Binary Numbers

I feel presumptive writing this post ... and, I guess, I feel like I should apologize or something. This issue with binary numbers feels like an elephant in the room; I've never felt the matter was rightfully explained and I want to be clear about why I'm using them and how. So, spoiler alert, I'm going to write about very simple math ~ please feel free to skip this post. [There is a bit at the end that explains why I'm using binary numbers for my mapping].

In any case, the worst we're going to do is addition.

I'll begin with the obvious. We use a ten-based number system every day without much thought that the number of symbols, 0 through 9, are arbitrary. If we discarded the 9, there would be nine symbols remaining in what we would call a nine-based number system. The math we use everyday would be just the same ... but, admittedly, it would be weird.

Binary is a two-based number system, using only 0 and 1. Most talk about binary nowadays ends up being about computers, because a two-based system is perfect for a machine using electrical impulses ... but we don't have to talk about any of that. Suffice to say that the math in binary works like the math in the base-ten that we use.

When we see the number 123, we don't stop to think about it, but we're fairly clear that this is 100+20+3. It helps to think of this as three columns, as shown:

While some of you are having flashbacks to grade 9 math class, I'll take the next step and explain what happens when we add 123 to 869 ... the sort of thing that we do every day without a moment's hesitation. We begin by putting one number above the other, so the columns line up; then we start with the 1s column, adding 3 + 9 to get the product 12. We then divide the product by ten, putting the 1 in the 10's column and the 2 in the 1s column.

We don't think of it as dividing by ten. We do it so habitually that we just automatically divide the number 12 in half, putting the numbers where they belong, without a moment's thought. But we are dividing that product by ten.

The rest is clear. We add 2 + 6 + 1 (that we've added from the 1s column) which gives us 9. We write this in the 10s column. Then we add 1 + 8 to get 9, so that our final total is 992. And I'm sorry ~ I know this has to be old hat to most of us. But it's necessary we're all on the same page.

When we count in base 10, we count 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. And this seems obvious too. But with binary numbers there is no 2 and no 3 or 4. So how do we count in binary? Well, how do we actually count in base-10?

Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon. Please support me with a $3 donation and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.

More recently, I've begun distributing previews of a project I am working on for book publication, "A Rational Guide to Sex in RPGs," of which I am providing previews according to the $24 tier I am also offering on my Patreon.

Mapping Food & Hammers

Our first step is to understand the mechanics of the image shown on the right. We have here an obscure 6-mile hex found in Rogaland, in an area of tundra (as indicated by the greenish-tan hex). The number indicates that this is a type-7 hex ... which means that while the hex has been settled, most of the hex is wilderness.

There are two other symbols beside the number: a single food and a single hammer.  The food originates with the settlement.  The hammer originates from the natural environment: because this is a tundra hex, there is a certain amount of raw material exploitation, most likely furs, timber or prospecting.  

Our agenda with this post is to get a firm handle on how much of this hex is settled and how much is wilderness; and to firmly understand how the symbols for food & hammers represent an amount of something being produced, and the number of people involved in producing it.  This will set a scale for more settled places with more elaborate results of production and the devising of a local economy.

First, as we've discussed before, let's expand the hex above into a 2-mile representation, that will provide us with more information.  This helps if we want to take a fairly empty part of our world and expand it rationally so that the players can relate the larger map to something that is more detailed.

I have had a fair amount of practice with this, but in truth it is a matter of copy/pasting a few hill icons, adjusting the colors and postulating some hex characteristics for interest's sake.  Here I've depicted the full 6-mile hex separated into its 2-mile components.  I rolled randomly using my generator 3.0 to determine the one settled hex would be in the east, the one lightly coloured hex among the other tundra hexes.  The low hills are put in for flavour, but in fact you may imagine the landscape being open, bare rock, small pockets of marshy pits and holes, with small stands of forest pine throughout.  Oh, and I added renditions of locale lakes based on their Rogaland counterparts, with a big one on the south edge of the settled hex, to give more interest.  I've named this small area of the world Kleivaland (an actual town that is quite close to the location of the hex).  A game version doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be something the players can relate to.


Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon.  Please support me and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.

Estate Mechanics: a Fresh Start

The further I get into any system of estate mechanics (and yes, still thinking and working on this, but slowly), I grow more conscious of the necessity to balance what can be reasonably worked out in game terms without an elaborate program.  All while providing a game experience that will appeal to savvy players.

Regarding the latter.  We have all encountered mountains of game fixes and gamified features in role-playing games ~ and gawd help us, in video games as well ~ that simply failed to grab our imagination. In some cases, we've made these fixes ourselves. While at the outset they seem to manage the problem, after a few uses they've worn out their welcome. An estate management system shouldn't just solve the problem of where the money goes ... it should provide context and purpose, that itself feeds the adventuring spirit. We're not looking for a cheap mini-game or a side quest of "let's build a town." We're looking to create an ongoing, interesting, adventuring companion, where what happens on the estate affects the player's game choices, and where the player's game choices affects the estate.

In the past, I have run such a campaign piecemeal, fitting in as much detail as the players seemed to expect or want. This I did with my offline party, and then again with the Senex campaign when they arrived at Koufonisia. But the latter exposed the inefficiencies of my former strategy, particularly in a venue where numbers can't be calculated in real time on a mutually observable surface.

It is a challenge, then, to create a system that fits a greater requirement than I would need myself: to not only build something that I can use, but that others can also use, especially if I am not there to show them how. Seeing this, I've been moving slowly on how to approach the problem, with an eye to providing solutions that will create fascination and not just accounting.

Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon.  Please support me in writing further posts on every aspect of role-playing and D&D.

Canada's Approach to Immigrants

Hearing the things coming out of the 'States, it's strange to get this from Canada's nightly news channel on the CBC.  Though the story states that the government is trying to suppress it, the very fact of its existence and the manner in which it is being handled clearly indicates that the government really doesn't have a problem with this.  And neither have I.

Retraction

But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place?  Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then?  It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity: yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.  "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood."  Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, 1841

To this I add that it is not a sin to be foolish.  But it is a sin to compound that foolishness by failing to set it aside when it is recognized as such, for the sake of pride.  And so, instead I shall set my pride aside and disregard certain promises I've made, and damned if I'm misunderstood for that.

Carnival barking works.  Damn it.  This blog will start including teasers to The Higher Path, where my content is largely appearing now.  The Higher Path costs $3 a month.  One cup of coffee.  Why cheapen your lives by not paying for it?

Crass Commercialism

Well some of you may have noticed this blog has been down, restricting access for some time. For various reasons I've decided to step away from the OSR and the tabletop gaming web community - possibly permanently. Part my decision to withdraw is personal, I find myself with insufficient time and desire to write about games but I also have the sense that the 'OSR' scene this blog is devoted to has become a rather disgusting place where crass commercialization is strangling a formerly creative amateur community ...

Gus L., Dungeon of Signs 

In the last few years, I've seen several of this sort of post ~ not always expressing the end of their blog, but often disparaging selling of gaming products by single designers as "crass" and couched as detrimental to "creativity."  Gus L. goes on to include "alt-right" influences also causing his action, but we don't need to talk about that here.  I am quoting this blog only because I remembered where it was, so it was easy to find.  It is the sentiment that concerns me.

I don't want this to be a post excusing my behaviour, or explaining at length why I moved towards commercialism.  In 2015, I lost my comfortable job and turned to the internet as a means to help support myself.  I had published two books about role-playing in 2014, I published a third in 2015 ... and since then I've had a hard time of things.  I haven't been able to maintain reliable employment in an ongoing recession, along with tens of thousands of others in Calgary.  The news keeps saying the recession is coming and going, but no one I know has been able to identify any improvement since four years ago.

The most successful thing I've done has been to employ myself.  I am my only reliable source for income.  Three of the restaurants I've worked for in the last three years have closed permanently; the brick and mortar store I worked for last year is showing signs of collapse.  A straight job, working for a straight employer, obeying the cult of work, has been the bane of most everyone I know personally.  Amazon is killing retail employment across the board, and those I know who were comfortable in customer sales positions 10 years ago are scrambling for whatever they can find.

And this brings us to the subject of robotics replacing human employees, highlighted in at least one American presidential candidate running on a platform that acknowledges this is actually happening.  It is.  And while the magic solution of the government giving people money is a fantasy, the reality is that each and every one of us has one option left in the coming economy.

Find something you can do, and do well, then do it for money.  Being self-employed and a solitary worker, you can sell directly to your customers with a minimum of overhead, potentially finding the means to pay for your food, your rent and your small personal needs.  If you are too high-and-mighty to exploit your own abilities, because you believe abilities should be exploited traditionally by others who offer you a paycheque, and that self-employment is "crass," then may jeebus help you.  The capitalists and the government won't.

But, I would like to express an observation that has arisen out of my experience with this.  Success is often ... shall we say ... a bitch.  I've recently been told by a fellow artist [which I'm accepting as hearsay for now] that I am in the top 10% of earners on Patreon.  Yet I'm making barely a third of my needed income.  I make a bit more through my book-sales.  And I am quite often stressed by this, as anyone might be as they realize they need a second job or simply the panic they feel as they struggle to get more customers to walk into their shop.

I watched this happen three times with restaurants, as I said.  The managers cut the staff, they cut the hours, they cut the food quality, they cut the amount of food on the plates, they water the drinks, they adjust their hours, they police waste of every kind, they make the employees work insensibly on make-work tasks because they're being paid, after all ... and the stress level coming from the top increases palpably.  It is a frustrating and bitter thing to be manically polishing a restaurant until it glows for no customers that will ever come in.  When a restaurant bites the dust, it is often the cleanest it has ever been.

The worst part of commercialism is desperation.  The slow swing around the drain, knowing that you're going down, or merely the knowledge that you're not making enough and this can't last forever, is how it changes your intent.  We start thinking, "This is a good idea; I love this idea."  And we end thinking, "What can I sabotage?  What will keep me alive?"

Ladies and gentlemen, based on the receipts Mrs. Crummles has shown me, Liverpool has little relish for high-minded theatrical entertainments properly conducted. We must give them our pity. Now, we must give them something they will pay to see. "Romeo and Juliet."

Mr. Crummles, Nicholas Nickleby (2002)

Steadily, the all consuming purpose becomes, "What can I create, or write, that will win me an audience, since what I'm writing has such a limited appeal?"  And like polishing the brass and scrubbing the floors, and even pouring money into rebuilding the bar in an attempt to drum interest, there is always the risk that, no matter what we try, it won't work.  The fear that even if Mr. Crummles stages Romeo & Juliet, the ticket sales won't improve.

Maintaining your virtuosity in this mindset is difficult, for the pervading thought becomes, "Can I waste my time with this."  Years ago, when I lived comfortably and could afford to scatter my time, I could waste my hours with all kinds of things.  And now, there is a niggling voice in my head that is always saying, "Is there money at the end of this?"

I've never wanted that voice.  I watched that voice consume my 20-something friends decades ago, burying themselves in cars and houses and five-day trips to Cuba squeezed between ten hour days and mountains of stress.  Some of them were artists, who no longer sit at a piano or take up a brush to paint ... but they have space and means to travel and the enslavement of commitments.  I wanted to write.  I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood, I'd had space and travel, I'd ceased being impressed.  I wanted the freedom to waste time.  I think there is nothing so precious as having so much time that it can be wasted fruitfully and well.

But hauntingly, there is the voice.  The audience does not care for high-minded designs and writings.  Pity them.  But get their asses in the seats.  It's not a choice.  It's a "must."

Sigh.

Policing Alignment

Let's take an example of design function and behaviour and examine it closely (this is part of a series on the closed blog).  For instance, alignment.  The base premise for alignment from the 1979 DMG, rarely quoted, is this (p.23):

"The overall behavior of the character (or creature) is delineated by alignment, or, in the case of player characters, behavior determines actual alignment. Therefore, besides defining the general tendencies of creatures, it also groups creatures into mutually acceptable or at least non-hostile divisions. This is not to say that groups of similarly aligned creatures cannot be opposed or even mortal enemies ... bands of orcs can hate each other. But the former would possibly cease their war to oppose a massive invasion of orcs, just as the latter would make common cause against the lawful good men ... it likewise causes a player character to choose an ethos which is appropriate to his or her profession, and alignment also aids players in the definition and role approach of their respective game personae."

You can read the whole thing yourself with the link provided.  This is the muddiest thinking imaginable, ignoring everything we know about emotional behaviour, even in 1979.  There is absolutely no logic whatsoever that orcs side together because they are all evil; they, like any group, must be expected to side together because they are all orcs.  Yet the general gaming public bought this idea; they continue to buy it, and argue its legitimacy, because it seems like a good idea.  We must structure our character ideals upon something, we are told ~ and alignment seems to represent an approximation of every kind of behaviour.

As psychologists, Gygax and his peers all get an 'F.'  But let's set that aside and discuss it strictly from a gaming perspective.  The design is intended to enable DMs and players to "group" creatures, presumedly to provide a better playing experience.

Shown here is one of the hundreds of alignment charts one can find on the internet that attempts to use figures from fiction or reality to specify what is meant by each alignment.  They can be found for Star Wars, world leaders, the Big Lebowski, Game of Thrones, Batman, the television show Community, the cast of the movie Pride and Prejudice, CGP Grey themes, Star Trek (the original series and later incarnations), the Big Bang Theory ... the list goes on and on and on.  The apparent need for clarity is itself evidence that there is a problem here.  Over and over we have to create memes that try to categorize highly vague categories into human behaviour (for that is what we're doing in every case, whether the depiction is real or fictional).  And in every case, just as in the example shown, it doesn't really work.  And how, exactly, it doesn't work is different for every witness.  Were I to begin a debate upon Lockhart's placement in the above, we could quickly find ourselves in an insolvable discussion based entirely upon our personal experience with what we believe is the accurate definition of a made up term that itself, in the rules, is no better than your position or mine.

In terms of player behaviour, this being the way the alignment tool was used, we're all over the map.  And attempts to nail down each of the categories are utterly subjective.  Yet in his original rules, Gygax spoke of the DM's need to "keep track of player character behavior."  If it deviated from the assigned alignment, we are told, "Such drift should be noted by you, and when it takes the individual into a new alignment area, you should then inform the player that his or her character has changed alignment."  And yet, according to Gygax, "It is quite possible for a character to drift around in an alignment area ..."

How exactly is this tracked?  I've never seen anyone try to break down one of the alignment fields into nine or perhaps 16 subfields, each with a perfect definition so we can plot the player's behaviour and be sure they're still inside the boundaries.  Ah, but Gygax says, "... any major action ... will cause a major shift ..."  How, I am forced to ask, do we delineate "major" from "minor"?  Except, of course, with the subjective opinion of the only person who counts, this being the DM.

In terms of user behavioural problems, this is recipe for disaster ~ and it was in every game that I played where alignment was used as a feature.  It doesn't matter what the actual opinions were; players would insist they were living up to their alignment while others would insist they were not.  And the more firm the DM would try to be in dictating alignment, the more the players would chafe at being told the motivations and limitations of how they were allowed to use their character.

This in turn created a long list of logical arguments for how and why a good character could "get away" with behaving cruelly or indifferently, while lawful characters found loopholes that would allow they to act selfishly and greedily.  None of this really matters, except as evidence that humans will find a way if they feel they deserve one.

The problem is from a behavioural perspective, what does the alignment actually do for the player once the alignment is chosen?  It can give me an inflexible standard to play ... which is nothing like a real person in any sense, and therefore becomes dissatisfying after awhile.  What with all the necessity of staying alive, adding alignment feels a lot of the time like having to fight the world with one arm tied behind your back.  "Sorry; I would happily ride on your back across this river, but I'm neutral evil, you understand, so both our characters have to die."  While an interesting tale for why we don't trust scorpions, it makes for a rather frustrating play experience.

And here is the larger thing: if we play without tracking alignment or caring about alignment, this doesn't keep any of the characters who want to use alignment for building their character to continue doing so.  It simply means that if I start as a lawful good person, I can change my mind later on.  Or with a particular incident.  Since no one is measuring my character's behaviour in a real sense, I can style myself as a fellow who floats casually between four alignments and that's fine.

Which means that alignment can still be useful as a means to group creatures (if you're going to embrace that concept) and for designing a personality ... so nothing is actually lost if we remove the policing concept.  The only person the policing concept actually serves is the DM; and only in the sense that the DM can slap a label on the player for "reasons."  The DM's actually running of the game, the presentation of the adventure and the dialogue between player and NPC can all take place without any change whatsoever ... except, perhaps, that where before the DM could say, "You have to fight the orcs because you're lawful good," the DM no longer has the legitimacy to make that argument.

I'm unclear myself on why the policing of alignment is still a thing.  It plainly is, because the community spends so much time on defining it.  Alignment itself, though psychologically ridiculous, and utterly useless if a writer wants to make three-dimensional characters, at least has the benefit of giving people two scales on which they can graph a character in the game.

I could argue this practice has led to an awful lot of misery ... but the reader would just argue back and then we'd be in a flame war, and who really cares anyway.

The larger point is that as a design concept, the strategy proposed by the invention of the alignment was never realized ~ and, in fact, the players did not need it to be realized.  Inconsistency makes a better story.  And something that is meant to be consistent, but cannot be rationally defined, yet is believed to be rationally defined by every person willing to argue about it, only creates obstacles to the playing experience, rather than obstacles between the player and achievement.

Four Zero

Today, almost to the hour that I'm posting this, I have been playing and designing D&D for 40 years.

Rather that wax poetical about the beginning or speak of the time spent, as I've done at other times, I think I will just say, it hasn't been long enough.

Apart from the book I'm editing, I have two other books in the works regarding the subject of game play and design.  I am considering accepting that the creation of modules for other people may be something I'm forced to do.  And I am rethinking other possible ways through which I hope to continue to add content to a discourse which has not begun to reach its zenith, not in my mind.  Far from feeling that I am on the periphery of the community, I continue to feel that I am breaking new frontiers, discovering new countries, meeting new peoples and forging out a game that will change the way people think about D&D.

Fifty years, here I come.

Character & Characterizations

In the halcyon days of my youth, mostly during university, I spent hundreds of hours sitting in writers' groups and literary discussion seminars in a quest to learn how to write better.  In that era, I learned about the adoration that writers have for the shape and sound of words, an adoration that does not extend therefore to messages and communication.  I also learned about the love and infatuation that writers have for characters, while simultaneously dismissing any notion that these characters should change or adapt to their circumstances.  Slowly, I learned that for many writers, writing is a fetish.  For many, a group of words or a character is something like building a power drill that is intended to be framed and hung on a wall, never to be used for any purpose except show.

Of course, it doesn't really matter if someone wants to write that way or even to say it's "good writing."  I don't want to read books like that; most people don't, and it's standard among those kind of writers to carry a grudge against people who don't "get it" and "don't appreciate" what they're trying to do.  It is an indisputable problem of fetishistic books ~ if the reader isn't into the same fetish, the writing won't carry the day.  Thus, fetishistic writers tend to be successful when writing about highly popular subjects: teen romances about vampires and rich businessmen, or books about mothers about to give birth to children, etcetera.  In which case, it doesn't even matter how well the books are written, or how long they anguish on with their themes while nothing is actually happening.  If I want to read about 19th century prostitution, and its agonies, there are a number of books I can pick up ... and it won't matter if the characters of those books ever do anything.  I'm not reading the book for it's plot or that plot's relationship with my life.

The habit of making characters an end in themselves, however, bleeds into role-playing ~ where players and DMs alike develop models that are intended to exist as inviolate entities, meant to ride above the waves of the game setting.  My angst-driven overly impulsive half-elven fighter, who feels he cannot be happy as either a human or an elf, will carry on that motif into every battle, every adventure, every conversation, for dozens of sessions, without ever learning anything about anything, and certainly never getting over his entrenched angst.  Because, obviously, that's how I want my elf to be.

This gets exhaustive for everyone else, who have heard every pre-scripted line a hundred times already, who get to where they can speak my elf's words before I do.  Fetishes are like this, even those that are not blatantly sexual or bigoted (though these get noticed at once).  Fetishes are tiresome.  They're boring.  They contribute nothing to game play except for the fetishist ~ and as such are at best selfish and at worst perniciously narcissistic.

I don't expect to change anyone's approach to character building, naturally.  I'm only explaining why these characters grow increasingly unsatisfying over time ... even for the fetishist, who eventually needs to create another like character with a slightly different fetish.  Characters who do not change over the course of time are sterile and ~ more to the point ~ unbelievable.  As "characters," they fall into the uncanny valley of stereotypes ... the sort that makes others around the table roll their eyes when the totally inflexible character decides to face down the dragon one on one or commit suicide for totally stupid reasons.

To them, the answer is obvious: "It is what my character would do."  The more accurate sentiment would be, it is what their characterization would do.  That's not a character.  That's a tool hanging in a frame where it doesn't get used.

Excitement comes from change ~ from the process of learning from mistakes, adapting to new circumstances, accepting that the past is past and making the effort to recreate ourselves from the new ideas we discover as we progress through time.  People who cannot get past their old lives, their old belief systems and their old habits are considered to have sociological and psychological problems.  Since those problems apply to the actual players, who are most likely to play characterizations rather than consider the possibility of character growth, we need to ask ourselves, what psychological drama is being played out at our gaming table.

This is a taboo.  We're supposed to pretend that if a player wants a character that is a stubborn idiot, this is a "choice" and not a red flag indicating the player may have other problems than our game world.  That is, unless those old buggaboos of sex and bigotry arise.  Then we're empowered.

Otherwise, our hands are tied.

A number of features have arisen surrounding the game to cope with this resistance to change.  The DM changes the genre, or the campaign, or shifts from party to party, or runs all adventures episodically, with a complete new list of characters for every one.  In addition, we start characters at 9th or 12th level, so that players are empowered to create their characterizations without having to worry if they're "strong enough" to play that particular ideal.

This is the saddest part: the game is clearly structured to encourage player character change!  The characters are expected to start off weak and legitimately humbled, knowing that virtually everything in the setting can kill them.  With effort and time, the humility is shucked away, the new character potential emerges, the characters are given larger prospects, the player swaggers a bit more knowing what's already been accomplished ~ and everyone can poke fun at each other, talking about the old days when "our characters" were soft and easily breakable.

All that is casually swept away in favor of jumping straight to 10th level, so that everyone can swagger immediately, and create back stories that make sense for high level characters (that would be ridiculous for a 1st level), while stiffening themselves with as much starch as needed to make their characters utterly inflexible.

This turned out to be a large problem with two online campaigns that I ran, in which the players had exact, intractable visions for what they were ... a vision that I began to screw with, because the world just doesn't care who you are.  My game delights in forcing people to lift themselves out of their prejudices, to make themselves suitable for new conditions and a shifting setting.  I want to push my characters into dilemmas, because these create drama without my having to return again and again to the old saws of more monsters and more puzzles.  The players I had, however, came from a different game experience; one where their pigheadedness was encouraged and even celebrated, because it didn't have to last more than a few months or just one adventure.  By next year, everyone is going to have a new character anyway.

I believe this sentiment underlies a great many unhappy game tables, without the participants being even vaguely aware of the problem.  This is my only reason for shedding light on it.  The diehard, steely-eyed character can't even sustain a modern-day, 100-minute film, much less a campaign expected to endure between 20 and 100 hours.  Why are we still encouraging this character in our game worlds?

Think about it.  This character is not interesting because he's inflexible; he's interesting because he's complicated.

Pilgrims in New England

A couple of weeks back, a reader asked me to map a part of the United States, specifically Vermont.  We discussed the usual fee, to be met at some future time ... and then I just ignored all that and went ahead to do the work anyway, because it tickled me to do it.  Vermont is completed now, in 20-mile hexes, which can be seen in the image below.  The remainder of the map shows the notes and icons I use to sort out those areas adjacent to Vermont — details about elevation, location of rivers, towns plotted and so on.  Anyway, here's the whole of my work so far, from eastern/upstate New York to western Maine, from southern Quebec to Massachusetts:

Without the state lines to make it familiar, it doesn't look right.  I'll explain what's going on above briefly: the lands are divided into two groups, the settlers from Europe and the natives.  My world taking place in 1650, I tried to include predominant settlements made by Europeans by that date.  The remainder is made up of tribal nations, approximately where those tribes dwelt in 1650, without the effort to nail down every single tribe or be profoundly detailed.  Native tribal settlements reflect the same approximate locations as later European settlements ~ which, from my reading, is not far from the truth.

I researched about 520 cities and towns in the making of this map, on Wikipedia of course, as it is somewhat universal.  Some readers who have already seen this map on the other blog were able to pick out their home towns.  Those who have been reading my blog for 11 years must have wondered if the day would ever come.

I'm not going to talk more about the map; I have elsewhere and that's just repeating myself.  I wanted to use it as a lead-in to another issue related to the time and the area.  The predominant settlement is famously that of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in which a bunch of profoundly religious and entitled people hell-bent on punishing everyone not as good as themselves escaped from a culture that was hell-bent on stopping them from being pricks to everyone in England.  The 1630s and 40s are a somewhat lurid time in American history, what with the hangings, the burnings and the witchcraft.  Some will tell you it really wasn't all that bad, but any reading of the actual events will show that these dangerously pious settlers were quite willing to overreact in the extreme to rather banal infractions of the social code.

For D&D purposes, I'd like to bring out the case of Anne Hutchinson, Puritan spiritual advisor and nutjob in the true sense of the American breed.  She's particularly interesting in that, while brought to trial and convicted, she was not executed but was instead exiled ~ most likely due to the popularity of her views and the threat those views gave to local ministers of Massachusetts.  Once exiled, she went to the Providence Plantations in Rhode Island, where she was kicked out again because of Massachusetts' interest in expanding their political authority.  Thereafter she settled in the modern day Bronx, the Dutch New Netherlands, beyond English authority ... where she would be slaughtered by the Siwanoy natives a year later.

Hutchinson vehemently disagreed with the Pilgrim fathers over their interpretation of God's word.  She believed that the soul was saved by faith, not by good works, and her willingness to preach this very loudly ended in her being called a heretic and an instrument of the devil.  Thus was the manner in which individuals fought over God's message and purpose, as they still do ... because, quite simply, no one can say absolutely what that is, because all we have are a mass of conflicting words that can be interpreted however one wishes.  So it goes with founding ideas on make-believe.

Inside the D&D universe, however, religion is not based on make-believe.  Religion is a real thing, based on real gods, who can show up and do on a regular basis, through spells, magical items and quests which, coincidentally, are pursued by "pilgrims."  A god might not choose to speak ~ but apart from our own personal experience with gods in real Earth [in which gods don't actually exist, sorry] ~ there is no logical reason for a god to hide!  The Anne Hutchinson problem can be solved in a finger snap by a number of means ... whereupon Anne is either acknowledged to be right or else she stands in the face of the god she's arguing wrongly on behalf of and says, "Oops, my bad."  Or, continues to behave stubbornly and THE GOD kills her.

The resistance the reader may feel to this rational truth arises out of the cognitive dissonance that we've been trained to accept, in which a god, "obviously" existing according to more than half of the world's population, doesn't appear to sort out these issues for "reasons" and "the grand plan," or whatever other justification we have to make up.  We're forced to make due with what we have; but a D&D framework and culture, not so much.

And this radically changes everything about the European Settlement in the New World.  It has to.

Look, if we're going to talk about Christianity, either God believes that humans should be their brother's [and sister's] keeper or God believes that executing whomever the fuck we want for whatever fuck reasons we want is just fine and dandy.  It isn't both.  We accept both in this ridiculous world because, again, reasons, but a real god competing with an infinite number of other real gods is not going to hide his or her lamp under a bushel.  If the Christian God won't make an appearance, it won't take long for any of a million Hindu gods to start showing up in Europe and crowding the dumb Christians out.  "Sorry, you believe in a god that isn't here, that's letting your baby die?  Oh, Sister, come on!  I'm here now and ~ oh, look at that, your baby's fine.  Tell me again, who do you believe in?"

If there's infighting between humans over religion, its because the gods want it that way ... and humans being a dumb as they are, the gods just have to wave something shiny in front of them and the swords come out followed by a lot of blood.  In a D&D world, the Thirty Years War fought between the Catholics and the Protestants can only take place because a real God thought, "Hm, I have a reason to denude Europe of 8 million people in a violent way; this should work."

Most importantly, all this takes away the most commonly used excuse that people have for God's absence:  that you have to accept his existence on faith.  Well, no you don't.  A little augury, a little divination, a little direct commune, a trip to the outer planes ... there ain't no faith, baby, there's hard evidence.  So Anne Hutchinson's position isn't founded on her being more or less pious ~ it is entirely founded on whether or not she's willing to accept the direct word of the almighty.

That, I know, still won't be enough for people.  And just to show you that I'm up on my theology, there is a story about a group of Jewish rabbis arguing over a point of Jewish law as written in the Torah.  It goes that a rabbi, arguing alone, is so sure that he's right that he calls out to the heavens and says, "If I am right, may God make all the trees surrounding the temple bend down to the ground."  And at once, the trees do.  But the other rabbis are unmoved, and continue to argue, so the one rabbi says, "If I am right, may God announce his presence by entering the Temple itself," whereupon a great wind blows open the doors and windows of the Temple.  And still the other rabbis are unmoved.  So the one rabbi says, "If I am right, let God say that I'm right," and there is suddenly a great booming voice that says, "This Man Is Right."  Whereupon the other rabbis tell God to shut up, because they have the word of God already, right in the text of the Torah, and that word is immutable, even from someone who might appear and sound like God.

For myself, I intend not to present my game's Massachusetts as anything like the real one of the mid 17th century, for the reasons I've given.  I don't think it would make a good game, anyway.  And I enjoy the notion of Europeans and Natives working together, helping each other to explore a continent that is very much empty, even if the native tribes have already founded small villages (and occasionally large settlements) in some of the land's rivers and valleys.

This, I believe, allows me to enjoy the high points of both cultures, while happily trashing the low points.


For those interested in reading more about my New England world design and other matters, make a $3 donation per month through my patreon.  It's easy, it's painless and you will gain the benefit of the backlog to date for your contribution.

The Down Side & The Up Side

For the last month I've been committed to producing more positive posts about D&D ~ and no, not so much here, but elsewhere.  That has got me thinking about the game's bigger picture.  I could say that I'm trying to grok D&D on a different plane ... to "drink" it, for that is the definition of "grok" that Heinlein offers.

The problem has always been that D&D is hard; and, if we're going to be honest, it costs too much effort for most people.  I'm not just talking about the rules or the process of playing.  D&D, and other role-playing games, carry other forms of baggage that we tend to downplay.  It is socially difficult; even if family and acquaintances can appreciate and approve of the game's play, this doesn't mean they get it.  The game separates us by giving us a vocabulary and a set of memories that can't be easily shared with outsiders.

As well, many of us can point to the game as a place where we've lost friends.  I could do the same with a baseball diamond or football, but somehow I feel the friends lost through D&D more keenly than with sports.  Perhaps that is because I've given more of myself to the game.  I have, for game purposes, gone some distance towards humiliating myself ... acting like a clown to produce a certain effect from the players, making spooky voices, letting my emotions pour over the table.  With those moments in the mix, the bitterness reflects other serious relationships, where I've exposed by vulnerable side.

A number of times, those breaks occurred because, in running the game for anywhere from five to nine players, or more, I couldn't give all the personal attention that some players felt was their due.  I had to keep order.  The game gives little help to managing the endless details that arise and it demands that an honest DM, one who won't reshuffle the cards for the players, must be willing to kill a player's favorite character ~ which is, for a great many people, an unfair ask.  This is the hidden truth underlying the present movement to justify constant and unrepentant fudging of the dice, "for a good game."  We're really talking about the tension that D&D puts on the social contract between all-too-human persons.  As a species, humans are rarely equipped to let an inanimate object like a die, or a small game rule, cause pain and suffering to a friend or ~ potentially ~ a stranger whose reaction is impossible to predict.  Better, most think, that the game's function should be suspended than having to deal with the real consequences of playing out the game as written.

The game is hard.  We can play it to assuage the feelings of sensitive players and entitled strangers, but what that does to us ~ knowing what we're doing and why ~ can steadily push us towards apathy and self-doubt.  And every time we do the opposite, and stand up to the players ... well, even if the friendship survives the fallout, we grow hesitant and less certain of our skill as game masters.

Just now there's a real rush towards the game by parents who have discovered that D&D offers their nine- and ten-year-olds' what's called "face time" ~ an alternative to cell phones and video games.  But these are people who often have very little personal experience with the game, if we can believe the manner in which the phenomenon is being reported.  The initial rush of rolling dice and killing monsters wears off; without a deeper understanding of the game, the surface experience is ~ after a mere two or three years ~ ultimately unsatisfying.  Except for a few outliers, most just don't last very long in a sustained campaign.  We're not teaching children to like the game.  We're teaching teenagers to hate it.

I've sat and stared at that last line a few minutes now, wondering if its unfair.  I would say "yes" if there were any signs that the gamestores or the company had any overall plan for non-beginners.  So much of the rhetoric, the books, the resources and so on are geared to a particular kind of player ~ and once past those first ten adventures, the players are more or less cut loose.  We're expected by the company to just keep coming back to the next adventure, without the ennui of growing experience.

We all have stories of that phenomenal DM that we played with ~ or that we still play with, for a lucky few ~ and how they took the game to some higher level.  But rarely do we question the underlying truth here: that some people really get how to run; and that most don't.  And with recognition of the latter, we must face the possible truth that even after several years ~ even after ten years ~ some of us are not ever going to be good at this.  Even saying it out loud is cruel.  But where are we going to say it?  Are you going to sit in a counselor's office and talk about your feelings of loss and inadequacy with respect to a make-believe, fantasy game?  A process that has to begin with explaining what the game is first, before you can try to explain why your sense of inadequacy is swallowing down your soul?

How many of us, as we get into our 30s and 40s, are beginning to wish we'd never encountered the game?  I'm not speaking for myself; these are not my feelings.  I'm an insane, engaged, potentially sociopathic fanatic who's able to live and breathe the game at will.  I'll happily spend twenty hours explaining the game to a stranger so that I can get to the point about where I'm planning on taking my concepts next year.  No, I'm fine.  But look around.  You can find hundreds of D&D bloggers coughing up their last post, expressing their helpless lack of interest, the cold reality that they're just getting too old to play the game any more.  And a horde of others who still "want to play" but can't quite bring themselves ~ after an absence of years ~ to get back into it.

This isn't the reaction that an endlessly fun activity produces.  I won't find fanatical skiiers talking about not skiing or foodies deciding to purge themselves of cookbooks; car fanatics don't quit going to car shows "because the crowds are different now."  The crowds aren't different.  We're different.  It's not the same game for us anymore ... because we aren't 17 anymore.  We got genre-savvy.  We're not moved by a great hook the way we used to be.  We're so bored of the "questgiver" that we can write out the script before the DM speaks.

Maybe ... maybe the new family is more important.  Maybe the job is more important.  Maybe it is a silly game.  Maybe it was fun while it lasted, but hey, sometimes we've just got to move on.  It's a part of growing up.  And hey ... I'm really tired of explaining what this game is to people anyway.  They never seem to get it.

It's hard to explain why I never felt that way.  I started playing with my 15-year-old friends in 1979.  By 1986 most of those were out of university and trade schools and looking for jobs.  By 1990, they had kids.  By 1994, they had two or three and were starting to feel the pinch of having to buy a house.  By then, none of them were playing in my world.  The last ones made their excuses and I took a personal break myself.  I should have quit.  My own daughter was six and I had responsibilities.  I was writing as a journalist, I was editing a magazine, I was having some tough times.

I wanted to work on the game.  I knew it wasn't the thing I'd been sold.  I knew that from the beginning.  It wasn't just a vehicle to put characters in front of monsters for the purpose of solving puzzles and resolving combats.  Some of that mattered; but there was a bigger thing going on, and though I never found anyone who admitted it, the whole human experience is capable of being measured by this game.

I couldn't let go of that.  I could contain the whole experience of the world in a story I wrote; I could write a play about anything and work to have it staged.  I could work with friends to make films.  I did work with plays and film; and I liked the group dynamic involved.  But it never matched the potential for me personally that I found with D&D.  I didn't need stages and equipment and all the trouble it took to make theatre and drama; I could produce that drama spontaneously, again and again, every weekend ... and every weekend the plot, the dilemma, the danger and the investment were always new.  They were always felt.

I can't imagine quitting.  But it breaks my heart that the game is so fucking hard that it breaks people's resolve to overcome the troubles involved with creating those weekends.  Cut out the rules, cut out the human factor, reduce the pain or the risk, simplify the decision-making process, reduce the player character structure to a facade, strip the gears, pull out the guts, don't give anyone cause to quit or walk out or feel inadequate.  Process the game in a blender until it oozes out as the greyest possible sludge.  Anything it takes so long as sitting down for a game session doesn't cost anything.  Because life, and relationships, and time, and imagination, and whatever else might be in short supply doesn't give us enough capital to pay that cost.

Whatever the reader might think, this is looking at the game positively.  For me, at least.  I can go through each one of the "negative" points above and see the cure.  D&D is hard.  It is hard enough to provide enough sustenance to keep our attention engaged ... if we're willing to engage ourselves.  And no, engagement does not mean watching another quick fix or easy answer video on youtube.  We have lost friends through the game. We've also made friends; and all that embarrassment has made us better friends that we would have had through sports or any other game.  It is hard to stand up to our friends; and it is hard to hurt them; but it is also a chance to find what we're made of, to stand up for something, to defend the hours of effort we've put in to create our worlds and to be respected for those worlds ~ even by people we've hurt by killing their characters.  When those players will take it, and stand up to it, and praise us for being true, we all win.  No one has to feel ashamed or servile.

We can make more game for those kids who want to play.  We can explain to them that it doesn't end at just the next adventure.  We can explain that the whole of human experience is available.  It doesn't have to be a simplified, two-dimensional game.  It can be more.  It can be art.  It can rise above what the gamestores and the company and even what the parents expect.

If we don't treat the game like make-believe fantasy nonsense, we won't show any doubt as we explain our part in it to anyone, not family, not co-workers, not counselor's, not even those who have played and want to say that it's just fun bullshit to do sometimes.  Being genre-savvy isn't a curse; it's an opportunity.  If the questgiver is an obvious trope, stop using it.  Find another way to engage players.  Find a better way.  Build a world that is so rife with opportunity that the players never feel they need be given a reason to adventure.  Rise above the grey.  The sky is blue.

Those who quit do so because they will not see what's next.  That doesn't have to be you.  There is always a next step.  To take it, however, you'll have to change your shoes.  You'll have to try a new road.  You'll have to stop walking the same familiar path.

And that will take work.


I have found another path.  I am finding it easier to publish positive posts about D&D when I know that not everyone is reading.  Those readers who are used to finding my posts on a regular basis can continue to do so, for a $3 donation a month through my patreon.  It's easy, it's painless and you can assure yourself that there are a month's worth of posts you can catch up on when you join.

Let me add, it doesn't hurt to give a little more if you'd like me to keep doing what I'm doing.  I love this game.  I want to keep showing its full potential.

The Finger

I have been doing some soul searching since yesterday morning, the impetus of which began with Bill Maher's show on Friday night.  Rest assured, this isn't about Maher; I have a love/hate relationship with the comedian that doesn't need elaboration, except to say that while I agree with many of his opinions, he's often stupid enough to believe that the presence of people like Anthony Scaramucci on his show can be called, in any way shape or form, "discourse."

On the far left of the image, however, you'll see a fellow named Tom Nichols, with whom I was not familiar ~ and yet, having my peculiarities, I liked the few things he was able to say and decided to google him.  That took me to this book launching of his work, The Death of Expertise.  The greatly enjoyed his talk, finding that the hour long video went by awfully fast ... and so decided to look for his book.  This I also found on youtube.

I've heard the whole book now and I feel ... informed.  It is a brilliant, brutal indictment of intelligentsia and those who believe they're intelligent, one that has me asking the question, do I really know what I'm talking about?  Who am I to call myself an expert on anything?  Maybe, I'm a deluded git with a blog who writes well but little else.  By what standard do I measure myself, when there is no standard I can point to in D&D, except for people whose work I dislike and did not find at all useful in running my game?  And as I write this, I am forced to recognize that criticism of such standards as, say, Gary Gygax, is part of the problem.

Nichols' position is that too many of us think we're experts, when really we're not.  As Nichols puts it in his book launching,

"We've gone from a healthy skepticism about experts to something different.  We've gone to a kind of epidemic of narcissism where we all think we can replace experts.  We all think that what experts do can't be that hard, and we could probably do it better ourselves."

When I started playing D&D in 1979, the notion that the game's rules were a "guideline" was not something I learned from reading the books, it was already a part of the culture.  It was something my DM at the time knew, it was something that the owner of the game shop The Sentry Box knew, even when that game show was a virtual non-entity on Crowchild Trail, with virtually no lighting and crummy carpet, hunkered in a space the size of a bedroom, it permeated the conversations I had with every person.  The game was meant to be adjusted, fixed, fitted to our campaigns, with gusto and without hesitation.  Without question, that element in the culture, that certainty that change was right and proper, both ensured the survival of the game and the entitled spawning of a generation of narcissists.  Because obviously, knowing that the game was there to be changed, and not necessarily knowing how, was something bound to end in a disaster of mythic proportions.

The principle dialogue today about D&D is not one about change, but about wrongness.  The act of defining wrongness, of calling it out, comes from a certainty that we know what "right" is.  And yet the definitions we have for "right" make no sense.  "Rules as written" is an idiotic platform, given that we have endless rules for multiple games scattered over dozens of publishers who all claim legitimacy through association, if not direct employment, with the originating company.  Every fired or discharged ex-contractor or ex-employee that ever worked with anyone is out here on the internet, claiming expertise, pointing the finger at wrongness, producing their own rules and redefining what the rules as written mean like so much 2nd century Christian theology.  No one can play the rules as written because no one, anywhere, has all the rules, or can hold all the rules in their head, a task made obviously harder in that the rules disagree endlessly with one another.  Yet there is a whole force out there claiming expertise in the obedience to rules, like Sufi muslims claiming inheritances in countries that have been conquered a dozen times since Fatima.

"Old School" is an equally ridiculous dogma, one that immediately demands a definition for the term itself, which cannot be agreed upon by anyone, even the discorporated entity that invented the concept.  I can point to arguments I had with people in 1980, before many supporters of the Old School were even born, by which the definition of the term would have been impossible to settle then, when certainly everything up to 1980 would have to be included in any definition made in 2019.  The ideal is narcissistically ridiculous ... yet people claim it, because it empowers the ability to point at wrong with pseudo-expertise, as though the words themselves conveyed a divine right available only to those who dare to evoke the shibboleth.  "Old School" is a myth.  I am no more Old School (though I am often defined as that by commentors seeking to put me in a box) than I am a child of the 60s Era.  I happen to have been born in the 1960s.  I happen to have played D&D in 1979 and 1980.  That is as much relevance as it has to my present existence or my present view of the game.

Any of us who are defined by this finger of wrongness feel the unfairness of its decree.  We are all so certain that we're the expert, we're the holder of the finger, we're the ones who have sacrificed the hours and made the mistakes and done the learning that distinguishes us from all these others around us who have clearly not learned from their mistakes.  They, not I, have taken their games down the wrong path.  They, not I, have fucked up alignment or class systems, point buys and worldbuilding.  I did the work.  I saw the right path.  And if we see someone whose path deviates from what we built, what we created, what we right now believe, out comes the finger of wrongness that declares that user unclean.  We are the expert.  Everyone should listen to us.

Speaking on the subject of politics, Tom Nichols notes:

"There are many examples of these brawls among what pundits and analysts gently refer to now as 'low-information voters.'  Whether about science or policy, however, they all share the same disturbing characteristics: a solipsistic and thin-skinned insistence that every opinion be treated as truth.  Americans no longer distinguish the phrase, 'you're wrong,' from the phrase, 'you're stupid.'  To disagree is to disrespect.  To correct another is to insult.  And to refuse to acknowledge all views as worthy of consideration, no matter how fantastic or inane they are, is to be close-minded."

This is not only true of politics but of every discourse on every subject everywhere on the internet.  My sins begin with describing multiple points of view on D&D as wrong, then in failing to acknowledge hundreds of frankly abusive, distracting, derailing or otherwise useless comments delivered to my rhetoric as something I needed to debunk and correct.  I went into the blogging field with the belief that I could teach and failed to recognize that people who already believe they're more expert than I could ever hope to be.  And who am I to say that I am not exactly like them?  Upon what do I base any right myself to correct or teach anyone?

Do I point to my intelligence?  Intelligence can easily be a delusion.  As David Dunning wrote, regarding the Dunning-Kruger Effect,

"In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed or cautious.  Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that makes them feel like knowledge."

That could easily be me.  My whole existence could be based on a set of beliefs and decisions that I've made that are leading me into actions that I define as "right" but which are only a misunderstanding ~ one that I have perhaps perpetrated for 40 years.

Do I point to my readers, those who support me on Patreon?  Is that really the measure I want to rely upon for my credibility?  Defining value based on one's followers seems a frightening path.  I don't mean to disparage you, my generous readers, but I am profoundly uncomfortable defining my worth by what others think of me.  I would far rather have something more concrete to point to ~ assuming that any rock I might find isn't just one of my own imagination, conveniently erected in the sea for me to stand on.

The question is made worse by the very nature of the role-playing field.  It is barely recognized by game theorists.  The official makers and distributors are willing to do whatever it takes to monetize the occupation, including dumbing it down so that children as young as four can play it.  There are no accredited sources, no examples of play that are not tainted by the stain of commercialism, no scientific studies and no doctoral theses that I know about discussing the effects of the game on child rearing, developmental education, social impact, inter-relational psychology or any like research I might postulate.  The "experts" who are often named, such as Gygax or David Arneson, either didn't live or barely lived to see 4th Edition and were not even here when 5th Edition was launched ... and yet 5e is named as by far the most popular version of the game now being played.  There are no new independent experts to take their place.  Who exists to comment on the game whose bread and butter doesn't ultimately depend on the game?  Accreditation, and any chance of recognition of same, is a fantasy.

And so why not feel that any of us are "the expert" ~ who is to say we are not?  Except, of course, all the other "experts" who snarl endlessly in the Reddit and Twitter pits over the tiny bones of gameplay.  What atmosphere is this to provide for the value of any opinion?

"The death of expertise is like a national bout of fueled temper.  A childish rejection of authority, in all its forms, coupled to an insistence that strongly held opinions are indistinguishable from facts.  Experts are supposed to clear up this kind of confusion, or at least serve as guides through the thicket of confusion issues, but who are the real experts?"

Based on premises put forward by Nichols, without quoting every line, I'd like to start with the reasonable dictum that we cannot all be experts.  I'll admit and confess as well that my agenda here is to put forward the case and the evidence for my being an expert, without defacto stating that I am not.  Perhaps I am not ... and certainly there are many, many people who believe that case is settled.  I do not do this to convince others, but to convince me.  I am the jury ~ and if I cannot find sufficient evidence to convince myself, than I am the first who should condemn my behaviour and assign myself to rehabilitation.  I am at least self-aware enough to know that many would not, or could not, conceivably think in such a manner:  the aforementioned Dunning-Kruger effect would discount any possibility of that, since I should believe that I'm absolutely an expert were I so deluded.  On the contrary, I'm ready to admit I've been wrong, and could be wrong again, about things I believe and hills I've been prepared to die on.

We don't need to propound upon the evidence: it is here on my blogs for the eyes of any reader to examine at will.  But there will be some need to trot it out and make it dance for the court.

Experts have specific skills.  I need not question my skill as a writer, it is proclaimed for me by others almost daily.  I need not question my skill as a fantasy map-maker, it is, again, proclaimed by others routinely, whenever I post a map.

I have a clear skill as an online DM.  Were I able to restart my campaign today, I am not in doubt that my players would be happy to join and would only not do so due to their commitments and my own inconsistencies as a reliable DM.  If my online campaign fails, it is because I am not running it, and not because I do not know how.

When I write, I typically sketch out a thousand words or more on a subject; if I feel I haven't made my point, I will write more.  Often I write multiple posts on a single subject.  If I find some flaw in the material, I will write on the subject again, pointing out the flaw.  Where I have a shortcoming in some ideal, or where I'm unable to explain it sufficiently, I stop trying to explain it ... until I find a new approach.

I have now failed to sufficiently describe my proposed regional development concept three times.  Whereas most bloggers would carefully never discuss the concept again, or perhaps rush to admit that it was a bad idea from the start, to bury it forever, I am merely rethinking it.  It is on the drawing board, not in the trash.  Often, I take a position today on something that disagrees with something I said five or six years ago.  When I am accused of disagreeing with myself, I own it.  I do disagree with me.  Old me is not as smart as present me.  And I know that present me is not as smart as future me.  That is why I seek out books like The Death of Expertise and why I search to discover something about random people who turn up in television talk shows.  Because I am always searching, always looking for other people to teach me and turn me into future me.

I am often accused of arguing there is "one true way" to play D&D.  This is odd, since I don't play D&D right now the way that past me played it 30 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago or even 2 years ago.  I don't believe all the same things past me believed when pass me said them ~ and past me did not believe all the things that super-past me believed.  I can point to a hundred ways that I have played the game; so where is this "one true way" that I'm accused of?  I don't even play D&D "my" way.  Or won't, two years from now.

This relates to another thing that experts do.  Experts create "new knowledge."  I am not merely trying to move a pile of dirt three feet to the left and calling it a different pile.  We are familiar with megadungeons.  Is there anything "new" about a new megadungeon?  Have we a "new" way to design a game module?  If so, I'm not seeing it.  Are we advancing the science or practice of dungeon mastering?  When I see "experts" in D&D talk about DMing, I see language equivalent to the self-actualization of self-help books.  We are told to believe in ourselves.  To do it "our way."  To "have fun."  To surrender ourselves to the impulsivity of doing whatever seems necessary in the moment to create "a good game" ~ be that fudging or changing the game world to fit whatever the players said five seconds ago or to practice godmodding.  D&D is used as therapy for those who are having a hard week.  Behaviour rules at game cons strategize to offer players "self-care" and "safe space" in enable their free and friendly socialization in an environment populated by complete strangers.  The rhetoric is turning itself on its head to provide healthy coping skills for DMs and players alike and calling this  a pathway to better game play.

Is this right?  Playing the game with my friends, both on and off line, did I find myself wanting more strategies enabling me to care for the social and entertainment needs of my players?  I can't say that it was.  Going back as far as I can remember, it has always seemed that we all wanted to play and that our reasons for play were not part of the dialogue.  That it has become part of the dialogue is not in doubt.  DMs are told how to run by their players, who want the DM to "be in charge" but yet to consent to their demands unequivocably.  And I have read rules from game stores and game cons that threaten to cast out DMs who do not accede to this expectation.  These rules are themselves being written by people like John Stavropoulous, inventor of the x-card, who has become famous overnight.

I can say without hesitation that this is not my D&D.  But is it D&D?  Yes, today it is.

I believe that I am creating new concepts in D&D but it is not this.  I am concerned with the game itself and not its participation, its popularity, its social function, its public relations or in the welfare it provides for thousands finding their one night of solace in a week of stress and discouragement.  My concerns about a player's mood surrounding the game has everything to do with their attention and focus.  I am not responsible for the contentment of other people ~ and charges that I am stem from Nichols' words, quoted above, that argues that holding the player to a standard is calling the player stupid, that denying a player an action for game reasons is disrespect, that adhering to the rules is insulting and that my choice not to run my game with the sole intention of satisfying the player is a personal, vindictive, emotional attack on everything they believe about themselves.

I won't argue that it isn't.  Upon what basis would I use to argue such an assumption, other than my opinion?  I'm in a box.  If I don't service the player, the exact way the player expects to be served, then I'm wrong.  And since I cannot ever truly know what the player expects, as the laws of the physical world do not supply me with that capacity, I am at the mercy of the player, who is free to tell me when I am wrong and why, without fear of in turn being wrong or having to explain themselves.

I have only one answer to such a charge.

Get.  Out.

To have the freedom to give this answer, I cannot ever run a game in a space I do not control.  And likewise, to write freely as an individual, whether or not I am an expert, I must write in a space that I control.  Or in a space where another person who believes what I believe about social behaviour agrees to support my unrestrained freedom to DM as I will, or write as I will.  No other option is available.

Final argument.  I want to be an expert on game play and upon methods of comprehending and running D&D as a game.  Towards that end I work to educate myself and follow the dictates of fields where expertise is accredited ~ and where that expertise can be quoted and interpreted in how it affects D&D.  In a field where no expert exists, and everyone is an expert, this is my sole means of enlightening myself and others towards something better than writing another self-help book for DMs.