Tag: LARP

Five or So Questions on Chernobyl, Mon Amour

Hi all! Thanks to friends on G+, I was able to get in touch with Juhana Pettersson to interview him about Chernobyl, Mon Amour, which is now on IndieGoGo! Chernobyl, Mon Amour is the English translation of Tšernobyl, Rakastettuni, which was published in 2016 by Juhana. The themes of the game sounded haunting and beautiful, and I wanted to hear more! Check out Juhana’s answers below.

BCS Note: It’s so odd but I never realized how beautiful Finnish is! Lovely to even read over without knowing the meanings.

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Cover art of a couple in front of a ferris wheel, with their skeletons highlighted in red. By Joel Sammallahti.

Tell me a little about Chernobyl, Mon Amour. What excites you about it?

It’s a very personal game for me, in some ways that are obvious and others less so. I visited Chernobyl with my wife and that certainly affected how I saw it. It was in the early summer, and the quiet, the light were beautiful. At the same time, the history of Chernobyl is horrible. I remember when I was a child, five years old, when the news of the radioactive cloud hit Finland. My parents were watching the tv news. I didn’t understand very much, but I sensed the fear and the panic. If you look at a visualization of how the radioactive particles traveled in the atmosphere after the accident, it seems as if they were almost willfully zooming straight for Lapland.

Something in that combination, the peace of Chernobyl as it is now and the terror of the story seemed like it could form the basis of an interesting roleplaying game.There’s also a book by a Belarusian journalist called Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl, which had an enormous effect on me. It collects the stories of individuals who were involved with the accident or its aftermath.

I like love stories in roleplaying games, but they seem very underrepresented in the games that have been published so far. The Romance Trilogy of games by Emily Care Boss is obviously a huge inspiration, but I think the roleplaying field could take more than what we have now.

As a less obvious thing, the game is also an attempt to communicate the specific roleplaying game culture in Helsinki, Finland, where I discovered roleplaying and still play. Through international contact I’ve come to believe that the community has some unique and interesting ideas about roleplaying, and I’ve struggled to express some of them here, especially relating to very freeform-style character based social play.

Juhana Pettersson
What struck the romantic tone in Chernobyl, and how do you bring it to forefront in the game?
I’ve always liked love stories in roleplaying games, both as a player and as the GM. I think they’re fun to play and very well adapted to the social situation of a tabletop game. A lot of a real life romance consists of talking, and talking happens to be the one thing that we can do in a tabletop game with minimal or no game mechanics.

I played my very first roleplaying game romance scenes when I was sixteen years old and just starting with Vampire: the Masquerade. Because we didn’t actually have much real life experience with love and relationships, these scenes tended to be kinda awkward and heartfelt. In retrospect, it almost feels like we were using the game to practice for real life. Later in life, there’s been a shift in content on what kind of relationship roleplaying works in the games I play in. They’ve become more about exploring things we don’t necessarily want to experience in real life and fictionalizing actual experience either for fun or to come to terms with it.

Because of this experience, I knew for a fact that romance in roleplaying games can be very good stuff. Since the selection of published material was so sparse, I figured it would work for a game book like this one. However, I also felt that when it came to pushing the theme, subtlety was not going to work. This is why I tried to put romance front and center and have everything orbit around it. The game has two themes, radioactivity and romance. The radioactivity theme is much more perverse, involving an essentially self-destructive impulse. Yet my intuition was that it would come easier to a lot of players.

Aged and detailed map of nuclear zones. By Miska Fredman.
How does the game work mechanically? Does romance interact with the mechanics?
In terms of game mechanics, Chernobyl, Mon Amour is an attempt to broaden the scope of what we consider game design. It has no real mechanics to speak of in the traditional sense. No stats, xp, combat rules. Instead, I’ve attempted to code the design into the world description, the character creation guidelines, the preparatory workshops and so on.

Fundamentally, I think the goal of game mechanics is to create a definite kind of experience. Following the rules you experience what the game wants to convey. Chernobyl, Mon Amour follows a similar kind of logic in that by doing what the book says you should do, you’ll have the experience. It’s just not facilitated by mechanics but instead by the other guidelines. In this sense, it shares a lot of the same thinking as Nordic Larp does. Instead of designing a game, the goal is to design a very particular social situation.

Because of this, I suspect that it’s also a little harder to run than most roleplaying games, and perhaps more limited in who can play it together. However, I’ve also found that this style can be appealing to many people who find more mechanics-oriented roleplaying games difficult to approach.



How did you playtest Chernobyl, Mon Amour, if you did playtest? If you did not, what makes you feel confident about the game succeeding?

I ran playtest games before and during the design and writing process. When I first had the idea, I wasn’t sure of its viability, so I ran games to try it out. After those, I felt more confident that I was able to make a game out of this. From a playtesting perspective, this is an unusual game. Often playtesting means making sure that the mechanics of the game work robustly, but this time there isn’t really any of that. Rather, playtesting is about the ideas and concepts, as well as the functionality of the exercises for creating the right social atmosphere with players. These are much more subjective in terms of whether they work or not, and more prone to confusion created by differences in basic cultural assumptions.

In terms of success, I see this as an experimental game. It’s an attempt to convey a culture and style of roleplaying in a format that should make it possible to replicate it. I hope people will find it interesting, good and worth trying but I have a suspicion that I will be surprised by what people will do with it. Which is of course great, and a part of the appeal of roleplaying games in general.

Kuva, a person with long brown hair and dark skin in a hoodie. By Joel Samallahti.

What kind of workshops do you include with the game, and what sort of content and safety mechanics do you have to help players in the intimate scenario?

At least in the Finnish roleplaying scene, using workshops in tabletop games is highly unusual. I’m not really aware of anybody else even suggesting it. However, in Nordic Larp they’re routine and extremely useful. I figured that if these social tools work in larp, why not in roleplaying games? And I’m under the impression that in other countries, there’s been successful experiments with this.

The goal of workshops in Chernobyl, Mon Amour is get the participants aligned with the subject matter of the game and become more comfortable with each other. Because of Finnish cultural characteristics, the exercises as they are now are pretty talky, and I was planning of adjusting them a little for the English version to take into account the fact that in my experiences, international players are better at this than Finns are.

As for safety, I take it seriously. I’ve had experiences in tabletop roleplaying games myself where I’ve felt that my personal boundaries have been crossed in a negative way. Roleplaying based on intimacy and trust is powerful stuff, and it means that sometimes things can go bad emotionally even if all the participants are doing their best to accommodate each others’ limits. The game as it exists now has some simple safety mechanics to help with these situations, but this is another thing I wanted to adjust for the international version to give participants more tools.

Perhaps the simplest and most important safety technique, if you can call it that, is to make sure that everybody really wants to play it together, that everybody wants to play a roleplaying game about romance and death in an emotionally raw way. Sort of “enthusiastic consent” of roleplaying games, if you like.

“Valokuva 2,” distant image of buildings and industrial structures. Juhana & Maria Pettersson.
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Thank you so much to Juhana for the interview! It was so cool to learn about Chernobyl, Mon Amour. I hope you will all go check out Chernobyl, Mon Amour on IndieGoGo and share this post with your friends!

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Loving Your Work

Earlier today I tweeted about a tweet by John Harper on the subject of loving your work and how it impacts others. For ease of access, I’m going to include the thread here, and then write the rest of the post. This is… a long post.

John’s post: 

Hey, creative friends. No matter what you feel inside, go ahead and tell everyone that you love your work and you’re excited to share it. Lie if you have to. Your enthusiasm will shine though and others will pick it up. Don’t do the bs self-effacing shit. It’s kind of awful.

My responses:

I don’t think that it’s best to lie about how you feel about your work. My suggestion, to meet some of this ask, is “I’m working on something that I want to love and be proud of, but I’m struggling with that. Can you help me find good things in it?”

I’m not great at this yet!

As someone with mental health disorders, it’s really freaking hard to not speak negatively of my own work, especially when my work rarely succeeds or gets recognition and ESPECIALLY when I try to speak well of it and instead it gets trashed or I lose followers because of that. 

It is far more encouraged for men, typically cis men, to praise their own work. The rest of us can get called egotistical, or have people say we’re over promoting/praising work more than it deserves.

I want to speak well of my work but I struggle with it constantly. 

I get what John is saying here and I appreciate the intent, but I also know that lying about your feelings can hurt you so you should work on how you express them more than how to hide them, & that being positive about your work doesn’t always bring good returns and that hurts. 

John’s method can work for many people, probably. But for me, that would be painful & harmful to me,  with my past luck as example, & would not be successful as an exercise. 

Just saying: nothing bad about John’s words for many people, but it’s okay if it’s not right for you.💜

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So, let me get the hard parts of this out of the way:

  • I’m not mad at John. I think he’s great and he’s been kind and honest with me in the few bits of time we’ve had together talking. We just don’t always agree, which he has always seemed to be cool about. I’m not arguing with him over this because I don’t see a point, it’s not like he’s bad or something.
  • I don’t personally think lying about your feelings is healthy. Some people can fake it to make it, and that’s great! But not all of us can, so I suggest if you do John’s method (which is totally fine!), be careful and respect your own needs. Performing self-love publicly sometimes needs to take a backseat to living and functioning, and I know that’s not a popular thing to say. It’s still true.
  • I know not all men benefit from the things I’m talking about here. I have many men I care a lot about who have struggled intensely with receiving recognition with their work, who struggle for people to value their work, and who have received negative responses to their promotion of their work. I know and love them, and I am not trying to belittle their experiences. Please understand that.

There we go. On to the meat of this post!

Description: Debbie Reynolds saying “Chins up! Boobs out!”
It’s okay to not love your work. 

It’s okay, even though it sucks. It’s hard to look at your hard drive at your projects, or down at your drawing tablet, or whatever your work happens to be, and feel that sinking disappointment in yourself. It can be related to success, or completely unrelated. It can be in spite of the love of your fans and friends, or it might be related to trying to meet their standards. It’s okay.

I’m going to say something that you’ve probably heard before, and I’m sorry to be repetitive. But let me try.

Your work is not what gives you value. There is no amount of work you can do that will make you valuable. You don’t deserve things based on what you’ve made, and it’s not about deserving in any case. You are valuable because you are. You are part of all of this world and your work may never be recognized but you mean something, you matter, and you are bigger in the scheme of things than your work ever could be.

Van Gogh could not have made Starry Night if he did not exist in the first place. You must be for any of your work to be, and you make your legacy, not the approval of other people.

Description: Freddie Mercury saying “Fuck everybody else!”

That being said.

I get it. I do. I look at my work sometimes and I scream inside (or sometimes outside) about its inadequacies. It’s failure. I lament loudly on Twitter that no one wants to interview me. I whine that I haven’t sold much of my work, and that no one posts about my work on social media or reviews it. I hurt. I hurt so much. I pour hours into my work and I hurt, and my work is no good. Nope. I hate it.

I bet you think that too, sometimes. And that’s okay.

The idea that you have to love your work for others to love it is probably not entirely what John was referring to, but I bet some people took it that way. Loving your work is not the only way to succeed and to make others love your work. It’s not! But there are things you should do. You know I love questions, so I’m going to give you some questions to ask yourself to make hating your work useful. (click thru for more!)

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Sorry, this is my favorite quote and is appropriate. Description: Andy Samberg as Jake Peralta saying “Eyes closed, head first, can’t lose.” 

This is an exercise to try to find out what you can do to solve your negative feelings about your work, or at least move past them. This is something I’ve actually done, and I found it helpful, so I’m not just bullshitting you. You’ll need at least 5 minutes per piece of work, potentially more like 10.

Go to look at a few pieces of your work that right now, you feel bad about. Yeah, it’ll suck. Just go. Take something to record your thoughts. Ready? Ask these questions about each piece of work, briefly. You can go back with details later.

  • How am I feeling while I look at this work? 
    • Do I feel disgust? 
    • Do I feel sad? 
    • Do I feel angry?
  • Do other people tell me they feel this way about them?
    • How do other people feel about them?
    • If you haven’t shown them to anyone, show them to someone after the exercise.
  • Why do these pieces make me feel this way? 
    • Is it because of their structure? 
      • How should they be structured? 
      • Can I change their structure? 
      • How? 
    • Do they look bad? 
      • How do I want them to look? 
      • Can I make them look that way? 
      • How?
    • Do they not function? 
      • Can I make them work? 
      • How? 
      • What tools do I need?
    • Do they relate to something negative in my life? 
      • Can I talk to someone about that? 
      • Can I change it to ease that connection? 
      • How?
    • Has someone said something bad about them? 
      • Were their complaints valid? 
      • Can I solve any valid issues the person presented? 
      • How?
    • Are they unfinished? 
      • Can I finish this? 
      • Do I need to? 
      • Can I set it aside officially and return sometime?
    • Are they not what I planned for them to be? 
      • What did I plan for them to be? 
      • Can I make changes to make them that? 
      • How?
    • Did they not give me the success I wanted?
      • What was the success I wanted? 
      • Do I need to rely on that success? 
      • Can I ask for help to find it?
    • Have I been too busy to work on them?
      • Do I want to make time to work on them? 
      • Can I make time to work on them? 
      • How?

Look back at your “how?” responses. Which of these is 1) something you want to do, 2) something you can do (by yourself or with the help of others), and 3) something you think will make any difference in the way you feel about those pieces of work? If you have multiple things for one piece of work, put them as a bundle together.

Description: Taraji P. Hensen taking a picture with a phone camera captioned “you’re doing amazing, sweetie.”

Once you’ve figured a few out, look at your calendar and your current to-do list. Set aside a half hour in three days and then another half hour in a week to look at one of the items you think you can address, focusing on one set of questions and responses at each of these scheduled times. So maybe you think, “this drawing sketch doesn’t function the way I want, it doesn’t convey the emotion I’m looking for, but if I take it into Illustrator maybe I can strip out this section and draw in a new one.” You work on that.

Even if you just think about it for a while and write some notes, that’s okay! Keep setting aside just brief 15-30 minute appointments to address these questions, and work forward on execute the “how?” If you reach a hiccup or feel frustrated, seek support. Choose one or two people – only one or two – whose opinions on this project would be valid and you would trust. Tell them, “I’m struggling with solving this problem. Can you talk with me about it and tell me your positive and constructive thoughts?” Work from there to see if you can complete what you said you could do.

If you find that a piece of work doesn’t answer yes on any of those “something you want,” etc. questions, set it aside. Unless it is paid work, step away.

With other people’s projects, remember you’re satisfying them, not you. Contact the person you’re working with, and explain some of what you’re seeing, ask if they feel the same way. If they do, ask what options there are to address it (“someone said the draft of this NPC sounds like nonsense, can we look at it together and consider rewrites?”). If they don’t, just finish the project to what they ask. It might be hard or frustrating, but sometimes, we do paid work for no satisfaction. But, don’t hate that work – it’s over when it’s over. Archive the files, put it away, whatever you need to do: put it out of your mind. You’re done.

Description: Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple saying “Okay, I’m done.”

Here’s the thing: you might not love the work after you’ve worked on this. Make an effort to execute your “how?” and ask for help when you need it. After that, you might feel better. But, you might find out it’s not what you wanted. You can return to the questions, or with your own projects, you can set it aside until you want to jump back on that boat. Or you can toss it out. You are in control of it.

Now you know why you feel bad about it, and can try to do something about it. Just disliking your work and not knowing the reason can burn you up inside. And the best part is, sometimes, figuring out the why and whether you can fix it and how is the path to liking something, or for getting rid of something. Asking these questions and thinking about it practically puts more power in your hands to either do something or not do something, and neither decision is morally or ethically wrong.

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You might hate that exercise more than you hate your work, so that’s something. But really, friends, think about why you make things. Creation is power. Creation is beauty. When we make something, we put something into the world that otherwise wouldn’t exist. It’s amazing! So why wouldn’t we work? Why wouldn’t we make?

And we are the biggest part of that. We control the work, as much as is realistic. We control how we market it, we control how we consume it, we control how we engage with our work. This is a choice we make.

I just wanted to use this. Description: Pink text reading “baby bok CHOICE”

Speak up when you feel dissatisfied with your work if you want, but try to do it with purpose. I felt upset with Turn because people kept on calling it Powered by the Apocalypse, so I thought it through, and I made the changes I needed to do to make myself stop being angry and disappointed with it. A few word changes and it bloomed. I felt frustrated with Shoot to Kill, but after I realized it was because I felt ethically strained about it, so I am making changes to fix it. It sucks to think about why you dislike your work, why you’re frustrated, but it makes it possible to change it and feel better about it!

People will see your enthusiasm over your work, or even your constructive discussions and growth, and want to enjoy your product with you. It will encourage them and it will benefit you. It is hard to do, but I think it is a challenge any of you are up for.

Hating your work won’t make work better, and yeah, it might not make it worse either. But couldn’t loving it make it great?

Description: Terry Crews saying “You know Terry loves love.”

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Holstering Your Concepts

I have mentioned a few times that I’m working on a project that is based on the concept of the John Wick universe with assassins, etc., called Shoot to Kill. It’s a pervasive larp that I’m working on an augmented reality app for. I’ve been pretty excited about it! However, it’s being revamped. Here’s why.

(Content note: discussion of gun violence and mention of suicide.)

(This will contain my personal feelings on gun use. I honestly Do Not Care if you disagree. *shrug*)

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Description: A United States flag over an illustration of ships, with the words “knock knock. it’s the United States.”

Well, in case you’re unfamiliar with the United States, we have a fucking problem with guns. While there are recent events that are particularly notable examples, our incidences of mass shootings are common and significant. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

I grew up in an environment with a lot of guns. Like, my dad, pap, and cousin owned probably nearly arsenals and my brother wasn’t far behind (I don’t keep track of how many they own these days). While my pap was shot twice (by someone else, once when he was a kid – in the eye – and once while hunting small game – in the dick, no lies), in our direct family I only know of one other incident of gun violence in my family, which was a different cousin who committed suicide.

I’m pointing this out because when I was growing up, guns were used “responsibly,” as in, we didn’t use them in unsafe ways, we were taught gun safety very early, etc. I shot a rifle for the first time when I was like 9. I actually own guns (that may be changing, I’m not sure). So these people misusing guns, they were not us, they weren’t responsible gun owners. 

But I totally grew up right next to some of the classic trash bags who own a shitton of guns and want to use them to hurt people. You can be “safe” with your guns all you fuckin’ want but when it comes to mass shootings, that’s not about how well you can avoid accidentally shooting someone. Like, let’s be real. Responsible gun ownership means shit right now. People are electing to go kill people, in public, en masse, with guns. For like, a whole host a reasons that are… okay nah. There’s no good reason.

Description: Andy Samberg as Jake Peralta pressing a button to speak to someone who has been arrested, saying “Cool motive! Still murder.”

(My official opinion on guns: it would be nice to have strongly regulated gun use for those who hunt and stuff, but otherwise, fuck it, we don’t freaking need them. If I’m wrong, you can shoot me later.)

How does this relate to games, you ask?

I was writing a game about shooting people in public.

I have thought about this so deeply. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. And I can’t make a game about shooting people in public.

I especially can’t make one that’s supposed to be actively played at conventions in-between other games. Like, there’s a whole host of problems with pervasive larps that involve finding other people in the first place.

So, the original game was, you’re professional assassins like in John Wick and you find people who are also playing the game and “shoot” them (originally just getting in touch with them and marking off their shots). There were gold coins, armor piercing rounds, and armor. It had (still has) varying levels of engagement, both performative and participative, with players becoming NPCs after they’re taken out. It seemed like it would be really fun. It also served an important purpose: getting people to meet new people and engage over something.

Still, every time I design stuff, I try to think of ethical issues or any way the game could be misused (this is why there’s like an entire two pages in the Turn essays about what you should really fucking not do with the game). This is because people can be stale bagels and also I’d rather not bring further harm into the world. So many people hurt people with games and otherwise already.

Yeah, I’m throwing a little Obamas in here. Description: Michelle Obama saying “When they go low, we go high!”

I’m revamping the game. I’m using the title Headshots because I’m going to try to subvert the violent/game standard use of the term for instead taking pictures of each other – taking “headshots” like in modeling. In this, the fiction will be that you are still professionals, but you’re doing reconnaissance instead of assassinating people. You’re finding people and identifying them to break their cover stories, and you can use trackers to break cover stories or fake passports to get new ones.

I’m hoping people still like it, and I’m planning to work on it more after I finish school. It sounds fun to me, and it has the elements I thought would be the most fun. I’ve retained the varying levels of participation, the ability to meet new people and engage with them, and the network of people in the fiction. I’m pretty happy about it, but I feel weird about the fact that some people might think I’m overreacting!

I’m not, tho. So like. Chill for a minute if you were getting those thoughts in your head.

Description: A picture of a parrot with the text “Alas, there is no fruit on my fuck tree.”

See, the reality is that game designers have just as much responsibility as every other creator to do their best to make ethical choices in design. I have talked about this before, and it goes beyond cultural appropriation and sexism and all. I don’t give a bit of a shit what people’s actual political beliefs are. It is very obvious that the use of guns in the US is not handled well, and that the casual attitude towards violence in media contributes to that.

And no, I’m not saying “violent video games and movies cause violent behavior.” No. What I’m saying is: if I make a game that could potentially make others (who are not playing a game but are in the place where it is being held) feel unsafe because I don’t consider the fact that we live in a society where there are active and persistent threats of violence using the method in my game? I’m not being responsible.

Responsibility is so, so important. We talk about responsible gun owners, right? They can’t solve this problem. But as creators, we can choose to be responsible. We can make products that people can engage with without harming themselves or others. We can make products that engage people in the activity that is enjoyable and provide a good fictional backdrop without doing something toxic or harmful.

I’m making this change because I have seen too many body counts, and because I want to be the best I can be. Let’s all think of the world and what we can do in it, and for it.

Be better.

Description: A picture of an angry possum with the words “Do no harm, take no shit, beg no man pardon.”

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Death in RPGs – Let Me Live (revised 2/17/18)

Hi all!

I recorded this recently and had to make some updates, but now it’s a new video on a new URL: https://youtu.be/Uluvyh64_P8

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You’re getting dumped by your catgirl girlfriend

My friend Caitlynn Belle has an excellent game, “you must break up with your werewolf boyfriend” and I have hacked it!

Here is: “You’re getting dumped by your catgirl girlfriend”

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KIK0zVT817AUr9yWRZxBSKc12M0gW-xEfI6RCBA4iSE/edit?usp=drivesdk

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Play with Purpose

Dice by John W. Sheldon

I’m going to try to make this brief, but I wanted to express something that has been sitting with me a while, and that’s about what games we play and why we play them. This stemmed from discussion of Dungeons & Dragons, but it applies to many, many games and all types of players and GMs.

Why do you play RPGs?

I want you to ask yourself this question, dig down. Ask harder. Listen to your first response and dig deeper and ask harder.

Why do you play RPGs?

Now you have an answer, I would hope, that feels right. Now look at the games you play right now. 

How do those games meet your reason?

How do they question your answer – are you sure you want to do that? Can you even do that?

Do all of the mechanics support your type of play?

Do any of the mechanics reject your type of play?

Do you play around any mechanics to enjoy play?

Do you ignore sections of the rulebook to play?

What mechanics do support your play, your reason for playing?

Are the games intended to play one way, while you play the other?

What about this game makes it valuable to you?

Is that valuable thing mechanically in the game, or is it something you’ve introduced?

From here, ask yourself about the awareness you have of games around you that you aren’t playing.

Do you know about other RPGs?

Do you know how to play them?

What games allow you to play comfortably without ignoring rules, if any?

Do any of them meet your reason?

Have you tried playing other games that meet your reason, if there are any?

I ask these questions because I want to see us play with purpose, and that purpose is play, an activity that is enjoyable and entertaining (even if that enjoyment is not gathered through “fun”). There are so many RPGs that it is just super unfortunate for people to be stuck playing a game that they aren’t enjoying, that isn’t meeting their needs, that doesn’t fit their reason, that questions them in an unproductive way. I want to see people play games that hit the right spot for them.

This comes to mind because people play around rules so much, and that shouldn’t be necessary! If you play a game and it feels like work, or it feels boring, or you feel exhausted afterwards in a bad way, ask yourself these questions. Take a deep breath, and consider your options. There are hundreds of RPGs out there! Some of them are free, and plenty of them can be learned easily if you look for simplicity, while others are crunchy and mechanics-heavy in ways that some people find delicious.

If the fiction doesn’t work, ask the world for more options. If the mechanics don’t work or seem extraneous or seem too minimal, ask the world for more options. The options are there. Don’t suffer in play. It isn’t fair to you, it isn’t fair to those you play with.

Why do you play RPGs?

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Five or So Questions on Let Me Take a Selfie

This interview turns Five Or So Questions upside-down, with the usual interviewer as the guest! Jason Morningstar of Bully Pulpit Games talks to Daedalum Analog Productions’ Brie Sheldon about their new collection of games, Let Me Take a Selfie.
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Cover by John W. Sheldon, 2017

Can you tell me about the genesis of this collection? What prompted you to make a series of games focused around this particular tool, and what was your process for discovery and creation?

I take a lot of selfies, like a really lot. They mean a lot to me! Cell cameras are a vital advance in modern communication and our ability to share our identities and emotions with people around the world, even if we don’t speak the same language. Part of it is also just that I like trying new ways of telling stories and exploring game experiences.

I love dice but it’s fun to take different mechanics from weird things we do. In Literally, I Can’t, one of the games in the collection, you use the MASH (mansion, apartment, shack, house) game that I played as a kid to build characters. That is the kind of thing I want to explore in games!

I also design in response to things. I saw a few games using phone cameras that I felt didn’t do what I wanted. I have had to learn a lot about selfies and myself to use this technology, and needed to apply it to games to get the experiences I wanted.

To make games, I honestly just took selfies. A lot. And I remembered how selfies have been relevant to my life. They are instrumental in my long distance relationships, and a part of how I feel connected to others, but also are ways that I know I can appear to not measure up to expectations or fade into the background if I’m not interesting enough. All of that came through in the collection! Every game has my heart in it, somehow, just with some “how to break it” instructions included!

Using mobile technology as a play aid and intermediary is such an interesting area to explore. Obviously this offered enormous design inspiration, but I’m wondering what challenges it also presented. Does it complicate aspects of design or play?

It certainly does! There are a lot of elements that are challenging. The first, one I’m very aware of, is that not everyone can afford a cell phone with a camera. I hated this, because it’s a reality I wish I could fight, but to make games with this element I had to accept that loss. I am trying to figure out a way to make up for it, but my own financial status isn’t awesome either.

Second, not everyone likes to take selfies, and not everyone even really knows how to take them (there’s not really a wrong way, though, honestly). When I playtested Who Made Me Smile? at Big Bad Con this year, most of my table was people who either didn’t take selfies, or didn’t take them often, and most people approached it with some anxiety. Thankfully, we talked about it and I encouraged them and it went great! I don’t know how it’ll go with others, though.

Third and final so I don’t write ten paragraphs, privacy and safety are huge concerns. For some of the games you’ll pass your phone to other players or share your phone number, for others you’re alone outside, and for some games you’re dealing with emotionally trying things. All of these have their own measures. For sharing contact information and phones I tried to give strong reminders about respecting safety and deleting the other players’ numbers unless they permit otherwise, and I also require that people hide NSFW pictures and content to avoid any consent violation. Being alone during game is risky, so I ask that people have an emergency check-in contact – and I also ask that for the emotionally intense games to help people get support. I also recommend Script Change for all of the games.

It’s all complicated, I think, but it is worth it, I think.

I love the way this collection blends analog and digital and subverts expectations. The four group games imply that the participants will be together physically rather than distributed, and I wonder if you could talk about this choice.

One of the most troubling things I’ve seen with selfies, and one of my secret goals to target with the games, is the negative perception of taking selfies in front of other people. People regularly shame young people for taking selfies in public, and mock tourists who get selfie sticks to take pictures in front of huge landmarks. We don’t mock people who have strangers take their pictures, or people who take pictures of other things or other people. Only people who dare recognize their own existence in public. I struggle, personally, with embarrassment over this – and I wanted to poke at it and prod it to see if I could fix that a little. In the games, you have to take selfies in front of people – sometimes making weird expressions or while feeling complicated feelings. I want to normalize that.

I want to normalize being in an airport crying before you head home after leaving a loved one and taking a selfie to say goodbye to them, or to let the person you’re coming home to see that you’re struggling, but okay. I want to normalize sharing your joy publicly by taking a picture of your smiling face to send to faraway friends. And I want to let that start with an environment that pretends you’re far away from each other, which is where the games make it possible. In Literally, I Can’t you have to take “competent”-looking selfies while all together for play – it’s a challenge against the anxiety and stigma.

It’s also important with Don’t Look at Me, a two-player selfie game in the collection about my personal experiences in a long-term relationship with my husband while he was deployed in Iraq. The purpose of being together, but not facing each other and only able to see each other through selfies, is to create the emotional tension of knowing the person is there, feeling them just out of touch, and not being able to see them except through these constrained circumstances. John and I were, and are, very close, and I always felt like he was with me, but I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t look at him face to face – everything was through lenses and bytes. I cry every time I think about the game because I know that tension, and it was important to me to make sure that the people playing it could experience it too. In Now You Don’t, it’s important to be around other people to create that experience of physical closeness and emotional ignorance. Surrounded by a crowd, but invisible – almost palpable.

Your games push back against a popular narrative that selfies are trivial narcissism. I feel like these games make selfies tools of meaningful expression, communication, and inquiry. What would you say to someone hostile to, or uncomfortable with, selfies?

Well, honestly, first I’d ask them how they feel about Van Gogh’s self portraits. Maybe those are narcissistic, too, I guess, but I don’t think that would be the majority opinion. I could direct them to the interview I did alongside a professional fine artist where I talk about the use of selfies as a grounding element in life, and where the artist (Robert Daley) says that selfies are simply modern portraiture. 

Video by John W. Sheldon
For me, there’s the first aspect of selfies as being about identity and recognizing your own existence, validating who you are, making you feel whole. Then, there’s the second part: it’s just art. Photography is art, most people agree, and so are the oil painting portraits of people throughout history, including those like Van Gogh’s that are self-portraits. 
I don’t see what is different about using a modern camera to take a self portrait, aside from it being more accessible to people of all backgrounds (excepting those of very low income who have trouble accessing this tech). It removes the boundary of needing an extensive education in technique to paint yourself! Instead you take pictures in a moment, and learn with every photo how to change the angle, how to adjust lighting, how to open your eyes wider or raise your eyebrow to convey emotion, and how to show you, who you are or even who you want to be. It’s magical, to me. I would just have to tell them that much: selfies are about showing who you are to whoever you want, and they are an artistic expression that’s more easily accessible than many of those before.

You write in your introduction how important selfies are to you as a way to present yourself to the world in images you control. Do you see ways to incorporate either selfies as artifacts or mobile phones and their liberating ability to document a person’s personal vision more generally in other games, old or new?

I would love to see some larger scale larps use selfies for storytelling – specifically, in larps where there are mystery elements or similar things that they could use a selfie to identify a character not in a scene, and distribute it to players. This would be excellent for games where there’s reason to be suspicious of specific individuals. Using selfies that you either take in costume or alter to represent your character in game would, I think, bring a level of personal identification with the character that isn’t often had. It also lets you record the experience of a game from the viewpoint you choose – you frame the moment, not anyone else. 

Doing selfie diaries for very emotional or intense games could be exciting – much like The Story of My Face in the collection, combining your words with a visual representation can make experiences feel more vivid. When I did test plays of The Story of My Face for the photos in the book, I really had fun in part because when I looked back at the pictures, I could remember the spooky story I was telling myself. Mid-game selfie logging, much like taking pictures of character sheets or game materials, can help keep memories rich and more easily recoverable. And that latter part, with taking pictures of game material – using phones to document game materials is really awesome because you can refer back to it easily. I also like using texting for “secret” communication in game or for sharing codes – the day someone makes an Unknown Armies-style horror game that uses text messages, selfies, and cell pictures to tell the story and guide players is the day I am pretty sure we win at games.
(by Brie)
—

Thanks for your time, Brie!

I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll share this interview and the DriveThruRPG link with all your friends!
[From Brie: Thank you to Jason so much for this, it was a really fun experience and I’m so glad to talk more about LMTAS!]


Note: All images except the cover are by Brie Sheldon and excerpted from the collection used to write and layout LMTAS, and the cover is a compilation of Brie’s photos with a super nice layout by John W. Sheldon.

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Five or So Questions on WINTERHORN

Today I have a great interview with Jason Morningstar about his fascinating new project, WINTERHORN, which has information on the Bully Pulpit site and is also on DriveThruRPG. This game sounds really cool and also really important. I hope you enjoy what Jason says below!

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Really nice layout and design for the materials!

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

WINTERHORN is a live action game for 5-8 players about how governments degrade and destroy activist groups. The thing that excites me most about WINTERHORN is that it might actually be useful. I’m an American and I feel like my country is in genuine danger right now. WINTERHORN arose from a pretty intense internal conversation about what I could do about it. What skills could I bring to bear? How could I amplify my voice and offer tools to resist a worst case that is pretty fucking bad? I looked to history as a guide – what happens when authoritarians come to power? 
The playbook is well worn and it is being methodically repeated. I thought about how important resistance and dissent are, and the many tools governments have to suppress them. I read further on the Stasi, on COINTELPRO, on the Soviet Union and its successor states, and from that came the germ of the game – play the “bad guys” to learn how to be a better “good guy” in real life. Of course it isn’t that simple, but through the game you’ll absorb a dozen different ways activists get interfered with, and maybe that will spur some conversations about encryption, operational security, or hardening groups you care about against disinformation or worse. The game itself is fun and interesting, and it isn’t at all didactic, but I feel like you really have a chance to embody these government operatives, which gives you both perspective and maybe even empathy. And you come away with these awful techniques on your mind. Every time I see the game hit the radar of some little Reddit anarchist cell or humanities academic I get excited. 

What were elements of your research that stood out most regarding the emotional factors of power, control, and resistance that had the most influence on WINTERHORN?

I’ve read pretty deeply on the Stasi (Staatssicherheitsdienst, the security apparatus of the former East Germany) in the last few years, which was influential (The agencies you work for in WINTERHORN are mirrors of the organizational hierarchy of the Stasi). But I’d say the most influential elements were pulled from American history. FBI and Chicago police collusion leading to the death of Fred Hampton made a powerful impression, for example. If you are familiar with his killing and pursue a violent path in WINTERHORN you will see its unsubtle echoes.


How do you, in this game specifically, represent the “bad guys” in the game without making them into soulless monsters? 

In the full-on larp version of WINTERHORN the characters are tangled in bureaucracy and divided into two factions that roundly dislike each other (The Ministry of State Security and the People’s Police). Each character has a professional and emotional attachment to a partner, and each has some affinity or soft spot that might color their choices. One likes the deeply stupid but brave, for example, and another likes the elderly. So there’s enough meat on those bones to slightly humanize them, even if they are doing fundamentally inhuman things. In the more edu-game version of WINTERHORN, you are making the same decisions ina much more abstracted way, and there’s none of this nuance but many more inputs from participants.

Why did you choose to present WINTERHORN in the format you have, a live action game with a card deck, as opposed to any other, and what value do you think it brings to the experience?

I wanted the game to be flexible and accessible, because I wanted it to be used outside of “normal” roleplaying contexts – in other words, outside of the living rooms and convention hideaways of super intense gamers. I also wanted the game’s information to be smoothly and organically transmitted in play rather than through a didactic lesson. In my experience live action play is great for this – you embody a character, and that’s a dial I, as the designer, can set low or high – and being physically engaged really aids in retention. WINTERHORN is dead simple and that was also a design goal. From the beginning I wanted to make sure that you could sit down and play it, even if you weren’t a huge nerd who knew what a larp was. Cards are a great way to share and transmit information. To be honest the game grew a little bit and now requires printed material as well, but I’m totally OK with that. I’m really proud of the handouts and what they communicate.

WINTERHORN sounds like the kind of game that could use workshopping, debriefing, support mechanics, or other methods to help players engage with the material safely and deal with the harsh realities that they may uncover. Which of these do you use? If none, why?

You begin with some light workshopping, and the game guides you through it. There are six player-level roles in the game – Orientation, Time, Case Board, Dynamics, Paperwork and Debrief. Orientation presents the game world and your goals, as well as introducing you to the game’s safety tools and touch boundaries. Dynamics’ sole responsibility is to make sure all the players are engaged and having a good, productive time. Debrief leads a directed post-game discussion where you check in as players and segue into talking about how the game’s content reflects real life, if you want. Time, Case Board and Paperwork all have in-game responsibilities. For larp nerds, the safety tools are Cut, Largo/Brake, and The Door Is Always Open. In play it is surprisingly chill – essentially WINTERHORN is a committee larp played around a table staring at a case board covered in photos, which makes it pretty accessible if you’ve ever seen a detective show.
—
Thanks so much to Jason for this great interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll share this interview, the WINTERHORN link, and the DriveThruRPG link with all your friends!

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Harassment in Indie Games: Part 4 (Conclusion) – How

Content warning: sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual violence, threats, online harassment, threats of violence, harassment and assault of minors, statutory rape, rape, mental illness, anxiety, social ostracizing

Harassment in Indie Games: Part 4 (Conclusion) – How

 

This is the fourth and final post (posts one, two, & three) in a series about sexual harassment and assault in indie RPGs, larps, and spaces. I put out a survey to ask people about their experiences. This post is going to cover How (how do we fix this).

 

Previous posts have said this has not been an easy task for me or, especially, for the people who shared their stories. It has certainly been that. This has been really hard, and exhausting, for me. I can’t imagine how hard it was for people to relive their own experiences and trust me, to some a stranger, to talk about them with respect. Whether they chose to be anonymous or to share their personal information, I think it takes a lot of fortitude to talk about our experiences.

 

This last post’s Patreon proceeds will go to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest Network) and I ask you to join me in supporting RAINN to promote the safety and wellbeing of survivors and at-risk individuals as much as we can. Donate here. Thank you!

HOW

How do we fix this?

Change. We need to change, and we need to do it as soon as possible. A few suggestions from the respondents really are valuable in how we can look at this:

 

– I think the community needs to learn effective ways to self-police. Maybe it should be included in first sessions, but I know not every one of the men I encountered in my early years was a sexual predator but they were complicit and probably egged some of that behavior on without realizing. Creating an environment where those predators are afraid and terrified of the reaction should they behave that way is paramount and an active contract the community and the game runners should participate in.

 

– A clear consent/anti-harassment policy would have helped. The convention has that today, and they have panels on sexual harassment and how to identify and help stop it. People also need to feel stronger about calling out bad actors’ behavior.

 

– Making it clear that these spaces (and really any spaces) don’t work without consent, and the adults in a space need to make sure that if there are minors in a community older members aren’t making advances towards them.

 

– They should have listened and made it clear that this behavior was not acceptable and worked with [the bad actor] to adjust his behavior into something not deeply harmful to members of the community. If it came to it, I think people should have asked him to leave the space/community.

 

All of the things we can do are such concrete, understandable actions. Most of them involve acknowledging the risks within our own communities. They also can often mean excluding people, sometimes even people we don’t know if we want to exclude. The reality is, some of the time we have to exclude people to include people. For every bad actor you include, you are excluding at least one other person or group, and that is a choice you should be conscious of every time, and you have to ask yourself whether the wellbeing of people at risk is less valuable than letting a well-known game designer speak on a panel at your convention.

 

Is it worth hurting people to be able to play with a GM who constantly runs over people’s consent? Is it worth losing the participation and contributions of tons of women to let the senior manager for D&D say women aren’t “real” developers? I ask anyone with power, with anxiety in my heart, with fear inside me: are we worth anything to you? Do you care? Will you read this and just turn away? If you decide we don’t matter now, I hope someday you change.

 

If instead you think it’s time to make a difference, my suggestions are here:

 

  • Create guidelines and standards for all levels of community (table, region, convention) whether it’s online or offline and ensure they meet the needs of all of the individuals in the community with consideration of their identities and their needs. (Examples at GeekFeminism Wiki and Big Big Bad Con.)
  • Educate people about consent and boundaries with the assumption that if we don’t teach them, no one will, so that we move forward with comprehensive information.
  • Learn signs of bad actors and their habits, like being unwilling to respect consent or not asking for it, lying about their behaviors, invading others’ space, suggesting content or actions that are inappropriate for the audience or that make people feel unsafe, and similar issues.
  • Call out bad actors when they do something wrong. Do it publicly or privately, but make sure it won’t hurt the survivors when you do it. Respect their safety and wishes, but don’t let people keep doing bad things when you witness them, when you’re made aware of them otherwise, or when you’ve been called upon to speak on behalf of those harmed.
  • Believe the people who speak up and support them. Don’t leave them hanging and alone when something bad happens. Support them through the whole process, and do what they ask (even if that means keeping quiet).
  • Remove repeat offenders from the community, even if it means banning them from conventions, events, and even your game table. Don’t let them continue to act badly in spaces you control or that you have influence over. If they apologize and demonstrate meaningful change, work with the survivors to see what is possible.
  • Protect minors and marginalized people from bad actors. Make spaces where those people can feel safe and where they can easily get assistance. If someone breaks the rules of consent and respect, get them away from underange and marginalized people as soon as possible.
  • Learn signs of abuse and harassment and find out if someone needs help if they seem in trouble.
  • Start using safety tools (link) and encouraging consent-based play in your games.

 

These don’t sound so hard, but they will take effort and time. If you want more complex efforts, hire a diversity consultant for your convention, for your project, and anything else you want to do. Ask people for their perspectives. Trust people who ask for help. This section is so brief because the reality is, the work isn’t complicated – it’s just going to be challenging. We need to change our culture and our ways of responding to the needs of survivors, and help protect people from being harmed in the first place.

 

Let’s start now.




US Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
– Chat https://hotline.rainn.org/online/terms-of-service.jsp

 

US Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
– Worldwide chat: http://www.thehotline.org/about-us/contact/

 

US Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-8255
– Chat http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineChat.aspx

 

I apologize for not having non-US numbers at this time. The chats should be accessible for anyone, and if you still need help, please contact me directly via contactbriecs@gmail.com. I’m sending good vibes to you as well as I can. Thank you!

 

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

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Harassment in Indie Games: Part 3 – Where and Why

Content warning: sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual violence, threats, online harassment, threats of violence, harassment and assault of minors, statutory rape, rape, mental illness, anxiety, social ostracizing, perspective of offender

Harassment in Indie Games: Part 3 – Where and Why

This is the third post (posts one & two) in a series about sexual harassment and assault in indie RPGs, larps, and spaces. I put out a survey to ask people about their experiences. This post is going to cover Where (where the events are happening, where are people making efforts) and Why (why do people do these things, why is this happening right now, why is it happening in these spaces).
As I said before, this has not been an easy task for me or, especially, for the people who shared their stories. I am incredibly grateful to the people who responded. Whether they chose to be anonymous or to share their personal information, I think it takes a lot of fortitude to talk about our experiences.
 
Find the post after the cut.
 

WHERE

Where are these events happening?

The primary locations for these events are: conventions, game tables/larp spaces, and online or face-to-face communities (so either local gatherings/social groups offline or online social groups/gamer collective spaces).
 
— Content note for discussion of online harassment in detail —
 
In the responses and in my own general awareness, online harassment is a huge issue. One example:
 
– I responded to someone discussing abuse from [an individual] with “Oh yeah, are people not all aware of that guy yet?” and had porn and hate speech sent to me by 200 or so disposable twitter accounts.
 
Harassment online – including rape and death threats – is extensive. I’ve experienced it personally, though not nearly to the extent of some respondents or those who are well-known who have experienced it. Online harassment is no blip. It can be targeted to force people out of work, or even just to get them out of the hobby. It is known and acknowledged that many people in indie games have left indie games entirely because of the harassment and extensive verbal assault, as well as doxxing and spamming.
 
— End content note for discussion of online harassment in detail —
 
My last note here is that online harassment has left some respondents in therapy, with panic attacks and PTSD, from the extent of this trauma. It is painful and terrifying to not know whether you will be safe from online harassers because they could and often do take the time to find your personal information and use it to harm you. We can’t forget that online harassment is significant, and that it is extensive. Respondents even reported the trauma from this being worse than their face-to-face experiences with harassment and assault.
 
I want to place a huge emphasis on the fact that a large number of the responses for all genders involved at-table (or in-larp) behavior that was disrespectful, violating, and/or simply inappropriate. People getting overtly hit on, people having their characters raped or assaulted, physically forcing people to touch each other or share space, etc. A lot of people talked about how no one seemed to try to stop things, or how they felt helpless. This isn’t how game experiences should be.
 
Some things, such as domestic violence, primarily happen in private, but the associated behaviors to domestic violence often spill over into public social interactions. This is the same with people who harass others in private – their behaviors aren’t exclusive to behind-closed-doors. Additionally, some people harm others in public – and as noted in previous posts, with no regard for others, and at times with no one stopping or condemning them.
 
Some of the locations mentioned were:
 
  • Convention rooms
  • Online (Twitter, G+, Tumblr, etc.)
  • Convention floors
  • Game tables
  • Larp spaces
  • Parties at cons
  • Private emails
  • Con events
That is a hell of a lot of places to feel afraid in, or afraid of going into. It makes me wonder how many people have left games because someone groped them, assaulted them, harassed them, and one of the most frustrating to me, used the social group’s culture and their social or political influence to make sure that the person had to suffer through long-term harassment or leave. That was in at least ⅓ of my responses. A third. When people mock safe spaces, I don’t think they realize how unsafe the world is.

Where are efforts being made?

There are some people making efforts, and they should be commended. Of the conventions I’ve attended, all of the conventions run by Double Exposure (www.dexposure.com) have comprehensive harassment policies, and Big Bad con has a great one as well. Both cons encourage the use of safety tools at tables (like Script Change, the X-Card, Lines and Veils, etc., which I’ve seen Big Bad Con includes in their program and on their site). A number of other cons, including smaller cons, seem to be taking action in this regard, too, which is great! This should be across the board, not just by a few cons.
 
There are also a fair number of people are including or building safety mechanics into their roleplaying games (Kids on Bikes by John Gilmore and Doug Levandowski; The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by Matt Gwinn; Lovecraftesque by Becky Annison and Josh Fox; Bluebeard’s Bride by Sarah Richardson, Marissa Kelly, and Whitney “Strix” Beltrán & others) and speaking about content and consent in them. This is awesome, but it doesn’t solve everything. Table culture is something that we all need to work towards improving, and looking for methods of change are being done mostly by those who have already been hurt or those most at risk. We’re working hard, and we need more people to work hard alongside us.

WHY

Why do people do these things?

The respondents didn’t provide much in this regard because I didn’t want to put them in the place of having to interpret the actions of someone who hurt them. However, a lot of the thread of the responses were things like social power, lack of respect of people’s consent or autonomy, promoting the “fun” of GMs or other players over the safety and comfort of the harmed players, and environments contributing to people having control over others.

While it’s impossible, I think, to know the whole of the mentality behind someone deciding they’re going to hurt someone else or the reasons why someone would be careless enough to do so accidentally, I want to offer a perspective.

— Content warning for descriptions of groping & predatory behavior including motivations from the perspective of an offender —

I have, twice that I know of, harmed someone in a sexual context. During the times I was in a manic fugue, I don’t know if I did then. It’s obviously not something I’m proud of and I have changed since then (the ones I remember were a long time ago). I’ve made steady efforts to not be that person anymore, but I know the things I was thinking.
 
[Note: I am not sharing these stories to make anyone feel bad for me, or to focus on the bad actors so much, I am just offering perspective of the bad reasoning for bad acts. I am sharing this so that those who are unfamiliar with or ignorant of sexual harassment and assault can see that people who they know can be bad actors and so they can realize how shitty this is.]

The two situations I recall were both while I was intoxicated, so my memories are blurry. However, the first time I was kissing someone and just took it too far because I was excited and thought they were into it. Eventually I realized they were uncomfortable, but it was too late. I groped them and it was awful that I did. This was me being selfish and ignorant and it was wrong. I wasn’t thinking anything except about what I wanted, and assuming they would be into it, without seeking consent.

In the other instance I grabbed someone’s ass (a stranger) while I was drunk. That might sound mild to someone, but it was wrong and harmful. I didn’t have their consent, and I was just trying to prove that I could do what I want. It was about power.

— End content warning for mild descriptions of groping & predatory behavior from the perspective of an offender —

Two reasons: ignoring someone’s consent (or lack thereof) because of selfishness, and power. These are pretty common. The second is more common than the first. The second needs to be fought constantly with education and by removing people from the situations where they can be harmed, and by condemning their actions. They need to know they can’t do it and that it won’t be tolerated, and that they need to change and never do those things again.

While there are people who are ignorant, drunk idiots, they are often that way because our culture encourages it and teaches it, and those people should be educated. We are responsible for that, and by “we” I mean “all humans, especially those who have social or political influence.” There needs to be active movement to discourage this kind of ignorance, and we should create spaces safe from the drunken behavior of people who don’t understand or respect consent.

If you have sexually assaulted or harassed someone and want to know how to move forward and make it right if you can, check out this link. It is unfortunately extremely biased towards men being the perpetrators, but aside from that, pretty useful.

Why is this happening right now?

It’s not new, for one. It’s just becoming more well-reported because of the access to communication and media that is allowed by modern technology, even though some of the problem is that technology can make it easier (harassment via IM or email or phone, doxxing, etc.).

However, there are a hell of a lot of reasons why our culture overall is allowing this, most of which involve power. You can look at the US President and see that sexual harassment and assault is accepted at the highest levels of our society, and the recent outings of many, many men who have assaulted people are overwhelming. You hear regularly about police abusing the people they arrest, or those they are just using, and many police are domestic abusers, too. Sexual harassment and assault is a regular part of our lives, and the current climate – one where so many bad actors are in power, in our government, many people have defended a pedophile. Either people want power or they just don’t give a shit about anyone else.

Members of government and various “elites” (rich people, celebrities, etc.) constantly abuse the power they already have, while people who feel they don’t have power – many geeks, those who are insecure, and so on – can hurt people in search of power. Our culture allows for people to more easily hurt women (trans and cis), queer people, and even men because we don’t criticize bad behavior even when we’re considering who among us should be a just enough person to police us, to be in respected, or to be considered a leader.

Why is it happening in these spaces?

Because we don’t do those things, for one. Many conventions lack harassment policies or behavior policies, though some are improving on that. The majority of game tables lack use of safety tools and many avoid the discussion of acceptable behavior in general, and this spills into small gaming communities.

People don’t call out behavior. We don’t stop hiring people when we find out they’re hurting people. We excuse people because of their social, political, or professional roles. We allow community members to continually be predatory towards underage players. We disrespect the autonomy and identities of marginalized community members.

The reality is that we don’t have established boundaries, and we don’t have rules. I imagine a lot of this is in the core of gamer/geekdom – we’re trying to break away from societal rules, we want to have our own worlds, it’s about escapism, etc. and so on. And I get it, right? Doing what you want is fun! Having control of your life and having fun is great. But this kind of culture, the acceptance of ignoring rules that protect people and the use of fiction to abuse people? Not cool, y’all.

This issue is not exclusive to gaming spaces, or even geek spaces. It’s everywhere. But it’s not that this behavior is common that is the issue. It’s that it keeps happening and far too often, no one says a word, even when someone asks for help. We turn away when people are in need because “they’re harmless,” or “they’re socially awkward,” or “they can’t be bad, they’re such a good [designer, gamer, friend, etc.],” or “we can’t kick them out, they’ve always been here.”

We need to step up.

 

US Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
– Chat https://hotline.rainn.org/online/terms-of-service.jsp

US Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
– Worldwide chat: http://www.thehotline.org/about-us/contact/

US Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-8255
– Chat http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineChat.aspx

I apologize for not having non-US numbers at this time. The chats should be accessible for anyone, and if you still need help, please contact me directly via contactbriecs@gmail.com. I’m sending good vibes to you as well as I can. Thank you!

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