🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
game therapy
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Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Have some fizzy water. It's so hot outside. A neighbor gave me a bouquet of zinnias—they're in a jam jar on the table. Do you ever check out—dissociate—when you should be concentrating? Time you urgently need tickscdcr5t by and by. And then you realize you're doing it, and you feel like you're falling into quicksand? No? Just me? Then have you ever felt the opposite? You suddenly find yourself dialed in, not just mentally but emotionally? And something unlooked-for unlocks in you? Role-playing games do that for me sometimes. Do they ever do that for you? Tangentially related: One of my absolute heroes in tabletop RPGs is Alex Roberts. In May, Dicebreaker interviewed Roberts. Turns out she’s a trained therapist. She talked about how games can be profound, therapeutic experiences, sometimes especially because they’re not officially “therapy.” I love those meaningful gaming experiences. Ones that couldn’t've come out any other way. But—as Roberts says in the interview—they don’t have to be therapy. Maybe you didn’t sit down at the table tonight to process you trauma via an elf persona, or to help your friend process theirs. Trusting your fellow players is key. Roberts' most recent game that allows for those experiences is a new edition of her groundbreaking game For the Queen. Darrington Press gave it new, full-color portraits of queens, in a box with a magnetic closure. Luxe. Roberts also redesigned some questions to draw you in more. You can tell everyone worked hard to make an already great game worth a re-do. Not related at all: I have box sets of Raccoon Sky Pirates to sell again! Q Workshop shipped the dice to me way ahead of schedule. So now we're in the final gallop to the end of this game's run. After that, I'll let it go, so I can work on the new design. Make it worth a re-do. Cheers, P.S. A cool game resource is crowdfunding right now: How to GM Romance. It looks like it has a lot of good tools and ideas. Things about consent, for instance. Since Defy the Gods offers a lot of romance, I'm backing it. P.P.S. Raccoon Sky Pirates box sets are available! I'm restocking Indie Press Revolution, Amazon, and my own site. Get one while you still can! |
Everlasting, Neverending Game Night
🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Let me take your coat. Can you believe it snowed today? None of it stuck, but still. I've got a saucepan full of hot chocolate in the kitchen. Mugs are in the cupboard. So. Some wild things happened since we last met: I went to Big Bad Con in San Francisco, where I spent time with some of my favorite people, ran Defy the Gods, and met folks who will help me finish the book. I also went to U-Con in Ann Arbor, and I made the hard decision not to go to PAX...
Hi Reader, Welcome back. Please, come in, sit down. We have a little brisket left over from Rosh Hashanah if you want some. It's really good. "shhh ... this is my favorite part." Red Raccoon Radio, the podcast for Red Raccoon Games in Bloomington, Illinois, just dropped a new episode, and I’m in it! You can catch it here. We talk about Raccoon Sky Pirates—a natural fit for them!—and my next game, Defy the Gods. Hear me in the hot seat, answering "Why should people be excited to hear from...
Hi Reader, How are you? Please, come in, sit down. Dry off. Lately, it's like all the rain we missed in the summer has come at once. This summer, I heard from an old friend about a disastrous game she played. Her gaming group had just introduced a buddy of hers to role-playing. After enjoying their first campaign together, her buddy wanted to GM the next one. So he did. For a year. It turns out that in the first campaign, Buddy bristled against its safety tools—lines, veils, a certain amount...