Episode 5: Naomi Clarke

Sasha and Jonny are have a sit down with Naomi Clarke of Power Word Roll and No More Damsels to talk performance, safety tools and inclusivity!

You can find more about No More Damsels here

You can find Power Word Roll here

Find Naomi at:
Twitter:  @naomithinksit

Find MacGuffin & Co. at:
Website: www.macguffinandcompany.com
Twitter: @MacGuffinandCo
Facebook: MacGuffin and Company
Patreon: www.patreon.com/macguffinandcompany

Thanks to our audio editor Lowri Davies

Transcript

[Intro plays, an upbeat, arcade game-like tune.]
JONNY
Hello, and welcome to  “No One Wants to Hear Your RPG Stories,” the podcast that is a lie. The title is wrong, ‘cause that's exactly what we’re talking about. We’re talking about my stories, the stories of Jonathan Sims, one half Macguffin & Company. We’re talking about Sasha’s stories—
SASHA
The stories of me, Sasha Sienna, also of Macguffin & Company!
JONNY
And most importantly, we’re talking about the stories of our guest, Naomi Clarke!
NAOMI
Hi, hi! I’m Naomi, and I’m part of Power Word Roll, and I also co-run the RPG charity No More Damsels. And most recently, I’m now involved in the Secret of St. Kilda! That’s all my plugs, I did them.
SASHA
Would you like to tell people how you’re involved in The Secrets of St. Kilda, Naomi, because I feel like “I’m involved with,” might be downplaying your role.
NAOMI
[laughs] Okay, I wrote the Secrets of St. Kilda, in a fever dream of three months, having never written a script before. I wrote ten episodes of a thing that is now happening.
SASHA
Great.
NAOMI
And for Power Word Roll, I edit, I play, and I also sort of manage the behind-the-scenes, and for No More Damsels, I’m the founder, so maybe I downplayed some stuff, but it's cool.
JONNY
Should we ask our wonderful guest some questions?
NAOMI
Please do.
SASHA
So we’re going to start with the questions we ask all of our illustrious guests. The first one is, “What was the first RPG you ever played?”
NAOMI 
So, I played D&D, 4th edition, one time, and it was a catastrophe from start to finish. I didn't know the people I was with very well, and it was like, “great you're a tenth level wizard!” And I was like, “This is a lot.”
ALL
[laughing]
NAOMI
If you're not a D&D player, that’s a lot for your first time, but the first one I actually remember enjoying was Monster of the Week. So the university I was in was doing a living campaign of Monster of the Week.
SASHA
Ooh!
NAOMI
I think it had like twenty tables? And ended with a large “Everyone plays at once while a large portal is opening and people are jumping from table to table. I remember playing a gay werewolf, which, like, spoilers for later, innit? But it was a very enjoyable experience of just, like, wish fulfillment. I don't think its the best I've  ever been as a player because I was definitely having that early player sort of “I can do anything?” sort of experience, but I look back on it fondly.
JONNY
That sounds phenomenal. I also love that- augh, tenth level wizard— just like— wizard, the most complicated class...
SASHA
And in fourth ed. as well.
JONNY
Arguably the most complicated D&D edition, just, ah— wow.
NAOMI
It was one of those situations where the fact that there was so much for me to get my hands on wasn't even the worst bit? There was a girl who was playing a ranger and it was like watching someone who doesn't understand how a video game or a puzzle works? Being like “And you see a mysterious gem on the ground!” and it’s like, “I keep walking,” you're like— there are rules! 
[laughter]
NAOMI
There are rules, you can’t just keep walking, that’s not how it works! And “Oh, you find yourself, you’re not on the battlefield, but you’re high above on a rock and you have a full view of everyone,” and they're like, “I would like to walk down to the battlefield.” "Well, it will take you like four rounds to get down there and you do have a really great view of everyone, you know, if you’re using a distance weapon. Like a bow and arrow?"
JONNY
“But I can’t punch anyone from up here!”
NAOMI
Yeah and she’s like, “I’d like to walk down,” so it was like three rounds of someone being like, “And on my turn, I walk down the hill.” Just being like "Ok".
JONNY
That’s amazing.
SASHA
To be fair, I think when I was a beginning roleplayer, if you like, I certainly did things where I definitely broke the rules of the game because I came to roleplaying very much as a like “I’m embodying my character” point of view, and I did a lot of the very obnoxious “but it’s what my character  would do” things. And I feel like people are probably telling stories about me like that as well.
NAOMI
Yeah, my first character got arrested and taken out of the game, because I maybe did a moonwalk as a werewolf in a casino because I was like- I was  waiting for someone to stop me, you know, when you're like pushing somthing, and everyone’s just “you will bury yourself now, welcome to the world of consequences.”  And it was like, yeah that's fair. But I'm definitely more like the person who's like “I would like to push the button; in fact I would like to push three buttons, immediately."
JONNY
See, there is that thing that when you start out, that like: on the one hand you're like, “Ooh, I can do anything I have such freedom—” and “I also have concrete motivation and consequences and story—” those are more nebulous concepts that haven't quite sunk in from a roleplaying point of view yet. So it’s very much like, “Oh no, but my character, my really cool vigilante character, would immediately murder them, obviously” and it’s like—  [various annoyed noises] “It’s what he would do, because I created Rorsach from Watchmen, because I'm a teen and I'm edgy.”
NAOMI
Yeah, I have the benefit where I've  never really been an edgy person, so that's really saved me from a lot of early roleplaying mistakes. It's just I'm also an idiot, that's the problem.
JONNY
So- Well, which follows up into: of all the characters you've played, what would you say is one that's stuck with you the longest?
NAOMI
So we had a group game. So I used to live in New Zealand, and then I moved to England which is why I have this weird voice, and the first year or two that I moved, we continued playing our sunday night game with me getting up at five in the morning UK time to play D&D. Which, like, as far as something that you can maintain over a long period of time, is not very easy. I’m not a morning person. But I remember doing a game where I was playing like a half-elf cleric and I think I was in a lot of ways sort of exploring the thing of religion and what that's like, because I come from a very religious family. My grandfather was a pastor, both of my grandmothers played piano in the church, it was kind of like a long-going thing. And obviously, like, as a queer, it was always a little bit complicated, my relationship with that. And so the ability to play a cleric and be like “God is there and also he talks to you and he’s direct,” the sort of experience of exploring that as a concept really was fascinating over a period of four years. I remember sort of the difference between playing a character who’s just reacting to playing a character who’s sort of creating an identity. I know that’s a little bit hardcore for like, the third question, but I think characters are really interesting to explore stuff that you're sort of experiencing and being like like “Wow, here’s a character who can experience the other side of something that I cannot experience.” So, like, I cannot pray and God will answer me, unfortunately, that’s just part of my life. And coming from a family where a lot of people are like, “Oh, yeah, an angel pushed me back on a pylon when I almost fell off.” Like, that was my ma. Nice.
SASHA
Sorry, Jonny’s face is doing this thing where he’s like, “What?” and I’m just like- I have such a similar background to you that I’m just— yep, yep.
NAOMI
Yeah, classic.
JONNY
Thing is, I have a very religious background but it's less, I don't know, revelatory, I guess? Like it feels a lot more grounded, the sort of religious experience than I’m familiar with.
NAOMI
Yeah, my family’s not, like— they’re not sensationalists, but there is definitely a thread of that kind of thing. So my cousin had a brain disease when he was a kid, and they were like “It’s never going to happen" and "he’ll never grow up,” and then it just stopped, and everyone was like “Thank the lord!” And then my mum was doing- she was a photographer for the NatWest, of all places— no, not NatWest, sorry, the National Grid. The National Grid.
SASHA
Right. I didn’t realize they needed photographers, to be honest.
NAOMI
No, neither did they, but my mum’s the kind of person she's like “You need a photographer,” and then people just give her money. So she was climbing a pylon and they were like “A photographer that's a woman? We don't have any women’s gear.” She she had these huge men’s gloves climbing a pylon and her hand slipped out, and she fell backwards and she says an angel pushed her back. And I'm like, “What a reassuring experience to have that was just like so beyond my ability to access.” So for me, playing a cleric I think is really interesting because it’s so direct. It’s part of the reason I like writing about gods and people because, you know, it’s outside of my experience but I understand the framework that it exists in.
JONNY
Yeah. And I mean you say it’s "oh, it's maybe a bit deep", but this is the character that’s stuck with you, and often those are the characters where you're able to access something or explore something that speaks to you in ways that you didn't necessarily have access to or expect.
NAOMI
Yeah, and I think it's also playing the same character for a long period of time, and moving away from your friends, and that being your only way of accessing or socializing with people that are now like twenty-one thousand miles away makes it sort of, I think, more heightened and more intense, so you remember that stuff a lot more.
SASHA
Yeah, I think- I mean, it shows a certain dedication to have got up at five A.M. for four years, every week.
NAOMI
Yeah. It got to the point where I was like, “I'm so tired. Getting up is so hard.”
SASHA
I think I would definitely only do that if that character really meant something to me.
JONNY
My dad’s group had a guy in it who- He was a teacher and he always used to be absolutely exhausted when he turned up, and so for like a good year or two, the characters he played were always like the barbarian, or the one with the mini-gun, or this sort of thing, so he could just sort of zone out and drift off for half the session, and someone would just give him a nudge when combat rolled around and he was like “Yup! Okay! Going to kill ‘em all.”
SASHA
“I hit it with my axe. Problem solved.”
JONNY
Yup, and he did, and to all appearances had a great time.
SASHA
Oh, I rely very heavily on that character model for when my fibro's bad. When I’m having a bad flare, it's just like “Okay, I’m just playing the beefiest dude and punching things when I wake up, and then I can zone out the rest of the time.
NAOMI
I played a game of Shadow of the Demon Lord and I came in halfway through so people had been already playing it for like a season, and someone invited me in so I joined. But it was quite lore-heavy: the GM was one of those people who writes a lot of threads. And I was like, “I'm never going to keep up with all of this stuff, so I'm just going to play the dumbest character, because then it's not me who doesn't understand what's going on and who these people are, it's my character.” And what a saving grace.
SASHA
Oh, it’s such a smart play sometimes.
JONNY
It always makes me think of years back— there’s a setting called Deadlands which I was massively into at a very formative time for my roleplaying— and I knew— and there’s dozens of soucebooks of lore, which I had read all of and I knew basically everything about the setting. And I joined this huge game, which was right at the start, and most people had no idea what was going on, and so I had to talk to the GM and be like, “Can I play this character who has just like-  Knowledge: Occult at the highest level so that I don't have to—”
SASHA
Meta-game.
JONNY
Yeah, so I can- I can get away- Minimize the amount of metagame I'm doing, and then I can very consciously and deliberately play the role of the, like, kind of secretive character who knows more than they're letting on? And that was a very enjoyable experience.
NAOMI
Deadlands is a great game though, I really enjoy it.
JONNY
Yeah, it’s a tricky one to revisit some of the setting stuff, because there's so much to do with the “magical Native American,” and some of the— a lot of the kung fu stuff is— mm.
NAOMI
I mean, monks still exist in D&D 5e and at some point we're gonna have to just face that and get rid of it.
JONNY
Yeah.
SASHA
Yeah. So I feel like we might have already had the answer to this question a little bit, but just in case it's something different: When was the first time you remember roleplaying really hooking into you and getting under your skin such that it is now a major part of your life?
NAOMI
So, because I can see the questions in a document, listeners at home, I’m going to wrap this—
SASHA
No! Our secrets!
JONNY
No, they're all coming- They all come from us!
NAOMI
I didn’t get them ahead of time, so I did't get to prepare, so this is still off-the-cuff. But the next question is: What’s the biggest disaster you’ve ever caused in a game as a GM or a player?
JONNY
Spoilers!
NAOMI
Spoilers! So I'm going to roll the two together. This is the same character, the religious cleric one that I did, and I remember it so vividly because I was on a train. So I was essentially playing by phone on a train platform because I had to cross the country to do some actual life stuff, and I couldn’t be in my house. And we were doing a combat and, as a character I was in that position that clerics often get into which is: ”do I heal someone or do I try and kill this thing?” I attempted a banishment, and a banishment spell never works. Just doesn't. I’ve seen it work one time. And instead of- I was like "if he kills me, he kills me". But he didn't. He turned round and killed the beloved NPC.
SASHA
[gasp] No!
NAOMI
And so- I remember, like, we got a letter where he was like “It's okay I'm with my wife and child now,” but I felt so responsible. As a player, I felt so responsible for this imaginary dwarf’s death. I remember being on a platform in the middle of the country, literally the middle of nowhere, sobbing my eyes out just like crying hysterically, and then getting on the train and people being like, “Oh my god someone has died.” And you can't be like- 
SASHA
Well, kind of…
JONNY
[laughing]
NAOMI
[pretending to cry] "It's a dwarf! And he had a kid! And now he’s alone and it's all my fault and I was just like- My friends are just like, “It's fine, it's really beautiful!” And I was like, “No, I'm personally responsible for this death and I will never recover.” And I just remember like crying buckets.
JONNY
I have orphaned this imaginary child.
NAOMI
I know! I just felt so responsible! As a cleric, you always feel responsible if someone dies, because you're like "I could have prevented this awful thing".
SASHA
That's heart-wrenching.
JONNY
So, Naomi, next question: You choose to edit Power Word Roll more like a radio play than a traditional actual play podcast. Why is that, and what difference do you think it’s made to the way you and the cast engage with the RPG?
NAOMI
So when we started deciding to record Power Word Roll, Conrad, who’s the GM, on Power Word Roll— he has a background in radio, so he used to be a radio host, and his dad I think actually still works for the BBC? And for me, personally, I come from a video editing background. So I have really strong feelings about what is necessary for story and everything else gets cut. And while I was living in the country for a while before I was doing my degree, I watched Critical Role. I did the Critical Role thing. And I was like, “That is great but now I have other things to do.” I think it’s a great show, no shade, no shame, it’s very well produced, very well done, but as an adult with a job and stuff to do, I just don't have time for four hours of content a week, plus Talks Machina and then Everything Is Content, and then- It just layers up so quickly. And I love podcasts because you can sort of absorb them as you go? You know, you're not required to sit down and watch a thing, and they're really convenient for commuting. I live in London, so every day that's like thirty minutes on the train so I can spend that listening to a podcast, but I don't have to give it all of my attention all the time and I can still do another task, which as an adult in the world that's very useful to me. And so when we were making Power Word Roll, I felt really strongly it needed to be edited. I think it's a commitment to story, and also I think, just, edited content is better, and I think that we all feel that we want to make good content. You know, it’s not really about sharing what we do, you know? Obviously we love the games, but the difference between a game that you're experiencing yourself, and the difference between watching a game is very very different, and I think there's a lot of podcasts out there that are just like “Here is the game in its entirety,” and if you have time and the commitment for that, that's great. But we do the D&D podcast for people who don't like D&D podcasts. And as far as changing the way you play, it actually took us a little while to get into it. So I think it really was like a learning process in the production of the game. Is that it's not the same as playing at home. You have to be really conscientious of the product that you're creating. So there’s a lot of times when we first started playing— because we've all played quite a lot of D&D before - especially Annie, she’s like playing three or four times a week, usually — We’re really, sort of, canny of the usual traps and pitfalls, and it was very easy for us originally to be like “Well we’re not going there,” but there's no interesting story being like “A big dark castle? No, we’ll stay at that lovely inn, thank you.” There's nothing fun or interesting about that. And sort of making those choices and sometimes you make a choice and then we go, “I don't think this is right for the story we want to create,” and we roll it back and we've played an entire session again. So I think it is a process of learning how to do it, and learning how to look at each other and be like, “I'm going to do a thing and I need you to react very negatively,” or “I need you to back me up very positively” and know that you need them to overreact to whatever you're doing. Because it's not enough to just do an action, you need the group as a total to feel something about it all the time. So we had one bit where Annie, who was playing a young warlock, was like, “I have an evil book full of spells and its very Cthulhu-possessed and I want to read it.” And obviously as a character I’m like, “No, no, a terrible idea, rubbish, get rid of it, it's clearly cursed.” But that meant that Henry immediately had to go,  “I think it's really important for her to have the book,” because if we both go, “No,” there's no story there. Obviously, she has to keep the book because she’s a Wizard of the Tome, and we had to make that split-second decision at the table after I said, “No you can't have it,” Henry immediately had to pick up and be like, “Yes, you must have it, because it's good for your education!” Because you have to create, you know, the dynamism of not all agreeing.
JONNY
And also, yeah, it’s such an interesting point that in a personal game, you can play, in inverted commas, "well". You know? You can avoid the trap, for instance. But in a performative thing, if the GM’s got a really really cool trap and in a personal game you avoid it, you've done really well, and afterwards the GM might be like, “Ugh  I had such a cool trap, and it didn't go off,” and you're like, “Hahaha!” But in a performative one, you got to set off that trap! You’ve got to set off the trap!
NAOMI
Yeah. There’s no point in having content that you don't use, and part of that is there's a benefit of choosing one of you to play the dumb character, because one of you should always have a reason to stick your arm into the trap. Like, every time. So either you have to have a dumb character, or you have to have someone who’s deeply impulsive, and that has to be part of it, because you need someone to take the L for the team and be like, “This may kill me, but I have to stick my arm in here.”
SASHA
Yeah, I think what you said about how you can't quite like, roleplay "well", I thought you were going with something different there. I thought you were going with “You can't actually fully immerse yourself in the character,” and I think what you were saying, Naomi, about having to overreact or having to maybe create conflict where there wouldn't necessarily be conflict between the characters is another side of that. You can't really just be your character, because your character might not be as, kind of, big and bold as you need it to be.
NAOMI
Yeah. We quite often talk about it like chess? So in the game of chess, no single piece is important, even the queen. The only thing that matters is the board as a whole. So it comes to a point where you're like "Right, I have to sacrifice a piece for the good of the story". And that's often the choice that you have to make is to think, “Is this piece actually- Is it adding to the story or is it hindering the story?" You know, if someone gets an adorable pet, yeah it's great for three sessions. But having that pet die? Great story, great story. It's hard to be like, “But I won it at a fair!” and you're like, “Yeah, but it doesn't add to the story just sort of hanging out doing nothing,” and sometimes, that means you sacrifice pieces that you wouldn't necessarily sacrifice in a home game, because you have to choose at every junction, to be like, “Is it adding to the story, is it not adding to the story?” And I mean there's whole scenes that we just cut. There’s literal games that we cut because it doesn't add to the story— we really enjoyed it, we enjoyed playing together, we enjoyed what we did. But it didn’t add to the narrative in a way that felt significant so we don't need it. And it's really hard to be ruthless, but you just have to be ruthless.
JONNY
Yeah, and in a home game, there's so many different ways you can enjoy a home game. The exploration, the embodiment, the like, talking it through—
NAOMI
(simult.) Shopping episodes!
JONNY
Yeah, shopping, or you know, just overcoming a puzzle or avoiding an obvious pitfall, there's so much to enjoy there in so many different ways. But for an actual play, for a performance, you've got to boil it down into what's going to be compelling listening.
NAOMI
Yeah, and I think there’s also like, the day to day stuff of— we have hand signals for “I need to cough or open a sweet.” Or, like, you can't have any snacks that have foil on them. And everybody has to stop if somebody needs a drink of water, because the sound of the tap is terrible for audio, and sort of- All that sort of thing as well. So you get in the practice of adding that to your play is thinking: “Wow guys, we bought these excellent snacks, but no one’s going to eat them.”
SASHA
So, when I guested on Power Word Roll, I had an absolutely great time, because it felt so much like I was playing in a session that had been, kind of, specially created for me. And I know that there was some effort put into making something that I would enjoy playing in. How do you and the rest of the cast work around fitting your sessions to guests’ tastes?
NAOMI
Yeah, so there's definitely a difference between us playing and playing with a guest. The whole sort of concept of what we're doing pretty much changes? So what we do when we have a guest on is-  Especially for— We were doing Tooth and Claw, so it was basically like a Monster of the Week type thing we were hunting monsters. And part of it is we give various themes. So I desperately love themed episodes. So we started with the beach episode, but any time we got a new guest on, we gave them a choice of four or five different themes that we could do. So they could pick something, you know, a trope that they felt comfortable in. Obviously, I’d met Sasha quite a bit before we had asked her to come on to the show, so I had a vague idea of what kind of topics you might be interested in playing in, and what kind of worlds you enjoy. But it's- As a team, the episode no longer is about us. So when we have a guest on, the whole point is to showcase their skills, put them in a position where they feel comfortable, and allow them to make strong choices. So we become supporting characters in our own story, and that's part of what we understand about having a guest on, is- Our job is to basically create avenues for the guest to be able to do things. So that means in a lot of cases, for us, we have to learn to edit ourselves quite a lot. So we pull ourselves back to make more room for that character to be the main character of the episode. So it's kind of like- It's kind of like having a birthday party, essentially. Like, it is that person's birthday, and you are here to make sure that they have a good time and that they get to be the hero. It's good fun because you quite often work in worlds that you would not necessarily have chosen. So, I know that we did an anime one, which is like— it’s so difficult to do an anime episode’ and then be like, “There are a lot of tropes here that we need to avoid, and there are a lot of tropes here that are very funny, but they have to be done in a way that doesn't feel, like, wrong, or tropey, or ridiculous.” And so it's trying to find a way to operate in the space, but still make sure that we’re, you know, creating something that our guest can be proud of, because there's nothing worse than doing a guest spot and being like, “Wow, I hope they don't publish that.” You know, we've definitely had experiences where we have been guests on other people's podcasts, and we've turned up and it's been clear that they are doing a game, and also you are here. Which is a very different experience. Whereas if you know the people— quite often we know the people that we’re guesting with before; we've seen them play, we know what they're like as people, as well, and we know that they're good roleplayers. So we know that they're like easy people to play with and people who can be given something and just run with it. Which is often the thing that separates the good from the great, in my opinion. And so, giving- Basically being like, “Here! We know that you’re good at this. This is your space.” Is really- It makes really good episodes, and it's really fun because you give people the opportunity to do what they're best at. You know, this is- For example, Regency is something you know very well. It’s a world that you really understand. I don't know very much about Regency, I have seen the movies where people do the thing and they're in long dresses, but it's not a world where I'm super educated on what the tropes and the bits and pieces of it are. But to give that to someone else and be like, “Go wild!” is really fun. Because you get to see sort of shades of those worlds that you wouldn't be able to create yourself. It's really fun. It's really fun. It's really enjoyable, and it makes good content. It's just enjoyable to listen to.
JONNY
Yes, so like— you wouldn't necessarily know that the deadliest thing that can happen in a piece of Regency fiction is you're caught in an unexpected rainstorm. But bringing Sash in, Sash can be like, “Oh, those clouds on the horizon... They're deadly.” Also, I’m definitely stealing that birthday party analogy for anytime future guests are worried that they're speaking too much, because that is- That is literally it. You're the birthday guest!
NAOMI
Yeah, I mean it's really fun and its quite nice and it doesn't seem to matter where we end up playing as long as you have the right calibre of guest. Its always a really good time and we've always been so lucky that the invites that we've had have just been phenomenally fun to play.
JONNY
So, Naomi, lets move onto to some of your charity work, because you founded No More Damsels, which is a charity aimed to increase gender diversity among tabletop gaming: roleplaying, war-gaming, that sort of thing. What originally motivated you to found No More Damsels?
NAOMI
So I've been playing RPGs for quite a while, and I was quite lucky in my first RPG group that it was really gender-diverse. So there were lots of female GMs, lots of non-binary GMs, lots of trans GMs, and there was quite an even split. And then when I moved to UK I was blown away that nobody was using X-cards. Like that was just something that I was brought up with in my RPG, like, "childhood" as it were, that safety tools were just part of the game and lots of my friends use different safety tools, so lines and veils, X-cards, fast forwards, you know, they were just sort of part of the culture I had come from, roleplaying in New Zealand. And then when I came here I was kind of a little bit surprised that people weren't using them. And I actually joined like a council, a board of an RPG club, and the thing that I got voted in for was, “The gender diversity here sucks! And I would like to fix it.” And people were like, “Yeah, I mean, having girls here would be great!” And then when we were like, “Right, we would like to run a female-only GM night. There's fifty-two weeks in a year, one night we would like to just showcase female GMs.” Because sort of one of the weird things about having a male-dominated space— lots of women love to play RPGs, but it’s often harder for people to feel comfortable putting themselves in the GM position because it's a position where people have a lot of opinions about how and what you do. And I think it can be really difficult to do that for the first time. And especially if you're in a situation where you've never seen someone like you doing the GM-ing, you know? It's quite hard to sort of think about a GM like you if you don't see it very often. So it was really just to be like, “We have really great female GMs, I’ve seen them, I know many of them. I would like to have them play games!” And so we took it to- Basically, the head of the RPG company that we were operating under and— [laughs] This is going to sound insane, but it’s one of those things where it happened and I still kind of can't believe that it happened. It was like, “I would like to run an RPG night where women are GMs,” and this man looked me in the face — quite a "woke" man, I'd like to point out, usually pretty good — but he just looked me in the face and says, “But what if a man wants to GM?” And I was just like, “There's fifty-one other weeks in the year! I don't know what to tell you!”
SASHA
[laughing]
NAOMI
And it's like, "But they're all doing that all the time! Its just one night!" And they were like, “Mm, I don’t know…” And my friend Sarah, Sarah Pipkin, who is a wonderful librarian/advocate, is almost entirely fueled by rage, and this sent her almost immediately into a rage and she’s like, “Right, we’ll do it ourselves!” And we did. So we decided that we were going to start a charity. We made a website, we started collecting safety tools, and writing codes of conduct, and providing them for clubs, and then we ran a launch where we were like, “Right, we’re just going to do the thing that we wanted originally, but bigger.” And we said, “Okay, if we can fill five tables, we’ll run.” You know, that's- that’s like the basic, where it's like, we've got the venue for cheap because we know a guy, and we’ll do our best and we’ll sell tickets for five dollars because neither of us have very big salaries, but we still think this is important. And it sold out, I think it was under a day. And then we got a bigger space and we were literally calling them like, “Okay, so the fire regulations are what? How many people do you think we can get in here?” And then it sold out again and they just kept selling out, and it got to the point where people sent us money not to come, but just to be like, “Do the thing.” And so we were able to hold this just amazing event with all these wonderful women, non-binary, and trans GMs who were all of them just absolutely fantastic and everybody just had a great night and it was like “This can be done.” And we were like “Right, we want to keep doing this.” So we started doing workshops, you know, “How To Start GM-ing,” “Different Ways to Play,” “What Is It Like to Be A Person In This Space?” And then we started hosting panels, where we were like, “Right, come and see people talk about what their experiences of RPGs are.” Because it’s not like the community doesn't have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of women, non-binary and trans people playing. RPGs are happily available to anyone of any gender, you don't need a lot of money to play, you can print a thing off the internet and go wild. The barrier to entry is so low if it weren't for, sometimes, the perception of the community, you know? And it's so easy to fix it just by being visible and providing the tools to let people know that there are ways to make it safer for the people who belong there. And I think it's really important, as a female GM myself, to just give more women the chance to do that, because it’s really fun! I love GM-ing!I love roleplaying! And it seems a shame to not provide it for everybody.
SASHA
Yeah! It is really fun!
JONNY
Yeah. Sorry, I'm still reeling from "What if a man want's to p-" He can't! That's the point!
NAOMI
I was like, "He can play! He can come along and play! We're just- The only thing we're asking is that someone else gets to GM. He can come!" I mean, and we said that for our launch, as well.
JONNY
It's in the name! It's- That's the point!
NAOMI
It's just like- It's one thing. We asked one thing. That was it. I mean, we definitely both had difficult experiences in RPGs. So, I once had a GM who asked me to join his game. He knew nothing about me other than the fact that I was probably a female. Like, that was really my only defining characteristic, but he was like "You must join my game. I will run a game just for you." And I was like "Ok, these are vibes." So I was running a game elsewhere and I thought "My game has finished early, I will sit in on this man's game and kind of see what's going on. See what's what." And the whole game was about sex vampires.
SASHA
Oh my god.
NAOMI
And so I got in for like - trigger warning - I got in for like, I think about thirty seconds before I noped out. Because he was like "Oh yeah, and you know obviously she's riding you, and she's grinding on you, and then as you climax..." and I was like "That's it. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out."
SASHA
Oh my god.
NAOMI
Like that's- This is- This is in a pub. There are other people around living their nice lives, and it's just- You want to be like "Why? Why? Why does anyone want to, like..."
SASHA
Look, I will defend people's right to play RPGs in which the GM might say to you "...and as you climx." But surely that is the sort of thing where you lead with that. You lead with "And that's going to happen. And we're not playing it in a pub. And I'm certainly not just going to invite people randomly to join my game where I tell me players 'and right when you climax.'"
NAOMI
Yeah. And also, like, knowing that the person looked at me join the table and was like "Yes, now is the time. This is a thing that will make her want to join." Like, and I was just like "Oh no." And I- I was very forgiving. I was exceedingly forgiving. They were like "I'm doing a hollow earth thing." And I was like "Sure, but I will not join the table unless there is an X-card on the table. Like. That's my only stipulation." And they refused. And at that point you're like-
JONNY
Bloody hell.
NAOMI
Yeah
SASHA
The bar is so low, as well, for actually being inclusive.
NAOMI
The bar is on the floor. Yeah, I mean, it's so easy. I think X-cards are just a genius item. If you don't know, an X-card is basically a piece of paper with an X on it. That's it. But when you touch the X-card you say "What's happening now, I would like it to like, no thank you." And it's not a value judgement, it's not a choice. But I think there's a lot of things about our lives that we don't necessarily tell everybody who's at the table. You know, especially if we're playing in a public situation like a pub or at a club, where we might not know everybody by name before we start. So one of the examples I always use is I was playing in a game where one of the young ladies had had a miscarriage. And no-one else at the table knew that except for me. But, the idea of then going to a point where someone's like "And there are ghost children." That's an X-card. You know? And that's so easy to put on the table. And there would be no way of knowing with that person that that had happened. Like, you wouldn't know. There was no way to tell, and that's not something that they should have to discuss with you to be able to join in the fun. And the X-card says "No thanks, to ghost children." And we move on. And it doesn't always have to be something serious. I had a game where, I was playing a Horror game and I found out that one of my players has a phobia of buttons. No idea! And just being like "X-card on buttons." And you're like "OK, he has a zip. He undoes his zip, great." You know, stuff that doesn't matter, but makes such a difference because- The ethos I really try and stick to is: The people at the table matter more than the game. The game is made up. Sure, it's great, it influences us, we have a great time. But the people who are sitting around the table are real people with real emotions and real experiences. And those are the people that are going to matter. And an X-card is just, it's a tiny piece of paper that has the power that you give it. But it's just so useful and so easy to let everybody know round the table that if you're not having fun, we can stop. Like "When the fun stops, you can get off." You know? Which is why I think that safety tools are so important, and so great and so easy. And there's lots of different ways of doing it.
JONNY
I think safety tools are amazing. I often prickle a little bit at how they're sometimes talked about as almost a replacement for trust around a table. Because I think there is a- I'm trying to think of the right way to phrase this. I have left tables where you could have an X-card in the middle, but I don't think people would have felt comfortable or necessarily safe to actually use it.
NAOMI
Yeah.
JONNY
In the sense that it does sometimes put the onus on the- on people to potentially reveal trauma. If like- Because if people don't respect the like "you don't need to explain" and be like "Why's that? Why have we got to change this?" Like, I think in many ways one of the useful things about an X-card is weeding out people you can't trust to play with you. Because they will generally not want to include them.
NAOMI
Yeah. Generally people what are like "I don't need an X-card" you're like "It's not about you. It's not about you." I think that more than anything an X-card is an agreement that we're all going to respect each others boundaries, and I think it's- Obviously it's not a fix. It is literally just a piece of paper and it only has the power that we give it as individuals. But I would always take a table with one than without one every time.
JONNY
Oh absolutely.
NAOMI
And I think that the more that we normalise it and that we have them available, you know, the less that it becomes a thing that you have to think about or introduce. So, the one that we provide, so we have a template on our website that provides one, and it tells you what it does on the back. So, and it specifically says "We don't talk about it. We move on." Because you're welcome to take your GM aside if want to- If you need to chat or if you're like "Well, this is really complicated but this is how I feel." But I think, especially in the real- Obviously a lot of us are currently doing online games and things, but when it gets back to being in conventions, you're quite regularly going to be around a table with five people that you don't know. And we're sort of trusting each other to all just have fun, which is the point.
JONNY
Yeah. Just to be clear, this is not me arguing against safety tools. Like, they are amazing.
NAOMI
No, it's cool. It's a valid point and I think it's important for people to challenge us on it, because then it lets us have these discussions where people say "But I personally-". So one of the things that we quite often get is "But I'm running a Horror game!"
SASHA
Well then you need one even more!
JONNY
Yeah, no, absolutely. A Horror game, hundred percent you want all the safety tools upfront.
NAOMI
I think that people assume that the other people around the table don't want to have fun? Like, if you're in a Horror game, you're there to be scared. That's the point, you know? But it's self-regulating of like "This has stopped being fun." And when it comes down to it, we're only here to have fun. It's, like, it's not a challenge. No-one's paying you to do it. You can quit at any time. You know?
SASHA
Yeah. I think for me safety tools work best when they're not just about, kind of, boundaries in the way we talk about them as like "safety", but they're also there for people to literally just input in the game in terms of what direction would be most interesting and most fun to them. Because this is a collaborative storytelling experience, right? That's what makes RPGs so special. So I don't tend to use the X-card, cause I tend to prefer Script Change, because I think it works a little bit better with my GM style.
NAOMI
Script Change is great.
SASHA
And, yeah, what I really love about that particular tool is that it can be used, and explicitly can be used, to amp up the fun, if you like. You can have an "instant replay" where you just want to kind of-
NAOMI
Relive the moment.
SASHA
-Talk about what was cool about that.
NAOMI
Yeah. I also like, there's a- like,  Traffic Light, or sometimes called Consent Flower, where there's an amber - of like, essentially lines - like "this is enough and no more", red which is like "Stop", and green which is like "More of this. More of this. More, more, more." And I think that's equally as good a tool to have. I think because No More Damsels obviously are- One of our top things is safeguarding in environment where people don't feel safeguarded we often think about them more in like a combative context, you know, because that's quite often the responses that we get.
SASHA
Yeah. Do you feel like, for you and for where No More Damsels is at in terms of what it's trying to communicate and who it's trying to communicate it to, do you feel like the X-card is maybe like the entry level safety tool, because it's so simple?
NAOMI
Yeah, yeah. It's so easy and it's so easy to create and we can provide it really easily. And there's no big like "This is what this one does and this is what this one does." It's one tool. It's one tool and it's entry level of like "Yes or No." You know? And all it says is "If No, touch X-card."
JONNY
Yeah. And I think there's a lot to be said as well, for being upfront at the top of games about, like- If there are themes that- Ghost children is quite a good example. There may be a scenario where literally you cannot not make it a ghost child, because that is the core. The core of the scenario is exploring this thing. So in that case there needs to be a certain amount of discussion upfront about like "This is the tone, this is- These are the topics it might touch on."
NAOMI
Yeah. A pre-blurb is great!
JONNY
Yeah. There's an example from when I was running a con game, and I made a bunch of pre-made characters. And two of them were gay and in a relationship with each other. And in the background, because you can't be sure of who's going to be playing your game, there needed to be a little, there was a little paragraph where it was like "This character is gay. If you play it in a way that I find offensive or if you play it as a joke, you will be asked to leave the table." And that, just something upfront to be like "This is the situation and this is the game that is going to be played. If you don't want that, then this is not the table."
NAOMI
I think the thing is, mostly the RPG community is very accepting, very positive, very enjoyable and people are all about having the best experience. And it's very easy for us to- So, obviously I've told a couple of stories here of just one individual. But that is one individual out of a club of many. And all we're doing is trying to protect people who are having their first RPG experience or a really early RPG experience, to not have to have those stories in future.
JONNY
Yeah.
NAOMI
You know? Like, I think of all the young women who want to try D&D and just can't find a group that feels like an enjoyable first start. Or quite often joining a group and thinking "Oh no, it's just always like this. Pass." On the whole hobby. Which is such a shame because it's such a good hobby. You know? And I think we just want to make that more available to other people.
SASHA
So, on a slightly more positive note, what would you say has been your most rewarding experience of being part of a gaming charity.
NAOMI
One of my big things is I like people GMing for the first time. I think it's fascinating, it's rewarding, it's one of those things that a lot of people think they can't do. And I don't know how many times I've told someone- Been told by someone "I can't do it, it's too hard." And you're like "No, my dude. No, it's like, well within your grasp. And we're going to do it together." And we did a new GM workshop. And we basically talk through like "How do we deal with problem players? How do we make story? How do we encourage people to engage with the plot? What do we do if we get stuck?" And the answer is "Say that it's a drink break and then go away for five minutes, sit in the toilet and then think 'what next?' and then come back and pretend like that was what you were going to do the whole time." And after we finished the workshop, a load of the people who'd attended are like "We're going to stay behind and play a game together."
SASHA
Aw!
NAOMI
"We're actually just going to run a little game. We're all going to take turns and run like a little bit ourselves." And it was just- It was so sweet. And it was like "You guys are all having your first experience in such, like a rewarding-" And like, they were all giving each other feedback and doing little scenes. It was so cute.
SASHA
That's so lovely.
NAOMI
You know, and each one of those people is going to go and find their five flatmates and introduce them to gaming. Creating more GMs is like, one more GM is five more players somewhere else.
JONNY
I'm always astounded by how hard people think it is. And how many people are like "No, I could never do it." And it's like "Yeah. Yeah, you could. Yeah you could."
NAOMI
Yeah, I'm aggressively like a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of person. So when I was doing it in a club I used to turn up thirty minutes before the thing started and I would just write, like, a couple of things on a napkin, essentially.
JONNY
Yeah.
NAOMI
Just be like "There's a hamburger. But he's an alien... question mark?" And then just be like "Great, cool, cool. Sick."
SASHA
Yeah, this is how I run con games.
NAOMI
Yeah!
JONNY
And I love the thing that's like "What do you do if this happens?" It's like "Then you stop. And you have a little think." And you know what? Players fucking love it when they make the GM have to have a little think.
SASHA
Yeah.
NAOMI
They feel like they won.
JONNY
Yeah! If they do something and the GM's like "I'm going to have to take a moment to consider things." They're like "Yeaaah!"
NAOMI
"Yeah, we operated so far out what you thought we were going to do! We're so crafty!" And you're like "Yes, you're very good." So Dragonmeet is one of the big London RPG cons, and I was once running a game there and the table next to me, the GM didn't turn up. And they were running FATE, which I did not have dice for, because FATE has specific plus, minus or blank dice. And so we ended up smashing the two tables together and I ran FATE - with no dice - Jurassic Park. With like eleven people, which is a lot. And it's really fun. It's really fun. But like, that's not what I came there to run, but it was the best thing that sort of smashed what was available. Because I was going to run Final Girl, I think, but also it's FATE but also there's dinosaurs, because it was supposed to be FATE and dinosaurs for the other table. And it's a great game, because there is so much you can do just running by the seat of your pants. GMing is just, you've got to be like "Uh-huh? Uh-huh? Yeah cool. 
And then something happens." And it doesn't really matter what it is. Just give them something to react to, it's really fun.
JONNY
That's- That sounds like an amazing game.
NAOMI
Final Girl is a really good way of doing Jurassic Park. It's a really good way of doing Jurassic Park. Because you know, you know your characters are going to die, and that's part of the conceit. The way that Final Girl works is, it's technically GMless, so each of you basically takes a turn to play a character and they're on little flash cardy things. And then you decide who you like best, so people get to play your character, essentially. You create a whole bunch, a whole cast of people going to a dinosaur park. And then you're like "I really like this guy. I would like to keep playing him." And then you kill people off by the amount that people love them the least.
JONNY
(laughter)
SASHA
That's amazing.
NAOMI
So you basically start- The ones at the bottom that people haven't kept picking up because they're not as fun to play, they tend to go first. But then there's an element of chance where you're like "Goddamn it, I really want that guy to die. He keeps getting away with it because of the draw of the cards." And it's really fun. It's really fun and it's a really good way to do Jurassic Park.
SASHA
I really want to play that. And I really want the final girl to be the T-Rex.
JONNY
I really love games that mess around with characters and how characters work and, like, swapping around who's playing who or like- One of my all-time top gaming experiences was my friend Martin running us through a game called ORK! Where you are all orks and you start off with a stack of fifty character sheets of almost-identical orks and you will work your way through them over the course of the adventure. Because you are a band of orks and at any given time you're going to be one of them, but probably not for very long.
NAOMI
Exceedingly good.
JONNY
It was just a great game where we shouted an awful lot and got a lot of very dirty looks from the table next to us, which, you know, it's sad, but...
NAOMI
Have you ever played Everyone Is John?
JONNY
I haven't played it, but I have seen it played.
NAOMI
That's great. It's essentially like Inside Out, the Pixar movie. So you each play a part of a human being with different desires and ideas. But instead of being like Happy and Sad and Angry and Disgusted and... Afraid? There we go. You actually get to pick like interesting things to be.
 
So the one that I remember best is: one person played "Noir Detective John" and someone played "Cult Leader John". Which, like, very good, exceedingly good. You know, things to be like "Oh, I'm sorry, I would like to continue with the plot, but I need to go and convert these people to my religion." And you're just like "OK... Cool cool cool. Cool cool cool." It's a really good way of playing with a character idea.
JONNY
So, yeah, what would you say is- If there's one thing that roleplaying an wargaming groups can do to be more welcoming to people of marginalised genders, what would it be? And I'm going to complicate this by saying you can't say safety tools because we talked about them a bunch already.
NAOMI
That's cool, we talked about that heaps. I would say that name badges are great. Name badges with a bit that says your pronouns, like, immediately tells people  "This is an inclusive space and we're kind of cool and groovy." They're so easy. You get a sticker and you can print them or you can literally just be like "Oh, welcome, please write your pronouns." And then everybody knows that that is the standard. You know? And it immediately tells people what to expect, and anybody who's like "I don't have any pronouns" you're like "Oh I'm so sorry, another victim of gender identity theft." And then you say "thank you, goodbye." You know, it really sets the tone. A lot of it is about tone setting and encouraging women to be visible. So we also work with, not just RPGs, but wargaming. I'm not a great wargamer. I like the painting of the tiny minis, but the actual game itself I'm just- I don't have great dice luck and in RPGs that's a boon, but in wargames it really neuters your entire experience. But it's often the case where people are like "Oh, and I want to bring my girlfriend to play with me and all of my dudes." And it's like "There should be another woman there." You know? It's so easy as a club to be like "We're going to do a thing where if you bring a woman you get in half price." If your club is all dudes, just make an event where you know that the gender diversity is going to be different. 'Cause it's really hard to be the only woman, trans or nonbinary person in a space. You know? That's a lot, it's a lot for a person to take on. And then that person also feels like they're representing the entirety of their gender at all times, which is a lot of pressure to perform, I think. And a way of just being like "Hey! This is a cool space that you can come and there will be other people of your gender here" makes a big difference. And so trying to coordinate a situation where you make sure there are women and they are visible. And you know, you know there are women in your community. Even if they're not at your club. You know? There are many, many woman wargamers on Twitter making amazing models and kitbashing. And there's a lot of things about just being like "Ok, one day we're going to invite that person to our club and invite a load of the women that we know, that we know would love wargaming if we gave them, like, five minutes. But to be like "Hey! Look at these other women doing the thing!" You know? I think it's making sure that when you invite someone, because everybody's got a great intention of being like "But I know that my wife wants to play games with me, but she's afraid of the club." She has a right to be. You know? She's the only person there like her. She's not seeing other people like her in that environment. And all you need to do is be like "Here! Here are other people doing the thing." Because it's so different learning from someone who looks like you, a new hobby or a sport, to learning from somebody who doesn't have the same experiences you do. And you know that there are people out there, you know that there are people in your community, even if you don't know them personally. But especially as a club leader you can say "Hey! We want to get more women into our club. What can we do? Will you come and show us? Will you facilitate for us?" And that's what NMD does is, you know, people say like "We want to get more women into our club, what do we do?" You know? "We have trans players, but we don't know how to support them. What do we do?" The other thing you should always do is have a code of conduct. They're really easy. There's hundreds of templates, you can get many on our website, and they just basically say "If you're being a dick, get out." And it's very easy to be like "Ah, but you know, they didn't mean it," or something. No, you just have to be like "if we allow people to be rude they will chase away the nice people and then all you have left are rude people." You know? So you have to be really strong about saying that this is an inclusive space and then immediately following up.
JONNY
Naomi, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast.
NAOMI
Hooray! I got a goood- I got a good grade on podcast.
JONNY
Yeah, A-Star. A-Star.
NAOMI
Something that is both sensible to want and possible to achieve.
SASHA
Yup!
JONNY
And we have a few final questions before you leave us. First up: what is an upcoming RPG thing, could be your own could be someone else's, that you are really excited about?
NAOMI
Ooh, choices, choices. So, RPG, I recently got Sword-wielding Lesbians.
SASHA
Oh, Thirsty Sword Lesbians!
NAOMI
Thirsty Sword Lesbians, thank you! 
SASHA
I'm so excited for that game!
NAOMI
Yeah, it's really- It's really good. The art is sick. The book is so thick with, like, different settings. Its so good.
JONNY
I'm just really psyched that the roleplaying space is in a place where Evil Hat will publish a roleplaying game called Thirsty Sword Lesbians. It's wonderful.
NAOMI
More of it! More of it, that's the thing. More of it! For solo RPGs I'm really enjoying The Sealed Library, which is a really great game based on The Wretched. You can also find version of The Wretched, which is about being stuck at the bottom of the sea, but it's two player. Because I don't like to be alone.
JONNY
(Whispering)
Where can one find that?
NAOMI
You can find that at itch.io/naomithinksit. You can find me at @naomithinksit all over the internet, basically. Because Naomi Clarke is a very good name if you don't want to be found. 
SASHA
And finally: What is the single line piece of advice that you'd give to someone wanting to get more involved in the RPG community?
NAOMI
Listen to media where people are doing it and then when you turn up at a table, you'll already know. There's heaps of groups around MeetUp and everybody just wants you to get involved. This is probably more than a single line. Go do the thing. Get involved! It's great fun! Change your life, wash your socks, do it again.
SASHA
Cool. Thank you so, so much for joining us, it's been a really great chat and I'm sure will make for a lovely episode as well. So thanks very much to everybody for listening, as well. We have been MacGuffin and Company, so you can find us on Twitter @MacGuffinandCo, you can check out our website www.macguffinandcompany.com or you can check our Patreon at patreon.com/macguffinandcompany. And you can find us individually, me @SiennaSasha and Jonny @jonnywaistcoat. Naomi, where can people hear more of you?
NAOMI
So, you can find me @naomithinksit and then from there you can find me @NMDLondon, you can find me @power_word_roll and you can find me @TheKilda where I am doing many, many project things.
SASHA
Cool! Thank you so much. And until next time...
ALL
BYE!