Flaming Monkey

Over on Livejournal, Madeline has posted a really long discussion on specific things to do to better include women in gaming, in which she draws parallels between a study of gender inequality in British physics departments and the world of gaming. There’s lots of good stuff in there, though I did get snagged here and there on some of the generalizations.

I also wished that she hadn’t chosen to use Story Games as her example of a board community, since I’ve found it to be a unique and odd place to which several of her suggestions can’t actually be applied (for example, most anything involving diversity among mods, since Andy is the one and only). I get that much of the recent commentary on inclusiveness got started because of a thread there, but I still don’t think it was the best choice for an example.

On the substance of the issue though, I agree with the overall goal of trying to make gaming more inclusive of women (and lots of other folks). It seems kind of obvious. At the same time, I can see why people might reflexively defend a community they’re a part of when it gets accused of not being welcoming enough, and there were unhelpful comments on both sides of the debate in various parts of the internets. Let’s hope that the reasonable people can have a discussion that actually gets us somewhere.

And no, I hadn’t really intended to end up with what is in large part a “me too” post, but I decided I didn’t want to get involved in debating certain people either.

Indie Press Revolution is having a May Day sale, which means 20% off everything from April 23 until May 6!

In a thread over on Story Games about what books people would like to see as RPGs, there’s this most excellent post by Brendan Adkins:

“Any Kelly Link short story. Any one at all.”

Dude, I wish, but…

GM: You’re in a house filled with your wife. All the your wifes were green, and they are making more your wifes from a kind of moss in the basement.
Player 1: I want to have sex with them.
GM: Okay. Later they make you a smoothie out of some of the your wifes. Also, the Devil is there, and you’re going back in time.
Player 2: Am I made of dish soap?
GM: You can be, but the dish soap is haunted.
Player 1: I’m going to turn into a detective and go searching for my mother.
GM: You were your mother.
Player 2: I’m rolling for pajama bottoms. (rolls) Sailboats!

Great!

In addition to running a session of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach at The Black Road, I’m also going to need to run a second game. Right now, I’m thinking that game is going to be a swashbuckling adventure involving pirates and zeppelins, but I have yet to settle on which system to use to run it. Since it’s going to be at TBR, I’d prefer a system that’s either diceless or indie.

Any suggestions?

The most important thing to me is that it encourages a swashbucking style of play, and I’ve had one recommendation of Evil Hat’s upcoming Spirit of the Century. It’s a good suggestion, but since that’s not actually out yet, I’m looking for other ideas.

Reading about the fun had the Forge Midwest gather makes me want to hold one somewhere in the northeast. I’m hardly a Forge stalwart though, and I don’t want to dilute the appeal of the whole thing by contributing to there being too many such events. On the other hand, it would be nice to have one up this way, and somewhere with strict anti-smoking laws….

Ben Lehman has posted an innovative idea he’s considering for the upcoming PDF of his game Polaris.

I’m contemplating PDF policy, and I’m curious to get a public reaction to this before I commit to anything. Here’s my thought, right now.

1) The PDF costs $15, regardless of whether or not you bought the book. I have enough retail sales that it’ll be basically impossible confirm if someone bought the book, anyway.

This is a fair chunk of change, but I’m okay with that, because see below.

2) If you have ever written an AP report or review of the game, you get the PDF for free.

3) If you buy a PDF and later write an AP report or review of the game you get your $15 back.

So, basically, the PDF is free if you actually use it.

This sounds like a pretty good plan to me, with Ben ending up with either $15 or some publicity for his game. Plus, some people might give Polaris a try in hopes that they’ll get their money back.

Even though I didn’t make it to Ambercon US this year, it looks like many of the people who did go had a pretty good time. Here are links to some of the ACUS 2006 con summaries that I’ve seen so far:

James: ACUS 2006- 4 Days of fun, gaming and sleep deprivation
Sean: ACUS
Ginger: ACUS 2006: Murder, mayhem, kidnappings, divorces, and lots of explosions
Arref: AmberconUS 2006 :: 4 Days in Castle Amber
Glen: Ambercon with more details
Paul: Acus 2006, Pictures and More

ETA: Kris: Ambercon 2006 report/quotes (player version)