🌈🚀 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, We're into the last four days of the Kickstarter for Raccoon Sky Pirates! And it's been a wild ride. We hit the funding goal in just four hours. In the 26 days that followed, we unlocked: Black Flag Friday, the expansion where you raid a big-box store right before Black Friday shoppers rush in. A VTT package to play Raccoon Sky Pirates online. The Haunted House expansion as an add-on for all. The July 4th expansion, where you sail across the National Mall and raid the White House...
Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. It's getting blowy out there. On the table, we've got flame-orange dahlias. The Raccoon Sky Pirates Kickstarter is doing well beyond my wildest hopes. But, for once, I'm not here to talk about that. I recently read Lin Codega's diaries of their experience playing Over/Under, the massive, 30-day game on Discord that started a year ago. Here's what I said about it on Bluesky: Me when O/U was happening: Man I wish I had time for this. Me after it ended: Man I...
Hi Reader, It's All-Raccoons Eve! Tomorrow at noon Eastern, assuming nothing wacky happens in the meantime, the Raccoon Sky Pirates Kickstarter will launch! I've just finished (whew) the free Haunted House Map that goes to everyone who backs in the first 24 hours. I hope you'll be one of them! Here's a low-res screenshot from the first floor. There's a second floor, an attic and of course a basement. It has its own Disaster Track and over a hundred cursed items to steal! If you haven't...