Dissecting Things

I've been watching some videos dissecting Monopoly, many of them returning to the oft-repeated trope that Monopoly wasn't supposed to be fun and that it was original invented as a lesson to teach that capitalism was bad.  This gets repeated from video to video as though it is original information, I presume because 6-year-olds who have finally been allowed onto the internet by their parents need to be informed.

And naturally we have a need by presenters and commenters to express how boring monopoly is, how long it is, how dreadfully one-sided it is and how it is definitely not fun to play.  Hm.  How interesting.  You-tubers who are younger than 30, who would have been 6-years-old when the internet became widespread, in a time when home video games began to crush arcades, have discovered that a board game invented in the early 20th century doesn't hold their attention.  Shocking.

I played a lot of Monopoly and I commonly use it for metaphors for examples of game play because it is an extremely common and simple-to-understand game.  I don't play Monopoly any more because it is 2017 and the world has changed.  So have I.  In 1973, without cable television, without home computers, with the sort of programming we had then, I promise that Monopoly seemed like a much, much better game.  Go figure.

At times I find I have to take long breaks from the internet, particularly self-invented content, mostly because of the staggering lack of intelligence behind the creator's motivation.  Who hasn't stumbled across yet another screed about the awfulness of super-hero films this week?  People seem awfully disturbed by the size of film budgets they don't have to raise or spend themselves, or the proliferation of this sort of content, or what was chosen as a soundtrack, or the destruction of things that don't actually exist, or the "dramatic" over-emphasis, blah blah blah.

Again, I grew up at a time when it was possible, on most nights, to watch television shows about cowboys from the end of the news in the evening to the beginning of the late-night news, without a break.  In the theatre, one had a pick of five or six westerns showing at any given time.  I can vaguely remember a time with double-features, when a "bad" western film would precede a "good" western film.  While Westerns did not win best picture awards, they were regularly nominated for best picture: High Noon, Shane, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the Alamo, How the West was Won, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

People would shit themselves if there were not one, but 30 super-hero films a year, as was common during the western era.

As far as budgets go, I just don't care.  I don't.  It's a business.  Clearly, the makers feel the budgets are worth the take, so what matter is it that some disgruntled hack in a self-made video wants to bitch that it cost 850 million to make a film?  Ain't my money.  Want to complain about costs, how about a multi-billion dollar stealth fighter that is suffocating its pilots?  There are 20 stealth bombers in America, valued about about 2 billion apiece, most of which aren't flying right now.  For the cost of half of them, we could make 80 big-budget superhero blockbusters without breaking a sweat.  All this talk about the cost of movies is just bullshit.

But then, how about we talk about plots?  Superhero films are just so boring, whine the critics.  Their character developments are just so two-dimensional and cardboard.  It's such terrible writing.

The best films this year, for me, have been superhero films.  Not because I think they are slashingly brilliant, but because of the alternative.  Here's what's opening this week, that I could see if I didn't want to stay at home and watch Spiderman: Homecoming again:

Marshall is about the first African-American Supreme Court Justicce, battling through his career-defining cases.  What a visual spectacle that's going to be, as we watch a film about a care-taker judge whose only actual claim to fame is that he wasn't white.  Yes, yes, I know, it was just great that America ended racism once and for all by nominating a black Supreme Court judge, before having to do it again by electing a black President (thank gawd they never have to do another thing to stop racism in the country), but seriously - when was the last time any of us gave a thought to Thurgood Marshall?

The Foreigner is about a humble businessman who seeks justice after his daughter is killed in an act of terrorism.  It's described as "cat-and-mouse intrigue."  Oh good, a revenge plot featuring a common man against a corrupt system.  That will be new and original.  Certainly won't be anything like as repetitive as a superhero film would be.  But that's okay, because it stars Jackie Chan - who is in no way predictable.

Happy Death Day is about a college student reliving the day of her murder until she discovers her killers' identity.  Which happens to be Friday the 13th.  Oh, right, this is October.  When we get to sit through a lot of shitty repetitious horror films, absolutely not at the end of their derivative use of camera angles, jump scares, piss-poor writing and dialogue expression, in which I'm supposed to piss my money away because I just love being "scared" so much.

78/52 is an unprecedented look at Alfred Hitchcock's shower scene from Psycho, a scene filmed in 1960 and so repeatedly over-examined and overblown in concept that I am, frankly, after 53 years of life, sick to death of fucking hearing about it.  But no worries, because this documentary is going to be so special, so different, so amazingly profound that it is absolutely worth releasing in a theatre at the same price of a superhero film, unlike the 200 previous documentaries about the same goddamn scene.  Seriously.  If I want to masturbate, my room is more comfortable.

Breathe is the "inspiring true love story" about two people I've never heard of, who were apparently living in Africa with some sort of disease, which promises a rich, full evening of angst and watching two people slowly degrade physically on screen while new director Andy Serkis, famous for dressing as computer animated characters, carefully fits in at least one sweaty love scene.  Gah.

Goodbye Christopher Robin is a documentary about A.A. Milne, the creator of  the Winnie the Pooh stories.  Yeah.  I'm supposed to get all weepy, remembering being read these by my parents when I was four, but no.  I'm just not interested in the least.

Wasted! The Story of Food Waste is a documentary about the wastage of food in the food industry, lovingly turned on its head by having famous chefs turn food garbage into "incredible" dishes.  From the description, it looks like famous chefs save the world.  Imagining this sort of shit reality show programming being sold as theatre-fare convinces me we ought to burn down all the fucking theatres tomorrow.  How crappy is this?

And then there is one more:

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is ... well, I've got to give this one verbatim, because it is just so fucked up I can't straighten it out.  "The story of psychologist William Moulton Marston, the polyamorous relationship between his wife and mistress, the creation of his beloved comic book character Wonder Woman, and the controversy the comic generated."

That is just going to be bad.  It's presence is a clear indication that people are so desperate for a real movie, in the face of the absolute dreck that is being released week after week, that they'll glom onto anything that at least sounds like its going to vaguely be about a character that people might conceivably like.

Because that is the central point.  We don't make films about likeable people.  We make films about people we're supposed to respect, or empathize with, or feel sorry for, or conceivably identify with, but factually none of these people are the sort we think of as warm, friendly or fun.  A.A. Milne, Alfred Hitchcock and Thurgood Marshall might have been important or talented, but we're not edging for an opportunity to have people like this over for a barbecue.  On the other hand, Wonder Woman would be fucking cool to have over for a barbecue (though not her fucked up creator, obviously).  The same is true for Captain America, Tony Stark, Batman, Natasha Romanov and Thor.  Hell, even Thor's brother Loki would probably tell some good jokes.  Instead, we're told we're not supposed to see movies with these people because they're "bad," while the crap described above is being foisted on us as an enriching experience that would be good for us.

I am really tired of watching films about assholes or the boring creators behind so-so childhood characters.  I am really tired of films about some select group of blue collar workers who have somehow been transformed into "celebrities" by reality television.  Chefs are boring.  Writers, as people, are boring.  We're writing, for fuck's sake ~ that's why we make movies about the characters they create, not the actual people.  It is boring watching me hack and hack at a keyboard.  Seriously.  You'd kill yourself if you had to watch my life-story.

I want to watch films about people I like.  That used to be films about westerns, gangsters, detectives, space rangers and scientists.  Now it happens to be films about superheroes, because right now, those are the only people on the screen that we're still permitted to enjoy.

It Isn't Defined by Winning

From my favorite etymology source:

win (n.):  Old English winn, "labor, toil; strife, conflict; profit, gain," from the source of win (v.). Modern sense of "a victory in a game or contest" is first attested 1862, from the verb.

win (v.): "be victorious," c. 1300 fusion of Old English winnan, "to labor, toil, struggle for, work at, strive, fight," and gewinnan, "to gain or succeed by struggling, conquer, obtain," both from Proto-Germanic *winn(w)an, "to seek to gain" (source also of Old Saxon winnan, Old Norse vinna, Old Frisian winna, Dutch winnen, "to gain, win," Danish vinde, "to win," Old High German winnan, "to strive, struggle, fight," German gewinnen, "to gain, win," Gothic gawinnen, "to suffer, toil"), from root *wen-, "to desire, strive for."

It is not surprising that a writer becomes frustrated at people not being able to understand words.  Consider the oft-touted phrase, "There is no winning at D&D," which I hear all the time from particularly daft people who feel that it's necessary to define every activity by virtue of whether or not it can be won.

Somehow, this lack of winning seems a damning sort of condemnation ... until it is recognized that many enjoyable activities, such as swimming, laying in the sun, engaging in conversation and reading aren't defined by "winning" or "losing" either.  This does not seem to hurt the popularity of these activities.  I can't see how it matters, then, whether there is winning or not; but as I've put up the etymology of the word, we might just as well talk about it.

I love that "winning" is more traditionally associated with striving than with overcoming.  I love, too, that gain and fighting are central to the meaning, more so than our modern take that the winner is the only person (or team) that counts.  All sides struggle; all sides fight; and most of the time, the only real meaning to "win" with most games is to describe who happens to be in front when an arbitrary time limit is reached.  If the last Superbowl had been permitted to go on twice as long, are we absolutely certain the Falcons would not have won?  And if they had not, would that make it certain that they would not win if the game went on three times as long or four times as long?

Of course not.  "Winning" is an arbitrary measure.  When we say someone has "won" at Monopoly, are we describing the person or the dice roll?  We are perhaps closer when we say someone has won at Chess, Checkers or Go; these are elimination games that are questions of pure skill; but does winning a game ensure that the player will win the next game?  Or the next?  If not, what does "winning" really describe?

I am happy that my favorite game ~ the only game I am interested in playing at this point ~ is not about elimination of players but about struggling, fighting and gaining.  D&D is about accumulation, in a milieu where the accumulation can go on and on, without finish.  Of course, a DM can mistakenly rush the accumulation process by pouring too much into the coffers of the players too quickly, which often happens.  All too soon, players without any real skill or knowledge at playing the game are empowered with ridiculous advantages that quickly destroy game-play, mostly brought about by DM's who ignorantly assume that Chess could be a better game if one of the players was allowed to replace both bishops and both rooks with four queens.  Quickly the benefits of too much accumulation destroys any hope of learning the fundamentals of the game, ensuring that thousands of tables never gain a modicum of skill.  There's no need to understand how the knight works if both knights are flanked by queens.

For how else can one describe a proliferation of magic wands, rings, potions, smashing weapons and defensive armor that accumulates for most parties after only a few months of running?  Where is the need to be careful or clever when fifty sorts of healing are available, floated by fifty sorts of bonuses when a hand takes the weapon?  In such circumstances, for so many players, of course D&D isn't a game.  It is hardly a past-time.

It is all too easy to rush and condemn all accumulation in this; to say that we should eliminate magical items altogether, along with levels, special attacks, excessive hit points, whatever might be called into the mix.  But there is nothing wrong with a player climbing a level; if it is not the second time in a three-hour running. There is nothing wrong with a player gaining a magical item, if it is not a magnificent staff being given to a low-level mage.  There is nothing wrong with a potion or two; but ten or twenty is surely overdoing it.  There is nothing wrong with accumulation ... so long as it isn't a dump truck backed up and emptied into the campaign.

What we are asking for is a struggle ~ a grappling, grueling, uncertain contest where the common condition of overcoming an opponent is replaced with periods of lull and extreme terror, waxing and waning with irregular momentum.  The gains from that struggle need only be sufficient enough to encourage further struggle; gains should never challenge the needfulness of the struggle's presence.

Yes, the players won't understand this.  Players often misunderstand what is good for them; like little children left alone with a crockery jar full of brownies, they will glom onto them voraciously and devour them at once, until they grow sick and potentially hateful of ever eating brownies again.  But if we will keep the jar out of the child's hands, and doll out a brownie now and then, the child's appetite for brownies will only increase, as they fantasize about the day they will have full access to the source.

Which we must never let them have.  This is a central condition of being a good DM; the understanding that what players think they want is not what players want.  On the surface, it seems cold, heartless, mean ~ just what we thought of our mothers when they would let us have "only one."

That was love.  Some children never grow up enough to recognize that.  But if we want to be grown up enough to be DMs, we have to learn what love means.

Re-Crunching Done

Phew.

With respect to the redesign of my sources and production calculator spreadsheets, which will mean nothing to those not steeped in my trade system, I'm done.  It's rebuilt, cleaned up, made to look pretty and now available on my Google Drive, for those of you who have paid the access fee.

Truth be told, some of you who have donated to me in the past have bowed out of my Patreon in the last six months.  Your names are still on the system, when they shouldn't be ~ still, I'm relaxed about it.  You were great about supporting me and I thank you.  Still, I'm going to have to downgrade your access within a few days, so don't waste time if you want a last look.

For anyone who wants to see the completed table, you'll have to either pledge $10 to my Patreon account (in which case you'll get access the 1st of November) or donate the money to me directly, in which case I can set you up as soon as I see your email.  I've worked many, many, many days and hours on this; I'd be grateful for a remittance at this time.

For myself, I'm in a position now to comfortably add Burma to the system, which was the straw that broke the back of the old set-up.  Then I can add Great Britain, Iceland, part of Africa ... but all at my leisure.  I may put down numbers for a while and work on something more, ahem, shall we say blog worthy.

Been a rough go, this change.  Obsessive.  Glad it's behind me.

Trade Number Crunching

So.  This is hard to explain.

For more than two weeks, I have been putting all my energy towards a rebuild of one key part of my trade table.  I'm not changing any of the math, I'm only adjusting the manner in which the excel file is built.  The part I'm fixing corresponds to the calculation of transport against references.  See the link for a file that can be downloaded; the key page is the "New Master" tab.

Now, why anyone would care, I don't know; but I've been working on this day and night to the exclusion of all else, as long as 12 hours a day when I have the whole day.  I started on Friday the 15th.  I'm still working on it.  I guess this has been 62-68 hours of continuous work.  Why?  Because it is manually rewriting more than 40,000 excel entries.

Previously, the "master" page that accounted for all production for all market cities was a simple chart, 892 products across the top of the page and 1,067 market cities down the left side.  This made a chart of 951,764 cells, mostly empty, with about 5% of the cells filled with references.  When I wanted to calculate the distance effect on references, as shown on the wiki link, I had to multiply the whole list of cities against all the cells (because it wasn't feasible to pick and choose cells is such a large field), which was getting incomprehensibly slow and file crashing for my computer to manage.

And, of course, the problem was only going to get worse, because I had to add more markets: Burma, all of Great Britain, Iceland and part of Africa - a total of another 150 markets.  Something had to change.

So, now I have built the table so that it sorts each kind of product into its own individual chart; the calculation is made automatically when the distances are input into the file (as can be seen on the downloaded link) and added together.  I will then add another page that correlates the individual products so that it can be compared with the prices table.

This actually reduces my mechanics by one whole file, as it compresses two files into one (don't worry about it, it would take me too long to explain those files).  Plus it adds information, as now the user can go down the list and see where the largest amount of imported value is coming from.

I offer this for geeks only. Most of you just won't care, won't get anything out of the excel file, won't understand why I'm doing this.  But it is definitely better.

I'm pretty close now to getting all the data recalculated; but most of that is on another file, not linked, sorted but not actually pasted onto the new folder.  It has been a long, long effort.  I'm pretty tired of just crunching numbers.  But this is the reason I haven't been writing much; unlike making monsters, which screams blog material, rewriting numbers into new fields and organizing data, not so much.

I'll be done this soon, however, and looking for something else to do.  I think, in the future, it will be easier to add new markets to my trade tables, and that is what I want right now.  Earlier, I had to pretty much do big chunks of new data all at once, basically waiting to collect a chunk before updating everything.  Now I should be able to do one city at a time, very easily.

I'm really glad about this.

Those Who Quit the Game

This is an answer to Silberman's question, too long for a comment.  It also addresses Joey Bennett's comment on another post.

Some are not going to like this post ~ but that is, in many ways, the point.  As participants, we're often blinded by the things we enjoy.  And if someone comes along and challenges that enjoyment, we're inclined to get mad.

Now, patiently, consider a noob's first encounter with an RPG.  I don't mean this as a disparagement.  I was a noob, the readers here were all noobs, there's nothing wrong with being a noob.  We have to be noobs before we can be anything else.  But think about your first encounter with the game; or your first few encounters, if it took more than one to make your head buzz just before messing with your mind.

Different, right?  A really different and positive experience, one that hit out of the blue, that you weren't expecting, that rewrote the scale on things you thought you could enjoy.  Bang, it blew your head off and since then you've still been reeling.

Yes, we've gotten more experience, we're deeper in the game now, we're a bit jaded and we're thinking about some bigger things than those first few experiences ... but the real point I want to make is this:  how many people out there are really willing to believe that this game could be a LOT better than the terrific, tremendous game they've already encountered?

I'm thinking not many.  I think people automatically jump to the conclusion that this terrific game ~ played at the rather simplistic standard of your average Reddit bulletin board ~ CAN'T possibly be any better than it is.  That would be ... unimaginable.  And so they leap to the conclusion that a change in the game, any change, must be a change that will ruin this fantastic, incomprehensible thing.

This is what blinds them.  This is what makes them dig their heels into the dirt and scream bloody-blue murder against change of every kind.  The stubborn, foolish, myopic resistance built from too much love for the game.  I don't believe it's disinterest.  I think it is fear.  The response against "improvement" is too earnest, too political and personal, too universal to be anything but fear.  Any close examination of the discussion sites (and after my melt-down last week I spent many hours forcing myself to look more closely at all that toxic shit) reveals answers to questions that graphically deviate from the subject, that rapidly break down into flame wars and threats, that reveal individual malevolence and righteousness over relatively mild issues, all in a way that reflects the way terrified people react when something they love is threatened.

We here, we casually talking about playing the game outside the comforting acronym RAW [rules as written], we're not a threat to their campaigns or their player's interest, we're a threat to the whole system ... no matter how small and impotent we are.  If we keep talking like this, we're going to ruin role-playing.

Point in fact, however, I've been describing the noobs that never move on from being noobs, as Joey Bennett put it.  There's another group: noobs who really don't like this game that much.  They play for a while, mostly with the unchanging noobs, see that the game is fairly repetitive and they quit.  By the thousands.  We know it is so because bookstores and the net are full of people trying to sell the shit they purchased, that they know they're never going to use again.  We know it is so because we can all personally list a long string of names of people we know quit the game.  We don't like to talk about it.  We like to call those people dumb or lost or just misguided.  In fact, they are the anti-thesis of us.  They're people who did not think the game changed the scale for entertainment.

They wanted more and the game wasn't good enough.

Okay.  Let that sink in.  We've grown comfortable dismissing those people but let's try to embrace their thinking for a moment.  They were able to quit, wash their hands of the game and move on.  Why?

Because, I think, they were able to clearly see the problems with the game, such as the interminable dullness of repeated role-playing conversations that appeal to a base need for personal importance and grandiosity, but in fact serve no real purpose.  The blatant and obvious fudging of dice and circumstances by DMs who were clearly yanking a party's chain from personal glee.  The fucked up and confusing nature of point-buying systems that require a sickening kind of munchkinism to care about.  The endless bugs in rules that don't make sense or can't be changed, which are myopically exploited by players and DMs alike to create a sludge of "simulative" dreck.

I think those players who quit see all the same troubles and brokenness in the system that WE see, except that they don't in turn see any way - or motivation - to fix them.  What the quitters do see, however, is that in many, many, many ways, play by the rules is a total waste of time.

Their eyesight is clear.

So is ours.  But we have hope.  We think the game could be better; we're not satisfied with what it is now and we're willing to struggle, however much we can, to find improvements.  To choose systems that definitely seem better than other systems.  To drop rules.  To reconsider the importance of role-playing and rules surrounding role-playing.  And in my case, to massively draft rule after to rule to fill holes in the old, rotten ice where people want to skate.

Want perspective?  Stop looking at why people love the game and start seeing why people quit.  I think this comes with time, IF you're the sort who doesn't embrace the game like a faith, but like a game.  The time spent playing isn't enough in itself; you've got to push yourself.  Cooks don't become better cooks by finding one restaurant and working at the same menu all their lives.  They quit and go work somewhere else, where they learn new things, experience new kinds of management and tools, find different co-workers and push themselves to be different now that they're in a different place.

Measuring Yourself as a DM

I'll ask you to take the time to figure out the total amount of time you've spent actually running as a DM. Make a guess.  Take the total number of years you've been trying this.  Then figure out approximately how many times a month you've spent sitting in the DM's chair.  Then make a reasonable guess at how many hours each running lasted.

Suppose we take a baseline candidate: we'll call him Paul.  Paul has been running for two years.  For about four months at the beginning, he ran about five times.  Then he ran every week for about six months, for a total of 26 more times.  In the last year, he's run once every two weeks, about another 26 times.  Paul has run 57 times.  Paul figures these runnings have been about 4 to 5 hours long. We'll say 4.5 and multiply that by 57, for a total of 256 hours.

57 sessions sounds like a lot.  But let's compare it with something else.

Last year, Paul got a job as a full-time line-cook at 37.5 hours a week.  They gave him two weeks cross-training on most of the kitchen stations ~ 75 hours ~ and then got him settled on one station, where he stayed for twelve weeks: 450 hours.  Paul had never worked as a cook before, so it took most of that time for him just to get comfortable with the restaurant: to learn the menu, to barely master the most basic of knife skills, to physically adapt to the temperature on the line and get used to being around very hot surfaces and a lot of boiling substances, like oil.  Paul's hands are nicked and cut up, he's got little burns everywhere and he hasn't even remotely begun to develop the calluses a cook gets on the hands and fingertips.  To the rest of the kitchen, at 525 hours under his belt, Paul was a NOOB.

But Paul kept at it.  He's been working for 52 weeks now, with not many days off (cooks rarely get holidays, because they don't get paid for them).  We'll say a week of sick days and lost hours.  Paul knows this restaurant, now.  He's had a total of 1,912.5 hours at the job and guess what: if Paul were to go work another restaurant, one he doesn't know, it would take him another four months to get comfortable there.  It takes me three months and I have 14 years experience; and I'm really smart, as my boss keeps telling me all the time, given the morons she will describe to me.

If Paul puts out his resume and claims one year of experience, no one in the business will think he's experienced.  They might hire him if he's young and eager-looking and is prepared to work for poor wages; but they won't think he's experienced.

Now, the reader should go ahead and look into their own industry and occupation and ask themselves if a year experience is treated as "experienced."

How many years does it take before you're a veteran?  On the whole, I'd say about four years.  7,600 hours. On the job.  Talking specifically about the time spent actually doing that job.

Here's the point.  You tell yourself you're not a "good" DM.  You hold yourself to that standard.  Well, maybe you're not.  But if the reason includes your coming up with a number of hours less than 2,000, then give yourself a break.

With DMing, you haven't got anyone there to train you.  You haven't anyone standing next to you telling you how to make a map or build an adventure.  You've got no paycheque, no intrinsic threatening motivation to make yourself run or improve at running.  No one is there to say if you don't get your shit together, you're fired.  You're free to learn at your own pace, which practically guarantees your pace is zero movement unless you're obsessed.

Give yourself a break.  You're putting in hours, you're learning, you're watching people play, you're getting something out of every session: and if you don't prove yourself to be a genius with 1,100 hours under your belt, get off your own back.  You're being stupid about this.

Making a sandwich isn't hard, dropping fries into a fryer isn't hard, mopping a floor isn't hard.  But if you're not used to doing it really, really fast, yes, you're going to have trouble adapting to the work.  It takes time to see the big picture.

DMing isn't hard, either.  But it's strange, it's complicated, there's a lot to remember.  It takes time to see the big picture.

Give yourself a break.

We Among the Left and Right

Calling someone a name serves to bolster ourselves.  We might imagine that, metaphorically, when we call someone "stupid" or "reprehensible" that we look to left and right to see those others who agree with us.  We expect to be agreed with ~ that's the point in using a label.  We presume that our tribe will also see those people as silly.  Or reprehensible.  Or, as came up today, "elitist."

No one stops and thinks before using a label what the label really means.  It's a gut response.  I hear something that sounds like I might personally be disenfranchised from something and immediately I slap an elitist label on that thing.  It is a terrifically safe label!  There will always be others to the left and right who are also afraid of being disenfranchised, so I am certainly in good company.  And that's what elitists do; they create rules and restrictions, measurements and boundary lines, just to keep out people who are "good enough."  You there.  Yes, you.  Get out of here.  You're not good enough.

As a personal right, we have decided at this late date in civilization that achievement, experience, training, perseverance and personal effort have no right to disenfranchise people who have achieved nothing, experienced little, despised training, quit and have as yet achieved nothing of note.  That is how our society has chosen to define "equality."

If my death is mourned by hundreds of people, that is in no way proof that I lived a better life, that I gave more to my community or that my effort to be a better human deserves recognition.  The fellow who dies and is not discovered until the neighbors begin to complain about the smell, who is tagged and buried without anyone noticing except the services compelled to deal with the body, is just as good a person, just as important, just as valuable as I am.  That is what equality means.

And all the people on our left and all the people on our right who are terrified that it might not be true are shouting elitist just as loudly as they can, in the hopes that the noise will drown out reason.

Yet, in spite of the name-calling, we live in a fantastically elite society, where every move and action of the few noticed, "important" people of the world are given free rein to be as abusive, selfish, smug, profligate, physically aggressive and incorrect as they wish to be, because they are well-known.  Celebrities beat their spouses, scream racist epithets, get hauled into court for sentences that are a joke, casually make plans to disenfranchise tens of millions of people from health care and nothing happens.  Nothing happens.  They lose a few hours of playing sports or have to give up a few thousand of their millions of dollars or they get elected again, and we rush off to see them play a game or perform in a film and we're happy to be there.  Because the society is so elitist we're disassociated from it.

Let the guy in the next blog window, the guy with no power, the guy whose name you will never think of again, say something about why inexperienced people shouldn't be given a voice, and hatred of elitism will rain from the sky ~ for ten or fifteen minutes.  But let the actual people in power, who have guns in their holsters, drag people from their cars and beat them to death with a methodical terrorist agenda to disenfranchise millions of people, and yeah, well, the world's not fair.

The name callers of the world fight the battles they think they can win.  That's the point of it.  There's a risk in saying Chris Brown is an asshole for beating the shit out of Rihanna because one of the people on the left or right might still like Chris Brown.  That might start a fight.  And whatever, it's not like Chris Brown is going to stop being famous or rich or completely oblivious of me.  I really can't win that fight.  But this no-name dude on the internet, who has written a 23-word sentence on a chat window, HIM I think I can take.  So I gear up and take him because, well, he's within my reach.

Because we do live in an elitist society and we know what's in our reach.  We know it instinctively.  We don't have to be told.  All we want is to pretend it isn't so.  It isn't real.  I'm just as good as anyone else, certainly as good as Chris Brown and all the other famous people who are free to spew whatever bullshit they want because they're famous.  Maybe ~ hey, maybe ~ one day I might even get lucky enough to be one of those celebrities.

So we tell ourselves.  So don't tell us the fence is there to keep us out.  It's there to keep other people out, not us.  We're just as good as anyone.  Even if we are just a made-up avatar on the internet.  Among hundreds of others, just like us, above and below us in the chat window.  Fighting each other to make sure that none of us faceless, bodiless, disposable people here on the ground ever think of ourselves as better than our "equals."

My, my, my, we've got to fight so hard for this "equality" thing, or we might just lose it.

Tommy's Son

From the net, I recently learned that Kiefer Sutherland is in some awful television show in which he is the President of the United States.  From the look of the trailer, it looks like Jack Bauer of 24 got elected; I wonder if he's going to be shoving any towels down the opposition leader's throat.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Sutherland, though I would never watch any of the awful shows he does.  It has some to do with his dad, Donald Sutherland, who is undeniably one of the great actors of the past five decades.  But in a much bigger way, it has to do with Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather.

Donald Sutherland married an actress, Shirley Douglas, who is immediately recognizable to any Canadian born before 1970.  And as it happens, every time I cut something open and get stitches, every time I need a broken bone set, every time I need anything from a hospital, which I will certainly get for FREE, because I am a Canadian citizen, I have Shirley Douglas' father to thank.

Because Tommy Douglas was the Father of Medicare in this country.  Beginning in the 1940s, Douglas led a long-standing charge to make legalized, paid-for medical care the standard in a part of the world little remembered on the world stage: a province named Saskatchewan.  Saskatchewan is as big as Texas; in the 1940s, it barely had 0.8 million people; today, 70 years later, it has 1.1 million people.  In Saskatchewan, that's progress.

In Alberta, we have a joke about Saskatchewan that any Albertan will understand immediately.  "What is the first thing you see after you cross the Saskatchewan border?  Manitoba."

Yet Tommy Douglas was a powerful speaker.  He was a socialist speaker.  A brilliant speaker.  By sheer force of will, he would ~ through those people he influenced ~ bring this entire country around to his way of thinking.  

"Saskatchewan was told that it would never get hospital insurance. Yet Saskatchewan people were the first in Canada to establish this kind of insurance, and were followed by the rest of Canada. We didn’t have Medicare in those days. They said you couldn’t have Medicare – it would interfere with the ‘doctor-patient relationship’. But you people in this province demonstrated to Canada that it was possible to have Medicare. Now every province in Canada either has it or is in the process of setting it up.

"And you people went on to demonstrate other things with your community health clinics. You paved the road, blazing a trail for another form of health service, to give people better care at lower cost. You did these things. You have demonstrated what people can do if they work together, rather than work against; if you build a cooperative society rather than a jungle society."

That's Tommy.  And while I've been careful to use the last names of his descendants through this piece, I remember growing up when the man needed no other name to define him.  If my grandfather, who was born, who lived and who died in Saskatchewan, started talking about what Tommy said, he meant Tommy Douglas.

And now his grandson, a Canadian, is the President of the United States.

I'm so proud.

Noob-Talk

Not speaking to this audience here ~ I know most of you are lifers or near-lifers ~ but I wonder if the reason why places like bulletin boards, facebook groups and reddit are so screwed up in their role-playing thinking is because they're dominated by people who will only play the game for a year or two.

How much of the community is dominated by these noobs?  Since noobs make the best customers for the game company, is their importance being artificially inflated?

It seems to me that these noobs drive most of the conversations about the same noob-related content: how does alignment work, what races are cool, does anyone have an idea for an adventure, etcetera.  It seems to me that this noob-talk forces all dialogue into the same, tired avenues perpetually, as noobs get excited, buy a bunch of stuff, get frustrated and drop out of the community, only to be replaced by more ignorant noobs.

Can anyone think of another past-time where noobs dominate the field?

Is this choking good game play?

UPDATE:

I'm being told by some angry people that this smacks of elitism.

9 Answers that Don't Say You Like Me

I am perpetually getting this sort of explanation for why some posts don't get comments:

"... and I still don't know what I would say in response to it. Well, I can at least fell comfortable saying "bravo." ... BTW, this is a common occurrence after reading your longer winded thoughts and, I have long suspected, a reason why your best posts so often suffer from a lack of comments ..."

I'm choosing to believe people just don't know how to comment without sounding "sycophantic" ... which is something people also complain about to me all the time: "I would have said it was amazing, but I didn't want to sound s~"

So here are 9 possible choices for answers to a blog post that don't expressly say "I liked this" or "It was great" ~ statements that apparently make people here feel stupid, even though tremendously stupid-minded blogs I have seen have this stated dozens and dozens of times in the comments fields.  I am often in awe of how some addlepated blog meanderings get described as "brilliant post!" without anyone feeling sycophantic.

Oh well.

I suggest the gentle reader should try one of these.  They are expressed in the reader's first person.

1.  This made me think.  I [formerly believed/still believe] that [my opinion] was true.  This [has/hasn't] given me reason to change my mind.  But I may be wrong.

Probably isn't an excuse to build up an argument or otherwise derail the comment into a long-winded description of your point-of-view, unless you can back it up with sources or sound, a priori reasoning.  But a simple statement one way or the other is perfectly fine.

2.  After reading this, I went to the [text/source/video] that you linked.  Here's what I found.

Simple, elegant, expands the conversation and brings the point back to the same inspiration that got me writing the post. Certainly looks like you hold your own in the conversation.

3.  This was something I [had/hadn't] heard before.  I [thought/had heard/had read] that [the point in question] was such-and-such, and not what you're saying here.  [Optional]: I have examples: [quote].

I haven't read everything or seen everything, so I'm always interested in someone else having the same idea or printed material which states categorically the opposite of what I'm saying.  I'm not really interested in someone's blog, but anything that is formally published material is of great interest.

4.  Hm.  I found my attention especially drawn to [this point] and [this point].

Does not expressly state if the points were agreed with ~ but it does help me zero in one what resonates with people who read the blog.

5.  Regarding [this point].  Would you be willing to elaborate further?

This one is a danger because trolls love to press this button.  I've found in the past that a troll will keep asking me to write more and more about a subject, just to see how many words I will pile upon words.  So I can't say that I'll necessarily oblige, but it is always nice to be asked ~ and if I am asked in a particular encouraging way, I'll probably step up.

6.  If [this] and [this] were true, it would probably mean [this].  Have I got that right?

Not everyone has the art of speculation in their veins ~ but speculation is a terrific conversation driver and I encourage it.  Even if you're completely out to lunch, there's the old argument that there are no bad ideas except not speaking.  A bad idea can often get good ideas going, since deconstructing ideas, both bad and good, solves problems.

7.  You once talked about this before [link if it can be find].  Has your opinion changed over the years?  Will it change?

Taking my temperature is a good way to get a back and forth started.  Giving your temperature as well, if you're up for it, is better - but perhaps you can get me to say something you'll feel more comfortable commenting upon.

8.  As long as you were willing to talk about [this], do you have an opinion on such-and-such?

I'm always hunting for new subjects for a post.  It can't hurt to give me one.  If I start getting a lot of them, obviously, I'll pick and choose - but I might get to everything eventually.  Remember, I started all these posts about monsters because a single reader mentioned that I had never written down my rules about dragons.

9.  A point I'll support.  I linked this to my [blog/facebook/twitter/whatever].

Positively the best thing in the world you can do for me, apart from supporting me on Patreon.  Being told that I'm liked or that a post of mine is liked is a very small thing.  Being willing to step up and connect YOUR NAME with something I've said is HUGE.  If you want to tell me how much you liked something I wrote, try this.

Say It

In the context of a proposed history podcast (because life continues), I have communicated some with a regular reader here who responded to the linked post.  We have been talking and this is something we're interested in doing.  It wouldn't be role-playing driven, though we might mention RPGs ... it would be the more difficult pretext of spitballing historical events, patterns and geography: either a particular moment, or a process that covers a lot of periods and cultures, or a specific cultural region.

We've been talking about an overview of the history of Korea, most likely from the late 1800s, in light of recent events ~ considering most people have little to no idea why or even when the peninsula was subdivided.

This reminded me of a Sam Kinison cameo in the 1986 film, Back to School, which was a fairly intellectual romp featuring Rodney Dangerfield.  Still a lot of fun.



No doubt about it.  I hold History sacred also.

Shot in the Head

Some who are connected with me on Facebook know that it's my birthday today.

I'm not going to stop blogging, not going to stop working on D&D and not going to give up the agenda.  But I definitely needed a break.

A lot of people have told me lately that every field has its morons and jerks, and that's right.  I never thought otherwise.  My chief problem isn't that the community is filled with morons and jerks; it is that other fields also include academics, experts and people of influence, who could conceivably find me worthy of inclusion ~ as has happened when I had taken time to be in theater, film, music and journalism.  Hell, I've met people like Colm Meaney, Rick Mercer and B.B. King (seriously) in a professional, laid-back, everyday manner. But there's no one like this that's meetable in role-playing games.  It's a wasteland.

Every once in awhile I get a cold slap in the face that reminds me that I picked a field that is intellectually shot in the head.  That was not a good decision; but I made it when I was young and stupid and thought this game could change the world.

Stuck now.  Not going to go out and do theatre now (though I could, I did a little acting in 2014 to pump up money for taking How to Run to Toronto).  Journalism, as it happened, was also shot in the head in 2009. I know only one film maker and, though he's great, a wonderful, talented guy, going places, he's not going to find work for me.

So here I am.

I've always really liked my birthday.  I guess that's because I'm a narcissist.