Saturday, August 8, 2020

Concerns

This past week I have been deep in thought.  I am concerned that I am giving over a lot of energy towards the agenda of teaching others a deeper philosophy of DMing and D&D.  I am concerned about how much time I am spending doing this.  I am concerned about the lack of enthusiasm I am feeling towards creative writing, or working on my game world, or completing much larger projects that really matter to me.  I am concerned about the lack of back and forth between my "students" and myself.  I am concerned that blogging and writing has become about money and not about the things I love.

I have been unable to express these concerns I'm having, even to myself.  I have been turning these matters over in my mind, guessing at whether or not I am having doubts about nothing; or that my doubts have more to do with the stress of these specific times, what with disease, isolation, worry about my family, concern for my pregnant daughter or the eye surgeries my partner Tamara has had to endure (two so far, and there will now be a third).  Perhaps none of this has to do with blogging, or my relation to the internet, or with my writing.

Watching what's happening to America is distressing.  I'm married to an American, who is glad she is not in America right now.  She feels like she is safe in a life boat, here in Canada, watching the Titanic sink ... and hearing the screams and twisted metal of the ship as it sinks.  We were so lucky.  She received her permanent status here on February 25th, after 14 months of legal processes, just weeks before the March shut down.  We feel sick at the thought that if we had started just a little later, or if matters had dragged out a little more, she would be in Canada now without any expectation of medical services.  Instead, she's been able to have the cataracts in both her eyes managed at no cost to us except medications.  It took two surgeries to complete the work on her first eye; the doctor said he hadn't seen anything as bad as that since he had done work in Vietnam in the 1960s.  For us, this was the result of having to wait so long until the work could be done.  But at last, it is done, and she can see again, clearly, for the first time since 2018; since a year ago, she's been clinically blind.  Yet thank gawd she is here, in a civilized country, where we are battened down with government support and all our bills paid; with no threat that we'll be evicted, where we're relatively safe from Covid as we barely leave our home.

There's simply no way not to look at the disaster south of the border except with alarm.  Every long phonecall and videochat consists of an hour-long conversation in which friends and family express their stunned horror and bewilderment, at the government there, the stupidity, the utter indifference, the rolling outrage at how science and hospital personnel are treated, the deaths.  We watch and comment on the tallying of deaths like football scores and the ludicrous voiced imaginings that the tolls being counted are actual numbers or that they'll somehow go away.  Even as vaccine trials prove promising, very few will say with honesty that an available vaccine for millions of people is still probably 9 months to a year away.  And jeebus gawd.  The president.  The fucking president.  I took a vow not to talk about him, but what an unholy fucking mess of a human being.  It's exposed every crack and flaw in the political system, which careens towards a failed election that is sure to be full of fakery, fabrication and perfidy.  It's gone beyond anyone "winning" ~ as it's now impossible to obtain truth from the number of votes cast and counted.  There are too many crooks, too many swindlers and racketeers and miscreants who do not believe in the system for anything except villainy to thrive.  This is what comes of repeating that such is the greatest country in the world, while mercilessly pursuing selfishness, racism, graft and ego over the common welfare.  My country, whom no sane person here describes as the "greatest" anything, welcomed my wife, a foreigner, and undertook to care for her because one of its citizens cared for her.  America has undertook to care for no one, not its children, not its people, not even its dead.  It is impossible to stand outside and watch, and not wonder why the people in the streets do not shoot back at the cops.  Or why there are not hundreds of thousands surrounding the White House and kicking down the fences.  I'm old enough to remember a million people on the lawns in Washington protesting the deaths and murders that resulted from the Vietnam War.  What has happened to America, that even its starving and destitute no longer care enough to fight evil for the sake of the country?

I have the time to flip on Twitter and the News and watch this lurching brigade of lies; and because I don't want to bury my head in the sand, I want to be informed.  It is nevertheless soul-rending to watch ... and to see Americans furiously wave their flags and do nothing.  To see ten thousand messages urging other Americans to get out and vote while pretending those waters aren't already muddy, making clear the denial, the desperation, the sad praying, wallowing, bawling conviction that American values will somehow save the day and come November, everything will suddenly revert itself and be all right.  The pretence that this is all the fault of one man, and not a million "citizens" who have rushed to exploit the system, so that when that one man is gone, the sun will shine again, sickens me.  Sometimes, hope is not a good thing, nor the best of things.  It seems to me that stubborn, blind hope is the worst of things, if it keeps a defender's hand from taking up a gun while "hoping" the bear tearing apart the child will yet change its mind, and stop without being driven off.

I'm not able to push these thoughts out of my mind as I settle in to explain, again, how best to dungeon master a game.  I'm not emotionally free as I tell DMs to stop cheating the dice, knowing that cheating has become a raison d'etre for people, not for the reasons they give, but because cheating is everywhere in the culture arguing with me.  I can't forget that when I tell players and DMs that they need to follow the game's rules, that I'm speaking to people who live in a civilization unable to keep itself from pointing weapons at children or embracing the principles of ratfuckery in what should be a sacred exercise.  I feel ridiculous, knowing people who agree wholeheartedly with this shift in principles are reading my blog, laughing at my absurd notion that a 17 should be read as a 17 and not a 15 or a 4 as it would be convenient to do, for the sake of "story."  Why should they care?  The underlying principle of justifying any deceit, because gawddamn, "We need this die to swing this way right now," trumps any contrary position.  Yes, "trumps" it, as in, what I selfishly need right now is more important than any other thing in the universe, including any self-respect I may have had before deciding to treat double-dealing and false-heartedness as virtues.

In the face of it, what am I accomplishing when I write about D&D?

I don't know.  I've been promoting my patreon for a couple of years now and I honestly can't tell if I'm taking money under false pretenses, as I've apparently failed to convince anyone of running a D&D game properly, or if I'm not charging enough money to compensate for my time and frustration.  I pound a drum and present fifty arguments for why a particular game rule or strategy will cripple and distort the playability of a campaign, discussing point-by-point why it is abusive to players, and not in the spirit of the game, only to visit the blog site of some long-time and supportive reader to find them making an extensive new version of said piece-of-shit game rule.  What am I doing here?

I heard last night that people do not approach problems like scientists, searching for evidence and then arriving at a conclusion based on that evidence.  Instead, they approach problems like lawyers, having already decided the conclusion and then seeking specifically that evidence that supports that conclusion.  This sounds accurate to me, describing virtually everyone I know.  Yet, while a scientist can easily work alone, a lawyer expects to argue with another lawyer.  Furthermore, the lawyer must submit to a judgment, in which a judge will say to the lawyer, essentially, "You're full of shit."  The lawyer must then accept that judgment, and move on.  No philosophical lawyer ever has to submit to a judgment; they are free to go on forever with their treasured cause, gathering more and more shit in piles to defend that cause, explaining virtually everything that is said by everyone on the internet.

I am sick of arguing with lawyers.  I can handle some shyster at my table, as he or she must submit to my judgment.  But some boob on the internet who has only the argument that "Holmes wrote this" only exhausts me.  Who is this Holmes and what did he accomplish outside of writing a cheap, second-rate version of an already existing game?  I've also written such versions; I've run the game longer than Holmes or Gygax did, I've written more and better words than either of them ever had and I've worked in other fields beyond game design.  I'm a cheap hack, but so are they.  That's why, when I support my arguments, I turn to legitimate, recognized experts in other fields and apply their expertise in game-design, psychology, learning and problem-solving in their words, then translate this to D&D.  I am not pulling arguments out of my ass.

What good does it do?  I change someone's mind about this or that specific thing, but that's about all.  People want to be lawyers.  They want to hedge and prevaricate, resisting the implications of how any one thing ought to affect everything.  All right.  They can do as they wish.  But then, what I am doing here?

For nearly 30 years, I worked on my game and designed scenarios for naught but me and my players, a very small audience.  I had stepped out of that bubble briefly in the 80s, only to find rather a lot of ignorance and incompetence, along with adult people who played what I thought to be a silly, childish game.  Where my players in my campaign were playing out scenes that could have been written by Dumas, Hugo or Dickens, these runnings had all the depth of The Famous Five and Tintin.  I lost all interest in communicating with these people, so I quietly returned to my game and my world and continued to work happily for the next 22 years.

I spend a lot of time on this blog, and on others, teaching people how to run and how rules work.  These things do not afford me anything.  I already know how to run.  I already know how the rules work, and why they do.  The time I don't spend rehashing old arguments and finding new ways to outline them is time I could spend working on my game world, my creative writing and myself.  I teach myself new things just about every day, figuring out some new rule, measuring some detail, or sketching out a useful and practical application.  Teaching is fun and its useful, but it is a waste of time if the students can't learn or won't learn.  A teacher in a classroom expects a student to raise their hand once in awhile to ask a question.  I'm lucky if I get two or three questions a month.  That's well and good, as I expect no one to change their behaviour on my account ... but I can certainly change my behaviour on my account.

It offers me very little to go on as I have been doing.  To date, I know of no person who is running my ruleset as is, or is interested in doing so.  That is a piss-poor record for a teacher.  When I encouraged people to come help me with my recent wiki, I had eight people who rushed forward to "help."  I was not treated like a teacher, or like the source of the knowledge being manipulated.  Volunteers bulled their way in, tried to push me into doing things their way, grew upset and hurt when I smacked them around for their lack of respect for the person who had worked on the material for decades ... and then evaporated rather than submit to a subordinate position.  Each of them, I'm sure, feels very differently about how those events played out, but none of them opened a dialogue with me to properly settle upon a division of labor and none of them stayed with it.  They're all gone now, with not a word in months.  And mind you, these are people who continue to support me on Patreon, some with a rather expensive tone.  So, I'm patiently working on the process alone, as I have done for a long time, marvelling that people who proclaim my genius and wherewithal haven't the willpower to endure my direction even a little bit.  The work is tedious, exhausting and most of the time, apparently useless, as I haven't any knowing of whether or not anyone ever goes there.  Worse, I'm unable to tell if a stranger to this blog could find the wiki and even understand it.  There are so many holes in the work, so many flaws, that it will probably be three or four years before the grammar and layout is sufficiently edited and made useful for game play.  That is very distressing and disheartening; yet it is at least one thing I feel does contribute to my personal sense of value.  My game and my players will use it, even if no one else does ~ and though it takes years, my players will never carp at the wiki's insufficiencies.  They will ask me to work on a particular thing, and because I want to provide service to my players, I will work on that thing if asked.

On the whole, rather than go on blogging, I'd like to renew the process of running online.  I enjoyed that, and it felt like D&D.  Those people who played were seriously engaged ~ the connections were real and purposeful.  I had the ability to be creative and to be a DM, rather than merely writing about it.  The audience was negligible, apart from the actual players, true enough.  I suppose it has to be that way.

I'm not interested in writing about D&D for entertainment's sake.  If the goal is to write posts that can be read over a cup of coffee, only to be forgotten, then I might just as well write about film or politics, as there is a much larger audience for those subjects than for D&D.  I could write a ten-part series on The Umbrella Academy, nitpicking every scene and discussing the relative merit of the players, explaining the tropes being used, the plot-stealing elements and taking screen shots of character expressions, then go and do the same for Fargo, the Watchmen and Billions, all popular shows with millions of fans, who could argue and bitch at me about my opinions in the exact same way that D&D fans do ... with as much actual purpose being accomplished, if we're talking entertainment and the possibility of my raising money for patreon.  I'm a good writer, and I'm observant, so some people will hate what I write and some people will love it ... and to the point, more people, if my goal is to be an entertainer or a money-maker.

No teacher teaches to entertain.  But teachers do quit and decide to do other things.  This is in my mind and I am concerned with these thoughts.

I can't go on doing this.  There must be more fulfilling things I can do with my energy and my talent.  It is all very well for another D&D blogger to think, "What makes him so special?"  This is not the only content I know how to write.  D&D is not the only substantial thing I am knowledgable about.  I wanted to write about D&D because I wanted to teach, to make people see that there are better ways to view this game than to lapse into the same old crappy original books written 40+ years ago.  Whenever I read someone holding these books up as examples of credibility or direction, I am unable to see anything except willful, stubborn ignorance.  I am tired of arguing with it.  Nothing related to official D&D, in any capacity, can ever be said to have been of quality.  We play as best we can by cherry-picking bits and pieces from upteen sources and our own personal experience ... and it has become such a habit with us that we're unable to recognize a legitimate answer when we see or hear it.  I'm done discussing it.

I'm not sure just now what I'll do with this blog, or any of them.  For the time being, I'm disinterested in writing any "observational" content about D&D.  I think I'll suspend advice posts, though the advice is remarked upon occasionally.  That leaves posts about what am I'm doing with my world.  Those posts have never been very popular.  I'm willing to answer questions, which I like doing, but I'm not getting them much.

That doesn't give much reason for anyone to continue supporting me on patreon.  Frankly, there is so little contact that I receive from my supporters that I wonder sincerely why anyone supports me there.  Look at this:


On December 2, I was ranked 656th.  My present rank doesn't show a drop in support, only a comparative drop with others.  I have very loyal patrons, and very few compared with others around my status.  I also have the quietest, most humble patrons on the planet.

I have to assume this is a combination between my being (a) an asshole, ready to argue my position so vociferously that even my supporters are afraid to approach me; and (b) I am so absolutely "out there" with my writings that even my supporters have no idea how to even address what I say.  For 12 years I have written post after post discussing this issue, trying to convey what it is like to communicate constantly inside a bell jar ... even one that is supported as well as it is.  The stats above are terrific.  There are 174,634 patreon pages with at least 1 patron, at the time I'm writing this.  That puts me in the 85th-90th percentile.  That's really something, particularly given that I'm not writing about the latest video game or pop culture, but about a nerdish 40-year-old game, about which I hate almost everything.  I look at these numbers and I don't see failure; I see spectacular success.  Just imagine how well I'd be doing if I wrote about something popular.

I don't think I want to.  At least, not presently.  I'd rather just play the game, on or off-line.  I'd rather work on the wiki, or maps, or some other part of my game.  I'd rather work on longer, denser efforts, such as either of the two books I have in the works, projects I've abandoned ... or new ideas I have bounding around inside.  I'm really starting to hate this dynamic of shouting into the voice in the hopes of receiving two comments.  Or none at all.

I'm hungry for more than that.

26 comments:

  1. I've not given up on the wiki. I'm trying rather desperately to finish a PhD, etc, excuses excuses. There are other personal reasons why I've not been as gungho as in the past, but none of that matters if I said I would stick with something and then didn't. That's a stark judgment of me, I suppose, and a rather bracing rebuke. But one I needed to hear.

    I know I look forward to your posts, every one of them. I try to comment more these days but honestly I'm not sure what to say most of the time (beyond "Huzzah!" perhaps). I am at the stage where I don't know which questions I need to be asking in order to learn.

    Clearly I (and others) find your work worth what we pay. Maybe there are some who can afford to forget they signed up but not that's not me (not on a PhD stipend with a family). I don't want you to compromise that just to write something popular - although I hope your work becomes popular indeed.

    When I can get a breather from the papers I'm writing now, I hope to get my own world into a shape where I can run your rules. So that's at least one person interested.

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  2. Shelby, you lasted longer on the wiki than anyone; your work on the bestiary was outstanding. You pulled back all the changes I asked you to revert and without complaint. And then you were ... gone. Something like, "Thank-you, I have to go finish my PHd for the next such-and-such months," would have been appreciated. If there's a stark rebuke being made, it's there.

    As regards the post, I'm saying that just now I'd rather run you as a player than write yet another post about how the setting has to be structured before it can be run. There's just so much I can cram into a reader's skull when meeting with resistance.

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  3. If Juvenis is going to ride again I'm ready to throw down.

    I've been quiet because my own games have dried up due to some real personal nonsense. You know how it is. Covid is a good time.

    I've been reading since the beginning. I don't often have anything to say when you write about how we should be DMing, because you've been banging this drum for almost two decades. I'm on board already.

    I got you: cut the crap, focus on letting the players make choices, traps and secret doors waste valuable game time and are dumb, reward should be proportionate to risk, make the world bigger than they are, kick people who won't take it seriously to the curb, and the list goes on. I'm not as good as I want to be yet, but man I'm listening for whatever it'll take to unlock what's holding me back.

    When you say you want to do the wiki, or do maps. Hell yes. More sage abilities. A detailed history of the dragons of Scotland, or the Muscovite Dwarves or whatever. A poll for patrons where you add a new item to the market tables every day/week/whatever you feel like. You want to do another teardown of a module like Death Frost Fucking Doom, but break it down into what doesn't work about it, and what COULD work with some jiggling?

    Do whatever you want to do, because so far whatever you want to do has been worth reading for 18 years.

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  4. I haven't actually been writing for that long, but thank you Pandred.

    I have looked into it. If I have the players, then I will ask my server agent to make another wiki, a game wiki, with access to the players as well as myself, and actively play the game on that format, rather than blogger. More control, more flexible, and not subject to random changes in someone else's site.

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  5. Well, I *am* glad to see the last week of silence wasn't due to any health issues. When a regular blogger quiets without warning, that is (unfortunately) where my head goes these days.

    My own mind has been depressingly morose these days, especially with regard to both blogging and gaming in general. I feel a lot of empathy for what you've written here, though wasn't it you who told me to keep at it, keep grinding away?

    [only hope it wasn't MY recent post on using alignment that was the camel-breaking straw you mention...*ahem*]

    I can't speak for everyone, but I learn(ed) quite well in a classroom environment, generally by shutting the hell up and listening to someone with more knowledge than myself elucidate me. My questions, then and now, have generally been for clarification, not to quibble, discuss, or contradict. If people keep paying you and yet aren't pushing back (i.e. opening a dialogue) does that mean you're doing a bad job of teaching? Was your idea to have a "lab" of sorts where we all tried out different hypotheses and compared notes? That wasn't really my impression of the Higher Path blog's purpose...but I readily admit to being hopelessly obtuse at times.

    I will note that I've been using both your blog and your wiki [well, the old one anyway] a LOT this last week as constant references, as I struggle to set up my own "trade tables" for my game world. I've been referencing both your maps and your mapmaking entries as I work on my own maps of South America. I'm certainly finding your work helpful!

    But that is NOT to say I think you shouldn't "pack it up" for a while. Sometimes we need to cool our jets, and I don't fault someone for doing so. Writers have to write, and I know you'll find a way to do so. At some point you might feel like teaching/blogging again, and of course some of us will be watching for that day.
    ; )

    As for the mess that is my country at the moment: yeah. Sucks. We try to persevere as best we can. Still sucks.

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  6. Alexis,

    I feel your frustration. I live in that country south of you, and I am also terrified of what the future appears to hold. I work in emergency services and am one of the 'Essential Personnel' that have to leave home to do my job. The violence and madness that has been going on has killed my spirit - when I am not working, I am hiding in my house.

    Gaming had always been my escape. I came across your blog years ago, and you inspired me. I started creating a detailed world trying your suggestions. I would get excited and get my group together and play.

    And my players would not even bother to try and get into the world. They didn't care about the setting, the background, or any of the details. They just wanted to kill some monsters and gather treasure. I first thought this was my fault - that I was a bad DM. Later I realized that it was actually a combination of things - and the biggest piece was that I went into create mode without trying to see what the players wanted (a point that you made in How to Run).

    We haven't played for a couple years now. I get interested in running games, and then I look back at the previous failed games and lose interest. When I get interested, I always come to your blog for inspiration and education. I joined your Patreon when I first saw it, because I value what you have to say.

    I rarely have commented on your posts, a lot of times because they are old when I am going through them (I have gone back and re-read several of your posts just to refresh my understanding). Quite often I agree with you, and I don't think "I Agree" posts are helpful or useful. If I have questions about something, someone has usually already asked it and I see your answer in the comments. There are things that I have disagreed with, but I appreciate how you articulate your point of view, and I respect that.

    Sorry for the rambling - I guess what I am trying to say is: I understand your frustration, and if you were to slow or stop blogging, I respect your decision. I bought your books and love them too. Thank you for the blogs and all the work you have done.

    Daniel

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  7. Alexis,

    At the point I first found your blog many years ago, my D&D playing was on life support. I was frustrated with the direction the official game designers had gone, completely nonplussed by "the gaming community", and was ready to throw in the towel, even though D&D was (and still is) one of my favorite things in the world. Then I found your blog and EVERYTHING changed for me. You helped me to think about the game differently than I ever had before, prompted me to cast off some toxic players that were poisoning my game, and inspired me to write my own game rules. I am now a player in two gaming groups and a DM in a third. You are the cleric responsible for the resurrection of my game and my gaming life, and for that I owe you a huge debt of gratitude.

    I can understand how frustrating it must be to shout into the void every day and get so few comments back, and I am admittedly one of the folks who rarely comments on your posts, although I read and re-read each one, on all of your blog sites. All I can say is that I love and appreciate your work, even though I don't often have anything meaningful to contribute to the conversation. If you continue blogging, I will try to be more vigilant in commenting, although I am introverted by nature and am sensitive to wasting yours and your readers' time by commenting in ways that don't improve the discussion. I don't like commenting just for the sake of having my voice heard, which is likely why I am not a fan of and don't engage in social media.

    From a selfish standpoint, I sincerely hope you'll continue blogging about D&D. Losing your voice from the internet would be a huge loss for me personally, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that sentiment.

    If you do decide run online games, I likely wouldn't be a good candidate to be a player given my schedule, but I would absolutely read, follow along and get value and inspiration from being a passive observer.

    Whether or not you continue blogging, please know that you are an inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and creativity.

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  8. This post I wrote in May states with crystal clarity that I hoped for a dialogue.

    I prefer the sort of long comments this post has yielded. But I prefer a simple answer of "I agree and here's why" to no answer at all. It has to be understood; though I can see my page views, I also know that a large percentage of those, perhaps all of them, are bots cruising blogger. Without an occasional comment, I have no idea if ANYONE is reading anything I've written.

    The space of the internet is infinite; and the dreck I end up watching on twitter or youtube, just to stay connected to SOMETHING in the world beyond the thoughts of me and my partner, lower the bar considerably for what could be called a "waste" of my time or anyone else's.

    I don't wish to quit writing.

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  9. As a relatively new DM and a longtime lurker of this blog, I can say that what you have written so far has never failed to challenge my assumptions about the game. I can't say I'd pay for your Patreon or the Higher Path, but watching your games online would be instructive. I have plenty of reading material to catch up with on here, so do what fulfills you.

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  10. That's a pity, Calvino, because the stuff I publish on the Higher Path is far better than the dreck I publish here.

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  11. As a down payment on my promise to comment more frequently moving forward, I just posted a comment on your most recent post in The Higher Path. Be gentle with me please. :)

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  12. For that, I apologize. For full honesty, I'll help where I can but not as much as I'd like due to my other commitments.

    Calvino, I guarantee The Higher Path is worth your money.

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  13. I have no expectations, Shelby. But if you want to scratch Shawshank-like at the walls of the wiki, I'd want to make it something you could do without worry.

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  14. Just to sound off my availability if you do decide to reactivate our wonderful online campaign effort and/or kick off a whole new venture. I'd already spared some idle thoughts about how you might have a desire to playtest, publicly or otherwise, your newest creations.

    Beyond even the campaign, I'd point to your masterclass posts as some of the most prescient DMing hands-on advice I've ever read anywhere. I think I've said this before, but it's not something I'd be shy of repeating anytime soon.

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  15. I believe I am serious about starting the campaign again. I'll pick it up at the underground cave and gate. We have Pandred and Engelhart. If I get a 3rd person, I'll ask my server elf to set up a new wiki and we'll play it there. You'll like it. You'll have the freedom to make new pages, upload images and possibly even move your own characters on the map. I'm looking into that; I'm uncertain just at the moment how to manage multiple persons will be able to edit pages at the same time, but I'm looking into that also.

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  16. Hi Alexis,

    You know me, I've drifted off in the past. But ever since I first read your blog ~ 7 years ago I haven't been able to accept D&D. You showed me what the game could be, how important it is. Do you remember the post on ennui? That and hundreds of other posts transformed me. You've lifted me up as a human being. You have influenced so many thoughts in my life, brought me such guidance. But many lessons I had to learn myself, as I said I drifted off. I have been bitter and I have been resentful. I have failed at building the shining city on the hill which you showed. I have failed to the point of quitting. And after quitting it has left me bitter at D&D and embarrassed at the fools who play it. There is such trash called content it's sickening, I look through comments trying to find someone who is put off by the mindsplitting crap and find nothing but the jabbering cahoots of idiots gibbering for more. Such bitterness I carry. But it is my own failure. I embraced laziness and kept trying to make 5e work. I wanted to change everything but was too lost and weak for the first step. A lesson I've had to learn is my own path, my own feet. To watch my steps and plan how to climb further. And now I am back. When I Run again it will be your rule system. I need you're help again to understand it, the wiki is confusing and often I feel I need to understand the early versions of the game to understand what you've changed and how it works now. Can you tell me where to begin?

    I've retyped this comment enough times, but I can't find a better way to say that I'm sorry I haven't reciprocated what you need. It's an exchange for which we rob you blind. Of payment in few words know this: there is a young tree out there growing towards the light because of you.

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  17. Chris,

    The bitterness is palpable. And while I feel much of the same, and it does get me down, both you and I have to let it go as much as we can.

    Please understand that the post above is not about my readers providing me more, but about my changing my habits and approach to fit what I see as the climate I'm writing in.

    I apologize about the wiki. Moving to the Authentic Wiki has demonstrated how much work the content needs and I am addressing that work. It will take time. I agree, it is certainly not a booklet that explains D&D step-by-step. The need for such a booklet is what drives people back to B/X. If you're looking for a basic structural definition of the game, I suggest reading these rules straight through: https://www.americanroads.us/DandD/DnD_Basic_Rules_Moldvay.pdf. I disagree with virtually everything there, but if you need to understand an earlier version of the game, there it is.

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  18. The answer for me is....

    I don't have the energy. Everywhere thrown at me is this horror and that travesty. It's all ticking up and I'm retreating.

    I'm very fortunate to be able to do so (I'm in Cali so you know, in the middle of "liberal" USA and in a large city)

    Believe it or not, when I read what you write I'm trying to take it in and think about it. No offense, but that does take another spoon out of the pile. So I've been retreating into video games. Into virtual worlds. Occasionally taking walks, and dealing with the fact my life takes place in effectively one room which is also my work office.

    The net result is, every week or few weeks I come in, scan the titles, read a few, check out the paid content, check a few and then vanish off into stars, or govern countries in a way that makes more sense, or work on a farm where I can worry about watering schedules, and if I fail no harm done.

    I think I am using a lot of principals influenced by your writing in the two games I'm running. It's the same homebrew campaign I'm trying to write up in a format for publishing. Mostly just as a life goal more than a career choice. Like anything, all your experiences are absorbed and processed in one way or another towards being you, and I think this is an example.

    That said, I'm just too damn tired to think all that much right now. I pick and choose, and sometimes things suffer. Unfortunately, since it's not so lightweight, your blog doesn't exactly get daily visits anymore.

    I would never judge anyone for making a similar choice.

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  19. And I certainly don't judge, Oddbit. Your case is exactly the point of what I'm saying; what is the sense of my pounding yet another post out about "how to run" when the readers, however interested, have already sorted themselves out in that way. There must be something else, something better, I could move to writing about just now, that would feed my elephant more valuably.

    I'm escaping into games too. I bought Oxygen Not Included in December; it shows I've played 567 hours on Steam. That's 14 weeks, a little more than three months, at a 40-hour a week job, playing ONI. Escape much? Yes, I've done my share of escaping.

    The govt ought to pay E.I. for that ...

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  20. Hi Alexis,
    As has been mentioned, I'm glad there were no health issues.
    My game is so tiny at the moment, with just me and my 9 yr old, but we've been plugging away since he was six. He enjoys it. I've incorporated quite a few of your ideas recently (and not surprisingly, have found they work nicely).
    Regarding commenting and volunteering: my wife and I have a business and we both have part time jobs to boot. My volunteering is directed at an NGO I've been associated with for years. (they're lawyers, I was the scientist, I know at first hand what you speak of). Given the time difference between Central European time I doubt I'd ever be able to participate in an online game, but if you establish one I would love to observe a session, or part of one, if circumstances and technology would allow.

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  21. Oh I love Oxygen Not Included. Their gas/heat modeling is a real good time.

    I also love the way the game progresses. You pretty much lose every time you move into a new 'stage' of development and start over with that new thing in mind.

    Water runs out. Maybe oxygen. Food might be one here too. Those are like the first 3.

    Next might be mood spirals.

    Next is heat, or some specific resource that's hard to renew or maybe disease.

    Then maybe you're like, I did my ducting all wrong and the madness I must maintain to grow is TOO MUCH.

    THEN... and so on. Quite a good game. It's been a while since I played it, I tend to oscillate between the complex like that, and the simple 'at your pace' exploration games.

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  22. More on ONI...

    My daughter played the beta; the alpha version only came out in late 2019. Most of the youtube videos on the game are obsolete, as the advice they give can no longer be done in the alpha version. I'm assured this version is harder to play, because there are less gamebreaking shortcuts that would instantly solve problems forever than there used to be.

    I play mostly short games, quitting and going back to the beginning in the 75-100 turn cycle. When it feels like the game is offering harder problems to solve than writing rules for D&D, I stop feeling like I'm relaxing and start thinking, "Why am I working this hard to play this game? If I'm going to work this hard, I might as well DO something." Then I go work on D&D and come back around in a few days and start a new ONI game.

    Jeebs. If there's anything I hate about the game, it is making plastic.

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  23. I first started reading your blog because of your online game posts. I'd be very interested in seeing that return.

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  24. I'm an avid reader, I have the rss sent to my kindle. I felt I had to post after reading this. If you are making money and being supported, take the money. Those people want to give you money, whether they listen or not. If you feel your content needs to change, then change it. You may lose some followers, but you may gain some as well. Im sure saying its all up to you is no help, so let me just say that I'll keep reading what you put out, even if it is nitpicking the new Katie perry album. Life sucks right now, for everyone it seems. Your suck may be no worse than others, but it doesn't make it suck any less. I'm glad to see a few more posts above this, and look forward to reading them.

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  25. Hello ALexis,

    As said before, I'm so far beyond schedule on reading your recent posts, having so few moments really available, that I can't comment without taking time from another important thing. Like now, I should be working, but ...

    You write the best content on the whole internet on RPGs, period. And I'm not a D&D player (not anymore, I'm on different systems for some years now), so I read a wide swath of posts (when I had the time at least).

    Your posts here are already very good, but I can confirm to anyone that The Higher Path is a true boon, with articles clarifying and solidifying thoughts and processes I had or considered but never before dwelved on why, or how, they were good (and bad, you also shed light on bad ones), and that's why I agree with them - though I don't see fit to say it each time.
    And you make me think, oh how much you make me think ... Like I've some enormous mount of mud and wilderness, with some treasures inside, and you give me the tools, the seeds, the plans, the guides, and I'm thinking on how to use all that, and I'm using a tool, testing, trying, following the guides, and it's so big ... And I love it. But I don't have much to say, because between reading and using, I've no time left (already didn't before).
    But I'm using it, and it's just great to see things taking form. Even if it's just a piece of your advice that I use, even if I'm just making some plans for the future or clearing a little space for a little building, what you gave has been priceless.

    You change the way one looks at his game, whatever system it runs with.

    It'd be a shame if you were to stop writing here or there (though in hindsight it doesn't seem to be the case), and I hope the campaign will start again so that I can also read and analyse that as well.

    I will try again to post more comments in the future.

    For all you've done, thank you. Be well.

    Sincerely,
    Vlad

    PS: not sure how it all read to you or others, just joted it down and I must go back ...

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  26. Hopefully you've pulled yourself out of this particular pit since you wrote it, but I feel like I have to give my two cents anyway. One, I fully support you focusing more efforts on your world and game. As much as we enjoy the advice and how-to posts, from what I've read in the comments in my journey through my reading through the last four years of the blog is that a lot of regular readers came and stuck around because of the world you are building and describing and working the systems out for. It was you trying to explain those systems, for yourself as much as for the audience, that really built a readership from what I can see.

    As for another part, as much as it feels you aren't making any headway, you are. I've learned quite a bit of reading both your worldbuilding and your advice both. Also the more I read about your rules, the more of them I end up adding to my own game. I won't be using all of them because I have a few different starting premises than you do (mostly about magic) but lots of the other stuff I am grabbing.

    So, much like I've mentioned in brief elsewhere, please take a bit of encouragement that even if it feels like you are shouting into the void, people are listening and improving themselves and their games because of what you write.

    Reading months of your posts in a day really highlights just how much you want engagement instead of an audience, so when I get caught up I'm going to do my best to try and comment on a regular basis.

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