the Thing about Monsterhearts
Jan. 13th, 2019 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickiedearethe thing about monsterhearts - one of the things - is that despite the safe hearts inset I don't think it's capable of adequately handling the kind of material it is designed to bring up. specifically: as written, it's a game about monsters as teen allegory, and also deeply about sexuality. I feel like it's got some praise for explicitly including queerness in the mechanics - in that if you roll to turn someone on and succeed on your roll, it happens regardless of what you thought your character was into.
except... as written you can't opt out of the sex mechanics, and when I think about when *I* was a teenager, I was not ready and I knew it. and I spent a lot of time and energy trying to explain and convince and redirect my high school boyfriend. and all the convincing didn't fucking work anyway! and it stings that I want to play a campy queer teen monster game but I can't play this one because of gendered trauma.
sidenote: in my d&d group there's a little bit of a persistant issue with dudes who make edgy aggressive characters, and then play those characters to the hilt because it's just a fun game! except as that has to date included them roleplaying sexually harassing my character repeatedly, intimidating her, ignoring when she doesn't want an NPC murdered... and therefore just running roughshod over my enjoyment of this game because even though they don't get it, by proxy they are sexually harassing *me*. I know it's a problem but idk what to do about it, and that's in a bog standard d&d game, without any explicit mechanics about sex and desire. I resent that I would have to vet and curate three trusted close friends to play MH... and actually, when I *did* that, the one time I played, we were all burnt out after the session and the next session never materialized.
I think that's another thing - this game talks good game about gender but is surprisingly uninterested in gender dynamics? and how much and deeply gender affects relationships and sexual thoughts? I want this game to be For Me but the more I think about it the more it's... not.
I wrote a related post on tumblr a while ago that's relevant and also that I don't want to lose to the depths of the untagged archive:
I’m not sure which approach feels worse to me, the sexual violence origin story or having a female character in genre-mandated dangerous situations all the time and never having that threat come up at all.
the former is cheap and trite but the latter feels dishonest
#this is about my d&d character #but also kind of fandom and superheroes when the premise is literally fighting bad guys #and your protagonists get mildly to very hurt somewhat frequently. #what's the difference? is it too salacious somehow? is it 'inappropriate' or unspeakable? #but every single woman either has experienced some kind of violence or is close to someone who has #and that's in regular life. not high risk special powers life.
so without extensive debriefing and buy-in, how can this game adequately handle not only the history and statistically-implied trauma of the characters, but also of the players? I kind of don't think it can. Which, given the attention to other dynamics, makes it seem like a choice of omission - just like how other games don't account for queerness even though you could technically include it, this one just doesn't account for trauma or gender.
I don't want to fall into the discourse trap of only criticizing the people who are already trying to do better. This designer's games are maybe all just too intense for me even though they have really excellent cool premises. Maybe it's not the kind of storytelling experience I want from a game! I also want a heavier GM role and more guided options/quest format/combat or move-like mechanics rather than an open storytelling/roleplay world, but those feel more neutral.
I just want to play a Buffy analog is that too much to ask
except... as written you can't opt out of the sex mechanics, and when I think about when *I* was a teenager, I was not ready and I knew it. and I spent a lot of time and energy trying to explain and convince and redirect my high school boyfriend. and all the convincing didn't fucking work anyway! and it stings that I want to play a campy queer teen monster game but I can't play this one because of gendered trauma.
sidenote: in my d&d group there's a little bit of a persistant issue with dudes who make edgy aggressive characters, and then play those characters to the hilt because it's just a fun game! except as that has to date included them roleplaying sexually harassing my character repeatedly, intimidating her, ignoring when she doesn't want an NPC murdered... and therefore just running roughshod over my enjoyment of this game because even though they don't get it, by proxy they are sexually harassing *me*. I know it's a problem but idk what to do about it, and that's in a bog standard d&d game, without any explicit mechanics about sex and desire. I resent that I would have to vet and curate three trusted close friends to play MH... and actually, when I *did* that, the one time I played, we were all burnt out after the session and the next session never materialized.
I think that's another thing - this game talks good game about gender but is surprisingly uninterested in gender dynamics? and how much and deeply gender affects relationships and sexual thoughts? I want this game to be For Me but the more I think about it the more it's... not.
I wrote a related post on tumblr a while ago that's relevant and also that I don't want to lose to the depths of the untagged archive:
I’m not sure which approach feels worse to me, the sexual violence origin story or having a female character in genre-mandated dangerous situations all the time and never having that threat come up at all.
the former is cheap and trite but the latter feels dishonest
#this is about my d&d character #but also kind of fandom and superheroes when the premise is literally fighting bad guys #and your protagonists get mildly to very hurt somewhat frequently. #what's the difference? is it too salacious somehow? is it 'inappropriate' or unspeakable? #but every single woman either has experienced some kind of violence or is close to someone who has #and that's in regular life. not high risk special powers life.
so without extensive debriefing and buy-in, how can this game adequately handle not only the history and statistically-implied trauma of the characters, but also of the players? I kind of don't think it can. Which, given the attention to other dynamics, makes it seem like a choice of omission - just like how other games don't account for queerness even though you could technically include it, this one just doesn't account for trauma or gender.
I don't want to fall into the discourse trap of only criticizing the people who are already trying to do better. This designer's games are maybe all just too intense for me even though they have really excellent cool premises. Maybe it's not the kind of storytelling experience I want from a game! I also want a heavier GM role and more guided options/quest format/combat or move-like mechanics rather than an open storytelling/roleplay world, but those feel more neutral.
I just want to play a Buffy analog is that too much to ask
