, and people have a lot of baggage around being explicit asking for consent so we try to cut through to say that touch should only happen with consent and consent is an ongoing process.
2) celebrate culture with respect – music and culture are intrinsically connected so we say explicitly no singing along with slurs and no adopting mannerisms or vocal inflections meant to imitate another culture 3) rivalry without hate – this game is meant to capture the feelings of highschool but we’re not interested in giving people an excuse to practice abusive or oppressive behaviors so we forbid role playing oppression-based bullying.
We also recommend making sure that the volume of the music is loud enough to dance to but still quiet enough to talk over and we also recommend having a space where players can be free of the magical powers: a circle of protection/chill-out zone.
Our experience is that with the warm-up workshops and the safety it allows players to embrace their bodies and music with less fear of judgment. There’s definitely an added level of vulnerability, but we try to instruct the facilitator in how to create an environment where people can experience that vulnerability. So far our players have reported back success!
Your Kickstarter approach seems a little different from other Kickstarters. Why are you approaching the model differently, and what do you expect to see from it?
We went around and around on what the final form of My Jam would be. At one point we were discussing pressing an audio version of the workshops into vinyl! At the other end of the spectrum we considered putting out a simple pdf. With a little introspection, we realized the thing we wanted more than anything was for as many people as possible to have the game. After that we wanted the game to be uh “cool” for lack of a better term. Hence doing a zine. This let us keep production costs low (keeping it accessible) but still gave us the freedom to experiment with layout and printing styles and create an artifact that was kickstarter-only. We worked with an artist Lawrence Gullo (@hismajesty on twitter) who had played the game to make some cover art and other assets (like the cool moon/records we use on the kickstarter page.) This way the fixed costs were pretty low, enabling us to keep our target low. Luckily we hit it pretty early, and we now have a nice little margin to add more art. We’re not doing stretch goals per se, we’re keeping everything about those two goals: get the game to as many people as possible and make the game artifact as cool as possible. We had discussed stretch goals (guidelines for how to play as a 50s sockhop! cyberpunk dystopia My Jam!) but ultimately these things felt like distractions.
Then we started adding silly jokes. Sometimes we worry that the jokes make people think that we don’t take the game seriously, but it’s more like we take it SO SERIOUSLY we needed to fill our campaign with jokes just so we could breathe!!!
We’re hoping that our love for the game and for larp shines through and attracts other people who might feel similarly. So far, so good we guess!!!
— Thank you so much to Eric and Jeff for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed learning about My Jam and that you’ll check it out on Kickstarter today!
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What is Bastion, both as a product and as your vision?
Bastion is a gumbo of a lot of different element I love. Portions of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, mixed with Glenn Cook’s Black Company, mashed with a bit of Gamma World, boiled down in a melange Micheal Moorcock’s phantasmagoric Eternal Champion worlds, sautéed in a bit of the Green Lantern Corp, and strained through a cullender of Charles R. Saunders’ Imaro, you get Bastion.
It’s a big fangasmic mess of inspirations.
The original intent was to do a straight vanilla fantasy game with all the standard fantasy tropes. I wanted to see if I could do it with a straight face. Halfway through the process, I couldn’t take it anymore. I like my D&D fantasy, but trying to replicate it started making veins pop out of the side of my head. I was dissatisfied with the elements I created, so I flipped the script and went in another direction.
I brought a few people on board to help flesh out my outlines, and they added their secret sauce here and there and what you have is Bastion as it is at the moment.
What moves you about Afrocentric themes and their application in Bastion?
Afrocentric elements pop up in all my work. GODSEND Agenda, ATLANTIS: The Second Age, and even in HELLAS to a small extent. What you get when I add elements of Afrocentrism is me. It’s me searching and exploring a lost piece of my identity as I try to learn about Africa. American school systems teach you almost nothing about Africa and only express ideas of an unrefined and strange land filled with primitive people. I know that’s not the case, and I wanted to illustrate that in the books I produce.
Africa is BIG, I mean, REALLY BIG. You can fit almost every continent on earth inside the body of Africa. What I offer isn’t a legitimate mirror of any one African culture. I’ve taken elements of West African cultures (Akan, Yoruba) and made a fantasy game based on those components. Much like Lord of the Rings is an amalgam of Western European history/myth, I’ve done the same with Bastion. I hope what small efforts I’ve made entice others to dive deeper into the rich and varied cultures. Bastion is only a surface level exploration of Afrocentrism, but it’s up to the reader to go deeper.
How did you decide what elements of sword and sorcery really would shine through in the game, and what design choices made them hit the mark?
I love fantasy and the genre of sword and sorcery. It’s a hot mess of debate about what makes a piece “sword and sorcery.” A lot of people stick close to R.E. Howards Conan, but many people fail to mention the mind-blowing work of Clark Ashton Smith. I love the strange and sublime horror of sword and sorcery fantasy. The pyrrhic victories of the heroes, and the changes that cause in their souls. The peculiar and bitter cost of power it puts on the hero.
I hope I’ve brought all those essentials to Bastion, but I guess that’s for the consumer to say.
As I have my game Turn currently on Kickstarter, Tracy Barnett and J. Dymphna Coy were kind enough to ask me some questions. Check out my answers below!
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Tell us a little about Turn. What excites you about it?
Turn is a slice-of-life supernatural roleplaying game about shapeshifters in small towns, where the shifters try to seek balance between their beast and human identities while finding community with shifters and mundanes alike. It has relatively simple mechanics, a lovely town building system, and the play is quiet drama about life in small towns as a shifter.
I’m excited about Turn because it is the game I designed to satisfy myself! I was looking for a game that scratched a particular itch, and couldn’t find it in other games I played and learned about. But Turn has that play experience, it is the game I was looking for. I get to play out quiet scenes, intimacy that explores a range of emotions, have some fun and cheerful moments, and explore the identity of my character, and the game supports all of that.
What do you think of popular portrayals of rural life? How does your game differ from those (or not)?
There aren’t a lot of popular portrayals of rural life, to be honest, and many portrayals are negative. See any depiction of West Virginia hillbillies for what I mean. Obviously that’s not the route I chose for writing about real rural life. There is one portrayal of rural life that doesn’t perfectly sync up with Turn but is not super far off, and that’s…Letterkenny.
For those unfamiliar, Letterkenny is a Canadian comedy set in the fictional small town of Letterkenny, population 5000. It follows a number of characters, but primarily Wayne and Katy, siblings who run a produce stand and farm, and their friends. There’s not an exceptional amount of violence in the show, but when there is violence, they show that it hurts and has consequences, which I value. Most of the show is just their day-to-day lives at the produce stand or the farm, time spent socializing between characters, and important events to the town like elections of local officials and the St. Patrick’s Day party.
The pacing is so simple, and there aren’t typically the biggest stakes, but they’re stakes that matter when push comes to shove. Relationships are vital, people comfort each other, and people learn. And there’s always chorin’ to do! So I love that, and a lot of that comes through in Turn for me.
What doesn’t come through is that there is no representation of the shifter aspect, so that’s definitely something different, and Letterkenny is also hilarious as heck, which Turn isn’t as much of. There’s definitely some goofing off in Turn and some funny moments, but I wouldn’t ever expect the banter of Letterkenny levels in Turn. And that’s okay! Turn’s meant for a more mixed bunch of emotions.
A Bear by Rhis Harris.
What do you find compelling about stories centered around shapeshifters?
Aside from like, it just being kind of cool to be able to turn into an animal and have superpowers and regeneration and wanting to explore what it means to have a body that’s functioning at peak rather than dwindling at minimum?
Well, shapeshifters are great for the metaphor. See, people ask me sometimes what the shapeshifters represent, and I did a podcast recently where they were like “oh, we thought it was about being the other!” when I had just described how some of the inspiration for the shapeshifters had been rooted in my experiences with bipolar disorder and mixed episodes. The thing is, I’m queer, I’m nonbinary, I have invisible disabilities, I have mental illnesses. I am other, in a lot of ways. So when people read into the shapeshifters a sense of other, that’s not unintentional.
But it also wasn’t always intentional. People read a lot from shapeshifters because the nature of their second identity, so different from their surface identity, and the nature of secrecy – these are things that the “other” experience, too, in many situations. We talk about going stealth as queer and gender nonconforming people, and passing, and so I see a lot of that too, but not just with queerness, not just with gender, not just with disability, not just with mental illness, or any other kind of other we are as humans.
Shapeshifters represent what you want them to represent, I think, which makes them an excellent narrative focus.
How are your experiences growing up in small towns reflected in Turn?
They are Turn. Honestly, it’s hard not to see it when I play. In things other people do (even people who aren’t from small towns!), in things I do, in the way the Town Manager pushes people together to fiddle with their secrets and relationships, in the map of the town. Even in games I haven’t participated in, some stuff is unmistakable as what I built into it.
My favorite bits are when people instinctively realize how long it’s going to take to drive to the other side of town or that the local store/hospital/police/whatever isn’t going to be as well staffed or supplied or that their family members are like, absolutely going to hear about this, and when we’re building the town and people are like “well obviously rowdiness goes real close to the town and connects directly to a bloodline” or something like that – not all of these things are “rules” but they’re small, rural town things that reflect in the game and I really do count some of that as my design, and the rest of it on the weird small town knowledge we culturally share.
When people expand to Italy or other countries like in the stretch goals, who knows! Maybe someone else’s experiences will shine through most!
The Overachiever by John W. Sheldon.
What’s the most compelling thing to you about focusing on the tension between a person’s animal and beast sides, rather than, say, violence?
So, violence for me is three things (sometimes combined, often separate): repulsive, spectacular, and catharsis. And it’s also in 99% of other games, movies, tv shows, books, and other media. It’s everywhere. Even in shapeshifter media, you will far more often find people exploring violence and brutality than you will find them exploring issues of identity. And that’s boring!
Like, don’t get me wrong, violence can be amazing to watch for a variety of reasons, and playing it out can be really incredible. But, violence is also all around us. Our world is violent. We’re constantly discussing it, experiencing it. And maybe, I guess, I wanted a game where you could do violence, but you had to fucking deal with it, too. So I did that. And it didn’t need to be explored so deeply? Like if you can do whatever you want with violence but just actually have to deal with consequences, not just take a potion and leave the bodies in the road, that conversation is already happening.
Digging into identity is more fascinating to me because majority culture is cool with dealing with exploring the identity of the average white cis man of privilege, but like, there’s a fucking lot of the rest of us. Using shapeshifters as our embodiment in the game when in rural, small towns you’ll immediately run into like bunches of other intersections. We’ve had queer characters, poor characters, characters with trauma.
You end up with these deep questions of self and community when you look face on at poverty, drug use, family struggles, loss, and so on. And when you’re struggling with yourself, you have a harder time addressing them – so you gotta try and work stuff out! It leads to these introspective, intimate, caring, emotional scenes! Like, we have – in our longest running game – a weekly tea party with our three characters who are trying to figure this shifter crap out, while one of them is trying to get their shit together, another is trying to come out as a gay man and keep his life, and one didn’t realize until just lately that they didn’t have their shit together. We play these out, and they’re wonderful, and also constantly at risk of running afoul of the hectic lives these shifters lead.
So I’d say it’s more interesting because it’s not what we’re doing every day, and because it opens opportunities to tell moments of stories we sometimes forget to tell. And a cougar, bison, and wolf having tea is just *chef’s kiss.* Moments I truly treasure!
Hi all, today I have an interview with Craig Campbell on Die Laughing, which is on Kickstarter right now! I hope you all enjoy reading what Craig has to say about this cinematic horror-comedy game in the responses below!
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Tell me a little about Die Laughing. What excites you about it?
Die Laughing is a short-play, GM-less RPG. Players portray characters in a horror-comedy movie and everyone’s going to die. It’s just a matter of when it happens and how funny you can make it. After your character is gone, you become a producer on the movie and continue to influence the story and the characters right up until the end.
I’m really stoked that Die Laughing finally came together. One of the problems with horror games where characters actually die, as opposed to “thriller/mood” type games, is, “what do I do after my character dies?” You can make a new character, play an NPC. What else? I’ve been working on this game off and on for over a decade. Every couple years I’d come back to the idea and try something different. Hitting on the “making a movie” angle finally made it gel for me. It came together pretty quickly over the past year or so, kind of in the background while working on other games. It’s a game that embodies horror and embraces that type of game experience, but with comedic elements and the “making a movie” idea to keep it from getting too heavy.
What were the inspirations for Die Laughing and how is the game the most similar and dissimilar to familiar materials?
I’m a big horror movie buff. This most recent iteration of the game, I hit on the idea of the game being about making a movie specifically, rather than just generally a horror story. That introduced a “director” role into gameplay and also a “producer” role that players could take on after their characters are dead. Making it a horror-comedy opened up the idea that it’s OKAY for your character to die…in fact, it’s kind of the point of the game. Your character is going to die and you’re going to make it funny and then you’re going to do this other cool thing for the rest of the game.
It’s sort of a hybrid of a traditional RPG and a story game like Fiasco. You have a character sheet with four traits and a few cool capabilities that sort of bend the rules. But there’s no GM. Instead, there’s an act/scene structure that generates random scenes that everyone roleplays to move the story forward. But these are just prompts. The “director” of each scene helps set the stage, but the players with characters in that scene propel everything. A dice mechanic resolves general success/failure of your character in the scene, rather than for every action. The game has a little bit of this and that from a lot of horror RPGs and a LOT of horror movies, all kind of bent and twisted with some humor.
How does Die Laughing work mechanically?
During each scene in Die Laughing, one of the characters is the lead character (and that changes from scene to scene). That character’s player decides who will be in the scene with their character. One of the players portrays the director, setting their character aside temporarily to help set up and guide the scene (that also changes from scene to scene). Everyone in the scene plays the scene out. Sometimes the monster attacks during the scene. Sometimes it doesn’t.
At the end of each scene, everyone with a character in the scene makes a trait check by rolling their dice pool to determine whether their character succeeds in the scene or not. Then everyone narrates that success or failure for their character, thus pushing the story forward. As the game goes along, your dice pool decreases based on the results of those trait checks. This decrease is a countdown to your character’s death. When you run out of dice, your character dies and you narrate their death.
In addition to the director and producer stuff, there’s a unique rule for each monster that influences your involvement in the game after your character is gone.
What kind of horrors do the players encounter in Die Laughing? How do you ensure players are having a good time and not encountering subject matter that makes them feel alienated or afraid in a not-fun way?
The narrative, relatively open nature of the game allows the players to basically take it as far as they want. The monster is defined for the game you’re playing, but that’s not to say there couldn’t be multiple monsters or that the monsters could mutate or…well, whatever you want. I’ve played games where the violence was cartoony. I’ve played games where there were gory descriptions of things.
That said, any game — horror games in particular — can go too far. That is addressed in the book, encouraging players to be clear in what they expect from the game. The simple version is presented as a “movie rating system.” Everyone agrees the game will be PG, PG-13, or R-rated and plays appropriately. The book also points out some common sense…if you even remotely THINK that a particular subject would make ANYONE uncomfortable or hurt them, just don’t do it. Finally, the book points out there are a variety of other safety tools, such as the X-card, and information on those can be found easily online. Pick the one that is most fitting to your group.
You mention special rules for monsters post-kicking-it. When you die, what happens?
This is a little “extra” that gives players whose characters are gone something to do. It varies from monster to monster. For example, with the Mad Slasher with Weird Weapons, when your character is dead, you get to describe the moment when your character’s corpse is found at an inopportune time, like you see in so many slasher movies when everything hits the fan at the end. There’s a trait check that happens there that can weaken the character finding the body. With the Sexy Vampire, your character doesn’t die, but rather gets turned into a sexy vampire. And you can insert them as an NPC into scenes throughout the rest of the game.
Tell me a little about Dinosaur Princesses. What excites you about it? Dana: What is there not to be excited about? First, Dinosaur Princesses is also a colouring book—actually colouring and drawing is one of the most important parts of gameplay, in my opinion. One of the first things you do is draw and/or colour your dinosaur princess. As part of that, what I think is really great about the game is that it taps into the limitless and boundless imagination that we had a kids. The colouring and drawing parts are great at breaking down barriers that we often have as adults which tell us to reign in our creativity to make it fit within certain perimeters of consistency and probability; it gives permission to just have fun. It is meant to be able to be played by kids, but I think it really shines when adults play it.
Dinosaur Princesses is also very friendly to folx who are completely new to table-top RPGs. When I have run it, I have often had a high percentage of folx who have never played a ttrpg before. The system is very rules-lite, so players have very little stress worrying about system mastery. It’s also so fun and easy to run that it acted as a gateway to get me to finally get over my extreme social anxiety and be able to run the game myself!
Finally, I think of it as a queer game. Princesses are explicitly stated to be of any gender. “Dinosaur” is also a pretty open descriptor; you can be a t-rex or velociraptor, but your dinosaur can also be a cat or train. It’s subtly stating that what we see as rigid boxes, descriptors, or roles are actually malleable and able to be questioned. One can take those boxes and, if they want, subvert them to express other identities—and that is totally an acceptable and good thing to do. It’s a freeing experience.
What were the inspirations for Dinosaur Princesses, and how did you come to the point of making a game plus coloring book from those inspirations?
Hamish: The main inspiration for Dinosaur Princesses are the kids of a couple of my best friends in New Zealand. At the time, their favourite things were Dinosaurs and Princesses, and my friends were joking about finding a game they would both like. I said I’d write it and a few months later they playtested the first version! They were 4 & 6 at the time, so that’ll probably be my youngest playtesters for a long time! Beyond the origin story, I had a lot of discussions with those same friends about the kind of things that the game could do that other games don’t. The idea of the central mechanics being cooperation and problem solving came out of those discussions.
(Following on from Dana’s comment about it being a queer game) One of the fundamental design principles is that the rules should provide enough structure to help children tell stories that feel like an after school cartoon–with all weird and wonderful characters that involves!–and that, within the confines of a game about cooperative problem solving, the rules should never block them from imagining who they wanted to be while they play. I didn’t want an 8 year old telling their younger sibling that they couldn’t play a cat or a dragon or whatever because it’s “against the rules.”
Dana: I can tell the story about how it became a colouring book! Hamish was already working on it, but I didn’t know much about it at the time. We were in a small bar in Wellington, NZ a couple years back and he was telling a friend about the game. He said he wanted the rules book to look like a kids book and that he was also thinking of the character sheets as something for people to draw and colour on. I made the logical leap and (probably) shouted, “THE RULES BOOK SHOULD *BE* A COLOURING BOOK!!!!!!”. I guess that was my first touch on the game. I didn’t really start working on it actively until earlier this year.
What are the mechanics like in the game, and how do players interact with each other and the world?
Hamish: Dinosaur Princesses uses an opposed dice pool mechanic which is set up so that if a Dinosaur Princess tries to do something on their own, the odds are against them. After they assemble their dice pool, they ask their friends, the other Dinosaur Princesses, the most important question in the game, “Will you help me?” Then their friends build dice pools and hopefully overcome the problem together! Dinosaur Princesses has a GM who rolls the opposing dice pool, but it’s a very low-prep role that brings in a lot of the Powered by the Apocalypse ethos of encouraging player participation in worldbuilding and player-driven narratives. The players come up with the story together at the table.
[Brie Note: The collaboration encouragement here is SO GREAT.]
How do players choose their Dinosaur Princess, and what do they use to assemble their dice pool?
Dana: Players have a character sheet, some of which of have colouring-book style line art of typical dinos (t-rex, triceratops, etc) and some of which have the picture space blanks so folx can draw their own. Players decide on what type of dinosaur they will be—there is an example list in case someone has a hard time coming up with one. However, it’s important to note that we use “dinosaur” in a loose sort of way; I have played a cat and platypus “dinosaur”! Similarly, players then choose what type of princess they will be. This can be any sort of profession-like thing, such as doctor, aquanaut, news caster, and so forth.
They assemble their dice pool by describing how they use their strengths as a dinosaur and as a princess to help their friends. The mechanic is set up so that if a Dinosaur Princess tries to do something on their own, the odds are against them. It’s important that the player starting dice pool asks their friends, the other Dinosaur Princesses, the most important question in the game, “Will you help me?”
Hamish: There are sample lists of types of dinosaurs and princesses in the book and on the character sheets, but they’re supposed to be inspirational, not restrictive. Players are encouraged to be as inventive and imaginative as they like in choosing who they will play.
What kind of stories do you tell in Dinosaur Princesses? How do you keep it interesting?
Dana: The sorts of stories being told in the game are as unique as the Dinosaur Princesses that the players create at the table. The world-building and story plot directly grows from that foundation. I have had games where the plot revolved around the Dinosaur Princesses trying to find their Houses & Humans game miniatures, and I have had games where the Dinosaur Princesses rode around town on the monorailasaurus to try to uncover the mystery of the queen’s roving teapot. I have had games that took place in an abandoned mall and ones that took place in space. It really is a game where everyone’s boundless imagination shapes play! Hamish: Dinosaur Princesses is designed to be played as a one shot, it takes about 2 hours to play a game, and it draws on the creativity of everyone at the table; so it spreads the cognitive load of coming up with new stuff and people can usually keep the ideas coming over the short length of play.
Today I have an interview with Elizabeth and Amber Autumn on Scherzando! (skert. ‘san.do), which is currently on Kickstarter. In this fascinating game you play both the characters…and the soundtrack! Check out Elizabeth & Amber’s responses below for more.
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Tell me a little about Scherzando! What excites you about it?
Scherzando! is a diceless, gm-less story game in which you play characters with big dreams and strong feelings, plus the soundtrack of their world. It’s often been described as “Fiasco, but with music,” but we like to think that Scherzando! is less about grand ambitions causing tragedy and more about grand emotions bringing people together.
It’s exciting for all the obvious reasons—creating a game with a soundtrack as you go is really cool! It’s fun and dynamic, and people laugh a lot. But we’re equally excited about the less obvious features of the game. We love that the game lets players have a physical, embodied experience; that it’s an experience built around collaboration and communication; and, most of all, that it creates a space where players can feel comfortable creating music regardless of their previous musical experience. In response to our game concept, we get “but I don’t know anything about music” all the time, so it was a real goal of ours to create something that helped people feel that they didn’t need to know everything in order to make something or communicate something, and to create a safe space in the game for that to happen. Every time a player picks up an instrument and starts feeling out some sounds during the game, it feels like a victory for us, and every time they manage to successfully communicate an emotion with it, it feels like a victory for them. That’s a dynamic we’re exceptionally proud of.
We’re also excited about it because it’s our first game at this scale! It’s mind-blowing to have a book with all this art and all this support and to have this Kickstarter start off so well—it really does feel like being invited to sit at the grown-up table. But it feels good to know that our investments in time, effort, and money are paying off. The game has been in development for over a year and a half (or over two years depending on how you want to talk about it); no blood comes to mind, but there’ve certainly been sweat and tears, so finally getting to print it will be incredible.
What kind of music do people experience in the game? Where did you take inspiration from for the tunes?
Since players make their own music, there’s no specific style or genre that Scherzando! works best with. We encourage players to take inspiration from whatever they like in their own life, up to and including just copying pieces they like if they think it’ll get their point across. So what the music actually sounds like in a game depends on who’s playing, what kinds of music they spend most time with, and what kind of mood they’re in as they sit down to play.
One effect of this is that it turns music into a creative expression unique to the people sitting at your table. People bring in the music, styles, sounds, and methods of experimentation that make sense to them, that they would use outside the game, and that’s a way of bringing a part of their personality into the creative text in a direct, meaningful, and mechanically significant way. Having each player bring their own inspiration and style makes the session’s music a direct creative expression of who the players are.
How did you design the game, considering that it’s diceless and GMless AND uses music as a part of the game?
The game actually began neither diceless nor GMless—both of those got iterated out in the design process! The dice were adding needless complications, causing too much swing in the resolution mechanics, and making it significantly less accessible to anyone who didn’t already own a ton of dice. We dropped them at the recommendation of the incredible Avery Alder, who wrote Monsterhearts and Ribbon Drive (one of the only other music games on the market), and who was kind enough to give us some sage advice early on.
The GM role (which we called the “conductor,” because we thought it was cute) would rotate around the table to maintain the sense of a democratic story where everyone contributed, but we found pretty quickly that the conductor didn’t have much to do. The scene setup generally implied itself, and players turned out to be quite good at arbitrating how the NPCs and the universe would react to their actions in the most interesting way. Plus, the game includes an interjection mechanic which allows players to temporarily gain narration powers for either a bonus (if they’re adding a complication) or a penalty (if they’re adding a boon) at the end of the scene. The ability and incentive to add elements to a scene made the conductor role almost entirely obsolete.
Development began in its very early phases maybe two years ago, with a lot of research on historical music games and current music education techniques. We spent a lot of time working through the logistics of who was on the team for the project and who would be doing what, and trying to lay out a plan. Once we knew who was working on it, how we would do it, and that what we wanted to do hadn’t been done before, the next step was more research. We read books, played games, emailed musicians and educators, and eventually started throwing around ideas for how a system would work. We wrote up a list of core values that we wanted our game to embody, some of which have changed and shifted over the course of development, but some of which are still core to the game today! Then we designed a game around those values.
That game was completely broken and did not work at all.
The bulk of the process at that point was holding playtests, dozens of playtests, at cons and game stores and especially with our friends, with a different group of people every time. We took notes, and at the end of each test we discussed which items functioned and which needed to be changed or dropped, and adjusted the rulebook accordingly. Eventually we ended up with a system we felt good about, give or take minor details, and somewhere approaching that point we started doing the logistical work of commissioning art, reaching out to podcasts, and all the other publishing prep work necessary for a Kickstarter. From there, the actual changes to the game itself have mostly been tweaking numbers, revising stock setting choices, and other minor changes, most of which still require playtests to happen.
This piece of art is mindblowing!
What resources do players need to participate in Sherzando, and what kind of skills are useful?
We like to bring a lot of small, cheap instruments to playtests, but they’re not a requirement—the game works just as well when players hum and tap on the table. The only physical items players need, besides the rules, are a) notecards and something to write with; b) six differently-colored/otherwise distinguishable tokens per player; and c) an opaque container per player that is capable of hiding the tokens within it. As far as skillsets are concerned, we maintain that musical experience really isn’t necessary (although it is fun to play with a group of musicians!); we find that the game runs most smoothly when players aren’t self-conscious about their musical or roleplaying “talent.” Earnestness and willingness to engage with a ridiculous story are probably the most important tools in the game.
How do you hope players experience the game and what do you want people to take forward? What have you already seen taken forward in playtests?
One of the most exciting pieces of feedback we’ve ever received was really recently, when someone who had listened to our actual play on One Shot tweeted at us to say that she could see the players gradually learning to express themselves through music over the course of the game.
In addition to the “yes, you too can make music” lesson we’ve been harping on this whole time, we also hope players experience the game as an exciting way of adding meaning and tone to their stories in a way you can’t find anywhere else. There are all these connections between narrative and emotions and semiotics that we wanted to explore and link together, and we think being able to play through those links in a really direct way is new and refreshing and cool. We also hope players have fun! Not every game needs to be fun, but Scherzando! is, and we love seeing people get really animated during gameplay.
There are plenty of things we’ve seen people take forward from this: confidence, communication skills, and even sometimes a better understanding of a musical instrument. But we also hope that people take home a really good memory about a fun story they told with their friends, not only in words but in music.
There are any number of reasons why – some are simple, like “I can always get a glass of water” or “There are easy to read pronoun flags” or “The game offerings are amazing,” but some are far more complex, and today I want to talk about those more complex reasons. I’ll tell you a little about what I did first!
My Big Bad Con 2018 was intense. I was busy as hell, the entire trip. Somehow, though, I still recall distinct moments of calm and chill, even though my schedule was probably the fullest of any convention I’ve done and I had some of the most stressful events I’ve ever participated in. But that’s Big Bad Con, right? I’d say almost anyone who has gone there would say something similar – hell yes, I was busy! But I had a good time, and I don’t feel like my soul’s been ripped out at the end.
I love Big Bad Con because Big Bad Con loves me. If you go to Big Bad Con, I expect you’ll enjoy it, because Big Bad Con doesn’t just care about you, Big Bad Con cares for you.
I attended Big Bad Con last year and it was a remarkable experience. I talked about it in three bigposts. I had never felt the way I did at Big Bad Con, not at any other con. This year, I was insistent that John attend with me – John is not huge on conventions, but this one felt so different, I just needed him to try. Plus, he had a game to promote this year. And he did the Tell Me About Your Character booth!
Over the course of the convention, I hosted the Soda Pop Social, was on two panels by others (Expanding Fantasy, Other Paths) and one of my own (Beyond the Binary), ran Turn, ran my Leading with Class workshop for non-GMs, and played Roar of Alliance. That’s a lot for me at a con – like, GMing alone kills me, I never expect to survive it. But in spite of all of the overwhelmingness, I feel pretty good about the con.
I’m going to summarize each event here, but there may be more detailed posts about them in the future. I just want to give some framing for the core of what I want to talk about.
Soda Pop Social I arrived and immediately was escorted by the fantastic Jeremy Tidwell to pick up sodas for the Soda Pop Social. We picked them up, then I set up the event for a soda pop tasting that was quite fantastic, I think. We honestly got amazing feedback! Sean Nittner, who is kind of the guy in charge at the con, ensured I had tons of backup regular sodas for the guests and made sure my space was available.
We had such awesome response that Sean’s already asked about my hosting the social next year – in a bigger room, so more people can attend! It was awesome because my plan for experienced and new gamers and creators to connect worked (supported by people like Meguey Baker stopping by), and having a welcoming event for sober socializing was a real thing. Special thanks to Ken Davidson for helping me hold the door, because it was a very exciting event and I was a very anxious boy!
Expanding Fantasy The Expanding Fantasy panel was great, and DC (who did an excellent review of Big Bad Con here) did an awesome job running it. Kelsa Delphi and Lauren Bond were both awesome but I admit I felt a little intimidated. I was, I think, a little harsher and less kind than the rest of the panelists. I ended up getting a compliment on that afterwards, weirdly but nicely. But, it was good to talk about the ways we can approach fantasy that are more inclusive and less tied to the historical faves.
I wish I could remember the panels clearly enough to give a bunch of detail, but the general gist was to not reflect back on traditional media just to copy it – try to break down things and do it differently. I specifically recommended, if you do decide to pull from older media, looking back at old political cartoons from the era and see where the racist and otherwise bigoted stereotypes show up in the character descriptions, then move away from them.
Other Paths Other Paths was a great panel where we got to talk about alternatives to interpersonal violence in games. Anna Kreider ran it, and I was there alongside Meguey Baker and Katherine Cross. Everyone had really excellent things to say about why we are interested in having media that has alternative options to interpersonal violence (for example, because the world is super violent and if you only offer a hammer, every problem is a nail, and it translates back to the real world), and how we approach it.
I got to talk about Headshots and how I took something violent and changed it into something altogether different. That was cool, and I’m still reeling a little over getting a round of applause!
Turn This will end up with its own post at some point, but I want to especially thank my amazing players for being just the damn best – Jeremy Kostiew, Alex McConnoughey, Vivian Paul, and Karen Twelves. We had a foggy little island town with shifters who all had a lot going on, and in spite of a bunch of interruptions from outside we kept a smooth pace. I hadn’t been able to pre-prep the town like I’d planned, but we still got almost a balance of worldbuilding+character building and actual play.
Alex’s feedback after that the pacing was just right for em really made me happy – pacing for Turn is unusual and not everyone will like it. I am making a few small adjustments to the current text and process of Turn but it still feels very strong, and ready to go to Kickstarter at the end of the month. Having a private room to run the game made a huge difference – I would never have been able to run on a crowded con floor.
Leading with Class – Leadership in Games: Not Just for GMs The workshop went unbelievably well. I was assisted by the excellent February Helen, who had just the right of support and positive energy to get me through something very meaningful but very stressful! The workshop attendees were fantastic – thank you to all of you! – and engaged well with the materials. I messed up on my script early on and had to recover, but everyone was patient with me, and when I was back on track it was super smooth.
Helping my attendees build their leadership character sheet was so fun, and the feedback afterwards (including that it was better than scrum sessions and that it was easy to follow and exceptionally well organized!) really boosted my hope for Leading with Class, which is something many people know I have been struggling with lately.
Beyond the Binary Beyond the Binary was the only thing I was truly upset about afterwards, and it was entirely my fault. My panelists – DC, Krin Irvine, Venn Wylde, and Jason Tasharski – were all great. The big issue was that the room hadn’t been changed to a conference setup when I first arrived, which hadn’t been an issue for the previous panel but considering our estimated attendance was going to be an issue for us. What ended up happening is I had a room full of about 20 people trying to get me to fix the room to meet their needs, while trying to get started on the panel that had to start late in the first place. This was my bad planning – I should have asked Sean to change the room orientation before the panel prior, since the setup was originally done for LwC in the first place – and my bad response.
I struggled to respond to so many people at once because I was anxious about the panel and the panelists and about giving a good impression, and I failed. I also physically couldn’t help, and while trying to manage all of the things at once, I made myself feel helpless and it completely fucked up how I handled the rest of the panel. We had to skip tons of questions because I’d been too ambitious and I did a bad job. On top of that, at the end of the panel I slipped and said “guys” and I’m still incredibly angry at myself for it. So, my fault, but still hard to deal with. Everyone was very kind about it, and supported me even though I fucked up.
One important thing I want to note is that it was indicated I didn’t give equal time to the panelists, and that I gave voice to white panelists over people of color. And I’ll be honest: I didn’t notice I did it. But, I trust that it’s true. It’s potentially partially because I mostly had white panelists, which I didn’t do on purpose – I sought out the only nonbinary person of color I knew was a guest for the panel, but it’s legit that this isn’t enough. I’m not happy that I fucked up on this (AND I let nonbinary cred issues prevent me from wrangling time better), but I’m recognizing it as a note for change. I’m not sure how to do it, but I’ll do my best.
ETA: Overall the panel was good – the panelists had a lot of great stuff to say and their perspectives were super valuable. A lot of it came down to there being a broad variety of ways we all interact with gender identity and expression and how we should always talk to people first to find their unique perspective. Thank you to the panelists, and I’m sorry for being so negative here – this is my disappointment with my performance, not yours.
Roar of Alliance I got to play an amazing game of Roar of Alliance with John, Rose (not sure of last name), and S. Tan, all excellent roleplayers and strategists. I was feeling pretty rough due to the panel and some emotional stuff afterward, but everyone was really supportive and the private game room allowed me to recline on the couch briefly when I got a bad headache. That was super valuable. Honestly, it’s just such a great game that you can play with varying levels of energy and the players were so fun to play alongside! I had a great time, in spite of how rough I was feeling, and we told a lovely story.
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So, now I want to talk about why Big Bad Con matters so much, and what Big Bad Con DOES.
I’ve studied a little about leadership, you might say, and I’ve witnessed a bunch of different ways people run conventions in and out of games and how they lead in general. What the leadership team – cuz that’s what the staff is – at Big Bad Con does is create a culture change, a community, so influential that it impacts everyone who attends, from what I can tell. I think that some of this might be related to the culture of the key leaders on the teams, but everyone at every level at Big Bad Con is doing big things.
A recent Twitter thread by Alex McConnaughey sheds light a bit onto the mentality at the convention, where ey say “I feel like the folks running BBC never forget that the goodness of the community comes from the work put into it.” This is powerful, because it’s right – the people at Big Bad Con never seem to be coming at the convention from the perspective that they are good, but instead that they’re doing good. In the LwC episode on Values and Perception, I talk about my rule that there are no good people (3:18).
This applies to Big Bad Con well, because the people at Big Bad Con are doing good, they are acting good, but their behavior never comes with the sense of pride and self-distancing that comes with thinking that they are inherently good. Which brings me to another point that I mentioned earlier, in ethics. Big Bad Con practices caring ethics, from the best I can translate to convention organizing.
This sounds super weird, right, because they’re a convention! Aren’t they supposed to be about unfettered capitalism, productivity, and unbelievably high standards of goal-meeting? That’s the vibe I frankly get from a lot of conventions. Cuz they are like that – many of them are simply money-making measures and focused on Doing The Things The Most, and lose track somewhere of the fact that we’re all people. Instead, Big Bad Con seems to approach with caring first.
Like, one, check out their community standards. They’re explicit, and they are something you have to accept before you can sign up for the con. They also have really serious consequences for doing things that are harmful, and they’re posted all over the con and reinforced regularly. They also have an entire page dedicated to safety and calibration tools, which they made into a deck of cards this year! And these things aren’t afterthoughts, they’re regularly visited throughout the con, accessible, and the yellow bandanas worn by staff constantly remind you that there are people there to help who are friendly and enthusiastic.
Two, every event that I held, Sean and the rest of the staff were there for me. The fact that the panel didn’t go perfectly was entirely on me – I know for SURE if I had asked Sean for help, it’d have been resolved. But I didn’t. I know that because before the Soda Pop Social, Sean and Jeremy checked in with me and got me a huge ice bucket, a bottle opener, and helped me set up.
I know that, because the night before my workshop, Sean checked in with me specifically to ensure I had the equipment I needed AND supported me as a friend and colleague with kind words AND when he realized I could use an assistant, had it arranged for February to meet with me ahead of the workshop the next morning, fully ensuring I was going to make it through okay. I would have been a disaster without that support, and I hadn’t asked for it – Sean saw the need, and made sure it was addressed. And he made sure I had support, not someone to step over me.
Sean has also passed on a Viking helmet to me.
Which brings me to
THREE: Everyone I interacted with at Big Bad Con, staff or otherwise, approached basically every situation with How can I help? rather than You should do this. This is a huge problem for me professionally and especially at conventions – tons and tons of people approach every one of my anxieties and stressors with fix-it bandaids, as though I’ve never had a thought in the world about how to address my issues. I get instructions rather than support. It’s not universal, but it’s the majority, especially when it comes to running games and events. And…that didn’t happen here. Not last year either!
I noticed it especially surrounding things like the Leading with Class workshop, where I routinely feel like people correct me and tell me what to do, and running Turn. Would you believe, not a single person gave me GM advice? They just asked about the game, and asked how they could support me. This, to me, is the difference between caring about and caring for. At a lot of conventions, people care about you, but they don’t do the emotional work to care for you. And it’s not always the place, but approaching with caring for makes a difference.
Like!
Four! The convention has adequate water for attendees, quiet rooms for individual games, events like the Soda Pop Social and the Stitch and Bitch, and there was a low-key dance party on Saturday night. Some of this is thrown by the participants, but I also didn’t feel unsafe at the dance party – it speaks to the culture of the con that no one seemed overly intoxicated, that they checked with each other on the volume of the music, and so on. I saw people checking before they touched each other, even! Plus, Sean and me left the remainder of the sodas donated from the social to be accessible to all – and I know that rescued more than one person from discomfort.
Including me, to be frank.
And there was also stuff like how Jerome Comeau “held court” when injury and discomfort prevented him from participating in the normal events, and in doing so, created this gorgeous social space! John even commented on how nice he found it that he could just go hang out and be quiet or be social, at his own pace (this is the first convention John has not retreated to the room for extended periods!). I often feel free to just sit and be quiet at Big Bad Con, when I’m overwhelmed, and listen to others – I don’t get pressured into joining games or into having conversation. My point with this is that body needs and mental health needs are well respected – there’s peace, there’s sustenance, and different habits are respected.
Five, and this is a big one, is something talked about by DC in their post. When talking about Nathan Black and his exemplary behavior, DC said this:
“That standard became clear to me in many ways. I was on three panels, and I attended a few more. I was surprised to find older cis white men sitting in front of me, taking detailed notes on how to be better about diversity and inclusivity in setting creation. They were in panels on gender fluidity and non-binary players and representation. On working with children. On all sorts of things. They didn’t sling white guilt at me or my co-panelists. They didn’t raise their hands to make statements. They didn’t approach me after with emotionally draining stories. They said thank you, told me how much they appreciated my work and time, and maybe had a question that came from their 3 pages of notes.”
And this rings super true to me. Even the standard issue cis white guys that attend Big Bad Con, for the majority, are there to care and learn. DC notes they were often misgendered, and I get that, too, and that there is still bias (including colorism and so on) in the environment, but in my experience, the level of prejudice and enaction of it is so much less than other cons. I didn’t feel like people were sexist to me like at other conventions, but maybe that was because there are so many more openly gender nonconforming people at the event that fewer people assumed I was a woman?
I did TRY to look more…not a girl.
I recently started using Beau as an alternate name (I use both Beau and Brie pretty equally), and I had the pleasure of a lot of people I know at the con using it, checking which one I’d like to use, confirming my pronouns, and so on. It was really affirming, and leads to my final note (for now!).
Six: Big Bad Con includes positive masculinity in its progressive basis of caring. I am going to try to break this down simply, because it’s kind of a lot, but we can start with DC’s points about Nathan Black. Nathan represents a lot of what I think about with Big Bad Con as a community: relentless positivity, respect, honesty, kindness, generosity, and passion. And DC is right – that’s not just Nathan, though he is definitely pinnacle of it. I see that same behavior and energy in every Big Bad Con staffer I met, including ones who operate in masculinity like Nathan.
Sean, for one, is a man who I see as a brilliant leader. Then there are people like Jeremy Kostiew, who has a particular warmth I truly value. And Alex McConnaughey (who worked on Behind the Masc, writing the Minotaur skin for Monsterhearts), who understands masculinity in a truly fantastic way. And there are women and nonbinary people on staff who can express masculinity just like anybody else, too, so my point here is that these people on staff don’t erase that masculinity. They don’t label all masculinity as toxic and try to box it out of the events where caring is focused. There were spaces for people who weren’t masculine, but also mixed spaces, and an overall environment that said to me so long as you are doing good with yourself, you can be whoever yourself is.
I feel like somehow because of who all is involved in the convention – women, men, nonbinary people, trans people – Big Bad Con has made an environment that welcomes people of all different kinds. It’s not perfect, but I felt okay being a nonbinary masc person when I was feeling that way, and I felt okay being nonbinary neutral, too. Being nonconforming felt welcomed, even when it wasn’t femme. Because the leadership exemplified a variety of expressions, many of which included masculinity, I felt like my expression was safer and more respected.
And I think this reflects on the caring nature of the con, and why – as DC mentioned – these older cis white men are part of that community in a greater way than they might otherwise be. When you see people like you, even just a little bit, you’re more likely to engage. But it only works if they’re actually a good example! And I just think that the Big Bad Con community is such a good example.
I can’t wait for next year!
P.S. – I forgot to mention the HUGE amounts of charitable good that comes from the con itself with the food bank, the Wolf Run, and so on – it matters, and is part of the caring perspective!
Post-con Brie Beau’s status.
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Today I have an interview with Mark Sabalauskas on Return to the Stars, which is currently on Kickstarter! I’m contributing a solarpunk scenario for the game, but I’m really interviewing Mark because it’s a hopepunk game in a world that could really use some hope. So check it out, and see what Mark had to say below!
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Tell me a little about Return to the Stars. What excites you about it?
Return to the Stars is an optimistic science fiction role playing game, powered by Fate.
I am excited to share a game with people where they can imagine having cool adventures in better future.
The direct inspiration was the sense of community that came from being surrounded by diverse, smart, and curious people at a Sci-Fi convention I attended. Hanging out with enthusiastic pop culture geeks was a real respite from much of the darkness in world. It occurred to me that the original Star Trek may have resonated because it provided a similar respite in the 60s, a very turbulent time.
So I created a game that combines the best parts of gamer and geek culture with science fiction exploration. Imagine if Chiana from Farscape was a genetically enhanced cosplayer, or Scotty was someone who loved hacking things to take to a Maker Faire.
The basic premise is that in a post-scarcity future hyperspace travel gave easy access to countless worlds, and humanity sorted itself into like-minded communities. One such society was the Convention Authority, founded to celebrate the now classical arts of science fiction, fantasy, and gaming.
One day, without warning, the stellar beacon that illuminated hyperspace went silent rendering galactic travel impossible. The systems of the Convention Authority stayed connected thanks to a replica fleet of early starships. Now, after more than a century of effort, a long-range exploration craft has been built. Its purpose: to return to the stars and reconnect the lost civilizations of humanity.
You play as one of a new generation of geeks — makers, genetically enhanced cosplayers, scientists, and pop culture enthusiasts setting out on an adventure of exploration and discovery.
What are some of the challenges of making a hopepunk type game, and how have you approached them?
Hopepunk is a subgenre centered around the idea that in the face of oppression and cynicism caring about things is an act of resistance. It is about being kind and also fighting against injustice.
One challenge was to balance hopepunk with other themes in the game. I addressed this by having a setting where long isolated civilizations are reconnecting. Around the table, this means the world being rediscovered “this week” can tell a unique story, giving you a chance to dive deeply into its themes.
Also, player characters come from a fairly utopian society. They could simply chose to stay in their post-scarcity paradise, complacent, sitting around a pool discussing seven centuries of anime and arguing if the 78th edition of D&D was the best, while robots serve them pina coladas. During character creation you have to create an aspect that explains why your character wants to leave this privilege behind. Why they are willing to put their comfort aside and risk their lives to explore and help the rest of humanity.
To encompass the full scope of hopepunk, Return‘s skill system had to players plenty of non-combat options–play can revolve around making and learning and sharing what you’ve learned, not just combat. Also, the mechanics for competitions and down-time tinkering give players ways to show off the the things their characters care about.
Tell me a little more about the world. What kind of people are there? What sort of technology do they have access to?
Return to the Stars is set in the early 27th century, 600 years from now. During that time humanity spread through the Galaxy thanks to origami drives that fold hyperspace. 125 years ago, Stellar Beacon that illuminated hyperspace suddenly went silent, rendering galactic travel impossible. Now a limited form of interstellar travel has been discovered. Communication is limited to the speed of space travel, so players need to act on their own initiative, they can’t phone home for instructions.
You’ll travel from world to world, encountering a diverse array of human societies. There are no intelligent aliens in the setting, and digital life can’t travel through hyperspace. Stories exist to help people understand humanity, these choices are very intentional. Of course, you still have the option spinning a tale about a runaway AI on a particular planet.
Probably the most unique tech in the game is cosplay, which in the 27th century is the aptitude for self-presentation using costuming, genetic modification, posture, and movement. Because cosplay involves granular genetic control of your body it is a skill you can use to recover from physical consequences.
What’s the mechanical system like in Return to the Stars? How do players interact with the world?
Return to the Stars is powered by Fate, which is a proven indie game system that has been popular over the past decade. It is great for telling stories that are centered on who your character is and what they care about as opposed to what stuff they carry.
You characters have skills and stunts that let them bend the rules. But the heart of the system are aspects, short phrases that describe who your character is. You start a session with 3 Fate points, when you need a boost, and it makes sense, you can spend a Fate point to get a skill check bonus. On the other hand, if you chose, your aspects can complicate you life, earning a Fate point, so you can be awesome later. So if your character is a very curious science officer, they might tempted to wander off to investigate a strange screech, earning a Fate point, or they might spend a Fate point to be awesomely effective at solving a scientific mystery. In this way the game emulates the up and down beats of a story.
Return to the Stars comes with an adventure specially designed to teach the core concepts of the game. In playtests at many different conventions, new players have been up and running and having a good time after ten minutes of explanation.
My goal: if you love anime or games or science fiction or cosplay, and have thought about trying roleplaying games, you can get Return to the Stars, read it, and play.
If you already love games powered by Fate, I’ve added fun new subsystems: character arcs, props, downtime tinkering, and competitions. You can learn more about them on the Kickstarter. And, of course, there is a dedicated set of sci-fi skills and over 100 new stunts to mix things up!
At the center of it, what kind of stories do players tell in the game, and what do you wish to see the most?
Return to the Stars is designed to help players tell stories of sci-fi exploration and adventure. I hope players players take advantage of a game that can be as much about making, learning, and communicating as it is about punching space fascists.
Ultimately, of course, the great thing about a tabletop role playing game is that people can bring their own interest and passions into the game, adding theme to the themes in the game: optimism, space opera, pop culture, and hopepunk.
