Exploring A.I.'s Role in Literature

I'll assume the reader has had those moments when some sort of stock has to be taken of oneself, to decide whether or not we're crazy.  I'm having one of those moments now... I'm on the verge of doing something completely insane, or completely genius.  And there's no way to way which.

Yesterday, with time on my hands and not much motivation to work on any ongoing project, I decided to address a science fiction novel that's been rattling around in my head these last four years.  The premise, which has nothing whatsoever to do with D&D, is as follows:

Essentially, a social transformation has taken place throughout the world due to a drug called "phina," and sometimes "saraphina," which blocks those chemicals that the male's biology requires in order for him to act aggressively or even becomes angry. It has almost no other repercussions, except that after a period of ten months of being on the drug, the male becomes apt to follow instructions when they are given to him --but this is not a form of mind control, rather it is simply that the male perceives that doing so is probably for the best. It hasn't been demonstrated that this isn't just the male's coming to accept that, because he can't argue or fight back, he just becomes more willing to accept the directions of a person who can be forthright.

The drug has zero effects on women. It is not a natural substance, but was first made by a subversive corporation working on behalf of women's rights and freedoms. Initially, the drug was distributed clandestinely and illegally on the street. The drug is highly addictive, such that the men once on the drug, deeply want to locate and take the drug again ... though it has no recognisable recreational properties of any kind. It is not a hallucinogenic, it does not make the user "high," or provide any sense of special empowerment or delight; at most, it is gently calming, mostly because the male feels no compulsion to exhibit either aggressiveness or anger.

I typed this into chat, which initiated a four-hour discussion in which the implications of the above was addressed, followed by a discussion of the main two characters around which the book would revolve.  The professions and story arc of the characters' backgrounds followed, as well as how this would affect the structure of the book.  The plot takes place in the present, but the two characters experience only a single day in real time; the remainder of the story is a series of self-reflections on how each character progressed from the way things used to be, that is, "normal", to the way they are now, which is a very, very different world.  Themes were discussed, the incomes of the characters, their relationship with each other (they're married) and how that has evolved to the present.

The book's outline was sketched out, what would happen to the characters on that day, where the tension would originate and ultimately how the book would build to a dilemma that would be more or less impossible to solve for the two characters, but one more than the other.  The dilemma is suitably insolvable, gut wrenching and I think well worth the building of a novel in order to reach.  All through this, the material suggested was examined and discussed and re-assessed where needed.

I settled on character names, then solved the problem of the book's title.  In all this, the structure of the first chapter was discussed, then finally the first sentence of the book went back and forth.  I then proceeded to write the opening of the book, the first 1,200 words or so, letting chat write passages and then editing and rewriting my own lines, adding sections as I saw fit, slowly progressing the opening of the book in the manner I wanted.  Whereupon, I stepped back, took a breather and felt fairly good about having gotten the book on a footing where it could, conceivably, be written in full.  

I decided to save the conversation with chat in its entirety, as I would wish to review the conversations, since I'd expect to forget much of the material.  I saved it as notes, and got a little bit of a shock.

The conversation is 38,000 words.

That is longer than the Dungeon's Front Door; in the same format, it would be 160 pages, not counting additional title pages, preface, etc.

The reader should easily be able to figure what my thinking is now.

This is a pulp-sized book of a kind I've never seen before, though chatGPT tells me that it's been done before.  Quote, "These books are typically experimental in nature, reflecting on the interaction between human and machine, and sometimes include commentary or analysis on the AI's responses. Some authors use these conversations to delve into specific themes, while others might frame the dialogue as a form of collaborative storytelling."

And this would be the most beneficial element of the conversation, as it outlines ways to approach chat with a subject in mind, it demonstrates how an individual with a clear idea of what the end result ought to be, while showing an ability to recognise bad writing that allows for correction and the production of a much better sort of writing.  It potentially moves the dialogue away from expecting chat to write the Bible by saying, "Chat, write the Bible," to showing how each sentence and paragraph can be tossed back and forth until an end product results that satisfies the capacity of the writer to recognise good from bad.

More to the point, the argument I and others have been making, is that if you're not a good writer to start with, if you're not willing to parse every word and identify precisely why it should and shouldn't be there, then depending on chat to write anything is going to be a reflection of one's own inability to write.  But IF the writer can recognise the difference between good and bad, then chat represents the possibility of things being proposed that a writer can leap on and see has real potential, even if that's been randomly generated.  Hell, most of my thoughts are "randomly generated" from a lifetime of noticing things that happen to happen in the places I happen to be, or which someone happens to say when we happen to be talking to each other.

I'm well aware of what the pushback would be.  Likely, I'd be accused of chat writing the book and not me, which I'm fine with, as the book itself is evidence to the contrary.  Very likely, for anyone who delved far enough into the book to really identify the premise, the castrating/emasculating nature of the book's direction wouldn't make a lot of men of the MTGOW type very happy.  For this is the trajectory of the male's experience, including elements of the book that directly suppose a feminist fascist state... which isn't going to make a lot of feminists happy either, given that they usually support an ideal where they're in control, but they're definitely not, and anyway it would all be really nurturing.

At least, there's absolutely no sex in the book.

Ultimately, if it "took off," it certainly would be misunderstood by nearly everyone.  The premise definitely drifts into Starship Troopers/The Fountainhead territory, where everyone has a hateful opinion but, from the substance of their arguments, never seem to have read the book.

C'est la vie.  I really have no reason not to publish it, except, you know, it might convince everyone in the world that I'm not a serious writer.  But, you know... since hardly no one knows my name now, there's always the possibility that they might hate me enough to overcome that disability.

Posing the concept here as the last stop before diving in.  So people can put up their hands and ask, "What the...?"  I have bounced this off my friends and my daughter today, so I'm not entering into this without having already obtained sound advice.

Books, End of August

This marks a full year since my investing in Audible, and three months since I last wrote of what books I had finished through that service.  The list this time around might feel somewhat paltry, as I only completed four books.  Here they are and the year when I last read each.

Beau Geste, P.C. Wren — never

Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian, Robert E. Howard — never

Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackery — never

The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, Douglass Wallop — 1977


Two of these are very long books.  Vanity Fair is 400,000 words, while the Conan series, which included every story about Conan that Howard had written before fatally shooting himself after his mother's death, includes more than two dozen works, most of which are of novella length, plus one novel of 77,000 words.  Altogether, measuring how long the audio book against Vanity Fair, I'd guess this was 500,000 words.  Thus, less books read, not less time spent reading.

What can I say about Conan?  It's a slog.  Howard repeats many of his similes and idioms, almost to the point where they can be predicted once enough content is read.  In many cases, I could not help losing the context of the story, as Howard is very concerned with describing the hallways and stairwells and rooms that are run through, until it becomes each becomes a pastiche of the one before.  This is disorienting.  The character is unquestionably compelling, however, and given the time when he's written, utterly unique and the model for many fantasy characters written after.  But one doesn't come away from the compendium feeling enlightened or refreshed; there's nothing left to think about when the story is over.  It is merely a story, filling a given day and then meant to be lightly discarded, without concern.  I can testify that I was fairly punchy at the end.  I'd recommend not reading the whole collection back to back, but buying the book and then picking up one of the novellas once a month.

Most, I would imagine, have never heard of the book, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.  It was written in 1954, and "wallop" seems to have been the author's real name, though it's a rather funny surname for a book about baseball.  I found the book in my junior high school library when I was in grade 7 or 8, and I think would have read it twice.  It is the source of the musical, Damn Yankees, which deviates considerably from the original, though the screenplay was adapted from Wallop from his own book.  I wanted something light to read after Vanity Fair, and found it by going through lists of books on wikipedia's literature list, year by year.  I was very surprised to find it listed in Audible.  And it was free.  So was Vanity Fair and Beau Geste, as it happens, so I haven't paid for a book in the service since Conan, and have now racked up four credits, by not using the one's I have paid for (if you're an Audible user).

It was light, fun, written at a time when it looked like the Yankees would never lose a pennant again.  I has a very different vibe from the musical, which completely discards the book's point — that something gotten easily must come at the expense of someone else.  This makes an interesting commentary on the Faustian tale, as the main character, having gotten what he wants from the Devil, finds it wounds the lives of those around him.  But the book doesn't sustain this theme well; it just isn't ready to be serious about it, and too soon the theme is discarded.

Beau Geste was an enormous surprise.  It was a phenomenon when it was released in 1923; the book was transferred to screen three times, plus a satire directed and starred in by Marty Feldman, which I saw in the theatre.  The one movie I haven't seen is the silent version with Ronald Coleman, but I can attest that the others are not the book.  They have elements from the book, but they cherry picked... and so, as I came through the book initially, it was a lot of, "What the hell is all this...?"

That said, if one has the patience, it's an excellent adventure, and the last third of the book is a nailbiter.  Astoundingly, as near as I remember, though published five years after the war, and taking place in or around the ten years before 1920, and being a book about the military, there's no reference to the 1st World War.  There is a reference to being a cinema star, so that's rather odd.  It is tragic, it is very British, and much of the book is composed around two mysteries, which take a great deal of time to sort out.  I don't like mystery novels, but as both mysteries end up being explained so adroitly, I was able to forgive the endless question asking (which is why I hate a mystery story) for the benefit of the solution.  The last five pages are simply delightful.

And now, at last, Vanity Fair.  This book pays no attention whatsoever to Chekhov's gun, nor should it have.  It argues vociferously that life is not made up of things that matter, but rather of things that infringe on happiness, nearly always unfairly, and made vastly worse by the pursuit of one's own self-importance.  This last drives an exhaustive accounting of rather pleasant people doing unspeakable things to themselves and to others for the sake of their appearance and self-perceived accomplishments.  It is brutally rich in passive, righteous micro-cruelties and long-suffering miseries that last because of all the crosses available for all the characters to climb up upon.

But... the book is very funny throughout.  Thackery makes no pretense that the storytelling is sacred and breaks "the fourth wall" to comment on his own characters in Vonneguttian fashion, which is an absolute delight — especially for a writer.  It is very long but never difficult to read, there are many characters but for the most part they are easy to remember (except that Thackery has a habit of using three or four different names to describe the same character).  The length of the novel truly establishes the amount of time that has past, so that as the characters in it experience moments of nostalgia about their youth, as we were there also, we feel the same nostalgia because it happened so long ago in the text.  Vanity Fair is unquestionably the best book I've read in this last year, with the possible exception of Pride and Prejudice.  It puts all the themes of the Great Gatsby to shame, as that latter book more or less attempts to discuss Vanity also, but in a more childish way.  Still, we can't ask high school students to read a book which would probably take them all year.  Took me 39 days.

So.

Re-reading Dracula, now.  I'll write the next of these come the end of November.

Comments On

It has been a year since my decision to turn off the availability of comments to my blog posts.  After a year of experimenting with a Saturday Q&A, I've decided to abandon the model and restore comments here.  This remains an opportunity for those who feel confident enough to engage, though I myself do not wish to do so.

In the days when I worked for a newspaper, a favourite professor of mine, who was British from the midlands, counselled me severely on never answering any letter that was addressed to me, on principle.  He argued, quite without patience I might add, that if I had not said all that was worthy to be said in the original editorial I was writing, then that was my failing... and I could not make up for that failing by attempting to fill in holes after the fact.

I wish now that I had taken his advice.

Maybe, I am a Cruise Director

   "Car making is 100,000 rational decisions in search of one emotional decision."

— Kumal Galhotra, Ford

Regardless of the many, many arguments I've made about D&D being a game, which have all been framed to explain why rules have to exist, we must also admit something else about it.  However we choose to define it, and I've written posts about this too, it is a fact that many dungeon masters refuse to comprehend that their efforts and creativity is part of the entertainment industry.

Like the example above, players do not recognise the value of rules, they do not behave rationally, they do not understand those parts of the game that actually make them feel good, and they absolutely cannot understand how the purpose of the game cannot be, "to serve my needs."

This is how players approach the game.  They think to themselves, "Tonight, I'm going to..."  Which is to say, they're taking for granted that they're going to do something that entirely evolves from their choice to do it, which assumes they'll have the choice once the DM defines the circumstances around their characters.

Now, this looks like I'm saying two different things, so let me try to thread this needle.  The player characters are entitled to "agency," which grants them a degree of control, influence and decision-making power that a player has within the game.  This is not being argued against.  However, this agency is rigidly constrained by whatever situation the DM has imposed at this moment.  Therefore, the player cannot say, before arriving at the game, "I'm going to," because at that time, they don't know what they're options are going to be.

But this doesn't matter.  The player, by and large, ignores the constraint, because fundamentally, they don't believe the constraint should be such that is defies what they, personally, wish to do with their character.  This is where we come to the entertainment industry.  The players believe that by showing up, they have "paid" for their journey, and therefore say to us, the DM, "make the journey happen."

So whatever preparation we make, whatever rational decisions we make in the fabrication of our game world, we're still pressed into the situation of selling the fabricated game world to an emotional, somewhat irrational customer.  Our success lies in balancing the need for that sale against our need to provide the players with an experience they don't know yet that they want.

In long time past, I've argued that a DM is not a cruise director, but let's parse that out.  Part of a cruise director's role is to be aware that a great many of the passengers are going to make a supposition, ahead of time, about the things they want to do, against what they think is available to them.  But the cruise ship is an enormous vessel, with a vast number of options that are available, that most of the passengers don't know about.  And so, the job of cruise director is to sell parts of the ship that the passengers are ignorant about, but might want to engage with, once they know it exists.  For example, we might not know that there's a facility that will allow us to skydive on the ship; this might be something we'd love to do, but we don't know that it's there, so we don't think to investigate it.  Instead, we stand here waiting to get into the pool, because we know about the pool, but it's full of people so we're bored and talking about what's wrong with the ship, since it didn't provide enough pool space for everyone.

Every time you convince someone to go below and see the live porpoises, or try the skydiving, or learn how to cook sushi, or try the skeet range, or whatever, is one less person jamming up the pool or the casino.  This moving people about is your job as cruise director.  You're not here to give the people what they want.  You're here to show them they want a lot more than might they might even know about.

As a DM, the problem is similar.  The players think they know what they want, but most of them have a very thin concept of what the game's really capable of offering.  Presumably, if they knew a lot more about the game, and it's potential, then they'd be DMs themselves... but nonetheless, using the constraint potential the DM has to push the players into situations where the use of their agency causes them to have really wild adventures they never would have crafted out of their own imaginations is the DM's role.  

It is not, as the players think, to give the players what they want.  Understand?

A problem arises when the DM doesn't know this.  For example, the DM might think, "My role is to see to it that the players experience an adventure."  But this is, more or less, a rather useless guideline to run by.  Even if we define adventure, this hardly helps in the immediate scheme of things.  A good DM may have the idea of a big picture, but the game is NOT run according to what's happening in the big picture.  It's about moment to moment events, usually little ones, that drive the characters or lead the characters from this little scene to the next one, hopefully in a way that increases their attention and builds tension, so that they feel a little buzz in their middrift thinking about the implications of this thing they just learned held against the light of the three previous things they already know.

This isn't easy.  It requires drafting non-player characters with relationships to one another and the setting, laying a strong foundation for the events at hand, with plenty of room that lets the players think they're still driving the narrative, while holding a lot of small details in our heads simultaneously in a manner that allows us to instantly answer questions and throw out the next event without losing momentum.  Portraying a multiple-hour narrative strung over three nights of play is an enormous accomplishment, which a lot of people, no matter how badly they want to be a dungeon master, just don't have the chops to accomplish.

Assuming they even know, which most of them don't, that this is what they should be doing!

It's this narrative crafting that I've lost, with my now defunct campaign.  Yes, of course I can go on designing the car, or building out corners of the cruise ship, but this isn't running the campaign.

For the record, I have mixed feelings on whether the DM is a cruise director at this time.  When I trashed the idea, I was 16 years younger than I am now.  There have been a lot of changes in my perspective, a lot of time spent parsing out the DM's role, a lot of wisdom accumulated ... and unlike a politician, who is called a flip-flopper for saying something different than what they said 16 years ago, I'm allowed to be a scientist, who can honestly say that 16 years ago I hadn't performed the experiments that have changed my mind before today.

It may be, perhaps, that I am a sort of cruise director.  And if so, I may have failed my former party as one.  If so, I'd say it was because I didn't maintain the balance between what they wanted and what I was prepared to give them.  Perhaps I got tired of doing so.

The Language of Meme

I have seen several efforts like this video of late, which strive to highlight a particular rising trend that began far, far earlier than the creator of this video suspects.  True enough, the obsession with ironic, self-aware storytelling has become increasingly widespread in mainstream film in the last decade, but it is hardly restricted to Hollywood and it certainly came into vogue with varying television shows dating back to the origin of Saturday Night Live.  Self-awareness is a natural outgrowth of satire, that uses humour, irony and exaggeration to expose and criticise just about every sort of foolishness of which humans are capable.

But this isn't a long deconstruction of the rise of satire, or the evils of self-awareness, because to really investigate these ideals, we'd have to start with Aristophanes in the late 5th to early 4th century BCE.  In The Frogs, during an imaginary contest administered by Dionysius, between Aeschylus and Euripedes, the former is mocking the latter for composing verse in a specific iambic that allow for the insertion of "a little bottle of oil." Aeschylus then invites Euripedes to spew out a few verses, and we get this interaction:

Euripides: "Aegyptus, so the widespread rumour runs,
   With fifty children in a long-oared boat, 
   Landing near Argos—"

Aeschylus: ... lost his little bottle of oil.

Dionysus: What was this little bottle? You'll be sorry.
    Recite for him another prologue, so I can see once more.

Euripides: "Dionysius, who with thyrsus wands and fawnskins,
    bedecked amidst the pines on Mt. Parnassus
    bounds dancing—"

Aeschylus: ... lost his little bottle of oil.

Dionysus: Alas, again we have been stricken by that flask.

Euripides: It won't be a problem. For to this
    prologue he won't be able to attach that flask.

    "No man exists, who's altogether blest,

    Either nobly sired he has no livelihood

    Or else base-born he—"

Aeschylus: ... lost his little bottle of oil.

Dionysus: Alas, again we have been stricken by that flask.

And so it goes on, and on, proving that we all have our little flaws, the greatest poets as well as anyone else.  The Euripides in the play works because he just won't accept it.  Aeschylus makes his point a half dozen times, neatly infecting all of Euripides work with the little bottle, in precisely the same way that he "flaw" of every classic film has been excoriated by the Simpsons and a dozen other popular sources in the last 30 years.

Some of us know about the age of this infection because we played D&D in the 80s, and "self-awareness" is without a doubt the greatest anathema to a game that relies upon engagement through pure imagination and nothing else.  The endless referencing of Monty Python alone had polluted D&D campaigns to the point of immobility.  How many times have I overseen a session where the players became so involved in the self-reflection of how "unrealistic" things could get due to the precepts of the game and sheer happenstance, to the point where people rolled on the floor and couldn't breathe on account of the laughing?

Many times.

Gets to the point where rules have to be made against any anachronistic reference that a player makes, no matter how abstract... because if I get it, and another player gets it, then it's not the D&D game that we're thinking about, but some movie or television show, which doesn't belong within the discourse of a engaged, immersive experience.  I have shouted at players to shut the fuck up, I have threatened to remove levels of experience or to permanently ban such people from the game, because they could not stop themselves from repeatedly singing the song to "Sir Robin" or speaking the words, "It's just a flesh wound."  It's a disease.  The jokes are tired, they're not funny any more, yet for some, it's still a kind of wit to connect something some character said in some bit of media to something happening right now in the game.

There is a word for this sort of comment, made without thinking first of what the repercussions might be upon it being expressed.  I'm certain that Somerset Maugham made reference to the word, but alas, I cannot find the quote.  The word is "snark," which we may identify as a form of hostility against anything that's serious, or might conceivably matter.  Snark is reactive.  It attempts to impose a worldview that replaces thoughts with memes, which is to say, to quote a Canadian, the media is the meme, expressed when it isn't relevant.

The superficiality of snark, with it's capacity to replace thought and discourse with the meme, runs rife through every element of our culture, so it's no great insight to find it infecting the actual dialogue spoken by characters in film.  Like I say, these memes have been a part of tabletop gaming since the 1970s; they have infiltrated into video games, they have become the repeatable soundbite that forms the underlying substance of reality television, they possess the very fabric of political thought, they're all anyone encounters when entering a chat room or a real life coffee shop.  The vast hordes of people do not speak language, they speak "meme," with which they've been supplied in abundance through the internet.  Communication is transactional and shallow, and there is little chance that we're going to see a significant reversal in our lifetime.

Which doesn't matter.  As I have said before, "What do the simple folk do?" is not a substantial, worthy question for anyone who desires mastery of the world.  Creating a video that says, "look at what's happened to movies" is a sort of in-bred joke, like standing in shit up to our hips while pointing and laughing at other people up to their hips in shit.

If we want to do something that rises above these shallow observations and the exchanges they spawn, we must put the conversation behind us and apply to the problem itself.  The world does not produce enough serious movies?

Then go make one.

Moody

So, here we are... some months out from having lost my campaign, wondering what D&D holds for me.  I have books in progress; no doubt, I'll imagine others.  I can't suppose that after this much of my life spent thinking about this game, I'm just going to stop.  But there's a transformation going on, certainly.

I've meant a couple of times to write about how conversation about D&D is, at least for me, dead.  I've never been the "let's talk about old modules" guy.  I'm not the warstory-teller either.  5e has effectively killed rule-based discussions.  For-or-against conversations have died on the vine, at least in my experience.  It's been at least a year since anyone in any post I've read has even mentioned "alignment."  I seem to have accumulated a number of people who want to tell me about their worlds or their campaigns... but to be honest, guys; how much about the actual gameplay of my own world have I talked about on this blog?  I have done it, but mostly because I was encouraged to do it.  But for myself, hearing about how other people are going to run other people... really, I wish you the best of luck.  I'll answer questions if I'm asked, I'll try to get you out of a corner you've painted yourself into.  I swear, I'll do so with the zeal of a neighbour lending you his garden hose if your garage starts on fire.

But just to shoot the shit about it?  

I always marvelled how it was possible for golfers to go knock 18 holes in four, five hours, and spend the entire time talking about golf.  And plainly in a way that showed this is all they ever talked about, despite playing twice, three times a week.  Particularly in that going back to the club, getting a couple of beers, they'd spend that time... still talking about golf.  I like golf.  I think it's a pretty good game.  I've had some very enjoyable summer afternoons playing it, talking about history, ethics, the development of art in Europe in the 18th century... but this obsession with talking about golf.  Eh.  But apparently golf provides enough to keep hundreds of thousands of grown adults talking about it every weekend, all day, for years.  Perhaps it's because no one, in the last 150 years, has felt the need to produce "2nd Edition" golf, as a way to build the market.

I picked the wrong hobby.  I should have gotten into gardening, running or filmmaking.  At least if you show up to watch birds, the birdwatchers you call to show up actually show up, because they actually LIKE birdwatching.  But half the time, what do I hear about D&D players?  They don't show.  They call, they agree to show, and then they don't.  They get colder feet than a first time sub for a prodomme appointment.

So I understand people throwing their hands in the air and saying, "I'm done."  I used to pat myself on the back for having such dedicated players, that they always showed up, that I could count on them... HAH!  I hope every person on this blog is raising a glass right now and saying, "Cheers, you old bastard."  If not, get your ass out to your kitchen and get a beer.  You are owed the privilege of drinking to my inevitable humbling.

And so.  Amidst this... mood I'm in.  Don't know if I'm going to DM again.  Don't know if I care.

I feel like I'm on the edge of something important.  Something life-changing.  I say that because its something I've felt before.  It's like climbing into a rocket that's going to blast off at some point, but we don't know when.  And we don't know where it's going, or even whose rocket it is.  Just a feeling.

Can't remember when I had this before.  Or what happened when it did.

Here's a little advice: life is too short to waste your time.  So don't.  If you want to do something, do it.  Don't hedge, don't equivocate, don't measure, don't weigh.  The more you plan, the more time you spend figuring out the best way to get started, the more certain it is that you actually don't want to do it at all, and that you're just wasting your time pretending you're going to do something, because in your head you're thinking, "I've got to do something."

Don't just do "something."  That is absolutely the worst thing you can do.

It's not about Me

Apart from the fact that I am a central feature of this post, it is a well-written, rationally constructed approach to the need for maps and the scale on which they need to be built. I have no explanation for my "obsessive insanity" except to say that I find the practice of working on the maps presented here both relaxing and personally fulfilling. There is an undeniable sense of satisfaction in looking at something that is, in fact, a step-by-step easily managed process, yet produces beauty. For this is what I, in my insanity, see when I look at my own maps. Beauty.

It is perhaps that I speak from the perspective of someone who is, presently, just 28 days from the age of 60, but the truth is that nearly everything about these abilities that one sees on display, with regards to maps, writing or designing some rule set, is a sort of fraud.  It's supposed that I have these gifts, and that I use them to do these things, but it's all nonsense.  I had one gift when I started with D&D away back, so many years ago.  That is, I wanted to work on it.  It's the wanting that's the gift.  The gift I still have now, as I want to sit for an hour and write this post, when instead I could be out grinding away at a garden, or driving out to the mountains on this fine day to do some hiking or resting back and watching a football game.  Instead, I want to do this.  I want to write.  Even if this post means nothing next to the hundreds of other posts that I've written. That doesn't matter.  It just doesn't.  It's the writing I enjoy, regardless of the end result, and when I want to do it, I just do.

So, the maps.  I made maps when I was a kid.  I made very poor maps when I was a kid.  I had better maps as a guideline, however, and I could see the difference between my work and those maps.  I spent endless hours sitting and staring at atlases ... and when I discovered the map drawers at the university, full of contour maps, survey maps, oil well maps, historical maps, I would go up there on a Saturday, wheedle the key from the map librarian, who became a friend, so that I could spend hours pulling the maps out of the drawers, one by one, just to stare.  I could have played baseball.  I could have rafted down the Bow River.  I could have done drugs.  But I stared at maps.

It's what we want that matters.  If I had wanted to be a gardener, if I had wanted to grow my own roses and orchids, if I had wanted to spend the money on orangeries and hydroponics, assuming I still wanted to be a writer, then I'd be posting pictures of my flowers this month, detailing every aspect of their cultivation and sustenance, railing against the stupid information of other floriculturists.  And I'd be doing that, because I would have started 54 years ago, as a 6 year old in my parent's garden, staring at the plants and physically watching them grow, because I wouldn't have been able to take my eyes off the leaves and little shoots and they came up.  Not because I was an obsessive little kid ... but because that would have given me such pleasure, I would not have wanted to stop.

This is so easily misunderstood when we reach for words like "obsessive."  An obsessive person cannot make a conscious choice about their actions.  So it may seem like I'm being obsessive when I write another post.  That is because others, who do not receive the sense of joy that I do in making maps, think to themselves, "I'd have to be obsessed before I could do something like that."  Because, from their perspective that would not give them pleasure.  Surely, anyone for whom that thing gives pleasure, must be crazy.

No.  Just self-aware, with lots and lots of time spent.  Aware enough not to handwave my earliest efforts as "good enough."  I wanted to make better maps, so I tried to.  I don't mean, I practiced at making better maps, I mean, I saw what I wanted to achieve, and tried to achieve that.  And failed, and failed, and failed.  I never thought, well, "try try again."  I thought, "Well this part looks better, but not that part.  This technique seems to work, but maybe if I tried ..."  And so on.

Do that for 54 years?  You're going to look like someone that's obsessive.

The downside, for me, comes when someone pisses on my joy.  And when it happens, I must admit, I don't respond as well as I should.  I don't hesitate before I lash out.  This stuff is personal to me.  How personal? 

Imagine a total stranger, standing next to you and your child, who says, "Your kid has a big nose."  Now, it happens that your child does have a big nose.  It's something you've worried about, since he or she was just a few months old.  What are the other children, when your child goes to school, going to say?  How are they going to make your boy or girl feel?  What are you going to say when he or she comes home and say, "The kids made fun of me about my nose!"  You're going to feel awful.  You hope the other kids don't care.  You hope that if they tease, it won't make any difference. You hope that your child's going to grow up and that nose is going to develop into something with a lot of character, so that it becomes a positive characteristic.  You know the nose in itself doesn't matter, but the world is stupid, vapid, abusive hole, full of people who think that things like a big nose do matter ... when what they ought to care about is the whole kid, not his or her nose.  

Given all this, it doesn't matter if this stranger has said something that's true.  It's the choice the stranger has made, among all the things that might possibly be said, to say this one specific thing.  And hearing it, you're going to go off the rails.  You're going to shout, "WHO THE FUCK ASKED YOU?" ... and the stranger is going to walk away, saying, "It's just a nose."

Joel, in his blog post, said exactly the kind of things that I want to hear said about my kids.  But I've had others, who weren't inaccurate, displayed the sort of honest truthfulness about my maps that have made me livid with fury.  They don't know the road that's gotten me here.  They only know the "here."  And that's not their fault.

But I have ripped and slashed and stabbed and belittled and abused people who have made comments on this site and elsewhere, because they made some little comment about my kid's nose.  And they've gone away, certain they understand my motivation for this, certain that it's evidence of the monster I am, and certain that I haven't any perspective at all.

All I can say for those reading this, try to forget what I do, or what I am.  I'm going to be dead soon, anyway.  Me, the person writing this, isn't the thing of value here.  I'm not what counts.  What counts is the stuff I leave behind, whatever my motivation or my purpose for doing it.  It doesn't really matter why Caesar conquered Gaul.  We can go over the existant details to death, we can dig though archives and bits of whatever, and yet, in the end, what matters is that Gaul was conquered, which led to the changes in Gaul that led to the eventual development of the France we have today.  All the personal shit, all the motivations, all the bits and pieces about what someone said or what may have encouraged them to do or create something, is just fantasy and immateriality.  The facts of things are what counts.  The maps I make exist.  This is the only thing about the maps themselves that actually matter.

Personal opinions about the maps, why I made them, what they accomplish for any one individual person, none of these things amount to anything more than one stranger's opinion about one child's nose.

So pretend I just don't exist.  Don't come here to know who I am, or what motivates me, or why I do these things or anything about me personally.  Just take from the writing what you can, and move on with your own lives, doing those things that matter to you.

In the end, that's all that counts.

Godley House

This is the first chapter of a novel that I'm playing around with, using chatGPT to write.  Feel free to tell me if it feels like chatg has written it.  In fact, I'm doing nearly all the writing, but I'm using chatg to fill in the gaps, correct the period references and, occasionally, to propose dialogue.

Chapter 1

The iron gates of Godley House's courtyard stood open, as they always did. The baby blue 1954 Chevy Bel Air glided through them. Randall inched the car forward, careful not to disturb the mid-afternoon tranquility. Leaning forward, he peered through the windshield at the sprawling, three-story manse, his mind brimming with reverence. It had been a decade since he'd last laid eyes on the house, yet memories of it flooded back. He had only ever visited after nightfall; seeing it in the cold light of morning was new to him. But even so, the grandeur of the house remained undiminished in his eyes.

Randall guided the car in a wide arc across the gritty, hard-packed lawn, bringing it to a stop before the entranceway and its sweeping porch. The lawn, doubling as both driveway and parking lot, would typically be filled with dozens of cars by evening, but for now, there wasn't another vehicle in sight. The residents of Godley House rarely ventured into town or frolicked in the countryside. By day, they slumbered; by evening, they toiled.

Godley House held legendary status throughout West Tennessee. Reconstructed in 1866, following its devastation in the war, the mansion appeared timeless, untouched by the passage of years. At the snap of the owner's fingers, a legion of eager workmen would materialize, ready to repair or repaint any imperfections. Many of these laborers had experienced their first trysts within the house's upper rooms, likely before their sixteenth birthdays. Thousands more young men, scattered within a day's drive, likely drifted off to sleep beside their spouses, reminiscing about nights spent at Godley House, a distant memory but never forgotten.

The mansion, often illuminated like a beacon for miles around, had become an institution in Tennessee, commanding respect beyond reproach and operating beyond the reach of the law. Miriam Godley, known as Miss Miriam, ruled over the estate with unquestioned authority. From the lowliest ratcatcher to the highest elected official, all acknowledged her dominion over the house and its surroundings.

Randall glanced over his shoulder from the driver's seat, his gaze falling upon the young lady nestled in the back. Gwendolyn Charlotte, her delicate hands adorned with soft, pink gloves, clutched a small suitcase on her lap. A youthful blush graced her cheeks as she met Randall's eyes before shyly lowering her gaze. She was barely sixteen, the daughter of Randall's formidable employer, Renee Charlotte, a woman of considerable political sway, known to keep many men firmly under her control.

As the car idled before the imposing entrance of Godley House, Randall found himself swept into the currents of Ms. Charlotte's influence, tasked with delivering her daughter from St. Louis to Godley House. It was a journey into the unknown, one that left Randall with more questions than answers. But in matters such as these, he had learned long ago not to question orders. Instructed to retrieve Ms. Charlotte's daughter from her boarding school in Georgia and deliver her into the guardianship of this most notorious Madam, whose reign over Godley House cast a shadow over the entire country, Randall was left pondering the mysteries shrouding the estate's walls and the complexities of the lives it touched.

The mousey innocent had uttered only three words since their encounter, she'd come down the stairs of her dormitory and accepted the letter Randall had handed her. That letter, Randall presumed, held all the explanations. Gwendolyn had simply said, "One minute, please." With that, she retreated upstairs, retrieved the solitary case in her possession, and returned, granting Randall permission to open the car door.

That had been early that morning. Since then, they'd driven for hours, pausing only once for gas. Gwendolyn had silently slipped out of the car to use the restroom, taking the case with her. There was no urgency in her movements, prompting Randall to wonder if he might need to prompt her to hurry along. However, she emerged at a leisurely pace, cradling the case delicately in both hands, before gracefully returning to the back seat. Randall had inwardly shrugged before restarting the car. Following that, the girl hadn't caused a bit of trouble.

Now, she made no sign of acknowledging the enormous manse filling the car window. "We're here, Miss Gwendolyn," Randall informed her.

"Thank you," she replied, her voice akin to that of a bird. She did not glance up at him.

Randall cast another glance at the house, half-expecting someone to emerge and greet them. When no one appeared, he reached for the car door handle. The mechanical click reverberated through the quiet, punctuated only by the distant chirping of crickets. Stepping out, Randall closed the door with a gentle touch. The Bel Air was still fresh, having been collected from the Lakewood Assembly plant in Atlanta just four months prior for Ms. Charlotte. This marked Randall's third opportunity to take the wheel, and he relished the chance. His hand trailed along the smooth fender as he circled around the back of the car and made his way towards the porch.

Randall's last visit to Godley House had been in 1945, just a month before the altercation in Paducah that landed him a stretch in prison. He had struck a man in the back of the head with a pool cue during a brawl involving at least a dozen others. It remained unclear whether the man had perished from the blow or from being trampled upon while lying unnoticed on the ground. Randall had been sentenced to twelve years, but he served only seven before a pardon was granted, courtesy of Ms. Charlotte's intervention with Dawson Reeds, Kentucky's Governor at the time. Thus Randall found himself liberated from prison only to be bound in comfortable servitude to Ms. Charlotte for the remainder of his days. Randall mused that there were certainly worse fates.

Randall had spent countless hours lying in his cell, his gaze fixed upon the concrete ceiling mere inches above his face, consumed by thoughts of Jeannette. He'd loved her deeply and had frequented Godley House often to be with her. Although he couldn't expect that she'd still be there, he knew he'd inquire nonetheless. Miriam Godley, the Madam, held the answers to such inquiries. She knew everything. Randall wouldn't be surprised if he were recognized, no matter how many years had passed, and no doubt Miss Miriam would remember his association with Jeannette.

Miss Miriam herself was utterly unforgettable, like a force of nature. Possessing a captivating beauty, with her cherry blonde hair fashioned atop her head like a crown, Miss Miriam was keenly observant, missing nothing that transpired in her domain. Her eyes, which met everyone's gaze in the room, commanded the attention of all. She ruled over her girls with an unwavering authority.

These girls came in all varieties: some were fresh-faced, friendly and eager, while others were aloof, cultured and well-read. Some carried an air of danger or ferocity. Yet, they all submitted to Miss Miriam's watchful eye. Those who followed her orders and performed well would endure, while the weakest among them would be culled like livestock. Some fortunate ones, who earned Miss Miriam's favor, would be paired with chosen suitors, who could elevate them from working girls to wealthy women. However, those who fell out of favour would face exile. They would flee the state if they knew what was good for them; otherwise, if they dared to persist, they'd find themselves behind bars. No woman in Tennessee treated her subjects more ruthlessly. No woman in the state wielded as much power to do so.

This, Randall knew, was nothing compared to what Miss Miriam would do to a man who crossed her.

Randall climbed the three stairs to the porch, each creaking beneath his weight, the sound echoing in the stillness of the morning. He forced a smile onto his lips, aware that his presence would be unwelcome at this early hour. Then, as he approached, he noticed a subtle movement in the shadowy depths behind the screen door, too far back to be seen clearly. A shiver moved up his spine.

A breathtaking twenty-something woman approached the door, deliberately making herself visible. Her arresting appearance sent a wave of self-consciousness through Randall. She was draped in a satin dressing gown, casually open to her waist, revealing the inner cleavage of her breasts without a hint of shame. Her gaze met Randall's with indifference.

A warm, sultry voice resonated from within the manse. "Who is it, Eloise?" Unlike a northerner, the voice pronounced it 'ee-loys'.

"Just a man," replied Eloise derisively. Her eyes turned back to Randall, and he felt a stab in his heart at the dismissive tone. "We're closed, sugar," Eloise informed him coolly. "Come back when the sun goes down."

Randall removed his hat and cleared his throat, though he couldn't prevent a slight stutter from escaping his lips. "I've — I've brought Miss Gwendolyn Charlotte. I'm her driver. She's expected," he explained, his voice betraying a hint of nervousness.

"Is that so?" the woman answered. "Then you better stay right where you're at." Saying it, she turned away. Randall felt his foot begin to slide forward, as if compelled to follow her, but he quickly pulled it back.  A flush of warmth spread across his face as he realized his near misstep.

He heard voices. Then, the embodiment of Godley House, Miss Miriam herself, emerged, opening the screen door. Her shrewd, arresting gaze froze Randall where he stood, despite the oppressive heat of the Tennessee day. She studied him coolly, hands resting on her ample hips, the door held by Eloise. Randall couldn't help but feel ensnared by her allure — the commanding curves of her body, the majestic lift of her bosom and the calculating scrutiny of her eyes, tearing him apart effortlessly before reassembling him. A strange compulsion washed over Randall, urging him to drop to his knees. It was a sensation he'd felt before, stronger in his younger years at 19, yet even now, at 29, he still couldn't prevent himself from automatically lowering his gaze.

As Miss Miriam stepped forward, another girl emerged — a figure of allure and appetite, her eyes brimming with hunger. She was shapely and tempting, clad in a black, sheer dressing gown that tied at her throat, leaving nothing to the imagination. Both she and Eloise remained behind the door, like devoted handmaidens to their queen.

"Was the trip pleasant?" the Madam inquired.

Randall's hand clenched around his hat, pressing it against his chest. "Yes, Miss Miriam, Ma'am," he replied. "Miss Gwendolyn is in the car, as bright and sunny as you could wish for. Her mother sent me to bring her; we've been driving all day." Randall stepped back, gesturing toward the car with his hat as he descended one step off the porch.

"That's most kind of Renee," Miss Miriam said, gracefully passing Randall and stepping onto the yard. Her gaze fixed on the girl seated in the car. "You be sure to tell the girl's mother that I appreciate not having to wait. It's thoughtful when a woman of Renee Charlotte's stature shows consideration for a humble country woman like myself."

Randall quickly discerned his role and hastened to open the car door. "You can come out now, Miss Gwendolyn," he announced. "This is Miss Miriam Godley, and she's eager to meet you."

A frightened, wide-eyed Gwendolyn cautiously placed one foot on the ground. Miss Miriam moved closer to get a better look at the girl, extending her hand. "Come now, dearie. Let's have a look at you."

Gwendolyn remained rooted to the spot, clutching her case tightly. Her legs were covered in thick beige stockings, and her feet were adorned with square-strap shoes. A shiver ran through her.

"Aren't you just darling?" Miss Miriam exclaimed, her eyes softening as she looked at Gwendolyn. She then glanced at the case. "I believe you've brought that for me," she stated, reaching forward to take the case from the girl's grasp. Gwendolyn hesitated for only a moment before relinquishing her hold.

The Madam wasted no time in opening it, placing it on the trunk of the Bel Air. Randall was stunned to see that it was full of money.

"Isn't that sweet?" Miss Miriam remarked, closing the case. "I don't think we need to count it. Beatrix and Eloise, darlings, please take hold of, um, Dolly. Yes, I think Dolly is just the right name for her."

The two young women moved forward resolutely. Gwendolyn shrank back, her back pressing against the Bel Air as her face turned pale, while with unexpected aggression, they took hold of her, as if expecting the girl to take flight. "Take her inside to the room we've prepared," Miss Miriam said coldly. "Make her ready." Randall watched with a sense of unease as they pulled Gwendolyn away. He watched Beatrix open the screen door and Eloise pushed Gwendolyn through it roughly.

Miss Miriam maintained her regal composure, as though nothing unusual had happened. Randall's expression revealed that wasn't the case, but the Godley House madam said calmly, "What's your name, honey?"

Randall gave his name, hesitating to ask about the strange scene that had just occurred.

"And are you on your way home to Ms. Charlotte?" Miss Miriam asked, her tone smooth as satin. "You be sure to give her my warm regards."

He cleared his throat. "Ms. Charlotte said I should stay down here for a week or two. Just in case things don't work out."

"Isn't that thoughtful? And do you have a place to stay, Randall?"

"No. Not yet, Miss Miriam."

"Well then," she said kindly, "you just make your way right into Brownsville and ask some kind soul where to find Jefferson Avenue. Look for the Delta Dream Tourist Court; tell them that I sent you, and they'll fix you up proper."

Randall hesitated to ask, but began, "Is it ...?"

She laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Yes, sugar, it's just right for you. Don't you worry."

"I don't remember the Delta Dream," he said. "But I know Brownsville from when I lived here ten years ago. I worked in the grain mill in town."

A look of recognition passed over Miss Miriam's face. "Why, don't you know, I thought you looked familiar. Your Mama lived down on Sugar Creek, didn't she?"

"Yes Ma'am," Randall answered with elation. "She surely did."

"Well, that solves it, honey. The Sugar Tea Lodge burned down 'bout seven years ago, before it was rebuilt. You must have known the Sugar Tea."

"Yes Miss Miriam, I did." Feeling gratified, he couldn't help but grin. "But—" he began, uncertainly. "But if it's not too much trouble, Ma'am, there's something I'd like to ask."

"You go right ahead."

"Well, you used to have a girl here. Nearly tall as me, dark curly hair, spoke in a throaty way ... her name was Jeannette."

Miss Miriam smiled. "And you'd like to know if she's still here."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Why no, darling. Jeannette is married to a hog-slaughterer in Cincinnati these days. She's very happy. But you come by tonight and when you do, ask for Miss Pauline. She'll be just your type."

His heart fell a little. "I'll remember Ma'am," he answered, backing away politely. Going around to the driver's side door, he added, "After dark."

"That's right honey," Miss Miriam said sweetly. "Now you pull out real quiet, you hear? Some of my girls are still sleeping."

Randall nodded. "Yes ma'am." Confused whether he should put his hat on and get in the car, or get in the car first, he solved it by throwing his hat on the seat and getting in afterwards. With a wave to Miss Miriam, he started the motor as quietly as possible and maneuvered the car out of the yard and onto the roads of Tennessee.

The Bifurcated Landscape

My apologies ... I'm going to be elitist for a little while.

Some centuries ago, the number of persons able to read language was well below one tenth of the population.  In a culture where bookkeeping and communication by letters was becoming all important to both the government and the mercantile class, it was perceived that a literate workforce was sincerely needed ... and so, privately at first, the growing middle class undertook an effort to see that their children, at least, would be sufficiently educated to enjoy the benefits of economic opportunities and growth that were blooming everywhere.

Families with the means to do so hired tutors or sent their children to private schools to ensure they acquired the skills necessary to capitalise on new opportunities.  This shift marked the beginning of a broader movement towards increased literacy ... but it was only ever intended for the purpose of making money.  Those who waxed about the beauty of literature, or who perceived that somehow reading would be a gateway for every person's intellectual development, were much mistaken.  Oh, of course, miller's sons, impoverished monks, immigrant's daughters and the like would learn to read and did accomplish startling, amazing things ... but each one of these were complimented by hundreds of thousands who did no better with their literacy than to read tote boards and yellow journals, for such is the nature of human beings.  We can lead them to enlightenment, we can teach them how to achieve it, but we can't make them see a light no matter how boldly we shine it in their eyes.

For most of the population, better than nine tenths, the value of reading, or of any media, is its focus on sensationalism, scandal and exaggerated reporting.  This easily digestible content mollifies the mind following a stressful, difficult day at work; it eases the loneliness of many, it stifles the sense of unimportance, it encourages a feeling of superiority over those who are clearly better off, and it feeds a kind of hope that says, if such persons of such poor judgment manage to find themselves made important enough to write such things about, perhaps one day, I too shall also be important.

Rather than disparage these qualities, as most would, I rather praise them.  This is the most benefit that the majority of us can ever gain from the media, given the sort of work we do, or our effort to pay attention in the classrooms of our youth, or our willingness to buckle down and achieve skills that were difficult to achieve.  We have all these people in the world; they are entitled to some kind of entertainment ... and it might just as well be one that feeds their emotional natures.  For those who argue that media of this sort incites violence, I'll rush to point out that 100 years ago, when the people of 1st world countries had trouble with their governments, they flowed out into the streets with guns and clubs and committed personal violence directly, face to face.  They did not write a nasty screed on their phone.

Examine the violence on the streets in the 1920s and 1930s.  Look up the Sacco and Vanzetti Executions, Tulsa, the Bonus Army March, the Coal Wars, the Los Angeles Fruit Tramp riots, the Minneapolis Teamsters strike, the Detroit Hunger march, the Harlem Riot ... eight examples of violence worse than Jan. 6 between the years 1921 and 1935.  We live in relatively peaceful times.  The largest segment of our population does not seek the same kind of intellectual or cultural experience what we're supposed to want ... and if they cannot obtain the pressure valve that the present day media provides, they will find another way to express their frustrations and emotions, most likely in a way that we won't enjoy.

I say all this to stress that where it comes to catering to our population, with regards to where the money is, the focus is always going to be on the nine tenths and some, and not the less than one tenth.  The less than one tenth is always going to be the loudest single entity ... the one that proclaims a universality of "intellectual culture," because the smaller group is the one that knows how to write and how to speak.  They possess the skill needed to make film, mix music, produce content and run the extremely technical media network, which requires the sort of skill that required buckling down.  But the smaller group is not the "richer" group.  The richest group, the less than 1%, consumes no media at all, cares nothing whatsoever for media except in how it makes money, and makes much, much more money from the nine tenths and some.  It's important to understand how, functionally, the media actually works, and where it's bread is buttered.

As an aside, it's rather freakish to watch extremely rich men in a room talk about how to harness artists to metaphorical carts to make content that the nine tenths and some will watch.  And do so without the least self-awareness.

Keeping these things in mind ... do not concern yourself much with the manufacturing of A.I. generated music or content.  A.I., as it develops is the artist chained to a cart.  And yes, however we may carp, however we may rail and spit, we are going to be thrust into a world where computer generated content is everywhere and unavoidable.  Moreover, you may rely on the one tenth and less of the population taking a stance that sincerely hates this development, that calls it the end of the world and a hundred other disparative epithets, which all amount to getting one's whip and taking after the sea.

But ... if you feel your ire rising even now, reading this, and or if you feel despair in your soul, recall what work the artist chained to the cart is meant to accomplish.  Harnessed artists produce for the nine-tenths and some ... and this work, beneficial as it is for that part of the human congregation, is of no importance whatsoever where it comes to our cultural development.  It never has been.  It is, in fact, an entirely different industry, for an entirely different purpose, than the industry I undertake at this moment in the creation of this post.  Here, I seek to enlighten, to explain that we, who produce original work, are in no way threatened by this change ... except, perhaps, that we may not be able to also produce shit for the masses in the years going forward, as A.I. will be doing that.  Our days of selling crap to the hoi polloi are, yes, coming to an end.  Unfortunately for some, but not so much for others.

From the time I became conscious of artistry and people's perspective of it, there has long been a discord between those who claimed something was "good" because of an intrinsic uniqueness, as opposed to it's mass popularity.  It has been argued to me upteenth times that some obscure bit of filmmaking that no one's ever heard of is actually quite brilliant because it highlights an extremely precise element of our culture, while it's been argued an equal number of times this other extremely popular thing must be important because it has deeply touched so many human hearts.  I think we're moving towards obliterating this argument at last.  Anything obscure, going forward, will never be "discovered," because it won't find that audience able to personally relate to it's content ... and absolutely everything that is "popular" will be A.I. generated.  By definition.

The idea that "deeply personal storytelling" has a future is on the block.  With direct access to every kind of story that every human has explained to a computer at its fingertips, A.I. is going to obliterate sentimentality to a degree that the "creation of human sentiment" by humans cannot compete.  And hooray for that.  None of the significant works that human beings have produced over the last 3 millennium are expressions of "deeply personal storytelling."  They are examples of problem solving, of holding up human trials and examining right from wrong, morality from immorality, usefulness from uselessness, wisdom from ignorance and so on.  It is only in this century, the century of film, that "deeply personal" has achieved any gratuity.  There is no future in the deeply personal, as we shall find that in mining human thought for garbage suitable for the masses, computers will be better at this schmaltz than we are.

There is an argument that floats around that, although yes, although storytelling has historically been a vehicle for exploring complex themes and universal truths, we're all done with that now because they've all been successfully dissected.  This is why we turned to deeply personal in the first place; to seek something "deeper," something more intrinsic to the human experience ... but personally, I find all this human interest-driven "high art" to be facile and shallow.  Weeping over the misery of other people is what the scandal sheets trade in.  Finding solace in the misfortune of others is what yellow journalism portrays.  We've learned in these last hundred years to create images of such uncompromising beauty through visuals that adds a gloss of human sensation to artwork that's been able to turn sensationalism into a sort of perceived reverence.  But it's empty.  There's no more there than what I can have going out on any summer's day and enjoying real nature.

Of course computers can do this every bit as well as we can.  It doesn't require ANY intellectualism or comprehension, beyond the technical skill of making images appear luscious and heart-aching on film.  And technical prowess, in case the reader fails to remember, is what computers are always better at than us.

The future of the individual artist's value is not to be found in emotional manipulation and visual appeal. This is already dying; we're watching the Oscars crash and burn year by year because they cannot let go of the lead dirigible.  There is only one path left open, where computers cannot go; and that is a return to substantive themes and questions that challenge the less than one tenth of the population intellectually and ethically.  That is, the part of the population that wants to be challenged that way.

Because in an uncomfortably brief period of time, this is going to be the only audience left to us.  Those who whine and chafe against the inevitable, marching with their whips to the sea, don't matter.  The voices on the screens decrying what's coming don't matter.  The endless personal videos mass produced that declaim the value of A.I., because today it's a joke, are speaking to an audience that will rush to A.I. produced content, because they don't have to wait months for more episodes of their favourite shows.  The future is thousands of episodes produced in a few hours, which may be binge-watched from this morning until the grave takes us.

But those will be fetid, repetitive, awful shows that only those who can't wait for the next season of Emily in Paris are anxious to see.  Not us.  We won't enjoy them.  But imagine a world where the watcher can "ship" Emily with any other character in the series — or any other series! — and the new episodes will be churned out in the time it takes to toast a bagel and pour a glass of wine.  The convenience of instant gratification will, for the nine tenths and more, vastly overshadow anything that resonates on a deeper level.

We shall have a bifurcated landscape.  On one side, the mass-produced content that provides easy entertainment for those who seek it.  On the other, creators who focus on delivering content that challenges, provokes or inspires.  The arguments will be substance over style, with style losing ... rather that the present dynamic.  And those who get sick of the style — for heaven knows, they'll get all they want, of whatever kind they want, in grand abundance — will drift into the minority, and scorn those who watch the other side ... much more than today, because the camps will be firmly drawn.  One thing is certain: those who praise style will find no market for their work, of any kind.  It makes sense that they weep so much at the insertion of A.I. into their universe, given how small their universe is.

Art exists for no other purpose than to engage and reflect upon the human condition.  All the A.I. in the world cannot stop that from happening.  It may change the rules, it may alter who gets to play, or how they get paid for it, but it can never end the process of taking the world apart and setting out the pieces for others to examine.  This goes on.  Not in the same way, but ... did you think art was immune from progress?

Steps toward Immersion

I have been working on the Streetvendor's Guide for a little more than 18 months now.  I have completed 156 pages and have written something like 140,000 words.  I finished "wood" today, wrapping up incense as the last wood-based product.  I'm just getting started on paper and books.  I know readers must be tired of my talking about it, but it has been a pretty big part of my life for a while now ... and it's undoubtedly the largest single project I've ever embarked on in my lifetime.  So, with the reader's patience, I'm going to talk about it a little more.

The guide includes products of all kinds that physically existed in the time period between 1100 and 1650, all of them non-magical with two exceptions, because I just could not restrain myself.  The intent of the book is to provide information that ought to inform any dungeon master on how to create a more believable and immersive world, or rather, how to worldbuild in a realistic, practical way.

Most of those who play D&D only understand game's era through those things that can be imagined and understood in a direct, visceral manner.  They're not interested in sweeping generalisations about culture or technology, or who ran what kingdom or what peoples migrated wear.  To the actual people themselves, living in that time, little if anything seemed to change about them.  They did the work their ancestors did, they survived in the same manner, the momentary changes that did occur had little effect on their lives.  If we're going to comprehend how they saw the world, then we have to see the world in the material way they did.

For example, clothing was a deeply personal and practical aspect of daily existence.  A peasant rose each morning and put on simple garments made from wool or linen, materials that were affordable and durable. These clothes would be homespun and hand-sewn, possibly by a family member, reflecting the labour-intensive process of textile production. These were not just practical but also part of the peasant's identity, shaped by the availability of resources and local traditions. Their straightforward style remained largely consistent across generations, with minor variations in style influenced by local customs rather than sweeping fashion trends.

But we want to know, for the sake of understanding the world, where did the clothes come from?  How were things translated from field to fibre to cloth to pieces of wearable?  What sort of things were available, and what kinds of fabric?  How did one culture differ from another?  I could have written a history describing clothes and trying to connect these things together, but instead I've provided as much detail as possible for the clothes and provided a baseline for the reader to search for as much information as they could wish for ... as the guide's value is in describing what to search.

If the reader were to search for "medieval clothes" at this moment, most likely what would come up is an uncertain list of some vaguely recognisable terms, a few that were immediately familiar, and a great many that looked or sounded completely strange.  The first hurdle that any of us would have to overcome — me included, since I had to do it — would be to define a lot of terms.  Essentially, the most boring part.  This is the work I have done.  Flip through the pages on clothes and the reader will find a lot of things that are conveniently and simply explained, a simple system that explains what's more valuable than what, and a very convenient guide to how many more hours can be spent on google, youtube and chatg.

Okay, but why care?  I must admit, this one puzzled me for awhile too.  I had written a story and in it, I'd described the character's appreciation of a cup of coffee ... which I thought of as just a normal moment of a person doing a thing.  But I found that some readers really tapped into the visceral description of the moment, specifically describing their wanting to get a cup of coffee because of the short two-sentence passage.

After that, I began to notice that my D&D players cared about the colour of their imaginary gear, and about the nature of the food they were buying from the market, because I'd already taken the time to give separate prices for different vegetables, fruits, meats, breads and so on.  Why did it matter?  They couldn't taste the difference, and one would think they'd automatically just buy the cheapest type of food and save themselves some money.  But in reality, as they gamed and bought at the market, they'd ask each other what sort of food they should buy this time around, making jokes about not being able to eat another potato, not caring the least about what things cost — only what did they "feel" like eating over the next couple of weeks.

This began to connect with me.  If they cared about food, naturally they'd care about clothing.  And if they were going to farm anything, they'd obviously care about what they wanted to grow.  If I could have provided options for which kinds of inn they could stay at, instead of always proving the same basic McInn no matter where they went, surely they'd start to care about where they wanted to stay at night, or what sort of room they'd be comfortable staying in.  It wasn't that they didn't care about these things ... it was that, for decades of playing D&D, I'd failed to recognize that chain mail armour is always chain mail ... it's never four or five different visual kinds of armour that provides the same benefit, but offers the benefit of being personal.

I'd never minded if a player said they wanted to paint their armour green, or get a flag for themselves and put some motif on it; I assume people want to personalise their characters.  What is a backstory, if not a personalisation?  But most such things, including a backstory, are stagnant.  Once you've created them, or bought them, or designed your character's flag or whatever, it soon becomes stagnant.  It's nice, but as with most material things, it's momentary and in the long run, unsatisfying.  But there's something strangely different if the character's uniqueness can be expressed in a normal way, all the time, in a manner that doesn't annoy other players.  The flag, for example, has the potential of the character unfurling it before a fight.  The flag is a nice thing to have, but it's the unfurling that makes it meaningful, alive.  Saying after the combat, "I fold my flag and put it away," is so extraordinarily natural that it doesn't feel like the usual pretense that players adopt to feel their character's animation ... yet it does feel important and necessary, and therefore REAL.

But this only works if the player has some understanding of what a flag is beyond a line on a sheet saying how much the flag costs.  Having knowledge of what the flag is made of, and being able to have knowledge of how that material feels to the touch, or how heavy it is, or where it comes from ... produces a more tactile understanding of the flag itself in a way that D&D usually just doesn't offer.  It's always been assumed that it's having the flag that matters, not how it's used or how it affects the character's actions.

We are motivated by more than the things we want to stuff into our homes ... it is the way that we use up the products that make us happy, like the coffee in the morning and the last bit of ice cream in the tub before we go to bed.  It's the way the new washcloths feel on our face when we wash, compared to the old washcloths.  It's the painful reminder that cars need the brakes checked and the tires rotated from season to season, and how it costs us, even though we love our car.  And every little detail we can add to our fictional existence along these lines provides another thing for the players to consider when divesting themselves of coins in exchange for things.

I want us, suiting up in our clothes, girding on our armour, to have the same close personal attachment to the things we interact with as that peasant does in the example earlier.  But that's not possible if we don't know what clothes are, or how things are made, or where they come from.  It's not possible if we can't guess for ourselves that this item has a little drawer in it, or a top that flips up, or a wheel that's as high as our hip, or any other imagined detail that's been sketched out in a very large book with thousands of such details.

It's this sort of worldbuilding that I'm trying for ... the one that goes beyond making a map that says how many miles it is between the village and the dungeon.  I'm describing the worldbuilding we find in the books we read, where the character cuts the outer red waxy covering off his cheese, before carving off a cube and adding it to the crust of rye bread that he's bought that morning.

Obviously, we don't want this sort of description taking over the process of the game — it would be hell on a DM to have the players constantly remarking that their shoes are made of calfskin, not cowhide.  But there's nothing to keep the players from thinking about these important details when their not immediately playing, when they're carefully rewriting their characters and noticing how full of depth and feeling.  This lets them connect with their characters on a deeper level — and, in turn, creates a great deal more "world" for us to employ in strategising things that can matter in the future ... the macguffins we choose, the stakes the party can fight for and the subtleties about the players' characters that we can challenge or support.

The Guide is about understanding and envisioning the tangible elements of a richly detailed world.  By educating ourselves.

Saturday Q&A (jul 27)

JB in Washington State writes,

I think trying to tie Edwards and his theories to the factionalism (I prefer the term "Balkanization") of D&D is a false trail. The Forge folks (i.e. those who read Edward's essays, participated in the forum discussions, bought into the theories, etc.) are a very small niche of the overall RPG hobby and have had only minor impact. Those that continue to exist (rather than drifting into other interests...as I did) still design, create, and play their own games in parallel to the larger "D&D hobby" with little care for how D&D performs or fractures.

Frankly, I think Edwards and GNS theory has had little to do with the ongoing development of D&D. "Little" might not be a strong enough way of putting it...I really mean "next to nothing" or "almost zero." Instead, D&D's development since 2000 has all been about "chasing the money."

4th edition appears mostly obviously inspired by the MMORPG ('Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game') World of Warcraft. First published in 2004, it was immediately and immensely popular, winning a ton of gaming awards and becoming the best selling PC game of both 2005 and 2006. By January 2008 it had more than 10 million subscribers...levels it would maintain up through 2015.

I have been told that there was always a plan to do a new edition of D&D after 3rd edition...that because the bulk of RPG sales comes from the sale of "core books" it is necessary to come out with a new 'core' that customer/fans must purchase every 6-8 years. If this is accurate, then the company always intended to release a new edition circa 2007/8. And when they went looking for inspiration for their new edition, they took a good long look at the game play of the largest, most popular "D&D adjacent" video game on the market.

I have played WoW. The similarities between 4E and WoW are quite apparent, even in terminology used by WoW's online fan communities. It might be interesting to try connecting Slavicsek, Heinsoo, Wyatt, and Mearls to the computer gaming community, and Blizzard Entertainment in particular, but I'm sure they were (at least) exposed to its game play by the time they sat down at the drawing board for their own design.

Money-wise, 3rd edition D&D had a MASSIVE effect on the overall RPG hobby. Because of its "Open Gaming License" and in conjunction with its massive popularity (this due to several factors, best discussed elsewhere), many RPG companies converted their systems wholesale to the D20 brand in order to make their games compatible with D&D...and thus ACCESSIBLE to the huge influx of players ("customers") now indoctrinated to 3rd edition D&D. New publishing companies were formed with the sole purpose of creating product for 3E. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to ride D&D's coattails and partake in the massive gravy train.

Then 4th edition pulled the rug out...even rewriting the OGL.

However, the 3E OGL was explicitly perpetual. And Paizo created Pathfinder (a 3E clone using the OGL) which not only allowed people to continue playing their more familiar flavor of D&D, but also threw a life ring to the numerous small companies that went under due to the 4E conversion. Unfortunately, for many of those companies, it was too late.

But for WorC, Paizo's impact was HUGE. For the first time IN ITS HISTORY, it lost so much market share that D&D was outsold and outperformed by a different RPG (Pathfinder). Even in the 90s (when games like Vampire and Rifts were riding high and 2E was at low ebb) this had never happened. And so WotC pivoted, following the money. They junked 4E and went straight to the public, begging for its customers to take them back. "What do we have to do to win your love and loyalty?"

Enter 5E, the Great Compromise.

Everything since then has been reactions to the market, trying to leverage opportunities (like the surprising popularity of Critical Role, etc.), in order to build brand, maintain 'core demographics' (as they see their core), and rake in dollars. Everything.

Old style D&D is for old people. Old people are not the future of the hobby. Old people die. Hasbro/WotC are a business. They need living, breathing customers. Younger customers. Dumber customers. Customers who don't ask too many questions, and who are more interested in the flash and glitz and veneer of fun than in the deeper, long term impact of play. Customers interested in D&D as a "lifestyle brand" (more revenue streams!) not as a game.

Did you know: Ron Edwards is playing/running a D&D campaign these days? Not just D&D, but 1st edition AD&D? He has a new blog where he writes about it. It's pretty amusing. He's doing all the tinkering stuff with the game that we all do (well, that *I* did...back through the first 10+ years of my blogging about B/X). But he's getting there...getting closer to that epiphany moment when he'll stop worrying about the system and just start paying attention to the game. It's just a matter of time.

Answer: Dismissing the Forge and Ron Edwards' GNS Theory as a "niche" overlooks the significant discussions it sparked regarding game design and player preferences. The Forge played a pivotal role in articulating and categorizing the diverse play styles and expectations of RPG players. Although the influence of GNS Theory might not have been direct or explicitly acknowledged by mainstream designers, its conceptual framework undeniably permeated the broader discourse on game design, which includes the designers of D&D.

I'll accept that 4th edition was heavily inspired by MMORPGs, specifically World of Warcraft. But that doesn't negate the influence of broader theoretical discussions, such as those originating from GNS Theory, on how games could be structured to cater to different types of players. The similarities between 4th edition and MMORPGs underscore a particular approach to game design, focusing on structured combat and tactical gameplay, which aligns with the gamist aspect of GNS Theory. Thus, even if indirectly, the principles discussed in the Forge might have informed some of the design decisions, consciously or unconsciously.

Regarding the financial motivations behind the new editions, yes, of course, the RPG industry wants to make money. It's in the business of entertainment, and obviously the requent releases of new editions to boost sales through new core books plainly serves that end. However, these decisions do not exist in a vacuum and are influenced by ongoing conversations in the gaming community about what players want from their games. The decisions made by the company were and are influenced by market demands, player feedback and broader trends within the gaming community. As such, they're shaped by the ongoing conversations and evolving preferences of the player base.

When the company designs a new edition, it does so with a keen awareness of the prevailing sentiments within the gaming community. Player feedback, collected through various channels such as forums, surveys, playtests and social media, plays a crucial role in shaping the direction of game development. This reflects a wide range of preferences and criticisms, providing invaluable insights into what players enjoy and what they find frustrating. The company must navigate these diverse opinions to create a product that appeals to as many players as possible while maintaining the core identity of the game. And let's not forget that the influence of industry trends cannot be understated. As the popularity of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft surged, WotC likely observed the elements that made these games successful and sought to incorporate similar features into 4th edition. The structured combat mechanics and tactical gameplay, reminiscent of MMORPGs, were intended to attract players who enjoyed these aspects. However, this approach also highlights how game design decisions are influenced by broader trends and the desire to tap into emerging markets.

Those theoretical frameworks and discussions, AT THAT TIME, included a front-and-centre discussion of GNS Theory. It might not have been explicitly cited by the 4th edition designers, but the ongoing discourse about different player archetypes and their preferences probably informed the design process, and GIVEN THE EVIDENCE OF WHAT CAME FORWARD, I'd argue that it DID influence that process. Understanding the distinctions between gamists, narrativists and simulationists would have been part of what helped designers anticipate the needs and desires of various player groups. This theoretical understanding, whether directly acknowledged or not, influenced the choices made in game design to create a more engaging and satisfying experience for a broad audience.

Further, the commercial realities of the RPG industry meant they were forced to justify the release they were making, not just to the customer but to the shareholders also, as they had to attract purchases while retaining enough familiarity to keep long-time players invested. This balancing act was and is informed by continuous engagement with the community, as well as an understanding of market dynamics and player demographics. The success of Pathfinder, for example, catered to players' preferences after the release of 4e in a way that prompted the WotC to adjust its approach with 5th edition.

The impact of Pathfinder and the competition it posed to D&D is part of this mess ... the endless significance of understanding and catering to diverse player needs, something GNS Theory aims to categorise and address. The "Great Compromise" was what 5th edition marketed itself to be, but in reality it stumbled and fell on its face.

5th edition's design heavily prioritised narrative flexibility and character-driven storytelling, appealing primarily to narrativists. While it included elements aimed at gamists and simulationists, such as streamlined combat mechanics and an emphasis on the game's lore, these features feel secondary and insufficient. The core mechanics were simplified to lower the barrier to entry for new players, making the game more accessible but also less intricate in terms of strategic depth and mechanical complexity. This simplification has alienated many gamists who valued the tactical and strategic elements of previous editions, particularly 3rd edition and its variant, Pathfinder.

Additionally, the modular approach, touted as a key feature to cater to different play styles, is more of a theoretical framework than a practical solution. While the idea wants to allow Dungeon Masters to tailor the game to their group's preferences, in practice, the core rules remained heavily slanted towards a narrative focus. The optional modules lack depth and the support needed to fully satisfy simulationist and gamist players, leading to dissatisfaction among those groups.

Moreover, the company's strategic decision to market 5th edition as a lifestyle brand aimed at younger, newer players further entrenched this focus. The emphasis on inclusivity and accessibility was undoubtedly beneficial in expanding the player base but often came at the cost of depth and complexity that long-time players valued. This strategic pivot was driven by a desire to capture a broader market and ensure the game's commercial viability, reflecting a prioritisation of narrative-driven experiences over mechanically intensive gameplay.

The marketing and community engagement strategies also played a role in this PERCEIVED compromise. The open playtesting and feedback process, while inclusive, highlighted the deep-seated divisions within the player base. The company's attempt to reconcile these differences through a unified system was ambitious but ultimately fell short, as it was impossible to fully satisfy all factions without compromising the core experience for others. Which was my original argument.

Your children are not "old," JB. The children of other people who support my Patreon are also not "old." My daughter and her friends are not old either. Yes, we die. SO DO COMPANIES. Hasbro's utter failure to consistly obtain "living, breathing customers" killed TOYS 'R' US. I'm watching a landscape of brick and mortar companies collapse all over. The point is irrelevant to what GNS wrought in the RPG community, which I'm not ready to dismiss.

The fact that Ron Edwards is playing 1st edition AD&D and his evolving perspective on game design is an interesting anecdote but does not diminish the impact of his earlier work. Theoretical contributions have a life of their own, influencing discussions and developments long after their inception, even as their originators continue to evolve in their thinking.

It's a misconception to suggest that older, more experienced individuals are not the future of role-playing games (RPGs) or other industries. This notion overlooks several critical factors that highlight the continued relevance and influence of us old farts.

First, we bring a wealth of experience and historical knowledge to the RPG community. We've witnessed the evolution of game design, mechanics and player preferences over decades. This allows us to appreciate and advocate for the depth and complexity that newer editions might lack. Our understanding of what has worked in the past and what hasn't can provide valuable insights for future game development. Every time I write a post, I influence the thoughts and beliefs of plenty of young people, who want me to keep writing. I'm guiding them, preserving my ideas and encouraging them to make more of their own, in a climate where they can't get that sort of encouragement from a corporate clone.

Not me personally, but old players typically have money to purchase high-quality game materials, support crowdfunding projects and attend conventions ... like you. You don't think you influence people when you play a game that wins you a cup? You think young people can fly off to Europe every couple of years, long enough to go to a game convention? You underestimate the privilege that your being older, attached to a surrounding culture of likewise older and more wealthy people, provides for the world in the long run. Politicians may get money from young people, but they get a lot MORE from old people.

Additionally, we are frequently involved in the creative and professional aspects of the RPG industry. Many game designers, writers, and artists who have shaped the field over the years continue to contribute their talents. There is a trend of life-long learning that encourages us, more than young people who express doubt about their abilities all the time, to keep exploring new interests and deepening our existing passions well into later life.

You, perhaps, have decided that the next forty years of your life are going to be spent watching plants grow in pots, but I'm not. I'm a long way from done, and I haven't yet had my best idea. So you go ahead and count yourself old. You go ahead and get ready to die. Not me. I'm too busy to die right now.

_____

Thank you JB for your contribution.  If readers would like to reply to the above, or wish to ask a question or submit observations like those above, please submit to my email, alexiss1@telus.net.  Those giving a $3 donation to my Patreon, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3015466, can submit questions directly to me in the chat room there.

If you could, please give the region where you're located (state, province, department, county, whatever) as it humanises your comment.

Feel free to address material on the authentic wiki, my books or any subject related to dungeons & dragons.  I encourage you to initiate subject material of your own, and to address your comment to others writing in this space.