Tag: tabletop rpgs

Five or So Questions on Dangerous Times

Hey all! Today I’ve got five or so questions with Michael Bacon about the game Dangerous Times, which is currently on Kickstarter! Hope that you like hearing about this game of journalism in the 1920s!

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An illustration of a newspaper for Dangerous Times, Volume 1, Friday March 9, 1923, Established 1887. Heading reads "Muckrakers and Magic in Old New York!" and the subtitle reads "Historic Urban Fantasy RPG."

Tell me about Dangerous Times. What excites you about it?

Dangerous Times is a small role-playing game for two or more players, published in zine form, with a focus on storytelling. It’s about reporters who risk their lives to expose corruption, crime and injustice, all in a version of 1920’s New York that’s just learned stage magic is real. So now magic is everywhere: children play with fire and levitation in the streets, wall street moguls consult soothsayers before making investments, crooks turn hypnotism and escape-artistry to devious purposes… and of course those who seek power are messing with things best left alone.

One of the aspects I’m most excited about is the history involved.

New York of the jazz age is a surprisingly modern time. Broadway is decorated with neon lights, cars fill the streets and the subway rumbles below. There’s even a budding intercontinental network of wires and radio waves used to share photographs and news around the world.

It’s not just the technology that makes the twenties modern, though: so many familiar social issues are present and cultural shifts are happening, often in ways that resonate with the current time.

I’d love it if players were able to engage with all this history, and find ways to incorporate it into their play. I’ve tried to encourage that in the design. So even though the problems they bump into involve the supernatural, I’ve attempted to make those plotlines echo historic reality. It turned out to be… not easy (I’m still not sure I’ve got it right), but at least surprisingly straight-forward. This makes sense, though, because this is the culture that produced so many of those genre-defining fantasy, horror and mystery stories; they couldn’t help but bring reality into the fantastical.

The New York City skyline with the text "New York City in the Roaring Twenties."

The 1920s were a complex time in New York! I know that many Black Americans and queer people were among those living in the city. What kind of research are you doing to ensure that you have appropriate representation of the history and the people of the era?

I’m glad you brought this up, because how people treated each other during this era has been a major focal point of my research.

I’ve been lucky enough to lean on the work of historians who’ve spent their entire careers studying aspects of this, exploring how specific conceptions of race, gender, sexuality and nationality influenced and were influenced by society at large. There’s even a page at the end of the zine dedicated to resources and references, so that players interested in learning more can know where to start.

Going into this I’d only known the broadest shapes of the era, and I was very excited to learn about ways society seemed to be expressing interest in diversity— this romantic idea that New Yorkers at large were going out to speakeasies, immigrant neighborhoods, jazz clubs, queer dances, and encountering all sorts of other lifestyles and backgrounds— but when I started doing the reading it turns out that these interactions served to reify existing hierarchies as much as they transgressed against them.

And then the years rush ahead through the Great Depression, WWII, and McCarthyism, all of which exacerbate expressions of social backlash and undermine tentative steps made towards civil progress.

All this is to say that the past is a different place, not a kinder one.

I have, however, made a serious effort to research and represent all the people living in the city, not just the ones in most easy reach. What this directly translates to is mention and often discussion of things like the black press, targeted enforcement of new immigration laws, police raids on cross-racial or queer dances, and so forth throughout the zine… though it’s difficult to fit all the nuance required within just 40 pages, especially when those pages also have to convey the core game mechanics and process of play.

One thing that drove me to set the game in the 1920s was this article talking about Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge Ball, where hundred of queer men and women annually danced in joyful defiance of prevailing gender and sexual norms. These events became a sensation, with thousands from all over the city showing up to observe and sometimes take part; notables in attendance include Nora Holt and Wallace Thurman, even the Vanderbilts and Astors. The newspapers at the time treat this with a range between shock and fascination, but I can’t help but smile when I picture it— twirling on the dance floor, fancy suits and gowns, and people from all over the city celebrating.

I’ve tried to make the game as much about players encountering and protecting this positive parts of life in the city, as it is about mystery, magic, and the dangers that are encroaching.

What kind of mechanics do you use in Dangerous Time for things like investigation, violence, and other things that might come up?

This is actually the area that’s seeing the most change, as I continue to playtest and refine what I’ve developed.

The setting and the mechanics are meant to reinforce each-other, but I’ve also tried to keep them out of the way of the real point, which is telling stories. So there’s some simple outcome randomization using six-sided die, but there’s also a mechanic in place that lets players spend this resource— credibility— to ignore the dice.

So for example this lets me keep reporters very squishy, only distinguishing between “healthy”, “injured”, and “dead”, because the transition between these states is almost always intentional.

The idea is that reporters sometimes exaggerate how dramatic a situation is for the sake of selling more papers, so when you spend credibility to succeed at something it actually means somebody, somewhere in this article that your building, was lying.

And of course credibility is important when figuring out the outcome of an adventure, because you might survive the big encounter only to find nobody believes what you’re printing, and then the world gets worse instead of better. Maybe dying for your ideals was the smarter choice.

Then there’s the investigation, which is where I’ve been doing a lot of iteration lately. I’ve been toying with different ways to have players encounter and build stories, but one piece I think I’ve finally got down is the start of everything— the staff meeting.

The latest version has the editor (the player who runs the game) stating a fact about the world and then questioning the other players about it.

So you open the meeting with “Rats and pigeons have been dying”, “Strange sounds drift through the air”, “Discarded bits of clothing keep turning up” and then start asking questions. Why are the rats dying?

Where are they finding the clothing? When are the sounds being heard?

Who told you about this? What does this other group say about it? Make it weirder! Do they contradict each-other?

These become the rumors players investigate, and with a little bit of work by the editor they get incorporated into and reshape the various archetypal plots written in the zine.

An illustration of an individual in a trenchcoat covertly walking. The text reads "You weren't planning to dodge bullets and mad cultists today, but it seems every two-bit crook knows a little magic now. It's up to your own wits and magic tricks to get this story printed. Who knows? Enough readers and you might just change the world."

What are the kinds of experiences and actions players can have in Dangerous Times? What do they do, and what do they feel?

Mechanically and thematically, Dangerous Times is a game about determining truth, and working out how a bunch of truths all fit together into a narrative.

Players start the game by generating rumors and leads, then tell stories about how their reporters follow up on those leads. Dice rolling is used to give guidance during this process, letting players know when a scene should provide answers or raise more questions. They also make decisions about who pursues what leads, when to use magic or break laws during the investigation, when to split up and investigate more leads, or to focus on one lead together, reducing danger and increasing the chance it’ll pan out.

All the while players are accruing trouble, which eventually comes calling, and they’ll use their dice, skills, and other resources to get out of it— or they go out in a blaze of glory, getting one last epic moment before they fall.

Finally publication starts, and players have to take all these facts and rumors and fit them together into articles, coming up with witty headlines for bonus points. The paper’s credibility, circulation, and debts come together to influence decisions about what gets printed, and then the impacts of the publication on the world and the newspaper’s future are discussed.

Ideally players start out with interest and confusion, and as the story progresses they get that slow, awesome sense of the facts coming together. They feel pressure brewing as trouble builds up, and they make decisions about which risks are worth taking. When the trouble finally happens, they feel excitement and danger, but also in control— players are the ultimate arbiter over their character’s fate, and they’ll have to weigh when sacrifices are worthwhile. During publication they get to look back on the adventure, recapping all those feelings mixed together with hope, satisfaction, or regret.

Finally, in a game called Dangerous Times, I have to wonder, how do you plan to encourage safe and respectful play at the table?

The way tabletop gamers have thought critically on player safety, developing tools and methods to encourage everyone has a good time, is one of the things I like best about this hobby. Coming from video games, where the discussion really isn’t there yet, it’s like a breath of fresh air. So of course I’m happy to reference things like Lines & Veils and the X-card, so players new to the hobby or unfamiliar with these concepts can play with a safety net.

As to the design itself, well. Dangerous Times opens with a staff meeting, and there’s a note in the zine about using starting that off with a quick conversation about the things players do and don’t want to see. It’s my hope that this becomes a natural place to establish boundaries, proffer ideas, and flavor the tone of upcoming play. If someone mentions they find baseball boring but love ghost stories, the group can keep that in mind as they start building rumors and playing the game. With luck this normalizes the times when people need to draw boundaries, whether that’s to avoid deep-seated trauma or just because they’ve had a shitty day.

Addressing the other part of your question, one of the things I’ve been very careful with the plotlines inside the booklet is to keep them (hopefully, respectfully) adjacent to reality— players encounter history and fix fantasy. So there’s no rushing in and suddenly solving real-world injustices that persist into the present, at least in the booklet as written. I think it’s fine if players want to play that way, but it’s not the game I wanted to write. Instead I’ve provided supernatural and imaginary plots, noted parallels to real history, and tasked editors with “making the real unreal”— drawing inspiration from the real world, but making it into something everyone can feel comfortable playing with.

I’d be happy if the experience of playing can be informative and challenging, but first and foremost it has to be enjoyable. It’s my hope that the game can support both hard-hitting encounters with history as well as light-hearted escapism. Groups can and should play at their own comfort levels— the twenties were a terrible, dangerous time, but also one that could have promised a better future. If nothing else, playing in that space should be fun.

An illustration of a medium with cards in front of them, with swirling spectres behind them. The text reads "Based on real history, but with real magic...This is a world where magicians' tricks actually work, and the secrets behind them have just been published worldwide. Anyone can dabble in magic, and those of a villainous bent are more dangerous than ever before."

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

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.

—

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.

—

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!

Official Statement on Perpetrators of Harm

I have puzzled for days on how to make this statement, so I hope this ends up being good enough. The Twitter statement was brief and to the point, but this needs to address some things more specifically. I do appreciate your patience.

Content Warning: Sexual assault, sexual harassment, harassment, grooming, threats, doxxing, rape, missing stairs, abuse of authority.

It starts out bad.

There was recently a statement released by Mandy Morbid and two others, Jennifer and Hannah, all ex-partners of Zak Smith (a.k.a Zak Sabbath, a.k.a. IHitItWithMyAxe, a.k.a. dndwithpornstars). The statement described domestic and sexual abuse by Zak towards the women in some detail (link here, content warning for domestic and sexual abuse, ableism). It was followed up by a statement by Vivka Grey reporting similar issues (link here, content warnings for domestic and sexual abuse, toxic objectification).

The internet in indie and OSR gaming erupted. It spilled elsewhere, too. Zak has been a troublesome member of our community for some time – people have been reporting his harassing, threatening behavior for around a decade, including many marginalized people who were pushed out of the community by the bad behavior or by backlash after reporting. Some people were pushing to excise him immediately, others wanted his story. Some of us got caught up in community in-fighting that served to muddy the waters, but I think it’s beginning to clear.

I will give full disclosure that, by my experiences, Zak has made my life more difficult. The actions of his supporters have done so, as well, including some people who will go on without ever apologizing or making up for it, I know that. I don’t trust a lot of people because of Zak. I think his actions have threatened my professional career and they have been part of the impetus for the clinical acute paranoia and trauma triggers I suffered that partially led to me having to leave my rather lucrative corporate job in 2015. Yes, I was vulnerable in the first place. That doesn’t mean that making it worse through ill behavior was a kind and loving thing to do.

That means it is easier for me to make a statement that I will not publish articles supporting his work, that I will not go to conventions that support his work. However, Zak is not the only missing stair in our community (link to blog post about what missing stairs are, content warning for sexual assault and rape). There are people I used to work for who have done harm too, and one of those has been public since around the Harassment in Indie Games series I did in 2017, but I didn’t make a public statement. I should have.

It gets worse.

Matthew McFarland, someone who I have interviewed for Thoughty and who I have worked for while doing the Demon: Interface project, is a serial predator. Cheyenne Grimes came out about this in 2018 to IGDN (link to Cheyenne’s recent post, content warning for sexual assault and trauma), and the investigation that occurred then is being re-investigated because at the time, Michelle Lyons-McFarland was IGDN president. When Matt was removed from RPG.net as mod, reportedly Michelle was still a mod and helped to prevent further survivors from speaking up. Some of those survivors like Luka Carroll have spoken up publicly (link here, updated link here, content warning for grooming and assault and specifically noting relation to trans individuals as targets.)

I am angry about this. I am bitter that this entire situation occurred, that Matt could keep doing harm, that it was covered up, that people were ever harmed at all. I am angry I ever promoted Matt, or considered him a friend. The thing is, Matt is not the only person I have had an experience like this with.

There is a situation some people find themselves in where they know secrets. These secrets are very important, and if they confessed them, maybe someone could be protected. But if they confess them, maybe someone could be hurt very badly. This is the peril of knowing about missing stairs in the community, and knowing on behalf of their survivors or yourself. I know about multiples of these and until I am authorized to do so by the survivors or those currently affected, I won’t release the information. I made that choice. It still feels absolutely vile. I am angry about it every single day.

In for a band aid, surgery later.

That’s part of why I have taken on some specific rules that I talked about on Twitter.

  • Understand forgiveness is hard and complicated.
  • Work toward it anyway.
  • Don’t harass, doxx, or threaten anyone for any reason ever.
  • Take care of yourself.
  • Take care of each other.
  • Remember that infighting is what bad actors want.
  • Center the survivors.
  • Try to love, if you can.

Sounds harder than anything right now, honestly. But, I’m trying. With these comes people making statements, and sometimes those statements are less than great. I’m not linking to the good ones or the bad ones. I don’t have that time.

What I do have time to do is give my statement. The official Thoughty word, as it were, here on the blog, not just on Twitter. This is what I can do right now. What I will do going forward, a bit, but it’s a now. How do we fix our fractured community? How do we build bridges between indie and OSR and trad when somehow they’ve all been blown up by this? How do we deal with the fact that there are missing stairs everywhere, and they mostly remain some charismatic fuckers? I can’t tell you that.

I can tell you to learn about DARVO, the way abusers behave when called out (link here, content warning for discussion of abuse and trauma), and when someone is an asshole, don’t blame it on the internet. I can tell you to practice apologizing well. I can tell you to check those rules I just shared and follow them. And I can tell you this:

I love you. Even if you fuck up, I will love you. All I ever ask of you is to try to be better. If you are doing bad things, stop doing them. Apologize. Try to make up for it. Don’t hurt the people any more than you already have. If you’re not doing anything bad, keep an eye out for the things that might make you slip up. We all fuck up. Thoughty isn’t a site only to promote and praise the perfect, but we had better do a damn good exercise in trying if we want to make the world stay alive for tomorrow. I expect you to be better. Every chance you get.

The Official Thoughty Statement

Thoughty supports survivors of abuse and harassment and believes them.

This platform is not a space for anyone who perpetrates acts of harassment, abuse, or violence, especially against marginalized individuals. Thoughty will not post to promote or endorse these perpetrators on the main site or on social media.

I will not attend or endorse conventions without an effective and enforced code of conduct, and if I know a known perpetrator is a guest, I will not attend or endorse.

Thoughty can and will refuse any and all submissions for interviews, features, reviews, or endorsement if there is a publicly or privately known allegation of abuse or harassment that I can in any way reference.* If I am made aware of an allegation after posting an article, I will assess whether it is safe to contact the accused to let them know they can appeal, and whether it is or not, I will take the post down or post a warning at the top of the post based on the perspective of the survivor if I am able to obtain it.

I reserve the right to take down posts or apply warnings at the top for any reason, even beyond this, because the safety of my readers is paramount.

If you are aware of a post I have up that supports a perpetrator of harm in our community, please notify me using my content form and I will assess it as appropriate. Please understand I am running the site on my own, so things may take time, but they will be resolved to the best of my ability.

Thank you for your time and attention on this big post! And thank you for taking this in, and moving forward for the better. Believe survivors!

*ETA 2/16/19 5:31pm – changed “confirm” to “reference.” The former is not what I meant. I just mean I need to know what the allegation is.

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.

—

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!

Thoughty is supported by the community at ko-fi.com/Thoughty. To be featured on Thoughty, check out the contact page!

Designer & Devourer Episode 7: When Love is Not Enough

Designer & Devourer Episode 7 link here!

Lots has happened since our last episode of Designer & Devourer… too much to list. Here are a few important things:

Script Change has some changes!

I talked about Keep the Lights On pay!

I talked about projects that end!

Turn funded at $20,708!

There’s also been tons of interviews, and more to come, plus some articles about design, projects, and games. I’m getting a new website soon at briebeau.com, which currently redirects to the Blogger site y’all know. The Google+ exodus has begun and in a couple months it’ll be no more!

The last of these recordings didn’t properly upload to Google Play because I messed up my SoundCloud upload, but working on fixing that. I’m not great at tech stuff!

This recording is mostly an update on what I’ve been doing, and some thoughts about love. Specifically, loving your work and doing it without burning yourself out, and what to do when all is not enough.

Our recipe this week is what I call scratch cake, found here, even though it’s a family recipe too!

The music for this episode is by Yakov Golman, Reflection, and was found here.

Thoughty is supported by the community on patreon.com/thoughty. Tell your friends!

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

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, follow the instructions on the Contact page.

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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Script Change Changes, Reflection

Hi y’all!

I recently made updates to Script Change (itchio) and wanted to break them down a little! You’re going to get some of my recent photography with it, also, because I wanna.

All photos by Brie Beau Sheldon (c) 2018-2019.

Whatcha got for me? Charlie is ready to go!

Sorting it out

Some of this was just some reorganization – I wrote this document originally starting like 2012-2013 and it went through some shuffles over that time, and some organization for clarity and approachableness was vital. Now there’s a more smooth flow, and the layout is tidied a little bit, too. I also added what I think is an awesome table handout with brief explanations of the tools, with larger text so it’s more accessible! There are ways I can expand this, but I gotta take my time sometimes.

Figuring it out

I needed to ask what Script Change was doing in regards to addressing different needs at the table. One of the recent discussions about the topic of safety tools was the Luxton Technique, discussed on Google+ (I’m asking the author of that post if they’d like to duplicate it here, since G+ is dying, but that’s where it is now), which addressed the ability to not pretend something didn’t happen, to give more narrative control, and to change the way we approach when content comes up in game that we don’t want to have ruin our play experience.

One way I wanted to address this was ensuring that it was clear you discuss potential triggers, squicks, etc. up front. Since Script Change approaches this with a “control all content, even without triggers” focus I tried to frame the initial discussion as choosing the rating, then addressing categoric avoidance, noting that they should be recorded but do so without listing player names (because for me, personally, being the person with a giant list of don’t-wants is actually really upsetting and makes me less comfortable sharing).

I am considering further expansion by making a printable “triggers, squicks, and dislikes” list where people can print it out or save it (make it digitally editable) and have it separated to “do not use, fast forward if used, pause to ask if used” or something like that. This is a challenge because some of this stuff changes, but if I remind people it can be altered at any time, that should be okay. This is a “next time” piece – I wanted to get the latest update out when I did.

Next I worked on how the actual tools work. I did an expanded explanation of how each tool works, including expanding that pauses can be used for discussion, ensuring that you identify what the content is that’s an issue, and noting that you can identify subjects that frame-by-frame is always used for. This is probably the deeper game design part, so I’ll try to detail a little more later. I also, however, added a full question and response to address the issue of pretending things didn’t happen.

Every release lately has felt like I’m traveling up a steep hill, with no other side, so I gotta get done what I can.

In one q&a, I detailed how you can discuss together what it means when you rewind – is it a dream? is it a prediction of a possibility that didn’t happen? Or is it simply cut on the editing room floor? Nonetheless, I noted:

However, final rulings do reside with the person who called for the tool to be used – in some cases, people may want to just say it didn’t happen and there’s no narrative representation. If this is what is safest for them, we must respect that – just like we should respect people in different scenarios asking to have it be represented as a part of the fiction, if they are the one who called the tool.

It’s important to note that the experiences happened in real life – whether it was triggering content or just simply off tone, it wasn’t disappeared into nothingness for us in real life. Do not erase people’s experiences. Script Change is a meta-toolbox, and we must acknowledge reality regardless of the fiction.

I think my language could be refined, so I’ll be revisiting this in the kind of quarterly review I do.

A log with fungus growing on it in the sun, with a lens flare in orange and bright pink.

But My Feels

Some people have expressed a desire to educate in response to content they might use Script Change for, or even explain their trauma to others, which is a valid want. My issue with this is that I know how easy it is to trigger a friend when you vent your trauma, and also how sometimes when we’re in need of support, we ask for it in a place that can’t support it. I tried to keep my language gentle here, like I do in most of Script Change.

If you need to talk about it, you can ask for a pause to explain what’s going on, and the other players should listen. It is also good to discuss topics that come up at a Wrap Meeting. Remember to respect each other in how much you ask of each other, and keep in mind that their capacity is just as other players or possibly friends. You should all be generous to each other, and understanding of each others’ limitations.

During this discussion, if you plan to share anything potentially triggering of others’ traumas, make sure to warn people so they can be safe for themselves. If they need to excuse themselves so you can address the topic, be understanding.

Basically, I want people to have the avenue to discuss things, to speak about why they called the tool. But, I also care about protecting everyone at the table, and that includes the people who are unable to handle triggering content for their own private reasons. I know I am often willing to speak up about my triggers and trauma, but I also know I’ve hurt people in doing it. This section is to hopefully help ensure we can do one without the other.

Other Players

I’d previously addressed whether others would take tools seriously, but I expanded this section to cover something I’ve written about before – leaving the group, or finding an alternative way to engage, including using a tool other than Script Change.

If you encounter an issue where you are afraid or uncomfortable using Script Change tools with your group, it’s possible that Script Change is not the right toolbox for you. it’s also possible that the group is not right for you, and you should consider finding an alternative option. If you want to press forward with both of them, the best option is to speak plainly about your concerns. If you trust these people enough to game with them, you will hopefully find the day they respond with care to you saying “hey, I don’t feel comfortable.” If they don’t, then you have a bigger problem that needs to be approached with a longer dialogue – or by ending the dialogue.

Sometimes you gotta have rules on what you’re willing to take.

Speaking of other players, I also encouraged people to speak up for other players! This was talked about in the Luxton technique, too, and is something I have personal experience. Once, while playing a horror game, the story turned and headed into a mental hospital. I froze completely, just totally not okay with dealing with one of my worst fears. My husband John knew I was not okay both by looking at me and by our prior discussions about content, so he tagged an X-card for me. Saved me from a real rough experience! So I broke it down a little:

You can use Script Change tools on behalf of other players! If you notice your friend is acting uncomfortable and something is happening in game that might be causing it, it’s okay to use a tool to either check in with them (like a pause) or to directly address the content (like rewind or fast forward). It’s okay for you to do that and say that you feel like it might be making people uncomfortable, and not put any direct light on the person in question, or to just say you personally don’t want to see that content.

Sometimes, we step up for other people, and it makes the game a better experience!

That was important to me, honestly.

Addressing the Crunch

I personally play some games that are pretty crunchy sometimes, where it might seem like the players or even the facilitator are at the whim of the calculations. I also kind of hate that aspect of it – if a mechanical result is going to traumatize me or ruin my fun, fuck that, I want a different option. So I clarified something that I’ve been hesitant to do, but have been doing for a while: Script Change can change mechanical results. In fact, this has been core in Turn’s design since the game’s inception. Example:

In our current game of Turn, I’m playing Beau, a cougar Late-Bloomer who has struggled a lot. He’s queer, and over the course of the story, he’s had to come out to friends and family members in both shifter and queer identity, and also deal with an ailing adoptive father. His biggest upside is he’s found his true love, a guy named Diego who is also his best friend. Beau currently has one mark left on his town exposure track, meaning he could be expelled from the town or killed if the roll goes badly, because small towns are fickle with their love when it comes to being different.

I might have shared this before but every time I feel kind of sad for being weird I think of these damn pumpkins.

I updated the “don’t wants” kind of list by telling our Town Manager, John, that if Beau has to leave the town, Diego comes with him – no arguments. If I get to the roll and it’s really bad, I could back up the scene using a rewind and approach it differently, and when the roll comes again it could be different. But, at least with this, I know I have the security to get a satisfying end to my character’s story – a character who carries my chosen name, who I have played for like a year.

It may not always be what you want, and I can understand how people might fear its abuse as a toolbox function! So I wrote it in like this:

Script Change can also be used for mechanical results if the group agrees to it. There are times when one bad roll, or one potential consequence, would be enough to make a game unpleasant or even upsetting for us. So long as the group agrees to use it in this context, it’s okay to rewind a roll or fast-forward an unnecessarily long combat. It’s important to remember that when you rewind a roll, you will typically rewind to before you took the action that prompted the roll, and have to take a reasonably different action going forward. This helps to ensure fairness in play!

I personally love it! If someone’s deeply in love with crunchy games (like me with Shadowrun 3e!) or just gets super attached to characters, using Script Change and knowing it takes some thoughtfulness to use may help them have a less risky play time.

Wrapping It Up

The last BIG change was that I added a lot of detail to wrap meetings! I even offered a list of questions to help guide the meetings, encouraging a supportive environment, one where you ask questions and elaborate as you’re comfortable. It includes this section, which I think is important:

If someone is uncomfortable addressing the issue from game during the wrap meeting out loud and at that time, they should be an option to send an email, write a note, or have a later discussion to follow up to make sure that everyone is comfortable and knows what’s happening. This lets people address topics more safely and reduces repeat errors.

I realized just now there’s a duplicate later in the actual PDF, so I’ll add that to the to-fix. But, this part was important to me because sometimes we don’t process our feelings right away, or need to calm down, but still deserve to be heard. So, I’m encouraging using all the tools at our disposal to ensure wrap meetings are effective!

One final change I plan to make in the next revision for sure is changing all uses of GM to facilitator. It was irresponsible to leave it this time – I just didn’t feel like dealing with what it might do to the layout, but GM isn’t the best term. Added to the list!

So that’s that! The work I’ve done for Script Change has been extensive. I do a fair bit of reading, and a lot of thinking and writing/re-writing. The project means so much to me, and I love it a lot. Every time someone shares and recommends it on social media and tags me on like @ThoughtyGames and stuff, it makes me feel proud! I don’t feel proud a lot, so that matters. And it matters most that people are learning about some options for how to stay safer at the table, and have a more fun time. 🙂

It’s sometimes worth it to hold still for a while and see what’s underneath the surface, and watch the water turn to silk and blur. When you see the rough edges, will you try to smooth them out, or flow with them to create something beautiful?

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