Brian Engard

Queerly Represent Me sat down with Brian, owner of Blue Gables Publishing.

QRM: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in the games industry?

Brian: I'm a writer and game designer in the tabletop games industry. I've worked for companies like Evil Hat Productions, Magpie Games, Galileo Games, Green Ronin Publishing, and more. I also run my own company, Blue Gables Publishing.

QRM: How long have you been involved in the game industry, and what projects have you worked on? What are you working on currently?

Brian: I've been working steadily in the industry since about 2011. You'll find my name on Fate Core and many of its associated products, two editions of Bulldogs!, The Demolished Ones, my self-published game, Becoming, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Right now I'm working on Shadow of the Century and Uprising: The Dystopian Universe RPG for Evil Hat Productions; a swords and sorcery game called Asunder for Double A Productions; and the second edition of Becoming. And probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting.

QRM: What inspired you to get started in the games industry?

Brian: I've been designing games for as long as I can remember. When I was in middle school, I designed a Ninja Turtles board game on posterboard, with cannibalized components from other games. Neighborhood kids used to come around when I was in grade school because I always had the best stories, and knew who was playing what role. So game design was natural for me to get into, and it wasn't so much about inspiration as it was persistence (and some luck and, yes, privilege).

QRM: In what ways do you feel your experiences as a queer person manifest in the games you work on, and influence the work you do?

Brian: I'm bisexual in a heteronormative monogamous relationship, so I "pass," and I've never really been the target of queerphobia in any real sense. To some extent, I have a lot of trouble seeing myself as "queer enough," and I think that pushes me to prove it by being as inclusive as I can be in my writing and designs. I always include queer characters. I try to be inclusive with my pronouns. I push content toward political queerness, because shying away from taking a political stand is anathema for me.

QRM: Do you have a favourite queer character—in games or media more generally? If so, what is it about them that makes them your favourite?
Question asked by @kamienw.

Brian: I'm a huge Overwatch fan, so when it became known that Tracer was canonically gay... I mean, that was huge. That said, bi erasure is a thing, and there aren't a ton of bisexual characters in games or media. There especially aren't many bisexual men. I've never been a big Doctor Who fan, but I did watch Torchwood, and I like Captain Jack Harkness quite a bit.

QRM: Have you ever encountered roadblocks in trying to include queer characters in games? What do you think is preventing greater diversity within games?
Question asked by @dustinalex91.

Brian: Actually, no. I've been fortunate enough to work with some really excellent people who also believe that representation is important, so there's never an issue if I want to include a queer character in my writing or designs. That said, that's hardly the norm. I think a lot of companies still see diversity and queer representation as a risk, and that gets worse the bigger the companies get. Big companies are very risk-averse, and they see everything that's outside their own worldview as risky. It's a fallacy we have to keep disproving until they realize it's a fallacy, or realize they can't hide behind the fallacy anymore.

QRM: Why do you think it is important that queer audiences are able to see themselves represented in the games they play, and in the developers who make the games they see? What can we do to improve the industry for queer audiences and devs?

Brian: I think it's important for everyone to get the chance to see themselves as the hero. When something is positioned as possible – whether that's a queer character in a video game, or queer representation in a roleplaying game, or knowing there are queer folks on the dev team – it creates possibilities in the minds of those who consume that media. If those possibilities are reinforced enough, then people turn those possibilities into realities. It's just as true the other way around, too; if you're told that action heroes are never queer, you don't see yourself as the action hero.

QRM: Have you ever mentored somebody in your role in games, or been mentored? If so, what made these experiences worthwhile for you?
Question asked by @pepelanova.

Brian: I've been on both sides of the mentor/mentee relationship, and it's been tremendously rewarding from both directions. A mentor can help you think in a way different from what you're used to, can point out the things you're not in the habit of analyzing or critiquing and help you do so. Mentors also come with the significant benefit of providing access most of the time. A mentor is usually someone who already has some amount of pull in the community, and when they're willing to vouch for you, that's huge when you're first starting out.

QRM: In what ways can non-queer folk increase and support queer diversity present within games, as well as in the industry more broadly? How can we all work to support intersectional approaches to diversity, and why is this important?

Brian: First: hire people who aren't like you. Hire people who look different, think different, live different. Get new perspectives and keep yourself open to them. Second: push for diversity in the representations you create. When you create a character in a piece of media, ask if there's a good reason that character must be straight/cis/white/male. If not, make a different choice. Change something. Create a vector for representation. Do it respectfully, be willing to be told you're wrong in how you did it and, even more importantly, be willing to run it by people from that community so you can avoid being wrong in a big way. I promise you, it makes a difference.

QRM: Is there a message that you would like to share with the queer game players, game studies researchers, and other interested folks who comprise the Queerly Represent Me community?

Brian: Every single one of you has a story inside you that's waiting to get out. The world needs to hear it, and you need to tell it.

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You can find Brian on Twitter.
You can check out Blue Gables Publishing at their website.