Tag: RPG

You’re getting dumped by your catgirl girlfriend

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

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

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

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Quick Shot on Fate Accessories Kickstarter

Hey all, got together with Fred Hicks real quick to ask him a bit about the Fate Accessories Kickstarter that’s currently running. See what he had to say, and check out the Kickstarter too!

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Dice with matching Fate points.

What is the Fate Accessories Kickstarter about, both as a product and as your vision?

The Fate Accessories Kickstarter is a follow-up to our 2014 Kickstarter for Fate Dice that launched that whole line (now 11 catalog entries deep) and breathed new life into the whole Fudge Dice thing. In the years since the Fate Dice have continued to be a real tentpole for us in terms of revenue, but our initial stock from that run has been dwindling. We’ve sunk profits from the line into reprinting the most of the stuff that’s getting low or even ran out (in the past several months we’ve gotten reprints rolling for the Antiquity, Eldritch, Centurion, and Vampire sets), but we also want to expand the line with more dice offerings in new styles and quantities, as well as launch a new line of Fate Point tokens that are color-coordinated with an existing (or to-be-funded) set. We’ve got a bunch of potentials waiting in the wings that we really want to show people, get their thoughts on, and get their help expanding the catalog. 
Infernal dice style.
What have been some of the challenges approaching reprinting and expanding – both creatively and from a business perspective?
I’ll answer this backwards. 🙂
Dice are expensive, not on an individual scale, but on a manufacturing-run scale. When we get dice made it’s a 5000 unit minimum order with the folks we have our primary die mold with, so that means for any one packaged dice item it’ll cost us in the low 5-digits (think $10k-$15k range) to get another run made. Our original runs that were Kickstarter-funded in 2014 were manufactured at around 8000 units each, but as we approached 2018 most of them were down to around 1000 units or less. They’ve been a good supporting pole of our company’s revenue stream, so letting multiple catalog entries run dry just wasn’t an option.

So we looked at the most popular ones based on the last few years of data and made sure to get reprints of those rolling. Our Core Dice had already sold out, but the iridescent material we use there is a bit more difficult to source, which increases the minimum print quantity, so we decided to leave that one be (especially given something I’m about to get to below). We also decided we’d let our two licensed sets, Winter Knight and Atomic Robo dice, run their course without a reprint. I love the sets, but I also like the idea of not needing to pay royalties on our dice sales. We’d already brought back the Antiquity one, so that meant Vampire, Centurion, and Eldritch Fate Dice needed the reprint.

Of course that meant that the dice money we could have spent on developing and releasing new sets was spent on reprints… which brings us to our first Kickstarter of the year. Given that it had been four years since our first Fate Dice kickstarter, we felt it was a good time to turn to our fans again and ask for some help funding an expanded line.

Creatively, tho, man, that’s the more difficult part of all this. There are only so many materials styles and distinctly-different colors you can offer before there starts being some kind of overlap. And honestly that’s not something we came to terms with as much as we should’ve before we launched. We faltered a bit in our first week of the Kickstarter because we didn’t make a good enough case that we were offering enough new and different, despite it feeling really obvious to us how things were different even if they fell in the broad categories of “green” or “blue” or “purple.” But recently (just yesterday at the time I write this) we started off our second week of the KS with a reshuffling of our stretch goals to put the new and different more visibly and more close at hand, which seems to be working as we’re getting a new surge of interest.

This was made possible in part because we’re bringing a new dice construction method to the party: layered dice, where different colors of material are injected in sequence, letting you produce dice that have a striped or gradient effect depending on what colors and sequence you choose. Of course, that triples the difficulty in color selection, but does let you produce some dice that definitely don’t look like any others we currently have.

Malachite dice design.
How do you choose what products are the right ones to bring back or newly develop – what ones really called for the action, and which ones are you most excited about?
I’ve already talked about some of the decision making that went into deciding what we brought back, so I’ll focus on new development here.

We knew we wanted to get into the Fate Point token space. Campaign Coins did a great set of metal Fate tokens, and those are still out there if you can find them, but we didn’t want to get into metals manufacture. That left us with the idea of creating a line of Fate Points tokens that use the same material as an associated set of dice; if we get the chance to expand the line further, we’ll do more tokens in more styles to match other sets we’ve had done (or will have done). That’s the other baseline goal of the Kickstarter, to make a new accessories line of Fate Points possible.

We’ve also prior to the Kickstarter begun an effort to make sure there are single player packs of Fate Dice out there — ones that contain 4 dice instead of 12 — as we’ve been hearing over the past few years that there are folks who want to buy a specific, single style of dice rather than a 3-style pack. As a dice addict I don’t really understand that line of thinking, but I know my biases are not universal! So that’s what gave birth to our Fire and Midnight Fate Dice single-player sets at $6 each. Our layered dice will also come in that kind of packaging, in part because they’re a little more expensive to make, so that lets us price them at $8 per set — a 12-die set of all layered dice would need a price a lot higher than the $15 we normally charge for 12-die sets.

New materials styles and new construction methods tend to play into our choices of what to develop as well. Another set we had made without Kickstarter backing is our Frost Dice 12-die set that we released a year or so back. That came about because our manufacturer told us about a “matte” finish that could be applied to translucent dice, which give them a frozen-liquid appearance. It’s an attractive set. Obviously the layered dice from our Kickstarter stretch goals also arose from access to a new construction method. To a great extent what can be done in manufacturing tends to drive the creative side of this more than the reverse — what methods can be used act as a fruitful constraint on the creativity.

As far as what I’m most excited about from the Kickstarter? Besides the Fate Points, it’s definitely those layered dice. Have a look. 🙂

Aquatic dice design.
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Thanks, Fred, for a great chat! Make sure you all check out the Fate Accessories Kickstarter to see what Fred &co have to offer!

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Power IRL Powered by D&D

I wrote this for school, but I wanted to post it here so others could use it, also, example of how I’d like to use games to explain concepts of leadership and development. -Brie

The illustrations on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by John W. Sheldon.

The best way for me to understand the different types of power was to put it into perspective of a fantasy roleplaying game. This might sound lazy, but it helps me remember it better and gives me perspectives.

Did I list druids here? Of course not – their power is more fluid in nature and depends on their interpretation of their magic, at least partially. I would consider them to have something like reward/referant. They’re a weird cookie.
Some of the main archetypes or roles in tabletop fantasy games are paladins, clerics, fighters, wizards, rangers, rogues, and bards. They each have different ways of moving about the game and taking actions, and have different abilities. When reading over the types of power initially probably four years ago, the following role assignments stuck out to me:

Paladins have legitimate power. Legitimate power is “the authority granted from a formal position in an organization” (Daft, p. 370). Paladins are typically given a role of power from their chosen deity, and can occupy a position in a church, as well. They are literally assigned power. With this, they can take actions themselves, as well as call others to action. To use this power, a paladin (or someone in real life) could call back to their own authority and speak to how their actions reflect the intentions of that authority.

Clerics have reward power. Reward power is “the authority to bestow rewards on other people” (Daft, p. 371). Clerics are also religiously-based, and can give people healing or blessings with deific magic. They have the ability to reward people for heroism through those blessings and through healing and recovery. A cleric (or someone in real life) might use reward power by promising that if a certain goal is met, there would be monetary, emotional, or needs-based reward.

Sassy fighter is sassy – and coercive.
Fighters have coercive power. Coercive power is “the authority to punish or recommend punishment” (Daft, p. 371). Fighters are typically combat based and often brutal and violent. Their typical modus operandi is to go punishment first. (Shoot first, ask questions later.) Their work is mostly done with threats! Fighters (or people in real life) could use coercive power by promising retribution should people not follow their orders and satisfy their goal requirements, and follow up on it if there is failure.

Rangers and wizards have expert power. Rogues also have this power. Expert power is “the authority resulting from a leader’s special knowledge or skill” (Daft, p. 371). Both wizards and rangers are experts in their fields, with deep knowledge of whatever it is they do. Wizards are academics, while rangers are more on-the-ground and experience based, and very skilled. Rogues have many skills but are more jack-of-all-trades in a lot of cases, which makes them have a lot of generalized authority because they know at least a little bit about almost everything. These type of archetypes (or people in real life) can use their power by explaining the facts and support behind the requested actions and goal-focus, and use their knowledge to propel action. 

Rogues know where it’s at (in your safe, that is).
Bards have referent power. Referent power is “authority based on personality characteristics that command followers’ attention, respect, and admiration so that they want to emulate the leader” (Daft, p.372). Bards are charisma based (mechanically and conceptually) and can guide people however they see fit. A bard (or person in real life) could use their power by speaking to ideals and behaviors that they hold and ensuring that others know the value of those, inspiring them to act to also carry those goals and behaviors into their work and personal life.

Legitimate, reward, and coercive power are hard power because they are all about control. If you do this, I give you or take away this. If you don’t do this, the whole authority will know you defied them. They are concrete things that immediately threaten or promise things, or simply force authority on people, and that makes them almost immovable. Soft power like expert power and referent power are explanatory and guiding instead of forcing, and therefore can lead people towards success or goal-meeting without making them feel like they have no choice or making them feel like they have to do something instead of wanting to do something, because it makes sense or satisfies some higher-level need.

What kind of power would a dragon have compared to a barbarian? It depends on the dragon, frankly.
Daft, R.L. (2015). The leadership experience. (6th ed.). Stamford,CT: Cengage Learning.

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Five or So Questions on Faerie Fire

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Shannon Campbell from Astrolago Press about the new bestiary currently on Kickstarter, Faerie Fire, which is compatible with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Shannon is the creator alongside Dillon MacPherson and Malcolm Wilson. The Kickstarter runs until the morning of February 7, 2018. Check out Shannon’s answers below!

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The Conglomadog by Kory Bing
Tell me a little about Faerie Fire. What excites you about it?
Faerie Fire is a collaboration between myself and two of my gamemasters: Dillon MacPherson and Malcolm Wilson. The three of us are friends and colleagues and we’re all very passionate about tabletop gaming–we’re active homebrewers, Dillon and Malcolm especially. 
There’s loads of things that excite me tremendously about Faerie Fire: the fact that it’s full of items and creatures that the three of us have enjoyed so much in our own campaigns, and now we get to share them with everyone; the list of incredible illustrators that I’m so grateful to have had the chance to work with; and the fact that it’s entirely up to our own creative vision what goes in the book. AND THE AESTHETIC IS KEY. I’m super stoked to get to work on such a vibrant, colourful project. We wanted to make a really wild book that felt a little bit sexy, a little bit dangerous–but at the same time super inclusive.

What was the inspiration for Faerie Fire, and how did you start compiling and creating all of this content together?

To start, a lot of it was homebrew we had developed for our own campaig
ns. Dillon and Malcolm have known each other for a decade and as they were both game designers and avid game masters, they were constantly developing and exchanging new content. They’d always wanted to make a tabletop compendium of their own, and the success in recent years of similar projects spurred them on. I’m a writer and narrative designer in video games but I’ve also had experience as an editor on various print publications–including Bones of the Coast, a Kickstarter-funded comics anthology I helmed in 2016, and The Underground: A Sam & Fuzzy RPG, a tabletop system & setting I edited a couple of years ago.

Right away it seemed clear to me that we should do something aggressive and bold–that it wasn’t enough to just produce content that was the same flavour as the vanilla stuff already widely available. We were spending a lot of time in the fairy realm in a campaign that Malcolm was GMing and it seemed like there was a lot of content there to explore and develop–and it quickly became clear that anything we made for the Wilds would be anything but vanilla.

Pox and Pilfer by Amy T. Falcone
Why did you choose to use 5e as your base? Is any of the material flexible to use in other systems, even just the flavor?

Dillon and Malcolm have been playing for 10 years but I only came onto tabletop games with D&D 4th edition, which I played for about a year before 5e came out. After that I went through a handful of systems–but I kept coming back to 5e. I like long-form storytelling and character-driven stories, and 5e is just the right combination of intuitive and versatile–and it’s so, so homebrew friendly. Pretty much every 5e campaign I played ended up having homebrew added before too long: custom player races and classes, new magic items, weird hybrid monsters–and everyone I played with was always happy to go off book. 5e feels like a robust and elegant toolset.

One of the things we’d really like to do with Faerie Fire is make it Fate-compliant as well (I’m a huge fan of Fate Accelerated)–whether this is done as a stretch goal, or as a side hobby over the next year, is hard to say. We think that the style and aesthetic of Faerie Fire would readily fit into a lot of systems and worlds–though the mechanics would obviously need to be adapted a little. And, of course, the fast-paced, glamorous, brilliant setting of Faerie Fire would make it a perfect fit for one of my favourite impromptu systems: All Outta Bubblegum.

How did you choose artists for the project to capture the aesthetic you were looking for? What was your search like?
I come from a comics background, and for five years I ran a curated comics festival called VanCAF that put me in touch with a large network of artists, so I quickly compiled a shortlist of talent that I thought would be a great fit for the project. We had an open submissions process, as well, where artists could pitch monster ideas for us to collaborate on–but in the end we only selected a handful of artists that way.

The vision was for Faerie Fire to be vivid and stylish and bold and glamourous, but I also wanted it to be non-binary and queer. It seemed to me that if we approached it as an art book as well as a supplemental, then it might provide an opportunity for people who have otherwise felt excluded from gaming to discover how incredible these worlds could be. To that end, we wanted to collaborate with diverse creators. My own connections were very LGTBQ+ representative, and feeds like @sffpocartists on Twitter and the #drawingwhileblack and #latinxartists hashtags provided a bounty of skill & talent that made it incredibly easy to discover new names I might not have been introduced to otherwise.

Tell me a little about the design process. How did you flesh out the creatures? What did you do to make sure everything was consistent thematically and mechanically?

The design process was a little bit different from artist to artist–some artists preferred to be assigned a creature, in which case they’d give us some requests (flowers! or feathers!) and tell us what they hated to draw, and we’d build them a custom creature that played to their strengths. Other artists had their own idea for a creature, so we’d get them to run it by us and then cross-reference it to all the other monsters going into the book to make sure that it was unique. We’d send back design notes, if necessary, but otherwise we wanted to give the artists as much autonomy as possible.

Making sure that each monster is unique involves, basically, a lot of spreadsheets. We have cross-references for creature type, whether they’re humanoid or not, sentient or not–whether they have damage resistances or vulnerabilities, whether they can be used as a familiar or a mount. The book runs the whole gamut. Dillon and Malcolm design the stat blocks between the two of them and each of them reviews the other’s work–I come in at the last to give the final review, whip up the lore, and make sure everything looks hunky dory from there. As the art comes in we review it and, if there’s anything that doesn’t quite sync up with the lore & stats we’ve developed, or if the artist has surprised us with something we weren’t quite expecting, we’ll tweak the written content one last time to make sure it gets the most out of the art and doesn’t introduce any confusing inconsistencies.

The book is designed around the a chaotic Fairy plane, home of the fey. While not all the creatures originated there, they’ve all been affected by it, and that shapes their powers and design. We’ve also introduced the Plane of the Living Light, a neon-inspired plane that kind of bumps up against the Wilds–those with special sensitivities can see into it, and certain creatures can channel its living energy through them. Everything in the book, therefore, has been touched by one of these two things: either chaotic fey magics, or the pulsing, energizing Living Light.

Because the aesthetic ranges from the cyberpunky Neon Noir to the fun colours and friendly animals of certain beloved 90s stationery, there’s a wide range of creatures: some are monstrous, some are sexy, some are friendly–some are just plain weird. Each and every one of them is an original creation.

To finish off, what are a few of your favorite items and creatures in the text, and why?

My favourite probably comes down to two or three different creatures: there’s the Kapny (which is going to be drawn by Jemma Salume), dryad-like creatures that live in the husks of trees burned by wildfire; I’m also a huge fan of the Cawillopard (drawn by Desirae Salmark), a tall, giraffe-like creature whose head can’t be seen for the weeping willow branches that trail down its neck; it has a symbiotic relationship with glittering spiders that live in its branches. When you’re under its expansive canopy, the spiders make it look like the night sky shining above you. Pretty! But also creepy, depending on your particular phobia. And, lastly, I’m a big fan of our “cover girl”, Sepal: she’s the warden of the fey prison, where all the prisoners are transformed into flowers and shrubs for the duration of their imprisonment. She keeps a disciplined, well-manicured garden, and she’s a fierce and cunning member of the fairy nobility; though she mostly prefers to stay out of the various squabbles and underhanded politics of the court, it’d be pretty stupid to underestimate her–she literally grows her own army. Yuko Ota drew Sepal for the cover of the book and the interior illustration of her, as well.

Jesse Turner is drawing all our items as we speak and each time he turns in a new one, it’s even more fantastic than the last. I’m most looking forward to seeing the finished art for the Comet’s Tail: a magical flail that looks something like a glowing comet, and allows the wielder to cast Minute Meteor. 

The Wayfarer by Jesse Turner
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Thanks so much to Shannon for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and will check out Faerie Fire, a 5e supplemental on Kickstarter – don’t miss out, the Kickstarter ends February 7!

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Play with Purpose

Dice by John W. Sheldon

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

Why do you play RPGs?

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

Why do you play RPGs?

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

How do those games meet your reason?

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

Do all of the mechanics support your type of play?

Do any of the mechanics reject your type of play?

Do you play around any mechanics to enjoy play?

Do you ignore sections of the rulebook to play?

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

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

What about this game makes it valuable to you?

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

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

Do you know about other RPGs?

Do you know how to play them?

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

Do any of them meet your reason?

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

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

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

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

Why do you play RPGs?

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Five or So Questions on Let Me Take a Selfie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for your time, Brie!

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


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

Thoughty is 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.

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Reminder: Turn Playtest Available

In case you’re interested in what I’m working on or looking for something to playtest!

Turn is a slice-of-life supernatural roleplaying game set in the modern era.

Players in Turn are shapeshifters in small, rural towns who must balance their human lives and habits with their beast needs and instincts. Their baser natures will challenge them as they strive towards goals from everyday tasks to life-changing experiences, and they will need to find comfort in one another to make it through without becoming stressed out. The system uses player discussion and a set of d6 rolls for resolution.

Turn is slated to be a complete draft by the end of 2018, potentially pursuing crowdfunding.

EDIT: The Turn Beta is no longer available but you can find the game at any of these links:

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Turn.html

https://briebeau.itch.io/Turn

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/281964/Turn?manufacturers_id=10592

 

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

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

Five or So Questions on WINTERHORN

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

—

Really nice layout and design for the materials!

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

HOW

How do we fix this?

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Let’s start now.




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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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.

Harassment in Indie Games: Part 3 – Where and Why

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

Harassment in Indie Games: Part 3 – Where and Why

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

WHERE

Where are these events happening?

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

Where are efforts being made?

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

WHY

Why do people do these things?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is this happening right now?

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

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

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

Why is it happening in these spaces?

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

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

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

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

We need to step up.

 

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

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

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

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

This post was supported by the community on ko-fi.com/thoughty. 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.