For example, I want my brother to stop drinking, because it's causing issues for his children, me, my wife, my children and who knows how many others besides — so it would be really great if he could just shape up, take some good advice, adjust himself and save everyone a lot of grief. Or else some of us are going to have to stop allowing him to come around, we're going to stop taking his calls, and in essence, my brother must become dead to us. Which we don't want. This is a very common situation for millions of people, particularly with family members, but it reaches to other things besides.
Thankfully, it's not what's happening here. I am not invested in anyone taking my advice here. I am invested in writing it out as wisdom, first that those who already agree with me will have better language in describing it to others and to themselves, and in being responsible to the race, as I see it, where it comes to expanding the general knowledge of the zeitgeist. I'm not going to say anything that hasn't been said before, but perhaps I might say it better, cleaner, without much of the politicisation that tends to pollute these things. I won't use jargon. I won't say that someone who wants to be a better player needs to decolonise their thinking or adopt a stronger personalised hierarchy or think with a greater critical intersectionality. My approach, to discuss these things in plain English, because I don't care about anyone's feelings, seems more practical to me in achieving this communicative goal.
If we choose to categorise people, there are thousands of models we might employ, but here I wish to subdivide people usefully into three groups. There are those, like me, who are willing to accept that striving to learn is an obvious, effective, responsible life choice, one that increases one's potential, one's usefulness to society, one's income, one's capacity to care and look after others, and a host of other self-evident benefits. Unlike some who might respond negatively to the last post, which argues nothing more strenuous than getting off your ass and suggesting you might read books, those in the "yes, of course we want to learn" group merely smile and note in their minds how stupid it would be to do otherwise. This group, incidentally, includes all the doctors, lawyers, researchers, engineers and developers in the world, that being all the people who make the world, the value of which would seem to be self-evident... though it isn't to some fucking people. Plain language.
The second group includes most of those who have stopped reading at the above paragraph, who are disgruntled or angered by the above, who hate it when people say things like, "if you don't read, you're not relevant." This second group of people divide into those who are lucky enough right now to have good paying jobs, thus justifying their privilege to be ignorant, and those not so lucky, who use their misfortune as a crutch and an argument to say, "I'm not a doctor because no one ever gave me a chance," despite the presence of free-for-use public libraries and a legal system that disallows their employment lasting longer than 8 hours a day. Of course, many of these people rush out and get a second job, arguing that one job won't cover their rent and all the other things they need to purchase, in part because they want too many things and in part because they don't or won't pay for birth control, or were even more unlucky in that they USED birth control and still found themselves in their dire circumstance. I do feel for such people, because, as they argue, they're too tired to get an education. I for one don't want to blame anyone for their exhaustion, if that exhaustion really is the reason they won't read a book. But there remains one way out of their hell, and that is an education, so that a better job ceases to be a matter of luck and becomes instead a matter of inevitability.
All the other people in the second group, who don't have four children or more to look after, who have reliable family members, who have a reliable life partner, who spend your evenings at the bar, who purchase drugs, who spend money on miniatures instead of books, or on splatbooks instead of educational books, I have no pity. You have disposable income, you have free time, and you're choosing to be ignorant. That's on you, not on your lack of opportunity.
The third group, not reading this now because they're too busy, are those that prey on the second group. They prey on you because you're easy pickings. You're not educated enough to protect yourself and you're convinced there's a short cut. You're own sense of victimhood, that you're not a professional earning in the high five figures or low six is the fault of society, your upbringing, your situation, your whatever, makes you easy pickings for this third group. And they are more than willing to sell your victimhood, something you already have, at a price that you'll pay in the hopes they're selling something else. That's just how ignorant you are. And maybe, if you don't want to learn how to do something useful, you might learn how to be a predator yourself; but I don't it. You haven't the sand for that. You might think I'm the asshole here... but your kind, the second kind here, you're far more likely to suffer at the hands of these predators than you ever would at my hands. Because I'm not a predator. You can tell, because this attack is free. You can see my jaws and they're way over here. With the kind of predators hunting your type? You'll feel the jaws before you see them.
My kind of person... we know what they are before they open their mouths. It's in their faces. Just look at that shit-fuck Tim Robbins. Why would you ever trust someone like that?
Well... if you're still with me...
This post is still fundamentally about being a better dungeon master, but there's no way to divide that ideal from a hundred other better things you'll become in the process. Inevitably, being a better dungeon master is a by-product, and for many, the other things you should do in order to become better at managing people and a game table might be the impetus that makes you drop role-playing altogether... which I see as perfectly natural and even laudable. Not because D&D isn't a bad game, or that people shouldn't play it, but because in the grand scheme of things it really isn't as important as what else we might do with our time.
At the end of the last post, I suggested that there were three other things necessary to lift yourself as a DM other than addressing your self-education. The first of these is, as Lucy puts in, involvement. I say that with the sharp, impatient clarity that Lucy is known for — part scolding, part selfless — as she barks the truth at people not ready for it. And like Charlie Brown, it's time you hauled your ass off your sofa and became part of something that isn't about you.
If we choose to categorise people, there are thousands of models we might employ, but here I wish to subdivide people usefully into three groups. There are those, like me, who are willing to accept that striving to learn is an obvious, effective, responsible life choice, one that increases one's potential, one's usefulness to society, one's income, one's capacity to care and look after others, and a host of other self-evident benefits. Unlike some who might respond negatively to the last post, which argues nothing more strenuous than getting off your ass and suggesting you might read books, those in the "yes, of course we want to learn" group merely smile and note in their minds how stupid it would be to do otherwise. This group, incidentally, includes all the doctors, lawyers, researchers, engineers and developers in the world, that being all the people who make the world, the value of which would seem to be self-evident... though it isn't to some fucking people. Plain language.
The second group includes most of those who have stopped reading at the above paragraph, who are disgruntled or angered by the above, who hate it when people say things like, "if you don't read, you're not relevant." This second group of people divide into those who are lucky enough right now to have good paying jobs, thus justifying their privilege to be ignorant, and those not so lucky, who use their misfortune as a crutch and an argument to say, "I'm not a doctor because no one ever gave me a chance," despite the presence of free-for-use public libraries and a legal system that disallows their employment lasting longer than 8 hours a day. Of course, many of these people rush out and get a second job, arguing that one job won't cover their rent and all the other things they need to purchase, in part because they want too many things and in part because they don't or won't pay for birth control, or were even more unlucky in that they USED birth control and still found themselves in their dire circumstance. I do feel for such people, because, as they argue, they're too tired to get an education. I for one don't want to blame anyone for their exhaustion, if that exhaustion really is the reason they won't read a book. But there remains one way out of their hell, and that is an education, so that a better job ceases to be a matter of luck and becomes instead a matter of inevitability.
All the other people in the second group, who don't have four children or more to look after, who have reliable family members, who have a reliable life partner, who spend your evenings at the bar, who purchase drugs, who spend money on miniatures instead of books, or on splatbooks instead of educational books, I have no pity. You have disposable income, you have free time, and you're choosing to be ignorant. That's on you, not on your lack of opportunity.
The third group, not reading this now because they're too busy, are those that prey on the second group. They prey on you because you're easy pickings. You're not educated enough to protect yourself and you're convinced there's a short cut. You're own sense of victimhood, that you're not a professional earning in the high five figures or low six is the fault of society, your upbringing, your situation, your whatever, makes you easy pickings for this third group. And they are more than willing to sell your victimhood, something you already have, at a price that you'll pay in the hopes they're selling something else. That's just how ignorant you are. And maybe, if you don't want to learn how to do something useful, you might learn how to be a predator yourself; but I don't it. You haven't the sand for that. You might think I'm the asshole here... but your kind, the second kind here, you're far more likely to suffer at the hands of these predators than you ever would at my hands. Because I'm not a predator. You can tell, because this attack is free. You can see my jaws and they're way over here. With the kind of predators hunting your type? You'll feel the jaws before you see them.
My kind of person... we know what they are before they open their mouths. It's in their faces. Just look at that shit-fuck Tim Robbins. Why would you ever trust someone like that?
Well... if you're still with me...
This post is still fundamentally about being a better dungeon master, but there's no way to divide that ideal from a hundred other better things you'll become in the process. Inevitably, being a better dungeon master is a by-product, and for many, the other things you should do in order to become better at managing people and a game table might be the impetus that makes you drop role-playing altogether... which I see as perfectly natural and even laudable. Not because D&D isn't a bad game, or that people shouldn't play it, but because in the grand scheme of things it really isn't as important as what else we might do with our time.
At the end of the last post, I suggested that there were three other things necessary to lift yourself as a DM other than addressing your self-education. The first of these is, as Lucy puts in, involvement. I say that with the sharp, impatient clarity that Lucy is known for — part scolding, part selfless — as she barks the truth at people not ready for it. And like Charlie Brown, it's time you hauled your ass off your sofa and became part of something that isn't about you.
This demands that you remove yourself from what are primarily just your goals and act in tandem with others to achieve goals that everyone in the group seeks. Play sports, where everyone, not just you, wants to win. Volunteer, where the people at the centre are those being helped or supported, not you. Run, hike, travel with other people, where the well-being of every person is at stake, not just your well-being. Look after children, where their needs matter more than yours. Help someone else get elected. Learn how to function around others who won't see your personal contribution as the end-all and be-all of their goals. Others who won't hesitate to toss you on your ear if you're selfish, uncommitted, discordant or unhelpful. Learn how not to derail, how not to be performative, how not to assume that the reason for your being here is to satisfy your personal need for attention. Join, shut the fuck up, and when work is wanted, do that work silently, cheerfully and in the same way as the others around you.
This is your only chance at becoming a better person. Because if you only know how to read books, you'll never know how to apply what you've learned, without this. Yes, I'm saying, join the human race.
And what will happen?
To begin with, you'll learn when to hold yourself back and not act until the right moment. You'll find that your impulses are disruptive and inappropriate, whereas you need to be aware of the rhythm, needs and direction of the group. You may know what's needed or what to say, but if it's not said at the right time, then you won't be heard and your great insight won't be appreciated. In D&D, this is the space between knowing something and choosing when to say it; as a DM, this is a constant. You may have prepared a rich detail in a setting, or a context twist, but if you deliver it too early, at the wrong time, or because you can't restrain yourself, then the effectiveness of your idea is going to face-plant; and if you don't realise why, because you have no comprehension of your impulses, then you'll assume it's because you're a bad DM, not because you fucked up a perfectly excellent moment because you have no self-control. This sort of timing also separates someone who participates from the player that disrupts constantly. Players who speak entirely from impulse, who don't wait and listen, who aren't aware of other players, are the plague of D&D campaigns. They can't be restrained because they never learned how to function around others. They don't participate in any group activity, and never have, except D&D, which only enables their selfish, reflexive impulses.
Group activities, particularly those that aren't recreational in function, underscore the importance of listening when it's not our turn to speak. If we're participating in a soup kitchen, if we're a counsellor at a kid's camp, if we're an assistant coach for a hockey team, learning to comprehend the emotional shifts, listening is necessary to understand the reasoning of others, especially in interpreting their emotional state, their priorities and their intentions. As a group, these things have to be in alignment; we must all have the SAME priorities and the SAME interpretations, or else its chaos, the food is late, the kids learn things they shouldn't and the team loses, not just all the time but badly. Not every team is great, but if the kids pull together, if they get a chance to comprehend nature, if the visitors arrive and find the food hot and waiting for them, it provides a sense of accomplishment and the value of things that sustains them all their lives.
Applying this to D&D, it's easy to see why it matters if the players help each other, and are concerned for each other's welfare, and agree on the rules, and perceive the alignment of their goals as something they all want, together. Again and again, disasterously, D&D players who fail to grasp these concepts ruin game play, they participate in time-wasting performative role-play that accomplishes nothing for others, they don't care what others feel and they don't sense the loss that others experience. Seven supportive, team-minded players working together is easy to run as a DM. Three self-minded validation-seeking monsters can successfully accomplish absolutely nothing in four hours of play.
This is your only chance at becoming a better person. Because if you only know how to read books, you'll never know how to apply what you've learned, without this. Yes, I'm saying, join the human race.
And what will happen?
To begin with, you'll learn when to hold yourself back and not act until the right moment. You'll find that your impulses are disruptive and inappropriate, whereas you need to be aware of the rhythm, needs and direction of the group. You may know what's needed or what to say, but if it's not said at the right time, then you won't be heard and your great insight won't be appreciated. In D&D, this is the space between knowing something and choosing when to say it; as a DM, this is a constant. You may have prepared a rich detail in a setting, or a context twist, but if you deliver it too early, at the wrong time, or because you can't restrain yourself, then the effectiveness of your idea is going to face-plant; and if you don't realise why, because you have no comprehension of your impulses, then you'll assume it's because you're a bad DM, not because you fucked up a perfectly excellent moment because you have no self-control. This sort of timing also separates someone who participates from the player that disrupts constantly. Players who speak entirely from impulse, who don't wait and listen, who aren't aware of other players, are the plague of D&D campaigns. They can't be restrained because they never learned how to function around others. They don't participate in any group activity, and never have, except D&D, which only enables their selfish, reflexive impulses.
Group activities, particularly those that aren't recreational in function, underscore the importance of listening when it's not our turn to speak. If we're participating in a soup kitchen, if we're a counsellor at a kid's camp, if we're an assistant coach for a hockey team, learning to comprehend the emotional shifts, listening is necessary to understand the reasoning of others, especially in interpreting their emotional state, their priorities and their intentions. As a group, these things have to be in alignment; we must all have the SAME priorities and the SAME interpretations, or else its chaos, the food is late, the kids learn things they shouldn't and the team loses, not just all the time but badly. Not every team is great, but if the kids pull together, if they get a chance to comprehend nature, if the visitors arrive and find the food hot and waiting for them, it provides a sense of accomplishment and the value of things that sustains them all their lives.
Applying this to D&D, it's easy to see why it matters if the players help each other, and are concerned for each other's welfare, and agree on the rules, and perceive the alignment of their goals as something they all want, together. Again and again, disasterously, D&D players who fail to grasp these concepts ruin game play, they participate in time-wasting performative role-play that accomplishes nothing for others, they don't care what others feel and they don't sense the loss that others experience. Seven supportive, team-minded players working together is easy to run as a DM. Three self-minded validation-seeking monsters can successfully accomplish absolutely nothing in four hours of play.
From this, we can see the problem at once. Not having learned to "play well with others," or even work together, something that many of us learned playing baseball, hockey or football; or which we learned on long canoe trips through semi-wild areas, where actual drowning and other injuries was completely possible; or which we learned through contributing our time to voluntary activities like church choirs, scouts, group fishing trips, debate clubs, drama... whatever... we don't know how to play D&D together and we don't know how to care about others while we're doing it. And this is fundamentally the problem with the way this game is played, because it's not a video game where a computer keeps track of our performance, it's a social activity where human perception and human response matter more than how many experience we get or how many times we can invoke the rule of cool. D&D does not function well in the spirit of "what can I get away with," because that fucks over the ability of others to get away with things. In any group activity, volunteer or paid, "what can I get away with" is what gets us turfed and fired. It is not, as in the case of D&D, the thing that gets canonised IN THE FUCKING RULE BOOK of how to play.
I have a lot of ground to cover, so I'm going to cease connecting this with D&D and just outline what we learn from participating in group activities... not because the point hasn't been made, but because I feel that we really should know what we're not obtaining when we play D&D in the way that's become normalised.
When we participate in a group activity — and here I'll use a soup kitchen as an example because I worked in one for a time, associated with paid-for cooking work that I did off-and-on for twenty years — we learn how labour is divided. We learn where to stand, how to carry our end, how to watch others in a state of hurry so as to know when to move and how to do so safely, in an environment filled with sharp knives, vats of literally boiling oil, very hot surfaces and a slippery floor. And fire. Let's not forget that there's fire. All this is done while dishing out food for people down on their luck, who need more than the food, they need patience and good will and kindness and reassurance that we are glad to be doing this FOR THEM, which is something that can't be faked. Anyone who tries to fake it, for whatever reason because they want to be there for some other reason, is easily detected by those who are down on their luck; they can see, plainly, the little bit of contempt in the eye, the tone of reluctance to talk, the dismissiveness as a server slops soup into their bowl — and because the down and out are often at the end of their rope, and in a state of stress, they won't hesitate to say, "What the fuck is your problem" loud enough for the whole kitchen and dining hall to hear.
The key is to see the patron being as much a part of the team as those that make the food, so that when one of them cuts into us, we can absorb their bitterness and impatience not as a personal attack, but as a response to something that is larger than all of us — the plain, fundamental cruelty of life. I've seen the server who shot right back, starting the war of words, accomplishing nothing; and I've seen the server who wilted, retreating from the line, letting someone else take over. Me, ever the pit bull, I don't wilt; but I have starved, I have in my youth visited a soup line on the other side, and I'm more apt to make a joke, to self-deprecate, because what's going on here is more important than, say, this post being misunderstood, which would cause me to wage a blistering war against the misunderstander. It's a question of what matters vs. what really matters. If a player repeatedly disrupts a campaign, I'll storm about that. But if a player loses a treasured character and responds with anger and fury, I'll feel none of that pitbull, because through group activities and through seeing people under stress, it's understandable that sometimes, we have to blow. Working in a soup kitchen has it's upside; if you turn to one of the nuns — I worked at St. Anne's Catholic Church in the 1990s, here in Calgary — and say, "I'm going to go sit down with that guy for a bit," they won't care that you walk away from your "duties," because there's a higher duty. And that, too, is something that the D&D community has totally failed to uncover.
When we participate in a group activity — and here I'll use a soup kitchen as an example because I worked in one for a time, associated with paid-for cooking work that I did off-and-on for twenty years — we learn how labour is divided. We learn where to stand, how to carry our end, how to watch others in a state of hurry so as to know when to move and how to do so safely, in an environment filled with sharp knives, vats of literally boiling oil, very hot surfaces and a slippery floor. And fire. Let's not forget that there's fire. All this is done while dishing out food for people down on their luck, who need more than the food, they need patience and good will and kindness and reassurance that we are glad to be doing this FOR THEM, which is something that can't be faked. Anyone who tries to fake it, for whatever reason because they want to be there for some other reason, is easily detected by those who are down on their luck; they can see, plainly, the little bit of contempt in the eye, the tone of reluctance to talk, the dismissiveness as a server slops soup into their bowl — and because the down and out are often at the end of their rope, and in a state of stress, they won't hesitate to say, "What the fuck is your problem" loud enough for the whole kitchen and dining hall to hear.
The key is to see the patron being as much a part of the team as those that make the food, so that when one of them cuts into us, we can absorb their bitterness and impatience not as a personal attack, but as a response to something that is larger than all of us — the plain, fundamental cruelty of life. I've seen the server who shot right back, starting the war of words, accomplishing nothing; and I've seen the server who wilted, retreating from the line, letting someone else take over. Me, ever the pit bull, I don't wilt; but I have starved, I have in my youth visited a soup line on the other side, and I'm more apt to make a joke, to self-deprecate, because what's going on here is more important than, say, this post being misunderstood, which would cause me to wage a blistering war against the misunderstander. It's a question of what matters vs. what really matters. If a player repeatedly disrupts a campaign, I'll storm about that. But if a player loses a treasured character and responds with anger and fury, I'll feel none of that pitbull, because through group activities and through seeing people under stress, it's understandable that sometimes, we have to blow. Working in a soup kitchen has it's upside; if you turn to one of the nuns — I worked at St. Anne's Catholic Church in the 1990s, here in Calgary — and say, "I'm going to go sit down with that guy for a bit," they won't care that you walk away from your "duties," because there's a higher duty. And that, too, is something that the D&D community has totally failed to uncover.
We have, for years, completely failed to understand the meaning of "collaborative" where it comes to this sort of activity. It doesn't mean either that we're "doing" or "making" things together, it's that we don't see ourselves as the end-all and be-all of the moment-to-moment participation as it's ongoing. We're not concerned with our personal failure, our choosing the wrong spell, our attacking the wrong enemy... or even messing up and losing the respect of our friends or letting them down. Because it's not about OUR performance, where what WE do, and what WE lose or gain, that matters here. It's that others in our team comprehend that we've done the best we could, and that whether or not we fucked up, it won't change their opinion of us. If our largest concern is what others think of us, then it's still ourselves that we're concerned with; it's still a perception of ME and THEM. Which is not the ideal. The ideal is that we can say, "Sorry guys, wrong spell," and know before they do that everyone around the table will smile and say, "Fuhgeddaboudit."
There's a pervasive belief in the community that others shouldn't tell you how to run your character... and this, too, is a ME and THEM position. As though the mere fact of someone saying "do that spell" is the same as "I am running Jim's character and he's using this spell," and the DM automatically saying, "Right. Jim, your character is using this spell."
Nothing like that is happening. Dave is saying, "Jim, do that spell" and Jim is absolutely, unquestionably free to say, "nah, I don't think so." But more importantly, a collaborative ideal is for Jim to think, "Hm, maybe that's a good idea," and give credence to Dave's suggestion, and treat it as what it ought to be... a collaborative effort of players working together to make the most of their opportunities. It's not personal, unless we're so wrapped up in our person that we can't bear the idea that someone else at the table thought of it before we did.
If the leader in a soup kitchen says, "give them a little less than you are," it's not her personal opinion, nor is it an attack on your judgment. It's a recognition that we have only so much soup, and there are this number of people it must be shared around, and your awareness of this, being here just a few times, doesn't match hers, because she's been doing this for ten years. But people will take it as a judgment. They will swear under their breath, they will miss the point, they will make it about themselves and they will make themselves untenable as a volunteer. There's just nothing like watching a volunteer being fired... it is the strangest scene there is, to think that there are others who won't let you work there for FREE, because you're not worth the wage they're paying.
Effective collaboration means picking up the rhythm, not because there's a profit to be made, but because other people want to move faster than you do. Collaboration under pressure means that no, there isn't time for you to waffle on about your family in Volhynia while we're buying equipment for the dungeon, because the rest of us want to get at it. At the same time, it sometimes means sitting and waiting for the others to get done, because they're doing something important, and just because you're surer or more definite about what you want doesn't give you a special license to bark at others to hurry up. Collaboration means spending a lot of time showing up when you don't want to. It means finishing things we didn't start, we don't understand, we don't agree with and which we don't want to finish. It means stepping aside, not being the first person in, when the best first person is someone else; and not griping about it, not saying a word, just shoving that doubt or dissatisfaction down your own throat, because it shouldn't be said in this context. Save it for when you go home and tell your fridge.
These are all a part of the human group experience... and like book larnin', if you can't get on board this train, you haven't any right to get to this destination. Oh, you can play D&D, in the shitty way it's usually played, but if you want to be any good at it, if you want to pick up your game, if you want to acquire the skills that will make you a really terrific DM, then you've got to immerse yourself in cultures where your importance and your feelings don't matter more than those of everyone else. And you've got to do it in a way where others want you there; it's not enough if they just tolerate you. A lot of people in the world, those who are happy for at least another body they don't have to pay for, will put up with some of your shit... but if that's what you're counting on, you're not learning anything, are you?
If you want to advance past this milestone, you have to learn how to not be you.
Good one.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Alexis. This post comes at a good time. Growing up, I never played sports and only occasionally did organized group/team activities. Lately I've been verrrrrrry sloooowly learning the ropes of soccer, after having spent the last couple years learning to appreciate the game as a spectator with some old roommates.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard as shit. I can hardly run. I pass and dribble and shoot like an idiot. But a new friend around the corner is showing me the basics, and there are some dudes at work who organize pickup games every week --
hell or high water I'm gonna start going, no matter how bad I am, and try my best to be a credit to the team.
I've been worried about committing myself to soccer when work already sucks so much of my time, and I'm anxious to keep some weeknights open to work on D&D. Your post has reassured me that taking up a sport should learn me a thing or two about the real world in a way that will reflect back on my D&D practice for the better. Worries extinguished (I hope.) So, thank you.
drama, volunteering, helping someone get elected, teaching english as a second language... it doesn't have to be sports.
ReplyDelete