The Warren: Bunnies and Cane Toads

I had the opportunity to playtest The Warren, a Powered by the Apocalypse game based on one of my favorite books, Watership Down. Our group consisted of myself, two adults, a 16-year-old, and a 10-year-old.

The only instruction I gave the group about the setting was that I wanted the game to be set in Australia. Based on my questions, the players decided that the warren is a fairly small one. It is run as a theocracy, ruled by the priests of Moloch -- the god of the underworld and plentiful food. It was founded by Flopsy, a house rabbit whose humans watched a lot of religious programming such as "The 700 Club." The warren is small and has few allies because of its obnoxious proselytizing, but it is blessed with plentiful food. The current head priestess, Dairy Queen, is very elderly and rarely leaves her room.

Our Player Characters were:

• Thump-tor: A Knight of Moloch, one of the warren's enforcers. Character move: Dead Eyes
• Veggie-mite: One of the priestesses of Moloch. Character move: Circles of Life (Cane Toads)
• Belladonna: A clever inventor rabbit. Character move: Engineer
• Muddy: An easily excited rabbit with a special love for lettuce. Character move: Squirmy.

I did a lite version of the Ganakagok setup rules to flesh out the setting. Each player added a location to the map of the warren and its surroundings, and an NPC that they had some relationship with. This got us a large food storage room and a back door on the warren, and the people's house where Flopsy came from, which is separated from the warren's territory by a river the rabbits call "Jordan."

Our NPCs were:

• The warren's leader, the elderly priestess Dairy Queen
• Buck-tor, the other Knight of Moloch
• Ash, a charismatic young rabbit who is littermates with Muddy
• Dusty, Belladonna's littermate who often helps her with her investigations

When our story begins, the PCs, along with NPCs Ash and Dusty, are out feeding in a meadow north of the warren. As they graze, they hear some noise from just over the ridge. Thump-tor Pays Attention with his hearing, but hears nothing. Muddy also Pays Attention, with his smell, and smells cane toads! Cane toads are bad news for rabbits, so he runs back toward the warren along with Ash. Veggie-mite tells the others that the cane toads are friends of the warren. They have a secret trade relationship with the warren, supplying toad poison (used by the priests as a hallucinogen in rituals) in exchange for food. Belladonna Pays Attention and determines that Veggie-mite is telling the truth.

The four remaining rabbits peek over the ridge and see that there are 20 cane toads marching by -- many more than they have ever seen before. All three get partial successes at Resisting Panic. Veggie-mite doesn't recognize any of the toads. Nevertheless, she calls out to them. They see the rabbits and quickly surround them. Belladonna decides to Bolt, and makes it away before the toads get her.

The toad leader identifies herself as Hopper and demands to know what the rabbits are doing on their land. Veggie-mite asks about the trade agreement between the rabbits and toads. Hopper replies that that agreement was made with the Slimy Clan, who are now slaves -- and the rabbits will likewise be made slaves. Veggie-mite Speaks Plainly to them to try to convince them to back down. They offer her a deal -- if the Queen will meet Hopper in the meadow in one week and officially sign over the northern half of the warren's territory to the toads, they will allow the food-for-drugs deal to resume. Veggie-mite agrees in order to get the toads to let them go.

Muddy gets back to the warren and meets Buck-tor, who is on guard duty. He starts talking about cane toads. Buck-tor panics, thinking the toads have gotten inside the warren, and orders everyone to evacuate -- the opposite of Muddy's intent. Muddy Speaks Plainly to get him to calm down. Just then, Belladonna arrives. They all go to talk to the Queen about the cane toads. Buck-tor has to duck behind the curtain covering the Queen's room to wake her up several times, but they eventually get their message across. The Queen replies that the toads are friends of the warren and there is nothing to be afraid of.

The next day, Ash calls a meeting of the whole warren to decide what to do about the cane toads. Veggie-mite Speaks Plainly to spread a rumor that the Queen has had a vision that everything will work out fine. Muddy Pays Attention to discover that the rumor is false. He encourages Ash to not buy into it. Ash agrees, and announces his own plan: the rabbits have been living infear of the toads for too long. It's time to attack! He brings Dusty onto the stage to show off his latest discovery. Dusty holds up a strange metal object that he found, and explains that the humans call it a "gun." He insists that he has researched it thoroughly, and the gun will give the rabbits the power to destroy the toads. Belladonna realizes this is why Dusty hasn't been around much the last few days, and it explains the loud "bang" everyone heard the previous day. Veggie-mite Pays Attention and discovers that Dusty doesn't quite understand everything about the gun, despite his claims.

Veggie-mite proposes an alternative plan: The rabbits should abandon the warren and move back across the Jordan River to the homeland of Flopsy.

As the meeting breaks up, with most rabbits uncertain what to do, the PCs meet to discuss what to do about Ash and Dusty's gun plan. Muddy wants to run off to try to talk to Ash (as he feels betrayed by his littermate), but Thump-tor sits on him. Muddy fails to Struggle free. They decide that they can't let the gun be used, as it might hurt a rabbit or cause an all-out war. They plan to steal it and bury it somewhere.

That night, they send Belladonna into the room where Dusty and Ash are sleeping. She attempts to Sneak the gun away from Dusty, but he wakes up and demands to know what she's doing. She convinces him that she just wants a chance to try the gun for herself. They agree to meet in the meadow the next morning for a gun practice session, before Ash and Dusty lead their supporters in an assault on the toads.

The next morning, our PCs are approaching the meadow when they hear a loud bang. Muddy and Belladonna successfully Resist Panic, but Veggie-mite and Thump-tor lose it and let out a scream. Belladonna Pays Attention and discovers that Ash and Dusty heard the screams but didn't know what they were. So she rushes up to the meadow to claim credit for having screamed, while the other three successfully Sneak into the bushes to wait for their chance to help steal the gun.

Dusty demonstrates the gun, holding it to his chest and pulling the "activation lever" with his paw. He shoots an apple that Ash had set up on the other side of the meadow, turning it into applesauce. Then he helps Belladonna hold and aim the gun. She successfully Resists Panic at holding such a powerful object in her paws. She attempts to aim the gun wrong (custom move on Strong), but fails and hits the apple perfectly. The recoil causes her to drop the gun, and Ash and Dusty pull her over toward the target to show her how good she did.

Muddy takes this opportunity to Bolt into the meadow and grab the gun. Veggie-mite and Thump-tor also bolt in to try to run interference on Ash and Dusty. Muddy successfully picks up the gun (custom move on Strong, because he's a runt) and Bolts from the meadow carrying it.

Thump-tor successfully stops Dusty and Ash from pursuing Muddy (custom move on Strong). Veggie-mite tries to Speak Plainly to them to convince them that going after the toads with the gun is a bad idea, but fails. She ends up leaving them with the impression that the priesthood intends to use the gun itself, to keep the younger rabbits from getting the glory. Thump-tor tries to Pay Attention to the conversation, but it all goes over his head -- just politics mumbo-jumbo. Instead he just sits on Ash (custom move on Strong) to keep him from pursuing Muddy. Belladonna Speaks Plainly to Dusty, and convinces him that she'll retrieve the gun and return it to him.

On his way back past the warren carrying the gun, Muddy encounters a group of five cane toads. He is unsuccessful at Resisting Panic, so he drops the gun and it goes off. Thump-tor and Veggie-mite successfully Resist Panic at the unexpected gunshot, but Belladonna (on her way to find Muddy) does not, and dives into a bush.

The noise attracts the toads, who converge on Muddy. He Bolts, getting away and hiding alongside Belladonna, but leaving the gun behind. Our session ended with Belladonna and Muddy watching the cane toads pick up the gun and carry it away.

On knowing when *not* to design a game

I have a strong tendency to appreciate things by doing them. Almost from the moment I started playing RPGs and modern board games, I was thinking about how I'd design my own games. Likewise, I've done lots of art and dabbled extensively in writing music and novels. My brain moves easily from "this thing is cool" to "I want to figure out how to make one."

This impulse was brought up short today by reading an announcement of a game jam on the subject of "rentpunk." Rentpunk is the organizers' term for a proposed genre of art dealing with the experience of economic precariousness -- hustling for jobs, not knowing where your next decent meal is coming from, etc.
I was super excited about the idea of rentpunk games. I think the experience of economic precariousness is too often ignored and glossed over or obfuscated by convenient cliches. I have a number of people close to me who have lived that life -- enough that I nod along vigorously every time I read an article about what it's really like to be poor.

Because I am a nerd, I have hanging in my bedroom the "Social Stratification in the United States" poster (1998 edition) that came with my Sociology textbook in college. I was unreasonably excited to discover that they have just come out with an updated 2014 edition.

But what I don't have is personal, first-hand experience with poverty and financial instability. I grew up in a comfortably middle-class household. I got awesome scholarships for college. Now I'm a tenured professor backed by a powerful statewide union. Though I may complain about the state government's attacks on public higher ed, this is literally the most secure job situation it's possible to have in 2015. I have a steady salary that puts my household at the national median income. My freelance work, while it has caused me plenty of sleepless nights lately, is a fun bonus that lets me go out to eat more often, not something that I rely on to live.

So for that reason I cannot, and should not, create a rentpunk game. What would for others be an empowering expression of their experiences would for me be exploitative and voyeuristic. I would be literally playing around with other people's difficult experiences for my own amusement and career advancement. I have to restrain my excitement about the idea, and my passion about the issues faced by others, and redirect it into something other than writing my own game about being poor. (I should stress that the game jam organizers themselves never make any statement suggesting anyone ought not to participate. This post is all my own inference about what I think is the right way for someone in my position to approach this issue. So if you're inclined to whine about not being "allowed" to make a certain kind of game, direct that at me, not them.)

That doesn't mean that I (or other securely middle-class people) am destined to make games that reinforce class inequality. (Or that straight people's games are inevitably heteronormative, etc.) I can work to make sure my games are free of class bias and welcoming to the experiences of people who have more precarious economic situations -- indeed, I'm morally obligated to do so. To do that I'll have to learn a lot from people who have that background. But I can't, and shouldn't, make games that are specifically about an experience that is real but not mine. I can de-center class privilege (or heterosexuality, or maleness, or whiteness, etc) without centering poverty (or LGBTQ-ness, or femaleness, or blackness/Latinoness/Asianness etc). Not because the latter is wrong (indeed, it's essential), but rather because the latter is not my place.

So I can appreciate and promote rentpunk without making rentpunk. And I'm very excited to see what the participants in the jam come up with.

Game night: Fiasco -- Bad Habits

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we played a game of Fiasco using Nick Wedig's Bad Habits playset. It's taken me a while to get to writing this up, so I may have missed some details.

Our characters:
Agnes Agnew, a 20-something serving her court-mandated community service by doing bookkeeping and technical work for the convent
Sister Mary Sofia, an 81-year-old nun who is not entirely in possession of her wits
Sister Mary Tyler Moore, a 78-year-old who is blind
Sister Mary Mary, Sofia's 45-year-old half sister who was pushed into joining the convent by their father to keep an eye on her sister

The story begins with the death of Sister Mary Francis, who had been the oldest nun in the convent. Mary explains to Sofia that she is now the oldest. Sofia pushes her way through the EMTs who are taking Francis's body away in order to take the "Oldest" button that Francis wore on her habit.

Father Thomas, the priest at the convent, attempts to console Sofia despite the fact that Sofia is not actually that upset over Francis's death. Tyler criticizes her for taking the "oldest" button, but Agnes breaks up the fight.

Tyler delivers a bag of communion wafers to Agnes, who is -- unbeknownst to Tyler -- lacing them with drugs from the convent's pharmacy and selling them on the street. Agnes calms her by putting on a record of her favorite song, "Call Me Maybe."

Mary has been convalescing in the medical wing after falling and breaking her hip. Agnes rolls her out into the courtyard where the cell phone reception is better so that she can upload a video of Francis's last drug-addled moments to her popular "Crazy Nuns" YouTube channel. They discuss the sorry state of the convent's finances, and Agnes offers to get the books in order and secure a lot more donations if Mary gives her free rein over the accounts.

After Agnes leaves, Mary discovers that Pope Francis has been commenting positively on her YouTube videos. Sofia comes by and, unfamiliar with smart phone technology, declares the tiny videos to be a miracle. She insists that Mary should make some videos of her discussing her views on The Gays as a form of outreach.

Sofia excitedly tells Tyler about the miracle of the videos, but Tyler is upset since her blindness prevents her from seeing them. While in Tyler's room, Sofia sees the stash of spiked communion wafers and, assuming they had just been misplaced, takes them.

Tyler goes to talk to Father Thomas about the crisis of faith she is experiencing -- how could a loving god prevent her from seeing the miracle of the videos? Thomas is unhelpful.

At her weekly conference about her community service, Agnes convinces Father Thomas to give her more leeway over the convent's finances. He says he believes that God is working through her to bless the convent.

Agnes baits Sofia into going on a dramatic homophobic rant by talking bluntly about the date she is going on with her girlfriend. Mary films it and upload it to the YouTube account.

Sofia goes to Father Thomas to insist that he fire Agnes because of her sexual orientation, but Thomas doesn't want to rock the boat, having just expressed so much confidence in her. Sofia storms out, screaming up and down the halls "Agnes is a homosexual!"

Tyler is upset at Sofia for being disruptive.

Agnes embezzles a bunch of money from a forgotten bequest in order to put on a huge bash for Francis's funeral. She receives a press release announcing that the Pope will be attending, in order to pay a visit to the convent that was producing that great YouTube channel.

Worried about how the new publicity will reflect on the convent, Mary frantically tries to delete the video of Sofia's rant. As she's doing this, the Pope arrives and sees on her phone a video of Francis's rant in the hallway. She gets upset, but Mary convinces him to at least stay for communion.

Father Thomas asks Sofia to help give communion. She adds the bag of spiked wafers to the tray.

The spiked wafers cause pandemonium as everyone at the funeral gets very high. The drugs cure Tyler's blindness, causing her to regain her faith. The Pope starts making everyone there saints. Tyler knocks over some candles, starting a fire.

Afterward, there are many videos of the chaos uploaded to YouTube. Talking to the police, Agnes blames it all on Father Thomas.

In the end, Agnes becomes a gay rights celebrity. She is not convicted for her role in distributing the drugs, but her career is over. Mary is offered a contract for one season of a Tosh.0-style show on Comedy Central. Tyler loses her sight again, and gets excommunicated. Sofia becomes a noted anti-gay campaigner, appearing frequently on Fox News, and exposes Agnes's corruption. Eventually, Sofia has a change of heart about gay rights and renounces her old views.

Metatopia 2014 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Call Myself A Designer. PART 2

Part 3: The Monsters Focus Groups

I was underly terrified about these. Mental illness is a very personal thing and it's not really socially acceptable to talk about. And here I am, a brand new designer, wanting to tackle it head on.

I really want this game to exist, for selfish reasons. One of the best lessons I learned in DBT is that being selfish is sometimes necessary. Burning bridges with people who aren't good for your mental health, needing to take breaks, knowing your personal limitations and not budging on them. These are all things that society frowns on.

So, going on the fact that the con was so open and engaging, and that everyone in attendance was totally amazing, I took a firm stance. I'm going to be selfish and make this work.

Friday evening comes and I had just got out of James Mendez Hodes' super fun AfroFuture. I tried to take a minute and switch gears to be *serious*. Then it came to me.

Hi, my name is Cheyenne Rae Grimes, and I have anxiety and depression. If you have similar issues and wish to disclose them, fantastic, no judgement. If you don't wish to disclose this information, fantastic, no judgement.

Best choice I could have made. It set the correct tone. It created a safe space. It let the participants know that they were now in a world where such things are openly discussed. And the next hour blew my mind in all the right ways.

I gave my basic ideas (which ended up being described as wanting to punch my irrational thought in their faces) and what ideas I did have. I then asked the participants to answer why they were here at this focus group. So many ideas were tossed around; making sure there was distance between you and your monster, Nordic LARP style breaks during and aftercare worked into play, figuring out what the monsters actually were. Then, the giant mind fuck was thrown out.

What if you were the monster?

UGH.

So beautiful, such a great way to make it a personal struggle.

The next night, following a lovely IGDN dinner at the tasty indian restaurant attached to the hotel, I set back up for the second night. I started out the exact same way, this time with a bit more confidence. I threw out the ideas from the previous night and this group RAN with all the ideas.

Ideas of give and take of wins and losses based on playing both your character and it's monster. Does harm taken on one side actually mean a victory on the other side? Hell, a media guide and soundtrack even began to come out. And then people followed me to a table in the bar area to keep talking about it.

You know who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, it's said his heart grew 3 sizes that day? Pretty sure the only thing containing my heart was my rib cage. Thanks so much to every member for these focus groups, with every fiber of my being. I have so many ideas, so many things to play with, and I am fully committed to making this game a reality.

This may seem like a slightly brief writeup, but this was more of a personal perspective shift for me than just a write up. I also needed to take 4 days after returning home to write this out. This was one of the best emotional experiences I've had in quite awhile.

In my last post, I will wrap up the playtest and panels I did and who this con means for Glittercats in the future. Thanks for baring with me, which is just a really big deal.

Metatopia 2014 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Call Myself A Designer. PART 1

(This post is a bunch of brutal honesty from inside my head. I'm pretty good at writing out the anxiety that I feel internally.) 

Part 1: The Social

I arrived on Thursday evening and was terrified. Sure, there were people I had met before but I was *alone*. My GC partner in crime was in Pittsburgh and sadly, my two best friends who make up Growling Door Games were unable to attend, so alone I went.

Now, I've never been one to get starstruck. I've dealt with famous people before in other jobs before, mainly theater. But there were going to be people there who wrote some of the games that I just love to play. Then my ride arrives from just picking up Cam Banks and I do my best to not fret. I had met him at Gen Con earlier this year and I had no need to worry. See, this was my first con from inside the industry. I had always been a fan, a volunteer, a friend of the designer, just a gamer. Now, I have two games that my name will be on and I'm a member of a group of designers. To say I felt like an imposter is a wild understatement.

I'm naturally a rampant extrovert when I feel like I know what I'm doing. This was a weekend of huge steps into the unknown and all I could do was hope that it wouldn't break me.

We get to the hotel and I meet a few people who I know from online and settle into finding people to relate to. Robert Bohl gets my first shout out of the con for helping me by being the first person to engage with me. The evening proceeds, more and more people are introduced to me and I flex my schmoozing muscles for the first time in quite a while and, of course, I'm a rock star at it. In theater, that's about 25% of the job. Be it with other professionals, donors or audience members. So, this is old territory that just needs an update in my mind.

The evening progresses into a huge amount of fun, putting faces and voices to IGDN members and writers of games and systems that I love. Ran into Sarah Richardson pretty quickly into the evening and was very glad to find a comrade in feeling slightly awkward in the newness of this all. Everyone was excited. The feeling in the room was electric and I at least got the sense of even if I turn out to suck as a designer, I would at least meet a lot of awesome people.

Once the big board was up and the room was open, I went to do what I had been dreading: look to see if anyone had actually signed up for any of my games. Three were full and the last one only had one seat left. I nearly pissed myself. I took pictures of each sheet and sent them to Stentor as I was doing a crazy happy dance.

Part 2: The Kitten Lasers Playtests

Friday rolls around and my first playtest of Kitten Lasers was at 11am. I made myself eat breakfast and get there early to set up. We jumped into character creation and it was so nice to have actual people there to prove that somethings were broken. It's very hard to see that on your own and sometimes asking friends to point out flaws is a bit hard. There were things that stood up, somethings that crumbled.

And it was OKAY.

It made me happy to have players who were happy to be there show me what needed to be fixed. Everyone loved the theme, loved character creations, was happy to give ideas how to make the mechanics flow better. It was a great atmosphere.

On Sunday, I did my second playtest. I went ahead and changed all the things that fell apart. We got through character creation, bidding, the first scene and the second bidding phase. Everything I had changed now worked and I got to actually see what else needed fixed. I can't even express how grateful I am for this experience.

We have a game. That will work.

That people want to play.

(This is a picture of the players of the very first playtest. Thanks so much to you all!)

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I will continue on about the rest of my impressions of the con later. This was just such an emotional experience for me that I still need processing time.

Look forward to the dramatic conclusion!

Greetings and Salutations!

It seems it's about time to introduce myself.

Hi there, I'm Cheyenne Rae Grimes. *waves*

I am the newest member of Glittercats and I am beyond thrilled to be apart of this awesome company. Stentor and I have been incredibly close for the last 4 years now. We met through playing a game (well, kickball to be exact) and we have been gaming together ever since.

About myself. West Virginian by birth, currently an Ohio resident. I originally went to school for theater and work as a stage manager for several companies in Georgia and Florida. Due to unforeseeable health issues, I gave up the profession and am now going back to school for psychology. I love cats, contra dancing, giggling as I beat the pants off of you at heavy strategy board games, knitting, karaoke and being overall adorable.

I grew up loving video and board games, but didn't start playing RPGs until I was in college. Around 2009, I began playing any indie narrative game I could get my hands on and started attending cons. For a few years, I helped run the board game meet up aspect of Obscure Games (now City of Play) in Pittsburgh.

Moving to Cleveland has been a huge step for me in becoming a game designer. I started GMing games again, mainly through Games on Demand and got involved with IGDN through working at cons. I also just became an Ambassador for Double Exposure's Envoy program. All of these things are incredible and it's amazing to get the opportunity to work with all these great companies and the people associated with them.

Soon, I will have a Fate core hack published in the Fate Codex with Nicole Winchester. Besides working on two titles for Glittercats, I will also be working with Michelle Lyons-McFarland on A Comedy in Five Acts, the follow up to her wonderful A Tragedy in Five Acts.

Gaming has been such a fantastic step back into the world of creativity for me. It's a well needed return and I so look forward to where it takes me. I will be attending Metatopia this weekend and can't wait to report back on what I was able to take in.

So super excited to be on the Glittercats team!

(Here's a picture of me schooling a kitten. Enjoy!)

Beards Not Bombs: A party game of protest slogans

We've all seen protest signs in the format [good thing] not [bad thing]! We also know that activist groups tend to be fractious, with splinter groups objecting to the main group's framing of the issue. In this game, you'll play improbable activists coming up with clever protest slogans.

Flickr/Thomas Anderson

Using a radically non-hierarchical democratic process, pick a starting player. That player should declare "I'm a [cause] activist. [A] not Bombs!" Another player should then jump in and declare "Well, I'm a [different cause] activist. [B] not [A]!" A third player would then say "well, I'm a [yet another cause] activist. [C] not [B]!" The causes for which you are activists can be as ridiculous and fanciful as you like, and the slogans are likely to become increasingly absurd as the game progresses.

The most important rule is that the two items in the slogan must either alliterate or rhyme. So the first player could be (among other things) a facial hair activist chanting "Beards not Bombs," or a mothers' rights activist chanting "Moms not Bombs." Alliteration should alternate with rhyming -- so the second slogan could be an eccentrics' rights activist ("Weirds not Beards!") or a pro-condiment activist ("Mustard not Moms").

There is no winner in this game -- just play until you get tired of it.