Jonaya Kemper

Jonaya Kemper
Occupation(s)	Game designer/writer and academic
Employer	Carnegie Mellon University
Known for	LARP theory of emancipatory bleed
Notable work	Thirsty Sword Lesbians co-writer
Awards	Nebula Award, ENNIE Awards

Jonaya Kemper is an American game design academic and game writer/designer. Kemper's work includes LARP, tabletop role-playing games, and computer games. Kemper coined the term and developed the theory of "emancipatory bleed."[1]

Academic work in games

Kemper developed the theory of emancipatory bleed in live-action games[2][3][4] as a way of analyzing how players with marginalized identities can achieve political liberation through embodying imaginary characters.[5][6] Emancipatory bleed includes Kemper's concept of "navigational play." Kim Eggleston for Vox Media summarized navigational play as, "using games to imagine yourself differently, in a way that might feel safer than in your real life."[7] Kemper also developed guidelines to design games for players with intersectional identities[8] and an auto-ethnographic process for LARP research and documentation.[9][10]

As Game Design Lead in Carnegie Mellon's computer science department's Human-Computer Interaction Institute,[11][12] Kemper conducted professional research on human-robot interactions in educational games[13] and racial and gender biases in the design of children's games.[14]

Game writing and design

Kemper co-wrote Thirsty Sword Lesbians (Evil Hat Productions), winning a Nebula Award for Best Game Writing[15][16] and ENNIE Awards for "Best Game" and "Product of the Year."[17] Kemper wrote a game based on Bram Stoker's Dracula novel called Feeding Lucy in the LARP anthology Honey & Hot Wax (Pelgrane Press).[18] Kemper wrote Tales from the Corner Coven, a short tabletop role-playing game about bodega cats in Brooklyn, for Simon & Schuster's The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book.[19] Kelly Knox for Nerdist called Tales from the Corner Coven "bewitching" and said, "We want to play right meow."[20]

Kemper also wrote the adventure "The Little Mx. Scare-All Pageant" for Visigoths vs. Mall Goths by Lucian Kahn and contributed writing to 7th Sea.[21]

References

1. Kemper, Jonaya (2018). “Playing to Create Ourselves: Exploring Larp and Visual Autoethnographic Practice as a Tool of Self Liberation for Marginalized Identities.” Master’s Thesis. New York University.
2. Kemper, Jonaya. (2017): "The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity Documentation." NordicLarp.org June 21, 2017. Accessed April 9, 2021.
3. Kemper, Jonaya. (2020): Wyrding the Self. In Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, & Mia Makkonen (eds.). What Do We Do When We Play? Helsinki; Solmukohta 2020. Accessed April 9, 2021.
4. Steele, Samara Hayley (2021). "'To Larp, or Not to Larp?' Must Embodiment and Code Deployment Reinforce Systemic Injustice across Larp Platforms?". ELMCIP. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
5. Hollander, Aaron T. (2021). "Blessed Are the Legend-Makers: Experimentation as Edification in Dungeons & Dragons". Political Theology. 22 (4): 316–331. doi:10.1080/1462317X.2021.1890933. S2CID 233956866.
6. Toft, Ida; Harrer, Sabine (2020). "Design Bleed: A Standpoint Methodology for Game Design" (PDF). Proceedings of DiGRA 2020: 1–18.
7. Eggleston, Kim (2023-04-06). "What the new D&D movie gets — and misses — about the game". Vox. Retrieved 2024-11-02.
8. Koljonen, Johanna; Stenros, Jaakko; Grove, Anne Serup; Skonsfjell, Aina D.; Nilsen, Elin, eds. (2019). LARP Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences (PDF). Kobenhaven, Denmark: Bifrost. ISBN 978-87-971140-0-1.
9. Cox, Jason (December 2018). "Documenting LARP as an Art of Experience". International Journal of Role Playing (9): 24–30. doi:10.33063/ijrp.vi9.267.
10. Kemper, Jonaya. 2018. “More Than a Seat at the Feasting Table.” Nordic Larp. https://nordiclarp.org/ 2018/02/07/more-than-a-seat-at-the-feasting-table/
11. "Jonaya Kemper". Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
12. "Phipps hosts virtual symposium". The Almanac. Retrieved 2024-11-02.
13. Higashi, Ross; Harpstead, Erik; Solyst, Jaemarie; Kemper, Jonaya; Odili Uchidiuno, Judith; Hammer, Jessica (2021). "The Design of Co-Robotic Games for Computer Science Education". Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. pp. 111–116. doi:10.1145/3450337.3483472. ISBN 9781450383561. S2CID 238992655.
14. Odili Uchidiuno, Judith; Solyst, Jaemarie; Kemper, Jonaya; Harpstead, Erik; Higashi, Ross; Hammer, Jessica (2021). "Negotiating Systemic Racial and Gender Bias as a Minoritized Adult Design Researcher". Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. pp. 203–208. doi:10.1145/3450337.3483479. ISBN 9781450383561. S2CID 238992422.
15. Hoffer, Christian (23 May 2022). "Thirsty Sword Lesbians Wins Nebula Award for Best Game Writing". Comicbook. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
16. Carter, Chase (2022-05-23). "Sapphic and sharp tabletop RPG Thirsty Sword Lesbians wins Nebula Award for best game writing". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2024-11-02.
17. Hall, Charlie (8 August 2022). "Queer creators win big at Gen Con's Ennie awards for 2022". Polygon.
18. "Honey & Hot Wax". Pelgrane Press Ltd. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
19. d'Amato, James (2020-12-08). The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-5072-1286-8.
20. "Outstanding One-Page RPGs You Can Play in a Single Night". Nerdist. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
21. Black Game Studies: An Introduction to the Games, Game Makers and Scholarship of the African Diaspora. Edited by Lindsay Grace. Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press, 2021. pp. 48

External links

• Official website