Content Warnings: mental health, disability, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective / psychotic symptoms, suicidality, hearing voices, dissociative disorders, electroconvulsive therapy, partial psychiatric intake programs, COVID, PTSD / CPTSD, loss of resources, loss of function, grief
I try to consider the ways my life could have gone differently sometimes, but there is one way that things did go that may have gone worse. It’s been altered again very recently, and I don’t know how to cope. I feel afraid of what is to come, and with all I’ve lost, I don’t know who I am anymore, even if I am not angry at where I am.
After several years of struggling with my most notable head injury, new diagnoses, mental illness, multiple harmful relationships, and losing or having to sacrifice the use of my degree, my careers, and the ability to do many things I once enjoyed, I found myself at the onset of a mixed bipolar 1 episode with schizoaffective symptoms yet again. I was struggling with the impact of PTSD on my life and function. Also trying to answer yet-unresolved questions about the impact of COVID on my body that has led to constant physical discomfort and symptoms that left me justified in being paranoid about my wellbeing.
I participated in a partial inpatient program that helped with my mental health, but the mixed episode was stubborn. I was barely sleeping, borderline suicidal on a daily basis, and not unsure whether this would be the last run for me. I’d learned coping mechanisms and addressed my trauma more deeply. Unfortunately, when you’ve done a lot of therapy and also tried and failed a lot of medication, options become limited to stop a train like a mixed episode. I’ve had episodes lasting multiple years that were almost life ruining, and I couldn’t bear the thought of going through that again.
Hello all! Today I have an interview with Jan Martin, creator of Crow Island Funeral // PROCESSION! I’m so excited to share this interview, Jan is an amazing creator and Crow Island is SO cool!
Jan: ” I wanted to have this section of the overall story play out as a game because it underlines the importance of surviving the trip in a way that a short story couldn’t do on its own. Being able to fail, actually fail and lose and not make it at all, would have huge implications in the universe. There’s no telling how the future would have unfolded if that group didn’t survive the trek to the City of Seven Nations. “
Hello all! Today I have an interview with Jan Martin, creator of Crow Island Funeral // PROCESSION! I’m so excited to share this interview, Jan is an amazing creator and Crow Island is SO cool!
Thank you for the interview, Jan! You have been designing games for a while now, but for people who are new, could you tell me a little about yourself and what gives you passion for games?
Jan: I think the biggest thing for me with games is I love how they can help putting together a good story. Every great TTRPG session would make a great TV show, film, book, comic, whatever medium. That’s a magical thing to me, a book with some rules and ideas, in the hands of a group of humans, leads to great stories. Stories that come together organically, with lively characters and compelling scenes. I’ve spent my life writing fiction and I’ve never been able to come close to the kind of story you can make with friends around a table.
It’s that idea that I might be able to craft a game that can help people create compelling stories of their own that really excites me. Game designers have an incredible power in this way, and I guess I’m always trying to chase that same power. To facilitate stories full of laughter, drama, and intrigue between friends with a book of ideas is amazing. That’s what gives me passion, is the pursuit of the dream that I too can someday make a game that can do that.
Beau: Today we’re talking about your solo game, Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION. It is a really well put together game with a lot of content, & I am excited to know more! What excites you about Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION?
Jan: This is the first introduction to a much larger world and Universe that all my games and fiction are set. This game takes place in the same location as seen earlier this year in a short-story I wrote for Wizardpunk by Sandy Pug Games. That story was set in the modern day. In Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION players explore that area in the early years of civilization on the planet. It’s the year 349, exactly 10 years before the discovery of Spirit Trees and Spirit Magic. It introduces some names that will show up again and again, Asogomas and Naad, as well gives a peek into early culture.
Anyone who picks up my games now and follows from here on will keep seeing familiar details and learn more and more about them. I’m really excited to be able to share these bits of the world, and even more excited to see peoples reactions as they learn how things end up. I’m also a little worried, because the deeper it goes, the wilder it gets and I run the risk of alienating some people along the way. The expectations of what this world is and its place in the Universe it lives aren’t obvious at this point. I’ve got some plans to try and keep people onboard and interested so hopefully those work out.
Beau: Creating a world in which your games are set sounds really awesome! Having read through your game, I feel like there’s a lot of richness there. What is guiding your planning for this world and what are some ways you can see it in Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION?
Jan: It’s a combination of things, a large part of it is making sure everything fits within the larger Universe. There are a lot of different planets and even Universes involved so it’s a challenge to keep everything organized. For Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION in particular a key part of keeping organized is a timeline of the planet that starts when Crow Island itself is in year 1, when it created by Kiskik the Creator.
The timeline goes all the way up until current day, the year 13,425, which happens to be the year the larger game in the series is set. You can see this in the game itself through some of the lore, for example the two paths you can take. There’s the Path of Asogomas and the Path of Naad I mentioned before, but another example is the location Mudgash River. This is the location where the story in Wizardpunk is set, and will be an important spot in other games and stories. Some of the areas on the map will come up again more than others, but pretty much everything you see in this game will be present or referenced in future ones.
The map from Crow Island’s text with a zoomed in focus on East Central Crow Island, featuring a legend of the landmarks and settlements, by Jan Martin.
Beau: Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION has a really cool card mechanic and I love the structure of it. How does the design of the mechanics interrelate with the world building and the fiction of the stories you tell in the game?
Jan: The mechanics are meant to reflect the uncertainty of life while still being predictable. This ties directly into the world which is very similar to how my people lived pre-Colonialism. We had great understanding of the land and how to move through it and survive, but there is always that element of unpredictability, random chance, chaos, whatever you want to call it. It makes it so even the most skilled individuals must take care and have constant respect for the dangers of nature. Having the cards always have the same set of resources available, just presented in different order thereby taking something predictable and adding tension.
At the time of me typing this the game is too easy, and I’ll have to tweak things a little bit to better reflect the dangers of travel through the wilderness. The dice mechanic is similar when fording rivers, technically it’s possible to get through river obstacles without issue, but it’s highly unlikely. Basically I wanted to have the mechanics reflect two things, that you are experts of travelling through this wilderness, but despite that, it can still kill you. This is important to get right because future games will be difficult but for different reasons. I want there to be a strong contrast between how things were tough “back in the day” versus modern day, but keeping it clear that both times were rough.
Beau: The timeline of Crow Island seems very significant! Designing your own universe sounds like a big task, but what are the best parts of making something so big but accessed in individual play experiences?
Jan: It’s really nice to be able to zoom in on something in your Universe and have people pay attention to it on a deeper level. Originally this was all going to be a sprawling science fantasy novel series, with endless lore and backstory. That felt too tedious to subject readers to, even if I enjoy that sort of thing myself I don’t have the writing chops to deliver that kind of content in an enjoyable way. Anything I wrote sounded like a history text book and I wanted something immersive. Breaking the Universe up into separate experiences allows me to share a lot more about a particular part of it without worrying about people getting bored. It’s also really enjoyable to have a Universe just sitting there to think of like a sandbox. Anytime I’m feeling blocked on progress in a game, I can just hop into the Crow Island Universe timeline or map and find a new thread to pull.
The World Map for Crow Island by Jan Martin.
Beau: The experiences of your people are valuable, & it’s really awesome how you’ve reflected them in this game. Are there any unique challenges to designing a pre-Colonialism game?
Jan: Absolutely, there’s all kinds of worries about depicting things accurately and not viewing the past through a modern lens. Originally this game was about North America and an alternate-history where Indigenous Nations drove off Colonial forces. The more I worked on it through that lens, the more I started to feel guilty. Sometimes I will talk out loud to my ancestors and ask them about what I’m doing, they never answer me, but, just the act of asking about it gets me to think of it through their mindset. The more I thought about that the more I realized I wasn’t being fair to my ancestors, assuming I or anyone could have done anything differently to predict or avoid what happened.
As a result I ended up re-writing about 40k words or so of my “Universe Bible”, and changed it from an alternate history project, to an entirely unique Universe of its own without any of the trappings of our current history. I don’t think anyone would have taken issue with my game the way it was, but for me personally it just didn’t feel right anymore and I had to change gears. That same thing happens continually throughout this process. I’ll have some idea for the world, game, or story in this Universe and the more I talk it over with my ancestors, the more I come to realize things have to change. It’s an extra layer in the process that has no clear answers.
Unlike many problems we face in the game design process, some of the questions I arrive at I can’t look up online or even find the answers from my Elders, because we don’t know anymore. The Mi’kmaq were some of the first Indigenous peoples to meet Colonial forces and as such we’ve been subjected to the ongoing effects of their occupation since the start. So many of our practices, so much of our language, is just gone. Often the best we can do is speculate. That complicates things even further, I obviously don’t want to offend anyone living or misrepresent our culture. But more than that, I don’t want to offend my ancestors, the people who actually lived in the time periods I’m romanticizing in my games.
Beau: In playing Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION, players encounter a lot of dangers. How did you design the game to balance those dangers while still keeping players hopeful of reaching the end of their journey?
Jan: Working out mechanics is a slow process for me, especially the math side of things. Any semblance of balance the game has right now I owe to keeping the math simple. Well to be honest it’s not super balanced right now, I thought it was, but I didn’t account for my own terrible luck. I balanced everything by playtesting it myself, and historically I’m an abysmal dice roller. In games where rolling a 1 is a failure, I roll lots of 1’s.
In games where rolling a 1 is a failure *and* you get XP for it, I never roll 1’s. So in my personal playtests, the balance felt right. I lost a couple times, and most other playthroughs I barely scraped by or had some a series of close calls. But then, all the feedback I’ve received so far from playtesters has been the opposite, that outside of a few terrible run-ins with a river, for the most part they managed to cruise through the game without any problems. Balance will be an ongoing thing.
In the next update I’ll have tweaked the math a little bit to try and increase the difficulty to be more in line with my original vision. I don’t know what will happen after that, if people playtesting say it’s much harder but they’re not having fun anymore, I’ll tweak again. I want to make sure I don’t let my vision get in the way of an enjoyable experience and I’m lucky to have some people sending me this valuable feedback so I’m taking it to heart.
The Choose a Role card for Crow Island by Jan Martin.
Beau: I find the visual design of Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION approachable & really gorgeous! What was your perspective on how to present the game to your audience, & how did you work to implement it?
Jan: I wanted to capture the same sort of feeling and vibe I got from the original Oregon Trail games I played as a kid on school computers. Everything was pretty stripped down in the version I played, but it really captured the vibe of going on a road trip. To pull that off I wanted to go for really simple graphics, something like you might see on a sign at a National Park. It felt right to go a little more cartoony than that, but that was my launching point.
Beau: It’s remarkable how complex of an approach to your design choices you have, including in how you involve & respect the experiences of your ancestors. What about this medium, games, makes it well suited to telling stories that reflect those experiences?
Jan: Games are one of the best mediums to tell stories that have experiences you want to communicate in a more interactive way. It can help make the gravity of a situation meaningful in a fun way. In Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION I could have written the game as a story, but in the story they succeed in making it to the City of Seven Nations and that’s that. I wanted to have this section of the overall story play out as a game because it underlines the importance of surviving the trip in a way that a short story couldn’t do on its own. Being able to fail, actually fail and lose and not make it at all, would have huge implications in the universe. There’s no telling how the future would have unfolded if that group didn’t survive the trek to the City of Seven Nations.
In later installations of this game world, people will see that importance in a new light. It’s a small thing, but having “lived” in the footsteps of people in this world I think will lend that gravity I mentioned to how things went. I don’t mind spoiling it, but essentially the discovery of Spirit Magic hinged on the body of the Chief being examined at the City of Seven Nations. It’s a hugely important detail, and players being able to fail at carrying out that detail gives more life to the words than I think I could pull off with a story alone.
These rad games all came through my radar over the past period of time, and I figured I’d just post my thoughts all in one! As always, these reviews will be copied over to the itchio pages with a rating to support the creators, and I recommend you buy the games that sound cool to you, and TIP the creators!
I keep on meaning to do individual posts with reviews but life… is a pain in the ass. However, these rad games all came through my radar over the past period of time, and I figured I’d just post my thoughts all in one! As always, these reviews will be copied over to the itchio pages with a rating to support the creators, and I recommend you buy the games that sound cool to you, and TIP the creators!
Remember this Pride month that marginalized queer creators need support especially when big corporations are promoting Pride stuff while not actually supporting queer creators! Direct support matters!
A note: Please keep in mind that my reviews are largely based on short self-playtests, solo play, and the review of the text since I am unable to put together a game group at this time. I’ve played, read, & designed a pretty wide variety of games, so it is not typically challenging for me to envision how something plays out in full experiences, but it is still useful to know that the review is based on limited engagement.
Skel-IT-Ons by Nevyn Holmes
Genre Tags: multiplayer (3+ players & facilitator), fantasy, tarot cards, heists, coins Replayable? Yes! Actual Play Available? Some examples in text Length: Short (One-shot)
Full disclosure: I think Nevyn is very cool and enjoy their work, and have done Script Change consultation work for them. However, I don’t think this really changes how I feel about the game!
The graphic presentation of the game is really gorgeous. I love using bright pink against grey or other monotone, and the cover’s stark imagery of cubicles with the bright pink text over it is so great! It evokes a really specific vibe that is what my brain calls “eldritch corporate” and I don’t know how else to explain that! The interior has really cute and fun skeleton art and a combination of sans serif and handwritten font that’s still adequately legible for most people, and the text is mostly large enough to read without zooming in on a PDF.
The rules are informed by Lasers and Feelings, but also influenced by Grant Howitt’s Honey Heist. The presentation of the rules flows pretty well, starting with character creation and then moving onto gameplay, facilitation, then the tables and credits on the final page. Character creation is pretty simple, a combination of freeform elements like your name (which must be totally normal, definitely human), constrained elements like your stat number (ranging 2-5, higher determining that you’re better at IT and therefore good at human stuff, or lower determining that you’re better at Spooky and therefore good at sneaking and skullduggery), and choosing from picklists for things like your specialty (email, lying, brawling, user accounts, etc.), role (InfoSec, Intern, etc.), Skeleton Power (Funny Bones, Picky Fingers, etc.), ulterior motive, and fear. It’s flavorful and well suited to the game!
To play the game, you roll dice when there’s uncertain rules or risk, using six-sided dice and adding dice based on various factors (expertise, preparedness, etc.). The number of dice that succeed (trying to roll over your stat if you’re rolling Spooky, and under your stat for IT). There are helping moves, plus ones for focusing and reducing your meters. Your meters are Spooky and IT, and increase or decrease based on failure or success, and are what determine wheter you go feral, turn into a pile of bones, get found out as a skeleton, or lose your job! It’s cool to see genuine stakes in a one-shot game but still ones that aren’t too intense. I also love the presentation of the rules here!
A lot of the game is focused on completing IT tickets, which have tables in the back and can gain you Kudos, which determines the final winners. The tickets are determined by the facilitator’s rolls on the ticket tables, and the facilitator can also include things like Overtime for unresolved tickets, or introduce Absurd Obstacles to make things a little more hectic. For the players, the three main goals are “‘Fix’ things, complete your ulterior motive, and don’t get fired or turned to bones.” The facilitator (called a GM here) is there to make things complicated and present challenges, as well as to help determine what happens when rolls fail.
Genre Tags: multiplayer (3+ players & facilitator), fantasy, tarot cards, heists, coins Replayable? Yes! Actual Play Available? Some examples in text Length: Short (One-shot)
The layout of this game is pretty with photographs of a lot of music-related objects and scenes (record players with quotes, cassette tapes, etc.) in a largely monotone (black, white, grey) color palette. the font is mostly monospace like typewriter font except for the serif quotes and sans serif thicker header fonts. The only part that’s a little challenging to read is really the music tracklists, which are white on black and smaller text, however, there’s a link to the Spotify playlists so that you can easily find the songs without having to read them!
When the Music Stops includes a safety section that’s well worded and encourages using safety tools as well as breaks and dialogue, primarily recommending lines & veils set up a few days before play to allow for time to prepare. I really appreciate setting safety expectations early, and putting this section before the Making the Mixtape section, because I personally know some music can even impact a person’s ability to play safely. (I feel like Script Change would suit this game well, also, if you’re looking for more structure.)
The Mixtape section is really great, giving guidelines on choosing a theme, timing the playlist well, including diversity, and the importance of having the lyrics (including a translation if it’s not in your native language) of the final song. As I mentioned, there’s also a sample playlist with a Spotify link, which makes this simpler for pickup play! In the section on playing the game, the instructions say to fast forward to the final song and look over the lyrics together, not talking but listening, and then flesh out the disastrous event when the music stops. There is a lot of useful guidance here on how much to detail, what to use to inform the narrative, and what it means to play towards resolving the disaster instead of trying to immediately fix it.
Character creation includes name, pronouns, and four traits for each character as well as any additional notes you desire to include or not. Traits are simple, descriptive phrases like “Single father,” “blessed by the gods,” and so on, with two being directly from the lyrics of the final song even if they overlap with others, just interpreted differently. This is really a cool and simple character creation that uses the game’s musical mechanics, which I love!
Each game also includes up to 7 Obstacles, and I like the flexibility in this section allowing you to stop when you feel it makes sense and say that whatever Obstacle you’re at is the final Obstacle. It is also is great that this section includes guidance to check in with quiet players and encourage them to, if they desire, be the next to introduce an Obstacle, since the last person who spoke in a given scene is given the right to introduce an Obstacle and some players are quieter or engage in different ways. You also don’t have to have Obstacles in scenes, which allows for more flexible storytelling.
Resolving obstacles uses die rolls against a 1-3 (makes it worse and causes you to use Chronicle points), 4-5 (timeline fights back, rewind your playlist), to 6 (overcome obstacle and gain a Chronicle point, more successes is more points) scale. You roll dice equal to the traits you’re using, which can be based on combined/team effort. I will say that it would be useful if Chronicle points were defined before this section, but it’s not too complicated to figure out or find since it’s a small document! The Chronicle points define how effectively you address the disaster at the end of the game, with more being better.
Finally, a great part of the game is the epilogue section on Rebuilding. This is after the confrontation of the disaster where you kind of unwind and thank each other & give positive feedback. It’s a great debriefing that includes a number of useful questions integrated into the structure, and I love a good opportunity to say nice things about each other and release tension or anxiety about the experience of play.
There’s some amazing game bundles happening this month, please check them out and see which one suits you!
Queer Games Bundle 2021– I’m in this bundle with I love you and I adore you! It has TONS of games and there’s even a Pay What You Want edition! Great Pride month collection! Support queer creators in and out of the bundle this month and all year round!
Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid – This bundle to support Palestinians who are struggling against the genocidal acts of Israel is full of tons of AMAZING games, and I’m in this one with Let Me Take a Selfie! Thoughty is an apartheid free space opposed to the actions of the state of Israel!
TTRPG Charity Bundle for Trans Support – I am sad I missed out on getting in to participate for this one, but WOW is it full of tons of wonderful games! Don’t miss out on helping trans people thrive in spite of the current harmful legislation attempts!
Sapling Soul by Logan Timmins
Genre Tags: multiplayer (3+ players & facilitator), fantasy, tarot cards, heists, coins Replayable? Yes! Actual Play Available? Some examples in text Length: Short (One-shot)
The layout uses a simple white background and black text in a serif font with beautiful nature photography, very atmospheric and mysterious photographs of forests with light pouring between trees or the sky peeking through the foliage. I love tree photos so I immediately loved this part of the text, to be honest! Overall the layout is really functional, which is important, but it’s also quite pretty.
The start of the game includes some flavor text to guide your journaling and set the scene, and then has you establish your Trust in the forest by rolling 2d6 and adding 3. If you have 0 trust, you move to a section called “Losing Trust” and follow the instructions there, but you start out with this established number and record it in your journal. After this, you create your Sapling Soul. I won’t be including all of my play through, but here are the questions for creation and my responses.
What is your name? Evan What does the Forest call you? The Lost One How does the Forest call to you? The Forest keens, a ringing sound in the distance, that I know and will never forget.
Sapling Soul Creation Questions & Responses
You also have three attributes, empathy, nurture, and unknowable. To get stats for these, you roll 3d6 and add the totals together for each attribute. When you test these attributes, you roll the 20-sided die. Equal or under the attribute succeeds, over the attribute fails. Consequences happen in either case, and in some cases you invite hostility, including that of the Haunted, resulting in marking a strike in your journal. Three strikes invokes the Hunted by Haunted section. In encounters, you sometimes won’t test your attributes, and instead roll a d6 to find out what will happen. The mechanics here are pretty well explained and quite simple, and though a lot of the play is in the experience of journaling, the journaling is impacted quite a bit by these rolls.
There is a short safety section that details how there is a chance you won’t make it through, and that failure is still a story, with a note to pause or leave the game if you’re uncomfortable. I often wish solo games had more structured safety support, and I felt that here, but I am glad it’s noted at all. Reminding people that you don’t have to finish a game is important!
The following pages after this are the actual play with prompts and the results on a 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 scale or 1-3, 4-6 scale based on your d6 rolls. After the first roll, sometimes you’re prompted to test your Attributes, and there are further results on a similar d6 scale that impact your Trust stat, the number of strikes you mark related to the Haunted, and other things like causing you to have to roll twice and take the lower score on your next test. All of this is supported with about a paragraph or more of flavor and detail about what happens narratively because of your results, anything from chittering in the forest to physical discomfort or threats from the Haunted.
I will be clear that there are absolutely parts of this that could be disturbing, scary, or potentially triggering. There are a lot of themes of struggle, potential combat whether physical or metaphysical, spooky framing of the forest environment and the threats you encounter, some elements of deception, and some elements of being pursued or chased, among other potential elements that I might not have caught. I would especially note that the results of being overtaken by the Haunted or the Intruder both involve loss of self, not always ending the story but making you into one of the Haunted. For me, this is particularly creepy and stressful, but it’s a completely legit story element. If you like things that are spooky and a little unsettling, deeply evocative and exploratory, this game might suit you well! It’s super captivating and enjoyable!
Genre Tags: multiplayer (3+ players & facilitator), fantasy, tarot cards, heists, coins Replayable? Yes! Actual Play Available? Some examples in text Length: Short (One-shot)
The layout of the game is really pretty with colorful, patterned backgrounds that have images related to the various tarot cards and the general theme. There are bold colored splashes with text over them on many pages, which I am grateful for because as gorgeous as these pages are, the narrow sans-serif font can be a little challenging to read over some of the more vivid or busy backgrounds. This is likely just a me thing though, I don’t think most people will struggle! Overall it looks great and it uses a little crown-and-eye icon to indicate when the author is providing guidance or notes, which is fun and useful!
Character creation for the Royals involves choosing a Royal from the tarot cards (four families of royals, based on the suits of wands, swords, etc. with detailed roles in the text of the game). All of the characters are equal regardless of implied hierarchy, and the text details that whether you’re naturally part of a family or not is irrelevant, as it’s based on your magic awakening. Next you ask the Royal on your right a series of questions, and the Royal on your left a different series of questions. The questions are really great (“Who have we both loved?” and “What secret of mine do I wish you didn’t know?” are great prompts, and there are several others!). Next, you write down “silver” and “blood” on a sheet of paper, splitting two facets between these two fields, including things like relationships or equipment. Silver relates to arcane ancestry, while blood is real world and mundane things.
These facets are what you wager in challenges, and when you fail they’re damaged or lost. You invert (like a tarot card can invert) when you lose all facets. This is a cool way to handle managing resources and what you can use them for without having to keep detailed track, as well as making resources integral to the actual narrative & engagement with challenges. The section on “Junk Magic” talks about using objects, fetishes, charms, and relics to accomplish magic, which is something the Arcane don’t have to do but Royals do. Determining how you do this is part of character creation.
You also choose a reason you’re doing this heist, but it’s a secret from the other Royals, whether it’s revenge, pride, greed, or loyalty. The game does say that you don’t have to define this in detail up front, and that it might change through play. You reveal this when your card inverts! All of this and a name and you’ve created a character. Each of the families has a ton of rich flavor and detail for the characters, so I feel like there’s a lot of room to play this multiple times.
The next sections of the game describe the Arcane, basically who you’re facing in the heist to take their powers, and the City, where the game is set. The Arcane each have a domain in the city where they’re strongest, defined & fleshed out by all players as a group. It also details how the Royals will describe their court, and then the five icons that players gain (each getting one) that can be used in case of a crisis.
To start off, Fate Herself (the facilitator) draws a major Arcana card to choose & describe the Mark for the heist, and players share something that relates the Mark to them (things that could potentially motivate them against the Mark are especially good here) and Fate Herself records them. The Mark holds The Prize, which is the manifestation of the power the Royals are stealing. The Prize is protected by the Box, which is basically the obstacles the Royals encounter, represented by five major arcana cards laid out on the table around the Mark, and defined by the Icons list in the text. From here, players use coins (3 per player) and play through scouting for the heist, defining the box, placing coins to indicate contributions, then using their facets and so on to play through the actual heist and engagement. They’ll draw cards and based on the card result get a “No, and,” “yes, but,” “yes, and,” or a “yes, and then some” from Fate Herself that gets broken down and affects how they overcome icons. If all icons are overcome, the prize is had, but there can be a lot of complications down the line!
The game itself is rules light, but the execution could be more complex for those unfamiliar with tarot, or for those who might struggle with using multiple components for whatever reason. I’d recommend thoroughly reading the text, as well as looking over the noted alterative rules within the text, before engaging in play. The game doesn’t have any particular safety guidance, so I’d especially recommend having a discussion up front to see how you want to support a safer table & if there’s any aspects of a magical heist that you want to encourage or avoid.
I hope you enjoyed these reviews! I hope to do more of these over time, as well as other posts about theory and design! If you enjoyed these, please support the creators by picking up their games & tipping, as well as leaving positive reviews. You can also check out the awesome bundles I linked to, full of great games for important causes! Finally, consider supporting Thoughty on ko-fi.com/thoughty if you’d like to see more from me!
“I have often felt like I’m screaming into nothingness when I have tried to talk about the constant abuses in the community, the toxic business practices, the cultural flaws. Worst of all has been when I know someone has done harm, but I’m not the one who can give light to it.”
I posted this to my private Twitter tonight, but I feel like it does deserve a space here for those of you who support Thoughty and want to understand why there’s been some lapse in posts. The good part is, now that I’ve written this out, I feel reinvigorated with my desire to continue writing here and doing the work Thoughty is intended to do. The complicated part is, I need space from the way the hobby and industry become your life if you’re not careful, and from the troublesome aspects of the community and industry. I’m still going to write for Thoughty, design games, and do safety/content work. I just want to do it on my own terms from now on, and I hope that you will continue to support that.
As always, you can find me on Twitter @ThoughtyGames and use the contact form on the site if there’s something specific you’re interested in me featuring. If you want to support my continued journey as a creator and here at Thoughty, I am now only on ko-fi.com/thoughty for funding and you can find my games on IndiePressRevolution, DriveThruRPG, and especially briebeau.itch.io. By the by, my name is officially changed to Beau Jágr Sheldon!
If this post resonates with you, know that you have my support in seeking your own path and finding joy, and that I hope your fire never burns out.
Content warning for discussion of perpetrators of harm.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
So, late night thoughts. I think I want to quit the Games Industry. I still like making games, & I do want to do something with Thoughty (but I’m not sure what that is since I’m struggling to write for it & can’t seem to acquire writers). I want to do safety/content work. But.
While I have no other means of making income, and this is the biggest issue with wanting to leave, the industry itself and the communities that surround it are filled with missing stairs for me. They are filled with memories of trauma, failure, and rejection. Unendingly.
I want to make games with my partners, and support them. I want to make games & would like to make money on them, but even now that’s not super successful for me. I want to continue reviewing games & talking about game theory on Thoughty. I don’t want to keep feeling like this.
I have been accused of a lot of things that I can’t find the truth in over my time in the community. I’ve also made plenty of mistakes which I’ve tried to own up to. However, I’ve also watched a lot of people do harmful things and just…walk it off. Become more successful.
I have often felt like I’m screaming into nothingness when I have tried to talk about the constant abuses in the community, the toxic business practices, the cultural flaws. Worst of all has been when I know someone has done harm, but I’m not the one who can give light to it.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
I have seen harm, I have experienced harm, and I have supported people who were harmed, & the problem is, I don’t have piles of screenshots or emails or witnesses to back up the wrongs I’m aware of, & I also struggle because I don’t want the response the community gives, either.
I don’t want “well, there’s no receipts” or “the victim(s) aren’t ‘credible'” or “this harm isn’t bad enough” or “there’s no way a marginalized person could cause harm like that.” I ALSO don’t want “we should ostracize this person” or “this person deserves to starve/suffer.”
What I want is “hey, person who is accused of perpetrating harm, acknowledge that you have taken actions that harmed people, apologize for those actions, & make efforts to change without erasing all evidence of your wrongdoing so that people can engage with you with awareness.”
I want that alongside “there is no such thing as a bad victim, a victim is not responsible for substantiating their harm to the point that the substantiation causes trauma, and all harm is valid to be addressed and respected, & we will not erase this harm.” Can you imagine?
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
But what we have is hidden abuse from people of all backgrounds that is regularly excused, dismissed, or forgiven by the people who weren’t the victims. We have people rising to success on the work of others, then turning on those who did that work. Perpetrators of harm thrive.
It literally doesn’t matter what prompted my feelings about this today because I think about this EVERY DAY with all of the people who have continued to get away with harmful acts who I don’t hate, but I do want to take accountability & I do want to change & I do want witnessed.
People in hobby & professional games are so willing to turn their eyes from genuine harm for the sake of their fictional experience & for the sake of promoting the people they have convinced themselves cannot do harm. We have seen this again & again and it burns us to the core.
But I am not a phoenix. I cannot rise again and again. I have a limit. I struggle to care for myself because every waking day in the community is riddled with news of more people perpetrating harm in so many different ways that I feel sick imagining a convention again.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
Who will welcome me? Who will shun me? Who will go silent when I join a table, or antagonize me if I speak my mind on a panel? Who will ask questions about people who hurt me? Who will undermine my experience? Who will hurt my friends & colleagues? Who will get away with it?
On top of all of that, who that I thought I could trust will I see spending their energy to justify those acts against me or against others? Who will validate harmful, alienating, unjust acts in the community, and break my heart? So many have done these things, I lost track.
What happens is I internalize it, I see it as just to validate harm against me. I see it as right to say that I must be the problem. I see it as valid to claim that things I do not do with ill intent are meant as cruel and harmful things. And worse!
I end up feeling like maybe the way things work is just. That it’s better to let talented, toxic people succeed rather than acknowledge their flaws and give them impetus to change. That we should let people who are accused of harmful acts continue because they’re creative & fun.
It wounds me. It is like a skipping record player, repeating the same keening clip of agony: this is how it has always been, this is how it will always be; the players may change, but the game never will. And I have lost the game, more than once over, for my trust & mistakes.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
I don’t want to keep knowing all the things I know and not being able to do anything about it when someone gets away with harmful acts. I don’t want to keep starting to form bonds with people only to have them ripped or withering away. It is too cruel. It is wrong to me.
I know you can’t market products or content without being a part of the community & aligning yourself somehow. I know you can’t succeed as any kind of creator without either privilege, networking, or both. I still want to create. I just can’t sacrifice myself or others to do it.
I guess the tl;dr is that you will see creative work from me going forward in my spaces and my control, but that I am making a choice to put myself first, & that means the community and industry will have to change before it gets any more of me than that. I doubt I’ll be missed.
If you have read this far, thank you. I hope that you are still with me. In any case, please take forward this simple message: there is no limit to how much good you can do in the world, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive every goddamn day to reach it– and that includes the good you do for yourself.
Today on approachable theory we’re talking about meta accessibility tools, and we’re going to start by breaking down what I mean by that term. Read more!
Today on approachable theory we’re talking about meta accessibility tools, and we’re going to start by breaking down what I mean by that term.
Today I have an interview with Connor Alexander about Coyote & Crow, which is currently on Kickstarter! This game sounds so incredible and is something I have hoped to see in games – a sci-fi fantasy game that’s about an America that was never colonized by white settlers. I feel like this is a really major project and I hope you enjoy learning about it, like I did!
Today I have an interview with Connor Alexander about Coyote & Crow, which is currently on Kickstarter! This game sounds so incredible and is something I have hoped to see in games – a sci-fi fantasy game that’s about an America that was never colonized by white settlers. I feel like this is a really major project and I hope you enjoy learning about it, like I did!
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I’m excited for the opportunity to interview you about Coyote & Crow! It has been very successful on Kickstarter thus far, but I’d love to know more about you and the project. Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you came to work on the game?
Hi Beau! Really excited to chat with you. Thanks for taking the time. I’ve been a gamer my whole life, but I only started working in the hobby game industry in 2014. Pretty quickly I began to notice the representation gap in both presentation and in creative teams. The gap in the game industry seemed to mirror most of the rest of media and pop culture, which surprised me a little at first. Doing something about it didn’t occur to me until I was chatting with a Native representation consultant and they said something to the effect of, ‘even when they do representation accurately, it’s almost always through a colonial lens’. That really stuck with me. Then I saw the trailer for the video game Greedfall and I knew I had to take some kind of action.
I feel so very privileged that I have a steady job in the game industry and had access to many experienced voices who were willing to give me advice. I’m just a working stiff so it was really tempting to create a proposal and try to just sell the idea off to another publisher and let them run with it. In the end though, I felt that there were too many ways that the project could lose integrity along the way. Once I decided to tackle it myself, it became about team building. And that’s where the game began to become something much bigger and more important.
It’s pretty clear there’s a lot that makes this game unique and intriguing. How would you approach a new player to pitch the idea of the game to them, and are there any things players should know starting out?
That’s actually been one of our biggest hurdles. There’s almost no comparative media out there. When you talk about classic fantasy, even non-gamer audiences know Game of Thrones and Lord of the RIngs. Traditional sci-fi and cyberpunk also calls up a dozen properties and tropes. That cultural shorthand is embedded deeply in our collective conscience. On the one hand, you have to battle all of the negative stereotypes and assumptions non-Natives have. On the other, you have to create a world that’s both exciting and challenging to Natives, but also speaks to an incredibly broad array of Native cultures and traditions in a way that’s inclusive while not appropriative. It’s an extremely narrow ledge.
So to answer your question, when speaking to someone about it for the first time, I try to put them in the mindset of when they first read about Wakanda in the Marvel Universe or when they first played Horizon Zero Dawn. Not the cultural specifics of those worlds, but the idea of shifting your perspective of what could be. Once they’re in that headspace, I usually ask folks to picture what our continent would look like if Europeans or any other colonial forces had ever set foot here. And not at the point of contact 500 years ago, but in the future. From there, I usually can start filling their heads with all of the little details that make this world feel lived in. And while our game has a speculative future with fantasy elements to it, we made it a point to build a world that has a lot of potential grounded in reality.
As for things players should know starting out, there’s a big one that many folks have mentioned. I’ve heard so many variations on ‘I want to play but I’m worried I’ll do or say something insensitive’. I love that so many have asked that. It means there’s progress being made. But we are designing the game so that non-Natives can jump into this and play without worry. There’s a section at the beginning on how to approach the book and what to avoid. And throughout the book we give explanations for words and phrases and additional context for certain concepts or rules. On the flip side, we have specific things we call out where we indicate that Natives can add on or tweak a rule to help it fit their tribal specific customs or context.
That’s all really useful to know! You have a great team with a lot of varied experiences. What is the process like for deciding which ideas for mechanics or content goes into the final product? How do you ensure the most voices are heard?
That’s actually one of the most rewarding portions of development for me. I created the broad parameters of the game and set the stage. Once we had an initial draft, I invited everyone on the team to comment on it and if they felt strongly about a section or a concept, invited them to have a chat with me about either doing edits or re-writes. Nothing in the book is so sacred it can’t be changed. If someone on the team has a brilliant idea, I want it in. As long as the idea doesn’t derail the core concepts or conceits of the game or cause internal inconsistencies, I’m on board. It’s led to some really vibrant discussions and concepts I never would have thought of on my own.
We’re certainly in the ‘kill your darlings’ stage of development and with that comes the pain of seeing some of your initial ideas break in play testing. From a personal standpoint that stings, of course. As the game development progresses, it’s like I built the framework of a house and I’m seeing people add walls and paint and windows. The more work they do, the more mine becomes invisible. But that’s fine. I never wanted this game to be some sort of statement about me personally. From the start I knew this project would be better thematically and mechanically if we had a chorus of voices.
You’ve shared a lot of cool stuff on the Kickstarter page, but I would love to know more! What are some of the exciting things we can expect from the game, the kind of things that really make you want to share with others?
For me, it’s the little details that make a world feel lived in. A perfect example is the underground transit system of Cahokia. It was built originally as a system of tunnels to keep people warm and safe during the brutal winters. As we thought about it practically, we saw flaws. How would this be lit? Keeping fires going in enclosed tunnels would be difficult for so many reasons. Our answer was one that I think is equal parts inspired and reasonable. The people of this world eventually grew their light sources through cultivation of bioluminescent fungi along the walls and ceiling of the tunnels. The effect is that in this future the interior ceilings and walls of these tunnels and the magnetic levitation rail transit system all glow green and blue and purple. While having a living ceiling as a light source is a cool image, I like to also think that it represents a different way of problem solving. We’re working hard to fit as many of those kinds of thoughtful ideas as we can into the book.
We’ve also got bigger ideas that we at least want to set up. I’ve always been a fan of storylines in games that involve shadowy organizations or grand conspiracies. Mystery in TTRPGs is one of my favorite hooks. So we have lots of story prompts and adversaries that are based around those kinds of adventures. It also leaves lots of room for Story Guides to build out around their own concepts.
What led to the decision to make this a game that focused on sci-fi fantasy vibes and encourage the specific style of play (which seems unique) that you did?
That’s a great question. I don’t think there’s a way to answer that without addressing my own personal tastes, so I hope I don’t come off as self-absorbed. I grew up on original Star Trek, Star Wars and authors like Ray Bradbury. Stories that were full of forward thinking and hope. In contrast, my Native heritage always felt grounded in now, in today. It was a very personal and not always a happy part of my relationship with my father and our family.
But in the last decade, we’ve seen some media that has started to meet somewhere in the middle of those two points. It’s not all utopia and hope or escapist fantasy, but it’s also not grim and dirty reality. Shows like the Expanse, newer Star Trek, video games like Horizon Zero Dawn and tabletop games like Android Netrunner were all able to put fresh spins and new perspectives on some of those old concepts, while also highlighting diversity and representation in a way that didn’t feel obligatory.
When I knew I wanted that kind of feeling for Coyote and Crow, it just became a process of elimination. I didn’t want just fantasy because too often non-Natives exoticize Native Americans and that setting is just too ripe for them to abuse, even if it was told well. And pure science fiction doesn’t leave as much room for the subjective and the immaterial that I wanted to make sure spoke to so many Native beliefs across tribes.
I wanted it set in the future because I wanted Natives to see this as a hopeful view of what could have been and maybe some things that might still be, but it had to be built on a different past because I wanted it very clear to everyone that this was a world that colonists and specifically Europeans, had no part in building.
It was also important that the core mechanics offer combat as an option and not the default. Most fantasy games are geared toward going somewhere unfamiliar, killing everything there and then measuring your success based on how much you looted. That sort of storytelling is really limited. For me, the best stories are about building bridges, righting wrongs, finding equilibrium in the middle of chaos and optimizing your gifts in ways that benefit as many as possible, not just yourself. I’m really hoping that Coyote and Crow becomes the launching pad for those kinds of stories.
Amazing! So much good stuff here. I just have one last question to finish this off. As you’ve worked on the design and playtesting for Coyote & Crow, what are some experiences that stand out and excite you for the game and for players to enjoy? What lasting impact do you hope for?
That’s actually a long list. The first time we did a playtest and one of the players got to experience the exploding dice mechanic and they were so thrilled. I knew I was on to something when I saw that look of joy and excitement. Another great moment was when my Native group of playtesters got to meet the supernatural entity that we were using in our adventure (and appears in the one shot that’s in the book). That feeling like we were all playing something that was “ours” was palpable and deeply gratifying.
Since I’ve passed along some of the play testing to our team, I’ve heard some incredible stories from our Story Guide. They said one group just decided to completely cozy up and become friends with a group we’d originally written as sort of adversarial. That was great! As much as I love writing stories and being a Story Guide, having players take it down their own path is always such a treat. Most of my own personal favorite RPG stories over the years usually involve some amount of deviating from the gamemasters plans.
Which leads me to the second part of your question. The lasting impact that I’m hoping for is that people, Native and otherwise, find themselves exploring the world we’ve built and feel inspired to tell new stories and new kinds of stories. I’m a firm believer in storytelling and the power of it. It has the power to unify, to heal, to inspire. My greatest wish is that Coyote & Crow does what all of the best science fiction does, which is to bring some hope to our real lives by giving us a thought provoking world to temporarily escape to. If I can do that for some folks, especially my Native cousins out there, then I’ve succeeded.
Today I have an interview with Dominique Dickey about their project, Tomorrow on Revelation III, which is currently on Kickstarter! This project seems really amazing and explores a lot of complex themes, so I hope you enjoy hearing about it! Check it out!
Today I have an interview with Dominique Dickey about their project, Tomorrow on Revelation III, which is currently on Kickstarter! This project seems really amazing and explores a lot of complex themes, so I hope you enjoy hearing about it! Check it out!
I’m excited for the opportunity to interview you about Tomorrow on Revelation III, which you’re launching on Kickstarter. It sounds fascinating! Before we talk in detail about the game, can you tell me a little about yourself and how you came to be designing this project?
DD: I’m Dominique Dickey! I’m a writer, editor, and consultant. I’ve previously worked as a freelancer on projects such as Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Sea of Legends, Lost Roads, and Pathfinder Lost Omens. You can also find my rpg TRIAL on itch.io: it’s a narrative game that explores race and the criminal justice system via the story of a murder trial, and was my first foray into games as a mechanism of social change.
Last summer, I had the idea for a game about farmers avoiding becoming obsolete on a space station. I was interested in themes of capitalism and finding meaning outside of labor. I also wanted to design a game about community-driven social change, and find a way to represent that change through game mechanics.
I spoke to my dear friend Charles Linton and realized that my initial premise was more suited for a one-shot than a campaign, as resolving the problem (making sure the space farmers had rights and protections) would break the game (by obliterating a core aspect of the setting). I also didn’t want it to become a game about making oneself necessary to the capitalist machine: what if the farmers’ profession actually does become obsolete, but they find value outside of their labor? The way I initially envisioned the game would not allow players to answer that question, or others like it.
From those discussions with Charlie, the game shifted to be about a group of people on a heavily stratified space station, all with different backgrounds and levels of privilege, working together to improve their collective circumstances. I was really excited by the idea of developing the eponymous station and its stratifications—this was my first time writing a game with a super concrete setting, and I wanted to create a rich and generative sandbox for players and GMs to enjoy.
I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry).
This is part of a series on masculinity and the game Wolfenstein: A New Order. The series focuses exclusively on Wolfenstein: A New Order and the characters within it, though it does reference the backstories of characters that may not be revealed until later games in that series. Much of the specific details here were sourced in the Wolfenstein Wiki.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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” Winkleis 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.
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!
I’m excited to announce that Script Change has experienced a significant update with three more tools and a new layout! You can find the new free text version at briebeau.com/scriptchange and the PDF plus the handouts are still free with option to donate at briebeau.itch.io/script-change. I have raised the suggested donation to $5 because of the sheer amount of time and effort I have put into Script Change over the years, and the continued creation of new content. I hope that’s okay!
In 2021, I’ve added Bloopers & Outtakes, a formal wrap meeting structure, the Editor’s Notes with picks, squicks, and icks to help guide content and response, and Two Thumbs Up to help with quiet check-ins and for less verbal players. These changes have been developing for a while, and I’m so excited to release them for you all!
Note: For the time being, please use the previous revision’s handout to put out descriptions on the table for reference, as I need more time to do the layout work and nothing’s changed on it. Also, in the new Bloopers & Outtakes section, I managed to only write “bloopers” on each Reel listing, but I’ll fix this soon if I can. I apologize for missing it!
Thank you so much for your continued support!
The Script Change RPG Toolbox Handout’s first page. Download the formatted version for free at briebeau.itch.io/script-change to get the full handout and these instructions in a printable format!The second page of handouts for Script Change.
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.
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.)
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.
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 throughSnackPackedd’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.
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.
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.
