Bluestocking's Organic Gaming

Metatopia was hard this year. We turned the news off and refused to talk about the world outside the convention centre. We battened the hatches, threw down some sand bags, and smiled at each other instead of continuing to die on the inside. The world outside was frightening. There was an invisible pressure we could all feel that made existing difficult. Each step we took, each game we ran, each hug we gave or receive felt weighted. But we endured. Beyond the dismal future of a dystopian novel we were spiralling inside, there was the pressure of our lives. All of us have been on one hell of a journey this year and we all have felt it. We've confronted our demons, we've gone looking for new tools and weapons to slay them with. We've born witness to radical pain and loss in ourselves and each other. We've seen such terrible shadows it's no longer possible to walk away from them. And we endured. There's something inherently beautiful and filled with grace ab...

It's that time of year again. The one where we push out the old, reflect on it (if we're brave) and usher in the new. We look at our game shelves, wonder what games will be under the tree (or in our inbox) and if we're very lucky, schedule a game or two before 2019 hits us. It's the time of year many of us spend thinking about our 2018 Game of the Year and what we're looking forward to next year. I have to admit that this year I have barely played anything. I counted the other day, and save a few conventions games, I've played about 8 game sessions. It makes me really sad. I did a fair bit of convention gaming, but mostly my gaming year has been spent organizing game rooms and conventions, getting Crossroads out, working on Robot Dreams, and becoming a better human. Yet through all of that, I've been doing a lot of listening. I've been talking to people at conventions about their struggles, through online mediums, and in my daily game life about what...

Today I was in a class on facilitating restorative justice. It's something I'm passionate about and something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. This class was particularly on point as we discussed community involvement in breaches of trust or in harm caused within the community. This is the part that interests me the most. In gaming, we see a tonne of breeches of trust. Of hurt and of harm. We see people fuck up, really hurt people, give up, walk away, or just forge ahead like nothing has happened and try to continue their work. We all have our own unique responses to it. In a later post, I'm excited to talk about how we can do better with those breaks as a community overall. But today I need to talk about my most recent post, Too Girly, and the backlash I received against it. Or more specifically: the feedback I saw on the internet. I specifically say feedback because while it was definitely backlash, and I can't support threats of violence, there was...