Roll On at Roll20Con!
over 3 years ago
– Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 02:50:05 PM
Grab a cup of coffee bright and early tomorrow and tune in to twitch as Thirsty Sword Lesbians kicks off Roll20Con! Join designer April Kit Walsh, Alexis Sara, Ana Valens, and Jamila Nedjadi live as they play the Neon City 2099 scenario from the game.
The stream starts at 8am Pacific/11am Eastern tomorrow (Friday 10/23) on the official Roll20 twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/roll20app
Roll20Con is a 3-day online gathering of actual plays, panels, demos, and games. Get in on con-exclusive deals and giveaways and the whole weekend supports Code2040. Their mission is to foster racial equity in the tech community and dismantle the structural barriers that prevent the full participation and leadership of Black and Latinx technologists in the innovation economy. If you’d like to contribute you can make a donation through our tiltify page.
We have two more TSL events as part of the con: At noon Pacific/3pm Eastern on Friday, Sean Nittner will host a complete walk-through of how to set up a Thirsty Sword Lesbians game in Roll20. He’ll demonstrate the features of the free TSL character sheet, as well how to import the tokens and art assets every backer has access to. (Details on accessing those are in Update #1.) Tune in to see how easy it is to start playing TSL right away with Roll20.
Afterwards at 1pm PST/4pm EST, Sean holds a smaller Q&A event where participants will join his TSL Roll20 game to poke around, play with the features, and draw on his expertise.
You can find our complete schedule of events for Roll20Con here!
Last night we hit another huge milestone, surpassing $100k! And we're already past $104k at the time of this post — that boosts the number of Community Copies each “Share the Love” and “Nice” pledge creates, funds the Hologoddess Playbook, and it unlocks GALA.EXE, a new setting by Katherine Cross: Centuries into the future, the galaxy is united under the banner of a cybernetic democracy, all watched over by matriarchal machines of loving grace. But this beautiful facade has hairline cracks made of 1s and 0s; intrigue, sinister plots, and endless waltzes in cyberspace, hyperspace, and subspace abound.
Check out the campaign page stretch goals section to see what new treats await us on the horizon!
Your support has been generous and overwhelming. We’re truly grateful for the love this game has gotten. Thanks again, and we hope you can join us for some delightful gaming action tomorrow, in support of a worthy cause!
It's Been
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 01:05:29 AM
We’ll be frank, we did not expect one week in that we’d be flirting with $100k. Y’all are some amazing badass thirsty sword backers!
Since yesterday’s update announcing international shipping, we’ve funded a 25% bonus for all our contributing authors and unlocked The Sun Hand Playbook by Jan Martin. That makes four additional Playbooks we’ll be adding to the game. Let’s take a look:
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The Naga by Mariam Ahmad. These jewel-crested serpent-folk use their shapeshifting powers to protect their prized jewels and their kin from predation and exploitation.
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The Matriarch by Alexis Sara. Responsible for more than herself, The Matriarch has kids, orphans, or a gang that look for her help to stay alive. She weighs relationships not just how they affect her personally, but how they can better the lives of her wards as well. Her central conflict is around balancing her family's needs vs taking care of her own.
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The Troubadour by Bryanna Hitchcock. The Troubadour lives to entertain and have a good time, but self-expression often takes a back seat to earning a living and maintaining privilege. Keeping everyone happy is both her blessing and her curse. Her central conflict is speaking her truth versus her need to be liked.
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The Sun Hand by Jan Martin. The Sun Hand uses powerful baking techniques to create useful breads to support their friends, empower themselves, and defuse bad situations. They try to impress others with an obsessive hoarding of skills and knowledge. Their central conflict lies in balancing their Obsession with healthy relationships.
Those are the playbooks unlocked so far, but at $104k Katherine Cross will add another: The Hologoddess. She is will-made-synthflesh, a ghost in the machine whose conflict lies in her inability to relate to organics and the loneliness that stems from that detachment.
Between here and there we have goals to significantly boost the pool of Community Copies and add another setting!
While you’re waiting, give a listen to this Actual Play of Thirsty Sword Lesbians featuring designer April Kit Walsh and the crew of the Magpies Podcast. On a world conquered by the Void Empire, our heroes must engage in subterfuge and trickery while they attempt to undermine the Empress’s power. But can these sword-wielding disaster lesbians complete their mission, or will their yearning be their undoing?
We'll cover more of the actual play that's out there in a later update. If there's a video or podcast out there that you don't think is on our radar yet, drop us a comment here on this post with a link! And regardless, thank you as always for your support.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians Abroad!
over 3 years ago
– Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 11:23:59 PM
BIG NEWS today! Thanks to a big show of support from our friends at the UK-based Mongoose Publishing, we are now able to offer shipping outside the USA for this Kickstarter.
Right now we have the Smitten (all flavors) and Nice tiers set up to offer shipping for $15 to destinations in Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. We would be happy to add your country as well!
Please contact us at [email protected] (or drop us a comment below if you don't mind everyone seeing) if it looks like your destination is not yet covered, and we’ll add it as an option as soon as we confirm the shipping rate for that country/location. Note: If you end up ordering multiple books for international shipment, we will bill an additional $5 for each additional item in BackerKit well after the campaign is done.
We know the frustration that our international fans have had with our previous US-only kickstarter campaigns—it’s been a source of frustration for us as well. We are excited to partner with Mongoose to make this happen for TSL.
Over the weekend, backers were busy too! We unlocked three stretch goals:
- Ajey Pandey will be designing Tragic Duels, a variant ruleset for Diceless Dueling. Heighten the drama by wagering Yields and Burning parts of your character sheet, up to and including your core moves. High stakes and dramatic sacrifice come to the fore with this alternative ruleset.
- Super-Sword Lesbians by Amr Ammourazz features badass Superhero fights with cool choreography and awesome science powers while also exploring what it means to be a hero who makes a meaningful difference in people’s lives. This supers setting incorporates themes of community, rehabilitation, and restorative justice.
- Megaflora and megafauna abound on the bog planet Kalmia in Sundew Garden Bakery by Jan Martin. With a society designed around baking bread, can you avoid entanglements with these giant creatures while fighting the spread of invasive grains from an ancient Colony Ship? (Awaiting at $88k, the Sun Hand Playbook will pair nicely with that setting.)
Keen-eyed backers will also notice that we’ve revealed two new stretch goals: Roses for Writers and Community Copy Booster.
The quick success of this campaign has beat our expectations, we want our authors to share in that success. At $92k, all contributing authors (both to the core book and for the stretch goals) will get paid 25% more for their work. Later stretch goals will allow us to enhance this even further.
We also want to give more people under financial duress an opportunity to download and enjoy Thirsty Sword Lesbians. At $96k we’ll create a reserve of Community Copies to distribute when the initial supply runs out. We’ll add 1 copy for each Share the Love Pledge and 2 for each Nice pledge. In effect, your Share The Love pledge creates 3 Community Copies and the Nice tier creates 6.
And we have more settings and playbooks on the way.
We’re truly grateful at the pace of support that has continued one week into this campaign. Your contributions have not escaped notice: we’ve been named an official Project We Love by Kickstarter.
Thanks for being a backer, and let your friends abroad know that Thirsty Sword Lesbians is now available for international shipping.
Celebrating queer stories!
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 11:14:27 PM
I continue to be blown away by all of your support and enthusiasm! Thank you from the bottom of my gay heart <3
Speaking of which, today I wanted to talk a little about queerness and RPGs.
Both concepts are about journeys of discovery and not following a script, often not even having a script to follow. Go on this journey to find out not only what happens, but who you are and why.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians reflects a reality of queer experience that’s rarely elevated by legacy media cartels: stories of complex people doing their best, having triumphs and setbacks, growing and finding love.
It’s still rare to see stories made for us queers, especially those who aren't cisgender. Sometimes we’re “represented” (which for trans women usually means we’re demonized, mocked, or pitied) or “included” but we’re rarely centered. And if we are centered by cis creators, it’s often as a fetish or a cautionary tale.
We don’t bury our gays in TSL. We don’t pretend that marginalized people are a dangerous, evil “other.” The Toxic Powers that act as villains embody real threats to people’s wellbeing, such as patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy. These themes can be explicit or metaphorical depending on your group’s preferences, but the game works hard to steer you away from stories that celebrate punching down and into stories of connection, solidarity, and mutual exploration.
The rules encourage connection, and they don’t import oppressive demands on what connections you form, or what you discover about yourself -- unless you’re explicitly writing those elements in and naming them as toxic (such as the Seeker’s Commandments). That’s why you could set out to play a thirsty sword cishet, but the more we remove and critique the demands of the toxic powers in the real world, the more likely you are to question, experiment, and discover freely.
To me, that’s what makes the game queer af
Make It Gayer
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 02:27:55 PM
We’re shamelessly stealing that line from this new review of Thirsty Sword Lesbians by Maria Fanning:
“Thirsty Sword Lesbians is far from just a name. It’s a game that explores queer feelings and identity extensively, in all their beauty… If you’re asking me what I think of Thirsty Sword Lesbians, it’s that this is the game I’ve been waiting for a long while. It’s the game that looks you in the heart and says: ‘Make it gayer.’”
Friends, thanks to you this game is getting a lot gayer.
You’ve just unlocked three more stretch goals:
Today we unsheathed The Lesbians of Avalon, Kira Magrann’s queer take on Arthurian legend! Dashing long-haired butches in shining armor, sensual earthwise magicians, metamorphosing wood nymphs and regal femmes abound in this romantic fantasy setting.
Last night we hit the goal to produce the Japanese period drama of Lay Down One’s Life for Another by James Mendez Hodes, featuring courtly intrigue and political maneuvering among rivals, knights, and aristocrats.
And finally, we’re very pleased to announce that we’ll be commissioning full-color art for all the stretch goals. That means each of the settings and playbooks you unlock will get the same beautiful graphical treatment that the main game is getting. Thank you for helping make this happen!
With these new stretch goals funded that makes a total of ten additional settings and three new playbooks we’re adding to Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Let’s take a minute to look at the six (!!) settings we funded in the first 48:
- Gaylords by Lucian Kahn. A fantasy setting about gay warlords, inspired by the USA's gay male culture in the 90s.
- Shinsei Galactic Puroresu by Allie Bustion. Take on the interplanetary wrestling federation’s star team, The Apex Predators, and rally the people behind you on what promises to be intergalactic sports entertainment’s biggest night. Lesbian space wrestlers use the arena to topple the powers that be!
- The Last Love Songs on Earth by Pam Punzalan. An ensemble of queers interconnected by past lives and the weight of destiny try to stop the End as the world races towards another apocalyptic cycle. What terrible sacrifices are you willing to make to freeze the Wheel for another year?
- Wastelands Roller Derby by Libby Horacek. As a skater for Southern Wastes Official Roller Derby (S.W.O.R.D.), resolve conflicts within your post-apocalyptic community using your wits, wiles, and wheels. Can’t wait to add the art to this one!
- The Mani Missive by Mariam Ahmad. Inspired by South Asian folklore, enter a world filled with shapeshifting animal-folk and magic, where serpent-folk hide from the hunters who seek to steal their prized jewels. Play as a shapeshifting naga working to save your kin from predation and exploitation.
- Monster Mash by Ash Cheshire. Whether they're workin' it late in the lab or out howling at the moon, this will be the setting for all of your campy cryptid cravings! Get ready for fangs, howls, electrodes, and things that go *bump* in the night...
Seems like a lot? Well, we still have to talk about the new playbooks... But we'll save that for another update. Coming up at $76k we have an alternative diceless ruleset designed by Ajey Pandey! We’re just a little over three thousand dollars away.
Keep sharing, posting, and spreading the word. And if you get a chance to play the game (on Roll20 or otherwise) this weekend, drop us a note in the comments and let us know how it goes!
