smuonsneutrino

Black. TTRPGs & Math

  • he/him

designing Lanthorn, a TTRPG about suffering in a dungeon, but with post-PBTA/FITD vibes

--

Eternally considering a series of posts called Category Theory Out Of Context

--

pfp by @fxfi


djregular
@djregular

This is basically a marginally more organized version of a conversation that I had with a friend online, so forgive any sloppiness. A buddy of mine messaged me about the recently released Blade Runner tabletop RPG that Modiphius (editor's note: Free League, actually) published with the sentiment that they were interested in it, but they didn't have any desire to play a cop. Later on in the day, I saw that the first comment/review on its DriveThruRPG page was someone calling the existence of the game "tone-deaf" in a "post-Freddie Gray world" due to the fact that you're playing as state-sponsored killers hunting down marginalized people. (Last I checked the comment was gone, I'm unsure if it was due to moderation or the commenter removing it.)

When I got to really thinking about it, after my initial grousing, I couldn't let go of my frustration at a larger problem in general media consumption that seems to be at its worst in the TTRPG space: Equating the depiction of acts as the implicit acceptance or endorsement of those acts or the systems that perpetuate them. It's become a gag at this point, but every other day you can find commentary online from someone dismissing a movie, book, other piece of storytelling out of hand for being "problematic." If it's older? It's from a time where boomers were clearly incapable of being thoughtful about the world around them. If it's more contemporary piece of media? Assume the worst, most surface level read about whatever it is, because no one is capable of depth. It's everywhere, a commitment to incuriosity that allows people to score social points by labeling something rather than analyzing it. It makes me think of white folks that regard the word "racist" as a cudgel, and are more concerned with being called one than with examining racism inherent in the institutions around them that allow racist behavior to go unchecked (or rewarded). It's much easier to point at a piece of entertainment and say that it's problematic, than to do the work of actually meeting something where it is and separating your own experience from the intention of creators, or lived experience of the audience that embraces the material.

When I first got involved in the indie TTRPG space as a writer and creator, I became acquainted with a lot of folks who were extremely concerned with fostering inclusive, welcoming spaces. While that was comforting to a degree, it eventually uncovered a frustrating quality that many of these spaces shared. As a black man, I'm acutely aware of how poorly things things can go in a gaming space where no one's mindful of marginalized identities, triggers, etc. I enthusiastically endorse the use of safety tools, session zeroes, and anything that can be done to make your gaming group an inclusive one. In my early interactions with these community spaces, much of the sentiment around game creation was to make games that served to completely excise any elements that could be used in a harmful manner, completely disregarding why an audience--especially a marginalized audience--could want to engage with those elements.

For example, I ran across multiple creators that would turn their noses up at games where violence was an option for the player, with some sort of variation of noting that violence is a tool of oppressors. It reminded me of the trend of "cozy" video games that all share a cottagecore adjacent aesthetic, where all races and backgrounds are presented in a setting, with no respect or consideration of what those individuals' lived experience would be in such a place. A fun, breezy getaway to a cute little out of the way village is much more anxiety-inducing for someone like me vs. someone who's not brown or black. To say nothing of people from other backgrounds. Just to use violence as an example, for members of marginalized communities who're regularly subjected to violence--state sanctioned and otherwise--it can be informative and cathartic to explore themes of violence in a safe space with agreed upon rules and boundaries.

If you just want to make something that isn't meant to be challenging, and is just a nice chill time, that's 100% valid. On the other hand, demanding that everyone else follow suite does the potential audience a disservice, not only as a means of policing what content can exist in a space, but it also takes a tool of exploration away. Roleplaying games are unique in that they can provide a space for exploring sensitive themes and topics in a very personal way, and with a group that prioritizes player safety and comfort, they can be invaluable to marginalized folks who want to feel emotionally safe while confronting difficult material. I get that if you're working under the assumption that anyone who might want to play a game with sensitive topics is coming to it in bad faith, it makes sense sandblast all rough edges away from everything. Eventually though, as a friend put it, you're just coming up with new ways to roll dice.

To drag this back to my original observation about the Blade Runner RPG and its supposed place as a piece of copaganda, in the wake of conversations around police and prison abolition becoming more mainstream, there are a lot of people who are more concerned with being accused of liking cops or wanting to be a cop than actually doing the work of understanding what's wrong with policing and its depiction in most media. To put a fine point on it, there's a distinct difference between media with cops in it, and media that lionizes the profession. Blade Runner as a property isn't Dragnet but with replicants. If all you've got to go on is the film, and you come away from it thinking that it's cool and good to hunt down replicants, I'd argue that you missed the point. I haven't read the RPG yet, but I wager that the creators are of a similar mind. From the ad copy:
"...dares to ask the hard questions and investigate the power of empathy, the poison of fear, and the burden of being human during inhumane times...", "...challenge player characters to question their friends, empathize with their enemies, and explore the perseverance of hope and humanity."

That doesn't read like a game that's concerned with making you feel like a hero for upholding the status quo. In the right hands, it seems like it could have the potential to educate someone who can't quite wrap their head around the conversations surrounding policing, and it could give someone that's been subject to unjust institutions that wield the police like a cudgel a way to confront those systems in a safe way. The danger of harm comes from, as always in a TTRPG, not establishing expectations and boundaries via content warnings, safety tools, and proper communication with your group. Not only that, but a reasonable understanding of your source material. I might've been glib about interpreting Blade Runner as a gung-ho story about necessity of violent policing, but I've talked to people who somehow blanked out on The Wire being anything other than an indictment of the War On Drugs. I've also had to run screaming from a Star Wars game where it was clear the GM had a real "gotta hear both sides" energy re: The Galactic Empire. I digress. Get everyone in your group on the same page, and if you find that your expectations don't match, it's okay to walk away or find something else to play.

There's a ton of ways to play TTRPGs, and so long as you're not hurting anyone or perpetuating behavior that could lead to someone getting hurt, all of them are valid. If you have it in you to judge people for what they choose to explore in the space, please consider actually engaging with material in good faith rather than using activist language as darts.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @djregular's post:

Thought 1: holy shit there is even one (1) other black man who plays TTRPGs! Thought 2: I am reminded very much of the Twitter Discourse about fantasy races/species in RPGs and how so much of it was just toxic nonsense that wasn't aimed at actually fixing the problem. Like, it's the same kind of thinking that led WotC to remove all "negative" traits from races instead of writing around the fact that yeah, kobolds are tiny and have a strength penalty in an interesting way, or fixing the real problem with the races (that is, that most of them are treated in a given setting as a cultural monolith that is often tied to real-world stereotypes. or the use of the word "race" over "species", or or or). I hope that Cohost's effect on discourse of this kind is a positive one.