BIPOC Vamp Jam is a tabletop RPG jam of vampires from a different lens. We invite any BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) designers to submit a vampire related game!
Submissions due by September 8th.
We always hear about these Eurocentric vampires: True Blood, Twilight, Dracula, Nosferatu... the list goes on. But we rarely hear about other supernatural beings that haunt our dreams and appear in the stories our grandparents tell us. Let's bring those to the light.
#BIPOCVampDay (September 18th-19th) was created by bbettie_cosplay after seeing the success of Black Fae Day on May 8th.
BIPOC Vamp Jam is a game jam celebration for BIPOC Vampire Day. All games written for this jam are by BIPOC, sharing stories of their own history and culture. We want to hear about your Jiangshi, Chupacabras, Adze, and whoever else fits the mold!
Rules:
- Write a short analog roleplaying game only (ie: tabletop, LARP). ‘Short’ should ideally mean 1-5 pages of text and images, excluding cover image, credits, prefaces, content warnings, and blank pages.
- Designers must be BIPOC. We are explicitly stating this, however, this rule will be upheld by the Honor System.
- It should be a standalone game, meaning that this game can be played by itself. (with or without accessories, of course!)
- Hacks of pre-existing games are allowed.
- It's highly encouraged to include a text-only version of your game instead of/ in addition to a PDF if possible.
- Previously published vampire games, as well as multiple submissions are allowed!
- If this is written in another language, please provide a translated copy into English.
- Your game must focus on a "vampire", however you want to define that. Per the dictionary, a vampire is an undead creature who lives off the blood of the living. But that's colonizer talk, and they don't make the rules here.
- Genre and tone are up to you!
- We highly encourage and support you to write from supernatural takes and folklore of your (or your family's) culture. Or even writing about your personal diaspora!
- If you are to write about material outside your culture, we do ask for you to be respectful, do your research, and try to collab with voices that are able to help.
- Be safe and have fun (in that order!)
- While working on your game, please keep safety tools in mind. If you need help with what safety tools to use, please look into the Safety Toolkit curated by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk.
- Be sure to list content warnings if any are required, both within the game and on its main page.
- Take care of yourself, boo! The world is a lot right now so take your breaks and don't push yourself too hard.
- As marginalized folks, we are often holding ourselves up to high standards, but we want to reiterate this game jam is organized in celebration, so we are here to smash any imposter syndrome you feel! Smash that publish button and submit a Google doc draft as an early access release! This jam is only three weeks long in order to encourage a variety of quick games, and we hope to play several of them during #BIPOCvampday weekend.
- We encourage you to add the tag 'poc-made' when you publish your game for continued searchability.
This jam is organized by Huetopia. Feel free to contact us with questions!
Find other people talking about the jam on Twitter at #BIPOCVampJam, and share your thoughts/process.