Very Sick, so I’ll skip to the bullet points.

Blenda is like woah. You’ll want to realize the writer of the site I’m linking is a little.. um… male oriented, but the character herself is still fantastic and worth looking into in more detail. (Just, yanno, not me right now because, well, sick.)

• Vikings are yay to gamers, right? Heh. Well, Viking women are yay-er. Sorry. They just are.
• Teenage hero? Check.
• Community working together to save community? Check.
• Non violent problem solving? Half check. Yeah, they slaughter the drunken invaders in their inebriation, but at that point, that was the choice they had. (Hint: Don’t rape and pillage, end result, you don’t get axed to death by Viking women.)

From the article linked:

The King of Sweden returned from his campaign to find that Blenda and her girlfriends triumphantly standing on top of a massive heaping pile of dead Vikings, and was so pumped up about the whole thing that he granted the women of Smaland a bunch of totally awesome political and social rights that had been previously unavailable to them.  From that point on, all daughters had the right to inherit property, money and land equally with their brothers, and were allowed to wear military-style garments around town and at their weddings.  They were also given the prestigious right to wear the Royal Coat of Arms on their clothing – a tradition that has lasted to this day.  Blenda is still recognized as a national hero in Sweden.

This makes me both want to go to Ikea and also defend against invading hordes.

So now I’m not digging that far back into history. That’s not an accident. Because what we’re really talking about with Ms. Grier is the history of film, and that doesn’t go back that far.

Pam Grier is an award winning actress who came out of some problimatic film genres. I am down with (from modern sensibility) taking issue with those flicks. But I don’t think that means we should discount Pam, and more importantly, where her career went from there.

Foxy Brown, for whatever you want to say about it, was important. A movie with a title character both black and a woman? We see those now, but do they get much in the way of respect or attention? Rarely. She is arguably, the first female action star. (Don’t believe me? Ask Tarantino. Dude’s a film nerd the way I could only hope to be a gaming nerd.) And she looked the part. I believed her kicking ass and taking names. I believed her tough and rugged and in change. I believed she paved the way for Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripply, despite the difference in film genre.

So what about your setting? Your game? What can you get from Pam when you’re putting together your histories and back stories?

Presence. When you’re creating those BIG important events, those bits of history that will matter to the story, its too common to just put a bunch of dudes names on things and be done with it. Like with the history of film in our real world, there are women and people of color all over the damn place and they matter. They change things. They effect the future of those histories. (Read: the present.) Even as your player characters are doing things that shape the history of your world right now in game, ask yourself, are the movers and shakers all men? Are those who influence the history happening right now only men? Or are you leaving room for the ‘exceptional’ woman to be found in every pocket of history? Pam’s a building block of modern film, and therefore, modern history. Is there a Pam Grier in the history of your setting? In the history that’s being made right now? (and yes, I mean more than just PCs.)

I’ve been running my pregnant butt all over the internet getting the word out about Flatpack: Fix the Future! (Luckily, running around mostly means sitting at my computer.)

Want to hear or read more? Sure! Get started with these find locations! Click on them, show them some love.

Sharkbone Podcast: Lots of laughing and what exactly to do with this six screws you always have left after building Ikea furniture.

Fumbl: Adam asks me how old I am, and I don’t even cry a little bit! (He’s got a lot of great interviews over there. You should check it out.)

Gamestarter: Josh Mannon, Jason Blair and I talk about what’s up lately on Kickstarter. Jason reads my mind and knows exactly what’s going to bug me about one of the Kickstarters.

Great locations, and you can actually skip the stuff about me and Flatpack if you’ve heard enough about it because they all have a lot of crazy interesting material.

With everything else I have going on, you thought I was going to forget about Exceptional Women Friday, it’s okay. I’m a little surprised I didn’t myself!

I got about a bazillion recommendations for awesome women to inspire setting, characters, and history in your games. Really, a bazillion. So I thought I’d start with someone close to home. (IE: Right straight out of my comments on this here blog.) Thank you, Joe Mcdaldno for pointing her out in previous comments.

You can of course, and should, read up more about here, you can start here, for the quick run down. Further reading is ALWAYS a good idea. But you know that already.

The short story is that Agnes was a revolutionary who used words instead of guns. Her efforts as a journalist and a person was to enlighten and educate, effecting the tides of revolution and change by encouraging people to look at what they were doing. We love the image of the lady revolutionary wearing the beret and carrying an uzi, but violence isn’t the only way to change the world. Agnes fought for birth control, women’s and children’s right locally. But she also supported a British-Free India and wrote with sympathy about the Chinese revolution. Oh. And spies. There were spies involved. But you can read up on that more yourself. What I wanted to do is use her actual history as a spring board for things you can do with this real world historical ass-kicker in your games of many flavors. Also, I get to use bullet points. Which I love.

• Look Edumacated: If you are playing a modern character with revolutionary leanings, (Carthians, Anarchs, similar White Wolf splats, I am SO looking at you,) than you should have this lady’s name on your lips. She’s a great talking point during your game of Misspent Youth or while playing a vivaciously independent White Court vampire in Dresden Files. (Look at the name drops.) She’s an example modern revolutionary characters can draw from when trying to convince your iconoclast team mates that maybe MAYBE shooting your way through the status quo isn’t so brilliant a plan. Plus, it makes you look SO SMART.
• Foreign Aid Abroad: Maybe you’re playing in a fantasy setting. Maybe you’re playing in a fantasy setting where there’s conflict going on, war, unrest, civil nonsense between two countries, but you AREN’T actually in either of those nations. That’s okay. Sympathy for the plights of others is a big motivator for some people, as shown here by Agnes tireless efforts to support India. It could be a very interesting character trait if your character is, say, trying to collect gold and support for the plight of Orcs in the Northen country even if he or she is not an orc themselves. A background motivation that isn’t directly tied to whatever McGuffin you and your buddies are trying to collect from whichever dungeon adds dimension and gives you motivation to do stuff. Better still, a good GM will use that against you. Erm. I mean, will use that for added drama and story!
• Spy Stories: Playing Blowback with your friends but you yourself are having trouble coming up with a character that’s an spy? Or maybe you’re looking for something different when playing around with Spycraft? An activist journalist fits very very nicely into stories about espionage. (So much so, I think it’s a fairly common trope, isn’t it?) You’re not there on govermental behest. No shady group is working behind you. You’re there to get to the truth, and that’s a damn powerful motivation. Better still, think of the potential excitement and in character interaction possible while your team mates work hard to keep you as a loyal asset without giving away anything that could get them killed by their higher ups. Drama of the best sort!

I could go on, but I should also probably work on, yanno work, but the reason we need to say ‘these women exist’ is so that we can bring them into our games. Not just as proof that ‘hey, women are cool too’ but to demonstrate great ways to showcase how women are cool.

So, who and how, that’s what you should be thinking. And sharing. Who’s exceptional to you, and why? What would you draw from Agnes’ story for your game or your character?

Some of you may have already heard, but I’ve kickstarted my first solo design project, Flatpack: Fix the Future.

In 12 hours, we beat our initial funding goal. (ZOMG! Really!) I think it’s because David made the best video ever. (Not counting any of them that are better.)

So people have asked what the handmade Flatpack Building Pieces will look like if you’re one of the ten lucky people who gets our Deluxe(Lunch)Box Edition. Well, that’s hard to describe. So here’s where visual aids come in.

In the book, Flatpacks will look awesome like this!

Art by Actual Artist Jeremy Kostiew

When you’re playing, you’ll be putting your building pieces on a map. It will go something like this.

Illustration Done by Not Artist Me

Here’s what the top-down version of that lovely 3d model will look like. (This is a very rough version.)

Art by Actual Artist Jeremy Kostiew

Gifu is one of our bigger buildings. It should take up about nine squares on your map when you play it. (Don’t worry, the rewards are worth it.) So when you drop this bad boy down it takes up some SPACE!

Imagine that Gifu has been broken up into nine inch by inch blocks. A nice high rez image of Gifu will be printed on a solid surface. Then, each inch by inch square of the image will have one of these bad boys on the top.

It isn’t 3d by any stretch of imagination, but it will bring out many of the details of the image and bring a little shine and polish to your game table. Drop those down on a fancy map with an inch by inch grid and it’ll bring people by to ask ‘whatcha doin’?’ pretty fast.

And don’t forget, the 30 some game pieces I’ll be handmaking in this method will come in a custom printed metal lunchbox. Because lunchboxes are cool.

And you can find that Kickstarter right here! Get involved, and everyone gets more free stuff!  

Sometimes, I hear in gaming and the fantasy genre in general, ‘yes, but women couldn’t do that in those days, so you can’t do that with your character!’

Yes, a limited view of history applied to made up stories to justify suppression of the female voice in modern media. The fact is, there were amazing women doing amazing things that they ‘shouldn’t have done’ thanks to that limited view of history. Which makes me sort of wonder, but I’m not going to expound on ‘why.’

Instead, I think we should all celebrate ‘why not’! So here’s what I propose. Fridays, right before the weekend and many people head off from their real jobs to write or game, lets remind them with a collection of women kicking history in the ass with their sheer awesome. I’ll be trying to post one weekly on G+ or here. You do the same. Like a cat meme, with more purpose.

Don’t know where to start?

*Try here.

*http://www.chickhistory.com/

*http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/

There are some great podcasts on the subject, as well as just crawling around in Wikipedia for a while. So, go, your turn, share the love and rock the history hard. Please, steal this idea, you’re welcome to it.

I’ve done a mad and crazy thing.

I’ve written my own game. I’ve collected some art. I’m doing some layout. The whole thing has been a crazy trip. Sometime in the early spring, I’ll be having a baby, so we’ll see if the full game is out before or after that.

In the meantime, have this TOTALLY FREE AND RAD demo of the game. It’s a one shot. It’s free. (Did I mention that.) And it has all the rules you need to play the adventure.

From the Ad text.

Have you heard anyone say that the future’s not so bright, and thought, “But I have lightbulbs?” If so, Flatpack is the game for you! Until someone tells us otherwise, we’re saying that Flatpack: Fix the Future is the first game in the smash Hyperoptimistic Postapocalyptic genre of gaming. Flatpack is a game about building a new society using pre-apocalypse technology that you don’t always trust or understand, and solving terrible problems creatively.

*Flatpack uses simple resolution mechanics made to be playable for anyone that can read.

*Think IKEA, meets Civilization, meets Actraiser, meets Earthbound, in pen and paper game form!

*Cooperative and tongue-in-cheek gameplay focused on puzzles, brainteasers, and play achievements.

We think you’ll like our free standalone adventure. Take it into your fallout shelter. If you don’t like it, after the apocalypse, we’ll triple your money back!

You’ll Need: A printout of the Conflict Cards (included). A printout of the One Page Rules (included). Enough character sheets (included) and pencils for each player, some way to read this booklet, one four sided die (d4,) two six sided dice (d6) and one eight sided die (d8.)

I expect you are well and truly hungry for the game I wrote with myself, (and other people who play games ‘wrong’) specifically in mind. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

And Happy Winter Whatever!

A while back, I wrote for the Chronicler’s Guide to Werewolf the Forsaken. We did a lot of crazy things with that book. (I did a chronicle hack for playing a lone wolf. Chuck Wendig sent the game back to Sumer and Matt McFarland really brought the horror back by causing characters to have no idea what they did when they changed. There’s a LOT of really fun chronicle hacks, and you should totally check them out.)

One of the hacks I did was to lift the ‘werewolves can’t get wild together’ rule. I messed with the setting and the in-game culture enough to allow characters to be involved physically and emotionally. (Actually, that’s already in the books to some extent, I just removed the parts that punished the characters for doing so.) I also added a mechanic for the levels of love a person can fall in love with and talked about how the People dealt with those stages. It was a BLAST to write and I think a lot of people had a good time with it. (Or so they’re saying on the internet.)

When I was originally writing and planning it out, I wrote a tongue and cheek section talking about what sex and love is like from the various tribes. Before I even showed it to my developer, (David) I cut it for wordcount and because it didn’t quite vibe with the rest of what I was doing. It ended up more like practice writing. (Something I am a BIG advocate for in any kind of writing.)

But anyway, it was still cute, and all this writing about sex and vampires reminded me of it. (Did I mention I just finished my redlines up for Strange, Dead Love? Why I did! And that’s a book about sex and vampires!) So here, for your viewing pleasure is a bit about werewolf sex and love I was too embarrassed to show to my editor.

Shot Gun Weddings and Kissing Cousins

At the end of the day, pack attitudes and the opinions of individual Uratha are what matter when it comes to sex and marriage.

You think so? Really? Tell that to little Billy’s over protective Tribal Elder who raised the kid to be a proud and strong Hunter in Darkness and doesn’t much care for your pretty Iron Master nose sniffing around his boy. Below are some example Tribal attitudes toward sex, marriage, and Uratha offspring.

Blood Talons

Should you marry a Blood Talon, (without being one?) Mm. Probably not. Of any tribe, the Blood Talons are the most hung up on the right breeding, (not good breeding, but the right breeding) and family lines like the Lodge of Garm are so vital that it’s almost impossible to get elder consent to mate with a Blood Talon without being one first.

Would I have a wild, whirl-wind affair with one? Damn right. Stalwart warriors and high idealists, a Blood Talon is the last Uratha you have to worry about giving into a berserker rage and do something you’ll both regret. That said, a Blood Talon won’t hesitate to kill when it’s necessary, so make sure you don’t insult her mother.

Bone Shadows

While the Blood Talons might be very worried about who you’re mating with, the Bone Shadows are likely to be very hung up on how you’re doing it. The preservation of ancient traditions to appease the ancestors and spirits who might over see your relationship is going to be a big deal. Don’t anticipate running to Vegas if your would-be bride a Bone Shadow. Instead, expect to be dragged onto the Hisil and introduced to each one of her ancestors three hundred years back with a formal greeting and exchange of Essence and other gifts.

That said, the Shadows do believe in payment in kind, and so they can be nurturing loves with an eye for giving as good as they get. Keep in mind though, if you screw around, payment in kind can mean something very different.

Hunters in Darkness

If you want the kind of lover you broadcast about to any and all channels, you may not want to hook up with a Hunter in Darkness. The master hunters maintain their affairs with the same silent dedication that they maintain their hunt. It isn’t anyone’s business what they do, or who they do it with, and if you’re along for the ride, you sure as shit better be able to keep your mouth shut.

But you want to talk about tender, romantic, and secretly thrilling? You want to talk about the smoldering passion the Hunters keep in check just aching for an outlet. If you can stand all the cloak and dagger crap, you’ll be thrilled by how they treat your sacred places while in their territory.

… Meaning your heart, of course.

Iron Masters

So, you do want that Vegas wedding after all? Maybe looking a little love outside the status quo? If it’s cutting edge, challenging to the old guard or even just plain freaky, you probably want to hook up with an Iron Master. While there’s something potentially kinky in the hearts and souls of any Uratha, the Iron Master’s willingness to change and try new ideas, it is refreshingly easy with members of this tribe.

Keep in mind, though, since they’re so flexible in their concepts of territory and what territory even means, you might well find yourself in part of the new definition. In which case, expect a lot of honor, and likely a lot of possessiveness.

Storm Lords

Power, authority, purpose.

Scary, huh? The Uratha mate or lover of a Storm Lord has to be prepared to be understanding at best, made of granite at worst. They may be condescending, traditionalist, dominant and obsessive.

But, they’re yours. If you can put up with their driven nature, a Storm Lord will weather just about anything with you, and better still, won’t complain about the little annoying things you do. That might show weakness.

We safely escaped the Dealer’s Hall safe and sound. We’re in a safe place with soft beds, and before for too long, I will be hanging out with my little girls again! Yay!!

If you stopped by our booth and talked to us, or bought our stuff, thank you so much ! I really enjoy talking to people and telling them about the stuff we make that I love! In talking to (Ennie Award Winner) Kirin Robinson Saturday night, and he said he felt like the currency in gaming isn’t really money, it’s love. And he’s so very right about that. When you remember the love, it’s easy to love, and that’s how the currency flows.

Now if only I could eat love for breakfast.

Soon, I will be putting together my silly little video project. More on that as it develops. To the industry women who took the time to speak to me, thank you. To those of you I missed, I’m humbly sorry about that. Maybe our paths will cross at a better point. Your voices matter to me.

I hope everyone else traveling from the convention, a safe journey home, no matter how far that may be.

Okay, I know both of you have been waiting all summer for this, but here they are!

That’s a total of 19 badges from right to left, top to bottom.

Gamer Family, Injury in the Line of Gaming (The Red Caltrap), Booted a Problem Player, Backstabbed your Significant Other, Rolled a Natural 20!, Hacked a Game, Gamer Signification Other, Destroyed another character for the Drama!, All Girls Game, Brought Food, Played a reeeallllllyyy long game, Blew up the game, Total Party Kill (GM), Diceless Play, Method Larper, Total Party Kill (Player), 3:2:1 Rule, Cried in Character, and lastly, Gaming while Sloshed!

As you can see, these are a little bit bigger than a quarter. Some of the color is washed out because I suck with cameras, the pink for example is not as bright as it could be. These are homemade by my mom on her machine at home, so some badges will have personality, but like all of us, that’s a part of their charm. They aren’t iron on, but if you REALLY don’t know how to sew a badge on, it’s either time to learn, or I’ll do it for you at the booth. (Time permitting.)

Where can you find these babies? Well, they’ll be available at our table at Gencon this year! You want these. You really do, and they’re very limited in number, (about a dozen each.) We may have more on the Intetubes later, after Gencon, but we have to see how these go first.