I don't see how people can say that this blog is abusive. I simply make it clear what I like and what I don't like, then tailor the content on the blog towards that measure. If the neighbor's dog poops on may lawn, I don't let the shit lay untouched in the interest of free expression.
I've been very deliberate about that metaphor. The neighbour's dog is blameless. It doesn't know any better. The same can be said for many of the people who come and comment here. They believe they have something of merit to say. They say what they can the best way they know how. They are blameless when the content just doesn't make the cut.
Of course they are hurt. The neighbour's dog is hurt when I catch it in the hindquarters with a broom. So it goes. It is the only message the neighbour's dog understands.
Is it unfair. I suppose it must be. I am very unfair about considering myself to be the last and only arbiter of the content on this blog. Frankly, I delight in the unfairness the position offers. Having followed through upon the agreement between myself and blogger, I have been accorded the privilege of moderating comments, deleting things that I don't like and generally controlling the content on this blog.
However, recently I was told this policy has resulted in there being only sycophants that read or comment on this blog. The former I know to be not true. The stats plainly indicate that a fair number of people come here from sites that have universally condemned this site. As regards to the latter, the commenters . . . well, hello sycophants.
Apparently, you don't disagree with me enough to ease the consciences of those people who "don't" read this blog because of all the abuse. You are not taking me to task enough. Or rather, those of you out there who dare to take me to task are being brutally suppressed and thrown out with the trash. Therefore, to those of you who wisely lick my boots, good on you, glad to have you here . . . and watch your step.
This week we had a dialogue about 'role-play' vs. 'roll-play' - and I must admit to being quite bored of it. In fact, I find myself increasingly bored of the standard memes of role-play flame wars. None of these things really matters. The fellow on here yesterday defending the right to subvert the dice in order to promote role-play because it makes his game better completely missed the point, because he plays the same old game in the same old way, with the same old assumptions about what makes good game play: be interesting. He is convinced, just as so many are convinced, that because the name of the game is 'role-play,' the most interesting thing about RPGs is the common, ordinary, day-to-day discourse between the players and the guy on the street. As if the most interesting thing about your life is the chat you had today with the guy at the bus stop. Or the coffee bar. Or the five minute blather about nothing you shared with a co-worker. So interesting.
Is this all we have? Do our 'dreams' really come down to "I want to pretend to speak to a guy on the street and ask directions?" Is that as far as it goes? It sure sounds like that. It sounds as if the 'apex' of RPGs comes when the harbour master saunters over to ask us our business. Big whup. I'm sure excited now.
No, no, don't bother to agree. I already know you do. You all know your place.
I had this stupid idea when I began playing that fantasy had something to do with fulfilling ambitions, along with the will to acquire, and apply myself to those tasks. I had aspirations - and those weren't quite managed by bullshit dialogues that take twenty minutes of game time between me and the bartender, or me and the wench that brings the beer. Seriously. I've spent quite a lot of time playing this game, and I cannot imagine anything more boring than another twenty minute dialogue with another cardboard cut-out of a bartender's persona as invented by a guy who reads David Eddings. Shoot me in the head, okay? (I know you will, you sycophantic drones, you). When does it come about that another bartender convo has edged into the "holy crap not again" zone? Because as near as I can tell, with some of the folk here who unwisely disagree with me, it never does.
Really. I have four hours to run a game and I'm going to dedicate 12.5% of that time to another shit dialogue between the party and a bartender, a harbour master, a butcher, a baker or the chandler, er, candlestick maker? No thank you. You know how long these conversations should go on? Two sentences. You know how many dice I want to roll for that? None. Why? Because I don't freaking care what their answers are. I can't think of a single question that the party would ask one of these people that wouldn't simply be answered straight. I will roll dice when a player gets physical.
The reason for that is because I don't make a village the Land Of A Million Secrets. Villages are, you know, villages. People grow food. They slaughter cows. They don't have educations. If they do know a secret about the local lord that eats little children, the party is never going to know about it from them because they don't want to die. This isn't cheap television where everyone furtively pauses and hesitates and runs their words together and are plainly hiding something, so that it takes twenty freaking minutes to pull a plot point out of them.
Holy crap that is just bad play.
Even television manages these scenes in 90 seconds. And since the DM wants to tell the player the plot point, why don't we just say, "After a lot of argument, the butcher tells you." For the love of green apples in a girl's special cupboard, let's get the fuck on with the adventuring huh?
Oh, but 'role-playing' is the 'apex' of RPGs. Yeah. Right. I'm just going to move over here a moment and pound my head on this table. No reason. When you have a lot of sycophants that agree with you all the time, you'll understand.
Now, I think every player in every campaign already knows this. I think they know it because they sit, and wait, and wait, and sit, and listen to the one player that wants to talk to the butcher run through every . . . single . . . damn . . . facet of this conversation. I think they know how much they just wish that we would get the hell on with things, but they don't say so, because, well, because they have bought into the argument that this is the game, because they have been told this is the game and because it is the only style of play that they have ever seen. So it is a necessity. Got to have role-playing in a role-playing game. Can't have a game without role-playing. No sirree.
Except, you know, role-playing is rushing somewhere, and fleeing, and fighting the clock, and making a choice between dilemmas, and suffering great loss, and having everything suddenly go to shit, and having to figure out how you're still going to do the thing you were going to do before that guy died and left you holding the bag. Role-playing is a lot of gawddamn things, but most of all it is getting past all the dross and the boring and the let's-act-this-out-in-painful-detail . . . because hell, I only have four hours to let these guys find the guy that will tell them where the guy is, so they can ask the guy the one question they need to ask to get the answer that will get them past the door and face-to-face with the frightening dude who has his hand on the lever already that's going to guarantee that the thing is lost. I don't have time to saunter and rub my false mustache and dream up clever character traits that no one right now gives a shit about. All they care about is that damn lever and its position right now. Character? Character is found in whether or not the guy pulls or doesn't pull. That's all the party cares about.
The rest of it, the stuff I see when I watch other people play, the lacklustre dull dragging blandfest that's going on when I'm sitting next to a table that's supposed to be in combat but looks like six people waiting for a job interview, is just awful. That is what the people arguing the nonsensical particulars about role-play vs. dice-play just don't understand. They're not in the same ballgame. Hell, it ain't the same ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport.
The role-play they get themselves wet over don't mean shit.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
How to Learn How to Role-play
Well, I have a confession. My upcoming book, How to Run: an Advanced Guide on Managing Role-playing Games, does not contain a section on 'how to role-play.'
I considered this for a long time. I realize that there are DM's who don't know how to role-play, who find it daunting, who even feel silly while doing it. They would probably like some sort of guide that told them how to adopt voices or speak with conviction, or how to act out the part of a noblewoman as opposed to a char lady. No doubt, they must believe there is a 'trick' that can be taught.
The reality is that any advice that I could offer along these lines would be trite and unsatisfactory. Advice that I've seen in the past tried to point to examples or situations: if you were a dragon and you had lost everything to a party of adventures, how would you feel? Or the advice is very general and therefore meaningless: have attitude; make it interesting. And so on.
I saw little value in pursuing this course of instruction. The opportunity for people to initiate the learning process on how to role-play came when they were children, when any L-shaped object served as a gun, when a set of playground bars served as a spaceship or a castle, when an empty field covered in snow was a distant planet and so on. I can only express my sympathy for readers who wish to play D&D but did not invest this very important effort at an early time in your lives. It must suck for you.
I recommend having children. This is not something I'm likely to put into a 'how-to' book so I'll say it freely here. Make yourself tolerable enough that a member of the opposite sex is willing to - at the very least - fraternize and give you occasional access to the offspring. Obviously, you might want more than that, but occasional access will at least teach you how to look at the world as a mystical, marvellous place. That is, if you're able to communicate with children unlike a parent with his or her head up your ass. You may think that's obvious, but I remember being a child and a parent that could breathe air that was not coated in brown seemed like a very rare thing. So in following this advice, I suggest not getting 'stuffy' with your head. This will enable you to observe, and participate, with a human being that will be able to both teach you how to 'make believe' and tell you honestly when you're really shit at it.
I do not recommend attempting to make believe with someone else's children. Just don't go there.
Very well, you've received basic instruction on how to role-play. Here's what you're going to have to do next. Enjoy what you've learned. Recognize the 99% of those around you that are your own age have already decided this is either impossible or emotionally retarded. Try to view these people as your child instructor would - or as you would, if you were a child. Perspective is very important. Try to have some. Try to grasp that stringing a bunch of words together that are creative is 'childish' and that 'childish' is a wonderful thing. To be 'like a child' is to be inventive, suspicious, immersive and free from 'head-up-the-butt' syndrome. Children demand proof of friendship every day and will make instantaneous enemies of people who are selfish, miserable, abusive or otherwise impossible to get along with. Children like to learn. Embrace these things.
Step three. Rid yourself of everyone around you that cannot embrace these things. Just get rid of them. If they cannot accept your being a free spirit an hour or two a day - if they don't know the meaning of the words 'free spirit' - then show them the door. These people have already adopted death of mind as a preferential condition to life. Cut them out of your life. Their influence on your thoughts will only go to bad places.
Very well. Your players should only consist now of people who can embrace role-playing. You should be able to participate in role-playing games knowing you are surrounded by other people who embrace them. Enjoy.
I considered this for a long time. I realize that there are DM's who don't know how to role-play, who find it daunting, who even feel silly while doing it. They would probably like some sort of guide that told them how to adopt voices or speak with conviction, or how to act out the part of a noblewoman as opposed to a char lady. No doubt, they must believe there is a 'trick' that can be taught.
The reality is that any advice that I could offer along these lines would be trite and unsatisfactory. Advice that I've seen in the past tried to point to examples or situations: if you were a dragon and you had lost everything to a party of adventures, how would you feel? Or the advice is very general and therefore meaningless: have attitude; make it interesting. And so on.
I saw little value in pursuing this course of instruction. The opportunity for people to initiate the learning process on how to role-play came when they were children, when any L-shaped object served as a gun, when a set of playground bars served as a spaceship or a castle, when an empty field covered in snow was a distant planet and so on. I can only express my sympathy for readers who wish to play D&D but did not invest this very important effort at an early time in your lives. It must suck for you.
I recommend having children. This is not something I'm likely to put into a 'how-to' book so I'll say it freely here. Make yourself tolerable enough that a member of the opposite sex is willing to - at the very least - fraternize and give you occasional access to the offspring. Obviously, you might want more than that, but occasional access will at least teach you how to look at the world as a mystical, marvellous place. That is, if you're able to communicate with children unlike a parent with his or her head up your ass. You may think that's obvious, but I remember being a child and a parent that could breathe air that was not coated in brown seemed like a very rare thing. So in following this advice, I suggest not getting 'stuffy' with your head. This will enable you to observe, and participate, with a human being that will be able to both teach you how to 'make believe' and tell you honestly when you're really shit at it.
I do not recommend attempting to make believe with someone else's children. Just don't go there.
Very well, you've received basic instruction on how to role-play. Here's what you're going to have to do next. Enjoy what you've learned. Recognize the 99% of those around you that are your own age have already decided this is either impossible or emotionally retarded. Try to view these people as your child instructor would - or as you would, if you were a child. Perspective is very important. Try to have some. Try to grasp that stringing a bunch of words together that are creative is 'childish' and that 'childish' is a wonderful thing. To be 'like a child' is to be inventive, suspicious, immersive and free from 'head-up-the-butt' syndrome. Children demand proof of friendship every day and will make instantaneous enemies of people who are selfish, miserable, abusive or otherwise impossible to get along with. Children like to learn. Embrace these things.
Step three. Rid yourself of everyone around you that cannot embrace these things. Just get rid of them. If they cannot accept your being a free spirit an hour or two a day - if they don't know the meaning of the words 'free spirit' - then show them the door. These people have already adopted death of mind as a preferential condition to life. Cut them out of your life. Their influence on your thoughts will only go to bad places.
Very well. Your players should only consist now of people who can embrace role-playing. You should be able to participate in role-playing games knowing you are surrounded by other people who embrace them. Enjoy.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Acting
Among other things, I'm working on a banner for the exhibition table - and for that I have this rather marvellous picture, which has been granted to me.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to employ it. I've tried overlaying text and I've tried black space at the left and right of the image, and for the moment I'm baffled. This is certainly a compelling pic; and having seen the dearth of such pics at the event here in Calgary some weeks ago, I feel confident that this will drag people towards the table. The layout is stumping me, however. There's something I'm not seeing.
I want to give a shout out to those who have already purchased the short book, How to Play a Character & Other Essays. It certainly helps. I've made one deal with a vendor in Tacoma, Tacoma Games, and I have an associate pursuing a deal for me with a vendor here in Calgary. If anyone out there is friendly with or knows an open-minded games dealer, who would be willing to make a non-consignment deal with me, I would like to hear from you.
I don't want this post to just be about sales, however. The gentle reader can probably understand that such things are weighing heavily on my mind, along with the content I'm working on that I can't talk about because hey, I'm writing it in the bigger book. That binds my hands somewhat . . . but perhaps I can think of something substantial to talk about.
About three weeks ago I came across this video, which I'm not going to embed. I was looking for content on drama and immersion, and somehow this guy's effort came up.
His point is a common one: that dice 'spoils' role-play. In Joker's words, ". . . that's when RPG's really hit their apex. When role-play is so deep and immersive that the mechanics don't moderate anything, they're not the medium, they just get the hell out of the way." His example is right up front - it sucks pretending to be an NPC when you have to stop and make diplomacy rolls.
I have a few points, which I'll make without beating the guy up.
Up front in the video, he presents himself at the 'harbor master,' changing his facial expression to 'role-play' the part. Having established the character, then, he drops the presentation completely in order to roll diplomacy. Wow. That die sure ruined the moment, didn't it?
Um, why does he drop his presentation to roll the dice? Had it occurred to him that he could have rolled the diplomacy die before beginning his presentation? Or that he could have rolled the die without jumping in his chair and making a big deal of it?
Look. You're a harbour master. You're approaching a party. I have no idea what you're even rolling diplomacy for . . . you spend all day, every day walking down to ships, looking them over, recognizing what sort of people are running the ship, how competent they are, where the ship has come from, what the state of the maintenance is and so on. You've been around ships all your life, literally, probably from before your memories begin. You probably shipped out on your first vessel at the age of 7. You know ships, you know sailors, you know everything there is to know about the sort of people who land at quays. What the hell do you need a diplomacy roll for? You know exactly how to talk to this party.
But let's say you have to make a roll. Can you not make the roll the same way you might pat your belt to find your tobacco? Can you not glance down at the roll the way you would at a crate on the dock? Can you not think of another, more 'in character' manner of rolling that die and seeing the result without changing your facial expression, your tone or the rhythm of your speech?
The thinking here is that somehow a 'game movement' can't be incorporated right into role-play. That's just . . . wrong headed. Performance makes use of every kind of prop imaginable . . . and if you think that you have to break character just because you have to use a game prop, then you're really off the mark about what it means to retain character.
There is an old, vicious practical joke in the theatre that I'm sorry to say I never got to try. The trick goes like this.
At some point in the play, one of the actors picks up a phone and talks into it. This takes some mastery. In rehearsal, the actor trains themselves to pause for exact periods to convey the imaginary person at the other end of the phone, to make them real, and after doing this over and over, sometimes hundreds of times, the pacing of the 'phone conversation' becomes exact: "Hello, yes, this is Jim." (pause) "No, I wanted to -" (pause) "I wanted to just let you know that I'm . . . I'm not coming down this weekend." (pause) "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry too." (pause) "Don't." (pause) "Don't be like that. I love you." (pause) "Yes. Okay. I promise. But I've got to go now." (pause) "I said I promise. Yes. Okay, good-bye." Hangs up.
Now, the actor is very used to there being no sound on the phone . . . so on Opening Night, you have a technician hook the phone up to a live line. Then, while the actor is on stage, in front of the audience, and dials the phone, it actually connects: and the actor hears a gruff man's voice at the other end say, "Hello?"
That is the sort of thing that really shatters an actor's demeanor. The phone conversation is important to the play. The actor must follow through on the conversation. "Hello, yes, this is Jim."
"Jim? I don't know anyone named Jim."
The actor swallows, understands that he's a victim of a practical joke, but there's nothing he can do about it. Fighting now to keep his face straight and his voice level, he plunges forward. "No, I wanted to -"
"Wanted to what? Just who in the fuck is this?" The prankster has been practicing his lines, too, knowing just how much time he has to get each of his in.
"I wanted to just let you know that I'm . . . I'm not coming down this weekend."
"Well, I'll be really disappointed. Hey, you're not that loser my sister's dating, are you?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry too."
"You ought to be sorry. She says you're the worst lover she ever had."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Don't make up my mind until I've had you too?"
"Don't be like that. I love you."
The prankster's voice deepens. "I hadn't realized." He lets out a sob. "Do you really love me?"
The actor on stage is pouring sweat at this point. He can feel the conversation pulling to a close. "Yes. Okay. I promise. But I've got to go now." At this point, the actor may even be realizing his giving a better performance, because now he really does want to get the hell off the phone.
"You'll call again, won't you?"
"Yes."
"And you'll let me put my cock in your mouth?"
"I said I promise. Yes. Okay, good-bye." The actor hangs up. And breathes a sigh of relief.
This is the sort of joke reserved for leading actors who get really tight-assed about their importance. There are a number of these sorts of things in the theatre. They are intentionally quite cruel. If you're a very good actor, however, you hold your shit together and retain your character.
If rolling a die is all that it takes to put you off, then you have a lot to learn. Don't get upset. Use that die. Make it feel like its part of the character.
Believe me, that is a much better solution, retaining both the qualities of the game AND the qualities of role-playing, then insisting somehow that not rolling dice is somehow the 'apex' of a die-driven game. Joker's opinion, while a common one, is really in the box thinking. Got to get the hell out of that box and realize that performing is a damn sight more adaptable than changing your facial expression.
And no, none of this was going to be included in the book.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to employ it. I've tried overlaying text and I've tried black space at the left and right of the image, and for the moment I'm baffled. This is certainly a compelling pic; and having seen the dearth of such pics at the event here in Calgary some weeks ago, I feel confident that this will drag people towards the table. The layout is stumping me, however. There's something I'm not seeing.
I want to give a shout out to those who have already purchased the short book, How to Play a Character & Other Essays. It certainly helps. I've made one deal with a vendor in Tacoma, Tacoma Games, and I have an associate pursuing a deal for me with a vendor here in Calgary. If anyone out there is friendly with or knows an open-minded games dealer, who would be willing to make a non-consignment deal with me, I would like to hear from you.
I don't want this post to just be about sales, however. The gentle reader can probably understand that such things are weighing heavily on my mind, along with the content I'm working on that I can't talk about because hey, I'm writing it in the bigger book. That binds my hands somewhat . . . but perhaps I can think of something substantial to talk about.
About three weeks ago I came across this video, which I'm not going to embed. I was looking for content on drama and immersion, and somehow this guy's effort came up.
His point is a common one: that dice 'spoils' role-play. In Joker's words, ". . . that's when RPG's really hit their apex. When role-play is so deep and immersive that the mechanics don't moderate anything, they're not the medium, they just get the hell out of the way." His example is right up front - it sucks pretending to be an NPC when you have to stop and make diplomacy rolls.
I have a few points, which I'll make without beating the guy up.
Up front in the video, he presents himself at the 'harbor master,' changing his facial expression to 'role-play' the part. Having established the character, then, he drops the presentation completely in order to roll diplomacy. Wow. That die sure ruined the moment, didn't it?
Um, why does he drop his presentation to roll the dice? Had it occurred to him that he could have rolled the diplomacy die before beginning his presentation? Or that he could have rolled the die without jumping in his chair and making a big deal of it?
Look. You're a harbour master. You're approaching a party. I have no idea what you're even rolling diplomacy for . . . you spend all day, every day walking down to ships, looking them over, recognizing what sort of people are running the ship, how competent they are, where the ship has come from, what the state of the maintenance is and so on. You've been around ships all your life, literally, probably from before your memories begin. You probably shipped out on your first vessel at the age of 7. You know ships, you know sailors, you know everything there is to know about the sort of people who land at quays. What the hell do you need a diplomacy roll for? You know exactly how to talk to this party.
But let's say you have to make a roll. Can you not make the roll the same way you might pat your belt to find your tobacco? Can you not glance down at the roll the way you would at a crate on the dock? Can you not think of another, more 'in character' manner of rolling that die and seeing the result without changing your facial expression, your tone or the rhythm of your speech?
The thinking here is that somehow a 'game movement' can't be incorporated right into role-play. That's just . . . wrong headed. Performance makes use of every kind of prop imaginable . . . and if you think that you have to break character just because you have to use a game prop, then you're really off the mark about what it means to retain character.
There is an old, vicious practical joke in the theatre that I'm sorry to say I never got to try. The trick goes like this.
At some point in the play, one of the actors picks up a phone and talks into it. This takes some mastery. In rehearsal, the actor trains themselves to pause for exact periods to convey the imaginary person at the other end of the phone, to make them real, and after doing this over and over, sometimes hundreds of times, the pacing of the 'phone conversation' becomes exact: "Hello, yes, this is Jim." (pause) "No, I wanted to -" (pause) "I wanted to just let you know that I'm . . . I'm not coming down this weekend." (pause) "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry too." (pause) "Don't." (pause) "Don't be like that. I love you." (pause) "Yes. Okay. I promise. But I've got to go now." (pause) "I said I promise. Yes. Okay, good-bye." Hangs up.
Now, the actor is very used to there being no sound on the phone . . . so on Opening Night, you have a technician hook the phone up to a live line. Then, while the actor is on stage, in front of the audience, and dials the phone, it actually connects: and the actor hears a gruff man's voice at the other end say, "Hello?"
That is the sort of thing that really shatters an actor's demeanor. The phone conversation is important to the play. The actor must follow through on the conversation. "Hello, yes, this is Jim."
"Jim? I don't know anyone named Jim."
The actor swallows, understands that he's a victim of a practical joke, but there's nothing he can do about it. Fighting now to keep his face straight and his voice level, he plunges forward. "No, I wanted to -"
"Wanted to what? Just who in the fuck is this?" The prankster has been practicing his lines, too, knowing just how much time he has to get each of his in.
"I wanted to just let you know that I'm . . . I'm not coming down this weekend."
"Well, I'll be really disappointed. Hey, you're not that loser my sister's dating, are you?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry too."
"You ought to be sorry. She says you're the worst lover she ever had."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Don't make up my mind until I've had you too?"
"Don't be like that. I love you."
The prankster's voice deepens. "I hadn't realized." He lets out a sob. "Do you really love me?"
The actor on stage is pouring sweat at this point. He can feel the conversation pulling to a close. "Yes. Okay. I promise. But I've got to go now." At this point, the actor may even be realizing his giving a better performance, because now he really does want to get the hell off the phone.
"You'll call again, won't you?"
"Yes."
"And you'll let me put my cock in your mouth?"
"I said I promise. Yes. Okay, good-bye." The actor hangs up. And breathes a sigh of relief.
This is the sort of joke reserved for leading actors who get really tight-assed about their importance. There are a number of these sorts of things in the theatre. They are intentionally quite cruel. If you're a very good actor, however, you hold your shit together and retain your character.
If rolling a die is all that it takes to put you off, then you have a lot to learn. Don't get upset. Use that die. Make it feel like its part of the character.
Believe me, that is a much better solution, retaining both the qualities of the game AND the qualities of role-playing, then insisting somehow that not rolling dice is somehow the 'apex' of a die-driven game. Joker's opinion, while a common one, is really in the box thinking. Got to get the hell out of that box and realize that performing is a damn sight more adaptable than changing your facial expression.
And no, none of this was going to be included in the book.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Boy for Sale
My daughter and her common law husband took possession of their condo on Saturday. They had taken a year to wait for escrow to clear, for the home inspection to happen and then be addressed, and finally for all the little bits of nonsense to be sorted. People talk about their child's first words, or the first time they walked, or their first day of school. It's odd, because these are all events that are not optional. My child's first mortgage, on the other hand . . . that's an accomplishment.
On Saturday, I did what parents do, I helped my daughter move. And in the process, met my daughter's large, male friends, some of whom I've met - when they were just boys. They're still boys, but now they have careers and debt. They're in their mid-twenties now and in the process of understanding themselves.
Several of them had read my book, Pete's Garage, because my daughter had pushed it into their hands. They liked the book, and told me about how they liked the book. They had me sign copies. And then I spoke for awhile to my daughter's in-laws, the other parents who were there to help their son move into his first condo, and they had read the book too. Then my daughter's mother-in-law (common law, but hey, what can I call her if I don't use her name?) told me that Pete's Garage had made her cry. In a good way.
Whereupon I did a very strange thing. I didn't ask what part of the book made her cry.
Writing a book is an adventure into inadequacy. In effect, you keep your inadequacy stick in the closet, and when you think you're going to write a book, you get that stick out and start hitting yourself. When that stops hurting, you go buy a bigger stick. When you get used to that, you call friends over, give them the stick and tell them to hit you with it, hard. Only they don't, so you yell at them, "Harder, Harder!" until they get the idea and really lay into you.
After awhile, you realize they really can't hit you hard enough to make it help, so you write "Inadequacy" on a big brick wall, and then you hurl yourself at the wall as hard as you can, for as long as you can. And if you can keep working long enough on your book through this sort of abuse, you'll get the thing finished.
Worse, you'll get to like this sort of thing.
Part of the process is that you will pathetically want to know everything about what other people think about your book, or what parts they liked, and why they liked them. You won't be able to help yourself. It is part of the process. Remember, what you feel is inadequacy. You're looking for a balm that will cure that . . . but unfortunately, no such balm exists. You just have to accept that you're not good enough to write the book you really want to write. You're only good enough to write the book you're able to write, and no better. That is why books are never finished, they are abandoned. You abandon your book when you realize the son-of-a-bitch is trying to kill you:
The relevant passage comes at 7:20.
On Saturday, I did what parents do, I helped my daughter move. And in the process, met my daughter's large, male friends, some of whom I've met - when they were just boys. They're still boys, but now they have careers and debt. They're in their mid-twenties now and in the process of understanding themselves.
Several of them had read my book, Pete's Garage, because my daughter had pushed it into their hands. They liked the book, and told me about how they liked the book. They had me sign copies. And then I spoke for awhile to my daughter's in-laws, the other parents who were there to help their son move into his first condo, and they had read the book too. Then my daughter's mother-in-law (common law, but hey, what can I call her if I don't use her name?) told me that Pete's Garage had made her cry. In a good way.
Whereupon I did a very strange thing. I didn't ask what part of the book made her cry.
Writing a book is an adventure into inadequacy. In effect, you keep your inadequacy stick in the closet, and when you think you're going to write a book, you get that stick out and start hitting yourself. When that stops hurting, you go buy a bigger stick. When you get used to that, you call friends over, give them the stick and tell them to hit you with it, hard. Only they don't, so you yell at them, "Harder, Harder!" until they get the idea and really lay into you.
After awhile, you realize they really can't hit you hard enough to make it help, so you write "Inadequacy" on a big brick wall, and then you hurl yourself at the wall as hard as you can, for as long as you can. And if you can keep working long enough on your book through this sort of abuse, you'll get the thing finished.
Worse, you'll get to like this sort of thing.
Part of the process is that you will pathetically want to know everything about what other people think about your book, or what parts they liked, and why they liked them. You won't be able to help yourself. It is part of the process. Remember, what you feel is inadequacy. You're looking for a balm that will cure that . . . but unfortunately, no such balm exists. You just have to accept that you're not good enough to write the book you really want to write. You're only good enough to write the book you're able to write, and no better. That is why books are never finished, they are abandoned. You abandon your book when you realize the son-of-a-bitch is trying to kill you:
I first saw the Owl and the Pussycat when I was 17. I was just old enough to have pretensions about being a writer, and just old enough to understand the fraud, fakery and pomposity that goes along with telling people that you write, that you are a 'writer' or an 'author,' that you have a book and so on. I wanted that very badly as a kid. And then I saw this film. Later, I saw it again and again. And when I finish this post, I'm going to watch it.
Because it was written by a writer who understood about truth. Who understood that writing is a dirty, miserable, self-abusive occupation. The moment when you need support, when you're writing the loathesome, squalling, fetid little monster, you can't get it. You can only get support after the monster is birthed and crawling about the world, making people like it. Only then, you don't care. You're numb. You just hate the fucking thing.
Good thing children aren't like that, eh? That's because children aren't monsters, they're marvellous engineers of their own destinies. Writers who say they love their books "like their children" are slave-traders looking to sell their 'children' on the open market cheap. "Yeah, I love this yowling little brat. You can have it for nine dollars."
I am at that point with How to Run where the painted wall is the only critic that matters. I can feel the end drawing near. In the meantime, I am selling the monster's little brother, How to Play et al. The caterwauling imp is available for nine dollars. I'd like to get rid of it as much as I can.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Buy My Book
I got out of bed this morning. I don't have to ask if anyone cares, because I know they do. Not just my family and friends, who knows me, has shared a common history with me and would be seriously affected were I not to have risen. Not just those with whom I've made a bond with here online. I mean everyone, including those who don't know me, who are in fact strangers, who may never have left a comment or even 'liked' anything I've written. They care. It matters to them.
Why? Because three or four times a week, when they're bored, and they have time, they know they can come to this blog and open it, and see an opinion here that isn't like the opinions they read elsewhere. Because I choose to have an opinion, and because I have an ability to express. Because I'm not afraid to express it. Because I don't care if people like my opinion.
However, people like that I have opinions. That is why they come here.
It isn't enough to have an opinion. Opinions have no value. This is something that all those who write 'IMHO' cannot understand. An opinion is only a string of words thrown together is forms ranging from comprehensible to not, from interesting to not, from funny to not and so on. Whatever the form, an opinion is air. It is junk. It is the pebble in the listener's shoes.
The only thing that makes an opinion meaningful is the willingness with which people defend it. The opinions that have the most meaning are those for which people are prepared to fight for, kill for or die for. Because we are humans, we understand that the more people fight for it, the more people kill for it and the more people that die for it, the more important that opinion is. Nothing in the world ever changes until someone takes up arms to make the change happen, and people don't believe in the opinion that it has to change until you, or I, or anyone here listening, is ready to fight long and hard and loud and stubbornly for it, until they give the last full measure of their devotion. Remember that the soldiers of Gettysburg did not only die for the union. They were ready to kill for it, too.
If you are not prepared to fight for your opinion, then shut the fuck up. You're only breathing air. Do it silently. With the opinion, you're just an annoyance.
I am extraordinarily conscious that people read this blog, and that they support me. I am never without that knowledge at the fore of my consciousness. These people support me because I have fought for the things I believe, even if I have not always been polite or considerate or reasonable. Many of the readers here have slowly come around to thinking about what I've said because they do not believe that anyone could stage a fight this long and this hard without feeling passionate enough about it to know they're right. They are coming around to believing that they may not be as right as they thought, because they know they wouldn't fight as hard for what they believe as I have been fighting for what I believe. This is how the world turns. This is how people are made to change their minds. We work at them like water and wind and ice on stone. Slowly, steadily, patiently, until they cracks in their resolve open and with that, their minds.
Here is an opinion that I am willing to fight for. Role-playing is not about 'fun.' Fun happens while we role-play. That is a good thing. We want to have fun. But if you approach role-play with the thought in your head that you're going to create fun because that's what you want, what you will create is a whole lot of nothing. 'Fun' isn't a component. It has no mass, no dimension, no orientation, no cause-and-effect mechanism, no structure, no defineable measure and no meaningful predictive format. It can't be made, built, designed, installed, linked or downloaded. It is a chemical reaction to an environment that is not, itself, 'fun.' Until the average DM gets it into their head that the setting or constructed frame in which fun happens cannot be built to specifications that include 'fun' written anywhere on the plans, then the games that DMs run will be shit juxtaposed by shit with shit stuffed in shit built on a platform of shit.
And here's something that you've got to understand when I say that. I am ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone, point for point, as long as I have to, to make you, the reader who can't get that truth into your narrow, stone-shaped cranium, get it. Because you have to get it. You have to change how you're doing things. Because they way you're doing things now sucks. And the fact that you don't think they do only shows how much shit your players are prepared to shovel on top of your ego in order to have someone, even someone that's shit at it, run their game so that for five minutes they can feel like they're playing a character.
They could be playing that character all session, every session, but they haven't got the nerve to risk losing your weak ass, full-of-shit DMing style, because they haven't anyone with which to replace you. So you're making it, right now, on being a really lousy version of the product in a scarcity-based economy.
You better hope my book about How to Run Role-playing games is lousy. Because someone you run is going to read it and understand why they don't need you.
Only, I think you know it's not going to be lousy. I think you know that. And that really sucks for you, doesn't it?
The rest of these people here, however, are smiling right now. Because they're looking forward to it. They have faith in me, but only for one reason. Because I'm not nice. I'm a fighter. I'm a believer.
They like that. And they like that I got out of bed this morning.
Why? Because three or four times a week, when they're bored, and they have time, they know they can come to this blog and open it, and see an opinion here that isn't like the opinions they read elsewhere. Because I choose to have an opinion, and because I have an ability to express. Because I'm not afraid to express it. Because I don't care if people like my opinion.
However, people like that I have opinions. That is why they come here.
It isn't enough to have an opinion. Opinions have no value. This is something that all those who write 'IMHO' cannot understand. An opinion is only a string of words thrown together is forms ranging from comprehensible to not, from interesting to not, from funny to not and so on. Whatever the form, an opinion is air. It is junk. It is the pebble in the listener's shoes.
The only thing that makes an opinion meaningful is the willingness with which people defend it. The opinions that have the most meaning are those for which people are prepared to fight for, kill for or die for. Because we are humans, we understand that the more people fight for it, the more people kill for it and the more people that die for it, the more important that opinion is. Nothing in the world ever changes until someone takes up arms to make the change happen, and people don't believe in the opinion that it has to change until you, or I, or anyone here listening, is ready to fight long and hard and loud and stubbornly for it, until they give the last full measure of their devotion. Remember that the soldiers of Gettysburg did not only die for the union. They were ready to kill for it, too.
If you are not prepared to fight for your opinion, then shut the fuck up. You're only breathing air. Do it silently. With the opinion, you're just an annoyance.
I am extraordinarily conscious that people read this blog, and that they support me. I am never without that knowledge at the fore of my consciousness. These people support me because I have fought for the things I believe, even if I have not always been polite or considerate or reasonable. Many of the readers here have slowly come around to thinking about what I've said because they do not believe that anyone could stage a fight this long and this hard without feeling passionate enough about it to know they're right. They are coming around to believing that they may not be as right as they thought, because they know they wouldn't fight as hard for what they believe as I have been fighting for what I believe. This is how the world turns. This is how people are made to change their minds. We work at them like water and wind and ice on stone. Slowly, steadily, patiently, until they cracks in their resolve open and with that, their minds.
Here is an opinion that I am willing to fight for. Role-playing is not about 'fun.' Fun happens while we role-play. That is a good thing. We want to have fun. But if you approach role-play with the thought in your head that you're going to create fun because that's what you want, what you will create is a whole lot of nothing. 'Fun' isn't a component. It has no mass, no dimension, no orientation, no cause-and-effect mechanism, no structure, no defineable measure and no meaningful predictive format. It can't be made, built, designed, installed, linked or downloaded. It is a chemical reaction to an environment that is not, itself, 'fun.' Until the average DM gets it into their head that the setting or constructed frame in which fun happens cannot be built to specifications that include 'fun' written anywhere on the plans, then the games that DMs run will be shit juxtaposed by shit with shit stuffed in shit built on a platform of shit.
And here's something that you've got to understand when I say that. I am ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone, point for point, as long as I have to, to make you, the reader who can't get that truth into your narrow, stone-shaped cranium, get it. Because you have to get it. You have to change how you're doing things. Because they way you're doing things now sucks. And the fact that you don't think they do only shows how much shit your players are prepared to shovel on top of your ego in order to have someone, even someone that's shit at it, run their game so that for five minutes they can feel like they're playing a character.
They could be playing that character all session, every session, but they haven't got the nerve to risk losing your weak ass, full-of-shit DMing style, because they haven't anyone with which to replace you. So you're making it, right now, on being a really lousy version of the product in a scarcity-based economy.
You better hope my book about How to Run Role-playing games is lousy. Because someone you run is going to read it and understand why they don't need you.
Only, I think you know it's not going to be lousy. I think you know that. And that really sucks for you, doesn't it?
The rest of these people here, however, are smiling right now. Because they're looking forward to it. They have faith in me, but only for one reason. Because I'm not nice. I'm a fighter. I'm a believer.
They like that. And they like that I got out of bed this morning.
e-Book Nonsense
Yesterday, I said that I would have an e-book version of How to Play a Character & Other Essays up by Friday, and I have had a few people express their wish for this.
Let it be known, however, that the self-publishing industry for e-books is a Kindle, Amazon & Apple scam. We are still in the Betamax era for e-books, and e-book readers are still a proprietary format hell where it comes to simply transferring the same electronic content that works on every other format system in existence.
This is because the priests want their pound of flesh before anyone can put up content on their special snowflake distribution technology.
As such, I am finding that the format system has changed, and that what Lulu wants me to do now is to have Lulu put my work in e-book format for me. This will cost me hundres of dollars, because it is a scam. It obviously does not cost hundreds of dollars to change the format of a file. Everyone on the planet knows this. But it is proprietary technology, and the priests see me coming.
So. Be it know. I may NOT put this book in e-book format. I am working to see if I can find a workaround. I'll let it be known by Friday if I can or can't. For the record, however, I don't care if this book is an e-book. It exists to help me raise money. I'm not dropping bullshit money on a bullshit proprietary priesthood.
Sorry.
Let it be known, however, that the self-publishing industry for e-books is a Kindle, Amazon & Apple scam. We are still in the Betamax era for e-books, and e-book readers are still a proprietary format hell where it comes to simply transferring the same electronic content that works on every other format system in existence.
This is because the priests want their pound of flesh before anyone can put up content on their special snowflake distribution technology.
As such, I am finding that the format system has changed, and that what Lulu wants me to do now is to have Lulu put my work in e-book format for me. This will cost me hundres of dollars, because it is a scam. It obviously does not cost hundreds of dollars to change the format of a file. Everyone on the planet knows this. But it is proprietary technology, and the priests see me coming.
So. Be it know. I may NOT put this book in e-book format. I am working to see if I can find a workaround. I'll let it be known by Friday if I can or can't. For the record, however, I don't care if this book is an e-book. It exists to help me raise money. I'm not dropping bullshit money on a bullshit proprietary priesthood.
Sorry.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
How to Play a Character & Other Essays
My first pocket book of the summer is available:
To remind the gentle reader, I've put this out in order to help raise capital for my upcoming venture to be released this July, How to Run: an Advanced Guide to Managing Role-playing Games.
The small book above is 114 pages and will cost only $9. It contains cleaned up content from this blog, along with a new essay about the State of D&D (which is different from the similarly titled post on the blog).
I'm sorry there's no preview yet. I'll work on it later today. And I'll try to set up an e-book before Friday comes around.
Give me a hand, kick in to help me raise money and get a fine book in the process.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
People Wanted
My good friend Carl yesterday made a marvellous observation about badly behaving players in role-playing games. Find the whole comment here. I'll reproduce one paragraph of it:
This morning I had found myself thinking how much this sounds like this ongoing debate of the last ten years, the 'internet generation': The Entitlement Creed. (Warning: it is a fairly condescending vid, but it speaks to the exhaustion of management).
Because really, the people Carl describes and the people these employers are tired of dealing with are the same people.
So with that in mind, if you are over 25, here are some things you should be looking for if you want players in your world that won't act like a bunch of dweeby self-interest gits. I have to make it clear that I'm speaking mostly to people who should be well past the difficulties that arise with youth. People don't always come from good circumstances, and it can take a while to overcome both a financial hole AND a disastrous emotional upbringing. I don't want to be seen as being unreasonable . . . so the first twenty five years are free.
However, after that, players without the following should be treated suspiciously.
Employment. I know that an unemployed player sounds like a real dream, in that they always have enough time to show up for your games, but there's a dark side. The unemployed player is also likely to be sponging off you and your other players for silly things like food, rent money, a couch to surf on and self-esteem. These are going to be people who haven't yet figured out how to get a job, keep a job, or encourage anyone else to believe they're reliable, except the friends they've chosen to role-play with. The same friends who have already lent this player upwards of $1,000 altogether, and who are now having to deal with this same player's barbarian fighter demanding the massive diamond gem because of all the work they've done for the party.
Confession: I spent a lot of time unemployed between the ages of 20 and 40. During that time I worked something like 40 jobs, between writing gigs and performance gigs in the theatre. I did surf a few couches. Somehow, I always managed to get a new job within a week or two, when I wanted one, and I preferred to borrow money from my parents. Since most of that time was spent running the game, and not as a player, I still managed to run sessions on my own table and in my own kitchen/living room. So there are exceptions to the employment rule. So take it with a grain of salt.
Education. It isn't so much that I would expect a player to have a professional degree. Thinking about it, and remembering my own experiences in university, I knew a few 'professionals' who managed to squeak by in their classes, who didn't get work in their fields after university and who never respected their education in the least degree. What you really need to look for are people who don't equate education to 'job,' but who actually respect 'book-larnin' as an activity that bears merit. Your better players will read books. Actual books, where the words differ from page to page, as opposed to trash, and which might impress upon the reader some kind of knowledge. If your player disdains reading, or books, then you are dealing with someone who thinks they already know all they need to know. That is going to be a problem for your world.
Confession: I didn't start university until I was 21. I spent three years working in various statistical clerk jobs that I got because those were the days when you could take a test to see if you had enough education to start. I spent seven years at university, on a student loan, on the understanding that I wouldn't have to pay it back so long as I kept going to school. So the late 80s and early 90s were spent as a professional student, with time to do theatre gigs and a lot of writing for the university paper. Ah, those were the days. I spent a hell of a lot of time in the university library, though, during my off hours, because I was building a D&D world. So I admit. I'm an educated snob.
Family. Now, like I said, not everyone starts with the best family. I went to junior high school with a girl who worked the hooker stroll downtown because her family needed the money, and my daughter knew a girl who was not allowed into any part of her parent's house but the basement because her parents were running a drug cartel out of the upstairs. Family can really suck. Moreover, I haven't noted that ancestors have much to do with a role-player's cred, so just throw the progenitors out of the picture, huh? What I'm talking about is their perspective on every having a family. Do they know children exist? Do they think well of them? Because if you have a player in your world who despises the very idea that there are children, or the idea of having them, then you are dealing with someone who is still an infant. Take my word on that.
Confession: Hm. I gained my daughter at 24. I had always wanted children. My first wife, my daughter's mother, passed away now, had multiple sclerosis, so I felt it was really up to her if she wanted children, but it worked out and we had one. I don't find merit in the statement, "she is the most important thing in the world to me," because my present wife is also important, my writing is important, world peace is important, the improvement of role-playing is important and so on. I don't like to rank things. I just work hard to keep everyone happy as best I can.
I really haven't got a fourth one. Believe me, if you can manage ALL of the first three with your players, you're going to have a solid group of reliable, smart players. Even if they haven't got the job they want, even if they haven't finished their education, of if they haven't any children, they have aspirations. They understand sacrifice and reward. They perceive the world does not revolve around them. They grasp that if things are going to get better, they are going to have to work at it.
They will bring that exact same quality to your world. So look for those people.
"The pure, unfiltered escapism offered by role-playing games is like booze to a drunkard. Anti-socials are addicts of a kind. Addicted to getting their own way on everything. Addicted to breaking off sociality at a whim with little-to-no consequence. Addicted to being the star of their own play."
This morning I had found myself thinking how much this sounds like this ongoing debate of the last ten years, the 'internet generation': The Entitlement Creed. (Warning: it is a fairly condescending vid, but it speaks to the exhaustion of management).
Because really, the people Carl describes and the people these employers are tired of dealing with are the same people.
So with that in mind, if you are over 25, here are some things you should be looking for if you want players in your world that won't act like a bunch of dweeby self-interest gits. I have to make it clear that I'm speaking mostly to people who should be well past the difficulties that arise with youth. People don't always come from good circumstances, and it can take a while to overcome both a financial hole AND a disastrous emotional upbringing. I don't want to be seen as being unreasonable . . . so the first twenty five years are free.
However, after that, players without the following should be treated suspiciously.
Employment. I know that an unemployed player sounds like a real dream, in that they always have enough time to show up for your games, but there's a dark side. The unemployed player is also likely to be sponging off you and your other players for silly things like food, rent money, a couch to surf on and self-esteem. These are going to be people who haven't yet figured out how to get a job, keep a job, or encourage anyone else to believe they're reliable, except the friends they've chosen to role-play with. The same friends who have already lent this player upwards of $1,000 altogether, and who are now having to deal with this same player's barbarian fighter demanding the massive diamond gem because of all the work they've done for the party.
Confession: I spent a lot of time unemployed between the ages of 20 and 40. During that time I worked something like 40 jobs, between writing gigs and performance gigs in the theatre. I did surf a few couches. Somehow, I always managed to get a new job within a week or two, when I wanted one, and I preferred to borrow money from my parents. Since most of that time was spent running the game, and not as a player, I still managed to run sessions on my own table and in my own kitchen/living room. So there are exceptions to the employment rule. So take it with a grain of salt.
Education. It isn't so much that I would expect a player to have a professional degree. Thinking about it, and remembering my own experiences in university, I knew a few 'professionals' who managed to squeak by in their classes, who didn't get work in their fields after university and who never respected their education in the least degree. What you really need to look for are people who don't equate education to 'job,' but who actually respect 'book-larnin' as an activity that bears merit. Your better players will read books. Actual books, where the words differ from page to page, as opposed to trash, and which might impress upon the reader some kind of knowledge. If your player disdains reading, or books, then you are dealing with someone who thinks they already know all they need to know. That is going to be a problem for your world.
Confession: I didn't start university until I was 21. I spent three years working in various statistical clerk jobs that I got because those were the days when you could take a test to see if you had enough education to start. I spent seven years at university, on a student loan, on the understanding that I wouldn't have to pay it back so long as I kept going to school. So the late 80s and early 90s were spent as a professional student, with time to do theatre gigs and a lot of writing for the university paper. Ah, those were the days. I spent a hell of a lot of time in the university library, though, during my off hours, because I was building a D&D world. So I admit. I'm an educated snob.
Family. Now, like I said, not everyone starts with the best family. I went to junior high school with a girl who worked the hooker stroll downtown because her family needed the money, and my daughter knew a girl who was not allowed into any part of her parent's house but the basement because her parents were running a drug cartel out of the upstairs. Family can really suck. Moreover, I haven't noted that ancestors have much to do with a role-player's cred, so just throw the progenitors out of the picture, huh? What I'm talking about is their perspective on every having a family. Do they know children exist? Do they think well of them? Because if you have a player in your world who despises the very idea that there are children, or the idea of having them, then you are dealing with someone who is still an infant. Take my word on that.
Confession: Hm. I gained my daughter at 24. I had always wanted children. My first wife, my daughter's mother, passed away now, had multiple sclerosis, so I felt it was really up to her if she wanted children, but it worked out and we had one. I don't find merit in the statement, "she is the most important thing in the world to me," because my present wife is also important, my writing is important, world peace is important, the improvement of role-playing is important and so on. I don't like to rank things. I just work hard to keep everyone happy as best I can.
I really haven't got a fourth one. Believe me, if you can manage ALL of the first three with your players, you're going to have a solid group of reliable, smart players. Even if they haven't got the job they want, even if they haven't finished their education, of if they haven't any children, they have aspirations. They understand sacrifice and reward. They perceive the world does not revolve around them. They grasp that if things are going to get better, they are going to have to work at it.
They will bring that exact same quality to your world. So look for those people.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Three Wheels
I've been dead on my feet. Never write a book. It isn't worth it.
Either the last post was so vague no one understood it, or so obvious it wasn't worth writing. Given that I've been medicated to the gills for five days (do computers count as 'heavy machinery'?), I'll go with the former.
I've been making the point lately that everyone that sits in and plays the game, from DM to players, is responsible for that game being good. I'm not dividing that responsibility 50/50 with the players on one side and the DM on the other . . . I'm saying that if there are four players and a DM, every one at the table has a 20% responsibility towards making the experience positive. Share and share alike.
Obviously, the DM has more work and preparation to do. The players, however, do the bulk of the decision-making. I wonder how often that is really considered. As DM, I adjudicate on the game rules, that's true, but in actual fact I don't make many important decisions - at least, not on the spur of the moment. My context is pre-set most of the time, I already know what the NPCs mean to do, and at any rate my making a wrong decision about what is behind a door or what an NPC does can be rectified as the game goes forward.
Players, on the other hand, are held to account for the decisions they make, and they can't simply rectify those decisions by slight modifications to the world. A player makes the wrong decision and it can have dire consequences, not just for the player, but for everyone at the table. That is a heavy weight on the player's shoulders that I don't feel.
That alone should make it clear how much the game depends on the players sharing responsibility for what happens. If they're not supportive, if they don't allow for others to make mistakes, if they become petty or even vindictive about their fellow players, then the game is going to be BAD. Even a moderate level of indifference - from even one player - is enough to ruin a game experience.
And there's often that one player at the table that doesn't put in his or her share of ideas, who tags along and takes their share of the treasure and rolls dice to prove there's a pulse there. And when you're the one wanting the party to make a decision, where is the support from this player? It isn't there. Nothing is there. The response isn't positive and it isn't negative. It's, "Sure, whatever, I don't care."
If the reader is looking for a good table to play at, there's more to consider than just the DM. ALL the players have to pull their weight. If they're not, then the cart of your game is just rolling along on three wheels. It still gets there, but damn, what a pain in the ass.
Either the last post was so vague no one understood it, or so obvious it wasn't worth writing. Given that I've been medicated to the gills for five days (do computers count as 'heavy machinery'?), I'll go with the former.
I've been making the point lately that everyone that sits in and plays the game, from DM to players, is responsible for that game being good. I'm not dividing that responsibility 50/50 with the players on one side and the DM on the other . . . I'm saying that if there are four players and a DM, every one at the table has a 20% responsibility towards making the experience positive. Share and share alike.
Obviously, the DM has more work and preparation to do. The players, however, do the bulk of the decision-making. I wonder how often that is really considered. As DM, I adjudicate on the game rules, that's true, but in actual fact I don't make many important decisions - at least, not on the spur of the moment. My context is pre-set most of the time, I already know what the NPCs mean to do, and at any rate my making a wrong decision about what is behind a door or what an NPC does can be rectified as the game goes forward.
Players, on the other hand, are held to account for the decisions they make, and they can't simply rectify those decisions by slight modifications to the world. A player makes the wrong decision and it can have dire consequences, not just for the player, but for everyone at the table. That is a heavy weight on the player's shoulders that I don't feel.
That alone should make it clear how much the game depends on the players sharing responsibility for what happens. If they're not supportive, if they don't allow for others to make mistakes, if they become petty or even vindictive about their fellow players, then the game is going to be BAD. Even a moderate level of indifference - from even one player - is enough to ruin a game experience.
And there's often that one player at the table that doesn't put in his or her share of ideas, who tags along and takes their share of the treasure and rolls dice to prove there's a pulse there. And when you're the one wanting the party to make a decision, where is the support from this player? It isn't there. Nothing is there. The response isn't positive and it isn't negative. It's, "Sure, whatever, I don't care."
If the reader is looking for a good table to play at, there's more to consider than just the DM. ALL the players have to pull their weight. If they're not, then the cart of your game is just rolling along on three wheels. It still gets there, but damn, what a pain in the ass.
Monday, May 5, 2014
The Standard
I don't know how many times I have been asked, what is the objective standard for good gaming? What defines a good game?
I believe, after working a week at a difficult chapter, that I have the standard. Here it is, short and sweet:
A good game occurs when everybody, not only the DM, but the players too, accepts the shared responsibility for making the game a rich and rewarding experience for every person at the table. When this happens to the highest degree, the game is as good as it can be.
I believe, after working a week at a difficult chapter, that I have the standard. Here it is, short and sweet:
A good game occurs when everybody, not only the DM, but the players too, accepts the shared responsibility for making the game a rich and rewarding experience for every person at the table. When this happens to the highest degree, the game is as good as it can be.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Catharsis & Schadenfreude
I find it odd that 'play' or 'humour' is often proposed as the opposite of 'seriousness', as in this Ted Talk by Zara Swindells-Grose. I find it as odd as encountering people who cannot seem to remember what childhood was like.
There are no serious people in the world more serious than children. There is no game played more seriously than one that has been played by children. Today, if I were to play R.I.S.K., I would likely be serious about my intentions to win, as would my opponents. It just wouldn't happen that I would provoke Jeremy with a cruel comment upon his having lost Australia, nor would it happen that Jeremy would leap across the board and try to stuff armies up my nose. But this sort of thing happens all the time with children.
We seem to forget that.
I had been thinking about my own seriousness in gaming. In presenting the game as a DM, I build a wall of seriousness between my players and I - because the serious expression on my face, with the intense concentration, builds tension.
There's no question in my mind that this look of seriousness was not an affectation when I started playing. I took the game seriously. I really AM concentrating intensely on all the details and elements of the game as it plays. I'm not saying, then, that I am pretending to look serious. But I am saying that if I had a choice not to look serious, but to look comfortable instead, I'm know I wouldn't take it. Because looking comfortable makes a crappy game for the players.
There is something I see on a DM's face - often a new DM, but not always - that I think truly undermines the potential of the game. This is the nervous grin. Nervous DM's often grin. They feel uncomfortable, they're not in control, and this translates into feeling self-conscious and even ashamed. And as humans, when we're ashamed, we often grin to convey friendliness. In culture, this evokes a returned grin, causing tension to drop. See? We're all friends. We're all grinning.
In presenting a game, the grin conveys that the DM is harmless. This encourages the players to feel empowered and unthreatened . . . and that means that they are far more likely to act out. And as they act out, the grinning DM will likely let them. The grin has already shown the DM's lack of confidence, meaning the DM doesn't feel in control. If the DM tries to get control once the players have begun to act out, the reaction will probably appear fairly hysterical. That is because the DM isn't in control, but he or she is trying to be. Such efforts typically fail.
Having recognized that hysteria is the effect, many DMs have learned from their attempts to control the game that it's impossible, and that the attempt makes things worse. So they stop trying. And the game gets worse and worse, until the players totally ruin it. Whereupon the DM either quits playing, or finds new players and the pattern begins again. Occasionally, a DM grows and learns and realizes the importance of conveying that control from the outset - but this is rare.
This awful tendency to start grinning in a game is something any DM can relate to. I have felt it myself, more so in my youth, but the compulsion would still be there if I were playing with strangers. A DM must overcome this. The game runs on tension as a fuel . . . without tension, there is silliness, and the 'fun' is subject to whomever wishes to 'act out' in the most outwardly cruel.
Children understand this intuitively. When my friend Jeremy leapt across the R.I.S.K. board to find out how many plastic armies would fit into my nose, it wasn't because he had lost Australia. It was because I had made a cruel, unnecessary comment about it - as children often do. Jeremy, also in the way that children do, understood the injustice of his misfortune becoming a source of pleasure for me. This is the sort of pleasure, this schadenfreude, is the sort of behaviour we acquaint with villainy in film . . . but if you haven't got an iron fist on your players during a game, it is rife in your campaign. The most clever receive the most pleasure, because while everyone receives a bit of misfortune, the least clever are less adept at exploiting it. The most clever exploit it wonderfully. But then, this is why Jeremy took the action that seems most efficient when dealing with the most clever. Beat the fuck out of them.
The seriousness I convey makes a tension that drives the players together in their misfortune. IF there is no tension, then Gilbert can afford to dance upon Patricia's misfortune - he hasn't got anything to fear. But if there is this drapery of tension that hangs over the party continuously, then Gilbert intuitively understands that Patricia's misfortune is his own - when she goes down, he will too. That pushes the party together, and suddenly it doesn't seem like a good idea to cut down people who are watching your back.
FEAR is the ultimate party builder. It produces a wall between the party and me, isolating them, making them feel insecure . . . and while it does mean I'm not anyone's best friend during the actual game, they are better friends with each other than they might be if I were lackadaisical. The world, conversely, with all its threats and potentials for things going wrong, is more real.
This also helps me gauge the party's level of comfort as I go forward. If the schadenfreude rises, then I'm relaxing too much. I'm letting my hand off the stick. All I need to do is shake off whatever I'm feeling, sit up straight, concentrate again on the content in front of me and the response from the party is immediate. "What is he up to?" immediately springs to the player's minds - because there is never a moment in the campaign that they're not carefully observing me. They want to succeed and live. Watching me is intrinsic to that program.
I was also going to point out how this means I have more emotional control over the NPCs too. If I approach gaming from the perspective of, we're all just having a good time, then building an emotional importance into an NPC becomes a joke. You can't make the NPC a serious one, because nothing is serious. Thus, the party laughs and makes jokes every time the NPC speaks. Many of you readers out there have experienced this.
BUT, if I am always serious, it is easy to portray an NPC as relaxed, pleasant, friendly and fun. It is a source of general relief for the party if I smile, and they completely buy into that emotion.
Thus I have all the emotions of NPC's in my repetoire. They can be serious, dangerous, puzzling or worrying . . . but they can also be jovial, encouraging, friendly and dumb. This range, all of it coming from my intensity, makes for a better game. It encourages the party to be serious also - which gives THEM the full range of experience.
In our hurry (and here I am thinking of the TED talk linked at the top of this post) to cosmetically improve the lives of people by encouraging them to have 'fun,' we so completely dismiss the wonderful healing power of catharsis. Catharsis receives a lot less recognition than fun; but it is because of catharsis that the happy face in the theatre motif isn't the only one. We attend drama because seriousness is as important for our well-being as enjoyment.
In fact, it makes it possible for us to enjoy anything.
There are no serious people in the world more serious than children. There is no game played more seriously than one that has been played by children. Today, if I were to play R.I.S.K., I would likely be serious about my intentions to win, as would my opponents. It just wouldn't happen that I would provoke Jeremy with a cruel comment upon his having lost Australia, nor would it happen that Jeremy would leap across the board and try to stuff armies up my nose. But this sort of thing happens all the time with children.
We seem to forget that.
I had been thinking about my own seriousness in gaming. In presenting the game as a DM, I build a wall of seriousness between my players and I - because the serious expression on my face, with the intense concentration, builds tension.
There's no question in my mind that this look of seriousness was not an affectation when I started playing. I took the game seriously. I really AM concentrating intensely on all the details and elements of the game as it plays. I'm not saying, then, that I am pretending to look serious. But I am saying that if I had a choice not to look serious, but to look comfortable instead, I'm know I wouldn't take it. Because looking comfortable makes a crappy game for the players.
There is something I see on a DM's face - often a new DM, but not always - that I think truly undermines the potential of the game. This is the nervous grin. Nervous DM's often grin. They feel uncomfortable, they're not in control, and this translates into feeling self-conscious and even ashamed. And as humans, when we're ashamed, we often grin to convey friendliness. In culture, this evokes a returned grin, causing tension to drop. See? We're all friends. We're all grinning.
In presenting a game, the grin conveys that the DM is harmless. This encourages the players to feel empowered and unthreatened . . . and that means that they are far more likely to act out. And as they act out, the grinning DM will likely let them. The grin has already shown the DM's lack of confidence, meaning the DM doesn't feel in control. If the DM tries to get control once the players have begun to act out, the reaction will probably appear fairly hysterical. That is because the DM isn't in control, but he or she is trying to be. Such efforts typically fail.
Having recognized that hysteria is the effect, many DMs have learned from their attempts to control the game that it's impossible, and that the attempt makes things worse. So they stop trying. And the game gets worse and worse, until the players totally ruin it. Whereupon the DM either quits playing, or finds new players and the pattern begins again. Occasionally, a DM grows and learns and realizes the importance of conveying that control from the outset - but this is rare.
This awful tendency to start grinning in a game is something any DM can relate to. I have felt it myself, more so in my youth, but the compulsion would still be there if I were playing with strangers. A DM must overcome this. The game runs on tension as a fuel . . . without tension, there is silliness, and the 'fun' is subject to whomever wishes to 'act out' in the most outwardly cruel.
Children understand this intuitively. When my friend Jeremy leapt across the R.I.S.K. board to find out how many plastic armies would fit into my nose, it wasn't because he had lost Australia. It was because I had made a cruel, unnecessary comment about it - as children often do. Jeremy, also in the way that children do, understood the injustice of his misfortune becoming a source of pleasure for me. This is the sort of pleasure, this schadenfreude, is the sort of behaviour we acquaint with villainy in film . . . but if you haven't got an iron fist on your players during a game, it is rife in your campaign. The most clever receive the most pleasure, because while everyone receives a bit of misfortune, the least clever are less adept at exploiting it. The most clever exploit it wonderfully. But then, this is why Jeremy took the action that seems most efficient when dealing with the most clever. Beat the fuck out of them.
The seriousness I convey makes a tension that drives the players together in their misfortune. IF there is no tension, then Gilbert can afford to dance upon Patricia's misfortune - he hasn't got anything to fear. But if there is this drapery of tension that hangs over the party continuously, then Gilbert intuitively understands that Patricia's misfortune is his own - when she goes down, he will too. That pushes the party together, and suddenly it doesn't seem like a good idea to cut down people who are watching your back.
FEAR is the ultimate party builder. It produces a wall between the party and me, isolating them, making them feel insecure . . . and while it does mean I'm not anyone's best friend during the actual game, they are better friends with each other than they might be if I were lackadaisical. The world, conversely, with all its threats and potentials for things going wrong, is more real.
This also helps me gauge the party's level of comfort as I go forward. If the schadenfreude rises, then I'm relaxing too much. I'm letting my hand off the stick. All I need to do is shake off whatever I'm feeling, sit up straight, concentrate again on the content in front of me and the response from the party is immediate. "What is he up to?" immediately springs to the player's minds - because there is never a moment in the campaign that they're not carefully observing me. They want to succeed and live. Watching me is intrinsic to that program.
I was also going to point out how this means I have more emotional control over the NPCs too. If I approach gaming from the perspective of, we're all just having a good time, then building an emotional importance into an NPC becomes a joke. You can't make the NPC a serious one, because nothing is serious. Thus, the party laughs and makes jokes every time the NPC speaks. Many of you readers out there have experienced this.
BUT, if I am always serious, it is easy to portray an NPC as relaxed, pleasant, friendly and fun. It is a source of general relief for the party if I smile, and they completely buy into that emotion.
Thus I have all the emotions of NPC's in my repetoire. They can be serious, dangerous, puzzling or worrying . . . but they can also be jovial, encouraging, friendly and dumb. This range, all of it coming from my intensity, makes for a better game. It encourages the party to be serious also - which gives THEM the full range of experience.
In our hurry (and here I am thinking of the TED talk linked at the top of this post) to cosmetically improve the lives of people by encouraging them to have 'fun,' we so completely dismiss the wonderful healing power of catharsis. Catharsis receives a lot less recognition than fun; but it is because of catharsis that the happy face in the theatre motif isn't the only one. We attend drama because seriousness is as important for our well-being as enjoyment.
In fact, it makes it possible for us to enjoy anything.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Sleepless but Grateful
I had a flood of people offering to help me edit the role-playing book over the past two days. I would like to thank you all . . . I'm sorry if I haven't gotten to everyone individually yet. For three days now I have been Jack's overactive pituitary gland. I have been unable to sleep.
In the last three days I have had something like 6 hours, total. This plays hell with one's brain, let me tell you. I've twice taken sleeping pills, only to find that I am still unable to sleep. I blame the gland named and I blame the other two responsible glands, the thyroid and the pineal. They are simply not getting along, much like a party that can't decide what to do next.
I feel like I could probably sleep right now, except that I have to get through a shift, and to do that I will have to flood the system with over the counter drugs (coffee), which will probably make it difficult for me to sleep tonight. Ah, the modern world.
So, yes, thank you for offering, and I will eventually answer you. I think I have enough to compensate for my copyreader, who is bombing along at a great rate.
Mostly the issue just now is too much imagination. I get going on a subject in my mind, this ramps up my interest, that I presume ramps up my adrenaline, which produces slight anxiety at not having slept yet, followed by more not sleeping and then we're into the insomniac's cycle. I am used to getting this once in awhile. It has overstayed its welcome this week.
The third draft is well under way as I reconstruct chapter two differently than the version I sent out in months ago. I will start distributing pieces of it to the first people who offered come the weekend. I suspect that many of you are just wanting to get a preview, and that is fine. So long as you don't start sharing pieces with each other (you're not planning a facebook group, are you?)
Okay, I'm getting goofy. Signing off for now. I may write later today if I'm still awake.
In the last three days I have had something like 6 hours, total. This plays hell with one's brain, let me tell you. I've twice taken sleeping pills, only to find that I am still unable to sleep. I blame the gland named and I blame the other two responsible glands, the thyroid and the pineal. They are simply not getting along, much like a party that can't decide what to do next.
I feel like I could probably sleep right now, except that I have to get through a shift, and to do that I will have to flood the system with over the counter drugs (coffee), which will probably make it difficult for me to sleep tonight. Ah, the modern world.
So, yes, thank you for offering, and I will eventually answer you. I think I have enough to compensate for my copyreader, who is bombing along at a great rate.
Mostly the issue just now is too much imagination. I get going on a subject in my mind, this ramps up my interest, that I presume ramps up my adrenaline, which produces slight anxiety at not having slept yet, followed by more not sleeping and then we're into the insomniac's cycle. I am used to getting this once in awhile. It has overstayed its welcome this week.
The third draft is well under way as I reconstruct chapter two differently than the version I sent out in months ago. I will start distributing pieces of it to the first people who offered come the weekend. I suspect that many of you are just wanting to get a preview, and that is fine. So long as you don't start sharing pieces with each other (you're not planning a facebook group, are you?)
Okay, I'm getting goofy. Signing off for now. I may write later today if I'm still awake.
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