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

Celebrim · May 3, 2017

I was hoping no one would say anything about this and it would go away, but sigh, no such luck.

My general response to this is that I could not think of a way to make feminism more ridiculous or denigrate women more than this does if I thought and worked really hard on it. I'm just dumbfounded. This is probably the sickest slander of women that I've ever seen. The whole thing is just brutally offensive to women. It's so offensive, that I can't help but think that it's the product of some sort of conspiracy against women - even though intellectually I don't believe in conspiracies. But I'm at a loss to explain this.

My wife has a Ph.D. in biology. She spent this weekend hiking canyons with me and my daughters. Then she went into the lab and did some research involving biochemistry that is over my head. Then today she went to a middle school to tell kids about science as a female scientist, and she had this young women say, "I'm glad they asked you to come. I don't think people know women can have careers like yours.", and she was (rightly) proud of that and tweeting it everwhere. And she's awesome, and I can point to her and call her things like "my better half" and "my full partner" and "a great role model" and any other superlative.

But if I had to judge women by how this represents them? Does anyone really want women judged by this? Thought of like this? Boxed up in predictable boxes like this? Stereotyped like this? Especially women? Most especially women! Do you have any idea how my daughters would respond to this sort of thing where I such a terrible parent as to show them this? They have my wife as a model (thank God) as to what a strong, capable intelligent woman is like. This most certainly doesn't present women in that way. You think I'm not being positive? You think that just because it hashtags #feminism this is some sort of female positive document? Imagine what would happen if I passed this thing around, except that I won't, because wow would this not be well received. This is a travesty, and it pains me to think of this either as a reflection of anyone's actual beliefs or worse that anyone would try to convince someone that this is representative of the beliefs, abilities, and experience of women. Ban me from Enworld for getting off the message if you like, but if this document is a parody it is sick, tasteless, and sexist and if it is not, well, I feel very very sad.

The only good thing about this thing is that it's so ridiculous it can't possibly be very subversive.

Could we write something about Margaret Weiss or some other actual contributor to our hobby who can in some way role model something actually positive? The worst thing about this is that it isn't actually very clever. We're gaming affectionadoes. We've all seen clever done in a page before. We've seen really elegant game mechanics. That RPG were you where a bear on a page? That was clever. This isn't. (Don't believe me, work out the gist of the text in the above nanogames.) It's not clever gaming and it's not actually woman positive, and on occasion it's down right hateful just in the descriptions. I don't want to think about what the full text is actually like. How does this get to represent and model women and #feminism? Honestly, if someone labelled all this #malechauvism or #mensrights and said it was games written by people mocking feminism, I would have believed them.

77IM · May 3, 2017

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 relevant:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

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.

Special Achievement Award goes to [MENTION=6867728]ArchfiendBobbie[/MENTION] for reviewing 30 games that he's neither read nor played, based only on their one-line descriptions and his own preconceived notions.

ArchfiendBobbie · May 3, 2017

77IM said:
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?

Because most of these are not actually roleplaying games; they're guided acting. And there is no way you can act out rape without being offensive, thanks in part to how many people are actually victims of that crime. That's why I don't even play with it at my table; it has no place in a game where I risk potentially bringing up past trauma of my players, and there's really no legitimate reason to include it as a DM or player in most games. And the few games there are, it's always better to leave it for those who actually have experienced that than to risk accidentally denigrating their experiences and what turmoils they have had to go through.

Not to mention that most of these games focus on items that are very much deep divisions even within feminism itself. Or encourage people to bring up long-standing, very heated arguments in a setting that is intended to be fun. When people are angry, they stop thinking; thus, if these games are intended to be thought-provoking, they fail simply because they are likely to make even the people who agree with the point they are trying to make too angry to even think about it.

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.

There are ways to explore feminism in game form that actually get players to thinking. Roleplaying rape is not one of them. Roleplaying deep, anger-filled divisions within feminism is not one of them. Doing the RPG equivalent of blackface is not one of them. This is basic human decency and common sense.

For example, the game "So Mom I Made This Sex Tape" is touching on an issue so deep in generational conflict within feminism that groups of second-wave feminists have formed woman-led antifeminist groups in response to third-wave feminism. It's not that they disagree with the idea women should be equal, but that the divisions within the movement are so deep they cannot be healed.

That's the issue with this. This isn't feminism. It's nothing more than an attempt at examining a shallow mockery of what feminism actually is, while focusing on all of the problems that exist within the movement without understanding why those issues are such deep conflicts.

Basically, it's like a group of people read some random online article about feminism and decided to base their understanding of the entire concept on that single article without bothering to study any further, or to even fully understand all of the concepts therein.

It also doesn't help that, actually reading these games, it becomes apparent they're not even remotely understanding why feminism is necessary. Not a single one actually focuses on empowering women; all of them focus on the message that women are victims. No single true examination of the areas women excelled at. Where's Madam Curie? Where are the women computers who were essential for mathematics for so long? Where is the woman who essentially invented programming languages? Where are the women who work in this hobby every day, people like Margaret Weiss and the women at Paizo, who have devoted years to changing the industry? Where are the positive, empowering stories?

Focusing on victimization doesn't empower people. It doesn't advance people's causes. All it does is make them angry, and then make them depressed and discouraged from even trying to make things better. These "games" are not feminist. They're gaslighting.

I would rather play an RPG where I play Celebrim's wife than play these. And that's despite thinking her job would be boring as a game.

Special Achievement Award goes to @ArchfiendBobbie for reviewing 30 games that he's neither read nor played, based only on their one-line descriptions and his own preconceived notions.

I find it amusing you assume I'm male.

Celebrim · May 3, 2017

77IM said:
The whole point of exercises like this is to be thought-provoking.

There is no worse and more damning excuse for something than to say "it is thought-provoking". What isn't? There is nothing special about being thought provoking. At least in the circles I run in thinking is the normal order of business. Everyone I know thinks all the time about everything that they encounter often to the point of being really obsessive about the details. Setting out to be "thought-provoking" is setting the bar on the floor. You can't really have a lower standard than that and there is hardly a surer standard that something isn't providing any sort of useful discussion than someone says of it that it is "thought provoking". That's sort of like the old Southern lady say, "That's... interesting." As a general rule, whenever anyone says, "It was meant to be thought provoking", you can be fairly sure they didn't put enough thought into it before they did it.

What most people really mean when they say "thought-provoking" is just "provoking". And provoking is close to being the opposite of being "thought-provoking" and more importantly close to being the opposite of constructive or educational or something else useful that you can set out to be. But hey, if you don't like what I'm saying, perhaps I can just use the excuse I'm being "thought-provoking"? Do you see how that works now?

You know what is really not "thought-provoking" either in the speaker or the hearer? Accusing someone who disagrees of you of being afraid. Yes, because clearly as a married man with two kids, the subject and actual practice of sex is just something that has never been a part of my personal life and the only reason I could possibly have for not wanting to discuss it in a gaming forum or otherwise publically is that it terrifies me? Seriously, is that your thinking? Is that the extent of your thoughts "provoked" by this, or where you just "provoked" by disagreement into a reflexive statement? Accusing someone of being afraid is a wonderful general purpose ad hominem attack, but that's about all it's good for.

You see the thing you have clearly not considered is that this is me, the me that finds this document repulsive and hateful to women and highly unhelpful, having put an iota of thought into this matter. And while I have more thoughts on the subject of what you claim I'm not thinking about when in fact I just disagree, even discussing that particular subject in more detail (even if I was inclined to which I'm not) breaks two Enworld rules - no politics and keep everything safe for Eric's grandmother.

At this point, I'm beginning to worry that I'm spending more time thinking about this and discussing this than the creators did creating their games or the publisher did in assembling it.

Celebrim · May 3, 2017

ArchfiendBobbie said:
Be These "games" are not feminist. They're gaslighting.

I would rather play an RPG where I play Celebrim's wife than play these.

It's interesting you put these two thoughts together. My first inclination upon reading the post was to gas-light it by making a faux feminist attack on the document that it was sexist because none of the games presented women in STEM.

One of the main problems I have for what passes for 'feminism' these days is that it always seems to focus on women as victims and most often as victims that are in some way consenting to or participating in their own victimization. Too much of modern "feminism" invariably is male focused, with males as the actors and women as the one acted on. To much of it focuses on women as inherently sexual objects that occur only in sexual contexts, or on women being defined principally by their relationship (assumed to be largely negative) with men. In fact, what passes for "feminism" in some circles has all the central assumptions of male chauvinism, right down to the social role of women being civilizing men by nagging them and encouraging them to come and chivalricly protect them (from other men). To me it feels like so many of the above writers actually set out to reinforce highly negative stereotypes about women.

Consider the game "Flirt" (which we have something like the full text for and can actually work out the details) and its assumption, "Flirt is an attempt to deconstruct the game almost everyone is playing — the game of hook-ups, crushes, and scoring!" Really? So, by "everyone", I'm assuming the writer actually means single urban women of a particular social class and a particular ideology. My guess is that if one makes that assumption, the fundamental assumption is, "By women I mean me, and my experience is universal." Most men or women I know certainly aren't playing that 'game', didn't have 'hook--ups', weren't trying to 'score', and last had crushes in middle school. Is this game 'Flirt' supposed to be about empowered women, or women as a Frat boy might fantasize women are like or assume women are like because the only women in his current social circle are those that agree to play the game of 'hook-ups, crushes, and scoring'? Is this game really empowering women or is it perpetrating the highly negative stereotype that the presence of women automatically implies a highly sexual context and that women by their very presence make a situation sexually charged? Here we have a game that assumes that almost all women 'really want it' all the time? That doesn't bother anyone? Does taking a party game like 'Assassin' and sexualizing it really help the cause of women? Is this '#feminism'?

I mean, I fear sadly it is, but that's a good example of why so many successful women hesitate to identify with a cause that most of the time just seems off the rails at least in its most visible and public presentations. But, hard to talk about that without veering into politics. More to the point of a gaming forum, the (largely absent) mechanics and design on display in these games just perpetuates the stereotype that women aren't gamers and don't like games - quite unlike my daughter who just drew her first dungeon, is excited to meet a 'game designer' at her career day, and whose first response to the nonsense in this document would probably be, "There are not enough dragons in these games."

jimmifett · May 3, 2017

Celebrim said:
It's so offensive, that I can't help but think that it's the product of some sort of conspiracy against women - even though intellectually I don't believe in conspiracies. But I'm at a loss to explain this.

It's nothing more than the long dreaded sequel to FATAL written by intersectionalists and 3rd wavers. There might be *an* OK game in the mix, but for the most part, it's pure cringe.

But hey, if ppl want to waste their money on it, I can think of worse things to blow it on.

Like FATAL.

77IM · May 3, 2017

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!

Introduction: There's a few pages about how to get a group together and play a nanogame, with particular emphasis on emotional safety; they have a global mechanic of calling "cut" if any player becomes uncomfortable for any reason. Also, there's a "debrief" after every game where you talk about stuff. I get the feeling that many of the games themselves are really meant as conversation fodder for the debrief.

First Date: This game is presented above so you can decide for yourself. To me it sounds like a very light intro session; less of a game and more of a discussion prompt. I could see this being played for laughs and being hilarious, and while I don't think the orgasm gap is a serious issue in itself, I think it could reveal something about attitudes towards gender roles in bed.

Flirt: It's basically Werewolf with flirting. This game would make me uncomfortable. (And we're only 2 games in!) I would play this, but first I'd have to get slightly buzzed and watch one of the sadder episodes of The Pick-Up Artist. I don't see much feminist discussion value from a game like this, since I think most of the issues involved are pretty obvious and surface-level. :erm:

Spin the Goddess: It is what it sounds like... a lesbian spin-the-bottle game, with trappings of pop pagan mysticism. I wouldn't play this and I'm not really sure what they are getting at. I think you could have some interesting discussions about the relationship between lesbianism and witchcraft, but I don't see this game leading anyone there.

Willful Disregard: This is more like a 2-person play with heavy improv, than a game. I really love the simplicity of it but something about how it is presented makes me feel like the author is doing too much of the characterization. In particular, it presents a singular story with a particular stereotyped view of male and female dating motivations; it would be nice if there were some alternate scenarios here. It's rated intensity 4/5 but I would have no problem with it. (I'm not sure what it means that a game about getting dumped is equal in intensity to the game about licking people's body parts.) I'm giving this an erm because I think the idea has promise but as it stands it looks just boring. :erm:

Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commandos: This looks absolutely awesome. It's a larp in which you go out and do crazy "missions" to cheer up strangers. It would work really well at a gaming con, and I think you'd get better discussion afterwards if some or all of the players were men.

6016: This one is really interesting, and has a great setup (the sort of setup I wish Willful Disregard had). You play both characters in short clips from a cheesy soap opera, AND futuristic anthropologists trying to analyze these clips. I think the second part is the really cool role-playing part because it may help people step back and think more analytically.

Tropes vs. Women: This is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. You act out short scenes two different ways --
once as realistically as possible, and once as clichéd as possible. They could easily expand this into a full game, covering other stereotypes beyond feminine. I think most of us here are already pretty well-versed in tropes but this would be a good way to educate people who haven't thought much about this before.

Lipstick: Eh. It's another canned debate, this time involving a woman trying to decide whether or not to wear lipstick. I think I see where they are going with this but I think they could have gotten there in some much more creative ways. :erm:

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: Another "act out a cheesy scene" game, with the twist that you are making an action movie with gender roles reversed (so the action stars are women, and the men are just sidekicks, eye-candy, "homme fatales," or "damsels" to be rescued). You're trying to FAIL the Bechdel test so you have to make sure that the only time 2 male characters talk they are talking about a woman. This looks like a super fun game; I don't imagine it spurring much interesting conversation about feminism from a single play-through, but I'd be very curious about the results from multiple different groups.

Restrictions: This looks really interesting to me. You divide into two groups that each have movement restrictions that force you to act, well, silly. And you're not allowed to talk. Then in different phases, you have to establish pairs by holding hands in a silly way. And you're not allowed to talk, and you still have the movement restrictions. I have no earthly idea what any of this has to do with feminism, but it looks fun as hell, like standing-up twister. I guess they are trying to illustrate how hard it can be to communicate between genders.

Mentioning the Unmentionables: Another hilarious-looking game. This seems like a great icebreaker to make people comfortable discussing private parts.

#Flesh: I think I see what they are getting at, but... licking people? Really? This reads to me more like performance art designed to get a rise out of people, or an activity you'd do on a goddess retreat in between the drum circle and the primal scream therapy. I wouldn't play this and I think there are much better ways to think about these issues.

Selfie: Wow, this is really creative. You take a selfie while listening to music, and write down the emotion you are experiencing when you take the selfie. Then you show your selfie to the group and they try to guess the emotion. This has real party-game potential. I have no earthly idea what this has to do with feminism (it seems to me that men are just as into selfies as women but maybe I'm mistaken about that), but I'd play the crap out of this game.

So Mom I Made This Sex Tape: I like it. It has well-explained characters with a clear focus and agenda for the scenario. Seems like a great crash-course in the divisive issues of second-wave feminism.

My Sister, Malala: Holy

. This is a perfect use of role-playing -- driving home how awful some people have it by trying to put yourselves in their shoes. The scene set-ups are very interesting, and are based on true stories, which is doubly sad. It also highlights some of the differences between "feminism" in a first-world country (where we can debate whether or not to wear lipstick) and "feminism" in a backwards theocracy (where it's socially acceptable to murder women for salacious behavior).

A Friend in Need: Another canned debate, but one with some real weight behind it. Several characters are discussing the aftermath of an episode of street harassment (or potential street harassment; that's a matter for the debate). I can see this scenario being too personal and intense for some people. I think this mini-game may have more practical value than some of the others since most of us are likely to encounter street harassment at some point.

Driving to Reunion: A boring scenario with interesting characters that mixes in racial and generational issues. I kind of wish there were more explicit points of conflict between these characters, or some shared decision to be made, as the game goal of "being understood" is rather vague and possibly unmotivating.

Catcalling: "You are going to play three versions of the same catcalling situation, showing how bystander intervention can make a difference." Sums it up pretty well. This game sounds downright painful, but it seems like a good way to illustrate how people can help in these situations.

How to Be Ava White: This is like the movie Inside Out, where you play the aspects of Ava White's personality, except you're trying to vote each other off the island somehow. (It's not explained very well.) This is a good initial setup, but then the debate phase seems unfocused. I would have preferred a more round-about approach involving these characters. :erm:

Shoutdown to Launch: A fun game in which two teams have to use made-up jargon and solve a rocket engine problem based on two different diagrams of the rocket engine. One team is explicitly instructed to try to interrupt the other team and stop them from talking. This sounds really fun and hilarious, but I think it's blunted by the fact that you can't actually solve the problem; in this game you actually do win by being the loudest. Still, it might produce some interesting experiences.

Ma, Can I Help You with That?: One player is the mother, who needs help with things, but is required to refuse help. The others are her son, daughter-in-law, and Social Conditioning, who all have different motivations and beliefs that drive them towards or away from helping the mother. The scenarios and personalities are good, and it involves generational issues as well as gender issues, and the game has a neat mechanic for altering the behavior of son and daughter-in-law.

Glitzy Nails: It's a scenario between the employees and customers of a nail salon. It has a really nice mechanic for monetary and emotional tip jars (allowing the employees to represent the amount of crap they have to put up with). But the scenario is pretty boring, and frankly, as a man I'm not sure I'd know how to act out a manicure because it's not a situation I'm familiar with, like, at all. I'm also not sure what this has to do with feminism (it seems to have more to do with immigrant issues). I guess I would play this to learn what goes on at a nail salon, and the fact that I have so little idea is itself probably a decent discussion point. :erm:

Stripped: It's a collection of discussion scenarios about the occupation of stripping. I really like how this game uses the same characters in several slightly different situations. However I think they could have gone farther with it somehow. Still, a good intro to some of the issues around professional lap-dancing.

President: A great backstory involves the intersection of women's rights and war politics, and the characters are a good mix. But, the scenario is a little bit unfocussed, with the goal of "making a statement." Could be fun and informative with an eager group.

Curtain Call: Acting out phases of a rock musician's career, based loosely on the life and work of Tori Amos. I like the prompts for the different phases, but there's not much to do during this game except "act out and discuss." I would be kind of at a loss for what to do. I guess it draws attention to misogyny in the music industry. :erm:

(To Be Continued; I have to go to lunch.)

ArchfiendBobbie · May 3, 2017

Celebrim said:
It's interesting you put these two thoughts together. My first inclination upon reading the post was to gas-light it by making a faux feminist attack on the document that it was sexist because none of the games presented women in STEM.

One of the main problems I have for what passes for 'feminism' these days is that it always seems to focus on women as victims and most often as victims that are in some way consenting to or participating in their own victimization. Too much of modern "feminism" invariably is male focused, with males as the actors and women as the one acted on. To much of it focuses on women as inherently sexual objects that occur only in sexual contexts, or on women being defined principally by their relationship (assumed to be largely negative) with men. In fact, what passes for "feminism" in some circles has all the central assumptions of male chauvinism, right down to the social role of women being civilizing men by nagging them and encouraging them to come and chivalricly protect them (from other men). To me it feels like so many of the above writers actually set out to reinforce highly negative stereotypes about women.

Consider the game "Flirt" (which we have something like the full text for and can actually work out the details) and its assumption, "Flirt is an attempt to deconstruct the game almost everyone is playing — the game of hook-ups, crushes, and scoring!" Really? So, by "everyone", I'm assuming the writer actually means single urban women of a particular social class and a particular ideology. My guess is that if one makes that assumption, the fundamental assumption is, "By women I mean me, and my experience is universal." Most men or women I know certainly aren't playing that 'game', didn't have 'hook--ups', weren't trying to 'score', and last had crushes in middle school. Is this game 'Flirt' supposed to be about empowered women, or women as a Frat boy might fantasize women are like or assume women are like because the only women in his current social circle are those that agree to play the game of 'hook-ups, crushes, and scoring'? Is this game really empowering women or is it perpetrating the highly negative stereotype that the presence of women automatically implies a highly sexual context and that women by their very presence make a situation sexually charged? Here we have a game that assumes that almost all women 'really want it' all the time? That doesn't bother anyone? Does taking a party game like 'Assassin' and sexualizing it really help the cause of women? Is this '#feminism'?

I mean, I fear sadly it is, but that's a good example of why so many successful women hesitate to identify with a cause that most of the time just seems off the rails at least in its most visible and public presentations. But, hard to talk about that without veering into politics. More to the point of a gaming forum, the (largely absent) mechanics and design on display in these games just perpetuates the stereotype that women aren't gamers and don't like games - quite unlike my daughter who just drew her first dungeon, is excited to meet a 'game designer' at her career day, and whose first response to the nonsense in this document would probably be, "There are not enough dragons in these games."

You have a different experience with feminism than I do. I fou.d it to be enlightening and capable of advocati.g for pwople. But, it 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. Ignore.them and hunt down the feminists who actually care about the movement instwadof using it to make themselvesfeel special.

I should tell you aboht my feminism Kingmaker games. We fully explore feminist issues, and bow often feminist ideas about what solutions are end up wrong. And how often they are right.

Sorry about the typoes. Posting from my phone.

Tranquilis · May 4, 2017

This is offensive on so many levels. Really? Feminism has been boiled down to this generalized tripe? That won't undermine the seriousness of a cause... no way...

As others have pointed out, these as RPGs is a huge stretch. They could substitute RPG with Lego, and you'd get the same force-fed, indoctrinating smut incongruously tied to an innocent pastime.

Billing these as RPGs is insidious. What age of kids could wander innocently into this filth?

I'm extremely disappointed, and frankly concerned, that Morrus thought this worthy of posting. Extremely so. Perhaps it was done in haste, without a proper vetting.

Utter garbage.

#support this and show how cool you are

IgnatiusJ.Reilly · May 4, 2017

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.