20Clawz Studios

A game studio based in the PNW and ran by two queer woman. We make video games, TTRPGs, and more! Check out our latest TTRPG, Shattered Neon, on our itch.io page! https://20clawz-studio.itch.io/shattered-neon

[flamingculture]

““The mannerisms that help define gender - the way in which people walk,swing their hips, gesture with their hands, move their mouths and eyes when they talk, take up space - are all based upon how non disabled people move…The construct of gender depends not only upon the male body and female body, but also on the non disabled body.””

— Eli Clare, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation

[exigencelost]

“I no longer have a gender. Rather, I have a wheelchair.”

—Christina Crosby, A Body, Undone.

[derekscorner]

Do not let them pass these bills. Do not make us like the Uk.

[zybilna]

Highly recommend calling your senators about this to voice your displeasure, especially if you live in any of the states these ones are from.

[cannibalcaprine]

robotic tgirl with all her status lights flashing bright red but insists that she's fine, she's just kinda tired, no that's a normal grinding sound for her to make, she's fine, it's fine, really you shouldn't worry about her, she's fine

[kirbymongerr]

I will help her

[cardboardhyperfix-games]

Another good review that completely made my week! Want to play your own dumb game with low stakes, check it out here:

stupid wizard battle by CardboardHyperfix

200-word rpg wizard battle

[katharpy]

[probablybadrpgideas]

Detect evil but it becomes increasingly clear that whoever calibrated it had some really weird moral stances.

[dragoryu3000]

Yeah, his name was Gary Gygax

[terrafey]

I heard you like my Cyberpunk OCs, looks like the camera does too.

Like my art? Support the artist!

[rattlegeist]

“Just for a moment, let’s not be weapons.”

[20clawzstudios]

So, for anyone curious, Shattered Neon has luckily not been de-indexed. While I am going to have to cut some mentions of certain topics (mainly implied issues surrounding sexual assault/trafficking and any mentions of the sexuality of two of the exotypes) the game is safe. That being said, with the new rules in place, one of our upcoming games in likely entirely impossible to post on Itch.io with the current rules, and as such all official production/preproduction on that TTRPG has been suspended until further notice. Frankly, I'm lucky I've been working on two different TTRPGs side by side to be released/announced after Shattered Neon in my off time. Even with that we've lost nearly 100 work hours to this bullshit. Large swaths of the lore even for our other pre-production project will likely have to be scrubbed from the itch.io release. Quite literally forcing us to release a censored version. As a result of the new rules, for the now-only-planned TTRPG coming after SN will likely have a free splatbook or lorebook outside of itch.io on a company site or some other method if the current issues don't resolve before the year is up. Please, continue to call Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe to continue to put pressure on them. Without this effort, entire works of art will be lost. Another Alexandria will burn.

[20clawzstudios]

I won't lie to y'all, the shit with Steam, and now Itch.io, scares the shit out of me. I'm a small studio. It's made up of myself and my wife, and we are not exactly ranking in cash or anything, but we're both queer women trying to make games that express our world and tell stories we're happy with. With the news of adult content being shadowbanned on itch.io, I am likely going to have to deeply change one of the TTRPGs we planned on working on after Shattered Neon, as sex was one of the mechanical elements within that was being used to discuss the trans and queer experience. I am also going to have to work with other games devs to see if my two VNs I've been slowly writing in the background for over a year will be doomed by this change, as both include sex scenes of trans woman, as the main protagonist is a trans woman in both stories. The fact I don't get to know at what point something is too "adult" often to be banned on so many platforms right now, that art I want to make about my life and experience to express who I am to the world is being pushed more and more to the side? I don't know what to do about it. I suppose I'll keep moving forward, because I have to, but what does it all mean for me and the living I hope to make out of what I've wanted to do my whole life? I hope and pray my art won't die, because the longer I look at the world in front of me, the more it seems like that's what it is doomed for. Piles of burnt dreams and messages. My desire to leave a message of hope and love a scream into a void because those with so much more power than I simply see me as a threat. For existing, for telling my story, for being who I am. I don't have much of a call to action in all of this, because frankly, I don't know what you can do. I barely know what i can do. We could become a mass of anger and hope those above us throw us a bone for a while to calm us, but I don't know how much that will work long-term. I don't know of an initiative doing anything besides the ACLU, and they've got bigger fish to fry. I guess the best I can ask of you is please, please, just support the trans and queer creatives left in your life. We need it, because if things like this keep happening then we won't be able to stay in your life forever. Buy what you can from us if you have something to give, and if you have no money to give then please look at what we make at least, take things we give for free, and don't let our voices die.

Don't let us be forgotten.

[20clawzstudios]

After working to see if there is something to do, I have found there IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO! If you're in the USA, these are the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and The DOJ Antitrust Division/FTC. Note the purpose of calling these bodies isn't necessarily that such efforts will be successful, but that this will cause these payment processing companies to realize that we will be more than simply angry for a while, and will actively encourage our government to investigate them and put them under extra scrutiny. Which is exactly what truly terrifies them as massive corps. These are the sort of actions that could hurt their bottom line overtime. IF YOU HAVE HAD YOUR MONEY HELD BY ITCH.IO, STEAM, OR ANOTHER PLATFORM, OR LOST ACCESS TO GAMES YOU PURCHASED DUE TO THIS, USE THE FTC FRAUD REPORT FORM ASAP. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Phone: [phone] Mail: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552 Online complaint submission form DOJ Anti-trust Division Phone: [phone] Mail: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552 Federal Trade Commission Phone: [phone] Mail: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Response Center, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20580 Online report form for fraud (only use if you have lost money in some manner due to this)

[anim-ttrpgs]

Plan of Action and Complaint Template Regarding Adult Content Being Delisted from Itchio

Alright so as y’all may or may not know, credit card companies and other payment facilitators have put pressure on digital storefronts such as Steam and Itch.io to remove “adult content” recently largely due to lobbying by fringe radical organizations. It would be bad enough if it just affected actual porn, but you know to these people “porn” means “anything that even mentions a homosexual.” Several of my team’s projects including mini-expansions to Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy “The Fanservice Files” and “The XXX-Files,” as well as team artist @chaospyromancy’s personal side project “A Squad of Drow” have been delisted from itch.io as of last night though they are still available by direct link or from our main account page and you can still pay us for them for now but there is no telling how long they'll actually stay up. Many others have had their projects completely delisted or outright removed, and are having payments withheld from them. If you don't want to see us and other creators pushed under by this crap, you need to do something about it.

People affected by this far outnumber the people who lobbied to make it happen. These organizations are very vocal but also relatively small and very fringe, and since it is a policy decision that was created by complaints it may be able to be destroyed by complaints.

Here are the phone numbers of these companies and an email address I was able to find. We need to blow their phones off the wall and fill their inboxes with customer complaints.

Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372 Mastercard (Int.): [phone] Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911 Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440 PayPal(UK): [phone]

Paypal (US) 1 888 221 1161

For investor relations:

914-249-4565 (Mastercard) 650 432 7644 (visa)

Visa Email Address: [email protected]

Mastercard Contact Form: https://b2b.mastercard.com/contact-us/

Saying stuff like “sex work is real work” and “this affects black trans women,” while true, is not the kind of thing that is going to tug at the heartstrings of lib-conservative CEOs and board members and their PR teams. They’re mercenary. You need to tell them how this is going to hurt their wallets and make their customers very unhappy.

If feasible, you need to get your moms and dads on this too, and get them to get their friends on it, etc.

40-60-year old middle class white people high credit scores and stuff will have more sway with these corporations than any young adult trans person.

My team has put together a template for your phone calls and emails. Take the template and delete the [bracketed parts] that don’t apply to you.

“My name is [_____], and I’m contacting you about your recent decision to alter your user policies regarding adult content and thereby putting pressure on digital storefronts like itch.io and Steam to hide and remove adult content. By doing so, you're cutting off a significant revenue stream, [and as someone with financial investment in your company, this has me extremely concerned]

[I both buy and sell that blocked content, so this is directly interfering in my finances, and I will seek compensation.]

Products I paid for are no longer available to me, [and people are buying my products without the money going to me because of your interference with the payment processing.]

If you don’t want to lose customers and face potential legal trouble, these policies which pressure itch.io, Steam, and other digital storefronts need to be reversed.

You have changed these policies because of Collective Shout, a radical group from Australia that sent only a mere 1000 calls to destroy a significant revenue stream on your part and to interfere with my finances. This decision literally affects millions of people and millions of dollars, and so I expect a prompt response on reversing these policy changes and removing the pressure on itch.io and Steam to ban adult content on their sites. [As a cardholder, I worry that these new policies are responding to a vocal minority of customers, and I’m left doubting the reliability, versatility, and integrity of your services. I use these services to securely and conveniently make the transactions I see fit, and it’s disappointing to see legitimate, legal transactions be excluded.]

[I am furious that an American company would bend so easily to a lobbying group from a foreign country.]”

There is also a petition you can sign here.

[20clawzstudios]

Alongside the above actions, if you have the time or really want to turn up the heat on these companies, you can put your money where your mouth is and speak to your local regulatory bodies. If you're in the USA, these are the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and The DOJ Antitrust Division/FTC. Note the purpose of calling these bodies isn't necessarily that such efforts will be successful, but that this will cause these payment processing companies to realize that we will be more than simply angry for a while, and will actively encourage our government to investigate them and put them under extra scrutiny. Which is exactly what truly terrifies them as massive corps. These are the sort of actions that could hurt their bottom line overtime. IF YOU HAVE HAD YOUR MONEY HELD BY ITCH.IO, STEAM, OR ANOTHER PLATFORM, OR LOST ACCESS TO GAMES YOU PURCHASED DUE TO THIS, USE THE FTC FRAUD REPORT FORM ASAP. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Phone: [phone] Mail: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552 Online complaint submission form DOJ Anti-trust Division Phone: [phone] Mail: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552 Federal Trade Commision Phone: [phone] Mail: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Response Center, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20580 Online report form for fraud (only use if you have lost money in some manner due to this)

[20clawzstudios]

I won't lie to y'all, the shit with Steam, and now Itch.io, scares the shit out of me. I'm a small studio. It's made up of myself and my wife, and we are not exactly ranking in cash or anything, but we're both queer women trying to make games that express our world and tell stories we're happy with. With the news of adult content being shadowbanned on itch.io, I am likely going to have to deeply change one of the TTRPGs we planned on working on after Shattered Neon, as sex was one of the mechanical elements within that was being used to discuss the trans and queer experience. I am also going to have to work with other games devs to see if my two VNs I've been slowly writing in the background for over a year will be doomed by this change, as both include sex scenes of trans woman, as the main protagonist is a trans woman in both stories. The fact I don't get to know at what point something is too "adult" often to be banned on so many platforms right now, that art I want to make about my life and experience to express who I am to the world is being pushed more and more to the side? I don't know what to do about it. I suppose I'll keep moving forward, because I have to, but what does it all mean for me and the living I hope to make out of what I've wanted to do my whole life? I hope and pray my art won't die, because the longer I look at the world in front of me, the more it seems like that's what it is doomed for. Piles of burnt dreams and messages. My desire to leave a message of hope and love a scream into a void because those with so much more power than I simply see me as a threat. For existing, for telling my story, for being who I am. I don't have much of a call to action in all of this, because frankly, I don't know what you can do. I barely know what i can do. We could become a mass of anger and hope those above us throw us a bone for a while to calm us, but I don't know how much that will work long-term. I don't know of an initiative doing anything besides the ACLU, and they've got bigger fish to fry. I guess the best I can ask of you is please, please, just support the trans and queer creatives left in your life. We need it, because if things like this keep happening then we won't be able to stay in your life forever. Buy what you can from us if you have something to give, and if you have no money to give then please look at what we make at least, take things we give for free, and don't let our voices die.

Don't let us be forgotten.

[blockbuster-stims]

via ❥ komoricostume

[clockwork-puppets]

Packed the entire Vekari TTRPG into a single cassette case! A TTRPG with the potential for big D&D-like adventures that allows for MORE customization and fits in your pocket, ready to be played anywhere!

The case includes base rules + the Forgotten Temple one shot divided among 8 zines (player and GM stuff separate 👀) with a double-sided world map, some RPG dice spinner stickers + paperclips to use them (spins D4-D20 anywhere anytime!), a USB with all the backup files for the zines, case art, and full PDF, and an itch.io game key for online back up files as well.

These physical copies are completely DIY but I am super happy with how they came out! They are currently available for Ko-Fi members only, but will open up to everyone on Sunday July 6th! Link below 🪐

Vekari TTRPG Cassette Case Release - InkusAlters's Ko-fi Shop

Take on glitched mutants and build wild spells on the go with the Vekari TTRPG, packed neatly into a cassette case! This kit contains nearly

If you'd like the game files digitally, you can grab them on itch.io for slightly cheaper!

Vekari by Inkus Alters

Explore the planet Vekari, build cyber weapons, take down powerful mutants

Official site:

[legendaryvermin]

Chewing on an argument I've heard about roleplaying (I won't cite sources bc I'm not trying to convince anyone, nor cause folks trouble by sending them naysayers), where the proponents assert that—in their words—conceiving of roleplaying as a focus on scene work, character interaction, dialogue and internal motivation is ahistorical, and therefore not representative of the actual hobby.

I've been turning over that argument—particularly the assertion that it's ahistorical—and I think that while there is truth to it, there is a rigidity inherent to the argument that doesn't meet the reality of the modern scene. Sure, trpg comes from d&d, a series of games that put no emphasis on character development, interpersonal relationships, or storytelling in their early iterations. However, I think that insisting that any definition of roleplaying must then be based on its earliest ancestors lets slide the fact that there is a significant and muddy gap where the wargames of yore slowly became the trpgs of today.

Wargaming and skirmish games that have characters with tightly defined combat roles with choose your flavor progression still exist today alongside modern trpgs. We wouldn't confuse one for another, because part of the promise of a roleplaying game has evolved over time to mean "a story about my oc".

That doesn't mean that OD&D isn't a roleplaying game. It also doesn't mean that it isn't a wargame. It's both, a messy, hybrid ancestor of something that has become more tightly defined in the decades since its conception.

Any definition for roleplaying and its games, therefore, must be something that can meet the modern expectations of trpgs culturally while still being identifiable in earlier iterations. In most cultural artifacts concerning themselves with these games and their play, we see an emphasis not on the way that rules text produces a mechanically unique character, but how the players craft the legend of their game thru their heroic avatars. A game of narrative tennis and choice is what is culturally promised to players, and if that can be achieved without using rules defining what a character can do mechanically, then insisting that all contact with rules *is* roleplay is as acontemporary as the insistence that roleplay must always center scene work is ahistorical.

Just because something is mechanically attached to your character doesn't mean that invoking it is roleplay. Just because there aren't story driving mechanics in OD&D doesn't mean it's not a roleplaying game. We can identify roleplay happening when a player shapes a narrative thru active participation with its characters, and you can't do that by invoking rules in a contextual vacuum.

[legendaryvermin]

Hell, I can take this a step further. It is the act of embodying your character in the game of OD&D that makes it a role-playing game and not just a war game. That emotional leap—from having a stat block to embodying a character—is essential in the way that we define the modern role-playing scene, even if it was not an intentional consequence of the original rule set.

[20clawzstudios]

I think a slightly more expansive, but still accurate, way we could define roleplaying is as the act of doing something that expands, tells, or expresses your character's story. The reason I say this is because it expands the definition to allow for roleplaying that is moreso narrative than embodying (ie, 3rd person descriptive instead of 1st or 2nd person embodying). It also showcases how roleplaying can exist via interacting with rules at times. There are a bunch of people online and irl who the most interesting and compelling part of rpgs (both tabletop and non-tabletop) to be creating a character whose stats matter just as much, if not more, then their explicitly written and preformed story. The story in those moments I think is told moreso through how they've built that character.

This also has the benefit I think of better integrating both of these philosophies together in a way that takes their different strengths and valid criticisms of the current ttrpg scene and lets them work together, instead of throwing them at each other as some sort of diametrically opposed sides to a greater conflict. They aren't! Both have good things to say about ttrpgs, and I think both are interacting with their own understanding of (and sometimes even experience of) the early ttrpg medium onto today. The main thruline I've seen in my analysis of the history of ttrpg design from Wargame into the modern Tabletop Roleplaying Game Genre/Medium is that all of these are games about telling stories. I like wargames! I play them when I can manage quite a bit, and just about every single wargamer I've met has a unique story and narrative for their armies. Sometimes that narrative was written well in advance, other times it was made after the fact via emergent stories that result from interacting from the rules.

Hell, if I really want to get out there and a bit into the theoretical hypothesis, it might even be that the kind of two takes here may be the far-end evolution of these two types of players. The ones who find story emerges from rules and their interactions, and others who find narrative comes first and rules help them express that narrative.

[legendaryvermin]

So to be clear, I'm not trying to give a definition of roleplay here, I personally think the act of defining something rather than just identifying it is pretty fraught. I'm only trying to say that a lay observer would agree that there is roleplay involved in "x action".

To illustrate my point there super quick, your definition talks about characters exclusively, but I think you can easily (as you allude to later) engage in roleplay by playing out the stories of whole groups, or nonspecific factions.

The thing I'm nailing down here is that I don't think that rules atoms themselves constitute roleplay. I agree that rules cause roleplay, that roleplay is a byproduct of certain rules structures, but I think more and more that one cannot identify a rule that is roleplay. Individual rules can be involved in roleplay, but a rules invocation can always be done outside of a roleplay context.

[legendaryvermin]

Chewing on an argument I've heard about roleplaying (I won't cite sources bc I'm not trying to convince anyone, nor cause folks trouble by sending them naysayers), where the proponents assert that—in their words—conceiving of roleplaying as a focus on scene work, character interaction, dialogue and internal motivation is ahistorical, and therefore not representative of the actual hobby.

I've been turning over that argument—particularly the assertion that it's ahistorical—and I think that while there is truth to it, there is a rigidity inherent to the argument that doesn't meet the reality of the modern scene. Sure, trpg comes from d&d, a series of games that put no emphasis on character development, interpersonal relationships, or storytelling in their early iterations. However, I think that insisting that any definition of roleplaying must then be based on its earliest ancestors lets slide the fact that there is a significant and muddy gap where the wargames of yore slowly became the trpgs of today.

Wargaming and skirmish games that have characters with tightly defined combat roles with choose your flavor progression still exist today alongside modern trpgs. We wouldn't confuse one for another, because part of the promise of a roleplaying game has evolved over time to mean "a story about my oc".

That doesn't mean that OD&D isn't a roleplaying game. It also doesn't mean that it isn't a wargame. It's both, a messy, hybrid ancestor of something that has become more tightly defined in the decades since its conception.

Any definition for roleplaying and its games, therefore, must be something that can meet the modern expectations of trpgs culturally while still being identifiable in earlier iterations. In most cultural artifacts concerning themselves with these games and their play, we see an emphasis not on the way that rules text produces a mechanically unique character, but how the players craft the legend of their game thru their heroic avatars. A game of narrative tennis and choice is what is culturally promised to players, and if that can be achieved without using rules defining what a character can do mechanically, then insisting that all contact with rules *is* roleplay is as acontemporary as the insistence that roleplay must always center scene work is ahistorical.

Just because something is mechanically attached to your character doesn't mean that invoking it is roleplay. Just because there aren't story driving mechanics in OD&D doesn't mean it's not a roleplaying game. We can identify roleplay happening when a player shapes a narrative thru active participation with its characters, and you can't do that by invoking rules in a contextual vacuum.

[legendaryvermin]

Hell, I can take this a step further. It is the act of embodying your character in the game of OD&D that makes it a role-playing game and not just a war game. That emotional leap—from having a stat block to embodying a character—is essential in the way that we define the modern role-playing scene, even if it was not an intentional consequence of the original rule set.

[20clawzstudios]

I think a slightly more expansive, but still accurate, way we could define roleplaying is as the act of doing something that expands, tells, or expresses your character's story. The reason I say this is because it expands the definition to allow for roleplaying that is moreso narrative than embodying (ie, 3rd person descriptive instead of 1st or 2nd person embodying). It also showcases how roleplaying can exist via interacting with rules at times. There are a bunch of people online and irl who the most interesting and compelling part of rpgs (both tabletop and non-tabletop) to be creating a character whose stats matter just as much, if not more, then their explicitly written and preformed story. The story in those moments I think is told moreso through how they've built that character.

This also has the benefit I think of better integrating both of these philosophies together in a way that takes their different strengths and valid criticisms of the current ttrpg scene and lets them work together, instead of throwing them at each other as some sort of diametrically opposed sides to a greater conflict. They aren't! Both have good things to say about ttrpgs, and I think both are interacting with their own understanding of (and sometimes even experience of) the early ttrpg medium onto today. The main thruline I've seen in my analysis of the history of ttrpg design from Wargame into the modern Tabletop Roleplaying Game Genre/Medium is that all of these are games about telling stories. I like wargames! I play them when I can manage quite a bit, and just about every single wargamer I've met has a unique story and narrative for their armies. Sometimes that narrative was written well in advance, other times it was made after the fact via emergent stories that result from interacting from the rules.

Hell, if I really want to get out there and a bit into the theoretical hypothesis, it might even be that the kind of two takes here may be the far-end evolution of these two types of players. The ones who find story emerges from rules and their interactions, and others who find narrative comes first and rules help them express that narrative.

[anim-ttrpgs]

no sales for 5 days..

[bullet-soup]

please support ANIM!!! they're working on truly game-changing RPGs like Eureka that have changed the way I see tabletop roleplaying games as an artform and how I interact with them.

They're doing something truly special and i don't want to see their fire fade. They have to live, which means they need money. Please, if you can, throw them a few bucks, ten, twenty, whatever you can afford. If you can't, reblog this and spread it around. rally support for the creators, please! we can help them!!!

[bullet-soup]

i ask you again, please support ANIM!!! things are getting tight and I want them to succeed! you can download any of their books for just a few bucks on itch.io. give them a read, give them a rating!