Content Warning: Mention of suicidal ideation, self harm, online harassment, face to face harassment, reference to racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism.
Photos by Brie Beau Sheldon Copyright 2019.
The games “community” or “industry” – I’ve taken to calling it a “scene” because lordy, the drama – is constantly full of nightmarish amounts of discourse, especially of late. This happens. We have stuff to discuss, which I get. We got a lot of shit going on.
However, there’s some stuff I need to address because I have been in the indie scene specifically since around 2012 and some particular behaviors I’ve seen of late are not acceptable. Here are a few things I have heard of or seen happening that I, as a person in this community who tries to promote the good works of others, don’t want to see:
the purposeful triggering of others with legitimately triggering material or falsified/exaggerated materials for any reason
public naming of marginalized individuals in a manner that put them at risk for harassment, as well as outright doxxing of individuals for assumed (and falsified) differing political views
the goading or bullying of others to pressure them into making public statements or engaging in public or private social discourse with people who may or may not have greater social power than them
the further growth of a culture of fear for marginalized people in the name of “art” by implying, outright stating, or falsifying the bigoted or fascist perspectives of people or organizations with power in the scene
the reinstatement of typically men who have done harm into positions of power or the passive acceptance of their continued control of organizations or social groups in spite of their lack of repentance and lack of changed behavior, especially in light of continued bad behavior
the brushing under the rug of bad behavior and bad management at conventions and organizations that particularly affects marginalized people (like people of color, Black people, disabled people, and queer people) for reasons unclear
These are just like, the tip of the iceberg. This is just what I can remember right now, without doing excessive research. This is just the stuff that recently has been sticking in my craw. And you know what, I’m a white person! I have a safe place to live and some security. There are people in less privileged positions who are at greater risk and have probably encountered far more issues than me, been hit far harder with discourse sticks, and who have fewer places to escape to.
I am ashamed of this scene right now, for the actions I’ve seen in the past few months. These kinds of behaviors are not acceptable, they’re incredibly harmful, and we are extremely lucky that no one has died because of it yet – and I am not being an extremist when I say this. I have been in communities that lost people because of discourse. I have been, because of this scene, pushed to self harm and suicidal ideation.
At the start of this year, we dealt with a massive, horrific trauma as an industry,* and it’s still ongoing. We are scarred and constantly bleeding from reopened wounds. We are cruel to each other in ways that are so unnecessary! We do not need to hurt each other like this.
*I’m referring to what some people call our “Me Too” moment that doesn’t even come close to covering all of the predators in our industry.
I am begging, as this year comes to a close, that we try harder to do better. Look at your life, look at your choices – what harm have you done, and how can you undo it? How can you instead do good going forward? Do better, and operate with care and passion and love, not vindictiveness, siloed group secretiveness, and desires to keep yourself and your favorites elevated at the cost of the wellbeing of others.
We could blossom. We could grow, and flourish, and become something more amazing than we’ve ever been, but we will not if people start turning inward, hurting themselves in self-loathing and desperation, abused by their own fellows and afraid of falling short or worse, doing well enough that people demand more of them.
I am not a perfect person. I have fucked up so colossally and terribly, and I have tried to make amends and become better. I am still trying. I’m asking you to try with me. We can operate with hindsight. We can develop some foresight, even, with just the slightest bit of introspection, into how we could improve.
I will do better. Please hold my hand and do it with me.
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 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.
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.
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.
Tell me a little about Red Carnations on a Black Grave. What excites you about it?
Red Carnations on a Black Grave is a freeform rpg about the Paris Commune, a brief but intense socialist revolution in 1871. For ten weeks radicals, socialists, and the working class controlled the greatest capital in Europe–until the French army arrived and brutally put down the “rebellion.”
The game explores the lives of 12 characters caught up in this intense moment in history, exploring their personal lives and relationships against a backdrop of a doomed resistance.
I came accidentally to this moment in history and then became fascinated by it. The Paris Commune is not well known, and I’m delighted to bring this crucial moment in the history of revolutionary struggle to more prominence. As a designer, it succeeds pretty well in capturing the kind of drama-infused and emotional play that I love to bring to the table.
The creator, Catherine Ramen.
What kind of research did you have to do to write the game and capture this experience?
It started when I picked up, more or less by chance, a copy
of Mary and Bryan Talbot’s graphic novel The Red Virgin and the Vision of
Utopia which is about the socialist and anarchist activist Louise
Michel (who is a playable character in the game). I’d never learned much about
the Paris Commune before this time, but I had been looking at maybe doing some
kind of French Revolutionary-themed game. The Commune is much later than the
original revolution, but it quickly became a source of deep interest to me.
I read several works in English (John Merriman’s Massacre:
The Life and Death of the Paris Commune is an excellent overview and
introduction), mostly on the academic side of things, with a focus on the experience
of women in the Commune, but also some primary sources written by the
participants in the Commune. My French isn’t terrible, so I was also able to
read some of the primary accounts of the Commune in French–this was the only
place I could find anything in depth about Joséphine Marchais, for example,
even though I mostly left that information off of her card in the game.
The one thing I think that really helped was to look at some
of the many, many posters the Commune government issued during its brief life.
I used those as a source for the Inspiration cards in the game–these are cards
that contain a historical event or situation and some sense impressions; it’s a
good way to get some historical information into the game without overwhelming
the players. About 90% of those cards are based on actual posters I
found.
Who are the people in this story? How do you think modern players can relate to them?
Right now there are twelve base characters in the game, plus
a thirteenth optional character we were able to add thanks to hitting a stretch
goal; we’re also going to have some more optional characters become available
if we hit other funding goals.
The characters are a mix of historical people and plausibly
historical characters. There’s Louise Michel, who was a badass (and a
pain in the ass) all her long public life; Joséphine Marchais, one of
three women to be sentenced to death for arson after the fall of the
Commune (the sentence was commuted). There are two families, the Marchandons with
a former political prisoner and a young widow among them, and the family of Amanda
Mercier a single mother and sex worker. She is in an explicitly queer
relationship with Lodoïska Caweska, another historical figure who
was often described as an “Amazon” and wore a uniform and carried
pistols; in the game she’s a veteran of the failed Polish revolution of 1864. I
wanted to make sure that the community of Montmartre (where the game is set)
was vibrant and diverse–as it was in reality; plus I wanted to make sure there
was representation from France’s imperialist ventures: so we have Dominique
Rousseau, a physician from Martinique who got her MD in the United
States, and Tariq Tannoudji, an Algerian light cavalryman who stayed in
France after the war against the Prussians. (Algeria went into revolt during
the period of the Commune, and was repressed pretty brutally as well.)
These are characters mostly living on the edge of society and of poverty, with a political system that is unresponsive to their needs and wants and voices that are not heard over the shouts of the rich. This is unfortunately probably relatable to a lot of people right now! Certainly as a queer designer I often find my anxieties about my future and my place in society are a pathway into these characters’ lives.
But also: one of the things I do when facilitating the game is to remind the players that while the game is often intensely political, those politics will emerge from the situation and the various historical inputs into the game. The best games of Red Carnations on a Black Grave in my experience have been the games when people focus first on their relationships, rivalries, hopes, and fears, and let those flow into the situation formed by the historical events. I mean, I don’t know how to play a revolutionary socialist in 19th century France, and I actually did the research! But I do have some thoughts on how to play a queer person caught up in a tangled love triangle, or an artist afraid of never having her voice heard, or someone trying to figure out how to keep food on the table. In that way I think most players can find a way to understand and relate to their characters.
What decisions did you have to make in design to encourage the complicated relationships and drama you want to see?
I have a story about that! When
I first started designing the game, I knew the characters were going to be the
most important part of the game so all my early work was concentrated on trying
to come up with plausible candidates and thinking about how they related. I
knew I wanted Louise Michel; I found references to Lodoiska Caweska in several
sources and she seemed too interesting to pass up, as was Josephine Marchais.
Beyond them I had plans for a physician, a priest, etc. Around October of 2017
I thought I had my final cut ready.
Then I went and saw Peter Watkins’ film La Commune (1871). It’s an
amazing and powerful movie, five and half hours long and in French, filmed on a
soundstage with over 200 actors, most of whom weren’t professionals; I highly
recommend it even with its eccentricities (for example, there’s ahistorical
television stations broadcasting from both Versailles and the Commune) and
after I got home at 2 AM I realized I had to tear up a lot of what i had
started and ground all the characters in the working class.
The other main change came after the early playtests. I
originally had several questions for each character printed on their cards; but
I quickly realized this was too limiting. One of the earliest rules changes was
to create a small deck of questions that the players would randomly draw. These
are pretty provocative and leading questions, and answering them fills out the
deliberately skeletal relationships between the characters. It also really
increases replayability as the setup will change every time the game is
run–and there are a lot of ways to answer the questions and use them. At one
recent game at Dexcon, one of the players leaned so hard into Marie having been
a police informant that she remained a spy for the Versailles government,
challenging her father’s beliefs and causing havoc to everyone around her. I’d
never seen that in a game before!
How do you support players emotionally and safely in such an intense emotional environment that also deals with difficult political issues?
There are safety tools mandated in the game; right now these
are the XCard, Open Door, and Lines and Veils, but I’m exploring the
incorporation of other tools. I’ve also asked Jonaya Kemper to help create some
exercises to deal with traumas that emerge from the game and do de-roleing
after it ends.
This goes back to asking players not to concentrate on the politics of the game
when framing scenes–the game is suffused with political content and doesn’t
paint the Commune with utopian colors (although the game is of course very
sympathetic to its cause). This helps I think ground players and distance them
a little bit from the grinding, mechanistic tragedy that will overwhelm their
characters.
This is an area that is going to continue to be worked on as we finish
development on the game; I’ve had games of Red Carnations that were extremely
cathartic and games that were extremely emotionally draining. I’m very invested
in making sure that this experience is emotionally deep but also safe for
everyone to enjoy as much as possible.
This post was originally posted on G+ by P.H. Lee on August 28, 2017. It was a significant influence on updates to the Script Change RPG toolbox, and is an essential read in regards to addressing safety in the game community and at every game table. Lee has authorized me to post the text here in full since G+ is dying, which I greatly appreciate – it’s super valuable!
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Preamble
I have PTSD. About 6-7 years ago, more or less, various pan-RPG techniques to control triggering[1] content — The Veil and the X-Card, to name two of a vast diversity — became commonplace in the RPG circles that I played in. Around the same time, I stopped participating in role-playing games at meet-ups and conventions, or anywhere else that these techniques were promulgated. These three things (PTSD, X-Card, and my withdrawal from play) are related. I’m writing this essay to discuss the ways that these techniques cut off my access to role-playing games, and introduce know techniques that, I hope, will point to a way forward in terms of accessibility.
Conflicting Access Needs Before I go further, I’d like to reference a term from the disability rights movement: conflicting access needs. Disabled people are extremely diverse and our disabilities are also extremely diverse. While an ideal world would have everyone’s access needs met at all times and in all circumstances, in many circumstances, with many disabilities, that is practically or fundamentally impossible.
An example, which I’m paraphrasing from Autistic blogger Mel Baggs: A group home for Autistic people have some occupants who constantly verbalize, and others who are hypersensitive to noise. The verbalizers have a reasonable access need to be allowed to verbalize. The hypersensitive have a reasonable access need for quiet. Both of these access needs are reasonable, but it is impossible to meet both of them in the same space.
For this essay, the point is that, while I’m describing ways that my (and others) access to role-playing games has been cut off, I want to acknowledge that the techniques in question were developed and promulgated — often by people with similar disabilities to mine — to meet a legitimate access need. That they cut off my (and others) access to role-playing games does not mean that they are inherently wrong, bad, or ableist.
I do not want this to turn into “X-Card (or The Veil, etc, etc) is bad” and, even more so, I do not want it to turn into “the people who propagate these techniques are bad.” That’s not my opinion and, also, it’s wrong. I am hoping that by writing this essay I can move the discussion of accessibility of RPGs for PTSD sufferers from “use this technique” to a conversation which can account for different players, different goals, different communities, and different access needs.
A Note on Personal Narrative
I’m going to use a personal narrative throughout this essay, because it is based on my own experiences of both role-playing games and PTSD. But I want to be clear: I am not speaking solely for myself in this. Simply from personal circumstances, I can attest that the problems I have are problems that are shared by a number of other people with triggered mental illnesses.
Likewise, there are people with triggered mental illnesses who have a very different experience — most importantly, there are people with triggered mental illnesses who find the X-Card, The Veil, etc. to be vital techniques for their access to role-playing games. I do not want to erase these people — they exist, and their experiences also matter.
Please do not take my use of personal narrative as evidence that I speak only for myself. I don’t. Likewise, please don’t take my speaking on this topic as someone with PTSD to assume that I speak for all people with triggered mental illness. I don’t.
The X-Card, the Veil, and all that
The X-Card, the Veil, and similar techniques have their roots in a section of Sex and Sorcery, a supplement for Sorcerer by Ron Edwards, where he (roughly paraphrasing) suggests a technique dealing with difficult sexual content in the game by “drawing a veil over it,” basically, describing it in loose terms and then moving on with play, rather than playing it out. This is included together with several other techniques, including actually playing it out and fading to black. From there, like many things from the Sorcerer supplements, it developed on the Forge forums as a more generalized technique that could be applicable to all games.
I first encountered The Veil as a universally applicable technique in the context of public play in the Pacific Northwest — I believe it comes out of the Go Play NW convention, but I could be mistaken. By the time it reached this form, it had mutated considerably — it was something that was invoked by a particular player, rather than a general technique for play, and it generally had the effect of erasing the content of play [2], rather than playing it out in a vague sense and then moving on. It became a widespread meta-technique[3], adopted at a lot of public play events.
Simultaneously [4], in the New York City play scene, John Stavropoulos developed the X-Card as a meta-technique. With the X-Card, the system is formalized. By “throwing the X-Card” (either a physical card marked with an X or just an invocation), a player stops play, and the offending material is erased, and play continues as if it had never happened.
The X-Card grew in popularity and was adopted throughout the indie-games public play culture. By the time that I had largely retreated from public play (~2013), it was fairly universal. Although I have not been in touch with public play culture since, it does not seem (from my outsider perspective) to have become any less widespread.
My Experience
My first reaction to The Veil as a meta-technique was simply “well, I don’t want to do that.” At the time, it was not generally regarded as a universal meta-rule, so that was the end of my encounter with it. However, as it grew in popularity, I began to be increasingly averse to it. I remember a particular event — I think it was at Indie Hurricane, although I could not guess at the year — where it was introduced as a generic rule for all pick-up games. I got a horrified, sinking feeling, my eyes started to flutter and my stomach twisted — familiar signs of a triggering [1] event. I cannot remember whether I then said to my players “I’d like not to use that for our game” or not — I cannot even remember if I ran my planned game or left the scene immediately. Poor memory often accompanies being exposed to triggers.
I tried playing a few games with the rule in place, thinking I could maybe get used to it. Even though, to my recollection, it was never invoked, those games left me an anxious wreck afterward.
I stopped going to convention events as often. I started going to local public play groups, but shortly thereafter the meta-rule spread there as well, and I stopped attending those as well.
I did not at the time understand why this was triggering to me. I’m not entirely sure I was conscious that I was being triggered — it seems obvious in retrospect but I think that at the time I was not able to recognize exactly what was going on.
I made several attempts to communicate my distress — I remember talking on separate occasions with John Stavropoulos and Avery Alder about it — but because I didn’t understand what was going on, I could not clearly explain my problems, let alone propose solutions. Obviously, my attempts at communication were unsuccessful [5].
The Veil was replaced by the X-Card, and the technique continued to spread. I continued to retreat from Indie RPG circles, although I continued to play with personal groups and in non Indie RPG spaces such as AmberCon NW.
As an aside, I should say that this inaccessibility was far from the sole reason I retreated from Indie RPG circles and that, also, I do not regret having done so. My retreat has allowed me to spend more time on fiction writing, on personal friends, and on campaign play of RPGs. All of these have benefitted me both personally and professionally.
The problem
Both the X-Card and The Veil (as practiced in the PNW at that time) have as their core concept that the correct default way to handle triggering material in a role-playing game is to excise the material from the fictional timeline and thereafter to continue play. This is a commonplace understanding of how triggers work — remove the trigger, problem now solved.
This is, for me, a disaster, because it replicates the environment of denial and powerlessness that caused my PTSD in the first place.
Fundamentally, any approach to triggering material that contains any element of “pretend it never happened” is emotionally disastrous for me, because it recapitulates the environment of denial and dismissal around my traumatic experiences. This is not limited to excising the material from play — it also includes attempts to dismiss, deny, or minimize it.
No technique that centers this approach can possibly be functional as an accommodation; furthermore, any game or community that uses a technique that centers this approach is necessarily inaccessible to me, because an environment that centers denial as a coping strategy for triggering material, is in and of itself, a traumatic trigger.
Centering status quo vs centering healing
Fundamentally, these meta-techniques center the status quo — the goal is to “deal with” the triggering event, or the triggered person, and then return to regular play as if the interruption had never happened. I submit that, due the nature of PTSD, this approach is fundamentally flawed.
Once I have been triggered, I am in a traumatic experience. No amount of care or concern or comfort or accommodation can untrigger me. The question is not “how do we return Lee to the status quo?” or “how can we stop Lee from having a traumatic experience?” because those goals are impossible. The question is “what kind of traumatic experience is Lee going to have?” It can either be a damaging experience — one that reinforces the trigger and my PTSD — or it can be a healing experience — one that lets me recontextualize the trigger and its part of the trauma into my normal psyche.
Denial and social pressure to “return to normal” are damaging experiences.
Acknowledgement, empowerment, and story-building are healing experiences.
I believe that, in principle, good techniques for dealing with PTSD in role-playing games will avoid damaging experiences and center healing experiences.
The Luxton Technique
I didn’t post about my problems with X-Card, The Veil, etc for a long time because, among other factors, I did not have a proposed solution or alternative technique. All I could do was say “I’d rather have nothing than this,” but “no technique” is not particularly good rallying cry and it was not really a meaningful solution, just an attempt to get back to the somewhat-more-accessible-but-not-great status quo.
Until last year, I truly believed that there was no technique that would improve access to RPGs for some PTSD sufferers without also excluding PTSD sufferers like myself. But, last year, I played in a role-playing game at AmberCon NW that was specifically focused on traumatic experience and, particularly, centering the trauma of the players in the story we made. In that game, we used a particular technique — which I’d like to call the Luxton Technique after the GM of the game — which I found to be empowering, healing, and accessible to me.
It’s difficult for me to summarize all the parts of this that worked, but, roughly, the Luxton Technique includes:
* An honest discussion of potential traumatic triggers prior to play, in a supportive environment, with the understanding that there is no possible way to identify or discuss every conceivable trigger or trauma, and with no social pressure to disclose particulars of individual trauma.
* When, in play, a player encounters triggering material, they can, if they choose, talk about that to the other players. When they do this, the other players listen.
* As part of talking about it — and possibly the only thing that they need say — the player is given absolute fiat power over that material, expressed as a want or a need. For instance “I’d like to play [character name] for this scene” or “I need this to have a happy ending” or “I want this character to not be hurt right now” or “I need this character to not get away with this” or “By the end of play, this should not be a secret” or “I need to stop play and get a drink of water” or “I don’t have a specific request, I just wanted you to know.”
* A player does not need to use their traumatic experience to justify any requests or demands. We just do it.
* A player does not need to be the one to speak first. We keep an eye on each other and we are watchful for people who seem withdrawn or unfocused or upset. If we are worried about someone, we ask.
* We play towards accommodating that player’s requests.
It’s hard to overstate how much the Luxton Technique (or, really, set of techniques) helped us approach extremely difficult, extremely person material, both for the trauma survivors at the table and for the non-survivors. Rather than having our traumatic experiences — already a disjoint with reality — cause a disjoint in play, we were able to integrate them into play and tell a story about or, at least, at an angle to, our traumatic experiences, real and pretend.
Healing and RPGs
I am well aware that it sounds both pretentious and terrifying to talk about RPG play as a process by which one might legitimately heal from trauma. But I’d like to elaborate on that a little, because I think it’s important.
Fundamentally, a traumatic experience is an experience that is at a disjoint with the narrative of one’s life. Having PTSD means that your trauma exists out of time, out of place, and always in the present tense. A big part of recovering from PTSD, inasmuch as it is possible, is not about excising the trauma or your continued experience of it. Rather, it’s about integrating the trauma into normal memory and a normal narrative of your life.
A big part of that is story-telling, because a story is about incorporating disparate elements into a coherent narrative. And, for me, a big part of that story-telling has been role-playing games. In this essay, I present the choice as a binary — either a game can harm, or it can heal. That’s a lot of pressure to put on something as casual as a role-playing game! But, also, story-telling helps, and the story itself doesn’t need to be traumatic. Any story-telling experience can contribute, constructively, to healing, because PTSD sufferers need to be able to tell our own stories to the world and, more importantly, to ourselves. As an accessible storytelling medium, RPGs can’t be beat. They have been, and continue to be, a great help to me. In introducing these techniques, I am hoping that they can continue to be a help to others as well.
This is not limited to “heavy intense” sorts of stories that directly reference trauma. Ordinary RPGs can be stories about friends sticking together, or triumphing over evil, or just being clever and solving traps and puzzles, all of which have the potential to be healing narratives. Don’t think that I’m limiting the healing potential of RPGs to “serious” games or “serious” stories. I’m not.
It’s a reasonable reaction to say “I don’t want to do anything that heavy in my RPG!” or “I can’t be responsible for this!” And, obviously, don’t play in circumstances that you’re uncomfortable. But RPGs, and the people I’ve played them with, have given me so much healing. It’s wrong for me to dismiss, deny, or belittle that simply because games are a recreational activity. I hope that, in looking at problems of accessibility of RPGs, we can look to their potential to heal as much, if not more, than their potential to harm.
My hope (edited addition)
My hope is that this essay will start / continue a conversation where we look critically at our tools and techniques for RPG play. I hope that we can get to a place, as a community, where we understand that they are not one-size-fits-all and that we are able to take a look at what that means in terms of accessibility. I’d like for us to be able to make better-informed choices about accessibility and our RPG play, and the trade-offs that entails.
—
[1] Because I have no alternative vocabulary, I’m going to use “triggering” in this essay to describe images, words, or ideas that trigger traumatic flashbacks, panic attacks, or other PTSD symptoms. I’m aware of the popular usage of “triggering” as a derisive term for an emotional reaction. I am not using it in that respect. Please, also, refrain from doing so in responses. Thanks.
[2] I’m not sure exactly when the pivot from “veil as not playing out blow-by-blow” to “veil as erasing the content from play” occurred. It might have been after this.
[3] I use the term “meta-technique” to mean “a role-playing game rule intended to be used with any game.” In some cases, it is “a role-playing game rule intended to be used with every game.”
[4] I am not sure about the historical relationship between the X-Card and the Veil. It’s possible that there was some inspiration. It’s also possible it was a parallel development.
[5] I do not want to cast any aspersions on John or Avery for our failure to communicate. Both of them listened as well as they could have to my concerns, even though I was unable to communicate them clearly. The failure was definitely on my end, and I want to thank both of them for their patience in waiting this long to hear my thoughts more clearly expressed.
I have puzzled for days on how to make this statement, so I hope this ends up being good enough. The Twitter statement was brief and to the point, but this needs to address some things more specifically. I do appreciate your patience.
Content Warning: Sexual assault, sexual harassment, harassment, grooming, threats, doxxing, rape, missing stairs, abuse of authority.
It starts out bad.
There was recently a statement released by Mandy Morbid and two others, Jennifer and Hannah, all ex-partners of Zak Smith (a.k.a Zak Sabbath, a.k.a. IHitItWithMyAxe, a.k.a. dndwithpornstars). The statement described domestic and sexual abuse by Zak towards the women in some detail (link here, content warning for domestic and sexual abuse, ableism). It was followed up by a statement by Vivka Grey reporting similar issues (link here, content warnings for domestic and sexual abuse, toxic objectification).
The internet in indie and OSR gaming erupted. It spilled elsewhere, too. Zak has been a troublesome member of our community for some time – people have been reporting his harassing, threatening behavior for around a decade, including many marginalized people who were pushed out of the community by the bad behavior or by backlash after reporting. Some people were pushing to excise him immediately, others wanted his story. Some of us got caught up in community in-fighting that served to muddy the waters, but I think it’s beginning to clear.
I will give full disclosure that, by my experiences, Zak has made my life more difficult. The actions of his supporters have done so, as well, including some people who will go on without ever apologizing or making up for it, I know that. I don’t trust a lot of people because of Zak. I think his actions have threatened my professional career and they have been part of the impetus for the clinical acute paranoia and trauma triggers I suffered that partially led to me having to leave my rather lucrative corporate job in 2015. Yes, I was vulnerable in the first place. That doesn’t mean that making it worse through ill behavior was a kind and loving thing to do.
That means it is easier for me to make a statement that I will not publish articles supporting his work, that I will not go to conventions that support his work. However, Zak is not the only missing stair in our community (link to blog post about what missing stairs are, content warning for sexual assault and rape). There are people I used to work for who have done harm too, and one of those has been public since around the Harassment in Indie Games series I did in 2017, but I didn’t make a public statement. I should have.
It gets worse.
Matthew McFarland, someone who I have interviewed for Thoughty and who I have worked for while doing the Demon: Interface project, is a serial predator. Cheyenne Grimes came out about this in 2018 to IGDN (link to Cheyenne’s recent post, content warning for sexual assault and trauma), and the investigation that occurred then is being re-investigated because at the time, Michelle Lyons-McFarland was IGDN president. When Matt was removed from RPG.net as mod, reportedly Michelle was still a mod and helped to prevent further survivors from speaking up. Some of those survivors like Luka Carroll have spoken up publicly (link here, updated link here, content warning for grooming and assault and specifically noting relation to trans individuals as targets.)
I am angry about this. I am bitter that this entire situation occurred, that Matt could keep doing harm, that it was covered up, that people were ever harmed at all. I am angry I ever promoted Matt, or considered him a friend. The thing is, Matt is not the only person I have had an experience like this with.
There is a situation some people find themselves in where they know secrets. These secrets are very important, and if they confessed them, maybe someone could be protected. But if they confess them, maybe someone could be hurt very badly. This is the peril of knowing about missing stairs in the community, and knowing on behalf of their survivors or yourself. I know about multiples of these and until I am authorized to do so by the survivors or those currently affected, I won’t release the information. I made that choice. It still feels absolutely vile. I am angry about it every single day.
Don’t harass, doxx, or threaten anyone for any reason ever.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of each other.
Remember that infighting is what bad actors want.
Center the survivors.
Try to love, if you can.
Sounds harder than anything right now, honestly. But, I’m trying. With these comes people making statements, and sometimes those statements are less than great. I’m not linking to the good ones or the bad ones. I don’t have that time.
What I do have time to do is give my statement. The official Thoughty word, as it were, here on the blog, not just on Twitter. This is what I can do right now. What I will do going forward, a bit, but it’s a now. How do we fix our fractured community? How do we build bridges between indie and OSR and trad when somehow they’ve all been blown up by this? How do we deal with the fact that there are missing stairs everywhere, and they mostly remain some charismatic fuckers? I can’t tell you that.
I can tell you to learn about DARVO, the way abusers behave when called out (link here, content warning for discussion of abuse and trauma), and when someone is an asshole, don’t blame it on the internet. I can tell you to practice apologizing well. I can tell you to check those rules I just shared and follow them. And I can tell you this:
I love you. Even if you fuck up, I will love you. All I ever ask of you is to try to be better. If you are doing bad things, stop doing them. Apologize. Try to make up for it. Don’t hurt the people any more than you already have. If you’re not doing anything bad, keep an eye out for the things that might make you slip up. We all fuck up. Thoughty isn’t a site only to promote and praise the perfect, but we had better do a damn good exercise in trying if we want to make the world stay alive for tomorrow. I expect you to be better. Every chance you get.
The Official Thoughty Statement
Thoughty supports survivors of abuse and harassment and believes them.
This platform is not a space for anyone who perpetrates acts of harassment, abuse, or violence, especially against marginalized individuals. Thoughty will not post to promote or endorse these perpetrators on the main site or on social media.
I will not attend or endorse conventions without an effective and enforced code of conduct, and if I know a known perpetrator is a guest, I will not attend or endorse.
Thoughty can and will refuse any and all submissions for interviews, features, reviews, or endorsement if there is a publicly or privately known allegation of abuse or harassment that I can in any way reference.* If I am made aware of an allegation after posting an article, I will assess whether it is safe to contact the accused to let them know they can appeal, and whether it is or not, I will take the post down or post a warning at the top of the post based on the perspective of the survivor if I am able to obtain it.
I reserve the right to take down posts or apply warnings at the top for any reason, even beyond this, because the safety of my readers is paramount.
If you are aware of a post I have up that supports a perpetrator of harm in our community, please notify me using my content form and I will assess it as appropriate. Please understand I am running the site on my own, so things may take time, but they will be resolved to the best of my ability.
Thank you for your time and attention on this big post! And thank you for taking this in, and moving forward for the better. Believe survivors!
*ETA 2/16/19 5:31pm – changed “confirm” to “reference.” The former is not what I meant. I just mean I need to know what the allegation is.
Hi all! Today I have an interview with Richard Williams, who hosts The Playmaker Awards and is running a Kickstarter focused on them! This sounds like a fascinating initiative and I hope you’ll all check out the interview below and the awards themselves!
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This is so cute!
Tell me a little about The Playmaker Awards. What excites you about them?
The Playmakers are a set of awards not for great rpg designers, game-runners or even players, but rather for the people who work hard doing the admin and scudwork creating spaces for others to play roleplaying games.
So this might be someone who runs a convention, or the rpg track at a convention, someone who keeps a local meetup or open gaming group going. It could be in-person or online. Or it could be an entirely different way of creating space for others unique to them.
I think we often under-value and underestimate the time and labour that goes into these roles. Or just don’t think much of it at all. When I’m heading to an rpg event I’m going there to game and that’s where my focus is, and of course I’m aware that people organised stuff so that there’d be a room and table and chairs and other players, but I don’t see that effort. I just have the end-result presented to me so I can game and enjoy myself.
But I don’t think that any of these playmakers do it for the recognition; I expect most of them consider it a sign that they’re doing a good job if the public don’t see all the effort behind the scenes – that they have as seamless and smooth as an experience as possible. But that just makes it more important that these playmakers do get recognised by others, because they’re not going to put themselves forward and yet their effort is so critical to the hobby. I played my first game at a local convention. I rely on them, both to play new games and to keep in touch with people who I only otherwise see online. What would this hobby be without them? A shadow of what it is, to be certain.
As to what excites me about the Playmaker awards: every stage of it so far. When I asked for nominations I was fascinated to see who would be put forward. When I contacted people to tell them they had won, some of them were bemused to win an award they’d never heard of, but some others – I don’t know – I think it might just have come at a time when they really needed that kind of appreciation. Announcing them was exciting as well, to see word spread. And now I’m into interviewing some of them for the Playmaker zine kickstarter, which really is a privilege for me; these folk spend so much time working for others in the hobby already, it’s very generous of them to spend more time so I can find out more about what they do and why they do it.
How are you determining who fits the category to be nominated or win?
I tried to describe as best I could the folk I wanted nominated and then I’ve trusted the people who took the time to reply to one of my posts with a nomination. My basic criteria was whether someone created space for others to play. I specifically excluded rpg design-work – I think we have a variety of different ways already of recognising great designers – and game-runners (such as DMs/GMs) and players as they are the ones who get to sit down and play.
In my mind, the most obvious candidates are con organisers – the many folk who I’ve seen standing behind a desk or walking through the con who’ve given up their weekend (and I don’t know how many hours before) so that _other people_ can play. However, I also wanted the awards to go further. I don’t know what play spaces are out there today, nor what’s involved in organising them, and so keeping the nominations more open was another means of discovery.
What is the judging process like and how do you decide winners?
I knew I definitely wasn’t the person to judge or rank the level of contribution made by each nominee. And what would the benefit be of saying that this playmaker who runs the rpg track of a massive convention is more or less deserving than this other playmaker who has been running a small rpg club all by themselves for twenty years? What criteria would make sense to use? What other factors would you consider? If I’m not the right person to judge, who is?
I saw the judging process as a big minefield and ultimately antithetical to my overall goal of both recognising their efforts and building a network of goodwill in this time of separation and fragmentation. So, in essence, I pushed the judging process to the nominators as well. If someone else thought you met the criteria and thought enough of you to nominate you then – assuming I could contact you and you were the person broadly doing what you were being nominated for – then you were a playmaker in my book.
The final judge I should mention was the playmaker themselves. My first question for all of the winners was whether they accepted (and, in fact, one of them didn’t). I wanted to make sure that everyone was comfortable, both the people nominating and the people being nominated.
And I feel trusting folk and being led by their nominations worked. While I did go back to a few nominators to get more details on their nomination, I haven’t rejected anyone for being outside of the scope of the awards and I’ve included a bunch of playmakers who I perhaps wouldn’t have heard of if I had been more restrictive.
What do you think the benefit is of an awards process for playmakers?
I think it’s different for the individual and the hobby as a whole.
For the hobby, I feel that awards help define its values. I previously did annual awards for the London Indie RPG meetup and I had an award for most played game but also one for most played designer because I didn’t want someone to miss out because they’d produced a batch of fun games rather than a single one. I also had an award for most popular game runner, partly as a thank you but also to encourage others to run games as well. Finally, I included special awards that were at my discetion and went to anyone who’d brought something a bit special to the group during the year such as coming in costume or fulfilling a vow to run a certain game for someone. I think it showed that we as a group valued those who brought that little extra joy to our lives.
Similarly with the Playmakers, by having such an award and by having others support and endorse it shows that creating space for others to play is a service that we value and appreciate. Just as certain holidays remind us to thank significant people in our lives and events like GMs Day remind us to thank those who run our games, so too the Playmakers reminds us and gives us the opportunity to thank these folk as well.
As to what benefit there is to the individual? To be honest, from the beginning I knew I couldn’t provide much. I did want to give each of the Playmakers something more than just a ‘thank you’ and a blogpost, something to make the award a little more substantial, to show my own sense of gratitude and so I settled on a $20 DriveThru voucher figuring that, as the Playmakers spend so much time for others enjoyment that it’d be nice for them to buy something for themselves. At a friend’s recommendation I reached out to OneBookShelf (who are the people behind DriveThru) and they very generously agreed to sponsor 25% of the total, so I put in $15 and they made it up to $20. I knew that, depending on the response rate, by advertising the voucher while nominations were open I was essentially writing a blank cheque, but the awards were not so popular as to put me in financial difficulty!
I was fully prepared that when I started reaching out to the winners that the general response from them would be ‘Errr… thanks, I guess… who are you again?’ (and I did get that a couple of times!) But actually it was far better than I expected. Most of these folk who are so generous with their time working for other people were equally generous with me, and interested to see who else were receiving awards.
And in a few cases, just winning the award struck something deeper. I don’t know what stage each of them are in the hobby or in their lives, but I do know from my personal experience that there are harder moments. Times when I reevaluate whether my time and effort is actually benefitting anyone else or even noticed. I think in maybe a couple of cases this award has come through at one of those more reflective times and been all the more appreciated because of it.
In all, I think in some cases the best thing that has come out of it for the winner is the nomination. When I asked for nominations I didn’t really expect anything more than ‘Person A for doing Thing B’, but some of the nominations are far more detailed and far more thoughtful. And I think it’s this personal message from someone a playmaker has helped can be the greatest benefit.
How would you encourage playmakers to act and what would you encourage them to do to make them a more likely candidate for the awards?
Just to keep doing what they’re doing! If they’re still enjoying it then keep at it, or change it up or take a break if it’s just become a labour.
I don’t intend the awards to change anything about what the winners do, rather I’m really hoping that it will inspire others to do the same. I did originally think that the awards would end with simply announcing the winners, but further it progressed the more I realised that this would be a disservice to the concept. The nominations have been great but they’re only a tiny glimpse of the Playmakers’ stories.
To that end, as part of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest initiative in February, I’ll be crowdfunding a collection of new interviews some of the Playmakers, getting into more detail about what they do, why they do it and what they need to do it better.
It’s been great to give these folks an award and a thank you, but it has been so much more interesting to dig deeper. I hope that the final product will be a unique perspective on the state of public rpg play today and that hearing their stories will inspire others to do the same.
As I wait for the Turn Kickstarter payout to hit my inbox, I reflect on the contracts I’m having my contributors agree to. We ask a lot of freelancers, a very lot – I know, because I am one. I try to be fair to the people I hire, and I know I have not always paid as much as I want to, but I hope someday I will be able to.
One thing I hope to always do, though, is keep the lights on.
I have something that I ask for as a freelancer that can sometimes make people balk. It’s what I call my “keep the lights on” (KTLO) arrangement. The “keep the lights on” arrangement is that upon contract sign, I get 25%-50% of my payment up front, invoiced and paid.
Not everyone can afford this, so I don’t always get it, but that’s okay. Those who can pay it most of the time, and it does what it says on the tin – it helps me keep the lights on. This arrangement has improved my work massively.
When a client is willing to sign onto this, it tells me:
They have funds to pay
They care for my wellbeing
They trust that I will do the work
They understand economic stress
If someone is doing a Kickstarter, they rarely have good reason not to do this. Once they get the KS payout, they should be able to pay you at the very least your KTLO pay. They have all the funds! You shouldn’t be required to work without a contract, and they don’t know they can pay you for the work until they get that payout. Once they give you a contract and you invoice them, funds should hit your account.
This does mean we need to focus a little less on rush deadlines for projects, but that’s just better for the whole damn thing.
Once I’ve accepted just a small like 15% up front payment to KTLO. It ended up paying for the additional cell data costs I had while working to meet the tighter deadline. It was a big help!
I used this model with the freelancers I hired for Behind the Masc and some expressed to me how helpful it was. It was a tiny payout, but even tiny amounts help when you’re struggling, like most freelancers tend to be. It can be a doctor’s copay. A meal. A grocery run. A haircut for a job interview. We should be thinking one step ahead of the encroaching poverty that threatens anyone without a reliable salary!
People do, in my experience, work better when they’re fed. When they are less afraid of their electricity being turned off, or their water or heat. My hands certainly shake less when the temperature is above 50F in my house. I’ve been without various utilities, even briefly, and worrying about that is the worst.
I’ve implemented this with Turn, as well. Every freelancer for the project is receiving the KTLO agreement, unless they require otherwise (though so far it’s all of them). For me, I feel better knowing they’ll have some funds in their account over the holidays. For them, I know some may be in need, as is the way for freelancing!
With the Kickstarter funds, it was an easier choice to make. If you’re working on a project that doesn’t have a lot of up front capital, consider doing a small payment like I talked about earlier – the Behind the Masc 50% payout was $30 and still helped people make it through. Remember that this is as much about a show of faith in the freelancer as it is about their true financial situation, but that even the cost of a meal can be enough to keep someone going and keep them feeling enthused for the project – as well as committed to the work.
In my contracts, I don’t typically have clauses that require someone to refund me the funds if they can’t complete work. I do have a note that if they can’t complete it, the remaining funds are forfeit, and any completed work that is usable gets turned over to me, maintaining their credit for the work. You might choose to do things differently, but this has worked for me. I’ve had people drop out before signing a contract, but not so far after.
It might sound like a weird way to make someone work, especially post-Daniel Pink’s talk about how purpose, autonomy, and mastery are the real motivators for people doing brain work and often creative work. But, our economies are supporting that less, and creative work is constantly undervalued as hard work. So, give it a try, maybe.
Help someone keep their lights on. Goodness knows, we could use a little more light in this world.
Photos by and Copyright Brie Beau Sheldon.
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Today, on the Twitters, Adam Savidan posted something that just really hit me.
I had a good weekend, but I seem to be fighting with this big empty hole feeling in my chest after I release any content, like I’m instantly irrelevant after it’s been finished.
– Adam Savidan @WakeUpSuper
One, I want to state that Adam is awesome and absolutely still relevant. His current showSpectator Mode is an amazing celebration of eSports and is infused with Adam’s enthusiasm. I love that! I don’t even watch eSports, but I watch Spectator Mode. Two, I totally get this, and I get how even after making something a-maaaaaayzing, Adam might feel a little like… bad.
Here I’ll talk about the bad feeling – what I’ll call the suck, some of what I do to try to fix it, and some of where I think it comes from.
The Suck
I just finished a Kickstarter, the most funds I’ve raised in a month through any means in my whole life, for a project that I deeply and passionately care about. But the truth is, for me, Turn has been done for a while – the minute I sent it to the editor, I felt like the main project died. The Kickstarter just performed some necromancy, and the next eight months are just riding on that wave of lich-love.
And right, I’ll get some bursts working on The Confidante (which is actually pretty much done) and a Moose, and doing dev work alongside the stretch goal writers. But like, I will be real with you, the editing process is basically hell for me, I will hate every minute of it ten times more than you hate gum on your shoe. But I’ll do it, cuz it’s what’s necessary to make a product, and yeah.
But when the stuff that keeps me going is done, like my design bits, that suck comes in like
“You’re not a real creator” “You’re not making anything useful” “No one cares about the work you’re doing” “Everyone’s already forgotten about you” “Nothing you make will last or be memorable”
And just. I can’t tell you how! much! I! HATE! IT! And I feel like I can’t do anything about it, and maybe, most of the time I can’t. I can try, you know? Like poke at it and make an effort. The alternative is to wallow negatively and agree with it and be like yeah, yeah, I super suck and I’m not good at anything. And ugh, gross. Gross.
@that_MAZ also tweeted this video of Wentworth Miller, a gay actor who is super inspiring to me for many reasons, talking about how we talk to ourselves:
It’s real good, and I’m grateful for the words. It’s also challenging, because man, I can’t imagine talking good about myself on a regular basis – I even did a semester-long mindfulness meditation dedicated to reducing negative self-talk. It helped, but it didn’t fix it – probably only constant vigilance would make a difference, and that’s…a lot.
I pretty aggressively beat up on myself for not doing well enough, not succeeding enough, not constantly working. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, there is not enough work done, and the minute the project stops, it’s the suck. This kinda one-two punch of things talking about how we feel about ourselves (that we are irrelevant if we are not creating) and how we talk about ourselves (hurtfully) really hit hard. So, I wanted to talk a little about how I fight the suck, both the better ways and the worser ones, and ways I am gonna try in the future.
Fighting The Suck, Part 1, AKA the Bandage Over the Void
One way I try to circumvent the suck is by lining up new projects of varying sizes and by working on projects alongside the main project. I worked on Ears Are Burning during the Kickstarter, worked on projects for Turn like The Confidante and The Opossum during the Kickstarter, and I announced my new project, The Unhurried Pursuit of Sloth (more soon) at the tail end of the Kickstarter. And I have work to do immediately after, too, like my project forOrun, a sensitivity read, Leading with Class, blog posts to prep, starting a Scion streamed game (as player), supporting the stretch goal writers & doing that dev work, edits for Turn, and a project I just signed on for with Glittercats Fine Amusements (signing the contract probably tomorrow).
Of these, only a couple of them seem like I’ll feel that creative filling for them, and a lot of the others are either different brain space or just not as satisfying as one of my own projects. And even so, even if I get that burst for them, each will end in turn. There’s a lot of fear here.
Where The Suck Comes From
Part of me fears that if I end one project without another lined up, I’ll feel worse, and another project won’t come. This is scary for me financially, too, because I do rely on a lot of this work for income to keep my lights on and ensure we eat. John works, so so much, but maintaining me as a functioning human is expensive. Like, without my income from Thoughty, we get very close to a scarier spot than we’re already in.
And the other part of me fears two things:
that I have nothing left to create – I am no longer a creator
that I am not valuable to anyone anymore – I am no longer valid
I have this deep and terrifying anxiety about not being useful? As a disabled person, as a person who has lost their usefulness time and again in varying ways, I am so afraid of the day I stop being useful to people entirely. To the day I am put in the corner to die. That is a full-on constant fear. And not creating anymore would make me much less useful, too much less, in part because of how hard not-game-design work is, and I die a little inside every time I realize how easily it could happen (see also: my brain is broken and some days I can’t words).
And the valuable thing? It’s just the other side of the coin. It’s where I’m nicer to myself about the reality and allow myself that people might see good in me, might benefit from being connected to me. But what if it is just because of what I create? What if they don’t see me creating stuff and being present and being a non-stop content creator every single day and they decide I’m not valuable anymore? There’s nothing good left to see in me? I’m no longer a valid investment of their time and energy.
And I get worried they’re gonna go away. That the people, they will leave me. It’s not like building an audience is easy, like, it’s fucking hard. I’m an entire person on this here internet and I’ve worked hard to make content that brings people to me so I am not alone in this universe, in appreciating the work I’ve done, and so on. And when a project ends it’s like, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh, I gotta try to keep them here. Losing your audience is a hard hit. I’ve had hits like that, where I fucked up or I was just not what people wanted and I bled followers like so bad. It can mean death to future projects, and it definitely means tons of work rebuilding, networking, trying to be enough. Sometimes finding whole new audiences. It ain’t easy. And that’s part of the fear: even if I manage to recover, if I ever make anything again, I have to redo all of what I’ve done and more, and it may never be enough.
This is even more complicated when you are friends with a lot of your audience, like I am, and like many creators are – you know they’re your friends, but what if someone makes a better, cooler thing while you’re sitting here, unable to create something amazing right now? Wouldn’t you rather they be happy?
Sometimes I wanna dump pudding on my brain for how easily it digs in to try to hurt me like this.
I think part of the resolution of this is identifying what our root fears are that cause this sucking feeling. Looking over them, mine are clear: safety based (wellbeing, financial security), purpose/identity based (usefulness, ability to be creative), social based (losing my social support net which directly impacts the others). And you know… those aren’t illegitimate fears.
And I’m feelin’ them while I look at my planned December break (more on that in a sec).
Fighting the Suck, Part 2, AKA Using Your Words
Sometimes, I turn to Mr. Rogers. See, Mr. Rogers wouldn’t have ever given me shit for not constantly working. He’d probably ask me to work a little less! Or just as much as I felt like was right for me.
And like…one thing I need to learn is that a lot of my audience is there for me as I am, even right after I finish a project, even when I haven’t worked on a project for a while. They care about me more than they care about what I produce. This is contrary to my brain, and fights against my fears.
So let’s start with that. Slam down some affirmations, right? Use the words that work for you. Try to address each of your fears.
It’s okay to be afraid of all the things that could go wrong.
It’s okay to want to feel useful and creative.
It’s okay to feel lonely when all the good words slow.
Next step is to chase away the lies. I try to avoid absolutes and stuff when I do this, but your language might work better for you, as usual.
Your creativity isn’t unlimited, but breaks are okay, and reinvigorate you.
Usefulness is not based on constant productivity.
Your friends and audience aren’t here purely because of what you create.
Then I think it’s important to put some good in. Go wild, be generous.
You can think up new projects when your brain and body have rested!
You look productive when you have completed projects!
Your audience can enjoy your work at their own pace if you take some time!
And now we can do the more action-y part. Here’s where I’d make a plan for how to fill the void.
What Fills Me?
This part is a pain because you have to think of like, the way you feel satisfied as a person. I’m going to talk mine out here.
Obviously there’s trying to do new projects. That helps! Ish. But there’s also like, getting positive comments from people that have nothing to do with my work, like, focusing on me as a person and their feelings about our relationship (or on my selfies & appearance, which is still kind of a bandage instead of stitches but ya know). Loving time with my partners or friends, and fun activities (actually playing games and stuff) help to offset the suck. Other creative activities than design like drawing, photography, and so on help me both distract myself AND keep me creatively satisfied.
Fighting the Suck, Part 3 AKA Filling the Void
If you have a project ending, it’s a good thing to set up a schedule for how you’re going to deal with the suck. Using a bandage like in part 1, and using your works like in part 2, both are steps to deal with it. But the final step is filling that void!
What I chose to do right after the Turn Kickstarter was to schedule the Kickstarter to end right when we get a paycheck so our bank account doesn’t feel so starkly empty, schedule & go on a photography trip with John for both love & creative time, make sure I post selfies and stuff to social media within a couple of days so I could get some positive comments from friends, and have a plan in place for the work I’ll be starting. I also did some stuff like drawing (I bought some new colored brush pens) and setting up for the Scion game. And I took some time off the Kickstarter! Like I haven’t sat and did emails or comments or anything, just like I promised. BUT I have been available on social media and interacting.
This can’t be it, though. The recovery has to be proportionate to my productivity, honestly. I did grad school, then did a Kickstarter, then did a Kickstarter. So, I’m also officially taking off the second half of December – from everything. I’ll be making sure I do photography, draw, and spend time with my partners. I’m allowed to work on game design if I really feel like it, so only when I have inspiration and enthusiasm, but no big project work. To facilitate this, I’m doing a two-week period where I’m resolving all my loose ends (edits for Turn, Orun work, pending paid work, etc.), and then I’m going to work on filling my void with something other than productivity.
It’s like a sucking chest wound, right, the suck? You gotta wrap it up and keep an eye on it, be ready to unwrap it if things get yikes inside.
To break down what I am doing, I’m addressing:
safety fears – scheduling of the Kickstarter near payday, arranging to get paid work done, maintaining my health by taking time off, separating myself from the Kickstarter so it’s no longer my whole life
purpose/identity fears – doing other creative things and spending time with partners, getting validation through selfies, allowing myself to be creative in games when I want
social fears – connecting with social media and getting engagement on selfies and my tweets from my audience, planning social things that prioritize my deep relationships, ensuring I’m still being “public”
It sounds like a lot but it’s challenging to take care of yourself, to fight your fears, and to find a pathway to deal with the suck! It’s also important to remember how much you can do during a project to ensure it doesn’t become all-encompassing. Like I didn’t do enough, but I tried to balance it by having a consultant do some of the work, not responding to Kickstarter comments when I was supposed to be in bed (this died eventually), and being thoughtful with my scheduling. The initial part 1 with bandaging by doing some design work alongside and ensuring I’d have design work post-Kickstarter was part of this.
One last of these kind of things I’ll be doing is I’ll be letting my audiences know that I’m dealing with this (in part through this post), so that if they’ve got some free energy, they can send good vibes my way.
There’s one more thing.
Fighting the Suck, Part 4, Unsuck Yourself
This is, I think, the hardest part – and it goes back to the Wentworth Miller video. We need to be kinder to ourselves. We need to not slide into telling ourselves we suck, and we need to speak to ourselves lovingly. So when our brain starts those bad things I talked about earlier, and like he says in the video, we gotta refocus. Talk to ourselves out loud, and make them good to us.
“If you do talk to yourself out loud… make sure that the words are loving, supportive, and nourishing. Start the work of being your own best friend.”
– Wentworth Miller
You aren’t the suck. You’re just a person who is done with a thing. An AWESOME thing! And you’ll have the chance to do more things, you just gotta remember that you need a break, too.
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P.S. – Maybe this will not be useful to anybody, but it might be useful to somebody! I just tried to think of all the things that are helpful for me and that I’ve been working on to deal with this problem that is really hard for me.
P.P.S. – The title of this is in reference to Linkin Park’s “In The End” which I’ve listened to constantly during periods of depression, which normally accompany the suck. Since Chester Bennington’s death, I’ve been trying harder to fight my depression than I ever have, because it has been super hard for me to cope with losing him – and I was just a fan who identified with his music. It made me wonder who would care if I was gone, and not want to hurt them. It matters.
P.P.P.S. – I looked up sucking chest wounds for this. There was an autoplay video. I suffer for my art.
Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/thoughty. Tell your friends!
Leading with Class, in case you don’t know (most people don’t!), is my YouTube show where I teach about leadership using roleplaying games. It’s the dream job I made real for myself through a lot of hard work and the support of my loving, and incredibly talented, partner John. It also still doesn’t feel much like a dream come true, because it comes with some overwhelming “but”‘s.
I get to teach leadership…but it’s not in a respected role. I get to teach using games…but it’s not seen as “fun.” I get to work from home…but I can’t pay my bills. I get to work with my partner…but he doesn’t get paid any better than I do. I get to share my vision with the world…but almost no one watches my channel.
In 2014, I made the decision to continue my pursuit of an education and get my degree in organizational leadership. From there, I continued on to graduate school and got a degree in leadership – and over that two year period, experienced continued health and career setbacks that left me unemployed at graduation. My job became Thoughty – and Thoughty is still my actual primary income. All $300-ish a month, maybe. I have ten years of career experience that the lessons learned can apply to my work in leadership, but no one wants someone who was mostly an admin in a position of leadership, and my health disallows a full time job.
So, whatever, fine, I said. I’ll make my job. With John’s encouragement (and from my other partner, Dillon), I started working on scripts for Leading with Class. Even now, it feels endlessly selfish, and working on Leading with Class instead of trying to dig through thousands of jobs to find at least one that pays $15/hr. and only requires 25 hours a week felt irresponsible. But I did it while still doing freelance work (as I am now) and Thoughty, and it was so wonderful to make something that meant so much to me!
What was less wonderful was the lack of feedback and viewership. I am incredibly grateful for the Leading with Class patrons on Patreon – honestly, it means the world to me that anyone would support this work. But it’s still extremely quiet. On all of our videos combined – all of them – we have fewer than 350 views. I’ve shared on LinkedIn, Facebook, G+, Twitter, Mastadon, and Instagram, and of course, they’re on YouTube. I’ve done streams on Twitch to garner interest, answering questions and writing the script live to engage viewers.
We have three comments on all of our YouTube videos combined.
Now, we’re lucky enough to have followers and subscribers on our variousmediaaccounts! There’s just really low engagement. I know we’re kind of a niche interest, but I’ve only ever seen (personally) fewer than 5 total shares of Leading with Class content outside of my own personal shares, John’s shares, and the dedicated shares of some of my close friends on G+. Most shares aren’t accompanied by any positive recommendation, either.
And you know, yes, this does sound like whining. But as a creator, as a person who struggles with impostor syndrome and serious anxiety and depression, and as a person, I think it’s essential that my viewers and readers know me as a real person, and that they know the truth. The truth is, creating the thing that means the world to me, living the “dream” like I am, is heavily dented by struggling to make it through financially every day and hearing basically silence when it comes to my work.
I am used to silence when it comes to my work. People don’t link and share my site(s) or my work very often, and this has been notoriously challenging for me. I struggle with professional envy, seeing others get praised while I can barely get a retweet at times. But I thought, with Leading with Class it will be different! Even if it makes no money, even if it gets no press, I’ll be making something meaningful. I’ll be using my degree to do what I wanted the most!
But if a YouTuber makes an amazing video and no one watches it, does it functionally exist at all?
When one of my key purposes with Leading with Class is to educate, and there are no new viewers, who is really learning? If one of the necessary aspects of so-called “edutainment” is that it is spread broadly and enjoyed by an audience, have I created anything really at all? Did I get hit on the head by a backdrop while recovering from a brain injury and struggle to put words together to make episodes and even my best friends, people I respect and admire, haven’t watched a single episode?
This is the episode where we stopped using the backdrop because it fell on my head. Such a headache!
And I suppose it does often just burn me that John puts in so much work to make these episodes look beautiful, to make me look and sound competent, even through brain injury problems, and yet as of this writing, only 22 people saw our latest video? The lovely work he did? That makes me so sad! I feel I’m wasting his time. This thing that is meaningful to both of us feels injured by the quiet, by the feeling that we are working so hard, this is so good, it means so much, it should go far and silence.
I do try to bolster with every like our videos and posts get, and absolutely I could be posting more often. But the hype machine only does so much when no one else turns the gears.
And I don’t want people to think I hate making the videos or I don’t think they matter. I do think they matter, and I love them, and love creating them! I had to take a hiatus in July because my recovery from my brain injury (sustained last November) was taking a long time and writing and filming while trying to also do freelance work and get through recovery was just not working. I struggled so much, and I cried so hard about taking a hiatus! It would doom the show, I knew it, and what if we could never start back to it?
But we did, even though I’m still in recovery. Even though the cats insist on interrupting our shoots.
And I’m spurred, truly, to keep working on the project. I want to take it further – I mapped out a second series, and a mini-episode series. I’m even getting the chance to do my first workshop at Big Bad Con – one huge part of Leading with Class that hasn’t progressed far yet, but would mean the world to me to make bigger and broader. This ismy dream.
I am a game designer, and love designing games – I want to keep doing that. And Thoughty is still important to me! But Leading with Class is a dream that I feel could make a difference! If it could just… grow. I know I need to work harder, I always do, but I have always worked best with the enthusiasm of others encouraging my progress, and John cannot carry all of that weight. He isn’t my audience.
I suppose, what I’m trying to say is, it is very hard to do the thing you love and feel unfulfilled by it. The perils of relying on others! But we are, as they say, a community, so I think a lot of people could understand what I’m feeling here, so I felt like I needed to finally speak these words clearly, so you don’t feel alone and so you don’t feel like your work is meaningless. Leading with Class isn’t meaningless, and your work that feels like it’s floundering has meaning, too.
So what the heck am I gonna do about this?
First, I’m going to keep writing scripts, filming, hopefully streaming, and doing workshops. I’m going to finish the first season of the show with the full twelve episodes, no matter what.
Second, I’m going to try to do better about promoting the show and increase my social media presence, as hard as that can be.
Third, I’m going to continue to be honest in how I approach this work and my purposes with Leading with Class. I’m never going to bullshit you about the work I’m doing, and I will continue to be transparent.
And fourth, finally, I’m going to be grateful for those of you who are here, who do support me and Leading with Class, and try to keep that in mind when the gremlins come to fight in my mind. I can’t let them win. I’m the winner here!
Thank you for reading, for watching, and for every moment of your being. The world is a better place because of you, even when you think it’s not. And hey. Come join me — in Leading with Class. <3
*For those curious about the time John and I spend on a given episode, here’s a breakdown.
Brie’s time investment per episode ~10 hours research ~5 hours script writing ~1 hours rehearsal ~3 hours filming = ~19 hours
John’s time investment per episode ~1 hour research support ~1 hour script review ~1 hour rehearsal ~3 hour filming ~5 hour editing ~3 hour graphics and animation = ~14
Total investment = ~33 hours per episode. The Patreon currently sits at $28/episode.
We aren’t stopping, though. 🙂
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Check out Leading with Class on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. For questions about the show, email leadingwithclass@gmail.com.
Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
Hey all! Today I have an interview with Greg Stolze on Reign, which is currently on Kickstarter! I asked Greg some challenging questions about the role of a game like Reign in modern day, which I hope you enjoy reading!
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Tell me a little about Reign. What excites you about it?
REIGN really was kinda my baby. UNKNOWN ARMIES was great, but that was me and Tynes, so REIGN was really the first thing I did that was all Stolze all the time. Also, it’s high fantasy sword ’n’ sorcery, which I love, and which I don’t get to do as much — somehow, between UA and all my WoD work and DELTA GREEN, I sort of got pigeonholed as a horror guy which is… not inapt. But REIGN is close to my heart.
On a less squishy emotional level, I liked the idea that REIGN took events that had always been matters of “Oh, the GM will hand-wave what’s happening on the wide-scope political scale” and bolted them to dice and stats so that the players can have a new arena in which to go nuts and wreak havoc. I remember in old D&D where, if… fighters, I think?… got to a high enough level they got a keep and I really thought that was interesting! But it didn’t give you any options to liberate peasants or go to war against your neighbors or any of the dramatic stuff of governance. I hadn’t played PENDRAGON or BIRTHRIGHT or gotten into the covenant stuff in ARS MAGICA, but maybe that’s just as well. Having not seen the way anyone else handled it, I built it myself from scratch. I just knew I wanted the collective your characters lead to be as important to the game as any individual PC.
And, well, I had this nifty set of rules I’d built for GODLIKE that seemed like they’d work just as well for castles and crossbows as they did for superheroes in WWI, so I built out from that. I think it worked pretty well.
What are some ways has Reign grown and changed between 2007 and today? What is new, what’s been refined?
In those intervening years, I released a LOT of supplements online, after getting them collectively crowdfunded. Sixteen of them, in fact. Rather than burn all that to the ground and rebuild on the foundation, I thought what the game needed more than anything else was (1) better art in the supplements — that’s kind of the dark side of my “one man show” approach, (2) organization so that you can find what you want to use in a tangle fo optional systems and rules tweaks and (3) a nicer print version, since the hardbacks have been unavailable for some time.
It’s not a big reinvention, and the first two books don’t have a lot of new material, because I honestly didn’t think it needed a ton of work. I’m going through and making the language clearer, finding those decades-old typos and homonym errors, but mostly it’s taking this mess of parts and putting them in an order to be more useful. REIGN was written with the expectation that a lot of people would be using it to toolkit their own settings, and that hasn’t changed.
One change, though, is my willingness to let other people play with the toys. One reason I didn’t write anything for UNKNOWN ARMIES for a while was, quite simply, I didn’t have an idea I thought was really top notch, and I didn’t want to write something just to dump it on the market. Partly, that’s a matter of pride, but it’s also a matter of greed. I don’t want to serve lukewarm stuff because I don’t think that’s how you keep an audience. But when I got a bunch of new writers working on UA3, their new perspectives and experiences and approaches really pushed me to keep up. So I’ve gotten a bunch of fresh new voices and salty old wordsmiths to give me their takes for stretch goals.
How do you replicate leadership in Reign? What do players do when they’re leading? What is leading?
OK, these are three very different questions.
Leadership in REIGN is replicated with die rolls, the same way that mighty sorcery and deeds of martial renown are. One of the big pleasures of playing a game (as distinct from running one) is the opportunity to imagine myself as someone with very different skills and behaviors. Someone who’s not shy, for example, or someone who doesn’t get embarrased and uncomfortable with confrontation. Or, y’know, a ninja.
To take the third question second, leading seems, to me, to be a lot of listening to people and understanding them. Good leaders — and I’m thinking certain editors and developers here — inspire a sort of loyalty. You want to give them your best. It’s not just a paycheck. Good leaders draw the best out of you. They see you, not just as the role into which you’ve been thrust, but as the individual adapting to that roll. Good leaders know the strengths and weaknesses of their people, and put them where the strengths are leveraged, and where their weaknesses do the least damage. In real life, I’m a terrible leader. Not the world’s greatest listener, surprisingly dense about people’s feelings sometimes, something of a hermit. But the idea of playing someone who’s listened to and who can organize people into a greater whole… yeah, that’s my fantasy. One of ‘em.
What players do when they’re leading is that sort of organization, understanding and inspiration. Only instead of having to really get through to people with charisma, you can create a character who has that sort of compelling presentation. Your characters can be the kinds of people who make the St. Crispin’s Day speech, even if you yourself are plagued by podium paralysis.
I mean who hasn’t, at some point, fantasized about being listened to and obeyed? That’s the wish-fulfillment REIGN offers.
The special edition covers are really beautiful!
I asked Greg two sets of questions and then I got a collective response: Sixteen supplements is a lot! How do you keep all of these things connected and consistent – the fictional themes, the mechanical structures – when there is so much information? Does that amount of stuff end up paralleling to bookkeeping in game?
AND
You discuss modularity on the Kickstarter page, basically explaining options for different ways of playing. Tell me more about this! How does it work?
Hah, the answer to these questions is really the same thing… the modularity from the KS is the solution to having the giant pile of supplemental rules and setting material. It’s like when you have a bunch of different LEGO sets, and you build them, and that’s fine, but eventually (if you’re like me) you take them apart and wind up with a giant bin of undifferentiated components. So then you sort them so you can make something new.
In this metaphor, the original supplements are like individual LEGO sets. You can get the sort of… pre-planned experience. The chaotic pile is where the material, as a whole, is now. The organization is what we’re going after with the KS, cross-referencing different stuff so that you can find the thing you were thinking of. Just as importantly, perhaps, we can also help you figure out what to exclude. Not every group needs every rule, so getting that clarified is a pretty high priority.
Why do you think a game about leadership and strategy like Reign has an important place in play in the modern era, during a time that’s so tumultuous for so many people?
Hoooo boy…
OK, I’ll start with something from Lynda Barry — I read her book WHAT IT IS, although it feels more like I should say I “witnessed” or “experienced” it? It’s this deep-dive art book about creativity and her intense personal history with it, and it’s very strong medicine. One thing she touched on was the idea of art as “escapism,” and she said she doesn’t think we create or engage with art in order to escape from reality, but to change our experience of it. She didn’t draw to get away from the sharp edges of her childhood, but to survive them.
So we’re in a tumultuous time and I’m writing a tumultuous elfgame. Am I just a little white ball on a golf tee, waiting for a driver labeled “accusations of frivolity” to come slamming down on me for a power drive? Eh, well maybe. Maybe for some people, playing a game where they’re the powerful bosses can be a distraction from doing the gloomy, necessary, unmeasurable work in the real world. But maybe, for some people, playing that game could let them (or help them) believe that change is possible, that individuals do influence these looming power gangs.
Or, maybe it’s OK to just have fun playing the game.
But our creations are always mirrors of our concerns. If roleplaying isn’t INEXTRICABLY creative, you have to work really hard to do it without any aspect of acting, or authorship, or imaginitive innovation. So your feelings about the villainies of modern politics are just about certain to make their way into REIGN, whether you do it deliberately or not. Maybe that’s also OK. Maybe the satisfaction of decapitating an imaginary evil king is just the catharsis you need to avoid screaming at a co-worker about politics until both of you cry.
I’ve thought a lot about why we engage unpleasant themes, intense stories, fictions of tragedy… After all, now more than any time in history, we can access genuine tragedy all the time. Why horror stories? Why make up more of it? Maybe it’s the relief of knowing that THIS awful thing isn’t real. Or maybe when an issue is painful to handle, putting a layer of fiction around it allows the mind to contemplate it more coolly. Consider the game RED MARKETS — it’s about zombies, but it’s REALLY about poverty. John Carpenter’s movie THE THING is about a gnarly space alien, but it’s REALLY about the dangers of trust and mistrust in a cold and uncaring universe. A lot of media that’s about X is REALLY about Y, and REIGN can certainly do that. This clash between the trade guilds of Uldholm while the Dindavarans sharpen their swords can be about how liberals persecute radicals while white-power revanchists snicker up their sleeves.
I don’t know. Maybe creativity shouldn’t teach lessons, but I think it almost always does. Maybe in an intensely political reality, an intensely political game can offer a framework for disentangling complicated feelings. Or, maybe it just promises some kind of paradoxical relief.
