A Podcast about Games, Travel, and Creativity

A few weeks back my friend Kit La Touche raised the question “why aren’t there more Gypsy Brewery-like behaviors in game design?” [1]

I had to ask what he meant, and he described a scenario in which a brewery does not maintain its own facilities and instead travels around doing collaborative efforts with other breweries.

The analogy of the brewery facility in this case is that of the publishing imprint. So we could theoretically work together to put something out under a co-branded Transneptune/Brooklyn Indie games label. It strikes me as a really good excuse to go visit my friends, too — with the added benefit that it could lead to additional product/income.

Will Hindmarch chimed in that the description sounded like Freelancers – except that most freelancers are not given real credit as collaborators (with some exceptions). I can think of a handful of reasons why that might be for more formally organized businesses, but its frankly silly for independents not to.

Add this to Rob Donoghue’s thoughtful G+ post [2] about a gaming-focused version of Marco Arment’s new “The Magazine” app (which publishes four thousand-word essays about technology on a twice-monthly basis), and you have a really interesting idea for a new kind of gaming magazine.

There have been/are a few gaming magazines of note. I read Dungeon in the past while its counterpart Dragon was the more essential one. Star Wars Gamer sadly died before its time, and I don’t know the status of RPGirl zine. Which leaves Kobold Quarterly which is really quite specific in its focus as a D&D/Pathfinder/Other-Medieval-Fantasy-RPG extension.

Much of Rob’s thoughts about “The Magazine” occupy a tough space for games as a lot of the concern is about the iOS Newsstand feature vs. general mobile platform delivery. I’m personally much more aimed at platform agnostics and could put together a mobile-friendly web site without much trouble; and then offer individual access/download.

I’m curious if there is a market for such a thing. We’re certainly not short of potential content — it seems like it might just need the means to make it happen.

If you’re interested in either subscribing to such a thing, or producing paid content for such an endeavor – please let me know.

1. http://twitter.com/kobutsu/status/253604742075404288
2. https://plus.google.com/u/0/104915224203075819082/posts/ev238b94rfy

I’m really confused.

Yesterday I was subjected to what I would describe (in very uncertain terms) as sexual assault. I say uncertain, because I don’t particularly feel victimized, never felt threatened, and — if I wasn’t writing this — would probably forget about it in a week’s time. Were our sexes reversed, I wouldn’t hesitate. If a man had done to a woman, what was done to me, police would have been called without question.

* * *

So I’m GM’ing a semi-public game. Some random people show up after a brunch date and join in. It makes for the critical minimum I need to start the game and they’re completely new — I describe the overall setting and idea of an RPG, one asks if it’s like acting.

We start playing, and it’s a game that has it’s common detachment problems. You found bodies — whatever, we’ll investigate. A thug comes out of the back — whatever, we’ll beat him up. He gives you the name of his boss — sure, we’ll seduce him for information.

This is about where it gets weird.

With a very live-acting style, the woman rubs her torso (I want to say “suggestively” here, but for accuracy I’d need a more imperative word), and the NPC I’m running plays along. It’s very in his oeuvre. She touches my hand while playing to his ego. Sure – she’s improv’ing a little. And then when she started unbuttoning my shirt while miming the gaudy seduction of this NPC, I realized the situation had gone much further than expected. I shut the scene down, and shortly after, they left.
I passed it off to the other people at the table as her having probably had several mimosas (a suspicion which was corroborated by the shop-owner). But I was left really uncomfortable with what had played out — and specifically recognized the situation as what is constantly being described by the vocal activists I know, as a sexual assault. Or was it?

* * *

A man’s chest is generally not subject to the same zoning as a woman’s. I wasn’t groped, per se. So what happened? Do I get to talk about this without being derogatorily lumped into the “Men’s Rights Advocacy” camp? I’ve always heard that men can be raped, first and foremost from my mother. And more recently, I hear that that comment basically triggers spam-filtering and almost always accounts that person unworthy of notice because they’re usually twisting the conversation away from places where it’s a problem (the sole exceptions being made for men who have actually been subjected to rape/sexual assault).

That said, I can’t for the life of me discern whether or not this qualifies as a valid assault tale. That despite the fact that I was touched in a way that made me very uncomfortable, I never felt threatened, I was not hurt, and I don’t expect that I will feel any great anxiety over the event. Does it count for me?

Posted with Blogsy

Show Notes – 9/24/2012

A smattering of conversation from GenCon 2012 with Jenn from the Jennisodes podcast.

• Days mash together… what day is it?
• Sleeping is key
• Android: Netrunner sold out in record time

What we’re playing:

• Jen: D&D Next, and how it owes a lot to MHR and Lady Blackbird
• A Twenty-Sided Store shoutout begins an enormous D&D tangent
• Munchkin Apocalypse
• Project: Ninja Panda Taco

Tim ran booked games:

• Bulldogs!
• Kingdom of Nothing
• Shelter in Place (Ennie Award Winning)
• Games on Demand needs MORE GMs!
• Hyperreality has some early stage art!

What’s next for us?

• PNPT playtest/production. That and M:tG
• Plans for metatopia
• Tim wrote some flash fiction for Galaxy Aflame
• Where is Jenn taking the Jennisodes?
• Kickstarter for Hyperreality coming soon?
• Recounting the Spoils: 13th Age, Night’s Black Agents, Marvel Civil War

Download MP3