I do want to stress, because honestly I think many believe the tag line of this blog, "I Love the Game of D&D," is meant either ironically or sarcastically. I'm such a grouchy old bastard, I spend so much of my time kicking the crap out of things, it's easy to believe that because I think the White Box set is horribly written, that Basic D&D is a joke and that Gygax was simply an awful human being, that every conceivable Venn Diagram that includes "D&D" in a circle must have me in another circle completely outside it. But no, that's not true.
I am enthusiastic for D&D. I would not have spent three weeks this month squeezing out a 32-page example of the Lantern geared for Christmas, or the amount of time I've given to talking about the game, nor the years I've spent playing it, because I do not get a vibrating charge in my nerve endings at the thought of it. No, it's just that I think everyone else is wrong, stupid or misinformed, that's all. No biggie. I don't dislike people who are wrong, I just want to change their mind.
Unmodified: Real People, Fantastic Worlds makes no effort to do any of that. It presents expressive, enthusiastic people talking about a game concept — role-playing — unabashedly with love. This is captured in every scene, so if what you want is to feel an engagement with people who are prepared to be authentic about love, then take the time and watch at least some of the video. If you're into miniatures, or concrete details about setting design, with all the table-top functionality that comes from creating 3-D models, then you'll likely watch this to the end.
You won't find enlightenment. These are people who have been clearly raised on the language of modern D&D, who are woefully let down by that language. They've been taught to use the word "story" in its alternate corporatised sense, who do so because they have no other language they can use. It's quite possible to see them fighting for language throughout the documentary... not because they do not know what they believe, but because they've been saddled with a vocabulary that really does not express what they need to convey or want to. They've been let down. This does not make their genuine faith or love for the game less so; it only makes it next to impossible for them to talk to someone who is not in fact like them.
My partner Tamara, for example, would get nothing from this. Nor would my musician friends, nor my writing friends, nor any of my work associates. No non-roleplayer is going to watch this and understand in the least what these people are talking about. But the enthusiasm alone may potentially get some joiners. Which is good. But the simple fact that people in this hobby cannot communicate what this hobby is after 50 years, because that language has never been a priority, is criminal.
I wrote the "story" article as a preliminary to this; and those who commented on the story article largely did not get what I was saying — that exploiting a positive word from the childhood of a person in order to sell that adult version a product is bad. The reason those commentors did not read it that way is evidenced in this video, which shows people who cannot literally describe what they really believe, because they've been crippled by a vocabulary that's allowed to convey only emotional faith. And if you're a person whose background does extend into language and the use of it, you'll recognise this shortcoming within the first couple of minutes. Though without my saying so now, you might not have been able to identify that shortcoming without my having primed you first.
So that's on me. But honestly, without this priming, I don't think a lot of you would stay with this long enough to get the whole picture — and I really want you to. I think it matters. Because until we separate the love here from the way these people have been failed by the game seller, we cannot grow. Emotions are wonderful. But they also correspond to a pre-Neolithic social outlook.
Love deserves a proper culture.
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