Sign – A Game about Being Understood

This silent game is based on the history of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Nicaragua in the 1970s had no official form of sign language. In 1977, something happened. Fifty deaf children from across the country were brought together to a school in Managua. Without a shared language to express themselves, the children did something remarkable—they created one. In Sign, we follow a story inspired by that journey. No knowledge of any sign languages is needed for this game. In fact, people with zero knowledge of any sign language are encouraged to play.

Team

Authors: Kathryn Hymes & Hakan Seyalioglu

Referees: Ben Cole

Players

This is a game for 4–7 players of any gender.

Costuming

No special costuming needs, please wear modern day-to-day clothes.

Player preparation

None

Content Notes

This game is played in silence: the idea is that once we game in no-one will speak until after the game ends. There will be opportunities to step outside to speak to the GM if needed, and for comfort breaks. There may be some in game movement (between a semi formal class seated area, and a recess less formal area), but player comfort and accessibility is more important than this, if you have any specific needs you can contact Ben in advance or raise on the day.

Please email wraithben@gmail.com or mention it in your casting form if you have any questions.

Safety rules

As Sign is a silent game, some of the safety techniques used in the majority of games run by Bristol Freeform Games will be disruptive so some adjustments have been made.

"Touch boundaries" will be discussed at the beginning of the session, before the game starts.

If a player needs something to stop immediately, then saying cut (or red — as in our usual Traffic Light system) should be used, and will be hard to miss as nobody else will be speaking.

We use the ok signal, and thumbs up/down wavy hand for keep going, stop and slow it down.

Referee Bios

Ben Cole (he/him)

Ben is the other half of the Bristol arm. He is a gamer and has been for as long as he cares to remember - computer games, board games, tabletop RPGs and LARPs. He runs and writes games — leaning towards the more character driven, romance and angsty games — which is apt as he is a self declared Angst-Bunny.