This is just a quick post to explain where my thoughts are. I've started with a new restaurant, very heavy hours and very heavy work, really pushing me to the wall, but with great opportunities and in a great atmosphere. The main drawback is that I'm starting six days a week and I foresee that coming home I'm not going to be much for anything for awhile.
The principal goal right now is just to stay with it, not think, not question what's happening and to just put my head down. Really not thinking about D&D (I've suspended all my games indefinitely, which my players understand although of course they're disappointed) and putting my small amount of creative drive into working on the second draft of the new book.
The Edmonton Expo is in 16 days. I'm sitting at my computer watching the sun come up, counting minutes before I have to leave for my day shift, wondering how the world works. Here I thought I would never, ever find myself in a kitchen again . . . and now not only am I here, I'm working at one of the busiest and most popular places in the city. And I mean busy. This would have challenged my 30-year-old body twenty years ago. I don't mind saying - the physical requirement here has me, well, scared.
But it really is just D&D, in both a mental and physical sense. A lot of planning, preparation and mental compartmentalization, situational awareness like I wrote about in How to Run and paying close attention to the needs of other people in the midst of extreme stress. A bit more stress than at a gaming table, admittedly.
I wrote last week about shouting and driving away people with a poor attitude - that translates to kitchens as well. All dangerous jobs, in truth. There's no room for a poor attitude in these spaces. I watched a fellow yesterday give himself a second-degree burn on his arm and shrug it off. I'm sure it hurt him terribly (I've had a few of those myself), but he never dropped his genial, it-doesn't-make-a-difference attitude.
Here's a kid at 19, burning himself in a kitchen and no big deal - where all over the net there is this rather silly, petulant hurt resulting from a misunderstood phrase or a criticism.
Really puts things in perspective.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Watch & Learn
Today is the 36th anniversary of the first time that I played D&D - and the first time I ever heard of D&D, for that matter.
To revisit the first post on this blog:
There's more under the link - but the above is enough for this post today.
Since that time, I have done much watching and learning. For some who read this blog, it may fail to resonate just how long I have hammered and sawed at this game. I became enraptured immediately from the beginning, with a mental state that had already spent several years of my youth painstakingly making maps, compounding statistics from an Almanac, making lists of countries based on many things (area, population, resources, largest cities, etc) just for the hell of it. D&D just 'clicked.'
So that the time I spend today, the drive and the effort, it was there 36 years ago, beginning within the very first week of my playing. It was like I was ready to fall in love and then, there it was, first sight.
It has been thus ever since.
I have been working for a couple of weeks now, at a job which they pay me at (for those who remember I was not paid at all for my first cooking job!).
Today I was given an opportunity at another restaurant, better pay, better conditions, a better chance for advancement. Then on the way home from the interview, I saw this:
I wish my camera work was less sloppy (and that my thumb had been cut off as a child). If you're tuning into this right away, the youtube edit fix for sloppy film is just initiating - so this should look better by this evening.
Eileen is terrific, very friendly, spectacularly talented and completely generous in letting me take this video of her and agreeing to let me put it on YouTube. If you see this Eileen, thank you again.
Now I'm going to go work on the second draft of the book I finished on Friday afternoon. It is called The Killing Bequest, which I hope is a good title. The first draft is completely finished and I think it is a marvelous, tight story. I will be writing more about it in the coming months.
For those who have purchased How to Run, or who remember the Fallow posts from a couple months ago, the book takes place entirely in the fiction kingdom of Fallow that I've invented.
Edmonton Expo is coming in 18 days. And it's my birthday on the 15th. I hope all this is a sign.
To revisit the first post on this blog:
It was, I think, a Saturday night. I called up a friend, asked him what if he wanted to do something and he told me, “I can’t, I’m playing D&D.” I had never heard of it.
A game? Yes. “Can you explain it?” I asked.
“No, I can’t,” he said. “You have to play it.” Whereupon he invited me.
My first time playing, I did not understand anything. I was told to be a fighter (it was the easiest to play); my “equipment” was rattled off at me, most of which I was unfamiliar with, and which I wrote down as a list on a sheet of paper under my “abilities.” Lengthy explanations of these things were not given, as that would have held up the game. Watch and learn I was told, and watch and learn I did.
There's more under the link - but the above is enough for this post today.
Since that time, I have done much watching and learning. For some who read this blog, it may fail to resonate just how long I have hammered and sawed at this game. I became enraptured immediately from the beginning, with a mental state that had already spent several years of my youth painstakingly making maps, compounding statistics from an Almanac, making lists of countries based on many things (area, population, resources, largest cities, etc) just for the hell of it. D&D just 'clicked.'
So that the time I spend today, the drive and the effort, it was there 36 years ago, beginning within the very first week of my playing. It was like I was ready to fall in love and then, there it was, first sight.
It has been thus ever since.
I have been working for a couple of weeks now, at a job which they pay me at (for those who remember I was not paid at all for my first cooking job!).
Today I was given an opportunity at another restaurant, better pay, better conditions, a better chance for advancement. Then on the way home from the interview, I saw this:
I wish my camera work was less sloppy (and that my thumb had been cut off as a child). If you're tuning into this right away, the youtube edit fix for sloppy film is just initiating - so this should look better by this evening.
Eileen is terrific, very friendly, spectacularly talented and completely generous in letting me take this video of her and agreeing to let me put it on YouTube. If you see this Eileen, thank you again.
Now I'm going to go work on the second draft of the book I finished on Friday afternoon. It is called The Killing Bequest, which I hope is a good title. The first draft is completely finished and I think it is a marvelous, tight story. I will be writing more about it in the coming months.
For those who have purchased How to Run, or who remember the Fallow posts from a couple months ago, the book takes place entirely in the fiction kingdom of Fallow that I've invented.
Edmonton Expo is coming in 18 days. And it's my birthday on the 15th. I hope all this is a sign.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Step Back
Surely people are aware that many D&D worlds thrive on abuse.
I haven't yet been to any group event where I've witnessed DMs and players where I haven't witnessed first hand evidence of defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling and contempt. That is because when human beings interact with one another - whether having known each other for years or having just met at a gaming table - they habitually seek advantage. In such situations, these four emotions cannot help emerging.
Players and DMs alike feel they are being attacked for what they believe or what they do, and they immediately speak to clarify, protect themselves and forestall judgment because they feel inherently what's coming: a concerted effort, they believe, to change who they are or how they behave in favor of the 'opposition.' Defensiveness comes from distrust, which most players and DMs feel for each other, particularly if they don't know each other. Every dictum brought down by the DM seems to force the distrustful player into a corner and the player responds by balking. Every suggestion the player has for the DM's style of running seems to disparage the value of the DM's world and as a result the DM becomes guarded and uptight. Both sides seek to interrupt what the other side might suggest before the suggestion is even made, in fear of what might be said - and in the process, no one at the table listens because everyone is so engaged with protecting their own viewpoint.
To get past this defensiveness, both sides grow more critical. At first, both sides try to reason, but faced with an overwhelming unwariness the DM or the Player becomes more insistent and less polite about presenting their point of view. The argument adjusts from what "I Believe" to what "You Believe" - with the latter subject to all sorts of correction and assessment. Every statement made by the opposition is then parsed, just as it is here on the internet, consistently as a phrase unto itself without any recognition of the context. Every detail of the other side's perspective is drawn out and pulled under a microscope, evaluated and nit-picked for every flaw. At this stage there is no potential for trust, since the matter has ceased to be about two people disagreeing and has become about the perfect right answer, couched in language which neither side can agree upon. This is why semantic arguments always erupt at this point . . . because in determining what's right and what's wrong, the final arbiter that both sides turn to is the definition of the very words they're using. Semantics always fail, however, because language is far too fluid a mechanism to satisfactorily demonstrate how others are wrong.
Sooner or later, one or the other side surrenders. The sides agree to disagree or someone simply shuts down. There's nothing left to say - and if there were, at least one side realizes there's no point in saying it. The walls go up. Communication ends. If we're not going to listen to each other, then better that we don't speak to each other. Certainly not about this. Leaving everyone at the table in limbo. The matter is unresolved. Those who are left with the task of running the game or wishing still to participate sit quietly, unsure of what to say or do. One or the other combatant - for that's what they've become - is pointedly silent. Whatever they might say is dismissive, spoken like the snap of a pencil: "Whatever." "Sure." "I'm here."
And so begins the contempt. We've disagreed and now nothing, ever, can reconcile the wound that has been caused. I will not forgive, I will not forget. We're done.
This last can become such a style of participation, especially from the DM, that the beginning of the campaign incorporates it. The DM approaches the entire game in defiance of the players. The DM will remark openly, to the players, on how they behave or what they believe, ridiculing them for being players, all in good 'fun' and mockery. It is a defense mechanism. This is how it goes: "Before anyone can begin arguing with anyone, let me as the DM make it clear: I view you all with disdain."
It can be subtle. It can also be openly pompous and arrogant. But contempt is defensiveness in the extreme - it is the natural progression of all human disagreement, to where we hold others in disregard because to do otherwise would be to let our guard down.
This contempt DMs hold is so pervasive in the community that I have time and again seen and read DMs who declare it with pride and pleasure. And so have you, gentle reader.
When I wrote my piece about the reader not playing in my world, titling the post that way, naturally my position was equated with what we have all encountered . . . because this is where our experience lies. Those who rushed forward to condemn me and wag fingers did so because they've been wounded; but the need to do so, with someone in whose world these people will never run, is defensiveness too. It is the hope that if every DM can be corrected to behave properly, then finally the game will be played as it should be played.
Sadly, the pattern of advantage I describe above does not apply merely to gaming, as we well know. It applies to the workplace, it applies to family and it applies to marriage. It is how we are.
I'm in agreement that it should be resisted. But we cannot make things better by making assumptions, acting defensively and criticizing a campaign and a DM based upon a single post or even a whole blog, with someone's world where we have never played. Feeling the need to rush forward and 'save the world by amending what I say says more about the criticizer than the criticized.
Step back, take a breath, evaluate your own motivations and then ask questions. And when the questions come back with answers that make your blood boil, then step back again.
It is what I have been forcing myself to do over and over these last 18 months, as I get my own anger as a default under control. Because we are probably, none of us, wrong. Though it has been very hard for me to make myself believe that.
I'm no better than anyone.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Second Look
Hm. Yesterday's post got off the chain, no question about it.
I was thinking of this line from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink (this is my second reference, so the reader knows I'm reading the book right now, not for the first time):
"In order to make somebody laugh, you have to be interesting . . . and in order to be interesting, you have to do things that are mean."
It doesn't just apply to funny; it really applies to everything. The application to humor comes from forcing your audience to listen, to take a second look at what you're trying to say - because if you haven't got your audience's attention, they'll miss the line up for the punchline. Their attention will wander.
If we're writing anything, we have to start with taunting the reader. We have to title the piece in a way that makes people annoyed. We have to challenge the reader to be good enough. We have to make not being good enough matter. If there's any chance of convincing the reader that there's something to aspire to, we have to supply the reader with the ideal that some people are good enough while implying that the reader isn't.
That's mean. It gets under the reader's skin and makes the reader interested. The reader gets argumentative - and being argumentative is a way of being involved. We get nowhere as writers if the reader isn't involved.
If we approach writing without being mean, what's written can be easily dismissed. While reading it, yes, the observer may feel a bit stroked, may find themselves nodding or encouraged . . . but that feeling passes almost immediately when the content is done. There's no thinking process that follows, no piecing together of the author's intent. There's a brief lingering of oxytocin, the encouragement that we're all together in this, but there's no substantive development. It is a hug from a stranger; something that we appreciate when there's no one else to hug.
When reading things that disturb our equilibrium and promote our anger and derision, we're immediately challenged to work through the motivations we possess for making the decisions we've made. I'm annoyed when I listen to some conservative or Republican spew talking points but it centers my self-perception as a liberal and a socialist. I'm angry but I'm listening. I'm engaged. So I find myself returning to things that enrage me . . . I find myself thinking about them for days, deconstructing both the arguments I'm hearing and my own arguments. In the process I'm not only informed about what others believe - I am also more informed about what I believe.
This is part of why I'm not concerned with being virtuous about the beliefs of others. Hammering at the beliefs of others by imposing mine - by tagging a series of visceral instincts in the way of being a good writer - compels the reader to rethink, rehash and reconfirm what they believe. In the process, if there's anything the reader has taken for granted, anything they haven't truly thought through . . . then in rehashing it themselves, they're going to feel uncomfortable for days. That's why people who disagree with me still come back and read this blog; because they disagree with me.
This is why people who disagree with each other so strongly can still be friends; because at the heart of it, the principles of belief for both parties are based upon investigation rather than conciliation. Neither cares if they resolve their differences; that is not the desire. The desire is that all parties should continue to ensure, daily, that they haven't somehow deluded themselves.
Bringing us back to D&D and the subject of a good party. It's usually presumed that to have a good party, conciliation is the Holy Grail. Somehow, we think, we will encourage these players to get along with one another, to think together and be a party with a single, positive agenda. With that conciliation in mind, we rush to destroy anything that doesn't sound like conciliation. A disagreement starts and we crush it. Two players absolutely resist taking part in the same activity and we try to step in and compel them to accept one or the other choice. We make them roll dice to see who gets the highest roll, to force one or the other participant to adhere for the sake of adherence. We shout, "Can't we all just get along?"
Many people who read yesterday's post immediately leapt to a conclusion that I browbeat my players into total agreement with an agenda which I probably impose, shouting down anyone who dares murmur a contrary word. They see my table as an absolutist regime, where the player makes a peep and I land on them with both feet. It is assumed that what I want is conciliation - where, in fact, I want anything but.
My players don't hesitate to shout back. Those who read yesterday's post, who failed to grasp that, can't be held at fault; I deliberately left it out. Because I understand how most tables work. The DM does have absolute authority, most anywhere. I knew it would be taken as a defacto truth that I must have such authority as well. But I don't. My authority does not derive from it being my world or my game, but from the legitimacy that my players grant to those things. My players understand this granting of authority and as such they will, without hesitation, fight with me. And with each other. And I let them. Because a party does not become a 'party' through DM-enforced conciliation, but from the privilege of being allowed to disagree and say so loudly.
I also deliberately left out the legitimacy of my position by failing to point out that as I shout at you and boot you from my table, the other players will be applauding. They will want you gone as much as I do.
I wasn't specific about what are "the wrong questions" a player will ask, but I'll link a post from back in 2012 where I talk about that in depth. I should have done that with yesterday's post but I was rolling and I missed the opportunity. That was an example of bad writing.
The arguments around the table can get pretty rowdy at times. Mostly, I keep out of it. I don't have to police my players because they know how to argue; now and then I have to keep them on track, particularly with a married couple I have running. They get going on a game point and hoo boy! - better get your flak jacket on. Because these two people care. I mean they really fucking care.
I'll offer advice and clarify what one player is saying to another, if needed. I'll keep them from physical contact. But the final resolution for any problem is up to them, not me.
I haven't had the kind of players I'd boot for a long, long time. Barrow, in yesterday's comments, gave an excellent example of that kind of player:
I'm quite sure that most readers recognize the situation - but at the same time, most will fail to see the problem. The assumption will be that here we have players who can't agree on the agenda at hand and are therefore operating at cross-purposes. There's no conciliation.
That is not the problem, however. The problem is that the player has turned to the DM for appeal. And the DM accepts, somehow, that the player is allowed to do this. This sets the DM up as the final word in sorting out player disputes . . . and everything from there gets bolluxed up.
In such a situation, the answer is, "Tell them, not me. Work this out with your fellow players." And then to refuse to run until the players sort it out.
It cannot be sorted out from on high.
The problems lead to a player being shouted at or booted begin where the player refuses to accept this ruling. It's taken me two posts to get here and I've had to mess with the reader's head, but this is a very important point. Players who refuse to deal with other players, who continually treat their fellow players with disregard or contempt because they know they can appeal again and again to a weak DM, are bad players. They need to have their thought processes corrected. They need to have it explained to them that gameplay based on "what my character would do" or player-vs-player or anything that tacitly demands the DM's approval is wrongheadedness in the extreme. Brought about by DMs who think it IS their responsibility to adjudicate in this manner.
It is always presumed that if two players were to launch into PvP in my world, that I would sternly reprimand them and tell them to cut it out. Not at all. The only solution that needs applying is to make it clear that no one is dead. No one can be dead until I, the DM, say they are. And I won't say it. Go ahead, fight it out, if you can do that without the other players telling you to cut it out and get your heads back in the game . . . but when it's all over, it means shit.
No one is dead. And no one is having a personal quest if I won't run it. Nor are there any town guards to be found if I won't answer the question and feed the player's selfishness.
I am not the player's enabler. I'm the enemy. I'm the player's worst nightmare - which is why smart players get together in defense. I'm not anyone's buddy at the table . . . and when players won't accept that, then there's always trouble.
Funny, though. Players, I find, love that I'm not the arbiter of their issues. They love it. If there's one reason why I have a successful, positive world, despite my personal nature, it's that. The players make me a DM. In return, I give them freedom.
I was thinking of this line from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink (this is my second reference, so the reader knows I'm reading the book right now, not for the first time):
"In order to make somebody laugh, you have to be interesting . . . and in order to be interesting, you have to do things that are mean."
It doesn't just apply to funny; it really applies to everything. The application to humor comes from forcing your audience to listen, to take a second look at what you're trying to say - because if you haven't got your audience's attention, they'll miss the line up for the punchline. Their attention will wander.
If we're writing anything, we have to start with taunting the reader. We have to title the piece in a way that makes people annoyed. We have to challenge the reader to be good enough. We have to make not being good enough matter. If there's any chance of convincing the reader that there's something to aspire to, we have to supply the reader with the ideal that some people are good enough while implying that the reader isn't.
That's mean. It gets under the reader's skin and makes the reader interested. The reader gets argumentative - and being argumentative is a way of being involved. We get nowhere as writers if the reader isn't involved.
If we approach writing without being mean, what's written can be easily dismissed. While reading it, yes, the observer may feel a bit stroked, may find themselves nodding or encouraged . . . but that feeling passes almost immediately when the content is done. There's no thinking process that follows, no piecing together of the author's intent. There's a brief lingering of oxytocin, the encouragement that we're all together in this, but there's no substantive development. It is a hug from a stranger; something that we appreciate when there's no one else to hug.
When reading things that disturb our equilibrium and promote our anger and derision, we're immediately challenged to work through the motivations we possess for making the decisions we've made. I'm annoyed when I listen to some conservative or Republican spew talking points but it centers my self-perception as a liberal and a socialist. I'm angry but I'm listening. I'm engaged. So I find myself returning to things that enrage me . . . I find myself thinking about them for days, deconstructing both the arguments I'm hearing and my own arguments. In the process I'm not only informed about what others believe - I am also more informed about what I believe.
This is part of why I'm not concerned with being virtuous about the beliefs of others. Hammering at the beliefs of others by imposing mine - by tagging a series of visceral instincts in the way of being a good writer - compels the reader to rethink, rehash and reconfirm what they believe. In the process, if there's anything the reader has taken for granted, anything they haven't truly thought through . . . then in rehashing it themselves, they're going to feel uncomfortable for days. That's why people who disagree with me still come back and read this blog; because they disagree with me.
This is why people who disagree with each other so strongly can still be friends; because at the heart of it, the principles of belief for both parties are based upon investigation rather than conciliation. Neither cares if they resolve their differences; that is not the desire. The desire is that all parties should continue to ensure, daily, that they haven't somehow deluded themselves.
Bringing us back to D&D and the subject of a good party. It's usually presumed that to have a good party, conciliation is the Holy Grail. Somehow, we think, we will encourage these players to get along with one another, to think together and be a party with a single, positive agenda. With that conciliation in mind, we rush to destroy anything that doesn't sound like conciliation. A disagreement starts and we crush it. Two players absolutely resist taking part in the same activity and we try to step in and compel them to accept one or the other choice. We make them roll dice to see who gets the highest roll, to force one or the other participant to adhere for the sake of adherence. We shout, "Can't we all just get along?"
Many people who read yesterday's post immediately leapt to a conclusion that I browbeat my players into total agreement with an agenda which I probably impose, shouting down anyone who dares murmur a contrary word. They see my table as an absolutist regime, where the player makes a peep and I land on them with both feet. It is assumed that what I want is conciliation - where, in fact, I want anything but.
My players don't hesitate to shout back. Those who read yesterday's post, who failed to grasp that, can't be held at fault; I deliberately left it out. Because I understand how most tables work. The DM does have absolute authority, most anywhere. I knew it would be taken as a defacto truth that I must have such authority as well. But I don't. My authority does not derive from it being my world or my game, but from the legitimacy that my players grant to those things. My players understand this granting of authority and as such they will, without hesitation, fight with me. And with each other. And I let them. Because a party does not become a 'party' through DM-enforced conciliation, but from the privilege of being allowed to disagree and say so loudly.
I also deliberately left out the legitimacy of my position by failing to point out that as I shout at you and boot you from my table, the other players will be applauding. They will want you gone as much as I do.
I wasn't specific about what are "the wrong questions" a player will ask, but I'll link a post from back in 2012 where I talk about that in depth. I should have done that with yesterday's post but I was rolling and I missed the opportunity. That was an example of bad writing.
The arguments around the table can get pretty rowdy at times. Mostly, I keep out of it. I don't have to police my players because they know how to argue; now and then I have to keep them on track, particularly with a married couple I have running. They get going on a game point and hoo boy! - better get your flak jacket on. Because these two people care. I mean they really fucking care.
I'll offer advice and clarify what one player is saying to another, if needed. I'll keep them from physical contact. But the final resolution for any problem is up to them, not me.
I haven't had the kind of players I'd boot for a long, long time. Barrow, in yesterday's comments, gave an excellent example of that kind of player:
". . . I have a Fighter who is motivated to build an army for conquest. There was a time where the Fighter's motive to build an army led him to choose a personal quest over dealing with the group's currently chosen quest. Similarly, the fighter might say. 'I am only interested in building an army, not getting involved in local problems. Where are the town guards.' Thus justifying why the group should essentially skip this hook and focus on their own personal agendas.
"If I overrule the PC motivations, such as removing the fighter's motives in the cases above, am I essentially railroading or is the agency still there . . ."
I'm quite sure that most readers recognize the situation - but at the same time, most will fail to see the problem. The assumption will be that here we have players who can't agree on the agenda at hand and are therefore operating at cross-purposes. There's no conciliation.
That is not the problem, however. The problem is that the player has turned to the DM for appeal. And the DM accepts, somehow, that the player is allowed to do this. This sets the DM up as the final word in sorting out player disputes . . . and everything from there gets bolluxed up.
In such a situation, the answer is, "Tell them, not me. Work this out with your fellow players." And then to refuse to run until the players sort it out.
It cannot be sorted out from on high.
The problems lead to a player being shouted at or booted begin where the player refuses to accept this ruling. It's taken me two posts to get here and I've had to mess with the reader's head, but this is a very important point. Players who refuse to deal with other players, who continually treat their fellow players with disregard or contempt because they know they can appeal again and again to a weak DM, are bad players. They need to have their thought processes corrected. They need to have it explained to them that gameplay based on "what my character would do" or player-vs-player or anything that tacitly demands the DM's approval is wrongheadedness in the extreme. Brought about by DMs who think it IS their responsibility to adjudicate in this manner.
It is always presumed that if two players were to launch into PvP in my world, that I would sternly reprimand them and tell them to cut it out. Not at all. The only solution that needs applying is to make it clear that no one is dead. No one can be dead until I, the DM, say they are. And I won't say it. Go ahead, fight it out, if you can do that without the other players telling you to cut it out and get your heads back in the game . . . but when it's all over, it means shit.
No one is dead. And no one is having a personal quest if I won't run it. Nor are there any town guards to be found if I won't answer the question and feed the player's selfishness.
I am not the player's enabler. I'm the enemy. I'm the player's worst nightmare - which is why smart players get together in defense. I'm not anyone's buddy at the table . . . and when players won't accept that, then there's always trouble.
Funny, though. Players, I find, love that I'm not the arbiter of their issues. They love it. If there's one reason why I have a successful, positive world, despite my personal nature, it's that. The players make me a DM. In return, I give them freedom.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
No, You Can't Play in My World
I play D&D with my friends. In the case of my daughter, with my family. I don't think that gets in the way of this post, however, since I hold my friends to the same standards as I would hold new D&D players.
If it chanced that I moved to Seattle, Toronto or Phoenix, I know there are readers of this blog who would be very interested in joining my game. I think I could do very well in Chicago, Atlanta, Providence or Portland - on the west coast, at least. I've heard from readers from Vancouver, Winnipeg, Omaha and San Diego, too . . . and overseas in Manchester, Wellington, Strasbourg and Madrid. You know who you are.
I don't write this to pat myself on the back, sorry. I write it to make clear the point that were my circumstances different, I would probably find myself playing with relative strangers - for a little while, anyway, until they made the cut and became my friends.
'Made the cut'? I'm sorry, maybe that wasn't clear. Some of you are not good enough to play in my world.
There will be many different responses to that, but two of them will stand out.
One Group, particularly of those readers who are already thinking, "I wouldn't play in that guy's world if -" [fill in expletive here], feels on some exceptional level that they don't deserve to be judged. Ever. Certainly not in terms of how they play the game. Even less so for how well they play the game - which, and I'm not kidding here, fucking matters to me. If the reader can't play with ability, the reader is not welcome. And what do I mean by ability? Well . . . that's the point, isn't it?
The Other Group, they have smiles on their faces. Right now. They know exactly what I mean by 'ability.' And they don't doubt for a second that they have it.
Ability is enthusiasm. Verve. Commitment. A strong desire to play. An awareness of other players and their equally strong desire to play. Empathy for those players. Most of all, a resolve to make the game work, both for themselves and for me - for every damn person at the table.
"Oh," says one of the first Group. "I have that. No biggie."
I wonder. Because here's what's going to happen if I find you sitting at my table without enthusiasm, a will to pay attention and as much commitment to the game as I have. Here's what's going to happen if I catch you selfishly pressing your own agenda with a big fuck-you to your fellow players. Here's what's going to happen if I catch you with indifference towards another player's situation or troubles - and gawd help you if you show mirth at someone's downfall.
I'm going to boot you.
I'm not going to be kind about it. You'll get some warning - and unless you're living down being the kid of an alcoholic or some other abusive childhood, you're going to feel that warning down to your bones. See, I was a kid among alcoholics and I did have an abused childhood so I come from an awful lot of anger - anger that sort of comes to a pleasant simmer that provides a measurable tension at my gaming table. Some of my players really like it; they know how controlled I am, how on the edge I am . . . and that makes for really good game play. When I say 'roll' the players do it.
I know that some readers here think I must be a bean-counter during my games. They think it must all be accounting and rules lawyering. Um, no. I'm working, I'm rushing, I'm getting older and it is very easy to wear my patience thin. That's why, if you're a fucking tourist, you can catch the next bus.
Worse, I'm a social justice warrior. I really, truly hate seeing anyone unfairly abuse themselves or anyone else. Unfairly abuse . . . that's not a casual distinction. Come sit at my table willingly, of your own free will, and get ready. Because if you fuck around, you're going to hear it from me.
Yet with all this, I have players. Passionate, loyal, dedicated players that don't miss sessions - unless they're in a hospital or they absolutely cannot get out of a wedding or a shift. After which I listen to a long, self-abasing speech these players give about how fucking mad they were when they found out they couldn't play.
See, they're not sorry. They're pissed.
The Other Group is smiling again.
Let me explain something about why you don't have a group like mine. You're not angry enough. You're not righteous enough. You're putting up with way, way more shit than you should be. You're turning a blind eye to suffering and abuse at your table because you're too much of a chicken shit to step up. You're cowed. You're afraid of losing a player.
Whereas I can't wait to show those players the door. Can't. Wait. I can feel it five minutes into a session, when they start to ask the wrong questions and start to make statements about their character's motivations and . . . I can just feel my blood heating from a simmer to a boil.
Just give me a fucking reason, I'm thinking. Just one reason.
This works because the players I've already collected are just as ready to get rid of the new player every bit as much as I am . . . and because I will hold back until the line is crossed. I'll make the line very clear, I'll warn the player back from it . . . and I'll make it clear I'm the sort of person that means what I say.
I do get players who aren't afraid of me. Like I say, if we've both had the same upbringing, if we've both learned the same lessons in childhood, if we've both set our minds to being right while the other person is wrong . . . hell yes, they're not going to scare. That's a given.
But those people break down into two groups, as well. People who learned from those lifetime lessons and just want to fucking play - in which case we get along great, even if we lose our tempers with each other - and people who learned nothing from those lifetime lessons. In which case, I don't want them around.
Now that first group is thinking, "I really, really wouldn't play in that psycho bastard's world if -" [fill in lots and lots of expletives here]
Good riddance. No great loss.
Everyone else makes the cut. Everyone else gets to keep coming back and playing in a great world where we're all invested. Because everyone not invested was shown the door.
Ever walk along with someone when they're shown the door? It's all sour grapes. All of it. They tried out, it sucked, they didn't make the cut and they are understandably pissed. Hey, seriously. Understandably. I get it. I've been booted. I haven't made the cut. I've failed to measure up. Everyone has. It is a fundamental lesson in life. You, me, none of us get everything we want - and it is worse when we realize after the fact that we've just humiliated ourselves in trying to have something that, afterwards, we realized we never did want.
That's how I started this post. By saying that the people who stay are those who want it. When I say that, I mean they want it hard. I mean they're ready to put up with be shouted at or forced to withdraw what they've said or change their minds about how the game should be played or what the hell they're doing there. That's what committed means: that when someone tells me what the rules are, I don't think, "Fuck, those are shit rules" . . . I think, "That's going to take adjustment." On my part. Not the part of the table. Not the part of others. My part.
The players that stay in my world, who enjoy my flashes of passion, who like the rigor and the structure and the ungodly tension, they're people who think that way. If you, gentle reader, gentle misused reader, revolted and disgusted with my attitude, don't think that way, then you're very welcome not to want to play in my world.
There's only so much room around the table as it is.
I can't accommodate everyone.
As such, I feel justified in accommodating only a few, in exactly the way I want to accommodate anyone. Conditionally.
If you, O dear DM, haven't figured out that about your table yet . . . jeez, I don't know what to tell you.
If it chanced that I moved to Seattle, Toronto or Phoenix, I know there are readers of this blog who would be very interested in joining my game. I think I could do very well in Chicago, Atlanta, Providence or Portland - on the west coast, at least. I've heard from readers from Vancouver, Winnipeg, Omaha and San Diego, too . . . and overseas in Manchester, Wellington, Strasbourg and Madrid. You know who you are.
I don't write this to pat myself on the back, sorry. I write it to make clear the point that were my circumstances different, I would probably find myself playing with relative strangers - for a little while, anyway, until they made the cut and became my friends.
'Made the cut'? I'm sorry, maybe that wasn't clear. Some of you are not good enough to play in my world.
There will be many different responses to that, but two of them will stand out.
One Group, particularly of those readers who are already thinking, "I wouldn't play in that guy's world if -" [fill in expletive here], feels on some exceptional level that they don't deserve to be judged. Ever. Certainly not in terms of how they play the game. Even less so for how well they play the game - which, and I'm not kidding here, fucking matters to me. If the reader can't play with ability, the reader is not welcome. And what do I mean by ability? Well . . . that's the point, isn't it?
The Other Group, they have smiles on their faces. Right now. They know exactly what I mean by 'ability.' And they don't doubt for a second that they have it.
Ability is enthusiasm. Verve. Commitment. A strong desire to play. An awareness of other players and their equally strong desire to play. Empathy for those players. Most of all, a resolve to make the game work, both for themselves and for me - for every damn person at the table.
"Oh," says one of the first Group. "I have that. No biggie."
I wonder. Because here's what's going to happen if I find you sitting at my table without enthusiasm, a will to pay attention and as much commitment to the game as I have. Here's what's going to happen if I catch you selfishly pressing your own agenda with a big fuck-you to your fellow players. Here's what's going to happen if I catch you with indifference towards another player's situation or troubles - and gawd help you if you show mirth at someone's downfall.
I'm going to boot you.
I'm not going to be kind about it. You'll get some warning - and unless you're living down being the kid of an alcoholic or some other abusive childhood, you're going to feel that warning down to your bones. See, I was a kid among alcoholics and I did have an abused childhood so I come from an awful lot of anger - anger that sort of comes to a pleasant simmer that provides a measurable tension at my gaming table. Some of my players really like it; they know how controlled I am, how on the edge I am . . . and that makes for really good game play. When I say 'roll' the players do it.
I know that some readers here think I must be a bean-counter during my games. They think it must all be accounting and rules lawyering. Um, no. I'm working, I'm rushing, I'm getting older and it is very easy to wear my patience thin. That's why, if you're a fucking tourist, you can catch the next bus.
Worse, I'm a social justice warrior. I really, truly hate seeing anyone unfairly abuse themselves or anyone else. Unfairly abuse . . . that's not a casual distinction. Come sit at my table willingly, of your own free will, and get ready. Because if you fuck around, you're going to hear it from me.
Yet with all this, I have players. Passionate, loyal, dedicated players that don't miss sessions - unless they're in a hospital or they absolutely cannot get out of a wedding or a shift. After which I listen to a long, self-abasing speech these players give about how fucking mad they were when they found out they couldn't play.
See, they're not sorry. They're pissed.
The Other Group is smiling again.
Let me explain something about why you don't have a group like mine. You're not angry enough. You're not righteous enough. You're putting up with way, way more shit than you should be. You're turning a blind eye to suffering and abuse at your table because you're too much of a chicken shit to step up. You're cowed. You're afraid of losing a player.
Whereas I can't wait to show those players the door. Can't. Wait. I can feel it five minutes into a session, when they start to ask the wrong questions and start to make statements about their character's motivations and . . . I can just feel my blood heating from a simmer to a boil.
Just give me a fucking reason, I'm thinking. Just one reason.
This works because the players I've already collected are just as ready to get rid of the new player every bit as much as I am . . . and because I will hold back until the line is crossed. I'll make the line very clear, I'll warn the player back from it . . . and I'll make it clear I'm the sort of person that means what I say.
I do get players who aren't afraid of me. Like I say, if we've both had the same upbringing, if we've both learned the same lessons in childhood, if we've both set our minds to being right while the other person is wrong . . . hell yes, they're not going to scare. That's a given.
But those people break down into two groups, as well. People who learned from those lifetime lessons and just want to fucking play - in which case we get along great, even if we lose our tempers with each other - and people who learned nothing from those lifetime lessons. In which case, I don't want them around.
Now that first group is thinking, "I really, really wouldn't play in that psycho bastard's world if -" [fill in lots and lots of expletives here]
Good riddance. No great loss.
Everyone else makes the cut. Everyone else gets to keep coming back and playing in a great world where we're all invested. Because everyone not invested was shown the door.
Ever walk along with someone when they're shown the door? It's all sour grapes. All of it. They tried out, it sucked, they didn't make the cut and they are understandably pissed. Hey, seriously. Understandably. I get it. I've been booted. I haven't made the cut. I've failed to measure up. Everyone has. It is a fundamental lesson in life. You, me, none of us get everything we want - and it is worse when we realize after the fact that we've just humiliated ourselves in trying to have something that, afterwards, we realized we never did want.
That's how I started this post. By saying that the people who stay are those who want it. When I say that, I mean they want it hard. I mean they're ready to put up with be shouted at or forced to withdraw what they've said or change their minds about how the game should be played or what the hell they're doing there. That's what committed means: that when someone tells me what the rules are, I don't think, "Fuck, those are shit rules" . . . I think, "That's going to take adjustment." On my part. Not the part of the table. Not the part of others. My part.
The players that stay in my world, who enjoy my flashes of passion, who like the rigor and the structure and the ungodly tension, they're people who think that way. If you, gentle reader, gentle misused reader, revolted and disgusted with my attitude, don't think that way, then you're very welcome not to want to play in my world.
There's only so much room around the table as it is.
I can't accommodate everyone.
As such, I feel justified in accommodating only a few, in exactly the way I want to accommodate anyone. Conditionally.
If you, O dear DM, haven't figured out that about your table yet . . . jeez, I don't know what to tell you.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Read the Books. For Efs Sake, Read the Effing Books.
JB of B/X Blackrazor has a curious way of setting my teeth on edge, even when he's pointing out thinking that is not his own. A fair part of my visceral reactions, I know, result from JB feeling that I need something like the linked comment pointed out to me . . . in the same way that I need someone reminding me that some people think it's a good idea to take young girls in their care and turn them into sex slaves.
It isn't that knowing these things isn't important or that I have any reason to remain ignorant. But shit. Really?
". . . there's this pervasive idea that goblins and other humanoids aren't quite as organized as humans where it comes to this practical selection process . . . it goes a long ways towards explaining why the (often larger, tougher) tool-making humanoids haven't become the dominant species on the fantasy planet."
I guess, on the surface, this looks like a good argument. Except that the 1977 Monster Manual, published before most people having this "pervasive idea" were born, describes an orc tribe as possessing swords, battleaxes and polearms (which I suppose some will argue were just 'lying around,' which fails to explain why peasant rebellions led by 'organized' humans rarely possessed such items), at least half the time possessing two weapons (that's a fair bit of weapons' training for the disorganized), a social structure of a chief with body-guards, guards, leaders and assistants (sure, disorganized), ditches, ramparts, palisade walls, guard towers, gates, catapults, ballistae, tribal standards, the institution of slavery, the ability to speak five languages and being accomplished as tunnelers and miners. I recognize that a lot of gamers are dead-brained idiots, but quite a lot of these things required a rather considerable social structure to be designed in 'organized' human culture. Funny how the extremely sophisticated cultures of the Incas and the Aztecs never got around to building siege weapons. Oh well, I guess they were too organized.
I'm sorry to let the ordinary suppositioner about history know this, but virtually every 'organized' advancement made by human culture was invented by one small group once upon a time, and then stolen by everyone else. I'm not just describing things like designing a fishing boat or making a sword, no. As I argued with my technology posts once upon a time, things like polytheism, priesthood, alphabet and music are profoundly affecting technological revolutions as well, requiring insight and considerable cultural development:
"We hear music, we feel a sense of wellbeing, which in turn we relate to the order of the universe, which deludes us into thinking we can do whatever we want and that we have nothing to fear."
How does this relate to social order? We put up a standard, a flag, in front of men and we march them into battle, promoting in them the belief that they are fighting for king, god, home, whatever - exactly what the orc in the original text feels when they fight at +1 on hit dice and morale, right there on page 76 of the Monster Manual.
If the pervasive idea that JB describes has it's source, it's that the spreaders of said idea did not fucking read the books! Which puts them right up there with people who think kids have to wait an hour after eating before going swimming or people who believe Obama is a Muslim because 'Hussein' has an Islamic derivation. My name has a Russian Orthodox derivation and before that a Varangian Viking derivation, which obviously says I should write "norse celtic" on the government census when it comes around. Except, of course, that the same people who recognize 'Hussein' have never heard of 'Smolensk,' except as the city in Russia vaguely connected with WWII, don't know about my various heritages because they haven't read those fucking books either.
Is it a good idea to let me know that there are impressively ignorant, grab ass fools in the world spreading dumbfuck explanations for concepts of which they haven't a clue? Well, yeah. Except that I got told this some 41 years ago, at the age of 9, and I have quite a few sources all over the net and the media reminding me of this far too many times every day. So I don't really need another reminder. They come pretty steady.
Should JB not have commented? Oh hell no. I like it when he comments. He gets me going, and that's always a good thing. And he did trash Tolkein in his comment, which suitably pointed out the dim-witted pretentious self-important white-guilted Brit that suffuses every nook and cranny of those texts. I always appreciate that.
It is only that I get the same itch that the reader felt upon learning that an ex-employee from a Roanoke news station twittered a picture of his hand holding the pistol that killed a woman reporter and her cameraman during a live news broadcast: oh, for fuck's sake . . .
It isn't that knowing these things isn't important or that I have any reason to remain ignorant. But shit. Really?
". . . there's this pervasive idea that goblins and other humanoids aren't quite as organized as humans where it comes to this practical selection process . . . it goes a long ways towards explaining why the (often larger, tougher) tool-making humanoids haven't become the dominant species on the fantasy planet."
I guess, on the surface, this looks like a good argument. Except that the 1977 Monster Manual, published before most people having this "pervasive idea" were born, describes an orc tribe as possessing swords, battleaxes and polearms (which I suppose some will argue were just 'lying around,' which fails to explain why peasant rebellions led by 'organized' humans rarely possessed such items), at least half the time possessing two weapons (that's a fair bit of weapons' training for the disorganized), a social structure of a chief with body-guards, guards, leaders and assistants (sure, disorganized), ditches, ramparts, palisade walls, guard towers, gates, catapults, ballistae, tribal standards, the institution of slavery, the ability to speak five languages and being accomplished as tunnelers and miners. I recognize that a lot of gamers are dead-brained idiots, but quite a lot of these things required a rather considerable social structure to be designed in 'organized' human culture. Funny how the extremely sophisticated cultures of the Incas and the Aztecs never got around to building siege weapons. Oh well, I guess they were too organized.
I'm sorry to let the ordinary suppositioner about history know this, but virtually every 'organized' advancement made by human culture was invented by one small group once upon a time, and then stolen by everyone else. I'm not just describing things like designing a fishing boat or making a sword, no. As I argued with my technology posts once upon a time, things like polytheism, priesthood, alphabet and music are profoundly affecting technological revolutions as well, requiring insight and considerable cultural development:
"We hear music, we feel a sense of wellbeing, which in turn we relate to the order of the universe, which deludes us into thinking we can do whatever we want and that we have nothing to fear."
How does this relate to social order? We put up a standard, a flag, in front of men and we march them into battle, promoting in them the belief that they are fighting for king, god, home, whatever - exactly what the orc in the original text feels when they fight at +1 on hit dice and morale, right there on page 76 of the Monster Manual.
If the pervasive idea that JB describes has it's source, it's that the spreaders of said idea did not fucking read the books! Which puts them right up there with people who think kids have to wait an hour after eating before going swimming or people who believe Obama is a Muslim because 'Hussein' has an Islamic derivation. My name has a Russian Orthodox derivation and before that a Varangian Viking derivation, which obviously says I should write "norse celtic" on the government census when it comes around. Except, of course, that the same people who recognize 'Hussein' have never heard of 'Smolensk,' except as the city in Russia vaguely connected with WWII, don't know about my various heritages because they haven't read those fucking books either.
Is it a good idea to let me know that there are impressively ignorant, grab ass fools in the world spreading dumbfuck explanations for concepts of which they haven't a clue? Well, yeah. Except that I got told this some 41 years ago, at the age of 9, and I have quite a few sources all over the net and the media reminding me of this far too many times every day. So I don't really need another reminder. They come pretty steady.
Should JB not have commented? Oh hell no. I like it when he comments. He gets me going, and that's always a good thing. And he did trash Tolkein in his comment, which suitably pointed out the dim-witted pretentious self-important white-guilted Brit that suffuses every nook and cranny of those texts. I always appreciate that.
It is only that I get the same itch that the reader felt upon learning that an ex-employee from a Roanoke news station twittered a picture of his hand holding the pistol that killed a woman reporter and her cameraman during a live news broadcast: oh, for fuck's sake . . .
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Set the Odds
Following up on yesterday's post, I'd like to take the matter of selective (rather than randomized) hit points a step further.
Let's take two scenarios. In both scenarios, the party is wandering over a wilderness country more than 40 miles from a friendly town, where goblins are known to dwell.
In the first scenario, the party comes across a group of a dozen goblins busily quarrying into a rock surface just above the tree line. The work on the rock is recent, as the goblins have succeeded only in cutting down about seven to eight feet, all of it in the shape of an open pit that's nothing at all like a shaft. Perhaps a few weeks work altogether. The goblins all have picks and there's about 500 g.p. worth of complex construction equipment laying about, just as we would expect with a site. They're just goblins, so the party decides to fall on this little group and kill them, seize the tools and delicate instruments and head back to town.,
In the second scenario, the party is walking along the edge of the same treeline, where everything seems serene and peaceful. There are no diggings, no sign of any goblins at all - but all at once, the party is hit by a squad of a dozen well-armed goblins who rise up from the rocks above the tree line. These all fire arrows into the party, hoping to catch the party by surprise. If the party turns and flees, the goblins are ready with spears; and if the party turns towards the goblins, to try to make their way up to the rocks, the goblins are scattered and well able to get two or three more arrows each before the party can reach even one of them. Either the party has to separate and go after the goblins individually, try to hit them with missile weapons though the goblins are well under cover or simply give up the field and hope to take the goblins in the trees. These goblins are well set up to get the party in trouble.
Now ask this question. Which of these two groups of goblins are likely to have more hit points?
Is it completely random? Really? Are we saying that the second group just grabbed a dozen goblins from the nearby lair without picking the best goblins for the job? Because that seems pretty dumb. If your high school has a basketball team, is the team picked by just going randomly around the school and grabbing people without thinking about it? Or is the selection process a bit more elaborate?
And what about these fellows in the quarry. Sure, they're tough and strong and they've got picks - but does that really make them ready for a military standoff? Do you think they been chosen to work this dig because they swing a mean pick? Or might it be, since the work is just starting and there's a greater need to have engineers and goblin geologists who know what they're doing in preparing the intricate arrangements needed to start a mine. Might it not be that these goblins were selected for their brains and not their combat prowess, hm?
It is true that D&D is a game and that games are based on random dice. However, D&D is not just a game. It's also design, the process of deciding what the numbers stand for, what dice to throw and why this roll counts and that doesn't. It isn't just playing craps, it's inventing craps - and it's a helluva lot more complicated than craps.
It means that long, long before the players arrive at the table to throw their dice, the table has to be built and it has to make sense. When the players see the collection of diggers, they're entitled to make an intelligent guess at how capable these goblins will be where it comes to defending themselves. This enables the players to make the same kind of evaluation of the game that a craps player makes when deciding whether or not to double down on making a point. A 10 is very different from a 6 in this regard.
It isn't unfair to change the 'rules' about how many hit points the goblins have given each special situation. Taking the goblins at the quarry includes all the elements of rolling a 6. Handling the goblins at the ambush, that's rolling a 10. And if there are goblins in the trees, too, waiting for the party to run into them . . . well, that's craps, baby.
If you want a better world, don't let the structure of the game become such a straight-jacket that it forces elements of space and time into the same mundane lithium-fed snore-fest. Let the monsters be tougher if the situation calls for it; and balance that by making the monsters weaker when the situation calls for that. Sure, the dice are the game - but you're the DM and you've got to be the game, too. You're the one setting the odds.
The Collectors of Gong
We're all nerds so this won't be a pleasant memory for some.
I don't know how many times as a kid, until I grew into my shoulders and size, that I would find myself one the last or second-last to be picked for football, basketball or whatever game we were going to play. In those days, even without urging from parents, kids themselves would choose two captains and let them pick from among the contestants - and as this was as true for school, family gatherings or any joint get-together from camp to church events (yes, gawd, those too), the picking was set up and followed through.
Even with complete strangers it was evident who could play and who could not. Oh, everyone likes to tell stories about the scrawny kid with the amazing jump shot, but those stories never seemed to happen in front of me. Even as I got older, bigger and tougher, there were still kids I watched get picked last and second-last, every time.
We can tell in advance which they'll be. As Malcolm Gladwell writes, in a Blink. It's a good thing, too - for being able to assess situations in a moment of stress has kept human beings alive these millions of years. The games played by Homo Erectus were for higher stakes . . . and when it came down to choosing who would beat the sticks together to frighten the animal and who would hold the spear for when the animal came through the gap between the cliffs, Erectus picked the winners over the losers.
An immense advantage over the other creatures of the earth that humans possessed, however, was in finding something useful and practical for the weaker members of the tribe to do. Throwing the spear may be the job of the jock we all hated in high school (though some of us became that for a time), but making the spear was shepherded out to others who didn't need to be tough and strong, just patient and able. We still divide things this way. The kid who was picked last is the lawyer now, defending the kid who was a physical phenomenon now suffering from CTE.
The point here comes back to an argument I made more than a year ago about hit points. My argument at that time was that, given a random hit point roll for a general population, the population that survives into maturity and past previous combats ought to have more hit points than the average die that's rolled. From among creatures rolling a d8 for hit points, the 1s and 2s would die out in battle, I argued, leaving the 7s and 8s.
This did not go over well. But, well, that's how it goes.
I don't plan to revisit the argument here. Rather, I want to provide a counter argument that, in part, refutes it.
I don't think the 1s and 2s would see battle at all. I think that these would be held back, kept in the caves and the service areas, judged unworthy for battle by the clan - at a blink, as I said. Every goblin in the cave would know what a clumsy idiot Xyttat is; and Pysggak can't even lift a hammer properly, of course. That's why these two collect the gong, shovel out the rothe pens, collect all the lickspittle from the Queen after she gives birth and generally present themselves for a good kicking during the high holidays. Xyttat and Pysggak only have 1 hit point - it doesn't take a spratling to see that! Xyt and Pys go to war? Haha hah HAH ha . . . wait . . . whew! . . . just catching my breath. Don't make me laugh.
The reader should just think for a moment about the way we assess people at a glance every day - and ask seriously if we wouldn't know which dexterous, strong, enduring clubmasters we'd send out into the daylight and who we're going to leave back home to cover the floors in rat-grease for the happy day they return victorious. Because we do have a measure for who does what job. Even if we do dream of pitching major league baseball, we know very well why we're not.
And it's cool. There's always gong to collect.
I don't know how many times as a kid, until I grew into my shoulders and size, that I would find myself one the last or second-last to be picked for football, basketball or whatever game we were going to play. In those days, even without urging from parents, kids themselves would choose two captains and let them pick from among the contestants - and as this was as true for school, family gatherings or any joint get-together from camp to church events (yes, gawd, those too), the picking was set up and followed through.
Even with complete strangers it was evident who could play and who could not. Oh, everyone likes to tell stories about the scrawny kid with the amazing jump shot, but those stories never seemed to happen in front of me. Even as I got older, bigger and tougher, there were still kids I watched get picked last and second-last, every time.
We can tell in advance which they'll be. As Malcolm Gladwell writes, in a Blink. It's a good thing, too - for being able to assess situations in a moment of stress has kept human beings alive these millions of years. The games played by Homo Erectus were for higher stakes . . . and when it came down to choosing who would beat the sticks together to frighten the animal and who would hold the spear for when the animal came through the gap between the cliffs, Erectus picked the winners over the losers.
An immense advantage over the other creatures of the earth that humans possessed, however, was in finding something useful and practical for the weaker members of the tribe to do. Throwing the spear may be the job of the jock we all hated in high school (though some of us became that for a time), but making the spear was shepherded out to others who didn't need to be tough and strong, just patient and able. We still divide things this way. The kid who was picked last is the lawyer now, defending the kid who was a physical phenomenon now suffering from CTE.
The point here comes back to an argument I made more than a year ago about hit points. My argument at that time was that, given a random hit point roll for a general population, the population that survives into maturity and past previous combats ought to have more hit points than the average die that's rolled. From among creatures rolling a d8 for hit points, the 1s and 2s would die out in battle, I argued, leaving the 7s and 8s.
This did not go over well. But, well, that's how it goes.
I don't plan to revisit the argument here. Rather, I want to provide a counter argument that, in part, refutes it.
I don't think the 1s and 2s would see battle at all. I think that these would be held back, kept in the caves and the service areas, judged unworthy for battle by the clan - at a blink, as I said. Every goblin in the cave would know what a clumsy idiot Xyttat is; and Pysggak can't even lift a hammer properly, of course. That's why these two collect the gong, shovel out the rothe pens, collect all the lickspittle from the Queen after she gives birth and generally present themselves for a good kicking during the high holidays. Xyttat and Pysggak only have 1 hit point - it doesn't take a spratling to see that! Xyt and Pys go to war? Haha hah HAH ha . . . wait . . . whew! . . . just catching my breath. Don't make me laugh.
The reader should just think for a moment about the way we assess people at a glance every day - and ask seriously if we wouldn't know which dexterous, strong, enduring clubmasters we'd send out into the daylight and who we're going to leave back home to cover the floors in rat-grease for the happy day they return victorious. Because we do have a measure for who does what job. Even if we do dream of pitching major league baseball, we know very well why we're not.
And it's cool. There's always gong to collect.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Muster
I imagine for a few weeks I'm going to buzzing on the blog about the Wiki. All four users are aboard and already it is clear that the participants are getting their feet wet. I can see it is going to be a real challenge to keep up once they hit their stride, as changes start coming in by the minute. But then, for those readers who may wonder what to do when the Wiki is not updating . . .
Maybe that won't be the case. Perhaps one day it will always be updating.
I want to sincerely dedicate this post to Byrhtnoth, jerscott, MaxwellJoslyn and SimonTVesper, listed alphabetically. Youse guys, youse guys . . . yoor da best.
Keep an eye on the home page as members decide whether or not to make their own space, and always on the recent changes page, also shown in the side bar.
Praise and applause are great, no question about it. But it is far, far better when someone picks up a shovel and starts working along side us. The feeling of not being alone, of being part of an effort, changes an ordinary task into a pleasure. The best praise, the best applause, is involvement.
These volunteers deserve all the muster from myself that I can give.
Maybe that won't be the case. Perhaps one day it will always be updating.
I want to sincerely dedicate this post to Byrhtnoth, jerscott, MaxwellJoslyn and SimonTVesper, listed alphabetically. Youse guys, youse guys . . . yoor da best.
Keep an eye on the home page as members decide whether or not to make their own space, and always on the recent changes page, also shown in the side bar.
Praise and applause are great, no question about it. But it is far, far better when someone picks up a shovel and starts working along side us. The feeling of not being alone, of being part of an effort, changes an ordinary task into a pleasure. The best praise, the best applause, is involvement.
These volunteers deserve all the muster from myself that I can give.
Injuries
From the Wiki:
Injuries are penalties imposed on the healing of hit points when a great deal of damage has been delivered to a combatant in a single attack.
When a combatant suffers sufficient damage to reduce them from more than half their hit points above zero to less than zero in one strike, then the combatant is considered to be injured - unless the total damage done is less than 12 points total. For example, if Caleb the mage has 6 hit points total, then takes 7 points of damage (sufficient to lower Caleb to -1 hp) then Caleb is not injured because the total damage done was less than 12.
However, if Bala the Druid has 17 hit points total and is presently at 9 due to damage she has already suffered, then takes 12 points of damage (sufficient to lower Bala to -3 hp), then Bala would be injured.
For every 12 points of damage received, the injury tally is counted at 1 point. Thus 24 points of damage would mean a 2-point injury, 36 points of damage would mean a 3-point injury and so on.
Note that 11 or more damage received in a given attack is sufficient to cause a wound. But injuries are not wounds! An injury does not occur merely because 12 damage has been done. For the injury to occur at all, the combatant must be hit hard enough to eliminate half their maximum hit points. For higher level characters, particularly fighters, it may require as much as 40, 50 or 60 damage for an injury to occur. The tally only refers to dividing this ultimate amount of damage by 12.
Healing Injuries
A combatant that has been injured does not sustain any additional damage due to that injury. However, the amount of time necessary to recover from the injury is dependent upon the injury tally. A 1-point injury requires that 10 points of equivalent healing must be gained before the first hit point after damage can be raised by one point.
In the example above, Bala has a 1-point injury that dropped her total hit points to -3. In order for Bala to restore her hit points to -2, Bala must heal 10 hit points of equivalent damage. In effect, the injury that Bala has sustained has stretched the healing distance between -3 and -2 hit points by a multiple of 10.
Let us take another example. Albert is a 7th level cleric with 42 hit points. While climbing up the side of a mountain, Albert slips and falls, taking a total of 46 points of damage. This reduces Albert's hit points to -4, all at once. And because the damage sustained is more than half his total, Albert is injured. Because he is at -4 hit points, he must roll to see if he is conscious (see Negative Hit Points). Albert makes a wisdom check, as described on the negative hit points page, and fails by rolling a 14.
From the fall, Albert is also wounded, which means that he has injured himself in some way that he is suffering -4 hp damage per round from the 46 damage he received. If he were laying on the ground all alone, he would bleed out and be dead in two rounds - and there is nothing Albert can do about this, because he is unconscious. However, lucky for Albert, he fell near to Erick, a 1st level paladin, who quickly runs to Albert's side and lays hands for 2 hp as soon as he can. He can't quite get there before Albert bleeds for one round, now reduced to -8 hit points. However, the bleeding is stopped and Albert's life is saved.
Albert is not, however, restored to -6 hit points by Erick's laying on of hands. Albert was injured. He sustained a 3-point injury . . . so to be restored to -7 hit points (one above the score he has right now), Albert must gain a total of 30 points of healing. Erick has given him 2. Albert needs 28 more. Once Albert has been restored to -7 hit points, he can begin healing damage normally.
If Albert had died, then been restored by death's door, then his body would still have to be healed those same 30 points, as the body would retain the injury, even though Albert would be restored to zero hit points.
Type of Injury
At this time, I have not created any specific tables for what is injured. The rule is still in its infancy - and since in most cases the injured person will be in the negatives and laid up, a flat rule that it is one or the other arm is sufficient. If the rule works and does not overly tax the patience of my players, then I will work up a injury table specifying what type of injury occurs.
Injuries are penalties imposed on the healing of hit points when a great deal of damage has been delivered to a combatant in a single attack.
When a combatant suffers sufficient damage to reduce them from more than half their hit points above zero to less than zero in one strike, then the combatant is considered to be injured - unless the total damage done is less than 12 points total. For example, if Caleb the mage has 6 hit points total, then takes 7 points of damage (sufficient to lower Caleb to -1 hp) then Caleb is not injured because the total damage done was less than 12.
However, if Bala the Druid has 17 hit points total and is presently at 9 due to damage she has already suffered, then takes 12 points of damage (sufficient to lower Bala to -3 hp), then Bala would be injured.
For every 12 points of damage received, the injury tally is counted at 1 point. Thus 24 points of damage would mean a 2-point injury, 36 points of damage would mean a 3-point injury and so on.
Note that 11 or more damage received in a given attack is sufficient to cause a wound. But injuries are not wounds! An injury does not occur merely because 12 damage has been done. For the injury to occur at all, the combatant must be hit hard enough to eliminate half their maximum hit points. For higher level characters, particularly fighters, it may require as much as 40, 50 or 60 damage for an injury to occur. The tally only refers to dividing this ultimate amount of damage by 12.
Healing Injuries
A combatant that has been injured does not sustain any additional damage due to that injury. However, the amount of time necessary to recover from the injury is dependent upon the injury tally. A 1-point injury requires that 10 points of equivalent healing must be gained before the first hit point after damage can be raised by one point.
In the example above, Bala has a 1-point injury that dropped her total hit points to -3. In order for Bala to restore her hit points to -2, Bala must heal 10 hit points of equivalent damage. In effect, the injury that Bala has sustained has stretched the healing distance between -3 and -2 hit points by a multiple of 10.
Let us take another example. Albert is a 7th level cleric with 42 hit points. While climbing up the side of a mountain, Albert slips and falls, taking a total of 46 points of damage. This reduces Albert's hit points to -4, all at once. And because the damage sustained is more than half his total, Albert is injured. Because he is at -4 hit points, he must roll to see if he is conscious (see Negative Hit Points). Albert makes a wisdom check, as described on the negative hit points page, and fails by rolling a 14.
From the fall, Albert is also wounded, which means that he has injured himself in some way that he is suffering -4 hp damage per round from the 46 damage he received. If he were laying on the ground all alone, he would bleed out and be dead in two rounds - and there is nothing Albert can do about this, because he is unconscious. However, lucky for Albert, he fell near to Erick, a 1st level paladin, who quickly runs to Albert's side and lays hands for 2 hp as soon as he can. He can't quite get there before Albert bleeds for one round, now reduced to -8 hit points. However, the bleeding is stopped and Albert's life is saved.
Albert is not, however, restored to -6 hit points by Erick's laying on of hands. Albert was injured. He sustained a 3-point injury . . . so to be restored to -7 hit points (one above the score he has right now), Albert must gain a total of 30 points of healing. Erick has given him 2. Albert needs 28 more. Once Albert has been restored to -7 hit points, he can begin healing damage normally.
If Albert had died, then been restored by death's door, then his body would still have to be healed those same 30 points, as the body would retain the injury, even though Albert would be restored to zero hit points.
Type of Injury
At this time, I have not created any specific tables for what is injured. The rule is still in its infancy - and since in most cases the injured person will be in the negatives and laid up, a flat rule that it is one or the other arm is sufficient. If the rule works and does not overly tax the patience of my players, then I will work up a injury table specifying what type of injury occurs.
The Evaporation of Interest
Wow. And I thought the LARP reality show was cheesy.
I found the above image on the WOTC website fully intending to write a post asking what was new in D&D and pronouncing the words, "absolutely nothing." I felt that was a safe bet where it comes to the commercial side of the business. Then I found this:
But we're used to this, right? It's an expansion for Neverwinter: Underdark, based on a character and novel by R.A. Salvatore. Sold as something extreme. In the words of the press release (no, I'm not linking it), "deadly and insane . . . epic." Is it possible to write a promo for a game that doesn't include the word epic? I doubt it.
Correct me if I'm wrong . . . isn't Salvatore the shit hack writer who churned out about a hundred Forgotten Realms books? Hm.
This isn't a new game, mind you. It's a storyline. Yes, we have moved so far into the epic world of game manufacture that a storyline is deserving of this sort of hype.
Gah.
I just know there are little fan boys all goosed-up about their excitement at seeing this thing get released. I'd hate to rain on their fun, but hey, let's face it - that's impossible. These people are in way, way too deep for anyone's words to upset their habit. At this point, these are people who wouldn't care if they woke up and found Larry Niven's fictional wire hanging from their brain.
Who's Larry Niven? An actual science fiction writer. Not that I ever really liked him.
No, this isn't written to change anyone's mind. This isn't even written to shout at anyone to get the fuck off my lawn. This is just . . . well, let's say I'm just keeping track.
In four weeks I'm going to be up at the Edmonton comic-con and I will meet none of the people who find the poster art above the least interesting. Oh, they will be there - but I won't meet them. I will meet a lot of people like me, people who are fascinated by the game as it was originally designed and who want to improve it as a work of love.
The sort of people who are selling the above art and the sort of people who are buying it . . . I don't know who the hell these people are. As far as I can tell, their fascinations has as much to do with D&D and RPGs as people who attend NASCAR. We live on the same planet. The similarities seem to end there.
Eventually, every gamer arrives at the point in their lives where they look at what's happening now and compare it with the thing they enjoyed once upon a time . . . and realize those things have nothing to do with each other. It isn't that maturity incurs a lack of interest - it is that at some point the interest we had is simply not being made.
Someone figures out that they can get money for creating a storyline based on work someone else did - someone they basically own, since he's an old asset they created in the 80s - for pretty much the same money they used to get actually working to improve something. Storylines are cheaper than real game design and they're cheaper still when we don't even need to create our own. Then its just a matter of plugging the new storyline into the old format and selling the same game over again to the same people for the same $80 (or whatever the cost would be - I went looking and I couldn't find a price).
And those of us who have seen better drop our jaws and wonder how it ever came to this.
There's one simple reason why so much of our economy is directed towards young people. It isn't that the young have money to spend, although they do. It isn't that the young have a taste for new things, although they do. It is that the young have only bought a few things in their whole lives - and mostly pretty small things - and they're unsophisticated. They have no reference point upon which to base whether something is viable or not. They're easily duped. They're stupid.
They make great consumers! No sweat, no fuss, no annoying questions arising out of experience . . . and when a kid hits 18 or 19 and has bought enough games to ask those questions? No problem. The market has already dumped them. We want 10 to 13 year olds, kids who we can clinically prove haven't fully developed brains. No, seriously. Brains still in development.
Okay, here's an old man statement, but it's a joke. Seriously. But wouldn't the world be massively different if we decided that children younger than 15 were disallowed from buying anything?
Not because it is bad for them - hell, kids are resilient. But it is bad for us. Because we have to live in a world where the above crapfest is sold as a bloody big deal, epic and exciting.
I found the above image on the WOTC website fully intending to write a post asking what was new in D&D and pronouncing the words, "absolutely nothing." I felt that was a safe bet where it comes to the commercial side of the business. Then I found this:
 |
| This is not a movie poster. |
But we're used to this, right? It's an expansion for Neverwinter: Underdark, based on a character and novel by R.A. Salvatore. Sold as something extreme. In the words of the press release (no, I'm not linking it), "deadly and insane . . . epic." Is it possible to write a promo for a game that doesn't include the word epic? I doubt it.
Correct me if I'm wrong . . . isn't Salvatore the shit hack writer who churned out about a hundred Forgotten Realms books? Hm.
This isn't a new game, mind you. It's a storyline. Yes, we have moved so far into the epic world of game manufacture that a storyline is deserving of this sort of hype.
Gah.
I just know there are little fan boys all goosed-up about their excitement at seeing this thing get released. I'd hate to rain on their fun, but hey, let's face it - that's impossible. These people are in way, way too deep for anyone's words to upset their habit. At this point, these are people who wouldn't care if they woke up and found Larry Niven's fictional wire hanging from their brain.
Who's Larry Niven? An actual science fiction writer. Not that I ever really liked him.
No, this isn't written to change anyone's mind. This isn't even written to shout at anyone to get the fuck off my lawn. This is just . . . well, let's say I'm just keeping track.
In four weeks I'm going to be up at the Edmonton comic-con and I will meet none of the people who find the poster art above the least interesting. Oh, they will be there - but I won't meet them. I will meet a lot of people like me, people who are fascinated by the game as it was originally designed and who want to improve it as a work of love.
The sort of people who are selling the above art and the sort of people who are buying it . . . I don't know who the hell these people are. As far as I can tell, their fascinations has as much to do with D&D and RPGs as people who attend NASCAR. We live on the same planet. The similarities seem to end there.
Eventually, every gamer arrives at the point in their lives where they look at what's happening now and compare it with the thing they enjoyed once upon a time . . . and realize those things have nothing to do with each other. It isn't that maturity incurs a lack of interest - it is that at some point the interest we had is simply not being made.
Someone figures out that they can get money for creating a storyline based on work someone else did - someone they basically own, since he's an old asset they created in the 80s - for pretty much the same money they used to get actually working to improve something. Storylines are cheaper than real game design and they're cheaper still when we don't even need to create our own. Then its just a matter of plugging the new storyline into the old format and selling the same game over again to the same people for the same $80 (or whatever the cost would be - I went looking and I couldn't find a price).
And those of us who have seen better drop our jaws and wonder how it ever came to this.
There's one simple reason why so much of our economy is directed towards young people. It isn't that the young have money to spend, although they do. It isn't that the young have a taste for new things, although they do. It is that the young have only bought a few things in their whole lives - and mostly pretty small things - and they're unsophisticated. They have no reference point upon which to base whether something is viable or not. They're easily duped. They're stupid.
They make great consumers! No sweat, no fuss, no annoying questions arising out of experience . . . and when a kid hits 18 or 19 and has bought enough games to ask those questions? No problem. The market has already dumped them. We want 10 to 13 year olds, kids who we can clinically prove haven't fully developed brains. No, seriously. Brains still in development.
Okay, here's an old man statement, but it's a joke. Seriously. But wouldn't the world be massively different if we decided that children younger than 15 were disallowed from buying anything?
Not because it is bad for them - hell, kids are resilient. But it is bad for us. Because we have to live in a world where the above crapfest is sold as a bloody big deal, epic and exciting.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
The Wiki Forward
I expected crickets. I said it was a bad idea.
Since Sunday's offer, I have spoken to four would-be members of the wiki. As of now, two have jumped on and I have every expectation I will see the other two. All four are long-time visitors to the blog and all four made a point of letting me know they had bought How to Run and my other books (see the sidebar). This is terrific!
I put up a very short youtube video on making pages in the wiki, if any of the members haven't seen it yet:
The wiki is quite simple to use, but please let me know if there are any other videos that I should make. I am going to create one about loading a graphic onto a page that should be up later today. There are plenty of other wikispaces tutorials around.
Most of all, I want both the members and the casual readers to get something more out of the wiki than I can deliver right now. People are heading there in droves (275 & 250 unique visitors this past two days!) so there is definitely an interest.
For the moment, I want to wait a week before taking on anyone else, if you're thinking of coming on in. Once this change gets settled a bit, once I start to figure out what the problems are going to be, I'm sure that the great people I have spoken to already will be instrumental in keeping the source material safe and protected - and that is my main concern, of course. I have been wonderfully reassured on that front and to the members, I say thank you for that!
I want to put on the blog - because I did not float the balloon on the original post - that I am encouraging members to put up their own material, so long as it doesn't change a message that I've already created. I would like the wiki to present one functional structure that will serve as a resource (letting people home-rule it to their heart's delight off the wiki), not just another dogpile that offers 11 ways to run a combat system. There are hundreds of aspects that the game needs to be specified without reinventing the wheel over and over.
As well - and this is a memory issue - I do want to minimize unnecessary images. I have 3 GB to work with one wikispaces - plenty of room if we concentrate on text and content, not flare. Tables are great - but whenever possible, keep 'em tight, aesthetic and as low on KB as possible.
Towards that end, if any of the members want me to give them specific tasks to undertake, then please do not hesitate to ask. I can't promise that they'll be easy, but I'm sure I can come up with some kind of job that needs to be done that I'm not addressing - or that I've made a half-hearted attempt at that someone else might enjoy more.
For example, I'd like an individual page for every monster, with stats and habitation ranges for my world - the real Earth, the place where we all live. Describing an environment on Earth will be helpful for every player who is trying to figure out where creatures would dwell on their fantasy world - because, after all, we steal everything from our experience with this planet.
Welcome. I think the next year is going to be great.
Since Sunday's offer, I have spoken to four would-be members of the wiki. As of now, two have jumped on and I have every expectation I will see the other two. All four are long-time visitors to the blog and all four made a point of letting me know they had bought How to Run and my other books (see the sidebar). This is terrific!
I put up a very short youtube video on making pages in the wiki, if any of the members haven't seen it yet:
The wiki is quite simple to use, but please let me know if there are any other videos that I should make. I am going to create one about loading a graphic onto a page that should be up later today. There are plenty of other wikispaces tutorials around.
Most of all, I want both the members and the casual readers to get something more out of the wiki than I can deliver right now. People are heading there in droves (275 & 250 unique visitors this past two days!) so there is definitely an interest.
For the moment, I want to wait a week before taking on anyone else, if you're thinking of coming on in. Once this change gets settled a bit, once I start to figure out what the problems are going to be, I'm sure that the great people I have spoken to already will be instrumental in keeping the source material safe and protected - and that is my main concern, of course. I have been wonderfully reassured on that front and to the members, I say thank you for that!
I want to put on the blog - because I did not float the balloon on the original post - that I am encouraging members to put up their own material, so long as it doesn't change a message that I've already created. I would like the wiki to present one functional structure that will serve as a resource (letting people home-rule it to their heart's delight off the wiki), not just another dogpile that offers 11 ways to run a combat system. There are hundreds of aspects that the game needs to be specified without reinventing the wheel over and over.
As well - and this is a memory issue - I do want to minimize unnecessary images. I have 3 GB to work with one wikispaces - plenty of room if we concentrate on text and content, not flare. Tables are great - but whenever possible, keep 'em tight, aesthetic and as low on KB as possible.
Towards that end, if any of the members want me to give them specific tasks to undertake, then please do not hesitate to ask. I can't promise that they'll be easy, but I'm sure I can come up with some kind of job that needs to be done that I'm not addressing - or that I've made a half-hearted attempt at that someone else might enjoy more.
For example, I'd like an individual page for every monster, with stats and habitation ranges for my world - the real Earth, the place where we all live. Describing an environment on Earth will be helpful for every player who is trying to figure out where creatures would dwell on their fantasy world - because, after all, we steal everything from our experience with this planet.
Welcome. I think the next year is going to be great.
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