Things that Shouldn't Need to Be Said, Part 1: Gaming Inclusiveness

Of late I've noticed this trend going through my social media circles where role-playing enthusiasts feel the need to make statements like, "Gaming should be inclusive," as though such a statement were some monumental comment that took a lot of courage to make.

It isn't.

Gaming absolutely should be inclusive. You should game with all kinds of groovy people whether they like boys kissing boys or big, burly men dressing up with tiaras and high heels. The only thing that should matter at your table is that the people there are good to each other and that everyone is willing to have a good time.

"But Charlie," I hear my fictive, counter-argumentative friend say, "but there are people out there who are shitty and that believe women, trans-people, and people of color shouldn't be at the table! We have to make a stand!"

Yeah, you ain't standing for shit when you're saying that on social media. What you're doing is asking for people to tell you that you're a good person for telling the world that everyone should be invited. Fuck that noise. Instead of wanting that feeling through platitudes, fucking do the thing. Invite the trans-kids you know to play. Call your friends of all shades to the table and let them beat the shit out of some imaginary creatures for a few hours while telling terrible jokes and drinking beer. Get your gay buddies to come over with their blinged out notebooks to show you how it's fucking done. Call on all the cool kids you hang out with every day to come and play with you.

Stop talking, and start doing.

Bring the people you want in this hobby to the table and help teach the next generation of players not to be a bunch of fedora wearing, misogynistic, fuck-faced, douche bags. Start a gaming group for kids at your local library. Invite everyone you know that likes Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones. Fucking be the change you keep saying you want to see in our hobby.

"But Charlie," I again hear my fictive, counter-argumentative friend say, "what about when I see someone being shitty to a woman, trans-person, or person of color on social media. Shouldn't I say something about that noise?"

Fuck yes you should! Call that shitty bastard out. Tell them to stop being a fuck head and send your buddy a word of support. Don't make that shit about you with some meaningless platitude. You're not the important one in that situation so stop worrying about your feelings and worry about your buddy's instead.

Right, enough of this soapbox.

I'm going back to planning a raid into the Far Realms on leaky ship, laden with high explosives and my black heart of hate. I fucking love Roll 20.

Is Being a Geek a "White Kid" Thing?

Back in May Daniel Jose Ruiz wrote an article for The Millions titled, Dragons Are for White Kids with Money: On the Friction of Geekdom and Race, in which he tied being a geek to being white and then attempted to illustrate how difficult it is to be non-white in the larger geek culture. It's a fairly interesting read though I disagree with many of his suppositions that he attempts to establish as facts of the culture and hobby. 

There are two passages in particular that I find myself disagreeing with as I find Ruiz conflating a racial bias with a situation wherein people have no interest discussing the subject at the gaming table. In the first he wrote: ". . . I can run a D&D campaign about how poorly certain races like half-elves are treated, and my group will rail against the injustice of it all, but if I bring up any real-world situation of inequality, I get the cold shoulder at best or at worst booed down and given “focus on the game” lectures. As Junot Díaz allegedly said: “Motherfuckers will read a book that’s 1/3 in Elvish, but put in two lines of Spanish and [white people] think we’re taking over.” . . ." (Ruiz).

In the example that Ruiz provides the problem is not one where his players refuse to explore racial injustice in their games as they openly discuss and become motivated to work against the injustice that half-elves experience but rather one in which they don't want to have real world situations brought into their games. I completely understand their reticence to have real world events intruding on their game's escapism - which is precisely what Dungeons & Dragons is for many of us: escapism. When Ruiz forces them to confront situations going on in the real world he's intruding on a game that allows them to get away from all of that for a few hours. He's violating the social contract of the game where we get together and escape from the real world to loot the dragon, kill the girl, and save the treasure. 

Ruiz went on to write: ". . . But growing up around my more working-class family, I was teased for reading, and I was especially teased for reading books like Redwall or Lord of the Rings. That fantasy crap was for losers, gueros, and jotos. Some of my family even thought that Dungeons & Dragons was a gateway to Satanism and possession . . ." (Ruiz). The supposition here is that this was a unique thing to happen to him because of his race. It is not. Lots of people are teased, called names, and have their sexuality questioned because of the things they like that others do not. It is unfortunately a part of growing up and a side of things that I worry about constantly as my son quickly approaches school age.  

I don't know why it happens but people often attack others when they don't understand what they're doing. Read a big book and you're a nerd. Love the wrong thing and you're a faggot. Spend too much time doing something others don't understand and you'll find yourself ostracized and treated like you're somehow less valuable then they are. 

People are shit. 

And the worst thing about that is that you won't be able to get completely away from them as you get older either. You'll run into terrible people everywhere you go and there is no underlying reason that will explain away their awfulness. You can blame it on your race, your financial background, your social status, your political affiliation, the way you look and it won't matter one damned bit. They'll still be shit. 

Works Cited

"Dragons Are for White Kids with Money: On the Friction of Geekdom and Race" The Millions, May 11, 2017, http://www.themillions.com/2017/05/dragons-are-for-white-kids-with-money-on-the-friction-of-geekdom-and-race.html. Accessed June 19, 2017.

Why Not Waterdeep?

Last night I was talking with a friend of mine about Dyvers as a setting for an adventure that he was getting ready to run and he said something that has been kind of stuck in my craw ever since: "Why begin in Dyvers? Why not Waterdeep?" Why not Waterdeep indeed.

I'll tell you why not fucking Waterdeep. 

Waterdeep is a bullshit town without good music, easy sex, or ready access to drugs. It's a puritanical nightmare covered in a veneer of scum that barely covers the city, and by extension the whole setting. It's the fucking Branson of fictional cities. I don't want to go to god-damned Branson. I want to go to Vegas where I can be covered in cheap whores and expensive liquor while snorting cocaine off the craps table. 

Fuck Waterdeep!

Actually, now that I think about it there are a few things there that I like . . . Never mind. 

Welcome to My Dungeons & Dragons World! Where Everything is Just Like You Remember It, Even Though You've Never Been Here Before.

In the last few months I've become increasingly convinced that the problem I face with making Dyvers something unique that people want to adventure in is that it can't fall into the same patterns that everyone else does with their cities. It can't be the exact same fucking thing that everyone adventures in each and every god-damned weekend. 

(1) It can't have winding, serpentine roads that meander their way through the town - and they can't be dirt, rough stone, or wood. 

(2) The city needs districts but the shouldn't be hard lines where there is no bleed over. The world doesn't work like that and neither should my game world.

(3) Not every building needs a detailed description but they shouldn't be fucking blank, wood blocks set on the table as filler either. Theme them together as you would find in a normal neighborhood. Look at the world around you. It works that way for a reason.

(4) Important buildings should feel important when your players look at them. Every city - whether it's New York, London, Nashville, Calcutta, Paris, or fucking Madison - has something that makes it stand out. As human beings we have an inherent need to make things that are pleasing to our eye. It's why architects are a thing and we're not all still living in fucking caves. Use the shit you love architecturally instead of just leaving it in the back of your mind. Make it a part of your world and make your world special as a result. 

(5) Stop fucking around with names that don't matter to you or your players. If it's fucking nondescript and unimportant than don't waste your time naming it just to throw a name at them that they'll promptly forget. 

(6) Same rule when it comes to the fucking history of the place. If it doesn't matter and won't add to the adventure then Move. The. Fuck. On. You're wasting your time and everyone else's. 

(7) Descriptions: Less is more. Hit the high points and let their imaginations fill in the rest.

(8) People build sculptures every-fucking-where. Get them in the game.

(9) Common structures for every town that aren't homes: bars, churches, hotels, restaurants, police stations, convenience stores, shopping markets (however you associate the term), pawn shops, banks, fire department, doctors' offices, city hall, Courthouse, and lawyers. Get these in your city because they didn't just show up in the 1950s.  

(10) People live in apartments. They've been around since ancient Rome so throw them in your game. 

Credit: All images were found on the fantastic Tumblr How We Imagined It Would Be

Your Hands are Bound by Forces Beyond Your Control and She Awaits You.

I've never really been one to enjoy horror games because they tend to begin on a simple premise: the player cannot win a fight with the villain. The extent to which this is enforced runs the gamut from the villain simply being more powerful than the players are able to overcome under normal circumstances to the villain being invulnerable to the players machinations. Some games I have been asked to play even go so far as to say that the players cannot cause harm to the creatures terrorizing them. 

I fundamentally reject such noise.

The Entomologists Dream by Edmund Dulac 1909

In role-playing games we are the heroes of our stories. We're not scared, little children hiding in the cupboard hoping that some shiftless drifter doesn't find us. We're the kids who pick up axes, guns, and knives to hunt that bastard down and show him what fear really means.  And yet even with that fundamental truth guiding our hobby I have found myself rendered powerless in role-playing games three times. The first time we were told that the mere sight of a creature drove us beyond the realm of sanity and thus we were devoured body and soul. I got up from the table and drove to a local bar where I proceeded to drink for six hours and fool around with women who though make-up was best applied by the bucketful. I still regret not having done so sooner that night. 

The second time I sat down at the table and the Game Master informed us that all of our possessions had been taken from us and that we awoke in a dungeon with monsters hunting us. I made plans to murder them only to be told that this wasn't the game we were playing. We were the prey. They were the hunters and if I didn't like it I could get the fuck away from the table. So I left and ended up fishing under the stars while a beautiful Jewish girl read poetry to me and asked me questions about God. 

I still don't have all the answers.

The last time I was sitting down to play a game when the Game Master told us that this would be a fantastic experience for all of us. We were going to be playing children who were hiding from some dastardly villain but that we couldn't hurt him. Hell, we couldn't even attempt to harm him. I left that table with my brother, Poot, and went down to the lake where we talked about our children and drank until the sun came up instead. 

Look, as role-playing enthusiasts we're often asked to pretend that our characters are bound by limitations all the time. This character isn't as strong; that one isn't so smart; that one likes to smoke and cut itself. All of these simple limitations are fine, but when you take away my ability to choose how my character will make its way in this fictional life I reject your game. 

I know the sort of player I am. I tend towards violence, bloody and unrepentant, and I like to push the limits of what is considered acceptable within the game world (though never in the actual world). I make off color jokes; use terrible accents; and am always planning ways to make my character the one thing in the game world that will scare the shit out of every Dragon and Devil alike. I want to use my mind to find the solutions to difficult situations and to take that away from me because you want to make the game scary is to ruin any fun I might have in the game. 

Now back to my book.

All I Wanted Was to Hit the Road with Some Friends and Murder the Hell Out of Monsters!

Last night I got an email from a reader who wanted me to discuss an older Tor article, A Modest Proposal For Increased Diversity in D&D, about diversity in the art of Dungeons & Dragons. For those of you that haven't clicked the link yet allow me to save you the tedium and aggravation of reading a guy excusing himself for being white, male, and calling for diversity to cut to the chase. The author of the article, Mordicai Knode, wants to have people who aren't white in the core books and not just in the oriental supplements. 

I'm in support that sort of thing. Having lots of people of different ethnicities beating the hell out of orcs and goblins; shitting down the throats of giants and slitting the scrots of ogres pleases me to no end. Of course I don't really give a shit whether the characters my players are playing are black, gay, or trans-gendered.  In my games we're not out to explore those themes; here we're all about killing some fucking monsters and looting the treasure so we can by better shit to kill more monsters with in the next dungeon.

I know that some of my readers would like for me to look at the game in a deeper way - one in which I force my players to confront their own feelings about race, sexuality, and gender - but that isn't what my players come to my table to explore. My players like combat, exploration of lost tombs, dungeons, and underground caverns. They like learning bits of lore and building a world together through our shared story where I set up the playground and they build marvelous stories through their choices. But hey, if your players would rather sit around a fire imagining what it's like to be hated because of their skin color have fun with that . . . I guess. 

Judge of Ages by John Harris

We'll be over here. Killing dragons on our floating island in the sky. And orcs, lots of orcs. And looting anything not nailed down. Strike that, the girls remembered their crowbars and sledgehammers! So we're looting everything!

It's A False Argument but Batman Running Through the Streets Should Make Up for It.

Last night I was catching up on some of the Black Gate archives I've missed when I ran across an article by Bob Byrne, Why I Went Old School - or Swords & Wizardry vs Pathfinder, that kind of got my attention. In the article Byrne discusses the reasons why he went with Swords & Wizardry over Pathfinder by trotting out many of the same arguments that you'll see time, and time again, whenever the discussion gets brought up online. But the one that got my attention was this one:

". . . I used this when explaining S&W to one of my new players. Now, in Baldur’s Gate, he would click on the ‘Find Traps’ skill and if a trap was nearby, it would be outlined on screen in a red box if detected. And he is aware that in a modern game (like Pathfinder), you would roll a 20-sided dice against your Find Trap skill. 

But I explained it won’t work that way in S&W. After I described the environment, he would have to tell me how he goes about looking for traps. Does he examine the ceiling? Does he roll a round stone across the floor? Does he put his fingers in the mouth of the idol (always a dangerous move!)?  

To try and bluff your way past the guard at the city gate, you don’t simply roll against your Bluff skill. You have to tell the same story to the Referee that your character is telling to the guard. With appropriate gestures . . .  

The Referee may simply determine whether it worked or not. Or if the try was plausible, they may roll a dice against the character’s Charisma score, with a bonus or penalty, depending on how good the story was. So, even though there is a version of a skill check involved, it’s driven by the player action, not the character sheet . . ." (Byrne)

Since I first became aware of the Old School movement I have always been bothered by the argument that rule heavy systems, like Dungeons & Dragons 3e and its kin, force the players to play the game through their die rolls and character sheets rather than to take control of the action through the use of their own creativity and narrative choices. At its core this argument is one that would have you believe that providing players who might not be as creative with a way to accomplish their goals and to participate in the game in a meaningful way, such as through the use of skill checks, eliminates the possibility for them to play in any other way - which is bullshit. 

Players did not suddenly cede their right to make a meaningful narrative choice, or use their creativity to deal with a problem in the game, simply because they elected to play a game that provided them with a skill check to accomplish the task without having to detail every action they might make in the attempt. Things like skill checks were not designed to eliminate the player's ability to think outside the box but rather to allow them the opportunity to accomplish actions which they might not have the natural skill or knowledge to otherwise attempt. They are an aide to play; not a hindrance binding play behind a massive block of rules. 

Now back to my book.

Works Cited
Byrne, Bob. "Why I Went Old School - or Swords & Wizardry vs Pathfinder" Black Gate. https://www.blackgate.com/2016/09/08/why-i-went-old-school-or-swords-wizardry-vs-pathfinder/ Accessed December 15, 2016

Picking Books was Never All that Complicated

Lately I've been seeing a lot of articles and proselytizing in my social media about how I should read. To date I've been told:

I should read only:

• people of color
• people who have the same social mores
• people with my political beliefs
• minorities
• books that challenge my preconceived social norms
• books by trans-gendered individuals

I should not read books:

• by straight, white men
• by racists
• by imperialists
• by colonialists
• by people with different political / social beliefs
• by people with the same political / social beliefs
• written before 1999 / 1980 / 1970 / 1950 / 1900 . . .
• where the protagonists is good and the antagonist is bad.  
• where morality is simple
• by Christians
• by religious people
• by anti-religious people
• by atheists
• that are liked by the wrong sorts of people

So here's my response to all of that self-important gate-keeping that people have been doing lately. 

Dear Friends and Strangers,

I realize that you think that by telling me to not read people unless they meet an approved standard that you're making the world better, but you're not. Your approved reading lists are the sort of group thinking that stifled creativity and intellectual freedom throughout our history and I will have no part of it. Instead I'm going to do like good readers have been taught to do for generations: I'm going to read the summary on the back of the book and decide if it sounds like something I might like to read. Then, if it does, I'm going to buy it and read it. And if the author is really good and the book is fun I'm going to find more books by that author and read them too. 

That means that there are going to be times when I'm reading books that were written by imperialists, racists, or people who have the same social mores as me because if a book is good that's all I really care about. I'm not going to stop reading authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, W. Somerset Maugham, Mark Twain, Robert E. Howard, Peter F. Hamilton, Samuel R. Delany, r.a. lafferty, Allen Ginsburg, Abbie Hoffman, and Charles Bukowski because they might not fit into the current standard you're espousing. 

I know, I know, some of you are disappointed that I'm going to read racists like Howard and Lovecraft but I don't care. They wrote good books and they're stuff is still excellent nearly a hundred years after they wrote it. They'll survive your disappointment too, and so will I.

Now if you don't mind I'm going to go back to reading the Plutonium Bombshell by John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem because it's been a blast so far. Later,

Charlie

You're Not That Deep, Kid; No Matter What Your Momma Told You.

Last night I was reading Twitter, as one does, when I ran across one of the role-players in my feed talking about the game he was running. Apparently he was under the impression that the game he was running was actually an expression of radical truth philosophy and that in imposing that philosophy onto his players and world he was teaching them something profound. Unsurprisingly the game imploded a short while later and he was mystified. I started to talk to him about it but his feed was filled with messages from the faithful who were being supportive of him. "You just have to push it harder." "The seeds are planted and you'll see them come to fruition soon." "Your players will get the message soon." It was like looking into an abyss filled with pseudo-philosophers each manipulating the others genitals while moaning, "You're brilliant!"

It's clear that this particular Dungeon Master knew just enough to be dangerous and then fooled himself into believing that he had mastery over not only the session, but the philosophy and his players. I'm not saying that if you're players want a game with a deeper philosophical underpinning that you shouldn't go out and give it to them but when you force it on them things are often going to go off the rails and you shouldn't pretend like you didn't expect them to - Hell, you can't even keep them on the adventure's path what makes you think that you can make them take up a philosophy? Especially one like radical truth! What bothered me so much about that thread was that it was clear that the Dungeon Master hadn't considered the ramifications for not only his campaign but for his friends playing the game. Radical truth isn't a joke. It will fuck up your relationships and if you're not prepared for that consequence than you shouldn't even attempt to bring it into your role-playing games. 

That's not saying that there aren't philosophies that you can go half-cocked with and come out the better for using. Communism and Utilitarianism are two political philosophies that you could easily bring along with just a loose understanding and be just fine implementing. Hell, they may even fall in love with Utilitarianism in your fantasy world since that's the only place that it can actually work. 

O' Greyhawk, Where Art Thou?

The other day Christopher Perkins, Principle Story Designer for Dungeons and Dragons at Wizards of the Coast, put out a poll that went like this:

_______________, for the win.

— Christopher Perkins (@ChrisPerkinsDnD) February 22, 2016

Out of the 2,829 votes Greyhawk got 538. Every other setting presented as an option by Perkins beat us by an average of 200 votes. That's just embarrassing.

I mean I get it; I really do. Dark Sun had a pretty popular relaunch during Fourth Edition (those Dark Sun books are actually really cool and you should totally check it out). Dragonlance still sells a ridiculous amount of novels and was really well supported throughout Third with an official Campaign Setting book and a bunch of third party releases from Margaret Weis and the Sovereign Press group. And of course Eberron was fully supported throughout Third and Fourth editions with supplements, adventures, novels, art, and articles on the website and the magazines. 

By contrast Greyhawk hasn't had anything officially published by Wizards of the Coast since 2007's Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. Largely we've been absent from the conversation and we've seen Cannonfire, arguably the largest community of Greyhawk enthusiasts, steadily growing silent over the last few years. We're at a point as a group where we either need to become active in proselytizing the setting to other D&D enthusiasts or we need to recognize that the setting is going to become a footnote in the game's history. People will read about in Wikipedia as the place where Gary Gygax ran his games, and that will be all they'll know about it, and that's a damned shame.

The thing about it all is that we know Greyhawk shouldn't be left to such an undignified fate. As a setting it was home to many of the greatest adventures in the early days of the hobby. They're so good that even today we're seeing them shape what many people view as the standard of what a good adventure in our hobby looks like; which is great, but they're being moved out of Greyhawk and into the Realms as Wizards of the Coast uses them for inspiration and transplants them. They're creating a new standard of what good looks in modules like Princes of the Apocalypse for a whole new generation of fans that may never even think to go out and pick up what inspired their favorites. 

Greyhawk is a setting that I've found had enough room in it for my version of it, and for +Mike Bridges' version for it, and +Joseph Bloch's version for it, and for every other version you run into without the sort of cannon pissing contests that crop up every time you so much as mention the Forgotten Realms. The reason for that is that Greyhawk is so flexible as a setting: we have space ships, wars with demons and gods, artifacts so powerful that their names have been in every edition since they first appeared back in First Edition, all the named spells in every Player's Handbook came from characters that exist only in Greyhawk. Two of the most successful times in this hobby's history came about when Greyhawk was active: First and Third edition. In First, Greyhawk helped establish what was possible in the game and the adventures set there are still talked about today.  In Third, we saw the return of Greyhawk as it was the edition's setting; it was flexible, and by and large, loosely defined for this edition. In doing so it offered a level of freedom for new players that let them carve out their own Greyhawks and brought people like me into the community with this hunger for the setting.

Greyhawk is the setting that gives us the opportunity to do our own thing when we start out. We don't have a library of fiction that has established a narrative for our world that our Players feel we must hold tight to our bosoms. Our setting isn't filled to the brim with godlike non-player characters (NPCs) who shuffle our players' characters about the world like chess pieces; and quite frankly, the NPCs die far too easily in our setting for them to even hope to attain that level of Machiavellian power.

So how do we turn this about and bring Greyhawk back to the forefront? How do we get Wizards of the Coast to recognize what we see in this setting?

The simplest answer is that we have to get vocal about the setting. We have to tell the ladies and gentlemen of Wizards' D&D team that we want Greyhawk to come back with this edition of the game. We have to talk to them on Twitter and email the Wizards corporate office. But more than that we have to go to the places where people are talking about Dungeons and Dragons and role-playing games and engage them about the setting. We need to open Greyhawk up on reddit, and we need to encourage people to join it on Facebook. We need to be champions for Greyhawk, because if we aren't then no one else will be. 

What's Weighing on You, Holmes?

Lately I've been reading a lot from people who want me to only read people of color, or to only have books with people of color as the leads, or that focus on minority groups / issues / what have you; and it's gotten me to thinking that a lot of these people must have terrible imaginations and nothing going on in their lives for this to be the thing they've latched onto as the solution to the world's problems. I've read authors who are gay, female, of races different from my own, from cultures I've never encountered and many of them have been fun to read - but none of those factors were what lead me to read them. I've got books that I've deeply enjoyed with lead protagonists that fit just about every possible spectrum and not once have I picked up a book and read it because the lead fit one of those categories. Why?

Because I'm not a moron. You see the only reason why you should ever pick up a book to read is because the story appeals to you.

Like I love post-apocalyptic fiction so I read a lot of stuff like Spider Robinson's Telempath (thanks to +Jeffro Johnson  for peaking my interest in Spider to begin with), Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren, and Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz. These books are filled with all kinds of protagonists that range across the political / cultural / racial / sexual landscape; but you know what? I didn't pick any of these books up because of who the protagonist was and what category they could be placed into. I picked those books up and read them because they sounded fucking amazing. Check out this blurb for Dhalgren:

The world has gone mad, society has perished, savagery rules over all. All that was known is over. All that was familiar is strange and terrible. Today and yesterday colide with tomorrow. In these dying days of earth, a young drifter enters the city . . . Dhalgren. 

Jesus! That hooked me and then I read the first page and knew I had to read Delany. His writing is so, just, breathtaking. I'm 23 pages into the book (second time trying to read it since the first time was interrupted by my son being sick and me forgetting everything else) and I have already gone through a weird sex thing with a tree-ish lady, picked up a hand-held death glove, and jumped through broken glass. This book is fucking amazing!

Did I know ahead of time that Delany was gay or that he was black? Fuck no! And even after finding it out I still don't care. Those things don't matter to me because what matters is Delany's work. He has produced a thing of beauty that stands outside of himself, pressing back against the world and reshaping our expectation of what should come next. Dhalgren is strange, and terrible, and wonderful all at the same time and to cloud that up with bleating on about the author's skin color, or his sexual preference, does a disservice to it by distracting from this beautiful thing he's accomplished. And that's what you miss when you get wrapped up in the "Message First" crowd.

They don't care that Dhalgren is a work of brilliance. I mean, it's nice and all, but what really matters to them is that Delany is black and gay. SO WE MUST READ HIM! And you absolutely should read him because Dhalgren is amazing but you're going to miss out on it as you try to warp everything into you message about his race and sexual orientation shaping his world. You're going to miss out on the fantastic weirdness that permeates every page and the beautiful turns he does with such little effort. Let me put this another way, focusing on Delany's race and sexual orientation over his writing would be like focusing on the way that Philip K. Dick died instead of his writing. You're not doing either author any favors and you're only taking away from what they've done.

Stop it. Just read books that sound good to you and worry about the rest of that noise later. 

The People of Yesterday Held Different Beliefs Than We Do Today! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM?

Lately I've been spending a lot of time reading through the TOR.com exploration of Gary Gygax's Appendix N and wondering what is wrong with these people. Their criticisms are often not about the works they're reading but instead about the people who wrote them - people who often reflected the times they lived in by holding outdated views about morality, sexuality, race relations, social justice, and the like. As a result their objections all tend to sound the same: "Author X was writing in 1910 and held views that were common during their lifetime but are completely wrong by today's standards. What the fuck is wrong with them?" I mean who would ever imagine that someone writing more than a hundred years ago might have moral and societal values that are vastly different from the ones we have today.

It doesn't end there, though, as so often the argument that they're making isn't just that these people lived in a vastly different society from what we live in today but that we should not read them because of that very fact. These authors from the past, Lovecraft and his Pulp contemporaries, should be actively avoided because they held the wrong beliefs and that is the exact opposite of a liberal's core belief, not only when it comes to reading, but to free speech in general. 

Look, liberals used to be the cat in the room who listened to too much jazz, drank whiskey, smoked unfiltered cigarettes, and was constantly pushing lists of locally banned books into your hands and rasping, "Man you got to read Hoffman, Thompson, Miller, Twain, Vonnegut, Heller, Faulkner, and Salinger because what they're doing is on another level from the rest of us." We used to be the guys who were telling the fascists to go fuck themselves because we're not going to use their approved language and walk down the road thinking their approved thoughts. We were the god-damned, liberal, pinko, commie, fags who were challenging the conservative elements of the nation by going out, doing, being, and trying everything until we found our own thing. We were the people who taught the world to, "Do you, bro," because what mattered was that each of us were true to ourselves and developed a morality and understanding of the world that we could live with rather than one that would grind us into dust beneath its heel. Somewhere along the line though the assholes infiltrated us and now we're sitting around looking at people demanding that they, "Do you, just so long as it's according to these pre-established guidelines of acceptable thoughts and actions." I've been a liberal for too long to suddenly begin walking down that line happily chanting the party slogans. "Think like us! Talk like us! Be an individual, just so long as you're exactly like us!" 

Fuck that. 

I'm still reading books like The Tropic of Cancer, The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five, Red Nails, Huckleberry Finn, and Catch-22. I'm still reading adventure stories and murder mysteries that have no morality plays attached to them. And though I've long since stopped smoking I'm still listening to too much jazz and drinking whiskey late at night while pushing lists of banned books on my friends telling them they've got to give these guys a chance. 

Read Banned Books by Topher MacDonald (who makes some kickass stuff)

But Don't You Care About the Orc's Feelings?

The other night I was following some incoming traffic to the blog when I found a new forum that I hadn't explored before. It seems that several of the people there were taking exception to the idea that I don't believe that orcs are black people and that all the other monstrous creatures are just stand-ins for the various minorities found in the United States. To them it was manifestly true and my refusal to look deeper beyond the thinly veiled exterior of these creatures was inexcusable. Some people just love to project their issues on the rest of us.

Here's the truth of the matter: Dungeons & Dragons is a game of heroic fantasies and that means something other than a repetition of the real world and it's troubles in our games.

". . . Heroic fantasies are laid in an imaginary world - either long ago, or far into the future, or on another planet - where magic works, supernatural beings abound, and machinery does not exist. An adult fairy tale of this kind provides pure escape fiction. In such a world, gleaming cities raise their silver spires against the stars; sorcerers cast sinister spells from subterranean lairs; baleful spirits stalk crumbling ruins of immemorial antiquity; primeval monster crash through jungle thickets; and the fate of kingdoms is balanced on the blades of broadswords brandished by heroes of preternatural strength and valor. Men are mighty, women are beautiful, problems are simple, life is adventurous, and nobody has ever heard of inflation, the petroleum shortage, or atmospheric pollution . . . In other words, heroic fantasy sings of a world not as it is, but as it ought to be. Its aim is to entertain, not display the author's cleverness, nor to uplift the reader, nor to expose the shortcomings of the world we live in . . ." (Sprague de Camp, ix - x).

The world is simple in Dungeons & Dragons. The bad guys are bad because they are. It isn't a question of what terrible thing happened to them when they were children; or where their parents when wrong in raising them; or what their psychological underpinnings are: they're just terrible people. It's not that complicated. The monsters are evil because we're the good guys and fuck 'em because they're not us. 

Kane on the Golden Sea by Frank Frazetta

Look, I'll answer all the questions that get brought up most every time that I post something like this. 

• We kill dragons and monsters because that's what heroes do.
• We rescue princes and ride unicorns that shit rainbows because it's awesome.
• We dive into our treasure piles like Scrooge McDuck because that's what sounds like a lot of fun. 
• We play gay, straight, trans-gendered and every race that we want because fuck anyone who thinks that there's a restriction on our imaginations.
• We have monks because Kung-fu movies are the shit and we don't give a damn about your culturally appropriate classes.
• We spout catch phrases because Arnold Schwarzenegger made it cool and everyone wants that experience (haven't you watched Hot Fuzz?).
• We do every stupidly exciting idea that pops into our heads and laugh our asses off when the dice comes up with a one because it's fun and that's why we're playing Dungeons & Dragons to begin with, Holmes.
• We go into dungeons, underground cavers, forbidden tombs, mad scientists' lairs, vile sorcerers' towers, and every other unthinkable place because Doc Savage, James Bond, Doctor Who, Conan, and the Avengers said it was cool and we've been reading their books and watching their movies our whole lives.
• We spout catch phrases from our favorite movies because their our favorites. Stop judging us for liking things you smug, hipster bastards.
• We max our abilities because it's fun.
• We gimp our characters because Man Rider is damned champion and everyone needs to have a character that fun in their lives. 
• We argue about editions because it's the internet and we're all insecure about a hobby that is about as cool as stamp collecting. 
• We make up rules because it's fun and our groups enjoy them.

Now that that's settled let's go play some D&D.

Works Cited

Sprague de Camp, L. Conan and the Spider God. Bantam Books. 1980. PRINT. pgs. ix - x

What Must They Think of Us When They Read Such Things?

Oppenheimer (Now I Have Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds) by Yuri Leonov

This morning I was looking into an issue that had gotten my attention. Nothing very contentious; but it was, nevertheless, interesting when I noticed the conversation following a familiar route. Two individuals were discussing a rather innocuous rule variant that one of them had come up with when some self-important bastard came blundering along and began castigating them for not running the game as it was written. They were perverting the game and undermining the foundations of trust developed between the players and Game Master. What's worse, they were cheating.

Cheating? 

Over and over again he kept coming back to that word; almost as though he were chanting it before them and in doing so it would drive them back from the heresies of modifying the sacrosanct text of Tweet, Cook, and Williams. He was apocalyptic in his writing and soon his friends joined in the conversation. "Have you considered how this undermines the game," one demanded. "If we go down this route what's next? Guns? Would you bring guns in a fantasy game?"

I sat there reading it with a slacken jaw, openly gaping at my screen as I read this mind-numbing assault on two people who had dared to consider a change to the grappling rules of Third Edition. I was shocked by the fanatical devotion to . . . a game. A game that had a major revision in less than five years and that had errata published for it with such regularity that I have a whole notebook filled with the stuff. This game was perfect as it had been written? This game?

The two kids who had started the whole thing were taken aback - how could they not be? They had done nothing more than attempt to provide an alternative solution to a rule that has been the consternation of every Third Edition player I've ever met and yet here were these assholes frothing at the mouth over the idea that something might change in the game by the hands of a pair of Dungeon Masters. 

I swear to it was as though they used that word like an insult when they wrote it. It positively dripped with venom. "This," one of them railed, "is why I hate that D&D still uses a Dungeon Master. Any time that you have a game left up to Dungeon Master fiat it's just a matter of time before it goes down this route!" Now they positively chanted, "Down with the Dungeon Masters! What did they ever do for the game other than corrupt it's purity with their house rules, home spun adventures, and god forsaken settings?"

Someone spoke up, a beloved elder from the early days of the forum it seemed to me, "Well as you know such systems are fraught with these sort of opportunities for corruption and the malign influence of an individual's whim."

"You see," the positively jumped on top of each other to shout it at the two heretics, "not only are you going against the rules as written but you've proven the inferiority of Dungeons & Dragons as a role-playing system! It's not even role-play! It's roll play!" The laughed out loud and then filled the page with LOLs as they made jokes and questioned the faithfulness of mothers who couldn't remember to let God immaculately conceive their children for them as their own had. 

Then a new voice chimed in. It castigated them for making sexist jokes and rebuked them before new gods and codewords that sent them mewling off in the distance. The two kids thanked this new comer only to find themselves receiving the full brunt his wrath. "Don't you know that D&D is nothing more than a shadow play of colonial oppression where race wars are played out and misogyny is at the heart of every adventure? Haven't you ever thought deeply about anything in your god-damned lives?" The kids stopped responding as her friends joined in and began crowing about the superiority of playing games of self-discovery where everyone pretends that their parents touched them and that football was a sport but far behind more invigorating physical contests: like chess.  

I would have linked directly to one of these conversations so that I could say, "Look at the thrice damned, fedora-wearing, neck-beards," but it happens so often that to do so would be like pointing at the sky and telling you that round thing up there sure is bright. I am truly flabbergasted at the sheer volume of encounters that I have read like this over the past few days as I attempted to explore what's so exciting about the fabulous world of forums. Christ almighty why would anyone want that level of mind-numbing frustration? 

"Well I think you're just not understanding the issues that surround the integrity of the game if you modify it . . ."

"Clearly your male privilege is blinding you to the problems inherent in the game . . ."

God help me but if I had run into people like that when I first started playing I would never have picked up dice again. Instead I would have gone back to drinking heavily and playing poker for money like I had for the past fifteen years! What must people think of this hobby when they run across that? What must they think of those people who write such insipid ramblings? 

What must they think of us?

Luke Crane's D&D Hack, a Side Project, and Ennie Bad Behavior

Last night I found something that I was completely and totally outraged about: +Luke Crane has made a game based loosely on 1980 - 81 Dungeons & Dragons game. How did I miss that?

The game is called Miseries and Misfortunes and it is incredibly easy to pick up (not only because it's free). I've already made a character and now I'm really wanting to play this bad boy. I'm trying to talk my wife, who is a history savant, into running the game because I want to play it so damned badly! You guys have got to check this thing out!

*     *     *

Last night also found me working on editing together the Let's Forget the World and Be Friends PDF. The editing for this project has been more complex than the last one as I'm attempting a few different methods to what I did with the last one. Nothing major: a few spelling corrections here, a grammar error there. 

But let me tell you, what makes doing a project like this so rewarding is getting to really explore how these guys think because there's a difference between reading something someone writes online and then you move on and actively pouring over a document to make sure that it's what +Mark Van Vlack or +Sean Bircher actually wanted to say. I can't tell you how much my respect for everyone involved in this project has grown through this process (which is hard to fully express since I really like all the cats). I was really blessed that these guys agreed to write this project with me and I can't thank them enough for lending their talents to it. 

Awesome people all around.

*      *     *

On a more somber note there were some people behaving badly at last night's Ennie awards. By their own admission they began the ceremony heckling the event and then got up and walked out when +Zak Smith and +James Raggi won their first award for Red & Pleasant Land. This small group then went on twitter and attempted to create the impression that their decision was echoed by a majority of the attendees at the ceremony; however, after investigating into what happened it appears that roughly ten people left and that no one really noticed their leaving or poor behavior until they began posting on twitter later.

I want to tell you that their behavior offended me. Not the walking out, that part didn't bother because people leave things all the time - especially award ceremonies when they've got nothing at stake. What bothered me was the heckling of the awards themselves. Look, I get it, they don't mean anything to you; but this isn't about you. +Russ Morrissey organized this show, the judges narrowed down the categories after getting inundated with submissions, over 20,000 people voted, and a group of hard working volunteers put that ceremony together and got things running smoothly all night. By acting like a jackass in the back of the room you were being disrespectful to every person who helped in that process. What's worse though is that you showed your asses in that moment to every nominee in the room and told every single one of them what you really thought of their hard work. 

Without a doubt the behavior of these individuals was inexcusable and the fact that several of them I consider "good" people makes it cut even deeper for me. I hope that for the majority of this group that this was an isolated incident where poor judgement and exhaustion overtook common decency and a basic respect for their fellow gamers.

Time will tell.

[Trigger Warning: Racism] I Am Perplexed

Last night I'm reading an article on Salon - which is something that I rarely do because they tend to push their advertisements a bit aggressively for my tastes and their script keeps messing up on my version of Firefox - when I came across the article titled, When “harshtags” backfire: Mocking #whitegirltears and joking #killallwhitemen stir up more university debate. In the article there is this suggestion that there is a legitimate debate about who can be labeled "racist" which I find disturbing to see coming up again.

See, back when I was in college I had a very intelligent young man try to argue that only white people could be racist because white people had the power in the United States. For him the term was a subjective one that relied on power structures. For example, if a Chinese man living in China hates a white man because of his race he would then be a racist because in that situation his race has all the power in that society. However, if that same Chinese man were to move to the United States he would no longer be a racist because in the United States the white man's race has power in that society. That the Chinese man hates another person because of their race is secondary to the power of his own race within the context of society. 

I pointed out that this argument struck me as disingenuous and as a way to excuse racism. The Chinese man in the above example is just as much a racist in New York as he is in Beijing. Making allowances for his terrible behavior because of his location and the society he currently occupies is wrong in every way. If you hate someone because of their race you're in the wrong and you're being a racist jerk. He had trouble with that argument because his mind was so wrapped up in the idea that power structures mattered more than anything else in the world. For him every relationship was bound up in who had the power and who was disenfranchised as a result. All his views were constantly shifting standards that would change based on what relationships you entered and your standing within those relationships. The argument was soon put aside, however, as other more pressing issues arose that occupied everyone's debates (read: 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan). 

Anyway, here that argument is again and after being away from it for so many years it's shocking to me. I am completely perplexed that people would actually believe that they're not racists because they happen to be a minority in a society even though they fully participate in racist actions. Look, if you hate someone because of their race, regardless of your own race and its standing in your society, you are a racist. You're not exempt because of your own race's societal power, nor are you a reverse racist (which is the dumbest term to ever be coined). You're just a racist and that makes you a shitty person.

Enough talk, Riker beard of space awesomeness.

Okay, that enough of this serious talk. More silly imaginary dwarf games shortly.

Hold Up, Someone Is Playing the Game Wrong and They Must Be Stopped!

Before the reformatting of my computer happened I disappeared down a rabbit hole of pseudo-intellectualism that wrapped itself up in a self-righteous cloak of quoted text to protect each of the combatants within a cocoon of ignorance masquerading as brilliance. There were two sides of this debate. On this side you found a loud and protracted mewling chorus of voices screaming out, "GYGAX SAID THIS AND THUS IT WAS WRITTEN IN STONE AND SHALL NEVER BE CHANGED!" Arrayed against them were a slew of flagellating warriors mindlessly repeating the chants of their forefathers, "YOU KILL THE ORC AS A STAND IN FOR THE BLACK! YOU SLIGHT THE WOMAN IN YOUR STATISTICAL ABILITIES TO PROTECT YOUR BOYS CLUB FROM THEIR COOTIES! THE OLD WAYS MUST BE COMPLETELY ABANDONED AND CAST INTO THE DUST OF TIME TO BE FORGOTTEN!"

There was no progress made by either side and reading through the morass of mindless grandstanding and infantile attempts to score points with cutting words across the infinite void of the internet it became clear to me that no one had any real interest in finding a middle ground between the two sides.  In spite of more than a dozen calls for changes in tone and for a real exchange of ideas neither of those things was actually the goal of the people foaming at the mouth in that kerfuffle. They were there to be seen and heard not to change hearts and minds.

By the time I had finished reading through the thread I was out of wine and disgusted with the whole affair. Oh, don't get me wrong, there were some real moments of hilarity in there like when one of the Gygaxian faithful started flailing about telling everyone who would listen that the only way they were getting his D&D books was by prying them from his cold, dead hands. Then there was the lady with an ambiguous user name like 247Jonesn4Scotch who started screaming that they were all "mansplaining" to her because of their sexism!

Good stuff, good stuff. 

Anyway this evening I was reading through James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games when I saw a line that reminded me of this little rabbit hole I had been down. The ". . . [r]ules are not valid because . . . God pronounced them through Moses . . . They are valid only if and when players freely play by them . . ." (Carse 10). In other words just because you find a rule written down it doesn't mean that you have to use it. You don't like that women have lower stats than men in the early versions of Dungeons & Dragons; and if you don't then you don't have to use the rule. Role-playing games aren't holy scriptures written in stone with Enforcers standing at the door of every Hobby Shop watching to ensure that each nerd picks up their books with trembling hands and a whispered prayer to the designer that they might play the game correctly. 

Hell, Gary himself once wrote these rules ". . . are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity — your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors . . ." (Gygax  4). He was telling you all the way back in 1974 that you could absolutely modify the hell out of this shit because role-playing games are like a living language that morphs to fit the needs of those involved. That's the whole reason why there are people actively involved in DIY projects on the web and in your local gaming communities right now. They looked at their favorite games - RIFTS, Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Lands, GURPS, FATE, Star Wars d6 - and decided that it wasn't meeting their needs. Then they went out and made something that did. They made Carcosa, Iron Kingdoms, Red & Pleasant Land, Microlite 74, and a million other games that have helped change what we think of when we say we're playing a role-playing game. So to argue that we have to play the game as it was written always mystifies me.

Don't get me wrong, the other side of this debate was completely full of shit too. 

Look if in your games you want to explore what it's like to sexually molested or to deal with racism because you've never experienced either of them than more power to you. It's not my idea of a good time, but to each his own; because there's plenty of room for all of us to have fun in our own ways. BUT that isn't what happens. Instead I get some half crazed jack waggon coming along every so often who wants to tell me that the reason I like killing orcs is because they're a stand-in for my repressed bigotry. Never mind that I have close friends across all racial, and most of the sexual, lines and involved them heavily in my games when they showed an interest OR that I've got family who fit into those categories. No, I kill orcs so I must be a bigot.

I get it, I really do. You've got issues with people of color, women, transgendered folk, and queers so it's impossible for you to imagine that anyone else could not work out their issues in the game because that's what you do. The thing is that not everyone is like you. I can like killing imaginary creatures simply because it's fun and not because I'm a closeted bigot. So seriously, stop projecting your own issues on everyone else and enjoy the game.

Works Cited 

Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986. 10

Gygax, Gary and Dave Arneson. Dungeons & Dragons Vol 1: Men and Magic.  Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1974.  4

She Climbed in Bed with Forgotten Hands Still Clinging to Her Flesh.

She woke me up in the middle of the night when she came and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was crying. "Honey," I said, "what's wrong?"

"It's nothing," she lied.

"My darling," I whispered as I sat up and wrapped my arms about her, "what's happened?"

She started crying and laid her head against my shoulder, "They won't stop stealing my stuff!"

"Who won't?"

"The Forgotten Realms!"

Look, I get it. The Forgotten Realms are the most popular setting for Wizards of the Coast and have been for a long time, but do they really have to steal all the Greyhawk lore for it? I mean if you're going to keep taking stuff from Greyhawk why don't you just fucking release Greyhawk!

Too much to ask? Probably.

Your Facts are Far Less Important than My Narrative.

For the last few days I've been reading through the early stages of the Hugo Awards controversy and the emerging narratives that have come from it. In doing so it's become clear that were it not for the involvement of Vox that the criticisms of the Sad Puppies slate would be essentially meaningless. With Vox's involvement critics of the Sad Puppies are able to call the entire slate a racist, sexist, regressive movement that is actively attempting to keep minorities out. It doesn't matter that the Sad Puppies slate has nominated women and minorities. It doesn't matter that they have people who have expressed wildly different moralities or political philosophies. The narrative has been established.

It happened when +Zak Smith and +Kasimir Urbanski were falsely accused of being bigots right after the launch of Fifth Edition too. Then the narrative was that of hearsay. "I heard," they would say, "that Zak and Pundit are bigots. That they have exclusively (or primarily) targeted women,  people of different colors, and transgendered folk!" When you pointed to them having friends who were any of those things it was dismissed out of hand, as though they had specifically cultivated these relationships just to defend themselves from being labeled as bigots. These men were nefarious actors within the hobby whose evil knew no bounds. That such logic made no sense except within the narrative no longer mattered because the narrative had been established. They were bad people, the worst people you could imagine under the circumstances, so no vile act was beyond the pale.

All nuance disappears and we're all painted with broad strokes. David supports #Gamergate so he must hate all women. Never you mind that he designs games with a woman, plays with women at his table, has a woman Game Master, and has never said an ugly thing about women in his life. John supports the Sad Puppies slate so he must be trying to keep those of us who are different out of the Hugo Awards and away from Science Fiction. It doesn't matter that he's gay, black, and really just likes most of the books on the slate. The narratives have been established. 

We get so wrapped up in the narrative about people and things these days that our imagined reality takes over what is actually happening - and this isn't a new thing; it's just more obvious now that we have the internet with its drastically intensified focus and reduced news cycle lifespan. We're more interconnected than ever before with our Twitters, Facebooks, Google+, Linkedin, and so forth. We can't get away from the story and its emerging narrative until it's firmly established in the wider culture. Then the controversies fade into the background leaving behind their established narratives and the destroyed lives of those on the wrong side of the story. 

If it isn't clear what I'm saying here is that before you buy into the established narrative on anything research it by going to direct sources and through trusted sites. Don't just follow lockstep with someone because they tell you that this is how it is.

Let Us Not Speak of That Anymore

One of the things that I've been steadily discovering on Twitter is that there are really two types of nerds in my feed - and all of them: Wrestlers, Rock Stars, RPG Authors, Artists, Porn Stars, Novelists, Movie Stars, and Role-players are nerds. On the one hand I have awesome people that are creating a lot of great content on their blogs, websites, and feeds who are fun to talk to and that get me excited to go on twitter every time I see their names pop up. Then you have these sanctimonious jerks who want to complain about every thing that they come across without ever actually explaining why they don't like it. Video games are problematic; magazines are problematic; companies making a profit are problematic; women not being the right kind of feminist are problematic; standards of beauty/masculinity/femininity are problematic; racial expectations/struggles/standards are problematic; white/male/straight privilege is problematic. 

Every. 

thing.

is. 

problematic. 

It's exhausting trying to keep up with what's the latest problematic thing they're trying to expose today because every day is some new problematic issue. There are buzz words that they use (and if you haven't figured it out problematic is one of them) to describe each new controversy. These are brought out as though using them identifies you as a member of their inner circle where you think the right things and are concerned over the right issues. There's an exclusivity there that goes beyond any form of gate keeping (there's another one) that I've ever experienced outside of a post-modern philosophy course. 

It's a defined clique that I don't see expressed so clearly on Google+ or in my Blogger feed. Don't get me wrong! There are nasty, bloody disagreements that I see on a regular basis in my Google+ stream. People argue about everything from editions of their favorite games, to television shows, and video games. It gets heated sometimes but you know what almost always happens? They actually discuss the issue. 

On Twitter that doesn't often happen and there are natural reasons for why this occurs that center around the 140 character limit. Within this clique, however, there is another thread that expresses itself whenever they are asked to explain their reasoning. I've generally seen it phrased in one of two ways: (1) "I'm not going to rehash with you a conversation that I've had a million times before or justify my feelings/beliefs/thoughts for your satisfaction;" and (2) "If you can't understand/recognize/realize that this is a problem then there's no use/point/reason in discussing it with you."

I am utterly mystified when I run across those responses. 

Look, when you start banging on a keyboard like a monkey on speed and putting yourself out there for public consumption you both want to be heard and to have an influence with the people who are reading you. To be heard isn't hard. You either have to be louder, more prolific than everyone else, or just keep smashing keys until you outlast everyone else around you and become a member of the 'Old Guard' where you're treated with a reverence you may not actually deserve. But to have actual influence with other people, to help them come to different conclusions and to impact their lives, you have to be willing to talk with them about the things that concern each of you. In doing so you are going to have disagreements and you're going to run into assholes who tell you to kill yourself and try to bully you into hiding away from them; but you're also going to make connections with people who care about what you say and what you think. Hiding behind a wall of like minded thinkers and a refusal to engage with anyone who doesn't think like you isn't going to make you influential. It's going to make you irrelevant.