Tag: tabletop games

Five or So Questions on vs. KICKSTARTER

Today I have five-or-so questions with Thomas Deeny on the vs. KICKSTARTER, a collection of three games that’s currently on Kickstarter! Check out what Thomas had to say below.

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A promotional image showing vs. MIRRORSHADES, vs. MARS, and vs. PIRATES, three games based on the vs. MONSTERS system by Philip Reed.

Tell me a little about vs. KICKSTARTER. What excites you about it?

vs. KICKSTARTER began as three small roleplaying games based on Phil Reed’s vs. Monsters. More accurately, they are inspired by his vs. Outlaws, a pared-down Wild West-themed version of his original game. That game was produced on both sides of a multi-panel screen that folds down to a 5-1/2″ square. 

A bit over a decade ago, Phil opened the vsM Engine up for others to use. At that time, I had worked a bit on three games based on vsM, but I wound up focusing on completing a BFA and plans for development were pushed back. A few months ago, there was a discussion on twitter about one of the settings I had developed as a vsM-powered game. I looked back at the old files and while that particular game needed a lot of work, I saw that vs. MARS was nearly done. So much so, that a bit of trimming and it would fit on that folded screen template. From there, the other two initial games featured in the campaign followed.

vs. MARS is a game about an alien invasion in a small town. I’ve always been a fan of survival fiction — things like zombie movies where the focus and threat is about the other survivors but there is some external threat pressuring the survivors. vs. MARS really slots into that role. The unlocked expansion opens the game up to leading a resistance on occupied Earth.

vs. MIRRORSHADES is a fast-playing cyberpunk game. I love the cyberpunk genre and my hope is this game falls a bit more into the social change/punk part of cyberpunk rather than the chrome fetishization side. An unlocked two-panel expansion to this adds fantasy races and magic to the MegaCity — it’s the most-requested addition to any cyberpunk game.

vs. PIRATES is a game in the golden age of piracy from our childhood memories. The already-unlocked expansion came first: I’ve always wanted to play a game that was a mashup of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and The Pirates of the Caribbean. Without the expansion, you’re playing more of a Treasure Island or Black Sails game. With the expansion, you’ve got undead pirates, the kraken, and cursed treasure.

We’ve recently unlocked vs. EMPIRE, a game that isn’t so much “Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off” as it is “Star Wars with the serial numbers filled in Play-Doh”.

Initially, I thought the campaign would need $400 to fund and would probably top out at $600 or about 40 or 45 backers. I am excited about the response to the campaign so far! As I write this, the campaign is 500% funded and we are nearing 100 backers — that’s twice the number of backers and nearly twice the amount pledged past a point in my initial spreadsheet where I wrote “we’re probably dreaming at this point”. That these small games are inspiring people I don’t even know to come on board and help make them a reality is just something that surprised me — it really impressed me.

A promotional image showing vs. MIRRORSHADES, vs. MARS, and vs. PIRATES

Great! What about this particular mechanical system appealed to you to use in such a variety of settings, and what have you changed to suit them?

When I started designing my initial vs. game, I was interested in survival fiction. Rather than being the proactive monster hunters of vs. Monsters where your characters decide to hunt down monsters, having a setting where you are forced to take on that role appealed to me. You’re a regular person and then something happens: how do you react to that? 

I had two different main games I was developing which had the same underlying elements: normality is interrupted by an invasion; you are simultaneously being hunted and take on the role of the hunters. One game was somewhat campy, the other somewhat serious. They combined and the theme of vs. MARS wound up engulfing the other. 

Since my initial designs, my preferred game style has changed from one where we’re just players reacting to the twists and turns of the GM’s story to more of a style where there is player collaboration in they way the story is shaped. In vs. MARS, there are rules for scene framing where a player answers two questions: “What is this scene about?” and “Where does it take place?” Adding an element like this helps to emulate the type of fiction vs. MARS emulates — in a setting like an alien invasion, one major element is isolation or separation. By adding scene framing, our protagonists don’t have to be in a small clump of adventuring heroes all the time. 

When there is damage involved, conflict resolution now incorporates the suits of cards drawn to speed up determining damage taken. The cyberpunk game, vs. MIRRORSHADES, has a Metal stat that is used whenever cyberware augmentations are used. To reflect the setting’s concept that cyberware is an improvement, using Metal makes the highest card revealed a suit that trumps all others. It effectively guarantees that you’re going to have some effect on the scene if you use these augments.

The vs. MARS cover showing the planet Mars in space, taking up a third of the image, red and hovering.

You know I love small towns, so I’m curious, what do you do to make the town small and still feel worth being in for vs. MARS?

During character creation, one of the things you would choose for your survivor is their concept: something about what they did before the invasion and what they want. This desire is something that should tie them into the town. The current example character is Tabitha Masters, a French major at ETU who wants to get home to make sure her family is safe.

Stock locations are listed for a few things found in and around the town that convey the theme of isolation.

The cover of vs. MIRRORSHADES, showing a room filled with monitors and wires, colored in pink, blue, green, and yellow, with orange bits.

What have you done to make fantasy character types exciting and respectful for cyberpunk, mechanically or setting-wise?

To get to that, I have to work through the constraints of the project. Whenever I see a new game come out the first question I always see asked is: “Can I play Star Wars with it?” (Which is where vs. EMPIRE comes from.) The second question is: “Can I play Shadowrun with it?” When developing the cyberpunk vs. game, it seemed that a straight cyberpunk game with an option to add on the fantasy elements would fit the limited space I had available. 

With vs. MAGICSHADES, a player chooses their character’s heritage, which adds a simple one-use bonus to the character. Some implied setting material, such as the elf nation of Tir nAill claiming all elves as citizens, start to bring in some classic tropes of pseudo-Shadowrun.

The cover of vs. PIRATES showing a pirate ship with a mermaid figurehead on the seas.

How are your pirates and their world different from and the same as those we most commonly see in media?

The tagline for vs. PIRATES says the setting is based on the way we remember tales of pirates from our childhood. I feel it is more cartoonish than serious. Even though you could play something straight like the Black Sails television show, I anticipate the default play style would be more like The Pirates of the Caribbean if one stripped out all the supernatural aspects. 

The way vs. PIRATES works is we establish the approach one will take to a situation. Our stats in the game are Swashbuckling and Parley. Basically if you’re fighting, your approach uses Swashbuckling. If you’re not, it’s Parley. An antagonist also has approaches, but they are based on their role. So a pirate antagonist would be drawing more cards if they were doing something piratey and fewer if they were doing something outside their role.

Going back to that default play style, adding in the vs. DAVY JONES expansion bumps the game towards that Buffy + Pirates of the Caribbean game, so we can add some more supernatural elements to the antagonists and their goals.

The vs. MIRRORSHADES plus vs. MAGICSHADES expansion covers.

What more do you have in store both for those already-achieved stretch goals and anything else to come?

I really don’t want to overextend myself on this, which is the first Kickstarter campaign I’ve handling myself. While I have been collaborating and working on over a dozen others, I’ve seen a few easy ways how a successful campaign can be twisted into become a financial nightmare.

I’ve spoken to a few other campaign creators when it looked like we were close to unlocking the vs. EMPIRE stretch goal. Nearly every one told me to not add anything else that I don’t feel comfortable with. At this point, the project is funded and will be delivered — with the planning I’ve done for the campaign, it’s all good. I don’t want to take on additional costs that could disrupt fulfillment of the project. 

So right now, the last stretch goal was “I’ll add a second topping to a celebratory pizza when this is all over.”

However, I have plans for further developing some of those earlier vsM games into this format, including one game designed to be a 1-on-1 one-shot. I’ll see how fulfillment goes for this campaign first!

A promotional image showing vs. MIRRORSHADES, vs. MARS, and vs. PIRATES.

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Thanks so much to Thomas for the interview! I hope you enjoyed it and that you check out the vs. KICKSTARTER on Kickstarter today!

Quick Shot on CAPERS Noir

I have an interview today with Craig Campbell on CAPERS Noir, which is currently on Kickstarter! Super interested to see what’s up with this new installment in the CAPERS system.

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Three circular images wreathed in smoke displaying a woman in a 1940s style fitted jacket and skirt with her hair in a bun as she creeps around corners, takes down information from a uniformed woman, and speaks across a table to a man who is sliding a paper across to her.

What is CAPERS Noir, both as a product and as your vision?

CAPERS Noir is the first supplement for my award-winning CAPERS RPG. It provides new character options and new GM tools as well as an alternative setting for the game. It takes the core game setting of the 1920s Prohibition era and moves it forward twenty  years to the WW2 years. This alternative setting shifts from gangster shoot-em-ups to moody, atmospheric, crime noir stories filled with mystery and some horror elements. The additional rules and tools help fill out this noir setting but are also perfectly usable in the core Roaring Twenties setting. 

This supplement is a test case for me, to see if CAPERS has the legs to become a full game line. The early success of the Kickstarter makes me feel it does. The fan base (old and new) have been very enthusiastic, supportive, and looking forward to seeing more. I have plans to publish at least two more supplements, each about the same size as CAPERS Noir. Each will take a similar path of being an alternative historical period/setting/theme while also expanding options for all other versions of the game. My hope is to explore a variety of “cops vs robbers” themes and tropes with these supplements.

What are the Noir rules like and how do they change CAPERS?

The core rules of CAPERS Noir are still the same (and you need the core book to play). There are some new powers, and I’ve tried some different things with how you gain abilities and boosts, flexing the powers system a bit. The first big difference is that CAPERS Noir includes investigation rules using the core playing card mechanics. This rule subset allows an investigation to move forward (that is, clues keep getting found) without shutting down the whole thing over one bad trait check. Success and failure on the investigation checks instead describes how you gain additional information or add complications to the story.

At the end of a hallway, three silhouettes appearing to be two men and a young girl are backlit by a window, and their shadows cast down the hall past multiple doorways to a man standing with a rifle pointed their way.

Additionally, the horror elements brought to bear in CAPERS Noir provides for the possibility that your character’s soul will be corrupted. Temptation lies around every corner. Committing terrible acts at the wrong time can bring you a bit more power, but at a cost. A “shade track” defines how far your character has fallen to darkness and what benefits and hindrances this causes. You can pull yourself back out in a few different ways, most commonly by paying attention to and pursuing your “beacon,” a person, place, or thing that you hold dear and seek to help and protect. 

What have you put together to flesh out a 1940s setting and explore that complex era?

Noir fiction and film that developed in the 20s and 30s (and feed forward into the 40s and 50s) are at the core of CAPERS Noir. The crime noir themes of the alternate setting explore the darker side of humanity, nihilism, fatalism, cynicism. Things aren’t what they seem, morally gray characters are everywhere, and the protagonist doesn’t always “win.” It’s a world of mystery and darkness, where the good must struggle simply to stay good and the darker characters are at risk of falling deeper into darkness even more easily. Plus, lots of characters smoking cigarettes in the rain. 

The supplement doesn’t deal directly with World War 2, but the ravages of war and its aftermath certainly are on characters’ minds in the game. (And that’s not to say I won’t ever explore the actual war, with super-powered characters taking part, in some future supplement.) 

The CAPERS Noir Kickstarter promotional image noting that it funded in 30 minutes over a noir scene of 1940s cars passing down the street as two smartly-dressed individuals smoke under a street lamp. The tagline reads "An RPG of Criminals, Cops, Mystery, and Monsters!"

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Thanks so much for the interview Craig, and the promise of more CAPERS! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out CAPERS Noir on Kickstarter today!

Making an Anti-Fascist Game about War

The following is an essay by John W. Sheldon, someone you may know as the art director for Turn, or as the creator of Roar of Alliance, playtested at Big Bad Con and elsewhere.

A photo of a playmat on a table with cards laid out and stacked in various piles. The playmat has instructional text for the players to reference, and is titled Roar of Alliance.
The Roar of Alliance playmat, photo by John W. Sheldon.

My name is John W. Sheldon, and I’ve been working on a tabletop game called Roar of Alliance for a few years (I used to call it Armored Reckoning). The game is about crewing an Allied tank in an alt-history World War Two and fighting through waves Nazis to set things right. What could be more anti-fascist than that? Lots of stuff, it turns out. The problem is that Nazis aren’t the only fascists, and my game does some things that potentially support fascist ways of thinking. In the political climate of the United States in 2019, it is especially important that we be aware of these things and work to mitigate them as much as possible. I’m writing about my process here in the hopes that others might find a useful example in the steps I’ve taken, and so that people with more experience can point out ways I can further improve.

What My Game Does Wrong

How does a game about destroying Nazi tanks and blowing up their infantry risk supporting fascist modes of thought? One cornerstone of fascist ideology is that they (the fascists) are oppressed by an enemy that is numerous, pervasive, powerful, and simultaneously inferior (stupid, incompetent, or morally weak). Another cornerstone is that the only appropriate way to deal with that enemy is by force.

The rules of my game do specifically these things:

The enemies you face in Roar of Alliance are numerous (outnumbering the players in just about every engagement), dangerous (their vehicles are often more advanced and better armed), and lack intelligence (their actions are automated by simple if/then statements that they never deviate from). The only way players ever interact with these foes is via deadly force. You will lose the game if you do not destroy their vehicles and disperse their infantry.

So, in these ways at least, my game actually promotes a core set of fascist ideologies. Some of this is hard to avoid, given that the game doesn’t have anyone in a central directorial role to moderate portrayals of the enemy or to restrict player behaviors in direct contact with the enemy outside combat, therefore no character in the game is ever confronted by a Nazi outside the specific circumstance of combat. This is a conscious choice to make sure nobody at the table is ever tasked with portraying a Nazi, and it keeps torture* and certain other types of violent fantasy outside the scope of the game as written. Players also have some leeway in narrating the effects of their actions on the enemy: when enemy infantry are removed from the field, players can choose to narrate the enemy’s retreat or death, and players do the same for surviving crew of disabled enemy vehicles.

Since violence and a portrayal of the enemy as numerous and unintelligent are essential to the way the game functions, and I don’t want to scrap the whole thing and start over, how do I make sure the rest of the game refutes fascism?

Focusing on Diversity

An illustration of a woman in fatigues who stands on top of a busted tank, smoke pouring out of it.
by John W. Sheldon

I start with something nationalists and fascists hate: I make sure that every other aspect of the game supports and emphasizes diversity and demonstrates how it creates strength. This paragraph kicks off the rulebook:

This game is set during the 2nd World War in Europe, a time when even the historical victors were rife with bigoted beliefs and policies. You should not let those real world bigotries limit the characters you choose to portray and accept. People of all races and genders from six continents and countless backgrounds fought against fascism and Nazism in Europe, and your characters should reflect some of that diversity.

Moreover, players are asked to identify their character’s country of origin, to help emphasize the diversity of geographic origin of the people who challenge fascism. Some of these choices are informed at a basic level by the themes of the character archetypes the game offers. In particular, the Partisan archetype was a resident of Nazi-occupied territory and a resistance fighter before joining up with the crew, the Collateral is a member of a population oppressed by the Allies and nevertheless pressed into service against the Nazis (e.g., Black Americans or colonial subjects of the British Empire), and the Duty was someone who volunteered for the fight because they new defeating fascism and Nazism was the right thing to do.

For actually producing the game, I’m doing what I’d never recommend: I’m doing the rules writing, layout, and illustrations all myself. What this does mean is that I can make sure that all of the art upholds my stated dedication to multiple axes of diversity. The art within the rules documents already portrays people of multiple genders, races, and body types as members of the player tank crew. Additional art I’m working on will include crew members with visible disabilities, crew wearing items of non-European traditional dress, and different cultural grooming standards.

An illustration of a person with natural hair in fatigues who is loading a shell into a tank.
by John W. Sheldon

Part of my plan for taking the game to crowdfunding is to offer backers the opportunity to have their portraits included as the card back art for some of the character archetypes, and as the face cards in the crew deck. Since I believe the audience for my game (one about Tanks in World War Two) skews significantly male, white, able-bodied, and cis, simply offering all of these art opportunities on a first-come, first-served basis would further skew the art for my game towards a monolithic default. To maintain my dedication to diversity, I need to give up potential sources of revenue and pre-stack the art with diverse portraits. I’ll won’t be offering backer levels for the Jacks in the Crew Deck, or for half of the character archetypes. Instead, I’ll be creating those portraits before the crowdfunding campaign begins. The portraits for the Jacks will be portraits of non-binary volunteers, and those for the first half of the character archetypes will be of volunteers who are one or more of non-white, queer, or visibly disabled.

Heroes that Need Help

Most fascism thrives on mythologizing heroes as paragons of strength, capable of facing great hardship alone and without aid. The heroes of fascism also contain within them a paradox: the enemy they face is terrifying, but they never actually feel fear. Roar of Alliance refutes these mythologized ideas of heroism idea on multiple fronts. The very nature of combat in my game requires players to rely on one another at all times (no person can operate a tank single-handedly). The player characters also begin the game by admitting fear: one of the first tasks of the first session is to identify a fear your character has about the fighting to come.

During the game, player characters will take Stress (the game’s unified resource representing both physical toughness and mental resilience). Characters who max out their Stress during an engagement play out a Last Stand for significant effect, then leave the Crew (the player decides whether they have died or simply become unable for whatever reason to continue on as a tank crew member). While the characters have a limited set of resources called Motivations that the players can expend to avoid stress, the only way to actually recover Stress relies on spending time with the other characters between battles. Only by working together, by comforting one another, and by acknowledging their own dependence on others can characters reduce their Stress and gain new Motivations to help them engage in future battles.

An illustration of two soldiers are crowded by a campfire with a pot cooking food, and one soldier has placed their hand on the shoulder of the other.
by John W. Sheldon.

Every archetype has scene prompts that show them needing help, and the whole game requires players to rely extensively on one another. Even the player’s Crew is supported by a company of non-Crew characters that players will occasionally be called on to portray between battles. No lone strong hero, or even small group of heroes, can accomplish the monumental task the players are facing.

Humanizing the Enemy

Fascism dehumanizes its enemies, making it easier for its adherents to attack, belittle, and eventually exterminate those that oppose it. You can see this in language comparing enemies to animals, assigning them undesirable traits as a group, in racist and anti-Semitic propaganda images that exaggerate enemy features to cartoonish extremes, or even in recent online language where some members of right-leaning web forums call people who oppose them “NPCs” – implying that there is no real individual personhood in those that disagree with their fascist ideology.

In my quest to make the game as hostile as possible to fascist ideologies, I must design the game to humanize the enemies that players face. Everyone should be reminded that the Nazis and members of the Wehrmacht were not inhuman monsters – they were regular people who became willing to commit evil acts because of an abhorrent philosophy. Reminding players of this is important because dehumanizing even Nazis creates an easy defense for modern fascists and authoritarians to mount, in the form of a “but I do these good things over here, I’m not a complete monster” defense. Reminding people that Nazis were regular people, even while they did terrible things, reminds us that we must examine ourselves for the kinds of behavior they exhibited.

Next Steps

Is there more my game can do? Almost certainly. In fact, I’m extremely open to suggestions for additional ways to improve. You can get in touch with me on Twitter, Pluspora, or Mastodon if you want to give me some feedback.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in ways to make your own game hostile to fascist ideologies, check out these two essays that helped inform my own process.

*Despite everything pop culture tells us, torture does not work. It is immoral and wrong in every circumstance, and this would still be true even if it worked – which it categorically does not.

A photo of two rulebooks for Roar of Alliance, illustrated with tanks in orange-red and black.

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PTSD, access to role-playing games, and the Luxton technique by P.H. Lee

This post was originally posted on G+ by P.H. Lee on August 28, 2017. It was a significant influence on updates to the Script Change RPG toolbox, and is an essential read in regards to addressing safety in the game community and at every game table. Lee has authorized me to post the text here in full since G+ is dying, which I greatly appreciate – it’s super valuable!

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Preamble

I have PTSD. About 6-7 years ago, more or less, various pan-RPG techniques to control triggering[1] content — The Veil and the X-Card, to name two of a vast diversity — became commonplace in the RPG circles that I played in. Around the same time, I stopped participating in role-playing games at meet-ups and conventions, or anywhere else that these techniques were promulgated. These three things (PTSD, X-Card, and my withdrawal from play) are related. I’m writing this essay to discuss the ways that these techniques cut off my access to role-playing games, and introduce know techniques that, I hope, will point to a way forward in terms of accessibility.

Conflicting Access Needs
Before I go further, I’d like to reference a term from the disability rights movement: conflicting access needs. Disabled people are extremely diverse and our disabilities are also extremely diverse. While an ideal world would have everyone’s access needs met at all times and in all circumstances, in many circumstances, with many disabilities, that is practically or fundamentally impossible.

An example, which I’m paraphrasing from Autistic blogger Mel Baggs: A group home for Autistic people have some occupants who constantly verbalize, and others who are hypersensitive to noise. The verbalizers have a reasonable access need to be allowed to verbalize. The hypersensitive have a reasonable access need for quiet. Both of these access needs are reasonable, but it is impossible to meet both of them in the same space.

For this essay, the point is that, while I’m describing ways that my (and others) access to role-playing games has been cut off, I want to acknowledge that the techniques in question were developed and promulgated — often by people with similar disabilities to mine — to meet a legitimate access need. That they cut off my (and others) access to role-playing games does not mean that they are inherently wrong, bad, or ableist.

I do not want this to turn into “X-Card (or The Veil, etc, etc) is bad” and, even more so, I do not want it to turn into “the people who propagate these techniques are bad.” That’s not my opinion and, also, it’s wrong. I am hoping that by writing this essay I can move the discussion of accessibility of RPGs for PTSD sufferers from “use this technique” to a conversation which can account for different players, different goals, different communities, and different access needs.

A Note on Personal Narrative

I’m going to use a personal narrative throughout this essay, because it is based on my own experiences of both role-playing games and PTSD. But I want to be clear: I am not speaking solely for myself in this. Simply from personal circumstances, I can attest that the problems I have are problems that are shared by a number of other people with triggered mental illnesses.

Likewise, there are people with triggered mental illnesses who have a very different experience — most importantly, there are people with triggered mental illnesses who find the X-Card, The Veil, etc. to be vital techniques for their access to role-playing games. I do not want to erase these people — they exist, and their experiences also matter.

Please do not take my use of personal narrative as evidence that I speak only for myself. I don’t. Likewise, please don’t take my speaking on this topic as someone with PTSD to assume that I speak for all people with triggered mental illness. I don’t.

The X-Card, the Veil, and all that

The X-Card, the Veil, and similar techniques have their roots in a section of Sex and Sorcery, a supplement for Sorcerer by Ron Edwards, where he (roughly paraphrasing) suggests a technique dealing with difficult sexual content in the game by “drawing a veil over it,” basically, describing it in loose terms and then moving on with play, rather than playing it out. This is included together with several other techniques, including actually playing it out and fading to black. From there, like many things from the Sorcerer supplements, it developed on the Forge forums as a more generalized technique that could be applicable to all games.

I first encountered The Veil as a universally applicable technique in the context of public play in the Pacific Northwest — I believe it comes out of the Go Play NW convention, but I could be mistaken. By the time it reached this form, it had mutated considerably — it was something that was invoked by a particular player, rather than a general technique for play, and it generally had the effect of erasing the content of play [2], rather than playing it out in a vague sense and then moving on. It became a widespread meta-technique[3], adopted at a lot of public play events.

Simultaneously [4], in the New York City play scene, John Stavropoulos developed the X-Card as a meta-technique. With the X-Card, the system is formalized. By “throwing the X-Card” (either a physical card marked with an X or just an invocation), a player stops play, and the offending material is erased, and play continues as if it had never happened.

The X-Card grew in popularity and was adopted throughout the indie-games public play culture. By the time that I had largely retreated from public play (~2013), it was fairly universal. Although I have not been in touch with public play culture since, it does not seem (from my outsider perspective) to have become any less widespread.

My Experience

My first reaction to The Veil as a meta-technique was simply “well, I don’t want to do that.” At the time, it was not generally regarded as a universal meta-rule, so that was the end of my encounter with it. However, as it grew in popularity, I began to be increasingly averse to it. I remember a particular event — I think it was at Indie Hurricane, although I could not guess at the year — where it was introduced as a generic rule for all pick-up games. I got a horrified, sinking feeling, my eyes started to flutter and my stomach twisted — familiar signs of a triggering [1] event. I cannot remember whether I then said to my players “I’d like not to use that for our game” or not — I cannot even remember if I ran my planned game or left the scene immediately. Poor memory often accompanies being exposed to triggers.

I tried playing a few games with the rule in place, thinking I could maybe get used to it. Even though, to my recollection, it was never invoked, those games left me an anxious wreck afterward.

I stopped going to convention events as often. I started going to local public play groups, but shortly thereafter the meta-rule spread there as well, and I stopped attending those as well.

I did not at the time understand why this was triggering to me. I’m not entirely sure I was conscious that I was being triggered — it seems obvious in retrospect but I think that at the time I was not able to recognize exactly what was going on.

I made several attempts to communicate my distress — I remember talking on separate occasions with John Stavropoulos and Avery Alder about it — but because I didn’t understand what was going on, I could not clearly explain my problems, let alone propose solutions. Obviously, my attempts at communication were unsuccessful [5].

The Veil was replaced by the X-Card, and the technique continued to spread. I continued to retreat from Indie RPG circles, although I continued to play with personal groups and in non Indie RPG spaces such as AmberCon NW.

As an aside, I should say that this inaccessibility was far from the sole reason I retreated from Indie RPG circles and that, also, I do not regret having done so. My retreat has allowed me to spend more time on fiction writing, on personal friends, and on campaign play of RPGs. All of these have benefitted me both personally and professionally.

The problem

Both the X-Card and The Veil (as practiced in the PNW at that time) have as their core concept that the correct default way to handle triggering material in a role-playing game is to excise the material from the fictional timeline and thereafter to continue play. This is a commonplace understanding of how triggers work — remove the trigger, problem now solved.

This is, for me, a disaster, because it replicates the environment of denial and powerlessness that caused my PTSD in the first place.

Fundamentally, any approach to triggering material that contains any element of “pretend it never happened” is emotionally disastrous for me, because it recapitulates the environment of denial and dismissal around my traumatic experiences. This is not limited to excising the material from play — it also includes attempts to dismiss, deny, or minimize it.

No technique that centers this approach can possibly be functional as an accommodation; furthermore, any game or community that uses a technique that centers this approach is necessarily inaccessible to me, because an environment that centers denial as a coping strategy for triggering material, is in and of itself, a traumatic trigger.

Centering status quo vs centering healing

Fundamentally, these meta-techniques center the status quo — the goal is to “deal with” the triggering event, or the triggered person, and then return to regular play as if the interruption had never happened. I submit that, due the nature of PTSD, this approach is fundamentally flawed.

Once I have been triggered, I am in a traumatic experience. No amount of care or concern or comfort or accommodation can untrigger me. The question is not “how do we return Lee to the status quo?” or “how can we stop Lee from having a traumatic experience?” because those goals are impossible. The question is “what kind of traumatic experience is Lee going to have?” It can either be a damaging experience — one that reinforces the trigger and my PTSD — or it can be a healing experience — one that lets me recontextualize the trigger and its part of the trauma into my normal psyche.

Denial and social pressure to “return to normal” are damaging experiences.

Acknowledgement, empowerment, and story-building are healing experiences.

I believe that, in principle, good techniques for dealing with PTSD in role-playing games will avoid damaging experiences and center healing experiences.

The Luxton Technique

I didn’t post about my problems with X-Card, The Veil, etc for a long time because, among other factors, I did not have a proposed solution or alternative technique. All I could do was say “I’d rather have nothing than this,” but “no technique” is not particularly good rallying cry and it was not really a meaningful solution, just an attempt to get back to the somewhat-more-accessible-but-not-great status quo.

Until last year, I truly believed that there was no technique that would improve access to RPGs for some PTSD sufferers without also excluding PTSD sufferers like myself. But, last year, I played in a role-playing game at AmberCon NW that was specifically focused on traumatic experience and, particularly, centering the trauma of the players in the story we made. In that game, we used a particular technique — which I’d like to call the Luxton Technique after the GM of the game — which I found to be empowering, healing, and accessible to me.

It’s difficult for me to summarize all the parts of this that worked, but, roughly, the Luxton Technique includes:

* An honest discussion of potential traumatic triggers prior to play, in a supportive environment, with the understanding that there is no possible way to identify or discuss every conceivable trigger or trauma, and with no social pressure to disclose particulars of individual trauma.

* When, in play, a player encounters triggering material, they can, if they choose, talk about that to the other players. When they do this, the other players listen.

* As part of talking about it — and possibly the only thing that they need say — the player is given absolute fiat power over that material, expressed as a want or a need. For instance “I’d like to play [character name] for this scene” or “I need this to have a happy ending” or “I want this character to not be hurt right now” or “I need this character to not get away with this” or “By the end of play, this should not be a secret” or “I need to stop play and get a drink of water” or “I don’t have a specific request, I just wanted you to know.”

* A player does not need to use their traumatic experience to justify any requests or demands. We just do it.

* A player does not need to be the one to speak first. We keep an eye on each other and we are watchful for people who seem withdrawn or unfocused or upset. If we are worried about someone, we ask.

* We play towards accommodating that player’s requests.

It’s hard to overstate how much the Luxton Technique (or, really, set of techniques) helped us approach extremely difficult, extremely person material, both for the trauma survivors at the table and for the non-survivors. Rather than having our traumatic experiences — already a disjoint with reality — cause a disjoint in play, we were able to integrate them into play and tell a story about or, at least, at an angle to, our traumatic experiences, real and pretend.

Healing and RPGs

I am well aware that it sounds both pretentious and terrifying to talk about RPG play as a process by which one might legitimately heal from trauma. But I’d like to elaborate on that a little, because I think it’s important.

Fundamentally, a traumatic experience is an experience that is at a disjoint with the narrative of one’s life. Having PTSD means that your trauma exists out of time, out of place, and always in the present tense. A big part of recovering from PTSD, inasmuch as it is possible, is not about excising the trauma or your continued experience of it. Rather, it’s about integrating the trauma into normal memory and a normal narrative of your life.

A big part of that is story-telling, because a story is about incorporating disparate elements into a coherent narrative. And, for me, a big part of that story-telling has been role-playing games. In this essay, I present the choice as a binary — either a game can harm, or it can heal. That’s a lot of pressure to put on something as casual as a role-playing game! But, also, story-telling helps, and the story itself doesn’t need to be traumatic. Any story-telling experience can contribute, constructively, to healing, because PTSD sufferers need to be able to tell our own stories to the world and, more importantly, to ourselves. As an accessible storytelling medium, RPGs can’t be beat. They have been, and continue to be, a great help to me. In introducing these techniques, I am hoping that they can continue to be a help to others as well.

This is not limited to “heavy intense” sorts of stories that directly reference trauma. Ordinary RPGs can be stories about friends sticking together, or triumphing over evil, or just being clever and solving traps and puzzles, all of which have the potential to be healing narratives. Don’t think that I’m limiting the healing potential of RPGs to “serious” games or “serious” stories. I’m not.

It’s a reasonable reaction to say “I don’t want to do anything that heavy in my RPG!” or “I can’t be responsible for this!” And, obviously, don’t play in circumstances that you’re uncomfortable. But RPGs, and the people I’ve played them with, have given me so much healing. It’s wrong for me to dismiss, deny, or belittle that simply because games are a recreational activity. I hope that, in looking at problems of accessibility of RPGs, we can look to their potential to heal as much, if not more, than their potential to harm.

My hope (edited addition)

My hope is that this essay will start / continue a conversation where we look critically at our tools and techniques for RPG play. I hope that we can get to a place, as a community, where we understand that they are not one-size-fits-all and that we are able to take a look at what that means in terms of accessibility. I’d like for us to be able to make better-informed choices about accessibility and our RPG play, and the trade-offs that entails.

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[1] Because I have no alternative vocabulary, I’m going to use “triggering” in this essay to describe images, words, or ideas that trigger traumatic flashbacks, panic attacks, or other PTSD symptoms. I’m aware of the popular usage of “triggering” as a derisive term for an emotional reaction. I am not using it in that respect. Please, also, refrain from doing so in responses. Thanks.

[2] I’m not sure exactly when the pivot from “veil as not playing out blow-by-blow” to “veil as erasing the content from play” occurred. It might have been after this.

[3] I use the term “meta-technique” to mean “a role-playing game rule intended to be used with any game.” In some cases, it is “a role-playing game rule intended to be used with every game.”

[4] I am not sure about the historical relationship between the X-Card and the Veil. It’s possible that there was some inspiration. It’s also possible it was a parallel development.

[5] I do not want to cast any aspersions on John or Avery for our failure to communicate. Both of them listened as well as they could have to my concerns, even though I was unable to communicate them clearly. The failure was definitely on my end, and I want to thank both of them for their patience in waiting this long to hear my thoughts more clearly expressed.

Five or So Questions on Rosenstrasse

Today I’m so excited to share that I have an interview with Dr. Jessica Hammer and Moyra Turkington on their game Rosenstrasse, which is currently on Kickstarter! I hope you enjoy hearing what these amazing women have to say about this project – check it out below!

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A person in a sweater leans over a table to write on a form. The table has the character sheets, cards, and book of Rosenstrasse spread out for use.

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

JH: The Rosenstrasse story is an incredible story of non-violent protest and resistance to unjust authority. The game puts you inside marriages between Jewish and “Aryan” Germans. You play out what I like to call “ten years of marriage in three hours”; then, at the end of the game, the female characters have the chance to protest the roundup of the Jewish men in their lives. The historical protest we’re exploring was spontaneous, women-led, non-violent – and successful. That’s something we want to remember. At the same time, we remember that even these women, who were willing to stand up to the Reich, didn’t do so until their own families were on the line. We can honor their courage and still aspire to do better next time.

MT: A lot of things! Jess has the first thing that comes to mind – it is history that belies the story we’re told about our effective potential to affect oppressive regimes and that makes it an urgently important story to me in our current political climate. But I’ll also pick one that I don’t often mention – that it’s designed to be very procedurally easy to run! Unlike many games that require GM skill sets that experienced gamers take for granted (world building, scene framing, narrative positioning, mechanical management) Rosenstrasse takes care of the lion’s share of that work for you. In this game, the  primary GM skill is emotional calibration – listening to a scene until it has reached an emotional place of fulfillment, asking questions to reveal how characters are processing the events in their lives, and checking in to make sure players are coping with the material. Because these are core emotional intelligence skills rather than specialized GM skills, this makes the game accessible to folks who have historically found GMing daunting – and as a result we’re seeing better representation among facilitators.

The photo shows the game materials for Rosenstrasse including the book, colored cards ranging from dark to light purple, a form, and further cards with character names in orange and blue.

What inspired you to create the game specifically as a live action experience?

MT: Rosenstrasse is actually a hybrid larp & tabletop game so groups can play it as a live or tabletop experience. Because most of the gameplay involves the emotional negotiation between two people, the delineation between tabletop and larp start to naturally blur anyway; a scene where a husband and wife have a difficult conversation at a kitchen table looks and feels very similar in either game mode. When I run the game, I tend to do so in larp mode because I find that embodied roleplay is a powerful conduit to adopting the headspace and heartspace of the character, especially when there are strong relationship ties. I think that the emotion follows the body and vice versa.

JH: In contrast to Mo, I tend to run Rosenstrasse closer to a tabletop. Players still get to have meaningful in-character conversations where they embody their characters verbally and physically, but adopt a very different relationship to the game materials. For example, players in this mode often describe experiencing the card deck as a ticking clock, counting down to new horrors. This sense of dread is palpable at the table and very powerful for play.

What is the game like in play – what emotions do players normally experience, and what do they physically do?

JH: The game comes with eight pre-generated characters, and more than eighty scenes for them to encounter. In a typical scene, players get the description of a situation – for example, maybe two of the characters are going to work on the morning after Kristallnacht – and then a prompt for role-play. Prompts typically ask the characters to have a conversation, react to the situation being described, or show how their marriage changes.

MT: The game is meant to feel like an elegy – a thoughtful observance of the loss of security, dignity, freedom, and selfhood incurred under an oppressive regime. But it’s also a game about resilience and resistance – players through their characters struggle to hold on – or sometimes to let go. They discover that in an active genocide, that the minutiae of living and thinking and loving are themselves, resistance. The game play is often quiet, somber and serious – one where everyone shares a deep breath before the next scene because the story just keeps on getting harder. But there’s also moments of lightness, bright love, and true courage that also make it bearable.

A person is leaned over a table or desk writing on a document, next to a document listing various information to support play.

What kind of research did you need to do to create Rosenstrasse?

MT: Research for historical games about people in marginalized situations can be hard. And it becomes harder still when you try to uncover their stories from a time where oppressive regimes have a stronghold on the narrative in which even documentation of your own story can be prosecuted as a treasonous crime against the state. You can double this down once more in a locus of war (Berlin) where victors literally displace the regime and with it wrest control of the story to broadcast their own victory. Stories get lost, they get distorted, they get overwritten – the stories of victims get defined by their victimhood in service to the vilification of the enemy and the righteousness of the victor.

For Rosenstrasse we got very lucky in that an academic named Nathan Stoltzfus found the thread of the Rosenstrasse protests early enough to locate people who were actually impacted, and to collect their first hand accounts of the events. Those first-hand accounts became the heart of our research and our design. And since that work, many other academics have focused on the story and it has become a locus of debate in Resistance Studies – so for research we situated ourselves in the lives of people who told their story and followed as many threads as we could find outward until we felt we could create a palpable feel of what it was like to live in that time.

JH: While Mo focused on the historical research, I spent a lot of time looking into the challenges of Holocaust education. I have a lot of experience designing and studying educational games – that’s actually part of my day job as a professor at CMU – but Holocaust education has some pretty specific challenges that we needed to understand. For example, Holocaust games can backfire if they make the player feel that they could have done a better job in the circumstances. That can lead them to have contempt, not empathy, for the targets of Nazi persecution. So, we did research to identify these challenges, looked at what’s been done before, and specifically targeted our design to address them. Our research with the game so far, and our observations of playtesting, suggest that we’re succeeding!

A woman with short dark hair in a dark green shirt sits on a yellow couch beside a large bookcase full of books and games, and in front of her is a table with game materials from Rosenstrasse. She holds a copy of the Rosenstrasse in her hands, presenting it to the camera.
Dr. Jessica Hammer, one of the creators of Rosenstrasse.

How is Rosenstrasse important to you as a creator, and as a person?

JH: I’ve been making transformational games for nearly twenty years, and I’ve rarely seen a game that has this kind of power. It’s humbling and a bit frightening to know that you’ve made a game that deeply impacts players. But, I’ve brought everything that’s in me to the table – my work with transformational games, my commitment to activism, my expertise in psychology and instructional design, my family history, my love of role-playing games – and I think that creates a special kind of alchemy.

I’m particularly grateful that Mo agreed to dedicate the game to my grandmother, Helen Hammer. She survived five different camps, including Auschwitz, and went on to live a life of intellectual commitment, grace, and dignity. I was particularly close to her growing up. She pushed me to read bigger, think bigger, adventure bigger; she wanted me to have a vision of the world as it could be, not just of the world as it was. She died when I was still in college, so I hope this game stands as a testament to her memory.

MT: Rosenstrasse has a harmony that’s critically important to me. Its historical focus, its design, the story it tells, the player experience, the impact of play, my personal goals as a creative activist, and the design relationship Jess and I have built are all aligned with a harmony that’s incredibly satisfying. I will forever be grateful that Jess agreed to do this work with me – it has been a uniquely fulfilling and powerful experience, and I am humbled by her trust and her courage.

The cover of Rosenstrasse with the subtitle "A story of love and survival, Berlin, 1933-1943." It features two figures offset, from the shoulders up, facing away from each other. One figure is orange, the other is in dark blue. The word "Rosenstrasse" is set in all caps over these figures, and the base of the figures melds together to form the skyline of Berlin, upside down.

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Amazing! Thank you to Jessica and Moyra both for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it, and that you’ll check out Rosenstrasse on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Bite Me!

Today I have an interview with Becky Annison about Bite Me! a game about werewolf packs that’s currently on Kickstarter and sounds awesome! Check out what Becky has to say below.

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Tell me about Bite Me! What excites you about it?

Bite Me! is a game about the emotional life of a werewolf pack. So it has mechanics for superhuman action and also mechanics for emotional connection and dealing with the fall out of the violence in your life.

I love games that dive deep into a mess of pressure cooker relationships. A werewolf pack is my perfect setting for that. It has 4 essential elements:

  • the fear of losing control of the monster inside,
  • the created family who share something that sets them apart,
  • the threat of a violent end, and
  • people closer to their emotional states and less able to hide how they feel.

Bite Me! uses those elements to keep the drama and tension high whilst doing the work for you to make the characters and the players feel like they are part of a pack. I’ve taken some of my learning on organisational culture from my MBA and baked it into the game to really make that a powerful part of the experience.

It is also a Powered by the Apocalypse game and that excites me a lot for two reasons: first because PbtA is a powerful engine for creating this cascade of action which gets out of control fast, and control is a huge theme in the werewolf genre. But secondly because the playbooks and moves allow you to design a very precise gaming experience for a given setting or genre. So, this is absolutely a game with a big theme of control, but the moves and skins in Bite Me! allow a group to also explore sharing emotions, having heartfelt conversations and having relationships in the centre of a storm of violence.

Most of all this game excites me because it is absolutely the game I’d want someone to run for me.

Tell me more about using your MBA! What did you bring forward, and how did you apply it to the game?

In my MBA I did a lot of work on how a culture can define an organisation even to the extent of eclipsing some pretty important things like strategy. I came to realise that culture is a powerful tool, but more than that – it already exists. It sits at the gaming table with us. And that got me thinking, if we have such a powerful thing sitting alongside us then shouldn’t we be using it? Shouldn’t we be designed games for it – to make sure that the culture doesn’t eat our carefully designed settings and systems.

I’ve designed this game with culture in mind. Deliberately using and establishing culture both in and out of character to replicate that sense of camaraderie that exists both in Packs and close gaming groups. Character advancement (in part) is tied to expressing and sharing culture as a Pack and every in-joke you share should make the game feel that much more gripping and heartfelt. One of my favourite things it when you experience a genuine moment of camaraderie at the gaming table. A moment that lights up your heart in a way that is shared with everyone else in your gaming group. I wanted to make a game that acknowledged and even facilitated that experience.

With such an emotional environment, considering the elements of family, struggle, and relationships, how do you handle safety and consent in the game?

I think that safety and consent is one of the hardest and most important conversations in our hobby right now. I recommend for Bite Me! a set of three different tools to help everyone at the gaming table take care of each other.

I like to start all my games by establishing a list of topics we agree not to bring into the game, a ‘Banned List’. This can be done anonymously or not as the needs of the players require and everyone including the MC is encouraged to use the opportunity to define what they want to keep out of the game. This allows players to veto things in advance. But of course you don’t always know in advance what stuff is going to come up in a game, and gaming is on ongoing exercise in consent. So we need tools to use during the game as well as before we start. In Bite Me! I recommend that groups investigate the X-card and your own Script Change techniques and I talk about how they might use one or both of those in a game. I think that the X-card is good for when someone who gets in real trouble and needs to shut down a piece of play quickly with no questions asked, and it can be used very effectively to remind people of the Banned List if someone forgets and accidentally references something on that list in the heat of the moment. Script Change is particularly amazing for when something needs to be adjusted in a game but everyone is either comfortable with more discussion or actively needs to discuss it and it gives better clarity over what the problematic element is and how best to deal with it.

When I started role-playing there were no discussions around safety techniques or any widely known tools. I don’t think we are at the end of figuring out safety because it always must be calibrated to the needs of the players in the game at the time and it is and should be an ongoing conversation. But I’m really glad we are having those conversations now and I’m always looking to see what the next advances in the discussion will be. But these are just tools. It would be great if we could roll them out like an encumbrance table or a bunch of Moves and have it all work like a smooth set of mechanics should do. Ultimately though games are conversations between real, warm human beings with all our messy emotions and culture and relationships. The tools are great – but they won’t work if we don’t prioritise the safety and comfort of our people at the gaming table, even over the fun of others.

In the written game text all I can do is encourage people to prioritise caring for each other and give them some tools. At my own gaming table I use these tools but I watch and listen, I check in with my players before, during and after tough scenes and I make it clear in the culture of my table that the people I sit with matter more than the game. I don’t get it perfect – messy human feelings will always be a work in progress. But we need to keep working on it.

A woman with tight braids and tattoos standing in front a forest filled with mist and wolves.

What are the important differences and similarities between werewolf media and Bite Me! as a game? What might players be excited to find in Bite Me! that they might not find elsewhere?

I consume quite a lot of werewolf media (unsurprisingly) and I love it. But as a gamer, every time I find a film or book that I love I’m always thinking – ‘what is it I’m really excited about here, and how can I put that into a game!’ The cool thing about gaming is getting to experience stories as an active participant, instead of a passive consumer. I’ve put a lot of what I love about Werewolves (and my interpretation of them) into this game. The mechanics get you experiencing the closeness of pack life, the knife edge of control and the temptation to become violent or dominant to get the job done. But the one thing I’m hoping all players will get is that flash of genuine and heartfelt camaraderie both in and out of character; in the moment when the pack puts its differences aside, when the pack member you hate saves you because you are pack, when the Alpha sacrifices their life for the good of the group. Those are the things I hope that gamers will get to feel instead of observe. In terms of werewolf lore e.g. the full moon’s influence, being bitten or born a werewolf, the effects of silver or wolfsbane etc – all these things are for the players to decide on at the table. There is so much wolf mythology out there and I’d like the players to pick and choose their favourite bits to play with. There is no ‘Becky’s Definitive Guide to Werewolves’ because what I love about the stories maybe very different to someone else and the core of the system is the story of the pack anything else should feed that dynamic.

Tell me about building a pack, and how you create that culture. How does this play out at the table? What are some fun results you’ve had in playtesting?

The pack has a playbook of its own which includes powerful Pack Moves. But you only get access to those Moves when you have accumulated enough Pack Pool, using the emotion-sharing Moves. The pack playbook is also where the players will agree and record their Culture and Traditions. Culture is the outward signifiers revealing who is in the pack and who is not. You might choose a certain style of clothing, slang wordsor rituals around food to show belonging. Displaying culture in scenes does two things, firstly it will make you feel more like a pack.

Secondly it will tick off your boxes to get you advancements for your character. Culture always emerges in social groups – in the ttrpg world we have our own cultural touchstones like D&D (even if we don’t all play it), we have our shared language and slang which often comes from the games. Bite Me! leverages the fact we do that anyway and channels it into the pack experience. If our gaming group is going to come up with some slang, then let’s do it in the game as well and make it feel like we are a pack. When I MC I make sure I’m using that slang in and out of character and addressing my players as my packmates even when I’m doing the admin around arranging sessions. In game play I usually find that one or two of the created words really stick and when people start using those words in and out of character you’ve hit the jackpot – completing the culture of cycle into and out from the game.

Tradition are also another aspect of pack culture but they are more like the laws of the pack, things that would incur a serious punishment if breached. They should be thorny, throw up moral dilemmas and create unstable situations. Examples might be ‘Never reveal yourself as a Wolf to a human’, ‘Never eat a human’, ‘Only Alpha’s may create Wolves’. Once the players have agreed what the rules are I then tell the MC to ask one more question ‘Which PC has broken a tradition and which PC is keeping their secret (for now)?’ This gives a couple of players the chance to start with an extra tense situation which will strongly inform their relationship.

One of the best examples I’ve seen of that is the pack who had the Tradition that ‘All relationships with humans must be disposable’, at the start of the game one of the characters had just married their human boyfriend and the youngest member of the Pack had seen an incriminating text message. Setting that up changed the entire trajectory of the relationship between them and it was very powerful as the younger packmate wrestled with the conflict of loyalty that it created

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Thanks so much to Becky for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Bite Me! on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Comrades

Today I have an interview with W.M. Akers about Comrades, a tabletop RPG currently on Kickstarter! W.M. Akers is also author of Westside, a mystery novel you can find on preorder. Check out the interview below!

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A red background with yellow text in all-caps saying "Comrades" beside a raised fist.

Tell me about Comrades. What excites you about it?

Comrades is a new RPG about life in the revolutionary underground. I’ve been working on it off and on since 2017 and I am just in love with it. I created it because I wanted to give people who fall anywhere on the left of the political spectrum a chance to engage with their history and remember how it feels to fight, body and soul, for a cause. 

The game is based on the Apocalypse World engine, which I love both because it’s so perfectly designed for depicting the dynamics of tightly-knit groups of adventurers and because it’s jaw-droppingly easy to teach. I designed this game for hardcore gamers and novices alike, and the Apocalypse World system is the best I’ve found for welcoming new players to the table. 

A red background with yellow text in all-caps saying "The Patron" next to a black outline of a black woman holding a drink.

How have you altered the AW engine to suit Comrades as a system?

I tinkered with a lot of different changes to the AW engine, and found during playtesting that the simpler I kept things, the better the game played. There are a few basic moves deliberately crafted to evoke the revolutionary atmosphere of Comrades—”Start Something,” for instance, which gives players a way to incite a crowd to riot, protest, or strike. Any other changes I made were designed to make the system easier to teach and understand. 

I’ve also created an optional system for structuring the campaign, Pathways to Revolution, which allows parties to advance along one or more of five tracks, each of which represents a different approach to making a revolution. Each level offers advantages, culminating in an opportunity to seize power in the method best suited to the group. 

What gave you the idea for Comrades, and what are some steps you’ve taken in design to make it happen?

I’ve been obsessed with leftist history since I was in high school. The Russian Revoluton, the Spanish Civil War, the guerrilla movements of the ’60s and ’70s… I am fascinated by the way that the ideals of those on the left collide with reality, and the endless tragedies that result when their dreams are destroyed by infighting, cynicism, or simple bad luck. I wanted to make a game that dramatized the infighting and quixotic daring common to revolutionary movements throughout history, and to give players the chance to express their own frustrations with modern politics in a fun, constructive way. Because of its emphasis on the dynamics of tightly-knit groups, the AW engine was a natural fit.

A red background with yellow text in all-caps saying "The Mystic" beside a black outline of a bearded man in a loose shirt.

Tell me more about Pathways to Revolution. It sounds fascinating! What sort of experiences do players have in these tracks, and what kinds of tracks are there?

There are five tracks: Force, Organization, Zealotry, Mayhem, and Fellowship. Each one correlates to one of the game’s five stats, and each is designed to give players the opportunity to make a revolution in their own way. 

If the party is interested in forging a legitimate path to power, they may pursue Organization, which provides logistical bonuses while making the party more acceptable to the mainstream. At the fifth rank of that Pathway, they can call for elections and attempt to win power democratically. If they prefer to rely on the support of the mob, they’ll rise through Zealotry, which eventually gives them the opportunity to win power via a series of massive, wild demonstrations. In most campaigns, of course, different factions within each party will want to pursue different pathways—creating the tensions inherent in any revolutionary movement. 

I designed these both to reflect the wide variety of real-life revolutions, and to give players more than one way to “win” the game. Because there are bloodless ways to gain power, players who choose to pursue a more violent Pathway—like Force or Mayhem—must reckon with the consequences of that choice.

A red background with yellow text in all-caps saying "The Thug" next to a black outline of a woman holding a baseball bat.

How have you elected to handle and frame violence as a part of the game, and what do you feel is important about that?

Violence is a part of Comrades, just as it is for nearly every roleplaying game. Because this game takes place in a more realistic setting than most RPGs, it was intensely important to me that it be presented in a responsible way. Players are free to do whatever think necessary to achieve their goals, but the GM is instructed to make this “a game of consequences, in which violence solves little and no death—even that of a villain—goes unmourned.”

I believe that all violence is abhorrent and all life is sacred, and while I think it’s okay to act out violent situations in gameplay, it has to be done with thought and care. I hope that the rules I’ve written will empower GM and players to do just that.

A red background with a raised fist in yellow.

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Thanks so much to W.M. Akers for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Comrades on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Jinkies!

Today I’ve got an interview with Toby Strauss on the new game Jinkies! Jinkies! is currently on Kickstarter and is very Scooby-inspired, so I’m excited! I hope you like what Toby has to say below.

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

First off, I was beside myself with happiness when you spelled Jinkies! with the exclamation point.  During my research, I was amused that the original 1969 “Scooby Doo, Where are You!” used an exclamation point, and not a question mark, on the title card.  Isn’t that odd?  But I love it.  There’s a certain energy to the (incorrect) punctuation that I find kitschy and charming.  I couldn’t not use it for the game.

Jinkies! is a powered by the apocalypse adventure game based on the Hannah-Barbara cartoons from around 50 years ago.  If you’ve ever seen Scooby Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, Jabberjaw, or Dune Buggy, you’re on the right track.  Like Monsterhearts or Dungeon World, the players can choose from playbooks based on the archetypes from the shows.  These characters go on adventures, unmasking bad guys and ne’er do wells pretending to be nefarious monsters.

One of the things that I’m especially excited about is how Jinkies! handles clues.  Visual clues and puzzles are really hard to do right in tabletop RPGs.  Most of the time, the GM drops the “path critical” clues in the laps of the players just to move things along.  I really puzzled over how to handle clues until I realized something important: Hannah Barbara cartoons aren’t about the mystery.  The mystery is just a setting.  The cartoons are really about the adventure, the creepy suspect, and the wacky gang.  Jinkies! approaches clues with the mindset that it is the adventure, not the clue, that’s important.  This means that the bad guy for a given module can change from playthrough to playthrough, but I think that’s ok.  This is why I used PbtA for my mechanics.  Players and GMs in Jinkies! are just playing to find out.

Another thing that I love about Jinkies! is that there is no combat in the game.  Interestingly, combat was in the very first draft of the game . . . and it was a disaster.  The playtesters overwhelmingly rejected it; the genre is nonviolent by design and combat just didn’t feel right.  Instead of swords and hitpoints, Jinkies! turns on scares and “fear” points.  Its a great system that makes the world feel scary and dangerous without misplaced violence.  I’m proud of how it turned out! 

How do the mechanics work to result in scares and fear points, and what do those do?

If you watch one of the old Hannah-Barbara mystery cartoons, you’ll notice that no one gets hurt.  Instead, there’s a sort of asymmetrical nonviolence between the protagonists and the antagonist.  The protagonists act through ensnarement and logic–capture the bad guy and explain the crime.  The antagonist acts through fear–if the kids are scared enough, they’ll run away and let the bad guy finish his misdeeds.

I tried to mirror this in Jinkies!  The player characters “assault” the bad guy by 1) finding clues, and 2) setting and triggering a trap for the bad guy. They cannot inflict fear points on the bad guy, but the bad guy can inflict fear on the player characters.

Fear works a lot like HP, but it is only inflicted by the bad guy, and it leads to fainting from fear, not physical harm.  So let’s say the ghost pirate flies right through Joe the Leader.    That’s pretty scary!  Joe takes a point of fear.

There are a number of ways that fear can be mitigated.  Several playbooks have the ability to avoid taking earned fear points (“Joe, using his inner strength, shrugs off the ghostly attack!”).  The “weird one” playbook (think Shaggy from Scooby Doo) not only gets fear mitigation, he can use fear to fuel unique abilities.  The weird one in these shows is always afraid–I couldn’t help but give him fear fueled powers!

When it all comes together, its a surprisingly seamless experience.  No one seems to miss combat and the asymmetrical nature of the game is almost invisible when the game is played.

A purple and white panda with a milkshake necklace and the text "Jinkies!"
Purple Pandalot, the mascot for Jinkies! by Lil Chan.

What was playtesting like for this game, with the elements of it being so cartoonish?

A lot of my inspirations are obscure and probably unknown to many of my players–but almost everyone has seen something with Scooby Doo in it.  The original cartoon aired way back in 1969 and there have been dozens of spin-offs, movies, and sequels–not to mention the lasting power of syndication.  That ubiquity has made Jinkies! accessible to almost everyone who has played the game.  The vast majority of my play testers have very naturally leaned into the cartoony roots of Jinkies! with little prompting.

I can only think of a single play test where the game didn’t feel like a cartoon.  The players decided play the game really straight.  They even decided that their animal mascot was not magical and could not talk!  It felt like Dragnet, or maybe a Nancy Drew mystery.  It wasn’t a bad experience, but it also wasn’t a funny one.

That play test was early in my process and I did a bit of soul searching to try and figure out how to “fix” what had gone wrong.  It just didn’t feel right.  In the end, though, I didn’t change very much.  Most people who sign up to play Jinkies! are looking for a light-hearted, cartoony mystery adventure.  My game isn’t going to be all things to all people, and that’s ok.  Better to focus on making it the best at what it is!

How are you changing PbtA fundamentals to suit the different tone and themes, like rewriting basic moves and so on?

Interesting questions!

If a player came to Jinkies! from another PbtA game they would find the mechanics familiar.  Jinkies! is still very much a “play to find out” game.  There are basic moves, playbook moves, and animator moves.  Jinkies! uses 2D6 for its randomizer.  Very PbtA in the fundamentals.

I diverge pretty heavily in the moves themselves.  PbtA was developed for a very blood-thirsty setting, after all–and Jinkies! is based on a family-friendly cartoon!  I excised ALL combat moves and added heavily to the investigative moves.  I also changed the Animator moves, hewing closer to the genre than Apocalypse World moves could.

I also break with most PbtA on principles.  One of the guiding principles of Dungeon World, for example, is “think dangerously.”  The world of Jinkies! is sometimes scary, but it is never dangerous.  I’ve rewritten the principle as “think comedically.”  Another principle I changed is saying your moves out loud.  This is a big no-no in most PbtA games but I actively encourage it.  The Hannah-Barbara formula practically requires naming your moves.  When Velma tosses Scooby a treat, she doesn’t just give him a knowing nod, she inquires “will you do the task for a Scooby Snack?”  Scooby snack, in this case, is TOTALLY a move, and the verbal component is a very important (and cartoony) part of creating the feel the game is after.

What are you doing in regards to guiding table content safety, since there’s a lot of ways this could go a little gonzo or maybe just hit an unseen button of discomfort?

To the safety question: every RPG carries risks (bleed, content and trauma triggers, etc).  Jinkies! is no different.  In fact, I would argue that the risks of things going sideways are greater in Jinkies! than in D&D.  First, it’s a comedy game.  Comedy is, by definition, transgressive–and those transgressions can cut in surprisingly deep ways.  Second, there is a certain subtext to the “teenagers with a wacky sidekick solving mysteries” genre that is off-color.  The “Shaggy Busted” episode of “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law” does a great job of poking fun at this subtext, if any of your readers are curious.  Its fun and its funny, but it is also emotionally dangerous waters.

I’ve attempted to have my cake and eat it too by baking in two presets for content control, “normal” and “Behind the Music.”  I certainly don’t object to sex or drugs being in the game–so long as everyone at the table is comfortable with it.  This way the players must actively choose the “blue” version of the game, and it prompts a lines and veils-type conversation.  

Second, I recommend the use of an X card system.  Even in a game where boundaries have been drawn ahead of time, things can get messy fast.  I find that X cards are indispensable safety tools.  Finally, I explicitly instruct against gameplay that I find to be irredeemably offensive, like racism or misogyny.  For example, a common trope in 1970s Hannah Barbara cartoons is the villain kidnapping a woman.  This is lazy storytelling, its sexist, and it makes the game suck for the player who has been removed from gameplay.  Bigotry has no place at my table or in my game.

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Thanks so much to Toby for the great interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Jinkies! on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on The Playmaker Awards

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Richard Williams, who hosts The Playmaker Awards and is running a Kickstarter focused on them! This sounds like a fascinating initiative and I hope you’ll all check out the interview below and the awards themselves!

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A pair of cards thanking Sean Nittner for his work at Big Bad Con with a Thank You note from Sean.
This is so cute!

Tell me a little about The Playmaker Awards. What excites you about them?

The Playmakers are a set of awards not for great rpg designers, game-runners or even players, but rather for the people who work hard doing the admin and scudwork creating spaces for others to play roleplaying games.

So this might be someone who runs a convention, or the rpg track at a convention, someone who keeps a local meetup or open gaming group going. It could be in-person or online. Or it could be an entirely different way of creating space for others unique to them.

I think we often under-value and underestimate the time and labour that goes into these roles. Or just don’t think much of it at all. When I’m heading to an rpg event I’m going there to game and that’s where my focus is, and of course I’m aware that people organised stuff so that there’d be a room and table and chairs and other players, but I don’t see that effort. I just have the end-result presented to me so I can game and enjoy myself.

But I don’t think that any of these playmakers do it for the recognition; I expect most of them consider it a sign that they’re doing a good job if the public don’t see all the effort behind the scenes – that they have as seamless and smooth as an experience as possible. But that just makes it more important that these playmakers do get recognised by others, because they’re not going to put themselves forward and yet their effort is so critical to the hobby. I played my first game at a local convention. I rely on them, both to play new games and to keep in touch with people who I only otherwise see online. What would this hobby be without them? A shadow of what it is, to be certain.

As to what excites me about the Playmaker awards: every stage of it so far. When I asked for nominations I was fascinated to see who would be put forward. When I contacted people to tell them they had won, some of them were bemused to win an award they’d never heard of, but some others – I don’t know – I think it might just have come at a time when they really needed that kind of appreciation. Announcing them was exciting as well, to see word spread. And now I’m into interviewing some of them for the Playmaker zine kickstarter, which really is a privilege for me; these folk spend so much time working for others in the hobby already, it’s very generous of them to spend more time so I can find out more about what they do and why they do it.

How are you determining who fits the category to be nominated or win?

I tried to describe as best I could the folk I wanted nominated and then I’ve trusted the people who took the time to reply to one of my posts with a nomination. My basic criteria was whether someone created space for others to play. I specifically excluded rpg design-work – I think we have a variety of different ways already of recognising great designers – and game-runners (such as DMs/GMs) and players as they are the ones who get to sit down and play.

In my mind, the most obvious candidates are con organisers – the many folk who I’ve seen standing behind a desk or walking through the con who’ve given up their weekend (and I don’t know how many hours before) so that _other people_ can play. However, I also wanted the awards to go further. I don’t know what play spaces are out there today, nor what’s involved in organising them, and so keeping the nominations more open was another means of discovery.

What is the judging process like and how do you decide winners?

I knew I definitely wasn’t the person to judge or rank the level of contribution made by each nominee. And what would the benefit be of saying that this playmaker who runs the rpg track of a massive convention is more or less deserving than this other playmaker who has been running a small rpg club all by themselves for twenty years? What criteria would make sense to use? What other factors would you consider? If I’m not the right person to judge, who is?

I saw the judging process as a big minefield and ultimately antithetical to my overall goal of both recognising their efforts and building a network of goodwill in this time of separation and fragmentation. So, in essence, I pushed the judging process to the nominators as well. If someone else thought you met the criteria and thought enough of you to nominate you then – assuming I could contact you and you were the person broadly doing what you were being nominated for – then you were a playmaker in my book.

The final judge I should mention was the playmaker themselves. My first question for all of the winners was whether they accepted (and, in fact, one of them didn’t). I wanted to make sure that everyone was comfortable, both the people nominating and the people being nominated.

And I feel trusting folk and being led by their nominations worked. While I did go back to a few nominators to get more details on their nomination, I haven’t rejected anyone for being outside of the scope of the awards and I’ve included a bunch of playmakers who I perhaps wouldn’t have heard of if I had been more restrictive.

A card thanking the Gauntlet with quotes from their supporters.

What do you think the benefit is of an awards process for playmakers?

I think it’s different for the individual and the hobby as a whole.

For the hobby, I feel that awards help define its values. I previously did annual awards for the London Indie RPG meetup and I had an award for most played game but also one for most played designer because I didn’t want someone to miss out because they’d produced a batch of fun games rather than a single one.  I also had an award for most popular game runner, partly as a thank you but also to encourage others to run games as well. Finally, I included special awards that were at my discetion and went to anyone who’d brought something a bit special to the group during the year such as coming in costume or fulfilling a vow to run a certain game for someone. I think it showed that we as a group valued those who brought that little extra joy to our lives.

Similarly with the Playmakers, by having such an award and by having others support and endorse it shows that creating space for others to play is a service that we value and appreciate. Just as certain holidays remind us to thank significant people in our lives and events like GMs Day remind us to thank those who run our games, so too the Playmakers reminds us and gives us the opportunity to thank these folk as well.

As to what benefit there is to the individual? To be honest, from the beginning I knew I couldn’t provide much. I did want to give each of the Playmakers something more than just a ‘thank you’ and a blogpost, something to make the award a little more substantial, to show my own sense of gratitude and so I settled on a $20 DriveThru voucher figuring that, as the Playmakers spend so much time for others enjoyment that it’d be nice for them to buy something for themselves. At a friend’s recommendation I reached out to OneBookShelf (who are the people behind DriveThru) and they very generously agreed to sponsor 25% of the total, so I put in $15 and they made it up to $20. I knew that, depending on the response rate, by advertising the voucher while nominations were open I was essentially writing a blank cheque, but the awards were not so popular as to put me in financial difficulty!

I was fully prepared that when I started reaching out to the winners that the general response from them would be ‘Errr… thanks, I guess… who are you again?’ (and I did get that a couple of times!) But actually it was far better than I expected. Most of these folk who are so generous with their time working for other people were equally generous with me, and interested to see who else were receiving awards.

And in a few cases, just winning the award struck something deeper. I don’t know what stage each of them are in the hobby or in their lives, but I do know from my personal experience that there are harder moments. Times when I reevaluate whether my time and effort is actually benefitting anyone else or even noticed. I think in maybe a couple of cases this award has come through at one of those more reflective times and been all the more appreciated because of it.

In all, I think in some cases the best thing that has come out of it for the winner is the nomination. When I asked for nominations I didn’t really expect anything more than ‘Person A for doing Thing B’, but some of the nominations are far more detailed and far more thoughtful. And I think it’s this personal message from someone a playmaker has helped can be the greatest benefit.

Recognition cards for Réka Korcsmáros about her online RPG community and including a thank you from her.

How would you encourage playmakers to act and what would you encourage them to do to make them a more likely candidate for the awards?

Just to keep doing what they’re doing! If they’re still enjoying it then keep at it, or change it up or take a break if it’s just become a labour.

I don’t intend the awards to change anything about what the winners do, rather I’m really hoping that it will inspire others to do the same. I did originally think that the awards would end with simply announcing the winners, but further it progressed the more I realised that this would be a disservice to the concept. The nominations have been great but they’re only a tiny glimpse of the Playmakers’ stories.

To that end, as part of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest initiative in February, I’ll be crowdfunding a collection of new interviews some of the Playmakers, getting into more detail about what they do, why they do it and what they need to do it better.

It’s been great to give these folks an award and a thank you, but it has been so much more interesting to dig deeper. I hope that the final product will be a unique perspective on the state of public rpg play today and that hearing their stories will inspire others to do the same.

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Thank you so much to Richard for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed reading it and that you’ll check out The Playmaker Awards and the Kickstarter!

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Five or So Questions on Kiss Her Before the World Ends

ETA: Sorry, now with links! Blogger borked.

Hey all, today I have an interview with Alice Grizzle, who has a really cool name and made an even cooler game: Kiss Her Before the World Ends. I’ve heard nothing but praise for it and her design since its recent release, so check out what Alice has to say!

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Tell me a little about Kiss Her Before the World Ends. What excites you about it?

Kiss Her Before the World Ends excites me because it prioritizes how the PC’s feel and allows space for all players. My main goal when creating the game was to create a game that encourages romance while still letting everyone play characters like themselves. Be the ace, pan, aromantic, polyam, etc. I think it achieves that.

There are so many games about being a badass, that focus on violence. I wanted to make a game about being vulnerable in front of other people. My hope is that people will see games like mine and realize that relationships and romance can be the centerpiece for your game. Tabletop games have the same ability to be about anything that every form of media has.

Alice Grizzle, designer.

What do players typically do and experience in a standard session of Kiss Her Before the World Ends? What did you do in the design to allow or encourage players to play inclusively, whether they are playing characters like themselves or choosing to play characters unlike themselves?

Kiss Her is an emotional game, stressful even at times which is by design. The use of a timer puts a lot of pressure on the players to say what they have to say before they’re no longer able to do so. It simulates the same pressure the characters feel really well.

During the design process I had to think of broad definitions for things like what it means to want Intimacy. That’s hard enough to quantify, especially while still being inclusive to ace and aromantic folks. I settled on “Intimacy is the desire for closeness” which is open to lots of interpretations. All the definitions for the types of Needs are equally interpretable.

What are the mechanics like in Kiss Her and how do players engage them?

The two main mechanics in Kiss Her Before the World Ends, the ones that control the flow of the game and what the game is about, are Needs and the timer. Needs are the things people want and they come in 4 types: Intimacy Needs, Empathy Needs, Escapism Needs, and Validation Needs. The main focus of the game is the characters negotiating how to get what they want while also fulfilling each other’s Needs. At certain points in play the players will clear Needs that they’ve resolved and replace them with new ones. Priorities change as the end draws closer.

The timer is the outside world collapsing around them. It is what pushes the characters forward, and hopefully towards each other. It also controls the pace of the game. Scenes can end whenever the players feel like they should, but none can go past the length of the timer.

What do you like best about the game and how it plays, from a design standpoint?

Probably the different types of Needs. Those four types and the definitions for them really feel like they incapsulate a huge part of what it is we as people want from our relationships. I feel like they push players into immediately playing interesting, conflicted characters.

I would say I also really like how we’ve formated it primarily with mobile viewing in mind. It encourages spontaneous play in a way that you just can’t do if your game is a full book. I seriously think that books almost always being the default way we present our games is to our own detriment. Games should be presented in the way that makes them most accessible and encourages players to play in the ways you want them too.

Two feminine figures, one lit in sparkling pink from the galaxy-like background, the other silhouetted, moving towards each other as though they are about to kiss. The title is in capitalized white text: "Kiss Her Before the World Ends".
This cover is super gorgeous, and looks great in the mobile format. The book itself is designed to work great on mobile, which has gained a lot of praise from those who have bought the game to play!

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Thanks so much for the interview, Alice! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Kiss Her Before the World Ends today!

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