On Pride

Pride month is complicated.

If you’ve been following what we do for any length of time, you probably know that Rowan, Rook and Decard likes to make games that are about something. These games make a statement about the world, and invite you to play with themes and systems that reflect something important: resistance against colonial power, or nostalgia for a thing that could never be, or escaping from toxic masculinity, or what it means to embrace monstrousness in the pursuit of anti-fascist direct action. (Or being a criminal bear, because sometimes creating humour and making a game that’s easy to run is a radical enough position for your average Tuesday.)

You might also know that most of us who work here now would describe ourselves as queer, in some way. Many of us have some lived experience of disability and/or neurodivergence, and though that is not the focus of Pride month, for most of us, it’s integral to who we are. Because most of us are the kinds of people who have been, for many decades, in other contexts, called monstrous. Most of us have had the experience of growing up in bodies that did not fit us, or of experiencing desires we were told were forbidden or inhuman. Most of us have been on the receiving end of discrimination as a result of who we are: the identities we bear that are inseparable from our selves. Most of us are queer, however you want to define it.

We are proud of who we are. As individuals, and as a company that tries to be a place where queerness is part of the picture, not a thing which turns up once a year and paints the town rainbow before vanishing again. We are grappling, this month, with how to say what we want to say about being queer: we want, as individuals, to celebrate Pride in a way that is authentic and that doesn’t corporately wash away its radical nature – the radical nature both of Pride as a movement, and of being who we are, out loud. We are lucky enough to live in places where most of us have hard-won rights to live our lives in freedom, and unlucky enough that many of us now see those rights under attack.

As a group, as individuals, we will fight for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people everywhere, starting in the place where we can make most impact: in our industry, where queer creators so often find a voice and a home, but so rarely appear in leadership. In play spaces and at our tables, where queer players can find community and explore new worlds together. In the communities we are part of and the community spaces we create, including our Discord, where our excellent team of moderators help to make a welcoming environment that prioritises safety and support. In our work, both the art and the business; what we make is an expression of who we are, and so are the methods we use to make it. 

In the end, the games say it all. For Pride month, and every month of the year, our commitment is to keep making our company a safe place for queer people, and our games a place to express and play with queer themes: not just the comfortable and cosy ones, but the radical and subversive ones too. We are proud of who we are, and of all our queer community: all the people who’ve found our work and found some part of themselves reflected within it. We know there are hundreds of you out there, and this is for you.

Happy Pride month. 

From Maz (they/them), and the whole RR&D team:

• Grant (he/him)
• Chris (he/him)
• Mina (she/they)
• Matt (he/him)
• Jinn (they/them)
• CJ (they/them)
• Chant (he/they)
• Elaine (she/her)
• Max (they/them)
• Alex (he/him)

With thanks to our moderators:

• Wil (they/them)
• Zeb (he/him)
• Ben (he/him)
• Clare (she/her)