The story takes place in a “prison”, and you play as one of the CONVICTED—characters with CONVICTIONS.
Each of you has a CONVICTION—a belief that guides you through life.
Each of you has a CONVICTION—a deviant act or trait that the society labels as a crime.
Both your CONVICTIONS—internal sense of self and struggle with social norms—manifest into a special ability called GENDER.
Embody your GENDER to find the truth and break free from your assigned fate.
TTRPG inspired by Life is Strange, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Persona, as well as the philosophy of Butler and Foucault
CONVICT-ION is a tabletop role-playing game that uses a modified version of the Belonging Outside Belonging system. (It can be played with or without a GM.)
Each player takes on the identity of a Convicted—one of the protagonists of the story. During the game, the players also take part in building the world their characters inhabit, and help narrate the consequences of their actions.
CONVICT-ION can be played with or without a pre-made scenario. The game is its own System Reference Document (SRD) in which you tell the story of delinquents struggling against a system which aims to "normalise" them.
To play the game, you would need:
- 3-6 players including the facilitator—potentially works with 2-7 players in Guided Play
- 2-4 hours—for a shorter playtime, run this game with Guided Play and a pre-made scenario
- Writing materials—printouts are optional, but they would make running the game easier
- A bunch of tokens (~5 per player)—poker chips, cigarettes, instant ramen, dice, or anything you can find
(Writing materials and tokens can be substituted with digital equivalent when playing online)
"Existence is Queer" is the first scenario of the game, where teenagers investigate the mysterious disappearances in an isolated coastal town.
The second scenario "Life is/in a Prison" is set on a prison barge in the dystopian future, where GENDER wielders are drawn together as prisoners of fate.
Content warnings
Gaming is supposed to be fun for everyone. In CONVICT-ION, the players are working collaboratively to tell a story, and no one plays to “win”. It is the duty of the players to ensure a safe environment for each other using TTRPG safety and support tools.
By default, the game deals with incarceration (or at least, a metaphor for it), characters being denied their autonomy, threat of violence, unjust authority figures, and abuse of power by those who are supposed to protect the vulnerable.
For the scenario "Existence is Queer", the content warnings are: school, kidnapping, disappearance and death of minors, grief, losing control of one’s body, abusive teaching staff, grooming, medical horror.
For the scenario "Life is/in a Prison", the content warnings are: incarceration, abusive prison staff, gang violence, mental manipulation, mention of suicide, grooming, cult.
(Due to the open-ended nature of TTRPGs, the elements mentioned in the content warning can easily be toned down. Players should discuss with each other what topics they are comfortable with, and what to avoid.)
Creators Bio
CONVICT-ION is designed by W.H. Arthur, with sensitivity consulting by Chloe Montgomery.
W.H. Arthur (佢*/he/they) is a neurodivergent British East Asian game designer. After spending most of his life trying to fit in, Arthur is fed up with social norms and societal expectations. He puts his feelings into words and wraps those words around game mechanics.
*Pronounced heoi5 or keoi5
Chloe Montgomery is one half of Biscuit Fund Games (Tournament Arc, Goblin Country), and the other half of the Game Soup podcast. When she's not busy with work, she looks after her cat named Holmes, who takes up too much of her time. Yes, she stole her name from Life is Strange.
Designer Notes
CONVICT-ION is a deeply personal game on my exploration of identity. My experience as a neurodivergent ethnic minority in the West is inherently non-binary. Throughout my life, I struggled with the social norms of being AMAB, and I find it difficult to separate masculinity with toxicity. I feel that I have to constantly push back at masculinity in order to express my emotions and be vulnerable. I would rather be perceived as human instead.
I was reading queer memoirs and gender theory in the past few months, and they inspired me to make gender a major theme of the game. In particular, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson are two memoirs that I resonate with. Judith Butler's words on gender and social norms and on identity and performativity have encouraged me to rethink my relationship with gender and identity, and influenced how I approach gender in this game.
The exploration of genders in this game is also inspired by Avery Alder's Dream Askew and Jay Dragon's Sleepaway, where players get to pick genders outside of the established terms.
I started reading Michel Foucault's works after I finished the initial draft of the game. The metaphorical "prison" setting of the game comes from the feeling that many aspects of our modern day society are run like prisons. Foucault articulated that idea in his writing and provided rationale of how it came to be.
Special thanks to my patrons on Patreon:
- Donogh McCarthy
- Joseph "Laijth" Lai
- Legendary Aced
- Tore Nielsen
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