For those who are interested, I am wrapping up my mini-vacation tonight and will be giving at least some of my attention, again, to the online campaigns. The Senex Campaign, I know, has been a trial of late, as the players seem trapped in this awful little room with this awful single, apparently indefeatable monster. I would have like to resolve that before this break, but unfortunately that resolution did not come together.
At the same time, I know, the Juvenis campaign is in a similar lull, the sort that comes once a dungeon is finished and a party feels a bit, well, unstructured for a time. This passes. But that party, too, would no doubt like to move on.
I have concluded an important agreement with an as-yet unnamed party regarding my credibility ~ an agreement that I sincerely hope will put my concerns at rest and those who have chosen to back me in the past. I will be providing evidence of the book to this person who, in turn, will confirm the book's existence and forward movement. This person has a long-standing blog on the internet and a reputation to defend: he has, therefore, his own reasons to be honest.
It is the best I can do.
There are a lot of calls on my time, not the least of which is still trying to beat the streets to find work. Things are looking up. I have bites and nibbles all over and something is going to give soon.
I will still be giving my all to the comics and the book. Everything else, including the online campaign, is just going to have to take its time in between my other commitments. I have no desire to suspend either campaign, especially since after the book is done I am going to feel a tremendous weight fall from my conscience. There will always be another book, but at least for a time I won't feel like I'm grinding helplessly in the dark.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Monday, April 3, 2017
Fixing the Bard's Ability to Transfer X.P.
Coming back around to the bard.
Some might remember that way back in January, I wrote a proposal that a bard's artwork could work as a transference of experience from the bard to the audience, effectively putting one's soul and experience into that work so that a part of it would then be given - in a firm, practical, game meaningful way - to the person who saw or heard the results of that artwork.
A few days ago I put up a table on my wiki that would try to codify this, to propose how long it would take an artist to make an artwork vs. how effective the artwork would be. The table looked like this.
Let me start by saying there is a big problem with the table, one that took two days to sink in. First, however, I'll talk about how it was supposed to work.
The bard starts by stating what degree of artwork they want to make. We'll say that our bard Henri is an authority-level bard, meaning he is unable to make illustrious work or better but he can make anything up to excellent. Henri is a painter and he decides he's going to make a fine piece of art that will take him, according to the table, 19 weeks. It would take less if he were an expert or a sage, but he's an authority so there it is.
Each week, Henri makes a check to see how he is progressing. Note that the heading says "weeks of success" ~ which means Henri must be successful 19 times to complete his work of art. It could take him many more weeks to actually finish it, which accounts for going over and starting from scratch, going through blue periods and moments of crisis, struggling with the method and so on. Each week, Henri throws 2d20, one against his wisdom and one against his intelligence. If he succeeds against both, he has had a successful week and he can move on.
Finally, when the painting is finished, others who view it gain the benefit of 5-8% of Henri's experience. We'll say that Henri is 6th level and has 30,000 x.p., and we roll a 5 (poor Henri), so that others gain 1,500 x.p. upon seeing the painting, adjusted according to what level they themselves are. All of that is covered in the link that started this post.
This is fine, except it's broken from the outset. We'll start that even 38 weeks of work seems a little short for giving someone ~ even an equal level ~ that much experience. I messed around with the table in all sorts of way and I can see that's still an issue.
A much bigger issue is the question, why would Henri EVER make anything except creditable works? It takes less time and the payoff is much, much better that working for a long time on something fine. Henri can make better than 6 creditable paintings in the time it takes to make a fine one, with more than three times the probable payoff. So the table's concept is garbage out of the gate.
Finally, there's no adjustment here for the artwork being a fail. Henri knows if he works all this time on the painting, eventually it will be finished and eventually it will pay out. So there's no stress here, either.
[there is another issue having to do with the viewer/audience, which some of you will have guessed, but I will discuss that in another post]
Now, there's nothing about the table above that can't be salvaged without dumping the % column, so let's start there:
Let's keep Henri having to choose the level of artwork, only let's have that choice mean something. Let's also keep Henri having to roll under his wisdom and his intelligence for each week, in order to be successful. But let's skew those rolls in a way that rewards MORE work instead of less.
Suppose that Henri's intelligence is 10 and that his wisdom matches the bard's minimum for my game, 13. And we'll say, for the heck of it, that Henri decides to create a creditable work.
This means he has to succeed at 3 rolls (2d20 per roll, against the two stats). That's easy. But now we're going to say that for the artwork to have any value, one, two or three of those rolls must be a double.
That is, the number on the wisdom check and the number on the intelligence check must match; if they do not match, the artwork progresses towards completion but, in fact, adds nothing, zip, zero to its value.
Once Henri has rolled three times, if there are no doubles, the artwork is finished and can't be continued. Henri might sell it for some income, but it is worthless for experience transfer.
Let's spend a moment talking about rolling doubles on 2d20. There are 400 possible combinations in rolling two 20-sided dice, just as there are 36 possible combinations in rolling two 6-sided dice. With 2d20, there are 20 possible rolls in 400 that will result in a double. With 2d6, there are 6 possible rolls that will result in a double. Therefore, there's a 5% chance of rolling doubles with 2d20, just as there is a 16.67% chance of rolling doubles with 2d6.
[Please forgive these comparisons. People are more familiar with the odds on 2d6]
However, for our success to count, the doubles that Henri rolls for making an artwork must also be equal to or less than both his wisdom and his intelligence. That means there are only 10 possible doubles that enable Henri to give his art value: a mere 1 in 40 chance. So yes, Henri is going to produce less valuable art than someone with an 18 in both intelligence and wisdom: just as a fighter with an 18 in both strength and constitution is going to do better than one with a 10 strength and a 13 constitution.
But okay, so what? Roll a double, not, Henri can spend 19 successful weeks making six so-so paintings or he can spend it making one so-so fine painting. If every double produces the same bonus to the experience he can transfer, what difference does it make?
Ah. Obviously, we have to look at that bonus.
Henri attempts a credible painting and, lo and behold, he rolls a double in his third week. Yes! How much transfer does Henri get?
Well, I have to base this on someone spending 6 years working on the Mona Lisa (Da Vinci painted a lot of similar paintings that never amounted to a thing except to art historians) giving a 20-30% transfer. That's a masterpiece, 305 successful weeks from a sage, by someone who probably had a 19 in both intelligence and wisdom, so six years and a bit to roll an average of 15.25 doubles.
If we allow each double to generate 2%, that works out. But I have another idea. A better idea.
Suppose that for a first double, we offer 0.3-1.8% of the bard's experience available for transfer (3d6 x 0.1). If Henri rolls a 10, that's 1% of his 30,000 x.p., or 300. Not bad, since it would take Henri an average of 13 credible paintings to get a single double.
But what if he gets a second double? Is it 2 x 0.3-1.8%? No, I don't think so. A second double on one art work means either it is an ambitious project or the bard really was on fire. The second double gets a 0.1% bonus! Yes, I know what the reader is saying: big deal. But what if every subsequent double gets a similar bonus?
Very well, look at the table on the right. With each cumulative double to be obtained in a given artwork, the overall average of that particular double increases. At best, a credible work can manage three cumulative doubles before the work is completely done. This doesn't mean it can't be a pretty amazing work; but the chances of rolling three doubles on 2d20 in a row, all of which are below one's wisdom and intelligence, is pretty low. Henri has a much, much better chance of getting three (or even two in one work) if he tries for longer and longer works.
And if it is an immense project, something that really will take years (including the destruction of failures or merely the attempts before hitting the mark - like Michaelangelo's multiple attempts at David) has the chance of really mounting up points with a lot of doubles.
Am I making bard transfer artwork incomprehensibly difficult? Oh, you bet! I want it to be the Holy Grail, not something a bard character churns out without reflection or suffering. The mere fact that a bard could waste 20 weeks of their life and game time trying to create a juggling move or forty stanzas of epic poetry, only to fall flat on their face audience-wise, will really make a bard pause before making the effort.
Remember, we want the player bard to have the artist experience. That includes failure, just as it does for a fighter. But it also includes the very, very rare piece of incomprehensible genius that causes the world to stop and take notice. That takes time, it takes suffering . . . and it takes risk.
There's a reason why a lot of artists are prone to suicide.
Some might remember that way back in January, I wrote a proposal that a bard's artwork could work as a transference of experience from the bard to the audience, effectively putting one's soul and experience into that work so that a part of it would then be given - in a firm, practical, game meaningful way - to the person who saw or heard the results of that artwork.
A few days ago I put up a table on my wiki that would try to codify this, to propose how long it would take an artist to make an artwork vs. how effective the artwork would be. The table looked like this.
Let me start by saying there is a big problem with the table, one that took two days to sink in. First, however, I'll talk about how it was supposed to work.
The bard starts by stating what degree of artwork they want to make. We'll say that our bard Henri is an authority-level bard, meaning he is unable to make illustrious work or better but he can make anything up to excellent. Henri is a painter and he decides he's going to make a fine piece of art that will take him, according to the table, 19 weeks. It would take less if he were an expert or a sage, but he's an authority so there it is.
Each week, Henri makes a check to see how he is progressing. Note that the heading says "weeks of success" ~ which means Henri must be successful 19 times to complete his work of art. It could take him many more weeks to actually finish it, which accounts for going over and starting from scratch, going through blue periods and moments of crisis, struggling with the method and so on. Each week, Henri throws 2d20, one against his wisdom and one against his intelligence. If he succeeds against both, he has had a successful week and he can move on.
Finally, when the painting is finished, others who view it gain the benefit of 5-8% of Henri's experience. We'll say that Henri is 6th level and has 30,000 x.p., and we roll a 5 (poor Henri), so that others gain 1,500 x.p. upon seeing the painting, adjusted according to what level they themselves are. All of that is covered in the link that started this post.
This is fine, except it's broken from the outset. We'll start that even 38 weeks of work seems a little short for giving someone ~ even an equal level ~ that much experience. I messed around with the table in all sorts of way and I can see that's still an issue.
A much bigger issue is the question, why would Henri EVER make anything except creditable works? It takes less time and the payoff is much, much better that working for a long time on something fine. Henri can make better than 6 creditable paintings in the time it takes to make a fine one, with more than three times the probable payoff. So the table's concept is garbage out of the gate.
Finally, there's no adjustment here for the artwork being a fail. Henri knows if he works all this time on the painting, eventually it will be finished and eventually it will pay out. So there's no stress here, either.
[there is another issue having to do with the viewer/audience, which some of you will have guessed, but I will discuss that in another post]
Now, there's nothing about the table above that can't be salvaged without dumping the % column, so let's start there:
Let's keep Henri having to choose the level of artwork, only let's have that choice mean something. Let's also keep Henri having to roll under his wisdom and his intelligence for each week, in order to be successful. But let's skew those rolls in a way that rewards MORE work instead of less.
Suppose that Henri's intelligence is 10 and that his wisdom matches the bard's minimum for my game, 13. And we'll say, for the heck of it, that Henri decides to create a creditable work.
This means he has to succeed at 3 rolls (2d20 per roll, against the two stats). That's easy. But now we're going to say that for the artwork to have any value, one, two or three of those rolls must be a double.
That is, the number on the wisdom check and the number on the intelligence check must match; if they do not match, the artwork progresses towards completion but, in fact, adds nothing, zip, zero to its value.
Once Henri has rolled three times, if there are no doubles, the artwork is finished and can't be continued. Henri might sell it for some income, but it is worthless for experience transfer.
Let's spend a moment talking about rolling doubles on 2d20. There are 400 possible combinations in rolling two 20-sided dice, just as there are 36 possible combinations in rolling two 6-sided dice. With 2d20, there are 20 possible rolls in 400 that will result in a double. With 2d6, there are 6 possible rolls that will result in a double. Therefore, there's a 5% chance of rolling doubles with 2d20, just as there is a 16.67% chance of rolling doubles with 2d6.
[Please forgive these comparisons. People are more familiar with the odds on 2d6]
However, for our success to count, the doubles that Henri rolls for making an artwork must also be equal to or less than both his wisdom and his intelligence. That means there are only 10 possible doubles that enable Henri to give his art value: a mere 1 in 40 chance. So yes, Henri is going to produce less valuable art than someone with an 18 in both intelligence and wisdom: just as a fighter with an 18 in both strength and constitution is going to do better than one with a 10 strength and a 13 constitution.
But okay, so what? Roll a double, not, Henri can spend 19 successful weeks making six so-so paintings or he can spend it making one so-so fine painting. If every double produces the same bonus to the experience he can transfer, what difference does it make?
Ah. Obviously, we have to look at that bonus.
Henri attempts a credible painting and, lo and behold, he rolls a double in his third week. Yes! How much transfer does Henri get?
Well, I have to base this on someone spending 6 years working on the Mona Lisa (Da Vinci painted a lot of similar paintings that never amounted to a thing except to art historians) giving a 20-30% transfer. That's a masterpiece, 305 successful weeks from a sage, by someone who probably had a 19 in both intelligence and wisdom, so six years and a bit to roll an average of 15.25 doubles.
If we allow each double to generate 2%, that works out. But I have another idea. A better idea.
Suppose that for a first double, we offer 0.3-1.8% of the bard's experience available for transfer (3d6 x 0.1). If Henri rolls a 10, that's 1% of his 30,000 x.p., or 300. Not bad, since it would take Henri an average of 13 credible paintings to get a single double.
But what if he gets a second double? Is it 2 x 0.3-1.8%? No, I don't think so. A second double on one art work means either it is an ambitious project or the bard really was on fire. The second double gets a 0.1% bonus! Yes, I know what the reader is saying: big deal. But what if every subsequent double gets a similar bonus?
Very well, look at the table on the right. With each cumulative double to be obtained in a given artwork, the overall average of that particular double increases. At best, a credible work can manage three cumulative doubles before the work is completely done. This doesn't mean it can't be a pretty amazing work; but the chances of rolling three doubles on 2d20 in a row, all of which are below one's wisdom and intelligence, is pretty low. Henri has a much, much better chance of getting three (or even two in one work) if he tries for longer and longer works.
And if it is an immense project, something that really will take years (including the destruction of failures or merely the attempts before hitting the mark - like Michaelangelo's multiple attempts at David) has the chance of really mounting up points with a lot of doubles.
Am I making bard transfer artwork incomprehensibly difficult? Oh, you bet! I want it to be the Holy Grail, not something a bard character churns out without reflection or suffering. The mere fact that a bard could waste 20 weeks of their life and game time trying to create a juggling move or forty stanzas of epic poetry, only to fall flat on their face audience-wise, will really make a bard pause before making the effort.
Remember, we want the player bard to have the artist experience. That includes failure, just as it does for a fighter. But it also includes the very, very rare piece of incomprehensible genius that causes the world to stop and take notice. That takes time, it takes suffering . . . and it takes risk.
There's a reason why a lot of artists are prone to suicide.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Editing Will Be the Death of Me
Damn it.
Because of formatting, I screwed over a punchline in yesterday's comic. And it took me a whole damn day and more to notice!
Look at it again:
I have this long list of checks that I go over, that I'm adding to all the time. Haven't had this error before. I hope, eventually, that checklist will stop this sort of thing from happening.
Friday, March 31, 2017
E12
This comic pushed me right to the edge. A better artist than I could probably render this better: it took me 6 hours to get the comic right, not counting the fact that the people themselves were already created for earlier uses.
I can't really believe that I'm doing this. I look at this comic and I'm in a state of wonder; I conceived of needing a gelatinous cube for the joke, not knowing for sure if I could make one . . . and damned if it wasn't difficult. But I'm so proud of myself for actually making it look legit that I'm thoroughly stunned.
I truly think I've got something good going here.
UPDATE:
Ouch.
I just had two people pull their $10 donations from Patreon, last minute. But I understand. Paint my face sad, but all I can think is that I've let them down by not producing enough valued and useful information. Thank you both for the support you've given me in the past. I hope you will both continue to read and support me vocally in the comments, as I don't want to lose you as readers.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Old Posts 11-20
As a reminder, interest has already waned on the "Challenge to Find the Top 10 Posts." No one has to put up more than one favorite, after all. Moreover, I'm not sure yet that there are 10 posts that have been seconded.
Here is a list of the next 10 posts I created on this blog:
Play. Advanced Gameplay, Fun, Game Prep, Rule-Making. Discussion of how children play games versus how adults play games; rule-making and why it matters, increase detail in rule-making as games advance in complexity. Conflated importance of frivolity and "fun" in the role-playing community.
Charisma. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Charisma. Method for determining background skills, relationships, childhood events and character flaws through the use of a d20 roll compared to the player's stats. This post focused on charisma-related generation results. Charisma as a dump stat.
Intelligence. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Intelligence. Difficulties in playing intelligence in games, importance of randomness in game design, defining "character." Intelligence-related results for character generation. Discussion of severe character flaws.
Wisdom. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Wisdom. Family background's irrelevance in common role-playing. Wisdom-related results for character generation.
Constitution. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Constitution. Balance in gaming, definition of winning, character flaws. Constitution-related results for character generation.
Strength & Dexterity. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Dexterity, Strength. Strength and dexterity related results for character generation.
There Has to Be More. Campaign Structure, Manor Estate, Personal Memoir, Trade Commodities. Influence of Almanacs on my youth and my developing interest in statistics and geography. The importance of developing a campaign structure as a cohesive whole, difficulties associated with answering player queries regarding land, costs, commodity production and estate management.
What Price? Manor Estate, Trade Commodities, Treasure. Comparisons of purchase prices in the official game universe vs. gold accumulation from treasure. Importance of Scarcity, reducing the party's buying power, many examples regarding prices that are too low to present a challenge [notably feeding horses].
Wide, Wide World. Trade Commodities, Trade & Production. Reasons for designing a trade system, implementation of a Colliers Encyclopedia for research, accumulation of trade references and commodity forms, plotting 17th century production vs. modern statistical date [using the U.N. Industrial Statistics Yearbook.
Random Good. Campaign Structure, Game Prep. Philosophy of minimal game prep, improvising a game on the spot. Relationship of randomness (the unexpected) and improvisation in moment-to-moment play.
Frankly, I think the Random Good post is fairly garbage. I was definitely off on a tangent that day; I'm not sure what the hell point I was trying to make. The rest is fairly okay. The introduction of the background generator tables, way before I systematized it into an excel generator, comes astoundingly early in this blog. And naturally I was going to start talking about trade as soon as I had gotten my feet wet.
Here is a list of the next 10 posts I created on this blog:
Play. Advanced Gameplay, Fun, Game Prep, Rule-Making. Discussion of how children play games versus how adults play games; rule-making and why it matters, increase detail in rule-making as games advance in complexity. Conflated importance of frivolity and "fun" in the role-playing community.
Charisma. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Charisma. Method for determining background skills, relationships, childhood events and character flaws through the use of a d20 roll compared to the player's stats. This post focused on charisma-related generation results. Charisma as a dump stat.
Intelligence. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Intelligence. Difficulties in playing intelligence in games, importance of randomness in game design, defining "character." Intelligence-related results for character generation. Discussion of severe character flaws.
Wisdom. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Wisdom. Family background's irrelevance in common role-playing. Wisdom-related results for character generation.
Constitution. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Constitution. Balance in gaming, definition of winning, character flaws. Constitution-related results for character generation.
Strength & Dexterity. Ability Stats, Character Generation, Dexterity, Strength. Strength and dexterity related results for character generation.
There Has to Be More. Campaign Structure, Manor Estate, Personal Memoir, Trade Commodities. Influence of Almanacs on my youth and my developing interest in statistics and geography. The importance of developing a campaign structure as a cohesive whole, difficulties associated with answering player queries regarding land, costs, commodity production and estate management.
What Price? Manor Estate, Trade Commodities, Treasure. Comparisons of purchase prices in the official game universe vs. gold accumulation from treasure. Importance of Scarcity, reducing the party's buying power, many examples regarding prices that are too low to present a challenge [notably feeding horses].
Wide, Wide World. Trade Commodities, Trade & Production. Reasons for designing a trade system, implementation of a Colliers Encyclopedia for research, accumulation of trade references and commodity forms, plotting 17th century production vs. modern statistical date [using the U.N. Industrial Statistics Yearbook.
Random Good. Campaign Structure, Game Prep. Philosophy of minimal game prep, improvising a game on the spot. Relationship of randomness (the unexpected) and improvisation in moment-to-moment play.
Frankly, I think the Random Good post is fairly garbage. I was definitely off on a tangent that day; I'm not sure what the hell point I was trying to make. The rest is fairly okay. The introduction of the background generator tables, way before I systematized it into an excel generator, comes astoundingly early in this blog. And naturally I was going to start talking about trade as soon as I had gotten my feet wet.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
The Ineffable Process of Learning How to Blog, or, I Have Banged My Head Against This Wall for a Very, Very Long Time and I Can Confirm Now that It Hurts
The long-time readers are getting a taste of how difficult it is to manage a data-base the size of my blog at the present (see Challenge to Find the Top 10 Posts). There are more than 2,200 posts, thick with words, covering endless subjects and none of it appropriately indexed. That is because this is a blog, which was never granted the tools for this much content.
On the whole, I do better with the wiki. I can spontaneously create links between the pages, or build up indexes of specific subject material, while adding to the content. Because the wiki is not temporal based in its layout, I can break up pages into separate files and improve the overall character of the material ~ and because the wiki is not intended as a commentary, but as a rule framework and world setting, I feel no compunction about editing it with a cold, heartless eye.
But the blog is a diary that says as much about me as a person than it does about my opinions regarding D&D, role-playing and the community at large. I am not the same person who began blogging in 2005 (the first blog, which was about my political views, is long deleted), or indeed when this blog began in 2008. I will not be the same person in nine years that I am now. I am constantly in a state of flux, because I enjoy changing my mind when I encounter new information and a reason to think differently about a given subject or about myself.
For example, a few days ago I saw little value in making a better index of my blog. I have changed my mind about that. I feel the "Old Posts" that I put up on Thursday were a good memory. Not the most enjoyable process, linking them together, but a positive experience nonetheless.
I really did come out of the gate fast. I was spitting mad by the ninth post and right after I ran full-on into the character background generator, one of the most popular game features I ever added to my game.
Drain was right in his comment today when he wrote of this blog being a consistency benchmark, but he is dead wrong where he says it hasn't been about stand-out moments. This blog has been all about bursting dams ~ but the nature of the blog, and the time it takes to read it, reduces all that dam-busting to the distant, forgotten past. Even I have forgotten it.
There are shortcomings that produce that obscurity: the lack of an index, certainly. The last of real interest for most people in changing a game they're only going to play a few years before begging that they "haven't got time" while they pour the hours and days of their lives into some company's coffers, their house payments and their ~ happily ~ partners and kids. A game that will only be played a few years does not need vast changes to the character generator, the combat rules, the invention of a trade system or a hundred other "silver" posts this blog has included in its lengthy history.
That is not something I understood clearly when I started. Foolishly, I believed that people on the whole wanted a deeper, more intrinsic game that would blow their consciousness and become a greater entertainment for them ~ if only someone would write more theoretically about what was possible rather than what was easy. I've been wrong about that. I'll continue to be wrong about that as I write years and years into the future, continuously expanding the wiki because it is something I enjoy doing.
It takes a player starting to game at the age of 15 at least three years to reach a maturity that suggests that perhaps the original game design is truly lacking. Virtually every three-year player will think to themselves, "This needs improving: I will improve it."
Unfortunately, it takes another four years of hard, intrinsic training in game design to acquire the base-line skills for actually improving an existing game. This is not self-evident. Most look at games as fairly simple things, not too difficult, certainly nothing I can't play with in a few days and make better. Most also find themselves three or four days in with the realization that game design is a rabbit hole that potentially goes down forever. They learn that some choices have to be made about how limited their "fix" of the rules is going to be ~ whereupon they quickly discover than any real fix is going to take a lot longer than their motivation will allow.
They do the calculation: What will this gain vs. How long will this take? Very little, they think, and very long. Quite logically after that, they quit.
Original game design is insanely difficult. Because it is a "game" and because it is "fun," game design suffers the ignominy of being considered not a serious occupation ~ unless, of course, one manages to get inside the ivory tower of modern video game design without being one of the morlocks who works 80 hours a week for shit wages and the ever-present sword of Damocles waiting to cut them down the moment they complain about their shat-on, abused, miserable lot in life for daring to be a programmer who also wants a life. Nowhere in this present Western culture is there a less respected profession than a game-design programmer who is expected to manipulate code to create pixels with flawless accuracy, and nowhere is there a more pathetic wannabe than a game-design programmer who will put up with the abuse because they dream one day they will grow up to be . . . hm. I can't really think of anyone.
The 22-year-old with seven years of role-playing experience and the degree in game theory and design (a rare combination indeed) isn't going to push themselves into bettering the RPG experience. There is too much money to be made in other designs. All the other 22-year-olds have moved on from RPGs altogether, finding less and less time to play or fewer and fewer people to play with. Fools like me, we keep trying to play but the crowd gets smaller and smaller every year. In helpless desperation, all the 22-year-olds that are frozen out cling desperately to what they can find in video-games, self-play and personal game design . . . and this is the crowd left online, writing blogs and running bulletin boards, filming themselves playing RPGs for as long as it lasts, trying to monetize what they can create in the hopes that it will sustain this thing they love.
But I have to say, as someone who has thought and worked and built this game for nearly 40 years, it takes 30 of those years to admit some realities to ourselves.
We must go down that rabbit hole if we're ever going to do anything significant. There's no getting around the work or the commitment. There just isn't. The 80 hours a week demanded of a hundred programmers is demanded because it is necessary to create this thing we like to play with our free, casual time. Work is an unpleasant reality ~ and it is certainly going to be MORE work, exhaustive work, because we are in this thing alone and we can't, absolutely cannot, agree among ourselves about what a role-playing game ought to be.
That's the second reality. We are never, ever, ever going to feel that a given way to create a rule for any part of the game will consistently meet the expectations of the players who remain past that 22-year-old just-got-out-of-university cut-off. We who remain are just too individual, too obtuse, too sure that we know right and that everyone else is fucked in the head. I just did not get that when I started writing a D&D blog.
I thought everyone would see the clear, rational manner in which I approached the game and think, "Wow, that is so cool, let me start switching my game over." Yes, I thought like this was I was as old as 44.
It is to laugh.
Fundamentally, we who keep at this thing don't really trust each other. We've been out in the woods so long that when we meet someone who is also out in the same woods, we know they must be an enemy or, at best, some brainless half-wit who is going to do something stupid and get us killed.
Early on, I preached and argued a lot for building a solidarity, a community, that could tackle problems and build a continuity. If I struggle through the process of making an index for the blog, I will have to relive all those posts and I will not like it. There is no desire to build a continuity because continuity is not something we're capable of accepting. Continuity would steal away the one, last game we are still able to play as old-timer RPG game-designers. The meta game of designing. Accepting another person's combat system will deny us the pleasure of continuing to work on our own combat system. Worse, where it comes to amateur game design, the combat system is the easiest thing to design. That is why everyone designs one. It is low-hanging fruit.
Finally, the last reality is that we're going to die. Whereupon all this work is going to be just so much paper, so much flotsam on the internet, so much garbage that others won't bother to work through because it isn't going to "register" on their radar. And where will my consistency be then, Drain? What will it be worth? When I am dead and gone, the post with the reader's morning coffee won't be there.
I take comfort in knowing that for a few people, I'm going to be a good memory. There are people who are going to find my book on their bookshelves thirty years from now and smile. There are going to also be people who pull down my unread book that they purchased all those years ago and toss it in the garbage with a shrug. There are also those who will have read it and will still toss it into the garbage.
But there will also be people who will see something many years from now, after I am gone, who will be reminded of me and will think, "Oh yeah, that guy."
That's fairly remarkable, considering none of us have ever met. Considering no institution has put money behind me or promoted me, that I haven't been a television personality or a traditionally published author (except for a lot of newspaper and trade content none of you will have ever read). Granted, some readers have met me briefly at a con. Some, hopefully, will meet me in the future. A few have actually looked me up and met me for coffee and drinks, which is a startling experience I can say with surety.
There is a little memory there. A little influence. A little dam-busting. It isn't all consistency and putting up another post in order to remind people that I am relevant, at least in that here is something to read in the half-hour before the shift ends and we can all go home. Figuratively speaking. I'm still unemployed as I write this.
Through all this, I have tried to be human. I let myself rant because it is what humans do. When I see a celebrity rant, break a camera or two, get themselves arrested, trip over their lines or turn up for a performance without having rehearsed enough, I think, "See? Human." It's the frauds that disgust me. The pundit selling a philosophy-as-product with the cool, smooth gift of a smug, excessive self-aware plastic exterior that I resent.
So if it has been "x-days" since I lost it, well, don't take me for having sorted myself out somehow. I lost it yesterday on a Crash Course video [fucking hate those piece-of-shit dumbed-down and mostly wrong overcompensations for those who can't pick up a proper book] that someone else was watching. Because the presenter said, quote, "There's no such thing as an objective truth."
Shit like that really, really, really, really bugs me. If I drop a needle in the deep ocean, no one is ever going to find it. Doesn't mean the needle has ceased to exist. Eventually the needle is going to degrade and disappear, its atoms scattered. Doesn't mean the needle didn't exist. This ridiculous notion that pseudo-scientists on the internet possess that science is about "proving" the truth or potential of things makes me want to bang my head into my desk until there is a blood stain. And just now I live in a house with people who watch these things daily and nod their heads in agreement ~ because while they understand where science is right now, they haven't a fucking clue where science has been and they haven't taken enough philosophy to grasp a shadow of where science might someday be.
So I get ripping mad all the time, because I'm human. I just share it less on the internet.
Well, do have a look at my past writings. It isn't all consistency. I think you'll find that if you start reading a post a day right now, the "consistency" of the blog's history will sustain you very well until 2023.
On the whole, I do better with the wiki. I can spontaneously create links between the pages, or build up indexes of specific subject material, while adding to the content. Because the wiki is not temporal based in its layout, I can break up pages into separate files and improve the overall character of the material ~ and because the wiki is not intended as a commentary, but as a rule framework and world setting, I feel no compunction about editing it with a cold, heartless eye.
But the blog is a diary that says as much about me as a person than it does about my opinions regarding D&D, role-playing and the community at large. I am not the same person who began blogging in 2005 (the first blog, which was about my political views, is long deleted), or indeed when this blog began in 2008. I will not be the same person in nine years that I am now. I am constantly in a state of flux, because I enjoy changing my mind when I encounter new information and a reason to think differently about a given subject or about myself.
For example, a few days ago I saw little value in making a better index of my blog. I have changed my mind about that. I feel the "Old Posts" that I put up on Thursday were a good memory. Not the most enjoyable process, linking them together, but a positive experience nonetheless.
I really did come out of the gate fast. I was spitting mad by the ninth post and right after I ran full-on into the character background generator, one of the most popular game features I ever added to my game.
Drain was right in his comment today when he wrote of this blog being a consistency benchmark, but he is dead wrong where he says it hasn't been about stand-out moments. This blog has been all about bursting dams ~ but the nature of the blog, and the time it takes to read it, reduces all that dam-busting to the distant, forgotten past. Even I have forgotten it.
There are shortcomings that produce that obscurity: the lack of an index, certainly. The last of real interest for most people in changing a game they're only going to play a few years before begging that they "haven't got time" while they pour the hours and days of their lives into some company's coffers, their house payments and their ~ happily ~ partners and kids. A game that will only be played a few years does not need vast changes to the character generator, the combat rules, the invention of a trade system or a hundred other "silver" posts this blog has included in its lengthy history.
That is not something I understood clearly when I started. Foolishly, I believed that people on the whole wanted a deeper, more intrinsic game that would blow their consciousness and become a greater entertainment for them ~ if only someone would write more theoretically about what was possible rather than what was easy. I've been wrong about that. I'll continue to be wrong about that as I write years and years into the future, continuously expanding the wiki because it is something I enjoy doing.
It takes a player starting to game at the age of 15 at least three years to reach a maturity that suggests that perhaps the original game design is truly lacking. Virtually every three-year player will think to themselves, "This needs improving: I will improve it."
Unfortunately, it takes another four years of hard, intrinsic training in game design to acquire the base-line skills for actually improving an existing game. This is not self-evident. Most look at games as fairly simple things, not too difficult, certainly nothing I can't play with in a few days and make better. Most also find themselves three or four days in with the realization that game design is a rabbit hole that potentially goes down forever. They learn that some choices have to be made about how limited their "fix" of the rules is going to be ~ whereupon they quickly discover than any real fix is going to take a lot longer than their motivation will allow.
They do the calculation: What will this gain vs. How long will this take? Very little, they think, and very long. Quite logically after that, they quit.
Original game design is insanely difficult. Because it is a "game" and because it is "fun," game design suffers the ignominy of being considered not a serious occupation ~ unless, of course, one manages to get inside the ivory tower of modern video game design without being one of the morlocks who works 80 hours a week for shit wages and the ever-present sword of Damocles waiting to cut them down the moment they complain about their shat-on, abused, miserable lot in life for daring to be a programmer who also wants a life. Nowhere in this present Western culture is there a less respected profession than a game-design programmer who is expected to manipulate code to create pixels with flawless accuracy, and nowhere is there a more pathetic wannabe than a game-design programmer who will put up with the abuse because they dream one day they will grow up to be . . . hm. I can't really think of anyone.
The 22-year-old with seven years of role-playing experience and the degree in game theory and design (a rare combination indeed) isn't going to push themselves into bettering the RPG experience. There is too much money to be made in other designs. All the other 22-year-olds have moved on from RPGs altogether, finding less and less time to play or fewer and fewer people to play with. Fools like me, we keep trying to play but the crowd gets smaller and smaller every year. In helpless desperation, all the 22-year-olds that are frozen out cling desperately to what they can find in video-games, self-play and personal game design . . . and this is the crowd left online, writing blogs and running bulletin boards, filming themselves playing RPGs for as long as it lasts, trying to monetize what they can create in the hopes that it will sustain this thing they love.
But I have to say, as someone who has thought and worked and built this game for nearly 40 years, it takes 30 of those years to admit some realities to ourselves.
We must go down that rabbit hole if we're ever going to do anything significant. There's no getting around the work or the commitment. There just isn't. The 80 hours a week demanded of a hundred programmers is demanded because it is necessary to create this thing we like to play with our free, casual time. Work is an unpleasant reality ~ and it is certainly going to be MORE work, exhaustive work, because we are in this thing alone and we can't, absolutely cannot, agree among ourselves about what a role-playing game ought to be.
That's the second reality. We are never, ever, ever going to feel that a given way to create a rule for any part of the game will consistently meet the expectations of the players who remain past that 22-year-old just-got-out-of-university cut-off. We who remain are just too individual, too obtuse, too sure that we know right and that everyone else is fucked in the head. I just did not get that when I started writing a D&D blog.
I thought everyone would see the clear, rational manner in which I approached the game and think, "Wow, that is so cool, let me start switching my game over." Yes, I thought like this was I was as old as 44.
It is to laugh.
Fundamentally, we who keep at this thing don't really trust each other. We've been out in the woods so long that when we meet someone who is also out in the same woods, we know they must be an enemy or, at best, some brainless half-wit who is going to do something stupid and get us killed.
Early on, I preached and argued a lot for building a solidarity, a community, that could tackle problems and build a continuity. If I struggle through the process of making an index for the blog, I will have to relive all those posts and I will not like it. There is no desire to build a continuity because continuity is not something we're capable of accepting. Continuity would steal away the one, last game we are still able to play as old-timer RPG game-designers. The meta game of designing. Accepting another person's combat system will deny us the pleasure of continuing to work on our own combat system. Worse, where it comes to amateur game design, the combat system is the easiest thing to design. That is why everyone designs one. It is low-hanging fruit.
Finally, the last reality is that we're going to die. Whereupon all this work is going to be just so much paper, so much flotsam on the internet, so much garbage that others won't bother to work through because it isn't going to "register" on their radar. And where will my consistency be then, Drain? What will it be worth? When I am dead and gone, the post with the reader's morning coffee won't be there.
I take comfort in knowing that for a few people, I'm going to be a good memory. There are people who are going to find my book on their bookshelves thirty years from now and smile. There are going to also be people who pull down my unread book that they purchased all those years ago and toss it in the garbage with a shrug. There are also those who will have read it and will still toss it into the garbage.
But there will also be people who will see something many years from now, after I am gone, who will be reminded of me and will think, "Oh yeah, that guy."
That's fairly remarkable, considering none of us have ever met. Considering no institution has put money behind me or promoted me, that I haven't been a television personality or a traditionally published author (except for a lot of newspaper and trade content none of you will have ever read). Granted, some readers have met me briefly at a con. Some, hopefully, will meet me in the future. A few have actually looked me up and met me for coffee and drinks, which is a startling experience I can say with surety.
There is a little memory there. A little influence. A little dam-busting. It isn't all consistency and putting up another post in order to remind people that I am relevant, at least in that here is something to read in the half-hour before the shift ends and we can all go home. Figuratively speaking. I'm still unemployed as I write this.
Through all this, I have tried to be human. I let myself rant because it is what humans do. When I see a celebrity rant, break a camera or two, get themselves arrested, trip over their lines or turn up for a performance without having rehearsed enough, I think, "See? Human." It's the frauds that disgust me. The pundit selling a philosophy-as-product with the cool, smooth gift of a smug, excessive self-aware plastic exterior that I resent.
So if it has been "x-days" since I lost it, well, don't take me for having sorted myself out somehow. I lost it yesterday on a Crash Course video [fucking hate those piece-of-shit dumbed-down and mostly wrong overcompensations for those who can't pick up a proper book] that someone else was watching. Because the presenter said, quote, "There's no such thing as an objective truth."
Shit like that really, really, really, really bugs me. If I drop a needle in the deep ocean, no one is ever going to find it. Doesn't mean the needle has ceased to exist. Eventually the needle is going to degrade and disappear, its atoms scattered. Doesn't mean the needle didn't exist. This ridiculous notion that pseudo-scientists on the internet possess that science is about "proving" the truth or potential of things makes me want to bang my head into my desk until there is a blood stain. And just now I live in a house with people who watch these things daily and nod their heads in agreement ~ because while they understand where science is right now, they haven't a fucking clue where science has been and they haven't taken enough philosophy to grasp a shadow of where science might someday be.
So I get ripping mad all the time, because I'm human. I just share it less on the internet.
Well, do have a look at my past writings. It isn't all consistency. I think you'll find that if you start reading a post a day right now, the "consistency" of the blog's history will sustain you very well until 2023.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Lurker's Corner ~ Fun Times
If I wanted a clear example of how a battle using my combat system can go in a completely different direction than what's anticipated, I couldn't do better than to compare Round 6 with Round 7 in the present Juvenis combat. I have been consistently missing the party with my rolls, while the party has been hitting just as consistently (with the exception of the cleric). With one frog humanoid dead and two of the others apparently on their last legs, being easily stunned, the party had every reason to believe they were done.
However, the frog humanoids had a good round for a change. With two claw-claw-horn potentials, I hit four times out of six, and rolled good on a d6 for horn damage: a 5 and a 6. Add in a little frog-hopping ability and just like that, the party is smashed right back onto their own heels.
Not to mention what might happen if the one frog in the hall escapes, is able to climb the rope and goes after Petar and Willa . . .
Post Script:
Consider leaving a vote on this post about determining my top ten posts from these last 9 years of blogging!
Post Script:
Consider leaving a vote on this post about determining my top ten posts from these last 9 years of blogging!
Friday, March 24, 2017
E10
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As ever, please support my Patreon. If you're not able to do it this week or this month, please think about doing it a month from now.
Also, I answered a proposal from some readers with the previous post. It looks bleak just at the moment, but I suspect that its because Friday nights are game nights.
Challenge to Find the Top 10 Posts
I expect this to come to naught, but . . .
Following on the premise by this comment from Kimbo, and the few comments afterwards expressing an interest in a top ten list of posts on this blog, I suggest the following:
1) That I have no vote whatsoever.
2) That the number of page views of a given post are irrelevant.
3) That anyone may propose up to ten posts for candidature. There is no minimum.
4) That for any post to be considered, that post MUST be seconded. It is sufficient enough for an individual to second someone else's title, without needing to express a recommendation of their own.
5) That following a period of, say, two weeks, over which time I will promote this post, we will collect a list of posts that have been proposed and seconded.
There is a limit to how many possible answers I can add to a poll, though I don't know what that number is. More than ten, surely. I will collect those proposals with the most seconds and create a poll, which can then be voted upon again.
I will then take the ten highest posts and make it permanent on the sidebar.
DISCLAIMER:
I consider this to be self-promoting and awful. But since it was not my idea, I'm prepared to see what happens. I expect about 33 people to make proposals, since that is usually the total number of voters I get in a typical poll.
Thank you for anyone who contributes and let me say I appreciate all the readers who have supported this blog.
Following on the premise by this comment from Kimbo, and the few comments afterwards expressing an interest in a top ten list of posts on this blog, I suggest the following:
1) That I have no vote whatsoever.
2) That the number of page views of a given post are irrelevant.
3) That anyone may propose up to ten posts for candidature. There is no minimum.
4) That for any post to be considered, that post MUST be seconded. It is sufficient enough for an individual to second someone else's title, without needing to express a recommendation of their own.
5) That following a period of, say, two weeks, over which time I will promote this post, we will collect a list of posts that have been proposed and seconded.
There is a limit to how many possible answers I can add to a poll, though I don't know what that number is. More than ten, surely. I will collect those proposals with the most seconds and create a poll, which can then be voted upon again.
I will then take the ten highest posts and make it permanent on the sidebar.
DISCLAIMER:
I consider this to be self-promoting and awful. But since it was not my idea, I'm prepared to see what happens. I expect about 33 people to make proposals, since that is usually the total number of voters I get in a typical poll.
Thank you for anyone who contributes and let me say I appreciate all the readers who have supported this blog.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Old Posts 1-10
Here are a list of the first 10 posts I created on this blog:
The Tao. Personal Memoir. An account of how I was introduced to D&D my very first time, my offline campaign in 2008 and my reasons for starting a blog.
To Make a World. First Worlds I Created, Personal Memoir, Worldbuilding Theory. Describing my transition to being a DM, the first world I created based on the Gorean novels, my second world fully self-designed and why it didn't work, my present world and reasons for its design.
How It Got Infected. Corporate Marketing, D&D's Development, Official Game, Personal Memoir. First experiences with modules in 1979, TSR's agenda, witnessing the manner in which people moved towards the game, early conventions in the 1980s, my feelings of disenchantment and moving towards isolation as a DM.
Rats in a Maze. Agency in RPGs, Humor, Personal Memoir. My first DM and his style, the employment of dungeon doors as evil entities, discussing the freedom of players to live a life vicariously through role-playing games.
Seizing the Day. Adventure Building, Agency in RPGs. A theoretical description of how an alternate-form of adventure might be created, not based on the traditional style (the mustard adventure). A few words on objectivism as a DM.
So What If They Win? Adventure Building, Agency in RPGs, Bad DMing. Good vs. Bad playing, appreciating the player, the player's primary value in a campaign, DMs prepared to circumvent the rules in order to preserve a preconception of how their games should unfold. [I have moved slightly from the opinions expressed].
Dead Thinking. Agency in RPGs, Alignment, Corporate Marketing, Official Game, Personal Memoir, Unearthed Arcana. Disappointment in the Unearthed Arcana's release, attempts to subvert player agency with alignment, the bad paladin trope, character codes, end result of point-buy systems.
Give Abilities Their Due. 4th Edition, Game Mechanics. The release of 4e, negative first impressions, increased emphasis on the die roll, fantasy world demographics, the rational difference between having an clear and unquestioned skill and the silliness of making rolls to determined success.
Enough Junk. Community Feedback, Ranting. My emotional response to the apparent present state of the RPG game culture, viscerally expressed, upon beginning to discover how fractured that culture had become, and how the same lazy cliches were still prominent. Exactly the sort of post I am trying never to write again. [I am strongly tempted to delete the post]
Secondary Skills. Character Generation, Father's Table, Pre-Sage Abilities. A discussion of the secondary skills approach used in the original DMG and the approach I had used at that time, which I described as the "father's table." This is still part of the background character generator I would develop later (with more results that this post gives), but now sage abilities exist as a complement to the moderate skills/bonuses a player gains from their parent's profession.
Believe it or no, this is about all I can stand. I can see the benefits of highlighting most of this, but it is a boring post to write. Maybe I'll try one a week. That will get through my entire present lexicon in . . . around five years.
The Tao. Personal Memoir. An account of how I was introduced to D&D my very first time, my offline campaign in 2008 and my reasons for starting a blog.
To Make a World. First Worlds I Created, Personal Memoir, Worldbuilding Theory. Describing my transition to being a DM, the first world I created based on the Gorean novels, my second world fully self-designed and why it didn't work, my present world and reasons for its design.
How It Got Infected. Corporate Marketing, D&D's Development, Official Game, Personal Memoir. First experiences with modules in 1979, TSR's agenda, witnessing the manner in which people moved towards the game, early conventions in the 1980s, my feelings of disenchantment and moving towards isolation as a DM.
Rats in a Maze. Agency in RPGs, Humor, Personal Memoir. My first DM and his style, the employment of dungeon doors as evil entities, discussing the freedom of players to live a life vicariously through role-playing games.
Seizing the Day. Adventure Building, Agency in RPGs. A theoretical description of how an alternate-form of adventure might be created, not based on the traditional style (the mustard adventure). A few words on objectivism as a DM.
So What If They Win? Adventure Building, Agency in RPGs, Bad DMing. Good vs. Bad playing, appreciating the player, the player's primary value in a campaign, DMs prepared to circumvent the rules in order to preserve a preconception of how their games should unfold. [I have moved slightly from the opinions expressed].
Dead Thinking. Agency in RPGs, Alignment, Corporate Marketing, Official Game, Personal Memoir, Unearthed Arcana. Disappointment in the Unearthed Arcana's release, attempts to subvert player agency with alignment, the bad paladin trope, character codes, end result of point-buy systems.
Give Abilities Their Due. 4th Edition, Game Mechanics. The release of 4e, negative first impressions, increased emphasis on the die roll, fantasy world demographics, the rational difference between having an clear and unquestioned skill and the silliness of making rolls to determined success.
Enough Junk. Community Feedback, Ranting. My emotional response to the apparent present state of the RPG game culture, viscerally expressed, upon beginning to discover how fractured that culture had become, and how the same lazy cliches were still prominent. Exactly the sort of post I am trying never to write again. [I am strongly tempted to delete the post]
Secondary Skills. Character Generation, Father's Table, Pre-Sage Abilities. A discussion of the secondary skills approach used in the original DMG and the approach I had used at that time, which I described as the "father's table." This is still part of the background character generator I would develop later (with more results that this post gives), but now sage abilities exist as a complement to the moderate skills/bonuses a player gains from their parent's profession.
Believe it or no, this is about all I can stand. I can see the benefits of highlighting most of this, but it is a boring post to write. Maybe I'll try one a week. That will get through my entire present lexicon in . . . around five years.
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