Politics -- One Last Time

This one's going to be long, meandering, and a bit all over the place. If you want something shorter (and lighter), you can check out yesterday's Blood Bowl nonsense.

SO...let's start with my health. Was sick as a dog over the weekend...had to miss pretty much everything on my schedule and felt like crap to boot. Turns out I had (and still have...despite few remaining symptoms) COVID for the second time. Such a weird illness...it affects different people differently. For my daughter (who was also down) she mainly complained of a sore throat and sniffle. For me, it was non-stop cough...much like the chronic bronchitis I used to come down with every year for the first 12-13 years after I quit smoking. Oh, and constant sweating without fever. Just weird.

Now it's got my wife (she's coughing, too, though not as bad as I was), and my son just woke up achey with a sore throat (though he's still testing negative). Second time round for all of us, and mainly just a pain in the ass. Which, I'm sure, sounds pretty dismissive to people who saw friends and loved ones DIE to the damn thing during the first wave of the pandemic. But that's where we are now. I didn't contract COVID (the first time) till sometime in 2023 and...I'm guessing due to the multiple vaccines I've taken...I've never had it worse than a bad cold. Hell, I've had walking pneumonia (and the aforementioned bronchial infections) that taxed me more and lingered longer. Heck, I've had bog-standard sinus-infections that I found more irritating and inconvenient (since I find it impossible to carry on my normal life blowing my nose every five minutes). But still...yeah. COVID still sucks.

Yet the "forced break" in activity did give me a chance to reflect and reset a bit (hey! look! two blog posts in two days!). I've actually been reflecting on a good number of things the last couple-four weeks, but stopping to breathe (*ahem*) has allowed me to coalesce some of those reflections. 

With regard to politics (uh-oh!) I've found myself shifting in the way I think and approach the...mm..."messy" political landscape of the day. Perhaps this comes from not having much interest in the current Presidential race. I mean there's literally nothing I can imagine happening that would cause me to shift my vote (nor prevent me from voting) so the speeches and debates have about as much impact/interest for me as the advertising/propaganda...i.e. about the same level of curiosity as a car wreck on the freeway, something to cast a quick glance towards as I speed along to my actual destination. 

And, yet, I've found myself watching multiple interviews and discussions with actual Republican constituents discussing, candidly and thoughtfully, their reasons for supporting their party and their candidate...interviews and discussions that weren't full of crazy and/or conspiracy stuff.  And I find my stance towards these people...towards Republicans...has softened considerably. And not in a high-minded, "pitying the ignorant or misinformed" bullshitty way. I mean, I appreciate and...in many cases...agree with their beliefs and values which echo so many of my own. 

Goddamnit. They're still Americans. And Goddamnit. So am I.

People who preach fear and hate of the "other" (immigrants, muslims, queer folk, etc.) for political gain or who try to make a buck off peoples' religious devotion...those folks can still all eat a pile of shit. But people wearing MAGA hats and flying Trump flags in their yard? Nah. I get you. I dig where you're coming from. And I'm willing to love and embrace you as fellow Americans. Stay strong in your values. Vote as your conscience dictates. I want you in my nation. 

Two anecdotes (one new and one I believe I've mentioned before) that I want to relate:

Two Saturdays ago, the Washington State University Cougars beat the University of Washington Huskies in a shallow version of the Apple Cup played in Seattle at Lumen Field (the Seahawks stadium). For folks who don't follow college football, this was the first time in 124 years that it had been played as "non-conference" game, due to the wholesale dismantling of the historic PAC-12, aka The Conference of Champions. As usual, I was rooting for WSU because, having attended Seattle University (cross-town rivals in non-football sports), I long ago cast my lot with my many Coug alumni friends, all of whom live in the greater Seattle area, and many of whom grew up here just as I did. 

Despite the game being played in Seattle there was plenty of red & grey in attendance (not surprising given that at least a quarter of WSU alumni live on this side of the Cascades). After the Cougar victory, the WSU fans began chanting "USA! USA! USA!"...a little strange given this wasn't a game between different nations, like a World Cup match or Olympic event. When one WSU supporter was asked the reason for this chanting, the woman replied:

"Because we're from small towns! We're part of the REAL America, unlike this evil fucking city."

That's one anecdote.

The other, which I'm sure I've related before, is regarding my friend Jon. I haven't actually seen or hung out with Jon since pre-pandemic; he and his wife, Maggie, were good friends of ours but we've drifted apart in recent years mostly (I believe) due to the disparity in the ages of our kids (it took my wife and I five years trying before we got our first) and thus a branching of our social circles.

Probably the last time our families got together was a few months prior to the last presidential election, and I'd guess that Jon is thrilled about Kamala Harris being the Dem's candidate for president. Thrilled because he was a strong supporter of hers the LAST time there was a presidential election (before she ended up dropping out). I was not a big fan of Harris at the time, for lots of reasons (mainly inexperience), but she was the "clear choice" for Jon, just as Bernie Sanders had been his "clear choice" for the 2016 race (a race in which I was supporting Clinton). Jon, you see, is a progressive Democrat. He is all about the progressive agenda/platform. He's only a year younger than me and we share a lot in common: we're left-leaning liberals, college educated, pro-union, big sports fans. But he was raised in urban Chicago with a single mother, an estranged father, and no religious upbringing. With regard to Dungeons & Dragons, he has no interest, and never has; he remembers the game being around when he was growing up, but:

"I always got the impression it was only a white person's game."

Now, for the record, Jon is white: 100% caucasian. So is his wife. So are their two kids (both of whom are their non-adopted, biological offspring). But Jon is all about diversity...the more diversity the better. He is all about squelching anything that stands as a throwback to an older, whiter paradigm. Because "old" and "white" does not equal progress. And we must make progress, dammit! That's one reason he insists on his children going to public schools, rather than an elitist, private school like the Catholic one my children attend.

Of course, his kids tested into the Robert Eagle Staff school...a public school that boasts a higher academic curriculum than other (public) elementary schools. It has a 55.6% caucasian student population compared to the 45.4% average of Seattle public schools.  Meanwhile, my kids' "elitist" school is only 53.3% white, though the actual numbers vary from grade to grade: my son's class is only 50% white, for instance, while my daughter's class is only 40% white.

[FWIW my multi-racial son's best friend is a blonde haired white kid that goes to public school. Both kids love playing D&D]

I do not recount these anecdotes to make anyone feel good, bad, superior, inferior, etc. Neither do I recount them to sway you to my side of any "political" argument or spectrum. I am simply sharing stories I have...stories that linger in my thoughts; stories that color my reflections.

We are...all of us...unreasonable at times. I certainly am. There are many, MANY times when I get my teeth in some silly argument, some nonsensical side of some truly non-mattering pissing war and absolutely refuse to let go. You see it countless times through the history of this blog. Fighting for one edition of Dungeons & Dragons over another. Fighting for one style of play over another. Fighting for one particular value or perspective over another. And when we are "unreasonable" it doesn't mean that we are without reason (at least, that's not how I intend the term to be used), but that we are unwilling to reason, i.e. to entertain, or even listen to, the reasons of another (reasoning) human being.

And yet, on this blog, I actually do try to be reasonable, more often than not. Most of my "unreasonable moments" occur off-screen, mainly (sadly) with my wife and often (almost always) with later regret. It is a challenge I have, and one I have never really attempted to address...at least not with serious intent (as I've addressed other challenging aspects of my personality over the years). It is only now, with some reflection, that I am even thinking about it: how, in the heat of 'battle,' I cease to consider that other reasoning individuals have reasonable reasons of their own. 

[and how many times have I whined and complained about the unreasonableness of others without addressing my own unreasoning?]

As I predicted at the beginning: this post is long and meandering. But I'm going to try to wind it to a close, for those folks who've been hanging on this long.

Waaaay back in 2021 (just a bit more than three years ago), I wrote a blog post describing how I would no longer allow an individual's political agenda inform my opinion or support of the person as pertains to gaming and game design. There are political conservatives who are one the same page with me when it comes to this hobby, and there are plenty of political liberals who aren't.  Having taken that stance has served me well in the practice of my vocation.

However, with these recent reflections, I've decided I'm going to take a similar approach to people in general. I've never faulted anyone for not sharing my religion (a religion I was born into), any more than I've "faulted" anyone for not sharing my particular skin tone. Considering that my political party is at least as much due to my own parents (both Democrats) as it is to ideology, it's about time I stop faulting people for being part of the Right. I'm just not going to waste any more time/energy getting bent out of shape over how a person wants to vote. Like zero. I like that I live in a country where I get to vote; I've been voting since I was 18, and even voted (absentee) during the years I was in Paraguay. We are LUCKY we are a people who get a say in who gets elected to run this country. I want every eligible voter to vote...not enough people vote! It's friggin' AMERICAN to vote.

Vote how you want. It's fine.

Because, man, O man am I tired of hating people. And for the longest time I just hated Republicans: Hawks and Neo-Cons and Christian Rights and Tea Partyers and gun nuts and conspiracy theorists and...just...all of it. But, heck, I hated a lot of Democrats, too...O So Many Dems, from uber-progressives to spineless intellectuals to clueless braindead hippies to ineffectual Hope-fulls trying to Build Consensus Like A Grown-Up Society Should...and getting nothing accomplished. Oh: and the conspiracy theorists on the Left (that's its own rabbit hole you don't want to delve).

I'm done with it...with ALL of it.  I don't hate you, my fellow Americans. I love you. With all your weirdness. We are a weird group of people, we Americans. We are also a Great people. We are BLESSED to live in a country that not only tolerates but THRIVES on having so many different, screwed up peoples in it. It is what makes us SO POWERFUL. And man O man, we have FUCKED UP a LOT of things over the years...for both ourselves and the rest of the world. But we've also done a lot of good stuff, too.  I truly believe this "American experiment" has been a net positive force for good on this planet. 

Whatever your political persuasion is All Right By Me. I'm going to judge people solely by their actions from now on, rather than their bumper stickers. Strange thing: I've met very few people in my life that I'd qualify as true assholes...and of those I can recall, I don't recall any of them being particularly political. Being a true asshole means being a pretty un-caring individual, and people who don't care are (I've found) disinclined to vote at all. 

I'd rather people care. Even if they care in a different way from how I care. 

So there you go. I don't anticipate having much more to say about politics in the future (I might mention something about the results of the November election...maybe a "yay" or a "boo" depending on the result). Everyone who's read my blog for the last upteen number of years knows how I vote anyway, and I no longer care how YOU vote (I just hope you do vote...). And...as I get my strength/mojo back...you should expect to see more 'gaming related' posts in the future. 

Thank you for today's indulgence. 

Fighting The "Good" Fight

I'm a bit cranks this week...one kid has been sick with a cough/cold and my brother has been his usual pain-in-the-ass self. So...yeah, this might come off as extra grumpy.

Sometimes, I wonder why I bother trying to "help" people...why I bother casting my "pearls" before "swine." Not on this blog, no...this blog serves a very useful, very personal purpose.

[for the curious: the blog gives me a place to ruminate and vent and spout off. It gives me a place to practice my writing. It gives me a promote myself and interact with the community. All useful things]

But, no, I'm talking in other places. Commenting on other folks' blogs or in forums or on social media or whatever. So often I read something, somewhere, and I feel this inclination, this urge to offer something useful...not just throw in my two cents, but wax on in a way that (I hope) might help resolve someone's issue. Regardless of whether or not they asked for advice.

And to be fair, sometimes the essays I write on this blog are made with a similar objective in mind: I feel there's a need to HELP people even when, perhaps, there's no one really asking for help. Sometimes, I feel like I must come off as the kid in the class that is always raising their hand to answer every question the teacher asks...to the fatigue and resentment of everyone else in the room. Am I, acting as a "know-it-all," actually contributing anything? Or is this just another form of narcissism? I wonder that sometimes. And sometimes I wonder if I should just shut up and keep my thoughts to myself. Even as I continue to vomit forth my opinions across the ether-sphere.

Most recently, I posted on reddit. This is something I don't remember ever doing (I spend next to ZERO time reading reddit). I get spam-bot emails in my inbox from the site, usually on subjects their AI thinks will be of interest to me ("Why don't people use the cell phone lot at Sea-Tac?" was one from this morning). Normally, I simply hit 'delete' and move on, but yesterday's one piqued me so hard I found it impossible to resist. It was titled "I think I'm burnt out on being a DM." And the poster wrote:

So I started playing DnD in 2004 when I was in like 4th grade. I remember going into a local game shop with my dad and seeing the book. I remember being immediately interested and begged my dad for it. Well he caved and bought it for me and unknowingly gave me a hobby I still love to this day. 

At first I just kinda read the book over and over again absorbing the charts and dreaming of cool things to do. It wasn’t a till a few years later I actually got to play. It was the best day of my life. I was a dwarf paladin (original I know). 

Anyways for quite a while now I’ve been a DM (I am a player in one camping now though). Anyways I just find dnd has gotten so hard to DM (with new players mostly) who have watched one to many campaigns online with professional DMs and actual voice actors and cool effects. 

So by the time they get to my table they have such lofty expectations I just feel personally like I’m not meeting their expectations. It’s always “well this dm I was did this not that.” 

Maybe I’m just burnt out of being a DM, but I just want everyone to have the best time possible. 

So what I came here to ask is does anyone else feel this way or am I just being whiny lol?

Also im I’m thinking about switching systems just to freshen things up for me. Any recommendations? My games tend to be more narrative with emphasis put on story and character development. There’s still a good deadly fight every once in a while to keep the players on their toes. I think like an Ancient Greek/roman campaign would be cool. Any systems out there dedicated to that?

And I thought: oh, this poor guy. Twenty years he's been doing this...TWENTY. YEARS. A not insignificant amount of time. And now he's, what, probably thirty, and he's got no clue, and he's coming to frigging REDDIT for advice. And the "advice" found in the responses? Stuff like: switch games! Run Savage Worlds! Run GURPS! 5E is sooo hard; try Pathfinder 2E instead! Get away from D&D so people don't compare you to all those streaming shows. 

Just. Bull. Pucky.

So I wrote up the following (because, you know, I wanted to be helpful):

I've been DMing for more than 40 years; started with Basic (B/X) D&D back in 1981/2 and have played through a multitude of other RPGs over the decades (TSR, White Wolf, Palladium, Chaosium, various indie games, etc.). These days I am an exclusive AD&D (1E) DM and have been for five years. My last bout of GM ennui ("burnout") came in 2019. It's not unusual, and I can give you my roadmap for getting out of it and never going back.

First: understand and acknowledge your love for this hobby. Something about it compels you to run games (evidenced by the 20 years you've put in). That's fantastic! Respect your calling...not everyone has it. Realize that this is a passion that can last a lifetime; even avid golfers will someday have to give up walking the course (or get replacement knees/hips)...you can play D&D so long as your mind retains cognitive function and you can roll dice.

Second: now that you've acknowledged that you're in it for the "long haul," you've got to get to work. You must respect the game and respect the process...you can always get better at what you do. Sure, some days aren't as good as others, but so long as you're committed to your game, that matters little...you are playing to play, not to be a video celebrity. You must think of your game as perpetual (i.e. "ongoing," even though there may be periods of hiatus).

Third: there are three parts to being a Dungeon Master; they are (in descending order of importance): A) running the game, B) world building, and C) managing the players. To be a DM you need to be able to run the game with "mastered competence" (so competent that you can teach another player). Pick one system/edition, learn it, stick with it. House rule as necessary, but try to keep actual changes/modifications to a minimum. The best designed edition for long-term play is 1E, but if you feel more comfortable with something else, use it. Master it. Once you've done that, you can move onto building your world.

Fourth: recognize that you are not the same person you were at age 20, let alone age 10. Just as we grow and develop and change, our game must evolve and mature. You will get far more satisfaction out of running a serious game, and creating a serious world, then you will playing the types of game you did as a teenager. Supplement your mastery of the system with real world information on geography and history. Incorporate these things into your game, especially that pertaining to economics, military, politics, and religion. Our own world is fascinating and (more often then not) directly adaptable to our games. You create both depth and verisimilitude when including such things.

Five: despite this being a social game, you must make sure you are pleasing yourself. You cannot give a good game to the players if you are not enjoying the process. The players will enjoy the game far more, and be far more engaged if the DM is enthusiastic about the game being delivered. This may mean that some players quit your game (because they don't like the way you're running)...and THAT'S OKAY. There are always more people wanting to play than there are people willing to act as GM. You CANNOT run a lasting, satisfying game if you do not like the game you're running; it is far better to shake aside the folks who are discontent, and find like-minded people wanting to play the game YOU want to run. Be patient and respect the process...the players will come.

Integrate all this into your psyche and you'll find yourself able to sustain a lifetime of gaming. There's no burnout when you embrace something as a vocation...and you can treat your game mastering as one, if you choose to do so.

For more information on the particular style of D&D play I espouse, you might take a listen to the Classic Adventure Gaming podcast (lot of younger folks are getting back into the old methods of play). Cheers, and happy gaming. 

; )

Yeah. Helpful. That's me. 

Here's the part I should have paid more attention to: the final paragraph. Truth be told, I read everything down to the "am I whiny LOL?" part and then went OFF like the hair-trigger reactionary I am. If I'd bothered to read more closely, I would have seen THIS:

Also im I’m thinking about switching systems just to freshen things up for me. Any recommendations? My games tend to be more narrative with emphasis put on story and character development. There’s still a good deadly fight every once in a while to keep the players on their toes. I think like an Ancient Greek/roman campaign would be cool. Any systems out there dedicated to that?

Ah. D&D isn't what this guy wants at all. No wonder the guy's burned out...he's playing the wrong f'ing game.

This is the problem. Well, maybe not "the" problem. But it's certainly "a" problem, and "the" reason that I keep continuing to throw my hat in the ring. This. THIS. That people no longer understand just WHAT THE F--- D&D IS.

Matt Mercer and all his imitators. They have screwed people. Hickman Revolution/2E Storytelling. They have screwed people. WotC disavowing themselves from any type of clarification, only attempting to make the game EVERYTHING to EVERYONE so as to draw more customers (and put more dollars in their bank accounts). They have screwed people. Screwed them UP. People just don't know what the hell they're doing, what they're supposed to be doing, what makes the game the game.

Here's what I probably should have written instead:

Dude. If you want to write a story in an ancient Greek or Roman setting, then GO DO THAT. Don't waste your time with the role-playing hobby. Write your short story, write your novel, write your screenplay...whatever medium you feel would work best for your narrative structure. Perhaps an on-going television series with a "fight of the week" every episode. Write that...get collaborators if you need help finding 'voices' for the different characters, or individual story arcs. 

You are burnt out on DMing D&D because you want it to do things that it is not well-designed to do. 

The "G" in RPG stands for "game." Are you interested in playing a game? Then play the game. Play the game as its written. Are points awarded for "cool effects" and "actual voice actors?" No. Not in any edition of the game. Are you directing a show? Or are you running a game?

Your disillusionment comes from this disconnect with what you THINK the game is for and what it actually does. Your disconnect comes from your ignorance. This is not your fault; this is the fault of the company producing the game. They are a for-profit business enterprise. They are not interested in disillusioning you of your false notions; they are ONLY INTERESTED IN YOUR DOLLARS. "Sure, D&D can be anything you want it to be," is the general company line...the subtext being "please continue to pay us, thanks." 

The only way to cut through your discontent is to decide what you want to do with your life, with your time, and then embrace it wholeheartedly. Do you want to tell stories and see interesting characters change over time? Then go write stories. Stop futzing around with this D&D thing, get off your ass, and go write your stories. Publish them if you like, or share them with your friends, or simply enjoy them yourself: enjoy the act of creation, enjoy the clever unfolding of the plot and circumstance you've created. Write for yourself...it doesn't need to be a money-making endeavor! Playing D&D isn't making you any money! So why should it matter whether or not your works are ever read by anyone other than yourself or your close circle of friends and family?

D&D is best played as a game. It is a lovely game, a delightful game, one of the greatest ever designed. But it is not a good medium for creating "stories." Do not confuse shows like Critical Role for actual game play; actual game play does not look like that. This is something I would expect you to know and understand, having started playing the game long before 2015 (when Critical Role debuted). If not, then I am sorry, but you were taught how to play by some very wrongheaded person. Again, this is probably not their fault: the company selling the D&D game has far less interest in teaching how to play their game, and far more interest in making as much money as possible.

Apologies for being a downer. Best of luck!

Yeah, that would have been a more practical response for this particular individual.  But would it have been helpful?  Or would the guy simply have seen me as a "hater," trashing his game and those things he loves and holds dear (especially his misconceptions)? 

I'm guessing the latter.

Which brings me back to my original somewhat/kinda'/semi-stated question: why bother? Should I bother? People are so touchy these days, so defensive, so prone to polarization. Recently Bryce Lynch reviewed a terrible adventure module in his usual caustic, incendiary manner. The author was so incensed he made the PDF freely available for other reviewers to judge for themselves and...whadya' know...some folks took up the challenge, giving clinical, measured, detailed explanations of why, yes, this IS in fact a terrible adventure module.  Two different approaches to saying the same thing, and yet the response from the author was the same in both cases: hey, I'll fix the typos, but this dreck make me money y'all so I'm going to keep on a-churning it out. Suck it.

SO: nothing constructive accomplished either way.

Why bother? There are a load of shitty products on the shelves at grocery stores that are absolutely not good for humans to consume...and yet people spend money on them, people consume them, and the store restocks the shelves. Even those of us who have some capacity for discernment...sometimes we just say, screw it, it's been a tough day/week/year, give me a bottle of the hard stuff and a giant box of Twinkies. It happens. It's understandable. I get it.

Should we just give in to apathy? Let the world go to hell? Live our own lives and ignore insanity and ridiculousness because we can't make any real difference?

Yeah, no. I'm going to say "no" to apathy.  There's already too much apathy in the world. Perhaps being (the writing equivalent of) a loud-mouthed, opinionated curmudgeon isn't always always helpful or terribly constructive; perhaps it doesn't reach all that many people; perhaps the effort required is (mostly) wasted.

And yet, if I just shut the hell up what would THAT accomplish? Nothing at all, right? 

I'm inclined to think that ain't a better solution. 

No one's required to like what I have to say. No one's required to listen/read what I have to say. Hopefully, I am penning my thoughts in places they can be easily ignored by folks for whom my thoughts come across as nonsense. I don't really want to inconvenience anyone, after all.

But I'm going to "keep bothering" after all, here and elsewhere, as my time and energies allow me to do. I'm not sure I'd call it "fighting the good fight" more like "creating food for thought." Though I admit that, personally, I do seem to thrive on a bit of conflict. Rising to the challenge, and all that jazz.

Okay. Enough babble for now.

Restraint

I need to write.

The trip to Orlando was a good one. Made it to the gate by the skin of our teeth (both ways!), but made it we did. The weather was lovely: cloudless, sunny days in the 70s-80s. Four days at the Universal parks and a couple days at Disney, and saw and rode on all the attractions we'd planned/intended. Very, very stress free for the most part, which is...frankly...amazing. No explosive arguments or catastrophes, and we even picked up a bunch of merch that we were (somehow) able to fit in our carry-ons without checking a single bag (we hate checking bags).

Lot of sickness, though. I picked up a sinus infection on the plane ride there, and it took me a couple days to get over it (but I managed). Then my daughter caught a cold the second to last day we were there and was able to pass it on to my wife and I just as we were pulling up stakes. Now back in Seattle, my daughter is on the mend, I'm, mm, pretty rough, and my wife is sick as a dog. However, tests show all four of us are negative for Covid, so there's that.

["masking" is not on the menu in Orlando. In six days at theme parks among thousands of people we saw exactly one mask on one employee (to be fair, we weren't wearing them either, outside the airport). But we saw a LOT of coughing and sneezing people, and plenty of snot-nosed children. I get it: you drop a load of cash on a Disney vacation and you're not going to skip it because you got a sniffle. Probably, I'm just germ-phobic in these post-pandemic times, but it's nice to be back in Seattle where no one bats an eye if you decide to wear a mask to the grocery store...hey, man, I'm protecting YOU, too]

Longest wait time for a ride was 2+ hours for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Second longest was about an hour plus for (tie between Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain). I do not like waiting in lines, but it is far easier to do with your family than solo (as I did with Space Mountain). But 2.5 hours definitely tries your patience, even with company. I mean, it really, really does. Probably a good idea to bring a cheap paperback novel. 

Most disappointing ride: Pirates of the Caribbean. I've been to Disney Land thrice in my life (once in Tokyo!) but never Disney World and not for 30+ years. Pirates has long been my favorite ride, and DW's version was: crap. I mean, it's obnoxious anyway that they've had to insert animatronic Johnny Depp into multiple scenes because of the stupid movies (at least I didn't have to see animatronic Orlando Bloom)...but the ride is SHORT...they cut out whole scenes from the DL ride, characters that were the basis for the original movie (like the bomb dude), all the undead/ghost stuff and...I don't know. It felt cheap and chintzy. And I just heard they're getting rid of the original ride at Disney Land, too, changing it for "Jake the Pirate" which is just...*sigh.*  I guess what counts as "adventure" for AdventureLand in the 21st century isn't the same as the 20th. Don't scare the kiddies with grim brutes and bloody cutlasses. Heavens!

The Magic Kingdom did seem geared to a younger audience. Asking for a beer in LibertyTown, the colonial-dressed cashier told me point blank "There will be no alcohol in the Magic Kingdom" in an ominous tone of voice. Like, none? Quite the contrast with Universal's theme parks, where the tourists are walking around with double-fisted pints from 9 in the morning. I mean, that's the way to wait in line (assuming it curls by a restroom). 

[DW's other parks...like Disney Hollywood...were a bit looser than Magic Kingdom in this regard. Though I heard from an Uber driver that a flight of beers at the SW Cantina costs $85!  Holy-moly! Most of the booze cost $12 from what I saw, but I'm not sure the additional $6 shot of rum would save that blue milk. Not my taste]

ANYway, all bitchin-moaning aside, we had a splendid time. Not sure if I'm a fan of the whole 3D/4D rides, as THOSE things made me far more queasy than ANY of the roller-coasters (especially that Escape From Hogwarts thing that the kids made me go on...twice! Nearly tossed my cookies every time we zoomed onto the Quidditch field). But those were mostly at Universal, where you could always grab a beer or a Bloody Mary to settle your stomach afterwards. And beautiful, sunny weather to stand around and drink it in (he says as he looks at the wind and hail...hail!...outside)...the fam had me cooking asado last night for Fat Tuesday and I was grilling in the pouring rain!

By the way, shout out to our hotel, the Cabana Bay (part of Universal) with its 1960s retro-modern vibe. Wow. Loved it...every bit of it. It was like a theme park unto itself (that theme being "1965"). But an extremely relaxing one. 

The one thing I didn't do much of, however, was writing. Oh, I had the chance to do some writing...mostly on the six hour plane rides. But a lot of it was just...mm...not "mean-spirited," so much as just negative. I find, more-and-more, that a lot of what I'm inclined to write about (at least, with regard to commentary) is poking holes in things that others praise...or bringing a hammer to things that others are "okay" with. 

I know, I know...I've blogged before about wanting to be constructive and positive, rather than destructive and negative. I don't really want to start singing that song again.

But it occurs to me that maybe there's a purpose for my negativity. Maybe.

Still, it's Lent and I want to practice a little restraint. Yes, I have one or two half-cocked (well, half-penned) rants waiting to be fired off, but I think I want to get a little more above the weather before I post 'em to Ye Old Blog. Just to make sure my heart's in the right place, I want to make sure my head is clear and non-stuffed.

[okay, now it's freaking snowing. Jeez]

This weekend...well, tomorrow, actually...the fam is headed out west to Port Angeles. My uncle recently passed away, and while there's no formal funeral or memorial (as my father told me long ago, folks in Port Angeles "never really took much to religion") there's a "get together" of friends and family at a (kid friendly) tavern. Very Port Angeles. 

[yes, in Port Angeles they're called "taverns," not bars or pubs, at least by the locals. Most places tend to have a nautical theme to it as well...restaurants have names like The Hook & Line or Smuggler's Landing or 48 Degrees North. My grandfather...and late uncle...ran a tavern called The Wreck for decades...]

SO, I'll be gone this weekend (again) starting tomorrow, and I've got a bunch of packing and whatnot to do before then, as well as a D&D session to prep/run. So...maybe regular blogging to resume again on Monday? I'm hoping. 

Hey...at least I didn't give up blogging for Lent this year.

; )

Later, ya' land-lubbers!

Quarantine

My boy has COVID. That sucks. Three years of avoiding the virus and here it is. 

Yesterday, he was a bit of a wreck. He's much better today...eating a big ol' pile of food and watching TV (in the other room) as I type this. I'm guessing he'll be ready for soccer again by tomorrow, but protocol requires he not participate till Wednesday. School he can go back to on Tuesday.

Fortunately, Diego's the stoutest of the family as far as general health and immune system, I am REALLY hoping we can keep it from passing around the household as we're supposed to travel in...mm...nine days.

*sigh* 

Car's in the shop again...need to go pick that up today. Later, gators.

Shutting Down For '22

Wow. Things just got real busy around here real fast.

I've been sick with a flu bug for the last week or so (did I already mention this? yeah, I did)...just have this lingering cough that is a killer for trying to get to sleep at night. *sigh*  Lots going on around here...probably working myself a little too much.

[doesn't help that every time I have a beer I suffer a bit of a setback. And yesterday's shellacking of the Seahawks at the hands of the 49ers was worth three...]

A week till Christmas and the tree's not even up yet. 

So, apologies to everyone but I'm going to have to shut it down for the year. Totally lame since this has been my lowest output of blog posts since 2018 and I was really hoping to at least hit triple digits this year. Unfortunately, far too many of my posts have simply been tiny missives like this or mini-rants...not really enough content for my taste.

But what can I say? I wasn't trying to putz out on folks. Fact is, I probably did more gaming this year than my B/X hay-days, pre-Paraguay. Both running AND playing. That's...well, that's good progress. If I haven't been writing as many theoretical essays, or posting the speculative rule modifications of yesteryear, you can blame it on the fact that I've been deep in the AD&D...and the game just doesn't need much change at all. It's a solid game (as I've written more than once) that simply needs to be respected and taken seriously to provide solid hours of enjoyment.

Ya basta. Enough of that noise. Folks can go "rules light" if they wish, and still get more-or-less the same result, so long as they put in the world building stuff (just means you end up doing more heavy lifting down the road). I'm not harping on that.

Instead, I'll just wish folks a festive holiday season and a happy New Year. 

See you all in 2023. Blessings and best wishes!

Rooting Against the Players

I am not a thirteen year old boy anymore.

But I remember being a 13 year old (barely) and having friends who were 13 year old boys and what our D&D games were like.

*sigh*

As usual, apologies for the lack of posting. I've been in a bit of a...a what? Malaise? Is that a word?...lately that I just can't quite shake. Activity, keeping busy (running errands, gaming, working around the house) helps. Sitting in front of the computer, writing, does not. Not that I have excessive amounts of time to do that...the kids, when awake, need near constant attention, and when they're asleep, the malaise is generally pulling at my eyelids, too. Daily naps have become, more-or-less, a necessity simply to retreat and recharge my batteries from the constant interaction with my family.

Ugh...apologies. Didn't want to get into all that. Just wanted to offer a reason why it's hard to bring myself to the keyboard recently.

Back to the kids...while it's certainly interesting to be involved in campaign play with children, I can't say I'm finding it especially enjoyable. There's so much that children just don't know, so much information they don't have. Not just life experiences, but knowledge and ideas. Hell, vocabulary.

But, that's the bed I've chosen to lie in. And regardless of the sophistication (ha!) of any adventure design or narrative prose I might contribute to the mix, in the end things generally come down to a D6 roll for initiative, a D20 roll for attack, and...well, you know the rest. Basic arithmetic.

The kids, being of different ages (and, thus, different stages of life development) provide an interesting snapshot of different approaches and priorities in gaming. The six year old is most likely to think out-of-the-box in terms of game play; her grasp of the rules isn't strong, and she approaches the game with her imagination, often trying to befriend or communicate with monsters. The nine-year olds are straight-forward game players: their first instinct is to go for the sword (if they think they can beat an opponent) and loot the bodies. One exhibits more caution than the other, though this manifests as "hanging back," not in taking any separate or different approaches to encounters and challenges.

[interesting that the "cautious" player is a fighter while the the "gung-ho" player is a magic-user who hurls one dagger before charging into melee with his second. Seems to work for them, though]

The thirteen year old. Mmm. I ask him to roll for initiative and he asks what die to roll; same with attacks. Told there's an evil high priest bent on taking over the world and he wants to find the guy and join his cause. Capture a band of mercenaries via a sleep spell and he wants to tie a guy up, pour oil on him, and light him on fire. Just to watch him burn. Find some mysterious cave fungi and he wants to try eating them; same with dead insects. Find a cold, natural tunnel covered in a thin layer of frost and he wants to get on his shield and see if he can "sled" along its length; failing to scoot more than a few inches, he decides to pick up shield, move a few feet, and try it again. And again.

Having been a thirteen year old once upon a time, I understand about the need/desire to push buttons and boundaries, to experiment with what is possible. I get that. Some folks might even feel that it's appropriate (or important!) to engage in some "asshole behavior" not only to assuage curiosity but to "try on" the behavior and integrate the experience into the developing psyche. I'm sympathetic to this point of view myself (I'm of the belief that repressing developmental experiences can lead to worse behavior in adulthood...and that being an asshole in youth doesn't mean you become an asshole in adulthood, so long as you have the proper guidance, teaching, and parenting).

But, as I said, I'm not thirteen anymore. And I'm not terribly interested in indulging in bad behavior, or having it indulged in at my gaming table.

This is the problem with having a mixed-generation group like this. When I was a young teen, I was gaming with other young teens (boys and girls) and, out of the sight of any parental supervision, we explored our own imaginary transgressions. Pushed each others' buttons. Acted like assholes. Laughed uproariously. Eventually, somehow, still growing up to be well-adjusted members of society.

That's not where I'm at anymore. And it's irritating to have to pause the game and explain why, no, it's NOT a good idea to murder the matriarch to whom you owe 10,000 gold pieces for a raise dead spell because, A) you might need her services again, and B) she's a respected figure in the city that you use as a base of operations, and C) the temple is full of under-clerics, followers, and temple guardsmen.

I haven't done a whole lot to curtail the bad behavior, other than letting the chips fall where they may, but it's hurt and frustrated the other players...in our last session (yesterday) the boy's nine year old sister did not attend (claiming excessive school work) and I'm not so sure it didn't have something to do with the prior session's incident of torturing a prisoner to death for no reason. I find myself rooting against the player, hoping karma catches up to him before he causes more harm (to his own party)...and THIS is a bad place to be in as a DM. Not when it's already a challenge to maintain one's impartiality.

At the end of our last session, heavily wounded and burdened with treasure, the party decided to make a three day journey through the swamp in which the adventure is located, back to the tiny village that was the nearest "civilization." I explained that this wasn't the best idea; that they should try to stay on dry ground, at least to heal up a bit, rather than drag their wounded (at at reduced pace) through knee-deep water, infested with mosquitoes and snakes and whatnot, risking infection and disease. The magic-user was too weak to even walk (having been reduced to exactly zero hit points), and the kid didn't even want to spend the time to build a litter for him, preferring to sling him over his back, risking further injury or reopening of wounds. In the end, they compromised, building a litter with broken spear shafts, but deciding to make the hasty journey regardless.

First instance of
disease rules.

This morning, I decided to check the chance of the party contracting an illness or parasitic infection. Because I find the Blackmoor (Supplement II) rules to be both less informative and too specific for my tastes, I went with the more abstract rules in the DMG, as they are familiar to me; as I've written before, we were pretty By The Book back in our AD&D days. While I gave all the characters (except the paladin) a chance of contracting an illness, only two did: the party's dwarf henchwoman and the thirteen year old's fighter. Both earned gastrointestinal disorders: the dwarf's mild and chronic, the fighter's acute and fatal...karma indeed.

Of course, the party's paladin can cure disease once per day, so normally this wouldn't really be an issue. But would she use it on such a despicable human being who engages in torture and mayhem? Should she be allowed to? A lawful cleric might not even be granted the ability to heal such an individual, but paladins' powers are largely undefined (they appear to come from the character's own "innate goodness"). Since I do use alignment and class strictures, I had toyed with the idea of removing the character's paladin status for standing by while the fighter burned the mercenary alive (only dismissing the penalty as there had been nothing the paladin could do to prevent it from occurring at the time).

Mmm...decisions. I have a few days to consider before our next game session. In the meantime, I've introduced the classic BattleTech role-playing game to my kids and the children are having fun managing a mercenary company (lot of nice economic nuance in the old Mechwarrior RPG).  More on that later, perhaps. Turns out that my giant pile of hoarded role-playing games is a nice resource for a cloistered family. I'm debating if, perhaps, I should pull Boot Hill from the pile.

Anything to stave off the malaise.

[thanks for reading, folks]

Magic Physics

Push is a wretched spell. And not simply because it's totally "weak sauce" as an offensive choice for the starting, first level magic-user (compared to, say, sleep or the dual-purpose light spell). No, it is wretched because of the way it's written, in game terms, especially when compared to other spells of similar effect.

[oh, hi! Remember me? Yes, still alive here at in plague-ridden Seattle. Currently a couple dudes of Eastern European persuasion are working on fixing my dryer while the family sleeps away upstairs]

Yesterday, I spent far too long on researching joules and newtons and physics calculations to figure out the correspondent scale between the push spell and the 5th level magic-user spell telekinesis. Just so I don't have to go through all that again, I'm going to write it up here for edification of interested parties. Because the phrase

"Heavy objects travelling [sic] at high speed can be deadly weapons!"
 - PHB, page 82

isn't especially helpful in and of itself. How heavy? What speed? How many hit points of damage? And how does it compare to push, which simply exerts one foot-pound of energy, per level of the caster?

Let's start with telekinesis: the spell moves 25 pounds of weight, per level of the magic-user. As would be expected from a fifth level spell, control is much more precise than for the push spell, and while the caster must concentrate to control the object being moved, the duration only lasts for two rounds plus one additional round per level. Speed starts at 2" (20 feet) per round, and then doubles with each successive round until a maximum of 1024" (10240 feet) in the tenth round. As magic-users first gain the ability to cast a fifth level spell (like telekinesis) at 9th level, I can see that at minimum the caster will be able to accelerate 225 pounds to the maximum speed by the tenth minute of concentration, and maintain control at that speed for one additional minute (each round being one minute in length).

Joules are the measure of kinetic energy and is a unit found by multiplying half an object's mass by its velocity squared in terms of meters per second (m/s). Assuming gravity in our D&D setting is the same as real world Earth, 225 pounds is equivalent to 102.058kg. Converting D&D "inches" (tens of feet) per round to miles per hour...and thence to m/s...we can calculate the telekinetic velocity over time as follows:

1st round: 0.1016 m/s
2nd round: 0.2032 m/s
3rd round: 0.4064 m/s
4th round: 0.8128 m/s
5th round: 1.6256 m/s
6th round: 3.2512 m/s
7th round: 6.5024 m/s
8th round: 13.0048 m/s
9th round: 26.0096 m/s
10th+ round: 52.0192 m/s

[for my American readers, that's a bit more than 116 miles per hour at maximum velocity]

Here's a good web site for calculating kinetic energy (in joules). Suffice is to say that a 9th level magic-user using telekinesis uses about half a joule in the first minute and quickly ramps up, generating a bit more than 8 joules after three rounds, 33 joules after four, and nearly 135 by the round five. At maximum velocity, that 225 pounds is using over 138 thousand joules of kinetic energy.

Meanwhile, the same 9th level magic-user using push generates only nine foot-pounds of kinetic energy (one foot-pound per level): a little more than 12 joules of kinetic energy.

Or does it? Let's take a closer look.

"Of course, the mass of [the target] cannot exceed the force of the push by more than a factor of 50, i.e. a 1st level magic-user cannot effectively push a creature weighing more than 50 pounds."
 - PHB, page 68

Okay, just because it drives me crazy, I'm going to go ahead and convert Gygax's pounds to kilograms (because you measure mass in kg, not pounds). If we're going to say that a 1st level magic-user can move 22.6796kg a single foot by means of the push spell, and that this is a single foot-pound of kinetic energy, then working backwards we can discover that the "instantaneous" duration found in spells like push can be measured in actual time as .8814 seconds.

[the PHB states "instantaneous" means a spell "lasts only a brief moment." Strange fact: did you know that a moment was once an actual unit of time, roughly calculated to be 90 seconds? The things you discover...]

Now we look at the 9th level magic-user using push to exert nine foot-pounds of kinetic energy (12.2024 joules) with the spell. Knowing the time, distance, and KE we can determine the mass that can be moved a single foot in .8814 seconds as 204.092kg. Converting that to the maximum amount of weight that can be pushed we see it's (roughly) 449.95 pounds. Pretty close to 50 pounds per level (which is what the text implies).

But what if my 9th level sorcerer wanted to push 175 pounds instead of 450...say, the weight of an average human male (DMG page 102)? How about 60 pounds, average weight of a male halfling? Well we can see the velocity created by the kinetic energy will change in these cases: specifically to 0.55448 m/s (for the human) and 0.946955 m/s (for the halfling). Knowing this, we can calculate the human will be pushed with enough force to travel more than two feet, while the halfling will be pushed three and a half. Judging by how far I can knock my 60 pound child in play, I exert more foot-pounds of force than this.

Now, if the sorcerer launched a dart (.5 pounds; equivalent of .2268 kg) from a flat surface (say, the palm of her hand) it would travel about 39 feet...nearly the same distance as the weapon's long range. Would a magically impelled dart lose velocity over distance like a thrown dart? Yeah, probably (since the initial impetus of force is at the place the dart is initially resting). But, still, that's kind of a neat trick.

Not as neat as magic missile, of course, which shoots five unerring darts at 9th level. Probably not even as effective as simply throwing three darts per round (with no chance of being "interrupted"). Yeah, I guess it's not really neat at all.

Push is just a wretched spell. It's the equivalent of a cantrip. I want my first level spells (my first level offensive spells certainly!) to be effective attacks. As written, it should be a defensive spell seeing as how a target ends up with a penalty to its attack roll. If it fails its save. If.

Personally, I'd prefer something that really shoves something...smashes targets against walls or flings them over cliffs. Right now, this spell is just a nudge. And that's not good enough.

I'll talk about the detritus that is gust of wind another day.

Staycation

Welp, it's not quite martial law out here in the ol' Pacific Northwest, but things aren't all sunny and roses either. And if you're talking about the local economy, things are looking downright grim. Well, probably not for Amazon (I'm sure business is booming with the on-line shopping economy), but for retail and restaurants? Oh, boy.

It's enough to make me wish I hadn't given up alcohol for Lent...how can I do my part when I can't even spend money on beer?

To the kids, being out of school till the end of April just feels like an extended "staycation" rather than house arrest (though we will be starting remote learning next week). I won't be getting much time to myself (we'll see how that grump-ifies my already grumpy demeanor), but it perhaps helps that we'll be saving on gas and driving time (baseball, basketball, and soccer have all been cancelled for the foreseeable future). Hell, the Archdiocese has even suspended Mass and Friday stations of the Cross (what this means for Easter, I don't know...). Thank goodness the Fred Meyer across the street is still open and stocked (of everything except disinfecting wipes). We're not living The Stand, yet.

[will the Baranof survive the sudden loss in business? The place has been unsinkable for decades. But even with the anxiety-fueled need to drink, are people still willing to part with their petty cash in a time of possible economic crisis? We'll see...]

At least I have Dungeons & Dragons. Our game yesterday (new player) went quite well. Another foray into The Keep on the Borderlands (my son's first) as well as a gruesome character death (my son's first). The rather short adventure went something like this:

"Dave" (1st level fighter with huge strength and a tremendous amount of gold) paired up with "Azina" the 1st level elf. Caro decided to penny pinch a bit, buying only leather armor and a shield (ballsy move) and chose ventriloquism as her starting spell (after also considering protection from evil). This is the first time I've ever seen a person choose that spell.

While there were three mercenaries available at the Keep's tavern, Dave decided that the price to hire them (one gold piece per day each) was too expensive for their operation (he was sitting on 41 extra coins). Azina was looking for female hirelings, and random dice produced a 2nd level elf who was willing to join the party for a 25% share of any treasure found (per the module). After some debate over the NPC's name, we settled on calling her "Ari."

At the Caves of Chaos, Azina was hesitant to do any exploration until they'd set up a decent camp and secured a good quantity of dead wood and "other resources;" Dave, on the other hand, was anxious to get down to spelunking and treasure hunting. Choosing one of the lower caves, they lassoed a still living tree branch and climbed the sloping canyon wall to its entrance.

Lantern light revealed what appeared to be a sleeping bear and the party members cautiously sneaked up to it and stabbed it with their swords, only to find it was a skinned carcass stretched over a pile of branches and debris.

It was at this point that an argument arose over the fact that no one had bothered to bring a bow and that maybe they should have at least purchased a crossbow, as Azina started feeling nervous about the prospect of engaging everything in hand-to-hand combat. Talks of returning to the Keep broke down when no agreement could be reached on who would be doing the actual purchase of a missile weapon and while the players were dissuaded (by the DM) from attacking one another, the party decided to split: Dave was determined to press on, and Azina would return to the camp below. As Ari had signed up for a share of treasure found "and 25% of nothing is nothing" she decided to follow Dave in his exploration.

A short tunnel opened into a second cavern, where a hulking form gnawed at a huge leg of mutton. Neither group was surprised and the creature asked (in goblin, the lingua franca of the region) "What the heck are you doing in my house?" Dave's answer was to shout a few pointed barbs (he spoke goblin) and charge with his two-handed sword.

Whereupon he was clubbed to death with a single swipe of the ogre's dinner (11 points of damage). Initiative had been automatically lost due to his use of a two-handed weapon (B/X).

Weapon

Ari broke morale and fled, though she was struck from behind as she tried to escape. Scrambling down the rope she yelled frantically for help as the ogre pursued. She was about halfway down when the monster kicked the tree branch loose with a mighty stomp and she fell the last ten feet to the ground, only narrowly avoiding death. "And stay out!" he yelled before returning to his cave.

Azina, having observed this from the base of the cliff, quickly moved to help the wounded elf, then decided it was her duty to try and retrieve Dave (if alive) or recover his body (if not). Using her own rope to lasso a stone outcropping (that had been established previously) she climbed up to the mouth of the cave. Once there, and before entering, she used her ventriloquism spell to throw her own voice from deeper inside the cave, saying "Hey, I'm still alive! Come get me!" in goblin language (which the elf also spoke).

She thus drew off the ogre, deeper into his own lair, using no light source to give away her position and simply following him (slowly). Eventually, she heard a grinding of stone on stone as the ogre, confused and curious, decided to move the boulder to his secret exit in pursuit of the phantom voice, thinking it must be coming from the goblin caves. Azina was then able to recover both Dave's corpse and the ogre's great leather bag (which held his treasure), dragging both to the entrance and dropping them over the edge. The elf then tugged the rope until it released, and joined the wounded Ari in camp.

The next morning Azina buried Dave's body, perused the ogre's treasure, and cooked breakfast for herself and her companion (using rations and a healthy amount of the ogre's wheel of cheese) before studying her spell book to regain her ventriloquism spell. The two remaining party members then crafted a litter from the dead wood gathered previously, so that they could drag the huge sack of treasure back to the Keep. While Ari went to the chapel in search of healing, Azina (delighted in her new wealth) purchased a riding horse, tack and saddle, and saddle bags for herself.

Needless to say, Caro had a lot of fun and now wants to try her hand at being a dungeon master.
: )

Idle Hands...

I am sick (again), but not terribly so. Some weird random cough, stuffed up head, and (most irritating for me) the damn nasal drip.

What I should be doing is sleeping, but I'm not (duh). Instead, I've got a (game) project I'm working on that I am extremely engaged in. No, it has nothing to do with my B/X Campaign Setting (that's now up to page 62, though it's currently un-formatted...it's probably 6-8 pages away from completion). And, no, it has nothing at all (or nearly nothing) to do with the recent superhero game I've been diddling around with.

Nope, this is yet another project that I'm all hot and bothered about. I am hoping I can keep it short-n-sweet and knock it out in a day or four. I am really going to give it that ol' college try. The thing is, my time for "work" (of this sort) is growing short...I'll be winging my way off to Oaxaca, Mexico for Holy Week, and will probably be away from my computer from the 21st till after Easter. And who can say even after that?

Fingers crossed.

ANYhoo. The writing is going well, which is a relief because this thing is pretty far "outside-the-box" for Yours Truly. However, I've been recently inspired by a couple new artists with whom I've made recent acquaintance, one of whom is actually Paraguayan. I am really, really hoping I can use her artwork in the new project (Paraguayans don't play RPGs, of course, and I don't write in Spanish, so a "comp copy" of the book probably won't fly as payment for services rendered. However, as I wrote the other day, I DO plan on paying my artists from now on, so I was thinking about moving to cash as my means of barter anyway).

Okay...that's enough. Got to go to the lavanderia and then get home to plug in a few more pages before my illness gets any worse!
: )

Channeling My Inner Nurgle

I'm about 30 pages into my 64 page campaign book for B/X which means I'm a bit ahead of schedule, considering my personal deadline of March 29th. Of course, I haven't nearly the talent or confidence in my own artwork as some of the participants, so who knows how long it will take me to get illustrations drawn and scanned...this thing might be one ugly, ugly book when all's said and done.

Which is fine, actually. I need something easy-shmeezy, something I'm not too terribly invested in, to try this whole illustration experiment. Waiting on art (whether paid or volunteer) is probably my least favorite part of self-publishing...it is, in fact, the main reason Cry Dark Future wasn't published upon completion (though I'm somewhat glad in retrospect...waiting gave me time to see I wasn't tremendously pleased with certain aspects of the book. Don't worry...it'll be out there someday).

B/X is very "easy-shmeezy." Especially for doing a knock-off / adaptation fantasy setting, it's incredibly comprehensive in scope. Which is to say: it doesn't need much more than "re-skinning" to make something that feels "new," yet doesn't break the system. The scaling between spell levels is pretty accurate (with the exception of sleep), and pretty easy to follow, for example...you can color hold person into any sort of "non-death-target-elimination" spell, and level it up or down depending on changes in range, save, and number/specificity of creatures affected. That's a real plus, and nice when you're tasked with adding 40-50 setting-specific spells to the game.

Right now, I'm considering how I want to handle a particular magical disease. B/X has four different forms of contagion hardwired into their rules (not counting green slime):

• "Hideous wasting disease:" Causes -2 penalty to attack rolls, prevents magical curing, and doubles natural healing time. Illness is fatal in 2D12 days. Contracted by cause disease spell and failed saving throw. Treated by cure disease (explicit).
• Lycanthropy: changes victim into a were-creature after 2D12 days. Contracted via severe HP loss (>half) to wear creature. Treated by "a high-level cleric (11th level or higher...)."
• Mummy "rot:" prevents magical healing and wounds require 10 times as long to heal. Contracted via damage from mummy. Treated by "magical curing" (though unclear how as rot prevents magical healing).
• Rats (any size): one-in-four chance of death in D6 days; otherwise, bedridden for one month. Contracted via rat bite (1 in 20 chance per bite) plus failed save versus poison. Treated by cure disease spell or bed rest.

That's not a bad spread, though it's interesting that the spell cure disease is only explicitly useful for half of the system-specified illness. In the campaign setting I'm writing, cure disease should be much more useful (there's more than a few disease spreading monsters and magic items), but I'm wondering if I shouldn't be creating my own form of infection rather than simply "re-skinning" the stuff listed.

Nurgle's Rot is a fairly iconic piece of (dark) fantasy gaming; from the Warhammer universe, you can find its page long description in GW's 1990 book, The Lost and the Damned:

Nurgles Rot, often known simply as the Rot, is a terrible contagious disease which affects the victim's mortal body and his shadow-self or spirit. A person who dies from Nurgles Rot is turned into a Plaguebearer and becomes a servant of Nurgle himself. Nurgles Rot epitomizes the core of Nurgle's ethos: suffering and overcoming suffering by great bravery and resolve. Those who contract the Rot often slay themselves in reckless battle, hoping to die quickly and cleanly and by this means to avoid becoming a Plaguebearer.

A plaguebearer is a lesser, humanoid demon of the Chaos god Nurgle. The text states it takes "several months" for the Rot to kill its victim; mechanically, this is modeled by each battle on the tabletop slightly altering the profile of the victim. After participating in seven battles, the victim dies, birthing a new plaguebearer. Oh, yeah...and the Rot "cannot be cured or its progress halted in any way."

[apologies if the original (1986) WFRPG has a description of Nurgle's Rot; I know there is a sample scenario that includes a champion of Nurgle in the book, as well as a number of descibed illnesses; however, I don't have my copy with me in Paraguay]

Typical plaguebearer. No, I didn't draw this.

Tempting as it is to include an incredibly contagious magical disease that cannot be cured and that gradually transforms its victim into a demon, I don't think that's what I want to do. After all, it's hard to see how such a plague wouldn't wipe out the entirety of the planet's population...imagine a "zombie apocalypse" in which the zombie were immune to non-magical weapons. That's a pretty shitty scenario any way you look at it (and the focus of the campaign is NOT some sort of D&D World War Z).

No, it doesn't really sound fun...though I like the idea of contagion. And I like the idea of gradual decrepitude...of individual's being diminished over time. However, it would have to be pretty fast-acting to have any impact on gameplay, seeing as how PCs have fairly easy access to magical curing (cure disease is available to any cleric beginning at 6th level).

Anyhoo, that's what's on my mind this morning.
: )

No, They're NOT All "Lycanthropes"

I flipped a coin to see whether I was going to write about weresharks or Batgirl and weresharks won.

[I'm still sick by the way...miserably so, though not nearly as bad as yesterday]

Until a few years ago, if you'd asked me to name my favorite "classic movie monster," I probably would have said werewolf, hands down. This despite never having watched a werewolf film approaching anything close to "good" in quality. Really...I've seen plenty of vampire films that I enjoyed over the years, but aside from (maybe) Brotherhood of the Wolf, I've just been "eh" with all the wolf-man films I've seen...and that one didn't even HAVE a werewolf (in itself disappointing).

Hmm, actually An American Werewolf in London is fairly good (memorable for certain). It's just that there's so many other things going on in the movie, it distracts a bit from the wolfish parts. And I remember being less than impressed with the actual "wolf" of the film.

[oh, and I haven't seen Silver Bullet, based on Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf. I quite enjoyed King's book, but most of the films based on his work have been a little underwhelming]

I don't know why werewolves...I can't seem to recall any distant childhood memories of my formative years that would have been an influence. I have always liked (and been fascinated with) wolves...have always gotten along well with canines in general.

But who cares. I like werewolves. Like 'em in the horror genre, like 'em in gaming (though, thinking back, I think I've only had one opportunity to play a werewolf...however, I did run an exceptionally hairy gangrel character back in my Vampire days). And it's time for someone to set the record straight about werewolves: despite what D&D has been telling you for decades, ONLY werewolves can be properly called lycanthropes.

That's because "lycanthrope" is Greek for "wolf man."

Shapeshifters, were-creatures, folks who turn into animals...they're all properly called therianthropes. Yes, it's a thing; go look it up. Plenty of animal-human shifters appear in various cultures throughout the world. They all go in the therianthrope category; lycanthropes are a subcategory.

Anyway, all thanks to Cameron DuBeers for hipping me to the appearance of King Shark on the recent Flash episode (which I haven't seen, by the way) as a beautiful example of what a "were shark" might look like in D&D. The thing definitely looks to be about 5 or 6 hit dice, quite in line with James Maliszewski's version, which was based on Holmes's description. For my money, I'd probably reduce the number appearing to D4 and make its attack damage 2D8 as those teeth give it some nasty potential (a low damage roll would just indicate a thumping/knockdown while a high roll indicates a grab-rip-tear style move). Still a bit smaller/weaker than the Gygax version found in the MM2 (his version is HD 10+3, AC 0, with damage of 5-20)...but that version only shows up as an (evil) great white shark, never the man-shark hybrid, and is statted as such.

Probably at least HD 5+5; no more than 6.

BY THE WAY...while I do like the idea of hybrid-forms when it comes to aquatic-style therianthropes  (since otherwise its easy enough for players to stay out of the water), my default preference when it comes to these creatures is to stick with an animal form and a human form without the in-betweens. For the most part, I think its cooler to savage player characters with a giant wolf or rat, rather than have them attacked by the claw/claw/bite of a movie monster (or, worse, a sword-wielding rat-headed humanoid...couldn't you simply adapt skaven to the game?). Limiting were-creatures to animal form provides some nice limits to the creatures (like the lack of opposable thumbs) that creative players can use to their advantage...even more so if the creature's intelligence is also limited to a close-to-bestial level. Always nice to be able to hide behind a bolted door when you've run out of silver arrows.

Batgirl later.

[by the way, if you'd like another person's opinion of the Flash's shark-man...and would like to see video of the character, here's a link]

Wrecking Things (Like Magic)

I'm sick. I hate being sick. It makes me all kinds of irritable and I'm already prone to irritability.

This afternoon I'm thinking about magic (again)...with regard to gaming, of course, but not with regard to my own current project. More like what I was talking about back here.

I mentioned the other day that I've got no "levels" in the new game. I'm not really interested in debating the wisdom of such a move...suffice is to say it's something I'm trying (I've got divergent systems in place to account for character experience and advancement/reward). I bring it up because it makes it a little tricky to engage in discussion about wrecking magic systems with folks who are using level-based systems. And that's what I'm thinking about today.

So the blog gets my musings. As per usual.

In my own game, I've tied magical knowledge to age...it takes years to learn spells and the process is draining (i.e. spending years studying magic leads to reduction in other areas). This holds true even for elves; though a longer life span would in theory allow them to master everything, such hard work is taxing to the frivolity of elvish life. Or something like that. It's a game balance thing anyway.

Anyhoo, it allows me to get to what I've always wanted: more knowledgeable wizards are OLDER wizards. Which I like and think is cool. But can a similar principle be applied to D&D style games? Like B/X and Holmes Basic? I think so...but first you have to separate the magic system from the standard level mechanic.

In other words, a magic-user advances in level like other characters, gaining HPs, better attacks and saves, etc...but doing so is NOT tied to how much magical knowledge the character has.

Kind of a neat idea now that I think about it.

It would work a bit like this: you'd still have magical "levels" (perhaps renamed something like "orders" or "degrees of initiation;" definitely based in part on old school level titles). For each magical level, the character is aged 7 years. Considering the character's apprenticeship to end somewhere around age 14 or so (maybe with a D4 roll for variation), you'd be looking at a chart like this:

Age 21 - Medium (or Prestidigitator) - 1st level spells only
Age 28 - Seer (or Evoker)
Age 35 - Conjurer - 1st and 2nd level spells
Age 42 - Theurgist
Age 49 - Thaumaturgist - 1st through 3rd level spells
Age 56 - Magician
Age 63 - Enchanter - 1st through 4th level spells
Age 70 - Warlock
Age 77 - Sorcerer - 1st through 5th level spells
Age 84 - Necromancer
Age 91 - Wizard - 1st through 6th level spells

[level titles subject to change]

Off the top of my head I'd say every 5 years of age (starting at age 30) requires the player to subtract 1 from one of the character's ability scores (so a conjurer, age 35, would have to lose 2 points). I like the idea of the reduction coming from any ability score (so lowering CHA as the character gets more crusty and curmudgeonly). Every 10 years (beginning at age 3) would also require an ADDITIONAL, mandatory lowering of the character's STR by 1 point.

Spells known per level (minimum and maximum) would be based on INT as per Holmes Basic (natch). Actual spells that could be cast per day would be based on the character's STR score, modified by level of experience (confidence, power of will). The starting spell number looks like this:

STR 3: 0* spell per day
STR 4-5: 1 spells per day
STR 6-8: 2 spells per day
STR 9-12: 3 spells per day
STR 13-15: 4 spells per day
STR 16-17: 5 spells per day
STR 18: 6 spells per day

*you still get +1 spell for being a 1st level character.

Hmmm...looking over this, it all looks pretty workable. It would even work for my own game...if I were using the same spell lists as standard D&D (I'm not). My own system is a little more complex with regard to different themes of knowledge and spells building off each other...but if it turns out to be too crazy in play-testing, I might just blow it up in favor of something like this.

Now, bring on the geezers!

Demon summoning at 1st level? Why not!

Patreon Fever Dreams

Fast Paraguayan Fun Fact: beware of any medication (prescription or otherwise) that you buy in this country, as they tend to "double up" on normal FDA style dosages. As it is, I took a half dose of their Sudafed type drug, and almost immediately started to experience a host of sweaty, feverish side effects plus increased heart-rate shortness of breath, etc. The last couple days have been rough, considering this has just been a head cold, and not my annual October bout with bronchitis.

ANYway, perhaps due to the medically induced fever, I've been giving serious thought to doing the Patreon thang, and monetizing the blog...something I've never really considered in the past. I never wanted to stuff this blog with advertisements, and I was never so hard up as to throw a "Donate" button on the blog...I always figured that people who wanted to support my "work" (such as it is) would simply buy the publications that I occasionally put up for sale. And folks have...and that's awesome.

But ya' know what? The last couple-three years with the birth of my children, it's been mui difficile to find the time to blog, write, work full time, AND take care of my family responsibilities. Being down in Paraguay (and thus NOT working full-time) has allowed me a little more free time to blog/write (at least, once I got the older child into half-day daycare), but it's tough to justify the time I spend when it's mostly for fun. We all need hobbies (and creative outlets) but part of being an adult is making sure  those are properly prioritized with one's other duties.

So...Patreon. For those who don't know about it, it's an on-line method of old school patronage...you pledge support for artist/creators, and then pay them something when they actually make something (like a blog post). It's a cool idea; several of the bloggers I follow are using Patreon (not necessarily for their blogs...Tim Shorts for example has a Patreon page for his micro-adventures). The more people that pledge a creator, the more money the creator receives for his/her work, the more incentive to create work. People can also pledge support at different levels, often with "special bonus incentives." Game designer and artist Anna Kreider gives free advance PDF copies of all games and publications she writes to patrons of the $20 level.

But $20 per blog post is a little steep for my bank account. For my own hack level of writing, I was thinking something like a nickel. I mean, if I had a nickel for every blog post I've written I'd have...um...close to $75. On the other hand, if I had a nickel for every page view, I'd have more than $38,000. That's a lot of nickels.

Anyway, it's just something I'm considering. It would mean a lot of futzing around learning new web sites and rigging things up with the blog...which I hate to do. Even if I do decide to get on-board with Patreon, people don't have to pledge anything...you can read the blog just like normal. And, no, I wouldn't be charging my patrons for little, cheap-o posts like yesterday's "I'm sick" announcement.

[Patreon also allows you to set a maximum monthly amount you want to pay if you're worried about prolific creators]

Okay, that's enough of that. I'm still sick, but I'm getting better (I even ate some food this morning). Yak at you later.

Coming soon?

Sick as a Dog

Will try to get back to the series tomorrow. Sorry.
: (

Resources (No Not Really)

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween last night. I did, for the most part (the knob on my front door fell apart(!) but we were able to get it back together after an hour or so of minimal tinkering). I’m feeling a little hung over from all the candy “sampling”…or maybe it was that single “Bud Lite” I consumed that one house was giving away as “treats” to parents. Wow…how anyone can drink that dishwater on a regular basis is beyond me. Even the non-alcoholic beer I’m currently stocking my fridge with (something called Buckler) tastes more like beer than that swill.

[some might ask why I’d even bother drinking it…well, wasting beer is something hard for me to abide. Normally, I would have passed on a Bud completely (thus not taking it home, thus not having to worry about “wasting” a beer at all)…but the sheer novelty of getting a beer while trick-or-treating with my kid tickled my fancy. Having said that, though, I’d point out that if they’d been handing out Coors I would have passed. As I’ve stated on multiple occasions, I’d rather take a silver bullet than drink one]

Man, I am sniffling and sneezing today like I over-taxed my immune system with sugar and chocolate…which is probably true. It’s funny (well, to me, anyway): back when I used to play AD&D as a kid, and we were so hard-core about following the Rules As Written (weapon length and speed factor, helmet rules, wandering monsters even in town, etc.) the one thing we didn’t use EVER, as far as I can recall, were the rules for disease and illness given in the DMG. Maybe the whole concept of illness was counter-productive to the escapism of the game: as a kid who had more than his fair share of head colds, did I want to worry about my adventurer needing to blow his nose? No, not really.

Not that the rules for disease and illness in the DMG are terribly realistic (I use the adjective loosely, with regard to fantasy adventure games). One might imagine that “historical” type folks were of hardier constitution and were sick less often than us pasty-types living in the over-stimulated, stressful society of the 21^st century. And yet the lack of modern medicine meant illnesses, when acquired, tended to be a lot more deadly.

And it’s not like adventurers are carrying around a tube of Neosporin to slather on the lacerations they get from goblin blades. Hell, I use that stuff on any burn or scrape I get!

But in designing a game…any game, in fact, though here I’m speaking about RPGs…it’s important to consider what you want your game to be about when deciding what to include in the rules. Do you WANT your player characters to have the possibility of death by tetanus or infection of some sort? Is the Black Plague a part of your pseudo-medieval setting (I’d imagine that’s the basis for rats inflicting disease in D&D…but what about other rodents?). And if that’s a possibility (due to say, an attachment to “realistic” hazards of the ancient world)…how big a possibility do you want it to be? Should adventurers be sterilizing their wounds with fire after every battle? Should infection-killing ointments be made available at the town apothecary?

These are rhetorical questions by the way…my urge to play something as complex as even AD&D has faded as I’ve gotten older. Not so much because it’s uninteresting to consider such things in the game, mind you, but because in practice it tends to “bog down” play.

Allow me to diverge on a short tangent. As I wrote a couple days ago, I’ve been a little busy for the blog-o-sphere I usually surf, so I missed any debate of “light” rules versus “heavy” till I was catching up my reading of The Tao yesterday. As usual, Alexis raises some good points…the best one being the one about simplifying a system leading to a dependence on DM fiat which has the potential to be grossly unfair.

Looking back at the disease/infection thing, for example: what if I (as a DM) think it’s both appropriate and interesting to include a chance of PCs dying from an infected sword wound...yet am faced with a game system (like B/X) that doesn’t provide rules for such a hazard? Well, I’d suppose the usual response would be “make something up.” I might require any wounded PC to make a saving throw versus poison after any fight in which they took damage, or a certain amount of damage, or lost a certain percentage of hit points. I might give any PC a straight 1 in 6 chance (or 1 in 8 or 1in 10 or whatever) of developing an infection anytime they take a wound from a monster in a certain dingy dungeon location. I might simply say, “these goblins are using rusty, filthy blades that ABSOLUTELY WILL give a character a nasty infection on a successful attack roll,” or on two successful attack rolls or whatever.

The point is the hazard that I, as DM, would like to see can be addressed in any number of arbitrary ways, but A) there’s no guarantee that my ruling would be fair and balanced, and B) there’s no guarantee that the inclusion of such rules would be fun. In fact, the odds of even accidentally hitting on a “fair” way to implement such a thing (we’ll talk about the “fun” part in a moment) are pretty infinitesimal because I am not designing a new game from the ground up, but instead “patching” an existing game, without respect to the ideas, concepts, and objectives of the designer. I’m doing what I think “feels right” when one might (logically) presume the designers didn’t include such rules because they were inappropriate, unnecessary, and/or unwanted to the game itself as intended.

Maybe the PCs are supposed to be heroes of mythic proportion with a destiny that doesn’t include dying from an infected sword wound. Maybe the only type of misadventure peril they’re supposed to face is a glorious death in battle, or incinerated by dragon fire, or the venom of a hydra…hey, the latter was a good enough death for Heracles, right?

Regardless of the intention with regard to concept, it is very difficult to try patching rules once the rules have already been set (like concrete). I look at the XP system in 2^nd Edition AD&D, so different from earlier editions…a system based on the idea that it’s “more correct” or “appropriate” for PCs to gain XP for different activities than gaining treasure and slaying monsters…and the train wreck that the game devolves into. Leaving aside the absurdity of it, such a system creates a conflict of objective within the player party, doing the opposite of encouraging “cooperative play,” all in the name of patching the treasure hunter mentality that is the foundational design concept of the D&D game.

But even without THAT issue (i.e. the issue of trying to design for a game that’s already been designed), there’s the question of who actually benefits from these new rules? Who gets to experience the “extra fun” from their inclusion? Yes, I understand that a long-term game can get stale after a while (and back in the day, new “options” culled from Dragon magazine provided much enjoyed injections of “freshness” to our campaigns), but I’m not talking about the addition of a new monster or a random table for determining what’s in the pockets of the citizen being picked by the party thief. I’m talking about straight-up rule changes that transform play into something (the DM deems to be) more “realistic” or “appropriate.”

I suppose some players might think it’s cool to have a chance to die from an infected sword wound, or to bleed to death from a severed artery, or to suffer “critical hits” that break bones or shatter weapons. But I’d guess most players would be hoping none of these things happened to their particular characters. Given a choice between having more “realistic,” complex rules and being left with little to worry about except their dwindling supply of spells, HPs, and torches, I’d imagine most players would opt for the latter...especially when the only option for the former is to have them implemented in an arbitrary patch fashion by the DM.

However, these things ARE interesting (if only "fun" for the cackling DM and bystanders), and people who read adventure stories or watch fantasy movies can see these types of challenges arise to their favorite characters. And because the characters in our favorite fiction encounter these difficulties and overcome them, they are more heroic (and more beloved) for their effort. In Wendy Pini’s ElfQuest comic series, we find the main character, Cutter, hallucinating and dying from an infected squirrel bite that he suffers while doing nothing more innocuous than walking in the woods. The infection lasts the length of the issue, and allows the writer to further the plot of the series in a number of ways…but this is (comic) literature, not role-playing. Do you want this kind of thing to be a part of your game?

Surprisingly dangerous.

If you do, or if you want other interesting complexities to be included in the rules, then you really have only two options: run a game that includes those complexities (so that they are an objective part of the game, incorporated with regard to the game’s design concepts), or have your simple game “boosted” by arbitrary DM fiat and house rules. For some people it’s interesting and important to know how much rock can be quarried by the charmed hill giant, and the speed with which the castle wall can be raised (to keep out the approaching barbarian horde) is important to the game at hand. You have rules for this in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; objective rules written by a man who (presumably) tested his own system to make sure it worked with the rest of the game’s parts.

On the other hand, if you’re playing a simpler game like Moldvay’s Basic you can have your DM “wing it” – either using a 50-50 die roll or perhaps using some elaborate self-made system – or you can ignore such complex scenarios in your game play. Stick to your dungeon delving, in other words, if you don’t want your DM just making shit up.

It may be difficult to tell from reading this just which side of the debate JB is on. That’s because I’m not picking a side. Oh, I have a preference for running a simpler game system, mainly because I want something easy to run and easy to teach (to new players, for example). But I tend not to tinker too much with a system as written, because I think it invites a lot of the problems that proponents of more complex systems detest. My “fix” for a game that’s getting stale or that doesn’t address things I want address is to play a different game (duh, I like to play different games), or write my own, from the ground up.

Hmm, this “little tangent” has turned into yet another long-winded digression. I guess I’ll talk about resources in another post.