It’s called RESISTOR, and it features original games, fiction, and artwork focusing on the correlation between technology, magic, and social issues through a cyberpunk lens.

We both love the zine aesthetic, that locally printed, hand made, passed out at bars or record stores look. Something that’s a little lo-fi but made with care. The historical significance of small magazines making huge impacts in the civil rights movement was a huge inspiration as well. I’m not sure how huge an impact this little creation will make, but our goal is to create a venue where more trans, non-binary, and women creators of all races can be showcased. We’re already showcasing a diverse set of creators in this first issue, and we hope to share more in the future. We want to get these concepts and arts and games in front of your face for you to engage with and delight in.

Tech and magic are great metaphors for social issues, right? Class wars in cyberpunk settings highlight the famous William Gibson quote “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Magic is all that stuff we can’t really understand yet, metaphors for our darkest fears and also the home of personal witchcraft for self-care.

We’ve got two games in each issue, and the ones featured in this issue are a combination of ritual and freeform games. Zero, a game by Banana Chan, is played in an online chat or SMS, in an alternate future world where you are yourself but you’re not yourself. Conch, by Kira Magrann, is a solo game ritual that focuses on concepts of lifting up the voices around you on social media. There’s also a short comic by Tara Helfer, and flash fiction by Leslie Anderson.

Take a look! We’d love to share this with you. The Kickstarter ends 2/9/16.

(RESISTOR: glitchwitches and SJWs welcome originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

Then she invited me, Meg Baker, and Filamena Young to write a collection of witchy games. I was excited! So I hung out with my witchy friends and one night we all sat around a fire doing rituals and giving each other witchy advice through that ritualistic alibi. So I wrote this game Arcana, about embodying the roles of five tarot cards and telling metaphorical stories about your lives. I’m pretty excited about it.

The other two games are pretty rad too. Filamena’s is about secrets and accusations in communities, and Meg’s is about sacred spaces.

We’re also going to be donating a portion of the funds to a woman in the RPG community, Katy Flagg, who was just diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Read more about her situation here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111023399555426942490/posts/KEWXyS5RBA2?pid=6207316804993437746&oid=104029181374554841630

We’d be thrilled if you’d buy a copy for the Halloween season, and give some of our witchy games a try!

https://payhip.com/b/HWXJ

(Witchy Feminist Games originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

My sometimes outdoor work space – so many projects

Freelancing has been an interesting new challenge for me in the game design world. I’ve been writing a lot of stretch goals for Kickstarters, working on small games for a few various projects, and finishing up some really big designs I’ve been working on forever. I’m not really new to the concept of doing work on the side of my full time gig. Jewelry design has always been a side venture for me, and my weekends used to be occupied with craft shows and studio hours (and still are, though in less frequency). Writing has a different workflow than visual art does though, and I’m slowly learning what that looks like.

I have three jobs right now: full time admissions work, jewelry design, and game design. Where do I fit in my writing and game design time?

1. Weekend Work Extravaganza

On Saturday and Sunday, if I’m in town and I don’t have committed plans, I try to set aside my afternoons for writing and game design. If I set aside 4-5 hours in my brain, I can usually get 1-3 hours of good work time out of that. KEY TO THIS STRATEGY is also scheduling fun time. Weekend time needs to be relaxation too! If I schedule morning hiking or brunch dates, an afternoon coffee break with a friend, or an evening party, my brain will focus on that work time as work and not get distracted by other missed fun times.

I’m also really lucky in that I have my space to myself, no other family, boyfriend, or kids around to distract me!

2. WORK PARTIES

Hannah Shaffer has converted me to a work partier. I always work better with other people in a studio setting when making visual art, but I hadn’t figured out how to write with other people in the room intentionally. Having online hangouts with groups, all of us muting our microphones for about an hour and a half, and focusing intently for that time really does wonders for me. Scheduling a party keeps me committed too.

3. Write in different ways

Starting the design in InDesign

I don’t mean styles. I mean, change what you’re writing in. I usually write in Word or Google Docs, so switching over to writing in my Hobinichi planner or in my Ipad when I’m flying really influences my ability to think differently about my work. I also recently wrote a game starting with the visual design first in Indesign. It was kinda like writing backwards, and it really worked for my visual art brain to start there first, add the rules second. Even writing stuff out in G+ posts or on twitter helps jog my brain sometimes.

4. Practice

I’m doing a lot of different things right now, and I’m learning a lot from them. Keeping in the practice of writing and designing, getting in the groove, helps my writing overall. If I can write a thing here or there, or take up a project about this thing, I’m slowly amassing skills that will help me in the long run.

5. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines

This is my biggest secret motivator. It’s easy when I’m working for someone else, cause they’ll set the deadline for me. BUT if I’m working for myself and producing my own content, this is a little harder. I’ll usually set up arbitrary deadlines so that I can get myself going, and get some kind of finished draft up and running. Common arbitrary deadlines are: game conventions, house cons, game nights with friends, approaching holiday, game contests or competitions, or just a one week turnaround. I often find the sooner I jump on an idea, the more likely I am to make something and complete it. Even if that’s just getting down a bullet point outline, I can go from there.

So that’s some of my recent freelance game design work habits! Are yours similar? Any tricks you use to motivate yourself and get stuff done? Good luck with your design projects!

(Writing All The Things originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

A typical physical larp space at a convention

I’m a pretty kinky ladybot, as you may have read in my other essays/games maybe a billion times. I find a lot of parallels between gaming spaces and kink spaces. I’m gonna go at it again here in some observations I’ve made about boundaries, consent, and rules in freeform/LARP games.

There’s already a lot of smart rules that gamers utilize while playing these games. I’m going to discuss them a little below, but mostly I want to talk about flow and missing steps. What are the things that arise despite these safety nets being in place? Are they cultural, mechanical, or something else? If you’re writing a freeform/LARP game (especially in the Golden Cobra challenge currently running that involves empathy and touch as two of its design elements), I’d love to see these things addressed in the design.

Before Game

Games will often go over rules for contact or emotional safety before a game begins. The type of touching that’s allowed in the game can really vary, from no touching to Ars Amandi techniques that are metaphors for sex. The “Cut” and “Brake” techniques are code words for slowing stuff down or trying another way without breaking character (and echoes of I Will Not Abandon You and the X-card are in these techniques). It’s been adopted in many freeform games to say “the door is always there if you need to leave, no explanation needed, but please let an organizer know that you’re going and OK.”

I think that laying out this fabulous spread of rules is spectacular. I think what’s missing is the concept of “explicit verbal consent” that you see in kink communities. Sometimes, you can propose an idea to someone, and they go along because they think that’s what you want, more than what they want. There’s lots of non-verbal cues here, which you can’t trust. What you can often trust is getting someone’s explicit permission in the moment. Like, if you’re about to do something intense, or physical, pause out of character and ask permission “hey, is it ok if I pretend to punch you without actually touching you?” Even if it seems ok, getting the explicit consent in the moment makes it more ok. I feel like this is a step in the right direction toward being able to gain people’s consent a little easier. Consent is obviously way more complicated than this, and go google “consent and kink” or “consent and queer” to find a billion different opinions and nuances to how this works in different settings.

Also I think there should be some kind of discussion about checking-in. I think often, especially in immersive games (where you don’t want to break character in a scene to have an out of character discussion) there’s this pressure to be emotionally true to the situation and the character. To be immersed in those feelings instead of reality. This is INCREDIBLY similar to being in domspace/subspace/roleplayspace essentially in kink, because if you’re really into a scene you’ll take it seriously and not break your subspace head to say anything that might apply to reality, right? NOPE. Safety, emotional and physical, is essential in these scenes, and its the same in games. Players need to feel safe breaking character or breaking scene to check-in with each other.

During the Game

During the game, you’re supposed to utilize all these tools during play, right? We all know that in games, though, rules get broken all the time. Most of the time not even intentionally, just from lack of practice, memory, or comfort. Often in a table top game, its easy to model the use of rules as the person who’s facilitating that game, because most likely you are playing too, so you’re engaging with the rules just like everyone else. In a freeform/LARP game however, often the facilitator is watching, organizing scenes, or passively interacting with the players. How do you model the safety rules during the game?

I find that the lack of modelling rules means they don’t get used, or they get misused unintentionally, or boundaries get pushed. It’s easy for people to say “let’s have touching just be on the hands and arms” in the beginning of the game, but then maybe accidentally cuddle with someone in a scene, or wrap an arm around a waist. It’s part of the nature of live action that it feels more like acting. Acting has more touching than most gaming. How do you get around this? I think if other players or the facilitator saw this happening and reinforced the touching rules at that moment, regardless of interrupting the scene, it would really strengthen those boundaries. Who knows why people might want or not want to be touched in certain areas? The important thing is to remember to enforce it, and respect it.

People playing a fairytale larp where most space is negotiated around sitting at a table

I think its often hard to spot when someone is emotionally ok in a game too. Sometimes people play really sad games to feel those sad emotions, and what might appear to be troubling someone on the outside might be really fun on the inside. Akin to the screeches of pain you hear at any kink party… those people are having a blast! As an observer, though, how can you tell? Again, I think this is a good time for a check-in. If I was in a kink scene with someone and I couldn’t read them, or had the slightest doubt something was wrong, I would break scene and ask if they were ok. I think utilizing this check-in during the freeform/LARP would work wonders for not only maintaining emotional safety for the players, but also keeping people from relying so heavily on the “there’s the door” rule. Maybe they just need to voice something, and then they’re ready to keep going.

After Game

There’s this thing in kink that’s called “aftercare”. After a scene, the people involved will talk, lounge around, cuddle, or do whatever it takes to transition back into the real world from their intense feelings. Sometimes in this space, dommes need reassurance that they’re good people despite doing “terrible” things to someone else, or subs need to cry to let out some intense bottled up emotions. The freeform/LARP equivalent is the debrief. Where usually there’s a good thing and a bad thing said about the game, and then usually some kind of ritual to let the game go.

I think debriefing in big groups is actually much harder than in smaller ones. How can everyone share all their emotions in such a big group with such a small amount of time? How can we validate each other and those feelings without waiting for it to get to our turn? How is the debrief run, are the questions the right ones to get at what people were feeling during that game, or just a script that was written that might not at all echo how the game played out? I think a bit more detail in how to run the debrief would go a long way, with some support on doing it for big groups vs small groups, and also some instruction on how to listen and validate.

Are you a kinkster and gamer with some thoughts on how this stuff could crossover more? What other techniques from gaming or kink could inform the other? Think I overlooked something? I look forward to reading your comments below, or to continue the discussion on G+ or twitter.

(Kinky Consent: Emotional and Physical Negotiation in Freeform Games originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

Congrats on the early success of the Kickstarter campaign! Can you tell me a little about the project?

Thank you – we are both a bit overwhelmed with the early success and very pleased.

Lovecraftesque is a game which focuses the action of the story on one single protagonist.  Much like Lovecraft’s stories do.  We both enjoy many of the other Cthulhu RPGs out there but they all focus on a party of investigators and we wanted to write something closes to the stories themselves.  We also love games like Fiasco and Microscope and wanted to write a Lovecraft game which uses a similar way of dividing up the creative control between the players.

Lovecraft is a staple of geek culture – much beloved in terms of genre. But it hasn’t always done well by people of colour, women or the handling of mental illness. I understand you’re aiming to find a constructive place of balance there. Can you tell us about your approach?

We absolutely believe you can have a great Lovecraftian story without drawing on painful stereotypes.  When we first conceived of this project we knew we wanted to create a game that did just that.  We decided to take a really proactive approach because there is a lot of subtle bigotry in Lovecraft’s work (as well as the unsubtle variety!) which is easy to miss.  We wanted to give people practical advice to make sure they weren’t unconsciously adopting Lovecraft’s bad attitude without realising it.

We’ve embedded this in the game in a number of ways:

1. Our approach to the art has been to ensure we get a real diversity of characters in the images from the beginning.  We wanted the images used to promote the kickstarter to be interesting and diverse and our amazing artist Robin Scott will be taking that approach on rest of the art.

2. We have guidance in the book on how to create a good safety culture at the table and to explicitly discuss your approaches to mental health and racism up front.

3. We’ve tried to ensure that game text doesn’t accidentally replicate any of Lovecraft’s problematic attitudes (although if anyone spots anything we missed please let us know!)

4. Lastly we have sections discussing where we think Lovecraft does fall down and how to avoid adopting that in creating your story.  The basic game had two short sections on this but I’m pleased to say we’ve met enough stretch goals that we will have extended essays by Mo Holkar and Shoshana Kessock as well.

In my memories of Call of Cthulhu, the games I played were all about the team of investigators holding a candle against the darkness. How does your design choice to focus on a single hero change the nature of the narrative?

A single protagonist changes the story dramatically.  Firstly it more closely models Lovecrafts’ own stories and this is a model which I love because it emphasises the loneliness of the protagonist.  As the story progresses and the protagonist uncovers more and more about the alien reality of the world they become more and more isolated – they can’t share that with anyone (since there are no fellow investigators) and I think it makes the narrative much tighter and more frightening.

Can you tell me a bit about how the single hero story works in play? Is there shared character ownership, or does focus shift from one character to another?

The players co-create a single hero – we call that the Witness since they are often just swept along seeing events unfold rather than being an active shot gun wielding hero.  The role of Witness then rotates around all the players. You use an index card to keep track of details about the Witness in order to keep the portrayals roughly consistent.

Because there is only one character there is plenty of space in the game for players to narrate the thoughts and feelings of the Witness.  I love the fact you get to see the inner mind of the Witness as they process the horrors.  It heightens the atmosphere in interesting ways; but in a full party game you rarely get the chance to indulge in that because the airtime is more limited.

What’s the design feature in Lovecraftesque you’re most proud of?

It is absolutely the Leaping to Conclusions mechanic.  Josh and I have spent a long time wondering how you could have a satisfying, co-created and improvised mystery without lots of loose ends or endless meta-discussion.

In Lovecraftesque a different player has to introduce a clue in each scene.  At the end of the scenes the players secretly write down (or leap to a conclusion!) about what the final horror will be based on the clues revealed.  As the game progresses and you get more clues you update your written theory or throw it out and make a new one.  When you create clues you create clues which fit with your theory.

In this way you get a conclusion to the mystery which is consistent, has no loose ends and is surprising to the players.

It is so simple and yet so satisfying – you get just as much fun from comparing notes about your theories at the end as you do out of playing through the final horror scene.

(Lovecraftesque: An interview with GaW game designer Becky Annison originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a little obsessed with women’s history, particularly when it comes to the role of women in WW2. And anyone who reads me on GAW knows that I am particularly interested in the Hx/Relationship/Bond mechanics in Powered by the Apocalypse games and how they related to gender socialized play.

So when Jason Morningstar asked me to consult for him as he was fine tuning Night Witches, I was all in. As a thank you, he gave me a gift that he would later offer backers of the Kickstarter: a portrait of me (done by GAW’s own Claudia Cangini), in a Nachthexen uniform. This delighted my inner history geek! But I didn’t realize then how important that it would become to me.

As part of the campaign, a deck of cards was produced to enhance the experience of the game. In it, were plane diagrams, medals, ceremonial dedication speeches…. and portraits of sample Night Witches, new ones plus all of the portraits that had been commissioned for the Kickstarter – including the consultants.

Once Night Witches fulfilled, people started posting pictures, of their books, of the cards, and of their games. As I came across those posts on social media, I would often get a moment of cognitive distortion when I noticed my portrait was on the table in people’s game set up. There I was: a Hawk. There I was: a Pidgeon. There I was: a Raven.

People were picking me as the visrep of the person they wanted to be in their game.

Now, I’m a woman living in the age of media-mandated perfection. And as such, I’m subject to the cruel and usual punishment of the Beauty Industrial Complex. I have not – just like every woman (and most men) I know – come through life without a complicated relationship with my appearance. I think most women, secretly or openly, whether they are beautiful or not, spend a lot of time hating on their bodies. We look into mirrors and see all the ways we fall short.

But here people were, picking me to be what they wanted their character to looked like.

And then this happened:

Someone posted their character sheet with me as their Sparrow. In the options under Body, they circled “beautiful”.

I can’t quite articulate what happened then, but it feels in my memory like that cartoon moment when the Grinch’s heart which is three sizes too small suddenly is pictured expanding so big it takes over the square it’s confined in. And between this lovely thank you gift and this innocuous social media post, I have  – even if only a little – changed how I feel about my own body. In the moment that my picture and that option were chosen together by someone far away, the two ceased to be incompatible by default.

And that right there is both the power of representation, and the power of role-playing games as a medium to provide unique and innovative ways to make representation matter more.

Act Two: In Which We Need to Change Things for Others Too.

Games are our dreams. Stories are the way we make sense of our lives, and understand our place in the world. Seeing myself in a game made me dream about myself differently. And sure, this is a pretty specific example: It’s specifically an image of me, and specifically coded in a way that will drive the point home. But we don’t need to go so far to have exact pictures of ourselves to feel represented. In fact, short of actual portraits of ourselves, detail can get in the way. Scott McCloud talks about this idea in Understanding Comics:  The less detail a character on a page has, the more a reader can project themselves into their place in the story. Our minds differentiate and create distance from characters by difference: when we see something that is not us, we categorize and say this is me and that is not.

I’m a white cis woman. While there are a lot less white cis women in game art then there are white cis men, there are a lot of white cis women too. Few of them look anything like me. They conform much more magically to the strange and terrible demands of the Beauty Industrial Complex, often even where those demands include the need for anti-gravity technology or spinal surgery.

The art in game books include enough things that aren’t me to make my brain trigger distance. People who look like me do not exist in this game. But the art in game books include enough things that are me to make my brain trigger proximity too: I see white faces, female faces, cis people. They read: the people in this game are more beautiful versions of me. That might not be the best thing, but it’s a place we’d all like to escape to.

But if I’m not white, or I’m trans, or I’m otherwise absent in the visual field, all the game says to me is absence. This is not a place for you, you are not here. 

I’d really like everyone engaging with games (and other media) to have equal opportunity to dream themselves beautiful.

I’ll just leave these here, in case you’re interested:

• Different Play
• I Need Diverse Games
• Quinn Murphy
• Death to Video Games
• Agents of the Realm

If you know of others, please tell me about them in the comments.

(You Could Be Me, I Could Be There: The Joy of Representation originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

(SPLINTER: Surprising Things on Kickstarter originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

Caroline’s newest project is Downfall, currently on Kickstarter. She answered a few questions about the game and her design work for Gaming as Women.

Please give us a short description of your game, Downfall.

Downfall is a story game about a hero’s failure to save their home. In the end the society always collapses, but the end isn’t caused by a bomb or an earthquake, or an invasion—it’s caused by an inherent flaw within the society. Greed, Pride, Faith—in Downfall these are the things that cause our doom.

In Downfall players first create a world together and then destroy it. It’s a role-playing game for three players and it usually takes around 3 hours to play—no dice, no GM, no prep.

What inspired creating a game about the collapse of a society?

Breaking things is fun! Actually when I was doing some concept photos for the game before I settled on the final art style, I went to the beach to build a dreamy sandcastle. The idea was to take photos of the building process and then the destruction process. While we were building the sandcastle, a kid, maybe 8 years old, came up and asked if she could help us knock it down, all smiles. That’s what the game is all about—scratching that destructive itch. But while monster-stomping is fun, I wanted a game that was also really personal and tragic. And that’s Downfall. When you play you get into the heads of this society that’s on the brink of collapse and it can be quite poignant.

What was your favorite part of the design process?

Playing with people was hands-down my favorite part of working on the game. When you design a game you spend hours and hours thinking and tweaking and typing. It can be really isolating and draining. But then you sit down with a group of people and pitch the game. The growing energy while people play and everyone collaborates—that’s when everything pays off. Even when a playtest reveals things that need fixing, the fact that my game brought people together and sparked their creativity is everything.

Did designing Downfall have any unique challenges?

Oh my goodness, yes. I wanted Downfall to be totally open in terms of setting. I love world-building, and I wanted a way for players to create a really rich sandbox to play in. Not only do you need a physical setting to play in, but you also need a cultural landscape. I had to tweak the process so many times to get the optimal output in the least amount of time possible. Now world creation usually takes about half an hour, which I think is enough time to get really into it, create a really awesome and unique world, and then move on.

What type of gamer do you think will enjoy downfall the most?

Downfall pushes players to both role-play and narrate a lot. Because it’s a three-player game you have a third of the screen time. If you’re like me and you get impatient waiting for people to take their turn in bigger games, I think you’ll like the narrative balance in Downfall. It does a lot to make sure everyone contributes equally. It features some really neat key phrases that help you get into the heads of the characters, which I really enjoy as well.

You reached your kickstarter goal in less than one day (congratulations!), do you have any plans for stretch goals?

Kickstarting has been amazing! There are so many gamers out there looking for new games. It really has been inspiring to see such an outpouring of support for Downfall.

As far as stretch goals go, it’s really important to me that they are just icing on the cake. I’m already including everything in Downfall that’s essential to the game. The current stretch goals involve the creation of guides, which are kind of the equivalent of playsets for Downfall. They aren’t pre-generated settings, but they are engines for players to use to build a setting geared towards a specific genre.

Do you have any plans for what you’re designing next after Downfall?

Before I began Downfall I started working on a game about rumors and lies. At the time I was interested in exploring gaps in player-character knowledge to create dramatic situations. I might pick that up again or I might work on something totally different—we’ll see!

Thank you Caroline! Remember to check out Downfall on Kickstarter for more information.

(An Interview with Caroline Hobbs – Downfall originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

But it is possible! So therefore, I worked out a list of suggestions and ideas! Remember that everything is always on the children’s conditions – so wherever you are in the gaming process, you always need to listen to the child’s needs! This post is thus mainly aimed for those who have kids so young that they do not appreciate the gaming yet.

1. LARP together

LARP must be the family-friendliest form of gaming! Of course it depends a bit on what genre you are playing, and if your playstyle works with children. I have larped with my youngest when hir was around one month – hir slept most of the evening. My partner and I larped in a horrorlarp once, where both children were with us – both of them a part of the LARP. It worked just fine! (I love our babywearing).

If larping together isn’t possible, try sharing LARP time with your partner (or friend), and take turns with the responsibility of the children.

2. Fast, easy to prepare games

Games that take a long time to set up and which contain many small parts is not recommended. Both because of the time to pick everything up and away, but also because the risk of something ending up on the floor and stuck in a curious child’s throat. Also, if a game additionally takes well over 2 hours to finish, you’ll need a playing surface that can’t be disturbed by happy babies.

3. Game at your place

First of all, it will ease stress for the whole family! You can put your children to sleep if needed, feed them without having to think of the messiness, and everything will also be children secured, since it’s your home. If you game in the evening/night, the babies will hopefully be sleeping…

Secondly, you have more control over your own time. If you are roleplaying, you can pause in a completely different way if needed. If you play board games or other types of analog games, then you, as already mentioned, know where you can set up the game out of the reach of small, curious hands. Also, you will always have the opportunity to break up the gaming, in case your baby needs you.

4. Planning is everything

Planning with babies and toddlers? I know, it seems like a joke every time you say it. Plan with young children seems almost impossible, but it also looks very different from family to family! You might have children who go to sleep early in the evening and then sleep well the rest of the night? Well then, try gaming in the evening then! Or your baby might be quite happy with sitting on the floor, playing with toys by him/herself while you game?

5. Enlist the help of people around you

Even if it’s your gamemates, friends or relatives, you must not always take care of everything by yourself. When the children are old enough, you can be away from them for short periods¹, or let grandma or grandpa play with the kids while you get the chance to game! You must not go away, it may be enough to sit in the room next door.

6. Play games that allows you to pause

I will not say much more other than to repeat that you play on the children’s conditions. If they want you to stop gaming, then you need to stop gaming. Children’s needs go first, not yours.

When the kids are big enough, start playing games together! There are lots and lots of different games out there that works just fine for smaller ages, but to tell all about them, would become a separate post!

(Gaming with toddlers originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

These have been really valuable for everyone involved so far, sometimes words come easier to us while talking vs. typing. Panels are occurring monthly, check out the Indie+ page for upcoming panels, or the Indie+ Youtube channel to see a whole slew of recorded ones.

(Panels on Gender Inclusive Narratives and On Being an Expert (and a woman) originally posted on Gaming As Women.)