Tag: politic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five or So Questions on Rebel Crown

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Michael Dunn-O’Connor about Rebel Crown, which is currently on Kickstarter! Check out the responses to my questions below!

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Tell me a little about Rebel Crown. What excites you about it?

Rebel Crown is character-driven rpg with a player-facing campaign. Each character playbook focuses on a unique relationship with the claimant and gives that character a driving motivation to remain on this quest. The claimant is its own unique playbook, which thrives on sharing the spotlight with their allies and acting on their council. The campaign is driven by player choices: which factions to ally with and which holdings to pursue. As you group, you play to find out whether the claimant can take their throne and what sacrifices must be made along the way.

What are the various playbooks like, in a few examples of their abilities and how they interact with the game, and what power do they have in the narrative?

A lot of our design process started in the playbooks.  I tend to get the most out of campaigns where the characters are deeply connected to one another and have a shared commitment to a goal or objective.  Since the premise of a succession crisis lends itself to focusing on the relationship between a Claimant and their allies, that created an opening for us to create purposefully asymmetrical playbooks.  Most of that asymmetry has to do with the Claimant playbook.  There must be a Claimant at the table, and the other playbooks are sworn allies of the Claimant.  This playbook is at the heart of the campaign, but we didn’t want to make a game that follows the story of one player character at the exclusion of the others. So we made the Claimant’s player explicitly responsible for spotlight sharing and reinforced this responsibility through their XP triggers:

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The Claimant playbook triggers.

 The result has been that the Claimant is constantly pulling other characters into the scene to ask their advice, to request a sacrifice, to reward their loyalty. The other playbooks have XP triggers that reward them for taking initiative, to not wait until the Claimant asks for their advice or intercession. Here’s the Devoted:

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The Devoted playbook triggers.

The flow from these rewards has been really satisfying, and character motivation and relationship is constantly at the center of play.

The playbook special abilities reinforce character dynamics without being too restrictive (especially since special abilities may be chosen from other playbooks).

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The Idealist playbook triggers.

A sample of the Devoted’s special abilities suggests different approaches to protecting the Claimant (guarding them in battle, defending their name in a public forum, or engaging in duels on their behalf).  The Devoted is defined by their love of the claimant, but there are many ways a player might take action on that motivation.

To dig in deeper, in the case of the claimant in play, how does the game guide the player toward a just and moral leadership that would make their claim to power morally superior to the claims of the usurpers?

The moral righteousness of the Claimant’s quest is in many ways the core fruitful void of this system: it’s a driving question that the game can’t answer for you without closing off some of the explorations that make RPGs really compelling. However, we try to direct play toward this question in thoughtful ways.

One way is the way that each sortie generates Unrest for the retinue, and more destructive sorties produce significantly more Unrest. The sortie objectives push the retinue to gain new objectives and ingratiate themselves with powerful factions, but the consequences of this expansion often impact the common people of your holdings the most. Here are the Entanglements you might roll at the highest level of Unrest:

The Unrest rules.

Unrest provides a slow creep of consequences for the people your Claimant has sworn to protect and provide for. How they address these consequences is an unavoidable topic of play.

The playbook that most explicitly focuses on the question of just rule and moral leadership is the Idealist, who has allied with the Claimant because they believe it is a path to the greater good. The Idealist’s XP triggers put pressure on the Claimant to do the right thing even when it’s not expedient and encourage the Idealist to keep that question of moral leadership right at the forefront of play. 

Draft playbooks with some fun thematic details.

I note that you talk about expressing your heritage, background, or trauma. How are players supported within the game in regards to traumatic or triggering content, and also, speaking of heritages, are you involving sensitivity readers in the project?

Trauma is a term from Blades in the Dark that appears in many Forged in the Dark games. We replaced that mechanic with ‘Scars’. When a character’s Stress exceeds their limitations, they must choose whether to take one final action before collapsing or to pull themselves together and carry on. We both wanted to avoid the term Trauma given its specific meaning in the context of psychology, and we wanted to rework the mechanic to provide more player choice in the moment.

We’re working on integrating safety tools into the rules text. I’ve been influenced in this regard by playing with some folks through The Gauntlet’s community. We want to provide clear prompts on CATS (content, aim, subject matter, tone) that people could leverage when introducing the game to a group. We’ll also encourage the use of Lines & Veils and the X cards. When we run are games at Games on Demand, these are the tools we’ve used and we want to provide the same resources to folks running it on their own.

The design team is just Eric and me; we haven’t brought in outside readers, though our playtesters have given a lot of valuable feedback on how we can directly address the more problematic aspects of any fiction set in a feudal setting.

What does an average session look like, including the sorties you mention (a term some of my readers may be unfamiliar with)?

A typical session runs through three phases:Recon: In which the retinue (the Claimant and the allies) gather information about other factions and identify an objective.

The Sortie: The main ‘mission’ of the session. This could be an attack on an enemy faction, a diplomatic meeting, or an attempt to drive off wraiths from a vulnerable holding. The goal of a Sortie is typically to gain a new Holding (some property or asset) for the Claimant’s Domain, to strengthen relations with another faction, or to weaken an enemy faction in some way. The retinue may also seek to vassalize another faction, bringing them under the Claimant’s rule without seizing their Holdings.

Downtime: In which the retinue recovers from injury and stress, engages in long terms projects, and trains their skills. Downtime abstracts weeks of time as the player character pursue their own interests, discuss their long-term priorities, and seek solace together from the difficult campaign.

The Domain sheet includes a calendar for players to track their Sorties, Seasons change every two Downtimes, providing a richer sense of time scale and place.

At the end of the session, players asses how they earned XP based on their playbook, and whether their character’s Beliefs and Drive changed based on the events of the session.

The creators, Michael and Eric.

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Thanks so much to Michael for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Rebel Crown on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Red Carnations on a Black Grave

Today I’ve got questions for Catherine Ramen about Red Carnations on a Black Grave, a historical RPG currently on Kickstarter! Check out the interview below!

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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.

A red headed woman at Square Louise-Michel in Paris in front of an iron fence in a black top, black cardigan, and striped pants.
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.

The Kickstarter image for Red Carnations on a Black Grave with three people dressed in red bandanas and period clothing for 19th century France surrounded by buildings with columns, storefronts, and trees. The tagline is "a story game of resistance."

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.

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Thanks so much Catherine for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Red Carnations on a Black Grave on Kickstarter today!

We Say Fuck You, Pay Me

The title sounds angry, but like. Readers, you know it’s time we had this conversation.

I talk to marginalized designers in games all the time, and to like just straight cis white guys like a lot, too. There’s a common theme of not being paid well – paid fairly even – that I’m seeing, I’ve been seeing, but like we don’t really write it down in a place and say it to the point sometimes. With the way social media has become our method of communicating, it’s rare that we put it down in a blog post or something linkable. SO I thought heyyy, why not Thoughty?

Note: A large number of the accounts in this article are anonymous. This is because the industry itself can be so vindictive and brutal that people don’t feel safe talking about pay and bad experiences, even if their complaints are fully justified. All of the quotes within are used with permission, and remained anonymous unless otherwise permitted.

ETA: I did reach out to some artists for their perspective, but wasn’t able to gather sufficient information. I intend to have a followup article by artists to address artist pay.

THANK YOU to all of my contributors for this article, named and anonymous.

Speaking of social media, there have been article-length Twitter threads about how to make your own rates for freelancing, including this one by @XCK3D which includes a lot of things we don’t typically think to calculate. Like having an asshole rate, for when you have to work for that person who is an asshole but you need the money.

One place it has been written down is in a specific call for fair pay for people of color in games, headed up by DungeonCommandr on Twitter and hosted here in a Google Doc. It is a really great document that shows a lot of valuable work! Here are the rates they request.

Base Rates Suggested

Consulting: $30.00 USD/hour.
Per-Word Work: $0.10 USD/word.
Player Streaming, 4-hours: $80.00 USD flat rate.
Facilitator Streaming, 4 hours: $160.00 USD flat rate.
Panels, Speaking, Facilitating Events: $200.00 USD flat rate, and the inclusion of room, board, and travel assistance.

We could also use rates for hourly design work that includes playtesting and for project management, something we don’t often address. My base suggestions are below, based on what I’ve been paid for design work with playtesting and prorated upwards for a fair wage and looking at some national salary data for project management.

Design Work: $40.00 USD/hour.
Project Management: $60.00 USD/hour.

The document didn’t mention editing, but as an editor I’ve done some research. The EFA rates are pretty fair, though, and are available here. The rates I suggest are:

Proofreading: $0.01 USD – $0.02 USD/word.
Basic Copyediting: $0.02 USD/word – $0.03 USD.
Heavy Copyediting/Line Editing: $0.04 USD/word – $0.05 USD.
Translated/Non-Native Language Charge: $0.01 USD/word.

When I read the document, my first thought was “hell yes!” My second thought: How do we make this the norm?

That’s a pretty hard question in the industry we have today. Every time I bring up fair pay for everybody, I run into the same brick wall: people not knowing why it matters to pay fairly, or not knowing why it matters to charge fairly. We all fear not being able to make our dream come true, and capitalism is a freaking stale bagel supreme. So where the hell do we even start?

Let’s dig in.

Continue reading “We Say Fuck You, Pay Me”

#IAmQueerGames

Hi! I’m Brie Sheldon, and I am queer games.

June is Pride month, which is when we recognize the adversity queer people face and overcome, marked especially by remembering the Stonewall riots. When police raided a bar where queer people were gathered – trans people, gay and lesbian people, bisexuals, and all – the patience of queer New Yorkers ran out. Martha P. Johnson, a black transgender sex worker, is credited with initiating the riot as response to police aggression**. A number of other black people and people of color headed up the rejection of prejudice in power, alongside many queer resistors. Pride matters. When we talk about resistance and the pursuit of freedom, we should look to the best parts and most important parts of Pride.

Those parts are the people. So, as a gamer, I’m a people. I wanted to offer a way to connect with other queer people, and to have an easier way to frame who I am as a queer person – while showing how it matters to things I love.

This video includes a series of questions that I’ve responded to below. If you’re a queer gamer or queer person-who-plays-games, please consider answering these questions in your preferred format – video, social media, blog – and use the hashtag #IAmQueerGames.

This is supported by my Patreon at Patreon.com/briecs, as part of my community outreach and efforts in recognizing diverse creators. Thank you for watching! Here we go!

1) Who are you?
I’m Brie Sheldon, formal game designer, journalist, and editor. I run a site called Thoughty were I talk game design and do interviews, supported by my Patreon. I’m a graduate of leadership studies and creator of Leading with Class, using games to teach leadership, which is supported by Patreon.com/leadingwithclass.

2) What are your pronouns?


I use either they/them or he/him, whichever is easier and makes more sense.

3) What’s your queer, in a few words?


I’m genderfluid nonbinary-masculine, queer in orientation.

4) What are your intersections and chosen labels?
On the marginalized side, I’m disabled and have mental health stuff. For privileges, I’m white, well educated, and married to a cisgender man with a decent paying job and live in a safe neighborhood. On the fun end, I’m polyamorous, a gamer, and an artist.

5) What’s your gender (or lack thereof) and what does it mean to you?
I describe my gender as genderfluid nonbinary-masculine because my gender identity – the inside part of me – fluctuates between nonbinary androgynous and nonbinary masculine, where I am never a man but I have some masculinity. I call myself a boy a lot because the soft masculinity that I associate with boyness is basically where I am then.

My gender is very important to me. I struggled with it for 24 years before coming out on a small scale and 26 before I told my family. It’s who I am and I love to live it freely.

6) What’s your orientation and what does it mean to you?
I am queer, and I call myself queer because it makes the most sense to me. Being a fluid person and being non-cisgender, I fluctuate a lot on how I define my relationships, but basically I’m attracted to people of pretty much every gender. My attraction is different with different people – sometimes romantic, sometimes sexual, sometimes both, or sometimes aesthetic or none at all, and I also have a lot of platonic attraction. It’s all important to me! I feel a lot of feelings, and they find homes in many different places.

7) How do you present yourself, and how do you want to present yourself, including clothes, makeup, body mods, and anything else?
My ideal presentation is moving between soft masculine and edgy androgyny, but both with boobs. I like my boobs and hate that having them decreases my masculinity, and my androgyny. I wish that I could be those things and still have boobs, and still wear makeup – which I do enjoy. I like wearing masculine or more unisex clothes – I could live in simple jeans, ballcaps, and tee shirts – but I super dig getting to wear those alongside low cut tops and stuff. It suits me.

I’m not planning on getting any further body mods than my piercings and tattoos – except more tattoos. Gender affirmation and hormones aren’t what will make me whole, from what I know.

8) What’s this got to do with games – gender, queerness, Pride?
Games have a good dose of queerness in them already once you realize how easily you can put on another gender and orientation and have it be the identity you perform for a session, event, or campaign. If you think you’ve never touched queerness, think of how many times you’ve played a character of a different gender or who was attracted to a gender you aren’t. It doesn’t make you queer, but it shows how you can connect those things.

Gender and orientation are so tied to our experiences at the table because they’re tied to our real lives. Mechanics and settings in games can encourage queerness, and safe environments encourage engagement with identity questions – when we’re playing a game, it is a safety buffer. It’s a way to explore with training wheels. And when the wheels come off, we can tell stories we want to be told, since good media for us is so hard to find.

We must tell our own stories. We can make them rich and interactive for queer and not-queer people alike. It’s an amazing medium to dig into both queer reality and queer fantasy, and it gives us a unique power to frame the mechanics of the worlds we play in when we design queer games – how we handle violence, how we handle sex, how we handle stigma. The control it gives us to realize queerness is really important.

9) When do you remember being queer in game the earliest? What does it tell you about games and queerness?

Honestly, it started when I was playing Harry Potter text based roleplay when I was in my early teens. I started playing androgynous characters – very clumsily – and exploring who my characters could be attracted to. In my mid-teens I played some androgynous characters in D&D and flirted with the ideas of queer characters like lesbians and gay men, and even pansexuality.

But it was not well executed. We need games that support queerness and identity questioning, where it’s okay to explore these things and encouraged to explore them, and done with support in the text and community. Games can’t hold these spaces alone, they need support from those making them and playing them who know about queer culture and life.


10) What can cis straight people do to help?

Listen. Look at your life, look at your choices. If you’ve fucked up, apologize and don’t do it again. Remember that kink isn’t inherently queer. Donate money and time where you can. Honor our history. Hire queer creators. Support sex workers. Don’t write about us without doing research and consulting us. Use people’s proper pronouns. Be better than you ever have been.


Share a message with other queer gamers, both out and not, about the future.

Things are a hot damn mess right now, but we can make it through. Pride month is a big deal but it’s not the only month of the year we need to raise our voices, support each other, and keep moving forward. No queer person is alone in their queerness – we can find ways to work together. We need to recognize black queer people, queer people of color, trans and nonbinary people, bisexual and pansexual people, queer Jewish and Muslim people, and asexual and aromantic people.

Don’t forget that sex workers, disabled people, and people with mental illnesses are queer people sometimes, too. We need to remember we are in this together. Don’t let the pressure from privileged bigots crush you. And if you are still keeping private – it’s okay. We’ll be here when you’re ready.

Final Thoughts


I’m doing this because I want to see queer people in games be recognized and welcome them, as well as talk about why these things are important. I want to highlight the diversity in games that is so often brushed under the rug. I also want to open up the floor for queer voices. If I can do that for even one person, make just one person be heard? Yeah, I’ll like that.

This post is supported by Patreon.com/briecs patrons like you! Please feel free to support my work there or donate through the donation links in the description.

Note: In my video, I state that Marsha P. Johnson (a black trans woman) was the one who started the riot at Stonewall. According to this tweet: https://twitter.com/BlackFemmeinism/s…, the riot was started by Stormé DeLarverie, a Black Butch lesbian, and Marsha P Johnson & Sylvia Rivera (a Latinx trans woman) founded & organized PRIDE. I apologize for any errors – finding consistent information was pretty challenging.



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

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

You Can Talk All You Want

On the subject of Cartel and the disclaimer I put on the interview:

I was enforcing my blog policies. I have a private policy that if I receive a complaint about a post and its not blatant trolling, I  post a disclaimer with what happened. I’ve done it before. It’s never caused a mess before. But hey! You know my secret! I have policies I enforce!

Here’s the thing I want to be clear.

I am not saying whether someone is the right person to write anything, but I do think that people it impacts deserve to be heard. I am not saying whether a game should be made, but I do think it’s worthwhile to consider the perspectives of the people affected by the game if they are alive and accessible. 

I repeatedly say that we should ask ourselves whose stories we tell, and I’ve talked about changing games entirely to reduce negative impact when considering social issues. I have absolutely asked whether a game is a net positive. I have asked people to explain how their perspective adds value to the product they’re making, and whether they have considered others’ experiences. I ask that we look at what we’re doing and why we do it. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, considering how people claim games are so important and impactful and useful for education. 
I have not, however, led harassment campaigns, led my actions with the intent of causing financial or social harm to someone, or bombarded people significantly enough to cause them panic attacks and fear – that I know of. I have not told anyone they’re not valid, or said anyone should absolutely do or not do anything. If I have and don’t remember, I’m really fucking sorry. I am trying to be better. 
I have no intention to cause harm or upset to anyone involved with this, and that includes anyone who objected to the development of the game.
I’m not saying anyone involved in this has done or is doing these things. I’m just responding to some of the accusations flung my way. I wasn’t given any time to investigate what has been brought up before the messages started flying.
When someone says to me that something being created offends or distresses them for a reason I find valid (and yes, “I find the depiction of a current violent and active conflict that is immediately relevant to me offensive” is a reason I consider valid), or if it is relevant to an ethical issue or something similar, I will put up a disclaimer. I notify the designer if appropriate, and investigate what I can to see if it’s a deeper issue.
There we go. Final notes:

– I have no responsibility to host debates on my blog.
– I have no intention to ever reveal the identity of a reporting party or to demand that they justify their position. 
– I will continue my policy.
– I will not receive further messages about this with anything further than an archive button.
– I will not be investigating further because the information I found during the multi-platform messaging and searching has resulted in my decision to leave the post as-is.
Thanks!

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

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Five or So Questions on Cartel

Portrait of Mark Diaz Truman.

Note: Mexican gamers have messaged me to say that this game is offensive and glorifies murder and the drug trade. I’m following up on it and apologize for not researching better – I’m sorry. The interview is staying up for now, but with this disclaimer. 

Today’s interview is with Mark Diaz Truman from Magpie Games, here to talk about Cartel, which is currently on Kickstarter! Cartel is a game about Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, in the complicated moral environment of the drug war. Check out Mark’s responses to my questions!

—
Mexican man holding a large gun, surrounded by crates of drugs. Illustration by Andrew Thompson.

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

Cartel is a tabletop roleplaying game in which players portray bold narcos, naïve spouses, and dirty cops caught up the drama and violence of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, trying to survive in a dangerous game of narcotics, money, and power. Cartel invokes crime fiction like Breaking Bad, The Wire, and El Mariachi, stories about ordinary people caught up in socioeconomic and cultural systems that push them to desperate places. There are no heroes in Cartel… but perhaps there aren’t any villains either. Either way, Cartel creates stories that are alternately tragic and darkly humorous, set against the backdrop of an eternal drug war.

I am excited to publish Cartel for so many reasons, but chief among them is the way that Cartel connects my love of crime fiction to my own heritage as a Mexican-America game designer. After a few years of designing games, I started having conversations with people in the community about representation. And as a Mexican-American designer, I had a terrifying thought: no one could look at my games and know anything about my life or my history or my family. I immediately had another disheartening thought: I have no idea what a Mexican-American game looks like.

Years later, while watching Breaking Bad, I finally got an idea: I wanted to write a game about the drug war from the people who really live inside of it. My people. Mexicans who wake up every day in what is effectively occupied territory, caught in the middle of the war between the law and the cartels. There are many Mexican stories to be told, but this is the one that spoke to me, that unified my love of tight, compelling mechanics with the kind of fiction I loved to watch and read.

But it’s also terrifying. Since there are so few “Mexican” games published within our community, Cartel has to do a lot of heavy lifting. I’ve spent the last three years honing the mechanics and experience, and I’m so proud now that it delivers both on the cultural experience I knew was possible and a gaming experience that I hope keeps folks coming back again and again.

Rear cover of the special edition book with a colorfully illustrated sugar skill on it. Coloring by Brooke Carnevale, Layout by Miguel Ángel Espinoza.
Considering your heritage and background, how have you approached writing those of native Mexican heritage, and intersecting identities like women, queer people, and biracial people? Class would also be pretty significant here, so I’m curious as well how you handled that.
For the most part, Cartel is about Mexican people, not Mexican- Americans. But those lines are blurry for Latinos. After all, the border crossed us. In my home state of New Mexico, for example, the land was colonized by the Spanish before it was annexed by the Americans. Who cares what borders the gringos try to put on us?

But… I also have to recognize my distance from the reality. I live in Albuquerque: 850 miles and a whole country away from Durango, MX, the setting for Cartel. Many people there live with the threat of narcoviolence every day, and I can’t expect to really understand their reality from reading a few books. I can do my research and know my own history, but I’ve needed help from folks like Miguel to get the details right. For example, the first draft of Cartel gave a large role to the local police… which I have since learned is pretty far off from how the world really works.

Issues like queerness and race are even more complicated once you cross the border. Much of my game is about class, the ways that your financial reality determines your available options, but I’ve tried to create room for folks to bring a variety of characters to the table to engage the systems. Ironically, the cartels can be very egalitarian; they don’t care if you’re gay or a woman if you’re effective at your job!

Image advertising the Cartel Quick Start, which can be downloaded here.
A game focused on drugs and the associated traumas like violence and oppression is pretty intense. How do you handle those topics in Cartel? Do you use any safety mechanics to support exploration of those aspects?

Yes, absolutely. I think that one of the best parts of Cartel is that it demands that everyone at the table take some time to discuss what they want from the game before they sit down to play it. No one signs up for a session of Cartel without some thought about the experience they are about to have! (I hope!)

In the full text, I plan to provide GM’s tools for working with safety at the table, ranging from how to have the first discussion to example safety mechanisms like the X-Card, etc. That said, I believe that those mechanics are primarily external to the game itself. Each group needs to figure out what is required for them to feel comfortable with the material, and that line is going to change a lot from group to group. I’ve found that it’s really hard for me to tell folks where that line should be.

That said, I’ve done a lot to structure the experience within the game’s mechanics, sometimes in really subtle ways. La Sicaria (The Enforcer), for example, is a character that I’ve spent a lot of time shaping to produce a specific experience. One major change to that playbook I made early in development was to make her a retired enforcer who came back to the game after some absence, adding some world-weary priming for anyone who picked up the character. That’s helped to structure the fiction in productive ways–way fewer psychokiller sicarias!–without limiting what any player brings to the table.

Character playbooks with stylized layout and illustrations, with La Sicaria in front. Illustrations by Mirco Pagnessi, Layout by Mark Diaz Truman and Miguel Ángel Espinoza. 
What are the mechanical bits that you think express Cartel‘s narrative and the unique experience of the game?
I think there are three main places that Cartel is expressed through the mechanics: basic moves, stress moves, and playbooks.
The basic moves in Cartel work like any other Powered by the Apocalypse game, but they put a heavy emphasis on the conversation the players are having. There are four separate moves dedicated exclusively to talking or texting (pressure someone, justify yourself, get the truth, make an offer) and several others (size someone up, press your luck) that can be triggered verbally. That makes Cartel a game about conversations in the same way that Pulp Fiction is a movie about conversations: there is violence, but the camera lingers far longer on a good argument.

Stress moves invoke the entire stress engine, the bloody, beating heart of Cartel. Essentially, each player character in Cartel marks stress to avoid problems or keep themselves together in difficult situations. Eventually, that stress builds…and need to be released. It’s possible to just lose yourself in a substance to get through the day, but you might find yourself verbally abusing or shaming someone you care about or dishing out a beatdown to someone in a weaker position.Or if things get really bad… you’ll end up confessing your sins to a priest, cabrón.

Finally, the playbooks themselves contain a ton of Mexican culture and narrative that each playbook brings to the table. El Halcón has a pandilla (a crew), that comes along with him on odd jobs for the cartel, sort of like Badger and Skinny Pete followed Jesse around. The specific structure of that crew, their features and problems, is absolutely Mexican, rooted in the kinds of close relationships that exist between folks who work the street-level drug trade. I consider each playbook to be a challenge: how can I add a new facet of Mexico to the game with this character?

Cartel cover with large white text on the left, vertically arranged, over the bright pink colored cover. The picture of the Mexican man with the large gun and crates of drugs is the cover image. Illustration by Andrew Thompson, Layout by Miguel Ángel Espinoza.
How does the design of Cartel address challenging subjects – things like race, gender, and intersections of communities and cultures?
I’m honestly skeptical sometimes of my own ability to interrogate my games: I think a lot about what I’m trying to do, but it’s hard to simultaneously play the violin and say what playing the violin is supposed to mean! My hope is that, at some level, Cartel asks more questions than it answers about race, gender, and culture. Certainly Reddit threads like this one are a great start to the conversation about what games like Cartel are supposed to accomplish.

But I also think that Cartel issues a fundamental challenge to the gaming industry through its mere existence: it forces a mostly white audience to consider what it means to be Mexican, without the distance of metaphor or time. In many ways, my game design has been an effort to live up to that challenge, to take seriously the idea that white folks who might not have close relationships with Mexican people might sit down and play through a few days in their lives, not as a joke or a farce…but as a compelling drama. I think Cartel makes some white folks uncomfortable because it makes them realize how alien the experiences of their fellow humans can be, that they are more comfortable playing orcs than they are people of color.

To quote Junot Diaz:

Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.

I absolutely see Cartel in the tradition of indie games that includes Steal Away Jordan, Dog Eat Dog, and Monsterhearts, works that strove to expand what’s considered “normal” in our spaces by demanding that the narratives of the oppressed be given some time in the spotlight. 

A woman holding a serious firearm looking into the trunk of a vehicle, from which someone’s arm is extended, by Andrew Thompson.
—

Thank you so much to Mark for the interview! I hope you all got a kick out of the interview and that you’ll check out the Cartel Kickstarter today!

P.S:Some updates made at 12:03pm on 3/20/18 to correct the names of the artists in the subtitles. Very sorry to Brooke Carnevale, Miguel Ángel Espinoza, Mirco Pagnessi, Andrew Thompson, and Mark Diaz Truman for my errors – it sounds ridiculous but I’m new to doing proper subtitling. I apologize.

Note: Mexican gamers have messaged me to say that this game is offensive and glorifies murder and the drug trade. I’m following up on it and apologize for not researching better – I’m sorry. The interview is staying up for now, but with this disclaimer. 

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

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Holstering Your Concepts

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does this relate to games, you ask?

I was writing a game about shooting people in public.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be better.

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

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

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Not Just Your Opinion

Hey guys in games!

Yes, you, the one with a recognizable name! Or you, who has a bunch of followers on social media! Oh how about you, with the style and character that everyone thinks is super cool? Even you, my guy, who just talks a lot.
I’m going to tell tell you something awesome that is also pretty awful.
When you talk, people listen.
They don’t just read you or hear you, they take it in. They appreciate it. They might disagree with you, and some of them will tell you as much, but many of them will just take a deep breath…
share your post…
And be like…”yeah man, this guy is RIGHT!”

After that, when someone else – especially a woman, trans, or nonbinary person, and sometimes (if you are not these things, but sometimes if you are) a person of color, queer person, disabled person, or person of a “lower” social or economic class – says something that isn’t the same as your point, they get a response that can kill discussions and innovation and learning in a hot second:
“But [you, man with influence] thinks…”
Boom. Well, we know who matters now, don’t we? And this is not just a mention of your feelings or what your personal preference. Often, it’s law. This is how games work!
You can’t do that when you hack this game because he said…

You can’t use those words to define something in your game because he said they meant something different 15 years ago.

Well, those aren’t real games because he said…

Yeah. It’s super common. I can think of at least 5 men in games – just in indie games! – who I have had my conversations deadlocked because “well he said…”
And like, guys. I love you. I think so many of you are freaking awesome. Some of you are close friends, and I trust some with things that women and NB people I know have never heard. I respect your opinions and we often agree.
But when I disagree with you, or I just have a perspective that is different, I know I can get shut down with the mention of that social media post you made five years ago when you were bored on a Sunday afternoon. Your words, when it comes to thoughts about games, are often not just your personal thoughts shared with the public that will only be referenced as your feels, man.
And no, this is not only men and not all men but it is way more than you think and way more likely that it’s you than you think.
Here are some suggestions.
Learn to preface your opinions.
“In my opinion…”
“Personally…”
“My personal favorite…”
“For me,…”
“I can’t speak for others…”
Don’t assign value.
“It is more useful for me…”
“What works better for me…”
“I personally enjoy…”
“I have more fun when…”
“My tastes are more suited to…”
Respect those who know the subject.
If you choose to speak your mind about something outside your expertise, or even within your expertise, don’t be a jerk when someone disagrees with you or corrects you. I totally understand feeling a bit defensive but don’t treat them like an idiot, understand that they may know better than you or simply have a different opinion that is also valid, and don’t let anyone supporting you go after them either.
Respect those who are impacted by your opinions.
If you’re going to say that Nordic larps are fundamentally not games, remember that people are still making and playing those larps and deserve human respect. That means not letting your buddies pile on your trash things with personal attacks or even just misguided points of view. If your criticism could impact people financially, think it through damn hard. Real damn hard.
Just… don’t.
We all have our opinions and it’s cool to share them but sometimes, there’s a real value in the act of shush. I can’t offer deep insight on how early D&D mechanics influence Dungeon World, so I don’t (I have no idea if they do). Maybe if you are a man who has strong financial security and has good education, and access to lots of resources, you shouldn’t say that there’s no way people couldn’t afford games and that implying that anyone who can’t get the money together is irresponsible. Sometimes…shush.
And like, guys, I still want to hear from you. I love your thoughts. I learn from them and share them a lot.
Just…be better.
<3

Five or So Questions with Chris Spivey on Harlem Unbound

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Chris Spivey on his new Cthulhu RPG Sourcebook, Harlem Unbound. It’s currently on Kickstarter and sounds really amazing, so I wanted to share his thoughts about the game with you. Make sure to check out the Kickstarter and see his answers to my questions below!

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Tell me a little about Harlem Unbound. What excites you about it?

Harlem Unbound is a RPG sourcebook that takes players into the world of the Harlem Renaissance at its height, to face terrifying horrors from the Lovecraftian Mythos. The book is everything that I, as a gamer of color, wanted to see in my Cthulhu games. It places minorities into the roles of protagonists, and doesn’t turn away from the history of racism or the struggle that people of color face.

Instead, Harlem Unbound tries to honor that struggle, and shines a light on all of those corners of humanity’s evil, rather than try to hide them. All the while, the Mythos is seething around the edges and corrupting what it doesn’t destroy. I think it’s important to differentiate that at no point should racism be considered something caused by the Mythos; rather the Mythos may use our own evil against us.

With your intentions, what made you choose to make the game compatible with both Gumshoe and Call of Cthulhu? 

I grew up a black kid loving Lovecraft and picked up my first CoC book around age 14. After I ran Dead Man’s Stomp, I knew Cthulhu was for me. I wanted both Gumshoe and CoC because I figured there would be a good cross section of people who play either one or both, and they could choose whichever one they prefer.

Can you talk a little about the mechanical adjustments and additions you’ve made to support Harlem Unbound in those systems? 
I have introduced a Racial Tension modifier for both systems. Racism is a very sensitive topic and to properly run a game that integrates this reality, the Keeper needs to have very defined guidelines. I find that employing a mechanic everyone can reference helps. Within a lot of games, some people like to pretend racism doesn’t exist. Harlem Unbound, by its very nature, cannot steer away from the racist norms of 1920s NYC. I wanted to create a mechanical tool that guides everyone involved, and the tool works slightly differently for each system.

What are the classes you’ve made available for Harlem Unbound? What elements of them do you think really highlight what is important to you about the game?

One of the classes is the Patron that was just unlocked as a stretch goal on our Kickstarter. Each class will focus on the concept of what it represents. For instance, the Patron will have an easier time with resources and contacts than, say, fighting or warbling on the stage. That is not to say they couldn’t do it, but they wouldn’t be on par with a Hellfighter back from World War I or a legendary performer.


You offer guidance for Keepers running “a game steeped in the history of racism, horror, and the celebration of life.” What are some really important concepts you highlight in that section? 

The most important element I have tried to convey is how important it is for a Keeper to talk to their gaming group before playing. Harlem Unbound, in many ways, is unlike many RPGs that are currently on the market. We don’t shy away from the reality of life, particularly that of African Americans. And the players must be aware that living in America in the early 1900s as a person of color will have an impact on how you navigate the world. And let’s be real, there is still an impact today. It’s important that everyone understands the type of game you’re running and the history involved in it.

Lastly, in as much detail as you’d like, what about the worldbuilding and history used in Harlem Unbound are meaningful to you as a creator, and what do you hope they bring to those who play the game and hear the stories?
The Harlem Renaissance was a great time of art changing the world. And there are many who know very little about the movement. African Americans escaping the harsh reality of the South rebelled by pouring themselves into art, music, dance, and the written word. That speaks to me on every level, even more so given the recent political climate. They say that times of great stress and duress produce the biggest explosions of art. I have no doubt we will see a similar result in the next decade.

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Thanks so much to Chris for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll check out Harlem Unbound on Kickstarter now!

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