{"id":212,"date":"2022-09-05T18:10:43","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T18:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/?p=212"},"modified":"2022-10-23T23:08:19","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T23:08:19","slug":"apocalypse-worlds-gender-roaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/05\/apocalypse-worlds-gender-roaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Apocalypse World’s Gender Roaches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflecting the imaginaries and priorities of the people that write and play them, roleplaying games do not have the greatest track record with gender. At time of writing I am finishing up an archaeological play of Burning Wheel<\/em>, which genders players as \u2018he\u2019 throughout. While is stops short of listing gender as a gate in character creation, lifepath names like \u2018City Wife\u2019 and \u2018Prince of Blood\u2019 (with no distaff counterparts) make the intended gender discourse evident.1<\/a><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Burning Wheel<\/em> Gold<\/em> (the edition I played) was published in 2011\u2013the last eleven years have seen a massive shift in representations and visibility of non-cisgender identities, but it\u2019s important to remember how recently some linguistic conventions have been adopted! In the heyday of 2012 \u2018nonbinary\u2019 had not get coalesced into a free-floating gender descriptor2<\/a><\/a><\/sup> and the widespread use of the gender-neutral \u2018they\u2019 had yet to claw its way into the Chicago Manual of Style<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings us to Vincent Baker\u2019s Apocalypse World <\/em>(1st edition, 2010), which I recently re-read in preparation for another archaeological play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a fun read! AW<\/em>\u2019s rules are a fun read and I got through them over the course of a morning. I find the idiosyncratic writing style dodges \u201cinternet edgelord\u201d and lands squarely in \u201cyour rowdy buddy,\u201d here to pitch you on why and how you\u2019re going to have a great time. The conversational tone makes you feel like the author on the other side of the page is here to help, rather than enforce:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRemember how to make NPCs human? Give them straight-forward, understandable self-interests. Choose a body part \u2013 their stomach, their gut, their dick or clit, their nose, their time-ticking womb, their fearful cowardly heart (or their generous caring heart, or their bold big heart) \u2013 and have them just follow it around wherever it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the the phrase \u201cdick or clit\u201d suggests, AW <\/em>makes an effort to be inclusive in it\u2019s writing (note the gender-unknown \u2018their\u2019 is also used in this passage). AW<\/em> switches between he & she throughout the text when discussing players and characters\u2013recall that \u201cthey\u201d had yet to reach its current status as the go-to gender neutral pronoun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apocalypse World<\/em> also has sex moves, drawing inspiration from the Sex & Sorcery<\/em> (2003) supplement to Ron Edwards\u2019 Sorcerer<\/em>. For those unfamiliar: each playbook in AW<\/em> has a specific move (under the heading [Playbook] Special<\/em>) with the fictional trigger of \u201cIf you and another character have sex\u2026\u201d3<\/a><\/a><\/sup> This explicitly puts sex within the space of anticipated play (provided consent at table) and ties back into AW<\/em>\u2019s focus on the visceral, which is woven into the game\u2019s systems. The basic persuasion move is \u2018seduce or manipulate\u2019, rules describe bodies as weak and vulnerable, the GM is told to \u201cLook [at NPC\u2019s] through crosshairs\u201d, the Brainer (psychic) can cause physical harm on both successes and failures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“‘Man, woman, ambiguous, or transgressing’\u2013the four genders!”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This focus on the body brings us to the \u201cLook\u201d section of the playbooks, a \u201cpick from this list of options\u201d approach to describing characters\u2019 appearances. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Look options for the Driver playbook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Notice how the options are separated into unnamed categories by line-break. What caught my curiosity was the first group\u2013\u201cMan, woman, ambiguous, or transgressing\u201d\u2013the four genders! Joking aside, <this was meant to map to gender presentation4<\/a><\/a><\/sup> (as the category \u201clook\u201d would suggest), an intent I consider to be clearly communicated. A useful shorthand to give players in describing their characters, though in modern vernacular I\u2019d probably opt for \u2018masculine\/feminine\u2019 over \u2018man\/woman\u2019 so all the choices are adjectives and gently nudge the reader towards some Gender Fuckery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, across the stock playbooks AW <\/em> features two additional gender presentations: \u201cconcealed\u201d and \u201candrogyne\u201d. Both play with the part social roles play in gender. \u201cConcealed\u201d is only available to select characters: The Angel, Brainer, Gunlugger, and Hocus. Baker has said this was intended to reflect how our role in society impacts what\u2019s permissible and possible in our gender presentation. While I think the option is interesting, I find some of the distinctions a little odd. Why can the Gunlugger conceal their identity, but the Driver cannot (behind some tinted windows, perhaps)? Does the mysticism of the Hocus allow them to lead their followers without being gendered in a manner required of the gang-steering Chopper and settlement-administrating Hardholder?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to my ambivalence towards \u201cconcealed\u201d, the artistic Skinner\u2019s access to \u201candrogyne\u201d is everything I want from curated options: it evokes a particular aestheticized gender performance that fits the playbook like a glove. \u2018Androgyne\u2019 does more work than \u2018man\u2019, \u2018woman\u2019, or (in a hypothetical design) \u2018nonbinary\u2019 in the same manner that labels like \u201cstone butch\u201d and \u201chigh femme\u201d give much more specificity than \u201clesbian\u201d. It\u2019s more descriptive and suggests far more about how others see the character than \u201cdo they think this character\u2019s a boy or a girl\u201d. Unfortunately it\u2019s a single option in a single playbook where most of the other option do lead back to the question of \u201cMan or Woman?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Like the cockroach, gender norms have survived the apocalypse.<\/strong>“<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This where I find myself running into the limits of Apocalypse World<\/em>\u2019s implied setting and gender norms: \u201cman\u201d and \u201cwoman\u201d grate against \u2018ambiguous\u2019 and \u2018transgressing\u2019, the latter two defined in relation to the former. Man and woman are presented as two poles, with the other options being defined in relation to this bimodal set of norms. In fact, the choice to include \u2018transgressing\u2019 implies a degree of rigidity to these norms!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As written, Apocalypse World<\/em> is a game set 50 years after the apocalypse, during which culture is suggested to have undergone vast shift and losses. This is a game where the Driver can take such names as Grand Cherokee, Suv, and Beemer, where people \u201chave cultural references without the cultural referents\u201d and yet, somehow, hegemonic gender norms of Man and Woman persist. Like the cockroach, gender norms have survived the apocalypse.<\/strong> Perhaps we can blame their persistence on the Quarantine, a limited (i.e. non-core) playbook for an emerging vault-dweller tragically burdened with the restriction of choosing their Look between Man or Woman, a design choice playfully evocative by 2010 standards but that erases the presence of queer people in our present pre-\/mid-apocalyptic times, suggesting gender deviance is \u2018wild\u2019 or precipitated by the dissolution of society.<\/p>\n\n\n

In 2021, the Meguey & Vincent Baker released Burned Over<\/em>, of which they say: \u201cIn many ways, if we were to create Apocalypse World today, Burned Over is the game we\u2019d create.\u201d. In contrast to base Apocalypse World<\/em> using \u201cLooks\u201d to handle character appearance, the playbooks of Burned Over<\/em> feature the heading \u201c1st Impression\u201d which prompts players to \u201cChoose 1 or more, and add your own,\u201d and provides less physical and more social descriptions: aggressive, cryptic, forgiving, lively, nitpicky, raving, etc. The playbooks also prompt players to enter their pronouns into a blank box<\/em> (no \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe\u201d provided!). Something is lost in not prompting the player to consider how their character presents gender (I consider pronouns to be an intermittent <\/em>part of this, given their tendency to be assumed\/ignored\/unimportant to many social interactions) but this is perhaps deliberate given Burned Over\u2019s <\/em>shift in tone from 1st edition<\/a>5<\/a><\/sup>. Burned Over<\/i>, while aiming to produce the same genre and play as original flavour Apocalypse World<\/i>, steers itself along a safer path.<\/p>\n\n\n

Scraping away the framework of binary sex from this 2010\u2019s TTRPG I find myself left with these non-binary gender \u201clooks\u201d as a useful but situational tool. Providing players with a list of options (along with the option to create their own) sets tone and theme while giving players inspiration or quick answers. While these lists can be simple laundry lists of apparel they can also position themselves in relation to social norms without prescribing those norms. Thirsty Sword Lesbians <\/em>\u201cAesthetic\u201d section provides options like \u201cclothes to play a role\u201d (The Trickster), \u201ctransgressive clothes\u201d (The Infamous), and \u201choly vestments\u201d (The Chosen). This approach gives players more room to define their setting\u2019s own norms than \u201cMan, woman, ambiguous, transgressing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For its time I don\u2019t think Apocalypse World<\/em>\u2019s handling of gender (presentation) is bad or offensive, but it is certainly bears evidence of being released in 2010. Providing players with a fixed set of gender options (in identity or presentation) is not something I would recommend as standard practice, but putting character choices in relation with social norms (e.g. \u201ctransgressing\u201d) can serve as an excellent onboarding aid for games where the players aren\u2019t already experts on the game setting. And finally, always consider giving players the option to create their own options: what you imagine as the scope of desirable options may not match your players\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a><\/a> The 2019 Revision of Burning Wheel Gold replaces the universal \u2018Man\u2019 with \u2018Human\u2019 but deploys \u2018him or her\u2019 or just \u2018her\u2019 with startling infrequency.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a><\/a> I am here not speaking of nonbinary gender identities generally, but the formation of the specific nonbinary\/NB\/enby identity that allowed for the elision of the word \u201cgender\u201d from the label.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a><\/a> As an aside: I think anytime you write a PbtA move, the choice of phrasing between \u2018if\u2019 and \u2018when\u2019 can help set expectations for how that move will come up. The choice of \u2018if\u2019 here makes it clear this isn\u2019t something that must happen in the course of play.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a><\/a> I use \u201cpresentation\u201d throughout this post, but \u201cperformance\u201d could be used near-interchangeably. In either case, presentation\/performance should be understood to include not only deliberate expressions but also aspects of appearance and behaviour that may be more difficult to change: voice, body shape, etc.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a><\/a> Burned Over also elects not to include sex moves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMan, woman, ambiguous, or transgressing\u201d\u2013gender norms have survived the apocalypse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spatblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}