politics – Thoughty

Capitalism? In MY Depression?

This is bleak, to a degree, and will discuss: the COVID-19 pandemic, mental & physical illness & disability, politics, nihilism, financial details and sales, and community-related trauma (perpetrators of harm, business ethics). However, I want to be transparent about my motivations for leaving the capitalistic, financially relevant industry of games and my step back from the community around it.

A floating dock jutting out into the water of a lake that is cast pink and purple with sunset light. — by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021

The State of It All

The world, contrary to some song lyrics, is not a vampire. It is a wasteland we have made ourselves. The world is not sucking blood from us, we have instead reaped as much as we like and never sown anything not dripping with toxic waste or colonial intention. The “we” here is obviously largely white, largely capitalist, and disturbingly fascist even if we struggle to fight against it.

The past US presidential term, this US presidential term, & the pandemic have shown me, a disabled, queer, trans, nonbinary, neurodivergent, mentally ill person, that most people do not care if I live or die. They do not care if I struggle or stress. They don’t care if I have healthcare, a safe home, a functioning set of lungs, or food to eat. Not just me, but anyone who is marginalized, and especially Black people, people of color, and indigenous people.

As someone who grew up conservative, I had grown to know that people who were different were treated badly and weren’t respected. What really shocked me in the past several years is that even protecting the whole of humanity doesn’t matter to so many people, even protecting themselves doesn’t matter, so long as the status quo is maintained, money is made for those with the most of it, and white supremacy maintains its stranglehold. Conspiracies, lies, and harm that I had seen in many small ways was clearly on a much larger scale – alongside the rising anti-trans sentiment, constant violence against Black people by police & civilians, anti-Indigenous action including violence and neglect, the handling of immigration & refugees, anti-vaccination movements, pushes against fair labor practices within organizations, and rampant sexual harassment and assault are just the endless nightmare of the world we live in. Oh, also our oceans have literally been on fire, along with endless acres of land.

I’ve talked before about my personal state – mental health struggles, physical disability, having to basically give up my career plans after spending tens of thousands of dollars on school, being repeatedly affected by the actions of perpetrators of harm, & unfair pay. I have fucked up myself – between my health making it hard to fulfill project promises at times, my struggles to communicate & my loss of function during illness resulting in offense or misunderstanding, plus inability to cope with technological issues & cognitive struggles resulting in miscommunication or missed opportunities. No matter how much I want to be doing well, even with therapy, attempts to apologize or account for my errors, medication & treatment, I can’t exist in the world like I want to, because of who and how I am, and because of how the world really is.

Beau, a white person with blue, grey, & brown short hair in a black acid washed jean jacket over a galaxy cat tee and blue jeans, standing on a lake dock surrounded by water and a mountainous landscape covered in autumn foliage. — by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.

You might ask, what the fuck does this have to do with games?

Let me be clear, it has fucking everything to do with games.

Game design is a creative space for me, and when I am feeling like shit, and constantly living in fear, exhaustion, pain, and shame, I can’t do creative stuff like I want to. It’s so hard to survive in this world, especially when I know that to be successful, not only do I have to navigate all of the predatory behavior & bad business ethics that are just painfully rampant in games, but I also have to put on a façade that hides everything I’m struggling with, try to avoid offending or annoying any of the people with actual power and influence in the industry, AND figure out how to magic up energy to be constantly promoting, constantly looking for more work, while constantly trying to improve all of my skills (and develop new ones, which is super challenging for me now).

And like, yes, every fucking game designer or artist or freelancer lives this shit. The challenges for some of them are far greater than me, for others it’s not as much. It’s very exhausting and stressful and the financial & success disparity between the larger companies (many of which engage in practices or business decisions I disagree with & do harm to the industry and gamers in general) and small creators is a slap in the face, especially when I see a lot of smaller creators who end up either needing to or feeling like they need to just suck it up and suck up to try to get a single fucking scrap of that success. It’s not fair to them and it’s unnecessarily beneficial to those up top.

Everyone in this industry also gets the constant threat of harassment, constant battles of social media & internet debate and discourse, and that ever so exciting commentary about how indie games are so overpriced while people drool over luxury sets of hardcover books filled with shoddy photomanips or prejudice laced narratives, sometimes both, maybe with some extra “this can’t be shipped until after the cardboard shortage” components. When so many designers I know are literally just trying to afford a fucking meal, it is vile to watch, and I have lost the capacity to fight it actively and to watch my colleagues suffer deeply while I’m also struggling.

I have had some boons in the past year – my spouse has a slightly better job, I found a way to exchange some work to help afford massively helpful medical treatment, & I have avoided direct COVID impact (I lost my grandmother, and my dad got COVID, but we’ve been lucky). We’ve still had a lot of health & wellbeing issues (for all three in my polycule), repeated issues with our ancient house, and everything feels constantly delicate – like even the slightest thing that goes wrong will destroy everything, because there is no support, there is no infrastructure, and I can’t even keep up with design work or work a regular job to help contribute. It’s exhausting and terrifying.

A photo of a green painted wooden bannister at sunset with graffiti in black marker that says "Love yourself first" with two hearts beside it, and a blurry field in the background. — by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.

The Plan

Next year, my goal is to not work towards capitalism. While I will continue my work at the resin shop I help at, & I have some small admin type tasks I do, any creative work I do will not be targeted towards sales or income.

I am extremely aware that this is a privileged choice, but I also am aware that even with all of my disabilities & mental illnesses, I can’t get on disability, and I also can’t fucking work reliably. I’d still like to try to build skills, continue my recovery (recoveries, really), and do creative work, even if I can’t contribute to society or my household in any meaningful way. I’d like to find even a scrap of joy in daily life, or in my activities. Trying to market my work, which is necessary to make sales, or market myself, which is necessary to get hired, feels hopeless, exhausting, and hasn’t succeeded much so far.

The things I hope I get to work on?

I still want to do game design, I have some projects that I’ve been slowly working on but too exhausted to engage with deeply. Carheart Nosferatu, some Script Change stuff, I dunno. We’ll see, but it’s on the list.

I am doing some more hands-on work, like drawing, painting, and making miniature diorama type stuff, as well as working in the shop. I’m hoping to get better at them! I built a fairy house that I’m planning to gift to friends, but want to make more! Plus I miss sculpting a lot.

I want to work more actively on my photography, doing more boudoir shoots for the kind of people who don’t normally get that kind of opportunity but absolutely deserve it, plus more nature photography, and maybe trying some video work. I even have some ideas for some Leading with Class video work, which would be amazing to get back to.

All of this with hopefully less time being absorbed in stressful online conversations, less paranoia & anxiety about who to trust or whether I’m fully understanding complex conversations or whether I’m failing to communicate effectively (and my career depending on it), and hopefully a lot more time to spend with my partners.

A photo of John, a person with a long beard and short brown hair that is shaved on the sides wearing a grey sweater and jeans in a forest.

A photo of Thomas, a person with a short beard and mustache and long brown hair tied back, wearing a red and green plaid shirt at a cafe table.

A Reflection on Financials

I wanted to just have a bit here to give context to what I’ve actually been earning in games, because that is very relevant to the weighing of scales I’ve done leading to the decision to step back. I’m going to share some data in text, plus some in screenshots in slideshows that I hope will actually work.

The first thing is my sales on DriveThruRPG. I didn’t download this year’s data in part because it’s, uh, kind of painful to look at, but from our tax downloads last year, I calculated that all of my games resulted in me receiving a $40.09 payout for 2020 (around $300 in sales went to The Trevor Project directly for sales of Of the Woods, over 30 copies), with 3 sales of Turn/Towns Like Ours and one of Let Me Take a Selfie. I will likely be putting up my upcoming Turn supplement on DTRPG (with work from Fabby Garza and Jan Martin, among all the results of the Kickstarter rewards like new towns & archetypes), intended to be a charitable project donating to an Indigenous charity, and DTRPG is so far the only place I know that can donate directly instead of me having to juggle it. That’s the biggest value for me.

For all of my sales at Indie Press Revolution to date, I have had a total of $1173 in sales (that’s gross, I think). That was around 60 copies of Turn, and one copy of Behind the Masc. I am very grateful to be able to distribute through them, and for all of the promotion IPR has done on my behalf, so I’ll still be keeping my print copies & bigger project PDFs there.

Finally, my itch.io sales, which are… a mixed bag. Script Change does pretty well, but that’s most of it, and I’ll let the screenshots here do some of the work. I’ve included screenshots of my payouts, each game or product I’ve released with its dashboard showing the graphs for the longest period of time I could of views/downloads/etc., and all the bundles I participated in (all but the BBC Bundle, the Queer Games Bundle, the Epimas bundles, the One-Shot Megabundle, and the Disabled Designers bundles are charity bundles I did not receive funds from), plus sales, payments, etc. over the past year..

All of Beau’s payouts for itch.io.
Totals for all products on Beau’s itch.io.
2021 Monthly gross revenue.
2021 payments.
Downloads and views for Beau’s itch.io.
All of the bundles Beau has been in.
Dashboard stats for Beep.
Dashboard stats for Behind the Masc.
Dashboard stats for Behrend Bernhard, Esq.
Dashboard stats for Your being dumped by your catgirl girlfriend
Dashboard graphs for Dice4Dad.
Dashboard graphs for Ears are Burning.
Dashboard graphs for Gonna Make You Nut.
Dashboard stats for The Handshake.
Dashboard stats for In Other Lives.
The Let Me Take a Selfie dashboard stats.
The I love you and I adore you dashboard stats.
The Man and The Stag dashboard stats.
The Millennial Tragedy is Basically a Comedy dashboard stats.
The I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream dashboard stats.
The Script Change RPG Toolbox dashboard stats.
The Secret Lover dashboard stats.
The thatlittleitch dashboard stats.
The Towns Like Ours dashboard stats.
The Tribute dashboard stats.
The Turn dashboard stats.
The Vore Your Dungeon dashboard stats.
The What’s In A Ring? dashboard stats.

Could it have been better? Yes, if I’d worked harder and marketed better and made better products. Could I have worked harder? Actually, no. Could I have marketed better? Also a no. Could I have made better products? I dunno by whose fucking standards to measure that, but I don’t think so. I poured tons of hours and lots of my own money, plus hiring other people, into many of these products and I was proud of a lot of them until I got the dead air and lack of sales and lack of engagement that people give. Script Change has absolutely done well, but I definitely struggled to maintain my rights to my work & recognition for it in the process. It is immensely valuable to me, but it is the only thing people will ever remember I did, if people don’t wipe my name from it when I stop constantly monitoring and engaging.

The reality is that the games industry takes more work than is reasonable for most people to do, even with the support of partners or fellow creators. You’re supposed to be a designer, a writer, an editor, a graphic designer, a layout artist, a marketing specialist, an accountant, a hiring manager, an illustrator, a social media expert, a public speaker, and also have an impeccable reputation with no mistakes and the blessing of every white asshole who calls themself a legacy, and my whiteness was enough to prop me up for a while, and I know it still benefits me. But it’s not enough to override my other marginalizations when it comes to who is the favorite, who gets the job, when there’s oodles of other white people without those marginalizations (or with ones people think are prettier or who can mask better), and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of competition. I barely even play competitive board games, like fuck do I want to run the rat race IRL.

A photo of the sunset shining and refracting to produce a lens flare that shines between stalks of grain and grass in a field surrounded by trees. — by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021

What Happens Now?

I am always grateful for every sale, for every five star, for every compliment, for every share, for every single bit of praise and positivity that’s been sent my way. Truly! But I take the bad stuff far harder than I internalize the good, and that’s just trauma and reality kicking my ass. I hope to release more creative work of many kinds, and I will try my hardest to still support other creators & speak up for what I believe is right. I just need to not tie a dollar sign to that as a necessity.

I will happily accept donations (ko-fi.com/thoughty is the main space for that, plus members get access to my Discord, which I would like to see grow) & I always love gifts (my birthday is in February and I celebrate both all holidays and none), plus I will be keeping my stuff up on DTRPG, IPR, and itchio. I don’t expect support, but I appreciate and value it. I am also hoping that eventually I can be healthy enough mentally and physically to start doing business again, but I don’t know what form that will be in.

The Turn supplement will be up when I can get everything compiled and edited and maybe figure out how to make some art happen. Script Change will hopefully be getting an audio version and some minor updates next year! I want to work on Carheart Nosferatu, and maybe some cool setting stuff with some art from the Assembludo (teamed with Thomas) projects, AND I want to especially support John in his release of Roar of Alliance and help it succeed, because it’s utterly amazing. (Seriously, go get it now! It’s in beta but as it grows, so will the value.)

I will still be available for Script Change consultations to help with integrating Script Change into people’s games, for online conventions (no face to face until COVID is done, & only as a paid guest for f2f when that happens) to do panels & workshops on safety & leadership, and so on. I want to work more with The Bodhana Group as well, as they’re doing awesome stuff! I’m also working on a book chapter about calibration/safety tools for a German publication, which I am hoping will go over well.

I’ll try to post here when I make stuff (photoshoots, art, and probably Leading with Class stuff if I can get it going) and release any games content I make online (I’ll put it on IPR or DriveThruRPG if I can, but I mainly upload to thoughty.itch.io because it’s easier – though the Turn supplement will go to DTRPG only for now). I also plan to put up collections of photos on itch that can be used for game covers, interiors, etc. with credit! I have thousands so I might as well!

I know this post is HUGE but I wanted to cover a lot and give a full explanation for what’s happening with Thoughty, with my work, with my reasons for disengaging, and so on. I also wanted to give some transparency on the financial side of things to give context to what happens with the impact of mental & physical health issues, trauma, and stress on the ability to keep up in an industry like games. I don’t want to be done with games, but if I don’t step back, I genuinely don’t know if I can make it through the next few years, and goddamn it, I would really like to make it to 40.

If you choose to stick around, follow what I do next, I will be so happy to have you here. I hope you’ll be happy to have me as I am now, and hopefully as I continue to heal and grow and find my place. In the meantime, I hope that the world is kinder, more caring, and more willing to do the work to help you flourish, even if you are struggling just as much as me or more.

Dream big, take no shit, and eat the rich.

A black & white photo of a person in a black riding hat, a black vest & jeans and black chaps, and a plaid shirt walking away from a shallow grave in which a black deer skull with chrome antlers rests on a pillow. — Beau, Resurrected, by John W. Sheldon, 2021.

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

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!

A New Masculinity

I spent a lot of time thinking about the middle name I wanted after I decided to depart from my birth name fully when it came to my legal name, and it got me thinking about Wolfenstein: The New Order…Real people should not be punished with the weight of anyone’s ideals as their expectation…

Buckle in folks, it’s a long one, and the start of a series! This one is personal AND professional, pursuing an understanding of some complex theory and experiences. I am excited for it, so please join me in that excitement!

Content Warnings for this and the following posts, adding new ones as necessary and bolding the relevant ones for today: gender identity, gender dysphoria, disability, mental illness, Nazis, childhood trauma, physical trauma, death, war, violence, hate crimes (mentioned), racism (mentioned), anti-Semitism, domestic abuse (spousal & parent/child), animal harm (mention), legal struggles for trans persons, social isolation.

Beau in a jean jacket, black shirt, and jean jacket with a shoulder brace. Their hair is blue and silver, cut short on top and shaved on the sides, and they're wearing glasses. The image is double exposed over an older photo of Beau. Image by Beau Sheldon, 2020. — 2016 feels like a lifetime ago, with a lot learned and lost in the process. I found some light in B.J. Blazkowicz. Where is yours?

For the longest time, I thought I’d keep my birth name nickname as part of my legal name. While my full legal name has forever been a bane to me, I have seen myself for a long time as The Brie. But that’s it, right? The Brie. It’s a title, not a name that suits me, or that represents who I am. It represents some of what I create, but I am not Brie. I’m Beau.

~~Brie~~ Beau Sheldon. Still The Brie, still Brie Beau in creation, but not Brie.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the middle name I wanted after I decided to depart from my birth name fully when it came to my legal name, and it got me thinking about Wolfenstein: The New Order. How the designers at Machine Games remade William “B.J.” Joseph Blazkowicz had a huge impact on me, and I had one more element: I wanted my initials to be B.J.

I came out in 2016 while I was playing The New Order off and on. I loved the game passionately, and it was mostly because of B.J. (For the purposes of this post and those related to it, we’ll stick with The New Order. The New Colossus has a lot more to dig into, and I’m not ready for it – and I don’t have a new body on the way, either.)

A screenshot promotional image from the early Wolfenstein games showing a Nazi swastika flag in a stone walled grey space and a hand with a gun pointing toward an enemy soldier carrying a weapon. There is a blue UI with information on the floor, score, lives, health, ammo, and an image of both the weapon and B.J. Blazkowicz. — *There is not much subtlety here. Image: id Software/Apogee Software*

B.J. started out in games as a one-dimensional angry Nazi killing white guy. He finishes The New Order as a poetic Jewish man in love with the woman who helped him recover from a severe injury and gave his life for his belief that everyone deserves to be free who lets other people be free. That’s quite a turnaround.

I was struggling, I suppose, for people who represented what I saw in masculinity. While I am nonbinary, I don’t struggle as much with expressing and representing that part of my identity because of its flexibility. Masculinity is more of a challenge, but is just as important. In real life, I have quite a few men and nonbinary masc people that I respect massively and appreciate for their masculinity. But, I learned a long time ago not to base my ideals on real people – real people should not be punished with the weight of anyone’s ideals as their expectation, and that’s what happens. So I was hunting.

Beau with green and grey hair in a black and grey hoodie tee entering a doorway lit in green while carrying a blue-lit sword. — *In many ways, I’m always hunting. Image: John W. Sheldon, 2020.*

I was also hurting. I felt so left out of the community, I had entered two new jobs where I felt alienated and afraid, I had started a Master’s program where I was weird and strange to everyone I met, and I was still struggling with my mental and physical health, as well as various life stuff. I needed someone to restore my faith in me, in what I believed, even if it was fictional – to me, that it could be conceived by others was enough.

As I played the game, I realized slowly that B.J. was the masculinity I see. He is a flawed man, but he is also a man who has been harmed (in some ways, he reflects his original creator (domestic abuse & chronic illness warning)- strange after all these years!). No one is perfect, and he does not subscribe to the idea that the decisions need to be made by or controlled by cis straight white men. His leaders are women and disabled women. He defers to his wife Anya after they escape from his hospice and get married, her leading the way in the bedroom and also being his guiding light in the field. Caroline, a brilliant leader and amputee with a prosthetic, is his most trusted colleague and the person who is in charge of his life.

In his interactions with J, the Black guitarist who survived a U.S. Nazi attack, he works to overcome the ingrained racism he was raised with. He works side by side with disabled veterans and civilians, people of all ages and backgrounds, and even reformed Nazis. While yes, B.J. may initiate a first interaction with someone who violates his worldview in a shitty way, he apologizes, he backs down, he defers to the marginalized, and he tries to change.

B.J. and J meet with a harsh conflict, but bond when B.J. accepts J’s offer to open his mind and his perspective changes. I recommend not watching past the three minute mark, as things get dark but loud for J at the hands of the villains. Video sourced through SnackPackedd’s YouTube.

And yes, I will be frank – B.J.’s poetic waxing in my noise-cancelling earbuds wooed me to a degree, and I do think he’s a huge hunk of himbo. But when I cried at the end of The New Order, it was not just because the story itself ended. It’s because my time with B.J. had ended, this space of time where a man who does great violence because violence is called for and because he is the right one to do it awkwardly looks like a puppy when his wife kisses him, and overcomes some extreme suffering at the hands of many different people.

He does harm to himself to rip away the marks of Nazism, and takes acid with J to see a new reality, and makes the hard decisions, and dies and lives and breathes freedom and hope. B.J. feels ultra-masculine because he does violence and he speaks harshly, but in reality he is soft and he hurts and fears but keeps going as that ultra-masculine presentation because he is the right one to do it.

To me, we represent the best masculinity not so differently from femininity, aside from weird invisible things I can’t explain. It’s the kind of guy who if you ask him, he will beat down every bully that’s ever threatened you, no matter how big or endless, but he would be so much happier to lay back on green grass while a dog or his kids bound around him and wait for his lover to say “Please do” before he does. That’s B.J. We got that from Blazko, the person who looked like an angry Lego® Man was his avatar.

Can you imagine a Wolfenstein Lego® movie? Yikes. Image: id Software/Apogee Software (cropped).

I want to examine this in more detail as time passes, with a series of posts, talking about gender, game design, and much more. I will be clear: I do not think B.J. is a perfect person in any incarnation. I don’t think The New Order is perfect, either. But I think there’s a lot of richness there, and I think it’s important to break things down when they latch onto my heart. I hope you’ll join me as I dig deep and try to share ideas for tabletop and video game design both by looking at what The New Order, and B.J., do right and wrong.

I did find a middle name, by the way. It’s Jágr, which is a Czech name in honor of my commitment to Thomas, who blushes sometimes when I say sweet things to him, and pronounced like Jaeger, because it’s the Czech version of Jaeger and Jaeger means hunter. I think it’s undeniable that just like B.J., I am a hunter and always have been – of love, of hope, of joy, of answers, of freedom, and of those who seek to take freedom away.

A split screenshot of Anya, a woman wearing a headset, on the top and B.J., wearing his jacket and gear, on the bottom. They are discussing his next move. — We do what we must because we *must*. Image: Bethesda via MobyGames.

I’ve pressed submit on the request to have my name change prepared by a legal professional 15 minutes ago. It’s going to be expensive ($160 for legal help, $160 for the courts, ~$200+ for putting my name in the papers for protest), but I can’t wait to be realized as myself.

B.J. was 32 at the beginning of the first story told in games. I turn 33 in two months. It’s time for a change, and some growth. I have so much hunting to do.

Beau Jágr Sheldon.
That’s me.

Beau in a black and grey hoodie tee wearing green lipstick and showing off their two forearm tattoos, an octopus and a bison. — /bjs
Image: John W. Sheldon, 2020.

Thoughty Ending Regular Interviews

Thoughty remains! So does Script Change. I still hope to do some interviews, as mentioned, very periodically. I want to talk more about design, and about leadership in games. I want to talk about the things I personally enjoy in games, break them down, see if I can make them make sense. I hope when the worldsuck eases I’ll release more games, though I doubt anything I do solo will be as big and fancy as Turn. I’ll be separately supporting my partners with their projects. Oh yeah, and I’ll still be accepting guest blogs here when I can build up a larger fund for paying creators!

Times do change.

My first interviews were before Thoughty – on my previous and now defunct site that I ported here with Systir Productions & 616, and on Gaming as Women with attendees of a Gamerati game day and then Judy Bauer of all people. I kicked off Thoughty and Five or So Questions in 2014 as a continuation of the original blog, but only the interviews really stuck around.

Younger Beau with long brown hair, glasses, and a nerdy tee shirt standing next to a man with short dark hair and a blue Paizo polo. Behind them is a busy convention crowd. — *Me in 2013 at Gen Con with F. Wes Schneider, Paizo’s then Editor-in-Chief, who I had interviewed for GAW.*

I have done over three hundred interviews on Thoughty, about 250 of those being Five or So Question interviews. I have only had a few interviews fully fail to be completed due to scheduling, and one pulled by the creator. I’ve interviewed people about not just tabletop but also card, board, and video games, plus lonely solo games, huge collections of tabletop and live action games, their artwork, their design process, their Kickstarters, and more. I have had an exceptional opportunity to pick the brains of the most brilliant designers in tabletop games, from legacy designers like Ron Edwards to genius women designers like Dr. Jessica Hammer and Meguey Baker to groundbreaking modern designers like Jay Dragon and Rae Nedjadi. Many of these people I have grown to consider friends and colleagues, and I’m so grateful for the amazing things I’ve learned from them and shared with you.

I have been supported by my Patreon supporters primarily for these interviews, enough funds to pay for my website and a bill every so often, some busy months enough to help me pay medical expenses. I am incredibly grateful for my supporters, for everyone who has shared an interview, recommended a creator to reach out to, or praised my interviews, regardless of whether they supported me financially!

You may ask, if this is so great, why does the title say you’re ending interviews? What does this mean for Thoughty? Why has the site been so slow recently, anyway? Well, that’s what I’m gonna try to answer here. This is… a bit long. I’m still me, you know.

Dissident Whispers with Jeremy Childrey

I’m lucky enough to have today’s interview with Jeremy Childrey about Dissident Whispers, an anthology collection of 58 two-page adventures by diverse, international creators supporting the National Bail Fund Network.

Note: Today seems pretty packed with pics because this particular style of design and art appeals to me a lot, so please excuse this indulgence.

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Tell me a little about yourself and your work. What’s your background like and how has it led you to Dissident Whispers?

My name is Jeremy and I did the layout for ‘Hopebringer’ and ‘Rhemati’s Spring’ for DW. I’ve been tabletop gaming for around 6-7 years and creating stuff for around 3 years. I am a Warden (moderator) on the Mothership discord and active in a few others. One day “Silver Goat” posted up a request seeking volunteers for a BLM project, as a mixed race man (black and white if it matters) who lives in a rural area I had been struggling to find my place in the protests, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get involved.

The interior of Dissident Whispers, on the pages for Hopebringer, showing a diagram of an arena.

What other projects have you worked on that you’ve brought forward knowledge to working on Dissident Whispers?

I have been working on writing and laying out a Mothership Hack called Gordinaak for way to long, and recently released a very dumb nega tower called ‘Why is there a Wizards Tower in this Dump?’ on Itch with my writing partner.

Tell me about Dissident Whispers. What kicked off such a project concept and how did it come together? What’s the pitch?

Dissident Whispers is a collaborative compilation of adventures for various systems. For me, it all started when I saw a message on Exalted Funeral’s Discord looking for volunteers to do various pieces for a project. As we were talking about logistics the projects founder, Silver Goat, mentioned posting on the Mothership Discord. It just so happened that I warden there (moderate) so I reached out to Sean Mccoy about it and then it just kinda took off. As far as a pitch goes I’m pretty terrible at that so I guess it’s a book with a bunch of dungeons and adventures so anyone who plays games needs it.

The interior of Dissident Whispers showing the Mirstone Manor adventure - on one page, a detailed map, and on the other, an unusual pink creature. — The interior of Dissident Whispers showing the Mirstone Manor adventure – on one page, a detailed map, and on the other, an unusual pink creature.

How is planning the content of such a project impacted by the increased focus on inclusivity and a specific message?

I think for everyone involved it was different, some people made things that were topical while others did stuff that was standard adventure fare. For instance one of the adventure’s I did layout for, Hopebringer, was very stick it to the man and defeat the oppressors.

What are some examples of the adventures in Dissident Whispers that players will have to dig into?

There are soooooo many, I did the layout for Hopebringer, and Rhemati’s Spring, both very different, both system agnostic. There are some really interesting ones for Mork Borg, and I actually played one for Mothership called Ghost Ship, on the night we finished everything, which was amazing.

The interior of Dissident Whispers, focusing on the College of Acoustic Ministration, showing alien creatures and men with lobster hands.

What were some of the best parts of working on this project and putting together the collection for players to experience?

My favorite part was probably watching a flood of talented people get involved, one day it was a few people then the next the discord exploded. It was just amazing watching everything develop and how cohesive everyone was moving as a unit. I’m still in awe of what was accomplished.

The interior of Dissident Whispers showing the Snake Temple Abduction adventure, with a beautiful illustration on the right page in blue and white and a simple but useful map in blue and white on the left, along with the guiding text.

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Thank you so much to Jeremy for the interview (and the amazing layout!)! Check out Dissident Whispers and help support justice for those in need!

Black Lives Matter

Here at Thoughty, I believe that Black Lives Matter. I believe Black History Matters. Most of all, I believe that Black Futures Matter.

I support Black trans and nonbinary people.

I support Black queer and LGBTQIA+ people.

I support Black disabled and mentally ill people.

I support Black people in poverty and in wealth.

I support Black people who are incarcerated.

I support Black veterans and soldiers.

I support Black homeless and in need.

I support Black sex workers.

I support Black game designers and artists. I also encourage any Black game designers or artists to reach out to me for an interview over the next few months. I want to feature your work and prioritize you!

Five or So Questions on Red Rook Revolt

Hi All! Today I have an interview with Magnus T. Hansen on Red Rook Revolt, which is currently on Kickstarter. Check out what Magnus has to say below!

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Tell me a little about Red Rook Revolt. What excites you about it?

Well, that’s sorta like choosing between my babies. There are three things which really excite me. The first is the combat system, which is inspired by the game Hyper Light Drifter as well as Strike!: A game of heedless adventure! It uses a single d6 for every roll, almost every attack deals one damage, and people have very low hit HP. In playtests, it has given us fast, tactical, and dangerous combat. Melee attacks always hit, but expose you to danger, while ranged attacks can miss, and require you to spend Dark Power, which you get from melee attacks, which forces people in and out of dangerous situations and helps ensure more dynamic encounters.

Another thing that excites me is the memory and corruption system. For a long while, I struggled with making a cool way both to portray relationships and the creeping demonic corruption that happens once you start powering up the summoned demon in your gun. But I solved both, by having a system where you have specific memories with the other party members.

A color illustration of rebels in various red-highlighted outfits and carrying weapons climbing over various structures while they rally.

During each adventure, you can gain more, but you can also draw on those personal connections to keep away the demon’s whispers. If you fail, however, those memories can get twisted. Memories of your brother supporting you through hard times get reinterpreted to into memories of your bother being smothering or controlling. Memories of supporting your friends when they needed you become memories of your friends being needy and needing constant support, and so on. This isn’t necessarily permanent, but the fight against the demon is one of the central conflicts of the game.

The last thing I wanna mention here that excites me is the setting, which i am currently writing! I’m drawing on English and Roman history, and focusing down on a single empire and the rebellion happening there. That allows me do to more than just a cursory look at the place, and detail culture and religion to a greater extend, show some of the ways the rebellious areas differ in culture from the main empire, but also the ways they are the same, the things they share. Some central cultural concepts are birds as ancestors, and the actual, literal magic which is at work in most things of cultural significance, including community rituals and festivals, and a strong tradition of communal stews.

What inspired your interest in these cultures to build this specific story, and how are you building this story while being respectful to the cultures themselves?

To be clear, when I say I draw on British and Roman history, I mean mostly – but not entirely, as I’ll get to! – in terms of structure, in terms of how the empire works, how they extract resources from their conquered territory, how they justify their imperialism. That also helps answer the first part of your question: I needed empires to draw from for my evil empire. I had already decided on guns as an element, as the game started as a small combat engine and I didn’t want modern time, so 19th-century England was right there. As I worked on the culture and the history of the people of the empire, I had some ideas which resonated with Roman history, and the empire ended up as something like a Roman empire that had evolved into a modern empire, though more territorial.

I do use some roman culture – aspects of its religion and visual aesthetic, the importance of the Familias, the prevalence and importance of omens and minor magic. I have a friend working with me on some of the writing who knows his Roman history very well, so I’m not afraid to accidentally misrepresent it, though much of it isn’t what I’m using as inspiration. And while there are possibly some that would have issues with using, say, roman gods, I’m not doing that, just some aspects of how society was structured in antiquity.

Tell me more about memories! How do the players typically respond to these when they play them out, and how do they interact with other parts of the game?

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able playtest this part of the game at the time of writing, so how players typically respond is unknown to me, but I will have the chance to playtest it soon!

I can talk about how they interact with other parts of the game, though! The memories represent the character’s relationships with each other, and during their adventures, they get strengthened and weakened.

The game is structured around a mix of downtime and adventuring. During the adventuring portions, the players get into battle and accrue corruption tokens as they draw on the dark magic of their demons. Afterward, they roll to determine if they get corrupted. If they fail, their friends have to help them, reminding them of their relationship with a memory; if that succeeds, the memory is simply exhausted from the emotional stress, and can’t be used for a while. Otherwise, it gets corrupted, twisted somehow, and the relationship weakens. Actions in battle and their willingness to win at all costs thus affect their relationships and their memories.

This, in a sense, forms the central conflict, and a central theme of the game: the importance of relationships, friendships and organization as you struggle for liberation, and resistance to forces that would separate you, make you try to fight the world alone with just you and your gun. During downtime, exhaustion and (with more difficulty) corruption can be healed, as can physical wounds, and new memories can be made. Downtime, in a bigger way, ties into what adventures you go on, what battles you fight and so on, which feeds back into corruption and memory.

What is the general activity of the game – like what do the players mostly do in each session, or are they intended to do? How does the game support these actions?

The general activity of the game is fighting imperialist scum. You play as members of the red rook commune, which is under attack from the cruel Imperium Alarum, and throughout the game, you keep the pressure on to prevent them from turning their full attention towards the commune. You sabotage railways, distribute propaganda, organize general strikes, assassinate generals, and lead battles against the enemy. When things go wrong and the empire turns their full might upon the Red Rook Commune, you man the barricades and drive back the invaders! In between hectic fights and missions, you rest at the commune and rebuild your strength. This is when you heal and reaffirm your friendships.

As for how the game supports these actions, it is built around that structure of mission/rest/mission with the first result of failure being an attack on the red rook commune. If you aren’t putting the pressure on the empire, they will attack your home and deny you the chance to heal and rest.

What made you elect to use Hyper Light Drifter and Strike! As inspirations for design, and how have you differed from them?

I didn’t so much choose to use hyper light drifter as an inspiration as the other way around: the appeal of Hyper Light Drifter’s smooth, flowing combat rhythms is what inspired me to start working on what would become Red Rook Revolt. Hyper Light Drifter is a video game with an incredible combat loop, and I wanted to capture that particular loop, that particular flow, in a tabletop game, something, quick, smooth, and tactical.

That’s why I turned to Strike! for inspiration for the combat. That game uses a single D6 for combat, rolling on a table of hits, misses, and critical hits, and It goes rather fast for that reason. Strike, of course, also has a lot of other things going on, but I liked that particular idea and I took inspiration from that in designing my combat system and combined it with the things I liked and wanted to replicate from Hyper Light Drifter.

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Thanks so much Magnus for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Red Rook Revolt on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Last Fleet

Hi all! Today I’ve got an interview with Josh Fox about Last Fleet, which is currently on Kickstarter! Check out Josh’s responses below to learn more about the game!

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An illustration of a bearded person standing holding a blue crystal, staring out a window at the sky expectantly.

Tell me a little about Last Fleet. What excites you about it?

The elevator pitch for Last Fleet is that you’re brave pilots, officers, engineers, politicians and journalists aboard a rag-tag fleet, fleeing from the implacable inhuman adversary that destroyed your civilisation. The game focuses on action, intrigue and drama in a high-pressure situation.

The game delivers the experience I got when I first watched Battlestar Galactica (the noughties reboot). I remember the incredible sense of pressure, an exhausted fleet and characters both on the edge of collapse, the high stakes, and the explosive action. I remember the simmering political tensions between different factions. I remember how everyone was under constant suspicion of maybe being a secret traitor, and sometimes people even suspected themselves. And I remember how all of this was demonstrated through personal conversations between friends, family members, lovers, and rivals. That’s what the game is designed to do.

Also, I just flipping love the bad guys in this game. The Corax are a hive mind, an immense extradimensional fungus network that live in the tenebrium, the realm outside normal space that FTL ships travel through. When the Corax fleet attacks, it’s by extruding these huge fungus tendrils out of a dimensional rift and then launching swarms of spore ships.They’re able to absorb their victims’ genetic material and also the information content of their brain, enabling them to create an exact copy of the victim, memories and all, but who is actually a flesh puppet for the Corax. And so, if you lose a fight to the Corax, rather than just getting killing you’re typically paralysed and dragged off to be deconstructed in a biological cauldron. The next time we see you, you won’t be you anymore. Which is pretty horrible.

The Last Fleet cover image with a large mass covering the top of the image and an opening surrounded by tendrils and filled with pink light and debris spilling out. On the left of the image, four hexagons display different characters including an engineer, civilian, pilot, and commander. The title, Last Fleet, is in all caps in white letters at the top inside a white pointed box.

How does the game mechanically approach the Battlestar-style relationship environment?

A key part BSG is obviously the political environment: a military hierarchy, the presence of elected officials whose interests are only partly aligned with the military, and other factions such as Zarek’s people, Baltar’s cult, the union and others. I’ve baked that into the game setup, so that whether you create a setting yourself or use one out of the box, you’ll generate groups whose agendas will push against fleet unity. That’s then reinforced by the Call for Aid move, which enables players to get certain benefits that they can’t get anywhere else – like access to rare equipment, or the ability to perform an action at a larger scale – often in exchange for tying themselves more closely to that faction.

Of course, like most PBTA games, Last Fleet also comes with a set of charged relationships between the player characters, to get things going. These are handled fairly loosely initially, just little seeds of friendship or rivalry or a grudge or suspicion. But then the game’s core mechanic reinforces that. The nub of it is that you can voluntarily ramp up pressure on your character in exchange for bonuses to your die rolls – an effect that allows you to succeed at almost any roll, if you wish. But to get that pressure down, you have to take actions that generate interesting relationship drama.

There’s three ways to do it:

You can Let Loose, indulging a vice and losing control. Let Loose is an easy, almost-guaranteed way to reduce pressure, but it also automatically puts you in tricky situations: even on a hit you’ll do something you otherwise wouldn’t like revealing a secret, making a promise, or falling into another character’s arms.
You can Reach Out, sharing a hope or a dream or a fear or suchlike. Reach Out reduces pressure by strengthening relationships – but then everyone who you build a relationship with has a bit of that pressure invested in them, so if something should happen to them, the pressure comes rushing back all at once.
You can hit Breaking Point, allowing the pressure to come to a head and then doing something foolish or dangerous. Breaking Point is a bit like getting Marked in Night Witches, in that initially it’s evocative and fun, but do it too many times and you’ll come to a sticky end.

So between all of the above stuff, you get a pretty rich stewpot of political, social and emotional drama.

Two people in casual clothing look at each other in sadness as one hands the other a set of identification tags. In the foreground, there is a photograph of three people embracing and hugging next to pens in a cup, a set of glasses, and a decanter.

That potential result with the enemy changing you instead of death sounds really intense – what is the effect of this on the game, and on the players?

That potential result with the enemy changing you instead of death sounds really intense – what is the effect of this on the game, and on the players?

It’s not something I’d typically expect to happen to player characters. The game’s principles encourage you to build up interesting NPCs and make the players care about them, partly so you can “kill their darlings” later on. Or better yet turn them into baddies.

If it does happen to a player character, you have two options: bring them back as an NPC, or give them the Sleeper Agent move. Sleeper Agent is a start-of-session move, which generates bad stuff that your character has secretly been doing off-screen. Even you, the player, don’t know what it is. How well you roll tells us how bad it is, how much evidence there is to implicate you, and how much chance you have to stop it.

Incidentally you can start as a Sleeper Agent by taking the Scorpio playbook.

An illustration depicts a woman in a battle uniform giving directions in a fiery battle.

What do players typically do in Last Fleet to occupy their time – are there adventures with strange worlds, or are they more likely to be negotiating in a dramatic scene?

It really depends a lot on what roles and playbooks are chosen. The roles include soldier types to engineers to more political characters. The playbooks are slightly more personality-based, but each one will colour the type of play you’re likely to see, with playbooks like Gemini bringing in skulduggery, or Scorpio bringing in intrigue, or Pisces bringing in the supernatural.

There’s always a lot of stuff going on in Last Fleet, which could include things like:

– Dealing with a tense stand-off between civilians and the military, or between other political factions

– Handling the results of mass panic: protests, riots, or other civil disobedience

– Addressing practical problems like mechanical breakdown or resource shortages

– Investigating suspicious stuff, which could turn out to be political, or could turn out to be enemy infiltration

– Handling the fallout from the above – bomb threats, sabotage, poisoned food supplies, etc

– Battling the enemy, whether in tense space dogfights or holding off boarding actions

Whichever roles and playbooks are chosen, the above will be going on at some level, but the emphasis and the approach to problem-solving will vary massively. So you could get more politicking, crisis management, investigation, scouting/away missions, or battle scenes. All interleaved with the interpersonal drama generated by the pressure system.

An illustration of a soldier leaning against an alien shape with pink growths on it.

How do you control the level of violence in the game for players to ensure they’re not veering into monstrosity?

Last Fleet is the first game I’ve written where violence is explicitly coded into the rules, because the war-time setting makes it inevitable. Nevertheless in my experience, violence in play is typically instigated by the enemy who, by definition, are implacable – intent on humanity’s destruction or (as the canonical bad guys, the Corax have it) borg-style absorption. Indeed the nature of the setting makes this almost inevitable. Desperately trying to fend off waves of enemy fighters, protect civilian ships, hold off boarders, and so on. So there’s violence, but it’s mostly defensive in nature or (Night Witches-style) action aimed at destroying military targets.

But violence is a thing that can get more extreme if an enemy, particularly an enemy infiltrator, is captured. We see that in the source material as the characters are so desperate to win the war that they’re prepared to torture or kill in cold blood to get their way. All I can say here is that the game provides absolutely no benefit to doing this. The only interrogation moves are in no way enhanced by putting the target under duress, except perhaps emotional duress (by using the move “call them on their shit”).

Even so, something about the setting is likely to make some players go there, let’s face it. My games always contain a section discussing safety (not yet written for Last Fleet) and war-time issues like violence and torture would be front-and-centre for an initial discussion around lines and veils. Every game I’ve run to date has banned torture from the game before the first scene is played, for instance. That is what I’d recommend unless a group is keen to explore this very dark territory.

There is one particular playbook, Capricorn, who is a risk in this regard. They are explicitly set up as a character who is willing to do anything to defeat the enemy, with moves that hard code in collateral damage, for instance. In this case play is focused on the social and personal consequences of this behaviour: if you’re lucky you steady the fleet, if you’re unlucky you can cause more damage than the enemy, and spark panic. In a way the story of the Capricorn playbook is “can you avoid becoming a monster”, and obviously there’s a chance that the answer is “no”.

A person in green and orange clothing with safety gear on welding metal parts.

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Thanks so much to Josh for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Last Fleet on Kickstarter today!

Disc Horse

Content Warning: Mention of suicidal ideation, self harm, online harassment, face to face harassment, reference to racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism.

Two horses in a field, one is rolling on the ground.

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.

A person with short cropped blye hair covers their face with their hand.

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.

A person in aviator sunglasses and a grey hoodie tee holds their hands in front of their face as though they're praying or begging.

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.

Five or So Questions on BALIKBAYAN

I have an interview today with Rae Nedjadi on BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home, which is currently available on itch.io! This game sounds so fascinating, and Rae talked about some really deep thoughts with me. Check them out below!

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Tell me a little about BALIKBAYAN! What excites you about it?

BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home is a narrative tabletop role-playing game that gives everyone at the table equal creative opportunities!

Specifically it’s a story about Elementals, beings of Supernatural Filipino Folklore come to life. BALIKBAYAN takes place in the far future, in a Cyberpunk setting at the mercy of The Corp, that has enslaved the elementals through machinery.

Over the generations these machines have infused with the magic, so BALIKBAYAN is also about wielding machine-magic and using it to stay on the run, destroy the Corp, and rebirth Magic.

I’m excited about so many things about BALIKBAYAN, but I’m most excited about offering a creative playground for everyone to enjoy. I’ve never understood this boundary between science fiction and fantasy, technology and ritual, machine and magic. I wanted to offer people to play with these ideas, while also offering my own modern reimagining of Filipino folklore.

I’m really happy with the response, and how excited everyone is to enjoy Filipino games made by Filipino designers! I’m honestly hoping this will encourage more people to create their own games so we can have more creative voices in the community.

Another thing that excites me is the game system. BALIKBAYAN is a Belonging Outside Belonging game, which gives everyone more creative control. It’s different from your typical TTRPG experience, where only the Game Master controls most of the narrative.

A sheet with the title BALIKBAYAN and the book of BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home.

Many of my readers will be excited to hear about the Filipino roots of the game! What are some of the elements (themes, history, magic) of BALIKBAYAN that players will see that are very much Filipino?

The strongest and most apparent Filipino themes are present in the Playbooks themselves. Currently BALIKBAYAN has six playbooks: Tikbalang, Diwata, Saint, Aswang Santelmo, and the Duwende. I wanted to unapologetically use the original names for these beings of myth and legend.

I did this mainly because I come across a lot of Filipinos who are familiar with the folklore of other countries (most people who play D&D here know about elves, gnomes, and all that). But when I run a Filipino inspired game and lean into our roots, most of the people I know, living here in this country, don’t know much about our own myths. And often they use a western perspective when approaching these myths, which breaks my heart.

I will say though that I decided to personally interpretat the essence of these myths and legends. There are some problematic aspects of our folklore that reflects the centuries of colonization that still influences the Philippines to this day.

For example I wanted to take the Tikbalang and break it away from just being an anthropomorphic horse. Horses aren’t even a natural local animal here, and to this day they’re associated with the elite and privileged. Instead I wanted to lean into our shamanic and animism roots. The Tikbalang in BALIKBAYAN can change into any anthropomorphic animal form, and I wanted that fluidity to be an important aspect of the playbook. I also wanted to reflect how we often look to spiritual leaders in our community, and the Tikbalang is true to that.

I think the SAINT is another important one. Religion is a big thing here in the Philippines, for better and for worse. We have so many beautiful stories about Saints and the mystical miracles they embodied to protect communities. I wanted to acknowledge that, but once again honor our pre-colonial roots and have the SAINT be a playbook that interacts with Small Gods, in a Cyberpunk setting.

I could just go on and on about each playbook!

Sheets titled The Enslaved and The Corp, But That Was a Long Time Ago, and We Were Magic. The last sheet, We Were Magic, is in neon colors with black background.

In general I wanted to honor our folklore, but I wanted to respectfully bring it into the present and reflect our modern values, nuances, and struggles. Because I’m bi-racial, queer, and non-binary, I think that shows in the design. I put so much of myself, and my complex love for my country, into this game.

BALIKBAYAN also speaks to leaving behind our masters and becoming our own masters. I wanted this to reflect in the premise and creative setting, but also in the mechanics and narrative prompts.

Becoming our own masters is something I want to happen for Filipinos in general. We were colonized for centuries, and the scars still show. As a society, we haven’t done the collective and deeply emotional work to decolonize our perspectives, approaches, and values. In a way we are still bowing down to Masters that have long left us to rot, and it shows in our governance and social value systems.

I have faith that we can do the work. Many artists, teachers, and leaders are already helping their communities to do so. BALIKBAYAN is my own personal attempt to help along and honor that decolonization process.

BALIKBAYAN seems like a big step away from what we’ve seen from cyberpunk. How have you altered the standard cyberpunk setting to really make it yours and to do something different?

It’s funny, I really get this a lot! But to be perfectly honest, BALIKBAYAN simply embodies how I’ve always seen and engaged with Cyberpunk. For one thing, I’ve always gravitated more to portrayal of Cyberpunk themes in anime, especially from the 80s and 90s. I’ve always appreciated that lens more, and it really speaks to me.

I did want to make magic a big part of the game. This is again deeply personal. I believe magic and technology aren’t at odds with each other, and magic shouldn’t be regulated to fantasies chained to the past either. I was initially inspired by games like Shadowrun, but I didn’t like how the lore and system created this great divide between magic and technology. So in BALIKBAYAN I wanted to make that barrier non-existent.

I think the main issue with Cyberpunk as a genre is that we often see the aesthetic markers and surface indicators of the genre, but we ignore the important work that POC and queer creators have done in the space. They’ve given me the permission to define Cyberpunk on my own terms.

And in turn, I want to do the same for the people who will play BALIKBAYAN. The game asks you to bring about the rebirth of magic and to create a Revolution, but what that will actually entail is up to the players and is out of my hands. I believe Cyberpunk, and the Revolution it inspires, is a deeply personal experience.

Because I don’t think the world will change from one Revolution. I believe it will change, and has changed, from the series of ongoing neverending Revolutions that we bring to life.

A sheet titled DIWATA and details about playing different types of characters.

There is a lot of discussion about decolonizing games and how many major games are from a colonized perspective, so I really appreciate you talking about that! Does any of this translate to the actual mechanics you use in the game? What are the mechanics like?

I definitely feel that the decolonization process can be incredibly personal. For me it was in realizing that the games I used to love to run and play, namely Dungeons & Dragons and games like it, focused on violence, possession, taking things through strength, with a focus on exploring the “alien” and “exotic” and marveling at how “weird” it all was. This was reflected in the mechanics of the game too, I feel. As a Filipino, knowing that my own country was treated this way by its colonizers, it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

In BALIKBAYAN, the Belonging Outside of Belonging system favors narrative play that is entirely in the hands of the players. I also added a few mechanics that center on the decolonization process. First, each playbook asks the players to choose and build on a “human form” and a “true form”. Because the Elementals are on the run, this is basically what forms are “acceptable” versus what they truly look like. I wanted to leave it up to the players and each story what this means, how do they navigate this? Next the playbooks ask you to choose “What you hope for”. While the players are tasked to bring about the Rebirth of Magic (more on that in a bit), I also wanted to give the players a personal goal to help drive the story. In a way this reflects how I feel about the decolonization process: each path is unique, deeply personal. People can talk about what their decolonization process is like, but they cannot dictate to others what it SHOULD be like. Each of us interacts with different intersections of class, race, background, and so on. What the decolonization process is like in America is VERY different from what it is like in the Philippines, and so on. The individual hope reflects that, but it also asks each player to balance or find common ground with that hope and the rebirth of magic.

Which brings us to another mechanic I added. Originally I just liked the idea of having a sort of countdown mechanic, to give the players some structure or urgency to the story being told. There are two clocks running. The first clock is you start ON THE RUN, but can eventually end up CAPTURED by the Corp again. The second clock has you start at FADING, your magic is weak and dwindling compared to your ancestors, but you want to reach REBORN, with the magic being your own.

In my mind, decolonization is not about returning to what was before our colonizers came. That is in the past, and much of our history has been rewritten by those more powerful than us. When I think about what we’ve lost, what we could have been, it frustrates me. When I think of the privilege I enjoy because of my circumstances that are favored by a colonial mentality, I feel guilty and ill at ease. For example, I speak English well and that opened a lot of doors for me, when it shouldn’t have. I strongly feel that the way forward is in acknowledging the past, while building our own sense of worth and grace outside of our colonial mentality. In the Philippines we need to acknowledge that much of our systems and infrastructure are badly compromised by these centuries of colonization. We need to rebuild, to be reborn, to reclaim our own magic.

Sheets of paper titled Homecoming and Death or Rebirth, and We Create Our Fate in neon colors on a black and white image.

I’m nonbinary too, so I’m always fascinated to see how other nonbinary designers make games. How do you feel that your queerness, your nonbinary identity, being bi-racial, and these other personal aspects of yourself have impacted the design and presentation of BALIKBAYAN and the cyberpunk world within it?

To be honest, I used to really struggle with the idea of queer design, and what that looks like. I have to truly give credit to the community of indie designers who looked at my work and reflected on it, helping me see the queerness and nonbinary nature of my design. In BALIKBAYAN my nonbinary asserts itself by allowing the players to choose how active or passive they wish the story to flow. There are tools available, but I provide many examples that show how each game can be unique and flow completely differently. As a nonbinary, I believe in nuance and push away from the black and white. There are some cool mechanics tied to that (for example, even if you bring about the Rebirth of Magic, you have to answer the question “Which one of us runs away, and helps rebuild the Corp?”). Though I also have to say that also reflects my colonial pain, many of us resort to acting like our colonial masters in the way of rebirth and revolution (those dang intersections, right?).

But yes as a nonbinary designer, I come from a place of nuance and push that towards the forefront. I think that also gave me the sheer confidence to tackle the Cyberpunk genre. I grew up loving it, and like so many people like me (queer, POC, etc) I also felt disappointed by how so much of its core themes of revolution and self-acceptance were rewritten and downplayed. But I refuse to back down, and I’ll continue designing in these spaces and do my work to reclaim it along with other diverse artists.

The brightly colored BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home cover with a long haired person in pleather-looking clothes wearing a gas mask and the text of the title on the cover.

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Thank you so much to Rae for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home on itch.io today!

Tag: politics

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You might ask, what the fuck does this have to do with games?

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A Reflection on Financials

What Happens Now?

Dream big, take no shit, and eat the rich.

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You might ask, what the fuck does this have to do with games?

The Plan

A Reflection on Financials

What Happens Now?

Dream big, take no shit, and eat the rich.

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