In A World That Hates and Fears You, Living Becomes an Act of Rebellion.
Exceptionals is a game inspired by X-Men about and for the spaces and
communities marginalized peoples make for themselves. Play as a Geno,
one of little less than 0.5% percent of the population that has gone
through a mysterious process called Claremont-Simonson mutation, as you
try to navigate a world that won’t make room for you. Exceptionals is a
game about what the mutant metaphor means to you and the different
lenses through which we view it. Punch back and build something of worth
together in this narrative tag-driven tabletop role playing game.
🧬Features
Open-Ended Character Creation🧬
Mix and Match between (23) open-ended but guided protocols. Answer
questions to create high concept and unique super powered characters
where the only real limit is your imagination. Get invested in who you
make as a whole person, and not just a set of powers.
Build a Community
🧬Create a living and dynamic community space full of colorful characters.
🧬 Grow your base as an anchor for other geno and help fill it with the
resources they and you need. Understand how your actions effect others
and gain trust through the bonds mechanic. It’s a game where you get
stronger by growing your community and heal by being part of it.
🧬Comic Book Storytelling
🧬 Play as a creative team of writers and editors working to tell the best
version of the story you can over time and storyline-based experience to
model changes of the status quo and creative direction. Enjoy panel
based action pacing and the ability of characters of all power levels to
coexist and carry the same amount of story weight.
🧬Not Pain Tourism
🧬 While Exceptionals offers a number of places to push back, we understand
and recognize that the most important part of a punching bag is that
you choose to hit it, even if it’s not at all. We recognize not everyone
gets to set the issues that the mutant metaphor is used to talk about
down when they leave the table and offer many ways to tell stories
outside of a lens defined by pain. We also put an emphasis and
mechanical weight on the importance of joy and celebration.
I didn’t go out with the intent of making this a very queer game. Not explicitly. I started making games because I got frustrated waiting to feel seen or acknowledged. Another game got me mad about using my peoples stories to be transphobic, to be racist, to be ableist. Nevermind my people have more than two genders traditionally and faced a genocide. That was too much for me. I said this was enough and the quite indignities I suffered to feel included wasn’t worth it. I could do better myself.
So I set out to make a superhero game.I hated just about every comic book game on the market. It never seemed to capture what I did like about big hero comics with high concept storytelling and powersandcouldn’t care less on a mechanical or narrative level about who this person was outside the mask. More focused on bashing action figures together and golden age pastiche that doesn’t really reflect the decades of character and genre developments that have happened since then.I later found games that do it better, but I was dissatisfied…
I chose x-men for the homies. I’ve always been an x-men fan. A lot of people my age were. My first action figure was one of rogue I got at a garage sale, where she then went on to fight many a play-dough monster. But for many of us it was the first place we were allowed to be heroes. There are no natives on the 90′s x-men team. But I had uncles and older kids all too eager to tell me about Forge and Warpath (I hate that name) and my favorite Dani Moonstar (I ain’t the biggest fan of that name either, but she’s the closest thing mainstream hero comics have to a good NDN).
After that, things just kinda flowed from there. The X-men have such a focus on community. It’s “comics greatest soap opera”. It can be messy, complicated, beautiful and life-affirming all at the same time. They take the time to play basketball, go to the mall, and have birthday parties as they grow. Two of my favorite x-men comics aren’t about fighting at all. One is framed around a sleepover some students have, and another is about a wedding and framed around everyone filming their part of the wedding tape.
So I started thinking about the communities I’ve been a part of.
A big core of the game is informed by my time and the people I met in these sort of spaces. As a native, as a queer person, as a disabled person I’ve been both someone who needed them and someone who gave back.
Which suited x-men just fine. X-men has cared about that sort of thing from about X-men #3 with the first appearance of The Blob, establishing it’s tone of sympathy and mutants as a minority analog.
I just kept going and I didn’t stop. And apparently I did a good job. Someone out there has been using my game as game-therapy and community outreach in a gender health center out in California. I got a lot of kind words for the game too (which is good, because I spent 3 years on it).
KUDOS
-As featured on; io9/Gizmodo, Kotaku, Listen to Theses Nerds,
Team-Up Moves, Yes Indie’d Pod, Team-Up Moves, and The Voice of Dog
-#1 Best Seller and Popular on Itch.io in both Analog & RPG Games, Sept 2021
“Exceptionals is a beautiful, brilliantly designed superhero RPG. It’s
truly a masterpiece, and if you haven’t checked it out, do yourself a
favor.”
-@PartyOfOnePod
“This thing COOKS, Sahoni doesn’t just tap into the queer/minority
readings of mutants, but also ties in the weirdness that really gets my
mind racing when it comes to X books.”
-@froondingloom
“A refreshingly different game, that strikes a good balance between
unlimited player freedom and solid guiding handrails. Really gets at the
full potential of what the ;mutant outcast heroes’ genre should be
about: found family, building communities, and lives lived to the
fullest despite being lived in defiance.”
-@guywhowrotethis
“The whole game oozes love for its inspiration while also going further than they dared….”
-@Phoenix24Femme
“Astonishing! Uncanny! All-New! And all other X-Adjectives available.
This book gets why one would want to play the Mutant Metaphor in an
RPG. It cleverly weaves the power fantasy of powerful individuals with
the drive to do good for one’s community. It’s well-researched,
well-written and, well, so much fun to play!
This is the superpowered game I’ve been wanting for a long, long time. I can’t wait to tell an Exceptional story of my own!”
-@Kokiteno
Team-up moves even made a recommended comic reading list. It has some of the best x-men has to offer and then some. It even includes that New Mutants comic with the sleepover. They read me for filth and I love it.
I hope you play my game too. I hope you like it. I hope you tell queer stories and build community around you. I hope it’s
messy, complicated, beautiful and life-affirming all at the same time.
Thank you for reading this. Please reblog if you can as well as share it with x-men and rpg fans in your life.
Metropolis / Brigitte Helm as the Maschinenmensch (robot)
Does this really count as a costume? Is it more of a prosthetic? I’m really not sure how to classify it, but it is definitely iconic–and hugely influential on design in movies ever since.
I found an article with a fascinating description of how the suit was made: “The robot, whose construction took weeks, was made of ‘plastic wood’, a kneadable substance made of wood, hardening quickly when exposed to the air, allowing itself to be modeled like organic wood. They first took a plaster cast mould of Brigitte Helm from head to toe. Parts resembling a knight’s armour, cut out of Hessian, were covered with 2 mm substance, flattened by means of a kitchen pastry roller. This was then stuck on to the plaster Brigitte Helm, like a shoemaker pulls leather over his block. When the material had hardened, the parts were polished, the contours cut out…. Finally, cellon varnish mixed with solver bronze, and applied with a spray gun, gave the costume its genuinely metallic appearance which even seemed convincing when looked at from close range.”
I’m all the more impressed after learning that Brigitte Helm was only eighteen when she played the triple role of the robot, Maria, and “False Maria”! And I love the behind-the-scenes picture of her getting a drink while a hair dryer is applied to the suit.
Straight people, cis people, this what being an ally looks like. If you mean it when you say you care about us, these are the kinds of things we need you to do.
This is what being an ally actually looks like.
The people who are trying to kill us are encouraged to continue their pursuits every single time another cis het doesn’t directly confront them about their hatred & bigotry.
CHEERS TO GUY WALTON FOR “OUTING” THE FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES
From the article:
Walton has devised his own criteria for named heatwaves in the US, based on duration and extremity, on a one to five scale similar to hurricanes. Heatwave Chevron is classed as a four and is “historic”, Walton said. The meteorologist said he has a list of 20 oil and gas companies – including Exxon and Shell – for upcoming heatwaves and will turn to coal companies if he runs out of names.
OUTSTANDING MOVE
Y'all know what to do. Use Walton’s naming system. Make it catch on.
bcs there’s another huldra/skogsrå type creature in swedish folklore which is basically just the same thang but. Water. i decided to make a species which resembles the huldra in pareidolia due to convergent evolution, but is a type of lichen instead!
read more for some extra info about the growth stages etc.
So, there’s apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people’s bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored “be sure to recycle your bottles!” or “ban glitter!” campaigns and remind everyone:
It’s fishing nets. It’s fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets. Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets.
The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The “trash islands” are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment.
Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.
Industries are incredibly resistant to taking responsibility for their own waste, to the point where “consumers are responsible for industrial waste” is somehow considered a sensible, ethical, worthy sentence.
It is actually perfectly reasonable to say that “industries are responsible for industrial waste” and “the effects of industry can, should and must be fixed by industry” and “Industry can, should and must be held responsible for its impacts on the commons, such as air, water, oceans and land.”
Do you know how much ocean plastic waste is straws?
Something like 0.0007%.
IT’S NOT EVEN ONE ONE-HUNDREDTH OF A PERCENT.
But they want you to hate the disabled people who need safe and bendable and sanitary plastic straws in order to be able to drink. So you won’t notice the 70+% that’s fishing nets.
