Driving

And so a completely frivoulous post-Christmas post, not about D&D.  It is about a game however, though it feels less like a game and more like an exercise in maintaining one's attention.

The game is Euro Truck Simulator 2, which I got for myself, just before Christmas, when I was assured it wasn't "under the tree."  I'd played it a bit; enough to drive from Luxembourg to Braila, through Poland and Slovakia.  It's definitely interesting to drive through areas that I've mapped.

I won't talk excessively about the game, except to explain that you're provided with a truck, you have a choice of roads to drive, so you can transport goods from one place to another.  The truck is quite pleasantly realistic; a physical driver's wheel, pedals and gear box can be purchased to play the game, or it can be played on the keyboard or with a mouse.  Being Christmas, the wheel I wanted wasn't in stock, so I'll have to wait to get it.

Beyond that, one learns how to manipulate the vehicle to keep it on the road, maintain speed, avoid breaking the law and avoid damaging the truck and the goods therein.  One has to find places to sleep, find gas, get around difficult turns with sometimes two trailers, handle strange European road configurations (unless you are European) and generally be a good driver.

However, NOT being a good driver has few actual game consequences.  The early game enables you to learn how to drive by charging you nothing for your mistakes, allowing your "employer" to fix the truck for free-to-you no matter how many times you roll it, and paying for most other mistakes you'll make.  It doesn't get serious until you buy your own truck, thus making yourself responsible for your own mistakes.  Until then, you can drive the truck off cliffs, into other cars, across country (as long as the vehicle lasts), ignore and smash other traffic out of the way, ignore police tickets, arrive super-late with cargo and so on ... without meaningful consequences.  The way the game is set up, you can play this way indefinitely.

This evokes an elucidation on my part.  To repeat, consequences only result from the game IF you choose to accept a path that creates consequences.  This suggests a psychology experiment in my mind, one worthy of a PhD thesis.

As it's a videogame, theoretically ALL the actions taken by a given player could be recorded, exactly, within whatever parameters a research could want to set.  We could, for example, record how many times a person broke the speed limit, how many accidents they had, how often they forgot to use the turn signal, how long it took when the sun set to remember to turn on the headlights, how long they left the wipers running after the rain stopped ... and hundreds of other extraordinarily detailed aspects of the game that applied specifically to a person's attention span, respect for others on the road, respect for the rules of the road, respect for the importance of the cargo being transferred and so on.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we decided that instead of computer driven cars, it was possible to get a job as an "online driver" of an actual physical truck moving along highways in the real world.  The terrifying aspect of that would be that you, as said truck-driver, would crash this 50-ton vehicle through someone's house ... because, not being in the truck, YOU'd have nothing to lose except your job.  Unless, of course, we could ask you to sign a waiver accepting personal responsibility, and costs, for whatever damage you caused.

On some level, it wouldn't be such a bad job.  You'd be a "truck driver," but you'd do it from home, which would mean you wouldn't have to abandon your wife and children.  When you slept, it wouldn't be in a truck cab, it'd be in your own bed.  You'd eat meals out of your refridgerator, not in some miserable truck stop.  When you needed to pee, you'd pull the truck to the side and pee in your own bathroom.  We could strip a lot of crap out of the cab that wouldn't need to be there, because you're not there.  But then, how could we trust you?

This goes back to the assessment of your driving the truck simulator.  Every aspect of your ability to drive would be interpreted intensely, and after, say, 500 hours of investment on your part, which you could put in after work at your present day job, you'd be able to prove that you have characteristics that demonstrate your trustworthiness.  Those things would absolutely be measurable.  By example, you don't forget to check the mirrors.  You don't bang into things.  You always hit the wipers when you ought to.  You don't speed.  Ever.  Because you're the kind of person that doesn't.

There'd be tens of thousands of people who wanted to do the job I've described, who simply wouldn't make the cut.  The computer would note dozens of things they consistently failed to do ... things that demonstrated how many people wouldn't be the sort that could be trusted.  It wouldn't matter how desperately they wanted the job or how many hours they put in.  Their own choices and movements would demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they absolutely shouldn't be granted that kind of responsibility.

Okay, so, let's ditch the concept of a remote truck driver.  That part of the argument isn't relevant.  What matters is that no matter what sort of job you wanted to do, a program like the truck simulator, which offers no punishment except the standards by which you measure yourself, defines who and what you are as a "responsible person."  Imagine a universe where you're not permitted to sit in the cab of a real truck because, basically, your own actions over hundreds of hours told employers what kind of person you really are.  Nor would it matter if you wanted to be a driver.  The same standard applies to EVERYTHING.  Would you make a good cook?  A good doctor?  A good counselor?  A good assembly line-worker?  We could tell in no time.  Even 20 hours would give us a quick predictor of what sort of responsibility you ought to be given, since after assessing millions of people, a computer would recognise certain habits you were going to retain from just the difference in hundredths of seconds regarding your pressing the gas pedal when the lights changed.

This idea no doubt frightens a lot of people.  Truth is, it exposes what you and I are.  There are no resumes, no letters of recommendation, no application process, none of that crap that's supposed to tell a future employer that you're reliable or that you're able to do the job.  We have already built the program that can tell us that.  And right now, it's been played by probably a few hundred thousand people.

Think about it.  You may cringe at the idea ... and obviously I doubt this particular program's going to be used for this purpose.  But the world is not full of only stupid people.  Someone else very smart, very connected and with capital is working on a process like this, right now, that you're going to have to step up and face, probably in the next decade.  If not, then I think that makes me the smartest person on this planet.

Personally, I'd be for it.  Assess me.  I'll own whatever the assessment is.  For the record, I'm a terrible driver.  My son-in-law, who plays hand-eye-coordination games rapidly performed two jobs in short order without any mistakes.  Having never played the game before, and without any training except five minutes of my telling him what buttons did what.  Took him 20 minutes.  He's an electrician, in his 30s, expecting a promotion to a management position on an office-building site in the next year.  He'll probably get it.

Meanwhile, I've flipped the truck unintentionally about ... 11 times?  Thereabouts.  I'm getting better.  In any case, I don't know how the blinkers work yet.  From a physical manipulation perspective, I'd be overwhelmed trying to remember to turn them on.  I'll remind the reader, I don't have a driver's license.  I've never had one.

But I'm absolutely certain that any assessment of my skills as a truck driver would prove that I'm responsible enough to be a stay-at-home writer.  Especially if the door were locked from the outside.

Super Smash Bros.

I scour the internet and youtube continuously for people who will impress me; and when I find such a person, I consume every single thing they've produced, whether or not I like the subject matter. Once I've identified a person as smart, I don't care what they talk about.  I know they're going to teach me something.

Recently, that person was Ian Danskin, or as he is known on twitter, Ian Goddamn Crosby Lexicon Barnfire Danskin, the creator behind Innuendo Studios.  Of things I have no interest in, Danskin's videos have covered the film The Handmaiden (NOT the Handmaid's Tale!), Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game the Walking Dead and, relevant to this post, Super Smash Bros.  Nevertheless, I have watched every video, and learned from every video, because if you're smart, I will let you talk about stuff I hate.  And I hate Smash Bros.  But that isn't important.

Watch this video. Yes, ALL of it.



I want to start with this quote, from 4:48 into the video:

"Chris DeLeon has a series of articles and a degra-talk about the idea that sports and board games have rules ~ but video games have laws.  That in soccer, you don't touch the ball with your hands because you've agreed not to, but in FIFA, you don't touch the ball with your hand because it's impossible."

Now, that is straight to the heart of it, and clearly Chris DeLeon has this wrapped. [side note: DeLeon previous residence was the Georgia Institute of Technology, the location of Ian Bogost, the brilliant fellow I consumed everything from last year; smart people talk to smart people]

But I want to add one more of my own:

RPGs have permits.  In role-playing, you don't touch the ball with your hands because the DM doesn't let you.

Think about that a moment.  Most people you will ever talk to will interpret that as, "It's the DM's world, and whatever the DM says, goes."  And if we, dear reader, think that's what I'm arguing, we're probably the sort that believes a judge in a court of law can do whatever the fuck they want.  Which is not true.  There is a great deal of nuance in what a DM permits.  If it is all arbitrary, because the DM thinks arbitrary is just fine, we're going to find ourselves playing a pretty shit game.

The attempt to argue that the DM should always say, "Yes," argues that the DM should be more permissive, more considerate of the player's position, more yielding to the player's expectations and innovation.  If the player tries something really interesting ~ regardless of its practicality or sensibility, which are subjugated to the god of fun ~ then the DM ought to say, yes ... just as a legal judge is bound by laws that restrict the decisions that a judge can make.

I can agree with that.  But the way it is proposed in practice is an exercise in flimflammery.  Take the case of Matt Colville that I discussed last December, that I will update to the Stavanger adventure I have been discussing lately.

When I say, I'm not running a railroad, a great many readers will jump to the same conclusion to which Colville leaps. They think I'm saying, you don't have to hunt the wolf.  You don't have to take the token from the shaman. You have a choice.  And because you have a choice, it isn't a railroad.

This perspective is a huge steaming pile of utter bullshit.  Because this is not how a world should operate AT ALL.  Not remotely.  Because the village of Stavanger ISN'T an adventure.  It's a village.

Yesterday I got a message from an old reader, Carl, that I haven't heard from for a while.  I thought he'd quit reading me.  Carl somehow got it into his head that the subway boardgame image in that post was what I was going for in the last post and NO!  No, no, no.  A thousand times no.

This is the head-in-the-sand insistence of those dumbfucks who run the WOTC, who think that players arriving at the village sets the adventure in motion and, lo and behold, they can choose what they want to do, inside that adventure.

Let me pull you back to the smash brothers video, at 5:55:

"The thing about systems is there's what the system was meant to do, and then there's what the system can't stop you from doing.  In Smash, an advanced technique like say, a shield drop, is put there by the designers ... but things like pivoting, wavedashing and D-sinking are not.  These things were not designed; they were discovered as accidents of the system.  And they often take phenomenal skill to execute reliably because it's something the game doesn't actively want you to do ... but they are just as integral to competitive play as the things designers put there on purpose."

The only reason your brain isn't shattered by that (and some, given just this much context, are right now reeling with the realization), is because it has never occurred to you, or to anyone, that this applies in exactly the same way to RPGs.

The designer creates the village of Stavanger, and the designer puts in the chief and the wolf and the shaman, but that's just the stuff that is going on in the village when the players happen to show up.  The players don't have to do it, right ... but in a legitimate RPG, where the DM plays the actual GAME, and not the piece of sucky crap the company wants us to play, the players are entitled to do what the fuck they're able to do, because the rules don't stop you from becoming someone with their own agenda in this mix.

Suppose I am running in your version of this Stavanger village, and you've created this nice pat adventure for me, and I ask you, "How is the leader of the Sand clan determined?"

And you as DM say, "Um, uh, it's hereditary."  To which I answer, "This is a goddamn primitive culture, one that doesn't even owe any allegiance to a king, because this is Norway in 892, and you're going to tell me that the clan is led by whomever is born to the job?  Bullshit.  I'm a member of the Sand Clan.  I have the same rights as any other person in the clan.  You tell me that Yelana is the clan mother.  Who is running these people?  I want to know my path to making myself the leader of my own clan."

And now, the DM's adventure has ceased to be what's happening here.  Because I'm in charge, NOT the DM ... just at the great players of Super Smash Bros. are the Five Gods, NOT the game designers.

This is what you, as DM, have got to get into your head.  YOU are not the player.  You are the designer.  And if the player wants to turn that design on its head, in a way you didn't think of, but kicking your pat adventure into the garbage can and starting one of their own, then buckle up, baby ... you're going for a goddamn ride.  Because now it is your job to design your game to LET the player challenge the leadership in the Sand Clan, in a way that preserves the game, and lets Pivoting happen, so the player can enjoy a little competitive play on a high level.

Don't tell me that your players don't know how, because no one knew how to wavedash or D-sink once upon a time ... but they learned, because no one could stop them.  And let's not forget the words, phenomenal skill.  Yeah, you're damned right, it wasn't easy.  But they still learned how to do it, didn't they?

But they haven't in role-playing, because DMs the world over and the fuck-fuddled company did. not. let. them.  Because RPGs think we're giving players a choice by letting them play Falcon, Sheik or Marth ... but Red Yoshi?  No.  No, we're not going to let anyone play Red Yoshi.

We've got to realize here ... Super Smash Bros., for all it's excitement, is an incredibly limited intellectual game, with an incredibly limited set of possibilities, compared to role-playing games.  The number of potential Red Yoshis in existence in a D&D game is literally infinite.

If you're a DM, used to playing the company way, that ought to scare the shit out of you.  And it ought to shame you.  It ought to stick in your craw as you realize, fuck, what have you been doing with your game?

I'll bet ... I'll just bet ... there are more than a few of you who will say in your heads, "Fuck you Alexis."  And quite a few who will try to argue, "But I like my game ..."

Uh huh.  Sure you do.

You're not even ready for Smash Bros. yet.

Don't Starve

Those who may have wondered what happened to my daughter, who took part in the podcast I did 18 months ago, may be interested to hear her play the game Don't Starve.  She recorded this last weekend and posted it Monday:



I've been using the game as a reference point lately to point out that realistic graphics are not that necessary for presentation.  However crude a rock may be drawn, we humans still immediately identify it as a rock.

Sometimes, a creator will get far too concerned with the quality of the art and lose touch with the agenda.  The rock can be aesthetic, but where it comes to game design, it is more important that the image conveys a message: i.e., that this is a rock.  More is not necessary.  So don't fight too hard to make things look sensation.  After, if you feel the need to upgrade the rock, you can.  But up front, the message is enough.

[note also that the girl's head is nowhere near believably sized]