Am I a part of a culture of "always buying shit"?
Posted: January 6, 2011 Filed under: moaning, philosophy 7 Comments
When I tour the different discussion sites having to do with RPG stuff, I frequently come across posts about buying stuff and links to sites where one can buy stuff. There is cheap and stupid stuff for sale. You can buy steel, hematite or wooly mammoth ivory dice. There are even high end ’boutique’ sites that cater to the ‘geek culture’ with all sorts of stuff like Geek Chic where you can buy an $8,000.00 gaming table. And they now make a USB drive shaped like just about anything.
I have to confess that while I LIKE buying and owning shit (I am an American, after all), part of me thinks the whole “Geek is the new cool” and “express your unique individuality by buying more shit like a sword handle umbrella or a set of Lord of the Rings Plush minis” begins to make me a bit sick. Because, let’s face it, if you need a table to play games at, do you really need one that costs 8 grand? Do you carry an umbrella to keep the rain off your head or do you carry an umbrella with a samuri sword handle to impress your cubemates at how wacky you are? And if you collect things like Gandalf plushies and you are over 8 years old I don’t even want to know you.
I don’t know if I am a geek or not. I’m not good with computers or math (in spite of having one lightly used MSITM degree). I can’t tell you which actor played Doctor Who in which episode nor do I have a strong opinion on whom the best doctor might be (my default answer is ‘Tom Baker’ because I know his name). I can’t speak Klingon nor do I know the Vulcan calendar. I don’t really like gaming conventions (I have been to two). But somehow I fit the definition of ‘geek’ or I am ‘geeky.’ And when a large part of the definition of ‘geek culture’ seems to be ‘buying clever and useless shit’ or ‘collecting one pristine sample of everything and keeping it in mint condition,’ then I want out.
I realize that for me to rail against the ‘rampant consumerism’ of ‘geek culture’ is a lot like the pot calling the kettle black. I try to make money by illustrating RPG products. I have about 100 lbs of vintage lead minis (including a Jabberwocky and an Umber Hulk) in my basement. I buy more books, art supplies and music than I probably should, given my budget. Right now I’m trying to make some money by making some mosaic items that I hope people will buy (unemployment is like that). I even published my own game book via Lulu (which probably makes all of my “I don’t wanna be a geek” talk kind of ridiculous — and did you see how I snuck in a link to it? Buy a copy, please? Thanks!). But there is stuff and there is crap — and, I’m sorry, but most of what is sold through ‘Think Geek’ or other similar sites is useless crap.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe I’m just fed up because more and more of our lives seem to be spent on paying for or buying things… maybe it’s just male menopause or a mid-life crisis. What about making and inventing things? Miller (played by Tracey Walker in Repo Man (1984)) said, “The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.” Maybe that’s true. Everybody drives in Detroit and we have some astoundingly stupid people out here (like the guy who leaned on his horn and gave me the finger the other day because I made a left turn). But I also wonder if just spending a lot of time acquiring more and more stuff we don’t really need also makes us stupid.
2011 is a year when I will buy less. I’m still buying tools and art supplies, books and I’ll include a small budget for music. I’ll buy electronics and similar stuff only if I must (my S.O. has asked for a DVR capable TV because Netflix is phasing out discs by mail in favor of downloads). For the rest, I’ll do my best to recycle, re-use, repair or self manufacture.
Thoughtcrime 1.0
Posted: December 21, 2010 Filed under: philosophy, politics, sexuality, stupidity, wierd stuff 2 Comments
Philip Greaves, the man who wrote a ‘how to’ book on pedophilia that was briefly for sale on Amazon, has been arrested in Florida even though he lives in Colorado. Greaves wrote and self-published the book, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct,” in Pueblo, Colorado. It was briefly carried on Amazon.com, but, after considerable protest, removed from Amazon’s list of products for sale. Detectives in Polk County, Florida, apparently purchased the book from Greaves through the mail, had him arrested by the Pueblo police and are now seeking to have him extradited to Florida where he will be charged. Sheriff Grady Judd said, “The message is very clear: If you write a book, if you sell that book, if you transmit that book to anyone in our jurisdiction, then we will investigate you and arrest, because our goal is protect the children.“
I would never say that I like the idea of someone writing a book like Greave’s book. There is no doubt in my mind that pedophilia is wrong. But I’m extraordinarily disturbed that a Sheriff in Florida would first ask someone in another state to send him a book and then seek to arrest that person for having sent them the book. The arrest hinges on the fact that such a book is illegal in Florida (Mr. Greaves may have been ignorant of that fact), but Mr. Greaves did not violate the Florida law until detectives in Florida wrote to him and asked him to send them the book. The Sheriff is arresting Mr. Greaves for a crime that law enforcement officers encouraged Mr. Greaves to commit. Aren’t there any actual criminals in Florida in need or arrest?
The other part of the story that disturbs me is that Mr. Greaves isn’t being arrested for commiting acts of pedophila. He is being arrested for writing about pedophila. I think that’s an important distinction. I’m certain that rape is wrong and I think rape should be illegal, but I don’t recall anyone having suggested that it would be right to arrest Ayn Rand for the rape scene she wrote about in “The Fountainhead.” On a practical level, I am very uncomforable with laws that don’t limit themselves to what the criminal does, but instead extend into what the criminal might think or write about. Reading books about murder or fantasizing about murdering someone or even writing a book about killing someone is not murder. And yet, Sheriff Judd claims that he wants to protect the children by arresting someone in another state who wrote a book. Should the authors of ‘Lolita’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ also be arrested since those works of fiction contain references to pedophilia?
The entire story worries me because it makes me wonder what the next logical progression of this event might be. If Greaves can be arrested for writing a book in Colorado that is illegal in Florida, where does Florida’s juristdiction end? If writing the book is illegal, how about owning or reading it? (and, honestly, I don’t know how anyone could judge the legality of the contents of the book without reading it) If writing or reading about certain matters is illegal, then shouldn’t thinking about them be wrong as well? And, if so, how do you enforce that law?
In the end, the issue isn’t pedophilia because, as far as I know, the author is not going to be charged with physical sexual misconduct. The author wrote a book in which he apparently described how one might go about seducing children… which, no matter how distasteful we might find that, is much different than actually doing it. If anyone deserves to be arrested on the basis of the Florida law that makes it illegal to import ‘pedophilia instruction manuals’ across the state line, shouldn’t it be the detectives who caused the book to be shipped to Florida by ordering it?
When did "roleplaying" become a suicide pact?
Posted: December 21, 2010 Filed under: games, philosophy 5 Comments
Some players seem to come up with an idea for a character and then want to stick with that idea through hell and high water — being ‘true’ to the idea that they originally generated the character becomes the way in which they ‘are’ that character. So, before hand, the player might decide that the concept of their character is that the character is an elf hater. They might generate some sort of backstory where the corpses of their parents were found riddled with elvish arrows, making the character a kind of ‘Charles Bronson: Deathwish’ guy who just hates elves. Should an elf show up in the game, the player will have his/her character react with hatred, attacking or refusing to cooperate with any elf (whether NPC of PC).
Unfortunately, the player will argue that his/her character’s maniacal hatred of elves will allow no other action. If objections are raised, the player will say, “But I am just playing my character.”
The problem with this approach to roleplaying(at least from my point of view), is that it tends to make all interactions with elves ‘about’ that one player character’s pathological hatred of elves. Any time an elf steps into the game, the player will grab center stage by acting on the object of their character’s wrath. Unfortunately, this seldom seems to leave much room for other players to ‘play’ whenever an elf is around because the violent dislike of elves ‘built into’ the one player’s character will preclude all other action on the part of the group.
I would suggest that generating a character with an impossible personality trait (like an unreasonable hatred of elves) can serve as a ‘poison pill’ for any hope of cooperative play. Instead of just being a ‘quirk’ of one player’s character, the player’s choice can become that which all of the action revolves around and the rest of the players need to either spend their time making sure the player character in question avoids elves or be content to having every elf NPC or PC get hacked down or driven away. My suspicion is that creating a player character that, by design, cannot cooperate with the other player characters is perhaps a passive-agressive power move on the part of the player. He or she selects a role that insures that the action will almost always revolve around them.
You just can’t go back…
Posted: November 29, 2010 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, games, philosophy, rules 7 Comments
Sometimes I wish I could re-create the fun my young friends and I had back in 1978, starting with the ‘basic set’ (pictured at right). Maybe I’m looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, but it seems as though we were less jaded that the players I encounter (or the player I have become) today.
One of the most obvious changes seems to be in the number of options and choices available to the players in preparing a character to play. Here I guess I’ll start to sound like the old Dana Carvey curmudgeon who wheezes about walking barefoot fifteen miles to school in the snow each day, uphill both ways, “and we liked it,” but I actually find myself nostalgic for the very basic and simple ‘cookie cutter’ characters and classes in the original D&D. One started character creation by rolling dice to determine your strength, intelligence, wisdom, etc., and then, based on what you rolled, you chose a character class. One could adjust your scores in very minor ways: you could swap two points of intelligence for one point of strength if you were a fighter, etc., but one usually ended up with characters whose average ability score was 8 to 10.
My memory of those games is that as players, our pleasure in the game was much more immediate and less abstract — what we as players decided to do or not do seemed to have more bearing on events than anything written on our character sheets. There seemed to be less ‘rules lawyering’ because there were fewer rules to lawyer with. Instead of resolving all actions through balanced universal d20 mechanics with things like ‘roll a dice to notice’ or ‘roll a dice to listen’ or ‘roll a dice to use your engineering knowledge,’ we would talk about what we wanted to do. “I want to look under the bed and behind the dresser” instead of “I roll a search check.”
I’m thinking about these things because recently a friend of mine, who was running a session of a newer RPG told me that the last time they met “he had the worst session ever.” I don’t honestly think that a different set of rules would have helped or hindered (the problems were probably more a set of abrasive personalities rubbing each other the wrong way), but our conversation about what went wrong at the session made me want to think about what goes wrong or right when we sit down and play (I was not at this horrible session, BTW).
Heroes?
Posted: August 7, 2010 Filed under: art, debord, music, philosophy, punk, situationalism Leave a comment
One of the heroes of my misspent youth was Guy Debord (picture at right) who was born right before WW2 and killed himself in 1994. Debord was a French film maker, artist, philosopher, sometimes poet, dreamer and social agitator whom most people would describe as a ‘Marxist’ but from what I know of him, he was more playful and irreverent than most Marxists I have met (perhaps more of a Groucho Marxist than a Karl Marxist).
I first heard of him years ago when I happened to read an excerpt of Greil Marcus’ book, “Lipstick Traces” in a magazine, got hooked and had to run out and buy the book so I could read the rest. In Lipstick Traces, Marcus interweaves history, philosophy and art criticism, going through the Surrealists and Dadaists and post war European malaise to discover the roots of punk rock, because something in his mind made him realize the world could or might be different when he heard the Sex Pistols sing “Anarchy in the UK.” When he started digging, he discovered other revolutionaries, including religious heretics, artists, madmen, ranters and predictors of the apocalypse and I discovered much of this fascinating history through Marcus’ book, which I devoured. Marcus is a music critic who has written for magazines like Rolling Stone, and he can pull this off because he is much smarter than I could ever hope to be and endlessly curious — unafraid to draw parallels between Johnny Rotten and medieval heretics and thereby trace the current in the cultural river, trying to divine where it came from and where it might go, rather than just saying, “So and so’s new record is cool so why don’t you buy it…”
Through Marcus, I discovered Debord, whom I considered a kind of artistic and philosophical kindred spirit at the time. Debord grew up in post war France, with rampant Western consumerism battling inflexible Socialist ideaology from the East — and he found both to be empty charades at best, death in life at worst. The west offered the ‘freedom’ to have whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it, but intruded in our lives with constant demands that we embrace it’s consumerist ideology. Debord found Soviet Europe similarly oppressive — both East and West offered a life of drudgery and although the bars of the social “prison” were more nicely gilded in France than in Soviet East Germany, Debord didn’t want to live in either of those places.
He wrote a book called, “Society of the Spectacle,” in which he claimed that in the west we lived in a culture of constantly created desires and projected images and messages that replaced our own dreams and imagination. I don’t know if he ever got the chance to read Pahulniak’s ‘Fight Club,‘ (I think it was published after Debord’s death), but Debord was Tyler Durden long before Pahulniak was even born. “Society of the Spectacle” was bound in sand paper — so when you put it in a shelf with other books, it would slowly destroy the other books whenever you pulled it out or put it back. Debord also made films in which he intentionally fucked with and frustrated the viewer. He wanted to shake people out of what he thought was a sleepwalker’s existence. He and his friends collaborated on projects and created an artists collective they called The Situationalist International (or S.I. for short). You can still read their stuff online. They would collaborate on poems, collages, ‘zines and activities. Debord proclaimed that the ultimate Situationist activity was just wandering the world. He said, “We drift.” Maybe that sums up what they did — the artistic freedom to do nothing. Modern day Lollards. I can relate to that.
Years have passed and I’m afraid I mellowed a bit. Unlike the Johnny Rotten of “Anarchy in the UK,’ I no longer “want to destroy the passer by…”
Right! NOW! ha ha ha ha ha
I am an anti-christ
I am an anarchist
Don’t know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passer by cos I…I wanna BE anarchy! (u.s.w.)
These days, I’d be reluctant to join a fight club because I’d be afraid of getting my teeth knocked out (funny how that specific fear scares me the most). Have I given up? Gotten lazy? Sold out? Or was it all just an affectation of youthful bravado on my part? I suspect all of the above.
Debord’s own story does not seem to have ended happily. Years of heavy drinking and drug use took their toll on his health. His critical stance became more and more exacting as the years passed and collaborators became enemies for having violated the groups increasingly stringent ideological standards. Once you were out of the S.I., the existing members were forbiodden to even mention your name. The society founded on creative collaboration eventually became an ideological cult with Debord at the center. I think eventually The S.I. consisted of just Debord alone. Sick, old and probably bored and lonely, he killed himself. Honestly, as much as I admire the man’s brilliant ideas, I suspect he followed them all the way to their natural conclusions…. and I don’t want to end up like that.
Ye Gods!
Posted: March 22, 2010 Filed under: campaigns, fantasy, ideas, inspiration, philosophy Leave a comment
In one of Fafhrd and Mouser’s later stories by Fritz Leiber (I think it was “The Knight and Knave of Swords“), Odin and Loki end up in Newhon because their last worshipers on their home world have died (presumably that was our earth, which Leiber made mention of before as a ‘different’ world than Newhon; although if it was another dimension or just another planet is not made clear if I recall correctly). Weakened by a lack of worshipers, Loki and Odin somehow wander to Newhon where they arrive, barely alive, and are adopted by Fafhrd, the Mouser and their friends. They build up the power of these gods and nurse them back to health because they hope these gods can help save Newhon in an upcoming battle, but after the battle Loki and Odin try to betray them for more power. Happily, the evil Norse gods are frustrated in the attempt (although Fafhrd makes a painful and unintended sacrifice of his left hand to Odin).
A similar conceit (where gods gain power from their followers) is introduced in L. Sprague DeCamp‘s Reluctant King books. Jorian, the main character, finds a small statue that he keeps… and every night the god represented by the statue appears in his dream since he is now that god’s only contact with the human world (all of the rest of his followers having died). What makes it funny is that the god is constantly whining about how long it has been since someone brought him flowers and seems more of a pain than he is worth. Finally when someone steals the statue and the god disappears, Jorian pretty much considers it good riddance.
Everyone keeps telling me I have to read ‘Small Gods.’ It’s on my list.
The idea that fantasy gods draw their power from their worshipers is one that appeals to me, and I enjoy the idea of a dynamic roster of gods whose power rises and falls with the fortunes of their churches in the material planes.
Try to do something creative every day
Posted: March 16, 2010 Filed under: creativity, exquisite corpses, inspiration, philosophy, project 5 Comments
I’ve felt mentally and emotionally starved for the better part of the past several years. First the stress of losing my job, then getting a new job and all of the financial ups and down associated have really taken their toll. One of my goals, to help combat the malaise that all of these ups and downs bring, is to try to do something creative every day… whether that’s working on a painting (see in progress above) or doing some sketches or even just looking at other work that interests me.
The above is an ‘in progress’ shot of the final cover for Exquisite Corpses. I have some reservations about this artwork and may try a different version. The image is the entire cover (front and back) with the left half appearing on the back cover and the right half appearing on the front. It portrays 2 ‘pulp style’ warriors (male and female) in a tunnel fighting a blue snaky thing with a human head (the snake-guy is coiled around the woman) and a slug-bat eyeball monster fighting the man. On the back cover, two more of the slug-bats flap up to get in on the action.
Exquisite Corpses
Posted: September 9, 2009 Filed under: creativity, exquisite corpses, monsters, philosophy, picaresque, project, publishing Leave a comment
“Exquisite Corpse: Game of folded paper played by several people, who compose a sentence or drawing without anyone seeing the preceding collaboration or collaborations. The now classic example, which gave the game its name, was drawn from the first sentence obtained this way: The-exquisite-corpse-will-drink-new-wine.”
–André Breton
My new project involves a book of ‘creatures’ which can be used, mixed and matched, to create new creatures. As I say in the introduction:
Introduction: In the 1920s, surrealist artists would gather and amuse one another with acts of pure fantasy. One of their amusements was to take a piece of paper, fold into several sections, and then each surrealist would draw a section of a figure or creature on that paper, folding it over so the next participant could not see what had already been drawn. The first artist might draw the head, the next artist would add the torso, the third the hips and legs, etc., and when finished they would unfold the paper and admire the drawing that had been created. Thus they might end up with fantastic creatures that might have a head shaped like a house, the body of a nude woman and the feet made of curling tree roots.
We often played this game when I was a youngster. I remember spending more than a few days in a cabin up in Wisconsin, with my sister, cousins and aunt, when it was too rainy to play outside, drawing, folding and passing the paper and enjoying the fantastic and improbable creatures we created. I loved monsters and improbable creatures and it seemed a great way of combining those interests into a game that left you with some pretty amusing drawings as souvenirs. We still play the ‘Exquisite Corpse” game today. All that is needed are some pencils, paper and some willing participants (although a bottle of wine or a few beers can add to the fun).
In 1978, I had just acquired AD&D “Monster Manual” by Gary Gygax. It ripped the roof off my imagination like no other book had before it. Here was an encyclopedia filled with some of the most improbable creatures that myth, fantasy or Gygax could create. Some had the torsos of beautiful women, the faces of hags and the wings and feet of vultures. Others had the heads of bulls and the bodies of men, or beaks instead of mouths, tentacles, etc. Still more improbable creatures combined the worst (or best) aspects of birds, lions, owls, bears, fish, etc. And the improbable and fiendishly fascinating combinations were increased tenfold when you turned to the sections on Demons and Devils. In the page of Gygax’s seminal bestiary of the fantastic, the improbable creations of myth and unhinged imagination sprang to life… and Gygax included many fascinating details (like how fast the creature moved, where it lived, how tough it might be and what (or whom) it might eat…).
This little book, then, is really just a love poem to some of my favorite things (the Exquisite Corpse, Gary Gygax’s “Monster Manual,” monsters of all kinds and realms of the imagination). Use it for your own amusement, and, if you like role playing or fantasy games, use it to create your own “Dr. Frankenstein on acid” creatures who will hop, slither, slide, plop, run or flutter into the world that you and your players create.
At current I have about 10 drawings done and plan to finish 16 more. The book will probably measure 5-7 and be about 40-50 pages (26 of which will be one-sided) and will include guidelines for how to use the book in a fanatsy game, adding special abilities, etc.
At present the plan is to offer it through Lulu or similar means.
Picaresque Adventures
Posted: July 5, 2009 Filed under: Dragonsfoot, evil, philosophy, picaresque Leave a commentIn reading the gathered wisdom of others via sites like Dragonsfoot, I gather that the general consensus seems to be that player characters should all get along and evil alignments are frowned upon.
I find myself wondering why? Sure, I’ve been involved in some games that became bitter feuds between players, but removing the choice (to be good or to be bad) from the players seems heavy handed. Sometimes it can be great fun to play a real villain… and sometimes a fight to the death between player characters can be more fun than just knocking down the monsters that the DM has set up to be conquered.
In literature, a novel in which the protagonist is flawed or even occasionally villainous is often called a picaresque story. Classic sword and sorcery heroes such as Leiber’s Fafhrd and Mouser or Vance’s Cugel the Clever are decidedly flawed heroes… maybe even REH’s Conan would qualify. Certainly D&D got its start with killing monsters in order to steal their treasure… the game was structured to reward those who were most proficient at killing and looting.