Safety Marks

In the course of writing, playtesting and now publishing Bite Marks I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about safety tools. The conversation has expanded so much since I started role-playing 29 years ago and I love how people are thinking about play culture, baking safety into mechanical design and normalising the use of safety tools and putting more conscious effort into looking out for each other. The idea that we are still only at the start of this journey is really exciting to me – I am eagerly looking forward to the next iteration of safety tools.

Just recently I was in the process of prepping a game of Bite Marks when I realised that in addition to all the stuff written in the book about safety there is something else I do without realising it – I figured I’d write a post about that.

Like many people I use the three most comment safety tools in my games and my play. The first thing you do in Bite Marks (and all my games) is create a list of banned items via anonymous channels as necessary. This is like an anonymous version of Lines and Veils as created by Ron Edwards. I also encourage the use of the X-card by John Stavropolous and Script Change by Beau Sheldon.

But I also consider what aspects of the specific game I’m playing are particularly safety relevant and then discuss them up front. I point them out with a big red hand. For Bite Marks there are three particular aspects of the game and system which may cause tension for players. Before a game I explain those aspects in more detail and talk through the ways in which those elements will work and the ways in which they will NOT work. Below is a blow by blow account of how I do that for Bite Marks and the three elements I highlight.

Bite Marks Example:

Player v Player

“Bite Marks has a player v. player element but not in the sense that the players will be trying to back stab each other. Player v. player conjures up a lot of different images – most of which probably don’t quite fit the Bite Marks setting. In Bite Marks, players can dominate or scrap with each other, they can force each other to reveal their feelings… but they are all on the same team. They are working to the same goal, they don’t have secret agendas that have the players competing with each other. This means the game has all the trappings of player v. player but the game play is really different.”

I always point this out so that the players don’t just see all the Moves they can use on each other and assume this is a game about screwing each other over.

Domination

“In Bite Marks there is a Move called Dominate. This *can* in some circumstances allow one player character to give orders to and mentally dominate another player character into taking an action they do not want to take. That is deliberate because it is about struggling with your werewolf nature, and your werewolf nature wants to take orders from those with a higher status. You might feel uncomfortable about being forced to take an action you don’t want to take – that is cool, your character probably feels the same way so channel it into playing them.

The move reflects how you are conditioned to obey, it isn’t about someone changing how you think and feel about the act.

This means that if someone makes a successful dominate move on you, then, when you have completed the thing you were dominated to do you are at liberty to row with them about it, blame them and have it change how you see them or even whether you will ever trust them again. In fact, it is encouraged that you do just that!”

Dominate takes away some player and some character agency and it is definitely going to lead to uncomfortable situations. So, by stating this all clearly up front (instead of finding out halfway through a session) people can choose how they want to engage with it; or whether this is not a game they want to play at all before the session starts!

Give In to the Wolf

“In Bite Marks there is a move called “Give In to the Wolf”. This Move gives you a big boost to your powers but if you roll a fail the MC will take over your character. This move takes away player and character agency completely. The Wolf is out of control and they are going to do something bad that your character will take the fall for. You can choose whether or not to use the Move, in fact if you don’t want to use the Move because you are scared of losing control I’d suggest playing into it and making it a feature of your character!

Dominate and Give into the Wolf are STILL subject to all the other safety rules, you can’t use it in relation to material which is Banned, people can and should use the X-card and Script Change tools as they wish to (and there is an additional rule in the game text that you can never use these Moves to get around consent in sexual situations – it just doesn’t work).”

I explain these issues at the start of any game (whether in person or ahead of time in an email or similar. A big part of the reason I’ve written this blog post is so that you can cut and paste this wording and use it in your own Bite Marks pre-session prep if you like.

Identifying which parts of a game world, or system might need some extra explanation and framing is a judgment call. I would say that mechanics touching on consent, anything which is a bit surprising or deals with vulnerability and oppression are good places to look for mechanics and background that you need to put front and centre in this way. Games which have themes of e.g.: horror, sex and/or oppression as a core part of their setting are also good candidates for a pre-game explanation. In a Monsterhearts game I might talk about Darkest Self and ‘Turn Someone On’ and Sex Moves, explaining in more detail how they will work, how they will be framed in the game and how to lean into playing them. In any Lovecraftian game I’ll give a briefing on racism and portrayals of mental health. Don’t forget that a lot of historical-style games will come with various forms of oppression baked into the setting which privileged players and groups won’t immediately recognise.

In a convention or game pitching situation you won’t have a lot of time to get into details – so it is worth highlighting the presence of anything safety relevant and then as soon as you have a settled player group you can do a rundown of the safety tools you want to use and go into any extra detail you need to mention. Part of your explanation will also depend on who you are playing with and how well you know them. Personally I’ll skip some bits of the briefing for people who have played Bite Marks before and are familiar with my three ‘red hand topics’ – but I will always stress and restate what safety tools we are using. I would more explicit running Bite Marks at the convention with a table of strangers especially if I know some of them have played Vampire the Masquerade which has a different way of using a dominate-like power.

Ultimately this is all about making sure that everyone is on the same page with the game and giving people the option to leave before the game starts if they don’t want to play with those mechanics or background.

In terms of other safety tools I think that tabletop RPGs could learn a great deal from LARP in how we approach debriefing after the end of a session or campaign and this resource compiled by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk is also a fantastic compendium of safety techniques and goes into much more detail and explanation of the ones I’ve mention above.

If you are a UK lawyer one early principle you learn is called Denning’s Red Hand Rule. This rule states that the more unusual a contract clause is the more attention you need to bring to it. Lord Denning suggested in a judgment that some clauses might only be valid if they were written in red ink with a red hand pointing to them. I apply this principle to the games I run. What mechanics, what themes should be written in red in with a red hand pointing to them. Set expectations early, alongside your preferred safety tools. As a GM you will (probably) have a lot more information about a game than the players. So it is your job to identify land mines before people step on them and then point them out… with a red hand.

This blog post is funded by the Black Armada Patreon! Thank you so much crewmates 🙂

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48 hours left to back Bite Me! on Kickstarter

Update: Please note that Bite Me was renamed to Bite Marks, after the campaign closed. The game can now be pre-ordered from Backerkit.

We have been running a Kickstarter for Bite Me! – a game of werewolf pack dynamics here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackarmada/bite-me-a-game-of-werewolf-pack-dynamics and we are down to the last 48 hours.

Vincent Sammy is illustrating the game … gorgeous.

As you know I love Werewolves and werewolf packs especially and this is a labour of love which I’ve talked about before on the blog.  I wanted a game which combined all the tropes of Werewolves like control, domination and hyper-violence and used that to fuel messy relationships and explore pack dynamics.  This is that game.

The campaign is funded and we have hit the first stretch goal but I really would love to get to the stretch goals by Whitney Delaglio, Kelley Armstrong and Paul Czege if we can.

If you’ve backed or shared already then thank you so much and if you have been thinking about it then there is 48 hours to make your move!

Flotsam is available for pre-order

If you missed the Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars Kickstarter, you can now get in on the action by Pre-ordering on Backerkit.

Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars is a roleplaying game about outcasts, renegades and misfits living in the belly of a space station, in the shadow of a more prosperous society. You play through their everyday lives, interpersonal relationships and small-scale drama in the Below, a dangerous world where poverty, social strife and gang conflict sit side-by-side with alien technology and supernatural weirdness.

Imagine the Belters of the Expanse watching as Earth and Mars shape their lives, the civilians in Battlestar Galactica living with the decisions made by the military and the folk of Downbelow in Babylon 5, abandoned to destitution and squalor by those who built the station. This game is about characters like that.

The game is GMless and diceless, with rules that point your characters at each other and bring their relationships into sharp focus. They help you create a rich setting, flawed characters, and charged relationships which develop over time. You’ll watch your characters evolve and change before your eyes. It’s really cool.

Pre-order Flotsam Now



Bite Me! is coming to Kickstarter – Get on the Mailing List Here!

Update: Please note that Bite Me was renamed to Bite Marks, after the campaign closed. The game can now be pre-ordered from Backerkit.

The Bite Me! Kickstarter is getting closer and closer, practically snapping at our heels over here at Black Armada.

Bite Me! is a Powered by the Apocalypse Game of werewolf packs and it is a full throated emotional howl into these cold Winter nights.

If you want to know the instant the kickstarter emerges naked and bloody into the world then sign up to our mailing list here:

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Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars

Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars is now available to buy in our store. You can also find it on DrivethruRPG, on itch.io and in gaming stores worldwide.

Flotsam is a roleplaying game about outcasts, renegades and misfits living in belly of a space station, in the shadow of a more prosperous society. You play through their everyday lives, interpersonal relationships and small-scale drama in the Below, a dangerous world where poverty, social strife and gang conflict sit side-by-side with alien technology and supernatural weirdness.

Imagine the Belters of the Expanse watching as Earth and Mars shape their lives, the civilians in Battlestar Galactica living with the decisions made by the military and the folk of Downbelow in Babylon 5, abandoned to destitution and squalor by those who built the station. This game is about characters like that.

The game is GMless and diceless, with rules that point your characters at each other and bring their relationships into sharp focus. They help you create a rich setting, flawed characters, and charged relationships which develop over time. You’ll watch your characters evolve and change before your eyes. It’s really cool.

“Josh has put together something really interesting here – there’s glimpses of a larger setting through the world, but it only comes out through the lenses of the characters. Very clever stuff.” 

– Grant Howitt, co-designer of The Spire RPG

Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars – kickstarter in July

I’ve been working hard to get Flotsam ready for kickstarter, and it looks like it’ll be ready to launch some time in July.

Flotsam is a game for 3-5 people about outcasts, renegades and misfits living in the belly of a space station, in the shadow of a more prosperous society. You focus on their everyday lives, their relationships and small-scale, interpersonal drama.

You could play:

The cast-off, an ordinary person fallen on bad times;

The Thunder, a tough ganger who makes the rules down here;

The Voice, the charismatic leader of a cult or community;

The Spider, a ruthless trader or spymaster;

The Sybyl, a prophetess with uncanny powers; or

The Hybrid, part human and part something else (alien, AI, god… there are lots of options).

The game is GMless: Each player gets one Primary character to play, as well as one Situation that they help to develop and push forward when not playing their Primary. That can be a lot to juggle, so the game has a simple, streamlined system that’s geared towards giving each player maximum control over the pacing of their own scenes, so you can have quiet, tense emotional scenes when you want them, or high-energy, threatening scenes when you feel like hitting the gas.

The game’s system pushes you to focus on your relationships and personal flaws, to move your character out of their comfort zone and develop them. Over time you’ll see those relationships and flaws change, and your characters grow. As such, it’s designed to work best in campaign mode. Over a handful of sessions, you’ll get to see real evolution of your character and their relationships.

Nonetheless, I wanted the game to be playable as a one-shot, so the game will include rules for quick-start play, using simple scenarios with pre-generated characters and situations. These will be designed to kickstart play with relationships that are already on the point of change, and problems at the point of exploding. It’ll mean you can play the game in 3-4 hours.

I’m excited to share the game with you! If you’re interested in this project you might want to follow the Black Armada kickstarter account here, so you’ll get a notification when the campaign launches. If you have questions or would like to talk to me about the project, you can comment here or contact me at flotsam (at) vapourspace (dot) net.

Finally, I couldn’t end this article without sharing the work-in-progress cover art by Anna Landin. It’s only a sketch and it’s already looking great! Honestly, commissioning art is one of my favourite things about being a game designer.

Four people stand around a makeshift table converted from a piece of industrial machinery. One of them leans forward, entreating another, who watches with interest. In the background we can see a round window, through which is stars and space, and a spaceship flying by.
OMG I love this sketch

The Lovecraftesque kickstarter is go!

Edit: The kickstarter is now closed. It funded at over 300%! Many thanks to everyone who backed it. Once the remaining writing, editing, layout, art and printing are done, we’ll send books to our backers and, eventually, they’ll be available to buy.

After 9 months of hard work, the Lovecraftesque kickstarter has just launched.

Sample interior art by Robin Scott
Sample interior art by Robin Scott

 

 

 

What is Lovecraftesque?

Lovecraftesque is a GMless storytelling game of brooding cosmic horror. You and your friends will each contribute strange clues to a slow-building mystery, culminating in a journey into darkness that ends in a climactic scene of horror. You will be surprised and creeped out by your friends’ contributions, but the game is designed so that it will feel like one person was GMing it, even though you never had to break the tension by pausing for discussion. In short, Lovecraftesque is the GMless, indie-style Lovecraft game you’ve been waiting for.

The game focuses on a single Witness, who is at the mercy of strange and terrifying events. Lovecraft’s stories rarely featured parties of investigators, and the hero rarely wins – that’s how our game works, too. You rotate responsibility for playing the Witness, but the role is much more about revealing their inner thoughts and fears than solving the mystery or beating up cultists.

When you play Lovecraftesque you’ll be creating your own mystery, and your own unique monsters that will feel like something out of Lovecraft’s notebook. There won’t be any Mi-Go or Deep Ones – you’ll get a completely fresh take on the genre.

Where can I find out more?

You can find out more about the game, including a stripped down version of the rules and samples of the art and layout, on the kickstarter page.