Inspirisles, and Inclusivity

Inspirisles is an all ages RPG, with a focus on storytelling, empathy, and cooperation. Its secondary purpose is to help teach you Sign Language.

Now I could leave it at that, but that would do the game a great disservice. It is as creative and well designed as any system, pulling narrative inspiration from Arthurian legend and mythology. It focuses on collaboration, world-building, and teen-adventures in the style of YA novels and 80s classics like The Neverending Story, Labyrinth, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The game is also full of sensitivity tools, tips, and tutorials on play that is inclusive to the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community. In fact, it integrates ASL and BSL into the art of magic, or “Shaping.”

We know how magic works, right? You say magic words and make magic hand-gestures, and a spell is cast. And if Harry Potter taught us anything it’s that Latin-sounding words are magic enough. And if foreign-speak is as good as magic words, and you need magic hand gestures, why, it’s almost odd that Sign Language hasn’t been incorporated as magical gestures into RPGs before now!

Actually, no, it’s not odd at all.

Users of sign language are a minority in our society, much less our community, and even the most well-meaning ally can spend more time working on compensating for a minority’s experiences, rather than incorporating them.

But we try, and learn, and improve when we can. Multi-cultural RPGs are becoming more common, with non-white creators able to tell their stories through their own creations. LGBTQ+ stories are becoming commonplace. It’s easy to bring people into a hobby when we speak the same language, even if with different dialects. We can listen to their stories and address their concerns quite easily. It creates a lower barrier of entry.

Not so when they speak a different language entirely. Foreign ex-pats are expected to learn our language as the cost of entry into our society. What do we do with people who can’t speak our language because they can’t hear it? Why, we’d have to learn their language, and that’s… work!

I’m being needlessly snide. More often it’s that we rarely have the need to use sign language, much less learn it. I’ve never met a deaf person, except in passing. That’s part of the reason Inspirisles serves its double-purpose. In fact, one of Inspirisles greatest strengths is that it is a solid RPG independent of its educational value.

Different RPGs are targeted at different people. Some of the books I’ve read for this project have whole sections devoted to explaining what an RPG is to the uninitiated, while most have sections detailing the use of proper safety precautions when playing.

“Oof, are we really going to go into that whole X card nonsense again? Yeesh, I’ve played with my group for years, and we’ve never needed it! Just more treating-people-with-respect gone mad.”

Sure. Fine. But here’s something to remember: the 18-35 demographic of the 80s grew up in the 60s and 70s, seeped in the growing counterculture movements that were starting to actively question the value of modern society, and its “correct way to live/behave.” When looking for like-minded folk, some found their clique in the Game Store. Board gamers, math geeks, fantasy lovers, all of them showed up and made a community of their own. They shared their passions, learned from each other, and created a place where they could be themselves.

It’s easy to believe “We Fixed It,” but we most assuredly didn’t. Racism, misogyny, queerphobia, and all manner of bigotries sill existed among those cliques, and we cannot help but tell the stories we are told.

But we are getting better. Roleplay’s power is unassailable. There is, perhaps, no other pastime that is more inherently and unavoidably inclusive. (Note, I’m saying roleplay is unavoidably inclusive, not necessarily role-players.)

This also makes RPGs unavoidably Leftist.

You may cringe at the term, but here in the year of our Lady 20XX, political terminology is both unavoidable and irresponsible to not use.

RPGs can be pure Anarchism; where a story need not be told exclusively by a single person, but a group. They are games where the person who has all the power — the GM, if there is a GM at all — exists purely for the enjoyment of the players. It is the dynamic of the Sub and the Dom, where we submit ourselves to a higher power for our pleasure, secure in the knowledge that we are safe, it’s all a game, and there is an X card on the table right in front of us.

Our community is learning that the purpose of the game is not to subject others, but to serve others. Trigger warnings allow people with PTSD to safely join communal activities. Lines and veils allow people to heal at their own pace. Stoplights give players the power to chose how emotionally challenged they want to be. RPGs must be safe spaces to explore feelings that we otherwise would avoid. We can cry, cower, risk, and fail without fear. We can be who we wish we were. We can practice and prepare for the times in our lives when we are called upon to be better.

Now, I will admit, this is a little idealistic. Our little community has RPGs with very outdated concepts and bigoted origins — looking at you, Call of Cthulhu. Heck, there are RPGs that have been consciously designed to be fascist, both low-key and overt. There are anti-woke GMs. There are close-minded players. There are games that have whole sections of their introduction go off on the fine tradition of using “him” as a gender neutral pronoun (it’s not fine). Even the idea that “you can be a hero” is more in line with fascist cults-of-heroism than those of the mutually collectivist everyone-works-together Left.

But our ideas and ideals are sound and strong. I can’t think of a single fantasy story where diversity was not ultimatly a strength. Incorperating the lived experiences of people who are different than us into our hobbies is vital for continued growth.

I had a hard time deciding how to write this post. Talking about a community from the outside is simply asking for trouble. I’m not Hard of Hearing, so couldn’t it be seen as condiscending to say “hey guys, we should give the Hard of Hearing Community a bone here?” And just because reading Inspirisles took me down this path, that doesn’t mean I have any trenchant insights. As in all cases, if you want to know how to help a community, listen to people in that community. Not outsiders like me.

But in the end, I keep reading comments in forums and under articles that dissagree with the fundamental thesis of this post. There are people who hate those full pages detailing the use of the X card and the importance of lines and veils and stoplights and self-care. They despise those section headings like “What is an RPG?” and “How do I use this book?” and “Where to start?”

Frankly? I can live with it. I’d rather give the page a nod and keep flipping than have to deal with another generation growing up thinking that separating people into Us and Them is anything but antithetical to the highest ideals of our hobby.

For fifty years, we’ve been playing a lesser form of our hobby; one where we cast spells by saying “I cast fireball,” instead of weaving our fingers in a dance of magic. We’ve spent decades trudging through fantasy Europe, ignoring the other continents and their own mythologies and histories. We’ve locked people out of our clubhouse, or at least made the ladder very difficult for some people to climb.

It’s very easy to see our hobby as “just a game,” and therefore insignificant. I think that does RPGs a great disservice.