Diversity, Discussion and Dice

I'm still on the high that I felt when this day was over. The organisation and running of this event was only possible because of the help and support of my wonderful friends and fellow roleplayers. I was surprised at the interest in the diversity day when it was first suggest as a concept. I had several people say to me that an attempt to address several issues in one day was really welcome as a lot of cons have an hour long slot for diversity in gaming as a catch all. Thankfully we had some fantastic entertaining speakers and participants who contributed thoughtfully and brought a lot to the discussion.

We had 6 talks throughout the day in two rooms:

Dealing with triggers while gaming which I ran as a workshop on the meaning of triggering different safety techniques which were currently used and how they could be improved. There was a nice turnout and enough people to split the group into 4 so that we could examine techniques in more depth. (There was a singing class taking place in the background so sometimes I'd make a point and hear some inspiring music well up behind me - I would recommend that to all nervous public speakers!)

At the same time in the other room Graham Walmsley ran a talk and discussion on Other histories: Positve perspectives on Queerness and Women

In the second slot Joanna Piancastelli ran a talk on how to play characters which are different from yourself both sensitively and well.

Anita Murray ran a talk called Playing with Sex, looking at the positive aspects of sex in role playing. There was also a very interesting facilitated discussion that arose from this which covered bleed, consent and whether roleplayed sex could be romantic.

In the final slot Helen Gould ran a talk and discussion called Leaving the West which was about looking at different ways to set roleplaying games and play characters outside a Western setting with a particular focus on Africa.

Karolina Soltys ran a talk on sensitive and realistic portrayal of mental health issues in roleplaying which then became an interesting discussion on bleed and whether games could be designed which portrayed mental health in an accurate way.

After that we had a gaming session with Stiainín Jackson running her game Court Whispers, Karolina running a hack of the game A family affair involving one of the characters having mental health issues and Richard Williams running B x B by Jake Richmond and Heather Aplington.

Some of the transcripts of the talks and a write up of the triggers workshop can be found here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-I8NCTgeqBbd0FlcnJfVHBhRkE&usp=sharing

It was a good day. There was a lot of enthusiasm and willingness to learn from each other. I hope that this can eventually be an annual thing and that next year we'll be back bigger and better!

Best gaming moments of 2015, in no particular order

1. Starting to Larp. My first event was Muster and Hush and the first larp of the day in particular, ‘Before and after silence’, a Black Box Nordic larp, was something I found revolutionary in the way it enabled me to express emotions, despite taking place in complete silence.
2. Playing campaigns - I played a Monsterhearts tabletop campaign and am playing in an ongoing larp called The Wave. I don’t get much chance to play campaigns and in both cases it was a chance to get really into the character's back story (and in the case of the Wave, in character e-mails). I really enjoy one shots but I love the depth that campaigns allow.
3. GMing. One game this year and it’s a one player, one GM scenario which I’m looking for new players for. But it’s a start. Watch out world!
4. Not strictly gaming, but getting to know some wonderful people. Sitting (or standing, or walking) around pretending to be someone else is a great introduction for the socially anxious. And then from there it’s much easier to have conversations.
5. Seeing the amazing things my friends have achieved this year; creating games, being published, running exciting, nuanced games. It’s been really fantastic.
6. Writing my first larp and running it, once as a pre playtest, once as a playtest and once because people requested me too. I’m very proud of it and excited. I’ll have to write another one soon!

And in 2016….

1. My game, Peace will hopefully be published in an anthology later in the year
2. Diversity, Discussions and Dice, an event about social issues in the gaming community will take place on 24th January https://www.facebook.com/events/936644033037738/
3. I will be playing Montsegur 1244 in January after a wait of only a year and a half!
4. I might be working on another project involving a larp warm up game. More to come on that later.

Let the World Burn

Written by Peter Fallesen and translated into English by Rasmus Husted Legêne, Lizzie Stark and Peter Fallesen and pitched at London Indiemeet by Karolina Soltys

It has taken me a while to write up this game. To be honest it has taken me a while to make sense of it.

Let the World Burn is a beautiful story game (which can apparently also be run as a LARP) about a search for a lost love in a decaying world.

From the start the David Lynchesque nature of the game is very apparent. There are 5 characters in the game. The 3 ‘humans’ are male. They are P.E, the romantic, searching for his true love amid the ruins; C, a ghost represented in the form of a set of his teeth that P.E carries in his pocket, O.D, a self destructive wannabe nihilist who is searching for the one woman who he believed truly understood him. In addition to these characters are the spirits of Love and Destruction, influencing events around them but not being physical presences in the story.  

Over all this hovers the spectre Q, a woman about whom we learn very little.

During the game the 3 ‘human’ characters, influenced by love and destruction frame scenes around their relationships with Q in the past. Significantly Q is not in any of these scenes having just left or yet to arrive. All those scenes are framed in flashback and scenes with C are framed from when he was alive. Ultimately, at least in the game that we played, C was dull but stable, P.E. accepting, and O. D. destructive but lost.

In between these scenes the search for Q continues in various locations, in her apartment; at a wake; at a motel and throughout the city which is slowly degrading as characters begin destroying their parts of the city as a mechanic to win arguments.

We learnt that O.D had regular sex with Q in the alley behind the porn theatre, that P.E and Q had a dull sex life and a life devoid of adventure and O.D. certainly believed that she wasn’t the settling down type, although again Q only appeared through the character interpretations of her and wasn’t present at any time. We also learnt that C spent 3 weeks with her when she had temporarily split up from P.E and it had been the most meaningful 3 weeks of his life until she had just left. (‘No wonder you jumped in front of a bus’ Destruction said)

At the end of the game the characters have to decide whether their search for Q is driven by love or destruction. The answer then affects how the game ends.

The interesting thing about this game is that although it’s focussed around the search the ultimate mystery is not around what has happened to Q. It’s quite clear, following the wake scene, possibly even following the scene in P.E and Q’s apartment what has happened. The real mystery is around who Q is and how 3 people (influenced by Love and Destruction) see her as someone so different that they might as well be searching for 3 different women. Maybe this has something to say about the nature of love, that we can only understand aspects of others through our own view of the world. Thus Q is equally a devoted housewife, an impulsive exhibitionist lover and someone who is soft and tender enough to change someone’s world in 3 weeks.

Or perhaps Q is none of those things and has become a cipher for what the characters really want - someone like them. Perhaps Destruction could argue that love is always destructive because you’re taking a person with their own hopes and desires and moulding them into the image that you want them to fit. But Love could answer that maybe, even if you never know a whole person you can love the part that you do know with all your heart. And maybe the question of who Q really was is now unanswerable. Maybe it was always unanswerable. Maybe that was the point.

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Why Indie gaming is great!

This is mostly a filler post. I have lots of things to write about but I have to think about the best way to go about it. So for now...

I got into gaming late, by gaming standards. I played my first game a year and a half ago, maybe a bit over. I never played Dungeons and Dragons and although I adore Cthulhu it is more for the absolute horror the GM can invoke than any strategic abilities on my part.  I can only really talk about Indie games.

I think since I started playing, gaming has changed something in me for the better. It seems a strange thing to talk about how sitting round the table changes things but for me it did:

• You get to play pretend – obvious, but worth saying.
• Conflict: I was incapable. I know this isn't universal by any means but I couldn't stand the thought of being disliked. Only somehow having survived the attentions of a ghoul in Monsterhearts and convincing someone in Fiasco to just put the gun down and we could talk and countless other 'encounters' – well I'm not completely cured but I'm much better at telling people to back off.
• Lines and veils – I was hesitant to include this here but it fits. Lines and veils are the absolute no. If you have a trauma or a phobia or just don't want to play a game with a specific aspect in it then the GM and the other players better respect that. If they don't they are shitty human beings. So you learn to say no – this is enough. And for some people having that no respected without comment is life changing.
• There is a community. At least, there is where I am which is admittedly London. But I have met and become close to some wonderful people and if there is any sort of roleplaying community in your area chances are you will too.
• I started blogging. And then I started writing my own games.And then I started writing short stories.  And then I wrote a LARP.
• You can experiment with aspects of yourself, self identity and aspects of situations that you don’t quite understand.
• You can facilitate games without GMing - although as I have GMed a grand total of 2 games for people who were doing me a favour I really must get over that!
• I lean towards playing heavier themed more immersive games, But I have also played games that have left me practically crying with laughter.
• I can now improvise. I have also just qualified as a teacher. I have a feeling this is going to be a useful skill :)

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