Author’s Diary for February 19, 2021

(Don’t forget to contribute to our Patreon campaign or join us on the Radio Free Covenant Discord server! Don’t forget to tune in to the Radio Free Covenant podcast every Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. Pacific) on our Twitch page and get a summary of the game rules!)

Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

We’re almost done with Player Consent chapter and with Covenant’s playtest rules!

Here’s what we want to talk about this week:

• The work that we did this week
• Our progress on Covenant’s playtest rules
• How to become a playtester

WHAT WE DID THIS WEEK

We’re almost done with the Player Consent chapter! Here’s what we wrote for this chapter this week:

• Introduction to Player Consent: What it is, why it should be respected, and the rights and responsibilities it confers on the Force Majeure and players
• Safe Space Gaming: What safe space gaming isn’t (someplace where bad things never happens), what it is (someplace where you have some control over things and a way to edit things that make you unsafe or uncomfortable out of game), and how it can help you respect player consent in your game
• Harm Reduction: What harm reduction is – basically, reducing your chances of feeling unsafe or uncomfortable by avoiding unsafe or uncomfortable situations – and some steps you can take to do just that
• Session Zero: How to use your game’s “session zero”, or introductory session before the game starts, to have players opt in to the game’s premise and plot and to talk about these topics
• Other Techniques: Other techniques besides session zero that the FM and players can use to verify player consent and  maintain and comfort during the game, including:
  • Go/No Go Lists: Includes topics that the Force Majeure and players want and don’t want in the game
  • X-Card: The game’s brake pedal, which allows the FM and players to flag unwanted content and remove it from the game
  • O-Card: The game’s gas pedal, which allows the FM and players to indicate their approval of what’s happening in the game or what the FM or players are currently doing
  • Checking In: Meetings between the Force Majeure and players that give everyone a chance to talk about their feeling and what they experienced in the game

OUR PROGRESS ON THE PLAYTEST RULES

There’s not much left to do. We have just a few more pages to add to the Player Consent chapter, and we’re done – not just with the chapter, but the playtest rules. Knock on wood, we should have it done someday next week, which is well before our Feb. 28, 2021 deadline. After that, we start distributing it to our playtesters.

BECOMING A PLAYTESTER

Do you want to become a playtester? Just drop us a line at radiofreecovenant@gmail.com, and we’ll put you on the list when the rules are finished at the end of February.

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That’s about it for now. Talk to you next Friday!