Tag: geek

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!

Five or So Questions on Loading Ready Run

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Brendan “Beej” Dery from Loading Ready Run about all of the amazing stuff Loading Ready Run does as a comedy troupe that touches on gaming and various geek media. Their community really impresses me, and I wanted to talk to someone in the leadership about the work they do and how they created the space. Check it out!

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An illustration of a man with dark hair in a purple collared shirt.
An illustration of Beej.

For the uninitiated, what is Loading Ready Run (LRR) to you and what is your role within the organization? What makes you excited about LRR?

I’m Brendan “Beej” Dery and I work as the Business Manager for LoadingReadyRun. LoadingReadyRun is a comedy troupe that does all of their work on the Internet, focussing on sketches, streaming, podcasts, and playing video games and tabletop games, including a lot of time playing Magic: the Gathering. Working for LRR is still work, but it’s a lot of fun too.

As Business Manager, I spend my time working on managing our merchandise and taking care of office admin whatnot, but I also get to spend time acting in sketches or streaming games, so there’s more variety to my job than just sitting at a desk. What gets me excited about LRR is meeting people who enjoy what we do and seeing them in Twitch chat or in our Discord (http://discord.gg/lrr/), talking about the stuff we make, but also just interacting with each other in general. The fact that we’ve built – and are still building – such a great, supportive community of people makes me really proud to be a part of something so positive to so many people.

You seem to have a caring focus, ethically. As a group that’s run their shows for so long, how do you work towards maintaining high quality and variety while not burning yourselves to dust?

I think we keep ourselves honest by listening to each other and to our fans. Integrity is one of those things that you can cultivate for a long time, but lose it immediately. So we try to train ourselves to be better people. It’s not about “acting” a certain way, either. It’s easier to write comedy that doesn’t punch down when you have the kind of mindset that doesn’t punch down. That’s not to say we haven’t messed up before, or that we won’t mess up in the future. But I do think we do our best to acknowledge mistakes, listen to each other, and try to learn to be better.

We’ve also been making a ton of content for over fifteen years, so it’s not as if some of us haven’t felt burned out every so often. As the group has gotten bigger and taken on more projects, we’ve also been having regular meetings to plan our production and streaming schedules, to plan editing, and to write upcoming sketches and pre-recorded bits. That’s helped a lot, but we’ve also adopted a new rule – “Get to 80%” – at our last annual “take-stock” meeting. “Getting to 80%” means to limit the amount of projects we do, so that we’re operating at 80% of our maximum capacity. That way, when special projects pop up throughout the year, we’ll be able to do them (as opposed to missing great opportunities to do something fun or lucrative).

Like, Road Quest was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of work, a lot of time spent, and a lot of money. And with all of the other projects we’re still working on, it’s taken longer to finish Road Quest than I think we’d like, and that’s meant having to do things like temporarily putting me on CheckPoint+ or putting Watch + Play on hiatus. Getting to 80% has helped inform some of our production scheduling and I think it’s going to get better and better for us as time goes on.

Experience and specialization has also helped a lot. Graham and Paul have been doing this for a long time, and over the years, they’ve trained new people to do some of their tasks. And that’s let everyone learn new things in their specialties to improve how we make stuff and entertain people. And as we get more experience, I think we’re getting better – and faster – at our jobs.

For those that make such decisions at LRR, how do you determine who to have on which shows, and how do you handle any problems that you encounter with personality conflicts, ethical concerns, and so on?

A lot of content is driven by the people that are interested in making it in the first place. We don’t assign people to do shows – people volunteer. We’re trying to change up the ensemble shows more and more (like AFK, The Long Game, or Friday Night Paper Fight), because we think the variety helps keep things more entertaining. When it comes to pre-recorded content like Friday Nights or commodoreHustle, that’s driven by the needs of the script or by how simple we need to make the filming process.

Like, we don’t have time to film more than a six-minute commodoreHustle during a LoadingReadyLIVE filming day, so it’s usually solved during the writing meeting that happened weeks before. Who hasn’t had an episode focus on their character yet, how are they getting into trouble, who else should be involved, etc. As far as streaming or other pre-record content goes, it’s like I’ve said previously – if someone wants to do a thing, we see if we can support it. Not all stream ideas will ever make it to air, and not all pre-record ideas are going to get filmed. But if an idea has a champion, it’s going to get a lot further.

We all like working with each other, but that also doesn’t mean there’s no conflict. It’s hard for me to address a question about personality conflicts, because I just straight-up don’t like having them. And I want to keep the focus of LRR on what we produce for people to enjoy. When it comes to solving conflicts between people, it’s down to Graham and Paul, largely, as they’re the co-presidents of the company. Same goes for ethical concerns – most of us in the office will become aware of a problem pretty fast and then we’ll end up talking about how we’re going to address it. We don’t always agree on how to handle things, but again, it’s a business and an organization and everyone wants our decision and our message to be unified, so that no one is confused about our position. We owe that to our audience.

The Loading Ready Run logo, which is three small dots on the left, one large circle on the right, and then an arrow on the right of the arrow with the words LoadingReadyRun in pixelated text.

What kind of content do you most enjoy bringing to streaming, whether it’s games or sketches or larger things like Road Quest, and how do you make the decision for what’s “good for TV,” so to speak?

I like making stuff that focuses on our strengths as entertainers – we’re funny, we’re positive, we’re doing our best. Road Quest was amazing but it’s not the kind of thing we can make all the time. Logistically, it requires a ton of planning and effort and funding just to get to Day 0, and then we have to start making the thing. And after that, there’s a lot of post-production, and that involves even more people. And the impact that a large project like Road Quest has on the rest of the production team is easy to see – reorganizing streams, allocating editing resources, etc. But I think it’s exactly the kind of content we want to bring to our fans. Road trip shows have been done before, but I think us doing the road trip show brings that kind of “surprise and delight” that we hope keeps everyone entertained.

Overall, I’m happy that we’ve been able to split our production into a wider variety of things. In the early days – when I was just an actor coming in on weekends – I wasn’t sure how all-year streaming was going to benefit us, but looking at it now, it’s clear that providing the variety has allowed us to attract more people to work with LRR and let us have a lot more immediate fun with our audience. And I think that’s what helps us decide what’s good for TV: is this going to be interesting or fun for us to make, and do we think that the majority of our fans are going to respond positively to it. And then after that, can we afford the money to make this, and can we afford the man-hours to make it. We’re still a business and we still want our employees to be able to make rent every month.

You may be best known for your charity event, Desert Bus for Hope, which is an annual playthrough of the Desert Bus video game for the Child’s Play charity. It seems like a real logistical challenge! What has kept you coming back to this event every year, and what does the planning entail for each of you? How do you keep safety in mind?

In order to answer this question properly, I’d have to go into a ton of detail about different departments and the number of planning meetings we have and managing a project that’s grown to involve fifty people on-site, as well as multiple people from around the world making contributions in other less visible ways.

So instead, forgive me for answering it purely from my perspective and involvement. I started doing Desert Bus for Hope during DBfH 5, and I showed up because I knew LRR and I wanted to be up there, performing for people and having fun. The charity aspect didn’t enter my mind. These days, I’m the de facto Zeta Shift producer, meaning that I take my job of getting Desert Bus from midnight to 06:00 very seriously – and I do that by trying to not to care too deeply about it. There’s a “screw-it-let’s-do-it-live” aspect to DBfH that I’ve always loved and if we ever lost that, I’d probably be done. So I try to bring that sense to the Zeta Shift by prepping only a few things, but mostly just seeing where it goes. It’s fun to come in at the start of the week and see “$0.00” and then see “$700,000” at the end of the week and just marvel that so many people came together to raise that money in exchange for a week of sleepless broadcasting. That’s pretty amazing.

Everyone else has different feelings about DBfH and I’m glad they do. It means that everyone found a piece of the show that they love and want to preserve, and I think it means that the bus is always going to keep running.

As for safety? There’s enough people on-site that safety is critical. We tape our cables to the floor, we leave as much room as we can to move around the equipment, we have food volunteers that do their best to adhere to FoodSafe guidelines. We also try to look for volunteers who have first aid training or better – we’ve even had off-duty paramedics on-staff before. While we mess around on camera, the audience doesn’t want to see any of us choke or break a bone. So it’s very important for us to be as safe as possible.

What are the tools and decision-making you consider essential as a streamer and a performing professional in games that you would recommend others ensure they have before starting streaming on their own?

The most important tools are also good life advice:

Grow a thicker skin.

Get a good emotional support system.

Breathe.

Your time may not be worth that e-mail in your inbox.

We lucked out when we started because we had already built a good community from our sketch comedy videos and from Desert Bus for Hope. So don’t tie your hopes and dreams of streaming fame to what we did – we had to make videos for over ten years and also engage with our audience in our forum and try to build things that would keep that relationship growing. Unless you have done some amazing stuff already, you are not going to step into an instant audience.

But when you are getting started, you will have to hustle. You’ll probably need a day job, or a partner with a day job. You’ll need to project integrity and confidence – and that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to change your mind about things, but you’ll need to show your audience that you’re trying to do the right thing and that you’ll willing to admit when you’re wrong. And that might also mean not taking every opportunity that comes into your inbox because it’s a quick $200. Or maybe it’ll mean that you need to take it to make rent, and you let your audience know what’s up about that.

Being a streamer or influencer or social media whatever is a rough gig these days. Not everyone can do it. And it’s not an easy ride. But whatever you do, be honest to yourself about what you want to do and why you want to do it. Play the games you want, host the streams you want, talk about the subjects you want. Don’t pander to your audience, but don’t ignore them either. Be willing to put in the work to push your career forward, but also – and this is really hard – be ready to recognize if it’s not working out. Maybe you can pivot to a different kind of stream. Maybe you’ll need to find partners to stream with. Maybe you’ll need to stop altogether.

The illustrated Loading Ready Run cast posing dramatically in front of the logo.

I believe firmly in leading in place and skills transfer, and it seems like LRR does too! How do you each act as leaders in your own roles at LRR, and how do you handle skills transfer with the team?

This is kind of a difficult question, actually. With hiring so many people, we’ve been trying to provide training and also write documentation so that we can have processes and procedures to refer back to, if employees have questions about e.g. running tech on a podcast, or what style guidelines we use for our videos.

This is new territory for us, because LoadingReadyRun hasn’t had to do this before. With the amount of work we’re already doing, finding time to document what we do is really hard. BUT! We have recognized that it’s important and we’re trying to find ways to do it.

We’ve also established more people in specific roles. Graham and Paul are both co-Presidents of Bionic Trousers Media Inc – our operating company. James acts as our scheduler and producer for the bulk of our shows. Kathleen is our Managing Editor and also performs the vast majority of our writing. And I’m the business manager, meaning my eye is on the bottom line (and also on merchandise development).

Everyone is trying to involve team members with more projects and teach them more skills, but given the nature of our office and how we do business, we don’t do things like seminars or group teaching. The most instruction you would get was by working on-the-job – here’s how you hold a boom correctly, here’s how you operate the camera, here’s how we use J-cuts when editing, etc. I’m hoping that developing some documentation will help make training easier for both the trainers and the employees.

We absolutely have a long way to go, but I’m optimistic that we’ll get there – especially if we can get to 80% first.

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Thanks so much to Beej for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out all that LoadingReadyRun has to offer!

Quick Shot on Choose Your Own: Sci-Fi Stock Art

Hi all, I have a quick shot with James E. Shields today! James’ project, Choose Your Own: Sci-Fi Stock Art, is currently in its last days on Kickstarter and he’s just answered a few quick questions for me below. 

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Choose Your Own: Sci-Fi Stock Art is a project that lets creators mix and match sci-fi stock art to create instant masterpieces for their tabletop roleplaying game.

A retro styled frame like that of a choose your own adventure book with images of science fiction characters, three people in power armor, saying "you're the star of the series! choose from all possible combinations!"
I love the “choose your own…” style of the art for the Kickstarter and all – I was a big fan of such books growing up.

What is Choose Your Own: Sci-Fi Stock Art, both as a product and as your vision?

As a product, it is hundreds of individual sci-fi art assets that can be mixed, flipped, rearranged and more to create custom images for roleplaying games.

As my vision, it is a continued effort to help independent RPG publishers bridge the gap between pure commissioned art and stock art. It’s my way of giving back to a community that has given so much to me.

How did you develop and decide on the various art assets that you’ve put together for the purposes of the Kickstarter?

I will be using a mix of existing assets as well as creating all new illustrations from ideas that backers submit. I’ll read through the pool of ideas and take those that inspire me. It’s going to be exciting because it will be the first time in a long time that I get to create a bunch of art based purely on inspiration instead of assigned ideas. It’s also really cool because I can have ideas that I think are good, but then I get submissions and it will blow my mind that I get paid to illustrate ideas like that.

A collection of game and product covers laid over each other.
A collection of covers.

What has been the best part of running the Kickstarter, and what have you learned for future projects?
The best part? Without a doubt, hands down, absolutely, it has been the response from the independent publishing community. I couldn’t ask for better support from the RPG community. The gratitude they express for creating this project is unparalleled. Every day for probably the first week, I’d have another voluntary offer to include their product as a reward for backing my project.

The amount of complimentary awards is so high that it is actually MORE than the value of my Kickstarter pledge levels!

I have learned, by accident, the value of symbiotic relationship in the RPG community. I began creating custom stock art as a way to express my thanks for publishers who have given me the best hobby ever. That act began friendships. I don’t have to try to sell a product to any of them. I just create something that my friends benefit from. Connecting through the shared experience of roleplaying games is what we should all strive for.

You listen and communicate with friends.
That is what will drive my next project.
A gif showing a static image of an alien with rotating backgrounds of a cantina and other settings.
I love the modular art! Very cool!
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Thanks so much, James, for the quick interview! I hope everyone will stop by the Choose Your Own: Sci-Fi Stock Art Kickstarter to see if something will meet their needs today!


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Five or So Questions with Glenn Given on Slash 2: Thirst Blood

Today I have an interview with Glenn Given from Games By Playdate about the new game, Slash 2: Thirst Blood. Slash 2 is the sequel to Slash: Romance Without Boundaries, a card game about shipping – the fandom kind – and is a really fun and exciting game! Check out Glenn’s responses below.

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Tell me a little about Slash 2: Thirst Blood. What excites you about it?

Slash 2 is a standalone sequel to Slash: Romance Without Boundaries. It is a fan fiction shipping party game where players compete to create their favorite One True Pairing while swapping stories and micro-fictions. The thing that excites me the me the most about Slash 2 is the opportunity to incorporate everything we have learned since we began making games (the Original Slash was our very first project). We have researched hundreds of new fandoms and used player feedback and fan communities to better balance our characters while maintaining diversity and accessibility. I am also terribly excited to introduce remix game modes to Slash. We have had loads of fans telling us how they play and they have been some of the most creative and rewarding contributions so we are sharing those with the players as best we can.

Tell me about the different modes of Slash 2: Thirst Blood. What did you do to develop them? Which were the most challenging to codify?


We looked at what other games were popular and said “you know what, I bet you can use Slash for that” and it turns out that works pretty well. Seriously though we took a look at the Board Game Remix Kit, at the litany of party games these days and at fan suggestions about new modes and ran with that. There are simple adaptations that don’t require any further materials like using Slash for your game of Fishbowl. We’ve added a light RPG/larp that riffs off of Ghost Court to try and get more players into the storytelling side of the game and so forth. The most challenging thing was taking these game modes and really distilling them down to a few paragraphs or less of clear and inspirational rules. 
Glenn Given, potentially lurking.

What were some of your favorite new cards to add to the game?

Hands down my favorite new character is “Every Punch Thrown in the film The Raid.”

What was different between this game development experience and the original game’s development?

We were consciously developing this product. With the original it came out after a 3 day bender at PAX East from a rented house full of geeks. We drove from Boston back to my job at the time in NH and printed copies that evening to play at the con the next day. With Thirst Blood we took a look at what worked and at how the landscape of fandoms have grown, how fanfiction in general has evolved in just 3 and a half years, and built something directly for those people. The characters are a better reflection of the audiences rather than me just stuffing every Disney Afternoon character into the set.

What are you most looking forward to seeing when the game is out in the wild?

I am really excited to see people look at the new characters and to look at the new rules and have the realization that what they have enjoyed can be played in a completely different way. I hope that they will see that games like this aren’t just rules ad cards but that they are toolkits for having a good time.
Obey your thirst, y’all.
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Thanks so much to Glenn for the interview! Please check out the Kickstarter page for Slash 2: Thirst Blood and share with your friends!

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Big Bad Con 2017 Report – Intro & Friday

Hi all!

This will be probably a three-post report because I’m trying to break down my panels and games pretty detailed, so I wanted to warn you ahead of time. These will be paid posts! Thank you for your support. 🙂

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Me on my flight in, very tired.

Overall Con Thoughts

Big Bad Con is the best con I have ever attended. I don’t say this to like, make other cons look bad, that’s not the point. I came out of Big Bad Con feeling much more positive about the experience than any of my previous con experiences, I didn’t get hurt while I was there, I felt safe and comfortable throughout the con, and I was able to play the games I wanted, see people I wanted, navigate registration super smoothly, make it through my panels with a lot of encouragement from the audience and fellow panelists, and I felt supported coming to the con after a death in the family.

The con also seemed very diverse, compared to what I expected or maybe what I’m used to, I don’t know – I saw a ton of androgynous-styled people, I know of many trans people who attended, there were more people of color that I interacted with than is my norm, and so on. It was awesome.

The rooms were great, local food options were tasty and at least accessible to me (I went out to dinner 3 times and had no real issues getting to the restaurants), and the food at the hotel was good so I didn’t get stuck if I was too sore to walk. I will note that the panel room was super chilly and that could be worked on.

I played two games that I really enjoyed, met so many new people in an environment where I wasn’t feeling pressured to rush, and it was just really great. Sean Nittner and the entire incredible staff (who talk about Big Bad Con here) made it a great experience for me. I honestly really want to go back and I don’t know how I’ll make it happen, but it would be worth it.

Note: My experience is only my experience, and others may feel differently. For example, Stephanie Bryant expressed that being the only woman in a large crowd of people outside Games on Demand was awkward and uncomfortable. This is something that could use review – for me this is a consistent Games on Demand issue but my experience isn’t universal.

more!
>>>
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Hazy!
Friday
I arrived at OAK airport around noonish on Friday, and Jeremy Tidwell was kind enough to pick me up and transport me to the hotel. The hotel is pretty nice! I had some minor room issues, but they were quickly resolved, and I got to meet Jeremy Kostiew FINALLY (his beard is gorgeous, fyi) and forgot how hugs work, as well as getting say hi to James Mendez Hodez, who I’m interviewing right now also.

I got to hang out with Mickey Schulz, Lex Larson, Misha Bushyager, and Rachel Beck. I loved talking with them and having a space where I could get settled into the con after the long flights. Also got to meet Tanya DePass, my roomie, who is awesome. Later I got to meet Sandy Jacobs-Tolle, who is really nice! I screwed around a lot but also spent a significant amount of time talking games culture, current work, and so on.

I noticed that there is a huge trend of people just really feeling like there’s no safe space for them. We talk about this online a lot, but in person, we were just really venting it out. We have to fight our way through just to be able to play. The number of people who said “I don’t play at tables with people I don’t know so I don’t game at cons” was significant, and heartbreaking. I know this feeling, and it’s just not fucking fair.

Later I went out to dinner with Tracy Barnett and some of the others. We discussed games a lot, but also some really challenging personal experiences from growing up, our own baggage, and how it influences our play styles, our gaming, and our lives. I had a few conversations like this over the weekend and was reminded that gaming is an incredibly human hobby. 

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I was on the You Don’t Look Like a Geek panel with Kristine Hassell, Tanya, and Jahmal Brown. I admit it was weird (but good) to be the only white person on a panel. The experiences that the others shared we’re very far from my own, but I felt really lucky to be there as a part of it.

I was, to my knowledge, the only non-cis person on the panel, which is part of why I was there, plus my orientation queerness and disability. Those don’t all seem super visible, and in narrower communities like indie games they don’t seem remarkable, but those things still can fall into the category of weirdo for a lot of geeks.

Thankfully Big Bad Con had made steps to welcome people like me. Like Metatopia, all-gender bathrooms made a difference for me, so much.
We talked a lot about things that made us feel unwelcome or out of place. I am the only one who actually uses “geek” as a label for myself much, and it’s not a constant for me. We discussed ways to make geek environments more welcoming for people like us, how to handle exclusionary behavior, and also (my favorite) what benefits we had from being nonstandard geeks, much of which centered on finding others like us.

I liked when Jay talked about being a veteran and how when he had gone to basic training everyone had to be in it together, and how that’s how he participates in games: everyone is in it together, and they should try to find common ground. I will note this can be challenging (sometimes more for some than others), it’s a good intent. It’s relevant to the discussions that happened here and elsewhere about those behavior you will allow at a table, and why you would let people like racists stick around.

On the subject of being white, I was reminded how much white people contribute to ostracizing and distancing people of color from the community. That’s bad, and something I hope to continue working on.

I personally spoke a little about forgiveness and moving forward in geekdom. We have a hard tendency to hold tight to people’s mistakes, which is understandable. But when someone has apologized, even if they’ve demonstrated change and tried to make up for it, we so rarely give them forgiveness or allow things to move forward. They can continue to be pariahs, treated with disrespect, and so on. It hurts me to see that, and my heart ached when someone from the audience came to thank me for talking about it because they had messed up in the past and they feel like they can’t do enough to make up for it. That sucks! If you continue to be treated like a bad person even after you’ve apologized and made changes, the motivations to keep trying get fewer every day. This sticks with me.

That being said, we discussed the nature of exclusion and inclusion where keeping racist, sexist, homophobic, and other bigots in your space excludes people of color, women and trans and nonbinary people, queer people, and other marginalized people from your space. Even if they’re still at the table, they are likely uncomfortable and may have already checked out. This subject came up A LOT at my panels.

John Brieger caught up to me after the panel to talk about his current project and ask for my thoughts on his safety mechanics. It was fun to meet him and the others I caught up with, but my exhaustion and medication caught up with me and I hit the sheets early.

Before I crashed out, I was gifted a pocket size Script Change card by Tomer Gurantz! I received a lot of good comments about Script Change this weekend, and on Sunday spoke with Dante (Bryant Stone) about adding a new mechanic to it. It’ll be coming soon as one of the optional mechanics. 😀

Front of the fancy pocket card. 😀
And backsies! 😀
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That was Friday! It was REALLY packed somehow, even though I wasn’t actually that really busy. I am still processing a lot of what happened before I left for the con (work crises, loss of a family member, etc.), but I honestly have a lot of love for Big Bad Con. I had heard so much good stuff about it, I thought it would disappoint, but nope. 😀 
Saturday (with two panels) and Sunday (with two games and talk on Script Change) coming soon! Thank you for reading!


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Five or So Questions with Quintin Smith on The Metagame!

Hey all, I know it’s been a while, sorry. Grad school. But hey, NEW INTERVIEW!

Today I have an interview with Quintin Smith from Shut Up & Sit Down about the current Kickstarter for The Metagame: The Games Deck! I had never heard of The Metagame until this Kickstarter came out, but immediately bought it after seeing the Shut Up & Sit Down intro because I am a sucker for this kind of game. I asked for an interview, and Quintin obliged – see the responses below!

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This pic is used for the “What the What” game on the game website. 🙂


Tell me a little about The Metagame. What excites you about it?


What excites me about The Metagame is something that a lot of games that Shut Up & Sit Down recommends have in common. It feels high-quality, and it feels different. Either in your hands or in play, it’s like nothing else out there. For people like me who have dozens of board games in their collection, that’s the first thing I’m looking for.

But it’s also exciting because you just never know what’s going to happen next. There are games out there where you never know how this particular match of it will play out. With The Metagame, even once you’ve decided which game to play, you have no idea how a given turn will play out. You might find yourself weighing up whether you’d rather have Saved By the Bell or Legwarmers while you’re stuck on a desert island. You might have to argue why Email Spam is macho. The only consistent thing is that it’s going to be entertaining, and you’re going to learn a little something about your friends or family.


Check out this play video of The Metagame with SU&SD.
What have you experienced while watching & participating in the development of The Metagame & the Games expansion that you felt differentiated it mechanically?

Well, it’s a spin on something that I really enjoy when I’m playing games, which is realising that I’ve miscalculated and suddenly I’m in hot water, and it’s nobody’s fault but my own. It’s a bittersweet problem to be wrestling with, and for whatever reason I just love that.

The thing that differentiates a lot of games packed into The Metagame is that you can create an argument in your head for why a particular Culture card would make a good fit, but what you don’t know is how other people around the table feel about it. So before you make fun of Moustaches, you have to weigh up whether your friends might like moustaches. If someone were to use “D&D” to try and win me over, they might be surprised that while I love games, I have some pretty complicated feelings about D&D. In this way the cards you’re playing with aren’t static, they’re fluid, and playing involves considering your friends and being surprised by your friends. It makes it a very tricky game to play well, but one that it’s fun to fail at.

I have so many ideas about how to have fun with these cards, no lie.
Who have you played The Metagame with, why, and what do you think made the game worth playing with them? (I swear, I’m getting at something with that! 😉 )**
Hmm. You know, I don’t wanna overcomplicate things, so I should just say “I played it with my friends, and what made it worthwhile was that we were laughing and talking excitedly for the entire time.”
But it wouldn’t be the whole story to describe The Metagame as just an engine for hilarious debates and conversations. It’s also a real joy to draw cards from the top of the deck, since they’re so varied and they’re all so beautifully illustrated that you have no idea what you’re going to get.

Games with a lot of spontaneity can put a little bit of cognitive load on shyer people or low-energy groups. Can The Metagame still be approachable for them? How? 


That’s actually one of the reasons that we recommend this box so wholeheartedly. Spontaneous or high-energy games are just some of the games in the box! There’s also perfectly placid games in there like Matchmakers, History 101, Think Alike and Special Occasion. Seriously, there are just so many games in this box. It’s been pretty tricky getting people to understand that! I think some people see “10 games in 1 box” and assume that there’s no one good one, but honestly- they’re all lots of fun.
I love the card layouts, too.

You mentioned how fun it is not knowing what you’re going to get – how did that aspect influence development The Games expansion? How did you come up with enough interesting content that you felt the surprise would still be there?
Oho, great question! Well, anyone who’s seen my (now slightly old and embarrassing) Golden Age of Games talk will know that I think “gamers” have a slightly myopic view of this hobby. As well as Pandemic and Metal Gear Solid, we should be celebrating the 52 card deck, Twister and tennis. It’s all play! It’s all game design. And there are lessons to be learned everywhere.

Both the team at SU&SD and the designers of The Metagame agreed that the games expansion would benefit from this broad view of the hobby. So when you draw cards from it, you might get Dark Souls or you might get a tug of war. You might get Vampire: The Masquerade or you might get hot dog eating contests. Trust me, the surprise and playfulness of the base game is alive and well.


Finally, which games-within-the-game of The Metagame do you think you’re looking forward to playing most in the future, and why? 

I mean, The Metaquilt is the centrepiece of The Metagame, and I can’t see myself stopping playing it ever. Have you played it? A lot of board games know the joy of a tapestry of cards or tiles slowly being stitched together on your table. The combination of building something, while laughing, while being interested in what your friends have to say? That’s just great.
Nice.
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Thank you so much to Quintin for this interview! I could hear his head in my voice the entire time, very impressive. Make sure to check out The Metagame on Kickstarter and share with your friends – I have a feeling that many of you would love this game, and I’m looking forward to playing the copy I just bought!

I couldn’t wait for the Kickstarter!

**I admittedly DID hope Quintin would overcomplicate but that’s because I’m a massive dork. However, fyi, this set me up for asking the second to last question. I promise, I have a plan when I do these things. 🙂

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Five or So Questions on Meet Diana Danko

Today’s interview is with Jakob Schindler-Scholz about the Kickstarter project Meet Diana Danko, a live-stream interactive vampire tale. When Jakob emailed me with the Kickstarter link, I was immediately intrigued – interactive performances are fascinating to me and I wanted to hear more! Check out the interview below and see more at their press page and Kickstarter.

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Tell me a little about Meet Diana Danko. What excites you about it?

The aspect I’m most passionate about is that we are creating a truly open experience, while still maintaining a strong narrative. The project is heavily inspired by “choice and consequence” games like the Walking Dead Series by Telltale or Life is Strange, but with limitless possibilities.
We achieve this by having four amazing actresses perform live and reacting to the input of the audience, who is watching via live stream. They can type anything they want at any time while they watch. It has elements of tabletop RPG, LARP, theater and FMV video games, but I don’t think there is anything like it currently out there.
Example of the process of the show.
How did you come up with the idea for Meet Diana Danko?

The setting, characters and basic concept were created for a local short theater festival in Vienna. The audience found themselves trapped in a room with a vampire trying to get in, discussing different strategies to get out. The inspiration for this was the classic horror movie trope “heroes have to fight their way to freedom”, and I thought it would be a fun way to engage the audience – which it was. There were lots of intense discussions and great interactions with the audience, sometimes resulting in totally unexpected outcomes, for example people occupying the vampire’s coffin – which was exactly what we hoped for.
We then discussed how to take the concept even further, and came up with the idea of turning it into an online performance, but without losing the direct connection with the audience – which is an immense challenge because people are not physically present. So the story, setting and mode of interaction will change, but the heart of it all – the characters – will stay the same.

How does the event work technically, from receiving input from viewers to making it happen?

You watch the show through the eyes of the protagonist (wearing a head mounted camera), who sort of stumbles into the whole thing, and bit by bit learns about the characters and the backstory. In the interface, you can also type anything that comes to your mind, at any time. The idea is that you provide us with the thoughts of the protagonist – and as is the nature of thoughts, some are only brief flashes, some are more present, some are concrete and some obscure. We employ a sorting algorithm to visualise all thoughts at once, sort of like multiple word clouds put together. This visualisation will be available for all to see.

So the visualisation is handled by a program, but the crucial part – incorporating these thoughts into the story – is not. We have a person dedicated to that who watches the visualisation constantly and has a voice link to the protagonist. So this person gets an impression of how the audience feels, what ideas are there, and uses that information to give commands or suggestions to the protagonist. So it is kind of an inner voice, but one she takes really seriously.

The important thing is: With this procedure, most of the actresses have to worry about anything going on outside the performance. The protagonist gets input from outside, but all other actresses can concentrate on their characters and react authentically to what is happening. This is why we came up with this quite complex process: To ensure that the improvisation can be really focused, because we believe that’s what it takes to create a fascinating experience.

Word clouds!

What do all of the people involved bring to the table to make the show happen?
First I have to say, I am really honored to have a team where everyone is extremely invested in the idea and not just focusing on their respective area. Denise, who does the design and communications is excellent in finding the right way to get across what we’re all about, which is especially important because there are so many aspects to this. Adam and Gregor are very passionate developers who will not be satisfied until the algorithm and UI are so well-defined that you’ll forget about them while being drawn into the story, and Philipp has the intuition and experience to get what the audience is looking for and translating it into actionable hints for our protagonist.

That being said, I have to highlight Julia, Stella and Paula, the actresses (we will cast the fourth actress, the protagonist, with the help of our backers). Because their contribution is what makes the show: Usually, when you have a piece of fiction, there is a writer or a writing team, they create the characters and tell the story. But this way, it is extremely likely that some characters will be extremely well written and others will be weak – and there is only so much even a talented actress can do with a bland character.

When you talk about the performance, what do you really think makes this format help the fiction to really shine?

I think we have extremely well-developed characters. Because we don’t know what will happen, it’s not enought to know how they react in a handful of specific situations. We already spent a lot of time getting to know the characters for “Diana Danko in Concert”, and we will do a lot more development for this piece. It’s a very collaborative process: We discuss the fears, secrets, and desires of the characters together, explore them in improvisations and make sure we create characters who are complex, with nuances and little quirks and secrets that may not come to pass every time we perform, but they are there, ready to be discovered and adding to the experience.

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Thanks so much to Jakob for the interview! Meet Diana Danko sounds really interesting and definitely worth learning more about. Check out the Kickstarter if it tickles your fancy and share this post with anyone you think might like it!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

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Desktop Downloads!

Hi All!

Just FYI, there is now available on the top navigation bar a Desktop Downloads link that takes you to a Google Photos collection where I’ve put up downloadable computer & phone desktops. Feel free to share!

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Five or So Questions with David Schirduan

Hi all! I have an interview today with David Schirduan about his games Mythic Mortals and Maroon Corps! He had some cool stuff to say about his projects, so check it out!
Tell me about your project. What excites you about it?

I’ve got two big projects right now, one is just wrapping up, and the other is just beginning.

Mythic Mortals was my first “real” project. Kickstarted last year, I just released the third expansion, which finishes off the content promised in the Kickstarter. In Mythic Mortals, you play as yourself suddenly granted incredible powers. The game uses cards and dice to provide quick, action-packed fights. I designed Mythic Mortals from the ground up to be perfect for one-shots and pick-up games. The thing that excites me most is how easily new players jump into the game. I play almost exclusively with new players, and Mythic Mortals was a unique opportunity to tailor a game specifically for those people.

  • Playing as yourself in your hometown makes it easy to jump into a game.
  • Combat is easy to understand, and easy to engage with.
  • The card mechanics FEEL good. They are very tactile and approachable, so much so that playing online is difficult, and required a bunch of special roll20 guides and assets.
I’m excited to see more games explore the design space for one-shots and introductory gaming.

As for my other project, Maroon Corps began as a sci-fi themed dungeon crawler; my attempt to understand the OSR movement (which is still mystifying to me). Over time it morphed into a board/card game, and then back into an rpg. Maroon Corps replaced skill rolls and resolution mechanics with a resource management, push-your-luck system. Dice are used to track resources, and are rarely rolled at all. There is some randomness, but most of the fun comes from exploration of “What’s in the next room?” rather than “Can I avoid the trap?”. Major inspirations are Into the Odd, One Deck Dungeon, and Paranoia.

Maroon Corps is exciting because it’s my first major dive into dungeon crawlers. I love reading through old modules, looking up maps, and thinking about interesting traps or puzzles. It’s something I haven’t done before. The mechanics themselves play more like a board game than a traditional role-playing game. I’m excited to explore how to blend the two, keeping the best from both mediums:

  • Preserve the straightforward rules and engaging mechanics of board games
  • While still allowing for story-telling and GM-centered world flexibility. 
With Mythic Mortals, you created the game to make it easier to accommodate new players and have short sessions. What did you consider with the design to ensure these things worked?
There are a few things about Mythic Mortals that make it easier for new players:

Simple Rules, Complex Classes. The core rules of Mythic Mortals are boringly simple, and can be explained in about 2 minutes. The complexity and the fun comes from the classes. Player’s only need to know about their own 16 abilities, only 4 of which are active at any given time. They don’t need to know about any other rules, or any of the enemy rules. As it turns out, it takes most players about an hour to figure out and grow comfortable with their class, and another hour or two to master their class completely. This is the sweet spot, and by the end of a session, players have fully explored and enjoyed their class.

  • No Advancement Requirements. Everything is available from the start, albeit with a little luck required. I always hated starting a new game and seeing a really cool level 20 ability that I know I’ll never get to use. Instead, Mythic Mortals uses shifting abilities/weapons/bonuses to provide variety, rather than locking content behind leveling walls.
  • Familiar Setting/Tone. Playing as yourself defending your hometown from monsters makes it very easy to jump into a game. Players can fight at their favorite restaurant, or school. The GM doesn’t need to explain the epic backstory behind this brand new town; everyone already knows the location and the culture.
  • Tactile and Tactical. The cards and the dice are fun to use, and feel really good to manipulate. No pencils or complex math needed! Some players are intimidated by character sheets full of numbers and text boxes, but everyone is familiar with cards and dice. It looks more like a board game, and feels like a card game.
  • Combat is easy and fun. I don’t know about you, but in my first few role-playing games, I clung to combat like a drowned rat. Role-playing, funny accents, dramatic dialogue, or clever planning were alien to me at first. But combat had very clear rules and created constraints for me to work around. “How do you kill it” is easier to engage with than, “What do you say to the king?”. Combat is a great place for new players to engage with the game.
  • Simple to GM. The GM doesn’t have a lot of work to do; enemies are simple, and plots are even simpler. The game includes a handful of adventures, and making your own scenarios is extremely simple. This means Mythic Mortals can be run off the cuff by a GM who just finished the core book.

Mythic Mortals is the kind of game I wanted to play when I started exploring rpgs. It won’t replace huge, multi-session games like DnD, Burning Wheel, or Numenera; but you’ll never find a better game for new players or one-shots.

Since sometimes dungeon crawls can get repetitive, how do you keep people engaged when playing Maroon Corps?

Oohh, great question! Many dungeon crawls live and die based on the quality of the dungeon, rather than the game. Some old-school dungeon modules are played again and again, while others are purposefully forgotten and ignored; even though the both are the same game! Maroon Corps uses a few tricks to get around this problem:

  • Death is Celebrated. A lot of Dungeon Crawlers try to create a tense, dangerous atmosphere where only clever planning and luck will save you. By contrast, Maroon Corps creates a funhouse of sawblades, spiky monsters, and dump traps. Players have 5 backup clones to replace their character when they die. Not only does this minimize death as punishment, but we encourage it by using Lockers.
  • Lockers. When a new clone is revived, they are randomly assigned a locker filled with goodies. Each locker could contain special weapons, one-use items, or strange little oddities. Whenever a trooper dies, it’s like opening a present on Christmas morning. This also means that dungeons don’t need to contain much loot, since most characters will get several lockers worth of goodies.
  • Quirks. A recent addition to the rules, new clones are also assigned a random Quirk which will change how they play the game. Some quirks are mechanical, some are more role-playing focused, but they are all funny and absurd., some are harmful, but most of them are weird or absurd. My favorite quirk so far is: “Clumsy – You cannot use your hands to manipulate your dice. No one may help you.” 
  • Maroon Corps is fast. The mechanics are stripped down and streamlined to provide an almost board-game like experience. Players can move through rooms very quickly, stopping where they want, and speeding through the things that don’t interest them. Players are never bogged down by checking or traps at each room, or slowly touching everything with a 10-ft pole.

Maroon corps provides danger and death, like all good dungeon crawls. But Death is an exciting event, rather than something to be dreaded and avoided.

Mythic Mortals has some interesting card mechanics. Can you talk about how they work and why you put them in place?

I’ve always been a “Mechanics First” kind of designer. Mythic Mortals start out as a small project with one goal: design a role-playing game where your cards are your stats. My original game had about 8 different card slot players needed to fill. With a setup like that, players don’t make decisions; they just keep drawing and placing cards, keeping the best ones, and getting rid of the worst. It wasn’t until I came up with the idea of cards constantly shifting that the game really came together.

I think this is the primary appeal of Mythic Mortals. Every few turns, players get to completely re-build their characters, allowing them to adapt to new situations. It also means that every few turns players get to try out new powers, weapons, or character flaws. Each card presents a tough decision.

Every card has two components: the value, and the suit. Higher values are ALWAYS better, so those cards should be placed with care. There are 4 slots:

  • Mythos: Roll under this slot to use your special abilities.
  • Accuracy: Roll under this slot to use your weapon.
  • Defense: Roll under this slot to dodge attacks.
  • Damage: This is how much damage your attacks deal.

So if you’re surrounded by enemies, and waiting for backup, put your highest card in Defense. On the other hand, if the boss is almost dead, and you need to finish it off, put your highest card in Damage. However, you must also take into account, the Suit of the card. Each Slot has 4 options that can be enabled by the suit of the card in that slot. For example:

You draw a 10 of Hearts, and a 3 of Spades. Normally, you would put the 10 in the slot, simple as that. But the weapon unlocked with Hearts is not very helpful to you right now. The spades weapon, however, is VERY useful. Which one should you put in that slot? It is choices like these that keep Mythic Mortals interesting, forcing you to make tough decisions every few turns.

Could you talk about how you track resources with dice in Maroon Corps?


In Maroon Corps you have two main resources: Suit Charges and Blaster Charges. The Blaster charges are tracked with a 6-sided die showing the current charges. The Suit charges are tracked with a 10-sided die. As you use charges and gain charges, you rotate the die to show the current charges. The core of the game is focused around managing and spending your charges wisely. A few examples:

  • In combat, you can fire your Blaster at an enemy. It deals damage equal to its current charges, and then loses one charge. For example: Your blaster has 4 charges. You fire, dealing 4 damage. Your blaster now has 3 charges.
  • When you take damage, your suit charges are reduced, one for one. For example: You have 5 suit charges. You take 3 damage. You have 2 suit charges remaining. You can also spend suit charges to overcome obstacles: open doors, translate information, detect lifeforms, etc. 
  • When either your suit or your blaster charges get low, you can try charging up. I won’t go into the full rules, but the higher your blaster charges, the more dangerous it is to try and re-charge your suit. Not only does this mean you can accidentally die while trying to charge up, but it also encourages you to shoot as many things as possible.
One of the core themes of the game is that the dice are rarely, if ever, rolled. There is still a little bit of luck and randomness, but the emphasis is on resource management rather than random die rolls. Any tension comes from the mystery of “what’s in the next room” rather than, “Can I roll above a 7?” Players almost never feel cheated by the dice in Maroon Corps.

When can we expect to see more on Maroon Corps?

I have no idea. After running the Kickstarter, I’ve become all too wary of how much pressure sits on a game with an announcement date 🙂 So for now, Maroon Corps is in a casual beta. If anyone wants to peek at the rules, just shoot me an email. I’d be glad to hear some feedback and get some playtesting in.

Thanks so much to David for the interview! I’m looking forward to seeing more about Maroon Corps and I hope everyone enjoys checking out Mythic Mortals!

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

Women with Initiative: Kira Magrann

Today’s Women with Initiative feature is with Kira Magrann. I met Kira years ago through Gaming as Women, where we both were bloggers. She is well-known for her involvement in Indie Games on Demand as an organizer, as well as for her own design work, art, and her work to create a more inclusive, diverse gaming community. Her games have a lot of feminist and queer concepts in action, and she also has a knack for creating sexy, intimate games that really engage players. I asked her a few questions about her work, and she provided some great answers!

How did you get your start in gaming, and how does it intertwine with your other hobbies and interests, such as art?

I got started in gaming when I bought my first Vampire the Masquerade book at a hobby shop. I took it home and tried to run it for four of my girlfriends and it was a hilarious disaster. BUT my mom then encouraged me to go to Origins (back when it was in Philly) ’cause she thought it would get me off those darn computer games. It worked! I fell in love with vampire larps and all the ridiculous people I met there, who were also spearheading the goth music and club scene in the late 90s in Philly. So that lead to me going to goth clubs and playing Vampire on the dance floor and, well, now I’m the ridiculous human I am now. So I guess to answer your question, there was a lot of crossover with Vampire larps, goth clubs, and kink culture when I was a teen getting into roleplaying. There definitely still is, but, less in the goth arena since Vampire larps aren’t such a cultural sensation anymore.

I think the place where art intersects with my gaming is that it makes me want to make stuff for games! I’m a maker, so creating and designing games has become a thing I really enjoy. I can’t really be a passive game player, I need to get involved and get everyone else involved too. Designing games is so much more complex than a lot of art making (and metalwork and jewelry ain’t simple, lost wax casting involves so much math I can’t even sometimes!). There are a lot of moving pieces in games, and its interactive. I think that challenge really gets my creative artistic side going. I also really like creating interactive art, which is why I enjoy making jewelry more than gallery work or illustration. The ability to make something that someone will wear and interact with is very personal and embodied in a way that is much more satisfying to me than other mediums.

[Interviewer note: I actually own multiple pieces of jewelry created by Kira, specifically my octopus earrings and necklace that I wear constantly. It’s beautiful, and very meaningful, and it really is something that gives me a special connection.]

Your games all have an underlayer of intimacy, whether between individuals or with oneself. What helps you determine the right mechanic to use, or instructions to give, to encourage players to live out this intimacy in game?

Oh, hey, that’s an interesting observation I hadn’t thought of before! Intimacy in all my games!

For mechanics, I usually think about what I would like to do if I were playing this game I’m writing. What actions would I like to take as a player? Additionally, I think its really really important to edit mechanics to the most important ones, like maybe the top two or three, that people might be using. I want to highlight the things that are most important to the themes and characters in the game and create mechanics that support those. So I guess I think of theme and character first, then think of game mechanics that already exist in the tabletop or larp worlds, and then I try to piece them together until something works!

Specifically designing for intimacy though, I kinda cheat and use my sex ed, kink salesperson, kink community, queer community, and feminist theory expertise! I have a huge interest in how humans relate intimately in different settings, and like, how we communicate these things. For my game Strict Machine, which is a kinky power dynamic game where people play tanks that have to describe their body parts in sexy ways, the mechanic is based off of Dan Savage’s rules to talking dirty: say what you’re going to do, say what you’re doing, say what you just did. So I get a lot of inspiration from things like that in creating intimacy mechanics for my games.

I think the best way to get players to interact with intimate mechanics is to get them over their initial discomfort or awkwardness. That first time might be a little silly or uncomfortable, because culture tells us intimacy and sex are that way, but keep pushing through that bias and see where it gets you. Consensually, of course!

You probably saw this coming, but I would really love to know: What did you use for inspiration for Selfie, and what prompted you to make a game about selfies in the first place?

Hahaha! Yes you love selfies! Geez, I do too.

Selfies are like this giant intersection of: new media, new technology, the female gaze, self care, and art making. So like, in the art world, there’s been selfie exhibits and photographers I know haaaaaaaaaaaate them because they don’t consider them art. And in the social media world, selfies skew very feminine and young in our cultural consciousness, but in reality they’re actually very diverse in gender and race! What I love about selfies is that people have control over their own image, and especially feminine presenting people. Often the camera is controlled by cis men! It’s like the first time I looked at a Frida Kahlo painting, or an Annie Liebovitz photograph, and thought YES THAT THAT’S HOW I SEE LADIES. So it’s powerful to create your own image of yourself, right. It’s like the first time I drew a self portrait and was like, oh wow, I’m kind of uncomfortable with analyzing myself that much, but whoa, that’s how I look, and there’s an intimacy in drawing every curve of my nostril and shadow of my cheekbone and line around my eyes. I actually used to be really shy about being in front of the camera, looking at myself, I had very low self esteem because I had bad acne when I was younger and thought I was ugly. Art and photography kinda helped me with that, and I feel like the Selfie self care phenomenon is really similar to that experience except more mainstream, and that everyone should experience it.

The technology aspect is super cool. Basically, our smartphones make us cyborgs, we carry around this technology that is an extension of our bodies and personalities and relationships. So talking about that in a game, and how we are using this tech to examine ourselves and our emotions, is really, really neat. Some ladies in Spain got together and played the game, and then posted their selfies to their blog, and I feel like that’s the perfect example of how cool our level of global technological interactivity is.

Thank you so much to Kira for allowing me to interview and feature her here on Thoughty! It is awesome to share her work with my readers. Below is Kira’s brief bio and some links to her contact information and work. Thank you for reading!
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Kira Magrann creates jewelry at Anima Metals, organizes Indie Games on Demand, and creates sexy, feminist, queer and cyberpunk games. Some games she’s recently designed are Strict Machine, Mobilize, RESISTOR, and Game of Thrones: Play the Cards. Follow her on G+ or twitter @kiranansi. Also on Tumblr as @kiramagrann.

Selfie is a part of the #Feminism nanogame collection currently featured at Indiecade.

Click here to buy RESISTOR, a cyberwitchy social justice zine.

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