#Feminism Is A Collection of 34 "Nanogames" From Designers Around The World

Pelgrane Press, known for its narrative games like Hillfolk and its collection of story-games, Seven Wonders, is releasing an anthology of 34 mini-RPGs written by feminist authors from 11 different countries. These "nano-games", collected in the book #Feminism, are typically playable in under an hour, making them ideal for one-shots. Pelgrane has kindly sent along some previews of the book, which you can see below. With games like Mentioning the Unmentionables by Sweden's Kajsa Greger ("Three games about the anatomy of women: "Dances With Vulvas", "Dying for a Cup of Coffee", and "Just Put Some Salt on It"), Shoutdown to Launch by America's Jason Morningstar ("In this game about gendered interruption, a bunch of engineers need to fix a problem with a rocket engine in the dwindling time before launch. It won’t go well."), 6016 by Norway's Elin Nilsen ("In 6016 the only historical source of the 21st century is a collection of clips from the soap opera Love, Lust and Lack of Trust."), and First Joyful Mystery by Ireland's Cathriona Tobin ("Players examine the impact Ireland’s prohibitive abortion laws have on people who find themselves pregnant."), each game has an intensity rating from 1-5.

#Feminism is a 96-page softcover available for pre-order; those who do so get the PDF version immediately.

One of the anthology's writers, Emily Care Boss, spoke about her thoughts when writing Ma, Can I Help You With That?, which came out of her own process of aging and seeing others supporting their parents. The game investigated the was relationships become strained, and how men and women tend to interact with the process. Jason Morningstar, who wrote Shoutdown to Launch, talks about how his job in academia helped highlight some of the gender ratios and power dynamics, while quietly honouring engineers like Katherine Johnson and Galina Balashova.

With 34 different nano-games, a whole range of subjects are covered. Tour of Duty by Moyra Turkington looks at women in the US military; Her Last Tweet deals with a campus shooting event; and in President, the goal of the game is to draft the first female president of the Akhaian Empire's press statement. There's a full list of the games below the images below!

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First Date Katrin Førde
A game about a date gone wrong and a rant about the orgasm gap.

Flirt Agata Swistak
Flirt is an attempt to deconstruct the game almost everyone is playing — the game of hook-ups, crushes, and scoring!

Spin the Goddesses Karin Edman
A kissing game of lesbian witches.

Willful Disregard Anna Westerling
A love story.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commandos Lizzie Stark
A military unit undertakes its last whimsical mission before retiring to civilian life.

6016 Elin Nilsen
In 6016 the only historical source of the 21st century is a collection of clips from the soap opera Love, Lust and Lack of Trust.

Tropes vs. Women Ann Eriksen
Explore well-known movie clichés and tropes about women in a fun and not too serious way.

Lipstick Kaisa Kangas
Sofia hesitates about whether to wear lipstick to a TV debate on feminism.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby Julia Ellingboe
A game about gender, cultural, and ethnic representation in the movies.

Restrictions Frida Karlsson Lindgren and Sofia Stenler
A non-verbal game on how we are and aren’t allowed to move together, as two genders.

Mentioning the Unmentionables Kajsa Greger
Three games about the anatomy of women.

#Flesh Frederik Berg, Rebecka Eriksson, and Tobias Wrigstad
A physical game about the objectification of women or how women’s bodies are butchered into parts.

Selfie Kira Magrann
An intimate game about feelings in images.

So Mom I Made This Sex Tape Susanne Vejdemo
Different generations of feminists argue it out about sex, porn, and what the main point of feminism really is.

My Sister, Malala Elsa Helin
A game about freedom of thoughts and ideas for girls in Pakistan.

A Friend in Need Muriel Algayres
A nano-game about street harassment, victim-blaming and friendship. After a bad encounter on the street, can Ella get over victim-blaming with the help of her friends?

Driving to Reunion Laura Simpson
An intergenerational game about four Black women trying to understand each other, as they drive back for college reunion.

Catcalling Tora de Boer
Street harassment feels different depending on whether bystanders support the harasser or the victim.

How to Be Ava White Eva Wei
At a board meeting, parts of Ava White’s personality decide how to make her the perfect woman.

Shoutdown to Launch Jason Morningstar
In this game about gendered interruption, a bunch of engineers need to fix a problem with a rocket engine in the dwindling time before launch. It won’t go well.

“Something to Drink with That, Sir?” Evan Torner
A woman flight attendant performs emotional labor to serve three different male passengers.

“Ma, Can I Help You with That?” Emily Care Boss
A game about family, age and the gendered nature of care-giving.

Glitzy Nails Kat Jones
A freeform scenario about intersectional feminism, interactions between women, and nail salons.

Stripped Dominika Kovacova
A game about stripping off the stigma.

President Kaisa Kangas
The war-waging Akhaian empire has elected its first female president, a very successful lady general, and feminists with conflicting agendas are trying to draft a press statement together.

Curtain Call Sarah Bowman
A larp about the experiences of a woman in the music industry over the course of four decades.

The Grey Zone Siri Sandquist
A larp about the grey zone between rape and consensual sex in a relationship.

Family Planning Clinic Baptiste Cazes and Leïla Teteau-Surel with Laura Guedes
A game about women’s health where players will play short scenes from the daily life of a French family planning clinic inspired by real stories.

First Joyful Mystery Cathriona Tobin
Players examine the impact Ireland’s prohibitive abortion laws have on people who find themselves pregnant.

Girl: A Game for Boys Livia von Sucro
A small exercise about empathy, designed for cis gendered men to take a glimpse of what it feels like to be a victim of violence against women.

Her Last Tweet Rowan Cota
A microgame exploring being a potential victim of a campus shooting event.

Tour of Duty Moyra Turkington
A freeform nano-scenario about what it’s like to serve and defend as a woman in the US Military.

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[Calithorne]

But I'm not allowed to start a thread about the Communist country I had in my world. Because that's -- political.

 

[-Wing-Zero-]

not to derail the thread, but i actually think 5e dnd is a really great example of progressive feminism and gaming working perfectly together. 5e is a game for every gamer and its settings have been given a welcome diversity update to mirror our modern culture. people from all backgrounds are invited by the core books to game as equals in the name of fun and friendship.


i think it's very appropriate that they titled this #Feminism rather than Feminism: The Gaming. this project represents a stilted and turbo-narrow idea of what 'proper feminists' look like based on the internet cult that's grown around "radical internet feminism-ish"

 

[MoonSong]

So I ponied up $15 for the PDF so I can read the actual text before I decide how "offended" or "defensive" I should be. I feel like a lot of people on this thread (me included!) are having knee-jerk reactions to the very idea of this thing, rather than the thing itself!

Good for you, personally I cannot justify -or afford- spending those $15 on something like this. I could barely do it for A touch of class, and that one includes my baby. In part because my environment rates lower on the Maslow scale and I'm in no position to make that kind of spending on a whim. And if I could I would donate that money instead -we do need more women on STEM-.

Moreover I'm into RPGs for wish fulfillment, I don't have the time or energy for propaganda. It might be good or not, but I just don't care for it. I don't want to devaluate this, some of those games might have a pedagogic use, but I don't see them being of any value to me.

 

[77IM]

They don't give you a free copy of "A Touch of Class?" You wrote 1/7 of it!

 

[Yishay Marzel]

The second game, Flirt, is a stripped down version of a social deduction game called "Where art thou, Romeo?", only without the tension or any kind of actual mechanics pushing it forward.
So, you can add plagiarism to the list of faults.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrIpJj8vrD0

 

[Warpiglet]

Well, I told the gang we are not fighting orcs this weekend in the pits of one of the more demonic nations in the campaign world. Instead we are playing "Flirt" and several others here, because gaming time should be political action time.

OR

I will pretend I never read that this is an option.

 

[Dualazi]

This looks amazingly garbage, and I’m kind of surprised to see it posted at all. Enworld usually has a ‘no politics’ rule and there have been numerous threads shut down for even dancing around that arena, and yet many of these are just blatant political propaganda. Some of these don’t even sound like games at all, like “Lipstick” and “Driving to Reunion”. Did the creators want to make actual games, or did they want a pre-scripted youtube clip to put their hashtags on?

The whole point of exercises like this is to be thought-provoking. Why are you folks so terrified of having your thoughts provoked? Are you worried that if you actually put an iota of thought into something as superficially ridiculous as the "orgasm gap" you would discover that you are wrong about something?

This is an amusing attempt to put people on the defensive by implying they resent being provoked as opposed to the initial provocateur being in error, but no dice I’m afraid. Possibly literally given the descriptions for most of these.

Furthermore, I’m pretty much sure that none of these are going to be thought provoking, on the basis of how ideologically driven they are. Because that’s the point of provoking thought and/or discussion, it entails the possibility of dissent. What if during “Shoutdown to Launch” I decide that “gendered interruptions” aren’t actually a real problem? Does the game account for this and defend it as a legitimate position to hold, or does it assume that this is a serious problem from the outset and nothing can go against this edict?

Personally, I'd never in a million years play a game that involved licking people (and yeah it's possible that that particular sub-game is just trolling us). But the "sex tape" one looks pretty rad. Some of you seem to be saying that Feminism shouldn't even be explored in game form, and that strikes me as really super weird.

Same gist as before with this, I’m not saying that nothing can ever have feminist influences in it, but if we’re going to “explore” the subject then the author or creator has to take into account that that exploration may lead to rejection of feminism in part or in whole, and I really, really do not think that these “games” allow for that.

On the other hand, while I guess there could be a market somehow for things like this, I can’t imagine who this is for. If your group is super into modern feminist causes, then this is stuff you already know and would at best just be indulgence for your own assumed moral superiority. If your group is not already on board with modern feminism, then it’s going to cause serious frustration and division. My group is somewhere in-between, and even they wouldn’t touch this with a ladder split into a ten foot pole because ham-fistedly going through biased political improv sounds about as fun as chewing glass.

 

[Darkness]

Folks, please stay calm and keep it civil.

I never cease to thank the gods that I escaped this liberal indoctrination, even though I finished a graduate degree in one of the many Marxist churches across the nation.

Not sure if serious. Still, silly political ranting is inappropriate regardless of whether you actually mean it. Don't post in this thread again, please.

But I'm not allowed to start a thread about the Communist country I had in my world. Because that's -- political.

Politics are banned because political discussions tend to get really nasty and, this being an RPG news site rather than a politics or random discussion site, just aren't worth the constant headaches involved with keeping them around. That doesn't mean we can't discuss RPG news - which, again, this site is about - simply because they happen to include political content.

On a different note, your comment about your thread is challenging moderation in public, which is unacceptable. Don't do that again, please. It's really not difficult to ask for rules clarifications without breaking the rules. (E.g., "Isn't this thread kinda political? I thought we couldn't discuss politics.")

... feminism ... also is a fad, and like most fads suffers from those who flock to it just to get attention. Wicca suffered this, as did climate science, mental disorders, and being trans. ...

It's very easy to interpret this post as you dismissing a whole bunch of things as 'fads' - which would amount to a very nasty broad-spectrum attack.

However, since you're using terms like 'suffered' and 'also is a fad,' I suspect you didn't actually intend to say/imply that. Giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but please be extra-careful when talking about sensitive topics.

... you're teaching her to hate women.

Keep it civil, please. A sensitive topic really doesn't need snark like this.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

It's very easy to interpret this post as you dismissing a whole bunch of things as 'fads' - which would amount to a very nasty broad-spectrum attack.

However, since you're using terms like 'suffered' and 'also is a fad,' I suspect you didn't actually intend to say/imply that. Giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but please be extra-careful when talking about sensitive topics.

My apologies. I had not meant to dismiss them at all. More to imply there are people misusing them in ways that undermine what they stand for.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

Furthermore, I’m pretty much sure that none of these are going to be thought provoking, on the basis of how ideologically driven they are. Because that’s the point of provoking thought and/or discussion, it entails the possibility of dissent. What if during “Shoutdown to Launch” I decide that “gendered interruptions” aren’t actually a real problem? Does the game account for this and defend it as a legitimate position to hold, or does it assume that this is a serious problem from the outset and nothing can go against this edict?

They also run into the problem that feminism itself is split into a number of divisions, some of whom disagree rather strongly with certain stances. The game about abortion, for example, runs afoul of feminists who oppose abortion. It outright implies that their idea of feminism is wrong.

And the discussion about differences in generations between feminists... that is, to put it bluntly, a minefield made of dirty nukes at best. Some of these divisions are so great, they led to groups like Women Against Feminism being founded. A major part of the rise of the women MRAs has been fueled by second-wave feminists who are angry enough at third-wave feminists that they will turn their back on a movement they see as being corrupted.

I wouldn't run that particular game around feminists who are not all from the same division of feminism. I've seen the fights when this topic comes up when there's multiple divisions of feminism involved.

Same gist as before with this, I’m not saying that nothing can ever have feminist influences in it, but if we’re going to “explore” the subject then the author or creator has to take into account that that exploration may lead to rejection of feminism in part or in whole, and I really, really do not think that these “games” allow for that.

On the other hand, while I guess there could be a market somehow for things like this, I can’t imagine who this is for. If your group is super into modern feminist causes, then this is stuff you already know and would at best just be indulgence for your own assumed moral superiority. If your group is not already on board with modern feminism, then it’s going to cause serious frustration and division. My group is somewhere in-between, and even they wouldn’t touch this with a ladder split into a ten foot pole because ham-fistedly going through biased political improv sounds about as fun as chewing glass.

This is why I prefer Pathfinder for exploring this topic. Golarion has a lot of very, very subtle feminist influences to it, and half the time you only know one is a feminist influence if you are actively looking and know what to look for. It's a very stealthy way of handling it, but one that also works well in my experience. It also avoids the minefields of the possibility that the particular brand of feminism you subscribe to will be called out as wrong by the game, thus allowing for the disagreement that exists within feminism to exist peacefully at the table and even be explored without making the players too angry to even think or consider the other viewpoints.

These games do not allow such. They peddle a very particular, very limited form of feminism. One that, in my experience, alienates most feminists.