Sarah Darkmagic

Recently I watched episode four of the PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. This episode covered 1897-1940, discussing the development of an African American middle class and black owned businesses. During the episode, Professor Gates mentioned an exhibit by W.E.B. Du Bois at the 1900 Paris Exposition that had pictures of African Americans in a variety of settings, many of them concentrating on the middle class. Curious, I did an internet search and found that many of the pictures, in addition to other pictures gathered by Du Bois, were available through the Library of Congress.

I love these pictures because they contradict the typical narrative spread in the mainstream media at the time and today. While I understand how they can themselves be problematic, I think they help show the diversity and complexity of the African American experience. Due to segregation, many African Americans could seek service only from fellow African Americans. Additionally, by purchasing from black-owned businesses, that helped keep the money in the community.

These pictures could be useful to anyone running or playing in or publishing a late Victorian/early Edwardian US game. They could show that whites weren't the only college students or athletes, that a number of African Americans also studied the sciences, were nuns, etc. Given the time period they are from, they are classified by the Library of Congress as "No known restrictions on publication." This means that they are likely to be in the public domain, although you should always consult an attorney if you are unsure.

The full collection can be found at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?st=grid&co=anedub. Here are some sample images.

Portrait group of African American Carpenters union, Jacksonville, Florida: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-35753

Portrait group of African American Bricklayers union, Jacksonville, Florida: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-35754.

Claflin Univ., Orangeburg, S.C. ca. 1900: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-35749.

Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., 1900 - morning prayers: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-38623.

Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., 1900 - library interior: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-38625

Howard Univ., Washington, D.C., ca. 1900 - sewing class: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-40467

Howard Univ., Washington, D.C., ca. 1900 - elementary school students exercise: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-40471.

Howard Univ., Washington, D.C., ca. 1900 - class in bacteriology laboratory: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-40472.

Home of C.C. Dodson, Knoxville, Tenn.: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-49479.

"Lumpers" at the T.B. Williams Tobacco Co., Richmond, Virginia, 1899?: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-51004.

5 female African American officers of Women's League, Newport, R.I.: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-51555.

Interior of African American store, Buffalo, N.Y.: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-51557.

Sisters of the Holy Family, New Orleans, La.: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-53509.

Only African American store of its kind in the U.S., at 2933 State St., Chicago, Ill.: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-61736

Agricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, N.C. Biological laboratory: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-61855

The creators behind slash: romance without boundaries were kind enough to send me a demo copy of their game. For those who haven't heard about it, the goal is to create the best fan-fiction romantic couples. Game play is similar to Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity. One person, the matchmaker, chooses a person card in their hand and the rest of the group chooses a person from theirs that they think would make a great pairing. Of course, great is highly subjective. In some versions of game play, the matchmaker may ask players to "defend" their choice by asking them to create fanfiction on the spot, often according to a prompt. For instance, the player might be asked to describe the first date between the two.

slash: romance without boundaries
For some of my friends, this game would be absolutely perfect. They love fanfiction and this game is a natural fit for them. But I like it for a number of additional reasons. First, I find that this sort of knowledge doesn't get rewarded as often as it should. Being able to converse about a wide range of people and characters - everyone from pop culture to historical figures to characters from literature are included. In the version of the game where you have to create fanfic, you probably could use more than passing familiarity with a name to make it truly epic.

Additionally, I think overall it might break some barriers (although it doesn't have to). There's no gender, sexual orientation, or other barriers to suggesting a match.

Beyond the game itself, I want to use this for character generation, especially NPCs. When I want to create a new character, I could just pull a card from the rather large deck and use some elements from that person to create a character. It might even be cool to pull two or three and create a character that combines aspects of those people.

Currently, the cards are available for download through the game website. Games by Playdate also have a Kickstarter for the game. Filamena Young has a great interview with Meg about the game on Gaming as Women.

Thanks to Meg McGinley-Crowe, Glenn Givens, and Dan Brian for putting this on my radar. It's awesome.

I wanted to give some more concrete examples of where my thoughts around Reclaim Riverbend are currently. Since it's a well known module and fits pretty well, I'm going to use The Village of Hommlet as an example.

Destruction

© 2012 Jenna Fowler, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licenseVillage of Hommlet is great because it lays out an entire village complete with a village map as well as maps of a few of the buildings. My thought is that much of the town would have been destroyed by a combination of neglect by the evil forces that inhabited it (they did not agree that cleanliness is next to godliness) and the battles for control of the town. I think I would set everything except either the walled manor house (27) or the Inn of the Welcome Wench (7) as being in some state of being too broken to be immediately useful. I haven't figured out the mechanics of repair, but it would be something like filthy, cosmetic damage, structural damage, and beyond repair. Filthy buildings could be repaired without access to resources beyond labor. Cosmetic damage would require access to wood, either from other homes or a forest. Structural damage might require a carpenter. Beyond repair would require labor to remove the rubble before it could be built on again.

A nice thing about using something like Village of Hommlet as the underpinning is that we can tell the story of that village through this game even if we don't use everything from it. The people still existed and we can tell their story in the background elements and in the items left behind.

Repair

© 2012 Juan Santapau, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license
Let's ignore the ability to harvest wood from the forest for now and only rely on reusing materials found in the town. Let's say each destroyed house provides 10 wood. Cosmetic damage requires 1 wood, structural damage requires 3, and new construction of a modest cottage requires 5. (I'm not sure how fine-grained I'll be when I get further along, so take this all with a grain of salt.) Repairing buildings with cosmetic damage doesn't require specialization and takes less wood. The issue is that the building the group really wants might not be one of the ones that are the cheapest to fix. Do the players focus on fixing the easiest to fix buildings first? Do they try to adapt the building to a different use than intended, costing them perhaps a few more resources and more time? Or do they focus their resources on the buildings they think would best serve them?

These are decisions constantly being made after a catastrophe. What do we have? What can we save? What is the cost of saving it?

Trade

© 2013 Kaitlynn Peavler and Cheeky Mountain Parrot Games, created for Conquering Corsairs, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license
One of the issues after war is that many of the trade routes are disrupted. A village like Riverbend couldn't expect regular deliveries of resources from other places. First, the area is still far too dangerous for all but the least risk averse merchants. Second, many towns and cities need goods after a war and Riverbend isn't exactly a thriving place full of coin. It needs to make itself better known for that. So currently, the town can except a visiting merchant only about every month or three. I might increase the frequency if I specialize the merchants though. Additionally, costs might be higher for even basic goods that have to be imported from elsewhere. For now, let's say that there is a 50% rise in prices.

The Village of Hommlet module works well for this because it faces trade issues. In the case of the module, a bunch of bandits have been attacking trade caravans. They are holed up in the ruins of the moathouse, a complete adventure already written for DMs. Since Reclaim Riverbend is a post war game, I might change some of the bandit characters to fit into that theme better. Maybe they deserted during the war or they grew cynical from their experiences and decided to live for themselves after the war. They also could be left over enemies who didn't want to go home.

Defeating the bandits would improve trade through Riverbend in addition to potentially giving real items as treasure. So after they are dealt with, let's say the additional cost of goods gets reduced to 25%.

Forgotten Lore

An additional benefit to The Village of Hommlet is that it's tied to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I might have in one of the buildings some writings from one of the evil clerics or wizards that mentioned ruins in the area of the town. By this point, between the overturn in inhabitants and the amount of time that has passed, it's quite possible that none of the current inhabitants remembers the temple. This diary could talk about how the cleric or wizard wants to find the legendary ruin and increase their reputation. The PCs might decide to see if the other side was unable to uncover the ruin or decide that they don't care, they want to see it for themselves.

You could even run Temple of Elemental Evil as a flashback before they discover it in the present. You could then modify the ruins to take into account the decisions of your group and, who knows, maybe the past adventurers left something behind that could be used by those in the present.

So that's my thought on how the concept of Reclaim Riverbend can be used to tie together published adventures in a way that reinforces the core story being told and organically changes the world around the characters. I fully acknowledge it might not be for everyone. Obviously, if I were to create my own Reclaim Riverbend for publishing, I couldn't use Village of Hommlet as a base but it's a perfect fit as an example of what could be done. Additionally, the framework doesn't need to be limited to D&D as a resolution mechanism. Other games, such as Fiasco, could be used for certain types of adventures or scenes and still have an impact on the world. For instance, perhaps the players want to convince a wizard to take up residence in the tower but he wants the PCs to prove that they are worth his presence. A Fiasco-style playset could be a fun way of determining if they succeed at the task of wooing him.

Note: The first two images are from the game Farewell to Fear by Machine Age Productions. The third is from Conquering Corsairs. All are part of the Prismatic Art Collection.

[TW: Sexual Assault]

In my previous post, I published the results from my harassment policy survey. Among the group that responded to the survey, they overwhelmingly felt these policies were important or very important (228 out of the 319 total responses). Twenty percent had witnessed or experienced something that made them wish there was an anti-harassment policy, and 15 percent had felt harassed or assaulted at a con. It's important to note here that nearly 72% of the respondents identified as primarily male/men and out of the 49 people who responded that they had felt harassed or assaulted at a con, 15 of them identified primarily as male/man.

As I pointed out in the last post, I can't extrapolate too much using these results. This wasn't a random survey. People shared them among their friend networks, starting with my own. People had their own reasons for deciding to click on the link and responding, sometimes because they were already in favor of the policies and sometimes because they were firmly against them. However, I have to say I'm not surprised by the responses. At the very least, I think it points to the fact that among some communities within the larger gaming umbrella community, this is a real issue and their lived experience.

Whenever we try to have a conversation about why these things occur, the topic of "rape culture" inevitably comes up along with it the numerous misunderstandings and misinterpretations, many of them based on little more than defensiveness. So, I'd like to talk about my experiences with rape culture a bit and my understanding of it.

Those who don't really understand the phrase often like to take the words as separate items, look them up in a dictionary or rely on their own knowledge of the meanings, and try to deduce the meaning of the term from there. This makes things really difficult. Rape culture encompasses far more than a culture that promotes rape. You can exist in a rape culture and never rape or be the victim of rape.

Like many academic terms, rape culture is rather abstract and can be difficult to identify in the real world. There aren't hard and fast boundaries. Here's a definition from Transforming a Rape Culture via Rape Culture 101 on Shakesville:

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

That seems really abstract to some people and I get that. Here's an extract from a recent fantasy (as in the genre) novel (not a book meant just for adults) by a mainstream and well known publisher. The woman in this scene is the trainer of the "younger" man. I say younger because while his body is relatively young, he was reborn and had lived a rather full previous life and kept all the memories from that life. So, yeah. During a previous training session, the woman had kissed him, seemingly to distract him and win the fight. We also have hints that she is unsure about her feelings for him but seems to like him. R is the male character and D is the female one.

Why did you kiss me?"

She started to answer, but R's expression turned dark and he continued, "What did you hope to gain from it?"

D fell back another step, but then came forward aggressively, dropping her blade and putting her hands on her hips. She stood barely inches from R staring at him coldly.

"You cannot be mad at me!" R insisted.

"You have shown me-- you have taught me! You have taken me to those noblemen's grand parties and shown me how to use your charms to mainpula--"

D's hand came up faster than R could react and slapped him hard across the face.

She huffed and swung around to run away, but R caught her by the shoulder and tugged her back around, throwing himself at her. And when they crashed together, he hugged her tightly. He saw the moisture in her pretty brown eyes, and kissed her.

She twisted to get away. She pulled her mouth back. But R pressed in harder and rejoined the kiss and D's tension gradually melted away, and then she was kissing him as passionately or more.

"Do you doubt me?" she asked, and she twisted suddenly, dropping them both to the floor, her atop him.

"Have you never kissed any of them? Isn't that part of the game you play?" R asked.

This is an example of rape culture on at least two levels. Obviously, it sexualizes violence. The whole thing is violent from her slapping him to him being willing to gamble on committing sexual assault. If you want to quibble with that statement, reread the passage again. He doesn't know when he kisses her whether or not she's going to be ok with this. In fact, she has given plenty of signals that she says she is not ok with it at that moment.

Secondly, even after giving all of those signals. Even after all the "not being sure," she in the end gives in. Of course she does. Because that's a frequent rape myth, that, in the end women really want it.

Once I read this passage, I had to force myself to finish reading the book and I only did that because of other commitments. It sickened me and I couldn't believe that an author who often talks about the things he won't put into his books because he's mindful of his younger audience would put this in.

The hard part for me is I've lived this. I've been held hostage in a room because I wouldn't pay a kiss a toll to be able to leave the room. I've woken up with a male friend on top of me, kissing me, because he thought I really wanted it. At a dance, I had another man take my hand and put it on his erect penis not once, but twice, even after I said no. The second time, he forcefully held it there until I could pull myself away. I've had men, dozens of them, tell me that I don't have the right to tell people not to bother me because their right to try to bed me superseded my rights as a human being to live my life and network with my professional peers.

And this life imitating art imitating life reinforces that. This scene in the book, didn't need to be written this way. It didn't add anything to the story except that R is a complete idiot because after they have sex he has this realization:

He felt the fool for ever doubting this amazing halfling lass. She was playing no game for him; her feelings were honest.

*facepalm*

What scares me is as I looked through the reviews for this particular book, many of them glowing, not a single person pointed this out. And that's the problem with rape culture. There's an acceptance that this is the way romance is done. That acceptance, in turn, is what allows sexual violence to happen at the high rates we see. It's why some try to differentiate between "forceable rape" and lack of consent. They don't know how consent works.

And among a portion of the people who commit harassment and assault at cons, this same lack of awareness holds true. After a well-publicized assault at a tech conference and the harassment and blame the victim received when she came forward, O'Reilly decided to look into the problem at their conferences. They noticed that among the people they found had done these things, had even admitted to doing them, a large percentage of them had no idea what they were doing was wrong. No one had ever questioned this behavior around them. Nothing they read had ever caused them to question it either.

That's why we need more stories like Saga, Sex Criminals, and Rat Queens. Take these panels from Sex Criminals #1:

Enthusiastic Consent - Sex Criminals © Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc. & Chip Zdarsky

Checking In - Sex Criminals © Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc. & Chip Zdarsky

In the first panel, the male character checks in to make sure everything is still good with the woman. She gives her enthusiastic consent. I find that pretty awesome. In the second, they are about to do something they haven't done before. He again checks in. Super sexy!

In this panel in Saga, two of the main characters are having a disagreement.

Going Off Script - © Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

As couples often do, Alana tries to us sex to distract. Marko breaks our typical narrative by pointing this out and turning it down and continuing to work through their issues.

Why do we need more of these? Because we use all of these ideas, regardless of their source, to figure out our own ways of interacting with the world, especially at a con. Think about how many times you've repeated a line from a movie or book that you thought was freaking awesome and smooth. Now think about the number of lines that follow the "silence is sexy" script rather than the enthusiastic consent one? That doesn't mean no character can ever be the former, but it would be nice if the work was self-aware about it.

I've only scratched the surface on this one, I know. But I'd like to ask you to consider how at a con centered around a genre, the way that genre presents and deals with romance and sex might have an impact on how the people act at that conference. Let's create some fantasy characters we can actually aspire towards when it comes to sex and sexuality.