In her new tabletop roleplaying game, Columbus-based Chrys Sellers asks players to transport themselves to ancient Mesopotamia and “defy the gods” in control of their lives. Players rebel against powerful entities through friendship, romance and exploring their queer identities – something Sellers experienced herself “multiclassing” as a trans and bisexual woman while designing the game.
“You get to fight back, and you get to fight back with your intimate connections with other people, and you get to win,” said Sellers who runs Hectic Electron Games.
Although she didn’t have politics in mind when she created the game – called, aptly, “Defy the Gods” – she said, “I’m glad that if we had to be in this time, that I get to come out with a game like this.”
Developing the game
Sellers was introduced to the world of tabletop roleplaying when she was 12 years old growing up in Northern Virginia. She and her brother got the first edition of “Dungeons & Dragons” for Christmas.
She reconnected with “D&D” at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in the early ‘90s as an art major and began to explore her bisexuality, though she hadn’t yet explored her gender identity. She published supplements for the game, like her own adventure books, which game masters (GMs) use to run campaigns for players. After college, Sellers moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, making 2D art for video games at the 3DO Company until it ran aground in 2003.
Five years later, Sellers followed her partner to Columbus, after her partner got a new job. They married, and Sellers lived a mostly “heteronormative life” working in web design and IT. In 2021, she published her first indie tabletop roleplaying game, “Raccoon Sky Pirates.”
“It was very gratifying, and I sold enough of those that I got ambitious,” Sellers said.
“Defy the Gods” is inspired by queer TTRPGs like “Thirsty Sword Lesbians” and “Monsterhearts,” borrowing the latter’s flirtation mechanics, she said. Sellers began working on the game in 2019, when she was “as far removed” from her queerness “as she’s ever been.” She had gone through a death in her family, and wanted to create something “full of life” and also express and explore her queer identity more by designing her idea of a perfect “D&D” game.
But after four years of work on it, the game still wasn’t particularly queer. While demonstrating the game to possible publishers, Sellers said one told her that they were “not seeing queer themes.” The comment encouraged her to strengthen the queer factor in her designs.
As she sharpened those themes, Sellers said she realized something that felt “like a weight lifted off my shoulders.”
“The last character that I wrote, called the Revenant, who’s a fugitive from the underworld … they’re not who they used to be in a past life or when they were dead, and they’re figuring out who they are now,” Sellers said. “And I was writing it, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m talking about myself. Oh my god, I’m trans.”
‘It lets you just tell a story’
Sellers wanted to make a game closer to the classic sword-and-sorcery gameplay seen in “D&D,” but rather than “overdone” Western Europe analogues, she was- inspired by Bronze Age civilizations like ancient Sumer and Babylon – and took care to avoid orientalist tropes seen in movies like “300.”
The concept has players in ancient Mesopotamia under the despotic rule of the gods. Throughout the game, player characters grow relationships with each other – both romantic and platonic – before finally becoming strong enough to overthrow the gods with their own godlike powers.
”It’s a world where jealous gods and cruel tyrants want to destroy you, and you fight against those gods with the hearts that you share with your friends and loved ones,” she said. “Those hearts leave you vulnerable, but they keep you human, because the other way that you fight against the gods is by embracing your own monstrous godlike power and rising to oppose them as an equal.”
In a way, it’s her version of “D&D,” but it uses simpler game mechanics through a system called Powered by the Apocalypse. Players roll fewer dice and do less math to focus more on storytelling, “juicy relationships” and “messy romance” rather than tactical combat.
“It lets you just tell a story,” she said.
After coming out while developing “Defy the Gods,” Sellers said she’s begun to move through life with authenticity, honesty and community. Even though she’s “barely keeping up.”
“There’s a rich community of trans tabletop designers talking about their trans and queer experiences in their work, and coming out lets me participate,” Sellers said. “With ‘Defy the Gods,’ I’m finally planting a flag about who I am as a designer. In my own small way, I hope I’m contributing to that conversation.” 🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- To learn more about “Defy the Gods,” visit Hectic Electron Games’ website by clicking clicking here.
- Hectic Electron will launch a Kickstarter campaign for a remastered version of Chrys Sellers’ first TTRPG, “Raccoon Sky Pirates.” To learn more, click here.
- To learn about LGBTQ+ businesses in Northeast Ohio, visit the region’s LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce Plexus’ website by clicking here.
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