So there's this nano-game anthology called #Feminism:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/180114/Feminism-A-NanoGame-Anthology
It is a collection of short games fitting on one to three pages, with one appearing on six. Now, many of you will be going "lol feminism" by now, but I believe that all games have a right to a fair review. You might never know what you may find, even if you have a suspicion of the quality. Going through the pdf for the book I found the following:
- Book design is pleasant: a simple black-on-white text. When colored text, headers and boxes are used they have a nice contrast with the rest of the page. Everything's readable, but the text could have done with being a bit bigger.
- Pictures are sparse, limited to high quality stock photos between chapters. Pictures fill two whole pages while perfectly matching the other page. Very comfy.
- No page index in the PDF, so if you want to find a specific game you have to go back to the index in the book itself.
- The PDF is an OEF and as such highly searchable.
- Games are divided over 9 chapters, each with their own theme. 3-5 games per chapter.
- Games are mostly 1-3 pages long, with a single six-pager as an outlier.
- In chapters 1-5 the games are ordered to take a full-page spread if they're a two-pager or you get two one-pagers next to each other. Later on they mess this up when three-pagers are introduced, puting two-pagers after them instead of in front, putting a two-pager on the same sheet, meaning you have to turn it constantly to see the whole game. Not so comfy.
- Games are uniformally diceless, with some needing paper. Rules for character creation are provided per game. Some require special props; for example one needs a bottle.
- Games all have the same format: Background (contex), Setup (how to set up the game), Play (how to play), Debrief (talk about what happened).
- Tone between games is inconsistent: one game derides the "manic pixie dream girl" trope, while another revels in it.
- Some games add in direct links to YouTube, news sites, Spotify playlists and other things. Not only does this not work on paper, but it also dates the product immensely.
- Certain games paint widely inaccurate pictures of people, men and women alike. Same goes for relationships.
- Inclusion of muh wage gap.
- Some games encourage going out and interacting with other people not part of the game without their knowledge or consent. Anyone who knows LARPing knows that this is a no-go.
Then there are the "games" themselves. Why "games" and not games? Because only a handfull are actual games with win/lose states instead of roleplaying exercises. There's nothing wrong with those, but it's a bit deceptive to market roleplaying exercises as games. The games have three ratings each: Amount of players needed (in the 2-5 range), Duration (mostly under 1 hour each) and Emotional Intensity (from a light-hearted romp to deep emotional duress). The latter is of course only a rough estimation and not an absolute. And the game only explains these iconsin the intro, which comes after the contents page that uses these icons first.
But anyway, the book starts with a letter from the editors. It contains the usual "everything is sexist, anything great about men is great for everyone but everything great about women is for women" drivel, something about "plural and inclusive feminism" which means that the feminists who are not diverse enough should be dragged into the streets and shot as well as the claim that regular roleplaying games are "scenarios about five men doing, well, nearly anything" while discounting female characters and players alike.
Notable is that the editors also state that "rather than culling the collection to fit our own ideology, we tried to help each author realize their own vision". This suggests that little to no editing went into the games themselves, which really shows with some games. Then there's the "How to play" section, which explains what roleplayinhg games are, how to use the book and plenty on group safety and such. Game masters are called "facilitators", and not all games require them. Notable is that many games also include a "Debrief" section, where you talk about what you've learned from the game, which ties into the whole "roleplaying exercise" thing. But without further ado, here are the games!
A discussion on the "orgasm gap", or how women experience less orgasms than men during heterosexual sex. This takes place during a first date between a man and a woman. Two players play at the time: the "man" rants about "why they think it's natural/okay that women get less out of heterosexual sex" while the "woman" listens, replies with "semi-subtle body language" and can opt to leave at any time, ending the round. Once doen the "man" becomes the "woman" and a new "man" steps in, continue until all players have had both roles. Once done players recount their experiences. Notable for stating that "the couple can be made up of two people of any gender identity and sexuality", which kind of undermines the whole "man rants at women thing about why women have less orgasms during sex" when it's two gay dudes talking.
Flirt
A group effort, this game pits The Girl against The Flirt, with both having friends to help them. One of the few actual games in the anthology. Plays like a mix of Mafia and The Bachelor (as in the TV show). The game claims to have five roles while listing only four. Roles are appointed and both The Girl and The Flirt are given friends, with both of them being aware of their friends. Upon being given roles players are to develop characters for themselves based on things like genders and gender expressions (aka just how gay you are), sexual or relationship orientations (if you/re gay or not an whether you're a cuck or not) and governing moods and emotions (to quote from WoD, your Nature and Demeanor). They then start to talk about whatever with the others for 30 minutes. After this time The Girl has to guess who The Flirt was. If she guesses correctly, she wins. If not, The Flirt wins. The game is supposed to be a case study on how guys flirt with girls, but it falls flat because The Flirt does not need to actually flirt with anyone to win.
Spin the Goddess
Spin the Bottle, pagan lesbians style. Needs 4-5 players, all "self-dentifiying or gendered by society as women". There are five characters described that players have to play, but they are mere descriptions wihtout any effect on the game. On top of that there are five roles filled by the Coven that determine who gets to spin and how to react upon being kissed. The game starts with invoking the names of, amongst others, Hekate, Freya, Venus and The Morrigan. This means that this coven takes the Planescape approach to their paganism, of which I approve. They also invoke Artemis, which is a bit odd given that it's a spin the bottle game. Anyway, the first player takes the role of Sappho, spins the bottle and kisses whoever the bottle lands on. The one with the role of Freya/Venus/Aphrodite is to take the kisser into a deep embrace, The Morrigan is described in her threefold aspect and can either be shy, know her wants or guide the other being the Maiden, Mother or Crone. Gaia kisses everyone else after being kissed, and Hekate is a tiebreaker when it's not clear who the bottle landed on. She's also suggested to not do anything upon being kissed. After the kiss all roles switch to the person to the left and the new Sappho spins. After five spins another chant is performed. Players who are not lesbians are encouraged to epslore this side of themselves whether they want it or not, erasing their sexuality. Progress! Written by "The barbarian queen of Swedish LARP feminism" who "Is also well-known for the torture workshop that she runs to make LARPers better at giving each other a more physical experience". Holy shit.
Willful Disregard
Requires two players and a facilitator. It's a series of monologues about how a woman falls in love with a man, who does not return her feelings but is up for sex. She knows this but she's head over heels for him and wants to stay with him. It describes five scenes, followed by a monologue from both parties. First scene has them meet at couples dancing, he gets her dripping, they go to his place and fuck. The second scene has them go on a date. He tells her to dress up nice (black dress, pearls) and they meet at a sushi restaurant where they sit on the floor, which is uncomfortale for her. The person playing the guy has to have come up with three gifts of increasingly sexual nature to give her: stuff like a whip, a remote vibrator to put on immediately and another person to have a threesome with. Holy shit whoever thinks this is real has either gone on some really fucked up dates, doesn't know shit about dating or has watched way too much hentai. She breaks down crying, wanting to please him but not like this. He consoles her, takes her home and fuck. The third scene has her crave him while knowing he's fucking other women, so she diced to drop by with an excuse (she went to a club near his house and "missed her last bus"), flinging herself at him in desperation. It works and they fuck. Fourth scene has them in bed the morning after. He brings her breakfast, she starts to think he really likes her too and they fuck. Final scene has him come to her place for the first time for dinner. She asks him all sorts of questions to the point where he dumps her, gets up and leaves. The game is about how peopel see sex and relationships, but it feels really weird and unnatural.
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commando Squad is an assembled group of women who joined the military to afford a STEM education. They're a *quirky* squad on its last tour of duty before it's off to grad school. One of the few actual games in the anthology. Players write up their characters and a commander is appointed. The game takes 20 minutes and involves going to the outside world and interact with people not part of the game, A GARGANTUAN FUCKING NO-NO IN THE WORLD OF LARPING. Points are given when successfully interacting with people, from selfies to 60 seconds of complimenting someone (that's both difficult and creepy), touching other people's lips, get someone to draw you, dance with them or get them to fall in love with you, then vanish (that's emotional manipulation, people!). The group is then graded on how many points they gathered: 1-7 has only half the group survive, 7-12 (So what happens if you get exactly 7? No idea!) has everyone win, 12-15 has you "creating tectonic shifts in the fabric of gender" and 16+ nets you a victory of legend.
6oi6
This game has you act out scenes from the soap opera "Love, Lust and Lack of Trust", the only historical source that the year 6016 has on the 21st century. It's an acting exercise where players are given a scene to act out and… well, that's it. No extensive gender stuff going on here.
Tropes vs. Women
Oh yes. It even refers to Anita's YouTube channel. It has players act out a character trope that's offensive to characters in an attempt to analyze them. The first one is, uh… #TheManicPixieDreamGirl. Kinda being tonedeaf there, game. The others are #TheEvilDemonSeductress, featuring "a super sexy alien robot hybrid who needs to eat a man's heart in order to survive on Earth" (holy shit I'm gonna run that some day) preying on a man on his way to pick his daughter up from piano class, and #TheStrawFeminist who sees a man trying to console a sad woman and immediately starts to shriek rape. The scenarios can be played as clichés or as realistic, which can be difficult with the second scenario.
Lipstick
A feminist is going to debate an MRA on TV and considers whether or not she should wear lipstick to this debate. She feels that without she won't be taken seriously as a feminist but she's not good at applying the stuff herself and would only mess it up. This scenario forgets that there are makeup people whose exact job is being able to do stuff like this for you. Plus, she's always insecure while her MRA opponent is a charismatic SOB who's skilled at debating, meaning she's screwed either way.
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
A game that tries really hard to inverse the gender stereotypes in traditional heist movies. It stars a woman who tries to rob Queen Fatima of the Republic of Khaleeji Emirates. And yes, the mix is intended to be inaccurate and kinda offensive, taking a shot at how movies handle stuff like that in real life. It's an acting exercise for a movie that serves as social commentary, with the focus being too much on the former to make the latter work.
Tries to be a commmentary on how men and women are thought of by society to walk, move and interact: women submissive and men dominant. Players are to move around and inteact with one another following these rules. The first phase has them just walk around, the second has them follow relationships with players in the same group by spooning while standing up. The game urges you them to do this Tandem Charleston style, meaning the game gets points for style. The third phase has them form relationships with players from the other group, and the fourth has a winding down stage. The game also refers to a Spotify page, which really dates it.
Mentioning the Unmentionables
A series of exercises on the female body. It starts out with replacing one word in a movie title with the word "Vulva" (Fellowship of the Vulva, Vulva Hard, Delta Vulva, Bridge over the River Vulva, The Vulva has Landed, Death Vulva, The Hills have Vulvas, A Vulvaful of Dollars, Schindler's Vulva and Deep Vulva). The next exercise has the players in a workplace talk about how badly they want a cup of coffee, then for the next part they try to remember all their lines… and replace it with saying how badly they need to masturbate. For the third exercise they take turns playing the main character, a woman who got menstrual blood on her parents' white couch. Then do it again, but this time she spilled wine and see how reactions differ.
#Flesh
A game on the objectification of the female body. Requires at least one non-toxic, water soluble marker, preferably one per playerPlayers take turn writing "values, identity markers and characteristics of a person" on their own bodies. Once all players are done with writing either because of discomfort, space or the crushing reality of that they're not worth a lot they take turns to, and I shit you not, licking the words one by one off one anothers' bodies while narrating why those characteristics are not important. Holy fucking shit what wardrobe did I step through to get in this magical realm. Eventually all words are gone, with everyones' identities erased. Players then contemplate this loss of identity. This game has three authors, two of them have male names. I suspect that these guys managed to sneak their magical realm into the game under the guise of feminism. Top shelf, men.
Competitive selfie-taking. One of the few actual games in the anthology. A playlist is assembled and players have to take selfies while conforming to some very specific instructions. While the music plays the players take a selfie the moment the music makes it feel right. When someone takes a selfie the music is pauzed and the other players have to guess what emotion the player is conveying. If all other players guess wrong the player gets a heart, if at least one gets it right you get a star. When everyone's had their picture taken wait for the next song to start and do the same thing. After X songs compare the scores. The player with the most hearts has to take a selfie with the group, while the player with the most stars gets a high-five.
So Mom I Made This Sex Tape
An acting exercise. A girl has made a sex tape with her boyfriend. It was consensual, fun and tasteful, but without her approval he sent it in to a sex tape festival (I'm not sure those are even a thing…) She was upset at first, but now the organizers want to do an interview with the girl, which excites her. She tells this to her family: her mom, grandma, aunt and younger sister. Mom is the #KillAllMen kind of feminist who hates men, porn and sex and wants to report the boyfriend to the police. Grandma is an actual feminist who cares about actual feminist issues and while she disapproves of what has happened does not want to report the boyfriend. Auntie is pro-sex and porn, thinks that a woman taking charge of her sexuality empowers her, is hinted to be a cougar and thinks that, get ready for this, "Making and selling good porn is a more useful kind of feminist activism than Gender Studies at the university." Top kek there, auntie. The sister meanwhile just wants everyone to get along and worries about her sister's future. The four women try to advice the girl on what to do now, with the exercise being done after 17 minutes and she has to go catch her bus, at which point she has to make a descision.
My Sister, Malala
Written by a Swedish woman, this is a trio of acting exercises portraying three Pakistani girls. She describes it as "I realized that even if the situation of women and girls is harsher in Pakistan, the same structures of harassment and sexual threats are present in my own context. We are all Malala's sisters, I believe." Because yes, having a man sit with his legs just a bit too wide apart is the same as being shot in the face by the Taliban because you want to go to school. It starts with a description how backwater the country still is, with how women are possibly in mortal danger just from using the Internet. The first girl is asked by her English teacher to become a guest blogger on the school website, but this puts her at risk of becoming the next Malala minus the luck and talks about this with her parents. The second is about a girl who was passed for a scholarship to go to law school in favor of a boy and goes to bitch to the school headmaster, filled with more righteousness than common sense. The third has been sold into marriage for the equivalent of $1000, a lot of money. She wants to run away but her brother threatens to spread fake nudes of her and therefore forfit her life if she does so.
An acting exercise. A woman gets harassed on the street but her attacker gets chased off by a bystander. He goes with her to her appointment with her friends: one who is worried about her while the other is sceptical about the whole issue, thinking that the harasser had intentions that weren't this bad. Given that this takes place in France I suspect I know what kind of attacker there might have been involved.
Driving to Reunion
Yet another acting exercise. Four black women attent the reunion of their old college, an elite single-sex institute. They go their by car, which is odd given that they're all from different years ('75, '95, '05 and '15). The oldest one co-founded the black student union, the one from '95 was part of the queer collective and found both the regular climate and the tech department to be filled with microaggressions, the one from '05 is the sensible one who tries to balance her parenthood with her crippling student loans and the '15 ones is all up in BLM and uses "Black Twitter", which is apparently a thing.
Catcalling
A catcaller and two friends gang up on a woman. This exercise plays out in three scenes of two minutes each. First scene the target has her back turned and eyes closed, the second has her facing them but not looking at them and the third has her looking right at them. Then the group talks about their feelings.
The players take up several conflicting personalities to determine what Ava White is like. Yes, it's a postmodern version of Inside Out. It is kind of a game, in that only half of the personalities can be included while the rest has to go. No, there's not a lot more to it than that.
Shoutdown to Launch
This game is rocket science. Players are divided into two groups: one that built a manned spacecraft headed for the moon, the Ad Astra One while the other does a technical review. This game is notable for being six pages long, four of which being handouts to copy. Two of them are an ad libs game of determining problems (when part A does B C, with D to snip at the others), with the other two pages being a bona fide rocket engine diagram. The reviewers ad lib statement, and when one of the parts that the engineers built get talked smack they are to interrupt and put down any critique of their work. The game is meant to show what it feels like to be interrupted. However, I feel it to be more of a critique of work ethics in how you do no wrong and it's always someone else's fault. This game might also be extremely triggering for people who know their rocket science, because being told that the exhaust ducting might only operate through limited temperature ranges on the same day a ship is set to launch is bad mojo. Unless your name is Jebediah Kerman, of course.
Something to Drink with That, Sir?
A male passenger on an airliner asks things of the stewardess. This is described as to be emotionally laboreous and demanding of her feelings, but the posed scenarios are laughably light compared to what anyone who worked in the service industry might experience: the passenger calling that he spilled his drink on himself, that there's a mother and a baby next to him and that he'd like another seat, or, and I quote: "The plane is experiencing in-flight mechanical trouble and the pilots have requested that passangers such as my self to remain calm. You will need to calm me." Even when described by the person playing the passenger describes this it sounds way too nice for the shit people go through on a daily basis.
Ma, Can I Help You with That?
A diabetic elderly woman is helped around the house by her son and daughter-in-law. He lives the closest to mom of all his siblings, so he drew the short stick. His wife does not really "get" her, and the two of them have to keep her from doing the stuff she could do just fine earlier, but now is either physically incapable of doing or doesn't want to keep up her 'beetus diet. It's an acting exercise, but by far the most genuinely heavy and difficult of the whole book.
A roleplaying exercise on "intersectional feminism", aka what feminism is when feminists of different amounts of privilige meet and the more priviliged ones don't want to admit this. One takes on the role of a female businesswoman, mother and feminist while the other is giving her a manicure. She's also an immigrant looking to make a living in the country. She came here to make a living for herself and her children. Back home she was a skilled professional with a job, status and family. So she left this all behind and went to a country where she does not know the language, has no job, cannot find work in her profession and has to mind every cent. With no other options she took a job at her relative's nail studio to do a job she knows nothing about. The immigrant has to give the customer a manicure (an actual one or just pretending). The customer has a tip jar and the immigrant has an emotional labor jar (emotoional labor is newspeak for "putting up with your bullshit because it's my job"). If the immigrant does something the customer likes she adds a token to the tip jar and removes one when she does something the customer dislikes, while if the customer does something the immigrant dislikes she adds a token to the emotional labor jar while if the customer does something she dislikes she adds to the jar. You might figure that this could make for a game, but instead it goes for a swing and a miss. The two of them talk on a number of subjects, and at the end of the session they look at how full the jars were and reflect on how they got that full.
Stripped
A woman has taken up a job as a lap dancer out of her own volition. In four scenes she interacts with four other people: one is a demagogue who considers her own views on sexuality to be the only valid one, considers the lap dancer a victim of perverts that don't exist and that "she needs saving from them for her own good". The second is a guy who considers her a slut for taking the job and considers visiting her at her work to see how good she is. The fourth is wants to support her in any possible way, including financially (no gender is given, but it's clearly a white knight). The final one meanwhile doesn't care because it's the woman own choice, aka the only sane one. Four scenes are played out, after which there is a discussion.
President
Akhaia is an empire that conducts preventive warfare to ensure its continued existence. It has elected its first female president, a general and open feminist who wants to outlaw prostitution. Most people consider the wars the empire wages to be in its interests, except for the radical left. The reason nobody has rounded them up and shot them yet is because Akhaia is a democratic nation that does not do stuff like that, even if the general population considers these communists to be traitors to the empire. A journalist is going to be reporting on the new president's election and discuss this with four feminists: a business woman who is all about quotas for women in business and politics and can barely comprehend that other people might have opinions that don't match hers, a radical man-hating feminist who has made statements that she'll castrate pre-op trans women with her bare hands if they call themselves female, an anti-war feminist who considers the new president a war criminal, thinks that women suffer the most in war and wants something done about women working in low-class jobs (nursing, cleaning) while being a stripper herself, and a trans woman scientist who wants to unite all feminists to crush the patriarchy, thinks that sex workers are off worse if prostitution is illegal and tries to keep things level headed.
Curtain Call
Claiming to be inspired by the life of Tori Amos, this is a roleplaying exercise in four phases set in various stages of a female artist's life. One plays the artist, another the second party, while the rest play fans. The fans gather around the artist at some distance: if she says something a fan likes they get closer, if they dislike it they move away. The first exercise has the artist in her teenage years while she's being interviewed about her music, her experiences and whether she's got a boyfriend or not. The second has her in her 20s and has her interviewed about sexuality and relationships, with the interviewer hitting on her (which is a big no-no for interviewers). The third has her in her 30s with her being scolded by record company bigwigs for writing about her daughter and husband and sees her kicked from the label because "nobody wants to fuck a woman with a kid", meaning they are blind to MILF appeal. The last has her in her 40s with her agent telling that people are mocking her messed up plastic surgery, low album sales, how her menopause is affecting her music and that ticket sales are low, and how she plans to fix this. Afterwards everyone talks about their feelings.
An extra note here:
If a chapter is an uneven amount of pages long there is a quote on the next page in white against a monocolored background. At this point the book drops a UN wage gap quote.
A woman's boyfriend gets home drunk while she's in bed and pressures her into sex. A few hours later she lies in bed wide awake, thinking that she might have been raped. Players take on the voices in the woman's head: one of guilt blaming her of what's happened, one of anger claiming that she was raped, one of rationality claiming it was not rape and him being a drunk asshole, one of fear that does not want to blame him for anything and thinks he'll leave her, and desire who did kind of enjoy the sex and wonders what he thought of it. The five voices talk about what happened and try to decide what did happen, with a conclusion needing to be reached after 25 minutes of talking.
Family Planning Clinic
Five scenes set in a French health clinic. Each scene has 2-3 people involved talking about issues pertaining women's sexual health. The first scene is a conversation between a councilor and a 15 year old girl who only recently started sexual contact and has questions. The second scene has a couple be mad at a doctor because they were told that their IUD would prevent pregnancy 100% of the time but she still got pregnant, and now want to know about sterilization (pro tip: aside from not having sex or rather severe health issues there's no way to 100% ensure you won't get pregnant). The third scene has a novice councilor try and talk with a girl while her overbearing mother keeps butting in. The fourth has a councilor talk to a woman who experiences vaginismus (pain of the vagina when it is penetrated by anything) and her boyfriend, with they and their relationship suffering over the issue (which is quite a severe issue IRL), and the final one has a girl who is suggested to come from a strict religious background be 11 weeks pregnant and wants to get an abortion, but wants to hide it from her parents. The issue is made more complex by the fact that in France abortions are only legal in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, but the councilor would be willing to help her get one in Belgium if needed or claim it's in the context of mother rescue (for the purpose of saving her life). Then talk about what happened and how it differs from where you live.
First Joyful Mystery
In Ireland abortions are illegal, unless the mother's life is at stake and this is certified by several medical professionals. Players play a variety of pregnant characters and a variety of supporting cast. Examples for the pregnant are a woman whose child has severe fetal abnormalities and will have a poor quality of life (so she's birthing Hotwheels), an underaged girl who got knocked up by her underage boyfriend and he'll face statuetory rape charges if it comes out (not sure if it works that way…), a trans man who feels betrayed by his body, a woman with a severe addiction and worries how her fight against the addiction hampers her child, a victim of rape/incest, and a woman with cancer who needs to start chemo ASAP but she's pregnant. The supporting cast can either be in favor or against the abortion, ranging from family to medical professionals, teachers and priests. Conversations are played out followed by talks about the conversations.
The only game designed specifically for cis men (it specifies this). They take up the roles of women who have been abused and fled to a shelter. As they fled they had to leave behind something precious to them and tell stories to the others about what they have left behind and what it means to them. Everyone gets to talk 5 or so minutes, after which everyone talks about their feelings.
Her Last Tweet
You play a computer science major who is working on campus when a mass shooting starts. The game claims that "it focusses on the way that lone male gunmen often target women", which is contradicted by the claim that "64 percent of mass shooting victims are women", which is not the same. It also mentions Elliot Rodger and how he wanted to punish women, neglecting to mention that only a quarter of his victims were women: two dead and three injured. Anyway, players have to determine what their characters are and play out four phases: the first has them talk in the campus library to determine who they are. The second has them react to a campus shooting in another state. The third has them be in the library again and has an emergency broadcast go out about how there's a shooter about, at which point everyone writes down a final tweet they'd like to send out, for which they have 30 seconds. Finally the facilitator flips a coin for each player, notes the result, then flips again. If the results match that player has been shot and reads out their final tweet. Survivors talk for a bit after this. The debriefing has everyone talk about what happened.
Tour of Duty
Five scenes based on the stories of female soldiers in the US military. Players take on the roles of such women who talk about their experiences. The first one is based on why they became a G.I.. The second is how they experience the fact that there are no special accomodations for female soldiers, they're held up to the same standards and use the same equipment, all designed for men. The third is on how they hold the same jobs as male soldiers in the field and how they function in their co-ed units, what they had to do to survive, whom they had to kill, who died for her, who they dragged from the helicopter when it was downed and so on. Th fourth talks about MST, Military Sexual Trauma, which is sexual harassment and worse in the military. The fifth deals with the aftermath of reporting MST: discharge, transfer, further attacks (sexual and non-sexual), PTST, addiction, depression and homelessness. While this game tries to address these issues and tries to comment on them it inadvertently turns into a list of advice for women and why they should not join the military.
How to make #Feminism
The final chapter is a summary on how the game was made and the goals they set out to accomplish. These goals were:
- Sneak more feminism into our ordinary gaming spaces.
- Persuade more women, particularly first-time designers, to make games and mentor them.
- Get feminist games into the hands of others.
- Have fun.
After reading the book I can say that these goals were not entirely met. The first one, "sneaking" feminisim into ordinary gaming spaces fails because A: only three out of the THIRTY-TWO games in the book can actually be called games, and B: it's not "sneaking" when the title of the book is "#Feminism". The second is a noble intention, exept of all the games there is only one confirmed and two inferred first-time writers on board, with many of them being experienced. And that's discounting all the men who wrote for #Feminism. The third point I'll concede worked, after all the game got into my hands and this is a feminist game. The fourth I too concede that was met for the authors.
Final Thoughts
As mentioned before, I do not consider #Feminism a collection of games per se. Nor are they LARPs: they are acting exercises. Some of them try to convey a message yet utterly fall flat while trying to do so, or are way too preachy and heavy-handed or even outright pretentious and narcissistic. Plus, few of them deal with actual feminist issues. If you want to learn actual roleplaying there are far better games to do that with, both as roleplaying in the context of a game and as acutal games. The book is nicely designed but it could have done with some more editing. So does #Feminism work as a feminist RPG? To be honest, not really.
Rating:
At least the book is designed better than some other games out there.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/180114/Feminism-A-NanoGame-Anthology
It is a collection of short games fitting on one to three pages, with one appearing on six. Now, many of you will be going "lol feminism" by now, but I believe that all games have a right to a fair review. You might never know what you may find, even if you have a suspicion of the quality. Going through the pdf for the book I found the following:
- Book design is pleasant: a simple black-on-white text. When colored text, headers and boxes are used they have a nice contrast with the rest of the page. Everything's readable, but the text could have done with being a bit bigger.
- Pictures are sparse, limited to high quality stock photos between chapters. Pictures fill two whole pages while perfectly matching the other page. Very comfy.
- No page index in the PDF, so if you want to find a specific game you have to go back to the index in the book itself.
- The PDF is an OEF and as such highly searchable.
- Games are divided over 9 chapters, each with their own theme. 3-5 games per chapter.
- Games are mostly 1-3 pages long, with a single six-pager as an outlier.
- In chapters 1-5 the games are ordered to take a full-page spread if they're a two-pager or you get two one-pagers next to each other. Later on they mess this up when three-pagers are introduced, puting two-pagers after them instead of in front, putting a two-pager on the same sheet, meaning you have to turn it constantly to see the whole game. Not so comfy.
- Games are uniformally diceless, with some needing paper. Rules for character creation are provided per game. Some require special props; for example one needs a bottle.
- Games all have the same format: Background (contex), Setup (how to set up the game), Play (how to play), Debrief (talk about what happened).
- Tone between games is inconsistent: one game derides the "manic pixie dream girl" trope, while another revels in it.
- Some games add in direct links to YouTube, news sites, Spotify playlists and other things. Not only does this not work on paper, but it also dates the product immensely.
- Certain games paint widely inaccurate pictures of people, men and women alike. Same goes for relationships.
- Inclusion of muh wage gap.
- Some games encourage going out and interacting with other people not part of the game without their knowledge or consent. Anyone who knows LARPing knows that this is a no-go.
Then there are the "games" themselves. Why "games" and not games? Because only a handfull are actual games with win/lose states instead of roleplaying exercises. There's nothing wrong with those, but it's a bit deceptive to market roleplaying exercises as games. The games have three ratings each: Amount of players needed (in the 2-5 range), Duration (mostly under 1 hour each) and Emotional Intensity (from a light-hearted romp to deep emotional duress). The latter is of course only a rough estimation and not an absolute. And the game only explains these iconsin the intro, which comes after the contents page that uses these icons first.
But anyway, the book starts with a letter from the editors. It contains the usual "everything is sexist, anything great about men is great for everyone but everything great about women is for women" drivel, something about "plural and inclusive feminism" which means that the feminists who are not diverse enough should be dragged into the streets and shot as well as the claim that regular roleplaying games are "scenarios about five men doing, well, nearly anything" while discounting female characters and players alike.
Notable is that the editors also state that "rather than culling the collection to fit our own ideology, we tried to help each author realize their own vision". This suggests that little to no editing went into the games themselves, which really shows with some games. Then there's the "How to play" section, which explains what roleplayinhg games are, how to use the book and plenty on group safety and such. Game masters are called "facilitators", and not all games require them. Notable is that many games also include a "Debrief" section, where you talk about what you've learned from the game, which ties into the whole "roleplaying exercise" thing. But without further ado, here are the games!
1: Romance
First DateA discussion on the "orgasm gap", or how women experience less orgasms than men during heterosexual sex. This takes place during a first date between a man and a woman. Two players play at the time: the "man" rants about "why they think it's natural/okay that women get less out of heterosexual sex" while the "woman" listens, replies with "semi-subtle body language" and can opt to leave at any time, ending the round. Once doen the "man" becomes the "woman" and a new "man" steps in, continue until all players have had both roles. Once done players recount their experiences. Notable for stating that "the couple can be made up of two people of any gender identity and sexuality", which kind of undermines the whole "man rants at women thing about why women have less orgasms during sex" when it's two gay dudes talking.
Flirt
A group effort, this game pits The Girl against The Flirt, with both having friends to help them. One of the few actual games in the anthology. Plays like a mix of Mafia and The Bachelor (as in the TV show). The game claims to have five roles while listing only four. Roles are appointed and both The Girl and The Flirt are given friends, with both of them being aware of their friends. Upon being given roles players are to develop characters for themselves based on things like genders and gender expressions (aka just how gay you are), sexual or relationship orientations (if you/re gay or not an whether you're a cuck or not) and governing moods and emotions (to quote from WoD, your Nature and Demeanor). They then start to talk about whatever with the others for 30 minutes. After this time The Girl has to guess who The Flirt was. If she guesses correctly, she wins. If not, The Flirt wins. The game is supposed to be a case study on how guys flirt with girls, but it falls flat because The Flirt does not need to actually flirt with anyone to win.
Spin the Goddess
Spin the Bottle, pagan lesbians style. Needs 4-5 players, all "self-dentifiying or gendered by society as women". There are five characters described that players have to play, but they are mere descriptions wihtout any effect on the game. On top of that there are five roles filled by the Coven that determine who gets to spin and how to react upon being kissed. The game starts with invoking the names of, amongst others, Hekate, Freya, Venus and The Morrigan. This means that this coven takes the Planescape approach to their paganism, of which I approve. They also invoke Artemis, which is a bit odd given that it's a spin the bottle game. Anyway, the first player takes the role of Sappho, spins the bottle and kisses whoever the bottle lands on. The one with the role of Freya/Venus/Aphrodite is to take the kisser into a deep embrace, The Morrigan is described in her threefold aspect and can either be shy, know her wants or guide the other being the Maiden, Mother or Crone. Gaia kisses everyone else after being kissed, and Hekate is a tiebreaker when it's not clear who the bottle landed on. She's also suggested to not do anything upon being kissed. After the kiss all roles switch to the person to the left and the new Sappho spins. After five spins another chant is performed. Players who are not lesbians are encouraged to epslore this side of themselves whether they want it or not, erasing their sexuality. Progress! Written by "The barbarian queen of Swedish LARP feminism" who "Is also well-known for the torture workshop that she runs to make LARPers better at giving each other a more physical experience". Holy shit.
Willful Disregard
Requires two players and a facilitator. It's a series of monologues about how a woman falls in love with a man, who does not return her feelings but is up for sex. She knows this but she's head over heels for him and wants to stay with him. It describes five scenes, followed by a monologue from both parties. First scene has them meet at couples dancing, he gets her dripping, they go to his place and fuck. The second scene has them go on a date. He tells her to dress up nice (black dress, pearls) and they meet at a sushi restaurant where they sit on the floor, which is uncomfortale for her. The person playing the guy has to have come up with three gifts of increasingly sexual nature to give her: stuff like a whip, a remote vibrator to put on immediately and another person to have a threesome with. Holy shit whoever thinks this is real has either gone on some really fucked up dates, doesn't know shit about dating or has watched way too much hentai. She breaks down crying, wanting to please him but not like this. He consoles her, takes her home and fuck. The third scene has her crave him while knowing he's fucking other women, so she diced to drop by with an excuse (she went to a club near his house and "missed her last bus"), flinging herself at him in desperation. It works and they fuck. Fourth scene has them in bed the morning after. He brings her breakfast, she starts to think he really likes her too and they fuck. Final scene has him come to her place for the first time for dinner. She asks him all sorts of questions to the point where he dumps her, gets up and leaves. The game is about how peopel see sex and relationships, but it feels really weird and unnatural.
2: Women and the Media
Manic Pixie Dream Girl CommandosThe Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commando Squad is an assembled group of women who joined the military to afford a STEM education. They're a *quirky* squad on its last tour of duty before it's off to grad school. One of the few actual games in the anthology. Players write up their characters and a commander is appointed. The game takes 20 minutes and involves going to the outside world and interact with people not part of the game, A GARGANTUAN FUCKING NO-NO IN THE WORLD OF LARPING. Points are given when successfully interacting with people, from selfies to 60 seconds of complimenting someone (that's both difficult and creepy), touching other people's lips, get someone to draw you, dance with them or get them to fall in love with you, then vanish (that's emotional manipulation, people!). The group is then graded on how many points they gathered: 1-7 has only half the group survive, 7-12 (So what happens if you get exactly 7? No idea!) has everyone win, 12-15 has you "creating tectonic shifts in the fabric of gender" and 16+ nets you a victory of legend.
6oi6
This game has you act out scenes from the soap opera "Love, Lust and Lack of Trust", the only historical source that the year 6016 has on the 21st century. It's an acting exercise where players are given a scene to act out and… well, that's it. No extensive gender stuff going on here.
Tropes vs. Women
Oh yes. It even refers to Anita's YouTube channel. It has players act out a character trope that's offensive to characters in an attempt to analyze them. The first one is, uh… #TheManicPixieDreamGirl. Kinda being tonedeaf there, game. The others are #TheEvilDemonSeductress, featuring "a super sexy alien robot hybrid who needs to eat a man's heart in order to survive on Earth" (holy shit I'm gonna run that some day) preying on a man on his way to pick his daughter up from piano class, and #TheStrawFeminist who sees a man trying to console a sad woman and immediately starts to shriek rape. The scenarios can be played as clichés or as realistic, which can be difficult with the second scenario.
Lipstick
A feminist is going to debate an MRA on TV and considers whether or not she should wear lipstick to this debate. She feels that without she won't be taken seriously as a feminist but she's not good at applying the stuff herself and would only mess it up. This scenario forgets that there are makeup people whose exact job is being able to do stuff like this for you. Plus, she's always insecure while her MRA opponent is a charismatic SOB who's skilled at debating, meaning she's screwed either way.
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
A game that tries really hard to inverse the gender stereotypes in traditional heist movies. It stars a woman who tries to rob Queen Fatima of the Republic of Khaleeji Emirates. And yes, the mix is intended to be inaccurate and kinda offensive, taking a shot at how movies handle stuff like that in real life. It's an acting exercise for a movie that serves as social commentary, with the focus being too much on the former to make the latter work.
3: Body
RestrictionsTries to be a commmentary on how men and women are thought of by society to walk, move and interact: women submissive and men dominant. Players are to move around and inteact with one another following these rules. The first phase has them just walk around, the second has them follow relationships with players in the same group by spooning while standing up. The game urges you them to do this Tandem Charleston style, meaning the game gets points for style. The third phase has them form relationships with players from the other group, and the fourth has a winding down stage. The game also refers to a Spotify page, which really dates it.
Mentioning the Unmentionables
A series of exercises on the female body. It starts out with replacing one word in a movie title with the word "Vulva" (Fellowship of the Vulva, Vulva Hard, Delta Vulva, Bridge over the River Vulva, The Vulva has Landed, Death Vulva, The Hills have Vulvas, A Vulvaful of Dollars, Schindler's Vulva and Deep Vulva). The next exercise has the players in a workplace talk about how badly they want a cup of coffee, then for the next part they try to remember all their lines… and replace it with saying how badly they need to masturbate. For the third exercise they take turns playing the main character, a woman who got menstrual blood on her parents' white couch. Then do it again, but this time she spilled wine and see how reactions differ.
#Flesh
A game on the objectification of the female body. Requires at least one non-toxic, water soluble marker, preferably one per playerPlayers take turn writing "values, identity markers and characteristics of a person" on their own bodies. Once all players are done with writing either because of discomfort, space or the crushing reality of that they're not worth a lot they take turns to, and I shit you not, licking the words one by one off one anothers' bodies while narrating why those characteristics are not important. Holy fucking shit what wardrobe did I step through to get in this magical realm. Eventually all words are gone, with everyones' identities erased. Players then contemplate this loss of identity. This game has three authors, two of them have male names. I suspect that these guys managed to sneak their magical realm into the game under the guise of feminism. Top shelf, men.
4: The Digital Age
SelfieCompetitive selfie-taking. One of the few actual games in the anthology. A playlist is assembled and players have to take selfies while conforming to some very specific instructions. While the music plays the players take a selfie the moment the music makes it feel right. When someone takes a selfie the music is pauzed and the other players have to guess what emotion the player is conveying. If all other players guess wrong the player gets a heart, if at least one gets it right you get a star. When everyone's had their picture taken wait for the next song to start and do the same thing. After X songs compare the scores. The player with the most hearts has to take a selfie with the group, while the player with the most stars gets a high-five.
So Mom I Made This Sex Tape
An acting exercise. A girl has made a sex tape with her boyfriend. It was consensual, fun and tasteful, but without her approval he sent it in to a sex tape festival (I'm not sure those are even a thing…) She was upset at first, but now the organizers want to do an interview with the girl, which excites her. She tells this to her family: her mom, grandma, aunt and younger sister. Mom is the #KillAllMen kind of feminist who hates men, porn and sex and wants to report the boyfriend to the police. Grandma is an actual feminist who cares about actual feminist issues and while she disapproves of what has happened does not want to report the boyfriend. Auntie is pro-sex and porn, thinks that a woman taking charge of her sexuality empowers her, is hinted to be a cougar and thinks that, get ready for this, "Making and selling good porn is a more useful kind of feminist activism than Gender Studies at the university." Top kek there, auntie. The sister meanwhile just wants everyone to get along and worries about her sister's future. The four women try to advice the girl on what to do now, with the exercise being done after 17 minutes and she has to go catch her bus, at which point she has to make a descision.
My Sister, Malala
Written by a Swedish woman, this is a trio of acting exercises portraying three Pakistani girls. She describes it as "I realized that even if the situation of women and girls is harsher in Pakistan, the same structures of harassment and sexual threats are present in my own context. We are all Malala's sisters, I believe." Because yes, having a man sit with his legs just a bit too wide apart is the same as being shot in the face by the Taliban because you want to go to school. It starts with a description how backwater the country still is, with how women are possibly in mortal danger just from using the Internet. The first girl is asked by her English teacher to become a guest blogger on the school website, but this puts her at risk of becoming the next Malala minus the luck and talks about this with her parents. The second is about a girl who was passed for a scholarship to go to law school in favor of a boy and goes to bitch to the school headmaster, filled with more righteousness than common sense. The third has been sold into marriage for the equivalent of $1000, a lot of money. She wants to run away but her brother threatens to spread fake nudes of her and therefore forfit her life if she does so.
5: On the Move
A Friend in NeedAn acting exercise. A woman gets harassed on the street but her attacker gets chased off by a bystander. He goes with her to her appointment with her friends: one who is worried about her while the other is sceptical about the whole issue, thinking that the harasser had intentions that weren't this bad. Given that this takes place in France I suspect I know what kind of attacker there might have been involved.
Driving to Reunion
Yet another acting exercise. Four black women attent the reunion of their old college, an elite single-sex institute. They go their by car, which is odd given that they're all from different years ('75, '95, '05 and '15). The oldest one co-founded the black student union, the one from '95 was part of the queer collective and found both the regular climate and the tech department to be filled with microaggressions, the one from '05 is the sensible one who tries to balance her parenthood with her crippling student loans and the '15 ones is all up in BLM and uses "Black Twitter", which is apparently a thing.
Catcalling
A catcaller and two friends gang up on a woman. This exercise plays out in three scenes of two minutes each. First scene the target has her back turned and eyes closed, the second has her facing them but not looking at them and the third has her looking right at them. Then the group talks about their feelings.
6: Playing Well With Others
How to be Ava WhiteThe players take up several conflicting personalities to determine what Ava White is like. Yes, it's a postmodern version of Inside Out. It is kind of a game, in that only half of the personalities can be included while the rest has to go. No, there's not a lot more to it than that.
Shoutdown to Launch
This game is rocket science. Players are divided into two groups: one that built a manned spacecraft headed for the moon, the Ad Astra One while the other does a technical review. This game is notable for being six pages long, four of which being handouts to copy. Two of them are an ad libs game of determining problems (when part A does B C, with D to snip at the others), with the other two pages being a bona fide rocket engine diagram. The reviewers ad lib statement, and when one of the parts that the engineers built get talked smack they are to interrupt and put down any critique of their work. The game is meant to show what it feels like to be interrupted. However, I feel it to be more of a critique of work ethics in how you do no wrong and it's always someone else's fault. This game might also be extremely triggering for people who know their rocket science, because being told that the exhaust ducting might only operate through limited temperature ranges on the same day a ship is set to launch is bad mojo. Unless your name is Jebediah Kerman, of course.
Something to Drink with That, Sir?
A male passenger on an airliner asks things of the stewardess. This is described as to be emotionally laboreous and demanding of her feelings, but the posed scenarios are laughably light compared to what anyone who worked in the service industry might experience: the passenger calling that he spilled his drink on himself, that there's a mother and a baby next to him and that he'd like another seat, or, and I quote: "The plane is experiencing in-flight mechanical trouble and the pilots have requested that passangers such as my self to remain calm. You will need to calm me." Even when described by the person playing the passenger describes this it sounds way too nice for the shit people go through on a daily basis.
Ma, Can I Help You with That?
A diabetic elderly woman is helped around the house by her son and daughter-in-law. He lives the closest to mom of all his siblings, so he drew the short stick. His wife does not really "get" her, and the two of them have to keep her from doing the stuff she could do just fine earlier, but now is either physically incapable of doing or doesn't want to keep up her 'beetus diet. It's an acting exercise, but by far the most genuinely heavy and difficult of the whole book.
7: At Work
Glitzy NailsA roleplaying exercise on "intersectional feminism", aka what feminism is when feminists of different amounts of privilige meet and the more priviliged ones don't want to admit this. One takes on the role of a female businesswoman, mother and feminist while the other is giving her a manicure. She's also an immigrant looking to make a living in the country. She came here to make a living for herself and her children. Back home she was a skilled professional with a job, status and family. So she left this all behind and went to a country where she does not know the language, has no job, cannot find work in her profession and has to mind every cent. With no other options she took a job at her relative's nail studio to do a job she knows nothing about. The immigrant has to give the customer a manicure (an actual one or just pretending). The customer has a tip jar and the immigrant has an emotional labor jar (emotoional labor is newspeak for "putting up with your bullshit because it's my job"). If the immigrant does something the customer likes she adds a token to the tip jar and removes one when she does something the customer dislikes, while if the customer does something the immigrant dislikes she adds a token to the emotional labor jar while if the customer does something she dislikes she adds to the jar. You might figure that this could make for a game, but instead it goes for a swing and a miss. The two of them talk on a number of subjects, and at the end of the session they look at how full the jars were and reflect on how they got that full.
Stripped
A woman has taken up a job as a lap dancer out of her own volition. In four scenes she interacts with four other people: one is a demagogue who considers her own views on sexuality to be the only valid one, considers the lap dancer a victim of perverts that don't exist and that "she needs saving from them for her own good". The second is a guy who considers her a slut for taking the job and considers visiting her at her work to see how good she is. The fourth is wants to support her in any possible way, including financially (no gender is given, but it's clearly a white knight). The final one meanwhile doesn't care because it's the woman own choice, aka the only sane one. Four scenes are played out, after which there is a discussion.
President
Akhaia is an empire that conducts preventive warfare to ensure its continued existence. It has elected its first female president, a general and open feminist who wants to outlaw prostitution. Most people consider the wars the empire wages to be in its interests, except for the radical left. The reason nobody has rounded them up and shot them yet is because Akhaia is a democratic nation that does not do stuff like that, even if the general population considers these communists to be traitors to the empire. A journalist is going to be reporting on the new president's election and discuss this with four feminists: a business woman who is all about quotas for women in business and politics and can barely comprehend that other people might have opinions that don't match hers, a radical man-hating feminist who has made statements that she'll castrate pre-op trans women with her bare hands if they call themselves female, an anti-war feminist who considers the new president a war criminal, thinks that women suffer the most in war and wants something done about women working in low-class jobs (nursing, cleaning) while being a stripper herself, and a trans woman scientist who wants to unite all feminists to crush the patriarchy, thinks that sex workers are off worse if prostitution is illegal and tries to keep things level headed.
Curtain Call
Claiming to be inspired by the life of Tori Amos, this is a roleplaying exercise in four phases set in various stages of a female artist's life. One plays the artist, another the second party, while the rest play fans. The fans gather around the artist at some distance: if she says something a fan likes they get closer, if they dislike it they move away. The first exercise has the artist in her teenage years while she's being interviewed about her music, her experiences and whether she's got a boyfriend or not. The second has her in her 20s and has her interviewed about sexuality and relationships, with the interviewer hitting on her (which is a big no-no for interviewers). The third has her in her 30s with her being scolded by record company bigwigs for writing about her daughter and husband and sees her kicked from the label because "nobody wants to fuck a woman with a kid", meaning they are blind to MILF appeal. The last has her in her 40s with her agent telling that people are mocking her messed up plastic surgery, low album sales, how her menopause is affecting her music and that ticket sales are low, and how she plans to fix this. Afterwards everyone talks about their feelings.
An extra note here:
If a chapter is an uneven amount of pages long there is a quote on the next page in white against a monocolored background. At this point the book drops a UN wage gap quote.
8: Difficult Decisions
The Grey ZoneA woman's boyfriend gets home drunk while she's in bed and pressures her into sex. A few hours later she lies in bed wide awake, thinking that she might have been raped. Players take on the voices in the woman's head: one of guilt blaming her of what's happened, one of anger claiming that she was raped, one of rationality claiming it was not rape and him being a drunk asshole, one of fear that does not want to blame him for anything and thinks he'll leave her, and desire who did kind of enjoy the sex and wonders what he thought of it. The five voices talk about what happened and try to decide what did happen, with a conclusion needing to be reached after 25 minutes of talking.
Family Planning Clinic
Five scenes set in a French health clinic. Each scene has 2-3 people involved talking about issues pertaining women's sexual health. The first scene is a conversation between a councilor and a 15 year old girl who only recently started sexual contact and has questions. The second scene has a couple be mad at a doctor because they were told that their IUD would prevent pregnancy 100% of the time but she still got pregnant, and now want to know about sterilization (pro tip: aside from not having sex or rather severe health issues there's no way to 100% ensure you won't get pregnant). The third scene has a novice councilor try and talk with a girl while her overbearing mother keeps butting in. The fourth has a councilor talk to a woman who experiences vaginismus (pain of the vagina when it is penetrated by anything) and her boyfriend, with they and their relationship suffering over the issue (which is quite a severe issue IRL), and the final one has a girl who is suggested to come from a strict religious background be 11 weeks pregnant and wants to get an abortion, but wants to hide it from her parents. The issue is made more complex by the fact that in France abortions are only legal in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, but the councilor would be willing to help her get one in Belgium if needed or claim it's in the context of mother rescue (for the purpose of saving her life). Then talk about what happened and how it differs from where you live.
First Joyful Mystery
In Ireland abortions are illegal, unless the mother's life is at stake and this is certified by several medical professionals. Players play a variety of pregnant characters and a variety of supporting cast. Examples for the pregnant are a woman whose child has severe fetal abnormalities and will have a poor quality of life (so she's birthing Hotwheels), an underaged girl who got knocked up by her underage boyfriend and he'll face statuetory rape charges if it comes out (not sure if it works that way…), a trans man who feels betrayed by his body, a woman with a severe addiction and worries how her fight against the addiction hampers her child, a victim of rape/incest, and a woman with cancer who needs to start chemo ASAP but she's pregnant. The supporting cast can either be in favor or against the abortion, ranging from family to medical professionals, teachers and priests. Conversations are played out followed by talks about the conversations.
9: Violent Encounters
Girl: A Game for BoysThe only game designed specifically for cis men (it specifies this). They take up the roles of women who have been abused and fled to a shelter. As they fled they had to leave behind something precious to them and tell stories to the others about what they have left behind and what it means to them. Everyone gets to talk 5 or so minutes, after which everyone talks about their feelings.
Her Last Tweet
You play a computer science major who is working on campus when a mass shooting starts. The game claims that "it focusses on the way that lone male gunmen often target women", which is contradicted by the claim that "64 percent of mass shooting victims are women", which is not the same. It also mentions Elliot Rodger and how he wanted to punish women, neglecting to mention that only a quarter of his victims were women: two dead and three injured. Anyway, players have to determine what their characters are and play out four phases: the first has them talk in the campus library to determine who they are. The second has them react to a campus shooting in another state. The third has them be in the library again and has an emergency broadcast go out about how there's a shooter about, at which point everyone writes down a final tweet they'd like to send out, for which they have 30 seconds. Finally the facilitator flips a coin for each player, notes the result, then flips again. If the results match that player has been shot and reads out their final tweet. Survivors talk for a bit after this. The debriefing has everyone talk about what happened.
Tour of Duty
Five scenes based on the stories of female soldiers in the US military. Players take on the roles of such women who talk about their experiences. The first one is based on why they became a G.I.. The second is how they experience the fact that there are no special accomodations for female soldiers, they're held up to the same standards and use the same equipment, all designed for men. The third is on how they hold the same jobs as male soldiers in the field and how they function in their co-ed units, what they had to do to survive, whom they had to kill, who died for her, who they dragged from the helicopter when it was downed and so on. Th fourth talks about MST, Military Sexual Trauma, which is sexual harassment and worse in the military. The fifth deals with the aftermath of reporting MST: discharge, transfer, further attacks (sexual and non-sexual), PTST, addiction, depression and homelessness. While this game tries to address these issues and tries to comment on them it inadvertently turns into a list of advice for women and why they should not join the military.
How to make #Feminism
The final chapter is a summary on how the game was made and the goals they set out to accomplish. These goals were:
- Sneak more feminism into our ordinary gaming spaces.
- Persuade more women, particularly first-time designers, to make games and mentor them.
- Get feminist games into the hands of others.
- Have fun.
After reading the book I can say that these goals were not entirely met. The first one, "sneaking" feminisim into ordinary gaming spaces fails because A: only three out of the THIRTY-TWO games in the book can actually be called games, and B: it's not "sneaking" when the title of the book is "#Feminism". The second is a noble intention, exept of all the games there is only one confirmed and two inferred first-time writers on board, with many of them being experienced. And that's discounting all the men who wrote for #Feminism. The third point I'll concede worked, after all the game got into my hands and this is a feminist game. The fourth I too concede that was met for the authors.
Final Thoughts
As mentioned before, I do not consider #Feminism a collection of games per se. Nor are they LARPs: they are acting exercises. Some of them try to convey a message yet utterly fall flat while trying to do so, or are way too preachy and heavy-handed or even outright pretentious and narcissistic. Plus, few of them deal with actual feminist issues. If you want to learn actual roleplaying there are far better games to do that with, both as roleplaying in the context of a game and as acutal games. The book is nicely designed but it could have done with some more editing. So does #Feminism work as a feminist RPG? To be honest, not really.
Rating:
At least the book is designed better than some other games out there.
