058: Game Design & Incorporating Safety Tools in your TTRPGs with Kienna Shaw

Courtney: 27:03

Since you brought up Arcon, we’re gonna go to that and then I definitely have some follow up questions on all of your freelance work as well, but for Arcon it’s got a second edition out right now. So I would love to maybe hear a little bit about just the story of that game, like how you got connected with Jason and then, you know, what was it about the first edition that you decided that you wanted to update it into another edition?

Kienna: 27:29

Yeah, so, Jason and I met because of some mutual friends and because of Twitter and he and I, you know, started just playing some home games with each other and they started doing text RP, cuz you know, just a fun, it was a fun thing for us to play together and create things together. And eventually we got to a point where we were doing this cyber punk text RP. And we, and this is about the time that, you know, Cyberpunk 2077 had just been announced and all this stuff. And we were like, this is a really cool world that we’re making. What if we just built this out a little bit more and, and put this out into the world, like we’ve made by that point, we have made a bunch of games together, a bunch of solo games solo journaling stuff. But we’re like, why don’t we try to make something a little different and, and create this this setting that we kind of just made up on like off the cuff and as our, our own RP went into, you know, something that other people could use, especially since, you know, we were trying to be like, maybe we could like take the text RP and like pour it into a, an actual game system. And all the cyber punk systems out there are very, like, have their own world to it. And this and these worlds were not, you know, aligned with our own principles and values about what Cyberpunk could be, especially in a more modern day- cuz a lot of cyber punk has baggage. It has Orientalist baggage. It has baggage about about humanism and, and ableism, especially in the form of cybernetics. And you know, the idea that if you have more cybernetics, you’re less human and that didn’t quite fit with us. And so we were. We were like, what if we created a world that other people could, could put in? And that was a more, you know, modern refresh of what the, the same issues and core themes that are in the cyberpunk genre are. So yeah, so it really just started to us, you know, in a Google doc, just writing down, like what could this world be and what information would someone want to, to put Arcon into their own games. And it just kept building building until, you know, we eventually had a, a hundred plus page book that I laid out myself and that we, we put together and we put onto itch.io and we took the, the model of itch funding, which is a form of crowd funding. That’s done on itch.io with the idea of like, Hey, like it’s just the two of us, but it would be great if we could, you know, If we could get some art in here, cuz we’re just using royalty free like photos right now. And it’d be great to like, have someone actually properly edit this because it’s just the two of us working on this. And so we needed money to do that. We didn’t, we were able to donate all of our capital to make this thing cuz we wanted to make, to make the original edition’. But if we wanted to improve it, we needed money. And so that’s where the, the itch funding crowd funding came in. And when we were doing it, we, we launched that. We’re like, yeah, like, well we have like a whole year on the itch funding campaign. Like we won’t even have to think about it too much. Like when we hit certain sales goals, like we’ll be able to start doing stuff and adding more stuff to it, but you know, we’re not in rush. And then I’ve proven very wrong, very fast. As we, we went through our initial funding goal in seven hours. And we did all of our stretch goals, including additional ones we hadn’t thought about like adding in new authors and doing a print run in the span of a, of a, like a couple weeks and like, oh, okay. um, And so we had so many new things to add to the game, to add to the setting book and to you know, a, a real opportunity to work with some pretty amazing craters in this space that were like it, it’s not enough to just have, you know, here’s an a here’s. The first edition, plus some errata, like it was important to us to incorporate all this stuff. And that meant us also having to write new sections and new pieces of it. And it was just so much of a change that it made sense to make it the second edition. And we were very lucky that we were able to partner with Metal Weave Games who provided us the support to do a print run. Cause you are not able to do that. Especially in the time of of the supply chain and paper being very scarce right now. So yeah, we were very lucky that Andreas has reached out to us and we were able to work with him to get the book over on Metal Weave Games. And so it’s the first, it’s the first project where, you know, I basically managed a whole team to, to create something. And that was really cool. There was definitely a new experience. And I learned a lot from that. But yeah, it was, it was just so much of a even looking back and forth between the first and second edition. There’s, there’s so much change in there. And I was very lucky to have an audience that enjoyed it enough that, you know, I, we could get the money to, to make it a bigger, better project for, for all of us basically, you know, benefits us all that we were able to do this.

Courtney: 32:16

I think it’s really awesome, that like just how much you were able to like further develop it and help it grow and that it was so successful within seven hours and just kept growing like that’s. So that’s such a good story.

Kienna: 32:31

yeah, it’s, it’s really great. And a lot of it, again, couldn’t have come without the support of a platform that I helped develop and also, but just like a support network of, of amazing people. Being able to talk with the people at Dicebreaker and they featured Arcon during its itch funding campaign. And so we were able to get more eyes on it working with streaming communities like Huetopia where we worked together with a game designer and developed a, an actual play series that, you know, got eyes on it and was a really cool way of seeing the world. It like actually in life and stuff like that, like actually being used in a way that we could, we could see it and got other people interested in that. A lot of it comes down to to the community that we had. A lot of it comes down to the network of, of people that we were able to work with. But yeah, it’s kind of, it’s kind of strange to, to think about how, like, we really just went, Hey, what if we did this? And, and we did. And it, it works.

Courtney: 33:27

I wanna switch gears a little bit because there’s something that I definitely wanna make sure that we spend some time talking about, and that is your work on the safety toolkit. And then the, just the consulting that you’re able to do around safety tools.

Kienna: 33:43

Yes. Yeah.

Courtney: 33:44

I guess real quick, just in case any of our listeners are not familiar with the safety toolkit, can you give us a little bit of a overview about what it is and the tools that are specifically in there? And then I would love to know what the inspiration for that was.

Kienna: 33:57

Yeah. So the TTRPG safety toolkit is a free community resource that compiles a bunch of safety tools and support tools that have been created by people across the industry into one accessible place. So when we talk about safety tools, we talk about you know, systems and, and mechanics and stuff that are used to help communicate when people are having fun or when people need to, to, you know, take a break or when content that happens in the game, because it’s an improvised experience needs to shift so that everyone is still enjoying themselves. Because we are prioritizing the players at the table, And how they feel and their enjoyment over the story. So, you know, no matter what happens in the, in the story, it can always change because it comes from the brains of the people who are playing it. And safety tools are just ways to help facilitate that. Especially since it can be very difficult conversation to have. It’s the same way that, you know, when you are in a sports game if you’re, you have a referee, you have a way to handle when someone gets injured or you have a way to handle when someone needs to take a break. Those are all, you know, just normal parts of the game. And so that’s where safety and support systems are, are, you know, the same idea. These are just ways to, to make sure that everyone is it’s still in having fun with the game and also like set, you know, guidelines on how to, how to interact with each other and play with each other. So yeah, so that’s what the, the toolkit is. So it’s just, it’s basically a Google drive that has, you know a guide that I designed with my co-curator Lauren Bryant-Monk. It’s got some links to some amazing resources out there and, and tools and all that stuff. Also, we’ve got translations which have been kindly donated to us from community members. We’ve got panels recordings of panels and, and transcripts of those recordings of panels in there as well. And it’s just, it’s a ever growing thing, because, you know, people are still creating new safety tools and, and support systems that suit their needs. And at the end of the day, the toolkit is there as a way for people to one learn about safety tools, two access them easily because you know, it’s, it’s just one centralized location and three have a bunch of different options. Because one safety tool may not work for another person. Every person’s needs are different. And so, you know, the number of tools and systems that are out there reflects that. And so coming back to where I was inspired by to, to make this I, this, again, stem back into when I was in the actual play community and doing, you know, games all the time. It was in when I was in one of my channels that I was in very a lot of the times they were like, Hey, so let’s try out this thing. We’re gonna use the X card. And this is a great way to, you know, if something is happening in the game and you–it’s just not working for you, it’s uncomfortable for you hurting you in whatever way you can just type in X and we’ll know to, to rewind and change that up a little bit. And I was just like, wait, this was an option the whole time? Could I have been playing still for like over a year? I think two years at that point. And I was like, wait, this is an option? This is a thing that we could do? That blew my mind. And so I was like, wow, like all these, this would be great to be putting into like other games and stuff. Like more people should know about this. And so because I had never heard of, it could have been like the first documents were, were put on like, or links and mentions of it were put on stuff like the Forge or Google plus, and those all disappeared. And so I was just like, I’ll just make like a quick like, document. That’s just like. Puts up some of the tools that I’m learning about and links them back to the original stuff. So, you know, people know how to use them in, in their games. And so I just did that and this was really meant for my friends, but I put it on Twitter and it exploded a little bit. Mostly cuz it, it was a combination of people being like, wow, I’ve never heard of these before. These are amazing. I wish that I was using these before. And some people being like, Hey, you should also consider adding these tools that I use at home or that I’ve heard about because they’re not mentioned here. And I had never heard about them before. And at the time safety tools was a very controversial subject. And so I also got a lot of harassment and a lot of people being like, how dare you baby, me and my games. And like, how dare you try to try to tell me how to play. If you, if you need safety tools, like you shouldn’t be playing games, whatever. And so I realizing many things. There are tons of resources out there that people just never were able to find, because as much as we say, the internet is forever many of it isn’t and archiving very difficult. And two, like it actually had a positive impact. Like there were more people who were like, wow, this is great. And this is stuff that I want involved in my games more. And so I, I sat down and I started, you know, trying to create a new version of the guide that was, you know, encompassing more tools. And so I, I reached out, you know John Stavropoulos who’s the developer of the X card. I reached out to the person who made the O card Kira Magran who, you know made this, this other tools. And I kept building on what people just kept sending me and, you know, I got into some really great conversations with the designers and being like, Hey, it’s okay if I include this, I’m like, yeah, go ahead. And it got to the point where Lauren then reached out to me and was like, Hey, so I’m gonna go to a convention, local convention and talk about safety tools. You wanna come and talk with me there? I was like, yeah, sure. At the time I would still figuring out what to do with this. Like how do I make this, this safety resource, the best it can be? And we came across the idea of the toolkit which is the idea that, you know, we’ll put everything we can in there as many options as possible you know, provide people all the options that they can and continue growing that. And so we launched the toolkit at the convention. That was our, we were like, we don’t have a, we can’t, we don’t have any AV here. Like we don’t have a potential to do a like a slideshow, whatever. So what if we just gave them a link that they could go to and go read up on all this stuff themselves. And it just kind of grew from there. We, we put it out on the, on Twitter for the, the larger audience and it, once again, exploded But I would say that, you know, again, our work is in We, we haven’t designed any of the tools in there. And all of our, all of our work is just about pulling together everything. So that things work out and we’re very very precious about, about credit. It’s something very important to us that people credit the designers properly, just because again the original resources get lost. And so people were like, Hey Kienna, you designed this. So I was like, I did not. the, the names of the people that designed it are in the resource that I gave you, you should be crediting them instead. Yeah, so it, it became this, you know, having to balance this responsibility of, of education archiving, and also, you know, making sure that the right people are credited with their stuff. But it’s been, it’s such an easy way to, to introduce people to this concept, which had been around for a very long time. A lot of the work that’s been done and it had been done in the past, had 10 and 15 years it just didn’t have the mainstream push that it needed to have. And the, the safety toolkit did help with that. As advocacy with the the fact that it somehow won, won an Ennie a couple years ago. So that’s been, you know, it’s been a whole journey. And even in the past couple years, it’s been so fascinating to watch how much safety tools have become accepted and like actually like a very normal practice in games. Like you see it in, in actual plays and you see it in books and in systems and all this stuff as just like, yeah, this is just a normal thing that we talk about now, when, when I first started going into it’s, like, it was a very minor idea. And so, yeah, so we’ve been seeing a lot of development. Pushing forward safety design and especially pushing forward safety tool design that’s specifically made for specific games. So instead of having a generic tool, like the X card that can be put into any game, a lot of games are trying to build in safety and inclusion of of, you know, player responsibility and respecting each other’s enjoyment right into the game itself. And that’s where my consulting work comes in. It’s being able to, to do that put that right into the, the foundation of a game so that, you know, that’s the starting point. The baseline is that we are all here to enjoy playing together. We’re all here to respect each other’s boundaries. We’re all here to, you know, work together and, and be together in this game.

Courtney: 42:34

Yeah. I definitely think like it’s been a huge resource for me personally, to have just all of it curated into one spot. So I wanna thank you for that. Um, so I actually have a question from one of my patrons about being a safety consultant and, we haven’t really talked about that too much yet, but at what point in the process do you come in when you are acting as a consultant? Is it like towards the beginning of the game development process? Is it after the game is mostly formed and you’re just kind of doing a last check for safety tools. How that work?

Kienna: 43:10

We encourage it as early as possible. Just because it’s easier to, with any form of consulting. It’s easier to incorporate principles when you are there at the very start, rather than trying to work backwards from when it’s almost done and you have to go, well, one of your foundational things is not working. So we need to, we need to pull the pull apart, everything that’s built on it until we get to the foundational issue, and then we can rebuild everything. Oftentimes though I’m being brought in when stuff is in development. So there’s enough texts there to kind of go through and say like, okay, we wanna want a good path. And also because we’re often I’m also developing new systems and tools, like for, for example, for Iron Sworn and Iron Sworn Starforged and for Die RPG. We came in when, you know, there was a good chunk of the draft done and they say, Hey, like where can we incorporate some new and unique stuff within our, you know, safety sections and, you know, some mechanics that we could be building in. And, and it’s helpful to have a good portion of the game, like at least put down on paper so that you can see where it’s going to, to work with that. Especially since often the game designing will have a specific vision for what they’re trying to evoke in their system and where like, where the likelihood is of some dangers or, or pitfalls that could happen. So yeah, so ideally earlier, but often in the development process, like we’re not usually being handed a, Hey, this could be published tomorrow, go check this out. That’s probably the worst case scenario. It’s very much a, Hey, like we’re going through a lot of this, but can you, can you make sure that we’re not doing anything really bad with this, or are there ways that we could, and rather I think the better way to prove is like, how do we improve, you know, where we are right now with where a game is. So yeah.

Courtney: 45:03

Is there anything in particular that you tend to recommend for like every game, regardless of the setting, the system.

Kienna: 45:13

I don’t, I don’t really think so because I, I mean, there are very popular ones. So ones that I use very often, like I said, I’ve talked about the X card. There’s also script change. There’s also, you know, the Luxon technique. People talk about lines and veils all the time and start and wishes, but I, I try to avoid saying, you know, these are the ones I, I would recommend, or these, the ones that you should be using, just because again, everyone is unique in how they communicate and how they need their needs met. And I find that when, whenever someone says, this is the only safety tools you should be using, it’s is not great. Because people just don’t always vibe with that. And it’s okay that people are gonna have different needs and that there should be different options. Like you’re how I say it is that, you know, it’s better. The toolkit is meant to give you a full array of tool because you know, when you have a nail, a hammer is great, but when you have a screw, a hammer is not great. So you use the screwdriver instead, right. And having all those options there just makes it better and gives you more flexibility to work with the people that you are with at that table.

Courtney: 46:18

Totally. So when you are consulting on a game, like how do you decide, how do you know, like what recommendations to make?

Kienna: 46:25

Well, it’s a lot of just talking through and being like, okay, are you making sure that you’re setting up the foundation for people to be able to communicate what they’re okay with? What they’re not okay with? Both before, during, after a game. That’s the basic guidelines though, right? Is like, how, how can people tell, tell you as a, you know, at a player, as a GM ,whatever that they’re, they’re having fun and enjoying it before, during and after you’re in the middle of play. And so the foundations there, is it them saying, okay, so can, are we, are we making sure that the game has that, are we making sure that people are, you know, we’re giving the principles to people and then giving them the, the options and resources to go off and go find the stuff that they like. A lot of systems do and designers have their ed ones and they go, this is what I use. And that’s, I think is okay. As long as they also say this one might not work for you. Go check out some of this other stuff. I think that’s just the most important part is like, can you set up the foundation of the principle of care that everyone is supposed to care about each other, and about the, you know, about everyone’s enjoyment over, you know, the drama or the, the story of the game, and then pointing people towards where they can learn for themselves and develop stuff or even more simply, you know, find a way for people to engage with safety stuff in the game itself. So having mechanics that are built into the game itself rather than, you know, a third party thing that’s added on top you know, it, it just makes it even more normalized and easier for people to use cuz they just engage with that safety mechanic the same way that they engage with any other mechanic in the game.

Courtney: 48:01

That makes a lot of sense. I’m encouraged and I hope that more games definitely start incorporating it from the get go.

Kienna: 48:08

Yeah, and I, I think we’ve been, we’ve been seeing that it’s been, it’s been really fascinating to, to watch that. Again, watch that change. It’s been, it’s been fascinating.

Courtney: 48:17

yeah, definitely. Oh, my gosh. Oh, we are almost at time and I’m really sad cuz I feel like I’ve barely skimmed the surface with you.

Kienna: 48:26

I

Courtney: 48:27

Okay. Well I guess real quick, before we wrap up, I’ve got a couple questions that I like to ask in every interview. And so for the first one, I like to just acknowledge that we do all of this stuff cuz you know, we love it. We love these games. We love the experiences that come with it, but there are definitely some challenges to working within the tabletop RPG space. So is there anything in particular that you’d say over the last, I think we said five years, that has been particularly challenging for you?

Kienna: 48:57

I mean, for me, it’s a lot of, it has been one, I’m a marginalized person I’m you know, visibly femme, and I’m also very vocally queer and a person of color. And so that’s a lot of, you know, bigotry and a lot of systems that work against me. But more uniquely, I think a lot of the challenges that I, that I came across with balancing. The need to be a prominent person in the space and the, the desire to create where I’m, I’m trying to balance who I am as a person online and, and, you know, I, I do have a fairly sizable following and trying to balance the responsibilities I have there as someone with with an audience with the fact that I also, I just wanna make stuff and I don’t necessarily wanna be famous. And you know, having to, to be someone who is ethical and making sure that I’m putting back into the space, if not positive, at least neutral energy. And that is compounded by the fact that I’m a marginalized person. People have different expectations of how I have to act online and what I have to do with my, with my platform and what I have to do with stuff I make because they have certain expectations of me as a marginalized person versus, you know, if I was a white dude. And so it’s, it’s been a unique challenge and it’s been a lot of me, renavigating how to use social media and renavigating, you know, my, what I wanna do in this space. Like again, I have pivoted away from actual play. You know, I’m no longer doing five shows or seven shows a week. I’m doing, you know, two maybe and focusing a lot more on writing and designing. Cause that’s what I wanna do. And again, it’s, this, this has had been a lot of my young adulthood. And so it’s a lot of me figuring out my own shit and who I am as a person all on top of this. So it’s, it’s been a unique journey and it’s been I don’t think I would trade it for anything else, but there have definitely been challenges. But thankfully I do have a, a great support system of, of friends and, and, and loved ones who are, who are there to, to help me out.

Courtney: 50:53

Yeah. I just also thinking about, yeah. Trying to navigate all of that in your early twenties, like, god, that that’s a hard enough time but yeah, so I guess to flip it around, is there anything that you’d say is like the most rewarding, exciting part of it all?

Kienna: 51:12

I mean, I think it’s just rewarding to, to put stuff out in the world and know that people are, are engaging with it in some way or enjoying it in some way. It’s. Like in terms of my, my game stuff is always so great. Whenever people are like, Hey, I, I played this and I liked it a lot. And I’m like, that’s, you know, that made my day or for, you know, actual play stuff, you know, having people be there in the chat and being there with, for us as we ride the highs and lows of a campaign and, you know, the emotional moments and the action pack stuff. And for the, for the safety stuff is the, you know, just having the knowledge that it has helped people. And it’s even if it has only helped one table be a better place for the people there, then that that’s what really matters. And so, you know, just, just, it’s, it’s sometimes hard to be an artist or to be a creator and just put stuff out there and hope that it, it comes back to you in some positive way. And I’ve been very lucky to have that response, to have a, a, you know, A community that goes, yes, we like this stuff. Keep going, please. So, yeah.

Courtney: 52:21

that is always super encouraging. well, okay. I know we like didn’t even talk about Salty Sweet Games, like at all. So I mean, this would normally be the spot where I’d, be like, oh, are there any upcoming projects that we haven’t talked about that you wanna mention? So I’ll still ask that question, realizing we didn’t even talk about this like huge thing that you do on a regular basis.

Kienna: 52:42

Yeah. So um, As as mentioned the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign that I’m on is over on Salty Sweet Games, which is a channel that I co-produce with my other friend, Lauren, I have two very important Laurens in my life. It gets kind of confusing sometimes with my very important friend, Lauren Irwin. Together, we have been running the channel as just, you know, a place for us to, to play and perform. And we’ve been doing this this campaign for a really long time. And it’s just, it’s just a nice small space for us really at the end of the day. But we have a really also great dedicated community of people who, who watch us over on Twitch and over on YouTube who seem to like what we do and had been with us with different campaigns that we’ve also done alongside Masks. So yeah, so that’s, I’m, I’m very, fairly regular over there.

Courtney: 53:27

Kienna this has been amazing. If people would find the games, we talked about, wanna hire you as a consultant or just find you in general, where should they go?

Kienna: 53:37

Yeah. So I am mostly over on Twitter. That’s over at KiennaS. I also do have, you know, links there for all the stuff we talked about. If you wanna check out the TTRPG safety tool itself it does have its own Twitter account which is a TRPGSafetyKit. And it’s a Bitly link that you can just go and check out at any point. And you know, if you’re interested in actual play stuff that I do regularly that is Salty Sweet Games over on Twitch and YouTube. And that’s, that’s where I am. I’m, I’m scattered across the internet and I always am basically.

Courtney: 54:09

Thank you so much for coming in today. Like this was really informative. Like I’m really excited to just keep following all of the amazing things that you do.

Kienna: 54:17

Yeah. Thank you so much again, for, for inviting me on. This was, this was a great conversation.