Guilt and Conflict

I guess I'm not finished with the subject of the last post.  That is suggested reading before begining this one.

Ultimately, the conflict series I proposed some years ago now failed because the consequences for the players actions were not dear enough to contain their willingness to exploit the system.  As I have said before, the cards were used as a "charm person," in that if the roll succeeded and the defender lacked fortitude to resist, the players could have their way with said person.  This wasn't a problem with the first group of people I played with, but it became one as the system was better understood.

So I took it down, with the understanding that I would have to think about the system to determine a meaningful solution.  It had not occurred to me at that time that success could, in fact, be a deterrent.

As I explained in the earlier post, it might be.

Putting aside concerns about evil characters at the moment (and acknowledging that the decision to "be evil" should not necessarily be seen as an immunity to guilt), I'm only looking for a system that gives players pause.  The goal is to suspent players from simply saying, "Gosh, aren't I well-spoken and attractive; mind if you lend me all your money and the use of your house while I'm in town?"  We could create a system that would cause the charismatic individual to feel some remorse afterwards for making the request, especially if the request was accepted.

It would make the DM the arbiter of bad behaviour, however ~ something I always see as a problem.  A best-case scenario would be to create a list of anti-social behaviours ... but such a list would be extravagant and most likely incomplete, no matter how much work was put into it.  Humans are terrifically gifted at finding new ways to be anti-social.  A better strategy would be to framework anti-social behaviours so that if something new came up, it could be judged fairly not only by the DM, but also by the players.

Anti-social behaviours are those that harm or cause lack of consideration for the well-being of others; intentional acts of aggression; covert and overt hostility; and effectively contempt for others.  This certainly describes murder-hobos, as we well know, but it also describes talking a guard out of doing his job and letting the party past, a favorite example of "smart role-playing" in order to avoid combat.  We give experience for this.

Now, before anyone panics, and assumes I'm rushing to impose a morality on D&D, please keep calm.  I'm merely digging a hole for the foundations.  I'm not digging a grave here.

We have to acknowledge that the so-called "heroes" of many a campaign, particularly those on line, practice an awful lot of this sort of behaviour.  For example, this infamous bit.  I have little to no problem with the choices made by the party than I have with the constant identification of these persons as heroes.

But ... there are always multiple justifications for all the anti-social behaviours listed above.  Those orcs we slaughtered in that dungeon were evil.  Yeah.  That's what they certainly were.  And the children too.  That guard is an employee of evil ... he ought to know better than to defend such horrible, awful people, who are protecting that stone they absolutely have no right to possess.  We're not thieves if we're in the employ of Our King, who doesn't happen to have any actual jurisdiction in this country, but that is really, really not important, is it?  Etcetera.

Francis Drake wasn't a pirate, he was a British patriot.  George Custer wasn't a murderer of women and children, he was an American Hero.  Christopher Columbus wasn't a dick in every sense of the word, he was an entrepreneur and a legal representative of Spain.  Anti-socialism is a question of what social system you defend and which you denegrate.

I have a lot of faith in parties being able to justify their murder-hobo intentions; I don't want to put an end to them.  All I want is to codify it, so that my party can feel content marching into a dungeon to slaughter the inhabitants for the good of the kingdom and the state, and the wellbeing of the surrounding peasant folk ... just so long as they then don't decide to burn a peasant's house down the next day because the peasant wasn't sufficiently grateful.

I don't want morality to impose its absolute will on the party ... but I would like the party to at least acknowledge that there is such a thing and that it's a little important to the fabric and structure of all this goodness and heroism they purport to defend.

You kick that beggar.  You kick him as hard as you want.
Because you have moral superiority.

In that line of thought, along with cards for discussing with persons using reason, status, money and intimidation, we might talk about cards that offer "rationalization," "vindication," "excuse," "legal privilege" and "sadistic indifference," equally based on a player's ability stats, relationship with the crown, local authority, cause or right of revenge.  These cards would then be available in short supply and ONLY at specific times ... and could create a dynamic in which the first part of going off to slaughter all the denizens in the castle would be to get the card granting the legal or moral authority to do it.

And getting that card would have to be done legitimately also, if the consequences of lowered endurance, emotional wellbeing and stomach-churning, weakness-inducing guilt were not things to be managed while killing women and children in the castle 'just for fun."

Once again, I'm mindful that this is NOT your D&D.  Got it.  Think of it as a thought experiment, the imposition of another hurdle that has to be overcome or a guard rail against player misbehaviour in the extreme ... which, I admit, does not seem to be considered a problem around a lot of tables that are definitely not MY D&D.

This could be a thing.  Still needs some more thought.

Charisma Issues

So. Charisma.

I've been thinking about why it is such a headache.

Attempts to impose systems that enable characters to use charisma to have an immediate, direct effect on the dealings of others, principally by players against non-player characters, has largely failed. The tendency of players is to see NPCs not as believable entities, but as tools towards an end ~ and thus, charisma is used as a weapon to dominate or coldly manipulate guards, officials, common persons or enemies into a state of obedience and submission by virtue of a die roll. Given any chance that this will work, without any real consequence experienced by the player, the player is bound to try again and again, like pulling a slot machine, addressing each NPC with the expectation that the roll will work, so that this time, the character-victim will instantly become the player’s vassal.

This suggests that die rolls cannot work.  However small the chance for success, the player will always go for it; and supposedly, the high-charisma character should have a fairly decent chance of winning over strangers and influencing people.  Without a consequence, failure to do so is fairly meaningless; and what consequence can we provide that will mean something to a player outside of the NPC immediately taking  up arms?

We can leave interactions to role-playing, insisting the player win every success through parley with the DM ... but then we're forced to accept that the NPC is always the same person, with the same likes, dislikes, buttons, prejudices and recognizeable behaviour patterns.  However much the DM might try to take on another personality, we're still going to the same well and, ultimately, that well is predisposed to allow success or impose failure based on the DM's agenda.

In effect, the player character is a psychopath.  Because charisma is used as a tool, the expressions are glib and superficial. The PC is bound to have a grandiose and exaggerately high estimation of self with compared to NPCs.  The PC feels no resistance to lying, cunning or manipulation of NPCs.  If an NPC dies under the player's watch, it is easy to lack remorse or guilt.  Players are generally very callous towards NPCs and rarely possess empathy for them.  Players casually kill NPCs without notable impact on their self-identity.  Players are overly impulsive, particularly in their dealings with NPCs.  They will usually objectify NPCs, seeing them as possessions.  And so on.

None of this really matters, because NPCs are fictional objects and the players know it.  It requires an enormous build-up of a particular NPC to gain a player's concern or empathy for that fictional character ~ and some players will simply refuse to invest themselves personally in something that is "just made up."  It is a challenge that has frustrated many writers for centuries, in having to deal with readers who insist on treating film and literary characters as "not believable" for a host of pejorative justifications.  These range from not liking strong women, superheroes, drug addicts and other criminals, the presence of intelligent black people, anything verging on a racial stereotype, LGBT issues, anything suggestive of weakness and, of late, a pronounced dislike of cultural appropriation.  "I hate your Egyptian character because you're not Egyptian."

Whatever the motives, players often won't adopt a sense of wrongdoing when using their 18 charisma to flat-out exploit NPCs, wringing out their last hit points dry before casually leaving them to face the dragon while the party beats a hasty retreat.  So it is crucially difficult to create a game system that doesn't detrimentally empower characters with high charisma (leaving those with low charisma to shut up while the beautiful people talk), while encouraging the abuse of NPCs while vastly reducing the immersive qualities of player/NPC discourse.

What's needed is a consequence that doesn't depend on the nuclear option.  At low levels, it's enough to make one NPC draw a weapon to discourage a player from getting too bossy, but as the levels climb it's necessary to have the whole tavern draw weapons, followed by the arrival of a substantial city guard, two or three knights and a local mage, half the town and perhaps a good portion of the kingdom eventually, because a 19th level fighter took it in mind to bitch-slap a fictional 14 y.o. servant.  It gets a little ridiculous.

We humans, of course, don't act like psychopaths, in very small part because of the legal consequences involved but because we would feel awful for long periods afterwards, even our whole lives if the choice to do something really selfish and vindictive caused us to lose a friendship or question our legitimacy as likeable human beings.  Guilt is a serious consequence; and not something that players feel overmuch.

Guilt can have serious physical and mental consequences.  It can lead to headaches and stomach aches, muscle tension, lack of sleep, feeling on edge, feelings of desperation, self doubt, anger, overcompensation and a tendency towards suicide.  In game, these are all measurable responses, none of which require an NPC to draw a weapon.  In fact, they will tend to manifest because the player was successful in their manipulation, rather than the contrary.

Of course, players want to be free to be as evil as they like, without consequences.  There's enormous fun in teasing small fictional children to fall out of windows to their deaths and pushing an unsuspecting townsperson into the open to "see" if the enemy has bows or not.  What evil female character hasn't pretended to be a prostitute long enough to lure a client into a private place in order to assassinate them and pick up a few coins?

If we impose a guilt rule on such persons, what then?  Where's the fun?  And in what ways are we challenging the principles of player agency?

I'm not sure there's an answer for that.  It may be that player characters must be self-declared as creatures immune to guilt, a condition that cannot be possessed by characters with a charisma above a certain point.  Someone will inevitably argue that Hitler had a charisma of 18, but I'd argue there's no measurable evidence of the assertion, and that our mythology of his charisma is due to our needing to explain the irrational willingness of the German people to embrace him into their hearts.  When I look at the little corporal with his silly mustache, stomping and strutting, and hear the words of his speeches and his manic delivery, I don't see this "charisma," though I do see a certain drive and intellect in his unbridled ambition.  Accounts of Hitler in the 1920s don't bear out this "charismatic" argument, but it is clear that he was loud, irrepressible and willing to surround himself with gangsters, whom he then organized and empowered through his ruthless strategies.  We know that the crowds of "adoring" Nazi synchophants were populated with gangsters who did not hesitate to club and beat those who did not show enough sychophancy.  It is probable large parts of the crowd attended in order to be seen by their neighbors and therefore not called out as traitors to the state, rather than any appreciation for a maniacal racist megalomaniac.  The charismatic theory has some considearable holes in it.

But ... we're only interested in game procedures, at any rate.  If we regulate evil persons out of the exploit-through-charm option, and if we impose meaningful repercussions upon players who use charisma in order to callously exploit NPCs, reducing their constitution, wisdom, ability to rest or their ability to be fully charismatic for temporary periods, or even potentially permanently, players might hesitate to use their 14+ charismas as a "let's fuck over everybody" game strategy.

I wouldn't think it would be popular.  Quite a number of players, used to acting as assholes towards NPCs and shrugging it off like a speck of rain, will chafe at the notion.  It would probably be embraced only by players who already don't want to use charisma as a weapon.  The idea wouldn't be adopted at tables run by DMs who actively encourage players to lack empathy or concern for anyone except their selfish selves ... so long as they pay fealty to that DM.

Such a rule, however, would be constructive in causing a player to hesitate before flashing a smile, winking, and suggesting the princess betray her father, her people and her virginity, so that she can run off to a life of adventure with this gorgeous adventurer whose going to dump her in the next kingdom over as soon as the quest is complete.

A player might, then, feel a little bit bad about doing such things.

Make It March

Patiently, I've been working through old wiki entries in order to update them, improve their links, fix spelling errors and adjust the language, fill in gaps, and ultimately setting myself the task of adding an image to every page.  Because these pages are old, and were created at the time of my moving the wiki in Feb/Mar last year, I don't imagine it's been noticed.  My wiki only gets about a 100 to 125 page views per day, far less than this blog gets.  That is one of the reasons why I am occasionally duplicating wiki pages onto the Tao blog ~ I know they're going to get a lot more attention here than there.

In my opinion, the wiki's defect is presentation, not content.  In the past year, I've had a couple of people say it is hard to find things.  It is my intention to build more complete sub-index pages (expanding the player character links this month), and ultimately a massive link page for every page in the wiki.  I'm not sure the shape that will take; perhaps both alphabetical and by category.

In the past month, since February 22nd, I have written 29 posts on this blog, discounting repeats from the wiki.  I've added 45 new wiki pages.  And I have updated 20 more pages on the wiki, most of which have been rewritten from scratch and, as I said, tidied.  All told, that is 94 pages, with 74 of them being completely new content.

In that time, I've accumulated about 40,000 page views.  That's not much for some people.  But it tells me people are watching.

This is how productive I can be when I'm in a sound mood and fairly comfortable financially.  Before I was laid off, we prepared for the possibility of lean times.  We've had some windfalls.  Patreon has been a godsend.  People stepped up when I said I was unemployed again and my Patreon jumped 33%.  Thank you.

I would rather be doing this work ... than slaving in a shop for an employer who doesn't care about me, doesn't appreciate my skills, can't carry me through a month or two of lean times and ultimately did not give a moment to wonder where my writing skills came from.  Yet he did pay me nearly $8,000 over six months, so there's that.

I would rather not give another six months of my ability and passion to another thankless employer, in order to spend that time either churning out accounting numbers, invoice receipts, copywritten ads or making soup ... since there is still a recession in Calgary, and virtually everyone I know is living hand-to-mouth, as their hours are cut and their jobs too, I'm almost certain to be working as a cook within the next month.

I'm fine with that ... but the less hours I spend work as a cook and the more hours I can spend doing this, the better.  Perhaps noisms is right.  Perhaps no one does "owe" me a living.  But I don't intend to slag off my time goofing around telling my readers that they should just do themselves.  I'm fighting here to be a resource, to be of value, to provide good solid work and to make myself indispensible.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's supposed to be the right attitude.

Because of the exchange rate, every $8 on Patreon is one less hour a month I have to work, shovelling pig food out of a kitchen while I make a grumpy, broke restauranteur vaguely aware that I exist.  That's time for one more post and less time I have to heal my run-down 54 y.o. bones following a heavy shift.  If the reader has been enjoying this level of output, believe me, it's going to suffer.

I don't in my wildest dreams, for now at least, believe that I can make a living at this.  I see some of the dumbest, most cretinous persons in the universe shoveling money in the door for some pretty execrable material ~ but I know that I'm way, way to high-brow for that sort of sweet, sweet gravy train.  I'd have to start bashing women, or screaming invented conspiracy theories, then putting together videos of people shitting in their back yards to gain that sort of youtube income.  In this day and age, some of us have a long way to go understanding what people do nowadays to "earn" their living.

I'm ready for none of that.  I've been making some terrific strides with my book, the Fifth Man.  I've had the time.  I don't have a 150 minute commute every day, that I had up until the 7th of January.  That extra 750 minutes a week is pretty important where it comes to finding the time, and the motivation, to glare into one's soul and find the words to create pure, new content, without research or subject material to lean on.  I'm enjoying this.  I won't quibble about it.

I'd like to publish the book.  Then I could at last hold my head up and stop feeling the shame I've felt for four years, since taking money from readers to finish a book I haven't yet finished.  Then maybe I could officially enter my RPG 201 course into kickstarter, to ensure that I was monitored and viable, and thus get the time to research the content more deeply and produce a really solid text.

It's one day at a time, and all the time I can get to work on things I think matter.  But that's not for me to say.  I'm asking you, dear reader, since you're my employer.

Can I have a raise?

Damage to Ship Hull and Rigging

Ship strength is an expression of its hull points and rigging points, as described under ship types.  These points are illustrated as a series of squares, which are then crossed off as damage is caused to the ship.

Total hull points are divided into “exterior” (EH) and “unprotected” (UH) hulls, in a ratio of 2:1.  The caravel, for example, has a total of 30 hull points.  Two thirds of these, a total of 20, are assigned to the exterior hull.  The remaining 10 are assigned to the endangered hull.  Where a fraction occurs, always assign the extra hull point to the exterior hull.

Rigging points are divided into blocks of 4 squares, with the remainder making up a block of 1 to 3 squares.  Each block is a mast.  These should be labeled, in order of presence, the main-mast, mizzen-mast, or fore mast; if there is a fourth mast, this is the jigger mast. 

A caravel has 8 rigging points, which are divided into two masts, the main-mast and the mizzen-mast.

The layout of squares for a caravel would appear as shown in the image, with four blocks of squares, two representing the hull and two representing the mast.

Caravel total strength points in hull (30 pts) and rigging (8 pts).

Assigning Damage

All hull damage is assigned to the EH, or exterior hull, until that part of the hull is completely destroyed.  Thereafter, further damage is recorded against the UH, or unprotected hull.  When the EH is gone, the ship’s condition in the water has begun to sag; the ship’s yare is reduced by one degree (from A to B, from B to C, and so on). 

When the UH is gone, the ship is considered in such danger of sinking that it cannot be sailed or the weapons fired.   All crew and persons aboard are considered to be acting to keep the ship afloat.  If these persons are removed, the ship will sink completely in 5 to 100 rounds, a number that is divided by the wind speed and may be calculated in seconds.

When a hit succeeds against the rigging within a ship’s hex, the mast nearest that hex is affected (therefore, all the ship’s hexes in a ship’s design should be designated to a particular mast).  When a mast is completely destroyed, the ship’s yare is reduced by one degree.  This happens each time a mast is destroyed.  The ship’s yare cannot be reduced below a yare of E.  When all rigging is destroyed, the ship can take no actions except to drift.

Shows 1½ damage

When assigning half a point of damage to either the rigging or the hull, draw a single line through a box, as shown.  When assigning a full damage to a hull box, draw a cross inside the box to show that strength point is completely destroyed.

See Naval Combat

Starting with Nothing

My personal feeling is that if a new player joins an ongoing campaign, where the existing players are of much higher level, that new player must start at 1st level.  This is an absolute rule, and applies to everyone who has ever played my game, since I started as a DM in 1979.  I have never run a game in which any character began at a level higher than 1st.

This has meant starting a 1st level character with a party of 9th level characters ... begging the question, how does that situation resolve itself.

To begin with, every 9th or 12th or 15th level character in my world remembers when they were 1st level ... because they all were, once.  Secondly, because of the game tables I build, where players see each other as allies and not as competition, the upper level characters immediately take it upon themselves to protect the new character.  I have no problem with the new character being boosted with spells, being handed an extra +1 sword and fitted with magic armor, given a potion or two and so on ... all of which must come from the stores of the higher level characters, because I absolutely do not allow the purchase of magic items in my world.  However, my characters typically have a few bits and pieces of minor equipment they've kept, since their once precious +1 sword was upgraded when they stormed that castle at 8th level.

The new character gets a bit of a head start.  If the new character dies, the 9th level cleric can raise or use death's door.  If the new character takes a single hit and has to retreat, the 9th level paladin can step in as a shield or the mage can whisk the 1st level out of the way.  There's always a chance of permanent death, but the 1st level is often quite safe in a lot of ways.

Additionally, because of my experience distribution rules, if the 1st level participates in and survives a single no-holds-barred blood match, that is almost certainly going to mean 2nd level.  And 3rd or 4th within a two to three runnings.  With so much experience raining from the sky, all the low level character has to do is be brave.  Others will help the noobie not die.

So much of the game is based on thinking, discussion, planning and innovation, things that don't require raw combat ability.  I've had many new players jump into a game and quickly get to the heart of something, where the older players were confounded.  New players may have skills in role-play, may show unqualified bravery in desperate situations and may boost a team's spirit with good humor and enthusiasm.  None of these things require the player's character to be 10th level.

Most important, the new player entering the campaign starts from a position of humility.  If the other players behaved like a closed fraternity, treating the new player like a menial, this wouldn't work ~ but in my game, it is almost always the players who are asking me to let their friend play.  Their "friend," I said.  None of my players want to treat their friend, or my friend, like a menial.

I'm sorry that we feel that we have to give new players a free ride to the place so they can enjoy what others have sacrificed and struggled to achieve.  I'm equally sorry that DM's feel they have to begin parties at level 5 because they can't figure out how to run a good game with lower level players.  I often hear this chatter about "goblins" being boring.  Well, yes, they can be.  But why in the hell is it presumed that we can't be more imaginative than throwing goblins as a DM?  There's intrigue, mystery and the building of friendships in the game that can be exploited and devised until such time as the players become 5th level.  By which time, they appreciate those first five levels, and run characters, not free puppets who mean no more to them than a teddy bear we roast on an open fire for the lols.

When it is your teddy bear, from your childhood, it isn't funny any more.

If you want to appreciate anything, start with nothing.  Then all those first things you have, those first things you collect, those first things that keep you alive, will always mean more to you than the common riches you will eventually find mean almost nothing to you.

For you Conan fans, I'll remind you how Conan felt about wealth and plunder once he became the King of Aquilonia.

Rule Testing

Often, when I'm uncertain of a rule for the wiki, I throw it onto this blog to see what the response is.

LINE OF SIGHT

When firing any missile weapon, all combatants must be able to trace a direct line of sight between themselves and the target hex. This means that the target may not be completely blocked by obstacles or elevation, and is at least partly visible when fired upon.

Missiles may be fired between combatants during hand-to-hand melee, targeting past the front line into the second line or even into the third line. However, it must be shown that a straight line of sight exists to the target, where it is not blocked by another person. Otherwise, the target positioned in the rear, during a general melee, cannot be hit.

If the combatant has elevation, however, then line of sight should take that into account when picking targets.

Cover

In firing or hurling a missile, the combatant aims at a target area that is, for game purposes, considered to be a circle that is about one foot in diameter. Because of this, a target that was covered only as high as the waist would not receive any benefit against an arrow or a thrown axe. “Cover,” therefore, describes any situation that plainly reduces the size of the circle being aimed at.

As the target shrinks in size, it’s armor class improves.

Concealment

Objects are considered to be concealed when a soft, usually permeable substance screens them from plain view. Shrubbery; a waterfall; thin cloth not dense enough to stop an arrow or a thrown axe; or a target under water; are all examples of concealment. Because concealment will partially deflect missiles, or reduce the velocity of missiles, though figures may be plainly visible within a bush or under the water surface, there is yet an armor class bonus that is received.

Thus, if a person were nearly 3 feet under the surface of the water, their armor class would be improved by +7.

29th Class: Narrative & Hunting

With this class, we're going to discuss the second "insolvable" problem of role-playing: "How do we invent a narrative that possesses sufficient nuance, story, action and interest for our players?"

Note that I do not ask how we invent a "story."  In an earlier class, we discussed how humans are natural storytellers, in that we do it constantly.  I argued at that time that we tell stories as DMs, and as players, because that is part of our nature, and not necessarily because that behaviour has anything to do with role-playing.

In another class, we talked about scripts ~ the various procedures of living that we're familiar with as we ready ourselves in the morning, go to work, visit a restaurant, or any other activity where our behaviour follows a set pattern.  We can argue that role-playing games consist more of scripts than stories.  The players know what to do in town, once they've entered a dungeon or once fighting starts.  The scripts of game play ~ drawing a weapon, checking for traps, talking to the statue, dividing the treasure ~ are as well known to players as any "story" that's glossed on top.  The story seems to provide the narrative with meaning and purpose; but the game is often played without it.  Any dungeon crawl is a collection of scripts.

In our recent lab, we noted that while certain patterns and themes might occur frequently, literature is not easily fit into a box.  From that, we must acknowledge that an RPG's player characters are not required to experience the death of their old selves and a revelation that changes their outlook upon the world.  They are not required to atone.  They are not required to accept or trust the introduction of a "mentor" who tells them what to think or do.  In fact, these things are largely anathema to players.  While a book might present its characters as individuals whose outlooks or personalities will be changed by the events of the plot, most role-players will show little to no interest in changing their characters for the sake of introduced events by the DM.  Therefore, we should not suppose that any traditional narrative ~ in the sense of a literary story arc ~ will have the effect on players that it might have on an author's fictional characters.

Yet we are stuck with the concept of story because it IS a narrative.  Player characters start in a place.  They move forward, experience "trials and failures," they do learn things, they do receive gifts and other rewards ... and in retrospect, after the fact, this does create a story framework.  Remembering, always, that as humans we turn everything into a story framework.

If I am late for work because I missed the bus, because I dropped my goldfish bowl on my kitchen floor as I was heading for the door, I immediately begin dramatizing what follows.  Even as I am watching the goldfish bowl fall to the floor, the shock of the story's introduction sinks in:  "Oh my god!"  As I'm saving my goldfish and cleaning up the glass, I'm asking myself, "Damn, damn, damn, I'm going to be late."  We are formulating the story as we move through our commute.  We're rehearsing the story by the time we enter our workplace.  We package life as drama, in real time.

But this sort of drama is very hum-drum, much too dull and ordinary for what we expect from literature.  It may seem dramatic, but that's only because it happened to us.  To others, the events are distracting, but hardly compelling.  The conversation soon moves onto another story, from the news or from someone else's life, as the day dribbles on from boredom to ennui.

What sort of stories do we like to hear?

In his book, Three Uses of the Knife, David Mamet introduces the concept of a "perfect ball game."

"What do we wish for in a perfect game?  Do we wish for Our Team to take the field and thrash the opposition from the First Moment, rolling up a walkover score at the final gun?  No.  We wish for a closely fought match that contains many satisfying reversals, but which can be seen, retroactively, to have always tended towards a satisfying conclusion."

Mamet then goes on to describe, in detail, a baseball game in which both sides gain and loses a series of advantages on the other, so that it looks as though Our Team is going to lose, but then they turn it around, then it goes bad, then they rally, and etcetera, in a steadily increasing pattern that leads to a crescendo.

The word we should focus upon here is "reversals."  We get close, but then there is a set back.  We get closer, but there's another issue, and we're driven back, forced to retreat and regroup.  Then we get close again, there's a moment of panic, we get closer, Jimmy dies, we get closer ... and then we succeed or fail.  It is all reversals.

If we think about it, the role-playing narrative doesn't really need an ending at all.  Role-playing games are based on the achievement of a success of some kind ~ but distinctly not in the finite setting of a baseball game.  RPGs are infinite games.  As the character achieves something, the immediate compulsion is to set out again to achieve something else.  There is no ending.

A "story" implies an ending.  There's some point, in the future, where the baseball game ends and we either win or lose.  All the loose ends are necessarily tied up, because once the game ends, anything unresolved is simply thrown away.

But no matter how carefully crafted the story is in an RPG, the loose ends are still there when the story ends.  None of the players are entirely and absolutely satisfied or unsatisfied.  They can fail the quest; they can lose the Immortal Stone of Carn; they can lose half the party to permanent death; the compulsion to keep going remains.  As the players work through a modules or someone's conceived story, they're thinking of other things they'd like to do, after.  This is a key word.  After a baseball game, we play another game.  After a narrative in role-playing, we're still playing.

Players invested in their characters don't see the end of the adventure as a firm "ending" ... unless it is forced upon them by a DM who decides to close the campaign.  Even then, players will continue to think of those characters as "alive."

This gives us two clues as to the construction of the RPG narrative: a) we thrive on reversals; b) we prefer a steady state campaign, where new material is constantly available.

Of course, we live in such a culture.  The reversals are sometimes pleasant, sometimes less so, but always a challenge; and our triumphs are important to us.  And so long as we don't die, it feels like a steady state.  If we want to comprehend what gives our lives coherence, we may be able to apply that to role-playing games.  We might then build a supportive, narrative structure based on changes and perpetuity.

In his book Theatre, David Mamet speaks frankly about human nature:

"Man is a predator.  We know this because our eyes are in the front of our heads ... As predators we close out the day around the campfire with stories of the hunt.  These stories, like the chase itself, engage our most primal instinct of pursuit: the story's hero is in pursuit of his goal ~ the  hiding place of the stag or the cause of the plague on Thebes or the question of Desdemona's chastity or the location of Godot.  In the hunt story, the audience is placed inthe same position as the protagonist: the viewer is told what the goal is and, like the hero, works to determine what is the best thing to do next ~ he wonders what happens next.  How may he determine what is the best course towards the goal?  Through observation."

Our biological heritage is adapted to hunting and finding.  We are rewarded with dopamine if we spy a berry on a bush or an animal track, extraordinarily subtle things that nevertheless define our survival if we're hungry and our clan is hungry.  We are sustained with endorphins if we must spend hours in a hot sun to pick every berry or survive the stings of bees to get a fistful of honey comb, or if we have to track an animal for two days in order to eat.  Our stomachs remind us it is time now to be brave, to fight the animal on its ground and survive.  We're flooded with seratonin when we return to the clan with armfuls of food.  Whether we are still crossing the savanna, we are still built for hunting.

Note how none of the hunting narrative requires an "ending."  Mamet's problem isn't the narrative; it is how to contain it in the structure of a play for an audience that will sit for only so long.  Role-playing games are not limited by this.  We can sustain the hunting narrative for thirty or forty hours, over session after session, if the hunt is interesting enough and if the reversals that take place ~ "the thrill of the chase" ~ remains compelling, intriguing and exciting.  We don't need to bind ourselves inside a story arc to achieve this.  We only need a sufficient "food source" that will feed our human compulsion to see, to know, to follow and to find.

Two proud hunters enjoy their new experience level.

We're not pursuing that ideal, however.  Instead, we're employing a clumsy apparatus intended for a physical space and an audience that will become bored if they sit passively for more than 150 minutes.  We're tying ourselves in knots trying to use a three-act framework to produce the reversals that don't need acts and don't need frames.  They only need the sort of dramatic flair that we already inculcate into our everyday experiences.  As we are finding the object, or following the enemy, or knowing what the castle is about, or seeing the big bad, we are creating the drama ourselves, in the immediate moment, building the ongoing collection of events into a story fluidly, progressively.  We don't need to be given a story.  We're constucted to make stories out of virtually nothing.

We said at the end of the last class that the DM could not carry the presentation of the campaign alone.  Here we find ourselves understanding how the DM creates the framework that enables the players to present.  The DM determines the nature and fabric of the hunt: a) where things are found; b) what is found; c) what direction this points; and d) the factors restraining the free movement of the players to follow the hunt.  The players provide the drama.  The players tell the story, as they piece together the meaning of their experience ... just as meaning making is our compulsion to understand and to keep hunting.

The question in your minds should be this: what are the best things to hunt?

Until the next class.

[blank]

A comment I see constantly whenever I look at anyone's post talking about RPG game design or rules is this:

"The problem with [blank] is that it doesn't [blank] when [blank, blank, blank] come into play.  I agree that [blank] is a good starting point, but it is usually too [blank] where it comes to actual game play."

No alternative rule is ever proposed, nor is it usually argued in depth precisely why [blank] doesn't work because of these instances ... and usually, it is completely ignored that, in fact, the solution is painfully obvious, because there are about twenty other rules in the game that apply, that aren't being mentioned here, because: a) the commenter hasn't thought of them; or b) the commenter has never had any idea these other rules exist.

I would guess that at least three-quarters of all the people online discussing D&D at this moment have not actually played in any session in the last year.  I'd say of an eighth of commenters haven't played a game session in the last four years, at least.  And I'd say three-eighths of all commenters have never actually played a game of D&D at all ... with the possible caveat that they bought the books, tried to run, and failed to get the game off their campaign off the ground after that first session.

True, some of those non-players can blame the small town they grew up in, or their age, or a disability.  But judging from the general quality of the advice/arguments that I see, bereft of anything that sounds like an experienced, worldly DM or player discussing the intricacies of the game, I'd have to say that a lot of what we're reading day to day comes from pikers ... a somewhat archaic term for vagrants that wander the pike, or road.

Granted, the proposal I'm making is something of a straw man.  I have no evidence for it, and using it as something to argue with would be a waste of time.  I propose it now strictly to suggest that we should at least be questioning how much of what we're reading is actually coming from people who know anything.

See?  Modern D&D is very rules light.

No one wants to look stupid.  99% of the internet it people talking over their heads in a desperate attempt not to look stupid.  Whenever possible, a human will steal the best argument that can be found, usually something that is just lying around ... like the very common argument that classic D&D has "too many" rules ... even though obviously 3e, 4e and 5e have all dwarfed AD&D in page count, with massive core books of nearly 300 pages supported by splatbook mania.  I'd venture we see this argument stated over and over, however, because it "sounds" rational.  It's generally accepted as true.  And anything that's generally accepted as true is a damn good argument for someone who knows nothing.

I think its interesting to discover that the comments sections of today are filled with pretty much the same "arguments" as those of ten years ago, whether on blogs, boards or reddit.  Someone writes something about rules.  Someone rushes to say that there are too many rules and someone else rushes to explain a rule that doesn't work.  Thus the page fills up with people repeating words that have been repeated ad nauseum for a decade.

I don't have to refute them.  They refute themselves.

Why have none of these arguments spawned any real effect?  I can open a blog page today and read someone arguing that basic D&D is better than present D&D, because of [blank], [blank] and [blank].  I don't even have to fill in the blanks for the reader.  The reader already knows what those blanks are.  We all do.  We've heard it enough.  Okay.  So the argument has been made.  And made.  And for the love of all that's cheesy on the moon, made again.  So tell me what's next.

What's next, apparently, is to wait around for someone to make the same argument again, in all it's glorious nuance, so that it can serve as a springboard for the next writer to come along and make the same argument.

None of these arguments matter because they don't offer a strategy.  They don't offer a "next."  The argument is made, but no one acts upon it in a way that matters.  The most that anyone does ~ looking straight at the OSR movement earlier in the decade ~ is to create some sort of forum or board where the arguments can be made in perpetuity.

I find myself wondering how many of these commenters are invested in making a system work, any system, right now, who have an investment in what they're saying ... and how many have no reason to give a fuck.

I'm sure that a lot of present DMs and players are absolutely full of shit.  I'm sure because I've met them, and they attend every Friday or Saturday night like a South Carolingian Baptist who goes to church every Sunday just to be sure no one assumes ownership of their pew.  But I wonder if we shouldn't at least consider these people, "in the game."

There are an awful lot that just aren't.  And if you haven't thought of it already, it's a damn easy check to sort the pikers out from the citizens.  You only need check their nicks, and see what that tells you:

This is simply a matter of public record.  There's nothing disparaging about it.  This person is a human.  That is what this profile tells us.  And that is all it tells us.

Does this person ~ and let's respect that it is a person, hopefully ~ have a blog?  Have they included any detail about the game they run, or the experience they've had, or their accomplishments?  When they speak in a public forum, and give their opinions, exactly how much weight should we give their opinions?  That is all I'm asking.

Perhaps that's unfair.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion.  Someone's opinion, at least ... whatever was lying around.  But we really should stop and consider what an "opinion" means where it comes to how "informed" someone is, when they make a claim about a rule working or whether or not there are too many rules in any edition of the game.

We should ask, "What do they know about it?"

And give that answer all the due attention it deserves.

RPG 201, Lab #4 - Joseph Campbell

Before answering our insolvable question about narrative, it will be necessary to dispose of the habitual worship of Joseph Campbell's monomyth, which has found life in the internet age among poorly read, well-meaning amateurs who are ready to pound any number of square pegs into round holes in a flagrant attempt to make every adventure story "fit" the mold.

The theory is, of course, "The Hero's Journey," as shown on the slide.  A simplified overview of the theory can be read on wikipedia, while more materials that celebrate the man and his work can be found in many places throughout the internet.  Campbell's book, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," is available on Amazon and in quite a number of libraries.

In the book, Campbell himself makes no claim that the journey embraces all mythological narratives, only that  myths "frequently" follow a recognizable structure, the one shown in the image.  I think today it would do us good to remind ourselves not of those works that fit the mold, but rather those books that distinctly do not ~ though in many cases, as I've said, there are always efforts by pseudo-scholars to make the plots fit, by patently redefining Campbell's detailed definitions of "death and rebirth," "revelation," "elixir" (not shown on the chart), and the return home.

Our chief concern is that there are, right now, thousands and thousands of would-be writers and adventure makers who are infatuated with the above chart, who are fervently using it as an absolutist template for every work they're producing.  This vastly reduces the number of plot lines, character investigations, character types, themes, climaxes and resolutions that exist in the whole of writing, for the sake of one man with one idea collecting a small portion of fictional works.  And, we should note, most prominently that portion that was produced when most human advancements in philosophy, science, revelation, enlightenment and social engineering had not yet been conceived.  We are writing stories for modern audiences that we pretend to ourselves will appreciate them as a crowd would in the Bronze Age.

Of course, yes, there are many stories in the last 400 years that have followed, loosely, the course of Campbell's monomyth.  But there are many more that haven't.  We may, for example, discount every story that has ever had an unhappy ending.  And every story where the hero hasn't obtained a revelation or returned changed.  For example, none of the characters in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales are especially changed, and surely we can count these tales, read by generations and certainly part of the underlying fabric that influenced writers well into the 20th century, as "adventures."  Robin Hood experiences no real death and rebirth, merely setbacks; he returns to his lands when Richard returns to England, but Robin doesn't return "changed."  Surely, these are adventures that continue to inspire millions.  Likewise, we have to try really hard to fit Le Morte d'Arthur into the mold.  Granted, Arthur does experience many of the features of the monomyth, but this is but a single tale in a host of tales, ignoring that in the tales of Merlin, there is no redemption; he ends up helplessly in Vivien's arms.  We have to ignore Gawain and Gareth as well.  Where is Lancelot's redemption?  And where in the stories of Lancelot do we see him called to arms.  We have to try really hard to believe that Arthur is Lancelot's "mentor," and to do so we'd have to ignore quite a lot of detail.  Instead, to make it fit, we simply discard every part of the book, and the host of other stories surrounding Camelot, because it is more convenient for us to pretend Campbell has the final word.

When speaking of adventures, we shouldn't forget those surrounding certain women, such as Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, who does achieve her "repentence" in the end; but since the theme of the book is that Moll was never evil to begin with, but was rather pressed into every crime by the purest of desperations, we must ask ourselves if Moll repents or if she finally convinces someone, that being the minister overseeing her execution, that she's never been evil.  Moreover, we have to ask ourselves, in Moll's story, at what point do we separate the "trials and failure" from the "death and rebirth"?  It is all awful.  Does the dividing line occur at the gallows?  And if so, aren't we stretching the meaning of Campbell's elixer in arguing that it was shipping her and her lost soulmate husband to the colonies?

And what of Becky Sharp in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair?  We must take this as an adventure, though clearly not the sort a modern RPGer would embrace.  Here we have a bit more of a redemption (of a sort), but where is her call to adventure?  She responds to nothing more than her poverty and her ambition.  Where is her mentor?  Where, precisely, is the abyss?  The book is abyss after abyss, all of it awful, none of it offering any rebirth; Becky's life at the end is a distinct shadow of her at the start, and though she assays to be respectable, the change is one of a horse that has been successfully beaten until it pulls the cart without complaint.

I hesitate to suggest Justine, by the Marquis de Sade, which is the tale of an innocent who is tossed from evil villain to evil villain throughout the novel, remorselessly, until with relief to the reader she finally dies ... with the stink of what she's been through suggesting she's won't be welcomed in heaven.  And where is Anna Karenina's redemption from the novel by Leo Tolstoy?  At the end of all her adventures, she commits suicide by throwing herself under the carriage of a passing train.

We can say the same for the adventurer Peter from War and Peace.  If there is an abyss, surely it is the death of Natasha; but Peter's only rebirth is that he realizes that all the meaning and purpose and direction he has sought has all been mere chance.  And Tolstoy spends more than a hundred pages at the end of the novel hammering that point home, that there is no redemption, for anyone, because we are all wrapped in a destiny controlled by time and our perception of it.  Rebirth and redemption are illusions.

Next we may consider Jules Verne.  Phileas Fogg of Around the World in 80 Days calls himself to adventure; he has no mentor but himself; there are endless setbacks, but there is no "death and rebirth."  Even Fix's last minute intervention of arresting Fogg in England, mere hours from success, is not more than just one last setback for the intrepid adventurer.  There is a moment when Fogg regrets his adventure ~ when he thinks he has failed, and he is broke, but Aouda and he fall in love and ultimately, since he does succeed, the regret evaporates.  Has Fogg come home changed?  There's no real suggestion of that in the book.

We can find similar consistencies of character in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Robur the Conqueror.  The heroes are plunged into the adventure, there are setbacks, but there is never an ultimate crisis and usually they extricate themselves through their knowledge, not their re-evaluation of self.

And if we think this lack of changed character is found only in Verne, consider Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.  None of the characters, including the young boy Jim Hawkins or Long John Silver, change very much.  What kindness Silver shows at the end is clearly there all along; and what lessons Hawkins learns through the adventure do not suggest his enthusiasm is soured.  Things just go along, work out a certain way, we are given a good story, no elixir is drunk and we're not taught a lesson about character.  Not unless, of course, we've got the mallet out and we're definitely going to fit this peg into its hole.

Stevenson doesn't provide a lot of redemption in his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde either.  It is deliberately depicted as a life mis-spent.

Adventure writing throughout the 19th century was about solving problems, surviving, and most of all discovering amazing things and amazing places.  There's no startling change in Samuel Butler's narrator in Erewhon, except that he's observed a startling satire on Victorian society.  Jonathan Swift's character Gulliver experiences no grand change in outlook, except that perhaps he is more educated at the end than at the beginning.  This is hardly a "redemption;" he has nothing to regret about his earlier existence.  The heroes of H.G. Wells, even as the world burns around them from alien invasion, or as they destroy the world with their abilities, as The Man Who Could Work Miracles does, realize no more than that they are dwarfed by the possibilities presented by science; this is not presented as rebirth.  Rather, it is intended to give cause for dread.

We can go around and around with this.  Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth.  Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles.  Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.  Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, where people just get on with living (though the movies always ignore the book and stuff in a redemption theme to please audiences).

We can write books about rebirth and redemption, of course.  But we're not limited to that, not even in the realm of adventure.  Certainly less so in the realm of romance, drama and comedy.  We'd be hard pressed to argue that "boy loses girl" is the equivalent of death and rebirth.

We have other theories that address the science of stories that are far less limiting that Campbell's.  And admit that if there is a common theme to the creation of stories, it is that they are created by humans, who have a peculiar interest in a certain process of introduction, conflict and resolution ... which in no way differs from the principles we've discussed already relating to rupture, oscillation and reconstruction.  Campbell's theory is equivalent to Alfred Wegener's recognition that Africa and South America shared characteristics that were both biological and physically suggestive that the continents were once joined.  Wegener did not comprehend anything like the explanation of plate techtonics ... and since Campbell wasn't a psychologist, he did not comprehend the fundamentals underlying the human biological response to mental rupture and repair.  Campbell, like Wegener, merely noticed something; it has been others, in a completely different field, who have begun to explain it.

Hopefully, then, we can seek another means of establishing a narrative than being harnessed to this one theory.  Until we begin again.  I leave the class with this enjoyable video from Kurt Vonnegut.

28th Class: Unraveling the Presentation Problem

With this class, we're going to discuss the first "insolvable" problem of role-playing:  "How do we verbally, personally and effectively present the game so that players are impressed and interested?"

It would seem that the aim of the question is clear, and that is how it is understood by thousands of DMs and would-be DMs who ask themselves and who ask others, or who search endlessly for the book on the shelf that will include the crucial pages in its binding that will answer the question.  The question I've asked in the paragraph above isn't quite the question that is in our heads.  That question is more commonly asked, "How do 'I' run the game?"  The use of the "we" above is understood to mean all the DMs grouped together.

Let's put that on a shelf for a moment.

Very well.  How do you run the game?  You're looking for that quality of bringing your direct and instant involvement with anything the players might do, or anything you might initiate.  You wish to promote a sense of urgency and excitement.  You want the game to flow.  You want to know precisely what set of thoughts, actions, ideas and processes must take place in your brain so you can make that happen.  And you want me to give it to you, now, so that you can widen your eyes and let the new truth fill you, enabling you to find a game, right now, and run that game like a superstar.

We've been waiting for that reveal.  To learn what DMing Is.  First, however, we have to realize that "DMing" isn't the same as "DMing well."  Pure DMing, stripped of its quality, stripped of the flash and the enigmatic belief, is providing necessary information to the players.  Describe what the players see, touch, hear, taste and smell ... and when necessary, add more detail.  When time becomes a factor, or multiple actions are taken by group of entities too large to be sourced by a crowd, such as a combat, the DM identifies who moves, when.

Understand, I'm not offering this as an ideal.  But as I explained at the start of the course, the first step in seeing the problem is ridding the problem or extraneous details.  Excitement, immediacy, instant involvement ... these are not actually necessary to DMing.  So when we ask, ",,, so that players are impressed and interested," we are NOT asking, how do we DM?  "How to DM?" is not the problem.  We want to know how to do it well.

The distinction is important.  There are other activities that make this same distinction; and that, thank goodness for us, have a considerable legacy of scholarship attached to the same questions we want to ask about DMing.

In David Mamet's book, True and False, he speaks of the process of learning how to act.  The question facing Mamet is parallel to the question facing us.  Acting as a thing is easy.  I stand on the stage, I say my lines, I step off the stage.  Simple.

But it is obviously not.  In fact, we would agree that the process of acting, and of DMing, is not eased in the least sense by the concrete facts of the problem.  There was not one person here in this class that, earlier, appreciated my pointing out the hard, brutal simplicity of "DMing."  We all want more.  We want it so bad it hurts.

Here is what Mamet says about actors in his book:

"As actors, we spend most of our time nauseated, confused, guilty.  We are lost and ashamed of it; confused because we don't know what to do and we have too much information, none of which can be acted upon; and guilty because we feel we are not doing our job.  We feel we have not learned our job well enough; we feel others know their job but we have failed.  The good we do seems to be through chance: if only that agent would notice me; if only that producer had come on Tuesday night when I was good rather htan on Wednesday night when I was off; if only the script allowed me to do more this and less that; if only the audience had been better; if only we had not gone up five minutes late ~ as a consequence of which I lost my concentration."

There are so few words I have to change in the above to make the context work.  If only the adventure had been better.  If only I hadn't thrown that pack of wolves at the party earlier.  If only I had used my orange dice instead of my green dice.

We watch others smoothly manage and control the DMing process and we feel envious, in awe, miserable at ourselves, driven to figure this out and ultimately lacking any sort of real action.  If only we could do something clear and concrete that would make us better DMs.  Then we could just start doing that thing day and night until we got good at it.  We could get out of this rut and then really enjoy this game.

DMing is a craft, like acting is a craft.  We would prefer it was more like a chairmaker's craft or a wheelwright's craft, but that's wishful thinking.  And we would do well to remember that a great many DMs will never care at all about this craft; they have small interest in the quality of their DMing, save that it relates to their ability to please themselves or make better Saturday evenings than a drudge of multiple, less flavourful activities.  In fact, there's much squabbling from this quarter whether DMing is a craft, or if it ought to be.  They'll argue, familiarly, "it's only a game."

But such admonitions do not assuage our temperament when the moment of gameplay approaches, when we know in a few hours that we're going to have the burden of running thrust upon us.  Or that hard feeling in the stomach as we worry if the puzzle we've designed is going to work or if the players will be interested or bored.  Arguably, if it isn't a craft, that mixture of feeling nauseated, confused and guilty will cause us to believe that it gawddamned well ought to be, if only it would mean we could start a running without worrying about our prep this week.

Clearly, acting is a craft.  No one disputes that.  Hundreds of thousands of amateur actors will take the stage this week across the world for no pay and for very little applause, for the fun of it, and no one feels the need to remind any of these participants that it is "only a play."  The brutal reality of standing under lights, in front of an audience, whether made up of strangers or family and friends (and there are fears about both) makes it damnably clear to professional and amateur alike that it is not "just" a play.

I put it to you that the difference between the craftsman DM and the frivolous DM is the amount of respect the presenter has for his or her "audience," or players.  If a DM feels so certain that complete abject failure to run the game well will bring neither consequence nor meaningful judgment, then the DM is certainly free to not care what the players feel about his or her ability as DM.  But if a DM does care; if the respect of one's peers or friends matters; if one's self-respect matters in terms of a standard that the self will vie to achieve; then ability as a DM matters.  It matters every bit as much as Edgar's performance as King Lear at the Little Wichita Community Theatre matters to Edgar.

All this, just to establish that a thing exists as a craft.  We would appear to have a long way to go.

Let's return to the question: How do I, or you, run the game well?

This question arises from a misapprehension, one that I've fraudulently accepted up until this moment.  The flaw is in the belief that if the game goes well, if the "magic moment" occurs, that you or I as DM are the one's responsible ... and that the act of DMing well is something that we can achieve merely through addressing our own issues, as though DMing were something that we presented to caged monkeys or white mice or rubber dolls.  The originally worded question, how do "we" present the game, is the accurately worded question.  Our imagined belief, that it is our job to create these magical moments, is a delusion.  We need to realize that all we can do is bring ourselves to the event in optimum condition, to participate in the session in our role, as assigned by agreement.  It is "my setting," in the sense that I created it, but as a DM it is not, "my game."  It is our game.  And the quality of that game depends upon all the participants, playing and striving, designing and problem-solving, while teaching each other and learning, week by week, that brings a poor game forward into the genesis of a good game.

Our job as DM is, as I said, easily definable.  There are exercises that apply to every DM that are as clear-cut and direct as making chairs and wheels.  Develop a strong, resonant voice, by whatever method is necessary.  Take a class.  Join a performance group.  Stand in a field and shout.  Be brave.  Recognize your shortcomings, then devote yourself to correct those shortcomings within your control.  Work through the seven forms of preparation that we discussed at the beginning of this course.  Research.  Learn to estimate.  Plan.  Find resources.  Educate yourself and others.  Practice.  Rehearse. 

Most of all, know what your job is.  Don't seek to overstep it, don't take on the whole burden of the game session when it is not all yours to take.  Patiently reach out to others and help them see how each of those things I've just named apply to them as players as much as they apply to the DM.  Players should research.  Players should address their shortcomings.  Players should develop a strong, resonant voice.  Players should educate themselves and others.

And like a play, that is created through actors, technical people, support staff, directors and a host of others, if someone isn't pulling their weight ... explain their role in this process and make them understand why it is just as important for them to fulfill that role as you fill yours.  And if they won't act, if they won't learn, if they won't prepare, if they won't add their commitment to the "magic," then they don't belong.

We tend to approach the process of "finding players" as though these are fruit that we would pick if only we could find a tree.  And once we find them, we perceive them as audience members that we must entertain, or they will abandon us; which they almost invariably do.  The players are looking for us as dearly as we are looking for the players.  And like any random sampling of DMs, there will be those who see it as a craft and those who do not.  We should not be interested in "finding" players ... we should very definitely be auditioning players.  As DMs, we should have a clear vision as to what players we want to play with; and not waste our time with those who can't or won't convince us they're craftsmen.

Put craftsmen together, build a magic factory, give the participants free rein to act within the shape and fabric of the factory floor, and there will be no question whatsoever of presentation being an "insolvable" problem.

You, personally, won't solve it.  Ever.  Because for you, working alone, it is frankly insolvable.  But for the right team, acting in concert, employing themselves as presenters, all together will make the game flow and everyone will be a superstar.  And new players will walk over glass to be part of that game.

The question in your minds just now should be this: are the "insolvable" problems of inventing a narrative and creating a world insolvable.  We will have to see.

Until the next class.

My kind of factory.

Learn to Fish

"You probably won't enjoy this training.  It probably won't be fun.  In fact, writers usually complain, because, they're like, 'This feels like math.  And I want to be a writer because I hate math.  When can we do the fun stuff?'  You cannot do the fun stuff until you are an expert at this."

~ Corey Mandell, Creative Integration

Apart from this being an appalling motivation to write, I furiously appreciate Mandell's perspective on this.  You want to learn how to do this.  But you feel that you want to learn how to do it in a way that doesn't try your patience or require hard work.  You think it should be fun.

You're not going to learn how to do this.

I don't care what it is: writing, gardening, brand marketing, mathematics or working as a sanitation technician.  You're going to work to fill in the gaps where you're weak, or you are never, ever, going to learn to perform this job well.

DMing gets a pass because, conveniently for 40 years, the leash-holders of the industry have taken every possible step to ensure that the people who are playing are off balance, at each other's throats, battling impossible to achieve rhetoric or have been fed heaps and heaps of books written as pure junk.  This has convinced a lot of people that no, DMing does not require work ~ and there is even a philosophical cult out there pushing the bullshit that it "shouldn't" require work and that if you're working, "you're not doing it right."

Bleh.

I was directed to the youtube video by the Grumpy Wizard, linking this post on a site that shall not be named.  On the post, Travis makes an argument that I've made a hundred different ways on this blog.  Break it down; figure out how it works and make the parts work better.  I greatly appreciate I'm not the only one (though of course, I knew I wasn't.  My regular readers are like me, too).

Make sure you watch this video, and think about what it says to the philosophy, "You do you."



Notice how the G.W. went outside RPGs to find his advice.  Notice how other people, dealing with the same problems ~ how to get better at something that seems fuzzy and uncertain ~ are solving those problems by teaching and demonstrating a process that others can follow.  Notice how they speak of their successes and can point to people in their field and say, "This person has vastly improved their abilities, once they were shown how."

When do you hear the Company ever chirp about that success?  When have you seen the company release some book, then take the next obvious step to say, "John here was a really crappy DM.  But now John, and thousands of others like him, are really good DMs.  If you're a crappy DM, we can teach you."

No, what the Company says is, "You do you, buy our books, best of luck.  Keep buying our books."

And all the little drones surrounding the company repeat, "You do you, buy their books, it will all work out, you'll see."

But we never see, do we?  We never see that.  We go to the cons and there are people stumbling around and asking questions, and saying they really like this book or that book, but there's never anyone teaching anything and there's no one who says, "Wow, this class or this course was amazing!  You have to take it."

A course in being a DM doesn't exist because: a) the Company can't figure out how to market it and actually accept being held accountable for the value of the content; and b) the stupider and more desperate you are for inspiration, insight, maps, scenarios, character classes and so on, the more you'll have to buy from them.

If they teach you how to do it, you won't need them.

And that's why we teach people, isn't it?  We teach the fellow how to fish so they can go out and get their own, and we can stop giving them our fish.  But if we have the monopoly on fish, and the fellow has to pay us, then it is in our interest to create all this bullshit that says, "Ordinary people can't or shouldn't or wouldn't know how to fish as well as we fish, because we're fishing specialists, just look at all this fish you want to buy."

If we learned how to fish, we'd destroy the company in just a few years.

They're not saying, you do you.  They're saying, you do us.

It starts when a significant group of people in the community takes a pledge to stop buying their fish.

A Review of Captain Marvel

My chance tonight to see the film, so at last I can stop dodging every word written about it on the internet.

I'd like to deconstruct it but I'd have to see it again first, as I'm digesting.  I know a lot of people think films like this are fluff; but people see what they pay attention to and I've noticed very much with the rise of youtube film reviewers that they don't seem to see very much.  There's meat here to chew ... but admittedly it isn't the meat that would satisfy the appetite of a 30-something fanboy who thinks that film-making has been on the skids since Casino.

There are some expositional troubles with it in the first 25 minutes ~ not inconsistencies, not inaccuracies, just "troubles."  Mostly from a pressing need to gunshoot its way through the build-up to placate audiences who can't spend another five minutes drinking in the full dialogue, pacing and setting.  It goes back to that thing about not paying attention.  For a lot of viewers, if the actors slow down long enough to talk, it becomes (apparently) impossible to see or hear anything that's going on.

I'm a fan.  I like about two-thirds of Marvel films; this was a departure from the usual form.  You'll see people online blathering that its "the same old thing," but AGAIN, they're not seeing and they're not hearing.  There are quite a number of quiet themes at play in the film that are tapping into a certain kind of viewer, one who has the patience to let the actors talk about things that matter to them, while enjoying characters who don't scream every line or feel the need to be grotesquely "cool" in every scene.

Should you see it?

If you've think 4chan has "some merits," I'd say no.  If you're the sort that watches Extra Credits or Kurzgesagt because you think it's "educational," you should likely give this movie a pass.  If you're deeply involved in let's play content on youtube, or you're thinking about taking that UofC course on StarCraft, you're going to find this movie moves way, way too slowly.

On the other hand, if you like women and would like to see them perform in parts that don't pander to the fact that they're women ~ that is, treats them like human beings with believable personalities ~ then you might be surprised by this.

I was ... but only because it turned out to be exactly what I expected it to be.  I'm usually wrong.