Happy Pride to you all! And Happy Screaming!

June ended with a fantastic series of events.
Rocky and I were able to attend the Pride March at Marikina this year!

It was a HUGE event with reportedly over 52k attendees.  Some even state that by the evening, the numbers neared 70k!  While there were some missteps and mismanaged communication and planning issues, the event overall was a beautiful testament to the diversity, color, and love that the LGBTQIA+  community. People we all respectful of each other and celebrating each one's diversity and identity.

We even got these beautiful pins to wear to work thru Maria and her friends at UP Babaylan and their merchandise brand, #PAK!

Come evening, we then headed to our favorite haunt and second home, O Bar, where we continued the Pride celebrations with dear friends and our expanded family. We saw the amazing numbers and emotionally powerful performances which the O Divas and guest performers prepared. We cried. We danced. We cheered. We bonded. We grew stronger.

Then, Sunday was one shot game of Alien, the role-playing game.  Rocky and I had three awesome friends take part in the Cinematic one shot of Chariot of the Gods. Aina, Thomas, and Titus, all three fantastic players who never played together in a single game, having the most awesome time screaming, hoping, and scheming as they faced off against the terrifying threats that can only come from such a delightfully terrifying franchise. 

Read up Thomas' AMAZING write-up on the events from his character's perspective. Note, however, there may be spoilers for those hoping to try Chariot of the Gods. You have been warned!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157242554034098&set=a.250723984097&type=3&theater

The game was admittedly, just incredible! The Stress and Panic rules were viciously cool, more so when panic starts to become contagious. The every looming threat of a synth or alien in one's midst was just fantastic for drama and story.  And the ending. Oh man, that ending which the players were able to build.  I will admit, I was quite teary eyed when they wrapped the game up in that way.

Then, there was Gwen's lovely Rappler article on diverse voices in the game industry!

It was a beautiful feature giving an inspiring spotlight to the many other creators, developers, and creative forces that work in their own ways to give us a voice and celebrate their own distinct vision. Too often, especially here in Manila, there is this old way of thinking that gay people are pamparlor  (hairdressers) or pangcomedy (comedians) only.  And while there is no shame or anything wrong with such professions, there is something wrong in choosing to limit what you believe a person is capable of based solely on their gender.

And even more importantly this is part of the article:


Sad but true, but there is still a lot of hate out there which keeps many people from feeling the freedom to come out.  Just as how there are people who censor themselves or their existence due to the pressures of society or the selfish demands more influential or privileged folk may have. The fight continues for equality.  And for pride.   Thank you so much for this feature, Gwen!

Diverse voices: Meet some of the LGBTQ+ folks in games development http://www.rappler.com//technology/features/234244-lgbtq-games-development-feature via @rapplerdotcom

That was a beautiful way to end the month.

And guess what, that leaves six MORE months to come!
Things can only get better!

Game Idea: Celebrating Pride in your Game this Weekend

Celebrating Pride in your Game this Weekend
by Tobie Abad

We're celebrating Pride this weekend and I thought I should at least have some stupid Pride-themed post to celebrate it with a geeky twist.  So here are some gaming suggestions on how to celebrate Pride in your game this weekend.   If you get to add it to your game this weekend, good for you!

Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon World, and all similarly themed games
Arcane Magic casters (such as Wizards, Sorcerers, etc) best prepare Color Spray and cast it on the first hateful monster they see.  More learned ones can prepare Prismatic Ray or Wall spells to make an even bigger statement.   Paladins can spend the session calling for the need for certain people to be given their freedom or to be treated equally.

Monster Hearts, Apocalypse World
Switch the Dark/Weird stat with Pride and all moves are now given a much more fabulous touch of fiction.   Oh and for this session only, the Fae, the Vampire, the Werewolf, the Witch and the Queen (for Apocalypse World, I'll let you guys decide) all get +2 to rolls when using Pride, but only if they're serving fishy realness.  Remember though, gay does not have to mean gender-bending.  There are a lot of non-effeminate gay guys just as there are a lot of feminine lesbians out there.  So don't feel you have to go campy just to give a touch of pride into your game.  But don't think campy is bad either! Just know the difference between loving the camp and making fun of it.

World of Darkness, Shadowrun, Shadows of Esteren, and other "dark games"
You can do it two ways:  One is to highlight the true existing struggle for LGBT to gain equality and acceptance, and have scenes which give players a chance to fight back or explore the themes of the struggle discrimination.  But that might be too serious for some groups that just want to play to have awesome moments.  For that, my second suggestion is that you throw in your i-take-no-nonesense gay character inspired by characters like Lafayette or as sizzlingly confident and disarming as Kinky Boots' Lola.  We've had enough crazy gay serial killers, thank you.  Let's have cooler gay NPCs join the fun.

Houses of the Blooded
The ven are fabulous.  Maybe it is time for them to be upstaged by the House of the Bear.  Bears are impressive.  And Tenacious, after all.

Inspectres
Throw in a gender-bending episode where the Inspectres crew have to deal with an incident where a whole town has turned gay.   And just as they realize the cause, decide on how to handle things when they realize the affected people aren't quite unhappy with their new life.   Do they choose for them?  Or do they live and let live?

Lacuna
There are odd colors today post Slab today.  An endless parade marches down the streets.  Even the Spiders are mesmerized.  Is this a chance to dive DEEPER?  Or is this the worst time to explore the Blue City.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, DC Heroes and other Super Hero Games
Time to give the gay characters the spotlight for the weekend.  Maybe Northstar contacts the players to deal with a living plague.  Or maybe Wiccan and Hulkling visit the players from an alternate time-line and ask them to help out as a nation devotes itself into Hate.      Heck, go all out and run a Vertigo-inspired game answering the question, "What happens when Desire of the Endless is allowed 24-hours to explore his/her own heart's desire?"

Dice Rolling Games

Maybe for this session, any rolls that have to do with freedom, peace, equality, acceptance, love and beauty get a bonus to their roll.  You can explain it away as magical effect, as a skewing of probabilities due to a quantum influence  caused by billions of people thinking of the same thought that moment, or just a quirk that seems to happen every June.

Or throw in a colorful die and tell players they always roll it with their normal rolls, and once in the game session each player can opt to use the colorful die's result instead as their own.

Card-based Systems
The Hearts get the bonus. It doesn't matter why or what for.  So long as it has to do with Hearts it gets the bonus.  After all, hearts are all that matter.  Not whats between the legs.

What We Can Do Without
Gay jokes.  Gay bashing.  Gay used as a word to mean something bad, negative, or disliked.    We don't need more hate.  We don't need to be presented as caricatures to be made fun off.  Or feared as crazy or insane.  So, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar is a yes.  Modern Family is a yes.  New Normal is stereotype-y but works.  Apollo and Midnighter is awesome, but only if you ignore the New 52.  Sam Adama of Caprica and Jack Harness of Torchwood are good guides if you want a non-campy approach.  Glee... tries to cross the spectrum but tends to wallow in stereotypes, but is acceptable enough.  But please, let's cut down on Silence of the Lambs type of portrayals.  Or have cross-dressing as a scene to laugh at the idea of men wearing women's clothing (or vice versa).

Let's just celebrate the unity, the love and the happiness of a world that is slowly taking steps forward.

Happy Pride!