A friend recently encouraged me to revive an old RPG design project that's been sitting idle for a few years. Here's a subchapter I decided to add describing some important pieces of the game's ethos. Setting aside the fact that out of context you may not know what's going on with "delvers" etc., what would you think if you saw this in a game text?

Anarchic Utopianism

Periapocalyptic is a game where the world is ending and most human institutions, such as nations, corporations, and churches, are destroyed, fragmented, or inaccessible. However, it is not a game about how human beings thus descend into atrocity or wanton indulgence of their basest qualities, as you might see in typical post-apocalyptic fiction like The Walking Dead. Instead, it is about people coming together in mutual support as equals: disorganized perhaps, but strong.

As part of this vision, the following things do not occur in Periapocalyptic:

• Rape, sexual assault, coerced sex, or any other form of nonconsensual sexual activity
• Bigotry toward or discrimination on the basis of any facet of identity, such as race, gender, orientation, religion, or ability

In addition, these things may be practiced by antagonistic groups, but do not occur in the settlements or bases the delvers belong to:

• Capitalism, feudalism, or other forms of labor exploitation
• Coercive hierarchical governance, such as monarchy, fascism, or plutocracy

If it unacceptably impairs your suspension of disbelief to think these things never happen, then suppose they occur somewhere far off-screen, in fragments of the world no longer accessible to the delvers. It is acceptable to portray characters who have experienced such trauma or marginalization in the past and escaped it, if you would find that to be affirming!

Periapocalyptic is not, however, a wholly decolonized work. Its core gameplay loop involves violent invasion of territory belonging to groups depicted as “other” or “alien.” I have done my best to frame this as violence directed upward in the power dynamic. It’s meant to be the self-defensive action of a threatened group, celebrating counterattack against colonizers instead of lionizing colonial activity itself. But I acknowledge that the genres Periapocalyptic works within, such as video game action RPGs, have a deeply problematic history in these respects that it may not be possible to entirely divest from.