#Rae Nedjadi

[this-curiouscat]

💡and/or✨for the ttrpg hype ask game?

💡 A game that inspired my own design or creative practice.

I'll go at this a little sideways and say that I keep being inspired by Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi (a game about a found family of ghosts who live together in a house and need to figure out whether to recover their memories or make new ones instead).

Because that is one extremely well-explained game and I keep coming back to it to figure out just HOW Rae has made it so accessible, so inviting, and in such a gentle tone at that. Without ever feeling patronizing, the game reassures you that you'll be okay however you play (while still providing tips for getting the most out of it), gives you examples (the ongoing example of play is one of the best I've EVER read), suggests social scripts and wordings for those of us who find them helpful, and basically teaches you how to be a good player in a GM-less game (not just this one). It's endlessly encouraging and friendly, and it never veers into the kind of poisonous sweetness that makes me recoil elsewhere. It constantly lets you know that is has thought of your needs, your need for a break, for someone else's ideas, for space to imagine, for permission to interrupt others with enthusiasm without taking their words away from them.

It's always poetic and clear, and it makes you feel safe and brave at the same time (because you need safety to grow bravery - and you can use bravery to create safety). And it still never lets you forget that there's always sadness woven through our joy and always joy to find glimmering within our sadness.

You read Rae's explanations and not only do you understand the facts about his game, you also FEEL things as a person who might play it, you know?

I'm referencing Out Haunt directly as an influence in my German-only-so-far second edition of Fräulein Bernburgs Pensionat für junge Damen (Miss Bernburg's Finishing School for Young Ladies). I couldn't have written the examples in my chapter on setting up the game, nor my own example of play, nor the troubleshooting chapter the way I did without reading Our Haunt before.

I'm not sure if I'll ever manage to be that gentle and patient, but I'll keep trying. And I don't just mean in my game writing. Because really, all of this is never just about games. It's always also about us, the people who may play them with each other and the care we all deserve. And that is what I want to help create, not just with my games: Spaces where people care for each other. Spaces where people feel safe to ask questions, to express needs, and to wade a little deeper into creative vulnerability. 💖

✨ A game I wish more people were talking about.

One of this year's role-playing highlights was Midnight at the Oasis by Catherine Ramen (you can get it in Codex: Glamour on DriveThru).

It's a story game about a bar for crossdressing men in New York in the 1990s. On just 8 pages you get a fantastic, tightly-designed game in two acts and an epilogue. It comes with a handful of pre-made characters (which you'll flesh out with further details), all of whom are crossdressers with various backgrounds and from various age groups. The one exception is an "admirer" called Grant who can also be played (he's a sympathetic character at heart, but the other characters are still free to dislike him). The character questions during set-up are excellent and bring wonderful complications to the identities and relationships of these characters.

The game also gives you a bar map where every space comes with two options for a theme (such as "share a joy" and "confront a fear" for the dance floor) and some come with limitations what you can say there (you can only have a monologue in the bathroom). You can only interact with the characters sharing the same space in the bar (you can invite them to join you and they can either accept or refuse), and you're meant to explore the themes connected to the respective space. Like at an actual bar, you may miss a conversation at the bar while you're busy on the dance floor or vice versa, so no one can participate in everything, you always need to make choices, and you'll always miss out on other experiences.

The glossary on the last page of the game works almost like an oral history of terms and queer history (yes, I'm placing crossdressers, including heterosexual-identified ones, under the queer umbrella here on purpose - and in accordance with the game's author).

The heart of the game is the inevitable topic of transition that is brought into this bar on this particular night through the return of Dallas, a person who left the city a year ago to transition and is now back presenting male. The game clearly states that this detransition is temporary, and leaves it to the player of Dallas to define why it happened (which can remain secret) and the story of how it will be resolved is not part of the game.

It's a game about closets as safe spaces and safe spaces as closets, about choices, gender, desire (potentially), community, and how other people's identity impacts our own identity.

You don't need to be queer, trans, and/or a crossdresser to be able to play this game, but you need to be willing to play a crossdressing male character or someone who is attracted to such crossdressers.

I still haven't quite managed to put into words WHY this game is so great, but I highly recommend it and would love to see more people talk about it!

[merelymatt]

Where to find me at Dragonmeet 2022

(Sat 3 Dec, Novotel Hammersmith, London)

10am, Beaujolais, Mezzanine:

Jason Statham's Big Vacation

(Live play organised by The D20 Future Show, as part of the Podcast Zone. I'll be playing one of Jason Statham's entourage, trying to make sure he has a nice holiday and protecting him from the Wesley Sniper. Game designed by Grant Howitt)

4pm, second floor:

Indie Games on the Hour

(No need to book, just turn up a bit before 4 and I'll pitch some games for you to pick from. Likely some combination of galactic 2e by riley rethal, Mission: Accomplished! by Jeff Stormer, Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi, or Lichcraft by Laurie O'Connell)

For the rest of the day I'll be pootling about, checking in with people I know, going tk seminars, and buying things I don't need in the trade hall...

[thepenandpaperarchive]

2-0000-000E - BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home

by Rae Nedjadi of Sword Queen Games

Inspired by Filipino folklore, BALIKBAYAN takes place in a distant cyberpunk future. Players take the role of Elementals, enslaved beings whose power is harnessed to power the luxurious lives of human colonists, on the run from the corporations who would have them contained again.

BALIKBAYAN is available on itch.io for $10.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

since AAPI month is winding down here in the US I thought I'd recommend a few RPGs made by Asian designers that I've personally reviewed. Please consider throwing a few bucks to these folks, they're all working with some really fascinating stuff:

Moriah, by Kyle Tam

A narrative, dark linear pathway about climbing a sacred mountain the prevent the gods' wrath from annihilating the world. Genuinely one of my favorite narrative voices in RPGs to this day. Horrifically violent and grim, but I think some of you sickos who like self-mutilation, human sacrifice, and imagery out of the binding of Isaac will dig it.

Navathem's End by Sinta Posadas and Pam Punzalan

Taking elements from both PBTA and Blades in the Dark, Navathem's End is a beefy, beautifully illustrated fantasy game where players act as agents of an organization fighting against the consequences of the Gods. I really liked some of this game's unique twists on character advancement, I think this game is ripe for a long campaign if you're trying to shift your table away from D&D.

Spectres of Brocken by Aaron Lim

Mech fantasy meets high school AU. Spectres of Brocken lets you establish rivalries and romances while in a military training academy, and then play them out on the battlefield after a timejump. I think Lim explicitly is basing this off of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but if you've ever imagined being stabbed by your high school crush in a spear-wielding death machine, you should read through this one!

Apocalypse Keys by Rae Nedjadi

Hellboy meets Men in Black meets sad gay found family that'll eventually have to kill each other. Play as agents of the DIVISION that hunts down monsters threatening your world, while struggling to keep your own monstrous impulses in check. Perfect for monsterfuckers, as well as folks who thought Monster of the Week wasn't queer enough.

Ten Thousand Days for the Sword by Emily Zhu

Emily Zhu is my favorite tabletop designer. Their prose is immaculate, their brain is enormous, and their design is out of this world. Play as wuxia warriors battling in a cyberpunky city, using hundreds of martial arts techniques (such as Horse and Turn into a Demon) to best rival factions. Genuinely such a cool and fascinating game, I played a small campaign of it and it was SO MUCH FUN, thanks in no small part to Zhu's phenomenal writing.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Games with an atypical division of Player/GM responsibilities? For example, in Fellowship, the players have final say in lore/world building questions, not the GM. (Not counting GMless games, which have atypical GM duties by default)

Alternatively, if that's too niche: any games explicitly designed for rotating GMs and/or 'West Marches' style campaigns.

THEME: Unique Player Responsibilities / Rotating GMs

Hello there! I hope to do your ask justice, although I feel more at home talking about the first half of your question than the second. I’ll ask my followers to supply some more suggestions in the tags/reblogs, and throw at you what I have!

Fae’s Anatomy, by Hebanon Games.

Fae’s Anatomy is a comedic storytelling RPG wrapped around a challenging logic puzzle, recreating the high-stakes melodrama of medical procedurals like Grey’s Anatomy, House, and General Hospital. 

Anybody can be an expert in Fae’s Anatomy. The game is set in a world where all forms of magic, spirituality, and mysticism are science. Science? Just another form of wizardry. Quackary, superstition, and pseudo-science work, but so does chemotherapy, antibiotics, and sound medicine.

In many ways, I’d say Fae’s Anatomy feels like a typical ttrpg: you have one person giving hints and clues to the rest of the players, who will use certain skills and abilities to solve a problem. But the closest role to the GM role - the Patient - is simply different from the doctors in what limits them. The Patient is suffering from some kind of mysterious illness, and while they have a little bit of information available to their general illness, the app presented to them to help them run through the diagnosis keeps the solution obscured enough to keep them on their toes. The Patient also has to role-play their symptoms well enough to help point the doctors in the right direction. In some ways, it feels like Fae’s Anatomy is an elegant form of charades - and if you want to hear how this game plays, you can check out the special episodes that Lawful Great Adventures recorded using this game!

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi @temporalhiccup

The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

There are two ways in which Apocalypse Keys uniquely empowers the players in ways I consider slightly unorthodox. Firstly, there’s the fact that the lore of DIVISION, the shadowy government agency that holds your monsters leash, isn’t fully fleshed out at the beginning of play. It’s slowly uncovered with each mission and playbook advancement, with the players being presented with questions and workshopping the answers together.

Second is the mystery mechanic, which was popularized by Brindlewood Bay and The Between, and also made its way into games such as External Containment Bureau and Bump in the Dark. While the GM designs clues and thinks about what kinds of Harbingers might be responsible for this specific apocalypse, it’s up to the players to decide what the answer to the mystery actually is - and it’s the player’s roll that determines how accurate they are.

Brinkwood, Blood of Tyrants, by Far Horizons Co-Op.

Mask up. Spill blood. Drink the Rich.

The world is not as it should be. The rich feed, literally, upon the poor, as blood-sucking vampires who barely bother to conceal their horrific, parasitic nature. The downtrodden peoples of the world struggle under the burdens of rent, payable through the sweat of their labor or the blood of their veins. Evil has triumphed. Many have given in to despair. But all is not lost.

In Brinkwood, you take on the role of renegades, thieves, and rebels struggling for freedom and liberation in a castylpunk world controlled by vampires. Radicalized by tragedy, you have taken up arms and fled into the forests, where you were taken in by unlikely allies - the fae, forgotten creatures of myth - who offered a different path and the means to fight back against your oppressors. Masks, forged of old wood and older magic, are the final tool left to fight a war long ago lost. If you wear them, they will take their price, etching themselves upon your very soul. But they will also let you spill the blood of the rich and powerful vampires that now rule the land, and from that blood strengthen yourself and your movement.

There’s a lot of things about Brinkwood that I absolutely love, from the way the mask playbooks are meant to be swapped among the characters/players with every mission, to the slow but steady revolution that you build by fostering connections with various factions in the Bloody Isles. But for the purpose of this request, we need to talk about Your Exquisite Fae.

Your Exquisite Fae is the process by which the group collaboratively creates a faerie patron, otherworldly and uniquely powerful. It’s inspired by the game Exquisite Corpse, which has each player draw a piece of a drawing without knowing what the others have already created. In Your Exquisite Fae, the players receive answers to prompts written by other players but aren’t given hints as to what the context was - and then they elaborate on what those answers mean. For example, one player might state that the Fae has eyes that reflect the night sky, gleaming like a thousand distant starts. The second player might decide that those eyes see the deepest fears of the enemy, giving the group an advantage at finding weaknesses and secrets when spying on vampires.

Ars Magica, by Atlas Games.

Ars Magica is the award-winning roleplaying game by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen about wizards and their allies in Mythic Europe. This flexible, deeply built world can support games that are historically accurate or fantasy-based, epic or small scale, political or personal.

Players work together to tell the story of their covenant — all of the magi, their companions, and grogs. This history can span decades. It might be heroic, tragic, or both in turn. The covenant could influence the entirety of Mythic Europe or the fates of a small corner of the world.

Spells will be cast. Duels won and lost. Houses may rise and fall. But magic is forever.

The last time I talked about this game, one of my followers pointed out that this was an incredibly complex game that was designed to accommodate rotating GMs. The game styles itself as a troupe-style game, which means you’re not just responsible for your mages, but also your companions and servants. If you want a game with complex relationships and big-picture conflicts, this might be the game for you.

Slugblaster, by Mikey Hamm.

In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever.

This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool.

It may look like a small thing, but during crew creation, each character playbook has specific roles in determining the crew’s resources and relationships. The Grit picks a faction that trusts the crew. The Guts chooses a faction that the crew has somehow annoyed. Each player draws a portal between the known multiverses, but the Smarts draws two. The Chill has final say over where you hang out when you’re not Slugblasting, and The Heart has final say over your crew name.

I’ve drawn direct inspiration from this setup in my own game that I’m playtesting, by giving each playbook final say over some element in the world, and I think it really boosts player agency and gives them control over the kind of story the group wants to tell.

Planedawn Orphans, by Sharkbomb Studios.

Planedawn Orphans is a campaign kit that helps you prepare a campaign for the fantasy role-playing game of your choice. It provides a flexible and versatile framework to start a campaign. The campaign kit will help you get started and provide structure and support, but some assembly is required.

Set in the Planar City, a strange melting pot that connects the vast diversity of the multiverse. You all play Planar Orphans stranded in this city, your original home worlds destroyed, corrupted or lost. A mysterious Patron has brought you together, provided you with a base of operations and tasked you to complete a Planar Key. This key will let you create a new plane for you and your fellow refugees. Your quest will bring you to exotic places filled with strange creatures and bizarre phenomena.

This isn’t a standalone rpg, but rather a campaign kit for whatever system you like - or even multiple systems! I’m recommending this toolkit because I’m actually planning to use it to run a series of rotating-gm games later this year, with a friend of mine. You’re building your own custom dimension by jumping into a series of vastly different worlds, and your home base is built collectively. There’s a lot of player agency and GM agency here, as players have plenty of control over their home dimensions (since they can’t ever go back) and the GMs can take turns designing custom worlds for the party to jump into. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Also Check Out

Asymmetrical Games Rec Post

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Guillermo Del Toro's Apocalypse World

Touchstones: RIPD, Hellboy

Genre: Mystery, Monsters

What is this game?: Apocalypse Keys is about being a group of strange monsters solving mysteries in order to find the apocalypse keys and doors to stop the end of the world

How's the gameplay?: Apocalypse Keys runs in the standard PBTA framework, with a core difference of punishing overly high rolls by having your character feed into their darkness if they overextend their powers, Playbooks represent the character's origins, for example have they been transformed, summoned, are they a shade of the dead? etc. Another core mechanic are Ruin moves, which always succeed but tick up your ruin counter, if it fills up you could end up becoming the very harbingers you fight against. Apocalypse Keys' mechanics are generally pretty clever and understand the core tenet of PBTA, that being increasing drama

What's the setting (If any) like?: Apocalypse Keys puts the cast in a government agency whose aim is to contain Apocalypse Doors and Apocalypse Keys, strange mystical items which when combined can lead to the end of the world as we know it, meanwhile players must also fight Harbingers, people hunting for the apocalypse keys to bring on the apocalypse. It's a fun setting with a lot of room for interesting and strange plotlines, and the modules that come with the game truly show it, ranging from strange murder mysteries, Control style adventures, and other strange horrors

What's the tone?: Apocalypse Keys puts you into a world where everyone actively hates or shuns your cast from normal society and asks you to grin and bear it, characters are often toxic and float in and out of shitty relationships, but you will always at least have eachother

Session length: Apocalypse Keys' slightly complex tone compared to other PBTAs lends itself to longer 2-4 hour sessions

Number of Players: 3-6 is recommended

Malleability: Apocalypse Keys has many mechanics related to its setting, but it shouldn't be TOO hard to hack it into slightly different settings

Resources: Apocalypse Keys, as an Evil Hat game, has a ton of very well made Roll20 resources as well as non-roll20 for those who prefer that, a lot of industry standard stuff 

Apocalypse Keys is all i could really ask for in a Hellboy inspired TTRPG, its weird, gritty, and most of all, queer as fuck

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played APOCALYPSE KEYS ?

By Rae Nedjadi @temporalhiccup

The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

(TLDR by the Runner : Another game of queer disasters^^)

[summoningcirclepress]

We're so excited to have Meg and Vince Baker AND Rae Nedjadi (@temporalhiccup) together to talk Powered by the Apocalpyse for Splat 5!

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Been getting more followers recently, so time for a pinned post!

I'm Josh and I make tabletop role-playing games and games related things. What sort of things, you may ask? Here's a quick sampler of some greatest hits;

Vibe Check: Enter the Inversion - a The World Ends With You inspired action-fashion game.

DEATHGRIND!!MEGASTRUCTURE - a post-human, brutalist, over-the-top game of delving through a massive galaxy spanning structure.

Fractal Romance - a surreal hangout where you explore the randomly generated Fractal Palace.

EXTRACAUSAL - a build-your-own supernatural conspiracy game. Inspired by everything from X-Files, Fringe, and Control.

Layers of Unreality - a procedurally driven crawl through the liminal spaces between reality for the game Liminal Horror.

Into the Riverlands - a system neutral fantasy setting full of spooky forests, god-fish, and more.

I've also contributed to a bunch of stuff like Gila RPG's Slayer's Almanac, KeganEXE's In Extremis: Season of Discovery, and Rae Nedjadi's Apocalypse Keys!

If you want to check all my stuff out, head on over to my itch.io page!

I like talking and writing about game design, and try to post about there here. I'm always open to questions about different elements of design and making your own ttrpgs!

You can check out some of my larger in-progress games in over here;

Dark Confluence

Furry Crime Game (name pending)

Stampede Wasteland

[ladytabletop]

Game Roundup 2023: Part 3

Trying to squeeze in a couple more posts on this, but no promises! This one is going to have a laundry list at the bottom that I'm not going to give more detail on bc I lack time.

Bug Dish: Amuse Bouche by Ryan Khan

I cannot WAIT for the full version of this! Play as tiny bug chefs by collecting ingredients, making dishes, and serving customers!

HUNT by GilaRPGs

This one is one I picked up at GenCon. Play as an order of doomed knights hunting a beast. Uses the LUMEN 2.0 diceless system and grid-based combat, and it's a self-enclosed single session.

Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi

Another delightful Belonging Outside Belonging game by @temporalhiccup! This one has the potential for a lot of poignancy or a lot of hijinks. Play as ghosts haunting a house.

Eyes on the Prize by Ira Prince

This may be my favorite game of the year, hands down. Play as a fake married couple trying to carry out a scheme! Try not to fall in love!

APOCALYPSE FRAME by @binarystargames

This mecha game is the right amount of crunch for me to play long-term (which i to say, less crunchy than Lancere and Beam Saber). It makes use of LUMEN to create a super tight, fast-paced game of mech combat.

Other stuff I've read that I'm not going to elaborate on at this time:

House Spirit

To keep ghosts alive

Our Farm Becomes the Battlefield

Apocalypse, Wow

Keepers of the Cards

Definitely Wizards

Neon Sundown

Death Sentence

Phanta

The Queen Returns

house

Tavern at the End of the World

MirrorMoon

Forecaster: The Body You Share

i want your bite

Our Love Can't Save The World

Love by the Quarter Mile

Dragonhearts

your body, an altar

Subway Runners

Part 1 | Part 2

[open-hearth-rpg]

#RPGaDay2024

RPG with Great Writing

I’m torn on this one. My first instinct is something from Rae Nedjadi– Take My Revolution, Apocalypse Keys, BALIKBAYAN. All solid and evocative– but I also know Rae personally so let me move further afield. Blades in the Dark is another great read for learning the game, but fell down a little when trying to reference things in play. So I’m going to go with another one, a game I haven’t yet played but I read cover to cover. 

Eclipse Phase 2e, for some reason, really grabbed me. It really shouldn’t have. It’s a trad-heavy space game with waaaay too many moving parts for me. But weirdly I really enjoyed reading through it. It went down smooth despite all the world background, conceptual complexity, and granularity. 

I love how it’s presented as well– with a set of distinct campaign frames presented earlier on and a complete collection of sample characters for each– with the idea that you could mix and match these. Right away it focuses on how you onboard readers into the world and players into the game. I love that approach. I particularly dig games where there’s clearly been serious thought given to the presentation and how folks will be using the book. 

It has a ton of details– as you’d expect with this kind of transhumanist, high tech setting. But unlike some other sci-fi games (for example Infinity 2d20 or Mindjammer), I didn’t find myself with eyes glazing over and skipping forward over great swathes of the book. IDK if I’ll ever get to play it, but Eclipse Phase is something I’ll go back to when I want to consider how to present something big.

[temporalhiccup]

So I haven't talked about this much lately, but I'm a tarot reader! I've been reading the tarot for more than 20 years (WOW), and I even did it full time like as my job for more than 6 years before I switched to (of all things) creating tabletop roleplaying games (you know, my resume in general, is just kind of wild). ANYWAY for the first few years I experimented with using the tarot as a story game tool or ttrpg oracle, among other things. I try to blend actually reading the tarot and interpreting the cards (in an intuitive way) with the same way we spontaneously tell stories (which is, you know, also pretty intuitive! What a coincidence!)

So for the next few days you'll find eight of my tarot games on sale! Check them out!

BUT!

I also have three tarot games you can pick up, for free, as you like!

They are Stories of Love in Manila (which, despite featuring elemental Filipino beings of folklore is the closest to what being a tarot reader is actually like), My Shadowed Heart (a solo TTRPG, which means you can play it by yourself!), and Summoner's Fate (back when I could make entire games that fit four pages WHAT HAPPENED TO ME)

[carlydraws]

Some of my Illustrations for the ttrpg 'Apocalypse Keys' by Rae Nedjadi, Sword Queen Games and Evil Hat Productions. Inspired by myth, magic and folklore.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

My latest essay is about Apocalypse Keys by @temporalhiccup (Rae Nedjadi)!! Reading through its moves and playbooks, I was hit with the overwhelming sense that this game wanted me to want to belong, in a way that really hit me hard in a lot of weird, personal ways. I hope this video does justice to the themes of exclusion, diaspora, queerness, and the constant and all-important struggle to save our own individual worlds, the ones we build with the people we love, that this game evokes.

Transcript here.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any TTRPGs where 'Genderfuckery' (i.e. playing around with gender in some form - trans characters, nb characters, in-game genderbending, crossdressing, etc etc - anything that 'fucks around' with gender and conventional ideas of gender) is a central mechanic or thematic element in some form?

Heaven is Here, by Rae Nedjadi.

This is a game that is deeply stepped in magical surrealism, it is desperately mundane, it is laughter in a coffee shop, and sacrifices made to the moon. It is friendship bound up in art, in gender, and what it means to be human.

This game uses the Belonging Outside Belonging system, which encourages collaborative storytelling with simple rules. You are artists, people made of many layers caught up in entanglements with one another. You are magical beings, because to create art is to create magic. Art is expression and creation, tied intimately with who you are and who you wish to be. Discover what inspires you and what holds you back. What does your art mean to you? How do you feel about the art others create? What new forms of inspiration will you uncover?

Rae describes gender in this game as ever shifting. As artists, your gender is connected to your art and what you love. It is a game about big questions in mundane scenarios, called Moments. Currently there are four playbooks and four Moments, as the game is still in development, so it is likely best experienced in a smaller group.

Giant Metal Bodies, by TheGiftofGabes.

You have a Giant Metal Body. If you run out of juice, you’ll probably die, but you might just flee to die another day. If you survive at the end of your mission, it doesn’t matter. The war will continue to try and kill you another time. If you die, it doesn’t matter. The war doesn’t care about your sacrifice.

Giant Metal Bodies is a game about what it means to be a Giant Metal Body in a war much bigger than you, that doesn't care about you, and which will destroy you no matter what.

I know that there’s been a lot of talk about trans allegories in mech stories, so this game feels like a very fitting way to talk about the trans experience using tragic themes. It was also submitted to the Trans Fucking Rage Jam on Itch a year or so back, which likely has a number of submissions that you might find interesting!

Expanse, by TheTrueToad.

Expanse" is a short solo-RPG made for pondering and expressing one's own gender. Create an expansive map of values, colors, and textures for the landscape of your gender.

I love the example aspects that you can choose from in this game. You have your traditional genders, such as Masculine, Feminine, and Androgynous, but you also have options such as Purple, Timid, Voidlike and Witty. You will map out a landscape that represents your gender by drawing from a regular deck of playing cards, and reading the associated prompts. Each house in the deck responds to a different categories of aspects. I definitely am interested in how this game can provide alternate ways to think about gender; and you can create a lovely map along the way!

This game was made for the Trans Joy Jam, the counterpart for the Trans Rage Jam.

Elf Genders, by Lucian Kahn.

Elf Genders is a worldbuilding tool for creating your own new systems of fantasy genders. Most humans are women, men, or nonbinary, but maybe elves are… something else? Elf Genders helps you decide what!

This is not an rpg, but if you want to fuck with the genders of your fantasy game, this is a great place to start. This is a game session (or sessions, if you get really into it) to help you establish a setting and lore details of your elven folk, and what gender means for an elf. If you or your game group already have a game in mind, this is definitely worth looking at.

AetherNet, by Legendary Vermin.

The Internet as we know it ceased to exist after The Incursion, and in its place the sprawling Virtual Hyperreality of the Æthernet stretches horrible and festering in every direction. Plumb its depths in search of riches, miracles and ruins that the keepers of the mundane world will pay heartily for, just beware of the Daemons and UNGODS waiting for you in its depths, hoping to bend and shape your flesh to their own ends.

Make a character in seconds, ruin them for hours. The Player Book contains the minimum essential rules and setting information, and the Ref's Handbook fills in the other rules and tables you need to run the game.

The game itself takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk future where magic and technology are connected - and dangerous. There is actually a section in AetherNet titled “Genders” that asks you to roll 1d2 (or flip a coin) and roll a d6. This will give you one out of 12 options for your gender, which include options such as “a daemon bound you into a pact” or “once, you were a ship or space station and its crew”. Your Gender can also be changed or corrupted as you play, gaining qualities such as “without fear” or “too persuasive.” This is the most wild example of gender I’ve seen in a game so far, and I definitely recommend you check it out.

Sleepaway, by Possum Creek Games.

Sleepaway gives us long hazy days, chilled summer nights, kids screaming and chasing fireflies, crackling campfires, and a gaunt, cruel monstrosity forever hiding just out of sight, always asking, “What do you do next?”

In Sleepaway, you play as a group of camp counselors at a not-so-ordinary summer camp besieged by a strange and ominous cryptid, the monstrous Lindworm. It is a GMless horror game for 3-6 players, which uses the Belonging Outside Belonging system created by Avery Alder and Ben Rosenbaum. In it, players take control of not only their characters (which include archetypes like the Lifeguard, the Songleader, the Crafter, or the Athlete) but also the world around them, picking up Setting Elements to react to their friend's decisions. As the game goes on, the players also invite the Lindworm to play with them, causing horrific events to callously occur throughout the place space.

A Belonging Outside Belonging game, Sleepaway is a game that can be played without a GM, because each player will pick up a setting element sheet and be responsible for it throughout game play. This is the closest to what I was looking for when it came to gender, because your characters have gender options such as “A Robin,” and “A Particular Colour.” The game itself is a great setting to explore danger and liminal spaces, as summer camps are excellent places for self-discovery, as they take place away from your typical surroundings. Also, Possum Creek Games has a well-deserved reputation for making games that play well and make you feel something. You should definitely check it out.

Games I've Recommended in the Past

Women are Werewolves, by 9th Level Games.

Wanderhome, by Possum Creek Games.

Blood Feud, by Bläckfisk Publishing.

Gay Crime, Sapphics Against Capital, by Evey Lockhart.

Here, There Be Monsters! by wendi yu.

Dream Askew / Dream Apart, by Buried Without Ceremony.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Our Haunt is a cozy game about playing as a found family of ghosts in a haunted mansion, its a chill fun time