Note: I do not own the game I’m about to talk about. I’m discussing this as a player in one game. I have ordered the book. I am a genderqueer game designer. End Note.

This past weekend was JiffyCon West. JiffyCon is a series of small one day cons held in various Massachusetts locations (and I think sometimes in other states). It’s a great way to playtest new material and see games that may be harder to find at larger cons.

I ran Ace Adventure for FAE there and it was a moderate success. In the afternoon I played a game called Rookvale. The sign up sheet described it (from memory) as ‘A group of genderfluid misfits adventuring in a dark continent and battling demons. Basically really grim pokemon’. I’m not going to lie, it was the genderfluid part that got my attention. If it was important enough to make the blurb, surely it must be key to the games tone or mechanics somehow, and why were we all gender fluid?

Spoilers: I never really got that last question answered. That’s just the way things are in Rookvale, which is fair enough.

In this game character creation is primarily done by receiving four cards. In retrospect these could have been dealt randomly (which is always a plus for me). Our GM gave us a brief description of each one’s flavors (specifically leaving out the mechanics) and let us pick. There’s your Gender, your Trade, an Ordeal you’ve been through, and an Artifact the grand mission hub lady gives you. Each of these has powers (special actions) and traits (that alter your base stats). Besides the basic actions, these four cards are what your character. There was no race or class or any choices like feats and what not. Playing it was kind of reminiscent of a Munchkin/Fate mashup. It was interesting and I liked it, but let’s talk about those gender cards.

Of the four cards you get, gender was the only thing that could change through the game. You literally were not allowed to trade artifacts but you could trade Awesome Points (yes those were a thing. I’m not paraphrasing), to change genders. So when they said gender fluid, they meant it.The genders were not what we typically think of but instead were called things like: Father, Jack, Monast, Tinder, Mug and Lady. Each one gave you an ability but had no description of what it meant to be that gender. That was basically up to us. We quickly learned that it did mean something to the NPCs. People would treat you different depending on which gender you currently were, and this would change based on what region you were in. So mechanically these cards often acted as they way other people saw your gender, and the game assumes the gender your feeling is also the gender your expressing.

The mechanics, in retrospect, seem to be based on your experience as that gender. Now I don’t think that gender expression would change what you can do, unless those abilities were specifically about how others treat you. I do believe that your experience would change you can do. Experience, not birth, is how we develop what we can and cannot do unless we are talking about the physical attributes of a young person. In the end the gender part of the game seemed to be a very small part of it. It almost seemed like an after thought, even though it was a quarter of who you were. The GM we had was new to running the game, and we only had 4 hours, but he made it seem like scenes, that were not combat, were designed to be very very short. So it got me thinking 'What would a game look like where gender was really important?’

I think that game would have to be one where gender was broken up into:

gender expression: How you present yourself to the world, and therefore how others interact with you.

gender experience: The gender that has had the greatest influence on who you are.

These two might have the same label but each would grant a different ability. For some characters, their gender experience may have nothing to do with how they see themselves now. This would need to be a game where social interaction gets a decent amount of playing time. I think it might work best in a near future or punk setting. I am very interested in hearing people’s thoughts on this.

You can get the Rookvale RPG here: http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/rookvale/