{"id":1671,"date":"2019-12-10T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/?p=1671"},"modified":"2021-11-16T00:38:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T05:38:38","slug":"gender-in-sleepaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2019\/12\/gender-in-sleepaway\/","title":{"rendered":"Rusted Swords & Nice Boys: Gender in Sleepaway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today’s post is by me, Beau, and my husband and business partner, John W. Sheldon. We’re discussing the game Sleepaway by Jay Dragon, and the experiences we had during character creation with the gender options<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photos in this post are by John W. Sheldon, copyright 2019. I hope you enjoy it! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beau, on Nice Boys<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is no secret that exploring gender in roleplaying games is kind of<\/a> a thing<\/a> I do<\/a>, This is part of how I got the courage to come out as nonbinary masculine, it’s part of how I discovered I was queer and what kind of queer I am, and it’s helped me develop my perception of self. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not always been easy, though. In the heyday of online text-based roleplay, I could be whatever gender I want – and in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fandoms, androgynous characters weren’t as often rejected as they were in other spaces. When I moved to playing face-to-face tabletop RPGs, I do think I encountered some friction with me playing masculine characters or what I now understand were nonbinary (I didn’t have the word at the time), it wasn’t much more than I got for playing pretty or sexy characters or queer characters. But, none of it ever felt… right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In most of my own designs, I’ve tried to let people write in their own genders, not be restricted by the words and definitions other people are giving them and use to control and oppress them. I mean, it’s not like being “genderfluid nonbinary masculine” like me is actually a thing to anyone else, either, but it’s the closest I’ve got (though I do use “nonbinary boy” as a shortcut these days). But, this isn’t perfect – sometimes people won’t explore without a little help, a little guidance, something to escort them along their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Dream Askew originally was released, I heard about the alternate gender options, and I was so excited! But when I tried to play the game, it was like a square block in a triangle hole – nothing fit, and it was sharply clear. I couldn’t make sense of it – even if I could kind of conceive the genders in my head, I couldn’t make myself want to play those characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when I tried to play [Dream Askew], it was like a square block in a triangle hole – nothing fit, and it was sharply clear. …Enter Sleepaway.<\/p>-Beau<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Enter Sleepaway<\/em> by Jay Dragon. This game has been in my to-play for a bit, and my game group – made up of myself (gendered as noted above), my husband John (agender, presents mostly masculine), and my two cis men friends Ed and TJ who are varying levels of into exploring gender and sexuality (no judgement! some of us are just comfortable where we are!). TJ is the one who actually brought the game to the table and is facilitating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The setup is fun in general – I honestly need to make a strong note to Jay that the writing is just phenomenal, evocative, and powerful in this game. I did a lot of summer camps as a kid, both as camper and counselor, and had some very important and scary experiences while there. The game captures all of it so beautifully and richly that I feel like I could play it a thousand times and have a unique experience every time, and learn something new about myself and my characters each time, as well. It’s also respectful in regards to First Nations and indigenous people’s rights, specifically in how you name your camp and respect the land!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that comes into the character creation with the gender options, and where this post came from. I was skimming over them originally, until I reached The Lifeguard playbook. The top option for gender is “Nice Boy.” Anyone who knows me knows that my primary character type is something approximate to the “himbo” – a hot masculine person who is considered to be not the smartest, but is generally nice and well-intentioned even if it doesn’t always work out. I like nice boys, and specifically the gender of “boy”<\/a> (not meaning a child) is one I identify with. The more I read the specific list, the more I was hooked. I knew what it meant to be a Lighthouse in the Darkness, or to be Relatable. I felt so seen<\/em> by these options – and I could see other people I know in it too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
The Lifeguard gender options.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

During and after character build, the table talked extensively about the gender options, especially me and John. John rarely talks about gender – as an agender person, he’s often said it just never clicks with him! I asked him if he could write a little about his perspective, so he has below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

John, on Rusted Swords<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I’ve mostly ignored gender in games. I recognize that as a\nsupremely privileged thing to be able to do, but as a male,\nmasculine-presenting person, nobody made it an issue for me if I didn’t make it\none for myself. As an agender person, I never really had strong feelings about\ngender presentation in games either – I honestly never thought of gender until\nother people brought it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playing classic games like D&D and Shadowrun growing up,\ngender was usually just a single letter on a character sheet, something I\njotted down and almost immediately resumed ignoring. It didn’t mean<\/em> anything\nto me, and at the time I didn’t understand that it could to anyone else. After\nall, it didn’t change any of the rules for my character, or restrict any of\ntheir actions. I won’t pretend that I and my play groups weren’t steeped in\nmisogyny as a teen, but even if I put the “F” on my character sheet,\nI still got treated well because I was, as a player, perceived as a man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I grew up a bit. I realized that, in contrast to my own\nexperience, other people did<\/em> have an internal experience of gender.\nTheir internal gender experiences meant a lot to them, even. I struggle to\napply a useful simile to the situation, but slowly realizing that I was agender\nwas a bit like a person slowly coming to understand that they were colorblind:\npeople were experiencing things and making a lot of decisions based on\ninformation that was absent for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I discovered a wave of independent tabletop RPGs that\ndared to fuck with gender. They made it something other than a binary toggle,\nand didn’t pretend it was necessarily tied to biological sex. Gender was\nqueried as a way to ask about look and presentation, and there were lots of\noptions! I was glad that other people had selections they could use to\nrepresent themselves, but I went right along basically ignoring the whole\ncategory of experience. I dutifully picked an option during character\ngeneration, usually just as a creative choice to help define the look of the\ncharacter, then went on ignoring it in play as I always did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dutifully picked an option during character generation, usually just as a creative choice to help define the look of the character, then went on ignoring it in play as I always did. <\/p>-John<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I even tried an early version of Avery Alder’s Dream Askew.\nUnlike the other indie titles I’d read which focused on presentation, Dream\nAskew gave pick lists for actual gender, but eschewed the standard selections\nin favor of evocative phrases. For me, this was actually a problem. With no\ninternal experience or sense by which to judge these phrases, and no ready\nexternal indicators to associate with them, they just looked like a list of\nnonsense words. To me, they might as well have been an actual list of\nrandomly-selected words. It took me out of the game and made the whole thing\nmore difficult for me to engage with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then, last night, I played Sleepaway. Like Dream Askew, each\ncharacter archetype has a list of options for gender, but there was something\ndifferent about these. These were written with deep ties to a genre I knew.\nMore than that: their names resonated with attitudes and behaviors I knew and\nrecognized in myself. Instead of a list of words that meant nothing to me, I\nfound myself using these signifiers to imagine different ways of being for\nthese characters – they were presentation, behavior, and identity all in one.\nThey were gender<\/em> in a way I’d never understood or experienced it\nfor myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found myself using these signifiers to imagine different ways of being for these characters – they were presentation, behavior, and identity all in one. They were gender<\/em> in a way I’d never understood or experienced it for myself. <\/p>-John<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Is Jay Dragon a genius because they wrote “Rusted Sword” as an option for a character’s gender? Yes. I’m saying absolutely, definitely yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sunset<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you so much John for sharing your perspective on this! I think this has been so valuable to experience for me, and I think it’s a gorgeous piece of design. You can find Sleepaway here <\/a>and if all goes well, I’ll update with our adventures at Camp Why-I-Otter! <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s post is by me, Beau, and my husband and business partner, John W. Sheldon. We’re discussing the game Sleepaway by Jay Dragon, and the experiences we had during character creation with the gender options. All photos in this post are by John W. Sheldon, copyright 2019. I hope you enjoy it! Beau, on Nice … Continue reading “Rusted Swords & Nice Boys: Gender in Sleepaway”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[390],"tags":[187,30,37,10,4,17,21,46,8,15,12,26,23,18],"class_list":["post-1671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-briebeau-on-design","tag-diversity","tag-feels","tag-game-design","tag-games","tag-gaming","tag-gender","tag-queer","tag-roleplaying-games","tag-rpg","tag-rpgs","tag-story-games","tag-tabletop-games","tag-tabletop-rpgs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paHOcG-qX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1381,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2019\/06\/five-or-so-questions-on-sleepaway\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":0},"title":"Five or So Questions on Sleepaway","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"June 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi y'all, I have an interview with Jay Dragon about Sleepaway, which is currently up on Kickstarter! 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Wouldn't that be nice? $40 for all my games on PDF! Runs the length of a quarantine so get it while it's good ;)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Beau in a beanie and a choker wearing a grey tank top and red & black flannel shirt throwing up the peace sign.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/00000PORTRAIT_00000_BURST20200312182851321-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/00000PORTRAIT_00000_BURST20200312182851321-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/00000PORTRAIT_00000_BURST20200312182851321-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/00000PORTRAIT_00000_BURST20200312182851321-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":72,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2018\/07\/behind-the-masc-kickstarter\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":2},"title":"Behind the Masc Kickstarter","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"July 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Behind the Masc Zine Kickstarter is LIVE! 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Please check it out - we've got some awesome creators working on re-imaginings of masculinity!https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/briecs\/behind-the-masc-zineBehind the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Xt3mNB1ywKM\/Wz_oXDk6VnI\/AAAAAAAB-ME\/bw7qeV2soHM_gnY6nFPzPH45JcEBEhjpwCLcBGAs\/s320\/BehindthemMasc_Logo_1x.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":221,"url":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2016\/12\/what-gender-is-your-gm\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":3},"title":"What Gender is Your GM?","author":"Beau J\u00e1gr Sheldon","date":"December 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I did a quick poll today on my G+ (a public post) about what gender your GM for your local\/regular group is. The results were... ouch. 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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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Archive"","block_context":{"text":"Archive","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}