Our Game Spaces Are A Reflection Of Us

CW/TW - brief mention of sexual assault issues.

Yea, this post is because of the revelations of abuse by former girlfriends Mandy, Vivka and Hannah of Zak Smith (Sabbath). If you haven't read them, go here and here.

This post is about privilege and the hue/cry I've seen about "Why does real life intrude on my game?!?"

That's because those two things have a lot in common, with these images:

 

None of these accusations were a surprise. I've kept my distance from Zak since Porngate/TARGA exploded in 2010. I've watched his toxic attitude and behaviors and they were huge red flags for me.

Talk to women in your family. Go ahead. Have that conversation about if things have happened. In fact, DON'T talk, just listen. It'll make you sick. Sex and power and how that has been used and abused is a thread that runs through our history and who we are.

There's another meme I want to share with you before I take a deep dive:




The world is changing. #metoo #blacklivesmatter #occupywallstreet As someone who likes to read to learn, I've been reading a lot about how life changed in the 60s. The kids, the hippies, the changing attitudes towards civil liberties, sex, the government and life in general. I'm pretty sure I would have been a hippie, but I digress...

We're living similar changes now, only we're on the other side as the older generation. Our kids and grandkids don't give a fuck about things the way we give a fuck. They are shaping the world, just as we shaped the world in our youth.

So what are we, the older generation going to do?

Adapt or die. But also put forth our values, the best ones, so that the DNA of those values carries on. Share the wisdom of experience and hard knocks and make it relevant so that the DNA carries on.

So what does this have to do with Princess Bride and the Buddha?

One of the refrains I'm seeing on reddit, on Twitter, on the forums, podcasts and blogs is this idea of "I'm sick of this (real life stuff and/or politics) coming into my games!"

Well, I believe that those things have always been in our games, swirling around us.

As youth, we either didn't give a shit, or we were on the side of games. For my generation, it was Satanic Panic over D&D. We didn't care, but I'm pretty sure that there was the grognardly grumbling over it from folks who didn't like seeing the 70s gonzo feel get altered by TSR as they adapted to the market and their audience.

So now the world is changing. Change is painful. It's constant. Both the Princess Bride and the Buddha say the same thing - life is about pain. But how we deal with that pain says much about us. Pain is mandatory. Suffering is optional.

I get the call of seeing games as a refuge. As a place where we can avoid the pain of life. But for me, as a white heterosexual cismale in the middle class, I shit, breathe and eat privilege. This is what I got in life. And it's been my observation, anecdotal as it may be, that the vast majority of those grumbling about politics and real world intruding on games have a healthy amount of privilege -- and they don't like the pain!

Well... how we react to pain, to life, to events like these is how we show the values and character of who we are.

I believe that fervently.

I get that some of us don't want our games to focus on inclusivity, on being thoughtful and considerate of our presentations of our worlds because it's.. .well... painful to change. To let go of the things that we've done/had/lived for 30, 40, 50 years.

Life is pain. Adapt or die.

I believe those things.

Look, I don't focus on the fact that I have tons of same-sex couples as NPCs. I present the fact as normal in my games and I move on. My minis are colored with many different racial colors because that's the way it is, without prejudice or show. I've had transfolks, gay folks, abuse survivors at my table and I've kept to these rules: Your fun doesn't overshadow someone else's fun  and don't be an asshole at my table.

To me, this is just what it should be. Respect. Consideration. Awareness of the issues surrounding the people that come to my table.

Because people are affected by the world, just as they are affected by games. I would submit that there's a real truth that our RPG games are just as much of the story-telling, myth-relating tradition that we humans do with books, music, art, etc.. We might not be Plato, Chaucer, Shakespear at the table, but the things we do speak and reinforce things in our cultural DNA as much as the story of Gilgamesh does ... and there are threads that we all share!

I want my games to have the DNA of the values that I think are important. They are going to be political because we are political.

So these discussions are important. Because our niche of a niche has the same makeup as the real world.

There are abuse survivors.

There are abusers.

There are wonderful people, assholes, trans folks, homosexual, conservative, liberal folks and they bring the best/worst to the table. We are sharing space and sharing who we are.

So I get it, it sucks that real life intrudes. Life is pain. The kids don't give a shit if we don't like #metoo or we support it fully. This is the way the world is going.

Adapt or die. Because life is pain, princess. It doesn't mean it has to hurt.

---

PS. I enforce Laura Antoniou's "porch rule" - this blog is my front porch. I welcome discussion! I even want disagreement, tell me I'm wrong! But if you're going to spew hate, bullshit or just being a troll, I'm going to delete your comments.

You want "free speech" - then go protest against the government, which is what the Constitution of the United States guarantees to the citizens of the USA. Otherwise, my blog, my front porch, my rules.

Andrewg, Are You Still Speedrunning?

After a hiatus from speedrunning, I am finally back at it! So here's what's up!

1) I just purchased a new laptop and capture card

I don't usually make large purchases. What this basically means is that I'm going to try to stream speedruns regularly on Twitch again. I am going to be spending the next few weeks trying to improve my stream and make sure things work properly. I am sick of having many stream issues, and my hope is that these purchases will bring an end to my many streaming problems.

2) I got a full time job

I'm finally making a little bit of income, and have a consistent schedule. I am currently working a second part time job, but plan to leave it in January 2016. Once I leave that job, my schedule will be open for more gaming, etc.

3) I moved a few towns over

While this isn't a big change, it means that I'll have a bit more flexibility in my life. The area is much nicer, and I'm really happy to have moved out of my home town finally. 

So my announcement is that starting January 2016, I plan to be streaming speedruns regularly and on a consistent schedule!

First order of business? Well, reclaim the Super Mario Bros. any% world record of course!

2016 Speedrun Line-Up:

1) Super Mario Bros. (NES) - Any%

2) Super Castlevania 4 (SNES-J) - Any%
3) Kirby Super Star - (SNES-J) - Any%

4) Mega Man (NES) - All Stages

5) Super Metroid (SNES) - Any%
6) Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario

Watch out!

TOY FAIR 2012: Skylanders Giants (Activision)

They're Skylanders ... only bigger. The new game is due this fall, and it looks great.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Grav-StuG Kickstarter Temporarily Postponed……

Unfortunately, I need to temporarily postpone the Kickstarter. A price quote for packaging and distribution services from china to the backers did not come back in time. It would be irresponsible with me to proceed without this aspect pinned down.

I will try to get a firm date once the quote comes in, with Chinese New Year, fast approaching I do not see that happening for at least a month. (most contacts will be unavailable for the month of February)

I will update you when I know more, thank you for your understanding.

-Mark

Storium Basics: Cardless Moves

Last time, we discussed multi-card moves here on Storium Basics. This time, I'd like to spend a bit of time on their opposite: cardless moves.

While most moves in Storium games will probably involve cards, cardless moves are an option in Storium. Narrators will vary on how much they like them. For my part, I'm totally fine with them as they add some great color to scenes, but I do want to caution that you not allow them to overwhelm scenes. They're great for adding detail but can also sap a scene of momentum if they are overused.

When writing a cardless move, think similarly to how you write a move for a Neutral card like a Subplot - but unlike neutral cards, cardless moves don't push the scene closer to completion. Remember, a challenge's remaining card slots are, in a way, the measure of how much "story" is left in the challenge, and how close it is to a conclusion. When you play cardless, you aren't changing that at all. You also aren't in any way tipping the challenge's balance - cardless moves obviously don't count as Strong or Weak, or even Neutral. In other words, the story of the challenge does not move forward in a significant fashion, and the actions of your character do not have a particularly noteworthy impact on the challenge.

When you write a cardless move it should be more about showing what your character is doing in the current status of the scene than anything else. Your move doesn't significantly impact the scene and doesn't move the situation forward in any notable way…but it still needs to relate to what's going on. You're not playing on a challenge, but…still think about the move in relation to a challenge and/or the scene all the same. It should never drift totally away from what the scene is focused on.

I'm fond of using cardless moves to show my character's reactions to big moments - to help make other players awesome by making clear that what they've done got a reaction out of my character. That's one good way of using these.

They can also be used to just develop a point a little more, without actually pushing it forward. Maybe your last move was about conversing with a character, trying to convince him of something, and while other stuff is going on in the scene, you'd like to take a moment to show that the conversation is still going on and develop the character's motivations a bit more, without actually having the challenge's situation change yet. That can be a good use of a cardless move.

The trick is to use them, but not abuse them. It's easy to fall into a trap of overusing these move types when a challenge is active. They're good for reactions, and good for further development...but don't react to everything, and don't develop everything. When challenges are active, keep the focus on playing on the challenges. Moves with cards, for most games, should clearly outnumber cardless moves while challenges are active...otherwise, games really risk losing momentum. Use them with restraint, and they'll work best.

That does bring up an important side note, though: There are times when a narrator will set up or continue a scene without challenges, specifically to give you the opportunity to roleplay with cardless moves. Obviously at that point, cardless moves are what the game's all about! Just remember to play according to the story, and even if there aren't challenges present, don't allow your character to overwhelm the rest of the game.

For more information on cardless moves and cardless moments, see these articles:

• Add Some Color with Cardless Moves
• A Chance to Breathe: Cardless Moments

Reminder Sms/Call Log Policy Changes

Posted by Paul Bankhead, Director, Product Management, Google Play

TLDR; As previously announced and directly communicated to developers via email, we'll be removing apps from the Google Play Store that ask for SMS or Call Log permission and have not submitted a Permissions Declaration Form. If you have not submitted a permissions declaration form and your app is removed, see below for next steps.

We take access to sensitive data and permissions very seriously. This is especially true with SMS and Call Log permissions, which were designed to allow users to pick their favorite dialer or messaging app, but have also been used to enable many other experiences that might not require that same level of access. In an effort to improve users' control over their data, last October we announced we would be restricting developer access to SMS and Call Log permissions.

Our new policy is designed to ensure that apps asking for these permissions need full and ongoing access to the sensitive data in order to accomplish the app's primary use case, and that users will understand why this data would be required for the app to function.

Developers whose apps used these permissions prior to our announcement were notified by email and given 90 days to either remove the permissions, or submit a permissions declaration form to enable further review.

More about app reviews

We take this review process seriously and understand it's a change for many developers. We apply the same criteria to all developers, including dozens of Google apps. We added to the list of approved use cases over the last few months as we evaluated feedback from developers.

Our global teams carefully review each submission. During the review process, we consider the following:

• Likelihood that an average user would understand why this type of app needs full access to the data.
• User benefit of the feature.
• Importance of the permission relative to the core functionality of the app.
• Risks presented by all apps with this use case having access to this sensitive data.
• Availability of more narrow alternatives for enabling the feature.

With this change, some uses cases will no longer be allowed. However, many of the apps we reviewed with one of these permissions can rely on narrower APIs, reducing the scope of access while accomplishing similar functionality. For example, developers using SMS for account verification can alternatively use the SMS Retriever API, and apps that want to share content using SMS can prepopulate a message and trigger the default SMS app to show via intents.

Tens of thousands of developers have already resubmitted their apps to support the new policy or have submitted a form. Thank you! Developers who submitted a form received a compliance extension until March 9th.

Next steps

Over the next few weeks, we will be removing apps from the Play Store that ask for SMS or Call Log permission and have not submitted a permission declaration form. If your app is removed and you would like to have it republished, you can do one of the following in the Play Console:

• submit a new version without these permissions, or
• submit a new version of your app that retains the permissions. Doing so will require you to complete a permissions declaration form inside the Play Console (coming soon) and will give you an extension until March 9th to remove the permissions or receive approval for your use case.

Keeping our overall Android ecosystem healthy is very important, and protection of user data is vital to the long term health of all developers. We know these changes have required significant work from you and we appreciate your efforts to create innovative experiences while protecting user's privacy.

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