Petty Dreadful, a Survivor - Breaking the Game with Rowan Zeoli (Deathmatch Island)

Rowan Zeoli brings Petty Dreadful to the table. Petty is a rage-fueled, attention-seeking drag queen Playing to Win.

Rowan and I discuss gender performance, radical imagination, and the parallels between reality television and actual plays.

Petty Dreadful is built for Deathmatch Island by Tim Denee.

Rowan Zeoli is a journalist covering the intersection of progressive thought and niche cultural movements. She is co-founder of Rascal News, a worker-owned, reader-supported, tabletop journalism outlet. Her work has also appeared in Polygon, Tripsitter, Autostraddle, and The Fandomentals; where she’s covered gender, psychedelics, and the largest developments in actual play, from award winning indie programming to big budget productions. She is also co-founder of convention/non-profit WriteHive.

You can learn more about Rowan at:
https://www.characterswithoutstories.com/guests/rowan-zeoli

Mentioned in the episode: DIE, Triangle Agency, Project ECCO by My First Dungeon, Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast and The Seven Part Pact by Jay Dragon, Rom Com Drama Bomb by Elliot Davis, and authors/activists Judith Butler, Mariame Kaba, and Angela Davis.

No Quest for the Wicked is a story driven actual play podcast using Paizo’s sci-fi space opera system, Starfinder.

Yes, indie'd! is a podcast of bitesize interviews with indie tabletop roleplaying game creators a

Cover art by The Curiographer
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Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories!

Transcript

Rowan: 0:00

I always imagined Petty Dreadful as the incarnation of trans rage. Petty's there to play to win, because the world's never had her back, so why is she gonna have anyone else's? I have a whole essay in me that's gotta be written at some point about how actual play and reality shows are kind of the same thing. Community is not something you can have that's a one way street. You're gonna win trauma! That's what you're gonna win in Deathmatch Island.

Star: 1:09

Hello friends! Welcome to Characters Without Stories. A TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Starr. This episode I'm joined by Rowan Zeoli. Rowan is a journalist covering the intersection of progressive thought and niche cultural movements. She is co founder of Rascal News, a worker owned, reader supported tabletop journalism outlet. Her work has also appeared in Polygon, TripSitter, Autostraddle, and The Fandamentals. where she's covered gender, psychedelics, and the largest developments in actual play, from award winning indie programming to big budget productions. She is also co founder of convention slash nonprofit Write Hive. Rowan, thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Rowan: 1:53

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Star: 1:55

So I am a big fan of rascal news. I'm a subscriber or slash, I guess, one of those, uh, reader supported readers.

Rowan: 2:04

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Star: 2:06

I think what Rascal is bringing to the table is so new and fresh and there really was a craving for it. So I'm glad that we have somebody filling that niche.

Rowan: 2:16

Yeah, we are trying our best. We are celebrating our one year anniversary right now, which is huge. Uh, we're doing our year, like our anniversary pledge drive to try and make it so we can keep doing this for another year. Because, surprisingly, independent journalism doesn't pay super well, and make ourselves at least get somewhere closer to a living wage.

Star: 2:35

Yeah. Please, everyone, go and check out the pledge drive and donate if you can, or sign up and be, uh, one of those readers supporting the news. How did you get into games journalism?

Rowan: 2:46

Yeah, so it's actually a bit of a winding path, as most things in life are. I going all the way back was a standup comedian and I did that for a couple of years and I was, I was pretty good at it. I like to think, but then I did a show called the not so late, late show. It was basically like last week, tonight kind of vibes. And I did, like, comedy journalism a bit there, and I was like, Oh, I really find this very fulfilling. And then through that, I started doing comedy journalism, writing about comedy. And so I was doing that, and then I got a piece with Autostraddle where I was talking to trans comedians, and did a couple roundtables with some trans comedians. And that was really profound and important for me to be like, Oh, actually, I like this a lot more than I like doing the comedy itself. And so I started doing that. I was writing freelance for a while. Uh, and then I pitched to Trip Sitter, which was that psychedelic publication. And I ended up becoming a contributor there and writing about the intersection of gender and psychedelics. And that was something I never expected to be doing, but it was very fun and very cool. And then I started doing a report on, I did a deep dive investigation into people saying that their stimulant medication like Vyvanse or Adderall was no longer as effective as it once was. Went down a real deep rabbit hole there. Had some very spooky things happen to me and then was like, this is not worth it. Actually, I am not getting paid. I got paid 300 to write this article. That's like, I've been doing this over the course of like six months. I'm burnt out. I need to do something else. I saw Dungeons and Drag Queens by Dimension 20 and went, Oh. I love this. I can write about this, maybe. I pitched it out to Polygon, Charlie Hall gave me a chance, I wrote it, it ended up being super successful, and then I just kept kind of doing it. I started writing for The Fandamentals, which is a volunteer run site, and then, uh, Lin Kodega, who is one of my co founders at Rascal, who did the OGL reporting, reported on the Pinkertons with Hasbro. Some really big reporting ended up getting laid off from io9 because media in general is getting consumed by venture capitalism and getting stripped for parts and so layoffs were happening and we were like there's really no other option for us but then to make our own site. And so that's how Rascal kind of came about is we were like, all right, well, this is our only option, I guess. And then we brought in Chase, that ended up working out really well. Then Lin got a fancy job out in Hollywood writing for Interview with the Vampire or being a writer's assistant on Interview with the Vampire. And then we brought in Calen Ellis and Thomas Manuel, and now we're a four person strong team at Rascal, and it's just been the most rewarding thing in my entire life.

Star: 5:32

So was Dungeons and Drag Queens your first exposure to TTRPGs, or had you been into them for a while?

Rowan: 5:39

So I had been into them for a while, but kind of in the closet about it a little bit. Like in high school, my friend for his 16th birthday organized a game of like D&D 3.5. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. And I was always a theater kid, like hence why the standup happened. And I was like, Oh, this is, I can really get into this. And then it kind of went away for a couple of years. I was at a party for a theater after show, and I heard someone talking about Critical Role. And I was like, What are we saying here? And so I got really interested in that. Started watching Critical Role from like episode 20. So really early on, I jumped in there and got really on the actual play bandwagon from there, but kind of like watched it in secret. And then I went to college and due to some unfortunate situations ended up not being able to go to college for a semester. And during that time, while I was working full time, I ended up playing a session and running a session for those same friends. And that was great. And I was like, oh, I really like running these games. I'm getting more immersed in the world. And then it kind of went away for a couple of years because as life goes and you don't have any more free time, it's hard to organize these games. Hence the very theme of this show that I'm on right now. And then, yeah, I saw Dungeons and Drag Queens because I had been watching Dimension 20 through like 2019 and been like, oh, this is a different take on the actual play thing, got really into it and then watched Dungeons and Drag Queens with my partner who was like, you should write about this. You're a writer, like you have a lot of thoughts about this, you should go for it. And it was life changing, honestly. But yeah, so D&D has been, was the on ramp to it, and now has broken open the whole world.

Star: 7:15

Yeah, I see a lot of other games, games besides D&D, covered on Rascal, and there's a lot of, you know, even some very indie games, some of those one pagers and zines and things like that. When did you start moving into playing other games besides D&D?

Rowan: 7:34

Yeah, so at that time when I was home, the friends I was with were into some other games. Like, they played Call of Cthulhu, they played Shadowrun, and so I was like, oh, this is interesting. One of my friends even, uh, made their own version. They called it A3.5, which was like this really interesting blend of like AD&D and 3.5. It was very fascinating. I was like, oh, like you can do a lot with games. When I got into writing for The Fandomentals, my world kind of broke open a little bit as I started seeing actual plays that were doing non D&D games, like My First Dungeon runs a lot of indie games. Uh, this actual play podcast, which is incredibly well produced and they played a season of Elliot Davis's Project Echo, which I was like, Oh, this is like art and it's an, it's a game about time travel that's played through a planner.

Star: 8:27

Oh, cool.

Rowan: 8:28

Very interesting. Yeah uh, and then they played Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast, which is Jay Dragon's incredible game about a bed and breakfast run by a witch and it's very cozy and cartoony It's very cool. And I was like, oh there's so much you can do with this and then just kind of dove in headfirst from there And then once I started writing for Rascal, I was like, oh I need to learn more about what this world is. And then finally getting to go to my first convention. I was like, oh I am a little baby. I don't know anything.

Star: 9:00

I meet and interview a lot of people who I think a lot of people would consider babies in terms of they, they just started playing when COVID hit. It seems to have been a big point where people really started getting into games. Personally, I mean, I'm, I started playing like almost like a month after COVID hit, just because it kind of forced us into spaces outside of in person games, which are very difficult to organize.

Rowan: 9:26

And yeah, when you have so much free time.

Star: 9:28

Right. Yeah. So I think, you know, playing online has been amazing at giving me opportunities to try a lot of different games. So it's great to find all these new worlds. I'm totally with you there.

Rowan: 9:44

There's so much weird stuff out there, which I really love. Like that's the best. And I find someone who makes a game that I'm like, oh, you have a perspective on the world. That's my favorite thing.

Star: 9:54

We're talking today about a game called Deathmatch Island, which is a really interesting game. Can you give my listeners kind of a elevator pitch or one sentence description of Deathmatch Island.

Rowan: 10:06

I can. It's quite literally my job. Deathmatch Island is basically, uh. Survivor meets Hunger Games meets corporate horror. You're dropped off on an island, you wake up, no idea who you are, you randomly roll a personality, and then you play through this Battle Royale style, Survivor style island game. Uh, and it's just horrifying in the best way.

Star: 10:35

I got to play it once recently and I just really loved the game. It's so much fun. Personally, I'm a big fan of the, the question of break the game or play to win. I think there's some really nice tension between thinking about how survivor type games are like on television, like reality shows. There's this secret machination happening in the background and then you get to see the people in front and not really necessarily seeing all of these machinations happening.

Rowan: 11:05

Yeah, I think reality shows, like competitive reality shows in that way are so fascinating. I have a whole essay in me that's gotta be written at some point about how actual play and reality shows are kind of the same thing in a lot of ways, and Deathmatch Island really brings that to the forefront.

Star: 11:21

Yeah. Character creation in Deathmatch Island is, is very easy and breezy. It reminds me a little bit of OSR games in that most of it's on roll tables. Of course, with any roll table you can always just find something and pick it if you have an idea. But when you built this character, you came to the table and just rolled on it?

Rowan: 11:40

I had this archetype of an idea because actually the character that I wanted to bring to the table I had from a different game that ended up never getting to get played. Characters Without Stories, you know. I was going to play DIE, which is Rowan, Rook, and Decard's game based off of Kieran Gillian's comic about a bunch of people who start playing a tabletop role playing game and Jumanji style go into the world.

Star: 12:02

Yeah. Also an incredible game.

Rowan: 12:04

So good. Wish I got to play it. Would have been great. Yeah. So I had this character in mind and she didn't get to exist in that world. So when I rolled up a character in Deathmatch Island, I saw that it like kind of already worked. And I was like, well, just going to slot this in here then.

Star: 12:24

Rowan, who are you bringing to the table today?

Rowan: 12:27

Petty Dreadful.

Star: 12:28

Excellent name.

Rowan: 12:30

Thank you, thank you.

Star: 12:31

If I was to see Petty Dreadful across the room, what am I seeing?

Rowan: 12:36

If you're looking across the room, you're seeing a woman who it depends on when you see her. If you're seeing her in like her prime, she's just gotten off stage at a drag show. She has makeup kind of running down her face a little bit. She's wearing a really rag tag thrown together, crunchy drag outfit that is just made of whatever she was able to find at a thrift store, and she has a little bit of a scowl on her face all the time.

Star: 13:04

On Deathmatch Island, one of the things you roll for is your uniform. So what's her look on the island?

Rowan: 13:10

Her look on the island, she is disgusted by, it is just a orange jumpsuit with a number on the back of it that is not her color.

Star: 13:23

We know this character only through her drag name. Does she use her non drag name on the island?

Rowan: 13:30

No, she does not. And that was actually a very interesting point of the people that I was playing it with. The game that I was playing it with, I ended up playing with a bunch of really incredible people. Elliot Davis, who I mentioned before, from My First Dungeon, Gina Susanna from Blackwater D&D, Cameron Strittmatter from The Panic Table, and Kurt, I do not know his last name, unfortunately, who was the best GM for it, but the most horrifying we got to play. And like, I'm not an actual play performer and the rest of them are. And I was like, Oh, you're good at this. Oh boy. But it was delightful because we got to have this really interesting emotional arc and. She never said her real name. She was maybe going to at one point, but unfortunately, everyone died before it could happen.

Star: 14:14

On the island, she's wearing this jumpsuit. Is she wearing makeup or wigs or anything like that?

Rowan: 14:19

She had makeup, again, running down her face. Did not have a wig on. She, she looks disheveled and upset, for sure.

Star: 14:27

Outside of her drag persona, because she's not really living up to drag, I'm not somebody who does drag, so I don't understand maybe the intricacies of how your identity intersects with your drag identity, but for her, what does it feel like to be a drag queen using your drag name, but not be in drag?

Rowan: 14:47

Yeah, so I always imagined her as a trans woman for sure. And drag queens can be of any gender. You can be any gender to do drag. You can be a drag king, a drag queen, whatever gender conform you want to do. But she always definitely found drag as a way to express femininity through a performance when she maybe couldn't feel it for herself. That was a big part of her character was In the flashback mechanic that happens in Deathmatch Island. One of the things that happens before she, like, leaves the world is she, unfortunately, got, like, kicked out of her house because of unaccepting parents. And the reason why is because they caught her putting on makeup to go out and sneak out and do a drag show. And so, drag has always been kind of this defense mechanism for her. She's able to be a more jovial, exciting, welcoming person in this performance, but without that shield, is much more cynical, is much more closed off. I always imagined Petty Dreadful as like, the incarnation of trans rage.

Star: 15:52

What is it about your experience with gender and with gender expression that led you to want to portray this trans rage?

Rowan: 16:00

Well, so I came out as trans, like right before the pandemic hit, and it had always been something I was kind of navigating because I had, as again, being a theater kid for a very long time, had only portrayed femininity when I was on stage doing like a comedic character like the mom in Hairspray or like the drag Queens in La Cage Aux Folles. And so it was very much that femininity was a performance and a costume and something to be laughed at when performed by someone in my body. And so that was very much the way I felt navigating it and especially having the kind of world turn against you. The thing that I thought was really interesting about Deathmatch Island, kind of what you said before about. Do you try to break the game or do you play to win? Petty's there to play to win because the world's never had her back, so why is she gonna have anyone else's? And that's not something I really let myself experience in my day to day life because while I do find a lot of frustration and anger at the world, I don't find myself to be a person that's fueled by rage. There are absolutely people that are and I think that's super valid. But it's not something I let myself tap into a lot because I think like, a lot of marginalized identities displaying anger as anyone other than a cishet white man makes you a bitch, makes you aggressive, makes you whatever, and so giving myself permission to just lay it all out there in that way was something I was really interested in exploring.

Star: 17:28

I can imagine that that might have felt cathartic as well.

Rowan: 17:32

Oh yeah, for sure. And then, like, having Gina there, me and Gina were able to, like, girl out a little bit and be like, these fucking idiot men. Connecting about femininity in that way, but also then, like, having that distrust between two women, especially like a cis woman and a trans woman, and like navigating that distrust as there is trans misogyny and internalized misogyny, I think was a very fruitful place to explore.

Star: 17:56

Do you find yourself when you play in games often wanting to explore this kind of catharsis or emotions that you maybe don't express as much in your real life?

Rowan: 18:06

I think sometimes, it definitely depends on the group. I find myself exploring these different things and Sometimes it's about, like, being evil and getting to, like, really let that rage out. Sometimes it's about, like, feeling like a hero and feeling like the world is, like, there's possible for good in the world. So I do find that there is a lot of catharsis that comes through playing these games, but that usually doesn't arise until I'm sitting down at the table with someone, unless we've talked about it beforehand.

Star: 18:35

Considering the state of the world right now, vaguely gesturing and everything,

Rowan: 18:40

Oof.

Star: 18:41

Maybe it doesn't have any sort of impact on how you play characters or what characters you play, but I'm curious whether it makes you want to play that heroic character that changes the world, or whether it makes you want to play that character who's angry at the world.

Rowan: 18:54

Great question. I think that I tend to try, I have a bit of a hero complex in real life. Maybe the, hence why I go around starting nonprofits and worker owned outlets and trying to actively change the world in my day to day life. I try to live my life by that a little bit, where every place I go, I try to be the best version of myself for other people and be compassionate and be kind and it's something I really love about myself and something that is so difficult and draining all the time. It's exhausting to always give people grace and compassion as much as I wish it weren't, but living in this world it is. It's very hard. And so using a space for play as being like, okay, here I can kind of, I don't have to have, either I don't have to have a set agenda where I'm trying to make everything better, or I can lean into my worst impulses with people who I trust and care about and we can have that mutual understanding that this is like a magic circle where anything that goes is held for each other is something that I really enjoy. And sometimes I just like to be silly. Sometimes I just like being purely absurd. Like, again, I'm mentioning Elliot a lot, uh, in this podcast, but I think Elliot's a great designer. So everyone should go see the work that he does. He wrote this other game called Rom Com Drama Bomb, where you are playing. Yeah.

Star: 20:08

That's great.

Rowan: 20:09

You're playing as a, it's a three person game. One person is an evil villain who has strapped bombs to two people and their love interests. And the villain is like, you must act out a romantic comedy. Otherwise the bombs are going to blow up. Right? A great concept. And so I just love being silly in that one. I'm like, all right, yeah, fine, I'll be, I'll be goofy.

Star: 20:29

Okay, but were you the evil villain or were you one of the people in the rom com?

Rowan: 20:33

I have been the evil villain once and I have been the rom com person twice. And I like being the oblivious love interest. I think that's just real fun to just be a little bit stupid.

Star: 20:49

You've wrote an article about your experience playing Deathmatch Island, and one of the things that you talked about is wanting to play at least a morally ambiguous character, a character that was out for themselves, everyone else be damned.

Rowan: 21:05

Mm hmm.

Star: 21:05

One of the things you talked about was the difficulty of playing a character like that. So why was it difficult?

Rowan: 21:10

Oh, cause I'm a people pleaser. That's why Star, cause I am such a people pleaser. And so I'm always worried that someone's mad at me for something. And so getting the freedom to just be like. Fuck everyone else. Absolutely not. I'm here. I'm here for me. I'm here for Petty. That's all we're here for nothing else. And I gotta say I did feel kind of terrible afterwards And so holding that space like during the game I literally had to like step out and check in and be like, hey everyone Is this cool? Like are we good with this? Because as much as I want to indulge myself in that catharsis I also care about the people that I'm playing with above the table and so making sure that like everyone else is willing to be there in that space with me too is just as important for me as it is for the the catharsis that I'm getting from it.

Star: 21:59

I want to circle back to something that you said and pick up on this thread you kind of touched on this a little bit is the idea of playing the game. In Deathmatch Island, it's very much, you're fitting into this world, you're, you're accepting the very concept that you are playing a game and you're going to go along with that because you want to win, versus breaking the game where you're saying, I reject this world, I am going to try to destroy it. So I think it's interesting because you're talking about the idea of her life, and I think of her identity, and I don't know, maybe I'm seeing a connection that's not there, but I think of passing versus you know, not passing and what that means as a trans person or as a drag queen.

Rowan: 22:42

Yeah, absolutely. As someone who watches Survivor a lot, and I watch Survivor a lot with my trans boyfriend and his trans man roommate, and we talk a lot about how the people who are best at Survivor are queer people. And specifically like marginalized queer people as well, because of this element of code switching, because of this element of passing, of being like, I have to make myself so malleable and amenable to whatever the other person across from me is seeing in me, to be safe. To make sure that I can get out of this interaction either get what I want out of it or get out of it unscathed. And that's something that I think people of various non marginalized identities deal with to different degrees. And so, that was absolutely something I was thinking about when playing Deathmatch Island. I don't know if you have seen the show Traitors at all.

Star: 23:35

I haven't, no.

Rowan: 23:36

Oh, it's such a crazy game. It's basically, uh, Werewolf or Mafia. If you know those games. It's basically that, but they bring a bunch of reality stars from a bunch of different shows in to play this game. And you can see, like, the Real Housewives and the Survivors are playing very different versions of this game. Because you're exactly what you said before, it is about, like, going with the majority going with the vote and making sure you're not standing out too much and making sure that you're standing out just enough to not be suspicious and be liked and build these alliances, but also being cutthroat enough. To know when those alliances are no longer serving you and turning on those people because it's advantageous to you. And that's not something I do in my real life. That type of cutthroat, backstabbing behavior is antithetical, I think, to real community building. And is a skill that I don't really have developed. And so getting to play that in the game and getting to navigate this idea, and especially like, because the people I'm playing with are very, very leftist, very liberal, and knowing that they're coming into this also thinking about playing bad people, but informed by also being good people. So like, while we were playing it, we had a rule, like, no transphobia, obviously. But even still with that negotiation of it, there is still like, hierarchical in group dynamics that play out. Again, the men are going to go off and do something and the women are going to go off and do something else. And where does a drag queen trans woman exist within that dynamic, even subconsciously or unintentionally? And that was really interesting to explore.

Star: 25:19

That's a really interesting perspective. You mentioned a couple of times that you'd done drag in theater. Have you done drag outside of that?

Rowan: 25:26

Um, no, I don't really do like performative femininity too much. I think all gender is kind of a performance in some capacity. Go read Judith Butler, anyone listening to this. But I don't really do drag because it's not really my type of performance. When I perform, like when I do stand up, or when I'm writing or when I'm on a podcast, because I'm obviously performing to a degree right now, it's a filtered version of myself rather than assuming an entirely different identity. And I do think drag for me has that kind of comedic mocking element to me when I perform it, but I appreciate the art form so much from other people. My partner has, he's very into drag race. And so over the course of our relationship, He has like rehabilitated drag race for me a little bit, which has been really beautiful because I get to like enjoy it and watch it and see beautiful trans women being in drag and like men performing as drag and like honoring femininity rather than like mocking it. And then also I get to see them being messy bitches and how delicious.

Star: 26:32

Yeah. Another reality show. It sounds like you're very into reality in general.

Rowan: 26:37

I've discovered that I am. I used to not be. I used to really hate reality. TV, but ever since I started writing about games, I'm like, Ooh, the game design of these shows is incredible.

Star: 26:48

Amazing. I started a newsletter as our social media landscape is forever changing. This is one way to make sure we can always stay in touch. If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast. Follow my other projects, and be notified when a new episode drops. You can find the sign up form in the show notes or on my website.

No Quest for the Wicked: 27:36

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Star: 28:40

So I wanna get into Petty Dreadful and how she started. You mentioned that you had built her for another game originally. What was the spark? What was the first thing that you thought of when building her?

Rowan: 28:53

Yeah, so when we were going to play DIE, DIE's main conceit is that you have your big character, your, your paragon character, that is the in world one, and then you have the player character who is the outside of the game character. And so, my idea was like, oh, they're coming back for like a high school reunion. And so, this is someone who, I was basically doing a little bit of a self insert here, like, was a theater kid in high school, and he had never really accepted himself in high school, and then she had transitioned outside, but still wasn't super feminine. And then when getting into this world, like, becomes this high glam. bitchy, self confident drag queen. And I was very interested in exploring that, especially because the, uh, the GM for that was supposed to be Aram Vartian, who runs a lot of actual play podcasts, but Kill Every Monster is one of them. That's a very good one that he does. He works with Unprepared Casters a lot. He just does a lot of great work. And I was very excited. He is a cis gay man who is just delightful. And I knew that that would be a fun dynamic to play. And then when that kind of fell through, I was like, all right, well, I still, the seed of this character is in my mind. And then when I rolled up my character in Deathmatch Island, it was like a podcast host or a radio host was the occupation. And I was like, Oh. Yeah, she hosts like a drag race talkback podcast.

Star: 30:16

Oh, yeah.

Rowan: 30:17

Got it. Here we are.

Star: 30:18

I love that. Especially because we usually think of podcast hosts as being like, you know, the white man who gets a mic.

Rowan: 30:25

Yup. Classic.

Star: 30:27

Yeah. Going against the grain here on my podcast.

Rowan: 30:32

Listen, and we love to see it.

Star: 30:35

When you're rolling up the character, you make a few choices, you roll on a few tables, so can you tell me what choices you made or were made for you by the dice? We talked about distinguishing features, name, and occupation, but what was her initial motivation?

Rowan: 30:53

Yeah, no, I think, yeah, her motivation was like, I have no idea why I'm here, I cannot remember anything, since that's the core conceit of the game, but yeah, that idea of like, playing to win, because even though the prize for Deathmatch Island is very vague. It's like, ah, you're gonna win. You know, you'll win.

Star: 31:12

Win what? Who knows?

Rowan: 31:14

Who knows? You're gonna win trauma. That's what you're gonna win in Deathmatch Island. This person who, because so many drag queens are sex workers, so many drag queens are trying to just survive and get by day to day. They do drag as their full time job. And it is not a sustainable source of income for so many people and it's such a communal survival occupation that I was like, Oh, she is going to win this because she desperately wants to move up in the world. She definitely comes into this world as this mindset of like, everything's terrible. I'm going to get mine. Because no one else is going to get it for me.

Star: 31:52

Yeah.

Rowan: 31:52

And that was, real motivation was like, all right, I am going to play anyone and everyone I can, I'm going to backstab at every opportunity I get. Because all that matters is that I make it to the end. And she did. She ended up making it to be the last person alive on the island. But had changed by the end of it, of being like, Oh, these people, even though I don't know them and they're complete strangers, they care about me. And I can't betray them. And playing through that, even though I set out to be evil and selfish, the power of communal care was enough to be like, fuck, they've all died trying to get to this, to break the game. I can't just stop now. And that was really interesting to like experience.

Star: 32:37

So, one of the things that happens in Deathmatch Island is that you gain followers. At least when I was playing, I was a little unclear about what exactly that meant. Like, is that social media? Is that some sort of, you know, text your vote kind of thing like they did on American Idol?

Rowan: 32:53

Mm hmm.

Star: 32:53

But do you think that gaining followers was a motivation for her as well? Just because I, there, in some way that might carry over into real life?

Rowan: 33:01

Yeah, absolutely. Because again, through doing stand up, I went hyper viral on TikTok doing stand up and I quickly learned how much I hate being an online personality. It's a nightmare. It's the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone. Not really, but hyperbolically. So as I noticed that followers was a big element of that mechanic, someone who is this self centered who does crave validation and crave community so deeply, seeing that follower count go up and seeing that admiration was a huge motivator for her. And it was a big sticking point of like, oh, this guy's getting more followers than me. How is that possible? That made her angrier, which made her more spiteful in a lot of ways. And I thought that that was a really interesting element of this game. To explore what does the abstract idea of followers do? Not just like, what does it mean to have a social media presence, but what does it mean to crave more and get more through doing bad things?

Star: 34:06

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting choice to not specify, to just say followers, cause that can mean so many different things.

Rowan: 34:14

Yeah. It feels very Hunger Games, like everyone's watching on TV and like someone's going to send you a care package kind of vibes.

Star: 34:22

Or Twitch streaming, somebody sends you a

Rowan: 34:25

Yeah, absolutely.

Star: 34:28

You talked about wanting community kind of in the same sentence as wanting followers. And one of the things that has struck me as somebody who is on social media, but I don't have a ton of followers. I'm not like viral or anything like that is that for me sometimes having followers and having community are counterposed.

Rowan: 34:49

Yeah, I'm snapping everyone listening at home. I'm snapping. Yeah, absolutely.

Star: 34:53

My husband actually joined TikTok maybe like a year after I had did one video got like 120,000 views on it.

Rowan: 35:04

Oof.

Star: 35:04

Yeah, which was a big oof moment for me there, you know, like you were saying that jealousy of like, why are they getting all the views, you know, because he'd been on it for so, for such a short period of time.

Rowan: 35:13

Those algorithms, the worst, literally evil.

Star: 35:16

Right. And so he said something to me that really stuck with me, which is that I may have followers, but you have a community, because what I was doing on Tik Tok was forming friendships. And I think when you have a million followers, like who are you forming those friendships with? Does it get parasocial? When is that real? It becomes a question.

Rowan: 35:36

Absolutely. And I think, yeah, no, that's very, very wise of him to say, because yeah, it is that feeling of community is not something you can have that's a one way street. Community is something that is back and forth. That is reciprocal. Not to say that like parasocial relationships. aren't reciprocal, but there's a different reciprocity. It's, I give you content, I give you pieces of myself in exchange for your attention, in exchange for your money, in exchange for your adoration.

Star: 36:08

Yeah.

Rowan: 36:09

And that's not what community is. That's putting someone up on a pedestal and in its own way is very dehumanizing. I talk about this a lot with Dr. Emily Friedman, who is an actual play historian, who talks a lot about how fame turns people into objects. And that is a huge problem in our society right now of, oh, we have these celebrities and even in the, in the actual play space, especially we have this. Where they are put on this pedestal of being almost deified and they are held up to this impossible standard because they're no longer seen as human, they're seen as something more than human. And that's not community. That is the most unhealthy way to relate to other people that there possibly could be. And leads us to, like, the political situation we're in right now, where, like, we have our president who is, like, a god emperor figure for so many people and is infallible and everything he says is the gospel truth. And that is a direct result of celebrity culture because he was a reality TV show star. There's such a through line that really connects and community is the exact opposite of that. Community is being on the same level as someone else. Maybe having different power dynamics of like being a mentor and a mentee, or being an elder and being someone who is looked up to and dispensing wisdom in that way, but as a fallible human being, rather than this distant object. And I think about that a lot.

Star: 37:38

Yeah, so you mentioned that by the end, Petty Dreadful felt that she had in a sense found community.

Rowan: 37:45

Yeah, I think she had found that community and the thing about Deathmatch Island, it was, is it was immediately taken away and we had talked about maybe playing another game where every other character was different except for Petty Dreadful, like she had come back to the island and woken up again and like, if we had played that game was very much determined to be like, Oh, she's now here to break the game. She doesn't care about anything else. She is going to get everyone else on this island to say, fuck this. We no longer want to play it. We want to do something else, which I think is kind of the place where I'm at in my life. Like, I think maybe there is a part of me that was Petty Dreadful at some point. That was very angry. That was very done with the world. And then I really think it was the lockdown period of COVID and then the murder of George Floyd that led to the big protests that happened in 2020 where I was a big part of those protests and seeing that communal anger and seeing that fire and that capacity for change really made me go, Oh, like I now need to dedicate my life to making the world a better place. And tearing down these systems, not with the end goal of making it better for myself, so I'm the queen standing on top of a pile of ash, but so that way I am building something alongside the destruction of something else, so that way when this whole thing going on inevitably falls to the ground, there's already something else in its place. And I take a lot of inspiration from black thinkers like Mariame Kaba and Angela Davis who do this work of abolition and thinking about what is coming after, because that's what we need to focus on. It's not like everything's broken right now, yes, but what do we imagine to take its place?

Star: 39:33

I think a lot, it's something that I did a lot of art around a long time ago when I was still doing performance art, but a lot of the things that we were talking about at the time was radical imagination, is having the ability to imagine the world that you want to replace the one that we currently have. And to me, TTRPGs are a fantastic way to invite radical imagination into the room.

Rowan: 40:01

Absolutely. I think they're the best way, honestly.

Star: 40:03

Yeah.

Rowan: 40:04

Because they're, they're more collaborative than anything else, than any other medium I've ever experienced.

Star: 40:08

Yeah. So when you're playing a game that is really competitive within this collaborative medium, how does that feel for you?

Rowan: 40:16

Stressful. A different game that I've played, which is Jay Dragon's Seven Part Pact, uh, which I've also written about on Rascal, is inherently a game that is competitive. It's a game in which you are seven wizards of the most powerful wizards in the entire world, And you are the gatekeepers of magic. You have a pact of only the seven of you get to hold magic, but you're also playing your own board game that you have to manage and have responsibility for yourself that inherently comes into contradiction with the objectives of everyone else's board game. And so you are. actively working for your own goals at all times at the expense of everyone else. And what I wrote about in that is how that requires a level of trust that is so heavy, like you cannot have a competitive tabletop game with people that you do not trust. Because that then just makes bleed and you end up getting angry, not at the character, but at the player. And so that is something I think about a lot of like, conflict is inevitable in life. Like, you are always going to have conflict, you are always going to harm other people. And the only way to rectify that harm and make sure that that harm happens in a space that is restorative and in a way that you can move through and come out the other side on better, is if you have that foundation of trust underneath it. Like I don't think that any relationship worth its salt has had no conflict because how strong is that relationship actually if you have not been able to get through a big fight.

Star: 41:50

It hasn't been tested, so who knows?

Rowan: 41:52

Exactly, yeah.

Star: 41:53

One of the things that you choose when you're building a character in Deathmatch Island is your character's capability. So there's Social Game, Snake Mode, Challenge Beast, Deathmatch, and then the last one is Redacted, which is I don't think you can start with Redacted. I'm not sure about that rule.

Rowan: 42:14

Yeah, I don't think so. I think you have to go, like, you have to be through it multiple times already.

Star: 42:17

Yeah, yeah. So, which one did you choose?

Rowan: 42:20

I definitely chose Snake Mode for Petty Dreadful.

Star: 42:23

Can you tell me what Snake Mode is?

Rowan: 42:26

Yeah. So, again, all of these terms, mostly except for like, Deathmatch and Redacted, come from Survivor. And so, Snake Mode is very much this idea of like, how good are you at blindsiding someone? How good are you at making someone trust you, and then pulling the rug out from underneath them? And that was what I was leaning into, really, with Petty, was like, I am anticipating betraying these people. And so that's what I really expected, and again, kind of going back to being like, the world has betrayed me, so I've gotten very good at learning how to do it.

Star: 42:58

I think what's interesting is that each of these capabilities kind of describe how your character moves through the world. It's not, I'm good at reading books or something like that, or I'm really good with the sword. It's how does my character approach things or how best does my character approach things because using that skill is going to give you an advantage, you know, if Petty Dreadful was to just try and shoot somebody, that wouldn't be Snake Mode, so

Rowan: 43:25

And she tried and she failed. Yeah, I think it's very interesting how, like, it tells a lot about a person of how you approach problem solving.

Star: 43:34

Yeah, I think it's interesting because the game reinforces using that approach because it can be very difficult to succeed on a roll. If you don't have enough dice and you add dice, when you add things like using your occupation or your capability, or if you have an object that you gained, so if you're rolling one, one die, it's difficult to succeed.

Rowan: 43:56

Nearly impossible.

Star: 43:57

So I think that the mechanic reinforces that, but it's also reinforcing for the player, how they should approach problems. Was that something that you leaned on when you were playing the game?

Rowan: 44:11

The thing about me that is a dirty little secret is that I am so bad at remembering mechanics of games. I have an idea of a person in my head and then I'm like, okay, I will, to mix some metaphors, I will shoehorn this square into this circle and make it all work somehow. But it definitely, like, every single time I went and approached a problem, I was like, okay, how can I use Snake Mode to turn this situation? Cause I think also it's very interesting. Snake Mode specifically invents conflict inherently, like you are inherently going to push the story forward because you are going to do something that if you succeed on is going to be a betrayal. So like, no matter if you fail, you're going to have some bad consequences because someone knows that you have tried to betray them. If you succeed, you successfully betray someone, and that changes the dynamic you have with everyone else you did not betray.

Star: 45:03

And it changes your character too, because your character has now done something, not necessarily evil, but morally questionable at least.

Rowan: 45:11

Exactly, yeah.

Star: 45:12

So when you build a character for any game, are you coming in the same way that you came in with Petty Dreadful, where you have an idea and then mold the mechanics around that idea, or are you responding to the game?

Rowan: 45:26

I think it definitely depends on the game and the situation. Something I always did, even when I was just playing D&D 5e, was I would, I would always use the skills that I was given. Like, if I'm choosing a character and, like, choosing a class, choosing a species, I would find the skills that it gave me and be like, Okay, so I'm choosing these skills. What is this skill that I'm choosing, this proficiency I'm choosing, tell me about who this person is? Using the mechanics to kind of inform character based on that. I always find that when I try to make a character that's like vaguely outlined, I never play them well. Like it always just kind of ends up being like, ooh, here's a wishy washy idea of a character. But I come from also a novel editing background. I like have a degree in creative writing and worked for a little bit as a novel editor. Hence my work with Write Hive, the literary non profit, and my brain is very story oriented and I always find that the best stories come from external conflicts colliding with internal emotional conflict and how the two kind of intersect. And so, I go, alright, I really gotta nail down who this person is, and so I make the character, and it usually happens as kind of a synthesis of the two, of like, sometimes mechanics come first, and the mechanics inspire an idea, or an idea pops up, and then I go, alright, Let's see if this game has the mechanics to make it work, and like, can evoke what I'm trying to do with this vibe.

Star: 46:51

Like you were saying, the skills that your character has learned, comes into the game with. Tell you something about that character. So I'm curious because the only skill besides an occupation that a character in Deathmatch Island has is that capability. So how did Petty Dreadful get good at Snake Mode?

Rowan: 47:10

Kind of a little bit like I was talking to you before was like at the underlying bit was using preconceived gender dynamics of being like, oh, these men aren't going to think anything of me. I'm just an innocent little woman. Ooh. Oh no, I'm not a threat to anyone. And then like conspiring with Gina, with her character. And like really ramping up the like, oh, we're going to like use these men for all their worth and then throw them to the dogs whenever it's useful to us. That's kind of how I approach writing about games too, is very much using these larger cultural preconceptions and these larger cultural ideas and seeing how they intersect with the games that I play or that I read because nothing exists in a vacuum, everything, everyone's coming into games with baggage. Everyone who writes games comes into writing them with baggage. And so, seeing how this art object, or this performance, or this game, is a microcosm for the larger world, is always how I'm engaging with them.

Star: 48:15

Do you think the same thing about your characters? That in some way they reflect yourself?

Rowan: 48:20

I think so. This is very much the, like, Brennan Lee Mulligan school of character design. Which is every character is just yourself through a stained glass window and like, depending on where the light is shining is what version of yourself you're you're portraying out into the world. I think it is a little impossible to create something that is not in relation to yourself at all. Like, even if you're playing someone completely opposite of yourself, you are inherently using yourself as the anchor point and your perspective as the anchor point to have an opposite of. And so I am always trying to explore parts of myself, even if in opposition.

Star: 48:56

Yeah, interesting. I hadn't really thought about the opposition part of it.

Rowan: 49:00

I think about this all the time. It is my job.

Star: 49:04

You mentioned that it's easier for you to play a character when there are some details involved, like you mentioned the skills, as opposed to being a character who's vaguely outlined. What kind of details do you think are necessary to make a character not vague?

Rowan: 49:20

I think at the core, you don't really need a lot, but you need some basic relationships with other people to know how they relate to other people. You need to know an internal motivation or a drive. And honestly, even just some like weird random facts about them, just to give yourself enough flavor to be like, oh, this is a weirdo. Every person is a weirdo, no matter how much they try to deny that they're not. Because when you look at it and you see your specific interests and your specific motivations and your specific relationships, you're like, that is nothing like anyone else in the world. I love games that kind of offer that character background development. Um, I think Deathmatch Island is a unique one because it literally gives you nothing, and that's kind of the point of it, and then you develop it emergently as you go along. A good example is Triangle Agency. I just started playing a game of Triangle Agency with my soon to be roommates, and we ended up making these characters, and the interview questions that Triangle Agency has, as like, onboarding questions, are so weird. They're just so out there and obscure. That they're like, what's your motivation for your job? How do you enjoy doing this? If you had enough money, what's one thing that you would buy? And like those kinds of weird out there questions that give you just a taste of who this person is can really ground you in a world that just kind of going into a character with a D&D 5e character sheet doesn't quite do.

Star: 50:52

I will get to that in a little bit when I ask you an in character question. Because my list is essentially those kinds of questions, but did you have anything to find when you started playing, uh, Petty Dreadful, did you have any of those weird quirks going in?

Rowan: 51:08

I think, honestly, the weird quirks for me were her relationship to rage, and the way that she was so comfortable with that, and the comfort she had at being whoever the other person wants her to be, and also just kind of being like a mean girl a little bit. Cause that's like a very specific, like you're like, Oh, this is an archetype of a person that I can see very specifically. And then as we're playing along, getting like the, the depth kind of into it, the backstory with her parents was very much a thing that just kind of like came up on the fly. But once that happened, then I was like, Oh, I know who this person is even more now. And I can change how I'm playing this character. To reflect this new knowledge.

Star: 51:47

So speaking of relationships does Petty Dreadful have any relationships with people that she cares about? Does she not remember them because of the amnesia?

Rowan: 51:57

As the memories were coming up she does remember them her little brother what she had like a moment of betrayal because he's the one that ratted her out to her parents. There is like the drag family that she has that like brought her in when she was like kicked out and like how she relates to them. But even that's a tenuous relationship because these are strangers who just kind of brought you in off the streets and you don't really know them but they did something so kind for you. But as drag queens often are they're very catty and they're very snippy at one another and like that's how drag queens show love and affection but as someone who is already hardened to the world, that's a hard thing to accept and to navigate. And so it was really like developing those relationships on the island that really showed me who this person was.

Star: 52:46

I think one of the things that I struggle with building a character for a one shot is creating depth that you can express within one three hour session. Do you have any advice for people who are playing a game and they're only going to be able to do one session?

Rowan: 53:00

Yeah, I think the best advice that I have for that is to like go full throttle. Do a decent amount of prep beforehand if you can just to like there's a lot of author character lists that you can kind of fill out that will ask you those weird questions and those specifics. And especially if you're like performing a one shot on an actual play, this is I think is a really good idea to get that character depth going before you get on screen because knowing that level of character depth is how you can perform well enough. But even if you're just doing it like with your friends, being able to know who this person is before you jump into them will give you more to play off of with the other people that you're with and give things for them to kind of latch on to. And so even if it's just like, you take half an hour to kind of like daydream and doodle a backstory for this person, That's still something that will give you somewhere to jump off from.

Star: 53:53

Do you have a preferred length of backstory or certain things that you always put into a backstory?

Rowan: 54:00

Relationship with parents, I think, is a really big one. Relationship with siblings, like family dynamic. Uh, we're gonna get a little psychoanalysis going on here for a second. I think family dynamic and the relationship to family is a huge one for people because you can always, even though there is multiple expressions of the kind of person someone can be based on a family dynamic, someone can come from having a bad relationship with their father and there can be a bunch of different expressions of that or having a good relationship with their father and a bunch of expressions from that. I'm an only child, but a lot of people don't think that I'm an only child because I don't have like quote unquote only child syndrome, but so like navigating that idea of like, where does this person come from at that very core level is going to inform so much more of where they're going.

Star: 54:47

You also mentioned that in writing you like to think about internal or emotional conflict. So with Petty Dreadful, what do you think her primary emotional conflict is?

Rowan: 55:00

In writing, there's this idea of having a want and having a need. Those are two different things that are expressed differently. What someone wants at like a surface level is like, I want fame, I want celebrity, I want money, I want whatever. Whereas the need, and like that's the example for Petty Dreadful. Is where's the need is I need connection. I need to feel valued as a person. I need to feel love and community and safety and how those two things manifest come into conflict with one another because you're searching for your need, like you're trying to fulfill that need, but it is being expressed through the way you're searching for that want. So like, Petty Dreadful trying to get these followers or betray everyone around her to get the money because she thinks that's going to bring her safety. And fame and celebrity is not going to fulfill her need. It's actually in diametric opposition to fulfilling her need. And so thinking about it in that way when you're making characters is really helpful to bringing fruitful conflict into the stories you're telling.

Star: 56:05

So if you were to continue to play Petty Dreadful in Deathmatch Island, what would you be looking forward to in the future?

Rowan: 56:14

I think if I got to play her, I would really love to see her get this kind of radicalized perspective of being like, yeah, I can still be angry, I can still have this rage, but I just need to know where to direct this rage. It's not gonna be useful to me to direct this rage at other people, even if they're like, quote unquote, my enemies. Directing it at them, or if they're mostly allied with me and they have a slightly different opinion on something, like if we have, A different idea of how to approach this resource. Realizing like, oh, that fight isn't actually worth the energy and the anger. The real fight is tearing down this system. That's who I need to be angry at, is the people who are upholding this system. And if there are other people who are adamant that they're going to uphold this system, Then I'll point my rage at them, but until then, I need to keep myself in check and know that it is not useful or beneficial to my soul to misdirect that anger.

Star: 57:14

So, in a sense, going from a character who wants to play to win to a character who wants to break the game.

Rowan: 57:20

Exactly, yeah.

Star: 57:22

Did you ever think of a name, a real name, for Petty Dreadful that you never used?

Rowan: 57:28

I did, but I can't remember it now, because I think the person that Petty became, like the identity she was kind of trying to leave behind, faded into nothingness. So it almost became a dead name in a way, and Petty became the chosen name. And I think that's okay.

Star: 58:07

Petty Dreadful, what's your favorite funny story to tell people?

Rowan: 58:11

I think my favorite funny story to tell is about this one time where I was doing a show and this other girl was trying to show me up and she wasn't good. She was trash. Her mix was trash, her dress was trash, everything was awful, and then she was on stage dancing and she slipped and broke her ankle. And I think that's the kind of story Petty would think would be funny.

Star: 58:35

Where somebody else gets hurt as a kind of punishment?

Rowan: 58:41

Yeah, the schadenfreude of it all.

Star: 58:45

Thank you, Rowan, for coming on the podcast and for sharing Petty Dreadful with me and my audience.

Rowan: 58:52

Thank you so much for having me, Star. This was an absolute delight and after, after the last couple of weeks we've had, it was so nice to just talk about a fake person for a little bit.

Star: 59:03

I agree. So what would you like to share with my audience?

Rowan: 59:07

I would love for everyone listening to go support Rascal News, where I get to talk about games and actual play and the politics of play and where we can do it independently without oversight from corporations. And we can support independent artists and creators to get their work in front of people, while also holding powerful people in the industry to account. Because someone's gotta do it. And I would love to be able to do it. And pay my rent and buy groceries. That would also be great. If you could come subscribe to Rascal news, that would be amazing.

Star: 59:42

Well, everyone, please go check that out and pledge so that Rowan and everybody else at Rascal News can live the dream of getting paid for what they love.

Rowan: 59:53

Oh, God.

Star: 59:56

For my recommendation this episode, I'd like to introduce you to a podcast called Yes Indeed. That's I N D I E apostrophe D. As you could guess, I love an interview podcast, and I've been learning more about game design recently for as of yet undisclosed reasons. This podcast is full of interesting ideas and fascinating guests. Give it a listen. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners. Your recommendations help me immensely. Thank you to all my listeners spreading the word. I am so grateful. One of the things that any creator wants to know is what people think of their work. For podcasters, it can be especially difficult to get feedback. Reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify are a great way to let me and others know that you love the podcast. I read every single one, and treasure them. Did you know that you can now leave comments on individual episodes on Spotify? If you're listening there, I encourage you to leave a comment and let me know what you think about an episode. You may have also noticed a link in my show notes that says send us a text message. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future episode, or just want to leave a comment, send me a message. You can find me on Blue Sky Threads, Instagram, and Facebook as Characters Without Stories. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories, or just follow the link in the description. I'm currently accepting submissions for non D&D characters, with a strong preference for creators from marginalized communities. If you'd like to share your character, you can go to characterswithoutstories.com and click submit in the navigation menu. Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories.