THURSDAY 12/9: Ludic Liberation Lab ~ becoming SURREALPUNK!
Absurd Adventures on the Frontier Eternal
Hey There! 👋 In addition to this month’s regularly scheduled Lab, you can catch Ludic Liberation at The Stoa on Wednesday, December 8 or help playtest an exclusive virtual game design on Sunday, December 12
SURREALPUNK! (Absurd Adventures on the Frontier Eternal) is a fantasy tabletop RPG set in a land of contradictions known as Kilter. Following The Convergence —a distant event of undefined origins, 3 species of folk arose from the ash and static of past civilizations – the Sapiens, the Hani, and the Myr. Surrounded by varied forms of Wonderful Garbage and unreliable technology, adventurers in Kilter embark on eccentric quests to encounter The Real, the Absurd, and the Arcane. The game builds on and subverts classic Dungeons & Dragons mechanics, weaving in ideas from communist theory, liberation theology, and situationist philosophy in irreverent and elaborate ways.
This month at the Ludic Liberation Lab, we'll be led by SURREALPUNK! creators and dungeon masters Jon Hook and Michael Laub to develop our very own SURREALPUNK! Adventurer Characters. In the process, we'll explore what happens (and what might be liberating) when we take on increasingly specific and elaborate imaginary roles that belong to an imaginary world. How do we make choices about who to "become" in a space of "pretend"? How does this becoming affect our "IRL" identities? How might we use fantasy to play with ideology? This lab should appeal to D&D oldtimers, newcomers, and skeptics – no prior knowledge or experience with tabletop RPGs is necessary!
Jon Hook is a level 31 psychomancer from Michigan. When Jon is not playing games, he roleplays as a Marxist, psychotherapist, and writer. Across all of these roles, Jon is interested in interrogating the games we choose to play and rewriting their unspoken rules.
Michael Laub is a producer and writer in Los Angeles. He exchanges his labor mostly for True Crime documentaries and trivia shows. Michael spends his limited time designing role-playing games, writing science fiction, and spreading Marxist theory. Please don't follow him on any social media or in public.
JOIN US to play SURREALPUNK!
🗓 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9
⏰ 6-7:30pm Eastern Standard Time (use a timezone converter to figure out the start time in your location)
📍Zoom
🎟 Drop-in lab participation for this lab is donation-based (suggested donation = $15). All ticket sales go directly to pay gamemakers for their labor. Paid subscribers of the Lab Report and Scholar-level members of Incite Seminars can join for free using a special discount code.
🤡 Ludic Liberation Lab lasts for 1.5 hours, which includes fun warm-ups, collaborative gameplay and design activities, and a debrief that helps us build collective wisdom about play & liberation.
ALSO THIS WEEK:
Ludic Liberation will be at The Stoa on Wednesday, December 8, 12pm EST sharing the liberatory practice of PEGGING – or designing and playing a Personal Existential Game – the event is free, sign up here!
I need a few people to help playstest a 1-hour virtual immersive game experience on Sunday, December 12, 1pm EST. If you’re curious and available, please fill out this little form. I’ll give you free admission to the Lab or subscription to the Lab report as a reward – plus, the game experience itself will be very fun and cute!